No, I Am Behind You



A Sub-Trope of Flash Step.

Alice suddenly appears facing Bob, and is ready to attack him. When he notices, she says "I am behind you!" Bob performs a Flash Step, reversing their relative positions. "No, I Am Behind You."

Almost certain to cause a Snap to The Side.

Anime and Manga

 * Bleach never does this. Especially not repeatedly.
 * One of the Bleach comedy shorts had a Flash Step contest between Byakuya and Leroux, and they spent a good number of frames going backwards due to invoking this trope.
 * This might save some time in terms of finding examples.
 * Kakashi does this to Zabuza in Naruto during the fight on the river, at least, although with the number of shadow copy clones the characters throw about I'd expect this to be really frequent...
 * Some Naruto video games permit you to do this with the push of a button, usually the same one as block. With careful timing, a fight can turn into an endless repetition of Smoke, Log, Punch!.
 * Rurouni Kenshin: Kenshin defeats an early opponent this way, by baiting the much bigger opponent into a round of chasing each other into circles with a game of "behind you!", and each time they go around Kenshin made the circle smaller. Eventually, the much larger opponent's body couldn't take it any more and his knees gave out. Cue one very painful ankle-snapping.
 * Kenshin flashes behind his opponent, who then calls him out on dishonorably preparing to attack from behind. This causes Kenshin to hesitate, giving the surprisingly swift guy the opportunity to eat his own words and flash behind him.
 * Dragon Ball Z did this all the time. Character A would attempt to punch Character B, only to have Character B vanish and reappear behind Character A aiming a punch at him. Depending on how evenly matched the fight was, characters might dodge each others' attacks like this multiple times in a row. Possibly the Trope Maker.
 * This is an actual mechanic in some of the later video-games.
 * Negima
 * Negi vs Chao.
 * Kaede vs Ku:nel Sanders. During the university festival tournament. Flash Step combined with Doppelganger Attack. Sanders was impressed.
 * There's [[media:Death_Note_In_A_Nutshell.jpg|this famous parody]] of Death Note.
 * The Busou Renkin and the first Rurouni Kenshin examples on Flash Step are examples of this trope mentioned in the second Rurouni Kenshin example above.
 * The same author plays with this again in the manga version of Busou Renkin, where Kazuki and his opponent chain a long string of flashes behind each other's backs... to the point where they've wound up somewhere else entirely when they stop.
 * It perhaps must be mentioned, due to the nature of this trope, that this example is not serious at all and absolutely hilarious.
 * In Code Geass, Lelouch walks up behind Rolo and points a gun at his head. Suddenly, Rolo uses his geass to pull this trope, and steals Lelouch's gun while he's at it.
 * Dio Brando is very, very fond of this, and his ability to use it was the first major clue as to the nature of his Stand ability.

Literature

 * In one of the earliest examples predating all other works on this page, Creatures Of Light And Darkness by Roger Zelazny has the Steel General, Set, and several other characters practice a martial art known as "temporal fugue", which has the practitioner project himself through space and time behind his opponent to strike. Unfortunately, duels between two practioners invariably degenerate into recursive replications of hundreds of consecutive duplications, straining the time-space continuum.

Live Action TV

 * Kamen Rider Odin does this every time. Shinji/Ryuki manages to hit him (with the help of many a sticky note), yet it doesn't do a thing anyway.

Video Games

 * Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus played it completely straight in the battle between Chaos!Vincent and Weiss (after Weiss had already impaled Vincent with twin katana, no less).
 * In God Hand, some mooks may attempt to grab Gene, upon which you see them appear behind him and get ready to suplex him. If you hit the Action Commands in time, Gene will somehow get free and appear behind them to use his own suplex. The enemies can also try to counter your counter-suplex, which can cause this to be repeated several times.
 * A crucial element of Ace Combat Assault Horizon: when you are behind an enemy in dogfight range, particularly skilled pilots can "reverse" the manuever (generally by applying the brakes and doing a barrel roll or a really fast loop) and get behind you. However, there is a very brief moment where you can reverse their reversal, which not only allows you to stay behind them, but also gives you a free critical hit missile shot.
 * Also played straight in one mission, where the Big Bad Akula has singled out your wingman Guts for death. In order to get him to stop attacking Guts, you have to get behind him and activate dogfight mode (much harder than it sounds). As soon as you do so, he immediately pops his air-brakes and loops behind you, as this was what he was waiting for all along. He then proceeds to rip your plane apart.
 * Similarly, one of the most common maneuvers in the "Assistance OFF" mode in Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. is a somersault to get behind an enemy.
 * Can happen in World of Warcraft when two rogues duel - near simultaneous shadowstep use can make for a very dramatic, if confusing, melee.
 * Even better is when they use it at exactly the same time; because of lag, both rogues will appear behind where the opponent used to be, so they are still apart from each other.
 * Two advanced players trying to gain advantageous position by repeatedly Flash Stepping past each other in Super Smash Bros. series will end up doing this.

Web Comics

 * Drow Tales: Naal shows how its done.
 * This Perry Bible Fellowship comic is basically the same idea. (Still not a serious example, though.)

Western Animation

 * Bugs Bunny is an undisputed master of this; if he's not on screen, he could be anywhere off-screen, even if his foil thought he was looking right at him.
 * Naturally, Babs and Buster were pretty good at this, too.