Rentaro started to stand up without thinking. “Fight back! Why do you only think about death? If you know that Saitake is that dangerous, then there are a lot of ways you could oppose him, aren’t there?”
The Seitenshi’s face twisted with an expression more sorrowful than Rentaro had ever seen. “Even you’re saying the same things as Kikunojo?”
“What?” “Satomi, you said that your perspective was narrow. I plan on taking back the land of Tokyo Area and one day connecting it back to Sendai and Osaka Areas. One day, when all the areas are connected again, the citizens will remember, won’t they? That ten years ago, Japan was one country, and we were fellow citizens all looking up at the same sky. And then, they will be embarrassed to have ever been trapped in the cramped boxes of Tokyo or Osaka Areas.
“I do not have any intention of invading, and even if assassination or murder attempts occur, I have no intention of yielding. Revenge and the like is also absurd. Such cowardly acts are like trying to wash blood away with blood.
“Satomi, do you know who the first victims of a war are? They are the infants who barely open their eyes, and the elderly. During the period of confusion after the war, I went to visit the different parts of Tokyo Area with my mother and was shocked.
“In an environment with terrible hygiene, there were children who were sick and couldn’t even move, but when I smiled at them, they did their best to smile back at me. But the next day, they became cold and flies swarmed over them.” The Seitenshi shook her head firmly. “I do not want to see anything that terrible ever again. I must be the embodiment of peace. Not with words, but with actions.”
The Seitenshi folded her hands together and wrung them in a position of prayer. “Satomi, I cannot bear to have more seeds of sadness sown in this world…”
Rentaro felt a shiver up his spine.
I regard her with respect and affection. That’s why there are things I cannot forgive!
Rentaro was reminded of what the real mastermind behind the previous terrorist incident, Kikunojo Tendo, said about the Seitenshi. At the time, Rentaro didn’t understand Kikunojo’s actions of hatred toward the Cursed Children and his inability to hate the Seitenshi, but now Rentaro felt like maybe he could understand.
Rentaro shifted his gaze away from her. “You’re the idealistic type that dies young.”
“I do not want to become a person who cannot talk about her ideals.”
“Then you need to learn to outmaneuver others better.”
The Seitenshi was silent.
Rentaro lowered his gaze and rubbed the sleeping Enju’s back and shoulders. Finally, he lifted his face. “You’re stupid… But I don’t hate that.”
The Seitenshi blushed slightly. “Th-thank you very much.”
Just then, he felt a sudden sharp pain on his lower jaw. His head rang like he had just received an uppercut.
Enju, who up until now had not woken up from all manner of jostling and shaking, suddenly jumped up, her eyes wandering left and right. Apparently, he had gotten head-butted by the awakening girl. The pain brought tears to his eyes.
“Wh-what was that for?” Rentaro looked at her as he rubbed his chin.
Enju crossed her arms and nodded as she looked back and forth. “My Rentaro Radar reacted to something just now…”
“R-Rentaro Radar…?”
“Yes, it reacts when Rentaro seems to be taking up with an unsavory type.” Enju seemed to have obtained a devilish new power. She looked back and forth, and when she finally settled her eyes on the Seitenshi, she stared at her silently.
“Wh-what is it?”
“You can’t have Rentaro.”
“U-um, I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
“Rentaro is from the planet of boobs, so he doesn’t recognize women with boobs smaller than Kisara’s. That’s why it’s impossible. You should give up now.”
The Seitenshi looked at Rentaro contemptuously. “Satomi… That’s filthy.”
“That’s a grossly false accusation.” Rentaro denied it with his whole body, looking at Enju resentfully. “Y-you little…”
However, Enju wasn’t looking at him anymore and was instead looking intently in front of them. “Rentaro, I have a bad feeling for some reason.”
The car was approaching a four-way intersection and stopped slowly at a red light. It had started sprinkling, and the view from the window was distorted by the water. Rentaro put his face next to Enju’s to look in the same direction as her.
Past the window Enju was pointing at, on a faraway building towering in the night, there was nothing out of the ordinary except for a few red aviation guidance lights on the edges of the building. At least, that was how it looked to Rentaro. However, Enju was an Initiator whose bodily functions, including her sensory organs, far surpassed those of ordinary humans.
Without knowing why, Rentaro also became nervous, and he prayed fervently that the car would start moving again soon. Finally, as if his prayers had been heard, the light turned green and the car started to move. He breathed a sigh of relief.
However, Enju still had not relaxed. Looking at Enju’s continued seriousness, he shifted his gaze once more. Near the roof of the building, for a split second, there was a glint of something. The instant he realized that it was a muzzle flash, Rentaro’s spine froze, and before he could yell, he pushed Enju’s head down and covered the Seitenshi with his body.
Then, they were attacked by a great calamity.
Surrounded by the sound of breaking glass and the squeal of the emergency brakes on the limousine, the Seitenshi started to scream. The car continued to slide sideways and crashed into a road sign. Rentaro was at his wits’ end as he was thrown into the car door by the G’s inside the car and almost lost his breath.
A sniper inside the city?
“Rentaro!” Enju screamed.
Rentaro swung to attention immediately and yelled, “Enju! Get out. Take the driver with you.” Rentaro also kicked the door open and, taking the Seitenshi, who was in a state of shock, by the hand, he rolled out of the car.
Smack-dab in the middle of town, at an intersection. First, they needed to find shelter to hide under. Right after he thought he saw a flash of light on the roof of the building again, there was the echo of an explosion. The sniper bullet had shot out the fuel tank of the limousine, making it go up in flames, distorting the air around with its heat. Around them, members of the general public were screaming, their panic contagious, and the shock wave from the explosion made the Seitenshi fall forward.
When Rentaro went to help her up, the Seitenshi shook her head, her face stiff. “S-Satomi, I don’t think I can walk…”
Rentaro ground his teeth and looked at the building.
This was bad.
There was a third flash of light. He stood in front to cover the Seitenshi but then looked regretful. It was no use. It would go through him and hit her. His spine knew that it was going to be a direct hit, and he squeezed his eyes shut. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Then, he heard Enju’s yell and the shrill sound of the attack. Enju rolled several times on the ground after she was thrown back.
At first, Rentaro didn’t know what had happened, but he soon realized after he saw Enju pulling the sniper’s bullet from her shoe. Amazing.
Rentaro didn’t know where Yasuwaki and the rest of the Seitenshi’s personal guard had been up until now, but the guards now came to form a wall around them as they withdrew. The retreating Seitenshi still seemed to be in a state of shock, and her face was pale as she trembled, gripping the sleeves of her dress.
Suddenly, there was a buzzing like the sound of an insect flapping its wings, and Rentaro looked around, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary.
What was that sound just now?
Enju pulled Rentaro’s arm hard and yelled. “Rentaro, what are you doing?! If you don’t hurry up and hide—”
“No, the enemy has already run away.” Rentaro twisted his neck to look around. Flames dan
ced, and ashes blew in the wind. The burning limousine threw up thick black smoke into the sky, and the mania that had spread to the masses showed no sign of abating. The streaks of rain became stronger, wetting his hair and streaming down his cheeks.
Rentaro glared at the faraway building, ignoring the rain that was soaking him. It was roughly one kilometer away. At night, with strong winds and the extra rain, it would be hard enough to shoot three times in a row point-blank, let alone having all three rounds go where they were supposed to.
“Bastard… Who are you…?!”
“I’m sorry, Master. I failed. There was a skilled civsec officer guarding her. After I retrieve the Shenfield, I will retreat promptly.”
“A civsec officer? That wasn’t in the intel. It wasn’t just those idiot Seitenshi personal guards?”
Ignoring her angry master cursing “Damn it, damn it” over the radio, Tina put the Barrett antitank sniper rifle in its case.
“Hey, did you see the civsec officer?”
“Yes, but it was too far away to see what he looked like.” If Tina had seen correctly, the third shot was kicked away by an Initiator. The antitank sniper bullets Tina used were ranked above all but cannons and Vulcan canons in the ranks of the bullets that existed in this world, and possessed an enormous amount of kinetic energy. She caught that?
She was incredibly skilled. A strong opponent.
Tina finished getting ready to withdraw and held down her hair being blown by the eddies of wind around the building. She turned around and looked down, glaring with icy eyes.
“Who are you…? Who got in my way…?”
BLACK BULLET 2
CHAPTER 02
TINA SPROUT
1
“Here, I bought some.” Rentaro rushed back to the bench, handing over the tray he bought at the takoyaki stall.
Tina squinted in pleasure as she rubbed her sleepy eyes. “Thank you, very much.”
A day off. It was early afternoon and sunlight flooded the government-sponsored park, the grass and trees swayed comfortably in the wind. Inside the park was a small man-made waterfall, and the spray from the falling water felt refreshing on Rentaro’s face. Around them, they could hear the sound of families with small children laughing.
Rentaro plopped down next to Tina, opened his wallet once, and sighed, thinking of the hard times ahead. With the current condition of his wallet, he couldn’t even spare the expense of two people’s worth of takoyaki. Rentaro thought for a second that if Kisara continued to work him this hard for inhumane wages, he really would sell himself to Miori’s place.
Looking over along the bench, he saw that Tina was wearing a dress, trying much harder than when she wore the pajamas he saw her in before. However—and he wasn’t sure if these should be called the finishing touches or not—the buttons on her chest were off by one, and her hair tie was in a strange place. She had probably been too sleepy to try that hard.
Just as he thought that, Tina’s head drooped as she nodded off. She rubbed her eyes and rustled around in her pocket, fishing out her bottle of caffeine pills and sprinkling them on the takoyaki.
“Hey, wait! What are you doing?!” said Rentaro.
“Is something, the matter, Rentaro?” said Tina.
Looking at Tina moving leisurely and looking up at him with upturned eyes, Rentaro’s anger somehow disappeared, and he waved his hand and said, “Never mind.”
With a long toothpick, Tina awkwardly fished up a ball of takoyaki covered with pills and tried to bring it to her mouth. Rentaro watched her on pins and needles until, sure enough, her hand slipped. “Ah, ah…”
The takoyaki fell with a plop! Rentaro was about to scream. It cost four hundred yen for six of them!
Tina looked at Rentaro and lowered her eyes apologetically. It took a lot of work for him to wave his hand to show that he wasn’t angry. Ignoring Tina, who had started to grapple with another ball of takoyaki, Rentaro shifted gears and leaned back into the bench, looking up at the fluffy, cotton candy clouds.
One week had passed since the attempted assassination. Of course, immediately afterward, there had been a debriefing to decide what countermeasures to take. It would have been fine if it had been a useful meeting about finding the problem in the guard unit or looking back at the incident to see how to prevent it from happening in the future.
But Rentaro had been greatly disappointed in the meeting he attended. Because from beginning to end, all they did during the meeting was push blame on one another, focusing on the question, “Why would a sniper ambush the route the Seitenshi took home?”
Of course, the first people who should have been blamed were the Seitenshi’s personal guard, including Yasuwaki, who created the guard plan. However, at the meeting, Yasuwaki said, “This guy! He’s the one behind it!” spittle flying, pointing his finger at Rentaro, who was standing in a corner leaning on the wall.
Yasuwaki’s reasoning was that even though the Seitenshi had never been targeted before, as soon as Rentaro was hired, there was an assassination attempt. Therefore, Rentaro must be secretly communicating with the assassin.
This was strange for two reasons. First of all, when Rentaro called to say he would take the job, an office clerk told him, “Then, please come to the Seitenshi’s palace on the appointed day.” And then, when he went to the Seitenshi’s palace, he was put in a limousine, driven to the location of the conference, and then they were attacked on the way back.
In other words, even though Rentaro had been hired as a guard, he was never briefed about his role. This was probably done on purpose by Yasuwaki and the others to exclude Rentaro. Ironically, that was what gave Rentaro an ironclad alibi. Even if Rentaro allowed that he was in secret communication with the assassin, he didn’t know the route, so he had no information to give.
Secondly, and this was the most important point, Rentaro knew himself that he had not been in contact with the assassin. He explained this, of course, but Yasuwaki interrupted him numerous times while he was talking.
Yasuwaki would interrupt, saying things like, “Don’t be fooled!” and “Everyone, you can’t listen to his opinion!” trying to seduce those present at the meeting with his fast-talking. Yasuwaki was furious, and given how many rivals he’d taken down with his wiles, he was eloquent as expected and adept at stretching the truth and splitting hairs.
Summarizing Yasuwaki’s reasoning in one sentence, all he said was “I didn’t do anything wrong,” and did everything in his power to make Rentaro take the blame.
Rentaro, at a disadvantage during the meeting, was saved by the Seitenshi unexpectedly barging in. “I am the one who hired Satomi of my own volition. If you doubt Satomi, then that means you doubt my judgment. More importantly, Yasuwaki, are you treating the hero who saved Tokyo Area like a criminal? You should be ashamed!” she told him curtly.
Yasuwaki couldn’t say anything in response and returned to his seat looking frustrated. However, Rentaro could tell that Yasuwaki hadn’t given up with one look at the fight burning in his vindictive eyes. Smiling creepily and muttering, Yasuwaki’s gaze was more than enough to send chills up Rentaro’s spine.
Afterward, Rentaro heard from a sympathetic staff member that Yasuwaki misunderstood Rentaro and the Seitenshi’s relationship as being more than that of a civsec officer and head of state.
What a nuisance. Rentaro crossed his legs and put both hands behind his head, lost in thought again. He did his best to ignore the “Ah, ah…” plop! beside him that he was hearing for the second time today.
There was still a lot to think about. What was the assassin after? Looking at it from a historical standpoint, assassinations happened less because of conflicts of interest in political or religious matters and more because of feelings of unjustified resentment or the desire to monopolize a celebrity by a rabid fan. The Seitenshi was more beautiful than the average teen idol, so there was more than enough reason to think she would be such a target.
Since Rentaro took on the j
ob, he did feel a certain amount of responsibility, so he asked a palace staff member to let him into the warehouse where threats and crime notices were managed, recorded, and stored for safekeeping. The threats ranged from the extremely simple, “I’ll kill you!” and “Anybody supporting Red-Eyes should die!” to absurd “You are mine, and only mine. I’ll bleep my bleep into Lady Seitenshi’s bleep pant, pant…” that made Rentaro want to say, “Don’t put a stamp on something like this and send it.” If the Seitenshi saw them, she would probably faint then and there.
Rentaro was flabbergasted at the sheer volume. Even in the year 2031, at the height of Internet use, there were this many analog threats. There were probably many times this amount sent through e-mail.
However, Rentaro had taken all this into account and figured he could ignore the ordinary fan in this case. This was because this incident had the additional element of being cold-blooded and calculating, from the deduction of the route to the long-distance sniping. A regular person who was carried away by his delusions would probably try to shoot the Seitenshi as she got on stage to give a speech before thinking of sniping.
Rentaro sharpened his eyes and rested his chin on his folded hands. This was a dangerous enemy. The Seitenshi couldn’t stand for her talks with Saitake to not make any progress, so she had no intention of canceling the conference. Soon, the second unofficial conference with Saitake would begin. Ever since that day, the existence of the assassin felt like it was growing bigger inside Rentaro day by day.
If only he had a hint about the enemy—
“Ah, ah…”
“Just how many are you gonna drop?!” Looking at the ground, there were three large balls of takoyaki on the pavement, which meant that there was no evidence that she had successfully brought a single one to her mouth.
After looking at the takoyaki on the ground for a while, she raised her face and made a very serious expression. “Rentaro, this takoyaki is trying to run away from my mouth. It’s possible that the octopus inside is still alive—”
Against a Perfect Sniper Page 7