Against a Perfect Sniper

by Shiden Kanzaki

  On instinct, she let the top half of her body spring backward, and immediately after, there was the sound of a roundhouse kick grazing her cheek. She jumped aside with a backflip.

  Backup? Tina thought. She made sure to get enough distance between them and, with her hand still on the ground, lifted her face.

  —And then, her world froze.

  “No way…” Between the space between her cracked lips, a hoarse voice that didn’t sound like her own slipped out. “No way… No way, no way… No……… There’s no way…” Tina shook her head slowly and moved backward. The connections in her brain were shorting and getting ground down, and inside, her feelings were a stirred-up mess. Her legs shook, and feeling sobs about to leak from her throat, she hurriedly held them back.

  Since he showed up at this time, she had no doubt that it meant that the enemy in front of her was the civsec officer employed at this agency who had interfered with her sniping. His compact and toned body was covered in a school uniform that looked like a black suit. Behind that brusque attitude was a stupidly honest person who was sincere and good at taking care of others. She had learned this from her short acquaintance with him.

  She had liked him. She thought he was a good person. She had trusted him.

  Tina ground her teeth in frustration as she held back her tears and screamed, “Why…! Why, Rentaro?!”

  Rentaro was just as shocked.

  The dark rage scorching his chest collided with the momentary charm and stopped Rentaro’s movements. “Why are you…?”

  Tina looked down and shook her head, murmuring like she really did not want to say. “Because you will get in the way of my assassination.”

  “I see, so you’re the……” Rentaro bit his lip hard and closed his eyes. And then he asked himself what he should do. He slowly opened his eyes.

  Tina also looked like she was smiling and crying at the same time as she desperately put both hands on her chest. “But Rentaro, I……”

  Rentaro used the Tendo step to close the gap between them and unleashed Homura Kasen, a straight punch with all his strength behind it. It scraped the shaken girl’s cheek. There was a short scream, and a sharp, cutting pain welled up in Rentaro’s chest.

  However, Rentaro did not listen to Tina’s scream. He couldn’t listen to it. He thought he should take the Gatling gun she held and grabbed at it, but she resisted half-reflexively and pushed Rentaro away with the tremendous physical strength of an Initiator. The momentum pushed the trigger button, and the body of the Gatling gun pointed at the sky exploded. It took everything he had to suppress it.

  In the midst of the sound of gunfire, Rentaro ground his teeth and screamed behind him. “Kisara! The floor… Cut it………!”

  He could sense Kisara behind him suddenly leaping to action with the sword in her hand. “Tendo Martial Arts Sword Drawing Third Style, Number 8—” Her deep exhalation made the air in the room tense in a second.

  With all the noise from the gunfire, he shouldn’t have been able to hear it, but Rentaro was sure he could hear the clear sound of steel sliding out of the scabbard. “Unebiko Yuusei—Go swiftly, Yukikage!”

  The calamity that occurred immediately afterward could scarcely be called a physical phenomenon. It felt like Rentaro’s field of vision was cut into a number of pieces, and along with the cracking sound of an icicle being cleft in two, all around the room were cuts carved in every direction.

  Suddenly, the world tilted in a way that made it impossible for him to continue standing. The floor had been cut off. Along with the nauseating floating feeling was a destructive collapsing sound. Bodies pulled by gravity, Tina and Rentaro were being dragged down as they grasped each other.

  Seeing that Tina seemed confused about what had just happened, Rentaro saw his chance and positioned himself above her, keeping her below him as the floor of the next floor down approached with tremendous speed, slapping her down on it.

  “Guh…” The air was knocked out of Tina’s lungs, and Rentaro readied a fist in order to knock her unconscious.

  But his enemy was not one to go down easily. Just as he saw her leg spring up, he felt a sharp pain in his lower jaw, and there was a ringing inside his head as his vision started to black out.

  He stumbled for a few steps, but then shifted to step firmly. Not yet.

  “Tendo Martial Arts Second Style, Number 14—”

  “Listen to me, Rentaro!”

  “—Inzen Genmeika!”

  He repeatedly aimed sharp kicks where he predicted she would move to avoid him. The kick that got a clean hit on the arm the girl put up to block blew the small girl away, and she broke past the window behind her and fell from the second floor.

  Tears fell from Tina’s eyes, and they glittered, reflecting the glass of the window until they finally disappeared.

  Rentaro drew the gun at his hip, not letting his guard down as he approached the side of the window. He looked down timidly but did not see any sign of her save the small dent on the hood of the car parked in front of the building.

  She appeared to have run away.

  “Satomi, did you win?”

  Looking back, he saw Kisara in the midst of the thick dust, holding a handkerchief to her mouth as she climbed down to the second floor. Rentaro looked away from Kisara and looked once more past the broken window. A crowd had gathered nearby, and the police would probably show up soon.

  “I didn’t win. She ran away from me…”

  “I see…”

  Kisara came to stand next to Rentaro and followed his gaze, then looked sideways at him anxiously.

  “Did you know her?”

  “Yeah…” Rentaro remembered Tina’s face when she was almost crushed by self-denial, and his chest tightened.

  From the looks of it, she had not known who he was when she approached him. However, if she was the assassin after the Seitenshi, and if she was trying to take the life of the president of the Tendo Civil Security Agency that was trying to stop the assassination, then there was no room for discussion.

  Assassin and bodyguard. Two absolutely incompatible positions. Despite that, Tina had obviously been trying to talk to him. And the one who had pushed away her outstretched arm and forced their parting was none other than himself. Rentaro gripped his XD with both hands and shut his eyes hard, holding it and praying.

  How long did he stay like that? He tried to force himself to switch gears by surveying the damage inside, and then he scratched his head. “What are we going to do about this, Kisara?” Looking up, he saw a large hole providing nice ventilation between the second and third floors that couldn’t possibly be fixed. On top of the concrete dust irritating his throat, there was also the smell of paint thinner coming from somewhere in the building, which was starting to make his head hurt.

  When Enju came back and saw that the office had turned into Swiss cheese, she would surely be surprised.

  Fortunately, the cabaret on the second floor still had some time before they opened, so no one was around, but the proprietress would be coming in soon to get ready to open. Rentaro had no confidence that he would be able to explain the situation well. He shot Kisara a critical gaze that said, “You didn’t have to destroy everything so thoroughly.”

  Kisara blushed, put her hand on her hip, and looked up at him through her lashes. “What? You’re the one that said to cut it, Satomi!”

  “That’s true, but—”

  “D-die, you scoundrel!” Suddenly, yakuza with long daggers in each hand rushed in shouting, nearly blowing Rentaro away.

  When he looked carefully, Rentaro saw that they were the yakuza from the loan shark upstairs, Kofu Finance.

  Looking left and right and seeing no sign of the enemy, they became restless and looked very strange. They must have been very confused, because some of them were using the lid of a pan as a shield, and some were even wearing the pot itself on their heads. All of them had shaking knees. The reason for their late appearance could be deduced somewhat by that a
ttitude.

  A representative came over to where Rentaro was, scratching his head in confusion. It was Abe, who had a surprisingly comical face when he took off his sunglasses.

  “R-Rentaro, bro, Tendo, sis, what’s goin’ on here? It’s not a raid?”

  Kisara took a step forward and spread her arms levelly. “This has nothing to do with you guys. I believe the police will come soon, so you should put away whatever you don’t want them to see. Come on, hurry on home now!” She clapped her hands, and the members of Kofu Finance reluctantly headed out the door, looking at one another.

  Yakuza being pushed around by a high school girl. It was a strange sight.

  “Satomi…” Saying that, Kisara, whose back was to Rentaro, suddenly leaned toward him as if about to fall.

  He hurriedly caught her shoulder. It smelled sweet and felt too dainty and soft to be that of a master swordswoman. Rentaro felt his whole body heat up, and he was afraid Kisara would hear the too-fast beating of his heart. “H-hey, Kisara, this is no time to play aroun…”

  Then, he suddenly realized.

  While Rentaro had been rushing around, Kisara had been practically killed. Even though she was his boss, she was still a girl. After being met with such a dangerous situation, wouldn’t she want to cry on someone’s chest? With such sweet expectations, he held her and peeked at her face—and then the blood drained from his face.

  Kisara’s handsome face was twisted in pain, and she held her lower abdomen as she bit her pale lips.

  “Hey, Kisara? Kisara! Get ahold of yourself! Hey!”

  Then a lightbulb flashed in his head, and he gritted his teeth. This wasn’t from the damage she sustained from fighting. It was her kidneys malfunctioning.

  5

  The sounds of regular and intermittent machinery echoed through the white hospital room.

  “I never thought that our office would be targeted. We’ve been doing pretty well recently, so I let my guard down a little,” Kisara muttered as she sat down in a reclining chair, smiling weakly at Rentaro. “I don’t look that cute here, so I didn’t really want to let you see me in a place like this, though.”

  “It’s too late for that. Just because I see you like this doesn’t really make me think anything special.” Rentaro was lying. Kisara usually looked unhappy, giving orders in her refined and energetic way. He couldn’t stand to see her looking like a puppet with its strings cut, sprawled with her arms and legs stretched out on the chair.

  On her arm with the sleeves rolled up, there were needles sticking in her veins, which were connected to the dialysis equipment next to her. An artificial kidney called a dialyzer worked in the place of Kisara’s malfunctioning kidneys, filtering out the toxins from her blood.

  Two or three times a week, she would spend four or five hours this way. And this was the reason she could not fight on the front lines as a civsec officer. Kisara had always strongly refused Rentaro’s attendance at her dialysis treatments. Knowing that she probably didn’t want him to see her bound by the dialysis equipment after all this time, Rentaro was embarrassed at himself for being inconsiderate. Now that he thought about it, Kisara also made sure to never show Rentaro or Enju when she took her insulin shot after meals.

  The sun had almost completely set, and it was dark outside the window. The streetlights were giving off a dubious light. Earlier, there was announcement that it would be lights out soon.

  After Kisara collapsed, Rentaro panicked, almost dropping his cell phone multiple times before he managed to call the ambulance and bring Kisara in.

  “Again, Miss Tendo?” said the nurse in an unsurprised and angry voice. Watching Kisara apologize with a wry smile, Rentaro could tell that Kisara was not very assertive about going to her dialysis treatments.

  A young nurse who seemed friendly with Kisara said, “Oh? So you’re the one Miss Tendo was talking about…” with a meaningful smile, walking around Rentaro to look at him. She finally turned on her heel and said, “When you’re done, press the nurse call button,” waving a hand and leaving.

  Currently, only Rentaro and Kisara were in the room with the dialysis equipment, and the other three sets of equipment for patients to use were not operating. Rentaro sat quietly watching Kisara’s dialysis on a chair nearby. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

  “I’m used to it…”

  “You should get a kidney transplant.”

  “I can’t find a donor that easily, you know. Besides, if it’s someone not related by blood, there’s a high possibility that my body would reject it.”

  “Didn’t Doc say something about how there’s some IPS thing now?”

  “Oh, you’re talking about induced pluripotent stem cells, right? Dr. Sumire doesn’t need to tell you about that. But I’ll refrain.”

  “Why…?”

  Kisara leaned back against the chair, stared at a point of empty space, and finally stretched out a hand as if grasping something. The hospital ward was quiet and a little chilly at night.

  “This pain is mine and mine alone. I decided that my life would only be used to erase the Tendos from this world. If I forgot this pain, I’m sure I would forget my revenge, as well. That’s why I can’t.”

  “Wouldn’t it be all right to forget, too? You have Enju now, right? You have me!”

  Kisara looked bewildered for a second, gaping, but she then she lifted the corners of her mouth and smiled. “You’re right. Thank you.”

  Rentaro looked down and gnashed his teeth in deep despair because he could tell that the second he yelled, Kisara’s true feelings, which had surfaced a little, sank underneath as a fake smile floated to the top in its place.

  His words would not reach her. He could not stop her revenge. Rentaro’s chest tightened as he looked at Kisara and her pale beauty once more.

  Tendo Martial Arts Sword Drawing Third Style, Number 8: Unebiko Yuusei. What in the world was that thing she used against Tina? Even Rentaro, who had been with her for ten years, had never seen that terrible move before. It was likely a special attack she’d polished through years of persistence, in order to obliterate the Tendo family.

  Even thinking about it now, its terrifying destructive power gave him shivers. It was a move that cut an entire room to slivers in an instant. No matter how many times he ran a simulation in his head, Rentaro couldn’t figure out how he would deal with it if the attack was directed at him.

  Was this the true strength of the Tendo-killing Tendos, Kisara?

  “Kisara, aren’t you…” Aren’t you stronger than me with my power unleashed? He couldn’t ask this no matter how hard he tried. If the answer to that was yes, he didn’t know what kind of face he was supposed to make.

  The buzzer indicating that the dialysis was finished sounded. Once Kisara knew that her blood was purified, she removed the equipment with practiced hands without pressing the nurse call button.

  Those hands stopped suddenly, and Kisara looked at Rentaro hesitatingly. “Satomi, when that girl was attacking me…did you hear me calling your name?”

  “Hmm? Did you say something?”

  Kisara looked relieved and shook her head gently. “It’s fine if you didn’t hear it.” After another heartbeat, she looked at Rentaro with her eyes filled with resolve. “Satomi, there’s just one problem left that hasn’t been resolved. The incident with Miori.”

  Rentaro slumped his shoulders, fed up. “Will you stop with that already?”

  Just when they were finally able to talk normally, too.

  Kisara stood up and brushed the dust off her skirt, then pointed her index finger at Rentaro’s nose. “No. I hate having things left ambiguous. I won’t ask about what amazing thing Miori did to you, and you don’t have to talk about it. I-I probably won’t be able to keep a cool head if I heard about it……”

  She didn’t do anything! Please, just stay coolheaded! These words stuck in his throat.

  Kisara unhurriedly twirled her black hair around her fingers, and seemed restless as she recrossed her legs
. “Watching Miori’s actions, I also learned something. It’s true that the salary I pay is on the low side—”

  His boss in her black sailor school uniform walked to the window and turned around, closing the curtains with her hand behind her. After a slight hesitation, she looked up at Rentaro through her lashes. “Th-that’s why, Satomi, you can…hold my hand.”

  “Huh?” Rentaro raised his voice hysterically.

  “My hand. I said that I would let you hold my hand!”

  Rentaro paused. “Why your hand?”

  “What, you don’t like it? You know, letting you hold my hand is a pretty big deal.”

  “What part of it is?”

  Kisara turned quickly to the side, pouting and muttering, “I mean… it’s…like we’re l-lovers or something, don’t you think?”

  Rentaro was even more discomfited, so Kisara braced herself, making her muscles hard, and stuck her hand out at him with her eyes closed. “Satomi, hurry up…… I’m so embarrassed, I think I might die,” she urged.

  A mesmerizing smell emanated from Kisara, and Rentaro started to breathe harder naturally. From her collarbone to her shoulder and waist, her feminine lines were beautiful no matter how many times he saw them.

  Sumire’s words passed through the back of his mind.

  “For all your rude talking, you can be a gentleman, but you lack the lust for conquest that will allow you to overcome a woman’s indecision and make her your own. That’s your weakness, you know. Have you noticed, Rentaro?”

  “K-Kisara, I……”

  “Satomi, wait, no way…… What are you touching…? That’s not my hand, that’s my chest…… W-wait… Satomi. I wasn’t planning on allowing you to go that far… Oh, but I may have Miori beat with these.”

  “Hmm? The size, shape, elasticity… They are utterly faultless. It is vexing, but even I must give them a triple A-plus.”

  “Huh? Vexing?” Opening one eye slightly, Kisara saw Enju grasping her chest tightly with a serious expression on her face and hurriedly jumped backward. “E-Enju? What are you doing?”