Against a Perfect Sniper (8 page)

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 danced, 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…?”

“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 job, 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—”

“No, it’s not! Here, give me that!” Rentaro took the tray from her and stuck the toothpick into one of the balls, forcing it into her mouth.

Tina briefly made a surprised face, but as she started chewing, her face muscles relaxed, and her face looked very happy. “Rentaro, more please,” Tina said, her body hanging half off the bench, eyes closed, with her mouth open.

Rentaro’s heart skipped for a moment as it seemed like she was asking for a kiss, but then he changed his mind and decided that it actually felt more like feeding a baby bird.

Plop, close. Plop, close.
It was so funny to watch Tina give off her aura of happiness and relaxation every time she ate one that before he knew it, Rentaro had given Tina all of his
takoyaki
, as well.

“Here, stay still for a sec.” As Rentaro pulled out his handkerchief to wipe her mouth covered in sauce, Tina narrowed her eyes and lifted her face, letting Rentaro do whatever he wanted with her.

Hearing laughter behind him, Rentaro turned just his head to see a family pointing at them and laughing cheerfully. Rentaro wondered how he and Tina looked to them. For some reason, his heart felt strangely warm.

Leaning back and putting a hand on his hip, he nodded, thinking that she was clean now, and Tina opened her eyes slowly, murmuring slowly and quietly, “I like you, Rentaro.”

“H-huh?”

He flinched from the suddenness of it all, but Tina seemed to have been looking forward to that reaction and put her hand on her chin.