Book 2 Chapter 7
Part 1
That vast underground space naturally had no windows. Once inside, everything was ruled by a thick darkness in which we couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces.
I had considered buying a flashlight, but we didn’t have time to visit a discount store. Muramatsu Yukie the Dark Elf had a quick charger for a smartphone, so I used my phone’s backlight. And we entered the underground space. We opened the kind of thick round door found in a bank vault and stepped inside.
…Who would have thought this horrific dark side of Kukyou City would ever actually save our lives?
Maxwell had overwritten the thick door’s lock, so the Bright Cross’s key couldn’t open it. Even if they brute forced it open using their simulator, the passageways spread out like a spider web and connected to the entire city. We could escape to anywhere and not even the Bright Cross could hope to cover all of that.
“W-wow. What is this…place?”
In her black dress and feathered witch’s hat, Itou Helen sounded half impressed and half worried as she looked around the tunnel with a hemispherical cross-section.
I simply responded that it was the remains of a former Bright Cross underground facility.
There was no need to explain what exactly had been done here.
“Maxwell.”
“Sure.”
“Monitor Itou Helen’s home, Muramatsu Yukie’s home, and my home. Even if they’re being watched from outside by cameras, we should be able to slip inside from below the houses undetected. And that includes the city’s security cameras and satellite cameras. Let’s gather what food, water, and other necessities we can from our houses. It would be best to end this quickly, but we don’t know how many days we’ll be holed up for.”
I wanted to laugh at the dark humor of fooling them with the system they had built. I hoped I could repay them for the many Archenemies who had lost their lives here.
…I honestly wanted to go home, climb in bed, and go to sleep.
But I couldn’t have the Bright Cross directly attacking my house. To prevent that, it would be safest to make sure not even my family knew where I was.
The information you had wasn’t everything.
Not knowing could sometimes be a weapon of its own.
“And, Itou-san. How much of the chemicals taken from the Colosseum do you have left?”
“Um, I have most of the full set left, but…hyah.”
That was good.
My underclassman had colorful test tubes hidden in the decorative sash of her hat, in her sleeves, and on her thighs, so I rubbed her head like I did with Ayumi.
Even with Archenemies, we were terribly unreliable compared to the Bright Cross who could send in machineguns. The dark elf’s attacks were generally used to stop her opponent and lacked immediacy. I was only a scrawny guy. Our only hopes were Maxwell’s processing power and Itou Helen’s potions.
There were 3 things we had to do:
1. Secure our safety for the time being.
2. Wait until Itou Helen could heal her injuries.
3. Destroy the Bright Cross’s simulator.
The brown-skinned dark elf was apparently going to help us for now. Her corpse had not been “handed over” yet, so she had yet to be released. If the Bright Cross recovered her, who could say what they would do with her.
“But do you know where they’re hiding such a large computer? That must be top secret information even among the Bright Cross.”
“It would be, but I do know.”
It had to be there.
If they hadn’t begun the 3rd round so suddenly, I might have been able to deal with it then.
“Public Kukyou 1st High School. That’s my school. It has to be there.”
Part 2
I didn’t know why something like that would be at my school. Or why the Bright Cross would have a connection there.
But it fit all the conditions.
It used a lot of data and electricity even at night and circulating the pool water could be used for a cooling system.
I wanted to run right in there and ruin it all. I wanted to swing a giant hammer around and smash it all to bits.
But.
“…Senpai?”
Itou Helen looked up at me as she leaned against the wall of the hemispherical tunnel and held her glass wand in both hands.
It helped a lot that we had visited each of our houses to gather blankets, freeze-dried food, and a simple lamp from some camping supplies. The light would last longer than my smartphone’s backlight, we had warmth, and we could boil water.
That meant we had food, but the girls seemed happy that they could soak a towel in hot water and wipe down their bodies.
We focused on letting battered Itou Helen rest as much as possible to recover.
“How are your injuries doing?”
“I’m fine. I can fight at any time…”
“Be honest. Do you want me to rub your body again?”
“Okyay!”
She must have remembered the pain because her face grew a bit red and she curled up within her cape.
“B-but the potion really is working. In another day or two, I think my ribs will be fully healed.”
This reminded me that Itou Helen, with her free control over those colorful potions, really was an Archenemy. Finding a way to fully heal broken ribs in a day or two would win her a Nobel Prize and let her start a pharmaceutical company.
“U-um, if you’re in a hurry, you can leave me here and go on ahead…”
“Maxwell is the only one who can freely open and close the doors when the Bright Cross gets in. If we leave you here, you’ll be trapped.”
“But.”
“It’s true I want to make use of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But they can’t move such a largescale supercomputer so easily.”
The Bright Cross had pulled out of this underground space so cleanly that that was probably an option they were considering. But the conditions needed for a supercomputer were complex and few facilities qualified. And transporting it while powered on would definitely be out of the question. If it took a week or two to get it set up again at the next location, the machine would essentially be committing suicide. I would just have to use Maxwell to his fullest to end this before they could switch the simulator back on.
The Bright Cross would have to be fearful of Maxwell’s presence.
We were targeting their simulator, but they would have to defeat us before they could safely transport the simulator.
So I wasn’t worried.
Our odds of success increased significantly if we waited for Itou Helen to regain her full strength to use her glass wand.
She was an Archenemy, but unlike a vampire like Erika or a zombie like Ayumi, she could fully control the scope of her infection. It didn’t stand out as much, but that let her use it without holding back. It was like the difference between a nuclear bomb and a GPS precision-guided aerial bomb. Looking at it that way, Itou Helen might have the advantage.
In fact.
Despite how cornered we were, running crying to Erika or Ayumi still did not seem like a realistic option.
I could do it.
But if I did, I would be crossing the point of no return. Or so it seemed to me.
“This place really reminds you how big the Bright Cross is.”
That comment was made by Muramatsu Yukie the Dark Elf.
All of the doors were locked, but that girl in a sleeveless blouse and tight skirt spent all her spare time exploring the spider web of passageways with longbow in hand.
Incidentally, with all of the equipment removed, this underground space was like a large and complexly-arranged box. There were no barriers for when Itou Helen or Muramatsu Yukie wiped their bodies down with a wet towel or changed clothes. But I did my best to keep my distance so we wouldn’t meet.
Yes, I did my best.
But for some reason, the passageways would loop back around on themselves and I would receive either a tearful slap or a ton of high-voltage arrows from a half-naked girl, but I was generally enjoying myself!
“User, I have a report.”
“?”
Maxwell sent a message after I moved a bit away from Itou Helen.
“It concerns the sniper shot that nearly hit Itou Helen at the end of the 3rd round.”
“Oh…”
That did happen, didn’t it?
On the pretext of confirming the Archenemy’s death by covering its corpse in gasoline and burning it, they had induced an incomplete combustion and filled the space with carbon monoxide smoke to kill Itou Helen in what looked like an accident. And the Bright Cross had even brought out a silent sniper rifle to try to shoot her in the head inside the bug cage.
“Given the conditions at the time of the shot, that was not a normal rifle bullet. It was most likely a .45 subsonic round, but then it would not break through the reinforced glass made to hold an Archenemy. In that case, I can estimate that the bullet was made from tungsten, depleted uranium, or another metal with a heavier relative density than lead.”
“Make it simpler.”
“Sure. That means it is extremely quiet and highly destructive, but it should also reduce the stability and make the ballistic path waver. Accurately firing such an idiosyncratic sniper unit would require special skills. Simulator support is not enough to explain it.”
For example, I couldn’t win a gold medal in figure skating just because I had Maxwell’s support. I would also need a mind and body able to keep up with the displayed instructions.
“…So was the Bright Cross just showing off their soldiers’ specs? What does that matter?”
“User. When Miss Erika the Vampire and Miss Ayumi the Zombie settled things in the simulator, do you remember fighting the Bright Cross in this underground space?”
“Hm? What about it?”
“It was only within the simulator, but there was a member who used a submachinegun – or rather, an odd sniper unit with full-auto functionality added on – that was equipped with .45 subsonic heavy metal rounds.”
The suspect’s face and name appeared on the screen.
I normally wouldn’t have cared. Every member of the Bright Cross was an enemy, so my opinion of any particular one was irrelevant. That should have been enough.
But not in this case.
I couldn’t ignore this.
I finally understood why Maxwell had waited to report this until I was away from Itou Helen in her black dress, witch hat, and large cape.
The name listed there was Itou Tamago.
“What…does this mean?”
“Sure. He seems to be Itou Helen’s blood-related older brother. Unless there is an error in the simulation results, he is a Bright Cross member. He is also part of a field team and one of the few capable of using an extremely idiosyncratic sniper unit that uses.45 subsonic heavy metal rounds.”
No, not that.
That wasn’t what I was asking.
“Then…Itou-san just about had her brains blown out by her own family member…?”
I couldn’t believe it even as the words left my mouth. This was as much of a shock as learning that the town I lived in was used to dispose of Archenemies.
Part 3
As I watched, Itou Helen hesitantly raised both hands and stretched in her black dress and large cape. Then she slowly twisted her hips around.
She was moving her entire body while probably focusing on her ribs. After a while, she breathed a sigh of relief.
“It seems I’m fine. I don’t feel any pain…”
“Really? You aren’t just saying that like before?”
“Hyes!”
“See? I just touched you a little and your shoulders jumped. What about here? Are you fine here?”
“U-um, Senpai, uh, eek…”
I was only worried about her, but the dark elf snuck up behind me and chopped the back of my head. Then my blushing and tearful underclassman clung to and hid behind Muramatsu Yukie whose thin sleeveless blouse allowed her skin color to show through. Well, as long as she’s feeling better.
“If you’re done with your amateur game of doctor, what are we going to do now?”
“Game of doctor…? Gulp. I didn’t realize that casual exchange contained such a meaningful metaphor. Okay, let’s try that again…!!”
“Get to the point. And quickly.”
The dark elf drew the bowstring and aimed the invisible arrow at point-blank range, so I did everything I could to look the other way and put my hands up.
Please don’t shock me. Unlike a punch or a kick, I’m not even sure how to brace for that!!
“I-if Itou-san is healed, then we don’t have to wait around any longer, so I was thinking we could go destroy the Bright Cross’s simulator…”
“I see.” The tight skirt dark elf slowly lowered her bow and gave me a dubious look. “But in all seriousness, is that possible?”
“It won’t be easy. But there’s no surviving this unless we overcome this challenge.”
We just had to think about it a bit. I was unarmed, so did I stand any chance of escaping a group with Maxwell-level support if I fled through Kukyou City?
…To be honest, I wasn’t confident I could last even a day. That was partially due to the simulator, but they could also just overwhelm me with pure numbers. They could completely surround me and secure me with minimal time and effort. If I couldn’t avoid that chemical reaction, we were in trouble.
So we traveled through the vast underground space to arrive directly below the school. We could move safely, but we could not use the trains or buses. I had left my collapsible bike at the stadium. And even if I did have it, riding it through the dark with Itou Helen on the front and Muramatsu Yukie on the back would have been too difficult.
I also wanted to avoid bringing up Itou Helen’s brother if at all possible. I worked at directing the conversation elsewhere.
“By the way.”
“?”
“There’s been a witch and a mermaid, but why is a dark elf considered an Archenemy? I know your lifespan might be incredibly long, but, y’know, I’ve never heard of you quickly growing in number like with a vampire or zombie.”
“…You’re bringing that up just because you’re bored? That’s kind of the most important aspect of my life, you know?” The brown-skinned girl sighed. “In my case, the infection level is low. We only have one way of interacting with humans and encroaching on society.”
“Hm? Do elves bite people or something?”
I only really saw them as people living in the forest, so I couldn’t even imagine how they lived. They seemed about as real as a ghost standing on the side of the road. And this was a dark one.
“Kh.”
But Muramatsu Yukie’s words seemed to catch in her throat as she blushed, pouted her lips, and muttered to herself.
After a while, she gave in and answered with her long ears lying flat.
“Y-you know. There are half-elves, right? So when I marry a human man… D-don’t make me say any more than that!!”
Oh, I see.
That would indeed require a much larger invasion plan than my vampire older sister or zombie younger sister. Of course, elves had long lives, so if they continued creating half-elves and quarter-elves, they might be able to fill up a decent percentage of the population eventually.
…In fact, did that mean there were Archenemies that couldn’t have kids with humans?
“I don’t know. Are you willing to test it out with the gargoyles that are moving statues or the one-horned unicorns?”
“…”
Archenemy certainly was a broad category.
“But that’s just how it is,” readily said the longbow-wielding dark elf. “You’ve drawn the line there, but other people draw the line sooner than that. Some will reject a mermaid or fairy right away. Everyone has ‘that emotion’ somewhere.”
…Did that mean the Bright Cross that ran the Colosseum and the frenzied gallery did not have defective minds? Was that something everyone had? Was it something that existed in my own heart?
I had trouble accepting that.
And it must have shown on my face.
Muramatsu Yukie giggled and added more.
“Although it seems you’ve drawn the line way, way back. So far back that it’s hard tell where the line is.”
“Right.”
For some reason, Itou Helen nodded in agreement while holding her glass wand in both hands. It was a little hard to tell whether she was praising me or criticizing me.
Eventually, we arrived at our destination.
We had simply been walking on and on through the hemispherical tunnel, so there were no actual landmarks. There were occasional alphanumeric markers on the wall, but only the Bright Cross could tell what those meant.
It was Maxwell on my smartphone that told us.
“You have arrived within Public Kukyou 1st High School’s grounds. The high school is directly overhead.”
“So where do you think the giant supercomputer is on the grounds?”
“Sure. I doubt it is aboveground. I suspect there is a gym-sized space below the school.
…Probably so.
That was not going to make this easy. Did we have to rise to the surface and then search for another secret entrance? And when we were already underground now?
With that in mind, we climbed the stairs and I held my smartphone out to the thick round door. Several metal rods unlocked and it slowly opened outwards.
And just as that happened, I heard scraping metal and saw orange sparks.
By the time I realized we had been fired on from beyond the door, Muramatsu Yukie had grabbed my hand and dragged me back.
“Maxwell!”
“No. I was unable to predict the possibility of an attack at this timing.”
“I wasn’t criticizing you. Can you close the door!?”
“No. The door can receive no further instructions until the entire opening process is complete.”
Intermittent bursts of orange sparks entered the tunnel.
We couldn’t let the gap widen any further. That would give them a wider angle with which to target us and it could easily allow them to enter the tunnel itself!!
“The gunshots are extremely quiet for the power of the gunfire. These are most likely the .45 subsonic heavy metal rounds I mentioned.”
“…”
I was thankful I had not set the phone to read Maxwell’s messages aloud.
“?”
Itou Helen curled up inside her cape and trembled like lightning had struck nearby, but she still gave me a puzzled look.
I couldn’t let her notice.
“Maxwell, do you think we can break through this door?”
“No. Given the frequency and precision of the gunfire, you would be fatally shot while passing through the door.”
“Then there’s no point in staying here. Maxwell, open all the doors within a 300m radius of the school!!”
“Warning: that increases the risk of allowing the Bright Cross in the tunnels, so it will eliminate the safety of the entire underground space.”
“We’re ending this tonight either way. If we can’t destroy their simulator, our situation is only going to get worse. Just do it, Maxwell. There’s only the 1 sniper. If we open 10 or even 100 exits, they won’t be able to cover all of them!”
“Sure.”
Deep metallic sounds reverberated from all over the dark underground space.
We turned our back on the dangerous exit that allowed bullets in, took a detour through the spider web of tunnels, and made our way to another opened exit.
Once outside, I found we were on the edge of the schoolyard. The trash area and fire hydrant were located there, so I hadn’t really checked on it before, but the exits near my school were apparently not buried underground. It may have been like a portion of the subway that came aboveground.
We were surrounded by silent darkness.
There were no lights on at the school. The nocturnal group which included my older sister must not have arrived yet. I had lost track of time while underground, but the clock on the school building’s wall said it was just before 8 PM.
…In that case, I wanted to finish this within an hour, before my older sister and the others arrived.
Where was he?
I didn’t want to think his name. If I accidentally spoke it aloud, it could easily cause Itou Helen to panic as she held onto my shirt.
He was her family.
Her big brother.
How had he ended up with the Bright Cross and why had he aimed a gun at his own little sister? I simply couldn’t imagine it. I certainly couldn’t do that. No matter the situation, I could never aim a deadly weapon at Erika or Ayumi in real life.
I could not understand him.
I knew this was no time to give up on thinking, but I felt on the verge of throwing in the towel. No other opponent could have been more frightening here. I couldn’t predict what he would do next. Especially when he had the full support of a simulator more powerful than Maxwell.
Without an assurance of safety, the dark schoolyard was like a jungle minefield. I didn’t know if the number of mines was 10 or 100, but stepping on just one would mean death. Could I really take the first step under those conditions? The dark shadows seemed to wrap around my feet and pin them to the ground.
“Maxwell, do you know where the sniper is?”
I quietly called to him, but he did not answer. The backlight did not activate and the screen was dead.
“Maxwell.”
I spoke more loudly, but still no response. My hair stood on end as I feared the device had malfunctioned at the worst possible time, but…
“It would be better not to activate the backlight in this darkness,” said the dark elf. “He’s saving your life here.”
That made sense.
But wait. The sniper couldn’t produce any light either. Then how was he receiving support from their simulator?
“Itou-san.”
“?”
“It can be methane gas or whatever else, but can you give yourself an animal’s ability to produce flammable gas? Muramatsu-san and I will search for something to use as a smokescreen.”
“What are you…going to do?”
“A sniper can’t do their job if they can’t see where we are. And yet this one can fire just fine even in the dark night or a smokescreen. That’s because he’s predicting his target’s location with a simulator.”
“Then there’s nothing we can do.”
“But how is he getting that data? He can’t read it if he’s in an environment that doesn’t allow him to activate his smartphone’s backlight. In that case, sound is the most likely option. He might have an earpiece that provides support with a synthetic voice.”
Muramatsu Yukie’s second had seemed focused on an earpiece he wasn’t used to.
“First, Muramatsu-san and I will set up a smokescreen. That will force him to focus on the simulator’s voice. Then you detonate the flammable gas to surround him…no, the entire school with explosive noise. Once he can’t hear the voice from his earpiece, the sniper can’t get through the smokescreen or the darkness. That gives us a chance to turn this around.”
Part 4
We got to work.
Living things could create methane. For example, humans could just by eating potatoes. There was also the fermentation of anaerobic bacteria and the synthesis of formic acid.
Formic acid was the toxin and source of pain found in a wasp’s stinger or an ant’s fangs. And with all her colorful potions, Itou Helen could easily use the structure of a venomous insect. Using that slightly differently would allow her to create a gas bomb.
A deafening explosive blast shook all the glass in the school.
“Now!”
Muramatsu Yukie and I used her quick charger’s electrode and a metal clip to start a fire. Lighting the grass clippings stuffed in a burnable trash bag started an incomplete combustion.
We threw a few fireball trash bags into the schoolyard and let the wind spread out the black smokescreen while the dark elf and I ran. We ran separately. Without the simulator’s support and with the double punch of the darkness and smokescreen, he could not target us properly. But a random shot through the dark smoke would still be fatal if it hit us. We couldn’t complain no matter how we were hit. So including Itou Helen, all 3 of us approached the reinforced concrete school building from different angles before he could recover from his confusion.
“Maxwell!”
“Sure. Move 15m north-northeast. It would be quickest to break through the 1st-floor classroom window.”
It didn’t work out as cool as in a movie. It probably looked like I was completely sprawled out as I dove into the window.
I heard a high-pitched shattering sound.
And my jump wasn’t quite high enough, so my toes caught on the window frame and I tripped quite spectacularly. I only stopped after getting caught in several desks and chairs.
Itou Helen and Muramatsu Yukie arrived safely inside a step behind me.
This wasn’t the time to groan about the pain filling my body. There was also no sign of the security system activating despite the broken window.
“Was that you, Maxwell?”
“No. Someone else shut off the sensors. Analyzing route…”
The Bright Cross, huh?
Since they had gone out of their way to eliminate the “power of numbers” provided by the adults, they must have really wanted to finish us off with the sniper rifle. And the Bright Cross both despised and feared Archenemies. A dark elf like Muramatsu Yukie was one thing, but a witch like Itou Helen could mass-produce monsters by sprinkling her potions on humans. Did they think going with quantity over quality would only give the Archenemies more power to work with?
I glanced down at my smartphone as I spoke.
“He’s more skilled than us. There’s a stairway on either end of the building, so let’s surround him. I doubt he can use his sniper rifle properly indoors, but make sure he never has a direct shot at you, Muramatsu-san. You use electricity, so if you find a way to bend the current’s path in a right angle or crank-shape, you should be able to unilaterally attack him. Think of ways to send your conductive materials through the air other than your bow. Itou-san…oh, I know. You use a turtle shell or something to create a large shield as you advance.”
After giving them those instructions, I watched the 2 girls head for the different staircases.
“No. I have not provided that support information.”
“That’s fine.”
How could I show them this?
I grabbed a nearby chair and threw it toward the teacher’s desk.
With a loud collision, a large object rolled out from the back.
That was likely Itou Tamago.
He had probably noticed us entering the room he had been in and was waiting for us to leave.
Even if it was full-auto, a sniper rifle was a poor choice for a close-range battle against a group.
Or had he not wanted his little sister to see his face?
“!”
The man in a black night combat outfit immediately raised a thick firearm that looked like a combination of a rifle and a handgun.
But I gave a shout before he could pull the trigger.
“Maxweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell!!”
I grabbed another chair and chucked it forward underhand.
Several holes opened in the plywood as he fired those bullets that had a long name like subsonic heavy metal round. Normally, they should have hit me between the eyes or in the heart, killing me instantly. But that wasn’t what happened. Due to the board between us, the course of the bullets was ever-so-slightly diverted.
Even so, I felt as if something had bitten me in the right shoulder.
I had not entirely avoided them and one grazed my shoulder.
Before the pain and fear could catch up, I moved forward. I didn’t have time to clench my fist like a badass. I just about tripped over my own legs and pitched forward while only running 4 or 5 meters straight ahead.
Instead of my shoulder, it was the top of my head that collided with Itou Tamago’s gut.
I heard the low, disconcerting sound of the air erupting from his lungs.
The two of us rolled along the classroom floor.
Even after being tackled to the floor, Itou Tamago maintained his grip on the sniper rifle, but it seemed to be too long to aim properly. I moved my head aside to avoid the muzzle and stuck my smartphone’s lens right in front of the sniper’s nose.
The flash activated.
“Ghhh!?”
With a lightning-like flash, Itou Tamago’s groan accelerated. Meanwhile, I grabbed the sniper rifle’s long barrel and pushed it to the side like a lever to switch train tracks.
And his index finger was still inside the loop of the trigger guard.
His wrist was made into the axis of rotation which could not have been pleasant. This time, he uttered a short scream and let go of the grip.
I had stolen the gun, but I wasn’t about to mimic him and try to use it myself. Even with Maxwell’s support, I’d probably just shoot myself in the thigh. So still sitting on top of him, I grabbed the opposite end of the weapon and swung it down like a club. With the force of driving a hoe into the dirt, I slammed the upside-down sniper rifle’s stock into Itou Tamago’s face again and again.
I glared down at the man who futilely tried to guard his face with his hands.
My throat shook with a cold voice that frightened even me.
“…Why?”
With the weapon raised, I felt the weight of the sniper rifle in my wrists.
“Why did you force this onto Itou Helen!? Is the Bright Cross that important to you!? Aren’t you…aren’t you her big brother!?”
I just couldn’t understand it.
If Ayumi’s life was targeted by the Bright Cross, if she was shoved in front of the TV cameras, and if everyone in the world jeered and booed at her, I might think about standing up for my little sister’s sake, but I would never think of siding with the Bright Cross. That line of thinking simply made no sense whatsoever.
“…I didn’t know.”
I heard a scratchy voice.
“The stage was full of smoke and I didn’t know who was in there. I was only following Laplace’s instructions. So…”
Once I realized how pathetic an excuse he was making, all hesitation vanished from my mind.
I seriously swung down the upside-down sniper rifle like I was trying to smash that arrogant nose.
I heard a soft sound and felt a raw sensation in my wrists.
“Everyone knew the 3rd round was between Itou Helen and Muramatsu Yukie!! The announcements, the electronic screens, the odds tables, and the banners and fans made by those strange, so-called fans! You expect me to believe you didn’t see or hear any of that!? Yeah, right!!”
“Ah…gah…”
“And what about this time? Who were you told to wait for as you hid in this school at night? Did Itou Helen’s name really never come up? If not…why did you decide she was an enemy and aim your gun at her when she came running up!? She’s a 1st year here, so it would be perfectly normal for her to come here at night to grab something she forgot at school!!”
If he wasn’t proud of his actions, why did he obey his instructions? Had he really sold his family’s soul for something he couldn’t even come up with a good excuse for? Did he have any idea what he was weighing on the scales!?
“…Shut…up!!”
“Kh.”
When I swung the sniper rifle down again, he grabbed the stock with one hand. And he pulled it toward him. I lost my balance and he raised his hips to build up momentum.
We flipped over.
I at least managed to deflect his wrist so he couldn’t take the sniper rifle from me. I was now on my back and Itou Tamago was on top of me giving a regretful look toward the mass of metal sliding along the floor, but he quickly rethought that. He instead reached toward his back.
And with the unpleasant sound of something slipping out of a sheath, a knife with a blade longer than a 30cm ruler reflected the moonlight.
“I!”
“Gh…!!”
I even threw aside my smartphone now. I used both hands to desperately hold back his wrist instead of the blade itself. But he had the advantage since he could put his body weight behind it. Little by little the tip of the blade approached the center of my chest.
But I oddly didn’t feel like I was lo
