Against a Perfect Sniper

by Shiden Kanzaki

  When he got out of the bath, he rewrapped the bandages over his recovery patch in the changing room and lightly touched the wound in his side. It still throbbed painfully, but he decided he could bear it.

  Rentaro put his hands on the large vanity and stared at himself. His cheeks were hollow, his lips were cracked and dry, and his hair had lost some of its shine. However, his mind was working again, and the vague discomfort he felt earlier finally became clear.

  The doctor had said Enju had many times the lethal amount of anesthetic injected into her, but Rentaro wondered if it really was chance that kept her from dying from the excess anesthetic.

  It would have been easy to kill Enju. Her head or heart just had to be destroyed. However, Tina had not done that. Why not?

  In the first place, using injection as her method of choice was strange. When giving an injection to one of the Cursed Children, who had threatening powers of regeneration, one usually used a pressure-style injection that didn’t require a needle, or a Varanium needle that prevented the wound from healing itself. These were the two main types. Even if a regular needle was used, the moment the needle pierced the skin, regeneration would begin, so the needle could break, get stuck to the skin, or something else bad could happen.

  After checking Enju’s arm, Rentaro saw needle marks. This was the second type—in other words, it was evidence that a Varanium needle had been used.

  Why would Tina go through all this trouble?

  Rentaro kept staring at the mirror.

  Just then, the ruins of the police car thought to have been destroyed by one of the Cursed Children crossed the back of his mind. The police car had been thoroughly destroyed, but the police officer had miraculously survived.

  It was similar—even though one whole wall around Enju had been covered with bullet holes from a heavy machine gun, Enju’s life had been spared.

  Rentaro thought about it carefully one move at a time.

  Tina was definitely trying to kill the Seitenshi and Kisara. The person who hired Tina, or her Promoter, had probably told her to kill them by name directly. However, it was possible that Tina was trying her best not to kill people not on the list to be assassinated. That was why Enju and that police officer did not die. Was that too big a leap to make?

  Of course, this act was contrary to the opinion of the person who hired her and her Promoter. It didn’t make sense for those twisted enough to order an assassination to have any hesitation about getting rid of the witnesses.

  Pressing forward with that line of thinking, Rentaro put his chin in his hand. Tina wasn’t a bad person at heart. Was it his desire to believe this that was skewing reality?

  Just then, he saw Tina’s face in his mind, smiling softly and eating takoyaki in the sunny park, and shook his head hard.

  Damn it. What am I thinking? She’s a professional killer.

  In his head, he turned over what the doctor said about it taking two days before Enju would wake up. There was something this assassin didn’t want Enju to wake up and say so badly that she put Enju to sleep.

  Tina Sprout was probably planning on finishing all the assassinations and leaving Tokyo Area in the next two days. There was hardly any time left.

  What will you do, Rentaro Satomi?

  2

  Irritated at the unanswered questions, Rentaro changed and left the bathhouse. On his way back to the hospital, Rentaro stopped by a vending machine under a humid-smelling overpass and pushed in some coins, pushing the button consecutively several times. Twisting off the cap of the carbonated drink the machine spit out, he gulped it down and emptied the plastic bottle in a second.

  Perhaps because he was distracted, he didn’t notice he was being followed until he heard his name.

  “Hey, Rentaro Satomi.”

  Rentaro looked back with a sinking feeling. What he saw was Yasuwaki and the other Seitenshi personal guards grinning, riding in a black Benz.

  “What do you want…?” Rentaro slammed his plastic bottle into the trash can with unconcealed displeasure and started walking. The car was going so slowly to keep pace with Rentaro that it made him angry.

  “The third conference has been decided.”

  “I know.” Rentaro said it without looking at Yasuwaki, so Yasuwaki pulled out a thin bundle of papers and started fanning himself with it.

  Yasuwaki laughed. “However, you can’t guard her anymore. Why? Because your last ray of hope, your Initiator, was beaten by the sniper and sent to the hospital, right? That’s unfortunate. That means the new guard plan is useless to you, of course.”

  The guard plan for the third conference?

  “Give me that!” Rentaro stole the papers out of Yasuwaki’s hands and leafed through them quickly, ignoring the enraged Yasuwaki as he burned the escort route into his memory.

  Suddenly, a hand stretched out from behind him and stole the papers back. Crushing the papers as he got out of the car, Yasuwaki looked at Rentaro with eyes frozen with hatred. “Bastard… You aren’t planning on stepping down from guarding the Seitenshi?”

  Those words surprised Rentaro. Why did he look at the guard plan? Was he planning on continuing this job? Even after going through all that?

  Kisara had been half-killed, Rentaro suffered a serious injury, and Enju was in a state of unconsciousness. In addition, the enemy was an unprecedented IP rank 98. To put it bluntly, she was way beyond the capacity of the Tendo Civil Security Agency. The money was not worth their lives, and in this case, the risks had already far outweighed the returns. The Seitenshi had likely promised a large sum in compensation, but even so, if the enemy was ranked 98, even ten times that wouldn’t be worth it.

  Of course, this was where they should return the advance and wash their hands of the case. The Seitenshi would probably be sad, but she would not stop them. They would walk away from the job on good terms. Yasuwaki would also stop holding strange grudges against him. Enju would wake up eventually. The Tendo Civil Security Agency would continue on. It would be wonderful.

  Rentaro shook his head softly.

  That was the one thing he couldn’t do.

  What would happen if he were to step down from this job right now? It was obvious. That prideful-but-honorable leader of the nation would surely be destroyed. Even if they were to hire a stand-in civsec officer other than himself, there was no way they would be able to stop the peerless Initiator with her super-precise, long-range shooting abilities.

  Rentaro sighed as he lifted his face and looked at Yasuwaki straight on. “I will continue with the job. I will protect Lady Seitenshi.”

  “Stop messing around, asshole! It all, all got messed up after you came!”

  Seeing Yasuwaki’s arm move toward his holster, Rentaro’s right hand also moved at the same time. The next instant, Yasuwaki’s Luger P.08 gun and Rentaro’s XD gun were pointed at their opponents’ brows.

  The other members of the personal guard who were riding in the Benz jumped out in a flurry. At the same time, a train came by on the overpass, and there was a shrill sound as it passed.

  Yasuwaki’s persistent eyes blazed brightly as they looked at Rentaro. “Rentaro Satomi, do you really like being by Lady Seitenshi’s side that much?”

  “Don’t make me the same as you. More importantly, are you planning on proceeding with this plan? The information’s gonna get leaked again.”

  “You’re the one leaking the information, bastard!”

  “Bullshit! Did the internal investigation of the Seitenshi’s palace come up with any information about the person who leaked the information?”

  “The list has been narrowed down quite a bit, thanks to the efforts of the internal investigation team. Your name is at the top of the list, of course.”

  “Then give everyone on that list a fake copy of the guard plan.”

  Yasuwaki’s hand holding the gun shook with anger, and the hand on the trigger was white as snow. “Don’t, tell me, what to do………!”

  Just before the sound of Y
asuwaki’s gunshot, Rentaro brushed Yasuwaki’s arm away and swept his feet out from under him. After he pushed Yasuwaki down with his knee, Yasuwaki made the anguished croak like that of a frog being squished.

  “I’ll tell you just one more time! Give everyone on that list a fake copy of the guard plan! I’ll take care of the rest.”

  3

  She slammed the desk with all her strength, and beakers and flasks jumped noisily.

  “No! Hell no!” The queen of the basement, Sumire Muroto, was livid, with her lab coat trailing behind her as she paced inside the basement room.

  Rentaro had a faint idea of what would happen, but this was a reaction way beyond what he had imagined. This was probably the first time he had ever seen Sumire so worked up.

  Using her own authority, the Seitenshi had printed out information about Tina Sprout and her rank and given it to Rentaro. On that piece of paper, Tina’s Promoter’s name was also printed out.

  Rentaro remembered hearing the name before.

  “Ain! Have you fallen so far, Ain Rand?!” Sumire shouted.

  Rentaro said, “Then this Ain Rand is that person you were talking about after all, Doc? Your—”

  “Yeah, that’s right. There’s no mistaking it. Someone who was once called one of the Four Sages with me, as hard to believe as that is.”

  “W-wait a minute, Doc. Why are you so angry?”

  “How can I not be angry about this? He’s sold the last pride he had as a doctor to the devil. Rentaro, how did you end up getting the surgery for the New Humanity Creation Project?”

  “That was…” When Kisara’s parents were eaten by a stray Gastrea, and Rentaro protected her, it resulted in his right arm and leg and left eye being eaten. Near death, he was brought to Sumire’s lab.

  “In other words, you had only two choices: undergo the surgery and live, or die,” said Sumire.

  Rentaro lifted his face with a start, and Sumire nodded once before continuing. “Kagetane Hiruko was the same. He sustained a serious injury to his internal organs, and he was left with only two choices: undergo the surgery, or wait for death. The four of us, including Ain and me, swore one thing before establishing the mechanized soldier project in our respective countries: ‘We are doctors first and scientists second.’ Of course, that was because of the extremely low success rate of the surgeries, but more than that, we wanted to respect the wishes of the patient, and we did not want to forget our respect for human life. After hearing that, I’ll ask you this, Rentaro. Have you ever heard of one of the Cursed Children sustaining so grave an injury that she was near death?”

  Rentaro shook his head. In exchange for having shackles on their lifespans called corrosion rates, the Cursed Children had overwhelming muscle strength, agility, regenerative ability, and they did not get any of the diseases or impairments of normal humans.

  Like how Enju did not die even after being injected with a lethal amount of anesthetic, the Gastrea virus inside their bodies was extremely sensitive to dangers to its host’s life and rendered foreign objects nontoxic. In reality, Rentaro had never even seen Enju catch a cold.

  In other words, it was unthinkable that they would ever be in a situation where they only had the choice between surgery and death.

  “You get it already, right, Rentaro? Ain, that brute, broke his vow and brought healthy Children into his lab.”

  Rentaro was astonished. How in the world did Rand perform surgery on the Children? It wasn’t something Rentaro could wrap his head around then and there, and he shook his head.

  Rand would have had to use Varanium scalpels, forceps, and other surgical tools to open their bodies. Of course, since Varanium inhibited their regeneration, using it to injure the Initiators would mean their healing abilities would drop significantly, as well.

  As a result, wouldn’t the success rate be much lower than that of an ordinary person? Just how many dozens of Children disappeared into the operating room? No, how many hundreds?

  Rentaro started to imagine the grotesque scene of Children’s bodies being opened and had to put a hand to his mouth. After all this time, he understood that that small assassin was standing atop a large number of corpses.

  “Rentaro, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that Ain Rand has pretty much no combat ability to speak of. I can guarantee that as someone who worked with him in the past. They are pair in name only, and he probably isn’t more than the person giving commands regarding the assassinations. You don’t have to worry about him coming out into the front lines.”

  “What’s the bad news?” Rentaro asked.

  “Tina Sprout’s rank of 98 is something she is maintaining with her own combat ability and hers alone.”

  Rentaro was shocked. The IP ranks given by the IISO, or International Initiator Supervision Organization, were called “IP” as an abbreviation of Initiator and Promoter, and they were based on their battle results among other things, calculated based on the combined total of the Initiator’s and Promoter’s combat abilities. If Rand did not fight, then Tina’s rank of 98 was calculated solely based on her own combat ability.

  Was something that ridiculous even possible?

  “Rentaro, that Initiator named Tina hit a moving target five out of five times from a great distance away, is that correct?” Sumire asked.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” said Rentaro.

  “If that’s the case, then I have an idea about the trick the enemy’s using to pull off that precision sniping.”

  “Really?”

  Sumire nodded once and pushed through piles of old documents on her desk to find an old-style terabyte disc, which she inserted into her computer. When she pointed the remote control at the wall to operate it, a screen slid down and connected wirelessly to the projector. Soon, there was a large image projected onto the screen.

  Rentaro leaned forward, wondering what was about to start, but at first, he just saw a cold blue background with the words TEST 1 on the screen. The next instant, in a space as wide as a bowling alley, a stocky bald man who was blindfolded appeared on the screen. The picture was crude, and there was no music. It had been made in a very businesslike way.

  Rentaro frowned. What was this?

  The video changed to a shot filmed from behind the man’s back. That was when Rentaro first noticed the man had a handgun in his right hand, and that there were three shooting targets inside the room. It looked like he was going to shoot them blindfolded.

  Rentaro didn’t dare blink in case he missed something. However, what happened the next instant completely surpassed what Rentaro was expecting.

  From his navy blue jacket, the man pulled out three round, fist-size black Bits and threw them toward the ground. However, the Bits didn’t fall to the ground, but floated up and started circling over the man’s head without a sound. Finally, the man lifted his arm high and then brought his arm down, as if to say, “Go.”

  In a moment, the plasma engines at the bottoms of the Bits ignited. They flew toward the targets with amazing speed. The blindfolded man lifted his right arm and fired three shots from his gun. The picture changed. The next shot was an enlarged shot to prove that the three gunshots went through the middle of each of the three targets.

  Rentaro took a step back in shock. His brain couldn’t understand what he was seeing. What was this? Something like this shouldn’t be possible. This had to be some sort of special effect. If not, it was a problem. He turned back with imploring eyes, but Sumire’s stern look and crossed arms rejected that possibility completely.

  “Thought-drive interface, a Shenfield. That is probably the trump card Ain has up his sleeve. Do you know what a BMI is?”

  “Brain machine interface?”

  “That’s right. The BMI is actually not something new in research. For patients whose arms and legs are paralyzed to control a computer cursor with only their thoughts when their brains are connected to electrodes is something that has been possible for over twenty years.

  “The man
in the video used an advanced version of that. With a neurochip implanted in his brain, he can control a number of devices with just his thoughts. Those Bits are like scouts. They have precise observation instruments installed, and they send information about the location of the target, including its coordinates, temperature, humidity, angle, and wind speed, wirelessly to the brain of the operator. That’s why that man could shoot through the targets blindfolded. Of course, the surgery the sniper underwent was not just for this.

  “I have heard that shaking hands are also a great enemy to snipers. It is likely that a metal balancer was implanted in the body to completely shut down any movement to the hand from heartbeats or breathing. Putting something like that in is a piece of cake for someone like me or Ain. Rentaro, do you understand what this means?”

  There was no way he could understand.

  By making full use of this weapon, the Shenfield, the sniper could scout the enemy’s movements while concealed. That was a great advantage when sniping a human, and it probably made possible the amazing feat of hitting five consecutive targets a kilometer away.

  But there, Rentaro had a question. If that was the case, that meant that last time, and the time before, when they were on guard, these black Bits were observing Rentaro and the others from somewhere?

  Just then, something seemed to pull at his thoughts. When he realized what it was, he lifted his face and jumped over to Sumire’s computer. Ignoring the flustered Sumire, he turned the volume up to max and replayed the video from the beginning, staring at the screen.

  The man fished the fist-size Bits out of his jacket, and the Bits floated and started circling. At that moment, Rentaro could definitely hear something that sounded like the buzzing of an insect, and his eyes opened wide.

  This was it. There was no mistaking it. The strange sound he had heard during the last sniping and the sniping before that was this. Rentaro felt chills and rubbed his arms. Those Bits had been flying near Rentaro both times after all.