Against a Perfect Sniper

by Shiden Kanzaki

  Rentaro stood stock-still in the middle of the enemy camp filled with piles of corpses. The area was enshrouded in flames warming his skin and smelled of gunpowder smoke. It was so hot that Rentaro tore off his necktie as he breathed with his shoulders heaving. His whole body was covered with sweat, and one of the XD guns had disappeared somewhere without him noticing.

  The enemy was now nowhere to be seen.

  Just as he started wondering if he had cleared the stage, something grazed the top of his shoulder. When he thought he had been shot, he sank to his knees and pressed the wound with his hand. The superthin shock paddles he stuck on his skin before entering the VR training room recreated the heat and pain of being hit by a bullet. Even though he had only been grazed, he gritted his teeth at the intense pain that felt like he had been cut.

  He looked back and glared beyond the sand dune. “A sniper, huh?!”

  The range finder built into the artificial eye found the enemy. The enemy was two hundred and twenty meters away. On top of being too far to see with the naked eye, the hot air created waves distorting his vision. The worst conditions for shooting.

  The standard response here would be to get closer to the sniper while hiding in the shadows of the sand dunes. However, Rentaro did not do that but turned back toward the enemy and spread his legs shoulder width, holding his gun diagonally from the target’s point of view.

  Tina’s voice played in the back of his mind. “My life has just been pain. That’s why, right now, I’m having my first fun mood in a while.”

  Rentaro pulled the trigger slowly and fired. His shot went wide past the target by a long shot.

  One more shot. This time, it was too low.

  Shots were grazing his ears with ferocious speed, and his legs were shaking. The enemy was firing back. Torn between frustrating impatience and fear, he inhaled, then exhaled shakily. Closing his eyes, he cleared his ears with the sound of his own heartbeat. All living things eventually lose their lives and die and repeat the cycle of reincarnation. The way of the heavens and the reason that preserved harmony among all living things filled his heart, assimilated within him, and sharpened him.

  A beam of light flashed in his head. He opened his eyes wide suddenly.

  There! He pulled the trigger and fired. His arm was kicked back by the recoil, and an empty brass-colored cartridge spun as it was spit out.

  The bullet grazed the upper right part of the Dragunov sniper rifle the sniper held and entered through his left eye socket. It shattered his skull, and the path taken by the bullet was in a vacuum for an instant. The next moment, his body systems were compressed, and his brain was destroyed.

  The bullet that was the extension of Rentaro’s arm had brought death to every single one of his virtual enemies. He took the Infinite Stance and quietly stayed on alert.

  Rentaro Satomi was one with his gun.

  There was a fanfare and the floating words MISSION COMPLETE, along with the smooth synthesized female voice saying the words.

  The next thing he knew, he was back in the white room. Only the necktie scattered on the floor, the other XD gun, and the empty cartridges told him that the fight that had just happened was not a dream.

  “Satomi dear, you’re amazing! Two thousand, two hundred percent!” Miori screamed into the headset with excitement, causing feedback.

  Rentaro yelled, holding his ears. “Be quiet! What do you mean, 2,200 percent?”

  “Satomi dear, you used this simulator three times before, remember? If the average of your combat ability during those times is 100 percent, then that’s your combat power this time.”

  I see, Rentaro muttered to himself. This meant that with his artificial eye unleashed, he was twenty-two times stronger than usual.

  “Satomi dear, how much stronger would you be if you unleashed your arm and leg?”

  “Roughly three times stronger that this.”

  “Six thousand, six hundred percent! S-Satomi dear, take me now!”

  Rentaro snorted.

  “Wait, Miori, what are you saying? Satomi is mine! I’m all he sees!” Apparently, Kisara was also with her. “Miori, I’m sure you don’t know this, but Satomi attacked me like a beast and did all sorts of dirty things to me. My body is enough to satisfy him!”

  The one who did all sorts of dirty things was Enju. That made Rentaro think of something suddenly. “Hey, Miori, Enju has used this simulator before, too, right? What are her numbers compared to mine?”

  For some reason, that made Miori stammer, “Well…” evasively. Finally, she mumbled reluctantly, “Eight thousand, six hundred percent.”

  Rentaro exhaled sharply. Well, that wasn’t unexpected. Enju had extraordinary strength for an Initiator. However, it might be paradoxical to think so, but Rentaro did not think that he could not beat her.

  As part of a martial arts family, such as he was, he had experience and intuition that Enju lacked. Enju might think that if she made Rentaro miss with the exploding cartridges in his artificial limbs, she could win, but if she thought so naively, she would be easy to handle.

  “Then what about the projected numbers for Tina, who beat Enju?” Rentaro asked.

  “If the enemy’s specialty was sniping, thinking about it using common sense, going up against Enju would have been the worst matchup for her. If she won despite that, then you should assume she is over 1.5 times stronger than Enju.”

  “Over 12,900 percent?!” It was a number that defied common sense. It wasn’t that he had been optimistic, but this was…

  “Satomi dear, you can use any of the equipment we have to offer. And we’ll use the simulator to crush your weaknesses one by one.”

  There was some time before he answered.

  “All right.”

  In any case, he didn’t have any other choice. He had long abandoned the idea of running away.

  “Now, we’ll use an anti-sniper program next,” said Miori.

  At that moment, the world changed again.

  “Situation two, stage name: Killhouse. Activating—”

  5

  Surprised, Tina jumped out of bed.

  Reflected in her eyes were scattered junk food wrappers and foam food trays. Turning her head, she saw the bluish-white light of the moon shining into her room in her temporary residence. Water dripped from the faucet, falling with a splashing sound into a bowl, and the sound of the ticking secondhand of the clock on the wall slowly grew louder in her ears. It was three a.m.

  Her underwear was drenched with sweat, and the back of her eyelids throbbed as she shook her head and pressed her hand to her temple.

  As if it had been waiting for Tina to wake up, the cell phone next to her rang. “It’s me,” she said.

  “What are you doing? How many times do you think I called you?”

  “I’m sorry, Master…… I was taking a nap.”

  “I have the guard plan for the third conference. I’ll send it to your device now.”

  The guard plan arrived on her PDA. She changed it to holodisplay mode, and it projected the images in the air. She looked over them quickly.

  Tina frowned. What was this…?

  “Those foolish people… How many times are they planning on repeating the same mistake? Well, it gives us the chance for our third assassination, though.”

  “But Master… Isn’t there something strange about this?”

  “What is?”

  “Why are they using such a roundabout guard route? And this route contains a perfect sniping spot. It’s as if they are asking for it.” Tina continued inwardly. On top of that, the sniping spot was in District 39, where she had gone once with Rentaro before they discovered each other’s identities. Tina had a slight familiarity with the terrain.

  “In other words, what are you trying to say?”

  “Could it be a trap?”

  Rand contemplated on the other side of the phone. “There is still no sign that our spy inside the Seitenshi’s palace has been discovered.”

  “
Master, I have a bad feeling about this. I think we should wait and see just this once.”

  “No! You’ve already wasted two perfect chances, and our client is angry. We cannot fail!”

  Then, as if he remembered something, her master’s voice dropped, and he asked, “Hey…Tina—Tina Sprout.”

  “Yes?”

  “I got information that the police officer and Initiator I ordered you to kill are still alive.”

  Suddenly, an uncomfortable silence fell.

  “I thought I delivered a killing blow,” Tina said, exaggerating her surprise a little. Immediately after, she reproached herself for being too obvious.

  “Tina…my precious work of art. Surely you are not disobeying my orders?”

  “Of course not, Master.” Her master stayed uncannily silent. Tina wiped the sweat on the palms of her hands on her skirt without letting him notice it.

  “Tina, who is your master? Let me hear it.”

  “You are, Master…I mean, Professor Rand.”

  “To whom do you owe your life?”

  “I owe everything to you, Professor Rand.”

  “What are you?”

  “I am your tool, Professor Rand.”

  He paused on the other end. “Fine. There is no change to what you must do. However, I’m sure you understand this, but you cannot fail.”

  “What if it is a trap?”

  “Break through it by yourself. You should have enough strength for that, at least. However, if you are somehow about to be defeated”—Rand stopped before continuing—“Die.”

  Tina clutched the hem of her skirt in her hands.

  “Kill yourself.”

  Tina calmed her breath and put her hands to her heart, closing her eyes. “I understand, Master.”

  Once he heard that, Rand hung up without another word.

  Tina turned her head and looked around her apartment. She would leave here soon, too. Opening the lid of the plastic container next to the bed, she poured the gasoline inside over everything in the room. Her head hurting from the gasoline vapors, Tina backed up to the door, then flicked the lighter and threw it inside. Snakes of flames reached all the way into the center of the room, and the whole room was enveloped in crimson flames.

  Checking to make sure the fire alarm was working, she left the apartment. The fire truck appeared soon after, and shouts from curious onlookers started.

  From a slight distance away, Tina watched the burning apartment as the flames pierced into the night sky. When a pillar burned down, the apartment building collapsed in the cloud of ashes.

  Even if Rand was a scientist, he was now taking orders from someone above him. There was no way he would change his mind just because she voiced her dissatisfaction to him. If that was the case, then all Tina could do was what she was ordered to do.

  And even if the guard plan was a trap, what of it? Her own combat history as an Initiator was currently at a hundred straight wins. There was no one who could reach her.

  However, when she fought the boy dressed in black, Tina had once thought that if there was someone who could defeat her, then it could possibly be—

  Just recalling his face made her chest hurt with emotion. Even though the waves of heat on her skin were hot enough to burn, Tina hugged herself, shivering with cold, looking down.

  “Please, don’t come…Rentaro…”

  BLACK BULLET 2

  CHAPTER 04

  AGAINST A PERFECT SNIPER

  It was the night of the final showdown. In the hospital room that had fallen silent, Rentaro stared at the sleeping Enju in the bed. Like yesterday, Enju was breathing healthily in her sleep, and her sleeping face was peaceful. In the end, the faint hope he had that the anesthetic would wear off early and that she would wake up did not come true.

  He had no choice but to imagine the fight she had against Tina and how she had been defeated, but based on the crime scene riddled with bullet holes, there was little doubt that she had received an antitank rifle bullet to the stomach. She must have been scared and frightened.

  Rentaro looked at the full moon shining outside the window and patted Enju’s head. Enju, if you were conscious, would you have been opposed to this like Doc was?

  But, he thought, raising his gaze, Tina Sprout was a victim of this twisted world. If I have the power to straighten out the world, then I think it’s worth risking my life, Enju.

  Rentaro put his hand softly on the head of the sleeping Enju. Then, he left the hospital and took the last train out to the Outer District. Rentaro got off at District 39. He had brought Tina here once. When he hadn’t even dreamt that the two of them were mortal enemies.

  As he went farther from the station, the surrounding sounds starting disappearing, and the sound of Rentaro’s steps and breathing seemed too loud. It was neither hot nor cold. The wind was strong, but he continued walking, knowing this would barely count as a handicap for that sniper.

  Perhaps because of the lack of streetlights, it took his eyes a while to adjust to the darkness, but eventually, the ruins of the Outer District that had gone through death emerged in front of him.

  Buildings covered in vines that had cracked the pavement, buildings that had been burned down. The fires were not the work of the Gastrea. In urban areas, after people leave, dried branches and fallen leaves would pile up with no one to gather them. When lightning struck, it is a simple matter for that to develop into a raging fire.

  Man-made environments crumble quickly when humans stop taking care of them. Rusted vehicles were crashed into one another, and abandoned cars could be seen everywhere. Inside cars and cell phones, there were small amounts of rare metals like silver, palladium, and gold, so these were called “city veins” and were an important source of income for the Manhole Children.

  Just as Rentaro stepped into the center of District 39, his cell phone suddenly vibrated. He had been planning to look here and there until he had covered all of the Outer District, but this was much faster than expected.

  Of course, he had no doubt who the person on the other end of the phone was.

  “There’s nothing here after all, huh? You got me,” she said.

  Rentaro looked around him while holding his phone to his ear, but he could not see Tina anywhere. Still, it was likely that the young sniper could see him. Rentaro set his eyes on the group of dilapidated buildings standing tall in front of him.

  “Is this your idea of preventing the sniping? I know the location of the unofficial conference. If I leave now, I can still make it in time to go after the Seitenshi when she leaves the meeting.”

  “My job is to keep you from doing that,” said Rentaro.

  “My job is to kill the Seitenshi,” said Tina.

  “Why, Tina? Why do you kill?”

  Tina hesitated slightly. “This is the only way left for me to prove I have a reason for existing.”

  “That’s sad, Tina. You’re sad. Are you okay with that?”

  Tina did not reply.

  “If you’re saying that if I don’t fight, then you’re going to go kill the Lady Seitenshi, then I can’t let you go! The future of this country lies on the shoulders of that princess. If you want to kill her, then go after you kill me!” Rentaro rolled up the right arm and right leg of his uniform and stretched his arm straight out. After feeling some slight pain, there was a creaking sound, and fissures ran through his right arm and leg as the artificial skin warped and peeled off. His artificial limbs appeared to be black chrome, reflecting the light of the moon.

  “I do not understand. The swordswoman, Kisara Tendo, was defeated. The ace, Enju Aihara, was defeated. You alone are left. You cannot defeat me.”

  “I won’t know until I try, right?” At the same time, Rentaro unleashed the power of his artificial eye. The inside of his artificial left eye started spinning, and geometric patterns emerged on the iris.

  A pungent smell hit his nose, and his body became hot. After unleashing his power, Rentaro lowered his hips and held his stance q
uietly. The Tendo Martial Arts Infinite Stance was a battle form filled with the meaning of the eternally limitless existence of the heavens and the earth.

  “Now, let’s settle this, Tina!” Rentaro gazed at the darkness, still in his stance. He was attacked by a suffocating thirst for blood, and he gritted his teeth and gripped the dirt hard with the bottom of his boots.

  The enemy used a Bit from the thought-drive interface, Shenfield, to scout his location. The second he was caught by the Bit, he was sure he would see a perfectly precise sniper bullet flying toward him.

  The scene of the final showdown was the block of land where the dilapidated buildings were lined up. Of all the places in District 39, this was an urban area, but it was of course all ruined, so there was no fear of damaging the surrounding areas.

  Rentaro had been given various secret plans by Miori. But there was no way Tina had come empty-handed, either.

  Sharpening his five senses, he extinguished himself and became one with nature. The wind howled, caressing him from the back of his neck to his cheek. Rentaro didn’t move an inch, focusing all his concentration on his senses of touch and hearing.

  There was a flicker, and for a second, he saw light coming from the roof of a tall skyscraper far away. There was a slight vibration in the air, and his sensitive skin, radarlike, felt a round object flying through the air.

  Here it comes! thought Rentaro. “Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 3—” The sound of an explosion rang in the air, and the extractor that ran along Rentaro’s fake ulnar nerve on his artificial arm picked up empty golden shell casings and kicked them out as they rotated. “Rokuro Kabuto!”

  His fist, sped up through cartridge propulsion, grasped the superfast antitank sniper rifle bullet. The explosive sound of impact rang throughout the ruins, and the shock wave blew away all the gravel around him. The fist he sent out twisting crashed into the sniper bullet, smashing it to smithereens. He had pulverized a .50-caliber armor-piercing bullet with a jacket made of tungsten carbide with over thirty times the kinetic energy and destructive power of a 9-mm handgun bullet.