Against a Perfect Sniper

  PROLOGUE THE MINEWORKERS

  With his future and his freedom at stake, Tsunehiro Koboshi ran as fast as he could. He had already run five kilometers, occasionally looking back and checking on his pursuers as he went. Running past the sunflowers on the roadside, he saw that the road had become a single straight path. All he could see was forest, and he sensed fewer and fewer people around, which made him uneasy. His muscles were tight and his clothes felt gross, plastered to his skin with sweat. This distance was hard to bear for a normal human who wasn’t one of the Cursed Children.

  Suddenly, Tsunehiro remembered how a middle school classmate had tapped his shoulder lightly with a fist and a laugh, saying, “You need more stamina.” That was exactly what he needed.

  “Tsunehiro, are you okay?”

  He shot a glance at the girl running alongside him. Three years younger than he, she was wearing the same work clothes as he was, which were slightly dirty all over. However, she was not panting at all, and her anxious eyes were wine-red. She had the same red eyes as the Gastrea.

  “I-I’m…fine… What…about you…Shuri…?” he asked, wiping his pouring sweat furiously as he spoke.

  Shuri gave a slight nod.

  He forced strength into his knees, which felt like they were about to give out, and gritted his teeth. His life was not just his own anymore. Now that he had gotten her involved, he could not allow himself to give up.

  Knowing that was the one thing he could not do, he looked back. He couldn’t see their pursuers, but he knew for sure that they were behind them. Fear pierced Tsunehiro, and abruptly he tripped over his own tangled legs and tumbled on the ground.

  As Shuri hurried to a stop, she glared at their enemies who were firing at them from behind. “Tsunehiro, run away while I’m fighting them off!”

  Turning, he saw that Shuri was facing the enemy. “Y-you can’t, Shuri! You can’t fight that Initiato—”

  Before Tsunehiro could finish, Shuri was thrown along the surface of the road toward him with a loud sound. Tsunehiro paled. Thinking about how frighteningly strong this Initiator must be for Shuri to not even stand a chance, he went to help her up, and they continued with their escape.

  After a while, he saw an enormous structure in front of them. At first, he couldn’t tell what it was, but after seeing the round gondolas and the silhouettes of rails in the air peeking through the wall, he slowly realized that it was an amusement park. Behind them were civsec officers, and in front of them was a dead end. Tsunehiro had a hunch that his short escape act would soon be over, and he gritted his teeth. He couldn’t let it end here.

  He and Shuri, who was running next to him, looked at each other and nodded, then hopped over the amusement park’s automatic turnstile. He saw a look of surprise come over the worker’s face and apologized silently. If they let themselves get lost in the crowd, they might still have a chance. That’s what he thought, but as they landed inside, Tsunehiro was dumbfounded.

  There was no one in the silent street, and the rides that turned round and round were almost completely empty. Part of it might have been because it was a weekday evening, but it was just too deserted. There were no crowds to get lost in here…

  He looked behind him and gave a start. The Initiator who had been chasing Tsunehiro and Shuri had jumped over the turnstile and appeared in front of them. She wore a fancy coat with checkered lining and a miniskirt. She had thick-soled lace-up shoes and pigtails tied with largish hair ties that swayed slightly left and right.

  With the setting sun at her back, she walked toward them, making a large X with her arms above her head. “Committing crimes is an absolute no-no! I will not allow it!”

  Behind her, a woman who looked like the girl’s Promoter appeared, riding a bike. She went to the side of the turnstile entrance and thrust something that looked like an ID (probably her civsec license) at the worker, getting off her bike and flipping her black hair. She was a surprisingly beautiful young woman. What in the world was she?

  “Enju, good work.” Saying that, the young woman turned to face Tsunehiro. “You’re Tsunehiro Koboshi and Shuri Nazawa, right? Per our client’s orders, we, the Tendo Civil Security Agency, are taking you into custody.”

  The Tendo Civil Security Agency…? The name sounded familiar, so he racked his brain, and then gave a start when he realized. “Th-the Tendo Civil Security Agency……? Th-the real Tendo Civil Security Agency?”

  “Wait, what? You know who we are?” She leaned forward and looked at him with expectant eyes.

  “Of course I know who you are…” The saviors who defeated the Stage Five when Tokyo Area was on the brink of destruction. Those saviors were part of the Tendo Civil Security Agency.

  For fear of assassination, kidnapping, or headhunting from another country, their personal information was quickly placed under a media blackout, but not before just the name of the savior, Rentaro Satomi, had spread around the mine along with a lot of speculation.

  The young woman, her mood now thoroughly improved, put her hand to her face with a dainty laugh. “That’s right. We are the Tendo Civil Security Agency, and I am the president, Kisara Tendo. And you two were lured here because this is the amusement park where Satomi works part-time.”

  Rentaro Satomi—

  Tsunehiro staggered with shock, and Shuri’s body shook. A celebrated, legendary civsec officer worked here?

  The female president waved her arms with a flourish. “Just look! This is the pride of the Tendo Civil Security Agency, our strongest Promoter, Satomi!”

  Tsunehiro and Shuri fell to their knees, still hugging each other. This was the end. Tsunehiro squeezed his eyes shut and waited for his last breath.

  However, no matter how long he waited, nothing happened.

  When Tsunehiro opened one eye and looked at the female president, she said, “Th-that’s strange, I heard he was working here…” Blushing, she turned to the girl next to her. “Enju, do you know where in the park Satomi works?”

  “I have no knowledge of that. Many times I have said I want to come see him, but he always says, ‘You can’t come!’ so I never found out.”

  When the two of them started looking around them, Tsunehiro also shifted his gaze to his surroundings. The amusement park as a whole was silent, with no sign of people anywhere—No, that wasn’t true. If he looked carefully, there was just one place where there was a crowd of people.

  Children were gathered around a magical girl.

  More accurately, young elementary schoolers were aiming at someone dressed in a magical girl costume, kicking and hitting all at once. It was the unpopular character, “Tenchu Violet,” from the cartoon Tenchu Girls, which told the story of forty-seven magical girls.

  “Get ’er!”

  “Just die already.”

  “Gah-ha-ha!”

  “Kill ’er! Kill ’er!”

  It wasn’t clear what made them despise her so much, but the children single-mindedly beat on Violet like they were possessed. A muffled scream could be heard from the depths of the magical girl’s smiling head as she was straddled and kicked.

  The female president made a disgusted face. “Don’t tell me……”

  “Aaaarrggggghhhhhhhh, aaah, get the fuck off me!” Suddenly, the magical girl spewed unbelievably nasty words.

  The children froze and looked around, but of course, there was no one else around.

  As Violet rose slowly and put her hand on her neck, a young man appeared from inside her, panting and covered with sweat. He had an unpleasant look in his eyes and a sour expression on his face. “Be a little nicer, you little brats! I’m gonna smack you!”

  At first, the children were in a state of shock, but suddenly, starting with a
child near the young man, the children started one by one to wet themselves in fear.

  “Violet died…!”

  “I’m scared!”

  “Something weird came out from inside her!”

  “Hey, don’t cry! I said, don’t cry! Violet is still alive. ‘See? I’m a magical girl!’……… Aw, shit! That’s right, I’m an alien larva born by tearing through Violet’s stomach. Sorry about that, damn it!” The young man threw Violet’s head and magical stick on the ground and slowly walked toward Tsunehiro and the others. He was still a magical girl from the neck down.

  That can’t be Rentaro Satomi, Tsunehiro thought doubtfully.

  The female president crossed her arms. “Satomi, you’re late! You are supposed to come right when I call!”

  Rentaro scratched his hair and complained in a dispirited voice. “You might say that, Kisara, but even after I risked my life to save Tokyo Area, why do I get paid less than a part-time convenience store clerk? Because of that, I had to take this part-time job where I become a human punching bag, you know.”

  “You are to call me ‘President’ on the job. Besides, it’s your fault, Satomi. After you defeated the Stage Five, the Gastreas’ movements have died down, and we’ve had way less jobs. We haven’t been able to resolve a single case properly since that incident, you know. We have zero income this month, too, because of someone. Do you get that, zero-dependability Satomi?”

  The young man let out a scream as if he had been poked somewhere painful, and he drew in his chin. Then, he noticed Tsunehiro and Shuri. “Well, what are these guys?”

  “Targets to capture.”

  “Targets to capture? Is this a job from the government?”

  “No, the client is a civsec officer.”

  “Do civsec officers hire other civsec officers?”

  “Well, it’s not unusual.”

  “What, like a subcontractor?” Rentaro complained listlessly, then leaned over to look at Tsunehiro.

  “Well, what did you guys do?”

  Tsunehiro and Shuri looked at each other, then said, “Actually…” and told them about what happened that led them to run away.

  Tsunehiro told them about how his father racked up a lot of debt, until one day, when Tsunehiro went home, there were yakuza in his house. The yakuza threatened him, saying, “Boy, tomorrow, you won’t be able to go to middle school anymore.” Just like that, he was brought to where the yakuza were illegally mining Varanium behind a front company.

  He told them about how at the Varanium mine in the Unexplored Territory, he was made to labor hopelessly in the mine day after day. Perhaps it could be said that birds of a feather flock together, but the civsec officers that they got to guard the mine were all good-for-nothings, and they seemed to be mostly concerned with making sure their fellow civsec officers didn’t run away.

  He told them about how a fellow laborer was killed in a lynching. About how he met Shuri, and how they were able to start thinking about escaping. And then, about how they finally found an opening and stole a jeep, driving it crazily without stopping for rest, and barely making it into the Monoliths.

  “Hmm, they are not bad guys at all, are they?” When Enju said this, Rentaro and Kisara looked embarrassed.

  “What should we do, President?” Rentaro asked, after a pause.

  “How am I supposed to know…? Besides, I already contacted the client on the way here to say we found them……”

  “The client?”

  There was a whoosh of feathers, and something slammed into the ground at Tsunehiro’s feet with amazing speed.

  It was the arrow from a crossbow.

  “Found you, you damn brats!”

  When Tsunehiro turned, he looked as if he was about to scream.

  The shooter unwillingly lowered his crossbow in his right hand with unconcealed hatred in the piercing, narrow eyes of his stern, craggy face.

  It was Haga. He was the embodiment of fear in the Varanium mine they had run away from, a terrifying Promoter who had killed three workers just because he didn’t like them.

  Haga licked his lips, staring with his reptilian eyes. “You’ve got some nerve running away like that. Prepare yourself, you little bastards. I’m gonna kill you dead and feed your corpses to the pigs.”

  They had to run. Despite his thoughts, Tsunehiro was frozen in fear, and his legs wouldn’t move.

  Haga aimed his crossbow deliberately and put his finger on the trigger.

  “Hey, wait a sec, old man.” Rentaro interjected. “Are you the civsec officer client? Where’s your Initiator?”

  Haga slid his gaze to the side, seeming to notice Rentaro for the first time. “I’ll pay you later, so shut up, you runt.”

  “I said, where’s your Initiator, moron?” Rentaro looked at Haga without blinking.

  Startled, Haga was the one who shifted his gaze first. “Damn. Oh yeah, now that you mention it, I had one. She cried and screamed so much I accidentally killed her, but well, I said she died in the line of duty, so the IISO will send me a replacement soon—”

  “Tendo Martial Arts First Style, Number 3—”

  “Huh?”

  “Rokuro Kabuto!”

  Rentaro’s fist buried itself in the unguarded Haga’s face, flattening his features, destroying three of his front teeth, and throwing him back almost three meters as blood flowed from his nose. Then, there was complete silence.

  “What the hell?! You’re a disgrace to civsec officers, you bastard! Don’t show your face in front of me again. If I see you again and you’re still a civsec officer, I’m gonna friggin’ kill you!” After swearing vigorously, Rentaro’s body suddenly became stiff for some reason, and he turned toward Kisara with his shoulders hunched apologetically. “Sorry, I did it again…”

  “Hey Satomi, what’re you doing knocking out our client?! How many times do you think we’ve lost our chance to get paid? If you’re going to punch him, punch him after we get paid!” Kisara said.

  “That’s what you’re worried about?!”

  Left out of the action, Tsunehiro felt his mouth hang open. Had he just been saved…by the civsec officer?

  Borrowing a notepad and pen from Kisara, Rentaro wrote something down and put the piece of paper in Tsunehiro’s hand.

  “Make an appearance at the homicide department here, in front of an inspector named Tadashima. That guy’s not prejudiced against Cursed Children, so he’ll probably help you. You might have to face consequences for driving without a license, but there were a lot of extenuating circumstances. Oh, but be careful. That inspector’s got a face on him that’ll make the yakuza look like Buddha.”

  “U-um… I…” Tsunehiro was at a loss for words. When he lifted his face, thinking he had to say something, he was interrupted by Kisara’s phone.

  “Satomi, it’s been a while, but we’ve got some prey,” she said after she hung up. “A Stage One Gastrea was sighted in Tokyo Area District 23! It looks like it went astray from a high altitude.”

  Rentaro looked fed up. “Wait, Kisara. We’re in District 11, right…? Will you get us a car or something?”

  Kisara righted the bicycle, straddled the saddle, put her feet on the pedals, and turned around. “Don’t say stupid things. We don’t have money for that! You’re! Running! Right! Now!”

  Looking down, Rentaro confirmed that he was still a magical girl from the neck down. “Then help me out here. The zipper’s broken on this thing, so I can’t unzip it from the inside.”

  Kisara and Enju looked at each other and grinned wickedly.

  “It looks good on you, Satomi,” said Kisara.

  “It becomes you, Rentaro,” said Enju.

  Rentaro hung his head dejectedly. “Give me a break……”

  In the slowly growing darkness, Tsunehiro watched the young man in costume with a girl following him like a puppy fade away with their long shadows, and a young woman on a bike following them yelling into a megaphone.

  People who accomplished their justic
e without wishing for anything in return. “That’s…a real civsec officer.”

  The flame of longing was lit, and feelings welled up in his chest. Making a fist so hard it hurt, he turned back to Shuri. “Shuri, I want to be a civsec officer when I grow up. So, um…if you’d like, I want you to be my Initiator!”

  Shuri was surprised and widened her eyes for a moment, but then she shyly tilted her head. “If that’s what you want, Tsunehiro.”

  Her smile was so bright that Tsunehiro turned red up to his ears. Averting his eyes in embarrassment, he gazed at the shadows that were growing smaller.

  The year 2031. Earth’s surviving population: 750 million.

  Officially registered International Initiator Supervision Organization (IISO) civsec officer pairs: 2.4 million pairs.

  A declining world huddled inside the Monoliths, walking quietly down the path to destruction.

  Initiators and Promoters. Fighting together in pairs.

  Using the power cultivated in their bodies to fight the Gastrea—they are humanity’s last hope.

  BLACK BULLET 2

  CHAPTER 01

  VARANIUM WAR

  1

  Kisara Tendo stood in the middle of the tatami-floored dojo filled with the cool morning air, wearing her black sailor-school uniform. The soft morning light sparkled on her straight, too-black hair, throwing small shadows behind her.

  She stood with her eyes closed and her hips low, with her hand on the grip of her sword. She had already been in this position for ten minutes: The Tendo Martial Arts Sword Drawing Style, Nirvana Stance. The stance meant being in the midst of a state of constant change and existing freely in that state. It was a stance that encompassed all the offense and defense of the Tendo Martial Arts Sword Drawing Style.

  She’s beautiful, thought Rentaro from the bottom of his heart as he looked up at his fellow pupil, at the same time unable to suppress a shudder. There was not a single opening in her stance, and there was something about it that made Rentaro certain that the moment he stepped within reach of her blade, he would be cut down. Rentaro discreetly took his smartphone from his pocket and looked at its LCD screen. It was almost time to leave for school. She would move soon.