That coin was still spinning. Nice of it to wait until I was done recapping.
The progression of time remained very slow. The spinning dime reached its apex and began to fall. Like in movies, where everything gets super quiet before a burst of action, my senses were all heightened.
The dime was spinning fast, gleaming in the dazzling sunlight, like a mirror ball in free fall.
The gunman opposite Haruhi—one of the Somethington brothers—didn’t even look up. His eyes were on her alone. The sound of the coin landing would be the signal.
But then…
“……………”
Nagato had been even more taciturn than usual since we arrived in the West, but now her face made a smooth diagonal turn like one of Tanaka Hisashige’s mechanical puppets. Her unblinking catlike eyes fixed on a single point. I followed her gaze.
“Mm?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement. Just a subtle positional shift, but clearly human.
I squinted and saw someone lurking in the second-story window of the saloon across from us. A shadowy figure stood behind the half-open frame.
A man peering down at the street below, a long object in his hands that could not be mistaken for anything but a rifle. Given the times, likely a Winchester M73, an undisputed USA bestseller.
And the business end of his rifle was pointed at Haruhi’s face.
“A sniper?”
Aha. Unsure how the duel would play out, these dastardly villains had decided to cheat. Brazenly laying on such thick stereotypes was weirdly novel.
On reflex, my hand reached for my holster. I felt pretty sure I could put all six of these slugs in his head without a pang of conscience, but should I? Or should I let Nagato handle it?
“…………”
Nagato’s silence felt like a suggestion to remain on standby. True, the idea of Haruhi dying from a sniper in her blind spot felt every bit as unlikely as Godzilla getting taken out by an army tank. Especially in this extremely phony western setting.
But she didn’t have much time. The falling dime was about to touch down.
All eyes were on the duelists.
Which meant we were all equally shocked.
“!”
No one expected Haruhi to move before the dime landed.
Much less hop sideways into a forward somersault, vanishing into the gap between the saloon and the shop next door.
An instant later, the dime hit the ground with the faintest of dinks. Officially ending slo-mo time.
Haruhi had fled in the face of battle.
Anyone unawares would have assumed as much, but the look of panic on her opponent’s face proved he knew about the sniper waiting upstairs.
I assumed Haruhi must have somehow detected the mystery sniper and made a beeline for the second story to put a bullet in him—but she betrayed my expectations in every possible way.
“Here goes!” Haruhi cried, and there was a thnk, like something not terribly thick getting kicked.
And then the entire saloon toppled toward the street.
“Wha……?!”
The gunman was so shocked he froze up—and the giant mural with a saloon painted on it fell directly toward his head. At the last second, he leaped back, and the saloon turned cutout hit the main street with a fwoomp, kicking up all kinds of dust.
Between the cutout and the dirt, a man grunted once, followed by the unpleasant sound of something squishing. I didn’t have to squint—between the wood and the dirt, there was just enough space for a man. This unexpected man sandwich was clearly the sniper with the Winchester rifle.
He must have been flung out the window the second the 3D saloon became a 2D stage flat.
“I thought so!” Haruhi said.
She still had one foot in the air from kicking the saloon over.
“I had a hunch. It all seemed very fishy!”
She flashed a triumphant grin.
I looked around, registering our surroundings in a very different light.
What I’d perceived as normal buildings and shops lining the street now lost all depth. They were just boards with pictures painted on them.
“Seriously?”
The shocking truth left us reeling, but the crew of bad guys was even more bewildered. Even the mayor’s jaw was hanging open. Couldn’t blame him. The world’s parameters had just been rewritten. Forcefully, in the blink of an eye.
Even the inn we’d slept in last night was now a standing signboard.
Truly something else.
This had never been the late-nineteenth-century American Wild West. Merely a stage built in a field suggesting that frontier. And one working with a very small budget, so all the buildings had just been matte paintings.
Haruhi came stalking across the collapsed saloon.
“Oh, wasn’t this a quick-draw competition?”
She drew her Colt SAA and, before her opponent could recover from the surprise, aimed the barrel at his chest and pulled the trigger.
There was a bang. But nothing more than that.
If our surroundings were all an outdoor set, then the duel itself wasn’t real; merely a performance, and the guns obviously didn’t have real bullets in them.
We were in a western movie. At least, we were now.
What did the rest of our crew think of this? Koizumi was wearing that patented smile of his, Asahina was adorably flabbergasted, Nagato was unaffected.
Haruhi was just playing with her gun, so I asked, “You knew about the sniper upstairs?”
“I saw him reflected in my opponent’s eyes.”
You’ve got eyes like a hawk.
“How’d you realize the buildings were painted on?”
“Just went with my gut.”
Best not to probe that one further.
The famer’s hired guns were all clumped up, rubbing shoulders, and Haruhi swung around to face them.
“I shot first, which means I win. Return the hostages and disband your posse.”
She had her finger hooked through the trigger guard, spinning the Peacemaker around it. Her glare allowed the Somethington brothers (and the others hired by the farmers) to momentarily forget the alterations to the state of the world.
They were shouting “Hell no!” and “Listen to yourself!” and “That wasn’t a fair fight!” and I could hardly blame them. They all piled into the street.
They had guns in their hands, but how long did we have to play along with this farce?
“…………”
Nagato reacted first.
Her poncho swirling, both hands blurred. A Colt held by her right hip, the left hand working the hammer. This was fanning—a technique that let you fire as fast as you could pull the trigger. Inquiring minds want to know why Nagato’s gun alone still held real bullets.