A thought crossed Fuki’s mind that the hunter might be planning to kill himself, but she quickly rejected that possibility. If he wanted to commit suicide, he could’ve done it anywhere. There was no need to travel so far, unless this place was important to him for some reason… But if so, he’d have gotten out of his car and entered the building, surely.
Fuki’s eyes darted to the building at the back of the parking lot. It must have been sealed off before, but most of the windows on the first floor and the front doors were broken, so it was possible to get inside. Also, if this building really was important to the hunter, he wouldn’t have turned his car away from it. So that couldn’t be it.
The more Fuki thought about it, the more inscrutable the hunter’s objective seemed. She had a feeling that eliminating this guy was a matter of absolute urgency. His motives and intentions were unclear, which meant he was dangerous, especially as he had the means to kill in his hand that very moment. It was justified to describe the situation as scary.
“I wish the Lilybell could take this one,” said Fuki.
The safest and quickest way to get rid of the hunter would be to snipe him, but Lycoris agents weren’t trained to be snipers, and they didn’t carry rifles. The Lilybell, on the other hand, had a bigger arsenal at their disposal and were ludicrously well-trained to use a variety of weapons. To them, it wouldn’t make any difference if the target was inside a car. Shooting a stationary target from a distance was child’s play to them.
The Lycoris couldn’t simply ask the Lilybell to help, though. It would take a threat menacing society as a whole for the sister organization to take action. Preemptively eradicating dangerous individuals wasn’t something they did.
And Fuki was sure that Commander Kusunoki was convinced that this mission could be accomplished by her own underlings, the Lycoris. As long as their commander didn’t think it was impossible for her Lycoris to carry out the task, she didn’t hesitate to deploy them, even when their school uniforms no longer served the function of camouflage, given the place and time. While some might accuse Kusunoki of poor judgment, Fuki thought it was the opposite. She’d been observing Kusunoki since the woman became their commander and thought that—
“Beginning operation,” a Third Lycoris announced on their comms, interrupting Fuki’s musings.
Two Lycoris in white uniforms silently emerged from the shrubbery at the back of the Jimny. They crouched behind the car, holding .45-caliber Glocks with suppressors—standard equipment for Tokyo Lycoris. Keeping a crouching position so that they were below the car’s windows, one of them went around to the front of the car on the right side to where the driver was sitting, and the other went around on the left side, sticking close to the car’s frame, over to the front. Getting to the driver’s side, the Lycoris on the right stood up and fired through the window. Immediately after that first shot, the Lycoris at the front of the car stood up and fired, too. They had the target in crossfire and kept firing. After one of them fired five rounds, and the other six, they stopped.
They waited a few seconds, and then the Lycoris on the driver’s side opened the car’s door to look inside. Meanwhile, the Lycoris at the front of the car kept her gun aimed as before.
“That was neat,” Sakura said to Fuki, who had to agree.
If she was honest, she thought this mission was pretty hard for Third Lycoris. Their appearance only made them stand out like sore thumbs in this setting, and synchronizing their actions was extremely important in this case.
Firing through car windows changed the bullets’ trajectory, and even with round-nose bullets, the girls’ .45 caliber guns weren’t great for penetrating obstacles. In order to ensure the target was killed, they had to fire multiple times in quick succession, which wouldn’t be a problem for a big man, but they were delicate, very young girls.
Those two, though, did the job right. Fuki was especially impressed by how the girl at the front of the car waited a moment before standing up when her partner was already shooting.
The driver’s seat was on the right side, and most Japanese people were right-handed. Since the target was in the driver’s seat, it would have been harder for him to shoot to the right than straight ahead or to the left. Even if he did notice the Lycoris beside his door before she attacked, there’d be quite a delay before he could open fire at her, especially since he was using a rifle or some other long gun with a stock.
If the Lycoris who was in front of the car were to open fire first, the target might have still been able to shoot her back. He’d have a momentary chance to aim at her and pull the trigger even after getting shot. Anticipating this, the Lycoris on the right was the first to attack, with the one at the front following with a slight delay.
From where she was standing, Fuki couldn’t have seen exactly what had happened, but she guessed that the hunter panicked after getting shot from the right side and tried to turn and point his gun at the attacker when the second Lycoris revealed herself and started shooting from the other direction… The man’s chances had been very slim indeed with that setup.
“Those two are being considered for promotion,” Fuki told Sakura.
“Yeah, I can see why!”
The Third Lycoris in the driver’s seat stuck her head inside the car.
“Target eliminated,” she reported on the comms, stepping back and closing the car door.
Only then did her partner lower her gun.
“Well done. We’ll take care of the rest. Mission complete. Pull out,” responded Commander Kusunoki.
Even from a distance, Fuki could see tension leaving the two younger girls. They high-fived with their left hands, each still holding her gun in the right hand.
Fuki thought they seemed like good friends.
“Right. Another mission where we were only spectating,” Sakura said in a bored tone.
“And that’s fine. Be glad it all went well. Now let’s go—”
BANG!
The explosion echoed through the parking lot. Out of the corner of her eye, Fuki saw something at the front of the car: the headlight shattering into pieces. The impact had knocked over the two Third Lycoris.
Fuki immediately pulled out her gun from the satchel bag on her back, grabbing Sakura by the collar and pulling her down to the ground, where they were hidden behind the signboard.
“Take cover!” Fuki shouted to the Thirds without using the comms.
The younger girls were clearly shocked, but they quickly got up to their feet and started running, holding onto their guns. They both chose the same direction, though, which they realized wasn’t good, and they both stopped and looked at each other, confused. Their lack of experience showed. Their seniors would have known that if, by a stroke of bad luck, they happened to flee in the same direction, stopping was the last thing they should do.
Another explosion split the air.
The suppressor on the gun of one of the Thirds burst into pieces. The gun got knocked out of her hand, and the girl fell over.
Someone was clearly shooting at them. The bullet had hit the suppressor. The sound of the gunshot was unfamiliar to Fuki, so she couldn’t guess what gun the enemy was using, but it sounded very powerful.
“Fuki, they’re shooting from inside that building! I saw a massive muzzle flash!”
“You saw it and didn’t shoot back?! No need to be stealthy now! Wait, you haven’t even got your gun out?!”
Sakura hastily pulled her gun out and took aim, still on the ground where Fuki had left her. She stuck only her hand and her face out from behind the signboard and opened fire at the second- and third-floor windows.
Meanwhile, Fuki radioed the Thirds and told them to run.
“My…my fingers are broken…”
“Did I ask you to report your injuries?! Run away from here as fast as you can! Do you want to get killed?!”
Fuki ran out from behind the signboard. She started firing at random toward the building. Unlike Sakura, she had only a very rough idea of where the enemy was hiding, but that’d do. She was shooting in the enemy’s general direction to make a point that there were more of them than the enemy might’ve reckoned and to shift their attention from the escaping Thirds to herself.
You couldn’t really hope to hit your target if you weren’t even aiming, especially when there was quite a distance between you, but anyone who was familiar with firearms would take precautions nonetheless since a bullet might just happen to fly their way.
A single hit could be lethal, and stray bullets did sometimes land a lucky hit.
A gunner under fire would feel intense pressure. They’d be pretty much guaranteed to hide their head behind some cover, and then they wouldn’t be able to easily fire back.
At least, normal people would react like that. Fuki remembered her previous, crazy partner, who would calmly advance even as she was fired at, dodging the bullets, completely relaxed as she counterattacked… Surely, there couldn’t be any more nutjobs like her, though.
Still shooting, Fuki glanced over at the Thirds. They were running. After a few seconds, they disappeared into the thicket of shrubs and trees. As soon as they were out of sight, Fuki dived behind a tree growing in the middle of the parking lot.
Whoever was inside the building had only fired twice thus far, but Fuki didn’t jump to the conclusion that their enemy was down and out. She leaned her back against the wide trunk of the tree and let the empty magazine fall out of her Glock onto the ground. She loaded a fresh one and attached a suppressor to the still-hot muzzle.
With the moon as the only source of light, in the shadow of the tree, Fuki could barely even see her own hands, but that wasn’t a problem. She could replace a magazine with her eyes closed.
“You happy now, Sakura?” she said into her mouthpiece. “You got what you wished for.”
“…Yeah.”
“What’s the problem? You scared?”
“Wh-what? No, not scared at all!”
“Good,” Fuki said with a little amused smile. “Let’s get started. This is a job for us.”