And the motorcyclist, too, who arrived exactly at three AM and fired at anyone he encountered without hesitation. It was because he was here for the game—a game where people shot each other, no questions asked.
“You’re saying you want the thrill of a real fight… But, dude, you’re a coward. You set traps, and you’ve been squatting here from way before your game started.”
Fuki remembered about Sakura, but that wasn’t relevant at that moment. She had to push thoughts about her partner out of her mind. Worrying about Sakura wasn’t going to help anybody.
“You’ve got to fight with all you’ve got. You take full advantage of your knowledge and experience. The others did that, too.”
He was probably right. The cop arrived at the very last minute on a motorbike, likely with the intent of launching a surprise attack on whoever was already there. The hunter arrived early and waited for the others to show up. The reason he stayed in his car was probably because he was planning to blind anyone who turned up with the high beam and shoot them from the driver’s seat. Maybe he was also thinking of running them over.
Both of those guys were amateurs, though. The police officer used to following the rules to the letter, and the hunter, whose only past opponents were beasts, incapable of strategizing, readily accepted that there’d be no shooting before the agreed time. The ex-military guy, though, was different. He prepared the stage so he’d have more fun killing people.
“I wish you guys had just all killed each other, saving us the effort.”
“It doesn’t matter if you’re still a child or that you’re a Lycoris. You surely have tasted it, too, the elation when you eliminate a threat to your life. Didn’t you feel euphoric when you killed that cop and took that first breath of relief?”
Fuki could tell the man was smiling as he said that. She thought it was gross.
“No need to hide it. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s an instinctive reaction all living creatures have. It’s how we’re all wired… The ecstasy of surviving a ‘kill or be killed’ situation, of winning, is our reward. It’s the best feeling in the world. It’s amazing, and you just can’t get enough of it. It’s the truth.”
He was talking with clear enjoyment, which made Fuki suspect something.
“This…isn’t your first time playing this game, is it?” she asked.
This guy had played and survived many times before.
“You can tell? That’s right. I’ve fought—”
Fuki got ready to shoot at him. She’d sensed that the man had lost focus when he started rambling on. He couldn’t help himself, wanting to talk about his experience, wanting her to hear him out.
It was her chance.
She adopted the modified prone position, a low shooting stance where she was down on one knee with the other leg straight in front of her, leaning to the side as far as possible. It was a stance used for shooting from under a car or through an opening at low height, but it had merits in other situations, too.
After Fuki rapidly fired two rounds, making a hole in the display board between her and the man, he responded. There was a loud boom when he fired. The board jerked up and nearly got knocked off the floor. An opening the size of a child’s fist appeared in it at what would’ve been Fuki’s chest height if she were still standing behind it.
Fuki kept firing in the direction she’d heard the man, aiming low first and going up with each bullet, making a series of holes in the board. He hadn’t shot again yet… He shot now. Another boom, and another big hole in the board, which fell over this time.
Fuki moved, keeping low to the floor. In the modified prone stance, both her feet were firmly planted on the floor, which made it easy to quickly transition to a different body position.
Fuki dodged the falling board, jumping out from behind it, and charged at the man at full speed. She’d heard a little clink just before his second shot. Her bullets left two-finger-wide holes in the board, so she knew his gun was much more powerful than her .45, and the dull, heavy sound of the hammer drop revealed to her what gun her opponent was using—a large-caliber revolver. Which was why she decided to run straight at him.
The man had fired through the window, then he fired to suppress her, then he fired twice through the board… Which meant he had one or two bullets left.
Large-caliber revolvers were powerful but had low capacity and were slow to fire. Their size also made them less maneuverable. Aside from some special models, revolvers spat a substantial flame out of the gaps between the cylinder and the frame when shooting, making them incompatible with the Center Axis Relock shooting stance optimized for close combat, which Fuki’s former partner was a big fan of.
With the enemy having only a couple of bullets left at most, the closer Fuki could get to him, the less of a threat he became.
She saw him, but he immediately withdrew behind one of the boards. She fired a few bullets at it, and he responded by blasting one at her through the board. Needless to say, he missed her, but the impact of the shot knocked the board over at Fuki. She rammed into it with her full strength, pushing it at the man. She clambered up onto it. The board hit something—the man’s shoulder or head. Now that Fuki knew where he was standing, she fired at him twice. He let out a short groan. Fuki was sure her bullets lodged themselves in his body after punching through the board.
Had she won? No, not yet. The man gathered his strength and hurled the board away, sending it and Fuki, who was on it, flying at the opposite wall.
Fuki kicked the board away and twisted in the air like a cat so that she hit the wall with her feet first. She kicked off and lunged back at the man, closing the distance between them fast.