—He can even modify…a gun like that…?
Sousei wasn’t certain how many bullets he’d taken. Luckily, however, it was enough that he’d died instantly.
He had fallen face up, not letting go of his weapon.
When Sousei opened his eyes, he saw the muzzle of a gun trained on him from point-blank range. Kurojima wasn’t convinced that he was dead. He was half crouching with an assault rifle pointed at Sousei’s face.
Well, I did die once…
Sousei started to raise his Ruger LC9, and Kurojima flinched, immediately pulling the trigger of his own gun. Thanks to Kurojima being startled, Sousei managed to avoid dying again. Holding his Ruger LC9 in both hands, he pushed the barrel of the assault rifle to his left, then blew out the area just below Kurojima’s chin with his first shot. Kurojima let out some kind of noise and lurched backward, and as Sousei got up, he put another two bullets into Kurojima.
—I hear high heels…behind me…!
When he turned around, something hit Sousei hard in the face.
“Gah…!”
“Hee-hee-hee…!” a woman laughed. Midori? The blow had knocked Sousei’s balaclava askew. He had less than half of his field of vision and couldn’t see well. Something wrapped tightly around his wrists, and he was pulled down from behind.
A whip…?!
Sousei threw his body to the concrete floor without fighting back.
“Assassiiin…!”
Midori kicked Sousei’s hand. He couldn’t tell if it was his left or his right. It was a brutal kick that was stronger than he would have expected from a woman. He couldn’t afford let go of his gun, but it had gone flying somewhere.
Before he knew it, the whip was no longer wrapped around his wrists.
“Take this! And this, and this, and this, and this, and this and this, and thiiis…!” While Sousei was still face down, Midori kicked him several times with her sharp high heels, then started whipping him. “Hya-ha-ha, take that, you piece of shit! And this, and that, and that…!”
Sousei clenched his teeth, curled into as tight a ball as he could, and used his arms to protect his head. While he was at it, he adjusted the position of his balaclava. It really hurt, but it wasn’t unbearable. And although it was tough to endure, it wasn’t enough to knock him out. Not at that moment, at least.
“Don’t kill that guy, Midori! I want to investigate his background…!”
It was Hakayama. Judging from the sound of his voice, he’d moved away from the sofa.
“Background? What’s thaaat…?!” Midori said, kicking Sousei’s butt.
“Hnnngh…” Sousei couldn’t help but let out a groan. That had been too much. Had she kicked him in the butt or in the groin? It was near his genitals—pretty much right at his genitals.
“Background! Background! Back-ground! Oh, you mean where his back’s on the ground…?! Hya-hya-hya!” Midori persistently attacked that same spot. It was horrible. He couldn’t take it anymore. It was really bad. What the hell was she doing?
“Hnnngh haaaah…!”
He knew he shouldn’t during a job, but against his better judgment, Sousei snapped.
He didn’t have a clue how he’d tackled Midori and pushed her down, but when he recovered his senses, Sousei was straddling Midori and strangling her with both hands. She had a surprisingly thin neck. Her head was clean-shaven, as small as a child’s and tattooed with Magical Girl Memomimo.
“Stop that, ya impotent bastard… It hurts… I’ll drill a hole in your ass… Rip your balls off and kill yoooou!”
Midori was scrabbling to tear Sousei’s hands away from her neck. It wasn’t a very good way to handle the current situation of almost being strangled to death. Yet even in that state, just as she was about to pass out, Midori seemed to realize there was a more effective method. She tried to reach out toward Sousei’s face, intending to shove her fingers in his eyes.
In that moment, Sousei became calm. His hands left her neck.
“—Hrrk!” Midori reflexively breathed in and choked. Sousei immediately pressed down on Midori’s neck with his left hand and put his body weight into it.
“Ack!”
Midori again became unable to breathe. Sousei was using only one hand now, unlike earlier, and Midori resumed her efforts to peel Sousei’s hands off her neck.
It’s no use.
Sousei struck Midori’s forehead with his right fist, using the side of the palm just below the bottom knuckle of his little finger. He pummeled her repeatedly, and as soon as her eyes rolled back, he pulled out his knife. Midori was likely still conscious when Sousei thrust his knife into her right eyeball. He pushed the knife in with all his strength, breaking through the bone at the back of her eye socket to reach the brain. At that angle, he’d damage the brain stem.
The life quickly drained from Midori’s body, and the usual thump sound reverberated in Sousei’s core. When Sousei pulled the knife out, he felt the thump once more. Kurojima had probably taken his last breath.
Plus two… But I died once before that, so…
He didn’t want to keep sitting on top of Midori’s corpse, but when he tried to stand, the intense pain in his crotch returned. Sousei took a strained breath in. The pain was definitely coming from his genitals, but it extended all the way to his extremities. Had he shattered a bone? Or crushed or ruptured something? It might not be in his genitals, either. Maybe his tailbone, pubic bone, or some other bone in his pelvis had been fractured, or even broken.
Sousei got down on his hands and knees on top of the deceased Midori. He flexed and relaxed different parts of his body, trying to steady his breathing as he tried to sense more people inside the factory. Where was Hakayama? Was he still there? The worst thing would be if he’d already escaped. Or maybe he was currently trying to get away stealthily.
“Mi… Midori…?” It was Hakayama’s voice.
Hakayama was still in this factory somewhere.
While it didn’t exactly redouble his courage, Sousei was filled with a determination to see the job through. If he couldn’t finish it because he was in too much pain, he could just die once. He’d killed a fair number of people today. He’d worked hard to accumulate the lives he had, but he couldn’t make the foolish mistake of letting his prey escape just because he was unwilling to use up one of them. As long as he had a surplus of lives, he should make the most of his one and only strength—being able to die when necessity arose.
Sousei swapped his knife to his left hand. His Ruger LC9 had rolled a little ways away. When he tried to pick it up, his crotch hurt horribly.
“…This is supposed to be natto?!” Hakayama said under his breath. He had spoken in a low voice, so Sousei hadn’t been able to catch it clearly.