…Shit, I died…!
When he came back to life, Sousei was lying spread-eagle on the asphalt. He couldn’t get up. Rather, he was being held down. It was Kinoshita, straddling him. He was holding a knife in reverse grip and raising it into the air.
“Why won’t you die…?!”
Kinoshita swung the knife down. It was double-edged and tapered toward the tip, most likely a Fairbairn–Sykes fighting knife or some other sort of combat knife. It was short and shaped like a dagger.
I do die. I don’t want to die anymore…
Sousei desperately evaded, moving his head to the left, and Kinoshita’s knife grazed the skin and the side of Sousei’s skull.
But…!
“Fuck!” Kinoshita yelled, pulling the knife out and plunging it back down again.
His opponent knew that Sousei wouldn’t die even if he killed him. Recovering from this situation would be extremely difficult, but it was no longer an ambush, and the weapon was a knife, not a gun.
As long as I don’t die instantly, I’m sure I’ll manage somehow…!
“Fuck!” Kinoshita yelled over and over as he relentlessly stabbed at Sousei’s head.
Sousei was scared, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t feel any pain. In fact, it was unbelievably horrible. But scary, painful, and horrible was all it was, Sousei focused on evading Kinoshita’s knife so that, as much as possible, it wouldn’t strike the middle of his head. It was a trick that could probably only be performed by Sousei, for whom death wasn’t the end.
…I’m just about reaching my limit…
Yet even so, Sousei felt like he was about to lose consciousness.
“Fuck…!”
As Kinoshita brought his knife down for the umpteenth time, Sousei took it in the right side of his forehead. It pierced his skull and went in quite deep.
…I wonder…if this will work…
It really seemed like he might die.
Sousei stopped resisting and let his whole body go slack. The most difficult thing was stopping his breathing.
Kinoshita’s body became still. Did I kill him? he seemed to ask himself.
The knife was still in Kinoshita’s right hand. Sousei grabbed his wrist with both hands, immediately locking the joint.
“—!”
Kinoshita gasped and tried to shake free of Sousei’s grip, but with his wrist bent to the limits of its range of motion, he couldn’t put much strength into it. He let go of the knife—or more accurately, Kinoshita’s fingers slid from the handle because it was slippery with blood. Sousei quickly grabbed it.
Kinoshita was fast, immediately jumping away from Sousei, probably to pull out his gun, but Sousei responded just as fast. He was already on the brink of death. There was no time. To quickly use up what little time he had left, Sousei pulled the knife still stuck in his forehead out a little, adjusted the angle so it was pointing toward the brain stem, then forcefully shoved it back in.
✦ ✦ ✦
As soon as Sousei came back to life, he jumped up and Kinoshita shot at him. Sousei had been expecting that and jumped aside to evade.
Bang, bang, bang! Kinoshita fired in rapid succession, and Sousei flung the knife in his hand at him. While Kinoshita was busy dodging the knife, Sousei drew his pistol from its holster.
As Sousei tried to aim, Kinoshita entered the tunnel and ran up the wall, shooting as he ran.
That makes this so much harder…!
Sousei temporarily hid himself against the retaining wall on the left-hand side of the tunnel, making it practically impossible for someone inside the tunnel to shoot him. The gunfire stopped.
…I’m dying too much. This is a huge loss, and he’s still shooting even though the police are nearby. What is he doing? Is he an idiot? He probably is. Crap, I want to kill him…
Sousei exhaled.
Getting all worked up isn’t going to help anything. I’m the real idiot here. Calm down. He’s the one who’s going to be in trouble if this turns into a serious incident. I should just leave things as they are. I don’t care what happens after this. Sis might get angry at me, but I’m used to that. I just do whatever I’m told anyway.
The police car sirens stopped, meaning they’d probably reached the house. He could still hear the fire truck sirens. It sounded like there were a number of vehicles on their way.
This is my chance.
Sousei was about to put his pistol in its holster when he suddenly heard gunfire. A bullet hit the retaining wall right next to him, and either immediately before or immediately after, something hit him in the chest with a thud. He was completely taken aback.
“Ugh…?!”
Feeling like he was going to fall over, Sousei lowered his stance and readied his gun.
…I got shot?! My vest…
Sousei was wearing a ballistic vest. If he hadn’t been, that shot to the chest probably would have been fatal.
But how…?
Bullets came flying toward him one after another, and Sousei ran along the retaining wall heading away from the main road. It wasn’t coming from the tunnel. The shooter was firing from the other side of the road. Sousei had caught a glimpse of them.
“Kinoshita…?!” he blurted out without thinking.
It was impossible. Kinoshita should have been in the tunnel. The shooting ceased, possibly because his opponent had run out of ammo.
The retaining wall was quickly getting lower, so Sousei put his pistol back in its holster and jumped up onto the overpass. As he was about to cross the railroad tracks, he was once again caught by surprise. Gunfire came from his right, causing pieces of ballast beneath the tracks by his feet to fly into the air.
But how…?
Kinoshita was chasing after Sousei, shooting at him from behind. That he understood. But the shot just now had come from the other side of the tunnel.
So Kinoshita, who was supposed to be in the tunnel, teleported to the side of the road in front of the tunnel, shot at me, then quickly moved to the other side of the tunnel and shot at me again…? That doesn’t make any sense! Are NGS cheats even able to do something like that…?
Sousei gave up on trying to cross the tracks and rushed along them instead.
Kinoshita didn’t shoot.
If he can teleport, he should be trying to go around me and cut me off…!
Sousei looked back. There he was: Kinoshita, running down the railway tracks after Sousei.
I guess that means he can’t teleport after all…
What did that mean?
I have no idea…
There was a river up ahead. Sousei was about to reach the railroad bridge.
He could see lights in the distance, kind of like the headlights of a car.
Actually, they probably were headlights. Since these were railroad tracks, however, they wouldn’t belong to a car, but a train. Without a doubt, those were train headlights.
Will it be enough?! At this distance…
Would Sousei be able to cross the bridge in time, or would he crash head-on into the train? The driver would brake if they saw someone on the tracks, but they probably wouldn’t be able to stop in time. If he didn’t get out of the way of the train, Sousei would be run over.
I’ll gamble on that…!
Sousei quickened his pace. How would Kinoshita escape? Sousei glanced back to check on him, but the other man was still following.
The exposed steel railway bridge was only as wide as a single train car. The train seemed to have closed about half the distance. Its headlights looked extremely close—or did it just feel that way? It wasn’t braking yet. Was the train further away than he’d thought?
Bwoooooooooooo! A deafening noise rang out. It was the train’s horn. Had they noticed Sousei? The train was braking, its wheels making a scraping sound against the rails.
Sousei sped up. He couldn’t run any faster than this. He was at his limit.
The train was rapidly approaching. Sousei covered his face with his hands just in case the driver got a good look at him. He should be able to finish crossing the railway bridge before he was hit. That’s what Sousei had predicted.
It was a lot closer than I thought…
He’d miscalculated.
Sousei collapsed between the rails of the tracks. The bridge didn’t have a floor, and the railroad ties were arranged in a ladder shape with nothing but empty space between them. Sousei lay on top of them, and not even a second later, the train started passing over him. It had decelerated quite a lot, yet it still made a sound that felt like it would rupture his eardrums. The vibrations were incredible.
The train seemed like it would stop, but it kept going. Sousei lowered his head as much as he could and started crawling forward.
The train eventually stopped, and Sousei made it to the other side of the bridge. Poking his head out from between the rails and the train, he looked up and saw its windows illuminated by electric lights.
Sousei crawled out from underneath the train car, then headed toward the riverbank. He descended a little way down the embankment, which was covered in revetment blocks.
Only a little, though. Sousei went directly under the railway bridge. There were concrete abutments at both ends of the bridge which supported the two main girders. With his back to the abutment, Sousei took his pistol out of its holster. He knelt on one knee and firmly grasped his suppressed LC9 in both hands.