“…so dull. Way too dull.” As he spoke, he bent his right index and middle fingers toward himself.
The demon hands he used to easily destroy humans weren’t particularly large or small. They were also quite normal in terms of thickness. If anything, the fingers might be slightly on the thick side.
“Fuck…!”
One of the gangsters pulled out a handgun that had been tucked into his belt. He had gotten quite a bit of practice shooting overseas, both as a hobby and for practical use, and had plenty of experience firing real guns. That explained why he drew so smoothly.
He flipped off the safety on his M1911A1, commonly called the Colt Government, held it firmly with both hands, and straightened out his arms. He held the pistol at eye level, aimed at Mochizuke by aligning the front sight with the notch in the rear sight. Then he pulled the trigger with his right index finger.
A gunshot rang out. The distance between the gangster and Mochizuke was a mere fifteen feet or so. The initial speed of the bullet was about 560 mph, or about 830 fps. It was definitely not the sort of thing that could be dodged. One could only pray that it would miss.
Did Mochizuke pray? Of course not. He had no need to. All he had to do was use his demon hands and simply grab the bullets, stopping them in midair. And that’s exactly what happened.
“Whaaa…? Whaaaaaaaat…?!”
The gangster screamed in horror as he continued to pull the trigger. The M1911 usually had a seven-round capacity. It wasn’t long before the magazine was empty. No more bullets came out.
Mochizuke opened both of his hands to show the gangster. Four dented bullets fell from his right hand and three fell from his left.
“Shit…!”
Another gangster lunged at Mochizuke. He had a dagger in his hand. Out of desperation, he had committed to charging straight in and driving the dagger deep into Mochizuke’s belly. It was a very decisive move. But Mochizuke easily crushed the dagger in his right hand and the gangster’s head in his left.
“You guys are too easy.”
In quick succession, Mochizuke smashed the heads of the gangster who shot at him as well as the other remaining gangsters.
“…This is frustrating.”
The Crusher opened and closed his blood-soaked demon hands as he walked down the hallway. Whenever he came across a door, he opened it and peeked inside. When he opened the third door, he spotted sofas ringing a table. On the table was a tub of sushi, plates of tempura and other food, liquor bottles, and glasses. It was a magnificent parlor. The sideboard and other furniture were all high-end items, and the walls were decorated with paintings and calligraphy. There wasn’t a soul to be seen.
But there was an iron door in the back.
Mochizuke sat on the sofa. He picked up a pair of unused wooden chopsticks and pulled them apart. He quickly wolfed down some sushi, savoring the salmon roe, medium-fatty tuna, and halibut.
“…Hmm. Not amazing.”
He crushed the chopsticks and stood up. Next stop was the iron door.
“Houjou Group Chairman Iwatariiiiii—” He knocked on the iron door with his right hand—with his demon hand that could effortlessly crush a human skull and didn’t flinch even when he used it to stop bullets. The door started caving inward with an awful sound every time he knocked.
“Lieutenant Mashirakawaaaa, Vice-Chairman Kunazawaaaa, Headquarters Manager Numahamaaaa. You’re in there, aren’t youuuu? Heeeey. Come on outtt…”
Mochizuke started knocking on the iron door with both hands.
“This building has some really good soundproofing, so the neighbors probably won’t report anything, riiiiiiight? And you guys can’t exactly call the police, either, can youuuuuuuu? As if the police would come rescue the notorious Houjou Group! But trying to barricade yourselves in is uselesssss! Useless! Useless! It’s useless, I tell youuuu! Heeeeey! Ah…”
The iron door finally couldn’t take any more and collapsed into the room behind it.
Mochizuke let out a sigh and stepped inside. The safe room was about a hundred square feet, and there were displays showing footage from the security cameras. He also spotted a vault and fridge in there. Four men were huddled in a corner, all with neatly styled hair and beards and wearing expensive designer suits by brands like Armani and Yves Saint Laurent. All four of them had pistols in their hands, but not one of them had their gun pointed at Mochizuke. The men were doing nothing but trembling.
“Wh-wh-wh-what the hell do you want, you son of a—” the eldest gray-haired man said, white spittle gathering by the corner of his mouth.
Mochizuke removed the hood of his windbreaker, revealing that he had a neat side part. His face made him look like a department head or section manager at a serious, rigidly formal company more than anything.
“Six years ago, you guys conspired to have a man named Mitsuru Ategawa tortured and killed. You remember, don’t you?”
“…Ategawa?”
The eldest man exchanged glances with the youngest of the four, a man who looked to be about fifty and seemed to know something about the victim.
“That normie who kept turnin’ over one of our joints, doin’ whatever he wanted even though he wasn’t connected? We had to make an example out of him, so we killed him and disposed of him at that plant…”
“Ah, that brat! Ategawa… I think that was his name, now that you mention it…”
“As a matter of fact,” Mochizuke said, “this was a request from the parents of that very same Mitsuru Ategawa.”
Without a sound, Mochizuke closed in on the man in his fifties and crushed the man’s head with his demon hands.
“Seems he was a terribly troublesome hooligan,” Mochizuke continued, “but he was probably still his parents’ beloved son and the apple of their eyes, don’t you think? They’ve been trying all possible means to find out the truth behind his death and want to avenge him at any cost.”
“…Nu-Numahamaaaa!” the elderly man screamed.
The other two finally pointed their guns at Mochizuke. They fired at basically the same time. Both of their bullets wound up in the demon hands like they had sucked up the projectiles. With the bullets still in his hands, Mochizuke crushed the two men’s faces, one in each hand.
“I don’t usually accept jobs that don’t seem fun, but it was hard to decline since they offered me five hundred million yen. Mr. Mitsuru Ategawa’s father is quite the wealthy man. Were you aware of that, Chairman Iwatari?”
“…F-fi-fiiive…five hundred million…” The gray-haired Chairman Iwatari slumped down.
Was Iwatari trying to escape at the last moment? He was kicking at the floor with both feet, but there was a wall behind him. He didn’t even have space to back away.
“P-p-please. I-i-i-if it’s money you want, I’ll pay…!”
“Hmmm?”
“Fi-five hundred and fifty million! No, six hundred million! I’ll pay you six hundred million! So please let me go! Don’t kill me!”
“Hmmm, I see.”
Mochizuke reached out his right hand and grabbed Chairman Iwatari’s gray-haired head. Before crushing his head, Mochizuke pulled Chairman Iwatari’s face close.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to make a fool out of me. A hitman who changes sides for money is second-rate at best.”
“Te—” Chairman Iwatari started to say something. But before he could finish, those demon hands crushed his head.
Mochizuke flicked blood and gray matter from his fingers.
“I probably would have considered your offer for fifty billion yen. I might have hesitated for five billion, even.”
Mochizuke laughed as he left the room.
“Kidding. Kidding. Just kidding…”
The door to the parlor was open, and there was a young man standing in the doorway. He was wearing a chest rig, but otherwise looked like any other young kid.
Well, other kids hanging out in the neighborhood probably wouldn’t be holding a gun in their hands. It wasn’t even a pistol. It was a submachine gun.
Mochizuke’s eyes widened.
“Ooooh…”
Sousei Takarai wanted to become a normal high school student like everyone else.
Not once had he wished to have the kind of life where he’d be emptying his Ruger MP9 submachine gun into the demon-handed windbreaker man known as the Crusher.
“Oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh, oooh…!”
The Crusher, also known as Tousuke Mochizuke, used his bare hands to rapidly grab the 9mm Parabellum that were being fired at him at a rate of at least 550 rounds per minute. Sousei watched this play out in aggravation.
And after I went to all the trouble of bringing along an SMG since a regular handgun seemed like it’d be no match against the infamous Crusher…
In just under four seconds, Sousei had fired thirty-two rounds, emptying his magazine. He quickly replaced it with a spare magazine. When he started firing again, Mochizuke jumped on top of a table that was still filled with sushi, tempura, and whatever else.
“Mwa-ha-haaah…!”