Against a Perfect Sniper (14 page)

He hurriedly caught her shoulder. It smelled sweet and felt too dainty and soft to be that of a master swordswoman. Rentaro felt his whole body heat up, and he was afraid Kisara would hear the too-fast beating of his heart. “H-hey, Kisara, this is no time to play aroun…”

Then, he suddenly realized.

While Rentaro had been rushing around, Kisara had been practically killed. Even though she was his boss, she was still a girl. After being met with such a dangerous situation, wouldn’t she want to cry on someone’s chest? With such sweet expectations, he held her and peeked at her face—and then the blood drained from his face.

Kisara’s handsome face was twisted in pain, and she held her lower abdomen as she bit her pale lips.

“Hey, Kisara? Kisara! Get ahold of yourself! Hey!”

Then a lightbulb flashed in his head, and he gritted his teeth. This wasn’t from the damage she sustained from fighting. It was her kidneys malfunctioning.

The sounds of regular and intermittent machinery echoed through the white hospital room.

“I never thought that our office would be targeted. We’ve been doing pretty well recently, so I let my guard down a little,” Kisara muttered
as she sat down in a reclining chair, smiling weakly at Rentaro. “I don’t look that cute here, so I didn’t really want to let you see me in a place like this, though.”

“It’s too late for that. Just because I see you like this doesn’t really make me think anything special.” Rentaro was lying. Kisara usually looked unhappy, giving orders in her refined and energetic way. He couldn’t stand to see her looking like a puppet with its strings cut, sprawled with her arms and legs stretched out on the chair.

On her arm with the sleeves rolled up, there were needles sticking in her veins, which were connected to the dialysis equipment next to her. An artificial kidney called a dialyzer worked in the place of Kisara’s malfunctioning kidneys, filtering out the toxins from her blood.

Two or three times a week, she would spend four or five hours this way. And this was the reason she could not fight on the front lines as a civsec officer. Kisara had always strongly refused Rentaro’s attendance at her dialysis treatments. Knowing that she probably didn’t want him to see her bound by the dialysis equipment after all this time, Rentaro was embarrassed at himself for being inconsiderate. Now that he thought about it, Kisara also made sure to never show Rentaro or Enju when she took her insulin shot after meals.

The sun had almost completely set, and it was dark outside the window. The streetlights were giving off a dubious light. Earlier, there was announcement that it would be lights out soon.

After Kisara collapsed, Rentaro panicked, almost dropping his cell phone multiple times before he managed to call the ambulance and bring Kisara in.

“Again, Miss Tendo?” said the nurse in an unsurprised and angry voice. Watching Kisara apologize with a wry smile, Rentaro could tell that Kisara was not very assertive about going to her dialysis treatments.

A young nurse who seemed friendly with Kisara said, “Oh? So you’re the one Miss Tendo was talking about…” with a meaningful smile, walking around Rentaro to look at him. She finally turned on her heel and said, “When you’re done, press the nurse call button,” waving a hand and leaving.

Currently, only Rentaro and Kisara were in the room with the dialysis equipment, and the other three sets of equipment for patients to
use were not operating. Rentaro sat quietly watching Kisara’s dialysis on a chair nearby. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“I’m used to it…”

“You should get a kidney transplant.”

“I can’t find a donor that easily, you know. Besides, if it’s someone not related by blood, there’s a high possibility that my body would reject it.”

“Didn’t Doc say something about how there’s some IPS thing now?”

“Oh, you’re talking about induced pluripotent stem cells, right? Dr. Sumire doesn’t need to tell you about that. But I’ll refrain.”

“Why…?”

Kisara leaned back against the chair, stared at a point of empty space, and finally stretched out a hand as if grasping something. The hospital ward was quiet and a little chilly at night.

“This pain is mine and mine alone. I decided that my life would only be used to erase the Tendos from this world. If I forgot this pain, I’m sure I would forget my revenge, as well. That’s why I can’t.”

“Wouldn’t it be all right to forget, too? You have Enju now, right? You have me!”

Kisara looked bewildered for a second, gaping, but she then she lifted the corners of her mouth and smiled. “You’re right. Thank you.”

Rentaro looked down and gnashed his teeth in deep despair because he could tell that the second he yelled, Kisara’s true feelings, which had surfaced a little, sank underneath as a fake smile floated to the top in its place.

His words would not reach her. He could not stop her revenge. Rentaro’s chest tightened as he looked at Kisara and her pale beauty once more.

Tendo Martial Arts Sword Drawing Third Style, Number 8: Unebiko Yuusei.
What in the world was that thing she used against Tina? Even Rentaro, who had been with her for ten years, had never seen that terrible move before. It was likely a special attack she’d polished through years of persistence, in order to obliterate the Tendo family.

Even thinking about it now, its terrifying destructive power gave him shivers. It was a move that cut an entire room to slivers in an instant. No matter how many times he ran a simulation in his head,
Rentaro couldn’t figure out how he would deal with it if the attack was directed at him.

Was this the true strength of the Tendo-killing Tendos, Kisara?

“Kisara, aren’t you…”
Aren’t you stronger than me with my power unleashed?
He couldn’t ask this no matter how hard he tried. If the answer to that was yes, he didn’t know what kind of face he was supposed to make.

The buzzer indicating that the dialysis was finished sounded. Once Kisara knew that her blood was purified, she removed the equipment with practiced hands without pressing the nurse call button.

Those hands stopped suddenly, and Kisara looked at Rentaro hesitatingly. “Satomi, when that girl was attacking me…did you hear me calling your name?”

“Hmm? Did you say something?”

Kisara looked relieved and shook her head gently. “It’s fine if you didn’t hear it.” After another heartbeat, she looked at Rentaro with her eyes filled with resolve. “Satomi, there’s just one problem left that hasn’t been resolved. The incident with Miori.”

Rentaro slumped his shoulders, fed up. “Will you stop with that already?”

Just when they were finally able to talk normally, too.

Kisara stood up and brushed the dust off her skirt, then pointed her index finger at Rentaro’s nose. “No. I hate having things left ambiguous. I won’t ask about what amazing thing Miori did to you, and you don’t have to talk about it. I-I probably won’t be able to keep a cool head if I heard about it……”

She didn’t do anything! Please, just stay coolheaded!
These words stuck in his throat.

Kisara unhurriedly twirled her black hair around her fingers, and seemed restless as she recrossed her legs. “Watching Miori’s actions, I also learned something. It’s true that the salary I pay is on the low side—”

His boss in her black sailor school uniform walked to the window and turned around, closing the curtains with her hand behind her. After a slight hesitation, she looked up at Rentaro through her lashes. “Th-that’s why, Satomi, you can…hold my hand.”

“Huh?” Rentaro raised his voice hysterically.

“My hand. I said that I would let you hold my hand!”

Rentaro paused. “Why your hand?”

“What, you don’t like it? You know, letting you hold my hand is a pretty big deal.”

“What part of it is?”

Kisara turned quickly to the side, pouting and muttering, “I mean… it’s…like we’re l-lovers or something, don’t you think?”

Rentaro was even more discomfited, so Kisara braced herself, making her muscles hard, and stuck her hand out at him with her eyes closed. “Satomi, hurry up…… I’m so embarrassed, I think I might die,” she urged.

A mesmerizing smell emanated from Kisara, and Rentaro started to breathe harder naturally. From her collarbone to her shoulder and waist, her feminine lines were beautiful no matter how many times he saw them.

Sumire’s words passed through the back of his mind.

“For all your rude talking, you can be a gentleman, but you lack the lust for conquest that will allow you to overcome a woman’s indecision and make her your own. That’s your weakness, you know. Have you noticed, Rentaro?”

“K-Kisara, I……”

“Satomi, wait, no way…… What are you touching…? That’s not my hand, that’s my chest…… W-wait… Satomi. I wasn’t planning on allowing you to go that far… Oh, but I may have Miori beat with these.”

“Hmm? The size, shape, elasticity… They are utterly faultless. It is vexing, but even I must give them a triple A-plus.”

“Huh? Vexing?” Opening one eye slightly, Kisara saw Enju grasping her chest tightly with a serious expression on her face and hurriedly jumped backward. “E-Enju? What are you doing?”

“I am the one who wants to know! After I got back to the office, I was surprised to find it full of holes. And then after I asked the police and had them show me where to go, I find you here with your breasts hanging out, tempting Rentaro!”

“They’re not hanging out, and I’m not tempting anyone!”

Rentaro stood with his mouth half-open at his wits’ end, watching their exchange.

Finally, Kisara gazed fixedly at Rentaro with wet eyes, trembling
slightly. “Since Enju touched them, that means you, her guardian, touched them! With this, you’re mine, Satomi. I-I won’t let anyone else have you!” A single tear ran down Kisara’s cheek, and she ground her teeth as sobs threatened to escape, but she lifted her eyes sharply and somehow managed to finish her words.

If you were that scared, you shouldn’t have said you’d let me hold your hand.
Could it be that all rich girls were extremely idiotic individuals?

Enju puffed out her cheeks and jumped over. “Rentaro, Rentaro. I have no idea what happened.”

Rentaro leaned over to her eye level and quickly explained the details of the attack on the office and how it was linked to the attempted assassination of the Seitenshi. He hesitated but hid that he knew Tina beforehand.

After she finished listening, Enju looked disappointed, like she had missed out on something. “What, is that what happened? Then, we just have to finish protecting the Lady Seitenshi, right?”

“Y-you know what…? That’s easy for you to say, but—”
No
, Rentaro stopped and shook his head. Now that he thought about it, she was exactly right. What Rentaro had to think about was not Tina’s or Kisara’s revenge. Enju had a simple way of thinking, but she never lost sight of what was important.

“Satomi, since that girl came to erase me because I was in the way, that means there will definitely be a second attempt.”

“Yeah.”

“The Lady Seitenshi is someone who will be necessary to Tokyo Area in the future. I know that you don’t like politicians, but you need to bear it and set your personal opinions aside for now.”

“I know.”

“Imagine, Satomi. In our current situation, with the fourth Seitenshi still unborn, if the Lady Seitenshi were assassinated, the resulting political vacuum would throw Tokyo Area into confusion. The fate of Tokyo Area rests in your hands. You cannot fail.”

At that moment, all the lights in the room turned off, and the room was wrapped in darkness. It was time for lights out.

Kisara adjusted her posture and brushed back her hair with the moon behind her. “I order you as president of the Tendo Civil Security
Agency. Eliminate the sniper targeting the Lady Seitenshi and carry out justice!”

Rentaro closed his eyes, put his hand to his chest, and asked his conscience. “I
will
stop her. I will be the one to stop her.”

“For such a thing to happen…”

They were inside the car. The Seitenshi sat elegantly with her hands on her lap, hiding her face. “I’m sorry. I had good intentions when I asked you to take on this job, but I didn’t think it would come to this.”

“You do not have to worry about that! When we were offered the job, Kisara said she was so happy, it was like it rained on her drought.” That was Enju. It was a great response—if only she had said “welcome rain in a drought” instead of “it rained on her drought.”

Rentaro leaned his back deeply into the all-leather seats and followed suit. “It’s just like Enju said. We looked at the risks properly and are getting paid to do our job, so it’s nothing you need to worry about. The insurance looks like it’ll cover the building, too. The only thing is that Yasuwaki thinks I’m secretly communicating with the culprit, so it makes it harder to do my job.”

“He thinks you’re secretly communicating with the culprit?” The Seitenshi responded with a smile, and Rentaro had to keep his mouth shut. He wasn’t secretly communicating with her, but he knew her. But if he said that, what kind of face would the country’s leader make?

Today’s second unofficial conference would be at a restaurant for a change of scenery, and it would start at eight p.m. and was scheduled to continue late into the night.

Rentaro checked the time. It was currently seven thirty p.m.

Thinking of how the last conference went, it was hard to imagine that this conference would bear much fruit, but that was beyond the jurisdiction of a guard, and not something he had a say in.

“Rentaro, do you think this will go well?” Enju asked.

Looking at Enju’s eyes filled with a mix of expectation and anxiety, he checked that the decoy limousine was driving in front of them and
finally turned his head back around to look inside the car. “I wonder,” he replied.

The van they borrowed from the staff at the Seitenshi’s palace had a worn-out suspension or something that made it shake terribly, and it was no comparison to the comfort of riding in a limousine, but the Seitenshi sat quietly and expressed no discomfort.