Chapter 73 – M-for-Masochist Chika (Patreon)

"Kouma-kun, that pistol only has six bullets left. Be careful."

Akemi's words reached his ears. Without looking back, Kouma flashed a hand signal.

"Six is plenty!"

He couldn't stack the full seven bursts, but six doublings of power would still be enough to blow them sky-high.

Without hesitation, Kouma tried another shot.

Bang!

The bullet once again struck the bulletproof glass. This time, however, it didn't leave a white mark. It left a massive spiderweb of cracks spreading across the surface.

Watching his front windshield explode into a web of fracture lines, Calvados's eyes bulged wide open. Beside him, the rookie driver's arms were trembling visibly.

"B-Boss, didn't you say it was a water gun...? 'Cause it kind of feels like it's about to punch straight through our car..."

"Shut the hell up!"

"Have you ever seen a water gun with more firepower than a sniper rifle?!"

Calvados roared in fury. His expression shifted between shock and suspicion as he stared at the spiderweb cracks on his windshield. His bulletproof setup was top of the line. A sniper rifle should've barely left a small crack at most. And that little brat up ahead had done this with nothing but a dinky handgun?

Calvados began to doubt reality itself.

Then another gunshot rang out. The power, doubled yet again, blasted the bulletproof front windshield to pieces, shattering straight through the rear window as well.

The shot still didn't hit either of them directly, but countless shards of glass slapped against their faces and carved countless tiny lacerations across their bodies.

The driver screamed like a startled bird.

"Boss! Boss, we're screwed! The glass is gone!"

Calvados got a clear look at the compact pistol in Kouma's hand, and terror began to spread across his face.

The hell kind of pistol was that?! Even a Barrett wasn't that insane!

Drawing on years of professional instinct and sheer survival drive, Calvados grabbed the shotgun beside him. He had to kill the kid before he fired again.

"Die, you little brat!"

The shotgun's muzzle aimed squarely at Kouma, who was leaning out of the passenger window. Calvados pulled the trigger without a moment's hesitation.

In that exact instant, Calvados thought he heard two gunshots overlapping.

Bang!

In the next moment, bullets transcended time and space, hitting both of them at once. Calvados and the driver's torsos burst open simultaneously, blood and shredded viscera splattering across the inside of the car. Calvados's eyes went wide as his vision slowly spun upside down.

"Why..."

In those last few seconds before consciousness faded, he still couldn't understand. He hadn't even seen a muzzle flash. How had he been hit...?

...

"See? Stationary targets really are easier to hit!"

Seeing both bodies explode, Kouma let out a relieved breath. Shooting during stopped time gave him that delicious thrill of cheating in a shooter game. Still, a minor cheat wasn't really cheating.

"Akemi-nee, all taken care of!"

Akemi heard Kouma's youthful voice and glanced at the rearview mirror. Her beautiful eyes went perfectly round. She stared at that utterly wrecked bulletproof car, looking like it had been shelled by artillery, then shifted her gaze back to the tiny pistol in Kouma's hand. Her expression was pure disbelief.

"Kouma-kun... you seriously did that with this little pistol?"

A simple, innocent smile hung on Kouma's lips. "Yep. Small but mighty."

Akemi fell silent. That was her own weapon. There was no way she didn't know its actual power! So it didn't take a genius to figure out that the key factor wasn't the weapon at all—it was the one wielding it.

"Kouma-kun really is..."

Akemi took a deep breath. Now it was confirmed. If not for Kouma, she would already be dead at the end of Gin's gun. Her gentle eyes turned toward him, brimming with gratitude. With her personality, even a drop of kindness deserved a spring of repayment—let alone having her life saved.

But in the very next moment, Kouma's words entered her ears, and a deep blush of indescribable embarrassment bloomed across her face once more.

"Akemi-nee, let me put the gun back for you."

One simple sentence, and Akemi's body went soft. The sensation of those incidental touches from when he had retrieved the gun earlier rose faintly through her body and mind again. Though she had never experienced intimacy, she still had a vague sense of what that feeling meant.

"It was just... accidental contact..."

Akemi was utterly mortified. She wanted to refuse. Her lips parted slightly, but the words in her heart simply wouldn't come out.

"Could it be that I..."

Akemi dimly became aware of an expectation lurking in her subconscious. Her gentle, lovely face burned even redder.

"Akemi, what are you thinking?! He's your savior! And besides, Kouma-kun's still just a little boy..."

Her mind was locked in a fierce internal battle.

"Akemi-nee? What's wrong?"

The boy's youthful voice rang out again. Akemi's body trembled. She turned to look at Kouma's beautiful face, that pure, innocent smile upon it, and her heart quivered.

"Go ahead... put the gun back..."

Hearing those words, the corner of Kouma's mouth twitched involuntarily. Don't phrase it in such a misleading way!

"Then, Akemi-nee... make sure you hold the steering wheel steady!"

Kouma gripped the now-cooling gun barrel and spoke.

"Mmn..."

Akemi bit down on her lower lip, her whole body tensing up.

...

On the deserted suburban avenue, a wrecked car had smashed into a tree, thick black smoke billowing from it. On this road, where the lights of homes were almost nowhere to be seen, only a single car was driving.

However, the trail of its headlights swayed erratically, veering left and right the whole way. It was only because the road was empty that no disaster occurred—in the city, this would've caused an enormous chain-reaction pileup.

That car wobbled and weaved its way back toward the city, unsteady all the way.

...

The Yukinoshita family parking garage.

Akemi, having safely brought both Kouma and the one billion yen in cash back, let out a huge sigh of relief. Whether from being chased down on the road or from... other reasons, she was completely drained of strength at this point.

"Kouma-kun, you go on ahead..."

"Akemi-nee, aren't you coming too?"

The boy's youthful voice drifted into her ears. In the dim car interior, the deep crimson of Akemi's face remained hidden.

"I... need to clean up in here..."

Akemi sat nestled in the soft embrace of her seat and quietly shifted her body. Her gentle voice came out even softer from shyness; if Kouma's hearing hadn't been exceptional, he wouldn't have caught that sentence at all.

"Thanks for the hard work, Akemi-nee."

With those words, Kouma left. Akemi watched that small figure fade from view before finally taking out a handkerchief and beginning to wipe down her seat. She opened a window to air out an almost imperceptible scent.

She didn't stop at just the driver's seat—Akemi cleaned the entire interior. That faint trace of scent dispersed entirely. But the tremors in her body and heart had already taken deep root in her mind and would not be so easily erased.

...

The next day.

The earliest flight from across the ocean touched down at the airport. Silver hair flowing, wearing only a pair of sunglasses, completely undisguised—Vermouth stepped off the plane.

Ding-dong!

Her phone immediately received the intel gathered by other organization members.

"They really don't let a person rest."

Vermouth stretched languidly, the stunning curves of her figure on full display beneath her form-fitting dress.

"I'll get my bike first."

She had shipped her beloved Harley over ahead of time. Once she changed into her tight riding suit and mounted the motorcycle, her gallant presence and smoking-hot figure instantly became the focus of every eye around her.

Vermouth tossed her silver hair back, glanced at the destination on her phone, and put on her helmet.

Vroom!

With the engine's roar, that beautiful silhouette swiftly vanished at the end of the road.

Half an hour later, Vermouth arrived at the designated meeting point—an abandoned factory. There, she saw the bodies of Gin and Vodka, along with a wrecked car and two more corpses missing their torsos.

"Vodka was shot from the front. But Gin took a bullet to the back of the head..."

Vermouth studied the details, her elegant brows furrowing slightly. "Any sign of a sniper at the scene?"

"None found."

"We did extract an M1935 round from Gin's skull."

An organization member reported.

M1935? Vermouth froze at those words. Her gaze shifted to Vodka's body beside them. If she remembered correctly, Vodka's sidearm was an M1935. And Gin had been shot in the back of the head...

"Did we get anything from the surveillance footage at the scene?"

"We got it, but it's a parking garage. Not far from a commercial street, heavy foot traffic—we can't lock down a target."

Vermouth turned her attention to the wrecked vehicle on the other side. "What about there? Can the dashcam data be recovered?"

"The memory card is damaged. I'm attempting recovery... but it's proving difficult."

The member replied with his head lowered, sweat beading across his forehead.

Vermouth fixed him with a cool stare from those blue eyes of hers. He seemed to sense it and trembled slightly. The pressure from above was immense, but in such a short time, he simply couldn't reconstruct anything useful.

Vermouth said nothing. The organization member only grew more terrified.

"Give the card to me. I'll find someone who can recover it."

That husky, magnetic voice of a mature woman reached his ears. Only then did he let out a heavy, relieved breath, handing the memory card to Vermouth as if a great weight had been lifted.

The only thing they could confirm for now was that the target had stashed the cash at the Ichinichi Hotel, then taken it right under Calvados's nose and killed him.

"For now, I'll stay at the Ichinichi Hotel. Maybe I'll get lucky and stumble onto clues they haven't cleaned up yet..."

Vermouth thought to herself, though she didn't hold much hope.

"Copy the surveillance footage from the parking garage too and send it to the Ichinichi Hotel."

With that, Vermouth left the abandoned factory. Those long, perfectly straight legs strode out, and her full, shapely rear sank slightly into the Harley's seat as she mounted it. She was the perfect embodiment of "beauty on a beast of a machine."

...

Shuchiin Academy.

Noon. The Student Council Room.

"Ta-da!"

"Fujiwara-family super-incredible-ultimate-delicious bento!"

Facing Kouma, Chika proudly produced the bento she had specially instructed the chef to prepare that very morning. Looking at the bento in Kouma's hands, a sly glint flashed through Chika's beautiful eyes.

She had been meticulously plotting this bento for the past two days, all for today—when Kaguya would be stuck attending meetings and she would be alone in the student council room with Kouma.

Bento Grand Strategy!

"Kouma-kun, let's play a game with big sister! Only the winner gets to eat the bento. How about it?"

Chika gazed at Kouma across from her, her eyes sparkling with a certain gleam.

"What kind of game?"

Hearing Kouma's voice, a hint of shameful embarrassment flickered through Chika's eyes.

"Simple enough... one person uses their finger to point up, down, left, or right. The other person has to turn their head the opposite direction."

"If you successfully guess wrong direction, the winner gets to smack the loser's butt once—and eat a bite from either person's bento."

"On the other hand, if you lose, you not only get smacked but can't eat any bento either."

Having heard the full rules, Kouma's expression grew a little strange. "Why spanking?"

A faint blush crept onto the tips of Chika's pink ears. She explained, "Because I think just watching someone else eat is only psychological damage. Add in the physical damage and it's way, way more fun!"

To her, though this game was nominally called Bento Grand Strategy—was the bento really the point? No. The physical damage was the real key!

Ever since that incident in the equipment shed, Chika had vaguely become aware that she might have awakened some kind of... indescribable kink. But doing it to herself just didn't deliver the right feeling. So today, she had specifically pulled Kouma over.

Even though she and Kouma already had an intimately-know-each-other's-secrets kind of relationship, this particular kink was still too embarrassing to say out loud. That was why she'd come up with this game—to properly, thoroughly confirm it!

"So, Kouma-kun? You really wanna play, right?"

Kouma looked at Chika, whose eyes were darting everywhere and whose gaze couldn't stay still for a second. A look of dawning realization crossed his face.

You're the one who wants to play.

Still, with Kouma's reflexes, in a game like this, he could win any way he wanted. And he was curious too—just what exactly was Chika trying to get at here?

"Okay. Let's start then!"

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