Full Metal Panic! - Volume SS01 - Intriguing One-Man Band? - Chapter 1

Man from the South

I love you.

Your sincere gaze, your dignified countenance, your confident walk; I watch you from afar and sigh with longing. I wish I had the courage to tell you how I feel, but writing this letter was the best I could do. I know I’m a coward. You can mock me if you like. Thinking of you makes my heart race so fast that I think it might burst. If only it would stop beating and put me out of my misery...

Do you think we could meet up and talk? It’s all right if you don’t return my feelings. I just want to talk to you. I’ll be waiting behind the gym after school.

●

The gaunt head teacher opened the door with a shout. “Madame Principal!”

Needless to say, he was at the door to the principal’s office.

The principal—a short, middle-aged woman in a fine red suit—was seated at her desk in the middle of the room. “You don’t have to shout. What’s the matter, now?” she asked with annoyance, laying the morning paper (which she’d only just begun to read) down on her desk.

The head teacher thrust a sheaf of documents at her. “Madame Principal, have you seen this?!”

“Seen what?” said the principal. “Aha...” It was a stack of invoices: two hundred thousand yen for replacement windows; sixty thousand for floor tiles; a hundred and ten thousand for wall repair; sixty-five thousand to replace used fire extinguishers... In all, the total came to four hundred and thirty-five thousand. “Goodness!” she exclaimed. “This was just for last month?”

“Just for last week!” said the head teacher. “It’s been like this ever since that transfer student came!”

“Transfer student? What transfer student?”

“Sagara! Sagara Sousuke!” the head teacher screamed, thrusting the student’s documentation at her, with a picture attached. It showed a boy with a sullen expression, a tight frown, disheveled black hair, stern eyebrows, and a sharp gaze. He radiated a strange sort of tension, an almost murderous air that seemed completely out of place on a high school student.

“Oh, him...” mused the principal.

“Madame Principal. I have worked at vocational schools that cater to the absolute worst of the worst, yet I’ve never seen a problem child like Sagara Sousuke,” the head teacher declared. “In my entire career, I’ve never witnessed property damage and class disruptions on the level of—”

“Excuse me, sir,” the principal interjected. “I believe I have explained Sagara Sousuke-kun’s background in the past?”

“You mean the fact that he was raised abroad?”

“Indeed. And not merely ‘abroad,’ but in some of the world’s most unstable war-torn regions. His guardian was a Russian mercenary, of all things!”

“But that’s no reason to let him get away with breaking windows!” the head teacher protested. “Just yesterday, I hear he confused a softball flying in from the courtyard for a grenade and—”

“Excuse me!” the principal said, interrupting her colleague. “Sagara-kun is a victim of war. He has been traumatized by the horrors of battle, and it is our duty to heal that trauma as best we can. I know that it’s frequently said that the Japanese people are addled by peace, but...”

“You think he’s addled by war?” the head teacher asked incredulously.

“Yes,” said the principal firmly, folding up the newspaper (the Asahi Shimbun) on her desk. “To take in someone scarred by war and guide him to a better way... As beneficiaries of uninterrupted peace ourselves, isn’t that our responsibility?”

“So you just want me to look the other way?”

“Precisely.”

“And that anonymous donation I’ve heard mention of in the Board of Education—”

“Has nothing to do with it.”

“I heard it was quite a significant sum—”

“You may go now!” said the principal, pointing at the exit.

“So sleepy,” said Chidori Kaname with a yawn from beneath the clear blue sky. She was a girl with a delicate, slender face and striking, slightly almond-shaped eyes. Her long black hair, bound just at the bottom, swayed back and forth with each step she took. “So very... very sleepy...” She stood about 165 centimeters tall, but she looked taller, perhaps because the girl walking beside her was so short.

“You’re so not a morning person, Kana-chan,” said her companion and classmate, Tokiwa Kyoko.

“Mmm... Yeah, ’m really not. Wanna sleep.”

Kaname’s school, Jindai High, sat along a privately owned rail line on the outskirts of Tokyo. It was a completely unremarkable school, close to the station’s shopping area and nestled between a forest and a temple. The two girls passed through the school’s front gate and proceeded directly into the building.

“You all studied up for today’s quiz?” Kyoko asked, peering at Kaname through her round glasses as she slipped her vocabulary cards back into her bag.

“Ha ha ha... Those hairy barbarians’ language is nothing. I have a harder time with my first morning crap!” Kaname declared.

Kyoko’s glasses slipped abruptly down her nose. “Kana-chan... It’s a little early in the morning for that kind of potty mouth.”

“Oh, chill. I’m just so...” she yawned. “So tired in the mornings. Gotta find a little punch somewhere... Huh?” Kaname stopped to observe that a nervous crowd had formed in a corner of the entryway hall, around one of the many shoe cupboards that lined it. “What’s going on?” she asked. “That’s the shoe cupboard for our class, isn’t it?”

“Given how these things usually go... it’s probably got to do with him,” Kyoko predicted.

“Him? Oh... right. Him.” Kaname said direly. Then she strode boldly through the onlookers until she reached the shoe cupboard in question.

“Sousuke!” she proclaimed to the boy she found there, who was pressing a stethoscope to one of the cubbies and listening intently. He wore a sullen expression and tight frown, as well as the same high-collared uniform as the other male students.

He twitched as she called to him, apparently surprised at having been so suddenly addressed. “Keep your voice down, Chidori,” said the boy—Kaname’s classmate, Sagara Sousuke—with a hint of urgency. He had the area five meters around him bound off with yellow tape that had the words “Caution: Keep Out.” printed on it in black.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Kaname demanded. “People can’t get by!” She stepped recklessly over the tape and strode right up to Sousuke.

Sousuke held up a hand. “Stay back,” he warned her. “It’s dangerous.”

“What’s dangerous?”

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he pointed to the cubby in question—his own. “It’s a bomb,” he told her.

“Huh?”

“I noticed telltale signs of tampering,” he explained. “They may have rigged it to explode upon opening.”

Kaname just stood there, her head of righteous fury quickly slipping away. “Um... Wait, are you saying someone messed with your shoe cubby?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re assuming they set a bomb?” she asked incredulously.

“Precisely.”

Quite a leap of logic... Kaname thought. More like a warp jump, really.

She pressed her fingers to her temples. “Sousuke,” she began, “I know you grew up in war-torn regions like Bosnia and Afghanistan. But Japan is at peace. We just don’t have the kinds of lunatics who’d set a bomb in a person’s shoe cubby here!”

“If only that were true,” he said. A closer look revealed that Sousuke’s face was tense and pale from stress. “Such individualized terrorist acts are in fact the most likely kind seen in peaceful nations. A retired United States Navy captain recently had his head blown off by a mail bomb. I can’t afford to let my guard down.”

“Lots of people out to kill you, huh?” Kaname asked, voicing her skepticism.

“Yes,” agreed Sousuke, with total sincerity. “I have made many enemies in my time. It could be Soviet KGB assassins, or mercenaries working with a drug cartel. I can’t rule out fundamentalist Islamic terrorists either...”

“You have way too many weird friends. How’d you even know someone messed with your cubby?”

“I placed an inconspicuous hair into the seam of the door,” he told her. “This morning, the hair was gone.”

“Hang on. You put a hair in the seam of your cubby door every time?”

“Yes. Is it that unusual?”

Is this guy okay? Kaname was starting to get seriously worried. She’d seen him in action once before and knew that he was for real, yet she couldn’t completely shake the feeling that he suffered from massive delusions of grandeur.

“At any rate, I want to inspect the inside of the cubby,” Sousuke continued. “I intend to insert a fiberscope from behind to identify the nature of the trap.”

“Uh, you walk around with all that stuff?” she asked.

“I keep a tool kit in my locker for times just like these.”

“Times just like what?”

Sousuke attached a device resembling an 8mm video cassette case to a black tube and flicked on the light at the end. He then checked the battery on his electric drill and cautiously resumed preparations for his inspection.

“C’mon, Sousuke, class is gonna start soon,” said Kaname. “I promise you there’s no bomb. If you’re too afraid to open it, why not just leave it be?”

“I can’t. Too dangerous.”

He seemed so certain, yet Kaname still couldn’t imagine there being a bomb of any kind in play. “Then clear it up fast,” she told him exasperatedly. “Don’t use an endoscope or whatever like you’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Yeah! Yeah!” The students, watching from afar, voiced their agreement with Kaname.

“Just finish it, Sagara!”

“We can’t stand around forever!”

He nodded slightly in the face of their jeers. “I see. That will require a rather more extreme solution, but...” Sousuke pulled a large tube from his bag, squeezed out a piece of brown clay from within, and stuck it to the outside of his shoe cubby.

“What is that, toothpaste?” Kaname asked suspiciously.

“No...” Once the clay was attached, he implanted a device that looked like a four-battery pack, then pulled out a tape cassette-sized remote control. “Please step back. No, farther.” Sousuke shouldered his tool kit and retreated to a safe distance, pushing Kaname along with him.

Her expression remained dubious. “Hey, c’mon,” she insisted. “What’s that clay stuff?”

“Plastic explosives.”

“Um—”

Sousuke removed the safety from the detonator remote and shouted at the spectators, “Fire in the hole! Cover your ears and open your mouths! Is that understood? Starting now!” Despite his warnings, not one of the students did as they were told, and before Kaname could try to stop him, Sousuke pressed the red button on the remote.

“Don’t—”

Bwooooom!!!

A shock wave rippled through the entry hall as everyone present was thrown to the floor. Tiny flames licked at the ceiling, splinters went flying, and white smoke filled the room. The recoil from the explosion had tipped over the entire Class 2-4 shoe cabinet, scattering slippers everywhere. Some people were coughing from smoke inhalation, some were cringing from the sudden noise, some were weeping over the sight of their burned Air Max sneakers...

“Hmm.” Sousuke stood up swiftly. “It seems there wasn’t a bomb after all.”

“How can you tell?” Kaname stood up, a little more awkwardly. She was so overwhelmed by it all that she’d briefly forgotten to be angry.

“I only heard one explosion. Besides, look at the other side of the box: completely unscathed. Had it truly been rigged with a bomb, the explosion would have come out the other side, accompanied by shrapnel to increase lethality.” Sousuke unpacked the tragedy he’d just wrought with great precision, gesturing slightly to help with visualization.

“So, you messed up everyone’s morning for no reason, huh?” she asked.

Sousuke was silent for a while. Then he said, “No, my precautions were necessary. Detonation is the safest way to deal with unknown quantities. My judgment was correct.”

“Youuu...” Kaname snarled, snatching up a slipper from the floor and using it immediately to slap Sousuke on the head.

“Ouch,” he said stoically.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” she fumed. “What am I supposed to tell the teachers?!”

“You’re the student council vice president. Use your authority to—”

“Yeah, right! Why should I— Ah!” A flaming scrap of paper landed just then on Kaname’s shoulder. She quickly brushed it off onto the floor, then started stomping on it to put out the fire.

“Ah... Wait,” said Sousuke, squatting down to seize her ankle.

“Hey! What are you doing?!” Kaname shrieked, struggling to hold her balance.

Without sparing a single glance at her leg, Sousuke picked up the tattered scrap of cloth.

“What now?” Kaname demanded.

Sousuke stared at the strip of paper. “It has my name on it. It appears to be a letter.”

“A letter? Oh, guess it is...”

Half-hidden by the soot, Kaname could just make out the word “Sagara.”

“Now, Chidori-kun. Could you tell me how the fire this morning started?” The question came from Hayashimizu Atsunobu, the student council president, whose back was to the noon sun streaming in through the window.

Hayashimizu had a long oval face, slicked-back hair, and wire frame glasses that he wore over narrow, intelligent eyes. In stark contrast to Sousuke, he projected an air of calm authority, and his dignity seemingly went unchallenged by the presence of the two people sitting sulkily across from him.

The student council room was on the fourth floor of the southern school building, with a view of the whole courtyard.

“Can you tell me why I should, Senpai?” Kaname grumbled. She and Sousuke had been called to the student council room by PA announcement during lunch break that day.

“You were a witness to the incident,” Hayashimizu reminded her, “and you’re my right hand.”

“I’m not your right hand,” she objected hotly. “I’m just the vice president!”

“Even so, I require objective witness testimony. Please tell me what you saw.”

“Not exactly sure what you want me to say...” Sousuke blew up a shoe cubby. What else is there to explain? Kaname thought. But while she struggled to find the right words to express that...

“I will explain myself, Mr. President,” said Sousuke, who had been silent up until now.

“Please do.”

“Sir. At 0815 hours today, I arrived at school and identified the presence of a suspicious object in my shoe cubby.”

“A suspicious object?”

“My initial reading was an explosive device, but I wasn’t certain,” Sousuke admitted. “Regardless, it was clear that my shoe cubby had been tampered with. Vice President Chidori and a small crowd of students objected to my attempts to investigate more cautiously, so I resorted to a swifter method of disposal.”

“Hmm,” said Hayashimizu. “Which was...?”

“Detonation via high-performance explosive.”

“Detonation?!” Hayashimizu’s eyes flashed, and it was clear to Kaname that he was angry.

Ah, perfect! she thought. Sousuke respects the president. If he gives him a good scolding, maybe he’ll finally tone down the craziness!

While she watched in anticipation, Hayashimizu took in a deep breath, then said solemnly, “I see. That would settle the matter swiftly, wouldn’t it?”

Kaname fell backwards, tipping over one of the room’s tables.

The two boys turned to her, both of them frowning unhappily.

“What’s wrong with Chidori?”

“She can be a very dramatic girl sometimes.”

“Senpai! You really don’t see anything wrong with this?” Kaname demanded. “Students just can’t blow up their shoe cubbies!”

“This one clearly can.”

“It was a figure of speech!”

“I’m aware. But you appear to have missed my point...” Hayashimizu nudged his glasses up his nose, a sign that he was about to launch into his personal specialty—the rhetorical argument. “Chidori-kun,” he said next, “let’s assume that a strange man places a package on your doorstep. You pick it up and hear scratching sounds from within: it’s faintly warm, and smells obscene. You likely know what’s in the package. Would you nevertheless open it to confirm its contents?”

Kaname’s face contorted in disgust. “No way. I’d throw it out.”

“In your apartment’s wastebasket?”

“No, in a plastic bag outside the building!”

“Agreed,” said Hayashimizu. “But what if, rather than a package, all these things applied to your shoe cubby? You wouldn’t be able to take it outside. You’d have no choice but to blow it up.”

“Uh, is that the same thing?” she questioned.

“It is,” the president said pretentiously, turning his gaze up to the ceiling. “It was clear to him that there was something unpleasant in the shoe cubby. Detonating it was the natural response.”

“Uh-huh...”

“I will smooth things over with the faculty, then.”

“Thank you, sir,” Sousuke said with a salute.

“Indeed. That’s all, then.” Having dismissed them, Hayashimizu turned his chair away and went back to reading the Asahi Shimbun.

Upon returning to the classroom, Sousuke ate some shifty-looking jerky, then began carefully inspecting the tattered note he’d picked up that morning. It seemed to be written on pink stationery, but most of it was unreadable now.

“Any headway?” asked Kaname, who’d come by to check on him after eating lunch with her friends on the roof.

“I’m afraid not. It’s definitely addressed to me, though...” He pointed to one burned scrap. The name on what looked like the salutation clearly did say “Sagara.”

“Hmm... So the only thing they put in there was the letter?”

“Most likely.”

As she squinted, Kaname could just barely make out a few words. I’m always watching you— coward— heart— stop beating— put— out of— misery— wait— behind the gym after school—

“It’s clearly from a hostile third party,” said Sousuke.

He went on to speculate on the remainder of the letter’s contents: Sagara Sousuke. I’m always watching you, you disgusting coward. I’ll make your heart stop beating and put you out of your misery once and for all. Wait for me behind the gym after school. That’s where I’ll kill you.

“I’m certain that’s what it said,” he declared.

“Why’s that your first guess?” Kaname wanted to know. “It’s written in a girl’s handwriting.”

“Don’t be so sure. It could be a fabrication meant to fool handwriting analysis. A sign I’m dealing with a professional.”

“What kind of professional would that be?” Kaname felt a chill run up her spine as she imagined a burly hit man scribbling loopy handwriting onto a sheet of cute pink paper. “I think it’s just a mash note. Someone in the school probably wrote it.”

“Mash note?” he said suspiciously. “That’s extremely threatening.”

“Why do you take everything the worst possible way?!” she yelled. “I’m talking about a love letter! Someone’s confessing their feelings for you!”

Sousuke continued to look at her impassively.

“Didn’t you hear me? There might be a girl with... romantic interest in you. Doesn’t... that make you happy?” Kaname asked hesitantly.

“No. I’ve seen this same thing before. Several years back, in Cambodia, there was an otherwise very earnest NCO in my squadron who grew close to a local woman while on assignment,” Sousuke reminisced. “We celebrated their relationship, but she turned out to be a spy for the guerrillas.”

“Uh-huh...”

“She leaked word of our upcoming surprise raid to the guerrillas and nearly got the entire squad killed. The NCO shot himself that night out of guilt.”

“Uh, really...” Kaname didn’t quite understand what these two situations had to do with each other, but it was a pretty serious subject, so she couldn’t exactly call him out on it.

“Ah, memories,” Sousuke sighed. “The major and I were arm slave instructors in that squadron together.”

Who’s the major? Kaname wondered, but decided she was better off not asking. She did know that “arm slave” referred to the humanoid weapons that had recently begun to dominate modern warfare.

Sousuke placed the tattered paper inside his desk and stood up.

“Going somewhere?” she asked.

“Yes. Whether it’s a threat or an attempt at seduction, they’ll be waiting for me behind the gym after class,” he concluded. “I’ll have to prepare.”

“Prepare? Uh, how? Hang o—”

Sousuke ignored her and walked away.

“Sousuke!” she called after him. “Fifth period’s coming up!”

“Security takes precedence,” Sousuke informed her. “I’ll be missing the rest of my classes today.”

And with that, he was gone.

As Kaname’s fifth period class, Math II, drew to a close, her classmate Tokiwa Kyoko tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey, Kana-chan. Where’d Sousuke-kun go?”

“How should I know? He’s not my dependent... or my pet, for that matter,” Kaname said with a groan.

“Is it true someone sent him a love letter?”

“Yeah, saw it myself. Don’t ask me what kind of weirdo ends up falling for that dumbass...” She pulled her bundle of textbooks and dictionaries out of her desk and slammed them on top of it.

“Are you in a bad mood, Kana-chan?”

“Why would I be in a bad mood?!” Kaname asked, louder than she meant to.

Kyoko took it with practiced grace. “Well, it sure looks like you’re in one.”

“Ugh... You think?”

“You’re thinking about Sagara-kun, I’ll bet. He is your closest friend among the boys.”

“I-Is not! He’s totally not!” Kaname insisted firmly. “I don’t even like the guy! It’s just that as student council vice president, it’s my responsibility to deal with problems—”

“Uh-huh, right,” Kyoko agreed. “Anyway, wanna go see what he does? It could be hilarious.”

Kaname turned her nose up stubbornly. “No way,” she retorted. “Who cares what happens to him? No one’s gonna want to date that war-obsessed jerk.”

Yet Kyoko pressed on, fanning the flames of Kaname’s concern. “You sure about that? He’s pretty cute. And I’ll bet he seems pretty normal if you don’t know him.”

Kaname laughed mockingly. “Yeah, right,” she scoffed. “And the minute he opens his mouth, it becomes clear he lives in the worlds of Mission: Impossible and Platoon.”

“So you’re really not going?”

“Yeah, why waste my time?” Once her bag was stuffed with school supplies, Kaname stood up. “I’ve got student council business today, so I’ll be stuck here a while. Head on without me?”

“Yeah... guess I will.”

“See you tomorrow, then.”

They waved to each other as they parted ways in the hall.

Ten minutes later, behind one of the gym’s pillars...

“Kana-chan!”

“Yeek!” Kaname seized up as someone called her from behind. “K-Kyoko! Don’t scare me like that!” she hissed.

Kyoko was grinning wickedly. “Oho? I thought you had student council business.”

“I... I thought that’s what it was, but Hayashimizu-senpai just sent me to check in on Sousuke!” She paused. “Really!”

“Really?” Kyoko’s expression was skeptical.

Kaname averted her eyes. “A-Anyway, you’re one to talk. I thought you were heading home early?”

“Changed my mind.”

“You did, huh? Well, aren’t you a charmer...” said Kaname, trailing off as she peeked out from behind the support to see what was happening in the space behind the Jindai High gym.

The area in question couldn’t be seen from the school building itself. It was lined with hydrangea and azalea bushes, and it tended to be pretty abandoned after class. Except, about ten meters away from the support they were hiding behind...

“Hey, it’s her!” Kyoko whispered, peeking out to look. Beneath a cherry tree—green in mid-May—stood a second-year girl. Her layered chestnut hair curled inward at her shoulders, and she had a voluptuous figure.

Kaname twitched and said, “H-Hey... she’s kinda pretty.” The girl also had that palpably bashful, vulnerable air unique to girls in love. Kaname, who was always stomping around with tightly balled fists, had to doff her hat to the girl’s overall charm.

“That’s Saeki Ena from Class 1. She took second place in the Miss Jindai High School contest at the school festival last year,” Kyoko said.

“She did, huh? How ’bout that.”

Kaname hadn’t taken part in said contest herself. She’d stayed up the whole night before getting things ready, then passed out cold in the student council storeroom. The boys from her class had tried to get her to participate, but had they seen her snoring away in her tracksuit, they might have rescinded their nominations.

“Well... she’s pretty enough, from a male perspective. But I’ll bet she’s got beauty supplies where her brains should be,” Kaname said viciously.

Kyoko shook her head once again. “I hear she’s smart too. Placed fifth in last year’s finals.”

“Geh. D-Dammit...” Kaname herself had placed 160th, exactly in the middle of their grade’s 320 students. She always did great in English and social studies, but science and literature tended to drag her down.

“Sagara-kun is still a no-show though,” Kyoko muttered thoughtfully. The fidgeting Saeki Ena stood alone behind the gym, and there was no sign whatsoever that the man she was waiting for was on the way. “He said he was coming, right?”

“He said he would prepare, actually...” said Kaname.

“Prepare? How?”

“Dunno. Maybe he’s picking up a tank or a battle mech or something.”

“Could be,” Kyoko said with a chuckle. “Anyway, let’s wait and see!”

“Hmm. Yeah, sure.” The girls grabbed their bags and squatted down to settle in.

Six o’clock came and went, but Sousuke never showed.

“It’s getting late,” Kaname breathed. The crimson light of sunset was starting to shift into dusky purple, and the voices of the sports clubs at practice faded as electric lights snapped on around the gym. “You think he’s coming?”

“Dunno. It’s been two hours, right? Ahh...” Kyoko let out a little yawn. “I’m getting hungry. Maybe I’ll head home...”

“Yeah? See you tomorrow, then.”

“You should go too, Kana-chan. I really don’t think Sagara-kun’s coming.”

It was a reasonable opinion, but Kaname folded her arms and said, after a moment’s consideration, “Think I’ll stay a while longer.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m off. Just don’t give yourself a cold, okay?”

Once Kyoko was gone, Kaname reevaluated the situation behind the gym. Saeki Ena was still standing there, her back was to the wall, her eyes pointed down. She looked heartbreakingly lonely. She’d been waiting two hours, after all. Kaname could almost hear her thinking, He’s probably not coming. Yet she kept on waiting. And still, Sousuke didn’t come.

Another hour passed. Seven o’clock came and went. Night fell.

Guess he really did just go home, Kaname thought. At some point, her irritation with Saeki Ena had transformed into a strange form of sympathy. She felt an irrationally despondent feeling growing in her chest, as if she were the one who’d been stood up.

He’s such a creep. She felt angry, too. Sousuke might have been violent and reckless, but Kaname had always believed he was a genuinely nice guy. How could he do this to someone? But just as she’d had that thought...

“Hey, look. Someone’s still out here,” came a male voice.

“Oh? Who is it?”

“Whoa! What a cutie pie!”

“What’s up, babe?”

They didn’t seem to be talking about Kaname. Instead, she just watched as the small group of male students appeared at the back of the gym to surround Saeki Ena.

“Um... I...” the girl stammered.

Ignoring the clear discomfort in her eyes, the men continued on. “You’re from Class 1, right? Saeki-san, was it?”

“It’s not safe here at night. You might run into guys like us.”

“Yeah. And we might do something like this!” One of them seized Saeki Ena in his arms.

“S-Stop it!” she cried.

The men just laughed.

“‘Wahhh! S-Stop it!’” one mocked in falsetto. “You hear that? Boy, that shit gets me hot!”

“Damn, how’s a guy supposed to keep it in his pants?” The men forced her against the wall, flicking her hair and her skirt in a half-joking manner.

“Ah, shit...” Kaname breathed. Every school had its bad kids, and even Jindai’s relatively calm and welcoming student body was no exception. These jerks were particularly infamous in the region. At this rate...

Should I go out and yell at them? she wondered. Yeah, right, as if they’d listen to me...

Should I run off and call for help? But the light in the teachers’ office is out...

Should I turn around and walk away?

Kaname paused for a second.

That might be the smartest choice... It’s not like I owe her anything. This doesn’t fall under my vice-presidential duties. And besides, she’s...

“Yeah... who am I kidding? Dammit,” Kaname grumbled. Having put an end to that train of thought, she sprang out from behind the support and shouted, “Hold it!”

“Huh?” The men turned to look at her. The shadows cast by the lamplight made their faces look even more wicked than usual.

Ugh, total regrets right away... I really should’ve just gone home, thought Kaname, even as her legs carried her inexorably forward. “Sh-She doesn’t like that!” she yelled. “Let her go!”

The important thing is not to look weak, she reminded herself. Come out swinging. You’ll carry the day... somehow...

A man with a clean-shaved head, who seemed to be their leader, walked up to her. “Chill out, sweetie. We’re just playing around.”

“Liar!” Kaname said accusingly. “I saw what you were doing!”

“Hey, listen to you. Maybe you wanna join in, huh?” The skinhead put his arm around Kaname’s shoulders.

“Don’t... Don’t you touch me!” She smacked his hand aside and socked him in the nose.

The man wobbled on his feet and groaned. This silenced the laughter, but a taut and dangerous atmosphere replaced it.

“Hey, you see?” one of the men demanded. “You see what that bitch just did?!”

“You okay, Taka-chan?” one of the lackeys asked the skinhead.

The skinhead was silent for a moment, cradling his face, before he said, “Dammit. I’m bleedin’.” He then glared at Kaname, his gaze menacing. “How’s about we strip her down?”

At his demand, a different sort of tension immediately overtook the group.

“We’re gettin’ serious?” one asked. They began looking Kaname up and down with new appreciation.

“Huh? Wait... serious? Does that mean... you were joking before?” Kaname asked slowly. And then, as the men stepped up and fanned out around her, she realized this meant that they weren’t joking now.

Kaname drew back. “Um, I think there’s been a misunderstanding...”

They weren’t responding now. The delinquents edged closer, then sprang on her all at once.

“No... Hey!” she shrieked. “Cut it out! I mean it!”

“Too late!” crowed one of the boys.

There was no way Kaname could break out of their grip, and they quickly wrestled her to the ground. She was a strong-willed girl, but she couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in her eyes. “Let me go! Assault! Rape! S-Someone help!” she shouted, but there was nobody around to hear her. There was no way she’d be lucky enough to have Sousuke show up now.

“Someone shut her up already.” One of the men reeled back to punch her in the gut, when just then...

Blam! Something slammed into the man from the side. It sent him flying into the gym’s outer wall, where he immediately fell, out cold. The other men looked around in confusion. There was nobody around but them. Nobody knew what had just happened, and yet it continued.

Blam! Blam! Blamblam! A string of mysterious, merciless blows blasted the men away from Kaname, one after another. One flipped over and slammed into the ground, one fell unconscious against a support, one ended up motionless with his butt pointing to the night sky...

And then, there was silence. Kaname sat up slowly and fixed up her rumpled clothing.

Saeki Ena just stood there uncertainly. “Do you know... what...?”

“Nope,” said Kaname. “Sure wish I did...”

Rubber spheres the size of pachinko balls lay scattered all around the unconscious men. Kaname’s nose picked up the faint scent of gunpowder. And then...

She heard a rustling from a nearby azalea bush.

“No way,” she said quietly, even as a ragged figure emerged from the bushes.

The person was dressed in camouflage netting, worn over green-and-brown-patterned clothing that had hidden the contours of their body amidst the foliage. To those in the business, it was known as a ghillie suit.

“Are you all right, Chidori?” the ragged man asked. He had an Italian-made semi-automatic shotgun in one hand, which had likewise been painted in camouflage. He stripped the netting off of his head to reveal a face painted pitch black, only his eyes standing out starkly against the darkness of the night.

Kaname stared speechlessly at Sousuke for a moment. Then she said, “Hang on. Have you been there the whole time?”

“Affirmative. I’ve been camped out since fifth period.”

Her knees began to shake. “So you were hiding just two meters away from her the whole time?!”

“And quite easily so.” Sousuke sounded like he was puffing out his chest, but the camouflage netting made him look more like a pile of garbage about to tip over. “My disguise was perfect,” he continued. “She didn’t even notice me. The plan was to knock her out with the rubber rounds from my shotgun if she showed any sign of suspicious activity.”

For hours, he’d remained motionless in the bushes, his gun trained on Saeki Ena. The stupidity was so towering that Kaname almost had to respect it.

“But she simply stood there the whole time. And just as I’d begun debating the merits of a preemptive strike, those men—”

Crash! Kaname kicked Sousuke as hard as she could, reducing the “pile of garbage” to a twitching mass on the ground.

“That hurt!” he protested.

“Shut up!” she snarled back at him. “If you were there, why didn’t you do something sooner?!”

“I couldn’t. If it turned out they were working in collaboration—”

“Can the excuses! Didn’t you see what I just went through?! Take this! And this!” She kicked him again and again as he rolled helplessly from side to side.

“Ah... I can’t get up,” he moaned. “I’m tangled in the netting...”

“Not my problem!”

Saeki Ena stared down at the helplessly struggling Sousuke. “Is that... Sagara-kun?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied emotionlessly. “I am Sagara Sousuke.”

“But... you’re so...” As the girl struggled to find the right words, Kaname could see the disappointment manifesting on her face. “S-Sagara-kun... Did you read my letter?”

Sousuke stood up with great effort. “The threatening letter?”

“No!” Saeki Ena protested. “It was pink, and...”

“I blew it up.”

“B-Blew it up?” She swayed on her feet from the shock.

This is one hell of a conversation... Kaname thought with a sigh.

“Who are you exactly, anyway? You don’t appear to be hostile,” he observed. “What are you really here for?”

“Here... for?” the girl echoed.

“Out with it already. It’s not to your benefit to hide anything,” he said next, with a pump of his shotgun.

There wasn’t a girl in the world who’d continue to hold romantic feelings for someone after being treated this way. “I don’t have to take this... You awful boy!” Saeki Ena declared, and then ran away crying.

Kaname could do nothing but watch her go. “Ah, poor thing...” she said with sympathy. Then she thought, Still, it’s probably for the best. Now she can go fall for a half-decent guy...

Sousuke shook off the rest of his camo netting. “A curious woman,” he said. “She calls me out here, then declares me ‘awful’ and runs off. Does she suffer from a psychotic persecution complex?”

“I think maybe you do...” Kaname heaved a deep sigh, then left Sousuke behind as she began to walk home.

●

The next morning, when Sousuke arrived at school, he noticed the existence of a new suspicious object in his (just-repaired) shoe cubby. “Not again,” he sighed, once again removing the plastic explosives from his bag. He was about to dispose of it quickly when...

“Don’t you dare!” Kaname shouted, appearing at his side to smack him one.

He rubbed his head. “Chidori. That hurts.”

“Morning,” she said shortly. “No explosions today. Just be a man and open it.”

“I can’t afford to,” he protested. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Is it?” Kaname reached for Sousuke’s shoe cubby, opening and closing it rapidly.

“Sto—” Sousuke shielded his face, then stared in disbelief when nothing came of it.

“It’s fine, see? Meet you in class,” Kaname said, and then took off.

Silently, with timid hands, Sousuke opened the shoe cubby. There was no trap—just a new pair of slippers, on top of which sat a lunch box wrapped in decorative cloth. He removed the box and found a note tucked inside. It read...

《Just a little thank-you for saving me yesterday. A man can’t live on jerky alone!

Sincerely,

A Mysterious Terrorist.》

“Hmm...” Sousuke placed the note in his pocket, carefully tucked the lunch box under one arm, then put his slippers on and headed for class.

〈Man from the South — The End〉