A Hostage of No Compromise
A man in black clothing appeared in the door of the dark warehouse, holding a rifle in one hand.
The realization came to Sagara Sousuke: The enemy’s gun is trained on me. He quickly returned fire with his pistol. Three rapid shots rang out. Blood burst from the man’s chest and head as he dropped his gun and expired.
Hot on his heels, a man with a machine gun appeared from behind one of the drum canisters that lined the walls. Sousuke fired another three-shot burst. The enemy writhed in agony as he expired.
Another man with a rifle appeared. Sousuke pointed his gun at the new enemy, and...
“Reload,” came a voice. He pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. And as he stood there, helpless and in shock, the enemy’s rifle triggered a burst of fire.
Sousuke began to panic.
“Reload,” the voice demanded.
His view was stained in red. But I’m not through yet, Sousuke thought. This wound isn’t fatal. More enemies are on the way. I have to defeat them all quickly!
“Reload,” the voice intoned a third time.
This gun won’t do the job, Sousuke told himself. Then he cast aside the worthless blue plastic pistol and drew his beloved 9mm automatic from the holster on his back. With blinding swiftness, he pointed it at the enemy, and...
“Die,” Sousuke commanded.
“Relo—”
Blam! Blamblamblamblamblam! Bursts of flame and sounds of gunfire. Lead slugs impaled the men in black on the screen.
The other patrons stopped what they were doing and turned dumbfounded gazes towards the corner of the arcade. A boy in a high-collared school uniform with a pistol in his hands stood before the screen, which was now sparking and full of holes. Behind him stood a girl, approximately the same age, who was cradling her head in frustration.
Apparently the shooting game’s case was still working, because the voice on the speakers kept repeating: “Reload... Reload... Reload...”
Sousuke casually holstered his gun, then turned back to the girl who’d been watching him play, Chidori Kaname. “It’s a well-made simulator,” he remarked. “It was so evocative of live combat that I was forced to engage with it seriously.”
Kaname released a long sigh. “I guess it would be... Stupid me, encouraging you because I thought it would be funny...”
The game’s speaker then proclaimed, in a stern voice, “Game over.”
In the arcade’s back office, they got an earful from the manager, who forced them to write down their home addresses and which school they attended. Following a stern lecture about the behavior of a model gamer, they were then given keychains (for some reason), and released.
“Guess we’re never going back there, huh?” Kaname said as they made their way out. “Too bad. They have the easiest UFO-catchers in town...” She was rather tall for a girl in her later teens, with looks that usually belonged on the cover of a fashion magazine—though, exhausted by the long lecture as she was, the best she could do now would be a foldout ad in a newspaper. She walked through the crowded arcade, her long black hair swaying behind her.
Sousuke wordlessly followed after her. He had disheveled hair and sharp eyes, a sullen expression and tight frown. He carried a quiet tension all throughout his body.
“I told you about this!” she continued, having to shout to be heard over the arcade machines around her. “You’ve gotta point the muzzle off-screen and pull the trigger to reload!”
“It’s dangerous to point your gun at anything you don’t intend to hit; more so to pull the trigger,” Sousuke argued back. “What if it really was still loaded?”
“It wouldn’t be! It’s just a light gun!”
Sousuke’s eyes glinted. “A light gun,” he mused. “I’ve read about those in Jane’s Fighting Ships: free-electron lasers that can even destroy spy satellites in orbit. Developed as part of President Reagan’s Super Trooper plan in the 1980s—”
“Shut up!” Sousuke had been raised overseas in war-torn regions, and Kaname was finally starting to realize how fruitless it was to try to explain basic things to him, so she cut him off there. “Honestly... I am never taking you to an arcade again!”
“Hmm...” Sousuke grumbled as they passed the shooting game machine (which now had an “out of service” sign hanging from it), and left the arcade behind. And then...
“Hoi. Give us a minute, eh?” A small group of young men came to surround Sousuke and Kaname.
She immediately recognized them as fellow students at Jindai High. “Hey, it’s those molester perv punks who tried to assault me!” she shouted, pointing.
“Who’re you callin’ ‘molester perv punks’?!”
“Fine,” she suggested, “‘the sexual assault delinquency alliance’?”
“Don’t call us that either!”
“‘The misbehaving crotch group’?”
“The hell’s that even mean?!” The man with the shaved head, who looked to be their leader, took a step forward.
“Wh-What, you wanna fight?” Kaname raised her bag in preparation.
But contrary to expectations, the skinhead just said, “Shaddap. It ain’t you we’re here to talk to, it’s him.”
“Me?” Sousuke met the man’s glare with casual indifference.
“Sagara, was it? Step out with me, a’right?” said the man, inclining his head towards an alley between a McDonald’s and a used book store across from the arcade.
“Are you asking me to accompany you?” Sousuke asked.
“’Swhat I said, dumbass. C’mon.” The men led Sousuke into the alley.
Kaname, left behind, called out after them with some concern. “Sousuke!”
“Don’t worry about me,” Sousuke said over his shoulder, then disappeared into the alley with the men.
“That’s not what I meant, Sousuke...” Rather, it was the other men she was worried about.
There were pools of dingy water all around the alleyway asphalt, and the last light of the setting sun was pouring in through the gaps between buildings.
One of the young men facing Sousuke spoke first. “Sagara, right? You’ve been actin’ pretty hot since you transferred to our school, eh?”
“What do you mean by that, exactly?” Sousuke wanted to know.
“I’m sayin’ we don’t like ya, eh?”
“I see. I’ll endeavor to avoid crossing paths in the future.” Judging that to be all they wanted to say, Sousuke immediately turned to leave.
“Hang on, jackass!” One of them reached for Sousuke’s shoulder.
Sousuke reflexively grabbed the hand, twisted it, and threw the other man into a puddle.
“Hey!”
“What the hell’s with this guy?”
“You wanna fight, eh?!” The men immediately prepared for a fight.
“If you want something from me, could you please state it plainly?” Sousuke asked.
“We wanna pop you one, eh?!”
“And swipe your cash, eh?!”
“Very well. I understand now.” Sousuke nodded. He understood well enough that they wanted to beat him up and take his money. (He didn’t understand why they said ‘eh’ every time, but it was clear they were robbers.) He unceremoniously drew the 9mm handgun he’d used to destroy the arcade game just minutes ago.
Blamblamblamblamblam! Gunshots resounded from the back alley.
“Ah, thought so...” Kaname, who had been waiting in front of the arcade, was in the middle of debating whether she should call an ambulance or play dumb and leave, when...
“Sorry for the wait,” said Sousuke, emerging from the alley. He seemed completely unaffected by whatever had just gone down.
“Please tell me you didn’t kill them,” Kaname begged.
“No, I put a few warning shots into the ground at their feet,” Sousuke reassured her. “Then they let me go.”
Having become somewhat accustomed to his tendency towards extreme measures, Kaname just nodded in easy agreement. “Oh okay,” she said. “Let’s go, then.” The two began heading for the station along the shopping district’s main avenue. “But it’s kind of... not cool, you know?” Kaname spoke after a bit.
“What is?”
“Using a gun,” she clarified. “I mean, those guys were unarmed.”
“That’s true. They had only knives and billy clubs. Apparently they didn’t expect me to possess superior weaponry.”
“That’s not what I meant...”
Sousuke continued regardless. “If they wanted to beat me with weapons like that, they would have needed ten times the manpower: approximately fifty men in all.”
“Hmm. That confident, huh?”
“Well, it’s just that I only have about fifty rounds left,” he responded casually.
Kaname fell silent, imagining (polygon-based) punks wielding spiked bats, emerging from behind doors and drum canisters only to be shot one after another.
“What is it, Chidori?”
“Ah... Nothing. Forget it.” She took out her commuter pass as they entered the train station.
That night, in a small municipal park...
“What, back already?” The figure on the scooter said to the five young men sitting on the benches.
“Well... yeah...”
“Pathetic. Yeesh, you guys suck,” the figure said in disgust, as it took out a Marlboro cigarette and lit it with a 100-yen lighter.
The tiny light illuminated the figure’s face. It was a woman, and quite a tall one at that: she was at least 180 centimeters tall. She was wearing jeans and a leather jacket, and had wavy black hair that came down to her shoulders. She was certainly beautiful, in a fearsome sort of way.
“Well, guy had a gun...” said one of her goons, tall and lanky with an afro.
“So?” the woman demanded.
“Akutsu-san,” the lackey insisted, “you gotta watch out for guns. Remember, it was Nobunaga’s guns that defeated Takeda’s cavalry at the Battle of Nagashino in 1575—”
“The hell are you talking about?”
Shrugging off her disdain, the man continued. “Takeda had the strongest cavalry of all the Sengoku warlords. But on the plains of Shitaragahara, Nobunaga used three thousand flintlock weapons— Ah, Akutsu-san, what are you doing?”
The woman had stood up, seized the handles of the scooter she’d been sitting on, and lifted the machine unceremoniously into the air. Then she swiped it to the side, slamming the rear wheel into the young man’s face.
“Blugh!” The man’s body flipped through the air two, three... even four times, before finally being stopped by a conveniently placed trash can.
“Spare me the arguments, dammit,” she snarled.
“I wasn’t arguin’, I was impartin’ knowledge...” the afro’d man said, weeping, his face buried in an empty lunch box from a convenience store.
The violent act sent the other men into a flurry of whispers.
“Did she really hafta do that?”
“Well, Akutsu-san failed history, so...”
“Wow, really? I heard it was home ec...”
The woman slammed the scooter back onto the ground and raised her voice over their whispers. “You guys got something to say to me?!”
“Nah, nothin’!” the four men said in unison, shaking their heads rapidly.
“Hmm... If this Sagara guy is so tough and well-armed, we’ll just need to use our heads,” she concluded. “Right?”
“‘Use our heads’? How?” the skinhead delinquent asked.
“I think we need some leverage,” she said thoughtfully. “He’s got a girlfriend, right?”
“Not sure...”
“A friend, then. Something. We just need a hostage to keep him from using his weapons.”
“Aha... I see.” The goons gave a clap in understanding.
“We’ll get ourselves a gang, too,” she continued. “Been a while since we put out a call to other schools.”
“How many?”
“Let’s see... Let’s go big. Fifty.”
The men turned pale, knowing that they could easily bring in that many if they mentioned her name.
“Make sure you tell them that I, Akutsu Mari, am bored to tears,” she declared, then turned the key in the engine and started up her scooter. “All right, I’m off.”
“What, already?”
“My little brother asked me to pick up some things,” she said. “Do they sell India ink at convenience stores?”
The men just looked at each other. “Dunno...”
During lunch break, an ascending four-note chime played over the school’s PA system.
“Ah, testing. Testing. Vice President Chidori Kaname, please come to the student council room. This is an order from the president. That is all.” Then, after turning off the microphone, the speaker looked back down at the paperback he was reading.
This was Hayashimizu Atsunobu, the student council president. He had a long, slender face and slicked-back hair. Behind his wireframe glasses sat narrow, intelligent eyes, and he carried himself with a quiet dignity that seemed somehow out of place in a high school student. He was sitting in the student council room (of which he was master and fire safety chief), located on the fourth floor of the south building of Jindai High School.
About two minutes after the schoolwide announcement, there came a knock at the door.
“Come in,” he said. But it was Sousuke, not Kaname, who entered.
“Sagara-kun?” asked Hayashimizu. “What is it?”
“I’m sorry to report that Chidori’s been absent since this morning, Mr. President.” His manner was absurdly formal; Kaname had previously told him the student council president was the highest-ranking person in the school.
“That’s a shame, but please sit down. I have a request to make of you.”
“Sir.” Sousuke took his seat across from Hayashimizu as instructed.
“The principal passed on to me a complaint filed by an arcade near Sengawa Station. She claimed that you and Chidori-kun destroyed a game cabinet there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The principal has requested that you write ten notices of contrition. If you do, then the school will pay the damages for you. What do you say to that?”
“I won’t do it,” Sousuke denied flatly.
“And why is that?”
“I have no reason to feel contrite. It’s common sense that in order to minimize stray shots, it’s better to use a familiar firearm over an unfamiliar one. If I were put in a similar situation in the future, I would make the same choice again,” he briskly explained. His sincerity only served to demonstrate the severity of his delusion.
“Hm. Are you sure that’s how you feel?” Hayashimizu asked again, his eyes glinting from behind his glasses.
Several members of the student council staff, listening in on the conversation, gulped in anticipation of Sousuke receiving a tongue-lashing from the president.
“Very well,” Hayashimizu unexpectedly concluded. “The student council will pay the compensation.”
“I appreciate that,” said Sousuke.
The aforementioned students all collapsed simultaneously, overturning the steel table at which they sat with a bang.
“What’s wrong with you all?” Hayashimizu asked them evenly.
“N-Nothing... But can we really do that?” the treasurer asked, clinging to the wall for support.
“No need to worry,” he reassured them. “We’ll pay from the C fund.” The C fund was a secret fund passed down through the Jindai High student council administrations that the teachers knew nothing about. It hadn’t been an especially large fund originally, but during his time as aide to the treasurer in his first year, Hayashimizu had personally managed to increase it tenfold. How he’d managed this, of course, was a mystery to everyone involved.
“It’s not about that,” the treasurer insisted. “It just seems inappropriate to mix personal and school business...”
“Think, Okuda-kun,” Hayashimizu said, his tone condescending. “I am the senior representative of the student body. If the principal tries to extort an apology out of me, I cannot simply roll over. Giving the teachers leverage on us will set a bad precedent.”
“But it’s just a little apology...”
“It’s written evidence, which is especially perilous,” Hayashimizu continued. “Such an action could come back to haunt a future student council administration fifty years from now.”
“Uh-huh...” Realizing how ill equipped they were to out-argue the president, the other students unanimously decided to let it go.
Just then, the door to the hallway opened with a bang. “Hey, Sagara in here?!” A male student with piercings all over his face bellowed, bursting into the student council room. It was one of the boys who’d accosted Sousuke the day before.
“How can I help you?” Sousuke turned to face the man calmly. He found the facial accessories a bit curious, but decided they might have religious significance.
“You mighta showed you’se pretty tough, eh? Mayb’we oughta taken you more seer’s, bu’now ’stime we go’ssum payback, eh?” the boy sneered, affecting an exaggerated tough-guy slur to his speech.
Sousuke, meanwhile, simply assumed he had some kind of autonomic nerve disorder. “I see. This must be very hard for you.”
“Ehhn?”
“I knew a soldier with a similar disorder,” Sousuke went on. “He was a brave man, but took a blow to the head that caused incurable facial paralysis.”
“Th’ hell you sayin’, eh?!”
“Hold on a moment,” Hayashimizu interrupted impatiently. “Sagara-kun, this man seems to bear some enmity towards you. He’s saying that he’s come for revenge after the recent beating you gave him.”
“Ah, I see,” Sousuke said solemnly. “Tell him this, then: ‘My equipment and skill far outstrips yours. Any attempt at revenge will be fruitless.’”
Hayashimizu nodded and turned back to the man with the piercings. “Sagara-kun says, ‘Shaddap, ya piece’a shit. G’won an’ try an I’ll jus’ kick yer ass, eh?’”
Sousuke was deeply impressed by Hayashimizu’s smooth use of delinquent language. “Your linguistic skills are truly remarkable, Mr. President,” he said.
“I’ve merely done some reading on the subject,” Hayashimizu denied modestly. “That was the Western dialect, of course, so I’m not sure he’ll understand me...”
“H-Hang on a sec, eh?!” The man with the piercings, now angry at being treated as some kind of indigenous denizen of unexplored lands, slammed his fist down on the desk.
Faster than the eye could see, Sousuke drew his gun and trained it on the man’s forehead. “Please refrain from violence in this room.”
The man froze on the spot. “H-Hang on. I ain’t here for that. Just listen to this.” Regaining his composure instantly, he carefully pulled out a cellular phone and punched in a number. After a brief back and forth, he then handed the phone to Sousuke.
“Hello?”
“You the guy they call Sagara?” came an unfamiliar woman’s voice.
“Yes. Who are you?”
“I’ll tell you all about it later. Meet me after school. We’ve got some things to discuss.”
“I refuse,” Sousuke said flatly.
“What’s the matter, scared?”
“No, but I need to stay late after school to finish my carving for art class.”
“Oh, really? You sure about that?”
There was a pause, and then a very familiar voice met Sousuke’s ear. “Sousuke... it’s me.”
“Chidori? What are you doing there?”
“Some people grabbed me near the station this morning,” said Kaname. “Today’s softball in gym, so I really wanted to come...”
“Are you hurt? Where are you?”
“I’m not hurt... ah!”
The first voice came back. “See now? Better come, or your pretty little thing here pays the price.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sousuke demanded.
“I’m not into girls, myself, but there’s tons of guys here who’d love to have a go at her...”
He could hear raucous laughter from the other end of the phone.
“Come alone to the old Okawa precision machinery factory in Sengawa by 5 p.m.,” the woman told him. “It’s on Seijo-doori Avenue.” Then the call cut off.
“Well? Got your attention, eh?” The messenger smiled gleefully.
“You’ve taken her hostage, then?”
“Bet your ass we did. And there ain’t a damn thing that little peashooter of yours can—”
Ignoring the man’s boasts, Sousuke turned to Hayashimizu. “Mr. President?”
“Right.” Hayashimizu caught his drift immediately and turned to face the other staff present. “Would you all mind giving the three of us some privacy? We need to talk.”
The students shared a few nervous glances, but left obediently enough. Once the last of them were gone, Sousuke shut the door behind him and snapped the lock into place.
“’cha doin’ there, eh?” asked the cagey-looking punk.
Hayashimizu replied with a wince, “I’m afraid you’ve committed the foolish act of taking our vice president hostage.”
“Th-The hell you talkin’ about? H-Hey...”
Sousuke turned toward the man and took one step, then another.
The punk drew back in fear as Sousuke pulled piano wire and handcuffs from his pockets. “Wh-What’re you doin’? Hey... hey!”
“Now, tell me all about your leader,” said Sousuke, drawing his combat knife.
That evening, in a dusty factory...
“What’s wrong? Scared?” Akutsu Mari asked Kaname, who was sitting on a large wooden box, her body bound with a vinyl cord.
“Actually, it’s more like...” Kaname paused for a moment. There was a sticky note like you’d see on a Jiangshi vampire hanging from her forehead; it read ‘Hostage—Do Not Touch.’ She finally settled for, “Can you do something about this?”
“Oh, you definitely want that there,” Mari said, indicating with her chin the papers stuffed into Kaname’s pocket. They had been foisted upon her by the various delinquents, each one containing a phone number.
“Hmm. Yeah, they’re the kind of people you wouldn’t admit to being friends with, even if you’d taken photo stickers together. But...” Kaname looked out over the young men scattered around the huge factory. “Don’t they have anything better to do?”
There were just about fifty gathered in all: some were on scooters or modified motorcycles; some held steel pipes; others wielded spiked bats; and still others had Japanese swords. “Do they all work for you?” Kaname added as she watched them.
“Basically,” Mari responded bluntly. “Just so you know, if Sagara doesn’t come, I really will let them have their way with you. They did come here for me, after all. I’ve got to give them something for their trouble.”
“Ugh, really don’t want that...” Kaname said with a groan.
Twenty minutes later, just before 5 p.m., there came a shout from outside. “Akutsu-san, he’s here!”
“I am,” said Sagara Sousuke, silhouetted by the sunlight of early evening as he came through the three-meter-high door.
“Hey... not bad looking.” Mari said with a whistle as the fifty punks under her command moved to surround Sousuke, glaring at him from a distance, mouths half-open. It looked like a scene out of a Shonen Magazine comic.
But while an ordinary person would either shrink away or burst out laughing when presented with this sight, Sousuke simply proceeded with confidence, coming to a stop about ten steps in front of the rusty container upon which Mari was sitting. “I’m here,” he said in a quiet but penetrating voice. “Release Chidori.”
“First, lose the weapons. I hear you’ve got lots of dangerous stuff on you,” said Mari, drawing Kaname closer and forcing her delicate jaw upwards.
“Ow, ow...” Kaname winced.
Mari pressed a carpenter’s saw to her cheek. “A box-cutter would heal too quickly,” she told Kaname. “This one’ll leave a scar for life. You okay with that?”
“Wah! Cut it out!” Kaname shrieked.
Sousuke pulled the handgun from his back holster and dropped it on the dusty floor.
“Is that it?” Mari demanded. “I said all of it.”
“All of it, eh? Just a moment.” Sousuke unbuttoned his uniform coat and began to remove the rest of his equipment. And out it all came: four spare magazines for his 9mm; a .38 caliber revolver; a combat knife; a kukri; two throwing knives; two hand grenades; two stun grenades; high-grade explosives with a trigger fuse; a stun gun; tear gas; mini-syringes, pre-loaded with various chemicals; plus tons of other dangerous-looking objects whose purpose could not be readily identified.
As the group looked on, stunned, he removed his jacket and showed it to them inside-out. “I’ve done as you asked,” he told them. “Now, release Chidori.”
“Oh? And when did I say I’d release her, eh?” Mari shouted back theatrically, and the men cackled in response.
“That’s... That’s not fair!” Kaname argued.
Mari grabbed a fistful of her hair. “That’s right,” she agreed. “I don’t play fair. I’m also damn strong and short-tempered. And I’ve got a gang on my side, so basically no one can stop me. Any problems with that?”
The punks shouted things like “Awesome!” and “Damn, she’s hot!” in gleeful reply to Mari’s declaration.
“Now... Let’s give that idiot what’s coming to him,” declared Mari, as the fifty-punk gang formed a ring around Sousuke and began to slowly approach him while brandishing their weapons.
“Sousuke, run!” Kaname shouted.
Sousuke had been raised on the battlefield, but he wasn’t superhuman. He could easily defeat four or five of these men, but fifty was out of the question. He’d be beaten black and blue and end up in the hospital for sure. He had no weapons and nowhere to run. It was a truly desperate situation!
But Sousuke simply remained calm and pointed towards the ceiling. “Look up, all of you.”
“Eh?” The group did so. About eight meters above them, dangling from a rope affixed to one of the old factory’s steel beams, was a small boy of about ten years old. He wasn’t moving and appeared to be unconscious.
“Who’s that kid?” the men asked, scowling in their uncertainty.
But one jaw dropped at the sight of the boy—that of Akutsu Mari. “Y-Yoshiki!” she cried out.
“Yes, Akutsu Mari,” Sousuke told her. “That’s your little brother. I strung him up there in secret a little while ago.” Which meant Sousuke had been present long before he’d shown himself. No one had noticed as he’d clung to the ceiling, doing his work quietly above their heads!
“You don’t get along with your parents, but you do seem to care for your little brother,” he continued. “Aren’t you concerned for his well being?”
“I d-don’t know what you’re—”
“Don’t try to hide it,” Sousuke chided her. “I’ve investigated you thoroughly. I used chloroform to abduct him from his elementary school ninety minutes ago. He should be waking up around now.”
As if on cue, the boy’s eyes opened. He immediately began screaming as he realized the position he was in. “Ah... S-Sis!” He wriggled, his body swaying. It was an extremely precarious position.
Mari turned pale. “Yoshiki! Don’t struggle!!!”
“There’s no need to worry,” Sousuke told her reassuringly. “Regular struggling won’t break that rope. Of course, that doesn’t mean that nothing will...”
He pulled a small remote control device from his pocket and pressed a button. Pop! A flash of sparks came from the steel beam the boy was hanging from. One of the ropes holding him burned away, causing his small body to drop about fifty centimeters.
“Waaagh!” The boy’s scream echoed throughout the abandoned factory.
“One of the five fuses this remote control activates is in the boy’s clothing,” Sousuke told them. “He’ll be badly injured if I activate it. But not even I’m sure which button it is... He’s been lucky so far.”
Who had ever heard of such a protagonist? The amorality of his tactics sent a silent shudder through all present, and tears appeared in Mari’s eyes. “Stop that, damn you! Let Yoshiki down! If you don’t...”
“If I don’t? What then?” Sousuke pressed another button, followed by another small explosion. The boy’s body dropped another fifty centimeters.
“I’m scared, Sis! Save me!”
“Yoshiki!” Mari screamed.
“He won’t survive a fall like that unscathed. And there are only three buttons left,” Sousuke said, unfazed by their screams of terror.
“Damn you! Don’t you care what happens to the woman?!” Mari yelled, pressing the saw up to Kaname’s neck.
“You wish to kill her? I suppose that’s understandable.”
“Hey... Sousuke!” Kaname said angrily.
“Chidori. I’m sorry, but you will live or die with the boy,” Sousuke told her. “As vice president, I’m sure you understand. To prevent such an incident from ever happening again, one can never compromise with terrorists; this is international policy.”
“What the hell?!” she shrieked.
“Don’t worry. I’ll write the letter of condolence to your family.”
“Don’t you dare!”
Ignoring her, Sousuke turned to the other woman and said, “Now, Akutsu Mari. If you wish to save the boy, you must release Chidori and dismiss your subordinates. Will both live, or will both die?”
“Grr... hrkkk...” While the rest of the group watched in horror, Mari exchanged glances with her little brother and her gang. It was clear that giving in to emotion would lose her the respect of those under her command. And yet...
“Everyone has things that matter to them.” As if recognizing her dilemma, Sousuke spoke up, in a voice loud enough for the whole group to hear. “You, for instance. Yes, you.” He pointed to a large man holding a pipe. “Your name is Takayama Kiyoshi. You’re a second-year at Garasuyama High School. You have a little sister you care dearly for. She’s fourteen, attends Nishiyama Junior High, and comes home every evening around six o’clock down Benten Avenue—a fairly isolated road. You must be worried about strangers accosting her.”
“Y-You...” Hearing those words from a complete stranger drained the color from the young man’s face.
“And... you. Date Yuta.” He next addressed a man with a punch perm. “You keep a lovebird, don’t you? Your parents bought it for you when you were eleven years old. Its name is Pon-chan. I’m told lovebirds are extremely fragile. Just a little insecticide through a crack in the window causes painful convulsions and—”
“S-Stop it! Don’t say that!” Date pleaded.
“There’s nothing to fear. I’m simply talking about your lovebird. And...” Sousuke looked around at the fifty men surrounding him. They avoided his gaze, cold sweat on their brows, yet he continued to speak mercilessly. “Igarashi Koichi, you’ve got a motorcycle you worked your fingers to the bone to buy. Endo Takashi, you were raised by your single mother, a former actress. Sugaya Shigeru, you recently began dating a woman one year younger than you. As did you, Godai Masayoshi. And Nakajima Shintaro, your sister—”
Five minutes later, fifty delinquent boys could be seen dejectedly marching out of the factory.
“You’re satisfied now, right? Let my brother down,” Akutsu Mari, the only party remaining, said wearily.
“Chidori first,” Sousuke said, using his knife to cut the vinyl ropes binding Kaname.
“Thanks. But, how do I put this...” Kaname glared at him.
He nodded in response. “I know what you’re thinking. I should have shot them all from a distance, rather than taking this roundabout route...”
“Not exactly. I was thinking, doing that to an innocent boy seems a little cruel. I mean, I can’t argue with the result, but the method...”
“Hmm. Is that what it’s about?” Sousuke pressed one of the buttons on the remote in his hand. The sound of an electric winch could be heard from above, slowly lowering the boy’s body to the ground.
“Eh?”
As the boy’s feet quietly met the floor, with Sousuke’s help, he removed the hemp rope he was bound in, along with a far sturdier (and cleverly attached so as not to be seen) climbing rope.
“Sagara-san. Did I do good?” the boy asked.
“Yes. Excellent work.”
“How’d you like my performance?”
“A professional counter-terrorism training hostage couldn’t have done better,” Sousuke told him. “It was excellent.”
“Heh! She sure was scared,” the little boy said gleefully. “Now, keep your promise.”
“The light-up super electromagnetic yo-yo, correct?” Sousuke checked. “I’ll buy it for you.”
Kaname and Mari just watched in disbelief.
“Hey! Sagara! Are you saying this was all an act?!” Mari grabbed Sousuke by the collar and began to lay into him.
“Yes,” Sousuke admitted. “The plan was my idea, and the president helped me. He also provided me with the information on your subordinates.”
“The president? That bastard Hayashimizu?!”
Sousuke pried Mari’s hands free. “He asked me to give you his regards.”
“Dammit. Pretentious little shit...”
“Akutsu Mari. I did my best to ensure his safety, but you still exposed your little brother to considerable danger today,” Sousuke lectured her. “Don’t you have anything to say to him?”
Mari glared death at her little brother. “The hell I do! This little brat is gonna—”
But the little boy let it roll off his back. “You’re the stupid one, Sis. You had to take a hostage and call in a bunch of people just to threaten a guy. After all those lectures about how I need to be strong? That’s just sad.”
“I-I was just playing around because I was bored! Sheesh, get a grip already, kid! You’ve embarrassed the hell out of me already!”
“You brought this on yourself,” her brother announced airily.
“Grr...” Realizing she couldn’t win this one, Mari just fell silent. But after a moment, she said, “Sagara, I’m going to get you for this. Be ready.”
“Very well, but you should also be ready.” Sousuke leaned into the face of the taller woman. “To defeat an enemy with greater ability than one’s own always requires sacrifice. Before you commit to such an oath, you should make sure you aren’t underestimating me.”
Mari said nothing, seeming cowed by his words.
Just then, Kaname gave him a poke from behind. “Cut it out,” she told him. “That’s not the way to make amends with someone.”
“How can I make amends? I only just met her.”
“Totally not my point. Anyway, let’s head home... I’ll make you dinner as thanks.” Kaname took Sousuke’s hand and began to march him swiftly away. “Bye, Mari-chan, Yoshiki-kun. Take care.”
“Farewell, Akutsu Mari. Yoshiki, too,” said Sousuke. “Give utmost attention to your personal health management.” Then, half dragged away by Kaname, Sousuke left the old factory behind.
Mari whispered as she watched him go, stunned, “Who is that guy?”
“He’s pretty funny,” her brother opined. “He barged into my class and said ‘do you want to help me save someone?’”
“At your elementary school?”
“Yeah. The teacher got mad, but he pulled out a gun and said, ‘It’s an emergency’. Guess he was pretty worried about that lady.”
Mari suddenly realized that everything Sousuke had said was a bluff. The idea that he could have been lying when he declared, so coldly, that he would abandon her...
“Well... I’ve got to admit, he’s pretty impressive,” she whispered.
“Eh?”
“Nothing. I’m exhausted. Let’s go home, Yoshiki.”
“Sure.”
And so, Mari left the factory with her brother in tow.
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