CHAPTER 24: COVER FIRE
5th Floor. Office.
BANG!
Hearing Fusui Kure's taunts over the speaker, Q-Taro slammed his cane into the mahogany desk with enough force to splinter the wood. He was livid. He glanced at the massive, masked Rodem behind him, his chest heaving with ragged breaths.
"Hah... huff! Kure Clan, is it? Once I'm done with these four 'guests,' I'll hunt you down personally. We'll see who the real expert at killing is!"
"..."
The line went dead as Yagyo tucked his phone back into his suit pocket.
To the Referee, Q-Taro's outburst sounded like the desperate barking of a cornered dog. He was letting his rage cloud his judgment. To a professional like Yagyo, this was an insult to the "Aesthetics" of a high-stakes gamble. He felt compelled to offer a final warning.
"Master Kujo... I suggest you regain your composure. This is beginning to look quite unsightly."
"Unsightly? You think I look weak?!"
Q-Taro ground his teeth, but after a few sharp breaths, he forced his twisted, manic smile back onto his face. "Hah... you're right, Yagyo-san. I should be savoring the 'Now.'"
"A single sniper—even a Kure—is a rare thing in this country, but I've faced hundreds on the battlefield. Dealing with them is routine. It's no trouble at all."
Q-Taro picked up his comms unit and barked an order to his team. "The sniper is to the Southwest. Stay away from the windows on that side and finish the four targets in the building! Be calm. Be methodical."
"Copy that," the mercenaries replied in unison.
These four men were cut from the same cloth as Q-Taro. They were veterans who had tasted the high of a real battlefield and found that civilian life could no longer satisfy their hunger for violence.
They weren't just thugs; their tactical discipline was top-tier. After the initial shock of the sniper fire, they quickly adapted, theorizing the best way to handle the situation.
"If they have long-range cover, they'll try to stay near the windows to keep us in the sniper's line of sight," the lead mercenary analyzed. "Which means as long as we stay in the interior corridors, the distance between us will naturally close."
"This is good for us!"
"They have exactly one handgun—an M9. We have submachine guns. In a direct exchange of lead, we have the overwhelming advantage."
"None of them are soldiers. A martial artist can't punch a bullet. If this turns into a shootout—and it will—the team that knows the terrain and has the gear will win. That's us."
"Heh. Nothing has changed..."
The four mercenaries split into two pairs. Moving with hushed, synchronized steps, they began a pincer search of the sixth floor, covering each other's blind spots with professional precision.
Suddenly—
CLACK!
A distinct, echoing footwork sounded from the main corridor of the sixth floor.
The mercenary with the slicked-back hair grinned. "Footsteps. In the main hallway. Let's end this."
"Wait, keep your head," the lead merc cautioned in a whisper. "This prey is cunning. Remember the 'Man of Absolute Might' and the handgun. We move slowly. We savor the hunt."
"Fine, fine. You're the boss," the slick merc muttered.
Despite the grumbling, the lead mercenary was right. "They have nowhere left to go. The surrounding rooms are all locked. We squeeze them until they have no air left."
They crept forward. As they rounded the final corner of the hallway, they spotted the source of the noise.
It was the silver-haired middle-aged man.
"Target sighted!"
Shigeru Akagi stood at the end of the corridor, holding the captured M9 in a firm, relaxed grip. He leveled the muzzle at the lead pair.
BANG! BANG!
Two rounds hissed through the air. The mercenaries dove into the alcoves of the corridor walls, giving Akagi no opening.
"Heh. Desperate, aren't you?"
The mercs chuckled to themselves. "He must be at his limit. Grabbing his partner's gun for a final, suicidal stand. How pathetic."
"We aren't going to give you the chance."
"An M9 magazine holds 15 rounds. He already fired once. He has no spare mags. He's down to 12 shots, max..."
"Once those are gone, his 'lifeline' is severed!"
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Akagi's slow, deliberate fire continued. On the tenth shot, the hallway fell into an oppressive silence.
"Hmm? Out of ammo? Or is he saving the last two for himself?"
The mercenaries didn't care. They were already moving. "It doesn't matter. The moment this became a 'shootout,' we won."
While taking cover, the four men had donned their gas masks and lowered their thermal-imaging goggles. Each of them pulled a smoke canister from their tactical vest.
These were high-grade, military tear-gas canisters—contraband that would never be used on common targets. But these were rare guests; they deserved the full professional treatment.
Whether Akagi had bullets left or not didn't matter. In a confined corridor, no one survives a concentrated tear-gas barrage.
CLICK—!
The pins were pulled. Two canisters were hurled toward the end of the hallway.
Seconds later, a thick, acrid cloud of grey-white gas erupted, completely swallowing the Man of the Divine Realm.
The four mercenaries moved in unison, stepping out from their cover. They leveled their SMGs into the smoke, their eyes darting behind the red-tinted thermal lenses, searching for the heat signatures of their prey.
"Let's begin. Shoot for the legs first. We'll walk over and finish him with the knives once he's paralyzed!"
But the next second—
Their thermal displays flared with three distinct heat signatures!
Kaji and Baku had been hiding further down the corridor, right next to the far windows. The moment the gas began to spread, the two of them smashed the windowpanes with steel pipes and bricks.
CRASH! SHATTER!
The sudden gust of the night wind acted as a bellows. It caught the smoke and blew it directly back toward the four mercenaries.
"Wha—?!"
The mercs flinched for a microsecond, but they didn't panic. They had gas masks. They had thermal sights. This was just a desperate, futile attempt by the prey to hide.
"They only have the one gun! Focus on the shooter and the windows! Don't worry about the sniper—she can't see through the building! If it moves, kill it!"
"..."
As they prepared to fire, the mercenaries realized something was terribly wrong. The three heat signatures at the end of the hall remained stationary, looking entirely unconcerned about the SMGs pointed at them.
Wait. One, two, three...
Where is the fourth one?
Where is the 'Man of Absolute Might' who can shatter a jaw with a single punch?!
"..."
A wave of intense heat suddenly radiated from right beside them.
The mercenaries' eyes darted to the side, trying to catch a glimpse in their peripheral vision. But the gas masks and the thermal goggles—designed to focus on the targets in front—had severely limited their field of view. They were blind to their own flanks.
Is it... him?
Yes. It was him.
Using the smoke as a cloak and the mercenaries' own equipment as a distraction, Ren Shiroki had walked right into the middle of the squad.
He stood in the center of the acrid cloud, eyes closed, his breath held. He was untouched by the gas.
Truthfully, he couldn't stay in there for long. But he didn't need long to settle a bet.
One second... was more than enough!