Chapter 122: Bullets That Could Not Reach!
"Smile-sama!!!"
Seeing their leader sent flying by Shiro's punch, the remaining Rebellion members instantly panicked.
Metallurgy reacted first. He ran to the rubble and dug Smile out from underneath.
"Smile-sama, are you all right?"
"M-My hand..."
Metallurgy followed Smile's gaze and saw that the finger wearing his Device was twisted at a strange angle.
Under Shiro's attack, the reflection ability Smile had always taken pride in had actually failed.
That made the ever-calm Smile lose his composure. The tattoo on the left side of his face twisted like a worm.
"Open fire, all of you!"
He endured the sharp pain from his left hand and drew a pistol from his waist with his right, aiming it at Shiro.
The soldiers received the order and no longer cared about the remaining hostages. They turned their guns toward Shiro and pulled the triggers, unleashing a rain of bullets.
"Stella, I'll leave the hostages to you."
"This is how it should have been from the start!"
Stella burned away the rope binding her hands with fire, then stood up.
With a wave of her hand, a wall of flames rose between the soldiers and the hostages. Every lead bullet evaporated cleanly before passing through it.
"Damn it! Why are there more Blazers?!"
Stella's appearance made the already uneasy soldiers even more terrified, but Smile had no room to care about their feelings.
Because at the end of his sight, Shiro was walking slowly toward him, exposed to the storm of bullets.
Some bullets brushed past his hair. Some were deflected with a clear "ding" by other bullets just before they struck him.
Hundreds, even thousands of bullets flew, yet not a single one could touch him.
"M-Monster..."
Smile threw away the gun in his right hand.
Ignoring the gravel that pierced his skin and dug into his flesh, he braced himself with his right hand and desperately backed away.
He could not win.
With his Noble Art broken, he could not defeat this monster.
'I only became the leader of this Rebellion squad a few years ago. I haven't even properly enjoyed the taste of power yet.'
'I don't want to die here. Think, Smile. There should be something. I must have left myself a way out.'
Smile suddenly remembered something, and his gaze swept toward a figure among the hostages.
'Heh. I win.'
Shiro grabbed Smile by the collar with one hand and lifted up the man whose face was covered in tears, snot, and blood.
To his surprise, Smile, who had been panicking until now, seemed to be holding something back. His shoulders kept shaking.
"Heehee."
"Everyone, stop!"
Alongside Smile's laugh, a roar close to a wail suddenly rose from among the hostages.
Shiro looked toward the source of the voice behind him. A man in a red T-shirt was pressing a handgun against a woman's temple.
Shiro remembered it clearly. That man had been tied up with the woman from the very beginning.
In other words, he was an undercover piece Smile had planted among the crowd from the start, just in case.
"Heeheehee! Ahahahahahaha!!! In the end, I still win, bastard!"
Smile let out a near-mad laugh.
The thrill of escaping death intoxicated him. Monster? The princess of the Vermillion Empire? In the end, didn't they still have to obey Smile-sama?
"You bastard, hurry up and let Smile-sama go!"
The man in the red shirt roared at Shiro.
"Let go of my mom!"
A little boy shouted and rushed at the man, only to be kicked away.
"Let's each take a step back. You let me go first, then obediently kneel and kowtow to me a hundred times. We'll call it even. How about that?"
Perhaps the joy of victory had gone to Smile's head. He did not notice the way Shiro was looking at him like an idiot, and instead made that demand with great arrogance.
Bang—
Smile's head had an intimate meeting with the wall.
For some reason, his Blazer ability did not activate.
Under the influence of Shiro's love, physically delivered, the noisy Smile finally understood his sincerity and obediently closed his mouth.
"Bastard! You think I don't dare shoot?! In that case, I'll start with this kid!"
Seeing his boss smashed unconscious against the wall, the red-shirted man grabbed the woman's neck with one hand and aimed the gun at the child he had kicked away with the other.
"Hey, brat. After you go to hell, remember that bastard's face. He's the reason you and your mother got killed by me."
As he said that, he pulled the trigger.
However—
Click, click—
The gun jammed.
"I told you already. Remember to check your gun. See? Now it jammed."
Shiro's teasing voice drifted over.
The soldier who had escorted Shiro downstairs recalled what he had said earlier.
Meet the boss?
Gun jam?
'Did he predict this situation from the very beginning?'
Shiro looked at the red-shirted man, who had fallen into a rage because of the jammed gun, and spoke.
"Your next line wouldn't happen to be, 'You think I can't kill her without a gun?' would it?"
"You think I can't kill her without a gun?!"
The red-shirted man tightened his hand.
The woman struggled as her breathing grew difficult, trying to pry his hand away from her throat.
At that moment, an invisible slash broke the stalemate from the darkness.
At the key moment, Ikki, who had been hidden in the shadows all along, acted.
He had been hiding inside Alice's shadow and activated [Ittou Shura]. While the soldier's attention was diverted, he used his Seventh Secret Sword—[Raikou].
Blood scattered, and the soldier's arm flew through the air in an arc.
"Gaaaaaaaah!!!"
Seizing the chance, the student knights who had been hidden among the hostages broke free of their ropes and rushed forward to help.
How could ordinary people with guns be a match for Blazers? The situation reversed instantly, and the student knights quickly pinned the Rebellion soldiers to the ground.
After Rebellion lost the strength to resist, Alice, who had been hiding nearby, called the police.
The officers who received the report immediately rushed into the shopping street. After ensuring the hostages were safe, they took the Rebellion members away for questioning.
According to the leading officer, they might be able to investigate one of Rebellion's small bases this time, though that had nothing to do with the student knights present.
"Ah, going out really is more interesting after all. I'm satisfied. Very satisfied."
Shiro stretched lazily.
"You can still say that? When that woman was taken hostage, I was almost scared to death."
Stella patted her chest, still shaken.
"Wasn't Ikki there?"
"If you hadn't drawn their attention at the front, and if Alice's Blazer ability hadn't helped, I wouldn't have been able to seize that chance either. Huh? Shizuku, what's wrong?"
Ikki suddenly noticed someone tugging on his clothes halfway through his words. When he turned around, he saw Shizuku.
"Brother, next time, please pay attention to hygiene when doing those things."
Her little face was tense.
'Hygiene?'
A question appeared in Ikki's mind. He always washed his hands properly after using the restroom. What was Shizuku talking about?
Still, since it was his sister's goodwill, he only needed to accept it with a smile.
"I'll remember."
Ikki smiled.
However, in Shizuku's eyes, that smile carried a completely different meaning.
'Brother actually admitted it? Brother is going to be taken by a boy?!!'
She endured the pain in her heart and tried to keep her tone the same as usual.
"And Alice, too. Girls should pay even more attention to those things."
'What exactly is Shizuku talking about?'
Ikki still could not understand.
After receiving no reply, Shizuku looked toward Alice, who still had not followed them. He was currently looking up at a certain spot in the mall.
"Alice?"
"Ah? What is it?"
"Are you all right? Your expression doesn't look good."
'Don't tell me... it was actually his first time?! In the restroom?!'
Ikki's perfect image crumbled slightly inside Shizuku's heart.
"No, it's nothing. I just feel a little uncomfortable. Let me rest for a bit."
In a corner Shizuku could not see, Alice's palm was soaked with cold sweat.
At the end of his gaze, directly above where the red-shirted man had stood, a chandelier was hanging there, almost falling.
'This is bad.'
Alice silently thought in his heart.
Because the ability Shiro had shown earlier was almost exactly the same as "that person's."
…
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