Kai was still curled up inside the metal basket, letting the silver-haired girl "drive" the shopping cart as it raced downhill.
The long slope was gradually leveling out. He had thought this insane ride was finally about to end, but to his surprise, the Scavs caught up in their vehicle.
Several shots were fired in Kai's direction, and one bullet scraped across the ground.
The silver-haired girl looked up toward the Scavs chasing them.
"Tch."
"Looks like they're not that easy to shake."
Then she lowered her head, looked at Kai in the basket, and let out a faint laugh.
"So?"
"You making a move?"
Seeing the teasing look in her eyes, Kai could only feel helpless.
The Kenshin pistol was jammed against the small of his back, digging in uncomfortably.
He released his right hand from the cart and awkwardly reached behind his waist to draw the pistol.
To avoid pressing down on it, he had to force himself upward, but in doing so he accidentally got too close to the silver-haired girl's face and nearly bumped into her chin.
At last, Kai pulled the Kenshin pistol free from behind his waist.
But if he wanted to aim at the Scavs and open fire, he had to turn himself around and get up.
Lying flat in the basket, he could not see anything.
The silver-haired girl decisively freed her left hand, grabbed Kai by the wrist, and gave him half a body's worth of space.
"Tuck your legs!"
"Turn over!"
Kai pulled his legs in and used the upward force from her grip to roll over inside the metal basket, ending in a crouch.
The movement was difficult, but with the two of them working together, it went smoothly.
The girl released her other hand from the support bar and placed both hands on Kai's shoulders instead.
She lowered her head slightly, leaning in from behind until her lips were near his ear. Her neon-colored eyes looked hazy and unreal as she gave a soft little command.
"Mm-hm..."
"Let me see what you can really do."
Kai did his best to ignore the warm breath brushing against his ear and raised the gun while crouching.
The Scavs' vehicle kept closing in. Their firepower was not especially fierce, but they were getting closer and closer, enough to ram them at any time.
The basket under Kai was not exactly as solid as the armored corporate vehicles Arasaka issued.
In the back of the modified pickup, a few punks were waving their knives and shouting nonstop.
"Fuck, why don't you stop the cart alrea..."
Before the sentence could finish, a bullet instantly blew apart the speaker's mohawk-covered head. His skull burst into blood, flesh, and bone fragments that sprayed backward.
His limp corpse toppled out of the truck bed, rolled across the ground, and was crushed flat under the wheels of a heavy cargo truck driving behind them, leaving a long streak of mangled remains.
The remaining three punks immediately ducked down behind the front of the truck.
"Fuck, how is his aim that good?!"
The silver-haired girl saw Kai kill one of them with a single shot and could not help laughing.
"Not bad!"
"But you need to end this fast."
"You don't want to end up soaking wet, do you?"
Hearing her reminder, Kai turned his head slightly and checked behind them from the corner of his eye.
He realized the downhill road ran straight toward the seawall. If the cart kept going, it would smash into the railing and send both of them flying into the sea.
The finish line was already right in front of them.
Kai immediately switched to tungsten rounds in the magazine and aimed straight at the pursuing pickup.
He pulled the trigger.
Electromagnetic tension gathered inside the barrel, then the tungsten round spun faster and faster before blasting out.
Boom!
The tungsten slug slammed into the pickup with enormous force, punching through the armored front and driving into the engine block, triggering a violent explosion.
Boom!
The entire pickup was instantly swallowed by fire. Under the force of the impact, the vehicle flipped over hard, crashed against the roadside, and erupted into blazing flames.
Vehicle destroyed.
Everyone dead.
The silver-haired girl's eyes reflected the roaring fire. The trouble had been completely taken care of.
She arched her body like a cat, pulling herself backward. Then she stretched out her long left leg, planting one foot on the ground and the other against the cart, both hands gripping the basket firmly.
After a rough dragging brake, the cart finally stopped at the edge of the seawall, her back heel ending right against a railing post.
Because the sudden stop came so abruptly, Kai nearly toppled backward out of the basket even while crouching with the gun in hand, but a palm pressed firmly against his back and kept him steady, preventing him from flying apart from the cart.
Once Kai stabilized himself, he immediately vaulted out of the basket.
After that brush with death, his heart was still pounding.
The silver-haired girl let go of the cart and drew back her long leg. She set one hand on her hip and used the other to straighten the messy strands hanging over her forehead, tucking them back by her ear.
"Ha, you okay?"
There was obvious teasing in her tone.
Kai walked over to the seawall railing and took several deep breaths, finally calming the lingering terror of that high-speed ride.
If you drove well, it was racing.
If you drove badly, it was a hearse drifting into the afterlife.
He turned back to look at the silver-haired girl and only then noticed she was also dressed for exercise, wearing a hoodie shot through with yellow-violet glow accents, the hem drawn tight enough to show off her narrow waist.
Kai tucked the gun back into his waistband and said,
"Your driving skills are definitely good."
"But next time, don't drive."
Lucy curled her lips into a smile.
"Oh?"
"So that's how you treat your savior?"
Since they had not flipped over and had landed safely, Kai decided not to argue over it.
"Then thank you very much."
Lucy heard the tone in his voice and could tell he clearly did not accept the idea that she had saved him. So she walked over to the seawall, leaned back against the railing, and rested both elbows lightly on the horizontal bar.
"I forgot."
"You really didn't need me to save you."
"One phone call, and people would line up to come save you, wouldn't they?"
"Right, Mr. Kai?"
The sudden shift in her attitude made Kai wonder whether she had split personalities.
Just moments ago she had been acting like a complete lunatic.
Now, in the blink of an eye, she had gone back to acting aloof and prickly again.
Since she had helped him this time, and because of that gray simulation button, Kai suppressed his irritation and tried to speak to her normally.
"Forget it."
"I came out for a night run to relax."
"Let's not talk about company stuff."
Then he thought about all the corporate gossip from earlier that day and added with a self-mocking laugh,
"A corporate executive going out for a late-night run and getting mugged by street punks."
"Cornered by a few low-level thugs and left with no choice but to call Arasaka Special Ops to come protect him."
"If that got out, it wouldn't exactly be a glorious story."
"When you work in a corporation, you still have to keep at least a little dignity."
Dignity?
Lucy turned to look at Kai and studied him for a moment. Something about that night by the seawall came back to her, but whatever she had been about to say stopped at her lips.
"Don't worry. I'll keep your little mugging incident a secret."
Kai had nothing to say to that and thought, Did you already forget what happened on the train?
Lucy, however, paid no attention to what he was thinking. She simply extended her left hand toward him in a gesture for a handshake.
"Let me introduce myself again."
"My name is Lucy."
Kai saw that her expression was serious now, no longer carrying that mocking edge from before. For once, this was a normal conversation.
So he reached out too.
And shook her hand.
"Then let me introduce myself again."
"Dual deputy director of two Arasaka departments."
"My name is Kai."
Lucy: "..."
(End of Chapter)
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