Glitch Street (1)
After my identity as Hanuma Makoto was exposed to Aru, the contract with Problem Solver 68 came to an end. The bond between us, however, did not. Rikuhachima Aru was still my personal firearms instructor, after all, and so the sniper lessons continued — our meetings carrying on at the same hideout where I had first met her.
"I was so shocked back then, I'm telling you! Who would've thought Makocchi was the highest-ranking person in the Pandemonium Society!"
Aru was rambling with an excited face, lost in the memory of that day. She clenched her fists and pressed on with her recap.
"That unyielding spirit, standing your ground against Hina without giving an inch! And the way you shouted so dramatically, 'Shoot me, then go'!"
"I-I don't think I said anything quite that extra..."
She was inflating the whole scene. I was getting embarrassed just listening to it. Was this what it felt like to have a hopelessly doting instructor showing off her student?
"Anyway, the point is Makocchi was so cool. Ufufu♪"
Aru delivered her one-line review of a scene destined to be retold forever, then beamed and flashed a thumbs-up. Not one — a double thumbs-up. I supposed that meant we'd gotten that close. She projected the image of a cold-blooded outlaw to the outside world, but to her own people she was a warm, affectionate leader.
Maybe Aru's actually accepted me.
I had her trust. For me, that felt like gaining a reliable pillar to lean on.
"I heard the Pandemonium Society and the Prefect Team are basically hostile organizations. So that makes Makocchi and Hina destined rivals, right?"
Aru's eyes sparkled with fascination as she asked. As a die-hard fan of the Honor Among Thieves series, she was clearly picturing some mafia-versus-yakuza rivalry.
"Sworn enemies who share the same sky but can never coexist! Mortal foes to the bitter end!"
"Ugh...!"
Aru's words stabbed into my heart like a dagger.
"So Makocchi's just waiting for the chance to take Hina down someday, right? Watching for an opening?"
My public image was Hina's archenemy, plain and simple. Take her down. Watch for an opening. If I filtered that through a pure-love lens, it... wasn't entirely wrong—!
The world's perception of us is so harsh it hurts...
Hina and I were not some violent noir relationship. At this rate, people would think I kept lead bullets with her name carved into them, like some vengeful ghost. What I wanted was Cupid's golden arrow. I wanted to make Hina fall in love with me. Lead arrows that inspired hatred were a hard pass.
"Ah. If the contract had continued, maybe Makocchi was going to hire me to assassinate Hina, or...?"
The moment Aru floated that hypothesis, her face went deathly pale. To her, Hina was a natural predator — an object of pure terror.
"She'd be no pushover, but if it was Makocchi's request, e-even if the target was Hina, I'd... I'd take her out...!"
Aru trembled from head to toe, looking like she'd been driven to a cliff's edge. She was planting a failure flag with her dialogue alone. That job would fail. Guaranteed.
"That will never happen. I would never allow anyone else to lay a hand on Hina."
"R-really?"
The instant she heard that, Aru's face lit up. Relief washed over her, and her usual composure returned.
"Ah, what a shame! Someone of Hina's caliber would've been a worthy rival for a big shot like me."
"Well, it isn't Hina, but—"
I opened a new topic with her.
"There is someone I'd like to ask Problem Solver 68 to handle."
It was in preparation for the Eden Treaty. The opponent wouldn't be an easy mark, which was exactly why I wanted to leave the job to Aru.
Money isn't a concern anymore. I've got plenty.
In the Foreclosure Task Force's story, there was that ownerless bag of lost cash — a hundred million yen. I was the one who'd recovered it. To quote Shiroko, the bank-robbery specialist: the person who needed it had picked it up. Right person, right place.
Unlike the original story, Aru never had to hire extra muscle, and the Shiba Seki Ramen shop never exploded. So there's nowhere that money needed to be spent.
Better than me slowly siphoning off the Pandemonium Society's budget, at any rate. As they say, small embezzlements add up until you've built yourself a fortress city.
When I marry Hina someday, I can just count this as collecting the Foreclosure Task Force's wedding gift in advance.
Yeah. Even I had to admit that was some outstanding rationalization. The money would flow back to Problem Solver 68 eventually, so it wasn't any different from the main story. The only difference was that I'd inserted myself as a middleman.
"If you neutralize the target, I'll make sure the payment isn't stingy."
I proposed the deal to Aru.
Is this okay...?
It was the first business offer since the contract had been voided. I was nervous just bringing it up. But this wasn't an ongoing contract — just a one-off job. That meant that much less of the burden of being bound to the Pandemonium Society.
"...All right. If it's Makocchi, Problem Solver will take any job."
Before long, Aru accepted the proposal.
"So who's the target you want handled?"
"That would be—"
And I gave Aru the name.
The next day, I visited Schale.
Sensei had just become the faculty advisor of the Make-Up Work Club at the Tea Party's request. The Make-Up Work Club would soon fail every last one of their first exams, and the fallout would lead to a training camp being arranged for them.
Sensei's going to be stuck at that camp for a while, so seeing him is going to get hard.
As a student of Gehenna, I couldn't freely come and go from Trinity. I needed to see Sensei before that happened. There was something I wanted to ask of him.
"Sensei, I trust you've been well as of lat— hm?"
The scene that greeted me the moment I stepped into the office was this:
"Senseiii! Did you go and impulsively spend money on a gacha game again? I told you so many times—!"
Sensei was getting thoroughly chewed out by Seminar's treasurer, Hayase Yuuka. I had picked a truly terrible time to visit Schale.
"Ah, Makoto."
The moment our eyes met, Sensei came sprinting toward me at full power. He looked like a defendant begging his assigned lawyer for help.
"Sensei! Where do you think you're running off to in the middle of our conversation?!"
Yuuka came after him, intent on making the arrest. Sensei ducked behind me like I was cover. An enraged Yuuka, and an adult who'd committed the crime of wasteful spending. I was the sandwich filling stuck between them.
"...And who are you?"
Yuuka asked me, her tone distinctly displeased. She looked as sour as an investigator trying to extradite a fugitive who'd fled overseas.
"Hanuma Makoto, President of the Pandemonium Society. ...And you would be the student council treasurer of Millennium Science School."
"Ah."
Yuuka looked at me again, startled. The title of Gehenna's student council president had clearly thrown her. This was my opening.
"Sensei and I must discuss a matter of grave importance concerning the Gehenna Autonomous Zone. I shall be taking him for a moment."
"What? What do you mean by—! W-wait a second!"
Leaving a bewildered Yuuka behind, I promptly took Sensei into custody and led him away. Fortunately, he had been rescued from Yuuka's lecture.
"You've got it rough in all sorts of ways, Sensei. Gacha spending is nourishment that slakes the thirst of the soul — a matter far graver than the mere hunger of the flesh."
I could understand an adult's gacha spending. Pyroxene was a matter of grave importance, after all.
"I knew you'd understand, Makoto."
Sensei looked moved, as if he'd always believed in me. He sniffled like he'd just discovered the starting point of a beautiful friendship.
"I'll tell you where that Black Market shop selling graduation albums is — the one you asked about last time."
At last, I would get my hands on Hina's elementary school graduation album. My heart was already racing at the thought of such special Hina merch.
"Th-that's... well. There's something I'd like to ask of you first, Sensei."
But I endured the impulse writhing inside me. There was something more important right now.
"I'd like you to anonymously deliver this letter to a certain student at Trinity General School."
I handed Sensei the letter I'd prepared. Nothing distinctive about it. Just a letter in a neat envelope.
"A love letter?"
"It is nothing of the sort—!!!"
I frantically dispelled Sensei's love-letter suspicions. A love letter to another student while Hina existed? Unthinkable.
"Got it. Who should I give it to?"
And then I told him the recipient.
With that, the story of the Eden Treaty would continue onward — until it reached its destination.