Tomorrow's Mission
The sniping distance was one thousand yards, and once again it was Cointreau who fired first.
There were no surprises — Cointreau hit the target cleanly.
Next up was Gin.
Gin studied the target through his scope, slowed his breathing, and pulled the trigger.
Bang—!
To his misfortune, the target did not drop at the sound of the shot. Gin's bullet grazed past the mark and buried itself in the backrest of the man's chair.
"Looks like you win this round. Care to keep going?"
Gin's brow creased slightly. He wasn't pleased about the miss, but he wasn't particularly disappointed either. Slinging the rifle back over his shoulder, he straightened up, glanced at the man beside him, and arched an eyebrow in question.
"Let's continue. It's not often I come out here — might as well see whether I've gotten rusty lately." Cointreau held his position, ready to press on with the sniping test.
What followed were ranges of 1,050, 1,100, 1,150 yards... all the way to 1,300.
By then Cointreau could no longer acquire and hit targets with the speed he'd shown at the start — his aim was taking longer and longer to settle — yet so far he had not missed a single shot.
Next came 1,350 yards.
The training range simulated a street scene: the target was driving a car at a constantly shifting speed, with other vehicles and pedestrians intermittently blocking the line of sight. It was a genuinely difficult shot.
Cointreau gripped the sniper rifle, his expression unchanging, eyes locked on the target's figure through the scope.
Just as he was about to squeeze the trigger, something seemed to occur to him. His gaze shifted almost imperceptibly, and the muzzle drifted a hair's breadth off line — so subtly that no one would notice.
Bang—!
The shot rang out — and missed the target by the barest margin.
"What a shame. That was close." Chianti looked at Cointreau's score with genuine regret. He'd come within a hair of hitting it.
She'd never imagined Cointreau's marksmanship was this good — good enough to put even Gin in the shade.
Having just witnessed Gin's defeat firsthand, Chianti couldn't help feeling a certain gloating satisfaction.
"Ahem. If Cointreau shoots that well, he wouldn't happen to be taking over sniper duty on future operations, would he?" Korn coughed, shifting to block Vodka's line of sight — better that Vodka didn't catch Chianti's expression and spark a quarrel.
"You can't be serious. Firing chances are already few and far between — now someone else is going to swoop in and grab them?" At Korn's question, Chianti could no longer simply sit back and enjoy the show. Her nerves were getting the better of her.
She truly didn't want one more person competing for the already scarce trigger time. And worse, with Cointreau's skills and standing, if he genuinely wanted to muscle in, she wouldn't stand a chance of stopping him.
The thought left her feeling distinctly deflated.
"Probably not. From what Aniki's said, Cointreau's real specialty is close-quarters combat, not sniping."
Vodka, entirely oblivious to Chianti's complicated feelings, cast his mind back to what his partner had said before and to his own dealings with Cointreau, and concluded that Cointreau's current role wasn't that of a sniper.
"You sure about that?" Chianti sounded dubious. If she hadn't known Vodka wasn't the type to talk out of turn, she'd have assumed he was making it up on the spot.
"So between Gin and Cointreau — who'd win?" Once the surprise wore off, curiosity got the better of her again. If Cointreau outshot Gin, did that mean Gin couldn't beat him in a straight fight either?
Korn hadn't been thinking along the same lines as Chianti, but the answer to that question piqued him too, and he turned to look at Vodka.
"Well... uh..." Vodka was stumped by the question and hemmed and hawed, unable to come up with an answer.
Down on the training floor below—
"Getting rusty, Cointreau?" Gin looked at Cointreau's score, eyes narrowing, his expression unreadable.
"Yeah, it's been too long since I last handled a sniper rifle. My hands have gone a bit stiff." Cointreau paid no mind to the barb buried in Gin's words, the smile sliding back onto his face.
"Heh. Is that so." Gin gave a cold laugh, committing himself to neither belief nor disbelief.
His phone buzzed. Ignoring Gin's probing stare, Cointreau pulled it out and checked the message that had just come in.
When he saw the sender's name, the smile on his face grew a touch more genuine.
He read through what Xia Xi had sent, set the phone down, and thought for a moment before lifting his head toward Gin. "You've got an operation tomorrow, don't you? Something to do with Kir?"
Gin shot Cointreau a sideways glance. "Yeah, that's right. The mission calls for Kir to make use of her public identity."
He couldn't be bothered to ask how Cointreau had learned about an upcoming mission yet again. Still...
"Cointreau. Haven't your sources been a little too well-informed lately?" Gin asked with a frown.
"Relax — I know where to draw the line. And thanks."
Cointreau knew that from a man like Gin, that one remark already counted as a warning.
"Why do you want to know about the mission?"
As if he hadn't heard Cointreau's last two words at all, Gin's expression didn't change in the slightest. He knew Cointreau kept himself in check, so he had no intention of pressing the matter further. Instead he turned to the question of why Cointreau had suddenly brought the mission up at all.
"Don't tell me you're planning to take part?"
Gin asked, but he hardly expected a yes. Cointreau had never shown much enthusiasm for the Organization's operations. Unless a job was assigned to him by name, he never involved himself in other people's missions.
"Mm. Count me in as one more."
The answer caught Gin off guard.
"Reason," Gin demanded, brow furrowed.
"The FBI is starting to suspect Kir's cover. Something could go wrong tomorrow. Don't worry — I won't get in your way. I'll just be there as insurance."
Gin's brow creased at that, but he didn't object. Still...
"The FBI?"
"Kir was in and out of the hospital where Araide Tomoaki — who was actually Vermouth in disguise — worked, so the FBI grew a little suspicious. Only a little, though. As long as she doesn't do anything unusual in the near future, they should give up on keeping watch over her." Cointreau understood exactly what Gin was asking, and gave him the gist of the information Xia Xi had just sent, concise and to the point.
Xia Xi had only learned today that it was the FBI keeping watch over Mizunashi Rena, but since she meant to pass the news to her brother, she couldn't very well hand it over half-baked. She'd done some digging into why the FBI had grown suspicious in the first place.
With help from Nahida and Noah's Ark, she'd combed through the phone data of the man running the surveillance — and beyond the reason for it, she'd discovered something else entirely: the watcher's identity was none other than their teacher, Ms. Jodie.
"So? Is Kir still in for tomorrow?" With the briefing done, Cointreau asked Gin with a smile.
"Of course." Gin answered without a moment's hesitation, his voice cold as steel. "If Kir can't shake those FBI agents tomorrow — or if they catch her with something they can use — then she's nothing but dead weight."
"I'll be more careful tomorrow."
Not in the mood for further talk, Gin left those final words behind him and turned to go.