A Yakuza's Circumstances (4)
Blood welled from the belly of the man who had collapsed from shock. He clutched at his stomach, but the wound ran far too deep; there was no stemming what poured out.
Silence hung over the room. Not a soul among them had even seen Suzuki swing the blade. When people witness something overwhelming, the body locks up. They stood as if some unseen force had frozen them in place, unable to so much as twitch a finger. A few had even forgotten to breathe. The first to recover his wits was the man who looked to be their boss.
"Snap out of it! She's just one girl! Everyone, draw your guns—!"
"Yes, sir!"
Click.
The yakuza drew their pistols and chambered rounds in unison. In a blink, Suzuki cut down the three men nearest her and ducked behind a sofa.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
With twenty-odd men firing at once, the pistols sounded like a rifle volley. When the gunfire died, the boss shouted.
"Go! Get over there and kill her!"
But no one moved. They had feelings too. Four of their own were already dead, cut down by a blade they hadn't even seen. Every last one of them had died with his belly split open, guts spilling out in a grotesque mess.
To check behind the sofa where Suzuki had hidden, they would have to close to arm's reach. Within the reach of that blade. Go there, and you die.
"What the hell are you doing?! Go! I said go!"
Primal terror outweighed the boss's orders. They were afraid. Afraid of Suzuki, who had carved through several men as if it were nothing. Afraid of those lifeless, inhuman eyes.
"You worthless bastards!"
While they dithered, wasting precious seconds, Suzuki pulled a revolver from her coat and fired at the floor.
Psssshhh—
A muffled hiss filled the room, and white smoke swallowed the interior. Panic spread faster than the smoke grenade.
"Wh-what the hell?!"
"Cough, cough!"
"It's a smoke grenade! Dammit!"
Bang! Bang!
A few of the more trigger-happy ones even wasted rounds into empty air.
"W-we're all gonna die."
Those last words from someone in the haze were the trigger.
"H-hiiiiek!"
One yakuza, unable to bear the fear, bolted for the exit. Suzuki cut him down with a casual stroke. The distance should have been considerable, and yet the man crumpled, clutching his stomach.
"A monster! She's a monster! That's not human!"
Click.
She advanced the revolver's cylinder by one chamber. With a blank expression, she angled the barrel at her own forearm—and fired.
Bang!
"Haaah."
The compound in the special round rode her bloodstream through her entire body. Suzuki's breathing quickened. The brief pain faded, and her pupils dilated. Her blood flow surged, and every sense sharpened to a razor's edge: the metallic reek of blood stinging her nose; the thick gunpowder smell that almost made her cough; and, through the pale haze of the smoke grenade, even the twitch of their fingers on the triggers.
Suzuki dropped low and charged.
"Guhk!"
Wherever she passed, only corpses remained. Every fallen yakuza had his belly opened.
"Gyaaah! My gut, my gut...!"
They couldn't see a thing. But they could hear the screaming. Step backward and you bumped into a corpse. Stumble in fright, and something warm coated your hands. Sometimes what you grabbed was a comrade's intestines. It was more than enough to drive a man insane.
"Where is she?! Where?!"
Some of the yakuza sprayed bullets at random. Friendly fire dropped their own men.
"Calm down!"
The boss shouted himself hoarse, but no one heard him.
"Um..."
Suzuki whispered right beside his ear. Every hair on the boss's body stood on end as he whipped his gun to the right and fired. All he felt was Suzuki's hair brushing his cheek. She hadn't been hit.
"...She dodged a bullet."
"U-um..."
Suzuki mumbled timidly.
"I-I have to... interrogate you... so I can't kill you..."
"...!"
"Sorry, but... could you... wait over in that corner...?"
Startled, the boss fired at Suzuki. Her figure vanished, and a hideous pain exploded in his abdomen.
"Gahk!"
Suzuki shoved him aside without much care and took stock of the battlefield.
"Wh-where is she?!"
Five left.
She came up from behind, clamped a hand over a mouth, reversed her grip, and slashed a belly open.
Four.
Suzuki deflected an incoming round with her blade, closed the gap in a single step, and swung. The two hands that had been holding a pistol dropped to the floor, severed. A perfect opening. Suzuki split the man's belly without a moment's hesitation.
Puhak!
A little blood speckled her suit; she paid it no mind and slipped behind a pillar. Several bullets punched into the spot she had just vacated.
Three.
Suzuki kicked off the wall and used the momentum to cut through a yakuza as she passed.
Two.
A yakuza raised his gun with trembling hands. To Suzuki's eyes it moved in slow motion, and the instant she dodged—
Bang!
The yakuza's shot punched through Suzuki's shoulder. A wildly shaking hand had, by sheer chance, found her at the last second. She staggered slightly, but it didn't matter. Without a shred of hesitation, she opened his belly.
One.
Suzuki spun at once and threw her blade. It buried itself dead-center in the solar plexus. The yakuza clutched the hilt and went down. Suzuki walked over, unhurried, and ripped the blade free with a sideways tear. Blood gushed, and the man toppled onto his side.
And zero.
"...I did it."
Suzuki curled her hand into a proud little fist. Then, with a chilling expression, she approached the boss.
He sat slumped on the floor, breathing hard, cold sweat running down his face as he hid his gun behind his back.
"S-seeing it in person... it's just absurd. Is everyone in the Minamoto family a monster like you?"
I'm scared...
Suzuki lowered her eyes, looking dejected. For a timid girl like her, having to talk to a strange man was terrifying.
"Now then.... please tell me... um... why you targeted the young oyabun..."
Suzuki crouched down and asked. Her speech and mannerisms were anything but normal, and a crushing terror was welling up in him—when, over Suzuki's shoulder, a hopeful sight caught the boss's eye.
One of the fallen yakuza was twitching, stretching a hand toward a pistol lying a short distance away.
"Heh. You think I'll just tell you that?"
"I-I don't really want to hurt you..."
Suzuki looked sad.
"But if you're going to be like that... I'll have no choice but to hurt you..."
Thunk!
"Gyaaaaah!"
Suzuki drove her blade through the man's hand. The screaming boss glared at her with bloodshot eyes.
"Fine, fine, dammit!"
"Okay."
"But listen... promise me one thing first, yeah? If I tell you everything, you let me live."
Suzuki lowered her eyes and nodded.
"We're just taking a job, that's all."
Even as he spoke, the boss's attention was locked on the yakuza behind her. The man had managed to pick up the pistol. Slowly, he began to raise it toward Suzuki.
It was strange. Suzuki tended to cut quite deep—right up to the brink of cutting a man in two. And yet this man was still moving. He didn't even look alive. It was deeply unsettling. But so what? What mattered was that he was the only hope left.
The boss swallowed dryly. He opened his mouth, stalling for every second he could buy.
"A very special client showed up, see. Promised us an enormous payout if we killed that precious young lady of yours."
"Is a payout... more precious... than your life...?"
"Yeah. They offered something so precious I couldn't possibly refuse."
"What kind of... payout..."
The yakuza had raised his arm high enough now that a shot would surely hit. Timing it perfectly, the man shouted.
"Money! What other reason would a yakuza have to kill someone?! Shoot—!"
Suzuki realized too late and tried to rise and dodge, but she was already too late.
Blam-blam! Bang! Bang!
The yakuza behind her and the boss both opened fire from either side. Suzuki's body lurched. The boss ripped the blade from his hand, staggered to his feet, and emptied his pistol wildly. Suzuki was soon reduced to a ragdoll. She swayed and collapsed to the floor.
The boss swapped magazines and kept firing into the fallen Suzuki. Her body, already seemingly unconscious, jerked with each impact.
"Khah, khahahaha! Well done, Taki! You actually pulled through! I'll bury you somewhere nice!"
The man who had barely clung to consciousness long enough to fire those shots closed his eyes, as if that had been his limit.
The boss approached, gun still trained on Suzuki. She had displayed monstrous physical ability. His hands still shook from that overwhelming spectacle. This fear would only leave him once he'd blown the source of it to pieces.
The cold barrel of the pistol touched Suzuki's head.
Suzuki opened her eyes.
"I-impossib—"
Tak.
He pulled the trigger on reflex, but nothing fired. The boss's wavering vision found the pistol. Sometime without his noticing, the safety had been flicked on. A pale, slender hand had locked around his own.
...When did she—?
Click.
The magazine dropped to the floor. Meeting Suzuki's unfocused eyes, the boss said, dazed,
Tokyo University Hospital.
A man in green scrubs emerged from the operating room. Noah, who had been waiting there the entire time, sprang up and went to him. The doctor pulled down his mask and spoke.
"The surgery went well. All that's left now is to wait."
Noah asked, her voice flat.
"...Can Koko live?"
"...There's nothing I can say for certain."
The tail end of the doctor's voice trembled slightly as he said it.
"Noah..."
Chise, her eyes already swollen from crying, wiped them and pulled Noah into a hug.
"It'll be okay. Everything's going to be okay.... If you're sad, just cry. Don't make that face. Hwaaaang."
Chise had already run out of tears, and yet she started crying all over again. Yuria, watching the scene, started to reach out—then let her hand fall. She didn't have the right. She only bit her lip.
How did it come to this......
Just then, the operating room doors opened and a transfer patient appeared.
"......"
A bad feeling settled over them. Noah's pupils widened.
"D-Doctor? Suzuki is......"
The intensive care unit.
Beep. Beep.
Suzuki lay still beneath the steady pulse of a monitor. Noah walked over with a dark expression and stopped at the bedside.
"......Koko."
Suzuki was sleeping peacefully. Noah held a trembling hand over Suzuki's face. The breathing was irregular. More than that, the corners of Suzuki's mouth were visibly twitching.
"...Want me to actually kill you?"
Suzuki shot up like a spring and slammed into a full dogeza, trembling violently.
"I'm sorry! I'm trash! I'm trash! I'm trash! I'm trash!"
Suzuki proceeded to bash her head repeatedly into the innocent hospital bed.
The story rewinds five hours.
Suzuki, who had only meant to restrain him, had carelessly choked the crucial witness unconscious. Terrified of being scolded, she performed CPR. The problem was that she slipped, shattered his ribs, and instead of breathing, the yakuza started coughing up blood.
In a panic, Suzuki handed over the elite surgical team that had been reserved for herself to the yakuza, then crouched in a corner of the operating room to wait. After that, she had the yakuza sent to the recovery room inside the OR suite, then lay down on the gurney bound for the ICU in his place.
The medical staff, silently intimidated by the sight of her muttering to herself while fidgeting with a revolver, had gone along with the lie and almost pulled it off—but Noah, sensing something off about a patient being transferred immediately after surgery, had asked the doctor, and the whole thing had come undone.
"Please, have mercy—!"
"Youuu are seriously......"
Noah's fist trembled. A thick killing intent gathered in her eyes. She clenched her molars hard.
A siren wailed inside Suzuki's head.
Danger danger danger danger danger danger......!
WHAM!
This time, Suzuki genuinely lost consciousness.