The One and Only Ea
The daughter of a yakuza.
She had been born into the Minamoto family — a house that possessed money, power, and perhaps something even greater than both.
By all rights, the world should have been easy. Unfortunately, this world was anything but kind. Every so often — more often than anyone would like — someone tried to take her life.
She had been born with a blessed body, one that could handle most threats. But in the end, she was still human. You could not face down terrorists without a single gun in your hands.
The rifle Noah had always used in her previous life was the HK416. They had lived and died together so many times that the trust she placed in that weapon was immense. The problem was that this world had no such model. She had asked Genji to let her fire every firearm on the planet, one by one, and still nothing quite fit her hand.
Then, one day, the head of the Fujiwara family asked what she wanted for her birthday.
If it doesn't exist, why not just make it?
That was when the simple answer dawned on her.
The Minamoto were, at the end of the day, a yakuza household. They ran any number of businesses and had no shortage of money or connections — but they were nothing compared to the Fujiwara. And so Noah said it plainly: she wanted a gun. A single gun, made for her and her alone.
She had field-stripped the HK416 so often it was like sitting down to a meal. Handing over the design schematics for every part was no great difficulty.
And the moment she first took that finished HK416 in her hands! Even Noah, who almost never showed emotion, spent the entire day walking around with a smile on her face. The Fujiwara's power really was something else.
The HK416 they built was several times better than the one from her previous life. Sized to her small frame, the grip was perfect. And because they had not designed it for mass production, the accuracy and the detailing exceeded even Noah's imagination.
There were, however, two regrets.
First: it had been built to the specifications of a fourteen-year-old girl, and so it was light. Far too light. At fourteen, Noah was already stronger than a grown man — but the scientists had no way of knowing that. Which is why it was named Air-001. Because it was the lightest firearm in existence.
Second: the design. They had taken "a girl will be using this" a little too seriously. Here and there, like some video-game skin, there were little pink accents. Had they color-matched it to her hair? To an untrained eye, it honestly looked like a toy gun.
Even so, the joy of being able to hold an HK416 in this world, too, outweighed everything else. She also liked that it was the only one of its kind — a gun that existed solely for her. Ea, the rifle that looked just like an HK416, was Noah's number-one treasure.
After that, several improved versions followed. The first gun, made when she was fourteen. Two years later — today — they were up to Air-005. A new one was produced roughly every six months, and even now the finest technicians in the field were pouring their hearts into building a better gun, for Noah alone.
"That's a prototype of Ea, I take it."
And all of this — of course Genji knew. He saw at a glance that it was Air-001, the one Noah cherished more than anything in the world. Unlike the other versions, of which there were two of each, there was only one of the 001. Prototype and first finished piece. The only one.
"Yeah."
Functionally, the later models were better. That she had brought this one to such an important spar meant only one thing.
She thought I wouldn't be able to cut it.
Air-001. A gun designed to minimize weight and recoil as much as possible. It was still a firearm, so it had a minimum of hardness — but it was not particularly sturdy.
An excellent strategy.
The hand Genji had rested on his sword's hilt trembled, just slightly. If even the paint on Ea were to chip—
—Noah might cry.
The thought made his heart feel as though it were dropping into hell.
"Dad. The rules?"
"Victory goes to whoever so much as grazes the other's uniform."
An absurd condition. A gun versus a sword — and a brush of cloth was enough? The Noah of her previous life would have felt insulted. But she knew perfectly well that this was no bluff. The Minamoto were born with superhuman bodies and talent. And that included Genji.
Noah slowly raised her gun. The instant Genji's stance dropped lower—
BANG!
Noah pulled the trigger, and Sally's Law began.
Chise swallowed hard.
Genji did not look the least bit shaken. Facing a gun with a sword. She knew he was a legendary man, but she could not help wondering whether this was even possible.
"Is she really going to shoot?"
"You don't need to worry, miss! The Boss would never underestimate the Little Boss. He'll have put on proper body armor. Haha!"
That's not what I meant!
Chise barely managed to swallow the scream rising in her throat. And then fire bloomed from the muzzle of Noah's gun.
TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
Noah fired with a light, dancing step. The rounds were punching into the dojo floor. She seemed to be aiming for Genji's feet.
"That's impossible!"
Chise could not stay seated. She shot to her feet.
"…He's dodging all of them."
She could not believe what she was seeing. Genji was evading every last one of Noah's bullets. Chise had been to the shooting range with Noah; she knew how extraordinary the girl's marksmanship was. This was not Noah missing. Genji was reading every shot and slipping out of its path. Could a human being even do that?
Worse — Genji was batting the bullets aside.
"How is he even… the bullets…"
"Those aren't the bullets."
Takeo never took his eyes off Genji as he spoke.
"The Boss is dodging the gun!"
"I-isn't that the same thing?"
"Look, miss! Watch how the Boss never once lines himself up with the muzzle!"
Only then did Chise see it. Genji was already moving before Noah even fired. He was calculating the end of the barrel and stepping out of the line.
Easy enough to say. That's even harder!
Noah only had to twitch her wrist. Genji had to move his entire body. There was no question which was the more difficult feat.
"But that's our Little Boss for you! She's already seen through it and she's mixing in a mountain of fakes! That's why the Boss can't even close the distance!"
"The Little Boss is keeping him inside her effective range! At this rate, the moment she has to reload, it's over!"
Chise was already swimming. She could no longer follow Genji's movement at all.
"Whoa! Look at that, Miss Fujiwara! The Little Boss just reloaded in under a second!"
I have no idea what's happening, but win, Noah…!
Chise had completely given up on judging the fight with her own eyes. Something went bang, something went crash, and she was starting to feel seasick. All she could do was cling to Takeo's running commentary.
"The Little Boss is about to burn through her spare magazines!"
"What? Th-that's bad, isn't it?"
There was a limit. Bullets were not infinite. Hope crumbled. Chise cried out with everything she had.
"Noah!"
"Bwahaha! Don't you worry. The Little Boss never planned to win by shooting in the first place."
"Huh? What do you mean…"
"Hand-to-hand. From the start, she meant to settle this in a grapple. The shooting was just her taking one shot at a lucky break!"
Takeo still could not tear his gaze from the spar.
"This venue is a bad place for a gun, you see."
"A bad place?"
Chise could not believe it. It was a gun, after all…
"There are spectators, miss. The Little Boss may not look it, but she cares about us. She's not the sort who'd tolerate anyone getting hurt at a spar like this."
"Ah. So that's why Noah was only shooting the floor."
The movement itself had been too fast to follow, but that much she remembered clearly. Noah really is kind. Even in the middle of all this, Chise melted a little at that one point.
It did not last. Her eyes went wide as the danger of it hit her.
"Then isn't this bad for Noah? In close quarters, a gun is at a disadvantage against a sword."
"Bwahaha! As if the Boss could ever put a scratch on Ea!"
"Ah."
Chise realized something enormous.
Noah adored Ea. She had slept hugging it for quite a while. And Genji was such a hopeless daughter-doting fool that even Chise found it alarming. She had once watched Noah bring him a spoiled tangerine with a cheerful "This one's for Dad," and seen a tear of pure joy well in his eye.
Ea is light enough that even I could lift it. Which means the durability is that much worse. Which means… Uncle can't touch Ea?
Then was this Noah's win?
The illusion shattered at once.
CLANG-G-G!
Muzzle and blade crashed together, throwing sparks. It was a genuine blow, with not a shred of held-back strength. For the first time, Chise saw Noah lose a contest of force.
Her face darkened.
"He doesn't look like he plans to go easy."
"The muzzle of Ea is as hard as a sword, that's why! But he still can't touch any other part of it, so the Little Boss has the advantage."
Even so, unlike the earlier exchange — when she could barely see the movement at all — Chise could now tell with her own eyes that Noah was being pushed back, and badly. Genji was overwhelming her with barely any motion at all.
"By the way, Miss Fujiwara — did you put money on this?"
"No. Father would scold me if I did something like that."
"Haha. Is that so?"
Chise asked, a bitter look on her face.
"Who did you bet on, Takeo?"
Takeo thumped his own chest hard and bellowed.
"The Little Boss!"
"Why…?"
"Because our Boss," Takeo said, grinning wide, "is a man who couldn't cut a single strand of the Little Boss's hair."
And in that instant, the match was over.
Genji's blade had stopped just shy of Noah's hair. At the tip of Genji's foot, a scrap of white uniform cloth lay on the floor.
This spar had, in truth, a separate purpose.
To have her hair cut as if by accident.
It failed spectacularly.
Genji chose defeat rather than take a blade to her hair.
"I did wonder why you weren't tying it back. So that was the idea."
Noah rounded on him, her voice thick with indignation.
"Do you hate the thought of me going short that much?"
Genji's eyes went wide. He put every ounce of emphasis he had into the words.
Absolutely not. Over his dead body.
Noah pulled a sour face. She had won — and somehow she liked Genji even less than before.