Gin: "..." Though they had agreed to fire simultaneously, Chianti's impatient finger had actually pulled the trigger a fraction earlier.
And that tiny time difference had somehow alerted his target, allowing him to narrowly evade. His bullet ultimately only grazed the other man's ski mask.
...Could such reflexes and combat skills really belong to an ordinary bus robber?
The more Gin thought about it, the more something felt wrong. What kind of "actor" had Uzo found this time?
As he pondered, he tried to reacquire the man through his scope. Though the tall robber's face was tightly covered by a ski mask, windproof goggles, and a scarf, for some reason, Gin found him vaguely familiar, as if he had seen him somewhere before.
Beside him, Chianti was muttering too. "My target ducked into a blind spot too... These two robbers are way too experienced. Did they witness one of their accomplices getting taken out by police snipers, so they trained specifically against that? What the hell, I'm not even a cop. Why are they guarding against me?"
"Hm?" Korn, seeing things more clearly as an observer, stared at the floor of the bus through his scope from afar. A sniper's exceptional eyesight let him notice something strange. "Gin, the ski mask you shot off just now had another hat underneath it."
He studied the hat's thickness and shape. "Looks like a black knit cap."
"A black knit cap?" That keyword was like a needle piercing the listeners' sensitive nerves.
Gin suddenly understood. His voice instantly brimmed with killing intent as he gritted out, "Akai Shuichi..."
"What Akai Shuichi?" Chianti asked blankly. "Aren't we supposed to shoot the robbers? Why are you bringing up that rat again?"
Gin stared fixedly at the bus, as though he wanted to drag his archenemy