Chapter 8: The Sound of Future
The Annonymous’ boss.
His code name is Hyde.
Still, only a few call him by that name.
Because in Anonymous, his ident.i.ty as the boss is just too strong.
He clads himself in a black coat, so that when he slips into darkness he can spot the enemies easily.
Even though he wears a mask, the boss’ presence is hanging in the air.
That SDF man that hid in the darkness believed that Hyde was the Anonymous’ boss judging only by his ‘aura’.
That was it.
The two men didn’t move, measuring their situations.
“Shido”
Hyde murmured his partner’s name, at which point the woman who stood next to him started to move, without saying a word.
The other man who hid himself in darkness couldn’t follow the woman with his eyes.
At any rate, he decided he wouldn’t chase her.
Then, the man convinced himself that he could handle the situation by himself when he remembered a few things.
Even among the major generals, he was one of the best in terms of true strength. Depending on the opponent and their affinity with their ability, he would overwhelm most of the other major generals during their practice fights.
And, he captured and killed countless Anonymous members up to this point.
No matter if he was to fight against the boss and his partner, he was still convinced he could kill them with his ability.
That’s what the man thought.
However, it never turned into a two against one fight.
That’s because the Anonymous’ boss didn’t find any worth in doing that.
If he’s the Anonymous’ boss, then he must at least be able to judge and understand his enemies’ strength by the pressure they release.
Having done so, he decided he alone would be more than enough.
It’s not like the SDF man was overconfident.
He achieved a lot of things, got acknowledged and became a major general.
He didn’t remember how many times he vomited blood since he’s joined the SDF.
It was a categorical self-confidence from his part.
After Shido’s presence disappeared completely, Hyde started to move.
He removed his mask and exposed his face.
Then, he sent a nihilistic smile into the darkness and turned his coat around, facing his enemy with his back.
The man saw this and grew very excited.
However, he didn’t take any step. It was clearly a provocation.
At that point, as an important member of the SDF, what the man wanted was to retreat.
He saw the face of the enemy’s boss, after all. He grasped his features too.
Still, maybe he could bring him down right there.
The man had such confidence.
The man instantly made his decision and stepped outside the darkness into the moonlight, exposing himself.
He, then, declared.
“Count your sins, Anonymous.”
The man already used his ability.
But, Hyde was nowhere to be found.
The man didn’t become impatient. He sharpened his senses and was cautious of his surroundings.
All there was to it was that he could not see the boss. There were guys like him in SDF too.
“Now, I have
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one more sin to count.”
Suddenly, a voice could be heard behind the man’s back.
The man didn’t turn around.
The moment he heard the voice, his brain thought of a few patterns of what should be his next move.
And the answer was defeat.
The man gave up on his life on the spot. It was the first time he felt his life completely depended on another. He understood the boss’ ability.
And that he could’ve never defeated him.
Ah, it would’ve been so much better if he retreated at that time.
His regrets resounded in the empty s.p.a.ce.
But it was too late.
At the end, the man wanted to say something, but he kept silent.
On a street, at night, a man’s life scattered silently.
_____________
_____________
It was Sunday.
I returned home from the morning jogging, and took a shower.
I decided to temper myself staring today. I don’t know for how long it would last, but if I’m on the verge of giving up, Roll will force me to continue.
Leaving that aside, I immediately started to walk towards the secret base.
Since, before all this, I didn’t use to do anything special on weekends, this unusualness was kind of a good change.
I arrived at the secret base and walked straight toward Roll’s room.
However, before I could get there, I met with someone.
“Oh my, it’s Shion-kun.”
When I pa.s.sed by someone on the corridor and nodded at her, she called out to me.
She had black hair and was as tall as me.
It was the first time I saw her…….So who was she?
“Errr……”
“I’m Shido.”
Ah, so this is the boss’ partner, Shido-san?
We only met like two times.
“It’s been a long time.”
“How do you feel? Are you getting along well with Roll?”
“Yes, so-so.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Then, I have to leave, I’m in a hurry. Let’s have some tea together sometime.”
“Yes. Goodbye.”
Shido-san’s verbal expressions were similar to Roll’s.
Or maybe Roll is similar to Shido-san? I have the feeling she told me that Shido-san taught her how to live or something.
She pa.s.sed on her talking style too, it seems.
Thinking about that, I saw Shido-san off.
Oops, I must hurry to Roll’s room.
She told me to be there until 10.
When I got to her room, Roll greeted me in high spirits.
There were some boxes in her room that were not here yesterday.
Is this why Roll is in such a great mood?
Before I asked her that, she explained me.
“The weapons arrived.”
“Weapons?”
“Yup, our weapons. Partners use the same type of weapons.”
Come to think of it, Hakunetsu-san and Kuroinu-san carried many knives that looked the same.
Weapons, huh? Honestly, I don’t think I would need any, but they could also come in handy. At this point, I can’t really attack using my ability.
“What will we use?”
“I ordered lots of them, so we’ll decide now.”
Roll took a knife from her desk’s drawer and opened all the boxed.
Inside them, a lot of weapons were wrapped in a thick sac. They were mostly small type edged tools.
Roll’s eyes sparkled.
“How about this one?”
What Roll was holding in her hand was a thin, sharp blade with a handle that could be used as a claw.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a jamadhar 1. You stab with it.”
Roll practiced with it in front of me and pushed the handle towards me.
Yeah, it could be useful.
“But maybe it’s a little inconvenient to carry around.”
“Maybe. But it’s pretty cool.
It was a joke, you know, but I didn’t think you’ll take it seriously. Stupid.”
“A joke?”
Nevertheless, this was Roll when she was in high spirits.
A girl who gets extremely excited by weapons is quite fiendish.
“By the way, it’s not really a weapon, but, the truth is, I wanted to show you a tool that we will definitely use.”
“What?”
I asked, and Roll opened her desk’s drawer and took something out.
“This. I made an order to the Development Department to create this for me.
It were quite expensive………
Of course, I have one for you too, Shion.”
What Roll took out and showed me was a pair of something like black tubes.
They were thin enough to be firmly held by Roll’s hand, and when I looked closely I saw that the handle was especially made for a firm grip.
“What are those?”
“Carbon nanofiber wire emitters 2. They have 100 meters of wire stored inside them.”
“That’s awesome…….!”
“Right?”
Roll handed me the other wire emitter.
I observed it in detail.
It was rather small, but it could do things.
It was a really amazing tool.
“If you press this b.u.t.ton hard with your thumb, it shoots the wire at great speed. It shoots for as long as you press the b.u.t.ton. So, you adjust the shooting amount by pressing the thumb b.u.t.ton.”
“What about the pinky finger b.u.t.ton?”
“If you press that b.u.t.ton, you can cut the already shot wire.
But when you cut once, there’s a lag of 1 minute in order for the wire’s anchor-like tip to recharge.”
“I see.”
“Look at this too.”
Roll took something else out of the drawer and handed over to me.
It was a pair of black gloves.
“You’ll get injured if you touch the wire directly.”
“Thanks.
By the way, can you return the already shot wire?”
“Of course you can. By pressing the release b.u.t.ton lightly.
However, it doesn’t have the strength to pull up a human being.”
I see.
I got it mostly.
I thought that it might be useful for movement too, but in order to make it happen, we need training.
I might want to use this thing as a weapon. Still, it has lots of other uses too, making it an extremely useful item.
I really want to try this out now.
Roll said something, and she seemed to have read my thoughts.
“Wanna go to the training room?”
“Let’s go.”
_____________
I’m practicing shooting with the wire emitter inside the training room, but it isn’t working very well.
When I press the release b.u.t.ton with my thumb, the wire gets shot at great speed. And if I loosen my press just a tiny bit, the wire returns inside the emitter at great speed.
Still, making it shoot the wire at an aimed spot is difficult.
Roll can successfully shoot the wire and twine it around a crowbar that she set up 10 meters in the front.
Roll’s gloves, which were the same as mine, showed signs of sweat.
“I can’t use this thing properly.”
“You’re not used to the pressing modes.
When the wire gets close to your target, you do…..like this and you loosen the b.u.t.ton for an instant.”
Even after I listened to Roll’s explanation, I still couldn’t really do it.
Roll started her training with the wire emitter yesterday, but she can already use it this well.
As expected from Roll-san; I wasn’t indifferent though to the difference in our abilities.
“Hmm…..Why can’t I do it?”
“Shion, let’s return to my room. We should probably get something to eat.”
The watch behind the enhanced gla.s.s pointed towards 1 p.m.
It’s already this late?
Even though the shooting practice didn’t go very well, it was still quite fun, which made me forget about the time.
“You’re right.”
I decided to leave the training for later, and left the training room together.
We returned to Roll’s room, and she started preparing the food.
“I’ll make something especially for you” So she said.
Even though she said that, it’s not like it was the first time. This was in fact the second time she cooked especially for me.
I picked up a weapon among all the weapons scattered on Roll’s bed.
Even after I looked through all of them, I still felt that I didn’t need a weapon.
If I have the time to train with a weapon, I’d rather use it in order to train my ability.
But the wire emitter is a different matter.
At any rate, according to Roll, there are not many people in Anonymous who have great mobility abilities.
Having only a few ability users who could float is quite inconvenient for us.
I’m also one of those people who don’t have much mobility and can’t fly.
Still, overall, Anonymous seems to have a lot of fire ability users.
Well, even though they have a fire type ability, each of them has a different affinity to it. And that affinity makes for the difference in power not to count too much in an actual fight.
The Anonymous ranks are given in the form of a tournament where you fight for your t.i.tle. Roll is rank 6, so there are other people who are stronger than her.
It seems that Anonymous even holds this type of tournaments.
“Look.”
A short time later, Roll placed the food on the table.
She made pork fried with ginger and rice, miso soup and a large cabbage salad.
She also placed the leftovers from yesterday as side dishes.
“Oh, itadakimasu.”
I said and started to eat.
Roll’s cooking was delicious in general. The seasoning was perfect for my taste.
As expected from a partner.
Anyway, I complimented her cooking lavishly.
Still, it seemed like she was used to having her cooking skills praised and made an expression which said ‘It’s only natural’.
If Tsurugi was to compliment her, I wonder if she would blush and feel happy about it?
………No, she’s not like that.
“So, did you find anything good?”
I guess she was referring to weapons.
“Yeah. I think we could also use a knife, similarly to Kuroinu-san and his partner.”
“There are many types of knives.
Those two use a large type of daggers for throwing, which have remodeled grips.
Those types of knives aren’t suited for us.
Having said that, we also don’t need a knife that is used in close combat.
In my case, if I get to touch my target I can certainly kill it, and you don’t even need to get close to your target.
Besides, with your scouting skills no one will be able to approach us anyway.”
“Eh? Then, do we even need weapons?”
“When you’ll be able to fully control your ability, you won’t need them anymore. I won’t use any either, when we get to that point.
…….Well, it’s gonna take a while because you had a delayed manifestation, so we do need weapons for now.
Besides, it’s rather uncool not to be able to use at least one type of weapon. There are some who got sent to a subdivision and got embarra.s.sed because of this.”
Sent to a subdivision? They have subdivisions too?
“Hmm”
I started to eat again.
Roll saw that and continued to eat too; she finished a short time after.
“What about a small type throwing knife?
We won’t be able to kill the target in one hit, but they could be useful for blinding them or slowing them down. We can carry a few of them too.”
“Throwing knives? Sounds difficult.”
Throwing a knife. I heard that, depending on the distance, you must adjust the rotation speed of the knife as well.
“No weapon is easy to handle.”
“Thanks for the food.
In this case, teach me how to throw knives.”
I said to her, as I cleared the table and brought the tableware in the kitchen.
“All right. But I’ll decide which knives we’ll use, okay?”
“Good.”
Roll will surely choose the most adequate ones.
And anyway, I have no idea which are the perfect ones for us.
In any case, we decided that our weapons will be the throwing knives and the wire emitter.