They had only asked for a spar to test his strength. No one had expected such a sudden burst of action, much less for someone to draw and fire immediately.
As a result, everyone in the command room was stunned by the gunshot echoing through it.
So once they snapped back to themselves, Kurz and Melissa both frantically looked at their own hands. It had not been either of them who had fired.
But both of them had been making the same move - going for their pistols.
When they turned to Sousuke, they saw that he had been the fastest to draw and fire.
Judging from the angle of the shot, it had very obviously been aimed straight at the other man's head.
Fortunately, Kurz and Melissa did not see anything happen to him. It looked as if the bullet had simply missed.
But no, it had not just missed. It had missed by far too much, striking the floor a full ten centimeters in front of him.
No.
It was not that Sousuke had fired wide.
The bullet had been knocked off course.
The proof was the standard-issue single-edged military knife in the other man's hand, identical to the ones the three of them carried. At some point, without any of them noticing, he had drawn it and made a slashing motion too fast for them to follow. Now he was just withdrawing the blade.
And from the look of the movement, he had chopped downward in front of himself.
The marks on the knife made it clear.
He had done it with the back of the blade.
"Sergeant Sousuke Sagara, wh-what are you doing?!"
Tessa's voice came out shrill with panic. Her face, usually so fair, had now gone so pale it looked completely drained of blood.
He had fired so suddenly, and from the look of it, with the clear intent to kill.
What was Mr. Kain supposed to think after that?
"Sorry."
Sousuke Sagara gave his apology. Then he voluntarily removed his gun and assumed a completely defenseless posture, as though ready to be arrested.
"Mr. Kain, um... Sergeant Sousuke Sagara, he... he probably didn't mean it, probably..."
Tessa could not even finish explaining it herself. She was too flustered to speak properly.
"I know. He didn't do it on purpose. Calm down, Tessa."
As Kain answered, he also softened his entire demeanor until he seemed completely harmless, then reached out and gently patted the anxious captain on the head. Her eyes were already beginning to glisten, as if she might start crying at any second.
He could understand a reaction like this. Back in Busujima Saeko's case, Kiba Mikoto had reacted much the same way.
"So then, what do you want to test? I can't pilot an Arm Slave, but anything else is fine."
"No need. We don't need to test AS operation. What matters more than that..."
Melissa trailed off, but the meaning of her words was already clear.
She was conceding.
She had not expected that one day she herself would judge someone by appearances, so she turned and gave Kurz a hard kick.
"Why're you kicking me, boss?"
That question earned him an immediate death glare.
He had not expected this guy to be such a master of disguise either, hiding behind that harmless appearance.
Who could have guessed he was actually this terrifying?
They did not even need to fight him directly. Just from the way his presence had triggered that instinctive reaction - their bodies moving ahead of their minds, as if they had encountered certain death - it was already obvious how frightening he was.
He felt like some kind of monster wearing human skin, as if in the next instant he would swallow their lives whole and force all three of them into a pure survival response.
And Sousuke had simply been the fastest to react.
If he had been even a little slower, the one who would have fired would have been Kurz himself.
When Melissa looked toward Major Andrew, she saw that he too had slightly relaxed.
It seemed he had originally intended for the three of them to witness Kain's ability, but he had not expected such an extreme response from them.
"Sergeant Kurz Weber, write me a one-hundred-thousand-word self-criticism."
That was the punishment Andrew handed down.
And in that very moment, he himself also realized the real issue with the man Tessa had invited over.
He had already seen the videos. In them, Kain was powerful enough to resemble a humanoid tyrannosaur, someone who looked like he could probably fight an Arm Slave head-on.
Given that kind of strength, Andrew had already expected that if Kurz and the others fought him, they would simply be crushed.
But he had never imagined that before they even exchanged blows, they would react like this.
Clearly, he had still underestimated how terrifying the man was. His presence alone was probably enough to leave ordinary people too frightened to move.
For one instant, Andrew had even had the illusion that some kind of demon lurked inside him, ready to lunge out.
It was as if he had clawed his way out of slaughter in hell itself and stepped into the real world.
No.
That was not just a metaphor.
His past really was that horrific.
"Ah? One hundred thousand words? Wait, just me?"
"Yes."
That made Kurz let out a miserable wail.
"It has to be submitted before the mission ends."
Which meant that during the mission, every spare moment he had would have to be spent writing his self-criticism.
"Major, what about my punishment?"
Kurz shot Sousuke an exasperated look. That guy really was a one-track mind.
"You don't need punishment. After all, Mr. Kain hasn't blamed you for anything."
"Then I request another match with him."
Andrew was not surprised by that at all, because Sousuke Sagara had been brought here by him personally. In a sense, he was Andrew's own protégé, and Andrew knew exactly what kind of personality he had.
It was not that Sousuke refused to accept defeat.
He simply wanted to verify for himself whether the other man truly had the ability to protect Tessa.
"Sergeant Sousuke Sagara, you..."
"No problem."
Kain cut Tessa off.
It was exactly this kind of behavior from the boy that made him admire him more.
He might seem rigid, but people like that were the ones most worthy of trust. The sort you could safely entrust your back to without hesitation.
...
Then -
"Boss, how many moves do you think Sousuke can last?"
"No idea."
They had moved to a more open area. Kain had even allowed Sousuke to use any weapon he wanted, so long as it was not a firearm.
After all, they were inside a submarine. There was no way they could just use guns casually. Cold weapons only.
And Sousuke truly did not hold back. He immediately chose the weapon he was most skilled with, and also the most dangerous one.
That made Kurz and Melissa even more eager to see Kain's actual combat ability. They hoped Sousuke could at least force a little more out of him.
Here he came.
Sousuke charged forward.
The moment they clashed -
"Uh-!"
Kurz stared in shock.
Sousuke had already lost.
He had not even seen it clearly.
"Is that guy even human?"
Even Melissa could not help saying that.
At the instant they engaged, Sousuke's weapon seemed to teleport into Kain's hand. Then Sousuke's body was dropped to the floor as if he had been thrown with a clean over-the-shoulder toss.
The knife Kain had taken from him was already resting against Sousuke's throat.
Disarm, throw, blade to the neck - it had all happened in what seemed like less than a second.
Was that even something a human being could do?
That was why Melissa had blurted out those words.
If someone like that was Tessa's bodyguard, then he was practically the strongest bodyguard in the world.
Melissa even had the absurd illusion that if anyone wanted to break through his protection, they would need to deploy an Arm Slave.
Otherwise, if it were just people fighting people, no matter how many bodies you threw at him, you still would not be able to kill him.
(End of Chapter)
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