chapter 8

The Annonymous’ boss .

His code name is Hyde .

Still, only a few call him by that name .

Because in Anonymous, his identity 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 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 space .

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 passed 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 passed 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 button hard with your thumb, it shoots the wire at great speed . It shoots for as long as you press the button . So, you adjust the shooting amount by pressing the thumb button . ”

“What about the pinky finger button?”

“If you press that button, 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 button 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 button 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 button 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 glass 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 title . 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 embarrassed 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 .