Against a Perfect Sniper by Shiden Kanzaki Read Free Book Online Page A

crumpled and her expression wavered. Enju looked down and wiped her eyes quickly with her sleeve. “R-Rentaro, you’re amazing! How did you know that I was still concerned about that? Even though Kisara and Sumire wouldn’t have realized…”
    Rentaro put his hand on her head and let out a long breath. “Because it’s you…”
    “Why can’t everyone just get along, Rentaro…?” Enju’s voice was hoarse, and it sounded like it would disappear at any moment.
    “I don’t know………” Even as Rentaro tousled Enju’s hair, he saw a bleak future for the Cursed Children. Born at almost the same time as the Great Gastrea War ten years ago, the Cursed Children were ten years old or younger. As such, it was probably too much to ask for them to possess wise judgment.
    However, each time a crime like this was committed, the hatred the Stolen Generation—who already hated Gastrea—had for the Cursed Children grew stronger. The girls didn’t know. They didn’t realize that hatred would swing in the opposite direction of where force was applied, like a pendulum. Sometimes with far more force.
    Each time one of the Cursed Children committed a crime, it was as if Enju’s neck was being strangled slowly with a silk rope, and it made Rentaro’s chest hurt to watch it. No, more accurately, it wasas if the net trapping the Children was getting tighter, in a way they couldn’t see.
    Rentaro narrowed his eyes and looked back once more at the scene behind them. He didn’t know who’d done it, but Rentaro doubted he could forgive the perpetrator.
    Enju finally separated herself slowly from Rentaro and wiped her face one more time with her sleeve. “All right, this time—this time—I am surely fine!”
    Rentaro smiled. “Yeah… Okay.” In order to dispel the solemn atmosphere, Rentaro exhaled deeply, puffing out his chest and laughing loudly, looking down at the shopping bags. “By the way, Enju, we got a good haul at the limited-time sale today, huh?”
    Enju grinned mischievously. “I did not think we would be able to purchase meat so cheaply, either.”
    Rentaro pumped his fist. “We’re having sukiyaki today!”
    “Sukiyaki…!” Enju hopped happily.
    As soon as Rentaro got back to their rundown eight-tatami-mat apartment, he put on an apron and went to the kitchen. As he cut the vegetables into bite-size pieces, Enju capered around Rentaro, chattering excitedly about the cartoon she was currently into,
Go, Zengar!
It sounded like it was based on those old shows about fighting squadrons and transforming robots.
    “And then, and then, there’s the robot of justice, Zenin Zengar, and the evil robot, Akuin Akkar. And the storyboards for episode eighteen were—”
    “
Zenin zenga
, like ‘one good turn deserves another’? And
akuin akka
, like ‘what goes around comes around’? Aren’t those Buddhist terms or something? That’s a pretty advanced cartoon.”
    Enju proudly put both hands on her hips, as if impressed that Rentaro had noticed. “That’s right. And the most amazing thing is that the squadron consists of four chief priests and a Buddhist nun, and they are all bald, and their five temples combine to form one large transforming robot.”
    “R-really……”
    The cartoons you watch are so weird,
Rentaro thought as he put
konnyaku
noodles, leeks, chrysanthemum leaves, and mushrooms on abamboo draining basket and then unfolded a low table that was leaning against the wall. Putting on oven mitts, Rentaro moved the sukiyaki pot from the kitchen to the gas burner on the table and turned it on. Before long, the ingredients were boiling gently, and the warm steam was rising to meet Rentaro’s and Enju’s faces. As the sweet smell of the sauce filled the room, Rentaro started salivating. He couldn’t wait to eat. It had been days since he’d had such extravagant food for dinner.
    After Rentaro chided Enju for putting her hands on the low table and jumping around, she switched to hitting the bowl