Fujiwara Homare began to ponder whether Minamoto Tamako’s marksmanship was too strong, or if the believers’ aim was too poor, resulting in Tamako being able to suppress the man with the dog’s head mask.
The pistol bullets were ultimately limited, and once they were spent, Minamoto would be at anyone’s mercy... but that was assuming the dog-head man could hold out until the bullets were gone.
A lv7 swordsmanship master definitely couldn’t withstand firearms.
Before Fushimi Roku charged in, during his standoff with Minamoto Tamako, he discreetly used skill points to upgrade the Fujikishin Kenjutsu to lv10... Luckily he made this precaution, otherwise, he might have already died with regrets.
But even so, cold weapons simply couldn’t compare to firearms.
Fushimi Roku had always known that the premise of slicing bullets and predicting trajectories was the vast skill gap between gunmen and swordsmen.
An ordinary gunman would take a long time to aim and wouldn’t keep a finger on the trigger before shooting, leaving considerable reaction time; if Buddhist-style marksmanship was used, the hit rate would be pathetically low, and it would also lose sightlines, leaving space for evasion...
But now, there was none of that.
He couldn’t react in time.
If it weren’t for his muscle memory reaction, he most likely would have taken a shot to the right shoulder, the left leg, and the forearm...
Run first and talk later!
Fushimi Roku jumped up on the spot, stretched out an arm, grabbed the edge of the ventilation duct, using the momentum to pull himself up and into the duct.
Minamoto Tamako seized the opportunity to fire another shot, this time hitting him in the lower leg.
Fushimi Roku grunted in pain, cursing internally, yet he couldn’t do anything to Tamako, especially since he had just committed a crime and couldn’t afford to reveal his identity.
He had originally planned to leave directly, but was worried that Minamoto Tamako in the warehouse might be injured, so he returned to check on her, only for Tamako to rush out with a gun... Fushimi dared not turn around, afraid of getting sniped unexpectedly, leaving him no choice but to confront Tamako head-on.
He wanted to retreat, but the moment he moved his leg, Tamako inexplicably fired.
At the moment, Fushimi Roku was crawling rapidly through the ventilation ducts, bypassing the dormitory area, poking his head out to ensure Tamako wasn’t following, then hopped out on one leg and found a restroom to tear off his coat and tend to his wounds.
Damn, this is troublesome...
Fushimi Roku knew Tamako was practicing her shooting, and also that Kazama Tatsuya was teaching her how to shoot, but he had never taken this matter seriously.
After all, he hadn’t yet encountered anyone with extraordinary shooting skills and didn’t have a concrete concept of it.
Japan wasn’t a Middle Eastern battlefield, how could there be so many highly skilled mercenaries? Which civil servant would skip social gatherings after work to spend loads of energy on the shooting range?
The Police Department was , not to mention the underworld, where two small gangs clashing might barely scrounge up a single gun, as most underworld organizations didn’t have a high rate of gun ownership.
As long as they could shoot and didn’t accidentally hit their teammates, it was good enough in Japan.
Sharpshooters who could headshot with each bullet, suppress battlefields, or dictate street fights’ directions, could only be honed through countless gunfights.
The "Special Assault Team (SAT)" under the Japan Police Department was officially established in 1996; in 1991, there wasn’t a professional counter-terrorism sniper squad, and other police departments hadn’t formed large-scale sniper squads either.
Fushimi Roku finally became aware of the crisis, realizing Minamoto Tamako was growing faster than he had imagined, and might later become unbeatable.
Given that, might as well put some points into firearm skills too.
Fushimi Roku verified that the bullet hadn’t stayed inside and had penetrated his lower leg, then gritted his teeth to bandage the wound and tied it tightly with a sleeve for hemostasis.
Once done, he sat on the toilet in a cubicle, frowning in contemplation.
At the moment, the most troublesome thing wasn’t the leg injury; for Fushimi Roku, there was a more thorny issue pending:
How should he explain this to Minamoto Tamako?
A bullet hole in the leg was undeniable evidence.
Should he lie and claim he was hit by a stray bullet? With such a similar injury location, coupled with identical body shape, voice, traits, and swordsmanship, Minamoto would definitely be suspicious...
Perhaps, Minamoto was already suspecting he was the "Ghost."
Had it not been for someone impersonating him during the first trial, raising Minamoto’s vigilance, she would have recognized him at first glance.
Why not just confess?
After all, it was to save her that he had to break into Aum Truth Sect’s territory; the police have the right to shoot a felon during emergencies, Minamoto shouldn’t be so petty... right?
Fushimi Roku just slightly considered it, using a tiny bit of his legal knowledge, and knew his pursuit of the cult members wouldn’t align with Minamoto’s ’justice’... not to mention, killing Shirakawa Miki couldn’t be argued away, considering Shirakawa was already in a defenseless state at the time.
Not only did he fail to win the fight, but he also got injured...
The more Fushimi Roku thought about it, the more frustrated he felt, especially since the shot was from Minamoto, which just thinking about made his stomach hurt, and he might even get diarrhea out of anger.
This wasn’t something a redemption voucher clearing could soothe!
Meanwhile, outside the storage room on the other side.
After driving away the dog-head man, Minamoto Tamako intended to pursue him, determined to bring this guy to justice. Such a dangerous antisocial individual, acting alone, might be out there killing people every day, how could she turn a blind eye?