Editing City Series:Volume3a Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 2===

The noise was an explosion. A pure white Live instantly raced through the area.

“!”

Akira gave a shout, but her voice was drowned out.

At the same time, the taxi she was preparing to pursue hopped straight up.

Long after the great roar, a solid wind blew in from the road.

The wind’s Live had the Word Color of smoke with the red of flames mixed in and it had a damp Tempo much like a car’s engine.

All of the passersby got down on the ground.

Even Akira ducked down, but the young man alone remained standing and looked down the road.

Akira followed his gaze and saw a tank.

It was a Yard tank.

It was an English-made Grant tank with the main gun on the side instead of on a turret. To match the city of Hong Kong, the midsized tank was covered in red, blue, and yellow labels and advertisement stickers for different shops.

Someone’s upper body was sticking out of the top hatch.

“General!”

The General was checking the spot the shell hit through a pair of binoculars, but he suddenly turned toward Akira and looked at her through the binoculars.

“Ohh, what’s this? If it ain’t Akira.”

“Don’t say that. …And you need to stop firing in the middle of the city.”

“It’s no problem. My aim’s perfect and the shell’s loaded with divine spell powder. No one’ll die.” He smiled. “But, Akira. Why’re you lettin’ yourself almost get kidnapped?”

“Kidnapped?”

“Accordin’ to my wife, things’re gettin’ dangerous. You need to be careful.”

“Be careful, hm?”

Akira glared at the distant taxi burning away in the flames.

…''If just “being careful causes that, what happens when he actually fights back?

She tilted her head just as the tank began to turn around. Its rubber treads scraped along the ground as it slowly turned to face the young man standing in front of her.

The diagonally-positioned gun came to a stop about thirty centimeters from his face.

If it fired, it would be a direct hit. Even if the young man dodged, he could not escape being seriously wounded by the shockwave.

But the young man made no attempt to flee and stared straight down the barrel.

“I’ve never seen one of these before,” he calmly commented.

“You a kidnapper?” asked the General. “I’ll shoot.”

His words of warning caused the people on the sidewalk and in the nearby stores to run away.

Akira and the young man were the only ones left on the sidewalk and the young man looked troubled.

He scratched his head for a bit but finally turned to Akira.

“What should I do?”

“You brought this on yourself. Why don’t you stick your hand down the barrel? The tank might blow up.”

“That’s not very nice. If I did that and he fired a shell, I’d end up splattered around like something from a Hollywood movie.”

“I’m impressed you can say something like that in this situation.”

“Hey, Akira!” shouted the General. “What should I do?”

She just about told him to shoot the man with the machinegun, but she restrained herself.

“General, he isn’t a kidnapper, so don’t worry. I do think I need to lecture him a bit after this, though. …More importantly, is that taxi you shot okay?”

The flow of cars on the street had ground to a halt due to the smoking taxi in the distance.

“Ahh, if he wasn’t workin’ with a kidnapper, I probably shouldn’t’ve done that.”

“The bastard still stole my luggage, so it’s fine by me. Ha ha ha!”

“Then should I fire another one?”

“What are you two saying!? C’mon! We need to get over there!”

Akira began to walk, so the young man glanced over at the tank.

“Can I ride it? It’s my first time for this kind of thing.”

“Do whatever you want!”

He ignored Akira’s shout and hopped onto the tank with a gleeful look. Akira sighed when she saw it.

…''Why did I have to meet someone so strange?

“It’s rude to call people strange, you know?”

Hearing his voice, she looked back in surprise.

The tank was already moving and he had his back turned to her.

…''He read my Live!?

He had read her thoughts from her Live. Instead of simply seeing her Live or reading its Message, he had directly read it as words.

That required great skill.

Not even she could do it.

…''It can’t be.

She motionlessly watched the tank leave, but finally began to catch up.