"What the hell is that guy!?"
From his vantage point on the roof, the sniper—Jando—stared down in shock. He couldn't believe his eyes; the target had sliced through his fire bullet with effortless ease.
Jando’s arm had been reshaped into a heavy cannon, and his eyes had shifted into a three-eyed arrangement resembling a turret lens. His method was simple: lock onto a target with those specialized eyes and incinerate them with a blast from his left arm.
Earlier that day, he and his cohorts had turned the zoo into the stage for a twisted game. The rules were simple: a hunt with humans and animals as the prey, where the participants competed for the highest score. While he had initially thought of the others as comrades, "competitors" was a more accurate term. They weren't friends; they were just a group of people who had recently met and shared a common interest in violence. Jando and his rivals cared for nothing but racking up kills and sabotaging the other players.
This was the answer to the contradiction Ryuga had sensed earlier—the reason the sniper had shot the very animals that were supposed to be tools for Human Hunting. To the competitors who actually controlled the beasts, the animals were valuable assets; to Jando, they were just more targets. Killing them earned him points and hindered his rivals' progress. He saw no reason to let such easy prey go to waste.
However, shooting the animals was merely a side objective intended to annoy his competition. Humans were the primary targets of the hunt, and the points gained from animals were pittance by comparison.
That was why Jando had been ecstatic when he spotted a large group of people gathered together. Determined not to let such a windfall of points escape, he had opened fire immediately. He managed to hit one girl, but his fun was cut short when a man with a golden shield and another with a katana interfered. He hadn't been able to hunt as he pleased, and eventually, the survivors had fled into a nearby building.
It was infuriating. It had been a clear Bonus Time, yet he had only managed to bag a single girl. It was an intolerable waste.
But the match wasn't over. A sniper needed to be patient. Fortunately, his competitors were struggling to master their temperamental abilities and hadn't managed to coordinate the animals effectively. Jando had planned to use the chaos of the animal rampage as a smokescreen, waiting for the perfect moment to pick off the targets one by one.
Then, the man with the katana returned.
Thinking it was the perfect chance to settle the score, Jando had fired—and the results were now plain to see. His flames had been cut down, and he had been openly mocked. Between the interruption of his Bonus Time and Ryuga’s condescending attitude, the blood boiled in Jando's veins. He had been completely baited.
"You brat! You think you can mock me and walk away!?"
Ryuga wasn't weaving or zig-zagging to avoid his aim; he was charging in a straight line. Jando realized what the swordsman was doing and growled in irritation. He felt as though Ryuga was laughing at him, signaling that his sniping wasn't a threat because every bullet could be swatted away.
Jando assumed Ryuga was acting out of pure arrogance. In reality, Ryuga was deliberately drawing the sniper's focus to keep his allies safe, but Jando had lost the composure needed to see through such a tactic. His rage had reached a flashpoint.
"Fine! Let's see if you can really handle everything I've got!"
Jando screamed at the lone swordsman who had recklessly charged out from the safety of the building. He unleashed a massive fire shell that lit up the area with a blinding glare, immediately following it with four smaller bursts of flame.
The first shell was a fake—a distraction. The four trailing flames were the true Decoy Attack. He didn't expect the first shot to kill, but if it could force the target to stop, he could spend the next few minutes tormenting Ryuga to death.
Jando watched as Ryuga swung his katana, cleaving through the initial large flame. The sniper’s lips curled into a smirk, waiting for the following shots to catch the swordsman off guard. But his grin vanished instantly as Ryuga struck down the subsequent flames without a hint of hesitation.
"What!? Even that didn't work!?"
Jando had used a similar trick before, but he had just performed this Decoy Shot at its maximum output. Seeing it handled so effortlessly forced a panicked shout from his throat. Realizing that his trickery was useless against Ryuga, Jando immediately prepared a different form of attack.