[Hostage's blue bar continues to recover, currently at [66%], status [panic], recovery speed is fast... slow... fluctuating irregularly...]
[The hostage is in a special state, the blue bar has been raised to [80%], the state is [calm and collected], the active mind and logical language have been raised significantly, and he is actively saving himself...]
[Hostage ending special status, blue bar dropping drastically. Warning, blue bar dropping drastically. Currently at [7,6,5...]]
[Hostage's blue bar is [48%], status [fearful], current recovery rate is slow, 1% every 3 minutes.]
[Hostage's blue bar is dropping, currently at [46%], status [fearful], in a state of delirium, has stopped auto recovery of blue bar, will refresh debuffs from time to time to lower blue bar.]
[Warning, the hostage has reached the threshold of collapse, please pacify the hostage as soon as possible.]
The system's alerts flashed, fast and slow, Ichijō Mirai glanced at the last few rapid alerts and paused at the third floor window, he grabbed the protruding edge of the window above him and stepped on the wall with his toes, only his fingers and toes were touching the building, his whole body was almost hanging in the air, it looked like he might fall straight down at any time.
Especially if the window edge is only a couple of centimeters high.
But Ichijō Mirai was very relaxed, he put down one hand, moved a few fingers with band-aids on them to protect his fingertips, and stopped his eyes on the prompt, somewhat thoughtfully converting and recording the time, and adding it to the guidebook in his head, "In the second hour and three minutes of the return to the archive, the hostages will be subjected to an emergency situation."
The hostages will respond to the emergency with a sense of calm, and when they succeed or fail, they will fall into an even more panicked state than before.
Uh...
It's not bad.
For a child of 7 or 8 years old, triggering the "calm and collected" state is already pretty good.
Many adult Inuos can't trigger the "calm and collected" state when they become an Inuo, and they can only be immersed in the divine figure of Ichijō Mirai, who is like a savior, and their hearts beat like deer in headlights.
After the [calm and collected], the blue bar plummeted to about 40%, some...
Ichijō Mirai's judgment: He seems to be a bold and timid hostage.
Bold enough to rise up and defend himself in a tight crisis, but timid enough to get scared immediately after leaving an imminent crisis.
"Let's try to see how effective we are at calming her down," Ichijō Mirai mused as she continued to climb, 'If she believes me after saying 'I'm a police officer' or something like that and stabilizes, then we're doing okay, and this isn't too difficult."
If she doesn't believe it, and falls down in front of the 'I'm a police officer' card instead, then...
Missions with restrictions on archiving weren't easy, and the last time there were restrictions was [FBI Newcomer], which had a tough guy like Akai Shūichi.
Ichijō Mirai pondered, carefully revising the wording, "Never mind, 'I'm a police officer' doesn't seem very secure."
The Japanese Police had a low credit rating.
"To fool the Japanese children...ah, there it is, 'I'm the FBI'!"
While the FBI would probably be a debuff in New York, it would probably work wonders in Japan, wouldn't it?
There were footsteps.
The owner of the voice weighs about 200 pounds and is in a hurry. The footsteps are fast, heavy, and chaotic, and there's an urgent cry, "Boss!"
Ichijō Mirai paused for a split second, then immediately tumbled upward, stepping on the edge of the bulge above the third-floor window.
He lowered his eyes and looked diagonally down.
The sound of a door opening and closing rang out from a nearby direction, and the sound of voices rang out again from below, this time lower, but still urgent, "We were wrong, that kid isn't a student at the special school!"
The location was the third room on the left below Ichijō Mirai.
There was a second person in the room, a man who sounded about the same age as the first speaker, both in his thirties, "Not a student at that school for the deaf?"
His voice tightened and he cursed, "The police are looking for us, and she's not a student at the school for the deaf?"
"Then what is she doing near the school! The way she dresses, she looks like she's from a good family, so how could she not be a loser who is supported by her family? How do you know? Did she tell you? Don't believe the fat sheep. They'll say anything to stay alive!"
A school for the deaf?
Ichijō Mirai remembered the child near the convenience store who had been tugging at his coat, and who had refused to let go even though he was crying.
He quickly recalled the face with only the upper half of it showing in the security video, compared it to the child he met near the convenience store, and after a few moments confirmed that it wasn't the same person.
So, from the beginning of the game until now, he had met three more special children, one of them was the blonde classmate's tricky play trick, and two of them were in the game.
The frequency of this special element seemed to be a bit high.
Below, the robber who rushed to report at the beginning spoke again: "But her family has money!"
"Her father is a well-known detective, very good at catching cheating commissions!"
"According to her, there are often 'pretty sisters wearing furry coats and smelling good' going to her house, and her father would be busy for days every time he receives such people."
Robber A mysteriously lowered his voice, "And also a money-minded unreliable detective!"
"Although the client's money, but the photographed if the money, he will sell the photos, and sometimes also cunningly eat both, both give photos!"
"so years and years down, her family's assets are very rich, but also more cash, after a while is the little kid's birthday, her father intends to buy her a movie kind of princess crown made of pearls and diamonds it!"
"Boss!"
He was shouting 'Big Brother' in a deferential manner, but in fact he was shouting 'Fat Sheep' with glowing eyes.
Robber B was obviously a bit moved, but was more composed than Robber A, and keenly realized one thing, "Is this what that little kid told you?"
Before he was about to admonish him for not listening to the hostage's ramblings, Robber A said cheerfully, "Yes!"
"The little kid was scared, has been choking and crying, but also do not know how to die trying to threaten me, saying what her father is very powerful and so on, I was listening to the feeling is not right, a pondering, rushed to find you," he took out from his hand a piece of paper that has been repeatedly kneaded and pressed small, "I grabbed her and wrote down the address and contact information of her family,"
"To contact the parents?"
Robber B did not say anything, seems to be in deep thought.
The robber A again and again, "That group of police do not know why suddenly with the chicken blood seems to be able to do up, the news has been published in our wanted, but also released the side of the well that kid's picture, this, we are to give up the action, slinking away, or...?"
The inclination was obvious.
After much hesitation, Robber B gritted his teeth, "Fuck!"
"We've got the fat one, if we leave without a fight, everyone will be upset," he stood up and spoke under his breath, but his ears caught what sounded like a scuffling and gently pushing at the window, so he subconsciously looked over, "Let's go to the hostage first,"
He caught a flash of black hanging down by the window, followed by a flash of red, and his voice ended abruptly with a thoughtful command.
Ichijō Mirai hung upside down from the fourth floor window to the third floor window, smiling and waving his hand to the window, "Hi, Surprise~"
"Good afternoon, do you have any guns?" His eyes landed on the waists of the two robbers, and his smile widened, "Ah, yes, no need to look elsewhere for a gun then."
"Thank you very much for your hospitality!"
"Boom!"
*
"Boom!"
Shot after shot rang out.
Suzuki Sonoko was already cowering in the corner.
This time, she didn't cower in the corner of the room, but in the corner underneath a desk, wrapping her arms tightly around her body and staring in the direction of the doorway with a bit of fear, even if she could only see the wooden wall at the bottom of the desk.
Her body shook with each dull, yet ear-piercing gunshot, and after a few rapid gunshots, she gritted her teeth and held on to the side of the desk, cautiously probing and looking out the window.
The sky outside the window was still white, like egg whites that had been fried in an iron pan for ten seconds, some faintly solidified gray.
Unlike the chain wrapped around the door, there was nothing on the window, no lock, chain, or rope, so Suzuki Sonoko could simply push the window open and climb out.
The small square window peeking out from under the desk was a beacon of salvation.
Suzuki Sonoko's eyes flickered for a few moments. She was cowering under the desk, her shoulders were shaking subconsciously due to the sound of gunshots that were getting closer and closer, but it was as if a beam of light had been injected into her dark green eyes and they had brightened up.
But the light only lasted for a moment before it flickered and went out like a candle in the wind.
Suzuki Sonoko retreated back to her desk, her eyes dimming: This is the fifth floor.
Jumping from a fifth-floor window...
Sounds like something more incredible than 'a child running away from robbers alone'.
She tightened her legs again and opened her mouth, realizing that since she had just said those words to the robbers, her throat was as stiff as cement, and she couldn't quite make a sound.
Just by thinking that the robbers were returning her gaze, not about to give her up again, but about to communicate with the 'parents' to extort a ransom, Suzuki Sonoko could guess what was in store for her: a finger, a hand, a toe, or a paw.
As a sign of threat and intransigence, the robbers would cut off a part of the hostage's body and send it to the hostage's family, most often a finger.
Compared to being taken down by the hostage-takers and ripped off, the loss of a few fingers or a hand is something to be thankful for, and it is Suzuki Sonoko's courage and her efforts to stutter and lie her way out of this situation that gives her a chance to live.
But...
Suzuki Sonoko moved her hand, barely able to feel her fingers under the prolonged over-exertion, and only when she lowered her eyes and looked down could she see her fingers wrapped around her legs, almost tense and white in color.
She wanted to say that she didn't want a certain finger to be cut off, but her throat was still getting sore as if it was clogged, and her tongue was so stiff that she couldn't speak at all, so all she could do was sniffle, grit her teeth, hold back her fear, and think: ...Which finger or toe should I cut off?
If she could, Suzuki Sonoko would have preferred not to, but it was so hopeless that she had to settle for the next best thing, her toes.
As long as she wore shoes, people wouldn't be able to tell at first sight even if a toe was missing.
If it had to be a finger, she hoped that it wouldn't be the most important thumb, or the index finger, which was somewhat more important, but preferably the little finger.
Of course, the robber wouldn't think of the hostage, the hostage would think of herself, Suzuki Sonoko thought, trying to take a deep breath, trying to calm her head down a little bit, and organizing the words that would make the robber agree to cut off only the pinky of her left hand.
For example, she had a special agreement with her 'detective father' to play hooky with her left pinky, and when she saw her left pinky, her 'detective father' would realize that it was her.
"Boom!"
There was another gunshot, this time very close, almost a door away.
Suzuki Sonoko shivered, and immediately buried her head, cowering tightly in a small corner under the desk.
She heard the screams and curses of human beings, and after the gunshots, those voices weakened until they disappeared, and she also heard a footsteps getting closer and closer amidst the chaos of gunshots, footsteps, and shouts.
The owner of the footsteps was not running, but was walking slowly, as if in a garden.
They stopped in front of Suzuki Sonoko's door.
There was silence all around, as if the whole factory had fallen into a state of silence.
Suzuki Sonoko held her breath and shrank back inside, staring into the darkness before her, her eyes rounded and her heart squeezed by a hand.
She was just a child, not a fool, and she could tell from the sound of the gunfight that it was not the police.
There were no police sirens, horns or exchanges with fellow police officers, only the sound of one sharp shot after another and the messy sound of return fire.
The one who started the shooting seemed to be playing a trick on his prey, and often, after a few shots, Suzuki Sonoko could hear little or no counter-attacks, as if no one had been hit at all.
It's probably the assailant playing with the prey.
But who is the assailant? Was it a robber who disagreed with the other robbers?
It couldn't have been the police. Like all robbers, they're terrifying.
There was still silence outside the door.
Suzuki Sonoko became even more nervous, shifting from subconsciously holding her breath to holding it as if she couldn't breathe, her eyes rounded like a cat's and staring wide in the direction of the door.
Even though, because she was under the desk, she could only see the wooden wall underneath the desk, she couldn't see the direction of the door, and the person outside the door couldn't see her, she still unconsciously stared at the door with rounded eyes.
Until she suddenly heard a polite knock.
No, it was the sound of knocking on the glass, so close that it was almost within arm's reach.
Suzuki Sonoko was still staring in the direction of the door, her mind almost frozen, unable to mobilize until five or six seconds later, when she turned her head with a pale face, and with a sense of urgency, looked at the window above her side.
She saw red, rich red.
The color of blood.
Outside the window, there was a young man with long black hair, bright red eyes, and a smile on his face as if he were a gentleman knocking on the window to signal his position.
He was smiling.
The dark-haired gentleman, most of his face splattered with bright red blood, even the hair above his eyes was a little wet, was smiling at Suzuki Sonoko from the very near distance, just a fragile glass window away.
The red eyes gazed at her as if they were prey, their pupils narrowing into sharp vertical pupils as they stared intently at Suzuki Sonoko.
Like a cat, like a snake, like a...
Suzuki Sonoko: "..."
She locked eyes with those curved blood-colored eyes, almost went into cardiac arrest, and blurted out in her blank mind, "F-Fox!"
The red pupils rounded a bit in confusion.