How to...
... find yourself a sniper
He felt the eyes of many people burning holes into his back, but he tried to ignore them. Although the winning or losing of his team lay in his hands, he pushed that thought toward the back of his mind. Slowly he raised his bow, eyes fixed on the target several meter away. The arrow had to hit exactly the middle or else his team would lose to the other school.
Takeo took a last deep breath, corrected his aim a little to the left, and then he released the arrow. Painful milliseconds passed before the crowd around the archery range erupted into cheers. Takeo let out the huff of air that he had been holding in relief.
"Good shot, Takeo. You saved us!"
"Great, as expected of our team captain!"
"We won, we won, we woooon!"
Takeo accepted the slaps on his back, and the overjoyed hugs with a huge grin although he was restricted in his movements by the bow he was still holding. He even smiled at the girls who were flocking around him going "Kyaah!" about the winning of their team or about how 'handsome he looked in those traditional clothes'. His heart belonged to one girl and one girl only. Speak of the devil, there she was waving and smiling like crazy. Takeo excused himself from his friends and teammates to rush over to the approximately 15 years old girl.
"Have you seen that last shot? I think I deserve a kiss!" Takeo said eagerly, with sparkling eyes, to the two years younger girl and pointed with his index finger towards his own cheek.
"Ieh! You're so embarrassing! Why do I have to have such an annoying brother with a sister complex?" The girl theatrically threw her hands in the air, but nonetheless, she pecked her brother on the cheek before linking arms with him.
Takeo grinned at his little sister, which had the same slender build and the same hair color as himself. He liked – no adored – that girl. It was well known at this school that anybody who only looked in the wrong way at her had to face her angry, overprotective brother. Takeo wasn't the typical thug, but what he lacked in fighting experience, he made up with speed, agility, and a good eye for distances and weak points.
Arm in arm the siblings went towards the gym, quietly chatting and ignoring the other people. It wasn't like Takeo had no interest in the other students, he had even had some girlfriends, but it never did last long. At the moment, his little, cute, adorable sister was the only girl he was interested in, Even so, it was very likely to change in the next years or so.
"And how do you like that boy?" Yuriy asked, rather annoyed and pointed to a youth with long purple hair who wore a traditional Japanese locking kind of clothing. This was the fourth young man he showed Dr. Arith for her 'souvenir shopping' and up till now, no one seemed to fulfil the requirements she had. That girl was driving him crazy! If she wasn't a genius, not only measured by her age, he would have kicked her down from this rooftop of the school building in the course of seconds. But Dr. Crombel wouldn't be too amused if he killed the little girl that he had so much fun observing like a lab rat.
"Kyaaah! He's so handsome! That's exactly what I was looking for… But what experiment should I conduct on him? There are four positions free next to Kranz," the girl started talking in a kind of hyperactive way. Her eyes eagerly glowed with anticipated fun as she looked at her soon to be experimental material.
Yuriy rolled his eyes. For heavens sake, why wasn't he allowed to kill her? She was so intelligent, but while thinking about the experiments, she got distracted with the beauty of her subjects and didn't see the obvious.
"I would suggest to use him for the scheduled sniper position in the DA-5 group. He just showed that he has a good eye and his archery skills are above average, so he should be of good use with modern weapons too," Yuriy tried his hardest to assure Dr. Arith of the best course of action. Imagining that slender boy with the huge canon-like thing Arith had invented was kind of unfitting. And to use him for wielding blades or electric whips was casting pearls before swine. Such a keen eye was wasted in a short range battle style.
"Yes! That's perfect! Can you imagine him with a gun in his hands or a holster tied to his thigh? Uuuh, so gorgeous! I can't wait to start the experiments on him!"
"But abducting that kid has to be planned. He seems to have a family."
"How do you know that?"
"There's a girl next to him that looks like a female version of the boy. She seems to be his sister or a near relative."
"… Oh, I didn't see her. It seems kind of fun how they talk with each other," Dr. Arith said in a surprisingly low voice. She only spoke in that highly concentrated far away voice when she was pondering an idea for an experiment.
"What are you planning?"
"I'm only thinking about bonding that cute guy to me further. Wouldn't I be an absolutely adorable sister? I'm curious how far he would go for his 'sister,'" the girl announced in an amused voice and with a sinister smile on her almost still childlike face.
Yuriy would have shuddered if he hadn't been plotting behind her back and wouldn't have been in league with Crombel. How long did he have to babysit this certainly slightly insane girl? Somehow he could almost sympathize with that young boy who was going to be her toy. That is, if he was able to sympathize with anybody.
"Whatever. I'm going to the laboratories and observe the packing of my stuff, while you take care of the haaaandsome boy down there. We'll meet up in three hours to go to the head quarters," Dr. Arith specified her plans before heading off, not bothering to wait for an answer from Yuriy.
He glared at her departing back, silently cursing in his mind once again. Now, he had to abduct that boy without exposing the Union to the 'outside world.' If Arith didn't bother someone other than him, he would make sure she would die in an 'accident' in the near future!
That evening, the local news stations were full of a terrible accident. There had been an explosion in a school building which caused a huge fire. Many students died, and from some kids, there weren't any remains at all to be found. The news flash featured a heartbreaking scene, where a purple haired slender girl cried for her brother who was assumed to be one of the dead.
