Even though they both were hungry by now, neither Haruka, nor Michiru were willing to waste any time on finding someone to sell them food; they only stopped at a water hole to drink and refill their canteens, then were on their way again to the camp Earl had told them about, both of them eager to get the piece of the key the bandit leader there owned, before the Crimson Lance might get there first and take that from them, as well.
Michiru still had no idea how to get the pieces Steele had taken from her back, fully aware of how much more manpower the Crimson Lance had, compared to the two of them; she was good with her rifle, but she hadn't had a chance yet to test the one she had gotten from Earl, and had no idea if she'd be as good with it as with the one she'd had custom made, these thoughts only strengthening her resolve to not only get the key pieces back, but the weapons the Lance had taken from them, as well.
"Look", Haruka called out to her, distracting her from these ponderings, and briefly making her uneasy by letting go of the bike's handle with one hand to gesture at something on the road, Michiru holding on a bit tighter to her in response while she craned her neck to see what the blonde tried to show her, "tire tracks. Quite sure that those were caused by bandit cars."
"Hopefully those", Michiru gave back, raising her voice as well to be heard over the roar of the engine, "and not the Crimson Lance. We should have asked Earl if they shop at his junkyard, too, and if he told them anything, I think you had him frightened enough, he would have told us."
"I guess so", Haruka agreed, sounding amused, even though she secretly was glad that the sniper hadn't been irritated or annoyed by her rather harsh reaction, "but I guess we'll find out sooner or later anyway."
Michiru let out an agreeing noise, then both fell silent again as Haruka concentrated on driving; and not long after, a dark column of smoke appeared on the horizon, making Michiru frown as it appeared too thick for a simple campfire, making her wonder if the bandits just had one big bonfire or if the smoke was caused by something else.
Clearly, Haruka had similar thoughts, pointing out that no bandits she knew only ever made one fire; and a short while later, the reason for the column of smoke became apparent, in form of a vehicle parked in the middle of the road, two men in crimson armour standing next to it and arguing, stopping though at the approaching bike.
Their armour and the crimson paint job of their car was all the indicator Michiru needed, and she reacted at once, acting without hesitating even a second, ignoring the knowledge about how dangerous the immediate plan of action which had jumped into her mind at the sight of the soldiers.
Without missing a beat, she held on to Haruka with one hand, pulling her revolver out of the holster while she planted both feet firmly on the footrests, Haruka, to her credit, not slowing down the slightest, not even when Michiru stood up behind her, the men reaching for the weapons, but both the blonde and the sniper knowing they would be too slow.
It took Michiru just the fraction of a second to include the movement of the bike into figuring out the aim for the perfect shots; and then, she pulled the trigger twice in quick succession, and both men fell, one of them dead from a headshot while the other bullet hadn't hit quite as perfectly, having caught the other man in the throat, his body convulsing as he fell to the dusty road.
The moment the men had gone down, Michiru lowered herself onto the seat again, and Haruka slowed down the bike the second her behinds were back on the leather; she stopped the bike right next to the car, and Michiru ended the injured soldier's suffering quickly, putting a bullet in his head a second after her feet had touched the ground.
"Next time you plan something like that, warn me", Haruka admonished while she knelt down next to one of the men and began searching him, Michiru doing the same with the other, "for a moment, I thought you were falling off!"
"And you didn't slow down?" Michiru wanted to know, raising an eyebrow at her, briefly stopping her search for weapons and ammunition, "should I be offended now?"
"I thought about it", the blonde defended herself, "but then I figured out what you were doing. Impressive shooting, by the way, I don't think anyone else I know could have pulled this off, and with such accuracy, too."
"Good thing I didn't have much time to think about it", the sniper told her, finding a few boxes of ammunition in the pockets sewn to the dead soldier's belt and pocketing them, "or I would have lost my nerve. I don't ever did something as dangerous as this before."
As she spoke, she found a sharp, serrated knife strapped to the soldier's calf and immediately liberated it along with the strap, replacing the knife Steele had taken from her; the other guy had a knife, as well, Haruka claiming it as hers, nodding when Michiru asked if she had found anything else which might be useful.
"More ammunition", she let the sniper know, handing the boxes to her, "sadly, only for your gun though, none for mine."
"Well, we got quite a bit from Earl, even though we overpaid for it", Michiru pointed out, "and if we're lucky, the bandits will yield some, too…"
She trailed off as she took a closer look at Haruka, then at the men she had killed; and as she studied them, realized that one was smaller than the other, an idea started to form in her mind, a slight smile curling her lips as she looked up at the blonde again.
"Say", she then stated, straightening up and gesturing at the car, "think you can fix this? I have an idea."
"Not sure", Haruka gave back, eying the car, "I can take a look at it, if we're lucky, they have some tools…"
As she spoke, she went to the trunk already, and opened it with ease; and to her delight, she found a toolbox in there, smirking as she pulled it out and moved to the engine hood, opening it and grimacing at the cloud of smoke which greeted her.
"This might take a while", she then told the sniper, raising an eyebrow when Michiru just shrugged in response – before the smaller woman knelt down next to the taller soldier and began removing his armour, Haruka watching her for a few more moments before she focused on the smoking engine, smirking to herself as she realized what Michiru had in mind.
Big Boris always had prided himself on his lack of fear of anything; he liked to boast that not only his body was big, but his courage, too, and that there was nothing which scared him, that he had never backed down from a fight.
Now though, he was scared, perhaps for the first time in his life; and he flinched when another shot echoed and another of his men fell, killed by a perfectly placed headshot, just like the dozen before.
"This can stop right now", a hoarse voice called out to him, after the body had thumped down to the ground, "just hand over your little trinket!"
"No!" he yelled back, making sure that all of him was hidden behind the cover he had found, something which, thanks to his bulk, wasn't all too easy, "it is my good luck charm, I'm not handing it over!"
"Not much luck right now, boss!" one of his bandits yelled, yelping surprisingly high-pitched when, as if in response, a bullet hit the ground right in front of his feet, "they're picking us off one by one!"
"And that wasn't a miss", the hoarse voice added, "the next one is gonna hit you if your boss doesn't hand that over!"
"They're gonna kill us all!" another bandit yelped, "dammit, boss, give them the damn thing!"
"No!" Big Boris protested again; and in response, another shot echoed through their camp, and another body hit the ground, the bandits who hadn't been shot this time yelling in fear and dismay.
"Get the trinket!" one of them then suddenly cried out, "if we give it to them, they'll stop!"
"What!" Big Boris squawked, startled, not having expected this development at all – until this very moment, all his men had looked to him with a mixture of fear and admiration, and none of them ever had questioned him or had refused to carry out an order, "this is mutiny, how dare you!"
"It's just a stupid trinket!" one of his men yelled back, Haruka snickering to herself in their hiding place while next to her, Michiru already had the next bandit in her sights, ready to shoot him the second it'd seem as if they needed more convincing to turn on their leader, "you'd let them kill us all just for that?! Hand it over or we'll take it from you!"
"Find them, you idiots", Boris yelled in response, fighting the urge to raise his head from behind the cover to glare at them, "can't you figure out where they are?!"
"No!" one of his men gave back at once, making him grumble; and then, he heard movement, quick footsteps approaching his hideout, his eyes going wide when three of his men stepped in front of him, all of them having their weapons drawn and aimed at him.
"Hand it over", one of them ordered, "or we'll shoot you! This little stupid thing is all they want, so give it to them!"
"If they want it, it must be valuable", Big Boris argued back, not willing to hand over his lucky charm – he had no idea what it was, but if people as skilled with guns as whoever was picking them off were after it, it had to be something special, "do you want to give it up without knowing what it is?!"
"Yes!" a chorus of voices replied, along with the three men in front of him; he grumbled, but had to realize that he was outnumbered – even if he did manage to take down the three in front of him, the others would overwhelm him with ease, and he doubted that the unseen sniper would accidentally help him in any way by picking off more of his men while they attacked him.
"Fine!" he finally cried, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation, "have it, then! But don't go blaming me if every raid we try goes wrong from now on, and they will, if I don't have my lucky charm anymore!"
"Oh shut up", one of the three men in front of him grumbled, holding out his hand; with a grumble of his own, Big Boris undid the necklace and handed it to the man, watching with a heavy heart how he raised it up into the air afterwards, so that the still well-hidden assailants could see it.
"We got it", he added, raising his voice to make sure he'd be heard, "I'll bring it to you if you promise you won't kill me!"
"Drop all your weapons", a new voice called out in reply, to the surprise of the bandits easily identified as female, "and bring it to the waterhole south from here. We will meet you there. Come alone!"
"Okay!" he yelled back, carefully pocketing the trinket, not wanting to lose it on the way; and while he got moving, Haruka and Michiru did the same, hurrying away from the hideout Michiru had chosen as her sniper's nest for the assault, both of them satisfied with how well their impromptu plan to get the third piece from the bandit leader had worked out.