At first, nothing could be heard.
Satsuki did not even know whether she had opened her eyes or not.
Her ears felt as if someone had stuffed a thick wad of cotton into them, and something sharp was hidden inside, vibrating incessantly.
Her head throbbed in waves, and the place she hit when she fell to the ground just now also began to hurt; her whole body seemed to still linger in that very moment when the explosion occurred, not yet truly breaking free from the shock wave.
Someone was calling her.
The voice was very distant.
Across that continuous humming, faint syllables could only be heard occasionally.
"... Miss..."
Satsuki wanted to raise her head, but only felt her vision sway for a moment.
"... Eldest Miss..."
The voice got closer.
She finally distinguished whose it was.
"Eldest Miss, can you hear me?"
Chizuru.
Satsuki blinked a few times.
The dark shadows in her field of vision gradually gathered, and the previously mixed light began to have boundaries again.
The first thing she truly saw clearly was Chizuru's face.
She was half-kneeling in front of her, one hand firmly guarding the back of Satsuki's neck, and the other hand wrapped around from under her armpits, almost holding her entire body in her arms.
The dust stirred up by the explosion earlier stained Chizuru's hair and shoulders, and there was also a shallow scratch on the side of her face from something unknown, but her expression remained very calm, except that her brows were pressed very low.
Until confirming that Satsuki's eyes could already follow her movement, the tension on Chizuru's tightened face visibly relaxed for a split second.
"Eldest Miss."
She raised her voice slightly.
"SIS has confirmed it. The news Masato found just now is correct; unidentified Americans have contacted Washio, and privately provided them with lethal firepower."
Chizuru was still moving while speaking.
Satsuki only then discovered that she had not stayed in the original place at all.
"We cannot stay here anymore, we must leave immediately."
"... Um, okay."
Satsuki responded.
Her own voice sounded very strange.
Probably because the tinnitus had not completely faded away, she even felt as if these two words did not come out of her own mouth.
Her feet felt a bit floaty after stepping on the ground.
Chizuru never let go of her; her left arm tightly wrapped around Satsuki's waist, bearing almost most of her body weight.
Satsuki took another two steps, and her field of vision finally expanded a bit.
There were people all around.
Over a dozen special operations team members in black combat uniforms had surrounded her right in the center.
The people on the outermost side held riot shields, several shields intersecting with each other, always maintaining complete cover while moving; the people inside closely followed the outer circle moving synchronously, and no one stopped to check the road because of the explosion just now, nor did anyone look back at that truck.
The entire formation thus surrounded Satsuki and moved toward the position of the backup car.
Satsuki was guarded in the very center.
Across the constantly changing positions, she could only occasionally see the outside from the gaps between the shields.
"Eldest Miss, are you hurt anywhere?"
Chizuru looked down at her.
"Has the dizziness gotten worse? Did you hit anywhere when you fell down just now?"
As she spoke, she slightly adjusted her posture of holding Satsuki.
"Will supporting you like this hurt your shoulder?"
Satsuki did not answer.
She raised her head and looked above the shields.
Tokyo's night sky was still that dark gray slightly illuminated by the city lights, except that now there were red and blue lights constantly sweeping across the building facades.
Sirens had already sounded in the distance, and not just one.
The sounds approached from several directions together, but could never truly reach here.
The consecutive collisions just now had completely blocked the roads nearby.
Several damaged sedans lay across the middle of the lanes, and further away, ordinary vehicles that did not have time to make a U-turn were jammed together.
After the explosion, the people who were originally standing in the distance watching finally realized that what happened here was by no means an ordinary traffic accident.
Some people abandoned their cars and ran into roadside shops, while others climbed over the guardrails.
A taxi still had its car door open, but the driver had long since gone who knows where.
Those flashing police lights could only approach this side little by little across the chaotic traffic flow.
The Metropolitan Police Department had arrived nearby, but it would still take time to truly enter the scene.
Now the only ones who could protect her were her own people.
Satsuki slowly pulled back her gaze.
Americans.
Grenade.
After these two things were linked together, the abnormality of that truck just now finally had an explanation.
Since the opponent could smuggle in grenades, naturally they would not prepare just one grenade.
Those four MP-25s she originally grasped now had no reference significance whatsoever.
"Chizuru."
"Yes."
Satsuki's voice was still a bit hoarse, but her tone had completely turned cold.
"Notify Dojima Gen."
Chizuru lowered her head.
"Load live ammunition."
Her footsteps paused imperceptibly.
Inside Saionji, such a contingency plan did indeed exist.
After the Gulf War ended, at Satsuki's request, Dojima Gen reorganized the group's highest-level personnel protection plan, which included an emergency firearm system that would not appear on ordinary security lists.
Those items had long been sealed in specific vehicles and facilities.
Who could activate them, under what circumstances they could be activated, and who would be responsible after activation—every single thing had strict restrictions.
The reason was also very simple.
This was Japan.
A private corporate security team pulling out real automatic weapons in Tokyo was enough in itself to make the Metropolitan Police Department, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Justice, and even the Parliament question them for a long time.
Therefore, ever since that system was established, no one had ever truly hoped it would have a chance to be taken out.
But right now, there was clearly no room left to continue considering these things.
Everything should take the protection of Satsuki's safety as the top priority.
Chizuru raised her hand to press her headset.
"Yes."
She nodded heavily.
"I will notify Mr. Dojima immediately."
"... Yes, received."
Dojima Gen pressed his headset.
He stood behind an escort SUV, and only slowly raised his head after Chizuru finished her last sentence.
Less than twenty meters ahead was that truck.
The smoke and dust left by the explosion earlier had not completely dispersed, and there was already a scorched black trace on the asphalt road surface.
Several gravel pieces kicked up by the shock wave were scattered around, and one of them even crashed into the door of a nearby sedan.
The people who were originally surrounding the truck had already returned to their positions.
Before the grenade landed, the closest team member issued a warning first, and the rest of the people lunged toward the vehicles, curbs, and concrete isolation facilities almost simultaneously.
After truly experiencing shelling, a person's reaction to explosives was no longer accomplished purely by thinking.
The instinct pressed into the body together by training and the battlefield had already taken action ahead of consciousness.
Therefore, although that loud explosion just now blew the entire street into chaos, it did not leave any wounded among them.
Some people had a few traces on their helmets where fragments brushed past, some people's protective gear was covered in dust, and another team member scraped a layer of skin off their elbow when diving into the roadside earlier.
But that was all.
A few seconds ago, they had re-established the encirclement of the truck.
But now, everything was different.
Dojima Gen reached out to take off the less-lethal weapon he had just used, and handed it to a team member rushing over from the rear.
"Activate Level-One equipment."
Several people around turned their heads simultaneously.
Dojima's gaze swept across the truck's cab, and then fell toward the team that had already begun escorting Satsuki to evacuate.
"The original control plan is cancelled."
He raised his hand and made a very short gesture in front of him.
"Lift the less-lethal restrictions on targets still carrying weapons. If anyone opens fire, retaliate directly."
"Understood!"
Several team leaders responded almost simultaneously.
The team then began to move.
Two people pulled apart to the right side.
The position originally close to the front of the car retreated a few meters, re-expanding the close-range control circle that no longer had meaning.
Several other people quickly occupied the shooting dead angles formed by the SUVs parked nearby and the roadside buildings, re-sealing all directions in which the truck could rush out.
At the same time, a black SUV in the rear that had never participated in the collision opened its tailgate.
Two locked long boxes were lifted down.
The person in charge of equipment directly carried them and ran to various positions.
Dojima took one of the guns.
The black gun body was very short.
H&K HK53.
Several months ago in the Middle East, they had used quite a few weapons produced by the same company.
After returning to Japan, the overwhelming majority of things truly usable for war were left overseas, and only this small batch was insisted by Dojima to be included in the highest-grade emergency system.
Back then, he even specifically argued with the legal department over this.
Sasaki finally wrote as many as seven pages of risk descriptions on the report.
Dojima only replied with one sentence at the very bottom.
If there really comes a day when these things need to be used, it means legal risk is no longer the most important issue at the scene.
Now it seemed that that day had truly come.
He glanced around to check.
Equipment was being rapidly distributed.
The few team members close to the truck had completed the replacement, and the rest of the personnel maintained their original directions, not rushing forward just because they got live ammunition.
"Watch the cab."
Dojima raised his gun.
"If the people inside—"
The sentence had not been finished yet.
The truck suddenly moved.
The first thing to sound was the engine.
The diesel engine, which had remained quiet all along, suddenly revved up, and the heavy car body shook along with it.
"Alert!"
Dojima shouted out almost at the same time the sound appeared.
The truck began to reverse.
The rear wheels rolled over the gravel left by the explosion just now, and the rear of the car violently swung out to the right.
The two team members who were originally guarding the rear immediately split up, avoiding the reversing direction.
The truck backed up nearly a car length.
Then the roar of the engine suddenly escalated.
The driver slammed into forward gear.
The whole vehicle bolted forward.
It was not even prepared to leave along the original road.
The steering wheel was quickly turned all the way to the left, and the huge front of the car bypassed the heavily deformed sedan Satsuki was in just now, its right tire squeezing past almost grazing the sunken car door of the sedan.
Dojima understood instantly.
That person was still chasing Satsuki.
"Stop it!"
He took two steps forward.
His line of sight crossed over the front of the car.
That circle of riot shields in the distance was still moving.
There was still some distance to the backup vehicle.
If this truck was allowed to charge up again, with its weight, what would happen if it crashed into that moving escort formation did not need to be calculated at all.
"Attack the driver!"
Several HK53s were raised almost simultaneously.
The gunshots truly rang out on this street for the first time.
Several consecutive short bursts of fire tore open the cab glass that still had cracks remaining on it.
The glass suddenly collapsed inward.
But the figure in the driver's seat had already ducked their body low before the shooting started.
The truck's cab was high to begin with.
Looking over from the position where Dojima and the others were, they could only see a very small area above the steering wheel.
The bullets shattered the windshield and penetrated behind the cab, but never made that vehicle stop.
The truck was still moving forward.
And the speed was getting faster and faster.
"Right side!"
Someone shouted.
An SUV that was originally guarding the other side of the road had started up.
The driver did not try to ram it head-on at all.
The car body sharply cut into the front of the truck from an oblique side, and the front-mounted crash bar heavily slammed into the vicinity of the truck's front-left wheel.
"Boom!"
The metal shells of the two cars simultaneously emitted a teeth-gritting squeezing sound.
The front of the SUV instantly caved in a piece.
The truck was also knocked to the right by this hit, its front wheels pressed onto the curb, and its speed suddenly dropped.
The driver still wanted to correct the direction.
The second escort car had already rushed up from the other side.
This time it directly crashed toward the front of the car.
The huge impact caused the entire cab of the truck to sway backward.
Before it could regain space, the third car had also blocked the front horizontally.
Three SUVs almost jammed the truck in the center of the road.
The engine was still roaring.
The tires spun desperately, making a harsh screeching sound as they rubbed against the ground.
But the left and right sides of the heavy front had already been locked dead by vehicles, and it could only keep vibrating in place.
Dojima immediately pressed forward.
"Keep up!"
The team members on both sides immediately pushed forward making use of the escort cars.
The muzzles of the guns all pointed at the cab.
The person in charge of the left side could already see the outline of the driver crouching behind the steering wheel.
"Driver!"
The megaphone sounded again.
"Turn off the engine immediately! Hands off the steering wheel!"
There was no response from inside.
The engine was still roaring.
"Prepare to breach the door."
Dojima raised his hand.
Two team members on the right side began to approach the cab, and several other guns had completely suppressed the windows and doors.
Just at this moment, he suddenly heard a sound.
Very light.
Coming from behind the truck.
It was like some metal buckle was violently pulled open.
Dojima suddenly turned his head.
"The cargo bed—"
The compartment door at the back of the truck suddenly bounced open outward.
It was pitch black inside.
The team member closest to the rear of the car had just turned their muzzle when dense gunfire suddenly burst out from that darkness.
A string of bullets fiercely swept across the escort SUV parked on the side of the truck.
A series of sparks instantly burst out on the car body, and the windshield suddenly crawled with cracks.
The special operations team member sitting in the driver's seat who had used his own car to ram the truck to a stop just now violently shook his body.
His hands slipped down from the steering wheel.
His forehead heavily knocked against the center of the horn.
A harsh honking sound instantly resounded through the entire street.
He never raised his head again.