Squeak, she heard the sound of the door, looked up and and saw a man enter. A skinny middle-aged man, wearing grayish clothing, one hand holding a Boston bag.

The man stopped at the entrance and looked around inside the office. His eyes met Shino's for an instant. She thought his eye color looked strange. In the center of his yellowed whites, dark pupils like deep holes moved rapidly. Thinking back now, his pupils were too dilated. It was uncovered later that the man, before he came to the post office, was injected with some stimulant.

But at that moment, Shino didn't have time to question it, as the man quickly moved to a window.

As Shino's mother was completing some sort of procedure at the "transfers & savings" window, the man suddenly grabbed her right arm with his left and pulled. He then threw her away violently. Her mother fell without making a sound; the shock was so great that she froze with her eyes open.

Shino instantly stood up. She was going to loudly protest the sudden, unreasonable violence on her beloved mother.

Then, the man dropped his Boston bag on the counter loudly, and took out a black object from within. By the time Shino realized that it was a gun, the man had already pointed it at the male worker in the window. Pistol-toy-no, real thing-robbery-!? A few words flashed by in Shino's mind.

"Put the money in the bag!"

The man shouted in a hoa.r.s.e voice. Then, he continued.

"Both hands on the counter top! Don't press the alarm b.u.t.ton! You there, don't move!!"

Moving his gun left and right, he restrained several workers in the back.

She should immediately run out of the office and call for help outside, Shino thought. However she could not leave her mother lying on the ground and go.

While she hesitated, the man shouted again.

"Hurry and put the money inside!! All you have!! Hurry!!"

The male worker at the window, with his face stiff, held out a 5cm thick bundle of money in his right hand- At that moment.

Her ears went numb. It took her some time to figure out it was from the loud, explosive sound. Next, ding, a small, metallic sound followed. Something had hit the wall and bounced, falling down around Shino's feet. A small, golden metallic tube.

When she raised her head again, she saw that on the other side of the counter, the male worker's eyes were round and both of his hands clutched his chest.. She can see that under his neck tie, his white shirt was dyed red. At that time, the worker on his chair leaned backward, along with a file cabinet near him, and fell to the ground.

"I told you not to press the b.u.t.ton!!"

The man's voice became high-pitched. She could see that his hand holding the gun was shaking. A smell reminiscent of fireworks reached her nose.

"Hey, you! Come here and take the money!!"

The man's gun pointed at two female workers who stood, frozen.

"Hurry and come!!"

The man's sharp voice rang out, but the female workers just shook their head and didn't move. They probably had training to counter robbery incidents, but actual bullets could not be blocked by training from any manual.

The man kicked the lower part of the counter many times in frustration. Maybe he was thinking of shooting another person, as he raised his right hand holding the gun, again. Screaming loudly, the female workers crouched down.

But then, the man did a half turn, and faced the customer side of the room.

"If you don't hurry, I'll shoot another person!! I'm going to shoot!!"

The man's gun was pointing at-fallen down on the floor, Shino's mother who was looking into s.p.a.ce with empty eyes.

The scene happening in front of her was too much for her. Her mother couldn't even move her body. Instantly, Shino thought: -I need to protect my mother.

The thought that she continuously had since she was a little child, that willpower forced Shino's body into action.

Shino dropped her book and ran out, she held onto the man's right wrist holding the gun, and instantly bit down on it. The child's sharp teeth easily penetrated the man's skin.

"Whaa!?"

The man gave a surprised shout, then swung his right arm along with Shino. Shino's body hit the side of the counter. She lost two of her baby teeth at that moment, but she didn't feel it. In front of her eyes, that man's black gun slipped and fell from his hand. She picked it up while he was preoccupied.

It was heavy.

The heavy weight of the metal was felt through both of her hands. In contrast, the lined grip held by the man earlier was soaked with his sweat, with the man's body heat. It felt like a living thing.

Shino as a child knew a bit about what the tool was for. If she used this, she could stop the terrible man. Led by those thoughts, Shino held the gun up near level with her eyes, both hands' index fingers went to the trigger, and pointed it at the man.

At that moment, the man let out a strange sound and jumped at Shino, trying to get the gun away from her hands. His two hands latched onto her two wrists.

That action was very good for Shino, and in a way it was very bad. She still couldn't figure it out right now. But the simple truth was that, as a result, the man steadied the gun pointing at him.

Right now, Shino had more than enough information on the gun used in the robbery incident-"that gun".

In 1933, 90 years ago, the Soviet army officially used the gun "Tokarev TT33". Then, the Chinese copied it and produced "Type 54 Black Star". That was the gun's name.

The gun was 30 caliber, that is, it used 7.62mm diameter steel core bullets. Compared to the mainstream 9mm guns developed later, its caliber is lower, but it uses a lot of gun powder. For that reason, the bullet's initial speed is beyond the speed of sound, so it has the highest penetration power among all hand guns.

But as the recoil was also large, the Soviet Union in the 1950's designed a smaller gun using 9mm bullets. The "Makarov" replaced the Tokarev as their official gun in history.

This kind of gun was not something an 11 year old child was able to aim and shoot properly. But when the man strongly held onto her wrists trying to steal the gun away, at that instant, Shino pulled the trigger on reflex.

The violent recoil spread from her hands to her elbow then to her shoulders, but the majority of it was absorbed by the man's hands. The air expanded by heat again.

The man made a hiccup-like sound, released Shino's hands, and staggered back a few steps.

In the man's patterned grey shirt near his belly, a dark red circle rapidly expanded. "Aa... Ahaaa!!"

While he released a high pitch cry, he pressed his hands to his abdomen. Maybe a large blood vessel was. .h.i.t, as from between his fingers a spray of blood gushed out.

But the man did not fall. Black Star used a small caliber Full Metal Jacket bullet, so while it could easily pa.s.s through the human body, its stopping power is low.

With a strange sound, the man moved his blood covered hands toward Shino, again trying to catch her. The blood spraying out of his wound fell onto Shino's hands.

With her shaking hands, as if convulsing, she pulled the trigger again.

This time the pistol made a huge jump, pain shooting through her elbows and shoulders. Her body was thrown backward, her back hit the counter, knocking her breath out. She didn't really hear the gunshot noise this time.

The second bullet hit below the man's right collarbone, once again going through him and hitting the wall at his back. The man staggered, then foot slipped on his own blood, and he collapsed onto the linoleum floor on his back.

"Gaaaaa!!"

But that still didn't stop the man. He roared in anger and put both hands on the floor to try to stand up again.

Shino was panic-stricken. She thought, this time, if she doesn't "stop" the man for sure, she and her mother will absolutely be killed.

She ignored the sharp pain in her hands and shoulders, and walked two steps forward. She pointed the gun at the center of the man who had risen about 20cm from the ground.

The third shot dislocated her right shoulder. This time she didn't support her body and was blown away by the recoil, and fell head over heels to the floor. Even so, the pistol did not leave her hands.

Just as before, the bullet fired violently from the pistol greatly deviated from her target by about 10cm upward- It hit almost the exact center of the man's face. With a thud, the man's head hit the floor. He no longer moved or yelled.

Shino desperately held her body up to confirm that the man had stopped moving.

-Protected.

Before anything, she thought. She protected her mother.

Shino moved her head, to look at her mother who was still on the floor a few meters away. And, the mother she loved more than anyone else in the world...

Was looking directly at Shino. Fear and panic clearly showing in her eyes.

Shino looked down at her hands. Her hands still holding the pistol were covered with dark red liquid droplets.

Shino opened her mouth, and finally started issuing a shrill scream.

"Aaaa...!!"

As a thin cry tore out from the depths of her throat, Shino continued to stare at the Procyon SL clenched in both of her hands. She could see the blood dripping from the back her hands to her fingers. No matter how many times she blinked, it didn't disappear. Drip, drip. The sticky drops fell to her feet.

Suddenly, liquid started to overflow from both of her eyes. With a soft distortion, her sight was completely covered by the black radiance of the model gun.

In the depths of the darkness, she could see that man's face.

The third wave of bullets flew toward his face. The wounds were surprisingly small where the bullet sh.e.l.ls. .h.i.t, looking somewhat like moles. However, immediately afterward, a red mist drifted out from the back of his head. All expression and life bled out from his face.

But, abruptly, the left eye alone moved and the pupil, looking like a bottomless pit, gazed at Shino.

It looked straight into Shino's eyes.

"... Ah ... ah ... ... ... ..."

Suddenly, her tongue stuck to the back of her throat and she couldn't breathe. At the same time, she felt her stomach violently constricting.

Shino clenched her teeth, mustered all of her willpower and threw the Procyon to the floor. Immediately, with teetering steps, she ran to the kitchen and turned the doork.n.o.b of the bathroom with her right hand, cold and wet with sweat.

At the same time that Shino lifted the toilet lid, hot liquid gushed out from the bottom of her stomach. Until everything in her stomach was discharged, she vomited, again and again, causing her body to twist and spasm.

When the contractions of her stomach had finally settled down, Shino was exhausted.

Her left hand extended to flush the toilet. With a bit of difficulty, Shino rose and, after taking off her gla.s.ses, she washed both of her hands and face over and over again with sharp, cold water from the washbasin.

Lastly, she rinsed her mouth, took a clean towel from the shelf and, while wiping her face, left the bathroom. She could not think clearly.

On unsteady legs, Shino returned to her room.

Averting her gaze from it as much as possible, Shino covered the model gun that had rolled onto floor. Lifting it up over the cloth, she immediately threw it to the back of the open drawer. Noisily, Shino closed the drawer and, exhausted, fell face down onto the bed.

Water droplets from her wet bangs and her flowing tears mixed together on her cheeks and soaked her futon. Unconsciously, in a small voice, she mumbled the same thing over and over again.

"Help me... someone... help me... save me... anyone..."

Her memory of the several days right after the robbery incident were not very clear.

When the adults dressed in the navy blue uniform said, in a tense tone, to pa.s.s over the gun, her finger had stiffened and, no matter how hard she had tried, would not come loose.

Around her, there were many red lights and yellow tape shaking in the wind. The white light shining from over there dizzied her eyes.

After she was finally picked up by the patrol car, she noticed the pain in her right shoulder. When she timidly appealed, the policeman moved her over to an ambulance-she remembered only bits and pieces of the rest.

While in a hospital bed, two policewomen repeatedly asked about the incident. Even though she said many times that she wanted to see her mother, her request could only be granted afterward.

Shino was discharged after about three days and she returned to her grandparents' house, but her mother's hospitalization lasted over a month. They could no longer return to the mild ordinary days from before the incident.

Due to the voluntary restraint of the media, further details about the incident were avoided in the news. The death of the suspect of the post office armed robbery was reported to the prosecutor, but a trial was not held even once. However, it was a small town incident. The details of what happened inside the post office leaked out-and more than that, they were blown up and exaggerated and they spread through the entire town like a prairie fire.

In the year and a half left of elementary school, Shino was peppered with every derivative of "murderer". Since entering middle school, the insults were replaced with complete disregard.

However, for Shino, the state of her surroundings were not much of a problem. From the beginning, Shino had very little interest in belonging to a group.

But the scar left in her heart by the incident - no matter how many years had pa.s.sed, they didn't heal and continued to torment Shino.

Since then, just looking at anything similar to a gun would force Shino to vividly recall the memory of the incident and experience the symptoms of a violent shock: hyperventalation, body rigidity, loss of orientation, vomiting, or, in the worst cases, fainting. While these attacks were certainly induced by laying eyes on a toy gun held by a child by the roadside, they could easily be induced even through a TV screen.

Therefore, Shino became unable to watch most dramas and movies. There had also been several times where she had attacks while watching the video teaching materials used in her social science cla.s.s. Comparatively, books were safe-old works of literature devoid of firearms, especially. So, for the majority of middle school, she pa.s.sed time in a dim corner of the school library, turning pages of large, complete works.

She appealed to her grandparents that when she graduated middle school, she wanted to work somewhere far away, and was met with strong opposition. Her grandparents wanted her to go to high school. So, Shino said that if she were to attend high school, at least, like long ago, she wanted to attend one in the neighborhood of Tokyo where she had lived with her father and mother. While she certainly wanted to go to a place where there were no rumors and curious stares that always followed her around, more than that, she was confident that as long as she stayed in this town, the wounds in her heart would never recover in her lifetime.

Of course, Shino's symptoms were diagnosed as typical PTSD, and in four years, she received countless counseling. She obediently took the prescribed medicine. But the words of the doctors, along with something strangely resembling a smile on their face, could only go so far as to touch the surface of Shino's heart-scratch it-unable to truly reach the wounded place. In a clean examination room, while listening to them repeat the words 'I understand. It was very painful. It was very hard,' Shino mumbled the same phrase over and over again in her mind.

-If that is the case, have you ever killed someone with a gun?

Now, on reflection, she realized that that att.i.tude hindered the building of trust and shunned any treatment. Nevertheless, even now, that was her undisguised intention. Was what she did good or evil? A clear, decisive answer to that was probably the only thing that Shino wished for. But of course, a doctor who could answer that question does not exist.

However, no matter how much pain her memory and attacks caused, she never once thought of killing herself.

She did not regret pointing that gun at that man and pulling the trigger. When her mother was held at gunpoint, there wasn't any other choice for Shino. Even if she returned to the instant of that incident, without a doubt, she would have done the same thing.

But if Shino chose the escape of suicide, even that man would turn in his grave, or so she thought.