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People who know how to snipe Inaba - Ogata thought about it and could only think of one suspect: the gang who kidnapped Inaba's wife and daughter!
The only request that the person who kidnapped Inaba's wife and daughter made to Inaba was to call on all the masters and apprentices of the Six Great Sword Halls to assist the officials and bounty hunters to capture Ogata.
After hearing the only request made by this group of unknown people from Inaba's mouth just now, Oban couldn't help but recall what Makimura had said to him:
(Actually, like Mr. Kamiyama, I also feel that the current murder case that is disturbing Kyoto is not as simple as it seems on the surface. The mastermind behind the murder case is very likely to have other plans.)
Thinking of what Makimura said to him, combined with the fact that Inaba's wife and daughter were kidnapped and threatened, Ogata had to formulate an idea:
The people who kidnapped Inaba's wife and daughter, and the people who caused him to be wanted by the whole city, are most likely the same group of people!
For a certain purpose, let all the city's officials and bounty hunters hunt down Ogata, and further make Ogata's enemies more...
So no matter what, Ogata had enough reason to catch up and catch the person who sniped at Inaba.
The third-floor hut where the smoke just came out is about 130 meters away from the Metaphysics Hall.
If we rush over to arrest people now, we may still have a chance to catch the murderer.
At this time, Amachi didn't know what exactly happened.
I only heard a gunshot from the 3-story hut not far from the Metaphysics Hall.
Feeling confused, he ran over with Fuma to take a look, and saw Ogata who just jumped out of the window, and heard Ogata's shout.
Although he had no idea what was going on, after hearing Ogata's shout, Atachi didn't say anything more and just nodded silently.
After being separated from Ogata at the ramen shop, A-Machi changed her shoes for convenience.
I put on the white footbags I bought temporarily and replaced my clogs with straw sandals.
Ogata and Atachi ran towards the small building as fast as they could, and saw many civilians with frightened faces along the way.
The huge gunshot just now shocked many civilians nearby.
In this period of long-lasting peace and prosperity, ordinary people have not heard the sound of firearms for a long time.
Many people did not even recognize the sound of gunshots and thought it was thunder.
At first, Fuuma wanted to follow Ogata and Atachi to chase the murderer.
It's a pity - they are old and can no longer keep up with Ogata and Omachi who are running at full strength.
By the time Ogata and Atachi rushed to the downstairs of the small building, Fuma had been completely thrown away by Ogata and the others.
At this moment, Ogata couldn't care about Fuma anymore, so he could only temporarily leave Fuma behind and let Fuma follow slowly behind.
After rushing under the small building, Atachi, who had the best eyesight, raised his hand and pointed in a certain direction.
"Ayi, look!"
Ogata raised his eyes and looked in the direction pointed by Omachi's finger - a man wearing black clothes and black pants from head to toe jumped from the highest floor of this three-story house to the roof of a nearby private house, and then
Moving on the roofs of private houses, jumping from one private house to another...
Although his eyesight was not as good as Omachi's, Ogata could still vaguely see that this man was carrying a musket behind him.
After discovering the trace of this person, neither Ogata nor Amachi said a word to each other.
But at this moment, the two of them made the same move in perfect agreement - turning over and jumping onto the roof of the nearby house.
Although Ogata's Shiranui-ryu stealth technique was only "rudimentary", Ogata was still able to jump onto low private houses and move between them.
After making an appointment with Omachi on the rooftop of a private house, Ogata kept a close eye on the murderer while jumping from one adjacent private house to another, getting closer to the murderer bit by bit.
It's night now, the light is dim, and if you don't pay attention, your eyes will lose sight of the murderer. Therefore, both Ogata and Omachi's eyes are fixed on the murderer, and they dare not take their eyes away from the murderer for a moment.
.
This was Ogata's first time moving on the roof of the house.
I have to say - I feel a little uneasy.
Houses in this era were basically made of wood, and the roofs of some private houses had obviously not been repaired for a long time. They would make a squeaking sound when you step on it, which is really scary...
The sight of Ogata and his group running on the rooftops of private houses attracted the attention of many people on the street.
Many civilians stopped to watch Ogata and others walking on the roof, and exclaimed in high or low exclamations.
The murderer seemed to have noticed that someone was chasing him, so he began to change his escape route.
Start taking those routes that...are difficult for Ogata and Omachi to catch up with.
As a result, Ogata and A-Machi became more and more difficult to chase...
After the murderer turned into a new neighborhood, Ogata couldn't help but cursed "Damn it" secretly.
Because if he wanted to follow the murderer into this new neighborhood, Ogata would have to jump over the street below and jump to the rooftop across the street from here.
And Ogata doesn't think that he has the ability to jump over such a wide street and jump from one side of the street to the other side...
Just when Ogata was thinking about what to do, he noticed out of the corner of his eye - there was a Yamaboko standing not far from him...
The height of this yamaboko is just higher than the nearby houses. Many civilians gathered around this yamaboko, seemingly admiring the yamaboko that would be taken on a patrol later.
Without any further hesitation, Ouri gritted his teeth and rushed towards the mountain.
After running for a while and accelerating to a sufficient speed, Ogata jumped suddenly towards the top of the mountain.
The moment his feet reached the top of the mountain, Ogata used the mountain as a stepping stone and jumped to the roof of a house on the opposite street.
After landing smoothly, Ogata couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief.
Behind him came a lot of scoldings from the people who were admiring the Yamaboko - but Ogata had no time to apologize to them. After successfully jumping onto the house across the street with the help of the Yamaboko, Ogata then chased the murderer.
.
The Omachi side was much smoother than Ogata's. There was no need to jump from mountain to mountain and keep moving on the roofs of private houses like Ogata did.
The murderer's speed and skill in moving on the roof of the house were obviously not as good as Atachi's.
At a steady speed, A-Machi gradually closed the distance between him and the murderer.
After getting close to a certain distance, A-Machi put her hand behind her clothes, and then took out her sakura.
Aiming the gun at the murderer, cocking the hammer, and pulling the trigger - A-Machi's movements were as smooth as water, done in one go.
Atachi didn't just shoot one shot.
After firing one round, he cocked the hammer again and fired again... directly emptying all four bullets in the chamber of the gun.
Ogata didn't know how many of the four projectiles Amachi had hit.
The murderer's body was seen swaying, and then he fell softly from the house.
Although Ogata felt excited in his heart, he soon became troubled.
Because——unknowingly, they had gone to a sparsely populated place.
Because there were few people and the nearby houses were sparse, it was impossible to get close to the place where the murderer fell by moving on the roof.
In desperation, Ogata could only temporarily jump off the house, jump back to the street, and move on the ground instead. However, A-machi, who was chasing the murderer in a different direction, had a relatively dense number of houses nearby.
Therefore, he still had enough energy to move on the roofs of private houses, so A-Machi still chose to get close to the murderer by "walking on the roofs".
Although the murderer had been injured by Atachi, just in case, Ogata descended to the ground and still ran with all his strength, hoping to reach the murderer even just a moment faster.
Because you are running at full speed without any reservations, the direction will inevitably be a little difficult to control.
When turning a corner, Ogata accidentally bumped into the shoulder of a man who was about to turn the corner from the other side.
"Hey! Why don't you look at the road when you're walking?!"
The man whose shoulder was bumped by Ogata yelled in displeasure.
For some reason, Ogata felt that the voice sounded familiar, as if he had heard it somewhere.
Turning his head to look, a look of astonishment immediately appeared on Ogata's face.
——Kondo?
The person who accidentally collided with each other was the man who boldly questioned Mizuno Shinyuong's swordsmanship at Sengakukan today: Kondo Uchizosuke.
Ogata recognized Kondo, but at this time Kondo did not recognize Ogata - because when the two met for the first time, Ogata was wearing a tengu mask.
Ogata had no extra time to waste on Kondo, so after saying "Sorry", he hurriedly ran towards the direction where the murderer landed.
"Hey! Your apology is too perfunctory!"
Ogata ignored Kondo's shouting behind him and just kept covering his head and hurried on.
Ogata and Atachi arrived at the place where the murderer fell just at almost the same time.
The murderer fell in an alley between private houses and there was no one nearby.
At this moment, the murderer was holding his stomach with one hand and holding on to the wall with the other, struggling to get up.
After seeing Ogata and Atachi attacking him from both directions, the murderer paused for a moment.
Then he slowly fell to the ground.
Looking at the murderer who suddenly fell limply to the ground, Ogata had several ominous premonitions in his heart.
He ran to the murderer's side, helped him up, and looked at the murderer's face. Ogata's pupils immediately shrank slightly in surprise.
The murderer had an ordinary, unremarkable face.
But this ordinary face now turned a strange purple color.
Large streams of blood flowed from the corners of the murderer's closed lips.
With just one glance, he could tell what happened to the murderer - he bit his tongue and committed suicide!
After secretly cursing "Damn it", Ogata forced the man's mouth open to see if he could save the murderer.
The murderer's mouth was now full of blood. Although his vision was blocked by the thick blood, Ogata could still see that the murderer's tongue was not severed.
——This guy...!Did he swallow the tongue he bit off?!
Ogata put his fingers into the man's mouth, trying to dig out the guy's severed tongue from his throat.
However, the murderer's severed tongue had been swallowed so deep that it could no longer be pulled out with just fingers.
The fat tongue seemed to block the guy's throat, leaving the guy in a choked state.
When Ogata helped this guy up, he was already close to death.
When Ogata put his fingers into the man's mouth, the man was no longer breathing...
I just don’t know whether this person choked to death on his own tongue or on the huge amount of blood...
Just now, when Ogata was rescuing this guy, Atachi took the musket that the man was carrying behind his back and looked at the musket up and down seriously.
After Ogata laid the murderer's body flat on the ground with a sullen face, Atachi, standing next to Ogata, said in a deep voice:
"Ayi...this group of people is incredible..."
Atachi handed the musket in his hand towards Ogata.
"This is the latest iron cannon of the Nanman. It is also a flintlock gun."
"And it's not just an ordinary flintlock gun."
"Did you see this thing inside the barrel of the gun? It's called rifling."
"A flintlock gun with rifling will greatly improve both its range and accuracy."
"According to what my father said - even in the country of the Southern Barbarians, this kind of iron cannon with rifling is a rare thing..."
"A rifled flintlock gun..." Ogata muttered, "No wonder this guy was able to accurately hit Inaba at that distance just now..."
Although Ogata said this, he also understood in his heart that even with this rifled flintlock gun, it is still extremely difficult to accurately hit the target at a distance of nearly 130 meters.
.
Only a one-in-a-million talented shooter like Atachi can shoot accurately at such a distance.
After returning the flintlock gun in his hand to Omachi, Ogata sighed softly:
"The background of this group of people is really extraordinary..."
Possessing this kind of rifled gun is quite rare even in Western countries today.
There is also a sniper that can shoot accurately at a distance of hundreds of meters.
At the same time, this sniper is also a dead soldier who bites his tongue and commits suicide without hesitation after seeing the enemy approaching...
But not everyone has the courage to bite his tongue and commit suicide.
Combining these three points, it is not difficult to infer that the power behind the scenes is not ordinary, not an ordinary force...
Ordinary weapons, let alone rifled guns, cannot even be used to produce matchlock guns that are still used by the Edo shogunate.
After taking the rifled gun back from Ogata's hand, Amachi looked at the rifled gun again.
"Um?"
At this moment, A-Machi let out a confused cry.
"What's wrong?" Ogata asked.
"Ayi, look."
Atachi turned the rifled gun in his hand, pointed the butt towards Ogata, and raised his hand to point towards the bottom of the butt.
Ogata looked in the direction pointed by Amachi's finger.
"...What is this?" Ogata couldn't help but wonder, "The red moon?"
I saw a red crescent painted on the butt of this rifled gun.