After a brief hesitation, the Deputy Director took the revolver. His right hand trembled as he raised the weapon, pressing the muzzle against his temple.
Sparkle could see his quivering lips and the frantic sweat beading on his forehead. He was clearly terrified—who wouldn't be with a gun pointed at their own head?
Click.
The Deputy Director exhaled sharply as the chamber clicked empty. As if discarding a hot potato, he tossed the revolver back to Sparkle.
She caught it smoothly. After a practiced twirl in her hand, she aimed the revolver at herself without hesitation and pulled the trigger.
Click.
"Haha, your turn again!"
Most people would hesitate before shooting themselves, pausing to reminisce or reflect on their past. But Sparkle's movements were so swift, so casual, it was as if she resented her own long life. And the fact that she smiled as she pulled the trigger? Anyone witnessing this would surely question her sanity.
"No! This isn't fair!" the Deputy Director roared. "You're just some kind of clone, aren't you?! If I die, I'm really dead! But even if you get shot in the head, you'll just pop back up! If we're playing this game, shouldn't the real you be here to make it fair?"
"Clone?" Sparkle tilted her head, feigning ignorance. "What clone? You don't seem to understand my situation. All of me is me! There's no distinction between 'clone' and 'original' among us."
The Deputy Director's brain nearly short-circuited. After a long pause, he finally grasped what Sparkle meant. He glanced around at the four other Sparkles, each staring at him with unnerving grins, and involuntarily shivered.
He had already considered Sparkle extremely dangerous, but now he realized he had severely underestimated her.
Yet, the more "dangerous" Sparkle seemed, the more credible her earlier promise became, right?
Gritting his teeth, the Deputy Director took the revolver again and pressed it to his temple.
Click.
The fourth shot—another blank!
This meant that the fifth shot, now back in Sparkle's hands, had a fifty-fifty chance of being loaded.
Logically, after four consecutive empty chambers, the probability of the fifth shot being live was extremely high. The Deputy Director simply needed to hand over the gun and silently await the outcome.
Would Sparkle commit suicide, or would she pass him the final shot? If it were the latter, knowing full well that the last chamber held a bullet, the Deputy Director could easily back out of the game.
After all, who in their right mind would pull the trigger knowing the last shot was live?
Yet, the Deputy Director did something Sparkle hadn't anticipated. Instead of returning the revolver, he pressed it against his forehead once more and pulled the trigger again.
Click.
This had always been a game of chance, but now, the Deputy Director was taking an even bolder gamble.
He remembered how Sparkle had insisted on firing the first shot herself, recalling her notoriously cruel nature. He guessed that the bullet was most likely in the final chamber. This wicked girl was probably waiting until only one shot remained to hand him the gun and relish his expression.
Of course, it was just a guess, but driven by that faint glimmer of hope, the Deputy Director pulled the trigger!
The empty click left him utterly drained. He collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.
Sparkle couldn't help but smirk. He'd called her bluff. She had indeed wanted to see the look on his face when she handed him the revolver with only one bullet left.
But the sheer courage required to bet on that fifth shot revealed the depth of the Deputy Director's obsession with securing victory for the Sakura Nation. Could his claim of being "willing to pay any price" actually be true?
After all, if he was willing to wager his own life, what price wouldn't he pay?
"Huff... huff... I won this round, didn't I? According to the terms of our bet, you..." The Deputy Director's words were cut short as Sparkle silently bent down, picked up the revolver from the ground, aimed it at herself, flashed a radiant smile, and then...
Bang!
A gunshot rang out. The bullet pierced Sparkle's chin, and her smiling corpse toppled stiffly before the Deputy Director. The smile, now anything but sunny, was utterly chilling.
The Deputy Director gaped, utterly dumbfounded. "???"
As mentioned before, the revolver was essentially a pen, incapable of harming anyone else. But... it could certainly kill Sparkle herself. She could disguise the pen as a gun, fire it, and then fake her own death by gunshot.
From the Deputy Director's perspective, however, Sparkle had knowingly fired the last bullet at herself, smiling as she pulled the trigger. What sane person would do such a thing?!
"I was just following the rules of the game," said the other Sparkle, hopping down from the windowsill where she had been perched. She skipped over to the corpse. "A bet's a bet. You won this round fair and square. Honestly, I'm a little impressed."
"So, you'll help me take down White Eagle?!" the Deputy Director exclaimed excitedly.
"Hmm~" The new Sparkle nodded, then held out her hand. A cute, chibi-style Sparkle doll appeared in her palm. "Let me introduce you to the weapon I used to destroy my former world. Its name is..."
"The Super Invincible Spiral Annihilation Bomb!"
The Deputy Director looked incredulous. "Huh???"
Sparkle put one hand on her hip. "Hey, don't doubt my credibility!"
To be fair, the Sparkle corpse lying nearby lent some weight to her words. Still, the Deputy Director remained skeptical. "But this thing... it just looks like a doll..."
"It only looks like a doll! The real danger is inside, okay? Inside!" Sparkle retorted. "I put a cute exterior on the bomb to make it look less intimidating. What's wrong with that?"