[Ninth Entrance Examination].
Matsuda Jinpei standing at military posture.
This year's academy had many different rules than in the past, and the entrance examination was divided into two parts: 50-meter shooting and standing at military posture.
The new students did not arrive at the academy together in advance, so the order of the shooting and posturing was based on the time they arrived at the academy, with Matsuda Jinpei being one of the first to arrive early and standing in the second row.
With his short black hair that was a little shaggy, he kept his mouth shut and didn't look away, "Half an hour to go."
No one in the posturing team said anything.
But Matsuda Jinpei heard Kenji Hagiwara's voice, "There's a newcomer."
He glanced over to the entrance of the police academy and saw the instructor who had introduced himself as 'Onidzuka' at the beginning of the day, walking quickly with a new student.
The newcomer, dressed in black, with black hair and red eyes, was smiling at the instructor, nodding his head to indicate that he had heard him.
Onidzuka Hachizo was grimacing and saying something under his breath, and Matsuda Jinpei could faintly hear the harsh rules of shooting, which most of them were surprised and rejected when they first heard about it, and even if they accepted them without objection, they were a bit puzzled.
The reason was simple: pistol shooting at 50 meters.
Even graduates of the police academy, not to mention freshmen, have difficulty shooting at a target 50 meters away with a small police rifle.
Moreover, 50 meters is beyond the range of high accuracy of the police gun, using the police gun to hit the criminals 50 meters away can not even kill each other, this is simply a meaningless and simply difficult to the entrance examination.
Matsuda Jinpei would have suspected that this year's academy was going to be an elite one if he hadn't been one of the first to arrive and witnessed a freshman miss ten shots, but the instructor reluctantly accepted the shot after double-checking his name and asking about his family's situation, instead of kicking him out according to the rules.
A class of twenty or so students at most.
That's why he couldn't help but look at the newcomer a bit more: the instructor was clearly in a difficult position and wanted to give him some color and a hard time, but this newcomer was able to laugh out loud, either he had never touched a gun and didn't know how difficult it was, or he was an excellent shooter, or he was just plain good-tempered.
As he looked around, he saw the problem.
"The gun he chose is the one I used." Matsuda Jinpei didn't say a word, only, "Something's wrong with the rifling."
He pretended not to look away as he stood at his post, but focused all his attention on the newcomer.
The newcomer doesn't seem to notice, and stands in front of the firing line, nodding his head patiently and smiling at Onidzuka Hachizo in a good-natured manner.
Still no one spoke up at the postural formation, but Matsuda Jinpei heard a voice from the back side, "The gun you were shooting with was a defective gun?"
He glanced over and saw a young, dark-haired man with a slight impression of him, who had reported for duty at about the same time as he had, and had introduced himself as 'Morofushi Hiromitsu' when he entered the ranks.
The entrance examination was a difficult one, and Morofushi Hiromitsu was one of only a handful of freshmen who had actually shot a five-ring shot or better.
But Matsuda Jinpei remembered Morofushi Hiromitsu not because of his marksmanship, but because Morofushi Hiromitsu came with a blonde guy.
Without saying a word, he replied, "Well, the rifling was off."
"That's why you hit the target at the beginning, then suddenly went off-target in the middle, and didn't hit it again until the end," Morofushi Hiromitsu realized, "It's because the rifling was shifted."
Matsuda Jinpei: "I reported it to the instructors."
But the instructors obviously didn't believe the new student, so naturally they didn't deal with it.
In his judgment, the newcomer, if he was a good shot, was probably going to do the same thing he did, and by the time he finally determined that there was something wrong with the gun, his chances were running out.
Matsuda Jinpei looked away from the newcomer again, and heard another voice, "He seems to know Instructor Onidzuka?"
He was smiling all the time.
And it was a gentle, friendly smile, somehow...
If I had to describe it, Matsuda Jinpei, who had a keen eye for criminals since she was a child, could only think of an adult to a child, a gunman to an unarmed man, a criminal to an ordinary person.
It's a harmless, but unequal smile.
It seemed that as long as the newcomer wanted to, he could get rid of the instructor, so no matter how harsh the instructor was, he was like an adult facing a child with clenched fists, and would only think it was a bit funny, but not really angry.
This subtle feeling was just a fleeting illusion, and Matsuda Jinpei dispelled the obviously unrealistic illusion by involuntarily focusing on the newcomer for a few more moments.
He glanced at the speaker and realized it was the blonde-haired, brown-skinned guy, "Maybe."
After a short moment of conversation, the newcomer exchanged a few more laughs with Onidzuka Hachizo as they watched, before raising his gun.
Matsuda Jinpei's eyes narrowed.
When a normal person shoots, the first moment he raises his gun is to aim it at the target, and this is an instinctive action regardless of whether or not he can hit the target.
But not the newcomer.
"He raised his gun in an unstandardized position, not trained by the police, but similar to the police's position, having seen the police shoot, and either unintentionally or intentionally imitating it."
"He was standing in the same position as I was when I fired," Matsuda Jinpei said, speeding up his speech, "the muzzle of the gun was too high to hit, he wasn't aiming at the target."
He recalled the scene he had seen while standing in front of the firing line, while moving his eyes to scan it with some surprise, "...A flag?"
Not far from the target was the flag of the police academy.
The flag was hanging quietly, not moving when the wind was not blowing, and was in a straight line with the target, only much higher.
At a glance, Matsuda Jinpei immediately shifted his eyes back to the newcomer, just in time to see his muzzle flutter.
The movement of the hands on the third hand of the clock is fixed, and each time it jumps, it only jumps a fixed distance, and the rhythm of the jumps is also fixed.
The newcomer was rhythmically twitching his muzzle downward, just like the hands on the clock.
His face is no longer smiling, he holds the gun seriously and calmly, staring intently into the distance, and then, as Matsuda Jinpei's breath catches in his throat, he fires.
"Boom!"
It was the first shot.
In the distance, the target is still.
The flag in a straight line with the target, which had been even more stable, fluttered a little at the sound of the gunshot.
Immediately, the flag lost its rope and fell to the ground in a light and sinister roll, like a withered and dead leaf.
Newcomer: "Ten rings."
He paid no attention to the flag that had fallen to the ground, nor did he listen to the scorekeeper near the target. He only fired one shot, then removed the magazines, put them in Onidzuka Hachizo's hands, and laughed again, "Gun."
"Instructor, can I get my wristwatch and join the ranks?"
...Huh? Only one shot? And the flag...
Not only Onidzuka Hachizo, but also all the cadets in the formation who were staring at the newcomer were confused for a moment.
Fifty meters away, the recorder didn't hear anything, so he didn't feel confused. He was just angry when he saw the flag fall to the ground. He rushed to pick it up first, "Hey! Flag!"
He came back in a huff, looked at the target, and reported from afar: "Ten rings!"
The whole field was silent.
A few seconds later, there was finally a sound, someone in the posture team spoke up, more than one subconsciously stunned voice, the voices overlapped, intertwined with an incredible murmur.
"Ten, ten rings?!"
One shot? Ten rings? With a gun with a faulty rifling?
And it hit the flag's rope!
Really, really?!
Someone whispered incredulously, "It's a lie, isn't it?"
The tone was full of skepticism.
As an instructor, Onidzuka Hachizo was even more incredulous.
He subconsciously sniffed at the sound of the voice, then withdrew his eyes and looked at the newcomer with a fixed gaze, "You've been practicing for more than ten years..."
He paused.
Matsuda Jinpei paid more attention to him, and saw clearly that Onidzuka Hachizo hesitated for a moment, and in the end did not finish his sentence, but only lowered his head and reloaded his gun, "Well..."
"It's good that you can shoot."
"You're a good shooter."
Onidzuka Hachizo handed out a wristwatch with a three-hour countdown and looked deeply at the newcomer, "But it won't be easy for you to become a police officer."
With a solemn face, he raised his voice and called out the newcomer's registered name, "Kujō Mirai,"
"Recruited!"