"The situation is urgent, the crisis is imminent, and the hostages are in danger, so I ask that all of you not focus too much on issues that are not worth caring about,"
Ichijō Mirai said seriously, ignoring Morofushi Hiromitsu's gaze and Matsuda Jinpei's protest of "Hey, hey, hey, this question is very important, not unworthy of attention!" He lowered his head to look at his phone and became serious.
"Police backup is on the way."
"OK, now the drill begins," He said, "Say, on a normal day, you elite police officers are having a normal dinner party, but you accidentally notice a kidnapping, so you immediately grab your weapons and call for police backup, and continue to follow the robbers,"
"Now that you've arrived at the robber's lair and police backup has departed,"
"So, what do you plan to do next?"
Ichijō Mirai lowered his eyes, glanced at the time on his cell phone screen, looked up again, locked eyes with his classmates, and added the all-important, "Special note for this exercise: I do not exist."
The art of the drill, when in Rome, he was going to do what the professional ROTC officers did, and see how the hostages reacted.
"Is this," Morofushi Hiromitsu similarly lowered his eyes to the cell phone held by Ichijō Mirai, but didn't raise them first, pausing for a moment before voicing a guess, "a test?"
Only then did he raise his eyes, "Or 'd like to see the normal police,"
After another pause, he said, "'Being a good reserve officer, wanting to see how other professionally trained students and officers would act without myself'?"
An obvious change of tone.
Because he had just leaned forward to look down at his cell phone, and hadn't stepped back when he raised his eyes, Morofushi Hiromitsu was looking at him from the bottom, and Ichijō Mirai, when he sniffed, lowered his eyes a bit to look down.
This angle was a sign of weakness, Morofushi Hiromitsu was a bit more harmless than usual, and the probing was also softer, as if he didn't change his mind, and from the beginning, he only wanted to say a guess, and naturally smiled slightly, "If it's a test, I'll try my best in order not to be underestimated."
In fact, Morofushi Hiromitsu had two guesses, one was that it was a test, and the other was that Ichijō Mirai wanted to see the reaction of the normal, non-Black and White police.
It's just that the latter is a bit strange to say in front of the students.
In the absence of any other clues, Ichijō Mirai's actions alone had led him to conclude that the latter, Morofushi Hiromitsu was quite perceptive, and Ichijō Mirai looked at him a few more times, and saw an expression of understanding, not needing to open his mouth to explain himself, or even to help with a gibberish-type explanation in front of his classmates, and couldn't help but think: "?"
The first one to protest was Matsuda Jinpei, "Hey!"
"Don't make eyes at me in front of my face, one of you is taking bad chances on your classmates, and one of you notices it but inclusively acquiesces to it," he said in a sultry tone, "My eyes are normal, I can see you guys staring at each other!"
"This 'maneuver' is too strange, right?"
"Let's not talk about the fact that 'drills' are something that should be planned by the police academy and the police department, and a police cadet can't plan it, but let's just say that the hostages are really in danger, right? Is this a time for drills?!"
While protesting, Matsuda Jinpei's frizzy hair got a little more fluffy, looking like an off-color version of cotton.
"Besides," Furuya Rei said, looking left and right in a somewhat euphemistic tone, 'even an 'ordinary good police officer' wouldn't carry a gun on a private dinner outing, would he?"
Date Wataru, who was silently assembling his gun and ammunition, strapping his pistol to his leg and grabbing a couple of magazines, looked uncontrollably at the sniper rifle in Morofushi Hiromitsu's hand, and disagreed slightly, "Even if you were to carry a gun, you wouldn't carry a sniper rifle, would you?"
Kenji Hagiwara rummaged through the pile of guns and ammo that had been haphazardly stuffed into a box with little protection, and found a bomb, his hand stopping abruptly as he carefully moved it out of the way, coughing lowly again before he managed to say, "Mirai-san looks like he's made up his mind..."
"...How should we proceed?"
If he didn't act, he was afraid that Ichijō Mirai would just take it upon himself to issue a diagnosis of under-fire-phobia, and that he would need to increase the firepower before the students would be willing to act.
He followed the diagnosis and went back to the armory, once again stuffing all kinds of guns and ammunitions into a pile.
To be honest, it's hard not to wonder if the contents of the crates will explode when Ichijō Mirai is carrying them around.
It's kind of scary.
The students were so good at self-management that they convinced themselves that there was no need for Ichijō Mirai to convince them of the need for virtue, and he was so relieved that he reached out and patted Kenji Hagiwara on the shoulder, encouraging him: "That's very smart," he said.
"Let's go, then. Come on?"
He took out a couple of walkie-talkies from the box and handed them out to the students as if they were welfare, "Please be sure to contact each other if there's anything wrong, and never hide anything from your classmates."
"By the way, when two people communicate quietly head to head, please turn on the walkie-talkie, I want to listen."
"I'd like to hear it," he said.
Morofushi Hiromitsu's hand on the walkie-talkie paused for a moment, realizing the implication, "Are you going to stay here and not go into the factory?"
This is a sniper site.
According to normal circumstances, in the action, they will be decentralized, the majority of people are carrying pistols to the factory, infiltration into the factory to deal with the robbers and protection of hostages, a small number of people will remain in the sniper site remote monitoring, responsible for observing the movements of the robbers and at the necessary moment with the classmates to snipe the robbers of the task.
If they were to enter the factory, Ichijō Mirai's character...
On the premise of 'not taking part in the operation' and 'not being detected by the robbers', Morofushi Hiromitsu speculates that he will take care of his own food, and will most likely randomly refresh it all over the factory.
He'd take action at the slightest movement of a squad of police cadets, and within three seconds he'd be next to a cadet who was communicating head to head, and would urge his fellow cadets who were subtly silent, 'Why did you stop? Keep talking'.
Since everyone is strongly urged to turn on their walkie-talkies while talking, the only option is to stay at the sniper site if you can't make your own food.
Ichijō Mirai nodded openly, "Well, I'll stay at the sniping point, so you don't have to think of me as the commander, just think of me as the spring commander, unable to communicate with you."
He urges, "Okay, the necessary equipment has been distributed, let's move."
The one who stayed at the sniper's point was, of course, Morofushi Hiromitsu, who had the best sniping skills.
The others are spread out towards the factory, both in single and double teams.
Since they haven't encountered any enemies yet, they haven't turned on their walkie-talkies, so the residential building high above the sniping point is a bit quiet.
In the silence, Morofushi Hiromitsu, who was observing the interior of the factory with his sniper rifle, took the initiative to speak, "I'm actually a bit surprised. I thought that with your knowledge of us, you would be able to surmise our actions without the need for us to actually do it."
"The law enforcement recorder is not 100% universal, but some of the districts that were prioritized for equipment have the mission process of the actions of good police officers, so if you want to see it, Instructor Onidzuka will pull it up for you."
This world's Japanese police enforcement process...
Ichijō Mirai was skeptical, and without batting an eye, he politely declined, "Forget it, I don't need it."
He didn't need it.
Ichijō Mirai had no shortage of good police officers if that's what it took to enforce the law.
He had encountered many good officers, had experienced some of them as enemies, and had occasionally encountered some who were so intuitive that they seemed like they were on the verge of being arrested, and had a lot of experience not only in dealing with the police, but also in being arrested.
Ichijō Mirai has been indirectly involved in many cases handled by police officers and the FBI, diligently scrutinizing their knowledge like a child, and rounding it up to the nearest dollar to be considered a part of the action.
Ichijō Mirai understands what good police officers do, and with his eyes closed, he can predict what kind of decisions the police will make in a given situation.
In the past, he hadn't paid much attention to the sense of security that the police brought to the rescued.
Speaking of which, he remembered, "By the way, you went to see Matsumoto Kiyonaga earlier, did you investigate him?"
"What?" Morofushi Hiromitsu confirmed that there was no movement at the factory, so he lowered his sniper rifle and looked at Ichijō Mirai, who was leaning against the window edge with some surprise, "Investigating Administrator Matsumoto?"
"Of course not, what makes you think that, I..."
Ichijō Mirai said, "I want to know about someone close to him."
"I may be a little inaccurate," Morofushi Hiromitsu immediately changed his tone, "What person?"
This guy.
Ichijō Mirai glanced over and said, "I knew it.
I knew that this seemingly good-tempered white marshmallow had a bit of black sesame filling that didn't move.
From the previous file, defection to 'Satan', and today's ramen restaurant, had already demonstrated this, Ichijō Mirai was not surprised, and did not make much fun of it, did not even pause for a moment, fluently spoke: "A person who may be surnamed 'Mochidzuki', may be some other surnames, I don't know the exact name, may be a detective, may not be a detective, I don't know the exact identity, I don't know the exact name, may be a detective, may not be a detective, I don't know the exact identity,"
"He spoke in a very refined manner, probably from a good family, and was the kind of person who looked like a spring breeze, as good-tempered as a marshmallow, and could be rubbed by anyone, but in fact was not easy to deal with."
He recalled, "The voice sounded young and unhurried, a young man in his twenties or thirties, with an age difference of at most ten years or so."
Morofushi Hiromitsu: "?"
Out of the many descriptions, only two were certain: the person had a good temper and was young.
Anyone who wasn't a violent young man would fit the bill, and the police had an internal check rate of 50%.
"If you don't mind, could you tell me on what occasion you interacted with him?" Morofushi Hiromitsu inquired, adding, "You don't seem to know his face, only his voice, and it was over the phone?"
Ichijō Mirai nodded his head in affirmation, "It was over the phone,"
"I called Matsumoto Kiyonaga, and he answered, and he seemed to be a relative of the hostage," he thought for a moment and added, "or maybe not a relative, but definitely someone he knew."
"He said something strange to me, as if he realized who I was."
'As if'.
It's a word that represents uncertainty, but Ichijō Mirai's tone is flat, like a statement.
Morofushi Hiromitsu paused, his gaze changing, "He sensed your identity?"
His brow furrowed and his body straightened, "Then the Administrator..."
Even before the question was uttered, he realized: Matsumoto Kiyonaga must know.
There was a hidden connection between him and Ichijō Mirai, and he was a high-ranking member of the police force. He could see the files that Morofushi Hiromitsu could see, and he could see the things that Morofushi Hiromitsu couldn't see in plain sight, such as the Ichijō family, and he could see that, judging from his age, he might even be related to that 'Ichijō'. And judging from his age, he might have known that 'Officer Ichijō'.
Matsumoto Kiyonaga must have known about the black-and-white twins 'Satan' and 'Messiah', and the two children of the Ichijō family, one who had fallen into the darkness and become an incorrigible monster, and the other who was gritting his teeth and struggling to drag the one he cared about back into the light.
Morofushi Hiromitsu changed his mind and asked another question, "Do you think that many people know?"
If there were a lot of people who knew...
As much as he hated to admit it, Morofushi Hiromitsu couldn't help but feel a sinking feeling in his heart when he speculated on the possibility of 'a lot of people knowing about the police', and clearly realized how much he didn't trust the police, and that his first instinct would be to leak the information to other people, other criminals or the general public.
Once the public knew, there was no way that Ichijō Mirai, no matter how good he was, could become a police officer when the person he was related to was 'Satan'.
"Not much."
"It wasn't Matsumoto Kiyonaga who told him," Ichijō Mirai said thoughtfully since even Matsumoto Kiyonaga himself didn't know that 'Ichijō Mirai was Satan', "it was probably because he's an excellent police officer who can access all kinds of files or someone who's so excellent that he can access the police's internal files, and he's an outsider who can access the police's internal files on his own. "An outsider would have deduced it himself based on the information between the files."
"But what he said was strange," he paused before speaking, "he advised me not to trust anyone and waste my feelings on someone who wasn't a good person."
...Really strange.
But it's true.
The moment he heard it, Morofushi Hiromitsu understood exactly what that mysterious being meant, and: "..."
"The wording is a bit strange," he said, "Don't take it personally."
'Don't pay too much attention', on the one hand, was to advise Ichijō Mirai not to pay too much attention to this strange but apt wording, on the other hand, it was a somewhat perfunctory coaxing of Ichijō Mirai not to pay too much attention to the other party's evaluation of 'Satan'.
How much Ichijō Mirai cares about 'Satan' and how double standard he is, Morofushi Hiromitsu can guess from the fact that he can subconsciously laugh when he receives a text message even though 'Satan' is clearly a devil.
To infer that Ichijō Mirai has an extra thick filter for blood relatives and to boast against his will that 'Satan' doesn't fit the mold of 'not a good person' are two different things, Morofushi Hiromitsu only skimmed over it without staying on this topic that is controversial to different people, "If that's the case, I might have some guesses,"
"Kudō Yūsaku."
He said, "Mr. Kudō Yūsaku was in Tokyo recently, and it was probably him who was able to surmise the truth and admonish you with just a bit of information."
Kudō Yūsaku.
Kudō.
Ichijō Mirai's pupils stood up, "That last name seems familiar to me."