Chapter 28
Under Samukawa Shinryu's deliberately slowed tone, that person's pupils began trembling even more unnaturally.
In just a dozen or so seconds after firing the gun, under the heavy pressure, visible sweat began flowing down his face, and his shirt was almost soaked through.
His index finger was on the trigger, his arm moving up and down in small movements as if it couldn't bear the weight of the gun. Anyone seeing him like this would understand that he was now incapable of making rational judgments.
This made even Hagiwara Kenji's expression turn serious.
Originally, he thought Samukawa Shinryu was just going to scare the person who didn't follow rules and carelessly pointed a loaded gun around. Because he trusted that Samukawa Shinryu wouldn't do anything terrible, he felt he didn't need to intervene.
When he was at the Police Academy before, when students had conflicts, the instructors would also turn a blind eye and let them handle it themselves first. If they fought, they'd punish both of them for violations after the fight was over. Otherwise, if the dissatisfaction was bottled up inside, it would be more likely to cause problems.
But now it seemed that Little Shinryu was indeed very stable, while the other person was more likely to act impulsively... He had overestimated that person's rationality. This couldn't be left alone.
Even if they were training rounds, it was still very dangerous.
Hagiwara Kenji removed the ear protection Samukawa Shinryu had just put on him, his expression serious: "What did he say just now?"
Did he go too far with the intimidation?
"...Something about this being his last time firing a gun."
"So he was just threatening him to drop out?"
Instructor Onizuka clenched his fists: "...Probably something like that."
Although for a moment, he thought Samukawa Shinryu meant he was going to kill the other person, he quickly realized that even if Samukawa Shinryu really thought that, he couldn't possibly do it in broad daylight in front of everyone.
—Even if you don't trust Samukawa Shinryu's moral bottom line, you should trust his intelligence!
Looking at it now, Samukawa Shinryu had done quite well. He hadn't laid a hand on anyone, nor had he said anything harsh—so far, Samukawa Shinryu had only said three sentences total: one repeating gun safety precautions, one question, both within bounds. Yet the other person had directly pointed a gun at someone. That last provocative remark was clearly not as serious as the other person's offense.
Already at the Police Academy, yet still acting so impulsively—this only showed he truly lacked the qualities to be a police officer.
...No, even without firing the gun, you could tell this person was inadequate in every way. He'd already had an accidental discharge once, yet still dared to point the gun at someone...
Wait, could this person have thought that what Samukawa Shinryu said was the "kill you" meaning he had initially misunderstood? After all, he seemed to have lost all rationality and probably couldn't calmly do reading comprehension...
Instructor Onizuka's feelings were very complicated. He really hadn't expected shooting class to turn out like this.
He thought that nearly being accidentally hanged during a previous class was already the limit, but now a student was pointing a gun at another student in class. Was he incompatible with shooting classes?
At this moment, Instructor Onizuka noticed from the corner of his eye that Hagiwara Kenji seemed to want to step forward to mediate. This time it was his turn to stop Hagiwara Kenji.
"Wait, don't go over there. What if it stimulates him... Even if they're training rounds, at this distance..."
Instructor Onizuka had worked on the front lines after all. He was all too familiar with this expression of being driven to a dead end. At times like this, there really couldn't be any stimulation, or the other party would go to extremes.
Until now, Instructor Onizuka still didn't quite understand how things had developed to this point.
Clearly it had just started with an accidental discharge, which wasn't unprecedented. Since they were training rounds and no one was hurt, he would have just scolded the person, made him write some reflection papers, warned that repeat offenses would lead to expulsion, and it would normally have been over.
Now it had escalated to nearly becoming an actual shooting incident. You couldn't really blame Samukawa Shinryu, since everything he did was within normal bounds, but to say it had nothing to do with Samukawa Shinryu at all...
That would be too dishonest! The other person was obviously scared senseless by Samukawa Shinryu!!!
But even so, the other person would bear full responsibility in the end, while Samukawa Shinryu would at most get a verbal reprimand...
Thinking of this, Instructor Onizuka suddenly shuddered.
—Could this also be within Samukawa Shinryu's calculations?!
Although Instructor Onizuka considered many things, in reality, only a dozen seconds had passed since Samukawa Shinryu finished speaking. These dozen seconds felt like years to the person directly facing Samukawa Shinryu.
He hadn't done it on purpose. He was just behind Samukawa Shinryu, remembering the embarrassment and fear of being caught badmouthing him yesterday, and felt somewhat humiliated and angry.
At first, taking advantage of Samukawa Shinryu having his back turned and not being able to see what he was doing, he boldly pointed the gun at Samukawa Shinryu in retaliation, fantasizing about hitting him... That was all.
Although the safety was indeed off, he hadn't intended to actually shoot. He just thought it was more thrilling that way.
But he was too immersed in his own fantasy and didn't notice that Samukawa Shinryu had finished shooting. He was completely unprepared when he suddenly discovered Samukawa Shinryu had turned around to face him directly and had immediately seen what he was doing.
Of course he would be scared. He hurriedly tried to withdraw the gun from its obvious targeting position, but in his panic, somehow the gun went off.
No one was hurt, and the person who was nearly hurt was Assistant Instructor Hagiwara. He breathed a sigh of relief, thinking this matter could pass.
But why was Samukawa Shinryu looking at him like that?
Assistant Instructor Hagiwara was just pitying him for being alone with no one to talk to, so he kindly ate with him every day. Did Samukawa Shinryu really care about the other person because of this?
As Samukawa Shinryu approached, he could barely make out Samukawa Shinryu's expression, only those strangely beautiful dark red eyes, driving into his mind like wedges, making him tremble uncontrollably.
Samukawa Shinryu wanted to kill him. He was going to die.
He couldn't just sit and wait for death. What else could he do? Otherwise he'd die here...
He didn't even have the luxury of thinking that Samukawa Shinryu wouldn't touch him in broad daylight in front of everyone. His mind was filled only with thoughts of protecting himself, of resisting, of...
The seductive voice rang out.
"Fire one more shot. This might be your last chance to fire a gun."
—Fire the gun.
"Bang!"
The gun fired.
All the surrounding people's faces immediately changed, and Hagiwara Kenji even called out "Little Shinryu" and rushed forward directly.
But after only two steps, he slowed his pace, finding the situation somewhat unexpected.
At such close range, Samukawa Shinryu had slightly tilted his head in that split second, stepped forward to grab the other person's wrist, forced the gun muzzle upward, so the bullet hit the ceiling. Then with a twist of his wrist, he broke the other person's wrist bone and seized the gun into his own hands.
That person clutched his hand, initially screaming in pain and rolling on the ground, but soon curled up in a ball, in too much pain to make a sound.
Samukawa Shinryu stood coldly beside him, not even glancing at the person on the ground, just expressionlessly looking down and leisurely examining the gun.
Having just brushed with danger, he seemed completely nonchalant about the recent incident, as if it didn't matter at all.
Instructor Onizuka was very relieved that nothing serious had happened. Finally seeing a point where he could intervene, he quickly coughed and hurried over: "Alright, as long as everyone's fine, this gun..."
He didn't dare let the gun remain in Samukawa Shinryu's hands. The way this guy was examining the gun looked exactly like he was about to give the person on the ground a finishing shot.
Even though he comforted himself that Samukawa Shinryu had brains and wouldn't do such a thing, the psychological pressure was still enormous. He'd better retrieve it quickly.
As soon as Instructor Onizuka spoke, Samukawa Shinryu looked at him while raising the hand holding the gun.
During this raising motion, there was a series of clicking sounds as gun parts fell to the ground like rain.
Samukawa Shinryu had disassembled the gun single-handedly in a few seconds.
He was very calm, as if he had just helped someone pick up a pen: "Now there's nothing to worry about."
Instructor Onizuka: ".................."
—Nothing to worry about my ass!!! Why are you so skilled at this!!!
With Samukawa Shinryu's counterattack and the other party's fractured wrist, this shooting class was completely ruined.
With a very pale face, Instructor Onizuka had all the students write a ten-page reflection essay on careful gun use based on today's events, then helped the person who could finally barely stand up and hurriedly headed to the infirmary, while also going to discuss this incident with his colleagues.
At this time, the role of Hagiwara Kenji as Assistant Instructor was to stay behind to comfort the students, maintain classroom discipline, supervise everyone's return of guns and ammunition to ensure no one slipped through the cracks, and then announce early dismissal.
Probably because they had experienced too many ups and downs in a short time, the students all seemed mentally exhausted and silently left the shooting range.
Soon, only Samukawa Shinryu and Hagiwara Kenji remained at the shooting range.
"You really scared me to death." Hagiwara Kenji was both shocked and frightened, but didn't want to show anger toward Samukawa Shinryu, so he could only smile bitterly and say, "Although I'm happy you care about me so much, there was no need to take such a big risk. He still had a gun."
"They were just training rounds."
"Training rounds won't do either."
Samukawa Shinryu was silent for a moment: "It wasn't for you either. He was aiming at me from the start."
"Right, right, it wasn't for me." Hagiwara Kenji didn't believe it one bit.
He felt that if that guy had really fired at Samukawa Shinryu, Samukawa Shinryu's reaction probably wouldn't have been this intense.
This guy never took his own affairs to heart.
Samukawa Shinryu had to explain again: "I already didn't like him anyway. Really."
Hagiwara Kenji: "Oh, is that so?"
Soon, Hagiwara Kenji discovered that regardless of why Samukawa Shinryu had gotten angry, his statement about not liking that person might actually be true.
Because before evening arrived, Hagiwara Kenji heard an upgraded version of yesterday's rumor.
[Samukawa Shinryu was originally going to show a certain someone what's what in interrogation class, but because he couldn't hold back, he drove the person crazy directly during shooting class, and now that person wants to drop out!!]
Hagiwara Kenji: "...???"
Huh?! So it was the same person?!
Meanwhile, in the second week since school started, Samukawa Shinryu was finally called in by Instructor Onizuka for a private talk.
Instructor Onizuka, who had originally thought he'd observe for at least a month before conducting interviews, felt heavy-hearted, but couldn't show it in his expression. He could only ask seriously.
"Samukawa, you should have an idea why I called you here, right?"
Samukawa Shinryu: "To make me drop out? I think the one who should drop out is someone else."
Instructor Onizuka: "..........."
—You kid, you really don't feel guilty at all!!!