Against a Perfect Sniper by Shiden Kanzaki Page A

instant! If you don’t, I’ll break down the door.”
    Miori closed her eyes and lifted her chin in the air. “You can if you want, but I’ll make sure to send the receipt to the Tendo Civil Security Agency.”
    The sound of pounding stopped suddenly, and it was replaced by the sound of Kisara gnashing her teeth. Sadly, Kisara, who was so poor she went to Rentaro’s place to sponge dinners off him, did not have the financial means to pay for a door.
    “Good job figuring out Kisara followed me here.”
    “I didn’t know. But with all that noise y’all were making out there… Why don’t we go next door?” Miori pointed at the room next door with her index finger.
    Guided by Miori, Rentaro entered her private room. He felt like he had been transported to another world. Besides chairs and tables in strong primary colors that twisted in avant-garde style, there were fifty holodisplays floating in the air.
    When Miori swept the displays showing stock prices and economic news horizontally, the displays came together into one giant display, and an aquarium screensaver started up, the surround-sound system playing the quiet sounds of bubbles. The whole room started to glow a dim blue. It really felt like they were in the depths of the ocean.
    Thinking of his own worn-out eight-tatami-mat hovel, he looked around the room again. It was hard to believe they were living in the same era. This was a room Shiba Heavy Weapons ordered especially for her. He wondered what she was planning to do with the room after stepping down as student council president next year.
    Miori pointed her folding fan toward the display and said, “Seitenshi Sniper Incident Evidence,” and pictures from the scene came up on the panels one after another. Miori stretched her arm out in front of her and enlarged one image, that of the tip of a bullet. “The bullet used by the sniper looks to be one used for a .50-caliber Browning heavy machine gun, but I looked up the rifling, and it’s clean. There’s no record that it was used in a crime before.” Rifling, also called a gun’s fingerprint, referred to the helical grooves left behind on a bullet when it was fired.
    Miori opened her fan and rotated it, and the screen changed a few times before settling on a miniature version of the scene of the crime with 3D modeling. Rentaro was unwittingly taken in for a second by Miori’s beautiful form, looking as if she were dancing a traditional Japanese dance.
    Miori pointed out the roof of the problem building where the sniper was with her fan and dragged the fan toward the limousine. As she did so, a line showed up on the model image showing a distance of 991 meters. Miori rotated the model so Rentaro could get a better look. “Hey, Satomi dear, just checking… You’re certain the enemy shot from that building? And that the limousine was moving?”
    “Yeah… What about it?”
    “Satomi dear, how much do you know about sniping?”
    “Not much.” He knew so little about the subject that he made sure not to choose it during his civsec officer license exam. On top of waiting in one place for the target to come and using finely honed nerves to pull the trigger, it required an enormous amount of patience and concentration. Rentaro wasn’t confident with either.
    “The empty shell case that sank into the road at the scene was retrieved. Looking at the angle of the shot, it does seem highly likely that it was fired from this building, but…”
    Miori sounded like something was stuck in her teeth as she spoke, but then lifted her face and continued. “Y’know, Satomi dear, in the year 2031, sniper scopes and rifles have gotten more precise, but in the end, the most important factor in figuring the accuracy rate is still the human factor. And humans’ hearts are always moving, and they have to breathe, so their hands shake slightly. If a sniper can hit a target eight hundred meters away, I consider them expert. A kilometeraway is a miracle. From 1.2