Chương 229: 89. Incentive for Two 2

Security Division's practical range knows exactly how to ruin a person's mood. Lights down low, floor sensor lines glowing, the center laid out as a mock shipboard close-quarters zone, ringed with retractable panels and blind corners. This wasn't a place designed for fighting well. It was designed to teach you, in a cramped, crowded, low-visibility environment, exactly how fast you die. Takenaka shrugged out of his uniform jacket, down to the black fitted under-layer built for movement.

Shield in his left hand, practice axe in his right, low-output marker rifle at his hip. No wasted motion. No preamble. He just stood there, and the pressure in the room changed. D couldn't help himself.

"Roy. I suddenly feel like the second-class cabin doesn't matter that much." Roy raised his shield, face blank.

"Too late. Civilization already killed you." Takenaka raised one hand.

"Begin." D opened with something flashy. Naturally. Without the flash, he wouldn't be D. He feinted a hard cut left, calling "Sergeant, watch your right!" as he moved — a transparent attempt to steal half a beat with noise. Roy pushed straight in with his shield, doing the honest work of anchoring the rhythm. Honestly, as an opening, it wasn't bad. Better than I'd expected. The problem was that Takenaka took one look and dismantled both their intentions at once.

The instant D slid sideways, Takenaka's shield angle pinned Roy in place, the practice axe reversed and jabbed inward, and D's lateral lane was already shut before he'd finished the step.

"Too loud," Takenaka said. A beat later, D's shoulder plate lit up with a hit.

"Valid." The system voice rang out. D froze.

"... He even blocked the trash talk?"

"I'd be more interested in why you thought that would work on him," Roy said, teeth set, trying to reset his footing behind the shield. The words had barely left his mouth when Takenaka stepped in, hooked the axe handle against the inside edge of Roy's shield, and shifted his weight — Roy's base went out from under him.

"Valid." Another chime. The whole room let out a collective gasp — half sympathetic, half deeply uncharitable. D backed up two steps and threw his hand up in protest.

"Sergeant, with respect — I don't think that was going easy on us. I think that was the spin cycle." Takenaka glanced at him.

"I already went easy. Otherwise you wouldn't still be talking." Right. That landed harder than either of the two hits. First team down in under two minutes. By the time D stepped off the mat, whatever heroic first-in-line energy he'd walked in with had been scrubbed completely clean by Security Division realism. But D is D. He came back with his shoulders slumped, and the first thing out of his mouth was still:"Roy. We lost with a lot of educational value."

Roy pulled his visor off and gave him a long, haunted look.

"Say one more word and I'll extend that educational value to your teeth." Second team, Harvey and Aida, went up much steadier than the first — and got dismantled just as steadily. Third team, Akari and Evelyn, used speed and coordination to actually hold out a while, even forcing Takenaka half a step back. The whole room had just lifted with that when he executed a completely unreasonable, flawlessly precise switch-grip angle cut that shattered both their centerlines in one breath.

"Valid. Valid." Done. When Lan and Jess stepped up, the air in the room tightened again. This pair was dangerous. Not "highest odds of winning" dangerous — the kind of dangerous where, if forward pressure and ice-cold calm actually meshed together, they might force something real out of him. Jess opened hard, axe driving forward; Lan filled the spaces beside her.

It looked disturbingly smooth — smooth enough that I found myself thinking, briefly, that if Jess had forced me into the first slot earlier, we probably would've been less of a threat than this. Jess's axe work was vicious. Lan's cover moves wasted nothing. Between them, they actually pushed Takenaka back to the edge of the partition. The room went dead quiet. Everyone thought, for one second, that this might be it.

Takenaka just dropped his shield face, ate Jess's pressure head-on, then side-stepped just enough to knock Lan's support line out of alignment with Jess's push. His axe handle snapped back and clipped the outer edge of Jess's wrist guard.

"Valid." Jess swore. Lan moved to fill the gap immediately — but the position was already saturated, and by the time she got there, Takenaka had already slipped clear, low-output marker rifle swinging up from under his arm.

"Valid." Two calls, almost overlapping. Done. Jess came off the mat wearing a genuinely ugly expression. Not because she'd lost. Because she'd been one breath away from winning. That kind of almost is the most infuriating. Maki, beside me, had been watching the whole thing. Only now did she speak, low.

"Did you see it?"

"... Yeah."

"He's not just fighting us," Maki said.

"He's baiting us into the mistakes we're most comfortable making." I turned to look at her.

"So what's the grand plan, partner?" She glanced at me, the corner of her mouth moving a fraction.

"No grand plan. Just one idea."

"Let's hear it."

"Once we're up there — don't trust me too much. And don't sync with me too cleanly." I blinked.

"... Meaning?"

"Takenaka dismantles teamwork," Maki said.

"So we don't hand him a clean rhythm to take apart." Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.... Oh. I got it. Not fighting sloppy. Making the rhythm look incomplete. Hard to read. A dirty way to fight. Very Security Division. I liked it. Takenaka tapped his shield against the floor and looked up at us.

"Next. Hoshino. Kushima." Every eye in the room swung our way. D, under his breath, still couldn't resist:"Here it comes. I have a feeling about this one."

"Can you be quiet for sixty seconds?" Harvey asked.

"No," D said.

"This is my duty as a witness." I took a slow breath and tightened the strap on my shield arm. Beside me, Maki was perfectly calm.

"One thing first," she said.

"I don't guarantee I'll clear the way for you."

"Funny," I said.

"I wasn't planning to bet my life entirely on you either." Maki nodded.

"Then we're good." We walked onto the floor together. The moment I crossed the sensor line, something strange settled over me. The teams before us hadn't lost unfairly. If anything, they'd lost exactly the way you'd expect. Because Takenaka wasn't just strong. He was the kind of fighter who takes your personality and your habits and uses them against you in the same motion he's hitting you with. Against someone like that, being too honest doesn't work. Running too hot doesn't work.

Being too eager to prove yourself is worst of all. The problem was — Inconveniently — I had at least a little of all three. Takenaka raised his hand.

"Begin." Maki moved first. Not fast. Steady. She cut half a step forward and right, shield held at a height that was neither committed attack nor pure feint — deliberately sitting between the two. The beauty of the posture was that it looked like it had a follow-up, and also looked like bait meant to draw the first move out of him. Takenaka didn't move. I didn't follow immediately. I came in half a beat late. On purpose. Late enough to read as rough coordination. Or hesitation.

His focus flickered, just for a fraction of a second. That was the gap. Maki dropped her shield angle and swung the rifle out from the side — not to land a hit, just to force his shield up. I cut in from the left. First swing missed. His axe handle cracked against my wrist guard with surgical precision, sending a numb shock halfway up my forearm.

"Too straight," Takenaka said.

"I know." I answered out loud and kept moving, using the force of the hit to bounce back and pull wide in a half-circle. Maki slid in then — not to cover me, but to eat Takenaka's forward pressure head-on. That hit was brutal. Brutal enough that just watching it from the side, my own arm ached in sympathy. Takenaka's shield wasn't a defensive tool. It was a battering ram. Maki staggered back half a step, her base nearly gone — but she didn't try to hold it.

She let herself yield, let the whole centerline look like it had suddenly opened up. If that had been a real mistake, we'd have been done. It wasn't. The instant that illusion of an open center appeared, I cut in low from the opposite side. Takenaka saw it, of course. And moved to block it, of course. But I wasn't trying to land this one either. I just needed him to turn. If he turned for me, Maki had the angle.

The second his shield shifted toward my line, Maki's marker rifle came up — two aimed shots at the lateral sensor zone. Takenaka twisted violently to dodge the first. The second grazed the edge of his combat suit.

"Miss." A ripple of disappointment ran through the room. D actually grabbed his own head.

"Aaargh — so close!" I smiled anyway. Because close meant the direction was right. Takenaka looked at us. For the first time. For the first time, that flat I'm-here-to-teach-you-a-lesson calm in his eyes carried a trace of something looking at an actual opponent. Maki let out a breath.

"He's taking this seriously now."

"That is not comforting at all."

"I don't do comforting."

"At least you're honest." The second exchange came faster. Takenaka pressed forward himself this time — which meant our little routine had at least convinced him he couldn't just sit back and pick us apart at leisure. His shield went for Maki. His axe came for me. Dirty. Classic Security Division adult logic — hit the left visibly, take the life on the right. I ate a glancing blow off the edge of his shield and staggered sideways, biting back a curse.

Maki, like she'd already seen it coming, pushed forward — not to save me, but to jam Takenaka's next step into a dead angle. Our team never had that beautiful, textbook-clean dual rhythm. No synced calls. No perfect crossovers. Half the time it probably looked like one of us couldn't keep up with the other. But it was exactly that incompleteness that kept Takenaka from tearing us open as fast as he had the others. We weren't a tidy two-person program.

We were two people each trying to stay alive, who happened, in the same second, to do something that made the man across from us miserable. On the third exchange, my head went suddenly, completely clear. Not the high-speed instinct from flight sim. Not the feeling of being carried along by a steady rhythm the way I had been during the corridor-entry drills with Maki. Something else.

Like the ship's alarm ringing in your ear, the light gone bad, the corridor too narrow, everything uncomfortable — and because it's so uncomfortable, your body starts shedding everything that isn't strictly necessary. Don't try to look good. Don't try to win pretty. Just — make the gap in front of you real. Takenaka's axe handle swept Maki's rifle line off-target. His next move would come for me. Certain. I knew it. Maki knew it too. So this time Maki didn't press forward.

She let herself lose a step backward instead. An ugly step. Ugly enough to look like she'd genuinely broken formation. Takenaka's eyes darkened, his whole weight shifting that way. Now. I didn't step in. I dropped low. My shield hit the floor right at the edge of the sensor line, my whole body cutting in almost flat against the mat. The practice axe didn't rise — it swung backhand, up from underneath. Not a textbook move. Honestly, kind of ugly. But inside a ship's guts, ugly usually beats pretty.

Takenaka's reaction speed was terrifying — his leg was already pulling back — but Maki's "misstep" a second ago had already choked off half his retreat.

"...!" The next instant, the tip of my axe handle cracked against the sensor zone at Takenaka's side.

"Valid." When the mechanical voice rang out, the whole room went vacuum-silent. I froze for half a beat myself. Then it detonated. D was airborne first.

"HIT—!!" Harvey slammed both hands on the desk. Roy let out a sharp "Fuck yes!" Akari burst out laughing, and even Evelyn's eyes went wide. Jess stood frozen, her expression complicated — a flash of frustration, something like grudging respect, and something else underneath that didn't have a name yet. Maki didn't clap, didn't react big — but I knew she'd watched every second of it. Takenaka glanced down at the hit indicator glowing at his side. Then looked up at me. Then at Maki.

For one second, I actually worried he'd say something petty — that angle doesn't count, or non-standard movement, invalid. But Takenaka is Takenaka. No conscience, sure. But he's never been the type to cheat his own rules. He lowered his shield and gave a short nod.

"Hoshino, valid hit. Assessment passed." The room went off again. I finally let out a real breath. My knees nearly gave out. Maki stood beside me, breathing a little unevenly herself, but she looked at me first.

"That last one. Not bad." I pushed my visor up, unable to stop grinning.

"Your fake step was pretty convincing too."

"It wasn't fake."

"... What?"

"I really almost lost my footing there." I stared at her for two seconds, then laughed harder.

"Then you're very good at live patching, partner." The corner of Maki's mouth finally lifted, for real. Faint. But real.

"Likewise." D was already sprinting over, wearing the exact expression of a man who'd just watched two people jointly steal an Imperial-grade supply cache out from under the Security Division's nose.

"Second-class! Second-class! Do you two understand what this means?!"

"It means it has nothing to do with you," Lan said. D clutched his chest.

"Don't state reality that coldly." Jess walked over then. She looked at me first, then at Maki. That look was hard to translate. Not simple annoyance. Not simple competitiveness. More like someone who'd already worked out where a certain line was supposed to fall, only to watch it get torn out from under the calculation, forcing a full reassessment. Finally, she snorted.

"Not bad."

"Thanks," I said.

"That compliment sounds like it comes with a follow-up."

"Because it does." Jess tipped her chin.

"Your second entry angle was too greedy."

"I know."

"If Maki hadn't jammed his lane for you, the Sergeant would've knocked you across the room."

"Yeah." Jess's eyebrow flicked.

"... You're admitting fault fast today." I smiled a little.

"Because you're right this time." Jess looked like she'd choked on the middle of a sentence. She held there for a beat, then looked away.

"Don't get cocky." That was when Maki, who'd just walked over to join us, came into it. She wasn't the one who spoke first, though. Jess — still facing our way rather than turning back to me — looked at Maki instead.

"That fake misstep just now," Jess said.

"Not bad." Maki nodded.

"Hoshino covered fast too," Jess added. Only then did Maki turn to me.

"Your angle on that last hit was correct." I blinked.

"Is that a compliment?"

"It's a fact." Right. Same routine as always. But for some reason, hearing it delivered that way still made something in my chest go light, for no good reason at all. Beside us, Jess had clearly heard every word. Her eyebrow twitched. She didn't say anything. That same odd tension slid back into the air. Not loud. But sticky. Like static — invisible, right up until the second you get too close to something and it snaps.

Takenaka packed up his gear, apparently done paying attention to a group of people who'd just survived the battle for civilization tickets. He spoke without looking up, flat as ever.

"Hoshino, Kushima. First team, cleared. Second-class cabin rights start tonight." D let out something between a wail and a sob.

"Civilization — claimed by someone else —""You can come make a pilgrimage at the door," Harvey said.

"I will," D said, deeply solemn.

"I'll even bring fruit."

"Don't," I said.

"I'm worried you'll use it as cover to check the satellite TV listings."

"How can you doubt me like that?"

"Because you've earned it." The whole room laughed. Even Takenaka seemed to have decided he was done supervising us. Before he turned to leave, he dropped one line, perfectly in character.

"Don't celebrate too early. Beating me once just proves you weren't a total embarrassment today." A pause. Then the second cut.

"You're still nowhere near surviving a real boarding action." Then he walked out. Leaving eleven people who'd just fought, lost, envied, and seethed — and a room still buzzing with the specific frequency of three words: second-class cabin. I stood there, looking down at the practice axe in my hand, then over at Maki. Maki set her shield down and asked:"So. Race for the shower first tonight?" I laughed.

"No."

"Then what?" I looked up, toward the two gazes still lingering my way — one carrying a hot edge of dissatisfaction, one carrying an unnervingly calm, direct focus. And said, with complete honesty:"First, I need to figure out how to survive these two taking turns making my life difficult." Maki went quiet for two seconds. Then, rare for her, actually laughed.

"That's fair." Watching Jess over there, and Maki right beside me, I couldn't help but think that compared to Sergeant Takenaka's practice axe, something a lot more complicated was just getting started.