Chương 160: 60. Allocation 2

There was no sense of occasion when I handed the list to the Academic Affairs Office. No "the wheels of fate begin to turn" narration, no "from this day forward we march toward an unknown front" closing speech that sounded like the final thirty seconds of a military recruitment ad. What I felt was one very practical thought: oh. This time it's actually real. The light in front of the Academic Affairs counter was the white of an interrogation room.

I stood there and watched the clerk pull our application form, scan it, stamp it, and file it—movements so practiced they suggested she processed thirty of these a day, thirty sets of young people voluntarily mailing themselves to hell. The form was written in proper official language. United Interstellar Military Academy — Joint First- and Second-Year Final Examination No.

000 Off-Campus Practicum Version (Note: Applicants selecting this examination are exempt from written testing) When I saw the line about being exempt from written testing, I nearly talked myself into believing this was some kind of institutional goodwill. Then I remembered that the cost was shipping eleven people to an off-campus residence, followed by the Snowwind and the Orion Alpha front line, and my respect for reality was immediately restored.

Below the applicant field, in clear print: Senior representative: Aida Rosen. Junior representative: Hoshino Shimo. Seniors: 3. Juniors: 8. Total: 11. Residential address: 22 Platinum Bridge Street. The paper was thin. Thin as a blade. Because I understood exactly what it meant: once it was formally entered into the Academic Affairs system, our names would stop being a list of people who had temporarily ended up tormenting each other.

The Academy would start treating us as a complete, independently operational unit—one capable of handling off-campus practicum and front-line examination. To put it plainly: from this point forward, Group 144 wasn't just Group 144. We were starting to look like an actual formation. The clerk checked the documents without looking up.

"Junior representative Hoshino Shimo?"

"Yes."

"One of the designated off-campus residential supervisors?"

"... Yes." She brought the final stamp down. Thwack.

"Received. Filing to be completed before the two-week holiday. Good luck with your finals." I took the receipt and looked down at the stamp—red as a verdict—and the first sentence that came to mind was: thanks, but that blessing has no credibility whatsoever. Walking out of the Academic Affairs building, I found ordinary wind, ordinary campus buildings, ordinary students passing by as though nothing had happened. But I knew. From this moment, the two-week holiday ahead was no longer a holiday.

It was the preliminary operation for moving eleven problem individuals into the same building and testing how long civilized behavior could hold. That kind of operation rarely ended well. After the news went back to the group chat, Group 144 stayed quiet for twenty-seven seconds. At second twenty-eight, Jess posted first. Jess: Now that it's confirmed, why not move soon. I'd just reached the bench outside the main building when I saw that. I stopped. D followed immediately. D: Agreed.

Get familiar with the layout early. Roy: Makes sense. Moving in batches is more manageable than a mass mobilization on the last day. Lan: Also if we move in at the start of the holiday, we get a full two weeks to settle in. Harvey: Plus we can set up equipment early. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I stared at "set up equipment early" for two seconds. Wonderful.

This person had already skipped past "moving in" entirely and gone straight to "how do we convert this building into an illegal but highly functional base of operations." The truly sad part was that I wasn't even surprised. Maki's message appeared. Maki: I think moving earlier is better too. Maki: Moving mid-holiday just means doing it in a rush. Before I could respond, Jess added one more line. Jess: Also didn't Shimo say she wanted to get her motorcycle license? Easier to practice once we're out there.

I stopped completely. Then, very slowly, read that sentence again. Shimo:... Who told you that. One second of quiet in the group chat. Then—not Jess. Aida. Aida: I did. I stood there and came very close to throwing my terminal into the flower bed. A few seconds later she added another message, in a tone as neutral as someone asking whether dinner came with soup. Aida: She mentioned it herself in the taxi. Aida: I didn't realize it was classified. Classified my ass.

This was one of the very few personal plans in my life that hadn't yet been converted into group entertainment, and now it was gone. Jess was already losing it. Jess: HAHAHAHAHA she actually wants to get it!! Harvey: Go for it. Easier to pick up parts once you have a license. Roy: I'm more concerned about insurance. Akari: I'm more concerned about whether she'll ride herself into a ditch. D: License test is easy. Don't put it off.

I stared at "don't put it off" and felt the particular coldness of an organization that had already decided something for you. Maki moved last, and her move was the most lethal. Maki: We can handle it all together then. Maki: Fleet management, the other makeup courses, and the motorcycle license. My first reaction wasn't protest. It was a headache.

Because she had used the most natural possible tone—as if this wasn't an expansion of her administrative jurisdiction over my life, just a routine item she was adding to her to-do list. And worse: every single member of Group 144 apparently found this completely reasonable. Jess: Seconded, Professor Kushima. Harvey: Seconded. D: Efficient. Lan: I can help her schedule it. Roy: Offering a moment of silence on her behalf.

I sat down slowly on the bench and looked up at the grey-white sky, and found myself genuinely wanting to consult federal law: if a person offhandedly mentions wanting to get a motorcycle license, and the entire unit treats it as a collective rehabilitation project, does that constitute institutional bullying? Probably yes. Group 144 would call it care. Disgusting. Also genuinely convenient. Federal motorcycle licensing requirements were unreasonably straightforward.

Simple enough that I started to wonder whether the Federation's default assumption was that anyone over fourteen, in possession of functional limbs, and capable of distinguishing a red light from "don't drive into the large military transport vehicle ahead" was entitled to operate a motor vehicle. The written test was essentially a common sense quiz.

The simulation component was less a skills evaluation than a screening tool for antisocial tendencies—as long as you didn't deliberately steer onto the sidewalk, the system was generally prepared to pass you. I walked out holding a freshly issued digital license authorization, and felt nothing. Just a hollow emptiness.

The kind that comes when you expected a process to mean something—some evidence of growth, some acknowledgment of effort—and instead the Federation glanced at you and said: oh, you can work the throttle, fine, next. Jess was waiting outside. She grinned the moment she saw me.

"Congratulations, Shimo. You're now a licensed candidate for vehicular catastrophe."

"Your faith in me is genuinely moving."

"It's not that I don't trust you." She clapped me on the shoulder.

"It's that I don't trust your luck." Maki scanned my digital authorization into her terminal without comment.

"Getting to twenty-two will be easier now."

"Your first words aren't congratulations?"

"Congratulations." She delivered it smoothly, then continued without pause.

"Two sessions left on the fleet operations chapter tonight. Don't develop amnesia." Right. That was the actual point. After the motorcycle license business had been collectively pushed to completion, Maki had quietly expanded her supervision of me from fleet management into everything adjacent. Communications literacy, joint formation fundamentals, logistics procedures, briefing formats—even several theory courses I had planned to improvise my way through.

She pulled them all back without a word and started filling the gaps. Her teaching style was infuriating. Not infuriating in the way of someone who raps your head with a red pen, or looks down at you and says you don't know this? A different kind. The worse kind. She broke things down in pieces—small enough that what had been a textbook capable of killing a person on impact became something that could actually fit inside your head.

Then she laid it out in front of you, item by item, in a tone so calm it was nearly without affect. Remember this one first. This one doesn't need to be memorized. Understand it. If you blank on this in the exam, anchor to the core concept. Don't try to be clever here. Just use the standard format. The worst part was that she already knew exactly where I'd get stubborn, where I'd try to coast, where I was about to run out of patience, and where I actually understood something but didn't want to admit it.

Sometimes I'd look up at her and feel something strange. Like she wasn't teaching me how to study. More like she was mapping me—carefully, thoroughly—and then, almost incidentally, nudging me toward a version of myself that might survive longer. That alone was dangerous enough. What was more dangerous was that I was getting used to it.