Chương 219: 84. Shipboard Combat Tactics 2

The moment Takenaka tossed D the card and walked out, the air in the training bay shifted. It felt exactly like a teacher setting the chalk down and calmly announcing to the class: free period. In theory, that's relaxation. In practice, it's usually a countdown to see who turns the room into an incident scene first. And on our side, the person most qualified for that job was already staring down at the card, grinning like he'd just been handed a legal arson permit.

"Civilized exchange of technique, huh?" Jess crossed her arms, watching him sideways.

"The second you smile like that, I feel civilization dying a little."

"That's hurtful," D said, spinning the card between two fingers, completely unbothered.

"This is the face of a trustworthy field commander."

"No," Harvey said.

"That's the face of the primary suspect who's just taken over a hostage situation." Lan didn't even look up.

"The kind who also tells the negotiator to back off." I almost lost it again. Maki, beside me, let her gaze travel from the card in D's hand back to the gear racks, voice flat, the tone of someone pre-reading a disaster that was definitely about to happen.

"If he actually acts as commander," she said, "this class is going to very efficiently teach everyone why they shouldn't trust him."

"Kushima," D said, wounded.

"You have a seriously deep misunderstanding of me."

"Not a misunderstanding," Maki said.

"Long-term observational data."... Perfect. The moment those two start talking, the air gains a very credible quality of I wouldn't be at all surprised if this turns into a real fight. Takenaka clearly had no interest in our social dynamics. He gave D one look — confirming the card had indeed landed in the hands of the most trouble-prone person in the room — nodded, and delivered his parting instructions.

"I'll come check in fifteen minutes," he said.

"Get basic sparring going. Shield angle, center of gravity, approach distance, dead-zone pressure. Learn those four first. Anyone who trashes the room goes straight onto the maintenance requisition."

"Copy," D said, and actually stood a little straighter saying it. I looked at his I promise not to go too far face and had exactly one thought. If you actually knew how to hold back, this ship could rename itself SS Peaceful right now. The moment Takenaka left, the pressure he'd been holding on the room eased off a notch. Not enough to get reckless. Just enough for everyone to feel like a living person again. D flipped the card and turned toward the heavy grey automatic door deeper in the bay.

"Alright, future pillars of the Federation," he said.

"Follow your newly appointed, highly capable venue manager. Relax — I run on principles—""Which ones?" Jess asked.

"The kind where I survive first."

"That's not a principle," Harvey said.

"That's a reflex."

"Reflexes are battlefield virtues. You're welcome." He swiped the card across the reader. The door slid open. What lay behind it wasn't the plain open room I'd expected. It was an entire modular close-quarters combat facility. One look from the doorway told me exactly why Takenaka had scheduled this class here. This wasn't a normal practice room.

It looked like someone had taken every ugly, fatal choke point buried inside the Yukikaze's hull, disassembled them, scaled them down, and laid them out neatly across a single deck. Narrow corridor modules. Short corners. Half-closed doorframes. Movable partitions. Low obstacles. Emergency-lighting switch zones. Simulated hatch nodes. There was even a section built to resemble a maintenance access passage, exactly wide enough for one fully armored person to pass through sideways.

Most of the walls were padded and sensor-lined, but the surface finish still carried that grey-black metallic texture. The psychological pressure grew on its own the second you stepped inside. Flight class had made you aware of how big space was. This room told you something else, straight to your face: sometimes people die not because outside is too big, but because inside is too narrow. Akari looked up at the layout the moment she walked in.

"Modular close-quarters drill room," she murmured.

"Node reset system too. The walls must be sensor-lined — hits and contact angles will log automatically."

"So," I said, "when we embarrass ourselves, it auto-saves."

"Correct."

"... The way you say correct is deeply unsympathetic."

"Data doesn't need to be kind." Thanks. The warmest face of the Federal military remained unavailable today. D walked straight in, moving like he'd already decided this was his room. He hit the central console, swiped the card again. The lighting shifted from standard white to the colder tone of training mode. Floor guide lines lit up. The wall racks snapped open on their own. Inside: training armor, helmets, short shields, practice axes, and marker sidearms, all lined up in neat rows.

"Huh," D said.

"Takenaka claims he's not heartless, and still set up the full package. I'm almost moved."

"Your threshold for being moved is disturbingly low," Roy said, already at the rack, seriously checking armor clasps.

"You don't get it," D said, turning to him.

"When a grown-up hands you a fully equipped room to wreck, that's trust."

"That's not trust," Lan said.

"That's testing the damage ceiling." Jess had already picked up a training shield, rolled her wrist once, then pulled a practice axe from the rack with her other hand. The grip was entirely natural, like the thing had always lived in her hand.

"Less talking," she said.

"Aren't we training? Who's first?" Very Jess. The moment a weapon lands in her hand, her patience evaporates like someone pickpocketed it straight out of her. D didn't answer right away. He clapped his hands once, sharp.

"Gear up first," he said.

"I know everyone's eager to hurt each other, but put the padding on. I'm not explaining to Sergeant Takenaka today why Section 144 gave itself a concussion before the actual drill even started."

"That sentence," Harvey said, pulling on a chest plate, "suddenly made you sound like a functioning adult."

"I've always been a functioning adult."

"Then the Federal medical standards have a calibration problem." I bit back a laugh and pulled a set of training armor off the rack. Much simpler than the full combat suit on display — no full seal, the helmet not combat-spec — but chest, shoulders, forearms, outer thighs, and neck all had basic coverage. The inner lining still linked to a stripped-down M. K. I. O. training module, logging hits, balance shifts, and movement paths.

I was snapping my forearm guard into place when I noticed Maki standing diagonally ahead of me, adjusting a shoulder clasp. She looked annoyingly good in this stuff. Not funny. The exact opposite. Some people put on training armor and still look like students. Maki put it on and looked like the kind of person you genuinely didn't want to stand across from, even with only a practice axe between you.

Her movements weren't fast, but there wasn't a single wasted beat — even tightening a glove looked like something she did with built-in order. I stared a second too long. She seemed to catch it. She turned her head. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Your elbow guard's on backwards." I looked down. It was.... Damn it.

"Could you not point that out in the exact tone of a squadmate who's been married to me for years?"

"I'm stating a fact." She walked over and flipped the strap right side in — one clean pull, one snap.

"Go out there like that, and you'll be the first one to jam yourself." She was close for maybe two seconds. The motion was textbook. Nothing extra about it. But whether it was the overpowered AC or the armor trapping heat, my ears went warm anyway. Genuinely ridiculous. I was in the pre-gear phase of a Security Division close-combat class, and my brain still felt the need to run a background process titled she just fixed a strap, what exactly are you thinking about.

Jess glanced over right on cue, gaze sweeping across us, the corner of her mouth lifting. Not obvious. But I read it perfectly. Oh? Again? I looked away fast and yanked the rest of my straps into place with excessive focus. Once D was fully geared, he hopped up onto the low central platform and rapped his shield with the axe handle.

"Alright. Rules," he said.

"You're actually giving rules?" Ash asked from the back, sounding faintly, rarely surprised.

"Of course I am," D said.

"I'm not Jess."

"You want to die?" Jess glared.

"No, I'm objectively describing your management style." He rested the axe on his shoulder and raised the shield.

"Nothing complicated today. Pairs. Get a feel for shield angles, distance, footwork, feints. Valid hits: front of the helmet, side of the neck, underarm, back of the knee, shield-hand wrist. Forcing someone out of the boundary line counts too. Don't try to prove your weight by wrestling the floor — the walls and deck log everything. Embarrass yourself, it gets saved as data. Thank Federal technology."

"That belongs on a school motto," I said.

"Agreed," D said smoothly.

"Every Embarrassment Gets Logged. A gift to Section 144."

"Where do you get the nerve to sell us out on the spot?" Harvey said.

"I'm hosting. The host outranks the crowd."

"That system needs to die today." I rolled my wrists, watching D assign the pairs. Honestly, most of the time he looks like the person most likely to drive any situation further off a cliff. But hand him a half-chaotic room that actually needs someone to take charge, and he grows a strange rhythm almost instantly. Not a proper commander's rhythm.

More like street-fight rhythm — he can see who's about to blink, who just stepped wrong, whose momentum is leaking out — so he knows exactly when to cut in, when to tap someone, and how to push them into the right spot. Annoying. Also genuinely useful.

"First pair," D said.

"Roy and me." Roy blinked.

"Me?"

"Yep." D smiled with a friendliness so complete it made you want to light incense for Roy in advance.

"You're the most likely to actually follow the rules. Perfect baseline." Roy took a breath, picked up shield and axe, and stepped into the central white-lined zone. I felt for him. Genuinely. Because one of the more unpleasant things in this world is walking in ready to take a class seriously, and finding D standing across from you. The practice system engaged. A ring of pale blue lines lit the floor, and the overhead projection synced both fighters' hit-detection frames.

"Begin." Roy moved first. Textbook. So textbook it looked like a training-manual illustration had learned to walk. Shield forward, axe hand kept in tight, weight sunk low, one probing step, then a second, heavier. Against an ordinary opponent, that kind of steady approach would work just fine. The problem was, his opponent wasn't ordinary. His opponent was the kind of person who could talk to you and steal half a beat of your rhythm at the same time.

D feinted half a step left, tilting his shield, and still found breath to speak:"Roy, you look like you're planning to file the incident report before you actually swing."

"Shut up!"

"Oh — talking back. Good. Means the spirit's still alive—" Roy brought the axe down hard. At the last instant D flipped his shield angle, bleeding the force off entirely, and slid along the side of Roy's guard like he had no bones at all — the practice axe handle tapped Roy's ribs with a sharp clack. The system flashed red instantly. Valid hit.

"..." Roy went still for a beat.

"See?" D stepped back twice, the picture of sincerity.

"You were thinking about how to hit me. I was thinking about how to make you believe you already had."

"This isn't instruction. This is fraud," Harvey commented from the side.

"Close-quarters combat has always had a healthy percentage of fraud built in," D replied, perfectly reasonable. Roy clearly wasn't satisfied. He came back harder the second time. It went worse. Because D genuinely knew how to fight this kind of close-range tempo battle. He didn't rely on strength. He didn't rely on brute pressure. He didn't even rely on the kind of intimidating movement that screams this guy is dangerous on sight.

He relied on something far more annoying — half-beats, feints, visual misdirection, and a mouth that refused to shut up from start to finish. Three exchanges in, Roy was practically coming apart.

"Are you even paying attention?!" Roy's ears had gone red with frustration.

"Very much so," D said.

"Focused enough to notice your left shoulder tightens right before you swing. Every single time." Roy's expression changed instantly.

"Now you see why I said it out loud, right?" D's grin was pure malice.

"Because now you'll spend the whole time trying to fix it — and just tie yourself into worse knots." I doubled over laughing.

"You're genuinely filthy," I said.

"Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment." Maki stood beside me, watching the ring, and spoke, flat.

"Not filthy. He's just good at taking someone's attention apart." I turned to look at her.

"You're actually praising him?"

"I'm stating a fact," Maki said.

"That style is especially effective against anyone without close-range pressure training." Jess let out a soft hum, spinning the axe handle once in her palm.

"Works fine on people who take it seriously," she said.

"Not necessarily on me." D's head came up immediately.

"Oh, I like that. You're next?" Jess stepped forward without even thinking about it.

"Let's go."... Perfect. Putting those two in the same ring felt like someone had, with real creative flair, set an ignition source and a tank of pressurized fuel on the exact same table. The system relit the boundary. This time, the room outside was noticeably quieter than before. Because everyone knew this wasn't going to be another round of D toys with an earnest student until he questions his life choices. This was going to be an actual test of blades.

"Begin." Jess's first step was far more vicious than Roy's. No cautious probing. No polite range-finding. She came in shield-first, driving forward, forcing D to yield ground, her practice axe snapping out from behind the shield at an angle nasty enough to carve his rhythm and his dignity off in the same stroke. D gave half a step. Just half. He knew he couldn't oversell it here. With someone like Jess, retreating too much like you were toying with her only guaranteed the next hit would come in meaner.

"Whoa, whoa," D said, backing up.

"A little heat in this opener. Jess, are you still thinking about the time Captain Tobita shot you down?"

"Want to find out exactly how clearly I remember it?" Shield hit shield with a dull, dense crack. That single impact knocked whatever playfulness was left in the room straight into the real, grinding rhythm of close combat. Jess was genuinely strong. Not the pretty kind of strong. The kind that doesn't apologize. Every step carried the same forward intent — axe lines clean, shield angles vicious, the sheer I will force you back purpose in it obvious to the point of looking almost brutal. But it wasn't chaos.

Inside that straight-line pressure was a rhythm of its own. Like teeth. Watching the blur of shields and axes crossing in the center, I finally understood why Sergeant Takenaka insisted on teaching defense first. At this range, there's no time left over for thinking. You don't start by deciding how to win. You start by deciding how not to die. D took the worse of round one. Not a hit. Jess drove him straight to the edge of the boundary line, and the system flashed a warning.

"Whoa," D said, shield up, already backing off, mouth still running.

"This one's temper is thicker than her armor."

"Shut up." Jess pressed in again. This time D finally stopped retreating. He feinted right, deliberately leaving a gap in his shield — not too big, not too small. The opening looked exactly like a mistake, convincing enough that even I half-believed he'd genuinely gone half a beat slow. But the second Jess committed to it, D closed in, using the rim of his shield to bind the lower half of her axe handle, turned his body, and tapped the butt of his axe against the outside of her knee — quick, almost sly about it.

Not a heavy strike. A balance break. Jess's footing faltered, and a beat later the flat of D's practice axe had already landed at the junction of her neck and shoulder. System flashed red. Valid hit.

"Fuck," Jess muttered, low.

"Thank you for your patronage," D said. But Jess didn't let herself get dragged fully into his rhythm the way Roy had. She just gritted her teeth and, going into round two, adjusted fast — her footwork less linear, her shield no longer greedy for ground, learning instead to wait for D to speak first. Smart. I watched and couldn't help saying, "She's learning fast."

"Because she was never stupid to begin with," Maki said.

"Is that you complimenting Jess?"

"I've been complimenting facts all day," Maki said, eyes still on the ring, tone perfectly level.

"Most people just aren't used to it." Right. This woman can make a compliment sound like a statistical report. Unfortunately I didn't have time to keep complaining, because round two in the ring was already catching fire. Jess actually bit down on D this time. Not a total takeover. But she caught a short window, forced him off-angle with a hard shield bash, and drove the axe through at an angle that was almost elegant, grazing the sensor band on D's forearm. System flashed yellow, then red. Valid hit.

This time D was the one whistling.

"Ouch," he laughed, hopping back.

"She bites."

"What did you think I stepped in here for — conversation?"

"I did genuinely hope so, for about one second." By the time round three started, every trace of looseness had gone out of the room. Because everyone had been pulled in. Roy was studying how D built his feints. Harvey was tracking how Jess shifted tempo. Akari's log panel was practically flipping pages on its own. Aida and Evelyn were both clearly memorizing the footwork exchanges. Ash still wore the same flat expression, but his focus had sharpened since the start.

And I stood there with a sudden, very clear feeling. This class was nothing like flight class. Flight class threw everyone into the same stretch of space and watched who held together. Takenaka's class was something else — pulling each person's temper, rhythm, habits, and competitive streak out one by one, pressing them into a space too narrow to let your mind wander, and forcing you to face it: so this is who you are, at this distance. In round three, D and Jess landed almost simultaneously.

One tap to the shoulder, one graze across the ribs. Both systems flashed red at once, and the whole room erupted in the particular kind of noise unique to a training bay.

"Draw!" I called it first.

"No," D protested immediately.

"I won spiritually."

"You always rank yourself first, spiritually," Harvey said. Jess pushed her helmet up. A few damp strands of hair stuck to her forehead, but her eyes were blazing.

"Again."

"Get in line," D said, raising a hand immediately, still out of breath but his mouth already back at full capacity.

"Hazardous materials like you aren't meant for continuous use. Let everyone else get a taste of Federal education too." He said that, let his gaze sweep the room, and finally settled on me and Maki. A very bad feeling rose in my chest.

"Next pair," D said, grinning.

"Hoshino—" I threw my hand up.

"Wait, I demand the right to request a delay—""—and Kushima." The whole room went quiet for half a second. Then someone — I never caught who — drew in a very soft breath. I stood there, my shield nearly slipping out of my grip.... No. This pairing — do you have some kind of degree in exactly how to blow a situation out of proportion? D looked at me, the picture of innocence.

"What?" he said.

"Weren't you two just standing there in perfect sync the whole time? I'm a big believer in efficient resource allocation." Jess stood off to the side, shield hugged to her chest, the corner of her mouth curling up slowly. Translated, that expression read roughly: Oh. Now this is interesting. Maki, for her part, showed almost nothing. She simply fastened her helmet, calm as ever, picked up shield and axe, and walked toward the white-lined zone. Passing me, she dropped one flat line:"Let's go."

Watching her walk off looking so entirely matter-of-fact about it, I had a sudden, powerful urge to slam my shield directly into D's face, then ask whether the Federal Military Academy offered any remedial course titled How to Maintain a Normal Heart Rate in Front of Your Classmates. Unfortunately, it didn't. So in the end, all I could do was take a breath, pick up my training gear, and walk into the white lines.