Chương 381: 170.History of Mankind

The moment afternoon classes ended, I headed back to the Seitokai office carrying a distinctly uneasy feeling. Uneasy, because things had been going too smoothly. And in this school, when something looks reasonable, procedurally complete, and every form lines up too neatly, nine times out of ten it just means the real trouble has been folded up and tucked behind the second page of an appendix. The news I was bringing back to Maki clearly belonged in that category. Secretary found. With conditions.

And the candidate was Hedwig. Just lining those three facts up in a single sentence told me exactly how the air in that office was about to shift. When I pushed the door open, the room already looked different from noon. If noon had been a paperwork disaster zone, this was the reconstruction site. Roy had taken the seat that had been empty, looking like a man who'd just discovered his entire life was, in fact, a debt-repayment plan.

Ledgers, receipts, and two monthly settlement copies that looked openly hostile were spread across his desk. His face was a thorough demonstration of exactly how long man up survives contact with reality — about ten minutes. Beside him, Lan sat quietly sorting files, movements careful and resigned. The redness at her ears hadn't fully faded, which told me my line at noon had landed with excellent effect.

Behind the main desk, Maki was as steady as ever — white uniform immaculate, black hair tied back, her pen gliding across paper in a rhythm flat enough to press anything down. Only when she looked up and saw me did something flicker briefly behind her eyes.

"You're back."

"Mm." I shut the door and walked in. Roy looked up first, wearing an expression of pure grievance.

"You actually sold me into this."

"Don't make it sound so ugly." I dropped my bag aside.

"I call it discovering your administrative talent."

"I'd rather let the talent rot."

"Too late now." I nodded at his ledgers.

"Look — the Federation's already arranged your future." Beside him, Lan's mouth twitched. Good. At least I wasn't the only one falling in today. Maki set her pen down, eyes on me.

"So?" Short word. But I knew she wasn't asking whether Roy had started regretting his own existence, or whether Lan had found the cabinet key. She meant the other thing — the thing sitting quietly under the Copernicus draft since noon. I pulled a chair over and sat.

"Secretary's filled." A brief silence at the desks. Our new Treasurer blinked, still parsing it. Then his face arrived at this disaster can apparently scale further.

"Seriously?" he blurted.

"Who's that unlucky?" I leaned forward, perfectly level.

"Hedwig." This time the silence lasted longer. A real stop. The hands sorting files went still. Roy stared like I hadn't just named a person, but formally announced the Imperial homeworld's annexation into the Council duty roster. Maki didn't react much. She just watched me, one finger tapping the desk edge once, lightly.

"Terms?"

"She'll lend the title," I said.

"With conditions." Even the new General Affairs Officer looked up at that. I found the whole scene faintly funny. Before noon, this had been one person's solo paperwork hell. A few hours later, four people sat here, and an Imperial princess was negotiating her way over the threshold. The Federation's efficiency, in certain contexts, is genuinely alarming. Maki didn't press. She waited. I met her eyes and finished it.

"Anything about Copernicus she's cleared to see by status — she wants first look." The look behind her eyes finally shifted. Not surprise. More like: of course. She'd already been pointing this direction. Just waiting for the exact wording. Watching that face, I felt an unreasonable flash of irritation. Every time things get complicated, Maki wears this expression — not cold, not detached, just the particular steadiness of someone accepting reality half a step ahead of everyone else. Useful, most days.

Other days it makes you want to throw the stapler at her, just to see if she'd finally look human.

"Isn't that a bit much?" Roy ventured, low.

"No," Maki said, immediately. The room paused. I raised a brow.

"That fast?"

"Because it's not an unreasonable condition." She pulled the draft out, flipping to a middle page.

"If we bring her in under the title and wall her off from everything that matters, that's the stupid move."

"I see." I leaned back.

"So the President's officially inviting the wolf through the door."

"Setting aside how rude that metaphor is" — she didn't look up — "tell me what you told her first."

"I said I couldn't guarantee everything." She gave one nod.

"Acceptable."

"Just acceptable?"

"You didn't overpromise on my behalf." She glanced up.

"That's worth something."

"Wow." I flattened my tone.

"The Council has a commendation system. Thought we only did overtime and funerals." Roy nodded, with terrible timing.

"So far, that's been my experience." I laughed despite myself. Without moving an eyelash, Maki slid another stack toward him.

"Since you have such insight, take this one too."

"..." Instant karma for speaking out of turn. His face went straight back to funeral-portrait mode. Lan ducked her head, shoulders shaking once — I suspected she was fighting a laugh. I pulled my attention back.

"So?"

"So, the Secretary slot stands," Maki said.

"Provided clearance is cut clean."

"Clean how?"

"She sees what she should. Not what she shouldn't." Her tone stayed as level as arranging a seating chart.

"If she's lending her name to the Council, she can't just be decoration. But we also can't lay everything bare without distinction." I watched her two seconds.

"That sounds like you'd already gamed this step out."

"I hadn't," she said, mild.

"This school's messes just tend to respond to the same method. Sort, grade, then pretend there's order."

"You make it sound like the Federation still has hope."

"I'm not that optimistic." I nearly laughed. Too true. And exactly the kind of true specific to Maki — not despair, not cynicism, just flipping reality over, looking at the underside, and calmly acknowledging the rot.

"Did she say anything else?" Maki asked. She meaning Hedwig, obviously. I thought about it.

"Yeah."

"Hm?"

"She said the Secretary isn't the point." I set my hand on the desk, finishing it slowly.

"The point is what the Federation's about to dress up in the label exchange." The office went quiet. Not the brief kind after a joke lands too far. Something actually settled. The two freshly-conscripted victims didn't know the full picture, but they clearly heard the edge in that sentence — not the kind of condition that belongs to ordinary club recruitment, and definitely not to an ordinary school trip. Maki turned a page, then back.

"Sounds like her."

"That's not a denial."

"Because I have no reason to deny it." She finally looked up, steady.

"That draft's been too clean from the start." Something pressed against a sore spot in my chest. I didn't answer — because that line was basically confirmation that what I'd sensed at noon wasn't paranoia. She'd seen it too. Earlier than I had.

"So you already thought something was off," I said.

"I did." She didn't dodge it.

"Just not enough."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning thinking it's off is worthless here." Her voice dropped, eyes on the files.

"You wait until it shows a seam — something you can actually grab. Right now it's a draft, an appendix, a prep-unit field, a liaison list, a few phrases trying too hard. Together, it's wrong. Not wrong enough to flip a table over yet." Roy looked like he wanted to say something and didn't. I knew that feeling — smelling blood in the air with no body in sight. The worst part isn't not knowing. It's knowing, and still having to act like you don't. I exhaled slowly.

"So what's the move?"

"Fill out the Council first," Maki said.

"I'll run the Secretary appointment through procedure. Copernicus — on the surface — proceeds as written."

"On the surface."

"What else?" She glanced at me.

"Storm Academic Affairs and slap the draft on the desk asking are you planning something?"

"Sounds cathartic."

"And extremely brief." Fair. I pictured it — satisfying for exactly one minute, zero constructive value. The Federation's real skill isn't answering questions. It's reclassifying whoever asks into a new spreadsheet field.

"And her?" I nodded at the draft.

"Since she's already bitten, when do we bring her in?"

"Sooner is better." I raised a brow.

"That urgent?"

"If she actually wants eyes on Copernicus, she won't stall." Maki paused.

"And getting her seated early works in our favor." Our. It came out so naturally I almost missed it. Not the Council's. Not the Federation's side. Ours. I looked at her. She seemed to register, half a beat late, which word she'd used. Her pen caught, briefly — but she didn't correct it. The other two hadn't noticed. Or had the sense not to show it. Something between a laugh and its opposite rose in my chest.

Because the more she did this, the harder it was not to think about the locked office at noon, the kiss that never got to finish, and the way she'd sat back down afterward, folding everything private back under that white uniform. It was all still there. Add a few desks, a few files, and she could pack herself right back into that flawless position, like it cost nothing. Sometimes I think being Seitokai President is just slow-motion self-harm with a title.

"I'll see her tomorrow," Maki said. I surfaced.

"You're going yourself?" Stolen novel; please report.

"Problem?"

"No." I rubbed my jaw.

"Just thought the visual would be interesting."

"Which visual."

"UIMA's President formally inviting the Empire's Third Princess." I let it sit, then added the twist.

"Sounds like both sides should sign a non-aggression pact first." Even Lan laughed, briefly, before ducking her head. Maki's face didn't move.

"And you."

"Me?"

"You opened it." She looked at me, dead level.

"You're there for the follow-through." I frowned.

"Is this payback dressed as policy?"

"Resource allocation."

"Knew it."

"And," she added after a pause, "with you there, the conversation doesn't die."... Fine. Couldn't argue that. Maki holds a situation steady; I'm better at punching a hole just big enough to let air through. Together, more effective than either alone. Still — the fact that she knows exactly how to use me, and I know exactly why she has to was irritating. Roy, listening, muttered: "I'm starting to feel like this Council isn't a normal administrative body." I turned to him.

"Congratulations. Your observation skills are finally earning their keep."

"Not a compliment, is it."

"Depends how low your expectations for your environment are." He looked more regretful than before. I understood completely — I'd hit the same realization around noon, the moment I understood I'd been dragged wholesale into this mess. Maki slid the draft back into its folder, fingers pressed to the cover like holding something down before it showed its full shape.

"That's it for now," she said.

"You two finish the handover packets. Shimo, stay." I glanced at her.

"Again?"

"Objection?"

"Yes," I said, instant.

"Doesn't matter, though." She almost smiled. Faint enough that if I hadn't been watching, I'd have missed it — which made it feel like it was only for me. The other two packed up with visible tact. Even the least perceptive person, this deep into the day, knows when to grab their life and their ledger and leave. Once the door clicked shut behind them, the air in the room drew tight again. I leaned back.

"Alright, say it now."

"Say what."

"You didn't keep me here just to watch Roy implode."

"That had some value too."

"Maki." She looked at me, finally lifting her hand off the folder.

"Hedwig coming in is a good thing," she said.

"At least before Copernicus formally enters process, we've got another set of eyes."

"You say that like we can actually change something."

"Maybe not," she said, quieter.

"But at least we won't be blind to how it happens." I went quiet two seconds. Heavier than expected — not President-speak, but Maki's actual thought. Not a delusion of stopping the machine. Just refusing to walk into it blindfolded. Very her. Very irritating. Because whenever she talks like that, jokes stop working as armor. I looked at the folder. Copernicus had stopped sounding like a destination. It sounded like a folded order, not yet fully opened.

"Got it," I said finally. She hummed.

"Also."

"Again?"

"Before tomorrow, get through the lunar-city history." I stared at her.

"... You're just holding a grudge."

"Filling a knowledge gap."

"That's a grudge."

"Then resent me while you memorize it." I nearly threw an empty folder at her. Unfortunately, she was right — again. The most infuriating thing about Maki is her talent for pushing you into something you don't want, that also happens to keep you from dying quite so ugly later. A talent. A deeply obnoxious one. I stood, pushed the chair in.

"Fine. I'll study."

"Good."

"But if Copernicus turns out to be anything but scenery, I'm billing the whole history assignment to you." She looked up, flat.

"It's already on my tab." I stopped. She'd already looked back down, like it was routine. But standing there, I had nothing to say — because she wasn't joking. She really thought that way. Council, draft, Copernicus, Hedwig, everything still unrevealed — she'd put it on her own shoulders first, even the parts outside her authority, even the parts her hands couldn't reach. Stupid. Very her. I watched her two more seconds, then picked up my bag and turned for the door. Hand on the handle, I stopped.

"I'll go with you tomorrow." Behind me, soft: "Mm." Still short. But lighter than before. I didn't turn back — just raised a hand and walked out. By the time I got back to No. 22 Platinum Bridge Street, it was almost nine. I'd meant to ride home with D and the others after classes. Made it to the parking lot before remembering — one person hadn't left yet.

So I, the nominal Vice President, turned back to do the one thing that fit the title and least resembled actual duty: wait for someone to clock out, carry her jacket, and preserve the Council's bare minimum dignity. At eight-thirty, President Maki Kushima officially ended her day. Officially meaning: last file pressed into a folder, pen capped, and, wearing the expression of someone who'd just fought clear of a paper avalanche with her collar still straight, declaring that was all for today. I drove her home.

No detours. Mostly exhaustion. Partly because I had zero romantic imagination left for going somewhere to unwind tonight. Social death by morning, paperwork by noon, labor conscription by afternoon, an Imperial princess nudged toward the roster to close it out — anyone still capable of looking up at the moon after a day like that had nerves more thoroughly fried than I'd estimated. At home, I showered first. Hot water finally made the day feel almost over.

By the time I'd dried my hair and worked through the bedtime routine Maki had forced on me — complained about every time, completed every time — it was about the hour for sleep. I was reaching for the light when she appeared in my doorway, holding a book. Not knocking. Just standing there, arms around the spine, watching me like this was entirely natural. Every alarm fired.

"What do you want."

"Half a year." She held it out, tone level as an administrative memo.

"That's roughly how long until the trip. Get the history straight now, so you don't embarrass yourself later." I looked at it. The cover was styled like old bound paper, edges artificially worn. These days, when something's made to look like a book, it usually means it isn't one.

"Starting the remedial work now?"

"Now, so six months from now doesn't repeat this afternoon."

"What was I like this afternoon." She paused exactly half a second.

"Like you were listening to human civilization the way you'd listen to a dining hall menu."... Right. A grudge. The kind that waits until after the shower, in pajamas, right before bed, to deliver revenge with supplementary materials. I took the fake book.

"President's got a lot of free time."

"Not much," she said, clean.

"Which is why this is all I brought." She didn't step in — just looked at me once, turned, and left. I stood there for two seconds before shutting the door. Inside, the book was exactly what I'd expected — hollow center, a slim data chip nested inside. Whoever made this had either a pathological attachment to retro aesthetics, or genuinely believed that disguising knowledge as paper made it harder to refuse than a plain terminal file. I slotted the chip into my bedside terminal. The screen lit.

Then a low, steady mechanical voice filled the room.

"After 2744 CE, when Old Earth Japanese scientist Dr. Soichiro Amano successfully developed humanity's first faster-than-light engine, the Spacetime Distortion Phase Thruster, humanity formally ended its inner-solar isolation, broke free of Old Earth's gravity well, and entered the age of light-year navigation — opening the millennia-long Great Cosmic Voyage—""Heard this already." I fast-forwarded, deadpan. Already been drilled on Generation One by Maki herself.

If humanity still hadn't learned its history after all this, the students couldn't be blamed entirely. The bar jumped. The voice picked back up.

"In March 2800 CE, after sixty-six years of colonial engineering, humanity completed the first fully self-sufficient lunar city with an artificial gravity system. This city would later be known as the Lunar Neutral City, Copernicus." I lay back, hands behind my head, staring at the ceiling. Copernicus. So that's where it started. My prior impression of the name had stopped at complicated, famous, and about to drag us into another kind of trouble. Hearing it now, the trouble level seemed historically consistent.

"In 3000 CE, humanity formally crossed the solar system's boundaries under its own technology. The Earth United Government declared the founding of the Universal Era that same year, designating it Year One of the Universal Calendar." Nothing wrong with that. Grand, progressive, and exactly like humanity to erect a monument to successfully expanding its own trouble from one planet to an entire sector. I skipped ahead.

Real remediation isn't listening to every second — it's grabbing what'll show up on the quiz, in conversation, or in one of Maki's pop tests. Decades of infrastructure, supplementary legislation, mining regulation tables — civilization wasn't going to collapse because I skimmed those tonight. The voice reached something worth hearing.

"In UC 300, human expansion reached its phase limit. A thirty-year Graviton Civil War erupted across the Old Solar System as major corporate cartels fought over active mineral deposits. The Copernicus dome sustained repeated breaches. The Old Earth economic zone and the outer colonial governance system briefly collapsed, and human civilization trended toward anarchism—" I sat up a little. Now that was interesting. So Copernicus didn't become a "neutral city" because everyone woke up one day with a conscience.

It became neutral because every side had already wrecked it thoroughly first. Which tracked. Humanity doesn't learn order from ideals. It learns a handful of survival rules by nearly blowing itself apart. The voice went on, steady.

"In January UC 350, House Wittelsbach, allied with the Hohenlohe Shipbuilding Cartel, issued the Declaration of Steel and Order. That same year, using the first-generation Leipzig-class dreadnought fleet as its core, they forcibly dissolved the loose Colonial Assembly and the Earth United Government, imposing sector-wide martial law."

"In April UC 350, the Galactic Empire was formally established, and the Universal Calendar abolished."

"In June, IC Year One, Friedmann I was formally crowned, becoming the Supreme Emperor of the Galactic Empire." Watching the waveform crawl across the screen, I started to understand why Maki had insisted on this. Because it wasn't just history. It was still alive — in the system, in the Academy, in Hedwig's permanently-too-composed face, in the gaps between the lines of the Copernicus draft. You think you're memorizing dates. You're actually reading the manual for the hole you're about to step in.

I skipped forward again. Then the part that mattered most.

"In August, UC 350 / IC Year One. Free-thinking scholars, officers, civilians, and regional houses who refused iron-fisted martial law gathered in secret under the Eastern System Families, forming an expeditionary force intending to break from Imperial control."

"The chosen young leader — Masayuki Tonami — led those unwilling to submit to the Empire out of the solar system entirely. This expeditionary body became the prototype for the later Ten Founding Families of the Galactic Federation." There it was. Leaning against the headboard, watching the faint glow in the dark, I thought the whole thing sounded like an enormously expensive runaway-from-home story that later generations had bound into a textbook. Ordinary people run away and get dragged back.

This group ran clean out of the solar system from the Imperial core, and took the Federation's ancestral legitimacy with them on the way out. No wonder both sides, after all this time, still can't treat each other as an ordinary enemy state. Each side probably looks at the other like a branch of the family that split badly and grew into its own separate monster. The voice kept going, indifferent to my commentary.

"In IC 202 / UC 550, after two hundred years of wandering, the expedition finally reached the outer Ursa Major sector, laying the groundwork for what would become the Galactic Federation."

"In IC 404 / UC 700, the Galactic Imperial Fleet and the Galactic Federation made first contact at Alpha Orionis. After brief probing and an exchange of fire, both sides withdrew. Over the following centuries, engagements of varying scale erupted repeatedly, gradually forming what later generations termed the Bipolar Sector Order." I hit pause. The room went quiet, just the terminal's faint glow left. I sat there a moment. Outside, the hallway was silent. By this hour, No.

22 usually settles — no matter how loud the day, how many people came home dragging their damage behind them, the house itself always quiets first, like it pulls everyone's noise into the walls overnight. I checked the playlist. More left. A lot more — Imperial consolidation, the Ten Families' restructuring, the first ceasefire, the second, how each broke, how Copernicus got redefined into a permanent neutral zone, and why the Federation and Empire still insist on staging these performative exchanges there now.

I thought about it, then let it keep playing. No more skipping. Because this next part was the part that actually concerned us.

"In IC 612 / FC 262, after repeated engagements, energy blockades, and a lunar transit crisis, both sides signed the Copernicus Anchorage Accord under mediation from the Neutral Commerce Council. Lunar City Copernicus, several near-orbit port zones, and their associated supply corridors gradually established informal demilitarized buffer rules."

"In IC 650 / FC 300, the Permanent Lunar Neutrality Declaration was established. Copernicus shifted from a mere colonial symbol into a political monument neither pole could afford to damage lightly — a financial intermediary and diplomatic showcase."

"For the four centuries that followed, Copernicus served as the designated venue for ceasefire negotiations, prisoner exchanges, academic exchange, commercial arbitration, and symbolic youth exchange." I laughed under my breath. Symbolic youth exchange. Beautifully put. In plain speech: you two hate each other, knives sharpened, but the cameras and the investors are here today, so push the young ones out front and pretend there's still something to negotiate. Clean. Disgusting. The voice continued.

"Because Copernicus simultaneously carries the origin memory of the Old Solar System, the pre-Imperial history, the Federation's founding exodus myth, and the trauma of the Graviton Civil War, its political symbolism far exceeds that of an ordinary neutral port. Any public event held at Copernicus inherently carries dual significance: domestic narrative and external signaling." I blinked. There it was. Domestic narrative. External signaling.

Meaning: the study trip, the friendly exchange, the student rep, the princess's speech — none of it was ever really for the students. It was for the cameras. For both sides' citizens. For investors, the military, the media, the great houses, the assembly, and everyone who hadn't officially left the table. Hedwig standing up there wasn't just giving a speech. Maki sitting behind those files wasn't just scheduling.

And the cadets shoved into the frame — us — might just be background filler holding the picture together. Thinking that, the noon draft got even more irritating. The more complete it looked, the more it meant someone had already drawn the whole picture in advance. I turned the volume down and let it run.

"In recent decades, the Federation and Empire have repeatedly used youth exchange, academy visits, lectures, and commemorative ceremonies as vehicles for limited contact at Copernicus. The purpose of such contact is rarely genuine mutual understanding — more often, it's demonstrating to third-party powers that both sides retain a surface capacity to be 'negotiable.'" Right. Even the study material was this honest. Made me want to salute whoever compiled it — at least they hadn't laid the lie on too thick.

I reached for the book and flipped it open. Inside the cover, a handwritten note — neat, precise, clearly not my handwriting. Three lines. Copernicus is not a sightseeing spot. It's a historical wound. Exchange isn't for understanding. It's to perform "still capable of understanding." Memorize these three. I stared at it, then laughed. Very Maki. Even her study notes read like an operations brief — no comfort, no encouragement, not even a pretense that knowledge is romantic.

Just the ugliest, most useful parts, pulled out and thrown at your face. No charm. Effective. I read it again, and thought of her standing in my doorway earlier — fresh from the shower, book in arms, calm as if just dropping something off in passing, when she'd actually pressed half a year of trouble onto my nightstand. Sometimes I think Maki's approach to romance and her approach to Council paperwork are the same method. Sort first. Prioritize. Predict where you'll screw up.

Then, before you notice, slide the fix into your hands. I glanced at the door. No sound outside. Probably back in her room by now. Or not — maybe still reading something else, still working out how to formally seat Hedwig tomorrow. The Copernicus draft was probably lying in some folder right now, pretending to be quiet, just like her. I looked back at the terminal.

Still playing — the last century now: how the great houses used Copernicus to keep a neutral financial chain alive, how both sides quietly kept regular military presence low there while packing the place fuller than anywhere else with intelligence officers, proxy agents, security contractors, and media observers. The more I listened, the less it sounded like a study trip. The more it sounded like someone had carpeted a battlefield and asked you to walk it in uniform. I lay back and let the voice keep going.

No more skipping — not because I'd suddenly fallen in love with history, but because I finally understood what Maki had actually asked me to learn. Not test material. Where we'd be standing in six months was never the moon. It was a wound. An old one, wrapped up by both sides into a monument, a financial port, a diplomatic window, an exchange stage. And wounds like that are always the ones that bleed easiest. The terminal kept droning — dates, accords, campaigns, language dressed up as civilized.

My eyes started to close. The last thought before sleep took over wasn't Copernicus, or the Empire, or the Federation's talent for writing war into procedure. It was: if Maki quizzes me tomorrow, I'd better have Dr. Amano's name and Copernicus's founding year locked down. Otherwise she'll use lunar history as an excuse to laugh at me again.... Not happening. Not on that front.