Chương 419: 194.Brawl 2

"Hoshino, Hedwig." Maki stood almost the same instant my "A fight?" left my mouth. Her chair scraped the floor with a short, sharp sound. She was already heading for the door, speaking quickly and without any spare words.

"Hoshino, where?" I pulled the terminal away from my ear, listened to Nikaido's clipped, controlled report, and answered Maki:"Third shooting range." Maki didn't slow down.

"What'd Nikaido say?" I hung up, shoved the terminal into my pocket, and fell in beside her.

"She said they got a report—there's a fight at Range Three." The second I said it, my gut dropped. Shit. I had a terrible gut feeling. It wasn't your run-of-the-mill"Guess we're staying late today" kind of dread, either. It was far more specific. Far more irritating. It felt like trouble had sprouted legs and arms, just waiting down the corridor to wave at me. The prelim rosters had gone up today. The third shooting range wasn't exactly a scenic spot people wandered through when they were bored.

If a fight broke out there now, odds were nine out of ten it was tied to the selection. And once it was tied to the selection, it was never going to be as simple as some jerk mouthed off and got hit. A few minutes later, we didn't even have to step fully into the third range to hear it. Not a couple of raised voices. Real, honest brawling. Soling scraping, fists thudding into bodies with that heavy, meaty sound, someone yelling, someone swearing, the sharp metallic reverberation of a barrier being slammed into.

Winter hardens sound. In the lingering cold right after the holiday, it all rang sharper, like someone had taken the school rules down off the wall and was using them to beat people over the head. Maki's brow dropped immediately. Hedwig said nothing, just lengthened her stride. She was in the formal winter uniform with a dark coat over it, hair tied neatly—she looked like she was walking to a high-level reception, not rushing to break up a mass fight.

Which only made putting her in the same frame as this scene two levels more absurd. We rounded the last corner of outer wall. The first thing I saw was color. Blue. White. Excellent. Upper House versus Lower House. Again. We got this at least a hundred times a term. Of course, you'd never see that number in official records. On paper it became "student disagreement" or "physical shoving incident during competitive event coordination." Strip it down and it was just a fight. The Upper House looking down on the Lower.

The Lower sick of the Upper. On normal days, with Disciplinary officers, teachers, and schedules pressing down, everyone pretended to be civilized. Drop a prelim roster that stepped directly on top of spots, honor, and ego, and civilization peeled off like cheap paint. I looked a little closer. And my face dropped halfway off. A blue-haired, sleep-deprived-looking girl was throwing brutal blows—one hand clamped firmly onto an Upper House guy's shoulder, the other driving a ruthless shot straight into his gut.

Beside her, a flash of gold stood out sharply in the crowd, moving with an elegance that looked less like a brawl and more like she was observing proper courtly etiquette as she casually pinned someone to the floor.

"Are you kidding me—Akari? Harvey?" The names were out before I could stop them. The instant they left my mouth, that bad feeling in my stomach hit ground. Not randoms. Not some candidate I'd never met. Not faceless uniforms I could write off as "well, they had it coming." Our own people from 22 Platinum Bridge Street. The New Year's workload really wasn't holding back on anyone.

"Save the commentary, Hoshino," Maki said, voice ice-cold.

"Get them separated.""'Kay." I rolled my shoulders, flexing my fingers one by one, feeling unreasonably cheerful.

"I did eat well over the holidays. Good to get some exercise." Maki clearly realized which style of "mediation" I was about to deploy. Her step hitched; she turned.

"Hoshino." There was already a warning in that one word. Too late. I grinned at her, giving what I considered a very service-oriented smile.

"Mediating." I stepped forward, wrist rolling loose.

"Physically." The Upper House brats had it four-on-two. One of those two was a girl. Anyone with a shred of self-respect would avoid this math when they picked a fight. Then again, anyone with a shred of self-respect wouldn't be out here in sub-zero weather, trying to use their fists to make a point in the third shooting range. When I got close, one Upper House boy had Akari pinned awkwardly against a rail, his fist cocked high and ready to slam down.

Akari hadn't lost ground yet, but the position sucked and she didn't have a hand free. I stepped up behind him and, very politely, tapped his shoulder. He turned, face twisted in the universal expression of who the hell is touching me right now. My uppercut arrived before the rest of his thought did. It landed with a clean, satisfying crack. He flew backwards and slammed into a plastic-steel partition with a crash loud enough to give the Dean of Academic Affairs a stroke on the spot.

I shook out my hand and felt much better.

"Hey, Harvey," I jerked my chin in his direction and smiled, very friendly.

"You're not being very fair. Something this fun and you didn't call me?" Harvey knocked aside a white-uniformed arm that came at him, still wearing that permanently under-slept, half-dead face. The words that came out of his mouth were pure provocation.

"If you were here, I'd get fewer hits in."

"Watch your mouth, kid." I was about to tag the upper body of another white uniform charging forward when I saw Harvey reach into his side pocket and pull out a wrench. I went silent for a second.

"You brought a wrench to a fistfight?" Harvey barely raised an eyelid, his tone as righteously correct as if he were reciting operational procedures.

"As a proper mechanic, having a wrench or two on you is perfectly normal."

"Normal my ass." I grabbed the next fist that came flying my way, twisted the arm sideways, and drove my knee into the back of the kid's leg, dumping him onto the ground. Akari finally managed to slip off the rail. Her hair was a bit mussed, her breathing a little shortened, a smudge of gray on her cheek and her cuff half-ruined. Her face, however, was calm—as if she'd just been dealing with a particularly stubborn piece of machinery and not in the middle of a brawl.

This girl was getting more unsettling by the day.

"Harvey, do not hit anyone with that thing," I shouted over.

"I've got control," he said.

"The last guy who said that blew the ceiling off the lab."

"That was D, not me." … Nice how he kept that so clearly sorted. With the boards and lane dividers, the third range made an excellent mixed-terrain brawl arena. The Upper House kids had relied on numbers at the start. Once Harvey and I blew that rhythm apart, their momentum nosedived. Maki didn't plunge into the center of the punches. She held the perimeter, voice snapping across the space. Anyone trying to break off or circle around ran headfirst into one cold "Stop" and an even colder look.

That actually worked on one or two who still had half a neuron of judgment left. That was the accumulated credit of Maki Kushima. Annoying. But very useful. Hedwig held a point half a step ahead of Maki. At first I was half-distracted, thinking that putting Her Highness in the kill zone of a schoolyard brawl was a diplomatic incident in the making. Reality corrected me very quickly. Sometimes the person you think is the most fragile is not the one who needs protection.

One Upper House boy, thrown off his groove, suddenly feinted, dropped low, and tried to slip through near where Maki was. My stomach lurched. Not because Maki couldn't fight. I knew very well she could. The problem was, Hedwig was standing just a little in front of her. If he got through, the first one to take a hit might not be Maki. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. The next second, I was the one in shock.

Hedwig slid half a step sideways, neat as if she'd calculated his center of gravity in advance. One hand locked his wrist, the other shot into the space between his shoulder and back, and she turned her waist— Thud. A perfect, competition-grade shoulder throw you did not expect to see at a campus brawl. He went over, back first, and hit the ground hard enough that I winced in sympathetic pain for the air in his lungs. When Hedwig straightened, only one strand of her hair had come loose.

She looked down at the dazed boy like she was the one startled by such a sudden, rough charge, and even had the composure to exhale seriously.

"Charging in like that is very dangerous," Hedwig said. I almost choked on my own breath. No, Your Highness. The dangerous one here is very obviously you. I'd just almost died watching that. For a fleeting moment, I wanted to stand in silence for the brave soul who'd just tried her. Some people's last miscalculation in life wasn't picking a fight with someone who could throw a punch. It was mistaking the quietest-looking person for decoration. The remaining white uniforms clearly felt it too.

One of them instinctively took a step back, wearing exactly the expression of what the hell lives in that house of yours. I used the opening to drive my elbow into the next kid barreling toward Harvey. Harvey followed with a strike to the wrist using the flat of the wrench—so, fine, at least he'd listened when I told him not to brain anyone with it. A sharp whistle trilled from the distance. Long, short, long. Nikaido, with her… oh no, sorry, with the Disciplinary Committee, had finally arrived.

White boots on snow, quick, tight formation, whistle and commands. Very Disciplinary. Very Nikaido. She came into view, took in the kids on the ground, then the ones still breathing hard, Harvey, Akari's crooked cuff, me flexing my wrist, and— Hedwig. Standing there, perfectly composed, posture impeccable. Nikaido visibly glitched.

"Hoshino Shimo… why is Her Highness also—" Her face in that moment was easily the best spiritual compensation I had all day. Unfortunately, the good mood only lasted half a second. Because this was where my job started. They say in a group fight, once you get the water properly muddy, it's much easier to haul everyone out later. So I threw my hand up and, before anyone else could start a properly honest account, jumped in first:"Nikaido, perfect timing!

Four Upper House on one and a half, and then they tried to rush the Council President and Her Highness. We were just engaged in lawful self-defense and assisting in maintaining school order!"

"One and a half?" Harvey said, utterly unhelpful.

"Meaning you look like you've only slept half of what a functioning human being should, so don't nitpick wording right now."

"Hoshino," Maki finally cut in, her voice so level it was frightening.

"Be quiet." I shut up. Because when she called my name like that in a situation like this, it usually meant she'd already started the second-by-second math in her head: stabilizing the field, separating people, shielding who, which names needed to be pulled back under control before this escalated past the school's ability to contain it. My job was no longer to throw lines. It was to stand inside the line she'd drawn and help drag the rest of the chaos back in.

By then Nikaido had shaken it off and was barking orders at her Disciplinary officers. They moved in, separated people, pinned them, took names, checked for injuries. The snow still bore the stomped traces of the brawl. Breathing came heavy. Swearing still sparked here and there. The looks being traded were full of teeth. But the situation was creeping back into something that could be processed on paper.

I stood at the edge of the range, looking down at the reddening skin across my knuckles, and felt a sigh trying to claw its way out. The prelims hadn't officially started. But the opening ceremony was apparently already over. Great. The New Year's pace really had no interest in easing us in.

"What the hell were you two thinking?" I scrubbed a hand through my hair and stared at the pair in front of me—two people who really did not look like they'd be the ones to blow the place up.

"One of you only cares about machines. The other never sleeps enough. Where'd all this energy come from today?" Akari took a long breath and tucked back a loose strand of midnight-blue hair. Her cuff was still slightly crooked. There was a streak of gray on her cheek. Her expression, however, was steady. So steady it felt less like she'd just been trading punches at the third range and more like she'd just dealt with a piece of faulty equipment.

"I'll explain," she said. She swiped her terminal at mine. I held mine up to sync. A set of admin pages opened: authorization info from the Academic Affairs office. Approval for continuous use of the third range, application date, authorized time slot, usage notes—all lined up neatly, the timestamps so clean you'd almost want to clap for the administration system.

"Filed before the break?" I asked as I scrolled.

"Yes." Akari nodded.

"Harvey and I booked it to tune our rifles today." She finished, tipped her chin toward the white uniforms currently being pinned down by Disciplinary officers, each face darker than the last.

"And then they came to cause trouble." Short sentence. But coming from Akari, that cause trouble hit harder than it sounded. Because her tone didn't sound like complaining. More like she was describing low-intelligence lifeforms interfering with precision work. Harvey stood beside her, eyelids still at the same permanent seventy-percent-open they always seemed stuck at, like he'd never once actually slept enough in his life.

His voice, however, came out deliberately a notch louder—loud enough that everyone present could hear.

"They should be grateful." He tested the weight of the wrench in his hand, sounding almost bored.

"Grateful Akari was only loaded with blanks." I looked up at him. Before I could say a thing, Akari finished the thought, voice absolutely calm.

"If it had been a laser rifle," she said, "I'd have burned holes straight through them." I was quiet for a second. The faces of the Upper House boys in earshot all tightened. Excellent. First day of the New Year: brawl, check. Threat metaphors, also check. Our campus culture really was thriving.

"You'd better just be speaking metaphorically," I said.

"For now," Akari answered, perfectly honest. … I decided not to interrogate that "for now." I ran my eyes over the authorization forms one more time, looking for any hooks. Nothing. The story was simple: Akari and Harvey had the reservation. The others rolled in after and started shit. Add freshly posted prelim rosters, the location, and the age-old Upper-Lower House problem, and the rest wrote itself. This wasn't a misunderstanding. Someone had gone looking for trouble.

I slid my terminal back into my pocket and walked over to where Nikaido stood. She was just off-center in the range, clipboard in hand, her frown cut low. Disciplinary officers had one side of the kids boxed up for ID and another for injury checks. Footprints and scuff marks distorted the snow. Stage one—everyone's hitting everyone—had transitioned to stage two—everyone stand in one place and wait for judgment. I stopped at her shoulder.

"I'm done here," I said. Nikaido looked up.

"Conclusion?" I angled my chin at the white uniforms.

"Someone went out of their way to stir things up." She didn't answer immediately. She just wrote two more lines on the clipboard. Her posture was as precise as ever. Her ice-blue hair barely stirred in the cold. She'd turned discipline into something that could stand in the snow on two legs. Annoying, again. But in times like this, having Nikaido present really did make it easier.

"Usage papers?" she asked. I transferred Akari's approval sheet to her. Her eyes ran from time, location, and authorization number straight down the page. When she finished, her expression had iced over another degree.

"Facility use is legitimate," she said.

"Told you," I said.

"Our people didn't randomly snap."

"Hoshino Shimo."

"Present."

"Please refrain from using phrases like our people that undermine the neutrality of the incident record."

"…You're nitpicking wording now?"

"It's precisely at times like this that wording matters." Perfect. Pure Nikaido. Cold in all the most irritating ways, and all the most useful ones. I had zero desire to waste blood pressure on arguing semantics. So I went straight to the point.

"Anyway, the gist is this: Akari and Harvey had a valid reservation. The other side barged in after and threw the first punch." I nodded at the cluster of white uniforms.

"If those Upper House idiots weren't rotten in the head, then they thought those jackets were all-access passes." One of the boys pinned under a Disciplinary officer's hand snapped his head up, words fighting to get out.

"We're the ones who—""Be quiet." That didn't come from me. It came from Maki. She crossed the range in that moment, steps unhurried, voice not raised—but the second she spoke, the noise dipped half a notch. That wasn't fists. That was the credit of someone who'd spent a long time holding people and problems exactly where they needed to be. Maki stopped beside Nikaido and me, swept the scene once, then glanced at the clipboard.

"Names confirmed?" she asked.

"In process," Nikaido said.

"Injuries?"

"No serious trauma," one of the Disciplinary officers reported at once.

"Bruises, scrapes, minor impacts only."

"Medical room anyway," Maki said.

"All of them. I do not want to see anyone turning delayed internal bleeding into school negligence in my report."

"Yes, ma'am." She finished the essentials before turning to me. Her look was pure business. Clean. No trace of the heat from the break room. But I could still see her thinking very quickly behind it, and I was pretty sure she'd already made up her mind.

"Shimo," Maki said.

"Your call?" I thought about it. Not for long. The worst part of this kind of thing wasn't the fight itself. It was the timing. The prelim rosters had gone up this morning. Tomorrow, the government and military delegation would be on campus. So would Maki's grandfather. Colonel Leo. Dr. Steiner. People whose names alone made you not want to embarrass yourself in front of them.

Turn this into a formal hearing now, and you'd do two things at once: skew the entire prelim atmosphere and hand ammunition to every Upper–Lower House faction that already had its jaws open. In other words— We weren't not going to punish them. We just weren't going to do it loud and early.

"Here's my suggestion," I said.

"Classify and close the incident. Lock in the record. Initial responsibility on the instigators. Sanctions on hold until after the main competition." The white uniforms immediately pulled faces halfway between angry and panicked. I didn't have the bandwidth to appreciate their suffering today. Nikaido frowned lightly.

"On hold?"

"Yeah." I met her eyes.

"Frozen, not forgiven." Maki didn't interrupt. So I kept going.

"The brackets just went up. Everyone's watching. Tomorrow we've got the government and the military here. If we drag this into formal review now, all we'll do is drag the entire prelims sideways. Illegal entry, provocation, physical disruption—we write it all. Every word. Every piece of testimony, every medical note, every approval record. Not one gap." I lifted my chin toward the white uniforms.

"As for them, they get written warnings today. Temporary ban from the third range and related training areas. Explanation statements, in full. And the real hit comes after the tournament. If any of them tries this again—" I smiled.

"Then we stop putting things on hold and send them off with interest."

"Hoshino Shimo," Maki said softly.

"I know, I know. We leave the second half out of the official document." I shut my mouth, very professionally. Nikaido stared at me for a few seconds. I knew she was calculating—the discipline, the procedure, whether this would look like the Disciplinary Committee favoring the Lower House, or the Seitokai burying an incident. That was her particular brand of trouble. It wasn't that she didn't understand reality. She just demanded that reality at least try to look like procedure while it was happening.

Unfortunately, this time I really did think I was right. After a moment, she turned back to the Upper House boys.

"This incident will be provisionally defined as unauthorized entry into an approved facility, instigation and escalation of conflict, and disruption of campus order," she said, voice as cold and steady as ice.

"All parties will provide written statements. Records will be jointly kept by the Disciplinary Committee and the Seitokai. Effective immediately, the third shooting range and relevant training areas are temporarily restricted for those involved." She paused, then added the last line.

"Formal disciplinary action will be held pending conclusion of the selection tournament and related events." One of the white uniforms exploded.

"Committee Chair, that's—""Silence," Nikaido said, without even looking at him.

"If you have objections to the outcome, you may express them in writing. Not with your fists in a shooting range." Beautiful. That line was worth money. It wasn't just scolding him. It pinned the whole mess back onto the rules. You can be unhappy. But you're going to be unhappy according to procedure. You can make noise, but the Disciplinary Committee will file the noise itself into the record before anything else. That's what actual civilized discipline looks like.

Harvey, hearing the words "discipline on hold," only gave a small snort, like he thought that was too soft. Akari was quieter; when a Disciplinary officer told her to head to Medical for checks, she went over to the gear box first and carefully put her training rifle away. Watching that, I couldn't help asking:"You really thought about burning them into donuts?" Akari didn't look up.

"Yes."

"…That honest, huh."

"But I only brought blanks today."

"I heard that part already."

"So this is proof of how restrained I was." I genuinely didn't know whether to praise her for growth. Maki came to stand by my shoulder then, voice dropping.

"This won't stop here."

"I know." I watched the white uniforms being led off for documentation, and dropped my own volume.

"People who come looking for this usually aren't just bored." She nodded once.

"The list goes up, the range blows up. Not a coincidence."

"Which means someone else is going to try another angle later."

"Probably." I sighed. The prelims really hadn't even started and they were already proving their reliability as trouble engines. Rules, face, factions, status, the whole Upper–Lower split—everything had already done a warm-up round on this patch of snow. Hedwig stood a little further off, talking to a very nervous-looking Disciplinary officer asking if she'd been hurt. Her expression was calm. She even had enough bandwidth to add, regarding the man she'd just thrown:"His left shoulder hit first.

You should check that as well." … Her Highness really did manage to throw someone into the floor with full follow-up care. I suddenly felt a little sorry for everyone waiting to watch the prelims. They probably thought they'd be seeing youth, honor, competition, and passion. In practice, what opened first was faction friction, Disciplinary record-keeping, the Seitokai patching holes, and an Imperial princess who would throw you and then remind Medical to check your shoulder. Perfect.

This school really did know how to educate. I shoved my hands back into my pockets, blew out a cloud of white breath, and looked up at the blank gray sky over the third range. The tournament hadn't begun. But I was already very clear: this year's prelims weren't just going to test who hit hardest, ran fastest, or picked the best positions. They were also going to test— Who could keep doing their job with the highest number of people losing their minds.

And in that event, our school was clearly already carrying years of practice.