Chương 420: 195.Unscheduled Performance 1

Before the opening ceremony — the VIP entrance The campus this morning was lively enough to suggest it hadn't slept at all last night. I stood by the reception lane at the edge of the central plaza, watching the drill team toss their rifles up and catch them again, so in sync it was almost aggressive; on the other side, the cheer squad's music was loud enough to make a person who'd only come to watch a match wonder if they'd wandered into some festival legally sanctioned by an educational institution.

Red-and-blue flags, temporary stands, school-crest banners, signage, cameras, students in uniform dashing back and forth, and administrators who you could tell at a glance would soon be talking officialese about the order of the program — everything was complete, everything was glossy, everything was arranged to look like "only positive, youthful, front-page-of-the-school-newspaper-worthy things will happen here today." Which was, of course, an illusion. The thing schools were never best at was cultivating youth.

It was wrapping everything unsightly in scenery expensive enough to pass inspection. Today, for instance. Out here it was lively, as lively as if the whole school had lined up to applaud for glory; and inside the heated VIP room I was about to enter sat people from the political, business, and military worlds. Those people didn't need to applaud.

They only needed to watch, and after watching, decide who was most entitled to resources next, who was worth courting, and who needed a good bending before they'd finished growing. Youth athletics. What a nice phrase. Which, translated, roughly meant — deciding, in a form slightly less ugly than the alternative, who was worth investing in early.

"You're thinking something rude again." Maki, standing to my left, pronounced judgment on me without even looking my way. I turned my head to look at her. She wasn't wearing her usual platinum-white Student Council coat — the most symbolic outfit she had — but the full ceremonial ensemble reserved for formal receptions. White base, gold trim, black tie; the deep-blue pleated skirt hanging ruler-straight, the blue-and-gold Student Council armband on her left arm so clean in the morning light it was almost cold.

Her high ponytail was tied with not a strand out of place, down to the arc of the ends looking pre-checked against the dress-code sheet. Standing like that, she looked like a sentence — if order had the right to be personified, this is what it would look like today.

"I'm not being rude," I said.

"I'm doing structural analysis." Maki answered flatly.

"Your kind of analysis usually makes things harder to wrap up."

"That's because the things themselves never wanted to be wrapped up properly." She finally turned her head to look at me. That look was familiar. Not blame, not warning. More like she was re-evaluating whether stationing me on the front line of the reception lane had been a decision that survived rational thought. Unfortunately, that decision had most likely not been hers.

If it had been up to Maki, she'd probably have put me somewhere with a view of the whole field, but behind three layers of physical soundproofing required before speaking.

"At least this morning," she said, "keep your mouth on a shorter leash."

"That sounds like an unreasonable demand to make of the weather."

"I know." she said. Flatly. She wasn't the type to trade ten rounds with you in public. She usually said one sentence and left the other nine for you to reflect on yourself — or to settle into the ledger at night. On my right hand, forming a completely different kind of cold source alongside Maki, stood Hedwig von Wittelsbach.

If Maki's coldness was that low-temperature precision molded layer by layer from family, propriety, duty, and corporate logic; then Hedwig's coldness was closer to something else — the scale in which error is not permitted. Today she wore a sharply tailored navy military-style uniform, silver piping so even it looked pressed with a ruler, her gold hair braided up from both sides and falling back into a straight sheet.

Her face was beautiful past the point of human feeling; her icy blue eyes didn't even make a show of pressure, and yet simply having her standing here dropped the room's speaking volume half a degree by itself, as if even the air knew she wasn't someone to be casually disturbed. I'd always felt the truly terrifying thing about Hedwig wasn't her coldness. It was that her coldness wasn't emotion. It was prioritization.

For her, the things most people would struggle with for a long time — like, dislike, embarrassment, hesitation, dignity, whether a scene looked good — weren't at the top of the list. What she looked at first were the bigger, heavier, more impersonal things. And now, this Third Imperial Princess carrying an empire-grade backdrop stood in the campus's opening-ceremony VIP reception zone, doing the final confirmation of the guest list. Just thinking about it made you feel the world had no sense of humor.

"The third convoy's arrival time just moved up three minutes." Hedwig said. She wasn't saying it to me, and she wasn't saying it to Maki. She was closer to giving orders to reality itself, then informing us that reality had just changed the rules. Maki immediately looked down at her tablet.

"The north entrance?"

"Mm."

"What about the assigned escort staff?"

"Blocked by the media." I said. Maki looked up at me.

"How do you know?"

"Because over there there are three cameras, a mic stand, and a local reporter smiling like the moment she catches someone she'll jam the questions up their nose." Maki was silent for half a second.

"... If you put even half the speed you use on observations like that into the actual job, a lot of people would be moved."

"I'm doing the actual job right now." Hedwig added, flatly.

"She is, in fact, doing the job." I turned my head toward her, raising one eyebrow slightly.

"Rare. You, sticking up for me."

"I'm not sticking up for you." Hedwig said without lifting her eyes.

"I'm merely confirming that the information source still retains value." Very reasonable. Very accurate. And very unsuited to boosting anyone's self-esteem. But maybe it was my imagination — I kept feeling that when she finished, the corner of Maki's mouth had moved with the tiniest of motions. Small enough to be a hairline crack in ice that only I could see. I sighed.

"Should I be thanking the two of you for treating me as a human resource today instead of a risk factor?" Maki said: "The two can coexist." Hedwig said: "You've always been both." I looked at the two of them on the spot.

"Are you two a little too in sync today?"

"It's not sync." Maki said. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"It's facts." Hedwig finished. I nearly laughed. That was the worst part. The two of them were clearly not the same kind of person — one was the correct product pressed out by a traditional great family and corporate order, the other a princess shouldering the rise and fall of six quintillion people of the entire Galactic Empire — so by rights, their coldness should have had a clear dividing line. But the moment they decided to form a united front against me, the effect got alarmingly similar.

The only difference: Maki made you feel like you'd broken a school rule; Hedwig made you feel like you might have just accidentally wobbled the galactic order. Just then, a louder swell of cheers came from across the plaza. The drill team had officially started.

Silver rifle bodies arced up into the morning sun along trajectories so uniform they made you uncomfortable; the band rolled in right on top, beats precise, volume precise, so precise I suspected they weren't actually trying to hype the crowd but to methodically inform every guest: this school is capable of packaging youth like a national product. Maki glanced out.

"Outer field, on schedule."

"The outer field is always going to look on schedule," I said.

"The actually abnormal things are all somewhere with air conditioning." Maki frowned.

"Shimo."

"Fine, I'll shut up." I raised a hand in cooperation. And then, at that moment, Hedwig smiled. Just slightly. Not noticeably. Not even really an audible laugh. More like her gaze, for one instant, shifted half a notch from "calculation" toward "human." A shift small enough to be dangerous, rare enough to feel like a hallucination. And I happened to see it. Looking at her, I blinked in spite of myself. Hedwig sensed my gaze and smoothed her expression back flat at once, as if that flicker had never existed.

"What are you looking at?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"Your nothing usually means quite a lot of something."

"Is that line from the same database you share with Maki?" Maki turned her face away — this time, she really was on the verge of laughing and not laughing. I had to admit, the scene was absurd. A Student Council president of a Federation military academy. An Imperial Third Princess. And me — someone who didn't fit into any standard reception system at all.

The three of us stood together in the VIP reception zone, watching the streamers, drill team, cheer squad, stands, school flags, and a chorus of "long live youth" outside; while getting ready to usher a group of political, business, and military guests safely into the heated room, where they'd continue, in comfortable temperatures, the things no competition rulebook could put into writing, yet which would influence the entire team-selection preliminary.

This nation's — no, this galaxy's — education system really was sick at an impressive scale.

"They're here." Hedwig said. At the north entrance, a column of black vehicles was already gliding slowly into the campus reception line. The advance staff moved at once — earpieces, hand signals, name badges, route confirmation, all in one breath. The glass of the entrance threw back the morning light, cutting inside from outside into two worlds. Outside: music, applause, chants, flags, hems, boots, youth. Inside: air conditioning, guest lists, seating charts, lineages, positions, interests.

It suddenly struck me that opening ceremonies were a lot like a large-scale magic performance. The most dazzling part was always out front, and the hand that truly decided the outcome had usually been behind the curtain all along. Maki drew a breath, her voice level.

"Let's begin." When she said that, she was already in work mode. Not last night. Not at home. Not the Maki Kushima who got irritated into the smile of an ordinary high-school girl. The one standing here now was the one who could hold the scene together. Hedwig was the same. That faint loosening, still like an illusion moments ago, had been pulled back entirely into the invisible. She looked like a freshly re-sheathed blade now — not undangerous, just unwilling to waste the danger.

And I, squeezed between the two of them, suddenly felt a strange déjà vu. Like I wasn't here to receive VIPs. I was here to testify that these two people, who by rights shouldn't laugh like ordinary high-school girls, had indeed laughed. With that thought, I couldn't help murmuring a line.

"Somehow I feel today isn't going to be peaceful." Maki didn't look at me, just answered:"Which day was?" Hedwig was blunter.

"If it were peaceful, we wouldn't need to be standing here." Fair enough. That wasn't wrong either. The first vehicle came to a stop. The door opened. People in formal dress, military uniform, and suits got out one after another. Badges, shoulder boards, cufflinks, tie clips — every item reminding you these people weren't here to watch students compete. They'd come to see who was worth betting on, who was worth expecting things of, who was worth keeping an eye on. And we three stood at the very front of that lane.

Like three different endpoints on a single line. Order. Empire. And trouble. I tugged at my gloves, adjusted my stance, raised my face, and put on a reception smile I thought passable. Then silently hoped that the first person I'd irritate today wouldn't show up too early. Because if it was too early, Maki would take notes; if she took notes, Hedwig would probably take the opportunity to evaluate my cost of existence; and neither of those was a suitable morning program for an opening ceremony.

Unfortunately, fate has never been much for accommodating my goodwill. Because the next second, the first guest to get out of the car lifted his head, looked straight through the crowd, and landed his gaze squarely on us. And it wasn't at Maki. And it wasn't at Hedwig. It was at me. Standing between the two of them, I sincerely felt that the school assigning these three to receive the VIPs carried some intent to test the building's earthquake resilience.

When the first car stopped, applause happened to rise outside. Good timing. As if even the world believed in background music for the arrival of power. The door opened. The man who got out was none other than Calando Rosen, the Defense Commissioner. I straightened my back almost instantly. Not out of respect — mostly instinct.

People like him carried a peculiar aura: you could know for a fact you'd brought the right student ID today, and yet the moment he looked at you, you'd still instinctively start checking whether you'd missed a signature on some form.

"My, if it isn't Hoshino." Calando Rosen's voice still had that oily quality polished by repeated public exposure — friendly and dangerous at once, like a fine needle tucked into a box of premium sweets. I put on a reception smile standard enough to film a promotional video with.

"Commissioner, welcome to the campus—" He didn't even shake my hand. Calando Rosen merely tossed me a smile that said "I know who you are," and then his gaze passed clean over me, landing on Maki. Utterly brisk. As brisk as if I were the opening credits and Maki were the main text.

"Please send my regards to your father and to the Chairman." Maki lowered her head slightly — posture, angle, volume all flawless.

"I'll pass them along, Commissioner." Calando Rosen nodded, didn't pause a single second longer, and walked in under escort. Just like that. I stood where I was, watching the Defense Commissioner disappear behind the glass door of the heated room, and the first thought in my head wasn't hurt — it was: ah. Of course. This was Maki Kushima's world. You thought she was standing here as a student council officer.

But in certain people's eyes, she was also the daughter of the Kushima family, a node in the Kushima Group's power web, the greeting window through which future trade and cooperation could be sustained. I tilted my head to look at Maki.

"Your life must be exhausting." Maki's expression didn't change.

"This isn't the time for reflections."

"I'm not reflecting. I'm observing a moment of silence for the social structure."

"Observing a moment of silence for your own mouth would be more practical." I was about to answer back when the second vehicle slid in. This time I had my brow furrowed before the door even opened. Because the man getting out was someone I genuinely disliked, and unfortunately also counted as an acquaintance — Colonel Leo Wiesland. No — according to his own public statements, he was supposedly "civilian administration" now.

I had no particular feelings about the rank update, mainly because this man's way of being annoying was consistent no matter what his business card printed. He got out, saw me, and sure enough wore that infuriatingly familiar expression.

"Hoshino Shimo, how's it going?" Colonel Leo Wiesland — fine, I'd keep calling him that for now, it rolled better — walked over with the air of a man who'd shared years of revolutionary camaraderie with me and could head off for afternoon tea together any minute.

"Looks like you're enjoying this colorful campus life of yours." I smiled at him. That very polite, very standard smile that could make bystanders think I had excellent upbringing.

"My, Colonel Wiesland, you're too kind." Then I reached out and took his hand. And, with utmost sincerity, increased the pressure. The smile on his face froze for zero point three seconds. Not long. But enough to make me happy.

"... Hoshino," he maintained that worldly-wise dignified look, "your grip has promising prospects to match your new height."

"Thank you for the compliment," I smiled even more warmly, "since I can't rely on words alone to convey my longing every time I see the Colonel." Maki drew in a small breath beside me. That wasn't surprise. That was her standard prelude to "Hoshino Shimo is at it again." Hedwig looked at the two of us, expression completely unchanged, as if this degree of civilian dispute wasn't yet fit to be escalated to an imperial-level case. Maintaining my smile, I steered Wiesland a couple of steps back and to the side.

Small motion — to the outside eye, no more than a reception staffer helpfully adjusting a guest's entry line; to Wiesland's wrist, it probably felt more like being dragged into a blind corner by a medium-sized, mildly displeased bird of prey for questioning.

"What are you doing here?" I asked in a low voice.

"Dr. Steiner isn't on the guest list." Wiesland's eyebrows moved with resignation.

"The Doctor is very busy, you know. Hoshino, could you let go first?"

"Aren't you military, Colonel?"

"I'm civilian administration." I narrowed my eyes.

"Bullshit. Weren't you commander of Centaurus?"

"Transferred to civilian."

"..." I stared at him for two seconds. The world had many kinds of lies. One kind was a bureaucrat saying he'd only come to check on you.

"So what are you actually here for?" Colonel Leo Wiesland looked at me, his expression oddly natural.

"To check on you." I performed an eye-roll on the spot, at a magnitude probably recordable in campus disrespect reports.

"Colonel," I said, "would you like to experience some authentic campus bullying?" He actually still managed to smile.

"You've grown taller and meaner, Hoshino. You used to be so small and cute." I felt my sanity get stepped on by that sentence on the spot. So I very calmly reached to one side and pulled a mop out of the cleaning cart. Yes. A mop. One of civilized society's closest equivalents to a polearm, and one of the hardest to write up in a report. I hefted the mop in one hand and pointed it at him.

"Any last words?" That scene happened so naturally that Maki only finally spoke up at this point.

"Shimo." Just one word. But the meaning was very complete, roughly translating to: take one more step and I'll have you written into a report yourself first. Wiesland, sensibly, raised both hands.

"I surrender." he said.

"There are a lot of big officials today. I'm here for decoration."

"No." Mop in hand, I narrowed my eyes at him.

"You're here to bring your superiors to inspect the goods." At those words, the expression on Wiesland's face finally stopped looking like an administrative promotional film for one instant. Briefly. But I saw it. I knew my guess was right. So I advanced the mop another inch.

"Colonel Wiesland, I don't do fire-hoop jumps or monkey shows."

"Relax," he smiled with a certain resignation, also something like a person soothing a cat ready to trash the venue at any moment, "just a look." I wasn't reassured at all. Because a "just a look" from a man like him was about the same as "we're just doing a routine check of the situation" — translated, roughly: every valuable sample in the room today is going into the ledger. And I really didn't like being logged as a sample.

Just as I was weighing whether to simply whack his shin with the mop and help the Federation military reacquaint itself with campus local customs, Maki's voice drifted flatly over from behind.

"Shimo, the VIP lane isn't for settling personal grudges." I turned. Maki still stood very straight, her face unreadable, only that rational coolness of "I'm not dealing with you right now because I have actual work" hanging plainly in view. I sighed and put the mop back.

"I'll go confirm the private program." I said.

"What private program?" Maki asked. I stood the mop back in the cleaning cart, face unchanged.

"Monkey show."