Chương 443: 210.Heading for Jupiter 1

I led Hedwig out of the bridge by the hand. The door slid shut behind us, quiet and final, leaving Maki, Roy, Lan, Jess, Akari—and that whole bridge that had just folded itself back from a slaughter temple into a luxury observatory—sealed in another world for the moment. The passage outside was darker than the bridge. Not the cheap, power-saving kind of dark you get on poor ships. The specifically Imperial kind: rich and sick. The walls glowed with a subdued deep-blue metallic sheen.

The floor looked like polished obsidian. Thin dark-gold lines ran straight down the corridor's centerline, as if the ship insisted that even its escape routes needed to be laid out like a royal exhibition hall, not just a way out. Walking down it, I couldn't help thinking the Empire really did know how to burn public money on the most unnecessary, best-looking things. Hedwig walked at a steady pace. She wasn't weak enough to need support.

From behind, she was still that person: the woman who'd sat the main chair and given orders without flinching, who could joke about golden toilets, who managed to keep royal dignity and venom balanced at a very pretty angle. Her hand was cold. Not the cold of someone fresh off a combat bridge. The kind of cold you get from standing in snow too long—on the surface you're fine, but your bones are cooling one degree at a time. My first instinct was to let go.

Escorting someone back to their cabin and walking them there hand-in-hand were two different levels of incident report. Especially when someone was the Third Princess of the Empire. Especially when I was a Federation cadet, Seitokai Vice President, Executive Officer of the Asgard, and one of the people who'd just helped her erase her brother. On paper, there should've been distance here. Mature adults. Polite. Controlled. Each keeping their own dignity. The problem was that I wasn't a particularly mature adult.

And Hedwig didn't look like she needed dignity half as much as she needed anything else. I thought about it for two seconds. Then decided to pretend I hadn't noticed my own hesitation at all.

"... They were staring quite openly," Hedwig said suddenly. Her voice was a little rough, like someone who'd cried and then forced herself back under control.

"Who was?"

"Everyone on the bridge." She glanced at me, the corner of her mouth twitching faintly.

"Especially Jess. That look wasn't concern. It was anticipation."

"Jess's eyes are unhealthy on a good day," I said.

"You don't have to take it personally." Hedwig laughed under her breath. The sound was light—a fingertip on thin glass. Good. At least she was still laughing.

"Hoshino," she said.

"Yeah?"

"You were just thinking you have absolutely no idea how to comfort me, weren't you?" …Was this woman telepathic? I coughed.

"Was it that obvious?"

"Very." She nodded.

"You looked like you wanted to say something and were afraid that the first words out of your mouth would just make me want to cry harder."

"... Rude, but accurate. My skill set is limited in this area."

"I noticed."

"Hey."

"But I don't dislike it." That came so lightly I almost blamed it on the ventilation. I turned my head. She didn't look back. Just kept her eyes on the long corridor of deep blue and dark gold ahead, expression calmer than before, but with the particular flatness of someone who'd held out to the limit and now didn't have much left for anything extra. We walked like that for a while. The Asgard was big.

Big enough that walking someone from the bridge to her quarters felt less like escorting a passenger and more like making a late-night inspection tour of a flying black-and-gold palace. We passed the occasional patrol. All of them still wore Imperial black. The instant they saw Hedwig, they straightened automatically.

The instant they saw me, their expressions shifted to that unmistakable the XO is personally walking Her Highness back and they're holding hands look, before they very conscientiously pretended they'd seen nothing at all. Good. Looked like from today on, the Asgard was going to be rich not just in weapons, tension, and political crisis, but also in rumors.

"They're watching," Hedwig said again.

"I know."

"You're not going to let go?" My steps hitched for half a beat. Unfair question. Not because she yanked her hand back or told me to stop touching her. She just tossed the choice at my feet, very calmly, like she wanted to see whether I had the courage to own it. I kept my eyes on the sensor door at the far end of the corridor and forced my voice to sound casual.

"If I let go now, it looks like I'm guilty."

"You're not?"

"... I was fine," I said.

"Until you asked." She finally turned to look at me, eyes edged with a very faint, very tired, but very real trace of amusement.

"Then don't." Damn it. She was the one who was supposed to be getting walked back to rest. Somehow she was still the one dictating the rhythm. I couldn't tell if that was a Third Princess thing, or if my own self-control was just an embarrassment to the Federation curriculum. One more hatch, and the air got quieter. We'd reached the royal and high-authority section. Even the decor leveled up. The arched walls carried filigree as fine as jewelry interiors.

The light hid in joints you couldn't see, flooding the corridor in something like deep-sea moonlight. I clicked my tongue.

"The Empire really hates making livable spaces look like people actually live there."

"What does it look like, then?" Hedwig asked.

"A gallery. A temple. And some kind of display sample so expensive no one dares touch it."

"The Asgard was never meant for ordinary people."

"Coming from you, that's more convincing than I like." She didn't answer right away. After a moment, she said, quietly: "But on this ship right now, the least ordinary people are you." I glanced over.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment or a reminder of how far gone we are?"

"Both." She lowered her eyes.

"Ordinary students don't hijack the Empire's Special Construction Ship No. 1 on a field trip. They don't erase the Second Prince and an Emperor-class battle cruiser before they clear the port."

"You helped," I said.

"Don't write yourself out." This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

"I know." She answered too fast. Fast enough that it threw me for a second. Hedwig stopped. So I did too. We were in front of a door taller, quieter, and more expensive-looking than the rest. No gaudy crest—just a thin, almost austere royal line inlaid in the dark metal. Subtle. Controlled. Expensive. Unwelcoming. Like her. The sensor pinged; the door slid open without a sound. The interior was more restrained than I'd expected. Not gaudy. Wide. Dark. Quiet.

The same black steel and dark gold as the rest of the Asgard, but softened. The window was a sheet of open starfield. It felt like someone had carved a private, lonelier slice out of the bridge's observatory. I'd assumed walking her to the door would count as the end of my assignment. Instead, Hedwig stepped in without letting go. So I was pulled half a step into the cabin before I could decide otherwise. The hatch shut behind us, soft. Click. The sound wasn't loud. But the moment it landed, the world got small.

Small enough that it was just her and me. Small enough that I could finally hear her breathing still off rhythm. Small enough that I became acutely aware of the fact that I was alone in the Third Princess's private quarters, still holding her hand. There isn't a line item for this in any official report template. Hedwig leaned back lightly against the door. She didn't move farther in. Neither did I. She was looking at me, eyes still rimmed pink. It didn't make her fragile.

It made her look like something too carefully held together had finally spent a little time in water and was beginning to show its original grain.

"Hoshino," she said.

"Yeah."

"You asked me on the bridge whether I was still on your side." Her voice was soft.

"Do you still want the answer?" I looked at her, throat tacky.

"If you say no now, I have to start calculating whether I can drag you back to the command chair and strap you in myself." She laughed. Short. Real.

"That's cruel."

"That's me being practical."

"No. That's you trading all your romance points for survival rate."

"Appreciate the compliment." She didn't bite on the joke. Her eyes dropped to our joined hands instead.

"I'm on your side," she said. No oath. No rhetoric. No royal declaration. The weight landed exactly because there wasn't any of that.

"Not because I'm the Third Princess. Not because the Asgard is in your hands." She lifted her eyes again. In the muted light, they looked darker, like whatever part of the distant starfield she used for composure had turned inward and pinned itself on me instead.

"Because when I gave that order, you didn't look away." I blinked. She went on:"You looked straight at me. Checked if I was still here—with you. You didn't treat me as a key to be used. You didn't treat me as something broken and pitiable." Her voice dropped further.

"You were asking whether I was going to carry this with you." The room was very quiet. I'd spent a good chunk of time thinking that question had been stupid. Like digging a knife into someone who'd just split open. Listening to her now, I realized the question itself had probably mattered less than the fact that I'd asked it. I hadn't assumed she'd stand with us. I hadn't taken her for granted as an asset. I'd given her a choice. Dangerous thing to do.

Because once someone chooses you of their own free will, that weight starts landing on you too. My hand tightened around hers on reflex. She didn't pull away.

"I'm not good with pretty words," I said.

"And if I tried the standard ones—you did your best, you're not wrong—it'd all sound cheap. Especially now." She nodded, very slightly.

"I know."

"So all I can say is this." I took a breath.

"If you still feel nothing right now, that's fine. We haven't had time to feel anything. That wasn't a family issue. It was a combat decision. Stay alive first. Sort out the rest when we're not busy on the firing line." Hedwig held my gaze for a long moment. Long enough that I started to wonder if I'd just turned comfort into a tactical briefing. Then she stepped in. Just half a step. But we hadn't been that far apart to begin with, and half a step was more than enough to become a problem. My spine went rigid.

She didn't grab me. Her free hand came up, fingertips brushing the edge of my collar. It could've been her straightening my battle jacket. It could've been her checking whether I was really standing there. Her fingers were cool. When they ghosted across the skin just above my collarbone, I almost lost the rhythm of my breath.

"Hoshino," she said quietly.

"You are aware that nothing about that was gentle."

"... I had a feeling."

"But it worked." Her hand smoothed the barely-there wrinkle in my collar. The motion was slow enough that it didn't feel like uniform maintenance.

"That sounds more like you than anything kind would have." I'd been holding the line reasonably well. It was the more like you that did it. Something unhelpful jolted in my chest. Great. So that's what seven-tenths-danger feels like. Everything still has a technically valid pretext, but stack all those pretexts together and the air stops feeling like oxygen and starts feeling like kindling.

"Hedwig," I said. She hummed in answer. Didn't step back. We were close enough now that if I tilted my head the slightest bit, I'd see the smudge of damp still caught at the base of her lashes. Her eyes were still red. She'd cried, and she was still too put-together about it—like even her loss of composure had passed some internal finishing check first. Deeply unfair. To me, specifically.

"Any closer," I said, keeping my tone as light as I could manage, "and this gets very difficult to write into the log as routine escort duty." Her eyes flickered, amusement surfacing properly.

"So is that a warning, or a reminder?"

"... Both."

"Should I be flattered?"

"You shouldn't have this much spare capacity to make fun of me." She fell quiet for two seconds. Then her hand left my collar and trailed up, fingertips skimming along the line of my jaw. Not a caress. More like verifying the existence of something dangerous. Every muscle in my body went tight. She wasn't much better off. I could see it. Her breathing was unsteady, worse than it had been by the door. She just had the will to arrange it neatly—turning even a crack into something that looked like etiquette.

"Hoshino," she said, even lower.

"If I asked you to stay a little longer, would that be selfish?" Three answers occurred to me at once. Version one, rational: yes—and highly dangerous. Version two, XO: yes—and I'd probably say yes anyway. Version three, the one that had no business being spoken aloud: if you keep looking at me like that, a little is not going to cover it. Unfortunately, I couldn't use the third one yet. So I settled on a compromise.

"Yes," I said.

"But I'm not in much of a position to judge you. I'm still standing here. I didn't run straight back to the bridge." She blinked. Then she actually laughed. Not the thin, structural smile she used in public. A laugh with something tired, something amused, and something like finally caught you in it.

"So you can say things like that."

"I don't live my whole life at minimal-interest settings," I said.

"In that case, I'm less worried," she murmured. We stayed like that. Too close. Too quiet. Neither of us moved forward. Neither of us moved back. I was very aware that if either of us shifted our heads fifteen degrees, the XO escorting a princess back to rest would become the XO submitting an incident report to the Seitokai in about half a second. And the worst part was— I genuinely wanted to know what it would feel like to close that distance.

The thought had barely surfaced before I wanted to go reread the Academy's code of conduct until I cooled off. But once thoughts like that show up, pretending you never had them is pointless. Hedwig must have caught something. Her gaze dipped for a fraction of a second, then snapped back up. The motion was microscopic. It felt like someone had run fire through the air.... Great. She knew. I knew she knew. She didn't push it. She just leaned in and let her forehead rest against mine, briefly. Not a kiss.

Not even a proper embrace. Just a contact so short it barely qualified as anything, and still too intimate to pretend away.

"Let me have this," she said, low. I locked up for a second, then forced myself to breathe.

"... Okay." My free hand lifted, then hesitated. I thought about setting it on her shoulder, thought better of it, and let it rest very lightly near the back of her neck instead—not quite a hold. More like a support point she could use to move away if she wanted to. She didn't come any closer. Neither did I. It was already enough to send my pulse into escape velocity. I don't know how long we stayed like that. Probably only a few seconds. Eventually Hedwig stepped back on her own.

The air in the room suddenly started behaving like air again. Only then did I realize I hadn't fully exhaled since she'd leaned in. She pressed her fingers briefly to the corners of her eyes. The recovery was fast enough that if not for the fading warmth on my skin, I might have believed I'd hallucinated the whole thing from lack of oxygen.

"Sorry," she said.

"I was being unreasonable."

"If that counts as unreasonable, my standards for your moral conduct may be overly generous."

"Are they?"

"You did just order your brother killed. Asking someone to stay a moment is practically law-abiding by comparison." She blinked, then laughed again. Looser this time. Good. Apparently I was better at disaster-math comfort than empathy. I backed toward the door, doing my best impression of a very normal, very professional XO who definitely had not almost broken several lines of regulation.

"Get some rest," I said.

"If I don't get back soon, Maki's going to start sending messages asking why a cabin escort turned into a missing-person report." Hedwig watched me, that softness from earlier still not entirely gone.

"Hoshino," she said.

"Mm?"

"If you feel the need to check again later—" She paused.

"Whether I'm still on your side. You can ask. Directly." My throat went dry again.

"All right."

"And."

"And?" Her mouth curled, the version of her I knew best sliding back into place—elegant, with just enough malice.

"What just happened doesn't count as a complete answer." I blinked.

"What?"

"You said if I got any closer, it would be hard to write into the log." She smiled, small.

"Save it for the day you're less afraid of writing reports. Come find me then." …This woman. I stood there for two seconds, long enough to get my face back under control.

"Your Highness," I said, as evenly as I could.

"You do not sound like someone who needs rest."

"Do you plan to stay and make sure?" she asked.

"No, the XO would like to leave this room alive." She smiled. I turned for the door. Halfway there, I glanced back. Hedwig stood framed against that wall of stars, the black uniform making her look colder, thinner—more like something trying to reassemble itself. At least now, her eyes weren't just hollowed out. There was something sharper there. I realized, belatedly, that I was not going to be able to pretend nothing had happened tonight. Not just because she'd cried.

Not just because she was a princess, an accomplice, the one who'd ordered her brother's death. But because when she'd set her forehead against mine, there had been a part of me that, very clearly, had not wanted to move away. Excellent. On top of the Empire, my personal safety distance was now a problem too.

"I'm going," I said.

"Mm." She nodded. And just before the door closed, she added:"Hoshino."

"What."

"When you write that log," she said, "try not to make me cry too ugly." I couldn't help it. I laughed.

"Relax," I said.

"I'll edit you beautifully." The door closed. I stood in the corridor for a few seconds. The Asgard's hallway was still the same—deep blue, dark gold, offensively expensive. As if nothing had changed. I knew better. Something had. Inconveniently. I pressed a thumb against my jaw—the place she'd almost set my nerves on fire—and let out a long breath. Then, like an adult, I turned and headed back to the bridge. …Fine. Meeting first. Everything else waits until we actually survive the trip home.