Chương 492: 233.Meeting Again 1

The next morning. Just as Maki had predicted the night before, the terminal chimed with an incoming message before I'd even properly woken up. That chime sounded especially deserving of violence in the quiet of early morning. Clean, precise, entirely without feeling—perfectly consistent with the Federation's habit of stuffing things students shouldn't have to see into their inboxes at exactly eight in the morning. I groped for the terminal through half-open eyes, registered the sender field, and came awake at once.

UNITED INTERSTELLAR MILITARY ACADEMY — OFFICIAL ADMINISTRATIVE NOTICE A grey official authentication seal sat stamped beneath it. I stared at that line and took a slow breath. Official-seal emails first thing in the morning were never good news. The only exception would be a scholarship payment notification sent to you by mistake—something that had never happened to me and showed no signs of starting. I opened it.

UNITED INTERSTELLAR MILITARY ACADEMY OFFICIAL NOTICE Re: Formal Announcement of Individual and Small-Team Competition Rules for Operation Nine Stars Notice Reference: No.

09-CIA-04 Date of Issue: First Standard Working Day of Current Week Recipients: Relevant Officers Participating in Representative Team Affairs Classification: General Administration — Cleared for Internal Distribution — Unauthorized External Forwarding Prohibited This Academy, in accordance with the Federation Nine-Sector Joint Defense Agreement, has designated Operation Nine Stars as a formal evaluation component of the annual Representative Team Selection Process.

All candidate students are required to comply with the relevant rules and may not, under any circumstances, evade attendance, delay reporting, or violate on-site order. Items covered in this notice: Unarmed Combat — [View Rules] Armed Combat — [View Rules] Precision Marksmanship — [View Rules] Long-Range Endurance Obstacle Course — [View Rules] Relevant officers are requested to complete all internal procedures within the designated timeframe.

This Academy reserves all disciplinary authority with respect to any individual conduct constituting rule violations, unauthorized absence, or actions detrimental to this sector's standing. I looked at the screen. I didn't tap items one through three. I already had a rough idea of those rules—however much the Federation dressed them up, they came down to whether you could beat the person across from you. And none of those three were what had woken me up this morning.

I moved my finger to the line marked Long-Range Endurance Obstacle Course and held it there for a second. Rationally, I knew clicking this probably wasn't going to be a pleasant reading experience. Emotionally, I also knew that if I didn't click it now, I'd walk into the Seitokai office and Maki would look at me with that you could have just read it yourself expression. I sighed. Clicked.

UNITED INTERSTELLAR MILITARY ACADEMY OPERATION NINE STARS LONG-RANGE ENDURANCE OBSTACLE COURSE Competition Rules — Abridged Public Release In response to the multi-sector joint competition requirements of Operation Nine Stars, this event shall be conducted in the format of a Multi-Stage Relay Long-Range Mobility Exercise, scored on a team basis. A summary of the relevant rules is provided below; the official full text will be issued separately.

Article 1 — Participant Quota Each sector's representative team shall consist of ten (10) members. Five (5) of these members shall be selected on the basis of combined performance assessments from the first three events of Operation Nine Stars — Unarmed Combat, Armed Combat, and Precision Marksmanship. The remaining five (5) members shall be nominated by the Seitokai of the sector's designated representative academy, in accordance with applicable regulations.

Article 2 — Stage Structure The full course shall be divided into ten (10) segments, each corresponding to one participant. Start and end points and route paths will be announced separately. Final authoritative information on terrain, climate, and biological distribution shall be as published in the official final release.

Article 3 — Selection Authority The specific competition location shall be determined by a designated representative from the academy with the highest combined score across the first three events, who shall attend and participate in a public draw session. No other sector may submit requests to alter the outcome of the draw.

Article 4 — Equipment Standards Each participant is required to carry regulation-issue firearms, designated ammunition, and personal combat armor, and must pass equipment inspection at each stage's reporting point before proceeding. Any participant who fails to complete equipment inspection shall have that stage automatically ruled as a failure. Article 5 — Handoff Rules A participant may proceed only after completing a valid handoff with the next participant at the designated exchange point.

During the handoff process, the participant must confirm that the incoming participant is in possession of the officially recognized token for this competition. In the event that the next participant fails to arrive, the token is lost, or a valid handoff is not completed within the designated time window, that stage shall be automatically ruled a failure.

Article 6 — Environmental Response In the event of attack by local wildlife during transit, participants may engage in reasonable self-defense using their available equipment. In the event of abnormal weather conditions, participants shall defer to officially issued real-time updates. Any participant who halts, deviates from the route, or withdraws without receipt of an official stop order shall have that stage ruled a failure.

Article 7 — Conduct Restrictions The use of live ammunition against any participant from another school is strictly prohibited during the competition. Specific details shall be governed by announcements from the on-site officiating panel. Article 8 — Subsequent Announcements You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Specific competition location, detailed route information, and climate and biological survey data will be announced separately upon conclusion of the first three events. Article 9 — Risk Acknowledgment This event's route involves complex outdoor terrain, uncontrolled natural environments, and potential biological hazards, and is classified by this Academy as a High-Intensity Practical Assessment.

Participants shall, upon reporting on the day of the event, be deemed to have full knowledge of and to have voluntarily assumed all associated risks. With respect to any physical injury, incapacitation, disappearance, or non-recoverable outcome resulting from a participant's own behavioral negligence, errors in judgment, or rule violations, this Academy and the organizing committee of this event reserve the right to handle such matters on-site in accordance with applicable regulations.

No individual claims or retroactive prosecution will be entertained following such incidents. Condolence and support procedures will be handled in accordance with existing Federation regulations and institutional protocols. May all representative team participants demonstrate the honor and military spirit of their sector in this operation. I stared at that last section. Read it twice. Read it a third time. Then closed the terminal.

"..." I spent approximately five seconds genuinely asking myself whether I was still dreaming. I was not. I was sitting on the edge of my bed, in my pajamas, one foot still half-tangled in the blanket, and I had just received a document from my military academy informing me—in language so steady it bordered on gentle—that I might die, and that if I did, they would handle it in accordance with applicable regulations, and I should rest assured. How thoughtful.

The Federation was the kind of country that would send you a stamped official notice before dispatching you. I took a long breath, threw the terminal onto the bed, grabbed my uniform, and started changing. I knew exactly what I needed right now. Not breakfast. Not coffee. I needed to find Kushima Maki, spread this document in front of her face one page at a time, and ask her, loudly— This is what you called a relay race?? Thirty minutes later. Seitokai office.

I pushed the door open with considerably more force than yesterday, walked straight in, and slapped my terminal onto the desk with a crack loud enough to rattle the unprocessed paperwork stacked beside it.

"How the fuck is this a relay race?" I didn't bother keeping my voice down.

"This is a death march!!!" The office was empty of Lan, Roy, and Hedwig. Not everyone had been selected, at eight in the morning, to receive a Federation document capable of spiking their blood pressure on contact. Maki was there. She was sitting even deeper behind the Council President's desk than yesterday—positioned so that a small stack of files propped up in front of her reached almost exactly high enough to cover her face.

It looked exactly like someone who had anticipated, several minutes in advance, that I would come in exactly like this, and had preemptively constructed a thin paper fortification.

"President." I closed in on her desk.

"Do you know what I just read?" No response.

"Do you know that the last section of that document says no individual claims or retroactive prosecution will be entertained?" No response.

"Do you know that the Federation is the kind of country that sends you a formally stamped notice saying we will handle it in accordance with regulations before it pushes you off a cliff?" Still nothing. Behind the paper barricade, silence.

"... President." I narrowed my eyes.

"If you don't say something right now, I'm going to treat your use of roughly a relay race, I'd guess yesterday as confirmed fraud against an innocent Vice President who had only just crawled back from a lunar disaster."

"I wasn't committing fraud," came the voice from behind the stack, finally.

"I was simply making appropriate use of the words roughly and I'd guess."

"That kind of appropriate use gets people hit."

"Which is why I sat behind the desk first today."

"That makes you look even more like you deserve it."

"Also a calculated decision." I gripped the edge of the desk and let out a long breath. Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Kushima Maki had not only zero remorse, she had already pre-calculated the optimal body position to minimize her surface area exposure during my peak emotional state. I genuinely didn't know whether to admire the professionalism or take another breath just to sustain the anger. I decided to do both simultaneously.

"And the rules are riddled with holes," I said, pulling the document back up on my terminal. I was already scanning Article 7 again.

"It almost looks like they're encouraging you to find them." I even laughed a little. Not a nice laugh. More the kind that comes when you've just understood something genuinely bad and can only buy time before saying it out loud by briefly curling your mouth upward.

"Oh?" Maki finally emerged from behind the barricade. Her eyes landed on my face, and her tone carried a trace—just a trace, but real—of the faint satisfaction I usually heard from her when an intern's assignment came in at exactly the passing mark.

"You finally noticed."

"What do you mean finally." I scrolled back to Article 7 and tapped it twice.

"This one—live ammunition against other schools' participants is strictly prohibited."

"Mm."

"Does a knife count?"

"..."

"What about a crowd-control foam round? Stun beam? Sedative dart? Sonic weapon? Pneumatic impact device? High-frequency vibration baton?"

"Did you memorize the academy's equipment inventory?"

"I call it crisis management."

"Crisis management doesn't only cover the offensive section."

"So I memorized two versions." Maki clicked her tongue. Very briefly. But I heard what was underneath it. She was suppressing a laugh.

"Specifically," she said, pulling her fingers free of the document pile and tapping the desk twice—an informal summary knock.

"This looks like it has rules."

"But it doesn't have rules." I set my terminal down and looked at her steadily.

"This competition isn't about honor," Maki said.

"It's about letting everyone settle their accounts." I stared at her.

"Explain." Not because I didn't understand. Because I wanted to hear her say it out loud. Maki looked at me. Her eyes were clearer than usual.

"Think about it," she said, leaning back in her chair.

"What comes after this event?"

"The team phase?"

"Right." She paused.

"And this year's team phase is the real thing." A chill ran down my spine.

"So you're saying—""They're probably worried about getting shot in the back by their own side," she said. She gave a short, cold laugh. Brief. Without inflection. Which was exactly what made it cold. I went quiet for two seconds before the chain connected in my head. Nine sectors. Nine defense zones. Nine military academies, each carrying its own star-system traditions, family grievances, factional allegiances, and political debts accumulated over generations.

Before the official engagement with the Empire, the Federation opens with individual matches, then runs an event that looks like a relay race but has rules written as if someone deliberately left the gaps in—building it into a small-team layer. On paper, it's a warm-up. In practice— It's a mechanism for letting everyone work through their mutual resentments, their face, their old scores, within what the rules technically permit. So that when the team phase actually starts, nobody shoots their own side in the back.

I rubbed my face hard.

"... Genuinely insane," I said, unable to stop myself.

"When this is over, the grudges between the nine sectors will only run deeper."

"Which is exactly why I said it's not about honor."

"Joint Operations Command is something else." I looked at the ceiling.

"Terrible at everything useful, absolutely first-rate at making their own people miserable." For once, Maki didn't immediately argue. She just picked up the long-cold coffee beside her, took a sip, and set it down very quietly. Simple enough. But I could see it—her actual view of this wasn't much different from mine. She just occupied a position where she couldn't afford to say genuinely insane without consequence the way I could.

"So the roster doesn't need to go in yet?" I asked.

"Right." She nodded.

"Not until the first three events are done." I nodded, set my terminal down, and then, unable to help myself, asked one more thing.

"By the way, this notice—" I looked up.

"Was it only—" Maki looked at me.

"Only the President and Vice President receive it," she said, light, with just a touch of something almost playful. I stared at her.

"Oh, wow. Lovely."

"It's called hierarchy."

"It's called picking on someone who just crawled back from a disaster."

"Still hierarchy."

"Don't you feel even slightly ashamed?"

"No," she said.

"I sat behind the desk first today."

"That makes me want to flip the desk even more."

"Please don't."

"Why?"

"Because after you flip it, this document still needs to be shown to the next group of people being dragged in."

"..." I stared at her. Maki picked up the long-cold coffee again, pushed her terminal forward an inch, and tapped her knuckle once against the Long-Range Endurance Obstacle Course rules page.

"Familiarize yourself with this first," she said.

"Once the first three events are done, you'll probably understand why I didn't explain from the start." I looked down. No individual claims or retroactive prosecution will be entertained was still sitting quietly at the bottom of the screen, the way the Federation always left its most civilized, responsible, and considerate little reminders. I took a long breath, closed the terminal, and leaned against the edge of the desk. The weather outside was still nice.

Nice enough to form an almost speechless contrast with the contents of that document. I looked at Maki. She looked at me. Neither of us said anything for a moment. Then I finally couldn't hold it in.

"... Maki."

"Mm?"

"When you said roughly a relay race, I'd guess yesterday."

"Mm."

"Were you actually thinking of adding one more line?" I narrowed my eyes.

"Something like—though what you're relaying is your life?" Maki smiled.

"You're particularly sharp today."

"You're particularly deserving of a hit today."

"I won't deny it." I let out a breath and leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. All right. I finally, truly understood. Yesterday's roughly a relay race, I'd guess wasn't dismissal, and it wasn't a joke. It was just very Kushima—let you laugh first, let you relax, so that when you read the rest on your own, you'd take back that line yourself, from the inside.