Chương 495: 235.Misjudgment 1

I'd known for a while that Kushima Maki was still holding cards she hadn't shown me. She didn't need to say anything. You could tell just by looking at her. When she had every card tucked up her sleeve, her expression was usually its gentlest. When she finally laid one down, she went calmest of all. With a woman like her, the cleaner her smile got, the more certain you could be she had no intention of letting you see the whole hand.

I also had a rough guess that she and Hedwig had reached some kind of understanding in that small conference room that night—the kind that never makes it into any record. What exactly, I hadn't asked. I'd find out eventually, and odds were it wouldn't improve my mood. The only thing I was willing to take at face value was Hedwig's line about doing it for the peace of all humanity. Not because I trusted royalty. But however difficult Hedwig could be, at least she didn't resemble her two brothers.

Compared to those two, Her Highness was at minimum recognizably human. Just barely, though. That was all. Ever since that emotional disaster in the Seitokai office a few days ago, Maki had reverted to the version of herself that gave me the worst headaches. In private, she clung like a small sun—if the distance between us stretched past thirty centimeters, she looked ready to force an immediate redocking.

In public, she snapped back to cold-faced President in under a second, and even her nod at me landed with the precision of a scheduled calendar alert. I'd started to suspect she had some kind of toggle switch installed inside her, and that she alone held the key. Worse, she seemed to genuinely enjoy pressing it. Whatever. The day before the tournament opened. 22 Platinum Bridge Street.

D and Roy were sprawled across the living-room sofa, watching TV—one of those pre-event hype specials for the Federation's joint military games. The host talked himself hoarse while the camera kept cutting to each academy's star competitors, editing the qualifiers into something that looked like a hero-ensemble promo reel. D watched with real enthusiasm, occasionally shooting the screen a I could do that look, as if he weren't fighting tomorrow himself, but a Sunday-night viewer following an idol audition.

Harvey was down in the basement as usual, still tinkering with his mountain of equipment. I still didn't fully understand how many separate systems that pile actually amounted to. I'd walked past once, and he'd spent three earnest minutes explaining it to me. The only three lines I walked away understanding were: Don't touch this one. Definitely don't touch that one. Don't touch this entire row at all. After that, I decided all future conversations with Harvey would be conducted strictly with his upper half.

Anything near his lower half, I filed under active minefield. Maki was making tea. Maki making tea is a genuinely dangerous thing to witness. Not because she's bad at it—because she's too good at it. The way she lifts the pot and pours looks exactly like someone approving, or vetoing, another person's life. Watch her pour once, and your spine straightens on its own. If a woman like that ever hands you a cup personally, you'd better check your own pulse first, just to confirm you're still among the living.

Hedwig was arranging the pastries. Her Highness's plating style was different from Maki's. Maki returned every cookie to its designated place, like she was proofreading a map. Hedwig arranged hers into a rhythmic curve, then stepped back, studied it with real focus, and finally gave one small, satisfied nod. Every time I saw that nod, the same disrespectful thought crossed my mind. Her Highness's usual decisions must be exhausting.

It's probably a genuine relief, just once, to command something as simple as where a cookie goes. Jess was on stealing duty.

"Jess." Lan's voice came from behind her.

"I didn't eat anything," Jess said, on reflex.

"You have cream on the corner of your mouth."

"... That's from this morning."

"You didn't have this flavor this morning."

"..."

"Jess."

"... Fine, I ate one. Just one piece. Really, only one. Okay, two."

"Four," Hedwig added, lightly, not even looking up from the tray.

"There were twelve when I arranged them."

"Your Highness, why would you count them!" Jess clutched her head.

"Because I knew someone would steal them," Hedwig smiled.

"Why else would I bother?" Lan let out a long, deep sigh. That breath carried nearly the entire weight of I am the only thing holding this organization together. Everything looked very peaceful. Too peaceful. Peaceful enough that I actually started considering whether I should go check the windows. I hadn't even made it there before Maki's terminal and mine chimed at exactly the same moment. I knew that sound. The official system notification.

Cold, dry, entirely without feeling—like someone stamping your life from a great distance. I opened the message. Pre-tournament notice. Official schedule as follows. Start time: 0930. Round One: Unarmed Combat. I scanned it top to bottom. Nobody I recognized. Skipped. Not heartlessness—the moment you recognize a name, you start worrying about it. If you don't, it's just a list. I had zero spare emotional capacity for strangers today; I couldn't even finish worrying about myself. Next: Precision Marksmanship.

Vanguard: Charles Bingham. Second: Suzuki Aoi. Center: Louis Dupont. Vice-Captain: Albert Rolland. Anchor: Akari Flak. I snorted at the last name.

"... Of course they made Akari Anchor." I genuinely couldn't tell whether to be relieved or start developing a headache. Relieved, because the moment that woman took the Anchor slot, the marksmanship team had effectively rolled out a self-propelled artillery platform. On paper, the odds looked excellent. Headache, because the moment that woman took the Anchor slot, the marksmanship team had effectively rolled out a self-propelled artillery platform.

Whether she'd also demolish half the range in the process was a separate question entirely. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. I had a reasonable suspicion that if the tournament committee ever found half the target frames fused into slag on one side, nine times out of ten it wouldn't be an equipment failure. It would be an Akari failure. I scrolled further. Armed Combat. Vanguard: William Byrd. Second: Tachibana Sota. Center: Dwight "D" Barkley.

Vice-Captain: Emily Smith. Anchor: Irena Dubois. My finger stopped there. For about a second. Then I looked up. D was still grinning at the TV—some contestant had just said something stupid, and he was nodding along. Center. I looked again. Dwight "D" Barkley. Armed Combat. Center.... It wasn't that I looked down on the Center slot. I just couldn't make the numbers add up. D was nearly two meters tall, shoulders wide as a doorframe, and when he swung a weapon it looked like demolition work.

During qualifiers, I'd personally watched him carry opponents out of the ring one after another, their protective gear knocked out of shape in the process. A man like that, and he only rated Center. Which meant the two people ranked above him— Emily Smith, Vice-Captain. Irena Dubois, Anchor. A deeply disrespectful question surfaced in my head. What exactly are these two women, to push D down two whole slots? I was just about to ask him. I really was. My mouth was already open. That was when the doorbell rang.

Ding-dong. I'll probably remember that chime for the rest of my life. Because it was the last time 22 Platinum Bridge Street sounded even remotely peaceful today. From that point on, this house's peace officially entered its endgame. I frowned, walked to the door, and pressed the intercom.

"Who is it?"

"Excuse me. Is Dwight 'D' Barkley in?" Female voice. Young, clean, polite enough to sound like she was reading off official documentation, every pause timed to the millisecond. Something in my head went oh. There weren't many people polite enough to ring the bell at No. 22 Platinum Bridge Street. The last one had been a courier. The package he delivered turned out to be a gun Akari had ordered. So when the bell rang a second time, my first thought wasn't We have a visitor.

It was What hazardous object has been dressed up as civilized delivery this time? A second later, the security feed finally finished loading. There was a girl standing outside. Upper Division uniform. Short white jacket, dark blue tie, dark blue pleated skirt, knee socks neatly pulled to just below the knee, brown loafers polished to a near-reflective shine. Everything about her was precise without being showy, immaculate without looking vain.

She looked less like a student and more like someone had cut a girl-shaped silhouette out of a school code handbook and taught it how to stand. My gaze lingered for half a second before her hair caught it. A short black bob. Asymmetrical. One side ended cleanly at the jaw, while the other fell a little longer against her cheek. The black wasn't soft or natural-looking. It had a hard, polished sheen to it—the kind of gloss you saw on precision parts fresh off maintenance.

And on the left side, woven subtly into the dark, was a trace of blue. Not the loud, attention-seeking kind. A color I knew. The heat-dissipation blue common in high-grade prosthetics. My eyes dropped before I could stop them. A tiny blue-lit node pulsed beside her ear at perfectly even intervals. The line of her neck was just slightly wrong too—not wrong enough for most people to notice, but wrong in the way engineered things were wrong, too exact where flesh should have been imperfect.

Near the wrist of her left hand, on the back of it, ran a seam so fine and quiet it felt less like it had been hidden and more like she simply hadn't considered anyone worth the effort of hiding it from. My breathing caught for half a second.

"... Full-body conversion?" The words slipped out before I meant to say them. I hadn't planned on making that call so quickly, but I knew almost at once that I was right. Because she was too clean. Not alive clean. Manufactured clean. And the moment the words left my mouth, the first person to blow up wasn't Hedwig, or Maki, or Lan, or even Jess, who probably still had a fifth cookie in her mouth. It was D.

"That woman actually found this place!" He shot up off the couch like someone had run two hundred volts through him, nearly taking the coffee table with him. Roy startled so badly he dropped the remote. It hit the floor and, in one final act of loyal service, sent the television volume straight to maximum. The host's overexcited pre-show shouting instantly flooded the entire house.

"Hoshino, whatever you do, don't open the door!" …Too late. The front door gave a soft click. And then it opened by itself. Not because I turned it. Not because Maki turned it. Not from any kind of forced entry. It simply, very politely, unlocked itself. I stared at the door, one very simple thought left in my head. Do modern cybernetics come with social access to other people's door locks now?

"AHHH, Hoshino, I HATE you!" D screamed. A man nearly two meters tall, producing a sound exactly like a five-year-old who'd dropped his candy down the toilet. He lunged—more accurately, vaulted—straight behind Maki. The problem being: He was nearly two meters tall. Maki wasn't even one-seventy. He was hiding with total sincerity, but his head, his shoulders, and half his upper back remained completely, honestly exposed. It looked less like hiding and more like weighted squats performed behind her.

Maki didn't even look up. She simply set the teapot down with care, her tone level enough to be reading from a charter.

"... Dwight."

"Yes."

"Your build is not suited to hiding behind me."

"Then who AM I supposed to hide behind!"

"There is no one suited to your hiding."

"That's needlessly cruel, President!" Hedwig let out a very soft "Wow." One of Her Highness's rare, small, thoroughly impolite, and oddly pleasant little exclamations. Jess's sixth cookie froze halfway to her mouth. A vein at Lan's temple twitched once. Roy stayed frozen in his half-risen posture, like someone had hit pause on him. The whole scene was ridiculous enough that I nearly laughed. Nearly. Because the girl outside still hadn't moved.

She simply stood at the threshold, waiting very quietly for me to step aside. And precisely because she was so quiet, that waiting itself became a kind of pressure. She gave the impression that even if you left her standing there for thirty seconds, three minutes, or three hours, her expression wouldn't shift by a single millimeter. Funny or not, I wasn't about to laugh a stranger straight into the house. I put my arm across the doorframe.

"Hold on, classmate." I kept my voice low.

"Isn't this a bit rude? At least give me a name first." She looked at me once. The look was strange. Not hostile. Not wary. Evaluating. Like I wasn't a person to her, but a parameter—like she'd already scanned me head to toe in her mind, generated a value precise to two decimal places, and filed it under a very neatly labeled tab.

"... Irena Dubois." Wait. That name. I'd just seen it on my terminal. My memory flipped straight back. Armed Combat. Anchor. Irena Dubois. I stared at her for half a second.

"... You're the Armed Combat team's Anchor?"

"Correct." Correct. Even her answer chose the most formal option available, as if a simple yes would have been indecently casual. I quietly turned another page in her mental file. So she was the one who'd pushed D down to Center. And she sat right at the top of that same list. My head started to ache.

"... So what exactly are you here for?" I didn't budge. I planted myself squarely between her and D, a very reluctant human wall. Irena's gaze swept over me again, slower this time. Then she said two words.

"Training." I laughed. Not the amused kind. The what did I do to deserve this today kind.

"... Sorry, classmate." I raised my arm another centimeter.

"The sun's about to set. Of all the times you could've come, you picked this one. We're about to eat, so I really am sorry—please head home."

"In that case." She didn't move.

"You look quite strong."

"... Excuse me?"

"Why don't you spar a few rounds with me."... No. Why, on a perfectly reasonable rest-day evening, was I standing in my own doorway being asked to spar by an Upper House Anchor? Was 22 Platinum Bridge Street secretly zoned as a dojo? Because I had no idea. Had I forgotten to sign some form the day I moved in?

"I'm sorry," I said, clinging to what little patience I had left today.

"But I don't have any reason to—" Wind cut through. Before I finished the sentence, something quiet, fast, and clean sliced across my left cheek from inside the doorframe. Not a fist. Not a palm. A perfectly measured, controlled strike, grazing right past my face. She hadn't even stepped inside.

"Shimo!" Maki's voice cracked from inside the house—the first time since this started that she'd raised her volume.

"Hoshino!" Roy shot fully upright off the sofa, not even bothering with the remote on the floor. Lan snatched the sixth cookie right out of Jess's hand, apparently already anticipating she'd need both hands free. Hedwig simply set the pastry tray down and let her gaze settle on Irena. I knew that look—it was the expression Her Highness wore when she officially added someone to her mental registry. D shrieked from behind Maki.

"I TOLD you not to open the door!"

"D, you should have said it a lot louder!" I yelled back, wiping a hand across my cheek. My fingertip came away red.... Fuck. Actually bleeding. Not a big wound. Small, polite, almost elegant—the kind that said this was just a greeting, I haven't started yet. That kind of wound was more infuriating than a clean break. I smeared the blood across my fingertip, looked at her, and spat the words out slowly, one at a time.

"Whatever's between you and D, I don't know."

"But."

"22 Platinum Bridge Street is not somewhere you get to run wild." She showed no reaction whatsoever. She simply drew the hand she'd struck with back to its resting position, clean as if nothing had happened the second before. I looked into her eyes. They were beautiful. Cold, clear, bright—like a camera lens that had almost never been used. Good. Fine. I glanced back at the group behind me. D, cowering. Roy, standing. Maki, staring at me. Hedwig, watching Irena. Lan, watching Maki.

Jess, somehow already holding another cookie. I stopped caring. I pointed toward the back of the house.

"Round back."

"We're not fighting in the doorway." Cursing silently for what felt like the hundredth time as I walked deeper into the house—what exactly did I do to deserve this—all I'd wanted was a peaceful, tea-and-snacks, watch-D-get-scolded-by-Lan kind of ordinary, decent last evening before the tournament. I walked in front. Irena walked behind me. Everyone else trailed between us, as if pulled along by some invisible thread. D brought up the rear, glancing side to side at intervals, checking for ambushes.

Roy walked at Maki's left, hands in his pockets, looking relaxed—though I knew he'd already angled himself to lunge in and suppress the situation the moment it was needed. Hedwig moved a little slower, a little more gracefully. Her pace hadn't shifted at all since this started. That was the rhythm of someone trained—cold, steady, precise. Precise enough to make you wonder if she breathed on a count. Lan came last, one hand clamped around the back of Jess's collar. Jess got towed along, still chewing half a cookie.

Maki walked beside me. She didn't speak, but her eyes lingered on my face for a moment. More precisely, on the cut. I knew what she wanted to say, and I knew she was holding it in. The quieter Maki got, the bigger the problem usually was. After more than a year at her side, I'd learned to read a little of that silence. It roughly meant: Noted. We'll settle this later. I didn't answer. Just kept walking.