Chương 171: 65.More Than Just a Ride 1

The next morning, I came downstairs to find Maki Kushima had already comprehensively occupied the dining table. Not in the ordinary up early, reading a book sense. The kind where one look told you this woman hadn't gone straight to sleep after returning to her room last night—she'd taken something from concept in her head all the way to finished product capable of deceiving an administrative system.

Center of the table: her tablet, two printed documents, three colors of sticky tabs, and a coffee so dark it looked capable of cleaning engine components. She sat by the window, hair tied back, sleeves rolled up past her wrists, posture suggesting she was about to chair a small strategic meeting. The only thing missing was a flag planted on the table. I stood at the foot of the stairs for two seconds.

"... Are you buying a bike or staging a coup?" Maki didn't look up.

"The difference is that the latter requires more signatures."

"Thanks. That's not remotely reassuring." I walked over and sat across from her. The top sheet had a title written in neat, even characters: Feasibility Assessment for Personal Motorized Vehicle Acquisition and Use During Off-Campus Residential Period I stared at that line for three seconds, then looked at her.

"Did you deliberately make the title this boring?"

"Yes," she said.

"The more it reads like bureaucratic waste paper, the safer it is." Reasonable. The most effective stealth coating in the world wasn't black paint or radar-absorbing fiber—it was making a document look like something nobody would ever want to read past the first page. I turned to the next page. My eye twitched.

"... You actually organized it into chapters?"

"Because the Student Council isn't stupid—they're idle." She pushed the second document over.

"The best way to handle idle people isn't to hide things. It's to make the process more tedious than they are. If legitimacy, funding source, parking location, and stated purpose are all preemptively addressed, the most they can do is argue about grammar."

"Is your hostility toward the Student Council slightly personal?"

"Not hostility. Experience." I believed that. With a name like Kushima, she'd probably been navigating internal organizational politics since childhood—more than I'd absorbed from a lifetime of prime-time drama. I turned to the next page and found a photograph. A grey-black motorcycle with a very low, compressed profile, wheel rims edged with cold blue light, the whole thing shaped like if a shell casing decided to learn elegant low-altitude flight, it would probably look like this.

I looked at the image, and something pulled at the corner of my mouth.

"... Maki."

"Mm."

"If this thing were parked outside twenty-two, even the No politicians sign on the intercom next door would start wondering whether we'd brought private military into the neighborhood." Maki finally looked up, expression composed.

"Which is why the first thing I need to say is that you cannot buy the production version."

"Production version?" She tapped the image with one finger.

"Kushima Technical Research Industries. Raijin Series, Narukami. Dual plasma power cores, front-rear dual engine, full-wheel magnetic rail drive, neural sync cockpit, titanium-carbon composite heavy armor, and—" She paused. Her tone remained as level as someone reading a breakfast menu.

"Concealed integrated autocannon." I went quiet.

"... What exactly does your family make?"

"Strictly speaking, that's not my family—it's a division within the conglomerate that's very good at spending its budget."

"Oh, fantastic. Just a conglomerate, not a cottage industry. I feel so much better." I looked at the image again. I did not feel better. That vehicle was not in the thinking about commuting category. It was in the if someone rode this through the school gates, I'd assume today was a coup category. The ice-blue wheel rings, the absurdly thick armor shell, the body lines pressed down like a predator's shoulder line—this thing had no blood relation to the word inconspicuous.

If it still qualified as civilian, the definition of civilian needed revision.

"So what you're saying is—""You can reference its design language. You cannot touch its military-spec contents." She turned to another sheet.

"The actual low-profile solution is: civilian-spec, de-weaponized, de-synced, de-armored." I blinked.

"That sounds like skinning a thunderbeast down to its street-legal skeleton."

"Roughly." Her tone was dry.

"The production Narukami has several features that are fundamentally incompatible with student ownership. First, the dual-core plasma output is excessive. Second, full-wheel magnetic rail drive requires high-intensity maintenance. Third, the neural sync interface requires medical and military clearance. Fourth—""Fourth is the autocannon."

"Yes."

"I feel like fourth should be first."

"For most people, yes." She glanced at me.

"For Kushima Technical Research's development sequence, no." I pressed a hand to my forehead. Right. People with money and technical capability really do treat certain deeply unnatural things as ordinary background. Maki turned the tablet toward me.

"So I've drafted three tiers." The screen was clearly organized. Option A: Pure civilian-spec used bike. Standard appearance, dark paint, single-core hybrid power, standard rear-wheel drive, no sync components. Cheapest, easiest to transfer, least visible. Drawback: performance only sufficient for commuting and short-range passenger transport. Option B: Demo unit.

Civilian derivative from Kushima Technical Research, retaining some frame design and suspension stability, all military-spec functions removed, output restricted, complete maintenance records, mid-range price. Drawback: if anyone traces the brand origin, it becomes slightly complicated. Option C: Legally retired internal test vehicle. My scalp started prickling the moment I read that line.

"Wait." I raised a hand.

"Stop. What is Option C and why does it sound like something that gets me called to the disciplinary office before graduation?" Maki's expression didn't flicker.

"Which is why it's listed as not recommended."

"Then why are you listing it here in complete seriousness?"

"So you know I considered it and determined it was too conspicuous." Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. This woman was genuinely honest to a fault. Honest enough that sometimes you wished she'd be slightly less thorough. I looked back down and stopped my finger on Option B.

"So this is what you're actually recommending."

"Yes." She said.

"Demo unit, civilian spec. Three reasons. First, the price works. Second, the frame stability is sufficient—you're a new rider, you don't want the bike turning on you. Third, it can look slightly expensive without looking like ordnance."

"That's a very precise description."

"And it should be an older model." She turned to the next page.

"Not the latest version. New models attract attention once they're registered. Older models are safer—especially something that's been on the market a year or two, past the conversation window, but still mechanically sound." I looked at the budget breakdown she'd laid out. More detailed than yesterday. Not just a total figure—split into: savings, holiday subsidy differential, personal expense reduction, projected practicum stipend recovery, and one line she'd boxed and highlighted separately: No loans.

No family subsidy. No advance against school name. I looked at that line and stopped. Maki didn't look at me. She just moved her coffee half a centimeter to the side, like she was deliberately leaving me a space to receive that without having to say anything. I said quietly: "You even put a box around it."

"Because it's a hard limit," she answered, evenly.

"If it can't be touched, no part of the process should come near it." I made a sound of acknowledgment and kept reading.

"So is the money enough?"

"Enough, at the edge of safe margin," she said.

"If you put in everything you have on hand, you can reach the lower-mid tier of Option B. If you trim a little, you can fold in insurance, parking, and the first service check."

"Trim a little meaning?"

"Over the next two weeks: fewer bubble teas from outside, fewer late-night snacks with Jess, fewer times letting Harvey talk you into tool kits you don't need."

"... Did you install a spending monitor on me?"

"No." Perfectly calm.

"Your spending habits just have a distinctive character. Usually not expensive—just inconsistent." Infuriating. Impossible to argue with. I cleared my throat and turned to the next page with forced composure. What I found there made me immediately understand why Maki Kushima had survived this long without being quietly eliminated by anyone. The heading read: Operational Guidelines for Avoiding Student Council and Academic Affairs Attention I looked at that line and made a very quiet, very sincere sound of awe.

"... You actually wrote the objective in the title."

"Because this isn't the version being submitted anywhere. This is the internal version, for you." Completely calm.

"I'll prepare a sanitized external version afterward."

"This is too professional. Are you a student or some kind of organizational consultant?" She ignored that and began going through the points.

"First: the purchase must be registered under your personal name only—no club, school, Student Council, or practicum group affiliation. Second: pickup must occur off-campus, away from school gates. Third: parking is fixed at twenty-two, no campus parking application. Fourth: exterior color should be dark grey, black-blue, or matte iron—colors that generate no discussion. Fifth—""Wait, isn't black-blue also kind of striking?"

"Striking, but not to the level of a criminal announcement."

"Is your threshold between striking and criminal very finely calibrated?"

"Sixth: the stated reason must be boring and legitimate." She continued, ignoring me.

"Off-campus residential commuting, routine supply runs, necessary transit between campus and port district, familiarizing with a vehicle during the holiday period to prepare for upcoming practicum transportation needs. The key is—" She tapped the line with her pen.

"All of it is true." I looked at her, and suddenly felt like laughing.

"So the essence of your method isn't lying. It's arranging the truth into a shape that nobody can be bothered to question."

"Right." Entirely composed.

"The most effective version of low-profile isn't false. It's boring." This was genuinely terrifying. If the Student Council ever came after us, it wouldn't be because we'd done anything wrong. It would be because Maki had done everything right so cleanly that it started to look suspicious. I kept turning pages, and nearly laughed out loud at what I found at the end. An appendix.

Recommended First-Use Routes Post-Purchase Listed below: Low-speed familiarization around campus perimeter Platinum Bridge Street—local supply run route Port district outer perimeter observation line Legal visual confirmation point for berth area Elevated vantage point supplementary confirmation route I stared at the last line.

"Elevated vantage point supplementary confirmation route?"

"Mm."

"In plain language."

"Up the mountain."

"Oh." She picked up her coffee and drank, with the composure of someone who had not just packaged taking me on a mountain ride as part of a military perimeter visual assessment. I leaned back and stretched the words out deliberately.

"So Kushima's complete plan is: first get me to quietly buy a bike with a completely legitimate reason, then use a completely legitimate reason to accompany me to the port to see the Snowwind, and then use a completely legitimate reason to—""Confirm the nearby elevated vantage point and return road conditions," she said.

"... Is your sense of shame made of titanium-carbon composite armor?" She paused for exactly one second.

"I just arranged the itinerary logically."

"Logically enough to seem premeditated."

"If you don't want to go up the mountain, you can remove that line." She said it evenly. I could tell it wasn't a tactical retreat or bait. She was genuinely leaving the choice to me. Like last night. Like she always did. Which was the problem. Because I'd been ready to keep teasing her about her ulterior motives, and now she was sitting there looking completely reasonable, which meant continuing would just make me look like I was the one with something to hide. I cleared my throat.

"... I didn't say I wasn't going." Maki looked at me.

"So you're going."

"I'm saying that when you're testing a new vehicle, you'd naturally want to check the return road conditions." I worked hard to make my voice sound like I was discussing tire wear, not something considerably more dangerous.

"New rider, road familiarization. Very reasonable." She looked at me for two seconds, then said, softly: "Reasonable." Damn it. That reasonable somehow sounded more like an admission than an admission would have. I looked back down at the Narukami image. It was, undeniably, unreasonably striking. The cold blue rings, the forward-leaning stance, the sense of lightning and armor locked into the same frame—the product of adolescence and the military-industrial complex committing crimes together. But Maki was right.

I couldn't buy it. Not that version. What I needed was something that could get me legally on the road, park unobtrusively at twenty-two, carry a passenger without falling apart, and look to anyone from the Student Council like oh, she actually bought a commuter bike—not something that would make the disciplinary office director call security to seal the gates.

"So the vehicle direction," I said, tapping the table, "is Narukami design language, but civilian spec, older model, dark color, de-weaponized, de-synced, and ideally not immediately recognizable as Kushima-branded."

"Right," Maki said.

"One more thing."

"What?"

"The name shouldn't be conspicuous either." I looked at her. She looked at me.

"... You're not seriously planning to avoid even the name Narukami, are you?"

"Of course." Tone of someone stating the obvious.

"If you ride out and someone asks what you're on, you can't say oh, this is the Raijin Series Narukami, dual plasma cores, neural sync capable, original spec includes integrated autocannon."

"I'd be writing three incident reports before I got off the bike."

"So externally, it's just a used civilian bike." She said.

"Civilian model number only. No mention of military-spec lineage." I was suddenly curious.

"What's the civilian number?" Maki turned a page and pointed. I stared at the string of characters. KGI-MC 417B Two-Wheel Motorized Commuter Vehicle I burst out laughing.

"That's brutal. Would anyone actually follow up on that?"

"No," she said.

"Which is the point." Still laughing, I flipped back to the beginning of the full document. It was, I had to admit, extremely complete. Complete enough that I was fairly certain if someone walked in right now for an impromptu audit, Maki could hand this over without blinking and explain that we were simply doing the kind of ordinary, responsible vehicle planning a law-abiding student might do, with supplementary port district traffic familiarization and residential logistics optimization.

And the most alarming part was that every word would be true. I looked at her.

"So what's next?" Maki put her tablet away.

"Two options."

"Mm?"

"First: I condense this into an external version, and you follow the process to find a bike. Second—" She paused.

"We bring Harvey in as technical consultant." I could picture it immediately. Harvey would start by being visibly annoyed about being pulled away from something important. Then the moment he heard frame, suspension, magnetic rail drive, Kushima Technical Research, he'd light up like something had been switched on, begin muttering at length while insisting he was absolutely not endorsing anything Kushima-adjacent, and end up describing every component like a personal history. Very likely. I laughed.

"Get Harvey." Maki nodded, as though she'd already known I'd pick that.

"Then this afternoon I'll compile the candidate list. You have one job."

"What?" She looked at me, tone as mild as the most harmless spring breeze.

"From now until you actually have the bike—don't let Jess, D, Ash, or especially anyone connected to the Student Council see any expression on your face that says I've been thinking about buying a bike lately." I paused.

"Expression?"

"Yes."

"I have that expression?"

"You do," she said.

"Once you want something, your eyes give it away first." I opened my mouth to argue, then stopped. Because Maki Kushima was sitting across from me, watching me with complete calm, describing something she had apparently observed over a considerable period of time. Not a guess. Something she'd seen. My ears felt inexplicably warm. I looked down and started gathering the documents.

"... Understood."

"Good."

"Anything else?"

"Yes."

"Go ahead, Chief of Staff." She pulled out the page with the Narukami concept image and set it to one side.

"You can keep this." I looked at it.

"What for?"

"To remind yourself that striking doesn't mean suitable." She paused, then added: "And to remind yourself that not being able to get the original doesn't mean you can't find one that looks close enough without getting you arrested." That was very reasonable, and also a deeply irresponsible form of encouragement. I took the page and looked at it. Cold blue rings. Heavy grey-black body.

Compressed lines—a thunderbeast that had been placed inside the regulations of civilized society and learned, temporarily, to pretend it was just transportation. I folded it and stood up.

"Alright," I said.

"We start with something that won't give the Student Council a cardiac event." Maki stood and gathered the documents into a neat stack.

"That's the correct approach to low-profile." I looked at her completely serious face, and finally couldn't hold back.

"That said."

"Mm?"

"If I actually ride you out to see the Snowwind and then go up the mountain—" She looked up. I drew the words out deliberately.

"That elevated vantage point supplementary confirmation route—I'm going to hold that over you for the rest of your life." Maki closed the last document without expression.

"That's fine."

"You're very generous about it."

"Don't get smug before you've even bought the bike." Me: "..." Clean counter. Well played.