Chương 217: 83. Type Zero Fighter Craft 2

The moment we rejoined the group, Jess was on me first.

"Well?" Her eyes were bright, like she'd just caught the scent of gunpowder.

"What'd he say?"

"Told me to value my life and avoid reckless driving."

"Bullshit."

"Then stop asking." She ground her teeth, wearing an expression that said she'd very much like to take me apart and check for a hidden engine, but hadn't quite decided to do it yet. Maki stood nearby—didn't ask, just stated, flat:"He wants you up front for the last round?" I flattened my mouth.

"Do you have a bug on him, or can you just read lips?"

"Your face is too easy to read."

"That is a serious injury to my character."

"Your character's flexible. It can take it." …Thanks. Zero comfort received. Tobita stepped back to the center of the platform and pulled up the tactical layout for the final round.

"Final round. Individual survival counts don't matter," he said.

"Rules unchanged. Eleven of you, unlimited respawns. One valid hit on me, everyone passes. Over the last two rounds you learned exactly one thing—come at me solo, and you're just delivering yourself." D muttered from behind: "We learned that one the hard way." Tobita continued.

"So this round, you figure out how to look like a formation." That sentence was worse than any tactical briefing. Because it dumped the entire problem back in our laps. Eleven people who'd been flying solo, mouths faster than their guns, now had to work out—inside a limited number of respawns—a scenario where someone could actually touch Tobita. The odds felt about as good as getting eleven bad-tempered cats to spontaneously fall into line. Akari turned to the shared tactical board first, fingers moving fast.

"Straight pursuit, and he dismantles us one by one," she said.

"Obviously," Jess said, arms crossed.

"The point is forcing him into a mistake."

"He doesn't need to make one," Maki said. The moment she spoke, everyone actually went quiet. Not because she sounded gentle. Because the last two rounds had already proven the pattern: when she used that particular tone, it usually meant she'd already filled in the half of the map nobody else had seen yet. She studied the board, voice level.

"Captain Tobita's maneuverability is higher than ours. His read is faster. One-on-one, he owns the tempo completely. To hit him, we don't chase him. We push him into a position where he only has one exit left." Harvey frowned.

"Can we actually pull that off?"

"We have to," Maki said.

"We can respawn." D slowly raised his head.

"First time I've ever heard someone say 'we can respawn' with that much cold logic. Suddenly my life feels very cheap."

"That's because right now, it is," Lan said, coolly. I couldn't help laughing. Maki split the tactical map into three layers.

"First wave doesn't aim for a hit. Just force him to change vector," she said.

"Roy, Harvey, Ash—frontal compression. You three fly steady. Don't get greedy. Just make him cut early." Roy nodded, frowning. Harvey sighed, but didn't argue. Ash gave a quiet, "Copy."

"Second wave—D, Evelyn, Aida, Akari, Lan. Cut in from the flanks. You're not chasing him. You're sealing off his angles into safe airspace."

"I'm in the second wave?" D looked genuinely alarmed.

"Because you're loud," Maki said.

"You'll split his attention for half a second."

"…Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

"No." I almost laughed again. Jess had already run out of patience.

"What about me?" Maki looked at her.

"You're the third wave."

"Cleanup?"

"The kill bite," Maki said.

"First two waves drive him inward. You take the last shot." Jess's mouth curved slowly. Not a gentle smile. Something dangerous in it. It suited her.

"I like the sound of that." Then Maki turned to me.

"Hoshino. You're with me on the inside line." My stomach dropped a little.

"…Why is my job always the worst one?"

"Because you can do it," she said. That sentence was worse than any of her usual bladed remarks. No raised voice. No extra inflection. Just a flat, direct I know you can dropped onto my shoulders, delivered with all the drama of someone confirming a flight plan. And because she wasn't trying to be moving about it, it landed harder than if she had been. I cleared my throat and looked away.

"You'd better not be trusting the wrong person."

"Relax," she said.

"I'm trusting the flying. Not the personality." …Right. There it was. The familiar, reliable irritation, right on schedule. Thank you, Maki Kushima, for successfully dragging everything back down to a level of ordinary annoying I can actually function inside of. Tobita listened to the whole plan without interrupting. At the end, he asked only:"Done talking?"

"Yes," Maki answered.

"Good," Tobita said.

"Mount up. Let's see if you people can manage to look even a little like a formation." When the third round—the last one of the day—began, the air on the channel had changed. Gone was the ahhh how am I spinning again noise of the first two rounds. People still ran their mouths. Still got nervous. Still wanted to swear the second they hit acceleration. But underneath all of it, there was finally something else. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Rhythm.

First wave went up. Roy, Harvey, and Ash pushed forward in clean, steady lines—no greed, no wild pursuit, just the plainest geometry, squeezing Tobita's choice of vector. He read it instantly. His Type-Zero moved like a black torpedo, sliced cleanly between the three of them, and put Roy into a bloom of virtual fire on the way through.

"I'm down!" Roy shouted.

"You're too loud about it!" D shot back. The second wave cut in immediately. D, Evelyn, Aida, Akari, and Lan pressed the angles from the flanks. It worked better than expected—not because the technique was clean, but because there were enough of them, and the angles were messy enough, that it turned the airspace into an ugly, tangled net. Tobita still dismantled it fast. Evelyn got forced back first. D was mid-shout of "I've got a lock, I've got a lock!" when Lan cut in, cold: "You locked onto a friendly."

Aida and Akari held close together—one steadying the rhythm, the other calling angles rapid-fire—and for one moment actually shoved Tobita inward. Just one moment.

"Hoshino." Maki's voice came in. I took a breath.

"On it." We cut in from the inside line together. This time, I didn't fake it. Right hand on the stick, left hand bleeding thrust, nose down—running the approach like a straight pursuit, then at the last instant releasing half a notch of throttle and letting the whole frame slip sideways and down like a blade that had lost patience. It was one of J. J.' s favorite things to drill into people. Not a clean, proper textbook maneuver.

The kind that looks almost like a mistake, but is built specifically to knock a pursuer's tracking off by half a beat. Tobita clearly recognized it. He didn't fall for it fully—no clean kill—but his exit line got knocked half a beat off course. Half a beat was enough.

"Now," Maki said. Her Type-Zero came in from the other side like a ruler laid flat—precise, unhurried, cutting straight across the exit he'd been lining up. It wasn't an attack. It was a door closing. Tobita was forced to change direction again. And at the end of that line— Was Jess.

"Got you," she said on the net. Not her usual detonation of a voice. Lower. Sharper. The sound of someone who'd just bared teeth inside the belly of a Type-Zero. Nose guns first. Twin 7. 7s spat a short, testing pulse—probing, leading, nudging Tobita's attitude one more degree left right before his final break. Then Jess didn't reach for style. She didn't want the pretty solo kill. She went straight to mains. Twin 20 mm Type-99 cannons at the wing roots erupted at close range, brief and vicious.

The hit confirmation detonated a second later. Tobita's shield indicator flashed red. The system voice dropped in, cold:"Effective hit. Instructor craft, damage confirmed." The channel went blank. Completely, perfectly blank, for one full second. Then—"We hit him!" D screamed first, voice cracking at the top.

"Did we actually—did we actually—" Evelyn was right behind him.

"Jess, you actually—" Harvey started, and lost the rest of the sentence to laughing.

"Told you I'd bite you," Jess said, and the satisfaction in her voice was close to overflowing—a wolf that had just closed its jaws and couldn't quite believe the weight of what it caught. Tobita's voice cut across the full channel, flat enough to slice.

"Quiet." The channel froze like someone had hit a switch. Then:"Hit confirmed. Everyone passes." I genuinely heard someone breathe out on the net—the long kind of breath that means you've just gotten back half a life you thought you'd already spent. I was one of them. Honestly, the second the hit registered, whatever had been stretched tight enough in my chest to crack a rib finally let go. Not because we'd won—we hadn't, not really.

More that this pack of idiots who'd been bouncing off each other like lost luggage in orbit an hour ago had actually scraped a valid hit off Tobita, through nothing but chaos and coordination. The fact that it happened at all felt like it broke a law of physics somewhere. The simulation ended. The hatches opened one last time. The way everyone climbed out this time was different from the first two rounds. Still exhausted. Still soaked through. A few still looked a little green.

But under all that wreckage, there was a small, ugly kind of excitement. Like a pack of dogs who'd just been thoroughly disciplined and then discovered they'd actually managed to bite the handler's trouser leg once. The instant Jess hit the deck, D lunged for a hug and got shoved off with one hand.

"Off," she said.

"You smell like failure."

"Hey—we're a team!"

"That doesn't mean I'm hugging you." Harvey was laughing too hard to fully stand straight. Roy was still wiping his face while mentally replaying everyone's angles. Evelyn and Aida murmured over a terminal, cross-checking the final containment data. Akari had already started the debrief. Lan stood off to the side, expression mostly unchanged—though the corner of her mouth might have loosened by a fraction. I'd just gotten one glove halfway off when Tobita looked over again. …Called it.

"Hoshino."

"Sir."

"Here." The ten stares behind me were even hotter than before. Jess had her arms crossed, wearing an expression that said clearly: if you don't explain yourself, I'm stringing you up on the bunk frame tonight until you do. I pretended not to notice and walked over. Tobita studied me for two seconds. His gaze wasn't heavy, but it had the quality of being cross-referenced against something.

"That last inside-line break," he said.

"That wasn't improvised."

"…Not entirely, sir."

"I know." He looked at me.

"Answer me straight. Who taught you to fly fighters?" This wasn't a casual confirmation. He wanted it on record. I was quiet for a moment. Then I said it plainly:"Colonel J. J. Ricos." He gave one small, precise nod.

"That explains it." Just two words. But there was a lot packed into those two words I couldn't read yet—like he already recognized the name, or like he'd only had a suspicion and had just gotten the last piece to click into place. I couldn't help asking:"…You actually know him?"

"Not exactly," Tobita said.

"But I've heard how his people fly. Today, I got to see it." He paused, then added:"You haven't learned everything yet."

"I know that."

"When you do, you'll be more trouble."

"…Does that count as a compliment?" He looked at me, and for just a second, the corner of his mouth moved.

"Count it as a warning." I genuinely couldn't decide if that was an honor. He turned and walked back toward the group, stopped, and spoke.

"That's it for today. First combat-craft simulation segment: everyone passes." Not the system voice this time. His own. The weight of it landed differently. The group went quiet first, then really relaxed. D dropped flat onto the hangar floor and played dead on the spot. Harvey nudged his boot, told him he looked like scrap waiting for recycling. Jess ignored all of it—just tipped her chin at Tobita, arrogant enough that you'd think she hadn't landed one hit, but personally rewritten a page of Federal history.

Tobita didn't take the bait. He just said, even:"Don't celebrate too early. Passing today doesn't mean you flew well. It means you finally learned one thing—an ace isn't there for you to throw yourselves at one by one and hope for luck." Nobody argued. Because it was too accurate to argue with. His gaze swept over all of us, paused for a fraction of a second near me and Maki, then moved on.

"Dismissed." The word landed, and the bay finally broke apart for real. I'd barely started to breathe when Jess planted herself in front of me.

"Hoshino." She said it like she was collecting a debt.

"What?"

"You've been holding out."

"I haven't."

"You have." Her eyes narrowed.

"That inside cut. Nobody does that their first time in a sim pod."

"Did I ever say this was my first time in a sim pod?"

"That answer makes me want to hit you more." I was about to point out that it wasn't like she'd known me since yesterday, but Maki walked over first. She stopped beside me—positioned herself there, naturally, in a way that made it just inconvenient enough for Jess to drag me off for interrogation.

"Jess," she said.

"That last shot was good." Jess blinked. Probably because Maki wasn't exactly the type to hand out unprompted compliments.

"…I know." She recovered fast, chin coming back up, sliding right back into that infuriating confidence.

"Without my bite at the end, it wouldn't have mattered how pretty the setup was."

"Yes," Maki said.

"That's why I said it was good." Flat. Direct. No sugar, no filler. Which somehow made it the hardest kind of line to argue with. Jess looked like she wanted to fire something back, caught on it for a second, and finally just snorted.

"At least you know what you're looking at."

"I always do," Maki said. I stood between them and had to actively fight not to laugh. Because these two were genuinely fascinating. One a barbed powder keg. The other a cold metal ruler. They struck sparks off each other on contact, and yet the second there was real work in the air, neither of them treated it like a joke. And I was standing between them, unfortunately, functioning as a training lightning rod. Maki turned her head to look at me.

"You too."

"I too what?"

"Flew well," she said. I blinked. Then, with very little dignity, felt heat crawl up the back of my ears.

"…Did someone swap you out while I wasn't looking?"

"No."

"Then why are you suddenly speaking like a decent human being?" She looked at me, expression calm to the point of near-innocence.

"Because you finally did something worth saying that about." …Right. Retracted. There is no universe in which this woman lets my heart rate stay elevated for more than three seconds without personally dismantling it. D had resurrected at some point and was watching us with an expression of pure, delighted nosiness.

"Oooh," he drew it out.

"I'm detecting an atmosphere that should not go in an after-action report."

"You're detecting engine oil," Lan said, walking past, delivering the second knife of the day.

"I swear it's not—""Shut up," Maki and I said, at almost exactly the same time. The air stalled for half a second. D's eyes went wide. Jess blinked, then burst out laughing. Even Harvey turned away, shoulders shaking. I wanted to combust on the spot. Maki, for her part, didn't even flinch. She just gave me a calm, reviewing look.

"At least your coordination's better than the first round."

"…You're grading that too?"

"Habit."

"That habit reads a lot like psychological warfare." She didn't answer. Just the barest movement at the corner of her mouth—so small that if I hadn't been looking straight at her, I'd have thought I imagined it. That tiny fraction of a curve, and my chest did that stupid, unnecessary lurch again. Made no sense. I was the one who'd nearly been scattered into loose parts up there, and one look from her was enough to put my heartbeat on unpaid overtime.

I dragged my eyes away and pretended to study the black Type-Zero fuselage mock-up sitting in the center of the hangar. It stayed there quietly, black enough to swallow light. The knife-edge pressure it had carried in simulated airspace still hadn't quite faded from behind my eyes. And I knew perfectly well this was only the first segment. Just the opening of four.

Just Tobita throwing us into the wind in fighters, to see who'd flip first, who'd throw up first, who could already fly, and who—when pushed to the last possible second—could actually learn to fly beside somebody else. Jess had bitten Tobita once. We'd all passed. Tobita now knew the name of the maniac standing behind my flying. And Maki knew that if I kept pretending, I was only going to keep making it look worse.