Chương 418: 194.Brawl 1

The next few days, Maki and I both reined it in. Not because we suddenly became mature. And not because, the moment New Year's Eve was over, we nobly decided to evict each other from our heads and return to being pure, impartial, clear-hearted Seitokai President and Vice President. If that had actually happened, I'd have to suspect the Federation Standard Channel had slipped a subliminal personality-correction broadcast in between the New Year's address segments.

In reality, it was simpler: the second winter break ended, the school came back to life—and not in any reasonable way. Students returned, timetables shifted, clubs scrambled for space, the faculty side double-checked quotas, the Disciplinary Committee had to rebuild its duty roster, and the Seitokai had to do what it always did after a disaster: take all the chaos that looked separate but would explode together, and force it back onto some kind of operational track.

Then once the representative-team preliminaries kicked off, the air on campus snapped straight from "New Year slack mode" to "if you lag half a beat you will be crushed under the paperwork" mode. So Maki and I didn't calm down because we didn't want to do anything. We calmed down because we had no time. Some things, once you're back at school, can't run on break-room-after-night-shift timing anymore. At 22 Platinum Bridge Street we at least had walls and doors.

Once you stepped into the school building, into the Seitokai office, stood in front of a bulletin board, there were eyes in every direction. Not every pair was actually watching you, but the moment you stopped acting like yourself, someone would smell it. And if there's one thing the world never runs out of, it's bored people with overdeveloped noses. Like Jess. … But that's its own category of disaster. The point is: winter break ended fast.

And the first big job I had after New Year was posting the match brackets for the representative prelims. Leaving aside the Total Force Battle—the kind of event that, just from the name, promises body counts, budget disputes, responsibility matrices, and Senpai officers delivering hypocritical pep talks—the individual events broke into four categories: unarmed combat, armed combat, shooting, and long-distance obstacle endurance. Each bracket needed five competitors. Vanguard, second, center, vice-captain, captain.

On paper it had the vibe of an old-school fighting manga. In practice it ran more like a complex administrative accident with an honor wrapper. Spots were limited. Events differed. Evaluating strength wasn't as simple as asking who could hit the hardest. You had to factor in performance under pressure, team balance, instructor preferences, cohesion between students, and—even though no one liked saying it out loud—who some people had standing behind them. This was when systems always looked particularly fair.

And fairness is one of those words that always photographs well. By the time I pinned the printed brackets to the bulletin board, the hallway was already more than one layer deep with bodies. The second the paper hit the cork, the air that had been barely holding onto "quiet" went off like someone had poked it with a stick. People pushed forward. People stood on tiptoe. Someone frowned the second they found their own name, then immediately started hunting for their friends.

Others saw a few key names and wore that "oh, of course it's them" expression. I knew that look well. Every time a list came out, three types of people appeared at once. First: the ones who knew they were in. Second: the ones who were sure they'd been screwed. Third: the ones who hadn't even stepped onto the field yet and were already analyzing everyone else's odds. Each type on their own wasn't scary. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Shove them all into the same corridor, and the overall atmosphere started to resemble a civilized version of a coliseum. I finished posting the last sheet, stepped back half a pace, and checked the overall layout. Visible enough. Fair enough. And very capable of filling the Seitokai inbox with three straight days of "just a quick inquiry" and "I only have a small suggestion"—all those polite little wrappers around trouble. Good. That felt like being back at school.

Then I uploaded the digital bracket to the campus intranet, double-checked the formatting, the order of names, and every tab with event rules to make sure they all opened. When that was done, I stowed my terminal and headed back to the Seitokai office. The office had that typical post-holiday look. More paperwork. Not much noise. Everyone was working, which made the air feel tighter. Maki was at her usual spot, two rosters spread in front of her and a half-open holoterminal hovering above them.

Her face was calm as she cross-checked the data, fully in public-domain mode: the Maki Kushima who was cool, precise, and made it very hard to connect her to the person who'd pulled me into a dark break room a few nights ago. Hedwig was by the window, taking notes on some reception-traffic flowchart. Her pen moved slowly, but steadily, like no matter what you handed her, she could strip it down into structure first and then think about how to make the world less inefficient.

Sometimes I honestly suspected Her Highness wasn't here as a refugee. She was here to audit our operations for inclusion in an Imperial "civilization defects" report. I walked up to Maki's desk and dropped my terminal lightly in front of her.

"Council President, brackets are up." Maki looked up.

"Thanks." Completely normal. Too normal. At the same time, she pulled one of the lists out of her stack and passed it to me, smooth as if she'd been waiting for me to get back.

"These are the government and military attendees for tomorrow." I took it and flipped through. By the third second I was wondering if none of these people had anything better to do. …Colonel Leo Wiesland. …Dr. Heinrich von Steiner. I stared at those two names for a couple of seconds and was genuinely tempted to flip the sheet over to check whether someone had smuggled a political satire insert into our Seitokai files.

"Do these two actually have this much free time?" I asked. Maki didn't so much as blink.

"Not free. Serious."

"That level of seriousness makes my back feel cold."

"That's your intuition functioning correctly for once." I clicked my tongue and read on. After those two came several government education officials, military assessment officers, a list of competition observers, and an entire paragraph of entourage descriptions so title-heavy it made my head hurt just scanning it. The more I read, the more I felt like this wasn't a campus representative-team preliminary at all.

It was someone dragging a supposedly hot-blooded student competition up into a half-public political review session.

"So…Seitokai's main job is?" I looked up at her, asking a question I already knew the answer to. Maki's tone was very composed.

"Window dressing." I almost laughed. Too blunt. Blunt enough to count as honest.

"You, me, and Her Highness Hedwig will be responsible for receiving the VIPs," Maki said. I went quiet for a second and turned to look at Hedwig. She had just set her pen down and raised her head too. Assigning an Imperial princess to receive top Federation military and government officials—that idea sounded like something so high-grade ridiculous it belonged in a porcelain box stuffed with explosives. And the worst part was, it made sense. Because with Hedwig standing there, she was the decorative front.

The kind that would automatically bump everyone's posture in the venue half a level up.

"My grandfather will be there too," Maki added. I dropped my eyes back to the list and, sure enough, found the name. Maki's grandfather. The same old man from the Yukikaze incident—the one who'd casually turned a room full of brain-dead bureaucrats into background scenery. Honestly, half my respect for him came from age and presence. The other half was pure: anyone who could clean up that level of idiocy that beautifully deserved a standing ovation from every junior in the Federation.

"Remember to go say hello," Maki said, almost offhand. It sounded ordinary, like a simple reminder not to forget basic etiquette at a formal event. Maybe I was just guilty, but I couldn't shake the sense there was a second layer to it—something along the lines of: you'd better behave. If Jess had been here, she'd have let out a long "woooow" and given us both that absolutely untrustworthy look—like this was just a casual social reminder and not a low-voltage warning only the two of us could hear.

Fortunately, and unfortunately, Jess was not present. Hedwig, on the other hand, set her pen down, her voice as level as if she were confirming whether the table flowers needed to be moved.

"May I greet your grandfather as well?"

"You can," Maki said. Without a flicker of hesitation. Watching them, I suddenly had the urge to laugh. The whole scene was just too strange—inside the Seitokai office, a Council President, a Vice President, and an Imperial princess were calmly discussing how to receive Federation officials and Ten-Family elders tomorrow. If you'd recorded this and shown it to me six months ago, I'd have asked: Is your school about to explode? That was when my terminal went off. Not a message. A call.

The tone hit my ears and my brow furrowed on reflex. People who called at a time like this usually weren't phoning in to wish you a smooth workday. I glanced at the display. Nikaido. … Oh. Then it definitely wasn't good news. I picked up, and before I could lay on a civilized greeting, she hit me with a burst of information. Two lines in, my frown deepened, and I couldn't help clicking my tongue.

"What the hell, Nikaido?" The office went still for a beat. Maki looked up. So did Hedwig. I listened to Nikaido's voice on the other end—tight, but still forcing itself into regulation cadence—and whatever was left of a normal expression on my face quickly slid toward what fresh New Year disaster is this.

"What did you just say?" I tightened my grip on the terminal, my voice coming up half a notch.

"A fight?" That did it. Everyone in the office was now looking my way. I stared at the call indicator on the holo-display and realized the prelims hadn't even started yet, and the trouble had already beaten them onto the field. Perfect. The New Year still smelled exactly like the world I knew.