Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon – Girls Talk-Volume 1, Chapter 10: Preparations and Flowers

Yes, yes

Some weird

Old guy

Is here to see us

Point Allocation (Casual)

●

Naruze did not know much about Sakai. Well, she knew he was the principal of Musashi Ariadust Academy, he used to be one of the Four Heavenly Kings of Matsudaira, and he had come to Musashi after being demoted seven years ago, and she occasionally heard him making announcements.

But she had never heard him speak in person. Until now.

“Pretty unusual to have a whole class of general education students by the third year. Did you not lose anyone or have them switch classes ever since elementary school?”

“That is correct, Principal Sakai. The provisional government office has put such a focus on the Far East’s Four Occupations and the European class system in recent years that the general education classes have been kept the same from year to year.”

Asama stepped forward to answer and Sakai nodded. And…

“If you stay in general education for high school, you’ll be coming to my school. Any of you planning to do that?”

They exchanged a glance at that question.

This was April of their third year and planning for the next year generally began around July, but Asama nodded.

“I will be going there. As will Mito, right?”

“Eh? Oh, judge! I have a number of duties to perform.”

“If I may be so bold, I plan to do so as well,” added Tenzou.

“Well,” said Naruze after exchanging a nod with Margot. “That’s our plan for now too.”

For the delivery business, they would be better off studying commerce as part of the Four Occupations or going to a vocational school recommended by the delivery guild, but…

“General education provides more opportunities to work on art and hobbies.”

“And we do like our drawings and music.”

“Judge.” Sakai nodded, brought a hand to his chin, groaned in thought, and nodded again. “If you’re looking for some fun in your life, you are most welcome at my school.”

“We Technohexen can be pretty selfish. …But what are you doing here anyway?”

“Well,” he said. “We’re at a bit of a cooling off period now that April has started, so I’m going around to the different middle schools to ask the third years if they plan to attend my school or another school and if they hope to join any of the committees or the Chancellor’s Officers. I do this every year. …Mostly cause I’d lose my job as principal if I didn’t.”

“We won’t be much help there,” said Asama. “Because we’re something of a delinquent class.”

Her tone made it clear she included herself in that description, but the Sakai’s mouth curled up into a smile.

“Nothing wrong with some delinquents. I like them, anyway. Were you aware this class is a bit of an exception even for Musashi?”

“I can think of so many reasons why I’m honestly not sure which one you’re getting at.”

“Sounds about right.” Sakai nodded. And, “Earlier, ‘Musashi’-san – well, the whole Musashino bridge crew really – was complaining about ‘that idiot Toori’ but also how so many of you take time off of school for your jobs and how many of you are VIPs in some way or another.”

“Hm? Isn’t it normal to leave early if you have a job to get to?”

“Mito? That’s only true for vocational schools. This is a general education school.”

“Exactly right.” Sakai smiled again. “This is Torii-sensei’s class, right? Her husband teaches at my school and her daughter is quite the character herself, which may explain how she’s managed to put up with all of you for three years straight. All the other teachers either want nothing to do with you or insist you need to be split up into different classes.”

“I-it hurts that a normal guy like me is lumped together with the rest of you weirdos,” lamented Tenzou.

Everyone glared at him, but then Margot took a breath and asked a question.

“And what did Torii-sensei say about that suggestion?”

Naruze looked to Mitotsudaira.

The wolf shrank down a bit since she felt disconnected from the class without her king around. She still managed to guess at an answer, though.

“If you ask me, splitting us up would only spread the damage around.”

“Exactly what Torii-san said with a smile. And I agree with her, Weiss Hexen-kun.”

Naruze looked a little surprised. She was not in her Technohexen outfit, nor was she holding her broom, so Sakai must have done some preliminary research into them.

“I look forward to having you at my school. I hope I can get to know you all much better.”

He began to search through his pocket and Asama realized what he was doing.

“This is a no smoking zone, Principal Sakai.”

“So should I go smoke in the bathroom?”

“It’s being remodeled thanks to Toori-kun.”

“What has he been getting up to?” Sakai pulled his still-empty hand out with a bitter smile. “Anyway, we recently hired an interesting new teacher, so I am excited to see what things look like around this time next year. Everyone with exceptional artistic or research talent tends to leave the general education schools, so not much changes usually, but next year looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Judge. You know how the Imperial Crown Prince occasionally visits the Musashi to sit in on the classes? Well, he is finally going to join us in a secular life, so over the next few years, he will gradually begin living here on Musashi permanently.”

Everyone turned to Asama because the Imperial Crown Prince was the Emperor’s son and the Emperor was the head of Shinto. However…

“I had only heard rumors,” she said. “This is the first real confirmation I’ve heard.”

“Not too surprising,” said Sakai. “If Shinto handled the process, he would remain under Shinto control and the Far East might try to make use of him, so they’re going out of their way to have the Buddhists handle it. They’re trying to keep the Testament Union happy, but if they have to shove him somewhere,” he gave a toothy grin, “the more trouble the class, the better, right?”

●

Naruze smiled bitterly at Sakai’s comment.

“If the principal thinks we’re ‘trouble’, then we must be Technohexen-ing right. But I bet you’ve found what the other classes do best and spoken to them too, right?”

This man had called her a Weiss Hexen, so he was bound to have checked out the other classes and students and given them special messages of their own. However…

“It’s best to leave that part unsaid.”

“A simple ‘yes’ would have been a disappointment, but maybe I’m being overly self-conscious here. Sorry about testing you with that question. Did you only stop by to greet us today, Principal Sakai?”

“Yes, just a quick greeting. Since it’s April. You can forget all about this if you have your own ideas on choosing a path for yourself come July. Also.” He looked around the classroom. “The main reason I’m here is you, Asama Shrine Representative. Asama-kun, you said you had some thoughts about last night’s ghosts and whatnot, so you wanted to verify some things, right? Then let me give you this.”

He tossed her a sign frame.

He pushed it with his finger, but it did not fly her way all that accurately. It fell as it flew and Mitotsudaira caught it while it skimmed just off the floor.

Everyone looked at it to see…

“A school uniform?”

“Do any of you specialize in fashion?”

Naruze nearly raised her hand, but she decided she was overestimating herself there. She did look at different nations’ uniforms for drawing her doujinshis, but that was different from understanding the fashion behind them. If anyone in their class had the knowledge, it was the person Asama turned toward.

“Kimi is down for the count right now. Oh, but what is this about, Principal Sakai?”

“Something stood out to me in the evidence you submitted. But it would save me the effort of explaining if you looked into what nation and academy this uniform belongs to.”

“So you’re telling us to do that.”

Asama nodded and saved his sign frame in Kimi’s storage space. She could do that since she managed Kimi and the idiot’s sign frames. Sakai watched her add a comment there, but he soon looked elsewhere.

“Mitotsudaira-kun.”

“Eh? D-do you need something?”

“Judge,” he confirmed. “Tomorrow will be our last day at Totomi, but since you’ll be able to take a ship there, I was hoping you could take this and greet someone for me. You should have enough time if you take off school sometime during the morning.”

He sent her a sign frame containing instructions.

“Totomi’s war memorial?”

●

Mitotsudaira understood why Sakai had sent that to her.

Because she knew who was buried at Totomi’s war memorial.

“Those killed in the Battle of Okehazama are there, aren’t they? And you want me to leave them flowers?”

“Exactly. It should really be one of the Chancellor’s Officers that does it, but since I wasn’t really part of the battle, it would be a bit much to send one of the Chancellor’s Officers in my place. It wasn’t just the Imagawa forces who suffered casualties then. The Oda forces did as well. And since we’re about to visit some land connected to P.A. Oda, I thought it would be best to send someone.”

Mitotsudaira had a question about that.

“If this is about Oda, who should I leave the flowers for? The local area is still strongly Imagawa, but P.A. Oda is technically in control.”

“Oh,” he said as if he had only just thought of that. Then a sign frame opened next to his face.

It was from “Musashi”. The presence of two of the Musashi’s major names made Mitotsudaira gasp, but “Musashi” bowed before speaking.

“Excuse me. Totomi is technically under P.A. Oda’s management at present. The Battle of Okehazama ended in their victory, so it should be politically sound to defer to them on the reservation. The P.A. Oda defenders of the fort and their advance unit, which included name inheritors, were both wiped out, so it should be safest to leave the flowers for them. Over.”

“Um, when you say ‘wiped out’…?”

“Judge. The Testament referenced the deaths of two name inheritors in the battle, but one of them had a younger brother and used an interpretation to temporarily take that as a double inherited name. The other had no such out, however.”

Mitotsudaira had heard some about Okehazama since its recreation had occurred in recent years.

As a name inheritor, she had been curious about that battle between name inheritors on Matsudaira-connected land.

She had forgotten a lot of it since, but she figured the names would come back to her once she was at the war memorial.

“That about sums it up,” said Sakai. “So are you willing to go as a favor to me, or as a volunteer job?”

“Um, but why Mito, Principal Sakai?” asked Asama with a tilt of the head.

Fortunately, Mitotsudaira herself could explain why she had been chosen for this.

“Because I am Mito Matsudaira. It also helps that I have more freedom since I am considered an ordinary middle school student.” She turned toward Sakai. “Understood. I will leave school during the midmorning tomorrow to visit the war memorial and leave some flowers in your place.”

“Judge. I would really appreciate that.”

With that, Sakai stepped away from the door.

The way he raised a hand in parting made him feel really close to them, but Tenzou spoke up while finally relaxing his shoulders.

“That man has no openings at all. I sometimes see him when up at the academy for training, but he’s far more impressive up close.”

●

“He certainly is impressive,” agreed Mitotsudaira.

She raised and lightly waved her left hand to show it off.

“He kept his left hand free the whole time we were talking and he leaned his back against the doorframe so he could quickly move out to the hallway or into the classroom at any time.”

“You can really tell he was Chancellor during his time at Mikawa and led the likes of Honda Tadakatsu.”

The pressure you felt when his eyes were on you told you exactly what all his movements meant, so it was a lot to deal with. His stance allowed him to start fighting at any moment if a battle broke out.

“And he did it all so naturally.”

There was always someone better than you out there.

…I have so much left to learn.

She should not have let herself be pushed back by a ghost. But…

“––––––”

A thought occurred to her as she viewed the instructions that Principal Sakai had given her.

…Could I invite my king to accompany me on this?

But that faint hope was shattered by a certain misunderstanding after school that day.

○

Asama: “Mito! Mito! These are records of the past, not a story where you have to keep the audience’s interest!”

Silver Wolf: “O-oh? Was I doing that again?”

Scarred: “So what happens next?”

Gold Mar: “Since you’re leaning forward in obvious interest there, Ma-yan, I’ll tell you Mito-tsan got a little mad when she saw the Chancellor with another girl.”

Hori-ko: “Where did he find one this time?”

Silver Wolf: “Th-this all worked out in the end, okay? Okay?”

Smoking Girl: “You were the one that phrased it so cryptically to grab people’s attention, so stop freaking out after the fact.”

Wise Sister: “Heh heh. More importantly, it’s my turn to tell the story. Yes, I ran across some truly unexpected trouble back then.”

Silver Wolf: “And I really am sorry about that, Kimi.”

●

It was not long before school let out for the day.

Kimi was looking for a quiet place to check over the uniform data from Sakai that Asama had given her.

This was an unusual task for her, so she wanted to enjoy it an unusual place.

Instead of her home of Musashino or her mother’s workplace of Tama, she chose…

“Murayama is on the opposite side from where I’m used to, but it’s a surprisingly calm place.”

Murayama and Tama were symmetrically structured, but Tama contained a lot of businesses and thus had plenty of cafes to match. All the starboard ships had that tendency.

That was because the Musashi more often circled the Far East on a clockwise route. They had all learned in elementary school that a clockwise route would place the starboard side along the coast with the port side out at sea. That meant the successful businesses gathered on the starboard side and the nature of the entire ship changed as a result.

Kimi was recalling that old knowledge because she was hoping to make a place for herself here.

…I hope I can find somewhere that serves tea and cakes.

But Murayama had more set meal restaurants than cafes. The snacks seemed to be more along the line of rice crackers and dango even though those were not local specialties or anything like that.

Of course, that was not necessarily a bad thing.

She was not going to focus entirely on work or play here, so she would work and play as much as she could manage with what was available here.

“If they don’t have something, they don’t have it.”

She looked for a café that was tidy, displayed its products on the sign, and had a calming color scheme.

“Oh?”

She saw a red, brown, and light yellow color scheme. She took a closer look and found it was a teahouse affiliated with the Asama Shrine.

She took a seat and a girl of high school age took her order in a shrine maiden outfit. Kimi would work part-time at the Asama Shrine sometimes, so she checked over how well the girl was wearing it as she made her order.

“I will have the Spring Plum three-color dango. …What is this Spring New World? Guarana? I was expecting coffee, but that’s much more interesting, so I will take three to give out as gifts. And I will have the orange matcha to drink.”

She sighed after watching the shrine maiden leave.

“Now, then,” she said while opening a sign frame and uncompressing the data from Sakai.

…All I have is a hand-drawn uniform and I have to figure out where it’s from, huh?

Every nation’s uniform went through minor changes every year. The universal options for the hard point parts, the armor’s ease of use, and the improvement of materials were all crucial since that equipment was used by the people fighting on the front lines for that nation. Larger nations would have variations for students deployed to different regions.

She had been given this task to see how well she knew all of that, but…

“They could have just had the automatons run a search. Even without a library of uniform data, they could have gathered enough new data to find the answer.”

Since Sakai was not doing that, he must have intended this as “homework” for their class.

They were in their third year and would be entering high school next year, so they were being tested.

“He must be focusing on how my foolish brother and the others react to this as well.”

The data finished uncompressing and the file opened.

She saw a hand-drawn figure on the sign frame.

In fact, she saw two. They were both male and their uniforms both looked Far Eastern.

One wore an eboshi-style hat. He had armor with attached floats on his chest and hips and the hem and sleeves were cut wide around the arms and legs.

…Is he a sailor? And this looks like an outfit he threw together himself, not a standardized uniform.

The other one wore a hat that hid his face and the ninja-style outfit was kept tight around the arms and legs.

The attached explanation said the first one was one of the ship’s crew and the second one was one of the attackers.

Just thinking about the ghosts from last night made her feel faint.

“Heh heh. You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you? So we have the ghost ship crew and the guy who attacked Mitotsudaira, do we? W-well, this isn’t really about ghosts. It’s more like a fashion design. But…”

As far as she could see, the way they wore the sleeves and hems loose or tight was not a standardized part of the uniform.

These were modified uniforms.

●

So that’s it, thought Kimi with a smile of realization.

The automatons could have found the answer with a search or by gathering new data if the uniforms were unmodified, but that did not work when an individual or group had modified theirs for a specific purpose.

Automatons had trouble with deviations from the norm.

Humans, on the other hand, could use guesses and predictions to accept those deviations as “more or less correct”.

That was what was needed here.

The Technohexen had attacked the ghost fleet last night and Mitotsudaira had seen the enemy herself. These images must have been made from those people’s witness accounts and the ether fragments gathered up afterwards. That meant these were a montage, not a perfectly accurate reproduction.

In that case, thought Kimi as she viewed the two uniforms.

“Oh, come on.”

Heh heh.

“It’s so simple. Where they’re from is right there staring us in the face.”

She started to type out the answer, but…

“Oh?”

She saw a very familiar face across the street from her.

It was her brother.

…I thought he would be wandering somewhere after leaving early, but what is he doing here?

She got up and confirmed this really was him. And someone was with him.

“Who is that?”

Kimi saw something she should not have seen.

●

Mitotsudaira was walking through Murayama after school.

She was on her way home.

She was headed home without having done anything else.

She had nothing to do, but she honestly did not like being emptyhanded at the moment.

…I really wish I could have invited my king to visit Totomi with me tomorrow.

She had considered sending him a divine mail, but…

“It feels wrong for a knight to invite her king out.”

She felt like she needed a good reason for doing that, but she had failed to come up with one. She felt like he would realize her true reasons if she put it to text.

So she had gone to his home on Musashino in the hopes of speaking with him directly instead, but…

“The Main Blue Thunder is closed today.”

Did that mean he had not returned home after leaving early? She was not sure, but she could always invite him to Totomi tomorrow morning.

So she was on her way home. She had a few different homes on the Musashi she could use. The one given to her by Hexagone Française, the one supplied to her by the knight’s league, the room she kept as personal property she managed in the corporate area as a knight, etc. She did not need most of those, but she was currently living in the home she had on Murayama.

That took her to Murayama on the way home. It was not as exciting as Tama, but she found it calming and there was plenty of food available since its warehouse district was used to store most of the ingredients on the starboard side.

“What should I get tonight?”

She could cook for herself, but she generally ordered some ingredients to be delivered and an automaton would arrive at dinnertime to cook for her. That was courtesy of the knight’s league.

She went with her standard order of pork and lamb and ordered some bread as well.

Then she sighed.

She was a known presence in this area and she felt like her wild time in the past was still influencing people’s opinions of her.

She could exchange a nod with the people she passed by, but she had no idea what they actually thought of her. Kimi would probably say she was being overly self-conscious.

She tried to believe that no one held that time against her, but having to force herself to think that meant she still had a long way to go.

…What do they really think?

She walked aimlessly through the city, peeking inside shops, and nodding when her eyes met those of the manager. Every time, she had to wonder if those people really saw her as no different from everyone else. For example…

“Does my king not see me as anything different?”

Realizing what she had just said, she came to a stop.

●

Mitotsudaira consciously exhaled.

…That can’t possibly be true.

She was saying stuff without really thinking about what it meant.

Nevertheless, she had come to a stop. f𝔯𝒆𝚎𝚠𝑒𝚋𝓃૦νℯƖ.co𝘮

Of course, this did not just apply to him. It also applied to Asama, Kimi, Adele, Suzu, Margot, Naruze, Naomasa, Heidi, Tenzou- No, I need to stop thinking so much about this.

○

Wise Sister: “Heh heh heh. Why did you decide to stop thinking once you got to Tenzou? Because he’s such a background character?”

Silver Wolf: “I-I didn’t know him as well back then, but I also had less of a tolerance for other people back then!”

●

But, thought Mitotsudaira. Isn’t what I’m fearing here exactly what I so badly wanted back then?

She had wanted to be left alone, but now that thought frightened her.

She could not stand it.

You could live in isolation, but you could not actually live alone. She had tried to claim otherwise and turned her back on that fact, but she had hit her limit in a few years’ time.

…I was so selfish.

She had changed once her king brought her back.

She had not returned to being who she had been before that. She had tried to, but…

“Horizon.”

Someone had been missing.

That fundamental change had inspired her to follow her king as he broke new ground.

That was a change that would never be shaken so long as she did not lose, but…

“I’m too reliant on him.”

She sighed and noticed the stiffness vanishing from her mouth.

She was essentially using her king to rehabilitate herself, but she still had some concerns.

She feared she had fallen behind the others and she feared she could never recover some of what she had lost.

And…

“My king is the same, isn’t he?”

She had noticed that her king had fallen behind just like she had.

Asama and Kimi had probably noticed that as well.

He was trying to figure out what he should do as a king.

●

The term “suspended sentence” came to mind.

When would her king begin to act like a king? Knowing him, it could all of a sudden start tomorrow or it could be a long way off.

…I must protect him and clear a path for him until that day comes.

So what should she do now?

She did not know.

She considered going to the knight’s league and working there as their first ranked knight, but that did not seem right as her king’s knight. That would merely provide her with a workplace.

So what course of action was right for her?

…How can I find that?

Her thoughts were interrupted when she saw someone.

“Kimi? Why is she collapsed in front of a teahouse?”

It was an Asama Shrine affiliated teahouse that doubled as a shrine contract office. The shrine maiden waitress out front was in a tizzy.

“Oh, um…Mito Lord! Kimi-sama here is a friend of yours, isn’t she!? Please say yes!”

How did she get an older girl to call her “sama”?

○

Wise Sister: “Heh heh heh. You want to know how? You do, don’t you? Then I shall tell you. Heh heh heh. By living a life worthy of the honorific!”

Silver Wolf: “If there’s one thing I know, it was not something you earned through hard work and honest effort!”

Hori-ko: “Are you taking notes, Asama-sama!?”

Asama: “I probably should be. So I can be ready to stop her next time.”

Unturning: “I feel like I’m watching two different conversations here.”

●

At any rate, Mitotsudaira looked over at Kimi collapsed in front of the teahouse.

For some reason, that crazy girl was collapsed in a pose with her hands pushing up her breasts. A tray lay by her head and it had something written on it in orange-smelling tea.

“Is that supposed to be a dying message?”

There were 5 letters of the alphabet there, so Mitotsudaira read them with an English pronunciation.

“B – O – O – B – S.”

She wordlessly took the dangos from the tray and handed the tray to the shrine maiden waitress while eating the entire skewer of dangos at once.

…How is her entire life a joke?

She had just been getting some good thinking done when this girl provided a rude awakening, dragging her back to reality.

Come to think of it, I’m always thankful when my king does that for me, but I always feel defeated when Kimi does it. Why is that? Is it the boobs?

But then she sensed another scent beyond the sweetness of the dangos.

…My king?

It came from across the road and a bit aft.

“–––––”

There he was. And he was not alone.

He had a girl with him.

He was smiling and walking with a girl she did not recognize.

…Eh?

The unexpected sight made her freeze in place while Horizon removed the shrine contract office’s door and poked her head out from behind it.

“Y-you thief!”

○

Silver Wolf: “Don’t say you were there when you weren’t!”

Hori-ko: “I apologize, but sometimes I cannot contain myself until I do my bit.”

Wise Sister: “Heh heh heh. I think you need to return my dangos, Mitotsudaira. C’mon! Do it! We can do it mouth-to-mouth if you like! Or will they only come from the butt!? Is there a divine punishment for dangos from the ass now!?”

Marube-ya: “Nooooooooooo! Don’t remind meeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Righteousness: “I swear you people have only gotten louder now that it’s past midnight.”

●

Mitotsudaira quickly hid inside the shrine contract office.

She had no real reason to do so, but…

…My king?

He was walking with an unfamiliar girl.

She was European in what appeared to be a modified Tres Españan uniform. She may have been from Tres Portugal. She had brown hair and her chest was decently large. Decently large. Decently large.

…Wh-what is wrong with me? I keep focusing on that of late.

The two of them could not see her, so they walked right on past.

After they left without noticing her…

“Ugh.”

She felt a horribly heavy feeling of loss deep in her gut.

She honestly felt somehow frustrated.

“I-I should have known.”

She felt like she was always with him and even wondered at times if she was being a nuisance, but he still did have his own life outside of that. But even so…

…My king.

“Does Horizon mean nothing to you?”

They had chosen to remember the past but to leave it in the past as they continued forward, but this made her feel like her king had moved on ahead of her while she was still stuck back at the starting line.

…No.

This is a bad habit of mine, she realized.

When doubts occurred to her, she would fail to actually see if they were true and instead keep them rolling around in her mind until she accepted them as fact. She always ended up acting like the victim because of that vicious cycle where the thoughts spun around and round in her head.

“My relationship with my king is still there.”

They had spent a lot of time together for more than a year now and that had forced her to think about things differently. Asama, Kimi, and so many others were there too, but…

○

Gold Mar: “Now all the rest of us are just ‘so many others’?”

Mar-Ga: “I can’t believe I’ve fallen so far I can be lumped in together with Tenzou.”

Scarred: “Oh, but that means she puts me in the same category as Master Tenzou.”

Silver Wolf: “How are your demands more complicated when I try to simplify things!?”

●

Given the time she and her king had spent together, she had thought there was no room for anyone else there.

That might change in the future when she could act more independently and he was free to do what he wanted, but they were not at that stage yet.

…Then who is that girl?

She did not know, but…

“My king must have his reasons.”

“Um, Mito, there’s such a thing as being too accepting.”

“How am I hearing you when you aren’t here right now, Asama? Also, you tend to be that way too. You’re just not aware of it, which seems worse.”

“How odd. Why am I being lectured when I’m not even there?”

Anyway, Mitotsudaira shook off Asama’s phantom voice and began thinking.

My king must have a good reason for this.

Yes, maybe he’s started a job as a Musashi tour guide.

Or maybe he’s started a job of hitting on girls.

Or maybe he’s started a job of dating girls.

…What kind of job is that!?

Well, that kind of job might actually exist, but you weren’t allowed to work them if you were a minor. It all seemed indecent to her knight’s sensibilities, but…

…What is going on here?

She wanted to ask, but that was not an option. He was with someone, so…

“That would never end peacefully.”

She pictured a truly horrifying scene. It might make sense for a knight to get after her king for skipping out on his duties to pick up girls, but anyone else would simply see it as a lover’s spat. She was not sure she could survive that and she felt like she would lose to that other girl’s boobs anyway. Maybe Kimi’s dying message was more on point than I thought.

“Heh heh heh. Feeling shaken? You are, aren’t you?”

“Kimi, you’re lying unconscious over there, so I must be hearing things right now!”

But there was nothing she could do. So, she decided while taking a breath.

“I can just ask him about it tomorrow morning at school.”

That girl would not be with him at school.

I’m probably misunderstanding this or overthinking it, she decided while looking up into the sky.

The ghost fleet had appeared in that evening sky yesterday, but it was peaceful now.

She spoke to herself while viewing that expanse of scarlet fading into purple.

“If only everything from yesterday had only been a dream.”

●

That night, Mitotsudaira received a divine mail from her king while she was combing her hair before bed.

He often sent her messages, but not at this hour. Curious, she checked it.

“Nate. There’s someone I want you to meet tomorrow, so can you clear some time in your schedule? You can tell me tomorrow at school when’s a good time.”

She gasped at the words she saw written there.

“Someone he wants me to meet? Could it be that girl from this evening?”

She could tell her face had gone pale, so she went to her kitchen and cooked some meat to replenish her blood. She ate a lot. I can see why they say meat is nature’s sedative. Wait, no one says that.

“You’re really weird.”

Shut up, phantom Naruze.