Horizon:GT3 Prologue

Prologue: Bathhouse and Flowers

Now, it’s time to go

Now, I’ve been waiting for this

Point Allocation (Entrance to the Past)

●

“So did you end up finding a room, Mary?”

People spoke, forehead to forehead in a somewhat damp and warm space.

They were in a bathhouse changing room. But a partition was currently set up at the entrance, dividing interior from exterior.

After finishing their bath, everyone had donned underwear or swimsuits before putting on kosodes as sleepwear and letting the accumulated heat leave their bodies and moisture leave their hair.

Futons were laid out on the floor and a few of the people were seated on the blankets.

The light shining in from beyond the partition was brighter than the small nightlight on the ceiling.

“I’m not sure if we should be discussing Ma-yan at this sleepover, but it shouldn’t take long to find a room, should it?”

This new question continued on from the previous one.

It was directed at a girl sitting on a futon by the outer wall. She was leaning back against that wall with charms in her blonde hair. This “Ma-yan” had the front of her kosode open to help her flushed skin cool off and she tilted her head.

“Judge. There are plenty of available rooms in the size we are considering. But…”

She held a hand to her cheek as her eyebrows lowered in a smile.

And after some slight hesitation…

“With so many options, I want to make sure I choose a good one, so I’m having a hard time making a decision.”

“So you’re the cautious type.”

A girl feeding a giant anteater Mouse faced the others while seated in front of the clothing racks. As she fixed the baggy sleeves of her oversized kosode, the blonde girl, Mary, responded.

“I would say less careful and more…cowardly, Lady Masazumi.”

●

Flat Vassal: “Can I ask what her standards for cowardice are?”

Gold Mar: “Apparently cowards bathe with a boy before working up the courage to confess to him, kiss him in front of her family, and slice a warship in half!”

Art-Ga: “Damn, none of my characters have even made it to that level of cowardice before…”

Silver Wolf: “By those standards, wouldn’t the 1st Special Duty Officer be a coward too?”

Smoking Girl: “He’s just pathetic.”

Flat Vassal: “You sure don’t sugarcoat things, Masa-san! It sounds like making a move means you’re a coward and not making a move means you’re pathetic. Do I have that right, everyone!?”

Asama: “Um, that definition of pathetic is weighing pretty heavily on my heart…”

●

…They are getting all worked up about something again.

The others had begun some kind of discussion about her.

For Mary, this had become the norm.

She sometimes did take a peek at the divine net, but she felt no real desire to actively participate. Partially at Tenzou’s insistence: “Carelessly join in and the threads will explode with activity, so you need to be careful.” But mostly she just found being a simple observer to be plenty entertaining.

If only they didn’t post so quickly.

She was overwhelmed by the amount of information and the speed at which it scrolled by on the sign frame.

Asama seemed to be panicking about something, but then Kimi laughed and posted something that made Masazumi glare at her and make a post of her own.

But while Masazumi kept a watchful eye on the sign frame with everyone’s conversation scrolling by, she also looked Mary’s way.

“Mary, if you’re looking for a room, you could use your privileges as a diplomat.”

“Heh heh. Silly girl. She wants to perform the search with Tenzou and write up a list of their findings.”

“Judge. Yes. Now that I have some free time, I’ve started looking at Musashi housing information, and that might just be when I enjoy myself the most.”

“I know what you mean.” Naruze looked up while still making more posts on the divine net at dizzying speed. “Margot and I searched out our room while refusing to make any compromises and it turns out that a house hunt where you show each other your recommendations is a great way to learn more about each other.”

“We argued a lot on whether the mirror immediately inside the door should be on the right or the left, didn’t we? Because the entrance is so narrow.”

“We ended up finding an all-stone room with no dirt entranceway and then adjusted the layout to our liking.”

“Also,” chimed in Adele. “I have a mobile shell, but I don’t have the money to rent a garage, so I ended up renting a wide block storeroom. People who own big things like that often end up using half a storeroom to live in, so I searched for a vacancy like that.”

“Kiyonari and I stay in a similar place. What about you, Vice Chancellor’s Aide?”

Gin nodded at Narumi’s question.

“We rent a tiny room. As a reminder that we had our inherited names revoked.”

“That isn’t too small for you, Gin-chan?”

“No. Fortunately, the engine division’s maintenance team and Musashi IZUMO have offered to perform maintenance on my prosthetic arms and Arcabuz Cruz, so I generally keep them stored in their dual pitch space so either group can retrieve them. 3rd and 4th Special Duty Officers, do you work on your brooms at home?”

“The cowlings stay in their phase space so Edel Brocken can look after them. We keep the flight brooms in stockers we have set up on the hallway wall.”

“I see,” said Mary as she nodded yet again. Class 3-Plum had a lot of powerful fighters, so a lot of them had weapons and such. But they didn’t all live in the same kind of place.

“Such diversity…” she commented, impressed, but Masazumi waved a hand dismissively.

“No, they’re just weird.”

“What’s your home like, Masazumi?”

…Lady Masazumi lives with her provisional councilor father, doesn’t she?

Everyone glanced up as Masazumi gave a snort and glared.

“The house might look fancy, but my room is tiny. In fact, the entire house is small. To the point that the provisional council can’t hold meetings there unless I stay somewhere else like I am tonight.”

●

…That said, having that tiny room all to myself is still a luxury.

Masazumi couldn’t let herself forget how limited space was on the Musashi.

There was far less land on the Musashi than there had been at Mikawa. As enormous as the ships were, it was strictly divided into different districts and rooms were always kept to the bare minimum in size.

Six square meters was the standard and ten was considered spacious. But…

“And even the basic 6 square meter ones have 2 square meters taken up by the dirt entranceway and dirt floor in the back, so the actual living space is only 4 square meters.”

“That’s why people use the interior columns to build a loft.”

“Could you build a loft in a house like mine? I’d love to have more space to store books without just piling them up on the floor.”

“All houses are built to the same standards, so you can build one as long as you either have walls on three sides or you have four corners formed from walls or pillars,” explained Naomasa, drawing out a diagram in the air with her left hand. “But for surface houses, I think people tend to just buy shelves and use those instead of building a loft. What’s your room like, Masazumi?”

“It’s true I already have a bed and a bookcase.”

“Surface houses give you somewhere else to store your clothes and odds-and-ends, so that sounds about right,” said Adele.

“It does,” agreed Asama. “My old room and my current one are like that.”

“Oh? Your current room?”

A few of them looked to Asama and Mitotsudaira.

The shrine maiden and the knight tensed a little.

“Th-they’re just ordinary, small rooms.”

“Yes, ordinary small rooms. But when I saw my classmate’s futons in the back of the Main Blue Thunder, I just knew what I would be drawing for the next event.”

“Wow. Ga-chan, are you going to use this insider information for your doujinshis!?”

“And didn’t you open up your Main Blue Thunder rooms for us all to sleep in when we were staying over there?”

In fact, the Main Blue Thunder had become one of the girls’ hangouts, much like this changing room. Since it was the Aoi family home, it had a good kitchen and Asama, Mitotsudaira, and Horizon already lived there, so it was a good place to gather when there was some kind of event.

It was also a surface house, but it was a lot different from Masazumi’s.

“My dad would never let me have everyone over like we do here or at the Main Blue Thunder.”

“Your dad is strict, isn’t he? And we do tend to be noisy.”

“Yeah, the provisional council is apparently meeting there today since I’m out.”

●

“Okay, what should we watch next!? Since Masazumi is gone, we will be staying up all night to watch this season’s shows, so I hope you’re ready! Now, Koni-tan! Play the next one!”

“Judge! So, Nobu-tan, what about we skip to the bottom of the list and watch Plump Pliny’s Natural History!? I hear it’s a collection of delightful lies about foreign furries!”

“You fool! I put that at the end because I already know it’s going to be a masterpiece! Fine, I’ll choose. Let’s go with Soga Story! Yes, Soga!♪ Sing it with me! Sooogaaa!!♪ Okay! I’ve heard it’s about a warrior chasing his dreams until he meets an untimely end, but it’s good to watch a tragedy now and then! If it gets me too depressed, Hayashi, you do something about it! Yes, you need to just – bam! – cheer me up somehow!”

“Nobu-tan! Nobu-tan! Stop abusing your power with vaguely-defined demands!”

●

Being a politician sounds tough, commented the Aoi Sister with a bitter smile. Masazumi couldn’t blame her. It was a life of service.

“Horizon and Asama, your rooms are the same size as mine, but yours have tatami mat floors, right?”

“Yes,” replied Asama. “That lets us put the rooms right next to each other and we can rearrange them by redoing the dividing curtain, but it also means we can’t build a loft. We did have shelves built along the wall and some under-floor storage put in.”

Mitotsudaira nodded in agreement and shrugged.

“The closet was going to be filled with my combat dresses, so I use the treasure chest that my mom sent the silver chains in. Its internal space has been expanded.”

“I guess that’s one way to solve your storage problems.”

“It’s perfect…”

“What exactly is perfect, Naruze?”

Was her next doujinshi going to be about the Main Blue Thunder? Masazumi was accustomed enough to this group for that to be her first thought.

But if phase spaces could be used for storage, there was someone else who could take advantage of it.

“Horizon, do you store everyday odds-and-ends in your Logismoi Oplo storage space?”

Horizon waved a hand dismissively.

“No. When in my room, I place them in their stockers to admire them. Lately when I head out, I figure I don’t need to bring a battery with me as long as I have Aspida Phylargia.”

“Shouldn’t you be treating a world-influencing weapon with more care?”

“Not at all. During the previous unplanned sleepover here, everyone gasped in awe at seeing the Logismoi Oplo stockers in my room, which made me feel really good.”

“Um, Horizon? Have you stopped stacking your clean clothes up by the wall?”

“No, the way Asama-sama fold them is a work of art, so I thought it would be best to leave them out where I can appreciate them. Yes, it definitely isn’t that I have nowhere else to put them since the shelves in my room are full of snacks.”

Horizon couldn’t look them in the eye and Asama smiled bitterly with a comment of “I’ll be taking a look at those shelves sometime soon”, so their landlord and tenant relationship seemed to be going well. But…

“Mary, is any of this helping you decide on a room?”

“Eh? Oh, I enjoy all of your stories.”

That wasn’t quite what Masazumi had asked, but at least they weren’t scaring Mary away.

Masazumi was honestly interested in the idea of increased storage with phase spaces and shelves, but why was it more storage was the only advantage she could think of for moving out to live on her own?

…But Mary must be coming up with those advantages in real time as she searches for a room.

It was amusing how everyone’s attention had returned to Mary at some point.

If only it could always work that way, thought Masazumi before Mary began to speak.

“Storage space is something I need. Since I have Ex. Collbrande.”

“Yeah, most people don’t have that…”

Stop being so on the nose, Balfette. But Mary only nodded a little and continued.

“I’m not asking for much. I just thought I should consider a new place since it feels like there is so much more I need now that I am on the Musashi.”

However…

“I’ve gone around looking at different rooms with Master Tenzou, but I honestly would be fine staying in our current place. It is lacking in some areas, but I’ve grown fond of it.”

●

Yeah, thought Naito.

“Fondness can matter a lot. Increasing your capacity can give you more options, but if you aren’t feeling the current limits yet, a new environment can feel like more than you need.”

“Judge.” Mary lowered her eyebrows in a smile. “A lot of people helped us get our current room, so that’s another way it matters to me.”

“So responsible of you,” said Naruze.

She meant it in a pejorative way. And Mary must have known she was taking it too far.

…This must be why she called herself cowardly.

I want to believe she has normal standards for that. Yeah.

“In other words, you’re satisfied with what you have now, so you might as well stick with it?”

That in and of itself wasn’t a problem. Satisfaction with your current circumstances made for a happy medium.

But if this came from “cowardice”, it was a different matter.

…Sometimes you aren’t actually satisfied, but you tell yourself you are to avoid having to do something about it.

That was probably how she had lived back in England.

Mary had to be worried she was falling back into that same pattern. In that sense, Tenzou was right to discuss getting a new place.

But her curiosity and interest in doing this with Tenzou was probably winning out over the personal cowardice.

At the same time, Naito was curious about something else. Mary said she was fond of her current room, but…

“You had a pretty tough time of it before finding a home here, didn’t you?”

Mary had run into trouble simply leaving the embassy.

A few of the people in the dim light stopped moving, maybe from remembering what had happened. Naito was among them, but Narumi tilted her head since she hadn’t been on the Musashi at the time.

“I didn’t have any trouble leaving the embassy, so I didn’t realize it could be a problem.”

“It…usually isn’t.”

Suzu stood up and walked toward the counter. Asama got up and followed after her, so they must have decided this would be a long story and were in need of snacks and drinks.

“Okay,” said Naito. She thought she knew where this was headed. “Let’s gather together the records from back then to see what happened to Ma-yan when she arrived on the Musashi.”

No sooner than the words were out of her mouth, light shined in. The partition at the entrance had sprung up into the air.

“My! I thought I would take a late-night bath, but is it time to tell a love story!?”

●

Mitotsudaira turned around to see a massive presence.

She had picked up on the scent earlier but hadn’t wanted to believe it. But only one person could so easily catch the partition she had knocked into the air and return it to its original spot.

“What are you doing here, mother!?”

“Oh, Nate! Am I in time for the girls talk!?”

“It’s a real stretch to call one of us a ‘girl’.”

“My, my,” said the mother, carrying a tray of bamboo cups over from the counter. Suzu hurried over with a new blanket, which the mother grabbed with her toes and skillfully draped around her shoulders.

“I heard enough to know you are discussing when that English princess defected. That was related to IZUMO, so I know all about it. I am Hexagone Française’s Vice Chancellor after all. So I will join you as the highest evolution of a girl.”

Don’t you mean mutation of a girl? thought Mitotsudaira, but she was hardly surprised to see her mother blending in perfectly as she helped distribute drinks. It was always awkward when a relative possessed a skill you did not. And her mother looked to her and spoke.

“There is one thing about that period I have wondered about. …Nate, can you get us started? I expect we will learn about all sorts of fascinating things tonight.”

–It’s fun.

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