Horizon:Volume 8C Chapter 71

Chapter 71: Dancers at the Waterside

Tan tan ta-tan

Ta-ta-tan tan

Tan ta-ta-tah-ta

Ta-ta-ta-ta-tan

Point Allocation (Hey!)

“Okay, let’s start the 4th day – but effectively only the 3rd day – of Mitotsudaira’s training!”

A smiling voice was joined by some sounds.

The sounds were bells and a hand striking a thin membrane. A silver sound played to the beat of the tambourine.

The silver sound came from a pair of chains.

It was a solid sound similar to thick cloth being struck but with a waving motion to it.

These sounds came from a small stream running through the forest. The location was a bit down from the spring. There was a small clearing on the bank of the stream. A few people were making the sounds and moving in that grassy clearing.

One of those people was Mitotsudaira.

“Oh…um. Oh.”

She kept the beat while swinging her silver chains.

She wore her track suit and the silver chains in her hands had been pulled from the obelisks and chain dispensers she had driven into the ground. What she was doing here could be easily explained.

“Hey, tan, ta-ta, tahn, tan!”

The wolf swung the chains in time with the beat set by Kimi in a partially-removed track suit. But instead of grabbing something with the chains, she was letting them ripple across the ground while she sometimes pulled them toward her or shook them.

“––––––”

The chains ran forward. And in their waving motion, an extra strong, flying momentum ran through them without warning. But…

“Ah,” said Asama while working on her bow nearby and Mary tilted her head while burying Excalibur in the sand.

In an instant, the silver chains bent away from Mitotsudaira’s hands and the wave of acceleration traveling toward their tips lost their grounding.

“Agh.”

A groan escaped Mitotsudaira’s throat as the metal sound unraveled.

The waving silver sound seemed to collapse and the tips lost their speed. The only sound made now was the chains falling limp to the ground.

“Well, that didn’t work.”

The silver chains crawled back on their own and tried to coil up in front of the wolf, but their owner pulled back her wrist to tell them to return to their dispensers. That left the chains with the task of returning to their retracted position.

“What was that, Lady Mitotsudaira?”

Mitotsudaira shrugged as she answered Mary’s question.

“Training for giving the silver chains the bursts of acceleration I use.”

“That would mean it worked up to a point, wouldn’t it?”

“No,” sighed the wolf. “That initial burst was all from my arms. The chains didn’t do anything there. So it didn’t work at all.”

Mitotsudaira sighed and crossed her arms holding the retracted chains.

…How can I give my bursts of acceleration to the chains?

That had been her primary task ever since the exam.

Since it required swinging around the silver chains, there were only so many places on the Musashi she could use. The schoolyard or 2nd schoolyard would be best, but during summer break those were usually occupied by athletes training for their tournaments and whatnot.

She didn’t have the guts to get in their way.

So she was doing it here.

“Do you feel like you’re getting close, Mito?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer Asama’s question. Picking up and carrying a felled tree was easy enough, as was dropping branches in the process. But…

“Sensei said my inability to give the silver chains my burst of acceleration was my biggest flaw.”

“Heh heh. She said it was a flaw, but she didn’t say it was a problem you can fix.”

That was what worried her.

Her silver chains hadn’t been any help at the very end of the exam.

They had made accelerated attacks, but Oriotri had deflected them. The chains’ movements and speed were one-note and easily messed with.

It was true she couldn’t give the chains the bursts of acceleration she used herself.

She had thought that acceleration technique was all about her skeletal structure and great strength, so she had assumed it wouldn’t work with boneless chains.

But was that really true?

“How do the silver chains move?”

“With an ether current. They are made of an ether metal, so while they only look like chains, they are actually contained in a thin ether field. When they move, that field moves to move them.”

“That is similar to the process behind Excalibur’s flight.”

“Yes, the propulsion and power system are on the outside. They are externally powered.”

“Oh, like how my arrows have homing and acceleration spells applied.”

“Judge,” Mary nodded and Asama seemed to understand too.

But if that was how the silver chains moved…

“There’s no way to transfer your bursts of acceleration to them, is there?”

“That’s why I was wondering if I could give them speed with my hand movement. For example…”

Mitotsudaira swung her right hand overhead without pulling the silver chain back first.

Everyone watched as she accelerated that hand and controlled it with her shoulder.

“There.”

A dry bursting sound rang out.

“What was that?” asked Mary, eyebrows raised.

“Your hand broke the sound barrier, didn’t it?”

“It’s really easy to hear with a sword or similar weapon.”

She swung her hands with a tempo, producing consecutive sonic booms. A weak wind whipped up around her and some light began to scatter there. That was ether light. Mary narrowed her eyes when she saw it.

“The forest spirits are calling you the Reine des Garous.”

“I am not the queen, but this proves that my mother can reach this kind of speed with ease.”

Having a monster like that for a mother wasn’t easy. But…

“When I swing my hand like that and try to transfer the acceleration to the chain like it’s a whip…”

“Earlier, the power failed to propagate and collapsed instead. Is that what happens?”

“Judge. And that is very much a brute force method anyway. I’m simply giving the chains a wave of speed, so I can’t send them in whatever direction I want or instantly accelerate the entire chain at once.”

“Heh heh. Then what are you going to do?”

Kimi was the one helping Mitotsudaira get her rhythm down. They had been at it for a few days and it still wasn’t going well, but…

“I will attempt a few other methods before giving up. If I try enough options, I might find something useful, even if it doesn’t solve my initial problem.”

And just as Mitotsudaira shrugged…

“Oh, I thought I heard some nice sounds coming from this direction. Done training already?”

Across the stream, Naruze and some others had emerged from a forest plateau. She, Naito, Adele, and Suzu had been out gathering mountain vegetables in baskets.

That was for food today and based on how full their baskets were…

“You all had a productive day, didn’t you?”

Adele nodded at Mitotsudaira’s comment.

“Judge. What is with this forest!? We managed to gather so much I want to move in and live here! I mean, we visited one of the same places as before and it had all grown back. If everything grows back in a week’s time, I bet you could eat off of this every single day.”

“I’m more amazed that there’s enough for our entire class,” said the 3rd Special Duty Officer.

Suzu nodded and held a hand to her ear.

“I can sense…Mitotsudaira-san’s mother…here.”

The 5th Special Duty Officer did not look happy about that, but it wasn’t surprising.

This was the Reine des Garous’s forest. Anywhere near the candy house had to be prime real estate. The forest itself ensured she could live here comfortably.

…It’s like a fairy tale.

The spring and the stream were there to bathe in, quench your thirst, and clean with. The vegetation was for food and a pleasant atmosphere and the animals created an animal world where the queen reigned supreme.

They had seen a few types of animals in the distance while out. Like deer and squirrels. None of them seemed accustomed to people, but…

“If their group has grown too big, the animals above a certain age will go to Ture-yan themselves to be her prey. Because if she does it, they know they’ll be returned to the forest.”

“You mean through the Vicereine’s ‘excuse me!’ process that we’ve grown to associate with udon?” asked Adele.

The 4th Special Duty Officer smiled and came at Adele with a karate chop, so Adele accepted it with an “owww!”

According to the 4th Special Duty Officer…

“You can think of it as their souls completing the cycle.”

That was a little hard to grasp for someone born on Musashi where everything was artificial.

They had discussed that animism or whatever while finishing their food gathering and then they had heard a nice rhythmic sound on the way back. They had known that had to be Mitotsudaira’s morning training with the silver chains.

They had descended from the plateau to the stream and now they removed their shoes to cross the stream and join the others.

The clearing being used for training got a lot of sun.

Even in the forest, the summer sun and the humidity created an unpleasant heat.

“This place is nice.”

“I expect my mother used this place to nap. It vaguely smells of her perfume.”

Adele could just imagine the Reine des Garous playing in the stream and then lying down in the sun here.

“Sounds like a carefree life.”

“Yes, but she still left the forest with my father.”

“Heh heh. Proof that love is greater than boredom!”

That sounded obvious but also like a profound truth, so Adele made sure to jot it down.

At any rate, once they were together, they all focused on the gathered food.

They hadn’t taken anything that would be too much of a challenge to cook with. It was generally wild plants. And the edible kind. They had avoided the medicinal kind.

There were a lot of green onions, turnips, and the like, but…

“In the forest, ingredients like these tend to be sweet, don’t they?”

“Wouldn’t that be because the lack of selective breeding means people tend to choose the edible fruits more than the thin leaves?” said Mitotsudaira.

“Heh heh. Either way, I see you managed to gather a lot. Who was in charge?” said Kimi.

“We were.” The 3rd and 4th Special Duty Officers raised their hands. “Both our parents were from hereabouts.”

“They worked a sort of mountain guard unit.”

Asama nodded in interest at the pair’s response, but then she pointed deeper into the forest.

“You didn’t hear about it from that thing?”

They looked over to see a round white creature pacing in the distance.

It was a unicorn. Asama narrowed her eyes at it.

“It seems to be watching us.”

“I believe it is worried about your bow, Lady Asama.”

“I’m a bit curious, Asama-san. Are they acceptable prey by your rules?”

“Yes. Shinto says nothing about unicorns, so it is no more than another animal to me. I can’t say whether or not Mito’s mom hunted them, but if I slayed it with a purification arrow, its data management would likely return to normal and we would have some ordinary horse meat to cook.”

“Y-your conversation is making me uncomfortable-orrrrn!”

Asama turned back toward it and the white thing fled.

Everyone watched it go while the 3rd Special Duty Officer crossed her arms and spoke.

“They probably would know where we can find mountain vegetables, but I want to avoid working with them.”

“Right? And we know enough to get by on our own.”

Those two special duty officers had indeed known a lot and shared that knowledge with the others.

They had generally been right about where the mountain vegetables would be growing and where the footing was good or bad.

…Thinking back, the 3rd Special Duty Officer was chosen for the rescue team when the Chancellor was kidnapped that one time.

Probably because of her confidence and familiarity with this sort of forest.

They had known each other a long time, so it was surprising to still be learning new things and noticing changes.

And now everyone was undergoing their own training while living here.

…I can tell this is a turning point for us.

As a vassal, Adele could tell everyone had relaxed a lot since coming here.

They enjoyed a casual but fulfilling life in the forest, but they would sometimes fall silent, stare into the distance, and stop whatever they were doing.

And more than training on their own, they would gather together while everyone maintained and finetuned their weapons or even trained together.

It wasn’t like they would have been too worried if they were on their own.

Adele saw it as everyone wanting to be together as they approached the coming turning point.

Adele saw their previous big turning point as Mikawa.

A lot had happened there, there had been lots of trouble and conflict, and the Chancellor had made the situation a lot wor- Well, it makes for a good memory now. Putting it any other way would only mean digging up past unpleasantness, so let’s keep it at that.

Regardless, it all went back to Mikawa.

Both because of the Vicereine’s arrival and because everyone had confirmed their roles then. They had confirmed and reached an understanding of who they were as individuals and as a part of the whole. Because they couldn’t continue on to the future otherwise.

They had mostly remained in those roles since. But…

…The next turning point is coming.

The Honnouji Incident.

That wasn’t a Musashi history recreation. It belonged to the Oda clan and P.A. Oda, so if anything, Musashi was an observer as Matsudaira.

But their involvement here would determine a lot regarding their relationship with the other nations.

At the previous turning point of Mikawa, they had announced their participation in the Peace of Westphalia. Whether or not Musashi could intervene at Honnouji would be a major factor for the other nations to consider what Musashi said at Westphalia. This would be an accounting of everything they had built up since Mikawa – the relationships with other nations and other people.

They also had the Battle of Sekigahara and the Siege of Osaka afterwards, but the Honnouji Incident acted like a preliminary battle that determined how the rest would play out. In other words, if Sekigahara was the final exam, Honnouji was the midterm. How this event ended would determine what kind of future they could choose.

Sounds like a school that focuses a lot on your academic history, sighed Adele, but everyone who would be fighting on the front line or supporting everyone on the battlefield would have already overcome that.

So what would they do?

Everyone had their own answer in mind. They were coming up with ideas of how to accomplish it and they were determining what more they needed to get there.

So there was a simple reason why Kimi was helping the 5th Special Duty Officer while Asama and Mary accompanied them, maintaining their bow and Excalibur respectively.

“They’re all really excited, aren’t they?”

They could manage on their own.

But knowing someone was there alongside you made it more exciting.

That meaning must have gotten through because the 3rd Special Duty Officer put her hands on her hips and responded.

“There are times when I feel like I’m turning into Bara-yan. Like when I want to perform an action just right or go really fast in some everyday activity. So,” she said, looking to the 5th Special Duty Officer. “Maybe we were right to bring everyone here. On the Musashi, we might all be on edge and that would feel out of place there, but here our surroundings can accept it all. When we’re feeling really nervous, being in the forest lets us think of it as mental training or something and it feels okay to do that here.”

“Yes, and we eat outdoors and take turns cooking with the Chancellor and the others. On the Musashi, we would end up only grabbing some portable food during our breaks in training and try to stay focused.”

“You’re right about that, agreed Adele.

They were camping out in the candy house’s prime real estate. It wasn’t the usual place for their official training, so it was perfect for thinking about stuff without feeling rushed.

Being on the surface in and of itself made this all feel different.

And during it all, they were testing out and researching ideas and revealing what they had learned or were considering.

This place let them focus, but it was also unfamiliar to them.

Everything was going well.

It probably helped that they had already experienced something similar during their school trip to Sanada.

“It was the Vice President who set this up, wasn’t it?”

The Vice President herself was preparing for her meeting with Akechi Mitsuhide at 5 PM on September 2.

That would probably be the starting line leading to Honnouji.

She was currently inside the candy house reading through various materials, discussing things with those still on the Musashi, and otherwise preparing, but…

“I hope that works out,” said the 3rd Special Duty Officer.

Naito didn’t hesitate to speak.

The outdoors life here was pretty fun, but like Adele had said, everyone was gradually getting more worked up.

There was no point in pretending this was just a fun camping trip. So…

“We only have 5 days until the 2nd. We need to enjoy ourselves while we can.”

“You sure are daring.”

“I really like the excited atmosphere building up here. It reminds me of Ga-chan when a deadline is approaching. And…”

And…

“I wouldn’t want her like that all the time, but she looks really cool taking everything she has and pouring it into her work.”

“Margot, that’s just me feeling backed into a corner.”

Naruze said it with a smile, but she didn’t reject Naito’s view.

“It’s also cool how you always cut it so close,” said Naito

“I’m not sure I want approval of my flaws, but it’s true I couldn’t get through it without pouring everything I have into it.”

Naruze picked back up her basket of mountain vegetables. Probably a signal that they should get going.

Then Asama looked their way.

“What about your training?”

“Hm, I think we’ll join you in the afternoon. You’ll still be doing this then, won’t you?”

Naito took a step and felt something underfoot.

…Hm?

She looked down at the artificial hardness and shape.

“Excalibur?”

“Oh, I buried that earlier.”

“I get it.” Naito’s Technohexen sense told her the answer. “Refueling with ether from the ley lines?”

“Judge,” confirmed Mary. “The ley lines here are close to the ones back home.”

“Yeah, England’s residents were originally from Gaul,” said Adele.

If that was true, then the civilization and culture that had created Excalibur had crossed the sea – or the sky really – to reach England.

The Reine des Garous’s forest had mostly maintained its ancient form. If Mary was going to refuel outside of England, this place would probably be the best match since it had been largely untouched by history.

Mary must have sensed the same thing.

“It should be able to gather a decent amount.”

“If that works, Excalibur could be our decisive weapon.”

The others expressed their agreement while looking at the two buried Excaliburs. And Kimi…

“Heh heh. But wasn’t Excalibur given out by a spring spirit? Why not submerge it in that spring?”

“Someone could hurt themselves if it was hidden underwater there.”

Mary’s ability to say that with a straight face was truly incredible. Then there was Asama who crossed her arms and responded.

“I would be more worried about a spring spirit appearing after you threw it in.”

“Yeah, this is that sort of artifact, so a local spirit could be forcibly awoken as a spring spirit.”

“Judge. That did not happen last time when I brought it to the spring and used it as a float or as table for snacks, but if I submerged it…who knows.”

“Heh heh. Hard to tell if we’re being respectful or disrespectful of this historical artifact.”

“Well, because of those concerns, I am considering submerging it in the stream near the spring since the ley line current there should have the same mold.” Mary tilted her head. “The only mystery is how I managed to launch that attack back at Houjou.”

“If you mean the Love Love Homerun, Ma-yan, the answer is love. Your love.”

“But I have since tried swinging it while having feelings like that…”

“Then it wasn’t love. Not love at all.”

How about some consistency, Ga-chan? But…

“It’s possible the ether accumulated in the sword acts as a primer to draw out Mary’s power.”

Asama’s speculation made everyone look her way. She was currently adjusting the strength on the bobbin for her bow’s ether bowstring by twanging the empty string.

“That could be what happened before too. It had been a while since England, so the ether that had naturally built up could have linked Mary and Excalibur, triggering a destructive blast.”

“It’s plausible at least,” said Naito. “Our schale besen use a small acceleration spell starter to get the larger thruster activated.”

Mary held a hand to her chin. She was probably digging through her memories for any clues. But…

“I’m a little afraid to test it out. Even if it does work, I would be using up what I have built up.”

“Mary, you are the 1st Special Duty Officer’s aide, so you don’t have to fight on the front line.”

“Yeah, but she’s worried about the 1st Special Duty Officer.”

Adele’s comment made Mary blush.

…Oh?

An interest in gossip was the Technohexen way. Naito hadn’t heard much regarding Tenzou and Mary lately, partly because they were staying in different tents.

So just out of curiosity…

“How have things been going lately? Before coming here, I mean.”

Everyone waited for the answer and Naruze opened a Magie Figur and opened a transmission to the girls training at the candy house or spring. Mary failed to notice any of this and responded with a hand on her cheek.

“Well, lately – by which I mean when we were still on Musashi – I have started sleeping with my futon on the same floor height as Master Tenzou.”

“Eh? F-floor height???”

“Sh. Be quiet, Suzu. Tenzou whips it out at home, so we already knew their living arrangements were weird.”

“R-right,” replied Suzu, which was fine, but Mary…

“So you see. Because of the tatami mat layout, putting our futons next to each other initially meant one of us was moved half a mat up from the other. So Master Tenzou…”

Art-Ga: “Got in your futon and attacked!?”

Flat Vassal: “So he finally crossed that line!”

Horizey: “I suppose this means I should give Tenzou-sama a year’s supply of sekihan.”

The excitement was building and Mary wiggled with her hands on her cheeks.

“So Master Tenzou shifted his futon so our faces were side by side. For the last few days before we came here, I tried to get up before him every morning, but I never could manage it and it was so embarrassing.”

Art-Ga: “Okay, people! You got what you came here for, so scram!”

This was a tough one.

But Mitotsudaira turned toward Naito and tilted her head.

“What are you going to do once you join us this afternoon?”

“Shooting practice, I suppose. Midrange with non-boosted bullets. Maybe around 2km?”

“Oh, then I’ll need to give you some target sign frames,” said Asama.

“That sounds exciting,” said Mitotsudaira, but it wasn’t really.

“We’ll just be firing through the forest along the path of this stream, so it’s honestly pretty boring. If we place some anti-buffering spells against the stream’s current, it causes a lot of vibrations that let us simulate aerial control while we fire.”

Doing it while actually flying would be best, but this was Hexagone Française. If they only went up for short periods at night, they wouldn’t lose their focus. Maybe we should invite Uqui along, thought Naito.

“Is the Chancellor cooking again?”

“Judge. Horizon and my king are preparing lunch at the candy house.”

“Gin-san and Mune-san are helping too,” said Asama. “Urquiaga-kun and Masazumi are keeping an eye on things, so there shouldn’t be any trouble.”

“You couldn’t trust them less if you tried, could you?”

“Well, you know,” said Asama before opening a sign frame. It contained all the recipes they had received from the Reine des Garous – well, Mitotsudaira’s dad really.

Those two had left the recipes with the Chancellor when they stayed at the Main Blue Thunder before.

He and Horizon were trying out some of them now, but…

“European meat dishes differ a lot between the east and the west, but Gin-san seemed pretty interested in all that. I expect they have started something of a cooking school.”

If they were doing that now, it sounded unlikely lunch would be ready on time.

…But it also means we can look forward to dinner.

Yeah, there’s a lot to enjoy about this Hexagone Française trip. Training in the familiar territory of Musashi is great and all, but this has its advantages too.

The other boys were gathering firewood or training elsewhere. As for the rest of their fighters…

“Oh, is this turning into a training ground?”

Narumi approached them along the stream. She only wore a longish shirt. She was probably wearing a swimsuit below it, but it was a pretty casual outfit.

She had gone to the spring alone that morning, so if she was leaving now…

“You done measuring stuff, Narumin?”

“Thanks to the water here. It’s very pure, ether-wise.” Narumi brushed back her damp hair. “They might not be ready by the 2nd, but I should be able to build some new prosthetics.”

Narumi smiled bitterly when she saw everyone gathered in one place.

It was only some of the girls here, but they all played crucial roles. From what she had heard as she approached, they seemed to be reporting on their current statuses. In her case, Unturning Centipede’s repairs weren’t done yet, but…

“I guess you could say I have done what I can.”

This was about her prosthetics.

She used prosthetic arms and legs. She wore combat ones all the time, but there was one problem she had yet to fix: Unturning Centipede’s special moves – the movement technique called Countless Hundreds of Paths and the attack technique called Paths of Countless Hundreds.

They both involved bulk summoning her mobile shell’s legs and arms. But it only worked if the prosthetic arms and legs that connected to her were available within it all.

When she was with Date, she had included combat arms and legs in the summon parts, but that was too expensive now.

So with Musashi, she used ordinary prosthetics, but…

…That wasn’t enough during the battle against Komaoumaru.

Ordinary prosthetics had weak connectors. After using Countless Hundreds of Paths for combat mobility, she had discovered the connectors had broken at a rate of 3 in 5.

She could manage one use like that, but not consecutive uses.

That put her at risk if she was going to be fighting for this class.

In the worst case, the last ones she connected would break and she would be rendered immobile.

Thus, she was ordering prosthetics with improved connectors. They could be ordinary in every other way, but she needed to strengthen the connectors enough for repeat usage.

But if the base structure of the connectors was improved, it would be expensive and the design would take time. So…

“Spell boosting should work. The basic tech for the connection is already built into the prosthetic parts, but I still need to reassess it from the outside and inside.”

Specifically, she would check the connector model at an engineer’s workshop and consider its strength while working out a deal with a Shinto spell engineer.

The only modifications to the prosthetic parts would be remaking the “receive” portion of the connection spell.

So for the first few days since arriving here, she had been making a mold of the connector at the spring.

The prosthetic parts wore down the more she used it, but how it wore down told her how they “fit” her body. The deteriorated parts were the parts used most often and if she didn’t notice any problems, then they were a good match for her body.

She was taking readings of herself to investigate all of that.

But she needed clean readings. All excess dust and filth had to be removed before the scans and measurements were made.

That would normally mean using a tank of water that had received high level Shinto purification, but the Reine des Garous’s spring had the same properties.

Even though there was sand below and the water flowed between rocks.

…It’s her grooming divine protection at work, I’ll bet.

Removing her prosthetics and leaving the connectors exposed was kind of embarrassing. It felt like exposing something closer to the center of her being than simply being naked.

But doing it in water with a high ether content felt nice. The water was chilly, but it felt so welcoming and she could tell this was going to spoil her.

The rest was easy. She had an engineering license for maintenance, so she scanned the parts and contacted Musashi and sent them the necessary data plus any necessary rescans of the details.

They would do the rest given some time, so…

“I should be able to help out starting today.”

“Then will you be our target, Narumin?”

“As long as I am free to counterattack.”

“Never mind then…”

The way the Weiss Hexen and Schwarz Hexen exchanged a glance showed how serious they were. And she was honestly curious what would have happened if she had carelessly agreed.

But she could guess they would be engaging him in aerial combat. Her Unturning Centipede was being repaired. She could face them in a ground battle without that, but…

…Nothing to shoot with would make it a pain.

With Unturning Centipede, she could approach while ignoring the average projectiles. But that was difficult without it. She found herself wondering if that was a problem to consider now or later, which showed finishing the scans had taken some pressure off.

“Do the rest of you have anything in the works? Like developing a new spell or finetuning your Mice?”

“Oh,” said the Asama Shrine Representative. “Speaking of Mice, remember Mito’s Troiko? We might be able to see her here.”

“Troiko?” asked the English Princess with a tilt of her head. So was this a Musashi thing from before her arrival?

“Yes,” said the Mito Lord. She started to say something to the Asama Shrine Representative, but turned toward the others instead. “You could call her my Mouse. She is currently receiving some adjustments after a past incident.”

“She was originally a ley line stagnation that appeared on the Musashi, but Mito’s influence made her manifest as a Mouse and she wouldn’t disappear. So Mito took her in and she’s receiving adjustments at a shrine in the Greek region.”

“A Greek shrine?”

What did Greece have to do with Shinto? But the Asama Shrine Representative answered with her eyebrows raised.

“Yes, because she is a Cerberus.”

“And I thought a giant anteater was pushing it. Does Shinto have any rules at all?”

“In Shinto, anything can be a god as long as you purify and worship it.”

Why did she hang her head while saying that? But then she opened a sign frame.

“I managed to connect with the shrines on the Mediterranean coast while we were in the Udon Kingdom. The divine transmissions are still getting through since it’s summer break and Hexagone Française has a strong connection to Greece.”

She checked through three sign frames before stopping on one.

“Oh, good. We have permission. The image is smaller than the regular reports sent to our shrine, but you can still see her.”

Mary had never heard about this. Well, she had heard of Cerberuses. They were a nonhuman species she had seen in England. They couldn’t speak human language, but they understood it and most of them protected important locations as highly-skilled guard dogs. She was pretty sure there was one below Oxford.

But this one…

“Oh, my. She’s so small.”

Asama showed them a sign frame with a thumbnail-sized image. It depicted a little Cerberus sleeping.

That was a Mouse.

Her blue coat was like a darker shade of Mitotsudaira’s dress or silver hair. The three-headed dog-wolf had her four legs sprawled out in sleep.

A head would occasionally lift partway up, but it would soon fall back down, so she may have been dozing. Asama passed a thermo-display of the image to Suzu who touched the image with her hand.

“Oh, yes, yes…that’s right.” Suzu smiled a little. “This is…my first time…touching her.”

“She wouldn’t leave Mitotsudaira, would she?”

“I seem to recall Kimi constantly stealing her away, naming her Troiko, and otherwise interfering,” said Mitotsudaira.

“Um, what is her story?” asked Mary.

Mitotsudaira kept her eyes on the image as she answered.

“Like Tomo said, at the start of spring last year, she appeared when we purified a stagnation on the Musashi. My influence and our recent passage through the Greek region may have been what made her a Cerberus. She stayed behind after the stagnation was gone, so we decided to register her as a Mouse.”

Mitotsudaira sighed and her shoulders drooped, but it seemed to be out of relief.

“Tomo gives me seasonal reports and I had heard her recovery would be complete sometime next year, but it looks like the process is nearly complete already.”

“If anything, the rest of the time will be for educating her as a Mouse. This is Shinto’s first time turning a Cerberus into a Mouse, so her caretaker appears to be treating her with extra care. The caretaker even sent in a request to try it with a hellhound next.”

“What is wrong with Shinto?” muttered Naito, but this sounded like what you would get without any rules. Greek mythology didn’t seem too keen on rules either, so maybe they were a good match.

“That’s one more thing to look forward to, Lady Mitotsudaira.”

“I never expected to receive a surprise update here,” said Mitotsudaira before nodding, narrowing her eyes, and closing the sign frame. Then she sighed. “I need to pull it together. My justice is watching me.”

“I need to pull it together. I don’t like what I’m seeing here.”

Hearing Ookubo’s comment while they walked, Yoshiyasu held up her bamboo container and turned around.

“You aren’t going to eat yours?”

“Oh, I’m eating it.”

Ookubo held the same thing. It contained ice cream coffee. Since the Musashi was in M.H.R.R. Protestant airspace, the Ohiroshiki Group was running a joint campaign between the Protestants and Musashi.

…I thought ice cream coffee would be cold.

The coffee itself was room temperature. Some places even did it hot. But the amount of cream and ice cream on top was hard to believe. The bamboo container was about the size of a small beer mug, but the coffee didn’t even fill half of it and there was about as much cream and ice cream on top. But the cream wasn’t exactly chilled or sweet.

Yoshiyasu had initially tried to chug the coffee because it was so damn hot out and she had ended up with a mouthful of nothing but cream and ice cream, but now that she was used to it, she had figured out you were either supposed to wait for it to melt or mix it all together. Either way, she felt like scooping up the cream and eating that with the coffee or ice cream was the way to go. Or maybe not. Not that it matters.

…No one else here knows how you’re supposed to do it either.

Ookubo seemed to be a mix-it-together person. Maybe she wanted relief from the heat or maybe she was just impatient.

“Hey.”

She was walking toward the academy. She was on her way to the student council rec room. She would visit there once a day both for security purposes and to store the data sent by the Vice President. Yoshiyasu thought they should just leave it all on the divine network, but both Ookubo and the Vice President agreed this way was safer.

Yoshiyasu figured she should start doing the same.

Righteousness: “Hey, can I leave my data at Musashi?”

Integrity: “Huh!? And how am I supposed to check that data when I’m already so busy!?”

Righteousness: “Huh, that’s a good point actually. Why not come here?”

The other girl ended the transmission on her. She needs to do something about that short temper. Come to think of it, all that salty fish we eat at Satomi probably gives you high blood pressure. Yes, and both Yoshiyori and my sister were such tolerant people. I need to live a stress-free life. No matter what’s going on around me.

At any rate, they were on their way to the student council rec room. The Yagyuu boy was hidden there for security, ensuring it was safe. Yoshiyasu felt like they could just leave everything up to him, but…

…She is a stickler for the details.

After all the time they spent together from Satomi to here, Yoshiyasu felt she had a good grasp of who Ookubo was as a person.

And she had more to say beyond her earlier “hey”. She asked her question when they entered the main street leading to the academy.

“How are things right now?”

“Explaining it all would be too much effort.”

“Can you sum it up for me?”

“Still too much effort.”

“That bad, huh?”

Ookubo held out her empty container, so Yoshiyasu traded her partially-consumed one for it.

Ookubo immediately began mixing it together like she had her own earlier.

“Bad is a good word for it.”

“C’mon, I can tell you’re enjoying it.”

“For your information, I am a pacifist.”

“The Vice President says the same thing.”

Ookubo kicked her heel against the fence running alongside the sidewalk. The heat is really getting to her, thought Yoshiyasu, but…

“So who do you think we’ll be going to war with next?”

“P.A. Oda.”

“Why?”

“Hashiba’s the only group still making any moves right now.”

Meaning…

“Their preparations are nearly complete. The Honnouji Incident is happening soon.”

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