Chapter 9: Chapter 8

The days in School 42 went by quickly, mostly because it became routine after a while. As I was the busiest of my unit, I would start my days before anyone else and end after them.

My lessons on the Social Sciences were heavily focused on the issues and laws surrounding the island, which allowed them to breeze through the topics relatively quickly. Normally one would choose to specialise in a subdivision of the Social Sciences when studying for a degree, but I was expected to master basically the entire subject and all it's subfields from comparative politics to political economy and international politics.

The way they would get round this was to limit the field to just the Exile district and it's relation to the mainland, so we studied the laws surrounding trade between us and Hokkaido and the various political decisions behind several reforms which had allowed figures like Dr Komachi and Prof. Sei to leave the island for work. This covered the basics of Political Law and Methodology as well as Economics, and served as a basis for the topics like International Relations and Comparative Politics later on.

After about a year mastering the basics we would then move on to bigger scopes by discussing how other countries dealt with their Exiles for another year using comparative methods and various things surrounding the Exile population, which would touch on topics like Sociology and Psychology and its influence on political decisions. Only then would we tackle the bigger issues and jump straight in to the Social Sciences proper by generalising what I would have learnt after two years and applying it in a global sense, and then came the two year 'internship' where I would refine my understanding during conscription before applying it all during the mission.

On the subject of Economics every Tuesday, it was the standard four year course for Hiyori and Masaki who took it as a minor, but for me it would continue later on in the afternoon to cover Political Economics and Economical Laws and Decisions as well. As for mathematics, with Reika helping me I had absolutely no problems.

I must admit I may have bitten off more than I could chew, the field of Social Sciences was way too vast to be able to grasp all by myself, but so far I had been able to handle the workload with some help. There was no such thing as summer break here on the island, which also meant that we had plenty of time to continue our studies and the curriculum could spread out more.

In the evenings, for now we would all go for a run around the field to keep our fitness up in preparation for conscription. In future as we grew older, there would be strength training added into the regime.

I have been improving in violin classes, with the help of Hiyori I could now produce sounds vaguely resembling a song. It still hurt our ears but our instructor Mr Johanne was very patient. Mr Johanne was a music freak, and though he was a full fledged Japanese, he opted for the name Johanne in honour of Johanne Sebastian Bach.

The school provided the half sized violin for me though it was still a little big. Uncharacteristically for the school that tended to splurge, it was the cheapest and lowest quality violin they could find at the request of Mr Johanne. The idea was that if you could make even a shoe sound beautiful, you can make anything sound beautiful.

Of course this was an exaggeration but the idea was sound. But it meant that a bad player would sound ungodly horrible, which was probably the best description of my skills. At least Hiyori was good enough to play something pleasant, or else classes would be unbearable. My fingers would sometimes be cut, which meant that I had to rely on my right hand for my other activities later on.

Military classes, was a very interesting subject. We learnt the theory behind Conventional and Urban fights, and we would be taken out to a nearby empty village for drills. Of course without guns and equipment, but the course was designed to prepare us specifically for our missions in the near future. From what I hear, the situation in Korea has been deteriorating slowly.

Combined with several assassination techniques, we made quite a dangerous combo of cuteness and death, especially in hostage situations. Specifically when we were taken hostage in a number of scenarios. The chicken we used to practise utilising the nylon wire tasted like ash in our mouths as we recalled the events of that day.

We underwent our first procedure to strengthen our muscles two weeks back. It was the same LiGHT procedure that made us Exiles but this time it was minimal, all we had to do was submerge for about an hour to complete the procedure. When I came out, I didn't feel particularly stronger than before but I was told it was a progressive process so that we would slowly acclimatise to our full strength without injuring ourselves.

It was a Sunday on the 2nd of June and as per usual I would meet up with Michiru at the playgrounds at around 0900hrs. Her school was more of a conventional school as compared to mine. She was doing a course on Psychology and Sociology, which was the most common subject there, along with Chiaki and Risu who were the two other girls in my room at Campus One who went to School 12.

Their time was similarly spent on education, except that she did not have any military related studies but had more social studies to make up for it. I had made an error when I mentioned military training a few weeks back, under the assumption that they would have similar classes and curriculums.

When she asked about it, I lied and told her that we were learning the theory and law so that we could focus more on the practical aspects later on. It technically wasn't a lie, but it wasn't entirely true either. Anyway she bought it and just in case I later on had to explain the situation to Prof. Sei who brought it up to Ms Rikka. She got back to me after some internal discussion and said my explanation was fine, but that I should avoid mentioning military stuff in public.

Of course this information was quickly disseminated to the rest and we quickly discovered many of us had made the same mistake, which prompted the school to have to make several announcements.

For now we made a cover story using my sort of lie but the fact that we were undergoing theoretical military training had been made public.

Anyway today we were going to the movies. The film came out a few days prior and my roommates were all gushing about it. I had wanted to watch it with Michiru though so I had to ignore all the spoilers, which was incredibly difficult and I had given Kouta a few punches to the face because of it. Lightly of course, I wouldn't want to bruise his pretty face.

His stomach on the other hand, I wasn't particularly too concerned about and a few dresses had to be washed because of that. Anyway, the two other girls were coming along and it was the first time I had seen them in a while.

The movie was an adaptation of one of the romance novels that had been popular lately, I wanted to read it but I refrained because I heard the movie was coming out. Michiru and the girls had already read it, so they tried to refrain from spoiling too much. Tried to. Michiru was nice enough to help to distract me with small chatter, as the two girls gossiped behind my back uncontrollably.

I had always wondered why girls liked romance stuff in my youth, but having since become one I could sort off understand. The boys though having been formerly girls, were also very into romance stuff but to a much lesser extent.

My theory at least, was that it was partly a social thing and partly biological. The boys were very much effeminate for now, but apparently as they got older they would resemble the more stereotypical image of boys, much like Kou and Headmistress Keiko's assistant who's name I hadn't bothered to remember. I only remembered him as a stoic and silent person, who didn't do much outside of administrative duties.

Anyway from an objective point of view, the story wasn't particularly any good and was mostly fluff and cliches. Still, my heart was fluttering during the romantic scenes and I teared up a little when the heroine died. I lied, I cried like baby into Michiru's shoulder who patted me on the back. I wasn't the only one since many others in the cinema similarly left with tears in their eyes.

I hadn't the heart to tell them my objective observations though, since the other girls were gushing on and on about it, and also the fact that I had just been bawling my eyes out. But also seeing Michiru look so happy with friends prevented me from bursting the little bubble they had going on as we headed for lunch.

"So how's school Hotaru?" Chiaki asked when we were having lunch, "Heard you guys were doing some military stuffs?"

"Well," I said, trying to be extremely careful, "it's going okay I guess. I'm more concerned about my other work though, I'm swamped."

"Ah right you were doing a double major with an additional minor degree right?" Risu said, "How do you manage so many things at once?"

"Ru is very smart so she would be fine right?"

"Ahaha...well my roommates help me out quite a lot to be honest. Tasha is very good at political science surprisingly, and Reiko is good with maths." I was relieved that I had so deftly changed the subject. It helped that the girls were quick to latch on to something interesting and derail their train of thought.

"Natasha and Reiko is it? Their roommates in Campus One said that they usually stuck to themselves. Though Natasha had a habit of giggling to herself a lot." Chiaki said.

Chiaki had a knack for picking up information and rumours, and she was usually the one who knew things before it was announced. She was where I heard the movie was going to be released about a week before it was announced.

"Yeah, well my current roommates are very interesting."

When we finished our lunch, they followed me grocery shopping. Being so near the playgrounds meant that they came here often even on the weekdays, and so had all their shopping done. Risu had many connections and I managed to get a good bargain for my groceries, though it was mostly dried or pickled foods and instant ramen.

Again I had bought too many things because the girls brought me around clothes shopping. Michiru insisted I try on various outfits, even though I said my current outfit was alright.

"It's summer, you should be wearing bright colours instead Ru." Was her argument, and tossed several flowery and thin dresses in my hands.

I bought several nice hats and hairpins which caught my eye, it went well with most of my clothes and the clothes Michiru made me buy, so I was partly to blame. The weight of my bags was my punishment for giving in to temptation, but it was too late for regrets.

It was around 1500hrs when we decided to head back. Due to my military training, I had a habit of using such terminology which the others found odd, but overlooked. School 42 had somehow gained a reputation as a sort of Officer Cadet prep school as well as a college which helped to explain several things away.

Of course this was made public as well, that come conscription, we would all eventually attain the rank of a commissioned officer. It helped sell the elite status and highly exclusive nature of the school while hiding the actual reason why we were given such a responsibility.

Once we said our goodbyes and parted ways, I made my way back to the dorms and began packing. Starting tomorrow, all lessons would be halted for a week for training. Apparently we would be heading out into the mountains to learn navigational skills and survival techniques.

The recommended packing list said that as an exception, everyone was to wear pants that was provided to the girls and covered shoes, and to pack change of clothes and as many socks and underwear as possible.

I don't know what they were thinking sending children like us to do this, but so be it. There was a general sense of excitement as we did so, except for Reika who was mumbling curses under her breath as we couldn't bring out our pads on the trip. She was apparently in the middle of some thesis and was hoping to make some headway into her work when this trip was announced.

"Cheer up Reika, it's not like you can't just think about it all during the trip." Kouta said.

Reika was less enthusiastic, saying that she wouldn't be able to focus.

"Well if you can't focus anyway maybe I can help during the night. With. My. Body."

Of course he got nothing but a scoff from her.

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"That's sexual harassment you know?" I said.

"Aren't you girls supposed to be guys before? My boyfriends all used to talk like this all the time with their friends, even with me."

Well he had a point, I remember my own friends having similar conversations. Us girls did talk about stuff like that in the showers or when the boys were out, but such girl talk was tamer in comparison. Or maybe it was just our group, because the other girls in the opposite room were very open about such topics.

The mood was generally light hearted as we prepared for the trip. We would have to sleep early because we would be moving out at 0600 tomorrow meaning we would have to wake at about 0500.

"Why can't we move out at nine or something? It's too early in the morning!"

"Come on Shiho," Natasha said, "it's gonna be fun! We would be out all day in the mountains!"

"Well it's not gonna be all sunshine and roses Tasha! It's survival! Survival! That means mud, bugs, rain. Bugs, and bugs, and more bugs!" Shiho shuddered as she thought about the horrors of outdoor survival.

"Get used to it Shiho. Come conscription, bugs would be the least of our problems." I said. Reika was also in agreement, but she said it would have been better if we could bring our pads along.

"Well bugs are the least of your problems. I'd be worried about landslides and such, or storms in the mountain." Kouta said from the entrance of the showers. We all screamed when we heard him and shouted for him to get out.

Shiho though was frightened by his words and was trembling to herself as she muttered things about landslides and earthquakes. Eventually she began making stuff up like fire quakes and lightning tornadoes and the like so we had to calm her down. After the shower, we sent her off to bed early so she could get up on time tomorrow. As for the rest of us, we were in high spirits as we talked about what was in store for us while preparing for the trip.

I remember we were so excited during such a time. We were currently in the middle of nowhere with a pretty useless map. On the first day we had gotten up early and dragged a very sleepy Shiho along with us. At the campsite, we learned how to navigate and triangulate and we determined our pace length and drift. Today on the second day, we were dropped somewhere in a valley around 1200hrs after lunch and was told to navigate our way back to camp.

It was apparently a one day trip for each group as we took turns everyday. The order was determined by drawing lots and Shiho had the most fortunate luck to pull the short stick, meaning we would be the first to put our skills into practice. The upside is that we would get to return to campus earlier so we couldn't complain. The other units would wait their turn as they practiced their navigational skills. The order was team A which was us, followed by Team D on the second, then C, F, B, and finally E for the last day. We would return after our exercise for a second augmentation.

There was of course a supervisor, but he won't help us unless it was an emergency. As always the first step was to get to high ground so we could find a landmark of some kind, and there was a mountain about a kilometre away. We could walk along the valley, but as per our training we decided to climb since we knew what was at the top, but not what was in the valley.

Reika and Shiho were cursing and swearing the whole way up as they bashed through thick brushes, with Kaoru encouraging them as they ascended slowly. Tasha and Sora though were very much at ease as they traipsed along the grassland and laughing at just about anything from the birds to the the butterflies.

I was with Kouta, who was the second best in navigation class after me so we were in charge of navigation. Sitting on top of this hill, we waited for the slow bunch to crawl their way up to the top.

Tasha and Sora had been running around the summit for a while, shouting encouragements to Kaoru and Shiho who was on her literal knees as she crawled up. Reika had passed out beside us after gritting her teeth and sprinting upwards for two minutes straight.

It had been half an hour and I was getting rather impatient. As for the reason why it took them so long, it was because it suddenly started raining heavily five minutes ago. Shiho had apparently slipped and rolled down the mountain with Kaoru chasing after her. She was fine and some vegetation broke her fall, although she had hurt her ankle. Still it meant she had to ascend back up the mountain with a bad leg and limp back to camp.

There was a emergency transport standing by in case anyone got struck by lightning or broke a bone or was bleeding out for some reason, but as the situation apparently wasn't yet that serious we were ordered to push on regardless. Most of the damages could be fixed anyway and the chance of dying was slim.

Sitting up here being pelted by rain that came horizontally onto my face was just about the worst thing I had experienced. I was freezing and wet and the raincoats provided didn't help one bit, frankly I was just about done with this.

Kouta and I had determined were we were and where we had to go. From the various geological structures that we could see through the clouds and rain, the Middle Town lay beyond some mountain ranges and valleys to our south-west at about 2700 mils. Our destination laid about six kilometres out in the north-eastern direction at 570 mils.

Shiho managed to reach the top eventually with some difficulty, so we rested for a bit before heading off. The passing summer rain had dropped to a drizzle, but it was much more bearable now. After ten minutes we began our trek through the undulating landscape. We had to take various breaks because of Shiho's bad leg so our progress was slow.

We walked along the top of the vantage point as we headed on, and then descended by a stream. The rain had all but gone and the full summer heat bared down on us, making it very humid and uncomfortable.

It was noon already and we only managed to cover about a third of the way, so we had lunch as we recovered by the stream. Our bags had a litre of water and several military rations of food. It was too big for any one of us except Sora, to finish individually so we shared amongst our selves.

Of course Kaoru and Shiho were together, and Reika was eating her half first since Kouta mentioned something about an indirect kiss. I shared mine with Tasha as we had some idle chatter.

"Did you know this was once part of the Sarobetsu national park? I came here quite often as a child. They had an eight hour trekking course around here."

"Sounds like hell." I said. Eight hours split across two days in the mountains, we could barely survive three hours.

"Oh no it was fun. There used to be a path around here somewhere but they removed it now."

"Hmm? Wait you know where we are?"

"Sure do~"

The entire group had stopped their chattering at this point as they turned to look incredulously at her.

"Why didn't you tell us then? We spent all day figuring out where exactly we were and you didn't say anything?"

"Well no one asked~"

"As if we knew!"

We heaved an exasperated sigh of defeat. She knew this place so we'll in fact that she figured out that we could have just walked along the valley straight on when we started. Basically she could have saved us a lot of trouble.

"Anyway it would defeat the purpose of navigation right~?"

I was so angry but I couldn't argue anymore. She said that it wouldn't be too difficult from here on out since it was just hills and we could walk along some valleys until we hit the coastal road. The camp would be on a hill just after that.

With an annoying "I won't be helping~" she left us to our own devices. She had a point that it wouldn't be navigational training if she helped, but I wanted to get out of here as quickly as I could. No amount of shaking would change her mind though and she just laughed it off, so I gave up.

Kouta would be navigating from here on out as it was my turn to help Shiho. The land wasn't so bad now and was relatively flat so it wasn't much trouble. For the hills though, I just carried her. With our new strength it was very doable for a short period of time, so we would run upwards as far as we could.

She was very apologetic about the whole affair, saying that if she had been more careful we wouldn't be here. I agreed with her but said it was fine since accidents happen. At least now we would all be more careful in future, it was a learning point for the team not just herself.

"She's right, no need to beat yourself so hard Shiho." said Kaoru who stuck by her most of the journey.

"Yeah, we're a team after all so just relax." Said Kouta who was uncharacteristically helpful.

It was about 1700 when we finally crawled up to the camp. We were soaked and dirty and stinky, and our faces looked as if we had just been traumatised.

In comparison, everyone else was feasting on some pizza for dinner. The other groups gave us each a plate out of pity as we sat in a corner and contemplated on the nature of the universe. Except Tasha who was always in a world of her own. Shiho was taken to the infirmary after dinner to treat her leg as the rest of us went of to the showers and straight back to bunk and slept.