"I thought it was a bomb," Sousuke said meekly before collapsing on the pavement.
"At this rate, you'll be dead by the end of the week!" Kurz laughed as he wrapped a bandage around Sousuke's head. "You're probably more dangerous than any terrorists! Try to relax a little."
"I'm trying," said Sousuke.
That evening's hamburger-hut fiasco was just the icing on the cake of four days' worth of misguided efforts with catastrophic (and injurious) results.
No matter how hard he tried, Sousuke could not stop himself from overreacting—acting violently, crashing around, destroying public property, disturbing class—and Eri Kagurazaka and Kaname never let him forget it.
He never ran out of energy or fresh bruises.
Even in the harshest combat conditions, Sousuke hadn't ever taken so much abuse in such a short period of time. He fell down stairs, crashed through windows, crumpled beneath a falling pile of books in the library, and chafed his chest while tackling a plaster art model, among other things.
My rhythm is totally off, he realized, unsure how to correct the problem. How ironic that he was able to survive so many years of intense combat only to be undone by high school!
"You can't keep up this pace," decided Kurz. "Tomorrow, we'll switch. Mao and I will keep watch outside the school."
"What if the enemy comes inside the school?"
"I doubt that will happen. I wonder whether Kaname's really a target even."
"Wishful thinking is dangerous." Sousuke couldn't help but frown at Kurz's easygoing attitude. "You always must take every possibility into account—"
"If you want to get hit by a truck," interrupted Kurz. "Have you ever heard the expression 'tilting at windmills'?"
The look on Sousuke's face indicated that he had not.
"Hm. It's like a sumo fighting against his own loincloth."
"Loincloth?"
"You don't know that one? Are you even Japanese?" Kurz finished wrapping the bandage and returned to the window. "There's one thing I don't understand."
"About loincloths?"
Kurz rolled his eyes.
"About Kaname. She seems so… normal. I mean, she's pretty but not, like, jaw-dropping hot. And her personal history is very commonplace—compared to ours, at least."
"You might be right."
If Sousuke learned nothing else from this mission, he'd at least discovered the startling difference between others his age and him.
"So, why is she a KGB target? It's just like that girl we picked up last week. She was just a normal high school student before they snagged her, too. What the hell could they possibly stand to gain by taking and drugging these girls?"
"All I have is the same information you do," said Sousuke.
"Yeah, there must be something more to this than the lieutenant commander's telling us."
"When are you going to get moving?" demanded the KGB colonel. Three days had passed already since his meeting with Gauron.
"Soon, very soon," answered Gauron through the other end of the phone.
The colonel could hear bustling in the background. Gauron—a terrorist of unknown origins—was calling from the Soviet embassy in Tokyo. According to official embassy reports, Gauron barely left the building and rarely spoke to anyone.
"I'm making the arrangements now. We have to make sure everything's in place before we move in on the target."
"Arrangements? What kind of arrangements do you need to make?"
"Don't be so impatient."
"What?"
"There's no way Mithril's just going to let us waltz right in and grab her."
"You mean they're protecting Kanumu?" The colonel still struggled to pronounce her name.
Chuckling, Gauron said, "It seems so. If I'm not careful, I'll be noticed."
"I don't care!" spouted the colonel. "Kill anyone who gets in your way if you have to!"
"I'm afraid that's impossible."
"Why?'
"They have an AS in ECS invisible mode that's keeping tabs on her."
"And no one has noticed? That's impossible. That kind of equipment—"
"I told you," Gauron interrupted antagonistically, "their equipment is ten years ahead of the rest of the world's. They probably have some of their best personnel on this mission, too. If we run in there like a bunch of amateurs, they'll embarrass us all."
The colonel stuttered.
"Don't worry, I've got a plan," Gauron stated and hung up. "You just worry about keeping yourself out of the labor camps."
"And there you have it!" Kaname finished scrawling a list of jobs on the blackboard.
She turned around to face a room full of disinterested students, who were sleeping, shooting craps, and reading manga novels.
"Hey! Listen up, guys!"
"Were listening," they all said automatically.
"We have only five days before the class trip. And we need to decide what job each person will do if we want the trip to go smoothly."
"Okay, fine. Let's decide and go home, already."
Kaname sighed. "Remind me why I agreed to be class rep," she moaned. "Well, I figured it would be like this, so I already assigned all the jobs. All you guys have to do is say whether it's okay."
A cheer erupted from the students. "Way to go, Chidori!"
"No problem," she said, flashing a quick peace sign. "Okay, Onda and Sanematsu—you're in charge of food. Aryiama and Omura—luggage. Onodera and Suzuki—event planning."
She scribbled names next to the jobs that already were written on the board. Suddenly, a slightly malicious grin crossed her lips. "And garbage duty… that's a job for Sagara."
At the mention of his name, Sousuke snapped out of his preoccupation and grunted.
"Is something wrong, Sagara?"
"I don't recall signing up for that."
"Sorry, it's a school rule—the transfer student always has to be in charge of garbage. Rules are rules."
Everyone laughed, but Sousuke didn't get the joke.
"I wasn't aware of that. Very well, I accept."
"Excellent. I'll fill you in on the details later. Okay everyone, all in favor?"
And just like that, Mithril's finest mercenary got elected to pick up trash through a unanimous vote.
"A class trip?" asked Captain Testarossa.
"Yes," said Kalinin, handing her a few documents and a pen. "The trip starts next week. I propose we open a new confidential circuit for communications during the trip. Also, please sign this permission slip."
She nodded and signed the document. "What a strange school, taking a trip at this time of year. Where are they going, anyway?"
"Okinawa."
"Oh." Tessa quickly turned away, staring at a map on her forward display screen. "Did you know that I used to live there?"
"No, ma'am."
"My father wanted me to go to a Japanese elementary school," she said wistfully, "but I never made any friends, and then I transferred to a school on the base."
Commander Mardukas, the ship's executive officer, cleared his throat, snapping Tessa back to earth.