(40) Spaceport

The ride was smooth, much like the first time I rode in one of these aircraft when I was coming from the city. I kept calling it an “Osprey” based on my other worldly knowledge, but the real name for this type of aircraft is “Tilt Rotor” at least that’s the name here, not that I care what they were called back home.

I spent some time talking with the girls; they were particularly curious how I could maintain my appearance without makeup and other cosmetics. I straight up said I didn’t pay attention to that and this was just my natural look. This got me a stern talking to about skin care… I mean, sure, I care about maintaining my looks. I’m not about to take having a new body for granted, but seriously? 30 minutes EVERY DAY!? I just don’t understand how someone can take that time just to get ready in the morning.

‘Should I? I mean, I’m not lacking the basic knowledge.’

Yuumi was an upper-class young lady. She knew all kinds of things I wouldn’t be privy to. Like how to put on makeup, skin care, nail health, hair care, etc, etc... I now had that type of knowledge too, just had to think hard enough. Funny how my memories work with Yuumi’s section. It’s like a search engine. I don’t have all the information all the time, but if I look for it, it’s there.

This had the amusing after effect of me remembering some of her memories better than mine. Especially with small stuff. I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what I had for breakfast two days ago, but if you ask me what Yuumi was doing around this time five years ago…

‘Oh, dueling… holy shit, that’s a bad deck… Her opponent is literally 12…’

“Hey Yuumi are you ok?” Naeko asks, looking at me intensely.

I snap out of my ‘memory surfing,’ and respond. “Ah, Yes I’m fine, just thinking about stuff.”

“Good, because I’m not done yet! Don’t go off spacing out on me! Now about moisturisers…”

And here we go again… I feel that I’m going to be turned into a little dress-up doll the second we get onto the ship… Oh, haven’t mentioned that yet, apparently the duelists get individual suites while we get a four person room… Yaaaayyyyyy…

…

… That’s a little mean, honestly it will be great for getting to know my club mates better, while yes we have practice two times per week and during that little ‘Initiation’ party I got to know them pretty well. You just don’t get to know a person like you do if you live with them for any amount of time.

After we get to the station, the living arrangements will stay the same as the ship. Apparently the Director expected me to have a problem with that and sent me a message basically saying how sorry he was for that, but he needed to do it so I’m not suspected of being more than just a cheerleader. I said I have no issue rooming up for a month.

The tournament will last for the whole of September. We will get to the transport ship today and then the trip will take four days, then the tournament starts on the 15th.

By this time Naeko had finished her lecture. “And that’s what you are going to do as soon as we get on the ship… Ok?”

“Yes Neko…” I give up on trying to argue with her, not like I have any decent excuse, and give in to trying out a skin care routine…

‘How far away is this spaceport supposed to be?’ I ask myself. We have been here for so long you’d think the other girls had finally run out of things to talk about… They hadn’t.

“So what do you think about those security guards out front of the red dorm? It seriously creeps me out. I mean, what are they even doing?” Nanako cheerfully asks Haruna.

I wanted to intervene in this conversation because I already had a good idea about what she was about to say… but thankfully Haruna surprised me here.

“What do you mean?! After the incident with the blue ranked princess making them march naked? Of course, they need security guards!” Haruna argues.

“Sure… But I mean, why do only they get them? If someone did that to the yellows, it would be basically the same thing.” Nanako responds.

Haruna nods. “Probably a temporary measure, and I’m pretty sure as long as the yellow dorm has Yuumi, they won’t mess with it. Isn’t that right?” she ends, smirking at me.

I shrug. “Probably? Not that I intend to stay there for long, anyway.”

Unlike the Red dorm, which looked up to me as the one who stood up to Aya, the students from the yellow dorm had decided avoiding me was the best course of action. I’m guessing they’re still scared of me… So I don’t intend to stay there for long. I’m ranking up as soon as I get 1000 Elo. Now I don’t know what to expect of the blue ranked dorm, but that’s still in the future. For now, I’m focusing on this tournament.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing shortly. Please don’t forget your belongings in the cabin. We will transfer any checked baggage.” The captain announces over the intercom.

Finally, and I mean FINALLY, we’ve reached the spaceport. I don’t know how long this took… Actually verifying on my phone I find it’s almost 11, so 5 hours of flying… Holy shit.

While I wasn’t at the window seat, Nanako moved over, allowing me to get a decent view of the spaceport. Its appearance could be easily confused with any other airport. There were runways, this time only 10, and most of the space was left strangely empty, with various vertical towers dotted around the otherwise vacant terrain. The central building only made up maybe 10% of the cleared terrain.

A peak at the in-flight map shows we are at a coastline a little away from Dragoon City proper, but still well within its territorial claims. I could easily confirm this by the vacant beach we flew over only five minutes ago.

A closer look at the ‘Towers’ shows that some of them are accompanied by what I can only describe as ‘midget rockets’, not that I could make out any decent detail from so far away.

My view of the rocket launch pads (I mean, it’s obvious, right?) quickly goes away as we get closer and, inevitably, descend. The tilt rotor aircraft lands near one of the many runways.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it was a pleasure flying with you. Please verify your belongings and exit the aircraft. Good day,” the captain once again reports.

Me and the others sit up from our seats and stretch a bit. 5 hours of sitting down is draining. Then, after I take my gym bag out from the overhead storage, we file out of the aircraft. Since we were the ones further back, we are the last to leave and join the Director with his assistant and the duelists on the landing pad.

“Is everyone here?” The Director asks.

I nod and Haruna yells a short “Yes!”

After this the Director announces. “Our shuttle will pick us up at 11:30. We will board a private NWDA shuttle, so we won’t have to deal with the security check. It would take an hour if we did. Follow me and don’t fall behind. Questions?”

Haruna’s hand shots straight up in the air. “Do we have to go straight to the shuttle? It’s not even 11 yet. Can’t we go get some souvenirs?”

I roll my eyes and look to the side with a grin on my face ‘Only you Haru… Only you…’

The rest of the group near me shares her opinion.

Light scratches his head and lets go of a deep sigh. “I mean… Sure, why not.”

His revelation makes the three cheerleaders jump up in the air, celebrating. “““YAAYYYY!”””

I facepalm. ‘Of fucking course, hahaha!’

The Director continues, saying, “Just be by terminal 27 before 11:30. Oh, and also be careful with stran… Why am I saying this? You are all old enough to drink. Go on and don’t be late.”

We go around some of the spaceport shops, just me and the other cheerleaders. The duelists decided they wanted to go straight to the shuttle with the Director and his assistant, so we went alone. I followed them, mostly out of curiosity. There was no way I was about to buy anything. Yup, airports and inflated prices… Name a more iconic duo. I’ll wait…

Seriously, the second I saw a bottle of water selling for 20@, I lost interest in buying anything. Just because my financial situation is comfortable doesn’t mean I’m about to waste money… Don’t remind me of the phone, please…

The space is enormous. High glass celling and the setup is more like a shopping mall than an airport, but again, this isn’t supposed to be an airport, it’s a spaceport. The differences until now from the prior airport in Dragoon City aren’t notable, just that instead of the terminals leading to individual planes, they lead to trains which I assume bring the passengers to the shuttles.

Right now, we’re passing by some tourist shops. The girls ignored the clothing stores, which surprised me, but I guess they were being truthful when they said they wanted souvenirs. I mean, I don’t know why I expected they were lying to the Director in the first place. Guess they just give off the ‘Spoiled Rich Girl’ vibe. Actually… Do I also give of that vibe? I hope not.

30 minutes later

And we’re done… That took way longer than it had the right to. While we stuck to the tourist stores, Haruna wanted to get way more stuff than I expected. She got some figurines, shirts and plushies. A bag full. Thankfully, Nanako and Naeko were way more conservative with their souvenir shopping.

If you are wondering about what I got, well I didn’t have enough space for anything big, but I got a scale model of a shuttle, a tiny model though, like it fits in my hand. I stuffed in my already quite full gym bag. It cost a lot more money than I wanted to spend, but it just would’ve looked bad if I came out empty-handed.

It is already 11:28 and we are rushing to the terminal, not running, but speed walking. Terminal 27 isn’t far from here, but we don’t want to leave the Director hanging. Technically, we weren’t even the most critical elements.

“I told you we should have gone 5 minutes ago.” I remind Haru, again.

“Yes, yes, don’t be a stickler Yuumi.” - she urges - “We are fine… Look! There!” she points to the Director and the duelists waiting by a terminal.

We speed up and hurry to the terminal. We’re almost late and leaving the Director hanging isn’t a good look for the cheer team and I don’t want him regretting inviting the club, even if it was just so he could have an excuse to bring me along.

As we get closer, I can see the Director is not amused, a deep frown plastered on his face.

“Look who showed.” He starts. “I was starting to think you girls had a better thing to do than an INTER-ACADEMY TOURNAMENT?!” He yells that last part.

‘Ok, this is a way worse reaction than I imagined.’

I was about to apologize but Haruna moved in and said. “We’re sorry, we got a little carried away…”

Light looks at the bags they’re bringing before querying. “A little?”

Haruna flinches. “Huhhh. Maybe a lot…?”

…

He facepalms. “Haaaaa. Let’s just go. We are almost late.” He sounds defeated.

With this, he turns his back and starts walking to the terminal.

We follow him, with Yasuna walking over to me and asking. “So, how did that go?”

I sigh while trying not to look at her, then simply state, “Don’t.”

“Hahahaha.” She snickers before leaving me with the cheer team.

After this little curfuffle, we fellow the Director and his assistant through the terminal. They give something to the attendant by the gate and she prompts us to pass.

Passing through the gate, we find ourself in a train car which, from waist hight up, is completely enclosed in glass, allowing me to get a good panoramic look around. Ignoring the station behind where we entered, I see a vast open field with impressive vegetation.

“Never been to the countryside huh?” Asks Haruna from behind.

I notice that I’m spacing out again in the middle of the car.

“Err. No?” I respond before sitting down on one of the seats, this time one by a window.

Haru and the others chuckle while the Director and his assistant race to get into a sit.

With everyone sat down, the train moves. From a tiny display on the celling, I see the speed gradually going until, after about a minute, it reaches 350, what I assume to be, KM/h.

‘Everything in this world goes fast, huh? From the cars to the schedules…’ I notice while the Haruna and the others happily converse with each other.

‘So peaceful…’ I lean against the window to my right, the beautiful nature darting by. ‘Gigantic cities might be impressive, but in the end, nature is always a sight to behold.’