Chapter 3
episode 3
The Demon Princess
"Oh, It's the Mikagami!"
Back on the GP ship, Mitoto waved her hands at the Ship projected on the screen.
"Mi...Ka...Ga..Mi……?" Seina stared at the hull of this ship. It was his first time seeing a Juraian Royal ship.
The ship looked like it was made out of wood except for the elegant oval capsule structure in the center. How a ship made mostly of wood instantly overthrew all these rows of pirates was beyond Seina.
(That ship must be incredibly strong)Seina thought to himself.
A ship with a reflective surface……Could that be the devil princess of Jurai? onnainin heard seina's words and looked suddenly surprised, and he wasn't alone in making that expression.
"Hey, it's the devil princess"
"The devil princess,You mean that devil princess?"
"There's no mistaking it."
Quickly,A wave of the unrest passed upon the operators on the bridge in no time at all.
Surprisingly, the feeling of strain was even more intense than when they were surrounded by pirates .
Seina began to worry as well. Had his misfortune struck again?
"……the devil princess…who is that"
He called out to Onnainin fearfully.
"uhm... no……" Onnainin dropped into a more serious voice unintentionally in response to seina's question
"I didn't say that.Please never say that or tell anyone I said that to you. I'm begging you!"
"Is she by any chance a scary person……?"
Seina said also in a lower voice.
"In this galaxy, there is no nation more powerful than the nation of Jurai. Of the juraian royal family, She is the single strongest military power."
"oh……"
"Ah, well that's one way to put it. But she is a funny lady... Well, at least that's what Ms. Mitoto says about her."
"oh is that so?"
"yes it is" Onnainin's words gave a dramatically fearful expression, but mitoto's were relaxed and calm by comparison
"so which one is it, For a demon princess of jurai ......"
seina was quickly reprieved by onainin.
"S-seina?Whatever you do do not call her the devil princess, her name is lady Seto of the nation of Jurai."
"uhm... ok."
"Well then, Let's go say hi to her!" Mitoto said taking Seina's hand
"That sounds an awful lot like intentionally walking into a tiger's den……"
Onnainin looked like he was about to burst into tears. How many times had he made that face that day.
"But we have to, they asked for a report on this situation"
"oh……?"
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meanwhile, in a area of space not that far away on Ryoko Balta's ship.
"It seems that all our consorts were captured."
"well then……?"
Ryoko said listing to the adjunct's report, her wavy black hair fluttered in the wind as she sat gracefuly in her captains chair. The strange sight she had seen just a short while ago floated on her mind.The bridge was wrapped in a strange feeling.
All her subbordinate's voices rang out as they staired enthralled at the GP ship projected on their screens. Everyone on the bridge was excited in the way a fox is when it chases a rabbit.
"fufufufu……it seems everyone that was after my prey was rounded up...?"Said ryoko who was wrapped up in the whirlpool of excitement even though she normally would have been very calm.
"We're lucky we stopped……if we hadn't we'd have been caught in the devil princesses genocide dance like the rest of the pirates……"
Ryoko couldn't help but shudder at the fact. However she rapidly snapped back to her senses and regained her composure
Earlier she had been eagerly chasing the gp ship but when she noticed hundreds of ships also chasing it she got a bad feeling and ordered an emergency jump out of the area and now she was watching as all the other ships had been seized by the 7th juraian armada.
"really, that was quite a dangerous situation...It looks like we just barely made it out of there……"
her handsome expression faded a little
"captain, please forgive me……?" The adjutant who usually didn't express his feeling hung his head in sorrowful apology. he was a large man with a calm disposition whom ryoko and the crew trusted immensely.
"I'm supposed to be 2nd in command...I should have noticed."
"I understand. but you have nothing to apologize for……"
"It was nearly impossible in that state to notice. Even we sent out a signal to the others, they were running after the that GP ship like they were in a trance. I doubt we could have snapped them all back to sanity in time."
"We were too for a while."
"Maybe it's a new kind of decoy ship……?"
"Whatever it was, it was unusual to say the least."
Do you think it's some kind of new weapon that jurai and the GP academy made?"
"There's no way of telling yet." Ryoko said putting her hand on the monitor that was displaying the GP ship
"……It seems to me we should check it out for ourselves."
the reflection of the dot representing their ship approaching the gp ship was reflected in ryoko's eyes.
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Meanwhile a transportation boat had anchored itself on a luminous path from the mikagami to the gp ship. Onnainin, Mitoto, and Seina were being slow to get to it for some reason. Onnainin was visibly uneasy.
"Oh my, it's so dirty in here!"Mitoto worried.
They had the crew clean it but given the limited amount of time they had to clean it and their lack of proper cleaning equipment it was still pretty dirty. Onnainin naturally was worried.
"You know it's customary for the people on the lower class ship to go to the higher class ship."
"oh really?" Seina asked in response to onnainin's mutterings,that didn't calm him down one bit.
"Due to various laws, in an emergency situation like this someone like seto has the power to take authority over a fleet that is outside their jurisdiction. In other words seto is our boss now. It's a bit unnatural to have our boss come to us isn't it?"
"I still worry though."
"here's no need to worry about it……" onnainin said. His body was trembling in nervous fearful weariness.
"Captain, a transport boat from the Mikagami will be arriving shortly"onainin looked up at the ceiling where the voice was being broadcast from. the tension in his face increased.
"I, I, I, I am ok. Everything is fine...just fine……"
but from his expression he wasn't ok at all. he looked like a prisoner on death row.
voooon!
A heavy scream sounded faintly.
"AAAAAH!" Onnainin over reacted to it.
"Anchoring complete!Is it ok to come aboard?"
"Please wait for j-j-just a moment please"
Onnainin took out a sedative pill and a flask and quickly drank it.
"well then, permission granted.p-please come in……"
"Affirmative!"
doki doki doki doki doki doki
Seina could hear Onnainin's heart beat through his chest.
doki doki doki doki doki doki
the entrance hatch to the ship opened in what seemed like slow motion. The air was tense.
"he looks like……someone on the verge of death."
Seina thought out loud looking at Onnainin who was looking at the door opening. His eyes were wide in terror.
doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki
doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki
doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki doki
His heart was beating into overdrive.
"achoo!"mitoto suddenly sneezed behind them
"Kiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" Onnainin jumped up realy high like a cartoon character.
"…uhm,hello?"The voice of a lady called out from behind the entrance.
For a moment they had forgotten that they were supposed to be meeting seto.
Onnainins face flushed and turned a deep blue.
"ex.... excuse me?"
Onnainin bowed kneeling on the floor and seina joined him.
From above his head he heard a gentle voice.
"Do you need some help?Can anyone explain what went on here?"
Was this the demon princess?Mitoto sure seemed glad to see her.
"Oh, Minaho-san!?
"Mitoto-sama??I didn't expect to see you here."
"oh is that so?"
The conversation continued over Seina and Onnainins heads.
"so then this person isn't seto……?"
The odd woman turned to talk to seina
"Nice to meet you?I am Minaho Masaki,Seto's information officer."
it wasn't seto after all
"Haaaa, This is great……" Onnainin sighed a great sigh of releif at the fact that it wasn't seto who had come to visit them. Minaho smiled a little.
Seto was well aware of the rumors about her. So she sent minaho instead it was much easier for her to gather accurate information that way.
"Well then.... Which one of you gathered all these pirates? Was it you Mitoto?"
Mitoto had the natural gift of chance, and Her Daughter Mihoshi Kuramitsu had inherited it from her, This strange event's circumstances were more or less consistent with something that could happen to her, so naturally Minaho assumed it was her doing.
"Oh no it wasn't me. Seina-chan did all the gathering."
She said delighted as she stroked Seina's hair gently.
"Sei...na...?This guy rounded up all those pirates?"
"N-nice to meet you.I am Seina Yamada."
"Seina... Yamada……?"
Minho, who hadn't recognized him, had a confused look on her face.
"Ms. Masaki. I'll be glad to tell you the full story from my perspective."mitoto continued to say. Onnainin also concluded that he should do the same.
First thing they did was state their ID Numbers and Position in the GP and then their role on the ship. Mitoto was on top of things. They had arrived on earth to find seina's family.They put seina onboard. and then they talked about the decisions leading them to be surrounded by pirates. Onnainin reported in as much detail as possible.
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"I see, Well then……"said Seto to minaho who was delivering a remote report to her on the mikagami from the bridge of the gp ship. From her expression one could see that she was very interested in what she heard.
"If that's the case……"
Kanemistu and Minaho let out a simutanous ugh grunt.
Kanemitsu who also listening to the message next to Seto got the chills from Seto's reaction.
"Another one?"
He had witnessed that expression many times before... ... it meant that a new sacrifice had appeared before Seto and that Minaho and his work load was about to increase
"But, I wonder how Seina got into space..." Minaho murmured.
"Oh, are you acquainted?"
"No, of course I haven't met him directly, rather i know of him from a variety of people, He is a friend of Tenchi's... His luck is rather bad. "Minaho gave Seto a supplemental briefing on what she knew about seina.
"That was quite a lot of details... hmm..."seto said as she judged what she had heard, instantly a strange expression came upon her face
"I wonder if this is lord Yosho's doing……"
Seto said, she had a look of uneasiness on her face that was unusual for her.
"What's wrong?" Kanemitsu asked, sensing her discomfort.
"……no, It's nothing.All things considered He managed to pull in quite a considerable amount of pirate ships. well then, I think he is quite lucky, After all it's not every day a pure Earthling gets to go out into space. It's improbable Don't you agree?"
Seto said grinning at kanemitsu as she stared at minaho who was displayed in the middle of a screen
"In that case maybe He didn't encounter me by accident..."she thought to herself silently.
"Anyways? What were you saying?" Considering it a sign, Seto's smile grew even bigger.
"So many things have surprised me today. I never would have expected this to be his doing till Mitoto said he was aboard."
Kanemitsu said hastily changing the subject.
"Oh, that's right. She should have been at gp headquarters doing janitorial work."
"Oh was that where Mitoto was supposed to be?"Seto said with a bitter smile.she wasn't bitterly smiling about Mitoto though.
but they were desperately trying to change the topic, And Seto wanted to watch them squirm.
(Next thing you know Minaho will probably say" The captain of the GP ship is requesting permission to come aboard.") she thought to herself
"Lady Seto, The Captain of the GP ship is requesting permission to come aboard."
(well that didn't take long)Seto predicted her words accurately.
"He's requesting to come aboard?……well then. Let him……"
Minaho showed a look of relief on her face upon seeing Seto's expression. If Seto made Seina her plaything, the GP academy wouldn't put up a fight in admitting him, it seemed like his good luck wasn't over.But what Seto said next betrayed Minaho's expectations.
"……Minaho. I'm putting you in charge of repairs on the GP ship."
"Huh? uhm..., but……"
"That ship just pulled of the largest sweep of pirates in history. We can't just send it on its way in the condition it's in. Such behavior would bring shame to Jurai……Don't you agree?"
If Seto said so then there was no room to argue about it.
"Of course, you are absolutely right……"
"In the meantime, while we escort that transport ship Please let Ms.Mitoto and the others know that they are guests Of Lady Seto Kamiki jurai and that they will be properly taken care of."
"Understood."Minaho said while lowering her head and holding her hands together.
"I feel sorry for poor Seina."
"hmm...who should receive our guest……uhm... yes that will work.Hakuren,Gyokuren,Suiren,and Karen...Send those four."
Minaho and Kanemitsu looked at each other's face across the screen with matching frowns at seto's words She seemed to be up to something.
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Translation notes break:
Proper Noun notes:
Mikagami: alternately read Mizukagami or Water Mirror refers reflection pools commonly found in Japanese gardens.
Amane: the sound of rain fall
Jurai: literally Thunder tree
Kamiki: Sacred tree
Kagato: Literally: God Selfish person.
but its actually the japanise word for the concept of purusha
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purusha
Fuku: good luck
Gyokuren (the white haired renza girl's name means a precious stone shaped in the form of a rose of Sharon or a lotus but the rose of sharon is a flower commonly used to symbolise a perfect woman. so it's probably that. her name should be interpreted as, precious stone statue of the perfect woman.
Karen: Perfect woman made of fire.
Hakuren(blue renza girl):haku doesn’t mean anything in japanese it's just a kanji reserved for making names as far as i can tell. but is amber in japanese and ? is amber by itself in chinese. so amber rose of sharon. or perfect woman made of amber.
Hakubi: the best! A fine example! (doesn't that figure)
Katsuhito: victory benevolent (ehehe get it. cause it's not his real name and he had a benevolent victory over ryoko)
Kamidake: fire beauty ferocious
kiriko: any cheap translator will tell you her name is fog love/misty love. fun fact the first kanji of kiriko and amane is kirisame or light drizzle.
Kuramitsu 9 fine threads of thin silk (more or less.i think?)
Nobuyuki: Fidelity blessing
Ryoko:caller of the spirit of trees and rocks
Ryoko as in ryoko balta: *cough* *cough* *bad american malappropriation accent* Reee yoh ko yall! (the implication is someone who doesn't understand the connotations of the kanji just named their kid ryoko cause it sound foreign and exotic. it's like naming your kid sushi cause you find the word exotic
sasami: Sand sand Beautiful. lol
Ryo ohki: Royal ghost spirits
Seiryo: quiet dragon
Seto: strait (like a body of water)
Suiren: Green bamboo screen
Washu: eagle feathers
Seina: southwest
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Anyways back to where we left off
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10 minutes later:
As Minaho gave instructions to her subordinates on how to fix the GP ship,Mitoto seina, and Onnain were greeted by a party of 4 entertainers.
"Minaho, What do you think of this"
Using a direct line to Minaho, Kanemitsu spokes directly to her.
Not even seto knew about this line but nothing escaped her for too long.
"You don't have any objections, do you?"
"……You look like my wife"
Kanemitsu 's wife was with him, she was the Commander of the Seventh fleet(but she was on maternity leave).
"damn... so that's then end result of seto's meddling."
"as is typical when she brings one of her stallions close to a mare to test their readiness to mate.is it really that big of a deal?"
Kanemitsu continued to ignore Minaho's joke.
Seto kept a tight knit group of people near her. even though she was close enough with minaho to call Minaho Her shield. Minaho Didn't quite understand her reasoning all the time. but she also knew that many of seto's actions had hidden meanings.
"it's unmistakably so."
"She can be quite an unpleasant woman can't she?"
"haha, well then that may be.but lady seto would never do anything unnecessarily.maybe there are reasons for sending those four to entertain seina."
"Heh, Well they are girls, and he is young man I wonder what her intentions are."
"I have no doubts about that, this was intentional."
"If i'm not mistaken those four are just some girls that lady seto found somewhere."
"Oh, well it seems that they've finally arrived.Talk to later, Mr.Kanemitsu, you old fart."
Minaho Cut the communication line there, Then she took the four girls who had arrived from the Mikagami and headed to the reception room where Seina was waiting.
"are……they our welcoming party?"
"Yes.These four are here to take care of you."
Seina stared at the four people behind Minaho and studied their appearence
He wasn't sure why, but they were all covered by a hood covering their heads and the lower half of the face, only leaving the area around the mouth exposed.
"If it's all the same to you I'd like to stay here until the repairs are finished……" Seina tried to find a reason to refuse but there wasn't one.
(Seina ... I understand that you don't want to see Seto, but I can not afford to say yes, I'm sorry..) Minaho thought .
she was feeling a little pleasure in the act of teasing Seina .
it seemed she had picked up one of Seto's bad habits.
"Well, seina. It seems that it will take some time to finish all these repairs, but with your luck this isn't exactly the safest for you place to be."
Onnainin, freed from the pressure of meeting seto, gladly broke his silence to made irresponsible remarks at seina and minaho.
"well, it's an invitation so basically, you have to go."
"Do you have go too Onnainin?"
"Oh, no, I am busy with commanding repairs and other various things!"
Seina expected that response.
At that moment Seina suddenly remembered he had forgotten about Kiriko. maybe he could use contacting kiriko as an excuse to keep from going aboard the mikagami. It would be like killing two birds with one stone. Who would have thought that Kiriko merely existing would be of help to him all the way across the galaxy? Seina happily thanked Kiriko who was far away on Earth.
"Um ... I have a lot of important things I have to talk to someone on earth about, so about that invitation...."
"Ah, Seina, There is no point in trying that, because we're currently jamming the communications of the pirates in this sector, we can not communicate over long distances"
"huh!?"Onnainin's explanation made seina worried that it would be impossible to reach kiriko.
"Well, I'm sorry I didn't say anything sooner, but our ship has a special circuit that can use to call out to anywhere anywhere on the earth."Minaho informed him.
"eh?"Seina's heart shook.
It had been a long time since he had last contacted earth. Twelve hours had already passed since he had woken up.
(If I do not hurry, Kiriko will be worried ... and besides)
He glanced at mitoto. Her smile again gave Seina a sense of security.
(If I'm with mitoto, I'll be fine right?)
"So then Seina-chan, Shall we go?" That sentence mitoto uttered was the finishing blow.
"I guess so……" Even though Seina had accomplished getting what he wanted, He had gotten it by picking the least desirable solution
"Alright! Oh! Well well then, I almost forgot, I'd like to introduce you to your entertainers"
At Minaho's words, the four women who had kept behind her until now came forward in front of Seina and they all removed the hoods that they were wearing at the same time.
"Wow" Seina uttered in spite of himself
Each and every one of the four women were beautiful?Not a single one among them was dressed in anything even remotely shabby. He couldn't take his eyes off of them. Well, they were entertainers after all he thought, so it seems reasonable they would be dressed as such, but he was just a very unlucky person and just a simple earthling, and he had caused a huge uproar. he felt he had done nothing worth while to receive such entertainment.
(Oh ... that's right, Seto is the supreme authority of that country ... maybe this is just normal?That's right they are just ordinary entertainment girls. Rather than finding excessive value in it I should just think of it as natural.)Since Seina had bad luck since when he was young he was used to to underestimating himself and thinking of himself as hated by others.He was just an unlucky guy.
"Well then..." Minaho waited until seina had settled down to introduce the girls.
"This lady is Hakuren"
"It is a pleasure to meet you Seina"
Hakuren gave a respectful bow.She had beatiful Light blue colored Straight hair and she had a very serious look about her reminiscent of a girl who was the head of a comitte.
"This is Karen"
"Thank you very much for all your help."
she was little petite, with a boyish figure and wheat colored skin and brilliant red hair. Although she was tomboyish, she had a strong feminine charm to her appearance.
"This woman is Suiren"
"Suiren is what they call me.I am not good for much,but please treat me kindly."
"Not good for much……?"
She looked like a newlywed wife, her emerald green hair was beautiful and of the four women she was the only one who had glasses.But the glasses on her intellectual looking bespectacled face did little to hide her expression that reminded Seina of Mitoto.
"And then the last one is……huh?"
There was no one where Minaho was pointing
"What's this? Wasn't there one more person there just a little while ago?"
"I am Gyokuren"
Suddenly he heard a voice from behind his ear,and felt two soft lumps on his back
"Oh, excuse me, I didn't mean to surprise you ..."
Gyokuren stared at Seina who nearly jumped out of his skin and smiled.
she was a beautiful silver haired woman with white hair that was slightly grey. her eyes were impressively decadent and deadly looking. He got the feeling that she was more of the seductive type of woman rather than the romantic type.
----
"……shit, he's a nice one."
At that time on the bridge, the operators were looking the surveillance monitor and staring at the Seina's situation.
"Jurai's entertainment ... I Should have guessed it would've been this great"
"And those four girls are so beautiful too."
However, they couldn't exactly say that they wanted to be in his position.
" If you do not enter the tiger's hole, you will not get a baby. However, it is Seto in that tiger hole."
"Don't just give up, Seina you fool."
"Yeah Seina, you fool."
They turned their anger towards Seina, and repeatedly threw curse words at their screens......
Meanwhile Seina was boarding the wooden transport boat to seto's ship It had a plain structure with a simple dugout center, He would have hardly thought that something like this would be flying in space.
"Really…… Is this outer space? "
He pondered a question he hadn't pondered since he first woke up this morning.
"Seina, we know that your star system is in the early stage of civilization."Hakuren said to Seina who was next to her. Apparently she seemed to be the leader of this entertainment team, and for the moment she was in charge of most of the responses.
As he learned later, the other three were watching Mitoto.
Well, anyways.
"Early stage civilization?"
"Yes, You're people's civilizations have successfully escaped from the gravity zone on manned ships.When interstellar navigation becomes possible, You will have reached the second stage."
"Well now……I heard your planet recently manned a vessel to its satellite?……wow"
The boat was covered with a shield and it approached the ship called the mikagami
"Uhm, Is that thing really made out of wood?"
He asked as he leaned on the handrail of the ship and stared at the Mikagami.
"Yes. Jurai is a lush star with Gigantic Kilometer sized trees and that ship is made from one singular continuous piece of wood except for some small exterior decorative pieces."
"There are really trees kilometers in size? On Earth they get to be about about a hundred meters or so, but ...."
"Heh, well you'll only see such a big trees on jurai"
"really? uhm? is that water in the middle of that hoop?"
The main body of the Mikagami had a double ring shape. The liquid that filled it reflected the flickering and shimmering light on its inner ring.
" That's where get the name mikagami(water mirror) from ... ... No, actually it was decorated after that name."
"It looks like a big pool."
"Yes, You can swim in it."
"What?"
"we sometimes go swimming in it with seto". How about it, Seina if you like, do you wanna swim in it too? It feels really weird.?
"Yes, It certainly feels nice……"
"Do you just swim in the middle of space? "(Some misfortune will strike again if I do something like.) seina thought to himself as he vaguely smiled while hakuren told him about it
"Come now, we will arrive soon, and we will guide you to the guesthouse, then you can take a break and contact the Earth before Seto greets you."
"oh……okay" at the mention of meeting seto his spine stiffened.
"Wh, what is this? ..."
Seina, who was accompanied by Hakuren and the others, was guided to the inside of the mikagami. He was overwhelmed by its strange and vibrant internal environment.
The interior of the mikagami contained a space that could be said to be a world of its own. It was a "residential district" of sorts and was unimaginably big compared to the compact outside appearance of the ship. It was not a mechanical sci-fi world, but an area blended with nature.
It wasn't surprising that Seina was surprised.
"I've seen sci fi movies where the inside of the ship was bigger than the outside, but this much difference is insane ......"
A river flowed, trees grew lushly and animals roamed. It was an expansive environment, it was like its own entire universe, and it was all inside the ship. but seina wasn't even really sure about that anymore.
"This is a spherical space of about ten kilometers radius fixed in subspace by the power of a Mikagami."
Hakuren explained to Seina Whose mouth was gaping half open.
"So, Technically speaking, We're not in the Mikagami."
"Ha ha ... ... It's quite a hard to understand concept, isn't it?"
It is in the ship, but not in the ship. It was very zen. Seina's brain couldn't keep up. Hakuren gave a more detailed explanation, but of course Seina didn't understand it. He barely understood what they forced him to learn on earth.
(Didn't Ms.Hakuren mention a guest house .... I hope that wasn't a mistake ... ...)
Seina looked at the scenery spreading in the residential area once more. He saw the Hazy image of mountain ranges in the far Distance.The green trees' dazzled in his eyes.
"It feels nice .... The air is so fresh. It's much more comfortable than that GP ship was."
"The humidity and temperature in here, all have been adjusted to achieve the ideal environment for people."
Seina nodded, he felt something nostalgic about the air in the atmosphere.
Where had he felt this this?
(Oh, that's right. This is just like the air near Tenchi's house ... ...)
This place reminded him of the area around the Masaki family's shrine.
"Did you like it?"
"Yes, it's amazing ... .
"... Isn't it?"
Seina felt something was wrong as he looked back at Hakuren and others in the back.
"Is something wrong?"
Seina had noticed Something around him was off when he scratched his head.
"uhm?mitoto……?"
"what about Ms.mitoto?"
At that everyone turned to look at the place where mitoto should be.
"She's not here... ...."
"!"
Mitoto who was supposed to be surrounded by the other three girls, Was missing. No one had any idea how long she had been gone.
"How foolish of us!"
"Please help me look for her . Gyokuren go with Seina! Karen, Suiren come with me!"
Hakuren Turned bright red and took karen and suiren and ran off to search for mitoto.
Gyokuren took Seina.
"uhm, shouldnt we help find her... ...."
"Those three and I are ladies in waiting not in searching, and even if she is missing, mitoto won't be able to leave the mikagami, so don't worry."
"heh..."
Is this unusual? Or is this a routine thing with mitoto? Seina thought of himself as being pretty special even if it was in a bad way, but It seemed that in this strange place there where very many other strange people.
"This is the guesthouse. Please relax and enjoy yourself."
Gyokuren told seina as they reached a big long house.
(...... this thing is About the size I remember the Great Buddha hall of Todaiji being that time i saw it on a school trip.)
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translator note:largest wooden building in the world also this line directly contradicts the notion in book 2 that seina hasn't ever been out of the city he lives in... yay early book plotholes.
It's Width is 57.012 meters that's about half the length of a football field or the length of 28 king size beds
The Length is about 50.480m or about the length of 25 king sized mattresses
Height 48.742m still about 24 king size mattresses length high... why am i using mattresses? this thing is huge.
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The outer wall was covered with ivy and moss, there was a huge tree in the center of the house ... No. it was more like the trees were built as a major pillar and the house was shaped like a round bun"
In a little covered booth there was a familiar black telephone set.
" The phone to contact Earth is over there."
"Excuse me"
Seina practically jumped into the box and started dialing the number he was used to calling by now.
Ring ring....Ring ring....Ring ring....Ring ring....Ring ring...
beep beep beep
"Is anyone there...??"
Ring ring....Ring ring....Ring ring....Ring ring....Ring ring...
beep beep beep
He was calling Kiriko's house over and over again.
"I'm stupid, neither Kiriko nor kai has the money for all these long distance calls ...."
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Meanwhile
Just as Seina was calling the earth. Seto looked at another person on her the communication monitor, smiling a little. However, the image was disturbed due to ultra sophisticated eavesdropping communication, and only the other person's voice could be heard correctly.
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translator note: we all know who it is ok... sure... i guess since you can't obscure the view in a book that is a way to do it.
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"I see ... well, I understand the circumstances."
"So, will you please repatriate him as soon as possible ..."
The communication partner said in a desperate voice.
---------
translator note: repatriate- a fancy word for deporting someone
also around this point i lost my translation work after working really hard on it and so i began writing the translation in a different perspective to make it easier on me, I'm sorry. this only lasts till the end of the 2nd book. after that everything is more directly translated again.
------------------
"Indeed, it is strictly forbidden to contact early stage civilizations with humans, let alone to send one into space, and although it is strictly prohibited by the galaxy law ...... Earth has no such precedent ... ... Aren't you from earth?"
You could tell there were mixed feelings bouncing around in Seto's words
"But Lady Seto! "
"Well, thank you"
"But, Seto it's a bit..... ! "
Seto interrupted all communications so she could ignore the other's person's words and she smiled like it was just a pleasant surprise.
"Hehehe he ... It is unusual for her to get so riled up"
"Whew ... .... She does not play around.'
Minaho who came back from the GP ship sighed, thinking of the future of the communicating party, and she looked at Kanemitsu with a squinting eyes. Kanemitsu opened his mouth without being addressed.
"...... lady Seto, Should I return him to Earth after all, considering his unique characteristics?"
Of course, giving advice to Seto was pointless.
"Oh, I don't mean to force it if you don't want me to."
Kanemitsu was belly aching to Seto and had been for some time now.
(shit, this shitty old hag is determined to do this ... ... Even if i can't force her to do it, i can at least not make it easy for her... ...)
"Oh, there is something you want to say?"
"No……"
After Seto inquired Kanemitsu metaphorically rolled to expose his belly. Then an operator's voice broke into the conversation, saving what was left of kanemitsu dignity.
"Ms. Seto, Kanemitsu, Please excuse me but I have Found the identity of the person who recruited yamada Seina to the GP on Earth, second class detective Amane · Kaunaq ."
a profile picture of Amane holding up a (v) peace sign was displayed on the communication screen.
seto figured it made sense that this would be her doing.
"Didn't her parents object to her joining the gp."
"Ever since she ran away from home they just let her do whatever she wants. they just want her to settle down and get married as soon as possible" she explained that amane's parents asked seto to find amane a suitor because she comes from a well to do family and needed to marry a certain class of man.the first guy she tried was a famous top class chef. but he was chubby and she grabbed his breasts and squeezed them in front of everyone and asked if he was even a man. She had similarly violent match makings with the others seto sent to her. Seto showed kanemitsu and minaho the videos. they began to suspect seto arranged the meetings just to get videos of them to laugh at.
-------------------
meanwhile seina called kiriko again and got kai. he said kiriko got a call from work and had to go. seina hung up because there was no point in talking to kai anymore.
gyokuren sneaked up really close behind seina and asked who kiriko was startling him.
he noticed that gyokuren and amane were like yin and yang to each other, amane had blond hair like the sun and gyokuren had Grey hair like the moon.
she asked if kiriko was seina's lover. he told her she was more like a sister.
gyokuren got a strange look in her eyes.
mitoto showed up beside them and broke the tension between the two. she reminded them they were supposed to go see seto. gyokuren contacted the others and told mitoto to wait there while she took seina to go see seto.
seina wanted mitoto to come with him so seto would seem less intimidating.
gyokuren told her she couldn't come because she needed to call her father,minami.
her family had been worried about her.
Mitoto was worried that her father would get angry so she ran off to the phone booth to call him
"Oh, that Mitoto ... ....", oh that mitoto indeed.
gyokuren took seina by the hand and took him to see seto.
-----------------------
A few minutes later. Seina's heart was beating violently in front of the gate to the transfer pad that led to Seto. he thought about what kiriko would tell him in this situation. imaginary kiriko cheered him on. gyokuren said that she could not accompany him any further and sent him ahead of her.
she wished him luck.
he stepped through the gate and onto a transport pad. everything around him turned white and then he was teleported elsewhere . seto was sitting on a throne in front of him. she welcomed him to the mikagami. he noticed how beautiful she was and how odd it was for him to meet so many pretty women in such a short time.
"Nice to meet you. I am Kamiki · Seto · Jurai"
Seina couldn't believe that she was the one people called the demon princess she was completely different from what he expected he found her gentle and didn't see what all the commotion was about. kanemitsu who was next to seto just stared at seina feeling sorry for him.
suddenly he felt nostalgic for some reason. He felt like this wasn't the first time he had met seto. she asked what was bothering him he said it was nothing and introduced himself.
he turned red and bowed profusely. she laughed and said there was no need to get like that. and then she introduced kanemitsu as the commander of the 7th fleet.
she asked him to come with her to explain his story to her. they walked to another transport pad and arrived at different but gigantic residential area, bigger the one they were at before .
they were very high up and he could see the guest house and a large garden area from where he was. there was a huge tree in the center it looked like the tree was supporting the sky.he had passed by it earlier with hakuren but had been too close to see what it was.
set gave seina some tea and started off their conversation by thanking him. he asked what she was thanking him for. she told him it was because he was the one who put in the co-ordinates that got the pirates.
that was the first time he had ever been thanked for something good. she explained how hard it was to catch pirates.what he did was essentially a miracle.
"Hey Seina, your bad luck is a tremendous talent if you change your perspective. surely you'll receive a big welcome when you get to the gp"
Seina doubted the words in his ear for a moment. welcome. What a delightful word.
kanemitsu butted in
"It's hard to this say, but in fact, it is forbidden by galaxy law to send a pure earthling like Seina into space."
Seto slowly closed her eyes in support of what kanemitsu had said.
"So we will take responsibility and send you back to the earth safely and erase your memories"
this shocked seina.
"Do you still want to join the gp given the possible dangers?" Seto asked for seina this was the first time he was needed by people. he decided he didn't want to go home. she supported his decision. he thanked her.
"I will make arrangements so that you can stay. in the meantime you are welcome aboard my ship." seto said.
he stared at her face.
"Is something wrong?"
he told her about how he felt nostalgic when he looked at her. he felt the same thing with minaho as well
"Really? Well, maybe you have seen me before, Minaho is an aunt of Tenchi maybe that's why?"
she asked if he had put two and two together yet. he had gotten the pamphlet at tenchi's house after all.
"What!?" he began to remember that amane had left a recruitment packet for Tenchi. he began to have questions
"Well, then, is Tenchi senpai an alien too?"
"he was born and raised on earth. he sure is a cute one ......"Seto said .
the word alien was a strange one to seto. he was an alien to her after all... she explained that sasami and ayeka were her grandchildren.
This baffled him because seto looked to him like she could have been ayeka's sister or sasami's mother.
seina tripped on a tree branch and fell on his face.
"are you ok?" seto asked she cleaned off seina's face with a handkerchief.
"It's fine... I'm used to it."
seto looked at him seriously for a bit then she burst out laughing.
" good hahaha. " They got up. hakuren came to get seina. she bowed to seto. they took him away . seto told kanemitsu that seina reminded him of yosho when he was young.
------------
seina went back to the guest room and saw mitoto apologizing profusely on the phone. hakuren explained that mitoto had a special skill that caused her to wind up in weird places. it's was a vague explanation to say the least.
but Seina, who suffered from misfortune understood it painfully. no matter how strictly guarded mitoto was she ended up in places with even the most maximum of security measures in place. It seemed she had come aboard while cleaning at gp headquarters and didn't notice till they had left.
Minami on the other end of the line was angrily yelling at her about how she was supposed to call him whenever she ended up in weird places.
"I'm sorry ... I'm sorry ... I'm sorry ... I'm sorry ... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. "
"Seina, I was scolded __ ~ ~" she said
"Yes, I heard."
She grabbed seina and cried on him she played with his hair. hakuren came in and told them that their dinner was ready for them.
"Oh, yes, but ... ...." seina looked at hakuren silently begging for help.
There was no indication that mitoto's crying was going to stop anytime soon. hakuren smiled at him. "Ms. Mitoto, dessert is pudding"
"Pudding?" she instantly bounced back to a happy state
"Yes, please come to the cafeteria."
Mitoto rushed to the cafeteria. seina was dumbfounded by the quick change in her disposition.
"Well, mr.Seina, Let's go" seina took hakuren's hand and she lead him out
"perhaps you should have started out mentioning pudding" he said as he looked at his shirt that was damp with mitoto's tears. "If you hadn't comforted mitoto first, it wouldn't have worked." Hakuren said " You should change your clothes."
seina changed and admired the view from the terrace he was on.
At dinner, seina found that the food was very different from what he was used to at home. due to his bad luck his family never ate out. he noticed the organic chandelier above.
Juraians liked to integrate nature with their appliances. it was a natural grown luminescent plant. the big tree he had seen earlier was essentially a glorified Christmas tree with built in organic lighting and at night the residential area was lit by similarly related plants that grew in the fields.
Hakuren poured seina a fruity amber liquid that was delicious and bubbly.
"You can have as much as you want. it's was a gift from seto."
He did not know it at the time, but it was made from the fruit of the Imperial Tree . Usually it was made into fruit liquor, it was so rare that not even royalty could always get the chance to drink it. they usually sent one to the head of every planet they were friendly with every year as a goodwill gift. In the past, One bottle went to auction and it had gone for the price of a residential planet. it had no fixed value but it's was at least enough to buy a whole continent, Even though seina wasn't aware of this the others around him were. the four seto scouts knew as they watched him drink it.
they brought in his food and they brought mitoto's pudding in. Next to Seina, Mitoto was pleasantly poking the dessert's pudding with a spoon.
"Wow, I have pudding!" mitoto continued to be adorable. and thanked seina for her pudding.
----------
later seina wanted to go for a walk so hakuren, against his wishes, accompanied him.
he was shy about it though he didn't have much experience with walking alone with pretty ladies. she noticed his melancholy expression and offered to let him walk alone. he declined though. he told her he would rather have her show him around the place.
they went towards a river. the river appeared deep and very shallow up close they could clearly see each stone on the river bottom shining like a jewel,small fish were also swimming.
Downstream, the parents of six-legged animals that resembled horses were drinking water together. seina said it was very peaceful. he heard something behind him. when he looked behind him he saw a huge beast's nose. it pushed him into the river . he looked up at it. A pig that looked like a big caterpillar was staring at him.
The water was pretty cold. "Are you OK? mr. Seina." asked hakuren who had also fallen into the water next to him, she had gotten pulled in by his luck. he apologized. she apologized for not doing her job of protecting him.
"I'm sorry"
"No I'm sorry"" No I'm sorry" " No I'm sorry"" No I'm sorry" " No I'm sorry"
After apologizing in circles for a long time, Seina sighed deeply. hakuren smiled at seina who was in bad mood.
"I heard your luck was bad, is it always like this for you?"
"yes, I'm nothing but a bother to others."
"well , you're just poorly........." she froze up mid sentence like a computer does. he didn't think she was even breathing.
"... ... Um, Hello ......?" after what felt like a few minutes seina taped hakuren on her shoulder. he called her name a few times.
"……understood!" Hakuren restarted abruptly
" But I understand, I will protect you forever Seina!"
seina didn't expect this and so he froze up as well. But after a while the cold night's wind made him sneeze.
this brought them back to reality.
they went home hakuren grabed his hand and was walking really really really fast as she took him there .
"please slow down!" her rate of walking was inhuman.
"are we back already?" he asked. It was still early. that should have been a long distance but they had gotten back in under a minute.
"We are undergoing special biometric adjustments." she said while she took off her wet t-shirt and began to dry off seina.
"I can dry myself off." he shyly turned away but she didn't stop.
she asked him to hurry up and take off his pants so she could dry them. she put her hands on his belt and he jumped back across the room at a rate comparable to the speed she had been walking a moment ago.
he said he would do it himself. she continued to do it anyway because was her job. he tried to avoid looking at her. he started getting red from embarrassment.
Suiren and mitoto suddenly appeared next to him. he wasn't sure where they came from but was still embarrassed. he wondered where they came from. they said they had been there for 5 minutes already. Hakuren explained to seina how that was possible. Suiren had a thin shadow. she was a girl with little presence. she was a supernaturally stealthy woman. sometimes people would recognize her but not recognize her as Suiren. her ability was so great that she could go to any families family function and it would take over two hours for someone to realize she wasn't their relative.
even seto sometimes didn't notice her.
she had brought hakuren a change of clothes.
.... it got Big! Again Seina stiffened to surprise.... seina got embarrassed and apologized
they were very shocked.... he heard karen's voice from afar .
she yelled at them "what are you doing in here! how long does it take to change clothes!" they asked what was up with karen and why she had let mitoto get away from her she said that she couldn't keep her in one place on her own.
mitoto went missing again as they talked so they split up again to find her. karen went north hakuren and suiren disappeared into the dark like ninja's ...
gyokuren was left with seina. she escorted him to the guest house so he could go take a bath. the guest house bath was a giant hot spring bath way to big for one person to use alone, but seina found it relaxing. seina thought he could write a book about all the crazy things he had seen that day.
Gyokuren came in unexpectedly to wash his back. poor seina. he didn't know how to deal with this much attention.
he got excited again and hid it with a towel. gyokuren slid in front of him. "what's the matter?"
While Seina was trying to calm down, Gyokuren had invaded his personal space. she grabbed his shoulder . he tried to get away but she was too strong because of her bioenhancement.
Gyokuren looked straight at Seina and gazed into his eyes like a siren. an awkward sexual tension filled bath scene which ultimately only lead to back scrubbing ensued.
------------------------
Translator note: some scenes are not worth my time to translate in detail this was one of them. it then cuts to a cryptic poem.
------------------------------------------------
Mikagami hibernation space,
A star in the sky - a dark room.
Mirror · Seto and Seto.
"I heard that you have met him before ... some how you remember but I do not"
"That is my only unique memory"
"Is that all?"
"Yes my only ........................ only one thing"
"I see, that puts us in a difficult position."
"he was about the same at that age ... ... I'm happy to meet him again."
---------------------------------
... did that break the immersion for you? I'm sorry. it did for me too. but it was basically saying that that was mirror-seto who had met seina just now and mirror seto and seto's memories have begun to de-synchronize . confused? they won't explain it for another 13 novels.
----------------------------
The next day the gp ship was repaired and was leaving. onnainin thanked seto. she asked him to deliver Mitoto and Seina safely to the gp and told seina to do his best.
they headed towards the galaxy academy. they jumped off but when they came out of the jump to the academy, their ship's space pirate alert sounded.
It had only detected one ship though. They collected data on the ship's identity.
It was Ryoko Balta's ship.
The crew on the bridge stood up and cheered ecstatically.
everyone made a big ruckus over the news except for onnainin and seina who was confused. they sent a message to invite her aboard.Onnainin stood in front of the crew trying to leave the bridge. as a gp ship they were not allowed to accept an invitation from a pirate to come aboard. they death stared onnainin for blocking them.
--------------
an hour earlier, ryoko's ship was watching the gp ship leaving the mikagami. they wondered what was on board the ship when they received a communication from seto. She dared them to see what was on board.
-------------
Back on the ship an hour later the crew had tortured onnainin into letting ryoko come aboard. The appearance of the bridge had changed completely, and blurry photographs of an out-of-focus black haired space pirate woman were displayed on each and every screen or monitor on the ship, you couldn't even tell what the woman looked like from them, they were too blurred.
It was barely clear enough to tell that it was a woman.But the crewmen didn't care about such things, they were very excited. A small flag with the name of Ryoko and a fan were swung about by a crew member who was calling her name over and over. seina wondered what was going on,
"Seina, I knew from the beginning, your talent was truly wonderful!"
The other crewmen all nodded at once together.
Seina couldn't remember the other crew members names besides onnainin's.
"I am Alan, my thinner counterpart is Barry - and my fat friend is Cohen, by the way, what is the captain (onnainin)'s name ...? ... I forgot."
The tall operator named Alan tilted his head.They didn't know and they said that since they couldn't recall it didn't matter.
they told Seina that Ryoko had over 1,389 official fan clubs and 10x more unofficial clubs. she was the third most popular idol in all the gp.
seina pointed out all the blurry pictures. they said there were no clear pictures of her.
"When you are attacked by a space pirate, you rarely live to show the evidence of seeing them." "However, the valuable photographs are monopolized by other major fan clubs with the original photo's, and they are open to their members only, the membership fee is stupid and the motivation is impure . "
he showed them a picture and proudly declared it to be a photo of a copy of a copy of a copy, which was more than most clubs had
" there are a lot of pirate fanclubs in the gp and the gp cracks down on them every so often"
one crew member said
"Our relationship is quite delicate. I will skip the details, but there is an implicit rule between us and the Space pirates."
barry explained that while ryoko was a pirate she was very delicate and didn't like to hurt anyone. they described her as a beautiful butterfly. seina was confused.
-------------
the ship's side airlock was completely opened and they got nearer to her ship.It was apparent that they want her inside them.
"who are we to say no" said ryoko,
she thought about her communication with seto. seto had called her and told her her secret weapon was on board and encouraged her to go see it. ryoko was going to go see it anyways but that made her really want to see it.
as she boarded the ship she came in and found no one aboard. she adjusted her shields. she came to the bridge and it was dark but she, her adjutant and a few guards were greeted with a surprise greeting as the lights turned on
------------
A few minutes later:
ryoko knew about her reputation in the gp but wasn't expecting anything like what she had found. she was feeling very uncomfortable and noticed the odd boy sticking out in the crowd who also clearly felt just as uncomfortable as her.
that made her feel close to him
he noticed Ryoko 's eyes, and their eyes accidentally met, the boy bowed down blushing.
(Oh, he's cute) ryoko thought
mitoto broke her line of sight and greeted her.
"Ryoko, thank you for coming see us"
"Thank you Mitoto!"
mitoto handed her a bouquet of flowers .
they knew each other. mitoto cleaned her ship once.
The rest of the crew did not know it but it was actually Mitoto who took the one and only picture of ryoko all her fans coveted.
"... .... Thank you very much for your enthusiastic welcoming, I am looking forward to meeting the captain of this ship."
alan introduced himself as acting captain and barry as the captains captain and cohen as the captains captain acting on behalf of the captain.
onnanin was tied up in a box. ryoko was not amused by this. she didn't feel like talking to such vulgar people
"Well then, may I ask which ever is the captain of you three Captains about yesterday... ...."
" That was all this guy!"
they pointed to seina. Ryoko was surprised that he was the one who did that to all her friends.
seina shrugged his head towards Ryoko with confusion.
End of 3rd chapter end of episode 3 of the anime
Each and every one of the four women were beautiful?Not a single one among them was dressed in anything even remotely shabby. He couldn't take his eyes off of them. Well, they were entertainers after all he thought, so it seems reasonable they would be dressed as such, but he was just a very unlucky person and just a simple earthling, and he had caused a huge uproar. he felt he had done nothing worth while to receive such entertainment.
(Oh ... that's right, Seto is the supreme authority of that country ... maybe this is just normal?That's right they are just ordinary entertainment girls. Rather than finding excessive value in it I should just think of it as natural.)Since Seina had bad luck since when he was young he was used to to underestimating himself and thinking of himself as hated by others.He was just an unlucky guy.
"Well then..." Minaho waited until seina had settled down to introduce the girls.
"This lady is Hakuren"
"It is a pleasure to meet you Seina"
Hakuren gave a respectful bow.She had beatiful Light blue colored Straight hair and she had a very serious look about her reminiscent of a girl who was the head of a comitte.
"This is Karen"
"Thank you very much for all your help."
she was little petite, with a boyish figure and wheat colored skin and brilliant red hair. Although she was tomboyish, she had a strong feminine charm to her appearance.
"This woman is Suiren"
"Suiren is what they call me.I am not good for much,but please treat me kindly."
"Not good for much……?"
She looked like a newlywed wife, her emerald green hair was beautiful and of the four women she was the only one who had glasses.But the glasses on her intellectual looking bespectacled face did little to hide her expression that reminded Seina of Mitoto.
"And then the last one is……huh?"
There was no one where Minaho was pointing
"What's this? Wasn't there one more person there just a little while ago?"
"I am Gyokuren"
Suddenly he heard a voice from behind his ear,and felt two soft lumps on his back
"Oh, excuse me, I didn't mean to surprise you ..."
Gyokuren stared at Seina who nearly jumped out of his skin and smiled.
she was a beautiful silver haired woman with white hair that was slightly grey. her eyes were impressively decadent and deadly looking. He got the feeling that she was more of the seductive type of woman rather than the romantic type.
----
"……shit, he's a nice one."
At that time on the bridge, the operators were looking the surveillance monitor and staring at the Seina's situation.
"Jurai's entertainment ... I Should have guessed it would've been this great"
"And those four girls are so beautiful too."
However, they couldn't exactly say that they wanted to be in his position.
" If you do not enter the tiger's hole, you will not get a baby. However, it is Seto in that tiger hole."
"Don't just give up, Seina you fool."
"Yeah Seina, you fool."
They turned their anger towards Seina, and repeatedly threw curse words at their screens......
Meanwhile Seina was boarding the wooden transport boat to seto's ship It had a plain structure with a simple dugout center, He would have hardly thought that something like this would be flying in space.
"Really…… Is this outer space? "
He pondered a question he hadn't pondered since he first woke up this morning.
"Seina, we know that your star system is in the early stage of civilization."Hakuren said to Seina who was next to her. Apparently she seemed to be the leader of this entertainment team, and for the moment she was in charge of most of the responses.
As he learned later, the other three were watching Mitoto.
Well, anyways.
"Early stage civilization?"
"Yes, You're people's civilizations have successfully escaped from the gravity zone on manned ships.When interstellar navigation becomes possible, You will have reached the second stage."
"Well now……I heard your planet recently manned a vessel to its satellite?……wow"
The boat was covered with a shield and it approached the ship called the mikagami
"Uhm, Is that thing really made out of wood?"
He asked as he leaned on the handrail of the ship and stared at the Mikagami.
"Yes. Jurai is a lush star with Gigantic Kilometer sized trees and that ship is made from one singular continuous piece of wood except for some small exterior decorative pieces."
"There are really trees kilometers in size? On Earth they get to be about about a hundred meters or so, but ...."
"Heh, well you'll only see such a big trees on jurai"
"really? uhm? is that water in the middle of that hoop?"
The main body of the Mikagami had a double ring shape. The liquid that filled it reflected the flickering and shimmering light on its inner ring.
" That's where get the name mikagami(water mirror) from ... ... No, actually it was decorated after that name."
"It looks like a big pool."
"Yes, You can swim in it."
"What?"
"we sometimes go swimming in it with seto". How about it, Seina if you like, do you wanna swim in it too? It feels really weird.?
"Yes, It certainly feels nice……"
"Do you just swim in the middle of space? "(Some misfortune will strike again if I do something like.) seina thought to himself as he vaguely smiled while hakuren told him about it
"Come now, we will arrive soon, and we will guide you to the guesthouse, then you can take a break and contact the Earth before Seto greets you."
"oh……okay" at the mention of meeting seto his spine stiffened.
"Wh, what is this? ..."
Seina, who was accompanied by Hakuren and the others, was guided to the inside of the mikagami. He was overwhelmed by its strange and vibrant internal environment.
The interior of the mikagami contained a space that could be said to be a world of its own. It was a "residential district" of sorts and was unimaginably big compared to the compact outside appearance of the ship. It was not a mechanical sci-fi world, but an area blended with nature.
It wasn't surprising that Seina was surprised.
"I've seen sci fi movies where the inside of the ship was bigger than the outside, but this much difference is insane ......"
A river flowed, trees grew lushly and animals roamed. It was an expansive environment, it was like its own entire universe, and it was all inside the ship. but seina wasn't even really sure about that anymore.
"This is a spherical space of about ten kilometers radius fixed in subspace by the power of a Mikagami."
Hakuren explained to Seina Whose mouth was gaping half open.
"So, Technically speaking, We're not in the Mikagami."
"Ha ha ... ... It's quite a hard to understand concept, isn't it?"
It is in the ship, but not in the ship. It was very zen. Seina's brain couldn't keep up. Hakuren gave a more detailed explanation, but of course Seina didn't understand it. He barely understood what they forced him to learn on earth.
(Didn't Ms.Hakuren mention a guest house .... I hope that wasn't a mistake ... ...)
Seina looked at the scenery spreading in the residential area once more. He saw the Hazy image of mountain ranges in the far Distance.The green trees' dazzled in his eyes.
"It feels nice .... The air is so fresh. It's much more comfortable than that GP ship was."
"The humidity and temperature in here, all have been adjusted to achieve the ideal environment for people."
Seina nodded, he felt something nostalgic about the air in the atmosphere.
Where had he felt this this?
(Oh, that's right. This is just like the air near Tenchi's house ... ...)
This place reminded him of the area around the Masaki family's shrine.
"Did you like it?"
"Yes, it's amazing ... .
"... Isn't it?"
Seina felt something was wrong as he looked back at Hakuren and others in the back.
"Is something wrong?"
Seina had noticed Something around him was off when he scratched his head.
"uhm?mitoto……?"
"what about Ms.mitoto?"
At that everyone turned to look at the place where mitoto should be.
"She's not here... ...."
"!"
Mitoto who was supposed to be surrounded by the other three girls, Was missing. No one had any idea how long she had been gone.
"How foolish of us!"
"Please help me look for her . Gyokuren go with Seina! Karen, Suiren come with me!"
Hakuren Turned bright red and took karen and suiren and ran off to search for mitoto.
Gyokuren took Seina.
"uhm, shouldnt we help find her... ...."
"Those three and I are ladies in waiting not in searching, and even if she is missing, mitoto won't be able to leave the mikagami, so don't worry."
"heh..."
Is this unusual? Or is this a routine thing with mitoto? Seina thought of himself as being pretty special even if it was in a bad way, but It seemed that in this strange place there where very many other strange people.
"This is the guesthouse. Please relax and enjoy yourself."
Gyokuren told seina as they reached a big long house.
(...... this thing is About the size I remember the Great Buddha hall of Todaiji being that time i saw it on a school trip.)
-----------------------------
translator note:largest wooden building in the world also this line directly contradicts the notion in book 2 that seina hasn't ever been out of the city he lives in... yay early book plotholes.
It's Width is 57.012 meters that's about half the length of a football field or the length of 28 king size beds
The Length is about 50.480m or about the length of 25 king sized mattresses
Height 48.742m still about 24 king size mattresses length high... why am i using mattresses? this thing is huge.
------------
The outer wall was covered with ivy and moss, there was a huge tree in the center of the house ... No. it was more like the trees were built as a major pillar and the house was shaped like a round bun"
In a little covered booth there was a familiar black telephone set.
" The phone to contact Earth is over there."
"Excuse me"
Seina practically jumped into the box and started dialing the number he was used to calling by now.
Ring ring....Ring ring....Ring ring....Ring ring....Ring ring...
beep beep beep
"Is anyone there...??"
Ring ring....Ring ring....Ring ring....Ring ring....Ring ring...
beep beep beep
He was calling Kiriko's house over and over again.
"I'm stupid, neither Kiriko nor kai has the money for all these long distance calls ...."
---------
Meanwhile
Just as Seina was calling the earth. Seto looked at another person on her the communication monitor, smiling a little. However, the image was disturbed due to ultra sophisticated eavesdropping communication, and only the other person's voice could be heard correctly.
-----
translator note: we all know who it is ok... sure... i guess since you can't obscure the view in a book that is a way to do it.
---------
"I see ... well, I understand the circumstances."
"So, will you please repatriate him as soon as possible ..."
The communication partner said in a desperate voice.
---------
translator note: repatriate- a fancy word for deporting someone
also around this point i lost my translation work after working really hard on it and so i began writing the translation in a different perspective to make it easier on me, I'm sorry. this only lasts till the end of the 2nd book. after that everything is more directly translated again.
------------------
"Indeed, it is strictly forbidden to contact early stage civilizations with humans, let alone to send one into space, and although it is strictly prohibited by the galaxy law ...... Earth has no such precedent ... ... Aren't you from earth?"
You could tell there were mixed feelings bouncing around in Seto's words
"But Lady Seto! "
"Well, thank you"
"But, Seto it's a bit..... ! "
Seto interrupted all communications so she could ignore the other's person's words and she smiled like it was just a pleasant surprise.
"Hehehe he ... It is unusual for her to get so riled up"
"Whew ... .... She does not play around.'
Minaho who came back from the GP ship sighed, thinking of the future of the communicating party, and she looked at Kanemitsu with a squinting eyes. Kanemitsu opened his mouth without being addressed.
"...... lady Seto, Should I return him to Earth after all, considering his unique characteristics?"
Of course, giving advice to Seto was pointless.
"Oh, I don't mean to force it if you don't want me to."
Kanemitsu was belly aching to Seto and had been for some time now.
(shit, this shitty old hag is determined to do this ... ... Even if i can't force her to do it, i can at least not make it easy for her... ...)
"Oh, there is something you want to say?"
"No……"
After Seto inquired Kanemitsu metaphorically rolled to expose his belly. Then an operator's voice broke into the conversation, saving what was left of kanemitsu dignity.
"Ms. Seto, Kanemitsu, Please excuse me but I have Found the identity of the person who recruited yamada Seina to the GP on Earth, second class detective Amane · Kaunaq ."
a profile picture of Amane holding up a (v) peace sign was displayed on the communication screen.
seto figured it made sense that this would be her doing.
"Didn't her parents object to her joining the gp."
"Ever since she ran away from home they just let her do whatever she wants. they just want her to settle down and get married as soon as possible" she explained that amane's parents asked seto to find amane a suitor because she comes from a well to do family and needed to marry a certain class of man.the first guy she tried was a famous top class chef. but he was chubby and she grabbed his breasts and squeezed them in front of everyone and asked if he was even a man. She had similarly violent match makings with the others seto sent to her. Seto showed kanemitsu and minaho the videos. they began to suspect seto arranged the meetings just to get videos of them to laugh at.
-------------------
meanwhile seina called kiriko again and got kai. he said kiriko got a call from work and had to go. seina hung up because there was no point in talking to kai anymore.
gyokuren sneaked up really close behind seina and asked who kiriko was startling him.
he noticed that gyokuren and amane were like yin and yang to each other, amane had blond hair like the sun and gyokuren had Grey hair like the moon.
she asked if kiriko was seina's lover. he told her she was more like a sister.
gyokuren got a strange look in her eyes.
mitoto showed up beside them and broke the tension between the two. she reminded them they were supposed to go see seto. gyokuren contacted the others and told mitoto to wait there while she took seina to go see seto.
seina wanted mitoto to come with him so seto would seem less intimidating.
gyokuren told her she couldn't come because she needed to call her father,minami.
her family had been worried about her.
Mitoto was worried that her father would get angry so she ran off to the phone booth to call him
"Oh, that Mitoto ... ....", oh that mitoto indeed.
gyokuren took seina by the hand and took him to see seto.
-----------------------
A few minutes later. Seina's heart was beating violently in front of the gate to the transfer pad that led to Seto. he thought about what kiriko would tell him in this situation. imaginary kiriko cheered him on. gyokuren said that she could not accompany him any further and sent him ahead of her.
she wished him luck.
he stepped through the gate and onto a transport pad. everything around him turned white and then he was teleported elsewhere . seto was sitting on a throne in front of him. she welcomed him to the mikagami. he noticed how beautiful she was and how odd it was for him to meet so many pretty women in such a short time.
"Nice to meet you. I am Kamiki · Seto · Jurai"
Seina couldn't believe that she was the one people called the demon princess she was completely different from what he expected he found her gentle and didn't see what all the commotion was about. kanemitsu who was next to seto just stared at seina feeling sorry for him.
suddenly he felt nostalgic for some reason. He felt like this wasn't the first time he had met seto. she asked what was bothering him he said it was nothing and introduced himself.
he turned red and bowed profusely. she laughed and said there was no need to get like that. and then she introduced kanemitsu as the commander of the 7th fleet.
she asked him to come with her to explain his story to her. they walked to another transport pad and arrived at different but gigantic residential area, bigger the one they were at before .
they were very high up and he could see the guest house and a large garden area from where he was. there was a huge tree in the center it looked like the tree was supporting the sky.he had passed by it earlier with hakuren but had been too close to see what it was.
set gave seina some tea and started off their conversation by thanking him. he asked what she was thanking him for. she told him it was because he was the one who put in the co-ordinates that got the pirates.
that was the first time he had ever been thanked for something good. she explained how hard it was to catch pirates.what he did was essentially a miracle.
"Hey Seina, your bad luck is a tremendous talent if you change your perspective. surely you'll receive a big welcome when you get to the gp"
Seina doubted the words in his ear for a moment. welcome. What a delightful word.
kanemitsu butted in
"It's hard to this say, but in fact, it is forbidden by galaxy law to send a pure earthling like Seina into space."
Seto slowly closed her eyes in support of what kanemitsu had said.
"So we will take responsibility and send you back to the earth safely and erase your memories"
this shocked seina.
"Do you still want to join the gp given the possible dangers?" Seto asked for seina this was the first time he was needed by people. he decided he didn't want to go home. she supported his decision. he thanked her.
"I will make arrangements so that you can stay. in the meantime you are welcome aboard my ship." seto said.
he stared at her face.
"Is something wrong?"
he told her about how he felt nostalgic when he looked at her. he felt the same thing with minaho as well
"Really? Well, maybe you have seen me before, Minaho is an aunt of Tenchi maybe that's why?"
she asked if he had put two and two together yet. he had gotten the pamphlet at tenchi's house after all.
"What!?" he began to remember that amane had left a recruitment packet for Tenchi. he began to have questions
"Well, then, is Tenchi senpai an alien too?"
"he was born and raised on earth. he sure is a cute one ......"Seto said .
the word alien was a strange one to seto. he was an alien to her after all... she explained that sasami and ayeka were her grandchildren.
This baffled him because seto looked to him like she could have been ayeka's sister or sasami's mother.
seina tripped on a tree branch and fell on his face.
"are you ok?" seto asked she cleaned off seina's face with a handkerchief.
"It's fine... I'm used to it."
seto looked at him seriously for a bit then she burst out laughing.
" good hahaha. " They got up. hakuren came to get seina. she bowed to seto. they took him away . seto told kanemitsu that seina reminded him of yosho when he was young.
------------
seina went back to the guest room and saw mitoto apologizing profusely on the phone. hakuren explained that mitoto had a special skill that caused her to wind up in weird places. it's was a vague explanation to say the least.
but Seina, who suffered from misfortune understood it painfully. no matter how strictly guarded mitoto was she ended up in places with even the most maximum of security measures in place. It seemed she had come aboard while cleaning at gp headquarters and didn't notice till they had left.
Minami on the other end of the line was angrily yelling at her about how she was supposed to call him whenever she ended up in weird places.
"I'm sorry ... I'm sorry ... I'm sorry ... I'm sorry ... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. "
"Seina, I was scolded __ ~ ~" she said
"Yes, I heard."
She grabbed seina and cried on him she played with his hair. hakuren came in and told them that their dinner was ready for them.
"Oh, yes, but ... ...." seina looked at hakuren silently begging for help.
There was no indication that mitoto's crying was going to stop anytime soon. hakuren smiled at him. "Ms. Mitoto, dessert is pudding"
"Pudding?" she instantly bounced back to a happy state
"Yes, please come to the cafeteria."
Mitoto rushed to the cafeteria. seina was dumbfounded by the quick change in her disposition.
"Well, mr.Seina, Let's go" seina took hakuren's hand and she lead him out
"perhaps you should have started out mentioning pudding" he said as he looked at his shirt that was damp with mitoto's tears. "If you hadn't comforted mitoto first, it wouldn't have worked." Hakuren said " You should change your clothes."
seina changed and admired the view from the terrace he was on.
At dinner, seina found that the food was very different from what he was used to at home. due to his bad luck his family never ate out. he noticed the organic chandelier above.
Juraians liked to integrate nature with their appliances. it was a natural grown luminescent plant. the big tree he had seen earlier was essentially a glorified Christmas tree with built in organic lighting and at night the residential area was lit by similarly related plants that grew in the fields.
Hakuren poured seina a fruity amber liquid that was delicious and bubbly.
"You can have as much as you want. it's was a gift from seto."
He did not know it at the time, but it was made from the fruit of the Imperial Tree . Usually it was made into fruit liquor, it was so rare that not even royalty could always get the chance to drink it. they usually sent one to the head of every planet they were friendly with every year as a goodwill gift. In the past, One bottle went to auction and it had gone for the price of a residential planet. it had no fixed value but it's was at least enough to buy a whole continent, Even though seina wasn't aware of this the others around him were. the four seto scouts knew as they watched him drink it.
they brought in his food and they brought mitoto's pudding in. Next to Seina, Mitoto was pleasantly poking the dessert's pudding with a spoon.
"Wow, I have pudding!" mitoto continued to be adorable. and thanked seina for her pudding.
----------
later seina wanted to go for a walk so hakuren, against his wishes, accompanied him.
he was shy about it though he didn't have much experience with walking alone with pretty ladies. she noticed his melancholy expression and offered to let him walk alone. he declined though. he told her he would rather have her show him around the place.
they went towards a river. the river appeared deep and very shallow up close they could clearly see each stone on the river bottom shining like a jewel,small fish were also swimming.
Downstream, the parents of six-legged animals that resembled horses were drinking water together. seina said it was very peaceful. he heard something behind him. when he looked behind him he saw a huge beast's nose. it pushed him into the river . he looked up at it. A pig that looked like a big caterpillar was staring at him.
The water was pretty cold. "Are you OK? mr. Seina." asked hakuren who had also fallen into the water next to him, she had gotten pulled in by his luck. he apologized. she apologized for not doing her job of protecting him.
"I'm sorry"
"No I'm sorry"" No I'm sorry" " No I'm sorry"" No I'm sorry" " No I'm sorry"
After apologizing in circles for a long time, Seina sighed deeply. hakuren smiled at seina who was in bad mood.
"I heard your luck was bad, is it always like this for you?"
"yes, I'm nothing but a bother to others."
"well , you're just poorly........." she froze up mid sentence like a computer does. he didn't think she was even breathing.
"... ... Um, Hello ......?" after what felt like a few minutes seina taped hakuren on her shoulder. he called her name a few times.
"……understood!" Hakuren restarted abruptly
" But I understand, I will protect you forever Seina!"
seina didn't expect this and so he froze up as well. But after a while the cold night's wind made him sneeze.
this brought them back to reality.
they went home hakuren grabed his hand and was walking really really really fast as she took him there .
"please slow down!" her rate of walking was inhuman.
"are we back already?" he asked. It was still early. that should have been a long distance but they had gotten back in under a minute.
"We are undergoing special biometric adjustments." she said while she took off her wet t-shirt and began to dry off seina.
"I can dry myself off." he shyly turned away but she didn't stop.
she asked him to hurry up and take off his pants so she could dry them. she put her hands on his belt and he jumped back across the room at a rate comparable to the speed she had been walking a moment ago.
he said he would do it himself. she continued to do it anyway because was her job. he tried to avoid looking at her. he started getting red from embarrassment.
Suiren and mitoto suddenly appeared next to him. he wasn't sure where they came from but was still embarrassed. he wondered where they came from. they said they had been there for 5 minutes already. Hakuren explained to seina how that was possible. Suiren had a thin shadow. she was a girl with little presence. she was a supernaturally stealthy woman. sometimes people would recognize her but not recognize her as Suiren. her ability was so great that she could go to any families family function and it would take over two hours for someone to realize she wasn't their relative.
even seto sometimes didn't notice her.
she had brought hakuren a change of clothes.
.... it got Big! Again Seina stiffened to surprise.... seina got embarrassed and apologized
they were very shocked.... he heard karen's voice from afar .
she yelled at them "what are you doing in here! how long does it take to change clothes!" they asked what was up with karen and why she had let mitoto get away from her she said that she couldn't keep her in one place on her own.
mitoto went missing again as they talked so they split up again to find her. karen went north hakuren and suiren disappeared into the dark like ninja's ...
gyokuren was left with seina. she escorted him to the guest house so he could go take a bath. the guest house bath was a giant hot spring bath way to big for one person to use alone, but seina found it relaxing. seina thought he could write a book about all the crazy things he had seen that day.
Gyokuren came in unexpectedly to wash his back. poor seina. he didn't know how to deal with this much attention.
he got excited again and hid it with a towel. gyokuren slid in front of him. "what's the matter?"
While Seina was trying to calm down, Gyokuren had invaded his personal space. she grabbed his shoulder . he tried to get away but she was too strong because of her bioenhancement.
Gyokuren looked straight at Seina and gazed into his eyes like a siren. an awkward sexual tension filled bath scene which ultimately only lead to back scrubbing ensued.
------------------------
Translator note: some scenes are not worth my time to translate in detail this was one of them. it then cuts to a cryptic poem.
------------------------------------------------
Mikagami hibernation space,
A star in the sky - a dark room.
Mirror · Seto and Seto.
"I heard that you have met him before ... some how you remember but I do not"
"That is my only unique memory"
"Is that all?"
"Yes my only ........................ only one thing"
"I see, that puts us in a difficult position."
"he was about the same at that age ... ... I'm happy to meet him again."
---------------------------------
... did that break the immersion for you? I'm sorry. it did for me too. but it was basically saying that that was mirror-seto who had met seina just now and mirror seto and seto's memories have begun to de-synchronize . confused? they won't explain it for another 13 novels.
----------------------------
The next day the gp ship was repaired and was leaving. onnainin thanked seto. she asked him to deliver Mitoto and Seina safely to the gp and told seina to do his best.
they headed towards the galaxy academy. they jumped off but when they came out of the jump to the academy, their ship's space pirate alert sounded.
It had only detected one ship though. They collected data on the ship's identity.
It was Ryoko Balta's ship.
The crew on the bridge stood up and cheered ecstatically.
everyone made a big ruckus over the news except for onnainin and seina who was confused. they sent a message to invite her aboard.Onnainin stood in front of the crew trying to leave the bridge. as a gp ship they were not allowed to accept an invitation from a pirate to come aboard. they death stared onnainin for blocking them.
--------------
an hour earlier, ryoko's ship was watching the gp ship leaving the mikagami. they wondered what was on board the ship when they received a communication from seto. She dared them to see what was on board.
-------------
Back on the ship an hour later the crew had tortured onnainin into letting ryoko come aboard. The appearance of the bridge had changed completely, and blurry photographs of an out-of-focus black haired space pirate woman were displayed on each and every screen or monitor on the ship, you couldn't even tell what the woman looked like from them, they were too blurred.
It was barely clear enough to tell that it was a woman.But the crewmen didn't care about such things, they were very excited. A small flag with the name of Ryoko and a fan were swung about by a crew member who was calling her name over and over. seina wondered what was going on,
"Seina, I knew from the beginning, your talent was truly wonderful!"
The other crewmen all nodded at once together.
Seina couldn't remember the other crew members names besides onnainin's.
"I am Alan, my thinner counterpart is Barry - and my fat friend is Cohen, by the way, what is the captain (onnainin)'s name ...? ... I forgot."
The tall operator named Alan tilted his head.They didn't know and they said that since they couldn't recall it didn't matter.
they told Seina that Ryoko had over 1,389 official fan clubs and 10x more unofficial clubs. she was the third most popular idol in all the gp.
seina pointed out all the blurry pictures. they said there were no clear pictures of her.
"When you are attacked by a space pirate, you rarely live to show the evidence of seeing them." "However, the valuable photographs are monopolized by other major fan clubs with the original photo's, and they are open to their members only, the membership fee is stupid and the motivation is impure . "
he showed them a picture and proudly declared it to be a photo of a copy of a copy of a copy, which was more than most clubs had
" there are a lot of pirate fanclubs in the gp and the gp cracks down on them every so often"
one crew member said
"Our relationship is quite delicate. I will skip the details, but there is an implicit rule between us and the Space pirates."
barry explained that while ryoko was a pirate she was very delicate and didn't like to hurt anyone. they described her as a beautiful butterfly. seina was confused.
-------------
the ship's side airlock was completely opened and they got nearer to her ship.It was apparent that they want her inside them.
"who are we to say no" said ryoko,
she thought about her communication with seto. seto had called her and told her her secret weapon was on board and encouraged her to go see it. ryoko was going to go see it anyways but that made her really want to see it.
as she boarded the ship she came in and found no one aboard. she adjusted her shields. she came to the bridge and it was dark but she, her adjutant and a few guards were greeted with a surprise greeting as the lights turned on
------------
A few minutes later:
ryoko knew about her reputation in the gp but wasn't expecting anything like what she had found. she was feeling very uncomfortable and noticed the odd boy sticking out in the crowd who also clearly felt just as uncomfortable as her.
that made her feel close to him
he noticed Ryoko 's eyes, and their eyes accidentally met, the boy bowed down blushing.
(Oh, he's cute) ryoko thought
mitoto broke her line of sight and greeted her.
"Ryoko, thank you for coming see us"
"Thank you Mitoto!"
mitoto handed her a bouquet of flowers .
they knew each other. mitoto cleaned her ship once.
The rest of the crew did not know it but it was actually Mitoto who took the one and only picture of ryoko all her fans coveted.
"... .... Thank you very much for your enthusiastic welcoming, I am looking forward to meeting the captain of this ship."
alan introduced himself as acting captain and barry as the captains captain and cohen as the captains captain acting on behalf of the captain.
onnanin was tied up in a box. ryoko was not amused by this. she didn't feel like talking to such vulgar people
"Well then, may I ask which ever is the captain of you three Captains about yesterday... ...."
" That was all this guy!"
they pointed to seina. Ryoko was surprised that he was the one who did that to all her friends.
seina shrugged his head towards Ryoko with confusion.
End of 3rd chapter end of episode 3 of the anime
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