The attack on Terra's house and the combined efforts of the Endeavour clan's guards and a private citizen to drive the invaders out became huge news. The invaders' identities were publicly stated to be unknown. While the reality was that Terra had run them off on her own, with no help from the guards, that was the type of detail that was sure to be classified immediately after an incident like that. Terra agreed to keep her mouth shut once the guards promised to reinforce security to prevent a repeat occurrence.
Terra's silence had also been exchanged for her pillar boat's return.
She was disheartened to see the ship's logs. There were signs several other fishermen had been allowed to fly it as they pleased, which suggested the Council of Elders had challenged others to achieve the same results as Terra and Diode. In other words, they seemed to believe the boat was special, not the two of them.
Unfortunately for the Council, that wasn't the case at all. Terra's pillar boat wasn't anything special, so naturally, the fishers using it didn't achieve any special results. Ultimately, that seemed to be the reason why the Council gave it back—since it was just an ordinary boat, they decided it was best to leave it with Terra and Diode. Terra detested the lengths they'd gone to for that conclusion, but she forced herself to make peace with it. Well, I'm glad they gave it back, at least.
The pillar boat operated by the unusual pair of novices began descending to FBB once again. They quietly set sail, without any grand ceremonies or public announcements.
That's not to say the two conducted themselves quietly. The two worked on new fishing methods on one flight after another. At night, they emitted an intense light that lured a multitude of besshu. Splitting the pillar boat in two, the decomper sat in a larger part that flew in a holding pattern while the twister deftly caught besshu using the smaller part.
In a mere two months, the two main pillars of their techniques—exceptional piloting and a 500-meter-wide form with a high glide ratio—allowed them to catch roughly 1,525,000 tonnes. Those entirely un-rookielike numbers not only made Terra and Diode famous among all sixteen clans, but it also tied them with third among the top fishers in the first quarter of CC 304.
The fishing industry admonished the abnormal fishers' chaotic operational behavior while spying on the details of their new techniques. The economic sphere demanded the two control themselves, citing concerns about a price collapse due to overfishing. The scientists were thrilled to finally learn about species that, until then, remained full of enigmas. The Council of Elders lamented that the two hadn't promptly caught the requested ten heads of gigantic bachi orca (it was extremely difficult, as expected) but, unable to ignore their splendid numbers, the good offices of the Council introduced them to potential spouses with strong pedigrees.
“If this is what praise brings, I'm in trouble...” Terra spread the profiles of suitors recommended by the Council of Elders across her table and sighed. “This really didn't turn out to be a favor. I guess it wasn't actually meant to be one from the start.”
“Are you checking to see if there are any good men, Terra-san?” Diode asked. Wearing tight fitwear, she darted back and forth on the monkey bars on the ceiling. She had wordlessly thrown her marriage profiles away without a second thought after she was also graced by the Council's good offices.
Terra shook her head. “It doesn't matter if there's a good one or not. I'm not interested in marriage anymore.”
“Sorry, Terra-san.”
“Why?”
“It's because I said too much before, isn't it?”
“You didn't say too much. All you did was notice.”
Terra looked up at the monkey bars and saw Diode hanging there with both hands. The bars had been installed indoors to put an end to the matter of the suspicious person running around town. Diode basically turned into a monkey whenever she felt like doing a training exercise in what she called “three-dimensional kinesthesia."
Diode grabbed the monkey bars with her toes, and dangling upside down, said, “If you turn down the marriage proposals, there probably won't be a next time.”
“Yeah, about that... Would a single, firm rejection be a good idea?”
“...If you're unsure, it's fine to accept, isn't it? You can save the rejection for when you meet up.” As Diode hung upside down, her silver hair dangled on the tip of Terra's nose. Her words were reasonable, but she delivered them in a tone colder than a comet.
It was a terrifying sight. A fall would break her neck. Diode had previously assured her, “This really isn't as dangerous as it looks, there's only half-gravity here.” Terra couldn't help but think that depended on how she fell.
“Should I really accept the favor?”
Terra stood up and cradled Diode's scalp in both hands. Diode blinked in surprise, and her toes quickly let go of the bars a moment later. Her entire weight, supported by her surprisingly strong skull and neck muscles, was suddenly concentrated in Terra's hands—but she did it as casually as trusting herself to a pair of cushions.
Diode spread her arms and legs wide, keeping her frame balanced upside-down. She began to wobble all four of her thin, flexible limbs like a spring toy. However, she didn't have much practice doing that, so after several seconds she grabbed Terra's wrists and spun to land on her feet.
“Hahaa,” she sighed, sounding impressed. “I made it down.”
“What was that all about?” Terra giggled. The girl's face, which looked like an artisan's handiwork, was covered in sweat. Her head had just happened to be at the right height to make Terra want to pet her. She wasn't expecting Diode to take a break by climbing on her. What if I dropped her? Was she really that certain she wouldn't fall?
“You're just like an arboreal animal, Die-san.”
“Arboreal? What's that mean? Oh, trees? If that's true, then you must be the tree.”
“Rude, much...?”
A small hand, still warm from exercise, caught Terra's wrist. Terra tried to grab Diode's wrist in return, but she evaded the attempt. Then she left, saying she was taking a bath. For a brief moment, the smell of sweat mixed with her usual smoky botanical scent and left a peculiar, invisible trail in her wake.
Diode had received that burnt, aromatic fragrance from her mother. It meant the two hadn't necessarily cut ties, but Terra had yet to even glimpse the face of the woman who traveled through the edges of the gas giant's storms while living aboard a Tsunami Search. She was also in the dark as to why Diode had left, or how she'd ended up in the all-girls' school. (Based on Diode's tone while recounting her story, Terra had the impression she'd been captured and forced to enroll.) She still didn't know why Diode was steadily working to fish up records from the past, either.
However, Terra gave her have free rein of the house, allowing Diode to learn everything from the monthly printer cartridge replacement to her parents' funerary number. At the beginning, Diode had avoided learning those kinds of details, but her behavior completely changed after their boat was returned. She was actively asking about Terra's life. Terra answered all of Diode's questions, not hiding anything. If Diode happened to be an elaborate scam of some sort, she had gotten the means to suddenly run off with everything. Terra had completely forgotten to even have that kind of doubt about her.
Still, Diode maintained some distance—like she had a moment earlier, casually drawing an invisible line as impassable as a mountain border between herself and Terra. Terra already knew with certainty what lay on the other side of that mountain pass was incredibly vast, too. It seemed to her that Diode was also aware of that border and was only watching her behavior to decide whether to pull her across. Terra already expected her to do so.
It felt nice when Diode touched her. Far more importantly, Diode had become someone she was willing to touch. Diode wasn't just simply allowed to remain in the house; Terra enjoyed her presence. Savored it. She was the first person Terra ever wanted to allow within touching range.
There could be no mistake Diode felt the same way—Or maybe not? Maybe I'm just telling myself that. Terra wasn't sure. All of her doubts started churning in her chest. She went to the dressing room uninvited and called into the bathroom. “Die-san, should I really accept a marriage proposal?!”
“You're welcome to accept at any time as long as you have the resolve to do it. By the way, when are you going to stop camping out by the door? Peeking in by yourself isn't how group bathing works, so if you want to look you're going to have to come in. Are you ready for that?!”
“I'm not ready to do either of those things, I'm sooorrryyy!” Terra went back to the living room and immediately, in a single swipe, threw the profiles burying the table in details regarding families and personal histories into the trash.
The situation hadn’t improved as much outside her house as it had inside. Everyone—her aunt, her uncle, the people she ran into at the fishing harbor— worried about how long she'd keep up her eccentric behavior of fishing with another woman. Whenever they asked Terra about it, she'd reply ‘It's fine.’ She repeated ‘It's fine’ almost like a mantra, as if it would eventually be made true by saying it. She had a sudden realization in the following days.
Living with Diode made her feel safe. It was more than the safety from everything being in its right place. It was the safety where she was certain she would be okay even if she lost everything else. She couldn't tell where that strange sense of certainty came from but from that day forward, it seemed to her that ‘It's fine’ would inevitably bear fruit.
She started to feel if things continued as they were for half a year, for a year, then ‘It's fine’ would be a reality. Then the storm came. It had only been 93 days since they met.