Saying Goodbye
The last bell of the day rang, and class was dismissed for the high school students of Black Forest Women's College. Most students, after hearing that, tended to count down how long it would be until they returned to school- whether they looked forward to it, or were counting how long they had away from school. For me, the process was irrelevant, since I would never return.
I said goodbye to Aoi-san and Akane-san, two of my friends from class, who, like a larger portion of Black Forest than some think, did not take tankery. Unlike most schools, tankery was not only a sport, but our claim to fame as a school. We had frequently won the championship, and had done so nine years in a row... until this year, with many saying that I was to blame.
My name is Nishizumi Miho, the younger daughter of the Nishizumi family, the younger sister of Black Forest's commander- Nishizumi Maho- and vice-captain of the team. I've noticed that when I introduce myself, I often describe myself in those terms, in relation to tankery and those in my family who practice and teach it. As such, I had to wonder at times- who am I outside of tankery? And how do people with no interest in tankery see me?
One thing I had believed throughout my time at Black Forest was that people liked me for a variety of reasons, not necessarily out of unconditional friendship. My appointment to the position of vice-captain had apparently been somewhat controversial, as I had been chosen over several more senior candidates. But my sister reassured me that I had done well in the past, and that the only thing that I needed to do to dispel those beliefs was to do my part and help us keep winning- which I had done before. A part of me was unhappy to be bound by the Nishizumi School's perfectionist tenets, but winning did stave off the worst of the criticism, and with the people and tanks we had at our disposal, it seemed a largely manageable task. As we progressed through the tournament, I gradually started to realize that I could do well enough, even for a school like Black Forest, and some more skeptical teammates were convinced as well.
But after we failed to win the finals for the first time in a decade, however, things changed. After I chose to save the tank that had fallen into the water, abandoning the flag tank in the process and leaving it vulnerable to the enemy, a large and vocal portion of the team blamed me for the defeat. Among those were some people I had been in the process of winning over, causing me to come to the painful realization that they only valued me for my contributions to the team.
My mother was the most vocal person to do so. She expected me to put victory above all else, something I was not able to do. And while she did not have the ability to prevent me from saving the crew of the tank,she berated me for my decision. As much as I believed that saving those girls was the right thing to do, I could not simply ignore my mother.
It seemed clear to me that as long as I remained in the tankery team, I would never be free of those demands for me to sacrifice everything else in the pursuit of victory, and as long as I remained at Black Forest, I would be judged by my successes and failures at tankery. So I concluded that the obvious solution would be to leave Black Forest behind, and go to a school without tankery, to start anew.
Of course, this resulted in giving up much of what I had, and what had defined me. In the process, I gave up the position and the prestige I had within the school. Rumors about me being "unreliable" spread, among other statements that were less kind, to say the least, that people had been unwilling to say so brazenly before. If I was not staying around and had lost a great deal of standing in the team, there seemed to be no reason to stay on my good side. I had to wonder who would miss me once I was gone.
And yet, Aoi-san and Akane-san did not blame me, at least not openly. They had met me outside of tankery, and were less than interested in talking about it, typically being satisfied to hear me say that things were going well in the tankery club- I was hesitant to discuss the times when this was not the case. They did not even seem to be aware of the fact that I was leaving forever, and a part of me didn't have the heart to tell them. So when they walked ahead of me, they did so while apparently not knowing they would be parting ways with me forever. But the fact that they had been in my life for this way, for the better part of a year, made me wonder about a few things. How many others had considered me as a friend first, and a vice-captain second? How many people who didn't disapprove of my decision would miss me when I was gone? I wondered if I would ever find out for certain, if I likely would never see any of them again.
Shortly after they left, I got up from my desk, gathered my school supplies, and left. As I reached the door to the classroom, I looked back and realized that I would be leaving this classroom for the last time. But I had made my decision already, and so stepped through the threshold and left the room, with one more backward glance. The urge to look back only faded when I was out of sight of the door.
I walked through the halls of the school, where I had been many times before. I looked at the stairway to the classrooms for the upperclassmen, which my sister said I would have to traverse many times in my second and third year, and ascended and descended it for the first, last and only time. I walked into the cafeteria, where I had many lunches with many people- my sister, Aoi-san and Akane-san, the commander of a Jagdpanther, Akeboshi Koume-san, and even a transfer student who had no one to eat with, among others; I had chosen to eat alone this day, wanting some time to gather my thoughts. I walked by the glass case with all of Black Forest's tankery team's awards and tournament victories. My sister had shown me that when she had taken me on a tour of the school, and at the time, a part of me felt excited to join a school with such an impressive winning record, before I considered the pressure I would be under. I looked at the bulletin board, full of school events in the future that I would never be able to attend, some of which seemed fairly interesting. I walked all over the school, seeing many places again. I couldn't even begin to count how many times I had been to each, and only knew, when I stopped at each on my walk, that it would be for the last time.
One reason for my wandering through the school was to essentially see the school one last time, as a way of saying goodbye to it, in a sense. But I didn't end up gaining closure from this action. I found myself reliving good memories along with the bad ones, and realized that I would be leaving both the good and the bad behind once I left the school. As they came back into my mind, I had to remind myself that this was the only decision I could make, and that I had already made it.
But the other reason I had for doing so was to see if Koume-san or any of her crewmates were out there somewhere in the school. They were the ones I had saved in the finals, and I wondered if they blamed themselves for what had happened to me. I hoped they would not; I would have made the choice, even knowing what had happened, but did not wish to be subject to my mother's disapproval, which I believed would happen as long as I stayed in tankery itself, whether at Black Forest or any other school. As such, I chose a school without tankery, so that my mother would not be able to pressure me to join my new school's tankery team.
After a few minutes, my search ended in failure. Perhaps I would never see the girls whose lives I had saved again. Perhaps a great many things would go unresolved as a result of my departure from Black Forest. But perhaps it was for the best that they did not know that the fallout over my decision, made for their sake, was the catalyst for my departure from Black Forest. I did not blame them for what had happened, and hoped they did not blame themselves for my choosing to leave Black Forest.
As I exited the main school building, I saw my older sister waiting for me at the gate of the school, as a few other students whom neither of us knew, the last to leave for the day, walked by without saying anything or acknowledging our presence- perhaps they did not even recognize us. Depending on the situation, she is many things- my direct superior, the commander of a team with a track record of success, the heiress of one of the most prestigious tankery schools in the country and a well-respected member of Black Forest's academic community- and often has to act accordingly.
But on the walk back, she was nothing other than my sister. Over the course of the past year, we had not only been on the tankery team, but had gone to the same school, eaten together, slept in the same room, and done many other things together. Now, all that was coming to an end, and both of us were painfully aware of that fact.
"Did you get everything from school, Miho?" my sister said. Her tone was her standard one, a calm and business-like tone, but I could tell that she was as hesitant to talk about my impending departure as I was.
"I did, Onee-chan," I said. As we started away, I couldn't help but look back, to take one last look at the school I would likely never see again.
My sister evidently noticed I had stopped, as well as my reason for doing so. She stopped and turned to me with a concerned look on her face.
"You know, you don't have to do this," my sister said.
"I said before that my mind is made up," I said. "I can't do tankery the way you and Mother can."
My sister let off a soft sigh. She had long ago committed to being the best Nishizumi heiress she could be, but mainly so I would not have to. She seemed as though she was unhappy about being lumped in with Mother, even though she most likely realized it was not my intention.
"I know," my sister said, "but I had hoped that it wouldn't come to this choice. What I'm asking is- did you have to leave Black Forest as well?"
"My paperwork for transferring schools has already been submitted, Onee-chan," I said, "so not even Mother can stop it."
I realized my statement was trying to convince myself of the decision as much as my sister. My sister, evidently realizing this, remained silent, most likely hoping that I was doing this for reasons other than the fact that it was too late to go back on the decision.
"But the truth is, at Black Forest, I'll always be judged in comparison to you, and people will not stand for making the choice that I did in the finals," I continued. "Oarai Academy has no tankery team, so the Nishizumi name means nothing there, and I can be my own person, rather than the person others expect me to be."
My sister solemnly nodded.
"That may be true," she said. "But don't you think tankery is a part of who you are, Miho, even if you can't do it the Nishizumi way? And, even considering what's happened since the finals, didn't you think of Black Forest as your school?"
My sister's point voiced the thoughts I had since I made my decision, and had come into my mind most keenly on my way out of the school. I realized that while I had reasons why I believed I could not stay, there were reasons why I was less than happy to go- I would be escaping my family's expectations, but also separating from one of my family in the process. I also realized I would be going into a school that was unknown to me, and starting again as a new student, while leaving behind everyone and everything I had known at Black Forest.
"Perhaps," I said, noncommittally. I was unsure whether I could say yes to those questions, but could not argue against her.
After a few moments of silence, my sister decided to get to the point and to say what was truly on her mind.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'll miss having you go to the same school as I am," my sister said.
"I know, Onee-chan, and so will I," I said. In spite of the reasons I had for leaving, that was the simple truth for both of us, and the one thing that I found most difficult to accept.
We continued the walk back to the apartment in silence, as I passed by some of the buildings I had seen every day on the way to school. Some of them were places I had been to many times, for shopping, eating out and other purposes. Others were simply familiar parts of the scenery that I had gotten used to seeing on a daily basis. Black Forest's schoolship was more than a place where people went to school, but it was also a community of sorts with permanent residents, and I was leaving that community forever.
The apartment my sister and I shared was relatively spartan and utilitarian in the best of times, but it felt especially bare now that most of my belongings, save for a few essentials and things I shared with my sister, had already been packed. Possibly because of this, it no longer felt like my apartment, but the place where I would sleep until I left the school ship.
Once again, my sister's path and mine would be diverging, as a result of our different responsibilities to the Nishizumi school, and different degrees to commitment. My sister had considered the possibility of my leaving tankery behind and going to a different school from her, but had always hoped it would never come to this, and so had I.
At the time, leaving Black Forest to go to a school that was largely unknown to me back then seemed like the only choice I could make, but it did not seem like a good choice. That doubt did not disappear the entire time I was saying goodbye to my old school, although I hoped that I would not come to regret my decision over the course of the next two years.
Epilogue
I woke up in the morning as my alarm clock rang. In the middle of hurriedly going through my morning routine, I soon realized that I was no longer at Black Forest, and my new school was less rigidly disciplined. That was further driven home when I reached into my uniform drawer, and found a white sailor fuku and green skirt, rather than the gray shirt and black skirt that was my uniform at Black Forest.
After getting dressed, I walked through the town on the school ship on the way to school, taking in the sights and sounds to the point at which I collided with a pole while I was distracted. I looked around, seeing all sorts of interesting places to shop and eat, and heard students talking with each other. It seemed like a lively community that was full of friendly people.
But as I listened, I also noticed that many students had established groups of friends and cliques. Some had come to Oarai with their friends at the start of high school. Others had spent the past year building new friendships and establishing new groups of friends. I was in the latter group, but my yearmates were no longer in the same boat, so to speak. Oarai seemed more welcoming, but would there be a place for me?
In spite of everything that had happened during and after the finals, I was unwilling to believe that my year at Black Forest, as well as all the time I had spent doing tankery during and before then, was a waste of time, even if it was all in the past. Should I have gone to Oarai from the beginning? I realized that it was not a school I would have willingly chosen back then, nor was it one Mother would have allowed me to attend. But it was my school now, and I had to do my best.
As the lunch break of my first day at Oarai started, I ended up accidentally dropping my pencils and other school supplies on the floor, making me even later to lunch than I was before. This seemed oddly fitting in a sense, given that I felt as though I had come in late to begin with. I wondered if I would be eating alone... until the voice of a cheerful and energetic girl, Takebe Saori-san, caused me to lose my train of thought, as she invited me to lunch.
While I paused to consider Saori-san's request, her friend, Isuzu Hana-san, gently told her that she was frightening me through being so forward. But Hana-san was just as willing to accommodate me as Saori-san, and I was glad to join the two of them.
Saori-san and Hana-san were quite friendly people, and very welcoming to me, having sought me out because I seemed interesting, and had no one else to eat with. I realized that their gesture of eating with me was out of genuine kindness and a desire to get to know me, rather than pity. Saori-san asked for permission to call me by my first name the moment she first addressed me by name, and I accepted.
The subject of my transfer did eventually come up, which was understandable, since most people who could be considered your fellow travelers on the three-year journey known as high school are naturally curious about where you have come from and where you are headed. But while I was aware that the subject was come up, that did not mean I was prepared to talk about it. I think Saori-san and Hana-san, after making some suggestions about why I had left my old school, had realized that I had not left for a mundane reason, and Saori-san changed the subject. She seemed used to doing so, and I was glad for a friend who was willing to talk with me, without prying into uncomfortable subjects. I knew that when I was ready to tell the story, she and Hana-san would be good listeners.
There was still many other things I did not feel comfortable telling my new friends just yet, and I believed I still had a long way to go before I fully became acclimatized to Oarai. But Oarai was a promising school, and a new beginning for me as a student- and although I didn't realize it as a time, as a tanker. There was much I had left behind by saying goodbye to Black Forest, but I also realized I had gained much by coming here. I could say with confidence that I had made the right decision, and I hoped the day would come when my old friends and my sister could see how happy I was at my new school.
Author's Notes
Thank you for reading this fic.
This comes as a result of an interpretation I have of Miho. I suspect that, while she was pushed to give up tankery by her family's standards, she doesn't feel entirely comfortable or happy leaving Black Forest behind, since I suspect she had some friends (Koume calls Miho by her first name despite Miho having been the vice-captain) there, as well as her sister, and it was her school for her first year of high school, causing her to have a certain level of familiarity with it. I also suspect that part of herself, deep down, doesn't like to think of all the time she spent on tankery as a waste of time, even if her less pleasant experiences have colored her past perception of tankery. That's why, even though she feels as though she's unable to continue in tankery or at Black Forest, she's not fully certain about her decision to leave both behind.
Of course, in spite of all that, Miho is undeniably happier at Oarai, especially after doing tankery again (although she does seem to feel like a stranger, and is looking for friends at her new school for the first few minutes of the first episode after the flash-forward), which is why I added the epilogue, to show that in spite of her initial doubts, Miho knows she made the right choice in the end.