A/N: I do not own Azumanga Daioh. I'd like to thank LewisM333 and RunsWithBulls for helping me get this far.

This is an alternate universe fic, set in the Soviet Union during WW2. It is rated M for strong language and graphic descriptions of violence.

A tribute to the people of the USSR.

Who never knew freedom, but ultimately saved our own.

Six Comrades; An Azumanga Daioh fanfiction.

It was once a grand avenue. A pragmatic affair; a wide road flanked with tall concrete buildings of a plain, post-revolution design, that widened out to leave room for a life-and-a-half sized statue of Lenin which used to watch over the hundreds who flocked by on their daily commute. Maybe there was nothing particularly inspiring about it, but the path itself was part of normality. A dull, bleak, mundane cog in the machine of routine that justified the sense of safety and stability. But the machine had been smashed beyond repair and the routine had died with it. Now the buildings were roofless, heartless shells, bombed and incinerated into skeletons by the Luftwaffe. The tarmac had been carved up by some of the stronger explosives and covered with the innards of the structures, forming ten foot high piles of rubble to contrast the blast craters. The statue had been torn apart as well; only Lenin's feet remained planted firmly onto the pedestal. The torso and limbs were now indistinguishable from any other piece of detritus and his head was now embedded in a heap of rubble thirty feet from where he originally stood, his blank granite eyes staring skywards, away from the carnage.

If you were to see this street, you had seen all of Stalingrad - every district, every block, every house, every single square foot - as it lay in September 1942.

A teenager finished scanning the street with her binoculars, having found what she was looking for, and slid halfway down the pile of rubble she had been lying on.

"I got a couple of sentries up by the plinth." She reported to the girl she was with, who nodded.

"How far's that?" She asked, passing a rifle up to her friend.

"About a hundred metres." The first girl replied as she gave her comrade a hand up the bank. "Spot or shoot, Chihiro?"

"Don't even ask, Kaorin. You're the better shot." Chihiro grabbed the binoculars and lay prone next to Kaorin, focussing her sights on the two German soldiers. Kaorin slid the rifle the rest of the way up the bank, twisting herself around slightly so as to get the optimum position for the shot and looked down her own scope.

It took a few painstaking seconds to get the focus right. Only one of them was a threat; the other one was dead, slumped over his rifle with a bullet wound in his neck. This should have made things easier for them - one clean shot and she could expect no retaliation - but as she moved her sights over the next sentry she made a critical mistake: she felt a stab of pity for her target.

He was just a boy, probably no older than she was, shivering in the cold, gripping his machine gun with white knuckles, a look of terror on his face. Lost, helpless, a thousand miles from home. This was the first time Kaorin had a living target at her mercy, and nothing could have prepared her for it. Maybe it would have been easier if the soldier was more typical of the propaganda posters: cold eyes, a look of bitter determination, a snarl playing about his lips, emanating a lust for blood and, above all, a clear threat. None of these things were present her target. She knew she couldn't kill him, not in cold blood.

"My hands are shaking." She said. Chihiro lowered her binoculars.

"What?"

"My hands are shaking. I cant take the shot." She lied, shoving the rifle towards her friend. "You do it."

Chihiro hesitated for a moment, as if about to say something, but took the rifle without a word and adjusted herself into a better position to shoot. Kaorin took the binoculars and looked towards the boy who she, mercifully, would not have to kill herself.

"Take out the one on the right, the other's not a threat."

"Gotcha."

"Right. Just remember from training. Deep breath in, one smooth motion and…"

"Fuck! Threat 15 degrees up."

"What!? Where!?"

She jolted her binoculars upwards, looking for the source of Chihiro's panic. She found something blurry in one of the windows above and slightly to the right of the plinth. She adjusted her focus and found out exactly what Chihiro was looking at. Her stomach lurched. A German was staring right at them through the telescopic sights of his rifle. She stared straight down the barrel, a sense of helplessness overcoming her.

"Shit!" She spat. "Fire, Chihiro!"

"I can't! I can't get a steady ai…" Chihiro's yell was brutally cut off with a hideous crunching noise. Her face hit the ground and she started to slide backwards off the vantage point. Kaorin cried out in horror and scrambled back down the rubble pile, coiling herself into an upright foetal position upon reaching the bottom and burying her face in her arms. She heard Chihro finish her limp decent and her body crumple to the ground. She heard the rifle clatter down somewhere near her. Then silence.

She spent near to five minutes in that position, curled in a ball, waiting for something to happen. She waited for Chihiro 's voice to whisper words of comfort from next to her, to tell her she was all right and that the bullet only hit the dust beside her. She waited for the agonized whimper of someone wounded in the shoulder, the hyperventilation and the moaned plea for help. She waited for a hand to claw at her, or even just the sound of movement, any sound at all. But there was only the distant sound of small arms fire from a battle taking place a couple of streets away. Eventually she summoned the courage to look up. She instantly regretted it. Her best friend, who she had known since her early childhood, was spread-eagled on her back. A round had hit her in the eye and taken half of her face with it. If there was someone who could look peaceful in death, she was their polar opposite. Kaorin wrenched her eyes away from the disfigured body, let out a dry sob and buried her face in her arms again. Only twelve hours active duty in the Red Army and already she had lost someone she considered a sister. The penultimate baptism of blood. And her refusal to kill was to blame. If she had just taken the shot and then retreated they could both have been alive right now. But it wouldn't be a mistake she would make twice. She pulled herself together, there would be time for remorse later, right now she had to survive. She picked up the rifle; the scope had been shattered when the bullet passed through it, rendering the rifle useless and leaving her no chance against her predator. She had no option but to flee and the only way out was into the Sniper's line of sight.

She held it off for as long as possible, trying to build some confidence. It didn't work, she was just going to have to do it and there was no point in trying to fool herself. There were only two outcomes anyway: success or death. She resigned herself to both of the outcomes. Either would lead to places she'd rather not visit; yet more pain and suffering or the absolute unknown.

Screw it. Fate'll choose.

And she ran. She ran like she had never ran before. And nothing happened. Nothing happened right up until the first sliver of hope started to form in her mind and then, in a cruel twist of fortune, everything changed. A blunt hammer-like force in the top of her thigh sent her down. A blur of ground and sky whirled past her eyes. The bitter taste of blood filled her mouth as her skull connected hard with the ground. And then her ears were saturated with the sound of pandemonium. It was in that instant she realised what she had left to live for.

She kept that one thought in her mind. It gave her the strength to drag her head up off the ground. She couldn't see anything in focus, but she could tell that mayhem was exploding around her, flashes of gunfire burst from all sides, mortars detonated at random moments, a few humanoid blurs streaked past. She propped herself upon her elbows and started to drag herself towards where she thought cover might be. She mumbled her reason to live, taking some comfort in that, and hauled herself onwards. A mortar exploded a few feet in front of her, showering her in rubble. She shook her head to dislodge some of it, but this only made her feel nauseous. This feeling overcame her and she collapsed again. She moaned and tried to prop herself up again, but she couldn't find the strength to do so.

"No…" She moaned, scraping at the earth in front of her with her fingers. "Not… Today…"

White lights burst in front of her eyes as she neared the edge of consciousness. Her leg burned. She could hear her heart pound desperately against her chest. She knew she was going to die if she blacked out but she couldn't do anything to stop it. All of her muscles had gone limp. Now there was only her mind and her last thought. The only thing that ever was beautiful amongst the grey and red of life as she had known it. She concentrated on it, trying to remember every last detail. It brought one last smile to her lips as she lay dying amongst so many others.

"Sakaki…" She whispered, as oblivion rushed.

"Kaorin?" One last shadow drew itself into her vision and then there was darkness.


"Isn't Sakaki just so cool?"

It seemed an innocent enough line to Chihiro at the time, the autumn of 1939 - their first term at high school - in the changing rooms while pulling on their PE clothes. It was true, the tall girl did seem to walk, talk and act with far more decorum than most of the other students. There was also something about her face, which only ever seemed to show assertive attentiveness or steely determination, that was almost inspiring in its own way. Or maybe it was just admiration for her athletic abilities; the way she could flawlessly and fluidly tackle any situation that presented itself to her on the sports field with a level of grace that surpassed any other. It would only be much later, after they enlisted in the sniper corps, that Kaorin would tell Chihiro the truth about how she felt for Sakaki.

"Yeah, much cooler than most of the boys." Chihiro whispered back. "But she's kinda scary too…"

"Yeah, I guess she is a little…" Kaorin looked over at the subject of their conversation, who was fixing her waist length hair. The raven-black mane seemed to hypnotise Kaorin for a moment as it danced its way back into place. Her eyes ran the length of it, wondering how anybody could manage look so beautiful even from behind, from the silk-like roots on her crown until she reached the natural tip that it made just below her beltline…

She wrenched her eyes away. She hadn't seen anything indecent, but the feeling that looking at Sakaki's underclothes gave her was one that she would have rather avoided. She kicked herself for it; it was inappropriate, if not downright filthy. And illegal.

"I've heard she's a member of the party."

Kaorin snapped out of her mental self-admonishment.

"Uh… R-really?" She stuttered.

"I'm not surprised to be honest. She looks like a communist, the strong and silent worker, y'know."

On the way out of the changing rooms Kaorin did notice the small metal hammer and sickle on Sakaki's blazer and swore to herself that she would never act on her feelings, although it didn't change them whatsoever. She did try and approach her idol after that, purely for the purposes of getting to know her. One time, she caught Sakaki alone while packing up after school had finished and, sensing an opportunity, confidently made her way towards her desk.

"Sakaki, comrade."

Sakaki turned her head and looked right into her face. All of Kaorin's confidence seemed to vanish on the spot.

"Mmm?"

Kaorin seemed to have forgotten what she was about to say. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, a blush rising in her cheeks. Sakaki looked slightly concernedly at her. After a few, mortifying moments Kaorin found her voice.

"Uh, yeah… Sakaki, I was wondering if you were part of any school clubs or anything…"

"No, I can't say I am." Sakaki turned back and finished placing a few of her books in her bag.

"Well… You see…" Kaorin continued. "I'm part of the astronomy club and…"

"Mmhmm…"

The noise that Sakaki made to show she was listening threw Kaorin right off.

"Umm…" She continued onward, realising how much of an idiot she must sound. "Yeah, anyway, we learn about the planets and constellations and… umm… stuff… And sometimes we go out stargazing. And I was just wondering if… If you wanted to…"

"If I wanted to what?" Sakaki said. Monotone. Blunt. Emotionless. She turned around and stared at Kaorin.

"Oh God! I'm s-sorry!" Kaorin stuttered, taking a step backwards, away from the girl. "I understand, it's fine, if you're just not into that thing it's OK… I'll see you later c-comrade."

She picked up her bag and ran from the room. Sakaki blinked for a moment, looking at the space Kaorin had just vanished from, then turned back around and sighed.

I wish she'd invited me…

She packed the rest of her things and left.


"What's the situation?"

"Full force bullet wound in the upper quadriceps, right leg."

"Christ! That isn't pretty… How's she doing?"

"The muscle's torn and the bullet has embedded itself some way into the femur, but it missed the femoral artery, so she's got a good chance of survival if we remove the round."

"A good chance?"

"… Thirty percent."

There was silence for a moment.

"Isn't she…"

"Kaorin? Yeah."

She heard their voices as if from the other side of a long tunnel but she didn't really understand what they were saying. The world felt different, she couldn't really put a finger on how or why, but she didn't try to for very long because it was too much of an effort. Everything felt… Fuzzy. It wasn't a nice feeling; it was like there was something strangling the tie between her mind and her senses. The only thing really getting through was the slight tingling down the right side of her groin and a dull rhythmic pulsing in her head. She tried to open her eyes, but they were as heavy as lead and they wouldn't budge first time round. She relaxed for a moment, then tried again, straining like a weightlifter to force the barrier open.

A shaft of phosphorescent yellow pierced her vision. Her eyes burned in the sudden light and on impulse they were forced shut again. She levered them half open with more ease than before and stared towards the sky once more. Her senses were coming back somewhat but even through the pain returning to her she could still tell that there was some buffer between her body and her brain. As the tingling in her upper leg became more pronounced, she could feel something pushing on it. Curious, she tried to lift her head up. She managed a few centimetres before it became to much of an effort for her and it fell back to the ground.

"Kaorin?"

A face appeared above her, looking concernedly into her own. Even with her vision blurred, she recognised that face.

"Sa…?" She was breathless by the end of the first syllable.

"Are you in pain, comrade?"

"My… My head…"

"Right. Try to breathe deeply."

"S… Sakaki…?"

"Yeah. It's me."

Kaorin simply stared, gazing into those ash-grey eyes. It filled her with a level of warmth and contentedness that she hadn't felt for months. Sakaki stared straight back into Kaorin's eyes, but for a very different purpose. She pulled open the eyelids of each in turn, taking note of what she saw in them as they adjusted to the light of a paraffin lamp on the ceiling. She tilted Kaorin's head to view the large wound on the side of it, then placed a finger on her neck to check her pulse.

"What's your date of birth?" Sakaki asked her. Kaorin stared blankly up at her for a few seconds.

"My… Date… Uhh…" Kaorin screwed her face up in concentration. "April… April… Uhh… Fifteenth of April… April… Twenty something… Twenty… Four… Twenty-Four… Fifteenth of April… Twenty… April Twenty four…"

Even an act of thought this simple was a major undertaking.

"She's concussed." Sakaki turned to a man crouching behind her.

"Yeah. I got that." He adjusted his glasses. "Will it make any difference, though?"

"… To what?"

"To the pain?"

"…"

"… Well, we've got some morphine. We can give her that."

Neither of them spoke for a moment. This part never became any less difficult as time went on.

"S… Sakaki…" Sakaki looked back around at Kaorin. "What happened? W… What's g-going on? What's Wrong?"

She was still amnesic. That wasn't going to make it any easier. Sakaki shifted her gaze, looking straight into the injured girl's eyes and tried the best to look confident.

"Kaorin, comrade." She grabbed Kaorin's shoulder, and stared harder. "I promise you that everything…"

She paused for a moment and her grip wavered slightly, but she managed to regain her composure.

"Everything's going to be OK…"