It looked like any other day, nice weather, light today was final match of Panzerkraft, that brought to this battlefield into the stands and even on TV's many people. It was Finale of 62nd National High School Sensha-do Tournament, was what lots' of people were waiting for after watching Tournament battles.
Kuromorimine team under Nishizumi Maho's leading, attacked Pravda forces directly in combat, near City outskirts. where they went to hunt them down. Exchange of fire between both sides, with Kuromorimine having evidently the upper hand. However it turned out, that Pravdas' current Commander Katyusha lead them into trap. Katyusha used knowledge of forward Nishizumi-style tactics to lure their full force into attack while she went on flank attack under Nonna's command with her IS, KV-2 and several other T-34/85. That forced Maho to reorganize her attack to face new threat from to flank so it formed shape of an L. Precise fire from IS and dangerous KV-2 forced Maho to send Miho's flag tank that came under fire, along with escort away from Pravda's line of fire, so she could concentrate on Crushing the enemy, without worry about their flag tank.
This lead Miho to her current situation. Narrow wet path on cliff with river below, slowly lead her group to marked point on Miho's map, away from the enemy. Hard rain and dark clouds made bad visibility. Her small Zug was composed from one Panzer III as forward, and second as rear guard with her Commanding Tiger I with white number's 217. Miho was leading her small detached group of tanks, though parts of battlefield that was far enough from the enemy, according to their scout tank that was positioned on high ground, to overlook Kuromorimine forces as safeguard against another flank attack, since there were 2 unaccounted Pravda tanks, that were most likely going for another flank strike in try to bring confusion into their ranks.
She looked at her water soaked hands. Inside of her Tiger was slowly creating small puddle from opened hatch. 'We are almost nearly out of this path, then we will enter the forest for more cover and then we...' Miho's thoughts were interrupted by sudden fire from what looked like two T34. Then suddenly her face turned to one of horror and look down to the river, as she watched her forward tank fall down into welcoming water, that after moment of floating, sucked the tank down.
'What should I do?' She was in state of panic, first think that she wanted to do was to rush down to help them, but at the same time she knew, that she has the responsibility for her tank, to her team and to Family. Her heart and reason fought against each other in battle of will for decision. Her mother's words stuck her. "Miho, in the Nishizumi-style No matter what befall us, we advance!" Maho's words to her. "Miho, follow your own path, if you wish to continue with panzers, find a Panzekraft that you can call your own."
She felt sense of calm come over to her as she found her resolve. 'There is no other choice, but to save both.' Now without panic she knew what to do. "Panzer 3, disembark and proceed to rescue Panzer 2 immediately! Driver, set our frontal armor to face the enemy fire and move advance. Operator quickly contact rescue party! We have drowning crew! Gunner, traverse turret to face the enemy and proceed to engage enemy tanks." Miho barked orders as her resolve give her strength. Their Tiger started to correct himself with its 88 mm gun aiming at one of T34/85 speeding to their position. Presenting frontal armor towards incoming fire, when they heard frontal armor deflect shot. 'Why did it just feel like we were lucky, that we moved tank?' Miho didn't know how close her tank came to be disabled.
Tiger 217 was slowly advancing, while deflecting another salvo. Miho Haering loader confirm loading shells ordered "Fire!" Her gunner took aim at the right T-34 and fired shot under turret, disabling T-34. The other T-34 send another shot that bounced of upper frontal armor and scratched left side of Tiger's turret. T-34 started taking limited evasive maneuvers now that she other tank was disabled before firing again only to closely miss with Tiger responding in kind, only for shell to be deflected by frontal armor. Miho saw as T-34 was dangerously closing on them. "Driver I want you to prepare for sharp turn to the right on my mark. Gunner prepare to shoot to your left side once we made the turn." answer was chorus of "Hai!".
T-34 closed after deflecting another shot to knife distance to get for side shot under turret, only for said Tiger making unexpected hard turn to the right to thrust left side armor into other tank, making T-34 miss while making crew furious breaking as it také forcefully turn in direction of river by the sounds of screeching sounds of metal rubbing metal. "Driver, hard turn to the left." ordered Miho as tanks passed each other with tiger's turret traversing to the left. Traversing speeded up by turning tiger to left side, before firing shooting down T-34 that was in middle of sharp turn to the left in order to not fall down and face tiger with front was easy target for Miho's gunner as she watched shell sail to the side of turret before T-34 came to stop as white flag popped up from the top of turret.
Miho quickly checked surroundings for any other enemy tanks. "Panzer 3, how it looks with the crew of Panzer 2?" there was moment of silence before reply came „Vice-commander, we have managed to get crew out just in time. They are in shock, but otherwise are alright. the medics just arrived and are taking care of them." Miho slowly breathed out sigh of relief. "Understood, Panzer 3, you will be our forward guard. Kommandant, we have found those two missing T-34/85 and destroyed them at cost of one Panzer III fell down to the river, but crew is safe and medics are on site taking care of them.". "I see…. Make a rendezvous with scout on his location and wait there." "Yes, we are on our way." Miho looked behind to see Panzer III riding to her location. "And Miho… Good work. We will talk later." Miho give orders for move out with last look at the place where one of her's Panzers fell.
'My own Panzerkraft… I always dreamed of fighting along side with One-chan… but I don't want my friends to get hurt... Maho always put with Mother, her demands, sacrificing herself for my sake...so I made my decision… I decided that I will be strong enough so they don't get hurt. I will prove that I can do Nishizumi-style without sacrificing my friends. And for that I need to be strong like One-chan. To do what I must to protected them and One-chan from getting hurt.'
Her Tiger come to stop, beside their team scout. She saw light shining through dark clouds
in the distance caught her attention. „So pretty..." then she heard sound of siren announcing end of the match and voice of Judge. "Pravda's flag tank disabled! Kuromorimine Girls High School, wins the battle!"
Miho stood on podium with her entire team, beside her sister, who was holding senshado winning red flag with number 62. It was symbol of winners of current year sensha-do. It was Tenth continuous victory flag Kuromorimine received. Maho looked stoic as ever, but other members like Itsumi Erika very very vocal about this, before Maho shot them glance making sure that they were behaving for team photo. Still she felt relieved that crew of fallen Panzer was alright and with them. Still she had warm feeling, knowing, that she stood beside her sister. Her dream of fighting along side her come true and this marked one of many upcoming battles she will fight beside her side. Maho will not be around in her third year of highschool, but she will rejoin her in university to fate alongside her again. Maybe… I will be enjoying doing sensha-do after all. So she stood there, with her sister and her friends from sensha-do, with her smile, enjoying the moment she dreamed since she was child.
AN: I had this idea for some time in my head and even used it in one of my stories, although this is revamped version, since original version was not meant to be "Stand alone" thing and was done as flashback.
As stated in description, this is just One-shot with no continue planed. I would like to see Miho in Kuromorimine and her story there, but i am not confident in writing it right now, nor have the idea to follow it.
I know that there are mistakes. I tried to find and correct it as much as my knowledge of English allowed me, but since grammar is as you can see not my strong side… I did corrections, run by google corrector on it. I would like to read your thoughts about this, if you find mistakes, or things to make this better pls let me know on them so I can correct it.
