Disclaimer: I do not own Azumanga Daioh.
And man looked on and saw the power that God possessed, and decided he wanted it for himself.
In the not too distant future political strife and terrorism had led to desperate measures across several continents. In a bid to strengthen military might, all people of a suitable age experienced training in the Japanese armed forces. With this increased uptake, the members of a certain class found themselves together.
Chapter One
The briefcase flew out of his hand as the tiny plane shook violently. Tying his seatbelt tightly, he gripped the armrests with both hands and looked across at his aide. His eyes were wide as the plane continued to shake, and the lightning flashed outside.
"This doesn't seem bloody normal to me!" he said.
"I agree."
"Damn it, I hate planes! Why did I-"
He was interrupted as his stomach suddenly lurched up into his mouth as the plane began to descend quickly, rapidly falling out of the sky. The man leant down as he felt the plane fall.
"Make sure your seatbelts are tied up back there!" yelled the pilot. "We're going down!" He was levelling out the plane, but it wasn't enough.
"Ah shit."
The pilot watched with a resigned look as the ground rushed towards the cockpit. With a faint yell he was killed instantly as the cockpit was crushed. The rest of the plane hung above the ground before groaning slightly and falling to the floor, smashing into the ground. High above the plane lightning flashed, and the island vanished in the mist.
---
BANG!
A single gunshot rang out, and a hole appeared in the forehead of the paper target. The faintly smoking gun was placed down on wooden ledge and the woman stood appreciating her work. Slowly she adjusted her glasses. Koyomi Mizuhara nodded her head as she looked across at the clean shot. Another good one. She slowly turned to the "girl" beside her with short black hair.
"What do you think of that Tomo?" she asked.
"Good shot Yomi!" said Tomo sticking up a thumb. "Now watch this!"
"Wait you idiot!" called out Yomi as Tomo suddenly lifted up a machine gun, and let out a full automatic blast, shredding apart her own target and spraying the back wall with bullets. She placed the gun down on her own ledge and turned to Yomi with a big grin on her face.
"What do you think of that then Yomi?" asked Tomo.
"Jackass. This is supposed to be about fine tuning your aiming skills and precision! Not blowing away paper with a machine gun!"
"Hey, this way is more fun" said Tomo shrugging.
"I swear, sometimes I wish I wasn't leader of this squad" sighed Yomi.
"Hey you chose me remember."
"No I didn't! You were assigned to my squad. It's just like school all over again! I can't escape you!" groaned Yomi.
"Ah, I like being around you too" said Tomo sarcastically. Yomi glared as Tomo embraced her in a tight hug, Yomi placing her palm in Tomo's face as she tried to push the girl away.
A sudden sound of a metal door opening caused both to freeze.
"Ladies, if you're quite finished I have a mission for you."
Tomo's eyebrow rose slightly. "A mission for moi?" she asked.
---
Yomi calmly marched along the corridor, Tomo practically skipping beside her. Just to the right of her was another member of their squad, Sakaki. The tall Sakaki looked uncomfortable as Tomo began to sing. Yomi merely rolled her eyes, which only caused Tomo to sing more boisterously. Sakaki slowly came to a stop as she noticed a smaller girl waiting by the door.
"Hi" she said, waving slightly.
"Hello Miss Sakaki" said Chiyo cheerfully, just as bright as ever despite being a seventeen year old. Five years younger then the rest of the team, she was a teenager surrounded by twenty two year olds. Her job was more to do with maintaining communications with the base then engaging in combat. On the last mission she spent much of it hunkered down, communicating coordinates back to the base. And Sakaki found the girl was still as adorable as ever. She wore her hair down now, though Tomo sometimes insisted on pigtails for old time's sake.
"So another mission then" said Sakaki quietly.
"Yeah! And did you hear! They've finally got a replacement for Kensuke."
Sakaki nodded as Chiyo spoke. That was good. Kensuke had dropped out after almost being shot in the head. They'd been a man down for a while; it'd be welcome to go into a mission at full strength.
"But who could it be?" asked Chiyo.
"Knowing my luck it'd probably be Kagura or some other knucklehead. Or perhaps Kimura, having decided to join up and help" groaned Yomi. "That wouldn't surprise me."
"As long as we don't have to worry about Miss Yukari becoming a helicopter pilot I'm ok" said Chiyo. "I still have nightmares about the car sometimes…"
"Well come on, we don't want to keep the General waiting" said Yomi.
"…Why not?" asked Tomo.
"Idiot" muttered Yomi under her breath as she pulled open the door, the bearded man looking up.
Quickly they took their seats. It was built for groups of squads with over thirty seats. Sakaki, Yomi and Chiyo sat at the front as Tomo slunk towards the back row and sat down, ignoring Yomi's aggravated comments. The man waited for a moment, but it became clear Tomo wouldn't move. He cleared his throat.
"First things first, you have a new member. Please make her feel welcome, she transferred here."
The door slowly opened, and a figure stepped inside. Chiyo smiled as Yomi adjusted her glasses.
"Hello" said Kaorin, waving to the group and blushing as she spotted Sakaki who gave her a faint look of recognition and nodded.
"Alright Kaorin!" yelled out Tomo. "Better then that jerk Kensuke!"
Kaorin blushed again and quietly moved to her seat. She chose the second row, just to the right of Sakaki- so she could see the screen and another special thing. The man nodded and dimmed the lights. A map appeared on screen as well as an image of a man.
"Three days ago Politician Anno was involved in a plane crash. We have detected this to be the island on which the crash landing occured. A search and rescue team from the Maritime Safety agency was dispatched. We have yet to hear from them in two days. We believe foul play may be at work so we are sending in a rescue team that can return its own form of foul play" said the man, nodding his head towards Yomi.
"So what's the search and rescue team?" asked Tomo, sticking a hand in the air. At the front Yomi slapped her head into her hands and groaned slightly. Sakaki and Chiyo looked across at her.
"Well…you" said the man, taken aback slightly. "We're going to be dropping the five of you in to retrieve the survivors. We received one message from the team before loosing contact. The pilot was dead, the aide and Mr Anno were both missing. Your primary task is to retrieve Anno. There are reports a terrorist cell has become aware of Anno's predicament. He must be found. Good luck ladies."
Tomo practically stood up and sprinted for the door as the other calmly stood up and filed out of the room.
"Yeah, special mission!" said Tomo holding her hands in the air.
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