Interlopers and Usurpers
Chapter 1: New Arrivals
At the meeting of the Salvation of Tankery Union, an exclusively male organization concerned with a sport for females, the seven men on the Council that led the organization were excitedly discussing the latest news from high school tankery. They had long sought to enact the changes they desired in tankery, but it had failed, in large part because of conservative factions like the Nishizumi school, and in part because of the inertia that hinders any attempt at change in absence of a belief that the status quo was unsustainable. The fact that they hoped to see the changes take place immediately did not help matters, and had doomed all their efforts to failure- until now, when an opportunity arose, one most would, with good reason, dismiss as impossible or too good to be true, and they were brought together.
The men sat around a rectangular table emblazoned with the logo of the STU, a blue male symbol superimposed over a pink female symbol, both of which were below the letters STU. Theirs was an alliance of convenience, forged by a promise of power that could only be obtained through their combined efforts. And so each of the seven Council members had a share of the power in the STU, and, they hoped, over the administration, schools and teams of tankery in the future.
"This is quite an interesting development," one of the Council members, the Centurion, said. He, like the rest, was only known to the others by his title. "A school, returning to tankery for the first time in 20 years, defeats the until-recently undefeated champion Black Forest, and the heiress of the arrogant and domineering Nishizumi school."
"To think Oarai was, at the time, in what was thought to be its final year," another, known as the Progenitor, said. "But keeping a school running is a more difficult- and expensive- process that can't just be solved by winning a tournament."
"It seems the student council planned for that, to an extent," yet another, called the Subjugator said. "But they will need help, and I don't think they'll care where it comes from. They'll be willing to take on boys- to those in charge, staying in operation as a coed school is better than shutting down."
"Indeed," the head of the council, known as the Patriarch, said. He was not present in the room, but represented by a video camera and microphone on the center of the table. "Just as Oarai has been granted a chance to, against all odds, save their school, we have been granted an opportunity to change tankery forever. It will begin with the integration of males with the sport. It will end with us taking control of tankery itself."
As Nishizumi Miho woke up and put on her school uniform, she realized that she had never been so happy to go through this mundane routine; on this day, she was now a third-year at Oarai. Thanks to her victory in the last tournament, she had saved the school from closure, granting it a new lease on life.
But even with this proverbial new lease, the school was no different from a person renting an apartment with a lease, in that nothing came freely. The school had to secure funding to stay in operation, and while several sources of funding came forward in the wake of the victory, causing the officials who had considered closing the school to allow Oarai to stay open, there were more that were needed.
Miho walked to school, noticing many new faces in the crowd of students, among them, a large number of almost identical black-clad boys walking in the same direction she was.
"Excuse me, Nishizumi Miho-san?" a male voice came from behind Miho, causing her to turn around and see a dark-haired boy with glasses in a black gyakuran. "I'm Suou Garai, a new student and a third-year. I noticed that I'm going to be in your class this year, and I'd like to introduce myself."
"It's nice to meet you, Suou-kun," Miho said, and they exchanged bows. "But how did you know my name?"
"I memorized the class roster, in the hopes of getting to know everyone," Garai said.
Miho was reminded of the time when she first came to Oarai alone. Having left her sister and friends at Black Forest behind, she hoped to make new ones there, and despite her efforts, felt lonely in her first days at Oarai until Takebe Saori and Isuzu Hana came into her life. Since then, she had befriended them, as well as Saori's long-time friend Reizei Mako and Akiyama Yukari the fan of tanks. Miho was at least on good terms with everyone else in the tankery team. Having formed a friends group, she, partly due to a lack of time and partly due to a lack of need, had not put any time into memorizing the names of the new arrivals, both the first-year girls and the transferring boys from all ages.
But she realized that this year, there were many others like her for whom this was a new beginning, and decided to make the effort to remember his face and name, for the sake of welcoming a new arrival to Oarai Academy.
"I'll see you in class, Suou-kun," Miho said. After they exchanged their goodbyes, she walked into the building and down the halls, seeing several boys, both walking alone and with their friends.
"Oh, hi, Miporin!" Saori, said, as Miho approached her in the process of watching the boys in the class.
"Hello, Saori-san," Miho said. "Where's Hana-san?"
"They shuffled the classes around," Saori said. "Yukarin and Hana are in class 3-A."
"What about Mako-san?" Miho said.
"Here," Mako said, coming in behind Miho and Saori.
"Just in time, Mako," Saori said. Mako, as a result of participating in early tankery practice and matches, and her blood pressure getting better from driving a tank, had started to get up earlier, even if she did not enjoy doing so.
"Morning, Saori, Miho; I suppose the two of you have noticed the new arrivals, right?" Mako said, looking around the room. Where there were once rows of girls clad in identical white sailor fukus, now the rows were dotted by black-clad boys, almost as if it were a zebra.
Miho and Saori nodded. They had succeeded in saving Oarai from closure, and even if their classes had changed, they would still be in the same school as their friends. But the school as they knew it had changed substantially, possibly even permanently.
A few weeks after the last tournament and the celebration of their victory, the student council had called the tank crews together for an announcement regarding the status of the school.
"Everyone, once again, I'd like to congratulate you on your victory," the student council president, Kadotani Anzu said, but her face then turned grim. "But the news I have regarding our school's future is less than celebratory. The good news is that we will be able to continue running for at least another year. The bad news is that to go beyond that, we need more funding."
Murmurs of discontent arose from the assembled students. Some of them wondered whether there was more that the student council had kept from them. If the student council believed that, if nothing else, the chance to compete for the school's survival gave them hope, might they have settled for false hope?
"We offer our deepest and most sincere apologies," vice president Koyama Yuzu said. "It pains us to leave with so much left in the air; we wish we could do more to ensure the school's long-term stability after this year."
"But we knew from the beginning that ensuring Oarai's survival was no simple matter, nor would it permanently be resolved with just winning the tournament," public relations representative Kawashima Momo said. "And yet, with so little time to plan or do something to stave off our closure, this was all we could do; we couldn't necessarily plan for five years down the line when we didn't know whether we'll be open at the end of this one. I'm honestly surprised the officials agreed to this condition, given that the President thought of it on the spur of the moment."
"Kawashima pretty much hit the mark," Anzu said, an amused grin returning to her face for a moment as she uttered a phrase she never thought she'd say. "We do, however, have a promising possibility; significant support if we take part in a government program to mainstream boys into our school. In the consolidation program for school ships that we told you about earlier that would have led to our closure, there were some school ships for boys that were in our position, but weren't so lucky as we were. Some of those boys will be coming over here, and we will be receiving support that should help us keep going if we take them in."
"Before, there simply weren't enough available students for making this school coed to have enough effect to keep us afloat- figuratively and to an extent, literally- nor enough time to implement it, considering that they saw us as a relatively strong candidate for the chopping block until we won the tournament," Momo said. "There was also the question of what uniforms we would provide to them, but for this year, they will be using the same ones that were used in the now defunct Higashizawa Boys' Academy, where the lion's share of our transfers came from or had planned to enroll, and which closed down at the end of last year, as a lower-performing school with little to its name."
A heated discussion erupted among the assembled students. Some students welcomed the arrival of boys. Others believed that Oarai worked better with only girls in it, and that the boys who were coming might also be happier at their boys-only schools. Yamagou Ayumi's parents believed girls did better studying without the presence of boys in the class, and she barely convinced them to let her stay by pointing out how happy she was with her friends from Rabbit Team and how good the school was for her. Momo made a motion to request quiet, silencing the crowd. After the commotion died down, Sodoko raised her hand.
"Go ahead, Sodoko," Anzu said.
"President, have the school authorities written up new rules regarding the presence of those of the opposite gender at this high school? I'm asking particularly, but not only about, those against student relationships?"
"Yeah, we're working on those rules," Anzu said. Some of the other issues were still being worked out. The school was in the process of getting uniforms for the boys. While there were men's bathrooms for male employees, other bathrooms were being designated as boys' restrooms, and a pilot program for a unisex bathroom was considered. The school was writing up new language for their anti-bullying rules to include sexual discrimination. "But we can say that yes, there is a rule against students going out."
Some of the students groaned. Saori was looking forward to the chance to possibly meet a boyfriend, especially now that she was a crew member of the best-performing tank in a championship-winning tank team. While Rabbit Team's Utsugi Yuuki's long-distance relationship with Shirakawa Kenji, her boyfriend from their coed middle school, had ended due to her participation in tankery, she was hoping to try again. But now the new rules would likely turn off any potential boyfriends who did not wish to risk getting in trouble, and the incoming male students were tantalizing to her her.
"Look, we're bound by the rules as much as you are," Sodoko said. "And it's ultimately up to us on the disciplinary committee to enforce them. I don't enjoy being thought of as the 'bad guy', but I honestly think these rules are beneficial to our school community. Everyone following them makes my job and your lives easier."
"But please understand, Sono-san," Yuzu said. "Enforcement is not always an easy thing, especially when you have to balance upholding the rules with keeping Oarai a place that students can enjoy attending, in addition to learning well. And this process of integrating male students is nothing if not a large adjustment for everyone- for the new students, for the returning female students, and for the faculty and staff."
Sodoko simply nodded to concede Yuzu's point. She was not well liked for her uncompromising attitude on the rule, although few people hated her, merely thinking of her as a nuisance they could safely ignore. But how would she deal with boys as a student, and not just as a disciplinary committee member? She would not get to find out for herself.
"Besides, why do you care, Sodoko?" Mako said. "You'll be gone at the end of the year."
"The others still have a job to do, and I'm asking on their behalf," Sodoko said; Gomoyo would be taking over as head of the disciplinary committee for the next year. "And besides, if the student council didn't care where the school was going after this year, they wouldn't have planned anything like reviving tankery just to try to win the tournament, all so we could stay open."
Neither Mako nor anyone else chose to contest the point. The student council had, like the best of its predecessors, worked to ensure that they left the school a better place than when they arrived. While a significant portion of the school community and the Oarai public criticized their decision to keep the impending closure secret, most recognized that they had acted in what they believed to be the school's best interests, even if they believed that decision was not the best one. And while there would be a great deal of work and little that was certain in the future, the student council had done what they could to ensure the school's survival.
As the next academic year began, the new student settled into their office. For a moment, they found it difficult to adjust that they were on a different side of the desk.
"I still find it hard to believe we'd ever wind up in this position," Hakamichi Yukino, a bespectacled girl with shoulder-length brown hair who was the new president of the student council, said to her fellow council members, who had been her friends for years.
Anzu, facing a lack of volunteers for running for student council, had approached Yukino and her friends, having heard that they were representatives for their classes, and had been on the student council in their middle school. Although Yukino described being on the student council as "not a job anyone can do well simply by wanting it badly enough," Yuzu reassured her that such an attitude regarding power and the responsibility it entailed made her well-suited to the position.
"Still, Yu- President, you have to wonder how Kadotani and the rest of the administration got elected for three years on the student council," Takei Haruka, the new vice president, who had short, light brown hair, said. "Even considering people didn't know that Kadotani's last year at Oarai might have been the last year for all of us if not for them re-establishing tankery, as well as Nishizumi and the others leading us to victory."
The fact that Oarai had been on the brink of shutting down could no longer remain a secret after the match with Pravda. With almost two dozen students now aware of this, the student council chose to make an announcement to the school, and that was the point at which Yukino and her friends, then second-years, learned about the possibility of their spending their third year in a different school, possibly even from each other. While some criticized the student council for their secrecy, others were more understanding. Some clubs, including the former volleyball team, now understood why their funding had been cut while tankery was established as a new elective, and so put forth their money and efforts to help the tankery crew out, partly out of a pragmatic realization that their survival depended on the tankery crew's success, and partly out of love of their school.
Yukino and her friends had hesitated back then, unsure of whether they could do anything meaningful for the school with their skill sets. But after seeing the rest of the students succeed on the field of tankery, they realized that whatever their reasons, they had done nothing while the school needed help. And so, when Anzu came with her offer, they, after much discussion, decided to put for their names for the student council, and also decided to volunteer for the tankery crew should the school require more victories on the field of tankery to prove itself worthy of continuing to operate. They wanted to prove that their championship victory was not merely a fluke, and that Oarai could be considered a force to be reckoned with in tankery.
They had expected that they might be the only ones to try to run for student council. But little did they suspect that they would comprise three out of eight of the new recruits for tankery, exactly enough to fill the shoes of the graduating third-years.
"Well, shall we get going, then?" Kanzaki Shizune, the new public relations representative, and a girl with long dark hair, said. "We don't want to keep Nishizumi-san waiting." Shizune was not very talkative compared to Yukino and Haruka and was relatively shy, but her good manners made it easy for her to get along with others, making her well-suited for her position.
The three made their way to the tankery hangar, where Miho sat at a table, waiting to greet the new members, process their registrations, and assign them to tanks. She was speaking to the three new first-year members of the automobile club- Ichiko, Fuyumi, and Miyuki.
"The three of you can go into Leopon Team's Porsche Tiger; Tsuchiya-san, whom I'm sure you met when you joined the automobile club, will be your commander," Miho said before sending them on their way. "Next, please."
The student council then stepped forward as their turn came.
"We will be in your care from now on, Nishizumi-san, or rather, Commander Nishizumi," Yukino said.
"The new student council?" Miho said.
"It would be all too easy for us to no longer care what happens once the year ends and we graduate, but I don't think we would have ever volunteered for the student council if we had that mindset." Haruka said.
"We have no prior experience in tankery," Shizune said. "But we want to do what we can to help, and will step aside if you find a better crew."
Miho could not help but let off a nervous chuckle at Shizune's offer. Oarai's tankery team had always been shorthanded, and this year was no exception.
"The three of you can crew the Hetzer," Miho said. "I'll leave it up to you as to who takes what position, although I recommend finding a role that suits you and sticking with it, practicing as much as you can to get better at it."
"Please leave it to us," Yukino said, and the three walked over to the tank. "So, the three of us have to cover five positions. It's hard to believe Kadotani-senpai was both commander and gunner toward the end."
"Why don't you do it, President?" Haruka said.
"We're not on student council duty, Haruka," Yukino said. "And even if I become commander of this tank, we're all on the same footing, so just call me what you usually do."
"Ok, Yukino," Haruka said, slipping back into informal speech. Manners did not come naturally to her, and while she was able to avoid saying anything too offensive, she had to make a conscious effort to avoid that, and found herself not using honorifics on people when they weren't in earshot. "Loading looks like a demanding yet simple job, so I'll take it."
"Then that leaves me as the driver," Shizune said. The three climbed onto the tank, then after opening the hatch and checking the interior, got into their positions. Shizune looked at the controls. "These controls… I wonder if Koyama-senpai got stuck with this job because it's the most difficult."
"The gunner role also seems more complex than I had initially thought," Yukino said, looking at the controls to aim and fire. "To think Kadotani-senpai and the others just dove into this…"
"Times were different back then," Haruka said. "And Kadotani faced different challenges than we do now, in having to ensure that the school remained around for next year, rather than ensuring that it lasted the test of time. It didn't matter whether she laid the foundation for plans that would come to fruition over the next decade if it closed down at the end of the year."
"It doesn't help that we're the only girls in it," Shizune said. "Say, wasn't there a boy who signed up? And doesn't the rules say something about it?"
"There's nothing in the rules that says boys can't do tankery, at least as far as non-official matches go," Yukino said. "And if Nishizumi-san can't find someone else to fill Sono-senpai's position, she may very well have to take him, or risk having an empty seat in Mallard Team's tank."
Miho, seated at the table, looked at the thin stack of registration papers. After filling in the parts only for the commander- whether the applicants were accepted, and which tanks and roles they would be in- she filed them away and noticed only a handful of other papers on the table. Three new first-year girls had joined the automobile club, and in the "Special Comments" section of their application, mentioned that they could not only operate the tanks, but also fix them, having come from a middle school with a good tankery program. There was also a girl known as Iruka, an online friend of Momogawa, a second-year who transferred from Saunders to Oarai , who replaced Piyotan as loader and gunner on the Chi-Nu. Unlike most of the others, she had some practice with the tank, but had never seen an actual competition.
"Only two other people besides the student council and automobile club's first years signed up..." she said, disappointed. After the new members of Leopon, and the new Turtle team, there was only Iruka's application and one other.
"Many people may watch tankery, but not everyone wants to participate," Yukari said. "When I was younger, it was difficult for me to make friends because of how few people were interested in it."
"I completely understand what you're saying, Yukari-san," Miho said, then paused a moment. "But, on second thought… in some regards, it might be better this way. A lot of teams, like Black Forest, have a fairly sizable bench, meaning that people don't necessarily always get to go out and fight in a tank. Perhaps that prepares us for contingencies and helps us cherry pick the best, but it also results in people getting left out. If they don't have any hope of getting in, there's little incentive for them to improve, and they may end up getting demoralized. But since we didn't get any more tanks, this should be enough to crew the ones we have."
The new student council had, in an budget meeting before the academic year began, called Miho in to tell her that for the foreseeable future, Oarai would not be able to buy any more tanks. Finances were tight, and tankery, while now the pride of the school, was no longer vitally necessary for it to remain in operation. The other clubs had done what they could to help the school get through the finals, but they now had to see to their own needs. Haruka had pointed out that it had relatively high operating costs for a school club, with expenses such as fuel, ammunition and repairs, without adding new tanks that would cost money to purchase and maintain. The fact that other clubs had their funding reduced, if they were not eliminated entirely, in this academic year, meant that the tankery club was in even less of a position to ask for more money.
Miho, understanding the reasons why Oarai had entered the tournament, took the news relatively well, and noted that another relevant problem was finding people to crew the tanks. While Miho knew that some of the tanks could be replaced with superior models, she did not wish to take away from money that could go to the school, nor did she wish to cause the team to become complacent- she believed that the team's success was in part because they had to struggle to make the most of the tanks they had. Tactical efficiency would not have been as much of a concern if the enemy did not severely outnumber them. And if Oarai had the same powerful tanks that schools like Black Forest did, they would not have had to think as hard about how to use each to its fullest potential.
"Speaking of Black Forest," Hana said, "Would it be possible that many people who wanted a school with tankery already signed up to go to Black Forest, Saunders, or the other well-known tankery schools? Their registration forms were most likely already submitted at or around the time we won the tournament."
"Yeah, that's true," Saori said. "But the boys sent here were largely assigned to new schools. Surely some of them are tankery fans?"
"Hmm…" Miho said, turning back to the sheet. "Our last applicant…I think I heard his name before somewhere…" Saori's ears pricked up at hearing "his", while Miho turned to see a male student approach the table.
"Excuse me… am I in the right place?" Garai said as he came up to Miho and Yukari.
"Ah, you're the boy from this morning," Miho said. "What was your name…" After a moment, Miho remembered. "Ah, Suou Garai-kun, right?"
"That is correct, I signed up for tankery ." Garai said. "Do you have any positions open?"
"Let me see…" Miho said, and paused as an idea came to her. "Yes, I believe I do. Yukari-san, I've come to a decision. I'd like you to command the Char 1 B1Bis again. In addition, I'd like you to teach Suou-kun how to load the Panzer IV; he will be the loader for Team Anglerfish. I will be over helping out the new Turtle Team."
"Leave it to me, Nishizumi-dono!" Yukari said enthusiastically, while saluting. "I'm Akiyama Yukari," she said to Garai. "It's nice to meet you!"
"It's nice to meet you, too, Akiyama-san," Garai said. The two exchanged bows and then proceeded to the Panzer IV.
"Have you ever operated a tank before, Suou-dono?" Yukari said.
"Not yet, although I have read a little about them," Garai said.
"So why don't you give loading a shot?" Yukari said as Garai began to load a practice shell into the tank. Garai clumsily tried to fit in the shell for about a minute, while Yukari watched his efforts. Finally, he slowly set the down and let off a long sigh of frustration.
"As I thought… Nishizumi-dono said there would be a breaking in period for the new recruits," Yukari said. "Let me show you how it's done." Yukari then walked him through the process, smoothly loading the shell into the tank. "There you go. You probably can't do it this smoothly when your tank's under fire, but that's the idea." Yukari then unloaded the shell. "Why don't you try it again?"
Garai picked up a shell, then, replicating Yukari's movements almost perfectly, manage to put the shell in, in a fraction of the time he had originally taken. Yukari noticed that there was something less graceful about how he did it, but wondered if it was simply because he wasn't as used to doing it.
"That's the way!" she said. "You're getting the hang of this quite quickly! Keep practicing so you can do it quickly and reliably in actual combat."
"You seem to like being a loader, Akiyama-san," Garai said, as he continued to practice loading the shells.
"I like everything about tanks!" Yukari said giddily. "Being a loader happened to appeal to me, since the importance of loading a shell is something only a true fan of tankery could fully appreciate- some think the shells are loaded by the tank itself. But most true tankery fans know otherwise, and that may be one reason why Nishizumi-dono initially wanted to be a loader."
"One reason?" Garai said, deducing from Yukari's choice of words that there were others.
"When the four of us started out- it was four before Reizei-dono joined- we pretty much chose whichever roles came naturally to us," Yukari said. "Nishizumi-dono didn't want to be commander at first, but she was better for that role than Takebe-dono, who later became our radio operator because of her skill at talking with others. After I became loader, Isuzu-dono became the gunner because she enjoyed firing the cannon, and Reizei-dono, who had briefly substituted for Isuzu-dono as driver, became our permanent driver. Everyone found their niche, and together, we became quite a team."
Garai smiled, touched by the description of the team. It seemed clear to him what he needed to do in order to be an asset to Anglerfish Team, and with it, Oarai Academy's tankery team as a whole.
Miho walked over shortly afterward, having finished helping the Student Council and the rest of the new teams.
"Yukari-san, could you please go over to Mallard Team?" Miho said, "We're going to be doing some exercises in our tanks."
"Certainly, Nishizumi-dono!" Yukari said eagerly. Before she left, she turned around and faced her again. "But how's the student council doing?"
"It's taking them a little while to get used to it," Miho said. "The same goes with the other new team members, but the returning members from last year are helping out quite a bit."
"I see," Yukari said. "But we knew we would have some people with no prior experience in tanks. Even those who were fans of tanks might not understand how to use them, a bit like…" Yukari paused a moment, trying to think of an analogy that would make sense to someone unfamiliar to tankery, and turned to Garai. "It's a bit like how if you watch baseball on TV, you won't necessarily know how to throw, catch or hit a ball."
"Ah, I get it," Garai said.
"Still, if you love something, it's often the basis necessary for the determination to stick with it and get better at it," Yukari said. "And I think you'll be no exception."
As Yukari walked off to train with Mallard Team, Garai no longer felt out of place as a result of his inexperience or gender. All of the tankery team had once been beginners, but the fact that most of them were beginners in the relatively recent past made him realize that he was not alone. Perhaps if the team accepted former volleyball players, gaming nerds, the student government and disciplinary committee, auto mechanics, and history buffs, there was also a place in it for a boy.
"That's all for today," Miho said at the end of practice. "I hope to see you all tomorrow."
Miho and the rest of Team Anglerfish started getting ready to leave, when Miho walked over to Garai.
"Why don't you come with us, Yukari-san, Suou-kun?" Miho said. "We're having dinner at my place tonight."
"Certainly, Nishizumi-dono!" Yukari said enthusiastically. While she was the commander of Mallard Team's tank now, she decided to let her crewmates, Gomoyo and Pazomi, socialize with each other, as well as the rest of their friends on the disciplinary committee, while she rejoined the first friends she made through tankery. The new members of Leopon team were breaking the ice, but they were quickly bonding over their common interest in automobile repairs. Anteater Team's new arrival, Iruka, was also comfortably integrating into the team, having known her teammates from before she came to the school. Naturally, the question remained of where Garai would go, and it seemed natural to Miho that she would bring him along with the others.
"Me? Really?" Garai said. "But we only just met."
"Back when I was new here, Saori-san and Hana-san made an effort to include me, in a time when I was searching for people with whom I could become friends. The least I could do is to extend the same kindness to someone else who's new at this school, especially a new teammate."
Garai still was unsure what to think of Miho's offer, as he was unused to such wholehearted and sincere offers of friendship, and wondered whether he could rightfully accept it so early in their relationship. But he reminded himself that regardless of circumstances on his end or any benefit that the team could reap from this, Miho's offer was made in kindness, and it was the first time someone had invited him purely for the purpose of including him, without any ulterior motives. The most polite and grateful thing he could do was to graciously accept this invitation.
"Thank you very much, Nishizumi-san!" Garai said. "I would very much like to have dinner with you!"
"Glad to hear Suou-kun is coming, Miporin!" Saori said, before turning to Garai. "Oh, and do you mind if I call you by your first name?
"You may," Garai said, going with the flow. Despite knowing that he was merely an acquaintance to them, he still felt a little out of place being on a last name basis with them when they, except for the unusually formal Yukari, were on a first name basis with each other.
"All right, let's go, Garai!" Saori said energetically.
At night, Garai wrote up his report regarding Oarai's academics, one that he and the other male students wrote in as part of their enrollment at Oarai, for the purposes of determining how male students were adjusting to their new school, and getting along with the girls. In it, he filled out everything he had seen and heard that day. The academic program was satisfactory, as was the tankery program. He was getting along well with the female students, who seemed to be welcoming of him. Miho in particular seemed to be a friendly individual, and an effective and well-organized tank crew commander.
Having written everything he was required to discuss, Garai reviewed the report document one last time, clicked "Send", and sat back in his chair, lost in thought for a moment as he pondered how his first day at Oarai went how he had expected, save for his developing friendship with Miho and the others. He had to wonder- just what would that mean for the future?
His participation in tankery seemed to be getting off to a promising start. And while he was uncertain of what tomorrow would bring, he could conclude that it had been a fairly good day.
Omake
Hello! I'm Ou Taiga, official reporter for Oarai, and today I'll be presenting my results on why relatively few people are taking tankery, even after Oarai's unprecedentedly defeating Black Forest and winning the tournament last year.
"Tanks are cool and all," one boy said while standing next to his friend. "But doing something with so many GIRLS around? No thanks, I don't want people to think I'm a ho-"
The other boy jabbed the first in the ribs with his elbow, saying something like, "Don't say that!" in a whisper that was too soft to be clearly audible to me, but which the first understood perfectly well.
"A hopeless romantic," the first corrected himself.
"And what about you?" I asked the second.
"Loud noises, cramped quarters… it's not for me," he said. "My great-grandfather fought in World War II, and he said he hated serving in a tank. All his stories, in particular how much he'd regretted what he'd done, turned me off, to say the least."
"Well, I am not saying that I am not interested or anything of the sort, but, well…" another boy stammered. He gave me the impression of seeming refined, a young gentleman in the making, so it was a bit off-putting to see him stumble over his words like that. "Can I start over, please?"
"Yes, go ahead," I said.
"My parents want me to take calligraphy, something they view as appropriately dignified and traditional, so that's what I am going to take." I could tell there was a note of hesitation and doubt in his voice, as if this was not necessarily what he wanted.
"Tankery was my second choice," a boy with glasses who seemed to be a bit of an otaku said, "But I went with ninjutsu first- it seems so much cooler."
"Meh, not interested," another boy said, as did most of the rest of the interviewees when they bothered to answer my questions.
I then decided to get to writing up my story.
"In spite of last year's tournament and efforts by the current and former student council to drum up interest, only eight new students signed up for tankery this year."
As for a quote, I decided to use one of the other ones from an apathetic female student.
"Oarai's winning the tournament is an impressive accomplishment," second year Ikeda Kasumi-san said. "But if you have no interest in tankery, it means about as much to you as a delicious dish means to someone with no sense of taste."
Author's Notes
This story is meant as an alternative take on the popular "Boys get involved in tankery" plot, looking at the sudden arrival of powerful and well established boys' teams in tankery from another perspective. Do the boys always view the girls as their equals? Would all of them accept gradually integrating males into tankery, or would some feel entitled and want to seize absolute control and dominance over tankery? What are their motivations for getting involved with Tankery (which are by no means uniform)? Can they necessarily replicate Oarai or the other schools' success by copying their methods and tank lineups? And what would it require for schools with partly or entirely male tankery teams to suddenly appear out of nowhere, without anyone knowing of their existence, and drastically change tankery overnight? A secondary goal in this fic is to show making Oarai and tankery coed as something more than a plot device to include boys and other OCs, but a part of the story in and of itself, albeit not the main plot, and explore some of the implications of doing so.
There will be a few themes running throughout this fic, including the nature of change- how long-standing habits and ideas by individuals and groups change, how change is implemented, and whether it is good or bad (for example, the STU might be pursuing their goal for the wrong reasons, but many believe that breaking Black Forest's winning streak and changing the Nishizumi school's ideology are good things)- as well as what matters most to some of the canon characters, and why Oarai as a team is strong.
It will also be similar to my Mai-Hime fic, Perfection is Overrated (in which the main characters fought against the SUEs, representative of Mary Sue archetypes), in a few ways, by looking at the impact people like the boys have on the world, and how they would compete with the main characters on a level playing field, especially how they would come across without the author giving them preferential treatment, as I've noticed that in some of these fics, the boys come off as similarly unbelievable at times, such as when they are exceptionally skilled, or come from an especially strong, well-regarded or well-equipped school that no one has heard of before.
My interpretation is that Oarai wouldn't necessarily be able to afford new tanks, even if the tank team saved the school from closure, since most of the money would be going toward keeping it open, as they achieved the short-term goal of averting closure and must now focus on ensuring its long-term survival. I also did some research on integrating boys into schools, and found that while there were several reasons, getting more enrollment and thus more tuition money, was not necessarily one of them, unless they wanted a better pool of student applicants by including male ones and taking the best of them while foregoing weaker female applicants. Thus, my reason for Oarai becoming coed was so that students from boys' schools that got shut down (I suspect Oarai was not the only school facing this) would have a place to go.
Interestingly enough, it's never established how much the tanks cost, although I suspect that it's an amount that would be an issue for a school like Oarai or Anzio (the latter of which deploys some tankettes against Oarai- while they act as bait, I suspect they would have deployed actual tanks if they could afford them), but not for Saunders, Black Forest, or other well-funded schools. It's also likely that maintenance costs exist for tanks, as Katyusha remarks that Pravda didn't practice so as not to waste fuel- it may be proof of Katyusha's overconfidence, but it also speaks to one of several operating expenses that might be a problem for a school like Oarai.
It may seem improbable to have only eight people join tankery, but keep in mind that in the first year, even with all the hype the Student Council gave to it and the rewards they offered, only 18 people initially signed up to crew tanks, plus the Automobile club's support. There are also likely factors that indicate a good number of people don't like tankery, in universe, for reasons such as:
-A belief that it's only a sport for females, which I suspect would be cultivated after having women do it for so long.
-Laziness like Mako, initially.
-Lack of interest, like some of Miho's elementary school classmates in Little Army, Aya's male friends or Yuuki's boyfriend. Saori indicates that relatively few are interested in tankery these days.
-Disapproval of tankery, with said disapproval either influencing people to think the same or not take it, such as Hana's mother. Some may see it as barbaric, while others may see it as trivializing war, or no substitute for the real thing.
Some of the STU members will display special abilities; for the most part, subtle enough so that only those in-universe who know in advance or are watching very closely can even suspect that something's unusual (a bit like some of the players' special skills in Saki). This is intended to be the opposite of stories in which a seemingly impossible and magical feat is done by several layers of deception, illusions and trickery. In this story, they practice special abilities to show that there is no natural explanation for what characters like the ones that inspired them can do, as well as that the higher-ranking STU members(not necessarily the lower-ranking ones) have essentially gotten this far by cheating and plan to change tankery unnaturally quickly. They will also display carelessness at times that will often come into play at crucial moments- this is also to reflect the carelessness that characters like them display due to the authors not being able to write them well, and that is enabled by their inspirations' superiority over others.
Regarding Tsuchiya's name, in spite of the sudden name change, I will assume that she, the fair-skinned second-year from the auto club with moderately short light-brown hair (as opposed to the tanned third-year with dark brown and very short hair), is called Tsuchiya.
Some omakes will provide flashbacks, various insight on characters or parts of the story, or various interludes.
And on a minor note, there will be a recurring feature imagining which team would be in the ending credits if this fic used the Girls Und Panzer ending.
Ending Theme Team: New Anglerfish Team