Shoko spent most of their trip to the field by her house loading the shells she'd bought into box magazines for loading into the tank's gun. They arrived without any trouble, and targets were set up by the two girls in various places around the field. Climbing back into the vehicle, Tamae spoke up from the driver's position. "Hey, can I play some music?"
"Yeah, sure! It'll help us concentrate or something, right?" Tamae began to play music from her cellphone, turning the volume all the way up on her phone so that it sounded throughout the tank. As she begun to move the tank around, the two girls found it nearly impossible to make out the music over the sounds of the engine. Tamae stopped the tank and turned the volume on her cell phone down. Shoko scratched her chin. "How expensive do you think it would be to buy a sound system for the tank?"
"Sorry, Shokotan, but I'm not buying a sound system for the tank."
"I'll even install it."
"I'm not buying one."
"No music it is, then," Shoko sighed. "Let's start. Tamae, you need to be able to listen to me, and the tank's loud, right? So how about if I yell orders and kick you in the shoulder so you know to turn that way? Oh, and I'll kick you in the back if I want you to stop or go."
"We should have bought headsets... Just, um, try not to kick me too hard."
"Don't worry, I won't leave any bruises."
With that, Shoko kicked Tamae in the middle of the back. She kicked a little too hard and Tamae let out a slightly exaggerated "ouch", but they were off. Shoko took her place at the gun and begun to send twenty millimeter bullets flying towards the targets. Of course, she missed. When she had emptied the magazine, she removed it and replaced it with a new one. That's gonna be a pain, she thought to herself. As they came upon a target, Shoko kicked her friend in the back, and the tank came to a stop. As it stopped, Shoko fired several rounds through the target.
They spent about three hours practicing their tank driving skills. The two girls had hopped out of the tank to check on their progress; there was slight, but definite improvement when comparing number of hits from earlier in the day against when they had finished. "I asked you not to kick me so hard," Tamae whined.
"Sorry. I just got really into it," Shoko replied. "Besides, this is for the oji-san boards, right?"
"Ouija boards. And I'm sure I'm bruised."
"Right, whatever. Anyway, we'll buy some headsets after we make some more money. Think of your bruises as an investment." Shoko examined one of the targets more closely. "Oh, by the way, I'm staying at your house again."
"I'll have to ask my parents, and -"
"I'm sure they won't mind. Do that for me."
"Alright. Hey, you know what we should do?"
"What's that, Tama?"
"We need a team name. Something to identify ourselves by."
"You come up with that. I'm not super-creative like you are."
"I wouldn't say that, but, um, If you say so..." Tamae walked over towards the Toldi and sat on its front, calling her parents. Their conversation was short and ended with an "I love you too". She approached her friend once more. "They said it was fine."
"Thanks. Let's get back to your place, yeah?"
***
They returned to Tamae's house without incident. This time, Shoko ate with the Wakabayashi family, happily stuffing her face. Mr. Wakabayashi had made space for her, and the Mrs. happily made just enough food for one more person. "Thanks for letting me eat dinner, too, Mrs. W," Shoko said through a full mouth. "They should start putting your cooking in TV dinners."
"Oh, I'm flattered, but really, it's nothing special."
"No, really, I'm serious!" The response was enthusiastic enough that it even startled Mrs. Wakabayashi, who began to laugh.
"She's right, Kiyoko." Mr. Wakabayashi chuckled, and then his attention turned to his daughter. "So, Tamae. How'd school go today? I remember you saying you had a big test today."
"I did?" Tamae's face contorted into one of confusion for a moment, very quickly to shock, and then immediately blurted out "I did!"
Mrs. Wakabayashi sighed. "Honestly, how do you forget what you did only a few hours ago? Maybe you ought to cut back on the games."
"Oh, relax, Kiyoko. She's fine. Even I forget what I did at work sometimes," Tamae's father replied, defending his daughter. "Besides, I'm sure she did fine on her test. Right?" Her father looked right at her and smiled, and that terrified Tamae. She froze up for a moment and could only nod in response.
Soon dinner was over, and Shoko offered to help Tamae with the dishes for the night. With two people it went by quickly, and soon they were up in Tamae's room again.
"He knows, Shoko! He knows we skipped school! Ah, my mother's going to kill me if she finds out... what if he already told her!?"
"Relax, relax, Don't get so worked up over it. If your mom was going to kill you, she would have done it when you got home."
"That's true, I guess," Tamae said, sitting on her bed slowly, starting to take deep breaths.
"Besides that, did you come up with a team name yet?"
"Uh, I guess so..."
"Tell me it."
"How about Bat Team? It's pretty simple, I think, and it's cool."
"But it's not cute, Tama."
"Bats are definitely cute, too. Look, give me a second," she said, rapidly tapping on her phone's screen before showing her friend her phone. On the screen were search engine results for cute images of bats. Shoko's eyes lit up and she began to scroll through the images, 'hmm'ing and 'hum'ing all the while. Eventually, she stopped.
"You win. We're Bat Team now. Your mission is complete," the tanned girl said in an official-sounding voice, saluting her friend. "Just kidding. That's all, though. So what're you doing tonight?"
"I was thinking I was going to work on my story..."
"Good. Do that. It gives me a chance to do something too."
"Like what?"
"You'll see, you'll see." Tamae moved over to her laptop and opened up a text file, staring at the screen. Before too long she was typing away, completely in her element. Shoko watched her for a little while from the bed, but before long she began using her own phone, sending texts and receiving them, her phone vibrating every other minute with a new message. This worried Tamae, but she felt Shoko knew what she was doing and let her carry on.
This carried on throughout the night until both girls decided it was late and that they would be getting some sleep. Tamae woke up in the morning at a normal hour for a schoolday and shook Shoko awake, who informed her she was not going to school. Tamae tried to persuade her, as she always did, to no avail, Shoko rolling over and covering herself up. "I need to be at home for a while today anyway," she said, "so I'm gonna skip." Tamae sighed and shook her friend twice more, but it was fruitless, and she would run late if she dawdled too long. So she showered, got dressed, and ate breakfast with her parents by herself, running upstairs before she left to grab her cell phone, which she had forgotten. "Tama," Shoko began, her earlier drowsiness almost completely gone from her voice, "I'll meet you outside the school today at two-thirty."
"Why don't you just come to school if you're going to make me leave early?"
"Can't. We have a match and I need to prepare."
"W-what!? Shoko, I'm not ready for -" Mrs. Wakabayashi called for Tamae from downstairs, chastising her that she'd be late if she goofed off too much, and Tamae gave an extremely exasperated sigh. "I'll text you, okay?" she said, then hurried down the stairs and off to school. Shoko headed downstairs shortly after Mr. Wakabayashi and Tamae had left, and Mrs. Wakabayashi was the only one left in the house aside from her.
"Shoko, you're not going to school today?"
"No can do. Got some stuff to do at home," she said.
"You really should start attending your classes, young lady. It's your future we're talking about, you know?"
"I know. But I gotta do what I gotta do, Mrs. Wakabayashi."
"There's nothing more important than your future. You're just a child right now, Shoko. I understand your situation, but..." There was silence for a few moments after that, just long enough to be awkward. Tamae's mother had the words, but she did not want to say them, and so was quiet. Shoko just wanted to get going, and after it became clear that Tamae's mother had said all she had to say, Shoko smiled at her.
"Thanks for letting me stay here, by the way. I'll see you later, alright? Bye." Turning and leaving, Mrs. Wakabayashi smiled and waved her off as well.
"Goodbye."
Shoko parked the Toldi in the shed and turned off the engine. After some searching around in the shed, she bit her lip and exited the shed, walking across the grass to her home. Her place of residence was rather unique among her peers, in that it was an old lighthouse built to overlook the sea; it had been inherited from her grandmother when she passed away. It was painted white, though that was chipping and flaking off almost all the way up the structure. Thankfully in this age it had been fully renovated with modern conveniences, as Shoko had always hated camping and being without electricity or cellphone coverage. Even as she stood outside the door, she could hear voices inside arguing about something or other, and she sighed as she opened the door. "I'm home," she said lifelessly.
The inside of Shoko's home was messy and claustrophobic. Because it was a lighthouse the interior rooms were rather small with high ceilings, though there were four of them stacked on top of each other, and because her parents were like they were the place was a disaster. Things were strewn about the floor, the sink was full of messy dishes, some that had been there for days, there was at least one piece of paper or plastic garbage on every conceivable surface, and two full black garbage bags sat next to the garbage can, which was already overflowing. Having not been home in two days, the smell immediately hit Shoko's nose like a wall as soon as she was inside in addition to another: the smell of alcohol. Empty bottles of cheap beer lay everywhere in the house. She wrinkled her nose as one of the other two people in the house walked up to her drunkenly, her words slurred as she began to speak. "I haven't seen you in a week! How are you, my lovely daughter?"
"It's been two days, Mom. Where's my toolkit?"
"She sold it," interjected a male voice, this one clearly not drunk. It came from a man sitting on a dirty couch trying to watch television.
"I did not, your grandma came to get it," Shoko's mother responded.
"Grandma's not here. She's been gone for years."
"Yeah, quit your lyin'," her father's voice called from across the room.
"Oh, oh... Oh yeah..." Her mother said, her voice quickly breaking down into sobs that only lasted about a minute. Shoko felt very uncomfortable in this situation and began to try to escape via the stairs that led up to her room - at the very least, she could get some fresh clothes and leave for Tamae's house again - when her mother called out to her. "Shoko Kurosawa!" she shouted.
"Shut up!" her father yelled back.
"No, you shut the fuck up," her mother said in a childish voice. "Anyway, Shoko, Shoko... I love you so much, you know? You're mommy's girl, right? Do you have any money you can lend mommy?" She gave her best smile to her daughter
"I don't." Shoko reached into her pocket to retrieve her phone, intent on messaging her friend to tell her they'd need to stop by Kankan's, the Senshado store, and so to be ready at one-thirty. Her mother's expression soured.
"Y'messagin' that Wakabayashi bitch? I'm sure she's been lendin' you some money. C'mon, I know you got it."
"I don't."
"Shut the fuck up!" Her father shouted. "I'm trying to watch TV before work!" He picked up an empty plastic cup and threw it at Mrs. Kurosawa, who in her drunken stupor was hit right in the head but seemed to ignore it.
Shoko bit her lip and hurried up the stairs to pack some clothes into a backpack. It only took a few minutes, and she was right back downstairs; the yelling and shouting had gone on pretty much nonstop the whole time she was upstairs. As Shoko began to leave, her mother stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "I really need some money," she said, starting to sob again. "I'll win big this time, I promise!"
Shoko couldn't stand it. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled-up 1000-yen bill. She stuffed it into her mother's hands, who had instantly stopped sobbing,and hurried out the door.
***
Shoko tapped her foot inside the Toldi. She had been waiting for Tamae for twenty minutes and she was not answering her texts. Shoko was getting frustrated, and when she saw Tamae walking out of the school a good five minutes later she had half a mind to yell at her. "Why were you so late?"
"Sorry, I had a test today that I couldn't miss. I forgot all about it..." she said, meekly. Shoko grumbled and punched Tamae in the arm. "Ow!" she squeaked, excessively loudly for the amount of force Shoko put into the punch.
"Don't be late again."
"Okay, I'm sorry..."
After the drive to Kankan's and some amount of money later, Shoko was in a decent enough mood again, and she and Tamae were talking like best friends again. Shoko picked up a small toolkit, comfortably within Tamae's budget, materials for a stencil, and black paint. The girls drove for some way after that to the designated meeting place for their match; they created, very swiftly, a stencil of a black vampire bat based off an image they found online and sprayed it onto the turret of the tank. There were already spectators starting to line the streets, and the girls overheard lots of talk about the matchup.
Tamae seemed very nervous to be around so many people, so she stayed inside the tank after the stencil had been created. This was entirely contrary to Shoko, who was standing outside the tank and greeting passerby and trying to sell the Bat team as the next biggest thing in Tankathlon. She stood next to the open driver's hatch and looked at the crowd, pointing at a person who was wearing an outlandish costume - a large, frilly skirt with lots of pink, white, and gold. "Hey, Tamae. What's a magical girl doing here?"
"What?" Tamae answered instinctively, though when she followed Tamae's finger to where it was pointing she understood. "I don't know... um, I'm pretty sure that hair is a wig,though..."
"Or dyed, but what kinda person would dye their hair pink?"
"Why do you think they showed up here in cosplay?"
"They probably just like doing it."
"Hey, Shoko. Is she coming towards us?"
"I think she is. I hope she didn't see me pointing at her."
The girl was in fact coming towards them, and in a flash she wwas in front of the Toldi, eyeing the two girls intently without saying a word. "Can I help you?" Shoko asked.
"You must be Bat Team!" the strange girl said enthusiastically. "Which one of you was Shoko?"
"That's me, but that must mean you're Chieko?"
"No, no, don't call me that here! The fans can't know my secret! In Tankathlon, I'm Shiny Magnum! With a star in between 'Shiny' and 'Magnum'. it's cuter that way, yeah?" Tamae suppressed a laugh - badly - but the strange girl either didn't notice or didn't care. "Wait, didn't you say your hair was black?" The girl asked, cocking an eyebrow at Shoko, who took a moment to react.
"Ah. Must've been a typo. My bad." She shrugged.
"Oh no, it's perfectly fine!" Shiny Magnum looked down at her phone and gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. "Oh! I wish we had more time to get to know each other, but the match starts soon, so please meet me at the starting line, okay? I'll be in the pretty pink tank!" She winked and performed a cute pose Tamae swore she had seen in an anime and then skipped off.
"She seems nice," Tamae said after a brief moment of silence.
"Yeah," Shoko said. "Let's get going, alright?" Tamae nodded, and they were off to the starting area.