"How did you work out this problem existed, Anchovy? A long term plan to destroy Sensha-do."
"I studied the Maskylene style of Sensha-do..."
"I thought you were Shimada based, considering your tactics in our match, and the few commands you issued in the univeristy one."
"Not a bad guess, if I do say so myself. The Maskylene school is similar to the Shimada school, but includes a bit more politics. It's part of the reason Yukari doesn't like me. Maskyelene was an unrepentant aggrandising self-publicist. He was only one of many magicians the allies contracted, but he took a lot of credit for other peoples work. But since he's the known magician..." Anchovy stated.
"The school had to be named after him." Miho sighed.
"Well, I didn't realise until after the match with you how long the Marshalls would take. That changed matters. It was the right decision to rescue the tank crew." Anchovy stated.
"Fight hard for victory in the match, celebrate afterwards, but know both when to sacrifice and when to cut your losses. You simply made the wrong assumption about me. Kurormine's reputation again. Someone told me a new joke on the circuit and then got terrfied when she realised who I was." Miho continued
"New joke?"
"A man said he was useless during the match at telling tanks apart but he had a flow chart to help him. But thanks to Oorai's reentry he couldn't tell the difference between them and Continuation until after the match though. They both have a hodge podge of outdated tanks and drive like crazy. 'Not until afterwards?' the Kurormine tanker was perplexed . 'Of course after the match it's absolutley certain though.' 'Why is it so certain then?' the Kurormine tanker asked bewildered. 'Isn't it obvious?' the old man laughed 'If you've lost your tanks but not the match it's Continuation..'".
"..If you've lost the match but not your tanks it's Oorai." Anzio finishes, and guffaws. "If only they'd known who you really were. But you'd better get the Prez onto your boat. She's the next weak point to be attacked. Did you never consider how heavily Anzu was involved in the sensha-do world?. Calls me Chovy, had a Saunders nickname, got a friendly match with Gloriana yet went to Oorai."
"And was the tank commander. Anzu's not supposed to gun, because she covered for Momo in an actual accident and thus took the blame." Miho sighed. "Get her to safe harbour fast. On the school ship she is close to all-powerful. Off it she is vulnerable."
(MEXT meeting)
"We can recover this disaster." Shimada smiled.
"How? A university selection team against schools makes no sense." a minister pointed out.
"Unless they are the team we enter into the under-17 international." Shimada-san pointed out. it was typical of the Nishizumi's move forward without regard style, so it had to be pointed out by her rather than Shiho.
"That's brilliant. Insane but brilliant. It changes the bad move into the brilliant one, and we can use Alice's acceptence of the Siege Engine as a way to get her girls on it instead of the disgraced ministers agents." Shiho pointed out. "It should never have been taken out that easily, despite the insane moves used, to give the schools a ridiculously narrow chance."
The minster who had spoken earlier sighed "You've must been working together on this, especially since I'm hearing the tactics coming from the wrong mouths, but it is a brilliant solution that makes sense. Still unfortunatley one person in the team cannot go international."
"Anzu. She needs to be cleared properly. She has been heavily involved in the Sensha-do world."
"Indeed. But it's going to be hard. Anzu's been careful, but people are starting to spot her tank has two gunners. One is overly enthusiastic and thus atrocious,so never hits what she aims at, and the other is a incredibly patient sniper. And since Anzu is not allowed to gun. We need to clear those two and fast. Because neither she nor Momo wouold ever have been allowed in a tank if things were as stated."
"But now I wonder what we'd unearth. We've basically been placed between a rock and a hard place. Because whatever drove Anzu away from sensha-do must have been extremly bad. Still so far we have lucked out. But unfortunatley we only lucked out. The first trap was, through incredible coinicidence, poorly constructed. The second was better but missed the fact that even Alice would see the obvious problem with an Annihilation match of a full team against twelve tanks. But best to find out what the next traps are before they are sprung upon us."
