AKB0048 BATTLESHIP KATYUSHA, PRACTICE HALL 1
"Come on! I said lower your hips, didn't I?!" Sayaka yelled at Umi as she held a gesture telling the latter to come at her. "Go! Charge at me!"
"Y-Yes!" Umi, who was already sweating a river, charged at the black-haired girl, just to be thrown overhead for the twentieth time. Umi groaned in pain as she was in a fetal position.
Sayaka reached for a towel and wiped her hands. "That's not good, Sonoda-san. If you want to fight, you got to learn the basics of hand to hand combat!" she said as she showed her muscles to the bluenette.
Umi breathed heavily as she looked up at her training partner. She smiled, determined to take Sayaka down and finish her training. By then could she fight in Honoka's stead. She could become strong to support Honoka. Finally, that time has come.
"P… Please continue teaching me, Akimoto-san!" she told her partner.
"Osu!" Sayaka yelled in reply. As soon as Umi stood up, she charged at the black-haired girl with passion in her eyes. So much passion that Sayaka was taken aback, and was toppled over. They ended up with Umi just sitting over Sayaka.
"I-I did it…! I did it!" Umi rejoiced after taking Sayaka down. Though, just as Umi was celebrating her victory, she was flipped over, and now it was Sayaka riding Umi.
"Second rule in hand to hand combat," Sayaka started her lecture yet again, "never let your guard down. Not even for a second. New test. If you can take me down and hold me there for ten seconds, you're free for today."
"That's unfair, Akimoto-san!" Umi whined, for the first time ever.
"There are no rules when you are fighting in war, so times like these call for the appropriate measures," Sayaka excused as she stood up and dusted her hands. "Now, get up and come at me again!" She then reached out a hand for Umi to take.
The latter took it and tried to stand up… only to get disabled yet again.
AKB0048 BATTLESHIP KATYUSHA, BRIEFING ROOM
Besides Umi, there were the others who did their special training, although they weren't together in one room. Takamina was with Eli in the briefing room to teach her about mapping the entire battleship Gusion.
"And right here is the bunk rooms, and here is the ship's helm, so from there, you will— Oi, Ayase-san! This is not the time to fall asleep!" Takamina shouted as she tapped on Eli's table, thus waking Eli up. The blonde got up too fast, and this made her head groggy.
"Takamina-san… Good morning…" Eli greeted lazily while pressing on her forehead.
"This is the third time you've fallen asleep, Ayase-san! And for the record, it's already high noon!" Takamina scolded.
"Eh? That so? Hehe, good afternoon, then," Eli waved Takamina's scolding off with a laugh.
To this, Takamina sighed and muttered, "This girl has a lot to learn…"
"Anyways, I think this plan is flawed, one way or another," Eli observed.
"Eh? How so?" Takamina was surprised. As one of the strategists of AKB, her mapping skills should not have any flaw.
Eli requested the marker Takamina's marker, to which the latter followed. "Here, you said we have the bunk rooms, then the helm, which is approximately twenty meters apart, based on proportion. What we want most of all here is that we can get to the helm within a short period of time. With this length, unfortunately, and since there's nothing else between the bunks and the helm, there's sure to be at least ten to thirty men right around this area." Eli encircled the area, then continued talking without even pausing to see if Takamina understood. "Defeated or not, they block the path heavily. They should know our goal to breach their forces by going to the helm. Anyone stumbling past unconscious bodies cannot get through twenty meters on half a second."
Eli kept talking about the minor details, but Takamina already understood where Eli was coming from. They were indeed going to be trapped outside if they chose the bunks as the way to the helm.
"Wow…" Takamina just ended up being amazed at how experted Eli seemed while explaining the whole plan.
"… And so, here's all we need to do," Eli finished her mapping, and drew a circle across the helm. She then dropped the pen and sighed. "If you have any objections, then we have no choice but to follow yours in the end."
"… I have nothing to say," Takamina muttered as she found out the best strategy to breaching Gusion. "This is perfect!"
To her amazement, someone knocked on the door, and came in Nozomi Toujou, who was then assigned to be Eli's assistant. "So I'm thinking Eli won over the strategy plan," she started.
"I… I can't believe it. She put in so little effort to make up the best strategy plan…!" Takamina said as she faced Nozomi with an amazed expression.
"As expected of out lovely president, Ericchi!" Nozomi casually went over to Eli's side, only to be swept over by the blonde.
"The lovely one here is you and only you, Nozomi," Eli whispered in such an accent that made Nozomi blush.
"S-Stop it, Ericchi. Takamina-san is watching—! Takamina-san?!"
Takamina couldn't help the level of romance happening between the two that she fainted right in front of the pair. The two had to carry Takamina out of the room and into the sick bay to get her meds.
PRACTICE HALL 2
Nico and Maki were supposed to be sparring mates, and they really were assigned to be the pair, but they just would not budge and kept on declining their teacher, Kojima Haruna's instruction.
"No! Of all people right here in this ship, it had to be her!" Maki whined and pointed a disgusted finger at the twin-tailed idol beside her.
"I-I share the same sentiment. Kojima-san, please do find other people to pair us up with," Nico insisted.
"B-But… You're the only two assigned to train with the micsaber…" Kojiharu said, a comical sweat drop forming on her head. "The others were either too afraid to learn it, or some are just too good to go easy on you."
"But this will not go anywhere if this self-proclaimed top idol becomes my partner," Maki complained and reasoned.
"Oh, and I will not let this snobby rich kid become my partner as well," Nico retorted, crossing her arms sassily.
Kojiharu sighed, with seemingly no choices left. But right then did she remember Eli's statement right before they went to their respective practices.
'To get the two moving, promise them something, anything that can motivate them to doing so.' Such were Eli's words.
"Hey, guys…?" Kojiharu called, and the two faces her attentively. "Whoever defeats me first will have themselves a new training partner. I'll let someone in eventually, so—!"
"Gladly," Maki obliged and came at Kojiharu with a clean and silent step before pointing her saber at Kojiharu's neck. But having the experience to micsabers and AKB's technology, Kojiharu blocked the blade with hers. She then twisted her sword to parry, but here came Nico, who swiped Kojiharu around the waist part. Luckily, Kojiharu was able to step back and slide to give herself distance.
"Ah, I forgot," Kojiharu muttered. "They want to get separated from each other right now. But look at their style of fighting. It's as if… They're one person holding two swords…"
She was straight down surprised that Nico and Maki could have such powerful teamwork, despite not having a single clue on the proper use of the micsaber.
"He-Hey! You were about to hit me!" Nico shouted in one exchange of blows.
"You're in the way, Nico-chan," Maki coldly answered. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be going out here and will defeat Kojiharu-san alone." She then charged towards Kojiharu, but seeing as there was only one person to battle, Kojiharu handled Maki perfectly.
Nico also tried doing it along, but was easily waved off.
After an hour-long exchange of blows, the pair finally heaved their breaths from the pressure Kojiharu started applying towards the both of them.
"Oh? Tired now? Perhaps we need a break? I can give five minutes if you want to," Kojiharu said.
"No, no. We're.. fine… Just… a little… rest…" Nico insisted, though her sentence stopped in between breaths.
"If, so then I'll keep this up until the next hour," Kojiharu told the two the consequences. "You'll need some rest, you two. We're not—! Whoa!" She was surprised as a saber scratched her skin. No, she felt two of them almost hitting her.
It was the two of them… So they finally decided to work together again, huh…
"Then, I shall not hold myself back—! Wh-What the…" Kojiharu, to her surprise, was being pressured by perfectly timed slashes and stabs that she was forced to fall back. There was almost nothing she could do against the pair except back down.
She laughed a bit just as soon as she stumbled backwards and fell on the cold metal ground.
The power of these two… They can't be defeated as long as they're not separated.
HALLWAYS OF KATYUSHA
All of them were practicing. Kotori was being taught about explosives, Rin and Hanayo on paralysis and disarming weapons. Anju and Erena, in the meanwhile, kept grieving over Tsubasa's death. Locking themselves in their room and not coming out to even take in a bit more space.
What are they thinking of, at this very moment?
Honoka thought to herself as she walked along the hall. She's passed by the rooms Muse was practicing in. They were doing well, Honoka can admit that. Being the 78th Generation of understudies, they performed better than she did over the years that she was in AKB herself.
But she worked hard, which got her to where she was, a Center Nova.
"Senpai," a sudden voice called for her, and Honoka turned to the person, who she has already known well, for coining her nickname "Senpai", Ooshima Yuuko the 9th. Hikari Kirishima.
"Ah, Hikari-chan…" Honoka called back and forced a little smile. "Where are the others?"
"Sae-san and the others were looking for Mobile Suits to improve our power in the upcoming war with DES," Yuuko informed
"Hmmm, I see," Honoka muttered. "I can see the only Mobile Suit we have is the Barbatos, and it's a Gusion we're talking about, after all. We'd need it."
Yuuko can only nod at Honoka's statement.
"But, senpai," Yuuko called again, "That's not what I came here for. We'll hear from them when they ccome back. I want to talk to you. How about we go to Practice Room 3?"
"Ah, sure. If it's just a talk." Honoka then lead the way, with Yuuko following in shortly after her.
MARS WASTELAND
"Girls, report to the Captain straight away. We've found what we need," Sae talked to the others over a comlink.
"Roger that," Acchan followed and tapped her comlink to give the report.
"But still," Yuka started her statement, "what's up with Acchan? She didn't have to come. She'll be needed to provide practice for the 78th."
"More importantly, the missiles they loaded even have the 'No idols' sign on them. Weird," Kanata observed.
"That's not the point, though," Sae, the leader of the group, silenced the others. "These mechs are pretty much the turning point of the upcoming battle, and we're gonna use it."
"But more of them are broken down. And we barely even have the power nor materials to fix them," Makoto input.
"Just these are enough. We'd need some upgrades for the Barbatos, after all. The others who still decent enough for battle, we use them as they are," Sae said. She finally gave out the plans, and told the remaining soldiers to standby as they try to get a signal.
Each of them smiled as they realized that they still stood a chance. They have found more rays of hope.
Unbeknownst to them, however, DES has received word that another battleship would be coming as their reinforcement, and they were abundant with Mobile Suits just as well. The ship went by the name Jahanams, the closest option given to Gusion, as well their last hope.