Always Advancing

A Girls und Panzer fanfic

Part XIV: Damaged and Recovered

by Civilis

"We have a problem, Kay," said Arisa, quickly.

Kay, who had just deplaned from the return flight from the National Sensha-Do Tournament opening meeting, looked at her Executive Officer standing next to a jeep on the tarmac. Arisa had been waiting when the plane touched down, and had pulled the jeep up as soon as the plane reached its hangar. Even more uncharacteristically, she had helped pull the boarding stairs up to the side of the plane.

"Problems can wait. There's this tank café near the Tournament HQ that sells tank-shaped cakes. I brought back some for you and Oddball," replied Kay, in the cheerful tone of someone that also had her own slice of cake to look forward to.

"Yukari is the problem."

Kay caught Arisa's tone, which was serious even for her. "What happened to Yukari?"

"She's shut herself in one of the tanks. She had some kind of fit yesterday and got really upset."

Naomi, who had just joined them, asked "Yukari's upset? Is it the Oddball thing?"

"I warned you about being good while we were out, Arisa," added Kay. "What exactly did you do to the poor girl?"

"Nothing! I swear!" Arisa looked around and made sure nobody else was in earshot. "We found out a few more things that she… uh, 'misremembers', specifically about last year's National Tournament. Something she found out set her off. She's been shut up in one of the tanks since yesterday. I've told everyone to leave her be, but it looks bad."

When they reached the garage, they found a couple of team members watching the Sherman parked in the middle of the floor.

"Anything happen since I left?" asked Arisa.

"Her mother called again. We told her what you did, that she was just busy working on something. A couple of the girls left a bag from McDonalds with some breakfast on the tank near the driver's hatch. We thought the smell might make her hungry," the first one recounted.

"When you named her Oddball, you weren't kidding," the second added.

"Go ahead and head out. Also, try not to say too much about this," said Arisa.

When they had left, Kay walked over to the tank, calling "Yukari? You able to talk?"

The tank was silent.

"Ok, you said that you determined that last year's tournament, for her, was won by Pravda," said Naomi, keeping her voice low as she walked through Arisa's recollection of the day before in an attempt to find new meaning. "She then goes on to the internet, finds a video of last year's finals, where Kuromorimine beat St. Gloriana, then watched a video of highlights from the Pravda vs Kuromorimine match, then watched a video of this years' tournament bracket ceremony, and that caused her to freak out."

"It's just the current teams drawing their lot numbers, while the other team captains stand around and watch," said Arisa.

Kay scrambled up onto the Sherman. Testing the cupola hatch, she found it unlatched, and it opened smoothly. "Looks like she's asleep in there."

"You mean I've been waiting here all night while she slept?" Arisa groaned.

"Hey! Oddball! Wake up! I brought you food and souvenirs!" yelled Kay into the hatch. After a moment, she smiled, then gave Naomi and Arisa a thumbs up.

A minute later, Yukari's fluffy hair, much more disheveled than usual, slowly began to rise through the hatch, followed by the rest of her. She looked like she hadn't slept well, and had spent some time crying.

"Kay? I… I'm sorry about this," she whimpered.

"Relax, Yukari. It's just friends here… and Arisa. Come on out and we'll find out what's troubling you and how to fix it." Kay gently coaxed Yukari out of the turret.

Naomi ran over to the Sherman to help Yukari down from the turret. Kay followed her down, and the two helped Yukari to walk over and sit on a crate that one of the previous watchers had been using as a seat. Meanwhile, Arisa recovered the McDonalds bag and dropped it next to Yukari. "You look horrible. Eat something before you pass out. We're here, so whatever's wrong can wait."

Yukari quickly wolfed down the breakfast, and finished off a bottle of water that had been left by the watchers.

When she had finished, Kay sat down next to her, and put her arm around Yukari's shaking shoulders. "All right, you ready to head back? You gave us quite a scare. We'll get you to the infirmary, let you get some real sleep."

Naomi pulled a bag from the jeep. "We got you some cake, but that can wait until you're feeling better. Perhaps this will help. I know you had some friends that liked stuffed animals, and I saw this at the museum shop at the Sensha-Do federation HQ, and figured if you didn't want it you'd know someone else that would." She pulled out what looked to be a stuffed representation of a tank, and extended it towards Yukari. "I was going to get the stuffed Sherman, but since it was for your friends I thought you'd want a Panz…"

Seeing the Panzer IV, recognizable even in chibi, stuffed form, Yukari broke down again. Kay could make out the occasional words amidst the sobs. "It was…. It was all… all for nothing. We had… had won. She was… free… was happy."

"Ok. Stuffed tank: Bad idea," commented Arisa.

Naomi moved to stuff the tank back into the bag, but it was snatched out of her hands by Yukari, who hugged it to her chest.

"Arisa, get the jeep started. Naomi, get in the back," ordered Kay, still clutching Yukari. When they had complied, Kay picked Yukari up, carried her over and sat her next to Naomi. "Hold her," Kay ordered. Naomi put her arm around Yukari's shoulders while Kay jumped into the front passenger seat. "Get to the infirmary. On the double."

"The school infirmary?" asked Arisa, as the jeep shot out of the garage.

"The main one." Most School Carriers, being at sea, had the occasional need to handle emergencies, so they had what was effectively a small hospital aboard as a main infirmary, with smaller traditional school infirmaries in each of the school departments.

With Arisa at the wheel, the jeep shot through the streets of Saunders, and they were quickly at the main infirmary. While Naomi and Arisa eased Yukari out of the jeep, Kay stormed up to the desk. "One of my team members is having a bit of a nervous breakdown. I need a quiet room where she can rest and not be disturbed." When Yukari stumbled in, escorted by the other two girls, the nurse quietly led them to a private room. Yukari collapsed into the bed, still clutching the stuffed toy.

"You want me to keep watch?" asked Arisa.

"You look almost as bad as Oddball," said Kay. "Get some sleep yourself. And… thanks for looking after her. Naomi, you were up early to get the plane ready for our flight back. You go back too. I'll keep watch here." She grabbed a chair and parked herself next to the door.

A couple of hours later, Yukari recovered her senses to find herself looking at an unfamiliar ceiling. She remembered the previous day's revelations, remembered the breakdown and remembered her new friends being there for her.

She slowly got to her feet and opened the door. Kay was in a chair propped up against the wall. Hearing the door opening, she turned. "Yukari! How are you doing?"

"Better, I think. Do you have time to talk?"

"Sure, anything. First, are you sure you are feeling up to it?" Kay asked.

"Yeah, I am. It's important. I think Naomi and Arisa should be there as well," Yukari replied.

"Naomi called a few minutes ago. They both got cleaned up and are back at the clubroom. Does that work for you?"

Yukari nodded, and went back and grabbed the stuffed toy from the bed and followed Kay out to the jeep.

"I talked to the Infirmary staff. Since there wasn't any real injury, you're good to head home," Kay informed Yukari. "We made sure everything was handled smoothly."

"Kay, why is there a tank parked in front of the infirmary?"

"One of the girls saw us take you to the infirmary, and asked what was wrong. Arisa told them it was just a case of nerves from working too hard, and that under no circumstances were you to be disturbed. A few of them took it literally," Kay explained, as she waved to the tank commander lounging in the cupola.

A few minutes later, they were back in the jeep driving to the Tankery team garages, the tank following along behind. The trip was quiet. A few curious tourists seemed briefly interested, but were soon deterred by their escort's attention, in the form of a turret traversing in their direction.

When they got to the clubroom, they found Arisa and Naomi had brought food and drinks. Yukari, still hungry, eagerly ate in silence, the obvious questions waiting until she was truly ready.

When she had finished, Kay asked her, "Are you up for talking now, or do you want to wait until tomorrow?"

"I'm sorry about this," Yukari replied.

"No need to apologize," said Naomi, and Arisa nodded.

"What did you remember?" asked Kay.

"I had a friend at Ōarai. She was a transfer student from Kuromorimine. The Student Council pressured her into joining the team, which she really did not want to do. From what I heard, she had a bit of a nervous breakdown herself when she found out Ōarai was even forming a team." Yukari fought to push away her tears.

"Is this the one you were talking about when you saw the toy tank?" Kay asked.

"Yeah. They knew she had experience, you see. She was the only one we had that did. And she had switched schools to get away from tanks."

"So they forced her to do it at Ōarai. And given that you guys didn't really know what you were doing, you needed her," supplied Naomi. "You got her to train you."

"Kuromorimine's Sensha-do team's really big on the structured, disciplined training. It's not fun. I think I'd rather be at Pravda," added Arisa. "But one girl couldn't train you that way, and, given that she got away from that sort of thing, she wouldn't have even if she could."

"Did she have fun at Ōarai?" asked Kay.

"Yeah, in the end, she found that Sensha-Do, if she could do it at her own pace, could still be fun, and because of her, we all ended up having fun."

"And so unlike this 'other timeline', here you discovered she's still stuck at Kuromorimine, possibly because of something that happened differently with the last tournament," Kay guessed.

"Yeah. In the... other last tournament, she did something that cost Kuromorimine the match against Pravda. That was their first defeat in ten years. That was the final straw that caused her to leave."

"Was she in the Panzer III? The one that slid into the river?" asked Arisa.

"No, she abandoned her tank to rescue the Panzer III crew. That's the difference between the other timeline and this one."

Arisa jumped onto the computer and called up something. "You called up video from the ceremony just before you… got upset. There weren't a lot of students at the Tournament opening ceremony, especially from Kuromorimine. Are you telling me you studied Tankery under, and Ōarai's team was commanded by…"

"…by my friend, Miho." Yukari collapsed onto the table, sobbing.

Naomi and Arisa's jaws dropped in unison.

"Nishizumi Miho, daughter of Nishizumi Shiho, the head of the Nishizumi school of Sensha-Do, and younger sister of Nishizumi Maho, the two-time High School Sensha-Do National Tournament champion commander," Kay completed the name. "That Miho. The girl who commanded the Kuromorimine flag tank, Tiger 217, in the match with Pravda last year and is, as of yesterday, this year's commander of Kuromorimine's Sensha-Do team."

Arisa turned the monitor around to show a girl in Kuromorimine's panzer gray uniform, watching the opening ceremony for the National Championship from the audience. She had none of the life, energy or the happiness, that Yukari had remembered that she had as Ōarai's commander.

"I had just assumed Miho had gone on to some other school without Tankery," said Yukari, when she had recovered enough to speak.

"Well, then," said Kay, "our course of action is clear at this point. Oddball's our friend. This girl was her friend. They need to be friends again. It's obvious what we have to do: get to the finals and, hopefully, beat Kuromorimine."

"A legendary quest to bring down the most dangerous enemy to save the girl? I'm in," said Naomi.

"It does soften my loss in that practice match that I wasn't up against a newbie but against a Nishizumi-trained veteran, and you gave me a win over St. Gloriana. I'm in," said Arisa.

"You in, Oddball?" Kay looked at Yukari.

"Yes. For Miho."

Why had she assumed that in this world Miho had managed to escape the unhappiness she'd escaped in the other world? Miho had been just as much of a fixture at Ōarai as everyone else, and Yukari had forgotten she'd just started at Ōarai in April. For that matter, why had she assumed that Ōarai's closing was the only change in this world? Obviously, the previous Sensha-Do tournament had happened before that. Could there be a connection between the two?

"One thing I don't get, though," said Naomi. "You and Arisa came up with that plan we used against Darjeeling, presumably based on what beat her the first time. The Nishizumi School is based on powerful, direct attacks, yet your plan was defensive. Nishizumi herself trained you, yet you fight trickier than Arisa, not like one of the drilled Kuromorimine team members."

"We actually never beat Darjeeling in a match," Yukari admitted. "But, yeah, I went with what we tried last time, modified based on how St. Gloriana reacted."

"You would kind of have to play tricky to win with that pitiful Ōarai lineup, though," Kay commented. "To win, Ōarai would have needed someone capable of thinking creatively and tactically while on the move and, most importantly, someone capable of teaching those skills to others, because you can't always radio back to command for orders. If you can get your entire team able to do that well enough to beat Kuromorimine, you can probably take on anyone else with no problems."

"We actually won most matches by the slimmest of margins. Well, except for Anzio. We won that match pretty easily," said Yukari.

"You were still learning at the time," replied Kay. "Just look what you can do now."

"This means I'm getting you to sit down and tell me what you remember about the other Ōarai students. It sounds like there's possibly a whole team of Nishizumi-trained Kuromorimine-killing Tankery badasses out there, and I am not passing up trying to recruit any of them." Arisa stopped when she saw the look Kay was giving her. "Though I will promise to be nice about it," she added.

"Well, one thing's for sure, I am not sitting out our next match against St. Gloriana. That's going to be fun," said Naomi cryptically.

"Oh?" asked Arisa.

"Kay's always been the type that would prefer to lose a close, fair fight than win a lopsided rout. She's a good sport that way. You'll see." was Naomi's only response.

"I'm in Tankery because it's fun and exciting, and this season definitely looks extra fun and exciting." Kay smiled at the group, then turned to Yukari. "Are you feeling better, Oddball? For this to work, we need your planning skills, starting with our match against Anzio." Yukari nodded to Kay. "All right, let's get to work."

Next: Part XV: The Road Towards Glory

Author's Note: The first big hint that this isn't just a 'main character woke up in an alternate world' excuse plot, the author actually tried setting things up.