Always Advancing

A Girls und Panzer fanfic

Part L: What You Are In The Dark

by Civilis

Author's Request: Please keep spoilers out of the reviews. I don't know how good I was at keeping this chapter's revelations hidden; hopefully, at least some people figured it out, and those that didn't at least find it understandable looking back. It's hard to gauge these things from inside when you're writing it because of course it makes sense to you.

Yukari had moved to what, for her, was a more comfortable spot on the back deck of a tank at the edge of the party and was watching everyone when she heard someone clamber up and sit down next to her.

"So, what happens now?" Kay asked. "If this was a science fiction story, you'd wake up in your bed in your normal world."

Kay was surprised by the tone of weary resignation and sadness in the normally cheerful girl's reply. "I don't think it's going to be that simple." Yukari turned to the blonde commander. "Kay, do you have any memories of the other world?"

"Nope."

Yukari looked around at the party. Since most of the crews were done eating, many had moved away from the food and were just enjoying themselves.

She could see Hana with her hand covering her mouth to stifle her laughter as Rosehip attempted to improve one of the decorative Ikebana arrangements in some sort of speed-arrangement test. Off to the side, the six Movie Club freshmen filmed the attempt.

Over at the food trucks, Erwin was back to cooking spätzle for the Kuromorimine crews, who, given their number, had waited longer for food, and Saori and Pepperoni had stepped in to help. Nearby, Anchovy herself was handing the plates out. Yukari watched as she passed one to Miho, who had stepped up to help.

Saemonza, Oryou, and Nishi and her crew had found a spot to set out a blanket for a cup of tea in traditional Japanese style, and were keeping Fukuda entertained. Somehow, they had dragged in Assam to join them.

A volleyball bounced across the lot before Naomi ran over to retrieve it. She carried it back to the net, where the four Volleyball Club members faced off against her and an improvised team of Darjeeling, Rukuriri, and Klara. Yukari couldn't tell who was winning, but both sides were playing a good game.

Meanwhile, the four members of the Auto Club were bent over the engine of Tiger 217 along with a couple of Kuromorimine mechanics, wary of another accident.

A crowd of team members from a number of schools had gathered around Caesar and Carpaccio, who were acting as judges for a loader arm-wrestling competition. As she watched, the crowd hushed as Nina and Orange Pekoe stepped up to the table.

Sadoko, Pazomi, and Gomoyo were walking around picking up trash. The three had managed to coerce Arisa into helping.

In the back, Anzu and Yuzu were helping Momo with the dishes.

In a quiet corner, Nonna tucked a sleeping Katuysha in under a blanket. After a moment, she put another one over Mako, who dozed off next to the short Pravda tanker.

Yukari's voice was low, and very sad. "Originally, I wanted nothing more than to wake up, back at Ōarai. But I've realized it's probably for the best this way. These friendships here," she said, gesturing to the group around them, "they're different, but they're still just as important. I don't want to lose them, either. My friendship with you is just as valuable as my friendship with Hana, Saori, Mako, and Miho."

Kay smiled. "I'm glad to be your friend. If anything like this ever happens to me, I certainly hope to be as strong in reuniting with all my friends as you were, including you."

Yukari managed a weak smile. "I'm like a tank, no choice but to keep advancing. Tanks always advance."

"That's the spirit!" said Kay, as she threw her arm around Yukari's shoulders. "Now, we just need to get in touch with those three gamers again, and we'll be all finished. If you want to go look, they can't have gone far. I heard Nonna say they took the road north."

Yukari suddenly sat up straight, fully alert. She began studying the crowd of students in more detail.

"Who are you looking for, Yukari?" Kay asked.

"Have you seen Maho?" Yukari asked.

"Not for some time. Why?"

"I… need to talk to her. Can I borrow a jeep?" Yukari asked her commander.

"Sure. Mind if I tag along?" Kay replied. "I wanted to congratulate her on a well fought battle."

"No, just… can I ask that you keep this a secret?"

"Okay. Is this a fun secret?" Kay asked, now curious.

"It's a secret secret. It's nothing bad, just…" she trailed off.

It didn't take much persuasion for Kay to borrow a jeep, and the two set off, Yukari behind the wheel. Her tank license didn't include driving, and shouldn't have applied to wheeled vehicles, but nobody was stopping Sensha-Do team members. Yukari headed north out of Oarai, across the main Naka River. Once across the bridge, Yukari headed down toward the ocean and the docks. At the docks she slowed, and started looking along the boats docked there.

"What are we looking for?" asked Kay as she scanned the docks.

"Anything out of the ordinary. Ideally, we'd be looking for a yellow Kubelwagen, but they're small. The tank transporter would be bigger, but they probably hid it. "

They drove along through the quiet evening, checking the docks.

After a few minutes of searching, Kay gestured for them to slow down. "Yukari, does a landing craft count as 'out of the ordinary'?" she asked.

Yukari looked around. "That might be it. Where?"

Kay pointed to a vintage, well maintained landing craft, painted a generic olive green color, parked at one of the docks, near a boat ramp.

"That's probably them," Yukari reasoned as she pulled the jeep over. "Look around for anything else out of the ordinary."

The two looked over the buildings in the area in the quiet darkness.

Suddenly, Kay went alert. "Hear that?" she whispered.

Yukari could just make out a stringed instrument of some sort, being played softly.

The two followed the sound to a disused industrial building. Despite the no trespassing signs, there was faint flickering light spilling out through cracks around the plywood boarding up the building.

"This is our place," whispered Yukari. She crept over to the door and tried to open it silently, but it made a creak that may as well have been a roar. When it had subsided, the faint music had stopped.

The two headed inside into an office overlooking a cavernous warehouse, empty save for some abandoned packing material, some furniture too badly worn to be worth salvaging, and, faintly visible in the back near the warehouse's garage doors, the tank transporter with its shrouded cargo. The place was lit only by a wastecan filled with burning cardboard way in the back by the transporter. Still, the shadows produced by the flickering light it provided suggested someone was moving around behind the tank.

"Everyone, it seems we have visitors," said a voice from the darkness. "Come, join us by the fire." The music started again.

Yukari led the way down to the warehouse floor and across to the transporter.

From the crew compartment of the halftrack, a red headed pig-tailed girl in a windbreaker, chewing on a grass stem, popped into view. "Its two Saunders girls," said the girl, "want me to send them away?"

"No need," said the voice. "If they are here, they know why they have come."

"Actually," admitted Kay, "I don't know why I'm here. This is Oddball's mission, I'm along for the ride."

The music stopped again. "There are times when we all must dance to someone else's tune," the voice said. "Oddball is Akiyama Yukari, correct? Yukari, your friends are here. You can come on out, girls."

There was a pause.

"Aki, can you see if you can get our other guests attention?" said the voice.

Another small girl with light hair in casual clothes climbed up on the tank from behind it. She knocked on the top of the tank. When that didn't get a response, she opened the hatch and leaned in. "Hey! You three! Company!" she yelled. She turned to Yukari. "They're in the middle of a game. It will be a minute or two."

"So, our mystery tank is courtesy of Keizoku." declared Kay. "You can come out, Mika. I met you at last year's tournament, and someone saw you here at the match. Thanks for helping us by kicking in a tank… I understand why you can't take credit."

"Actually," said Yukari, "while they did help us by bringing it, this tank isn't theirs. They just made sure it got here and are still here to make sure it gets back home."

Mika, wearing casual clothes with her pale blue and gray hat, walked around from behind the tank. "Nekota told me you knew. Yes, Kay, the fates decreed that we not intervene directly, merely serve as the conduit for someone else's help this day."

Nekota popped up from the Panzer IVs top hatch, still wearing her Oarai uniform. "Hi, Yukari. Hello, Kay."

Yukari gave her a wave. "Hey, Nekota. It was good to see you three today. Thanks for coming all this way, and good work with that Konigstiger."

Nekota climbed out of the tank, followed by Momonga and Piyotan. "I'm glad we could make it for the final level, nyaa" Nekota replied. "I just wish we could have chatted with you sooner."

"At least we didn't get knocked out without firing a shot this time," Piyotan added. "I was so disappointed we couldn't beat Maho."

For her part, the smaller driver jogged over and hugged Yukari. "It was good to see everyone again," she said.

Yukari winced at the tight squeeze. "You three seem to have gotten back in shape!" she managed to get out.

Momonga realized she was accidentally crushing Yukari, and let her go. "Yeah, well, with our commander and our school…"

Yukari waved her off, "I understand. I hope we can find a way to get you guys back into things again that won't get you in trouble," said Yukari. "Speaking of which, is your commander here?"

Nekota looked at Mika. "Uh… she's not here right now."

Mika merely smiled.

"Actually, I'm right here," a serious voice said from near the garage door.

Kay, who had been watching the cheerful reunion, had not noticed the newcomer until she called attention to herself. The girl behind her had shoulder-length gray hair and penetrating blue eyes. The Oarai uniform she was wearing was a little too big for her, and looked worn almost to the point of falling apart. Unlike the other girls, she was alert, focused and tense.

"Hello again, Erika," said Yukari.

"Another friend from Oarai?" Kay asked.

"No, she's from a team we played against… last year," Yukari explained. "Kay, this is Erika Itsumi."

Erika grunted in acknowledgement. "So, you're this Yukari everyone is talking about. Why are you here?" she asked.

"Why are any of us here?" Mika pondered.

"I'm here because Yukari is here," said Kay.

"In a way, aren't we all here because of Yukari?" the Keizoku commander asked her Saunders counterpart.

"Oooh, good one," said Kay.

Erika palmed her face and sighed. Yukari gave her a sympathetic look. "Look, yes, I'm the one that was in command of these three jokers and their tank," the Panzer IV commander admitted. "I was no longer in Sensha-Do after... a mistake I made last year in the semifinals."

"Were you in charge of the tanks protecting Miho's flag Tiger?" Yukari asked her.

Erika glared at her angrily for a moment, and Yukari took a step back away.

"Yes," the gray-haired girl finally answered.

"There was no way you could predict that the lead tank would slide like that," Mika told her.

"Still, a mistake was made, and they weren't going to blame a Nishizumi," Erika said, emphasizing the family name. "So I was the next in line. I thought I was done for, but this year, I was asked to teach these three the basics, and things snowballed from there."

"You did very well," Kay sincerely told her.

"We had good teachers, nyaa," Nekota said as she moved to stand next to Erika.

"Regardless of what happened last year," said Yukari, "today you got to do Sensha-Do again. I'm here partly because I want to find a way for these three to keep having a chance to do Sensha-Do. They worked well with you."

"That they did," said another voice from outside the building. Ami Chouno stepped out from behind the edge of the garage door, holding a paper bag under her arm.

"Your landing craft is not helping on the concealment front," Kay told Mika.

"Actually, we had a helicopter shadow the halftrack as it left the staging area and noted where it went," Ami said. "That made finding the place easy. I didn't expect to find you two here, Kay and Yukari."

"Those two had no part in this," said Mika, suddenly serious. "Yukari figured it out during the match, I think. Kay still doesn't know."

"We are completely innocent, unless it would be awesome," said Kay. "Whatever it is we are being accused of."

"Relax. We don't suspect Saunders of cheating. Although some of the judges would really like to find something to bust you for for having to go through all Arisa's sandbags and not finding anything but sand," Ami said.

She turned to Erika. "Now you, on the other hand. The only reason I didn't stop the match right then and there at the start was that you and your friends actually handed me all the paperwork to make this technically legal. I couldn't believe that someone would do this to rig the match yet still submit all the proper paperwork to document what they did."

"So the paperwork had their real school of origin?" Yukari asked. "I've never had to fill it out a temporary transfer form personally, but it's not surprising it lists which school a student comes from."

"And of all the schools to 'transfer' to, you picked them..." Ami gestured to Mika. "While Keizoku has a tradition of 'lend-leasing' both tanks and students, none of the judges have ever heard of them ever having the paperwork for them," said Ami. Mika whistled innocently as the JGSDF officer continued, "any other match, you could have just claimed to be Keizoku students who had lost your paperwork, but here the ministry would have interjected. However, you handed us a perfect set of documentation listing exactly what you were doing, hoping we wouldn't call you on it."

"Why didn't you?" Erika asked the officer.

Ami turned to face her. "Because we respect the spirit of Sensha-Do as well," she said.

Kay and Yukari's eyes widened in unison.

The instructor, for the first time Yukari could remember, actually started to instruct the students around her. "There are a lot of situations that can crop up that aren't directly addressed in the written rules; the situation this afternoon where both sides physically couldn't reach each other, for example. In those cases, we judges have to make a determination. There are a set of generalized or sometimes even unwritten rules we go on, such as 'do not endanger the safety of the players or bystanders', for one. Since they're generalized or unwritten, people often overlook them. For example, last year during one of the matches one of the tanks slid into the water and submerged."

Erika, somehow, managed not to flinch or even react beyond shifting her gaze to the floor. Obliviously, Ami continued her lecture.

"The crews at the scene on both sides should have stopped the match and helped in recovery, but the rules don't specifically cover the situation. No written rules were actually violated. Still, the right thing for a Sensha-Do player to do would have been to help. This is a sport, not a war. A lot of people, adults especially, take this too seriously. I'm guilty of this myself."

Ami turned back to a still motionless Erika. "The Ministry's actions… Renta's actions, even before it became clear they were in support of his criminal scheme… they were in clear violation of the spirit of Sensha-Do even while they demanded we hold you to the letter of the rules. In your case, by following the rules as written even though it could get you in trouble, you four indicated that you were also adhering to the spirit of the sport. In that spirit, we decided to trust you and gave you a chance."

She paused for a moment. "I kept a close eye on you during the match, and I had other judges review the footage afterwards. Everyone thinks that duel was clean… if not one of the best Sensha-do fights we've ever seen. Your sportsmanship during the match suggested that the trust wasn't unfounded."

To Yukari, it seemed as if a weight had been lifted from Erika's shoulders. The girl subconsciously straightened up and raised her eyes to meet the instructors.

Ami turned to Mika. "We normally grant Keizoku some leeway with respect to the letter of the rules because you guys always seem to follow their spirit."

For her part, Mika just smiled and shrugged.

Ami turned to Yukari, and studied her critically for a moment. "That little stunt you and Arisa pulled pushed the edge of what I can allow… but the Anzio student council declined to press charges, so you two are in the clear. Besides, your behavior after the Anzio match made up for it. For that matter, now that Renta's scheme has been revealed and dealt with, you all impressed me so much this tournament. On the field, we've seen some of the best high school… no, some of the best Sensha-Do matches we've ever had. And off the field, there's an interschool camaraderie I've never seen before. You even pulled Kuromorimine into it, somehow."

The woman shifted her posture out of instructor mode and everyone visibly relaxed. "And I can't wait to see what you guys do in the future… like that thing with the longbow," said Ami, in a less serious tone of voice. "That girl with the headband and chest protector from Anzio submitted a research report with footnotes! And the judges are going to allow it just to see what she does with it! This crazy stuff doesn't happen at the university level."

Yukari smiled at Ami. "You don't know the half of if. Over this season, I think we've all come to the conclusion that we're here to have fun, even if everyone finds fun in different ways."

Ami chuckled. "I can see! You're something of a celebrity, Yukari. I don't know how but, somehow, you're always at the center of what's going on. This is your first year of Sensha-Do, right?"

Yukari, not knowing how to explain, managed a "eh, sort of…"

The officer took a step back. "Relax, I won't pry. Although I seem to have ended up doing it anyways, I didn't come here to lecture anyone. For that matter, at least for what happened today, there's nothing for me to lecture you for."

Ami turned to Erika and smiled warmly. "If anyone from the Federation asks, I would swear that I believe that your actions conformed to both the letter and spirit of Sensha-Do, since neither side threw the fight or otherwise cheated. And I won't say anything if they don't ask."

"So why are you here?" Erika wearily asked her.

"Honestly, I'm curious. I want to find out why," Ami said.

"Why? Why what?" Erika asked.

"Ami's here for the same reason I am, although I'm sure I know the answer," Yukari said. "She wants to know why one of Kuromorimine's top commanders would recruit an old friend that had left the team 'voluntarily', set her a up with a tank, and have her train up three supposed total newcomers, then send them into battle against her own school, legitimately expecting them to give their all."

Kay blinked and turned to look at the brown Panzer IV in Oarai markings. "Kuromorimine? That's a Kuromorimine Panzer IV?" she said, incredulously.

"They have enough of them that one would not be noticed. Especially if it was borrowed by Maho herself," Yukari explained to her stunned commander. "It's not like they're using them in the tournament."

"And those four are Kuromorimine students?" Kay asked, apparently the only one out of the loop.

The three gamers nodded. "They had a good Computer Programming program, nyaa," Nekota sheepishly replied.

Momonga shuffled her feet nervously. "We didn't quite realize how strict they were…"

Details of the conversation began to register in Kay's brain. "Wait, did you say Nishizumi Maho was behind this? Is that why you were looking for her earlier? She certainly wasn't on our side at the meeting at the Ministry."

"She knew Renta would likely intervene to rig the match against us, although I'm sure she didn't know why beyond that he's a jerk. She knew we had a chance against Kuromorimine if he didn't interfere, even with the Maus. The rules she proposed stopped Renta from doing something like bring in the University Strengthened Team or change the rules to allow the use of a siege mortar," Yukari explained. "At the same time, they allowed her to get the Panzer IV here with its crew to join up with us."

"That sounds oddly specific," said Kay.

"Renta did try to put pressure on the Federation to make some rule changes that would have given Kuromorimine more of an advantage, but Shiho Nishizumi shot them all down," Ami replied. "Some of the changes were things Shimada-sensei wanted, but she backed Nishizumi up. About the only time I've seen those two cooperate in years. Heck, I should thank you all for another miracle: those two heading off to mooch off that Russian military envoy is the closest I've seen them in a long time. That's not for you kids, anyways… back to Maho. You knew she was on your side at the Ministry?" she asked Yukari.

"What sealed it was that she just so happened to be the one to pick the location for our fight," Yukari answered. "If we had picked Ōarai, the Ministry would have been suspicious, and would have moved the fight when they found out how many former Ōarai students were on our team".

"I had just thought we got lucky. So Keizoku was just a go-between?" said Kay.

"Mika agreed to help because she's friends with Maho," Yukari continued. "The whole thing was Maho's idea, probably down to the paint job. It's just a coincidence that it fit in our own marking scheme with the animals."

"Few things in the world are truly a coincidence," said Mika.

Piyotan smiled. "The Ōarai insignia and the Anglerfish were our idea, piyo."

"We did consider joining ourselves," Aki cheerfully followed up, "but Mika said that this was something you had to do for yourselves. We had fun just watching."

"And eating," Mikko added. "You guys should consider switching to cooking."

"I used Mika's spare hat because I knew I would probably need to fight unbuttoned," Erika explained. "Mika loaned it to me to reduce the chance I would be recognized if I needed to fight that way. I was hoping to stay inside the tank, but in order to fight Maho, I had to risk it."

Ami was becoming increasingly puzzled. "What I don't understand is why Maho risked her own reputation by aiding the other team in the match. She took the greatest risk in hoping that we would let the tank pass. Even though we let it go, either Miho or any of the other commanders could have asked for the paperwork and if they had called an objection it would have cost her the match and her career in Sensha-Do."

"She did it for her sister, Miho," said Yukari. "She wants Miho to be happy, just like we do."

From behind them came a most unexpected voice. "I did it for Ōarai," said Maho, walking into the light.

It was Yukari's turn to blink in surprise. "For Ōarai? Why would you do that for us?"

"I did it because you were nice to my sister, and she was happy, in the dream world. I found those three at Kuromorimine, then I saw others from Ōarai. I could repay you, and hope you could work another miracle," Maho said. "Because of Renta, you had a chance."

Ami struggled to take in all of Maho's comment. "You wanted to lose?"

"Miho was unhappy keeping the undefeated Nishizumi reputation going for mother, especially after last year's incident. She needed to lose a fight fairly. She would know if I threw the match, and it would have broken her. So I needed to do my best to win, and hope we lost," said Maho. "When we were trapped, and they offered to call the match, I despaired. But you finished the match, fairly."

"Why is Ōarai so important in all of this?" asked Ami, picking out another thing she didn't understand. "I mean, Renta's closing the school was only a small part of his scheme, and yet Oarai keeps popping up too much for it to be a coincidence. That dance you did, it's a local festival thing, right? Does your team have that many former Oarai students?"

"It's rather a long and unbelievable story." Yukari said as she checked her phone's clock. "Maho probably wants to make sure these four get back on the road, and the party is probably just getting good, so we should be going. Actually, Kay, would you mind if I got a lift back from Captain Chouno? I might be able to explain some things."

"Sure." Kay turned to the Keizoku commander, and extended a hand. "Mika, we cleared up the funding issue, and they will almost certainly be relaxing the restrictions for next year, so I look forward to seeing you and your tanks on the field."

Mika shook Kay's hand warmly. "Our tanks look forward to seeing the field again. As for us, we pride ourselves on our accuracy. Maybe Naomi will see us first, if she's lucky."

"I think given the situation its best if this stays a mystery," said Ami, pulling a wad of papers out of her bag, "With Renta and his corrupt reforms out of the picture, there's no reason that this was anything other than a very unusual exhibition match. Therefore, we can leave the exact nature of the Ōarai Panzer IV a secret."

As Ami turned to walk away, the transfer paperwork identifying the crew of the Panzer IV vanished into the wastebasket with the bonfire. "With that, we're finished. I'm going to bring my car around," Ami called from the door.

The group was silent as the papers turned to ash.

It was Maho's voice that broke the silence from the girls. "Yukari, thank you."

"What for?" Yukari asked.

"For saving Miho." she replied, simply.

"Miho was… is, now, still and again, my friend. No need to thank me, it's what friends do." Yukari replied. "And it was a team effort. You helped as well, by making sure Erika, Nekota, Piyotan, and Momonga… Koume, as well… all made it here."

"No. You started this. I managed to find and send you one tank. The only reason there was a team to send it to was because of your hard work," Maho replied. The three gamers nodded along.

Kay put her arm around Yukari's shoulders. "I think you accomplished both of your objectives. I think you saved Sensha-Do as well."

The rest of the girls looked at the blonde commander in surprise.

"What do you mean?" Yukari asked.

"Winning means that the Ministry won't try to do anything even without that jerk Renta around," Erika snarked. "We can get back to Sensha-Do as it should be."

"Not just that," Kay added as she gently squeezed Yukari's shoulders, "Even without Renta's corruption, it sounds like the sport was losing its… spirit, one might say. You heard Ami. It sounds like, thanks to us… ultimately, to you, she's rediscovered why she's into Sensha-Do. And not just her…"

"We all have," Nekota said as she walked up to stand next to Erika.

Erika scoffed, but Yukari could tell her heart wasn't in it. "Yeah, it was nice to be there one more time."

Kay released her, and walked around to grab Momonga and Piyotan by their shoulders and bring them forward. She grinned at Yukari. "What was it you said back when this was just gettings started? 'Tanks always advance'? Well, you've managed to get everyone moving with you, towards the future."

There was a honk from outside.

Kay released the two girls and started towards the door. As she walked, she turned back towards the four girls in Ōarai uniforms. "Now, I'm sure we'll see you all again some time. You're moving forward, now, so don't stop on us. You too, Maho, Mika and company."

"Yes, I'm looking forward to it," Maho replied.

"Looks like I have no choice," Erika grunted, but she was smiling slightly.

"Take care now!" Aki called out cheerfully.

"See you round, nyaa!" Nekota waved.

"Yep, see you guys!" Yukari waved back on her way through the door.

As Kay headed off to recover the jeep, Yukari hopped into Ami's waiting staff car to return to the main viewing area for the party. She turned to Ami, grinned, and said, "You won't believe this, but listen anyways. Let me tell you about Ōarai, my friends, and the greatest Sensha-Do team that never was…"

Next: Part LI: Advancing to the Future

Author's Note: There were several things I wanted from this story when I wrote it.

First, I wanted to tell a Girls und Panzer story, about friendship and tanks. The original story has so many characters, and a what-if alternate universe was a good way to tell a story where characters that didn't interact much in the original story got to work together.

When I got the idea to do the mental time travel story, the idea came together. While its funny to have a story where a character with perfect future knowledge makes a total mess of the original plot, I felt it would be far more interesting to have the story be one where the time-traveler's (in this case, Yukari) knowledge was imperfect because things were different. It was also a good excuse to do something that I've never really seen: a story where the characters realize they're in a mental time-travel story and act on it.

The twist finally revealed in this chapter was written before the first chapter was published, and the second thing I wanted was to see if I could make it work. The only problem was that I couldn't think of a way to do so without cheating in one respect: any mention of the name 'Erika' before the big reveal would spoil everything, so I had to hope that readers would catch that despite being a somewhat major character, she was never mentioned in the story, which parallels Yukari figuring out Erika's involvement because she didn't appear where she should have, and it only works for those that remember the original GuP story enough to spot the missing name.

As much as possible, I tried to write hints into the story. There's a mention of Kuromorimine having a reputation for technical skills in addition to it's Sensha-Do focus early on. At the start of chapter 37, the match between Pravda and Kuromorimine, Yukari realizes something's off about the Kuromorimine team. I did throw a few deliberate red herrings in, but by chapter 49, those should be cleared up, and hidden in that chapter is a recap of most of the evidence.

There's a major hint to what's going on is in Yukari's dream when she's knocked out. In addition to letting me use some visuals that were too good not to use, there's a line about Yukari getting the knowledge of the other world because she has a strong connection to both tanks and Miho. If you're thinking about it, though, there's someone else with both connections: Maho, and a lot of her appearance through the series is written with the knowledge she's looking out for Miho the whole time... exactly as she is in the original series.

If you noticed that some of Maho's behavior made no sense given the stated assumptions of the story, especially with regards to the mystery Anglerfish, then it's a short jump to figuring out what's going on and who Anglerfish's mystery commander is. Alternatively, if you guessed that Erika was the mystery commander by process of elimination, figuring out why she's where she is should point directly at Maho.

If this didn't make any sense to you, I apologize, and it's my fault in that I didn't think I could be completely fair. Either way, please let me know how well I did.