Always Advancing
A Girls und Panzer fanfic
Part LII: Ōarai
by Civilis
"I can't believe I'm really getting a chance to do Sensha-Do!" said the girl standing in front of the Ōarai High School Sensha-Do garage. "I'm glad we're finally getting a team!"
"Calm down already, Akari" said another girl. "They'll open the place soon enough."
"You should be more excited, Ryoko! I wonder what tanks we'll have?" said Akari. "An IS-2, or perhaps a Konigstiger!"
"It's probably whatever they could scrape together. We're not going to have anything cool," Ryoko replied.
Finally, the first garage doors were opened, and the students made their way inside.
Once the corruption involved with the closure had been exposed, the Ministry of Education reclaimed the Ōarai School Carrier. After a full refit, Ōarai High School reopened for students. It had taken a few years to make sure the school was functioning properly, and the Ministry of Education had just now given the school the go ahead to form its own Sensha-Do team.
The school would have been unrecognizable in many ways to the students of the last class to attend Ōarai. For one thing, the school was coeducational. Although Sensha-Do was a woment's sport, there were some boys in their blazers filing in to the garage alongside the girls in their seifuku. The team always would need mechanics and transport personnel, and it was a surefire way to meet girls.
The JGSDF officer standing against the wall of the garage went unnoticed as the students wandered in to stare at the tanks they would be using.
"See?" said Ryoko. "They're crap. That's a Stuart and a Sherman. Nothing special."
Akari stared at the tanks. "Why do they have Saunders emblems, do you think? Oh, look, it's a T-34!"
"It's a T-34/76. They probably got it cheap from Pravda. It still has the red emblem on the side."
"There's not just a T-34/76," Akari said, pointing to the tank behind it. "There's also a KV-1."
"Still crap. That's not going to stop a Panther," Ryoko scoffed.
"Look! British tanks from St. Gloriana! That's a Matilda and a Crusader!"
"We're getting the cast-offs from the other schools," Ryoko replied. "Look, we've even got tanks from Anzio and Chi-Ha-Tan. What are we going to do with a CV-33 anyways? The Type 97 Chi-Ha Shinhoto and the Semovente 75/18 are almost as useless."
Akari stopped and grinned at the next tank in line. "That's not useless. That's a Panther from Kuromorimine! And there's a JagdPanzer IV as well!"
"Okay, we have two good tanks. Three, if you count the StuG IIIG over there with the Keizoku emblem. That's ten tanks, three of them good. What chance do we have against Saunders or Pravda, much less Chi-Ha-Tan or Kuromorimine?" said Ryoko.
"Eleven tanks," Akari said. "There's another in the back behind the chalkboard."
"That's a Panzer IV D. What could that ever do?" said Ryoko.
Akari walked over to the chalkboard. On it, in big letters, was written, 'Welcome Ōarai Sensha-Do Team!'
"It looks like there are a bunch of names on it." She read over the names and stopped, and her smile turned into a full grin. "Ryoko, Ryoko, come over here and look!"
Ryoko walked over to the chalkboard. "It's probably the girls who prepared the tanks for us. What do you want me to see?"
Akari pointed to the first name on the list.
Ryoko read it. "Nishizumi Miho? The Nishizumi Miho?" she said incredulously.
"I recognize some of these names! This one is an actress! The ones next to the volleyball drawing were in the Olympics!"
"Why does it say 'Former Ōarai Sensha-Do Team' at the top here?" asked Ryoko.
"The other side says 'and friends'," Akari responded. She looked over the names. "Ryoko, look at this side!"
"Nishizumi Maho? Shimada Alice?" Ryoko read. " 'Duce' Anchovy? Darjeeling? Nonna? These are all Sensha-Do legends! Why would they care about a little school like Ōarai?"
"Attention!" A woman's voice came from the back of the room. The woman who stepped forward, clad in a JGSDF officer's uniform, had her naturally fluffy hair pulled back and secured with a hair band.
"I am Captain Akiyama, of the JGSDF's high school liaison program for Sensha-Do, and I am here as your instructor for this year to get Ōarai's Sensha-Do program off the ground running, to establish the traditions and relationships that make a team work. Like tanks, Sensha-Do teams always advance. No matter what hardships you encounter this year, if you can push past them, you can achieve the impossible. Above all, though, remember, this is high school, and you are here to have fun and make friends."
In the crowd of students, Ryoko scoffed. "What's impossible is winning with these tanks, especially with an attitude like that."
The woman smiled and grinned. "You'd be surprised as to what is and isn't impossible. Let me tell you a story, about the last Ōarai Team…"
Author's Note: That's all (for now, hopefully). Thank you for reading this far!