What can I say? I had fun writing the first chapter, let's get the next chapter started shall we?

CHAPTER 2

The gathering of the Ooarai boys was quite sizeable, similar to the ones they were used to in the previous semesters. This one was a little different. The email and text alerts said that this convening of the student body in the girls' gym was to be a gathering for displaying the intro videos for the required electives prior to the start of school. It was quite fine, seeing as the boys had all arrived in their apartments and shared houses. The Zuikaku's town's real estate and rental facilities were more than capable of handling their numbers, seeing as the academies had been operating well below their optimal student projections despite a much-needed boost in enrollment amongst the girls and the boys.

The crowd inside the large gym had been counted out to more than three thousand eight hundred, which was rather small compared to many of their other school ship counterparts who easily doubled those numbers, sometimes tripling them when they were at maximum capacity. It was also well-short of the six thousand that Ooarai could handle at their own maximum capacity. The law said that the school couldn't have classes larger than forty, and Ooarai's building was meant to hold a student body divided into fifty classes in each of the three grades divided amongst four floors of its main buildings. The schoolboard had hired additional staff, a good sign for prospective students who felt more emboldened to apply to the school as more and more lucrative programs were revealed. The revelation of a return of Ooarai to the High School Battle Federation was partially to credit for this, although the school's other programs were responsible for the larger success of the summer's increase in student applicants and entries.

Standing at the stage for the gym Kuri Iwata had a line of hall monitors standing in front of him on the ground as the boys of the school, divided in three distinct groups by a thin line between them, showed which were first, second, and third year students were sitting in front. Standing to either side were Osamu Taniuchi and Hisashi Tezuka.

"Okay everyone, thank you for being able to come today, I know school hasn't started yet but there are certain circumstances that make this meeting necessary. As many of you know Ooarai Boys Academy once boasted a winning Battle Team. However, the program was shut down many years ago, but during the last semester we made the decision to bring it back. To introduce you to the sport, we have a short video."

The three members of the student council got out of the way, and the gym was darkened as the projector hummed to life to show the video. On the screen was a solid one-hundred and sixty-man block of what were obviously college students from many years ago standing in frog-skin camouflage military uniform at rigid attention, looking serious staring straight ahead. Each of the people on screen had a Garand rifle and wore an M1935 Stahlehelm with the circular Allstars University Team logo on the sides of each helmet.

"The Way of Battle, the oldest and noblest of manly traditions made into a sport enjoyed by boys and men across the globe," Osamu began reading the speech that went with the video as another clip showed the young men bring their weapons up to be straight in front of their bodies, the 'present arms' position, "A sport that aims to turn boys into men by making them strong, polite, brave, tough, and honorable. You will become one with your team, coordinated and precise like a machine gun, fierce and brave like a bayonet, and honorable like the blade," the narration continued as the 'soldiers' conducted a perfect shoulder arms and right face to another camera angle and started marching forward, and then the screen changed to show a much larger force marching past crowds through the streets, "To become one with the soul of a warrior is to embrace the man you can become. To train in the Way of Battle you will become a better student, a better husband, a better worker, and a better man," the screen changed to overlook these blocks from above, a seemingly endless sea of helmets, uniforms, and rifles moving in perfect unison like reflections of the same individual, "If you join the Battle Team you will become stronger, healthier, and women from all over the world will throw themselves at you," the screen then changed once more to show a montage of different schools' uniforms and weapons in action, each from long ago, "Now is your chance to train your body, mind, and soul, join the Battle Team, and become the man you are destined to become."

The screen ended on the crack of a rifle and the echoing of the shot across the land with the title being repeated on the same white screen and black letters. Kuri, Osamu, and Hisashi returned to the front of the stage. But also standing there was Hoshi, wearing Ooarai's gray Battle Team M1943 fatigues and M1943 black boots with a gray patrol cap with the blue and white Ooarai seal on it below three gold vertical bars, signifying his team rank. His uniform also had the Ooarai flag on his shoulder on each sleeve and he had an empty patch section where a patch would have gone if he had one. He looked somewhat out of place being up there, forced to wear the uniform in front of his peers as a symbol. But he stood there all the same, and then Osamu began.

"As all of you know our school was saved from shutdown last year thanks to the effort of the girls' Tankery Team. We now must do our part as the Boys Academy of Ooarai to help keep our school open for the future. This school year will see the inaugural High School World Battle Team Championship, teams from across the world will compete for the title of first world champions. As such, all schools were asked to strengthen their teams," Osamu explained, and then Hisashi continued, and became the hype man he was born to be.

"Ooarai was once the best of the Japanese high school Battle Teams, we intend to return our school to its place of honor this year with your help, and with the help of our own Hoshi Oshima, son of the last Battle Team Commander, Noboru Oshima, and the grandson of Ooarai's greatest Battle Team Commander, Ryuji Oshima, the Dragon of Ooarai, we will return to the top. He is the latest progeny of the Oshima-Style of Battle, a revered school that has not been seen in the high school world in twenty years. To encourage you to join he and his team, we are offering certain benefits to those who sign up," Hisashi said quickly and Kuri continued.

"Those who perform well in the course will receive one-hundred meal tickets, two-hundred free passes if you are late, and…three times the credit you would receive from another class!" Kuri finished, revealing the same exact benefits as the girls were authorized to offer to those who joined Tankery.

This caused a massive stir amongst the guys in the gym but it was cut short when Hoshi stepped forward, his time to speak now upon them.

"To all of you sitting here today, know this," he started, putting on a face that hadn't been present in the student councils' meeting the day before, "You either hand in your choice of Battle Team today, or you do not sign up at all. I am only interested in taking on those who are committed, those want to be part of this team. This is the most brutal men's sport on the planet, we will train as such. Every school day and I mean every school day we will train, and we will train until the sun goes down, and then we will train some more. Joining this team will be the most demanding chapter of your lives. Those of you who wish to take this challenge, see me out by the Tankery Hangar with your elective sheet filled out once you are dismissed, and be ready to work. Tomorrow, and every day until school starts, we start training at oh-five hundred, and we will go until twenty-two-hundred. Once school starts, we will have mandatory workouts from oh-six hundred to oh-seven-thirty, and practice from sixteen-thirty to twenty-hundred on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. On Thursdays we will have full combat exercises that will go, at latest, to twenty-two hundred. Of course, your academic priorities will be respected, if you need to handle up on a large group project for any class you will be excused, training will be curtailed come exam time. But you will be required to provide proof of such commitments to your chain of command. That is all from me, Prez," he nodded and stepped off of the stage.

Flustered at having spoken like that in front of everyone he left the building, and was greeted by his four team officers, all of them wearing identical aviators. Each of them was a teammate of his back on his private league team, but every one of them had stepped up in responsibility to a position they'd never held before, just like Hoshi. First, there was his Team Vice Leader, Tetsu Chinen, a third-year like him, who was rather short in stature and shorter in temper and had a pair of gold bars on his patrol cap. Then there were the three second-year students, platoon leaders with one gold bar on their caps. They were the very capable and very aggressive Fujimori Triplets Kantaro, Morio, and Ryuichi, who, on the battlefield had more in common with a trio of a badgers than people. Each of the other four was a qualified rifle squad leader, having been squad leaders with Hoshi as their platoon leader back on the Dragons, Hoshi's family-run private team. They didn't have a fifth officer yet, no one else from his private team had left to join Ooarai's reborn team, and it would be best to see if there was someone who would rise to the forefront that they would be able to choose for their weapons platoon leader.

"So, how'd your speech go Commander?" the short Tetsu asked.

"Well, I didn't make anyone cry, and neither did I, so success?" Hoshi said as he put on his own aviator sunglasses, a carryover they'd all had from their days in the private team, everyone got a pair of these cool-looking sunglasses.

"Sounds fun," Tetsu said with a laugh as he and the triplets fell in with Hoshi as he started walking towards the large Tankery hangar where their own group of buildings was assembled behind it, protected by a chain-link fence in the grassy clearing they'd agreed-upon.

"How many ya think will sign up?" Morio asked as they continued walking and talking.

"I'm willing to bet…quite a few, there were some major waves when the president told them the bonuses of joining the team," Hoshi said as they got closer to the hangar, and he saw that one of the doors was partially open.

"Looks like the Tankery Team's up to something today," Tetsu noted as they got up to the building.

"They're having an open day to showcase their team. Sounded like they have some open seats," Hoshi explained.

"Your sister and her friends going to try and fill one?" Kantaro asked hopefully.

"Yes, and no!" Hoshi pointed back to the second-year.

"What's no?"

"No means you can't date my sister," Hoshi declared as he stopped in front of the building.

"I didn't say that!" Kantaro cried out rapidly.

"You were thinkin' it…" Hoshi said as Miho popped her head out from behind the door.

"Oh, Commander Oshima," she said, hearing Hoshi's voice, "I thought I heard you out here," the girl walked out and saw the boys there in uniform, "Excuse me, I'm sorry for interrupting."

"No that's okay, did the buildings out back get set up to your satisfaction? No way they're going to be getting in the way of your team?" Hoshi said as he took off his sunglasses quickly to go speak to her.

"Oh, yes, no problems from us," Miho stated, but looked as though she had something else to say before she was interrupted.

"Commander our first recruits," Tetsu called over, making Hoshi look over his shoulder to see a large group of boys walking over, well over a hundred, possibly up to two hundred.

"Let's get their names and make up the rosters," Hoshi nodded.

"Yes sir," the four of them stated firmly as one and saluted, and had the salute returned.

"Um Commander Oshima there was one thing before you go," Miho stepped forward, needing to relay something to Hoshi, so he nodded to his officers to proceed with the induction without him, "A man from the delivery company needed someone to sign for the shipment of your weapons and equipment. Someone from the school was here and he signed for it, he told me to give you these keys and this inventory," Miho held out a clipboard with a keychain taped onto it.

"Oh, the delivery came early," Hoshi said with a smile and took the clipboard and put the keychain into his pocket as he read the inventory list, and then his smile turned into a frown as he read along, "Oh no, this can't be…"

"Umm…what is it?" Miho asked.

"These…aren't the weapons we were promised at all!" Hoshi shook his head, "Excuse me, I need to see this myself."

Hoshi started to go around the rather immense building, but decided to at least ask if there was a back door through the hangar.

"Is there a back door that I can cut through?" he asked, pointing to the door.

"Oh sure, go right in, the back door closest to your buildings is right in the middle," Miho said, beckoning him to follow her into the hangar.

Inside Hoshi saw the nine tanks of the Tankery Team: The , the Type-3 Chi-Nu, the Porsche Tiger, the Char B1 bis, the Hetzer, the M3 Lee, the StuG III, the Type-89, and the Panzer IV. Today there weren't any of the other girls present, except for a single girl wearing an orange jumpsuit, trying to keep herself busy while fiddling with the motor of the Tiger. Even from afar Hoshi could tell that the girl seemed a bit down.

"Is she okay?" he asked, noting the girl on the largest of the tanks.

"Oh, Tsuchiya, she's the only person from Leopon Team and our Automotive Club who wasn't a third-year last year, right now she's by herself. I think she just misses her friends," Miho sighed as she took him to the emergency exit at the back and Hoshi opened the door to reveal a three-by-three grid of buildings.

The eight outer buildings being the larger kind of portable classroom with A/C units on the ends. They were just plain white with a pair of doors in front of a twin ramp that went up the side, showing that each building was divided into four separate rooms. As had been requested each building was actually much sturdier than what the other portable classrooms would be, with heavier metal-plated doors and bar locks on the outside to protect the contents within. They had only two windows per long side a single window on the end and these windows had metal grates screwed over them. In the middle was an office-type building with larger windows on the sides and a door in the middle where it entered a long hall, dividing the three offices on either side of the blocky building. Around the building complex was a ten foot chain link fence topped with three strands of barbed wire with a sliding gate and a wooden guard shack. It was required that a Battle Team member was to be on guard duty at all times when the buildings were stocked with weapons, ammo, and equipment. That was just part of the give and take of operating a team, to teach responsibility and grow and foster young men.

"Wow, they at least got the safety protocol right," Hoshi said as he looked at the inventory with Miho still next to him, more out of curiosity.

"I saw that," Miho chuckled as she followed him to a building as Hoshi began to try and figure out which key unlocked it and then on the second on the padlock on the bar came open and Hoshi opened the door and walked in, but Miho stayed outside.

"You uh…wanna see what we use in person?" Hoshi asked, wanting to be polite to this quite pretty young lady that was with him.

"Sure," Miho nodded and went inside, feeling the damp coolness of the new building that hadn't been able to filter the air's humidity quite yet.

The building she and Hoshi were inside of had a walkway with heavy-duty fence inside screwed into the walls and the floor with a gate that led into the larger area inside. There were long thin crates with small padlocks with the keys inside them holding each one closed and two latches on the front and the sides. They were colored black with rope handles and yellow markings. Hoshi opened the gate inside and Miho tentatively followed him as he went to a longer thinner crate, took the key, unlocked it, and unlatched it. He then opened it after taking a breath, hoping that his inventory and the marks on the crates were wrong. There were eight rifles arranged inside, with their accompanying bayonets, cleaning kits, and a twined-together stack of user manuals for everything present.

"Oh great…" Hoshi groaned at the sight, letting the crate lid lean back against another identical one in a much larger stack.

"What is it?" Miho asked as she saw the eight polished wood and black steel rifles in the crate looked brand new, so it couldn't have been a problem with quality.

"These rifles," he sighed and pulled one out, "It's a Norwegian, M1894 Krag-Jorgensen, one of the worst rifles of the Second World War. It's bullet's low-energy, and low velocity. The other rifles we'll face, except for Viking Fisheries, who also uses this weapon, have what's called a stripper clip. It lets the user load between five to ten rounds with one or two movements. This…" he groaned, and popped open the side latch, "Has a single feed tray, and you load them one round at a time with rounds that are kept loose for the most part, meaning our team's riflemen are going to be jingling like Christmas bells when we're moving."

"That doesn't sound good, what weapon did you want to get?" Miho asked.

"I'd asked for, and was promised, the same weapons that the old Ooarai teams had, Swiss K31's, along with Thompsons, KE-7's, and MG51's, and…" Hoshi responded, and checked the inventory, "Yeah, I figured, instead of those, they gave us Reisings, Madsens, and MG11's instead. Nothing here was designed after or even during the First World War, much less during the war like a bunch of other schools' weapons. And the problem is this: I can't do a thing about it; the school was the one responsible for buying this…junk."

"Is it that bad?" Miho asked.

"Well, the Madsen is okay, the MG11's heavy, but it's okay, I'll have to see which model it is, and if we're lucky the Reising won't jam every few shots. This is gonna be rough. We'll have to win a few matches, get some crowds, and buy replacements ourselves."

"Well…when we got a look at our tanks we knew that it was going to be hard for us to win," Miho began, trying to cheer him up, "If you guys do your best you'll win, just like us."

"Just like you…" Hoshi said as he gently put the rifle back into the crate, "You're right, our material situation isn't as hopeless as yours was. We'll just give it our best. Thank you, Commander," he said, looking back at Miho, softening his gaze a bit.

"You're welcome, Commander," Miho said with a soft smile herself.

The two held this gaze for a short moment before they both realized this and awkwardly coughed and tried to return to their previous tasks. But as they parted ways to handle up on their teams both Miho and Hoshi had a slight tinge of pink on their cheeks and a warm smile. Miho went to Tsuchiya, who was doing some work on her prized Tiger (P). The girl was looking lonely, and Miho decided that she needed some company.

"Good morning Miss Tsuchiya," Miho called out as she walked to the side, within Tsuchiya's line of sight.

"Oh, good morning Commander," Tsuchiya greeted Miho, giving her a tired smile.

"You okay? Do you want some help?" Miho asked.

"Me, oh I'll be okay," Tsuchiya waved Miho's concern down.

"I-I know that you're the only member of Leopon Team right now so…I'd like to help you restore the Automotive Club, we need your club to help keep our tanks running, and I don't want you to be alone here," she said.

"Will you really commander? That would be awesome," the orange-clothed girl smiled, but then stopped, "So…how are you going to do that?"

"I'll talk to Miss Takebe, she can help you advertise for more members, and Miss Akiyama, Miss Reizei, and I can help you teach them all they need to know about the tanks," Miho offered.

"That would be much-appreciated commander, there's a lot that we in the automotive club need to learn," Tsuchiya laughed.

"And if you need some help with being a tank commander let me know okay?" Miho asked.

"A commander?" the other girl's jaw dropped, "I won't be Leopon's driver anymore?"

"Yes, you're the last person who knows the Leopon. You'll have to take command of the tank and teach your new crew how to use it. We're depending on you, can you do it?" Miho asked.

"I teach 'em to drift in no time Commander, oh, we have visitors," she then looked up, and pointed to the door.

There, Miho saw six young girls, all wearing the green and white Ooarai uniform. One, the leader, was a brunette with her long hair in a ponytail and was a little shorter than Miho, and was the tallest of the six. This girl looked somewhat familiar, but she couldn't quite pin down why.

"Hello," Miho greeted the girls, "Are you here to join Tankery?" Miho asked as she faced the group.

"You bet-I mean, if you'll have us," the brunette in the front said excitedly, trying to hold in her nervous energy and decided to bow in greeting, "I'm Akio Oshima."

"Kei Watabe," the pixie-cut platinum blonde next to her bowed next.

"Fusa Zayasu," a short redhead with pigtails followed.

"Uzuki Miyashiro," a taller and well-endowed raven-haired girl with her hair wavy said next and bowed.

"Emiko Ohashi," the next girl, another raven-haired girl with her light brown hair in a large black bow greeted Miho next.

"Ren Saza," the last girl with bright orange hair that looked a lot like Saori's, really quietly greeted Miho nervously.

"Pleased to meet you Commander Nishizumi," they all said in unison before standing back at up.

"Nice to meet you all, are you all first years?" Miho asked.

"Yes, we just got our shared house set up," Akio said quickly.

"Wait, you said that your last name was Oshima? Are you Hoshi Oshima's sister?" Miho inquired curiously.

"Yes, he's my brother, why?" Akio asked, not sure how or why Miho had asked.

"Oh, he said your mother had been part of the Tankery Team back when it got shut down," Miho informed her.

"Oh yeah, I have a picture of her and her team that she said to show you," Akio said and dug into her pocket and pulled out an old picture, of six girls, all sitting or standing on what was a quite large tank, all of them looked like they were third years during the picture, and all wore their Ooarai uniforms, "See?"

"Wow, what kind of tank did they have?" Miho asked as she took the picture, and saw Yukari, Saori, Hana, and Mako enter the hangar.

"My mom said the she called it the Parrot," Akio replied.

"Hi there!" Saori called out.

"Hello Ma'am!" the six first years quickly turned and bowed when they saw the student council.

"It's alright," Hana told them to stand up, not wanting to stand on ceremony in here of all places, "Are you ladies here for Tankery?"

"Yeah! We're wanting to be on the same team," Akio said quickly.

"We're wanting to ride this tank," Kei said as she showed the picture to the new Anglerfish arrivals, Yukari took a look at the picture, and figured out what tank it was right away and gasped loudly.

"Wow! I know what that is!" she said, snagging the picture and looking closely at it, her mouth agape in a big smile.

"What is it? I didn't recognize it," Miho asked.

"It's a super rare tank, it's an M6A1 Heavy Tank, only a dozen were ever made and they never left America. We have one?!"

"Well…" Akio said, and looked at the row of tanks in the hangar, "I don't see it here, I guess you haven't found it?"

"Miss Oshima, you said your mother was this tank's commander, do you know where it might be?" Miho asked, being serious, this was huge, a new tank would make all the difference in the world, even a lackluster one like an undergunned and underarmored M6A1.

"Umm…sorry, I don't, mother said," the first-year sighed, then gasped loudly, "My mother! She's here helping my brother move into his apartment today! Maybe she can help!"

"Really?! We're going to meet one of Ooarai's original tankery members?!" Yukari cried out.

"Can you please call her? I think we'd like to meet her, and then see if we can find her tank," Miho nodded.

"Sure, if we can find it can we please ride the tank?" Akio asked, then all the other girls crowded around Miho.

"Please?" they all begged.

"Um…" Miho thought, trying to recall what the crew requirement was for such a tank.

"It needs a crew of six, like the Rabbits," Yukari informed them, "They should be perfect."

"Okay, if we can find your tank, it'll be yours," Miho nodded, getting a loud cheer from the girls.

"I'll call her now," Akio said pulled out her phone and started to dial.

Miho left them alone so they could call. Her own team walked over, and Miho went back over to the Leopon where Tsuchiya had overheard.

"Another tank huh?" she asked with a big smile.

"Yeah, an M6A1 Heavy Tank, it's got both a long-barrel three-inch gun and a thirty-seven millimeter gun in the turret plus a twin fifty caliber bow mount which can damage a lot of light tanks," Yukari explained the particulars, "And it weighs fifty tons, eighty-three millimeters of frontal armor, and has a Wright G-200 radial nine-cylinder, thirty liter engine putting out eight hundred and twenty five horsepower."

"Wow, that's an interesting engine, not many nine-cylinder radials get put in land vehicles," Tsuchiya said curiously.

"It was originally an aircraft engine, the only other tank to have an engine like it was the M4A6 Sherman, only seventy-five of those were built," Yukari said, "But…they were known for being really tall, and their crew stations were kinda awkward to man, and for a heavy tank they're pretty under-gunned and under-armored compared to tanks like the Tiger or the IS2, even most medium tanks at the end of the war had better guns than it did."

"That stinks," Saori mumbled.

"Yeah, but the Americans did test the T29 turret and its one hundred and five millimeter gun on it and experimented with upping its armor to seven and a half inches, although it was really top-heavy, and was really slow. And it weighed seventy-seven tons," Yukari winced.

"That poor engine," Tsuchiya noted, wincing at the nearly fifty percent increase in weight for the same powerplant.

"Try poor you, we need to find you some more club members," Saori said, "We need to get you into the school newspaper, let's try for a photo shoot, maybe..."

"Ph-photo shoot?" Tsuchiya stammered, "You don't mean a…like a modelling thing, do you?"

"No, but that's a good idea, we'll keep that as a backup," Saori ticked at the grease monkey up on the tank.

"Miss Nishizumi, we came up with an idea to help bring in more people to come see our matches," Hana now changed the subject.

"Really? What?" Miho asked.

"We got the student press to arrange a photo shoot and an interview, they're wanting to start a web series of interviews for everyone on the team, we're going to be taking sign-ups tomorrow," Saori explained.

"We were wondering if you could go first, to start the series off with the commander is only proper," Hana informed her.

"Me?! I-I don't know…" Miho mumbled.

"Please Miho?" Yukari asked.

"It's for the team, and no, you won't have to do anything embarrassing, I made sure to tell them that it's only an interview and maybe a tasteful photoshoot," Saori stated matter-of-factly.

"Oh, if that's the case…I guess I can speak to the student reporters," Miho shrugged.

"Great! I'll let them know, they're going to be ecstatic!" Saori said excitedly.

"Commander," Akio and her friends came running over, "My mother's coming here, she said the tank's near here, if it's still here that is," the girl informed her.

"Really? We've been just about everywhere around here, how could we have missed it?" Hana asked, looking at Miho.

"There might be the possibility that it was found and…disposed of, before we reformed the team," Miho sighed.

"She says it's probably still here, she told me you probably wouldn't have found it without help," the girl shrugged.

"Oh, is that her?" Yukari asked, pointing to an adult who had entered the hangar, and was looking around, a soft smile on her face.

This was definitely Akio's mother, she wore a business suit and pants, and her brunette hair was in a prim and proper bun with a pair of green hairpins in it.

"Mother!" Akio ran over along with her friends, and the upperclassmen followed.

"Hello Akio, good to see you and your friends are taking Tankery, I thought I'd never get to see it," the bright woman said as everyone arrived in front of her.

"Everyone, this is my mother, Rina Oshima," Akio introduced everyone and everyone bowed in polite greeting.

"Mrs. Oshima," Miho greeted her elder and bowed, along with everyone else, "Thank you so much for coming, it's a real honor to meet you."

"It's my pleasure, and I think I should thank you for saving our school," the elder Oshima stated, "I understand you haven't found my old friend?"

"The M6, yes, we just found out we had one," Yukari said quickly.

"The records we have never mention that we had one left, they said it had been sold," Hana informed them.

"Well, it seems your records are…incomplete," the older woman said with a smile, a mischievous one.

"What happened?" Miho asked.

"When we found out that the Tankery Team was being shut down and the tanks sold or disposed of, we took matters into our own hands," Mrs. Oshima began the tale, "We took our tanks, and we did the best we could to hide them from the school's recovery vehicles. Some of our teams…got creative," she giggled.

"Very creative, we found the Type-89 in a cliffside cave," Saori told them.

"Oh so the Physics Club weren't lying, they actually figured it out," Mrs. Oshima said in awe.

"And the Assault 3 was in a pond."

"The Aquatics Club, they felt that they could protect it seeing as that was their favorite place to fish," Mrs. Oshima giggled.

"And the Tiger was deep inside the ship, disassembled even!" Tsuchiya declared.

"The Maritime Engineering Club, they did say that they'd make it impossible to retrieve," Mrs. Oshima laughed.

"So it was your teams that got the tanks where we found them," Miho surmised.

"Yes, we tried our hardest, while my team's solution wasn't very creative, it seems it may have been the most effective," Mrs. Oshima wagged a finger, "Follow me," she said and turned and began walking out of the hangar, but before she did she grabbed a long piece of rebar from a barrel of scrap metal by the door.

"That explains it, you didn't want your tanks to be taken, so you hid them," Yukari said admiringly, "How did the school react when they found out?"

"They gave all of us long terms of detention and threatened to expel us if we didn't give them up. Some teams did, most didn't. But so many of us refused that it would have been humiliating for the school board to expel so many students, so we got away with it," Mrs. Oshima said as she walked around the hangar and then into an opening in the woods, where she followed an old road to a clearing, and walked into it, and then stopped, "He's still here…" she said softly, examining the ground.

"Where is it?" Akio asked, looking around.

Mrs. Oshima lifted the rebar and then brought it down, and everyone heard a metallic clang ring out as it came down, stopping only an inch below the ground.

"Your team buried your tank?!" Yukari gasped, "How?"

"We didn't actually, we had some help," Mrs. Oshima said as she leaned down and tore away at the grass, which revealed an olive green-painted metal plate below it, "Hello old friend."

"What happened?" Miho inquired curiously as Yukari and Tsuchiya went down on all fours and started to pull away at the grass and dirt, and soon found the edge of the commander's hatch, and continued to unearth around it to free the latch.

"Well my tank was the last to be hidden, by that point the school knew what we were doing, and they'd locked down the building and had the hall monitors watching us in our quarters until the tank could be taken away. But, they didn't anticipate what we did next. You see, at the time I was dating the commander of the Battle Team, Noboru Oshima, Akio and Hoshi's father. I told him what was happening, and the night before the recovery trucks were supposed to come to take away my tank he and many of his teammates managed to sneak aboard the ship, tied up the poor hall monitors watching the hangar, broke the lock, and drove the tank here, and here, they buried it. And here it has remained until today."

"Did they get in trouble?" Akio asked, a little worried.

"No, they never found him or his teammates," Mrs. Oshima said, clearly rather fond of the memory, "Your father was that good that he even managed to sneak over to my room, climbing up to my balcony to see me, we had our first kiss that night."

Every girl present gave a long, "Aww…"

"Wow, it's so romantic," Saori sighed, eyes half-lidded as she absorbed the story.

"Mom! Don't say things like that, it's embarrassing…" Akio cried out desperately, blushing bright red.

"It was only a kiss," Mrs. Oshima giggled as she reached into the grass, knowing precisely where to grab to open the hatch, and lifted it up with an audible creak, revealing an interior that hadn't been open to the outside for many years, "May I?"

"Of course," Miho nodded, and the adult dropped into the seat and then sat down on instinct, her movements in-tuned with her old tank as if she were fifteen again. Looking around as Tsuchiya handed her a flashlight, which she shined around.

"Exactly as we left it," she sighed, and reached for one of many kinds of red parrot toys, hanging from the commander's periscope handle, and then looked to the right, and saw that the turret wall had, among others, a picture of her and old team, more than fifty girls all lined up for a picture in front of the hangar, bright smiles on their faces, "I haven't seen this in years…" she pulled it easily off of the turret wall, and brought it into the daylight as she stood up.

"Is that your Tankery Team?" Miho asked as everyone looked over both shoulders.

"Yes, I can still remember everyone's names, and what tank they were, and what their positions were. That year we made it to the semi-finals, lost to Pravda, the IS-2 got my tank, they used the KV-2 to level a building we were hiding behind then the IS-2 got us as we were trapped in the rubble," she shook her head, "It's too bad, we could've gone all the way that year too."

"Don't worry, with this new tank we can take the tournament this year," Akio declared to her mom.

"Well first we'll need to dig it out," Miho reminded everyone, causing the girls to groan.

"How about you ask the group that buried it in the first place, they have shovels."

"Will they do it if we ask?" Yukari asked.

"They will if their commander's mother asks. Plus, boys will do anything for a pretty girl."