Part 9 coming right up, we're gonna be getting into the training match between St. Gloriana pretty soon. This turned out to be a bit of a Miho/Joshua chapter, so in the future I might switch it up a bit more to show how the rest of the crew are getting on

"You know, Anzu, you consistently surprise me with your uncanny inability to refrain from fucking me and my life up. Kudos to you, truly. I am in awe of your lack of leadership ability."

Anzu simply shrugged while Momo fumed, barely reigning her own anger in as she clenched her jaw

"The PRESIDENT of your STUDENT COUNCIL is being very generous as it is mister Whitman. We couldn't have informed you any sooner, seeing as how we arranged this match only FOUR HOURS AGO." Momo said through grit teeth

Joshua held up his hands, "Alright, alright I get it. sorry. But you gotta be kidding me with our first match being in a few DAYS. we haven't even gone over any actual practice! Gunnery, fire and manuver, basic radio protocols, fucking DRIVING lessons!"

Anzu waved her hand dismissively, "Oh calm down, you foreigners always waste so much time worrying! it's a friendly match that doesn't actually count twords the season!"

Josh stopped in mid sentence, pondering that

"I... Okay, yeah actually, that... that might be good for the team." He said, rubbing the back of his head

Anzu grinned at him and waved him off, calling out as he left

"Get with Miho and see if you guys can't get a good practice schedule going! I'd like everyone to be at their best!"

Miho looked nervous when Joshua told her the Student Councils proposal.

"So... she wants us to go up against a team so soon? the girls haven't gotten their feet wet..."

"True," he responded, "But this honestly is a good way to cut their teeth. we won't be running drills forever, and this way we can not worry about it upsetting our tournament season, ya know?"

Miho nodded at that, then her gaze be and more determined.

"Then... then we'll need training... gunnery, manuver warfare and communication, ambush tactics, teamwork! we don't have the tanks to go one on one with anything St. Gloriana is gonna throw at us, but if we use small unit tactics... we might even the odds"

Joshua smiled at her,. practically seeing the gears turning in her head.

"Well, I'll leave you to it then, Commander"

Mihos gaze was far off, pondering her training regime

"Yes... hmm... I'll be over at 18:00, we can divide your workload up with the team then..."

Joshua blanched: His apartment was a mess, and he Really didn't want to have to clean up

"Do uh.. do we have to meet at my place?"

Miho simply walked off, muttering caliber statistics and armor measurements as she drifted away, before the bell rang and ushered Joshua off to his next class

*KnockKnockKnock*

Joshua walked to the door to his small apartment; it was modest, and he'd done a (somewhat) decent job of straighting the place up before Miho had arrived. As he opened the door, he was greeted by the sight of his team Commander dressed casually, in a simple yellow shirt with a Panzer on it, a denim jacket, and khaki shorts. She sported a small backpack in the shape of a bear that had bandages and casts on almost all of its limbs.

"...hi Joshua. I'm... Im here for the meeting?"

Joshua shook his head; he could never understand how she could be so nervous and stuttery, but inside a tank change into a take charge iron lady. He flashed her a warm smile and led her in, closing the door behind her.

"Sure, sure. Have a seat on the couch. You want something to drink?"

"Ramune?" Miho said, hopefully

Joshua made finger guns at her and walked to his fridge, pulling out two of the little marble pop-top sodas and handing her one. He sat down, and watched as Miho produced notebooks, spreadsheets, and blueprints from her little bear backpack, spreading it over his coffee table. Miho began laying out her plan, her voice growing with confidence as she talked about her beloved Sensha-Dō

"Okay, so for starters I'm thinking we need to get the girls familiar with fire and manuver, and the first step of that is getting them used to working the guns and the loaders loading. After that we can work on applying those skills to a moving panzer..."

Joshua awoke to his arm feeling like it was being crawled on by thousands of tiny ants with pins and needles for feet. Opening his eyes, he glanced at his clock on the radio and checked the time

Jesus, 23:40? How long were we planning...

He looked over to the source of his arms discomfort, afraid of finding his team Commander turned newfound friend laying with her head on his arm.

Please god don't let this happen to me, I'm not ready to choose a route...

Much to his relief, the source of his arms numbness happened to be Mihos shoe covered foot, which had dig into his armpit at an odd angle as she payed on the couch. Her mouth hung open, and half her body dangled off the couch, with her other leg thrown over the back. Joshua untangled himself, standing up as Miho snorted from the disturbance, mumbling in her sleep and drooling

"Snrk... No... Eririn... Onee-chan's... socks..."

Joshua decided that forgetfulness was the better part of valor, and purged the sentence from his memory. anything involving the words "Onee-chan" and undergarments he had decided was information he'd rather forget, as taught to him by Sam.

He thought about waking her; he really did. But she looked so peaceful...ish... and besides, the commotion of her having to gather her things and leave would keep both of them up for a while if he did. And it was pretty cold with the ocean breeze coming across the bow this time of night. And it was late, he'd feel bad if he let her walk home alone, and he certainly didn't want to walk himself

Deciding he had sufficiently justified to himself why he wanted (His admittedly attractive) schoolgirl friend to spend the night on his couch, he got her his trusty woobie from the closet and set her up a bit more comfortably, before crashing into his own bed himself

The next morning, Miho woke as he was brushing his teeth. The sounds of scrambling and muttered curses filled his living room as he lazily swished the water around in his mouth, before spitting it out and walking into his living room to see Miho scrambling to stuff her things in her bookbag unsuccessfully

"Stupid... late... first day... stupid! stupid stupid stupid!!!"

"Miho?"

"AH!!"

The Sensha-Dō protege nearly jumped out of her skin, turning to face him

"Joshua! I'm so so sorry, I shouldn't have fallen asleep! I'm gonna be late, oh gosh I don't even know what I'm gonna do its my first day and I'll be late, some commander I am jeeze..."

Joshua calmly pointed twords the clock, which read 04:00 in the morning

"Eh?! but.. I thought... oh..."

"Yeah, I woke up a bit early. Was gonna wake you if you weren't already, but you've got enough time to get home and get changed into your uniform. You gonna be ok?"

Miho nodded, her face relaxing with relief, "I'll be fine. some of the other clubs actually meet this early too, so lots of girls will be walking to school or about to be... Can I leave this paperwork here? It's just a pain to stuff back into my Boko..."

Joshua shrugged, "Sure. I doubt this is the last time we'll be working on it anyway. And uh..." Joshua scratched his neck and blushed, "sorry if ah... it's weird for you... waking up here and all..."

Miho looked puzzled, then giggled

"Oh, no it's fine! On my old Sensha-Dō team we ended up sleeping in some weird places during late practices or team meetings. One time, me, Onee-chan, and Erika all had to use the barrels of our Panzers to make a tent with our tarp when we got rained out. we actually slept on the hull because the ground was so muddy!"

She giggled at the memory, and Joshua was glad to see her smiling about her time at Kuromorimine. From what he heard, their Sensha-Dō program was pretty intense. It was nice to know that they still made fun memories like high school kids should do.

"Anyway, I'm used to it. But I really do have to get back home, I'll see you at practice yeah?"

Joshua smiled, "Count on it, Commander"

Miho smiled and waved as she left, her blueprints and plans the only evidence she was ever there, before Joshua too turned back to his home and got his morning routine started.

Well hope we enjoyed that. Miho has a friend, isn't that nice? As always read and review you know the drill