Katyusha and Nonna were sitting down in their room with Noemi, Marina and the new Principal Michael as they were discussing the further actions that were the cause of the sudden removal.
"So with Principal Antonescu gone, I suspect you came here and wanted me to talk about this right? Katyusha asked the two of them if it was true.
"Yep he's been under arrest until further notice. And we came here as we want to make peace with you Katyusha." Michael responded. Katyusha began to think as she wanted to think of further courses of action, does she accept the peace offering or bargain something bigger for Michael to take.
"Can I have a moment with Nonna please?" Katyusha asked the Count High School representatives if she could have a moment to reflect on it.
"Sure, we're not going anywhere." Noemi told Katyusha to take all the time she wished. Katyusha nodded as she walked into a private room with Nonna as she wanted to address something bigger with her.
"Are you sure you want to make peace with Count High School? I want to give them something bigger that might turn the tides against Kuromorimine." Katyusha asked Nonna if this was true. Nonna seemed skeptical of Katyusha's plan.
"I mean they are willing to make peace with us and what is something bigger you propose to them to make them change their minds?" Nonna asked as she wanted to find out about Katyusha's true intentions.
"I'll tell them." Katyusha told Nonna that she was getting to that part. Nonna bowed down to Katyusha as they walked out of the room. Michael looked at them as he began.
"So have you two come to a conclusion yet and we will be signing a peace treaty?" Michael asked if they had come to a decision. Katyusha scratched the back of her head.
"Well I talked to Nonna about it and we will not have you sign a peace treaty but instead we have something much grander for you if you're up for the challenge." Katyusha told Michael that she had a much larger prize that she was willing to offer them.
"What kind of prize?" Michael asked as he seemed curious about Katyusha's intentions on what this prize was.
"Will Count High School join Pravda to defeating Kuromorimine?" Katyusha asked. Michael and Noemi gasped as they were shocked, they were enemies for much of the year but now Katyusha was willing to have them fight by their side.
"You're crazy Katyusha, what is in it that you want us to fight by your side?" Noemi asked as she wanted to find out what was in it for them.
"Two things actually, it will get Maho to get more students into the field and by that I mean less experienced students that don't know much about Sensha-Do and it will clear up some of our students so our less experienced students will be able to relax and help Pravda continue waging this costly series of matches. Your veteran students will supplement ours nicely. And the second reason is that you will be able to deny Kuromorimine access to your oil supply and they will have to bargain for peace when they run out of oil." Katyusha explained her reasoning on if they decided to join her. Noemi and Michael began to think about it as they decided to give it some reflection, with the year ticking down, they wanted these matches to be over so they could focus their attention on something else. They decided to come to one conclusion.
"Okay you have our word, tell the others to begin the mobilization as we are going to join you." Michael told Katyusha that Count High School will be joining their side and will fight alongside them. Katyusha nodded with agreement as she had a useful ally up her sleeve. She began to think as she decided to make an offer.
"Want some T-34/85's to supplement your forces? I think it will replace some of your lighter tanks and give you more of a punch as you should move away from light tanks." Katyusha asked if a few T-34's would be needed. Noemi smiled as this will give them an advantage.
"Yes, that will be much appreciated." Noemi responded as Katyusha shook Michael's hand. Nonna slid them a piece of paper as she had the instructions.
"Sign here you two and you will be in our alliance." Nonna instructed them. She gave the two of them papers as Michael signed his signature, Noemi signed hers shortly afterward. Katyusha took the paper back as she nodded.
"Welcome to the alliance." Katyusha told them. Count High School was in the fold.
A group meeting with Kuromorimine was established later that day as all of the alliance members were there. They wanted to get along with the news that was going on.
"So Principal Antonescu has been arrested and replaced with Michael, is that correct?" Maho asked Noemi if she knew that this was true. Solti, Augusta, Dalmatia, El and Pomorie watched as they seemed concerned.
"Yes, sadly, we signed a peace deal with Pravda earlier that day with Principal Michael. I forgot what the principal had in mind for our school but it doesn't look pretty. Maho I'm sorry to say this but we're enemies now and we're cutting off our oil shipments with you. Our last shipment to you will arrive later today. I hope we can test the tanks you gave us against you. This is goodbye forever." Noemi responded before she left the chat and she will be gone for good. Maho was concerned.
"Well… well… Count High School is gone, out of the alliance, we don't know where we will get our oil from plus we're down fifteen tanks." Maho had to come to realize that one of their allies left the alliance. "At this rate Kuromorimine will be out of oil in three weeks." Maho told them as she decided to make a rough estimate on how long Kuromorimine will be able to keep powering its Sensha-Do force. Solti began to think in a way to help the situation out in what way she could.
"Maho is there a way that Magyar Girl's Academy can make a greater contribution to the alliance to fill in the void that was left by Count High School?" Solti asked Maho if there was a way she could try to help out in a situation like this.
"Sure, how can you help out?" Maho asked as she wanted to know what way Solti could contribute.
"We have a synthetic oil refinery of our own in our school. We've been using it ourselves and we have a ton of excess left over if you want to make use of it." Solti told Maho about her school's oil. Maho began to think about it as she decided to make a deal with Solti.
"Give us some of the excess oil so we can keep ourselves afloat and would you be able to replace some of the losses that Count High School has left?" Maho asked Solti if this was possible.
"I guess I can field about ten more tanks if possible." Solti responded as she was going to have a force from fifteen to twenty five. Maho began to think about it, Solti was going to have her school contribute more but she wanted to know about the ten extra tanks she was willing to bring in.
"So how many tanks will you have in your force of twenty-five?" Maho asked Solti if she was going to list the tanks down that she was willing to bring to the field.
"So the tanks I'm willing to bring are: A tiger, two panthers, five Turan 1's and five Turan 2's respectively, five 43M Zrinyi's, five 38M Toldi's and two 40M Nimrods." Solti gave the list of tanks she was going to field. Maho nodded.
"While not enough to replace Count High School fully, I am grateful that you've decided to contribute a bit more to our cause, looks like I am going to supplement the losses with a few more tanks of my own." Maho groaned when she got to the last part of the sentence, she didn't want to bring the inexperienced students into the field to be easy pickings for Pravda. "Anyways, I got a match to attend to in an hour and I got to get the school ready. Take care." Maho decided to end the chat as Pomorie felt nervous. A knocking was heard on her door as she got up and went to open it. It was Rila and Varna as they wanted to talk to her about something.
"What is it?" Pomorie asked as she wanted to find out what was going on.
"Did you get the message that Count High School had left the alliance?" Rila asked Pomorie if she got the message.
"Yes I did, I was talking to the others about it and I'm just as bummed out as they are." Pomorie responded.
"Looks like we might need to try to fill the void by bringing the obsolete tanks into the field." Varna told Pomorie as Srebarna watched in the background, listening in on their conversation. She grabbed her phone as she decided to call Nonna about this. Dialing her number, she waited for her to answer.
"Hello?" Nonna asked. She wanted to know what Srebarna wanted.
"Nonna I wanted to talk to you about this as I feel like now is the best time, remind me what is going on?" Srebarna asked as she wanted to figure out everyone's whereabouts and what had just recently happened.
"We got Count High School out of the Kuromorimine alliance and they will now be on our side. Katyusha is sending tanks for them to use but she thinks getting one school on our side isn't going to be enough and is looking for more." Nonna explained what had happened as of recently. Srebarna nodded as well.
"That's good so I wanted to ask you that would now be the best opportunity to do it?" Srebarna asked, Nonna seemed a bit confused by Srebarna's words.
"Can I have a bit more clarification?" Nonna asked as she wanted to find out what Srebarna meant. Srebarna began to speak.
"Betray Kuromorimine and switch sides to join you, we can make a bigger hammer blow into Kuromorimine like that," Srebarna explained to Nonna. Nonna began to nod.
"Oh I'll let you go ahead with that, for now we are going to look for more allies to help us out in these next few weeks to come. Take care." Nonna told her as Stebarna had given the words.
"Good luck." She hung up as she began to walk away. Pomorie and her friends continued to chat among themselves.
"I think we have a very relaxed day as there really isn't much to be done. Should we try wandering around to see what we could do?" Pomorie asked as she didn't know what to do, she didn't want to leave the school property as it wasn't a weekend.
"Possibly but I don't know what the school has to offer still." Rila told them as they decided to take a walk around and find something to do. Screams were heard in the distance but the three of them decided to not bother about it.
Minutes ticked by as Pomorie and the others were still chatting amongst each other as they were joined by Malko.
"Yeah next thing you know is that I definitely want to go out of my way to swing at that girl as I went ahead and broke her arm." Malko responded as she continued to walk around with her friends.
"Ouch that would be painful to endure, I hope she's okay." Pomorie responded as Malko nodded.
"Yeah but she did have it coming so that was a good sign." Malko giggled. Pomorie smiled awkwardly but she didn't make any attempt to laugh.
"Where's Koprinka I might ask?" Pomorie asked as she wanted to find out where the smoker student was. "I hope she isn't getting herself into trouble."
"She isn't, she's attending the rose garden of the school that we have." Malko responded as the others nodded.
"Okay she's at least doing something good for Yogurt Academy and I'm glad about that." Pomorie gave her words. Popovo appeared as she was running up to the group of students as she had some urgent news for them. "Hey Popovo, what's up?"
"Srebarna called an emergency meeting with the entire school in the auditorium in five minutes, you better get yourselves down there." Popovo told the group that they needed to be there. Pomorie gulped at what this could mean. Srebarna still wasn't on good terms with her but she was leader of the Sensha-Do team and not the entire school. Pomorie and the group walked off to the auditorium to hear what she had to say.
The group then arrived at said place as Srebarna was in the center, Popovo to the left and Kamchia to the right. Srebarna began to speak first.
"Students of Yogurt Academy, we cannot stand Kuromorimine and Erika Itsumi anymore. It's time we take action, we are severing our ties to Kuromorimine this afternoon as we are going to turn our tanks against them." Srebarna began. Popovo spoke next.
"An ultimatum will be sent to you students right now and you have until tonight to decide on who you will side with. Whoever's side gets more votes determines our actions. Make sure you girls make your vote count." Popovo continued on. Kamchia was the last to speak.
"Anyway, if you cooperate with us we can free ourselves from the iron rule of Kuromorimine and Pravda will be more than willing to take us in our wings. You have until tonight to decide on this." Kamchia told the students that they have a prime opportunity to go against Kuromorimine and get themselves to be free. Pomorie and her friends gasped, betray the school that had helped them out in the past, were they crazy?
"Betray Kuromorimine? That's insane." Pomorie whispered to her friends as Srebarna said the last words as this meeting was over.
"Meeting dismissed." Srebarna and the others began to leave as Pomorie and her friends had got up as they were freaked out by this meeting. They were now walking down the hallways as they were discussing what had just happened.
"Srebarna has lost her sanity, what has caused her to join Pravda and not keep the alliance with Kuromorimine?" Pomorie asked her friends as she wanted a bit of input on this.
"We don't know but we do know for a fact that Srebarna and Erika never really got along very well. I know you and Maho get along and even Erika seems to be friendly to you but Srebarna is one student who often tries to blame others for her mistakes. Furthermore the alliance that Kuromorimine is maintaining according to Koume is beginning to fall apart. Count High School had a principal replacement and had left the alliance and this was a major blow as they were the ones who showed the most support to getting their revenge on Pravda when we had our first official match. In fact they were the first ones who suggested going against Pravda for their revenge." Varna explained to Pomorie. Pomorie nodded as she understood what was happening but something is lingering in her head.
"Who do we side with?" Pomorie asked as she wanted to keep her loyalty to Kuromorimine. Rila and Varna began to think about it, who would benefit them in the long run.
"Yeah I think we should stay with Kuromorimine, you were so happy with them and Srebarna wants to take that away from you?" Rila asked as Varna nodded. Pomorie knew her decision was to stay. But she needed to tell Maho, Solti and El about this as she feared a backlash.
"Even though the three of us want to stay but everyone else I'm not so certain." Pomorie told them as even though her best friends were willing to side with her but her teammates weren't certain who they were going to choose. Pomorie decided to walk off as she went to her dorm alone. She had some business to take care of.
Pomorie got back onto her laptop and logged in. She decided to see what was up when she received a notification, it was from Srebarna. Pomorie opened it up to see what it was and it was a vote to see who they were going to choose, there were three options, Erika, Katyusha and if you wanted to choose someone else but they weren't on the list, all that she had to do was enter the name on who to maintain loyalty with and it would be over. Pomorie knew she had to speak to someone first. Logging on she got into contact with Solti and El.
"Pomorie you seem a little upset, is there something wrong?" Solti asked as she wanted to figure out if there was something wrong with her. Pomorie looked at Solti from the computer screen as she began to speak.
"Yeah there is. Srebarna is pulling our school out of the alliance." Pomorie began. Solti and El gasped as she couldn't be serious.
"Your school too?" Solti asked as they were going to lose another school from the group. Pomorie nodded as she had no control of the situation.
"Yeah it's true, now Srebarna issuing an ultimatum to the students to vote to stay with Kuromorimine or join Pravda." Pomorie voiced her concern about the recent events that were happening. "I don't want to be disloyal to my friends as I see them as my allies whether in Yogurt Academy or outside of the school like yours."
"Well Pomorie there's one thing you need to learn in life which is something I had to learn myself and it's a pretty hard pill to swallow." El began as she wanted to address this to Pomorie. She hoped she was listening as she continued. "The loyalty of your school comes first, then the outside relationships such as us come after. I had to learn about this back as a first year student myself when we tried to be allies with Anzio but that unfortunately didn't last for very long." Pomorie seemed curious about El's past and the message she was going to give.
"What exactly happened?" Pomorie asked as she wanted to know more about it.
"This goes back to me and my friends as first year students. We wanted an alliance with Anzio so we could face Jatkosota in an upcoming match, we managed to win but we found out next round that Anzio was our opponent so I got worried about it and wanted to make sure my friends were safe and not in danger. Fortunately our Sensha-Do leader managed to settle this and we maintained our alliance with Anzio and we managed to win. We didn't spit in their faces but instead we treated them with respect and we learned about where our loyalty lies, it's our school first and then those outside in another school." El completed the story as Pomorie felt a little more comfortable but this left her a little puzzled.
"Will we be enemies if Srebarna makes the decision and leaves the alliance?" Pomorie asked if that was something she wanted to make sure if this was true.
"Most likely." Solti responded as she began to think about it. "I will talk to Maho about this as I want to tell her about how you feel with the recent turn of events."
"But hey, on the flipside, if we do face off against each other, I can't wait to use our tank against yours, I want to see what you are made out of Pomorie." El smiled as she would be excited to face off against Pomorie.
"You sure?" Pomorie asked as she was beginning to feel a little more secure.
"Absolutely, you must be made of tougher steel compared to when the year began. I want to see how you will hold up against me." El told Pomorie as she logged out. Solti looked at Pomorie as she spoke next.
"Okay I'll talk to Maho about how you really feel about this change of events but for now, tell your crew to stay loyal to Kuromorimine." Solti told Pomorie that her loyalty would be to the alliance, contradicting El's statement of school left as she wanted to let the kid to make the decision herself. Pomorie knew she had to choose between the two of them but she didn't want to leave Maho's side so she went to the voting screen and clicked Erika's name and pressed Enter. Pomorie huffed as she was more than grateful to have at least made up her mind. Varna and Rila popped in as they wanted to speak to her.
"We voted Erika so who did you vote for?" Varna began as she wanted to see what was Pomorie's decision.
"Erika, though I needed help to talk me into making that decision." Pomorie told her friends. Rila nodded as Varna decided to speak to Pomorie directly.
"You made the right choice in the end, I hope Srebarna had decided to listen to our voices and we can stay by Kuromorimine's side." Varna responded as she wanted to make sure that this was the case. "I'm just worried about what the other schools are going to decide on the matter."
Maho was on her way home from the match with her friends that evening as that match had dissolved into chaos. They had lost against Darjeelings coalition again. She was scrolling through her phone when she noticed a request from Solti. It appeared she wanted to speak to her about something. Maho decided to answer it.
"Hello?" Maho began.
"Hey Maho, this is Solti, I wanted to talk to you about the events that have gone down as of today." Solti began. "I got the news that Yogurt Academy has pulled out of the alliance."
"What?! Not them too!" Maho was shocked as they had just up and left shortly after Count High School left the alliance.
"Yeah I just received the message from Pomorie about it and she wasn't too happy about it. She told me she would stay loyal to Kuromorimine despite the changes that were taking place." Solti told Maho about one of the student's reaction to the events that had unfolded.
"So who did she vote for?" Maho asked as she was wondering if Pomorie made the right choice by sticking to the alliance and keeping her loyalty to her and Erika.
"I got a text recently from Pomorie herself as she and her friends voted Erika so it's confirmed that they're still loyal." Solti responded as she laid out the news.
"Oh thank goodness." Maho muttered to herself as the head of the Sensha-Do team currently was loyal to the school. "I didn't know why Erika is being such a big target for such hatred, what's the reasoning behind it?" Maho wanted to get to the root cause of all of this as she wanted to figure out what was really going on.
"Erika and Srebarna got into another fight from what I can assume which Srebarna is just being an instigator at this point and would use it as an excuse to pull out of the alliance and side with Katyusha." Solti told Maho about what had just happened.
"Of course, starting fights with students from Kuromorimine and other schools as well, I just don't know when she will stop." Maho bowed her head as she wanted everyone to calm down.
"I also heard that Olivia just got promoted, what does she have to say about the situation and Erika pushing others over the edge?" Solti asked as she wanted to see how Maho's best friend would react to this situation.
"Even though Olivia's been promoted, the promotion was into a position of being a stabilizer for the team though she doesn't have much decision making skills at her disposal. When I asked her about this, she felt like her position was under threat because of Erika wanting the position that badly but it really isn't anything special and Olivia was worried about Yogurt academy for unknown reasons as she feared they will leave the alliance and join Pravda." Maho told Solti about it.
"Looks like Olivia was right about Yogurt Academy leaving." Solti told Maho. Maho began to think as she was getting worried.
"I don't know how I will be able to patch the loss of two schools. You've mobilized everything that you have and it's still not enough, I don't want to mobilize that many tanks since the three hundred against three hundred tank match we had before." Maho sighed as she was down thirty tanks and Solti could only provide so much to act as replacements. Solti began to think as she had an idea.
"Wait what about your little sister Miho? We can ask her to contribute to the team, she's experienced." Solti asked as she wanted to see if they can have Miho on the team to help plug up the void left by the former teams. Maho began to think.
"Her school only has about eight tanks and you're bringing in ten more so I might bring in twelve." Maho told Solti as she did the math to determine how many she wanted to bring in if Miho said yes to their endevor. "Not that bad." Maho nodded with approval as Solti continued to listen.
"I just hope Pomorie and her friends are making the right decision." Solti spoke as she felt nervous.
"Yeah I hope so too." Maho sighed as she nodded Solti goodbye and hung up.
Later that night, Srebarna was counting up the votes, deciding on what the best course of action would be regarding the popular vote. Many students voted to side with Katyusha while others sided with Erika. She continued to read as there were many students that chose option three. Srebarna opened that as she began reading the results that the students entered, the names came out numerous like Darjeeling, Kay, Noemi Etc. Kuromorimine had the largest vote percentage but Srebarna knew she needed to twist this into her favor. She decided to contact Katyusha about this as she wanted her opinion.
"Katyusha." Srebarna began. Katyusha looked at her screen wondering what it was that Srebarna wanted.
"What is it?" Katyusha asked as she wanted to figure out what was going on.
"So I told Nonna that I wanted to switch sides and bring out school into the fold of the Pravda-Count Alliance, I held out a vote but a lot of students had chosen third party candidates, I don't know who to side with." Srebarna told Katyusha about it. Katyusha began to think as she was wondering what to do.
"Who are the third party candidates?" Katyusha asked as she wanted to figure out who was voting for who.
"A good majority voted for Kay and Darjeeling but I also got some Noemi's, Wallaby's and many more names." Srebarna told Katyusha.
"Hold on." Katyusha told Srebarna to wait a minute as she began typing away to get into contact with two other girls as she wanted to see what their opinion was. A minute later two girls popped onto their screens as they were wondering what a small girl such as Katyusha wanted.
"Oh hello Katyusha, is there anything you wish to ask me about?" Kay began as she wanted to see what she needed.
"Okay Kay, Darjeeling, I have a question for you. Srebarna from Yogurt Academy has hosted a voting challenge and a good chunk of the school has voted for you two and I was wondering, what does Srebarna do with the votes that didn't fall between me and Erika?" Katyusha asked if they had any suggestions.
"Well a lady like me would prefer the time to think about it as have you heard of this old saying, if a pie is split into three pieces and there are only two girls, one of the girls gets the rest of it." Darjeeling told Katyusha. Katyusha seemed confused about what Darjeeling had said.
"What did she say, I need some clarification." Katyusha asked as she seemed puzzled about what Darjeeling's saying meant. Kay scratched the back of her head as she began to simplify what Darjeeling had just said.
"I think what Darjeeling is trying to say is the fact that the votes split between Darjeeling, I and the other candidates should be merged into one group with the rest of the votes." Kay told Katyusha as she nodded.
"Well we got Count High School on our side just this morning and you two have any goals against Kuromorimine?" Katyusha asked if this would be possible. Kay and Darjeeling began to think as they certainly had some ideas.
"We're both against them, tell Srebarna to merge all the votes that have the name of our alliance and Count High school into Katyusha's pool. We can convince her to take a side." Kay told Katyusha about the idea.
"Great idea Kay, I'll tell Srebarna about that." Katyusha nodded as Kay and Darjeeling left. Katyusha got back to Srebarna.
"So anyway, Srebarna I talked to Kay and Darjeeling about it and she said to merge the votes together under my name. We can make a mega alliance to turn the tide and declare a winner in the votes." Katyusha told Srebarna about what the others had said and they could simply merge everything together to make one big group.
"That is excellent. We finally got ourselves an agreement. Yogurt Academy will join Pravda." Srebarna responded as she began merging all of the third party candidates and all of them will now be a part of Pravda.
She had sealed her school's fate.
[A/N]: Woo! 300k words! I am certainly happy that this keeps getting longer and longer, this chapter was more eager to write as it somewhat continues the events from the last chapter and has decided to put Yogurt Academy where they will end up. Count High School is a part of Pravda so will Yogurt Academy meet the same fate? I would like to know what the students' reaction to all of this will be as I definitely think we're off to a good start with this month already. Let's hope we can hit 1k views for this month as it has to be made up with the month coming forth and the summer that will make everyone want to update so I say, bring it on. Anyways I'll see you in the next chapter where the alliance has shifted and settled down. Goodbye.