Dein Weg ist Mein Weg

Chapter XXXVII

The Search

"Hey, what do you think those tanks still on the carrier could be?" Yukari asked as they walked through Zuikaku's streets.

"Hmmm… Maybe one of those Carro Veloce's Anzio used?" Hana proposed. "They were really cute. Almost looks like a flower vase, don't they?"

"As long as it gets us further in the tournament, I'm happy," Saori said. "A big and powerful tank will make us way more popular, don't you think? Like the… the… oh, what was it called… I read about it just the other day… It was a soup-... no, a supra-something, maybe?"

"A Super Pershing?" Yukari offered.

"Yeah, that one!"

"Getting our hands on an M26 would be amazing…" Yukari said, looking with dreaming eyes at the slowly darkening skies. "Getting a real heavy tank on the team would be amazing."

"As long as Saori's in it, the Phoenix should count as a heavy tank."

"Hey!" Saori yelled in protest, and gave the grinning Mako a knock over the head. "That's mean, Mako!"

"Still, I hope there's a 7TPdw somewhere," Yukari continued wistfully, mostly ignoring Mako and Saori's bickering, save for a small smile. "What about you, Maho?" she asked, turning around and walking backwards as she looked at the others.

At first, Maho didn't answer. She had been spending most of their collective walk just trying to get her head around what had actually happened in the Student Council's room, and hadn't been much of a participant in the conversation.

"Well…" she said after a moment. "I guess something heavier would be nice, but what we really need is just more tanks all around. Not to mention more people to crew the-""

Before she could finish, Maho halted herself and saw her hand reach out to grab Yukari's collar, yanking the girl towards her. She hadn't consciously considered why she was doing it, but a split second later, an electric scooter zoomed past them at full speed right through the spot Yukari had been walking on a moment before.

"Wha-... how…" Saori said, staring in awe at Maho with her mouth agape.

"Th-thanks…" Yukari said nervously, her breathing growing more rapid from the shock and adrenaline.

"You're welcome…" Maho answered.

"B-b-b-but… it was dead quiet?!" Saori yelled in confusion. "And there's no way you saw through that wall… How the hell did you know it was there?!"

"I…" Maho answered, unsure, and just as confused herself. "I don't know…" She let go of Yukari's collar, and took a step back. "I just… kinda did…"

"Ok, seriously. If you have a sixth sense, you gotta tell us," Mako said with what almost seemed like annoyance. "This is like the fourth time this has happened. Are you secretly a yōkai or something?"

"Sorry…" For a moment, Maho considered opening up, to tell them about what her hearing and heightened senses could do, but that would only lead to further problems. Besides, it's not like they would believe her even if she did. So instead, she took the easy way out, and lied. "I'm just as in the dark as you…" She felt a groaning rumble in her stomach, and put a hand against her abdomen. A second later, the strange feeling seemed to diminish.

"Are you OK, Maho?" Saori asked, looking with concern at her. "Is it something the Student Council did? Did they try to intimidate you into keeping quiet about it? If they so much as broke a hair on you, I swear I'll-"

"No, it's… it's fine," Maho reassured, trying her best to appear calm and unperturbed. "I… I think I'm just hungry, is all."

"Wake me when the grub's done," Mako mumbled as she leapt from the hallway and down under the small table in the center of the room, grabbing a closeby pillow to rest her head on.

"Mako! You'll mess up your sleep schedule like that!" Saori protested, but quickly sighed and resigned herself. "Well, just make yourselves at home," she added over her shoulder, and continued into the small apartment. Hana and Yukari followed her shortly thereafter, but Maho was far more cautious.

She still wasn't entirely sure how or why she had been talked into it, but somehow, she had been convinced to come cook and eat with the rest of the crew, and so, here she was.

Based on Saori's somewhat vacuous and seemingly single-minded approach to life, Maho had expected that her apartment would hold much the same character. After all, Yukari's tank-loving personality certainly shone through in her room, so Maho was rather surprised to find that Saori had in fact not covered her apartment from floor to ceiling with posters of pop idols, turned her desk into a vanity, filled her wardrobe with girly clothes, and buried the floor under a sea of shojo manga and magazines filled with dating tips.

Instead, the small apartment was far more utilitarian and pragmatic, more fitting of a Kuromorimine honor student than the hopeless romantic that inhabited it. The walls were kept clean and free from decorations, the bookshelves were neatly filled with a small collection of books and the odd potted plant, her bed was expertly made, and the desk showed not the slightest hint of ever having been used for anything but studies.

"Thanks for having me… I guess..." Maho said in a low voice as she removed her shoes.

"Oh, don't be so formal," Saori said cheerfully as she began to unpack the bag of groceries she had acquired on their way there. "Just come on in and don't worry so much. Here you can help chop the vegetables."

"I don't think that's a good idea…" Maho started to protest, flashes of her previous experiences both with cooking and kitchen knives appearing before her mind's eye. "I'm not very good at cooking, so I'll just make sure to stay out of the way instea-"

"Nonsense," Saori interrupted, and grabbed Maho by the wrist to pull her into the kitchen. "Hana, you get some water boiling for the pasta. Yukari, set the table, would you?"

"Of course, Saori," Hana said.

"Sure thing!" Yukari cheered with a salute.

"Now," Saori lectured as she set out a chopping board and pulled a knife from a drawer. "We need three of these onions to be diced up, as well as the cabbage and the tomatoes." She quickly tore the skin off of one of the onions, putting it aside. Within the next few seconds, Saori somehow turned the entire onion into nothing but a pile of tiny, white pieces, her hands moving with incredible speed and efficiency as the clacking noise of the knife meeting the cutting board rattled at the speed of a machine gun. "So just do that, and we'll be set," she added triumphantly, giving the knife a quick turn in her hand to grip it by the back of the blade, and handing it to Maho. "Simple, right?"

"Yeah… I'll get that sorted…"

"Where do you even find time to learn all this stuff?" Maho asked.

"Oh, I… I just kinda did… I always liked learning about stuff, so it just came naturally, I guess…" Yukari answered as she finished cleaning up the cut in Maho's hand, and began to measure out the bandage. "It didn't help that I didn't have anyone better than books to hang out with, I suppose," she added in a quiet mumble.

"I still think it's really cool how you know so much, Yukarin," Saori said cheerfully from the kitchen.

"At least you can handle a knife properly," Mako muttered from her napping spot under the table.

"That was not very fair, Mako," Hana countered. "Maho can do many things that neither of us could ever do."

"Yeah, show some respect to your commander!" Saori added.

"Fine," Mako muttered. "I'm sorry, I guess."

"Don't worry about it," Maho replied, and looked down at her hand which Yukari was slowly covering in bandages. "Why do you even do this-ow!" she asked as she looked back up, but flinched as Yukari applied just a bit too much pressure against the cut.

"Sorry."

"It's fine…" Maho reassured her. "Why do you even do this?" she repeated.

"Cook?" Saori asked in confusion. "I mean, we all need food, and it's way cheaper and healthier than just getting stuff from the convenience store all the ti-"

"Sensha-Do," Maho corrected. "I meant Sensha-Do. Apart from Yukari, none of you seem like the type to take up a sport, especially one like Sensha-Do. So why did you sign up? Was it all the perks the Student Council promised?"

"I don't know, it seemed kinda fun. And if we get good enough and popular enough, the boys are just gonna swarm over me, right?" Saori said with a cheerful smile as she tended to the food on the stove. "Although," she added bitterly and stared into the stew before her on the stove, "I'm starting to suspect the council just pulled a fast one on me. We've been doing this for months now. We've even gotten to the semifinals, and I haven't gotten a single fan letter yet!"

"I did not originally plan to partake," Hana said, moving the conversation neatly onwards before Mako had time to comment. "I was simply going to continue with Ikebana."

"You used to do Ikebana for your elective?" Maho asked. "Why not keep at it?"

"Yes and no," Hana answered. "My family are long-time practitioners of Ikebana, and I too have followed that path. Still, as of late I have been feeling that something is missing, and that my creations do not measure up to what I have been capable of in the past. That is why I selected Sensha-Do as my elective. I wish to experience new things and gain a different perspective in life, so that I might exel in my family's tradition once more. I hope Sensha-Do may help me achieve that goal."

"And your family's OK with that?"

"My mother was quite angry with me at first," Hana admitted. "She believed that Sensha-Do was nothing but a form of brutal barbarism, and that it would be a waste of my talents. But we have spoken about it at length, and she has since changed her mind and apologized."

"Serves her right," Saori commented. "I still think you give her way too much credit. She almost threatened to disown you! What kind of mother would do something so horrible to her daughter?!"

The room fell silent for a moment, and Maho could feel the eyes of her crewmates slowly turn towards her, and she regretted having ever let them know about the scars on her back.

"So-sorry, Maho…" Saori said slowly. "I… I didn't think-..."

"It's fine," Maho sighed. "Don't worry about it." For a moment she considered letting them know what had actually transpired in the Student Council room earlier that afternoon, to let them know what kind of fate she had been on the verge of facing. But in the end, she just muttered "Still, if I never see that woman again, it'd still be too soon…" If she told them about her mother's visit to the Zuikaku, she would have to tell them everything else as well.

"What about you, Mako?" Yukari asked after a little while, breaking the silence.

"I just took it so that Sodoko would stop getting on my case all the time," Mako muttered in response.

"Why don't you just get up on time and show up for classes instead?" Maho asked. "If we're that big a bother for you, that seems like it would be easier."

"Just don't wanna…"

"Mako," Saori said pointedly as she moved the pot of stew to the table.

"Ughh… fine," Mako groaned. "I guess it's been kinda fun to drive the tank, and I guess I enjoy it. But I'm still only in it for the extra credits and free passes." She slowly and lazily crawled out from under the table and sat down more properly. "Besides, my grandma would kill me if I got held back."

"And your parents wouldn't?" Maho asked with a light-hearted scoff as she turned to the table.

Once again, the room fell silent. Mako's expression darkened together with Saori's, and Maho looked around in search for an understanding. Seeing Hana and Yukari do the same, she felt slightly comforted, but it didn't do much to counteract the feeling that she had just stepped on a landmine.

"Mako…" Saori said in a low, caring voice as she set the pot down on the table and walked over to her friend. "She didn't mean anything by it. She didn't know…"

"No… it's fine… I'm… I'm OK..." Mako mumbled, but retreated from the table and threw a blanket from Saori's bed over herself, in stark contrast to her own words.

Saori gave a quick sigh, and sat herself down beside the huddled up pile that hid Mako from view, gently stroking what was presumably her head. She bent down and whispered something Maho didn't hear, and received a small nod in response.

"Mako's grandmother is the only family she has left," Saori said solemnly after a little while. "There was an accident when we were in elementary school, and… well… her parents didn't make it…"

"Oh, Mako…" Yukari and Hana said almost in unison, and simply stared at the floor. Maho, for her part, sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose. She felt like an idiot.

"I'm sorry, Mako," she said after a while. "I really am. I didn't mean to make light of it."

"No… it's... it's fine…" Mako mumbled, her face slowly beginning to peer out from the blanket she had bundled herself in. "You didn't know… it's fine…"

"Goodnight Hana! Goodnight c-...Maho!" Yukari waved as she split off from the duo to return home.

"Good night, Yukari," Hana answered, and waved back.

"Goodnight. See you tomorrow," Maho nodded, and her and Hana continued on their way.

Once they had managed to get Mako back to talking again, or at least, as much as she would normally, the dinner had progressed without any further incidents. Maho had mostly kept quiet after that, but answered any question that was asked of her. Once they were done, Saori had offered to walk Mako back to her house, while Yukari and Hana had followed along with Maho, and now Yukari had split off as well.

"I guess you live over this way too?" Maho asked as they walked.

"Yes," Hana answered in her usual polite reservedness.

"So…" Maho said about a block later, "you live near the bakery? The one on the little side street?"

"Yes, very close to there," Hana replied. "It is only a short walk from your apartment to there."

"I see…" Maho nodded. "Hana, I like to think that we're both intelligent women."

"I think so too, Maho."

"Then don't lie to me," Maho said matter-of-factly. "You don't live anywhere near my place, do you?"

"I do not," Hana admitted. "I live quite close to Saori."

"Then why are you walking this way?"

"I believed it would be good for someone to walk you home."

"Would you guys stop treating me like I'm in need of protection?" Maho sighed bitterly. "I'm not made of glass, I'm not some kid afraid of the dark, and I can walk home by myself just fine. If anything, I'm senior to all of you, both in age and rank."

"Forgive me, I did not mean it as an insult," Hana said calmly. "But just as we are both intelligent women, I believe we are both observant."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Hana gave Maho a pointed look. "Because I am observant, just like you, I notice things." She let her gaze fall down to Maho's forearm. "Are you truly alright, Maho?"

"I'm fine," Maho muttered, and tugged at the sleeves of her jacket so that they properly covered her wrists and the scars on her forearms.

"Are you certain?" Hana asked. "If there is something bothering you that you wish to talk about, I would be happy to listen-..."

"I said I'm fine," Maho snapped. "Besides, I don't want to talk about it."

"Very well then."

They continued in silence, with Hana continuing to follow alongside Maho despite her ruse having been discovered.

"So…" Maho said after a while, giving in to her impulse to break the deafening silence, "your family does Ikebana?"

"Yes," Hana answered with a small nod. "I believe our work at it has been ongoing since some time before Perry's expedition. My mother is considered one of the foremost practitioners in the country."

"And you're ok with just following in the family tradition?"

"I find it enjoyable, if that is what you are asking," Hana replied. "It is a part of me, and I feel at peace when doing it."

"Huh... I see…" ´Maho mumbled.

"What about you, Maho? Your family have a long and prestigious history as well, do they not?"

"Yeah…" Maho sighed. "Dates back to the Edo period, I think."

"And now you're some of the foremost practitioners of Sensha-Do in the world."

"So they say…"

"So what about you?" Hana asked. "Do you find Sensha-Do enjoyable?"

Maho didn't say anything, and instead just kept walking. "I don't have a clue," she finally answered in a low voice, letting her tone make it clear that she was done with the conversation.

"Are you feeling confident about the Semi finals?" Hana asked after a while as they rounded another corner.

"I'm not sure," Maho admitted with a sigh. "Everyone's improving at a steady pace, but we're going to be outnumbered two-to-one. Not to mention that we'll be facing some of the best tankers in the country."

"So, what can we do to improve our odds?"

"I'm trying to figure that out…" Maho muttered. "We need more tanks, but we don't have the crews to man them, or the time to train them. We need everyone to be better, but we don't really have the time for that either, nor do we have the funds or facilities to get better tanks. I guess all we can do is our best and hope everything works o-"

Maho paused. Then she slowed down. Then, finally, she stopped, sighing and sending the palm of her hand colliding with her face.

"What is it, Maho? Is something the matter?" Hana asked as she stopped and turned after a few paces once she realized she was walking alone.

"Hana…" she said slowly and bitterly. "We passed through here on our way to Saori's, didn't we?"

"I believe that we did, yes."

"Which would imply Saori passes by here whenever she goes to school, right?"

"Yes, she does. I often join her, and we walk past here almost daily."

"Yeah… that's what I thought…" Maho muttered. "See, that would presumably mean Yukari does too. Because I know for certain that I've walked past here a number of times."

"Perhaps," Hana said, confused. "But I do not understand why any of that would make you so downtrodden?"

"Hana… what's standing in that garage?" Maho sighed, and pointed behind her at the small steel-walled garage they had just passed, its doors slid open and the lights within joining together with the scattered street lamps outside. Hana leaned slightly to the side so as to see better, before looking back at Maho, perplexed and surprised.

"Is that… what I believe it is?"

"Yeah… sure is…" Maho muttered. "So how the hell have we all walked past here at least a hundred times and never seen it?" She sighed once more, and turned to walk back towards the garage. Within, with lights shining down from above, there was indeed a tank. Painted in a greyish green, almost bordering on blue, the medium tank looked well maintained, far better than the atrocious conditions that the team had found the rest of their tanks in. As far as Maho could see from her vantage point, the armor showed no signs of cracks or shoddy repairs, and both road wheels, tracks, and turret ring looked to be in perfect condition.

She leaned her head in through the open doorway, and looked around for signs of life. Seeing an elderly man in an overall in the far end of the garage, kneeling beside a motorcycle with his back turned, she walked over.

"Excuse me," she said as she neared the man. "I'm Maho Nishizumi," she continued, and bowed as the man turned around, "I am the commander of the school's Sensha-Do team, and I was wondering if there was any chance we could perhaps borrow or purchase that tank? I know this might be a decision you might need to think about for some time, but if you are in anyway interested, could I perhaps leave a number for you to contact the Student Council for details, or if you wish, I could come back tomorrow, and we could discuss things in more detai-"

"What, that old hunk of junk?" the man interrupted, once he understood Maho was indeed interested in the tank.

"Uhhh… yes?" Maho answered. She would in no way describe the seemingly superb state of the tank as worthy of the label 'hunk of junk', but suddenly a sense of worry began to overtake her. It was entirely possible the tank had issues she had missed with just her cursory glance. The electronics could be completely fried, the gun could have been disarmed, and a million other things could be broken.

"Oh, if you want her, she's yours," The man said with a smile, and got up from where he had been working on the motorcycle. "It's just taking up space anyways, and it's not like I can just drive it around." He gestured towards the tank as the two walked over, and continued speaking with great enthusiasm. "It was my granddaughter's, you know. Her and her friends really loved their tank, so when the team shut down, they wanted to hide it here, to stop the school from selling it. Let me tell you, it doesn't matter how old they get, you just can't say no to your grandchild when they smile at you like that. Sure, it got a bit annoying to have it just take up space all these years, but I've made sure to keep it clean and working." He beamed with pride as he looked at his handiwork, and gave Maho a pat on the back so strong it almost sent her flying. "Figured the school would come looking for it sooner or later. Never thought it'd be this long though. So if you want it, then be my guest. I'll arrange to have it sent over to you first thing tomorrow."

"Really? I… I mean, thank you. We really appreciate it." She bowed once more, and left the man to continue his work, walking back to Hana who had waited outside.

"So what sort of tank is it?" Hana asked. "I do not recognize it, but you sounded quite excited, so I assume it is a very powerful addition?"

"Yeah, no. I was mostly trying to be polite," Maho sighed. "It's about the same as the Phoenix. Bit worse, really. But at least it's another tank." She once again walking the starlit streets, shaking her head and suppressing a small chuckle as she did so. "Yukari's gonna have a field day with this," she mumbled to herself.

"Alright, good work everyone. Dismissed."

"Thank you for today," the team answered, and gave a scattered collection of nods and bows towards Maho and Ami, before slowly beginning to disperse from the garage.

"Good evening, Janus!" Erwin nodded as her and Hippo team prepared to leave.

"Janus?" Saori asked, and gave Maho a confused look. "Who's that?"

"The Roman god of gates, time, and a bunch of other stuff," Maho said matter-of-factly as she continued inspecting the Phoenix for damages. "I think beginnings and endings might have been in there too."

"They gave you your own soul name?" Yukari asked.

"Yeah," Maho said shortly. "After the second round."

"Soul names? What are you talking about?" Saori questioned, growing more confused by the second.

"It's what Hippo team uses," Yukari began to explain. "It's the name of the soul within you, the one you share with others throughout history. Or… something like that, at least. Erwin is obviously Erwin Rommel, Caesar is also pretty obvious. Saemonza is Sanada Yukimura, and Oryou is Narasaki Ryou."

"I see…" Saori said with a raised eyebrow. "I… uhh… I think I understand…"

"Just admit you didn't understand a word of what she said," Mako mumbled from her napping position atop the Phoenix.

"I did too!" Saori said in annoyed protest, but returned her focus to Yukari and Maho. "So… does that mean you have one too, Yukarin?"

"Yes!" Yukari said cheerfully and triumphantly put a hand against her chest. "I am Guderian, the father of tank tacti-"

Her cheerful boast was interrupted by the sound of commotion outside. As they left the garage behind to see what the fuss was about, Maho recognized the tank from last night slowly driving up towards the training grounds, the sputtering of its Mitsubishi engine filling the air as it drew nearer.

"Reinforcements?" Saemonza asked out loud, as her and the others from Hippo team looked with interest at the newly arrived machine.

"Wait, I didn't know we had another tank?" Saori said in surprise.

"It looks kinda like the Type 89," Noriko noted.

"In what universe does that look like the Type 89?" Shinobu asked.

"I mean… if you squint a bit?"

"I assume this is the tank you told me about?" Yuzu asked as she started working through her folder of documents in search for the specifications on the tank.

"It is," Maho nodded.

"Ok, let's see here then. Panzerkampfwagen IV Ausf D, Panzerkampfvagen 38(t) Ausf B, Type 89 I-Go, Sturmgeschütz III Ausf. F, Medium M3 'Lee' Tank, Char B1 Bis… huh…" She paused for a moment. "I… I don't think there's any paperwork on thi-"

"Tha-... tha-... I-i-i-i-s that what I-... what I-..." Yukari stammered as she rounded the corner and exited the garage, laying her eyes on the tank.

"Yukari?" Hana asked. "Do you know what sort of a tank this might be?"

"Tha-tha-that…" Yukari continued, before letting go of all decorum and running at full speed towards the tank. "It's a Type 4 Chi-To!" she cheered as she pounced the frontal armor plating, laying herself against it as if to pet it. The heat of the summer sun that the metal had gathered on its trip here quickly made her reconsider her actions however, and she jumped a few steps away from the tank. "Ow…" she said in a low tone and shook her hands against the pain. A small round of snickers and giggles could be heard from some of the onlookers, but it quickly died out.

"Type 4… Type 4…" Yuzu mumbled to herself as she flipped between pages. "Oh, right. Here it is. Sorry, I misread one of the pages, thought it said Type 3," she chuckled, before beginning to read. "It's a Japanese-"

"It's the most advanced tank ever built by the Japanese during the war, made to go up against the American Shermans," Yukari said excitedly, unperturbed by her mishap. "Only two were ever built before the end of the war, even though Mitsubishi was planning on delivering 25 of them a month to help defend the home islands against an allied invasion. It was the successor to the Type 97 Chi-Ha, while the Type 3 Chi-Nu was just a stopgap tank to be used in the interim. It weighs 30 tonnes, and has an all-welded hull, with 75 millimetres of frontal armor, while the rest has between 30 and just 12 millimetres. It's also got the Type 5 75mm tank gun. It's one of the most powerful guns ever put into a Japanese tank, at least during the war, obviously."

"So it's pretty powerful then?" Erwin asked.

"Ah… well, I-... I mean, it's about on par with the Panzer IV? The type 5 gun can pierce roughly 75mm of armor at a kilometer away, which is… fine. It's a good tank, just not for when it was built, I suppose."

"According to what I can find, that means there should just be one more tank onboard," Yuzu noted as she finished working through her papers. "But as to where it is, I don't have a clue." She paused, and looked to Maho. "Commander, might I suggest that the team gathers here on Sunday? If we make a complete search of the carrier, which should be possible, then we will almost certainly find the 8th and final tank. It would be a great thing to expand our arsenal, especially if we're to go all the way, right?"

Maho glanced over at Yuzu. While to the rest of the team, who were still unaware of the school's precarious situation and the actual reason behind the team's existence, Yuzu's words probably just appeared as a helpful suggestion, a small piece of advice from one equal to another. But Maho saw it for what it was; a command.

"Very well," she sighed, and raised her voice slightly to better address the members of the team. "We're all meeting up here on Sunday morning, and we're going to find that last tank."

"How would they even get a tank all the way down here?" Saori asked.

"Maybe it transformed into a robot and walked down here on its own?" Karina proposed excitedly.

"How would it get down the stairs though?" Yuuki countered.

"I think it's more likely that they took it apart first," Yukari answered, and shone her flashlight down another empty corridor. Seeing Karina's dejected face as her shoulders slumped however, she quickly added "A-although, there are really big cargo elevators aboard, so nothing's impossible."

"Yay!"

Maho just rolled her eyes at this exchange. Herself, Saori, and Hana had been searching the lower decks together with Rabbit team for the better part of two hours now, with not even a hint of a trail making itself known to them. Hana had stayed above deck to help Yuzu and the Student Council look through the old paperwork in hopes of more information, while Mako had gone off with Duck team to search among the old clubrooms around the school.

By this point, they had made their way through the topmost few decks, and unless they found something soon, Maho wouldn't be surprised if they ended up on Ogin's turf.

The first-years were all taking the prolonged search in stride, and were chatting away amongst one another, as well as with Saori and Yukari. The only exceptions to the cheerful atmosphere was Azusa, who was walking in the front, and Maho, who kept to the back. They answered if anyone asked them for input, but neither of them entered conversations very willingly.

As they walked, Maho began to notice how, every now and then, Yukari and Saori moved closer to one another, and spoke in hushed tones she couldn't make out, while giving her and Azusa the occasional glance. She just sighed and ignored it however, continuing to search the many rooms they passed, none of which contained a tank.

"Oh…" Saori said as she stopped, her flashlight shining brightly upon the wall in front of her.

"It looks like the path splits here," Yukari noted, and inspected the map. "We're going to have to split up."

"Is that a good idea?" Ayumi asked. "What if we get lost?"

"Yeah, wouldn't it be better to stick together?" Karina asked.

"It's always when people split up that things go wrong in the movies," Aya commented.

"Everything's going to be fine," Saori reassured.

"Yeah, nothing bad's going to happen," Yukari added. "We'll both have maps and flashlights. But if we're going to finish looking for the tank today, we need to split up."

"The President said the bulkheads were closing at five, didn't she?" Saori asked.

Right. The bulkheads.

Maho had just decided to accept the student council's flights of fancy by this point, but she had quietly cursed them to hell and back once she found out. Apparently Yuzu had committed them to search through the lower decks on the same day that the Naval studies-students were going to inspect the bulkheads of the ship. Which meant that unless they were all back on the uppermost deck, or at the very least back in the central stairway before five, they would almost certainly end up stuck behind some locked steel door somewhere.

"Yeah." Yukari paused and looked at her watch. "There's about an hour and a half left until then."

"Alright," Saori nodded. "Aya, Yuuki, Ayumi, you and I will head this way. Yukari, you and Maho take the rest down that way, OK?"

"Copy that," Yukari replied with a quick salute, and the group split in two.

The search continued in far more silence than it had before, in part because the search party had halved in size, and in part because Karina and Yukari were the only ones that seemed at all interested in chatting. Saki was characteristically aloof and quiet as they walked, while Maho and Azusa simply continued their policy of only speaking when spoken too while trading annoyed glares.

"Well, looks like we're splitting again," Yukari noted as they approached another intersection. "Here." She reached into her backpack, and handed Maho a smaller satchel. "You and Azusa go that way, and Saki, Karina, and me will go this way, and we'll all meet up back by the stairway."

"Wait, what?" Maho asked, but Yukari didn't wait for her protests. "Yukari, I am not-"

"There's not too much time left until the bulkheads get closed off, so we can't afford to argue," Yukari interrupted and gave an apologetic wave as her, Karina, and Saki started to make their way down the corridor. "See you later."

"See ya, Azusa!" Karina shouted back, while Saki just gave the pair a look.

"Yukari!" Maho yelled, but to no avail. The trio had already turned another corner and disappeared. "Dammit…" she muttered and sighed bitterly.

"Fine. Let's just get this done with," Azusa muttered in lieu of a question, and set off at a brisk pace down the other corridor, leaving Maho behind.

"Hey!"

Azusa didn't answer, nor did she slow down. If anything, her pace only increased as Maho was forced to sprint after the M3 commander.

"Hey, Azusa! Slow down!"

"Just shut up and leave me alone," Azusa yelled back, her flashlight moving erratically along the walls and past the many rooms and hallways of the lower decks.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Maho called after her junior. "We're going to end up separated or lost down here!"

"As long as it gets me away from you," Azusa muttered, and began to push one of the heavy doors open. She was going to find the last tank, and shut Maho up in the process.

"Would you stop rushing off on your own?!" Maho snapped as she just managed to catch the door before it closed, following Azusa into the darkness beyond as the steel slammed shut behind her. "What on earth's the matter with you?!"

"Don't ask questions when you don't care about the answer," Azusa grumbled, but before Maho could snap back, a low clunking thud could be heard behind them. Maho tried to pull on the handle of the heavy door, but as she looked at her phone, she knew it was too late. It had been shut and locked behind them, and there was no getting it open from their side.

"Great," she muttered. "First you almost lost us the Anzio-battle, and now you've gotten us into another fine mess..."

Next time on Dein Weg ist Mein Weg: Tensions and emotions run high as Maho and Azusa find themselves trapped. Maho has an idea and enacts a plan to try and put an end to her and Azusa's quarrelling, but there are some things even a daughter of the Nishizumi style can achieve with ease...

Author's Notes:

A bit of a short-ish chapter this time, with some nice and long-overdue interactions between Maho and the rest of Phoenix team, the discovery of a new tank, and some tensions between Maho and Azusa as the search for the final tank gets underway.

Writing Maho actually interacting with her crew and not being a depressed emotional wreck is something that's been on the docket for quite a while, and I think I ended up with something that at the very least shows how she is beginning to come to accept their companionship. We also get a (to me) very funny little gag with Maho accidentally cutting herself the moment she's handed a knife.

There's the reveal to everyone but Saori about what Mako's family situation is like, which I debated whether or not I should even make mention of. In an early draft of the story, I was originally intending to skip a lot of the issues that the other members of Phoenix team face as this is mostly Maho's story. This is part of why Mako's grandma simply never falls and ends up in the hospital. A similar thing happened with Hana and her issues with her mother, but I decided that it's an integral enough part of her character that it should at least be mentioned, so we can all assume that the subplot between Hana and her mother happened while Maho just wasn't there.

This also leads to an interesting little talk between Hana and Maho, which, while not of the same caliber as the one between Maho and Yukari, does at least provide the beginnings of an understanding between the two. Also it allows me to make the nice little joke of them just having walked past a tank for weeks on end.

Which brings us to the Chi-To. I wanted to try and give Nekonya and the gamers a little bit of an upgrade, and so I moved them up a step. As Yukari and Maho both note, it's by no means incredible, but it's at least something of an upgrade, and a nice little change from canon, if you ask me. For a long time, I believed battles were the most difficult thing to write in a GuP-fanfic, but it turns out that writing a convincing Yukari geek-out is what's the most difficult, as I am in no way a tank geek, and far from as knowledgeable as Yukari, or even some of my peers. Still, I hope it at least passes as functional.

Lastly, we have the search through the lower levels after the final tank, which we'll simply have to wait and see what it is. Who knows, maybe Saori gets her wish and a "Soupra Pershing" is added to the roster. ;)

This does however leave tensions high between Maho and Azusa, but it does allow me to set up their eventual reconciliation, whenever it might happen. I promise it will be soon however.

I apologize for the added wait you've had to endure for this chapter. We've had quite a heatwave the past few weeks, making writing rather difficult. My hope is that the next chapter will be out sometime in early August, but as always, there are no promises.

As always I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for reading this story of mine, and for leaving your thoughts whenever you can. I do however feel that I should give a special shout out to user Arpeggio GTA Collection, who left a whopping 7000 words worth of reviews in the span of a single day. Thank you so so much. Every single one of all of your reviews warms my heart whenever I see them.

That will be all for today, and I will see you all again in the next chapter.

Until next time,

/Rihno