On 2nd August the day after the vote Kodama in his last speech before the directorate condemned the Federation's condescending behavior against the boy's schools. Some have criticized him. According to them in order to prevent secession they should have mobilize Sensha-Do teams. Kodama stated that the boys have no right to withdraw from the JSF but the directorate has no means to prevent them from doing so. He pointed out that if the Federation did not mitigate their discrimination, the boy's schools would rightly use a revolutionary tool.
At morning Ami has also resigned her place in the JSF as she felt herself incompatible with the upcoming director.
It became clearer from hour to hour that the Federation was standing before a big challenge.
As a result of the uplifting atmosphere after the director election the girl's schools started to secure federal facilities around their and the boy's schools hometowns. A few tanks of them were always present at those places to prevent the expected unrest or breakage.
They didn't success. On 4th August Landsknecht called together a convention to negotiate the breakaway. On 7th a day after Japan was commemorating the tragedy of Hiroshima; Landsknecht Boys High School's students saw an extraordinary main title on the first page of the schools newspaper.
Landsknecht Zeitung
(EXTRA)
THE
FEDERATION
IS
DISSOLVED!
At noon the convention announced the withdrawal of Landsknecht from the JSF. No need to say that the news caused huge commotion or even panic in the girl's schools and the directorate. On the other hand Landsknecht's students cheered as one man. A committee was formed of representatives of the Federation and the boy's schools to find a way-out of this situation. After a day they had to announce that they were not able to reach an agreement.
More members of the directorate have resigned. Some did so because of their conscience some because they were disappointed for not mobilizing Sensha-Do teams to prevent the secession.
A day later the Sensha-Do team commanders and student council members of Tsar Peter have also resigned their positions as representatives of their school and exited the JSF. In the next two days Mannerheim and Bannockburn did the same. Soon Odin, Stromboli, Diamondback, De Gaulle and Conquistador have followed their example.
The Federation held meeting after meeting. It was hard for them to understand what happened. It started with harsh arguments at a normal conference and step by step it became a crisis. Nine schools decided not to follow them anymore. More frightening was the fact that they started buying tanks and ammunition on a large scale.
Niigata, Landsknecht
"Oishi submitted a suggestion to set up a strikeforce." Isato informed Kiyoshi as they were standing at the railway station of Niigata waiting for their ordered items to arrive.
"Then it is right what we are doing isn't it?" The commander said. Then the horn of a train could be heard. The locomotive rolled into the station pulling cargo wagons. Upon them stood a dozen tanks. Three Königstigers, two Tiger I's, four Panthers and three Jagdpanthers. Kiyoshi examined them with a satisfied look. The two last wagons at the end of the train contained ammunition.
"The others?" he asked.
"We're waiting another cargo with the medium tanks and a few other Tigers tank destroyers." replied Isato. "The artillery needs more time to arrive."
Yes, the artillery. Since 7th August the nine boy's schools in question did some things which were not allowed even for the girl's schools. They bought more tanks than they were allowed to own and self-propelled guns were also prohibited by federal rules as they were open vehicles.
Many JSF leaders expressed their protest but the boys made it clear that they did not care.
"We have left the Japan Sensha-Do Federation thereby its rules do not apply to us anymore." They stated.
The other schools have also got their new tanks. In the past Tsar Peter had three T-34/76's, three T-34/85's, a SU-85 and three old T-26 light tanks. Now they've got eight other T-34/85's, four JS-2's, two SU-100's, two ISU-152's and ten SU-14-1 SPG's.
Conquistador bought Panzer III/J's, Panzer IV/H's, Stug III's and Verdeja I SPG's. Odin got Somua S35's, Panzer III/N's, Panzer Neubaufahrzeug's and Wespes.
Earlier Stromboli had only two Semovente 75/18's and two CV.33's. Now they had twelve P26/40's, eight other Semoventes, five M15/42's and five Semovente artilleries under their belt.
De Gaulle filled its ranks with Somua S35's, ARL 44's, ARL V39's and Lorraine 39L AM's.
Diamondback gained M26 Pershings, M4A1 and M4A6 Shermans, Fireflies and M7 Priests.
Mannerheim bought Panzer IV's, Panzer III's, Stug III's and three Wespes and three Grilles.
Bannockburn got Black Princes, Caernarvons, Crusaders, Archers and Bishop SPG's.
When Landsknecht's further orders arrived they had more Panzer IV's, Stugs, Jagdpanthers, two more Panthers and ten artilleries (six G.W. Panthers and four Hummels).
As we can see the boy's schools sat up pretty hard-hitting teams. The crews of the new tanks were formed of students who were not Sensha-Do participants until now, but joined the teams gladly to defend their schools if it was necessary.
Oarai
The girls sat in the student council office reading the news.
"Girls if they vote this thing about forming an army out of us we are good to go into battle." Miho said holding her newspaper.
"Impossible!" Kawashima cringed. "Nothing like that happened before!"
"It doesn't mean that it cannot happen now."
"Isn't there any ways through negotiations to bring the boy's schools back?" Yuzu asked worriedly.
"They feel threatened." replied Miho doubtfully. "They made it clear why they left the Federation. They see the new director as a danger for them so they have to go."
"I'm afraid the Federation is not able to handle this crisis anymore." Anzu nodded. "But we must keep our faith in the unity."
Tokyo, JSF HQ
"Thank you ladies and gentlemens for giving me special authorities." Tsuji said in the council room to those who stayed in the directorate. "As my first act I ordain the creation of an army of the Sensha-Do teams of the girl's high schools and All-Star University to counter the increasing threat of the separatist schools."
And this was the penultimate spark before the conflagration. Within days Sherlock Holmes, Seinarukaze, Habsburg, Szent István and Uluru have also chose a future outside of the JSF.
At that moment they felt that it was time for daring steps. Our friends gathered together in Nagoya, Habsburg's home city.
After two days of consultations Shikio finally could announce it to the press: "In the name of freedom and in the name of Landsknecht Boys High School, Stromboli Boys High School, Diamondback High School, Tsar Peter Boys High School, Bannockburn Boys High School, Sherlock Holmes Boys Academy, Seinarukaze Academy, De Gaulle Boys High School, Habsburg Boys High School, Szent István High School, Mannerheim High School, Conquistador High School, Uluru Academy and Odin High School we hereby proclaim the CONFEDERACY OF INDEPENDENT HIGH SCHOOLS! A free, honest and righteous community with its own leadership, own rules and own will! God bless the Liberty, Equality and Fraternity!
So they finally did it. They freed their schools after decades of indignity and created their own sports association. Its Statue was the "Secession Statement".
They created their own rules. Hamada Kyousuke, Conquistador's student council president was chosen as a common confederate president and the center of the Confederacy was also placed in Matsuyama, the Spanish school's hometown. It was a good choice for their center. The whole island of Shikoku was on their hands, Conquistador, Szent István and Sherlock Holmes were based there but none of the girl's schools. The first two may not had the biggest tanks (Szent István had 40M Turán medium tanks and 43M Zrínyi assault guns (actually the Zrínyi was pretty effective)) but they had a lot and together with Sherlock Holmes they could effectively guard the three bridges which were connecting Shikoku with Honshu.
But it wasn't the south where the first big confrontation took shape. It was the north in Hokkaido.