Blazepanzer here...and...well...this is kinda a short chapter I've written about something of a concept so to speak. Just for quick fun, and I hope you enjoy it!

Anyways, Blazepanzer does not own girls und panzer. Enjoy!

Her dark green eyes gazed out of the window as her mind began to wonder. Her homework sat unfinished, a slight unnorm for the genetically Irish girl, yet she wasn't interested in doing her work at the moment.

She let out a small sigh. Did I do the right thing? she asked herself, as she took her hand and placed it on the window, staring at it for a moment. Maybe...abandoning Ooarai like that was perhaps for the best...but then why do I feel so guilty about it?

She retracted her hand as her memories began to flood back.

"We've managed to get ourselves a match!" Anzu called excitedly.

Hopeful mummers and whispers erupted as they all excitedly waited the news of the match. This was it! This was a way forward, to save their school.

All save the ginger in the back. One Hanoashi Katoni, Blaze as she was known by most. Some also called her Yolko due to her familiarity with the Sword Art Online side character in terms of hair style, and body height/build.

Said girl just slumped. "I'm...sorry," she sighed.

"Sorry...for what?" Anzu asked, gazing at her along with the rest of the girls.

"Leading, Sensado...all of it. I'm...exhausted." She then turned to arguably her best friend, Asuza. "You're ready to take over the M3 Lee for me...and my position as Team commander. It's not much, but..." Hanoashi trailed off, and then gazed down and walked out of the room.

Her friend Asuza had joined her later on. "You can't be serious Blaze," she whispered.

"You must go on, Asuza.." Hanoashi whispered. "The only thing I can do for this team now is place you in charge."

"But...why?" Asuza asked gently. "Do...you think Ooarai is a lost cause?"

Hanoashi sat down on one of the benches, indicating for Asuza to do the same. "Look...I've known about the match for a few hours, and I've come to a decision...to quit while I'm ahead. Not because I think that the match is lost, but because I'm exhausted. And an exhausted Sensado commander is a defeated Sensado commander."

"But...you lead Nishmari to their first Co-ed middle school league, and us to our first Sensado League championship!" Asuza gasped.

"And I've exhausted myself doing it, my friend. I'll always cherish my time as commander of this fine team...but...my time in the sport is done."

Her mind drifted back to reality. She felt her cheeks growing wet, and Hanoashi whipped them off, and rose from her seat next to the window, and dragged herself down to the kitchen, warming up a Hotdog on a bun. She did not feel hungry, and she was forcing herself to eat despite her depression.

Ooarai had lost that match. Asuza had done an excellent job, more than even what young Hanoashi had hoped for. But it had been an elimination match, and Asuza had only managed to take out seventeen of the thirty tanks. She had done her best, no mistake about it. And yet...she had lost.

Perhaps in another universe, with a different commander, Ooarai may have been reinforced by the other schools, as an act of friendship with a different commander. A well known commander, perhaps even a Nishisumi if you will. But that was not this universe.

Hanoashi was at her core just a small town farm city girl. A nobody. Her only oddity was that she was related to the Matsumino family, one of the richest and most well respected families, but aside from her Aunt Shelia and her cousin Rikona, the others of that family treated her like she didn't exist. At any rate...there was no reason to form a close team commander to team commander relationship with her. What benefit could she even give them? She had made no attempt to hide her after graduation plans, go and get a degree in teaching, or perhaps get married and become a stay at home mother.

And so, Ooarai had faced off of against the University team eight to thirty. It didn't matter that Asuza took out over half the field while being outnumbered practically four to one. It was an elimination match to decide Ooarai's future, and the school lost.

Sighing, she ate her hotdog in silence, and glanced over at a picture she and the crew of the Lee had taken. While most of them had on the full-sleeved uniform, Hanoashi had opted for the short sleeved uniform. She did prefer short sleeves after all...one of the reasons why she opted to join Blue-division after leaving Ooarai, albeit she wore a white tank underneath as she hated her boobs dangling out, something that many at Blue-division seemed to prefer, though some were in her camp so to speak.

Sighing, she gazed out of the door, staring outside as the sun shone downward. Unbidden, she decided to take a small stroll, she was in no mood for doing her homework.

The sun on her skin felt nice, and the academy, as she had expected, had given off a sort of friendly vibe. While her mind was often racked with guilt over leaving Ooarai, she was ultimately happy with her life.

But...she did miss Sensado. When she had told Asuza that she was exhausted, she had meant every word of it. The idea of commanding a tank at Blue-Division now caused her to nearly gag. The stress...the anxiety...

She had been a good commander, but she was a demoralized commander at that. Perhaps it had to do with her being unable to properly enjoy the full fruits of either of her championship wins.

In the co-ed leagues, if you won the championship or the most points without winning the championship, you'd qualify for the Homestead match, a celebratory free for all consisting of crews fighting crews, from your school and all other schools who qualified for the match. For one day brightly colored paint schemes and advertisement logo were permitted to be plastered on the co-ed tanks, much like in NASCAR. It was a sight.

The problem was that the teams who qualified for the match fought the match shortly after the start of the following school year. And since Nishmari had qualified during Hanoashi's final year, she never got to partake in the match herself, something of a dream of hers.

Then there was Ooarai. Anzu had restarted the team under the supposed understanding that a tournament win would result in the reversal of the school's closure. It hadn't, dispute Hanoashi managing to pull out the win against schools with better and far more numerous equipment. Under her leadership, they had not only beaten Sanders, Kuromorimine, Anzio, and Pravda but also St: Glorieana. In fact they had managed to defeat the later two in a compound match with Chi-Ha-Tan as their team mates. They were, save the university match, undefeated.

But...just like at Nishmari, Hanoashi had to deal with not being able to fully enjoy her victory. The promise, or supposed promise of Ooarai's continued existence was for naught. At the end of it all, the young commander was just sick of it all. What was the use of continued fighting if she never got to enjoy the fruits of her labor.

"Hanoashi?"

Stunned at the voice, the Irish girl turned around. "Asuza?" Hanoashi gasped, before running up to her and hugging her. "I've missed you," she whispered.

"I've missed you to Blaze..." Asuza smiled.

"I...look," Hanoashi paused, pulling back before wiping a few tears from her eye. "I'm...sorry for abandoning you girls like that...I..."

"Don't worry Blaze, I know where you were coming from." Asuza smiled.

"So...what made you decide to come here?" Hanoashi asked.

"Well...Me, Taeko and Ayumi were promised a spot on an old T-50 they recently found and restored. We...kinda need a fourth member, though..." Asuza trailed off.

Hanoashi smiled. "Well...you can count me in if you want..." she offered indulgently.

"I thought that you were tired of Sensado though," Asuza tipped her head in confusion.

"I'm tired of being a commander, but there is one other position I played...and truth be told I've been kinda thinking about asking El if I could sign on as a driver, like the old days back at Nishmari before I became a commander...twice."

"You became a commander there twice?" Asuza asked.

Hanoashi smiled. "Yeah, it's a long story, but let's just say that during the first time I became a commander, we had a more experienced commander join my team and I stepped down to let her take command of the tank. At the time I had just been promoted, and I kinda wanted to go back to being a driver. Unfortunately, we did bad during that summer's tournament and I replaced one of the commanders in the Panzer III."

She paused, before bowing to Asuza. "And so...I'd be honored to be your driver, if you'll have me," she smiled.

Asuza simply hugged her in response.

Sighing, Asuza sipped her coffee as her children played Yu-gi-oh in the living room. Blaze...her daughter, had a stern gaze of concentration as she observed the field, while her son, Katsumo, held a quiet smirk, clearly displaying that he had a trap in wait.

Fourteen years had passed since that day, the day she had discovered that her best fried had ended up attending the same academy she had transferred too. The day she had convinced her to rejoin the Sensado team.

True to her word, Hanoashi had joined up as a driver, much to Ayumi and Taeko's delight. And she stayed loyal, despite El offering to make her the team commander at the end of the year. Hanoashi politely declined, and a second year was made team commander in her stead, followed by, to her utter surprise, Asuza herself being chosen as the Vice commander.

She now fully understood why Hanoashi had been so exhausted. Being a Tank commander was hard work, being a Vice commander was brutal. Being team captain was...torture. Sure, it brought the young Asuza a lot of pride, but by the end of it all she too was ready to leave the sport all behind.

On the bright side Hanoashi had really enjoyed driving, first for the T-50 and later on for one of the Tiger H1's the team had bought right after Asuza became team leader and chose to operate the tank herself.

"Ah man, you messed up my trap!" Katsumo moaned, though Asuza could tell that he was impressed as Blaze had a look of bemusement on her face.

"Bro, you're face revealed your intentions," Blaze laughed. "Still, it was a good trap..."

Asuza smiled weakly at her antics, though only she and her husband knew the truth...Blaze was Hanoashi's child, not Asuza's.

Unfortunately, young Hanoashi's tendency of not being able to enjoy the things she should have seemed to follow her into collage. At the time, she had been trying to get a degree in teaching where as Asuza herself had gone to get a degree in nursing. More specifically, she wanted to become a pediatrician so to speak. However, what Asuza had not factored in was falling in love with a boy named Mako.

Not so much love at first sight, but she and Mako had begun talking when they were assigned a team project together for physics, and they became fast friends, and soon, they began to realize the feelings they had for each other...and in their third year they got married, with Hanoashi being the maid of honor so to speak.

Hanoashi, meanwhile, was trying to find a boyfriend of her own, with no luck. No one seemed interested in her, and she didn't seem interested in anyone else. Well...it turned out that someone had been interested in her, just not romantically, and Hanoashi had found herself bound up in his cellar. Thankfully, she managed to escape, but not before he had managed to impregnate her.

To everyone's surprise, she handled the aftermath of the situation quiet well. Hanoashi had always wanted to be a mother, and while being raped was the one way she did not want to go about it, she took joy in the fact that she was going to have a child of her own. To her, the father was irrelevant, and what he had done to her had became irrelevant.

This was her precious child, and she was going to raise it with love and care, come hell or high water.

Unfortunately, there was a medical issue that cropped up at about eight weeks, and her friend had to make a choice, save the baby, or herself. Hanoashi, in a tone that offered no argument, chose to save the child, asking for Asuza to adopt the child as her own. Asuza was more than happy to do this for her friend, and her husband was more than fine with it as he had already graduated from his technical course and was already working as a contracted plumber.

In short, Hanoashi didn't get to enjoy her first date, no one wanted to go out with her. She didn't get to enjoy her first kiss...that fiend had kissed her over and over when he had her tied up in his basement. She didn't get to enjoy her first time, that was taken from her. She didn't even get to see the birth of her daughter, she had been put to sleep during the operation and never woke up afterword. There was no way to save her.

And so, in honor of her friend, Asuza had named her Blaze, after Hanoahsi's old nickname. She along with Mako raised her as their own daughter, which was significantly easier than she had feared given that Blaze had inherited her father's black hair, though she had Hanoashi's dark green eyes.

And that was the way it would have been, had not two weeks later...

"Mom," Blaze whispered, shaking her gently.

"What is it, my daughter?" she asked, blinking as she rose up gently, growing concerned about her daughter.

Blaze burst into sobs. "Why'd you keep it a secret from me?" she whimpered.

At once Asuza shot up, and hugged her. "Hanoashi...asked me to raise you as our own. She..."

"Did she hate me?" Blaze asked.

"No!" Asuza gasped. "No, Hanoashi loved you. You would have been the love of her life had she...not had medical complications."

"How do you know?" Blaze asked.

"Because I was there with her the whole time," Asuza promised. She broke off, and pulled out a small locked box from under her bed, before handing it to Blaze. "She...wanted you to have this if you found out. It'll...help you to understand her and the choice she made with you."

Blaze gingerly took the box, and exited the room, before heading up to her own room, and entered, locking the door. Slumping back against the door, she cried.

About an hour later, after shouting at her mother and brother to leave her the hell alone, Blaze sighed, gazing at the box in her hand. Wiping her tears, she gingerly took the key and opened the box, surprised to see a letter as the first thing she saw. Taking it, she gave it a small read.

"My precious daughter...if you're reading this, then you must have found out that I'm your actual mother. I understand that this might be upsetting to you, however, please understand that it was solely my decision to keep this knowledge from you, not out of spite or anger or anything of that nature. I did so because I wanted for you to be able to live a full life without having this knowledge to weigh you down."

Blaze gazed at the letter, her eyes widening as she continued to read.

"This...is kinda hard for me to tell you, but...one night while walking home from a Kobini...a small convenience store in case they've changed the wording, I was chloroformed, and woke up in a cellar, tied up. Four days I spend in there, unable to escape as my abductor had his way with me. Sure, I tried to escape...at first at least. but when you're put in that situation, you become demoralized rather quickly."

She was...raped? Blaze's heart sank as she digested this, feeling disgusted at what her mother had gone through.

"It was only when I developed morning sickness that I finally got the courage and determination to try and escape once more. I'm...not too sure if you know what morning sickness is..."

Blaze stopped reading, and snorted. "I know what that is mom!" she muttered, before reading again.

"At any rate, it was your conception that encouraged me to escape, and it was the concept of living with you, raising you, that gave me the ultimate joy... and the strength to deal with what had happened. Sure, being raped was not the way I wanted to go about things, but having a child was my life's dream, my goal in life if you will. And I was going to have you. "

Blaze stooped, feeling the tears flow down her cheeks again as she realized the truth. I was conceived in the worst way...and yet she still wanted to have me! She realized, sobbing. A small part of her was beginning to hate herself, the biological father side of herself, and yet...her mother's side, the light her mother had in her was rapidly eliminating that hatred. So...what happened? She asked herself, wiping her tears and continuing to read.

"Unfortunately, There was some complications...and I have to make a choice...me or you. I chose you. Now, don't you dare feel guilty about it, the reason why I chose you was because I loved you, more than you can ever imagine. You were my life, and while I might not be there with you in body, I'll always be with you in spirit."

Her tears began to fall, and she clutched the letter in her hand. "Mother..." she whimpered, letting the gravity of the situation wash over her. "You...gave yourself for me...even though I wasn't your choice..."

It took a full three minutes before she realized the truth. She was her choice...multiple times. Hanoashi...her mother...could have aborted her, and yet she didn't. She wanted her, even though her conception was not her choice, the life of her child was. She proved that, not only in wanting to give birth to her, but in saving her daughter over herself.

"Thank you Mom," she whispered, gazing up at the ceiling, "Thank you."

After a moment, she gazed at the letter, her eyes widening as the discovered there was a few paragraphs left.

"There's a few things I've left in here, a Blu-ray disk recording of some of my most important moments, including all of my recorded Sensado matches, a collection of photos in the albumin, and a few other possessions."

"Lastly...I gave Asuza orders to raise you as her own daughter, for you to receive the family name, and for her to name you. I felt like that was for the best, but in case you were wondering, I'd was thinking of naming you Heather. It's an English name, but...it's a pretty one."

Heather... that name echoed through Blaze's mind as she lowered her hand, and sighed. She put the box on the table with the letter on it, and exited her room, walking up to her brother's room.

"You okay sis?" Katsumo asked her gently.

Blaze shook her head. "Did...Asuza tell you?"

He shook his head, causing her to sigh. "Come to my room," she whispered, and walked off.

Once she entered, she handed him the letter, letting him read it. His eyes widened. "This...changes nothing about us," he whispered as he hugged her. "You're still my precious older sister."

Blaze smiled. "Thank you brother...than you."

They decided to go into the photo album together. "So...which one is her?" Katsumo asked.

"I'm guessing...yeah, definitely her," Blaze gasped, surprised that her mother was a ginger. But she could recognize her own eyes and skin tone in the ginger haired girl, especially since she had adopted a similar hair style to her biological mother's. Kinda made it obvious with her name written at the bottom of the picture with an arrow pointing up toward her.

"I'm guessing that Blaze was a nickname of hers?" Katsumo guessed.

"D...d...don't guess such things!" Blaze gasped, thinking he was joking, but he shook his head, staying that Asuza had named her that for a reason. "Maybe...we should ask her later though."

"Whatever the case...yep, right here there's a photo labeled Hanoashi Blaze Katoni," Katsumo noted.

They went through the photos, surprised to see that their mother, well...adopted in Blaze's case, had been crewmates with Hanoashi. They then read through the diary together, and learned a lot of surprises.

For one, aside from a watch, Hanoashi hated wearing jewelry. That answered a question that Blaze had, since she was a toddler, as she couldn't for the life of her understand why she found wearing a ring so damned annoying. I must have inherited that from her.

"Um...I just noticed...why's there a rope in the trash?" Katsumo asked.

Blaze sighed. "Well...you know how Hanoashi had been tied up?"

Katsumo let out a small gasp. "Wait...you like bondage?"

Blaze socked him gently, but then sighed. "Yeah...I guess I inherited that from my father. Now...I kinda want to get clean of that addition."

"Good call sis," Katsumo nodded approvingly.

"Yeah, before today, I'd kinda tie myself up...nothing serious though," Blaze explained. "I might tie one arm to the bed post, or my legs together, but...now that I know where that idea came from, no more."

And with they, the two moved on to watching the clips of her mother. An explanation video, which had brought Blaze to tears, seeing her mother, heavily pregnant with her, explaining the medical issue and why she was going to do what she was going to do. She then recited the letter.

For Blaze, just reading the letter was one thing. But hearing her mother speak to her was something else. The raw emotion, her expressions, making those precious words in that letter come out even more. By the end of it all, she wanted to hear more of her mother's voice, to actually have a conversation with her, to ask for stories about her childhood.

Combined, the diary, the Blu-ray, the letter, and the photo album had given her a tantalizing glimpse of her long lost mother, and perhaps the life she could have had her mother survived. It left her wanting more.

It also left her feeling very blessed given how things could have turned out. And...it left her feeling proud. Her father might have been an Ass, and that was putting it lightly. But her birth mother was a hero as far as she was concerned.

As was her adoptive parents, along with her brother. They were her heros.

Quick end note: I'm probably going to make a fanfic about Blaze's adventures at some time in the far future, right now though I need to finish some of my old fanfics first. This was just an idea I wanted to write about.