We're starting to get toward the end of the arc, and now it's time for some serious content. Not only is Daniel going to have to deal with someone who has a massive ego, but also the realization that Mio is coming towards the end of her time as a witch. Enjoy the chapter…
A couple of weeks later, Daniel was taking a stroll around the base while Minna was off meeting with the brass for permission to start an operation to take back the island of Malta. 'They would be fools to deny her request,' he thought, having heard Minna's plan as she was practicing her pitch to the brass before she left. In one area of the base, Yoshika and Lynne were hanging the laundry out to dry. In another, Trude and Erica were training in anticipation of conducting the operation together. It would involve the two witches using a submarine to go under the Neuroi barrier placed around the island before taking off from the sub to attack the Neuroi drones within the enclosed space.
The next moment, a military transport plane could be heard overhead. 'Minna must be back,' Daniel thought to himself, 'hopefully with some good news.' The next thing he knew, he was seeing someone jump out of the plane while it was still in flight – without a parachute! As the girl got closer to the ground, she used magic to slow her decent and land safely. This really set off one of Daniel's pet peeves – someone doing something completely stupid for no reason! He proceeded to march with a purpose towards where Yoshika and Lynne were, which is where the unknown witch happened to land.
As he approached, he saw this new witch engage in some chit-chat with his adopted sister and Lynne before shouting out at her, "Hey! You! Are you completely brainless?! Just what were you thinking jumping from that height without a parachute or any sort of safety net?!" She turned to face him and replied with a cocky grin, "I didn't get hurt, so stop worrying." He immediately replied, "That isn't the point! I don't care how powerful you are, you can't be going around doing something so reckless for no other reason than to show off!" She just continued to smile and said, "Yeah…whatever."
Barkhorn and Erica then came up to them, with Barkhorn commenting sarcastically, "So, it's the great Marseille." Daniel then asked, "Great Marseille?" Marseille then again smiled cockily at Daniel and introduced herself. "That's right. Captain Hannah-Justina Marseille – a pleasure to meet you." She then looked at him a bit more carefully and commented, "You must be the Jedi, am I right?" Daniel replied, "That's right. Captain Daniel Horowitz." While they did shake hands, he continued to look at her warily.
Marseille then got back to Barkhorn and they proceeded to greet each other – though it also looked like they wanted to kill each other. 'This is going to be a giant headache – I just know it,' thought Daniel. All the while Erica looked on with an expression like a child who had just been asked to clean her room on a beautiful day.
When they all gathered in the briefing room, Minna introduced Marseille to the rest of the unit, whom Daniel learned had the nickname 'The Star of Africa' for her exploits while fighting the Neuroi with the Storm Witches in Northern Africa. Apparently, she was considered world famous and had been in the same squad as Barkhorn and Hartmann in the past. While she and Barkhorn got along like cats and dogs, it was harder to tell what the dynamic was like between her and Erica, whom she seemed genuinely excited to work with.
This became even more evident when Minna announced that the two primary witches in the upcoming mission to Malta would be Barkhorn and Marseille. While Barkhorn was angry that it wasn't her and Erica as was previously discussed, Marseille refused to work with Barkhorn due to the fact that Barkhorn wasn't "good enough to be her partner," saying that only Erica could be her partner in this mission.
At that, Barkhorn had clearly had enough of Marseille and said that she was going to teach her proper respect for her superior officers. After Marseille pointed out that she was the same rank as Barkhorn, the two engaged with each other, using their magic and causing a wind storm inside the room. Daniel was about to yell at them both and go over to try to break them up when Erica cried out that she would agree to be Marseille's partner. The fight then stopped with everyone stunned that Erica actually agreed to Marseille's demand.
As they were practicing later that afternoon, Daniel had to admit that Marseille's skills were indeed top-notch. However, the teamwork between her and Erica needed a lot of work. Later, they were both about to be subjected to discipline after Marseille jokingly pointed her gun at Erica, as though in some sort of game, and Erica went along with it. Minna was planning to administer punishment by placing them in the same room and forcing them to be around each other 24-7 until the mission, only allowed to interact with everyone else during mealtimes and training. Before she did, however, Daniel said, "Minna, if you would allow me, I think I've got a better idea for their punishment." After Daniel told her what he had in mind, Minna agreed to it, curious as to whether it would be effective with Erica and Marseille.
The next thing everyone knew, the two offenders were sitting on their knees in the base hangar. "How long do we have to stay like this?" asked Marseille. "I don't recall saying," Daniel responded. Erica then whined about being punished too. "Man, what did I do to deserve this?" she asked. "Acted stupid," Minna retorted. As they all walked away to leave Erica and Marseille to their punishment, Mio asked Daniel, "Where did you come up with THAT idea?" Daniel replied simply, "Sasha – it's her specialty." Minna and Mio laughed at the answer, while Barkhorn grinned and replied, "Nice. I'm liking this girlfriend of yours more and more."
Over the next few days, Daniel noticed that Marseille tried to turn EVERYTHING into a contest with Erica, from training to eating rice. The night before the mission, Daniel decided to take Marseille aside for a few moments and speak to her – with Minna's permission, of course. Before she entered her room, Daniel indicated to her that he wanted to speak with her, and she went along with him into another part of the corridor, where no one else was at that moment. He then spoke to her in a very serious tone, "Look Marseille, I don't care if you are the 'Star of Africa' or whatever, you have got to put your ego aside for a while if the mission is going to succeed. I'll grant that you have top-notch skills, but that doesn't mean a thing if you can't work with others as a team."
As she rolled her eyes at him, Daniel grew annoyed and snapped at her, "Hey! Listen to me, dammit! Ever since you've been here, you've been a real pain in the ass – I know that most witches aren't as good as you in terms of pure ability, but they shouldn't be discarded as easily as you would. Do you know why the 501st is so successful? Huh?" When she didn't answer, he continued, "It's because we work as a team and utilize everyone's strengths to get the job done. It doesn't matter who gets the glory! You may be famous worldwide, but you would be even better if you would just remember that!" With that, he stormed off in frustration, hoping that Marseille would actually think about what he just said.
The next day, the rest of the 501st escorted the Romagnan fleet towards Malta, where the Neuroi still had a barrier completely surrounding the island. It appeared that they would have to be content with listening to the mission's progress over the comm system and pray that Erica and Marseille could get the job done on their own. As the minutes went on, they could hear them count down the number of Neuroi drones they still had to destroy – starting with 40 and going all the way down to zero. When the last Neuroi drone was destroyed, just the core was left, which they destroyed with ease, bringing down the barrier.
When they cleared the barrier and got up into the sky, Erica and Marseille proceeded to engage in a one-on-one dogfight. While both showed exceptional battle skills, neither one could hit the other. Daniel face-palmed from his fighter at seeing this. "What is their deal?!" he exclaimed over the comm. "They're trying to find out who's the best," explained Mio. Daniel and most of the others commented that this was a stupid way to try to determine that. Minutes later, their duel ended in a draw, causing consternation with everyone else – this would only be picked up between them at another time.
As Marseille boarded a transport for a magazine interview the next morning, Daniel, Minna, and Mio were there to see her off. Before she boarded, she came up to Daniel and said with a cocky grin on her face, "Thanks for the pep talk the other day. I know it didn't look like it, but you actually gave me something to think about." Daniel continued to look at her warily and replied, "Really?" Marseille then handed something to Minna – an autographed photo of herself. "For Barkhorn's sister," she said. As the transport carrying her left, Daniel looked on with a look of surprise on his face. He hadn't expected her to hand over an autographed photo, as he had heard she didn't like doing that – and for Barkhorn's sister no less. Maybe she HAD actually listened to him, he thought.
Some time later, Daniel was asked to accompany Minna and Mio during a meeting with representatives from allied command. Daniel had noticed that Mio had been on edge lately – not only had her balance been a bit shaky in the last couple of sorties with the Neuroi, but she had actually yelled at Yoshika that morning when she came into her room and touched her sword, the Repummaru. Granted, it had really knocked Yoshika to the ground for a few moments, but still, Mio practically NEVER yelled at Yoshika.
When they were briefed on Operation Mars, the final battle against the superhive over Venezia, they were shocked to learn that the 501st would serve as a support unit, and not be the main attack force during the battle. Mio was of course furious at this, and tried to argue for the generals to change the plan. When it was revealed that the main attack power would come from the Yamato – equipped with a Neuroi core that they had been able to get under control (or so they thought) – she was even more incensed, not believing that they would even think to do such a thing after what happened in Britannia. Further, they revealed that they would only be able to use this new system for ten minutes before losing control.
Frankly, Daniel was also at a loss for what allied command was thinking. Even Captain Sugita, who personally supported the witches being an important part of the fight against the Neuroi, accepted the plans without question. 'Probably out of a sense of duty to the service,' he thought. Daniel just shook his head incredulously. Even after everything they had been through, and after everything the witches had accomplished, it appeared that command still couldn't get over its inherent sexism.
"This plan is way too risky," Daniel said suddenly, as he got the attention of everyone in the room. "You're putting all of our eggs in one basket at a point when we don't need to," he explained. "After all of this time and seeing everything they have accomplished, you are STILL severely underestimating the witches' ability to get the job done. At the same time, you're putting your faith into something that has already shown to be extremely difficult to control at best." He then took several deep breaths after getting that all out, just so tired of all the BS.
Despite the obvious impact his speech had on everyone present, the generals nonetheless decided to go forward with the plan as originally set forth. When the plan was revealed to the rest of the 501st back at the base, it was further revealed that if the mission failed, Romagna would be abandoned to the Neuroi and the 501st would be disbanded again. Daniel was now even more enraged inside – the brass really had no faith in them, did they? While the rest tried to psych themselves up for the battle the next day, Mio continued to look down.
Later that night, Daniel heard the sound of a striker unit powering up and went to investigate. On his way towards the hangar, he ran into Yoshika, and they decided to investigate together. When they reached the hangar, they saw Minna get in the way of Mio taking off, which was a shock to the both of them, particularly when Mio came crashing down. When Minna went over, Mio wailed that she had to master the shin reppusan technique before her time as a witch came to an end, which was very, very soon. Minna tried to convince her not to exert herself, but Mio kept saying that she had to do this – that fighting was all she had.
As he and Yoshika listened to all of this in the shadows, Daniel realized that Mio was about out of time in terms of her fighting capabilities. Her special sword truly was double edged – it may have given her more time on the battlefield, but it was about to completely take away her identity as a witch. Soon, she would be without any magic power, and she didn't know what she would do after that. Both Daniel and Yoshika knew that the coming battle would now take on a greater, personal significance for the two of them.
I hope you liked the double meaning I implied in the chapter title – referring not only to the figurative double-edged sword that is Hannah Marseille, but also the almost literal one in Mio's sword. Tune in to the next chapter to find out whether this double-edged sword is fatal to the major (and possibly to others)