Chapter 4- Flying into Flying
Ryu ran his hand up and down the J21 as the mechanic loaded ammo. What an interesting plane. The only twin-boom canard to see production in World War 2. Swedish, which kind of makes sense considering their history with unique designs. You don't see too many of them, though. And it's a shame, t-
"Mr. Morimoto." A light but firm voice called out to him. Ryu turned around to face a woman in a JASDF combat uniform, tablet under her arm. This must be their instructor. He quickly saluted.
After a brief moment of surprise, she giggled somewhat and returned the gesture. He put his hand down as she continued. "I've heard of your many accomplishments. My name is Iwani Yui, and I'll be your instructor. Nice to meet you."
Well, at least she's not hostile. "Nice to meet you as well, Instructor Iwani," he responded. He would have said more, but unfortunately, his head said "no".
She nodded and turned around to face the crowd. "Alright everyone, we're going to start this season off with a mock battle!" She ended her sentence with a clap and a discordant chorus of different opinions erupted from most of the crowd. Some excited, some dismayed, some just wondering when "their turn" would come.
Neither she nor her smile would budge. "I know, I know. But we have to get enough of you trained as quickly as possible, even if it means that we can't get everyone flying at once. You're going against large, rich teams composed of men and women far more trained than you are. You need to learn how to act during combat, and learn it fast." Glancing over at Ryu and Tsubame, she then asked, " Isn't that right?"
The two of them nodded. "Even Maginot has more planes than we do, and each of their pilots has more experience than most of our team right now," Tsubame added, "and they haven't made it to the finals in a long time. We need everything we can get."
Ryu affirmed her statement. "The first round only allows 15 planes maximum. We still have time before that to get more planes. And if we win, we'll have time to get even more."
Tsubame briefly looked to her left, but regained her composure and continued. "We do want for all of you to fly, and we're gonna try to make that happen. We just need some time."
The crowd's voices petered down as the 10 pilots flying that day began to head to their planes. Yui stopped them. "You'll be flying according to the squadrons President Inaba worked out. Get up to 3000 meters at the points I'm marking on your map." She tapped her tablet a few times. "Oh, one more thing: Sentouki-do always begins and ends with a bow. Everyone, flying or no, let's have a good match!"
The entire team echoed the phrase as they bowed.
"LET'S HAVE A GOOD MATCH!"
Yui smiled and clapped as the pilots took off. "Let's get to it! The rest of you: to the lounge! You'll learn a lot from this battle, so pay attention."
The team could take orders, at least. As they all scrambled across the cement to their planes and the mechanics scrambled away, Ryu couldn't help but remind himself of his first fight - a scrimmage not unlike this one, actually - at the beginning of last year. Good times. Good times long gone.
Together with Michiko, he went through the checklist methodically. Gas, undercarriage, gear, propeller… seat belt and switches, onboard system, instruments… Everything's good to go. Starting the plane was, predictably, a lot like the legendary Spitfire, so easy enough.
The engine spluttered a few times before a steady, mechanical rhythm was established. It was soon joined by others from the hangar as he taxied his way to the airstrip. Tsubame somehow beat him to it and was first in line, though. As the rest of the team was still lining up, and thus the light to the sides was red, his mind drifted to the first time actually he actually flew in a combat mission.
It was a scrimmage not unlike this one, actually. Well, except for the abundance of Spitfires, the greater precision they all lined up with, the fact that anybody else was at least as experienced as him, and, hopefully, the fact that he actually lost that one.
The light turned green. Tsubame's departure, however, turned it red again as she cleared the airstrip. The green light blinked alongside the red once, twice, thrice and then stayed on. It was time to go. Throttle up, nose down, and gently pulling up, he soared into the blue sky above.
The day before:
"This is everyone's record on the simulators on a variety of aircraft." Tsubame remarked as the screen flashed to life. "We had everyone fight one-on-one, as well as against a horde of enemies, or 'Pilot versus Environment', and marked the differences. Here are the results." She got out of the chair. "You can scroll around for a little just to see."
Ryu looked at the screen. All of the pilots who had signed up had tested and averaged on nine planes - the nine planes he saw in the hangar. Near the top was Michiko, and her picture to the left. He clicked her name, where could see results organized by a variety of factors - average time before shot down, kills, victory percentages - each further divided into two categories, a 1v1 and a PvE. He clicked the "back" arrow and noticed something at the bottom. Or rather, a lack of something. Said thing being that they were a few pilots short of the maximum 25.
Tsubame saw what he was looking at. "Not a lot of people really care about senouki-do here, or know much about it. It's not likely many people have even heard the name "Morimoto Ryu". So, we didn't have a lot of interest or sign-ups. Not to mention how much ground school there was didn't help. If you let me get back on, I'll just…" she grabbed the mouse and clicked a few times. Now there was a new section: "Notes". Ryu looked again at the eight members at the top.
Inaba Tsubame- Excels with any plane, but is second-to-none on the Dewoitine D.520. Ideal plane: Dewoitine D.520.
Nakahara Michiko- Excels with turnfighters. Logical and calm during fights. Ideal plane: Yak-3P.
Suzuki Katsu- Excels with many planes, but especially "boom and zoom" planes. Calm and logical during fights, good at thinking several moves ahead. Ideal plane: P-63C Kingcobra.
Ito Mari- Excels with any and all planes, but especially turnfighters. Quick learner, both of her plane and of enemy patterns. Ideal plane: Supermarine Seafire .
Kuroki Shohei- Does well with "boom and zoom" planes. Thinks before he acts. Ideal plane: J2M5 Raiden.
Abe Kaito- Does well with "boom and zoom" planes. Ideal plane: P-51C Mustang.
Fujiwara Kimiko- Does well with any plane. Hard worker. Ideal plane: J21A-2.
Kubo Miku- Does well with "boom and zoom" planes. Ideal plane: Hawker Tempest.
"Impressive…" Ryu noted as he continued to scroll, before stopping for just a second. "The Boulton Paul Defiant?" It took less than a second for him to realize what it meant. "Oh that's what that thing with the turret is! I've never heard of it before, actually."
Michiko entered the conversation. "Yeah, it's… something all right. Problem is, it doesn't have any forward-facing guns."
"Making it one of the only aircraft ever safe to completely head-on…" Ryu muttered.
"We plan to split our force into three squadrons so far based on how the planes fight: turnfighters, boom-and-zoomers, and all-around planes. This means you and Ms. Nakahara in one squadron, Mr. Suzuki, Mr. Abe, Mr. Kuroki, and Ms. Kubo in another, and everyone else in a third… now I assume based off of your previous experience you'd like to fly the Seafire?"
Ryu nodded, before pausing for a moment. "I take it most of these were found rather than bought?"
Tsubame only sighed and nodded. Not only was the standardization non-existent, nobody in their right mind would buy that thing. Well, next to nobody. Maybe funds were that bad. But if you're starting a sentouki-do team, you probably have some kind of funds lying around. Odd.
He chuckled. "Money's tight, and we're starting all our armed sporting teams again?" Ryu muttered. Interesting. But something for a different time, as she handed him a sheet of printed paper.
"Any changes you'd make?"
Ryu looked at the paper, holding a printed version of what the president had just told him. "No, not really."
Tsubame smiled again. "Good. Then let's get started."
The blue surrounding him gave Ryu a supreme sense of calm and focus. Only the wispy streaks of white above him and his wingwoman beside him interrupted the sky's domain. Glancing at his system's map, it seemed "Squadron" 1 had reached their starting point. If this were anyone else, it wouldn't be fair to have a 2 vs 3 vs 4. But he i- was the Dragon of Gloriana.
At that moment, Yui's voice crackled onto the radio. "It looks like everyone's in position. We're gonna start this off the British way!"
One of the boys spoke up. "Why the British way?" It was somebody Ryu had heard before, but for the life of him he couldn't tell who it was. He looked at his system as if it would help.
"Because sentouki-do was invented in Scotland as dogfighting," he and Michiko answered the radio at the same time. Silence broke out for a few moments. "An- Anyways, we did this back in St. Gloriana. It's simple: the commander says, 'Up, up', and then the entire team says 'And away!', all in English."
"Precisely!" Yui exclaimed so vividly one would think they'd just won a match. "Since we don't really have a commander yet, I'll start us off."
"Up, up,"
"AND AWAY!"
Ryu couldn't tell how, but he knew right then that this wasn't just the start of a mock battle, or even the start of another season. This was the start of an adventure.
The sky was smiling on them, or at least to the extent that it could, being an inanimate object and all.
Glancing to his side, Ryu saw Michiko looking around at the blue. Her face told him she wasn't looking for enemy planes, though.
"Never seen the sky before?" he joked.
She scoffed a little. "Not like this. I mean, sure, we're still below the cirrus clouds, but it's like we're enveloped by the sky."
The radio didn't pick up his small chuckle. "I get it. I'm not used to it either."
"Didn't you fly for St. Gloriana though?"
"Well, yeah, but one: It rains ninety percent of the time over there for some weird reason, and two: I don't think you'll ever get used to it if you're invested enough."
"It rains all the time there?"
"It's why they got all their pilots instrument-certified."
Michiko couldn't help but giggle. "... I thought that was just an internet joke."
He couldn't help but laugh himself when he heard her. "Nope, that's the reason." It was… nice to laugh when someone else was laughing.
If it weren't for that vague yet very specific feeling that something was wrong, Ryu would not have looked around to see seven planes charging straight for him.
A hail of tracers barreled towards him, which normally wouldn't be this much of a problem. He could, and did, easily counter it with a barrel roll. But he wasn't alone - and Michiko had a much harder time. Given that, like most people would be, she was doubtlessly scared of such a sight, regardless of how many safety measures were in place and how obvious they were. After passing their targets, the interceptors - Shohei and Miku - went straight up while the rest of the planes split up by squadron, with Katsu and Kaito going left, Tsubame and her squadron going right.
Hanzo tried to land a few shots on the pair of turnfighters from the rear of his Defiant, but it turns out shooting from a vehicle moving in three dimensions at another one doing the same is kind of difficult. Still, the hail of gunfire kept Ryu and Michiko on their toes as they completed their turn and headed straight into Squadron 3's path. The Seafire did a magnificent barrel roll and the Yak jittered about, both barely dodging the mass of shells.
Ryu spoke into his mic almost without thinking. "Stay calm! We can still win this. Just follow me."
Yep, no problem for Michiko there. Just an 8 to 1 scenario and she just has to follow him when she has no idea what he's gonna do. Yep, no problem at all. Easy.
The two were now in the Defiant's blind spot, and the gunfire stopped. Just as Ryu was about to issue the command to fire, they were broken up by .50 caliber shells streaming past them.
The Kingcobra and Mustang whizzed by them after making their run. Ryu got that familiar sense that something was wrong. But what- the interceptors from above. He had a very small amount of time. He could do a quick turn… however… Kaito had just made the mistake of flying right into his sights.
Before he could even think about it, Ryu pressed the trigger - well, it looked like a switch but it was a trigger - and the Mustang bled orange smoke.
"One down."
Just ahead, he could see Katsu's Kingcobra had inverted and pulled towards the ground. The interceptors firing on him made it hard to focus on anything else. As poorly as they led their shots, it was something not to be ignored. But Ryu knew how to escape.
He rolled over and pulled his plane towards the ground. The G-forces and inertia threw his blood up to his feet. He barely managed to stay conscious, and as his vision began to clear, he could see the Kingcobra pulling away from him at blistering speed.
His senses told him the Raiden was following him, and the Tempest probably behind it. They couldn't pull up half as well as he could, though. Still, he wouldn't catch the Kingcobra, and if he kept flying in a straight line, the interceptors would eventu- wait. Wait just a minute.
Where was Michiko? He glanced to his left and right. No dice. Maybe above him? No, not qui.. Wait, yeah, she's just behind him and to the right. Turning with the Tempest. Okay, good. She has the situation under control then. The Yak was said to turn better than the renowned Spitfire, and Miku, like almost everyone else on the team, wasn't exactly experien-
Cannon shells filled the air around him. The Raiden was on his tail. Ryu rolled to the side and yanked back on the stick, banking his plane to the left. The gravity threw him and the blood in his body towards his seat, but he could still make out that Shohei had followed him. Had, but clearly stopped and pulled up when it became obvious he wouldn't keep up.
The Raiden flipped sideways and banked left and down, leaving him another good setup for an attack run. Ryu kept turning through the stream of bullets.
If I can turn towards him, I can buy a little time. But I can't do this forever.
Miku had apparently realized she couldn't turn with the Yak, and the Tempest made a beeline towards the Seafire, initiating a head-on. Shohei was bearing down behind him, Miku was coming from the opposite direction, and Michiko was following her. He was at a crossroads. Better to dodge… but like he was gonna do that before getting a few shots of his own in.
An idea flashed across his mind, which he quickly transferred to Michiko. "Wanna trade dance partners?"
He set his sights on the Tempest without waiting for an answer, depressed the trigger, and set his plane into a barrel roll. Michiko realized soon enough what he meant and switched her target to the Raiden. He passed right over her, their cockpits facing each other for a split second as their opponents belted smoke.
Even with their immediate threats taken care of, something still felt… wrong. Ryu quickly took stock of the situation - and then it hit him. Or rather, Tsubame's cannon shells almost hit him from the left.
Prolonged combat gets old fast, huh. Who knew?
He chuckled and banked left again, inertia throwing him further into his seat, but it didn't matter as long as he could hold out. The three planes of squadron 3 passed him and pulled up. He inverted his turn and banked right, before straightening out and pulling up, heading straight into them. He'd have to do the same thing he did with Miku, but it was unlikely he'd get to live with three of them alone. But he wasn't alone.
The two groups passed by each other, with no casualties. Ryu checked his system as he turned around again and saw only moderate damage to most of his plane. Good enough.
Unfortunately, he couldn't rest easy for long. The Defiant's turret began spewing bullets at him. They weren't close to hitting (shooting from a moving vehicle must be hard), but they couldn't be ignored either.
Ryu sighed. "No rest for the weary."
Normally, he'd love to get behind either the D.520 or the J21, but they were smart enough to stick just in front of the Defiant. Perhaps the worst fighter of the war was now giving him sufficient trouble… go figure.
The two banked left once more, shaking around a little every now and then to avoid the 12.7mms. The gunfire filled the air until it... stopped? The Defiant just… wasn't firing.
Are they out of ammo, or faking it?
Ryu finished banking towards them and thought to himself just a little longer. He didn't have to head-on Squadron 3, as they weren't remotely done turning yet, so that was a relief. Suddenly, it struck him.
He dialed back his throttle, and instructed Michiko to do the same. They passed by enough to see Hanzo's face staring back up at them. The other two planes went in different directions, seeing the writing on the wall. He knew right then and there.
They full-throttled their engines again. After the latter took out the Defiant, Ryu and Michiko both followed Kimiko and Tsubame, respectively.
Kimiko's flight reminded him of Michiko a little, but in different ways. Like Michiko, Kimiko clearly knew about her plane and her opponent's, and had trouble putting that into action. But that's where the similarities ended.
Michiko would have never tried to outturn a Seafire in a J21. Kimiko almost did it twice. To her credit, she remembered the Seafire was a super-maneuverable plane after starting the turn, but it still gave Ryu an important advantage. And while she remembered quicker the second time, it was still just long enough for Ryu to line up a shot.
He saw the first traces of orange smoke from his opponent just as he heard his wingwoman on the radio.
"I'm out. Sorry about that." Michiko said in a somewhat monotonous voice.
"It's alright. I'll take care of the rest."
What he didn't hear was her sigh after her radio automatically shut off and the small, almost pleading, "But you did all of it already..."
Back in his Seafire, Ryu scanned the area for Tsubame. Her D.520 was actually… not going for a head-on. "Finally, a worthy opponent! Our battle will be legendary!", he would have thought if this were a manga or a movie of some type. Instead, he was simply pleasantly surprised.
She was climbing away from him. Interesting. She evidently forgot the Seafire was faster than the D.520.
But it turned out Tsubame was counting on that fact. She extended her flaps, rolled back her throttle, and did a perfect barrel roll over him, opening fire as she came out of it.
Ryu punched the throttle and jerked the stick to the back and left, throwing the plane into a much bigger barrel roll, if it could be called that.
If I could waste some energy and get around, I should be able to get sights on her for just long enough.
At the top of his curve, he glanced up at the earth below him. Tsubame was headed in the direction he just came from.
Where he normally would have completed his roll and dove on the D.520, he now had to dive below and follow his prey. No big deal. He had energy, maneuverability, and top speed. She decided to pull a barrel roll again, if only to gain a little more time.
"That won't work again, Ms. Inaba."
Before he could even think about it, he forced the Seafire into a cobra. Wait, nobody was behind him, right?! Wait, no, yeah, it was only them two in the sky.
Thank God.
The cobra - well, okay, yeah, it was technically more like a high alpha, but still - kept the Seafire from overshooting, ensuring Ryu would still be behind Tsubame when he leveled out. Game, set, and match.
Ryu lined up with the runway. Flaps down, engine low. The gray runways slowly, gently seemed larger and larger until, gently descending until he could feel the jolt of being back on the ground. Another happy landing.
After he finished taxiing into the hangar, the mechanic scrambled over to help him out of the plane, ladder in hand. Ryu simply jumped off the wing instead. No matter how many times he did it, the shock still caught him off guard, apparently.
He looked around but somehow nobody was there. It was just the white metal surrounding everything, the assortment of planes, and their associated mechanics until Yui opened a door Ryu previously assumed was a closet or something. "Over here!" her voice called out to him. Behind it came the voices of the rest of the team.
After saying a quick "Thank you" to the mechanic, he joined his instructor and team. As he walked in, he saw something he never expected - a TV on the wall where the door was, a couch opposite, a small bar to his left and more seating on the other side. The room was actually pretty large, and had a comfortable amount of space.
Tsubame smiled at him somewhat smugly as she came alongside him. "Welcome to the lounge, Mr. Morimoto! Come on in, take a seat on the couch!"
Ryu stood there for a moment, taking it all in. The lounge he never knew existed, the fact that it was all so different from Gloriana's "pub", and, well, how different it all was from Gloriana in general for that matter. "Uh… okay."
He eventually took a seat next to her, however, and noticed the screen was replaying highlights of their mock battle. More specifically, the Seafire's maneuver was caught in slow motion. A few eyes were pointed at him. Understandable, really.
Tsubame looked over at him. A slightly tired exhilaration, perhaps from the sheer fact of completing the battle, broke through her attempts to present a neutral face. "Alright everyone, those who battled today will meet up here, same time tomorrow to go over the footage. The rest of you can have tomorrow off. Sound good?"
A chorus, mostly affirmations, was answer enough for her. Whether or not they wanted to look at footage, Ryu could tell they did all need a break. Everyone who flew looked like they were all somewhat straining to focus on whatever they were doing, though Tsubame's focus wasn't nearly as forced as the rest of the team's.
She waited a few seconds. "Alright, then, I will see you all then! You don't have to leave now, but you certainly don't have to stay."
Elsewhere:
Kojiro stared in shock at the wooden door she had just slammed shut. A multitude of emotions coalesced into a single thought-turned-sentence.
"Are you kidding me?"
The sentence spawned more, each more emotional than the last.
"How could she say that? Does she even know the last time we won the tournament, or even made it to the finals? The last time we won was against Bonple. BONPLE!"
He slumped down in his seat and turned around. Behind him was the photo that gave him such inspiration in the past - a massive samurai battle, clan fighting clan for supremacy. A tradition that had evidently carried on. If only victory, too, could move from one generation to the next. If only he, too, could carve out a legacy for himself… if only she would get out of his way.
"And then, we lost to Bellwall! WHEN WE DIDN'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH ALL THIS AND THEY DID.
Sure, he expected some level of controversy. But he didn't say they should change the values of the school or how they operate themselves, or even the general strategy. And yet…
"'wE dId PoOrLy BeCaUsE wE dIdN't TuRnFiGhT eNoUgH.' Bullshit. She can see that, there's no way she can't see that. And it's not like these new fighters can't turnfight well, it's just that THEY'RE FASTER AND DON'T DIE INSTANTLY.
Well, that wasn't entirely true. He did buy the Hiens, which aren't always the most fantastic turnfighters. But the team was still mostly turnfighters, so the point still stands. But not to her, apparently.
"BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOO, THE PROBLEM IS THAT I WANT TO MAKE THINGS BETTER! AND APPARENTLY, THAT'S SUUUUUUUCH A PROBLEM THAT SHE NEEDS TO SECEDE FROM THE AIR FORCE. SHE THINKS SHE'S SOOOOOOOO MUCH BETTER THAN THE REST OF US, HUH?! I'LL SHOW HER!"
He slammed the desk and sat down, before slumping his hands into his head and his elbows into the desk. A slight crashing sound made him look up. One of his small Hayabusa models had fallen over. As he carefully set it back up, he asked himself only one question:
"What are we gonna do…"
Hello again, it's me. I hope you're doing well, or at least relatively well. So, yeah, this battle took forever to get how I wanted it, so I hope you enjoy it. Not that it's the only reason I was this late, but yeah. Once again, this fic would not be half as good as it is if it weren't for the writers on our Discord server. In particular for this chapter: Slartibrofist, NapalmNeko, Nell IV, and RosythePIAT-eer, so a (virtual) round of applause for their hard work. Be absolutely sure to check out their works, I assure you of their quality. Anyways, you know the drill: feel free to comment below your thoughts, whatever they are, please look forwards to the next chapter, and have a good day!
Comments:
-NapalmNeko:
I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far. Especially chapter 3, as I put a ton of work into it. It's also great to know that my descriptions of the air maneuvers are doing their job- it's one of the challenges I've found when writing a story like this. If someone would let me know how I did with that on this chapter, I'd much appreciate it. Now, to answer your question, I will say that the screen can do most everything that isn't already done by the instruments. As you see here, it has a map, an onboard damage detection system, and more. It doesn't take up the full space, just one area. Big enough to get the job done, small enough to not get in the way. I hope that answers your question well enough. I'd be happy to elaborate further either like this or in a later chapter.
I'll respond to these next two as one, as they're quite similar:
-JohnDoe927 and Steinfield, I'm glad that I conveyed why Ryu acts the way he does. You may be (hopefully pleasantly) surprised, though, at just what I've planned for him and the people he crosses paths with…