The fallen crown: A Girls und Panzer story

(This is a continuation of the story: The Longest Week)

Chapter 1: Something old for something new

15 January, 21:30

The deathly silence of the night was a pain on the ears, with the cold bitterness of the breeze freezing the air it travelled on. The silver ring of the young girl was shaking a little. Her soft hands were grasping on the cold gun, the barrel pointing towards Sarah. Sarah, only about two meters away, stayed frozen in place as tears rolled down her face with her black beret holding her pin curled brunette hair firmly in place.

"Please grant me one thing before you pull the trigger. Just let me have one final kiss with her" Darjeeling asked, her glassy blue eyes piercing the soul of the girl. The young girl gave an uneasy nod, but her arm holding the gun still remained aloft.

Darjeeling moved her hand not connected to Sarah's sweating tight grip and turned Sarah's frightened face towards hers. Sarah could feel a little warmth from Darjeeling's hand; she looked to Darjeeling and everything came out.

"Darjeeling I don't want to die please... and I don't want you to either… It's all my fault" she wept. Darjeeling squeezed Sarah's hand and wiped a couple liquid diamonds that were falling down her red cheeks. Sarah breathing began to calm as if a mother had saved her child from a nightmare.

"Sarah everything is going to be OK" she spoke as she lent in, with their lips landing slowly on one another as one of Sarah's tears crashing on top of the connected lips. Sarah closed her eyes, just wanting to feel this last joyful moment. Darjeeling's eyes darted to the girl, whose gun began to waiver. This was her chance, her last opportunity for life to still course through her and Sarah's bodies. She grabbed the beret off Sarah's head and threw it at the girl who panicked, firing a random unaimed shot, the bullet smashing into the bricked mansion house. Darjeeling pulled Sarah down with the hand holding hers. She charged at the girl fumbling with the gun as if it were made of butter. Darjeeling smashed the gun out of the girl's hand, knocking it onto the balcony floor with a hard thud.

In the commotion, and the noise, partygoers started to run out of the building in a mad panic scrambling out of the building as fast as they could. Beth, on hearing the gunshot, knew it must have been from the balcony. "Sarah!" she cried. She pushed her way through the youngsters trying to escape from the games room.

Darjeeling had grabbed the girl firmly by the throat, forcing her towards the railing of the balcony.

"You ... you bitch! I want to snap your neck like a twig for what you have done" she hissed. She squeezed harder, with the young girl trying her best to breathe, turning a dark red as she thrashed around trying to make Darjeeling loosen her grip but to no avail. Darjeeling knew what she was going to do, she let go of the girl who fell onto the hard, frozen floor holding her throat as she coughed and spluttered. Darjeeling looked across to the gun on the floor, then over to Sarah standing there, too distressed by what she had just seen to move or speak. Sarah just kept seeing the flashback of watching James die in her arms as he wiped the tears out of her eyes as he made one last smile towards her, his eyes closed and it was all over. It still haunted her as it repeated over and over in her head without stopping. The smile, his grey eyes, the dark red blood, her transparent tears.

Darjeeling picked up the gun, the sweat from the girls hand still making it hard to grasp.

"Call the police. Now!" Darjeeling firmly shouted to Sarah, finally snapping her out of her trance.

"Ye...yes Dar… Dar … jeeling. Th… thank you." Sarah clumsily took out her phone. Moments seemed like hours as Sarah made the call. "Po...pol...police please… someone tried to kill … me wi...with a gun... We are at… a place called L...Lake...Lakeside Manor."

Darjeeling put the icy gun in her grasp making sure it would not leave her hand. "Who sent you?! Why did you want us dead?!"

The girl seemed to curl up into a small ball on the floor like a scared, injured dog; her head laying on her arms and her knees on her chest.

"The Anti - Sensha-Do league. Got wind that James was the one who leaked the information out to Shiho Nishizumi. The man dressed as a doctor was sent to kill Maho, Miho and Sarah out of revenge."

She looked over to the shaking Sarah who was still holding onto her phone for dear life, with the operator trying to calm her down but which only seemed to add more fuel to her burning emotional state.

"James was to feel the pain for not stopping his sport, by killing his little sister, but lucky for her..." She nodded towards Sarah. "...He was there with her, so he was innocent in this regard. But as both parties were under heavy guard, so our man had to make a guess of who was where as he must of known he was not going to get all three. It was just luck to see who would be killed, and it seemed Miho and Maho had luck on their side as they were in the other room." She gave a little smile. "But I do wish he had got all three, as all three including James don't deserve life as they are the scum of the earth like you, Darjeeling"

The door opened with Beth filling the frame of the open space the door had left; her long blonde hair fluttering in the breeze, reminding Sarah that she was a member of the living. Beth took hold of Sarah and hugged her with all the energy she could muster. "You're alive Sarah, you're OK" she blubbered with a grateful smile. Sarah slowly but surely wrapped her arms around her previous commander's waist; the warmth of Beth's body slowly calming her down ever so slightly. Her phone was still screaming frantically at Sarah as small blue lights danced across the horizon and the faint sound of squealing sirens echoed over the countryside.

Beth moved her head up from Sarah's shoulders and her eyes landed on the red uniform of Darjeeling with her hand firm on the firearm pointed at this young girl on the floor.

"How dare you! You're a liar - nothing more and nothing less... You deserve nothing more than pain and suffering for what you and your group have done to all off those poor girls who died at the hands of your group of peace! Including my dearest friend James!" Darjeeling looked down the sights of the gun. The girl's head was an inviting target and she couldn't miss at such a close range.

"Tell me! Why today!? Tell me why you had to kill me and my lover today!" she barked at the young girl, whose eyes were now fixated onto Darjeeling's deep blue ones.

"Poetic justice they told me." She looked to the floor and then up to Darjeeling once more. "Please just let me live, I beg of you, please..." The girl's voice was one of regret but her crooked smile and the fist that her hand now formed said otherwise.

"Do you know this saying?" Darjeeling said through gritted teeth. "For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." Her hand gripped the gun tighter.

"Darjeeling, please put it down for Sarah, I beg of you" Beth spoke rather desperately towards Darjeeling. "You're better than them, you're better than her. James lost his life to save Sarah, don't do the same with yours. I have had enough of people that I loved dying..." Beth's voice slowly drowned in her tears. "I loved your brother Sarah, I'm not going to deny that! He was a special person to everyone..." Sarah just squeezed Beth harder as she couldn't bear to hear any more. A moment of silence passed, as the whistle of the wind freezing wind increased. Darjeeling's index finger covered the trigger. Nothing in her life had ever felt so hard to do, with the gun feeling heavier and heavier, until she lowered the gun and threw it off the balcony, where it crashed onto the gravel driveway below.

Darjeeling looked down upon the young girl on the floor. "Your justice will come" she growled towards her. Two large SUVs with bright piercing blue lights skidded on to the grave path of the manor. Eight men in dark black police uniforms handling sub machine guns leaped out of the cars and as people pointed out to them where the gun shot had rung out from, they made their way up towards the balcony.

"STAND STILL! HANDS UP NOW ALL OF YOU!" one of the officers shouted as they entered the games room pointing their guns at the four girls on the balcony. Beth and Sarah instantly did so with Darjeeling following suit. The girl just remained on the floor. The officers slowly approached them guns trained on all four of them. "IS SHE HIT?!" an officer shouted at the group.

"No, she's the shooter. She is disarmed" Darjeeling responded, not moving a muscle. The officers reached Sarah and Beth first. Two officers pointed their guns at them as two other officers patted them down for weapons, with Sarah's phone still chattering away in her hand. Both we then promptly handcuffed as their hands were placed behind their back. Sarah and Beth were dragged out by the two officers taking them downstairs and towards the SUVs the driveway. They moved to Darjeeling and repeated the same process.

"Get up slowly!" the officer barked at the girl only a couple of meters ahead of him still laying still on the floor. She looked up and pushed off the floor and charged making a beeline for his gun. The officer covering him fired hitting her in the thigh, she collapsed and held the wound as the blood pulsed out of her leg.

"I'm going to kill everyone of you for that! Especially Darjeeling! She will die slowly and painfully!" the girl raged. The officers quickly and forcefully handcuffed her as they applied first aid to her leg.

Sarah could see the SUV ahead of her with more police and ambulances arriving by the second. "Sarah! Sarah!" Her dad pushed past a police officer holding people back and away from the SUVs. The armed officer stopped who was escorting Sarah out raised his gun at Sarah father.

"Don't take another step or I shoot!" he yelled as he flicked his gun off safety. Sarah's dad

stopped and raised his hands above his face.

"I want to see if my daughter is OK. Please!" he begged.

"Is he your father?" the officer asked. "Yes he is sir" Sarah replied. The officer gestured with his hand to slowly come forward. Sarah's dad moved slowly until he could touch her. His face was exactly like when when she saw him for the first time after James died, full of relief and guilt. He gently kissed her forehead.

"Sarah I'm sorry, I thought you would be safe. I'm sorry. I can't and wouldn't be able to live if I lost you too" he said.

"I'm fine dad please, don't worry about me" she said as her tears joined his. "Darjeeling saved both of us. Please thank her."

January 28th 3:27 PM

The days rolled on with the police interviews seeming never to end, detectives, counter terroism and even MI5 and MI6 wanted every little bit of information about what happened that night, until finally it ended once they were satisfied with all the information gathered. Sarah had her eyes closed resting her forehead on the mirror in her room of the small cottage, her suitcase on the bed full of her belongings. She took a step back from the mirror, the weather reflected the mood; overcast with light rain tapping against the closed plain glass window.

"Sarah do you have everything?" A soft voice entered the room from outside her door.

"Yep, mostly" she responded back taking a step back opening her eyes. Her brown hair was rather roughly put back together as odd bits of hair seemed to not wish to be apart of her pin curls. Her father's look followed her down to her clothes; a plain white T-Shirt and blue denim jeans.

Her father entered the bedroom and sat at the end of the well made bed with the suitcase just behind him. He looked over to his last child, his precious daughter. "You'll be fine at St Gloriana. I've been informed that you and Darjeeling will be safe there" he said rather compassionately.

She turned and looked at him. "Dad, come with me please. I want you safe as well… Darjeeling could arrange you some housing… anything you need. Just come with me." She moved towards him and sat next to him on the bed.

"I would do but I just can't. This is our home. Mum and I bought this home I couldn't ever sell it. The memories we had together her were so …" He looked around her room with some of the white paint on the walls peeling off from the rather barren bedroom. "... great. Me and your mum painted this room for you when you were still in the womb. At this time we didn't know if you were going to be a boy or a girl so we though to go with a neutral colour, as before this room was a really bad seventies wallpaper so that had to go…" He sighed as he looked at a small corner of the room with small muti-coloured hand prints painted onto the canvas wall, some were large whilst some where extremely small, he slowly moved his gaze down to his hands on his lap and then to Sarah's. "... Sarah this is going to be the hardest thing I'm ever going to tell you."

She looked at his body, hunched forward, as he took deep breaths to control his breathing as well as water his mouth to say these heavy words.

"You were not going to be the only girl in this family… Mum was...she was off to see… her doctor when it happened…" His tears began to fall on the floor with Sarah taking ahold of his hand. "... she died so suddenly but your sister…" He looked at her and shook his head. "... they did everything to save her… she was only at seven months... I'm sorry I never told you or James but… it was hard enough knowing you lost your mother… and to lose a sister you never got to meet…"

The heavy blow hit her swifty but something was different. She knew it deep in her heart that it must have been something bad which had happened to her mother, which is why it was never really talked about but for it to be as such a tragic event like this, it really did put a burden on her that she had never felt before, to feel so alone but yet she felt rather relieved. There could be no more secrets between the two of them. She took a couple of minutes to compose herself, looking over to him she wiped a couple tears from his cheek. "Dad, you did nothing wrong. You have brought me up so well, Mum would be proud of you for how I have turned out. Dad, I will do everything to make you, James, Mum and my sister proud of me." She looked to the suitcase inside which was the framed picture if all four of them together; her sitting on her mother's lap as a baby crying hysterically, while toddler James stood next to his smiling dad.

"You are the perfect daughter Sarah I could never have asked for a better one… Just keep safe." He muttered back to her as he hugged her. "Darjeeling has said she will look after you. She has given me her word… And I will know that she will keep you safe as she loves you so dearly."

"She will." Sarah added back, she stood and moved over to her suitcase. "Thank you Dad for telling me this. I feel this will give me more motivation to do anything and everything to the best of my abilities" she added with firm resolve.

"Sarah Lilly Alexander. You show the world! You show them what the Alexander name means and represents!"

"I will base it off my old school Boston High our motto was 'Per Aspera est Tranquillitas' which means 'Through the Rough to the Calm' and now the storm is over and we will reach the calm waters of merriment."

He stood and embraced her; his arms around her, his eyes not moving off hers and slowly he moved his head forward over her shoulder. "You will do great things Sarah I have no doubt of that" he whispered into her ear.

She took a step back. "I love you Dad."

She opened the door and left, the suitcase rolled softly over the carpet and onto the hard wooden landing.

January 29th 00:43 AM GMT

The journey was always going to be long and laborious, so as the commercial plane began to cruise with the even the dark grey clouds below looking small and significant lights making up a huge spider web of a city, she settled into her business class seat. As she planned to do she started to watch old battles with James as commander of Bovington or vice commander at London United, noting down every little detail from his positioning of tanks in a certain formations, to ways of defeating an enemy attack. She just could never really quite put her finger on what made him so capable. Was it is leadership style? His understanding of his enemies decision making? His moves seemed so rash and so un-thought out, but it seemed so precise and deadly to his opponent.

"Why can't you be easy James?" she muttered to herself. She skimmed rather anxiously through her laptop, viewing the documents on every commander in the JSF that Assam and her had complied over the time she had worked for St. Gloriana's intelligence department. Her mouse danced around the screen with it falling on Miho Nishizumi.

"Well, I have to update your info based on your emotional scars you probably received and how that would affect your performance" Sarah said rather blankly and opened up the report. She glanced at the words on the document, but something looked suspicious, she looked at the notepad that contained the information she had made on James as she compared the both of them, both styles where rather similar the rather unusual and uncouth manner of their fight was so obvious to see.

"If I want to learn more about James I need to learn from Miho Nishizumi's style. And anyway she could beat James with ease. She has so much raw talent coming from the Nishizumi family. Me or James could never have… but… if I can just beat her. I can prove myself, and if I prove myself then I can show the world what the Alexander name means. I will never ever be in my brother's shadow ever again." She wrote on her notes on James. 'Beat Miho - learn for her, learn from her enemies, her weakness is ...?'

She set off to work on the mission to prove herself, to beat the best. But there was only one person who had ever beaten Miho. And had done it twice. She needed to know everything from her and luckily for her lover would be happy to help, she assumed. Which reminded her she needed to get a 'thank you' present.

January 30th 09:56 JST - Tokyo airport

The plane landed after the nearly day long flight, but Sarah didn't care. For her, this was the most productive she had ever been. The jet engines slowly spooled down and the door was opened to fresh Tokyo air. Sarah gathered her laptop and small bag she carried with her as she left the plane and began to walk down the jet bridge but was greeted by four Japanese police officers and the end waiting for her. "Sarah Alexander. Yes?" the tallest of the four said. She nodded rather hesitantly not sure if this was a trick or not, as she looked for the closest exit if they were not who they said they were.

"We will be escorting you to the St. Gloriana Girls College helicopter however for safety reasons it cannot be for this airport" he said as he passed Sarah a piece of paper with the St Gloriana logo with lots of writing about 'the safety of this student is paramount...' with the signature of Darjeeling clear as day on the bottom of the piece of paper. After reading it and being convinced it wasn't a fake, he gestured forward as she walked with them walking past the luggage carousel.

"But my luggage bag?" She asked.

"It will be scanned making sure nothing was put into it maliciously" he said again. They made their way out of the airport in a large black SUV with two police cars with police officers inside the vehicles, one ahead and one behind, with taxis driving by like bees to the hive.

"Could I please ask for a favour? Could you allow me to get some flowers as a present?" she asked as she patted down her jeans, finding her wallet and taking out some notes. "I know you will say 'no', which is fine, but could one of your men please do it for me?"

He looked at his men and then back to her and the money in her hand. "That's 6500 yen. That's a lot for flowers" he said as he took the money.

"Just get the most beautiful flowers and use all the money. Oh, could you make sure that there are red roses in them as well please?"

The motorcade travelled the long route through the main city, not stopping for traffic, and heading for a military airfield on the outskirts of the city. After they had passed the gate security, the helicopter came into view through the front windscreen It was a dark red rather modern one with the logo of the school on the side of the tail.

The SUV pulled up alongside it and the door was opened from the outside by one of the escorting officers. Sarah took her seatbelt off and slid out of the car, her feet landing on the firm concrete floor. A police car joined them and the passenger in the front opened his door. In his hand was her large bouquet of flowers with red roses, blue irises, green chrysanthemums and large sunflowers in the middle. He walked over to her and passed it over delicately. She smelled the sweet perfumed flowers and could feel a smile on her face naturally occurring.

"Thank you so much. If you have any change please keep it for yourself as this is better than I could have ever imagined" she said. He nodded, keen not to get involved in a debacle. His colleague opened the boot of the police car and took out her suitcase and rolled it over to the helicopter, placing it inside for her.

She looked over to the head officer and bowed in his direction. "Thank you sir for keeping me safe. I wish you and your men forever happiness."

"Thank you" he replied. He held open the door of the helicopter as the rotas began to slowly spin. She moved forward to sit in the creamed coloured leather seats, she sat and placed the headset over her ears with the door being closed as she did so. The engine began to whine as the power increased and the helicopter lifted off. "Next stop home." She thought to herself as she laid the flowers in the pair seat next to her.

The flight wasn't as long as she expected - the helicopter landed only after a half hour flight. She could still see the rough outline of the land on the horizon out of her window with the deep blue sea sloshing passively side to side. The pilot expertly placed the helicopter down on the deck. Sarah was none the wiser that they had landed due to the softness of the landing.

"Thank you for the flight pilots" she said over her headset.

"No problem - all in a day's work" was the calm response. She heard flicking of switches and in turn the engine noise gradually faded. Sarah looked out of the window and saw her, Darjeeling, in her school uniform no more than ten meters away. Sarah grabbed hold of the flowers and opened the door, carefully stepping out not to fall out and look so foolish. Both feet on the ground, she looked up from her shoes and over to Darjeeling. Both her hands were by her side, her face was hard to tell as this distance was she happy to see Sarah or not as both her eyes were closed.

She walked over to her. "I got you these" she said rather timidly to Darjeeling passing over the large bouquet to Darjeeling. She opened her eyes as she took hold of the flowers.

"Do you know this saying? Gratitude is the sign of noble souls" she replied.

Sarah nodded her head. "It's an old one but I don't know who first coined the phrase". She looked down at her casual shoes. "These are for what you did that night, is there anything I can do to repay you?"

"There is nothing that needs to be repaid" Darjeeling responded back, as calmly as ever. But Sarah knew there was, she leaned in to feel those lips again, finally without there being such an emotional anchor placed on her heart. She closed her eyes, but there was nothing except the light breeze kissing her lips. Then there was a pressure placed down on her shoulder. she opened her eyes and saw Darjeeling's arm was there stopping her.

"That's rather un-lady like Miss English" her senior said.

"But...I thought that..." she stammered.

Darjeeling put her index finger over her own lips. "No one is to know about this relationship, all I did that night was a ploy to stop the assassin. It meant nothing, because you have a boyfriend in the UK, don't you?" she winked.

"Yes… yes I do" Sarah respond rather shyly.

"Good answer! You are to unpack at your studio and get some rest. Tomorrow I will see you in your school uniform at the main Tea Room at ten AM for an important meeting."

"Yes, Miss Darjeeling!" Sarah replied.