After arriving in the resort that they were going to be spending the next few days in. The schools began settling down into winter's quarters. Some of the smaller teams such as Mallard, Anteater, Leopon, Duck, Turtle and Hippo teams had settled down in some of the smaller cabins while the larger teams settled into the larger cabins and the other girls took up residence in some of the cabins that they were assigned to. The workers were busy unloading the train as quickly as they could as they didn't want to hold up the single track if any trains were still coming through.

Anglerfish team entered Cabin #9 that they were assigned to. Miho and the others began to look around to see what they were going to take. The cabin was simple with its layout, you immediately walked into the kitchen with one of the bedrooms being to the right. The place to sit down and eat was just ahead of the kitchen. The living room was just ahead as there was a couch, a love seat, a coffee table and a television as well as a door leading out to the balcony. Miho decided to wander up the stairs to see what was up there. Up the stairs, there was another bed and a jacuzzi, big enough for all of them.

"I bet this will be our warmup after those snow matches." Miho gave the layout for each of the students. She looked ahead to see a massive glass window almost if the sun's rays were going to light up the room.

"This is a nice cabin; I'm not going to lie." Hana smiled when she said this. She continued to walk around as Yukari and Hana went back down the stairs. They knew they needed to claim their beds so they could begin unpacking. Yukari noticed another door right next to the first set of bedrooms. And the bathroom adjacent to the first bedroom. Out of curiosity, she opened it to reveal a set of stairs going down.

"Hey Hana, there's more stairs, looks like we're going down." Yukari tried to get her attention. Hana nodded as the two of them began to descend. Hana turned her phone's flashlight on as they didn't want to trip and fall down the stairs. They turned to their left to see two more beds and a door leading outside of the cabin. This must be where the guests were going to be sleeping.

"Oh sweet, more beds." Hana smiled. Miho came down the stairs next to see what they managed to find.

"I see you've made your discovery." Miho smiled. Hana and Yukari turned their heads to see what was going to happen next. Mako and Saori came down the stairs as they now needed to decide who gets what bed to sleep in.

"There are five beds in total and this cabin can sleep I believe an entire M3 Lee crew comfortably. So, what beds does everyone want?" Miho decided to start them off with what bed each student should claim.

"I'm claiming the one at the top as I want to be looking at the sun when I wake up." Mako began.

"I think I want to claim these beds down here with Miho." Yukari told the others that she was taking the basement rooms.

"Well that leaves me and Saori near the bathroom." Hana smiled while telling the others which room she was taking.

"Well then we're settled." Miho gave the news to the crews on which beds they were going to be sleeping in. Then a knock was heard as Miho decided to race up the stairs followed by everyone else. She was the first to the door and opened it.

"Hey there Miho, I see you and the others are settling into your cabins. Card drawing will be taking place in a few minutes. It will be at a spot overlooking the lake and we have quite the show."

"Will we need the snowmobiles to get there?" Miho asked.

"Yeah, bring them there but matches will begin tomorrow as we don't want to host one while you girls just arrived at your cabins and have yet to settle down. So, enjoy yourselves." Ami told them. Ami turned and left while the five girls watched her drive off to notify the other participants. Miho knew that she didn't want to be late.

"Come on Yukari. Hana, Saori, Mako, unpack for us." Miho gave instructions. Hana nodded as Miho and Yukari went out the door to see their Snowmobile was parked right by their cabin. Miho got out the key and placed it in as Yukari was riding in the back. Miho knew the distance wasn't very far, so she drove off slowly with Yukari riding in the back.


The eight representatives of the schools had arrived on a small hill overlooking the lake and the train tracks that ran across it. Miho had arrived as a screen was presented to a small audience and eight blank panels lined the screen. Ami tapped the microphone to make sure it worked. Once that was done, she began to speak.

"Well, it's that time of year again and we must say, welcome to round two of our sport that Momo-san made for us, and we have an audience this time around." Ami began. The audience wasn't cheering or clapping but moreover confused. "Okay time for card drawing, seeing how Ooarai managed to win the last set of matches, it would only be fair if they went first. Miho would you be the honor of drawing the first card?" Ami asked her. Miho nodded and got off the snowmobile, she walked up to the stand where the cards were being held. She closed her eyes and dipped her hand inside of the bowl. She kept them closed as she wanted to make her draw completely random, and she couldn't see what card she was going to draw. She pulled it out of the bowl to reveal a number 1 on it.

"And Ooarai picks the first card." Shichiro announced. Miho looked to see the first school was displayed. Miho walked away as the other students walked up and began drawing cards from the pile. Then it looked a little something like this:

•1&2 Ooarai Girls Academy vs Viking Fisheries High School

3&4 Maple High School vs Jatkosota High School

5&6 Pravda Girls High School vs Saunders University High School

7&8 Kuromorimine vs Viggen High School

"Looks like we're against Viking Fisheries first?" Miho began. Azusa who was watching this decided to speak.

"Like Tatiana said, there could be students that participate in this sport but none that participate in Sensha-Do. This could be the possibility that they must have different interests." Azusa told Miho that these Viking students were not so different compared to Viggen students. Aya and Yukari came over while Miho was thinking about the next course of action.

"Well since we still have the rest of today, we might as well explore a bit and gather intel on our surroundings." Miho replied. That was the next plan.

"Sure thing, I'll run back to get the helmets and we'll drive forth to take note of the trails and where we can ambush our opponents from." Yukari laid out what she was going to do. She began to sprint back to her cabin to get the helmets so they could drive off and explore the wilderness to see what they were going to find.

Within a half an hour, the four students were riding the trails to see what was up and familiarize themselves with the terrain they were going to be fighting on. Miho was leading the group as she collected more of the scenery into her eyes.

"Well, the area we're going to be holding a match in is covered in large pine forests, this is excellent if you're playing defensively as you can use the forest to create a trap for the unsuspecting enemy as these teams are going to be traveling down these set paths. It'll be hard for us to hide the snowmobiles without getting noticed so we better plan accordingly." Miho told the group that this would be difficult terrain to go on the attack but easy to defend.

"Hiding and waiting for the enemy is going to be the hard part. This isn't open ground like the Vancouver matches but dense forest that we need to set up ambushes and traps." Azusa repeated what Miho said but trying to find the enemy was going to be difficult so let the enemy come to you.

"Okay, if the terrain is just large forests, we just need to plan our positions and speed accordingly." Miho replied. Yukari got out her phone and began snapping several pictures of the terrain. This will be vital as it was going to give information of the terrain they were going to fight. Once they got the information they needed, they turned back to their cabins as they were going to hold a meeting.


The meeting would come later that day as everyone had gathered around their laptops and were on group chat. Being housed in separate cabins wasn't going to help but they were going to definitely be using something to compensate for this.

"Okay we just got the news that we're facing off against our opponents in forests with narrow trails to travel down on. We need to plan accordingly." Miho began. She then began showing the group the pictures of what the terrain they would be fighting in would look like. The others began getting a glimpse of what it was going to look like. Narrow trails where snowmobiles were going to file down on both sides. The surrounding trees were excellent places to hide the snowmobiles and mount ambushes on foot with the snowmobiles acting as the transportation.

"Do we need to go over any aiming and such?" Akebi asked if they needed any refreshment on the skills they acquired in January.

"The Sensha-Do matches taught us how to aim and fire so that wouldn't be necessary." Miho responded to Akebi's question. Akebi nodded with approval. "Okay any last questions before we can conclude the meeting?" Miho asked the group. No one answered so Miho knew that no one had anything to ask. "Meeting dismissed, get some rest for tomorrow everyone." Miho told the group. The group nodded and they began to log off one at a time. Miho's Anglerfish group were the last to leave.

Watching the meeting from one of the laptops was Dimitri. The terrain was shown by the photos that were displayed from her photographs. Dimitri decided to call Nonna and Nina into a meeting so they could discuss what was going to happen.

"Okay so Miho displayed the photographs of the terrain that the matches will be conducted on. Assuming that we're reformed the Sensha-Do team following the previous set of matches, we must do the same here. While Saunders could be taken out with one quick blow. Kuromorimine is what we're worried about and the biggest threat to our chances of snagging the championship from Ooarai." Dimitri began. He wanted to see what their opinion was going to be for these matches going forward. Nonna began thinking about what they were going to do if they were going to win.

"Seeing what Erika said about our weakest link turning out to be our strongest. It's assuming Brook has that fire burning up inside of her and letting it out will be necessary, but we can't let the steam out all at once or we're going to lose the matches and therefore our chances at the championship." Nonna began speaking. "So, the plan is that Nina and Alina are going to be armed with the DP-28 while the rest of us are handling Papashas with drum magazines. Given the smg's high rate of fire and the large magazine capacity we can be a very mobile and dangerous target. What I said to Miho on the plane was that we were outgunned so we needed to experiment with other weapons."

"And according to Brook, the weapon that could devastate the enemy is the Papasha for reasons that Nonna stated earlier. Plus, these assault squad tactics will come in handy as the enemy wouldn't all have automatic weapons and if they did, we'll shred them down." Nina gave her reason on how they were going to win.

"Well then, I wish you luck you two against Saunders." Dimitri told the two students. They nodded and left the meeting.

"Okay cheer us on." Nina replied. Nina left moments after the meeting's conclusion; Pravda knew they needed to fight hard if they were going to get to the top.


The next day was the day of the matches. The five groups had their breakfasts, attached their wrist tracking devices and got their snow gear on. They all met at the starting area as Miho and the group got ready to see their opponents. Several students walked forward as they wanted to introduce themselves. The first girl was blonde hair with deep blue eyes and a smile that was to compliment warmth that came from the snow around them. The second girl had brown eyes and brown hair, but her uniform was a myriad of light brown, black and white.

"Who are you? I don't think we've met before." Miho asked the commander of the Viking team. The commander smiled as she then began to speak.

"I'm Nora, the commander of the team and this is my second in command, my Panzer 2 commander, Lemming." Nora introduced herself to Miho and her friend.

"Oh, nice to meet you. Have you gone exploring?" Miho shook Nora's hand.

"As of yesterday? Not really, we just settled down in our cabins." Nora replied. Miho nodded then.

"Okay then, we'll see if this match will be the best to kick it off." Miho told Nora. She shook Lemming's hand next.

"Good luck." Nora replied. Miho and Nora walked away with their vice commanders in tow. They were going to be making their way to the starting areas.


Miho and the group arrived at their starting area minutes later as Momo began speaking to the team.

"Okay, all schools installed radar devices which means finding friend and foe alike in the snow should be much easier as this is dense forest. The color of your position will be the balloon colors you have. Your color dots are blue, and Viking Fisheries is yellow. Once all three balloons have been popped, an X mark will appear on the dot as it will signal where the final balloon has been popped and where you are now out of action. This should make locating you for after matches much easier as you're farther from home. Tatiana made this sport easier to keep track of both teams, so she made a bit of a breakthrough." Momo explained to the team what the new tech was going to be useful for.

"Well thanks to Tatiana on her end." Miho replied. They had their machines running idly for a couple of minutes as they were waiting for the signal for the match to begin. Ami and Dimitri were waiting for the right moment where the teams had gotten themselves into position.

"Okay the teams are ready, want me to do the honors?" Dimitri asked if he wanted to fire the AA gun into the air to signal the beginning of the match. Ami turned her head and nodded.

"Do the honors." Ami told him. Dimitri nodded before he pulled the rope, sending the AA round into the air. Miho looked up to see the AA round flying along as it was the signal to begin the match.

"That's the signal, let's move." Miho told the group. The others nodded and began to move out ahead of them. The five snowmobiles moved out in a straight line, they were going to find somewhere where they could set their trap and wait for the enemy team and take them out quickly without any prolonged engagement. They spent a few minutes driving up the path to a patch of forest. Miho was looking at the tracker as it was clear the enemy was coming. Miho raised her hand and signaled an all stop to the team. Yukari turned her head to the rear as she began coming up with a plan.

"Everyone, turn your snowcraft to the trees, we're going to be hiding inside of them, the enemy is on their way, and we need to catch them off guard." Yukari instructed them that they should hide in the pine trees. Everyone got off of the main path as they knew that they needed to wait in ambush for the enemy. If they were exposed on the road, that was going to be the problem as the enemy was looking for them. Groups Memphis and Oakley went ahead as they were going to intercept them from behind, groups Kira and Shelby went to form the sides while Group Shiloh took the front as ahead was a sharp curve. The students made sure to hide the snowmobiles inside the woods but not where the branches would pop the balloons, scoring accidental losses on their team.

Nora and her group were traveling through the forest and were trying to figure out where their enemy was. Miho and the group noticed lights on the horizon and determined it to be them.

"Yeah, that's them." Miho told Yukari as she had her binoculars out. Yukari had finished digging a makeshift hole in the deep snow. She was going to use this to act as bait and let the others come in and attack from the sides. She was also betting that Azusa would deal the most damage with everyone attacking at the same time. "On your signal Yukari." Miho told her. Yukari nodded and began opening fire. Nora and her group were caught off guard as one of their yellow balloons popped followed by another just moments later.

"Enemy coming from the woods. Must be a lone machine gunner. Lemming, you lead the way to take out the machine gun." Nora told her second in command to lead. Lemming did so and dismounted from the snowmobile. The five students began to make their way up the trail, firing at Yukari whom they believed to be the enemy. Miho was watching as Yukari popped more yellow balloons in the forest.

"Go get them." Miho cheered her friend on. She then grabbed the headset and decided to spring the trap. "Everyone ready?" Miho asked.

"Yep, we're waiting for your signal." Azusa replied.

"Now everyone, now! Yukari has the entire firing squad distracted." Miho gave the signal to attack. Nekota dismounted along with Akebi as they were the first to trudge out of the forest Nekota began firing away with the Grease gun while Akebi fired the Type 14 rifle away as several balloons popped around them. Nora looked around as their balloons were getting popped away one at a time.

"They're all around us!" Nora called out. Oakley group began firing at the second side of angles as they were now attacking from three sides. Only Memphis group was waiting in reserve as they wanted to deliver a swift finishing blow but that didn't stop them from firing their handguns at the entire group. Nora was beginning to panic. "Where are they?" She asked the others; they didn't have their snowmobiles out on the main trail and were hiding somewhere. More of their balloons began to pop away.

"We don't know but our radar says it's around here somewhere." Lemming replied. Aya and Azusa knew they were weak and mounted their snowmobiles. Azusa got out the Auto-5 shotgun and drove out into the open. Nora heard a noise as Aya, and Azusa drove out into the open.

"There's one!" Nora called out. The students turned to fire on Memphis group but at this point they were too late. Azusa raised the shotgun and began firing away at the remaining balloons and popped them all before they could react and fire back at the one group that had exposed themselves. For Nora, it was all over.

"And Ooarai wins the first round flawlessly!" Ami announced. The crowd cheered in celebration of the news Ooarai was indeed moving onto the second round. The other groups came out of their ambushing spots to a surprised Nora.

"How did you manage to do that?" Nora asked.

"We hid ourselves inside the forest and we ambushed you from the sides. It was easy to make use of the forest to hide ourselves in." Miho replied, they managed to use the terrain to their advantage and scored an easy win.

"Well since we lost, dinner is on us!" Nora told the group that they had to repay the bet that they had just fought over. Miho smiled and laughed.

"Anything for a commander." Miho replied. She patted her friend on the back as they began to clean up the field. Dimitri was observing the field match with Ami as the two commanders were cleaning themselves up.

"Well one of them said dinner was on her so where are we going to go for dinner?" Dimitri asked Ami if they could find a place to dine in. Ami began to think.

"There's a place not too far down the road in another hotel resort that we can go to. I hear they have good fish." Ami responded that they will be having somewhere to eat and all they needed to do was go there.

"Okay, let's get going." Dimitri said with enthusiasm. Ami laughed as they were going to gather all of the teams together.


Even though the trains were long distance, there were several smaller trains that were designed to run through the state and were meant for picking people up and driving them between the resorts. This trip was no exception, the eight schools made their way to a rustic style resort that was on a lake, the train pulled up as snowmobiles from various families and passers-by who wanted food or a quick drink while watching sports. The eight schools disembarked as they began walking into the place. The men at the bar were watching footage of the match that had occurred earlier today and they were cheering their favorite teams on. They turned their heads to see the students walking in.

"Hey it's Miho! You go girl!" One of them shouted, they were enthusiastic about the victory they managed to pull off.

"Can I get your autograph?" Another one called out. The men went up as they wanted to inspect her and see what she was willing to offer.

"Well… thanks for giving me the attention." Miho responded. She began signing her name as the men seemed to have taken a liking to her.

"Wow, I didn't know you were going to get this much attention." Yukari told Miho about this.

"Me neither, but the men liked the fact of the victory we pulled off." Miho replied. Yukari went off to begin signing some of the autographs for the men. Ami and the others were busy arranging seats, hanging out or walking around the place. Some of the Pravda students were in the building's gift shop and taking a look around.

"See anything you like?" Nina asked the group. Brook and Dimitri were looking around at some of the stuffed plush creatures to see what they liked.

"What should I get? Rabbit? Deer?" Brook asked. Dimitri looked at his friend as she wanted his opinion of which one was better.

"Deer. I mean look at the spots." Dimitri gave his answer to her. Brook laughed.

"So, you say deer dear?" Brook asked. Dimitri just hugged her and didn't fall for her humor.

"Yes, I did." Dimitri responded. The students picked out what they wanted when Nonna poked her head into the store to get the student's attention.

"Our tables have been set; we might as well eat." Nonna told the group. They nodded as they went to pay for their items. Within a couple of minutes, they had everything bagged up and they were walking out.

Miho and the others were sitting down with some of the Pravda students while figuring out what they wanted to eat.

"So how did your first round go? We managed to ambush Nora and her group before they knew what was hitting them." Miho asked before she gave the results of what happened with her school against their foes.

"Against Saunders, we ambushed them and crushed them. The school hasn't learned their mistakes plus we were firing on the move while you were firing from the ambushing spots you guys dug in on. Dimitri was showing me the footage from earlier when we were on the way here." Katyusha boldly declared that the match against their foes was a victory.

"Wow it seems to be that he's onto something. What does he have in mind?" Miho asked Katyusha about the boy that they were talking about earlier.

"We don't know. All Nonna knows is about this music box. We know who he wants to give it to, but he just doesn't know if he's ready as of yet." Katyusha responded that some things she wasn't certain about. Nonna was busy chatting with Brook, so she wasn't available.

"Shy I, see?" Miho asked. Katyusha nodded with the answer.

"Yeah, but even a person such as I don't know too much about him." Katyusha bowed as the waitresses came over with the drinks for everyone and they were getting served.

"Thanks." Hana smiled at the crowd. Miho looked over to see what the other students were doing.

The minutes would tick by as everyone got their food. Miho was excited as they had spent the last few minutes chatting away with themselves.

"I know this place has good food but let's see how the main dish will hold up." Nonna told the group. Dimitri was sitting to the right with Brook in between the two of them. The waitresses came over as they began giving the food out. "I know this place has good fish pie, so we all got it."

"You did, what kind of fish did you get?" Miho asked as she was getting fresh lake fish to eat with salad.

"Katyusha likes cod, I like smoked salmon at times, Nina and Alina like perch, Klara likes trout and Brook will eat any type of fish especially if it's locally sourced. I think when I gave her fish to try out with potatoes for the first time, she was perfectly content if I remember correctly." Nonna gave Miho her answer. Miho cut up her fish and tried it out herself.

"Tastes good." Miho told Nonna. Nonna smiled and spoke.

"I promised Brook about this last summer but we didn't get the chance to do that, but I promised I was going to take her fishing. Hopefully we can come back with perch fish for Alina to fry with potatoes and we'll be like the empress who tried them." Nonna laughed.

"I bet you girls know how to cook better than we do." Miho replied. She turned to her left to see Brook and Dimitri sharing their food with each other. They managed to get some with white fish and shrimp inside of theirs.

"She also likes this with salted cucumbers, so we decided to get some dill spears for her to enjoy with her food." Nonna also added to what she said to Miho. She picked up one of the spears and handed it to Miho. "Crunch on this. This may well taste good." Nonna recommended. Miho nodded as she took the dill spear and took a bite out of it.

"This is good. I think we should consider getting more cooks from your school to do some of the winter food." Miho replied with happiness.

"I'm happy that you like it." Nonna was pleased with Miho. She turned to her right to see Dimitri giving Brook a bite of his food. She was happy that the two of them were getting along well. However, watching them from afar was Mika. She was sitting with some of the Saunders students as they were just getting served.

"So, Pravda knocked you out from the beginning?" Mika asked Kay if this was the case.

"Yeah, that's the case, based on what is happening, you're up against Ooarai and Pravda's against Kuromorimine." Kay responded. She knew this was the fact for certain. Mika nodded.

"Okay then. What Miho doesn't know is that we have someone who is an up-and-coming sharpshooter that helped us get past the first round. Look at Miho, so gullible. She doesn't know who we are waiting to ambush and take out the enemy." Mika knew that this one student was the key to getting to the final round. Kay looked at her as she was happily chatting with Nonna.

"Yeah. I wonder." Kay knew that Miho was in for a surprise, but the question was: Was she ready to deal with this surprise?

[A/N]: I was super busy and tired for much of the week followed by events that are happening halfway around the world which I am very nervous about. Hopefully things can get better, and I can put out more chapters in the future as this one kind of seemed like to be a drag to make.