June 8, 2019

Yousuke and Yoshiko were finishing homework in the living room of their family apartment when Yousuke asked her, "Yoshiko-oneechan, have you met old friends from middle school at the new high school in Numazu?"

"Yeah," Yoshiko replied as she signed her name on a sheet of finished homework. "I've met some. They've all said that I've changed quite a bit since middle school, though in other ways I'm exactly the same. There was this one who I haven't seen in a while, not even when I first moved into that school last year, that got placed into my class this year."

"What's their name?"

"His name was Hirose Daichi," she replied. "He was this boy in my class in my second and third years of middle school, the latter being the true height of my Yohane persona." She then smiled. "He was like the only guy that actually talked to me, since all the others, and even many of the girls, were a bit creeped out by me bringing up fallen angels and demons and all that." She then laughed. "I gotta be honest, I'm surprised Uranohoshi let it slide given that they were a Catholic school. Looking back, I think he had a crush on me because he was sort of into the stuff Yohane was all about." She then laughed again. "But, I'm sure he's over it now. I mean, I've drastically toned down that stuff since there's no need to truly stand out from the crowd anymore."

Yousuke could tell that his older sister sounded sad based on how she said the last sentence. "Are you okay, oneechan?"

"Yeah," Yoshiko replied as she sighed. "It's just... I miss the days when it was me, Ruby, Hanamaru, and everyone else in Aqours together. But, nothing lasts forever. Besides, I still keep up with all of them, especially Riko-chan. Even so, I still look at my Yohane outfit sometimes and reminisce of when I did that stuff with the livestreams and on stage." She then yawned. "Maybe one day, I can truly do her story justice."

"You want to write out Yohane's story?" Yousuke was curious about Yoshiko's motives for doing so. "How detailed is it?"

"Surprisingly so," Yoshiko replied as she reached for another sheet of homework. "I think I still got that 10-page summary of her backstory in my room somewhere. I could easily adapt that into a novel or something, hence why I've been looking up a lot about writing techniques and strategies recently."

"Oh yeah," Yousuke replied as he remembered. "I remember you showing me some short stories you did based on prompts online. You did pretty good."

"Thanks," the dark blue-haired girl replied to her younger brother as she smiled.

"Say, did... Did you ever have a crush on anyone before you met Riko-chan?" Yousuke's change in subject was out of left field for his sister.

"Huh? Well..." Yoshiko thought to herself before she decided to break out Yohane once more. "Brother unit, don't you know that a fallen angel shouldn't concern herself with such earthly desires unless she meets a special little demon?" She and Yousuke then both laughed. "Aaah, I miss doing that voice. Anyways, to answer your question, I guess I have in the past before her. Nothing that lasted too long, though. How about you?"

"I...," Yousuke replied as he struggled to give an answer. "I wanna say Kunikida-san, but I know she wouldn't like that." "Same as you pretty much. Nothing long-lasting or important."

"Sounds about right," she replied. "Now, need help with that math?" She then got a phone call and grabbed her phone from the table. "Hello?"

"Hey, Yoshiko," Riko replied to her. "How's it going, love?"

"Pretty well," she replied as she smiled. "Just helping my brother out with math, that's all."


June 9, 2019

Today, Chika and Ruby both went through SCBA training with You and Kanan after a drill involving hoses, with this Sunday being Chika's first day as a firefighter. The four of them gathered at the same spot where they normally did SCBA climbs, the long stairs. Chika had little trouble putting on an SCBA as she clipped into air and began breathing it in. As the other three waited for her, she gave a thumbs up and said, "I'm ready!"

"Good," Kanan replied. "Now, let's climb!"

As the four of them walked up the stairs, Chika said to Ruby, "How are you doing so far?"

"Pretty good," the redhead replied as she checked her air. "Kanan-chan, You-chan, we're going good here!"

"Good," Kanan called out. "Keep climbing!"

Later on, after the four had breathed down their bottles completely after climbing up and down the stairs numerous times, they relaxed and took off their gear aside from their bunker pants. As Chika wiped sweat off of her forehead, she drank a bottle of water. "Damn, that was exhausting."

"It always is," You replied as she passed a water bottle to Ruby. "You guys both did fine, though. You're new to this." She then looked around and noticed an older man stumble towards them, clearly in pain. "Huh? Are you alright?!"

"Help," the older man groaned in pain as he clutched his chest and fell to the ground. "I'm having a..." His voice then trailed off as the four firefighters ran to him.

Kanan took a BLS bag with her that was intended just in case any of them went down during g the stair climb and ran to the old man as she instructed, "Ruby, call 119 now! This guy's having a heart attack!"

As Ruby called 119 and began talking to a dispatcher, You began talking to the old man, asking him, "Sir, when did you begin to start feeling these pains?"

"Half an hour ago," the old man weakly replied.

"His heartbeat is pretty fast," Kanan replied as he checked the old man's pulse. "The color is also pretty drained from his face."

As Kanan reached to grab the old man's wallet to get some form of identification, You asked him, "What is your name?" She also grabbed an O2 bottle and a mask.

"Isoroku," the man them. "I am Hori Isoroku." He then coughed. "I can't breathe!"

"Shit," Kanan replied. "You-chan, get that mask on him!" She then turned to Ruby. "Ruby-chan, tell them he can't breathe!"

"Got it," Ruby replied as she continued to talk to the dispatcher.

"Hurry up with that O2 bottle, You-chan!"

As Chika and Ruby watched, You put the mask over the old man's face before hooking it into the O2 bottle and turning it on. As they did, they could hear the siren of an ambulance grow closer, since the firehouse wasn't too far away. "Thank God," You replied. "They'll get him to the hospital quick."


Later that day, Kanan looked out at the ocean from her home, wondering about the day's events. She said to herself, "That was pretty crazy, huh?" She then thought to herself, "At least that old man is still alive. Had it not been for us, he'd be dead. Anyways, Ruby-chan and Chika-chan are doing good, but they need more work and training. Hopefully, they'll both pass the summer boot camp this year that's coming up in a few weeks."

She then got a text on her phone from Mari. "hiii Kanan!"

"hey Mari," Kanan texted back. "what's up"

"not much." Mari then took a while to type out her next text. "Kanan, can you call me?"

Kanan said to herself, "Huh? Call her?" She then went to dial her number and pressed the call button.

Mari almost immediately picked up, answering in Italian, "Ciao, Kanan!"

"Hey, Mari-chan," Kanan replied, smiling. "What's up?"

"Well," Mari said as her tone became slightly somber. "You see... Me and my boyfriend over here broke up recently, and I just needed someone to talk about it with."

"That sucks," Kanan replied, feeling bad for her friend. "Go ahead and vent if you need to."

"Thank you," Mari replied back to her, grateful. "Well, the thing is... Kanan-chan, I need to ask you a question. Are you... Are you into other girls at all?"

"What?" Kanan was confused by the question posed to her. "Well... I don't think so. I have a boyfriend of sorts of my own. I know you are, Mari-chan."

"Ah," Mari replied in an odd tone. "It's fine. Anyways, me and him split up because it really just wasn't working out between us." Kanan could tell something was off about her tone, but not exactly what. "We don't hate each other over it or anything. We just couldn't date anymore."

"Sorry about that," Kanan replied, thinking she was just trying to cope with the breakup and was not thinking straight. "I'm sure you'll find your true love one day, Mari-chan."

"I will," Mari reassured her, and herself. "Trust me." Wanting to change the subject matter, she asked, "So, how is that Advanced Firefighter class going with you and You-chan?"

"It's going pretty good," she replied, also glad Mari changed the subject matter. "The first day was an introduction class, and the second day was 4 hours of just live burns at the Numazu City Fire Academy. It was pretty fun."

"I bet," Mari replied. "You know, since I'm here for 4 more years at the least, I've been considering taking up the helmet at a fire station in Lissone." Mari was attending university in Milan, but had lived in a shared apartment in a suburb called Lissone only 15 minutes away. "I talked to some firefighters there, and though I'm not a full-fledged Italian citizen, they'll let me in anyway since I'm going to school here for so long and I'm only 3 minutes away. Is 600 calls per year on average busy? They don't run any ambulances unlike over in Japan."

"If they don't run EMS, that's not bad," Kanan replied. Station 151 itself did about 500 fire/rescue calls annually, in addition to over 1300 EMS calls per year. "We run about the same in terms on non-ambulance calls. Do you think you're up for it?"

"Of course," Mari confidently replied in English before switching back to Japanese. "Apparently, I just squeeze past the height requirement by 3 centimeters. It's odd they have one, really. As long as you're not a dwarf, you should be fine. I mean, You-chan falls 2 centimeters short, I guess, but she's a good firefighter, right?"

"Yeah," Kanan replied as she nodded, finding the height requirement odd. "I'm 165 centimeters, like you, and yet I could probably physically run circles around most of the guys you saw there. Then again, Europeans and Americans do tend to be taller in general compared to us Jaoanese, and just Asians in general, hence your height."

Mari laughed. "True, true. I guess we have to pull the race card out somewhere, huh?" The last remark made both of them burst into laughter.


June 10, 2019

After coming home from college classes, both You and Kanan arrived at the NCFA at around 5:45 PM to undergo the third class of Advanced Interior Volunteer Firefighting Operations. In the second class, the class of 20 students burned two cars and then did two structure fire evolutions. They were the only volunteers from Station 151 taking the class, with another volunteer from Station 154 also taking it. Tonight, they would do civilian search and rescue evolutions, first with only a fog machine, and then with live fire. To simulate trapped civilians, they would use dummies of various weights.

Kanan, You, the other volunteer from Station 154, and two volunteers from District 16 were grouped together, with You serving as the group officer for tonight, and Kanan having served as it the class before. As the 5 of them stood before the training tower, a 5-floor stone and metal building, they got ready, but did not mask up yet. They were to be the first to go inside. The first scenario involved a fire on the northern side, or Alpha side, of the third floor, with a victim reported trapped on the southern side, or Charlie side. They would mask up once they got to the second floor and were about to go to the third.

Kanan and the Station 154 volunteer both grabbed hose packs as You opened up the door to the first floor. She said to them, "Go right to the stairs. Once we get to the foot of the stairs to the second floor, stop and mask up." She was carrying with her a thermal imaging camera, and went in first with the two District 16 volunteers, one of whom had a halligan and the other an axe. As the three of them went in first, they looked around quickly before going to the staircase to the second floor, which was blocked off by a door. "Okay, Hiroshi-kun, try it."

Hiroshi, the younger of the two District 16 volunteers, aged 21, felt the door with his gloved hand for a split second before opening it with the turn of a knob. "Try before you pry."

"Exactly," You replied. "Let's go." The three of them quickly ran up the stairs to the second floor and then to the door to the third floor staircase. "Kazuo-kun, try it."

Kazuo, aged 24, tried to open the door to the third floor staircase, but it was locked. "We're gonna have to force it." He then shoved the fork end of the halligan bar into the crack between the door and the doorframe near the lock. "Get me a hose strap, Hiroshi-kun!"

"Got it," Hiroshi replied as he approached and use a small strap to tie around the knob to control the door once it was forced open. He then got his axe ready. "Tell me when to ram it."

"Ram it," Kazuo replied, resulting in Hiroshi ramming the end of the axe into the adze/pick end of the halligan, driving the fork into the door. "Ram it! Ram it! Ram it! Ram it!" After 5 ram-its, he followed up with, "Drive it." Hiroshi then gave repeated blows onto the halligan. "Stop!" As Hiroshi stopped, Kazuo foced the fork end in just a little bit more, and just like that, the door was forced open. "Mask up now?"

"Absolutely," You replied as she got down on both knees, took her helmet and gloves off, and put her mask on, having already turned her SCBA on. Kazuo and Hiroshi quickly did the same. As they finished, they heard Kanan and the Station 154 volunteer come up behind them before they stopped to do the same thing. Now that the first 3 were masked up, You said, "Let's hurry it up!"

The 3 of them then climbed to the third floor as the smoke entered in, growing thicker and thicker as they got to the top of the stairs. The door to the third floor was already open, and at the foot of the door was the "victim," a 175-pound dummy. Kazuo, at the front, shouted down, "The victim is right here!"

"Grab 'em," You replied as she aimed the TIC and then directed Kanan and the Station 154 volunteer. "The fire is down that hallway! Just watch yourself, since we just found the victim!"

"Got it," Kanan replied giving a thumbs-up, as she hooked the hose she had carried into a standpipe and then radioed, "Group 1 to the Training Engine, charge the Charlie standpipie!" She quickly got out of the way as Hiroshi and Kazuo carried the dummy down together. They would climb down a ladder to the second floor to bring it down, and then reenter through the same ladder to assist with firefighting operations.

As You aimed the TIC down the hallway, she could see the heat concentrated at the end. "Pencil the ceiling to cool it off!"

Kanan did so, opening up the nozzle. "Ichiro-kun, feed me more line!"

"Got it," Ichiro, a 30-year-old office worker, replied. The five of them were doing a great job so far, having found both the victim and the seat of the fire rather fast. The rest of the night would be filled with similar activities, and the five of them performed well at all of them.