The Legends Still Live On
Bogen Neunzehn-komma-ein: Extras Fünf und Sechs
Kapitel Acht: Ihr Parameter?
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Another day was already at its beginning aboard the Zuikaku, and the new day meant another day of school for all the students aboard.
Walking down one street in both of their usual school attires were Miho Nishizumi and Erich-Dietrich Hartmann. Miho had in both hands a small pocket-sized notebook and a pencil, though she was waiting for Erich to finish up his own business so she could write something down with it. Said business of the blond-haired German had him speaking over his phone right now. He had it against his ear with one hand.
"Ja," he confirmed with a nod over the line. "Es ist total kaputt." He was speaking about his Bf 109 K-4's DB 605DC engine that had recently blown itself up on him for no apparent reason.
"Wie?" the other person over the line wondered how such a thing happened. Erich was speaking with none other than his older brother Alfred-Joachim Hartmann, or the Black Devil, as his foes chose to call him.
Erich gave off an annoyed sigh and ran his other hand through his short blonde hair. "Ich habe keine Idee," he answered. "Ich denke, dass Murphy nur einige Belustigung wollte." He had no idea how the engine tore itself up, even after getting the report on it from his ground crew. The cause of the engine grenading itself he now simply chalked up to Murphy's Law. In other words, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
Alfred snorted in amusement over the line. "Ach, ist das nicht die Wahrheit…" he agreed. "Aber es ist ein Totalverlust, richtig?" He knew full well from his own experience with the DB 605 that it was a 'sick' engine, so to speak, and to remain on his toes with it. He asked Erich whether or not his own destroyed engine was a complete goner.
"Ich dachte, dass meine Bilder haben für sich selbst gesprochen…" Erich deadpanned. He had such an expression because he had thought the photos of the destroyed engine he sent spoke for themselves.
"Also gut," Alfred relented, having gotten what his younger brother was saying. "Ich werde sehen, was ich tun kann." He let Erich know that he would see what kind of magic he could make to satisfy the blond-haired German's request.
"Okay, danke," Erich replied back, giving his thanks. "Wir sprechen später." Hearing that his brother was working on something, the blond-haired boy chose to bring the conversation to an end via a wish to talk again later.
"Ja, ja, bis nächstes Mal," Alfred similarly gave a farewell, and then the line went dead.
"So, what did he say?" Miho asked Erich after he put his phone up. She could understand what he was saying, as her mother tongue was German just like his, but she wasn't able to hear what Alfred had said on his end, hence her question.
"He said that he'll see what he can do," the blond-haired boy provided. He then shrugged. "Nothing set in stone, though."
Miho sighed a bit tensely and pocketed her little notebook and pencil. "I was hoping to get something more than just that…" she bemoaned, obviously displeased with having to wait to settle the matter. She perked up a bit, though, when she spotted Saori up ahead, and she chose to wave and get her attention. "Hey, Saorichen!" The light brunette grabbed Erich by the arm and started practically dragging the blonde along with her as she ran to meet up with her friend.
The ginger-haired girl turned around somewhat lethargically at the callout. "Oh," she blinked when the two Germans stopped a bit in front of her. She then gave a halfhearted wave. "Hey, Miho, Bubi."
"Morgen," Erich greeted while wringing his arm out, trying to get blood flowing to it again after being freed from Miho's iron grip. While he did that, Miho took a bit of a closer look at Saori.
"What's up, Saori?" the light brunette asked with her head cocked to the side in confusion. "You're usually so lively, even in the morning."
"Oh, it's nothing really," Saori waved off. She then rubbed her hand along her white shirt of her school uniform, by the stomach. "I just ate a bit too much last night, I think. I can get that slimmed out, though."
"Ah, well just don't overdo it," Miho said with an understanding smile, wishing for her to stay safe with whatever she planned to do.
Erich, however, was staring at a little detail of Saori's that had caught his eye and stood out to him as being odd. "… Hä?" he went to himself with a raised eyebrow. 'Is it just me, or are her eyebrows thicker than I last remember?' he wondered within his mind.
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Night came after a long day of education, and everyone aboard the Zuikaku simply wanted to sleep through it. There was nothing to be done that could overrule their tiredness. So sleep everyone did.
This was no less true within the apartment of Miho and Erich. Both were in bed and asleep, with the light brunette girl lying peacefully atop the blonde with her hands resting on his chest. She was the epitome of bliss.
"Ad victoriam!"
Until an onslaught of Swedish power metal snapped her awake and into a daze. Below her, Erich didn't even flinch as he stayed fast asleep. Miho rolled off of him to the side and immediately focused on finding the source of the always-loud heavy metal, and because of a light resembling that of a screen's light coming from the nightstand nearby, she deduced the cause of the song Wehrmacht playing was a phone ringing.
"Ex machina!"
"Gott, who the devil calls at this time of night?" she quietly wondered with a tired crankiness as she made to fumble around the nightstand beside the bed for the offending phone.
"Non sibi sed!
Patriae!"
She eventually got ahold of the ringing cell phone, which by feel she could tell was her boyfriend's phone.
"Ad victoriam!
Ex machina!"
She raised a hand to cover her eyes before slowly removing it and squinting to adjust to the brightness of the screen, but she was soon able to make out the time, 02:03, and the caller name, Alfred.
"Non sibi sed!"
"Ugh, speak of the devil and he shall appear…" Miho muttered with an eye-roll of exasperation at the one renowned as the Black Devil calling.
"Patriae!"
She then answered the call and brought the phone to her ear. "Alfi, warum rufst du um zwei Uhr?!" she hissed over the line after picking up. She was pissed at being woken up at 0200 hours, and in a rather rude way, too, hence her furious questioning of the Black Devil as to why he was calling at such a time.
The other end was silent for a few seconds before Alfred spoke up, "… Du bist keine Kleidung tragen, bist du nicht?"
Miho immediately blushed red of embarrassment at the rather blunt deduction of his, that she indeed wasn't wearing any clothes. She almost never did nowadays when sleeping, for obvious reasons. "Ach, schalte es!" she told him to shut it in the same whisper-yell as she instinctively sunk her body below the covers, as if trying to salvage her pride. She left only her head and a single arm above so she could continue talking over the phone. "Antworte einfach auf meine frage!" She simply wanted to know why in all that is holy the Black Devil was calling at this hour.
"Au ja, ich entschuldige mich, dich aufzuwecken, aber ich wollte die Preise für den Motor mit Erich, den sie wollen, besprechen," Alfred answered. He had apologized for waking her up at such an hour, and then provided the answer she was looking for: he wanted to discuss prices for that DB 605DC engine that Ooarai needed for its star fighter, the Bf 109 K-4.
Miho's eyes lit up at those words and she grew a look of interest, albeit her tiredness was still plenty obvious. "Das ist großartig, aber…" she trailed off for a bit. "… Könntest du bitte etwa fünf oder sechs Stunden warten? Ich werde dann fertig sein." She found such news to be great, but just didn't have enough energy at the current time to continue any further with discussions, so she wanted to reschedule the talks for later when she was fully awake.
"Ich kann das machen," Alfred replied affirmative, that he could talk later. "Also, ich nehme an, du wirdst…" He left a question hanging in the air about whether she would be the one to talk with him rather than his original intention of speaking with his younger brother.
"Hee-hee! Hast du wirklich gedacht, dass er aufwachen würde?" the light brunette asked with an amused giggle. She had asked Alfred if he seriously thought Erich would even stir in the middle of the night upon being called, to which both sides knew from experience was a definitive no. "Ruf mich auf meinem Handy dann." She confirmed the assumption that she would do the negotiating rather than her boyfriend, considering she was far more fit for this kind of work than he was, and for the Black Devil to call her at the time she asked.
"Alles klar dann," Alfred accepted. "Gute Nacht, Miholein." He confirmed Miho's request and bid her good night using her decade-old nickname.
"Tschü-tschü, Alfi," the light brunette girl reciprocated the farewell with her own little nickname for the Black Devil, and then the line went dead.
Miho put the phone back on the nightstand before resettling into her former spot of lying atop her blonde knight, who never stirred throughout the entire ordeal. 'I swear, he could sleep through a barrage of Katyusha rockets,' she thought while staring at his face for a bit with a somewhat entranced grin on her own face. She then let her head rest on his chest and fell asleep.
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The next morning was another morning spent getting ready for a school day. For both of Ooarai's Arts of Warfare commanders, that meant they were walking along together to the school itself, once more in their school attires.
"Ja, aber weitergehen, habst du einen Preis für uns?" Miho asked. She was currently on other business while Erich guided her around and made sure she didn't run into anything, considering her total focus at the moment was not with walking to school. Instead, she was talking with the Black Devil again about the DB 605 engine. The light brunette had a small one-ear headset, much like a Bluetooth headset, in her left ear while she had her pocket notebook out with a pencil.
"Es ist rund 25.000 Reichsmark, zuletzt habe ich überprüft," Alfred responded over the line with a rough historical price estimate for a DB 605: about 25,000 Reichsmarks, last he checked.
"Fünfundzwanzigtausend… So in Euro…?" Miho let her question hang in the air. She chose to write down the historical price in her pocket notebook for later reference if needed.
"In Euro, das wäre etwa 115.500," Alfred provided a quick estimate of what that price would be in the modern euro currency.
"Hundertfünfzehntausendfünfhundert…" the light brunette wrote down in her pocket notebook while thinking over the price. It sounded like a real chunk of change, but she had gone into the talks already expecting such things; aircraft piston engines weren't cheap in the slightest.
"Jetzt normalerwiese, wenn sie es von uns gekauft haben, würden sie einen Zuschlag zahlen," the Black Devil continued. He stated that under normal conditions they would be paying a markup.
"Aber…?" Miho implied with a raised eyebrow that a 'but' was present and imminent. At the same time, Erich quickly pulled her by the waist and the hook of her arm, such that he ended up pulling her out of her current heading that led directly into a pole. Normally, she would've flushed red of embarrassment from that, but now she was on a mission and wasn't in the sense of mind to fret over such things.
"Da es du, die fragt, werde ich den Zuschlag fallen," Alfred elaborated that he would drop the markup since she was a friend.
"Das heißt also, dass wir 115.500 Euro bezahlen?" the light brunette asked if that meant they would pay the base price of 115,500 euros.
"Das ist richtig," the black-haired German ultra-ace confirmed. "Weitere Fragen?" He asked if she had any further questions for him.
Miho shook her head. "Nö, aber ich muss mit meiner Schule die Verwaltung über diese erste sprechen. Das ist in Ordnung mit dir?" she added. She wanted him to know that she would have to speak with the student council about this little deal before agreeing to it, and asked if he was okay with that.
At the same time, Erich got bored and started looking around the area for anything to entertain him. But he soon forgot about self-entertainment when he saw Saori up ahead by the store the group usually met up at, and he could see that she looked quite exhausted at the moment. He raised an eyebrow at it, both in curiosity and in some concern. He chose to walk on ahead the short distance, trusting that Miho wouldn't get into too much trouble without the physical guidance he had been giving thus far.
"Ja, ja, das ist okay für mich. So, bis bald?" Alfred continued speaking with Miho in the meanwhile. He said he was okay with those arrangements before offering a farewell.
"Mhm. Bis bald," Miho reciprocated the farewell, and she hung up with a tap to her one-ear headset. She turned to look to her side, where she last saw Erich, but that spot was now empty space, and it stopped her for a second. She soon spotted him further ahead and rushed over.
"Hey, are you alright, Saori?" the blond-haired German asked. He took note of Saori's exhausted look and her inability to stand still because of her wobbling.
"Yeah, just fiiiiiiine…" the ginger-haired girl assured, but it really didn't sound so assuring with the amount of tiredness in her voice.
"Are you alright, Saorichen?" Miho asked her. She had quickly assessed the situation while approaching and, naturally, grew concerned for her friend's well-being.
"Yeah, I've just been feeling a little tired lately…" Saori answered with a halfhearted wave. "But on the bright side, I think I've slimmed a bit!"
Erich raised his eyebrow again, this time in utter confusion. He quickly looked over her up and down, trying to see if she really did slim as she said. But he found nothing out of the ordinary until reaching her eyebrows. He blinked upon seeing them. He then leaned over closer to Miho. "Am I seeing things or did her eyebrows get thinner?" he whispered while keeping a baffled look aimed at the ginger-haired girl.
The light brunette looked to Saori's eyebrows to try and see for herself what Erich was talking about. "… Hä?" was all Miho could say as she struck a dumbfounded look. She had seen what Erich had seen, and it confused her just as it did him.
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Part of Projekt Jägermeistern.
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The author doesn't claim to own "Girls und Panzer," the music used, or any other references made. "Girls und Panzer" belongs to Actas. The music belongs to Sabaton. Any references made belong to their respective owners.
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