The Legends Still Live On
Bogen Fünfundzwanzig: Ein Blick auf Ooarai
Kapitel Ein: Es ist zurückerobern der M3!
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It was another day aboard the Zuikaku that housed Ooarai High School. Turning to the school's hangars, nothing was amiss from the norm. All of the members for the Arts of Warfare programs were just chatting about as they awaited the Panzerkraft and Jägermeistern commanders.
"Please," Wolf rolled his eyes at the other history buffs before shifting his Schirmmütze with a hand. "The Six-Day War was a pure religious conflict through and through, and we all know that religious conflicts are never conflicts with any sort of reason in mind. The Arabs and Israelis especially need no reason to go to war with each other." The eight-strong group of history buffs were having another debate about history, this one in particular being about the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab countries of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
"Ah, but!" Abe interjected with a raised finger with a counter ready. "That war emphasized that the element of surprise as well as competence were decisive elements in warfare."
Gustav nodded in agreement with the American history buff. "If not for those two attributes, then the Israelis would've been eradicated by three different enemies all working together," the Swedish history buff, also the de facto Nordic history buff of the group, added onto Abe's side of the argument.
"Let us not forget the ramifications of Israel's 'preemptive strikes,' though," Caesar said her piece as she shifted her weight from leg to leg. She was sure to place air-quotes around 'preemptive strikes,' to emphasize how Israel had fired the first shots. "For one, the Israelis got very cocky afterwards, which led to initial Arab successes in the Yom Kippur War. And, of course, there was the expulsion of Jewish minorities within Arab countries plus the great number of Palestinians and Syrians that had to flee Israel's newest conquests."
As the history buffs continued their debate on the Six-Day War and the Arab-Israeli conflicts in general, others chatted amongst themselves about various things. Everyone was in the basic Ooarai school uniform, as no plans were made to do some intense training that day.
While everyone was occupied with each other, Miho Nishizumi and Erich-Dietrich Hartmann came through the open hangar doors, talking with each other in the process, or rather more like bantering if their playful and amused looks were anything to go by.
"Yeah, yeah, so you keep saying…" Erich rolled his eyes in good nature.
Miho playfully shoved him with a brief giggle. "Of course, because you know I'm right," she returned as she tilted her chin up with a playful smirk.
"We'll see about that," Erich forewarned with a playful grin.
Miho shook her head at the blonde, clearly enjoying the little chat she had with her greatest friend. Now, though, it came to an end when the light brunette noted how they had reached their destination. "You going to do it this time?" she shot Erich a questioning look.
The blonde shrugged. "I guess I will," he nonchalantly answered. He then stuck the middle and index fingers of his right hand into his mouth just so, and let out a very sharp whistle that could be clearly heard throughout the entire hangar.
The effect was immediate as everyone else in the hangar brought their idle conversations to an end and turned to Erich upon hearing the ear-piercing whistle.
"Practice time!" the blonde decreed with arms spread out grandly and a huge grin. "My guys, let's get going!" He brought one arm up and waved it in a circular motion with two brought-together fingers up, a signal to round up and get moving.
"Girls, to your Panzers!" Miho gave orders to her subordinates immediately after Erich gave his own orders. She was not one to make grand entrances and gestures like her blonde companion, hence her keeping her orders short and to the point.
"YEAH!" most everybody in the hangar cheered in response. Morale was pretty high that day as everyone began to bustle about to their vehicles.
The members of Rabbit Team reached their M3 Lee first, and the girls made conversation whilst boarding the American tank.
"You guys want to stop somewhere on the way home today?" Aya asked as she climbed up the hull to the turret.
"I wanna get some ice cream!" Karina responded while trying to heave herself into the large hatch on the left side of the hull. The short freshman was having a difficult go at it.
"But we already did that yesterday…" Azusa said as she fell into the commander's hatch from the top of the tank.
Karina grunted as she summoned her strength to heave herself into the American tank. It worked as she got enough of her body inside to keep from falling out again, and she crawled the rest of the way in, the hatch closing behind her. She then stopped as she caught sight of something rather odd. "Huh?" was the go-to response for her confusion.
The oddity she stopped at was something that appeared to be moving across the driver's gauges. After squinting to see it better, Karina widened her eyes and screamed in abject horror.
The other five girls inside the tank quickly looked at Karina upon hearing her scream, and she was pointing at the gauges with a shaking hand. Upon seeing what she was screaming over, the rest of them besides Saki also started screaming in pure terror.
The reason they were screaming so greatly was because of one thing, one very disgusting thing: a cockroach had found its way inside the M3 Lee.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" the collective scream, nearly constant in length, sounded all throughout the hangar as the girls inside the American tank started bouncing off its inner walls trying to escape the roach.
"GAH, what the hell?!" Anton Silva jerked in surprise from the scream. It was very fortunate of him that he didn't crush his fingers, considering he was loading the Bf 109 K-4's Motorkanone MK 108 cannon with its 30 mm rounds. Erich had squeezed the trigger on the stick as a reflex to the scream, which caused the bolt to shoot forward after being unleashed from its high-tension spring, which would've certainly cut off a finger or two since he was trying to feed the 30 mm rounds into the breech for the bolt to pick up. Very fortunate for him, indeed, that he was able to jerk his hands away in time.
Many others also reacted to the scream by reflex, like Erich, who was completely unaware of his role in nearly taking Anton's fingers off, or if he was aware, then simply unconcerned with it. Instead, he climbed his way out of the 109 to see what the fuss was about. Upon hearing the screams and placing their identities, Anton took off in that direction, not at all concerned about his fingers' brush with severing compared to the screaming freshman girls that he cared about greatly. Also heading to the M3 was Miho, flanked by Yukari and Saori.
"Hey, what's going on?!" Anton arrived first at the American tank. "Hey! Girls!"
It took a longer-than-desired time for the freshmen inside to open up the left-hand hull hatch, but when it did open, Karina immediately jumped in the direction of Anton, almost by instinct.
"Oh, fuck," the blonde American briefly muttered before Karina collided with him. The boy instinctively caught the small girl in his arms, though he did stutter a step back thanks to the unexpected reception.
"Hey, what's going on?!" Anton quickly grew concerned over Karina's tears. He then decided it didn't matter as much as the blatant recklessness the girl exhibited jumping out of the tank like she did. "Look, whatever that was, don't jump from high places like-!"
"UNCLE!" the blonde American was cut off by some more distraught cries. Looking back to the source, Anton in response immediately braced when he saw how the rest of the Rabbit Team besides Saki had also jumped out of the tank like it was a life-or-death scenario.
"Ack!" he grunted upon catching Yuuki, nearly being brought to his knees. "Ngh!" He absorbed the force Aya had brought with her when she landed atop him. "Guh!" Then Ayumi came, and the boy's legs trembled under the strain of having four girls piled on him, but he still remained on his feet. He couldn't even make a noise when Azusa joined the pile after her jump, as the strain he was under seemingly forbade him from doing anything besides holding up the five girls piled onto him.
Then Saki ceremoniously jumped from the hull hatch atop the remaining five girls of Rabbit Team, and Anton shook under the weight of six freshman girls trying to cling to him. But, miraculously, he was still on his feet, even if he was only a hay straw away from being brought down. With trembling legs, he slowly stood with all six girls clinging to him still.
"aaaaaAAAAAH!" Anton grunted throughout the attempt to stand and ended on a roar as his legs locked in place to allow him to stand up to his full height. With a heaving chest, it was reasonable to predict that his leg muscles would burn for a few days probably, but it was a very remarkable achievement that he didn't collapse under the weight of six girls. Perhaps it was sheer willpower stemming from his great fondness of them that allowed it.
Upon reaching the scene, Erich took a moment to stop and just take in the picture of Anton somehow still standing while having six girls clinging to him. "Damn," was all he could say, as he was thoroughly impressed with that feat of strength.
"Rabbit Team, what happened?!" Miho asked with great concern upon reaching the scene for herself with Yukari and Saori tagging along behind. The ginger of the trio strode forth to the Rabbit Team's members to offer her own comfort.
"The M3 is…!" Azusa tried to say to Miho in response, but she was very traumatized like the rest of the girls, except for Saki. "Our tank got…!" In the end, she was unable to speak through her terrified sobbing.
"It's been claimed by that thing!" Karina gave a response to Miho's inquiry, despite fearful tears streaming down her cheeks.
"What 'thing?'" Erich asked with a raised eyebrow, imitating the inflection of Karina's voice at 'thing.'
"It's a G!" Karina screamed out in utter traumatization at having to actually say the creature's name aloud.
The blond-haired ultra-ace furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, not understanding what a 'G' was. "… What?" he muttered his confusion.
"Ah…" Miho smiled in a knowing way, concern washing away with knowledge. Unlike her blonde companion, she understood what the freshmen were referring to. "Well, considering it's getting warmer out, it shouldn't be a surprise that they're starting to come out."
"What do you mean?" Erich turned his head to Miho to ask. "What the devil is a G?"
"Oi, what are you doing making such a fuss over a damn G!?" Momo yelled from across the hangar by the Jagdpanzer 38(t), her great impatience showing. Everyone by the M3 Lee turned to her upon hearing her speak up. "Get rid of the thing and start training at once! Understood?!"
"No, I don't!" Erich snarked back, clearly annoyed that he wasn't in the know with what was happening. "Could you bother to speak up a little louder?! I don't think I could hear you that first time!" Of course, the blonde's inherent dislike for authority was perhaps another factor as well for his snarky attitude.
He felt Miho's gentle hand come down on his shoulder, and taking a glance at her face, she was clearly displeased with his attitude. Erich took the message and simply turned away from Momo's direction. "Seriously, what the devil is a G anyway?" he said with a fair amount of annoyance, though it was much less than before.
"No, I don't wanna!" Yuuki sobbed into Anton's neck. "I don't wanna get in the tank!" All the freshmen were now contributing to sharing their total weight as some had their feet on the floor, but they all still clung to the blonde American that caught them all, excluding Saki who was off to the side silent as ever. Saori took some of the girls into her own arms, creating a rather entangled maze of limbs with all seven of them holding onto each other.
"Well the thing is…" Saori started to try and convince the group as a whole that it wasn't as bad as it seemed.
"Uncle…" Aya whined as she held onto Anton from behind, and that made the ginger give up with trying to convince them to get back in the tank. It simply wasn't worth the trouble now.
"It's gotta still be in there!" Karina bawled into Anton's other side. Saori stroked the back of her hand over her head comfortingly. "I'm sure it's still in there!"
Miho took the time to speak with Erich simultaneously. "'G' is short for 'gokiburi,'" the light brunette revealed to the blonde with her far superior comprehension of Japanese compared to Erich, who knew practically nothing of the language. "It's the Japanisch word for eine Kakerlake." She decided to reveal it to him in their native tongue, 'Kakerlake' being what they called a cockroach in said native tongue.
Erich raised his eyebrows in understanding. "Ah, I see," he comprehended as he nodded. "Eine Kakerlake."
"What should we do about it, Lady Nishizumi? Bubi?" Yukari asked the two of them from nearby.
Erich shrugged nonchalantly in response. "Easy," he answered. He then stomped one of his black combat boots onto the ground. "Stomp on it."
"Well, there might be more than one," Miho interjected with her judgment.
"Ah, I can help if that's the case," Wolf offered from behind the trio of Miho, Erich, and Yukari. "I've got just the tool to use."
"Let's hunt this kackerlacka down," Gustav darkly grinned as he drew his saber from its sheath.
"Hey, what's going on?!" Akebi innocently and rather loudly asked out of curiosity from behind the two history buffs, increasing her voice's volume to get her query to reach the ears of Miho, Erich, Yukari, and everyone else around the freshman girls.
During the time everyone else talked, the freshman girls had disentangled themselves from Anton as they settled down, and were observing the scene.
Azusa, however, grew that unique look of hers whenever she felt she needed to do something without help from the seniors. To her, she felt she needed to prove how the group of freshmen wasn't dead weight, and having the older members help them out was counterintuitive to that.
"Wait, don't worry!" Azusa waved her hands out to the more senior members. "Please, go start practice without us! We'll catch up!" The young brunette then turned to her fellow Rabbit Team members. "Girls, let's go take care of it!"
"Huh? But…" Karina uttered, confused. Her confusion was representative of the rest of Rabbit Team. None of them really expected Azusa to insist on all of them together doing the job to take out the cockroach. They thought maybe someone else that wasn't scared of the creatures would do so.
"But Gs are scary…" Aya tried to object, but it came out rather half-hearted. She, as well as the other freshman girls, weren't really the kind to stand up against their de facto leader, hence her objection faltering.
"The M3 is our tank!" Azusa continued, invigorated by the notion of anything relating to their tank being their responsibility, hence her deliberate emphasizing of 'our.' "So it's up to us to take care of it and prevent it from being captured by such an insignificant creature!"
The young brunette tank commander's confidence in her speaking lit up a fire of determination within the rest of the freshmen, as they all drew their faces into more confident and determined expressions.
Well, excluding Saki, as always. Her face remained as it was in its not-all-there expression.
"Is that understood?!" Azusa raised her voice to the girls.
"YES!" all of the other freshmen responded, overflowing with the determination their commander had just implanted within them.
"Good, now let's get to it!" the young brunette commanded.
At her call, the rest of the girls began to shuffle across the hangars to get started, but Azusa felt a hand come down on her shoulder, halting her. Looking back to the source, she found it to be Erich that held her back, with a rather proud look on his face.
"That was nicely done, how you handled that situation," he commended. He then smiled in a more supportive way. "I know you want to really do this yourself, but I just want to remind you that there's no shame to be had in asking for help."
"Oh, no, I didn't mean to-!" Azusa quickly tried to deny the blonde's assumption about her desire to prove herself, out of not wanting to sound offensive from sounding like she was outright denying his help, but Erich cut her off with a broad sweep of his other hand.
"Regardless," he continued, silencing the young brunette in the process. "If you feel like you need it, don't be afraid to call me for help. I've already got the workings of a plan in mind, so if you need me, just call for me. Okay?"
Azusa nodded, albeit a bit reluctantly. "Okay," she agreed, even though she really wanted to not bring anyone else down with her.
Erich gave her a light rap on the shoulder as encouragement with his hand that still rested there. "Great," he responded before lightly pushing her in the direction of the other freshmen. "Now go get 'em!"
The young brunette stumbled a bit from the friendly push, but she corrected herself and strode over to her fellow freshmen. She did turn her head back a bit to get another glance of Erich.
Even though the blond-haired German ultra-ace was a very unique person that could seem narcissistic and uncivilized if looked at with a less open mindset, considering he went from boisterous to confused to snarky to calm in such a quick time, Azusa could now understand why Miho loved him so dearly: he was great at being a friend. Even with his faults, the young brunette felt so much more confident in herself now thanks to his support.
Azusa wondered if Erich was capable of making anyone feel so invigorated as easily as he had with her, considering the great boost in her self-confidence she felt now thanks to the blonde's actions. Perhaps she could ask Miho about it later to see if that was the truth. But now, to get rid of a cockroach with her other freshmen pals.
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"You guys finished prepping up?" Azusa asked later as she finished tying together the laces on her black combat boots. The boots extended up to about the middle of her lower leg. She overall wore an outfit similar to a commando outfit, with black cargo pants, a similarly-colored sleeveless combat vest, and a gray t-shirt underneath. Added to that were some black fingerless gloves and some shades. Fitted into various pouches on the vest and cargo pants were some spray-can pesticides Jerry-rigged to operate like a grenade, with the pesticide mixture within being the payload fuzed to go off five seconds after the pin going through the top was pulled.
After donning a baseball cap with the Rabbit Team insignia on the front, Aya grew a confident smirk as she gave her status update, "Ready here!" The twin-tailed blonde also had a combat-ready outfit, though hers was somewhat different from Azusa's. While the black boots and black cargo pants were the same, Aya's black combat vest was long-sleeved and had a zipper going down the middle, creating a different pouch arrangement to make way for the zipper. Those pouches held similar pesticide grenades as those Azusa had. She also had some black fingerless gloves, but kept her normal glasses and added an earpiece in her right ear.
Karina chambered a can of pesticide into, well… a chamber, on top of a small sub-machine gun-sized weapon, which served to load the unique weapon with its payload. The weapon itself was designed such that the can on top would supply the mist of pesticide to be pressurized by the breech, and, upon the trigger being pulled, then unleashed out of the barrel to spray a concentrated dose of the pesticide.
Karina had the same black boots and black cargo pants Azusa and Aya had, though the rest of her outfit differed considerably. Her vest, while long-sleeved, lacked a way to take it off quickly like a zipper down the front, as it was notably beefier. It was fitted with pouches as well, carrying some more cans to supply the pesticide SMG with as well as some pesticide grenades. She also had a black helmet with some goggles with a black strap resting on the forehead portion along with a small gas mask hanging around her neck, plus some black gloves that fully covered her fingers.
Ayumi had black combat boots and black cargo pants, along with black fingerless gloves. She wore a white tank top, and over that and around her lower torso was a black garment that acted as holsters and as pouches. Under her armpits and in the holsters were two pesticide grenades, one per side, and in the torso pouches were some more pesticide grenades. The relatively tall freshman also had a black ribbon tied around her left arm, midway between her shoulder and elbow. The weapon she rested over her shoulder was a swatter, with a circular surface on the swatting end. As an addition, Ayumi had tied up her normally free-flowing black hair into a high ponytail.
Yuuki had one of the more unique outfits, with some more stylish and shorter combat boots that were lace-less. Some black tights ran up her legs up to mid-thigh, with the right leg having a holster. The tights were utilized due to her choice of some relatively short black shorts, also equipped with holsters to store pesticide grenades. She also wore a gray tank top that was tied off at the back, which resulted in her abdomen being exposed. The tank top also had a holster fashioned into it. Around her neck was a black bandana, ready to be brought up over her lower face in a moment's notice. Some goggles with a black strap rested on her forehead, and she rounded herself out with some black fingerless gloves as well as a black ribbon tied around her right arm, midway between her elbow and shoulder, much like Ayumi.
Saki had what could be interpreted as a cold-weather commando outfit, with black combat boots that were lace-less and some thicker cargo pants with pouches holding pesticide grenades. In one of those pouches was a thick book to bring down on and smash any cockroaches with. She had a thicker, long-sleeved upper garment with a beefier black vest with pouches holding more pesticide grenades. Covering her whole head were a black balaclava, black goggles, and a black helmet with the Rabbit Team emblem painted on the side. She also had some thick black gloves that covered her whole hand, and in each hand was a rolled-up newspaper to smack roaches with. Saki's outfit was unique in that not a single blemish of skin was visible for her: she was so heavily covered-up.
"Alright, then let's get moving and take back our tank!" Azusa commanded her small six-strong group of commandos.
The group moved out immediately and into action from the small corner of the hangar they had prepared in, with Azusa and Aya leading the way a bit ahead of the rest. Both of them each took a pesticide grenade in hand, not to throw yet, but to be prepared in case a quick retaliation was needed.
Azusa and Aya reached a crate at the end of a line of crates and scrambled to the corner with their backs up against the wall the crates effectively made. Azusa peeked around a corner, and she gave a halt signal with a closed fist to the rest of the group. All besides Aya held back a ways, further back along the wall of crates.
Azusa got enough of a glimpse at the M3 Lee, and from what she saw, nothing was amiss. That meant everything was so far so good, and the young brunette deemed it safe to bring the others to hers and Aya's position. So she waved them forth with one hand while keeping an eye on the American tank.
Azusa then looked to Karina, and gave a signal with her hand, keeping it flat and sliding it through the air in that position. That signal was understood to mean crawl to the enemy position, and Karina gave a brief salute to show her understanding before she donned her goggles over her eyes.
With her heavier cladding, Karina quickly sprinted around the corner into a roll that was followed by a brisk-paced military crawl on her front to the M3. In seemingly no time at all, she was upon the tank and braced herself, crouched and with her back to the hull.
Looking back at Azusa, she noted how the young commander had her binoculars out to observe the tank and its surroundings. Her fist was held up closed, and Karina knew that to mean she had to hold position.
After deeming it clear, Azusa lowered her binoculars from her face and flashed a thumbs-up at Karina. The small tank driver flashed back a confirmatory thumbs-up as she lifted her gas mask over her nose and mouth.
Karina then fished out a pesticide grenade from one of her pouches and prepared herself to prime it. She moved a hand to ghost over the left-hand hull hatch of the tank as she mentally recalled what to do. Then she moved her hand back and used it to pull the pin on the pesticide grenade, and quickly opened the hatch, chucked the grenade in, and slammed it shut before diving away from the area, bracing for the coming blast. The rest of the girls, still behind the crate serving as cover, did the same and braced.
A few tense seconds of silence passed before a soft blast sounded, and a plume of pesticide gas filled up the interior of the M3. Very quickly, the plume expanded to include the area around the tank as it escaped from the miniscule and otherwise insignificant gaps in the hull. Noting the successful outcome, Karina clenched a fist in achievement as the rest of the girls came out from behind their cover to celebrate their victory.
"Awesome, you did it!" Aya cheered.
"Karina!" Azusa cheered in accomplishment as she removed her shades with a big grin on her face.
"You're the best!" Yuuki cheered with a spirited wave.
"Nice job!" Ayumi also cheered.
All of the freshmen, besides Saki, had cheered with each other practically simultaneously with their words overlapping over each other. Karina responded with a spirited thumbs-up as she started walking through the now-dissipating pesticide plume, followed by her removing her gas mask and bringing her goggles back up to her helmet.
She met Azusa half-way and both brought their hands together in a strong grip. "We took it back!" Karina grinned in pure accomplishment, and Azusa returned the same grin of achievement. "Our tank is ours again!"
It was all smiles in the area, until Azusa saw something move out of the corner of her eye. Looking down, she caught sight of some things crawling along the ground between her and Karina.
Karina noted how Azusa was looking down, and she caught sight of those things as well. Those 'things' were cockroaches.
"AAAAAAAAAAH!" all of the girls predictably screamed and scrambled.
"Target alive!" Karina said amongst the chaos.
"Multiple targets, repeat, multiple targets!" Ayumi noted for all as she shuffled away from the cockroaches.
"Go to Plan B!" Azusa ordered amidst the scrambling.
"What's Plan B?!" Yuuki asked in terror of the sight of multiple cockroaches.
"Everyone attacks!" Aya spontaneously claimed through the fear of multiple cockroaches. That was not at all what Plan B actually was, for the record, though it didn't stop the others from following that spontaneous plan.
Aya caught sight of one cockroach running in her direction, and she screamed, "AH!" She quickly fumbled with her vest for a pesticide grenade. "It's coming, it's coming, it's cooooming!" She shakily managed to pull the pin, but soon snapped and dropped it as she chose flight over fight when the roach got too close for her liking. "I CAN'T DO THIS!" The grenade still went off as designed in the area where it was dropped, despite its thrower deciding to check out.
Through the twin-tailed blonde's sprint away from battle, she ended up colliding with Karina, which made her hat fly off.
"Gah!" Karina barked in surprise and nearly dropped the pesticide grenade she had in hand.
Yuuki was on the verge of bursting into tears as she relied on pure reflexes to stay out of the way of the cockroaches. The cockroach infestation was much worse than first predicted, and Yuuki couldn't take much more of seeing them.
"Don't back down!" Azusa yelled an order as she pulled the pin on a pesticide grenade and chucked it at a cluster of cockroaches. "Attack! We still have plenty of ammo to work with-GAH!" She screamed and twisted her body when she saw how a cockroach had literally jumped towards her. Thanks to her quick reacting, the roach simply sailed past her without making any contact.
"Shoot them! Shoot them!" Aya screamed at Karina to utilize her pesticide SMG.
Azusa was lucky to avoid the roach, but the shock factor caused her to nearly faint.
"Azusa?!" Ayumi asked, catching her before she fell to the ground. "Did it get you?! Azusa!" The taller freshman dragged the tank commander across the hangar, eventually propping her up against a crate.
"AH!" a brief shriek from Yuuki sounded.
"Just hit those things!" Aya screamed at Karina as the latter started firing her pesticide SMG. The stream of pesticide wasn't anywhere near as accurate as it could've been due to a loss of nerve. "Gah!"
"It's too quick!" Karina yelled in response to Aya, using one hand to roughly pull off her helmet and goggles.
"I can't feel my…" Azusa dizzily muttered as she rested against the crate being used as cover.
"The hell…?" was Ayumi's reaction to Azusa's dazed state. She decided to leave Azusa there and get back to the fight, figuring she just needed a moment of rest.
The young commander witnessed the rest of the freshmen continue on fighting, but a lack of coordination caused them all to fall apart in their defense. Karina stumbled and fell back after getting overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of cockroaches. Ayumi and Aya collided with each other face-to-face, the painful encounter thanks to neither of them paying attention as well as Aya's loss of nerve causing her to panic. Yuuki had lost her own nerve already and was in full panic mode.
The sight of everyone losing it snapped Azusa out of her daze, but it didn't give her any inspiration. The freshmen had failed in their mission, and Azusa was most upset about that in particular due to being reminded of the brief conversation she had with Erich before taking on her mission. She felt really down because doing the job herself had gotten her nowhere, and she was just too stubborn to ask for help. It stunk that she was effectively proven wrong in her idea that she and the freshmen of Rabbit Team could do something without the more senior members of the Arts of Warfare programs having to come to their aid. All of that really brought down the young commander's morale, and she dejectedly sighed.
But she snapped to an alert status when it came to her mind that she didn't see Saki anywhere. She didn't have to go out to search for her, because upon wondering of her whereabouts, the nearly-mute freshman flew over the crate, and over Azusa herself by extension, with her balaclava, goggles, and helmet gone and armed with a rolled-up newspaper and a clipboard as she sprung into combat. Azusa was caught greatly off-guard by Saki, to put her shocked reaction into perspective.
Saki slammed the newspaper down on one cockroach, flattening it, and after shuffling quickly over to another cockroach, she slammed the clipboard down on the next one. Both roaches were easily dead, but Saki knew that there were many more that they didn't have the tools to exterminate, so she looked to all of the stunned members of Rabbit Team and pointed with her newspaper to the exit.
"Saki…?" Azusa muttered in amazement, but she quickly came back to reality and noted the quiet girl's body language, and she fell back into the commander's post with ease. "Girls! Retreat!"
The rest of the freshmen quickly took heed to the order, and all six of them dashed to the hangar doors, shuffling away from errant cockroaches in the process. Saki got there first and nearly threw open one of the big hangar doors.
"Go! Go!" Azusa encouraged the rest to go ahead of her as she pulled out another pesticide grenade. She pulled the pin and threw it to the general direction of the cockroaches before turning to the door and running through it. All of the girls quickly slammed it shut behind them.
Azusa looked around and noted how each of the girls, besides Saki of course, were recovering their spent breaths, but she also noted how they were looking a bit more somber, coming to the same realization that she herself did: they failed.
"Girls?" they all heard the familiar voice of Miho Nishizumi. They all turned to the voice to find the light brunette girl herself, looking a bit concerned for them as she stepped toward them. "How did it go?" The girls all took note of how the Panzer IV H, painted in its unique Bräunlichrot brownish-red color, was nearby at rest. Azusa thought it fair to assume that the light brunette that she supposedly greatly resembled physically had been concerned about them and stayed back. It was just who Miho was: always looking out for her comrades.
Azusa looked at the other freshmen, noting how none of them looked ready to talk about another of their blunders, so she took it upon herself to report, as much as she didn't want to for all the shame she expected. "Um… Well…" she looked very unsure of how to word herself before finally sighing in defeat. "Sorry, captain. We couldn't get it done. There were too many of them."
Saki then handed the clipboard she had over to Miho. The light brunette raised an eyebrow in confusion before noticing that the name printed at the bottom of it was her own. She flipped the clipboard around and noticed the splatter of a cockroach on the back.
Miho raised an eyebrow, looking back to the girls and desiring to know more about what happened. "… How many were there?" she asked out of curiosity. Based off their disheveled appearances as well as the splatter on the back of her clipboard, Miho highly doubted that there was just one cockroach. That deduction mainly came from her belief that Rabbit Team was truly capable of excellent things given the right parameters; she gave them the benefit of the doubt in their often-questioned abilities.
Azusa let her head hang down in shame. "I'd say hundreds, but I can't give a specific number," she responded, not daring to look at her captain. She wanted so badly to avoid the embarrassment and shame of failure that she didn't want to risk catching even a glimpse of the anticipated disappointment in Miho's face.
But a hand fell on her shoulder and by reflex got her to look to its source. Azusa wasn't surprised to find that it was Erich who had put a hand on her shoulder yet again. What she was surprised by, though, was the fact that he was wielding a Flammenwerfer 35. The blonde himself had changed into an all-black outfit including cargo pants, combat boots, full-fingered gloves, and a long-sleeve shirt.
"Didn't I tell you that it was perfectly acceptable to ask for help?" he muttered so only Azusa could hear, though he had no doubt that Miho could easily read him well-enough to get the message for herself.
Azusa blinked. "That's helping?" she asked without even thinking about her words as she let her eyes roam over the flamethrower the blonde wielded.
Erich grew a massive grin. "As a matter of fact, yes," he was sure to emphasize that this use of a flamethrower was indeed helpful. "This is the Schwarzwaldspitze method for the extermination of-"
He was cut off when Miho surged forward and smacked him upside the head with her clipboard, intentionally using the side with the cockroach splatter.
"HEY!" the blonde immediately jerked away and ruffled the back of his head with a foulness to his face. "That's disgusting! And what was that even for?"
Miho shot him a glare that explained what she was thinking: 'You're just going to make them think that our country is still Nazist if you phrase it that way!'
Erich raised his eyebrows in understanding, looking over to the wide-eyed freshmen that were likely terrified of him now. "Oh, right…" he backtracked a bit. He then grinned a bit more awkwardly. "See, I say that because Schwarzwaldspitze has a Biologieklub-" A few raised eyebrows met him, and he sighed. "Biology club…" Understanding dawned in those confused eyes with the translation.
The blonde then cleared his throat and continued. "Anyway, Schwarzwaldspitze's Biologieklub can get quite out of hand at times with their creations." Erich then looked to Miho. "I believe their most recent creation were some zombies, real zombies, like, actual reanimated bodies and everything." He then looked back to the girls. "But they've had other creations in the past that demanded quite a bit of attention. But back to my point." He then lifted up the flamethrower's gun assembly portion with one hand by the trigger grip. "Schwarzwaldspitze used flamethrowers to corral the creatures into a containable area where they could be secured and then dealt with. Or, if deemed necessary, they just torched them immediately. And thanks to Wolf lending me his, I'm going to do the same."
"Whoa…" was all the girls could say. The freshmen all knew that their commanders came from Schwarzwaldspitze, that much was obvious, but they had never really gotten to know what the school they defeated in the finals was like from the point of view of one of its students. After learning those most recent tidbits, they found it to be not at all the extremely formal and strict place they had thought it to be. Because, if they were being honest, they couldn't think of a single other school that actually had things in it like actual zombies created by students and other students torching those same zombies with flamethrowers when those zombies got out of hand.
Miho smiled a bit when she saw the awe in Rabbit Team's eyes. Even though she would perhaps remain haunted by some of her experiences from her former school, it still sent a surge of pride through her that members from her new school seemed genuinely interested in her old school.
"Well girls, I think it's time to perform the extermination of those Kakerlaken," Erich said with a grin. "Schwarzwaldspitze style." He then took his phone out and searched through it for something he thought would fit the mood. Finding it, he hit play, hearing the stringed lullaby and the distinctive sound of a UH-1's two-bladed rotor spinning as the opening of the track. "Would you mind opening the doors, by chance?"
"Of course," Miho responded with a smile, leaving the blonde's side with a brief kiss on the cheek before walking to the hangar doors. The freshmen of Rabbit Team fell into stride with the light brunette, and the seven of them all began to swing open the two hangar doors. During that time, the track being played on Erich's phone had some electric guitars kick up, soon joined by some drums and a bit more aggressive guitar playing.
Upon the hangars being exposed to the light, Erich grew a dastardly grin. "I'm gonna have a lot of fun here," he said to himself as he strode forward, with the track's first stanza opening as appropriate theme music.
"Sent from home
Overseas and into the unknown
Barely landed in the jungle
Sent on first patrol
Sun down
Darkness falls
Dig in for the night
Ambush in the dawn they came
The jungle's alive"
He came to a stop at the doorway, and upon aiming the Flammenwerfer in the general direction of the small crawling creatures that seemed to never die, the blonde unleashed waves and waves of pure fire into the hangar.
"I feeeeel!
My fire starts to burn
The heeeeeat!
Controlling my mind!
Berseeeeerk!
A savage running wild"
Oh, yes. Erich would have a lot of fun wielding a flamethrower against an intrusion of cockroaches that were, ironically, intruding upon Ooarai's hangars.
"Within me the beast starts to roar
Now I'm ready to strike"
Erich chuckled in amusement, thinking of the irony in how a group of cockroaches was, by proper grammar, known as an intrusion of cockroaches. Time for them to face an intrusion for themselves, a rather heated intrusion.
"A creature of the night"
The blonde continued unleashing scorching jets of flames and had his fun with the time he had with a flamethrower. Because, if he had to be honest, who wouldn't want a chance to use a flamethrower?
"Into the fire"
If the hangars all burned down, then oh well, he thought. Hopefully insurance would cover the damages. And if that didn't work out, then maybe he could delve into his very generous family savings to cover the costs, though he could already hear the scolding his brother would give him if he went down that route.
"The flame of napalm strike"
But at least there won't be any more cockroaches! Because they all went Into the Fire. He snorted again in amusement at his own mental pun.
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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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