The Legends Still Live On
Bogen Siebundzwanzig: Extras Neun und Zehn
Kapitel Vier: Immer schauen
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The sun shined with a vibrant intensity over the Zuikaku sailing in the vast Pacific, and it was obvious that the heat wave that was brought along with sailing in the tropics would be an intensive exercise for the students of Ooarai High School in maintaining their cool. Literally.
That was especially true for the tank crews and aircrews of Ooarai's Arts of Warfare programs, with the extremely unfriendly and scalding hot metal interiors of the tanks. The cockpits of the fighters were no better, as all but the open-cockpit Ki-10 suffered from the greenhouse effect thanks to their glass canopies, and all bar the Me 163 and Me 410 had an engine just in front of the cockpits that radiated no small amount of heat from their generation of power.
Such extreme heat explained a great deal as to why all of the crews chose to suit up in much lighter clothing, forgoing the traditional school uniforms as well as the dedicated uniforms each branch had. That much was obvious when the eight tanks belonging to Ooarai came back to the hangars after another practice, as all hatches on all tanks were deliberately left open during the drive back in an effort to allow the heat in the interior of the tanks to circulate out and bring in fresh, cool air.
"If I ever had a reason to not come to this school, it would be because of the heat waves," Miho noted the present heat to herself as she stood out of her commander's hatch on her Panzer IV H that, by Mako's hands and feet, drove back to the hangars last. The light brunette was one of the more extreme examples of wearing light clothing, choosing a short skirt, white in color, and a light yellow tank top that she had bunched one portion of to cause it to ride up, exposing a sizable section of her midriff.
A little known fact about the younger of the Nishizumi sisters was how unused to the heat she was. Where she came from originally in Weissach, Germany, temperatures were never this hot, and there was never such an extreme amount of humidity, either. Ergo, she was nowhere near as fond of the heat as her other friends were. Oh, she could tolerate it if it was a necessity. There was no questioning what she could do whenever it was absolutely necessary. But if she had a choice in the matter, she would prefer cooler temperatures rather than blazing heat.
Upon the Panzer IV's approaching of the hangars, Miho noticed something out of place amongst the lineup of fighters. They had all landed beforehand and every single one that had a canopy had that canopy opened. It was the black-tulip-decorated fighter that made her stop for a bit. "Wait, halt here for a minute," she requested Mako, and following her commander's instructions, the relatively stoic tank driver halted the Panzer.
After watching and staying silent for a few seconds, Miho eventually let out an exasperated groan. "Ugh, of course he would take advantage of that," she muttered, eyes narrowing at Ooarai's one and only Bf 109 K-4. The rest of her crew, excluding the driver, looked towards where their commander's gaze pointed to, and they soon understood the cause of the light brunette's irritation.
Miho was honestly jealous of Erich's Bf 109 right now, reason being that said Messer could mount a sun umbrella in two brackets mounted on the left side of the fuselage just outside the cockpit, under where the canopy met with the fuselage. And of course, relaxed in the cockpit and taking full advantage of the shade offered by the specially designed Sonderwerkzeug was the blond-haired ultra-ace himself, as lazy as he always was while his ground crew did their tasks.
But that jealousy was quickly dissuaded when Miho got a really good look at Erich and noted how he wasn't wearing anything on his upper body, for, she guessed, the same reason as her own extreme choice of clothes: to beat the heat.
The blonde was never one to have a large build to his stature, being much more lean-built, but Miho knew from experience that he didn't need such buff to him in order to win a hand-to-hand fight. He was lithe and agile, but also sharp, and was capable of deducing an enemy's weak points in the blink of an eye. That combination made for a devastatingly effective fighting style that was much the same way he preferred to fight in the air: strike hard and fast, but most importantly, strike with the element of surprise, where the enemy least expected.
That aspect – the one where he could take down much larger opponents with such a lean build – was, in Miho's opinion, the most attractive part of Erich's raw body. The little build he did have was not obvious, which was something the light brunette remembered as the cause of many people underestimating his abilities back at Schwarzwaldspitze. Even Miho herself had fallen prey to Erich's seemingly underwhelming physique in the times they had sparred against each other when they were going through Schwarzwaldspitze's rigorous training regimen. And those spars were quite intense: the only reason the two of them went up against each other was because they had both cleaned out the rest of the opposition on their respective sides. Well, and for curiosity's sake.
The two didn't do much in the way of sparring nowadays at Ooarai, as their duties as commanders often occupied too much of Miho's time to allow such activities. It did not occupy Erich's time, but that was only because he was too goddamn lazy to do his own work, leaving Miho to take it up for him and effectively double her own duties.
But whenever Miho got a look at that body of his, she would always feel her insides turn to mush upon remembering exactly what Erich could do with that lean body. And that was exactly what happened this instance. She grew a daydreaming face as she stared across the way at him, absently imagining various scenarios she could undertake with that body draped all over her in some way, shape, or form.
Saori, Hana, and Yukari all took notice of the 'not all there but I don't care because goddammit just look at that gorgeous body' expression on Miho's face, but only Saori was certain of what it meant, and she silently chuckled.
"Is she doing it again?" Mako asked from the driver's post. She was unable to see Miho's face from down there, which made her wonder if her commander was even mentally present to give orders. She took a wild guess as to why, guessing if Miho was distracted by Erich again.
Saori's silent chuckling became a brief giggle before she looked down to Mako. "Yep," she answered with a big grin on her face. "She's doing it again."
"Ugh," Mako rolled her eyes in exasperation. So her guess was correct. "Can I just drive on and bring her back by breaking her line of sight with him?"
Both Hana and Yukari shrugged, neither of them having any reason to offer a counter, but Saori shook her head and balked at Mako's suggestion, "What? No! Can't you see what this is? This is true love at play here, and I will not let you ruin it with your impatience!"
"Okay, gotcha," Mako responded as she shifted into first gear, afterwards planting the throttle to the floor and just a split-second later dumping the clutch, accelerating the Panzer away under full load anyway, despite Saori's protest and continuing to go through the gears without a care for Saori's romantic fantasies. She didn't really care about them. In fact, she could honestly do with less of them.
"Hey-wait, Mako!" Saori loudly complained when she felt the Panzer lurch forward, her body protesting the sudden lurch as well. After recovering, she looked to her best friend. "Dammit Mako, why do you have to be so insensitive to true love?!"
Hana and Yukari both silently laughed at Saori and Mako's humorous interactions. It was always amusing to see what the two of them would be like on any given day.
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Further down the line of Ooarai's fighters, Yeager hopped down from his crew's one-of-a-kind Me 163 after it was towed back off the makeshift airstrip by its specified Scheuch-Schlepper two-wheel tractor with the special retrieval trailer. This Me 163 in particular had started out as a basic B-1a model, but was modified to the specifications of the Me 163B V18, which most notably used a twin-chamber rocket motor that, with both chambers burning all-out, could allow a top speed of over 700 miles per hour.
And Yeager was very willing to push the Komet to those speeds despite the danger of shedding off the skin of the aircraft in the process. But he momentarily forgot about such endeavors when he got a load of Brown, who was just like Erich in the sense that he had also gone bare-chested for the very hot day.
"Oh, for fuck-what the hell, Brown?" Yeager raised a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose in annoyance. It was always the Brit amongst the foursome of amateur aero engineers that stood out in not very pleasing ways.
Brown raised an eyebrow in response to Yeager's rather blunt inquiry. "What?" he asked, clueless.
"Dude, get a damn shirt on or something!" Yeager waved a hand at Brown's body in emphasis.
Upon noticing what the American was raving about, the Brit came back with his own retort, "But it's bloody hot out. And nobody harps on the Squadron Leader for that."
Yeager rolled his eyes as he mentally restrained himself from causing a scene. "That's different," he explained. "It's practically expected of Hartmann to do shit like that." He then pointed at Brown. "It's not for you, though."
Brown was ready to come up with another retort, when Dittmar interjected. "Hey, guys," he noted, with a bit of an urgent look on his face. Reitsch was beside him constantly shooting glances at the Me 163 further behind the two quarrelers. "Aren't we forgetting something?"
Both the American and the Brit turned to attempt to tell him to shut up, but they were again interrupted, and rather spectacularly too, as the Me 163 spontaneously blew up, again, and burst into flames after the abrupt yet forceful explosion.
Both of the two Germans in the group grew annoyed looks at Yeager and Brown, who turned to the burning mass that was the Me 163. At seeing the Komet had inexplicably blown up yet again, Yeager let out a weary sigh. Both he and Brown dropped their quarrel from mind and got back into the routine they had drawn up for whenever the Me 163 burst into flames.
The reason both Reitsch and Dittmar had grown annoyed was because the group was supposed to thoroughly hose down the entirety of the rocket engine and its fuel and oxidizer systems immediately after the aircraft had been brought back to the hangars. They could not do so, however, because of the two Anglosphere members of their group getting caught up in a rather petty argument.
"Let's get the extinguishers…" Yeager announced with a weary tone. He, and likely the other three aeronautically-minded people he knew as well, were well used to the Komet blowing up on them, as it happened a lot more often than one would think, meaning that unlike the other Arts of Warfare members who had reacted as if a bomb had gone off, the aeronautics group were not at all surprised to see the rocket-engined aircraft have its most frustrating flaw happen again, their unfazed reactions being highly anticlimactic.
That was a particularly troublesome flaw with the rocket-powered aircraft, as its fuel and oxidizer were very hypergolic with each other while the systems to hold those very toxic chemicals were fitted with simple metal lines and fittings, which made the whole aircraft a disaster waiting to happen. That reason, as well as the corrosive nature of the chemicals, was why the fuel and oxidizer delivery systems had to be thoroughly hosed down as much as possible.
And so, the entirety of the Me 163's crew learned a valuable lesson that day: when dealing with something like the Me 163 – a time bomb without a fuze, for all intents and purposes – it's simply best to do everything possible to keep it from blowing up in everyone's faces, and then worry about everything else later, as getting sidetracked during that task has very destructive consequences.
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Part of Projekt Jägermeistern.
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The author doesn't claim to own "Girls und Panzer" or any other references made. "Girls und Panzer" belongs to Actas. Any references made belong to their respective owners.
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