The Legends Still Live On
Bogen Siebundzwanzig-komma-ein: Extras Neun und Zehn
Kapitel Acht: Das Bedürfnis zu überleben
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Somewhere in the middle of the woods, a small campfire was crackling within a small clearing, providing the only light source for miles around in the dead of night. Hanging over the fire was a small metal container, capped.
Soon enough, the container was lifted out of the fire. "There, that should do it!" Yukari noted with a satisfied grin before taking the cap off, unleashing the odor of freshly cooked rice. Upon smelling the food, a couple of people groaned in delight, clearly welcoming of the fresh sustenance.
The crew for Ooarai's Panzer IV H, the ground crew responsible for the school's Bf 109 K-4, and the pilot of said Kurfürst had all decided to go on a brief camping trip out into the wilderness of New Zealand when the Zuikaku had stopped at Wellington for resupply. It was a spontaneous decision after all of them decided that they should go out and do something during the resupply stop, but they couldn't decide on what. So they posted all possible options on a large dartboard and let Miho throw Erich's knife at it while blindfolded and after she was spun around ten times. Originally, Miho had suggested Erich himself throw it, since it was his knife, but everyone else objected on the grounds that he had such inhuman coordination and was so ungodly accurate with a throwing knife that he could effectively decide for them. All that experience with countering disorientation in the air enabled him to be relatively unaffected by any attempts to displace his coordination. So for a truly random choice to be picked, they forbid Erich from throwing.
The same ban on throwing was also placed on the resident hawk-eye archer of the group, Herz, as well as on Hana for her gunnery prowess. Eventually, they decided on letting Miho throw, since she was relatively unbiased and fair, did not possess the same godly coordination that Erich had, did not have the hawk-like accuracy of either Herz or Hana, and was the de facto leader they all looked to. Plus, she was also skilled enough to wield a throwing knife without causing collateral damage. So Miho threw the knife, and ended up hitting the suggestion to go camping.
"Mmm, this is tasty…" Saori noted in delight upon taking a bite of rice. The campfire ramped up in intensity after Nathan threw some straw into it, making it burn hot enough to provide warmth for everyone.
"Hey, only the best for you all," Yukari responded, exercising humility.
All ten of them were seated on six logs around the fire, with Saori, Hana, and Mako sharing one, all of them enjoying rice. The one to their left held just Yukari, also with rice, with the extra leftover space going to all the gear the group had brought along, mostly Nathan's and her own. The one to Yukari's left held Nathan, who was roasting sausages. On the log to the Canadian's left was Herz, who was restringing the bow he had brought along, his quiver of arrows off to the side. To his left was another log holding Anton and David, the former roasting kebabs and the latter roasting smores. To their left was Miho and Erich on their own log, looking at peace with everything around them.
"You know, I thought about it once before, but I just have to bring it up now," Anton spoke up, looking to Yukari whilst rotating his kebabs in the fire. "Where did you learn all this stuff about survival?"
Yukari shrugged. "It's just something I've had a passion for ever since I was young," she answered honestly. "It came from my studies on military history. Something about how they all manage to survive out in remote locations during campaigns just stuck with me, and so I started getting more into it."
"And here I thought you just wanted to impress Miho," Mako said without an ounce of humor in her face or voice before taking a bite of rice.
Despite the monotone it was said in, nearly everyone laughed at that, notable exception being Yukari herself who flushed with embarrassment at being reminded. They could all recall how much Yukari had idolized Miho when they first met. Anton had likened her to a massively dedicated fangirl, while Erich had compared her to Sabaton's Polish fanbase. Everyone besides Miho had looked at him oddly for that, the light brunette being the only one who knew full well what the blonde was talking about, but the rest of the boys eventually understood the analogy after encountering Dziubek Skalski at a Sabaton concert, and everyone else later came to witness just how much of a fan he was of the Swedish band during his brief stay aboard the Zuikaku with Alice.
"But actually, Anton, you brought up a good point," Saori continued after they all settled down. She then looked around to everyone sitting around the fire. "It seems there are quite a bit of people here that know something about survival. Well, more than I do, anyway."
"Not like that's hard to do," Hana commented before taking a bite of rice.
Again, nearly everyone chuckled in amusement at the jest excluding Saori herself, who pouted instead. "Carrying on…" she continued with annoyance in her voice, before returning back to her former attitude. "I'm curious about who, besides Yukari, actually knows something about survival."
At that prompting, Nathan, Herz, David, Miho, and Erich all raised their hands in acknowledgment, giving indication that they had knowledge of survival. David's hand wasn't raised all that high compared to the others, just barely enough so he got the attention needed for acknowledgment.
Saori then pointed to Nathan and asked, "How?"
The Canadian elaborated while he roasted sausages, "I used to hunt game with my dad while we still lived in Canada. It's a bit different hunting game up there, because much of the land is a perpetual tundra. And everyone typically lives further south near the border, so to find game, you've gotta either head south into America, or north. Paperwork is a bitch, so we simply headed north. So at times we would have to camp out in the freezing cold, because we had gone so far into the middle of nowhere that civilization wasn't present for tens of miles, eh. But I tell ya, to get to those baby seals, it was worth it. That fur is just so goddamn soft."
Nobody made a sound as they all stared at Nathan after he dropped the fact that he used to hunt baby seals.
The Canadian looked around and saw all the looks he was getting. "What?" he blinked, oblivious to the reason for their staring.
"Moving on," Herz spoke up to avoid a massive spat about animal cruelty. "I used to hunt game, too. Not baby seals," he was quick to clarify when he saw Hana's mouth open to retort. The Panzer IV gunner's mouth halted and shut, not seeing a reason to interrupt now. "But pig. It was advantageous to use a bow since it was highly unlikely to startle them due to their sound, or lack thereof, but it was a challenge to get a good kill shot and stay downwind while remaining silent. I picked up on some things about survival from that, but I'm pretty sure there are others here more knowledgeable in that area than me."
"Ooh, interesting…" Saori commented, leaning forward with a smile that held all sorts of intent behind it. "Perhaps you could give me some delicious meat the next time you go hunt pig?"
"Stop trying to get your foot in the door, Saori," Mako spoke up, knowing that the ginger was trying to flirt with the archer.
Saori's face scrunched up in annoyance at her friend's teasing, but she said nothing, because although she would never confirm it out loud to retain her pride, Mako was right in her assumption. That was why she specifically said the words she said. She merely sat back with a huff, crossing her arms.
"Anyway…" David said, dispelling the looks of amusement at the ginger's failure. "It's not so much I know how to survive in the wilderness…" The black-haired boy paused for a bit, as if unsure. "It's more urban survival that I'm familiar with."
Everyone else could tell the tension with which he said that, but being as he had not a single shred of shyness in his body, Erich asked anyway, "Why's that?"
David pressed his lips together and clammed up, unwilling to say any more as the blonde's eyes rested on him. He couldn't fault Erich for asking, because he could tell what he was trying to do: get him to actually talk about his clouded past in America in a hope to help him out. But he just couldn't. Some memories were better off remaining buried, and with that he broke Erich's gaze and looked into the fire, taking a bite out of one of his smores.
"Is it alright if I give them the watered-down version?" Anton leaned in to mutter to him. He knew what the black-haired American was referring to, considering the two had grown up together.
David waved a hand, giving him permission to do so.
With that, the blonde American turned back to everyone else. "Well, long story short," he began as he glanced about at each face, knowing that they wouldn't judge but still checking out of habit anyway. "Anyone related to his parents had a pretty big target on their backs that the mob loved to try and hit. So David and his brother got a first-hand lesson in surviving with such heat raining down on them." He went silent and let that sink in for everyone.
Erich knew the full story. Even though he may not have seemed like it, he was actually very considerate when need be, which was why David trusted him with the full details.
However, Miho also knew the full story, reason being that Erich trusted her discretion, and that he knew David did, too. The whole story wasn't pretty, not one bit. It was quite an eye-opener into the underworld of civilization, the world that the crime lords and mob bosses ruled over, and it struck a cord in Miho to find out that David had survived all that.
Erich knew that the black-haired American would likely never fully recover from that era of his childhood, but he wanted to at least help to minimize its impact on an otherwise genius teenager. Truly, nobody deserved to be painted a target just for being related to the wrong people at that young an age. It made the blonde German respect him all the more for it, along with his brother for standing up and fighting back, cheating death every single time. No doubt Derrick Faul was one of the highest-ranked on the list of souls Queen Hel wished to bring to her realm, simply for the reason that he had cheated her out of his own soul so many times already.
"So, Miho!" Saori interjected, looking to the light brunette with a grin. As always, her bubbly attitude was able to bring the overarching mood back to a cheerful state. "How do you know about survival?"
Miho lightly laughed out of nervousness, something she often did as she wasn't used to having a lot of friends and hence was still somewhat shy at times. "Well, I learned through a class that was offered at Schwarzwaldspitze," she revealed with a small grin, playing with the edge of her skirt with one hand. "It went over the basics for the most part, though I did learn a few things from Bubi here." She let go of her skirt and pointed to Erich with her thumb.
"And how does he know about survival?" Hana asked out of politeness, knowing that Saori, and maybe Yukari too, would've balked at the insinuation that Erich knew about survival if given the chance. In everyone's opinion – yes, everyone – the blonde German pilot was the laziest person they had ever met. Even so much as lifting a finger was often too much for him to do.
The blond-haired ultra-ace shrugged while still wearing his typical carefree smile. "My pilot's training growing up held an intense section on survival," he said. "Pretty much every aspect of survival you had to learn if you were a pilot, because you never knew when and where you would get shot down. You had to be able to survive for long enough to be rescued by allies."
Miho looked down ever so slightly, looking a bit sullen. She remembered that it wasn't always wilderness specifically that had to be survived. In Erich's case, she remembered back when they were still in Schwarzwaldspitze's ranks how he had to survive the deliberate attempt at mind-fucking that Pravda had subjected him to one time after he had to force-land in Russia due to mechanical malfunctions.
Erich may have gotten over that, being as he held no grudges anymore with Pravda for that, but Miho had not. Even though she would never act out in revenge, especially since Katyusha was her friend now, it still hurt incredibly to recall how brutal the Russians were with him. She remembered a very prominent splitting of skin on his left cheek when he came back, which according to him came from when Nudelmann smacked him with a cane during an interrogation, after he refused to answer a question. Erich had actually laughed about it, saying that right after he was smacked, he had then smashed a chair over the Russian ace's head, knocking him out and splitting the chair with the force of the hit.
And then the battle with Pravda had occurred the previous year, which the Germans had lost. That changed the blond-haired German ultra-ace greatly. For a short time, he held an immense grudge with the Russians, until his most recent battle against them under the Ooarai banner, where the grudge was dispelled.
Miho honestly couldn't figure out why Erich did not hate the Russians anymore, even though they had done such horrible things to him. She found it to be an injustice to him that such actions were just forgotten like they had never happened. It just didn't seem fair to her. She felt that Erich deserved to have those responsible bow before him and beg for forgiveness, or suffer his wrath.
"As for what I taught Miho," the blonde's voice brought the light brunette out of her head and back into reality. He chuckled a couple of times before turning to face Miho. "Well, you remember that time in the woods when we were really young?"
Miho quickly recalled the time in question, and her face heated up in embarrassment. "Noooo!" she shook her head repeatedly like a child, practically begging Erich to not speak of that time.
The blonde let loose a few chuckles again, smiling that incredibly fun-loving grin as he turned back to face everyone else and prepared to tell his tale, "So, this one time back home in Weissach, in the woods around our neighborhood, Miho and I were-"
He was cut off as Miho jumped onto him, covering his mouth with his hand. "You said you wouldn't speak of that again!" she cried in outrage, although she was still smiling despite her humiliation from that occasion.
Some of the others, like Saori, Nathan, Anton, and Yukari, started laughing lightly at how childlike Miho and Erich were, while the rest, Hana, David, Herz, and Mako, all simply grinned at them. The two Swabians were still clearly children at heart, and they could both still act that way even years after exiting childhood. It showed just how free they both were around each other. That was especially true for Miho, who had never been particularly sociable when she was without the blonde, albeit not without lack of trying.
It did not go unnoticed to the group how Miho's expression had changed to something resembling upsetedness when Erich started talking about his survival training. Clearly there was something deep between them relating to that. But it had also not gone unnoticed how the blonde had deliberately changed the subject away from his experiences, also bringing the light brunette out of her own sullen thoughts. It was quite awe-inspiring just how much Miho's mood had changed for the better because of something Erich did.
After hearing of their whole story together with the entire group, Hana had likened Erich to being much like Miho's guardian angel, what with how he was able to bring her up from her lows extremely quickly and with great effect, and how he always looked out for her, putting her needs ahead of his own, always protecting her. And the pun on flight was not missed, though nearly everyone else groaned at it when it was brought up. Hana had not the best sense of humor.
But the point remained: there was something extremely deep between Erich and Miho, something that eclipsed friendship and even romance. What they had between them was true lifelong companionship, and for them it was an extremely tight, and strong, bond. There was no relationship quite like theirs.
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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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