The Legends Still Live On

Bogen Siebundzwanzig-komma-ein: Extras Neun und Zehn

Kapitel Zweiundzwanzig: Ihr Versuch

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It was another bright and sunny day aboard the Kiev. Everything aboard the Russian school ship was just as it should be, not being even a centimeter out of place.

Of course, one had to keep in mind that this was Russia. What passed for normal in Russia was far different from what was normal everywhere else.

The oddities of the day came in the form of an overturned T-34-85 that had evidently been trying to drive onto a trailer in the middle of a street, as well as a man having a wrestling match against a bear in the middle of a nearby intersection. The T-34 was accompanied by two other T-34-85s that were now setting up to try and flip the overturned tank back over, leading to the trailer being driven onwards and away to make room for the two other tanks. The man vs bear wrestling match was a very contested fight, with the man having pinned the bear once but unable to finish the job as the beast kicked out, forcing him off.

"YEAH, YOU SHOW HIM, TOVARISHCH MEDVED'!" Nudelmann raised his fist in a cheer in favor of the bear. Along with him at the corner of the sidewalk were the usual suspects of Nonna, Sasha, and Katyusha, with the diminutive tanker atop the blonde Russian ace's shoulders this time. "Take that bolvan and eat him for dinner!"

"You do realize that's one of our instructors, right?" Nonna thought it appropriate to point out as she spectated, watching the bear spring towards the man in a quick charge. The man was able to dodge, however, slickly snaking his way out of the animal's path.

"Then ever the more reason the bear should win!" Nudelmann retorted with no shame whatsoever, keeping his eyes on the action. At this point, the instructor had pulled a daring move and swiftly climbed atop the bear during the beast's perplexed pause from his previous evasive action, aiming to fully mount it like a horse and gain complete control over it.

Sasha had a very idle interest in the man and bear fighting it out. Rather, his attention was more focused on the tanks further down the street. The two upright T-34s both had towing straps attached to them and the overturned T-34. From the looks of it, they appeared ready to help turn the flipped tank back over.

That was the idea, supposedly, but the end result was somewhat different. The two tanks accelerated and were able to slowly turn the flipped tank back over, but upon the overturned tank hitting the ground right side up the two towing tanks suddenly accelerated rapidly, which resulted in them both plowing through part of the building-lined side of the street, bringing down a lot of rubble in the process.

Sasha rolled his eyes at the spectacle, wondering if Pravda's infrastructure department would even bother fixing this. They hardly bothered to fix anything for the most part, as evidenced by how poor in condition a good number of the streets and buildings were in. Only a direct order from Katyusha would make them get off their asses and fix something.

Speaking of Katyusha, the blonde Russian ace heard her fiddling with something behind him. Glancing back as much as he could at her, Sasha saw how she was fastening a rope around her torso. "Katyusha, what are you doing?" the boy asked out of curiosity.

The diminutive Russian tightened the rope around her torso before deigning to respond, "I'm making myself a lifeline!"

Sasha slowly rose an eyebrow. "… May I ask why?" he eventually asked, inwardly hoping he wouldn't get some nonsense answer this time.

Katyusha explained as she began fiddling with another rope, "Well, there have been so many dangerous situations that have befallen me while I was atop someone. Like that time I nearly fell off Nonna's shoulders during the Ooarai-Schwarzwaldspitze battle." She brought two free ends of the rope around Sasha's neck and began tying them together. "But with this lifeline of mine, I should be safe even if I fall! This should do it!" The last sentence was said more to herself as she tied the rope snugly.

"I see…" Sasha muttered, even though he really didn't. With the rope now tight around his neck, he was beginning to feel very apprehensive about Katyusha's 'brilliant' idea.

It was for good reason that he was, as he could immediately picture a wide array of possible ways that this could go wrong. If Katyusha did indeed fall off of him like this, then it was likely that neither of them would survive. The diminutive Russian would still fall to the ground because her fall would pull the line tight around Sasha's neck, which would suffocate him immediately, leaving him unable to act. That was if he was lucky, as it could very well play out to his neck getting sliced through if Katyusha was carrying enough energy during her fall.

Sasha's completely logical conclusion was as follows: this was one of the worst ideas he had ever seen, even worse than his own idea to stuff a Junkers Jumo 004 jet engine into the incredibly small and antiquated fuselage of the I-16. At least that one had actually worked, even if it was as far from practical as was humanly possible.

"Permission to speak freely on your lifeline, tovarishch Kapitan?" Sasha formally requested, a sense of urgency just barely underlying his tone. He was hoping that his well-known dalliances into engineering would make Katyusha listen to him in this regard.

The diminutive tanker raised an eyebrow, wondering what in the hell made Sasha so serious now. After a couple of seconds of confused silence, she replied, "You may."

"No matter the conditions, I can only see this resulting in the both of our deaths," Sasha spoke his piece. "If you fall off, then I would suffocate and likely die, which will lead to you dying because I wouldn't be able to act and help prevent injury to you."

Katyusha blinked a few times and remained silent, which, to the blonde Russian ace, felt crushing in a sense. He could feel her twitching in barely restrained frustration. She had seemed proud of the idea she had come up with, but being informed by someone as well-versed in engineering as he was that this idea was absolutely horrible delivered a sizable blow to her pride. And whenever Katyusha's pride was damaged, she defaulted to anger most of the time.

But it came as a bit of a shock to Sasha when he soon heard a snap. Glancing back, he saw how Katyusha had taken a knife and cut the rope, severing the connection between them. The diminutive tanker had a stormy expression, but she held her tongue as she pouted and looked away.

Sasha knew she wasn't happy at all about her idea being rejected, but the reluctant acceptance proved that she trusted him entirely in such matters. Otherwise, the blonde Russian ace figured she might've blown herself up already. Of course, Sasha had experience in that, as well, thanks to that one time he had blown up a heavily modified ASh-82FN engine during a flight test. He had done the modifications himself and installed it into his own La-5. Needless to say, Nudelmann had been smug with him for days after, saying that he told him so.

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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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