A/N: Sorry for getting this up so late and keeping you all waiting, a bunch of things happened, First I was on holiday, then a severe case of writers block and procrastination happened, I'll try and get Market garden started before the 17th of September though so expect at least a few chapters in this week (hopefully, don't hold me to that.)


Muse Section Chapter 14

25th August 1944, Allied army camp Otonokizaka, Near Sword beach, Normandy.

Kotori watched as the flames lapped their way around the yellowed paper in front of her. Despite the fact that the flames were only small it gave her a warm feeling inside to watch the paper be consumed, to watch those words disappear and know they would never reach the eyes intended for them.

Honoka had written to that girl again. This kept happening, she would always just keep sending letters to her, no matter how obvious it was that Honoka was hers! Why couldn't she just leave her and Honoka alone? They were happy before she showed up, with that stupid flirtatious smile of hers and her stupid accent! Kotori had assumed it was a temporary arrangement, but to her horror That French girl Tsubasa had the audacity to write letters to her Honoka!

She never actually saw the letters that Tsubasa sent Honoka, her friend kept them too close to her for Kotori to sneak a look, but still she could tell what was in them from the replies that Honoka wrote and she didn't like it at all. I mean who cares whether Erena and Anju are being sickeningly lovey dovey! Or whether she'd been getting into bar fights with the Americans on Salisbury! Kotori thought bitterly. Worse still it was obvious that most of the letters that Tsubasa had sent contained a lot of flirtatious remarks or sometimes even more graphic descriptions. How did Honoka do it? It made her sick just to think about that woman's name, let alone the things that she must've described!

The sniper was just thankful that Honoka gave her the replies to 'take care' of like this. That way that woman wouldn't write back as often and hopefully she'd get the message that Honoka loved Kotori, not her! After all Honoka would never leave her, especially after she promised she'd stay with Kotori forever. Plus ever since she'd been more open wither feelings Honoka had been paying attention to her more, it wasn't all good attention but still it felt good to be noticed by her.

Except it didn't seem to be working, Kotori had burned the last three replies secretly like this and yet the damned French woman just kept sending letters. Honoka thankfully had yet to cotton on that her replies weren't getting through although she did think it was odd that Tsubasa never answered any of her questions. But this couldn't continue. Kotori was going to have to give her a more direct message. That was why she was kind of happy that Tsubasa was transferring into their battalion, Honoka had even arranged for the French trio to be attached to their section. Now she would see how hopeless it was to try and steal Honoka away from her because she would see that they were so in love with each other.

If that didn't work though, Kotori would have to take drastic action, who knows what this strange French girl might do; she might hurt Honoka or even kidnap her! Kotori would have to protect Honoka if that was the case…

The letter was no more than ash on the ground now Kotori kicked it into the grass leaving only a slight scorch mark to indicate what she had done.

"There," Kotori whispered to the wind "Now Honoka and I can finally be together in peace, like it's always been, like it always will be…" She looked at the few specks of light in the distance at the camp fires and cast her mind back to the time when she'd become certain Honoka felt the same way she did. "Huh, it's been more than a year now since that day that made our fame…"


July 15th 1943, Temple of the Nine Muses, Near Catania, Sicily

"SERGEANT! They're bringing up MGs!" Kotori saw Honoka snap her head to the left, her attention drawn away from the battle before her by the girl with black hair and ruby eyes gesturing widely to their left.

"Honoka they're trying to outflank us!" Umi, shouted from her position crouched behind a column with the still wounded Maki, a little further down the ruins.

Kotori was just able to hear Honoka growl. She knew what would be running through her friend's head. They're going to overwhelm us and we're running low on ammo… calling the situation grim would be an understatement.

They'd held off attacks all day, the first few barely made it to the temple if at all, but they'd started to run out of ammo, and the rationing of that precious commodity meant that attacks were getting closer, and the Germans were learning too…their mortar support had been mostly blown up yesterday when Kotori had shot that shell as they were loading it, but now they'd learnt, the mortars they'd brought up now were well out of sight, hidden somewhere.

Honoka punched the marble in front of her, swearing loudly. "Fuck! Kotori you deal with the MGs! Nozomi, Eli, deal with the flanking force, you too Hanayo. The rest of you keep those bloody Germans' heads down!" the ragtag group shouted an acknowledgement over the din of battle and Kotori scrambled over the chunks of marble and alabaster that covered the top of the hill to a new position, bullets pinging off of the columns and sending sharp pieces of rock flying through the air.

Another mortar round exploded with a loud 'bang' the blast was close enough for the shockwave to knock her off of her feet. Her helmet clonked against the dusty orange earth the sniper lay there dazed for a few seconds before reaching for the rifle that she had let fall to the ground. She pulled herself up looking back to see that the mortar bomb had hit the two boulders that she was crouched behind a few minutes ago… She shivered at the near miss, focussing on getting herself up.

She squeezed herself into the gap between two slabs of white marble pitted with age before she heard a loud chatter rip through the air and an angry shout come from her friend below.

"Kotori…MGs" Was all she could make out from Honoka's shout, and she was pretty sure from her tone of voice that was all she wanted to make out.

She put her eye to the scope on her rifle scanning the left flank for the tell-tale flashes the tracer rounds helped too. Kotori smirked at the decision to use tracers; it just made them that much easier to see. They might not even know that there was a sniper up here. She adjusted for the slight wind and lined up one of the machine gunner's helmet in her cross hairs. She squeezed the trigger the satisfying crack and kick of recoil following moments later. The Machine gun stopped, the loader confused and surprised at the sudden death of his companion. Kotori cycled the bolt and fired again, the loader followed his comrade into the afterlife mere seconds later…

The other gun crew ducked for cover, the chatter of machine gun fire from the flank stopped and Kotori saw her friends look up from behind their cover and pour murderous fire into the attacking soldiers.

Kotori kept her scope centred on the other MG that remained silent, she knew that they were there, that they were waiting until she was dead, or they were brave and stupid enough to get up again. And in all that time what remained of her company would keep firing, driving the enemy back.

Honoka had been right to withdraw back here there was practically no cover in between them and the enemy positions it was impossible to mount a large attack without heavy losses or covering fire. And most of the time they tried covering fire the enemy's machine guns would mysteriously fall silent.

The officer in command of the Germans was clearly getting impatient, and his men were being thrown forward in ever increasing levels of desperation, like they were men possessed. Each attack was like a scene from the Somme, coordination was non-existent now although the pressure was unrelenting. The last attack had actually gotten into hand to hand combat…

Kotori spied movement off to her side; she took a brief glance away from her target for a millisecond to see Umi trying to move Maki once more.

She snapped her vision back down the scope. No one had moved yet, although they were getting braver a sliver of helmet being visible from beneath the mound the gunners were taking cover behind.

She heard the Bren fall silent and saw the machine gunners she had pinned pull their gun back over the lip of the mound, they were preparing to move. Perhaps the Bren gunners, Nozomi and Eli she remembered them being called, had been killed and they were moving to take advantage of the new gap in their defences, after all it was only a matter of time before that happened.

The lead gunner popped his head up over the mound breaking into a sprint, with the machinegun slung over his shoulder. His companion followed seconds later laden down with belts of ammunition and metal ammunition boxes. Kotori followed the lead gunner for a few seconds with her scope before squeezing the trigger again. Her rifle barked and she saw blood spurt from his thigh.

Kotori clucked her tongue. It was a less than perfect shot. The least she should be able to afford her victims is a quick death not one spent writhing in pain.

She snapped her sights onto the fleeing gunner who slowed down agonising over saving his own life, or something else, whether it was the gun or his friend she wasn't sure, you could see a lot through a sniper's scope, what a person looked like when they were joking with friends, the look of fear on their face when they were in the middle of combat and the fact that you were shooting at humans, not monsters. But you couldn't accurately read a person's mind.

Kotori cycled her bolt ejecting the hot brass casing, which bounced off the column next to her and landing in her boot. She hissed trying to steady her rifle and ignore the pain of burning metal. She squeezed the trigger gently, the tension in the gun seemingly greater because of the pain in her feet.

The bullet spewed forth in a sharp thunderclap punching through the thin metal of the German's helmet in a spray of red mist.

Kotori finally switched her line of fire, looking down the slope of the temple to see her friends just about holding off the enemy attack. Nozomi and Eli were crouched next to their Bren Eli's rifle pouring fire into the enemy, the silent machine gun obviously having jammed or run out of ammunition. Maki was yelling at Umi to focus on the enemy and not her. The Two girls who were all that was left of C platoon; Hanayo and Rin, were fighting tooth and nail, Hanayo's rifle bolt was such a blur it looked almost like she was using one of those semi-automatics that the Americans used. Kotori gasped when a grenade was thrown into their position but Rin calmly picked it up and threw it back at the Germans with only moments before it blew up scattering shrapnel over an advancing group of enemies who'd gotten too close.

Her crosshairs settled on the open no-man's land that was being riddled wither friend's bullets and was littered with the enemy dead and wounded. She picked out a few officers brave enough to stand and try and add impetus to the faltering attack. She quickly dispatched them, further demoralising the very soldiers they had sought to encourage with their stupidity.

It started in ones and twos, then in threes and fours. The Germans finally started pulling back the trickle of men running for their lives became a flood which the officers and NCOs fought desperately to control.

Kotori breathed a sigh of relief We've won, for now. She thought. The distinctive pop of mortar fire reminded her that they weren't out of the woods yet. But the pressure was eased significantly. She scrambled back down the slope to run behind cover next to Honoka.

"We did it Honoka-chan." Kotori leant against the boulder, her head just peeking over the top, while Mortar bombs fell so far off target it would almost be funny if they didn't shake Kotori to her bones, and feel like her eardrums would shatter with every explosion. She looked back at Honoka one more time; she appeared to be distracted by something… "Honoka-chan?"

"Kotori down!" Honoka moved with lighting speed leaping at Kotori pushing her to the ground. A rifle cracked in the distance and the bullet grazed Honoka's arm before boring into the rock behind her sending splinters flying, right where Kotori's head had been.

Kotori lay there for a few seconds processing what happened while Honoka grabbed her rifle and took quick aim, firing off three shots at the distant sniper, she couldn't see if Honoka had landed a hit but at least it would keep the sniper's head down. Kotori sat there still shaken by how close she had come to death, but more so by the blood trickling down Honoka's arm.

"Kotori-chan? Are you Ok?" Kotori looked up seeing her friend crouched over her again worry in her eyes.

"Why did you do that?" Kotori asked quietly.

"Do what?"

"Why did you risk your life for me? You could've been killed! And then I'd never be able to forgive myself for letting you get hurt!" Kotori became more and more agitated, her voice becoming louder as she shouted at her friend.

"But this is just a small graze." Honoka looked at the ashen haired sniper with an innocence that was almost too much for her.

"An inch lower and you'd be bleeding out!"

"Yeah I guess you're right…" Honoka rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly.

Kotori sighed, "You didn't have to do that for me Honoka-chan." Kotori sighed "But I appreciate it all the same…" Now I know why Umi-chan feels she has to yell at Honoka, she's much too reckless to every be given any responsibility. Her gaze softened But still, I love her all the same.

"I understand after all you're my precious friend Kotori-chan."

Kotori blushed slightly at the comment, pulling Honoka into a hug. "Same to you Honoka-chan" She sighed wishing that she could just stay here forever with her arms wrapped around Honoka.


Kotori looked around the gathered huddle of her comrades, a few keeping watch into the darkness of night while they did a final ammo count.

"…Nozomi how much left?"

The purple haired girl sighed clearly uncomfortable without her gun "None sergeant."

"Please just call me Honoka it's easier, I've never felt at ease with the rank anyway…" Honoka did some mental calculations in her head "…Ok at the rate of consumption, we'll run out of ammo by ten o'clock tomorrow morning, and that's only if we spread out what we've got and if the Boche only exchange harassing fire."

"It's that bad?!" Private Yazawa, or Nico as Honoka had insisted everyone call her, looked surprised, her skin appearing ghostly white in the moonlight.

Honoka nodded. "I'm afraid so, the only other option is to try and appropriate some captured weaponry from the dead out there. Kotori you said you knew where two Machine guns were?"

"Yes, they're over by the mound on the other side of the ruins."

"And we can get enough rifles and ammo from the ordinary soldiers…" Umi added.

"Right then, everyone we're going on a little scavenger hunt." Honoka jumped up enthusiastically.

Umi sighed, making her exasperation with her friend clear.

Kotori sidled up next to her earning a few dirty looks from Maki "Awww don't be like that Umi-chan it'll be fun." Honoka danced around assigning everyone directions to search in.

"Don't encourage her Kotori! You know she should be taking this more seriously."

"But it's cute don't you think? The way she can be so enthusiastic."

Umi groaned next to her, "You think everything she does is cute."

Kotori blushed and flicked Umi's helmet with a light 'ping' "I-I don't I mean…"

"Kotori it's obvious you have a crush on Honoka, seriously I've known you two for years and its obvious how you feel.

"D-Do you know how she feels?" Kotori ventured

Umi shook her head "The day someone can tell what that girl is thinking is the day that hell freezes over and the war ends with a huge explosion…"

Kotori's face fell, until Honoka came around at least.

"Umi-chan I want you to take the southern slope, Maki can stay up here and keep watch. Kotori-chan you're coming with me and Nozomi-chan, to find those machine guns, after all you're the one who knows where they are."

Kotori's smile returned in full force upon hearing that. "Of course Honoka-chan."

"Right everyone knows where they are going. So let's move!"

The girls except for Maki all stood up and made their way down the ruins vaulting over old tumbled walls and broken bullet scarred columns.

Kotori mostly kept silent marvelling at the stars above them and the feeling of being close to Honoka as she led her and Nozomi down the slope, the occasional rattle of equipment being the only sound accompanying them.

"I wonder why the Luftwaffe hasn't just blown us to bits yet…" Nozomi mused breaking the perfect silence that allowed Kotori to simply enjoy the feeling of being with Honoka as well as reminding her that they weren't alone. Kotori silently cursed the machine gunner under her breath.

Honoka hummed while she thought "I think that they are probably stretched thin, I mean the Generals did say they'd establish local air superiority after all… and we aren't that important. Or maybe the officer in charge down there doesn't want to admit his failure to high command."

Nozomi nodded in agreement. The two kept talking about the finer details of situation and the campaign. Kotori felt the growing hole in her chest of jealousy. At least until Nozomi admitted her reason for turning down promotion several times, her teammate Eli…

Kotori breathed a sigh of relief, at least she knew now that Nozomi wouldn't try to steal Honoka from her. She slung her rifle over her back signalling for the two girls to stop. "We're here" she whispered pointing at the mound in front of her; it was steeper than it had looked through the scope.

Kotori scrambled up the slope, seeing two bodies lying by their Machine gun, both felled by neat holes in their heads. The gun looked fine but it only had one belt of ammunition. She frowned and signalled for Honoka and Nozomi to join her.

"What is it Kotori?" Honoka hissed as quietly as she could.

Kotori pointed to the gun before them gesturing at Nozomi. "Nozomi-san, is that enough ammo?"

To her dismay Nozomi shook her head. "We're trained on these things too just in-case we need to use them like this, but one of the first things we learn is that the MG42 has a ridiculous rate of fire and burns through ammo to match that."

Kotori thought for a second. Scratching her chin and casting her mind back to the chaos earlier that day. She snapped her fingers "Wait there were two up here. One got away and I think that they had an extra ammo tin on them."

"So?" Honoka asked "They got away…Why are you telling us this now?"

The sniper grinned "They didn't get far…I managed to catch them over there." She pointed to the flat plain near the German lines "They can't be more than 50 metres away from us right now"

Honoka smiled at the news "Nozomi, you grab that gun and ammo and take it back up the hill, me and Kotori will go looking for her victims."

Nozomi gave a quick acknowledgment and grabbed the gun jogging back up the ruins.

As she jogged Kotori and Honoka scrambled down the other side of the mound, tracing the route that her unfortunate targets had taken earlier that day, Kotori crouched low when they went onto the open plain looking warily towards the German lines, a few sentries visible just behind the hedges that marked the end of no-man's land.

She felt a presence crawl up beside her and they both lay prone tracing their way towards the corpses of the machine gun crew, evidently the enemy hadn't wanted to risk getting their heads blown off to save the wounded, those that could, had dragged themselves back to the German lines. While the others still lay moaning in pain.

"Honoka." She whispered "I see them up ahead; the one on the right has the ammunition." Kotori saw Honoka's silhouette nod in the darkness. They both crawled up to it occasionally playing dead whenever the closest sentry looked their way.

After what seemed like hours, but couldn't have been more than minutes, they reached the German with the ammo. Honoka grabbed the green ammo crate from his stiff fingers, prising it open with a sound that Kotori was certain would get them spotted, she heard Honoka give a muffled "yes!"

The pair turned around and started crawling towards the mound once more. Both of them tried to keep as silent as possible. Suddenly a flare lit up the night, before all hell broke loose. A few Machine guns from the German positions opened up at somewhere further to their left, tracers ripped their way through the night, arcing over to where their comrades were collecting weapons.

"Shit!" Honoka shouted. "Kotori! Move! We've been spotted." Both girls got up and ran for their lives. A sentry spotted their retreating figures and sounded out the alarm an MG swung around to try and fire at them.

Bullets tore up the dirt all around them, tracers lit up the night, and the blinding glare of the flare forced Kotori to squint. She hit the deck keeping her hands over the back of her head.

"Kotori what are you doing?! It could be a night attack!" Honoka ran back through the wall of lead and picked up her friend by her webbing. "Come on we need to keep moving or we die!"

Kotori shook herself and forced a smile, "Of course. lead the way Honoka-chan." Honoka smiled at that, while they both ran once more for the safety of the ruins. Honoka vaulted an overturned column in front of her and waited briefly while Kotori climbed over it, they were both safe for now at least.

The sniper breathed while her friend took a look around the edge of the column. "Crap! I can see a few sections of Germans advancing. They really caught us with our trousers down!" Honoka looked around desperately seeing a few of the other groups taking up positions in the ruins again, laden with weapons and ammo. "Can you decapitate their command structure? I'll take the ammo to Nozomi and get our new gun talking." Honoka sprinted off while a hail of bullets fried following her.

Kotori steadied her breathing this wasn't easy while the adrenaline pumped through her system. A few deep breaths later and she felt confident enough to actually hit something. She placed her rifle on top of the column, the flare doing a brilliant job of creating dancing shadows in her scope, but also of showing her exactly where the Germans where. She scanned the sections, she couldn't see their rank at this range, but she could at least see who was giving the orders. She opened up her rifle slowly checking there was a round in the chamber, before snapping the bolt shut, she lined up her first target. The sharp crack of her rifle blended in with the cacophony of battle, hopefully masking her presence. Her target hit the floor, dead or wounded it didn't matter. Kotori moved onto her next, and her next and her next; each one falling down like the first.

The other defenders opened up with their captured weapons, and the attack began to lose momentum. Then the familiar chatter of a Spandau sounded from behind her. Kotori jumped, before remembering the prize she had retrieved with Nozomi and Honoka, the flare winked out just as the attackers were driven back in a hail of bullets.


Kotori looked up at the night sky, picking out the constellations that her mother had taught her, when she was younger, before all this happened. If it wasn't for the hard boulder at her back and her rifle wedged between two rocks she could almost imagine that she was back home in Lightseed, stargazing with Honoka. Umi too, but mostly it was time she spent with Honoka.

The sniper giggled as she remembered the way that Honoka would marvel at the Milky Way, or how she always questioned the myths that Kotori was telling her about such and such constellation. Like the time she asked why Andromeda didn't just kick her parents in the face and run off somewhere, 'How come she needed this Perseus bloke?' was the way she put it so eloquently.

Kotori loved that side to her, the way that she always said what she thought and never let anyone else thrust their values onto her.

She shivered in the cold night air, she'd offered to take first watch on sentry duty in case the enemy attempted another night attack, but despite the heat during the day, the Sicilian air carried a bite with it at night and her summer uniform didn't help matters. She could faintly hear the crackle of a camp fire and the hushed whispers of stories and jokes being shared.

She felt lonely, and cold out here. Kotori knew that the fire wouldn't be that warm because they still had to hide, that the tea would be lukewarm at best and that she would be relieved eventually but by that time everyone else would be asleep. Kotori felt like she was missing out on important bonding time with her friends, and it hurt a little.

"Still someone needs to make sure that we don't get stabbed in the back…" she whispered to the darkness before shivering again.

"Kotori-chan?" Kotori turned around after hearing Honoka's voice, she saw her friend standing with her beret on her head and two steaming mugs of what smelled like tea.

"Ah Honoka, why are you here? Your watch isn't until after Eli-san's."

"I thought you might be lonely, and Nico-chan had just made some tea, so I brought you some, although it's black because we don't have any milk, sorry." Honoka handed her the tea apologising.

Kotori smiled holding the mug in her hands letting the heat radiate from the battered metal into her cold fingers. She brought the mug to her face bathing it in the steam and the warm comforting smell of the tea. "It's Ok. I know it will be delicious because you brought it to me Honoka-chan."

Honoka jumped down and plonked herself next to Kotori, "You were stargazing weren't you?" Kotori nodded, hearing Honoka to giggle at that. "I suppose Umi-chan would have a go at you for slacking on sentry duty, but I don't see why we can't enjoy the beauty of this world even when surrounded by all its ugliness."

"Do you remember stargazing back at home?" Kotori took a sip of her tea, warming her slightly.

"Hmmm, of course…" Honoka said quietly. "We'd make a campfire and watch the stars."

"And I'd tell you both the stories my mother told me, although you could never quite understand them Honoka-chan."

"I'm just saying why does the story always have to be a boy saving the girl or marrying her or something stupid like that?"

Kotori laughed lightly at her friend's exasperated nature, before shivering again.

"Kotori are you cold?"

"A little…" Kotori admitted sheepishly. "But it isn't like I can just start a campfire here, we'd be spotted…" the ashen haired girl was surprised when something warm wrapped itself around her body; she stiffened a little at the shock of the hug Honoka had given her. "H-Honoka?" she asked nervously

"It's fine Kotori-chan, I'll be your campfire, for now and in the future too. Because you are my precious friend…" Kotori heard Honoka keep talking, but she didn't listen. It didn't matter after all, all that mattered was that Honoka had promised that she wouldn't abandon Kotori again, all of a sudden she was ten once more, when Honoka had promised herself to her the first time.


Allied Army Camp Otonokizaka, Near Sword beach, Normandy

Kotori sighed a the memory, that time when she felt sure that the flames that burned for Honoka in her heart were returned, she remembered the feeling of Honoka hugging her tightly, vowing never to let go of her. She blushed and started daydreaming about the life she and Honoka would lead once the war finished.

"Eehhh? Tsu-chan what are you doing here?" That voice, it was Honoka's.

Kotori stole around the tent peering around the edge slightly keeping to the shadows like any good sniper would. She saw Honoka standing there looking very surprised at the short girl with brunette hair stood next to a jeep and who was wearing the standard khaki uniform and dark blue beret of the free French Infantry, It took Kotori a few seconds to recognise her as Kira Tsubasa.

"I'm taking you on a trip Honoka." Trip?! Does that mean that she was stealing Honoka from her? Honoka looked reluctant thankfully; Kotori knew that the girl she loved wouldn't be swayed by simple flirtatious words. At least Kotori thought Honoka looked reluctant.

"B-B-But Tsu-chan, we can't we're shipping out in a few days." Tsubasa placed her finger on Honoka's lips silencing her and immediately causing Honoka to blush, she closed the distance between her and Honoka once more like she had done at the bridge all those weeks ago.

Tsubasa gently rubbed Honoka's shoulders wrapping one arm around her neck. "Shhh, Honoka, I called in a few favours, after all I think we need to spend some time together, just the two of us. Besides don't you want to spend a few days before you head back to Angleterre with me?" Tsubasa had reduced Honoka to a blushing mess again; she was ripe fruit ready to be picked.

Honoka nodded, dazed by everything that was happening, she tried closing some distance herself, moving her lips closer to Tsubasa's and whispering her reply. "Of course I do…"

Tsubasa smiled and broke away from Honoka, causing the ginger girl to pout. "Well come on get in the jeep, Paris is a long way away after all."

Honoka blinked surprised as she got into the jeep. "P-Paris?!"

Tsubasa winked, "Of course. It is the city of love after all…"

Kotori paled at what she had just witnessed, it was all she could do not to start screaming there and then. She is going to take Honoka-chan from me! She is going to steal her from me! But Honoka-chan loves us? Why can't she understand? Every little movement, every intimate touch made Kotori feel the cold primal rage, she wanted to scratch Tsubasa's eyes out, to scream at her and tell her to leave Honoka alone, she wanted to hurt her.

Kotori shook her head, "That Frenchwoman is going to regret touching my Honoka…" she smiled sweetly, plotting Tsubasa's downfall in her head.


A/N: So this chapter was basically fleshing out Kotori's character, and so I didn't really know where to go with it, hence the writer's block. next one I do know what's happening (It's basically a massive TsubaHono fluff fest in Paris :p) so that shouldn't take as long, then after that Market Garden starts so we're off to Arnhem!

Glossary:

I'm 90% certain that I've done everything before but just in case...

Tracer: Tracer rounds are bullets or other rounds that have a chemical charge in their base that ignites upon firing making the trajectory visible to the shooter, and everyone else.

Spandau: nickname for MG42 by commonwealth forces

Mortar High trajectory low range muzzle loading very light artillery piece.