Narrator pow:

"Is everyone ready?" Jajka asked on the radio, looking over her team. from the cuppola of Matilda II she chose as the flag tank.

"Ready" Her unit replied in unision just as referees gave them green lights to commence with the battle.

"Let's go then! But remember to be vigilant in the forest." She instructed them, taking a look at the battlefield's map. "Square formation, advance throu the forest into the plain on F-9! Turrets directed to the outside, scouts move forward freely!"

"Here we go then." Maken said, observing the battle from the stands alongside his trio that basically was the school's student council.

"Mhm, seems that Jajka did the proper work." Andou nodded, seeing the unorthodox in Sensha-do formation being used for the movement.

"Oui, napoleonic tactic are the best." Eclair added, resting her head above the knees as if she was daydreaming.

"Heheh, their canonicity on modern battlefield has to be admitted." Maken shrugged his arms as he gave Andou a quick wink. "But Jungle Tunnel has a lot of tricks up it's sleeve, so we musn't take the victory for certain."

"So what do we do?" Rosehip asked, taking out her small cup in one hand and a thermos in another. "Drink to drown the inner doubts?"

"Naah, only people with issues get into that." Maken smiled lightly, forcing himself not to laugh. "But we can drink and cheer for a good luck to bless them. They are our school's public representation after all."

"A wisdom of Darjeeling, I see." Andou smiled, giving him an ironic look.

"Inherited in a humanised way thanks to Orange Pekore. You should feel lucky I don't speak in vauge proverbs half of the time."

"Anything spotted yet?" Jajka asked on the radio, observing the trees around her as the slow square formation of her tanks moved forward, very often making temporar formation breaks to avoid hitting a tree or falling into a ravine.

"A small trail of smoke to our third." A response from AMR 35 came back.

"Obviously an ambush, don't go there." Jajka responded, narrowing her eyes as she felt her turret being turned to the left. "Hey, did you spotted something?"

"I think so." Her gunner responded, giving her a look throu his optics at the tree which happen to be weirdly out of place.

"Everyone stop!" Jajka shouted on the radio, making her group come into a halt. "Shoot it and see what happens."

"Got it." Gunner responded, firing an He shell into the tree which fell apart like a plastic bag with a detonating bomb inside.

"Hmph, nice cover." Jajka smiled, only to hear a high-pitched ping as her tank was shakened by a shot back from the smoke after the destroyed tree.

"Ambush!" Jajka shouted, leaning back to her seat so loader could do his job. "Everyone! Fire at will, tighten formation!"

"They started using decoys now? Shucks." Maken commented, seeing how one FT-17 from Jungle Tunnel almost took out his school's flag tank with roughly 50 feet distance shot.

"Can tell." Andou added as suddenly other tanks with characteristic deep green camouflage appeared from all sides and started shooting at the closed formation.

"Oh my, that's going to be a massacre..." Rosehip pouted, a single drop of sweat going down her forehead.

"Now, now, let's not be so hasty." Eclair comforted her, handing over a box of crackers. "Jajka is a big girl, she knows how to handle pressure."

"WAAAaaahhh!" A random shout sounded amidst the explosion-hapoy carnage as Sudamericana's FT-17 flew in the air above Jajka's Matilda II and landed on top of Jungle's SU-122, crushing it down with it's impact up to triggering the white flag.

"Retreat to the circle! Backs to the middle!" Jajka shouted on the radio, cutting throu the panic and general chaos of their team chat as another shell threw her tank to the left.

"We spotted three SU-ssy SU's on a hill twelve! Can we attack?" One of scouts asked her, just as Vickers E Type B rammed opposing Ha-Go away from scoring a point blank hit on her rear.

"Positive! But no more puns!"

"Yeah!"

"Driver! Move us forward!" Jajka shouted back to her crew. "Gun! Load AP!"

"Roger!" Her crew responded as she felt her machine being yeeted up front and ram into something big.

"Team status condition? Everyone?!"

"They seem to be retreating!" Another male shout sounded in her ears as another shot ripped a hole in her left side before ricocheting back into allied FT-17, ripping it's gun off the vehicle.

"Good! Hold our lines and make a body count!"

"She's lucky." Andou commented, looking at the screen while Eclair and Rosehip gritted their teeth in the background.

"And luck is meant to be helped." Maken added, closing his eyes and breathing slowly. "Let's see if she still has the guts to help them."

"How are you supposed to see it if your eyes are closed?" Tan-skinned girl snorted, almost laughing at him.

"Not everything has to be seen to be true." Maken responded, feeling his hearts beating in a way that implied it's round shaoe rather than usual one for human hearts. "Sometimes you just have to feel... And believe."

"We have you, Matilda I, Chaffees, Stuart and AMR 35." Jajka heard the report, observing the distant hill from her cuppola as four small dots slided slowly down the side and then crashed down at the rocks. "No, AMR 35 rammed three SU's down the hill."

"And what do enemies have?" Jajka asked, looking over the burning, wreckage-filled wasteland that once was a square mile of the forest.

"Given the count of the corpses they seem to still have all T-34's, one SU-100 and two FT-17's." Other girl from the Matilda I responded, pointing at one tank after another as she counted the white flagged ones.

"Seven ours and seven theirs? Good for us that AMR guys did the thing..." Jajka smiled, only to be rudely silenced by a raging second-year from the Chaffee.

"Why are we just standing there?! God damn it! Someone tell the command we have to move!"

"I heard it perfectly, you walking boombox." Jajka responded, throwing him a nickel coin. "Now let's go forward to the plane and assess our defences."

"What do you think she does next?" Andou asked, getting more and more concerned over the battle. "She barely managed to equal their forces."

"Yes, but she showned two promising moments." Maken responded, humming lightly for a while. "First, she did sent the AMR 35 to take three SU's from the hill. And second, she pulled throu her enemy even though they had a suprise element."

"Right, not everyone is as easy as BC Freedom..." Andou nodded, thinking for a moment. "Are you using my meditation techniques right now?"

"Maybe."

"Oh, you!"

"Anything spotted?" Jajka asked on the radioline, looking over the forest on the sides as her lone Matilda I and II drive throu the previously marked trail.

"We just have spotted both FT-17's on our front. Shall we give chase?" A response from one of the Chaffee's came back.

"Negative. Go to the sides and search again for their ambush." Jajka added, giving a hand signal for her squadron to stop. "Stuarts, rally up and move back to. me."

"On it!"

"Good, now let's wait..." Jajka said, slowing down as she spotted a convienient rock slide to her left. "... In these bushes." She added, seeing her tank turn slightly to the left and go into the low-laying green shrubs on a side of the fallen rocks.

"Are you sure about it?" Her gunner asked, recieving a hand signal to aim at the rocks in response. "Fine, but why tho?"

"It's a camouflage." Jajka responded, then hearing a distinct firing sound from their gun barrel followed by a metalic screech. "And now they panicked when we went onto them." She added with confidence, looking outside and seeing the white-flagged FT-17 between two halfes of what was an imitated rock. "Propably first-years at work, no rockslide rests alone in a forest."

"Commander! Hard contact in G6!" Voice on the radiolone sounded, making Jajka act up immedieately. "Hard as ever!"

"On it! Let's go everyone!"

"Her thinking is good, even if mostly sustained by her opponents." Andou commented, not moving her eyes from the screen.

"Which is a good thing that I allowed her to command today." Maken smiled, walking up to her with two lemonades in hand. "Jungle Tunnel isn't a tournament team, they don't keep their form stable and are prone to individual skills and tactics on the opposing side. A thing that our school happen to be an expert in."

"Like Jatkosota?"

"In a way, just not that individual. Common good is still in a first row."

"Mhm, can tell." Andou nodded, seeing the rest of Jajka's team taking few remaining Jungle Tunnel's tanks one by one in a slow, but unstoppable 'one-by-one' way. "Even I didn't found them to be tactically disobedient. At least on a second try."

"It's all about clan loyalities and finding right people for the job." Maken smiled, speading his arms widely. "In other words, school's inner politics."

"Such as when Bahamian clan was washing their money into tanks for their Sensha-do unit?"

"Exacly. You learn very fast."

"Wouldn't happen without your support."

"Oh, you flatter me too much."

"One more!" Jajka shouted with passion as her Matilda II took out another T-34 at the close range, allowing the faster tanks of her team to run after and pin down other tanks of Jungle Tunnel, who by now scattered all over the battlefield with hope of stalling the battle to a draw.

"We can't find their flag tank!" Response from M-3 Stuart came, followed by a distinct ping from a SU-100's gun.

"Friend down! Their flag is a SU-100!"

"How is the time holding?" Jajka asked her crew, seeing her driver look on the handwatch.

"Five minutes, do we go for it?"

"... No. Agressively protect our flag."

"Wait, she decided to go for a draw?" Rosehip asked suprised, starring at the match screen where Jajka and commander of Jungle Tunnel shaked their hands with respectful smiles.

"To be honest, I kind of encouraged her to do it." Maken answered, earning angry glares from Andou and Eclair.

"And why?" Andou asked, rising an eyebrow.

"To show her the benefits of not rushing forward with saber in hand?"

"But we didn't win." Eclair added, crossing her arms. "Even thought she clearly had an upper hand most of the time."

"Because that's what they wanted." Maken responded with narrowed eyes, making the two suprised. "They made an ambush after ambush. Some better and some worse, I admit that... But still counted onto waiting for a tiniest of mistakes for the perfect strike at our flag tank."

"And Jajka saw throu this?" Rosehip asked, visibly concerned.

"She did." Maken smiled, rubbing his shoulders. "The match had some upper and lower points, but given our group situation going for a three points wasn't a worth option given our group position."

"And Jungle Tunnel accepted that they cannot win this?" Eclair asked.

"Not everyone is Oarai and desperation is never equal to motivation." Maken smiled, feeling a line-shaped pain on the right side of his head. "Now excuse me girls, but I have other works to do today."

"Alright, how is the group going..." Andou muttered as she opned the Japanese Sensha-do Federation's official website, going into the section with current year's group stage.

Group A:

1. Oarai - 3 - 0 - 0 - 9p

2. Phi Royal - 1 - 1 - 1 - 4p

3. Count - 0 - 2 - 1 - 2p

4. Olimp - 0 - 1 - 2 - 1

Group B:

1. Adwa - 2 - 1 - 0 - 7p

2. Anzio - 2 - 0 - 1 - 6p

3. St. Pharaoh - 1 - 0 - 2 - 3p

4. Yogurt - 0 - 1 - 2 - 1p

Group C:

1. Pravda - 3 - 0 - 0 - 9p

2. Viggen - 1 - 1 - 1 - 4p

3. Karpatia - 1 - 1 - 1 - 4p

4. Da Gama - 0 - 1 - 2 - 1p

Group D:

1. Bonple - 3 - 0 - 0 - 9p

2. Chi - Ha - Tan - 2 - 0 - 1 - 6p

3. Maple - 1 - 0 - 2 - 3p

4. Gilbert - 0 - 0 - 3 - 0p

Group E:

1. Koala - 1 - 2 - 0 - 5p

2. Pannonia - 1 - 1 - 1 - 4p

3. Cyuuritsu - 1 - 1 - 1 - 4p

4. Tategoto - 1 - 0 - 2 - 3p

Group F:

1. Saunders - 3 - 0 - 0 - 9p

2. Blue Division - 1 - 1 - 1 - 4p

3. West Kureouji Grona - 1 - 0 - 2 - 3p

4. Tatenashi - 0 - 1 - 2 - 1p

Group G:

1. Sudamericana - 2 - 1 - 0 - 7p

2. Jungle Tunnel - 1 - 1 - 1 - 4p

3. BC Freedom - 1 - 0 - 2 - 3p

4. Waffle - 1 - 0 - 2 - 3p

Group H:

1. Gregor - 3 - 0 - 0 - 9p

2. St. B-S-T - 2 - 0 - 1 - 6p

3. Bellwall - 1 - 0 - 2 - 3p

4. Atlas - 0 - 0 - 3 - 0p

Group I:

1. Kuromorimine - 2 - 1 - 0 - 7p

2. St. Patrick Green - 1 - 2 - 0 - 5p

3. Three Rivers - 1 - 0 - 2 - 3p

4. Kebab - 0 - 1 - 2 - 1p

Group J:

1. St. Archipelago - 2 - 0 - 1 - 6p

2. Windmill - 2 - 0 - 1 - 6p

3. Eastern Balkan - 1 - 0 - 2 - 30

4. Hilled Gulf - 1 - 0 - 2 - 3p

Group K:

1. Jatkosota - 2 - 1 - 0 - 7p

2. Maginot - 0 - 3 - 0 - 3p

3. Skanderbeg - 0 - 2 - 1 - 2p

4. Strait Vikking - 0 - 2 - 1 - 2p

Group L:

1. St. Gloriana - 2 - 0 - 1 - 6p

2. Vikking - 1 - 1 - 1 - 4p

3. Endless Hills - 1 - 1 - 1 - 4p

4. Black Sandstorm - 1 - 0 - 2 - 3p

"Wow, lucky them they included fan's voting as a way to resolve the equal points if they drew against eachother." Andou nodded, moving into a second section labeled as 'First Play-off round'.

Blue Division - Vikking

Saunders - Pravda

Kuromorimine - Anzio

St. Gloriana - Gregor

St. B-S-T - Oarai

Koala - Phi Royal

Bonple - Sundamericana

Adwa - Viggen

Pannonia - Jatkosota

Maginot - St. Archipelago

Windmill - Jungle Tunnel

St. Patrick Green - Chi - Ha - Tan

"Well, that settles it." Andou sighed, looking back at Eclair. "Ready up and meet me at the training grounds. We have a big challenge ahead."