Author's Notes: Still salty over being bamboozled last month? Well. here it is folks, the real chapter nine.

It took a while, so I hope you all enjoy it~
Anyways, see ya at the end!


Chapter 9
Chasing Clouds

Shamrock Training Field
25th of April
10:17 AM

Rosehip couldn't help but fidget as panic began to set in. Now she had not only placed her senpai in a precarious situation but also a desperate one.

"Oh, alright, bye," Rosemallow hung up with a similar look of defeat on her face.

The first to take notice and make a note of their look was their tower companion Tolka who simply asked, "What seems to be the problem now?"

Soon their gracious guide followed suit and Rosehip saw Rosemallow look at Clare with a bit of hesitation at first but soon gave in and said, "We forgot to restock the shells in our tank."

"Ah, don't worry, that's a regular occurrence here," Clare waved off, perhaps wanting to set them at peace with a bit of humour.

When she noticed her words were having no effect, the redhead thought for a moment before responding, "What's the gun mounted on your tank?"

"A quick-firing six-pounder," Rosemallow replied, cutting off Rosehip, who was about to answer.

"Hmmm brilliant!" the redhead exclaimed, leaving everyone in the watchtower extremely confused at this change in mood. Clare came in with the clutch and explained herself at the last minute. "Shannon's Vickers Mk D also uses a six-pounder, pretty sure that could work."

"That can certainly work," Rosemallow replied, looking as if she was convincing herself as well.

"Can't you just ask their opponent to also limit themselves to just six shells too?" Rosehip asked, which in her a confused state seemed like a perfectly viable option.

Clare suddenly burst out laughing so much so that Rosehip felt acutely embarrassed and wanted to throw herself off the tower. It was only the quick and timely explanation of the redhead that saved her from that fate.

"I know Erne personally and she always likes to make mountains out of molehills, so you're better off surviving a fall from the side of the schoolship than to persuade her of doing something that would limit her chances of victory," Clare replied, patting Rosehip on the back as if giving her kudos for trying.

All Rosehip could reply in kind was, "Ah, alright then," which she had to mumble out sheepishly.

"Not to mention you're the offending party here; Erne would be the ones calling the shots, not you," their Shamrock guide added, rubbing more salt to her proverbial wound.

Silence reigned on their viewing platform and it became so unbearable that Clare pulled out her phone, saying, "Give me a few, I'll see what I can do."


Inside the tank, Assam had just finished playing 'pass me the shell' with Roselle, who moved the shells from the stowage bins beside her position and snaked them through the narrow gap between the two compartments.

Amidst the coughing of the now turned-on engine, Assam heard a bit of banging from the outside, as if something was repeatedly being hit on the metal armour of the tank. This increased not only in intensity but also in volume as whoever was outside wanted her attention urgently.

Assam abandoned what was becoming a comfortable gunner's seat and moved to the rear of the turret, where with a bit of ease, she swung the hatch open, which popped open like a butterfly.

Light flooded the insides of the tank, forcing her eyes to readjust for a few seconds, before Assam finally stepped up on the ledge, elevating her and bringing her head out of the tank. She saw Shannon herself, the twintails were cheerful as always, with a few less than merrier helpers in tow, who were too busy struggling to carry armfuls of shells each to be entirely happy.

How did they know?! Ah… Clare, thank the shamrocks for a girl like her!

"We're here to top up your shells!" Ms. Clover gleefully waved, jumping up and down. Assam noticed the girl's beret missing from her head and soon saw it being held by Shannon to prevent it from falling off due to her excessive hopping. It wasn't really a beret. Assam corrected herself since the addition of a feather plume turned it into a caubeen.

A bespectacled pair, in particular, were looking ready to drop their shells to the ground, one of which Assam recognised as the blonde one from last night. Assam lifted herself out of the turret and stepped onto the Crusader's engine deck.

Wait, where did they get these shells? Surely not, they don't just have a few six-pounder shells just lying around? Unless….

The engine beneath her suddenly falling silent knocked her out of her thoughts and soon, the noise of a hatch door falling from the front announced the entrance of her driver for today.

"Assam-senpai, I tried raising you on the intercom but…." Roselle trailed off, as she noticed the weird collection of a jumping Shannon and her obedient elves. "What's going on here?"

Shannon was quick to answer for her, not missing a beat to be outdone. "Clare called and said you had a shell shortage, and so here we are!"

Roselle's eyes lit up as she leapt off of the tank and onto the ground, dashing up to Shannon. Using the momentum she gained, the brunette swept the little lass off her little feet while holding her by the hips as the two went into a wild spin.

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" Roselle exclaimed as she punctuated each expression of gratitude with a kiss on both of Shannon's freckled cheeks.

The Shamrock commander was a bit dazed as Roselle finally returned her back to the ground but soon recouped her energy and hugged the taller Gloriana girl.

The rest of the girl's around the Crusader's vicinity stood frozen and gawked at the bizarre ritual happening right before their very eyes. It was only when a shell from the black-haired girl with glasses fell and hit her squarely on the foot did her cries of pain snap everyone back to reality.

Roselle sprang into action and retrieved the fallen shells, handing them over to Assam and it was only when she was given a closer chance to inspect the shells did she notice that these were not only shorter but also lighter than the ones already inside the tank.

These shells came from the Vickers Mk. D. Assam thought as she eyed the Irish tank looming nearby, as she disappeared inside the tank, inserting it into one of the many empty slots on the gunner's side.

The 6-pounder on the Mk. D was the Hotchkiss or the 8 cwt, a pre-Great War naval gun introduced before the 20th century. It was armed with shells like shrapnel, steel and common, which not only did significantly less damage against Second World War armour but were also incompatible with the 6-pounder on the Crusader with the devil in the detail being the difference between the size and shape of the brass casing that held the propellant.

To be sure, Assam asked Shannon the question as soon as she was back outside as Roselle stacked the shells high up on the engine deck, relieving Shannon's helpers of their burden. "If you don't mind me asking, where did these shells come from?" she inquired, as she grabbed two shells from the stack.

"From my own tank, of course!" Shannon responded, oblivious to the hint of doubt in Assam's voice.

And by the lack of a reaction from her, it would seem that Roselle neither knew nor cared if the shell would actually be usable and was becoming an unwitting accomplice in this farce.

Assam looked for an opportunity to talk to the brunette and soon found one as the girl in question climbed aboard the tank and helped her with moving the shells from the engine deck to inside.

"These won't fit the gun mounted on the tank," she whispered at Roselle's ears as she grabbed more six-pounder shells.

"Oh?"

"Yes, the gun wouldn't be able to fire these due to the shortness of these rounds," Assam patiently explained, waiting for her driver to catch on.

"I wouldn't know, I'm the driver. I work on the hull, not the turret, remember?" Roselle chuckled, lifting up another shell herself.

Taking a glance at their surroundings, Assam saw the goggle-eyed girl with jet-black hair still lying on the ground, one of her shoes now off and was now examining the injury, her blonde friend consoling her as best as she could. She returned her attention back to the problem at hand and said, "Maybe we're better off returning all of these so Shannon wouldn't be disappointed if we didn't make use of any of them."

Roselle looked her squarely in the eye and answered back. "Shannon and I chatted for a bit, she said Rosehip begged Clare for all of these. It would be a shame if her efforts… go to waste."

Rosehip did that? That foolish dunce….

While the two of them were locked in argument, from the corner of her eye, she noticed another short girl approaching, her dark brown hair was cut to neck length and her muscular arms were carrying three more shells and walked up to Shannon.

Shannon, who looked as if she was waiting for them to finish talking, stepped forward and asked, "Is there a problem?"

"No… we're just dealing with storage issues," Assam was quick to reply, pointing towards the brunette she was trying to reason with. "Roselle here wanted them on the loader side, I wanted them on the gunner side... Don't worry, we'll iron this out!"

She returned back to the brunette on the engine deck with her and told her of the compromise she thought up. "Alright, fine, I'll use them, just be the one to return them once we're done, you hear?"

"Aye aye, captain!" Roselle replied, doing a mock salute before taking the three shells from the stocky girl and placed them on the turret roof. The driver hopped inside the tank and once inside, she took one round at a time and placed them in the ammunition rack.

In total, they were given ten shells, which theoretically bumped up their shell count to 16, which was more than enough to finish the job. Assam returned back to the Crusader, closing the hatch behind her as the engine soon roared back to life.

The intercom crackled and she picked it up, hearing Roselle speak from the other side of the tank. "Senpai, I'll be driving us to the starting point now."

"Affirmative, Godspeed."


AND THEY'RE OFF!

The crowd went wild as the shot that signalled the start of the match, which came from the anti-aircraft cannon that had been rolled out of a warehouse, went off.

It flew high above everyone, exploding into a small cloud of white smoke that dissipated as soon as it formed. It was soon overshadowed by the bigger clouds of dust thrown up by the two tanks as they raced off towards opposite ends of the grounds.

Rosehip leaned against the railing as she watched her blue-grey Crusader speed off like the wind, leaving behind the competition in its trail. Inside, she could only imagine Roselle working overtime as the cruiser tank hastily made its way to the pre-arranged mark.

The spice bags were all gone now, their contents all eaten as they watched the shell transfer take place and Mallow was kind enough to take in the greasy paper bags in her satchel as it was rude to litter.

"Here we go," Rosemallow muttered next to her as she received the binoculars from Clare. The four of them had come to an unspoken agreement to share the optical device around, passing it when the next person wanted to have her turn.

"Where do you even buy a pair of those?" Clare chirped in, relinquishing the control of the field glasses. "Those are way better than the ones we commanders use."

"Uhm… It was a g-gift from my dad..." Tolka replied nervously, obviously not really comfortable with conversations.

"Rosehip… Rosehip! Look at this!" Rosemallow hurriedly announced, tapping Rosehip's hand annoyingly as she shoved the binoculars to her face, the laces still around her loader's neck.

"Alright, alright, calm down, I'm doing it," Rosehip said as she peered in through the lenses and found herself looking at the Valentine on the other side of the field.

She saw the green-painted infantry tank slowly lumbering towards its point, at a much slower pace than that of the Crusader and as such, was creating a smaller cloud of dust than its cruiser counterpart.

"What's wrong with it? It's just the Vally driving," Rosehip replied, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, making a move to return the field glasses.

"Look closer!" Rosemallow insisted as she scurried her to discover what she wanted her to find out.

Rosehip did as she was told and soon noticed the slow but unmistaken signs of the turret being cranked around.

Oh no

As if to confirm her suspicion, Shannon suddenly shouted words that activated her fight or flight mode.

OH, WHAT'S THIS? THE VALENTINE'S TURRET IS TURNING!

"What the…" Clare said, her hands grasping out for the optical device, which Rosehip willingly surrendered, giving the redhead a closer view of what was happening. "That cantankerous cunt…"

WHAT COULD THEY BE PLANNING?!

The commentator added, pouring more fuel into the firestorm that was happening as the crowd realised the violation of the rules taking place.

"Bugger! We need to warn them!" Rosehip announced, eager to do anything to level out the playing field once again.

"How? Roselle would be busy driving right now," Rosemallow countered, seeing some sense where she could not as panic started to engulf her. "Do you even have Assam-senpai's number?"

Rosehip hadn't even realised that, she was so caught up in alarm that she forgot about that. "No…." she replied in shame.

And so, they could only stand in anticipation as the turret finished its rotation and fired off a round.


The two-pounder shell soared through the air, rapidly making its rendezvous with destiny. The round would have been a killing shot had it not been for the movement of both vehicles, specifically the Valentine's, whose vibrations messed up the gun. The illegally-fired shell found its mark, but it merely ricocheted off the right side of the Crusader's turret.


Assam was in the loader's seat, contemplating which shell to load first when something grazed the tank, producing an ear-grating screech that caused her to instinctively put her hands over her ears.

With her ears still ringing, she grabbed ahold of the microphone beside the radio at the back and made sure the channel was turned into intercoms before communicating, "What was that?"

"Can't you look out of the turret and find out?" Roselle replied a bit annoyed, her change of tone was noticeable as the girl was still driving at the moment and had to juggle between being the driver and Assam's only companion.

Gingerly, Assam opened the hatch and looked out around them, investigating the source of the noise. At a faraway distance, behind the dust kicked up by the flight of the Crusader, Assam was able to spot the Valentine's turret looking precisely at them, its smoking gun providing a shred of evidence that made it guilty of the act.

"Roselle, our opponents cheated on us! Turn us around, we only have one shot at this."

Assam felt the entire tank move in its turning arc as she dropped back into the turret. With the urgency of the situation now tenfold, she grabbed the first shell she could get her hands on. She rammed it into the breech, punching it in as hard as she could, recalling how effortlessly Orange Pekoe did it back in the Churchill. Her hand seemed to disappear further into the gaping void of the breech than expected, but she heard the satisfying 'chunk' of the shell making contact with the barrel. She closed the breech and settled back into the narrow gunner's seat.

Thank Gloriana for Pekoe… Assam thought as the little loader made life convenient for her, making sure she shouldn't worry about the gun itself and only with the targets it would take out.

Looking into the eyepiece, she saw the Valentine turning around as well, much clumsier than the Crusader and slower. The turret was also struggling to keep up with the swivelling tank, a tell-tale sign of the lack of coordination inside the infantry tank.

The cruiser tank, meanwhile, was hellbent on closing the distance. Assam would have told the brunette to slow down a bit until she realized that by doing so would give their opponents more time to aim and shoot straight. As she left the turret hatch open, she was now able to hear bits and pieces of Shannon's commentary about everything that was happening, hopefully giving her an edge over their adversary

LOOKS LIKE… NAL SHOWDOWN HERE… CRUSA… CHARGING

But to make sure that her shot would go home, she needed a stable platform and that would require her tank to be stationary. With the same handheld microphone from the wireless behind her, its wire dangerously stretched and taut as Assam struggled to pull it into her far left corner of the tank, "Roselle, halt!"

Her driver did as she was told and with the Valentine still turning around, all she had to do was wait for the vibrations to disperse and she would have won the duel not only for herself but for St. Gloriana as well.

Keeping the infantry tank in her sights, Assam started compensating for the distance, performing a few mental calculations, muttering to herself for a bit, before settling on a comfortable point a few inches above the enemy tank.

"Cheats never prosper," Assam whispered as she pulled the trigger, steeling herself for the kick of the gun and its impact on her shoulder.

So it came as a surprise to her when there was none.

Click

A misfire!

Assam was about to go through the drills of recocking the gun, when, to her horror, she realised she had made a fatal mistake, causing a sickening lurch in her stomach.

She had loaded one of Shannon's shorter six-pounder shells!

If that was the case, then the striker in the firing mechanism wouldn't be able to hit the back of the shell casing as the round she had loaded was just too short. No wonder her hand had gone further inside the breech than she expected!

Shifting out of her seat, she grabbed the breech handle and was about to open the rear of the gun when she paused. Could it be that the shell was the correct one, and had just misfired? Was she about to open the breech to have a delayed reaction detonation blow up in her face?

No, she was sure, her photographic memory was not playing tricks with her - it had definitely been one of Shamrock's shorter shells she'd loaded. Assam cursed herself for being a fool, and cursed Roselle as well for persuading her to even allow the damned things onboard in the first place.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the breech. Nothing happened. In a way, that was a relief, as nothing had exploded in her face, but she had expected the unfired shell to come sliding out backwards, just as the spent cases did when Orange Pekoe ejected them in the Churchill.

This round, however, was still inside the gun. Assam moved her head to peer inside and, sure enough, the smaller brass cartridge could be seen stuck inside it, further up than it should be. The brass casing was not only shorter, but the base of it was narrower too, which meant that it had not engaged with the ejectors and, as a result, would not come out when the breech was opened.

Assam bounced the handle a few times, as she had once seen Pekoe do when a particularly stubborn 75mm casing had refused to leave its refuge, but it was to no avail. The thing was well and truly stuck.

As if the situation wasn't terrible enough, a loud explosion rang outside as what she assumed was a shot from their opponent narrowly missed and struck the ground nearby, showering the insides of the tank with bits of sand as she left the commander's hatch unclosed.

Reorienting herself, Assam used the microphone still in her hand to bear the news to her second. "Roselle, I accidentally loaded one of those damned Shamrock shells! It won't fire and now it's stuck!" she reported.

'I bloody told you so!' Assam wanted to add but class and her upbringing gave her the patience to prevent herself from doing so.

The annoyance in her driver's voice now turned to anguish as she felt the daggers of blame being stabbed at her back. "What do you want me to do now?!"

"Can you perform evasive manoeuvres as I try to figure something out?"

"Aye."

Assam fully left her seat and went ahead with tinkering the gun breech in front of her, looking for a magical button or a lever that would save the day before the two in the Valentine finally used their brains and fire the fatal shot.

She circled around to the loader's side of the tank and in her search for a way to remove the blockage, Assam stumbled across a perfectly preserved rack of smoke grenades. The bombs were hidden underneath a small pillow, something she assumed belonged to Rosemallow, which was probably got knocked out of the way by the ricochet.

The sugar rush started to kick in and with a wild plan starting to form inside her head, Assam needed all the boost she could get as she grabbed a handful of the grenades and looked around for the launch tube.


"She's gone mental, hasn't she?" Clare said as she gave up the binoculars to Rosehip who was clawing for it from the very moment it was out of her hands for too long. "She's not always like this, right?"

It had come as a surprise to everyone that the Crusader, which just a few moments ago was on the backfoot, has now not only turned the odds against their opponent but was also valiantly charging the foe head-on, having just been grazed by a shell moments ago.

"No, she has a reputation for being calm and collected," Rosemallow answered back, recording the whole match on her iPad which she was holding onto tightly so as to not send it over the tower.

The surprise sally stopped almost as soon as it started, sadly enough, Rosehip observed, as her driver put her foot down on the brakes, bringing the cruiser tank to a halt. Slowly, the six-pounder adjusted and was pointed in the general direction of the bumbling Valentine tank, as everyone waited in anticipation for the final shot.

Shannon quickly picked up on this and shouted into her megaphone more of her cheerful commentary.

THE CRUSADER HAS STOPPED, WOULD WE FINALLY SEE THE END TO THIS GLORIOUS DUEL?

"Come on senpai, you can do it!" Rosehip cheered, hoping that her encouragement would be carried over by the wind and reach its intended recipient.

But as the seconds crept by, her hopes were drained little by little as what seemed like a simple affair was taking its time, making her think something had gone wrong.

"Look-" Tolka the bird spy said, her arms pointing out at a detail that had somehow eluded the three of them who were much more avid Senshadou players. -"the turret roof is open."

Rosehip used the binoculars to confirm but she wasn't even able to get a sight of the hatch in question when her line of sight was blocked by a plume of sand and dirt.

"Bloody hell!" she exclaimed in surprise as the optical device slipped from her hands and would have plummeted down to the ground had it not been for the quick reflexes of Clare beside her, who managed to grasp the strap at the last moment.

"That was close enough, eh. Right, Tolka?" the redhead said as she pulled up the field glasses and gave them back to the birdwatcher.

Tolka was unavailable for comment as she held her beloved binoculars close to her body, refusing to let any of them borrow them again.

"Great job! You just had to do that when things are starting to get heated," Rosemallow complained.

"Don't worry," Clare said, "You wouldn't be needing them anyway." She pointed her finger towards the cruiser tank, as small objects started being scattered around the front of the tank.

Before the Valentine could get a third shot, Assam-senpai had robbed them of the opportunity as the Crusader tank popped smoke, a feature Rosehip didn't even know the tank had, engulfing the entire cruiser tank in a thick white fog.

WHAT'S THIS? THEY'RE SMOKING OUT THE AREA!

The spectacle garnered oohs and ahs as the people watching were exposed to the wisps and bangs of Senshadou, something the likes of which they have never seen before. Even someone like Clare couldn't resist jotting down notes, as she tried to write as much as she could while leaning on the railing of the watchtower, occasionally looking up before continuing with her note-taking.

"We have a smoke grenade launcher?!" Rosehip asked, feeling a bit left out as the smoke started to expand, growing bigger and bigger every second, hiding the Crusader not only from the crowds below but from those with a bird's eye view as well.

"Yea, it was beside my seat the entire time," Mallow replied, in a matter of fact way, even looking a bit surprised at her question.

"Why didn't I know that?" Rosehip asked, perplexed, surprised that there were still parts of the Crusader that she barely knew about, considering her position as the head mechanic for the damned crab tanks.

"Geez, I don't know. Guess who decided to use the manual as fuel to cook a roast?" Rosemallow answered back, adopting one of her sarcastic voices.

"Oh..."


Smoke and mirrors

Assam thought to herself.

Have always been an essential part of the British military doctrine. From the Q-ships of the Atlantic to the Sunshields of El-Alamein, Britain had often relied upon trickery and deception to gain the upper hand.

She peeled away from the commander's periscope, which in St Gloriana's seating arrangement, was placed under the control of the loader.

It was a good sign that she couldn't see aught and if Shannon's commentary was to be believed, it would seem the crowd couldn't either. It was as if the entire tank was swallowed by the clouds.

Assam picked up more of the dark-green bombs and shoved them one by one into the mortar, further thickening the screen and buying her more time.

She knew, however, that this was all but temporary; a stop gauge measure if you will and she needed to find a way to remove the blockage from the gun.

Assam needed a cunning plan, a plan so cunning, she could put a tail on it and call it a weasel. For that, she had to check the obstruction in the breech once again and with that in mind, she retreated from the loader's corner and manoeuvred back to the rear.

The sudden buzz on the radio made her realise that she was still holding on to the receiver, whose cord was now dangerously stretched and so she hastened her pace. Once she was in position, she pushed back the radio that was slowly getting tugged towards her.

The receiver came to life again and this time, Roselle's voice was heard. "Assam-senpai, what the heck… Maybe a little warning next time around?"

"Sorry, it was a spur of the moment decision. Say, aren't the controls for the additional smoke dispensers over there on your side?" Assam asked, remembering more of what she had studied in her first year of Senshadou.

A considerable pause came before Roselle came back and replied, "Uh... Yes."

"Any chance you can turn them on?"

"Aye, give me a bit."

With that taken care of, Assam opened the breech once more and stared down the barrel. Inside the steel ring of the breech, she could see the brass end of the stuck shell casing.

It was simply there, sitting still and looking pretty, not being of any use other than hindering their offensive capabilities. Its narrower diameter meant that it had slipped past the ejector levers.

Although there was a tiny gap between the edge of the base of it and the steel walls of the breech, there was nowhere near enough room for her to get her fingers round it and pull it out - not that she wanted to be risking her fingers inside there anyway!

It might be possible to use some sort of tool to slide down the side of it and hook it out, and she desperately looked around for any implement that she could press into service, but alas there was nothing suitable to hand. And besides, even if Assam found something suitable, it would probably be a personal article of the Rosebush and the last thing she wanted was to break their stuff.

Back in the tank sheds, it would no doubt be a relatively simple job to free the blockage, but here, in the middle of a match and with the tank bouncing around all over, it was another matter.

Indeed, even as she thought those thoughts, the tank gave a large jolt as it bounced over some bump in the terrain, and the offending shell shifted ever so slightly with a metallic shing as the tank lurched. This suddenly gave Assam an idea…

"Roselle-san, can you find an incline of sorts?"

"I'm sorry, can you say that again?!"


The agitation of the crowd could be felt even from as high up as Rosehip's position, as some of the mob had begun jeering out, probably wanting the match to come to fruition already.

Everyone watched as the smoke spread out further, encompassing more and more of the grounds while the Valentine had begun prowling along the edges of the screen, like a wolf circling a wounded prey.

The cloud had parted a bit and from their vantage point, they saw the Crusader in all its glory, parked upright on the slope of a steep mound of dirt, its cannon pointed high up to the sky.

"What in tarnation…" Rosemallow muttered, lifting up her tablet to capture the unusual position of their tank. "I'm slowly starting to believe that your senpai's a nutter."

The rest of the onlookers, however, hadn't caught up yet but the green-painted infantry tank, either having grown tired of waiting or having spotted something, entered the mist, disappearing into the haze. A chase through the clouds had begun.

Some of the earlier smoke had begun to disperse and rose high up, which was then propelled right at their faces by the wind. Rosehip inadvertently got a whiff of the stuff and she immediately realised why they had rarely used it in the first place.

The unpleasant smell of the fumes was much stronger than that of the exhaust gases of the tanks and its harsh, acrid, nauseating smell made her want to throw up.

"I-I think I need to puke," she warned.

Her redhead loader looked up from her recording and replied, "Well, you can't do that here or else you'll release your payload all over the crowd!"

Clare looked on with worry, replying, "You should probably climb down and quick," and opened the hatch for her to access the ladder.

Rosehip had already lowered herself a rung when she noticed that Rosemallow hadn't made any moves to follow her.

"Errrr… Mallow? I think I may need your help," she said, starting to lift herself back up to the platform.

The girl in question shifted her eyes from Rosehip to her iPad. "Can't you see I'm recording the match?" she replied in exasperation.

Their gracious guide came to her rescue once again and chipped in, "I can record it for you."

Rosemallow had looked at her at first in disbelief, followed shortly by a quick flash of irritation that Rosehip was able to catch but was soon surmounted by a smile as she handed Clare her tablet and made a note to take care of it.

With her only excuse now gone, Rosemallow had no other choice but to follow Rosehip. The two made their way down the ladder with one of them having to fight off the urge to vomit all the way down.

Feeling the contents of her stomach slowly rise up to her chest, Rosehip kept her mouth shut while at the same time quickening her pace as much as she could without falling.

During their descent, the duel continued, not keen on stopping for the stomach problems of one of its audience, even if the one sick was supposed to be the one behind the helm

Once she had reached the relative safety of the ground, Rosehip ran off to the side of the tower and into the nearby bushes, doing her best not to hit anyone on the way and then released her load.

The contents of her stomach were revealed for her to see, all mixed into a sickly yellow-orange hodge-podge; bits of mushroom mingled with the remains of the onion rings and pieces of potato pancakes were covered with chunks of chips from the recent spiced bag she had last eaten, which had given its orange dusting to the vomit.

She continued to puke her guts out, only being careful enough to not dirty her remaining dress jacket further, having to deal with the spilt coffee from earlier and her only extras were dirtied after Assam-senpai's own seasickness incident and the other soaked with beer foam.

Rosehip heard the bush behind her part and immediately assumed it was Rosemallow following her close by until she looked up, teary-eyed. Instead of a grumpy redhead, she saw what she could only assume was an angel. A girl with pearly white skin and luscious blonde hair; it was none other than Assam-senpai!

"Assam-senpai, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be inside the Crusader?" Rosehip asked, tasting the bitter leftovers of her acidic spew.

How can Assam-senpai be here?! Was her mind simply clouded by the same fog that hid the battle from the crowd's sight or was she in heaven already?

"No, no, my name's Callan, I saw you running and I thought something's wrong," the blonde stated, who now Rosehip noticed was wearing the green Senshadou uniform of Shamrock, with the intriguing addition of a white armband with some sort of green cross on it.

The girl took one look at Rosehip's face and then the pile of half-digested food on the ground and asked, "You're hungover, aren't you?"

"Yea…" Rosehip replied while looking into her blueish eyes with the faintest hints of purple, nothing like the vibrant violet ones Assam-senpai had.

The leaves rustled once again and this time, Rosemallow finally showed up "Sorry, the match just went hot! And guess what? Assam-senpai is now shooting…" she trailed off, now registering the presence of another person.

Rosehip's stomach took this as a cue to dump another volley, forcing her to turn around and puke. She could still hear discussion continued on behind her back though, the two talking over her retching.

"...back. Who are you?"

"My name's Callan and I'm the team medic. I reckon your friend had too much to drink last night?"

Rosemallow had walked to her and offered her some tissue from her magical sling bag, allowing Rosehip to clean herself up and rejoin the conversation.

"That's true, how did you know?" she simply asked, worried that she was acting obviously drunk for the rest to see.

Callan only smiled at the two of them and replied, "Like I said, I'm the medical officer of our Senshadou team and when your teammates are a bunch of drunks, you'll soon be able to recognise it only by sight."

Rosehip nodded, doing her best to avoid talking than what was necessary lest she threw up more of her breakfast and her snack.

The blonde turned her attention back to Rosehip and said, "Now, I believe I still have some medicine for this in our medicine kit but she would need something to fill up her stomach "

"Bugger, all the muffins are gone now…" Rosemallow cursed and then added, "Let's find a place for you to settle down on while I look for something to eat."

"In the meantime, you can have this," Callan spoke up as she manipulated a can, which Rosehip had somehow missed, between her hands before handing it over.

As Rosehip was about to make a move to receive it, she caught sight of a look of alarm on Rosemallow's face, a far cry from her usual condescending smirks. But just like the look of irritation earlier, this one was gone in seconds and an uneasy peace settled.

With the can now in her possession, she was able to analyse its marking with pinpoint accuracy. The can was covered in golden foil, which had a green diamond in front. At first, Rosehip struggled to make out the meaning of the symbols printed on the green diamond, which didn't belong to any of the three alphabets used in Japanese.

She concluded that it must be written in English then and was gonna quietly ask Rosemallow what they meant before she brought her eyes to the bottom half of the can, where written in familiar script it simply said: Ginger Ale.

Filled with trepidation, Rosehip popped open the cap and an audible Pop! was heard as she got hit by the full force of the smell of ginger that came from the can.

Ginger ale, she remembered, was one of the select few drinks that were allowed inside the Tea Garden. It was something she hadn't tried before but it couldn't be as bad as Darjeeling-sama's blended toast, right?

Rosehip positioned the can on top of her bottom lip and took a sip, almost spluttering the liquid out as it seemed to burn her mouth. Soon, however, as the ale trickled down her throat, the fire calmed and a strange warmth filled her insides, vanquishing most of her stomach's qualms.

Colour must have returned to her face as Rosemallow had deemed it fit for them to make a move. The three emerged from the bushes, only to encounter a large rally of people running towards them, panic etched in their faces as they did their best to get away from something.

"What the…"

XXXXXXXXXXX

Author's Notes: That was gut-wrenching, don't you think? Haha. sorry for the bad pun but I need to practise my pun game for Assam, right?

Special thanks to Sharky for this chapter, more so than usual since his expertise in dealing with cannons are second to none and I was only able to write the important bits of this chapter due to his guidance.

That's it, see you again in a month or so!