With Lyova's departure, Saunders had lost its best accountant. The new man Pyotr was bound to take his place the next day. Kay was anxious about this but she had come to blows with the former accountant that she fell out of favor with, and she hoped Pyotr was going to shake things up.
Pyotr arrived the next morning as he was carrying a briefcase. He had been taking notes of what was going on with the school and he was ready to make some improvements. He knocked on the door as Kay was busy reading her book.
"Come in." Kay told them. Pyotr stepped in, he was a balding man, in his late forties and had some level of facial hair. He walked over to Kay, and he began to speak to her.
"Hey you're Kay. I'm Pyotr Stolypin, I'm the new accountant. I've been here to replace a certain Lyova Witte." He began. He walked over and took a seat in front of Kay. Kay looked at the man as if he was trying to be friendly with her.
"Hey, would you want something to drink?" Kay offered Pyotr something to refresh his throat. Pyotr nodded with a no as if he was good.
"I'm fine but thank you." He told her. He then cleared his throat and began to speak. "I was actually in the steel district when the revolution broke out and that was the only district that wasn't harmed from the revolution. I placed martial law on it until the situation improved. I decided to come along and fix the school's economic woes as the industry is making progress but other areas, not so much."
"What are we behind in?" Kay asked Pyotr if there was anything they should improve on.
"We need to reform agriculture as that hasn't been reformed for a while and we need to begin our catch up to close the gap." Pyotr told Kay that they needed to begin work in the most neglected areas. "Plus, the mess the revolution had made means we need to begin rebuilding the areas most affected as these people don't have homes."
"Okay, I guess I'll leave you to it if this means we can get to improving our lives." Kay knew she had to be hands off and leave the man alone if they were going to make any meaningful change.
Later that day, Pyotr approached Kay as he had plans to help out with the agriculture problem. Megumi was in the office too, but her friend was still in hiding. This meant that Pyotr was chatting with the two of them.
"Okay I know a perfect way to reform the school in order to prevent any more chaos." Pyotr began. "Step one, we reform agriculture, this will make the peasants love us. Crop output will also go up by a third." The plan was in three simple phases, strip farming from the commoners except for a select few, privatize the farming and then rich peasants.
"And step two?" Kay asked.
"Uh…" Pyotr began as he tried to think of a plan to follow up with step two. "We'll kill anyone who doesn't." To discourage any more revolutionary ideas, Pyotr began to crack down even harder on Kay's opponents, and even a few were sentenced to death. The noose even earned itself a new nickname: Stolypin's Necktie.
"I don't get it?" One of the liberals began as she was being accused of a crime. The punisher then placed the noose around her neck. "Oh, I see, it goes around my neck. That's so funny." She began, but the stool was quickly pulled below her, and she was forced to choke.
But despite the oppression, some positive reforms were being implemented with the help of Megumi and the economy began to improve. This was obviously a problem for Fumie, if the people weren't suffering then they wouldn't support a revolution. She, Alexandra and her friends weren't in a position to do much of anything. However, they were going to pull off a big heist that would help them get some money to continue funding the revolution.
"Everyone in position?" Katyusha would begin speaking. She was growing impatient about it.
"Working on it." Fumie replied. Katyusha began to grumble as Fumie was taking her time.
"What is taking so long? I thought we knew the plan?" Katyusha asked.
"Okay, let's get underway. If something goes wrong, we change our plans on the fly." Fumie told them as there was no time to make any sort of revisions to the plan and they needed to go in now.
"Got you." Lisa told the group. Now the planned robbery was going to begin. Fumie's carriage was carried out by a couple of horses, the carriage in question was an open top phaeton as she was looking around for the money carriage. The money carriage was being stored in by a couple of the liberal students as the others were busy making a hefty transaction.
"And when will I get my bored ape tokens?" She asked.
"I will send them to you in an email later on tonight. For now, get yourself home with the money." She told the other student. Then several firecracker grenades were tossed out. The two girls didn't notice but they were the first ones affected by the robbery, they exploded as the two girls were sent into pain, the others sprang out as Fumie gave the signal.
"Now's our chance. Attack!" Fumie shouted; the students whipped out their Nagant revolvers as Katyusha was carrying two on her this time. Lisa went to the carriage and began to haul away the sacks of money to their cart. Several students made an attempt to stop all of this, but Katyusha pulled out her two revolvers and began firing away to take down those who may try to stop them. She looked on with glee as she continued firing away.
"If this isn't quiet, I don't know what is!" Katyusha shouted happily while she continued firing away. The people began to scatter as Katyusha fired the revolvers. One person was struck down with one of the pellets as two more were then hit shortly afterward. Lisa was packing the sacks of money onto the cart while Fumie was guarding it. Once they had gathered all the money, many people were injured, and Fumie gave the signal.
"That's all of it. Time to escape!" She shouted. Lisa, Katyusha and the other robbers hopped on and began to ride away from the scene. The people were left dazed and disorientated from the attack while they were beginning to make their getaway. The police then rode up as Fumie was carrying the cash. The girls did their best to hide it while Fumie attempted to act cool with them. "The money is safe, run to the square." Fumie told the police; she mimicked a Saunders dialect and did a perfect job of doing it. The police were fooled and began to run to the square where the robbery was taking place. Fumie snickered once the police were far enough away and began to ride away to get this money to a loading site where they could load them up and ship it out back to Pravda.
Once the robbery had concluded, Fumie and the group made it back safe and sound, they didn't get caught. She had called a meeting over to get the tally on how much they ended up stealing.
"Wow we made it off with a fortune today." Fumie began while Lisa was dumping the sacks of cash out. She grabbed the bills of Yen and placed the pile by her ear. She began letting them all slap each other as Fumie was very happy about this. "This will be enough to fund the actions of the school for the next few weeks! Saunders is an easy looting target it seems."
"Yep, as the school would recover, the looting would kind of become harder to pull off but seeing how weak willed those policemen were, we can do anything." Lisa also added. "Also, I stole the blueprints for their three-line rifle a while back and how are they coming along?"
"Coming along nicely I will say, we will begin making plans to help smuggle these rifles under their noses as we also copied and pasted their logo on the metal, they won't know where they will be heading too." Clementia told them while wheeling a crate of finished rifles. Alexandra walked over and picked one out of the box. She spent some time inspecting it from top to bottom. It seemed like the rifle that she had designed by hand. She continued to look at it before she began speaking.
"Nice rifle, almost as good as some of the other rifles. Some of the inspectors I got when I used to go to Saunders were very picky. They would not accept the rifle if the grain of the wood was facing in the wrong direction. I never really questioned it and if we needed rifles, then we got some who thought the metal work wasn't nibbed in the right spot." Alexandra began while she inspected the rifles. "You will make your own right?" She asked. Fumie began to think about it while Alexandra picked up and began inspecting another rifle. This one would have been rejected if any inspector was there and looking at the rifles. She then picked up the last one and decided to take a look at it.
"We will make our own. We have a few being stored as these are what we need and have their own personal upgrades. The rest we're going to smuggle to Saunders to arm the workers. We're also sending them over to some of the smaller schools as Kebab is in a weak position. Ankara is being ravaged by corruption and endless rebellions from the others that want their own way in life. We're planning on selling them to her and possibly have them shipped to Saunders in the meantime." Fumie explained that they were going to be stoking the seeds to spread the revolution. Alexandra nodded before opening the chamber and looking down the internal magazine.
"Impressive metal work there. I bet the girls in the metal shop knew what they were doing?" Alexandra asked before she pushed the bolt forward and turned it down.
"Yep. We actually play the game of country making smart. Since we don't really get involved with the other schools with their wars and squabbling, we used our money wisely over the past five or so years. Only time for fighting is the Sensha-Do tournament and that is for the cash prize as we are growing in size, but we have a hard time replacing the money we keep spending. It's reasons like this we resort to crime." Fumie explained to Alexandra what exactly she was talking about. Alexandra placed the rifle away as Clementia began to wheel the crate off.
"So Sensha-Do is a gambling sport?" Alexandra asked.
"In definition. Yes. It's the elites of Japan to see who they could bet to see which school to win. Everyone else contributes to the prize pool as the winning school goes home with the prize money." Fumie explained what they were doing with the money and which school was going to win the money.
"So, if you aren't able to get the prize money, why do you resort to crime?" Alexandra asked Fumie if there was a reason for people like Katyusha resorting to what they would do. Fumie looked at Alexandra as if she was bowing her head in shame.
"It's because we're a school cut off from the rest of the world, our glory days are far behind us and we're slowly rotting away. The school has lost its spirit since December of 91 and the dissolution has greatly affected us for the worse. Over the years, we stopped being competitive and while we got tanks, none of us had that spirit we usually did before." Fumie explained why they had remained so isolated and alone for most of the time. Alexandra felt saddened by this and began speaking.
"You think that we can revive the spirit from the grave and spread the ideals?" Alexandra asked Fumie if this was going to be possible. Fumie looked at Alexandra. "I was a bit of a monarchist who loved the motherland as much as you do so we're opposites, but I think there is one way we should be able to meet each other in the middle."
"Oh. I think we can figure out how we can work together to form a coherent group and get our spirit back. If you have any ideas as to where all of this began. Explain."
"This all began when Saunders was having a rough time known as the Times of Troubles. There was constant sickness, revolts, having little to nothing to eat and endless wars with Bonple's commonwealth and Viggen. We decided to put our first czarina as the new leader, and she managed to turn things around. And over time we began to grow more and more powerful, but we feel like we're losing our spirit again to concepts like democracy, free speech and the right to bear arms. Those concepts don't make sense. We were fine the way we are, but these changes aren't welcome. Kay is using them to destroy the very school I built the foundation on." Alexandra explained how this all started and why this was successful. "I didn't want any change at the end of the day as the school was fine."
"Alexandra, some change should be tolerated, it's not like it will tear the school to shreds. We managed to get into contact with a certain accountant who we invited to stay to help do our finances. And when we said we had Alexandra. He sounded excited and he's currently working on reorganizing our finances with three other accountants." Fumie tried to explain to her that some work to be better is allowed. When Alexandra heard the fact that they made contact with an accountant that was more than excited to be working with them. Alexandra's ears perked up with excitement.
"Was his name Lyova Witte?" Alexandra asked. Fumie began to think of the name. Was it really him that decided to contact them to find work? After what seemed to be a few minutes of thinking. She turned her head to Alexandra, and she began speaking.
"Yes. That's his name. He told me he was looking for work after the last school he was in wouldn't listen to his ideas on how to improve it. He did manage to save it though and its owners he felt like stabbed him in the back. We were more than willing to offer him a job and he took it." Fumie told Alexandra that the man that chose the job to help out in the school was the same accountant that helped Saunders before. Alexandra was excited.
"Don't know when I would wish to meet him." Alexandra told Fumie that he was her friend and hopefully they could see each other. Fumie looked at Alexandra before she began speaking again.
"He said he wanted to be left alone for the time being so we can't talk to him. But once he gets used to being here. Then he would want to speak to any of us. We didn't even tell him that you were even here." Fumie explained to Alexandra about their accountant. He didn't want to speak to them until he got settled in.
"I think it's Kay that has given him a hard time." Alexandra added. She turned and began walking away. "At this rate, the school is going to be driven into the ground and then it will shut down. All those years. All of the czarina's will be gone to the sands of time. Kay just wanted to rewrite our past."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Let's give that inbred southerner what she really deserves." Fumie told Alexandra that Kay will continue to get her's.
Kay and Megumi were in their rooms as they were reading over their papers when a letter began to come in to say something to them.
"I want some fried chicken." Kay began. Megumi looked at her as if she was saying no. She can't have any.
"You just ate, how much more do you want to eat?" Megumi asked while she noticed the letter coming in. She walked over to the machine and grabbed the letter; she didn't know who it was from or why they were trying to contact her specifically. Megumi then began to read over the letter.
Dear Megumi
Congratulations on getting that new accountant, we wish to meet him. Anyway, I wanted to invite you to our school ship as we decided to build a statue in your honor Megumi for what you did at the beginning of the year when you became tsarina. We wanted to show it to you. And after that, we wish to take you to see a ballet, Swan Lake, which is playing at our school. We just want to spend the night with you and improve our relationship together to make sure we aren't getting into any fights/ We miss you.
Tatiana
"They want to invite us over for a statue unveiling?" Kay asked. She couldn't believe it. Megumi turned to Kay and began speaking to her.
"Yes, they do. It's about me when I freed the serfs when the year began. You have to come along too if you want to spend the night with our friends." Megumi told Kay that they needed to spend the time with their friends.
"Our friends? It's more like your friends. I don't care about them. Even if I do care, I still won't go to them. They don't represent my interests." Kay protested that these friends of Megumi aren't ones that she would wish to associate herself with. Megumi looked at Kay as if she was angry with her.
"Stop being so difficult Kay. You have to go if we are to improve the relationship with them. They're our allies and we have shared history with them. What do you say: Can we try making this relationship work?" Megumi asked. Kay began to think about it, could they try making it work or will it fall apart. She was never fond of Megumi's friends, especially Tatiana in particular as she made Kay speak a language, she wasn't very fond of.
"We should also begin reaching out to the other schools if we are to begin preparing ourselves." Kay told Megumi that their small alliance of just a few schools wasn't going to do much, and they needed to begin getting ready.
"What for?" Megumi asked. She was puzzled with what Kay had said. Kay turned and she began to speak.
"It's Kuromorimine. They still have their alliance, and we need to get our former enemies on our side if we are to stand a chance against Kuromorimine." Kay told Megumi that they should begin looking for more allies and therefore try getting a foothold against Kuromorimine. Megumi was hesitant about it as she feared any sort of backlash coming from them or their allies.
"Are you sure about that? It might seem a bit early to begin alliance building as a result of this. Can't we just convince Kuromorimine to slow down with whatever they're doing?" Megumi asked as if she just wanted to talk it out with them to see what it was that they had in mind. "Also, we should begin investing in the M6 heavy tanks as everyone is building up their array of heavy tanks." Megumi suggested diverting some of the funds to creating Sherman tanks and instead make heavy tanks that could rival Kuromorimine as everyone was purchasing heavy tanks at this point.
"Our Sherman tanks are fine; we don't need to begin making so many heavy tanks to rival our opponents." Kay told Megumi as she wasn't going to be listening to her advice.
"Do you even listen to anything at all?" Megumi asked Kay if she was capable of listening to her. Kay looked at her as if she didn't want to answer that question.
"I don't want to answer that and if I did, it would mean basically nothing." Kay told Megumi that she had nothing to say.
"You're frustrating sometimes Kay and if you continue acting the way you are, don't expect the school to stay afloat." Megumi grumbled. She got up and she left the room. She didn't know what she wanted to say next.
Megumi returned to the room where Lola was in as she had been resting around. She had kept her hidden for some time now and was getting to talk to Megumi.
"Hey Megumi." Lola greeted her. Megumi walked in while she kept a look out to find that she wasn't going to be spotted.
"Hey Lola, how are things?" Megumi would ask her. Lola looked at her as if she nodded in a soft manner.
"Boring. Well, it's a rest in my brain but I feel like I've been cut off from the outside world." Lola began. She missed her time writing and the fact that she published stories under her own name. Megumi had decided to hide her by telling her to cease writing altogether.
"I feel bad for you, but it is for your own good, so you don't get thrown into prison." Megumi tried her best to tell Lola why she was hiding her. Lola nodded again.
"Aww thanks Megumi, I appreciate it that you're helping out me there." Lola sweetly told Megumi that she was thankful for her.
"You're very welcome but you need to keep low for the time being. I will take you with me. But you will have to be dressed as someone different and you will have to interact with different people." Megumi instructed Lola that she would come but she had to spend time with different people opposed to Megumi, Kay and whoever else she was with that day.
"So, we got ourselves a deal?" Lola asked her.
"Yep. It's a deal." Megumi replied.
[A/N]: One last hurrah before the vacation as I definitely got this faster than I expected. Friday and today was a lot of running around to be able to get done before we head away, and I managed to squeeze one last chapter into the story before the expected departure day. Let's hope we can reach a thousand total views for the month as the next week will end up being silent due to the said vacation.
We surpassed 1,250 total views for the fanfic so far and we're slowly trudging along. There are going to be more events leading up to the eventual war as Kay thinks they should begin preparing after what happened with their war with Chi-Ha-Tan. Megumi thinks there is nothing to worry about while Kay thinks there is some trouble looming over the horizon.
The next few chapters or so will be eventual smaller conflicts that will be happening as well as alliance assurances from the others before the conflict begins rolling out for the characters to fight each other. See you in a week.