ARC II chapter 14

A week after the Oarai vs All-stars battle, Berlin, Germany

Kurt Hoffmann, the leader of Blitzkrieg Mittelschule Panzerfahren team, replayed the match, which happened a week ago yet again. He needed to know the weakness of the Japanese team, if he faced them and he knew that while Nishizumi is the focus of most, that Trafalgar Jameson guy was as dangerous as her, be it in Tiger I E or M24 Chaffee.

"Still watching the Japanese fight, Brudder?" his sister, Erika, asked and he sighed before nodding in response to that. "Ja. I already have a plan in mind against Frösche, Ivans und Amerikaner, but Oarai… It is too hectic to make a plan against them beforehand," he replied while rolling his eyes and nearly hitting his head against the desk.

"The only way I see any chance to win is splitting up and ambushing at random spots," she countered, reminding him for about the 1000th time why he chose her as a vice-commander. It was only thanks to her that he managed to break through the encirclement that Север pulled against him with their KV-85s, allowing him to win the battle just a minute later.

"Yeah… And we should finally agree to upgrade our team with a few new additions too," he finished and closed his laptop, before hitting the hay, his mind already drifting off back to the near disaster of a match.

Tsuneo was on his way from the Donzoko bar after (once again) helping with transporting the Mark IV Male that he remembered from his school days. It after all made Oarai win one of the Winter cup tournaments, which Renta informed him that would be renewed and scheduled just correctly to not interfere with the Internationals. It might be a Winter cup, but it mostly happened to be held in spring, which was ironic in Tsuneo's opinion.

I wonder, where are the VKs and the Cromwell, he thought and smiled fondly at the memories he had with fixing (and secretly manning as a gunner the VK 16.02 Leopard, which also wasn't that uncommon back then) the tanks. The only thing he hated about that time was Renta's appointed successor at the position of SC prez. She cut most Sensha-Do funds for no reason, so the team had to hide some tanks and disband the Mechanic and Tank history clubs, leaving only a weakened team and the Automotive club… only for the team to be disbanded a few months later. He didn't know if it was a protest or Tsuji's successor "saving funds" again. But he was sure of one thing: she graduated from Oarai very rich. Oh, how was he glad that he accepted a post of junior chief engineer at Kuromorimine and met Shiho as the result, instead of staying there.

And thanks to him being deep in thoughts, he didn't notice that he turned wrongly, until his left shoulder made contact with something cold, metallic, rusty and on top of that, somewhat circular. Tsuneo then took out his flashlight from one of his many pockets, turned it on and pointed it at the object, his trademark grin reappearing in full force almost immediately, when he recognized the thing before him.

He spared no time after that and immediately texted Renta, Miho and Trafalgar to inform them about finding a tank from the still-missing triplet from the original roster, adding to the message for Renta that the Super Pershing was destroyed to pieces five years ago and that the Mark IV Male was found after the 63rd tournament.

And Tsuneo then did something that he knew would earn him stink eyes, if he did it in public: cuddled with the long lost tank from before Teriyaki Sakura became the SC prez, who also was behind Oarai's change into all-girls' school and (supposedly) behind the "only girls allowed in any aspect of Sensha-Do" agenda.

Somewhere in the Fukui prefecture

Jajka stared daggers at Jacek, when he "suggested" to buy a 25TP, instead of asking BC Freedom or Maginot for a Renault R35. But, that was only one of the other suggestions to replace their FT-17. Others simply wanted more 10TPs, TKS tankettes or 7TPjws, which were well in their budget to buy and still have some funds left.

"What is this 25TP?" Uszka asked, only for the boy to ignore her. "What. Is. It?!" Jajka repeated the question, even though she and Uszka both knew the answer, and only then the boy chose to answer her. He at least has some common sense to not try to piss me off, she thought with a small smile.

"It's a 25-ton medium tank with a 75mm gun," he answered blunty, as if he had only heard about it somewhere. "The speed of it?" she queried, suppressing her Killing Intent at the idiot. "About 40 km/h. That is 2 km/h faster than both Panzer IV H and Tiger I," he replied, and while the tank would be useful in a normal tournament, the Tankathlon rule of "only LTs under 10 tons of weight" forbade it from entering.

"No," Jajka growled. "That tank won't have much use for us." That only made Jacek smirk. "What about the Archer TD then, huh?" Jajka's eye twitched at hearing that. No one ever dares to speak to her like that. "Out. Now!" she shouted at the idiot, but he still remained in the room.

Jajka sighed at that, appearing that she had calmed down, but her right hand slowly reached for something she had hidden under the table. She found the grip and pulled it out, revealing a real, but blunted sabre that the Winged hussars used. "KURWAAAAAAAAA!" she shouted and leaped from her seat at the idiot, who only now decided to run away, narrowly dodging her strikes and managing to escape through the window.

Lucky bastard that the window is just two feet above ground, she thought and sat back down on her seat, hiding the sabre in its sheath under the table. "Pierogi," she finally said, "make sure that he never again shows up in this building or near our tanks." That earned her a nod from the girl in question, who, like the rest, waited for the meeting to end just to finish her assigned quest.

And only then Jajka finally allowed herself to relax a bit, but it didn't last as long as she wanted because… "Our informant at Gregor sent a message!" Uszka called out, catching her interest, but the contents of the message… It scared her. How is that possible?! Kafka would never trade even a single AH-IV for another tank and here she bought three medium ones and sold six AH-IVs! What the hell is going on?! she thought and fought the urge to faint at the spot from shock.

"With these tanks, she has a bigger chance to join another tournament than us," she whispered and walked back to her room, determined to at least stay in Tankathlon as its one and only Queen. After all, it was her role in the sport. And she'll make sure to teach Kafka a lesson for trying to leave the sport and giving her trust to a boy exchange student, unlike herself.