(or the hardships of leadership)
Now that Yoshika had cleared her mind about what happened earlier that day, she decided to go to the kitchen to prepare the lunch, "do you mind if I come with you" asked Shizuka, "of course not Shizuka" and both Witches headed to the kitchen.
In their way, Yoshika remembered what ingredients were available there, and she had already thought of something she can make with them but it still disappointed her the fact that there were not too many supplies at her disposal. After receiving her salary, she was going to get what she needed and sent the rest back home.
Though as the Fuso duo arrived at the kitchen, they realized that both Lynette and Perrine were preparing the lunch, it even seemed that they had almost finished.
"Hey guys, do you need any help?" asked Yoshika, "We have almost finished" replied Perrine, "that's true but you can put the dishes" added Lynette with a soft voice, thus both Fuso Witches did so but before they put out the last two, "that would be enough, Eila and Sanya are sleeping and they are not going to eat", said Lynette.
"Okey then" replied Yoshika, so as there was nothing else they could do, they sat down while both European witches served them the food. shortly then, Mio and Minna appeared and joined them.
They had lunch mostly in silence, the absence of the rest of the Witches made the dinner hall stale and after a couple of minutes, almost everyone had almost finished with their lunch and Minna and Mio thanked them for their food and told them they had to handle some paperwork and left the room.
Meanwhile Yoshika had barely touched her food; "it's not of your liking Miyafuji" asked Perrine.
"No, of course not" then she started to eat it slowly, "You're thinking about what happened earlier today, aren't you, Lynne told me", stated Perrine.
"I am, I messed up" mused Yoshika, meanwhile Shizuka did not know what the details of the mission were, so she was listening carefully.
"When you're leading a mission, you need to have a plan or think about one quickly and give clear, explicit instructions, you cannot expect everyone to do what you haven't told them to", stated Perrine, "but I …" then she remembered rushing to the fog without second thought.
"You're right, thank you Perrine, I really appreciate your advice" assured Yoshika looking down at her plate, carefully listening 'Yoshika's leadership was the problem, I wonder what happened' Shizuka thought.
"Oh please, you're more than capable of leading a team, I actually was surprised to hear the mission was unsuccessful, it would be better if you practice though" she added, "you're right" she enthusiastically said as she gobbled into the food.
The trio of witches watched with astonishment until she stopped when she had almost finished, "but I guess Commander Minna and Major Sakamoto are mad at me" Yoshika disappointingly said.
"I'm going to talk with them", assured Perrine "I want to help too" said Shizuka "thank you Shizuka".
Lynette did not say anything, "Don't you want to participate too Lynette?" asked Shizuka.
"I rather not", she softly said.
"Why?" enquired Yoshika.
"It's just that", Lynette trembled to continue.
"What's the matter?" innocently asked Yoshika looking at her eyes, but she could not.
"It's because what happened to Miyafuji, isn't it?" enquired Perrine, while Shizuka thought about Yoshika's injure that supposedly was nothing, there was more than she currently knew.
"Oh…, about that, it's not your fault Lynne, if there's anyone to blame, it would be me, I was supposed to be in charge, but I left you and besides, nothing really happened, c'mon I need you, all of you", Yoshika reassured her.
"I'm sorry Yoshika I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you" Lynette said as she tried to contain her tears.
"There's nothing to apologize" Yoshika added as she grabbed her hand and headed to the hangar, "but the dishes" Lynette claimed.
"And the authorization" added Perrine.
"Oh, I forgot about that" Yoshika stated.
"You three take care of that while I speak with Major Sakamoto" Perrine told them as she pointed the dishes, and the Gallian Witch left the room while the three girls did what they were asked to. Still, Shizuka wanted to ask what happened Yoshika earlier that day, but it was not the appropriate moment to do it.
"I wonder if they're mad at me" Yoshika wondered, "I'm sorry Yoshika, I told them how the mission went but they did not seem angry to me" Lynette added.
"I hope you're right" she wished.
After a couple of minutes, they finished and Perrine not coming back, the trio decided to wait outside Minna and Mio's office.
"I can't hear anything" Yoshika said.
"Me neither" Lynette remarked.
"I don't think there's anyone there" Shizuka stated.
"You think?" Yoshika asked her as she bent into the door to try to hear something, but while she did so, the door opened making her fall onto her chin, both girls gasped.
"Miyafuji?" exclaimed Minna
"Did you lost something, Lieutenant?" asked Mio while Perrine facepalmed.
"Ouch" Yoshika exclaimed as she rubbed her chin, then she realized what just had happened and got up as fast as she could, "nothing, I just… I just", red-faced, she tried to reply but no more words came out of her mouth but both commanders were dead serious.
"Perrine told us what you want to do" stated Mio with a serious tone of voice looking at her eyes directly, while Minna watched Yoshika rubbing her face making her even more nervous, "and… we have agreed to let you train" Mio said with a soft smile.
Her redness stopped, "thank you" Yoshika said as she vowed, "I thought you would be angry with me after I let you down", she added.
"Why would we be? After all, we all have failed once in a while" Minna added.
"We will not be angry but disappointed with you if you didn't make up for your mistakes" Mio continued, "It shows us that you are willing to learn from your failures by training".
"But you are only allowed to leave the base within a 5KM radius, we don't want to have any more surprises today" Minna stated.
"Commander Minna, before we depart, may I ask you for favor? Could you take care of this letter, it's for Altia" Yoshika said as she got out the letter from her jacket.
"I'm going to send it after checking if there's no confidential info leaked" Minna justified.
"No prob" Yoshika replied.
Moments later, the four Witches were currently in the sky just above the base, "Miyafuji, which formation are we going to use?", while Yoshika did practice lots of maneuvers when she trained under Minna, she was not able to practice formations as there were no more Witches available nor that she knew about a lot about them.
"I guess the V formation" she replied as she rubbed her chin.
"Don't tell me you don't know about them" Perrine facepalmed.
"I mean I mostly follow anyone of you, or I just attack them head on" Yoshika admitted.
"You do need to learn flight formations. but we only have four of us, so we need to the use four finger".
"Okey then", Yoshika lied to her as she was not sure what she meant, nevertheless her companions did know thus, Lynette went to Yoshika's left side as her Wingwoman and Perrine to Yoshika's right side and Shizuka the same to Perrine's and the flew around the base in perfect coordination, though it was nothing remarkable as they were veterans after all, the only difference was the fact that Yoshika was leading them.
"Can we do the Thach weave?" asked Yoshika innocently.
"The Thach weave?" requisitioned Perrine, that triggered something in her she had almost forgotten, the time she challenged Yoshika which leaded to the whole incident in Britannia; she never apologized to her for being so, so selfishly out of not-well-founded-jealousy, still Yoshika never hold a grudge to her and even became close friends if one could say that.
"Can we do it?" Yoshika asked again.
"Of course," Perrine replied with a bit of uncertainness.
The two groups of Witches started to weave into each other path going up and down, and they did it flawlessly.
"You think she's ready" commented Mio, "I can't be certain, one thing is for sure though, she has matured" stated Minna as they watched the girls' performance.
They continued flying for a couple more minutes, "what about the trail?" Yoshika told the group, "You're leading, Miyafuji, we follow your instructions, there's no need to ask" Perrine stated and thus, the three girls went behind her as she ascended into the sky, shortly the base became invisible hid behind the clouds and the fog, then Yoshika headed south followed by the girls.
"Miyafuji, I think we have passed the 5KM limit Commander Minna told us", remarked Shizuka.
"I know" Yoshika replied.
"You're going to take on the Neuroi that escaped, right Yoshika?" said Lynette.
"I am" Yoshika answered, of course the Britannian Witch knew Yoshika was stubborn and she was expecting her to pull off a stunt like this, still she was going to help her "I'm going to help you" added Lynette.
"Do you realize we all are going to be punished for this, right?" asked Perrine, not that she expected her to change her mind.
"Don't worry about that, I'm going to take the blame" Yoshika announced.
"As if it were that easy" Perrine sarcastically commented.
'Orders are orders' Shizuka said to herself but regardless of that, she wanted to help Yoshika "count me in!", she enthusiastically said to everyone's surprise.
Meanwhile, disobeying orders was par-for-the-course for Yoshika, she had done it more times that she even remembered, but it was always for the greater good and it went fine, most of the times at least; what was different this time though, was the fact that she had dragged her friends into it.
It would be better if she could fix her mess-up by her own but there was no way she could have sortied without everyone at the base noticing and getting in real trouble; still, this time she needed to make this right and lead them right, 'be explicit', 'be clear' Yoshika said to herself as they headed to the place the Neuroi was last seen.
"We were attacked from two different places, one close to the ground and one at the sky, Lynn and Eila took out the one at the ground" Yoshika stated as she slowed down when the fog became denser once again.
"So that means there's only at the sky?" said Shizuka.
"Yes" Yoshika nodded.
"How do you plan to take it down?" asked Perrine.
"With a four-finger formation, as there's not enough visibility, I am going to be in front, containing its attack while you shot it down" Yoshika boldly stated, while she knew they can take care of themselves, she wanted to be sure they are safe in the fog.
"That sounds good to me" Lynette said.
"Agreed" Perrine and Shizuka said but the latter with less enthusiasm.
They continued flying close enough to be able to see each other but far enough to be out of firing range, being aware of their surroundings but only fog could be seen.
Shortly afterwards, the mist turned red again, but Yoshika was ready as she summoned a shield big enough to cover all of them, and the beam came towards them.
The moment it impacted the shield, Yoshika's pace slowed down considerably, 'it's way too strong' she thought, as she struggled to move forward to where the beam was being shot from, its firepower reminded her of a bit of Wolf, but it was still far from that, nonetheless, she needed to advance.
"Let's continue moving and maintain formation", Yoshika ordered the girls, and while they noticed she was struggling to contain the beam, they trusted her instinct thus, they followed her orders.
As they were closer, Yoshika cried "now shoot!", and the girls started their assault as she continued to advance even at a slower pace and shortly afterwards, they finally could see the Neuroi.
"There" Shizuka said as they continued shooting. It seemed to be like gigantic steam machine of which the fog was coming from.
Unfortunately, most of their guns were weak against it as they barely scratched its black shield never mind penetrating it.
"This is futile, we need more firepower, we better retreat" stated Perrine as they continued firing.
While the worriedness had finally caught on Yoshika as she was starting to exhaust her magic reserves containing its attack, she heard Lynette saying "not yet" as she shot her 14mm rounds to the same spot which seemed to be enough to damage its armor.
Yoshika continued shielding them for what seemed like an eternity to her, and then, Lynette managed to expose its weak spot.
"The core!" exclaimed Perrine as Lynette continued shooting until her barrel overheated, "not good" Lynette exclaimed.
"Shizuka, Perrine, it's all yours!" Yoshika commanded them with what little breath she still had on her, and they started to shoot until the fog became red but now from below them.
"Not… again…", Yoshika gasped as a heartbeat skipped on her, still she was ready to deplete what little magic energy she had left to unleash a second shield to protect her friends no matter what it costed her but just as she deeply breath and prepared herself, Lynette went below to shield her or rather them.
"I got your back" Lynette exclaimed as she dropped the replacement barrel, she was in the process of exchanging.
Nevertheless, Yoshika was not entirely sure if Lynette could contain that kind of fire power, not that she did not trust her, but she did not remember if she or rather any tried to contain these beams, but thankfully it was not necessary to test it as Shizuka and Perrine had destroyed the core before it shot.
At that instant, it became white in both in front and below them, "we did it" the two girls said in unison as Yoshika unsummoned her shield.
The fog had started to vanish afterwards, and the ground became visible again and they realized they were flying way higher than what they initially expected, at around a kilometer from the ground.
"I guess the one we took a before was a drone, don't you think Yoshika?", asked Lynette.
"I… think... so…" Yoshika gasped as she struggled to keep the Shinden on the air, the three girls rushed to catch her before she fell but she still have a bit magic energy left to at least land as it seemed to be safe now, still Shizuka and Lynette carried her in their shoulders to be sure that she did not pass out before she landed.
Now in the ground, the Witches got out of their Striker Units, not before helping Yoshika to get out of hers; shortly afterwards, she threw herself into the grass to rest for a bit.
"I'm fine… I just need to rest for a bit…" Yoshika claimed to their relief, trying to regain her breath, they were worried thinking she overused her magic again, but she seemed to be conscious and just tired and seconds later, she seemed to have fallen asleep.
"I guess we have no choice but to wait until she wakes up", said Perrine, to which both girls nodded in approval.
It was still cold, but now the sun could finally illuminate the place where the battle took place.
"That explains why there's no electricity at the base" stated Shizuka as the girls saw several lampposts in the ground.
Perrine, then, walked towards the place where the drone supposedly was, and decided to call her two companions, "take a look" she said as she pointed the ground.
"That's weird" Lynette remarked as they saw several wires leading to the same spot.
"I guess it was feeding itself from the power lines, don't you think Lieutenant Clostermann" Shizuka commented.
"Hmm" Perrine questioned and then she recalled it was not the first time the Neuroi sabotaged the electricity as it had done something similar back in Venezia when it infiltered the base; though she would rather forget the bizarre incidents that occurred the same day. Nevertheless, she was still not so secure if it was using the electricity to power itself up, that would be something new.
"I believe so" the Gallian Witch answered with not much certainty in her voice.
"Perrine, do you read?" Mio called her through the transponder, making Perrine shiver when she heard the voice.
"Yes, yes Major we do", Perrine answered as calmed as she could.
"It seems the communications have been restored; we are unable to see you, state your location" Mio asked, which made Perrine ask to her companions through hand signals, but they did not know what to say either, the lack of help made her facepalm.
"Oh… we are… we are taking a… break, yes, that's it, we decided to rest", Perrine did her best to lie.
"Head back to the base, now! that's an order" Mio fumed through the transponder.
"Now?" Perrine asked again, that was going to be problem, she needed to buy them some time "the thing is, right now we're unable to because… because reasons" the blond Witch confessed.
"Reasons, what kind of reasons? I order you to tell me what's happening" the Major grumped.
Perrine did not know what to do and neither did Shizuka nor Lynette, until she heard a voice she was not expecting.
"Nothing it's wrong Major Sakamoto, we're going back to the base right now" Yoshika said to everyone's surprise as they did not notice she had already woken up nor that she was hearing the conversation.
"You have ten minutes", Mio ordered them.
"Roger" Yoshika replied, and hearing that, she headed to where the Shinden was left before.
"Yoshika are you sure can fly?", Lynette asked as she caught on her.
"Yeah, I rested more than enough" replied Yoshika happily as she stretched her hands above her head.
"Your magic pressure seems to have completely stabilized, about time" Perrine remarked.
"All thanks to Commander Wilcke's training" Shizuka added.
"I guess you could say that" Yoshika commented.
Shortly after, they all equipped their strikers and started to fly back to the base, but there was no way they could arrive at the time the Major required them to, but that was the least of her troubles for now.
As she was flying, Yoshika recalled what Lynette did to her when she asked Minna about the base, it seemed to be an appropriate moment to ask her.
"Hey, Lynne, what is what you wanted to tell me in the hangar?"
"Hmmm" the blue-eyed Witch tried to recall what it was, "oh yes, try to not talk about the base's current state in front of Commander Minna" Lynette commented.
"Why? I don't think I asked anything inappropriate" Yoshika voiced.
"The thing is, we barely have enough budget to go by, never mind fixing the base" Lynette added.
"That's…. interesting, when were back in Fuso, I clearly read that we were going to be given extra budget for what we did in Berlin" Shizuka announced.
'Maybe I should have read it too' Yoshika thought as she recalled not even checking what she signed.
"That would be a blessing" Perrine exclaimed.
"We did a great job retaking Berlin, I thought the European brasses would be a bit more generous with the base, at least" condemned Shizuka.
"Commander Minna told them just that, but they argued that the Ratte did all the hard work" stated Lynette.
"The hard work? I bet they were not even there to see what really happened, we almost got killed, twice, and we saved them", Shizuka snapped to the surprise of all the Witches, but then she started to recall the conversation she had with Yoshika about the brasses looking for Witch replacements, 'that couldn't be it, could it?' she said to herself.
"I'm sure they didn't, but they also told her that since the destruction of the Antwerp port, the operation to take back Berlin was heavily delayed and massively overbudgeted, that's why they don't enough budget for us".
'The destruction of Antwerp' Yoshika repeated to herself again and again. If only she had kept the revs lower than 2000 rpm as she was asked to, she could have avoided the destruction of the port, but she failed to do that.
Sure, if she had had a well-maintained striker, she could have taken it down with no problem, but it was working mostly fine until she overwhelmed it with magic power.
'That's ironic' she said to her own head, shortly after that, she was not even able to fly because of the lack of magic power; and now for her failure that day, the 501st were now having funding issues and who knew what was currently happening to the rest of Joint Fighter Wings.
"Not even Air Marshal Galland was able to convince them" Perrine remarked.
"Is there something we can do?" Yoshika grieved.
"Not much, other than taking care of our strikers" Perrine stated.
"And our salaries are not nearly enough to cover the expenses" Lynette remarked.
And then, the silence, an uncomfortable and disheartening silence took place and now only the engines could be heard.
After almost half an hour, they could now spot the base as the fog had almost completely vanished, though not only the base was now visible but Mio and Minna as well, they were already waiting for them outside the hangar, at the take-off track. Their demeanor seemed to be of displeasure to say the least.
The four Witches had already gotten out of their strikers and were now one side to the other, standing at attention, waiting for their superiors to come; and they took their time to do it, it suggested to them they were assessing how to proceed.
Mio was the first to start, "it seems you did more than just training, isn't that right Lieutenant Miyafuji?" she coldly queried her as she walked in front of their subordinates.
"Yes ma'am" Yoshika firmly reported or at least that what was she tried to.
"And that would be?" questioned Mio.
"We… we took on the Neuroi that fled earlier today" Yoshika hesitated to proclaim while Minna just watched in silence.
"I don't recall giving you authorization to do that, you were only supposed to be training if I recall correctly" Mio commented.
"That's true…, but we succeed" Yoshika happily announced.
"Miyafuji, Yoshika, you know orders and orders and you cannot disobey them, and that goes for all you" Minna made a pause, "giving the results, I guess we can give all of you room detention for the rest of the day" Minna remarked.
"May I say something?" Yoshika asked, and the two superior officers nodded in agreement.
"I am the only one to blame, I dragged them into this so I'm the only one who should be punished" Yoshika proclaimed.
"Yoshika…" exclaimed the three girls in unison.
"That doesn't matter, all of you disobeyed orders" Mio justified.
Yoshika tried to take all the blame but as Perrine said, it was not going to be easy, but then she thought of something.
"May I have request?" Yoshika asked her superiors.
"What is it, Lieutenant?" Mio asked her, at least she seemed not mad anymore.
"If it is possible as punishment, I would like to clean the base" Yoshika voiced her petition.
'That's the least I could do for now' Yoshika thought, nevertheless, that demand made the two officers exchange glances.
"I request the same" Lynette added.
"Me too" Perrine said.
"And me three" Shizuka also said.
"Alright then" Minna accepted their request with a smile on her face.
Later that day, at the night, both Eila and Sanya were well-rested and ready for night patrol but before they departed, the sub-artic duo headed to Commander's Minna office.
"Commander Minna, we are here to request permission to take down the Neuroi that got away" Eila announced her petition.
"That wouldn't be necessary, Yoshika, Shizuka, Lynn and Perrine had solved that matter, not that they were asked to though" Minna announced.
"Why does it always happen when we are sleeping? Well then, at least the patrol should be safer from now on" Eila added, still she was not so sure how Miyafuji managed to get permission to sortie again after what happened in the morning, but who cared, what was important was that mess was fixed.
"Commander, could they discover why I wasn't able to detect it?" enquired Sanya.
"Not really, other than discovering that the Neuroi was responsible for the fog and the power outage, there was no explanation of how it avoided to be detected" Minna announced.
That response gave Sanya a feel of unsettledness, unless the Neuroi was hollow enough so that her signals went through, it must not have been able to elude her. She needed to get to bottom of this but at least the night was clear and there should not be any issue with their upcoming duty.
The punishment lasted for a couple of days as the base was in worse shape than what Yoshika initially expected, still there was nothing she could do for now regarding the general shape of the base; at least it was clean, and it looked like a livable place now, but the supplies had started to run scarce.
As the days passed, Yoshika had to became more and more creative when she prepared the food for her fellow Witches but then she realized that it was futile, she was running out of things to cook, and she decided to make a difficult choice.
She went back to the room to write another letter, but this one was for her family back in Fuso, but as she got the paper out, and now with the pen in her hands, she needed to find the courage to write them. Nevertheless, she had promised them she was going to tell them true, no matter if it was good or bad, just the true.
Dear mom and grandma,
I really hope you're doing well at home in Fuso; here in Bolzano, things are not going as well as I hoped. Don't worry it doesn't have to do anything with the Neuroi, I'm just fine, everyone's fine, the thing is, we're running out of supplies and sadly I cannot longer send the salary I receive here.
I really hope you are not angry with me, but I swear there's no other way.
P.S. As soon as this is solved, I'll write you.
Your future medic
Yoshika Miyafuji
When she came to Europe this time, Yoshika never expected that there would be another enemy besides the Neuroi, the budget; and she never predicted it had to come to this but, it kind of was her fault that they were in this predicament after what happened to the port at Antwerp. This how it was and while it hurt her to write the letter, she knew it needed to be done and it was for the better.
Shortly after, she put the letter inside of an envelope, wrote the address and the recipient and pleaded that it went through the censorship; she was not leaking any confidential information, was she? Only time would tell.
Then, she left her room and headed to Commander Minna's office and when she was in the front of the door, she hesitated to knock it, but she found the bravery to do it.
"Commander Minna, may I come in?" asked Yoshika trying not regret what she was about to do.
"Yes, Yoshika" Minna replied.
As Yoshika entered the room with the letter on her hands, she noticed that there were several papers in the desk, and it seemed Minna was in the process of reviewing them.
"Oh, another letter, put it there, as soon as I finish signing this paperwork, I will send it" Minna stated not noting anything out of the ordinary in her.
"Thank you, commander", Yoshika quietly replied and left the room afterwards.
Yoshika (and co.) has fixed her mess up and got away relatively unpunished but her mistakes from the past still haunt her.
The next chapter is ready but I will upload it next week as usual, two of the missing Witches are going to arrive to Bolzano.