Shimachi smiled gently as the wind whipped across her face. Anyone else might have realized how pretty they looked with the sun turning their hair from light brown to a beautiful blonde as they rode a graceful steed like the Chaffee. Instead, Shimachi had her mind on much more important matters.
Running at speed was the pinnacle of Shimachi's existence. It was intoxicating, but this was more than a cheap thrill. It was openness and choice. Her way of playing. Her idea. This speed was part of this tank, and this tank was freedom.
No more listening to mom drone on about the correct way to approach a problem. No more toolbox of strategies and tactics. Only she would let herself decide what she wanted. It was no longer the call of anyone but Shimachi, let alone her parents.
Now it was Shimachi. Just Shimachi.
Just Shimachi, her, crew, and her tank running at top speed and enjoying existing.
The radio now added its noise to the ambiance.
"Falcon, New Jersey?"
Correction: Shimachi, her crew, her tank, and two entire Sensha-do teams.
Shimachi slipped down into the turret just enough to key the microphone. "Go ahead, Jersey."
"Our support is already here and taking position. Where are you?"
The Chaffee slid around a corner, kicking up a cloud of dust. Forms of tanks became visible in the meadow clearing.
"Right here, of course," Shimachi responded.
The voice in the radio sighed playfully. "Jersey out."
Shimachi closed her eyes and soaked in the last of the calm. Beneath her, she felt the tank slow as her driver pulled into position without needing to be told. Shimachi's vision was now filled by the bulk of an M26 Pershing. The larger tank's true size was distorted by its camouflage pattern. A G surrounded by a delta shape was painted on the turret cheek. Underneath, the name New Jersey was stenciled in the same black paint. A bright-eyed girl with truly blonde hair opened the hatch and peered down.
"Haaiii Shi-maa-chiiii!"
Focusing on her map with her newly cleared head, Shimachi waved in response.
"Aw, come on, doll! I haven't seen ya in half an hour! Don't give me that 'too cool for cute' bit!"
Shimachi began marking her map with a pencil.
"Don't make me come down there and hug you!"
With a faked sigh to hide her comforted smile, Shimachi finally verbally acknowledged the girl. "Yes, Asami, I see you. Hello."
"I said don't give me that act! I'll-"
"-tackle her out of the tank and hug her to bits," the voice of their team captain filled in. "I cannot tell which of you is acting harder."
"Once again, Misuzu knows exactly what I was gonna say," Asami muttered.
Misuzu climbed up to the Pershing's engine deck and opened a notebook. "Now that she's back and you're done with greeting shenanigans, tell me what's up."
Shimachi followed her captain and displayed her map, using her markings to explain the results of her scouting. "About a third of Kuromorimine's tanks were here when I saw them. A King Tiger, half a dozen Panthers, a Jagdpanther, and a pair of Pz IIIs." She pointed to another mark. "And this is where I left them. Based on their speed, they should be here in about… fourteen minutes."
A satisfied nod from Misuzu prompted Asami to begin her part of the conversation. "Saratoga Platoon is set up on the left edge of this clearing. First Section is further from us, that's Dallas and Windsor. Closer to us are Brooklyn and Firebird in Second Section. Together, they should have enough firepower to take Saratoga's share of these things from the flank."
A second nod from Misuzu showed her approval. She looked around for a few moments, thinking on her options. "Lexington Platoon can form the second leg of an L. I'll put Iowa at the corner, and you stay here at the far end of the bottom leg from me. Any issues?"
Asami shook her head.
"Alright, then. Stay sharp," Misuzu said with a warm smile. "We've got this."
Settling herself back into her tank, Shimachi watched Misuzu direct her tanks. Just like her own platoon, both sections consisted of a T20 and an M4A3. They began to take up hull-down positions behind berms and in low spots as the crew of Misuzu's Pershing worked on camouflaging their tank just where the forest met the clearing. Shimachi guessed that from there Misuzu could see all of both platoons as best she could.
She turned to her platoon leader. "Where do you want me? Should I follow Wind Talker?" Shimachi pointed to Lexington's M3A1 that was now taking up rearguard.
Asami shook her head again. "I want you up here with me."
Falcon's driver pulled the Chaffee into a hull-down position next to New Jersey. Shimachi stood on her chair at with most of her upper body out of the hatch. Her crew knew better than to ask her to sit down. While other commanders might prefer to sit in a position that let them just barely peek over the cupola, Chiyo preferred to see everything going on around her. Not that there was much to see right now.
After what felt like an eternity, Chiyo could hear the sound of a tank column approaching.
"What do you think it'll be?" Asami asked.
"This is the Nishizumi Style. They'll go in perfectly coordinated and try to overwhelm us with sheer force."
Moments later, a pair of Panzer IIIs appeared at the far end of the clearing. Seeing the mass of tanks, they immediately began to reverse back into cover. The T20 from First Section sent a round downrange and into one of the retreating tanks, stopping it dead. The other continued backward as shots flew past it.
"Way to go Dallas!" Asami encouraged over the radio.
Two and a half minutes late, Nishizumi. You're moving slow today.
Multiple tanks appeared from the tree line and dashed for the nearest firing position. For a moment, it seemed almost like they were going to charge. Shimachi knew better than that.
A voice echoed in her head, the voice of someone she knew all too well.
"Never in a hundred years will Kuromorimine simply charge an enemy. It is not our school's way, nor is such a brash attack within the teachings of the Nishizumi Style."
If they were advancing to new positions, surely Kuromorimine would have cover.
The deep rumble of a heavy gun thundered across the large clearing. A pinprick of light flashed out of the forest and hurled itself into the turret of Iowa just to the right of the gun. No way was the Pershing going to handle whatever that was.
There's the cover.
A brief period of stunned silence settled over her team. In the distance, the enemy was now established in their positions. They were here to stay, and in just the time it took for them to show up, Dominion's captain was out.
That's certainly a new one. The Nishizumi style is really changing it up today.
The silence did not last long. A ripple of fire came from the far line as a volley cut through the air. A T20 from the other platoon named San Diego took a hit from something. The thwip of itsflag snapping up was followed by a wave of shells flying the other direction. Shimachi eased her override handle and set her gunner onto the remaining Pz III. The result was a similar effect to Iowa's end with no odds of handling the impact.
Rounds flew back and forth for several minutes before another massive thunderclap sounded. It had clearly had been intended for the last T20 from Lexington Platoon and bit deep into the berm in front of the tank. The T20 dropped back below its cover as clods of dirt pelted its roof.
Next to Shimachi, New Jersey came to life. The 90mm gun roared, kicking up a cloud of dust that mingled with smoke. Shimachi felt the shock in her chest. Her teeth felt like they rattled in her jaw. A distant burst of sparks flickered in the trees.
"No way did that thing just bounce a ninety," Shimachi muttered to herself.
Putting aside the threat and steadying herself in the cupola, Shimachi attempted to direct her gunner's fire to be of use. She managed two perfect hits in a row on a Panther's lower glacis, but the armor stopped both shots with nothing to show for it. The Panther's crew was understandably displeased and their response roared the opposite way. Whether it was meant for Falcon or New Jersey, Shimachi couldn't tell. It slipped between the two tanks with an uncomfortable hiss.
A near miss was still too near for comfort, and Shimachi could see Asami waving her into cover. Despite craving an effective hit on the enemy, she understood the situation and her driver backed the Chaffee below the berm.
Another round flew toward the Pershing; this one bounced off the left-side turret cheek. Sparks showered down the tank's side as Shimachi's ears were subjected to the shriek of steel hitting steel. The shell flew over her head and tumbled through the air, landing somewhere behind them. Even with this assault, Asami's head was still visible in her cupola as she directed her tanks.
"Come on, Firebird! Get yourself angled!"
Firebird's driver turned her tank slightly to increase the armor's thickness, doing so at the last possible moment. A round streaked across the clearing and ricocheted off the right side before flying into oblivion.
Several tanks down the line, a Sherman named Yellowstone pulled itself up out of its hiding spot and sighted in on a Panther. It managed a fairly easy kill, but another shot from the unseen heavy tank made it a short-lived victory.
Chiyo reached for her radio mic.
"New Jersey, do you see where those heavy shots are coming from? Their Jagdpanther is way back in those trees."
"Yeah, I figured that's what it was too. This is turning into an absolute slugfest. Any ideas?" Asami responded.
"Killing it may be prudent."
The forward face of the berm evaporated into a filthy cloud. Asami's giggle was just barely audible in Chiyo's headset over the sound of earth returning to its rightful place. "No shit."
There would be no way for Dominion to head-on that tank destroyer. If New Jersey couldn't take it, no one could. The only option was to get around the thing. Both Asami and Shimachi knew this well and Asami's tone was more than enough confirmation that Falcon was free to take flight.
An old adage Shimachi heard plenty of times run itself through her head involuntarily.
"Changing tactics is essential. A team must be ready for anything and should be able to use a variety of methods to achieve victory. There is no one direct path, but a multitude of them."
Shimachi gritted her teeth. Shut up, shut the fuck up!
Now was no time for the kinds of mental games she'd been taught growing up. This was what had to be done, not because someone else made her do something different for the sake of doing so.
New Jersey launched a number of smoke grenades, obscuring the pair from the enemy and all but ordering Falcon to get moving.
"Driver, right wood line, double-time." Shimachi pushed the memories out of her mind as the Chaffee accelerated away from the berm and into the nearby trees. Once they were hidden from sight, ordered her driver to keep the engine quiet with a soft "Shush." An equally soft "Left" had Falcon heading parallel to the clearing. Shimachi could hear the sounds of more tanks going down. At this point, it didn't really matter who it was. She had a job to do and anything else would be wasting time.
Rounding the corner at the far end, the Jagdpanther's muzzle flash gave Shimachi a very nice target. Even so, she didn't dare fire. The enemy had no idea she was here. Why bother with chancing a shot?
Getting closer, the slab-sided form of the German tank destroyer started to become apparent. Falcon glided to a gentle stop as the gun stabilizer worked its magic. A simple boot tap on her gunner's back was Shimachi's answer to the problem of heavy armor.
The stunned commander lifted herself out of her tank destroyer, not quite understanding what had even happened. Shimachi didn't bother with gloating or theatrics, let alone eye contact. "Jersey, Falcon. Target down, attacking."
"Excellent, girl! Wait, you're… what?!"
Shimachi flipped her mic back to the intercom. "Go ahead."
The Chaffee's turret spun, the gunner taking Kuromorimine's position and flipping it on their head. A Panther was out in moments, followed by the track of another. A trio of shots rang out, all slamming into the hapless tank at once.
Panthers were not to be Falcon's biggest prey. The turret began tracking a new target as Shimachi eased the override. The back of the King Tiger was a perfect bookend for the Chaffee's surprise performance.
Off handle, signal AP, tap… There wasn't much for the Kuromoriminine formation to do without their anchors. Almost as soon as the King Tiger's flag shot up, the Panthers began to break their line. Each tank began to fight for itself in hopes of finding some kind of success. There was none to be had. Shimachi listened to Asami coordinate fire on each target as she slipped back the way she came. In the time it took to make the run back to the protective side of New Jersey, everything was over.
Asami pulled herself out of her cupola as Shimachi admired her captain's handiwork. Six Panthers, a King Tiger, a Jadgpanther, and a pair of Panzer IIIs in exchange for Dominion's team captain, nearly her entire platoon save for the scout and a lone T20, and the Sherman Windsor from Saratoga's Second Section. Not the worst trade ever.
"You're it," the loader of New Jersey sighed once she had joined Asami outside the stuffy confines of the turret.
"Miss Harumi is our vice, isn't she?" Shimachi asked, frowning with confusion. "That means Yorktown Platoon takes over."
The loader took a worried look at her commander before speaking. "Yorktown got jumped hard by another heavy formation. Missouri was the first one down, and things fell apart from there. Only the Hellcats got away."
Silently, Shimachi cursed herself for muting the team-wide radio net to concentrate on the Jagdpanther and her own platoon. Perhaps her mother wasn't wrong about listening to everything all the time. Out loud, she hid her discomfort in more questions. "What exactly was the formation?"
"Well, it was lead by a Tiger I," Asami responded.
A Tiger. That sent a shiver down Shimachi's spine. There was only one person in all of Kuromorimine that ran a Tiger I.
"Nishizumi…" Shimachi muttered. She again cursed silently, although this time with more vulgarity and directed at someone other than herself.
Asami ran her fingers through her blonde hair to tame it as best she could. Messing with her hair always meant she was thinking, and that was either genius or terrifying. She turned to look at Shimachi, badly hiding a sly grin. "What would you do with her?"
"Sh-shut… shut up, will you?!" Shimachi stammered. Facing off against a Nishizumi was the last thing she wanted to do. "That's someone else's fight, okay? I am not here to fight that battle!"
"I'm not asking you to fight anybody. I'm just asking because I need advice on how to lead half a Tankery team when I had no plans to do so today."
When Asami put it like that…
"Do something new. Do something you just do not do," Shimachi answered confidently. "Certain people say you adapt and change tactics, but I say make something happen that is completely out of line."
Asami was grinning again. "Then go right ahead."
Frustration flared forth in Shimachi's mind. "I am not special! I am here to do what I want, not make a personal showdown out of a match!"
"Do it your way, then. Isn't that what you want? I'm not asking because you're you, I'm asking because you know what you're doing," Asami countered.
Why the hell was she so good at this?
The start of a plan had already been forming in Shimachi's mind the moment she'd answered Asami's question. All she needed were tanks and a place to put them. She mentally ran through Dominion's match roster. Wind Talker was just a few dozen meters away now that the group of tanks was converging, and the Hellcats Kittyhawk and Wildcat were already running to link up with her platoon if the newly un-muted radio was to be believed.
"Asami, where's the other platoon?" Shimachi asked, studying her map.
"Intrepid Platoon? Uhm… just to the southeast of where Yorktown ate it."
"Get them ready to attack. Nishizumi will know they're coming. Make the Hellcats stop and wait for me. Saratoga can follow, but you're not going to catch us in time. Oh, and this? This was all your idea that you can explain to everyone else." Shimachi beckoned Wind Talker to follow her. The Stuart's commander had mere seconds before Falcon took off, leaving the smaller tank to catch up.
"What do you think we have… wings?!"
Shimachi didn't need to see the Stuart's commander after Asami's – or rather hers disguised as Asami's – plan had been relayed over the team radio net. There was no way that any driver on the team with the exception of her own could keep up the kind of speed that the hastily-assembled group needed to make the run all the way to their target in the time Intrepid Platoon would last in the face of Kuromorimine's crushing wall of armor. Nothing could be done. The platoon leader could already hear the enemy, which meant Nishizumi could easily hear them. Fighting was no longer a choice.
Tearing through the forest at speeds bordering unsafe kept Shimachi from thinking too hard about that error. What was done was done, and she couldn't change it. The only thing to do was keep going. Nishizumi would be out there, friendly tanks available or not.
Instead, Shimachi thought much harder about what she was doing. All her time as a student at home and in other schools closer to it, Sensha-do was always about having a plan and either seeing it through or making changes where they were needed.
Not today.
Today was something Shimachi could pull out of thin air. It didn't matter what Dominion's strategy or backups were. Today was about taking the chance to finally fly free. To show everyone, but most importantly herself, that it was really possible to do things differently, and to do it completely unexpected.
Just the way Shimachi liked.
The Hellcats had joined the group what felt like both seconds and hours ago, and by now the sounds of battle thundered through the trees. Much to Shimachi's dismay, the new arrivals had little idea what to make of her hand signals, and she had to resort to the radio for every command. It added yet one more thing to worry about.
Stopping below the crest of a hill, Shimachi watched the scene before her. Over half of Intrepid Platoon's tanks were out, less than what Shimachi had expected given her tardiness. The platoon leader's Pershing Wisconsin was holding on for dear life in what was once a riverbed. Its armor was pitted and scorched where multiple rounds had bounced. The rocky earth around it was equally cratered and scarred.
A round screamed from left to right and connected with the turret ring, anticlimactically ending its standoff. Shimachi could clearly see what had fired the shot: a Tiger I numbered 217. In the commander's cupola was a face she recognized clear as day. It was the face of a tank commander who either didn't know she was there or had no care in the world.
The singular remaining Sherman wouldn't occupy Nishizumi much longer and would end Shimachi's ability to hide in the heat of battle. It was now or never.
"You two kittycats fire on my mark. Anything but the Tiger. Wind Talker, you're going to run like hell and follow me, got it?"
Nods sufficed for verbal confirmations. Anyone else might take a steadying breath but Shimachi gave a whispered countdown.
"Three…"
A Panther sent a round downrange, blowing out the Sherman's track.
"Two…"
Falcon began to silently coast down the crest of the hill.
"One."
The Tiger ended the Sherman's day just as precisely as the Pershing. Its white flag hardly had time to pop up before the next command was shouted.
"Mark!"
The Chaffee's engine roared as it hurtled down the hill. Behind them, the even louder report of antitank guns blasted at Shimachi's ears. A pair of Panthers went down, but Shimachi kept her eyes on the Tiger. Her gunner fired off the smoke mortar, shrouding them in a thick grayish-white plume.
At this speed, Falcon was in and out of the smoke in seconds. The Tiger had turned on the spot to bring the gun around faster, but Shimachi was so close now that she could count the track links of her target. Very few turrets could track a full-speed Chaffee at close range, let alone a Tiger. Falcon dove past the left side of the German behemoth and spun a full one-eighty, now coasting backward. The thump of the 75mm reverberated and echoed around the hills.
The mighty echo was followed by an incredibly loud silence.
Per Sensha-do regulation, all crews had to stay in their tanks until the area was deemed clear by the judges. That didn't bother Shimachi one bit. She would rather stay buttoned-up in the turret of her Chaffee. Having everyone staring at her was more than a little uncomfortable.
In the time it took for judges to show up and approve the place as safe, the match had already ended. Kuromorimine was about as flexible as their tank's armor and as rigid as a wet noodle without their darling captain. Asami had finished off what was left with the help of the Hellcats, taking the match for Dominion.
Shimachi hadn't even listened to any of the radio feed. Her mind was filled with equal parts adrenaline, serotonin, and outright fear of the attention she would get. She only pulled herself from the Chaffee when the judges had knocked on the hull.
She slid down the side and came face-to-face with the first and last person she wanted to see right now. The girl was as old as she was and wearing a wholly different uniform. Her brown hair trailed to her shoulders and her equally brown eyes seemed to pierce a person like a tank shell. Shimachi froze under her gaze.
Was she mad? Should instead Shimachi preemptively speak?
The girl's stare became something of a smile as she broke the silence. "You have taught me well today. Next time you will be the one learning."
Shimachi knew she had learned as much in the past hour than she had in the last six months, but she could not form the words to speak. The girl continued.
"You do not fight like I think you would. It is like your house's style, yet your own. How do you develop it?"
Had that really been a style? It sounded like everyone else who had said that Shimachi had to find her own Sensha-do, but this didn't feel like she thought it would. Regardless of whether or not it was, now Shimachi had to speak. "I… I simply did what I wanted."
The girl's smile warmed more. "It is wise we do not share our secrets, yes? Two things for the next we meet: One, you may call me Shiho. And two, on the field of Sensha-do..."
Shiho made direct eye contact with Shimachi as she spoke the next words.
"I will not lose to you again, Chiyo Shimada."
