The hardest part of being a leader was projecting a veneer of confidence even while plagued with doubts. Confidence wasn't something they lacked in their school although the other schools called it idiocy. It was true to outsiders they seemed suicidally overconfident in their abilities. The alternative however would be to give up before they had even started.
That would have been very easy to do in their situation and they could have quite literally given up before they even started as they saw the results of the drawing. Chi-ha-tan versus Kuromorimine. One of the most successful and feared schools in Sensha-do versus them; one of the least successful.
Nishi Kinuyo loved Sensha-do. She loved her school. But there were times when the disadvantages held by her school and team got to her. They had some great tanks like their Type 97 Chi-Ha Kais. They were fast and their guns were powerful. Sure, they lacked in armour but they made up for with their speed. Unfortunately, the schools of the Big Four fielded tanks with armour that were impervious even to the Chi-Ha Kais guns at point blank range.
Tanks like the Tiger. The Tiger E commanded by Nishizumi Maho which was Kuromorimine's flag tank today. It was invincible. If they could disable its tracks, disable its gun and then hammer it in the rear or flanks it might finally be registered as a kill. But it would need to be isolated and somehow the other nine Kuromorimine tanks made unable to aid it. Nishi simply couldn't see how that was possible. Captain Nishizumi would never make herself vulnerable like that and the entire Kuromorimine team adhered to the Nishizumi Style. They advanced together. They fought together.
So while Nishi wanted to win, she knew that wasn't possible. Not today. She would arrange an exhibition match, with Blue Division High or Koala Forest Academy, teams that were in their league and they could defeat and her girls would forget about the brutal defeat they were going to suffer today. They considered it an honour to face such an elite side and none of them shared her reservations but that was likely to change when they were hammered by those heavy German tanks.
[][][][][][]
Nishizumi Maho did not believe in sportsmanship in Sensha-do. If someone had tried to talk to her about it, she would have been very confused. Victory was attained by ensuring her side held every advantage and the opposing side was at every disadvantage she could put upon them. That was how it was done. That was one of the primary tenets of the Nishizumi Style. It was why hearing Captain Kay of Saunders declare that Sensha-do was not war had made her skin prickle. No, it was not war. But the point was to win. If they did not strive to win, then what was the point?
That was why today her line up consisted of her Tiger, two Tiger IIs, four Panther Gs and two Jagdpanzer IVs with a Panzer III J for scouting. The line up was drastically stronger than Chi-ha-tan's and barring an act of the Gods, the divine wind itself, it was impossible for them to suffer defeat today. The arena even suited the Nishizumi Style, being relatively clear terrain besides rock. Their first goal was clear; seize the high ground to hold that additional advantage.
"The first match is about to begin. Today we begin our journey to reclaim our rightful place. We have never lost to this school before but we've seen how things can turn against us if we do not remain vigilant. I would rather be the hammer than the anvil."
It was a simple speech. She did not enjoy giving them but it was necessary and expected of her as Captain. Some captains liked to waffle on, enjoying the pageantry aspect of Sensha-do but like all aspects of Kuromorine; she was efficient.
The first match. Kuromorimine had never failed to win the first round but there were many eyes watching today. Their crack defeat in the finals of the last tournament meant they didn't just need to win this match; they needed to perform absolutely flawlessly so that no one questioned that they were the still supreme school of Sensha-do. Her mother had made that absolutely clear.
Maho had no doubts about her abilities to command in this match. It was the future that put her in turmoil. A few days earlier she had watched another match where one team had held all the advantages over the other and they had lost. Saunders had lost. She had fought Saunders many times, both in tournaments and in friendly exhibition matches and while she had never been defeated by them, she had always remained vigilant, never allowing herself to become complacent. And yet Saunders had been defeated by a school with possibly the most bizarre complement of tanks that had ever been fielded by high school Sensha-do. Defeated by tanks inferior in almost every way to Saunders Shermans.
Defeated by her sister.
Maho did not pretend to understand her sister. There were a great many things about her that baffled her, from her enduring love of her Boko bears to the streak of anxiety and self-doubt that had plagued her since the onset of puberty. She had never been anxious as a child. Her energy and lack of restraint had been a constant source of exasperation for their mother who had been run ragged by Miho's antics. To this day the woman despised frogs…
Miho had left Kuromorimine because she didn't want to do Sensha-do anymore. Maho had understood this. She had seen for a long time that her heart was not in it. But now she was doing Sensha-do for Oarai and although Itsumi had explained the circumstances, that they had been forced into it by their Student Council, it was still jarring that Miho would have allowed herself to be drawn back into this world.
Her Vice-Captain Koume hadn't wanted to come back either after all. Considering she had come very close to drowning inside a tank, no one could blame her for being traumatised just by the sight of a Panzer III. But Koume had been powerless in the face of her family wishes who had brought enough pressure on the school to ensure her promotion to Vice-Captain. Maho had wondered how she was supposed to lead a team with a shell-shocked second in command who felt like a fraud and responsible for her commander's sister no longer being one of them.
She had gone to watch the Oarai-Saunders match because it was her duty to learn about the new entrant to Sensha-do. That was what she would have told anyone who asked anyway. The truth was that she had wanted to watch her sister in command. Independent from her. She was still thinking about what she had witnessed.
Maho knew her actions after the match might have seemed cold and calculating to an analyst. The Oarai girl had needed help and she had been able to provide it but then she had been able to manipulate circumstances to her benefit. Her Vice-Captain had been given the opportunity to face her demons and she had come back to Kuromorimine renewed. She could only hope that her sister was similarly rejuvenated. She couldn't ask Koume and Koume would not speak to her of it unless asked.
She missed her.
But she did not have the luxury of brooding. She had a match to win and a reputation to restore.
"Panzer vor!"
The Panzer III immediately raced ahead while her Tiger led the panzerkeil with the Jagdpanzer IV's forming the tips with the Panthers and Tiger IIs between them. It was a hugely powerful formation, the entire weight of their units over four hundred and fifty tons while Chi-ha-tan could only muster a little over a hundred and thirty tons. Less than the combined weight of the two Tiger IIs. Her formation made the ground shake with their passing. The strength and power of Kuromorimine to the soundtrack of roaring V-12 engines.
"Captain." The Panzer III reported in. "Now advancing on the high ground. Summit ETA; five minutes."
"Understood." Maho gripped her throat mic. They were making sterling progress already. Not quite rushing but making haste nonetheless. Seizing the high ground was not imperative but it would make an impressive display. Even if Chi-ha-tan took it first, they could simply roll right over them. That might even have been a better display of Kuromorimine's power, that even with Chi-ha-tan seizing the high ground the German tanks would forge their way up their slopes under fire and smash their way through before seizing victory at the summit. It was tempting to even let Chi-ha-tan get there first but she decided it would make them look slow. Clumsy. Outwardly, no one could have guessed she was debating her strategy at all. She was stalwart. The perfect embodiment of the Nishizumi Style.
[][][][][][]
Koume had had her choice of tanks as Vice-Captain. She couldn't have taken a Tiger like the Captain as people would have immediately compared her to the former Vice-Captain. To Miho. She had considered a Tiger II but she thought that people would think she was swaddling herself in thick armour, afraid of danger and hiding away in one of the biggest possible tanks.
She had compromised with a Panther G. The medium tank was strong and powerful and also fast. Flexible. She liked it. So did her crew. There was a strong faction at Kuromorimine that favoured Panthers over all other vehicles because they were more reliable than the Tigers and heavy destroyers, better armed and armoured than the Panzer IVs and swift as well. A formation of Panther variants would have been unstoppable against everything short of Pravda's heavy destroyers.
From where she was, all she could see was the back of the Captain's head and her hair seemed untouchable in the slipstream. Her own was getting frizzled and she was grateful for their hats as otherwise her curls would have looked entirely unrespectable. The Captain looked implacable but she knew she was thinking about Miho. Oarai's unlikely victory over Saunders had created waves at Kuromorimine, with a distinct divide between those who thought that it was a proud accomplishment, worthy of one of their alumnus and the Nishizumi Style, and the other side who believed she had betrayed Kuromorimine by leading another school to victory and in such an unorthodox manner.
Of course, no one dared express their opinion to the Captain. Maho had said nothing about it beyond declaring Oarai had won and therefore Saunders would not meet Pravda in battle. Koume realised this had been intended to distract them; all the girls became embroiled in discussing how disappointing it would be not to see a Saunders-Pravda match. The historical animosity between the originators of their tanks always transferred into the match and even though they were all Japanese; a Saunders-Pravda match always descended into World War Three between the USA and USSR.
There were shades of that today. Everybody knew that Chi-ha-tan embodied the worst aspects of the former Imperial Japanese Army; the mindless aggression and belief that they could sweep all before them with a furious charge. Everyone also knew that Kuromorimine were ruthlessly efficient, dispassionate and keen to prove their superiority. Imperial Japanese versus militaristic Germans. All very historic.
She watched the Panzer III reach the summit of the high ground. They showed no alarm so they were unopposed. It seemed then that victory was inevitable.
[][][][][][]
Kuromorimine was three kilometres away but seven of their tanks looked huge regardless. They had started closer to the high ground than Chi-ha-tan but Nishi was surprised that the whole team were already on the summit. Kuromorimine it seemed was not sticking with their typical, slow deliberate fashion.
With the German tanks on the heights, they commanded the battlefield. Their Tiger flag tank and two Tiger IIs with their 8.8cm guns could sit up there and hold it to the end of time. They could support their seven other vehicles in safety. Nishi had hoped they could meet them on the heights at point blank where her Chi-has could at least take on the flank armour of the Panthers. No chance of that now.
She knew people called them charging idiots but now, they had no hope. They could stay here and wait for the impenetrable from the front Panthers to come for them and eliminate them contemptuously from range, one by one. Or they could end it on their own terms. In their own style.
She swelled with pride at the sound of their cries. Their undimmed enthusiasm. Another school would have been glum in the shadow of Kuromorimine's guns but the girls of Chi-ha-tan were joyful. Kuromorimine would know they could never break their spirit.
They swept forward, a jangle of steel treads and roaring diesel engines and though their battlecries couldn't possibly reach across the field, they still did their best. Up and down they plunged across the undulating field, their formation breaking up into a loose stagger and their first guns fired even though they were well out of range.
Nishi saw the smoke erupt on the heights and seconds later the thunderclap of the guns followed, silencing the cheers as the girls ducked into their tanks. The shells landed around her left flank, none of them making contact because of the extreme range but still terrifying in their power. Kuromorimine had opened fire early. A demonstration. They would be loading carefully, the lower calibre guns readied faster but all of them waiting for command from their iron captain before firing again. They passed the two kilometre mark and Nishi braced herself. Her leg jiggled as she willed them to fire again and get it over with. Nineteen hundred metres. Eighteen hundred. Maho was merely a speck on top of her Tiger and she still loomed large over all. Seventeen hundred metres. Sixteen hundred.
At fifteen hundred metres, the Kuromorimine Donner took less than five seconds to hit them. Two seconds longer than it took for the shells to land. A Chi-ha Shinhoto seemed to take all ten shells at once and was tossed through the air like a shuttlecock as the roar of Kuromorimine's cannons followed in the wake of their shots. The Chi-ha-tans fired back. Yipping terriers in the face of the Big Cats.
A second salvo. A Chi-Ha's turret was wrenched around by a hit that would have decapitated it had it been live. Another Shinhoto had its gun ripped off, its treads torn away by the sheer force of multiple impacts. Her left flank was gone.
One thousand metres.
Tamada Tamaki felt her heart skip a beat as she found herself looking down the barrel of a Tiger II cannon pointed directly at her. It vanished in smoke and in the same instant she was thrown forward, her Shinhoto coming to an instant halt as three shells came down on the glacis and a fourth cleaved her gun away from the turret. To her right, a Chi-Ha was hit by three of the other five shells, lifting off the ground and rolling three times with a severed tread whipping the air as wheels rolled solo across the landscape. Absently Tamada wiped at her bloody nose with her braid and called to her friends who were equally battered.
The Chi-ha-tan survivors hit the base of the slope and Kuromorimine had waited for this. Waited for the moment when the angle of slope made them decelerate. Nishi knew it. Hated the precision of it. The little eight ton Type 95 Ha-Go back-flipped, landed on its roof with a thump as loud as the cannonfire and skidded for several metres before coming to rest on its right side. Another Shinhoto joined it; thrust backward by the weight of fire so that its treads left deep scars scored in the earth.
Dazedly, Nishi looked around and saw that all that remained was herself, Hosomi and Nagura and her heart swelled as she heard both of them crying onward. The two Chi-Has and Shinhoto fired almost together and their three rounds struck the Tiger.
On its turret, Nishizumi Maho had not taken cover. She didn't flinch as the three shells struck her tank mere feet from her. She looked down on the three impudent little Chi-ha-tan tanks charging straight into the maw of the Kuromorimine line and simply waved a finger forward as she spoke a single word of command.
"Fire."
Later, much later, Nishi would remember it as being trapped in a washing machine that was being attacked by people armed with clubs. In the moment, all she knew was that one instant her tank was racing forward as she slammed a fresh shell into the breech and the next; she, her gunner and her driver were lying in each other's arms in the cupola that was now the floor of their tank.
Koume had seen the mismatch between Kuromorimine and minor schools before but never like this. Their concentrated fire hadn't just knocked out the Chi-ha-tan tanks; it had shredded them. Armour was splayed open, guns were jagged stumps and wheels and treads littered the field before her. The little white flags fluttering over them were entirely unnecessary. She had been on the receiving end of this firepower in training matches and knew the Chi-ha-tan girls would be clutching handkerchiefs to bloody noses and ears. They would need a bath after this. A hot, hot bath to soothe their many bruises. She had seen the lightweight tanks somersaulting through the air and prayed there were no broken bones.
It seemed farcical for the judges to formally declare Kuromorimine the winners as the line of German panzers looked down on the smoking ruins of the valiant Chi-ha-tan tanks. As if anyone might question the outcome.
It took Nishi time to gather her side together. Several of the girls were completely disorientated and utterly deaf but she still managed to bring them together so that before the recovery teams arrived and before the formal end of the match, she could present the thirty-five girls of Chi-ha-tan's Sixty-Third National High School Tournament first round team on the field where they had refused to go quietly and ignominiously. It took nothing for her to bow to Kuromorimine but it took a lot for her to meet the eye of the girl dressed in black who stood on the turret of her Tiger and returned the bow with stiff formality. There was no doubt in Nishi's mind that they had lost to this year's Champions.
[][][][][]
Bonple was crushed by Pravda, Saint Gloriana defeated BC Freedom, Continuation High beat Blue Division, Viking Marine smashed Koala Forest, the Yogurt Academy overcame the Waffle Academy, Kuromorimine annihilated Chi-ha-tan and a result that surprised Erika; Anzio won over Maginot Girls'.
Momo made the mistake of asking whether Anzio or Maginot had better tanks and as Yukari educated them on the differences between French and Italian tanks, Erika took the time to think about what it meant. She would have bet on Maginot winning considering Anzio's extensive use of tankettes that could do no appreciable damage to Maginot's vehicles. But Anzio had won, despite that disadvantage. Which meant that Anzio it seemed was an unlikely dangerous foe. Unless Maginot had made some kind of serious error which had given Anzio the win. They would have to wait until they could watch the match themselves. She also wanted to watch the Chi-ha-tan and Kuromorimine match but not to see how Kuromorimine had won but rather how they looked as they won. The last tournament had rocked the school and needed to know how they were responding. If they were fighting with their old professionalism, it would be bad enough. If they fought with newfound zeal and fanaticism…
It was best not to think about it and instead to focus on the present obstacle and enjoy the breathing space. The second round wouldn't be for a while and she could take a little time to unwind. That was how she felt; like a coiled spring. A punch bag and a treadmill just didn't do the job.
"Eririn?"
She realised that they were all staring at her. "What?"
"We were asking what you think of Anzio." Momo said icily.
"As I said before." Erika replied with the same frigidity. "They have good tank destroyers but their tankettes are mostly harmless."
"So are we stronger or weaker than them?"
"Depends on the conditions we fight them in." Erika said and Miho agreed. "Those destroyers are quite potent if they get to fire the first shots from concealment against an enemy in open terrain. But a tight battlefield? That would give us the advantage. Even our smaller tanks would be effective."
"See, Kawashima?" Anzu purred the way she did. "Even Itsumi thinks the cup is half-full."
"I said it depends on circumstances."
"Exactly!" Anzu beamed and Erika supposed she was in one of her positive episodes. That or it amused her to play the part. "For now we just need to continue training as before. Captain Chōno's going to be available next week so we'll have her skills to benefit us too. Anzio's nothing like Saunders but we shouldn't get complacent. We need to maintain our vigilance."
They were surprisingly wise words from the flighty little President and Erika was taken aback to hear them from her. It seemed to sober the other commanders who were all a little too fired up by the win over Saunders. It was one thing to be invigorated by a victory and another to let it go to your head. There was nothing quite as dangerous as a newbie who believed they were invincible.
[][][][][][]
It was a preoccupation that bordered on obsession but Erika was determined to strengthen the Oarai tank fleet. Seven vehicles simply was not enough, even for a normal tournament let alone one that would decide the fate of a school. If events against Anzio went smoothly and they proceeded into the semi-finals; they would be outnumbered two to one and almost certainly facing Pravda.
The idea she could find another eight tanks to match numbers was ludicrous. Getting over thirty more students to crew them even more so. But perhaps they might find more powerful tanks replace some of their weaker assets. If it would even be possible to part them from them. The Ducks had become very attached to their machine, despite its many shortcomings.
For the moment, their seven tanks would suffice against Anzio but there was no reason she couldn't continue looking. They had scoured the school grounds and come up empty but there was still the rest of the ship to explore. Duck team had found their tank in a cliff and the 38(t) had been found in the woods after all. There was a lot of ground to cover in the ship's hills and then the vast expanse of the ship's exterior. She might have excluded the space below decks from her search for being unlikely due to how unfeasible it would be to get tanks down there, but once again she thought about the Type 89 in that cliff, and her tank's turret on that roof. The girls who had hidden away the tanks hadn't been lazy.
Sitting on the rear of the T-50 and leaning against the turret was oddly comfortable. The armour was sloped at just the right angle for her to sit back but not lounge. It suited her. Yukari meanwhile was kneeling, leaning forward and resting on her knuckles. She had the posture of a belligerent chimp, Erika though, and all she was doing was watching the others perform their tank maintenance. Doing it all wrong according to her eye. Even the Automotive Club tinkering with B1 bis weren't doing it the way Yukari would have.
"Relax, Fluffy."
Yukari made a noise that Erika couldn't quite classify; somewhere between a growl and a snort.
"I was thinking about going camping again." She said. "I want to go look for tanks in the hills. In our training area. But I don't want to just wander around out there and then come home so I thought I'd stay out there for the night." She had gotten Yukari's attention off the others. "Do you want to come?"
Erika couldn't say she had gotten used to Yukari's difficulties with what was and wasn't appropriate social interaction and having her prostrate herself between her splayed legs and babble happily was a new kind of awkward. Especially as she happened to catch Erwin by the eye. The other girl removed her cap and held it in salute before pointedly looking away.
"So yes then?" Erika asked and tried to contain her relief as Yukari sat up again. She could only hope it didn't show and that Erwin was the only one to have been paying them any attention.
[][][][][][]
There were many reasons to invite Yukari on this expedition. There was the fact that she already knew she had a tent. Many in fact. She also had her extensive kits and was therefore prepared for anything from snakebite to blizzard. If the ship was overrun with zombies while they were gone, she was sure Yukari would be prepared for it.
Of course the main reason to invite her was because she was still making up for snapping at her in the café. The only worry now was that Yukari might think she was being lured into the woods to be assassinated, or perhaps only she would think that. That was the other reason to invite Yukari out. She needed to start trusting other people and not thinking of ridiculous reasons why someone would want to be around her.
She hadn't told Miho what she was doing. Miho was still enjoying the aftermath of the victory over Saunders. The warm satisfaction of having led her team to victory and her crew having fired the winning shot was still bubbling within her. What Erika wanted to do was start preparing for the next match and once they started doing that, Miho would start worrying again. And that was even without the knowledge of the actual stakes of tournament. The Student Council certainly wouldn't be easy on her, especially Momo.
When Yukari showed up, Erika thought back and wondered just how she had worded her invite. She thought it had been remarkably casual and certainly not an instruction to prepare for war. But there Yukari was, with a pack, a bedroll and trekking poles and wearing woodland camouflage shorts, a T-shirt and a booney hat.
"You didn't bring any weapons?" She asked dryly.
Yukari mutely held up a sheathed hunting knife.
"No one ever pays any attention to you, do they?"
"No…" Yukari frowned. "Why?"
"This is a much nicer place than Kuromorimine." She remarked, and let Yukari be confused.
She had to admit that the hiking poles were pretty good, although she did feel like she was missing her skis.
"I've never been skiing." Yukari answered Erika's enquiry. "What's it like?"
"You've got two small planks attached to your feet and you launch yourself down a mountainside. Anyone who thinks Sensha-do is crazy and dangerous should try skiing."
Yukari pulled a face, doubtless feeling Sensha-do was being slighted. "So why do it then?"
"Because that's what people of a certain income do. They go skiing. Just like everyone else of a certain income. Everybody's out there on the slopes, pretending they're loving it when really, they're just there because it's what's expected of them. Kind of like all those businessmen who play golf. It's part of the uniform." She thought about the last holiday. "I did feel cute in my outfit though."
Yukari wasn't expecting her to describe herself as cute and was amusingly startled. "I'll stick with Sensha-do."
"I'd prefer to be in a tank in the snow than on skis. Especially if Pravda or Viking are around."
"You think Viking Fisheries are a strong opponent?"
"In the snow. They plan extensively for their battles, don't they? And Kuromorimine don't vary their tactics so those plans actually pan out, at least until they get obliterated by Kuromorimine's firepower."
"But they make some kills in their initial ambushes." Yukari said, probably having watched and read about the battles more times than she could casually recall.
"And if they weren't so rigid about following their plans, they might even win."
"Viking or Kuromorimine?"
"We weren't any different. Anything unexpected happens and we get thrown into chaos." Like a landslide collapsing a road. "Which is why fighting Oarai is going to be difficult for anyone we face. We don't even know what we're going to do, so how can they prepare for it?"
They had driven all over this ground during practices but it was different now they were on foot. In their tanks, the Oarai Sensha-do training grounds were tiny compared to those of a major school. On foot, she was reminded of just how large even an old schoolship was.
"Getting tired?"
"You don't get much exercise for your legs in a tank." Yukari admitted.
"That's why I do cardio." Erika said. "You should come to the gym some time. You can watch Ahiru team play volleyball. Just try not to stare at Hana's leggings. They'd make those boys I met on the beach have heart attacks."
"Isuzu-san has nice legs." Yukari said and then turned bright pink at Erika's look. "She does!" She protested, turning from pink to red.
"Yes she does. But maybe keep that to yourself. People are already talking about us."
"Whuh?!"
"Don't worry, they're just teasing." She said, though she enjoyed Yukari's squirming. "Seems to be an Oarai thing. Say hello to someone in a certain way and suddenly you're a lesbian. People made jokes like that back at Kuromorimine a few times too."
Yukari was still bright red and it was hard to say if it was the embarrassment or the weariness that really brought it out of her. There was one way to tell.
"That would really get to my parents though. Not just striking out of my own but dating a girl too. I should take you to Kumamoto with my arm around your waist and see if I can make my mother faint like Hana's." It looked as if Yukari took it as a threat of abduction. "You or Miho. Though she's even more squirmy about that stuff than you are."
"But you aren't, Itsumi-dono."
"I've spent my whole life in all-girls schools while my mother was extolling the virtues of how to be a good wife to me. I always found that amusing. How am I supposed to land a husband if I haven't spoken to a boy since elementary school?"
"My mother's never spoken to me about boys."
"Never?"
"No."
"You haven't had 'The Talk?'"
Yukari flushed again. "No."
"I have. That wasn't the second most painful experience of my life at all…"
"What did she tell you?"
"I wouldn't want to embarrass you." Erika said pointedly, and Yukari realised she was being teased.
In that first training match long ago, they had reached the river fast as they raced toward the gunfire in their tank. But on foot, they only now just reached the place where that match had climaxed. Since that match, they had avoided the bridge and so the tracks in the ground were still there. The two of them took it in, retracing the battle in their minds and then they slipped down to the water so Yukari could take a breather.
"Still can't believe I beat Miho here." Erika said, watching a leaf go by in the water.
"We were lucky we jammed their turret."
"No." She said. "If you're going to believe in luck, then we were unlucky we didn't eliminate them with that shot. Jamming the turret made the fight last longer. Long enough for us to catch fire."
Yukari thought about it but still had something positive to say. Kind of. "I still can't believe we had a diesel engine catch fire like that."
"The tank spent decades in a hedge. I'm surprised it lasted that long."
"You don't like our tank, do you?" Yukari asked, and Erika noted her careful tone.
"I didn't." She admitted. "But it's grown on me. When we started out, it was just a reminder of Pravda and the finals and I thought it was a sick joke. The universe gives me a broken Russian tank." As always she saw Yukari mouth 'Soviet' after she called it a Russian tank. "And forces me to deal with all its issues but for some reason lets me defeat a Nishizumi. And I don't know why. Maybe it's because I turned on Kuromorimine and reality thought it would be funny for me to get what I wanted. Instead of proven superior German tanks, I get a failed Russian experiment. I get to defeat a Nishizumi, but in a messy close quarters brawl where my tank burns seconds after the win." She could see Yukari getting agitated. "But that was what I wanted. I wanted to get away from Kuromorimine, and my old way of thinking. Our tank is great at brawling because we can get up close fast before they know what's hit them but it's also strong enough to take a hit from long range. Our gun is good enough to take on light and medium tanks and even be a pain for heavy tanks. It's a good machine. It's just temperamental." Now she could see Yukari starting to light up. "Which is why we have our own grease monkey aboard. Even if she is a cheeky… Git."
Yukari was confused. "What's a 'Git'?"
"Something I heard a St Gloriana girl say once. I was being polite."
"Nakajima-san… She does like to take things lightly."
"From one Oarai girl to another." Erika thought aloud. If Yukari thought Nakajima was overly cheerful, she really must have been. "If we find another tank, and it meets the Automotive Club's standards." She had to fight not to roll her eyes. "It'll just be the two of us again."
"A tank doesn't function well without a commander."
"No. But if the Student Council couldn't fill out the ranks with their big presentation, they don't have much chance now. Not unless they actually do start press-ganging."
"I would like us to have at least ten tanks." Yukari declared. "But that doesn't seem likely. If I didn't know there were tanks hidden around the school, how could anyone else?"
"So you think we've found them all?"
"I think we were lucky to find the ones we have. Especially at the bottom of a pond and in a cliff." Yukari said, echoing Erika's own thoughts.
"We found the B1 bis in another pond. That wasn't hard. And Hana smelled the 38(t) out. And really, was the M3 actually hidden in a rabbit hutch? Maybe they're around in plain sight and the rest of the school just hasn't noticed because they've always been there."
"I would have noticed." Yukari insisted.
"Well… You wouldn't know about any hidden out here. For all we know, we've walked past a dozen camouflaged tanks. Especially if they've covered in twenty years of undergrowth." She watched a stick pass by in the water. "Does this ever weird you out?"
"… What?"
"This river. It isn't a river. It's not natural. Its source is below us in the ship's desalination plant and it's pumped to the surface to act as a source for this waterway and it flows across the deck of the ship and then goes back down to get cycled around again."
"So?"
"So? So it's fake."
"Yes." Yukari said as if she was mad.
"Don't you ever miss actual land?"
"I live here."
"But you're not a water baby. You were born on the mainland."
"I grew up in Tsuchiura which is right next to Lake Kasumigaura, and then I went to middle school in Oarai-"
"Right next to the ocean." Erika finished. "Sometimes I forget though that this is a ship and then I remember and it feels weird."
"But that's the point, isn't it?" Yukari beamed. "It's not just a floating city. It's a floating island!"
"It's going to be strange when we graduate and the ground is actually ground and rivers are rivers." Erika declared. "Come on. Let's keep looking."
[][][][][][]
Yukari put herself in charge of building a campfire as she had when cooking rice for the class. She dug a little pit with an entrenching tool that she appeared to conjure from the small of her back and ringed it with stones and made it look like a textbook example of a campfire. Exactly like the diagram. It was only the second campfire she had ever built.
"At Keizoku, they do this kind of thing all the time. They even go foraging and trapping!" Yukari declared excitedly as she fed her fire.
"Fortunately we're civilised people and bring our own snacks." Erika replied. "Unless you think you could bag a squirrel?" To her alarm, Yukari clearly began to think about it. "We're not catching our dinner!" She asserted hurriedly.
"Maybe next time." Yukari said and then giggled. "Like real Okami!"
"We should have brought Yuuki along then. Or Ayumi; she has more meat on her. I did threaten to eat them for making our emblem." She realised Yukari was grinning at her. "What?"
"You act mean to them, but you love them."
"Of course I do. They're adorable." She said, trying to deflect but Yukari kept grinning at her. "That's why I haven't killed you, Fluffy. It'd be like garrotting Bambi."
Yukari was simultaneously pleased to hear she was safe from execution and worried that Erika had apparently given it serious thought. She added some more twigs to the fire.
Erika lay back in the dirt and stared at the darkening sky and felt the tiny movements in the ground which meant the seas were rough. She doubted Yukari would even notice but as she had been aboard the much larger Kuromorimine vessel which was too large to be effected by anything short of a major storm, she had felt those little movements ever since she had first boarded the ship.
"Do you think Nishizumi-dono would have liked to be here?"
"I've heard that when she was young, she and Maho used to go fishing and she would catch frogs. Apparently she was a bit obsessed with frogs."
"Nishizumi-dono?" Yukari's hair seemed to expand in surprise.
"That's what people said. People were gossiping about the Nishizumi ladies being unladylike. I guess their mother just let them be when they were young." She thought briefly of her own youth and how psychotically enraged her mother would have been if she had been playing in the mud and catching frogs. And fishing? Unthinkable.
Now here she was in the woods, enjoying the warmth from a campfire and looking forward to eating food prepared by that fire. Eating sausages off skewers… Her mother would not like that one bit.
"I don't think Saori enjoyed camping." Erika remarked. "Too many bugs and not enough comforts."
"That wasn't camping! We had toilets and showers. That was just sleeping outdoors. This is camping!"
"We should have paid someone to take shots at us. Then we'd really be roughing it."
"Are you making fun of me?"
"Yes." She answered frankly. "Captain Kay said Sensha-do isn't war but you seem to like living the fantasy that we are at war. The plucky underdogs against the big mean superpower. Like Finland and the Soviet Union. That's why you went and did your reconnaissance against Saunders. Right now we're out here doing more reconnaissance; looking for assets vital to the war effort." She could see that she was absolutely correct about Yukari's fantasies by her spreading blush and averted eyes. "You think that's embarrassing? Saori's imagining Sensha-do will make her an idol for boys. They'll be pinning up posters of her in their rooms. The whole of St Gloriana's playing at being sophisticated English ladies, sipping tea, exchanging witticisms and looking down on 'uncouth' behaviour. And Saunders? Pravda? And Anzio? Have you seen Anzio's ship? You aren't doing anything weird, Fluffy. But it is funny. As funny as me singing Panzerlied and ranting and shouting and being subdued like a crazy person by mechanics and volleyballers."
Yukari didn't need to think about it. She knew exactly what Erika meant about everyone being strange and weird in their own personal way. She giggled helplessly and then singed her finger on a hot rock.
They ate. They ate too much. They both needed to lie down and take some time to recover and fortunately, they had a beautiful clear sky to enjoy. Out there at sea, it was even more breath-taking than on land. The lights from the town did not thing to obscure the view out on the empty ocean and so they could see the great cloud of the spiral arm of the galaxy; the Milky Way.
"It doesn't look milky." She mused.
"No." Yukari understood what she was talking about. "Why do you think it's called that?"
"I don't know. Probably something Greek. Everything science-y Europeans ever came up with has something to do with the Greeks. Or Romans. Maybe it's something in Greek that was badly translated into English and translated even worse into our language."
"Can you speak German?"
"Yes… And no. I don't think the German I speak would be much use if I visited. I probably know enough that if I took a few more lessons I'd be fluent."
"I know words for tank components in many languages, but I can only guess what they mean."
"I've read that if you speak English, German is easy to learn because of all the words in English that are German. But the other way around isn't true, because of how much French is in English." She glared at the sky. "My mother wanted me to learn some French. For if we ever visited Paris."
"Have you been to France?"
"No. That was why it was weird. But she has her fantasies. We'd visit Paris and drink wine and be sophisticated." Her frown vanished and she giggled. "You think I laugh at your fantasies? My mother's are crazier. Is your mother crazy?"
"I don't think so… But maybe she's good at hiding it."
"Maybe. She seemed nice. A little… Exasperated with your dad but I think anyone would be."
"He gets excited." Yukari said, without a hint of irony.
"My father never did. He was always… Cool, calm and collected."
"Cool, calm and collected?"
"Something they both used to say whenever I got worked up." Erika explained. "I think that's why I used to explode so much at Kuromorimine. And here. All those years of being forced to bury it… I guess I'm just making up for it now. Everything I ever forced down is coming out now. Or maybe I was always hot-blooded and I'm always going to need a big athletic blonde to pin me down until I calm down." She grunted with amusement. "Don't ever get into a fight with Ahiru team, Fluffy. They'll destroy you."
"I've never been in a fight."
"Neither have I. Not a real one anyway. But I'm ready for one if it ever comes." She said and then laughed. "I know you're ready for a fight with that knife of yours."
"Maybe…"
"Where did you even get all that stuff in your room? It can't all be from that Sensha-do shop."
"You can get anything off the internet."
"And your parents let you?"
"They don't mind. There's worse hobbies I could have." She pointed out. "Though sometimes I regret all the metal I have to polish. It's not easy dealing with all the dust either. The collection doesn't look impressive when it's burnished and dusty."
"I suppose Miho can just put her bears in the washing machine."
"Why does she have all of those?"
"You don't know Boko?"
"Not really."
"Boko gets into fights. He loses. Badly usually. But he never gives up. He keeps fighting."
"Does he lose again?"
"Yes." She said and knew what Yukari was thinking. "I know, it's not a good omen having a captain whose mascot is someone who's never won a fight. But you do know that no matter how bleak the odds get, she'll keep going."
"Do you like Miho?"
Erika looked at her sharply. She couldn't remember Yukari ever referring to her by her first name rather than by her honorific and she could also see that she felt very daring for asking. "That's complicated." She answered.
"Complicated?" Yukari wrinkled her nose at her.
"I don't think Miho holds grudges but I always let her know I wasn't a fan of her being Vice-Captain… So I'll never be her favourite person… And here, she's had a good relationship with Hana and Saori and everyone else in the club from the start. Except Anzu, and Momo."
"That's not an answer."
"Look, there's a lot of things I don't like about Miho. I hate that she's lacking in confidence and she lets everyone else see that when they're looking to her to be confident. I hate the way she squirms when she's nervous and tries to draw into herself like a turtle…" She could see Yukari getting nervous herself. "But she does know how to lead and people here don't think she's weak, they get protective of her when she's nervous. They want to help her. I guess I have too much Kuromorimine in me. When I see weakness, my instinct is to crush it! But then you look at Miho hugging herself and looking at you with those big sad eyes and you just want to give her a hug… And then my first instinct tells me I'm weak for feeling sorry for her and I resent her for making me weak and then I'm sorry for resenting her and then… Then I get so confused until I don't know if I want to kill her or kiss her."
"Kiss her?" Yukari looked surprised rather than alarmed.
"I told you, it's very confusing. You know what people say when you have strong feelings toward someone, that you don't hate them, and that really you love them and you're just covering for it. People love making those jokes too, even at Kuromorimine. Another girl, Mauko, when I was complaining again about Miho being indecisive during a training match, she made everyone laugh by saying how 'obsessed' I was with her. Everyone laugh. And that was nearly my first fight. Not because I was offended but because I didn't know she wasn't right."
"I guess it's not just an Oarai thing then." Yukari said and for a moment Erika didn't know what she was talking about. Then she recalled their earlier conversation and laughed.
"Wherever I go, people ship me with other girls. Maybe it means something."
"Does it?"
"I don't think so… Or maybe I subconsciously lured you out here hoping something might happen."
Yukari looked at her, and then laid a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry. But my first and only love is the sea."
They gazed into each other's eyes and then broke simultaneously, dissolving into peals of helpless laughter which only got worse each time they looked at each other. Just when Erika thought she had gotten hold of herself, she noticed a couple of leaves in Yukari's hair and pointed them out, saying that would really get the rumours going if she returned with them still there and they both collapsed again.
She clutched her aching ribs, heaving in the dirt and then looked back up into the sky once more. It was a nice night.
"So you do like Nishizumi-dono?" Yukari asked.
"Yes. And I've got orders to take care of her and I'll do that." She smiled at the sky, certain that right now Maho was in bed and getting her eight hours. Like a good responsible captain. "Now if we could just get Maho to tell her sister how much she cares about her, we'd all be set all the way to the finals. Then it would be Nishizumi vs Nishizumi and all bets would be off."
"Do you think we can got to the finals?" Yukari asked her excitedly, sitting up.
"We have to." She said absently and then realised her error. "If we don't, we'll get nothing but grief from the Student Council. They really want to put Oarai on the map. Quarter or semi-finals just won't do it."
"They are passionate." Yukari said and then frowned momentarily. "Most of the time." Obviously she was thinking of Anzu's frequent lethargy.
She watched Yukari build up the fire once more and the air was getting chill so they sat close to it. It was amazing how fire fascinated people. Even people like them who spent their days blowing up targets with solid and high explosive shells. It was simply immensely satisfying to throw on a twig, watch it become engulfed in flames and burn down to ashes and smoke on the breeze.
"Why do you like tanks?" She asked, realising she had never actually inquired.
"Whuh?"
"How did it start? I got into Sensha-do because my family believes all that stuff about it making you into a virtuous woman."
"I don't know. I always liked tanks…" Yukari peered into the fire as she thought it over. "But my mother did Sensha-do and she told me stories-"
Erika cut her off. "Your mother did Sensha-do?!"
"She graduated before they shut down the class!" Yukari assured her hastily with raised hands. "She didn't know anything about what happened to the tanks." Her face lit up. "But our tank? That was her tank! That's why we have a picture of it in the shop!"
"Your mother used our T-50?"
"She said it needed fixing during matches back then too! But it never failed them! It was always their best light tank!"
"Do you know what kind of tanks they used to use back then?"
"They used a mix of German and Japanese tanks mostly, but they had other tanks from other nations. Nothing fancy."
"That would explain the Lee and B1, and our T-50. Just collecting. And why we found three German machines."
"Two German, one Czechoslovakian." Yukari corrected her automatically.
"Do you know what kind of German tanks?"
"All kinds of variants of Panzer IIIs and IVs."
"So why couldn't we find any more of them? It's not like other schools would have been snapping them up." She asked and Yukari shrugged. "If it turns out there's an F2 out here and we didn't need to find the cannon separately, I will hurt people."
"There could be. I don't know." Yukari shrugged again.
"I know we could do with some heavy armour. Everything we have so far is going to feel very fragile when we face some more powerful guns."
"I don't think we'll find a heavy tank here in the woods."
"I don't know. Maybe it'll be disguised as a boulder." She thought that at this point, nothing in Oarai could surprise her. "I just wish there was a way of knowing, one way or another. Maybe we should track down some alumni. Make them tell about where they hid them."
"Do you think the Student Council could do that?"
"They will if I threaten them with a beating." She mused darkly, although given what little information the Student Council had been able to dig up, it was a long, long shot they could track down any former students twenty years later.
"I think we can beat Anzio with what we have."
"I do too, though I'd like to know how they beat Maginot. I'm glad we're not facing Maginot… Though I don't know why because if could beat Saunders, Maginot shouldn't have been too much of a challenge by comparison."
"Erika…"
She looked up sharply. Hearing her say Miho's name had been a shock but now she had spoken hers for the first time. It was as much a shock to Yukari as it was to herself and it seemed her cheeks didn't know whether to fill with or drain of blood.
Yukari swallowed before she spoke again. "Why didn't you… I mean… Why were you…" She swallowed again. "Why didn't you enjoy our victory?"
Now there was a question and she didn't know the answer. At first she had thought it was because she knew that it was merely the first hurdle towards their impossible goal but then she had realised that wasn't it. It had been something else. Something deeper. She tried to explain this to Yukari and without much success. "Last time I was in a match, a proper match, I got this." She gnawed on the scar. "Miho and Koume nearly drowned. We lost… We lost a lot. My whole world collapsed. I always knew what I was supposed to do. It was always clear to me where I was going and what I was doing. Now I don't know and…" She found herself swallowing. "You ever ask yourself what the point is?"
"Point to what?"
"Anything. We're out here looking for tanks for a revived Sensha-do club for a school that can barely afford to fuel them. They're funding Sensha-do by depriving money elsewhere. Even if we make the team a success, how long will it last? Who'll remember us either? No one remembers the old Oarai team and that's why we're looking for the tanks they left behind. And this… School… It's so short…" She knew what else she wanted to say and that was that high school friendships rarely lasted beyond but that would only serve to break Yukari's spirits. "I used to care about the now. Nothing else. One thing at a time. Ever since the finals, the accident, my fight with my mother, I'm always thinking about the future and the point of now is." She gazed into the fire. "I'm enjoying this. I am. But I wonder what it means."
"Does it have to mean anything?" Yukari wondered.
"Doesn't everything?" She asked. "Everything we do means something. I just don't know what."
Erika tensed as she felt Yukari's hand on her neck and then felt her do what she had done to her multiple times. Why had she massaged Yukari's neck like this? Had it started as a joke, a reference to her puppyish excitement and turned into her awkward way of being friendly? She had seen her mother and one of her old friends 'swishing' each other's hair with their little fingers so maybe the weirdness was genetic.
"We should get some rest." She said.
[][][][][][]
The last time she had been in a tent, there had been three other people in it with her and more tents around them. This time it was just her and Yukari and the quiet was a relief. Then it was alarming. Besides an occasional breeze in the trees, the only sound was Yukari's breathing. She was a cloud of fluff and Erika wondered how many mornings she woke up with a mouthful of hair. Her own was getting that way; she was long past a good grooming. Perhaps she would visit Yukari's family shop.
What was she doing out here? Looking for more tanks for their motley collection, hoping that by some luck she didn't believe in that she would find something that would somehow drastically alter their chances. Why was she even doing this? Any of this? Was it all for Miho, her interpretation of Maho's order to take care of her? Protecting the school with Sensha-do was protecting Miho from heartbreak. Or was she just drawing out the inevitable? It was astonishing they had beaten Saunders and they could well defeat Anzio but Pravda? How could they hope to overcome Pravda? Was it all for Miho, or did she need this place as much as she did? Miho had her friends here, and her friend was sleeping with her cheek resting on her hands like a Disney princess.
How long could she keep this up? Keeping the truth to herself, keeping it from Miho and Yukari, and everybody else? She hadn't changed her mind that they would all take it badly but they wouldn't react any better further down the line. She was out here doing what she could for a cause spearheaded by a leader who was just as doubtful about their chances as she was and whose main efforts were pushing papers to keep them in fuel, spare parts and ammunition. Perhaps they would have to turn bandit like Keizoku and 'borrow' some supplies or even vehicles from other schools.
She focused in on the sound of Yukari breathing and let the sound of it lull her away.
[][][][][][]
Once more she dreamt of T-34s overlooking a dark river where she fought to keep Miho from slipping away and she woke up feeling cold and scared. A feeling that didn't last long because of the brown eyes staring intently at her and very close.
"You ever heard of personal space?"
"No." Yukari replied. "What's that?"
Either she was a masterful actor or completely serious. Erika suspected the latter and pushed her away by putting a finger between her eyebrows.
"You were having a bad dream." Yukari said.
"I was having a memory." She sat up and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Wish it would go away."
"I'll get you breakfast."
While she had been asleep, Yukari had not only woken but she had rebuilt the fire and cooked breakfast. Either she had been that deeply asleep or Yukari was that stealthy and she thought of her reconnaissance to Saunders.
"Are you planning on going to Anzio?" She asked.
"Maybe." Yukari replied with far too much care as she served her rice in a mess tin.
"So… Yes."
"You don't want me to?"
"I think I couldn't stop you if I tried." Erika said. "Anyway, we need every advantage we can get. Until we see the recording of their match, we don't know how they beat Maginot and even if it was because Maginot made mistakes, we still need to make every preparation." She heard herself and laughed dryly. "Look at me sucking the fun out of everything. This is why I couldn't be captain."
"You'd be a good captain."
"During matches, sure. The rest of them would be wondering why they signed up to be berated by a mad woman."
"Eat your rice." Yukari told her, sounding oddly authoritative.
They ate, they took care of themselves and then packed up camp leaving nothing behind but the ashes in a circle of stones. Erika found herself taking in the morning beneath the trees and comparing it to her last experience of camping. Last time there had been thirty of them and they had camped in the open. Now it was just her and Yukari and she could easily have believed they were genuinely out in the woods, miles from anywhere, and not on the deck of a ship with a town nearby.
It certainly felt real as they ventured up into the hills. Duck team had searched the cliffs near their Sensha-do hangar while they were further afield, heading toward the stern. It didn't seem like anyone had been this way ever, not in all the history of the ship but that didn't discourage her. She remembered both geography and history lessons about the effects of weathering. She had seen the pictures of abandoned towns that looked almost primeval and yet had only been deserted for a couple of decades so it was perfectly possible a tank might have ground a path up here and all traces had been washed away.
They reached a point where they could see the ship's tower, a reminder of where they were and she knew the deceptiveness of perspective. It looked so close and yet, it was its sheer size that made it seem that way. It was an important lesson to learn when facing some of the largest heavy tanks and tank destroyers so as not to miscalculate the distance to the target. It was one of the reasons that Kuromorimine First Years in their light tanks struggled when facing Second and Third Years in their medium and heavy tanks. A 38(t) weighed ten tons; half of a Panzer III and a quarter of a Panther. A baby tank. The difference in length and height between tanks made all the difference when firing at long range. That was why studying the specifications of different tanks was so important. That was quite likely a significant part of Yukari's talent at gunnery. She already knew these things.
"Who do you think is the best gunner in the high school league?" She asked.
"The Blizzard." Yukari answered without hesitation.
"You think so?"
"She uses an IS-2 and makes kills on the move. Shermans have vertical stabilisers on their guns but an IS-2 doesn't so she's better than Saunders' Naomi."
"Have you heard about that Keizoku girl?"
"The White Witch? I haven't seen much of her." Yukari shrugged. "It's hard to tell if her kills were flukes or skill without knowing more."
"Well Kuromorimine is going to face them so they'll find out."
"What do you think will happen in that match?"
"Same thing that's happened to Chi-ha-tan. Outgunned and out-armoured. Maybe they'll get in a few opportune kills but inevitably? They always gave us a headache in the past but they couldn't overcome us, not when most of their tanks are T-26s. They're just too fragile."
"But they have the same cannon as us."
"Funny to think about. But we can take a few hits with our armour while a T-26 will get knocked out even by a glancing blow. And it's too conspicuous."
"True. But not as bad as our Lee."
The tank conversation continued on until they stopped for lunch and it was only a pause. It was amazing how long Yukari could talk about tanks and still have more to say, more topics to discuss. It amazed her too realising how much knowledge she had acquired over the years without even knowing. It seemed ridiculous to think that she had only ever been in Sensha-do to hone her femininity as her mother had wished. You didn't learn everything she had just to be more womanly, although it was hard to say how transferable the skills of Sensha-do were to the real world. How many jobs would require her to be able to recite the thickness of the armour of a Panzer III or an R 35?
"Should we head back now?" Yukari asked after they were done with their meal.
That would probably be a good idea, she thought. But she wasn't ready yet. "I've nowhere else to be." She said. "Take a look. If you wanted to hide a tank out here, where would put it?"
Yukari took the question quite literally and looked around, and then produced her binoculars to do it more thoroughly. "There." She pointed and Erika had to lean in to follow the line of her finger so that their hair was pressing against each other.
"What?"
"See that rock?"
"Why that rock rather than any of the other rocks?"
"It looks like a head. A landmark."
Erika couldn't see it. "Any other landmarks?"
"Maybe we'll see when we reach that rock." She said it so cheerfully that Erika couldn't have managed to be cynical if she tried. She let herself be led to a rock, and then a tree that also caught Yukari's eye before she decided they needed to traipse up to the highest point she could see.
Looking down from that hill much later, she finally could see something that Yukari could see. It wasn't hard to miss. She had to stop Yukari from sprinting down the slope and most likely breaking her legs when she inevitably slipped and fell and tumbled all the rest of the way down. It was like restraining a very powerful and excited tiger.
It was fitting. Very fitting. Here she was with a girl who worshipped tanks and they had found what seemed like a shrine to machines. It was a circle of old cars, flatbed trucks and tractors, rusted to a fine brown with their tyres flat and sinking into the ground like roots. All the vehicles looked inward to the centre of the circle, at their high priest or deity it seemed.
Another 38(t).
Yukari scrambled up onto it and spoke too fast for Erika to follow. She looked and sounded so much like a happy monkey that she rubbed her nose, her palm covering her mouth, disguising her smile. They already had a 38(t) and she had seen it in action multiple times but Yukari was still excited. Like its brother, it had suffered from being out in the open but it was a tank and resilient. Yukari opened the main hatch and babbled excitedly about what she could see, and then shrieked and fell off. A tanuki climbed out and looked contemptuously down at Yukari in the dirt and then at Erika with a peeved expression. For a moment they held each other's gaze and then it took off with a series of bounding leaps.
"I guess we don't have to think about what to call it then." She remarked as Yukari pulled herself up and brushed the dirt off her face. "Or we could call it rikugame." She said; a tortoise to join Turtle team.
"Tanuki is good." Yukari said with as much dignity as she could manage. "I'll call Rera-san."
"Who?" Erika asked and then remembered. "Right, Nakajima."
"You forgot her name?"
"They always call each other by their family names. It's weird hearing their actual names." She explained. "And how's she going to find us anyway?"
Yukari held up her phone. "GPS! She'll find us. They'll love taking their truck cross-country."
"You ever wonder where they got that truck from? If the school can't afford a volleyball team, how does the Automotive Club afford a tow-truck?"
"They make money servicing townspeople's cars." Yukari explained. "That's how they keep their club going."
"How do you know that?"
"You need to talk to everyone more often, Itsumi-dono." Yukari chided her and she suddenly realised that that former outcast was indeed far more social than she was.
At first they sat on their new find as they waited and then they built another fire as evening set in, a beacon for the others. It was an eerie place to be in the failing light.
"Why do you think they built this?" Yukari asked.
"Everything I've seen of Oarai girls, they probably thought it was fun." Bringing all these vehicles out here was less effort than putting a tank in a cave in a cliff or a turret up on a school roof. Building a Pagan temple out of vehicles was not nearly the strangest thing she could imagine Oarai girls doing. "We found your tank temple."
"Why a 38(t)?"
"No idea." It seemed an odd choice to put on an altar. She would have gone for the Panzer IV at least. "Why leave one by itself in the woods and then go to all this effort?"
"Different crews?" Yukari suggested and it seemed a reasonable line of thinking.
"One group puts their tank in a rabbit shed and another builds this?" Erika looked around. "Did your mother ever tell you about what the old club did?"
"Not much. Literally not much, they had to conserve their resources."
"I guess they did." They would have had their budget cut, they would have had to conserve fuel and ammunition and that would have limited how much training they could do and that would have impacted their performance in tournaments. When their lack of skill made them drop out of every tournament early, Sensha-do would have mattered less and less to the school, making them cut their budget even more. Until the final end. Now Sensha-do was Anzu's longshot and if somehow they did succeed, it would be the school's focus as they believed it was the only thing keep them afloat. If they succeeded. If they weren't closed anyway or if the decision was made again after they graduated, regardless of Sensha-do tournament results and the risk of bad publicity.
When Nakajima and the other girls finally arrived, it was completely dark and their truck approached like something straight out of a horror movie. They heard it long before they saw the lights and it sounded less than happy about being far from the roads. The girls were also in their jumpsuits which made them look like escaped convicts. Their usual grins only added to it.
"We've found a new holiday spot then!" Suzuki giggled. "This is amazing!"
"This is a Datsun!" Tsuchiya called from out of the dark.
"Can we not play car-spotting right now?" Erika asked wearily.
"Sure thing, commander." Nakajima patted her on the head, startling her. "C'mon, let's get this hooked up! I don't want to be out here too long. Six girls in the woods is the start of too many horror films." It was reassuring for Erika to know someone else saw it too.
All the times she had spent in tanks in rough terrain were heavenly compared to sitting in the back of that truck as it pulled that 38(t) along. She absolutely hated it but Yukari appeared to love every single second. Every painful bump seemed to delight her but Erika almost began praying before they mercifully found the road and started back to civilisation.
[][][][][][]
Yukari would have had them burning the midnight oil to have the new 38(t) fully restored and waiting for the rest of the club on Monday but the Automotive girls weren't interested in a late night and Erika was tired and eager to return to a proper bed after their adventure. So they checked that there were no tanuki pups lurking inside the vehicle and then left it beside its brother where they could see how much work they had put in to restore the Turtle tank.
Erika kept it to herself when Miho asked how her weekend with Yukari had been. She also ignored her knowing smile that said far too much for her liking. When it was finally time for that day's Sensha-do class, Yukari shot off and she met Miho and the others outside the hangar. When they opened the doors, Yukari was stood proudly on the turret; like a hunter with a kill.
"Another one?" Saori's eyebrows did their usual disappearing trick into her fringe.
"Makes sense." Erika said. "They're good trainer tanks and they're not expensive. The other schools wouldn't want to buy them second-hand." For all she knew, there could be a couple more dotted about in the woods. "So what do you think, Jumpsuit?" She asked Nakajima. "Is this your tank?"
"No." She said flatly.
"No?"
"Not our style." She said and grinned at her.
"Miho?" Erika turned to the captain who shrugged.
"We're short on crew." Miho said. "If they take this new tank, it's just you and Yukari in the T-50 again."
"We made that work."
"We should use it to train." Miho spoke louder, to everyone and Erika felt an odd feeling. "We can do four against four training sessions now. We can make up temporary teams to use it and we'll decide later if we want to take it against Anzio, or keep with our present arrangement.
Erika realised what the feeling was. Pride. Miho was being their captain and everyone was listening to her. Then she felt shame, clear as day. Shame for every time she had thought Miho was too weak to ever be a leader.
(10,181)
Author's Notes;
When I wrote the first camping trip from the OVA, I followed the episode closely. Thus far, I've followed the canon closely but that's because I didn't think the influence of just one person could change all that much. The biggest changes of course were the addition of the non-canon T-50 and the earlier discovery of the 7.5cm gun for the Panzer IV and the B1 bis. I didn't think they would make too much of a difference. Things obviously are changing now.
The beginning perspectives with Nishi and Maho. I thought of writing out the whole Chi-ha-tan vs Kuromorimine battle and I may do at a later date but mostly, I just wanted to show a little glimpse into Maho's mind. Into the mind set of Kuromorimine. Kay says Sensha-do is not war but it's clear that Kuromorimine's long winning streak is the result of how seriously they treat Sensha-do. In Saga of Pravda, Katyusha instils the same mentality into her school. Oarai may win with pluck and the power of heart but it's clear that Kuromorimine's strength come from taking the game seriously. Maho justifies this thinking. Winning may not be everything but it's certainly not fulfilling to lose, again and again. I like analysing the different schools and how they feel about the established status quo in their high school league.
Erika and Yukari in the woods. People have wanted more 'Erikari' so here it is. I've known people who spent their education in single-sex schools. Suffice to say, they were not the best adjusted people when it came to human sexuality. Christian talked about being woken by other boys sticking their dick in his ear, and doing the same to them, like it was normal. And the girls? Not much different. Hence Erika talking about being confused about her feelings, especially when others tease her about it. That's normal in single-sex environments. People joke about the girls in GuP being gay for each other and reading romantic overtones into their interactions. Truth is, they would be wondering about other interpretations themselves.
Erika saying she doesn't know if she wants to kiss Miho or kill her? I think that's in keeping with her Tsundere tendencies. I wrote about Erika's mother wanting to make her into good wife material and Erika points out the flaws in that kind of thinking when she's spent her adolescence in all-girls schools. She doesn't know the first thing about boys. Most of them don't.
Another 38(t). I wanted them to find something. Something that wouldn't tip the balance over much. Originally I was going to keep the rikugame/tortoise name to properly twin it with the kame/Turtle team but the tenuki/Japanese raccoon dog came to me. It's an appropriately fluffy animal. Had I known about it earlier, I would probably have named okami/wolf team after it.
Not sure about the next chapter yet. I never plan these out; they just come to me.