There were more people from Oarai in the stands and perhaps it was because after the action-packed upset victory over Saunders, they were interested in watching their ramshackle team now. The unplanned advertisement of the team by driving their tanks around the ship over the past few weeks certainly would have helped. The cynic in Erika however believed that the increased attendance had more to do with Anzio's legendary cuisine than Oarai's Sensha-do prowess. It seemed that every Anzio student had come ashore to sell their wares and they had built a small shanty town of food stalls and trucks and people from miles around had come to enjoy it. Not just locals. There were others too, from other schools. Waffle and Yogurt Academies had shown up as well to add their own stalls until it seemed more like a food festival than a Sensha-do match.
They hadn't all come for the food. Chi-ha-tan was there for the sport and though they had been flattened by Kuromorimine, it hadn't dampened their spirit one bit. They came to pay their respects to Duck team, having seen the recording of the Oarai-Saunders match and having absolutely loved the Type 89 luring the Saunders flag tank under the guns of the rest of the team. It seemed an odd contradiction for Chi-ha-tan to be excited about a tank running away, considering 'Retreat' wasn't in their vocabulary but she supposed it was a matter of perspective. Duck team had simply been charging in another direction, and their lure had led to almost every tank on the field charging after one another in a decidedly Chi-ha-tan manner.
She watched Captain Nishi and her Vice-Captain Tamada talking to Noriko while two more Chi-ha-tan girls whose names she didn't know looked over the Type 89 with Akebi, Shinobu and Taeko. She could tell the three girls were pleased by the attention. They knew their tank's weakness now and while they were certainly a powerful asset for Oarai, most comments about the Type 89 were not positive. But the two Chi-ha-tan girls seemed to love it. If they got the Type 3 operational before the next match, perhaps they would show the same excitement for it as well. Chi-ha-tan had Type 3s of their own though they rarely got to use them. They were usually in disrepair. It was a sad commentary about the state of high school Sensha-do that so many schools lacked the budget to properly compete. If Chi-ha-tan had had the budget to field their Type 3s against Kuromorimine, it wouldn't have been such a one-sided battle. They might even have been able to win.
Erika thought again about how the Student Council were funding them. The comment that she didn't want to know the answer had only intrigued her more but she knew they were correct about the division of labour. She and Miho would win the matches. They would give them the tools to do so.
It seemed remorselessly unfair though. The Big Four held so many advantages purely because of money while other schools were forced to make do. No wonder the minor schools had their own unofficial tournament of practice matches. It was the only way they could compete on a level playing field.
The wealth disparity was evident with the delegations from Saunders and St Gloriana. Chi-ha-tan had shown up with four students. St Gloriana had come with ten while Saunders had brought thirty. They could afford to take that many students to see a quarter final between two minor schools. She noted with amusement though that the two Anglo schools hadn't even attempted to compete on the culinary front. There were some battles they knew they couldn't win.
There was no sign of Maho.
It made sense, she supposed. Maho could come to the Oarai-Saunders match under the pretence of watching Saunders rather than Miho but she couldn't make that excuse at a match between two impoverished schools like Anzio and Oarai. Perhaps she had tried to justify that the upset meant Oarai was a school worth observing, and had been dismissed. Maybe she had said nothing. She would ask Koume.
St Gloriana had built a little open air tea room for themselves last time but now they constructed a proper pavilion. So did Saunders. Every spectator had come armed with an umbrella. The sky was overcast with grey but every minute brought a wall of ominous purple closer. It promised a lot more than a heavy shower.
"You're thinking about the finals."
Erika glanced at Yukari and the girl had her head bowed as she pretended to inspect the driver's viewport of their tank. So that if Erika was annoyed by her comment, she could pretend she hadn't said anything. Part of her liked that she commanded that kind of fear. Another part thought that her friend shouldn't be afraid to ask her about her feelings.
"There's no rivers here." She said. Not yet anyway.
They knew the terrain now. Effectively, it was a cauldron. They would have to climb the rim and then they would be looking down on woodland, rolling hills and a crossroads. One road led north and south and could bring the two sides headlong against one another. The other road lay from east to west which made a convenient divider. The battlefield could be split into four quadrants. The woods and the hills meant scouting would be vital to avoid ambush and to locate the enemy in the first place. With just ten tanks a side and terrain that blocked views and muffled sound; both teams could easily blunder about for hours trying to make contact with each other. It had never happened to Kuromorimine but she had seen it occur between other schools. That was fortunate for them because their numerous heavy tanks and tank destroyers had appalling fuel economy. They could be bled dry this way. She also hoped the cool weather would keep her fussy engine quiet because it was definitely going to have to work hard on these slopes and when Nakajima inevitably slalomed them through the trees. Just as she had during the Saunders match which had left them mending the tank for a couple of hours.
"Hey! Big bad wolves!"
Erika frowned at the odd hail and saw it was Captain Nishi. Although she wasn't in the mood for socialising, Nishi was a Captain and had to be respected. She slipped down off the T-50 and nodded at Noriko who had brought the Chi-ha-tan leader to her.
Nishi didn't nod. She swung her arm up in a full-blown salute that Erika returned before she knew what she was doing. Yukari saluted her all the time but hadn't gotten that reaction out of her. It must have been because Nishi was a Captain.
"We loved your charge against Saunders!" Nishi stood straight as a ramrod which as her immensely long flowing hair caught the wind meant she unfortunately resembled a windsock. It was apt enough for a school characterised as a bunch of charging fools without a thought in their heads that wasn't 'Attack!' "You took down three Shermans!"
"I have a good gunner and a good driver." She said, her most powerful recollection of that moment being when they had been taken down and their tank sent sliding on its side.
"A great driver! The way you flew down that slope!" Nishi spotted Nakajima and went after her, leaving Erika with Noriko.
"Meeting the neighbours?"
"They're excited we use a Japanese tank." Noriko was certainly pleased. "Most of the other schools don't."
For a moment Erika racked her brain and concluded that Oarai's past and present incarnation was the only other school competing in the Nationals to field Japanese tanks. There were other schools that used them, competing in Tankathalon and other informal tournaments amongst themselves where their light armour and armament were at home, as was their affordability. Japanese tanks from the thirties and early war cost a fraction of mid and late war American, British, German and Soviet models. "They don't often face tanks in their league." She said, thinking of the pasting they had received from Kuromorimine this year. "They would have been better off facing Anzio today."
"Maybe we'll make people think again." Noriko's enthusiasm could not be dampened, even though the currently derelict Type 3 was the only Japanese tank people were likely to take notice of.
Chi-ha-tan moved on and Erika was grateful that Saunders and St Gloriana didn't come calling. It would have been far too much energy to expend before a match, especially if Kay had been in a hugging mood and Rosehip wanted to tell them how much she was looking forward to more crazy speed.
Erika watched the other teams make their final checks. She didn't have to do this herself because she had Nakajima and Yukari in her team; Nakajima knew the state of the engine better than she knew the condition of her clothes and Yukari could identify individual bolts in the tank. Yukari also treated the ammunition like her babies; she cradled every single shell into storage and tucked it safely away. So there was nothing for Erika to check. It was why Yukari's pretence that she was inspecting the tank rather than observing her commander at all times was particularly unconvincing.
Rabbit team were a combination of well-oiled machine and goofballs. Azusa got the job done but they were all immature and so the job was done with a lot of giggling and horseplay. It was a good thing they weren't anxious about the match but given the stakes, she wished they were serious. But if they knew the stakes, then they would be anxious. She gnawed on her scar. Normally the only noteworthy aspect of this match would have been a minor school making it to the semi-finals and then ultimately losing to one of the Big Four who would have brought out their big guns and heavy armour. Today though, this match was everything.
It wasn't just Oarai's fate it would decide. If Oarai was shut down and the students amalgamated with other schools, others would follow as the policy which had already created BC Freedom was deemed a further success. As she and Anzu had discussed, they were fighting the forces of a changing world. The logic of scrapping these underperforming, underpopulated schools was undeniable.
But then, so many wars had dragged on despite it being clear that one side was doomed to defeat. They hadn't given up. They had fought to the bitter end. The winners called it stubborn resistance or fanaticism; refusing to read the writing on the wall. Now that she was on the losing side, she understood why fighting to the very end, kicking and screaming all the way, was preferable to simply rolling over and giving in. Even if by some miracle they did make it all the way, overcoming the might of Pravda and Kuromorimine in the process, there was no guarantee at all that Oarai would still survive. But the school would end on remarkable terms. Such remarkable terms that the Sensha-do practicing schools would not forget it. Not for a generation at least.
Which was better than nothing.
As before, it was the opposing team that came to visit. She had expected nothing less. The Captain of Anzio was a grandstander. She had to be by necessity. Anzio's poverty meant they had to impress their opponents in ways other than through strength of arms and if their tanks were underwhelming then their spirit had to be huge. She had already seen that in Yukari's video. Morale alone couldn't win a battle but it could make a huge difference and commanders who were larger than life characters made their crew believe that there was no such thing as the impossible.
So the Captain of Anzio arrived, perched on top of a Sahariana reconnaissance car with her arms crossed and her huge twin tails flapping in the wind like pennants. She cut an impressive figure although her entrance was undercut somewhat by the nervous look of her driver who was clearly worried she was going to fall. One bump was all it would take for her to fall and break an arm or leg and it would not be the glorious entrance she wanted.
That happened anyway because Anzu greeted her with a cheery wave and a cry of "Hey, lil 'Chovy."
Anchovy leapt from her vehicle as it came to halt in front of Anzu, performing a flawless dismount and folded her arms once more. "Don't call me 'Lil Chovy'! It's 'Anchovy'!"
Anzu faced her with a hand on her hip and one leg bent, giving her a relaxed stance that Erika noted disguised the fact she had to look up at the Anzio Captain. When Momo came up behind her and stood straight as a ramrod, further emphasizing her small stature, Anzu still maintained a strong presence between them because of her impudent posture.
"Well? What do you want, Anzai?" Momo asked.
"Anchovy!" The jack-booted girl insisted and unseen behind her the driver rolled her eyes. "I came for the pre-match greeting, obviously." It was not obvious to the suspicious Momo. It wasn't as if she could gather last-minute intel. They had received each other's line up when they had arrived.
The rest of the club had gathered to watch and it was exactly the audience that the girl had wanted. She drew herself up as tall as she could make herself and Erika saw the playful smile on Anzu's face.
"I am Anzio's Duce; Anchovy!" She declared grandly, looking every inch the part in her uniform. The fact she wore trousers when everyone else was in skirts gave her a special presence. She raised a hand and deliberately pointed it over Anzu's head. "Where is your Captain?"
Miho looked to be checking some kind of list Saori was holding but Erika guessed it was camouflage. It was more public speaking she wanted to avoid, although this time at least she wasn't naked. Erika smiled to herself, wondering if there would ever be a time when Miho baring all to her teammates as she gave them a few words of encouragement would not be funny. Perhaps it was the fact that no one else had said anything about it and it seemed to have passed as just another normal part of Miho's character that made her laugh. Every Sensha-do Captain had their own special traits and tics that made them who they were. Miho's lack of social grace appeared to have been accepted by Oarai as one of hers.
Which could only mean her own temper tantrums and apparent Moe look that made her the recipient of frequent crushing embraces were the aspects that Oarai had accepted of her.
"Hey, Nishizumi!" It always seemed to fly over Momo's head that addressing Miho this way did not lend to her authority as Captain, nor did Miho's meek 'Hai' in response to the summons. There was however something very reminiscent of Maho as she strode forward. And a shade of her mother too, although she had a long, long… long, long, long way to go to capture that presence.
The Duce of Anzio however seemed impressed, although Erika knew it was possible this was also an act. Perhaps she was choosing to be magnanimous rather than contemptuous. It was just another way to awe an opponent.
"Ah, so you're the Nishizumi student." Anchovy seemed happy and Erika wondered why. Perhaps because Miho wasn't Maho or because like so many she had only recently learned Maho had a sister, and not being confronted with a stone-faced smaller version of Maho was a relief.
Miho was obviously wondering the same thing. "I'm Nishizumi Miho." She confirmed, sounding just a little nervous. A little was good. She had let Anzu do all the talking before during the Saunders match, or at least until Kay had pounced on her afterwards.
"Hmmm." Anchovy seemed to decide to be impressed but to play it cool. "Be it Nishizumi School or Shimada School, we won't lose. No!" She suddenly barked and Miho didn't take a step back but she did sway like a tree in a breeze. "We will win!" Anchovy declared and then smiled again. "Let's have a fair fight."
Clearly Miho didn't know how to take this yo-yoing personality but chose to respond to the last emotion she saw. She beamed and took the offered hand. "Yes, let's have a good match." After Kay, she seemed relieved that it was just a hand being offered rather than both arms lunging at her.
Anchovy theatrically looked at their tanks as if seeing them for the first time. "You have an interesting formation." She declared, inflecting 'interesting' in a certain way. She wasn't fooling anyone and yet the faux-politeness was accepted. "Eclectic." Anchovy further declared.
"They work for us." Miho replied happily.
She stopped paying attention to the two Captains because the driver of the Sahariana had caught the eye of one of their teammates. Caesar which was logical she supposed, an Anzio student knowing their connoisseur of all things Italian. What was unexpected was Caesar dashing forward and crying out "Hina-chan!" before clasping hands with her.
They were just out of earshot but their enthusiasm and joy was clear. They also didn't release each other's hands and Erika thought they looked they were going to kiss passionately at any moment. It wasn't just her thought; the other members of Hippo team seemed to be considering the same possibility. They looked as if they were observing a stranger and not their imperious leader. It was a joyous reunion that existed in its own world, totally separate from everyone else.
The cutesy wave the two girls exchanged as they said goodbye only cinched it.
But then Caesar turned back around and remembered her clique. They stood with their arms crossed and amusement etched across their faces. Erika wished she could hear what they said to her but all she could make out was Caesar's face turning the same colour as her scarf and her yelling at them. "What? What?! What's so strange?!" A cry that was given a particular dramatic flair by an ominous rumble of thunder in the distance.
Anchovy and Miho both turned and looked at the gathering storm and then exchanged a look.
"I hope our match isn't decided by the weather." Anchovy declared. "That wouldn't feel right."
"No, it wouldn't." Miho agreed. Though they had planned for the weather, it had been for rain, not a fully-fledged storm.
They went to their starting positions with more rumbles of thunder in their ears. She imagined Darjeeling in her pavilion remarking that thunderstorms before Agincourt and Waterloo had been good omens for the British; the mud had played a decisive part in both battles. They didn't have any British tanks though, just one French one… But then of course, half of their vehicles had served the one nation people always associated with lightning. Blitzkrieg. Perhaps that was good omen.
Unless you considered Roman eagles clutching lightning bolts and Jupiter himself…
"What are you thinking about, Itsumi-dono?" As always, Yukari leaned in close. Not that Soviet tanks were concerned about comfort. If she had had a full crew, she would have been sat behind her gunner and loader with her knees in their backs. Meanwhile she knew that Nakajima was careful when looking back not to peer up their skirts.
"Right now? That your floof is right in my face." She flicked Yukari's fringe. "But before that? I was thinking about the weather."
"It doesn't look good." Yukari eased back a fraction.
"No. It doesn't."
"Everyone. Everyone." Miho's voice filled their ears. "I know this is only our third match against another school and I know for some of you it's only your second or even your first match. I know our tanks look a little mismatched."
"Get to the 'but', Miho." Erika thought aloud but covering her mic with a fist. Yukari grinned beside her.
"But we've all put so much hard work into these tanks. We know what they can do. We know them well. They're our friends."
The sound Yukari made was almost heart-breaking and Erika pretended not to see she had become shiny-eyed.
"And our friends won't let us down, and we won't let our friends down!"
There was a cacophony in her ears as the others responded joyfully and Erika reflected bitterly how she would have reacted to such a sentimental speech in the past. It would not have been pretty. It seemed she was still adapting to Oarai and this exceedingly different Nishizumi Style. She unbuttoned so Yukari wouldn't question her expression and for a moment she was puzzled at how dark it was. She watched the signal flare arc into the sky and then she was blinded by an immense flash.
The crash of thunder came only a second later and made her instinctively duck. She had been on the receiving end of high-calibre explosive shells and the thunder was far too reminiscent of it.
In the thunder's wake came a different roar and she didn't think twice about ducking back into the tank and shutting the hatch tight. Only a moment later the T-50 seemed to come under fire from a thousand machine guns and Yukari looked at her with quiet awe at the fury of the rain. It was a monsoon. A typhoon. She checked their flanks and she could no longer see the other tanks through the grey sheet of rain.
"This is new." She mused. She had fought in the dark and in falling snow but never in daylight with rain that reduced her field of view to barely beyond the glacis of her own tank.
"Okami-san team, please take the lead." Saori commanded. "All tanks, turn your lights on."
Now they could see each other but that didn't mean that they could see where they were going. She knew that Miho wanted her to take point because of her experience and because she was in a light tank with their best driver. Nakajima drove in the mud for fun.
But even she was hard pressed when they reached the winding road up the slope. "I can't see a bloody thing!" She finally snapped and for this, Erika couldn't blame her as she slipped down beside her to take a look for herself. The rain was coming down hard enough to splatter their tank with the mud it threw up before their treads even touched it. She was trying to see through a fog of rain and dirt.
She heard a clank and clatter and closed her eyes.
"Was that…" Nakajima couldn't finish the question.
"That was the sound of Fluffy disembarking." Erika replied, opening her eyes and then Yukari appeared in front of them. She was calling to them and waving a torch she must have brought along but the sound of the rain hitting the tank and the ground outside drowned out any noise she made. The message was clear though. "Follow that fluff." She said resignedly.
They followed the light of Yukari's torch and at a good speed as she somehow made a good pace along the track despite the sucking mud. More than once she slipped but she scurried along on all fours which as the rain had succeeded in plastering her hair flat meant she truly did look like a drowned rat. Erika climbed back to her cupola and looked back on the others. Duck team were right behind them followed by Tanuki and Turtle team; the light tanks taking the lead rather than struggle through the slurry that would be left behind by the heavier machines. She could only recognise the two 38(t)s by the arrangement of their headlamps. The weather was truly insane. She barely noticed the thunder and flashes of lightning over the fury of the rainfall.
"C'mon. C'mon! Where's the top?" She ground her teeth in frustration and then began uttering every curse in German that she knew before moving onto more conventional Japanese that made Nakajima's shoulders twitch.
Finally they made it up the slope and just in time it seemed because Erika had to grab hold of Yukari as she slipped on the slick metal of the tank's glacis and then drag her bodily inside.
The girl who flopped into her gunner's seat barely resembled the one that Erika knew. Her hair was completely flat which made her head look tiny and the often exhausting to be around relentless energy that defined Akiyama Yukari had been literally washed away it seemed.
She pulled off Yukari's soaked jacket and replaced it with her own and then barked a quick command that made Nakajima relinquish her own and threw that over her as well. It was not enough as Yukari was rapidly turning blue.
"Get up here!" She snapped at Nakajima who obeyed before she knew what she was doing and suddenly found herself bodily pressed against Yukari. She understood though and wrapped her arms around her so that she was sandwiched between the two girls.
Erika had wrapped her in two jackets but that didn't mean anything to Yukari's bared legs. She started rubbing one of Yukari's frozen thighs and Nakajima gave her a very startled look but Erika was in no mood for insinuations and innuendos. "What are you waiting for? She's got two legs!"
"This isn't what I signed up for." Nakajima began to tend to Yukari's other leg. "I didn't sign up…" She realised.
"No, you were volunteered. Just like me and Miho. Like Kamo team. And now you're learning vital life skills."
"How to feel up my teammates?" The driver asked pointedly.
"First aid." Erika hissed.
Yukari trembled and it wasn't because of the cold. "This doesn't feel like first aid."
"I'll buy you a drink first next time."
"Next time?" Nakajima and Yukari asked together.
She chose to answer this as a Sensha-do professional rather than the angry and embarrassed girl she also was. "Knowing our luck we'll face Pravda in the snow and it'll get very cold."
"Can I choose to wear warm clothes rather than be groped by my commander?" Nakajima inquired.
"You can. But you'll miss another chance at a team bonding session like this." Enough colour and warmth had returned to Yukari's leg now for Erika to stop rubbing and when she took her hands away, Nakajima tore hers away like she had been burned.
"Can we not talk about this? Ever?" She asked rather plaintively.
"What happens in the panzer, stays in the panzer." Yukari's spirits had immediately recovered along with her body temperature. "Thank you." She said to Erika. "Thank you." She said to Nakajima.
"That's talking about it." The gearhead replied.
"Get back to your seat, driver." Erika waved her off and Nakajima practically fled back down to her spot. It seemed while she was happy to make jokes about her and Yukari being more than friends, she wasn't comfortable being a part of it. It was one thing to make jokes and another to stroke another girl's thigh; even if it was because that girl had turned blue from cold and friction was a fast and easy way to warm her back up.
They were all innocent in that department. It was embarrassing. Miho got embarrassed about these things too. For her part, they bothered her too but she knew that all she had been thinking about was getting Yukari warm. They had done the same thing to her, Koume and Miho after they had been pulled from the river before and while they were swaddled in blankets.
Yukari shivered some more while Erika peered through her cupola. It was a complete waste of time as the rain was still coming down in sheets, obscuring everything more than twenty metres away. The other tanks had fanned out around them and Saori told them to turn off their lights, as if there was any chance that Anzio was blundering through this storm toward them and would spot them. Their little CVs would be utterly blinded by the rain and with only a forty-three horsepower engine to move its three ton body, it wouldn't be able to make it up a slope running with this much water. Their Semoventes certainly wouldn't want to tangle with turreted vehicles at close range and the rain outside meant they wouldn't see each other until their guns were touching.
"Feeling warmer now?" She asked Yukari.
"Much better." Yukari answered with much of her former spirit.
"Good."
Erika couldn't hit her and though she didn't want to hit her to hurt her, it was still her first instinct. Instead she put her hands in her wet hair and furiously ruffled it, spraying herself and Nakajima with water and splattering most of the tank as well. "What were you thinking?!" She demanded, still fuzzing her hair.
The only sound Yukari could make was an alarmed "Waaaaah!"
"Next time you do something crazy like that, you tell me first or I'll… I'll… I will think of something terrible to do to you and then I will do it! Understand?!"
"Understood!" Yukari said, and then began extracting strands of hair from her mouth. It was a long and laborious exercise and the rest of her hair was still dripping. She would dry off soon enough. Their tank was always hot and despite being in just her undershirt and skirt, Erika was warm enough despite the storm outside. The T-50's troublesome engine was in this case useful.
"So this is Sensha-do." Nakajima mused. "What if it rains all day?"
"Then it rains all day." Erika replied. It would become an endurance match then. If it rained like this all day, they would have to just sit tight and perhaps Anzio would grow impatient and make a fruitless attack on this ridge. That would work out well for Oarai but it did mean they would have to play the waiting game. Yukari would regret not having bought a cushion to supplement her hard Soviet seat. "'This is Sensha-do.'" She mimicked Nakajima. "What were you expecting? Clear blue skies every match?"
"Well, it would be nice."
"But that would be boring!" Yukari interjected. "Sensha-do matches need to be varied so that matches don't become repetitive and so that different tanks get the opportunity to shine!"
"I like driving in different conditions, but this?! This is crazy!"
"It'll calm down soon." Erika asserted. "But we'll still lose the range advantage."
"I thought that didn't matter to us."
"Not to us. But it's vital to the StuG and Panzer IV."
"Their 7.5cm cannons can scrap anything Anzio has at two thousand metres!" Yukari explained with an odd combination of bloodthirstiness and adorableness. She had heard plenty of praise for these long-barrelled guns at Kuromorimine but no one had ever sounded like they thought they were cute. She had an odd vision of Yukari joyfully petting a basket of fluffy Panzers and then wondered if she was in fact going insane. Not for the first time.
"They only have 50mm of frontal armour and 30mm on the flanks so that power at long range is what makes them such valuable assets." Erika gave a more detailed explanation to try and recover her professionalism. "Their Semoventes need to be almost point blank to defeat them frontally… Unless they get a lucky shot, like they did against Maginot." She looked into the white-grey fog of heavy rain. "If it wasn't thundering down, we'd have a great view from up here and they could dominate the field… Or at least the top of the hills." It was not a battlefield for long range engagements, even without this monsoon.
"I swear I've heard this before." Nakajima remarked.
"You have. We've been over this multiple times in our practice matches."
"I think when you start ranting about German firepower superiority; I just tune you out." Nakajima said cheerfully and Erika glared at the back of her head, knowing she had that grin on her face.
"The respect my team has for me is awesome." Erika remarked, folding her arms across her chest.
"I respect you, Itsumi-dono." Yukari put in.
"You had better. I just warmed your frostbitten thighs after all."
Yukari squeaked with embarrassment. "I thought we weren't going to talk about that!"
"I promised nothing." Erika declared loftily.
"I take back all my hugs." Yukari pouted.
"No, you don't."
"… No, I don't." Yukari's pout became even more pronounced.
"Oh, stop it!" Nakajima moaned. "It's too early into the match for me to listen to your… Sismance."
"Don't listen to her, Fluffy. She's just missing Hoshino."
"Wut?" Nakajima twisted around to look at them.
"You think we believe she wears those tank tops for Tsuchiya's benefit?" Erika inquired slyly. "It's definitely your attention she wants."
Nakajima turned a series of funny colours. "I… She… Whuh…" Her babble paused and comprehension dawned on her features and she glared at Erika. "Well played, commander."
"Thank you, Jumpsuit." Erika nodded at her.
"Okami-san team, report status." Saori's voice had that unlikely authority she carried over the radio waves.
"All is well in the Love Boat." Erika confirmed.
Saori's authority wavered. "…'Love Boat'?"
"Private joke, Dr Takebe."
"'Dr Takebe'?" Yukari frowned.
"Private joke, Fluffy."
"Any more privates and you'll have a platoon." Nakajima put in.
"Clever, Jumpsuit. Very clever."
From their perspective, the storm seemed to rage for hours but it only took twenty minutes after they reached the high ground for the rain to ease off. The three of them instinctively reached for their ears as the thrumming of the rain on the armour all but vanished. The rain was still heavy but no longer coming down with force. They could see now although the view was very grey and very brown. Somewhere down there were Anzio's vehicles; nine of which were in desert camouflage. Ideal for the North African desert. Not so much for this field. Their grey 38(t)s and StuG had an advantage in this weather.
Anzio had their secret weapon; the P40. Perhaps to compliment the P40, they had brought four Semoventes versus the mere three they had deployed against Maginot. Maginot had possessed greater armour strength than Oarai so Anzio's decision to bring extra firepower against them was interesting. Erika suspected it was because of the Nishizumi wielding a Panzer IV with a long barrelled 7.5cm gun.
"Ahiru-san team, Okami-san team." Miho sounded confident. "Please scout the highway."
"Confirmed, Captain." Erika spoke to her mic. "Okay, Jumpsuit. Let's see how good your rallying skills are."
She regretted these words. Nakajima took them down the slope in a small mudslide but the vehicle had been built with Russian mud and snow in mind. The treads were wide and the engine seemed content today, likely from the intense water-cooling it was experiencing.
The Type 89 followed them with less grace and while they had less power, their tank had been designed for infantry support. To slog through trenches and overcome obstacles. Mud was not a problem for it. They went their separate ways, heading far from the road so they could scout down the highway and meet at the crossroads. If Anzio was attempting a pincer move and lying in wait for Orai to advance to the crossroads, they would find them and by doing so, thwart it. The others would not leave the high ground until the road was scouted and if they found part of Anzio's force, they could swoop down and overwhelm them. At least, that was Erika's thinking.
"Can you even see anything?" Nakajima asked.
"I'm looking for yellow tanks in a sea of brown and green." Erika knew exactly what Yukari was about to say.
"Anzio's only tank isn't yellow. Only their tank destroyers and tankettes."
It was amazing that this amused her and even endeared Yukari to her. In the past, this kind of pedantry would have enraged her. "Their flag tank won't be out here." She said instead. "Not unless the great Duce has gotten very aggressive."
"They defeated Maginot by being aggressive."
"They weren't facing Miho. They'll be cautious."
Nakajima giggled. "I don't think our Captain could intimidate a child."
"Not in person." Erika conceded readily. "But from the cupola of her tank?"
"Terror in the hearts of women." Nakajima declared, and she meant it.
"He's running well today." Erika braced herself for one of them to accuse her of jinxing it but it didn't come. She also realised she had thought of their tank as a person rather than a machine.
"It's because you haven't beaten him in a while."
"Only because you've stopped me." Erika pointed out. "I'd have given him a good thrashing."
"We couldn't let you beat our tank!" Yukari protested.
Turning to look at her, it was all Erika could do not to cry out in shock. Yukari's hair was drying in the hot interior of their tank and drastically increasing in volume as it did. It was already twice its usual size and Yukari seemed completely unaware. Erika pointedly gazed out of the cupola and looked for Anzio's units but there was nothing to see. The trees bordering the road were heaving in the rain but were otherwise free of movement and conspicuous yellow tank destroyers. They raced beside the highway, using the embankment as a shield so that only the small target of their turret was vulnerable and if Anzio was out there and watching, they held fire.
"Okami-san team, report." Saori's voice reached them officiously.
"No sign of Anzio here, just a lot of mud, rain and hair. So much hair!"
"…Hair?" Saori was audibly confused.
"Yukari's hair got wet, and now it's drying and it's taking over my turret!" Erika exaggerated only slightly for comic effect. Yukari's hair was now well over thrice the size of her head and still growing.
"Whoa!" Nakajima had looked back. "You look like the Seventies!"
"It's not that big." Yukari protested and her attempts to pat it down only served to fluff it up even more.
"You mean it'll get bigger?" Any remaining sense of professionalism within their tank had vanished in the presence of Yukari's haystack. "Kuromorimine never trained me for this situation!"
"Akiyama, she's making jokes again." Nakajima pointed out.
"Oooo! That means the enemy is near!"
Erika brought her attention back out of the tank but there was still nothing to see. Only Duck team approaching from the opposite direction but making their way along the road rather than beside it. It might have been a poor lapse of judgement if they hadn't been fairly flying along, making a hard target for even the most skilled gunner.
The two tanks met at the crossroads and took position either side of the road back to their main force, hull-down and facing the route that led to Anzio. Perhaps. Maybe they had dug in on the opposing rim of the cauldron or perhaps they were enacting a double envelopment. They didn't know. They could not see far and the rain made it impossible for them to listen to distant engine noise. All Erika could hear was the wind and rain in the trees. She unbuttoned and the weather lashed cruelly at her as she took in a proper look but there was nothing to see within the small cone of her vision. She ducked back down.
Yukari promptly returned her jacket and then glomped her so that she was engulfed in a cloud of floof.
"What are you doing?"
"Sharing body heat." Yukari said. "Like you did with me."
"I was only out there for a second."
"Twenty seconds." Yukari countered.
"Yeah, commander." Nakajima toned from below. "You need thawing." She laughed as Erika's foot found her shoulder.
"Oh, enough!" She fended Yukari off and then became distracted by her hair once more. "Maybe we should borrow Mako's ushanka. If you think we could pack all that into it."
"It wouldn't work." Yukari said. "I tried wearing hats but whenever I took them off a second, my hair would poof out and everyone would laugh if they saw it."
Erika remembered the pictures of Yukari's perm and couldn't decide if the afro she now sported was a worse look for her. "You should see how I looked with ribbons in my hair when I was young."
"Ribbons?" Nakajima twisted around to look up at her, her features twisting as she tried to visualise it.
"My mother did my hair." Erika explained. "She liked me to look 'cute'."
"I'm picturing a girl with two neat pigtails tipped with bows, and a ferocious scowl on her face."
"Spot on." Erika sighed. "It was worse when my hair was tied up with them and people actually would go 'Awww!' at the sight of me."
"And you let them live?" Nakajima asked slyly.
"I was a child! What could I do?!"
"Get mad and hold your hands at your sides like you're going to conjure lightning?" The driver suggested.
Erika looked down and saw that was exactly the pose she had adopted.
"You do that a lot." Yukari giggled. "It's your blitzkrieg pose!"
"How about your tank lover's pose?" Erika countered and drew her hands into fists and held them to her chest and shook them before doing the best impression of Yukari's excited voice that she could. "Wahooo! It's the prototype Porsche Tiger! It's the very bestest and rarest panzer!"
"Do I sound like that?" Yukari asked, somewhat put out.
"Yes." Nakajima answered laconically.
Erika was already prepared. "Yeah! Drift, drift, drift; baby! Let's see how much power we can tease out of this big boy! He's been holding out on us but I know he'll perform with the right encouragement!"
"Is that meant to be me?" The driver asked, stone-faced.
"That's you."
"That is not me!"
"Yes it is." Erika said. "When you have a boyfriend, he'll never know if you're talking about a vehicle or practicing your sexy talk."
"So I'll have a boyfriend. Not Hoshino."
"I'm sure you'll have both. One in the bedroom. One in the garage."
Nakajima was spared further blushes by the arrival of the other six Oarai tanks, led by Mallard team. In this rain-blasted bleak landscape, the French heavy tank looked reassuringly solid. Even though she knew the howitzer wasn't particularly powerful against armour, the short blunt cannon with its wide mouth looked fearsome; especially compared to the spindly 47mm gun on the turret and the 37mm guns of the 38(t)s. Her own 45mm gun looked incongruously small compared to the rest of the vehicle, especially compared to the cannons of the Panzer IV and StuG.
"Kamo-san team, please take the lead. Usagi-san team, take their right flank and we shall take the left." Miho gave her orders crisply and without any hint of hesitation. She gave the rest of them their marching orders as well. The 38(t)s would follow behind the B1 bis while Type 89 and T-50 flanked the StuG at the rear. Their strongest armour led the way along the narrow road and everyone watched the flanks. The woods were thick here at the crossroads and that tangle made it unlikely Anzio was lurking. It was the sparser country ahead that presented the danger.
"Not the most impressive battering ram." Erika mused on their formation. "Not exactly the Nishizumi Style."
"Close enough though." Yukari replied brightly.
"We could use that Porsche Tiger now." A 100mm of frontal armour and an 8.8cm gun would look very impressive, not to mention completely immune to Anzio's guns. "Although knowing our luck, it would catch fire. In the rain."
"Don't mock our tank." Nakajima chided her.
"'Our tank'?"
"We decided. When we finish taking it apart, putting it back together and fixing it; it'll be our tank. The Automotive Club's."
"You want that heavy, slow monstrosity for yourself?"
"If you're going to call it a 'monstrosity', you won't understand."
"I don't understand. This tank is fast and has plenty of mechanical issues for you to play with. It seems more like your style than a failed Tiger prototype." Erika said and then sighed. "Stop pouting, Super-Floof. It is a failed prototype. It does have a lot of issues." She sighed again as Yukari continued to pout. "But it is a special kind of tank and we are lucky to have its armour and gun on our side." This brightened her up although inwardly Erika wondered if they could even make it work. "It's the Type 3 I want to see working. If we fight Pravda after this, we'll need it, especially if we can't fix the Tiger P up in time."
"I wish we had had it when we faced Saunders. That would have been poetic; a Type 3 facing Shermans!"
"I wish we'd had it too. Damn bunnies."
"I'll tell them you said that." Nakajima warned. "And they'll set Saki on you again."
"There's something strange about that girl. Like she's not quite here with the rest of us."
"She seemed pretty present when she was giving you a cuddle."
"I'm this close to cuddling your neck with my feet."
"Kinky. But maybe you should pay attention to the battlefield, commander."
Perhaps it was the rain, or perhaps it was that Yukari hadn't returned Nakajima's jacket so she was in her undershirt while the two of them had theirs on unbuttoned and so they all looked very informal. Whatever it was, the Oarai madness seemed to have been fully unleashed within the T-50 today and it was growing in strength by the minute.
[][][][][][]
Obviously, operating a tank in real life was nothing like operating one in a game. In a game, they had complete control of every function of the tank at their fingertips. In reality, they each had a role and that was their domain. They had to communicate constantly and they weren't used to that operating a single tank. They were used to coordinating multiple tanks via their headsets at their computers but a single tank?
Momoga had expected two levers that needed to be pulled and pushed to control each tread. Instead she had two horizontal handles to grasp though she still had to push and pull. She had never driven anything before and the 38(t) was ten tons of steel propelled by a six-cylinder engine. The power of it alarmed her and yet she had spent most of this match behind the big French tank with its wide imposing treads that weighed nearly three times as much. She needed more time to acclimate to it but instead here she was in an official Sensha-do match, negotiating glutinous mud and expecting to come under fire at any moment. The heavy rain sounded like the impact of bullets to her ears.
For Piyotan, the tension came from the thought of firing on another tank. On other girls. Her training had only been on practice targets, on pieces of wood that might have been fence panels or a pile of firewood. There was an enormity of firing on living people, even if they were safely encased behind steel armour and the carbon coating that couldn't be penetrated by their Sensha-do ammunition. But she couldn't shake the worry that she would be responsible for one of the few times when the carbon coating failed.
Nekonya was commanding, and loading. The 37mm shells were decidedly hefty and she couldn't help but think about the 75mm ones of the Type 3. If it was repaired, that would be their tank and it would be a much bigger challenge than this machine. Captain Miho and Lieutenant Erika had told them that the 38(t) was a kind learner's tank; easy to operate in every way. They had sounded so warm and fond of the little tank. Even the sarcastic and frightening Erika.
Yukari hadn't had anything reassuring to say about the operation of a Type 3 though. She made it sound so grand, so complicated. Like they should have had months learning how to operate it.
But then everyone in the tanks around them hadn't much time to learn either and they had beaten Saunders; one of the major powers of high school Sensha-do. It was a question of confidence and confidence was not something the three of them were well acquainted with away from the safe refuge of their gaming rigs. The Duck team of volleyballers were full of confidence despite possessing such a weak tank and Rabbit team that consisted only of First Years were still cheery and self-assured, so much so that they were able to tease the second in command without recrimination.
They had trained in such pleasant weather but not they were competing in that weather now. The storm that had hit them had rattled Nekonyaa's nerves even before they had been aided up the twisting road by a helpful push from the other 38(t) that had felt and sounded like being hit by a log. Now they were edgy following in the wake of the larger tanks as they advanced up the road, waiting for the inevitable moment they encountered Anzio and they had their first experience of sustained gunfire. They had practiced gunnery and been overwhelmed by the noise and violence of their gun's discharge but she knew that when all the tanks fired together, it would be a wholly different experience.
So the temporary crew of the Tanuki were anxious in their first match as they learned the reality of tank combat versus its online counterpart. But they were also excited to be a part of it. To live what had merely been fantasy for so long.
[][][][][][]
Because of the relentless rain, she saw them before she heard them. She had been scanning expectantly for the attack and for a moment she wasn't sure what she was seeing. Anzio's distinctive yellow hulls should have been bright and easy to see in this gloom but what she saw instead was actually well camouflaged.
The five CV tankettes stood a mere four feet and three inches tall. Which meant that every puddle they crashed through showered the entire vehicle in mud and dirty water. Their lower hulls were completely brown while their glacis' were splattered with a leopard print pattern of mud over their yellow paint which the rain kept valiantly washing off so that the pattern was constantly changing. Their drivers must have been spitting grit from their mouths as it splashed through their viewports. She wondered what that would mean for their twin machineguns. If mud got into the barrels, they would be disarmed. Not that they had much firepower to start with.
"Captain, five CVs sighted at three o'clock." She reported.
"Ahiru-san team, Okami-san team, wait until they're closer before you engage. Make sure you don't let them lure you into an ambush."
"Understood, Captain." Erika knew the patently obvious advice was meant well. She and Miho might have planned this strategy together but they both knew that in the heat of battle, strategy could be forgotten. Especially when driving twice their number of opponents before them and the other team were the enthusiastic and aggressive Duck team.
Had the weather been dry, the CVs would have been on them rapidly, instead it must have been painfully obvious to the Anzio girls that they had been spotted and were being ignored right up until the T-50 and Type 89 broke away from the formation. Their response was prompt; they immediately slewed around and neither Sasaki nor Yukari could resist firing on them during the moment they were slowed by the mud. Neither shot made contact because of the range, and because they and the targets were moving but it felt good to make the first shots. The rain and mud meant that instead of driving into them and sweeping them with machinegun fire, the tankettes hadn't had the chance to fire a single burst.
"They're making good speed." Nakajima noted. "They must really know what they're doing with those engines."
"Speed is all they have." Erika replied, loading for Yukari. "Makes sense they'd want to get every last ounce of it out of their machines."
"Good drivers too. Especially for those tracked boxes." Nakajima said and then giggled. "I would not like to be in one of those if it got hit by a big gun."
"Best not to think about it." Erika however couldn't help but, picturing Kuromorine's biggest guns. It seemed impossible that the safety measures could protect a little tankette from that kind of firepower. Light tanks were often picked up off their tracks and thrown through the air after being struck by a shot from a large calibre, high velocity gun. Kay's 75mm short barrelled gun had had enough power throw them onto their side after all, though that might have been harder to achieve in today's conditions. "Can you catch them?" She asked.
"Of course!" It wasn't cockiness. She knew her skills and what their tank could do.
They steamed ahead of Duck team and Erika kept her eyes focused on the surroundings. Nakajima and Yukari were fixed on the CVs, waiting for their moment and she had to keep her eye on the bigger picture. It had to be a lure for an ambush because they had not hidden their approach. They had wanted to be seen. There was a Semovente out here, maybe two. Waiting.
They were behind them as well. She heard the report of two or three guns and they weren't the familiar bangs of Oarai's arsenal. They were the unfamiliar Italian guns.
"Captain, directly ahead!" Sodoko reported. "Two Semoventes!"
"All teams, fire and advance. Don't let them break off." Miho commanded. If the two tank destroyers were directly ahead, they could only reverse out of combat. Not unless they risked exposing their broad flanks to turn away and flee. It was an opportunity.
"Sounds like an ambush." Yukari opined.
"That's the question." Erika replied without looking away from her view. "Are they luring us into an ambush or the rest of the team?"
"Why would they attack the others if we're the ones being lured?" Nakajima asked.
"To confuse us. Make us wonder which is the real threat. There's still three tanks unaccounted for." And the P40 was one of them. One good shot was all it would take. "They know what they're doing."
"Is that what we were expecting?"
"Traditionally, Anzio has always been a walkover. This is the strongest side they've fielded in years." Just Oarai's luck. "That Duce of theirs really seems to care about Sensha-do."
"She was quite something!" Yukari put in. "The energy in the coliseum was incredible! But I think the others don't share her passion."
"Like you and the rest of us, Super-Floof. We just can't measure up." Erika couldn't look at her and her immense hair. A lion would have been intimidated by her great mane now. "And I care about Sensha-do."
"I'm starting to enjoy it." Nakajima mused to herself. "When I'm not being ordered to fix up a machine I've never seen before. Bits like this are fun!" Meaning chasing the enemy off the muddy battlefield.
They would have to stop the pursuit though. Erika glimpsed two yellow shapes up in the trees ahead, Anzio's desert paint scheme letting them down, although it looked as if they had attempted some camouflage with some foliage. Not enough though.
"Noriko! Break off pursuit and return to the others. Semoventes ahead."
"Can't we take them on?" Naturally the aggressive commander of Duck team wanted to attack, regardless of the risks.
"Not now. The P40 might be with them." They could take on the CVs and two Semoventes at the same time but not the P40 as well. "Head back now. Like we've been ordered back rather than we've spotted them."
Shinobu understood, as did Nakajima. They didn't skid dramatically to a halt but instead slowed and turned away. Hopefully, the Anzio girls would believe their ambush hadn't been spotted and they would attempt to lure them in again.
"Captain, what is your situation?" The firing hadn't stopped but no one had reported any kills or being knocked out.
"Still only two Semoventes in sight." Miho reported. "They're pounding Mallard team and we haven't landed a clear hit yet. Still no sign of their flag tank."
"We're returning. The CVs are… They're coming after us again." They weren't being subtle about it either. They were charging after them with the clear intent to attack them before they could re-join the main force. As it was possible for their machineguns to defeat the Type 89, it was likely they scented blood. The T-50 was only vulnerable at the rear of the turret, making it a big threat to the tankettes but they were willing to ignore her for the potential of a kill.
It was a poor decision though to focus on them when the 38(t)s were properly vulnerable to the CVs. They should have been trying to draw them away and then quickly darting back to attack the main force. At least, that was what she would have done. Anzio's strategy was confusing to her eyes; trying to split their force made sense but the tank destroyers facing Miho were likely to be wiped out soon. Losing two fifths of their true firepower merely to take out two of Oarai's smaller machines made no sense.
"Around. Turn us around!" She snapped at Nakajima who didn't hesitate, she simply slewed the tank about one hundred and eighty degrees. They charged straight at the CVs and Erika unbuttoned, gripping her cap to her head with one hand and Yukari's binoculars to her eyes with the other.
The yellow shapes leapt into view and she peered at them. They hadn't changed position since she had seen them in the distance. They didn't look like the CVs with their leopard print of mud spots; they were virtually pristine. The rain perhaps could have swept them clean as they held position but they were under the trees, under cover from the driving rain. It couldn't make them pristine.
"What do you see?" Yukari called up.
Erika didn't reply. There was something about the Semoventes that bothered her but she didn't know what it was. The CVs were drawing closer, buzzing like angry hornets and she heard Yukari reporting to Noriko, making the Type 89 turn back and follow them. Beyond that, the main force was still advancing inexorably forward on the other two Semoventes; exchanging fire briskly.
"Itsumi-dono! Get down! Before they open fire!"
She glared at the Semoventes through the wet lenses of the binoculars. What was it? What was wrong with how they looked? "Verdammt!" She cursed herself. She was seeing something but not comprehending.
"Itsumi-dono! Get down!" She felt Yukari touch her legs, wanting to but afraid to just pull her bodily into the tank.
In the heat of battle, adrenaline made her feel as if time slowed. As if she alone was moving quickly while all around her slipped into slow motion. It happened now before the action commenced. She saw something small fly against one of the Semoventes and stick in place, held by the wind and now she finally realised what she was seeing. "No… No…" It was hard to see in the rain and it was very convincing work. But the Semovente was two-dimensional.
Yukari stopped hesitating and yanked her down into the T-50 just as the CVs opened fire and the tank rattled with the violent impact of the rounds making the earlier heavy rain utterly puny.
"Miho!" Erika shrieked into the radio. "The Semoventes here are fakes! Decoys! They're drawing you in! Miho!"
Her voice was lost in a tumult of voices and gunfire.
"Hit! Hit! We're hit!"
"On the left!"
"They got a 38! Is it the flag?"
"They didn't get us! We're okay!"
"The Tanuki! They got the Tanuki!"
"Captain! Captain!"
"They got the Panzer IV! They got the Captain!"
"Captain!"
"Captain! Captain!"
"Captain!"
"EVERYBODY SHUT UP!" Erika's screech cut through all of them. "Yukari! Fire!" There was a momentary pause and then the T-50 was rocked with the report of their 45mm gun. "Turtle team, report status!"
"We're okay!" Anzu called. "They didn't get us, they got the Tanuki!"
"Captain, report status!" She waited but there was no reply. "Who has eyes on the Captain?" She reloaded for Yukari without thinking about it. "Come on!"
"I see her!" Azusa couldn't keep the edge of panic out of her voice. "They're firing!"
"They're hit!" Sodoko likewise had a shrill note to her voice but then her tank had been taking a beating for a while, drawing Anzio's fire. No one could completely hold their nerve after being under sustained attack.
"Hit where? Details!"
"Left side! I can't see!"
"We're moving up! Eine Minute!" Erwin snapped.
"Wait! I see the Captain!" Azusa reported excitedly. "She's signalling! Their radio's out!"
"Obviously." Erika said to herself. "StuG!"
"They've lost their left track!" Erwin reported and then the StuG's gun fired. "We're covering them!"
"Erika!" Nakajima called with a harsh note to her refrain. A CV was on a collision course with them as they bore down on their wedge.
"Don't stop!" Erika wasn't going to give way for a tankette a fifth of their weight. "Ram the bitches!"
"What?!"
"You heard me!"
Nakajima and Yukari both screamed as they bore down on the CV. The Anzio driver lost their nerve at the last moment and desperately turned but the mud slowed them and the T-50 caught the rear corner of the tankette. The impact shook the T-50 but they felt something tear off the CV. Erika looked back and saw they had ripped off its rear wheel and a sizeable length of track. It was dead in the water.
"Do we re-join the others?" Nakajima had charged them amongst Saunders tanks but it seemed that being ordered to ram an Anzio vehicle head on had frayed her nerves.
"No. We clean up here!"
"They're scattering!" Yukari pointed out.
"Then we run them down!" Erika barked. "Azusa! What's happening?"
"Two Semoventes ahead of us!" The First Year answered. "Two to our left! And the P40!"
"Keep firing on the ones in front of you! You too, Midoriko!" She used Sodoko's actual name so that she would focus. "Erwin! Target the P40! Yuzu! Use the others as cover! Noriko! Pick a Carro Veloce and run it down!"
"One moment!" Noriko shrieked in excitement and Erika looked back to see the Type 89 bear down on the CV they had crippled and put it down with a single precise shot from their much maligned 57mm. Their first competitive kill. "Okay!"
"Is the Captain still signalling?"
"I think she's confirming what you said! I don't know!" Azusa squeaked.
"Stay where you are and give them everything you've got! They won't stand!" She was sure of this. The crippled Panzer IV was still dangerous and she knew Hana would be gunning for the P40 just like the StuG. The Duce would not hold her nerve under fire from two 7.5cm guns, especially with reports that her fast movers were in disarray. Her ambush had failed and she would want to regroup. "Move this thing faster!" She snapped down at Nakajima.
"Get off my back, woman! I'm driving!"
Erika grinned ferociously. Now they were all in the right mind. The T-50 leapt after a pair of fleeing CVs and at long last, the rain slackened.
(10,616)
Author's notes;
I lost a week at work. An eight and a half mile round cycle to work and almost nine hours on ladders is gruelling. Kills your mood too and I wasn't in the right place to write.
So well over half of this has come out in the past two weeks.
Much of this chapter is just banter between Erika, Nakajima and Yukari. That might chafe on those of you who want more action but I love writing banter. The more mindless, the better. When I was at university, I was always praised for my dialogue and the secret is to make it mindless. Conversation in most writing gets straight to the point, tells the reader what they need to know. Which isn't realistic.
Wolf team banter is also a lot of fun. Erika has pretty much accepted the utter lack of decorum in Oarai proceedings while Nakajima loves needling her and Yukari is Yukari. I knew I had to make a joke about Yukari's hair. My own does the same thing. After first drying out after getting wet, I look like Bob Ross. Then after a day or two I look like Bob Dylan. I love the idea of Yukari's big hair rattling Erika's nerves.
Lots of fanservice here. The rubbing sequence I've written before, with males. Their friend is half-frozen after stumbling through a blizzard and they strip him off and wrap him in blankets and give him a good rub down. Likewise, much banter about the homoerotic overtones. Similar energy here. What happens in the panzer stays in the panzer. Feel free to make of it what you will; this one I can't defend.
Erika has obviously become very fond of Yukari. Yukari can be rougher with Erika than canon-Yukari can be with Miho which works with her boisterous nature. Erika likewise gets physical with Yukari in a manner Miho wouldn't.
A brief look into the minds of the future Anteater team. I wanted to stress how they went into Sensha-do as gamers. I been paintballing with gamers who treated it like Call of Duty. And promptly got shot running and gunning in the open and spent the remaining 28 minutes of a 30 minute match on the sidelines. Operating a tank is a team effort, unlike games where we can control everything. Three loners coming together as a team is a challenge. More to explore later.
I toyed with ending on the false report that Ankou team had been knocked out. I decided it would be too much of a blatant cliff-hanger copout to reveal they hadn't been at the start of the next chapter. I also thought heavily about having Miho knocked out, something people bitch about endlessly not happening in the series before Das Finale 3. But this is still as much Miho's story as Erika's and the Captain being knocked out in the first action of the match and Erika taking over, it would be too much. Maybe you disagree.
If you've watched Classic Dr Who, you've seen cardboard cutouts in the background. They're very blatantly 2D images. The anime can get away with it but writing it, I felt it could only work in bad weather. Erika comes to the realisation she's seeing a 2D image too late, because it's raining and she's got the wind whipping in her hair and a skirmish line of CVs bearing down on her. I liked Anzio's decoys, because of the history of maskirovka in WW2 and its usage in North Africa. It made sense to me to have Anzio spring an ambush using them.
Erika gets very aggressive toward the end. She may have become friendlier but she's still fierce. I especially enjoyed Nakajima and Yukari teasing her about adopting the Storm from X-men pose when she's angry. Her blood gets riled up and the old Erika surfaces.