ATTENTION: THIS STORY IS A SEQUEL TO "OFFICER SAOTOME", A FIC I COMPLETED IN 2010.
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SODA-POP
FAST Phase
HELL WEEK +5
1612 Hours
"15 remaining, 15 accounted for, Master Chief."
Stroking his fuzzy, unshaved chin, Command Master Chief Ken Kimura regarded the diminutive figure standing before him.
Her soaking wet chocolate chip BDUs were encrusted with silt and abrasive sand from the frigid Hokkaido ocean. Easily the smallest and lightest person in this class, yet her rigid stand-to-attention held up her shivering frame. Her lips were blue from near-hypothermia, eyes streaked with tired red veins that contrasted against the loose strands of her red hair matted across her forehead. Behind her was the ocean, rapidly frothing as the waves crashed into the beach surf. The salt water spray stung with cold and filled her olfactory senses with the briny smell of the sea, which after a month of exposure reminded her of death and rotting vegetation.
"Excellent work, Saotome," Master Chief Kimura replied. He looked at the other remaining figures, similarly shaking with cold. Their faces blended with the same disheveled aura of exhaustion. "Excellent work, all boat crews.
Natsumi stood near the rear, barely keeping herself upright as her peripherals scanned for her remaining teammates. She was in the third column, third boat crew. Each had one female left, with Ranma as their Class Leader in crew one, and the tall and haggard Rika Minami in the second.
"Next evolution, class…" Kimura spoke into his loud speaker, hanging by a lanyard around his left shoulder. His lips thinned as he held the mic close to his face. His usual aviator-style Maui Jim sunglasses were clipped to the top of his baseball cap. His eyes scanned the small group in front. His speech was slow and deliberate as he repeated," The next one we're going to ring you through…"
Ranma stood ramrod straight, hands at attention with her feet aligned to the side of her inflatable Zodiac boat. Her four male crewmates instinctively did the same.
Rika Minami closed her eyes, wiping back her purple bangs away from her face. She took a deep breath, and held.
Natsumi's lip quivered. Her knees started to buckle and she felt the pit of her stomach start to churn. Every nerve on her person ached and throbbed. A hand behind her squeezed her shoulder.
"Hey, it's ok. We're gonna grind through this."
She broke her rigid attention to peer back at her classmate. He looked no worse for wear than the others, but his small smile peeked out confidently. That smile and that encouraging voice had become familiar to her, and many others here the last few weeks. In time, she'd reminisce that the last few days he'd served as her beacon of hope.
"Thanks, Raiden," she held back a sob. Her voice betrayed her racing thoughts. She looked upwards towards the beachside cliff, the converted hotel resort peering just past the edge with squared off gray building corners. It had been their home, their barracks for the last month. She wondered if Miyuki was home by now, free from this literal hell that was dubbed, "Hell Week."
"The next evolution is…." Kimura repeated again, this time eliciting soft groans that betrayed everyone's collectively worn discipline.
He looked at everyone squarely. What he saw in their eyes must've pleased him, as their spirits were battered but unbroken. A smile crept across his features.
"...there is no evolution. You've completed and passed phase one of selection. Congratulations."
There was a collective mumble of confused whimpers and unsure emotions. They were deprived of sleep and worn down to the nub with exhaustion. No one seemed to believe what was said.
"No more games, no more surprises. This evolution is secured," proclaimed Lieutenant Colonel Chris Kurosawa, dressed in his green US Marine Corps service Charlie uniform. He stepped to the side of his US Navy colleague.
Alongside them, slightly positioned a few steps back were the remaining cadre also dressed a step up from their usual battle dress uniforms.
Sergeant First Class Kurz Weber cleared his throat. His green beret was proudly adorned on top of his long blonde hair and his striking black German Bundespolizei uniform. "Hell week is over. You've made it."
Electricity seemed to course through everyone's bodies. They all looked at each other, their fatigue momentarily ceasing to exist.
"We made it?"
"It's over!"
"We did it!"
"Yatta!"
"Thank you, Lord!"
Everyone scrambled to hug each other and caused a tumbling mess in doing so.
Natsumi spun on her heels to bear hug Raiden, who in turn was wrapped simultaneously by Rika and two others. She let out a pained sob and wailed as the tears from her eyes rolled down the sides of her sandy, crusted cheeks.
Ranma was nearly tackled and barely positioned herself to sit on the beach instead of being overwhelmed by a group of hugs from her teammates. She knocked off her own utility cap off her head as she yelped with pride and returned their camaraderie and affection.
None of them noticed as they were individually cloaked with wool blankets and were still in a daze as the cadre members gently pulled them off the ground and guided them towards the canvas troop carrier truck. They were still in celebratory shell shock, wordlessly acknowledging their gratitude as everyone was handed a stainless steel thermos filled with piping hot tea.
The drive back was swift, short, and blasted with warm air from the onboard diesel heaters. The ragged bunch of selection candidates enthusiastically pooled together in the hangar, their spirits soaring and their faces plastered with the joy of accomplished pride.
After running, swimming, paddling, and drilling the last five days with a total of only four hours of sleep, they were currently kept awake by their reinvigorated adrenaline. Not a single one of them maintained any form of mental clarity, yet their spirits were willing to die for whatever was thrown at them next.
Thankfully, it was a row of padded folding chairs that were placed behind tables of delicious looking food, adorned with chafing dishes steaming under neath and saran wrapped trays of exquisite looking seafood that were expected in a Hokkaido resort.
Kimura gently shook everyone's hands as they hobbled into their respective seats. Each person clasped their warm, wool blankets tightly around their shoulders and ignored the itchy, sandy scraping abrasion of their tattered and drenched BDUs. They were delighted to be handed ceramic mugs filled with coffee, enthusiastically served by the same demonic trainers who had squeezed every last bit of effort and sanity out of their cores the past four weeks.
Kimura cleared his throat and spoke without a loudspeaker. He stood in front of his huddled recruits as they sipped and enjoyed their newfound warmth in a state of rest, free of harassment.
"I want to congratulate you guys again for being the amazing few who stuck it through. This selection was intentionally designed to weed out anyone who isn't willing to give their life for the brothers and sisters next to them. The tasks themselves were not of importance. It was the commitment to the team we were looking for," Kimura announced.
Natsumi shuddered. She had just stopped sobbing halfway through the truck ride back up the ramp and back into the resort hangar. Her thoughts drifted to the first few weeks of training, when many of the candidates here were pelted by bean bag shotgun rounds and low-velocity rubber bullets when swim team buddies abandoned each other during the training evolutions. Her own boat crew mates were pelted along with others with girls attached to them when they did not help to pick up the slack of the ladies who were physically unable to contribute as much to the teams as their male counterparts. Whether a man was stronger than a woman was missing the larger point. They were to work as a team, make solutions as a team, and adapt and overcome as a team.
Many refused to accept being dragged down or be given different levels of burden and subsequently dropped on request. One of the other girls, the only one left other than Natsumi, Rika, and Ranma, was a female JGSDF Airborne Ranger who found herself relying on male help a little too much and was subsequently pelted and singled out for physical remediation along with her teammates. She too, succumbed to the pressure and processed out.
The cadre had screamed at them that the world and combat is inherently unfair, to make it fair is to accept the terms of the circumstances that surrounded every one of them with honesty and integrity.
She looked around her and Natsumi's eyes watered again. Miyuki dropping out on her own felt like the end of the world, but she was now surrounded by her new brothers and sisters who had dragged her, pushed her, and propped her up on the peak of the Himalayas. They cared not that she slowed them down, and only that she was willing to pull herself up when they were willing to do the same. That sudden realization of warmth from her classmates enveloped her with a greater sense of comfort and security than the coffee and blankets.
"Starting today, we're going to give you guys a little over two weeks of paid leave, with generous cash per-diems and arranged transportation to Sapporo for rest and relaxation. I want you all to enjoy this wonderful food we've prepared for you and get all the rest you can before we take you all into town on Monday."
The group nodded and cheered in approval. Tired or not, the news was welcoming and soared their enthusiasm further.
"Despite how tired you are, I want you to eat what you can and hydrate and repair your bodies. You'll be amazed what food and sleep can do in a short amount of time. Paint the town red but don't get into any trouble, I know none of you have gotten to this point by being a bunch of chuckle-fucks who get into pointless fights.
"When you get back," Kimura continued, "We will do the land navigation portion of this selection process. It will only be about two weeks. This phase was the teamwork phase, where we figure out whether you're willing to give up everything you have to save the person next to you. The next phase is the independence phase, where we find out whether or not you have the instinct and drive to survive on your own. It's a whole 'nother animal, and a completely different type of challenge from this one. Whether you make it through the next phase or not is not what you need to focus on, that time will come soon enough. I just want you to know, you here who've made it this far, you will be proudly marked for the rest of your professional careers and lives as the tough-as-nails can-do sons of bitches who made through the worst of the worst and it will reflect in your careers and lives.
"Eat. Have fun. Rest. That's an order. Class and Class Leader, you are now dismissed!"
They exploded in unison.
"AYE, AYE MASTER CHIEF!"
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TSAS - Tactical Solitary Assessment Selection
Independence Phase
Day 14
2127 Hours
March [CLASSIFIED], 20XX.
[XX] Kilometers [XXXX] of [XXXXXX]
Hokkaido, Japan.
Almost there. The round, amber colored headlights were a welcome sight for sore eyes as Natsumi shuffled her way to her destination, soaked in perspiration and smelling like dirt and stale sweat.
"Natsumi Tsujimoto, reporting to checkpoint Mike from checkpoint Lima!" her voice croaked hoarsely. She slumped her shoulders as she sloppily hung her heavy boat anchor of a training rifle to her side as it swung by its canvas sling.
"Glad you had a good one. Put your pack to the side-"
"-grab a drink of Gatorade and fill up your canteen," Natsumi finished for her. She repeated verbatim what she had been told over and over again for the previous 12 checkpoints by different, rotating, and familiar proctors. She grabbed her navigation map from inside her BDU pocket.
"-and show me where we are on the map, Sergeant Tsujimoto," finished the checkpoint proctor.
Natsumi propped herself on the hood of the truck and turned on her chest pocket mounted flashlight. She inhaled a bottle of Rain Berry Gatorade, the purple color of the liquid reminding her of her friend.
She hadn't seen Sergeant Rika Minami since the start of their final test. And that was at zero-dark thirty sometime this morning, when everyone was individually timed and released sequentially for "The Long Walk".
"I was here before," Natsumi said, pointing shakily at some topographical lines on the vinyl laminated map. "And I believe we are now here, Lieutenant Mao."
Her knees throbbed, hips numbed, and her spine felt like it was going to crumble after carrying nearly 20 kilograms of weight on a load bearing pack frame depending on how much water she had in her dual canteens. Along with her kit was the clunky and heavy Howa Type 64 rifle. Natsumi grew to despise this outdated JGSDF rifle and couldn't help but wish a few times during the last few hours that it'd be loaded with live ammunition so it could put her out of her misery. She couldn't believe that she would find herself in a mental state where being dead was easier than enduring living on.
"Affirmative. Standby," Lt. Mao announced as she stepped away to radio someone of Natsumi's progress. Her digital green USMC jungle warfare cammies helped her melt into the forest as she walked away from the headlights of the military SUV that served as the stop for this particular rally point.
No, no, no… just gimme my next damn RV* you jerks! Natsumi had mentally screamed. Her lips quivered and she fought back the urge to feel sorry for herself. The last 15 or so kilometers, or three-plus checkpoints, she had been mentally coaxing herself over and over again that she'd gone too far, passed Hell week, and put in too much. She just wanted Lt. Mao to point to her next rendezvous point, drag her club like feet one in front of the other, and just get on with it. Lingering and the luxury of sitting still was poison right now, as it allowed doubt to settle.
The desire to drop and quit had been stronger earlier in the week when they had spent three consecutive days doing 30-35 kilometer mountain hiking ruck marches with full packs and rifles. Nobody quit, but unfortunately several were dropped out against their will from severe injury. What hurt worse, none had taken the invitation to return in the future to resume where they had left off. It was none of Natsumi's business nor was it her place to judge why.
Natsumi looked at her map, circled and marked with various points all throughout this mountain range. She leaned on the hood of the Komatsu Light Armored Vehicle which was about the size of a huge passenger van, warm from its diesel motor rumbling underneath. With the pressure slightly relieved from her boots, Natsumi caught her breath as she twisted off the cap of another bottle of Gatorade, sipping this one slowly as she observed her laminated map is it was partially illuminated by her flashlight.
"Almost five clicks again, right on the dot," she whispered under a ragged breath. She looked at the other marks and mentally aligned a path from start to where she was. Her eyes raised as she noticed it closely resembled a star being formed from the zig zag of one path to another.
13 checkpoints. Give or take five kilometers each. "Oh dear, God. Sixty five kilos?" she whimpered aloud. Has she really done that much?
"That's right, Sergeant," Lt. Mao said aloud as she walked back into view from the darkness of the forest. "65 klicks. Up high, and down low."
How much more, Natsumi wondered. "What's my next checkpoint, Lt. Mao?" She bit her chapped and sunburned lips, ignoring the miniscule pain they put out compared to the rest of her body. "Let's get this over with."
"The next checkpoint?" Lt. Mao asked, looking at her with eyebrows raised. Her eyes narrowed and her head tilted ever so slightly. Her cheeks relaxed as she formed a small smile. "The next checkpoint is over here. Turn off your moonbeam, Sergeant."
"Wha-?" Natsumi clicked off her flashlight, recognizing the Lieutenant's USMC's based terminology for common items. She still remembered being confused as to why Kimura, Kurosawa, and Mao had so many different definitions as to what a "donkey dick" was in military lingo.
She nearly stumbled over her own boots as she followed Lt. Mao into the darkness. They went past the illumination of the lit military vehicle and into the dense brush. A short distance away, she saw another small source of light, dim but visible past the dark canopy of the trees that shaded the moonlight away quite effectively.
As Natsumi stepped closer, she heard what sounded like hushed conversation. She gulped and tasted the citrusy fragrance of the dense spruce trees around her. Her curiosity was marked by an irrational elevated fear of what was going on right now. Despite her throbbing, blistered and bleeding feet, her suddenly heightened senses could tell the shape of the pebbles and twigs she stepped over as she got closer to the illumination and voices.
The light made out the shape of a structure, a canopy tent, Natsumi observed. The voices inside were easier to hear as she got closer and she could even make out the sound of an individual snoring rather loudly.
Lieutenant Mao's face was barely visible as she kept waving and motioning Natsumi to come forward. She pulled and flipped open a canvas covered entry to the tent, grabbing Natsumi's wrist with her free hand and guiding her inside.
"Oh ho!"
"Look who frickin' made it."
"You're my hero, Tsujimoto."
Natsumi nearly jerked her arm back as Lt. Mao took the heavy Howa Type 64 rifle away from her, freeing her of her shackled boat anchor.
"At ease, Tsujimoto. You're done. You completed the 40 miler," Lt. Mao softly coaxed as she took away the rifle and handed her another bottle of Gatorade to hold.
Natsumi heart leapt into her throat. She ripped off her greasy, sweat drenched gloves and rain her fingers through her sweat soaked brown hair. Her eye lids stretched up, pupils dilated.
She looked around and saw Master Chief Kimura sitting on the ground next to a lying and pale looking Rika Minami, her arms attached to an intravenous drop and her legs elevated and feet completely wrapped in bandages.
Sitting beside them was Ranma double fisting a slice of pizza and some Gatorade, her normally beautiful red hair stuck full of dirty leaves and her face smeared with dirt.
Next to her was Raiden, smiling up at her with his boots off and bandages also applied to his feet, his orange Coast Guard rescue beret proudly flashed on his head.
And finally, Sergeant First Class Seiji Goro, whom she'd met during the first week of all this madness. The only other one who had luckily managed to make it this far without injury and the oldest of the candidates, she had later learned.
Kimura looked at Natsumi and motioned her towards him, holding something in his hand. "Welcome to The Safety and Standards Bureau, Sergeant Tsujimoto. Congratulations, welcome to the brotherhood."
"No more?" Natsumi whimpered.
"No more," Kimura said smiling. "You're with the few. The proud. Here's your prize." He handed her a folded leather wallet, with something gleaming inside.
Natsumi gasped with pride and fell to her knees, her face painted with relief and joy. Pairs of hands grabbing arms and shoulders in solidarity made her squeak with delight as she opened the leather wallet.
Inside, she saw a small metal badge, alongside an empty slot with which an ID card would be placed. The gold, metal badge was small enough to fit in her palm, yet stately with its shield design and raised, enameled lettering.
"JNSA?" she nearly laughed out aloud. "You gotta be kidding me. This whole time… I was joining the JNSA?"
Ranma answered. "You better believe it, baby. We're gonna be the new vanguard."
"National security, has a nice ring to it," Rika softly moaned as she stirred awake. "We did it girl. Brown, Purple, Red and Orange rangers, unite!"
Seiji Goro beamed proudly at the fellow young warriors, having known this feeling of accomplishment before. He wordlessly acknowledged Chief Kimura and Lt. Mao, their eyes matching and their grins mirroring each other.
Natsumi looked at Rika's feet, which upon closer inspection were far more dressed then Raiden's. She was also the only one being given medical treatment by the chief. "What happened to you, Rika?"
Another head popped into the tent and chimed in. "Halfway through checkpoint Kilo, Sergeant Minami here literally walked her feet off. Her shins are damaged and half the skin of her foot soles are ready to separate from the bottom of her feet. She crawled her way through Kilo, almost all the way to Lima when I found her. She threatened to murder us all if we carried her."
Rika scowled at Sergeant First Class Kurz Weber and then almost immediately burst laughing, wincing at the pain of her legs and feet.
"To her credit, she actually tried!" Chief Kimura bellowed, laughing out loud. Lt. Mao and Kurz also joined in. "This girl was going to die or kill us trying to finish this course!"
Another head popped into the tent, this time it was Lieutenant Colonel Chris Kurosawa, dressed in similar green digital USMC cammies as Lt. Mao. "And anyone showing that much can-do grit is fine by us. We gave Kurz permission to carry her, with her protesting of course, all the way here. Anyone who can do a life or death drag with full kit on their hands and knees is good to go as far as I'm concerned." The other cadre nodded in agreement.
Lying prone, rolled to her side with her face pointed at their smiling faces, Rika's eyes watered. She saw that Natsumi's eyes were dripping tears freely, her hands covering her mouth. "You ain't all that bad either, Sgt. Weber. You ain't bad at at all."
Kurz lips twitched and he touched his nose as he slowly smiled. "I'll be your battle buddy anytime, Sergeant."
The cold air circulated out the warm tent, bringing a refreshing if chilling breeze from the mountains. Natsumi plopped herself down inbetween Goro and Raiden, excitedly grabbing both their hands in warm camaraderie like family members.
Kimura had been fiddling with medical supplies the entire time, and finally flicked a hypodermic needle to release its air bubbles before injecting some antibiotics into Rika's IV drip. He carefully plunged the solution into the injection port, and then faced everyone.
"This is it guys. We're done and now we really get to begin. I can't tell you how proud I am to call you my new brothers. We're gonna spend the six months having the best time of our lives and we're gonna sharpen each other to a razor's edge," Kimura said.
Everyone wordlessly nodded, their smilies conveying their newfound sense of family.
"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother," Kimura quoted.
Natsumi looked around, tearing up again. She felt them stream down as she saw her classmates, Ranma, Raiden, Seiji, and Rika with their eyes glimmering as well.
"Now Sergeant First Class Goro here is already to privy to almost all of the training we need to give you others, but he'll join us again in the pipeline. I've actually known him for years and lemme tell you he's one hell of an operator," Chief Kimura said.
"The rest of you, we're gonna learn to shoot. We're gonna learn to track. We're gonna learn to evade. We're gonna learn to raid."
He could see their smiles growing, and Kimura continued. "I'm gonna teach you how to kill, and I'm gonna teach you how to save. You're gonna be an Army of One, Master of All, a Frogman upon request, and a paragon for justice.
"We're gonna do here what no one else has before. Now you can't possibly be the best, because I don't believe in such a thing since it means you think you're better than someone else. No… instead we're gonna work with everyone who is better than us, teach us to be better than we are, and when it's our turn it will be OUR time to give back. Ooh rah?"
Lt. Mao and Weber looked at him curiously. Wasn't he a Navy guy?
"You mean Hoo-Yah, Master Chief?" Kurz chuckled.
Kurosawa smiled and was about to answer for the puzzled look on their faces until Goro chimed in.
"Master Chief here was a Marine when we first met. Oh back when he and I were E-nothings and he was with 3rd Marines before joining the Navy to become a SEAL. Ain't that right, Chief?"
Kimura grinned back and nodded. He looked at his new, five recruits turned unit plankowners. They were to be the founding generation of SSB agents for the Japanese National Security Agency. The premier tip of the spear. "You guys and gals ready?"
"Loud and Clear!"
"Lima Charlie!"
"Aye, Master Chief!"
"Get some, Master Chief!"
"Standing by!"
Kimura looked upon their fiery expressions. Not bad at all. His pleased face forced itself into a proud grimace.
"Let's go get some."
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Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma, Tenchi, You're Under Arrest, Full Metal Panic, and any other anime/manga characters here who are mentioned by name. Just having fun writing.
Man. It's been six years since I last updated this. It's been over 20 years since I started writing fics. In that time I've started and retired from a career with which I've had mixed feelings about ultimately. I've raised kids and watched them grow up to move out and live the world on their own. I've experienced the world change with you guys, especially in the last decade. And I'm sure the very few of you who are still maybe, maybe reading these with me… you've grown up and experienced the world to become a mature version of yourselves. Whether the world is better or not, I imagine that has been different for all of us. I know it certainly hasn't seemed to be better for me, and acknowledging that especially in the last few was the only thing that truly let me move on and allow me to make it better. I imagine many of us probably can relate to the same disappointments and triumphs that life throws at us and refuses to relent on. It really is true, the only easy day was yesterday.
I've had tons of free time as of late and started reading old fics that I enjoyed and eventually buckled down to reread my old works. I think many writers would acknowledge that they write what they would like to read, and strangely enough I found myself cringing at how immature and edgy I tried to be about things, unnecessarily making things profane where it really didn't add emphasis to the characters or situation.
So here I reworked an old script and outline I had to really streamline this story and get back to where we need to explore our favorite anime characters and go back to building a story. This chapter, you'll notice the continued emphasis on Natsumi, and how she survived from her POV. A big change I made that was originally going to be omitted was the inclusion of Rika Minami, from High School of the Dead. Always loved her bombshell character and thought she was criminally underrated, and I'm going to have fun having her be a support character.
Thank you to anyone who gives even the slightest bit of attention to fics in general, let alone what I write. I still check ff net from time to time, and actually read reviews and take the criticism constructively and seriously. Any feedback you had for me is not only greatly welcomed, but honored and appreciated. I hope you have all been living blessed lives, especially when things don't go our way or get tough.
Completed May 28, 2024.