ARC II chapter 7

Maho looked at the email that her mother got and she nodded at that. "I'll prepare my own tank and three others," she said and walked to the training field on the Graf Zeppelin to handpick the crews that would go with her. I'll need Erika and her crew for this, she thought and scratched the second position in her mind.

And as she entered the yard, she saw only Sangou, Mauko, Koume and Fritz with their crews training there, being divided into two teams, trying to disable each other in some strange competition. And she just stood there, watching the fight of a Maus and Panzer III J1 against two Panther Ds slowly come to an end.

Mauko's team had (not surprisingly) won, but Fritz and Koume had come very close to winning, due to better teamwork while Mauko had the only luck in the Maus being impenetrable from its position and also forcing the two faster tanks to face it in a frontal assault.

And only then, they noticed that she was watching their fight. "Good work, all of you," she announced after a few moments of silence and watched the smiles of relief show up on their faces. "Koume, Fritz, you'll go with me. Mauko, go fetch Erika and tell her to meet me in the gym," she continued and Mauko ran off as she knew that whatever it was, she'll need Erika ASAP.

"And why are we here?" Fritz asked, when they arrived at the gym, Erika already waiting there. "What I am going to tell you can't leave this room. You may discuss it with your crews, but no one else," she said and the confused trio nodded after a while.

"Yesterday evening, Okaa-sama got a message from MEXT about gathering forces from the major schools to help Miho face off against the full force of the All-Stars University team. She said that an overeager matchmaker agreed to it and if Miho loses, Oarai would be closed forever," Maho announced and saw the looks of outrage on her kouhais' faces.

"And why will we send only three-" Erika tried to ask, but Maho put up her hand to stop her. "Your crews and mine. That was agreed upon with the other headmasters," she corrected her successor and sighed.

"We'll send four crews to help, Pravda would send 5, Saunders and St. Gloriana 3, Anzio 1 and Chi-Ha-Tan 6," she announced , knowing that it was a mistake allowing the charging idiots to have the bigger numbers and them with Anzio the lowest, but it was still something.

And with that, she let them go back to whatever they were doing (in Erika's case) or to train some more.

Narcius saw red upon hearing that piece of information. How is that possible?! he thought, when his mind wandered back to his spies reporting that several of the powerhouses begun training of their best girl crews and one boy crew each, except Anzio and Chi-Ha-Tan, the latter having two boy crews being prepared for supporting Oarai, while the former had only one crew ready.

"Send a word to the All-Stars team that our forces would help them," he said to his trusty Second-in-command. "Already did. And after a while of convincing, they accepted it," she answered and he nodded, proud of her that she thought that far ahead. "Even with their help, we'll still achieve my goal before starting the plans for the last few steps of my master plan!" he said and laughed in his trained 'villain laugh' that he mastered over the last ten months.

He finally got some good news. First, Jameson being unable to intervene into the 'match' and now, he'll also get the numerical advantage over the schools that tried to defy him. But, then…

"Master, our spy stationed at the Zuikaku reported that Jameson and his crew are training with the M24 Chaffee they stole after the match with Anzio," said his Head of spies and he once again saw red, before punching the table with all his might, breaking it in two pieces.

After all,he had bought a very good prosthetic and reinforced it 5 years ago, when he single handedly brought Oarai's Sensha-Do team to its knees, hoping it won't rise again. But, he miscalculated and got reminded of one quote from back home: "What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger."

Oh, how he wished that George R. R. Martin wasn't right with this one phrase. Had he managed to fully close the school, instead of just destroying their team… He would've dodged a big boulder named Trafalgar Jameson much more easily. That and Nishizumi would be already in his army, fully succumbing to the Nishizumi style.

But, he had to appear out of literal nowhere and set his plans by months, if not years back. "Alright then. Use lethal HE ammo, if you spot his Chaffee. I need him to die!" Narcius announced and he knew that his forces would have at least one real HE shell ready to hit the ammo racks of the stolen Chaffee, since a shot to the engine didn't kill him.

Yeah, he was playing dirty, but he'll do whatever is deemed as the best course of action to achieve his goals for the Greater Good of the world.

Meanwhile, SMS Dukla, somewhere in Osaka prefecture

Kafka looked at the strange email from MEXT, asking for sending help to Oarai to even the numbers against the All-Stars team and their allies, knowing that Kuromorimine may have already begun training their best to help the surprising winners of the Tournament with their situation.

"Well, what do you think?" she asked as she turned to Mucha, who only shrugged and Kafka sighed at that. "I think that we should send some Lt vz 38s and the ST-I we have," the voice of Josef, the commander of the boy team, suddenly said from behind and she nodded, knowing well that they had the most experience with the light tank, so picking up a TD derived from it to give better support seemed like a good idea.

"But what about A-H-IV tankettes? And Lt vz 35s?!" Mucha finally said, bewildered by the fact that her favorite vehicles won't be used. At all. "They're not as good as Lt vz 38s in terms of speed and armor. And A-H-IV can be as useless as CV33," Josef answered with a barely hearable smirk in his voice.

"Dobrá, stop it before another pointless fight comes," Kafka cut in and the duo sheepishly nodded and looked down at their shoes. After all, she was still the one in charge of everything Sensha-Do related, even if Josef seemed to bring some more light onto it. New blood, new ideas, she thought.

"I-if I may?" Josef suddenly asked as his head went back up. "What is it?" Kafka responded with a slightly irritated tone. "We should sell five A-H-IVs and buy two Škoda T-25s," he said and Kafka pondered over it for a while. After all, upgrading their arsenal might help even more than training as many people as possible to have bigger reserves.

"You're right. We have way too much of the tankettes, so selling some to buy a better tank is a well thought idea," she stated and the boy's face lit up with a smile so genuine she thought it might burn a hole into the Maus, if it would do something.