Chapter 13: The Chevalier
"I don't want your tender heart to be mere consolation after vicissitude. Wield your kindness like a sword, not a flower."
Years ago, a young man fell in love with a woman at a Tsukimi festival. She was a sales consultant from Tokyo, and he was a worker at a Chiba manufacturing plant. He won her a cute mask at a game stall and they shared a Geppei under the gentle moon. They eventually shared home-cooked meals together, soon beds, then bank accounts. There was some friction with his father, who never fully approved her overbearing attitude, but they pushed through with the marriage anyway. The in-law lived a tense coexistence with one another for decades.
They had one child, and couldn't have more.
As a result, their boy received all their attention, investment, all in the name of love. At a young age, he learned he didn't really have a choice. He was to pursue a high-status career, and relevant subjects at schools needed to be in top shape. He was luckily gifted enough to bear the pressure, but life at home wasn't happier for it. The metal might not have broken, but it was bent.
The boy was inoffensive and quiet. His father passed down the aged-old belief of conformity – to blend in, not make waves, and mind one's own business. It was okay to be a wallflower, and the boy learned to like it. He wisely used his intellect to get on everyone's good sides at school, but was mature enough to stay in the shade, out of childish drama. He received enough heat at home that he'd rather his time at school be as chill and relaxed as possible.
One day, the sun burned hot. He felt its scorch.
An underclassman at his middle school. He was also a loner, but unlike the boy, the underclassman was often in the spotlight. The kid had serious problems focusing and understanding class materials, and as a result struggled and had to repeat his previous year. In a vicious cycle, his underperformance made him a recluse and in turn a laughing stock, attracting the attention of the scums who would blow out someone's candles to make their own shine brighter.
When the boy heard the bullies mocked the victim's name, he rolled his eyes and looked on. When the boy tried to help the victim with his classwork, and the bullies tried to dissuade him by calling the victim a hopeless moron and various other slur, the boy grew uncomfortable. When he heard of what they did to their victim when others weren't looking, he was visibly disturbed. And when the boy looked at the victim in the eye, he felt biting cold creeping up his limbs.
The victim had nothing to do with him. He could have stayed in the shades like everyone else.
Instead, he took it upon himself to do something. He walked into the golden rays and burned.
The fallout was ugly, and the result got both the boy and the victim transferred away to different schools. He never knew what happened to the victim, and could only hope he got the help he needed. Not only that, this incident unintentionally furthered the rift between the boy's mother and his grandfather. They no longer spoke to each other.
The boy thought this was all his fault. He wondered for years what he should have done differently.
Many years later, as the flowing passage of time blunted the intense memories of that day, the boy found himself at the cusp of another dramatic event. And the sun was beginning to pierce through the clouds...
"Heidi." Ricky called.
Heidi turned around in her office chair, putting a finger on her lips. Her stern eyes made Ricky back off with an apologetic whisper.
"Sorry, Ceylon." Heidi turned back to her computer. "What were you saying?"
"I was asking do you know what Mrs. Shimada wanted out of this whole thing?" The female voice on the line asked. "This is her project, right?"
Heidi looked back at Ricky briefly, who also heard that.
"To clarify the results and dispute it if needed." Heidi replied, her voice calm.
"I know, but how?" Ceylon continued. "To dispute an official investigative finding by the Senshado Federation and the army is a big deal. It's not that we trust what they did."
So it wasn't a secret that the investigation was poorly done. It still left open the question why they didn't accept Chiyo's initial finding. Was it incompetence and the desire to look like they were in control, which wouldn't be the first time for the Japanese government? Or was there something worse behind the curtain?
"I'm sure our headmistress knows what she's doing." Heidi gave a non-committal answer, hoping for the best.
"She struck me as an academic more than a politician." Ceylon said. "But maybe I'm wrong. Hopefully I'm wrong."
"I hope so too." Heidi concluded. "You have any other questions for me?"
"I'm good. Same to you, just ask away."
"I'm good for now. Take care Ceylon. Say hi to Yorkshire for me."
"Good day to you."
With that, Heidi ended the call.
Ricky looked over with crossed arms. "Nothing?"
"Nothing." Heidi turned her chair around. "They did tank repairs and cleaning of the Churchill after every match. Outside of mud and gunpowder, there's nothing that looked strange about the mantlet."
"That combined with what we know – that no maintenance was done on the mantlet for one year before the accident, environmental factors seem more unlikely now." He said. "Unless, they...I don't know...hosed down the part with boiling water or something."
"Water can't stay liquid above a hundred degrees also." She pointed out. "Now, I don't think it's impossible they might have missed something anyway. It is also an incident that happened years ago. Memories aren't perfect, but that's all we got at this point."
"Right." Ricky nodded.
At the end of the day, investigators had no time machine. They could only reconstruct the most probable sequence of events off of available evidence, and could never be entirely sure. This was also why Chiyo's report used the term 'probable cause' in its conclusion, and why collecting and preserving evidence was also a crucial part of any investigation.
"Good work though. Let's get this written down." Ricky said. "I feel like this is a good time to begin drafting our own report."
"Good idea." Heidi said. "Though can we do a quick review? There's a lot of information the last couple of days, I want to get a full picture."
"Absolutely." Ricky nodded. He thought about going to the hangar, but luckily, there was a conveniently placed whiteboard in the boardroom for this purpose. Every corporate office needs a giant whiteboard for dramatic purposes.
Ricky's theatrical personality buried deep in him began to emerge as he wielded that whiteboard marker to write down the key points.
1) Bad sensors
2) Critical temp
3) No maintenance
4) Environmental
5) Manufacturing
6) Super shell
"The faulty sensor allowed the mantlet to take on so many shells without being knocked out." Ricky put a rectangle around the first point and connected it to the second point. "The temperature could rise if the mantlet is hit in short succession. But we know from the test the other day it fell 50 degrees short of the value we are expecting."
"One day we'll have to do an actual re-enactment test." Heidi added.
"Mhm." Ricky nodded, leaving the two points separated. He linked the third to both the fourth and fifth point. "The JSF had no maintenance done, and the school's maintenance procedure is inadequate, so the chance the crew spotted both the damaged mantlet and the bad sensor is minimal."
He then drew a question mark between the three points. "We've narrowed it to either environmental damage or manufacturing defect as the smoking gun." Then he underlined the sixth. "And the improperly configured shell is the rock that tipped the scale."
"What could possibly damage the mantlet that much?" Heidi growled, tapping her hand on the table.
The Churchill's gun and turret was exclusively unmodified. The few things they changed was the engine and the radio, and it was just swapping them out for new equipment. Nothing could have heated the mantlet to that point.
"How about the weather?" An idea popped into her head. "We had a hot couple of summer months. Maybe they left the tank out in the open, or in the hangar without proper insulation."
"Both are likely." Ricky crossed his arms. "We know who the metal expert here is."
"…No." Fernanda heard the hypothesis, thought for a moment, and shut it down. "I really don't think so."
"Why is that?"
"Because…" It was Fernanda's turn to wield the theatrical whiteboard marker. She began writing out equations for the von-Braun molecules. "What is the highest temperature during the summer?"
"Like…38-39 degrees?" Ricky looked over to Heidi, who just nodded. "Something like that."
"Assume 40." Fernanda wrote on the board and calculated. "The highest temperature of the von-Braun composites could go up to would be 100 degrees, still far below the critical temperature we're looking for."
"How about if the tank is in a hangar?" Heidi asked.
"Even more no." Fernanda answered. "It'll only get as hot as the ambient air temperature. It gets much hotter in sunlight is because of solar radiation. You don't have that in a hangar."
"Then 200 degrees in normal non-battle circumstances sounds very unlikely." Ricky said.
"Unless they put another heat source right next to the mantlet, or their hangar doubles as a walk-in oven, then no." Fernanda replied somewhat sarcastically. "Is there anything Ceylon said that might indicate something like that?"
"No." Heidi shook her head. "They could, of course, misremember or have lied, but I trust them to be honest about something that could and have killed one of them."
"In that case…" Fernanda pointed at the sixth point: Manufacturing defect. "The lab test should give us the answer."
Heidi and Ricky looked at the whiteboard then over to Fernanda. All other avenues had been dead-ends. This was the final clue they could explore, and it was down to Fernanda to lead the charge.
"Are we proceeding with the appointment next Saturday?" Ricky asked.
"Yeah." Fernanda confirmed. "On Friday evening, after the headmistress leave for the day, Heidi and I will disassemble the mantlet and load it into our truck. We'll leave for the National Institute first thing in the morning."
"Do you need me there as well?" Ricky asked.
"Only if you want to. I don't want to interfere with your weekend plans." Fernanda replied
Ricky nodded. It wasn't like he had any to begin with.
"Alright, if nothing else, let's get our hours in."
The day of the test came. Ricky slept okay, but couldn't figure out what exactly to do. He wished he had a weekend plan, as his mind kept thinking about the lab test. What if this clue didn't turn up anything? Would his work here be for naught? Would this just fall into the dustbin of unsolved mystery serving the morbid curiosity of the public? In his heart, he wanted to see a satisfying, or at least decisive, conclusion for everyone's sake, dead or alive. But at the moment, there was nothing he could do but worry.
So instead of staying in the warmth of sweet home, he decided to venture out, all the way to Turtle Bay bootcamp.
"Oh, you're here." One of the Security Team members, one whom he knew Aurelie had convinced to support them, greeted him with surprise. "I didn't expect you to come."
"If anyone asks, you can tell I'm here to meet friends." Ricky scrolled the window down.
"Of course." The girl smiled, pushed a button and the gate lifted for him.
Ricky wandered the campus, for once in his tenure without a purpose. The normally bustling compound was emptier, but not desolate. The autumn had passed, winter had begun shedding flaky tears, but snow had yet to accumulate and spread excitement. For now, only students who wished to concentrate better would brave the cold to the various study area scattered across campus.
"Ricky!"
He heard a voice from one of the study areas. It was the red-headed girl from the Engineering Team: Arwen. She sat with her legs tucked on the seat, a laptop in front of her and a cup of hot chocolate on the side.
"It's weekends, what are you doing here?" She greeted his smile with her own.
"G'day. I'm bored...and a little bit restless." He admitted clean. Being an Engineering Team member, Arwen knew quite more of what the Safety Team was up to than others.
"Yeah I get ya!" She took off her glasses and folded it. Ricky came over to her side and looked at the computer screen as she stretched her arms.
"What are you working on, if you don't mind me asking?" He saw a 3D model of an undetermined mechanical device, along with its blueprints on the side.
"Oh not at all! This is a support structure for one of Greenwich University's airborne observatories." Arwen replied all excited. "In case you're wondering, Greenwich is an elite university in the UK, known for their aerospace engineering and astrophysics program. Their school ship is coming to Japan some time next year to observe the solar eclipse."
"Ooh that's exciting. So what does this thing do exactly?"
"During the flight, the instruments will sit on it to observe and study the Sun's corona."
Arwen pressed a button on her laptop. The blueprint disappeared and the 3D model moved, rotated, and tilted, while stars shot out of Arwen's proud eyes.
"Uh huh, so it's a shelf." Ricky's comment froze Arwen for a moment.
"...No. The instruments have to stay level during maneuvering because the eclipse path is never straight, and it'll be difficu-...O-Okay it's a shelf..." Arwen quickly conceded.
Ricky grinned with amusement. "It's going well?"
"Good, but I can't figure for the life of me why the shelf is stuck when rotating at this weird angle." Arwen replied. "I'm probably gonna have to ask Ermelinda."
"How is she doing?" Ricky said.
"She's doing great!" Arwen beamed. "Up to more crazy ideas, like usual."
"Do I want to hear it?" He asked suggestively.
"A superheavy tank with a 6-round autoloader." She replied deadpanned. Ricky's pupils darted left and right, his smile flattening. He didn't know much about tanks but he had a fair share of shenanigans with Arwen. It was fair to assume it wasn't good.
"It's fine, don't worry about it! As long as her brain cells keep firing off stuffs like this, it means she's happy!" Arwen's tone picked up again as she gave a reassuring thumbs-up. "I'll try not to let her craziness get to you."
"That's good! Thank you." Ricky said. On the other hand, he could appreciate someone's happiness.
He took another look at the 3D model, furrowed his brows and tilted his head left and right for a moment.
"I think I know what's causing the issue with the shelf, but I'm not completely certain. If it's no trouble, I can take a look at it next week with you." He said.
"Oh, that would be awesome! Thank you so much, Ricky!" She exclaimed, giving Ricky a small blush on his cheeks. "Come visit us any time! I'm sure everyone in the Engineering Team would love to hang out with you."
"I'm...happy to know." Ricky smiled, a little flustered. He couldn't help but remember his first day here, scared that the girls might shun him. They turned out to be so welcoming he wished his other communities could be this inclusive. Even Arwen he thought would be a nightmare to deal with, and there were things that would give him some grey hair, but in the end, he enjoyed their friendship.
"Anyway, enough work for today." Arwen closed the lid on her laptop and downed the hot chocolate. "I'm going to the pool now. Wanna come?"
"I-I'm good, I'm not properly dressed today..." Ricky raised his hands shyly. Arwen laughed. "Is Aurelie around?"
"Ahh, getting ahead of the game huh?" She teased him but he didn't get it. "She's here. Might be at her dorm right now. You know where it is?"
"I think so." He replied.
"Great! Then I'll see you later!" She left him with a wink.
It was only after Ricky arrived at the dormitory area that he realized his stupidity. He knew where the dorm area was but not where exactly as there were multiple buildings. He should have asked Arwen earlier, but such a simple question somehow slipped his mind completely. He stood alone outside the buildings, like a lost child, knocking on his head for his poor decision, until someone approached him from behind. Another red-haired girl but hers was darker than Arwen's.
"Hi there, Ricky. Didn't expect you here today." The girl waved at him quickly before plugging her hand back into her shirt pocket. "You look distressed. What's going on?"
"Morning Takara." He greeted, embarrassed. "It's nothing. I wanted to see Aurelie, I just...don't know where she is. Her room I mean..."
Takara muffled her laugh. "I can take you there."
"Thank you." He bowed and followed her closely like a little duckling.
"Captain! It's Takara." Takara knocked on the door once she arrived. "I found your lost child."
"What?" Aurelie's confused voice echoed out. She opened the door and saw Ricky standing there looking away shyly. It then made sense.
"Right, I'll leave you two to it!" Having done her duty, Takara left. Aurelie, very much amused, stepped aside to let him in.
"You're not beating the Paddington rumor." She said.
"What rumor?" His brows furrowed.
"Eh, nothing. A few of us find you...charming." She teased. "Anyway, I assume you're anxious about the test result."
"...A little bit, yeah." He laughed. "You knew me well."
"I am too, don't worry." She said. "Give me five minutes to finish cleaning the room. Take a seat."
Ricky remembered the last time he walked into a girl's dorm room. She was part of his group project in first year engineering, and they had several sessions together. Nothing really happened, and it was a good result. He reenacted the same procedure he did when entering her room that day: cooped up on a sofa, taking as little space as possible with the awkwardness of a gentle dog surrounded by stranger kittens.
"Relax." Aurelie noticed his tense posture. "You're not at home but you're not inside a nuclear reactor either."
"I know but…" Ricky shook his head, relaxing a little.
"Let me get you a drink to loosen up." She said, heading into the kitchen.
As he waited, Ricky looked around Aurelie's room. There were a few plastic WWII tank models on the side of Aurelie's desk – from left to right facing him an S-51 SPG, Renault FT-17, Leichttraktor, and Maus. One Boko bear sat on her desk next to the computer setup, a cup with inspirational quotes plastered on its side, and a fake cactus. Nothing unusual there, for a Senshado captain that was.
What was not on her desk though stood out to him. There was an entire shelf dedicated to Lego astronomical builds. The Artemis Space Launch System, the Discovery Space Shuttle, James Webb Space Telescope, a working Solar System clockwork model stood as exhibits in the wooden curio cabinet. A telescope sat in a corner, a scroll on the wall with all the moon phases, a crystal ball containing the Andromeda Galaxy laid on a bedside table.
He picked up the crystal ball, noticing an engraving on it.
In memory of Namiko Mogami
I love you mom
Ricky rubbed his eyes, feeling the tears welling up. All of this, she really loved and took after her mother.
Aurelie came out with two cups of hot chocolate. Noticing her, Ricky quickly put down the crystal ball. She smiled warmly, handing him his cup.
"You like astronomy, Ricky?" She asked
"To some extent yeah." Ricky said. "From what we learn in class and an online video here and there."
"What's your favorite planet in the solar system?" Aurelie asked, her voice grew excited.
"Hmm." Ricky took a moment to think. "I'd say Neptune."
"Really?" Aurelie uttered after sipping her tea. She always expected Mars, Earth, or the Sun, which is not even a planet. "Interesting choice. Any reason why?"
"...It's so remote. Sunlight barely reaches it, it's cold, dark, stormy, and lonely." Ricky said. "I find that both eerie and...strangely captivating."
"Fernanda told me you have morbid interests." She commented. "She's not wrong."
"Guilty as charged." Normally he would have apologized on instinct, but he let out a short laugh this time. "What is your favorite planet?"
"Mercury." She replied instantly. "I find it beautiful and tragic."
"How so?"
"It's pretty much just a giant rock in space. It has no atmosphere, no moon, no satellites, no wind, no clouds, nothing. Its numerous craters have been there for billions of years. Its only companion is the sun, which will eventually kill it." She said.
"The way you put it, it is sad." Ricky remarked.
"Mhm. It's strange to me that a heavenly body like that can be so quiet." Aurelie mumbled, pulling her knees up and hugging it.
"And you call my interest morbid." He tried to lighten the mood.
"It's sad, not creepy like you!" She shot back playfully.
"You have any plans to work in astronomy after graduation though?" He asked.
"No, I'm not good at science and math." She shook her head.
"I don't think you're bad at it. You're following what we are doing quite well." Ricky said. "Even then, you're a psychology major if I remember right. That's a science and I'm pretty sure math is required in the program."
"It takes more than you think for me to get here." Aurelie took a sip of her tea. "I also see stargazing as a hobby, something to relax. I don't want to sweat over why Uranus is on its side for a living, you know."
"That's fair." Ricky said. "So what do you want to do then?"
A simple question left Aurelie in a bit of a daze.
"I'm...not too sure." She rubbed her neck. "A psychologist probably?"
"Grad school?" He asked.
"That's a possibility." She answered noncommittally. "Or a consultant. My dad works for an insurance company and I heard they're hiring soon. Something Senshado related also works, either pro-league or maybe a trainer. Whichever it is, I want it to be at least tolerable in the long run."
"That's all we can ever hope for, doesn't it?" Ricky's remark left both of them giggling.
He had to admit, it was strange. Aurelie's impression on him had been of wisdom and prudence. She always appeared so confident as if she had everything figured out. That impression had fragmented after their trip to Bokoland, but it went deeper than Ricky imagined.
And that made them both. It was strange for her to see her subordinates and friends having such clear prospects for the future. Fernanda was well-positioned to springboard to anything she wished. Academia, research, private sectors, the world was her oyster. She wasn't sure about Heidi, but the orphan had clawed her way here from nothing and Aurelie was certain she would succeed one way or another. As for Ricky, even though he was insecure about it, he also had proper directions and was highly intelligent. He'd be sought after as well.
On the other hand, their captain hadn't figured out her life yet. There were options, and she was lucky enough to not have to be desperate. But beyond that, what did she really want? 'Something' was her answer for now, and she kept delaying the specifics.
The reality was that much of Aurelie's identity was tied to Senshado. They were all athletes, and not unlike other sports, the career of a Senshado player was a steep pyramid. Once she was finished, she would become a normal girl like everybody else. Excelling in Senshado wasn't going to guarantee success in life nor were indications of superior intelligence, but she still found it difficult to shake off the image of a reliable prudent captain, which now was beginning to feel like a ghost haunting her steps.
"Anyway, what shall we do?" Aurelie switched topic. "You wanna game? Watch a movie?"
"I'm good with anything, but if you want a preference..." Ricky thought. "Maybe something exciting. No horror though, please."
"Exciting but not horror? Nothing better than this then." She stood up, grabbed a specific cassette tape from the bookshelf and inserted it into the player.
"Welcome to the 31st Panzerfahren Olympiad International! I'm your host Meryl, here with my good friend Cartrip!"
"Ooh!" Ricky's eyebrows perked. "This is your match?"
"Mhm! Against the Americans in the Mojave Desert." Aurelie answered. "That was back in April."
"You won?"
"Who knows?"
She wasn't going to spoil it for him, but it was obvious to anyone who followed tankery. Japanese tankery was among the best in the world, along with Germany, England and Russia. On the other hand, the US hadn't won an international tournament since 1975, let alone the Olympiad, which was known for its higher quality players. Nobody expected them to win, and there was no miracle this year either. Still, they put up a good fight that Aurelie thought was good to show to an outsider like Ricky.
"Let's skip the pleasantry." Aurelie skipped ahead to the beginning of the match.
The match replay zoomed out to a bird-eye's view of the two teams, and the tank lists, just like how he saw in the practice match against Alice. The Japanese team had 21 tanks, all American late-war tanks, while the Americans had 36 of mostly mid-war German tanks, with some Japanese/Italian vehicles here and there.
"That's a weird number of tanks." Ricky noted. "I remember Senshado matches were 15 versus 15 or 20 versus 20."
"Yeah, but this is a different format. Very basically..." Aurelie explained.
Tanks in the Olympiad were assigned costs, with earlier era tanks often costing less than later era vehicles. The vehicle limit was no longer a hard cap like other tournaments, but by how teams allocate resources. This served to diversify lineups and strategies, create more dynamic asymmetric games, and overall easier to make balance changes and shake things up a bit.
"It's not perfect, but it's interesting to see." Aurelie pointed. "That's the American team's captain, Jennifer."
"Japanese team using American tanks against America using Japanese tanks, huh?" Ricky chuckled.
"Tankery is truly an international game." Aurelie joined the laughter.
Engagement began soon after. The American team's scouts traded shots with the Japanese scouts, then the arrival of the main forces – Tigers and Panthers meeting T34s and Pershings – at the center and right side of the map. The Japanese team ordered an advance onto the town in the east. Fast-paced urban combat followed.
"Oh that's Fernanda!" Ricky noted a particular auburn-haired captain atop a T34 Heavy. "She wears a scarf in that heat?"
"Don't question it." Aurelie said. "Watch her closely."
As Fernanda approached a corner, she suddenly ordered her T34 to reverse. A Chi-Ri suddenly popped out from the same corner, drifting and managing to dodge the T34's shot. It then tried to speed past the T34 on its left side, but the T34 smartly turned into the Chi-Ri's path, getting it to ram into the T34's side, propelling it into a building.
As the T34 was turning its 120mm to finish off the Chi-Ri, a Semovente M43 rushed out of the corner and sped towards the T34's right flank. But Fernanda's response was lightning fast, ordering the T34 to go forward and ram the Semovente. The angle and momentum of both vehicles resulted in the Semovente being flipped over several times before laying to rest on its top with its white flag popped. The T34 then applied the coup de grace to the Chi-Ri. The commentators went wild with Fernanda's play, and Ricky at the edge of his seat.
"Wow, how did she...that's…" He was left speechless.
"She is in the team for a reason." Aurelie nodded proudly.
The non-stop action quickly shifted elsewhere. As the fight for the center intensified, two giant shells slammed into the American side, disabling two Panther Fs.
"What a shot by the Japanese team! Let's see the instant replay for that!"
The camera zoomed to a pair of T30E1, tucked in a hidden position inbetween the two engagement zone. The dangerous positioning paid off, as it granted the Japanese a superb firing angle to put pressure on the Americans in the middle. A familiar black-haired commander, from the cupola of a T30E1, observed but perhaps didn't savor her kill for too long.
"Is that Heidi?" Ricky pointed. "She looks so cool there."
"Mhm, the team's Raumdeuter." Aurelie answered proudly. "She's unbelievably good at finding angles to snipe targets, even in chaos."
The Americans were forced to abandon the middle, and the Japanese team surged forward to take the spot. The snipers repositioned and applied dominant pressure on American positions across the map. But they weren't going down with a whimper. At the same time as the Japanese took the middle of the map, the American team captain had ordered a massive assault on the left side. Columns of tanks plowed through the Mojave Desert – the sands kicked up behind them like devils hiding in plain sight.
Meeting that attack force was a white-haired woman, peering with ice in her veins atop her T32, as she ordered the tanks around her to form defensive formation.
"That's you!" Ricky exclaimed. His excitement was honestly quite cute to her.
The dust screen descended on the Japanese, followed by continuous flares of gunfire. At the end of it all, half the American's left side were neutralized, to a third of the Japanese's. But their flag tank stood firm.
"That must've been so chaotic." Ricky said.
"Admittedly, not the best decision I made, but I was confident at the time they couldn't reach me." Aurelie said.
With the upper hand secured, the Japanese team gradually wore down their opponent without further chaos, as Aurelie preferred. Their captain eventually resigned.
"We have a result. All-Stars Japan, into the second round!"
With that, Aurelie stopped the playback.
"Exciting enough for you?" Aurelie teased, noticing his legs a bit cramped up from the thrills.
Ricky nodded. He had only watched four Senshado games in his life, but admittedly, he was being won over. It really seemed as fun as they said.
"I'm not gonna lie, I feel a little jealous." His jovial voice was tinged with sadness.
"I know..." Aurelie huffed with pity. "Girls only."
"They say boys and tanks don't click."
"I don't know if that's true."
The topic of boys in vehicle-combat sports was always hot. Their inclusion in the new Hikokido was a mess, which continued to fuel the perpetual debate. Who knows if it ultimately was for the better that boys weren't allowed, but for Ricky, Aurelie wouldn't mind. She had no doubt in another world, he would have been an exceptional tanker.
"Let's watch another game, yeah? This one will be live."
"I'm down!"
However, in this world, the most she could do was make him fall in love from the wayside.
Ah, Boys und Panzer. You either love it or hate it. It is also a topic I'd like to dedicate a couple of future chapters to address proper. Again, we all know the reason why boys aren't allowed: it's an anime about cute girls driving tanks. But this is a lore fic, so here I am trying to apply logic to an illogically lovable anime. I already have ideas on it, but will need some fine-tuning to make it more measured and fair.
There's also a lot of references in this chapter, but the one that might cause confusion would be Hikoki-do. In case you're not aware, that's the name of the dogfighting martial art in DrWenzel's fanfic Boys und Flugzeug, which has become sort of a subgenre in the GuP fanfic community. I love the fic and the lore related to that, so I'd like to pay homage to it here.
Kudos times. Thank you to Idemblit, SBWave, tharasuntorn for the support! Really appreciate it!
Next chapter will be huge! Stay tuned!