The Opening Ceremony of the Sensha-do Anniversary Festival was to take place the next day, or today, considering time has skipped forwards. Either way, it was to the Student Council's and the Ooarai Sensha-do Teams surprise that as the champions of the previous Nationals Tournament, it was to be hosted on the Zuikaku. Momo initially freaked out, like she always does, but Yuzu calmed her. The rest of Ooarai was excited to say the least, and Miho smiled at the prospect of seeing all of her friends, this time all in one large party.
"Sounds like they're having fun, aren't they?" Willy remarked to his men as he drank a cup of coffee. Black of course.
"Wish we could go there. Bet they got lots of delicious food from around the world." Jean sipped his coffee, which was much lighter with some sugar and cream they had obtained from the Ooarai girls, who had been giving them and the Germans food, in exchange for all the help and kindness the soldiers showed in return. "Especially French Food. I want to eat my country's cuisine again!"
"I thought you were a chef, Jean."
"[Oui commandant Owen.] However, do we have access to anything I can use to cook? [Non.]" He took a deep sip of his coffee, accompanied by a biscuit. "Well unless you count the wildlife. But hunting them would mean firing our guns, and we all know how loud those are."
"I did make a suppressor for my Lee Enfield? That's where we've been getting the rabbit and wild boar."
"[désolé]. Still, is there somewhere I can get a good drink? Or anything of that sort?"
"There's Donzoko." the three allied soldiers turned around and saw Ralph playing with his knife. "I can show you, if you want, Jean."
"[Cela serait apprécié.] Show the way then!" With a final sip of his coffee, Jean adjusted his beret and followed Ralph, who had begun walking off into the woods.
Willy finished his coffee off as well. "Bet he'll get shanked or something? That Ralph kid scares me."
Marie squealed in delight as she put another forkful of cake into her mouth. It was simply divine, the cake was. It was light and fluffy, yet packed with a sweet flavor reminiscent of roses and strawberries, and it simply melted on her tongue. Behind her, Oshida and Andou looked at her with fondness while Asparagus talked to the commander of Maginot, Eclair. "You two have to eat some of this cake. It's divine!" she said with glee.
"Ah I'm fine, I'll just get some udon or something." Andou said in modesty. "Taking the chance to stuff yourself more huh?" Andou smirked as she spotted Oshida taking a large plate with several cakes piled on it.
"H-hey! I'm not-Fine then, I guess I'm not giving you any then." Oshida pouted before taking a big forkful of cake and stuffing it into her mouth.
Andou gaped before gasping. "Agh! Fine, sorry I take back what I said, just give me some please!" With a smile on her face, Oshida handed Andou a plate of chocolate cake, which Andou took a bite of. It was delicious and deeply chocolatey.
Asparagus watched her kouhais from afar. Nice to see those two not arguing for once. "Marie, Andou, Oshida! Come here." The three girls stopped for a moment before walking over to their elder. "I'm thinking of kicking things off by challenging Ooarai. Since we're combined with Maginot, I say we have a good chance of beating them! How does that sound?" Marie, Andou, and Oshida nodded eagerly at the chance to fight Ooarai and potentially defeat them. "You know, I'm wondering why I'm making all the decisions now. You are the commander after all, Marie."
Marie finished her first slice of cake. "Of course, but I figured it'd be easier to let you do the planning. You are our upper-classman after all."
"I mean...That's true, but still, you've gotta put some work in, Marie. Remember what they said earlier in the opening speeches?"
Marie began to eat another slice of cake. "Sorry I wasn't paying attention. The cake and food looked too good."
Asparagus sighed and put a hand to her face. "Of course you didn't."
"On the subject of food, someone from Ooarai told me that there's a bar somewhere in their ship that serves delicious drinks. Andou, Oshida, would you like to come with me?"
"Of course Marie-sama!" the two spoke, simultaneously obedient.
"M-Marie, why are we in such a place like this?" Oshida's voice quivered as Rum and Flint leered at the French trio.
"Geez and I thought the lower ends of the Bearn were bad. This place is just...yikes."
Marie smiled despite the predicaments, spooning another bite from her cream soda into her mouth. Earlier, they had someone guide them into the Johannesburg of Ooarai, before Marie sat down at the counter of Donzoko and ordered a cream soda from Cutlass. "It's not too horrible. The cream soda is delicious!" she proclaimed delightfully. Cutlass gave a small smile at the compliment.
Andou sighed in defeat. Looking around, she saw Murakami and Ogin sitting at the counter to her right, but it was the next person she saw that caused her to raise an eyebrow. Laughing and telling jokes to the two buccaneers was a man wearing a beret, a long, light brown overcoat and most strikingly a french looking mustache. Overall he looked very European, he had a fair face and black hair. "Marie-sama, that man...I don't think Kay lied to us when she blabbed about there being soldiers in the woods of Ooarai."
"Hm?"
"That man, he looks very French, and we're in Japanese Waters, nowhere near Europe except for Russia."
"He does." Oshida nodded. "Marie, perhaps we should talk to him? We do learn French at BC Freedom after all."
Marie scooped up the last of her cream soda. She whispered to her vice captains, "We can listen for now. If he really is one of them, then he will just leave if we expose that we know who he is. Come on."
With that, the 3 girls stealthily slid over a few seats, now within hearing distance of the man and the two sailors. "So," Ogin began to ask. "Enough about jokes, from what I've heard you guys talking about, you were in the French Resistance?"
"[Oui.]"
He speaks French! The BC Freedom trio sat listening, taking up drinks themselves.
"My brother was a soldier, and when the Germans took Paris, I used my cooking skills to get close to German officers."
"So you could poison em'?" Murakami bluntly said.
"No no no, if I did poison them, they would probably shoot me. After all, when someone is poisoned through their food, the first people they investigate are the chefs and cooks. I simply used my position to steal documents from them."
The Frenchman continued to talk, and all Oshida could remark was, "I'm impressed they're talking about something so sensitive when we're in here."
"Alright Jean, what happened when the Americans and British came into France? What'd you and the rest of the freedom fighters do?" Ogin asked the big question.
"Ahh, my favorite story to talk about. We were working closely with Allied Commanders and our Government in exile, and when Allied Soldiers parachuted down into the countryside, they brought with them shipments of weapons, along with plans. A few days after their naval assault on the occupied coastlines, we were to break into surplus weapon stores and use the weapons found there to rally the population and fight off the Germans."
"Wow, that's pretty crazy. I'm guessing ya' did it?"
"[naturellement.] We broke into stores of weapons and there we found thousands and thousands of French weapons, but even better, we found that the Germans had left dozens of tanks untouched from before the beginning of the war. With that, the entire resistance, over 500000 of us strong, armed ourselves with our own countries' rifles and machine guns, we fired up the tanks, and we went out to liberate our country!" he briefly stopped, giggling at the applause from the Shark Team, all of whom were now listening closely.
"So how'd that go?"
"It went well, actually." Jean put his left hand on his chin, taking a sip of a drink with his right. "A lot of us were French Soldiers, so when we enacted the plan, many of the members of the resistance were wearing French uniforms, which German soldiers would go on to say, 'it was as if the French army had returned from the dead.' I myself wore my brother's uniform. He wasn't a part of the resistance. Anyways, after we broke into the storehouses, I took command of a Char B1 Bis, and I took along me several SOMUA S35 to go out and deal with the German tanks. Along the way, me and my men sang our countries marching songs, which brought even more people to our side, whom we armed in turn. Our goal was the Eiffel Tower, where the Resistance was to meet up at and fortify for the US and British soldiers moving through France." Jean took a break from his story to finish his drink.
"Wow." Marie, Oshida, and Andou said softly. Marie began to drink out the liquid of her cream soda, while Oshida and Andou began to talk about Jean. "Quite the guy huh?"
"Definitely. I wonder how good he'd be with our tanks?"
Jean finished off his second glass. "Alright, where was I? Our first real obstacle was a group of German medium tanks, but they lacked the firepower to take out my Char B1, so we dealt with them rather easily. Along the way, we engaged German soldiers, who tried their best to hold us off, but they couldn't take us out. Our first major obstacle was starkly different than what we had come across in our march to the Eiffel Tower. A German Tiger." he paused to listen for any gasps, but there were none, to his disappointing sigh. "Now I couldn't command the Char B1 to go out into the open, the Tiger would've most likely plowed through the front armor, so I had the SOMUAs go around the secret passageways in the streets, and they managed to disable the Tiger while I held it's attention. We kept going forwards, and using our intricate knowledge of Paris' streets, we outflanked and destroyed two German Panthers as well. Eventually, all of us, the resistance, regathered and we assaulted the fortified Eiffel Tower from all sides. Afterwards, we had to fortify the tower and defend it ourselves, and that's when Green Day arrived."
"You mean that Allied Tank unit your in?"
"[Oui, madame.] We were under attack by a number of German Tigers, when one of Green Day's UHLS tanks arrived. Willy and his men helped us fight off the Germans, although one of the British members had to be taken out of the war due to injuries from a shell. He didn't lose any limbs from what I remember, but he was hurt all over. That's why I'm on Green Day now. To pay back what they did for us, I joined them as one of their tanks' gunners to replace the one who was injured. And that," he snapped his fingers dramatically. "Is how I and the French Resistance liberated Paris. All while singing the Chanson de l'Oignon."
Flint paused in her singing. "Hey, how about singing for us right now, eh?"
"W-what? [Non], I'm not the kind of person to show off too much."
"What, scared?"
"What!? I'm not scared. Hmph!" he pouted, standing up and clearing his throat to the excitement of everyone in Donzoko. And so he sang:
"J'aime l'oignon frit à l'huile, j'aime l'oignon car il est bon. J'aime l'oignon frit à l'huile, j'aime l'oignon, j'aime l'oignon. Au pas camarades, au pas camarades, au pas, au pas, au pas, au pas camarades, au pas camarades, au pas, au pas, au pas." He smiled wide to the applause. Then he turned and laid his eyes on the 3 commanders from BC Freedom and froze. The 3 girls had forgotten about their mission to spy on him, and based on the smiles on their faces, quite enjoyed his singing and applauded him as well. "W-when did those 3 come into this establishment?" He said pointing at them, his voice full of nerves.
Before anyone could answer, the door to Donzoko was kicked open(again)and standing in the doorway, clad in his German uniform was Hans. "Jean, you should get back before it's too late to return. The opening ceremony is-Who're those three girls?"
"I could ask the same, [monsieur Hans.]"
"Argh!" Hans hit the door frame with his fist. "Doesn't matter, let's go before it's too late!" Hans rushed forwards and in a few long strides, had taken Jean by the arm and dragged him out of Donzoko, the latter waving sadly. Just as they left, Oshida tossed something onto Hans' arm that stuck.
"...Well that was certainly something. He absorbed us so much in his story, we didn't notice you lasses walking in here." Ogin put her pipe back into her mouth, and Murakami ordered a drink. "What's a lady like you doing down here?"
Marie simply smiled. "For the cream soda of course."
"[Gottverdammt!] What were you thinking!? You were seen, and based on your reaction they heard you talking about how you liberated France and everything else."
"Not everything, just the bit with liberating Paris." Jean blurted and spouted as he was quite forcibly dragged along by the surprisingly strong German. "Anyways, your not faring much better, you are walking out into the open while still wearing your uniform, [monsieur.]"
"[Yeah well don't make me scold you in French, oh wait I am.]" Hans stopped in an alleyway, where just across the street lay Ooarai. "Alright, we just need to go a bit farther before we're safe. Stay close Jean."
"[Oui monsieur.]" Hans began to move out of the alleyway when Jean looked to his right down the street. His eyes widened, seeing two girls in gray uniforms walking down the street right towards them. "[Arrêtez!]" he hissed, grabbing Hans' arm and yanking him back violently.
"[What!?]"
"Erika, about what Kay said..." Hans and Jean froze, Jean keeping a keen eye out, while Hans slowly crept behind a mountain of boxes. "Do you think it's true? That there's soldiers in the woods?"
Erika scoffed. "Kay was probably just playing tricks on us. I mean, come on, soldiers who came to our world and time because of a malfunctioning machine, it's too absurd. And even then, they would've been exposed at this point, there's too many people to hide them from either."
"Then again, it is in the woods, and the woods behind Ooarai are very thick, remember that."
"Of course, [kommandant], but still, I believe that Kay is just pranking us."
"I guess you're right then. Come on, let's keep going." Jean heard the two continue walking, and his breathing froze as the two passed by the alleyway. Several seconds passed, and their steps finally faded.
"Alright, let's go Hans!" Jean tugged on Hans' jacket as he broke into a run, Hans shadowing him. *CRUNCH* Hans jolted as the sound of a breaking tile met his ears, but he didn't stop running, in fact he sped up even more
Maho froze and immediately turned around at the sound of the tiles breaking. "What's wrong, com-" Erika's words caught in her throat, as the Commander and Vice-Commander of Kuromorimine witnessed as two men, one wearing a beret and long brown overcoat and the other wearing a dark grey Wehrmacht tankers uniform sprinted across the street, jumping and vaulting over the car barrier before finally crossing over the gated brick wall that separated Ooarai and the rest of the city, both of them taking sharp turns vanishing from sight behind the wall.
"Erika." Maho said with deep seriousness.
"Yes?"
"I think Kay may have been right."