Zuikaku...
Jay was up bright and early, just waiting for everyone to get up. He sat on the couch and looked at his phone. 5:30am? Might as well go on a walk. He thought to himself. He wrote Miho a note with his phone number in case she needed him to come back. He quietly left the apartment and walked along the quiet street. The air was cold and crisp, like a sip of ice cold water.
He continued to walk until the sun came up over the bow of the large ship. He walked all the way to where the tanks were being stowed. As promised by the SATS leaders, they left a V-22 Osprey for personel transport. He walked up to the grey hybrid, feeling it. He opened the door and began to do a preflight check of it. He grabbed the checklist off of the seat next to him and began going over it. Once he was done checking it, he locked it up and decided to check on the tanks.
He walked over to the tanks, which were covered with tarps, and uncovered the M18. As he did, he began whistling his school's anthem, "Bridge over the River Kwai". He inspecting the breech, making sure there was no damage. As he opened the breech, he felt the tank rock a little. That was normal, but it was the amount of rocking, it felt like someone had climbed aboard the tank. He looked up to see someone looking in through the hatch.
"Hello there!" Jay said, just before the person disappeared from sight. He scrambles out of the gunner's seat and out the hatch just in time to see the person dip behind the Osprey. Jay closed up the Hellcat before slinking over to the Osprey. He walked around the nose of the aircraft and bumped into her, causing her to jump.
"I'm Sorry! I just wanted to see your tank!" She said. Jay chuckled to himself little.
"It's alright, i'm surprised you didn't see them yesterday." He said, after he got his laughs out. "And may I ask who you are?"
"Yukari Akiyama!" She said, very cheerfully.
"I'm Jay, very pleased to meet a fellow tanker." Jay said, extending a hand. She shook and and seemed to relax a little. Jay then got back to doing the pre-flight check of the osprey.
"What are you doing?" Yukari asked as Jay was looking at the rotors.
"I'm doing a pre-flight check, just making sure everything is in working order before we fly this bird." Jay explained. "Alright, everything checks out. This birds ready to fly." Jay said, turning back towards Yukari.
A few hours later...
The engines began to spool up with a crescendoing whine, starting low and then getting higher and higher as more air was sucked into the intakes, blowing out plumes of smoke.
"Alright,
we're good to go, nothing out of the ordinary." Jay said, advancing the throttles. The noise of the blades, slicing the air increased and the aircraft took off. The aircraft climbed to about 8,000 feet before the rotors were tilted fully forward and flew like a plane. Once the aircraft was cruising toward its destination, Jay decided to get up and stretch his legs.
"Your aircraft." Jay said.
"My aircraft" Pascal replied. Jay got up from the seat and walked to the cargo hold, where everyone who was going to the order announcement was sitting. Jay walked towards the back of the cabin, surprised to see that some of the passengers were sleeping. He walked over to Miho, before deciding to probably not bother her, since she was sleeping. He saw that Yukari was awake and decided to speak to her for a little.
"So, Yukari..." Jay said, nearly startling her. "What tank are you in?"
"O-oh! I'm in the Panzer IV with Nishizumi-dono. I'm her loader." She said. "It's really fun though!"
"I would imagine. Also pretty easy as well. I'm both the commander and gunner for my hellcat." Jay said.
"By Hellcat you mean..."
"Yes, the M18 GMC, nickname 'Hellcat'." Jay said. "That's the tank you climbed onto." Jay said. "Anyway, we have to train when we get back, our crews need to train together so we can coordinate."
"Yeah.." The two just looked at each other in silence. For a solid 30 seconds before breaking eye contact.
"Well, I should get back to flying. Good talk Yukari." Jay said, before speed walking back to the flight deck, visibly blushing. He passed Miho, who saw him blushing. She watched as he took a seat and exchanged words with Pascal.
"My Aircraft."
"Your aircraft, Jay did something happen? Your kinda red in the face." Pascal said, looking over at Jay, who was focused on flying the plane. Once Pascal knew he wasn't going to answer, he decided to go take his break, since there were about 40 more minutes of flying. Once pascal had left, Jay began thinking to himself. He thought about the upcoming tournament, the girls, the fame and he was starting to forget that silent moment he had. He began laughing softly to himself, trying to push those thought out of his mind.
Tournament Gathering
It was overwhelming to say the least, at least for the boys. They had never seen so many girls participating in Sensha-do. In America, the Boy-to-girl ratio for this sport was almost even, with a little more girls than boys in it.
"So..many...girls..." Kenji said, gawking at some of the girls. Jay spotted someone selling Model tanks and planes and snuck off from the group to go buy one. Pascal snuck off from the group to go get something to drink.
Peterson and Cody split up to find some girls to talk to, and Kenji did the same.
Jay was looking at some models and decided to buy an F-14 tomcat. He continued walking back towards the gathering area, but not before bumping into someone, causing him to drop is model and then he felt a burning sensation on his chest.
"Oh, my goodness, i'm so sorry! You ok?" She said, picking up the box. Jay didn't hear her because he was busy trying to hold back the screaming the beverage that was spilled onto him.
"What was that?!" He asked, some of his pain slipping through his voice. He looked at the teacup on the ground in from of him and answered with "Ah...so that's what it was..." he slowly got up and looked at the pink haired girl who had he had bumped into.
"Are you ok?" She asked. Setting the model onto the ground next to her, but she put it at an angle where it caused her slip forward into Jay. By this time Her friends had come over.
"Rosehip are you...." They were shocked to see the predicament their friend was in.
Meanwhile Pascal was chatting up some girls who were wearing blue and white uniforms.
"I mean, personally, I think that the Continuation War was a miracle for the soviets in Leningrad,but that's just me." Pascal said.
"But the winter war was just a big failure for the Russians." Mikko said.
"Not a failure, but a lesson. They did learn from their mistakes." Mika said, calmly as usual.
"Well, nice chat ladies. I better go find the rest of my group. Nice meeting you." He said, standing up. "Also, good luck." they waved at him before he walked away and disappeared into the crowd. He began to make his way over to the main stage area, but not before seeing the closing moment of Jay's situation.
"Well buddy I stand corrected." He said, nearly laughing at the two. With rosehip sitting on top of Jay. The moment before she sat up while sitting on him, and what the rest of her friends saw was the two kissing.
"Rosehip, was it? Can you please get off of me?" Jay said, holding a straight face, but bushing heavily.
"O-oh! Sorry!" She said, rushing to her feet, stepping on Jay's inner thigh as she did so. Jay clenched his fist and made a squealing noise before she stepped off and continued on her way. Pascal helped Jay up, brushing off as much dirt as he could.
"Talk about a good first impression, right?" Pascal said, sarcastically. "THough i guess you did make a new friend."
"Ah, shut up...let's just get to the main stage and find the ooarai girls..." He said, picking up his model kit. The two made their way back to the ooarai girls, who gave them questionable looks the moment they saw Jay.
"The hell happened to you?" Yukari asked.
"It's a long story..." Jay replied. Luckily for them, the order of the tournament. Takeshi Kitano made his way to the stage, and gave his speech about the new system of the sport and wished them the best of luck. He left the stage and the order was announced.
"Pascal, go get one of the shells that we were provided with." Miho said. He nodded and rushed over to get it. He carried it back and set it down.
"I don't know how much that weighed, but that is heavy..." He said, breathing hard. Yukari walked up to the shell and looked at it closely.
"Well yukari, whats the verdict?" Jay asked.
"I do believe that this shell is live!" she said, as if she were a soldier giving a report. The group went silent.
"Live ammo...I did not sign up for this." Kenji stated. The other boys grunted in agreement.
"Well Miho, what do you say?" Jay asked.
"What is there to say." She replied.
Practice the next day....
Shot rang out on the carrier as the many guns of JayPac opened up o the firing targets. Jay himself was teaching the girls how to get into their tanks fast in case they were caught outside.
"Alright, Hoshino, send us off." Jay said, caleb and courtney right beside him.
"GO!" The three took off running towards the tank, Jay and Caleb hopped up onto the back of the tank and Courtney ran to the front and the three opened up the hatches of the of the tank and climbed in. Within second, the tank was started up and was ready to fight. All with the span of 8 seconds. They watched in amazement. "Alright ladies, GO!" Jay shouted as he watched three of the teams scramble for their tanks.
"Anteater 7.3, Rabbit, 8.9, and Leopon at 8.1. A little faster ladies." Jay said.
On the shooting range, or rather, off of it, Cody was pulling off longe range hits in excess of 1500 meters. He was easily hitting the hitting the targets.
"If you know the velocity, just adjust for the velocity, other than that it's pretty straightforward." Cody said into the radio, before discharging another round downrange.
Pascal was teaching the teams how to angle their armor.
"Even a tank like the Type 89 can bounce a shermans main canon. It's all about finding that optimum angle." Pascal said. "Well, maybe not the main canon, but definitely the small arms fire."
"Easy for you to say, your in an IS-3." Erwin said.
"And you need to start paying attention because you may have a High velocity 75mm, but you have no turret." He said. "And angling can save your life, trust me." She was silet after that. He began explaining the different types of guns and where to force the shell to hit on the tanks that could bounce it. At this point Jay called the teams together and explained the different callsigns and radio call-outs that they said. After that, Jay told them to get some sleep and get ready for tomorrow.
Miho's apartment...
Jay was lying on his futon, sore from all the running and climbing he did. It felt as if he had been hit with a hammer all over. Miho had gave him an ice pack and he gladly placed it on the parts of his body that hurt the most.
"Hey Miho...can I ask you to do me a favor." Jay asked.
"Y-yeah, what is it?" She asked, taking a seat by him.
"Well, this could be the last night we live...so i was wondering....if we could.."
"What?! No!" Jay was shocked, but as he was raised he just turned over.
"Sorry...i had a feeling that would be the answer." Jay said. "I mean I understand, no need to...." He was cut off by Miho kissing him. He leaned into the kiss and He pulled her close. They began to get more and more intense, Miho clinging onto Jay's shirt tightly and vice versa. Then Jay pulled away.
"That's all I was asking for. Thanks. Besides, I'm...i'm not ready yet." Jay said. Miho smiled and hugged Jay.
Sayori's Apartment...
Cody was lying in bed next to Sayori, who was clinging to his arm. At first he was uncomfortable, he was a bit tired after the practice today, beside he hadn't hit all the shots he wanted to hit today. Since the first day he got here he had enjoyed staying with sayori, especially since she could cook. It was like they were married almost, and from listening to Sayori always ranting about finding a boyfriend, he believed that maybe she might except him as that person. Unfortunately the Position she was sleeping in pretty much eliminated any moving or shifting and he wasn't ready for "Night combat." At least outside of the tank. So he tried his hardest to fall to sleep.
Yuzu's House....
Pascal was busy working his pistol. Like Jay had said they only brought them for self-defense and he wasn't about to misuse his pistol. To make matters worse he was staying with one of the more strict girls of Ooarai, at least that's what he thought since she was part of the student council. Having a gun on him would be hard to explain to her. Just gotta finish cleaning the barrel...and done. All in secrecy.
"What are you doing?" yuzu asked, startling pascal to the point where he dropped his gun and bullet casings fell out. "Is that...?"
"Yeah, its my gun. After seeing what sensha-do is really gonna be like with live ammo I think that having my own weapon in case i had to bail out would make perfect sense." He explained.
"Just keep it on safety when you're around us. Last thing we need is a 'Blue on Blue' incident." She said, before heading to her room.
"I will." And with that he put his gun away and fell asleep.
The moment you've probably been waiting for, the first of the three battles is about to happen