Flower of Oarai, Chapter 26: The Lion and the Eagle

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14100358/26/Flower-of-Oarai
https://archiveofourown.org/works/50830339/chapters/160073188
https://www.wattpad.com/1513554096-flower-of-oarai-26-the-lion-and-the-eagle

They disapproved of her line up. The finals were the opportunity for the schools to show off their most impressive hardware and Saunders were doing that with six Easy Eights and four Pershings. She was not. She had brought Jagdpanthers because they were far more mobile than Elefants or Jagdtigers; no matter how impressive a Jagdtiger's firepower might be she saw no reason to hamstring the rest of her forces by shackling them to such a ponderous beast. Three Jagdpanthers and two Tiger IIs; that was the limit of her desire to 'show off'.

The rest of her line up was practical; six Panthers, six Panzer IV Hs, two Tigers and a Panzer III for scouting. Sensible. Practical. There was no point bringing bigger, heavier, slower machines against Saunders when their 76 and 90mm guns could penetrate the German tanks and tank destroyers at range anyway. This was a contest between glass cannons; tanks that could kill each other at long range with only the heavy beasts likely to cast off a few hits. Her Panthers were stronger frontally but only so much. What was the point in them bringing a pair of M4s with their 75mm spud guns? Or the M4A3s with their howitzers? But then, why had she had brought Panzer IVs instead of fielding only Panthers? Because it was an unspoken rule in Sensha-do that a team not to simply deploy a single model of all-powerful tank. It was boring. It was unsporting.

Not that Kuromorimine didn't already press close to the line of unsporting with their practice of bringing overwhelming force against minor opponents. An 8.8cm cannon was simply overkill when set against an opponent with just 15mm of armour. Yet, the Tiger remained the traditional flag tank of Kuromorimine.

Here she was, Captain in her Second Year and she was beginning the finals thinking about the grimness of her school's mindset. But things had been so much… Happier… In Junior High. No one had been overwrought by the results of matches between 38(t)s, T-26s, Renault YRs or Crusaders. It had all been about the joy of the sport. Somehow the step from 9th to 10th Grade was from the top of a high and happy hill straight into a dark and humourless gorge.

Like someone had said 'childhood is over, now get to work!'

Someone… She fought hard not to glare in the direction of the stands despite the fact they were well out of sight of her starting position. Even though it was impossible, she could feel the eyes burning on her. It was a cruel part of life that the eyes that burned her with so much 'encouragement' were the same eyes she had to see every time she looked in the mirror. The family eyes. Even little Erika had those eyes.

She was meant to give a speech before this important final match but what could she say that they didn't already know? They wanted to continue the school's winning streak and certainly not be remembered as the team that broke it. They didn't need to hear it from her; they knew it. Their vehicles were all purring for battle. That was all the poetry they needed to hear.

The signal was given, barely audible over the thrum of all the engines and Itsumi Leona had only one thing to say. "Panzer Vor!"

~~~~~~

A few days ago my laptop experienced a Windows Update that for some reason decided to reset my Word autosaves back to the 13th for Chapter 27 which meant I lost half of it. It set it back three days for The Forest so I lost 2000 words from that (2000 words I was very proud of incidentally and has pissed me off a lot) and only a day for my The Walking Dead fic so I only lost 200 words from that.
So I finished my shift on Thursday and sat and rewrote much of what I had lost of Chapter 27 in the break room (A wonderful distraction-free environment) until midnight; two and a half hours after I should have locked up and left. While I think I restored most of what I lost, 3500 words gone...
So here's Chapter 26 instead of both together