Please Stop Bullying Me, Miss Itsumi!

Prologue

The desert sun sat high in the sky, indiscriminately beating down on everything that laid before it. In a mountain clearing, a young man stood; worn down binoculars pressed against flushed skin as he expectantly scanned the dusty path that lied below him. Still, nothing. The binoculars dropped from his hand and swung down onto his chest, the string around his neck stopping its fall. Though there was peace, he was anxious. His heartbeat thumped a little out of line, his breath got caught in his throat, and his hands could never seem to stop trembling. Today— this moment— it meant the world to him. He turned heel and moved away from the edge of the clearing, slowly he walked back to the Panzer 38t he'd left behind. He threw the hatch and climbed aboard, instantly feeling a gust of air from a little plastic fan that dangled from the roof.

"See anything, Coop?" A voice below him asked. His eyes trailed down to meet their's, his lips parting to speak.

"Ah— uh— n-no— nothing yet, Shultz. I'll take a look again here in a few minutes." Cooper said, clearing his throat as he tried to sputter out the words. He'd almost forgotten he was with him. Shultz. Henry Shultz. That was his radioman— and—

"Here—" Another voice chimed in, a bottle soon flying into his lap. "You look like you're just about ready to start stroking out." His driver, Allen Kurtz. Cooper's eyes shifted to the bottle now in his lap. Pocari Sweat. A sports drink from Japan he had a serious affinity for.

"T-Thanks, Kurtz. Sorry. The heat must be getting to me a bit." He replied, laughing a little as he begun to undo the cap to the bottle.

"Doesn't seem fair— keep telling us to hydrate but you keep going out there without so much as a drop." Kurtz turned back to Cooper as he spoke, thumping the other in the thigh once he finished, "Enjoy that— had to sneak onto one of the School Ships to find it."

"I know— I know— sorry." Cooper said with a huff, pressing the bottle to his lips and letting the subtly sweet liquid flow past them. "That's where you went? I was wondering where you'd run off to." He laughed quietly.

Much better.

"So— anything happening at the front?" Cooper asked to Shultz, nudging him slightly.

"Yeah— Saunders ran into Pravda already and it sounds like Oorai ran into some sort of ambush— not sure who it is just yet." Shultz sighed, taking a sip from a drink of his own.

"Any movement from St. Gloriana?" God, hopefully not. Their Crusaders were running QRF for the rear-guard just in case things started to pick up.

"Mmm— Nothing yet— I think I heard uh— Rose— Rosehip? Heard her a few times on the radio but I don't think it was anything important." Shultz barely swallowed his drink before answering.

"She's nice— she'll be the first here to help us if anything happens so don't forget her name when she shows up." Coop chuckled softly, watching the light pink tint begin to bleed onto Shultz's features.

"I won't—"

It seemed like a fairly mundane match so far. Er— mundane isn't the right word. Normal. No match of Sensha-dō was "mundane". Each one was filled with excitement and challenges different from the last. It's why Cooper liked it so much. It was really just something else. With a small smile now teetering on his lips, he took another sip of the Pocari he still held in his hands. He screwed the cap back on and began to stand up once more.

"I'm going to go check on the others and check the perimeter one more time. Sit tight." With that, he was climbing up and out of the panzer once more. Unsurprisingly, the crew of the Sherman that Saunders had graciously loaned them was lazing about in the shade beside it. He couldn't blame them though. The heat inside the tanks could be almost even more unbearable than outside them.

     "Wittmann— how much longer do you think we'll be out here? I was really hoping to get to look around some of the school ships..." One of the lounging students asked, lifting his head up slightly to look at Cooper as he approached.

     "The match only started maybe— what? Twenty something minutes ago? We've still got awhile left." Cooper laughed, reaching behind himself to rub at his neck, "Just keep drinking your waters and all that— keep in the shade too— but be ready if something starts to happen, alright?"

     "Gotcha, Witt." Another student, whose head was covered with his shirt, said as he raised his thumb up. With that affirmation, Coop turned heel to leave the lowerclassmen to their own devices once more. They'd be fine, he had no doubts about that. They'd always been more than prepared during practices and club meet—

What was that?

     The air seemed to grow tense as a cold sweat trailed down Coop's back, the all too familiar sound of a quickly approaching engine starting to grow louder and louder. His eyes widened and without having to utter so much as word, the underclassmen started to scramble for the Sherman. He moved as if he were on auto-pilot once he saw them move. He turned on his heels breaking out into a sprint toward his panzer. With every step he took, the sound only grew louder. It wasn't until he was throwing the hatch to the 38t and slipping his legs inside it that their opponent came into view. A Königstiger— or a Tiger II— painted in a yellowish, Khaki color, an iron cross emblazoned on the side of its turret with text running through the middle he couldn't understand. He didn't need to understand the it though to know how completely screwed they were. Before he could finish slipping into the 38t, a subtle feeling of fear started to wash over him like waves from the sea. His muscles locked up and he froze, his wide eyes staring dead ahead towards the Tiger II which was coming to a halt now. This was it. The turret would turn and blow them away. All the time they'd spent preparing, all the money they'd gathered to get here, all of it would have meant nothing. To be wiped out in the blink of an eye. All he could do was sit here and accept his fate.
     Cooper watched in horror as the Tiger II's hatch swung open, its commander slowly rising from it. Her platinum blonde hair practically sparkled in the harsh sunshine as she slowly surveyed the area, her steel blue eyes scanning over everything until eventually they locked with his. After what seemed like a lifetime, the two finally broke free of the stare and slipped back into their tanks as quickly as they could.

They were not going to die here.
This was not the end of their journey.

     Cooper settled into the gunner's seat, rotating the turret as quickly as he could to take aim at the Tiger II, and—

B O O M !