The sun was low, bleeding orange across the horizon as the battered remnants of the Grossdeutschland Division regrouped along the muddy road.
The air still smelled of burning oil and churned earth. Mechanics swarmed over the damaged Panthers, and medics moved among the wounded.
Miho and her crew sat quietly on the Panzer IV's hull, their uniforms streaked with sweat and grime. None of them spoke. Saori hugged her knees, her eyes still wide. Mako leaned back, eyes half-lidded, drained. Yukari was the only one who managed a faint, almost guilty excitement, glancing over at the nearby Panthers with awe.
A sharp command voice broke through the evening hush.
"Anglerfish team — front and center!"
Miho's heart jumped. She slid off the tank, smoothing her jacket, the others quickly following. They assembled in a shaky line as several German officers approached, led by Generalmajor Manteuffel himself.
His greatcoat was muddy at the hem, his face lined with exhaustion — but his eyes were sharp, assessing them like they were just another combat unit under his command.
He stopped before Miho.
"You," he said, voice low. "You saved the flank today. Without your quick thinking, those Bolschevitze panzers would've rolled up the entire position."
Miho swallowed hard. She opened her mouth to protest — to say they didn't wanted to do any of this or get involved in this war, but chose to remain silent.
Krüger turned, gesturing. An adjutant stepped forward, carrying a small velvet-lined tray. Resting on it were five black cuff bands with white borders, embroidered in white gothic script: Grossdeutschland.
Krüger's eyes softened, just a fraction. "I do not know how you came to be here, Mädchen... but as of today, you are formal part of this division. You have earned it."
He lifted one of the bands and carefully fastened it around Miho's left forearm. One by one, the others received theirs — Yukari nearly trembling with excitement, Hana bowing her head quietly, Mako blinking as if in a fog, and Saori biting her lip, trying not to cry.
When he was done, Manteuffel stepped back.
"Welcome to Grossdeutschland."
The officers saluted crisply. Miho, heart pounding, managed to return the gesture, the weight of the cuff band pressing against her arm like a brand. While the soldiers clapped.
As the Germans dispersed, Yukari let out a shaky laugh. "Nishizumi-dono... we're official!"
Miho forced a small smile for Yukari's sake, but her fingers brushed the cuff band's embroidery—Grossdeutschland—like a prisoner testing chains.
Somewhere behind them, a medic cursed, struggling to lift a wounded man onto a stretcher. The man screamed. Miho flinched.
But inside, her stomach twisted. Official. Soldiers now. Not just players.
Her gaze drifted back to the smoldering battlefield behind them, the wrecked tanks, the lifeless shapes in the mud.
A grizzled grenadier nudged his comrade, nodding at the girls. "Our elite cuff bands? Fur Kinder?"
The other soldier shrugged, lighting a cigarette. "Didn't you see how they fought like devils. Besides—" His voice dropped, "In this lost war, we will need everything."
As night fell, a bitter wind picked up, rustling the canvas of field tents and stirring ash from the burned-out wrecks. The Anglerfish team was assigned a corner of the bivouac, beside a burned-out truck. A thin wool blanket each, a ration tin between two.
"Miho," Hana said gently, crouching beside her. "We couldn't have done anything else."
Miho nodded, but it felt automatic. Her hands were trembling, and not from cold.
Yukari, ever the enthusiast, was already sketching the layout of the Panther's engine compartment in her notebook, muttering about transfer possibilities. Saori sat beside her, saying little. Mako was asleep against the Panzer IV's roadwheel, boots still on.
"Let's get some sleep, You must be tired." Miho urged the others.
One by one, the girls followed Mako into sleep, leaving Miho alone with her thoughts, unable to process the day.
It started with a tankery practice along with the rest of her Oarai friends in their school ship and now ending with real fight against the Russians in Romania.
Moreover, the incident at the 62nd nationals was already hard for her to forget, but here she just took part in a real battle and caused the death of many soldiers.
Unlike the finals, here she had no way to save those men. Here she couldn't just jump out of her tank because it could mean death to her and her friends.
The new arrivals from the Romanian 4th Division moved through the bivouac like shadows, their worn uniforms a patchwork of faded green and earth tones.
Miho watched as they unloaded their battered equipment - Czech-made rifles and German hand-me-down gear that spoke of an army fighting on scraps.
A cigarette hissed to life in the dusk. One of the Romanians, his collar tabs marking him as an officer, stared too long at the Panzer IV before muttering to his companion.
The words were foreign, but the tone needed no translation - that particular disbelief she'd heard from every veteran since arriving in this nightmare.
The crunch of boots on frozen earth made Miho look up. Two German soldiers - their collars bearing the Grossdeutschland insignia - moved through the Romanian ranks with the weary authority of front veterans.
Their low words to the foreign soldiers were lost in the evening wind, but Miho saw the Romanians stiffen, then disperse like schoolboys chastised.
The Germans claimed the wrecked truck's relative shelter for themselves, their movements economical with exhaustion. One paused, his shadow stretching long in the firelight as he regarded the girls.
"Gute Nacht, Mädchen," he murmured, the phrase almost paternal before he vanished behind the truck's skeletal frame.
Miho exhaled, watching her breath fog in the sudden quiet. The words should have comforted - they were the first kindness since the battle ended. But they rang hollow, like a mother soothing a child after a nightmare... when the real horror still waited outside the blanket's edge.
She curled tighter beneath her thin woolen cover. Around her, the others slept like the dead - Yukari's sketchbook still open to a half-finished Panther diagram, Mako's face finally peaceful. Only the occasional sentry's footsteps and the truck's creaking metal disturbed the night.
Miho stirred as Yukari's excited whisper cut through the morning chill. "Nishizumi-dono! Look!" Something metallic clinked near her face - a mess tin filled with greasy, pale beans swimming in congealed fat. "It's the standard Wehrmacht field ration! Erbsen mit Speck! Just like the manuals described!"
Saori's groan came from beneath her blanket cocoon. "Must you be so loud about... whatever that is?" She peeked out, nose wrinkling at the pungent aroma of rendered pork fat mixing with morning dew.
Miho blinked sleep from her eyes. The tin's contents looked nothing like the balanced meals Anzu would have demanded back home. A memory flashed - cafeteria tables, Yukari lecturing about Panzer maintenance between bites of curry bread.
Now her loader cradled the cold beans like a treasure, her enthusiasm painfully out of place against the backdrop of muddy trenches and the distant growl of engine
Hana sat cross-legged over her blanket, eating with the same measured grace she used during flower arrangement. Each small bite was deliberate, her expression unreadable.
The way she held her mess tin looked almost elegant—like this greasy field ration was simply another form of kaiseki cuisine to be appreciated. Miho felt some tension leave her shoulders. If Hana could find dignity in this, perhaps the day wouldn't be unbearable.
Nearby, chaos reigned. Saori crouched over Mako's still form, shaking her shoulder with increasing desperation. "Mako-chan! The officers will literally leave you behind if you don't—oh God, is that drool? On a battlefield?!"
Mako merely rolled onto her side, murmuring something about "five more minutes, Sodoko." and "Anzu's lunch coupons." A strand of hair stuck to her cheek where it had met the mud.
Yukari, mouth full of beans, tapped her notebook excitedly. "The fat content is actually ideal for high-energy combat situations! Though the 1943 field manual suggests—"
A shrill bell shattered the morning air, followed by a voice roaring through the camp: "Achtung! Räder hoch in fünf Minuten!"
The effect was electric. Soldiers spilled coffee as they scrambled from breakfast fires, buckling helmet straps with sausage-greased fingers.
A panicked Saori finally yanked Mako upright by her collar—only for the driver to slump forward.
"Five minutes?!" Yukari squeaked, beans forgotten as she frantically wiped her spectacles clean on her sleeve. Her notebook tumbled into the mud, pages fluttering open to sketches of Romanian tank formations.
Saori finally won her battle, jamming rock-hard Kommissbrot between Mako's teeth with a mother's desperation. "Don't. Drive. Hungry." Each word carried the same finality as a tank round breaching armor.
Mako blinked owlishly but began chewing—even as her eyes drifted shut again, hands moving on the hull of the tank as she searched for the driver's hatch to get inside.
The two German soldiers from the wrecked truck awoke to chaos—the kind that made seasoned soldiers reach for their rifles before their boots. But this morning's disturbance wasn't Bolshevik artillery.
"Mein Gott, Franz..." The younger one rubbed sleep from his eyes as Saori bodily pushed a half-conscious Mako inside the Panzer IV, the driver's limbs flopping like a ragdoll.
Franz, lit a cigarette with slow amusement. "Either we're still drunk, or the General issued us mascots."
Saori frowned, "Hey, don't smoke before even breakfast," she practically screamed. Leading the soldiers to drop them.
After the five girls entered the Panzer IV's steel belly, the familiar ritual of stowing blankets felt grotesquely domestic. Yukari's elbow bumped the breech loader as she triple-checked their ammunition count.
Hana smoothed the folds of her bedding with tea ceremony precision. Miho's stomach growled, but the bread Saori pressed into her hands might as well have been sawdust.
The engine roared to life, joining the symphony of Panthers and half-tracks grinding forward.
The Romanian infantry bundled up on the German panzers due to lack of proper transports. Ten of them were on Miho's Panzer IV.