Fore-Foreword: This story is not one for those lacking in patience.

Large and Egotistic foreword has been deleted.

The story is co authored. Fellow authors Roguespirit, HaikuFox, and Wellington99 have contributed to this project, and though their contributions vary, there is no doubt that this couldn't have been done without them. In addition to giving me people to bounce ideas and suggestions off of, their presence really motivates me and helps keep me going. Thank you guys for staying with me through this!

So without further ado, I present to you Agusta per Angusta, 2 years in the making and counting!

{Felicita}

I awake at my usual time of 0500 hours, sharp, alerted by the alarm sitting upon my bedside table. I fold my blanket to the side to allow clear access from my bed, folding it back into place as soon as I exit to make sure it stays neat and tidy. My apartment consists of one room with two bunk beds, adjacent to a miniature kitchen which also houses our entertainment system, a television. I do not use it, that is the pleasure of my two roommates. Speaking of which I remove my earplugs, a little tool I use to overcome the unbearable snoring of my roommate in the lower bunk directly across from me.

I make my way to the miniature refrigerator, opening it and obtaining a pre made breakfast, two sausage biscuits and assorted vegetables. I put it in the microwave oven for the recommended time, during which I am able to hurry back to our bedroom and don my clothes I will be wearing for the day, and brush my teeth.

Coming back to the microwave I find it has 21 seconds left till the food has completed it's warming cycle. A nine second improvement over the previous time. I do not congratulate myself however, that would be vain. A real professional strives to succeed in everything, even trivial morning time saving endeavours. After all, if you don't work your hardest at everything, how can you discover how hard you can work?

The microwave ceases heating the food and I remove it, sitting down at the small three seat table in the corner of the miniature kitchen and going to work upon eating my breakfast. As I stake my second bite of the second biscuit I hear the sounds of one of my roommates trying to wake the other. This usually happens around this time typically, as one of them is a heavy sleeper and the other more attuned to my type of waking.

As I finish off the vegetable portion of the meal I turn around to see my two roommates enter the kitchen. One is a fairly slim girl with dyed baby blue hair in a short ponytail down to her shoulders, crimson eyes with circular glasses over them, and a baby like face, standing at 155 centimeters tall. Her name is Illaria Nakahara, and she holds the arm of her friend and my other roommate as they enter.

My other roommate is a 165 centimeter tall amazon of a girl, with much more bulk courtesy of both more fat and muscles upon her body. Her hair is white, and done up in a most gaudy and unsightly set of white spikes, none of it falling below her ears. Her eyes are cobalt green and her skin is tanned from her excess time in the sun. Her name is Eleonore Fujiaka.

"Oh hey Felicita, glad to see you're up." Illaria greets me as Eleonore sits down and rests her head upon the table, not fully awake yet. Mannerless slob. A poor natural morning performance is no excuse for such a poor display! I ignore her and focus on returning Illaria's pleasantry.

"Good morning to you too Illaria." I say to her. She heads to the mini fridge and pulls out seven eggs, cracking them and pouring them into a bowl to scramble. I would ask her to cook for me regularly if she wasn't so irregular with her waking, the times she's been up before me and I have sampled her breakfasts they were actually quite nice.

Ele mumbled something into the table and I cringe slightly at her further rudeness. I sometimes shudder at the thought of what household she was raised in that taught her such behaviors were acceptable. It seems to be some sort of 'good morning' greeting though and I assume that was her intent and so give her a response to prevent her from disgracing herself further.

"Yes, it's nice to see you this morning too Eleonore." I say to her.

Illaria seems to pick up on my exasperation and sighs, placing a hand on my shoulder. I normally do not allow physical contact but Illaria has earned my trust, and she is a very kindhearted girl after all.

"Look I know Ele is sometimes a bit obnoxious in the mornings but try not to be annoyed with her," She pleads me. "We can't all be perfect all the time Feli, so try to show some acceptance when she's at her lows."

"I would have an easier time of it if there was any indication she was trying to do better than," I gesture to the slumped over amazon, "This."

Illaria shakes her head, "Feli, you know as well as I she stays up extra late to get in more exercise. It helps her do better at the things she loves but….it also means she's a morning wreck, more than usual. Sometimes the things you love can cause you issues. But if you really love doing them you get over that stuff, and if you're someones friend you're supposed to help them with those things."

"I hardly think loving success has caused me any issues," I retort.

Illaria bites her lip, "I wouldn't say that."

I narrow my eyes at her. Was she accusing me of something? "Illaria? Are you trying to say something subversive."

She rolls her eyes at me, "Always so paranoid Felicita. No I wasn't."

"Then what were you saying?" I peer at her with my best piercing gaze. She seems to shift at first, her natural meekness showing but she doesn't fold.

"Nothing. Please just drop it." She says. By now her eggs are ready and she serves up a heaping pile, probably the content of five or six of the eggs, onto Eleonore's plate and saves one or two eggs worth for herself. At this point I realize I have spent sixteen minutes dealing with unproductive conversation, and I hurry to my room to finish grooming. I comb every inch of my hair till it is smooth and presentable, then I smooth out my uniform like a true professional.

I head out the door and head straight for my office, located inside the bridge main superstructure of our schoolship. Mine is near the top, directly below the command bridge from which the Naval students control the ship- that is, they would be if it was moving at all. As it stands our ship is immobile, moored to it's dock perpetually. The access door from deck level to the superstructure has rust red streaked across the hinges and it takes quite a bit of force to get it open and closed, so I don't bother closing it behind me.

My office is the largest and is shared with the rest of the student council, about four by five meters area wise. Most of the light inside comes from the window, which is not very tall and surrounded by a thick steel frame. The lightbulbs are dim and yellow, since we have to use low power bulbs due to the outdated electrical systems onboard the ship.

The room itself is coated in a carpet of faded burnt Sienna, and my desk sits upon the back wall, under the sole window. In the center and off to the right is a table large enough to seat six tightly, used for meetings and such business. Both are made of Swedish pine wood, which has darkened from age and use.

I sit down at my desk and begin to sort through the various papers, all of which have a brownish tint. Our school hasn't bought paper since 1985 and it shows. Thankfully our ancestors had the foresight to buy far more paper than they could ever use, and we have since been using incredibly shoddy paper from the 80s.

I look up from the musty smelling paper and see that two young women have entered the room. They are my fellow council members. My secretary Yoko Hayabusa, and my Vice President Miyuki Kobayashi.

Yoko is a girl who has a tall and thin figure, due in no small part to her role on the gymnastics team, making her remarkably limber and lithe. Her black hair is done up, as always, in a ponytail reaching halfway down her back, and her almond eyes are lively and warm.

In contrasts to her, my Vice President Miyuki bore eyes much like my own, though hers were a dark brown. Covered with red glasses they analyze and understand everything, and her face is sharp and angular like her wits. Her hair is a bowl cut with hairpins keeping the bangs in check, and though she was shorter than Yoko by two centimeters at least, her strong and authoritative demeanor made her seem to be the larger one in the room.

"Good morning Madame President," The greet, Yoko wearing a broad smile so signature of her. They take their seats at the meeting table and I move from my desk to the head of the table to begin our discussion.

"Good morning ladies," I greet them in return, Let's not waste any time with small talk. How goes the tankery recruitment effort?"

They sigh in unison and already I can tell the news will not be very good. Even with their contrast the way they operated in sync and seemed to understand how the other was thinking impressed me. Several times I had to validate they weren't in fact related, a popular rumor among the student body.

"Nobody seems interested," Miyuki replies in her usual, direct manner, "Everyone thinks i is just more work that takes away from what we are already doing."

"People haven't gotten used to you being in charge," Yoko adds, "They're still operating with the same concepts and habits as under the previous regime."

"Did you try telling them their school might not survive if we don't expand our programs?" I ask exasperated and more than a bit miffed, "Nothing is set in stone for certain, but with all the downsizing going on we need to excel and offer as much to prospective students as we can!"

Miyuki scratches the side of her head, "The problem is that a lot of the current students just don't care. The third years are graduating, the second and first years spent so much time under the last regime they just don't care anymore, and the Naval Studies students are spending most of their time keeping the ship afloat, they don't have time for much else."

Yoko interjects with her two cents, "You've done a lot to help put this school back on its feet madame president, but we're still dealing with all the damage they did, not all of which can be found in books or records. We're dealing with people, almost all of whom were hurt or affected in some way by it."

Miyuki nods in agreement, "So our best chance is to recruit from the incoming first years who will be starting soon. They should add some life to this zombie of a student bod, and hopefully get people to start caring again."

I rest my hand on the side of my head, "Well then, did you try to make the incoming freshmen aware of this program?"

We have flyers prepared," Yoko informs me, "But we also think it could help to have one of the machines at the booth, to add that extra flair. Could help with recruitment."

Ah yes, the Freshman Welcome Concert. Every year we throw a big metal concert for the incoming freshmen, which doubles as an expo for all of the electives and extracurricular programs.

"It would certainly help us stand out," Miyuki agrees, "Also, there are a few Naval studies girls willing to join if I can secure them the free time, but I can't guarantee that."

"Well of course it is only right that the schools hardest workers be represented," I remark, "Keep me informed. When do you plan on setting up the booth, so I can give the repair crew a deadline for at least one of the vehicles to be ready?"

"Well it has to be up before the end of the entrance ceremony but we're not allowed to put it up before then because of how crowded that always gets when the new students come in." Miyuki says. "So thinking about it that way...we should probably have one ready the day before at least. So a week?"

I nod, archiving the information for when I next meet with the tank repair crew. We will get this program started yet! However, with such discussion now effectively done, I immediate switch the conversation topic to the next order of business.

"I'll be sure to convey the information to the repair crew. Now we should also discuss provisions for the food courts while we are here, and how we shall best lay them out to ensure minimal power usage but showcase the best of our Swede-Japanese culinary classes."

My next order of business of the day is to do a scheduled check up with the repair team, charged with repairing the various tanks we had accumulated. Two were found on the ship itself, while the other four were purchased at a discount for various reasons relating to their condition. Coming up to the hangars the first vehicle I can see is our Strv 74, one of the two tanks we were able to find upon our ship. From what I am told though it was first constructed in the fifties it is allowed in Sensha Do due to it's hull and main cannon being of World War Two vintage.

The vehicle itself is carried upon six torsion bar suspension roadwheels, the hull a little bit narrow and gently sloping towards the back. The turret is huge and shaped like an angular teardrop, as tall as the hull, mounting a 75mm cannon as long as the turret itself and with a bore evacuator.

The hangars themselves are little more than sheet metal half cylinders that provide protection from rain, and wind when it isn't coming in one of their open ends. They serve their purpose though.

Upon the engine deck is a young man exploring the insides via the panels on the deck, dressed in a blue and yellow overalls. He had dark tan skin and dark brown hair, with almond colored eyes to boot. His hair went all the way down to his shoulders too, and his head looked about 5% bigger than an average boy of his age.

Below him was another young man in the same outfit, though he didn't wear his all the way up, letting his white T-shirt with a vinyl record show. His hair was short and blonde and adorned with sunglasses, and he sat in a chair with a most unprofessional slouch, casually handing up tools to the other young man as was requested.

I approach them and turn my attention up to the one on the vehicle. "Noah, give me a report. What have you found so far?"

The brunette looked up at me, setting his wrench down, "Well obviously, I opened up the engine and found a basket of rainbow barking kittens, which leapt out and magically fixed up everything. Congratulations, you have one Swedemobile ready to go."

I leer at him, irked by his unneeded and unhelpful sarcasm. He dripped with it all the time and it made getting clear cut communication from him a painful task. "Cut the crap. Will it run or not."

He rolls his eyes at me. "Sorry Princess, but the transmission is busted. There's a reason they mothballed this bugger."

"Yep," The kid handing tools up to him agreed, "More busted than when you caught him embezzling club money."

"I spent two dollars on cookies for my girl," Noah protested, "Two measly dollars!"

I let out a sigh. "Well is there any good news?"

A young fellow with blue eyes and messy light brown hair popped out of the commanders hatch. "There is indeed. The optics are in great shape, and the cannon looks like it still fires."

That was good news indeed. After all, what was a tank without it's offensive power? "Thanks Emmett. How does the radio look?"

"Haven't gotten to it Ma'am!" He replied, "Next thing I'm looking at are the motors on the turret traverse."

"What about the other vehicles?" I inquire.

"Well both Panzer IIs are in decent shape save for the tracks, we're gonna need new sets for them," He explains to me.

"And what about the 14TP?"

"We might need to do a restoration on the suspension and it's missing some engine panels."

"The Semovente?"

"Haven't gotten to it yet, but it looks like it was in the throw away piled for a reason."

I nod, archiving the information in my mind. "Well then it sounds as though you have a lot of work to see too. I'll leave you to it." I turn around to begin heading away from the hangar.

"There's one more thing you should know about!" He calls after me.

I turn around to face him expectantly. He informs me that they found an old rival of mine attempting to vandalize the transmission they removed from the vehicle.

"Isn't it broken?" I tilt my head.

"Yeah but I guess that you usurped them for a reason," Emmett ran a hand through his hair, "I don't like calling names but I gotta be honest, she's kind of an airhead."

"So much air in her head you could fly a bomber though it," Noah quipped.

"Where is she?" I ask.

"We tied her up in the back, she's still there." Noah replied.

My jaw drops slightly, perhaps a half centimeter. "Your sarcastic humor escapes me."

"Uh, he wasn't being funny," Emmett says nervously, "We literally have her tied up with the spare parts."

I am totally aghast at their barbarism, even Eleonore would be shocked by such levels of awful unrefined filth! Such was the reason I never took an interest in men, at this age they were nothing more than Juvenile apes, in need of a few years before they were worth something. I redact my statement however upon realizing this was possibly the most secure way to make sure the subject was still here for questioning by myself. As barbaric as the method was it was entirely effective.

I head to the back and there she is, wrapped in duct tape and on the floor between two boxes of engine components. She appears to be a senior like myself from an initial glance, though looks were often deceiving in that regard. I knelt down beside her and pulled the tape from her mouth, eliciting a shriek from her due to the pain.

"Yeeoooooow!" She cries, "Don't be so harsh….." She looks down and blushes, "I have peach fuzz…."

"Peach fuzz?" I ask.

"Ya know….the little white hairs on your face some people get?" She sighs, "Mostly guys get it but I ended up with it anyways."

I pause for a moment. Certainly this was not what I expected the conversation to start out at. "Don't change the subject. We are here to discuss your vandalism of tankery team property."

She looks at me cluelessly. "I was told all they stuff in the garage was junk and they needed help breaking it apart."

Then it's quite fitting you picked one of the few things that actually was junk, I think to myself.

"Well, I can still report you for vandalism, as what you destroyed was actually valuable school property." I informed her sternly. Her eyes began to well up with tears and soon she was bawling.

"Waaaaaaah! I don't want to go to detention! Please, blame the girl that told me to!"

I put a hand on my hip, "Well perhaps I will if you can describe her, I'll be able to persecute her properly and not have to turn my attentions upon you."

Her sobs abated after a while and her breathing calms down. "I….I can't remember a lot….she...she had auburn hair...a-and pale skin. She was...a little taller than me….a-and I think she wore a black jacket!"

"You think she wore a black jacket or do you know?" I press her.

"I'm mostly sure! Look I wasn't paying that much attention! I could recognize her if I saw her though!"

"Clearly," I remark. This girl was obviously not of an intellectual type, and didn't have a remarkable memory either, so the chances of me obtaining usable information from her were negligible.

"Alright. How about if I let you go and don't tell about your vandalism, you won't report our repair team for their barbaric conduct?" I offer her.

"Oh that would be wonderful!" She replies, happy it seems to have any offer at all made towards releasing her from her bindings. I go to undo her bindings, but she protests.

"If you pull it off like this it'll hurt!" She whines, "Can you like, carry me to my dorm? And put me in the tub so the water will help it go off?"

Was she serious? She wanted me to carry her all the way to her dorm and set her up in a tub just because she couldn't handle a little pain? I go ahead and release her restraints anyways and she yelps and squeals as the tape is pulled off her, bolting off at maximum velocity as soon as she's done being freed.

"Wait!" I call out, holding her schoolbag, "You forgot your school supply container!"

By this time she is long gone, and I check the backpack for an ID so I may return it. I find it, and make a note to head by the lost and found before the end of the day. As I put the ID back however I notice that there is an oddly large stack of cash inside there as well.

Pulling it out, the bundle strikes me as strange for several reasons, For one, they are all ten thousand yen bills, which is a rather large bill to bring to school, considering even the most expensive of cakes at bake sales usually barely top four thousand yen. This amount of money might be justifiable if an event was going on, and a nice dress and other fineries were required, but as of now it made little sense, unless they planned on buying serious regalia for the Freshman Welcome Concert. Secondly, the quantity strikes me as odd. Not a lot of rich people go to our school, I am one of the handful of exceptions with my high class background, but even then I do not carry thousands of yen on me like this.

The most immediate thing that comes to mind was that the girl was bribed into the deed, which would either indicate she knew about the true nature of the act and was only playing innocent, or she was so unwilling to work with tools and machinery that some grease was needed to get her rolling.

I debate on what to do. I could keep it as evidence, true, but that would make me in the wrong if it was to turn out this wasn't bribe money and the girl simply had a large purchase to be had. I put the money back, but first use my cell phone to take some pictures and record the amount involved, for later reference. I mount the bag on my shoulder and head out of the garage.

On my way out I see that Eleonore and Illaria are here, and Eleonore has Emmett in what appears to be some sort of gentle headlock. He looks extremely flustered and nervous, but it is not my business to assist him so I move on, off to the next order of business.

Five days later I'm in my office at my desk, going going through records to try and discover the origin of the unusually large sum of possible bribe money I found on the girl. The first place I start is with the serial numbers of the cash. The bills were firm and crisp, meaning that they hadn't been in circulation and were most likely obtained directly from a bank or the government. Additionally, as I look through the pictures of the first and last bills, the numbers seem to indicate they were in fact in sequential order of numbers.

Across my desk from me is my treasurer Atsuko Kurkawa. Her uniform is a measure less trimmed then mine, and shows more signs of wear, since her personal clothes are of much lesser quality she nearly always wears her uniform. Her dark beige hair is semi curly, some of it covering her forehead over her wheat colored eyes. She has been a vital asset to helping get the school back on it's feet, as wherever money is involved, she makes it go a lot further.

"Madame President, I got the bills dated to within a year," She says, looking up from the rather archaic laptop. She uses, an older model from about five years ago, and even a bottom end model in its time. "They definitely have been around a while, they're from 1993. Meaning they couldn't have been in circulation, or else they wouldn't be this nice. So perhaps they were pulled from storage or a bank."

I put my hand on my chin in thought, "Perhaps. But I doubt any of the schools active banks would still have this old of money in them, at least uncirculated."

"Don't forget that your enemies used to hide their dirty money deep in the catacombs of the ship," Atsuko points out, "Perhaps someone found a cache of it and didn't realize it's true nature."

Upon being reminded of those old fiends a troubling thought enters my head, "Or they knew exactly what it was and they're up to their old deceit and misconduct again."

"Trying to take advantage of the incoming freshman?" She asks, though it's more of a guess than a real question.

I nod affirmatively at her, "Yes, they are trying to take the very thing from us that we need to foster and grow. Let's not give them a second of rest. Can you bring up the financial records from nineteen ninety three?"

"I already have their location in the archives pinned," She replies, "All we have to do is head down there." She knows I am not one to waste time and is already putting her laptop in her somewhat tattered old bag.

"We shall head there at once," I state, and once she is ready to go we egress the office and head down to the archives.

The archives of the ship are located below decks, above the machinery decks but below the first three interior decks that are primarily for uses such as shops, entertainment centers, and sustainability functions such as crop growing and water filtration. Those decks, while slightly rusty in some places are still well lit and subject to regular atmospheric controls. The archive decks are in much less stellar shape, with only some areas being linked to the climate control and nearly all of them being dimly lit and rusted all over. Thankfully most of the rust is surface and the valiant efforts of the Naval studies girls have prevented it from becoming deeper, more damaging rust.

We make our way down half a dozen to the archive room, the door takes a good bit of a struggle to open like most on this deck. The creaks and groans echoes are stifled by the sheer content of the next room, which is over fifty meters wide, seventy long and at last four decks high, filled with rows and rows of shelves, all packed with paper records. Our school didn't convert to electronic record until 2008, and even then we keep paper backups of everything.

Atsuko guides me through the archives into the financial block, where she ascends a ladders in to a catwalk and up another ladder to reach the third level of shelves, and heads down about five meters to the left and stops, beginning to pull dust laden files from the shelves. Her bag is filled to the point that the zipper won't close once she is done and she turns to me and hands me four thick files.

"My bag won't fit them, and I can't risk breaking it. It's the only one I have." She explains, "Even after this we'll likely have to come back down here to get the whole years records."

I take the files and slip them into my satchel, "Not a problem Atsuko. Let's get back and start seeing if we can't hunt down this fallacious currency down."

Sure enough, about a week of looking through later, we have a decent lead on our culprits

"Right here," Atsuko says, pointing to a stack of transaction papers that when on the desk were leve, "No bank at the school seems to have records of receiving these transactions. None of them are that big, a hundred thousand yen at most, but added up, I estimate it might be as many as trillions of yen."

I raise my eyebrows at such a figure, "What could they possibly want with trillions of yen? Where would they even get such money?"

"Looks like they pulled a little here, a little there. Lots it from funds that were supposed to go into all sorts of things. Stadium renovations, extracurricular program funds, buying new paper…"

"And they did that until they had all that money, likely in cooperation with the financial administrators too. Now how do you propose we track this down?"

I tap my fingers together, "Good question." I respond, It was a bit of a difficult pitch, and it took some thinking, but I didn't become president for my good looks. An idea clicks in my head.

"There are only so many temperature controlled storage units in this ship, the vast majority aren't. Among them there are only so many still connected to the power grid, and even fewer that wouldn't have the location of their keys unknown. With those search parameters in place I am sure only a handful of rooms to search will come up."

Atsuko nods and gets up, "Alright Madame President. While I am happy to have served you, I have to go attend my job. Unlike you, I have to pay for my food."

I nod understandingly at her. As I was aware she and her family were in extreme poverty and she worked a five hour work day to help them pay bills and pay for her own food and clothes. It was a testament to how determined to make a way for herself in life she was that she could do that, school, and serve her tenure as treasurer. She was of my caliber if not higher.

"Very well, I shall not keep you. Take care and work well."

She waves at me as she heads out the door, "Seeya!"

I sit back at my desk and pull up a search query for the ship layout files. It was time to find a cockroach nest.