The streets was crowded with uniformed personnels and although there was no sign of weapons on their bodies, the sound of their vigorous cries made the two men in the bookshop quaking with fear.
Inside the bookstore, five officers stood erect before one of them who seemed to hold the highest rank stepped forward and spoke to the manager of the store, "Good sir, I think we should begin the read-a-thon competition now."
The manager's assistant made a surprised squeaky sound when a particularly loud whoop came from a part of the excited crowd outside.
"B-But sir," stammered the manager, "Outside, there's-"
"QUIET!" roared Taoka, "All you need to do is give us our books, sir!"
"Y-Yes, sir!" the poor man squeaked before scrambling away to fetch the chosen books.
"Management looks kind of sloppy," grumbled Toaka as he took a seat on the desk prepared especially for the competition. The rest took their own seats, Akagi sitting beside the commander with Hikoichi on his other side while Sakuragi sat between Sendoh and Rukawa.
Soon enough, two stacks of hardcover books were placed onto the table with a hard thud. Sakuragi looked immedietly sick.
The manager coughed discreetly into his hand, quickly regaining his calm and announced, "Alright everyone, you can start as soon as the hand reaches the next minute."
Everyone looked at the watch hanging on the wall as they reached their books. Free coffee was poured for each of them and as Sakuragi reached out to pick up a packet of the sugar in the ceramic container, Sendoh's hand accidentally touched his as the pilot was about to do the same thing. Both men looked up and blushed. Instead of breaking contact, Sendoh held Sakuragi's hand firmly in his as he stared at the cute redhead who stared back at him shyly.
Suddenly, there was a thump and Sakuragi yelped.
As the redhead was busy rubbing the back of his bruised head furiously, Sendoh turned to look at Rukawa with a glare. The fox-eyed brunette calmly put the heavy book down, matching the other brunette with a glare of his own.
Everyone already used to the animosity between the two pilots when it came to a certain redhead that both liked, ignored the growls slowly coming forth from both of them.
The manager and his assistant began shaking again.
"What have I gotten myself into?" moaned the 50-year old man fearfully.
"Sir, why don't we go ahead and start this competition?" Toaka said to the manager.
"Well, actually- Eek!"
Rukawa and Sendoh have redirected their glares at him.
The manager nodded meekly and replied with an undignified squeak, "Okay..."
~~~~
"This is Iruma tower. Operation Alpha-Lingo has begun."
Cheers erupted from the people inside the base and also from other bases. The moment that they have been waiting for all week has started.
In one of the bases, a jet fighter was moving quickly up the runway. From the control tower, one could hear through the radio cursing coming from the pilot inside the fighter,
"Damn! Of all the time for a mission! P3X-1 preparing for take-off."
~~~~
In another airspace in Japan two jets were flying towards a black aircraft which has not been registered for flying with permission in their restricted territory.
"Control tower, this is 5 Foxtrot 1. We have located the unknown aircraft. I have issued a warning. Control tower? Control tower? Do you read me?"
The officers at the control tower were too engrossed with the read-a-thon competition aired in one of the other channels to reply.
~~~~
The competition was well under way. And it was of no surprise that Sakuragi was the first one to pass out of weariness. After long nights of nightmares and protein food (none of that junk food, no sir) that Akagi forced into him for sustenance, the redhead was too weak to continue any longer.
Akagi was doing well for a man who was not fully sober but Taoka soon took care of that. Distracting Akagi with a lame "Hey! Look! There's the general doing the cha-cha!" the tall captain blinked in confusion, his brain not fully capturing the ridiculousness of the statement, before turning to look where Taoka was pointing at.
"What?"
Quickly, the commander slipped the book Akagi was reading from under the man's weak grasp and replaced it was an unedited and MUCH THICKER version of the same title. A master of strategy, trickery and intimidation, he had found out which books that was to be given out and had earlier brought in his own collection of books to switch.
After Akagi turned his attention back to his books he blinked again to feel that it was thicker than usual. Deciding to chalk it up to his hangover symptom, he shrugged and continued reading.
By the time Akagi finished with the first book he went ahead with the next one and as he was coming onto the 7th chapter, Taoka spilled his coffee on the pages, the commander claiming that it was an accident. By that time Akagi was tired and dizzy and when he had to start from the beginning with a thicker book (also by Taoka's planning), the captain blanked out with disbelief, realising that he only managed to finish one book in one and a half hour - a disgrace to his impeccable reading competition record.
The manager walked hesistantly towards Akagi and snapped his fingers in front of the man's face. When no response came from the captain, the manager proclaimed him out.
~~~~
"Excuse me, General," said Kogure, "Akagi Takenori has fallen."
~~~~
The largest part of the crowd screamed in agony when the favourite of the competition was pulled out of the run.
In the bases, ripped tickets flew in the air like confetti as devestated and angry army personnels made their feelings known by trashing the furniture around them.
~~~~
Up in the air, the pilot code-named 5 Foxtrot 1 cursed at the transmission replayed by the control tower at the base.
"That idiot Akagi!! I spent an entire month's paycheck on him! What am I gonna do now!"
Suddenly, a voice with a Russian accent coming from the unknown aircraft interrupted the pilot in his ranting, "I understand, my commrade. I myself have lost many Rubles on Akagi."
~~~~
On either sides of the passed out redhead, Sendoh and Rukawa were neck to neck on their first book. For two hours they have managed to cover 3/4 of the book - an impressive effort for the two men who would rather spend their freetime with anything /other than/ reading boring books.
But their will was slowly getting weaker. Sendoh's eyelids were drooping and although with the amount of coffee that he took, he doubted he could stay awake any longer.
"F-For Hana-kun..." Sendoh mumbled after a few minutes later. The words were already taking odd shapes that looked alien to him. He turned towards the fox-eyed pilot and saw to his delight that Rukawa was already fast asleep with drool pooling onto the pages of the man's book. The spikey-haired player gave a weak smile and sighed, "I...I won..."
And then, he promptly fell asleep, his head falling on the pages of his own book with a soft thud.
~~~~
General Anzai gave a surprised sound at the unexpected turn of events.
"What did you say?"
The spectacled first-sargeant cleared his throat and repeated his report, "Rukawa and Sendoh have crashed."
The white-haired general smoothed his moustache and murmured, "So that leaves..."
Kogure nodded. "Commander Taoka."
~~~
"AHAHAHAAA!!!" Taoka laughed, ecstatic at seeing that Akagi, Sakuragi, Rukawa and Sendoh were dropped out of the competition. "With this victory of mine, I will surely stand out in the report! This will add to my already extensive wins for the Komatsu transfer recommendation-"
"Time's up!"
The commander stared at the white-haired man in surprise. "Huh?"
"And the winner is - what's your name, son?"
"Aida Hikoichi!"
"Aida Hikoichi!"
"WHAT??"
~~~~~
"WHAT??????"
A resounding exclamation of disbelief passed over the bases of the entire island of Japan. Their American counter-parts were also gaping at the results displayed on their screens. In two hours time, the young sargeant has managed to finish 4 books, beating even Akagi in his best record.
"Alright!" Hikoichi cheered in delight.
Taoka sputtered, "H-How-!"
Suddenly, a husky laughter came from within the suddenly quiet bookstore, and out came Mitsui from the back room of the shop wearing a pleased grin on his scarred face.
Smugly, Mitsui explained, "Although, Hikoichi hates to read for leisure, he is an exceptional researcher and to get his interest up, I have given him the task of garnering information on the characters, their looks, their likes, dislikes etcetera. In addition to that he's a fast learner on speed-reading."
"Mitsui taught me well!" Hikoichi enthused, picking up his stack of notes before handing them over the taller officer, "Here's the info that you want Mitsui!"
"Errr... yeah..." Mitsui smiled weakly, taking the notes off of the young man.
"Is that allowed?!" demanded Taoka.
"I guess so. As long as he reads them, it's allowed," the manager agreed.
Taoka groaned. Mitsui chuckled, already counting in his head his winnings for the day.
~~~~
The street was empty save for the shredded tickets fluttering on the sidewalk and the abandoned banners sitting beside the walls of the buildings nearby. The seven officers of the Airbats TTS unit slowly walked out of the bookstore, one of them one coupon worth of free-coffee-for-a-year richer. Akagi took a deep breath and regarded his team in serious pride.
"It's over. Good job, everyone. The Airbats displayed fine strength, pride and determination and I am proud of you all. We should never forget that no matter how much we have lost."
Taoka was still mumbling beside him, "Speed-reading should not have been allowed...."
"Hey, Hana-kun. Wanna have some coffee with me sometime?" Sendoh asked the redhead with a smile on his face.
"Sure, as long as there're no books," Sakuragi stated.
"How about comics?"
"Okay."
"I asked him first," Rukawa spoke up with a firm tone.
Sendoh scowled at him. "No, you didn't."
"Yes, I did," the fox-eyed pilot persisted, "I asked him a few weeks ago before the competition even started.
Sendoh sputtered in annoyance. "That doesn't count!"
"Says who?" Rukawa challanged.
Sakuragi sweatdropped. "Err... guys..."
Mitsui chuckled im amusement before he suddenly remembered something. Taking out a cellphone from his bomber jacket, Mitsui speed-dialed a number and when the person on the other line answered, the scarred-face pilot drawled, "Hey, Kogure. We're gonna paint the town red tonight, babe."
OWARI
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