MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
Its just the usual bout of FUNPOSTING
Kant-O-Celle Quest [a Kantai Collection game, transcribed from 4chan]
- Thread starter Trace Coburn
- Start date
CompassJimbo
Where’s Your North?
- Location
- The former Rubber Capital of the World
I think it has to do with the events that led to the creation of QQ. SB's mods began cracking down on creepy fa/tg/uys a while back (before I joined, which was about a month before SV was formed) and they're pissed to this day.
Dirtnap
Kanmusu Affecionado
Dude the crackdown was in like...200X. Before I was even on SB. If they're still buttblasted about not being able to post smut on a SFW board then they need a life.
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
Pretty much this.
Dirtnap
Kanmusu Affecionado
Sad innit?
Greek Fire
One of these days, I'll actually start writing.
- Location
- The Earth Sphere
Yep, its really sad. Even more so when people like them won't listen to reason.
Arvin_Larn
Caffeine Elemental
- Location
- The Land of Insomnia
If they want to keep crying tears of impotent rage, that's their problem.
As for me, I'm going to be KEK-king over the idea of Hampton being a crazy driver and wondering just how PTSD-riddled Shigure is. Might even give Arizona, Settle and Hate a run for their money, put together.
You're not thinking of throwing more fuel to the fire, are you?
Dirtnap
Kanmusu Affecionado
As for hamps driving, it's pretty Yankee (as in north of the mason-dixon line) tier. All for some fucking dunkin donuts.
Shigure...Shigure will have so many issues. Girl was the single survivor of the Nishimura fleet and countless other battles. Lots of trauma there.
Arvin_Larn
Caffeine Elemental
- Location
- The Land of Insomnia
To be fair, he was summoned with a cuppa coffee in his hand. Dude's probably addicted to Caffeine and Tea don't cut it well enough for him.
One of these days, we have got to have him chaffeur for Settle and Goto. Just for the shits and giggles.
Exactly. Girl needs someone who won't shun her like a disfigured leper.
Also, Hornet wears boxers. Huh.
To be fair, he was summoned with a cuppa coffee in his hand. Dude's probably addicted to Caffeine and Tea don't cut it well enough for him.
One of these days, we have got to have him chaffeur for Settle and Goto. Just for the shits and giggles.
Exactly. Girl needs someone who won't shun her like a disfigured leper.
Also, Hornet wears boxers. Huh.
Almost 100% certain she was BSing that
Dirtnap
Kanmusu Affecionado
Nah, Hate was bitching about her stealing his 'ranger panties' aka the super short silky boxer type PT shorts (that they no longer issue)Almost 100% certain she was BSing that
AnonymousRabbit
Rabbit Faced
Dirtnap
Kanmusu Affecionado
Aren't you trying to waifu your tsuntsun starter too Rabbit? Kuso TTK.
AnonymousRabbit
Rabbit Faced
Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
Rabbit confirmed kuso TTK.
No. Based Hamp is taking on Kirishima. RADAR MASTER RACE!
Also, for being slower than the Kongo-class, Arizona seems to always be in the right place and time to counter or complement them.
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Dirtnap
Kanmusu Affecionado
Exterminatus
Tsukumogami User
- Location
- Southern California
Arvin_Larn
Caffeine Elemental
- Location
- The Land of Insomnia
Nah, she wasn't:Almost 100% certain she was BSing that
There's even fan-art of that, though I can't be assed to find it right now.
Get all the Daughterus. All of them.
Also, Swayback Maru continues to etch a place in my heart:
I sincerely hope planefriend puts her in the Quest, somehow.
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Trace Coburn
BattleTech Starfighter Analyst
- Location
- NDBBM, New Zealand
I've updated Naka-Chan! and the Chief Parker chronicles, and in a minute I'll be adding a new side-story by feelthyhornet (word is, there are feeeeeels in this one).
Kaga, 76 Years Later (by FeelthyHornet)
Trace Coburn
BattleTech Starfighter Analyst
- Location
- NDBBM, New Zealand
Kaga meets modern aviation technology. (art by Pixel-anon)
"Teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeitooooooooooooooookuuuuuuuuuuu... you look too worried. And exhausted."
"Kongou does have a point, Goto-san. Have you slept at all recently?"
Admiral Goto, months into his new rank and assignment, grumbled under his breath, masking the complaint behind a hand clenched into a fist over his mouth. Of course he was worried.
He had been worried since he'd first been awarded this... unique command. From the very beginning of the Abyssal War, as the media called it, 'worry' was a constant. He worried about his competence, worried if he was still the right man for the job. He worried about the nature of the enemy, the Abyssals themselves, the literal nightmares from the ocean depths whose objectives remained unclear.
He worried about the lives of those under his command, the brave souls who risked injury and death with every sortie.
Even the life of the woman who liked to kick down his door every morning to force tea down his gullet; some routines become endurable with repetition.
Kongou, the lead battleship of her class, loved some goddamned tea. Without fail, every breakfast, every lunch, every dinner, she had tea. She loved sharing her love, enthusiastically, with anyone willing (or unwilling) to listen. Enthusiasm best described Kongou.
'Beautiful' could also describe her. In short, she was a curvaceous knock-out who turned heads wherever she went, a trail of amusing 'incidents' in her wake. Goto had seen disciplined JSDF MPs walk into walls and light posts taking a gander at what she had to show off, and he suspected that deep down she lived for the attention.
Her clothes may have had something to do with that, but she looked good in just about anything. Today the usual miko-inspired get up and tall thigh-high boots had been ditched for something normal: jean shorts, perfectly fitting and cut short enough to get grandmothers complaining, a tank-top plastered with motivational Engrish (a custom print, she was happy to explain), sandals, all topped off with a sun hat and a set of shutter shades hanging from her neck by a Super Mario Bros. themed strap.
If not for the fact that Goto had months to learn beyond all certainty that this woman was indeed the returned spiritual representation of the infamous Japanese Battleship Kongou, she could have passed to him as a young tourist with eclectic tastes. One who didn't care that today was overcast, or that it had been raining for the last hour; apparently it was the perfect weather to learn how to pirouette outside.
In front of dozens of soldiers, a police cordon, hundreds of curious bystanders, right next to her—
"Teeeeiiiiitoooooooookuuuuu~"
He gave her a minute before she either fell on her ass, or got bored and returned to his side for more attention.
It did take some effort not to watch, or grin.
The returned ships; Hulls, if you asked the US Navy, Kanmusu to the Japanese. Nobody knew why they had appeared on the same day that the Abyssals made their presence known worldwide. The fact was that they had appeared, knowing who they'd been, knowing they could fight, and were willing to serve their nations once more.
During moments like this, they were as human as it got. At sea, prepared for battle, they became something more.
"I am jealous of her," the other woman admitted. She wore a modest, yet stylish red raincoat that left everything to the imagination, save for the traditional geta beneath her white stocking-covered feet. "I wish I had half her energy on my days off-duty."
"For my sake, I am glad that she is unique in that capacity."
"Don't lie, Teitoku." She leaned close to her admiral, long black hair spilling forth from underneath her coat's hood. "Even you enjoy it."
Goto snorted, but otherwise said nothing. She leaned closer, her smile revealing perfect whites.
"She wants you to stare, sir."
"You're not worried about all this, Akagi?" Goto snapped, pointing to the security around them, trying to direct the conversation away from his rumored interest in Kongou.
"Why would I be worried?"
"It just feels... off." He waved his hand at the torii leading into Ikuta Shrine. "I wonder if this is too small..."
"It should not be an issue, Teitoku."
"They've accounted for everything, yes?" Goto paced now. "It's an old shrine, a shrine in her home town—"
"They won't let us inside no matter how much you fret, you know." She spoke from experience, and Goto wilted slightly as he continued to pace. "We're not to be involved with the ceremony."
"Surely something in Tokyo is more fitting, more... I don't know. Powerful. Spiritual."
"I don't think the size of the shrine mattered to Yamato or Naka, Teitoku." Goto grimaced at the mention of the first name, Akagi shrugged in apology. "It did not mean anything to me, I assure you." Taking away Goto's cover, Akagi pat him on the head, a motherly gesture intended to comfort or embarrass. "You worry too much. It will be her this time, I am sure of it."
"Sure of it, you say?" Goto snatched his cover back with a frown, inspecting its insignia before replacing it over his thinning (and graying, as he discovered a month ago) hair. "Must know something I don't..."
"She'll answer the summons." Akagi's smile faltered slightly as she looked up into the rain. She blinked rapidly. "She'll answer, because we need her again."
"I suppose I can hope alongside you."
-
Her world is fire.
The world is fire; everything is pain.
Fire, fire everywhere. She sees it with her eyes, feels it on her skin, beneath it. She breathes it in, deep inside her lungs. She smells oil, blood, and flesh. She hears herself burn, hears her own screams joining a chorus of eight-hundred eleven, screaming at an increasingly higher pitch until the fire takes that away. Fire takes everything away, and she can do nothing but to accept that she burns.
She floats in darkness, and in that darkness, she still burns.
She is dying. Her sisters are dying. A dull, regular pulse deep inside her stutters, slows, weakens. Weakens until even that is gone.
She has failed her people, her country.
Her crew has failed her, and she has failed them.
-
"Even if I am wrong today," Akagi said softly, "one day, I will not be. It will be all right, Teitoku."
"You miss her?"
"I..." Akagi tilted her head to the side, considering the question. "I suppose. I do not 'remember' her, but I do remember her, in as much as I remember everything else about her and the others."
"Mmm."
"I suppose I just wonder what she will be wearing when she comes back." She giggles at a personal memory. "I know I was surprised. So was that poor little Lieutenant. He was such a sweet boy!"
"Mmm."
"...Once he could actually talk to without believing I was an Abyssal that is."
"Teitooooooookuuuuuuuuu! Thiiiiiink POSITIVE~" Kongou cries from the background, still enamored by her spinning, the rain, and the mere pulse of life. Both Akagi and Goto took a moment to watch her come to a stop, standing unsteadily on her feet. She then leaned back, far enough to look as though she would fall, while standing on her toes. She suddenly pointed directly at her admiral with one hand, masking part of her face with the other, eyes peeking between her fingers. "Positive thoughts—" her voice dropped several octaves. "Positive thoughts rippling at YOU!"
"Honestly, so much energy!" Akagi laughed, genuinely amused by her fellow Kanmusu; Goto's face met with a palm. A moment later he reached for a flask he didn't have. Kongou had somehow disarmed him of it back in Yokosuka. Well, she was looking out for him after all.
-
The darkness is cold now. Colder than anything she has known, fully enveloping her being, scattered as it seems to be. The darkness is heavy, beyond any weight she has known.
She has fallen far, so far that nothing is visible. No light exists down here.
It's wrong.
This is not how she was meant to end. She was the pride of a navy, of a people. She had known glory. She had known victory. Now there is nothing, save the sensation of things crawling atop her, things winding around her. A noose for neck, restraints for her limbs, a low hiss of something coming to boil. The dark boils, and she is at the center of it.
Voices beg forgiveness, beg for understanding, wracked with shame: Shame for their inadequate offerings, shame for their weakness, that in their hour of need they must disturb the dead.
"You are not forgotten."
For the briefest of moments, light reaches down from the abyss yawning above her, and she reaches back.
"You are still needed."
And then it is eclipsed by her Self, the Self that burned even as it was scuttled by her sisters, the Self that burned even as it rushed for the depths, splintering apart as explosions wracked her dying frame, fueled by ordnance and aviation gasoline. The Self that sinks towards her in this moment, haloed by pale blue flames consuming it even as she rises from her ocean bed, her death's bed, to greet it.
The screams return, hers and the men who sank with her, reaching their crescendo as she and her Self reunite, and everything is hot and terrible once again.
-
"Teitoku."
Akagi's voice was sharp, insistent. Kongou was already next to her Admiral, any sign of mirth vanishing as she placed herself between the shrine and Goto. A loud, mournful shriek issued from within the shrine, and all around him Goto heard rifles being prepared, the rattle of gear as men took position.
"Lower your goddamned weapons!" Goto roared, brushing his way past Kongou's well intended restraint, stepping around Akagi as she tried to stand in his warpath. He couldn't begin to properly quantify his wrath. Even assuming the worst, there were innocents in the possible line of fire. Assuming the best, this was not a first impression he wanted to make on the new arrival. The bastards were about to ruin everything in ways he could scarcely imagine.
"They are just being cautious, Goto-san!" Akagi pleaded, scrambling to obstruct Goto once more. Kongou's arms wrapped around him, holding her Admiral back from the square-jawed JGSDF Sergeant glowering at him from the established cordon.
"Please, Teitoku, they are doing this to protect you!"
Kongou wavered between genuine concern and something else, even as he turned his baleful gaze upon her. She stared back even as she trembled under his implied wrath.
In the end, it was her eyes that defused him. Always her eyes.
"I know," he said, fully deflated.
And then shrine maidens came sprinting from the central hall, consumed by overwhelming panic. Goto practically ran through Kongou, knocking her to the ground as he sprinted for the shrine, slipping past the panicked women trying to flee.
"ADMIRAL, NO!"
-
She opens her eyes, and sees nothing but steam clouds. Water on her clothes and skin continue to hiss, as they'd done in the dark. She sniffs for the first time, and smells salt water, on herself, boiling underneath her as she sits upright.
Women—shrine maidens—gasp at her from beyond the steam veil. She vaguely sees their shapes, silhouetted by candlelight, as they scramble back away from her.
'Where am I?'
She shakes her head, and remembers.
The first bomb, her rear elevator—her back arches off the ground, and she cries hot, bitter tears, wails with such volume and force that the steam cloud parts around her, and every woman in the shrine is knocked flat. She burns, her gut is burning, the fire burning through her—just as a second shock, through her neck, snaps her head back against the floor with such force the tile cracks.
The third strike, amidships, silences her. It is sensation beyond her understanding. She flops gracelessly against the soaked stone floor, mouth working rapidly, the 1000-pound bomb rupturing avgas lines, her fire suppression system knocked out—
Another scream, her hangar all but annihilated by live ordnance drowning in burning aviation fuel, a detonation that ruptured bulkheads. She shakes her head with denial, begs for it to stop. More pain, in her chest, her neck, her head—the last moments of Captain Okada on the bridge, the moment he saw the instrument of his death crashing through steel, the bright flash—and she collapses to the floor, whimpering.
The fires burn. She clenches her jaw, biting the insides of her cheeks, blood simmering in her mouth as she draws in deep, ragged breaths. She fights for control. She fights for calm. The burning never abates.
-
Akagi kicked her geta away, sending them sailing over the entire shrine, so that she could run faster. The raincoat was left flapping in the sudden gust of wind in her wake, to stop it from interfering with the long strides of her legs. She told herself that she was 'scouting ahead'. If there was a danger to her Admiral, or the people of the city, she could react accordingly. There was good reason for her to hurry.
It was the excuse she decided to use if Goto asked about it. A harmless white lie, nothing more. She could apologize if he saw through it.
The screams reminded Akagi of a life that ended nearly eight decades ago.
They were cries for help, agony, and of mourning. They reminded her of fire, unstoppable, all-consuming fire. The sun, the clouds, marred by hundreds of black splotches, American dive-bombers knifing between them, her CAP trying in vain to swat the enemy from her skies. The one bomb, the only one she'd needed—
Shaking the memories from her head, she broke into a full sprint.
Ever since her return, Akagi had thought it unfair that she was the sole representative of the First Carrier Division to have been given a chance at redemption.
She'd read the history of the war she lost, learned what Japan had done, and what it reaped in return. She was all too aware of the things she represented, both to Japan, to the Yankees—to the Americans, and indeed the rest of the world.
Her new perspective had changed her. Every day was still a struggle to reconcile the present with the past, but she was not alone. There were other kanmusu like her, others she could confide in. Kongou was incredibly attentive, when she wanted to be. Admiral Goto was a fine, honorable man; a fixed point that Akagi and so many other Kanmusu had come to rely on.
The present was made so much easier to deal with because of people like those two. She felt guilty for lying to them.
Somewhere in the distance she could hear them call for her to slow down, to wait for them. She couldn't bring herself to listen to them. She knew this was selfish, unlike her in every way, but she could not stop. She needed to be there first.
Akagi wanted to be the first thing she would see.
-
The fires have stopped burning, or never burned to begin with. Finally she can breathe, and not want to cry. She still hurts, still grapples with the concept of hurt, but it is nowhere near as intense. The sensation lingers, smoldering reminders that flare up when she tries moving her body.
Her body.
She is now aware she has one, of the entirety of her new form. She is now aware of every breath she takes, aware of every little twitch of muscle, skin, bone, nerve. She blinks once, three more times. She squeezes her eyes shut, waits, and reopens them and can still see the unfamiliar yet familiar ceiling of this shrine. Steamed saltwater still hangs in the air around her, the scent permeates everything. The room seems to only grow warmer. All the candles have been extinguished; the only light coming into the main hall of the shine is that from the outside world, from the entrances and windows. Lightning flashes, seconds pass, and a peal of thunder rolls into the hall.
She sits up with a gasp, the sudden burst of light and sound startling her, and for the first time sees her black stockinged legs. The blue, impossibly high-cut hakama skirt. She looks down, seeing the muneate fastened firmly over her breasts, the white haori underneath that.
She remembers her body, eroding, crushed by weight she scarcely can fathom, still as death in the dark. It was the reward for failure, and she had dragged many into the abyss with her. It is nothing like the body she now has.
None of it makes any sense. She wants to laugh, and so she does.
-
Akagi knew she'd heard laughter as she reached the steps leading up into the main hall, strained to listen for more over the crash of thunder overhead, and the downpour only seemed to double in ferocity. It made her stop at the foot of the shrine's steps.
Goto and Kongou were still far behind, calling for her to wait. Briefly she considered listening to them; hours and hours of modern entertainment advised caution when laughter rang out from a darkened, seemingly abandoned shrine. She was certain she'd read a light novel about this very scenario.
Instead, she pressed onward. Very carefully.
Moving up the steps, Akagi took special care in avoiding the thick rope at the center of the shrine threshold, shivering as a gust of wind buffeted it and her. She was was stuck by just how warm the air pouring out of the shrine seemed to be. It was as though a bonfire burned at the center of it, but there was no light. Steam seeped around the edges of the entrance, shrouding the floor.
"Hello?" she called out. No answer.
The warmth was inviting enough, soaked as she was. After another moment of hesitation, Akagi ventured inside—and froze as lightning banished the darkness inside.
A woman sat at the center of the shrine, staring with disbelief at her own hands, shoulders shaking with nervous and restrained laughter. Thunder roared once more, and the woman at the center of the shrine suddenly looked up, reacting to the sound.
-
For the first time their eyes meet.
The woman in red and white whispers something lost in constant drum of the summer monsoon, and takes a step forward. The woman in blue, white, and black scoots back reflexively, trying to find her voice.
"I'm Akagi," she says, a warm smile contrasting the tears rolling down her face as she bows low. "M-may I ask your name?"
"Kaga," Her voice is filled with uncertainty. "Imperial Japanese Navy Aircraft Carrier, Kaga. B-built as the third ship of the eight-eight fleet, I was—" She is forced to stop, her eyes stinging badly. She wonders why it is suddenly so difficult to see anything at all.
"—intended as a Tosa-Class battleship, if not for the Washington Naval Treaty," Akagi finishes for her. "Rebuilt in 1925 as an aircraft carrier, r-reconstructed in—"
"1934, returning to service in the following year. I served against the Chinese until 1941, when I was—" Kaga pauses, peering at Akagi with sudden intensity, "when I joined you as part of the First Carrier Division."
"Yes," Akagi nods rapidly. "You—you can stop there, w-we both know what happened after that."
"And you are... you really are Akagi?"
"Yes, the other half of First Carrier Division, the Imperial Japanese Carrier Akagi..." Despite everything, she manages to laugh. "I admit that my—our appearance does not exactly lend truth to any of this, b-but here we are."
"This is real..."
"As real as anything is." Akagi draws closer, kneeling before her newly arrived comrade.
"This is what Kaga has become?" She leans forward, running hands through her hair, gripping it in her small fists. She pulls at her hair, pulls until the pain makes her stop. "This is what they died for?"
Denied her intended purpose. Rebuilt as something she was never meant to be. Damaged beyond saving, scuttled by her escorts. Now, the body of a woman?
It's cruelty beyond measure.
"I know... I know things will be difficult to understand at first." Akagi's reassurance is thick with emotion. "I know none of this makes any sense." Her fingers are under Kaga's chin, gently forcing her to meet eyes once more.
"Wh-what is all—"
"It isn't punishment; we are not like this because we failed. We have a purpose, a nation that needs us as we are now, I promise you this—"
"AKAGI!" a man shouts from somewhere outside. Kaga is on her feet, arms brought up defensively; a motion that feels practiced and natural, yet borrowed from someone, many someones.
The man in question comes running breathlessly, a foreign woman seemingly in tow. He leans against the shrine threshold, wheezing with exhaustion as he strips away his own raincoat, kicking away his shoes before crossing inside.
Seeing his uniform triggers a response deep within Kaga; she is at attention reflexively, eyes focused on the shoulder boards: two stars, name patch on his chest—
"Kaigun chūshō Goto, forgive my appearance, but I am—"
"Vice Admiral?" Goto gasps back, still trying to catch his breath. He holds his hand up, apparently hoping Kaga would give him the moment he needs. "Damn it, Akagi... should have waited for us..."
"Teitoku, you have been neglecting your morning exercises," admonishes the foreigner, as she *clings* to one of his arms.
"Now is not the time Kongou..."
Akagi is also at attention, bowing low once more. "I am sorry, sir. I had to be certain there was not a threat to you within the shrine. I have confirmed zero Abyssal presence—"
"And you," Goto cuts her off with a half-grin. "You are a lousy liar, Akagi."
"I am sorry, sir." If nothing else, she bows lower. Goto shakes his head, then turns his attention back onto the new arrival.
"Okay Kaga, introduce yourself."
"...Forgive my appearance, sir. A-Apparently I am the Imperial Japanese Air—" Kaga stops. The man already knows who she is?
"More serious than your friend there... hmmm." Goto maintains a respectful distance, scratching at the beard extending from his chin. "Doubtless, you've many questions."
"Yes, Vice—"
"Rear Admiral, actually," Goto cuts her off again. "I suppose you're guessing based only on what you know. At any rate, 'Kaigun shōshō' will do." Goto casts a sideways glance at 'Kongou'. "...I'll accept Teitoku, if you must."
'Kongou' giggles.
"...This is not how they—" Kaga frowns. "This is not how I remember it."
"Many things won't be." Goto palms his face, his voice weary. It's enough for Kaga to understand that this is not the first time he has had this conversation.
It means that somehow, 'Akagi' speaks the truth.
It means that 'Kongou' is exactly who she suspects she is.
It means that this impossibility has actually happened.
"Kaigun shōshō, I... Kaga, am ready to serve in—"
Heavy bootsteps outside silence her, and the room is suddenly thick with tension. Goto whirls angrily away from Kaga, a sharp intake of breath flaring his body up slightly.
"SERGEANT," he bellows, wrath personified and only building with every syllable. "YOUR MEN WERE *EXPLICITLY* ORDERED TO STAY ENTIRELY OFF THE SHRINE GROUNDS!"
"Sir, we are only—"
"I KNOW WHAT YOUR JOB IS, SERGEANT."
Kaga leans slightly to the left, trying not to betray breaking attention while also trying to see who it is that has earned Goto's wrath—and freezes the moment she sees the other dozen men, all dressed in camouflage uniforms. Vaguely, she can see their names printed in hiragana, but what truly grabs her attention are the rifles. They are unlike any weapons she has ever seen, alien in construction and appearance, but their purpose is clear; many are pointed directly at her.
An argument erupts, the Sergeant standing his ground against the volcanic Admiral Goto. The Sergeant argues that his orders come from his own commanding officers, that there are rules and procedures for securing new Kanmusu; Goto insists that he will consume the Sergeant's entire career, and anything and anyone connected to it if his men do not lower their weapons.
The entire time, rifles remain unwaveringly pointed at her.
In horror, she realizes that some of the men would fire *through* their admiral to strike her, that Kongou and Akagi would both be caught in the slaughter. In anger, she believes the discipline and respect sheCaptainOkadaLieutenantOgawa have come to expect from the Imperial Japanese Army is gone without a trace.
Akagi has slowly, but surely slid herself into place before Kaga, becoming her 'human' shield.
"Akagi..."
"Kaga-san, they mean no harm," Akagi whispers rapidly. "They are just... frightened. Things have been complicated, it's almost always like this—"
"Akagi."
"Eh?"
"I... regret the inconvenience."
As much as it is a surprise to everyone else who witnessed it, Kaga is not surprised in the least when she turns to run, and crashes through the walls of the shrine's main hall as though they were little more than paper.
-
It took Goto every bit of self-control he could muster to not actually live up to the promise he'd made to the Sergeant and his men on the spot. The silver lining to all of this was that they'd confirmed the Kanmusu's actual presence; Kaga was successfully summoned, and clearly not hostile.
Even the idiots of the JGSDF knew she wasn't hostile, and they were absolutely doing their job, and technically his own wrath could only extend so far. They absolute were outside of his command, and while he was the Kanmusu's Admiral, the rest of the JSDF had a vested interest in in making certain that measures were in place to 'put down' a possible rogue. Preferably before it visited the sort of destruction inland that people on coasts worldwide had been forced to grow accompanied with.
At any rate, the JGSDF troops were already moving out attempting to cut off Kaga's path of retreat. They would probably resort to using tranquilizers, or shockprods should the need arise; Kanmusu had almost all shown natural aptitude for self-defense. Ideally they would talk her down. He did not trust them to end this peacefully.
"Akagi?"
"Sir!"
"See if you can retrieve her before the gorillas do." He allowed the slightest hint of a grin to show. "I think this is something best handled within the 1stCarDiv."
She nodded once, and was off sprinting, following Kaga's path through the holes in the wall and disappearing into the nature reserve surrounding the shrine.
"Teitoku!" Kongou snapped, having slipped behind the mask of purpose. "I am also capable of running her down!"
"I need you with me." Her act was shattered instantly, eyes growing wide as she blushed. He wished he could have taken a picture of the steam rising from her head. He dangled a set of car keys just in front of her nose. "Akagi will talk her down, I'm positive. And I want to be there when it happens, so we can all go back to Yokosuka by the end of the day. Can I rely on you?"
"I CAN DRIVE?" she asked, vibrating with joy.
"Yes," he said gravely. "You can drive."
"YOU ARE THE BEST TEITOKUUUUU~"
-
Kaga runs, never once looking back.
She expects shouting, she expects pursuers, gunfire. None of it actually happens. None of this is of any comfort to her, so she doesn't stop, even as her legs and lungs burn increasingly hotter with her exertion. Each step kicks up piles of leaves, occasionally accompanied by sharp pain as her feet break twigs and fallen branches.
The forest feels as though it rejects her. So intent on escaping whatever confinement is planned for her, she barrels through bushes and low hanging tree limbs. She feels them scratch at her skin, her clothes, on occasion breaking through both. She tries to avoid some of the obstacles, but she's moving too fast. Everything is a green and brown blur, the downpour and occasional flash of lightning make it even harder to see.
'Why is everything so warm?'
The more she runs, the world only grows hotter. Steam pours off of her body, puffs out of her lungs with every exhale. She wants to stop, she knows she has to stop running eventually.
Occasionally, the canopy overhead breaks, enough to where she can she can see the storm clouds overhead, and the large buildings she has no memory of ever seeing behind this particular shrine.
Sliding to a halt, Kaga takes a moment to catch her breath. She slumps forward, hands on her knees as she sucks down precious cool air, listening to the world around her.
She hears engines of some kind, many engines. There are sounds she can't identify in the distance, sirens of some sort, and the occasional blast of a horn. Something hovers over the forest, emitting a high-pitched whine. A gust of wind accompanies it wherever it seems to go, the treetops parting just enough to reveal some manner of aircraft.
'What is that?!'
It's sleek, entirely black save for a white racing strip painted down the sides, and lacking wings of any kind that she can see. A massive rotor chops through the air and rain, extending just above the airframe. Kaga can only watch, her mouth agape, expecting it to fall to the earth any moment.
But it does not fall. The machine somehow hovers in place perfectly, pivoting on its own axis. She catches a glimpse of symbols painted on the side of the aircraft's tail: Kobe Metropolitan Police Department. Lightning chains through the clouds above, revealing a pair of helmeted men inside looking right at her. One of them points at her excitedly.
Staggering upright, she prepares to move—and freezes as a shaft of light pours down through the trees from the nose of the machine, seeking her out.
"Ma'am, please calm down!" a voice calls out from the aircraft, Japanese with an accent that reminds her of the woman calling herself Akagi. "Simply report to the nearest police blockade in a calm and orderly fashion, and we can explain—"
The machine suddenly dips precariously close to the forest canopy, shifting closer to the shrine and cutting off the voice. As it tries to right itself in the air once more, the light flashes across the already frightened Kanmusu.
That is close enough for Kaga. She starts running again, one of her shoulders clipping a tree and tearing the fabric covering it. She spins with the impact, falls to the ground, and scrambles back to her feet in one motion, trying to find a place that is nowhere near the Kobe Metropolitan Police.
-
They'd needed to run a fair distance away from the shrine to reach the Toyota. The streets immediately around it did not accommodate much beyond foot and bicycle traffic, and most available space had been taken up by police vehicles and army jeeps. They parked quite illegally on the sidewalk just in front of a Tokyu Hands a half-block to the south.
"They have brought out a HELICOPTER." Goto's voice was flat as he slid into the passenger seat; he was too angry to show the effects of their scramble back to the car.
"Then we'll ride super-fast to her rescue!"
Kongou was already reaching for the keys, trying to snatch them out of his hand, bouncing in the drivers' seat excitedly. With no small amount of practiced dread, he dropped the keys into her waiting palm, and she squealed with delight, slapping the magnetic key fob into place behind the wheel. The car shuddered to life, Kongou pumping the gas just to listen to the characteristic high-pitched whine of the hybrid engine.
At some point, it was decided that the new Admiral needed a new car. Something that was 'representative of Modern Japan'. Something that would help ease the Kanmusu into Today. He didn't need it, didn't actually like the anemic little shit—but some of the girls really got a kick out of the mere existence of hybrids that were faster than any of the automobiles they remembered existing in their original time.
Kongou liked trying to drive it harder than it was meant to be driven. Maybe because it was Goto's car, maybe because she loved driving anything she was allowed to drive, he couldn't tell. Originally he'd wanted to reject the little Aqua, but after several months in his new command, he decided he would gladly accept gifts like this.
"They've already got a head start on us, Teitoku," Kongou said, shifting the car into reverse and checking behind her, "but don't worry, Akagi'll herd her towards us and we'll be the biggest damn heroes she's ever met!"
"Kongou?"
"Yessir?"
"You can bend the fender a little if you have to."
She grinned, and the tires screeched on the pavement as she spun the car out of its parking spot, into the street and between a pair of taxis. Humming what could only be her own nightcore interpretation of the Imperial Japanese anthem, Kongou threw the car into drive, and Aqua became the bastard hybrid that could.
-
The forest turns out to be little more than a small park. Passing through an alley between two buildings, she slides to a halt as she reaches a police blockade that has shut down half of the street. The other half is business as usual, traffic continuing east with.
She is surrounded by a city of light, sound, and concrete for miles. Every street Kaga can see from her vantage point, at the edge of the park, is filled with cars. They have to be cars, but she could never imagine anything like this. None of her crew did. It is beyond science fiction novels she thinks she remembers. Kobe is not the Japan she remembers.
Staring beyond the hastily erected police cordon, military vehicles parked behind the cars flashing red and blue into her eyes, she feels as though walls are closing in around her. Just the buildings immediately closest to her feel like they are too tall, like they will topple over at any moment, and when she keeps looking up and up into the sky, she sees that there are even taller structures standing above them. Signs for shops and restaurants assault her eyes with colors. Images on buildings in the distance move with lifelike quality.
She wonders what Tokyo is like.
People are everywhere, in the hundreds, perhaps thousands. The drama between Kaga and the police is a curiosity to many, but for many others on the sidewalks, they continue to walk and talk in blissful ignorance to the world around them. Some are businessmen, in perfectly tailored suits, others are in tightly-knit groups, laughing and clinging to each other under shared umbrellas.
Kaga feels the urge to weep, to celebrate. She does not understand everything she sees, but she does know that somehow, Japan has survived her war.
She feels the urge to keep running. The hovering machine slides into position over the blockade, shining its light directly on her.
"Ma'am! We do not mean you any harm! Do you understand?"
Kaga retreats back several steps, trying to block out the spotlight with a hand.
"Kaga-san!"
Akagi's voice somehow rings out over the din of the city. Whirling around, Kaga spots her jogging up from the alley, waving a hand above her head. Turning away from her, Kaga squints under the light, trying to see a way past the blockade. The men in camouflage are in place behind the police officers, rifles on display.
They all look terrified.
"Kaga-san, please wait for me, we can explain so much—"
With a single leap, Kaga nearly clears the entire blockade, passing between trees growing at the center of street. She lands hard atop one of the police units, caving in the roof of the car and shattering its lights, the siren wailing a death rattle in protest. Rolling off of the vehicle, she scrambles across the rest of the street, east-bound traffic swerving to avoid her. Within seconds she is absorbed into the nearest crowd of people on the sidewalk, vanishing into the mass of humanity.
-
"Evaded the police?" Goto whistled, impressed by Akagi's description of Kaga's escape.
"I'm so sorry Teitoku!" Akagi yammered over the phone. "I think the helicopter is frightening her... well I think everything is frightening her at the moment—"
"Just try to find her, and when you do try to get her to a good intersection where we can pick you up—"
The rest of his sentence is caught in his throat as the car suddenly tilts violently to the left, knifing between a delivery van in the middle of the intersection and a cross-walk signal. For a harrowing moment, the Aqua is on two wheels as it drifts through the turn, onto a fortunately open street. The two tires in the air came down with a harsh crunch, tossing them around in the seats and giving their belts a workout. The Aqua squirrels on the wet road for another perilous second before Kongou shipgirl-handles the wheel, wrangling the hybrid back into lane.
It was legitimately not the most dangerous thing she'd done over the past five minutes. Goto swore he heard cheering among the shouting from the sidewalks.
"GEE PEE ESSU is so amazing~" Kongo singsong'd, still humming her tune.
"...Teitoku, is she—you let her drive?!"
"It's under control."
-
Her legs move by themselves. The living, breathing current around Kaga guides her further and further from Akagi, the police and their flying machine, the military and their alien guns and odd camouflaged clothing. She can't stop looking around herself, can't stop trying to read every sign she passes. Every restaurant she wanders past, the scents wafting from their entrances invite her to wander closer.
She resists, she keeps moving forward.
A hand falls on her shoulder, and Kaga seizes in place, spinning to face the threat: an old man, mumbling something and offering an umbrella to her. His face is crag-like, weathered by decades, a permanent frown etched beneath a sharp nose. His eyes are almost entirely closed, skin sagging towards the earth. His back is curved into an almost permanent hunch; he'd needed to reach up to Kaga to get her attention.
For a brief moment, they are alone in the crowd. He is the only person who has noticed the oddly-dressed woman among them.
"Having a tough time?" He motions his chin towards her, fingering the damaged portion of her haori. Kaga stares back at the grandfather, trying to craft a polite response. He shakes his head knowingly.
"This is—"
"It's fine, take it."
He forces the umbrella into her hands and gives her shoulder a surprisingly firm pat. His frown curls into a smile. For a moment, life and youth return to him. She sees a younger man, standing before an aircraft on her deck, smiling happily for the camera, for his family here in Kobe.
The moment passes, and Kaga can only watch as the old man saunters ahead of her, pulling a hood over his head and disappearing behind a group of businessmen. She cuts through the crowd, trying to find him once more, and only just manages to catch a glimpse of him climbing slowly onto an already packed bus.
"Please wait!" She cries out, trying to sprint after him, fighting the umbrella as it is caught in a sudden gust of wind. Not wanting to run into anyone, she shuffles around the salarymen and finds herself on the street, reaching for the bus as it accelerates. Horns are blaring around her as she crosses onto center lane, the squeal of tires on wet pavement fills her ears. The bus pulls farther ahead, and more cars shift behind it, others swerving around Kaga.
She's losing ground, but she keeps running, the umbrella bouncing on the street in her wake. She knows she won't catch up, knows that she will never see that old man again, but she doesn't stop. Even as the limitations of her new body make themselves apparent, she can't stop.
It's only Akagi's voice that distracts her, heard above an increasingly louder horn bleating astern.
-
Akagi was upset.
She was upset that Kaga was running from her. She was upset that the police and the army were seemingly doing everything possible to ensure Kaga would run. She was upset that Kongou was actually driving with Goto in the car. She was upset at herself, for having lost sight of Kaga.
She tried to rationalize her failure. The lights from all the cars, the reflections on the wet pavement, the light diffusing in the downpour, the sheer number of people out during the weekend despite the miserable weather. The helicopter had likely driven her inside any of the open restaurants. These were all things outside of her control. Anyone could have slipped out of sight in these conditions, even a woman with black thigh-high stockings and a very short blue hakama skirt. Hardly the outfit of an exhibitionist, she was an aircraft carrier, not a submarine!
Blushing self-consciously, Akagi continued running east along the center divider of the street, constantly scanning the sidewalk Kaga had disappeared on. Somewhere behind her, the temporary cordon had split up, the police and JGSDF jeeps racing in opposite directions. Ideally, they could pin her down to one block, but this part of Kobe had far too many side streets and alleys to cover with the number of men they had committed.
She was reaching for her smart phone to ask Goto if he could somehow order the police chopper away, when she found Kaga: running in the middle of the street, water boiling away from her body, a steam cloud coiling away in her wake.
She shouted something Akagi could not understand, reaching for a bus in the distance. A delivery van suddenly blocked her view of Kaga, horn sounding in rapid bursts as it sped around the kanmusu. For a heart-stopping moment after it passed, Akagi couldn't see Kaga through all the mist the van had kicked up.
When she could see her again, she also saw a second passenger bus switching into her lane, fifty feet astern.
The warning would be too late to act on; she shouted it anyway.
Just before Kaga disappeared again, Akagi watched her turn on the bus, a shocked expression on her face. Both hands rose up defensively, as though to stop the oncoming vehicle.
And then the bus simply stopped, Kaga vanishing from sight once more with a bright flash. The back end of the bus lifted off the ground, the front end crumpled, and concrete exploded upwards at the point of impact.
Falling to her knees, Akagi fumbled for her phone and tried not to scream.
-
Kaga hears the warning too late, well after recognizing the engine sounds behind her. The world slows to a crawl, and Kaga sees everything as she turns on the bus: the terror of the driver as he realizes he is about to hit a woman in the middle of the street. The panicked, last turns of the wheel as he tries to steer around her, the tires slipping on the wet surface, the high pitched whining of the brakes. She sees individual raindrops hanging in the air, some splashing off the windshield, some fizzling on her arms as she brings them up by reflex.
It strikes her just how ridiculous this all is: Returning to Japan not as a victorious representative of the glorious Striking Force, but as a mere woman standing moments away from being run over by a bus, in a homeland that seems like nothing she remembers or expected it to be. The IJN Kaga, returned to the world for one final humiliation.
For the first time, she sees her own face, a reflection the windshield of the bus as it closes in. She sees fear in her own eyes. She sees denial. And just as the grill of the bus touches her fingertips, she sees anger.
The ground craters at her feet, massive chunks of concrete thrown into the air. Her hands sink through the plastics and metals at the front of the bus, up to her elbows. It all feels incredibly slow, yet painfully swift, the bus racing to strike her face.
And then the bus simply stops. It stops as though it has hit an invisible, impregnable wall. A wall made of the finest iron and steel Japan ever forged for war.
Kaga feels nothing, even as she pulls her hands out of the bus, her clothes torn, skin unmarked. The bus driver stares at Kaga through the broken glass, utterly dumbfounded. Joining him is the rest of the bus, elderly and young alike all staring at the Kanmusu from their seats.
She stares back, equally confused.
-
It took Akagi several attempts to keep her smartphone in her grip, the little device repeatedly slipping out of her hands and onto the grass of the center divider. She shook worse than when she'd first encountered an Abyssal, far closer than she'd wanted it. Even after she managed to retrieve the phone, it was a struggle just to navigate the menus to her contacts, to reach the number she needed to call.
"Please pick up, please pick up pick up PICK UP—"
"Goto."
"A-Admiral... a bus! A bus just hit Kaga!"
The connection chose that moment to die, or she accidentally hung up on him, or he purposefully hung up on her, or water managed to breach the supposedly water-proofed casing of her phone and killed it. Whatever had happened, the screen refused to light up again, compounded by her rapid pressing of the home-button, further compounded by her thumb going through the entire phone.
She heard people crying, from the bus, from the sidewalks. Most cars stopped where they were. Bystanders all around were reaching for their own phones, flashes of light from every direction as they took pictures.
Standing once more, Akagi made her way towards the bus, every step closer to it filling her heart with dread. She couldn't understand how everything had gone so wrong.
-
Goto stared at his phone, clenching onto it so tightly that the image on the screen began to distort. Akagi's voice sang from the speakers, explaining that she couldn't answer at the moment, and to please leave a message so that she could call right back. "The First Carrier Division rules!" she cheered, and then a hollow beep prompted him to speak.
In that moment, Kongou's driving barely registered to him. The world blurred past him, spun around him, his body pushed and pulled by the forces exerted on it, but none of that mattered. The only thing on his mind was Akagi's lone sentence, on endless repeat.
Kongou's singing had come to an abrupt end. She gripped the steering wheel hard enough that her fingers were digging into the faux-leather.
"Akagi's radioed her location, no updates on her situation or Kaga's, other than she says her phone is broken." She sounded oddly detached, forcing herself to sound unaffected by what had transpired. "Another left at the next major intersection and we'll be on the same street—" She abruptly threw the car into the right lane, around a taxi and just barely skirting past a minivan, only to end up glaring daggers through the sedan in front of them. The two vehicles she'd overtaken pulled ahead of them once more as the sedan came to a full stop, forcing Kongou to do the same. "Could use some positive thought ripples right now, Teitoku."
"...What?"
"I'm taking that alley to the left."
Goto barely had time to reach for the Oh Shit Handle when Kongou suddenly cut across the entire street, threading the proverbial needle between two family sedans. The Aqua was somehow in mid-air when it entered the alley, shuddering as it scraped paint off on one of the walls. The landing is rough, and Kongou seemingly wills the car on two wheels to avoid a row of recycling bins.
"Shortcut."
-
Each step closer to the bus grew harder for Akagi to take.
The lights inside flickered to life intermittently, revealing little of the disaster she was imaging. Cracks spider-webbing across every window made it difficult to see how the passengers had fared. The rear end of the bus appeared relatively intact, Akagi drew closer to the front, she could see how the entire frame rippled and distorted from the impact.
The keening of metal stressed beyond all tolerances made Akagi climb over an abandoned car, running for the driver's cab of the bus.
She braced herself for what she knew she was going to see. An all too familiar sight for her as a returned ship, something she fought against with her sisters at arms. Innocents caught in the middle of battles between the souls of the returned and their blackened shadows.
It wasn't meant to happen on land. It wasn't meant to be a mere accident, a kanmusu killing those she was meant to protect out of fear and confusion.
Kaga wasn't meant to be that accident.
Just as Akagi reached the front of the bus, the steering wheel was suddenly thrown out from the driver's cab with astonishing speed, embedding in the mud beneath the shattered concrete.
-
"Are you injured?" The man shakes his head rapidly, almost consumed with fright. Kaga kneels closer to him, effortlessly tearing the steering column away from his chest as she gives him a hurried inspection to ensure he implied the truth. "Can you help me with your passengers?"
"Y-Yes!"
Turning to the rest of the bus, Kaga freezes in place.
Like the soldiers at the shrine, the police officers who manned the blockade, the people here are possessed by absolute fear of her. Unlike those men, these passengers were unarmed. She takes half a step forward, and they all collectively shrink from her. A woman begins crying. Children hide behind the seatbacks, peeking at her when they think she can't notice them.
She is reminded of her own reaction to the flying machine, the Thing That Should Not Be Flying defying everything she understood about aircraft and flying anyway. For all intents and purposes, to these people she looks like a woman who just ripped her way onto a bus she stopped with her bare hands.
"Are you a Kanmusu?"
The question comes from a little girl, perhaps no older than ten years of age. She is curled up next to her mother, who swiftly moves to shield the little girl from the imminent wrath of the monster standing before them. She can't even speak, but her eyes say enough.
'You will need to go through me first.'
"Is that what I'm called?"
The little girl nods slowly. Kaga tries to smile at her, trying to soothe any fears she might have. She is rewarded with a smile in return, the mother visibly relaxing. When she looks back at the rest of the bus, the atmosphere is noticeably less tense.
"For what it is worth, I deeply regret the trouble I have caused—" she bows low. "If you would allow it, if my strength is needed, I would assist you all in leaving this vehicle."
-
Akagi told herself that she should offer her own assistance, rather than simply stand in the rain as an observer, but couldn't bring herself to do anything.
Alone, shivering under the downpour, she watched Kaga force the bus doors open. She watched her help an elderly couple out of their seats, carrying them off the street to a canvas overhang where they could stay dry. Other bystanders on the sidewalk parted around her as she passed; Kaga didn't seem to notice. She returned directly to the bus to assist the next person in need. Eventually other passengers joined in helping her.
Stifling a sob with a hand over her mouth, Akagi decided that it was very important that Kaga be allowed to do this without her.
-
The Aqua made the last left out of the alley at speed, the rear fender clipping an abandoned Honda as it drifted onto the street. Spying the bus on the east-bound lanes , Kongou shifted the car back to the right, ramping off the center divide between two trees, over another taxi, and onto an open patch of street.
"Please hold on, Teitoku."
The car went into a skid, driver-side first, aimed directly for the bus. Kongou kicked open her door, stomping her foot down on the pavement, the tires howling in protest, the car almost threatening to roll over for several seconds until it ground to a stop.
Kongou was up and out of the driver's seat the moment the car halted, tossing the keys back to Goto as he clambered out of the passenger-side door, running for Akagi without looking back. Catching the keys, he hurried after her as best as his legs would allow, fighting off an intense bout of carsickness as he stumbled after his battleship.
He reached Kongou and Akagi, cursing his own lack of stamina. He was about to demand an update from Akagi, about Kaga's condition, on how bad the accident was—and stopped the moment he saw what both of his girls were watching.
-
"Thank you Kanmusu~"
The little girl waves happily at Kaga, she and her mother the next to last to leave, thankfully under their own power. The mother is less enthusiastic with her gratitude, but her eyes no longer show any fear when she nods her thanks. For Kaga, that is good enough.
And then it is just her and the driver, alone on the bus. He is middle aged, balding, a look of permanent weariness on his face. She watches him struggle with words, a series of false starts that resolve into nothing. He begins to leave, but just as he reaches the last of the steps off the bus, he turns back to Kaga.
"Good luck, ma'am."
With a hesitant bow, the driver finally leaves, and Kaga allows herself a sigh of relief. She collapses onto a vacant seat, leaning back against the cushion to stare at the roof. Ads for products that never existed in her time line it, phone numbers for various services. What truly catches her attention is the recruitment ad for the JMSDF: A girl in a bright orange outfit stutters through a dance on one of the damaged animated displays, the Idol of the Fleet striking a pose before continuing her provocative choreography. Motivating phrases and benefits of service are listed on either side of her.
The idea of Japan needing a self-defense force strikes her as wrong somehow. That they need to advertise benefits for serving the Empire seems even more absurd.
Outside of the bus, sirens accompany the police as they arrive on the scene. She hears the now familiar engine sounds of the flying vehicle, hovering just above the accident scene and shining its light into the bus, directly at her. There is nowhere to hide, no matter how much she may want to. Remembering the looks the passengers initially gave her, she knows how the men outside calling for her must feel.
Had she only stayed at the shrine, none of this would have happened.
"M-May I sit here?"
Akagi's voice is both a shock and relief to Kaga. Pointing to the vacant seat next to Kaga, she shivers in place, her soaked clothes obviously affecting her.
"Please do."
"Thank you!" Akagi looks almost grateful to have been given permission.
They sit in silence, an uncomfortable, irritating silence. Akagi occasionally glances over at Kaga, but otherwise fidgets in place. It proves more than Kaga can bear.
"You can speak to me, if you want. I don't intend to run any further."
"Ah... I just wanted to say that..." Akagi brushes a length of her hair away from her eyes. "You did a very good thing today, Kaga-san."
"...I fled from the people who could give me answers about why any of this is happening, attempted to escape law enforcement, and almost injured fifty of the citizens I was originally built to serve?"
"You helped those people, and demanded nothing in return." She leans against Kaga, draping an arm over her shoulders. "It was a good thing, regardless of how you got to it."
"It could have been prevented. If I am who I think I am, what THEY think I am—" Kaga slouches forward, burying her face in her palms. "It could very well have gone wrong."
"It didn't." Akagi jostles her slightly. "What matters in the end is the result."
"...is the Admiral outside?"
"Kongou as well. We watched you help those people."
"In front of a commanding officer, I—" Kaga shakes her head. "Why didn't you help?"
"It's better for you that I didn't, I should think."
"Was it like this for you?" Kaga shudders. "Did it... hurt? Did you run?"
"Every kanmusu has had different experiences upon returning. I simply... appeared. I felt needed, and then I simply was." Akagi suddenly laughs, prompting Kaga to look up at her. "Oh, that poor Lieutenant..."
"I remember being told I was needed..." Kaga frowns. "Th-that there is a place for me in the world."
"Both are true." Akagi pulls Kaga closer to her. "If you choose to follow me off this bus, if you choose to stand with me once more, I promise that you will see how much Japan needs us, how much the world needs us."
"The world needs me like this?" Kaga snorts. "A 'carrier' that can't even launch or recover fighters—"
"Kaga-san..."
"A 'carrier' who is a greater threat to public transportation than to another navy?" Kaga's face is flush with embarrassment as she begins to shout. "Five minutes, that was all it took! Five minutes, and we were broken just like that! And you say Japan needs me needs me as I am right now?! What good am I like *this*?!"
It's hot again.
So hot that the world around her feels as though it burns.
The window next to her fogs up. Her heart pounds for a way through her chest, her breathing ragged as she tries to calm down, tries not to show any sign of weakness, and the world only grows hotter, like the exhaust system that made life unbearable for those who lived aboard her, those she was meant to protect. Like the fires that forced them to abandon her.
She even expects Akagi to abandon her.
She can't even begin to describe how much it means when she doesn't.
The minutes drag on, and Akagi simply holds Kaga against her, rocking gently back and forth in the seat. It's a sensation she can't compare with anything else, but it is something she is glad for in this moment. With something as simple as this, the fires subside, until the only warmth she truly feels is Akagi's.
"Kaga-san... I know it's difficult to believe right now, but I know you are up to the task."
"How can you? It doesn't make sense, it is not—"
"It doesn't matter if it makes sense. What matters is we are here. What matters is that I know, without question, that you are capable of serving Japan." She gives Kaga a squeeze, leaning against her, forcing her to make eye contact... and Kaga shrugs her away from her, slowly standing from the seat, her head still bowed, lost in her thoughts.
"...Is it a good fight?"
"We have a purpose, a just cause, and an enemy that must be resisted. Our new lives have meaning, Kaga-san." Akagi reaches out to Kaga, an open hand offered, a plea to the warrior standing away from her. "I know this will all be confusing at first, but we will explain everything we can to you. I will explain it. It won't all be pleasant, but you will not be alone.
I, Akagi, of the First Carrier Division, shall sail with you again."
"In... In that case..." Kaga turns back to Akagi, a smile slowly spreading across her lips. "It would be improper if you sailed alone, would it not?" Taking Akagi's hand, Kaga helps her to her feet. It is another gesture she remembers, another she borrows from another life and time. "I shall rejoin the Kidô Butai with you, Akagi-san."
"Welcome back, Kaga-san." Akagi lunges forward suddenly, wrapping her returned comrade up in a hug. "I have missed you more than I can say. Thank you for answering the summons, thank you for *being*."
"It... It is good to be back."
The fierceness of it surprises Kaga...but in the end it is not unpleasant. For a long while they stand together like this, Kaga awkwardly returning the gesture, patting Akagi's back. She feels incredibly warm, but it is comforting warmth. For the first time since opening her new eyes, Kaga feels safe.
"The...ah, the Admiral is doubtlessly waiting for us..."
"Of course!" Akagi suddenly pushes herself away from Kaga, brushing at her outfit self-consciously as they begin walking side-by-side to the front of the bus. "I, um, I must apologize, Kaga-san. I am sorry we had to meet like this, things just got...out of hand."
"I am sorry I ran."
"That helicopter must not have helped."
"That's what that thing is called?!"
-
"H-Hey," Kongou sniffled. "Hey 'New Face', d-dess..."
"Is... something wrong with her?"
"It's... it's just raining, th-that's all..." Kongou shoulders shook as she turned away. "I'm r-really happy, actually..."
"It was a moving scene, Kaga." Admiral Goto adjusted his cover. "I take it you accept the summons?"
"Yes sir. I shall give my life to this Empire and its people once again." Kaga straightened up. "If you are my Admiral, then I shall follow your orders without question, without fail."
"Empire?" Goto cleared his throat. "Right, we'll get to that. Doubtless, you've many questions, and we'll answer them as best we can. But this is not the time or place for it." With a flicker of a wrist, he produced the keys to his vehicle. "First, we drive to a nice restaurant, away from all this, and away from that damned helicopter."
"I would greatly appreciate that, sir."
"I'm—" Kongou sobs. "I'm g-good to drive, T-Teitoku."
"I think Kaga-san has had enough excitement for one day."
"It's Heisei 30."
It takes a moment for Kaga to fully process the simple statement. She looks to Akagi, the one who said it, then to her Rear Admiral, then to Kongou who for once looks appropriately serious for the occasion.
"Heisei 30?" Kaga asks, her voice scarcely over a whisper. She was laid down in Taisho 9, served into the new era ruled by Emperor Hirohito until—
"Yes," Akagi clears her throat. "You've been asleep for over 76 years, Kaga-san. We sank in 1942, it's now 2018."
The restaurant Goto took them to provided excellent food. The beef yakisoba is something she/someone she 'remembers' wished to have just before the end. The rice is properly cooked. The sushi, some designs familiar, others completely alien and tainted with foreign influence, had forced a smile to her face. It was all so wonderful just to be able to truly taste food for the very first time.
They simply ate and made small talk. Akagi showed her the now broken device she called a 'smart phone', and Kongou showed off her own working version of the machine. Pictures moved across its display, smoother than life itself. Music played from its speakers with fidelity that eclipsed the radios of their original time, and women on the touchscreen sang and danced to it. It was so alien and so amazing. Japan had survived the war, became something else entirely.
Surely they had triumphed. Surely the sacrifices were not made in vain.
She knew there would be a catch of some sort, information she needed to know about the world around her, but part of her had been happy to avoid it.
But she had to know, and so she asked a simple question: what year is it?
She had no concept of how long she had been gone, but she needed to know. She wanted to serve her Empire again, wanted to use this second chance to properly redeem her name and the names of those who died with her.
Now she feels sick to her stomach, sick at heart. Her hands shake as she sets down her chopsticks. She wants to run again, and this time she would not look back. This is wrong, it has to be wrong.
Her duty demands that she try to maintain her bearing.
"Seventy-six years?" she asks again, looking directly into Akagi's eyes.
"Yes, Kaga-san."
"Then... it is more important than ever that I have reported for duty." She manages to keep her voice even. "I must report to Sasebo for immediate—" Kaga takes a breath, straining to continue. "For immediate rearming and refit, report to the Imperial—"
"There is no Empire, Kaga," Goto says patiently but matter-of-factly, again possessing the air of a man who has said this many times to many returning ships.
"The Empire of Japan formally surrendered to the United States on September 2nd, 1945," Akagi adds, her head bowing forward slightly. "The war is over."
"Surrendered?" Kaga asks, incredulous.
"After Midway, fortune did not favor Japan," Goto said with a shrug. "Some argue that defeat was inevitable from the beginning, others claim the war could have been avoided entirely had we not attacked the United States. The debate is ongoing, it may never end. Suffice it to say, our enemy was numerically superior, technologically superior. The war became more than the Empire could endure, and so it died."
Kaga swears she hears some form of satisfaction in Goto's voice, but refuses to believe it or question him on it. He is her commander.
"The Emperor—" she whispers, still trying to grasp something of the world she 'knew'. "The Emperor allowed this?"
"He had no choice, Kaga-san," Akagi is swift to provide a comforting hand on her shoulder, one that is immediately shrugged off. "The yank—the Americans overcame all of our fortresses across the Pacific. They overwhelmed the Navy and the Army. With us—With the Kidô Butai gone, with our Navy being ruined in battle after battle, they came for Japan itself. Our people suffered. Surrender was our only option."
"They used—" Kongou begins, and then she stops, slapping her own hands over her mouth and cursing herself in English. "It isn't something to discuss here."
They are the only people in the restaurant beyond the staff serving them, but somehow the atmosphere grows notably quieter. The rain outside intensifies, massive sheets of water falling onto the streets, so thick that even Kaga cannot see the storefront across from their booth inside the restaurant. Thunder crashes outside, and the table vibrates—
Seventy-six years ago, she stands on her own flight deck as it lists hard to starboard, a last frantic maneuver in the face of the inevitable. She stares into a morning sky littered with helldivers shrieking down through the clouds, tracers from her anti-aircraft guns rise up to meet them to no avail, dozens of small black objects separating from their bellies—
In the present, Kaga is shaking in her seat, hands clenched into fists so tight that her palms hurt.
"When do we strike back?" Her voice is low, filled with uncontained malice.
She hears cries for vengeance in her mind, feels it in her bones. The men who died with her, their own failure compounded by knowledge that they had allowed Japan to suffer, demand they be given a chance to make this right.
She wants nothing more than to heed those voices.
"Kaga, please understand," Akagi starts, "there's nothing to be done! The war is—"
"There IS SOMETHING TO BE DONE!" Kaga roars. Akagi immediately withdraws to a safer distance, Kongou places herself protectively closer to her Admiral. Goto himself remains unmoved, expressionless and calm. "This is what I was created for, this is why I am here!" Kaga rises from her seat, plates and silverware clattering as her fists strike the table. "You cannot seriously believe that these... circumstances are at all acceptable to—"
"The Americans," Goto raises his voice for the first time, "are our allies."
Again with his matter-of-fact tone, again as though he has lived his whole life with this knowledge without regret.
Just like that, all of Kaga's thoughts of vengeance beyond measure are snuffed out.
"How?" she whispers. "How?!"
"During the occupation, the Empire was formally dissolved in 1947. We are just Japan now. They provided economic assistance, helped with the reconstruction, protected us from understandably vengeful nations." Goto bows his head respectfully towards her. "Believe me when I say that I understand this must be difficult. There is much you couldn't know before today."
There is nothing more she can say in protest, nothing that anyone can say to make this feel right. The magnitude of how far removed she is from her old life hits with sledgehammer force. Everything feels heavy, the strength in her legs giving out. She totters on her feet, collapsing back into her chair.
Japan was not merely beaten in battle, it was forced to surrender. It was occupied by its enemies. The Empire she was built to represent shattered by guns and bombs, pen and paper. Her Emperor is dead, his dominion soiled by foreign boots, reduced to what she cannot begin to imagine.
All of the passion, all of the effort that Japan had put into the war effort ended in total defeat.
Kaga stares down at her unfinished meal, the world spinning around her. She pushes away her plates with trembling hands, fighting to keep her breathing under control.
"I am grateful for your hospitality, sir." Her voice is crisp, her face drawn into a tense, expressionless mask as she turns to look out into the city.
Akagi's hand finds its place on her shoulder once more, and this time it does not get forced away.
-
The drive to the closest airfield is not quiet. Kongou insists on her music to be played, and Goto yields without protest. The lyrics are bright, optimistic, apparently sung by a chorus of children. It's a plea to work together, to set aside all past grievances, colored by high-pitched voices and instrumentation Kaga cannot place.
It is Kongou's way of trying to brighten things up, Kaga knows this even as Akagi whispers an explanation into her ear. Part of her wants to request, respectfully, that the music be turned off. Instead she endures the background noise, and Kongou's game attempts to accompany it. Her attention is focused on the smart phone borrowed from the battlecruiser.
She lingers on that thought for a moment: A battlecruiser, now a woman, possessing property of her own to allow others to freely take possession of.
According to Akagi, a smart phone could look up information on anything. It worked earlier at the restaurant, but now all she was getting was a lock screen demanding a password and a picture of Kongou smiling next to Admiral Goto, apparently oblivious to her presence. Frustratingly the device appears to be set to English. Despite actually understanding it all, this somehow makes her inability to command the phone to do what she wants that much worse.
"Akagi-san."
"Eh?"
Kaga pushes the screen at her face.
"Unlock this."
"Ahh, sure, let me ask her for the code. Kongou-san? Can I get the password for your—"
"Teitokuuuu, you should have let me drive~"
"You've had your fun today, Kongou."
"But you should be relaxing, Teitoku!" Kongou admonishes him, her tone cutesy and sweet, her expression one of genuine concern.
"I'll get plenty of sleep on the flight."
Akagi sighs, and punches in 8348658. The home screen came up a second later.
"I should have guessed this one first..."
"Thank you, Akagi."
Another picture of Kongou is on the home screen, striking a pose next to three other women. They all share similar appearances: long thigh-high boots, an inspired interpretation of a miko uniform, matching 'antennae' headbands. There are differences between them, obvious ones, but they are outweighed by the similarities.
They all look happy.
'Sister ships...'
Kaga glances over at Akagi, immediately reminded of how similar their outfits are. Whatever or whomever was responsible for this has a sense of humor.
Returning her focus to the phone, she pokes carefully at the screen, trying to understand what the icons and their names all represent. The scattered lessons taught at the restaurant are all but forgotten in a mess of applications opening, followed by Kaga mashing the home key with increasing frustration. With a sharp intake of breath, she thrusts the phone back towards Akagi, who is trying her level best not to laugh at the ongoing display.
"Akagi-san, I just—I want information about the war."
"There will be an official briefing, Kaga-san," Akagi says hurriedly. "And at Yokosuka you'll have even better access to accurate historical materials—"
"Akagi, let the woman read what she wants," Goto interjects, exerting sudden authority. "It's better that she learns on her own terms, at her own pace."
"Yes sir..." She takes the phone out of Kaga's hands and shifts over to the center back seat, leaning against her as she returns the phone back to the home screen. "Alright Kaga-san, first we go to Yahoo."
"Yahoo?" Kaga's eyes narrow. "That's English, is it not?"
"It's a website with search engine; you can use it to—"
"Website? Search engine?"
"Let's... start from the beginning."
-
Even after the ride in the car ends, the phone occupies all of Kaga's attention, one thumb flicking across the screen with increasing expertise. She does not know where she is being taken; she only knows that Akagi is leading the way, pulling her forward by her free hand. Vaguely she recognizes that it is cold around her, and still raining. Wind gusts occasionally pick up, and rain splashes onto her face and the phone. A high-pitched whining sound fills the air, growing louder the longer they walk. None of this matters—she has forty browser tabs open.
Pearl Harbor.
Midway.
Truk.
Guadalcanal.
Samar.
Okinawa.
Operation Ten-Go.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Surrender and Occupation of Japan.
Nuclear weapons.
Japanese war crimes.
Each page is filled with links, leading to other pages. No matter how much she reads, no matter how many links she opens, no end to all of the information is in sight. For hours she has followed link after link, read page after page. She has learned things about her Empire, things she wishes she could forget. She learns about the price of Japan's failures, of how her people suffered. She learns about the American perspective, and does not know whether to hate them, fear them, or respect them.
The war was fought seemingly everywhere, by many nations. The scale is impossible to fathom. She thinks about the men who died aboard her, and how minuscule that number is compared to that of Hiroshima alone. She knows even that pales in comparison to all of Europe, all of Asia.
She has not spoken a word to anyone since Akagi cut her loose onto the internet. She is afraid that if she tries to speak, she will scream. She wants to stop reading, but can't.
"Watch your step, Kaga-san," Akagi says quite suddenly. Kaga almost drops the phone, looking up from it for seemingly the first time in hours to discover where exactly they are.
The cargo ramp of some sort of air transport lays before them, the cavernous interior yawning wide open in welcome. Goto walks next to his vehicle as Kongou effortlessly pushes it up the ramp into the transport. Around them are military personnel in camouflaged fatigues. Some of the faces are familiar, men who'd been part of the security forces at the shrine. Most people do not pay her any mind, but she can see the few that remain intimidated by her very presence. She can see their hands tighten around their rifles.
She understands the nervousness, the fear. She knows now what she truly represents, and knows that they are sworn to never let such things take root in her nation again.
-
Twenty minutes into the flight, Kaga stood from her seat next to Akagi and disappeared into another compartment of the plane. Her expression had been one of complete distress; the miracle of flight had little to do with it. Kongou's phone lay unattended in her place, red battery LED blinking plaintively at Akagi.
She didn't bother trying to see what it was that finally drove Kaga to flee. She'd already spent enough time reading all the documents she could about the past eight decades. Her reaction hadn't been as severe, but she understood it, perhaps better than Kaga would believe if they actually could discuss—
"She's not handling it well, is she?"
Goto's voice and very presence seemed to materialize out of the air next to her. Akagi yelped with surprise, her hands instinctively smoothing out her red dress as she bolted to attention.
"Admiral, I—" She felt herself flush with embarrassment as Goto waved for her to sit back down. He collapsed onto the seat next to hers with a sigh of defeat.
"She hasn't spoken a word to me since we boarded, sir..."
"Kongou's going to be upset about her phone running out of battery," he grunted, thumbing off the device. "She's spent the whole time reading stuff on this?"
"History...stuff, yes."
"Better that she gets it out of the way now, I suppose," Goto shrugged. "You can say if you're worried, Akagi."
"I want to go to her, I really do! It's just—" Akagi flapped her arms up helplessly. "I don't know what to say. I've been there for five other summons, I should know how to deal with this by now, shouldn't I?"
"I've been there for more; I'm still figuring it out." With a look of resignation, Goto stood from the seat with a pained grunt. Kongou's concerns over his lack of sleep were apparently very well founded. "How bad is she, you think?"
"It could be worse, I still wonder how Musashi will react about the end of the Empire and all if we should ever summon her, I know I was shocked about many of the things I—"
"That bad?" Goto spared Akagi a wry, tired grin. She could only sigh and slump further into her seat.
"...you know what we were built for, whom we served, and what it amounted to." She looked up at him, her voice wavering as she continued. "You know the history of the First Carrier Division, Admiral. We never lived up to our own beliefs of superiority, but I remember how those men felt. I know the rivalries they lived. I could tell her that I know how she feels, and that I understand... but I think she needs her Admiral to say that." She looked in the direction where Kaga had fled.
"Mm?"
"...I feel as though I may have deceived her in some way." She turned to stare out of the small window next to her. There wasn't much to see thanks to the storm, but she wasn't looking for anything in particular. "I told her we were still needed. I didn't tell her that it wasn't the Empire that needed us. I could have avoided this, but I—it would be best if you spoke with her, sir."
Goto frowned. "So she went forward?"
"Yes, sir..."
"Very well."
-
The crew of the transport was surprisingly willing to accommodate Kaga despite the Spartan nature of the aircraft's interior. The compartment she'd found behind the cockpit was left entirely to her alone. The loadmaster of the C-2 seemed to understand the look on her face the moment they'd encountered one another, and led her to a place where she could be alone.
There is an armed guard outside, but he appears unwilling to interrupt her brooding by taking a peek at the aircraft carrier curled up on a footlocker on the floor. Perhaps it isn't fear, but rather it is routine that keep him safely on the outside of the room.
She wonders how many times they have seen Kanmusu like her, introduced into a world that hates and fears everything they once represented. She wonders how many warships like her were crushed by their newfound knowledge. How they learned to accept it. *If* they learned to accept it.
She hates smartphones. The damned devices are too small, too powerful. How could everything she wanted to read be so easily found and displayed for her consumption. How could something like that even be real?
Technology like that changed everything.
It could have changed everything.
The knocking on the door startles her. She'd been alone for longer than she could remember, the drone of the transport's engines threatening to nurse her into uncomfortable sleep on her crate. She bolts upright, just as the door is pulled open.
"Can I come in?" Admiral Goto smiles at her from the other side.
"...Yes."
He carefully steps inside, shooing the guard away with one hand while ducking just under a low hanging obstacle seemingly intended to strike the inattentive in the face. He crashes to the floor butt-first, completely undignified and uncaring as he leans back, reaching again for the flask that is not there. Kaga remains rigid in place, waiting for him speak, for permission to breath, permission to—
"Not the happiest reading to engage in on our first day, hmm."
"It... is regrettable, sir."
"We're very good at regrettable in this country, Kaga." He frowns at her. "Relax, I just want to talk."
"I do not intend to run, sir."
"Of course you won't." He sounds as though it was never in doubt. "No way to get some real answers if you run, no way to serve your purpose. You would once again fail to do your duty, and you, Kaga-san, are not one who would accept such a thing. I know the look in those eyes."
Kaga says nothing, choosing to look away from Goto.
"You wouldn't be the first to wish that you could change the things you have read." Goto raises his arms dramatically. "Nagato once debated with me for the better part of a day, how Japan could have won the war, how things could have been different—" He pauses when he notices Kaga whirling back to face him, her eyes wide. "Oh, Big Seven's been back for months now. She was a lot like you."
"H-How many others?"
"My armada now numbers thirty as of today," Goto said. "As I said, Nagato was... particularly upset, said we should have continued attacking Pearl Harbor to ensure more effective destruction of the Yankees' Pacific Fleet."
"The third wave should have been launched," Kaga nods, easily drawn into the conversation. "I understand the rationale behind Admiral Nagumo's decision, but the benefits clearly outweighed the risk. Our men were ready to make the necessary sacrifices."
"Do you think it would have changed the war's outcome?"
"It could have spared the home islands, perhaps we could have negotiated a more favorable end to hostilities, kept some of our overseas territories—" Kaga's voice grows more heated, hands balling into fists. "Everyone who died, all of the suffering, it could have been curtailed, prevented entirely!"
"Surely, the Japanese Empire could have remained as an institution."
"More importantly, foreign boots would never have trampled over our way of life, would never have sullied the house of the Emperor—" One of Kaga's fists find a home in the bulkhead next to her. "Entire cities, burned to the ground, annihilated with nuclear weapons! And you say these people are our allies?"
"Indeed, all of these things may have been possible," another slight pause, another small smile forming on his lips, "if more factors had been in our favor."
"DO NOT PATRONIZE ME, ADMIRAL!" Kaga snarls, rising to her feet and almost smashing her head into the low roof. She thrusts an accusatory finger at Goto, who merely stares past up at the increasingly angrier Kaga. "You! You find this amusing! You don't care! To you it's just something you have read in a book, in some... SMARTPHONE!" She pulls her hand away from Goto, slamming it into her chest. "MY CREW, YOUR PEOPLE, MY HULL, WE LIVED AND DIED IN THOSE BATTLES!"
The room is unbearably warm. She can see the sweat beading up on Goto's impassive face as he continues to stare back at her, feel the hot air billowing around her, the hiss of perspiration boiling on her fair skin.
Perhaps he measures his next words carefully, afraid to respond. Perhaps he has nothing to say at all.
"It was for nothing," she says weakly, the righteous fury burning out as quickly as it had ignited. "We killed so many. We lost so many. It was for nothing, and you all simply wish to forget." She collapses back onto the footlocker. "You did forget, until we were needed again."
She waits for him to tell her that she is wrong. She wants to be wrong. She wants to hear him say that Japan did not forget those who died; they are proud of their history, the good and the bad. She wants to hear that the Japanese Self Defense Force is more than just the shadow of an Empire's might.
Everything she has read, by her own people, is nothing but regret for things they had no say in. They downplay the sacrifices, the savagery. So afraid have they become, they cannot even properly support the allies they claim to stand alongside. The mere thought of doing so paralyzes whole generations of men and women into inaction, into cowardice—
"It is true, Kaga. Everything you say, I can't begin to refute." Goto leans back against the bulkhead. "How's your hand?"
"It hurts." Blood seeps from the torn skin, flowing freely down her fingers and dripping onto the footlocker. "It hurts, sir."
"We brought you back because we need you. Our remembrance of the Kaga, of you, is limited to textbooks that gloss over the realities of the War. It is selfish, but in our time of need, we have been forced to call upon the things we have tried to forget." The Admiral now kneels before Kaga, taking her wounded hand into his as he wraps a handkerchief around her shredded knuckles, staining the fabric dark crimson.
"Most citizens of Japan do not 'remember' the War, you, or your crew. In the eight decades removed from the start of the fighting, entire generations growing up in post-empire Japan, we've only known peace. We have been content to sit comfortably under the blanket of protection provided by the very nation that burned us to the ground." Releasing her bandaged hand, Goto takes a seat next to her on the locker. Kaga remains silent.
"We openly complain about their presence, but do nothing to make ourselves independent of it. Our prosperity has been paved over the collective memory of what we have done, over what has been done to us. The past only surfaces when it is convenient for us, when we want it to." He glances over to her sadly. "To you, this must feel like betrayal. You would not be the first to say this to me."
"And you are telling me I am wrong to feel this way," she says bitterly.
"Absolutely not."
Now he truly has her attention. She meets his eyes, studies them for any sign of mockery, of another convenient lie. She only sees a man struggling in the same world she now inhabits. She sees exhaustion, sees him again reaching involuntarily for a drink he cannot partake of.
"You're not wrong to feel as though the world has betrayed your memory. You're not wrong to fear helicopters, passenger buses, and transport planes flying thousands of feet over a nation you no longer recognize. You're not wrong to feel pride in the struggle, in the men who died for you, for this nation.
Unfortunately, for all the power you have, for the miracle you embody, you cannot change history. You and I could spend years discussing every point of the campaign in the Pacific. We could agree, we could disagree, but our debate would change nothing. There is no comfort to be found in those fantasies. That war is over." Her Admiral rises to his feet, standing before his new subordinate.
"It's sudden, and selfish, but we need you more than ever. Our enemy is ruthless, our military is weak. We are cut off logistically from our greatest allies. The enemy rules the sea. Our coastlines are at their mercy. With the few returned vessels we have, combined with what forces we can muster, we have been able to hold the line, but only just.
I cannot command you to change the past, but if you would allow it, I am hoping to command you in safeguarding our future."
-
Akagi woke with a start, the sound of someone crashing into the seat next to her rousing her from dreamless sleep. She found Kaga sitting—brooding in silence next to her, arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her eyes were closed, and she hadn't noticed Akagi stirring into consciousness. Goto was nowhere to be seen, and the flight still appeared to have much to go.
"The Admiral," Kaga began stiffly, "spoke with me."
"Ah, Kaga-san, I am sorry I did not—" Akagi paused to yawn, eyes watering as she fought away the rest of her light sleep. "I did not mean to deceive you in any way; I wanted to wait until we got to Yokosuka, until I could—"
Kaga leaned against her, obviously trying to get comfortable, and it was enough to silence any excuses Akagi could muster.
"It can't be helped, so many things can't be helped. There are things I am still... struggling with, but I will endure it." Kaga finally settled against her sister ship, her weight pressing Akagi against the bulkhead. "He said something interesting. Something satisfactory to me, and Them."
"What was it?"
"Safeguarding the future, that is our task," Kaga sighed.
"It is."
"The Admiral is a good man."
"One of the best."
-
It takes a moment for Kaga to fully process the simple statement. She looks to Akagi, the one who said it, then to her Rear Admiral, then to Kongou who for once looks appropriately serious for the occasion.
"Heisei 30?" Kaga asks, her voice scarcely over a whisper. She was laid down in Taisho 9, served into the new era ruled by Emperor Hirohito until—
"Yes," Akagi clears her throat. "You've been asleep for over 76 years, Kaga-san. We sank in 1942, it's now 2018."
The restaurant Goto took them to provided excellent food. The beef yakisoba is something she/someone she 'remembers' wished to have just before the end. The rice is properly cooked. The sushi, some designs familiar, others completely alien and tainted with foreign influence, had forced a smile to her face. It was all so wonderful just to be able to truly taste food for the very first time.
They simply ate and made small talk. Akagi showed her the now broken device she called a 'smart phone', and Kongou showed off her own working version of the machine. Pictures moved across its display, smoother than life itself. Music played from its speakers with fidelity that eclipsed the radios of their original time, and women on the touchscreen sang and danced to it. It was so alien and so amazing. Japan had survived the war, became something else entirely.
Surely they had triumphed. Surely the sacrifices were not made in vain.
She knew there would be a catch of some sort, information she needed to know about the world around her, but part of her had been happy to avoid it.
But she had to know, and so she asked a simple question: what year is it?
She had no concept of how long she had been gone, but she needed to know. She wanted to serve her Empire again, wanted to use this second chance to properly redeem her name and the names of those who died with her.
Now she feels sick to her stomach, sick at heart. Her hands shake as she sets down her chopsticks. She wants to run again, and this time she would not look back. This is wrong, it has to be wrong.
Her duty demands that she try to maintain her bearing.
"Seventy-six years?" she asks again, looking directly into Akagi's eyes.
"Yes, Kaga-san."
"Then... it is more important than ever that I have reported for duty." She manages to keep her voice even. "I must report to Sasebo for immediate—" Kaga takes a breath, straining to continue. "For immediate rearming and refit, report to the Imperial—"
"There is no Empire, Kaga," Goto says patiently but matter-of-factly, again possessing the air of a man who has said this many times to many returning ships.
"The Empire of Japan formally surrendered to the United States on September 2nd, 1945," Akagi adds, her head bowing forward slightly. "The war is over."
"Surrendered?" Kaga asks, incredulous.
"After Midway, fortune did not favor Japan," Goto said with a shrug. "Some argue that defeat was inevitable from the beginning, others claim the war could have been avoided entirely had we not attacked the United States. The debate is ongoing, it may never end. Suffice it to say, our enemy was numerically superior, technologically superior. The war became more than the Empire could endure, and so it died."
Kaga swears she hears some form of satisfaction in Goto's voice, but refuses to believe it or question him on it. He is her commander.
"The Emperor—" she whispers, still trying to grasp something of the world she 'knew'. "The Emperor allowed this?"
"He had no choice, Kaga-san," Akagi is swift to provide a comforting hand on her shoulder, one that is immediately shrugged off. "The yank—the Americans overcame all of our fortresses across the Pacific. They overwhelmed the Navy and the Army. With us—With the Kidô Butai gone, with our Navy being ruined in battle after battle, they came for Japan itself. Our people suffered. Surrender was our only option."
"They used—" Kongou begins, and then she stops, slapping her own hands over her mouth and cursing herself in English. "It isn't something to discuss here."
They are the only people in the restaurant beyond the staff serving them, but somehow the atmosphere grows notably quieter. The rain outside intensifies, massive sheets of water falling onto the streets, so thick that even Kaga cannot see the storefront across from their booth inside the restaurant. Thunder crashes outside, and the table vibrates—
Seventy-six years ago, she stands on her own flight deck as it lists hard to starboard, a last frantic maneuver in the face of the inevitable. She stares into a morning sky littered with helldivers shrieking down through the clouds, tracers from her anti-aircraft guns rise up to meet them to no avail, dozens of small black objects separating from their bellies—
In the present, Kaga is shaking in her seat, hands clenched into fists so tight that her palms hurt.
"When do we strike back?" Her voice is low, filled with uncontained malice.
She hears cries for vengeance in her mind, feels it in her bones. The men who died with her, their own failure compounded by knowledge that they had allowed Japan to suffer, demand they be given a chance to make this right.
She wants nothing more than to heed those voices.
"Kaga, please understand," Akagi starts, "there's nothing to be done! The war is—"
"There IS SOMETHING TO BE DONE!" Kaga roars. Akagi immediately withdraws to a safer distance, Kongou places herself protectively closer to her Admiral. Goto himself remains unmoved, expressionless and calm. "This is what I was created for, this is why I am here!" Kaga rises from her seat, plates and silverware clattering as her fists strike the table. "You cannot seriously believe that these... circumstances are at all acceptable to—"
"The Americans," Goto raises his voice for the first time, "are our allies."
Again with his matter-of-fact tone, again as though he has lived his whole life with this knowledge without regret.
Just like that, all of Kaga's thoughts of vengeance beyond measure are snuffed out.
"How?" she whispers. "How?!"
"During the occupation, the Empire was formally dissolved in 1947. We are just Japan now. They provided economic assistance, helped with the reconstruction, protected us from understandably vengeful nations." Goto bows his head respectfully towards her. "Believe me when I say that I understand this must be difficult. There is much you couldn't know before today."
There is nothing more she can say in protest, nothing that anyone can say to make this feel right. The magnitude of how far removed she is from her old life hits with sledgehammer force. Everything feels heavy, the strength in her legs giving out. She totters on her feet, collapsing back into her chair.
Japan was not merely beaten in battle, it was forced to surrender. It was occupied by its enemies. The Empire she was built to represent shattered by guns and bombs, pen and paper. Her Emperor is dead, his dominion soiled by foreign boots, reduced to what she cannot begin to imagine.
All of the passion, all of the effort that Japan had put into the war effort ended in total defeat.
Kaga stares down at her unfinished meal, the world spinning around her. She pushes away her plates with trembling hands, fighting to keep her breathing under control.
"I am grateful for your hospitality, sir." Her voice is crisp, her face drawn into a tense, expressionless mask as she turns to look out into the city.
Akagi's hand finds its place on her shoulder once more, and this time it does not get forced away.
-
The drive to the closest airfield is not quiet. Kongou insists on her music to be played, and Goto yields without protest. The lyrics are bright, optimistic, apparently sung by a chorus of children. It's a plea to work together, to set aside all past grievances, colored by high-pitched voices and instrumentation Kaga cannot place.
It is Kongou's way of trying to brighten things up, Kaga knows this even as Akagi whispers an explanation into her ear. Part of her wants to request, respectfully, that the music be turned off. Instead she endures the background noise, and Kongou's game attempts to accompany it. Her attention is focused on the smart phone borrowed from the battlecruiser.
She lingers on that thought for a moment: A battlecruiser, now a woman, possessing property of her own to allow others to freely take possession of.
According to Akagi, a smart phone could look up information on anything. It worked earlier at the restaurant, but now all she was getting was a lock screen demanding a password and a picture of Kongou smiling next to Admiral Goto, apparently oblivious to her presence. Frustratingly the device appears to be set to English. Despite actually understanding it all, this somehow makes her inability to command the phone to do what she wants that much worse.
"Akagi-san."
"Eh?"
Kaga pushes the screen at her face.
"Unlock this."
"Ahh, sure, let me ask her for the code. Kongou-san? Can I get the password for your—"
"Teitokuuuu, you should have let me drive~"
"You've had your fun today, Kongou."
"But you should be relaxing, Teitoku!" Kongou admonishes him, her tone cutesy and sweet, her expression one of genuine concern.
"I'll get plenty of sleep on the flight."
Akagi sighs, and punches in 8348658. The home screen came up a second later.
"I should have guessed this one first..."
"Thank you, Akagi."
Another picture of Kongou is on the home screen, striking a pose next to three other women. They all share similar appearances: long thigh-high boots, an inspired interpretation of a miko uniform, matching 'antennae' headbands. There are differences between them, obvious ones, but they are outweighed by the similarities.
They all look happy.
'Sister ships...'
Kaga glances over at Akagi, immediately reminded of how similar their outfits are. Whatever or whomever was responsible for this has a sense of humor.
Returning her focus to the phone, she pokes carefully at the screen, trying to understand what the icons and their names all represent. The scattered lessons taught at the restaurant are all but forgotten in a mess of applications opening, followed by Kaga mashing the home key with increasing frustration. With a sharp intake of breath, she thrusts the phone back towards Akagi, who is trying her level best not to laugh at the ongoing display.
"Akagi-san, I just—I want information about the war."
"There will be an official briefing, Kaga-san," Akagi says hurriedly. "And at Yokosuka you'll have even better access to accurate historical materials—"
"Akagi, let the woman read what she wants," Goto interjects, exerting sudden authority. "It's better that she learns on her own terms, at her own pace."
"Yes sir..." She takes the phone out of Kaga's hands and shifts over to the center back seat, leaning against her as she returns the phone back to the home screen. "Alright Kaga-san, first we go to Yahoo."
"Yahoo?" Kaga's eyes narrow. "That's English, is it not?"
"It's a website with search engine; you can use it to—"
"Website? Search engine?"
"Let's... start from the beginning."
-
Even after the ride in the car ends, the phone occupies all of Kaga's attention, one thumb flicking across the screen with increasing expertise. She does not know where she is being taken; she only knows that Akagi is leading the way, pulling her forward by her free hand. Vaguely she recognizes that it is cold around her, and still raining. Wind gusts occasionally pick up, and rain splashes onto her face and the phone. A high-pitched whining sound fills the air, growing louder the longer they walk. None of this matters—she has forty browser tabs open.
Pearl Harbor.
Midway.
Truk.
Guadalcanal.
Samar.
Okinawa.
Operation Ten-Go.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Surrender and Occupation of Japan.
Nuclear weapons.
Japanese war crimes.
Each page is filled with links, leading to other pages. No matter how much she reads, no matter how many links she opens, no end to all of the information is in sight. For hours she has followed link after link, read page after page. She has learned things about her Empire, things she wishes she could forget. She learns about the price of Japan's failures, of how her people suffered. She learns about the American perspective, and does not know whether to hate them, fear them, or respect them.
The war was fought seemingly everywhere, by many nations. The scale is impossible to fathom. She thinks about the men who died aboard her, and how minuscule that number is compared to that of Hiroshima alone. She knows even that pales in comparison to all of Europe, all of Asia.
She has not spoken a word to anyone since Akagi cut her loose onto the internet. She is afraid that if she tries to speak, she will scream. She wants to stop reading, but can't.
"Watch your step, Kaga-san," Akagi says quite suddenly. Kaga almost drops the phone, looking up from it for seemingly the first time in hours to discover where exactly they are.
The cargo ramp of some sort of air transport lays before them, the cavernous interior yawning wide open in welcome. Goto walks next to his vehicle as Kongou effortlessly pushes it up the ramp into the transport. Around them are military personnel in camouflaged fatigues. Some of the faces are familiar, men who'd been part of the security forces at the shrine. Most people do not pay her any mind, but she can see the few that remain intimidated by her very presence. She can see their hands tighten around their rifles.
She understands the nervousness, the fear. She knows now what she truly represents, and knows that they are sworn to never let such things take root in her nation again.
-
Twenty minutes into the flight, Kaga stood from her seat next to Akagi and disappeared into another compartment of the plane. Her expression had been one of complete distress; the miracle of flight had little to do with it. Kongou's phone lay unattended in her place, red battery LED blinking plaintively at Akagi.
She didn't bother trying to see what it was that finally drove Kaga to flee. She'd already spent enough time reading all the documents she could about the past eight decades. Her reaction hadn't been as severe, but she understood it, perhaps better than Kaga would believe if they actually could discuss—
"She's not handling it well, is she?"
Goto's voice and very presence seemed to materialize out of the air next to her. Akagi yelped with surprise, her hands instinctively smoothing out her red dress as she bolted to attention.
"Admiral, I—" She felt herself flush with embarrassment as Goto waved for her to sit back down. He collapsed onto the seat next to hers with a sigh of defeat.
"She hasn't spoken a word to me since we boarded, sir..."
"Kongou's going to be upset about her phone running out of battery," he grunted, thumbing off the device. "She's spent the whole time reading stuff on this?"
"History...stuff, yes."
"Better that she gets it out of the way now, I suppose," Goto shrugged. "You can say if you're worried, Akagi."
"I want to go to her, I really do! It's just—" Akagi flapped her arms up helplessly. "I don't know what to say. I've been there for five other summons, I should know how to deal with this by now, shouldn't I?"
"I've been there for more; I'm still figuring it out." With a look of resignation, Goto stood from the seat with a pained grunt. Kongou's concerns over his lack of sleep were apparently very well founded. "How bad is she, you think?"
"It could be worse, I still wonder how Musashi will react about the end of the Empire and all if we should ever summon her, I know I was shocked about many of the things I—"
"That bad?" Goto spared Akagi a wry, tired grin. She could only sigh and slump further into her seat.
"...you know what we were built for, whom we served, and what it amounted to." She looked up at him, her voice wavering as she continued. "You know the history of the First Carrier Division, Admiral. We never lived up to our own beliefs of superiority, but I remember how those men felt. I know the rivalries they lived. I could tell her that I know how she feels, and that I understand... but I think she needs her Admiral to say that." She looked in the direction where Kaga had fled.
"Mm?"
"...I feel as though I may have deceived her in some way." She turned to stare out of the small window next to her. There wasn't much to see thanks to the storm, but she wasn't looking for anything in particular. "I told her we were still needed. I didn't tell her that it wasn't the Empire that needed us. I could have avoided this, but I—it would be best if you spoke with her, sir."
Goto frowned. "So she went forward?"
"Yes, sir..."
"Very well."
-
The crew of the transport was surprisingly willing to accommodate Kaga despite the Spartan nature of the aircraft's interior. The compartment she'd found behind the cockpit was left entirely to her alone. The loadmaster of the C-2 seemed to understand the look on her face the moment they'd encountered one another, and led her to a place where she could be alone.
There is an armed guard outside, but he appears unwilling to interrupt her brooding by taking a peek at the aircraft carrier curled up on a footlocker on the floor. Perhaps it isn't fear, but rather it is routine that keep him safely on the outside of the room.
She wonders how many times they have seen Kanmusu like her, introduced into a world that hates and fears everything they once represented. She wonders how many warships like her were crushed by their newfound knowledge. How they learned to accept it. *If* they learned to accept it.
She hates smartphones. The damned devices are too small, too powerful. How could everything she wanted to read be so easily found and displayed for her consumption. How could something like that even be real?
Technology like that changed everything.
It could have changed everything.
The knocking on the door startles her. She'd been alone for longer than she could remember, the drone of the transport's engines threatening to nurse her into uncomfortable sleep on her crate. She bolts upright, just as the door is pulled open.
"Can I come in?" Admiral Goto smiles at her from the other side.
"...Yes."
He carefully steps inside, shooing the guard away with one hand while ducking just under a low hanging obstacle seemingly intended to strike the inattentive in the face. He crashes to the floor butt-first, completely undignified and uncaring as he leans back, reaching again for the flask that is not there. Kaga remains rigid in place, waiting for him speak, for permission to breath, permission to—
"Not the happiest reading to engage in on our first day, hmm."
"It... is regrettable, sir."
"We're very good at regrettable in this country, Kaga." He frowns at her. "Relax, I just want to talk."
"I do not intend to run, sir."
"Of course you won't." He sounds as though it was never in doubt. "No way to get some real answers if you run, no way to serve your purpose. You would once again fail to do your duty, and you, Kaga-san, are not one who would accept such a thing. I know the look in those eyes."
Kaga says nothing, choosing to look away from Goto.
"You wouldn't be the first to wish that you could change the things you have read." Goto raises his arms dramatically. "Nagato once debated with me for the better part of a day, how Japan could have won the war, how things could have been different—" He pauses when he notices Kaga whirling back to face him, her eyes wide. "Oh, Big Seven's been back for months now. She was a lot like you."
"H-How many others?"
"My armada now numbers thirty as of today," Goto said. "As I said, Nagato was... particularly upset, said we should have continued attacking Pearl Harbor to ensure more effective destruction of the Yankees' Pacific Fleet."
"The third wave should have been launched," Kaga nods, easily drawn into the conversation. "I understand the rationale behind Admiral Nagumo's decision, but the benefits clearly outweighed the risk. Our men were ready to make the necessary sacrifices."
"Do you think it would have changed the war's outcome?"
"It could have spared the home islands, perhaps we could have negotiated a more favorable end to hostilities, kept some of our overseas territories—" Kaga's voice grows more heated, hands balling into fists. "Everyone who died, all of the suffering, it could have been curtailed, prevented entirely!"
"Surely, the Japanese Empire could have remained as an institution."
"More importantly, foreign boots would never have trampled over our way of life, would never have sullied the house of the Emperor—" One of Kaga's fists find a home in the bulkhead next to her. "Entire cities, burned to the ground, annihilated with nuclear weapons! And you say these people are our allies?"
"Indeed, all of these things may have been possible," another slight pause, another small smile forming on his lips, "if more factors had been in our favor."
"DO NOT PATRONIZE ME, ADMIRAL!" Kaga snarls, rising to her feet and almost smashing her head into the low roof. She thrusts an accusatory finger at Goto, who merely stares past up at the increasingly angrier Kaga. "You! You find this amusing! You don't care! To you it's just something you have read in a book, in some... SMARTPHONE!" She pulls her hand away from Goto, slamming it into her chest. "MY CREW, YOUR PEOPLE, MY HULL, WE LIVED AND DIED IN THOSE BATTLES!"
The room is unbearably warm. She can see the sweat beading up on Goto's impassive face as he continues to stare back at her, feel the hot air billowing around her, the hiss of perspiration boiling on her fair skin.
Perhaps he measures his next words carefully, afraid to respond. Perhaps he has nothing to say at all.
"It was for nothing," she says weakly, the righteous fury burning out as quickly as it had ignited. "We killed so many. We lost so many. It was for nothing, and you all simply wish to forget." She collapses back onto the footlocker. "You did forget, until we were needed again."
She waits for him to tell her that she is wrong. She wants to be wrong. She wants to hear him say that Japan did not forget those who died; they are proud of their history, the good and the bad. She wants to hear that the Japanese Self Defense Force is more than just the shadow of an Empire's might.
Everything she has read, by her own people, is nothing but regret for things they had no say in. They downplay the sacrifices, the savagery. So afraid have they become, they cannot even properly support the allies they claim to stand alongside. The mere thought of doing so paralyzes whole generations of men and women into inaction, into cowardice—
"It is true, Kaga. Everything you say, I can't begin to refute." Goto leans back against the bulkhead. "How's your hand?"
"It hurts." Blood seeps from the torn skin, flowing freely down her fingers and dripping onto the footlocker. "It hurts, sir."
"We brought you back because we need you. Our remembrance of the Kaga, of you, is limited to textbooks that gloss over the realities of the War. It is selfish, but in our time of need, we have been forced to call upon the things we have tried to forget." The Admiral now kneels before Kaga, taking her wounded hand into his as he wraps a handkerchief around her shredded knuckles, staining the fabric dark crimson.
"Most citizens of Japan do not 'remember' the War, you, or your crew. In the eight decades removed from the start of the fighting, entire generations growing up in post-empire Japan, we've only known peace. We have been content to sit comfortably under the blanket of protection provided by the very nation that burned us to the ground." Releasing her bandaged hand, Goto takes a seat next to her on the locker. Kaga remains silent.
"We openly complain about their presence, but do nothing to make ourselves independent of it. Our prosperity has been paved over the collective memory of what we have done, over what has been done to us. The past only surfaces when it is convenient for us, when we want it to." He glances over to her sadly. "To you, this must feel like betrayal. You would not be the first to say this to me."
"And you are telling me I am wrong to feel this way," she says bitterly.
"Absolutely not."
Now he truly has her attention. She meets his eyes, studies them for any sign of mockery, of another convenient lie. She only sees a man struggling in the same world she now inhabits. She sees exhaustion, sees him again reaching involuntarily for a drink he cannot partake of.
"You're not wrong to feel as though the world has betrayed your memory. You're not wrong to fear helicopters, passenger buses, and transport planes flying thousands of feet over a nation you no longer recognize. You're not wrong to feel pride in the struggle, in the men who died for you, for this nation.
Unfortunately, for all the power you have, for the miracle you embody, you cannot change history. You and I could spend years discussing every point of the campaign in the Pacific. We could agree, we could disagree, but our debate would change nothing. There is no comfort to be found in those fantasies. That war is over." Her Admiral rises to his feet, standing before his new subordinate.
"It's sudden, and selfish, but we need you more than ever. Our enemy is ruthless, our military is weak. We are cut off logistically from our greatest allies. The enemy rules the sea. Our coastlines are at their mercy. With the few returned vessels we have, combined with what forces we can muster, we have been able to hold the line, but only just.
I cannot command you to change the past, but if you would allow it, I am hoping to command you in safeguarding our future."
-
Akagi woke with a start, the sound of someone crashing into the seat next to her rousing her from dreamless sleep. She found Kaga sitting—brooding in silence next to her, arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her eyes were closed, and she hadn't noticed Akagi stirring into consciousness. Goto was nowhere to be seen, and the flight still appeared to have much to go.
"The Admiral," Kaga began stiffly, "spoke with me."
"Ah, Kaga-san, I am sorry I did not—" Akagi paused to yawn, eyes watering as she fought away the rest of her light sleep. "I did not mean to deceive you in any way; I wanted to wait until we got to Yokosuka, until I could—"
Kaga leaned against her, obviously trying to get comfortable, and it was enough to silence any excuses Akagi could muster.
"It can't be helped, so many things can't be helped. There are things I am still... struggling with, but I will endure it." Kaga finally settled against her sister ship, her weight pressing Akagi against the bulkhead. "He said something interesting. Something satisfactory to me, and Them."
"What was it?"
"Safeguarding the future, that is our task," Kaga sighed.
"It is."
"The Admiral is a good man."
"One of the best."
-
In Kaga's dream she smells salt air, aviation fuel.
She feels ordnance weighing down the planes on her flight deck, concentrated for a singular, decisive strike. She sees her pilots in their seats, her crew huddling around her planes. The sea is calm, so very calm.
She stands at the end of her own deck, in her hands a bow and arrow aimed at the horizon. She draws the string back, and behind her the might of an Empire erupts to life, the power to move Heaven and Earth. Planes roll past her, through her, and the arrow snaps from her fingers, following the curve of the sea, disappearing into the sunrise.
Her pilots move by howling engines, her hull by the rumble of boilers. Her wrath spreads into formation, joined by hundreds more, knives in the sky slicing contrail in their wake. They come from the Far East to crush the West.
In the distance, she sees something. She thinks she sees something.
It is victory, a fleet burning at anchor, smashed before it could even begin to resist. Captain Okada stands at her side, smiling knowingly at her, proud of her, proud of her pilots.
And then she remembers that victory was not hers or the Empire's to possess.
-
"Kaga-san?"
Consciousness returns slowly to her. For a terrible moment it is difficult to move or breath, her new body sapped of strength. For an eternity, she can barely begin to move her hands, her back pressed firmly against something—someone soft and warm. She feels hands on her shoulders, propping her upright as she yawns loudly.
"We've landed, Kaga-san. We've got to move."
Something about Akagi's voice is comforting, even as she prods her returned comrade to sit upright.
"How long was I—"
"Not long, Kaga-san. We really need to hurry."
"Is something wrong?"
"Not... necessarily," Akagi stands before Kaga, pulling her to her feet and offering a nervous smile. "Admiral Goto would like us to vacate the aircraft before it is swarmed by the media. Can you walk?"
"Y-yes—" Kaga's first step is unsteady, and she braces herself on Akagi's shoulders to stay standing. "The media?"
"Reporters, several hundred of them," Admiral Goto snaps, waiting with increasing lack of patience near his car. "They can wait for a press conference at Yokosuka, when you believe you are ready to speak to the world."
Goto's expression is felt on a physical level; he wants to be anywhere else but here. Energy surges through her, and she strides swiftly over to the vehicle. They are seated in short order, Kaga and Akagi once again sharing the back seats, Kaga still finding modern seatbelts to be an incredible hassle. The Admiral and his oddly subdued-looking battleship take the front seats.
Notably, Kongou is behind the wheel.
"Try to keep the paint on, Kongou," Goto says gently.
"Yes, Teitoku—" she turns back to look at Kaga, apology written on her face before she continues to say "I'm sorry, Kaga. I almost said something in the restaurant I shouldn't have."
Kaga begins to say that she accepts the apology—and is cut off by Kongou sighing heavily with relief.
"Aaaaaah, thank GOD! It's been bothering me for HOURS—" she switches to Engrish—"NO HAHDO FEELINGS, YES?" Clapping her hands against her cheeks, Kongou bounces once in her seat and turns back towards the wheel of the car, fingers drumming with anticipation on the faux leather as the cargo ramp of the aircraft finally begins to lower.
"No hard feelings," Kaga mumbles.
She wonders if Akagi is trying as hard as Kongou is at dealing with the past.
-
For two hours, they are surrounded by traffic. Somewhere behind them, standing out brightly in the rainy night sky, cities glow with light from seemingly every building. Kaga spends the entire drive to Yokosuka looking back at the spectacle slowly drowned out by distance, the mist, and the endless lines of head lights trailing off to the north.
Somewhere among those lights is Tokyo. A city half burned down in her era, now one of the largest in the world, with buildings that stretch into the clouds. Buildings that dwarf any ship she could recall. She almost asks if they could turn back to see it all in person.
In the background, she hears Akagi and Goto explaining the world they are passing through, the history of the reconstruction and how it affected the Japan of 2018. Kongou begins chiming in once they reach Yokosuka proper, in higher spirits and growing higher still as they pass restaurants she knows, places that even Akagi agrees excitedly that Kaga should visit when she has the chance. Nothing is perfect, but what is there is wonderful, and should be experienced.
The narrative is put on hold when Admiral Goto's phone begins to ring. Conversation stops, music is quickly muted, and Goto snaps the device up to his ear.
"Goto."
At first, all Kaga hears in reply is tinny murmuring.
"What?" Goto asks tonelessly.
More murmuring, increasing in pitch—a woman, very distraught.
"WHAT?" Goto asks again, almost shouting.
And then Kaga *concentrates*.
"—there's a small army of them, Teitoku. I tried my best, but limited rules of engagement have prevented me from dispersing the crowd—"
"...You tried to help the guards on duty yourself, and now they know for certain that a new Kanmusu named Kaga will be arriving tonight."
"That... is the case, sir."
Goto sighs pitifully, massaging the bridge of his nose. "Shiranui—"
"Did—did I make a mistake?"
"No, just... no, you did what you thought was right. It's fine. Withdraw from the scene, we'll be there soon enough."
"Y-Yes sir, I'm sorry sir!"
"It's fine, it's... fine."
"One more thing, sir..."
"Please, continue."
"Shimakaze is—"
"She's to return to her quarters and CHANGE into proper uniform immediately." There is raw panic in the Admiral's voice now. "Do you understand? Immediately. She cannot be seen by those people at the gate! Not by those people, or their cameras!"
"Y-yessirI'lltry! She's... very fast, but I will coordinate with other Kanmusu and—"
"Please. Thank you."
The conversation ends after several more apologies gracefully accepted by Goto. He slowly lowers the phone to his lap, leans back in his seat, and begins laughing. At first, it's quiet, almost miserable laughter. It builds, louder and louder, until he is nearly howling. It takes a long time before he manages to regain his composure.
Kaga shoots a nervous look over towards Akagi.
"Teitoku, I heard every—" Kongou stops and tries her sentence again. "I can pull us off to the side, if you need it."
"Oh no, full speed ahead," Goto begins snickering again, thrusting a hand at the windshield. "PHSCHOOOOO, torpedoes away, just get us there." He twists around in his seat, eyes wide, a nearly manic grin spreading across his face. "Kaga-san? How do you feel about an interview with the press, right now?"
"Interview?" Kaga straightens up in her seat.
"It's a bit earlier than I would prefer, but Japan really needs to see its newest defender—"
"While you handle this Shimakaze," Kaga nodded. "I understand, sir."
"You might be a saint." His relief is physically palpable, evidenced by Goto leaning over the seat back and clapping a hand firmly onto Kaga's shoulder. "Thank you. I understand that circumstances have been... challenging. But I will make this up to you. If nothing else, I am a man of my word."
"I'll accompany you, Kaga-san," Akagi speaks hurriedly, obviously trying to cut off any objections before they are made. "I will not leave her to face them alone."
There is no to come up with a plan, no time to answer the many questions Kaga has. She only knows that she has been summoned to fight. It is Kaga's role, along with other ships like herself who have answered the summons, to break the encirclement of the enemy, and ensure that Japan can survive in the face of a near halt in all shipping that it needs to exist.
She only knows that her enemy—Japan's enemy—are known as The Abyssals.
Goto, Akagi, and Kongou take turns trying to explain them to her, with ever-growing urgency as the car rolls towards a mass of lights at the end of the road:
The Abyssals are nightmares given form, brewing up from the same depths that claimed Kaga before, their sole purpose to wreak havoc upon the world.
The Abyssals are the hatred, fear, and pain of the men and women who have died at sea.
The Abyssals are everywhere and nowhere, with shapes that suit functions, changing as needed.
The Abyssals are the result of neglect and forgetfulness.
The Abyssals are traitors.
Traitors?
None of it makes proper sense. It's not the war she fought and lost, it's not the same world, but Akagi is at her side, insisting that it will make sense when they aren't so pressed for time.
"For now, all we can do is wing it," Akagi says nervously. "But I'm here for you; remember that."
They have all placed their faith in Kaga to say what needs to be said, how it needs to be said. She cannot help but want to prove them right to have trusted her. The lights in the distance all seem to turn their focus onto the car, onto her, and she takes a deep, calming breath. She tries to will away the sudden tension in her legs, the stiffness in her back.
It's just an interview. Questions people will ask, and she will answer.
Simple.
It isn't until they are at the front gates of United States Fleet Activities Yokosuka, that Kaga fully comprehends just how badly Japan wants to see her.
-
The gate is almost completely blocked by people, with MPs (politely) shouting (very politely) to please clear the road for official traffic. The Aqua has been joined by a small convoy of armored vehicles, roof-mounted guns pointed up and away from the mass of humanity huddling underneath rain umbrellas before the gate. It's at this point that Goto asks Kongou to stop the car, and the moment it slides to a halt he is opening the door and stepping out in one motion. Adjusting his cover slightly as a gust of rainy wind threatens its place on his head, Goto favors the crowd of journalists with a tired, knowing smile.
The assault begins, a cacophony of words blending together into one, perfectly indistinct sound from which nothing of value can be gleaned. Goto allows this to continue, motioning for Kaga and Akagi to join him.
Kongou's grip on the wheel noticeably tightens, then breaks clean through it.
Goto's raises both hands, commanding their attention and their sudden silence. "I'll have to keep this brief," he shouts, "as there is business I must attend to. We'll start with—" he points to the nearest reporter with an Asahi Shimbun badge hanging from his neck— "you first, and I'll turn it over immediately to our person of interest."
"Thank you, Admiral, Hisakawa Ryosuke for the Asahi Shimbun Evening Edition. Initial rumors indicates that the JSDF is attempting to restore the Kidô Butai. Can we expect to see Akagi and Kaga rejoined by Hiryuu and Souryuu?"
Goto momentarily falters in place, his expression turning to stone.
Somehow, Kaga knows that Goto has heard this before, knows that this is leading somewhere unpleasant. She looks to Akagi, stricken by a wave of uncertainty—and notices that she now appears to have a quiver of arrows hanging loosely from her back, the feathering marked with squadron numbers, the red sun. A shoulder guard—a flight deck—hangs over the length of her right arm. She holds a bow in her left hand, as tall as she is.
'What?'
"I am not at liberty to discuss which ships are being planned for recall," Goto says evenly. "Regardless, their purpose will be to defend Japan against Abyssal incursion, no matter what fleet they originally served."
The crowd seems to forget about Admiral Goto, focusing their lights, microphones, and eyes on the woman in white and blue shivering in the rain.
"I-It is as the Admiral says," she speaks haltingly. "I have answered the summons for such purposes."
An eruption of shouts builds from the crowd. Goto points to one of the hands raised—a woman in a bright yellow raincoat—and once again they dutifully fall silent as she steps out in front of the crowd.
"Sonoda Maiko, of the Seikyo. Was there any particular reason why Shinto—"
"Next question," Goto snaps. Sonoda looks to try to press him on her query, but gives up the moment the next reporter begins to speak.
"Gouda Sagara, Yomiuri Shimbun, thank you for your time Admiral Goto." A severe looking middle-aged man cuts in front of the Seikyo reporter, fixing an almost-glare onto Kaga before turning back towards the Admiral. "Sir, it's come to my attention that this Kanmusu attacked a passenger bus in Kobe—"
"That is absolutely not the case," Goto thundered, drawing himself up into full height. "Perhaps the Yomiuri Shimbun assigned you to this story knowing you have no concept of what an Abyssal attack on a civilian population would entail, but what occurred in Kobe today was an accident. One without serious injury to any citizen involved."
"Can we trust another Kanmusu struggling to adjust to modern society?" Sagara continues to press the attack, ignoring Goto's naked insults and turning his focus back to Kaga. "Is there any way to guarantee that she is not an Abyssal?"
Akagi visibly restrains herself in place, shuddering from more than the cold evening rain, her free gloved hand balling into a fist. Kaga instinctively shifts closer to Akagi; Gouda refuses to take his eyes off Kaga.
"I did not attack anyone, sir." Her voice is barely heard over the idling engines and falling rain.
"The bus just crashed itself then?" Gouda takes a step closer, and Akagi's knuckles audibly begin to pop—
"No, the incident is absolutely my fault, but I never intended to—" Her voice catches here. The now-familiar heat, deep within her core, is building towards some unknown crescendo. How dare this man accuse Kaga of such a crime! How dare he, how dare he how dare he how dare he—
—and she takes another breath, noticeably feels her body relax, the rain no longer warm as it splashes off her clothes.
"Regardless of my current appearance, regardless of the circumstances surrounding my return, I am Kaga. My hull and my crew were loyal servants of Japan and the Emperor. In my previous life, my present life, and all those that should follow, I would never deliberately put Japanese citizens in harm's way. I am no Abyssal, I am no traitor."
Gouda seems taken aback by this response. He opens his mouth to try to get another word in, but Kaga refuses to relent.
"Even if there is no Empire, even if I am seventy-six years late to report for duty, I am a loyal servant of Japan."
The camera flashes refuse to stop, and for a moment she is blinded, eyes struggling to adjust to the miniature suns flaring before her. She does see Gouda backing away from her, trying his damnedest to blend in with the crowd once more, and despite herself a small smile forms on her lips.
Admiral Goto has her attention now. His expression is difficult to read in all the light, but somehow she knows that he is as pleased about her words as she is. He nods curtly to her—and his hand shoots down to his smart phone once more. A moment passes, and then without a word he cuts through the crowd to a door next to the gate, flanked by two JGSDF men. Kongou takes position ahead of them, effortlessly moving civilians aside. Kongou and Goto are both in a full sprint by the time they reach the door.
Suddenly, Akagi and Kaga are alone and just as suddenly her confidence seems to vanish in the same direction Goto traveled.
"Admiral Goto must attend to matters inside the base proper," Akagi calls out, loud enough that the crowd is immediately cowed into silence. "I will be conducting the remainder of this unscheduled press conference." There is no small amount of emphasis placed on 'unscheduled' as she points to the closest reporter.
"Ah—yes, thank you. Fujikawa Mamoru, from the Sankei." The man bows several times in Kaga's direction while clearing his throat. "Nationalist groups have been taking an interest in Kanmusu since their return to service. Have you been briefed on these groups? Does the military consider them a threat to national security?"
"My apologies, but I have not been briefed on the extent of Japan's situation—"
'He's trying to get you to openly support nationalists groups, Kaga-san. Like everything else, it's... very complicated.'
For a moment, Kaga swears that Akagi's voice crackles through old radio speakers somewhere in the back of her mind. When she looks over to Akagi, she notices her tapping the lengthy flight deck mounted to her right arm, more specifically the bridge superstructure jutting up from it.
'You can stop the interview any time you want, with just a thought to me. If you do decide to answer, try to be... measured about your response.'
"Miss Kaga?"
"I do not see any reason why one should not be proud of their nation, regardless of its past."
Akagi visibly winces.
"Thank you, ma'am!" The reporter appears excited with Kaga's response, happily tapping away at another damnable smartphone. A cold knot grows in her stomach as more cameras flash around her; she has chosen poorly. There's no time to further clarify or justify her words, the man blending back into the crowd of bodies and faces as Akagi points to another raised hand from another reporter, eager to have her own moment with the returned Kaga.
"Kaga-san, how do you feel about working with the American Seventh Fleet based here in Yokosuka?"
"My feelings on the subject have no bearing on the orders I will receive and follow." Kaga frowns at the woman who offered the question. "I have been told that the United States are our military allies during this current crisis, therefore I shall co-operate with them."
"Given your history do you believe they can be trusted?"
-
There are two answers to the follow-up question.
The first that immediately springs to Kaga's mind is borne from experience, from history.
She doesn't trust the Americans, by all rights she shouldn't. In the hours she has been alive and conscious of the world around her, she has read things, terrible things about the war leading up to Japan's defeat. She, once considered the pride of a long-dead empire, was personally bested by the "weak-willed" Americans at one of the most critical battles of the entire war. She awoke reliving her own final moments, burning down to her own water line, scuttled by her own escorts.
Though her body is different, she cannot deny what she was and is: a warship that fought against the people she is now expected to cooperate with. It defies everything she returned to this world believing. The collective memory of what she embodies, the men who served aboard her proudly, recoil with outrage.
Defeated, humiliated, and now forced to rely on the conquerors to protect the citizens they once bombed to oblivion?
If she admitted that she hated them, if she admitted fear of them, nobody could possibly blame her.
This response is what the reporter wants her to say.
Kaga has not lived long as a person, she does not know everything she needs to know about the world, but she does know when someone wants something of her.
This answer she keeps to herself.
-
"From what I have been informed of our situation," Kaga begins carefully, walking around Akagi towards the reporter, "I understand that Japan is not the only nation to have been attacked by the Abyssals. This is an enemy that does not discriminate; this is another world war." With each step Kaga takes the doubt clouding her mind melts away. Her voice grows in volume. "We are cut off from the sea lanes, and our military might does not begin to approach that of the greatest heights we ever achieved. The issue is not trust."
Less than a meter separates Kaga from the reporter. She towers over the shivering woman, staring down into her eyes with a smile as she leans closer.
"Admiral Goto has said that they are our allies, he has said to me that the war I fought is over, and I believe him. If this means I must fight alongside Americans, then I shall join Akagi, Kongou, and all other ships who have returned, and I will fight without reservation for Japan once more. Please accept my answer on the matter."
Kaga is now eye to eye with the reporter. After a long moment, the woman withers under the Kanmusu's gaze, retreating to the safety of the crowd, her head bowed with shame or anger. No one dares to speak, even as Kaga stares into the throng delivering some unspoken challenge.
It's then that Kaga decides she has had enough of this interview. She is tired of being expected to say specific things in specific ways. She is tired of being asked about concerns that should have died before any of these men and women were conceived.
A glance at Akagi is enough to see that she more than agrees, and with that Kaga bows low to her captivated audience.
"There is still so much I need to become familiar with, and a situation regarding Shimakaze I must assist the Admiral with. Excuse me."
For a moment, she swears that some of the reporters nod sympathetically. The Shimakaze problem is apparently a regular and troublesome one.
Akagi leads Kaga through the sea of reporters to the waiting cadre of JGSDF soldiers, questions shouted in their wake. They ignore them all... until one catches attention just as she reaches the threshold separating the outside world from the interior of Fleet Activities Yokosuka:
"Do you like the Japan of today?"
Stopping in place, Kaga turns to the person who asked it: an elderly man, out of place among the younger, fresher faces that dominate the journalists. There is something hawkish about him, something fearless. A throwback to the man she encountered in Kobe, a throwback to pilots manning their planes.
"I do." To that, he smiles.
After another bow, she turns away once more, a barrage of camera flashes chasing her and Akagi until the guards close the gate behind them. They share a sigh of relief the moment they are out of sight of the public.
"You did well, Kaga-san."
"I wish I had done better."
The flightdeck-armguard and bow that Akagi had brandished before the reporters vanish into thin air, diffusing into a small cloud of rapidly fading viridescent embers. She waves a hand through the glowing ether, banishing it into the rain and mist around them. Somewhere in the distance, somewhere very close, a klaxon sounds, and a crew is ordered to stand down.
Somehow, it's all familiar to Kaga.
"It's a kind of magic." Akagi offers a knowing smile. "Interesting first day, yes?"
-
There will be no briefing tonight, no chance to formally be introduced to the many ships that have returned to service; the hunt for the oddly-dressed courtesan called Shimakaze took far longer than anyone is willing to believe or admit. She'd been found literally on the other side of the entire base, running laps on a "personally designed course" that thankfully and miraculously kept her away from anyone possessing curiosity and a camera.
The search party has long since gone their separate ways. Kongou had escaped with the Admiral the moment it was made clear that Shimakaze was going to find some real clothes. Shiranui was the last to leave both carrier-girls to their own devices, hurrying off to her own quarters with one final apology for any mistake that lead to the current circumstances.
Alone, they walk mostly in silence, though Akagi giggles to herself every now and then.
The barracks is a welcome sight; the comforting warmth inside is even more welcome. They check in with a US Marine standing guard at the front desk, though at first there is some confusion over the unfamiliar woman accompanying Akagi. A phone call to Goto is enough to clear things up.
"Sorry 'bout that, Miss Uhkawgi-sawn, ya'll know how it is."
"It's no trouble, Sergeant, thank you for taking care of us!" Akagi bows politely, and the Marine actually blushes.
"Well...heh..." He grins tiredly at Kaga. "Welcome back Miss Kawguh-sawn, if ya'll need anythin' there's Muhreens 'n yer self-defense types on duty, twuhnneyfoahseben, an' I can keep th' library open fer ya after hours, kinda uh thing we dew fer new arraaahvals." He half-bows awkwardly in his seat, realizes this is ridiculous, then stands to salute-bow. He offers a sheepish "Have a good one" and returns to his seat.
It takes a moment for Kaga to process it all. Two Japanese aircraft carriers walked into a building guarded by Yank—US Marines in a base built on Japanese soil, and a mere phone call was enough to banish any misunderstandings. He was armed, yet showed far less aggression than any of the JGSDF she'd encountered up to this point. If anything he was relaxed.
Akagi tries to explain the nature of the alliance as they leave the security desk. Apparently, with the oceans completely unsafe for commercial or military traffic, the American Seventh Fleet is more or less "stuck" at Yokosuka. The obvious solution was to make the best use of their presence, combining them with the disproportionately large number of Kanmusu that Japan found itself blessed with. It was one of the most important strategic alliances in the Pacific despite the obvious awkwardness it also came with.
"So, the Americans have their own Kanmusu?"
"They do... though at the moment we've only ever seen them on television, or on reports we've received. There are rumors that we may see them here in the future, but for now it's only rumors. The help would be most appreciated, I should think!"
Kaga decides to keep her thoughts on that 'help' to herself.
-
Familiar names are found on placards posted nearly every door they pass. Some are familiar, ships like Shoukaku and Zuikaku of the Fifth Carrier Division. Maikaze, Nowaki, ships who were there for a certain day in June all those years ago. Some of the doors only have one name to them, but most rooms appear to be occupied by pairs.
Behind some of the doors, Kaga hears laughter, and behind others there is whispering. Some are unmarked, waiting for their returnees.
They walk, and walk, until two flights of stairs upwards later, they arrive at a door at the end of one final corridor. Its placard also has two names stenciled onto it, the most familiar of all.
加賀 Kaga
赤城 Akagi
"I had this made months ago, thinking it would help in some way. I came back without you, or anyone else of the Kidô Butai. I wanted to believe you all would return soon. Even though I was alone, I believed it wouldn't be forever."
"I see..."
Akagi had suffered while she slept.
So many ships had returned to battle this new foe, while Kaga merely slept. Goto offered her a way out of serving, and she could have taken it. She could have refused the summons, and Akagi would still be here, at Yokosuka, suffering for Japan.
'I wanted to abandon her to all this.'
"It must have been... difficult," Kaga whispers, trembling with sudden anger.
"I managed. There were close calls, but I managed. A-and eventually, Shoukaku appeared, saved my life. And Zuikaku appeared soon after that. So many other girls like us, appearing all across Japan. You would be here soon, that's what I thought." Akagi brushes her fingers across 加賀, and then to 赤城, tracing the characters as though she was writing them herself. She leans into the door, pressing her forehead against the names.
"I always did this, every time I attended a summons. It finally worked. Finally... It's just hard to believe even after spending so much time with you today—"
Akagi's shoulders shake as she fights through a sob. Kaga remains silent, unsure of what to say. She rests a comforting hand on her back, another borrowed gesture from another person from another time, but one that feels right to her in that moment. One that Akagi desperately needed.
"I've requested others, for Hiryuu-san and Souryuu-san," Akagi continued gamely, turning around with a bright, if forced smile. "For every one of us at Midway. I want to believe they will return, just as you and I have. We'll be together again, and we'll help push these monsters back, and we can start thinking about what comes afterwards." Without looking, Akagi unlocks the door and pushes it wide open. "You can choose to live alone, with another of the returned, and I won't hold it against you, but—"
Kaga passes through the threshold, her eyes darting about as she scans the room; Akagi rapidly stammers through an explanation for the mess that isn't actually present.
Two futons lay at the center of the traditionally-styled tatami mat floor. In one corner, a dresser for clothes placed next to a walk-in closet. Book shelves line another wall, filled with all manner of Japanese and English texts. In the corner opposite to the dresser, a large flat-screen sits atop a black entertainment center, a small stack of thin, blue plastic cases teetering dangerously off balance next to the display. The top-most case reads 'Space Battleship Yamato', something that Kaga feels she must ask about another time.
"This is our home?" Kaga asks, interrupting Akagi's panicked excuses.
"I-It can be, if that's y-your decision."
"...may I use the futon on the right?"
"O-Of course you can," Akagi says, hugging her fiercely from behind.
She is warmth and softness given physical form, the complete opposite of the steel-hulled projection of naval air-power they once were, utterly wrong—but Kaga allows it, resting her head against Akagi's, letting her support her weight.
"Then it's mine, Akagi."
"Welcome home, Kaga."
She feels ordnance weighing down the planes on her flight deck, concentrated for a singular, decisive strike. She sees her pilots in their seats, her crew huddling around her planes. The sea is calm, so very calm.
She stands at the end of her own deck, in her hands a bow and arrow aimed at the horizon. She draws the string back, and behind her the might of an Empire erupts to life, the power to move Heaven and Earth. Planes roll past her, through her, and the arrow snaps from her fingers, following the curve of the sea, disappearing into the sunrise.
Her pilots move by howling engines, her hull by the rumble of boilers. Her wrath spreads into formation, joined by hundreds more, knives in the sky slicing contrail in their wake. They come from the Far East to crush the West.
In the distance, she sees something. She thinks she sees something.
It is victory, a fleet burning at anchor, smashed before it could even begin to resist. Captain Okada stands at her side, smiling knowingly at her, proud of her, proud of her pilots.
And then she remembers that victory was not hers or the Empire's to possess.
-
"Kaga-san?"
Consciousness returns slowly to her. For a terrible moment it is difficult to move or breath, her new body sapped of strength. For an eternity, she can barely begin to move her hands, her back pressed firmly against something—someone soft and warm. She feels hands on her shoulders, propping her upright as she yawns loudly.
"We've landed, Kaga-san. We've got to move."
Something about Akagi's voice is comforting, even as she prods her returned comrade to sit upright.
"How long was I—"
"Not long, Kaga-san. We really need to hurry."
"Is something wrong?"
"Not... necessarily," Akagi stands before Kaga, pulling her to her feet and offering a nervous smile. "Admiral Goto would like us to vacate the aircraft before it is swarmed by the media. Can you walk?"
"Y-yes—" Kaga's first step is unsteady, and she braces herself on Akagi's shoulders to stay standing. "The media?"
"Reporters, several hundred of them," Admiral Goto snaps, waiting with increasing lack of patience near his car. "They can wait for a press conference at Yokosuka, when you believe you are ready to speak to the world."
Goto's expression is felt on a physical level; he wants to be anywhere else but here. Energy surges through her, and she strides swiftly over to the vehicle. They are seated in short order, Kaga and Akagi once again sharing the back seats, Kaga still finding modern seatbelts to be an incredible hassle. The Admiral and his oddly subdued-looking battleship take the front seats.
Notably, Kongou is behind the wheel.
"Try to keep the paint on, Kongou," Goto says gently.
"Yes, Teitoku—" she turns back to look at Kaga, apology written on her face before she continues to say "I'm sorry, Kaga. I almost said something in the restaurant I shouldn't have."
Kaga begins to say that she accepts the apology—and is cut off by Kongou sighing heavily with relief.
"Aaaaaah, thank GOD! It's been bothering me for HOURS—" she switches to Engrish—"NO HAHDO FEELINGS, YES?" Clapping her hands against her cheeks, Kongou bounces once in her seat and turns back towards the wheel of the car, fingers drumming with anticipation on the faux leather as the cargo ramp of the aircraft finally begins to lower.
"No hard feelings," Kaga mumbles.
She wonders if Akagi is trying as hard as Kongou is at dealing with the past.
-
For two hours, they are surrounded by traffic. Somewhere behind them, standing out brightly in the rainy night sky, cities glow with light from seemingly every building. Kaga spends the entire drive to Yokosuka looking back at the spectacle slowly drowned out by distance, the mist, and the endless lines of head lights trailing off to the north.
Somewhere among those lights is Tokyo. A city half burned down in her era, now one of the largest in the world, with buildings that stretch into the clouds. Buildings that dwarf any ship she could recall. She almost asks if they could turn back to see it all in person.
In the background, she hears Akagi and Goto explaining the world they are passing through, the history of the reconstruction and how it affected the Japan of 2018. Kongou begins chiming in once they reach Yokosuka proper, in higher spirits and growing higher still as they pass restaurants she knows, places that even Akagi agrees excitedly that Kaga should visit when she has the chance. Nothing is perfect, but what is there is wonderful, and should be experienced.
The narrative is put on hold when Admiral Goto's phone begins to ring. Conversation stops, music is quickly muted, and Goto snaps the device up to his ear.
"Goto."
At first, all Kaga hears in reply is tinny murmuring.
"What?" Goto asks tonelessly.
More murmuring, increasing in pitch—a woman, very distraught.
"WHAT?" Goto asks again, almost shouting.
And then Kaga *concentrates*.
"—there's a small army of them, Teitoku. I tried my best, but limited rules of engagement have prevented me from dispersing the crowd—"
"...You tried to help the guards on duty yourself, and now they know for certain that a new Kanmusu named Kaga will be arriving tonight."
"That... is the case, sir."
Goto sighs pitifully, massaging the bridge of his nose. "Shiranui—"
"Did—did I make a mistake?"
"No, just... no, you did what you thought was right. It's fine. Withdraw from the scene, we'll be there soon enough."
"Y-Yes sir, I'm sorry sir!"
"It's fine, it's... fine."
"One more thing, sir..."
"Please, continue."
"Shimakaze is—"
"She's to return to her quarters and CHANGE into proper uniform immediately." There is raw panic in the Admiral's voice now. "Do you understand? Immediately. She cannot be seen by those people at the gate! Not by those people, or their cameras!"
"Y-yessirI'lltry! She's... very fast, but I will coordinate with other Kanmusu and—"
"Please. Thank you."
The conversation ends after several more apologies gracefully accepted by Goto. He slowly lowers the phone to his lap, leans back in his seat, and begins laughing. At first, it's quiet, almost miserable laughter. It builds, louder and louder, until he is nearly howling. It takes a long time before he manages to regain his composure.
Kaga shoots a nervous look over towards Akagi.
"Teitoku, I heard every—" Kongou stops and tries her sentence again. "I can pull us off to the side, if you need it."
"Oh no, full speed ahead," Goto begins snickering again, thrusting a hand at the windshield. "PHSCHOOOOO, torpedoes away, just get us there." He twists around in his seat, eyes wide, a nearly manic grin spreading across his face. "Kaga-san? How do you feel about an interview with the press, right now?"
"Interview?" Kaga straightens up in her seat.
"It's a bit earlier than I would prefer, but Japan really needs to see its newest defender—"
"While you handle this Shimakaze," Kaga nodded. "I understand, sir."
"You might be a saint." His relief is physically palpable, evidenced by Goto leaning over the seat back and clapping a hand firmly onto Kaga's shoulder. "Thank you. I understand that circumstances have been... challenging. But I will make this up to you. If nothing else, I am a man of my word."
"I'll accompany you, Kaga-san," Akagi speaks hurriedly, obviously trying to cut off any objections before they are made. "I will not leave her to face them alone."
There is no to come up with a plan, no time to answer the many questions Kaga has. She only knows that she has been summoned to fight. It is Kaga's role, along with other ships like herself who have answered the summons, to break the encirclement of the enemy, and ensure that Japan can survive in the face of a near halt in all shipping that it needs to exist.
She only knows that her enemy—Japan's enemy—are known as The Abyssals.
Goto, Akagi, and Kongou take turns trying to explain them to her, with ever-growing urgency as the car rolls towards a mass of lights at the end of the road:
The Abyssals are nightmares given form, brewing up from the same depths that claimed Kaga before, their sole purpose to wreak havoc upon the world.
The Abyssals are the hatred, fear, and pain of the men and women who have died at sea.
The Abyssals are everywhere and nowhere, with shapes that suit functions, changing as needed.
The Abyssals are the result of neglect and forgetfulness.
The Abyssals are traitors.
Traitors?
None of it makes proper sense. It's not the war she fought and lost, it's not the same world, but Akagi is at her side, insisting that it will make sense when they aren't so pressed for time.
"For now, all we can do is wing it," Akagi says nervously. "But I'm here for you; remember that."
They have all placed their faith in Kaga to say what needs to be said, how it needs to be said. She cannot help but want to prove them right to have trusted her. The lights in the distance all seem to turn their focus onto the car, onto her, and she takes a deep, calming breath. She tries to will away the sudden tension in her legs, the stiffness in her back.
It's just an interview. Questions people will ask, and she will answer.
Simple.
It isn't until they are at the front gates of United States Fleet Activities Yokosuka, that Kaga fully comprehends just how badly Japan wants to see her.
-
The gate is almost completely blocked by people, with MPs (politely) shouting (very politely) to please clear the road for official traffic. The Aqua has been joined by a small convoy of armored vehicles, roof-mounted guns pointed up and away from the mass of humanity huddling underneath rain umbrellas before the gate. It's at this point that Goto asks Kongou to stop the car, and the moment it slides to a halt he is opening the door and stepping out in one motion. Adjusting his cover slightly as a gust of rainy wind threatens its place on his head, Goto favors the crowd of journalists with a tired, knowing smile.
The assault begins, a cacophony of words blending together into one, perfectly indistinct sound from which nothing of value can be gleaned. Goto allows this to continue, motioning for Kaga and Akagi to join him.
Kongou's grip on the wheel noticeably tightens, then breaks clean through it.
Goto's raises both hands, commanding their attention and their sudden silence. "I'll have to keep this brief," he shouts, "as there is business I must attend to. We'll start with—" he points to the nearest reporter with an Asahi Shimbun badge hanging from his neck— "you first, and I'll turn it over immediately to our person of interest."
"Thank you, Admiral, Hisakawa Ryosuke for the Asahi Shimbun Evening Edition. Initial rumors indicates that the JSDF is attempting to restore the Kidô Butai. Can we expect to see Akagi and Kaga rejoined by Hiryuu and Souryuu?"
Goto momentarily falters in place, his expression turning to stone.
Somehow, Kaga knows that Goto has heard this before, knows that this is leading somewhere unpleasant. She looks to Akagi, stricken by a wave of uncertainty—and notices that she now appears to have a quiver of arrows hanging loosely from her back, the feathering marked with squadron numbers, the red sun. A shoulder guard—a flight deck—hangs over the length of her right arm. She holds a bow in her left hand, as tall as she is.
'What?'
"I am not at liberty to discuss which ships are being planned for recall," Goto says evenly. "Regardless, their purpose will be to defend Japan against Abyssal incursion, no matter what fleet they originally served."
The crowd seems to forget about Admiral Goto, focusing their lights, microphones, and eyes on the woman in white and blue shivering in the rain.
"I-It is as the Admiral says," she speaks haltingly. "I have answered the summons for such purposes."
An eruption of shouts builds from the crowd. Goto points to one of the hands raised—a woman in a bright yellow raincoat—and once again they dutifully fall silent as she steps out in front of the crowd.
"Sonoda Maiko, of the Seikyo. Was there any particular reason why Shinto—"
"Next question," Goto snaps. Sonoda looks to try to press him on her query, but gives up the moment the next reporter begins to speak.
"Gouda Sagara, Yomiuri Shimbun, thank you for your time Admiral Goto." A severe looking middle-aged man cuts in front of the Seikyo reporter, fixing an almost-glare onto Kaga before turning back towards the Admiral. "Sir, it's come to my attention that this Kanmusu attacked a passenger bus in Kobe—"
"That is absolutely not the case," Goto thundered, drawing himself up into full height. "Perhaps the Yomiuri Shimbun assigned you to this story knowing you have no concept of what an Abyssal attack on a civilian population would entail, but what occurred in Kobe today was an accident. One without serious injury to any citizen involved."
"Can we trust another Kanmusu struggling to adjust to modern society?" Sagara continues to press the attack, ignoring Goto's naked insults and turning his focus back to Kaga. "Is there any way to guarantee that she is not an Abyssal?"
Akagi visibly restrains herself in place, shuddering from more than the cold evening rain, her free gloved hand balling into a fist. Kaga instinctively shifts closer to Akagi; Gouda refuses to take his eyes off Kaga.
"I did not attack anyone, sir." Her voice is barely heard over the idling engines and falling rain.
"The bus just crashed itself then?" Gouda takes a step closer, and Akagi's knuckles audibly begin to pop—
"No, the incident is absolutely my fault, but I never intended to—" Her voice catches here. The now-familiar heat, deep within her core, is building towards some unknown crescendo. How dare this man accuse Kaga of such a crime! How dare he, how dare he how dare he how dare he—
—and she takes another breath, noticeably feels her body relax, the rain no longer warm as it splashes off her clothes.
"Regardless of my current appearance, regardless of the circumstances surrounding my return, I am Kaga. My hull and my crew were loyal servants of Japan and the Emperor. In my previous life, my present life, and all those that should follow, I would never deliberately put Japanese citizens in harm's way. I am no Abyssal, I am no traitor."
Gouda seems taken aback by this response. He opens his mouth to try to get another word in, but Kaga refuses to relent.
"Even if there is no Empire, even if I am seventy-six years late to report for duty, I am a loyal servant of Japan."
The camera flashes refuse to stop, and for a moment she is blinded, eyes struggling to adjust to the miniature suns flaring before her. She does see Gouda backing away from her, trying his damnedest to blend in with the crowd once more, and despite herself a small smile forms on her lips.
Admiral Goto has her attention now. His expression is difficult to read in all the light, but somehow she knows that he is as pleased about her words as she is. He nods curtly to her—and his hand shoots down to his smart phone once more. A moment passes, and then without a word he cuts through the crowd to a door next to the gate, flanked by two JGSDF men. Kongou takes position ahead of them, effortlessly moving civilians aside. Kongou and Goto are both in a full sprint by the time they reach the door.
Suddenly, Akagi and Kaga are alone and just as suddenly her confidence seems to vanish in the same direction Goto traveled.
"Admiral Goto must attend to matters inside the base proper," Akagi calls out, loud enough that the crowd is immediately cowed into silence. "I will be conducting the remainder of this unscheduled press conference." There is no small amount of emphasis placed on 'unscheduled' as she points to the closest reporter.
"Ah—yes, thank you. Fujikawa Mamoru, from the Sankei." The man bows several times in Kaga's direction while clearing his throat. "Nationalist groups have been taking an interest in Kanmusu since their return to service. Have you been briefed on these groups? Does the military consider them a threat to national security?"
"My apologies, but I have not been briefed on the extent of Japan's situation—"
'He's trying to get you to openly support nationalists groups, Kaga-san. Like everything else, it's... very complicated.'
For a moment, Kaga swears that Akagi's voice crackles through old radio speakers somewhere in the back of her mind. When she looks over to Akagi, she notices her tapping the lengthy flight deck mounted to her right arm, more specifically the bridge superstructure jutting up from it.
'You can stop the interview any time you want, with just a thought to me. If you do decide to answer, try to be... measured about your response.'
"Miss Kaga?"
"I do not see any reason why one should not be proud of their nation, regardless of its past."
Akagi visibly winces.
"Thank you, ma'am!" The reporter appears excited with Kaga's response, happily tapping away at another damnable smartphone. A cold knot grows in her stomach as more cameras flash around her; she has chosen poorly. There's no time to further clarify or justify her words, the man blending back into the crowd of bodies and faces as Akagi points to another raised hand from another reporter, eager to have her own moment with the returned Kaga.
"Kaga-san, how do you feel about working with the American Seventh Fleet based here in Yokosuka?"
"My feelings on the subject have no bearing on the orders I will receive and follow." Kaga frowns at the woman who offered the question. "I have been told that the United States are our military allies during this current crisis, therefore I shall co-operate with them."
"Given your history do you believe they can be trusted?"
-
There are two answers to the follow-up question.
The first that immediately springs to Kaga's mind is borne from experience, from history.
She doesn't trust the Americans, by all rights she shouldn't. In the hours she has been alive and conscious of the world around her, she has read things, terrible things about the war leading up to Japan's defeat. She, once considered the pride of a long-dead empire, was personally bested by the "weak-willed" Americans at one of the most critical battles of the entire war. She awoke reliving her own final moments, burning down to her own water line, scuttled by her own escorts.
Though her body is different, she cannot deny what she was and is: a warship that fought against the people she is now expected to cooperate with. It defies everything she returned to this world believing. The collective memory of what she embodies, the men who served aboard her proudly, recoil with outrage.
Defeated, humiliated, and now forced to rely on the conquerors to protect the citizens they once bombed to oblivion?
If she admitted that she hated them, if she admitted fear of them, nobody could possibly blame her.
This response is what the reporter wants her to say.
Kaga has not lived long as a person, she does not know everything she needs to know about the world, but she does know when someone wants something of her.
This answer she keeps to herself.
-
"From what I have been informed of our situation," Kaga begins carefully, walking around Akagi towards the reporter, "I understand that Japan is not the only nation to have been attacked by the Abyssals. This is an enemy that does not discriminate; this is another world war." With each step Kaga takes the doubt clouding her mind melts away. Her voice grows in volume. "We are cut off from the sea lanes, and our military might does not begin to approach that of the greatest heights we ever achieved. The issue is not trust."
Less than a meter separates Kaga from the reporter. She towers over the shivering woman, staring down into her eyes with a smile as she leans closer.
"Admiral Goto has said that they are our allies, he has said to me that the war I fought is over, and I believe him. If this means I must fight alongside Americans, then I shall join Akagi, Kongou, and all other ships who have returned, and I will fight without reservation for Japan once more. Please accept my answer on the matter."
Kaga is now eye to eye with the reporter. After a long moment, the woman withers under the Kanmusu's gaze, retreating to the safety of the crowd, her head bowed with shame or anger. No one dares to speak, even as Kaga stares into the throng delivering some unspoken challenge.
It's then that Kaga decides she has had enough of this interview. She is tired of being expected to say specific things in specific ways. She is tired of being asked about concerns that should have died before any of these men and women were conceived.
A glance at Akagi is enough to see that she more than agrees, and with that Kaga bows low to her captivated audience.
"There is still so much I need to become familiar with, and a situation regarding Shimakaze I must assist the Admiral with. Excuse me."
For a moment, she swears that some of the reporters nod sympathetically. The Shimakaze problem is apparently a regular and troublesome one.
Akagi leads Kaga through the sea of reporters to the waiting cadre of JGSDF soldiers, questions shouted in their wake. They ignore them all... until one catches attention just as she reaches the threshold separating the outside world from the interior of Fleet Activities Yokosuka:
"Do you like the Japan of today?"
Stopping in place, Kaga turns to the person who asked it: an elderly man, out of place among the younger, fresher faces that dominate the journalists. There is something hawkish about him, something fearless. A throwback to the man she encountered in Kobe, a throwback to pilots manning their planes.
"I do." To that, he smiles.
After another bow, she turns away once more, a barrage of camera flashes chasing her and Akagi until the guards close the gate behind them. They share a sigh of relief the moment they are out of sight of the public.
"You did well, Kaga-san."
"I wish I had done better."
The flightdeck-armguard and bow that Akagi had brandished before the reporters vanish into thin air, diffusing into a small cloud of rapidly fading viridescent embers. She waves a hand through the glowing ether, banishing it into the rain and mist around them. Somewhere in the distance, somewhere very close, a klaxon sounds, and a crew is ordered to stand down.
Somehow, it's all familiar to Kaga.
"It's a kind of magic." Akagi offers a knowing smile. "Interesting first day, yes?"
-
There will be no briefing tonight, no chance to formally be introduced to the many ships that have returned to service; the hunt for the oddly-dressed courtesan called Shimakaze took far longer than anyone is willing to believe or admit. She'd been found literally on the other side of the entire base, running laps on a "personally designed course" that thankfully and miraculously kept her away from anyone possessing curiosity and a camera.
The search party has long since gone their separate ways. Kongou had escaped with the Admiral the moment it was made clear that Shimakaze was going to find some real clothes. Shiranui was the last to leave both carrier-girls to their own devices, hurrying off to her own quarters with one final apology for any mistake that lead to the current circumstances.
Alone, they walk mostly in silence, though Akagi giggles to herself every now and then.
The barracks is a welcome sight; the comforting warmth inside is even more welcome. They check in with a US Marine standing guard at the front desk, though at first there is some confusion over the unfamiliar woman accompanying Akagi. A phone call to Goto is enough to clear things up.
"Sorry 'bout that, Miss Uhkawgi-sawn, ya'll know how it is."
"It's no trouble, Sergeant, thank you for taking care of us!" Akagi bows politely, and the Marine actually blushes.
"Well...heh..." He grins tiredly at Kaga. "Welcome back Miss Kawguh-sawn, if ya'll need anythin' there's Muhreens 'n yer self-defense types on duty, twuhnneyfoahseben, an' I can keep th' library open fer ya after hours, kinda uh thing we dew fer new arraaahvals." He half-bows awkwardly in his seat, realizes this is ridiculous, then stands to salute-bow. He offers a sheepish "Have a good one" and returns to his seat.
It takes a moment for Kaga to process it all. Two Japanese aircraft carriers walked into a building guarded by Yank—US Marines in a base built on Japanese soil, and a mere phone call was enough to banish any misunderstandings. He was armed, yet showed far less aggression than any of the JGSDF she'd encountered up to this point. If anything he was relaxed.
Akagi tries to explain the nature of the alliance as they leave the security desk. Apparently, with the oceans completely unsafe for commercial or military traffic, the American Seventh Fleet is more or less "stuck" at Yokosuka. The obvious solution was to make the best use of their presence, combining them with the disproportionately large number of Kanmusu that Japan found itself blessed with. It was one of the most important strategic alliances in the Pacific despite the obvious awkwardness it also came with.
"So, the Americans have their own Kanmusu?"
"They do... though at the moment we've only ever seen them on television, or on reports we've received. There are rumors that we may see them here in the future, but for now it's only rumors. The help would be most appreciated, I should think!"
Kaga decides to keep her thoughts on that 'help' to herself.
-
Familiar names are found on placards posted nearly every door they pass. Some are familiar, ships like Shoukaku and Zuikaku of the Fifth Carrier Division. Maikaze, Nowaki, ships who were there for a certain day in June all those years ago. Some of the doors only have one name to them, but most rooms appear to be occupied by pairs.
Behind some of the doors, Kaga hears laughter, and behind others there is whispering. Some are unmarked, waiting for their returnees.
They walk, and walk, until two flights of stairs upwards later, they arrive at a door at the end of one final corridor. Its placard also has two names stenciled onto it, the most familiar of all.
加賀 Kaga
赤城 Akagi
"I had this made months ago, thinking it would help in some way. I came back without you, or anyone else of the Kidô Butai. I wanted to believe you all would return soon. Even though I was alone, I believed it wouldn't be forever."
"I see..."
Akagi had suffered while she slept.
So many ships had returned to battle this new foe, while Kaga merely slept. Goto offered her a way out of serving, and she could have taken it. She could have refused the summons, and Akagi would still be here, at Yokosuka, suffering for Japan.
'I wanted to abandon her to all this.'
"It must have been... difficult," Kaga whispers, trembling with sudden anger.
"I managed. There were close calls, but I managed. A-and eventually, Shoukaku appeared, saved my life. And Zuikaku appeared soon after that. So many other girls like us, appearing all across Japan. You would be here soon, that's what I thought." Akagi brushes her fingers across 加賀, and then to 赤城, tracing the characters as though she was writing them herself. She leans into the door, pressing her forehead against the names.
"I always did this, every time I attended a summons. It finally worked. Finally... It's just hard to believe even after spending so much time with you today—"
Akagi's shoulders shake as she fights through a sob. Kaga remains silent, unsure of what to say. She rests a comforting hand on her back, another borrowed gesture from another person from another time, but one that feels right to her in that moment. One that Akagi desperately needed.
"I've requested others, for Hiryuu-san and Souryuu-san," Akagi continued gamely, turning around with a bright, if forced smile. "For every one of us at Midway. I want to believe they will return, just as you and I have. We'll be together again, and we'll help push these monsters back, and we can start thinking about what comes afterwards." Without looking, Akagi unlocks the door and pushes it wide open. "You can choose to live alone, with another of the returned, and I won't hold it against you, but—"
Kaga passes through the threshold, her eyes darting about as she scans the room; Akagi rapidly stammers through an explanation for the mess that isn't actually present.
Two futons lay at the center of the traditionally-styled tatami mat floor. In one corner, a dresser for clothes placed next to a walk-in closet. Book shelves line another wall, filled with all manner of Japanese and English texts. In the corner opposite to the dresser, a large flat-screen sits atop a black entertainment center, a small stack of thin, blue plastic cases teetering dangerously off balance next to the display. The top-most case reads 'Space Battleship Yamato', something that Kaga feels she must ask about another time.
"This is our home?" Kaga asks, interrupting Akagi's panicked excuses.
"I-It can be, if that's y-your decision."
"...may I use the futon on the right?"
"O-Of course you can," Akagi says, hugging her fiercely from behind.
She is warmth and softness given physical form, the complete opposite of the steel-hulled projection of naval air-power they once were, utterly wrong—but Kaga allows it, resting her head against Akagi's, letting her support her weight.
"Then it's mine, Akagi."
"Welcome home, Kaga."
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