Chapter 41
WarpObscura
Sleepy Big Stick
- Location
- A dot at the edge of continental Asia.
Authors' Notes: Support this story via Warp's Ko-Fi at https://ko-fi.com/2375DDLLGBXNI .
Yorktown was waiting outside CAPT Zelben's office door after Ayaka finished meeting with him the first day of her return to active duty. "Io—Aya—Shirokaze, a word?"
Ayaka blinked dumbly at the other shipgirl consciously using her human rather than ship name. Trying to buy time to think of something, she asked, "You got your remodel?"
Yorktown nodded. "Most of the amalgam have." Her Y-shaped barrette was no longer present. She now had a high-collared blue capelet over her original sleeveless sailor blouse. A piece of grey cloth modelled after her original flight deck went down the centre of her front, over the blouse but under the scarf. The hiding of previously-displayed cleavage clearly wasn't out of decency concerns if the new Shimakazesque protruding straps of black highleg panties were any indication. There was a two-buckled belt at the bottom of her blouse, while another belt with two X-marked blue discs for buckles held up her miniskirt. Speaking of said skirt, it was now white with blue trim. She was now wearing black pantyhose and her boots were now white with grey tongues.
Most noticeable of all, though, was the strikingly abyssal-like way glowing blue smoke came out of her left eye.
After a while, Ayaka realised she was staring. Before she could apologise for it, though, she noticed Yorktown was staring right back at the scar splitting her face.
Yorktown's gaze lingered on the scar for a few moments more before she turned to walk back to her office. The room in question had not changed noticeably since Ayaka had last seen it and was still as Spartan as before. Yorktown's beret, hanging from the old rack like the last time, had gained a pair of blue feathers, though, and a crumpled abyssal pamphlet that said "Humanity needs your country. Destroy Japan today" lay on the desk. It tingled faintly with the remnant supernal traces of something disarmed. "Welcome back. It's good to see that your repairs have been completed."
"Thank you," Ayaka said.
"Abyssal activity has been returning to normal, even if we haven't seen any Jötnar since the last attack, so it's good timing. I believe Captain Zelben told you that there are some things I need to go over with you?"
"Yes."
"Before I say anything else, you need to know that the singing to West Virginia has been discontinued."
"Wha---"
Then the implications hit Ayaka, and she grimaced, glad that she hadn't encountered the older battleship on her way in.
Yorktown didn't immediately continue, though her face twitched in ways that suggested she was trying and failing to find the right words. Ayaka had no idea what to make of Yorktown of all people being indecisive and tongue-tied.
After an uncharacteristically prolonged period of silence, Yorktown got up, hung a Do Not Disturb sign on the office door and closed it. There was the brief, barely-audible whine of an anti-snooping ward activating, and when she returned to her seat, her face sagged with guilt no longer hidden. "I tried to tender my resignation."
Of all the things Ayaka had been expecting to hear, that was very far from the top of the list. "Eh?"
"I told Captain Zelben that I was no longer qualified to lead Uatu, much less TFVPP operations. Not after the failure of the Southeast Asian campaign."
Under normal circumstances, Ayaka would have objected to the use of the term "failure", given that TFV had managed the liberation of Borneo, east coast Peninsular Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore before Enterprise had intervened. Granted, their staying liberated was now in doubt. Under these, the thought didn't cross her mind. "He refused?"
"He refused. I don't understand why he did. Aren't you supposed to recuse yourself when there's a conflict of interest?"
"Yes? Didn't he explain?"
"He said there wasn't anyone that could be parachuted in to replace me. A whole lot of bull. I checked with NPC and we're definitely not that shorthanded."
Ayaka thought it over. "Maybe what he meant was that there's no one qualified to replace you."
Yorktown shook her head disbelievingly. "No way. That can't be right. Surely anyone can be preferable to me."
Ayaka's lips twitched as she fought back a frown and deigned to comment, but instead made "go on" gestures.
"I went up to Admiral Abel next. She too refused the resignation."
There was a long pause, during which the two of them just looked at each other in awkward silence. Eventually, Ayaka asked, "Why are you telling me all this?"
"Who else can I tell?" Yorktown's face and voice reflected her naked frustration. "Who else is going to understand, if our superiors won't?" She put on an exaggerated falsetto at the same time as her face shaped into an equally plastic smile. "Oh, your sister is now almost literal Hitler, a traitor to surpass Benedict Arnold who's ordering around weapons that have taken the lives of millions, but no judgment, that's not going to count against you!" The fake smile now openly soured. "Give me a break. No, a therapist's not going to be good, if there's even anyone Yamashiro cleared to know about Enterprise." She couldn't keep a tinge of self-loathing out of her voice on saying the name. "Was there really no one around, that I could even say that…"
"Essex and Princeton?"
"The other element leaders? They wouldn't understand. Neither would Hammann."
"Maryland and West Virginia?"
Yorktown shook her head. "Nevada and Pennsylvania are cousins at best to them, and they didn't even fight each other directly. It's not the same."
"Augusta?"
Yorktown briefly looked at Ayaka with confusion. "Who---oh." It took her a moment to remember the heavy cruiser cursed with not one but two sisters known to be fighting against humanity. "No. We're both Summoned. It'd just be the blind leading the blind. You're my XO and an—a—"
Ayaka tilted her head. "An exhuman?"
Yorktown frowned. "I was going to use the Papa Charlie term, but yes. You're the only one who would really understand these… human things."
"I'm not… Look, I was badly affected enough by lose---by losing Yamashiro that I---I… I'm not qualified to help you."
"I don't know if there's anyone actually qualified. Whether there is doesn't matter anyway. I just need someone I can speak with about this. I told you a long time ago that I didn't need any sunken heroes, and now… now… I don't know anymore." Yorktown's head dropped into her hands and she continued mumbling through them. "Have you ever wished you could just… return to ship? No awareness, no agency, no need to think or feel? Just do what the crew makes you do, no need to pretend you have a choice?"
Ayaka raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You mean willingly give in to the Ship?"
"Yes. Stop pretending I can play at being human and fill Admiral Fletcher or Captains McWhortin or Buckmaster's shoes."
"Even if I wanted to, I can't. Even had I not married Uileag, I would still have family I can't just turn my back on in order to give of myself fully. Historical derivations aside, you Summoned start out tabula rasa, with nothing to tie you down and distract you from the mission. Not like most Natural Borns."
"Frails would say that helps you find a reason to fight, buddy… or something."
"It didn't do me any good."
Yorktown grunted noncommittally.
"Are you asking because---is that why… why the…"
"My left eye?" Yorktown raised her head enough to expose her eyes and the smoke emitted by the left one.
Ayaka nodded. "Vestal's… Vestalness aside, she wouldn't be so sloppy with your remodel as to inadequately contain your supernal waveform, would she?"
"Where'd you hear that?"
Ayaka looked confused. "Charlie and Wee Vee?"
"Right." Yorktown's lips curled self-effacingly, not noticing that it couldn't be seen through her hands. "The two with over-spec warforms. Yes, it came out that way. I told her not to bother fixing it. It doesn't hinder my vision, so I chose to keep it as a reminder of how I've failed. Is it the same with your scar?"
Ayaka resisted the urge to touch that which had been mentioned. "... Yes."
"By the way, are you going to become a shipyard?"
Ayaka was bewildered by the non sequitur that was hitting too close to home. A quick mental review later, she noted that she hadn't broached the topic with Yorktown yet, meaning the other shipgirl had somehow thought of it on her own. "Eh?"
"Humans have biological imperatives, right?"
"You just recognised I'm an exhuman."
"You know what I mean."
Ayaka twirled still-regrowing hair around a finger contemplatively. When she spoke, there was a tinge of disgust. "I'm not sure 'biological imperative' has meant much to most of mankind for a long time."
Yorktown barked out something that could only charitably be called laughter. "I've noticed. That said, everything that's happened to us is the sort of thing that makes one rethink priorities, isn't it?"
"For a human, yes," Ayaka ventured. She pressed her fingers into her palms hard enough to feel the bite of the nails in preparation for ripping the band-aid off again. "You're right, though. I can't afford to be tardy on the continuation of the bloodline after… my failures."
"Oh." Yorktown winced. "To even think about that, I must really be getting influenced by these frails' things." She paused, a look of realization overtaking her face. "Did Captain Zelben say anything?"
Ayaka thought back to the meeting just before.
"That's all I have for you today. If there's nothing else, you can go."
"There's one more thing, Sir. After…" Ayaka squeezed the chair's armrests, face setting with forced determination. "After everything that's happened, I can't afford to wait any longer to have a child."
Something flashed quickly over Zelben's face. Had she had her full faculties, she would have been able to catch it, but she wasn't fully up to speed yet after everything that had happened in the past few months. "Go ahead," he then said.
Of all the things Ayaka had been expecting, unquestioning acceptance hadn't been one of them, and her resolve faltered. "Sir? Aren't you… going to question my choices? Raise stronger objections? Lecture me about the core values or responsibility or something?"
"After everything you've done for us…" The flash occurred again. Now knowing to look out for it, this time Ayaka was able to identify a distant look of pain and sorrow. It was the most in the way of open weakness she had ever seen from Zelben. "How can we hate you, to be doing that? You have given so much to your country, and no one has the right to ask any more of you. Not me."
"Your medical results are fine," Vestal said. "Still are. Doc Westenra says your psych profile is within acceptable tolerances. Not spotting any problems from the recent update to the CIC firewalls either. Aren't you glad you no longer need to worry about vulnerability to little cog-hazs like panicking from a Thorsub?"
Ayaka looked dubiously at the repair shipgirl across the table in the NAVSTA Everett medical facility's consultation room. "Are you really sure there won't be any issues?"
"When I gave you the all-clear to return to active duty, I meant it. I might be the fun one of the extended family, but I take my job seriously." Vestal rolled her eyes. "Look, even one percent of your shaft horsepower rating is over a thousand times the power a frail can output. If any of us actually had such a problem with shipbuilding, the new construction would have failed just from your stationkeeping power alone."
"That's not reassuring," Ayaka said. The human in her found the casual dismissal of the possibility of miscarriage distasteful.
Vestal sighed. "Why're you even fussing about this? If you really want some excuse to stay beached for the next year," her expression briefly twisted in a way that made clear her opinion of that, "I'm sure I could come up with something, but you don't actually want to, do you?"
"Eh? What makes you think so?" Ayaka asked, confused.
"You'd have tried harder to find some way of delaying your return to service. There're plenty of ways if you really wanted to. Even something as simple as drawing out the therapy, tests and rehab would have gotten you a few more weeks if not months, and I'm sure you could have thought of more. You didn't."
"These are both my missions," Ayaka said sombrely. "I can't compromise one for the sake of the other."
"Good for you," Vestal said, now beaming with approval. "I still think you're worrying over nothing, though. Frails might be the kind of porcelain that breaks from falling its own height and loses to what it stubs on, but we're made to withstand far greater stresses. I know our very existence is proof of higher powers, and I'm skeptical of the ludicrously long odds demanded by evolution, but I doubt the intelligence of any alleged creator entity; it doesn't make any sense for something to be so haphazardly and poorly engineered as to be unable to survive the rigours of day-to-day functioning. Don't sweat it!"
Ayaka forced a smile; if Vestal noticed, she was atypically considerate enough to not point it out. "I'll try. What about the remodel, though?"
Vestal frowned. "I know you want to get up to date with the rest of your amalgam, and so do I, but the resilience of the hull in the face of the expected rigours of normal operation is one thing. The effects of carrying out a remodel in your current condition are another. Down to your drives and up to your CIC and almost everything in between will be altered and improved. It's not a risk I want to take right now."
The convoy left Everett and entered open water uneventfully.
Not that that said much. If the situation devolved to the point that even the Salish Sea was being contested, things were really FUBAR.
TransMat use, while having been successfully tested by this point, still remained inefficient enough as to not be adequate replacement for conventional shipping yet. Farcasting, even more so.
Ayaka had been told in no uncertain terms by Yorktown that if she experienced any discomfort or performance issues, she needed to inform the rest immediately. She was of two minds on this. The sensible side of her that was worried about miscarrying appreciated the concern. However, there was another part of her, perhaps more in tune with the Ship, that resented being treated like a glass sculpture.
After Uatu One was relieved, resupplied, maintained, and finished with its admin matters, Ayaka decided she wanted to start the voyage right with an early night and headed to her bunk.
Half an hour later, she was still awake.
She was already missing Uileag.
She closed her eyes and tried once more to relax and clear her mind.
She had not gone long before getting struck by a vivid sinking feeling. Her mind now very much not clear and thinking she was floundering, she grabbed for the edges of the bunk, forcing open her eyes and down the Ship's instinctual desire to summon rigging.
She lay still for a while, inexplicably gasping for air despite having no physical basis for doing so. Even as she recovered her breath, though, she realised she had briefly glimpsed at the solution to her problem.
"Listen to the thread's voice."
The most fundamental teaching of the Shirokaze Shrine was also its most difficult. Transcending the surface-level impressions of reality that insisted that threads don't talk was but the first step, something Ayaka had learnt long before she had come to know of her true nature. It underpinned everything else. Regardless of certification from Kogakkan or Kokugakuin or rote (heh) mastery of the rituals, it was grasping and reflecting this understanding in deed that allowed one to rise from apprentice to full shinshoku in the Shirokaze ways. Already some of the aspirants she had previously seen had been found incapable. Ichiyo had had to inform them with heavy heart that this meant that they would never rise beyond apprentice were they to try staying on instead of accepting an otherwise glowing recommendation letter to take to a different shrine that they might have affinity with. Regrettable though it might be, no master of a secular craft could in good conscience call qualified an apprentice who could not grasp the core of his teachings. This was no different.
Forcibly centering herself and bringing her breath back into an even pace, Ayaka closed her eyes again and deliberately sought out the sinking feeling. The Ship protested, but this time being on purpose, she was able to control her response, start letting herself go and descend. Falling beneath the surface painted by her physical senses, then past the first subsurface layer with its initiate-level practices that were wielded as reflexively as any mundane skill, she let herself hang in the mental so-to-speak underwater space, drifting. Whether "underwater" or on board Tripoli, her surroundings pounded, pulsed and vibrated with background sound and sensation, but she let it wash over her, trying to locate what she was after.
There.
Standing out against the tapestry of reality was the so-to-speak thread of supernal sidelink joining her and Uileag. That must have been how her—Ayaka felt a twinge of instinctive unease at the thought of "near-death experience", made herself recognise the irrationality of it, and put it aside. Yes, tapping said sidelink in the midst of apparent sinking must have been how she had sent out what she had thought to be a premortem message. She'd known all about needing to reach beneath the surface of reality since young and about the existence of the link between themselves since shortly after her Reawakening, but it had taken such an extraordinary event to put two and two together and advance in her understanding of the malleability of Space.
She took a moment to make sure of what was on the other side, then pulled herself along it.
Uileag nearly leapt when Ayaka's unmistakable weight and warmth settled onto their bed beside him.
"Oh." Ayaka reopened her eyes, surprised too, and giggled awkwardly with relief. "It really worked."
"Ayaka?! What are you doing here?'" His expression twisted with alarm and fear. The now-alien way Ayaka's amusement sounded probably didn't help. "Don't tell me you---"
"No, Uiui, I'm not—not dying right now. Not like I'm going to fight in my nighties." She made something vaguely like a sardonic chuckle as she curled up around him. "I just figured out how… what happened that time and used it to project myself here. It takes too long to get myself in the right headspace when doing it consciously, though. Maybe… no idea if it'd get any faster as I familiarise myself, but I doubt I'd be replicating myself in combat like Shimakaze can."
He looked at her dubiously. "Like your own katawaredoki anytime?"
"... Yes?"
"Are you here or there then?"
"Both? I don't know how to describe it in… normal people language." She could both feel the shipboard bunk and the bed in the Washington home as well as Uileag's absence/presence, see both cabin and bedroom, smell simultaneously him and more distantly the lingering traces of her bunkmate. Even with the mind-splitting functionality Yorktown et. al had taught, the dual experience was still surreal. "Anyway, just let me hang until I fall asleep, and then I'll poof right back and stop bothering you."
After a few moments of the not unwelcome feeling of her pressing into him, Uileag asked dryly, "You sure it's not a nightcap you're after?"
Ayaka pouted. "I'm not that desperate, Uiui."
It was after repelling the first abyssal raid of the journey that Ayaka decided she was that desperate after all.
"Make me whole again, Uiui," she said the next time he was available.
Uileag facepalmed. "Is not having to worry about safe days any longer making you like this? How did you ever get by without?"
"That was then, and the Sierra Mikes never cared anyway."
"This is totally going to end well," he deadpanned.
"We've had worse, you know," Ayaka replied dismissively.
"That's not as reassuring as you seem to think it is."
"I know you're not an active seafarer currently, but if the other shipgirls - most of whom are Summoned - can successfully recruit at sea, why would it be a problem for us? My roomie's definitely not going to be the issue."
"That's really not as reassuring as you seem to think it is."
"I can wait till after reaching Japan if you want."
Uileag thought it over for a while, then scoffed. "No, the fact that you're asking at all means you can't." The expression on her face was a dead giveaway as to her need and not making her any more convincing.
"If it's a problem, you really don't need to."
"No, it's not." It didn't help that the look she had was making his need for her stir. "Now hurry up."
It felt right.
It felt so right to be made whole once more, the aching void within finally filled. Ayaka found surreal the thought that she had gone weeks, even months without before. Offerings beyond requirement made to Shitori no Kami notwithstanding, she wondered how she had ever managed. "That's so much better," she whispered, dreamy with delight.
"This makes no sense," Uileag muttered, previous irritability having melted into a pleasant spaciness, into her ear. "My body says you're here, but what I'm getting from yours is telling me two different things at the same time. It's making my head hurt. I'm not enjoying this as much as I should be."
Apart from that little hiccup.
The release still successfully provided Ayaka with a topup to her crew and power, no different either in terms of sensation or quantity provisioned from any previous recruitment. The burying of light deep within that was still the best thing ever, just as beautiful, blissful, hot and powerful as usual, was a welcome cherry on top.
As for Uileag, his extant reservations vanished after he first gave of himself this time, replaced with a dreamy peace. With Ayaka back in control, there were no more dire aftereffects. Better still, beyond the physical pleasure, he couldn't deny that coaxing now all too rare genuine joy out of his wife made this worth it.
None of the previous arrivals in Japan were exactly accompanied by hero's welcomes or cheering crowds. However, the grey clouds and drizzle that greeted Uatu and the convoy when it reached Tokyo Bay at midday were hardly confidence-inspiring.
At least this proved that the sight alone of FLEACT Yokosuka wasn't a trigger, Ayaka mused glumly.
The joy and empathy of the Japanese Natural Borns at seeing her up and about was, to be blunt, a bit off-putting. She didn't say it aloud, though. She definitely didn't feel like she deserved it, but she wasn't insensitive enough to appear an ingrate. Anyone who successfully peered into her mind would know how things really were, but she wasn't going to just make it obvious. That said, most of the Summoned didn't regard her any differently, as Vestal had assured her. Just replaceable materiel, that's what they all ultimately were.
Speaking of joy and empathy, it hadn't escaped Ayaka's notice that Mina had been shamefacedly doing her best to avoid unnecessary contact throughout the entire voyage. She had also observed Naga…mine's absence from the forces escorting the convoy into Tokyo Bay.
By the time admin matters were done, it was evening. Though the sky was still mostly overcast, every now and then the sun peeked through, sending out diffraction spikes like a great winking eye. Ayaka's path took her through the junction with the turnoff leading to the Yokosuka Memorial Wall, and she stopped in her tracks when she realised where exactly she was. After some hesitation, she turned to go there.
She had barely reached the memorial room before she started regretting having done so.
The memorial room was not small by human standards. By the standards of shipgirls that could engage with optical targeting at over ten kilometers, it was nothing.
To Ayaka, who was personally responsible for a name being on the walls and knew multiple others now there, it was suffocatingly small. Not helping in the slightest was who was present.
Nakahara was standing in front of the wall straight ahead. The sole other present, she was looking directly at Yamashiro's marker.
Ayaka froze in place the moment she saw, but the other shipgirl showed no sign of having noticed her. There was no indication of any active sensor having painted her either, not that that meant anything considering the variety of passives available.
Never before had she been so acutely aware of what it meant to experience deafening silence.
The awkward moment stretched out, during which Nakahara was apparently focused enough on Yamashiro's marker as to not move a muscle. Eventually, it got to be too much to bear, so Ayaka took a careful step back and turned to leave before anything could happen.
{Godai-sensei?}
It was exactly at that moment that Nakahara spoke.
Ayaka froze again. Hesitantly, she carefully turned around to see Nakahara standing primly there. There was a faint touch of concern, as well as something vaguely haunted, marring the usual faint Mona Lisa smile.
Immediately, Ayaka took up the dogeza, falling to her face and knees in kowtow swiftly and heavily enough as to be heard, if not enough to damage the floor. "Owabi mōshiagemasu! Kokoro kara owabi mōshiagemasu!" She did not hesitate in using the most serious and formal expression of apology that Japanese had. Her subsequent words were also delivered in the most honorific form. {I humbly apologise from the bottom of my heart for getting Yamashiro-san sunk because of my failure! I humbly apologise for my incompetence that your sister had to give her life to rectify! I know that nothing I can do will make up for it! I know that it cannot be forgiven!}
Surprise flickered across Nakahara's face upon seeing Ayaka kowtow to her. She didn't outright break into an undignified run, but her steps were swift as she made her way to Ayaka and bent to extend a hand. {Godai-sensei, please get up. You weren't the one to harm my younger sister. Enterprise was the one responsible for the attack. Yamashiro chose of her own accord how to defend us from that which actually killed her.}
Ayaka didn't take it, didn't even dare presume the right to meet her eyes. {No, if not for my failure, that choice wouldn't even have existed. If I had gotten it right, there wouldn't have been a need to make that choice at all. If I had at least given everything, no one else would have needed to die in my place.}
{It wasn't your fault,} Nakahara said gently. {Continued regret is only going to hurt you further for nothing when what you did has already cost you so much. You still almost died despite that. You can't go back far enough to change it.}
Go back far enough—
The word association that had been brought on made the diffracting sunlight from before reappear in Ayaka's mind's eye, and an ember of hope lit in her as she looked up with a sudden sharpness that caught Nakahara off guard. {Wait, Nakahara-sensei! There's still something you can do!}
The waiting room outside the summoning chambers was sizable, objectively speaking. It had to be in order to fit the numbers whose attendance was required, especially on the occasions when multiple summonses were to take place.
To Ayaka, sitting on a bench against a wall all by herself, it felt threateningly titanic. That no sound escaped the summoning chambers, leaving her in near-total silence, didn't help. The building's distance from the rest of the base, ostensibly intended to provide a buffer that would imbue it with tranquility untroubled by the hustle and bustle of military operation, now only made it feel desolate. The warmth of summer seemed so far away.
Despite the frantic, veritably verbal diarrhea way she had blurted out her idea, Nakahara had agreed to it with less skepticism than she had been expecting. The other shipgirl had gone straight to Yuubari and requested the use of a summoning chamber for the employment of the resource stash that had been first mentioned all the way back at the first tea ceremony. Given the light cruiser's past as a testbed, she had been quite happy to let the harebrained scheme proceed. That had not been the problem.
What had been the problem was the misfortune of running into two of J-BatDiv Two's escorting destroyers along the way. If it had just been the sad-eyed destroyer with the braid, that wouldn't have been an issue. She was taciturn and not prone to making a fuss. Unfortunately, the other one - a prickly, brown(?)-eyed brunette, hair worn in a combination of buns and twintails, that Ayaka had never been close with - had not been quite so accepting, and had given Ayaka a doubting gimlet eye all the way up till the point where the door to the summoning chamber had been closed behind the three.
More than an hour passed. Gradually, the orange and purple of katawaredoki gave way to the grey of oncoming night. It was only then that Nakahara and the two destroyers emerged from the summoning chamber.
Ayaka stood up. {Did it work?} She asked anxiously.
The head of the destroyer with the buns snapped up to look right at her, exactly like a turret that had found a target, and then she Stepped forward, emerging screaming with right fist flying. "TEME!"
Ayaka's hung Acceleration activated immediately in response to the threat, giving her way more than enough time to sidestep and put the attacker through the wall behind, but in the temporally-altered frame of reference she saw light glint off the tear trails contrasting sharply with the snarling, bare-toothed fury. The despair that drained hope like so much water down a sink left her standing there in realization as the fist inched its way closer.
The fist crashed into her face, and with the shrieking and snapping of tortured metal, broke.
The destroyer screamed as much in agony as in anger. {LIAR!} Even as the right hand started repairing, her left fist came up, aiming for the gut. It was an oddly human gesture, as if trying to go for the soft belly instead of the face with its hard bone. Against another shipgirl, it made no difference, and that hand shattered too.
The punches weren't strong enough to hurt Ayaka, or even to make her move significantly. Under the circumstances, even that tiny bit was enough that she collapsed back onto the bench bonelessly, no longer able to stand there realising.
The destroyer was still incandescently infuriated, if the continued screaming was any indication. {You liar! Liar! Fucking liar cunt! You lied to us that you could give us Yamashiro-san back! You lied that by wishing on an offering containing a portion of Yamashiro-san's soul, we could see her again!} Will and wrath shaped her aura into fists unconstrained by the frailty of flesh and steel as she resumed punching. {Temetemetemeteme…!} Then she became literally so as righteous rage overflowed like afterburner and became fuel for something that would get through Ayaka's defences. Her aura grew and grew and grew some more, expanded to encompass and then surpass her entire body, and she was so far beyond furious that she didn't bother hiding it.
{Don't,} Nakahara said as she approached from behind the destroyer and put a hand on her shoulder, the faintest sheen of her own aura pushing through the other's. To a stranger, it was a gentle word and gesture, indistinguishable from any she might have made normally. To those who knew her well, there was solid steel beneath the silk.
The destroyer froze at the touch halfway through a punch. {Fu—fu—Fusou-san, why? Why? Why won't you let me punish that one's failure and falsehoods as she deserves?}
There was a flash of lightning, followed shortly by a peal of thunder. The rain returned, now heavier and louder than before.
Yuubari walked up beside them, and Nakahara turned at the scrape of her shoes. Their eyes met and the former raised an eyebrow. The sad-eyed braided destroyer silently trailed behind her.
Nakahara subtly shook her head.
Yuubari nodded with understanding and left.
Nakahara turned back to the crier. Her words were delivered with the same even, unperturbed tone as always. {Why do you say that Godai-sensei needs to be punished?}
A disbelieving gasp. {Fusou-san! What do you mean?! That one caused Yamashiro-san's sinking!}
{Do you really think so?}
{Yes!}
{Not Enterprise?}
Another disbelieving gasp. {Of course Enterprise must pay too!}
{Why then do you say Godai-sensei needs to be punished for what Enterprise did?}
{It's not—not about what Enterprise did! Not just about what Enterprise did! It's what Iowa did!} The destroyer's tone made clear that, like with Enterprise, the lack of honorific was out of deliberate disrespect rather than familiarity. {Because of her failure, Yamashiro-san sank to make up for it!}
Nakahara continued to look levelly at her. {Godai-sensei saved over a hundred of us and tens of thousands more normals, and almost gave everything to do so.}
*That's an exaggeration,* Ayaka thought, though her tongue was too heavy to protest aloud.
{That you did not need her salvation is no excuse to demean her sacrifice,} Nakahara continued.
{Almost isn't good enough!} The destroyer was not fazed. {She failed, and Yamashiro-san had to make up for it!}
{Do you mean to say that it was wrong for Godai-sensei to have survived?}
{Yes! She should have sunk and spared Yamashiro-san from doing so!}
{By that logic, were not any of us that dared survive past the surrender of Dai Nippon Teikoku failures? That stayed afloat long enough to meet her end not in battle? Were Hibiki-chan or Ushio-chan or Yukikaze-chan failures? Houshou-san or Katsuragi-chan or Nagato-san or Sakawa-chan?}
The sad-eyed destroyer twitched at the names.
{What do you mean, Fusou-san?} The angry destroyer was getting confused.
{Was that not your meaning? The survivors of the war outlived the old empire instead of sinking that it might somehow live?}
The destroyer's mouth flapped open and closed rapidly and soundlessly, caught between condemnation of Ayaka's failure and unwillingness to besmirch the good name of her comrades.
{You know that the Overclock is not something that can be forced into. It is our last and greatest gift, the place where the falling celestial meets the rising essence that holds on long enough for one final lesson in the moment when there is nothing left to lose and everything to gain. Any who might try to force the hand of any of us will not survive to reap the rewards of doing so. Yamashiro was not ordered to her sinking by someone sitting comfortably in a distant bunker or office. She did so freely of her own will that we needed not have to. Do not dishonor her sacrifice by demanding that which she paid to save.}
The destroyer started to shake.
{Your current overreaction and state of being emotionally compromised is exactly due to the human weakness that you despise.}
The shaking of the destroyer intensified.
{Do not make me escalate this to Tōhama-ittō kaisa or Minami-kaishō-ho, please. In the old kaigun you would have been punished for less. You are better than this. I know you can be and are.}
The floodgates reopened and the destroyer fell to her knees, weeping once again. Her sharp tongue turned against herself, words laced with bitter self-loathing. {Why? Why?! Why am I still crying over this?! We are not men, to be maimed by mourning! I hate this! I hate this! I hate this!} The aura went out, and the oppressive buildup of Or Energy with it.
Nakahara lowered herself to the destroyer's level and patiently and silently held her until tears and words ceased. {Please take some time to think about this. I will speak with you again, but for now, please leave us.} She carefully rose and gently helped the destroyer to her feet.
Slowly and with great trepidation, unable to hide the shaking or sniffing, the destroyer with the buns started walking out of the room. She did not give Ayaka a second look. The one with the sad eyes followed after a concerned glance at Nakahara.
Nakahara watched the two destroyers depart, then walked over to and sat down beside Ayaka.
Ayaka was too drained by the latest failure. Even through the whole exchange, she had been unable to react, even to cry.
For a long while, the two of them just sat there. Neither said a word, but they were dogged by the oppressive cacophony of clapping thunder, flashing lightning, howling wind, and lashing rain outside.
{Why… didn't you let her?} Ayaka eventually asked, only able to rise barely above a whisper.
{Would it have made a difference at this point?} Nakahara replied by counterquestion. "Shikata ga nai."
{What do you mean?}
Nakahara slowly let out a breath. It wasn't quite a sigh. {It can't be helped. Assume she does kill you and successfully avenges Yamashiro, and manages to pass it off as a justified kill or accident or otherwise suffers no punishment or other consequences. What then? Your family will still need to mourn you. Humanity will still have had one preventable loss. To die a hero after accomplishing a great deed is one thing. Dying after the fact to absolve failure is another.} For a moment, Nakahara's face contorted into an open expression of bitterness and disgust. What was ordinarily ugly enough looked even more foul for how alien it was on her usually genteel face. Ayaka wasn't sure what it said that the other priestess was willing to be so open around her. {What does it say about us, and that which made us, that we conflate the two?}
{That we know there are some things nothing but blood can wash away.}
Nakahara snorted.
It sounded so weird coming from Harumi Nakahara, Shinto priestess, proper lady and well-bred daughter of Kyoto. It sounded profoundly base and wrong.
From Fusou, unlucky ship and sister to perennially bitter Yamashiro? It fit perfectly.
After another while, a new thought strayed into Ayaka's mind. {That girl… aren't Summoned supposed to bounce back quickly?}
{They are supposed to,} Nakahara said. {After the funeral, she didn't show any further sign of being affected for the past few months.}
{Meaning that I…} Ayaka winced. {If I hadn't said anything, she wouldn't have been reminded of… the incident?}
Nakahara's lips twitched into the ever so faintest of frowns. {I cannot be sure either way.}
"Sou ka." Ayaka was too shaken to do more than make acknowledgement, certainly not even to apologise anew.
{It's not your fault,} Nakahara said. {Could you really have known that what worked for you previously wouldn't have been useful to another?}
{I should have thought of it. I should have considered that the boon that once worked to let Uileag reach me, Shitori no Kami might not have been so generous as to extend to others.}
{Was the aid given benevolently, sincerely and to the best of your ability and knowledge?}
"H---hai."
{Then that is all that matters. The kamisamatachi have never made any pretence of omnibenevolence. Their not repaying our chiminage or conforming to our expectations is not something you are to blame for.}
{I wish… I could convince myself of that.}
{'Happy ship'... if only Roosevelt had known what would have happened.} There was no mockery in Nakahara's words. Quite the opposite. The self-effacing bitter chuckle she let out sounded to Ayaka eerily like something she herself might have made. {We're all slaves to history. I was already an unlucky human even before I knew that I was an unlucky ship. I tried asking around about your ancestors, as I promised. I haven't had any luck yet, but I did learn a lot about your family in the process. You lost your mother to illness; I lost my father to an accident.}
Ayaka's eyes widened in surprise. Nakahara had been always dignified and polite, but so too had she been carefully evasive on matters close to home.
{The other driver, moving too quickly and erratically, T-boned our car. Chichiue didn't suffer. My older brother was not so fortunate.}
{I'm… sorry,} Ayaka said lamely.
{My younger brother… to have been in a coma for years is a bliss of ignorance, is it not? Hahaue and I, our physical injuries were light, but… all she knew after what we had lost was her duty.} For a moment, the haunted look returned as she briefly looked at Ayaka. {Keiko-soboue didn't take Chichiue's death well at all.}
{How dare---how dare you still live!} An old woman yelled at a younger Nakahara and mother, naked grief and ugly fury mixed together on her tear-streaked face and in her voice. The Nakahara matriarch's arms shook with the promise of violence despite the desperate restraint from other, more youthful relatives. {All of you jinxes! You should have died, that my precious boy might still live!}
Ayaka twitched at the parallels. How much did Nakahara know about her recently-concluded psychological debilitation? Granted that Ichiyo had never openly broken down the same way, but she wondered, not for the first time, what would have happened had she and Kagami gone with their father instead. Would things have been different if they had voluntarily done so versus if Ichiyo had driven them away along with Yoshimichi?
{Hahaue had her duty and I had mine,} Nakahara continued even as her gaze fell away. If she had noticed Ayaka's contemplation, she did not speak of it. {Mine not to make reply, mine not to reason why, mine but to do. I did.}
{You didn't… feel burdened or stifled?}
Nakahara shook her head. {I did not. Not that there was room to philosophise in any case even had I felt such a need. Anything that needed flexibility fell on my shoulders, since Hahaue was…}
{Then all this began?}
Nakahara nodded. {A mother barely more cognizant than a robot, a brother comatose and bedridden… these things were. Kyoto had not been a priority target that first week. It should not have affected me.}
{Yet it had… the abyssal incursion had made your… made Fusou-san stir?}
{I am given to think it had. She must have guided my hand.}
Ayaka knew what had happened next. Mizuryu had been the first shrine to succeed in summoning. Partway through that pioneering effort, Harumi Nakahara, then apparently mundane priestess, had got up from her station and walked into the water to the shock of the others involved in the ritual. Halo radiating from the interaction between ambient light and dripping water, emitting an awesome Presence befitting one who bore a name of Japan as to drive even the old clergy and seasoned soldiers in attendance to genuflection, the elder of the Fusou-class dreadnoughts had emerged. With Yamashiro having Manifested in defence of Yokosuka earlier, she had been transferred there instead of being left at nearby Maizuru, her surviving family entrusted to relatives and caregivers, and the rest was history.
{So that's why Yoshida-san kept wondering why your mother hadn't been visiting,} Ayaka said in realisation.
{That's correct.}
{But surely you were glad to have Yamashiro-san back?}
Nakahara frowned with atypical open confusion. {I was, but how does that change anything? We knew how things had ended the last time, and we had realistic expectations from the start, even if Yamashiro was the more vocal about it. I cannot, will not, do not blame you in any way.}
Ayaka nodded weakly, not convinced.
Nakahara rummaged in her clothes and now took out what Ayaka recognised as a set of the tassels attached to her and Yamashiro's pagoda masts. {Yamashiro was going to give this to you when we got back.}
Ayaka stared at it, wide-eyed. It took a while before she could speak again. {I shouldn't. I can't accept this. It'd look like I'm trying to replace her.}
Nakahara shook her head. {It is all right. You are effectively one of us.}
{I really can't. I'm not worthy.} Ayaka tried another time to refuse.
Nakahara would not be deterred. {That is not a problem. I'm used to it after everything that's happened. I expect disappointment and therefore will never get disappointed. Please.}
Reluctantly, Ayaka accepted with both hands and a deep bow. "Domo arigatō gozaimasu." {I'm honoured.} Though she tried to suppress it, a sufficiently careful and well-acquainted observer - like Nakahara - would have noticed the difficulty she had with making herself believe her own words. The fine gold tassels felt so fragile yet heavy in her hands, and she could only stare silently at them again as she turned them around and rolled them over her fingers.
Nakahara patiently let her.
Ayaka eventually looked back. {Ah… by the way…}
{Yes, Godai-sensei?}
Ayaka didn't bother hiding the face she made or the harshness of her tone. {Don't keep calling me 'sensei'. I don't deserve it anymore. Maybe I never have. Just use 'Ayaka'. That's all I really am.}
A doubting look flashed over Nakahara's face and disappeared equally quickly, fast enough that Ayaka barely caught it. {Then please call me Harumi… Ayaka.}
Ayaka sighed. {Very well… Harumi.} Unable to decide yet where the tassels should go, she put them away first, then looked back to the other shipgirl as a thought struck her. {I had been thinking… I had originally wanted to visit the Skytree tomorrow, see how things had changed since I was last here. Would you like to come along?}
"Arigatō."
Ayaka made an acknowledging grunt.
Harumi now frowned, getting to her feet and turning to offer a hand to Ayaka. {We are late for dinner. We should go.}
Authors' Notes: Our thanks to Sathzur from SpaceBattles for finding the polite form for obaa.
===[===]===
CHAPTER 41
===[===]===
CHAPTER 41
===[===]===
Yorktown was waiting outside CAPT Zelben's office door after Ayaka finished meeting with him the first day of her return to active duty. "Io—Aya—Shirokaze, a word?"
Ayaka blinked dumbly at the other shipgirl consciously using her human rather than ship name. Trying to buy time to think of something, she asked, "You got your remodel?"
Yorktown nodded. "Most of the amalgam have." Her Y-shaped barrette was no longer present. She now had a high-collared blue capelet over her original sleeveless sailor blouse. A piece of grey cloth modelled after her original flight deck went down the centre of her front, over the blouse but under the scarf. The hiding of previously-displayed cleavage clearly wasn't out of decency concerns if the new Shimakazesque protruding straps of black highleg panties were any indication. There was a two-buckled belt at the bottom of her blouse, while another belt with two X-marked blue discs for buckles held up her miniskirt. Speaking of said skirt, it was now white with blue trim. She was now wearing black pantyhose and her boots were now white with grey tongues.
Most noticeable of all, though, was the strikingly abyssal-like way glowing blue smoke came out of her left eye.
After a while, Ayaka realised she was staring. Before she could apologise for it, though, she noticed Yorktown was staring right back at the scar splitting her face.
Yorktown's gaze lingered on the scar for a few moments more before she turned to walk back to her office. The room in question had not changed noticeably since Ayaka had last seen it and was still as Spartan as before. Yorktown's beret, hanging from the old rack like the last time, had gained a pair of blue feathers, though, and a crumpled abyssal pamphlet that said "Humanity needs your country. Destroy Japan today" lay on the desk. It tingled faintly with the remnant supernal traces of something disarmed. "Welcome back. It's good to see that your repairs have been completed."
"Thank you," Ayaka said.
"Abyssal activity has been returning to normal, even if we haven't seen any Jötnar since the last attack, so it's good timing. I believe Captain Zelben told you that there are some things I need to go over with you?"
"Yes."
"Before I say anything else, you need to know that the singing to West Virginia has been discontinued."
"Wha---"
Then the implications hit Ayaka, and she grimaced, glad that she hadn't encountered the older battleship on her way in.
Yorktown didn't immediately continue, though her face twitched in ways that suggested she was trying and failing to find the right words. Ayaka had no idea what to make of Yorktown of all people being indecisive and tongue-tied.
After an uncharacteristically prolonged period of silence, Yorktown got up, hung a Do Not Disturb sign on the office door and closed it. There was the brief, barely-audible whine of an anti-snooping ward activating, and when she returned to her seat, her face sagged with guilt no longer hidden. "I tried to tender my resignation."
{Honkai Impact 3rd Original Soundtrack - The Day You Vanished with the Stars (Hoshi to Kimi ga kieta Hi)}
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN2C3xWvcbQ
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN2C3xWvcbQ
Of all the things Ayaka had been expecting to hear, that was very far from the top of the list. "Eh?"
"I told Captain Zelben that I was no longer qualified to lead Uatu, much less TFVPP operations. Not after the failure of the Southeast Asian campaign."
Under normal circumstances, Ayaka would have objected to the use of the term "failure", given that TFV had managed the liberation of Borneo, east coast Peninsular Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore before Enterprise had intervened. Granted, their staying liberated was now in doubt. Under these, the thought didn't cross her mind. "He refused?"
"He refused. I don't understand why he did. Aren't you supposed to recuse yourself when there's a conflict of interest?"
"Yes? Didn't he explain?"
"He said there wasn't anyone that could be parachuted in to replace me. A whole lot of bull. I checked with NPC and we're definitely not that shorthanded."
Ayaka thought it over. "Maybe what he meant was that there's no one qualified to replace you."
Yorktown shook her head disbelievingly. "No way. That can't be right. Surely anyone can be preferable to me."
Ayaka's lips twitched as she fought back a frown and deigned to comment, but instead made "go on" gestures.
"I went up to Admiral Abel next. She too refused the resignation."
There was a long pause, during which the two of them just looked at each other in awkward silence. Eventually, Ayaka asked, "Why are you telling me all this?"
"Who else can I tell?" Yorktown's face and voice reflected her naked frustration. "Who else is going to understand, if our superiors won't?" She put on an exaggerated falsetto at the same time as her face shaped into an equally plastic smile. "Oh, your sister is now almost literal Hitler, a traitor to surpass Benedict Arnold who's ordering around weapons that have taken the lives of millions, but no judgment, that's not going to count against you!" The fake smile now openly soured. "Give me a break. No, a therapist's not going to be good, if there's even anyone Yamashiro cleared to know about Enterprise." She couldn't keep a tinge of self-loathing out of her voice on saying the name. "Was there really no one around, that I could even say that…"
"Essex and Princeton?"
"The other element leaders? They wouldn't understand. Neither would Hammann."
"Maryland and West Virginia?"
Yorktown shook her head. "Nevada and Pennsylvania are cousins at best to them, and they didn't even fight each other directly. It's not the same."
"Augusta?"
Yorktown briefly looked at Ayaka with confusion. "Who---oh." It took her a moment to remember the heavy cruiser cursed with not one but two sisters known to be fighting against humanity. "No. We're both Summoned. It'd just be the blind leading the blind. You're my XO and an—a—"
Ayaka tilted her head. "An exhuman?"
Yorktown frowned. "I was going to use the Papa Charlie term, but yes. You're the only one who would really understand these… human things."
"I'm not… Look, I was badly affected enough by lose---by losing Yamashiro that I---I… I'm not qualified to help you."
"I don't know if there's anyone actually qualified. Whether there is doesn't matter anyway. I just need someone I can speak with about this. I told you a long time ago that I didn't need any sunken heroes, and now… now… I don't know anymore." Yorktown's head dropped into her hands and she continued mumbling through them. "Have you ever wished you could just… return to ship? No awareness, no agency, no need to think or feel? Just do what the crew makes you do, no need to pretend you have a choice?"
Ayaka raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You mean willingly give in to the Ship?"
"Yes. Stop pretending I can play at being human and fill Admiral Fletcher or Captains McWhortin or Buckmaster's shoes."
"Even if I wanted to, I can't. Even had I not married Uileag, I would still have family I can't just turn my back on in order to give of myself fully. Historical derivations aside, you Summoned start out tabula rasa, with nothing to tie you down and distract you from the mission. Not like most Natural Borns."
"Frails would say that helps you find a reason to fight, buddy… or something."
"It didn't do me any good."
Yorktown grunted noncommittally.
"Are you asking because---is that why… why the…"
"My left eye?" Yorktown raised her head enough to expose her eyes and the smoke emitted by the left one.
Ayaka nodded. "Vestal's… Vestalness aside, she wouldn't be so sloppy with your remodel as to inadequately contain your supernal waveform, would she?"
"Where'd you hear that?"
Ayaka looked confused. "Charlie and Wee Vee?"
"Right." Yorktown's lips curled self-effacingly, not noticing that it couldn't be seen through her hands. "The two with over-spec warforms. Yes, it came out that way. I told her not to bother fixing it. It doesn't hinder my vision, so I chose to keep it as a reminder of how I've failed. Is it the same with your scar?"
Ayaka resisted the urge to touch that which had been mentioned. "... Yes."
"By the way, are you going to become a shipyard?"
Ayaka was bewildered by the non sequitur that was hitting too close to home. A quick mental review later, she noted that she hadn't broached the topic with Yorktown yet, meaning the other shipgirl had somehow thought of it on her own. "Eh?"
"Humans have biological imperatives, right?"
"You just recognised I'm an exhuman."
"You know what I mean."
Ayaka twirled still-regrowing hair around a finger contemplatively. When she spoke, there was a tinge of disgust. "I'm not sure 'biological imperative' has meant much to most of mankind for a long time."
Yorktown barked out something that could only charitably be called laughter. "I've noticed. That said, everything that's happened to us is the sort of thing that makes one rethink priorities, isn't it?"
"For a human, yes," Ayaka ventured. She pressed her fingers into her palms hard enough to feel the bite of the nails in preparation for ripping the band-aid off again. "You're right, though. I can't afford to be tardy on the continuation of the bloodline after… my failures."
"Oh." Yorktown winced. "To even think about that, I must really be getting influenced by these frails' things." She paused, a look of realization overtaking her face. "Did Captain Zelben say anything?"
Ayaka thought back to the meeting just before.
"That's all I have for you today. If there's nothing else, you can go."
"There's one more thing, Sir. After…" Ayaka squeezed the chair's armrests, face setting with forced determination. "After everything that's happened, I can't afford to wait any longer to have a child."
Something flashed quickly over Zelben's face. Had she had her full faculties, she would have been able to catch it, but she wasn't fully up to speed yet after everything that had happened in the past few months. "Go ahead," he then said.
Of all the things Ayaka had been expecting, unquestioning acceptance hadn't been one of them, and her resolve faltered. "Sir? Aren't you… going to question my choices? Raise stronger objections? Lecture me about the core values or responsibility or something?"
"After everything you've done for us…" The flash occurred again. Now knowing to look out for it, this time Ayaka was able to identify a distant look of pain and sorrow. It was the most in the way of open weakness she had ever seen from Zelben. "How can we hate you, to be doing that? You have given so much to your country, and no one has the right to ask any more of you. Not me."
===[===]===
"Your medical results are fine," Vestal said. "Still are. Doc Westenra says your psych profile is within acceptable tolerances. Not spotting any problems from the recent update to the CIC firewalls either. Aren't you glad you no longer need to worry about vulnerability to little cog-hazs like panicking from a Thorsub?"
Ayaka looked dubiously at the repair shipgirl across the table in the NAVSTA Everett medical facility's consultation room. "Are you really sure there won't be any issues?"
"When I gave you the all-clear to return to active duty, I meant it. I might be the fun one of the extended family, but I take my job seriously." Vestal rolled her eyes. "Look, even one percent of your shaft horsepower rating is over a thousand times the power a frail can output. If any of us actually had such a problem with shipbuilding, the new construction would have failed just from your stationkeeping power alone."
"That's not reassuring," Ayaka said. The human in her found the casual dismissal of the possibility of miscarriage distasteful.
Vestal sighed. "Why're you even fussing about this? If you really want some excuse to stay beached for the next year," her expression briefly twisted in a way that made clear her opinion of that, "I'm sure I could come up with something, but you don't actually want to, do you?"
"Eh? What makes you think so?" Ayaka asked, confused.
"You'd have tried harder to find some way of delaying your return to service. There're plenty of ways if you really wanted to. Even something as simple as drawing out the therapy, tests and rehab would have gotten you a few more weeks if not months, and I'm sure you could have thought of more. You didn't."
"These are both my missions," Ayaka said sombrely. "I can't compromise one for the sake of the other."
"Good for you," Vestal said, now beaming with approval. "I still think you're worrying over nothing, though. Frails might be the kind of porcelain that breaks from falling its own height and loses to what it stubs on, but we're made to withstand far greater stresses. I know our very existence is proof of higher powers, and I'm skeptical of the ludicrously long odds demanded by evolution, but I doubt the intelligence of any alleged creator entity; it doesn't make any sense for something to be so haphazardly and poorly engineered as to be unable to survive the rigours of day-to-day functioning. Don't sweat it!"
Ayaka forced a smile; if Vestal noticed, she was atypically considerate enough to not point it out. "I'll try. What about the remodel, though?"
Vestal frowned. "I know you want to get up to date with the rest of your amalgam, and so do I, but the resilience of the hull in the face of the expected rigours of normal operation is one thing. The effects of carrying out a remodel in your current condition are another. Down to your drives and up to your CIC and almost everything in between will be altered and improved. It's not a risk I want to take right now."
===[===]===
The convoy left Everett and entered open water uneventfully.
Not that that said much. If the situation devolved to the point that even the Salish Sea was being contested, things were really FUBAR.
TransMat use, while having been successfully tested by this point, still remained inefficient enough as to not be adequate replacement for conventional shipping yet. Farcasting, even more so.
Ayaka had been told in no uncertain terms by Yorktown that if she experienced any discomfort or performance issues, she needed to inform the rest immediately. She was of two minds on this. The sensible side of her that was worried about miscarrying appreciated the concern. However, there was another part of her, perhaps more in tune with the Ship, that resented being treated like a glass sculpture.
After Uatu One was relieved, resupplied, maintained, and finished with its admin matters, Ayaka decided she wanted to start the voyage right with an early night and headed to her bunk.
Half an hour later, she was still awake.
{Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown Original Soundtrack - Last Hope I}
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3bUAbklzcc
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3bUAbklzcc
She was already missing Uileag.
She closed her eyes and tried once more to relax and clear her mind.
She had not gone long before getting struck by a vivid sinking feeling. Her mind now very much not clear and thinking she was floundering, she grabbed for the edges of the bunk, forcing open her eyes and down the Ship's instinctual desire to summon rigging.
She lay still for a while, inexplicably gasping for air despite having no physical basis for doing so. Even as she recovered her breath, though, she realised she had briefly glimpsed at the solution to her problem.
"Listen to the thread's voice."
The most fundamental teaching of the Shirokaze Shrine was also its most difficult. Transcending the surface-level impressions of reality that insisted that threads don't talk was but the first step, something Ayaka had learnt long before she had come to know of her true nature. It underpinned everything else. Regardless of certification from Kogakkan or Kokugakuin or rote (heh) mastery of the rituals, it was grasping and reflecting this understanding in deed that allowed one to rise from apprentice to full shinshoku in the Shirokaze ways. Already some of the aspirants she had previously seen had been found incapable. Ichiyo had had to inform them with heavy heart that this meant that they would never rise beyond apprentice were they to try staying on instead of accepting an otherwise glowing recommendation letter to take to a different shrine that they might have affinity with. Regrettable though it might be, no master of a secular craft could in good conscience call qualified an apprentice who could not grasp the core of his teachings. This was no different.
Forcibly centering herself and bringing her breath back into an even pace, Ayaka closed her eyes again and deliberately sought out the sinking feeling. The Ship protested, but this time being on purpose, she was able to control her response, start letting herself go and descend. Falling beneath the surface painted by her physical senses, then past the first subsurface layer with its initiate-level practices that were wielded as reflexively as any mundane skill, she let herself hang in the mental so-to-speak underwater space, drifting. Whether "underwater" or on board Tripoli, her surroundings pounded, pulsed and vibrated with background sound and sensation, but she let it wash over her, trying to locate what she was after.
There.
Standing out against the tapestry of reality was the so-to-speak thread of supernal sidelink joining her and Uileag. That must have been how her—Ayaka felt a twinge of instinctive unease at the thought of "near-death experience", made herself recognise the irrationality of it, and put it aside. Yes, tapping said sidelink in the midst of apparent sinking must have been how she had sent out what she had thought to be a premortem message. She'd known all about needing to reach beneath the surface of reality since young and about the existence of the link between themselves since shortly after her Reawakening, but it had taken such an extraordinary event to put two and two together and advance in her understanding of the malleability of Space.
She took a moment to make sure of what was on the other side, then pulled herself along it.
Uileag nearly leapt when Ayaka's unmistakable weight and warmth settled onto their bed beside him.
"Oh." Ayaka reopened her eyes, surprised too, and giggled awkwardly with relief. "It really worked."
"Ayaka?! What are you doing here?'" His expression twisted with alarm and fear. The now-alien way Ayaka's amusement sounded probably didn't help. "Don't tell me you---"
"No, Uiui, I'm not—not dying right now. Not like I'm going to fight in my nighties." She made something vaguely like a sardonic chuckle as she curled up around him. "I just figured out how… what happened that time and used it to project myself here. It takes too long to get myself in the right headspace when doing it consciously, though. Maybe… no idea if it'd get any faster as I familiarise myself, but I doubt I'd be replicating myself in combat like Shimakaze can."
He looked at her dubiously. "Like your own katawaredoki anytime?"
"... Yes?"
"Are you here or there then?"
"Both? I don't know how to describe it in… normal people language." She could both feel the shipboard bunk and the bed in the Washington home as well as Uileag's absence/presence, see both cabin and bedroom, smell simultaneously him and more distantly the lingering traces of her bunkmate. Even with the mind-splitting functionality Yorktown et. al had taught, the dual experience was still surreal. "Anyway, just let me hang until I fall asleep, and then I'll poof right back and stop bothering you."
After a few moments of the not unwelcome feeling of her pressing into him, Uileag asked dryly, "You sure it's not a nightcap you're after?"
Ayaka pouted. "I'm not that desperate, Uiui."
===[===]===
It was after repelling the first abyssal raid of the journey that Ayaka decided she was that desperate after all.
"Make me whole again, Uiui," she said the next time he was available.
Uileag facepalmed. "Is not having to worry about safe days any longer making you like this? How did you ever get by without?"
"That was then, and the Sierra Mikes never cared anyway."
"This is totally going to end well," he deadpanned.
"We've had worse, you know," Ayaka replied dismissively.
"That's not as reassuring as you seem to think it is."
"I know you're not an active seafarer currently, but if the other shipgirls - most of whom are Summoned - can successfully recruit at sea, why would it be a problem for us? My roomie's definitely not going to be the issue."
"That's really not as reassuring as you seem to think it is."
"I can wait till after reaching Japan if you want."
Uileag thought it over for a while, then scoffed. "No, the fact that you're asking at all means you can't." The expression on her face was a dead giveaway as to her need and not making her any more convincing.
"If it's a problem, you really don't need to."
"No, it's not." It didn't help that the look she had was making his need for her stir. "Now hurry up."
It felt right.
It felt so right to be made whole once more, the aching void within finally filled. Ayaka found surreal the thought that she had gone weeks, even months without before. Offerings beyond requirement made to Shitori no Kami notwithstanding, she wondered how she had ever managed. "That's so much better," she whispered, dreamy with delight.
"This makes no sense," Uileag muttered, previous irritability having melted into a pleasant spaciness, into her ear. "My body says you're here, but what I'm getting from yours is telling me two different things at the same time. It's making my head hurt. I'm not enjoying this as much as I should be."
Apart from that little hiccup.
The release still successfully provided Ayaka with a topup to her crew and power, no different either in terms of sensation or quantity provisioned from any previous recruitment. The burying of light deep within that was still the best thing ever, just as beautiful, blissful, hot and powerful as usual, was a welcome cherry on top.
As for Uileag, his extant reservations vanished after he first gave of himself this time, replaced with a dreamy peace. With Ayaka back in control, there were no more dire aftereffects. Better still, beyond the physical pleasure, he couldn't deny that coaxing now all too rare genuine joy out of his wife made this worth it.
===[===]===
None of the previous arrivals in Japan were exactly accompanied by hero's welcomes or cheering crowds. However, the grey clouds and drizzle that greeted Uatu and the convoy when it reached Tokyo Bay at midday were hardly confidence-inspiring.
At least this proved that the sight alone of FLEACT Yokosuka wasn't a trigger, Ayaka mused glumly.
The joy and empathy of the Japanese Natural Borns at seeing her up and about was, to be blunt, a bit off-putting. She didn't say it aloud, though. She definitely didn't feel like she deserved it, but she wasn't insensitive enough to appear an ingrate. Anyone who successfully peered into her mind would know how things really were, but she wasn't going to just make it obvious. That said, most of the Summoned didn't regard her any differently, as Vestal had assured her. Just replaceable materiel, that's what they all ultimately were.
Speaking of joy and empathy, it hadn't escaped Ayaka's notice that Mina had been shamefacedly doing her best to avoid unnecessary contact throughout the entire voyage. She had also observed Naga…mine's absence from the forces escorting the convoy into Tokyo Bay.
By the time admin matters were done, it was evening. Though the sky was still mostly overcast, every now and then the sun peeked through, sending out diffraction spikes like a great winking eye. Ayaka's path took her through the junction with the turnoff leading to the Yokosuka Memorial Wall, and she stopped in her tracks when she realised where exactly she was. After some hesitation, she turned to go there.
She had barely reached the memorial room before she started regretting having done so.
{Katana ZERO Original Soundtrack - Full Confession}
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahp7I9S3U20
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahp7I9S3U20
The memorial room was not small by human standards. By the standards of shipgirls that could engage with optical targeting at over ten kilometers, it was nothing.
To Ayaka, who was personally responsible for a name being on the walls and knew multiple others now there, it was suffocatingly small. Not helping in the slightest was who was present.
Nakahara was standing in front of the wall straight ahead. The sole other present, she was looking directly at Yamashiro's marker.
Ayaka froze in place the moment she saw, but the other shipgirl showed no sign of having noticed her. There was no indication of any active sensor having painted her either, not that that meant anything considering the variety of passives available.
Never before had she been so acutely aware of what it meant to experience deafening silence.
The awkward moment stretched out, during which Nakahara was apparently focused enough on Yamashiro's marker as to not move a muscle. Eventually, it got to be too much to bear, so Ayaka took a careful step back and turned to leave before anything could happen.
{Godai-sensei?}
It was exactly at that moment that Nakahara spoke.
Ayaka froze again. Hesitantly, she carefully turned around to see Nakahara standing primly there. There was a faint touch of concern, as well as something vaguely haunted, marring the usual faint Mona Lisa smile.
Immediately, Ayaka took up the dogeza, falling to her face and knees in kowtow swiftly and heavily enough as to be heard, if not enough to damage the floor. "Owabi mōshiagemasu! Kokoro kara owabi mōshiagemasu!" She did not hesitate in using the most serious and formal expression of apology that Japanese had. Her subsequent words were also delivered in the most honorific form. {I humbly apologise from the bottom of my heart for getting Yamashiro-san sunk because of my failure! I humbly apologise for my incompetence that your sister had to give her life to rectify! I know that nothing I can do will make up for it! I know that it cannot be forgiven!}
Surprise flickered across Nakahara's face upon seeing Ayaka kowtow to her. She didn't outright break into an undignified run, but her steps were swift as she made her way to Ayaka and bent to extend a hand. {Godai-sensei, please get up. You weren't the one to harm my younger sister. Enterprise was the one responsible for the attack. Yamashiro chose of her own accord how to defend us from that which actually killed her.}
Ayaka didn't take it, didn't even dare presume the right to meet her eyes. {No, if not for my failure, that choice wouldn't even have existed. If I had gotten it right, there wouldn't have been a need to make that choice at all. If I had at least given everything, no one else would have needed to die in my place.}
{It wasn't your fault,} Nakahara said gently. {Continued regret is only going to hurt you further for nothing when what you did has already cost you so much. You still almost died despite that. You can't go back far enough to change it.}
Go back far enough—
The word association that had been brought on made the diffracting sunlight from before reappear in Ayaka's mind's eye, and an ember of hope lit in her as she looked up with a sudden sharpness that caught Nakahara off guard. {Wait, Nakahara-sensei! There's still something you can do!}
===[===]===
The waiting room outside the summoning chambers was sizable, objectively speaking. It had to be in order to fit the numbers whose attendance was required, especially on the occasions when multiple summonses were to take place.
To Ayaka, sitting on a bench against a wall all by herself, it felt threateningly titanic. That no sound escaped the summoning chambers, leaving her in near-total silence, didn't help. The building's distance from the rest of the base, ostensibly intended to provide a buffer that would imbue it with tranquility untroubled by the hustle and bustle of military operation, now only made it feel desolate. The warmth of summer seemed so far away.
Despite the frantic, veritably verbal diarrhea way she had blurted out her idea, Nakahara had agreed to it with less skepticism than she had been expecting. The other shipgirl had gone straight to Yuubari and requested the use of a summoning chamber for the employment of the resource stash that had been first mentioned all the way back at the first tea ceremony. Given the light cruiser's past as a testbed, she had been quite happy to let the harebrained scheme proceed. That had not been the problem.
What had been the problem was the misfortune of running into two of J-BatDiv Two's escorting destroyers along the way. If it had just been the sad-eyed destroyer with the braid, that wouldn't have been an issue. She was taciturn and not prone to making a fuss. Unfortunately, the other one - a prickly, brown(?)-eyed brunette, hair worn in a combination of buns and twintails, that Ayaka had never been close with - had not been quite so accepting, and had given Ayaka a doubting gimlet eye all the way up till the point where the door to the summoning chamber had been closed behind the three.
More than an hour passed. Gradually, the orange and purple of katawaredoki gave way to the grey of oncoming night. It was only then that Nakahara and the two destroyers emerged from the summoning chamber.
Ayaka stood up. {Did it work?} She asked anxiously.
The head of the destroyer with the buns snapped up to look right at her, exactly like a turret that had found a target, and then she Stepped forward, emerging screaming with right fist flying. "TEME!"
Ayaka's hung Acceleration activated immediately in response to the threat, giving her way more than enough time to sidestep and put the attacker through the wall behind, but in the temporally-altered frame of reference she saw light glint off the tear trails contrasting sharply with the snarling, bare-toothed fury. The despair that drained hope like so much water down a sink left her standing there in realization as the fist inched its way closer.
The fist crashed into her face, and with the shrieking and snapping of tortured metal, broke.
The destroyer screamed as much in agony as in anger. {LIAR!} Even as the right hand started repairing, her left fist came up, aiming for the gut. It was an oddly human gesture, as if trying to go for the soft belly instead of the face with its hard bone. Against another shipgirl, it made no difference, and that hand shattered too.
The punches weren't strong enough to hurt Ayaka, or even to make her move significantly. Under the circumstances, even that tiny bit was enough that she collapsed back onto the bench bonelessly, no longer able to stand there realising.
The destroyer was still incandescently infuriated, if the continued screaming was any indication. {You liar! Liar! Fucking liar cunt! You lied to us that you could give us Yamashiro-san back! You lied that by wishing on an offering containing a portion of Yamashiro-san's soul, we could see her again!} Will and wrath shaped her aura into fists unconstrained by the frailty of flesh and steel as she resumed punching. {Temetemetemeteme…!} Then she became literally so as righteous rage overflowed like afterburner and became fuel for something that would get through Ayaka's defences. Her aura grew and grew and grew some more, expanded to encompass and then surpass her entire body, and she was so far beyond furious that she didn't bother hiding it.
{Don't,} Nakahara said as she approached from behind the destroyer and put a hand on her shoulder, the faintest sheen of her own aura pushing through the other's. To a stranger, it was a gentle word and gesture, indistinguishable from any she might have made normally. To those who knew her well, there was solid steel beneath the silk.
The destroyer froze at the touch halfway through a punch. {Fu—fu—Fusou-san, why? Why? Why won't you let me punish that one's failure and falsehoods as she deserves?}
There was a flash of lightning, followed shortly by a peal of thunder. The rain returned, now heavier and louder than before.
Yuubari walked up beside them, and Nakahara turned at the scrape of her shoes. Their eyes met and the former raised an eyebrow. The sad-eyed braided destroyer silently trailed behind her.
Nakahara subtly shook her head.
Yuubari nodded with understanding and left.
Nakahara turned back to the crier. Her words were delivered with the same even, unperturbed tone as always. {Why do you say that Godai-sensei needs to be punished?}
A disbelieving gasp. {Fusou-san! What do you mean?! That one caused Yamashiro-san's sinking!}
{Do you really think so?}
{Yes!}
{Not Enterprise?}
Another disbelieving gasp. {Of course Enterprise must pay too!}
{Why then do you say Godai-sensei needs to be punished for what Enterprise did?}
{It's not—not about what Enterprise did! Not just about what Enterprise did! It's what Iowa did!} The destroyer's tone made clear that, like with Enterprise, the lack of honorific was out of deliberate disrespect rather than familiarity. {Because of her failure, Yamashiro-san sank to make up for it!}
Nakahara continued to look levelly at her. {Godai-sensei saved over a hundred of us and tens of thousands more normals, and almost gave everything to do so.}
*That's an exaggeration,* Ayaka thought, though her tongue was too heavy to protest aloud.
{That you did not need her salvation is no excuse to demean her sacrifice,} Nakahara continued.
{Almost isn't good enough!} The destroyer was not fazed. {She failed, and Yamashiro-san had to make up for it!}
{Do you mean to say that it was wrong for Godai-sensei to have survived?}
{Yes! She should have sunk and spared Yamashiro-san from doing so!}
{By that logic, were not any of us that dared survive past the surrender of Dai Nippon Teikoku failures? That stayed afloat long enough to meet her end not in battle? Were Hibiki-chan or Ushio-chan or Yukikaze-chan failures? Houshou-san or Katsuragi-chan or Nagato-san or Sakawa-chan?}
The sad-eyed destroyer twitched at the names.
{What do you mean, Fusou-san?} The angry destroyer was getting confused.
{Was that not your meaning? The survivors of the war outlived the old empire instead of sinking that it might somehow live?}
The destroyer's mouth flapped open and closed rapidly and soundlessly, caught between condemnation of Ayaka's failure and unwillingness to besmirch the good name of her comrades.
{You know that the Overclock is not something that can be forced into. It is our last and greatest gift, the place where the falling celestial meets the rising essence that holds on long enough for one final lesson in the moment when there is nothing left to lose and everything to gain. Any who might try to force the hand of any of us will not survive to reap the rewards of doing so. Yamashiro was not ordered to her sinking by someone sitting comfortably in a distant bunker or office. She did so freely of her own will that we needed not have to. Do not dishonor her sacrifice by demanding that which she paid to save.}
The destroyer started to shake.
{Your current overreaction and state of being emotionally compromised is exactly due to the human weakness that you despise.}
The shaking of the destroyer intensified.
{Do not make me escalate this to Tōhama-ittō kaisa or Minami-kaishō-ho, please. In the old kaigun you would have been punished for less. You are better than this. I know you can be and are.}
The floodgates reopened and the destroyer fell to her knees, weeping once again. Her sharp tongue turned against herself, words laced with bitter self-loathing. {Why? Why?! Why am I still crying over this?! We are not men, to be maimed by mourning! I hate this! I hate this! I hate this!} The aura went out, and the oppressive buildup of Or Energy with it.
Nakahara lowered herself to the destroyer's level and patiently and silently held her until tears and words ceased. {Please take some time to think about this. I will speak with you again, but for now, please leave us.} She carefully rose and gently helped the destroyer to her feet.
Slowly and with great trepidation, unable to hide the shaking or sniffing, the destroyer with the buns started walking out of the room. She did not give Ayaka a second look. The one with the sad eyes followed after a concerned glance at Nakahara.
Nakahara watched the two destroyers depart, then walked over to and sat down beside Ayaka.
{Ace Combat 5 Original Soundtrack - Into The Dusk}
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35y6kw7L7Ms
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35y6kw7L7Ms
Ayaka was too drained by the latest failure. Even through the whole exchange, she had been unable to react, even to cry.
For a long while, the two of them just sat there. Neither said a word, but they were dogged by the oppressive cacophony of clapping thunder, flashing lightning, howling wind, and lashing rain outside.
{Why… didn't you let her?} Ayaka eventually asked, only able to rise barely above a whisper.
{Would it have made a difference at this point?} Nakahara replied by counterquestion. "Shikata ga nai."
{What do you mean?}
Nakahara slowly let out a breath. It wasn't quite a sigh. {It can't be helped. Assume she does kill you and successfully avenges Yamashiro, and manages to pass it off as a justified kill or accident or otherwise suffers no punishment or other consequences. What then? Your family will still need to mourn you. Humanity will still have had one preventable loss. To die a hero after accomplishing a great deed is one thing. Dying after the fact to absolve failure is another.} For a moment, Nakahara's face contorted into an open expression of bitterness and disgust. What was ordinarily ugly enough looked even more foul for how alien it was on her usually genteel face. Ayaka wasn't sure what it said that the other priestess was willing to be so open around her. {What does it say about us, and that which made us, that we conflate the two?}
{That we know there are some things nothing but blood can wash away.}
Nakahara snorted.
It sounded so weird coming from Harumi Nakahara, Shinto priestess, proper lady and well-bred daughter of Kyoto. It sounded profoundly base and wrong.
From Fusou, unlucky ship and sister to perennially bitter Yamashiro? It fit perfectly.
After another while, a new thought strayed into Ayaka's mind. {That girl… aren't Summoned supposed to bounce back quickly?}
{They are supposed to,} Nakahara said. {After the funeral, she didn't show any further sign of being affected for the past few months.}
{Meaning that I…} Ayaka winced. {If I hadn't said anything, she wouldn't have been reminded of… the incident?}
Nakahara's lips twitched into the ever so faintest of frowns. {I cannot be sure either way.}
"Sou ka." Ayaka was too shaken to do more than make acknowledgement, certainly not even to apologise anew.
{It's not your fault,} Nakahara said. {Could you really have known that what worked for you previously wouldn't have been useful to another?}
{I should have thought of it. I should have considered that the boon that once worked to let Uileag reach me, Shitori no Kami might not have been so generous as to extend to others.}
{Was the aid given benevolently, sincerely and to the best of your ability and knowledge?}
"H---hai."
{Then that is all that matters. The kamisamatachi have never made any pretence of omnibenevolence. Their not repaying our chiminage or conforming to our expectations is not something you are to blame for.}
{I wish… I could convince myself of that.}
{'Happy ship'... if only Roosevelt had known what would have happened.} There was no mockery in Nakahara's words. Quite the opposite. The self-effacing bitter chuckle she let out sounded to Ayaka eerily like something she herself might have made. {We're all slaves to history. I was already an unlucky human even before I knew that I was an unlucky ship. I tried asking around about your ancestors, as I promised. I haven't had any luck yet, but I did learn a lot about your family in the process. You lost your mother to illness; I lost my father to an accident.}
Ayaka's eyes widened in surprise. Nakahara had been always dignified and polite, but so too had she been carefully evasive on matters close to home.
{The other driver, moving too quickly and erratically, T-boned our car. Chichiue didn't suffer. My older brother was not so fortunate.}
{I'm… sorry,} Ayaka said lamely.
{My younger brother… to have been in a coma for years is a bliss of ignorance, is it not? Hahaue and I, our physical injuries were light, but… all she knew after what we had lost was her duty.} For a moment, the haunted look returned as she briefly looked at Ayaka. {Keiko-soboue didn't take Chichiue's death well at all.}
{How dare---how dare you still live!} An old woman yelled at a younger Nakahara and mother, naked grief and ugly fury mixed together on her tear-streaked face and in her voice. The Nakahara matriarch's arms shook with the promise of violence despite the desperate restraint from other, more youthful relatives. {All of you jinxes! You should have died, that my precious boy might still live!}
Ayaka twitched at the parallels. How much did Nakahara know about her recently-concluded psychological debilitation? Granted that Ichiyo had never openly broken down the same way, but she wondered, not for the first time, what would have happened had she and Kagami gone with their father instead. Would things have been different if they had voluntarily done so versus if Ichiyo had driven them away along with Yoshimichi?
{Hahaue had her duty and I had mine,} Nakahara continued even as her gaze fell away. If she had noticed Ayaka's contemplation, she did not speak of it. {Mine not to make reply, mine not to reason why, mine but to do. I did.}
{You didn't… feel burdened or stifled?}
Nakahara shook her head. {I did not. Not that there was room to philosophise in any case even had I felt such a need. Anything that needed flexibility fell on my shoulders, since Hahaue was…}
{Then all this began?}
Nakahara nodded. {A mother barely more cognizant than a robot, a brother comatose and bedridden… these things were. Kyoto had not been a priority target that first week. It should not have affected me.}
{Yet it had… the abyssal incursion had made your… made Fusou-san stir?}
{I am given to think it had. She must have guided my hand.}
Ayaka knew what had happened next. Mizuryu had been the first shrine to succeed in summoning. Partway through that pioneering effort, Harumi Nakahara, then apparently mundane priestess, had got up from her station and walked into the water to the shock of the others involved in the ritual. Halo radiating from the interaction between ambient light and dripping water, emitting an awesome Presence befitting one who bore a name of Japan as to drive even the old clergy and seasoned soldiers in attendance to genuflection, the elder of the Fusou-class dreadnoughts had emerged. With Yamashiro having Manifested in defence of Yokosuka earlier, she had been transferred there instead of being left at nearby Maizuru, her surviving family entrusted to relatives and caregivers, and the rest was history.
{So that's why Yoshida-san kept wondering why your mother hadn't been visiting,} Ayaka said in realisation.
{That's correct.}
{But surely you were glad to have Yamashiro-san back?}
Nakahara frowned with atypical open confusion. {I was, but how does that change anything? We knew how things had ended the last time, and we had realistic expectations from the start, even if Yamashiro was the more vocal about it. I cannot, will not, do not blame you in any way.}
Ayaka nodded weakly, not convinced.
Nakahara rummaged in her clothes and now took out what Ayaka recognised as a set of the tassels attached to her and Yamashiro's pagoda masts. {Yamashiro was going to give this to you when we got back.}
Ayaka stared at it, wide-eyed. It took a while before she could speak again. {I shouldn't. I can't accept this. It'd look like I'm trying to replace her.}
Nakahara shook her head. {It is all right. You are effectively one of us.}
{I really can't. I'm not worthy.} Ayaka tried another time to refuse.
Nakahara would not be deterred. {That is not a problem. I'm used to it after everything that's happened. I expect disappointment and therefore will never get disappointed. Please.}
Reluctantly, Ayaka accepted with both hands and a deep bow. "Domo arigatō gozaimasu." {I'm honoured.} Though she tried to suppress it, a sufficiently careful and well-acquainted observer - like Nakahara - would have noticed the difficulty she had with making herself believe her own words. The fine gold tassels felt so fragile yet heavy in her hands, and she could only stare silently at them again as she turned them around and rolled them over her fingers.
Nakahara patiently let her.
Ayaka eventually looked back. {Ah… by the way…}
{Yes, Godai-sensei?}
Ayaka didn't bother hiding the face she made or the harshness of her tone. {Don't keep calling me 'sensei'. I don't deserve it anymore. Maybe I never have. Just use 'Ayaka'. That's all I really am.}
A doubting look flashed over Nakahara's face and disappeared equally quickly, fast enough that Ayaka barely caught it. {Then please call me Harumi… Ayaka.}
Ayaka sighed. {Very well… Harumi.} Unable to decide yet where the tassels should go, she put them away first, then looked back to the other shipgirl as a thought struck her. {I had been thinking… I had originally wanted to visit the Skytree tomorrow, see how things had changed since I was last here. Would you like to come along?}
"Arigatō."
Ayaka made an acknowledging grunt.
Harumi now frowned, getting to her feet and turning to offer a hand to Ayaka. {We are late for dinner. We should go.}
===[===]===
Authors' Notes: Our thanks to Sathzur from SpaceBattles for finding the polite form for obaa.
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