READ THIS FIRST.
You might have noticed this update is very long. We squeezed both the originally planned CH14 and 15 in that we might get through with the entire day in one chapter, as per some feedback. However, we personally don't really like this.
There are three possibilities for how to split the chapter:
1) As per the previous draft, split CH14 off when the FNG tour ends and make the rest CH15.
2) Keep the whole mega-chapter as one.
3) Split in three: One chapter up until the tour starts, one chapter just for the tour, one for the rest.
Please vote in a reply; don't just "Like" or respond.
Authors' Notes: We cannot into architecture
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CHAPTER 14
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{Sun Araw - Deep Cover}
It was the next morning before the maintenance cycles were done.
Ayaka carefully untangled herself and made sure her feet were securely under her before she rose from the repair berth, stretched, showered off the residue from the repair fluid and put on a fresh set of clothes. As she did so, she subconsciously noted and repressed amusement at the uneasiness of her fellows at having had to bare all. With that done, she joined the wave of hungry shipgirls headed for the officer's mess.
The basics of a Japanese breakfast were there, of course: A variety of immaculately-grilled fish with rice, soup laden with seaweed, tofu and vegetables,
natto and rolled omelette.
It smelt of home, even if the Shirokaze household had hardly been adverse to ham and other untraditional food back when Imamura had been intact, and Ayaka felt a tinge in her heart at missing out on the weekly meals with her family.
Branching out from the fundamentals, there were also stews, seafood, porridge, pickled dishes, noodles, grilled and fried meats and croquettes.
For those not enamoured with Japanese cuisine, there was also plenty on offer. Bacon and ham, bread and buns, cereal, eggs cooked in other styles, pancakes, patties, sausages, and waffles. The list went on, with all the trimmings.
For drinks, there were jugs of coffee, juice and milk and pots of tea black and green alike.
Yokosuka certainly hadn't skimped on the food for the newcomers despite their own supply crunch. Ayaka wondered how much of this largesse was due to the newly-arrived stocks they had just received.
Almost all the destroyers made an unrestrained charge for the meal line, feet stomping loudly and vibrating with impatience as they waited for the food to be dished out. When it finally came, some of them were hardly out of the queue before they started chomping down in a display of plate-juggling worthy of any high-end restaurant's well-trained waitstaff and muffled cries of "Arigathanks!" Admittedly, most of the bigger shipgirls weren't being good role models as it stood.
Ayaka was near the end of the line; when it was her turn, she contritely said in Japanese, {I'm very sorry about the destroyers' behaviour.}
{It's fine, it's fine!} The duty personnel doling out the food said, waving off her concern. {Americans are very energetic, aren't they?}
{Y---yes.}
With breakfast settled, the amalgam gathered outside the mess before heading for the admiral's office, passing through a set of guarded double doors as they did so, the guards calling in their presence.
They stopped before a door with a plate marked "COMD KANFLOT ONE", removed covers where applicable and Yorktown knocked.
"Enter."
They did.
{Westlife - I have a Dream}
Kaishou-ho Shizuka Minami sat calmly in the Spartan office while the 18 members of the amalgam squeezed in. The woman had black hair and vivid blue eyes. Neither the placid expression on her face nor her white JMSDF uniform outwardly betrayed any sign of the stress that commanding a vital slice of her nation's defence despite the resource shortages must surely have been putting on her; Ayaka wondered how much of that was genuine and how much was the Japanese capacity for presenting a strong front that she herself had never mastered. The desk was aggressively ordered, as were the walls; though there were documents aplenty, there were no signs of any personal memorabilia except-
Ayaka couldn't resist the widening of her eyes at the solitary frame on the wall, a print bordered with repeats of TFV's emblem of a shield, on which sat a sword with wings and a banner with the word "VALKYAJA". It was a three-in-one of photos from the three Battles of Pearl Harbor, with the iconic shot of the stricken
Arizona at the top half, the moments from the more recent two forced to share the bottom half of the print.
Yorktown stepped forward, saluted and said, "Ma'am, Amalgam 55 reports."
Minami rose to her feet, returned the salute with a blossoming smile and said, "As you were. For the newcomers' benefits, I'm
Kaishou-ho Shizuka Minami, Commander,
Kanmusu Flotilla One (Yokosuka District). For reference, that's a NATO OF-7 equivalent. On behalf of
Kaishou Masaki Kamiki, Commander, Fleet
Kanmusu Force, welcome to Japan. We really cannot overstate the importance of the aid the US has been providing us."
"The pleasure is ours, Ma'am."
There was a series of beeps and a wall-mounted television filled up a progress bar. From Minami's lack of reaction, she had been expecting it. The bar resolved in turn into the TFV logo, the logo of the Department of the Navy and the NAVENSCIWARCOM mobius strip before showing RDML Abel.
"Exactly on time. Good."
"Admiral Abel, Ma'am!" Yorktown snapped back to attention and the rest of Uatu followed.
"Ladies, as you were." Abel nodded at them before facing Minami. "Hummer."
"Razor," Minami said. From the raised eyebrow, it seemed this part hadn't been expected. "You don't normally call. I haven't had the chance to thank you properly for the extra parts you got Iteration to spare us in the last round."
"Hmph. You're welcome. I thought I'd check in, reduce George's workload for a change."
"Really? You sure he didn't bribe you with the prospect of some of my
dango? Or was it Jacky?"
"Perhaps." Without the slightest shift in her expression, Abel turned back to Uatu. "CAPT Zelben tells me you encountered complications?"
"Yes, Ma'am," Yorktown said. "The abyssal raiders sent a flanking force from the south. They've never done that before. We didn't see them coming until our southward security started taking fire."
"I understand the storm conditions meant the Triton's electro-optical was useless and its other sensors still can't penetrate the abyssals' low observability effect?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Apart from this addition to their tactics, was there any change in their demonstrated capabilities?"
"No, Ma'am."
"No new or upgraded unit types?"
"No, Ma'am. Didn't see any of those red aura types starting to appear in the South China Sea."
"Very well. I believe Mr Odd and Mr Rush's teams will still want to look into this new wrinkle nevertheless. Have you come up with countermeasure proposals?"
"Yes, Ma'am. We'll have the reports, footage and data in by today."
"See that you do." Abel paused to consult something offscreen, then nodded. "Right. Anything else, Hummer?"
"How much shore leave are you giving Uatu? The Settler of Debts says his superiors want something done about the Paracels now that your girls are up to full strength."
"I'm aware; Juliet Zulu did keep me in the loop. We'll need time to adjust the rest of the construct's deployment while Uatu is sortied. I don't foresee that happening any earlier than the day after tomorrow, and that's already optimistic."
"Fair enough."
"He said something about Mr Ishikawa?"
"Goldmine?" Minami took a moment to think. "Yes, I do believe Sasebo wants a dog in the race, and it's likely to be..." she frowned at Abel. "Really, who thought making the
Ninghai twins the liaison for that particular unit was a good idea?"
"An excellent question." Abel's face betrayed nothing.
"Indeed? In that case, we're good, Razor."
"I'll leave you to it then."
"Already? Ah, that's unfortunate. Tell George I'll have another batch of
dango out on the return leg. Until next time."
Abel's lips might have twitched slightly this once. "See you. Construct Three Actual out."
Abel's face winked out.
Minami turned back to Uatu. "As it stands, I don't have anything to add to what Razor said. Any concerns you'd like to raise?"
Yorktown turned to look at her unit. When no one said anything, she said, "No, Ma'am."
"Those who've been here before, finish your reports and other administrative matters and you can go on liberty. Remember to check with the regs before you do. As you've just heard, be sure to remain contactable. We'll call you in when it's needed. Newcomers, there've been some changes around here even if you might have visited in your previous life, so we thought you might want to get a quick tour of the facilities before you do that. Maya, please come in."
Shortly after, from a side door emerged a blue-eyed shipgirl with a X-shaped hairclip on the right side of her short brown hair. She wore a sleeveless, cleavage-baring blue sailor blouse with a white collar and red scarf, black gloves, white miniskirt with a red stripe, brown belt and pointy olive green boots.
{Yo, Admiral! Working hard?} She shouted, wearing a cocky grin.
Ayaka recognised the voice of the new shipgirl as [Bokukan]MayaSama1930, the
Overwatch player with the loud victorious crowing in Japanese whose game Charybdis had been a spectator to back then. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Yorktown stiffen slightly.
{Like always.} Switching to English, she said, "We have newcomers for you to show around."
"Great!"
"Don't teach them the wrong things."
"When have I ever?"
"Yes, yes, go get your PUBG."
"POTG, Admiral."
"Yes, yes. Dismissed," Minami said, and the shipgirls filed out, Maya whistling a jaunty, triumphant tune as she did.
Ayaka and the handful of other newcomers stayed behind in the corridor outside the admiral's office as the rest of the amalgam began moving off, the other two battleships in the lead while the three carriers took rearguard. Maya jerked a thumb at herself and said, "Third of the
Takao-class heavy cruisers, Maya-
sama! Kobe-built by Kawasaki." She bent forward and squinted at them. "Do I know any of you from the Solomon battles?"
They exchanged confused looks. "...no?"
"Hmph! No submarines, though. That's great. I was never good with them. Anyway, Takao-
nee and Atago-
nee aren't stationed here, so no
panpakapans, I'm afraid. You'll have to settle for the Great and Powerful Maya-
sama! Though at least you won't have to contend with that smelly green spiky fruit Takao-
nee likes, so that's something!" Her lip curled in disgust at the thought. "Now, I bet you want to know where I'm taking you! First, we'll visit the JEXRA facility."
There was the sudden thump of an heavy landing, and Maya and the newcomers turned to see Princeton, who had apparently jumped in surprise, suddenly sweating and looking nervous. "Well… you girls have fun! The Bubble, away!" She conjured a portal with her cane and ran through it in an undignified hurry.
"Hey, wait for us!" Yorktown shouted, sounding uncharacteristically frantic, as she dragged a worried Essex through the portal before it could close. Hammann, rushing back at the commotion, could only growl impotently and sigh as it shut before her eyes.
"W---w---what's up with them?" Spence asked. The fearful destroyer with her lilac locks and blue and white sleeveless sailor uniform had fastened herself to Ayaka's back and was trembling at the thought of whatever could terrify the carriers so.
"Heheheh, you'll see," Maya said, snickering enigmatically. "Let's go!"
As Maya led them away from the offices, she first pointed out the main office, the operations room, then the communications room. After that, she led them out of the administrative section, past the main docks, armoury and supply depot and then a plain-looking building stretching to the water's edge, one that seemed to radiate a gentle power, if that oxymoron made any sense. As they were walking past it to a building with JEXRA's names written in both English and Japanese, Maya suddenly said, "Actually, wait one." She turned back towards the building the party had just passed, and they were through the entrance and walking towards the reception area when-
"Hey, wait, doesn't that belong outdoors?"
Ayaka and the other newcomers stopped at the exclamation and turned around, belatedly noticing the small
torii gate they had passed under just after the main doors and the downsized
komainu statuettes. She reflexively siddled off to one side, took her hat off and bowed once.
"Technically, it's supposed to be, yes," Maya said. "It's complicated. Y'all know the original summoning process is Shinto-derived, right?"
"Uh-huh."
"Yeah, but no one wants to give the wrong impression that this is a shrine on government property. That way leads to
Kokka---sorry, you know it as State Shinto,
Tennoheika blah blah blahzai, and no one with a working brain wants to go back there even before Yamata. Fucking Yamata." Maya growled venomously and was halfway through hawking when she caught herself.
Repressing her revulsion at the cursed name, Ayaka examined the
torii, noting that it was a new work, with no signs of the wear and tear that indicated having been taken from elsewhere.
"Are we not supposed to bow like Ms Iowa, then?"
Ayaka froze and glacially turned to look at Maya like a deer in headlights.
"Eh, do whatever you want. This isn't actually a shrine," Maya said while waving her hand dismissively. She nevertheless did so before heading over to the duty yeoman at the counter, and some of them followed suit. {Yo, Kouji! Melon-
chan in now?}
{Morning, Maya-
sama.} After looking it up, he said, {Sorry, she's not.}
{Aw, man! Never mind!} Turning back to the party, Maya said, "Yuubari isn't in, so the summoning chambers are locked. We'll just take a quick look at the outsides instead."
The destroyers flicking boredly at the plants and
shide streamers hanging from the
shimenawa rope festooning the lobby walls fell back into line as Maya led the way down a corridor to an antechamber with four large shutters along a wall and a ramp leading to a second storey with more doors. There was a salient smell of the sea. There was a long sink with a bunch of ladles by the entryway, as well as a bunch of seats and televisions - a waiting area, it seemed - and a set of double doors apparently leading to a warehouse.
"Are we supposed to wash our hands as well?"
"If you want to bother," Maya said with a shrug. "Iowa, you're supposed to be a priestess, right?"
"Eh?!" Ayaka couldn't hide her surprise at being put on the spot like this. It was one thing to be quizzed by curious Noo Yorkas who'd never seen a Shinto shrine before when she was properly garbed and in the right frame of mind, but this whole not-a-shrine had left her off-kilter.
"Lanty said something about that."
Thanks, Alice, Ayaka thought irritably.
"Go teach the munchkins the
misogi while I try to figure out which of these TVs is working, yeah?" Without waiting for a response, Maya went into the antechamber.
Forcing down the frown, Ayaka went over to the sink, called for the interested members of the party to watch, then picked up a ladle and used it to collect water from a tap before demonstrating how to use it to rinse the left hand, right hand and mouth.
"That's it?" Charles Ausburne, who hadn't bothered with the purification ritual but followed Maya straightaway into the antechamber said in the meantime. The sandy-haired destroyer sounded unimpressed. "I thought there would be a lot more justice."
"It rains from above in there, but we can't go in right now, so yeah," Maya said. "Don't imagine it'll be much different from what you have in your homeport, though." It was on the third snapping of her fingers at the televisions that one turned on. The screen showed a large room with a slope leading into water, a heavy gate like at a shipyard keeping the water-side exit barred, and a second-storey catwalk, currently unlit except by ambient natural daylight from windows. Something bugged Ayaka, who had finished supervising the about the orientation of the building, but she couldn't figure out what.
"Why're two of them cordoned off?"
"Hm? Oh, yeah, that." Maya made a face. "They're not ready yet. Something about having higher-priority things to spend on than opening all four summoning slots. I let the bean counters and log people worry about that sort of thing. Anyway, the warehouse is just a warehouse, so that's all there really is to here. Let's go." She led the way out after turning the television off and into the JEXRA facility.
"Are Mr Tanaka and Mr Inoue here? I want to thank them for the Three Tango Indias!" Charles asked as they went in. She began energetically making flamethrower noises and gestures. Another shipgirl began using her hands to simulate a plane, making plane noises that degenerated into Wilhelm screams.
"Let me check," Maya said, then turned to the duty yeoman. {Yo, Aoki! Shio-
kun and Shini-
kun in today?}
{Morning, Maya-
sama.} He regarded the party but briefly before turning to look it up. Ayaka wondered if exposure to other shipgirls and supernal oddities had inoculated these fellows to the sight. {Sorry, Tanaka-
san and Inoue-
san aren't in now. Do you want to leave a message?}
"They're not in," Maya told the party. "Do you want to leave a message?"
"No need!"
{We're good. The munchkins will come back another time. Thanks!}
Maya led the way to a door marked "Archaeobibliography", then kept on walking right past. "Ah, the boring department. Pass."
"W---what's that?" Spence asked.
Maya stopped, turned to her charges. "Books." She spat the word as if it were a particularly sour lemon. "The not-fun kind, where even the pictures are hard to understand. A lot of strange things in historical documents that might be hiding magical truth. That's what these guys look into. Most of this gets done by JEXRA Maizuru, but every base has a section." She resumed walking.
"Has anything come of it?"
Maya scratched her head. "Who was that… yeah, I think Chaldea's equiv has mentioned a couple of things. Cemal al-Hallaq, I think he was called, something something emperor of metals? Or Dr Roth and Dame Becker, something about this... Da'at Yichud?" Despite Maya's more than decent grasp of English, she tripped over the Hebrew words. "I don't understand it, and you probably won't need to either."
She pointed to the sign of the next main section. "The Foundry. You have one of your own, right?"
"Uh-huh!"
"We'll pass then. Now this, this is where the fun begins."
The sign above the doors said "Research and Execution".
"Execution?"
"Yup! Development implies a slow, long-term effort. Out here in these uncharted waters, fighting a foe that might be hiding who knows what else, we need to move fast. Now, don't touch anything."
"Yes, Lady Maya!"
Through the doors was an antechamber. A ramp led down to a basement but was currently cordoned off. "Danger: Excavation in progress", the sign said in English and Japanese. Maya went instead to the only other feature, another set of doors, and pushed past into a giant area crowded with equipment and people, tingling with Or Energy. Doctors, engineers and scientists were either hard at work on computers, tablets or tactile holograms or talking over things. Ayaka noted a pair of
gi-clad martial artists animatedly arguing with a refugee from 1950s sci-fi, as well as a monk and a Sadakoesque waif discussing some thick tome while a man in black with a gold lapel pin took notes.
Nearest to one of the doors at the far end, there was a
Yuugumo seated at a desk scowling at whatever she was working on. She had purple hair with a cowlick tied into a side ponytail with a red-edged white ribbon.
Maya made a beeline for her. "Fujinami-
chan, is Choukai in?"
"Ah, c'mon, I'm busy-" The destroyer looked up on them with yellow eyes and jumped in her seat. "Maya-
sama! Yes, yes, Choukai-
san's in right now! Should I call ahead?"
"No, we're good!" She pushed past the station and opened the door.
"Maya! You brought newcomers?" A female voice called out. "Let's see who you have there." She proceeded to name every member of the party.
"How?" Charles exclaimed. "No line of sight, I didn't get a radar warning!"
"Negative on active unveiling procedures either!"
"Your presence creates displacement and detectable phenomena, even when standing still under EMCON," the person said. "Disturbances in displaced air and gravimetry, heat, sound and other electromagnetic signatures, entropic mutability and quantum uncertainty, Or Energy movement along your supernal uplink. There's always a pattern, a picture of equations and vectors as unique as any thumbprint. Numbers are the fundament of the universe. Understand them, and you can understand everything."
As the explanation was being given, Maya led the way into another lab filled with devices Ayaka could hardly imagine the use of, laid out in an arrangement that probably made sense only to the one who had set it up.
Choukai had red eyes and long black hair and wore rimless spectacles. Her outfit was nearly identical to Maya's, except that she wore a black kneehigh and brown shoe on her left leg rather than the pointy olive green boots for both and had a knife tingling with the indicator for fairy-forging at her hip.
"So what's all this exactly?" Charles asked as Maya gave Choukai a one-armed hug while the latter was trying to stand and bow.
"We're the link between them and them," Choukai said after Maya let go, looking away from a wall of holograms floating by her sides and back to point in the direction of Archaeobibliography and the Foundry respectively. "Turning ideas into usable spells, effects into causes. Working on the unified supernal theory that lets individualized spells become mass-teachable rotes regardless of foci differences. Converting rotes into producible hypertech that doesn't need an Enlightened user." Her station started chiming with notifications. "I'm sorry, duty calls."
"It's okay~" the destroyers chorused.
As she sat back down, Choukai asked, "Maya? Have you seen Yuubari-
san?"
"What, she's not here either?"
"I haven't seen her, no. Looks like I'll need to work on the AR datalink some other day. Can you please tie up Princeton-
san and bring her here? I need her insight on the Larson-Moore-Eick problem, but she keeps running away, and there are more urgent and useful things to do myself than catch her." She started hitting things on the holograms.
"I'll do just that!" Maya said with a hungry grin, her features betraying no sign of whether she truly understood what had just been said.
Choukai nodded, then looked over the newcomers and craned her head skyward to regard Ayaka. "Iowa-
san, I'll need to speak with you sometime about your Timeworking."
"Ah, yes?" Ayaka replied hesitantly.
Choukai took a moment to grab a holographic object out of the windows around her and toss it at one of the machines in the lab, causing it to buzz, then said, "And, Maya, please bring Essex-
san here too. I need more data from other foci on Fateworking to work on entropic/temporal countermeasures."
"Leave it to me!" Turning to the party, Maya asked, "Any questions, kids?"
One hand came up. "Are you working on that Silver Ladder thing, Ms Choukai?"
"Me? No, not directly," Choukai said. "You'll have to ask JEXRA Ominato. They're the ones working with Profs Shirakawa and Tomizawa from the Hachinohe Institute of Technology, our foremost experts on dimensional studies and the Tsukinoe-Watase Theorem years before any of us came back."
"Okay!"
"If any of you have a strong grasp of DSci or Spirit, they'd appreciate any help you can offer on Ezo."
"Anything else?" Maya asked.
This time, there was nothing.
"Right! We won't bother you any longer then!" Maya slapped Choukai on the shoulder, then led the way out, waving goodbye to Fujinami as she did so.
"Ms Maya?" Spence asked as they were leaving R&E.
"Huh?"
"I---I still don't see why Ms Princeton and Yorktown are so scared of Ms Choukai? She seems nice."
"Of course my smart little sister is nice! Why… why… you know we all have issues, right?" Maya asked, suddenly contemplative.
"Y---yes."
"Even those who survived to the end of the war?"
Spence shivered again even as the rest of the party declared assent, and Ayaka was abruptly reminded that she had been one of the ships that hadn't made it to VJ Day.
"Especially those who survived where so many others didn't make it?"
"Uh-huh."
"So! You girls know that Princeton sunk because of a fire and now she's a pyromaniac?"
Scattered nods.
"Who knows how my little sister sunk?"
Shrugs and silence.
"Here's a touching story. Once upon a time, there was a place called Samar. Tago-
nee and I were gone and Takao-
nee would never fight again. That left Choukai to be BEATEN… BY A LITTLE GIRL?!" Maya shouted, causing the party to jump. "Oh yeah, there was a bandit who had to get the final word in, blew her butt up, but everyone fixates on 'lost to a Combustible Vulnerable Expendable'. Nice bankable story, no survivors. The end."
Ayaka couldn't tell whether it was Maya's delivery or the thought of being lost with all hands that prompted Spence to plant her face in Ayaka's dress and start blubbering, but the rest had not been spared; some of them teared up too, and even Charles was unable to hold back a horrified gasp.
"Okay, there were some, but then the destroyer that picked them up - that was Fujinami-
chan back there - went down with all hands shortly after, thanks Sexy Lady."
Another set of fearful winces.
"It's all peachy though. You live, you die, you live again, and this time you git gud. Like so." Maya had found a tablet while speaking and opened a video titled "Choukai Cuts all the Carriers (Volume 2)". "Behold!"
Ayaka put her hands over Spence's ears, suddenly filled with a high degree of certainty that the skittish destroyer probably shouldn't be watching what was about to follow.
The cheery strains of Offenbach's
Can Can started.
So did a clip of Choukai slashing open a Wo's throat with her knife, ichor flying like paint off an artist's brush just as Fairbairn and Sykes would have had it.
Cut.
Choukai hurled a brace of torpedoes at a Nu-class light carrier, the stubby Hellspawn looking like little more than an ambulatory version of a Wo's headgear, and they caught the shells it was firing on the way out. The explosions sent the abyssal hurtling through the air, falling right towards another Nu that had been disabled earlier on, and Choukai was already there, raised heel falling on them both like Susanoo no Mikoto smiting Yamata no Orochi. Even as the water exploded up around them, she kept on stomping, not placing a foot wrong even as she began weaving around and retaliating against shots from unseen foes.
Cut.
Choukai dodged a swing of a Wo's staff and used the momentum from the whiff, aikido-like, to grab and pull the offending arm while slicing it open down the block, released it so she could sidestep into a half Nelson on the unaffected arm and unerringly slipped the knife between the structural members rendered as ribs again and again as the abyssal convulsed and bled freely with every strike.
Cut.
Choukai split a Wo open vertically down its gut, then grabbed and spun it around so a would-be rescuer ended up shredding now-exposed internals instead, even as her own cannons took out the helpful monster in return.
Cut.
As Ayaka watched the chain of carrier carnage progress with a lack of horror she could only describe as worryingly muted, Charles and the majority of the party cooing and squealing in a steadily more raptured manner at the maulings they would not have been allowed into a cinema for, the tactical part of her mind started to notice a difference in how Choukai was taking out her targets. There was dispassionate dispatching where most abyssal ship types were concerned, one salvo one sinking. Even the planes got methodically marked and executed in synchronised volleys.
As for the carrier types proper, though… well.
Pulling a Vlad Tepes on a Wo with its own staff did count as a bit excessive… didn't it?
"That's my smart little sister for you!" Maya said proudly after the video finished to cheers and applause and she put away the tablet.
"So… Much… JUSTICE!" Charles exclaimed. "That's why Ms Yorktown and the others ran so far away?"
"Exactly. There is a very good reason why we all work so hard whether out on the sea or in the lab, though."
As they left the JEXRA building, it finally clicked that the gate to the water in the summoning chamber was oriented to catch the setting sun.
Passing the main helipad, where Ayaka noted a Skyranger among the Seahawks, and the repair baths, back into the main building, Maya led the way to a room without a door, one seemingly featureless from afar except for litter on the floor. There was a JMSDF man standing there by himself, leaning heavily forward, head down, hand outstretched and touching one of the walls. As he left the room, bowing slightly to Maya and the party, Ayaka noted that he should have been around her age, but his hollow-eyed look and slightly-slumped form made him seem much older. When one entered the room, looked at the walls closely, words could be seen engraved on them.
No, not words, Ayaka realised with a start.
Names, and the "litter" was nothing so crass. Here a print of a hasty snapshot taken at some pub, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed young men and women who would never smile or drink again; there a tear-stained note from the survivors of a section on board a ship of the 7th Fleet that had been dragged to the depths by abyssal firepower. Flowers and empty glasses, offerings to the lost.
The placement of the room was inspired; near enough to the main corridor it was off of that it could not be missed, far enough to offer a modicum of quiet to those who were missing.
"Here, on the memorial wall, we remember the fallen," Maya said, head bowed, voice soft and reverent, not a hint of her usual brashness to be seen.
Ayaka and those who wore headgear removed it and the party joined her. Spence whimpered; even Charles and the rowdier ones held their tongues.
"Sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. Every last one the best of us. American and Japanese alike, they who were stationed here gave to the last; this is the least we can do to honour them. May their sacrifice not be in vain."
They held the bowed silence for a minute before Maya straightened up and they left.
After this, Maya led the way to a gym, where shipgirls and normal sailors alike were watching an ongoing kendo spar. One of the
kendoka was breathing heavily enough that his body betrayed it even through his
bogu; his smaller opponent, whose back was to the door the party had entered through, was graciously giving him the chance to get a grip despite not being as weary, or at least doing a better job of hiding it.
"Ah, it's almost over. Hurry up and get seated!" Maya told the party.
After a few more moments, the weary practitioner straightened up and raised his
shinai back into a guard position. At a nod from an older man holding a small flag in each hand, he advanced, the two tapping their blades experimentally against each other once, twice, thrice-
The big one made to strike, and the small one swiftly parried his blade just enough to get it out of the way, before hitting him on the right side of the head with the backswing. The referee raised a flag in favour of the small one.
The big one tried to strike again, and the small one stepped aside enough for the strike to meet only air before rapping him on the wrist and side of the head.
The third time, the big one tried to let the small one strike first. His opponent simply laid into his side, twisting to spoil his belated counterattack.
The referee raised his flag one last time, and it was over. The two fighters bowed to each other and stepped off the mat to applause, heading to the side of the gym where they put down their
shinai before taking off their gear.
{You were so cool, Naganami-
neesama!} A
Yuugumo Ayaka belatedly recognised as Takanami shouted as she ran down from the spectator seats.
Huh.
{Of course, Takanami!} Naganami said as she turned to return her sister's hug. Without the face-hiding
men that she had bound her hair to wear, the destroyer was easy to recognise.
Ayaka stared at the
tare Naganami was wearing, unable to shake the thought that there had been something off about the destroyer's confident pronouncement. The kanji on the crotch protector said "Nagamine" and eyes trained by a lifetime of working with thread noticed the slight fraying that told her the protective gear had been in use for easily more than half a year.
Curious.
"Akizuki, Teruzuki, with us!"
Two gangly destroyers in similar outfits, accompanied by a pair of animate turrets each, blinked owlishly at Maya's shout. They wore black headbands with "DesDiv 61" in gold kanji, black-collared white short-sleeved sailor blouses with orange scarfs over grey corsets, and black and white gloves. One of them had short black hair and dark brown eyes. She wore a white miniskirt, white kneehighs and grey and red boots. Her turrets were smiling. The other had blue eyes and light brown hair that ended in two braids with propeller-shaped ties. She wore a black miniskirt, white over-kneehighs and red boots. Her turrets wore cocky grins, with one even holding a shell clenched in its teeth like a cigar.
"Next is lunchtime!" Even as the adjudicator called Naganami and the man who had been her opponent over, Maya took hold of the two
Akizuki-class destroyers by the forearm and began dragging them out of the gym to the giggles of the sailors and other shipgirls there. The rest of the party fell in behind her.
{Ah, Maya-
sama, we can't take so much!} They gestured frantically as Maya instructed the duty personnel at the food line to pile more stuff onto their trays.
{Nonsense! There's plenty to go around with the food aid ships having come in again!} Maya punctuated her words with the provision of another dish.
{We need to leave some for Hatsuzuki-
chan and the others!}
{I tell you, it's fine! The ships bound for Sasebo must have reached by now.}
{But…}
{You don't want to displease our benefactors, do you?}
The two of them shivered and shrunk in on themselves. {No!}
{Be good ducks, then, and eat up!} Maya promptly shoved some omelette into their mouths.
"Here's our training area," Maya announced after taking the party through a few more places.
On the water near the shore, there was a circuit of flags set up on buoys that shipgirls were doing slaloms around. The light cruiser overseeing the session was playing music from her external speakers.
"
Need for Speed?" Maya shouted. "Ah, I see you're a woman of culture as well!"
"Thank you, Maya-
sama!"
Maya next led them to the firing range, which was already in use.
The building's interior was exactly as advertised. Imamura's schools had had traditional archery ranges, so Ayaka knew what they looked like even if she'd never actually picked
kyuudou up in earnest. They signed in with the range safety officer and went out to the actual firing area, which extended out onto the water and had an elaborate system to simulate maneuvering targets at various distances.
"Hiryuu, Souryuu! How's it going?" Maya shouted.
"Ah, Maya-
sama!" Hiryuu said cheerily.
Souryuu's face was taut with concentration as she carefully finished drawing back her bow and letting the arrow fly. She took a moment to scrutinise where it had hit on the target's bullseye before turning to face the party. "Maya-
sama."
"I see you brought nuggets," Hiryuu went on with that peculiar hint of a Russian accent in her English.
"Yup! You've met, right?"
"Fluffy dragons!" The destroyers sang.
"At your service," the two carriers said with flourishing bows, lowering their weapons to relaxed positions as they did so.
"Show them the thing, wouldja?" Maya asked.
Souryuu looked at Hiryuu and launched into the kind of silent gesturing that implied they were using magic-secured private comms. Eventually, Souryuu said, "Fortunately, we are topped up and good to go."
"Do you need us to hold your sake?" Charles asked, and the rest echoed while giggling.
"No, but Tamon-maru does need you to watch!" Hiryuu replied.
"We do drink beer, you know," Souryuu said. "Have you tried any Sharky's yet?"
Ayaka had to silently remind herself once more that, despite appearances, even the youngest of them was more than 70 years old. She and her fellow Natural Borns in her class at MDL had had to go for seminars on coping with their Reawakenings, and included had been stern reminders not to judge their Summoned/Manifested comrades by the same metrics regarding age-appropriate behaviour one applied to normals.
It was something that didn't really stick.
"Right! Let's get this underway!" Hiryuu made handsigns at the range safety officer, who hurried to his computer and began inputting things and speaking into a handset. As he did so, the drones that had been moving the targets around flew away. Eventually, he gave the all-clear.
Auras flickered to life around the two carrier shipgirls, orange with a brown border for Hiryuu and green with a blue border for Souryuu, and they exploded in motion with the surety and precision borne of long hours of practice further honed by combat, bows flying into position as they fluidly drew, notched and fired arrows.
"
Ryuu ga waga teki wo kurau!"
There was a loud roar eclipsing their shout, the kind you felt in your bones as much as actually heard aurally, and a pair of giant spectral Japanese dragons, one orange and one green, burst from the arrows that had been fired and quickly disappeared into the distance. In their wake, only disintegrated targets could be seen.
"COOL!" Charles and most of the destroyers were reduced to incoherent squealing at the sight.
The sight sent an abruptly all too explicable shiver down Ayaka's spine, but she forced herself to join in the older shipgirls' applause. At least it wasn't red and blue with a purple trail.
"Now, we would actually do this at combat separation and let it go out to its full range-" Hiryuu started.
"-but that doesn't actually change anything for the purposes of this demonstration." Souryuu finished.
"Bye bye, bandits!" They said together.
After bidding the dragons goodbye, Maya now led the way to the quartermaster, where the group picked up its luggage, keys and a variety of other items and took them to the dormitories. While looking around along the way, Ayaka noticed a lonely-looking corridor with what looked like a bench and a pair of toilets along it.
"Just dump your bags and come back out!" Maya said. "The tour might be almost over but your day isn't!"
As it turned out, the room Ayaka had been assigned in the capital ship dorms had a scrupulously ordered fellow occupant. Everything was laid out neatly, without even a carelessly thrown-about top, and the only obvious signs of personalisation were two photo frames. One held a photo of Uatu from an earlier, incomplete stage and the other was a photo of three carriers that she belatedly recognised as
Yorktown-class flat tops.
Well now.
After everyone gathered outside the dorms once more, Maya eventually led the way to the offices, pointing out the briefing rooms as she did so.
"Aw, do we have to?" Charles asked, whining.
"Well, what can you do?" Maya said resignedly. "This is the long stretch of boredom part of war. I swear, there's a special place in Izanami no Mikoto's court for anyone who actually enjoys paperwork." Looking at the crestfallen shipgirls, something seemed to come to mind, and she added, "You know what, who wants to watch
Fury Road?!"
A clamour of "me, me, me" immediately rang out.
"We're in agreement then! Paperwork is MEDIOCRE, so you'd better not be! Do it well and do it fast, and you will be awaited in Valhalla, where you will sail eternal, shiny and chrome! WITNESS!" She pointed determinedly.
"WITNESS!" The shipgirls shouted back and immediately stampeded in without a further word.
Maya watched them make tracks for a while longer before she turned around to regard the two people who hadn't shared in their enthusiasm. "Not a fan?"
"Mis---sorry, Lady Maya, er…" Spence hesitantly detached herself from Ayaka to walk over. Casting a fearful eye about her surroundings, she whispered in Maya's ear.
Whatever she had said, it caused Maya to nod empathetically. "I know how that feels. Don't worry, I know just where to get what you need!" She rubbed the other shipgirl's back soothingly. "Find me after dinner!"
"T---thanks!" With that, she turned and headed into the office.
{It's not exactly my cup of tea,} Ayaka said once the other American was in, a hand to her sidelock.
Maya went very still for a moment, turned slowly to regard Ayaka with an expression somewhere between a grimace and "dafuq". "Say again?"
{
Mad Max isn't my cup of tea,} Ayaka said.
Maya continued staring warily at Ayaka for a few more tense moments before relaxing and letting out an audible sigh of relief at no longer having to struggle with English. {Is that so? You'd want to bother the Unlucky Tea Ceremony instead then.}
{The---oh. Souryuu-
san said something about Fusou-
san, right?}
{Exactly! You couldn't have missed the tea room.}
Did she---oh. {That corridor we passed by with the lonely bench?}
{That's the one!}
{I shall, then. Thank you.}
As Ayaka was heading into the office, though, she could swear she faintly felt Maya's radar on her back, heard her say with unusual gravity in the distant way that indicated thinking aloud, {I don't know why anyone wants to spend time with those repressed weirdos, though. Even Yams only feeds barely up to her need with no buffer. The
Hayai Harlot might be as great an ass as she has one, but she's just terrible about showing concern; the repair baths only mitigate the hunger, and none of us wants to risk frenzy at the wrong time because you botch trying to tough it out on will alone.}
===[===]===
After finishing her reports and getting the relevant information extracted, Ayaka left the offices and headed back towards the dormitory area in search of the corridor allegedly leading to the tea room.
It was surprisingly unintrusive; with all the corridors crisscrossing the base, far too many of which Ayaka still didn't know the endpoint for, another unmarked one easily went almost unnoticed.
Ayaka rounded the corner at the end and froze. To one side, the wall opened to reveal a small room laid out with tatami mats, currently unoccupied. The base's concrete flooring abruptly gave way further down the path to a miniature
roji tea garden of moss and rock. Following the rock path saw it terminate at a
chashitsu facade in the authentic
sukiya-zukuri style, complete with a
tsukubai stone water basin and a
nijiriguchi, the small entrance to the room proper. She found herself wondering where the budget or space for the thing had come from; it wasn't regulation, unless she was badly mistaken.
Ayaka paused again at the
nijiriguchi after washing her hands and mouth and removing her sandals, a hand on the wall it was part of, subconsciously noting that it actually felt the part. Traditionally, it was utter impropriety to enter a
chadou midway. This wasn't exactly normal circumstances, though so she hoped she could be forgiven for the intrusion.
She knocked on the wall.
{Persona 5 Original Soundtrack - King, Queen and Slave}
Almost immediately, a gentle voice wafted out, speaking English. "Please come in."
Ayaka bent low to enter. It wasn't like her fuzzy memories of Panamaxing - the opening had more room for that, probably enough for a
Yamato or
Montana if their anthropomorphised physiques were larger proportionate to her own as their original hulls would have been to hers - but it was still a fairly tight fit.
The tea room was small, plain and short, the low ceiling barely tall enough for her to stand up in. There was a
tonkoma alcove with a painting and a
chabana flower arrangement, but no other furniture. The windows were covered with
shoji and the small
mizuya pantry was obscured by a curtain.
"
Shitsureishimasu," Ayaka said once she was inside the tea room proper with its tatami mats, bowing apologetically. "I'm very sorry I'm late."
She was promptly greeted by the sight of West Virginia. The
Colorado's hands were folded seemingly primly in her lap and her eyes were shut, but the effect was ruined by how she was twitching silently in place, beads of sweat visible. The anger thankfully didn't seem to be directed at her. Ayaka had to wonder if sitting in
seiza didn't suit the older battleship. A tea ceremony was supposed to be calming, but it didn't seem to be having that effect on her.
To West Virginia's right, moving counterclockwise around the room, Maryland was staring blankly at the wall opposite. Ayaka couldn't see what was so interesting about the bare wall, which remained unadorned even after throwing up unveiling procedures. She looked at Ayaka briefly, nodding to acknowledge her presence, then went back to staring at the wall.
Further counterclockwise was what appeared to be a young Japanese woman with a pagoda mast ornament on the right side of her left-parted short black hair. Her red eyes were locked morosely on the floor slightly ahead of herself, hands fidgeting. There was something about her looks that inexplicably bothered Ayaka. She was wearing what had evidently started as a
miko outfit, but the long sleeves on the white kimono top over a red inner layer had come detached, and the red hakama skirt had shrunk into a miniskirt. Ayaka found it hard to resist curling her lips at the sight. The top, which was held together with a black
obi, also had a black epaulette on each shoulder, with a gold aiguillette falling from the one on the right shoulder and disappearing into her top at chest level. A red strap around her right thigh and white
tabi completed the outfit.
This was Yamashiro? Ayaka wondered if West Virginia's irritation was a reaction to how much bare leg the Japanese battleship and erstwhile victim had on display.
That meant that the last person in the room, who was also the host, was…
"
Nee-sa...ma?" Yamashiro abruptly asked as she belatedly looked up at Ayaka, confusion creeping into her voice.
The fourth shipgirl was kneeling in perfect
seiza form with closed eyes, the very picture of poise. A
furo portable brazier sat in front of her and the rest of the tea ceremony equipment was laid out neatly beside her. She wore a similar outfit to Yamashiro except that she had long hair and the pagoda mast ornament, thigh strap and hair parting were on were the opposite side. Ayaka had been looking at her when she became abruptly aware that both West Virginia and Yamashiro were staring.
"Sorry?"
The two battleships in question looked with eerie synchronicity from her to Fusou and back a few times before saying together, "Are you sure you aren't related?"
"Sorry?" Ayaka repeated, even as the two of them realised what they had been doing and exchanged a glare.
"Did you do something to your face or hair? I distinctly remember you looking this morning more like one of us than one of… them." West Virginia gestured at Fusou and Yamashiro.
"Eh?" Ayaka took a closer look, locking eyes with Fusou's newly-opened ones, even as her hands unconsciously rose to her bangs. She did look like a long-lost cousin, albeit obviously Japanese, Ayaka had to admit. There was enough red in Ayaka's eyes that their eye colours would even look identical under the right lighting. With that in mind, it was now apparent why Yamashiro's appearance had bothered her.
Maryland discreetly nudged West Virginia.
"Where are my manners?" West Virginia cleared her throat, trying to plaster a more neutral expression over her usual scowl. "Fusou, first of the
Fusou-class battleships, this is Iowa, first of the
Iowa-class battleships."
"Pleased to meet you. I'll be in your care," Ayaka said, bowing.
If Fusou was surprised by the sight, she didn't betray it in the slightest, bowing back. "Welcome. My pleasure to meet you too. Please be seated." There was a hint of Kyoto in her accent.
Ayaka obliged and lowered herself onto her knees, then began sliding over to West Virginia's left.
"There's no need to be such a stickler for protocol and do that," West Virginia, teeth barely audibly grinding as she tried to moderate her tone.
Ayaka mentally corrected the likely source of irritation to be the sheer Japaneseness of the vicinity. Evidently this wasn't the kind of tradition West Virginia had had in mind.
Maryland's lips drew into a thin line at that, but she didn't say anything aloud. Yamashiro, on the other hand, exercised no restraint regarding her disapproving glare.
Fusou didn't seem the slightest bit bothered as she carried out the steps of the
chadou. Retrieving the existing cups, serving a new tray of
wagashi sweets, cleaning and laying out every piece of
chadougu in the precise positions prescribed, preparing and serving the thick tea,
koicha, followed by the thin tea,
usucha, everything was done with an effortless familiarity and grace that didn't seem the slightest bit begrudging of the need to prompt her guests whenever a beat was inevitably missed.
Ayaka had to confess she was one of the hindrances. She couldn't say for certain what size the ancestral hometown had been before the Schism - thanks Mayugoro - but she was fairly sure no teacher of
temae had come with the founding mothers to Imamura, for there had been no tea ceremony school in the town. Fortunately, Fusou had been gracious enough to not point out that she did not know the way.
After the
usucha was served and the formal bits concluded, Maryland said, "You forgot one thing, Wee Vee."
"I did?" West Virginia stared incredulously.
"Yes." Turning to Ayaka, she said, "Iowa, we were telling our hosts about how the two of you are alike."
The tea was obviously made from high-quality leaves and there was just the right amount of bitterness and air to it that spoke of the brewer's extensive experience in the art, but all that was lost in the swirl of Ayaka's bewilderment. "Nn?"
Maryland extended a hand to Fusou, who bowed. "Harumi Nakahara,
shinshoku of the Mizuryu Shrine in Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture, enshrining Oowatatsumi no Kami. My pleasure to meet you."
"You're a Natural Born too?! Ah, I---I mean, Ayaka Godai,
shinshoku of the New Shirokaze Shrine currently in New York, New York, enshrining Shitori no Kami Takehazuchi no Mikoto, who we also address as Musubi no Kami! My pleasure to meet you too!"
"This is getting out of hand. Now there are two of them," West Virginia muttered testily, brows furrowed.
"Musubi no Kami? Which one?"
Ayaka tried not to frown. "It's… complicated."
She must have failed at repressing the frown. "My apologies. I shouldn't have put you on the spot. Please, relax," Nakahara told Ayaka with a dainty smile.
"Y---yes. Mizuryu? I went to Kyoto 4 years ago while at Kokugakuin and visited it; might we have met before?"
"I doubt so, I'm afraid."
"Ah." Ayaka hesitated, wondering if she might be too blunt with what she was about to say, then blundered ahead anyway. "Other You has… interesting ideas on clothing, doesn't she?"
"Oh, this?" Nakahara gestured at her own outfit. "Yes, it would appear so. Wouldn't it, Yamashiro?"
"Yes,
Nee-sama," Yamashiro said gloomily. "The vestments of the
miko, worn to serve the
kamisama, perverted into a prurient fantasy... such is our misfortune."
West Virginia started nodding in agreement, then caught herself abruptly, a look of horror flashing over her paling face.
It could have been worse, Ayaka thought to herself. Her overactive imagination unhelpfully supplied her mental images of the two
Fusous in elaborately-designed
oiran-style black and red kimono, albeit skirtless and leaving very untraditional amounts of cleavage and sideboob on display, and she had to fight back a grimace. Also, the imagined
Fusous were catgirls for some reason.
Nakahara looked back at Ayaka. "Gifu?"
Ayaka started. "Is it that obvious?"
"There's a hint of the Chubu dialects when you get nervous."
"Oh…"
"Really? I can't tell," Maryland said.
"It's quite subtle, not something most non-Japanese can detect," Nakahara said. "I was a bit unsure."
"Yes, my ancestors were indeed from Gifu's Hida region, but we no longer know exactly where."
"Why is that?" Maryland asked.
"My ancestors, after their arrival on North American shores, eventually founded a small town called Imamura, and it was there I was born. Around 200 years ago, though, the bathroom of a sandalmaker now only remembered as Mayugoro caught fire and it spread rapidly-"
"What? A bathroom caught fire?" West Virginia asked incredulously.
"Yes. I don't know how, but it grew out of control; by the time it had been extinguished, the first local Shirokaze Shrine had been burned down, along with almost all the records."
"A sorry legacy," West Virginia said.
"The name and location of the ancestral hometown, the meanings and origins of our practices, what the Great Schism that led to our leaving was about, why we ran so far away, who or what Imamura was and why the town was named for it - all those lost in time, like tears in the rain."
"Time to die," Maryland cut in automatically.
"What little my ancestors manage to recover or write down once more, that too was lost in the Cometfall."
"Comet?" Confusion marred Nakahara's face. "I'm not familiar with that."
"It's okay if you don't," Ayaka said, perhaps a bit sharply. "October 4th, 2013, the latest perigee of the comet Fafnir's 1,200-year orbital cycle. It was no dream, and when a splinter wiped Imamura off the map, it was so much more than a breathtaking view."
Nakahara peered intently into her teacup before looking back up. "If I'd ever heard about it, I forgot. I'm sorry."
"No, no, I understand," Ayaka said, trying to smile it away. "It wasn't like Tohoku 2011 or Kansai or Chugoku 2018 with major, prominent damage. Just a small town in the middle of nowhere, with no dead despite the catastrophe, no bleeding so it's not surprising that it didn't lead. Still…" The sight of the dragons from earlier in the day crossed her mind then, and her eyes widened in realisation. "We'd always held that Shitori no Kami had vanquished the heavenly snake Ame no Kagaseo, and yet when a comet bearing the name of a dragon drew near, we failed to connect the dots until it was too late."
Before she could stew overmuch on having been blind to the signs, Maryland asked, "Regarding what Wee Vee said, could one of your ancestors have married into Fusou's birth lineage?"
Ayaka's face scrunched up as she thought, though she was grateful for the distraction. "Bluntly, I don't know. I doubt it was a cadet branch of one of my ancestors pre-Schism; Gifu to Kyoto might be a matter of hours today, but it would not have been a trip made lightly centuries ago. Then there's marrying into a different line, which is even less trivial."
Nakahara nodded in agreement. "There are high-level commonalities between shrines, but Shinto doesn't have a one true holy book that prescribes strict universal laws like the Abrahamic religions do. Have I said this before?"
"You might have," Maryland said. "Orthopraxic instead of orthodoxic - the focus is on sound practice rather than doctrine."
"Yes. That said, a lot of clerical lineages, presumably including Godai-
san's, take seriously keeping the full extent of their unique practices and rituals esoteric and exclusive. Some do this even within themselves, passing everything down to only one designated heir and giving only limited instruction to the… spares?"
"An heir and a spare, yes, that's the saying," Maryland said.
"One of the Shirokaze women - and it's women because no Shirokaze has had a son in at least seven generations, based on what Gran's great-grandmother told her - leaving the town to marry out and taking even a slice of our practices away would have been bad enough," Ayaka said, taking up the thread. "Outright defecting to another shrine? Unthinkable. I would have known, because surviving records or not she would be cursed to the depths for bringing such dishonor to us."
"Unless such a person was subject to
damnatio memoriae," West Virginia said.
"There's that," Ayaka had to reluctantly concede. "If it was any time more recent, I wouldn't know either because we've had no success reconnecting with our cousins."
Nakahara looked contemplative. {Maybe…}
"
Nee-sama?" Yamashiro asked.
"Erm, Godai-
san, could it be the other way around?" Nakahara asked.
"Eh?"
"I was a bit confused when I saw the
kumihimo in your hair, especially after you said you were from Hida. Iga is known for
kumihimo, but Hida is not. Kyoto is, though. Maybe it was one of my ancestors who left for Hida and became the husband to one of yours, and he brought
kyo-kumihimo with him?"
Ayaka didn't bother keeping doubt off her face. "I don't know. If we braided and wove these cords as part of our unique observances, then it's possible that it wouldn't have spread to the people at large. It wouldn't have to be imported from anywhere."
"Oh… Still, there must be a reason why we look alike. I'll go see if my family records go back far enough, maybe ask my contacts in Jinja Honcho if they could help find out about your cousins?"
"The Association of Shinto Shrines may not be of any help," Ayaka said. "Before the Cometfall, neither Gran nor Great-Gran before her saw the need to join it."
"How troublesome,
Nee-sama."
"It's okay, Yamashiro. It won't hurt to try."
The conversation turned to other matters; as evening approached, the two
Colorados excused themselves, West Virginia with barely-disguised eagerness.
{Is something wrong, Godai-
san?} Nakahara asked in Japanese.
Ayaka turned back to face her fellow priestess-cum-shipgirl from where she had been watching the other two depart through the
nijiriguchi. "Eh?"
{You were staring,} Yamashiro said.
"Oh?" Ayaka blinked as her brain caught up. {Oh! I'm… after days of Wee Vee's entries and exits being heralded by John Denver, it felt weird for it to not happen.}
Yamashiro's lips twitched.
{It's okay, we can correct that,} Nakahara said. "Country road/
kono michi…"
"
Zutto yukeba/ano machi ni tsuzuiteru…" Yamashiro took up.
"
Ki ga suru…" Ayaka joined in.
"Country road…"
{Do you have any plans for your shore leave, Godai-
san?} Nakahara asked after they finished.
{
Ano… I hadn't firmed up anything yet, but I was thinking of seeing Tokyo. It's been years since I was at Kokugakuin and I thought it might be good to see what's changed.}
{Great! Yamashiro, would you please show Godai-
san around?}
{
Nee-sama?!} Yamashiro was clearly taken aback by the request.
{Ah, you don't have to,} Ayaka quickly said. {I can find my way around myself. Do you even have leave tomorrow?}
{It won't be a problem. We have nothing scheduled currently. I'm sure you won't be the only one looking to go out, even if you won't need a guide.}
{Are you sure?}
{Yes.}
{As
Nee-sama wills,} Yamashiro said.
{Thank you, Yamashiro. Godai-
san, I was going to make offerings to the
kamisama before going for dinner. Would you like to come along?}
{Yes, I would love to! My family makes our petitions daily in the mornings and evenings, but I haven't had the chance to do them properly the past few days.}
{Is it because there's no space to put a
kamidana in your shipboard cabin?}
{Yes, that's correct.}
{I understand. Please excuse me and go ahead first while I keep everything away.}
Ayaka and Yamashiro retreated through the
nijiriguchi to the waiting room, where Nakahara rejoined them shortly afterwards and led them to the
Fusous' dormitory room. An extensive yet neatly-arranged assortment of Shinto books and material marked Nakahara's side of the room. Ayaka recognised a bunch of half-made
omamori charms among them.
{Can I help with anything?} Ayaka asked.
{Oh, you don't need to!} Nakahara said. {I don't want to bother you.}
{It won't be.}
{Oh, very well. Yamashiro, please show Godai-
san the vessels for water.}
{Godai-
san, does your line have any specific requirements for the
kamidana?} Nakahara said after the offerings and prayers were made and they headed to the mess for dinner.
{Not that I know of. Something like the shelf and vessels you use would be acceptable, and I can consecrate them myse-} Ayaka's head turned midstep. {You don't need to specially go and buy some for me!}
{It's not a problem,} Nakahara said, punctuating her words with a smile. {I had already been planning on adding to my set of vessels even before you arrived. I'd offer you some, but without Matterworking, I can't turn my own resource stash into anything.}
{Thank you then.}
{Oh, and Yamashiro, Godai-
san, please dress lightly tomorrow? It's going to be a hot day.}
{Yes,
Nee-sama!} Yamashiro said.
{Thanks for the advice,} Ayaka said.
===[===]===
It was some ways past dinnertime before Yorktown returned to their room, wiping down her beret and footwear before putting them away. Ayaka caught a glimpse of Hammann casting a watchful eye from the door.
"Do you need help?"
{Persona 5 Original Soundtrack - Freedom and Security}
Ayaka, who had spent much of the time since dinner unpacking and putting her half of the room in order, looked over, confused.
"Getting your electronics set up."
"I don't mind," Ayaka said, vacating the seat before the issued laptop, unlocking her iPhone and handing it over. "Thanks."
Yorktown grunted as she did whatever she needed to do on the iPhone, handed it back while explaining what had been done, then sat carefully down on the chair and started configuring the laptop. "Do you plan on getting something better for yourself?"
"Nn? You mean a gaming-grade system like Alice's, with a colourful tower and keyboard?"
"Who?"
Oh. Right. "Atlanta."
"Yes, yes, Atlanta. Or Oakland."
"Nah, I was never a serious gamer."
"Hmph."
There was a stiffness to the set of Yorktown's shoulders, even off-duty as she now was, that Ayaka couldn't remember observing with Saratoga. Neither did it read like the rule-obsessed tenseness that was Washington.
That wasn't all that didn't match, either. While Jane's had gotten a great many things right - the lilac-locked bundle of nerves that was Spence, for one - she knew very well that the publication could and did get things horribly wrong, her very self being a case in point. That said, it was still jarring to have predicted every last visible physical detail correctly and yet get the personality wrong; where was the cheerful, confident carrier Yorktown was supposed to have been?
"I would, however, like to install a high shelf in this room over here."
Yorktown looked away from the laptop at where Ayaka was indicating. "Shouldn't be a problem." A while later, she got up, saying, "Done."
"Thank you."
"Stand by for secure transmission of the relevant codes. No writing them down."
"Yes."
After that was done, Ayaka settled down to begin use, but she hadn't been long before Yorktown asked from where she had been seated on her bed, "What is it like?"
"Sorry?"
"What's it like being a Natural Born?"
That was an interesting question. "You haven't asked anyone else before me?"
"I wouldn't know if there are any in this unit who secretly are, because I can't afford to get too close to any of you. Hammann is the sole exception, not because I want to, but because she gives me no choice." A distant look passed over Yorktown's face at this. "I need to remain detached and objective. I never know when I might have to put someone in harm's way for the good of the mission, and as the amalgam leader, any hesitation could be costly. It is ironic that the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness our people hold so dear can only be maintained because of an institution built on regimentation." After a pause, she added, "I don't particularly bother to know either; so long as it doesn't compromise performance, I don't care whether someone's been sleeping amongst the masses for a long time, only came back after a petition backed by resources and blood, or pulled herself through the Veil unbidden."
That was surprisingly cynical for a Sierra Mike, Ayaka thought. "I know I am Ayaka Raquel Tresha Godai, born August 27th 1996 to Nijimi Shirokaze,
kamisama rest her soul, and Yoshimichi Godai. I have one younger sister and one surviving grandmother.
"At the same time, though, I know I am the USS
Iowa, BB-61, nameship of the last completed battleships of the United States Navy, launched from the New York Naval Shipyard 27th August 1942, sponsored by Mrs Ilo Wallace, commissioned February 22nd 1943 with CAPT John McCrea as CO. I was supposed to have five younger sisters, but only three were ever completed. There were decommissionings and recommissionings and changes of command, until the last one on October 26th 1990 that put me under for the last time; I was born again six years later, having for almost 27 years had no reason whatsoever to believe I was anything but another human."
"What happens when the Navy finishes reactivating your hull, then?"
"I have no idea," Ayaka said. "There definitely is some supernal thread connecting the present me to the past me, if you call it that, but what that means in future, I don't know.
"What is it like to be a Natural Born… that's a difficult question. It doesn't seem like much has changed."
"Any new urges or instincts, compared to when you were a frail?" Ayaka thought she saw an odd look pass over Yorktown's face, but it passed so quickly that she wasn't sure it had actually been there.
"Not really. I don't find my vocabulary and habits shifting towards the nautical; it's still more instinctive to say 'wounded' and 'killed' than 'damaged' or 'sunk'. I don't have any problems controlling my rigging, for it feels just as much a part of me as any of the limbs I was born with. I don't feel any additional fear of getting submerged, though I don't think I'll ever learn to appreciate Navy coffee, and I don't feel the urge to call SecNav my lord and saviour."
Yorktown failed to repress a snort.
"If it's memory you're asking about, what I remember from my first life is hazy and just as spotty as my memory of this current life is, to say nothing of the roughly six-year long dreamless sleep in between. There are highlights, some clearer than others, but without those recording procedures that run while my rigging is active, there's no unbroken total awareness. I couldn't tell you where each and every one of my crew was at a certain point in time." A dark thought surfaced in Ayaka's mind and her face fell. "All Other Me… I really remember of April 19th is death and fire and pain. I'm not so secretly glad no one's tried asking me about that day, because I can't even tell anyone for certain what happened."
Yorktown made an affirmatory grunt. "It's similar over here, then. Regret. That's what sticks with me even when I can't retrieve a clear picture of what transpired. Regret, regret, regret. Just a persistent feeling haunting me. I still haven't dared apologise to Sara about Lex, and no matter how many times I read the countless stories I still wish I'd been around to see Little E become a legend."
"Similar… no, but not alike," Ayaka said. "That's another thing that separates Natural Borns from Summons. You speak of what happened last time as still you; I have difficulty thinking of both my past and my present as parts of the same whole."
"Oh? I believe you'd know what to do when your own sisters come back."
"Perhaps…" Ayaka wasn't entirely convinced. "Your question leaves me wondering, though: What are we?"
"Sorry?" Yorktown was quizzical.
"There have been thoughts percolating in the back of my mind. According to the lore on the
tsukumogami, a tool that exists for a hundred years will either be occupied by a spirit or manifest one naturally, which is why some people throw out old objects before they can hit that milestone. Almost none of us museum ships are old enough to qualify, though, and by that logic
Constitution should have been back a long time before any of us."
"Or
Mikasa, or
Texas, instead of waiting for the abyssals to strike first, you mean?"
"Yes. Furthermore, spirits are supposed to be intangible and invisible. They aren't supposed to manifest with material bodies." Ayaka ran a hand through her sidelocks. Even after bleeding for the nation, there was still part of herself that couldn't accept she was really one of those weird phenomena that Morrie used to follow religiously. "If we're the result of possession, then there should only be Natural Borns, no Summoned. Even if I concede that the traditional beliefs are wrong, how do we come into the picture then? Nonliving things shouldn't have sentience, a soul and memory, something to… transmit postmortem continuity of existence... yet here we are. Are we… what were the terms Iteration used? Did the presence and actions of hundreds to thousands of men in and on us create a resonance, that deeds below created an imprint above, birthed a… noetic gestalt?"
Yorktown didn't respond, seemingly lost in thought, and after a while Ayaka returned to her use of the laptop.
"Intriguing." There was the rustle of fabric as Yorktown rose to her feet. "I don't bother much with these philosophical lines of thought. I prefer answers to more concrete lines of thought, like why you bothered."
"Eh? Why I bothered with what?" Fighting back a sudden nervousness, Ayaka turned to see Yorktown staring down at her, displeasure evident in furrowed brows.
It was finally starting to sink in that the older shipgirl was by no means short; somehow, she had always had the impression that Yorktown was petite, but there had been less than 10% difference in their old bodies' lengths, and though the length differences were not one-to-one between hull and human, that still made for a giant beanstalk.
"Saving William Porter. Why did you bother?"
"It was the right thing to do," Ayaka said automatically.
"Was it really the right thing to do?" Yorktown pressed on, undeterred. "Or was it what was right in your own eyes?"
"I-"
"When you first saw her in a danger of her own making, were you blinded by your common history?"
"Blinded?"
"Paralysed? Dumbstruck?"
"No… Other Me, she was quite insistent that I leave well alone."
"Why, then?"
This time, Ayaka was indeed dumbstruck.
Yorktown stared at her for a bit longer, the anger melting into disappointment and inability to understand, then went to a safe, pulled out a laptop. "I don't need an answer right now. I just need you to think about it. I doubt you truly understand just what you're doing." She turned it on and eventually opened a video. "How many chances do you give a screwup? Seven? 70 times 7?"
"I…"
"Don't hurry to answer that for the sake of giving me an answer. Watch this first. If thrice is enemy action, and even Mary who was the most bleeding-hearted of us saw fit to edit it with as much raw candour as it has, you should be able to draw your own conclusions."
Without further comment, Yorktown went over to her wardrobe, took out some clothes, and headed for the showers; Ayaka took it as her cue to start watching the video.
It made for sobering viewing. The good shepherd, so she had read, might leave behind 99 sheep to look for one lost one, but what if that sheep not only was a repeat offender, but kept bringing down the wolves on the rest of the flock?
Yorktown, post-shower, found her some time later still staring at the finished video with its player frozen on the final frame, her own affairs forgotten. "Done?"
Ayaka nodded mutely.
"I know this isn't easy to hear, but if we weren't in such dire straits, Sextuple-Utah would have been drummed out a long time ago for sheer incompetence. As it is, no one wants to take her off our hands. CAPT Zelben and RDML Abel have tried. As for you… 'Make decisions in the best interest of the navy and the nation, without regard to personal consequences', that's what our core values say. You have the latter; do you have the former? I don't need heroes, and I especially don't need sunken heroes." Yorktown looked to the roof of the room, a conflicted look flashing on her face. "Little E would have made a better master and commander than me. She would know what to do."
There was that phrase again.
"Little E? You mean Enterprise?"
"Yes." Yorktown did something on her phone, then showed it to Ayaka. There was a beautiful painting of her and two other blondes with similar features, outfits and rigging; Ayaka had no difficulty recognising the three
Yorktowns from Jane's. "One of the Iteration Seattle boys made this for my launch day." For a moment, Ayaka thought she saw Yorktown's face gain a dreamy expression. The carrier muttered something; Ayaka could only pick up "good meal". Then the doorbell chimed and Yorktown's expression cleared as she opened it to reveal Hammann, also dressed for a night out on the town. The carrier didn't leave immediately, but stopped short of the threshold and turned back to Ayaka first. "Think about it. I'll be out late. Go ahead and lock the door when you're heading to bed; I have my own keys. Good night."
===[===]===
Later, Ayaka padded out of her room. After dark, Yokosuka was rather quiet, and the strains of
a koto-based cover of Toto's Africa running faintly on the base PA only added to the tranquility. As she made her way out to the waterfront, she ran the timezones in her head. Uileag would probably be having breakfast or getting ready for the day over in Port Hueneme.
There was nobody else in sight when she arrived, which meant she had the sights of the Uraga Channel and Tokyo Bay at night all to herself. That suited her just fine. Sadly, as pretty as the vibrant surroundings were, all the light meant she could barely see the stars, if at all, and she was reminded of how much she had taken the view for granted back in Imamura.
As she put a wall to her back, she looked down at her phone with Uileag's contact displayed. Without a schedule for their Japan-based operations, it hadn't been possible to set up an agreed time to sit down and use Skype or something, and in all frankness video calls were something she had never really gotten used to.
She pressed the call button.
Uileag picked up on the third ring. "Ayachi!"
"Uiui! Is this a bad time?"
"Nay, it's fine! I've had my breakfast and was getting ready to head to class. Hector already left. You?"
Ayaka checked the time. "Not… 0-dark hundred... yet. I'm good. How've things been?"
"Just starting on the new stuff we couldn't get to before the attack. Almost all the old stuff's done. Nothing I can't handle. You?"
"Oh, we reached Yokosuka last night."
"Aye, got your message."
"Yup. We met the admiral and got the FNG tour."
"Anything interesting happen during the actual convoy?"
Ayaka stared off into the dark for a few moments, unsure how to answer. "The abyssals hit us in the Bering Sea as anticipated. A few of us took hits, including me while rescuing a downed destroyer."
"You-" There was a susurration, like Uileag was hissing through his teeth while trying to fight down the urge to shout. "You what?!" he eventually said.
Ayaka winced. This was exactly what she had feared. "I'm fine! Really!" She couldn't help a twinge of guilt at downplaying her injuries.
"Ayaka! You---I---I…"
"We're okay! There's not a scar to be seen after getting repairs done!" Unconsciously, she felt her back nevertheless.
"You can't make light of this kind of thing! This is no laughing matter!"
{Of course it's dangerous, but it's not like staying on land means I'm safe!} Ayaka shouted, unconsciously switching in her anger to Japanese. {We're at war, and this is a duty I can't shirk, any more than you! This isn't a game you can load and retry until everyone gets out unscratched, and I'm not some easily-broken porcelain statue!}
{I know that!} Uileag said sharply right back, falling back into Irish in his wrath. {You---you think I don't know that? It's not the same when it's someone I know and love! I can't just accept it rationally! There's a difference between the ordinary dangers of combat and purposely putting yourself in danger for someone else's sake!}
{So? I can't run away from the responsibilities that come with who I am!}
{Responsibilities? Please! Jumping on grenades, deliberately exposing yourself to fire to pull others to safety - all of that is going beyond! Medals are not given for what's trite!}
{Maybe so, but can I really say I've done all I can if I don't? I'm a battleship! Protect, attack, never stand back - that's what I do!}
"Ayaka…" Uileag took a deep breath, trying to get a grip, abruptly aware of his slip and forcing himself to return to English. "I'm no line officer, but I do know battleships were never meant to operate alone and scorts are supposed to protect you, not the other way around! Are those warship instincts getting to you? You're a person too. Don't forget that. Is this some Spider-Man thing? What makes you think you need to take the weight of the world on your shoulders?"
{What do you think? You set an example that stuck fast in my psyche and wouldn't let go! You're in no position to criticise, Hero of Hueneme!} Still lost in anger, Ayaka hadn't followed the change of language.
"Hero?" Uileag scoffed. "No. I didn't think! I never do! You're better than this, better than I am! Tell me, Ayaka Shirokaze - this recklessness, would losing you have been worth it?"
{No! It's not about worth it or not worth it! Not about feeling like a hero! Had to be me! It always did!} There was desperation in Ayaka's voice now. {10 years back, with you, Morrie and Hitomi incapacitated, it was all up to me.}
"Yes!" Ayaka took the marker in one hand, Uileag's hand in the other and began to write her name.
The next moment, there was nothing in her hands, nothing before her but a gradually-darkening mountaintop.
She could hear Morrie behind her as she ran, futilely yelling at the festivalgoers to flee.
{Again, residents of the following areas, please evacuate to Imamura High Sch-}
Hitomi's frightened shriek pierced the night air.
{It was the same here. No one else was going to do anything! No one else cared for a Worthless destroyer! Hammann and Yorktown all but said so! No, it had to be me. Had to be… had to...}
She trailed off, the hand holding the phone beginning to tremble as she slid down the wall into a heap. Uileag struggled to come up with a response, and silence set in, thick and cloying.
"I had a nightmare a few days back," Uileag eventually said as she was standing back up.
Ayaka had not been expecting that, and it punched a hole in the wall of anger that the silence had begun to wear down. "Huh?"
"What you said, it reminded me. I was reading one of my textbooks and as I turned the pages, it became the book of Imamura's dead, the one that shouldn't be any longer."
Ayaka's breath hitched in her throat, the reminder like a big bucket of ice washing away the remainder of her anger. She could see in her mind's eye, clear as if Uileag was still back there, the big book with its black covers, plainly, matter-of-factly, mercilessly laying out 500-odd victims transformed and reduced to words on a list, flipping implacably past Morrie and Hitomi until it finally, terribly reached-
Ayaka Raquel Tresha Godai @ Ayaka Shirokaze - 17
"I'm sorry for yelling at you. I know there's no excuse. I'm just---I'm afraid of anything happening to you," Uileag continued, almost whispering now. "Again. No, not again---not---you know what I mean! I'm not a role model. My helping people thing isn't something to be emulated. I'm afraid that you go off and every piece of you disappears without a parting word, never to be seen again, just like all those years ago."
"I---I know," Ayaka eventually managed to get out and back to English, "and I wish there was some way I could better assure you that I'll be fine."
Uileag sighed. "I---that's about as much as I can hope for, I fear. It's---it's probably selfish to think this, but yes, I know it'd definitely help my peace of mind if you didn't have to go and fight. Having to leave you to carry this burden yourself, it bothers me greatly, makes me feel so useless. I just wish I could do more."
"You could ask Iteration?"
"For some reason, I have my doubts about whatever they might suggest. I don't think so… Still ever wish you were just a normal person, rather than having the misfortune of being a reincarnated warship spirit with all those pesky instincts?"
"Yes… I never asked for this either. All this power, all this responsibility… It'd be a lot easier if I wasn't even able to do any of this. I've never been good with anything demanding responsibility, have I?"
"No." Uileag chuckled. "You're getting old."
"What!"
"Younger you wouldn't have been so self-aware. For all your wanting to run away, though, it always worked out in the end, didn't it?"
"Ugh. Don't you quote Churchill at me." She made a face though he couldn't see it, but there was no real wrath in her words.
{You're still an
aho though,} Uileag finished in Japanese.
{It can't be helped…
Amadán,} Ayaka shot back in Irish.
They shared a laugh.
"So, anything else on the agenda you can tell me?"
"There isn't a detailed operational schedule, so I can't work out a fixed Skype time. We'll play by ear?"
"Sure, sure."
"Shore leave tomorrow. I'm headed to Tokyo with Yamashiro. Is there anything you want me to pick up for you or your family while I'm here?"
"Not really. I'll leave it to you."
"Yes. Have you seen the wedding preparation things Gran and your father sent?"
"Aye."
Gran and Mr Greer had sent her a whole bunch of stuff to prepare for the wedding, including but far from limited to a reminder to get fitting done for the
uchikake. The things were hard enough to acquire for normal-sized people; where she was concerned, it was impossible to get off the shelf.
Some of the last few preparations could only be done in person, but it was really not possible to put into words how grateful she was that they were shouldering the majority of the burden.
"If only I could actually reach all the way out," Ayaka said, even as she stretched her free hand eastwards. "My hands would be happy just touching yours." She locked her mind on her grandmother's teachings and tried to follow the invisible thread extending from herself to Uileag.
{Hotline Miami 2 Original Soundtrack - Decade Dance}
Her only warning was a pleasant metallic shiver, too gentle to be said to slam into her, but undeniably intrusive nevertheless.
Feed
It was like something… someone? Was speaking at the back of her head.
Feed
No, not speaking. That implied a conscious, articulate vocalisation.
Feed
It was something mechanical and yet more primal, more instinctual, more atavistic.
Feed
For all that, its meaning was too clear.
A lurid image of herself and Uileag flashed through her mind, calling for a rather different sort of connection than what she had had in mind. It made her horribly cognisant of what she was supposed to be feeding on and what that process entailed. Her cheeks flushed even as she seemed to start seeing purple, feel the pleasant tingling return but in a place she really didn't want to think about, and still something more.
A Ship does not live on fuel alone
There was a feeling that was smooth like honey, no roaring beast, but no less insistent for her not to settle for such a meagre prize as a held hand.
Why have you not fed
Where she ended and the consuming need began was starting to blur along with her vision, the intruder trying to determine alternate sources of nourishment with Uileag thousands of kilometres away behind an ocean, and she slumped against the wall behind her, finding standing upright difficult. It took all she had to grit her teeth against the intrusion, force herself to breath evenly and regularly. The outstretched arm fell to her side, hand clenching hard enough it seemed to feel and sound like metal scraping against metal rather than nails into flesh, as she pulled a
norito from memory, grateful for having long internalised the prayers. She wasn't sure she would have succeeded if she had had to manually look them up, struggling against herself like this. Straining, she silently bit out the words in an attempt to quash the interruption.
Across the Pacific Ocean, unaware of her turmoil, Uileag mirrored the gesture. "Me too."
Ayaka took a relieved breath as her head cleared and the sensations faded, seemingly suppressed by the prayer, and let it out slowly and quietly. It had felt like minutes, but by both her internal chronometer and sense of Time it had been but a very few seconds, and she was grateful he hadn't seemed to notice anything. She made a mental note to make amends for failing to purify herself prior to beseeching the
kamisama, then retried the spell, this time without interference, only to meet with disappointment. "Sadly, the Or Energy costs are beyond me."
Uileag chuckled. "Sadly. It'd probably look odd too even without witnesses, your hand popping out of thin air. Anyway-"
"You need to go. Yes, I shan't hold you.
Mo Anam Cara."
"See you.
Suki da."
===[===]===
Authors' Notes: Shizuka Minami on loan from Salbazier. Thanks for the help in getting her right!
Our thanks too to Commander Error for other assistance with characterisation in the chapter.
If you've done Winter 2018, you might recognise the composition of the abyssal force Choukai was taking on, albeit with a few extra destroyers as per the
Long War-isation we have going on.
) too subtle and easily-overlooked if people are zooming in on Shimakaze as a standout rather than merely just a additional data point. Will need to discuss more with MAEt about this.
