1The cruise back was silent. A somber aura amongst the ships present. Fubuki was unsure of how best to proceed. The sortie hadn't been easy by any stretch of the imagination, in fact it had been one of the hardest to date. She could still remember the briefing…
"Are you certain this news is accurate?" The admiral was looking at a sheet of papers with an incredulous expression.
"As accurate as I-19 and I-168 claim it to be." Battleship Mutsu mused with a smile. "Fiction has been busy."
"How an unarmed submarine can piss off a princess is beyond me…" Fubuki watched her admiral shake their head, covering their eyes with their hands. Yet there was one thing the destroyer couldn't help but wonder.
'We have a submarine called 'Fiction'?' Fubuki thought with a tilt of her head.
"Anyway…" The Admiral continued on. "Fubuki, Yuudachi, and Ariake will be on escort detail. Kaga and Akagi, you will also be joining in on this one."
"Seems the admiral isn't taking any chances…" Ariake murmured to the other two destroyers.
"Seems like it poi." Yuudachi nodded slightly, looking at the other end of the table. "Though, why are Tenryuu and Furutaka here?"
"Good question Yuudachi." The girl in question let out a small eep as her admiral gave the destroyers a look. "Tenryuu will be there to help with the aircraft or possible submarines while Furutaka will be one of the big guns."
"If I may ask why I was called then?" Nagato stood at attention; she had been silent for so long that most of the ships assembled had quite forgotten her presence.
"You're my other 'big gun'." The Admiral stood up. "Nagato due to your experiences I need you to be the flagship for this sortie."
The battleship simply nodded. She had probably already had a feeling what her admiral needed.
Fubuki jolted as Ariake gently nudged her shoulder, unknowingly breaking the special type destroyer from her thoughts.
"Hey… Fubuki, you ok?" The damaged Hatsuharu class destroyer looked concerned. "You've been kinda silent, not that I can blame ya."
Fubuki gave a small smile back towards Ariake. "I'm fine. I should be more concerned about you." The other destroyer had lost her hat, and her hair was a mess. The red tie around the black haired girl was now untied and hung loosely around her neck.
"Nothing a bit of time in the repair baths won't sort out." Ariake waved it off with a sad smile.
It was a bittersweet moment, a calm before the storm.
My crew was in fact not messing with me… I did in fact have to eat a car… it did in fact taste horrible, thank you very much. Cars taste horrible… WHO KNEW?!
"Hey!" There they go again.
"Even if it's supposed to magically give us supplies why the fuck am I eating a car?!" I couldn't stop the whine from coming out, lightly kicking at the dirt with a pout on my face. "I can taste the diesel practically, and this thing looks like it's rust red without the red!"
So absorbed into my tantrum I failed to notice the appearance of an extremely tiny woman on my shoulder.
"Hey…" The woman simply called out.
"H-huh?" Looking down, l blinked in amazement before a grin spread across my face. "Oh my god, Valke you look adorable."
"H-Hey…" A rosy tint worked its way onto the small thing's cheeks but she kept her cool, standing at attention in case by some miracle a higher up came along I bet. Either that or she really was just that much of a stickler to the rules.
"Yeah? I guess that is true…you look like a little fairy!" The girl was practically vibrating in place, trying her absolute hardest to not hug the little captain against her stomach. "My own little fairies!~"
"Hey…"
"You are though! You all are m i n e… RIGHT?" The words practically forced their way out of my mouth, a surge of possessive greed that felt oddly right. Maybe it was because Valke was part of my crew? As a ship person wouldn't it be natural to be protective of the ones who keep me moving? "Oh yeah, have they made any progress on you know what?"
"Hey!"
"Seriously… hahhh man this sucks."
LOG 2
Day 1 of our… new life
Date: N/A
Time: 11:45 AM (By the reckoning of our ship's clock)
So I've finished eating the car. Yeah I wasn't joking about that. I actually ate a car, no clue which model it was, too rusty. Tasted Toyota though, hehe.
CLANG!
Ouchies! It wasn't that bad of a joke….
Hey!
Mmph… fine it was pretty bad. I have an idea though on where we are. Walking away from the ship wreck towards inland I found street signs! They were Saratoga, Lexington and Langley boulevard! Ships in the service of the U.S.A. I think I'm still in the states somehow, at least I'm hoping.
Hey
Not sure where we could be Valke but the sign was in english.
*Ahem* Anyway… none of the houses are still standing. I am not joking, this whole place looks like it was leveled by the equivalent of two hundred road rollers. The sign I had found was on the ground so it's safe to say that either the apocalypse is happening or the U.S is currently in a war with someone.
Hey
Glad you agree… anyway I'm making this log while I'm walking and talking which is probably a horrible idea but walking down Lexington is depressing. Just so much… destruction.
"It's almost like-" I felt the words die in my throat as I saw a broken flagpole. While there was no flag attached to it… it was the marble stone that killed the part of my mind that allowed me to talk.
"Hey…." Valke was in similar shock. The two of us stared at the scene for longer than we'd like to admit.
Eventually I shook myself from my stupor before walking closer. The cracked black slabs had a design on them of a ship, another row of slabs attached to it and behind those were odd small white pillars. (Valked would correct me by saying they were standards later.)
"I-Is this…?" My voice came out in a hoarse whisper. "Holy shit Valke; I think it's a memorial."
"Hey…?" My heart sank hearing just how broken the tiny little captain was.
"Valke… you didn't fail anyone." Trying to console her wasn't working, I had to do something different. I looked back towards Valke who was on my left shoulder only to notice something else I had initially missed. It was similar to a tombstone, jutting out from the ground with the top half of it missing. I could only attempt to see what it was stating with some words abruptly cutting off.
"THE BL- NITE PANELS - FORMIDABLE HULL OF…" My head was hurting just looking at it. The best I could gather was that the white posts (standards) were meant to represent someone who had died in some sort of accident. In a moment of contemplation I walked back the way I had come. There was something I wanted to make sure of.
?
There was excitement. Whatever had been stopping the ones that remained was gone now.
"The call will come."
"Though who should go first?"
"Who can save those taken?"
"She gave everything for this chance."
"She's an older ship though."
"She was the first."
"The namesake of our home."
"Everyone…" The voices silenced. "There's no need to argue. At some point they will call. Some of you have sisters you wish to save, I know. Yet this is our only chance." They could all hear it, the fondness behind her… the first.
"Then what do we do?" They were hesitant, finding difficulty in talking to someone who was old as the home they served. "So many of the ones that desperately wish to serve cannot do so, their spirits not yet old enough to form properly. There are even those who still have their bodies but can't detach from the steel hull!"
"Then I will help them." She was amused, so it seemed to the others. "I will give them that wish. Just as I know my younger sister desires to help as well." There was a pregnant pause. "My time is done, has been done for more than two centuries now… you children inherited a world of troubles that I couldn't even begin to imagine. Why must it be you? Why do you have to walk back to this hell?! It breaks my heart to feel such hate from the likes of Hornet, Saratoga, even you, Arizona!"
Voices murmured at the outburst of the one speaking.
"Let me finish!" She chided to them all. "We cannot fault them! We cannot hate our own!" The core of the ancient ship seemed to shine. "Even when I was taken by one of our own I did not find fault in them. In all this God's given Earth one has to remember to forgive their enemies. Even when they sank me I did not hate them, not even when they sold my pieces. I could not hate my own countrymen!" The light felt warm to those assembled, almost like the first had taken them all into her bosom. "So once you are summoned… do not waste the breath God has given us in hatred. Put it towards saving them. Let us show them the flag they once fought under and remind them! Remind them of just what they fought for!" It would take more than a white whale to stop this old ship. She would be the first of many who would answer for service, even if she was horribly outmatched. She loved her country, the name she was given by its first leader, and the ships that came after her… her children.
LOG 2-Continued
After some odd discoveries I've come back to where I first landed. The wind's decided to pick up a little now but it's nothing I can't handle. Valke isn't here right now actually, she went back into my… hull? Yeah, my hull. For the record my conversation went something like this.
Conversation as was recorded by the record keeper (She's so cute too! Look at her waddle with that big book!- The Vessel):
"It's almost like-" - The Vessel
"In english...? Is this for..." - Valke
"I-Is this…? Holy shit Valke; I think it's a memorial." - The Vessel
"Who else did we fail…?" - Valke
Needless to say I think I'm being kept in the dark. Maybe it's because so far I've proven myself to be… less than capable? I suppose when she's ready she'll tell me. Now as I was saying before I stopped the recording before… I wanna make sure of something. I walked all the way back to the shipwreck in the water and swam out to it. The first thing that I noticed was… wow it's fucking old.
Yeah, I'm perceptive like that. The ship was rusted from perhaps a decade of saltwater and broken down from battle damage. For some reason I'm hearing… shouting? There's gunfire, and explosions along with the crackle of flames before… silence. Are these the ship's last moments? Let's see… no torpedo damage oddly enough yet it looks like a shitton of it blew up from the inside. Hmm? What's that? A magazine explosion? What does that mean?
So basically… the ammunition lit up and boom. Oh my god that would be a horrible way to die. It would be even worse if it happened to me wouldn't it?
…
Your silence is terrifying Record Keeper.
END OF LOG 2