I tried not to wince as another photographer's flash flared in my eyes.
The press conference was winding down, thankfully, if I had read my handler's signals correctly. And yet… the photographers have been taking snapshots the entire time, shutters clicking every other moment… and now was no exception.
I don't mind the television cameras. Those, at least, aren't trying to blind me with little flashes of white light.
My eyes do have anti-glare filters, but they cast an amber shade across the entire eye when activated, and therefore are not recommended for use at a public event where everyone had come to see me, hear me speak.
"Okay, one last question for miss Yamato, please. She has a meeting to attend."
Oh, I hope that's just an excuse to end my part in this conference. The only thing I want to do is go back to my quarters and lie down for a while… say, seven or eight hours. Maybe, I'll get something to eat. No more meet-and-greets, please!
"Yamato-sama, Hokkaidou Shimbun. Have you been deployed against any Abyssal fleets thus far – and if so, just how much of a rout were those encounters?"
A brief laugh filtered through the hall.
"I am afraid that I cannot comment on my deployments," I answered. "However, I, Yamato, assure you that we are doing everything within our power to end the Abyssals' reign of terror. The Abyssals shall not win."
I steeled myself against the tidal force of cheering I knew was about to surge, but the intensity surprised me. Hoping to hide it, I inclined my head. "Thank you."
Retrieving my parasol from where I'd left it, propped against the side of the podium, I stepped back, letting Naka take my place.
Really, she was far better at public relations than I; it would have been nice to continue letting her handle everything, but our superiors were well aware that during these dark and desperate times, the Japanese people – and the world – needed to know powerful and well-known shipgirls like the battleship Yamato were there. Ready and willing to fight for them, to send those Abyssals running in fear the instant she steamed onto the battlefield, her powerful guns giving no quarter.
My handler followed me out of the conference hall, where the two guards assigned to me were waiting. "Good job, Yamato-sama. That's it for today. Feel free to take the rest of the day off."
I offered him a faint smile. "No unscheduled meetings to attend?"
A chuckle. "No, no, you're good. Besides, the top brass would kill me if we overloaded your schedule, or otherwise left you too tired or unable to deploy at a moment's notice."
People wanted the Yamato to tell them everything will turn out okay, and have the strength, courage and firepower to make it happen.
"Thank you for your hard work," I acknowledged, bowing, and let my guards lead me away. "I will see you tomorrow, then, Yeoman Akai."
A few more hallways and turns, the large service entrance at the rear, and we were in the parking lot, where the APC colored in Army olive drabs that had ferried us to the convention center waited. It had to be on loan, though I wasn't entirely sure why I'd assume that.
Standard procedure was for my escorts to verify with the guard stationed at the truck that nothing of note had happened, then spend more time making sure the truck wasn't somehow compromised, before they would let me board.
That left me with nothing to do for the next five to ten minutes, or so. Sighing, I reclined against the nearby retaining wall.
Hmm. The breeze has picked up since we went inside; it's tossing my hair around now. Feels nice. I closed my eyes.
"Ma'am?" I started, my head bobbing up. Oh, no… I didn't, did I…? "Everything's all-clear. We can get underway whenever you want."
The guard was smirking. I frowned. "I, Yamato, did not fall asleep."
"Yes, ma'am." Still smirking.
Oh, forget it. If I don't let it go here, they'll never let me hear the end of it. Making my way to the back of the truck, I pulled myself up onto the bumper… ignoring the way the truck's suspension groaned and dipped uncomfortably close to the ground as I climbed into the back and sat down. Unfortunately, that was one of the issues with being a shipgirl of a 63,200-ton displacement battleship – it takes time for the body to adjust to no longer being that massive ship. The spiritual and magical echoes of the ship reflected a parallel of her former weight, a form of rigging I couldn't quite remove.
I can walk, run, jump onto the water and steam, all with no problems. But if I try to climb, or sit on something not reinforced to handle the weight…
Until my body sorts itself out, I can't sleep on an actual bed. I've destroyed one too many beds as it is.
An all-too-familiar refrain from Mahou Shoujo Naka-chan began playing within my handbag. I winced, fishing the phone out. Honestly, I need to get some ringtones of my own, soon. Make the mistake of letting Naka give you ringtones one time…
"Haruka," a familiar gravel voice greeted me when I answered the call.
I straightened. "Admiral?"
"Where are you?"
That was probably a rhetorical question, as I'm sure there's a tracker in my phone. "We just left the convention center and are on our way back to my quarters, sir. Is there a situation?" The Admiral wouldn't contact me directly, otherwise.
"Yes. A couple of Abyssal destroyers have appeared in the bay, and are making a nuisance of themselves, taking potshots at everything and anything. We think they may be testing the waters, to see how we'll respond.
I've already sent DesDiv Six to intercept, but… how would you like to be their primary backup, and send the Abyssals the message not to mess with us?"
I nodded, even though the Admiral couldn't see it. Oh, and what a message it would be. "I, Yamato, will do my best, sir."
"Stop the truck!" I barked the order, clipping my phone to my uniform's collar and climbing to my feet. One good thing about my body not having adjusted yet is inertia having far less of an influence upon me when, say, an APC screeches to a halt.
Leaping from the back gate caused my feet to punch potholes in the pavement. I'm sure I'll pay for that later… but for now, it's time to get to work. I started running, heading for the beach – did I mention that the road we're taking to the base is a scenic route, less than a kilometer from the bay? – throwing one last request back. "Would you mind delivering my handbag to my quarters? Thank you."
I summoned my rigging as I ran, the massive hull and gun turret mounts attaching, steel locking and bolting into place amidst swirling golden sparkles and the severe woof of displaced air. My parasol popped open, settling into place behind my head as the magic reinforced it with a metal framework reminiscent of my original mast, lengthening the handle so that I could continue to hold it. Finally, I reached the edge of the bridge and, not wanting to waste time, took a flying leap onto the surface of the water a few feet below.
"Yamato, heading out at full steam!"
I know, you're wondering why the Admiral called me "Haruka," right?
Well, that's my birth name. Kinoshita Haruka.
Okay, so now you're wondering why I'm pretending to be Yamato. I'm not. Not… exactly.
I'm the reincarnation of the Imperial Japanese Navy battleship-spirit Yamato, awakened to my true nature as a kanmusu, or "shipgirl."
…You want me to explain? Fine, I'll give it a shot.
I'm sure you're aware of the Abyssals by now, so I can skip explaining them.
Japan, the U.S., England and others… in trying to combat the Abyssals, were steadily building their fleets of shipgirls, spirits of ships who'd fought in World War II and beyond, summoned in the form of seemingly human girls, who could contend with the Abyssal ships much more readily than conventional forces.
As time passed, quite a few of the more powerful ships, like Yamato, and the USS Enterprise, stubbornly remained unsummoned despite their countries' best efforts.
It was then that they discovered a possible explanation – somehow, some ship-spirits had been reincarnated as regular people. In a few of those cases, surprisingly, the ship-spirit had also already been summoned as a shipgirl, or could still be summoned.
Naturally, the world powers became interested in finding reincarnates, in addition to their summoning efforts – especially after learning that reincarnates were able to be 'awakened,' becoming the shipgirls they were meant to be.
Those reincarnates who had an already-summoned shipgirl counterpart – don't ask me how that worked – formed bonds of resonance with their 'other selves,' accelerating the process considerably.
Physically, an Awakened shipgirl was no different than a summoned counterpart. She could summon her rigging, take to the water and fight, just like any other shipgirl.
The possibilities were encouraging. Here was a way to recruit shipgirls who couldn't be summoned, or have shipgirl duplicates.
As you'd expect, though, there were problems.
Ship-spirits were effectively veteran soldiers, no matter their appearance as shipgirls. A summoned shipgirl was ready and able to serve and fight once again.
A reincarnate, on the other hand, had lived a different life, up to the moment of their Awakening. Few of them were willing to fight. Being a World War II-era heavy cruiser meant little when the girl behind those guns was dead-set against leaping onto the ocean to fight an enemy proven quite capable of shredding the world's regular naval forces.
More time passed, and the search for reincarnates slowed. My dad, being the Japanese consul to Los Angeles… not to mention a big World War II and warship… enthusiast, well aware of my own interest, continued to allow me to hear about whatever shipgirl and summoning effort news crossed his desk.
One afternoon, at the store down the street from our house, I noticed a magazine on the racks that had an artist's rendering of shipgirl Yamato, or rather, how he believed she would appear.
I'll tell you now – that sketch didn't look anything like me. At all.
The entire magazine was speculation, in fact, many readers offering their opinions as to what as-yet unsummoned shipgirls like Yamato and Enterprise would look like, how they would behave.
I bought the magazine and took it home, to read in bed.
For some reason, the speculation about Yamato seemed the most interesting, to me.
One commenter was really getting on my nerves by constantly referring to Yamato as "Hotel Yamato." Maybe I was getting a little too into it; I suddenly felt very dizzy and had to drop back onto my pillow.
A massive migraine slammed into my forehead a moment later.
The next thing I knew, Mom and Dad were shaking me awake – or trying to, given the large amount of steel in the way. My bed had been utterly crushed and mangled by a battleship.
Me.
Thank goodness we don't live in a two-story house.
While I worked on figuring out how to remove the insane array of firepower that was my rigging, Dad was studying both me and my rigging, in fine detail. By the time my shipgirl instincts were kicking in, telling me – and boy, didn't I feel stupid for not considering the magical way of doing things – that I could simply dismiss the rigging, he claimed he knew exactly who I was.
There's no doubt, Dad had said. I was Yamato. The reincarnation of the ship-spirit of the IJN battleship, Yamato. He went into depth about the metal collar-guard around my neck, stamped with the golden Imperial Seal of Japan, reminiscent of the original Yamato's bow. How my hull and gun turret configuration exactly matched hers. And… well, a handful of other details that I wasn't exactly paying attention to, because I'll admit I thought I had bigger things to worry about at the moment than technical specs.
Ironically, I guess, I wouldn't learn until a little later that my given name is written using the exact same kanji as "Yamato." Same kanji, different reading. I'd just never thought about it.
Well, since my hardware had stopped being an issue, the police and TV crews weren't barging through the front door, and if I could just get a new bed, I'd still be able to live a normal life, right?
Why can't anyone ever let me have my delusions?
It was impossible. Japan needed shipgirl Yamato, and as much as he wanted to keep me safe, Dad had to inform the higher-ups that his little girl was the reborn and Awakened Yamato.
They had me on a cargo plane to Japan – the only type of plane capable of handling the weight of a newly-battleshipped girl – in less than a day.
Their plan was simple… fake a summoning, then I'd convince everyone I was the summoned version of Yamato. The shipgirls, Japan, the world… needed the morale boost and assurances of strength only Summoned Yamato could provide, right away.
I wanted to do it, though. To help, to fight, now that I had the chance. I'm Yamato; how can I not?
So, for the two weeks that followed, they pretty much trained me twenty-four hours a day, in a hidden underground base I don't know how far from Yokosuka, to match their vision of how Summoned Yamato would act. Poise, refinement, acting like a 'proper' lady, nudging my Japanese from "schoolgirl slang" to "polite woman…" and what I considered to be the most important lessons of them all, how to properly use my armament.
For all my power, I can't just infinitely and indiscriminately blast away. My guns require manual reloading. I have to worry about overheating, jamming, propellant buildup, shells exploding within the firing chambers… and even I am not immune to my guns' recoil or being deafened.
Video games make carrying around immense amounts of firepower look soooo easy.
Anyway… obviously, two weeks isn't enough to make me an expert either in being a distinguished lady, or my arsenal. I was to continue my lessons after officially reporting for duty, with the occasional secret meeting to teach me something new and reinforce what I had learned.
Then, it was showtime.
The fake summoning went as planned, and someone – I never learned who – made sure the gossip spread around base that they'd actually managed to summon Yamato, of all kanmusu.
They'd throw an official welcoming ceremony for me the following morning, with all of Yokosuka's shipgirls in attendance.
Oh, right. I almost forgot. The Admiral claims that the reason he addresses me by my birth name in private, is because he's stubborn and wants to remind himself that the 'true' Yamato is still somewhere 'out there,' no matter how much of a big risk I think it is. I'm always worried he'll let it slip to Kongou or Nagato, or something. Not that there's much I can do about it…
Hibiki frowned.
The best DesDiv Six had managed against the pair of Abyssal destroyers for the past few minutes was effectively trading shots; for Abyssals that were supposedly just testing their reaction, they'd established a decent screen. Thankfully, neither ship had committed any fish to the water.
She found herself wondering why someone hadn't at least assigned a cruiser or better to help them poke the Abyssals.
Even worse, she thought, as she swung into a hard left turn to dodge an enemy volley, the two I-Class destroyers were also beginning to pour their stifling black smog into the air. As if she wasn't already having problems keeping her sisters in sight.
"Everyone, back off a bit!" she heard Akatsuki yell.
"What?" From Ikazuchi. "We can't let them put up that smoke!"
"I know! But there's something coming in very, very fast to port!"
"Is it our backup, nanodesu?"
"Shh!"
Hibiki fought the urge to lower her face into her palms. Wouldn't Akatsuki's warning have already let the Abyssals know something was approaching? And if it was enemy backup… they were able to ID their own ships, she was sure.
After another tense moment of dodging fire, Ikazuchi blurted, "No way! They sent her to be our backup!?"
"Who?" Hibiki asked, concerned, uttering her first word of the battle.
An absolutely thunderous report pealed, and suddenly, ninety percent of the first Abyssal ceased to exist, leaving the remainder to crumble and sink miserably into the bay.
Oh. Her.
The second Abyssal destroyer visibly panicked at the sight of Yamato bearing down upon her at full steam, and turned tail, swinging about in a wide arc in an effort to avoid the battleship's brutal salvos.
Alas, Yamato's follow-up volley clipped the hapless Abyssal, spinning her wildly about even while tearing her apart.
"…Whoa."
Why was Yamato here? Pitting a battleship of her caliber against a couple of delinquent Abyssal destroyers was extreme overkill!
Yamato was in the process of composing herself as the destroyers of DesDiv Six rotated into position around her, the battleship shifting the handle of her ever-present metal-reinforced ship's parasol to shield herself from the afternoon sun, long fall of now-windblown chestnut hair sliding just so perfectly back into place… her practiced motions triggering a small, girlish squeal from Akatsuki.
…Akatsuki, who had clearly begun to idolize Yamato in her quest to become something of a refined, elegant woman.
And yet… Yamato had relaxed, yes, though she nonchalantly kept the bulk of her guns trained toward the mouth of the bay. Had anyone else noticed?
"No one is injured, I take it?" Yamato asked, casting a quick appraising glance across the four of them.
"Ha!" crowed Ikazuchi. "It'll take more than that just to scratch DesDiv Six!"
Hibiki shook her head at her sister's attempt to show off. Never mind that it would take several washes to get the smell of that damned Abyssal smog out of their uniforms.
"Yamato-sempai," she finally voiced the question on her mind, evenly. "Why were you sent as our backup? Does the Admiral still believe there may be more enemies out there, watching us?"
Each of her sisters gasped at the revelation. They hadn't known?
"Yes. Hopefully, that is not the case… however, if they are, the Admiral wanted to send them the message… not to mess with us."
"Ah." That made sense. Now that Yamato was part of the fleet, who better to send that sort of message?
The cellphone clipped to Yamato's collar tweedled, and the speed at which the elder shipgirl had it in her hand, open and unlocked, amazed Hibiki. Yamato hadn't been summoned that long, and already was that experienced with a phone?
"Our relief should be here at any minute. Until then, we will hold this position," Yamato stated, preparing two of her Mitsubishi F1M2 seaplanes. If anything was out there, she would know…
"I am afraid that I cannot comment on my deployments. However, I, Yamato, assure you that we are doing everything within our power to end the Abyssals' reign of terror. The Abyssals shall not win."
With the press of a single button on his remote, Admiral Treston freeze-framed the video feed – in mid-translation, the abrupt end of a closed-caption subtitle glitching as the frame flickered back and forth – and raised the light levels back to normal. He slammed the presentation tool to the table before him, glaring at the four other men seated in the meeting hall. "We have failed, gentlemen."
"No," Treston snapped, to silence all protests. "The Japanese have accomplished what we have not, and that is to recover their most prominent and powerful ship, as a shipgirl. Yamato," he said, sweeping a hand toward the on-screen image of the shipgirl in question.
"We, however… We cannot even summon anything above cruiser level. This must not be allowed to continue, gentlemen."
"If you have a way of contacting Enterprise and telling her she's needed ASAP, along with all of our battleships, then by all means share it with us," the officer to his left groused.
"Not good enough! I refuse to believe that the entire process is wholly dependent upon sheer luck! The Japanese managed to summon their best, right when she was needed the most. They must be doing something other than merely rolling the dice and hoping everything turns out okay!"
He paced angrily around the conference table. "I do not deny that we have, and are building, a powerful fleet of shipgirls. But! The American public wants to know that its biggest and most powerful ships are defending them. They want to hear that our fleets are out there, tearing through the Abyssals like so much wet paper!"
Yamato's face remained on-screen, unmoving. "I'm sure it won't be long before we start to hear news of Yamato's victories and accomplishments. They know not to pass up such opportunities – their opinion poll scores have gone through the roof since Yamato was summoned! On this side of the Pacific, in the meantime, our people are growing restless."
"The President–"
"What about the President?" Treston asked. "He doesn't believe this issue is all that crucial. But then, he doesn't seem to be aware that the public believes he's not interested in committing to what needs to be done."
"That's crazy! It was his idea to try summoning with him present, calling and then ordering Enterprise to duty."
"Yes, well… go ahead and say it. We've tried everything."
The Admiral sat heavily in his chair. "I'm sure we haven't. There's probably a lot of things we haven't tried. We just need to find what works now." He cast a long, silent stare at the image of Yamato, her resolve clear. "If we can't summon even one large ship – Enterprise, a battleship, anything – we may have to look at the possibility of… of creating our own Enterprise, somehow."
Author's Notes: I adapted the reincarnation mechanics from D. M. Ash's Mystery of the Reincarnated Shiratsuyu-class (The Fairies' Toybox), which was in turn adapted from what was used in the A Burning Legacy quest on the Sufficient Velocity forums.
Special thanks to D. M. Ash and Jason M. Lee for all their help.
OMAKE: Livin' It Up At the Hotel Yamato
I peered over Naka's shoulder at her screen while she highlighted the relevant text in the article. "See? The wikis and historical archive sites all agree. Your living quarters were extravagant, for the time." She wheeled about in her chair to face me, a knowing grin on her face. "Your faeries must be so spoiled."
"N-nonsense!" I tried to scoff. "I, Yamato, do not think–"
Wordlessly, Naka gestured to my belly, where one of my faeries was peeking out, her wet hair bundled up in a towel. Noticing my stare, the tiny faerie offered me a thumbs-up. "Desu!"
"H-hey…"