It was not death that people feared, it's dying, and by heavens Kongou was terrified.
"It's okay, it's gonna be okay!"
That was probably a candidate for the most unconvincing statement ever said.
Blood.
She could feel blood. Blood emptying away from her skull towards the gaping hole in her stomach, starving her brain and numbing her to the shaking touch of the girl desperately trying to keep her from falling over the edge and back into the hungry sea.
"Iowa to Blue Ridge, Iowa to Blue Ridge, come in..! SHIT!"
In a flash, Kongo's blurry vision caught a glimpse of a white, hose-like tentacle blasting out of the surrounding fog and going straight for her neck. Iowa reacted quick, Moving her hand away from Kongo's gaping wound in order to swipe it away. But the impact was enough to knock her over, and soon Kongo's felt the sharp edges of the coral floor as the American girl dropped her.
"AAAAH! DAMN YOU ALL!"
Perhaps Iowa had just fired a full salvo at the fog, relying fully on her radar targeting to hit. Kongo wouldn't know though, she's facing down, her ears deafened, looking at her own blood mixing with seawater while she contemplated her possible place of death.
She's on a shoal, barely a few inches above sea level and just somewhat bigger than the roof of a small shack. It's the kind of place where the Chinese would have built a military base on before all this abyssal mess started. The calmness of the sea seemed to mock her peril, but she still could feel the soft waves licking her feet, for now. Soon her entire legs would be completely numb.
Kongo's ringing ears caught a hint of explosion, followed by Iowa falling by her side, bleeding.
"Run." Kongo tried to say, but only unintelligible gurgle came out of her blood soaked throat.
Kongo tried to keep her eyes open, but she could feel the blood loss chipping away at her consciousness. The surrounding sand began to disappear from the edge of her sight.
The last thing she saw was Iowa desperately trying to get up before being cruelly shot down again.
"Miss Kongou! Miss Kongou!"
Iowa skipped towards the recently returned Kongou. As always, her mannerism did not match her advanced age.
"What is it?" Kongou asked, though for some reason she's feeling a weird, heavy sensation in the back of her mind, like she should be remembering something.
"Would you like to watch a movie with me?"
The sensation grew heavier. Kongou felt like she had just forgotten something vital, but no matter how hard she tried, it's as if her own mind actually rebelled and refusing to let her remember.
"What movie?" Kongou felt her mouth moving. It was almost involuntary, like someone was controlling her.
"It's a very relaxing movie about retirement, apparently." She said, giving Kongou a cheerful wink with her star-filled eyes.
"Sounds boring." Kongou said bluntly. "Besides, for some reasons I feel like I should be doing something really important right now."
"Well, it's not supposed to be exciting. You're supposed to just lean back and enjoy yourself."
"What kind of movies is that?" Kongou shook her head. Her mind felt clouded.
"It's experimental!" Iowa said with perhaps too much excitement. "Come on! You've worked so hard for so long! Isn't it time for you to rest?"
Rest? Yeah. Now that she thought about it, Kongou realized that she had been feeling rather exhausted.
By the way...had Iowa always sound this...fake?
"I could used some relaxing...probably."
Kongou was not even sure what words just came out of her mouth. Her head felt heavy.
"I know, right?" Iowa shook giddily, and somehow this made Kongou shivered. There's something about Iowa that felt unfamiliar. Her eyes looked oddly...hungry. "You deserve a rest."
"I deserve a rest." Kongou parroted.
"Yes, you do." Iowa said. Her voice sounded softer, so soft that it made Kongou sleepy. "Just walk through this door, and you can rest for a long time."
Huh? Hang on, where did that door came from?
Iowa grabbed Kongou by the hand, and started dragging her towards the door. Kongou could see bright light leaking from under the frame…
Hang on.
Walk towards the light…
"Wait!" Kongou withdrew her hand so quickly that it felt like she ripped a finger off. But of course it's not true, since Kongou immediately looked at her hand and realized that it had six fingers.
"I'm dreaming, aren't I?"
"Not quite." an indistinct voice came from behind her. Kongou turned around and saw...something. Now that she realized that she's dreaming she knew she couldn't trust her eyes. What she saw was a person, certainly, but her brain refused to put on any details. It's a she, but all her features seemed to be constantly changing. Her eyes changed colors, her skin tone went from dark to light and back in a blink of an eye, and her height seemed to be just as ever changing.
"Wake up." Kongou had never been a lucid dreamer, so she should be waking up soon, right?
"Don't both'r. Thy brain barely hast enow blood to function." she said, her voice echoed with the sound of a massive crowd.
"Who are you?" Kongou asked, feeling panic crawling through her dream-self.
"Thee may calleth me Regina." the…'thing' said, before turning her attention towards Iowa.
"Thou art not needed yet." she said, her voice full of royal commandment.
And with that command, the Iowa that had been talking to Kongou until now disappeared instantly. No smoke, no effect. The world just suddenly decided that it didn't exist. It felt oddly normal, but Kongou just knew she's going to say 'what the blazes was that' the moment she woke up. If she woke up.
"So...Regina?" Kongou asked, facing the new being in her dream.
"F'r anon. I've been hath called many names, but 'Regina Britannica' is one of mine own fav'rites if 't be true not many uses it." the face, or what Kongou could make out of the face, smiled.
"Why can't I wake up? Where am I right now?" Kongou looked around, and for the first time realized how bare the room she's in actually was. "What are you?"
"Waft of fate, thou art at the bottom of the strait of Dov'r, not yond far from the cliff. Pity thee hath fallen so closeth to safety. As f'r what I am, I am thy moth'r, in simple,"
"I don't have a mother." Kongou said, temporarily ignoring the fact that she had just been told that her body was dying somewhere. "It doesn't work that way."
"The stuffeth yond maketh thee w're taken from me, thee w're hath built by mine own hands, and thee verily popp'd out of me. I'd sayeth mine w'rds art valid."
"What are you talking about?" Kongou said confusedly, then her eyes accidentally glanced back to the spot where the probably fake Iowa just stood a moment ago and her memory rushed back to her. Her confusion was quickly forgotten.
"Iowa! Where is she?!"
"I'm not sure." the Regina shrugged her incorporeal shoulders. "I hath lost h'r though patt'rn midway to the bottom. The lady's belike still alive, but t's v'ry likely the lady's not having a smashing exp'rience even but now."
"Piss and buggery." Kongou sweared.
"Not at the same time I hope."
Kongou closed her eyes, concentrating. Usually it would be easy to wake up once you know you're in a dream, but Kongou simply couldn't do it. Then again, she realized long ago that this was probably not an ordinary dream.
"I need to wake up."
"A hard thing to doth given yond thee hath lost half of thy meatstuff."
"But I'm not dead yet."
"That is an exceptional confidence." Regina smirked.
"I can survive this, otherwise you won't be talking to me."
"Oh?" Regina put her hand on her chest, her expression looked constantly flattered even as her face kept changing. "Art thee bethinking of me as a god anon? f'r all thee knoweth i might beest a figment of thy imagination, m'rely parteth of thy dying delirium."
Kongou did not give any response. She merely glared at the being in front of her. She had no time for this isekai bullshit.
Finally, Regina sighed and nodded.
"Well, thou art not wrong. I doth has't the capability to bringeth thee backeth, but…" the being smiled. "...as usual, th're's a price."
Kongou stepped forward, her face deviant.
"Tell me."
Nothing could stop them.
They were pouring out of the sea like weeds, many toothed weeds.
Nelson fired her nine guns continuously, basically randomly, hoping for some shrapnel hits against the lightly armored enemy destroyers. But with the fogs and busted radar she probably didn't even scratch anything. She was reloading when she heard the dreaded sound of enemy dive bombers. She cursed the fleet air arms under her breath, but silently understood that carrier borne squadrons were never meant to fight an invasion sized air force. Nelson couldn't exactly duck and cover on the wavy sea, but she lowered her head and braced for impact nonetheless.
...impact that never came. Instead, she saw two burning enemy planes splashing into the water.
"What…"
Nelson looked up. The previously dark sky had begun to lit up. Her internal clock showed near midnight, whatever was making that light that could rival a sunrise, it was unnatural. She also felt the air around her heating up, evaporating the fog around her.
A dreadful thought ran across her mind. Did the Abyss employed some kind of nuclear weapon? But that thought quickly disappear. Instead, a strange wave of calmness overcame her as the warmth engulfed her.
'Calm down, daughter.'
Someone was talking to her. But her ears heard nothing. It was as if whatever it was was talking directly into her soul, for lack of a better word.
With the sky cleared up, she finally could see what had shot down the enemy planes. It was a plane, but not something that she had seen carriers such as Ark Royal launched before. It was big, with a twin engine.
"Heavy fighter...Mosquito?"
Suddenly, the sky roared.
The sound of various engines, the sound of propellers cutting through the wind, the sound of defensive armaments of bombers and the cannons of fighters. Nelson heard them all before she saw them. A glorious wave of flying steel covered the stars, illuminated by whatever causing the mysterious light.
Mosquitos, Blenheims, Lancasters, planes that Nelson had not seen for decades except in pictures. Flying Fortresses, Mustangs, Typhoons and Thunderbolts.
As if being blown out by the wind of millions propellers, the fog subsided, and Nelson was finally able to see what caused the light.
She saw the white cliff of her home, shining white over the darkness of the night. The light, however, came from the top of the cliff. Nelson adjusted the lens of her rangefinders, trying to get a better look.
It was a woman. A familiar woman she had met in the far east.
And even through the light, Nelson could see that the woman was smiling.
A strange feeling enveloped Nelson. It was...safety.
'Welcome home, warrior.' the voice said again, and Nelson saw through her scopes that the woman was speaking.
'Rule Britannia.'