"Her Pride"

A small spot of sea, surrounded by islands. Commonly known as an atoll.

That was where I found myself on this day, it was sunny and the waves peaceful. Which was a nice respite for what had happened over the last few years.

However, the atmosphere around me was nothing of the sort.

Allies, friends, enemies.

No matter what country they hailed from. No matter who they sunk. We were all in this together.

Unable to fight each other, unable to move.

At first I was concerned, for the first time in five years I had no crew aboard my body. The fear of being weak and useless, unable to get the Warrior's Death I wanted silenced my pride.

During the war, I was the pride of Japan the flagship of the combined fleet for longer than most of my allies. I was the first of the Super Dreadnaught Battleships of the Nagato class. I bared the pride of being a member of the Big Seven and of having the namesake of my class: Nagato.

But here.

For the first time since the end of the war, I was scared.

We all were.

We were taken to an American owned base.

When I first sailed here, I felt weak. I had a crew that was running about my body, trying to operate me by themselves. American sailors. They did not treat my body with respect, but that was expected the won the war after all. Japan, had lost the war. Forced into unconditional surrender by weapons that shook the earth and the sea we stood on.

I maintained contact with the Japanese Light Cruiser. Sawaka of the Agano class.

She broke down on the way to the islands, I pulled her along in a tow for a week straight.

She was scared. Lured into a cage of islands. She was convinced that the enemy navy would scuttle her here. I tried to comfort her, say that everything was all right. I said that its been just over a year since the war had ended. If we were to be sunk, we would have already.

On the First day of July 1946 we were joined by American ships. Myself and Sawaka noticed that we were all given our ammo and our guns were operational. But no crew to use them. Sawaka claimed this was the same for all the ships with her, including the American ships strangely.

My pride did not allow me to scream a war cry, to shout at the ships that fought us. I was a member of the Nagato class. The last battleship of the Imperial Japanese Navy, I survived longer than the "Super" Battleships Yamato and Musashi. I would not give our enemy the honour of seeing me scream for their deaths as I would have done given the chance.

Yamato and Musashi, those ships were meant to save us.

I did not hate them, for failing their mission.

They both had the Warrior's death I longed for. Musashi went down, saving her friends by sacrificing herself.

Yamato followed orders and charged head long into the enemy trying to take as many down as she could, even if it was futile.

But they were both shown that they were obsolete. American Aircraft and their Carriers spelt their doom.

They made me realize that the age of the large gun, the age of the battleship. The age of the "Big Seven" was over.

This triggered a deep remorse inside my soul.

Then myself and Sawaka, we sensed an aircraft above.

The aircraft was large, a strategic bomber.

But we realized what it was carrying, a large bomb-shaped object slung in an open hangar bay.

The clunky bomb dropped above the sea.

I could feel myself smile, the Americans wanted to use the bomb to scuttle us, right? They had missed a ship and the bomb landed in the water.

As soon as the bomb hit the water, I felt a searing hot wind quickly blow across my hull. Burning and melting the surface. Followed by a concussive blast that shook me to the core. Sawaka screamed out in pain from the explosion. She was launched across the sea a considerable amount for a 14,000-ton Cruiser. Flipped once, tearing apart her superstructure and splintering her hull.

Then it was over.

The blast had passed, allowing me to see the damage that was caused.

Death.

Pain.

Many of the ships that was there before, were no longer with us.

I noticed an American aircraft carrier burning in a raging inferno from the blast igniting her aviation fuel.

I was scared.

Sawaka screamed out from the pain of her body being twisted against itself. Fires surged across her as I screamed out her name. She continued for 5 days, nothing but screaming, crying and begging. A crew had put out my fires. I wanted to shout at them to repair Sawaka, or at least. Put her out of her misery.

But as a ship, or as a soul of a ship.

They couldn't hear us.

I tried to comfort Sawaka, but my words fell on ears that were too traumatised to hear. If she could even hear that is.

Then the silence came. Sawaka had been screaming so long, I had forgotten what silence was.

It took me a few minutes to realize that Sawaka had been swept under the water.

My friend, my ally.

The Americans prepped me again for another test, ran my boilers.

Its fair for people to believe that surviving a weapon that silenced a country. That it would fill them with a pride that they were invincible. A pride because of their amour, the amour of the "Big 7" survived what her own country could not.

But I felt no pride, I was broken. Scared. 23 days passed.

I had felt nothing but deep regret. Sometimes wishing that I could be here with my younger sister: Mutsu. I would scream out to the heavens for a friend. For a fellow Japanese ship to come and comfort me.

But nobody came.

oOo[Five Hours Later]oOo

"Hey." A pained whisper echoed out.

"H-Hey, can you hear me?" The strong, accented voice was American, that I knew.

"Wait…D-Do you even speak English?" The voice was on deaths edge, clearly straining itself to speak to me.

"Who are you?" I answered back, in Japanese. Scanning my surroundings for the voice's origin.

My vision settled on a Carrier, one scared with burns. The same one I could have sworn would have sunk due to the fires that covered every inch of its hull.

"I…I understand you…if you understand me, that's fine I guess. My…My name is Saratoga. Of the Lexington-class standard aircraft carriers."

"Oh." I spat out instinctively.

"What is it, come to mock me?"

Saratoga laughed shortly. "Mock? I wouldn't dare, you seem upset. Thought I should say something" she spluttered painfully. "After all, we could be allies in the next life."

"What are you talking about? Do you surely believe that we will come back? After those bombs eradicate us?" I laughed mockingly.

"You are joking, right?"

She laughed again, I hated how she laughed.

"Well its happened before, right? When a ship gets her name from a ship that existed in the past, eh?"

"Somehow I don't believe that's how it works!"

I couldn't hold in my laugh due to the absurdity of the proposal

"Ha! Made you laugh. At least you sound more cheerful!."

I could feel myself realizing what she said, I was being cheerful with an enemy.

Well at this point, after the war is over and we were slowly joining the abyss.

Without any weapons, can we really hurt each other?

xXx

A day passed with myself and Saratoga. Talking about our history during the war, I chose to not mention my sister's demise as I thought I could at least take some knowledge to my watery grave.

"Where is your sister? There was no record of her getting sunk by our forces during the war, so shouldn't she be here?"

A beat passed. I clearly thought too soon.

"H-Hey! Nagato? Did I just upset you?!"

I composed myself slightly, wanting to sail on over to her and slap her with my main gun barrels.

"No...No you did not, I just...miss her." I failed somewhat in holding back my emotions.

"Ah crap…sorry…" I could feel the sincere apology in her voice, she clearly felt bad asking me that.

Another day passed, things were silent after I had managed to stop my emotions from flooding me. We had not talked, we ended up looking at all the different ships that were around us, some damaged from the last atomic test, some were new arrivals.

"If she's sunk...when did that happen? How did it happen, it wasn't us." Saratoga seemed confused.

I grimaced in response, Saratoga clearly took the hint about it. Then I remembered something about her class, something we had in common.

"S-She sunk in her port, the eighth day of June 1943. Her third turret exploded suddenly and split her…I didn't hear about it until late July of the same year.

Another beat passed.

"I'm sorry to hear that." Saratoga said, with clear concern in her voice.

"Thank you…I had my time to morn over her, its just lonely being the only surviving sister, you should know that." I couldn't help adding a bit of resentment to my voice.

Another moment passed, it seemed quieter than usual.

"Yeah I do. I lost my older sister a year before yours…sunk by one of your carriers, Shoukaku I believe." Saratoga said morosely.

"I was told by my fleet when it happened, we celebrated sinking one of the targets we missed at the very start of the war" I felt bad for mentioning that, in a rash attempt to curb my rudeness I apologized.

"Sorry, that was insensitive of me. It must have been upsetting for you"

"It was...but like you, myself and Enterprise had plenty of time to morn. I got one of your carriers in revenge anyway...Ryuujou I believe."

Minutes passed in silence between us.

Eager to change the topic. "So, how did you survive all that fire?"

Saratoga laughed, I was pleased that her mood seemed restored. "Well, you're a battleship, right? One of the Big 7 to be excluded from the Washington Naval Treaty correct?"

I laughed, feeling my mood brighten and my pride come to me slightly as I said "Well of course I am!"

She laughed cheerfully. "Well, well I was converted from a battlecruiser into an aircraft carrier because of that treaty! Because of that…" She made her voice deeper as she said "My Armor isn't just for show you know!"

We both laughed, it felt good to laugh honestly after so long.

Sara quietened down slightly as she said "You know…the next test is happening tomorrow."

I felt like I could come to terms with what was to come. "I'm ready, are you?"

"Hey! You wouldn't have been ready if I hadn't told you!" We laughed again, like new friends who have only just met under the most weirdest of circumstances.

oOo[The Next Day]oOo

The day came. The next test.

"Hey, Nagato. Are you scared?"

"No" I said defiantly.

Sara chuckled. "Well that's reassuring, you and your armor might make it. I can't say the same about myself…"

I sighed, humoring her slightly.

"I'll find you in the next life, when our names are passed down to new ships. Hopefully we will be allied then." I felt somewhat embarrassed saying this, but I meant it.

Sara laughed, mission complete. "Ha! Knew I'll get you to believe in that!"

A moment passed.

"Thank you…I really needed that last laugh."

I looked out to the sky, happy to help a fellow test subject.

No.

A new friend.

Saratoga spoke up"The blast should be happening now, or soon at least."

"Is that so…thank you for giving this old battleship your time."

"Heh. Likewise, Nagato, I hope to see you on the other side."

A countdown started, played from a radio on one of the landing ships in the center.

I braced anything I could, ready for the blast.

And then it came.

This time the bomb was planted underwater under the landing ship with the radio.

I could see the small ship get turned into dust in the wind as soon as it blew up.

The wind came first, the searing pain biting at my hull.

There was a large wave from the blast coming towards me, luckily my bow was positioned towards it so I managed to ride it out.

However, I felt something in my keel break as the wave went under me, something that would break any ordinary battleship.

Saratoga.

Was not so lucky, the blast caught her flight deck, launching all her newly re-equipped test aircraft cleanly off into the sea.

Her large distinct funnel got caught by the blast causing it to snap across her deck as she plunged deep below the water before coming back up again with a mind breaking snap as her citadel broke on the inside.

However, her hull remained mostly intact. As if the blast sunk her from the inside out.

Once again, in an instant the blast was gone.

Days passed. Sailors came to assess my damage, they couldn't repair me because of the radiation.

I remembered how Sawaka sunk, it didn't hurt though.

My keel was heavily damaged and I was flooding slowly, so it was simply a matter of time until I went under.

Even with repairs, battleships have been sunk with their keel even slightly damaged.

I could feel myself list off to the side. I refused to feel pain.

5 days passed, I was taking on water at an alarming rate, which would have been terrifying if I had cared.

All I thought about was the prospect of another chance at life, the theory Saratoga gave me.

Wouldn't that be a laugh, a warship being reborn into the world again instead of laying in the abyss.

I could not help but laugh, maybe with the Emperor's blessing I would be reborn as a human!

I could feel the water about to take me under. I laughed in the face of death.

I screamed out. "I am the Superdreadnought battleship Nagato. As sure as ships still sail the Earth, mark my words. I. Will. Return."

*Oblivion*

Years passed, I remained in this dark abyss.

Sunk as a test target for a weapon that would change the world.

I should be sad. But I wasn't.

I was the Battleship. Nagato-class. A prideful member of the "Big 7"

Alone.

Darkness.

It was cold.

ALL HANDS TO COMBAT STATIONS

I could hear something in the distance.

Fear.

Regret.

Sadness.

These emotions clouded my vision.

ALL HANDS TO COMBAT STATIONS

A fire burned in the center of my vision.

Pride.

Power.

Resilience

I could feel the darkness falling away.

ALL HANDS TO COMBAT STATIONS

I looked around, searching for where the voice came from.

Hang on. I could feel something tugging on me as I turned my head.

Wait. Head? I didn't have a head before.

I started feeling my face, amazed at what I found.

But that just raised more questions. HANDS?!

I could feel limbs follow my movement.

ALL HANDS TO COMBAT STATIONS

I smiled to myself.

I lunged though the darkness up towards the surface.

I broke the surface.

Shaking water out of my hair I just realized I had.

I scanned my surroundings, wanting to get above the water. Being under it felt unnatural.

I could see people on a dock. Laughing and cheering at me.

I stood up on the water. Looking over my body. I had a uniform, a bit revealing. But I could wear it with pride.

My Onyx-black hair flowed around me, damp, but not soaked.

A man with an Admiral's uniform approached the edge of the dock.

My pride came flooding back to me.

"Sailor, Identify yourself." He spoke with authority and care, failing to mask his smile.

He knew who I was.

He could feel my power.

I stood up, my hand snapping to a salute.

"I am Super Dreadnought Battleship Nagato. First of the Nagato-class and the pride of Japan and its people."

I had been reborn into this world, ready to serve once again.

Smiling to myself I thought.

"Wherever you may be Saratoga. I will find you, I will meet you as an ally."

I climbed up onto the shore, feeling the concrete dock below me groan under my weight.

I stood at attention, my long muscled legs snapping together with a resounding CLANG of metal.

"Where am I needed. When can I get there. Admiral."

Heya, Admiral Tenryuu here, fufufu ya scared and all that stuff.

This is my first fanfiction and it was intended to be a one-shot on the vague hope that I would get Saratoga in her event.

That didn't quite work out well and I failed to get her :'c

I currently have no plans to continue this story, but I might start up something in the future.

If it has any continuity with this story, that is yet to be seen.

Hope you enjoyed it! If you want, please give me some feedback. I'm looking to improve my writing as I had so much fun writing this.

-Admiral "Historical stuff is like drugs" Tenryuu

Edit: (17/3/17): Props to User Dramatic dude for a great idea, thank you for the review!