Everything around me is pitch black. My vision is filled with vast amount of darkness and some dots. Is that yellow dots that I see?

Where am I in the first place? Why am I here? If this is the afterlife, I guess my expectation for it is too high. For starters, I don't think it would be a dark place with yellow dots like this, correct that, I only see two dots in front of me. They're kind of moving around, I think?

I guess I could try to find something that might tell me anything about this place?

Unfortunately, there's nothing in here, great. Except, those two yellow dots from earlier, just my luck. Now what should I do? I don't think I could do anything than just walk in nothingness, oh, and stare at those dots, very productive. And here I believe that I'm not someone who would die if he just sits around doing nothing. Maybe this is the afterlife after all? Did I just think that?

…-mander, wake up…

Oh, is this one of those wake up sequence that I always see at the start of some games? So I haven't died huh? Lucky me, or not, if what's waiting for me doesn't worth waking up.

…you need to finish your work…

Definitely not worth it, one hundred percent. But, I guess I should wake up, huh. Can't keep neglecting what I must do and burdening someone with it.

Okay, how do I wake up again? I'm not sure that thinking I want to wake up will do the trick. Um, no it doesn't work at all. I want to apologize to you, dear-somehow-familiar-voice, but I guess I'm not waking up soon.

Huh, that's interesting. Suddenly everything turned bright. Still doesn't explain anything for me, except making all of this more confusing than before. What caught my attention is the two dots that are still there. Is it just me, or those dots are getting bigger the more I stare at them?

…please.

I know it, voice, but if you can see me there's nothing I can do here. I feel the place kind of rumbling tough. Okay, now it's big enough for me to consider it as an earthquake, help!

Need to hold into something, fast! Even then, this place is just a bare wasteland. Now that I think about it, I don't have a body in here quite interesting. Wait, right now is not a proper time for that! Ah, I hear something snapped.

Res.abs executed

"Ugh..." my head feels like it was crushed by a car, not that I have experienced that. It's not that hard to wake up, but the pain, oh God.

"…Commander? Are you alright? Your face looks pale," Now that I have woken up, I tried to take a better look of my surrounding. I'm inside a small room that looks like some kind of office. There's a door across me and some potted plant near it. I can see a harbor from the window with red curtains on my left. A small cabinet sits beside the window and on the wall across it I can see a rolled up low dining table with pictures hanging above it. I assume that I fell asleep with my face planted on the table in front of me, beside some usual utensils there's some interesting looking screens on the right side of the table. When I looked up, I could see a pair of eye full of concern that belongs to a girl. Wait, what did she call me again?

"H-huh, what do you mean?" I stutter when I tried to ask her.

"Are you sick, Commander? Should I call Akashi-san to check you?" She wears a normal sailor uniform that's usually seen in a Japanese middle school with blue collar and skirt. She has shoulder length hair that she tied into a low ponytail. Her round face turned to a frown and her green irises show a worried look to me.

"I-I'm fine, I think. Can I be blunt? Are you the voice that I keep hearing before I wake up? 'Cause your voice is the exact same with the one that I heard," A light blush decorated her face when I said that.

"Sorry, Commander, I have been trying to wake you up for a while now," She makes a light bow while saying that. "Maybe you aren't okay if you fell asleep while working when normally these kind of workload don't really affect you, Commander. Is today's a bit too much?"

"No, I'm fine, really," I appreciate your concern even though I don't have a single clue about what you just said, maybe a little, but it's still next to nothing. "What was I doing again? And why did you call me 'Commander' before?"

"Oh, are you sure you're fine? D-did you work too hard last night? Knowing you, i think that's not the case, but..."

"Well, I don't know if I worked too hard or not, is that a way to say that I'm lazy?" She frantically shakes her head at that, well that's cute. "Anyway, can you explain anything you know about me? I'm a bit at loss here."

"Is that an order, sir?" she asked me.

"Um, if you like. I just wanted to know what is happening and why I'm here." I answered her back.

"Yes, Commander," when she opened her mouth, I somehow knew this would be a lot info to take. "You are the admiral of the Combined Fleet which is a fleet consisted of Fleet Girls who are the personification of old warships, the Fleet Girls have the memory and powers of those warships from their service and are put into the form of young women, for some reasons. We were made to counter the Abyssals, they are an unknown force that have been attacking vessels that travel at sea and endangering human lives for some years. There's still much more we don't know about them, except the wake of destruction everywhere they go. The use of Fleet Girls is more efficient because our size is the same as the Abyssals and our cheaper maintenance cost than conventional warships. Your job as our admiral is to command the Fleet Girls to secure part of the sea that the Abyssals have taken. You also need to supervise this naval base so that the Combined Fleet operations can keep going. Even though I said that you are the admiral of the Combined Fleet, in reality you are one of the admirals of the same forces as us that work together to defend the human race against the Abyssals threat. Did you get it? O-oh, are you okay, Commander? You look worse than before."

"Yes, it's just a lot of info and puzzle pieces I need to connect and now my head spins a little," I have called that, right? "And you are? Are you one of the Fleet Girls that you said before?"

She looked a bit shocked, but she answered anyway. "Y-yes, I'm Fubuki! the first ship of the Special Type destroyers designed under the Washington Naval Treaty and your secretary ship, よろしくお願いいたします!" Did you forget about me too, Commander?"

"Uh," don't look at me with those teary eyes, now I feel bad. "I'm sorry 'bout that, it's just my head still not functioning well, I think. If we were supposed to know each other I'm sorry, my memory is kinda full of holes now. By the way, are you a Japanese? With your name and what you just said before."

"Yes, Commander. I'm based off the IJN Fubuki, I was an Imperial Japanese Navy ship that served in World War Two. It doesn't translate well I guess? Our admirals are supposed to hear our speech in the language they are comfortable to, it depends on their knowledge and state of mind too so you might not be able to communicate well if you are tired," her expression returned to normal when she started to explain things to me. I guess she's just eager to help me.

"That makes sense, kinda," or not, I'm not sure either. "Well, what does it translates to?"

"I think, it usually translated to 'I'll be in your care' or 'I'm looking forward to work with you', even just 'thanks for having me', Commander," she answered back to me.

"That's interesting," to know that a phrase can have many meanings is normal, but it still amuse me. There's still something bugging me though. "Hey Fubuki, did I get that right? Why did you call me 'Commander' when you said that I'm the "Admiral" of this fleet?"

"Um, that's because I'm designed this way. The other girls have many ways to call our admirals, where some are just normal names like 'Admiral' or what I use 'Commander', the other are just..." she winces when she remembered the names that I think it's best for me to not hear it.

"But, you didn't use 'Commander' when you explained this job to me before."

"I-It's just because your official title is the admiral of this fleet," she looked down in embarrassment. "Do you like me calling you 'Admiral' more?"

I think I saw some gold sparks in her eyes. "No. it's okay to call me what you call me as usual, it's not bothering me. Moreover, it will be hard for you to change your speech pattern if you call me right? Because I think you have know me for some time."

"Yes, thank you, Commander," she makes a light bow again. "But, will you be alright like this, seems like you have a quite memory loss. Are you sure you don't want to rest for today, sir?"

"Well, memory loss isn't a reason to skip work right?"

"In your case I think it should, sir."

"It's so great that I have a secretary who encourages me to stop working when she implied that I'm lazy before."

"I-I'm sorry about that." she bows for the third time now, she's just really earnest, isn't she?

"It's okay, I'm just having fun with you." I laughed a little. "I guess it's time to work again, huh?" I stand up and stretched while saying that.

"Have you remembered your work, Commander?"

"No, I will just remember it on the fly," I said nonchalantly. "You will also help me with it right?"

"Yes, Commander" she makes a full salute to me.

"Whoa, at ease," she put her arm down with that. "It's sure good to know you had my back, Fubuki. Uh, how do you say it, y-yoro, shi? What?

"Yoroshikuonegaiitashimasu," she giggles a little. "Yes, Fubuki will do her best!"

"Right! Now, what should I do?"

"Uh, can you explain that again?" with no clue to what supposed to be done, I relied to Fubuki to help me getting on my feet again.

"Okay, we will start again from the beginning," she said while pointing to the screens on the right side of my work table. "As I said before, even if you can go to the places themselves to ensure the operation of this base, but the most efficient way is to control the base from these screens."

"This one," she pointed to the one with graphs. "shows the base's resource level, namely fuel, ammo, steel, and bauxite. These four are the essential resources to operates a Fleet Girl. the ammo showed here isn't the ammo, but the materials we use to make them. Be sure to fill up the paperwork for resource request from the Central, because our base still depends on them for that."

"Right, I'll remember so we don't starve."

"Even if you didn't like it before?"

"Who knows, maybe I can change that now," I shrughed it off.

"This one in here is the factory screen," now she pointed to the screen that have a few more menu in it. "You can order the construction of a new ship or a piece of equipment from here. Our base curenntly have two construction chamber for ship girls, why don't you try to construct a new ship girl, Commander? But, please don't select the max number for each resources."

She said that almost the same time before my finger touched max for fuel. "Did the same thing happened the first time I did this?"

"Yes, but at the time I couldn't stop you and remembering our resources when we started..." Fubuki's face gradually darkens as she remembered the hell we have been through in the past. Maybe it's for the best if I don't recover that part from my memory.

"I guess I'll use the default numbers then..." I follow Fubuki's instruction to open the confirmation screen and selected the confirm button to finish the order. I tried fiddling with the screen before, but somehow my old self left the UI in Japanese so I submit in surrender of my old self ignorance. After I confirmed the order, I could see the part of this screen that symbolizes the construction chamber showed the silhouette of a ship and a timer beside it. Some small people started to work on the ship. "Okay I put the resources at 30/30/30/30 and the timer shows 20:00."

"It's most likely a Special Type destroyer, Commander."

"Is that so?" so it'll be a destroyer like her. Well, she looks happy. "Er, Fubuki, what are those… people?"

"Oh, they are the fairies. They are the one that man our riggings and construct us in the factories, after we finished some of the tasks from the Central we could do the Large Ship Contruction too, but it's very resources consuming so please do it only when I approve, Commander," her eyes glinted dangerously at me, maybe there's an incident in the past...

"O-okay, copy that," I moved back a little because of her little amount of hostility. "S-so, these fairies are like your crew when you're still warships?"

"Yes, Commander, they have been taking good care of us," crisis averted, I guess. At least her mood improved. "But, it's a bit different when it comes to the compass fairies, they're kind of… you will see it yourself when we sortie, Commander."

"Okay, what's next?" her finger now points to the menu above the factory menu and I clicked on it.

"We will leave the fairies to construct the girl for now and continue to the dock menu," the screen now change to that of bathhouse with two baths on it. "Like in the factory, as of now we have two repair docks in this base. They designed it like a bathhouse to make it easier for our human body to soak in the reparation water. There's also the instant repair liquid that is packed in those green buckets like the icon in your screen. Repairing a Fleet Girl requires fuel and steel so keep an eye at those resources when you repair. There doesn't seem any of the girls need repair now so you can try repairing later. Akashi-san can also repair ships without the dock with her riggings."

"So this Akashi, not only she can repair you Fleet Girls, but she also qualifies to check me like a doctor? She sure is talented then."

"She could also upgrades our equipment, Commander, now that she has her riggings with her."

"Wait, I get the impression that you girls come with your riggings the way you talk about it. How did she not have hers?"

"I think Akashi-san's riggings as a repair ship have a built-in factory inside it so it took more time to create her equipments. She also had a shop since before she had her equipments that sells many useful things for this base."

"Really? That's good," honestly I'm a bit shocked. "Is it free?

"No, Commander, you still need to pay her," Well, that was worth a shot.

"Yes! And with cold hard cash!" suddenly a silhouette popped up from the middle of my desk and a girl with pink hair and blue serafuku emerges from some holographic projection.

"Ah, Commander, this is-"

"I'm Akashi, repair ship, doctor, and mechanic of this naval base, also a shopkeeper!" the pink haired girl, Akashi, cuts Fubuki off, not literally. "Now that I have taken a look myself, there's really something off with you today, you forgot to pick up the guns that you upgraded yesterday. I know that everybody forgets a thing or two but… hm? What is it Fubuki?", "Akashi-san, actually…" Fubuki explained my circumstance to Akashi.

"Hm, if that's the case you really ought to rest, you know?" Akashi gives me thoughtful look."Yes, Doc, but my body feels fine so I guess I'm good."

"So persistent, aren't you?" Akashi chuckles at me. "Well, if you are that willing, just don't work too hard, okay? Listen to what your doctor said. Now if you excuses me, I still have work too. If anything happens, you can come to my workshop or have Fubuki calls me there. You can also contact me if you access my shop from your item menu in the resources screen," she pointed to the screen with graphs before and true to that, there's an item menu on it with a label of her shop beside it. "See you later Admiral, Fubuki." "She is always that busy, huh?" I ask Fubuki after Akashi's hologram disappeared.

"Yes, she is a wonderful person if you don't get to her bad side," not that I have a plan to make an enemy of someone who can practically saves my life.

"Speaking of her," Fubuki continues. "Let's open the refit menu."

I opened another menu in the screen that we have been fiddling for some time now. "In this menu you can assign equipments to each girls that will replace their initial equpments in their riggings. They can still fight even without equipments, but I advise againts that."

"Okay, what else in here…" there's a list of girls based on their fleet, I think and slots under their name that I assume is the place for their equipments. "What's this one, Fubuki?"

"That's to modernize and remodel a Fleet Girl," she mentioned the two button's under a Fleet Girl's image, this one is her image. "Modernize will consume another Fleet Girl's riggings and raise the modernized ship's stat a little and remodeling will raise a lot of the ship's stat and its cap by consuming ammo and steel, some girls also need special materials such as blueprints for their remodels, namely their second one."

"Are these materials the things inside my item menu?" I remembered seeing some of them before.

"Yes, Commander, there are many kinds of materials but usually we use the blueprints."

"Wait, do I need to collect different kinds of blueprint too?"

"No, you only need to collect the papers. The fairies will handle the design of each girl according to their remodel so you don't need to worry about that, sir."

"Well, that's convenient," less work for me, but I'm not going to say that out loud for my laziness is quite infamous in here, I think. "Is there anything else I should know?"

"Yes, the last menu in here," she pointed the last, topmost menu in the screen. "It's the supply screen where you can resupply your ships after each operations, be sure to remember it!"

"Right, an army marches on its stomach, or in this case it's a fleet and they are sailing, I guess?"

"Er, even if you are correct, Commander, that's a bit…"

"Yes, yes, Fubuki, I regret it too," I rolled my eyes at my sad attempt of recreating a saying. "Moving on, what about this last screen?" I pointed at a different and the last screen on my desk.

"That one is to organize your fleet," she pulls her finger along the screen and it scrolls down along her finger. "In here you can put the Fleet Girls into fleets that you can send to sorties, practices, and expeditions from the button in the middle of these screens, but we will cover that later. For now, open this menu here."

I opened one of the menu in the organization screen that Fubuki showed me and the projector lights up again. This time, a wall of text showed up with another girl with similar uniform as Akashi. The girl have long black hair and wear glasses. "Did you call, Admiral?"

"Commander, this is Ooyodo-san, she is the 'Quest Girl' that handles the tasks given to this naval base from the Central," Fubuki explaned to me. "Ooyodo-san, actually Commander suffered from some kind of memory loss so I have been helping him remembering his job around here by initializing the Tutorial Protocol."

"Oh dear, is it true, Admiral?" I nod at her. "Can you work like that?"

"I can manage, don't worry." I tried to assure her.

"If you say so, Admiral." She nods back at me. "I will support you with everything I have. Please take the quests after you have refamiliarize yourself with your job. Please excuse me."

"What are those 'quests' before?" I ask Fubuki after the hologram turned off. "Are those text behind Ooyodo the task from Central?"

"Yes, you're correct." Fubuki gives me a smile. "Central gives naval bases admirals a series of tasks that we call quest and gives admirals reward for completing them, such as resources and materials, some times equipments or even Fleet Girls. And that ends the tutorial of managing this base. Are you okay, Commander?"

"Dear God, is it finally over?" she nods at me. "Did I really go through all that before? Because, I don't want a third to happen."

"You also complained that you didn't want to go a second time, yet you managed it anyway."

"Did I? I guess I can endure it…" we share a laugh together.

"Phew, it sure is a hard work to lead this fleet huh, and imagine the responsibility that follows." I shudder while imagining the workload that's yet to come.

"I'm sure you can do it! You've done it the first time, and there's nothing that can stop you for a second time, Commander," she pumps he fist in front of her chest to encourages me.

"I'll do my best too!"

"Yeah, I'm sure about that," my hand unconsciously pats her on the head and she turned red from this.

"Ah, I forgot something!" seems like it will be a trend in here. "D-do you even remember your name?"

Right, so from the very beginning.

"...maybe I aged too fast the last time I slept."

"…I'm afraid that might be true." I laughed while she is taking that too seriously.

"In all seriousness though, do you know my name?" I ask her.

"Yes, Commander. Your name is --

A/N

I wanted to post this last year but, I couldn't made it. I guess it's happy new year for anyone who read this at the time.