Summer.

The season of the sweltering temperature and annoyingly active insects. Seeing how the day just begun as the sun is barely on its highest spot in the sky, the end of such agony is yet to be within sight.

Yet summer had its own charm if one is to disregard the atmospheric temperature. Thanks to the heat, floras such as the sunflowers are having the time of their lives as they bask in the sun while constantly staring at it like they're praising the sun.

However, that's not, by far the only charm.

Upon one corner of land lies a naval base, and some distance away from the port the base is attached to, lies a very cheerful beach. Laughter and giggles resounded from the beach as several girls, each equipped with alluring swimwear approached it from the direction of a structure in the port.

"Well then, under the Admiral's order, we are to have fun to our heart's extent as of today!"

A woman who's in front of the group suddenly twirled around and said thus. Her long, flawless black hair flowed and made a glittering arc.

Her words were greeted by a cheerful exclaim from the rest of the group as they immediately dispersed.

Some went straight for the shallow waters with their cute floats, some went even further to the deep waters; some bringing snorkels, and some weren't, while the few of them headed for an open spot on the beach to drop their luggage and set up a camp; stabbing oversized umbrellas and laying down mats for the girls to rest on.

Ooyodo, the black-haired shipgirl from earlier, was one of those who set up the mats and plopped her cute butt on it.

She sighed in relief, "finally, a holiday!" she exclaimed, stretching her exposed, finely toned arms.

"You've been working hard recently, haven't you Ooyodo?" as she finished stretching her arms, a colleague approached her and set up her mat on the other side of the parasol before sitting on it.

"You bet I did!" Ooyodo replied while leaning back with one arm supporting her while the other wiped the beads of sweat building up on her forehead. "The admiral made quite a ruckus with her sudden decision of getting married, so I've got to help her with paperwork and everything."

"I feel you." Said her friend with a light chuckle.

"How about you, Akashi-san? Don't you have to deal with the sudden rush of orders to make rings again?"

"I do," Her friend Akashi's pink locks danced on her forehead as a gust of wind blew by gently. The human repair ship twisted her joints one by one in a form of stretching, seemingly because she was about to swim as well. "But I feel like it's worth it, you know? Those rings might be given to us eventually, so I kinda get excited every time I make one."

"I don't know how it feels since I'm not the one burdened by it, but I feel like I understand what you mean."

The sweltering weather was beating through the atmosphere even though the two of them were protected by the parasol, so their bodies gradually became sweatier as time passes. Feeling slightly bothered by how her swimwear clings uncomfortably against her sufficient breasts, Ooyodo pulled the string that connected two cloths that protected her bosom in the middle of her chest to adjust her bosom in her sky blue and yellow bikini. As she did, it seemed like Akashi had finished her stretching.

"Not going to swim?"

"Nope. I've been meaning to read a book, so I'll be fine here."

"Rog'. I'm off then!"

Akashi stood up and quickly dashed away to where the rest were.

Some distance away, the other girls were busy cooling themselves off by splashing seawater onto each other or simply submerged themselves in the deeper part of the sea. From her place, Ooyodo saw Akashi approaching a group of destroyer girls playing with their beach ball and asked to join in.

"But speaking of the admiral…where is she?" she looked back towards the direction of the port, but suddenly, her phone sounds as it received a notification. She quickly picked her phone from her small purse next to her and read the contents. "…from the Navy HQ?"

Back in the port, approximately five minutes later.

The admiral's office is encompassed mostly by silence despite there being two people inside; nothing but a faint sound of ragged breathing could be heard from the widely spacious room.

"Houshou-san…can I put it in now?"

One is, obviously, the commander of the naval base, Ashikaga Ayumi. With the prime age of 25, her feminine back shoulders the responsibility of taking care of the entire naval base, in addition to her unnecessarily abundant racks. As the commanding officer of the navy, she was the only one wearing a bright white, pocketed military uniform; a short sleeved one to match the atmospheric temperature at this time of the year.

"N…no…you have to make it wet first…that way it'll go in easily."

The next person is Houshou, an aircraft carrier shipgirl who is helping out the admiral as her secretary. The sleeves of her apricot-colored hakama were tied up to her shoulders, and her usual ponytail decorated by a strange hair stick allowed her to bear the heat that beats into the room from the window frame nearby.

She was also the one the admiral had set her heart to, just several months prior.

"Ah, Houshou-san…!"

Suddenly the woman usually nicknamed the mothership opened her mouth and captured the admiral's thing with her mouth.

"Mmh…there. Don't you think it's wet enough?" but soon enough, Houshou pulled out the thing from inside her mouth. The trace of saliva from her wife's seductive mouth was left on the thing the admiral held on her hand.

"Y…yeah..." Feeling her significant other's hot breath due to their closeness to each other, the admiral was entranced; her face, until up to the tips of her ears poking out from between her flawless locks, were blazing red like a steamed lobster. "I'm…putting it in…I can put it in now, right?"

The impatience in her tone caused the mothership to chuckle gently. "Don't be impatient, miss admiral…I'm not going anywhere," she said seductively before letting out another giggle. "Fufu, but I don't hate miss admiral's eager face…you're so cute."

"I…I'm not used to be called cute…" the admiral turned her eyes away in embarrassment. "B-besides, didn't you promise you will call me by my name when we're alone…?"

"Aww, come on now, don't turn your face away…it's over here…!" Seeing how the admiral turned her gaze somewhere else while doing something important to both of them, Houshou gently reached her slender fingers on the admiral's chin and guided her face to look to where she needs to focus, before finally…she inched her lovely lips closer to the admiral's red ears and whispered; "go ahead…put it in, Ayumi-san."

From the unexpected stimulation, the admiral pushed her thing with a jerk, "I missed…!", cried the admiral, but the mothership only felt the mistake emphasizes her loved one's cuteness, and she chuckled.

"Fufu, let me guide you then…" the fingers that were locked onto the admiral's chin slowly slid down toward the admiral's arm that were holding her thing, cautiously caressing the admiral's body on the way there. "Here we go, you can put it in again…go slowly this time." She turned back to a whisper at the end of the sentence, giving stimulation to the admiral.

But this time, she wasn't shaken.

Slowly and gently, she pushed her hand that was guided by her wife…

…and her thing…went in.

"Ahh…it went in…! Houshou-san…it went in…!"

"Fufu, good job, Ayumi-san." Houshou beamed a smile. Its radiant did not lose to the violent sunlight blazing just outside their windows. "But what suddenly made you want to learn how to stitch?"

"""WHAT THE FUUUUU!?"""

""!?""

Voices thundered from beyond the door leading outside, but the two lovebirds were too shocked to even react properly. But just as they were about to stand and do something, much less get the door, it was already kicked open, and three furious girls sprung out from behind it.

"W-w-w-w-w-what's with the perverted conversation if you're just about to stit—wait!"

The first one to unleash her rage is a short-haired girl with bountiful bosom covered with pure white bikini. Her fury was understandably interrupted as they process what entered their vision.

The admiral and her new wife was certainly not doing anything perverted. On her right hand was a needle with its hole sticking up, and on her left hand was her thing…which of course refers to the string she put into the hole on the needle.

But that was not what made the bob-cut girl fume with anger this time.

The admiral was doing that while also cradling Houshou, who clung onto the admiral like a baby; one who's old enough to recognize that her current situation was embarrassing, thus her head turned to an oversized tomato with a ponytail.

Naturally, she struggled free to get out of the current situation, but it caused her to fall back-first onto the floor as she was sitting on the admiral's lap, but then she tried to straighten herself up, clearing her throat and attempted to emit a dignified aura while asking, "My, miss Hamakaze, Ooyodo and Shigure, how do you do."

Swoosh, sounded the imaginary blizzard that flew by the room despite the blazing summer temperature.

Her attitude caused the rest of the people in the room (admiral included) to look at her with a look of doubt, as if they were about to say you're not fooling anyone at this point.

"W…weren't you…going to the beach?" feeling the awkwardness, the admiral carefully breaks the ice by asking the three people who entered the room in their swimwear.

"W-well…about that," the first one was the person who first barged in and voiced her complaint; a short-haired bob-cut girl with her bangs covering her right eye and a pair of disproportionately large breasts for her frame, the Kagerou-class destroyer Hamakaze. "I…I heard something happen from Ooyodo-san, a-and I think I'm scheduled to be the secretary from today, so I'd like to…you know, maybe get a head start to what I might have to do…"

Thus, with her report, the admiral's eyes turned to the other person concerned; Ooyodo, who, like the admiral and the rest, had a blush on her face that even fogged up her rimless glasses.

"I um…I received a message from the Navy HQ…something about a transfer…" she said, adjusting her glasses for no reason. "…but probably before we start talking about it, I think it would be appropriate if we changed out of our swimwear first."

The admiral nodded awkwardly, "while I agree with you…why didn't you do that before you actually come here…? And if so you'd have given us a little more time alone…" she stated, leaving the latter sentence a barely audible mutter that no one, even Houshou who's next to her, could hear. The normally tomboy admiral turned out to have a pretty feminine side to her. Her question also left the guests looking for excuses as their irises swam around the room, looking for excuses. "That aside, what's Shigure doing here then?"

Finally, she brought the third member of the group into subject; a short girl with braided black hair that had parts of it jutting out on the sides of her head like cute, droopy dog ears, that is Shigure. The personification of the second ship of the Shiratsuyu-class didn't have as plentiful chest as Hamakaze and Ooyodo, but her black-and-white laced bikini not only shows but also emphasizes her modest, but nevertheless peerless beauty. Since the three entered the room, she hasn't been saying anything, but she was intently glaring at the admiral with her eyes looking like the depths of the abyss. Additionally, no one else realized this, but her right hand was holding an empty bottle of Poccari Sweet drink…thoroughly crushed into a pathetic bit.

"S-Shigure?"

But her admiral's call snapped her back to reality. Her grip loosens, and her eyes regained its shine.

"Well~ of course I was just interested in seeing how my dear commander is doing~" Strangely enough, while it seemed like she was in a daze, she heard what the commander asked her, and she also gave a reasonable answer. The admiral felt a slight chill on her back when she noticed Shigure's glare, but nevertheless she responded with an "okay…?"

"Either way, since you're already here, why don't you just put on some of those jackets?", the admiral pointed at a clothes hanger in the corner of the room right next to the door. The three newcomers look at each other, wordlessly discussing over a second before nodding in consent. The hanger is lined up with the admiral's favorite jackets as she had a hobby of collecting dank jackets and coats, so the three girls can pick any of them freely. Somehow, it looked like it goes without saying that the three picked hoodies that matched the color of their swimwear; Hamakaze choosing white, Ooyodo with light blue, and Shigure with black and linings of red shades.

After quickly zipping the hoodies on, the three girls lined up again in front of the admiral's desk, but this time, they start to act professionally like a soldier. They stood straight, gave a stern salute, and stood at ease. Ooyodo being at the center, she started reporting to the admiral.

"Command Cruiser Ooyodo reporting," she uttered, leading to a nod from the admiral, giving her permission. "As of today, August 15 on 09:31 local time, I received a message from Naval HQ regarding, and I quote the subject; "A transfer of 3 shipgirls to your naval base.", end of quote."

A transfer…

The admiral took the information with a stoic face, but there was one thing that bugged her, aside from the fact that a transfer is a very rare case that almost never happen in the Navy.

"Why did the Naval HQ send the message to you?" she asked, "I believe we do have a proper procedure of relaying messages between our naval base and the Naval HQ, so why did they do that?"

However, Ooyodo also had an answer prepared. "The Naval HQ reported as well in this message, that this message is relayed as such, because they are planning to make a system of fluid transfer between bases, and this transfer will be the experimental stage. They considered that there might be a lot more transfers in the future, so they plan to make a system for it." She reported, reading from her office phone. She also planned to explain this even without her commander asking, but she hadn't gotten the chance to.

"But still, why didn't they send the message for me instead…"

"There is another reason, though I apologize I might not understand," said Ooyodo again.

"And that is?"

"It says here…"plot convenience"?"

"…"

"…"

"I hate the author so much." Ashikaga Ayumi let out a sigh as she lifelessly hung her head like a marionette that had just been cut from its strings. "But anyways, let's move on…when will the transfer happen?"

"This afternoon," Ooyodo replied, "they are expected to arrive here at 15:00 local time."

"Well that's sudden…" the admiral muttered, frowning slightly. "And their data?"

"I shall forward the data to your personal tablet," said Ooyodo as she fiddled on her phone.

"While we wait on her, Hamakaze?"

"Y-yes…!" Responding to her commander's call, the Kagerou-class destroyer raised her arm to a quick salute again.

"Today's your turn to be the secretary from…midday, I believe?"

"Yes ma'am!"

Since the incident where the Admiral married Houshou, the entirety of the active fleets requested one thing in exchange of allowing Houshou to have her sweet joy with the admiral;

They requested that each one of them have a turn to be the secretary ship for at least two days on a scheduled basis. Houshou was initially dissatisfied with this, since she said she will have the time with her partner greatly reduced by not being the secretary ship, but finally she backed down and complied after the other girls gave her twice the normal duration (four days per session) and rubbing in her face the fact that she already got the ring. The girls' argument in why they wanted this is that they might have a chance to deepen their relationship with the admiral while serving next to her as her secretary.

The admiral, of course, had no say in this, thus she could only let out a barely audible sigh.

And thus, after four days of Houshou's session, it's time to change the secretary.

That was why, by the way, the admiral and Houshou was getting chummy earlier; to savor the time they had left together.

Previously before Houshou was the submarine tender Taigei, who served the commander with tender care like a thoroughly trained maid but had the spoiled personality of a five-year-old daughter.

Meanwhile the next secretary in line was Hamakaze. She looks nervous at first, but the admiral thinks she is the type of person who could show her best when the time comes.

Some might call her naïve, but the admiral always says that about everyone, but at the same time, that thought of her might be what allowed her girls to show their full potential when needed.

As a matter of fact, the fact that Hamakaze took the initiative to approach the admiral just as she noticed something is up clearly emphasizes her eagerness in helping with the admiral's works.

"Okay, since Houshou-san already finished her portion of paperwork, your first task would be to help me with the paperwork for the transfer. The rest is to be announced later in the day."

"R-roger that."

"I've sent the transferring unit's data, miss Admiral." As the conversation ended, Ooyodo lifted her face from her phone and reported to the admiral again.

"Thanks. Let's see here…" In response, the admiral opened the reports and data from her own tablet, bringing up a spreadsheet that contains four pages of full reports containing three pages of data that includes profile photo, name and hull number, class, hull classification, armaments, and notes, mainly the reason why the unit was transferred. The first page, however, includes an introduction file regarding the whole transfer system.

The first few paragraphs mainly were an introduction of the Navy HQ, which was unnecessary since the admiral knew well about what the navy and its motto is all about, so she decided to skip right to the meat of the paper and read it for the people around the room to hear.

"In recent light of complaints filed by shipgirls from multiple naval bases, we have implemented stricter regulations and are enforcing strict countermeasures against harassment and/or misuse of shipgirls in naval districts across the nation. Blah blah blah…complaints of multiple shipgirls within a naval district will call in a court martial on the commanding officer of that naval base…damn." The admiral's lips curled downwards. "shipgirls who are victims of harassments or expresses great concern of her well-being if she is to stay within a naval base, after careful discussion and consideration from the Navy Headquarters, may request a transfer away from their naval base, to one of the several qualified naval bases for reassigning and rehabilitating. The qualified bases and the destination of the transfer are decided by the Navy Headquarters."

The shipgirls around the admiral were rather confused on how to react, so few of them decided to purse their lips, while the rest attempted to make a neutral expression.

"To avoid mishandling of information, the Navy Headquarters will only relay this message to the naval bases qualified to be the destination of transfer and request the admirals of the qualified naval bases not to disclose the information to any other commanding officers, apart from fellow qualified admirals."

Under that line was a list of qualified naval bases and its commander's name. Ashikaga Ayumi's name is listed at the very top, with a note saying that her naval base is the most qualified (since she is one of the very few female officers that are talented, trusted by her ships, and on active duty). Three other names are listed under hers, including her close friend Yamamoto Yuuji, which enabled the admiral to heave a sigh of relief since she didn't need to keep any more secrets from him as she already has.

"That's actually the last info they gave us." Said the admiral as she checked the last paragraph being a summary of the document and something like 'we look forward in working with you to improve the transfer system'. Thus, the admiral moved forward and opened the next page on the spreadsheet, which elaborates on the ships that are transferred to her base.

The profile picture on the first page showed a blonde-haired woman with blue outfit outlining her busty stature and a matching-colored beret sitting on top of her head. Maybe because of the gloomy expression the girl seemed to emit, the photo looked less like a profile photo and more like a mugshot. Underneath the photo was the specification of the girl; the heavy cruiser, Atago.

Upon reading her name, the admiral raised an eyebrow.

"Hamakaze, is Takao out on an escort?" asked the admiral, moving her gaze from the tablet to the destroyer in front of her table.

"I…I don't know…" unfortunately the destroyer was unable to produce a satisfactory answer, replying in disappointment.

"I don't believe so, miss Admiral. Her escort fleet returned yesterday, and she should be resting in the docks by now." Instead, the admiral's lovely wife replied in her stead.

The admiral replied with a short hmm.

"Hamakaze, when you get to be the secretary, be sure to check and understand the schedules and status of all main fleets and escort fleets." Said the admiral, relaying her first order. Hamakaze in return replied with a short "Understood!" while throwing another salute.

"Anyways, we'll call Takao later and ask her to follow us in welcoming the transfers. Apparently, her sister Atago is going to be posted here." The admiral slipped her hand into her office cap to scratch her head before adjusting it back onto place and continued reading the report.

As her armaments and stats were on her default, the admiral only skimmed over it and went straight to the notes section at the bottom of the page.

The second ship of the Takao-class Heavy Cruiser, Atago. Her fleet posted a complaint to the Navy Headquarters on the █ of August, accusing their admiral of sexually harassing his shipgirls, especially Atago in particular. The commander, whose name initial will therefore be mentioned as F, kept Atago from executing her duties and instead keeping her for [REDACTED] meanwhile threatening her that if she did not obey, she will be scrapped. The experience led Atago to be deeply hurt and therefore the possibility of her becoming androphobic is present. F is currently undergoing trials, and his fleet is awaiting a new commander to be posted.

"Damn", the admiral muttered under her breath.

The information was quite enough for her, so the admiral flipped to the next page.

The next girl is a destroyer—or what people would normally think judging by her overall size, but Taihou and Ryuujou had once proven that one cannot judge someone (specifically their hull designation) just by the size alone. The girl's most defining feature was her ponytailed bright green wavy hair that drapes on her shoulders and her tiny back. Incidentally, unknown if it was because of the treatment from her last naval base or it was her natural face, but it looked like she was about to cry any second.

However, it didn't necessarily seem that she was abused, based on the report.

"The eighth ship of the Shiratsuyu-class destroyer Yamakaze, had expressed concerns regarding her purpose in her previous naval base. According to her reports and background checks, her admiral, I.A., had been reported to to show lack of motivation to progress developing their navy, much less finishing missions from Navy HQ. Yamakaze herself was one of the few ships [see addendum] who were left without duty for prolonged periods of time without given opportunities to develop. Therefore, Yamakaze and a few of her friends decided to express their concerns to the Navy HQ that she could be more useful and develop better on other naval bases. Hmm. I like this girl." The admiral lifted her lips' corners as she finished reading the report on Yamakaze. "Still, this could be a reason to request transfer and…it could be granted, huh…"

The admiral seemed hesitant as she said that, throwing worried glances at the four ships in the room with her.

"What is it, miss admiral?" but when her glance falls upon her wife next to her, the worry in her heart felt like it melts away into nothing, and she could focus back to work.

"Nothing, let's move on."

It apparently had been a while when the admiral glanced around, the screen of her tablet dimmed for the purpose of saving energy, so the admiral randomly touched the screen to wake it back up. Thus, she scrolled to the next page.

And then, she opened her eyes wide and dropped her jaw.