Chapter 1 - Contact with unknown Enemy and Ally
Yawwwwn
A girl held her hand just above her mouth. This girl had blond messy hair and a black serafuku. She's accompanied by five other girls sailing across the sea. The sun was already setting in this distant sea.
"Bored already, Yuudachi-chan?" another girl asked. She had a gradient red hair with white/green serafuku and a dark blue jacket.
"Poi..."
Another girl, wearing the same clothing as the red hair girl, with the exception that she had a long brown hair, joined in, "Mutsuki-chan, aren't you bored as well?"
"Wh-What do you mean Kisaragi-chan- yawwwn."
"Point proven," Kisaragi giggled.
"Don't worry, the sun is setting, so we almost finished," another girl joined in. She had the same serafuku as Yuudachi, but unlike her, she had black hair styled into a braid and wore a hair decoration.
"Alright, poiii!" Yuudachi cheered, stretching her arms, earning some laughs from her fellow shipgirls
Trailing behind the girls was a girl with black ponytail and white/black serafuku, who was simply smiling at the conversation. Ever since the events at Solomon island, things went back to normal, but the world situation began to improve. America finally able to lend support with their shipgirls, despite the old grudges between the two nations. The countries in Europe also developed their own shipgirls to break the blockades and made contact with each other and other countries to determine their next course of action. Countries in Asia, on the other hand, could only lend logistical and financial support since their shipgirl program aren't as successful, as they had little, if ever, of their World War 2 era ships, which they have to rely on Japan and America to help them in case Abyssal forces decide to wander around their seas.
"Fubuki-chan, you're smiling a lot," Mutsuki remarked, snapping Fubuki out of her glance.
"Wha- am I?"
"She's always like this, poi..."
"Ehehehe," Fubuki nervously laughed, rubbing the back of her head, "Maybe I always am."
Meanwhile, a girl in front listened to the conversation and giggled under her own breath. Unlike other girls, she had different equipment and older than them, suggesting she's a different class to the other girls. She wore orange-reddish dress and a green headband, with her equipment being numerous guns and a catapult.
"Jintsuu, you're awfully quiet," Fubuki called out.
"Huh? I was listening over your conversation. In any case, we should be heading back to base," Jintsuu declared, earning a cheer from Yuudachi.
"Alright, poiii~"
Everyone laughed at Yuudachi as they began to turn. Fubuki looked up into the sky with a smile.
However, her smile dissipated. The sky was red. Normally, it could be dismissed as the sun setting, but the sky was blood red. In addition, the cloud began to thicken.
"What the..."
"Fubuki-chan?" Mutsuki asked her, worried.
"The sky is red..."
"What do you mean, poi? The sun is setting, of course it's... red..." Yuudachi looked up and saw the spectacle as well. Everyone looked up as well and were just as confused and worried.
Kisaragi looked down and saw the waters beneath them turned red as well. Her memories jotted back through the eyes of her Abyssal self during the Solomons. When the sea became red, any ships passing through would have their equipment crack. Fearing the same thing, she checked her own and everyone else's. To her relief, the equipment are safe.
The braid girl looked around her and spot something in the distance, "What's that?"
"What's what, Shigure-san?" Fubuki asked, looking at her direction. Everyone did the same thing and saw objects in the distance.
Jintsuu squinted her eyes to take a careful look. Through her eyes from the islands nearby, they looked like Transport ships she saw from photos, but definitely not on their side. The objects became closer at full speed, finally giving them a full picture.
These objects were actually humanoid looking. They looked like Wa-class transports, if not for the fact that they had pointy bow and coming very fast. Some actually had a cannon on their forehead. These were some kind of Abyssal they never seen before.
"Are they're transports?" Mutsuki asked silently.
"I don't remember them looking like that," Kisaragi answered.
The unknown Abyssal in the lead raised its hand forward. Jintsuu knew one thing.
"Whatever they are, they're not friendly!" Jintsuu responded by raising her arm and opened fire.
The shells hit one enemy, instantly killing it, but out of the smoke, another sailed through, replacing its fallen comrade.
"Another one?!" Fubuki exclaimed in shock. She raised her own guns and fired. Her shells hit another enemy, but like last time, another took its place.
"Even more?!" Mutsuki shouted. She and Kisaragi fired their guns, but no matter what, their comrades replaced their places in a seemingly never ending cycle.
"There's just too many, poi!" Yuudachi widened her eyes as more began to appear.
"In any case, we should get out of here! We outnumbered!" Shigure responded and tried to fall back, but to her shock, she found something that she didn't want to see. More Abyssal at their rear.
The Abyssal ships at front raised what looked like rifles and opened fire at the general direction of shipgirls. The girls were rattled by rifle fire, forcing them to shield themselves. Some Abyssal had cannons and opened fire, creating splashes around them. One hit Jintsuu straight on.
"Jintsuu!" Fubuki cried out. For a moment, smoked covered where the light cruiser was.
Out of the smoke, Jintsuu guns answered back, sinking two more ships, but like every other cases, more Abyssal replaced their places. "We have to get out of here!" Jintsuu ordered. She didn't want her patrol to stay any longer. While rifle fire were mostly ineffective on their hull, they began to add up.
"We got Abyssal at our rear! We surrounded!" Yuudachi shouted as she and her sister continued to fire their guns, but to no avail.
While Fubuki tried to fight off waves of Abyssal ships, something hooked on to her arm. "What the?!"
A grappling hook was on her arm, with the rope leading to an Abyssal ship. Another hook went onto her other arm, held by another Abyssal ship. "What is this?!"
"Fubuki-chan!" Mutsuki shouted, before a grappling hook caught on her arm. "Ahhhh!"
"Mutsuki- ahhhh!" Kisaragi called out before more grappling hooks caught her arms as well. Shigure and Yuudachi looked back, not noticing Abyssal ships got close enough that they threw grappling hooks at them.
"What is this?! Get off me!" Jintsuu, already got grappling hooks on her, struggled to take these things off her as the Abyssal ships pulled themselves closer.
Fubuki futilely struggled to get these grappling hooks off her, but no matter how much effort she tried, these hooks won't go off. Some fairies on her tried to cut the rope, but whatever they made of, it was like steel cable. Further more, some fairies were shot for their efforts by things on board Abyssal ships.
The Abyssal ships got close enough on her that they pulled out the last thing she wanted to see: black katana, shining from the setting sun and very sharp. They were so black and shiny that she could see her scared and fearful reflection on it, as if those swords had her name for her inevitable demise. She never felt more scared since the events at Solomon. To die in an undignified manner with no one to able to save them, the fears that she always had after when she first sank which came back to her. However, just as the Abyssal ships raised their swords,
FWOOSH!
The two Abyssal ships in front of her registered only a fraction of second of what it was before they were obliterated. The explosion cut off the lines, allowing her to move freely and turned who saved her.
From the distance, a girl stood there at the sea with her bow raised. Unlike her or any other girls in her patrol, this girl had a vastly different looking equipment and wore clothing and armour that's clearly from Korean origin. Her equipment in question had wooden hulls on her sides loaded with cannons, giving an impression of a galley type ship. She nocked another what looked like an arrow and fired. She could've been a carrier, if not for the fact that the arrow didn't turn into planes and instead penetrated clean through an Abyssal ship in front of Mutsuki, freeing her.
The Abyssal fleet took note of the new threat and charged at her. However, she wasn't alone, as another girl sailed past. While her equipment had the same wooden hulls on her side, the difference was that she also had a dragon head as her helmet and armed with a spear instead of a bow. On her back was a turtle shell with sharp spikes.
While the second girl charged, the first girl withdrew her bow and lifted a part of her hull. She aimed her cannons at the enemy before pulling the trigger. Every cannons on that part of the hull fired sequentially with amazing power. The cannonballs hit their marks, sinking a few Abyssal ships in the other girl's way.
The other girl, meanwhile, raised both her hulls and went in between two Abyssal ships. Both enemies tried to slice her with their swords, but she gracefully dodged and turned backwards before letting loose her salvos on both sides, instantly annihilating them.
Another Abyssal ship charged at the girl from her behind with its sword drawn, but when it tried to strike down, its sword was blocked by the turtle shell. Furthermore, the momentum got the Abyssal slammed straight into the spikes, paralysing it. The girl responded by pushing it away and finished it off with her spear.
While the two unknown girls fought over, the rest of the girls freed themselves from the Abyssal and finished them off. They watched as the two girls destroyed ships after ships of Abyssal fleet at a fast rate.
With casualties mounted far too high, the Abyssal fleet began to turn and fled out towards the horizon.
"Who were they, poi?" Yuudachi asked blankly. With the last ships disappeared out in the horizon, the two unknown allies turned towards the shipgirls.
"Um... thanks for saving us," Fubuki thanking them.
"It... was nothing," the archer girl said, looking in the other direction. Everyone looked at her, confused.
"Don't worry about my sister. She's not the type that opens up to people," the spear girl bowed.
"Oh...," Jintsuu understood. Just before anyone could introduced themselves, a horn sounded at the direction where Abyssal ships fled to.
The archer girl looked at the sound with worry, "That doesn't sound good. They're coming back. It's best if we return as soon as possible."
"Wait, why?" Mutsuki asked.
"I agree with her. The Abyssal you see are just a cream. The main body outnumber us by hundreds. We need to go now." the spear girl declared, preparing to sail in the other direction.
"What do you mean-" Fubuki called out before she was cut off by archer girl, who was glaring at her.
"GO!"
"Fubuki-chan, we have to go!" Mutsuki insisted, dragging her arm. Already the two girls sailed off in the other direction. Soon, the horizon that the small Abyssal fleet fled to began to fill, with numbers being uncountable.
"Let's go, poi!" Yuudachi shouted, with other girls already making their way out of the battlefield. Fubuki looked where her saviours went, which by now disappeared, before joining everyone else and returning to their base at high speed.
From the horizon, a white girl watched as the two groups retreated from the area with a smirk on her face.
"Should we continue?" a subordinate asked, but she waved off.
"No, we turning back. We'll see them again later."
"So that's what happened?" Nagato asked, reading a report. In front of her stood the six girls that survived the onslaught. While they looked like they're ready, behind their eyes they were truly tired.
"To think the Abyssal now use an old tactic from Medieval age," a man behind desk commented. "Boarding tactics... in the age where every single ships had cannons."
"Boarding tactics?" Jintsuu asked, confused.
"It doesn't matter, you're all dismissed. Heal up at the docks and get some good night sleep," the man ordered. All six girls saluted to him.
"Yes admiral!"
Once the six girls exited the room, the admiral relaxed and slumped back on his seat.
"What do you mean by, boarding tactics?" Mutsu asked him.
The admiral took out his cigarette, lit it up and smoked from it before puffing smoke from his mouth, "I don't expect anyone in the world knows about boarding tactics. Essentially you get close to the enemy, board them and kill everyone or simply destroy the ship with everyone on board."
"Doesn't that sound barbaric?" Nagato commented, furrowed.
The admiral gave off a chuckle, "I'm sure as hell people from that time don't think that's barbaric. We used to use it all the time as well."
"We?" Mutsu asked, confused.
"I can give you two history lessons, but that's not important. About the two girls they mentioned, I instantly knew who they are."
"Wait, you knew already?"
"You'll see. This isn't the last time we'll see them," the admiral said, crushing the ashes off his cigarette before continued smoking, "To think Koreans summoned their ships that's even older than Victory. Built off from that famous admiral no less."
Two girls slumped onto the bed, dead tired.
"Park, that was kinda rude. You should've been more respectful," one girl scolded, looking at her.
"So what, Na, they're Japanese. Don't you remember what happened?" Park answered coldly.
"That was rude. Not all Japanese are like that. These Japanese seemed friendly."
"Yeah I know, but I never forgave them after what they did to us Koreans for the past hundreds of years," Park said, getting into her bed.
"You're still living in the past? That won't help you in the long run."
Park simply hand waved at her, turning the lamp off.
"Look we both tired. Let's just sleep alright. Good night," Park ending the conversation, covered herself with blanket and turned away from Na.
Na scoffed off and went into her bed as well, "Good night then."
Truth is, she already saw so many bad things that happened to Korea by Japan that she found it hard to see one of them as not being a devil. It's not just the war, it's the hundreds of years of crimes that Japan committed to Korea that she witnessed. Maybe Na was right about her living the past, but she couldn't find a way to let go of her past.
She began to close her eyes and letting her dream take over her. She began to dream of her first time meeting that person.
A man was writing his book with his brush quietly and peacefully in the middle of the night with just a candle lighting his book. The day was pretty uneventful as nothing big was happening. Many people in the base were already fast asleep as the moon already reached its peak.
However, a moment later, his brush stopped. From his point of view, he just heard a whine. He looked where the sound might be but found nothing. Dismissing the sound as his imagination, he continued writing before stopping in only a few seconds later.
It's the whine again.
Now sure that he wasn't imagining things, he let his brush down and grabbed his sword. Outside, he could hear the whine more clearly. He walked out of the building and followed the sound. As he got closer, the whine became more clearer and now he knew where he should be going. He held onto his sword tighter in case it was going to be an ambush.
Eventually the sound led him to the wooden ships sitting on the beach. Two guards were seen talking amongst themselves.
"You can hear it as well right?"
"You're not imagining things right? Don't scare me."
"You can hear it inside that ship."
"Why don't you go in then."
"What if it's a ghost."
"Oh now you believe in ghost, pussy."
"If you think you can call me pussy, why don't you go in, big boy."
"Hey I never said I want to. You do it if you're so scared."
"No you do it!"
"You do it!"
Both guards began to fight amongst each other as the man approached them, "Is there any problem?"
"Admiral! Um nothing, admiral!" the first guard quickly turned around.
"He said he could hear some noise inside that ship," the second guard said, pointing at that ship. The admiral could now hear the whine coming inside that ship. Without a word, he began to walk towards it.
"Wait! We don't know if it's gonna be an ambush!" the first guard shouted in panic as both guards followed him.
The admiral unlocked the doors of the wooden ship and stepped in. The two guards followed in with their lights. Once inside, they shed light around them, scared stiff. The admiral looked around before spotting something. "Wait!"
Near the bow of the ship, he could see a girl naked and lying down in some kind of fetal position. Quickly he went up and checked her. The two guards looked where the admiral went and saw the girl as well.
"Psssh, you scared of a girl, eh. I didn't know this pussy is scared of a girl," the second guard nudging the first guard.
"Hey you were scared stiff as well."
"As if!"
"You weren't much better!"
"You two, be quiet!" the admiral hissed, forcing them to stop, before turning to the girl. She didn't look dead, but she's very cold. "Are you ok?"
The girl opened her eyes and look at him.
"Easy there. We gonna get help for you."
The admiral took off his coat to cover her from the cold
"Woah, are you sure it's alright?" the first guard asked.
The admiral simply nodded and carried her, "She needs help immediately. I'll take her to the infirmary. You two continue your duty. Understood?"
"Yes admiral!"
The admiral jumped off the ship and carried her towards the base infirmary. During the time, the girl looked at him, blushing, before closing her eyes into the slumber.
To her, this was the first time she met Admiral Yi.
A/N: Just a reminder, I don't want any flame wars about the relationship between Korea and Japan. Just saying in case.
Anyway, boarding tactics were commonly used before cannon tactics matured. As the admiral above said, it's rather simple: hope you don't get killed, grapple the enemy, board it, kill everyone, take what you need and finally either take the ship itself or just sink it.
The Japanese especially were big fans of it during 16th century. Because of Sengoku Jidai, the Japanese excelled in close combat and want to use this as an advantage. They see naval battles as land battles on water, so they develop their ships for that, which were quick. Any unlucky fellow that got caught by them would might as well be dead as they're not much of a match against Japanese sword fighting. In addition, they had arquebuses on board their ships to take out enemy sailors on board and clearing the way for them to board their ships to slice them up. It was effective against ships that were well unprepared and never experienced before. During the Imjin War, Toyotomi Hideyoshi built somewhere between 1500 to 1700 ships just to overwhelm Korean and Chinese navy by sheer numbers alone. In essence, this is Japanese naval version of banzai charge.
However, its main draw back is that well coordinated cannon fire will break them up. Ships like Panokseon and Chinese war junks will destroy them with ease provided they keep arms lengths from them, while Turtle ships (or Geobukseon) completely nullify this tactic due to the presence of a turtle shell completed with spikes. To make it worse for the Japanese, their design for their ships to be quick began to backfire straight in their face. To achieve such speed, their hulls are V shaped and they're built from light wood like cedar. While they achieved that speed, they paid the price of having pretty crappy structural integrity and lousy balance, which limits on how much cannons they could carry on board, at best 4 cannons, unless they want to sink themselves. The V shape hull meant that they're pretty much dragsters on water, which means turning a ship is a chore because of their massive turn radius and shallow waters is a massive risk due to their deep draft. Combined these and they're just easy food for Koreans and Chinese who knew what they're doing.
With names, while Park is just a random name based from the word 'Panokseon', I called the girl representing turtle ship 'Na' for a reason. It will be explained when we get to her.
Now Park's attitude towards the Japanese may sound cold, but this is how some Koreans felt after the mess the Japanese made during Imjin War and the occupation of Korea. Small wonder why some hated Kancolle because it represented Japanese ships with some light.
Don't kill me, but I decided to let Kisaragi in the fleet, even if she's supposed to be dead. If the movie was to be believed, ships and Abyssal are in endless cycle, so after her Abyssal form dies, her human form is back. But she will be playing minor role in this fanfic.
