Chapter One: Would? (Part Two)


Note: This is a revamped first chapter that is going to be divided into three parts due to the length, there are a few changes that have been made and some new information added from the original chapter.


"Into the flood again,

Same old trip it was back then.

So I made a big mistake,

Try to see it once my way." – Alice In Chains


The battle was going terribly.

A shell from an Abyssal destroyer narrowly missed Shimakaze as she skirted hard to the right. She could feel the droplets of water from the splash that followed sprinkle on her left arm.

The Alaskan water had made her shivering non-stop at this point.

"I don't want to sink into that," she thought.

Her 'Rensouhou-chan' returned the favor as it returned fire, its twin-guns hammering that same Abyssal destroyer with two high explosive shells. Fire, smoke, and rent metal filled Shimakaze's view of her stricken enemy.

It didn't take long for her to see it slowly sink beneath the waves as it succumbed to the constant barrage of Shimakaze's guns for the past few minutes.

"My first kill today!" she shouted, trying to lift her own spirits.

Her right arm was nearly blown to pieces and the blood flowing down from the top of her head had made it hard for her to see out of her right eye. Each of her legs and her stomach had taken superficial damage as well. Her clothing was ripped and torn in several different places, making her outfit even more revealing than it already was. One of her twin gun turrets was knocked out of commission, both of its barrels bent in unnatural angles.

If things had not been bad enough, she heard the thunderous explosion of a battleship's main guns once again.

The shipgirl's heart jumped into her throat as she swayed left and right with the precision of a champion figure skater, massive geysers of water created from the missed shots of a 16-inch Triple Gun Mount drenching her as she desperately evaded.

"Good thing I'm fast!"

Shimakaze impressed herself with that display of dodging, she had not expected to survive that salvo without a scratch. The other Abyssal ships were already trouble enough, the presence of that Battleship Princess was only making things more miserable for her.

"All I wanted was to race, I didn't think I'd end up alone!" She mentally cursed herself for insisting on having a race with Amatsukaze.

"I know I'm faster than her, but I didn't think I'd beat her so bad that I lost her and everyone else's radar signatures!"

Her vision blacked out as a shot from an enemy destroyer impacted with her face, blowing her head back and staggering her. She struggled to keep her balance while her senses attempted to recover from such a direct hit from an enemy shell. The blast had her entire face stinging with intense pain, her ears were ringing, and for the time being, she couldn't open her eyes just yet.

"OW! OW! OW! OW! OW! You guys are jerks!" Shimakaze screamed, hoping that her shouts would somehow ease her pain.

When she heard the recognizable crash of the enemy Battleship Princess opening up with its main guns once again, the destroyer frantically fought to regain her balance. The second she rediscovered her sea legs, she sped off in a random direction to avoid being hit.

From what she could hear, it was perfect timing too, since all of the other Abyssal ships had all fired as well. Her eyes twitched uncontrollably at first, but despite having to wipe off the blood from her eyelids, she was able to see again.

Shimakaze shrieked in surprise when found herself staring face to face with the very destroyer who shot her.

The black monster snarled at her as it tried to line up its next shot to hit the Japanese destroyer point blank.

The shipgirl reacted quickly, zipping completely around the destroyer, attempting to get behind it. Her face stung even more as a cold gust of air scraped against her face as she moved, making her wince in mid-maneuver. The wind hitting her face made her realize that multiple pieces of shrapnel had embedded themselves onto her face, each spot making her feel like it had been pricked with glass shards.

The Abyssal failed to anticipate its target pulling a sudden move like this and was slow to react as a result, firing its gun at the spot where the shipgirl was a mere second ago.

Now that she had successfully slipped behind her target, Shimakaze dumped one of her torpedo racks. All five launch tubes released their munitions, making a satisfying thump as the torpedoes were ejected from their holding cells and splashed into the water, now set free to hunt at their leisure. Shimakaze skirted away, watching as five white trails soared eagerly towards the intended target like blood-hungry harbingers of death.

By the time the Abyssal had realized what was happening, three torpedoes slammed into its starboard side in quick succession.

The resulting detonations ripped and tore the now creaking hull of the enemy destroyer, rendering three impressive holes that the saltwater was delighted to rush into.

As the enemy destroyer began to sink into the chilling Alaskan water, Shimakaze just realized that she was somehow still alive, even after tanking a direct hit to her face, and managed to defeat two Abyssal ships in the process.

"Ow! My face! My arm! My everything!" she whined, the elation from her victory sapped away by the stinging pain all over her body.

A splash next to her caused the saltwater to drench her entire body, including her face, aggravating her discomfort even more. Of course, the enemy had to literally dump salt all over her wounds.

Irritated, she glared up at the sky and spotted the culprit. A single Abyssal dive bomber was pulling out of its failed bombing run and returning to its formation.

A formation that was steadily getting larger and closer in Shimakaze's view. There were simply too many planes to count, probably an entire squadron from her judgement. The Abyssal formation looked like a dotted black cloud in the sky. She could now hear the rumbling of the Abyssal engines as they approached in unison.

"Are you kidding me!?" Shimakaze cried in frustration.

The entire Abyssal dive bomber squadron responded to her question by all dropping their altitudes, and in perfect formation, all headed towards their prey. They all lined up their vectors, appearing to try using their overwhelming numbers to carpet bomb the area of sea that Shimakaze was currently standing in.

As they drew closer, Shimakaze snapped out of her stupor and darted away as fast as she could. Even with her speed, however, the dive bombers seemed to be able to adjust their vectors without much issue.

The fact that, as much as she hated to admit it, the enemy planes were much faster than Shimakaze could ever hope to be.

To add even more insult, the guns of the remaining Abyssal ships all fired together in one salvo, punctuated by the booming of the Battleship Princess's guns once more.

The Japanese destroyer began to swerve back and forth successfully dodging shells, her adrenaline cranking her senses into maximum overdrive. Every splash of a missed shell, whether a small geyser or a large one courtesy of the Battleship Princess, kept Shimakaze alert and paranoid.

After a massive pillar of water narrowly missed her, a few of the Abyssal planes pitched up to climb above their comrades, allowing them to drop their bombs prematurely. The fast destroyer saw this coming and was able to slide out of the way, but her floating gun mount was not so lucky.

Her floating Rensouhou-chan, who had been keeping pace with her up to this point, was kissed with two direct bomb hits. The bombs ruined the entire now-smoking turret, its gun barrels twisted and bent.

"No!"

It was obvious to at a glance that the afflicted turret was out of the fight.

Disdainfully, she scooped up the floating turret in her left arm, frowning down at her damaged Rensouhou as she recognized that she was down to her rig-mounted turret.

"My poor Rensouhou-chan! You bastards!" she shouted, glaring up at the enemy air formation.

She made a risky move by turning her back to the Abyssal ships and fired her autocannon, attempting to break their formation. She recognized that not only were the planes hunting her down, but they were also pushing her towards the Abyssal Princess.

The Abyssal planes held firm though, even as one of their own began to burst into flames and dropped from the sky thanks to Shimakaze's autocannon scoring a few nice hits on it.

Now that the lone shipgirl was closer, the thundering of the enemy Princess's guns was shaking the water around her, causing a wake effect that nearly made her lose her balance for a second time today.

As the enemy aircraft grew closer, the fast destroyer swerved in a zigzag to dodge the incoming shells from the remaining Abyssal ships. The geysers of water erupted around her once again, indicating that each shot had missed again, much to Shimakaze's relief.

Even as her autocannon successfully shot down a second incoming dive bomber, she knew that it would only be a moment before they would be in the optimal position to dive and drop their payload. Every attempt she made to dodge, every direction change, every time she slowed down or sped up to try and shake them, the Abyssal planes mirrored her every movement.

It was only a matter of time.

And worse yet, she was still speeding ever closer to the eldritch horror that was the Abyssal Princess. Thanks to her radar, she also had no doubts that the other Abyssal ships were closing in as well, tightening the noose.

Shimakaze was still boxed in by the coordination of the enemy, a depressing thought accentuating by the fact that the enemy planes were now diving, preparing to finish off the Japanese destroyer once and for all.

There was no evading the bombing run.

No matter what direction change the shipgirl made, no matter how long her autocannon could continue to fire, at least a few bombs were going to hit her, and considering her already wounded state, her sinking was practically assured.

She stared as the dive bombers roared towards her, their jaws grinning with lustful anticipation, no doubt imagining Shimakaze's crimson liquid so frantically spilled. The images of her destruction were burning hot with desire within them as if this was their one goal, their one purpose. Images of choking black smoke billowing and a raging inferno ejecting from her crumbling body, her limbs, and innards dispersed out amongst the waves. Each one of the dive bombers was salivating red at the prospect of her ruin…

Her doom.

"I guess only being fast isn't good enough..." the fast destroyer sighed, taking one last look up at her reapers.

White streaks of smoke soared through the air at a speed that even impressed Shimakaze, and she watched as they slammed into several of the Abyssal dive bombers, plumes of brilliant fire erupting from the stricken aircraft.

"Wha-" was all she could get out before a second volley of white contrails collided with more bombers, blasting them apart.

Instead of the bombs that would end her, shards of dive bomber remains were raining down from the sky.

The shipgirl stared up at the shattered debris of the Abyssal planes, absolutely dumbfounded.

The sudden attack had shaken the Abyssal squadron's concentration, causing many of the survivors to scatter and break off their bombing run. Abyssal fighter-bombers broke left, broke right, or climbed to a higher altitude, but very few of them were able to stay on target.

Few enough that to the wounded destroyer, were now manageable.

Shimakaze's radio, which had been silent up to this point, was now picking up a voice.

"Japanese destroyer Shimakaze, this is AWACS WEEPING ANGEL, please respond."

The bizarre feeling of hearing a voice so suddenly after she had just gotten done accepting her own sinking made it hard for her to shake herself out of her shocked state.

Once she had taken a couple seconds to accomplish that, she was still bewildered by something else.

The voice on the radio itself.

"Is that…English?"

"Attention Shimakaze, please adjust your radio to channel one-point-three-five-five!" a young male voice urged.

Shimakaze shook her head in disbelief. Not only did an English-speaker manage to find her radio frequency right after she had been saved, but she understood him!

"I guess those English lessons with Intrepid and Saratoga paid off after all!"

Saved.

"Wait, are these guys a relief force?" she pondered momentarily, before obeying the operator and switching her channel to the appropriate frequency.

"Ra****ox Three!" the static was still clearing from Shimakaze's radio as this voice spoke.

"Rapier Two, Fox Three!" a second voice came in clearer.

She was now picking up other voices as well, all of them appearing to speak English.

She also noticed that a third wave of those flying white trails veering towards more of the remaining dive bombers and witnessed the corresponding detonation once they reached their targets. Some of these weapons even managed to shoot down some of the Abyssal planes that managed to stay on target with Shimakaze. Dodging the few bombs that the enemy survivors dropped now seemed like a cakewalk for her.

As she zipped to the left and right, watching her attackers' munitions drop uselessly into the water, she realized that those white streaks must have been missiles.

As if on cue, another volley of AMRAAMs found purchase in more of the Abyssal bombers, reducing them to mangled husks of metal and thinning their ranks even further.

"Pilots huh?" she mused out loud, now speaking English herself and gazing up at the sky where she thinks the fighter jets might be.

"That's right! Lamenter Squadron of the Blood Angels Mercenary Legion has arrived to get you the hell outta here!" announced the same radio operator from before.

There seemed to be a bit of pride in the AWACS operator's statement.

"Mercenaries? Like the Imperial Fists or Emperor's Children back in Japan?"

Shimakaze continued to listen to him as she dodged another salvo from the Abyssal ships, a near-miss shell from the enemy Battleship Princess soaring over her head. The wind caused by the shot forced the fast destroyer to blow her bangs away from her eyes. Once her vision was clear again, she refocused her attention on searching for a new target.

"Our pilots will hold off the enemy air forces, and our Claymore Flight is packing anti-ship missiles. Once they sink the enemy cruisers and destroyer, retreat to the southwest at vector two-two-zero," the AWACS operator instructed.

Shimakaze looked down to inspect herself.

She was still drenched, and now that her adrenaline had worn off, she could feel the stinging from the saltwater that had seeped into her wounds once more.

Her right arm was practically gone, her left arm was holding her out of commission Rensouhou, her head was still bleeding, the shrapnel in her face was still there, she was down to one gun turret and on top of all that, she was exhausted from the extended battle.

If she made it back to base alive, it was clear that she would need extensive repairs.

"I will use the torpedoes I have left to sink one of the enemy ships," she declared confidently.

"Absolutely not! There's no way you are in fighting condition right now. Please retreat!"

"Once I use up my torpedoes, I'll retreat like you said. As long as your pilots keep the planes away from me, I'll be fine! Don't worry, I'm too quick for the Abyssal ships!" she cheered back to him, actually lifting her own spirits in the process.

"That's insa-you know what? Fine. As long as you survive," the operator replied with a defeated tone.

With her mind made up, Shimakaze made her way to the nearest light cruiser.


And here is part two of three of the first chapter!