Disclaimer: Kantai Collection (Kancolle), all of its characters, and musics belongs to their respected owner. The only things I own here is my OCs. This fanfict may or may not be canon. Besides that, I've got nothing else to say. So with that, please take a seat, grab your drink, pick your snack, and have a pleasant cruise (or read).

Chapter 2 – "Equipment Maintenance"

Today is Tuesday, 4th of August 20XX. This is the second record of my report.

Today have been quite a tiring day for me and my crew. The reason for that is because of the girls. No, it's not their fault. I have to put that for now since I don't want to be thought that I blame them for anything. In fact, I and my crew is the one that should be blamed.

I'll start from the beginning. Just as predicted, the girls returned today at 6:00 in the morning. The Admiral, just as I predicted, was already waiting on the pier for them from about…I don't know…4:30 perhaps? I only woke up at 4 in the morning and then do a little jog before having breakfast. I only saw him when I was on the last lap. I guess it was about that time. After that, I finished my morning report and sent all of my crew to prepare for the daily check and maintenance of the whole base's equipment. Only seconds after I've finished my morning briefing, I heard one of the lookout crew rang an announcement. I quickly took two of my crew to go to the pier to help me assist the girl when they got to the base.

And there he was, the Admiral that seemingly fidgeting around while looking at the horizon. With an excited smile on his face, he kept looking back to his watch and then to the horizon over and over again. That made me asked him to calm down a bit. I said to him that the girls will be here in a couple of minutes, if not seconds. And true to my prediction, the girls really did come about a minute after that. A few exchange of salutes and then I asked them to drop off their rigging on the warehouse before they go to the dock and report to the Admiral. I heard that in bigger base there is a mechanism that let them took off their rigging automatically. But then again, this is just a small outpost. And if we really do have that kind of equipment, to maintain it with only a small crew like the one we have will be a nightmare. Better be grateful for what we have, right?

After they dropped off their rigging, I and two of my crew started to work on the rigging. And there is the start of my long day. After a few observations, we finally realized that we don't have enough understanding of the rigging construction and such that it made maintenance quite difficult. We do have some knowledge, but after seeing that each of them have some different part, we were concerned about the possibility of mishandling them to the extent of endangering those girls while in combat.

Fortunately, the fairies offered their help after seeing all of us had been wearing a worried expression. Before I continue, I have to say that it is quite strange how we could understand them while they didn't let out any kind of sound. Maybe they have a telekinetic ability. I saw them moving their mouth when they 'communicated' with us, but no sound was coming into my ears. Instead, I could understand what they want to convey directly into my mind. Quite an unbelievable ability they have. But then again, their existence is one that most of us find hard to believe.

With the help of the fairies, well…I have to correct that. We were the one helping the fairies since they were the one doing most of the work while we were only giving them small assistance along the way. Thankfully, we took a lot of notes from their own work that they have generously shown to us without hiding a single thing. I really have to treat them to some drink later on….Do they drink at all? In fact, do they take a break at all? For the whole time I'm working here with them, I've never seen them took a single break time. I guess the mysterious existence of the fairies will still be a mystery to all of us for quite some time in the future.

Where was I?...Uhm…Oh yeah, the rigging maintenance! Yeah, we help the fairies. They were much more skillful than we thought. Especially with their small –or should I say miniature– size, they could fit in to the gaps and holes of the rigging. After that, they perform maintenance just like a regular technician performs daily maintenance on a big ship. We helped them by bringing more supply and parts they would need since the parts were scattered all around the warehouse. I admit, we still haven't put enough time in tidying up the warehouse and the workshop. I'll schedule it soon. So in the end we did finally finished the maintenance of all five sets of rigging. The last task which is polishing them has been done by us since most of the technical stuff has been taken care off by the fairies. At the time we finished doing it, the sun has already set down.

The next thing I want to report is about our future plan for the base. At the moment, the base only has a single dorm where the girls live in. Just as I stated in my previous report, we have received request to build some more facility in the base. One of them is a set of dorm. I said a set since each type of fleet girl will have separate dorm. But since at the moment we only have a very small number of fleet girls, that plan can be postponed until we have some more fleet girls that will be either sent to us or…constructed? Or is it summoned? I honestly don't know. I'll ask the Admiral the next time I meet them.

For our first priority, we decided to collect enough material to sustain our operation. Thankfully, the girls' latest mission had managed to yield us more than we expected. That way, we can proceed into making some more ammunition and even more weaponry for them to use. I am quite happy to report that we will probably move into weapon construction tomorrow if there is no sudden change in our plan. Some of my crews were looking much more eager than I expected. Not that I hate that kind of eagerness, it's just that their eyes reminded me of the excitement of a mad scientist. I hope that is not the case…I really hope not.

Next is I want to report about our interaction with the girls. I expected them to be still a little…hmm…stiff when interacting with any of us. To my surprise, I was proven wrong, at least at some degree. For reporting sake, I will categorize the girls' way of interaction in three different categories.

First is the warm and friendly way. In this category there is Kiso and…what's her name again? The pyon pyon girl. Err…Ah! Uzuki! Yes, yes, Kiso and Uzuki! Uzuki, with her cheerful demeanor and constant 'pyon pyon' really took the crew's heart. She instantly become their little sister figure. For Kiso, however, she had become our… younger brother figure. I don't know whether she will get mad when she realized this, but she only has her own self to blame for that. The reason for that is her usually boyish way of talking and her rather crude attitude, we could only see her as a younger brother who is sometimes eager to proof himself. Although they both have different way of interacting with us, the two of them have similarities in their friendly way of talking and also not afraid to do some…skinship. Yeah, I guess that's a proper way of telling it. Uzuki clings to some of us while Kiso gave some of us a bro-fist and high-five. So, that's the first two.

The second category is the formal way. In this type is Y…Y…Yayoi! And Fu..Fure…no, Furu…taka! Furutaka! Yayoi and Furutaka. Those two gave us a polite smile. Err, scratch that. Furutaka did. Yayoi only gave us a small bow and nod whenever we talked with them. They keep the interaction to a minimal and acted politely. Well, I guess as polite as Yayoi could. Her speech is polite and effective, but not to the extent of making it cold. In fact, between the two, I could nominate her for the friendly type if not for her inability to make a proper expression. Unlike Furutaka, her expression was stiff and limited. Ah, but Furutaka herself is quite a cheerful girl. She joked and laughed with us but still maintain a proper limit. If I have to give an example, she is a proper office lady. It is not everyone's opinion. That is mine alone so that is not entirely correct for everyone.

And the last is…*sigh* why do I always have a slight headache when talking about her? *sigh* Okay, let's stop that for now. The last type is the shy and timid one. As anyone could guess, that leaves only one candidate for that type. Isomani, ugh! Dang it! Wrong again! Isonami! Isonami! Fuah!...Apology about that. No, she is not a bad girl. In fact, she might be the nicest of the five. Although….her shy personality is a problem. As for this one, the opinion is shared among the others. They can only see her as a fragile person that might cry at one simple misspoken word thrown at her. But in fact, there is only one thing that I observe will make her cry. And that is if one misspoke her own name. How can I be so sure of it?...Well, it's not exactly a million dollar question, right? Yes, yes, I will admit it. That is because I am the one that misspoke her name the most.

Regarding that, there is another story. It goes like this. I was going to get some lunch and found her together with Yayoi and Uzuki. With intention of make us closer, I sat together with them. At first, everything was going smoothly. I chat with them, joked with them, and even heard several requests from them about their equipment, which I wrote in my note for future reference. But disaster strike when I was going to ask Iso…nami! Ah, finally! I was going to ask her about her reference and I…misspoken her name. Again. She was startled and started tearing up. Uzuki, as the most cheerful of the trio, started to cheer her up. Yayoi, on the other hand, just sat there not knowing what to do. Uzuki then apologize to me and then brought the other two away from me. I swear I had banged my head on the desk several times while cursing my own mistakes, not caring about the other's stare at me. Why am I that bad in remembering someone's name!? Ugh…I really…really…really have to apologize to her. Maybe I will buy her some present in my next free time, which only God know when that is. Ugh…Remembering that story really made me feel all guilty again. Thankfully, none of the girls blame me for that. Or…at least not in front of me.

Oh yes, almost forgot to tell. The Admiral was suuuuper happy and excited after analyzing the girls' performance. He praised each and every one of them. But he also said that while their main mission is resource collecting, the danger might escalate more and more with each day. Together with the fact that our force is anything but sufficient at the moment, any kind of injury that might render the girls unable to do a sortie in a full force is not something we can afford. He mentioned that the constant delivery of supply will only be done less and less frequent in the future since the priority of the headquarter is not small outpost like us, but front line fortresses that have small to no chance at all to do any kind of independent resource gathering. For that, we need to have a steady stream of supply. And having one of the girls out of commission will endanger the rest of the crew when they make a sortie. Although the girls looked a bit disappointed at that, they realized that what he said is very correct. In according to that statement of his, there are two decisions. The first one is for my crew and the fairies to prioritize weapon research and manufacture to give the girls better equipment. I accepted that right away since we were already planning of doing that tomorrow. The second one is that the girls will train themselves as much as they can in their free time. But he also said to them to not overwork themselves. Admiral, do you realize that you are also in the same position?

I guess that's all for now. I still need to organize the report and the order so that we can quickly reach our target. This is 2nd Class Petty Officer Kuma Miyazo signing off.

*click*-