Admiral Yin stepped back and nodded as he looked at his small and obscenely boring office. The night before he had been so tired from his spar with Tenryuu that he completely ignored what the office looked like when he entered it and fell onto the bed in the adjoining room, but now merely a minute after unpacking all of his personal affects he realised how large his office really was. All of the walls were bright white with black edging and his desk sat directly in the center of it all, two framed pictures of his family and hometown being the only things sitting on his desk. In a back corner of the room sat a small stand with a printer atop it that was connected to the tablet, and therefore connected to the bases systems. It made him wonder why he couldn't just have a normal computer, though he did understand the usefulness of a tablet. With a quick approving sigh Yin turned and left his office, closing the door behind him as he set off into the hallways in an attempt to find the mess hall, an attempt that quickly bore fruit.

Within a minute, Yin stood before a set of heavy plastic double doors with the words 'mess hall' above them in golden letters. Stepping through he was met with a sight that made him both happy and sad. The mess hall was huge and would easily be capable of holding a hundred people, and in it sat only Shimakaze and Tenryuu, Wo being chased around the outside of the mess hall by two of the three rensouhou-chans. Yin walked around the outside edge of the room, careful to dodge Wo and the rensouhou's as he did, and came to the table that Shimakaze and Tenryuu were eating at. As he did the two of them looked up and smiled to him.

"Morning, Admiral. I'll grab your food." Shimakaze said as she got up and rushed over to the kitchen.

Tenryuu let Yin take a seat across from her before swallowing and putting down her chopsticks. "Good morning, Admiral, sleep alright?"

Yin slid his seat forward and nodded. "Mostly. Sleeping in an unfamiliar place always takes some getting used to, but I'm sure I'll get a perfect sleep within a few days."

"Maybe you were having dreams of being eaten by an abyssal ship!" Shimakaze growled as she came back from the kitchen and slid a tray of food across the table to Yin before sitting down and continuing to eat her food.

Yin smiled, ignoring Shimakaze's obvious dislike for woman broke his chopsticks apart, digging into the food. "Mmmm, this is good; did one of you two make this?"

"Fufu, now you see that my skills aren't just for destroying the enemy!" Tenryuu declared as she crossed her arms happily before uncrossing them and digging back into her food.

As Yin finished his food and said thanks for the meal, seconds behind Tenryuu, he looked around and spotted Wo, running around the mess hall and now playing with all three Rensouhou-chans. "Shouldn't we give Wo something to eat?"

"I already did!" Tenryuu replied as she cracked her neck and slid her empty food tray aside. "She was nibbling on bauxite while I was cooking the food." Tenryuu commented with a smile.

"Ah, I see. At least the bauxite will get some use then." Yin replied as he picked up his glass of tea and took a deep sip. He noticed Shimakaze glaring at the table as if averting her gaze. "You really don't like Wo do you, Shimakaze?"

Shimakaze crossed her arms and looked away from Yin and toward the windows along the wall of the mess hall. "Why should I? It's an abyssal ship, our enemy!"

"How can you say that when she's so cute, just look at her!" Tenryuu said as she pointed to Wo who was carrying all three renshouhou's, on her head, until she tripped and all of them landed on their faces with dull thuds.

Shimakaze almost snickered but stopped herself and looked away. "Yes, so cute. I hope my rensouhou-chans are fine."

Yin let out a sigh and slid the base tablet out of the bag on his belt and placed it on the table. With a few quick swipes of his fingers across its surface he opened up a picture of the island, and a small nearby chain of islands, and slid the tablet across to Tenryuu and Shimakaze. "Ignoring your dislike for Wo, I'd like the two of you to go on an expedition in this island chain."

Both Shimakaze and Tenryuu looked at the map on the tablet for many moments before Shimakaze lifted her gaze toward Yin. "Any particular resource we're looking for? We already have a lot in the base storage after all."

"Yes but we don't have enough. I'd like to have a battleship built in case we;re called to assist another admiral, and if possible we could get a few others built as well, some more destroyers or cruisers perhaps."

Upon hearing this Shimakaze lit up like a light bulb. "so were to find all the material we can get then? All right, when do we leave?" Shimakaze said as she stood up from her seat.

"Hold on there, Shimakaze!" Tenryuu said quickly as she grabbed Shimakaze's shoulder and forcibly sat her back down before turning to Yin. "Why is it so imperative to get a battleship or more destroyers? Shouldn't we get ourselves leveled up a bit first?"

Yin was quiet for many moments before looking at Tenryuu and Shimakaze with a very solid glaze. "I understand wanting to get into the fight, but for now we will just gather our forces and increase them. You two can leave whenever you are ready, but be back before dusk whether you find anything or not."

Both Shimakaze and Tenryuu looked at each other before placing their food trays in the kitchen and leaving the mess hall with a quick wishing of luck, leaving Yin sitting in the mess hall with Wo. As Wo shuffled over to Yin and attempted, and failed, to climb up his legs he let out an exasperated sigh. "Why couldn't I just say I don't want to lose them?!"

"Wo?"

Yin looked down to Wo then stood up from his chair. "No point in whining about it, I guess. Shall we go see the rest of the base?"

"WO!"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I wonder if the Admiral has some kind of plan or something." Tenryuu said as she and Shimakaze sped across the ocean to the small chain of nearby islands.

What do you mean?" Shimakaze asked as she and her three Rensouhou-chan's kept reorganizing where they were in proportion to her.

"It's strange, sending us out on an expedition when we should be hunting for some enemies to level up with. How could we even begin to assist other fleets if we're too weak to help?"

"I'm sure he has a plan, at least I'm hoping. Otherwise that Wo is going to bite us in the ass!"

"You really dislike her. huh, Shimakaze? Why don't you at least try to like her, would it hurt you that badly? Or are you afraid you'll get caught by its cuteness?"

Shimakaze glared at Tenryuu in response and sped ahead as if proving that nothing could catch her. This was going to be a long expedition.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Yin stood at the edge of the firing range pool with Wo beside him and looked out at it with a smile on his face. "Well Wo, we've now explored the entire base, want to go for a quick swim?"

Wo looked at Yin for a moment before a bright huge smile lit up her face and she jumped into the pool without a second thought, her tentacles allowing her to get up to a significant speed as she began swimming laps around its edge, occasionally diving down to the pool's bottom before coming back up and doing it all again.

Allowing a smile to leave his face, Yin stripped down to his swim trunks (that he was wearing under his uniform) and took a running jump, cannonballing into the pool with a splash. As he surfaced he squirted some water out of his mouth and slicked his now drenched white bangs out of his eyes. "Ah, I love a good swim!"

"WO!" Wo exclaimed happily in agreement as she began doing irregular dives down to the pool's bottom, which was a lot deeper than it looked from the edge.

"I wonder how long I can hold my breath compared to Wo?" Yin wondered aloud as he took a deep breath and plunged under the water, keeping his eyes open so he could see were Wo was. Seeing him under the water Wo swam over and stayed near him, looking at him with a look of wonder plastered across her face. Sadly, it took only a minute before Yin was forced to allowing himself to float up to the top of the pool, gasping for air as he surfaced. "Okay, you win, Wo."

Wo popped up to the water's surface as Yin talked, looking at him in confusion. "Wo?"

"Don't worry about it, shall we get out now?"

Wo nodded happily as she swam over to the edge and attempted to crawl out, failing even with the help of her headgear's tentacles and falling backwards back into the pool

Smiling, Yin swam over and pulled himself out of the water before pulling Wo out and placing her on the pool's edge. "There you go, now I just need to- what the..?" Yin suddenly exclaimed as he gently grabbed one of Wo's tentacle to find the end of it was a pale red instead of its usual greyed white.

"Wo?" Wo exclaimed worryingly as Yin squatted down in front of her.

Yin looked from the tentacle in his hand to the other three to find that they too had pale red ends on them. "What in the world is this?"

Wo looked at Yin as he gazed at the ends of her tentacles and, in a brief moment of spontaneity, decided to leap at and hug Yin. Not expecting Wo to suddenly hug him, Yin's lost his balance and fell backwards toward the pool. As he fell, his left leg ended up stretching out toward he pool, and when it hit the water, did not go through its surface and instead planted itself firmly on its surface. Unfortunately, this did nothing for him as the rest of his body fell sideways, back into the pool with a splash.

Yin pushed himself to the water's surface and coughed up some water as Wo swam over to him. "Not. Ack. Not cool, Wo. If you wanted to keep swimming you should have said something."

"Wo?"

"Or did you just want a hug?"

"WO!"

"Huh, let's get out for real this time." Yin said as he and Wo once again swam to the pool's edge and climbed out, Yin having to pull Wo out after again watching her insanely cute but sad struggle to climb out. After getting dried off and putting his uniform back on, he and Wo slowly walked toward the base's main building, intent on putting some food In their stomachs. As Yin opened the door to the main building he turned and looked at the pool. "I'm sure I'm just imagining it, but it felt like my foot was on a solid surface when it hit the water. Must be the lack of sleep I didn't get last night."

"Wo! Wo, Wo, Wo!" Wo began calling as she gestured toward the mess hall with her arms and her tentacles.

"Right, sorry Wo, you're hungry, huh?"

Wo nodded her head rapidly as a small bit of drool crept from the corner of her mouth.

"Alright, alright. I'll grab you some bauxite to munch on while I make myself some lunch." Yin said as he followed Wo toward the mess hall.

As Yin walked, he looked out a window of the hallway and out toward the ocean, wondering how Shimakaze and Tenryuu were doing out on the expedition, and hoping nothing was going wrong.

Authors note: and another chapter done! This is going good, and now we'll have the continued expedition of Tenryuu and Shimakaze, and the new addition of a battleship to the fleet, look forward to it!