Big sisters Lexington and Goeben made fairly quick recoveries after that incident with Bismarck. I was also extremely grateful to Goeben-nee because in all honesty, never in my wildest dreams would I ever imagine that someone would care about me to the extent of risking her own life to protect me the way she did.

As for my fleet… Yes, deep in my heart of hearts, I had already started referring to the DREAM TEAM as "my fleet". I don't know for sure when I started doing that, but I am after all the flagship of the fleet, as well as its leader.

We have become so much closer recently, and I actually started joining in with the rest of the team in celebrating every single successful sinking of an enemy ship during our sorties. When the Admiral is not logged in, our fleet essentially transformed into a music group, and the six of us would perform for all the other shipgirls of our port, with me as the lead singer. I was initially quite unwilling to let everyone hear my tone-deaf voice, but after some patient tutoring by Lexi-nee, I began improving in that department as well.

On a personal level, I have been highly disciplined in enhancing my battle capabilities, while diligently working to improve my fitness. I can feel myself improving by leaps and bounds during battles, with increased accuracy and evasion as a result of my training. My team-mates no longer have to set me up for MVPs, since I can now earn them on my own accord.

As for Bismarck, I have simply not seen her since that eventful night that she arrived at our port. I heard that she is still sulking in her room, refusing to come out and interact with all the rest of us. At first, I tried knocking on her room door a number of times, but always received no reply. I eventually gave up and decided to mind my own business instead.

All in all, life in the port has been pretty good. My one worry, however, is the Admiral. My fleet has managed to raise our performance through our rigorous training, with five of us featuring on the list of top 200 shipgirls that sank the most abyssal this month across all ports, but our performance in drills has stagnated. While we managed to raise the Admiral's ranking to Colonel a couple of times, we always seemed to run into a string of defeats after that, leading to demotions back to Major. I would observe the Admiral's reaction after every single one of our defeats, and the disappointment was apparent on his face. I really wanted to find a way to cheer him up.

The doorbell started ringing; seems like the Admiral has just logged in. My fleet is fully repaired, so it's now time to begin our daily schedule. We will participate in five drills first before grinding levels for an hour, then doing a little bit of sorties for map progression purposes, then finally debriefing. (We would ordinarily be grinding levels for three hours every day followed by an hour of sorties, but we are currently in the middle of an event, so the Admiral has reduced our training time in order to save some resources for progressing event maps.)

I studied our opponents for the first drill and quickly realised that this battle would be a difficult one. Flagship Bismarck, Nelson, Nevada-kai, Hood, Lexington-kai, and Rodney – average level lower than ours by around 10.

The opposing Admiral started sniggering upon seeing my fleet.

"What sort of idiotic formation is that? Such a show off! All sorts of rare ships, but not a single one is actually able to duel!"

The Admiral did not reply to the taunting. He merely instructed us to concentrate and avoid getting distracted by the opponent's provocations. Unfortunately, when the opposing Admiral saw that we were not going to reply, he simply amplified his sneering even more.

"Do you really think that having rare ships makes you an hero? My African fleet will make you completely satisfied!"

The battle began.

Lexi-nee tied with the opposing Lexington-kai during the opening bombing phase.

And then everything went downhill from there.

Big sister Alaska's first attack managed to hit Lexington-kai, but did not succeed in sinking her. Instead, Hood's retaliation caused medium damage to Alaska. Goeben-nee finished off Lexington-kai, but Oklahoma was then sunk by Rodney. Nevada fired her cannons at Bismarck, but only managed to scrape her.

"Let me show you the true power of the Nevada class!" shouted the opposing Nevada-kai as she sank Nevada with a single critical hit. This was followed by Nelson's attack scraping Goeben-nee.

It was finally my turn. I landed a direct hit on the opposing flagship Bismarck, but only managed to deal around 25% damage to her. Bismarck responded by firing at Lexi-nee and causing medium damage to her.

The situation was looking bad for us. The Nevada sisters were both out of action, while big sisters Alaska and Lexi both suffered medium damage. Our only hope was to sink the opposing flagship Bismarck. I raised all four of my cannons at her and landed another direct hit, but only managed to deal medium damage to her. What high armour she had!

The opposing flagship Bismarck's second attack sank Lexi-nee, so it was now Goeben-nee's turn. She too understood the only path to victory. However, although Goeben-nee managed to land a critical hit on the opposing Bismarck, it still left her with a few hit points and wasn't enough to sink her!

"See that? Why even bother taking part in drills? Just go home!" the opposing Admiral resumed his taunting.

"What, have you never lost before?" the Admiral yelled back.

Nelson sank big sister Alaska.

"Are you satisfied? I'm asking you, are you satisfied?'

Nevada-kai sank Goeben-nee. This left me as the only one still standing in my fleet.

"Have you never lost before?"

I dodged Rodney's attack.

"I will make sure you're totally satisfied!"

The last attack from Hood finished me off.

The drill was over. We lost again.

We attempted to make some progress on event map E3 that night, but were ultimately unsuccessful. During the debriefing session, the Admiral issued an announcement that made left all of us completely shell-shocked.

"From tomorrow onwards, Bismarck will be joining the DREAM TEAM, and Oklahoma will be part of the reserve squad."

"NANI?" we shrieked.

"I have other things to do tonight; I'll explain my decision tomorrow."

The Admiral logged off without another word.