So... yea here you go, the update for the main story~ I do hope you've been reading the side story so far since I almost forgot to update the main story .-.;;;;
Also, I can't really finish this one, but I'll try to finish the second part soon '-';;
hope you enjoy it!
"Unghhh…."
"Makigumo!" I was so glad to see the pink girl is safe and sound. Automatically, I jumped and hugged her, "You are actually awakes!"
"Aaa-hhh… I-instructor… yes… I woke up since last night. T-that said, is… it ok if I ask about yesterday?"
"You… don't remember?" I release my hug as I stare deep to her eyes, Makigumo slowly shook her head in response.
"I see… I'll answer that later on… in the mean time, admiral said we'll have a free time… we were about to leave by noon so I'm glad you're awoken at the right time. Want to go to the main island?"
"Main island?"
Our naval base was located at an artificial mass consisting of several floating docks; this naval base was created after the main naval base was stuffed with newly awarded admirals. Yea, since the adoption of Ship Girls system, low-rank military personnel rarely had a job to do, most nations decided to award some of their low-ranked officer some opportunity to raise their own naval base as an admiral, while some other did… yea retire some of their low ranked honorably. This awarding somehow makes our number pretty much even with the abyssal side, but of course there are some other downside to it… well, not all of the admirals actually is "the right man" but well… I think I should be thankful my admiral was an admiral from before that event.
"S-so, who is this 'we' you were talking just now instructor?" Makigumo says as she threaded the infirmary's hall together with me.
You'll see.."
"Ah, you're going already, Makigumo?" I can hear Akashi's voice from our left, she's sitting on a white chair and seems to be writing something on a sheet of paper right above the wooden table in front of her.
"Un.." Makigumo nods, "I think I'll be fine."
"Hmnn…Ok then, Inazuma, she might have started to gain conscious from yesterday as I said, but, please take a good care of her ok?" Mamiya stopped her writing and glanced on me, I released a "yes" with a strict nod and a raise of a thumb and that is enough to draw a smile on her face.
"E-eh, aren't we going to take a day off?" Makigumo seems surprised
"W-ell, let's just hope it is a total day off…" I say, Makigumo looks thinking about it for a while, her forehead wrinkles as she pinches her chin, but she forgot about it after we broke through the mess' outer door.
"How long…"she covers her eyes with her hand not to get blinded by the sun, "instructor, how long did I slept again?"
"A whole week." My answer shocked the pink girl, "Akashi's diagnose doesn't proof anything lethal though… perhaps you're just exhausted after being trampled by senior Miyuki's attack…"
"I see.. Whuh!?" Makigumo's eyes bloated, she seems shocked and not believing what I had just said, "But I thought damages from other ship girls should be easy to repair?"
"You… didn't remember what happened?" Makigumo shook her head slowly as she stopped her steps, "Hmnnn… I'll… explain while we're on the way…" I say as I patted her shoulder.
"Hmnn…" Makigumo hums, she seems dissatisfied with my answer but she decided not to express it through words and starts to continue her stroll.
"Boss!" suddenly, a voice could be heard from the horizon. I can see two destroyers run from the pier toward us. They were Nagatsuki and Shiranui, Nagatsuki is the one who yelled first.
"Leader!" Shiranui's voice could be heard not long after.
"Boss we've been waiting!" Nagatsuki says as soon as she's close enough to me, her green hair is waving to the pretty strong gale of the harbor, but her energetic smile and sharp eyes didn't even bugged by it.
"The preparations' ready, the tanker ship is scheduled to arrive any minutes by now." Shiranui's short pink hair was right above the serious looking almost emotionless face of her.
"Glad to hear that then." I say as I smiled to both of them.
"So this is the new recruit huh?" nagatsuki puts her right hand on her hip as she pinches her chin using her left hand "Hmnn… you don't look too shabby I guess."
"Yes I'll agree with you for this one." Shiranui replied, I could hear a gulp right beside me before I can feel my hand being wrapped by makigumo's.
"Come on you two... let's not frighten Makigumo here." I say.
"Pardon me leader…" Shiranui does a formal ojigi which made her body bowed down 90 degrees toward me.
"Well, I guess I overreacted." Nagatsuki offered a hand to Makigumo, she stroke a straight line on her face with her mouth which turns into a smile right was scarred at first, "come on, it's not like I'd bite or something." Makigumo slowly received her hand, but Nagatsuki took it and shook her hand right away, "The name's Nagatsuki, and this cold looking one's Shiranui. We've heard a lot about you from your instructor there, nice to meet you."
"N-nice to meet you too…" makigumo replied.
"Ah, the tanker's coming…"right after Shiranui said that, I could see a huge coning tower pops out from the water, slowly it reveals a huge submarine with sophisticated engine on its tail.
"Whoa…." Was the word that came out from Makigumo.
"Ok, let's get going everyone." I lead the other three destroyers toward the submarine with that word. Makigumo followed me without any word, her hands still wraps mine.
"Roger." Shiranui replied shortly before she followed my tail.
"Roger that, boss." Nagatsuki followed right beside Shiranui.
And with that, the four of us heads toward the submarine. The submarine crew welcome us with salutes as we carefully steps aboard the ship. We raised our salute toward the flag, which is right behind the coning tower before moving toward the upper deck of the ship which resembles the real Shioi, or the Sentoku class (I-400 type). It is big enough to fit three triple mounting 25mm and the conning tower. There, the skipper greets us with his salute and brought us to the meeting room inside the submarine.
It appears that the ship is carrying several abyssal cores which are going to be extracted to create more ship girls at the HQ together with some fuel supplies. Our mission is pretty clear and straight forward actually, defend the ship, and return home. But there's one detail of the mission that we hide from Makigumo.
After the mission was briefing done, we stayed on our post, the ship's deck. The submarine was not submerged to minimize fuel consumption. As a defensive measure though, they had launched several unmanned drones to scan the area. I sit on the magnetic rail used to launch aircraft and drones, while Makigumo and Nagatsuki rest themselves on a fence at the edge of the deck, Shiranui thinks the deck is good enough place to do maintenance to one of her cannon.
"Hmnn.. looks like there's nothing going to happens here…" Makigumo sighed as she lay her head on her hands which is resting on the transport ship's metal fence. The sea's wind blew her pink hair while her left foot is knocking the ship's deck using her toes as if counting for something.
"Well we still need to be very careful. The enemy might come when we least expected them." I say.
"Yes, Inazuma is correct. We must not let our guard down even a single second." Shiranui says as she finished her weaponry maintenance and check on her weapon for the third time in this mission.
"Your definition of not letting guard down is above everyone else here though…" Nagatsuki says before releasing a sigh, angered Shiranui suddenly points her gun, the one which she had been giving maintenance just now, with her right hand right at Nagatsuki who quickly tapped the 12.7's barrel away from her using her right hand and grabbed Shiranui's right hand with her left and pushes Shiranui's hand upward on the elbow before summoning her 12 cm gun. But, before Nagatsuki's right hand could get the weapon, Shiranui rotates her torpedoes at her, though Nagatsuki managed to kick the torpedo turret, forcing not to rotate toward its firing angle.
"Bam." Shiranui says coldly as she grabbed Nagatsuki's right hand with her left, a machinery sound could be heard as Shiranui's other turret aims at Nagatsuki's head, "I'd expect that skirt of yours does not has metal plating now, does it?"
"Ha!" Nagatsuki shout proudly, but then she grumbles… "Well, I lost…" Nagatsuki says as she lets Shiranui's hand off her grip.
"If I were an abyssal, you'd be sunk by now."
"Well if an enemy appears like that, you'll be ready to face it didn't you." By that word Shiranui blushed angrily and decided to back away. Makigumo was speechless seeing the scene, her eyes were bloated and her mouth is opened.
"Come on you two, you're scaring Makigumo here." My words broke the tense between the two destroyers.
"A-ah leader, yes… indeed that quarrel was not necessary, if only someone didn't stat it." Shiranui say before giving Nagatsuki her glare.
"What? Well, ok, that might be true, but I bet what leader means is the gun pointing part." Nagatsuki grins that triggered Shiranui's angry slanted eyes face.
"Both of you got your own points, but there's no reason to get too relaxed neither being too tensed." I tried to be the middle of the two, though this had happened several times before, I do think it won't be a good example for Makigumo, "being too tensed will make your times with your comrade less interactive, we never knew when we'll have to say goodbye and it'll be a waste if you didn't managed to cherish your moment together. Meanwhile, being too relaxed on a battlefield is also a no-no, since you don't want to get caught off guard now, right?"
Both Shiranui and Nagatsuki humns as they usually do, but then their glance changes to Makigumo, "What do you think!?" both of them said in sync.
"E-eh… I think instructor's right." Makigumo said, that word causes both Shiranui and Nagatsuki fell into the deck's floor and whine disappointedly.
"You're no fun." Nagatsuki said.
"What she said." Shiranui followed. The two then leave the puzzled destroyer.
"E-eehehh…"
"You're too tensed Makigumo…" I say as I pat the pink haired girl's shoulder.
"B-but…"
"They just need some times alone, they should snap back any time soon."
"I see…" a pretty long silence ensue the situation. Shiranui continues to do the fourth maintenance of her weaponry. Nagatsuki is standing at the stern of the deck, looking for where we're going, while Makigumo wanders around the ship before she finally stops beside me.
"Instructor…." She said, "if it's ok with you, can I ask something?"
"Ah, sure, what is it?"
"How was your first day on this harbor?" at that question I could only hum since most of the girl in the base had this talk already except Makigumo whom had just got here.
"Ok then, let me tell you a bit story of my first day." To that word, I can feel both Nagatsuki and Shiranui move a bit closer toward me and Makugumo, but I think I'll just ignore that.
My ship sets sail to our base on a certain night... It was a breezy night with skin freezing wind blowing from the north. Most of Admirals' ships were scattered throughout the UF after the first raid. I could only meet my fellow Akatsuki class every bon festival or any other festival that the HQ held. But that moment is where we'll finally reunited... that day is when Admiral return.
"wait, instructor, by return... " Makigumo cut the story with her question, her face is as puzzled as her mind might be with her mouth slightly opened and her eyes slanted on a different angle.
"Our admiral was hospitalized, I guess we could talk about it instead?" somehow I could feel that Nagatsuki and Shiranui are signing Makigumo not to change the story.
"A-a-ah I... Guess we'd better continue your story if you don't mind instructor..." I released a sigh and when I look behind, Nagatsuki had moved herself there, pretending to look at the sky. While Shiranui is pretending to be busy with her canon.
"Well then... "
I was actually scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning... But a local fisherman claimed that one of his friends' ships doesn't return from sailing weeks ago. He claimed that his radio received a signal which he claims to air at the same wavelength the two of them used as their secret channel. The coast guard would of course not believed the story as it is too risky to perform a night search especially since the signal came from the sea invested with abyssal patrol routes. Long story short, I decided to help them.
I decided to stay on the bridge along with the fisherman who begged me to come with them. He appears to be the helm of the ship.
"Lil girl, you're one of those who fought the alien ships right?" said the Helm.
"Yes, I was with the United fleet," I said as I let him see my cape with the Uf logo printed on it, "today I was assigned back on JSDF."
"Must've been hard for a lass at your age to fight for the world huh..."
"Well, indeed it could be hard at times..."
"If there's any admiral who do perverted things to you just call me ok? I'll punch that brat in the face."
"A-Ahah, thanks..." suddenly, the radio of the ship is receiving a signal which starts with static but then becomes clear. Everyone on the bridge was anxious, hoping that it is the broadcast they were waiting for. But the voice that could be heard later proofs otherwise.
"This is JSDF naval base to unidentified ship, you are entering a war zone, please head back where you are..."
"Hey, lil girl, you're going to be stationed on that floating dock right? Looks like your future home is in trouble." the helm said as he waves his hand back and forth, telling me to come and look at our base which pretty much is engulfed in flames.
"Sir, you'd better turn away right now..." I suggest.
"I'm not going to back down here lil girl, you know it right?"
"Then please follow me, I'll contact you through your current radio frequency for further details ok?"
"Roger that captain" the helm imitates a military salute before I launched myself off the boat into the ocean.
"Destroyer inazuma, reporting for duty."
"Inazuma?" over the radio was lieutenant Mado the radio officer of the base. "But I thought... "
"Is this Inazuma?" Admiral Shirogane's voice took over.
"Yes sir, I'm under your command." I quickly replied.
"Ok then, listen carefully, we've got three destroyers in the vicinity. One of which is pretty close to your location. We will try to distract the other two so just concentrate on getting that one first, is that clear enough?"
"Roger that commander." and so, I start to accelerate my engine toward the location updated by the admiral.
After a while, I can finally see the empty dock that was behind the battle zone, small damages made by stray ammo could be seen here and there but the dock seems like a good place to hide.
"Mr. Fisherman! Set anchor nearby the dock, I'll try not to let them touches even an inches of your ship."
"Ahaha, very well lil girl." the helm said before he pulled his rudder 35 degrees right.
After making sure the fisherman is safe, I continue my sail to the designated point... and there it is. A single ha class is shooting the construction site with an 8 inch turret inside its mouth. Before he could even realized it, my 12.7 critically hits its head and puffed up greenish smoke to the sky before it listed head first to the sea. Not far from there I could see the base's defense turrets are glaring, trying to hit one of the two other destroyers which easily escaped those Bullet rain by a zigzag course.
The Ta and Ha class decided to return fire and hit two land batteries which are shooting at them. Right when I finally, approximately, reached my gun's effective range, the two abyssal destroyers spotted me and change their target. Quickly I took an aim at the Ta class which started to sails onto me. Bam! With a glaring sound, my turret's barrels spitted off two 12.7 shells, but the Ta class managed to get out only with a scratch damage. Quite soon after, I could hear a shot from my left, the bullet from the Ha class nearly hits me but instead it only splashes me with the sea's water. Soon, the two are within my torpedo range, they quickly spreads a total of six torpedoes, leaving only small gap for me to escape. I charged through the torpedoes hitting one of it using a machine gun to create a wider gap toward the Ha class. Quickly I returned their torpedo salvo with another salvo of two torpedoes at the escaping ha... Bwash, at almost point blank range, the ha class has no time to escape and sunk after split into two.
That leaves the Ta class alone. But it charges toward me instead of running away. It fires off its canon twice before it launches three torpedoes. The first bullet hit my side creating a blast near my engine. I managed to evade its torpedoes and head straight toward the destroyer. In a quick succession I fired my canon and launch all of my torpedoes. It manages to evade my canon but my torpedoes hit the destroyer hard and soon I could see a blast on the destroyer's belly and smokes starts pouring up from its mouth...
Seeing that it didn't actually sink yet, I sailed close enough to it...
"Ah you're going to do a Core Extraction process, am I correct?"
"That's the standard procedure yes, IF we see the core of the abyssal. But that's not the case here.."
"then..?"
It was something I've been trying to prove... That these abyssals actually could and is trying to communicate... that is when suddenly, my radio picked up a signal from the destroyer...
"it was our song..." the helm said, "that was our song on the radio wave..."
"Does that means..." quickly I dip my hand to the remains of the destroyer. I then dig through the gooey abomination and what I found was a head of a man, right when I tried to find a pulse on his neck, I can touch a weakening beat. I tried to pull the head off the vessel, but then I realized that the head has been attached to that abyssal ships body.
"T-that... Sounds pretty disturbing actually... " Makigumo said staggeringly.
"Whoa, no cutting on that part!" Nagatsuki said.
"There's still a continuation to the story." Shiranui added.
"There… was?" Makigumo said, her face is signing a disbelieving toward the word she heard.
"There actually is..."
aaannnd cut... ok... I hope I can finish the second part soon... so yea, see you guys soon on the part two '-'/ hope you don't mind me cutting here... '-';;