Author's Note: I know it might be hard to keep up with the locations of the ships with how much they've moved around, so I made this map that outlined their current positions at the beginning of this chapter. I hope this helps:

1drv. ms/u/s!Ao_F1BUWrN3_nVja2bDkt9JM5y8X

The time is 18:07.

The sun should be setting, but since it's summer, it'll take another 30 minutes before it completely disappears and the sky can finally resign itself to the lurking darkness.

"There they are, right on schedule," Kitakami whispered. She was sitting on top of her damaged main gun during the cruise, but as the enemy dots appeared on their radar and the three had direct line of sight on the enemy fleet, she jumped down. The girls, however, was focusing more on their radar readings rather than direct line of sight since the enemy ships' silhouette, located west of their position, was covered by the brightness of the sun setting. "Adjust three-three-seven so that we can keep an angle on them."

"Three-three-seven…check…!" the little Yamakaze replied briskly at the end of the formation

"Three-three-seven, check. Beginning role call, starting from the front of their formation." Right in front of her was Hamakaze, who also peered toward her forward-port side directly at the enemy. "Ushio, check. Ashigara, check. Hyuuga, check, Shouhou, check. Mogami, check. All units are accounted for."

"Six-five copies," Kitakami replied back as the leader of the task force, and right after thus she waited for another answer, only to be met with silence for about fifteen seconds.

"…Lead, confirm data." It was Maya's voice from the other side, calling out to Yamato.

"Eh? All units…accounted…? Check?" However, the response was that of confusion.

"…"

Fifteen seconds of silence ensues. Normally it's about time for the admiral to chime in, but her the radio is silent.

"I guess we haven't explained this yet," Thus, the Hamakaze was the one trying to explain; "The admiral said that if the fleet have an initial data on the enemy fleet composition, it is to be confirmed if it's present in the enemy formation before engagement occurs. Preferably you should do this before every engagement, but for now, it is only prioritized if you need to be very careful, such as this case where you technically only have 3 ships in each formation, or if you have broken line of vision for at least 15 minutes."

It's been about 20 minutes since our last engagement…so,

"…right now, we fulfilled two of its conditions to do a number check…?"

"Correct. Well done, Yamakaze-chan."

Receiving a praise, Yamakaze was rather confused if she should let out a satisfied laugh or not, so in the end her mouth bent into a smile that looks like it was drawn by an infant.

"What's…the reasoning behind this action…if I may ask?" said Yamato again.

"The enemy fleet, just like us, can have the freedom of movement, so sometimes during the 15+ minutes time we had our eyes off them they can maneuver into different area of operation, so if we do this, we can know who's missing and figure out where they could possibly be," Kitakami continued.

Just knowing that for example three of the enemy ships are missing from their main formation (one where their flagship is at) could be helpful for situations like the Basking fleet's where the main formation is near-sighted as an elephant, or situations where the flagship (usually battleships or carriers) are separated from their escorts thus very vulnerable to torpedo attacks from destroyers who sneak up to them.

"Right now, we don't have to worry," said Maya continuing from Kitakami's explanation, "as Hamakaze had checked, all of the enemy ships are grouped up in their formation, moving along with each other. This is good for us."

"T…that means there are no enemies that could be sneaking up to us?"

"Yeap. We can take a breather now." Atago was relieved but still nervous, meanwhile her sister Maya sounded even more nonchalant as ever.

"Alright, desron six, ready torpedoes." While readying her torpedo tubes on her port side, Kitakami ordered her fellow strike force members to ready up. Normally, if her members include cruisers, she'd also mention which side of torpedo tubes are to be prepared, but since her followers are only destroyers, she largely ignored that.

"Tube 1 to 8, loaded and ready. Send calculation"

"M-me too, ready for torpedo salvo. S…send calculation."

"Alright, torpedo launchers A, B, C, D, and E are loaded, ready for launch. Admiral, calculations are all sent; please advise."

"…"

"…admiral?"

"…Ah, sorry. Calculation received, wait one." After loading their torpedoes, Kitakami sent her calculation data to the admiral for her to check. "Calculation check complete. Kitakami, adjust left by 6 degrees, increase spread by 10 degrees. Hamakaze, adjust right by 9. Yamakaze, adjust 20 degrees to the left as well. Honesty, in a month or so I don't think I'll need you to send me a calculation check anymore. You all did great."

"Adjustments complete, salvo ready." Before long, the adjustments made are complete, and the strike force are only waiting for the admiral's words.

"Aaaaand go!"

Tubes of torpedoes noisily entered the water with violent splashes before propelling themselves forward in the direction of the enemy fleets, and after all of their payloads are expended, the three ships shouted;

"Shot out!"

"S-salvo delivered!"

"Salvo out! ETA; 12 minutes."

Unlike Yamato's salvo, a torpedo salvo is a lot more uneventful. All that's left after the torpedoes were launched are water ripples caused by various gasses escaping from the torpedoes created some sort of trail behind them that the girls can see.

From the calculation, the torpedo spread and the sheer number of torpedoes launched, the trajectories showed by the line of bubbles look like freshly-combed wet hair; truly a nightmare for anyone on a floating vessel to see approaching towards them.

Yet that salvo could spread even further from each other as they all aren't moving parallel to each other yet making a huge fan in formation to cover more area, but consequently, highly maneuverable ships such as destroyers and light cruisers can slip past them by turning in to the torpedoes' line of trajectory

"Yamakaze-chan is amazing," commented Hamakaze, "considering this is the first deployment and the first time handling a torpedo salvo, a 20-degree error is very low."

"T-thank you…"

"I remember the first time Hamakaze did a torpedo calculation she was off by 75 degrees," Kitakami followed before letting out a chuckle along with a cheeky grin.

"C-come off it! Besides, even a torpedo cruiser like you still have errors. You still can't beat Shigure, even. She doesn't need confirmation for her calculation, even being allowed to launch torpedoes under her own jurisdictions."

"W…well…her skills are so out of this world, it kinda sends chills down my spine," Kitakami replied again, visibly shuddering.

"It only goes off when the admiral directly influences her," said Maya, joining in the conversation. Judging by her light huffing she made, it seems like she's doing some light maintenance on her gun emplacement again to make sure it's ready for another wave of attacks, "it's almost like she disappears from time to time, but when the admiral calls for her, she'll be there at the ready even before the admiral finish calling her name."

"…well, it feels like she's always ready to torpedo everyone who gets between her and miss admiral."

The three ships nodded.

Meanwhile, the three newer ships reacted differently with the information.

The mighty Yamato silently muttered "…wow."

The nervous Atago kept her silence, not sure how to react.

Conversely, the little Yamakaze was more focused on the part where Maya said "the admiral calls for her", so she puffed her cute cheeks, thinking that she wants to be a reliable figure that the admiral would call for her to entrust her with missions, maybe getting a pet in the head as a reward afterwards.

Back at the base,

"Acchoo!"

"Hm? Are you okay, Yuu?" The admiral immediately picked her handkerchief from her coat pocket and rubbed the little submarine girl's nose, even allowing her to blow her nose all the while. "Did you catch a cold? You don't have to force yourself to be here if you're not feeling well." she asked at the end.

"No, I want to stay here, miss admiral…", she said meekly, "It's just that…I feel like my role is being taken over…"

The admiral could only let out a confused "hm?" as she stroked the little Yuu's head.

"All that's left to do is to follow them and scout until the end of the day," Kitakami said, agreed afterwards by the members of her squad, "all units, continue following them while maintaining distance; we are going to shadow them, but be careful not to spook them, otherwise our carefully-thought calculation will go to waste."

"Roger that; Six-four will follow after you, miss Kitakami."

"I'm ready!"

"Maya, how's your aircraft coming along?" asked the admiral from the base.

"Sorry! I just realized when I took in the aircraft that was out, my catapults are a bit off, I'm not sure I can launch another aircraft!" Maya understood that failure of communicating matters more than failure of equipment, thus she panicked more to the fact that she failed to inform that to her teammates punctually rather than her damaged catapults.

"Understood. Remember to check your wrist-mounted device to fully understand the extent of damages you receive." The admiral doesn't sound upset, though she was rather disappointed of the news.

The girls understood their ships like they understood the back of their hands, but confidence can lead to demise. Being confident in understanding their bodies, they got careless and largely ignored the little details that they need to know, not noticing the value of something until they lost it.

"I can substitute with my scout planes, miss admiral. I still have plenty, and the sun is setting anyways, so I could make use of it before it's too late," Yamato offered, but the admiral turned her down.

"No, actually it was simply a method to ensure the safety of desron six while maintaining vision, but it seems things are smooth sailing for now."

"…meaning?"

"With a scout plane in the air, they can increase distance from the enemy, thus reducing the effectiveness of enemy's awareness and bombardment just in case they're spotted, but I don't think that's necessary since they're maintaining stealth without issues."

"As you wish."

Yamato thought that the bond of trust between them is key to further interactions with the navy, so Yamato accepted the admiral's decision, especially after knowing her reputation in her navy members.

"S…Six-two reports a flight of enemy planes taking off of miss Shouhou and miss Mogami!" Suddenly, Yamakaze reported. The other two members of the strike force was busy with reloading their torpedoes, but Yamakaze's unfortunate accident of stumbling while reloading allowed her to catch a glimpse of shadows scrambling around the enemy fleet, about 20 kilometers away from them. "I…I'm not sure of its composition, but there are at least 15 aircrafts and counting!"

"…some are heading our directions, and some others separate to the other directions. I reckon it's the scouts and their escorts." Hamakaze paused her reloading and focused to Yamakaze's report subject.

"Miss Yamato, if possible we would ask for some mighty long-range anti-aircraft support! I would prefer not open anti-aircraft fire to prevent detection!" Kitakami asked. Her voice indicated that she was slightly panicked, and her swift movement of reloading her 25 torpedo tubes jittered.

"I'll stay ready nevertheless," Yamakaze said with confidence, but noticing her mistake in the tone of voice she's using, she frantically apologized; "N-not that I don't trust miss Yamato, but I think judging by the size of the flight, I don't think miss Yamato's third cannon salvo would suffice…"

"…Yeah, she got a point," Maya concurred, "Six-one only had 3 beehive shells she can shoot in that direction, but I don't think you can take them all down with one shot."

"…I guess," Yamato sounded a bit dejected but understanding at the same time.

At this point, nobody knows what to do, so Kitakami, under Yamato's supervision, requested support from the admiral.

"Admiral, what should we do?"

But there was no answer.

"…miss admiral?"

"…au…what is it?"

…au? The faces of the girls seem to say.

"You seem out of it today, Admiral," As the main fleet steamed away, Maya who had nothing to do but follow Yamato asked the question in the comms, "…actually, not just today. I feel you've been out of it since several months ago."

"Ah, uh…yeah, kind of."

"Come on now, miss Admiral, it's not time to slack off on the job." It was Hamakaze who said that as a joke to defuse the tense situation, but the response was…unwelcoming.

"…Oi, you…!""

"But...miss admiral…!"

"It's fine," the admiral seemed to be arguing with someone in the same room as her. The voice was almost too quiet to hear, but clearly someone is upset.

"…Possible large air patrol is coming our way…one that might be too large for miss Yamato to wipe with three beehives she's equipped with. Please advise." In the end, Kitakami reported the situation without brushing on the issue. Not knowing how far behind the admiral might be in the information relay, she conveyed everything from the beginning.

"Ah…understood. Yamato, try to thin out the enemy air patrol with your cannon as much as possible. You don't even need to take them down; just by shooting, you can temporarily disrupt the enemy fleet, which would probably make Shouhou rethink what to do with her aircrafts. During that gap, the task force is to cruise away from the aircrafts as fast as possible. I'll leave the directions to you."

"Six-Five copies," Kitakami acknowledges, "Desron six, maintain course and increase speed to 36 knots!"

"Increase, thirty-six, check!"

"I-i-increase thirty-six…Waa~ah…c-check!" Hamakaze was used to combat so she was fine, but Yamakaze almost stumbled over from the sudden acceleration the body of the ship experienced.

"I'll fire the beehives one by one," Yamato's rear turret adjusted itself to aim toward the target's general direction, but only one of the three barrels increase in elevation. "Shell one, on the way!"

The explosion was weaker than the salvo Yamato shot earlier for obvious reasons; only one cannon was firing while she shot six earlier.

After a brief delay, another explosion burst somewhere in the air space between desron six and the enemy fleet. The beehive shell did its magic; burning metals along with shrapnel scattered through the sky, tearing down three aircrafts while igniting them into a fireball, plunging into the sea.

"Three splash. Good hit, Six-one…" Hamakaze reported, "…those are…seaplanes and fighters. Three of them are still in the air, but they're making tight turns to return…"

"The admiral was correct…the fire made them panic and—"

"No! The aircrafts scrambling in the other direction now went straight toward the direction of miss Yamato!" As they thought they finally had a chance for a breather, Yamakaze yelled another ominous-sounding report, "S…Six-two reports that enemy destroyer Ushio and heavy cruiser Ashigara took off…toward the main fleet's direction!"

Maya commented on the imminent crisis; "did they plan to engage us head-on!? Don't they know that we're a set of heavy cruisers and a superbattleship armed for bears? They couldn't possibly win an engagement with us!"

"If that's the case then it's all right, we can beat them in their own game, but the issue is…the aircrafts," Yamato commented. "I think we'll need to focus on our own survival…Sorry Six-five, we won't be able to provide long-range anti-air support"

"The aircrafts…the remaining aircrafts that went here is also continuing their course…they're heading this way." Hamakaze also apparently couldn't find anything positive but some more bad news to report.

…the admiral's still quiet, thought the six.

No one is sure why. Maybe it's her trial for the six; to be independent with as less help as possible? All of them inadvertently checked their wrist-mounted devices, and it seems like there are no issues with the wireless communication they have, so the admiral must be intentionally keeping quiet.

"…Six-one, your orders" so now that the chain of command has changed, Yamato is the one with the most authority within the fleet. All decisions are to be consulted with her, and she should be the one with the final words.

…it's about 20 minutes until sunset…if we move in flank speed…

Yamato's fleet members heard a massive sigh from the superbattleship, followed by a light slap and a silent alright.

"The main fleet shall engage defensively and stall time until sunset, while the task force shall move in as soon as possible to disrupt the main enemy fleet's movement. It's a gamble, but I think it can work." Yamato sounded hesitant and unsure. If anything, what could she do as the one with least combat experience? She can't even formulate a plan that doesn't involve a gamble in success rate.

Nevertheless, "Six-five copies all," Kitakami replied with a smile. "Desron six, hard to port! Turn to two-two-five at flank speed! Let's try to get within 10 kilometers to their starboard side by the time our torpedoes get there! Also, complete your torpedo reloads, on the double!"

"Two-two-five, check!" Right after inputting the data, Hamakaze continued loading the torpedo tubes on both her thighs.

"Two-two-fiv…pyaaa?!" This time, Yamakaze truly tumbled over for not bracing herself for the sudden turn port-side. If not for her quick reaction to grab onto something, it's completely possible that she could've been thrown out the deck into the sea, "C-c-c-c-c-cheeeeckk!"

"Six one, don't worry, my anti-air defenses are mostly repaired. Let them come." Seeing the superbattleship looking slightly down, Maya also followed suit and tried to encourage her.

Her sister also doesn't seem like she wants to lose; "I've repaired most of my damages as well. Let's do our best, miss Yamato."

"Lead, do you think you can reload your third gun quick enough before the enemies get here?" asked Maya

"I…I can try."

"Then I would recommend shooting them once before they get too close. Once they do, it's going to be hard for you to use your main gun. It's no longer a doubt that they're already in your firing range."

"B…but what about the aircrafts?"

"I'll do something about them. I won't let them pass my curtain of fire," Maya said, full of confidence, "If push comes to shove, you can load beehives after shooting the two, and besides, Atago's anti-air defense shouldn't be shrugged off too. Ain't that right, nee-chan?"

"O…of course!" Atago's reply was a mix of happiness of being relied on and a mix of confusion as of how to reply properly to her sister's playful wink.

The strategy is as follows:

Ashigara and Ushio, a heavy cruiser and a destroyer, is cruising in flank speed toward the Basking main fleet consisting of heavy cruisers Atago and Maya and the battleship Yamato. On paper, it wouldn't even be considered a match judging by how outgunned Ashigara and Ushio is, but the aircrafts should proof to be a challenge to face alongside the two.

However, time is on their side. Due to time constrictions (i.e. the planes need to be back by sunset), the destroyer and the heavy cruiser won't be able to arrive at the main fleet's position by the time the planes get there, so the planes should be engaging the fleet first before the surface vessels could effectively strike (the pursuing Ashigara and Ushio could only use their front cannons and unable to use torpedoes). This simply means that they won't have to multi-task when defending.

On the other side, desron six is to attempt a disturbance to the enemy's main fleet as much as possible to create a breathing room for their allies. If they could disrupt Shouhou so that she couldn't control her aircrafts properly, that'll be great, and it'll be even better if they could get Ashigara and Ushio to return to their formation to defend their allies from the onslaught.

Finally, the three had circled their way toward the enemy fleet's rear-starboard side.

"Torpedoes will impact in 60 seconds!" Kitakami yelled. "We'll be entering their absolute detection zone! All units, at the ready!"

"They've spotted us since earlier though," Hamakaze smirked with a difficult expression. "Those seaplanes have been tailing us just right outside our AA guns' firing range."

"M-Miss Mogami is training her guns toward us!" Yamakaze reported, "We should focus on dodging, I think…?"

"What choice do we have," asked Kitakami skeptically. "Even Hyuuga too is aiming her guns here…"

Mogami, in reality, wasn't able to completely aim and pose an angle advantage over desron six since she had no rear guns to aim at them, but her three forward cannons were close.

"Uh…what's our rules of engagement again…?" Hamakaze held up the rig of her main gun on her hand, aiming them carefully toward the nearest target, Mogami.

"…hold fire to avoid detection, was it?"

"Then it's okay to shoot if we're detected, right?"

"…makes sense."

"HE-shell, on the way!"

Seeing that there is no more reason to keep their fingers off the trigger, Hamakaze opened fire toward the heavy cruiser. "Two hits, no penetration!", Yamakaze reported. Of course, with the destroyers having a small caliber of a main cannon, she couldn't penetrate the heavily-armored cruiser, but from the beginning, that wasn't her aim.

"Yamakaze-chan too, help me! Try to set fire to Mogami's aircraft rails!"

Mogami doesn't have a hangar for the aircrafts; all of her 11 available scout seaplanes are lined up in her aft deck fitted with a railed flight deck that replaced her 4th and 5th main guns. However, at that moment, the deck was empty, indicating she had launched everything away.

Hamakaze's aim to set fire to it and gradually cause damage and disable Mogami from recovering or even launching seaplanes later on.

"HE salvo on the way!" Another set of dry explosions launched more HE shells the size of a fist from Hamakaze's main cannon. Not only her, it seems like Yamakaze had also started to open fire with poor precision.

"Two hits from Hamakaze, one from Yamakaze. Deck is set ablaze!"

"Well done! Here comes another!"

"Hold on, they're turning in towards us! Their front guns now have an angle on us!"

"Shit…the torpedoes are going to miss if they turn so much…"

"No worries! They're there!"

The girls of the Bramble fleet seemed to have widened their eyes in shock. Hyuuga, Shouhou and Mogami who had their eyes glued to the three suddenly turned away toward their port side. Shouhou and Hyuuga seemed to have shouted something and at that moment, their movement slowed while they increased their turn toward the starboard side.

But alas, it was too late.

Five water pillars erupted from their port side; three on Hyuuga's belt, another two on Shouhou's fore, and one on Mogami's prow.

The power of the explosion was massive; it briefly lifted the three's entire hulls, but as the sea water start to enter their bulkheads, the two ships start to list toward their port.

Six hits out of forty-one torpedoes might seem to be a low hit percentage but considering the girls had launched them from almost its maximum effective range and the fact that the two initial targets had darted off and the rest of the targets had turned away from their predicted location, it was still a good score.

"Six confirmed hits," reported Kitakami. Usually it was supposed to be the admiral who sends out the report along with the extent of the damage caused by the torpedoes, but she was still quiet. All they can determine is the amount of hits to the target, but not as much as the extent of the damage. No one was sure if one of the three ships that are hit could be considered too heavily damaged to be out of the battle. "We'll consider all of them still combat capable…let's continue our assault!"

"Roger that!" Hamakaze just happened to finish reloading her front gun as the order came down from Kitakami, so she sent out another salvo, this time toward Hyuuga's deck, attempting to set fire to her wooden deck or simply disabling her lethal secondary guns.

Hyuuga went down to one knee thanks to the torpedo hits, but regardless, she still tried to aim her main guns on her rig toward the three. Same goes for Mogami, who couldn't even stand up straight; she still aimed her main guns toward the three, but her swaying caused the guns on her ship to turn left and right as well.

"Two hits! Reloading next!", said the little Yamakaze after hitting Mogami with her main cannons. The impact seemed minor, but that ruined Mogami's aim even further, throwing the barrels on her turrets to aim up toward the sky.

However,

"…Something's off," Hamakaze thought. She doesn't need to continue for the other two to understand what she meant. After all, it was obvious

They have been well within their detection radius, and the enemy's cannons had been pointing at them for a period too long to be ignored,

But they never fired.

Shouhou aside, the massive battleship Hyuuga and the sufficiently armed Mogami should've returned fire. The Basking Fleet's strike force should easily be outgunned and under-armored compared to them, so they could have sunken the task force swiftly.

Maybe it was because of the torpedo damage? Maybe they were too busy applying damage control to pay attention fully to aiming?

Or was it because…they had another target?

"Six-Six! Six-Six, please return immediately!"

"…what?"

It was at that moment that everything changed.

The damaged Hyuuga and Mogami flicked their main guns around and unleashed a full barrage.