Before we begin, we shall have a Disclaimer.

Three new characters are joining us today. They do not belong to me. They belong to the wonderful author hereLiesThisTroper

TBMH Submarine I-201

Her experienced engineers had done a quick job, cutting apart the engine block and carrying it down piece by piece. The submariners didn't trust her crew members to patch back together the pressure hull as it was, so the captain had formally requested they avoid cutting open the hull. After some serious discussions with the captain, with the Chief Engineers on both sides joining in, it was eventually agreed that they would bring in the engine in parts.

Naturally, this cost them time, something which Sango had very little of. Her engineers took pride in their ability to get things done much faster than expected by the power of teamwork and great expertise. Right now, she expected the repair work to last 24 hours instead of by sunset.

That irritated her a lot.

About a quarter of the way into the work, she gave the command over to her chief engineer, while she went off for a break. As it was, she now sat in a little boat while the fisherman took her on a trip to sight see around the Chichijima island where the ships were now docked. Just as they were leaving port, another person, one that she recognised as the Deputy of the I-201, boarded the boat. Having paid the fisherman, he took a seat that just so happened to be right next to her.

While Sango scooted a few centimetres to her left and away from him, he just seemed to ignore her actions. Instead, he just slumped in his seat, like all the air was blown out of him in one move as he relaxed himself completely. As they moved off, Sango noticed how he took in a massive breath of fish guts, gasoline and sea air and held it in for as long as he could before releasing it again.

While her companion kept repeating his deep breathing, Sango tried to ignore him as she looked out over the side. The scenery was particularly nice, with the lush greenery along the coast. Off in the distance, a green mountain rose, as if reaching out towards the heavens, a representation of all that is natural and holy.

A very big contrast to the boy sitting on her right, who was now leaning over the edge while he stared into the crystal clear waters.

"So… clear…" he whispered, watching his hand though the water carving his own wake.

Sango tuned him out again, spotting some of her fellow crew members also having hired some other fishermen to take them to sea. They waved over at her, and without thinking, Sango waved back.

Their high pitched screaming carried over to her, and while she couldn't hear the exact words, she had a very good feeling as to what it was about. Blushing, Sango shot them a dirty look as she turned away from them in a huff.

Only to find herself staring into the boy's chest as he stood over her. With a startled squeak, Sango jumped back and almost into the water. He was wearing a black shirt with a blue silhouette of a bird in flight, with a blue circle around it in the background. An "IONA" was emblazoned beneath it in blue.

He leaned over her, balancing on the balls of his feet as the boat rocked through the surf. With a hand shielding his eyes, he looked out to shore, striking a rather picturesque pose. It took another 10 seconds before he looked down at Sango and asked, "Going to take a picture?"

She punched him. Hard.

He fell to the floor, grasping his stomach in pain. "Oh gods I'm so sorry!" Reaching down, Sango attempted to help him up, but was nearly pulled onto him in exchange. Narrowing her eyebrows, she heaved him back to the bench. He now smelt worse, the submarine-stink on his clothes mixing with the smell of fish guts really turning her off. Even as her nose scrunched up to try and block the smell, he seemed unperturbed except for his now wet clothes.

"Urgh… I'm gonna need to wash this again." He plucked at the wet patches on the shirt. "Was my favourite pair too…"

Sango rolled her eyes. "I'd offer to wash them for you, seeing how this was sort of my fault," here she rolled her eyes as she pulled the great coat up to cover her nose. "But really, who taught you to try and flirt with girls like that?!"

The boy visibly deflated. "Wha-what… b-but… you… how did you find out?"

Sango's eyes narrowed further. "I've had experience."

"Ah… my bad, sorry."

The two looked at each other for a few more moments, before being broken by Sango rapidly turning away in a huff. With her coat still held up to her cheeks, she faced away from him, hiding her blushing cheeks.

"So… it's been nice meeting you, Sango-san."

She stiffened. How did he know her name?

"Thank you. I believe I haven't had the pleasure of knowing your name…?"

"Oh! Sorry about that." She heard him squirming in his seat. She turned around and looked him in the eye, even as he raised his hand for her to shake. "The name's Nakamura, Nakamura Mitsumi."

She grasped his offered hand, giving it a firm shake. "It's a pleasure meeting you, Nakamura-san"

"Argh!" Imai Tadashige sat in the mess hall, poking at his tray of… even calling the thing before him food was questionable. Opposite him, an annoying member of the Torpedo officers sat at the table. The boy was animatedly chugging his 1.5 litre bottle of bug juice and speaking to Imai at the same time. In fact, the boy had been doing this for the past fifteen minutes, repeating himself every five minutes or so as he told his story.

"So! Sonar finds target! We get bearings, we calculate, we shoot! Fish in the water! Next thing, the target shrinks! Turns through the torpedoes, starts charging for us. We reload, fire again. The thing dodges again! We stay there, waiting for sonar update when suddenly, screaming!" At that word, he flung his arms into the air, nearly spilling his drink over the people in the table next to him.

"Next thing we know, the entire submarine flips! Everything starts flying everywhere, someone's boot was in my mouth–"

"That's mine if you don't shut up!" someone shouted from across the room. The boy ignored them and went on.

"And then! Water! Water everywhere!" Another swig from his bottle. "We start swimming, start looking for escape hatch. People start climbing out in exposure suits. I got into mine when the room tilts again! I panicked, of course. Like the other two guys with me. And then the buzzer goes off, the room drains and the training room goes back up to the surface. Like, a simulator in the middle of the school's swimming pool. Can you believe it?"

Imai rolled his eyes. They all came from the same school. Everyone had gone through the survival course, of course they would know what he was talking about.

"And then, today on the news, the exact same thing happened!"

"What thing happened?"

The boy stopped in his talking to look at the new speaker. A girl, dressed in an orange jumpsuit stood in the doorway, lightly tapping her monkey wrench against her pants leg. The top half of her jumpsuit had been rolled down, so as to tie it around her waist, revealing her white, sweat-soaked sweatshirt. Her skin was a chocolatey tanned brown, something he would willingly get his hands on at any time of the day.

Imai slapped himself immediately. If the girl was surprised at his actions, she didn't show it. Walking into the mess hall, she stood next to their table, looming over the Torpedo officer while tapping the wrench against her leg. "Well?"

The poor boy looked like he didn't know whether he wanted to faint from her sheer beauty or from the threatening shadow she was casting on him. A random thought came to his mind, that a monkey wrench tended to weigh something around a kilo. For her to be swinging it like that, like it was nothing more than a twig…

He shrank back on himself into the chair, stammering as she loomed over him. Imai decided to save the boy's ass.

"What he's referring to, is the news report that we received just this morning. Another submarine, the Kuroshio, was sunk a few days ago. Prelim reports said that it was most likely caused by ramming a whale while they were travelling at 20 knots. Given the mass of that submarine, and they were going so fast, meant they had a lot of energy stored as momentum. When they hit the whale, the impact tore a hole in the pressure hull, sinking the sub."

The girl looked at Imai, relaxing her intimidating appearance while he talked. "All but three of the class managed to escape the submarine. The three who went down were torpedo men, which is why our friend over there," he referred to the squeaking torpedo officer seated opposite him, "was talking so much about his own training simulation. Apparently he went through the same thing before, and was rather freaked out about how something like this happened again."

The girl looked at Imai, then back at the quivering wreck, and back to Imai again. "Alright, thanks."

"My pleasure, miss…"

"Just call me Hoshino. I'm the Engineer of the Repair Ship Akashi"

"Very well, Hoshino-san. I'm Imai Tadashige, First Engineer of the Submarine I-201. I hope you don't mind filling me in on how the repairs are coming along?"

"Ah well… most of the parts have arrived, and we're beginning the assembly stage now…" As the two walked out of the room, the boys in the mess hall released a collective sigh of relief. That girl was insanely strong. If all their engineers were like that…

"Ah~ That really hits the spot…" Norita sighed in bliss, downing his fourth cup of English Breakfast tea. The burning from the drink seemed to ignite a furnace in his stomach, spreading the warmth around his body. Next to him, his superior officer Nishina attacked his breakfast platter. Opposite them were their Navigational counterparts from the Akashi. Their Assistant Navigator was a short quiet girl with a flowery hairband in her hair with some name Norita had already forgotten. Their Navigator was similarly quiet, never saying anything more than what was necessary.

Apparently, the captain had decided that it would be good for Nishina to get off the ship, and the Akashi needed to give their non-essential personnel shore leave. Their solution was to make sailors from both ships spend time with their counterparts. Any attempts to protest were overridden when Yonehara produced an envelope full of all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet vouchers.

That's why the four Navigators were seated awkwardly in a booth at some classy breakfast joint, with the other patrons noisily talking away. The secretaries were occupied at the bar, with Kouda talking more animatedly than Norita had ever seen before. In fact, apart from just before that meeting with the captain, he had never seen Kouda Kinzo speak at all. The Logistics crew had taken to a drinking competition, where both sides competed to see how many glasses of punch they could down before someone had to go.

As for the Navigators, it was just awkward silence. Having been separated from girls for the vast majority of his life, Norita had very little information to fall back on and he suspected everyone seated at the table felt the same way. There was a reason why they were all in Navigation, after all.

"So… enjoy your tea?" That was from headband-girl. When Norita looked up at her, she seemed to blush and lowered her eyes in embarrassment.

"Sure, since I'm not affected by tea's effects, I can afford to drink and still go to sleep. That and my family had a rather… strong liking for this type of tea, so I picked up the habit from them." Norita explained, trying for a gentle smile even as his turbines raced at 600rpm. He was doing it! He was talking to a girl!

"Oh? That's nice. I wish I had something like that as well, since this tea is really nice. If I drink more than a cup, I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. My family prefers drinking green tea, though my papa would drink coffee on a daily basis. He always adds salt to his coffee. This one time, he offered me a sip when I was eight. When I took a sip, I spat the thing all over his shirt! It was so funny, both his and mama's reactions."

Yes! She actually replied me! Mentally composing himself, Norita continued. "Well, my father is a submariner. I saw him coming in once, and that was why I decided to join the Marine Schools. Because I wanted to be just like him!" Norita smiled, recalling that moment when he stood on the docks, watching the surfacing USS Pogy.

"Sugoi... your father sounds like a really cool guy. I wonder if I could meet him…" The girl smiled at Norita, and he felt something else stirring. Something cold was coiling in his heart. Trying to hide the sudden flash of emotions, Norita tried to steer the conversation back to safer grounds.

"So, what's it like living on a surface ship?"

While the girl talked away, Norita put on his mask, nodding along at appropriate points in her conversation and offering his own opinions every now and then. He idly noticed Nishina striking up a conversation with his own counterpart. He noticed the Logistics boy snorting fruit juice through his nose as he choked on what appeared to be his fifteenth cup. He noticed the secretary Kouda Kinzo looking at the same boy worriedly and keeping up his own conversation with the Akashi's secretary.

He noticed how the bartender the two secretaries sat in front of was looking in his direction while he polished his glasses. He noticed how the other patrons were slowly turning their heads to look at him, some of them doing the impossible SHAFT head tilt just to get an eye on his sweating face. Now the Logistics people were looking at him as well, one of them with tea still dribbling down his nose. His surroundings seemed to be getting darker as well, the atmosphere becoming... greyer by the second. He couldn't take it anymore.

"Sorry, but I need to use the bathroom." Hurriedly excusing himself, Norita rose from his seat. Upon entering the bathroom, there was barely enough time for him to get to the sink before the disorienting greyscale overtook him. Opening the tap, he splashed handfuls of water on his face. Gradually, the colour receded back into the world, pushing away the unhealthy greyness that had settled down on him.

He raised his head to look himself in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, his face haggard. Eye bags he never noticed before were now more prominent, seeming to jump out at him from his reflection. Norita poked himself in the cheek, feeling his clammy skin.

Why is this happening to me...

Yahachi continued his work throughout the proceedings. There had been a foghorn blowing at around 8.30 in the morning, after which there was a lot of banging noises as people frantically ran all over the sub for the next few hours. The foam model was ready and prepared when the door opened. Some short, pasty faced boy stuck his head in, wordlessly asking Yahachi a question.

"Yup! It's ready. You know what to do?"

The boy nodded.

"Good. Off you go." Yahachi handed the boy the scale model aircraft, as well as the document tube. Once he had left, Yahachi leaned against the stacks of crates, eyeing the meal left out for him. Crawling over, he ate his fill before knocking on the door. A guard opened it and took the empty tray from him. During his brief peek outside, Yahachi spotted another person walking down the hallway with the First Engineer in tow. All he managed to see of the newcomer was their orange jumpsuit and white singlet before the door was shut on him.

Resting against the crates, he popped open the lid to survey the 12 or so self-inflating drones. Nestled underneath them, a green painted piece of metal peeked back at him.

"Ahhhh… nice to see you too, shipmate."

"Shut up."

Watching her fellow classmate pacing the bridge, the red head shrugged. "Ya know, there must be a reason why you're still here. There's no need for the XO to accompany me..."

"Shut up!"

"Or perhaps it's because of yesterday's incident? Don't worry, I'm taking the blame for that one, totally not your fault at all~"

The red head ducked as the XO hurled a fist at her, which she countered by giving the girl a firm tap to her chest. "That's not it!"

This only caused the other girl to continue jumping to conclusions. All of a sudden, her eyes lit up. "Don't tell me… that boy you talked to… hasn't replied yet?"

Seeing her friend's flaming red face, she started laughing. "Oh my gods! Really? Really?! The great Mitsuki Watari, Miss 'Perfect student', is hung up on a boy?!"

"AHH!" The girl lunged at her friend, as their conversation dissolved into a full blown catfight.

From the doorway, another girl watched them, letting her little secretary's tablet do all the talking for her.

"Hello, anybody there? I'm coming in…" The toilet door creaked open, admitting Nishina's head. Scanning the room, he quickly caught sight of his friend's back. He breathed a sigh of relief. "Hey Hashimoto-san, you left a wonderful girl waiting. Isn't it about time to come back… out… oh my what happened to you?"

Nishina walked further into the toilet and saw for the first time a completely different side to his Assistant Navigator. The boy was hunched over the sink, his teeth clenched as he wheezed. His left hand grasping his left hip painfully, if the shaking of his eyes were anything to go by. His right hand grabbed onto his left arm, the fingernails digging into the skin as it drew blood.

As he entered, Norita turned his head to look at him. Despite the extreme weirdness he was seeing, Nishina could almost feel an amount of… sadness coming from him. Sadness and fear. He could see it in his eyes, the fear that Norita had been hiding from him.

For how long?

In an instant, Norita released himself. He staggered away from the sink to face Nishina. "H-hello, Nishina-san."

Nishina walked further into the toilet. He stopped just in front of Norita. "What's going on?"

Norita's eyes flickered back and forth from Nishina to the door and back to him again. "I-it's nothing really–"

"Bullshit."

Norita's eyes widened at Nishina's sudden expletive. It was the first time ever did he hear his superior throw a vulgarity at anybody. "What are y-you talking abo–"

"Bullshit. I walk in here, and see you acting like Stein. What the hell were you doing?" Nishina suddenly lunged forwards, grabbing Norita's left arm. "Look at this! If you had a knife, what would you have done?!" Scattered among the five red crescent moon marks along his arm, were little white marks of similar shape and size. All of them scars. All of them accompanied by bite marks and long jagged lines.

"What's going on, Norita?" He whispered, drooping his head. Norita's eyes started to tear.

"I–"

"Was it something I did, something I missed? Was it from before we even met? What have you been doing to yourself?!"

"Nishina-san…"

The Navigator took another step forwards. He released Norita's arm to envelop him in a hug. "I don't know what's the cause of this, but for god's sake please stop. You've got to have people you can talk to about this, don't you?"

"Nishina-san…"

That was when the waterworks started. Despite his increasingly wet shirt, Nishina said nothing, but held the boy even tighter in his arms.

"Well, it has been a pleasure, Sango-san," said Nakamura. He alighted the boat first, turning to help Sango Sugimoto back on land. Her response was to ignore his hand and leap from the boat to the pier. She took his hand and shook it. The setting sun was just to her left, as it went down behind the mountain that overlooked the harbour.

"Likewise, Naka-chan"

"Please don't call me that!"

Sango giggled. "Well, you did have fun didn't you? We went on a trip around the island, we got to see the little fishies in shallow waters, and you even got me this!" Spinning on the spot, Sango pulled from inside her winter jacket a Yotarou plushie. The smile on her face was simply heartmelting.

"Of course. Do you like it?" She nodded firmly, an adorable blush lighting up her cheeks. Nakamura decided not to tell her that anyone from the ships could see her. "Well, then, it has been nice knowing you, Sango-san."

"I've told you, stop calling me that, Naka-chan~"

"Gah! Fine, Sugimoto. Happy?"

"Very!"

On the deck of the Akashi, the Tanikaze's secretary Sanae Shimizu snapped away with her secretary's tablet, a wide contented smile on her face. The captain sure is behaving really differently today…

"Here's your repair log, captain." Sango pulled from her winter jacket a thumbdrive, one of those cheap 500 yen thumbdrives her secretary bought in bulk every time they made port. It was a sleek black colour, with a total storage space of 8Mb.

"Thank you, captain." Yonehara accepted it, handing the thumbdrive over to his secretary for safekeeping. "I wish you all the best in your travels, Captain Sango Sugimoto." They shook hands.

"As a token of our goodwill, we formally invite your crew to a dinner party on board the Akashi. Do you accept?"

Yonehara thought the offer over. "Afraid not. We have another mission to handle that needs to be completed as soon as possible. But in exchange, we would like to present you with a token of our appreciation."

Nakamura stepped forwards from behind the captain and handed over a black paper bag. Yonehara then presented it to Sango.

Inside it was a scale model of the Akashi, made out of matchsticks.

"Captain... thank you for your gift." Sango took a step back and saluted, paper bag by her side. Yonehara did likewise. They held it long enough for the secretaries to take their pictures, before finally making an about face and walking off the boarding ramp.

The lookout officer opened the gate, letting his captain back into the submarine. Just before he went stepped off, he paused for a parting message. "It has been a pleasure working with you, Sango-san."

Her girls began hauling the ramp back onto the Akashi.

"The SHIP is UN-der-WAY!"

The submarine was bustling with activity. A few boys still stood watch outside, waving to the girls on the convoy. The four ships, the Maikaze, the Akashi, the Tanikaze, and the Irako, had all their crew on deck salute the submarine while it pulled out. Foghorns from all docked ships bellowed as the girls cheered the boys on. On the sail, the lookout Watanabe smiled as he waved. His arm was growing tired but he didn't care. One of the girls, a fiery red head from the Maikaze, had actually talked to him. He could see her now, waving from her lighted bridge.

Inside the submarine, Nishina held the wheel as he made gentle course adjustments. The I-201 was finally underway at long last.

"Increase power to fifteen percent on the diesels."

From the store room, Yahachi looked up and smiled. In his hands, was a little white cage. Hermetically sealed, inside it sat a little white rat, innocently cocking its head here and there at all the unfamiliar electromagnetic waves it was sensing. Above the submarine, a little foam-and-wood plane flew it's pre-programed course to the VERA satellite observatory on Mount Asahiyama. Secured to it's belly was a little microSD card, attached firmly in place via lots of duct tape.

"Sounding under the keel 20m. Dropping now to 50m and holding."

Nishina gave the command.

"Rig for dive. Switch to electric drive."

The mighty motors, each giving a rating of 5000 horsepower, hummed in the rapidly quieting engine room. As the diesels shut off, Norita called to his superior, "All clear on the straightboard!"

"All hands, prepare for dive!"

The I-201 slowly sank beneath the waves, vanishing from sight.

Standing inside the bridge of the Akashi, out of view of the departing submarine, was a certain black-caped female. Mafuyu lifted her head to watch them leave, satisfied that the watch crew were unable to see her. As the boys retreated into the I-201, Mafuyu walked towards the captain of the ship.

"Sugimoto-san, did you install the package?"

Sango Sugimoto, Captain of the Akashi, never lifted her eyes from the slowly fading wake of the diving submarine. "Yes, Munetani-san. The package is installed."

None of them paid any attention to the slight buzzing noise coming from overhead as it slowly faded into the night.

Author's notes

Thank you for coming. I'm really sorry for this late submission, but well... stuff happened. That and my studies are resuming next week, so this is my last chance to publish before I need to go offline. I may be able to post one last chapter on Sunday, but don't count on it.

I would like to introduce another FanFiction writer, hereLiesThisTroper. His work Girls und Warships is based on the Girls und Panzer universe and is extremely similar in concept to Haifuri itself. Girls piloting ships.

It is from his work that I have borrowed three characters, Mitsuki Watari, Shizuka Yamashita and Sanae Shimizu. All credits for these three characters go to him.

In other news, we have finally left the Ogasawara Islands. Onwards, to adventures in the big blue ocean!