六月九日(月

I wish that I could have been Shigure-onee-san's roommate. Having spent the last night with her, I remembered again the familiar warmth of my fellow ship sister. And when I awoke this morning with my face nestled in the soft black locks of my older sister's hair, with the soothing warmth of her body that I held in my arms, I felt like I was enlightened somewhat, like I had a small epiphany. This was my fellow kin, my own blood underneath the skin of my beloved Shigure-onee-san flowing with life. Now whether biologically our blood and DNA are actually genetically related or whether our relationship as sisters is merely historic is not really a big concern for me. Experiencing the love and warmth and emotions from the man I love is one thing, but experiencing these same things from the girl I call my sister is somehow similar, yet somehow so different, different enough for me to notice and wonder.

Shigure-onee-san thanked me for spending the night with her. As I'd mentioned in yesterday's log, Shigure-onee-san had used these last few days thinking about all of her feelings that she had accumulated from everything she has experienced over the last six months, and she was tired of falling victim to her guilt. She told me that it was a trap that she has fallen into one too many times and wanted to redeem herself. After all, she said, wasn't that the point of her Kai upgrades? Her survivor's guilt was supposed to be kept under control by her Standalone Protocol, and she had put Teitoku through so much duress until her "glitch" was fixed by her Kai upgrades. By allowing herself to go through her usual cycle of guilt, Shigure-onee-san considered herself a pathetic fool, to use her own words who was wasting the deaths and the sacrifices made by our sunken ship sisters and Teitoku alike. While I tried to dissuade her from having such a mentality, saying that it was dangerous to have thoughts of such self-penance, Shigure-onee-san told me not to worry. She wouldn't let herself degrade to the point where she would also have me worry about her and suffer from her own suffering too.

"I've made you and everyone worry too much. The only way to correct things now is to do what needs to be done," she said. "Lieutenant Samidare-chan," she added just to tease me, which made me blush. That was the first time she'd ever called me Lieutenant, and I confessed to her that between the two of us, I didn't want her to call me that. We were sisters, not officer and soldier, and there was no need for us to behave in any other way.

Since today was Monday, we were flown back out to the Yokosuka Naval Yards, but because of the Abyssal attack last Thursday, we did not practice fleet exercises and drills. Instead, because base operations were well under way to repair the damages done to the harbor from the ambush, we were tasked to assist with the repair operations, and I, being the lieutenant ship girl, was assigned to oversee the manual labor of my fellow ship girls. Because I am very aware of the fact that there are a few ship girls who still resent my position as a rank and uniform ship girl, I made sure to participate in base repairs myself so that they cannot accuse me of abusing my position as a means to escape the menial labor that was expected of them. A large portion of our work was dedicated to freight: because of our enhanced strength, we carried out large pieces of rubble that couldn't be moved with the machinery present at base due to their sizes and placed them in neat piles around the base's perimeter where bigger construction vehicles like cranes and bulldozers will either break them up for easier removal or simply remove them as they are, but we also helped install new equipment aboard the three modern destroyer warships at the harbor that were there with us at the time of the ambush that had been ruined by the attack, and we also helped the base personnel clean up as much as we could do on our own. Some of the destroyers like Asashimo-chan grumbled that we were simply being used as a makeshift maid service crew, but most of us carried out our duties obediently. It shouldn't matter what our orders are, if we are helping our people and our country, that is enough of a reason for me. The men at the base expressed their sincerest gratitude to us for our assistance, as they had been waiting days ever since the attack to get lots of the heavy debris cleared away but hadn't received the proper moving equipment to do so.

During lunch break, I was paid a visit by Captain Hisakawa-dono, who insisted that I could simply address him as Hisakawa-san. He said that he eagerly wanted to talk to me about us ship girls, and I could tell that he was noticeably very nervous upon speaking to me. I tried to calm him down the best I could, saying that there was no reason to be nervous around me, that his nervousness was making me nervous as well. It turns out that when he first heard word about the existence of us ship girls, he immediately requested for a position transfer so that he himself may be in charge of one of the naval bases with ship girls stationed there, but he had been denied permission. He claimed that he wanted very much so to meet us, for there were rumors going about that there was a platoon of very beautiful girls who were supposed to be the embodiment of the Imperial-era warships. He explained that his deceased grandfather had served aboard the original IJN Samidare, my past self, and that before he died, his grandfather had visited the JMSDF Samidare, my modern counterpart docked here at Yokosuka. He said that it was a shame that he hadn't lived long enough to meet me, the resurrection of the same ship he had served aboard in his youth during the war. Although I can't seem to remember the names of all the crewmembers who served aboard me back in the war, only the names of my commanding officers, I'm sure that he was telling the truth. I expressed my condolences to him about his grandfather.

"I-If you'd like..." he said very quietly, and I could see him blushing very slightly. "...do you mind if, um, I take you...to my grandfather's grave?"

Although I did feel a little creeped out that this man was trying so hard to get my attention, as it seemed throughout our entire conversation, at the same time I couldn't simply say no. I didn't want to think that he was lying about his grandfather being a sailor who served aboard me during the war, and should he really be telling the truth, denying his request would come off as just such a rude denial. So just to be safe, I said that I would most certainly try my best to some day take up his offer and go to visit his late grandfather's grave to pay my respects, but when that time should come was the more pressing question. He asked me if I had any plans or restrictions and said that as a Captain, he would do his best to submit a recommendation to the Navy committee to allow me a weekend's absence so that we could travel to his grandfather's grave. I said that I would be very busy very soon and that I didn't know exactly when I had some free time to myself, and that he didn't need to do anything for me because it would be unlikely for him to be able to do anything for me in the first place, me being a ship girl and thus part of a highly classified naval unit within the Kaijou Jietai. It was unlikely that a standard-issue officer in the Navy would be able to affect the branches of command enough to influence my directives at Atsugi Naval Air Station.

When I saw Hisakawa-san look discouraged, I tried to cheer him up, saying that eventually I would be able to visit his grandfather's grave, surely. We just needed some time to organize our plans, that's all.

When he finally left, Shigure-onee-san and Kiyoshimo-chan, who had been sitting with me for lunch, both asked me who that man was. I explained to them that he was the commanding officer of the JMSDF Samidare. Kiyoshimo-chan nodded in understanding, but Shigure-onee-san was not smiling at all. She advised me to stay clear of that man if I could. She revealed that she had been keeping an eye on him when she first noticed him watching me in our naval exercises at the Yokosuka Harbor and thought his behavior suspicious. Today, now that he has taken the initiative and approached me on his own, Shigure-onee-san feels that I am the target of his infatuation, and therefore, his whole story about his grandfather being a former sailor aboard me back in the war could very well be a mere fabrication that he made up just so that he could lure me into his grasp. While I can't deny that I think Hisakawa-san is trying to get a little too familiar with me, I don't think he's going to go that far, that Shigure-onee-san was just overreacting to his meekness around me. Surely he was only acting that way because he perhaps liked me and was nervous around me because of it.

Akiyama-san and Takahashi-san flew in as we were wrapping up our maintenance work at the base and were preparing to leave around 1700 hours. Akiyama-san requested that I stay behind at Yokosuka for another night so that we could discuss business privately together, just the three of us. He had received word from Takahashi-san about the plans he was making for me to embark on my secret mission, and therefore he wanted to learn of it to give it his clandestine support. Takahashi-san gave him the itinerary of my secret mission and its objectives, and Akiyama-san agreed to it, saying that this mission, should it prove successful, may very well give us the technology we need to maintain and reconstruct the ship girls who had been sunk in action much faster than the teams of scientists, doctors, and engineers now working around the clock to study, understand, and reverse-engineer our physiology. Admiral Fujioka would most likely object heavily to this should he find out, Akiyama-san mentioned quite bitterly, but he, too, thought this necessary.

I asked Takahashi-san if it was alright for me to take my ship sister Shigure-onee-san with me on my mission. She was, after me, the most experienced ship girl, and therefore was the most qualified to escort me across the Pacific. Takahashi-san deliberated on this for a long time. He said that on one hand, while my points were quite valid, he had plans to make Shigure-onee-san the next commanding ship girl after me in my absence. In fact, to prepare for my absence, he had even been putting in a recommendation to Akiyama-san for Shigure-onee-san to receive rank and uniform, too, just like me, and become a lieutenant to cement her authority as a veteran ship girl. While on the inside I was extremely overjoyed that they were considering this quite heavily, by the the sounds of it, I then felt quite bad knowing that now, if I am to take my ship sister with me on this journey, she cannot attain her rank and uniform. Now I'm not so sure if I want to take her, because I really want her to find success like I have. But upon thinking more about it later this evening, I figured that if I were to talk about this with Shigure-onee-san, she would seem like the type to refuse it in favor of escorting me on my mission. I don't know...but anyway, Takahashi-san, in the end, decided to allow me to take Shigure-onee-san with me.

Since it was getting late, Akiyama-san suggested that I simply spend the night here. Takahashi-san and he had to take care of some more business here at Yokosuka, so I spent the rest of the evening until now walking about on the deck of the JMSDF Samidare. For some reason that I have yet to come up with a proper explanation for, I feel as though I have a special place for me on this ship. Is it only because we share the same name? I'm not sure. But walking about on the deck and sitting on the side railings watching the moon hang in the air beautifully over the calm harbor waters is amazingly majestic and peaceful. I can't wait to go back to base and write about all of this in my journal.

I love you, Teitoku. I just only wish that you were here, sitting beside me with your arm around my shoulders, watching the moonlight together.

五月雨