Alone.

I told the destroyers who came with me to Yokosuka Naval Yards to head back without me. When they asked me why, I simply told them to go. There was no point in asking me anything. They tried to be persistent, telling me that it would be better if they went with me. The I-Class seemed to understand what my intentions were, because he told me that they would follow me anywhere, even if wherever it was that I wanted to go wasn't the place I was supposed to be.

That's what I am to them. The Destroyer Princess.

I wish I wasn't a princess.

Eventually, I was able to convince them that it was not going to take long, that I would be back home with the others in no time. I could sense their uncertainty as they swam away slowly, as though unwilling to part with me even though such were my orders for them. I waved goodbye to them. I do not know if that may be the last time for me to do so. After only knowing them for a mere two weeks...

Truly, for the first time, I am solitary in the wake of my own presence. Floating on this water, feeling my body dip and bob with the waves, I now realize that while I may have felt psychologically lonely, this is the first time I am alone in all senses of the word. And it is not quite as bad as I may have thought. It is peaceful, being alone. Solitude has given me time to think, a space to be honest with myself without having to worry about others learning of my thoughts or distracting me from telling myself what must be said.

Samidare...Shigure...onee-san.

I have decided to trust that ship girl named Samidare. She who claimed to be my younger sister from my previous life before my current...she did not seem like the kind of person who would lie about something about this. Because what is important to me right now is that I did have a family...once upon a time. The names are familiar to me, and in my mind, I am able to connect name and image together, and the feeling is familiar. I do know those ship girls...the ship girls who are supposed to be my enemy. The concrete knowledge may be missing or subdued, but the feelings, the emotions are still there in my heart, making it ache whenever I think of them. I think about how beautiful that Samidare was...her vivid skin, her wonderful blue hair, and her mesmerizing blue eyes...I wish I could be that beautiful. Whenever I look at myself in the water's reflection, whenever it can show it to me, the pale skin, the purple eyes, this sickening blend of pink and purple that stains my hair...everything about myself, all of my physical features I compare with Samidare's, and I find myself disgusted and saddened. Samidare is a normal ship girl. If I truly was her ship sister at one point, that must mean that something had been done to me that changed me into this monster.

I have seen beauty, and all else falters before it.

Now, I find myself floating on the waters fifty kilometers from the Japanese district of Chiba, at the designated coordinates that Samidare has given me. I want to know everything. That girl, that ship girl who is supposed to be my enemy - now, I find myself filled with hope that perhaps there is an answer to all of this. I was allowed a foot into the door; now, I want to do whatever is necessary to pry that door open as far as I can to slip inside, into the warmth of the family that resides inside...a family that I feel I belonged to, but was taken away from. I want to know everything that happened. Samidare alone has offered me this help. And I mean no offense to anyone whom I have met so far, like Midway Princess, Harbor Princess, Re-Class, Hoppo, everyone, but...nobody, none of my fellow Abyssals...none of them can offer me what I want to know. And I have even gotten the feeling that something was being held from me, something that I ought to know. I don't like that. Friends or allies or whatever, I have come to the conclusion that I really do not like it when things are kept secret from me, especially when they directly concern me. Samidare, from my few moments with her, has only told me things that I've wanted to hear, what I've wanted to know all this time.

So I await her arrival patiently here. The clouds obscure the night skies above me, so I am not able to watch the moon as I usually spend my nights. I hope that this does not bear an ill omen for me for tomorrow.

I know that to my fellow Abyssals, what I am about to do will most likely be considered treasonous. My activities with Samidare, a ship girl who is our known and sworn enemy, responsible for the deaths of many of our comrades and the destruction of our home sector, will be labelled as collaborating with the enemy, scheming, everything. Perhaps as a result of this, I may never be able to return to the Abyssals. Thinking about this prospect makes me...very sad. So sad, in fact, that I am almost crying at the thought.

I don't want to let go so soon of the friends that I have made in the Abyssal fleet. Though they may be hiding some things from me, I never wanted to jeopardize my relationships with them. I want to still stay friends with everyone, become friends with everyone if I haven't done so already. And, especially, the destroyers. The destroyers are my best friends in the Abyssal fleet by far...no surprise considering what my name is. I am the Princess of the destroyers, and they are my friends. They are simple, honest, and caring. While these traits of theirs may be the simple result of their limited intelligence as sentient beings, I do not care for technicalities; they have proved to be closer friends in a shorter amount of time than anybody else I have encountered in the Abyssal fleet. They are the ones who beckon me back to the Abyssal fleet, back to that small island. Their telepathic voices haunt my memory files, and I keep playing back their light, sorrowful voices in my head.

Oh no...I really am crying now. I don't think I can stop them...the tears, from...from my eyes.

I already miss my destroyer friends. I wish...I wish I did not tell them to go back without me.

I take it back. Being lonely is...not peaceful. It's not peaceful at all.

I don't want to leave my poor destroyers behind. Because...because I know what they would say, what they would think, what their pitiful voices would sound like when they learn of my disappearance. And I cannot bear to think of what they might think of me when they realize that their princess has run off with the enemy...defected, betrayed. What would they think of me...? No...no, I can't think about it...I shouldn't think about it...

Against my will, my weak mind forces me to wail into the night. Because at least when I am completely alone, by myself, in the middle of the ocean like I am now, I never have to worry about anyone hearing me scream with pain flowing out of my lungs. I do not want to appear weak, frightened, and worthless, and crying does exactly that. I don't want to cry. But I have to. It is the only way in which I know how to atone for the betrayal that I am about to commit to my comrades in the Abyssals, but specifically the I-Class, the Ha-Class, Ro-Class, and the Ni-Class - all of the destroyers. If only I could explain to them what I wanted, what I intended. But there is no way to go about doing so in a manner that would be satisfactory for all parties involved...including myself.

Is this what I wanted all along? When I first awakened two weeks ago, I was simply content with serving with my Abyssal brethren and doing whatever was told of me, and perhaps make a few friends along the way. I had my reservations, sure, but before the offensive against the enemy naval yards, the infectious desire to know everything about myself was never this fierce. Now I have been sickened too much to go back. I have been infected too severely with the virus of curiosity, and look what it has done to me, my allies, and my friends. For all of my own selfish desires to figure out who I really am, I have gone about hurting virtually everyone I have made contact with. Midway Princess...I have damaged her reputation by failing her when she invested her trust in me that I could adequately lead that attack on the Yokosuka Naval Yards. Ta-Class...I thought I had gotten her sunk in that battle because of my own severe negligence, and not even knowing that she has returned alive can comfort me all that much more. Everyone in the fleet who participated in that attack, everyone who'd died...the destroyers whom I am most conscious of leaving behind, the ones whom I valued the most for their companionship.

To think that I wanted to ask more of the destroyers...to think that I at one point felt dissatisfied with them as companions. I'm so ashamed of myself. A wretched Abyssal soul like me, making demands about what kinds of friends she prefers...ugh. Beggars cannot be choosers, and yet there I was, at one point, wondering why my destroyer friends could not have the same cognitive capacities as other Abyssal ship girls. As if it could have been their own fault! As if it could have been their own fault for not being as smart as they ought to be! Why is it that even for the enemy ship girls, why is it that their destroyers are all ship girls just like me?

Why is it that the more I think about my own Abyssal fleet and everyone I know in it...the uglier they all seem to become?

Why could they - we - not have been built just as beautiful as Samidare? I bet that in the enemy fleet, there are no ship girls who have bleached white skin like we do. I bet that they do not have sickening colors that taint their hair like we do, if at all. When I think of Re-Class, Ri-Class, Chi-Class...can we even really be called ship "girls"? I myself have no legs - what kind of a girl has no legs and must levitate in order to move about?

I must ask myself again: is this what I wanted all this time? To sabotage my allies and comrades in battle? To attempt to create friendships with my fellow Abyssals for the sole purpose of avoiding the torturous feeling of being alone, like I am experiencing now? To undeservedly earn the loyalty and companionship of the destroyers who prefer to be with me than with any other Abyssal, just to throw it away behind their backs?

Nnnggghhh...

If...if, perhaps, the theory that...that I truly am a former ship girl, captured by these Abyssals whom I now consider my comrades and sisters-at-arms, proves to be true, then...then I feel that the decision to create me from what I was prior was a grave mistake. Whoever constructed me has built a monster in disguise.

They should have never constructed me in the first place.

I remember that Samidare...told me about the Abyssals' attack on their base in Okinawa, before I was awakened. How many of the ship girls there became heavily damaged, a few even sunk.

In light of everything that has happened so far...I would rather that I have sunk with the others right there at Okinawa. It would have been...simpler...for everyone.

Will this all simply end in disaster too? Please...please, just this once...I don't want to bring disaster even to Samidare...

Please, don't...I am begging...please, don't...