Shigure was trying to find Tenryuu and Tatsuta, desperate to say anything resembling parting words to them before they participated in whatever Project Psyche was, risking their lives and possibly dying without her being at their side.
She wasn't exactly certain what the Project was about save for researching on the ship girl soul and utilizing its energy reserves, but all Shigure cared about right now was the odds of her friends surviving, scientific curiosity be damned.
30% was far too low for her liking, although the soldier in her understood that sacrifices were inevitable in war, and the Tenryuu-Class cruisers had chosen to volunteer for this procedure and were told of their odds beforehand as per their rights to know what they were getting themselves into before making their choice.
There were talks of becoming stronger, and she understood how the Tenryuu-Class light cruisers might want to improve themselves in order to keep themselves relevant in the long run, since their stats aren't impressive and they didn't currently didn't possess Kai Ni remodels.
After listening to the Admiral's meeting and her talks of Project Psyche, she knew that she had little time left before the two of them left for Project Psyche (OK, she knew they went for their checkup tomorrow she still had an entire day left, so she was overreacting a little).
And even though she had talked to her teammates before this, when the Tenryuu Sisters had sought out the members of the 1st Fleet in order to have a good chat with them a few days ago, she wanted to talk to them again after knowing they may die in this upcoming Project.
Although it made sense for them not to tell anyone of Project Psyche and their odds of not returning, the entire Project was likely top-secret and forbade them from even mentioning it to others, and they likely didn't want their last conversations with their friends to be sappy and filled with choked tears and goodbyes.
All so reasonable, but she just couldn't bring herself to see it that way.
She was now in the light cruiser section of the barracks, and she saw that Tenryuu and Tatsuta were leaving their room in order to do something or another.
Not on her watch.
Shigure ran forward and tackled Tenryuu in a tight embrace, since she understood how Tenryuu, after dealing with the Akatsuki Sisters, would respond better to this hug than the aloof and mysterious Tatsuta, squeaking out,
"Tenryuu-san!
Tatsuta-san!"
Tenryuu, slightly surprised by the sudden appearance and hug, looked down with her one eye as she ruffled Shigure's hair with the tenderness of an experienced guardian as she comforted the seemingly-distraught Shiratsuyu-Class destroyer.
"Woah, there, Shigure.
What's wrong?
You feeling alright?"
Shigure looked up with tearing eyes, all while knowing that this would get the two sisters to lower their guard, and she began lying through her teeth about her concerns regarding the light cruiser duo.
"N-No!
Everything's not alright!
I had a nightmare last night, and…"
She swallowed the lump in her throat as she looked down and started covering up her recent activities with Shiranui, and had made up a lie shortly before this in order to express her concern for their well-being clearly without explicitly referring to anything specific regarding their future endeavors.
This way, she could justify her sudden outburst of emotion without requiring her to engineer a real-life event to explain it away.
And what else would accomplish that better than a nightmare?
"I had a nightmare, wherein the two of you disappeared after I came back from a sortie.
A-And no matter how hard I looked around the base, I couldn't find any traces of you two, as though the both of you had disappeared from the face of the Earth…"
She could notice Tenryuu looking at Tatsuta warily, and knew that although they were somewhat on guard after hearing how eerily accurate Shigure's 'nightmare' seemed to predict the worst possible future, they weren't exactly suspicious of her.
She may not be speaking the complete truth, but her words conveyed her feelings without revealing how she learnt of their situation as she continued.
"Because of this nightmare, I-I can't help but feel that I'm going to lose you both, and I don't want that!
I don't want the two of you to leave!"
Shigure looked up at the both of them with doey eyes, genuinely feeling as if she was to cry anytime soon and making it very apparent to them.
But it was Tatsuta who responded to her words, albeit taking a surprisingly mature tone instead of the gentle one Shigure was sure Tenryuu would go with, speaking in an equally cryptic tone about what they were going to do next, and how they might not return at all.
"That fear is not unfounded.
We've been chosen to be experimented on in order to be achieve a… remodel of sorts."
Tenryuu's gaze morphed into one of worry, and her tone broke down to reveal a deep-seated panic about revealing Project Psyche to an outsider.
"O-Oi, Tatsuta!
We shouldn't be telling others-"
"…of Admiral Mako's attempts to help us attain our Kai Ni remodel?"
Tatsuta smoothly interrupted her elder sister's sentence in order to explain herself, and left the two members of the 1st Fleet dumbfounded as Tatsuta played Shigure's game.
"Well, the development of a new Kai Ni remodel is fraught with danger and the possibility of death, since we're attempting to tinker with our own bodies in ways no one has ever attempted to before.
The Admiral, despite her best attempts to push our engineers and Fairies on to improve our odds of survival, has warned us that there is a distinct possibility of us dying for real."
Tatsuta looked Shigure in the eye, and she had to look away morosely as Tatsuta stated the facts and their odds of surviving this procedure.
"I want to tell you that it's alright, that we will come back safe and sound, but I don't want to lie to you about our situation."
Shigure cringed upon hearing that last line, understanding that much like how Shigure wanted to express her concern without exposing her situation, Tatsuta was also trying to be as truthful as possible without giving everything away, and it hurt the both of them to try and tiptoe around each other despite wishing nothing more than to come clean with each other because of the sensitivity of the situation at hand.
Tatsuta continued with a rather somber tone,
"I won't lie to you that we're coming back for sure, partially because I know that you are mature enough to see through such blatant lies, and I can only ask of you to know this before we go.
We want to come back.
To be with you, Junyou, Hiei, Ayanami and everyone else in this base.
We will do our best, but we cannot guarantee our survival, and if we are to die, I want you know that we tried."
Shigure withered, looking down at the floor as her shoulders slouched in defeat, but Tenryuu patted her on the head as she looked up to find Tenryuu giving her a mature, yet cheery and genuine smile as she stated bravely.
"Maa, don't worry too much about it, Shigure!
Much like what Tatsuta said, even though I can't guarantee that I'm gonna come back, I want you to be strong in knowing that I'll do everything within my power to make it back to you, alright?"
Shigure nodded sadly after she considered their words for a moment, because she understood that the two Tenryuu-Class cruisers were strong-willed and understood their situation well enough to know that they still had a fighting chance.
But she wasn't exactly sure how the procedure in Project Psyche worked other than utilizing high-level technology to assess the ship girl soul, which was an enigma in its entirety due to the fact that the engineering prowess required to create one was beyond even that of the Fairies, as the little engineers only knew how to summon them from…
Wherever they came from, which added to the mystery behind one of the biggest driving forces within the ship girl body.
She looked up at her two teammates as she expressed her reluctant understanding of their situation and how they wished to become stronger, and while she understood the logic behind their wish to become stronger despite their limits holding them back and acknowledged that their odds of survival weren't abysmally low, she still wanted her friends to be safe.
"I… I just…
I don't want you two to go.
I understand that your odds aren't hopelessly abysmal, and I understand that recent events necessitate taking a few risks in order to become stronger, but still…"
Tatsuta nodded, understanding the reference to the Battle of Mikura Jima Island and how it spurred them all on in order to become stronger, and she leaned in to look Shigure in the eye as she explained their reasons for risking their lives to become stronger and be the pioneers of a new wave of technological developments.
"Look, like Tenryuu-chan explained to me, being part of this project means that we can get to become stronger earlier than any of our counterparts in other bases.
And even though dying is not a preferred outcome, we understand that this risk is par for the course in order to help develop a new remodel for others to receive down the road with better odds of surviving this procedure.
I appreciate your concern, but since you understand that we need to do this to become stronger so that we can protect everyone else, I implore of you to let us go for this procedure."
Shigure nodded again, knowing that she never really stood a chance in getting the both of them to pull out of the Project, but she wanted them to know that she wanted them to come back, wanted them to be safe after finding out about what they were about to go through and could happen to them, looking down as she talked about how she understood why they had to do this.
"I understand that you two have decided on this course of action, and I trust that you two have already considered and understood the consequences and have accepted them.
And while I disagree on how you two didn't really tell any one of us about participating in this procedure, risking your life and making things extremely awkward for the other sister should one of you not make it, I suppose I can't fault you if you don't want to make your last conversation with everyone a sad goodbye with tears and hugs.
I-I'm sorry for ruining that…"
But Tatsuta and Tenryuu's expression relaxed as they leaned down, the nameship of the Tenryuu Class patting her on the head as she cracked a wide smile and remarked.
"Ah, why would we feel that a friend expressing her heartfelt concern is anything but endearing?
I'm glad you're opening up to everyone, and it's great to see that someone wants me to come back alive.
I certainly hate disappointing people, so believe me when I say that I'll do my best!"
Shigure couldn't help but break out into a relieved smile at how even though she was facing unfavorable odds, Tenryuu and Tatsuta had understood that while their odds weren't great, it wasn't entirely hopeless either, and Tenryuu put Shigure's concerns to rest with her confident smile and softer, but much more mature and therefore reassuring demeanor.
She nodded, and Tenryuu turned away as she headed towards somewhere, turning back to address a still Shigure with her parting words.
"Well, even though I understand the fact that I may not return from this procedure, I don't want my last words to sound sad and all and make you feel depressed, so I guess I'll see you when I see you, hmm?"
Shigure blinked, before nodding slowly and acknowledging Tenryuu's wish to keep their last conversation upbeat and at least bittersweet in its happiness rather than outright sad and depressing, and Tatsuta looked to her sister as she commented soothingly in order to get Tenryuu to do as she said.
"Tenryuu-chan, go on ahead.
I wish to say my parting words to Shigure in private."
Tenryuu nodded, and gave Shigure a small salute with her index and middle finger as she turned and walked away.
Tatsuta turned to look Shigure in the eye after Tenryuu was out of earshot, and began her little speech on how her concern, despite never standing a chance in convincing her to change her mind, was still thankful for Shigure expressing her wish for them to come back alive.
"Shigure-chan.
I thank you for caring so much about our well-being, and being so understanding of our need to surpass our current limits in order to protect you all.
I understand that I'm not the kind of person to express my own feelings honestly, so please bear with me for a while."
Shigure nodded as Tatsuta's smile diminished in intensity, yet became even more genuine as she continued her speech and lowered her gaze, inadvertently looking away as she did so.
"While I genuinely don't wish to leave you all, my odds of surviving this procedure isn't very optimistic, although it's not hopeless.
I accept all possible outcomes, but even though we didn't tell you all about participating in this top-secret procedure which might kill us, Admiral Mako did allow us to write letters to all of you, and would keep them until we died, whereupon she would send them to you, and Admiral Mako would formally apologize to you all at that point for causing our deaths.
We don't wish to send these letters out to you when we still have a chance of surviving this procedure, and make things awkward for everyone if we were to live after sending you such a depressing letter."
Shigure pointed out in a calm tone as she reminded Tatsuta about how they agreed to the procedure after being properly informed of their odds.
"Well, for something like this, Admiral Mako must've told you about your chances of survival, and it isn't exactly fair for us to blame Admiral Mako for your deaths if you've already been informed of your odds and agree to participate in it anyway."
Tatsuta's smile became rather sad as she asked Shigure a question on the likelihood of every ship girl in this base sticking by that logic when a close friend was ripped from their lives.
"Well, I wouldn't put it past other ship girls who are more emotional and highly value their relationships with others to do the opposite.
And who's to say that even those whom you know to be level-headed wouldn't be affected even more negatively in the wake of a friend's death, no?"
Shigure nodded sadly as she knew that ship girls were partially human, and would react differently to the passing of others depending on how close they were to the deceased and how they took the news.
Some might shake their heads and mourn the waste of another life, others might break down and cry, others might find someone to blame for the cause of their friend's death, and Shigure found it hard to predict how everyone would react to the news of their friends' deaths, as much as she wanted to know how everyone would react in certain situations to prepare herself accordingly.
"I… I understand."
Tatsuta gave Shigure a wry smile, and turned away to join Tenryuu as she parted with the sad, yet accepting Shiratsuyu-Class destroyer with her final words.
"Well, much like what Tenryuu-chan said, see you when I see you."
Before turning away and walking off into the distance.
And although Shigure was sad to see her go, she knew that the two of them had already made their choice, and she shouldn't overstep her boundaries by whining like a child in attempting to get them to stay.
But the next exchange took her entirely by surprise as Tatsuta stopped and muttered something loud enough for Shigure to hear as she looked at the stopped Tenryuu-Class cruiser's back and her purple mop of hair.
"This is just my women's intuition at work here, but…
Was it really a nightmare which drove you into seeking us out today, Shigure-chan?"
Shigure flinched just as Tatsuta turned around to observe her, and she barely maintained her facade as she started to sweat underneath Tatsuta's scrutinizing gaze, and she swallowed the lump in her throat as she gave an awkward smile and answered.
"O-Of course, Tatsuta-san.
Why would I ever lie to you?"
And almost cringed at how bad of a liar she was when trying to lie to her friends's faces.
After about five seconds of silence and a tense smile from her, Tatsuta gave Shigure the warmest smile she had ever received from the Tenryuu-Class cruiser as Tatsuta simply responded.
" … I see.
Let's hope that you no longer have these nightmares, and that my intuition is wrong, hmm?"
Shigure responded with one hell of an awkward smile as she tried her best not to cringe at her own attempts at selling her own lies.
"Thank you, Tatsuta-san.
It's not going to help much, but I will pray for your safe return."
Tatsuta nodded, her silky, short hair bouncing along with the motion as she turned to catch up with her sister ship, and Shigure dropped her smile in order to smack herself in the forehead when Tatsuta left the immediate vicinity.
'Well, that went well.'
Shigure knew that even though Tatsuta might be onto her due to her own inability to keep a straight face while telling a lie to her own friends, but because her 'nightmare story' only had her word to go on, this meant that she was safe for now since Tatsuta couldn't prove anything.
She got her feelings across and managed to express her wish for them to come back despite perfectly understanding the fact that they made their choice to deliberately risk their own lives in order to get stronger, and she had to respect their choice despite disagreeing with the 30% chance of survival.
It was infuriating, almost maddening, to be powerless in times like these when she had to essentially wait around for things to happen and she couldn't do anything to change the outcome, in this case because she had no say in who could and couldn't participate in Project Psyche.
She shook her head despondently, knowing that worrying about things that were beyond her control wasn't doing anyone any good, she had to protect those around her by training to become stronger and do well in the upcoming sorties and battles.
Everyone was doing the same, and she turned away in order to head towards the training ground, since there was a training session immediately after this.
It hurt, to learn to accept reality for what it was and the limits of her influence and capabilities, but it also allowed her to realize that she had to focus on what mattered the most in the here and now and work hard within those capabilities and limits in order to protect as many of her friends as possible without overexerting herself, because she was no good to anyone as a fatigued wreck.
Shiranui was walking with Kagerou on the morning of the 12th of May, and she had everything in place in order to pull off her plan to retrieve her listening devices from the used blazers of Admiral Mako.
Kagerou was part of the laundry detail, and this meant that she was one of several dozen ship girls and sailors who had to deal with the used clothes of a little over a hundred ship girls in Yokosuka and the three hundred-plus workers maintaining the base.
And considering the amount of burnt and destroyed clothes after every sortie, it meant that close to fifty baskets' worth of clothes had to be processed by the washing machines which were placed in the laundry room.
Shiranui mentally ran through her plans in order to make sure that she knew the plan by heart and could improvise on the fly.
She had deliberately left her keys in her skirt when she threw them into the laundry basket to be brought into the laundry room yesterday, and she was to ask Kagerou to let her into the laundry room in order to let her find her keys.
While she was inside the laundry room, she was to search for her Admiral's blazers in order to retrieve the listening devices before any one of the ship girls on laundry duty found them when they started throwing the clothes into the washing machine, or found them when they detached from the blazer as the glue which was used was water soluble, allowing the glue to be washed away by the washing machine in order to erase the evidence.
Now, she knew that other ship girls would be in the room as they moved everyone's clothes around and prepared them to be thrown in the washing machines, and while it would make things a little harder for her as she would have to hide her activities from everyone, but it was not impossible as she was used to sneaking her actions past other people.
And while sneaking around in broad daylight was a novel idea for someone like her, who was used to utilizing the night and the shadows for cover, she wasn't going to leave things to chance simply because she couldn't learn to sneak around during the day.
Time to kick things off.
Patting her skirt pocket, Shiranui stopped as she pretended to look surprised at the lack of keys in her pocket, and she turned to face her sister in surprise as she feigned surprise concerning the absence of her keys in her pocket where she kept them in order to access her locker.
"Ah, Kagerou.
I forgot that I left my keys in the dress I wore yesterday.
It's now in the laundry basket and waiting to be thrown in the washing machine, and I need it in order to access my locker before our training session later."
Kagerou stopped as she turned back to face Shiranui, and she could see that Kagerou was interested in helping her find her lost keys.
Great.
"Oh, is that so?
I might be able to help you with that in order to half the time taken to find them.
Besides, I was headed there anyway to help the others, and you can accompany me there.
Might have to hold off on the breakfast, though."
Shiranui gave her sister a smile which was not entirely insincere, since she never passed up a chance to shower her Kagerou-Class sisters with shows of affection, but this time, it was laced with a fair bit of deception in order to get her sister to go along with her plans.
It hurt, but she bit down and endured the twinge of discomfort in her heart as she replied with a thankful,
"That would be appreciated."
Turning the corner in order to head for the laundry room, Kagerou was discussing how even though she had to help the other ship girls in the laundry room before going for breakfast and their training session, she could provide a second pair of eyes by performing a cursory search within each basket.
The washed clothes required a large swath of land in order to dry some of them, since using the dry-cleaning machines to do the bulk of the work would be a waste of electricity, and Shiranui knew that the laundry room had another door at the end of the room which led outside to a cleared piece of land beside the barracks in order to facilitate easy movement in and out of the laundry room when they had to dry their clothes.
The washing machines weren't in use yet, because Shiranui had done some research to know that the others came in to start washing the clothes at around 11 a.m..
It was now only 8.34 a.m. and gave her some time to search through the baskets in order to find her Admiral's clothes and finish her mission before the girls on laundry detail were done with moving the baskets and headed out for breakfast.
She saw that Kikuzuki, Sazanami and Shirayuki were in the room, making her work a little harder and the odds of being caught higher.
She never expected her work to be easy, but was it too much for her to ask for a freebie and let her get through one mission without so much fuss?
Kikuzuki was a Mutsuki-Class destroyer, and she was dropping another basket of clothes onto the floor in the room as her long, snow-white hair temporarily covered her orange-beige pupils, her sharp eyes shifting to look at the two of the Kagerou-Class destroyers as they entered the room in order to acknowledge their presence, her all-black sailor uniform being a rather common color palette shared by her sister ships, and her long sleeves were rolled up to prevent them from getting in the way of her work.
On her dark-grey belt was a badge in the shape of a yellow crescent moon which was present on several of her sisters, and her skirt almost reached down to her knees as she had the body of a child, and what Shiranui assumed to be stockings were reaching up her skirt in order to provide her complete protection against the elements.
Shirayuki was part of the Fubuki-Class destroyers, and wore her white-blue short-sleeved uniform as she wore a blue dress and a white shirt with a blue sailor collar and cuffs at the ends of her short sleeves, being rather nondescript in design and appearance.
Her brown hair was in short twin-tails, and her appearance was meant to invoke 'everyday beauty' as her ship class's beauty was a little rarer amongst the ship girls in that their looks weren't exactly striking thanks to their commonly-colored hair and eyes, and the one ship girl in the room who came anywhere close was Kagerou with her auburn brown hair with pale purple eyes.
Being the respectful ship girl that she was, Shiranui could see that she gave them a small bow and a kind smile, which Shiranui and Kagerou acknowledged and returned in kind.
Sazanami had pink hair much like Shiranui except being a tad duller in tone, and much like Shirayuki, her sailor uniform was one of the more common white-blue color schemes for destroyers, white short-sleeved shirt with blue sailor collar and neckerchief, her blue sleeve cuffs had a white ring running around them, and she had a blue pleated skirt partially covering her thighs.
Her short hair was tied up in short side-tails, and were held up by two reddish marbles on each side of her head which acted as hair bands, while a badge which was of a lighter shade of red was stuck to the right of where her bellybutton would be.
She was the only one to have a smile on her face, because Kikuzuki was solemn and moody while Shirayuki was polite and unassuming as she gave people a warm smile when they appeared, but kept her expression neutral whenever possible in order not to overexert her cheek muscles.
Shiranui could empathize with that feeling.
But Sazanami was cheery as she shot them a warm smile and lifted an eyebrow in their direction in order to greet them non-verbally, and Shiranui returned a small nod in her direction in order to be polite.
The washing machines which surrounded them were large in size and were positioned to the point where she was still confident that despite the entire room being lit, with enough discretion and taking up a decent speed in searching for her Admiral's clothes, she could still pull off her mission without alerting anyone.
Kagerou held the door open for her even though there was a door stopper placed there by the destroyers to prevent it from closing in the first place, and Kagerou interlocked her fingers in order to crack them as she pushed her arms out, speaking out loud in order to talk to Shiranui and everyone in the room to let them know of Shiranui's reason for being here.
"Well, let's start looking for those keys in your skirt, hmm?"
Sometimes, she understood how other people talked about how they wanted to throttle their own siblings over the most trivial of things, despite loving them with all their heart.
Right now, she understood that feeling better than anyone else as she mentally grumbled about how everyone would probably start helping her look for her skirt out of the genuine kindness of their hearts and would make her job a lot harder, since her skirts would be found sooner and she would have to end her search early.
Cue mental sigh.
But she nodded in understanding as she looked around at the dozens of baskets, all choke full of used clothes from the Yamato-Class battleships to the Yuugumo-Class destroyers, and she walked towards a basket in order to pretend to search for her clothes, while actually keeping track of the destroyers in the room and looking for the white fabric which made up Admiral Mako's blazer.
Sifting through various clothes, she was thankful for both wearing gloves to avoid direct contact with everyone's sweaty clothes and the fact that Kagerou motioned with her head to indicate to her that she would help everyone move baskets around while searching within them for her skirts.
At least it would mean that she had some privacy in her search, and wouldn't have Kagerou looking over her shoulder every so often.
Thank god for small mercies.
She knelt in a corner as she lifted the clothes of a sailor while she continued her search through the used clothes of the workers of the naval base, which would include Admiral Mako.
She knew that their clothes were categorized into their ship classes in order to try and make the sorting process easier when the ship girls responsible for their laundry could quickly sort their clothes out as one particular ship class per basket.
Thanks to being a destroyer and the sheer number of destroyer classes in the IJN, it was no wonder that many of the baskets present contained the used clothes of destroyers from the Shiratsuyu-Class all the way to the Asashio-Class.
She knew that even for the three other destroyers who were present in the room, it would take some time for them to find her clothes, and she thought ahead of time to throw all her unused spare clothing into the pile in order to buy her a few more seconds if needed.
And in this line of work, several extra seconds could change everything.
The downside was that she had a training session today, so if she sustained any damage to her body and clothing, she had to borrow clothes from one of her sisters, or walk around with shredded clothes until her laundry was returned to her, since the docks repaired their body but not their uniforms.
She found no trace of Admiral Mako's clothes, but she looked through the crisscrossed strips of plastic which made up the baskets in order to provide some ventilation for the used clothes to dry after being thrown inside them, knowing that while the three ship girls would have a hard time searching through the baskets of destroyer clothes, she had to contend with several hundred sets of clothing belonging to officers, sailors, cleaners, cooks, etc.
It wasn't hard for her to distinguish and eliminate the baskets which contained the clothes of the cleaners, miscellaneous staff and rank-and-file sailors, and she saw that the amount of clothes belonging to officers in the logistic and administrative line of work filled three entire baskets, stuffed to the brim with their white blazers, singlets and trousers.
Diving into one basket, she dug through the various uniforms of the workers in this base and dumped everyone's clothes onto the floor, and even though she didn't want to do this to everyone's belongings, a moment of hasty treatment of her superiors' clothes was a simple price to pay to avoid being caught and thrown into military prison to be interrogated.
Not in this basket.
Shit.
She spun around in order to grab everyone's clothes and hastily threw them back into the basket, stuffing them inside the basket and putting her weight on it in order to fit them all in the basket, and she immediately moved onto the next basket.
Lifting a sailor's uniform revealed that lady luck threw her a bone as she could see that Admiral Mako's sleeve was peeking through the pile, and she doubled her efforts to clear the basket in order to get to her Admiral's clothes, one for each day and three spares being kept in case of emergencies.
To her knowledge, those three extra sets of clothes weren't thrown into the pile if they weren't used at all, so that's another burden lifted off of her shoulders.
Dumping everyone's clothes on the floor, she found two of Admiral Mako's blazers entangled in a distorted hug with each other, and she separated them in order to flip their collars and locate the listening devices which were planted in three of the seven blazers.
One had a listening device while the other didn't, and Shiranui gently plucked the listening device from the fabric in order to make a clean break and leave nothing but the water-soluble glue behind, and dumped the two of them onto the floor in order to continue her search as she pocketed the dislodged listening device.
The clacking of baskets hitting the floor could be heard, and she knew that the others were probably searching for her clothes while moving the baskets into the room, and she knew that she had to hurry up with her mission lest they search through the Kagerou-Class's skirts (and thankfully several of her sister's' clothes were similar or identical to hers in design, thus buying her more time), find her keys and search for her in order to let her know of their successful find.
Throwing another sailor's uniform behind her, she found another blazer belonging to Admiral Mako, but she was disappointed to find that it didn't contain her listening devices, and she discarded it onto the floor beneath her as she found her Admiral's trousers.
She had to move faster.
Another two blazers found, and she found one more listening device as she started sweating from the exertion, despite the fact that the room was air-conditioned in order to make the drying of clothes in this room easier along with the dry-cleaning machines helping to accelerate the drying process.
One last listening device and she was home free.
She found another two blazers strewn atop each other, lifted their collars in order to peek underneath them and find her listening devices, dropping them in disappointment as she searched for the last two blazers, having found five out of seven blazers.
She could hear a pair of footsteps hitting the floor as they increased in volume, Shiranui starting to sweat as she found yet another blazer near the bottom of the clothes pile, hastily flipping up the sweater in a practiced motion as she saw the glue applied in order to hold the listening device in place.
And the damn contraption failed on her as the listening device fell to the floor just as Kagerou rounded the washing machine.
Shiranui instantly and instinctively dropped the blazer in her last-ditch attempt to cover up the fallen listening device, and her heart dropped along with it as she snapped her head up in order to look at Kagerou, praying that the listening device was covered up by the blazer in time.
She gulped as Kagerou notified her of their successful attempt to find her belongings,
"Yo, Nui-Nui.
We found your skirts and your keys.
It was quite the ordeal, with several sets of your clothing being thrown into the baskets, but we did it!"
Lifting a familiar pair of keys held together by a metal ring, her sister continuing in a confused tone as she looked at the Admiral's clothes which surrounded her.
"Why're you searching the Admiral's clothes for your keys, you know these baskets are filled with sailor and officer clothes, right?"
Shiranui nodded dumbly, trying to recall the lie which she was going to tell her sister when worst came to worst, and she had to lie through her teeth about her activities if someone began to suspect she was up to something.
But Kagerou leaned down in order to pat Shiranui on the shoulder, her expression becoming one of patience, understanding and kindness as she smiled, although there was the teasing look in her eyes which Shiranui had learnt to identify and watch out for as she heard her sister speak.
"Oh, don't worry about it, Nui-Nui.
I understand that this is a phase which a lot of ship girls go through, so don't worry.
You're not alone."
What?
Just… what?
Shiranui was confused about what her sister was talking about, and that made her wary of what her sister suspected she was up to as she leaned down in order to grab Admiral Mako's jacket.
Right as Kagerou knelt down in order to join her by grabbing the left sleeve of the strewn blazer, tugging it as she innocently asked Shiranui, seemingly ignorant of the devastating secret underneath.
"Would you like me to help you with that?"
Shiranui blinked, before shaking her head as she gently grabbed Kagerou's hand with her left hand while using her right hand to grab where the listening device was underneath the blazer, speaking in a patient tone in order not to arouse any suspicion.
"I…
I made this mess, so don't worry, Kagerou.
I know how to clean up after myself."
Kagerou's smile drooped, but reformed itself into an understanding one as she released her hold on Admiral Mako's blazer and conceded.
"Yes, I understand.
If you say so."
Shiranui nodded, and Kagerou stood up and left her alone with the Admiral's clothes as she cleaned up behind her, taking deep breaths as she stabilized her breathing and kept her hands steady after almost being caught by her own sister.
That encounter was too close for comfort, and despite not truly believing in such things, she thanked whatever god watched over her and prevented her from getting caught by her sister, since it would be one embarrassing and humiliating spectacle if Kagerou, her favorite sister, was the one responsible for apprehending her.
She was wrong.
The embarrassing spectacle was to come later.
When the four of them went for breakfast after finishing the preparations for the laundry washing later in the day, they stepped into the canteen as Shiranui noted that Shigure was sitting with her fleet, the 1st fleet finishing their breakfast just as they came in.
And upon stepping into the large room which housed a significant portion of the ship girl population, Kagerou's face broke out into a shit-eating grin as she placed her fists on her hips and shouted while addressing the entire canteen.
"Hey everyone!
Nui-Nui likes to sniff the Admiral's used clothes in the laundry room!"
Everyone was immediately silenced by this, turning to look at her with judging eyes as Shiranui froze up as everything clicked together in her mind.
Kagerou thought that she was sniffing her Admiral's clothes because she was going through some sort of phase, where she was romantically obsessed with the Admiral?
That explained the entire 'I understand' thing, then.
Everyone's muttering was then silenced by Admiral Mako, who was looking down as her face became a luminescent red due to her blush reaching critical levels, and she had both her hands stuffed in between her clamped thighs as she fidgeted and stuttered awkwardly.
"W-Well, if you insist, Shiranui-chan…
I suppose I can send you some of my discarded clothes as 'material' to help you through your sleepless nights…"
Everyone gave her the 'Bruh' look, as though appalled and even disbelieving of their Admiral's perversion as Shiranui inhaled exasperatedly, giving Kagerou the stink eye and was rewarded with Kagerou flashing her winning smile as she knew that it would defuse Shiranui's mood and allow her to be let off the hook for her teasing as Shiranui thought to herself.
'God?
Remember me thanking you for watching over me?
Well, if you actually exist and are up there watching down on little ol' me, I would like to take my thanks back because I have reason to believe that you're looking down and laughing at my plight as though you're watching a damned sitcom.'
She sighed as her cheeks colored, and she hunched her back while walking over to the breakfast queue, and the two things which prevented her day from going to complete shit so soon into the day was Kagerou's winning smile and the fact that she didn't have to worry about her listening devices being found anymore.
The Sagami-nada Sea was silent on the 12th of May, especially since it was in the middle of the night and the lone ship in this part of the ocean was still, motors cut in order to prevent it from being potentially picked up by any Abyssals in the area, and even though they were well within the Safety Zone, the submarines aboard the large ship still possessed a healthy dose of paranoia of being spotted as they performed their duties.
Iku looked up at the container-ship-turned-mine-laying-vessel while floating on the surface of the ocean, feeling at home in the saltwater which supported her and kept her afloat as the temperatures tonight were cool, and she was well aware that these temperatures would be considered freezing for a human, and that their submarine bodies and its various abilities helped them to survive and thrive in the depths, where no ship girl was capable of traversing.
She communicated with her fellow submarines in order to drop the next naval mine into the ocean for her to activate and plant, holding up her remote for Goya to see as she did so, the pink-haired submarine leaning forward on the ship's railing in order to look down at her.
"Yo, Goya!
I need the next mine down here, asap!"
She could hear Goya's voice speaking to her over the shifting waves which surrounded her and the winds which whipped around her head and attempted to separate her drenched hair strands from each other with little success.
"Alright!"
And she could see that the converted container ship eventually ejected another naval mine through the side of its gargantuan hull, the naval mine plopping into the ocean as she felt the ripple of the ensuring wave gently push her to the left before she started swimming towards the naval mine.
The container ship's gigantic cuboid container on the deck contained a lot of the naval mines which were aboard the converted container ship.
And much like a gacha machine, the submarines who were on duty to watch over the ship's activities were tasked with working the system in order to drop another mine into the ocean through tubes which ran throughout the interior of the container ship and led to the large holes at the sides of the hull, which were elevated above water level.
Reaching the mine and lifting her remote, she scanned the mine as it bobbed up and down on the ocean as the air tank within it was fully filled in order to counteract the weights on the naval mines, which were installed in lieu of the anchor and chain on older naval mines.
Hearing the beep of the mine in order to signal its activation, Iku felt safe in its presence as she knew that the only thing which could set it off was a nearby Abyssal presence, so suffice to say, it wasn't going to detonate at point-blank range anytime soon.
She used the 'Mark set-point' and then the 'Down' button on the remote in order to set a reference point which was the surface of the ocean, and the mine was lowered into the frigid ocean as air bubbles seeped out of the small holes in the mine's shell.
Guiding the naval mine down manually as she kept a hand on a handle which was incorporated into the surface of the mine, she looked down at the pitch-black darkness of the ocean depths and heard Hachi's voice resonate in her head over the radio as it provided her company in the silent ocean which was the Sagami-nada Sea, population: 1.
"Alright, Iku.
We'll be setting this mine down at these coordinates which I'm sending you."
Iku responded with a muffled,
"Aye."
As she received a series of numbers over the wireless radio, punching those numbers into her remote in order to enter the coordinates where they wanted to plant the mine, pressing the 'Confirm' button as the six rotors on the naval mine started to whir, more air bubbles pouring out of the various 'pores' in droves as Iku swam alongside it.
Scanning the naval mine with her remote meant that she temporarily paired them up as the mine was activated, and the mine would transmit its current coordinates to the remote and the distance to its intended target, being guided along by the rotors and the air tanks within the mine to move it in terms of coordinates and depth respectively.
Another naval mine popped into view amidst the relative darkness of the night sea, subtly making its appearance much like a nocturnal beast slipping out of the shadows where it belonged as Iku activated her night vision, her legs scissor-kicking slowly in order to keep moving.
The mine was primed and planted, and she could see another window pop up on her remote as she saw the coordinates of this other mine appear on the screen, and the relative distance of the moving mine and the planted mine as reference.
Another specter appeared from the darkness gracefully like a mermaid swimming to the surface, and her slightly grainy and radiation-green appearance in Iku's eyes was attributed to her night vision mucking up her vision despite allowing her to see better underwater.
Nimu was surfacing, and her long, light-brown hair was floating about in the ocean and trailed behind her not unlike a bundle of tentacles and oral arms swaying behind a jellyfish's main body while she swam upwards, meeting her halfway in the process.
Her swimsuit was identical to Iku's in that it was a blue school swimsuit with her name, 'I-26' on a name-tag on her respectably-sized bosom which was struggling to escape the confines of her restrictive swimwear, and she wore a brown jacket with a white sailor collar on it, flaring out behind her as the properties of the ocean made it look as if she was weightless.
Her hair was held back by a white-blue headband and was tied up in two ponytails, and she gave Iku a warm smile and a small wave as she passed by Iku, and Iku reciprocated the gesture as they both knew that the ocean was a lonely place.
They often liked to greet and smile at each other while underwater in order to alleviate the boredom and the lack of human company deep underwater.
And save for the myriad of underwater animals which occasionally passed by them, there really was nobody down here who would converse with them, making the deafening silence and the overwhelming darkness of the abyss almost intolerable as they only had their thoughts and their wireless radio to entertain themselves with.
Now, as steel submarines back in the day, this didn't really affect them as they had their crew within them, and they were only able to feel these things on a rudimentary level, thus alleviating the feeling of loneliness felt then.
But as humanoids, these feelings isolated them and slowly eroded at their psyche the longer they dived underwater and heard the loud yet empty sounds of oceanic currents rushing by them as a piss-poor excuse for ambient noise replacing the noises of human civilization.
They constantly heard the metronome-like ping of their sonars reaching out into the nothingness and returning next to nothing, translating the titanic volume of the ocean which enveloped them and took up slightly over 70% of the Earth's surface, slowly feeling your steel body warping and compressing the further you stared into the abyss which all around you and fell further into it…
Iku shook her head out of her thoughts, wondering if she could ask for a break as submarines sometimes needed in order not to go insane from the isolation and danger of depth charges and torpedoes being rained from above, as other submarines unfortunately did when they cracked under the stress of war and far-from-ideal working conditions and had to be institutionalized.
In fact, the isolation was one reason why Iku felt like she had to act the way she did on land, being lewd, outgoing and completely unafraid of skinship with everyone else, because deep down, she felt as if she needed the attention as a human being.
Other submarines were content with simply being in the company of other ship girls when off-duty, and Iku could respect that, but for her, she craved the attention and interactions which she could receive when behaving like that, because when sortieing, she felt as if she were absolutely and completely dead.
Not in the conventional sense, mind you.
But in times like these, when you had no one to talk to and accompany you except the sound of your own breath and your thoughts, it was like being buried alive and left for dead, and she couldn't feel herself as anything resembling herself while sortieing as there was no 'other people' for you to bounce your personality off of in order to affirm your identity.
The constant threat of being blown up by either depth charges or torpedoes didn't help either, and they sometimes had to play a game of 'Catch The Sinking Teammate' and had to look into the dead eyes of their teammates.
If they even had them anymore, as Maru-yu once corrected Imuya and silenced the submarines for a good ten seconds with that horrifying image being seared into their minds.
That maddening isolation drove her to seek out everyone's attention with her developed body and loose attitude not unlike that of a harlot, since everyone would at least pay attention to her and help make up for the lack of human interaction in her sorties.
Was it the best way to deal with things? Maybe not.
But everyone was understanding enough to know that their job was tough, and even though everyone rolled their eyes at Iku's antics, she knew that they knew that it was her way of coping with things, and receiving any form of attention, good or bad, from her fellow comrades and her Admiral (who was easy enough for someone who was as well-endowed as her to please) was one way for her to recover from the soul-crushing work they had to perform on sorties.
She really felt as if she needed that break now, and Iku noted that the mine was nearing its intended destination as the rotors slowed.
It stopped as it reached its inputted coordinates and knew where it was relative to the other mines in the area, and Iku scanned the mine again in order to confirm its position and disconnect the pairing before letting go of the remote and allowing the retractable coil to reel the remote back onto the belt which they wore while on mine-laying duty.
Wouldn't want to drop anything into the ocean and waste time trying to search the ocean floor for it with the help of an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle, hmm?
She could almost see the dull hemispheres of other mines which were placed at depths which were lower than the mine which she had just planted, and those mines which were planted on the ocean floor or close to it were either of the traditional 'anchor-and-chain' kind, or had one of the submarines use an extendable robot gripper toy to grip the handle on the mine.
They would then dive down with the mine to the maximum depth which they were comfortable with reaching, lest they implode from the pressure of the ocean acting on their bodies.
Using the gripper toy, they'd lower the mine to a depth which was beyond what submarines were capable of reaching, but was beyond what the 'anchor-and-chain' mines were capable of reaching in order to prevent Abyssals from attempting to swim through the gaps in the naval mine formation, using the electronic interface on the electronic gripper to confirm the mine's coordinates before unpairing the mine from the remote.
Thinking back on things, perhaps submarines being chosen to be mine-layers was always meant to be, since they were capable of diving and priming the mines at depths which were dangerous to humans.
They could facilitate an efficient and fast system of planting mines underwater, especially the new batch which didn't contain an anchor and chain and were thus slightly harder for humans to plant.
And perhaps it was a slow, slippery slide down the slope of insanity that was war, but while submarines in the past were reluctant to do this job because of the risks involved, they were slowly desensitized to these matters as the war went on, partially because it gave them something else to do down in the depths, where boredom could drive them up the wall after prolonged periods of deep diving.
The detonation of a naval mine also produced one hell of an explosion, and the submarines eventually learnt to associate an underwater explosion with a dead Abyssal, and learnt to look forward to a bigger explosion which would kill more Abyssals who were attempting to sneak around underwater.
Perhaps this was them attempting to look for a passing and ephemeral beauty within a majestic and violent explosion, which annihilated and purged everything in the area in order to serve as a cleansing agent of sorts, amidst the bloodiness and ugliness that was war?
Perhaps.
Besides, they could help out some more with their diving abilities, so why not?
Diving back up towards the surface, Iku was a little excited to see how this battle was going to play out for real, because she knew that the Admiral had modified these mines so that their weights would come off and allow them to float up to the surface as their discarded weights wouldn't be there to hold the mines in place, and their air tanks would provide the buoyancy force needed for them to surface.
She spoke into her radio in order to talk to the submarines who were on the converted mine-laying ship in order to confirm with them what they likely already knew, double checking as they didn't want any miscommunication when it came to explosive hazards.
"Girls, we have this mine in place.
I'm coming up in order to plant the next one, and we'll rotate after that.
Four hours of doing this crap gets to you eventually."
And she could hear Maru-yu speak up over the radio, likely getting ready for her turn at a dip as she spoke.
"Acknowledged.
I'm on my way down now.
You can use the railing lift in order to hoist yourself up."
Turning off the radio, she headed to the surface as she saw that the gargantuan underside of the ship's hull had cast a shadow on the ocean itself, and couldn't be missed as she had already detected it as a fat blip on her sonar, allowing her ample time to avoid it and avoid smashing her head against the hull as she broke the ocean surface, her lungs clearing themselves of water as they tasted cold, fresh air entering them, enriching her cells with delicious oxygen.
Perhaps she was different from her fellow submarines, like Hachi, who preferred reading, and Goya, who liked going on more missions with her fellow ship girls in order to alleviate her loneliness, but for her, she felt at home while commanding everyone's attention in almost any way possible.
It was a constant reminder to herself, for herself, that she wasn't going to become an unperson anytime soon, to be forgotten by everyone as if she had sunk and had fallen back into the abyss, to fade from everyone's memory as her name was crossed out from a dwindling list of ships, which they were subjected to in the past.
Iku was Iku, but without everyone else being present underwater to see, hear, and acknowledge her in their minds as Iku, did being 'Iku' matter anymore in the vacuum that was the ocean depths?
Was she reduced to nothing by the nothingness which enveloped her down there, as if she was no different than the sunken submarine which her name and past were derived from?
She had an inkling of what the answer to that question was.
And it frankly terrified her.