Rule 2136. You cannot switch ship class or type by growing up. Stop telling the destroyers otherwise.

DING-DONG!

Musashi looked up from the manga she was reading at the ringing of the doorbell, and stood up to go answer the door. Standing there were Enterprise and Yamato, dressed in formal clothes and looking rather blissful.

"Date went well, I take it?"

"Yup..." E breathed dreamily.

"Yoshino didn't cause you too much trouble, I hope?" Yamato cut in.

"Eh, nothing I couldn't handle," Musashi assured her sister, before suddenly shifting to sheepish. "Just, uh, you've got a new hole in the kitchen wall and I don't know where you keep any repair materials and-"

"It's fine, it's fine," Yamato airily replied. "I've lost track of the number of holes she's put in the walls."

"More importantly, could you do something about that?" Enterprise cut in, her thumb pointing over her shoulder. "It's been following us all day for some reason."

Leaning over E's head, Musashi noted Kiyoshimo watching them - and doing an absolutely terrible job of hiding herself, a third of her face covered by a corner and the rest of her body fully visible. The destroyer, upon seeing Musashi staring at her, let out an adorable squeak, blushed, and bolted around the corner.

Sighing, the battleship, after a hasty, distracted goodbye to the lovebirds, went after Kiyoshimo. She didn't have to look for long; Kiyoshimo almost immediately tried to leap on her, shouting "Celestial Tree Sloth Attack!" Her face flatter than a pancake, Musashi caught the destroyer by the arms, halting her momentum in a second.

"You're not in trouble, y'know," Musashi remarked. "But I would like to know why you were following Sis and E."

Kiyoshimo froze, her legs reared back to kick, and then relaxed, though she also looked shamefacedly away. "I... wanted to see what kind of shipgirl Yoshino was."

One snowy eyebrow rose. "And why would you want to do that? For that matter, why would you assume she's even a shipgirl in the first place?"

"Both her parents are shipgirls, duh," Kiyoshimo replied. "As for the type, well... I heard from Arashi who heard it from Miyuki who heard it from Kasumi that destroyers change ship types as they get older. So if Yoshino was a destroyer-"

"Then the theory gains support, because no way a carrier and a battleship would make a destroyer," Musashi finished. "And you're hoping you'd become a battleship."

"Uh-huh!" the destroyer nodded.

Sighing, Musashi placed the destroyer down. "Well, as long as it keeps you out of trouble." At those words, Kiyoshimo's mouth scrunched up and she pointedly looked away. Hand, meet face. "What did you do?"

"I did nothing!" Kiyoshimo protested. "Kamikaze, on the other hand, miiiiight have decided to go pester the Yuubaris about an age-changing device. She said something about changing class...?"

BOOM!

Both shipgirls looked up to see a plume of smoke rising above the distant labs. A brown and pink speck readily identifiable as Kamikaze could be seen heading towards them, a wordless scream dopplering.

"Y'think she's gonna reach us?" Kiyoshimo wondered.

"Yeah, probably," Musashi answered. "I know my ballistics."

Sure enough, as Kamikaze came screaming in closer, it became clear that she was going to slam into the ground just a few feet from them - or even hit one of them. The flying destroyer didn't miss this either, and she called out "Kiyoshimo, catch me!"

Very deliberately, Kiyoshimo sidestepped Kamikaze's trajectory, leaving her to smack face-first into the concrete. A loud "AND STAY OUT!" drifted over from the labs.

"I'll give it time," Kiyoshimo decided.

"Good idea."

"F'ck you..."