A/N: Yup, definitely won't be able to maintain daily updates.
Perhaps I will actually follow your advice and take a break, play some video games maybe.
brb conquering Hispania
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"Close the door! Close the door!"Akatsuki shouted desperately.
"We can't! get back!" Ikazuchi returned shouting.
"We can't get back any further, dammit! and where is Hibiki?!"
Suddenly, Hibiki came out from the far corner of the room, holding a clear glass bottle filled with clear liquid.
"Move aside." the Russophile said as she met her lips with the glass mouth, bubbles filling the bottle as she emptied its content.
"Hibiki! this is not the time for vodka!" barked Akatsuki in an authoritative voice not fitting her stature. her younger sister ignored her, however, and merely walked towards the Abyssal head that had managed to force the door slightly open and was already halfway into the room.
Without any warning, Hibiki exhaled while one of her fairies protrude herself out of her dress collar, bringing a wick of flame from her own boilers. A stream of alcohol and flame burst out of HIbiki's mouth, hitting the Abyssal right in the face.
A great inhuman scream could be heard across the room, driving the people cowering behind Hibiki even further into despair. However, the gambit paid off. The Abyssal was driven back, burning, allowing the rest of the Akatsuki sisters to start blocking the door with anything they could find.
"It should be safe now, nano desu." remarked Inazuma as she leaned on a large table she had just put against the door. "Thank goodness these guys don't have any guns."
"It's not good at all."
"Hibiki, you want to say something?" said Akatsuki.
"Those are sniffers. the way they move suggests that they're designed to hunt for people hiding in small spaces quickly, like chaser dogs. I think Stalin used something like them on his purge."
Ikazuchi's face turned grim. "Hunting for people? you mean like..."
"Like us." finished Akatsuki.
Hibiki nodded. "Worse yet, they're clearly meant to operate on land. The next few years of this war will be very interesting indeed."
They must have talked too loudly since some of the civilians suddenly began crying loudly.
"And there goes what's left of our morale." snarked Ikazuchi. "Any ideas?"
Akatsuki broke off from her sisters, walked past the civilians, and towards Juneau and Sullivans who were facing a door that's supposed to be their exit but was blocked by a thick steel plate.
"Any progress?"
"Nu-uh." uttered Sullivans, shaking her head slowly and making her short brown hair bopped around in a way that Akatsuki would've found hilarious in any other situation.
"It's too thick. even a battleship would not be able to break it." said Juneau.
"We're trapped then?"
"Even if we could break it all that awaited us is the open sky. Maybe we could then signal for help, but..."
"They'll get us first." cut Hibiki, who had just caught up with Akatsuki.
"A last stand, then?" followed Ikazuchi.
The ever positive Inazuma was the last to join, and she suddenly found all eyes directed at her.
Inazuma gulped. "W-whatever happens, at least we'll go through it together this time, nano desu!"
Hibiki chuckled. "Well, I could think of many worse ways to die." She had lived as Hibiki and Verniy, and died as Dekabrist. and this time she would die again as Hibiki.
Hibiki was her favorite name, anyway. The kanji would look beautiful on a gravestone.
Suddenly, a great thundering sound could be heard, and the ships could see that their makeshift barricade was giving away.
"Hold it!" shouted Akatsuki, but before they could even take a single step, the barricade and the door basically exploded.
Wood and steel shrapnels rained upon all in the room, and the ships prepared themselves for one last combat, but the enemy they were waiting for would never come.
"Everyone alright?!" A tomboyish voice could be heard, and when the destroyers realized who it was coming from, their faces lit up with joy.
"Tenryuu-nee!" shouted Akatsuki, immediately scuttering towards her lead cruiser. She was immediately followed by Sullivans and the rest of her sisters. Juneau, however, was more interested in the small figure Tenryuu was carrying.
"O'Bannon!"
Juneau quickly approached Tenryuu to take the clearly wounded and unconscious O'Bannon from her hands, freeing Tenryuu to hug the rest of her destroyers.
"You've all been good?"
"Of course we are!" shouted Ikazuchi, smiling widely. There were no worries visible on her face.
"What about you, Sullivans? you good?"
"Uh-huh." Sullivans nodded. Tenryuu responded by patting her gently on the head, ruffling her hair. The little American DD didn't seem to be amused by the affectionate gesture, however, and mumbled in protest.
"Nnhh..."
"Ehehe...sorry."
After she had made sure that her charge were all fine and healthy, Tenryuu turned her attention to Juneau.
"What happened?" Juneau asked, caressing O'Bannon in her arms.
"Found her on the floor somewhere, alone. There were some enemies I needed to take care of but they're not that many. Most of the Abyssal seem to be rushing back downstairs, something big is probably happening below."
Juneau looked at the remain of the destroyed door, and indeed, there were no Abyssal in sight.
"So...uh...what you guys been up to?" asked Tenryuu suddenly in a relaxed tone unbefitting the situation.
"We've been trying to get that thing open." Hibiki answered, pointing at the steel plate blocking the exit.
"Oh? looks tough." Tenryuu slowly walked up for a closer look. examining the steel plate, she took out her blade from her belt, and gave the steel a good whack, just to check the material.
Unexpectedly, the steel slammed open, revealing a regular wooden door behind.
"Uhh...totally meant to do that." Tenryuu lied, though her words were drowned by the crowd's sigh of relief.
"That's amazing, nano desu!" shouted Inazuma, as innocent as ever.
With a smile and a loud kick, Tenryuu blasted through the flimsy wooden door, and after what seemingly a very long time in that enclosed building Tenryuu yet again breathe the crisp fresh air of the night.
But then, Tenryuu's knees buckled.
"Tenryuu!?" Juneau immediately rushed to Tenryuu's side.
"It's okay." Tenryuu raised her hand, stopping Juneau and the destroyers following her in their tracks. "Just a bit...fatigued..."
"Wait a minute...Tenryuu-nee, how did you get up here?" asked Hibiki.
"Ugh, manually." said Tenryuu, raising her bloodied blade.
"You fought your way up here?" asked Juneau, visibly shocked.
"Kind of."
Tenryuu stood up with more force than strictly necessary, trying to downplay her fatigue and wounds. "Anyway, let's see what we can do..."
Slowly and carefully Tenryuu walked to the edge of the building and looked down, trying to not contract acrophobia on the way. She was relieved when she saw numerous police sirens and other emergency vehicles surrounding the locked down building.
"Good, it shouldn't be that hard to get their atten-..."
Just as Tenryuu was about to finish her words, one of the windows a few floors below her shattered, and from the gaping hole a head protruded. At first Tenryuu thought it was a human head, but soon the head turned in an angle impossible for a human neck to do without breaking, and the eyes looking at Tenryuu were definitely showing an inhuman lust for blood.
"Ri-class!" Tenryuu shouted. "Get back!"
"What...?" Juneau looked confused, just like the rest of people behind her.
"Get back inside!"
Juneau looked hesitant for a moment, but she then dutifully began to usher the humans and the destroyers back into the building, despite their protest.
Tenryuu looked back down the side of the building, and saw the Abyssal climbing, bending the concrete like clay to hold. Without any cannons Tenryuu couldn't do anything, so she walked back, preparing to fight a definitely superior foe on an even ground.
Slowly, the enemy heavy cruiser picked itself up the edge of the roof, and soon it was standing right in front of Tenryuu, numerous giant guns pointed directly forward.
For a moment, the light cruiser and the heavy cruiser froze in a standoff. The Ri-class CA was carefully eyeing Tenryuu's blade, wondering what the obviously outgunned ship's going to do.
Meanwhile, Tenryuu was heightening her senses as high as her training allowed her, seeking for any mechanical sounds, movements, anything that'd signal that her enemy was about to fire.
Tenryuu's sharp ears caught the noise of the trigger mechanism inside the heavy cruiser's guns just in time before a blast of fire sent numerous explosive slugs towards her. Tenryuu jumped to the side as the floor behind her was shattered, but the blast was enough to propel her a few meters into the air. Like a cat, Tenryuu twisted in mid-air and landed on her feet. Not wasting any time, Tenryuu immediately sought to exploit the heavy cruiser's reloading and the smoke caused by its own gun, and charged.
And that's when she heard another 'click' from the trigger.
'Shit. autoloader.'
Tenryuu's realization came too late. with another deafening thunder of the guns, Tenryuu felt an explosion directly over her heart. Suddenly she realized that she was flailing in the air, and the ground was closing in quickly.
Tenryuu felt like her entire skeleton was crushed as she hit the concrete floor. when she stopped sliding on the ground, she immediately tried to get up again, only to came to a painful realization that one of her enemy's guns had hit her right through the leg.
Soon Tenryuu found herself gasping for air, but oxygen simply could not travel through destroyed lungs. She struggled to open her eyes through the pain, and saw her enemy closing in for a coup de grace.
But just when Tenryuu thought that she was going to die meaninglessly, she could see a trail of flame and the gleam of a glass bottle traveling through the air towards her enemy.
The molotov cocktail broke apart and the Ri-class screamed, more in irritation than in pain as the liquid fire spread into its internal mechanism.
"UUUUUUURRRRRAAAAAAAA!"
A deafening scream came from such a small stature, a stature charging into an enemy that she could not hope to defeat alone. But she was not alone. Behind her, holding what Tenryuu recognized as her own blade, was the destroyer Inazuma, her face burning like a ball of plasma with an uncharacteristic rage.
Hibiki rushed and slammed head first into the heavy cruiser, stunning it. Inazuma used this chance to jump onto her enemy, encircling her legs around its midsection for support. Tenryuu watched in awe and horror as she started to stab her enemy repeatedly and with such ferocity that it would even appall a member of the IJA. Inazuma was too small, too close for the Ri class to deal with its clumsy weaponry, and with a kick from Hibiki, soon the heavy cruiser fell, dead.
"You know, Tenryuu-nee. It would be nice if you start considering us more and stop fighting alone." said Inazuma while wiping the blood of her enemy from her face, sounding more angry than sympathetic even as she moved in to tend to the gravely wounded Tenryuu. Tenryuu wanted to give a snarky reply, but her lungs were already full of blood.
Although Hibiki and Inazuma were the first to come out to the rooftop, the first ship that actually reached Tenryuu's side was the cruiser Juneau. Tenryuu felt a tickling sensation on her chest as Juneau sent her repair fairies down in Tenryuu's gaping chest wound, dragging some sort of small rubber hose coming out from between Juneau's dress buttons.
Tenryuu felt something being connected inside her. Juneau took a deep breath, and Tenryuu felt her lungs being filled and she suddenly could breathe again, which was impossible.
"Nice...trick." remarked Tenryuu, using the air from Juneau's lungs to power her vocal cord.
"Learned it...haa...from a friend." said Juneau between her deep breaths. "Live and I might teach you."
Now that her brain no longer deprived of oxygen, Tenryuu had no problem of perceiving the sound of the people stampede running away from the building and onto the rooftop.
"Guys! they're back!" shouted Ikazuchi.
"They got us on the flank! Shut the door!" shouted Akatsuki from somewhere Tenryuu couldn't see.
"Call...for help..." Tenryuu wheezed.
Hibiki was the first to stand up, but before she could make a message to throw below or anything, something happened.
With a deafening sound of rotors and wind, a great light ascended over the rooftop, its shines obscuring the figure a flying metal beast behind. For a moment Tenryuu thought a new type of enemy had arrived, until she realized that it was merely a military transport helicopter.
Tenryuu could see a figure in white perching near the helicopter's open door, wearing full destroyer rigging including a spear and antennas much like Tenryuu's own hovering near a head full of long white hair. The figure jumped, landing firmly but heavily on the rooftop accompanied by the sound of cracking concrete.
"Murakumo-chan!" called Inazuma.
"Sheesh, can't you guys go one night without things going to hell really fast?" asked the destroyer to no one in particular.
Tenryuu smiled, relieved. Reinforcement had come and they'd soon be out of this mess. However, Tenryuu's relief didn't last for long, for immediately following Murakumo was another figure, this one clad in black, holding yet another spear and with a steel halo hovering over her head.
"Fufu...good evening, Tenryuu-chan."
It's the voice of somebody that so many months ago Tenryuu was so glad to hear would be assigned to a different naval base from her.
Tenryuu sighed defeatedly. "Somebody please shoot me again."
