So, after a month and a half of no update, I am finally back, and I blame my hunk-a-junk of a laptop for this. Was working on both this and the new Arknights story when it finally committed no living. As you can already guess, everything that wasn't already uploaded onto FF went kaput like goddamn magic show.
Good news is that it didn't take all that long to get a new one, thanks to one of my bro at college hooking me up with a secondhand store he knows.
Anyway, enough irl stuff, and enjoy the read.
Chapter 22: To the Sanctuary
Despite putting up a decent fight, in the end the two Crane sisters still suffered a humiliating defeat at the hand of the Grey Ghost. As the victor continued on their march, the fallens were left behind to be swept away by the storm. At the very least so too will their humility…however, destiny is never ever so merciful.
"Uugh…" feeling the wave constantly hitting on her face and causing sea water to get into her mouth, Zuikaku groaned then slowly opened her eyes.
Countless island of varying shapes and sizes, with the smaller ones more closely resembling giant stone pillars that were raised from the sea floor than actual island. Decorated on top of each island is an entire forest of blossoming sakura.
After scanning her surroundings for any immediate threat, Zuikaku then looked down to check on her own condition. All over her body is covered with injuries, with the most serious one being her right hip. Every time she moved a little bit of blood oozed out, dying her red dress black.
Her Rigs is also in no better shape if not worse, since it took nearly the full brunt of the Grey Ghost's attack. With a flight deck like this, it's going to be quite a task to even get the fighters into the air, let alone controlling them in this state.
"Ouch…this…really hurt a lot…" Zuikaku groaned in pain while trying to unstuck her Rigs from the submerged reef. After a long while of struggling, she finally succeeded but then was forced to take a breather to regain her stamina.
Panting heavily, Zuikaku then scanned her eyes on the surrounding once again to try to figure out just where exactly did she end up in. After the fight with Enterprise, both she and Shoukaku had then blacked out and got swept away by the storm, that part was for certain. Then just where on earth did the storm bring them to?
There are sakura trees everywhere, something that can only be seen in the Sakura Empire, however the scenery does not match with any place in her memory and the storm could have swept them all the way back to the Sakura Empire.
She then tried the radio, but there was only static. If it wasn't for this wound on her side that is requiring her everything just to stand, she for sure would have set out to look for Shoukaku without knowing where to start like a chicken running around with its head cut off.
Then Zuikaku suddenly recalled a similar case to this in the past.
After the last major operation which is Divergence Chessboard, she had the chance to read the combat report submitted by the Ironblood thanks to Commander Kasai.
In the report, it mentioned that after the waves of emerging Sirens were wiped out, the Ironblood's Armada and one other Ship Girl were sucked into the massive whirlpool and found themselves in a Mirror Sea. There, radar, radio, any other mean of navigation and communication was rendered completely useless and they had only visual confirmation to rely on.
So with that in mind, holding onto her wound, Zuikaku sent out a scouting plane to get her bearing on the area.
Via the scouting plane, Zuikaku saw several more island clusters similar to the one she's at, all covered in the same color of blossoming sakura. Once the plane had ascended higher, Zuikaku could see a giant wall or better put yet, a barrier of thunderstorm spreading over the entire horizon.
"So this is really a Mirror Sea then…" she mumbled to herself. However, compared to Divergence Chessboard, many things about this Mirror Sea differ greatly from the last.
While the exact time of appearance is unclear, this Mirror Sea remained undetected and unnoticed by all, even the four great nations were none the wiser of its existence. Second was its defense mechanism. The last Mirror Sea not only was it protected by a thunderstorm and a massive whirlpool, its escort was an entire army worth of Siren, whereas this one is well-hidden inside a storm that appears natural at first glance.
If a comparison was to be made, the first Mirror Sea was, by all indications, a show-off of might, while this time they're clearly trying to keep a low profile. But then, something doesn't begin to add up. Just what does the Siren hope to achieve by opening up this Mirror Sea, if it wasn't for an invasion?
"Damn it, first was Commander's injury, then Akagi-senpai gone missing. Why does bad things keep happening one after another-" and it was then that her mind arrived at a dreadful scenario.
"No…No no no, there's just no way, no freaking way!" she immediately denied that possibility, but what if it's true? What if the purpose of this Mirror Sea is to abduct Ship Girls?
Zuikaku can't even come to imagine what sort of horrid thing will the Siren do with the abducted girls. And she shuddered at the mere thought of Shoukaku being one of the abducted.
Now the pain and injuries don't even matter anymore. The only thing in her mind right now is to find her sister, and fast.
With all her might, Zuikaku forced this wreck of a body of her to move and followed the scouting plane. First she'd need to get out to open water to chart a clear course of navigation. Both her and Shoukaku was together when the storm swallowed them, so she couldn't have been washed further away than she was. Once the two of them are united, then she can worry about whether this Mirror Sea is exactly what she feared it to be.
Heading toward the opposite direction of the storm barrier, after about 15 minutes of struggling to keep herself moving in a straight line and bumping into the smaller islands, the exit to this cluster of islands was finally within sight.
"Whoa…" was the only word that she could uttered before the breathtaking scenery that awaited her.
The vast blue sky overhead was decorated by white clumps of cloud, all dyed in a gentle pink hue of the magnificence sun that is rising over the horizon that spread endlessly before her eyes. Witnessing such majesty that no master artisan could ever hope to recreate, for that fleeting moment Zuikaku felt like all the fatigue in her body had been cleansed.
"If nothing else, the Siren does have some good taste in decoration. I wouldn't mind living here if it wasn't for the fact that we're at war with each other." Zuikaku thought to herself out loud. But this brief moment of respite then soon came to an end. As she was busy admiring the beautiful scenery, the scouting plane flying above head was shot down.
"Right, this place is still the Siren's home turf, no time to be sightseeing!" Zuikaku then turned around and prepared herself for combat. But when she saw who the enemy was, her eyes widened in shock.
"Wait, Akatsuki? Nowaki? Is that really you two? What was that just now for?!" before her eyes are definitely Akatsuki and Nowaki, the two Destroyer girls assigned as hers and Shoukaku's escort for this mission. Seeing as they're clearly the ones who shot down her plane, Zuikaku asked but there was no response. The only thing she received are their soulless stare when the duo aimed their cannons at her.
"MISSION…DESTROY…" the duo said those words in an eerily robotic voice. Zuikaku then shielded herself with her Rigs. Despite its current sorry state, Destroyer's small caliber cannons cannot hope to penetrate through a Carrier's armor plating. So the duo then launched a torpedo barrage.
"You've gotta kidding me!" a heartbeat late in reacting, Zuikaku deployed her anti-torpedo countermeasure before quickly falling back out of the barrage's blast range.
"Seriously, what the heck, you two?!" Zuikaku yelled at them, but once again received no answer. So her assumption was spot on, the purpose of this Mirror Sea is to abduct Ship Girls, to turn them into soulless puppets to be used as pawn for the Siren. That means Shoukaku too has…
"Kyaah!" distracted by her own thought for a second, Zuikaku completely forgot about the enemy in front of her. After the first missed barrage, Nowaki and Akatsuki had split up and continued to pelt Zuikaku from afar. And during that one second that she let her guard down, a torpedo barrage had managed to score a clean hit.
However, seems even that still wasn't enough to put her down for good just yet. Despite taking the full brunt of a torpedo barrage and seemingly being stunned, Zuikaku had soon regained her sense.
Reaching for the sword at her side, in one fluid motion she had unsheathed and swung it horizontally. The blade hit particularly no one, only the air in front of her. Nevertheless, her execution was simply flawless.
From her posture down to the smallest movement of the muscle, everything was precise to the point of being otherworldly. The amount of force behind the swing was enough to cause ripple on the water surface while also not lacking any of the finesse to make it truly beautiful. Such a feat is only achievable through intense training while exercising great discipline to oneself.
Amidst this majestic of a scenery, suddenly everything was pale in comparison to her beauty.
As a sakura petal then landed on the edge of her sword, it slowly slipped aside and continued to dance in the wind before landing on the water surface below. The sword in her hand is by no mean a dull one, but right now, all her killing intent and determination is meant for the enemy before her only.
"While I'd really like to stay and figure out just what did the Siren do to you two, right now finding Shoukaku is of utmost importance to me so I'll have to ask you two to stand aside!"
Meanwhile, deeper into the Mirror Sea, one of the Siren's research facility.
To the outside world, it has only been two days at best. However, inside this Mirror Sea where the rules of time and space no longer apply, a month has already passed. And for that one whole month, this Mirror Sea is where the Sakura Empire's commission fleet had disappeared to.
Inside a well-lit room furnished with strange giant machinery, standing in front of a giant floating sphere was Akagi. Measuring about 3 meters in diameter, the exterior of the sphere in question is an amalgamation of countless hexagonal pieces, constructed from some sort of unknown semi-transparent material. Three rings of light hovered parallel to each other and around the sphere, with six paper familiars constantly orbiting around.
With the view being obstructed by so many things at once, while it is nigh-impossible to tell what is contained inside that sphere one could still make out a cubic object that is radiating with a bright blue light in the center of the sphere. A Wisdom Cube.
Right where Akagi stood, in front of her was a holographic terminal. As expected of Siren's technology, beside numerals which are still universal even for them, the letters and symbols that could be seen on the holographic screen do not seem to belong to any known language in the world.
Every now and then, a pop-up would appear on the screen and around the sphere, prompting that there is some sort of irregular occurring, and all of them were immediately resolved by the system and the six paper familiars. Because the system is fully automated and required no outside interaction whatsoever, Akagi stood with both arms crossed and simply observed in silence.
As she was too engrossed in her observation, Akagi did not noticed the door opening. Only until Kaga called out to her when the two was right next to each other did Akagi notice the former.
"The procedure is completed, sister."
"Ah, is it now? Then I guess I'll be stepping out for a bit then. It has been a whole month, after all, and I'd be lying if I said I don't miss her naïve, straightforward and gullible personality even just a bit." Saying with slight amusement in her tone, Akagi then walked off.
With only herself left in the room, Kaga looked up to the mysterious sphere while a hand placed on her chest.
"Everything is for the future of the Sakura Empire. Even if it is considered heretical, we're prepared to face the consequences. All I am asking is to have mercy on her soul." Walking up to the mysterious sphere, Kage then reached out the hand placed on her chest, toward that radiant blue light.
"Please save Akagi, Commander-sama.
"Haa…haa…it's…finally over…"
After one long drawn-out battle where many ingenious tactics and ideas were involved, one way or another Zuikaku was able to defeat both Akatsuki and Nowaki. At first it was her red one-piece skirt, now even her white coat was also dyed black, from both her own blood and the burnt mark of incendiary rounds.
Looking at the two of them as they started to sink, Zuikaku then collapsed on her knees from both accumulated fatigue and a sense of guilt.
"I'm sorry, you two…I'm sorry…" she whispered with tightly clenched fist. Tears could be seen trickling down her cheeks, but Zuikaku had quickly wiped them away and through sheer willpower and her determination to look for Shoukaku, she stood up once again.
"No, there will be time for grief when all this is over. Now, I must find Shoukaku and get out of here-" but she wasn't given the chance to finish her sentence as the moment Zuikaku turned around, she immediately felt the chilling sensation of cold steel pressed against her neck.
"Ugh…Hyuuga…Ise…" she muttered.
Before her was the Battleship sisters who were on the same commission fleet as Akagi and Kaga that had gone missing two days ago, Hyuuga and Ise. As disciple of the same school of martial art, the two sisters each wielded a naginata into combat, and it is those two naginatas that are pressing their blade against Zuikaku's neck like a pair of scissor.
Now the more urgent matter would be how to get out of this situation. After that last fight, she's now down to only two usable squadrons, one torpedo and one normal fighter each. What's more, this Hyuuga and Ise seems to have received quite some upgrades along with their mind-control as their Rigs were vastly different from the last time she saw them.
"My my, now isn't that my cute little junior, Zuikaku?" as Zuikaku was still racking her brain trying to think of a solution, a familiar voice rung out and immediately, both Hyuuga and Ise then lowered their weapons and stepped aside.
"A-Akagi…senpai…?!" Zuikaku said with bewilderment in her voice. Seeing her senior complete unscathed and not mind-controlled like basically everyone she has met until now, instead of feeling relieved, Zuikaku was overwhelmed by a great sense of confusion.
"To come all the way out here to visit me, what a caring junior you are! Ah, where are my manners. It is a host's duty to make the guest feel at home. So how about you go and show your little sister our hospitality, Shoukaku?" those words sent shiver down Zuikaku's spine. When Akagi stepped aside to make room, from behind her Shoukaku then stepped up, her eyes and expression akin to that of a puppet.
It made her entire being tremble with rage.
"Sis!"
So like, Richelieu is finally officially released, and boy is she gorgeous.