Part One; His story – It's a curse

I dive behind a wall just as a shell zooms through the space I was in. I roll on my shoulder to come to a stop and put my rifle over the top half of the wall and pull the trigger in an attempt to blind fire. From the building to my south, I hear the crack of the anti-material rifle go off, once, twice, three times. I pull my rifle back down and wait.

After a few heartbeats, I take that moment to look over the wall and let out a breath, on one level I hated this job, it still bothered me when I looked at targets like this one after we got done doing what we need to do. I see one of my squadmates move out of cover and they nudge it with the barrel of their weapon before I hear on the coms, "Asashio is down."

The next thing I feel is the wind getting knocked out of me as I go flying through the air and I hear a voice call out in their language in anguish. I push myself off of the ground, coughing, my vision is blurry and I feel someone dragging me away. The roar of more rigging is going off and I fall back into the black.

XXXX

I'm pulled from that memory as the transport plane slams down on a runway, it takes me a moment to remember that memory was from years ago, back when we were at war with the Crimson Axis. On some level, I wonder why Azur Lane put me in charge of this base. I doubt it was simply due to my the amount of redaction in my service record. If if was, then they must be desperate to trust me based on just that alone. I just wish I could tell who I report to, why my service record is so heavily redacted. I'm sure if they knew they wouldn't be putting me in charge of a bunch of kansen, not when it used to be my job to kill them.

I get out of my jump seat as the plane starts to taxi off of the runway and I start to unstrap my kit from the cargo skid, drawing the attention of the loadmaster. She makes her way over to me just as the plane comes to a stop and the ramp goes down. Rather than chewing me out, she seems to pause when she sees the logo on my duffel, a half globe, a half leaf that is separated by an upward pointed dagger. She gives me a nod and helps me get my kit free.

Once I'm off the plane I hear it power back up and head off down the runway, I put a hand over my brow as I look around at this base. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of the fact that I wear a brown beret, but times like this; well I'd like a navy officer's cap. I take a moment to undo some of the buttons on my olive green jacket as I sling my duffel over my shoulder and continue to look around. That was when I spot it, just around the corner of the main tower for this airfield, a brown fox-like ear just above a red-eye. Shortly after it noticed me looking at it, it ducked back around the corner.

I sigh inwardly and adjust the feeling of the weight of my duffel as I start to head to the main building.

XXXX

During my walk to the command center, I noticed that the base seem to be a mixed population of kansen from various factions that had reason enough to be in the pacific. Perhaps the most surprising thing I saw was Eagle Union, Royal Navy, and Sakura Empire kansen interacting with each other without needing to fight. It made me start to wonder what my role here was going to be, they seemed to be getting along with one another well enough. I do my best not to really look at any of them, but I keep feeling like someone is watching me. I stop just before I enter the command center and look around and again I spot a brown fox ear and a red-eye peeking around a corner. When it notices that I see it, it ducks back around the corner.

I shake my head and enter the building, up to the top floor to where my office should be.

Once I get to it and push the doors open, I see that the office looks kind of small, but it seems to have a little kitchenette off to one side and a door on the back wall that is open slightly with light coming through the crack. I tilt my head to the side and enter the second room.

What I see when I get in there, is a much larger, very comfortable-looking office, a padded couch on one wall, with a coffee table and a couple of chairs with it. Empty shelves line the wall, along with cabinets, and filing cabinets. But it was what I saw at the back of the room, what would be my desk with two chairs in front of it. One of those chairs seem to be occupied, I could see a mass of light brown and fox-like ears on top of her head, I fought every instinct I had to reach for a sidearm at this point. She turned slightly to look at me, and I took note that this is not the same one that has been following me, this one has purple eyes. She seems to take me in for a moment before she says, "I expected you to get here faster Major."

I put my duffel down on the couch before I make my way to behind my desk as I say to her, "Sorry, but I had to walk from the airstrip I-"

"Amagi." She starts to say before coughing a little and adding, "My name is Amagi."

I nod but give her a sideways look as I say, "I'm sorry, but I've never heard of a kansen ever getting a cold before."

She sighs and shakes her head before saying, "Perhaps I will not be able to get this one over you Major, unlike your predecessor."

Again I keep a sideways look on her as I ask, "Anyways, you were expecting me?"

She nodded, folding her hands in her lap for a moment, before reaching down beside her and putting a wooden game board on my desk and started to put down game tokens and she said, "It's called Shogi, I would like to see how well you do."

I pick up one of the tokens and look at it as I say, "How do you play?"

"It is similar to chess, enough so that you should be able to pick it up quickly." She says as she finishes setting up before walking me through the rules quickly enough.

XXXX

We played for about ten minutes, in that time she had beaten me easily, as Amagi packed up the game she spoke, "I am impressed Major White, I did not expect you to even last that long."

"Thank you?" I asked in a slightly confused tone of voice.

She offered me a knowing smile before getting out of her chair and saying, "I am sure you will figure out your role here soon enough, I wanted to test if you could think laterally or not. As I am sure you will find this place has a challenge unlike anyone from special operations would be used to."

I'm a little surprised by that, my head tilting to the side as I ask, "How did you know?"

She shrugged and said; "Aside from the high-risk moves you made?" she waited for me to nod before adding as she pointed at my duffel, "That symbol. I know of it, and I know the role that those that bore it undertook during the war."

I sit back in my new chair for a moment before asking, "Do you hate me, for the things I did?"

Amagi shakes her head as she says, "If anything I pity you. Your duties asked you to do very unpleasant things and pay a heavy price for doing them." She paused to look down and ask me, "Were you there, the day that Asashio died?"

I look down at my new desk as I admit, "I was."

"Were you the one to kill her?" she asked, her tone level and very controlled.

I shake my head as I say, "No."

Amagi nodded as she said, "Then you were the one I almost clipped with my shells. Do you hate me, for doing what I did, Major?"

Again I shake my head as I say, "We were enemies at the time, just doing our jobs. I can be professional if you can."

"I can. Now let me ask you something less depressing, is there anything you would like to know?" She asked, adopting a lighter tone to her voice.

My brow knits together as I think about the fox ears and red eyes that had been watching me and I ask, "Since I landed, a kansen of your format has been watching me. She has brown hair and red ey-"

Amagi gives me a sideways glance, her right ear twitching slightly and her tails flicking back and forth for a moment as she cut me off by saying, "Akagi. I wonder why Akagi would be watching you?"

I shrug and rub the back of my head as I say to her, "No idea, do I need to be worried about my safety? Was she close with Asashio?"

She shakes her head, tapping her chin with a finger before saying to me, "No, they weren't. There must be another reason Major White."

I nod as I say to her, "Thanks, Amagi." I pause and look around the room before I ask, "Any ideas of what I should do first?"

She gives me this knowing smile as she says, "A wise man, knows when to ask for help. But I would suggest you take the day to read over your responsibilities here and seek out someone to be your secretary."

"Thanks, I'll take it under advisement." I say to her as she collects up her things, including a red umbrella.

As she goes to the door she turns and looks at me over her shoulder and says, "Be ready for rain today, last I heard it should be starting soon."

XXXX

Later that day as I was stuffing my orders into my duffel, I heard the rain starting to come down. Opening my curtains I look over the port and I think about the rain from that night as we got into position to take out that kansen. Then Amagi's words really hit home, she was the one that sent me flying and into the hospital for so long to recover from broken bones and a concussion. My eyes drifted down to the road and I saw one of the kitsune types, she had that brown hair and she was looking up in my direction and I just knew she was the one called Akagi. She was holding a large red umbrella to keep the rain off of her with one hand and the other was holding her jacket closed. I step back from the window and close the curtains before locking up and heading down with my duffel bag.

Once I got outside I see her standing in the same place, her head tilted to the side and she asks, "Did you sense me, Shikikan-sama? Akagi sensed you when you landed."

I tilt my head to the side as I ask her, "Aren't you Akagi?"

She nods and offers me a shy smile as she says to me "Akagi, is Akagi, Shikikan-sama."

I balance my duffle over my head as I use a hand to dig out a paper with an address on it as I ask her, "Do you know how to get to this address?"

She leans over to look at it and I get a good look down her top, they sure look real enough. After a moment she nods and says, "It is Shikikan-sama's dwelling, Akagi will show you the way."

I stuff it back into my jacket and start to walk with her and she adjusts the umbrella to cover the both of us as she looks at my uniform. I can see that she is inspecting it, trying to figure it out and she says, "I have not seen a green naval uniform before, I-"

I roll my eyes and correct her in a slightly sharper tone than I had intended, "I'm not Navy." She seems kind of surprised by my tone and I sigh pinching the bridge of my nose as I elaborate what I can for her, "I can't talk to you about where I served or which branch I served in, but I can tell you I am from the Maple Monarchy."

Her brow seems to knit together and after a moment she asks cautiously, "Have you spent much time with kansen before, Shikikan-sama?"

This isn't a line of questioning that I really want to answer on a base full of them, so I need to shut it down, hard and fast. Even I was a little surprised by the coolness of my tone as I said to her in a way that suggested she shouldn't ask, "Enough time."

Thankfully, that seemed to stop her from asking any more questions about that and the rest of the walk was done in silence. Once we got to my quarters I spoke to her again, "Thanks for guiding me here, I'll try to return the favor at some point."

I didn't wait around for her to say anything more as I dashed from the umbrella to the stairs leading up to the door and took out my keys to unlock it and head inside.

Once I was in, I looked around and noticed that it was fully furnished, yet the shelves were empty, clearly spaces for my things. The downside to my previous assignment is that my entire life was in my duffel bag, I didn't have much to put down, the upside to that is there wouldn't be much to pack up if I met my end on assignment. I head upstairs and put what little clothing I had a way, as I take out the last piece, I see a photo I had down there. I pick it up and look at the burned-out faces of everyone but me, the last survivor of my unit and a downed kansen of the fox type. I roll it over and look at the words on the back and I read it out loud, "The Foxhounds bagged our first fox."

I sit on the end of the bed and sigh before asking out loud to the universe at large, "Why was I assigned here?"

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A/N: I know this is a short chapter, but when you combine it with Red String; Her Story it actually makes for a longer chapter. For this story, I intend to keep this format, writing it from both sides in their own tales with the intent for the reader to read both.