"And this is the type 346 radar array!" Yu said cheerfully, translating for the ship's Captain, as the six Kanmusu followed him on a small tour.
The man only knew a smattering of Japanese, not enough to get a conversation going, so when the four Destroyers had been introduced, it had led to a brief minute of half-legible greetings followed by an awkward pause, before the Fu-Po sisters had realized their error and begun translating.
The Destroyers were initially slightly mortified at walking through the Haikou's hull, but the feeling gradually gave way to curiosity as the Chinese Captain, Bohai, wasted no time in showing off his vessel to the Japanese ships.
"Wow..." Inazuma turned to Hibiki, who was just as entranced with the array, "Hibiki, you had Radar, right?"
The white-haired Destroyer nodded, "Hmhm, type 13 and a smaller type 22, it was installed after you were all... gone," she paused for a moment, looking back at the bulbous four phased array antennas, mounted on the taller forward superstructure, "the type 13 can detect a big group of aircraft at 100 kilometers, it has trouble with small groups though, it can only spot a single plane when it's half that far." She turned, pointing at the small protrusion on her Rigging, they looked like a small pair of airhorns, "that's my type 22."
"Wow! You have radar!? That would be so cool!" Yu said.
"We never had anything like that, lucky..." Chien said, a tad wistfully, before turning to translate to Bohai, who was standing there watching the girls talk and trying not to seem out of place in his officer's uniform.
The Chinese man ginned a little when Chien was finished, and spouted back something in Chinese, Chien turned to translate, " He said the type 346 has a max range of 450 kilometers, and it can see singular craft just fine."
You could mistake Hibiki for an American Kanmusu due to the stars in her eyes, "Woah..."
"Imagine if it could target Abyssal aircraft! I'd love one of these!" Ikazuchi said, pumping a fist energetically.
"Uhm, I don't know, it's pretty big..." Inazuma said quietly, "I don't think it would fit on any of us."
Chien perked up, as if she'd just had a thought. She tugged on the sleeve of the Captain's uniform, waving the others forward, "Come on! We can show you her-"
"-HHQ's next! She doesn't get to fire them much, but they are still pretty neat!" Yu finished, grabbing the hapless human's other sleeve, and the Akatsuki's stampeded after the trio.
"...!"
Hibiki, who had been at the back, stopped abruptly, she looked around, seeing various sailors engaged in the day-to-day activities on board the ship.
All of them were men.
"Hmm..." The small white-haired Destroyer turned back, running to catch up to her division-mates. Still, she looked back over her shoulder, it was odd...
She could have sworn she'd heard a girl's voice.
...
"And these are the missile tubes!" Chien said, gesturing at the vertical launch silos, "HHQ-9's are a kinda-
-guided missile for aircraft, Haikou has about 30 of them right now, but she can fit more!" Yu finished, waving the group of vessels forwards, so they could look down one of the open shafts, some crewmen moving aside, from where they were performing maintenance on the launch cell port.
"What's the range?" Akitsuki asked, holding her hands behind her back as she leaned over the massive hole, skirt blowing in the wind.
"Two hundred kilometers!" Yu answered, "I saw them fired a few times, it's really cool, she's also got a bunch of Cruise missiles!" She made a face, "I dunno why they aren't called 'Destroyer Missiles' instead, Haikou isn't a Cruiser!"
"She is pretty big though, way bigger than big-sis Ning-Hai," Chien added.
"Does she have any regular guns?" Ikazuchi asked, only to scuff her feet, embarrassed, as the Chinese DE's simply pointed at the turret right next to them, mounted near the prow, "Ah, I uhm, didn't see that."
"This looks like a gun WE could use!" Inazuma said, walking over to the turret in question. She glanced at the barrel, "actually, it looks a little smaller than our Type 3's!"
Yu frowned, "It's bigger than ours!" she showed off her singular turret, "The biggest gun me and Chien have-"
"-Is our 76mm's..." Chien finished, before gesturing at the human-steel turret before them, "that's a 100mm gun, that's all she has for direct-fire, aside from her twin 730's up there." Chien pointed up at the bridge, where a smaller 30mm turret sat beneath the main superstructure.
"That doesn't seem like very much... Even we have six 127mm guns, each..." Hibiki said, gesturing at her own armaments.
"Yeah, but she can fire them really fast!" Yu said, before turning to Bohai, asking him a question, from the tone. She turned back, "She can shoot a hundred times per minute!"
"No way!" Ikazuchi gasped, "We could only ever manage about ten!"
"Удивительно... I blame the bag-propellent and hand-ramming, for making us so slow." Hibiki said, before pausing. She turned to look back at the ship's superstructure, squinting as she kept a hand on her sailor's cap, lest it fly off in the wind.
Inazuma followed her gaze, "What are you looking at?"
Hibiki looked for another moment, before shaking her head.
"...I don't know."
...
The small crowd of Destroyers were wrapping up their small guided tour, it had been enlightening for the four girls, though it left some of them feeling a little... inadequate.
"I've seen them before, but I still can't believe how far Destroyers have come since we were still steel-hulls!" Akatsuki said, following the DE's, "if we had her tonnage and weapons, we'd be Cruisers for sure!"
Chien laughed, "I'd say the same about you! Me and Yu can't even-"
"-reliably handle deep-sea waters! We're brown water ships!" Yu finished.
"But she's got a 7000-tonne displacement!" Inazuma cried, "We only have a little over 2000 at most!"
"...And we're only 390!" Yu said, raising her arms for emphasis, hands only-barely topping the auburn-haired Akasuki-class's head, "You Japanese Destroyer-girls are way better than us!" Her look turned sheepish as they walked down the hall towards the exit, "Don't let Ning know I said that, or she'll get all mopey. She doesn't like it when people compare her to her mom." she faux-whispered.
"I never knew Yuubari had ships based off her! DesDiv 30 is going to be happy to have a big sister! Though I don't think she likes us very much..."
"She never got over being forced to fight the people she was built for." Chien said sadly, before shrugging, "She doesn't hate you, just... Carriers." she shuddered slightly, before looking around, as if simply stating the class would bring one forth.
"Akagi's nice though! As... long as you aren't getting in the way of her food, anyway." Akatsuki mumbled the last bit, twiddling her fingers.
"..."
"Подождите... there it is again," Hibiki said, backtracking a few steps to look down the hall's intersection, the other girls stopped.
"What is it?" Akatsuki asked, seeing Hibiki freeze. She looked around the same corner, "You look really pale, almost like a-"
Akatsuki's words caught in her throat, as she saw a young Chinese teenager down the hall from them, staring down the hall in their direction.
A sailor, coming out of a nearby doorway, passed through the girl's mostly transparent body, as if she wasn't even there.
"-G-Ghost," Hibiki finished for Akatsuki, as the other Destroyers gawked with wide eyes beside an increasingly confused Captain.
The Chinese woman stared for a couple moments longer, before seeming to realize she had been seen. She smiled happily, and started jogging towards them down the hall, raising a hand in greeting.
"I'm telling you, those girls are Japanese Kanmusu!" One sailor said to another, the pair's legs dangling off the platform as they applied some fresh white paint over their vessel's hull, "They even had their Rigging out!"
"All the more reason they shouldn't be here!" Said the other, "what if they sabotage something? Or, or steal information on our ship designs!?"
His compatriot merely scoffed, "Pff! Those kids? Come on." He paused, to dip his brush into the open pail beside him, "They barely look any older than the Fu-Po sisters, and you know how immature they are. Could you see them committing acts of espionage? WITHOUT immediately fessing up to the first person that asks?"
"No, and that's the problem! Why would you send an obvious spy? That's completely counterproductive!" The speaking sailor cursed as some of the paint dripped, "Shit, anyway, just because the Captain is chummy with those two brats, doesn't mean he should just let them drag anyone they want on board! This is a military warship, not a tour boat!"
"Hey, brats or not, those two saved our asses along with Ning, remember that raid last year? When the Abyssals wiped out Nantan and sank the Wuhan? We'd have been on the bottom right alongside those poor bastards if they hadn't shoved a couple of torpedoes up that Cruiser's ass." He paused for a moment, before shaking his head, a disgusted look on his face.
"Mental image?"
"Fuck you."
"Ha-!"
The sailor's laughter was cut short, as child-like screaming started to echo from within the Destroyer.