"Am I… dead?"
Cleveland slowly opened her eyes, peeking timidly from behind her arms. The first thing she noticed was that it was hot, very, very hot, and her skin was tingling as if millions of small animals were nibbling away at her body.
Is this Hell?
The answer was-no, it wasn't hell.
Cleveland was still on the sun-shaped platform. She was still clutching Independence's cube. She still had all the parts of her body intact, and she-quick head count-still had all her sisters.
Beyond that, though, everything else was unrecognisable.
The explosion of the bomb had quite literally torn the walls of the facility down, exposing the inside of the lagoon to the horizon. The tracts of inward-facing shore were no longer covered in sand, but rather were glittering with a black, glassy-like sheen. Wafts of steam were drifting off the sea, humidifying the air and making it hard to breathe. Cleveland was suddenly aware of a slight drizzle, the water that had been flung up by the explosion still cascading down upon her forehead. The platform they were sitting on was blackened and pitted save for an odd, circular-shaped area around the Union KAN-SEN, which was relatively untouched.
They were trying to bring the place down, with us in it. The entire place is gone-everyone in it is probably dead. This was a final failsafe-kill everyone involved.
"You okay, Independence? Yeah-there's a good girl." Cleveland nuzzled the cube in her hand.
"Enterprise?"
"Yes?"
"Are we alive?"
The white-haired carrier, who was huddled next to Cleveland as if to shield the smaller cruiser with her body, nodded. "It appears we are."
"Why?"
Enterprise frowned.
Four wings of incandescent light splitting the sky-a globe of red, shielding flame-and nine brown tails.
Akagi.
"I think… it might have been Akagi."
Akagi.
"Where's Akagi?"
"Oh… oh, my God."
A flaming something was lying in a heap several metres away from the group of Union KAN-SEN. Kaga and Zuikaku were already standing next to the bundle of fire, the two Sakura carriers facing away from them, but Kaga's drooping tails and Zuikaku's rigid frame told them all they needed to know.
Something had gone, very, very wrong.
Quickly the battered group of KAN-SEN dragged themselves to their feet and hurried over.
"Akagi-senpai… " Zuikaku choked on the words as they scraped their way out of her throat in a pained rasp, while Kaga simply stared at the flaming bundle, her face inscrutable. Rivulets of blood ran down the right side white kitsune's face and from her nose, dripping onto her shirt, and Cleveland realised with horror that the fox was missing an eye-and that it wasn't growing back.
"Kaga, your eye-"
Although Kaga didn't speak a lick of English, Cleveland calling her name was enough to cause the carrier to turn and regard the cruiser. Noticing the concerned look on the strawberry blonde's face, she quickly realised what Cleveland was talking about and shook her head gently. Cleveland understood the silent message.
It's okay. I'm okay.
Kaga's remaining blue eye stared steadily back at her, unwavering, but Cleveland could feel a cold, impossibly deep and unbearable grief behind the gaze.
Akagi lay still in front of them, her body wreathed in a halo of flame, so radioactive Cleveland could feel the tingle on her skin from where she was standing. She wasn't moving. The fire hungrily consumed the clothes on her body, but the carrier's skin wasn't even scratched as the twisting crimson ribbons writhed over her.
The fire isn't hurting her-so what-
And then Cleveland saw. The kitsune's eyes were slightly, as if she was exhausted, and a thin trickle of dried blood was just visible coming from her nose, nearly obscured by the fire if you didn't look carefully.
Brain damage.
Cleveland's eyes briefly flashed back to the war, as she charged at a Sakura carrier during some battle in Southeast Asia she barely remembered, her anti-air guns swiveling and cutting down launched planes with murderous accuracy. Just as she got into distance and aimed her guns, she saw said carrier swaying on the spot, coughing and whimpering, eyes glazed over, blood spurting from her nose and spattering down the front of her dress. Cleveland took one look and sped away-she couldn't bring herself to shoot such a helpless girl in cold blood. Later, her handler had told her that carriers were linked to their planes and that one could cause sometimes-deadly trauma to their brains by shooting enough of them down. See, a plane is like an extension of their minds. They can feel what it feels, moreso for those Nips whose technology is meshed with their souls. Kill it, and they experience that miniature death firsthand. No one's brain can stand up to dying again and again.
The red crosses that Akagi had used to launch planes, scattered all over the carrier's body, scorched and torn, told the rest of the story.
Another use of those crosses, which Cleveland had seen only once, was the combination of several to form a shield of fire.
Irreversible brain trauma by repeated destruction of neurally-linked empathic equipment was what the higher-ups used to call it.
Cleveland had heard an Union carrier, probably Bogue, refer to it as being cooked out.
Strangely though, Akagi had a small, serene smile on her face, as if she was a napping small animal, even as the fire slowly started to burn brighter and brighter. Small flakes of brown hair began to drift around the air and still she did not move.
Cleveland clutched Independence's cube tighter and she heard Denver, the smallest sister in the group, sob quietly. Cleveland never failed to be impressed by her sister's compassion and ability to feel sad for the plight of just about anyone in the world.
She...died. She protected us and she died.
The flames flared brightly, obscuring Akagi's peaceful face for the last time.
In a final explosion of silent blue motes of light, Akagi's twin cubes fell to the ground with a sonorous thud. The light from the fire suddenly gone, there was nothing left in the air but the darkness of early dawn and the slightly sulfurous smell of burnt brown hair, as a blackened paper cross danced for a moment in a thin wind, landed on the water, and sank-never to be seen again.