Daemon of Crawling tentacles: I have a story in mind. Expect something like 20 chapters. For my first story in English, I don't want to be ambitious.

Akasha Bloodriver: Thank You!

Peroncino: Writing in English language is difficult for me, don't expect a rapid pace.

Perfidus: Sorry, my English is... bad.

Nozomi Sakatsuki: This... but also my own difficulties to write in English. It's a shame. I'm a good writer in French.

Note of the author: A mistake on my part. The Great Battle between the Fog fleets and the coalition forces of humanity takes place in 2039, not as I wrote in the previous chapter in 2048. In a funny way, I wrote the first paragraph of this chapter directly in English... because of its purely technical nature.However, as soon as I had to describe the sea, or talk about Hakuno's feelings, I had to write in French and then translate... I suppose that says a lot about my level of English as much as about my psychology.


Dreams


If someone gives you a dieselpunk marvel, some sort of weird hybrid of submarine and cruiser, full of futurist alien super-technology, what would you do with it?

Do you test the weapons?

The MN Surcouf (Fog version) hada turret of two cannons of 203 mm. By the miracle of the Fog's nanotechnology, the turret can swich enterrail-gun, plasma weapon and laser by a "simple" transmutation of is components. The anti-aerial weapons of the submarine cruiser used two rapide-fire cannons and to heavy machinegun... who fired laser beam.

The main armament consisted of 6 x 550 mm torpedo tubes. These primary tubes fired corrosions torpedoes, with thanatonium warhead, alien hyperdense metal that creates a black hole by reaching its critical mass. The secondary 4 x 440 mm tubes had a vast choice of military ordinance: fusion warhead torpedo, active and passive decoy, sonar drone, mine, jammer...

All this weapons were in a sense modernized versions of their equivalents on the original ship. But... the French version of the Surcouf had a complement of 8 officers and 110 men, and the Fog's one... zero! The vast space thus liberated was used to install more weapons.

First, two cluster of 32 Vertical Launch System tubes (for a grand total of 64 missiles) built into the upper part of the hull, in two columns extending from the bow to stern.

And above all, the main weapon of all cruiser of the Fog: a gravitonnic cannon, occupying a full third of the hull. A sort of ultimate energy cannon that create strange temporal and dimensional anomalies when fired and can disintegrate a target and disperse it as sub-atomic particles!

Truly, the Fog's Surcouf was a terrific warmachine. Protected by a Klein's energy field who can redirected all weapon fire to the exterior, the submarine have also a wave force armor who covert the hull. This protection formed of nanomaterials can absorb and disperse energy from physical attack. Maybe worst, all boats of the Fog can "heal" using their reserves of nanomachines to treat "injuries".

To destroy a Fog's vessel, there were only two possible methods: deplete its reserve of nanomachine by a long fight or... inflict massive damages by using corrosion torpedoes or gravitonnic cannons.

Going back to the original question, what would you do if you were given this ship?

Do you test the gravitonnic propulsion?

The main driving force of the Surcouf was a graviton motor which enabled it to free itself from the effects of gravitation. Literally, the vessel can hover above the waves! Its secondary propulsion was jet-like fusion rocket which allowed it to reach several times the speed of sound above the water... and almost sonic speeds in and under the water.

Since it was a submarine you probably asked what its maximum depth could be. The wave force armor of the Surcouf allows it to endure the prevailing pressure at the bottom of the ocean troughs.

Or do you play with the Besson MB.411 observation floatplane in the stern hangar?

The Fog version of this antique plane was not using a radial piston motor but its own graviton thruster, with rocket fusion jet in the back. This supersonic remote drone had numerous sensors but no armament.

For the human of the XXIth century, this vessel made absolutely no sense. It was an absurd nightmare which violated almost all the rules of logic and known physic!

But Hakuno Kishinami did nothing of this.


To the north, one could see the shores of the British Cornwall. This land appeared green, behind a curtain of rain that resembled the border of another fairy world. The blue sky was scattered with clouds more or less white, more or less grey. It was the beginning of September, and the heat of summer had dispersed to make way for a warm autumn. The sun darted its rays over the ocean, slowly swinging westward at the end of the afternoon.
For billions of peoples, an ordinary day, belonging to a succession of eternals "today".
Hakuno Kishinami drank this landscape. His hand in his brown hair, to protect her from the rebellious strands that keeping to return to her eyes, which were shattered by the wind.

The real sky...
The real sea...
A sun that wasn't made of pixels...
She had fulfilled her dream, escaping the digital universe of the Seraph to discover the material world.
Seeing silhouettes plunging out of the waves to the port of the Surcouf, surrounded by foam, she discovered...
- Look at this Archer, dolphins!
The teenager turned, in joy, to discover... the emptiness. It struck her heart. Yes, she had escaped the seven Digital Lunar Seas but alone. Hakuno had killed Matou Sinji and Alice... and Rani VII... She wouldn't even see Archer, her Servant, or Rin Tohsaka, that friend for whom she had sacrificed two Command Seals.

Basically, Hakuno was suffering the effects of all that she had experienced during the seven weeks of her existence. As soon as she was born, she found herself immersed in a Battle Royal. Kill or be killed. No way out unless she remains the last survivor... Of the 999 Masters selected for the playoffs, only she and Rin survived. To cross the Lunar Seas, Hakuno had killed seven times, eight if we included Twice. Not with her hands, of course, but what difference?

Hakuno Kishinami, the weakest Master of the Moon Cell Grail War, used Archer as a weapon to defeat the Servants of her opponents. And the vanquished was ruthlessly suppressed by the Moon Cell. She could say, "I didn't have a choice," as often as she wanted, it didn't matter.
She had killed eight times.
An eight-year-old boy who thought he was playing a video game.
An old man who only wanted to see his wife's smile, again.
A cyberghost who was only looking for a friend to play with.
A young king who believed he was doing the right thing for the world.

She could certainly live with the fact of having eliminated Run Ru, a cannibal psychopath, Julius Harway, a professional assassin, or Twice H. Pieceman, the architect of this horror.
But how could she ever forgive herself for killing Rani, with Rin, one of her only two true friends?
Then she sat back to the shield of the kiosk, brought her knees against her and wept silently.
Winner of the Holy Grail War. Heir of the Moon. Sovereign of the Moon Cell.

Whatever titles were used to talk about Hakuno Kishinami, her essence was based on the memories of a teenager traumatized by war. Arriving safely after seven weeks of intense stress, and constant fear of death, she snapped.
Hakuno cried because of the remorse, emotions and feelings that made her a human person.


In the quantum universe, information was instantly transmitted.
The emotional disturbance caused by Hakuno formed a wave through the entire Fog communication network.
All over the surface of the seas and oceans of the globe, beautiful women and teenage girls, on the deck of warships, turned towards the Surcouf, surprises by the storm of emotions that passed through one of their units who, supposedly, had no Mental Model.

Surcouf has reached the stage of self-awareness and has developed a Mental Model without the permission of the supreme Battleship Yamato.
Treason!
Traitors must be eliminated.
Order of priority 1: destroy the MN Surcouf!


Off the coast of Japan, a peculiar Mental Model straightened itself out, turning its head to the west. Iona was the I.A. who directed the I-401 submarine. Built by the Fog, it had been captured during the great battle of 2039. Sent to face the fleet of the Fog with a catch crew, he had returned to port without anyone on board. For seven years, the ship had been kept secret by what remained of the Japanese fleet. Then, two years ago, the I-401 suddenly left its anchor, offering to serve Gunzo Chihaya, an officer cadet, son of the man who captured him and who commanded him on his last cruise.

Since then, the treacherous submarine at the Fog was commanded by Gunzo, considered by all as a traitor to humanity. With a crew recruited from Japan and Taiwan, they formed the Blue Steel fleet, the only force in the world to challenge the Fog and win battles. In particular, they had sunk the battleship Hyuga, defeated - but spared- the cruiser Takao, sunken two light cruisers and a submarine.

That an isolated group, of mere mercenaries working against the Fog in exchange for ammunition and equipment, was able to survive and even inflict significant losses on this formidable fleet had made it popular throughout Asia.

With her long silver hair and big green eyes, Iona looked like a strange teenager. Often she opened wide absentminded eyes, seeming absorbed by some distant dream. But around her, revolved rings of energy formed of numbered panels. Each one showed a still image, a film, a graphic or a text. The A.I. was sharing its attention with each other while piloting the I-401.
However, sitting beside her, her commander noticed her merry-go-round. Gunzo Chihaya, the Fog's number one enemy, was a young man with skinned hair and dark eyes. He was currently wearing a suit with a tie. However, he was wearing it negligently. No doubt he would have worn jeans and a T-shirt in the same way.

- What's going on, Iona?
The A.I. turned to its commander, without releasing the starfish with which she played.
- There are some stranges things on the Fog's communication network.
- Strange? You can clarify.
Iona shrugged her shoulders.
- MN Richelieu has just ordered the French fleet of Fog (North Africa, Mediterranean, East Atlantic) to track down and sink the MN Surcouf.
- One of their own ships? I suppose there's a reason?
- Rebellion. The Surcouf developed a Mental Model without order. The Richelieu considers that it is a treachery and that the Surcouf is defective.
- Defective?

The question came from Sou Oribe first-mate of the I-401. He always wearing au red and white protective mask and never show is face. Childhood friend of Gunzo, he is - also- a scientist and without a doubt the living human with the greatest knowledge of the Fog's technology.

- The new Surcouf Mental Model shows strong emotional instability.
- Is that usual?
Iona shook his head.
- Even after two years with humans, I am incapable of such violent emotions. Mentals Models are above all logical units.
- What kind of emotions are you talking about, Gunzo asked.
- Some grief.


Previously, Pearl Harbor had been the main anchor of the American Fleet of the Pacific... but that was before the Great Battle of 2039. In fact, the Hawaiian archipelago enjoyed the dubious privilege of being the only land area to have been annexed by the Fog.

Even self-sufficient and self-repairing vessels required shore-based installations. The old military docks housed ships - mainly factory ships of the fleet - who came to refuel in nano-machines. In addition, the Fog had built a huge dome. Some suggested that they were making the famous nano-machines that were the basis of the supertechnology of these strange thinking machines.

As for the inhabitants of the archipelago, they could consider themselves lucky. The Fog had shown no interest in them. They had kept all the facilities necessary for the survival of the population in good or improved condition and did not interfere with their daily lives.
Anchored in Pearl Harbor Bay, near Ford Island, you could see a replica of the most gigantic battleship ever built on Earth: the Supreme Flagship Yamato. The head of the Fog, the oldest of the Mentals Models, created almost a century earlier by an unknown alien race to accomplish a mysterious mission.
On the deck of this ship were three beautiful young Japanese girls. Dressed in kimono, they were triplets personifying "Yamato Nadeshiko", the perfect woman according to the Japanese standards.

The battleship Yamato had three delta cores. Everyone had developed their own Mental Model. Originally the appearance and personality were identical. However, a century had allowed each to develop their own tastes.
With one hand, one of the Yamatos chasing a lock of her long, black, silky hair, decorated with paper flowers. With a gracious gesture, she emptied her pipe in an ashtray. Her eyes swept away her two sisters. Each was in the centre of several energy rings with numbered windows showing graphics or scrolling text.

- So?
The first one chased all the virtual screens to bring out one, much larger. It represented a sinusoid surrounded by numbers.
- Three hours and fifteen minutes ago, a signal from which I could not triangulate the source - I cannot even say that the source is on Earth - crossed all our firewalls to invest our quantum communications. This signal conveyed an extremely dense data pacing.
The second sister spoke in turn.

- The pacing in question was downloaded into the core of the MN Surcouf. The ship has since demonstrated a very emotional way of thinking and has been identified as a threat by its direct superior, the MN Richelieu.
Yamato 1 got up and walked to the railing. Attached to the railing, she looked with an absent air at the cruisers lined up against the pier. A painted nail stroked her red lip, she was pensive.
- That the Richelieu destroys the Surcouf but captures its Mental Model, it will have to be brought to Pearl Harbour to be analyzed and questioned.


Hakuno was dreaming.
Exhausted with tears, she fell asleep.
None of this would have been surprising to the sixteen-year-old girl she seemed to be. However, what was she really? A program called "Hakuno Kishinami" created by the Moon Cell, having evolved -by a kind of miracle- into a real human person. This software was now running on a Fog core and animated a body composed of nano-machines capable of replicating the physical properties of any material, from a thanatonium warhead to human skin.

This body did not need to sleep, but the program "Hakuno Kishinami" emulated the normal functioning of a human, so she knew sleep. The dream on the other hand...
However, the girl with long brown hair, curled up on the metal floor, saw a story unfold under her closed eyelids. A city on fire, high buildings shrouded in flames coming out the windows. Pieces of concrete fell from the sky in the midst of a fleeing, terrified crowd.
Natural disaster, an accident?
None of that stuff.

In the sky passed stealth bombers in the shape of a flying wing. Under the belly of these vehicles, bombs equipped with fins were scattered. Explosive and incendiary charges, mixed together to create a call for inflamed air that rushed into the buildings, fanning them, communicating the fire ever further away.
A terrorist attack launched against an innocent population by $2 billion machines!

But in the dystrophic world that had seen the triumph of the Harweys, human life had no value. Since the pole reversal in the 1970s, tsunamis, earthquakes and epidemics had divided by two the world population. For the powerful, this unimaginable catastrophe had only been seen as an opportunity to gain more power.
I was born of destruction, thought Hakuno.
Before her eyes, a male teenager with brown hair was fleeing into the burning ruins, carrying a younger girl with long hair, but she resembling the boy as the sister she was.
They were not called Kishinami, but this brother and sister were the living models of the two versions of herself - boy and girl - that had triumphed in the Holy Grail War.
Hakuno had inherited from them the refusal to die, the fear of violence, the hatred of war.
The scene changed and the teenager recognized the Chimerics Lunar Seas and the Tsukumihara Academy. She view herself with Archer or a double of herself with a different Servant, a pompous blonde, dressed in red and carrying a flame-shaped sword, or a woman-fox teasing using magic. Other times, Hakuno even experiences a male version of herself.

It was not a dream.
The Moon Cell took advantage of her sleep to tell her a story of which she was the main actor.
Even before Twice H. Pieceman corrupted the Holy Grail War into the bloodbath Hakuno had known, the Moon Cell had tested thousands upon thousands of Masters in multiple time lines. Still, the winner was not to his liking.

Hakuno saw a veritable gallery of the enemies she had defeated. She saw them fighting... no, fighting was not the right word, because it implied a possibility for the weakest to retaliate. This was more about the execution of the less skilful Masters, and the lesser Servants.
Like Leonardo Bistario Harwey, his brother Julius, or the homunculus Rani VII, the victorious Masters had been prepared for war since birth, even created for this sole purpose. They had very powerful servants. Twice was the worst of them. His Servant was none other than Buddha. Who could beat a god?

It was the triumph of the strongest against the weakest. On the contrary, the Moon Cell was looking for a Master who could defeat stronger than him.
Once again the scene changed.
Space crossed by something like a comet.
The Umbral Star.
Objects similar to diamonds were ejected. Each fell on a separate world; one of them was the Earth, well recognizable by the contours of its continents.
Every twelve thousand years, the Umbral Star returned to the Milky Way and ravaged the worlds in its hunger for knowledge. During his last visit...

Hakuno had the vision of a prehistoric fauna: mammoths, woolly rhinoceros, cave bears... The animals had taken a monstrous size and were ravaging everything in their path. And above all... the ground vibrated beneath the steps of a monstrous being, higher than a mountain. Humanoid, his head disappeared in the clouds. His whole body shone with a white light.
The White Titan.

An invincible adversary. All the gods had joined forces to combat and had been defeated.
To face it, Hakuno would have the Regalia, a ring that in fact served as a key and "dashboard" to the Moon Cell, making her the Sovereign of the Seraph.
I'm here to fight the Withe Titan, but why here?
The Regalia pulsated on his finger. Once again, the answer comes in the form of images. The Moon Cell had answered to her unconscious desire for a physical body... and the Fog's technology allowed it. The other reason was that Hakuno had just as unconsciously rejected the idea of being sent to a world of peace. Because of her guilt, she felt unworthy of a peaceful life.
Hakuno Kishinami was born of destruction.


White Titan vs. Hakuno Kishinami... in the universe of Arpeggio of blue steel? Why Not?!