June 6th, 2583, 0600 IST

Unknown Location

"Shit, shit shit, shit, shit!" Miho cursed again as another plasma bolt hit her cover. It had only been minutes since the convoy had been ambushed by a Covenant armor brigade, but it was already feeling like forever with the constant nose of gunfire and plasmafire as Army troopers and Grunts exchanged fire. Pulling out her SMG, she glanced at her ammo counter.

Down to 36 rounds already, she mumured. Poking her head out of cover, she was able to catch a glimpse of the Grunt manning the Covvie plasma turret as he blasted away at everyone UNSC he saw, purple bolts flying in all directions as the heavy machine blaster lit up. Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, she hefted her weapon, and opened fire. A storm of 9x33mm projectiles impacted across his nanolaminate armor, shredding him instantly before a nearby trooper armed the 40mm underslung grenade launcher on his MA37, firing the 40mm High Explosive shot onto the weapon, sending a spray of metal fragments at hypervelocity that shredded a platoon of nearby Brutes with ease. Reloading her weapon with a fresh 56-round magazine, she ran to a fresh set of cover as blasterfire hit her shields, draining them to near zero but still buying her enough time to get to cover.

"Shit, we are getting blown to bits here, we need support!" she spoke into her COM mic, her voice partially drowned out by weapons fire. At a patch of land nearby, a UNSC Army trooper armed a 37mm recoiless anti-tank gun, the shoulder-mounted gauss cannon resciminent of a bazooka. He didn't wait for long, as the 37mm tungsten round was launched out of the magnetic coils, accelerated to forty times the speed of sound. It promptly shattered across a Scarab, plowing through two of its legs while damaging two others. A second shot from a 50mm field cannon promptly obliterated the walker. Stepping a little out of cover, she was slammed by a hail of plasmafire but managed to empty her magazine at whatever donut was firing the blasters. It seemed to work, as the fire died down slightly, and several contacts disappeared off her motion tracker. Popping down to do a swift reload, she furrowed her brows.

"Down to two magazines already," she cursed. "Shit."

Standing back up, she opened fire on a bunch of unsuspecting donuts, the purple-chad lizards caught off guard by the sudden shower of submachine gun rounds. They tore through the nanolaminate armor easily, pulverising the Grunts. They came at a cost, however. Miho was promptly hit by a shower of blasterfire by two clones who had managed to find cover, and had brought down her nealy depleted shields with a few bursts. As she dove back down to cover, a sharp strong burning sensation across her left shoulder slammed her full in the face as she winced, and knelt down. Glancing down, she saw that the shoulder board displaying her rank of Lieutenant was completely reduced to ashes, pulverised long ago by the blaster shot. The left section of her uniform was otherwise gone, her jacket and immaculate collared shirt burned clean through, as her left shoulder kept screaming at her out of pain and heat. As she slumped back down, a small trail of blood seeped out through the corner of her mouth, as she pressed the button on her COM mic.

"Everyone, this is Lieutenant Miho. I'm down. Prepare to withdraw to point BH1155 Alpha and await reinforcements."

As her vision faded away, and she began having a hard time distinguishing between weapons fire and COM chatters, she added a few words, faint as they may be.

"Leave now. I won't be coming."

As black filled her vision, she fell down prone, black completely obsecuring her vision, but she still faintly saw the figure of someone approaching her position. She didn't have time to comprehend it before a jolt of pain raced its way from her side, far more intense than the dull thuds that had been bugging her since she had been knocked down by all that blasterfire. The Lieutenant let out a pained groan as she dragged herself upright, barely registering the alerted calls her approaching companion gave her as the world suddenly grew darker and darker around her. Looking down to the sorce of the pain, she caught sight of the culrit, a nasty gash caused when a piece of shrapnel impacted her side. Before she could think of anything else, she felt herself go limp, as she started collaplsing back down.

She expected herself to hit the hard and unforgiving surface of the ground, but instead a pair of strong arms caught her before she did so. Her pain induced mind didn't allow her to think of anything, and as her edges of vision blurred out, the world rapidly became dark for her.

The last thing she thought of was that at least her platoon probably made it out okay.

A single eye fluttered open in the darkness as its owner flashed upright in seconds, blankets falling off her and onto the bed. The auburn-haired girl there simply winced at the sudden pain that struck her as she woke up. Feeling the bandages all around her as she calmed herself down, she rested he hand on the bandage covering her left eye, a tint of blood seeping through the outer side.

Mark had saved her on that day, and had done the same on countless other occasins. He had always been there for her, at her side, never leaving. He was the first to leave the Army for the Navy when she transferred there mainly in part to the injuries she sustained during that firefight, even turning down a promotion to Major in the process.

Taking a quick glane at her surroundings, she caught sight of a large black board on the opposite end of the room she was in, along with a few tables, chairs, and the other things that one may expect in a hospital room. A quick glance at the clock in the room showed that the time was roughly 02:30 AM. Bringing her gaze back down, she caught sight of a large mass of pink hair that literally obsecured her vision from the top to down.

Um...who is she really?

The girl was sleeping, no doubt about that. The way she slept, through all the rampage that Miho caused when she broke from her slumber, spoke of the sheer miles of exhaustion that this girl had been through. A single wet cloth lay messily on the floor, as if she'd been trying to replace it before giving up to her exhaustion and dropping asleep. Standing off the bed, taking care not to disturb the maid lying asleep (which was probably unesscary since she slept through the racker she made waking up), Miho walked out of the room, silently opening the door and closing it behind her, patting down the hospital gown that was put on her probably when she was first treated.

In the midst of the raging winds, the shape of a hull cut through the swirling waves. Water splashed against her sides, as the howling winds cut at her superscructure. The flag of Japan fluttered in the wind, as a wave crashed against the hull, which effortlessly shrugged aside the assault and transversed on it's way, two kilometers of steel and pride sailing the seas.

When it became clear that the Abyssals could not be feasibly defeated in a direct assault, the newly formed His Majesty the Emperor's Japanese Navy commisioned six battleships and six carriers, tasked with leading the remains of the former JMSDF in a large-scale campaign against the Abyssals in a major offensive, among with Japan's fleetgirls commisioned during the war. The lead ship of the battleships, and the first to be finished, was Ryujo, laid down at the start of the war in 2015 and commisioned in 2020. She was soon followed by the battleships Nagano, Ise, Hyuga, Satsuma, Mikasa, and Kawachi. The fleet carriers Akagi, Kaga, Zuikaku, Shokaku, Soryuu, and Hiryuu soon followed, creating a formidable fleet that could stand against the enemy. And more would soon follow. Measuring 2,260 meters bow to stern, they were one of the few ships that could directly assault an Abyssal fleet; and assault they did, backed by a full complement of fleetgirls and the latest F-35B fighter jets. The battleships displayed 356cm cannons that would let out a massive storm of flame at their targets as the electro-thermal cannons launched projectiles from their barrels, in an instant vaporizing whole fleets that the enemy fielded. In a decisive naval battle at Midway, the Japanese ships beat back a massive Abyssal invasion fleet, crippling the enemy's ability to fight as well as averting an attack on the homeland.

However, it was not without cost. The carriers Amagi, Asuka, and Antares fell at Saipan to constant enemy assault, and the battleships Satsuma, Wataru, and Mikasa fell at Tokyo Bay in a last stand in defense of the homeland, sinking amidst the wreckage of the Abyssals they'd slain.

A lone figure stood next to the weatherproof window of transparent reinforced aluminum as she contemplated the war up to then. Thunder struck in the distance, making her jump slightly. The rain kept plattering on the window as the radar and instruments displayed the ship's presise location, heading, and speed. The Ryujo made her way onward, Eastern bound at a steady thirty-three knots. The sensors were almost blinded; the storm had reduced visibility on both radar and visual to only twelve kilometers. The bridge was sparsely populated, most of the fire control equipment was manned from the CIC below. The primary purpose of the bridge was to be a target locator and tracker to defeat Abyssal jamming; which was incredibly dense to the point of rendering missiles neat obsolete. The Fleet had learned that the hard way.

"Captain, we have interference on radar. Requesting permission to engage, active scans are being run."

The female figue at the bridge window turned to face her fire control officer, her face obsecured by the hat that someone put on her head. The glint of an eagle was displayed in full on the brim, the golden tint reflecting onto the floor and walls.

"What type of signature are we reading?" she responded.

"Unknown," he responded. "Contact is approx two hundred and seventy meters long. Speed relative to our own appears to be a few knots. Accounting for movement, the contact is travelling at heading one-seven-nine and its speed is roughly twenty-two knots."

"Range?"

"Our sensors are picking up the fringe of the interference. It appears to be ECM, although we have no method of knowing it for sure yet. I have ordered jammeres engaged. At the very least we can expect the enemy to be unable to engage accuately untill they have entered visual range."

"Go to general quarters then. Order the rangefinder crews to their stations and all hands to man their battle stations. Prepare to engage target. Helm, change course to heading 116 and maintain it. Navigation, chart an intercept route to be engaged sixteen klicks out from the target. Bring the enemy ship to our starboard side. Also clock an ETA to intercept."

"Roger. Course is plotted. Slight rudder turn at 1600, five degrees. Mantain untill 1610, at which we disengage steering and set rudder to zero deflection. That will bring all our guns to bear on an intercept course with the enemy at two o' clock. ETA, fifteen minutes."

"Understood."

"Hello?" Nagumo said into his cellphone. "It's me. Admiral Nagumo. What makes you to call me at like four in the morning today?"

After a few quick seconds, he nodded. "Okay. thanks for telling me. I'll gather a full meeting of the staff ASAP. You'd be calling over sat, right? Yes? Okay, thanks. Call me at nine then."

He then opened up the contact info of his secratary. Dialing the number, he held the phone to his ears, awaitong a response.

"Hello, Admiral? Why'd you call me at four in the morning today?" Nagato's voice spoke into his ear, the muffled audio sounded as if she was speaking over a pillow and a blanket.

"Gather an emergency meeting of everyone over the rank of Commodore and Major at nine AM. Prepare a fax document that will be sent in fifteen minutes by the crew of the Ryujo. It's urgent.

"And also," he said, "Get us both a pot of strong coffee. I have this strange feeling that we're both not going to sleep untill very late this night at the very least."

A/N:

Really, I didn't really have a proper plot progression plan for this. When I first started this, I was basically doing it as a side project, something out of boredom. I never expected this to get all the follows and likes. I didn't even think of updating this story. Thanks for all your support.

I don't really know how to properly progress this to your liking, because I have half a dozen concepts for the ending (and half of them involve someone dying). And I haven't finalized them yet. Which brings me to my next point: I don't want to make this look like the ED of Mass Effect 3. So I'd like to see what you think about how this should turn out.

As far as I'm concerned, I'll be specding the next couple of weeks finalizing the plotline, before making anything further. That includes a handwritten timeline on notebook paper as well, plus a lot of others. I look forward to seeing your concepts as well. Wish me luck!

Some answer(s) to the reviews:

Guest: Thought the names Nishizumi and Ooarai gave it away

One clue: Nishizumi Miho.

'Till next time, folks.