Chapter Twenty-Seven
Even though my rational mind knew full well that the roaring engines that screamed overhead were nothing to be afraid of, I was still on edge as the captain, Choshu, and I neared the main training yards. The air itself was buzzing in more ways than one as scores of aerofighters darted through the air in a deadly waltz accentuated by streaks of tracer fire and bone-rattling explosions, the air tinged with the scent of exhaust fumes and propellants. The normally peaceful skies were ablaze with the chaos of aerial combat thanks to the near-entirety of the base's aircraft carriers undergoing an extensive training exercise under the guidance of the kansen we sought.
When Akagi agreed to host a joint-training exercise in response to being forced to attend one hosted by the Eagle Union's Saratoga, I hadn't expected her to conceive of a regime in such a short time, although from where we stood at the shoreline, watching the dogfighting blitz unfold before us, it appeared less like a joint training exercise and just an all-out brawl. I wasn't even entirely sure who was supposed to be on whom's side. It was chaos in every sense of the word: at some places I could see Sakura zeroes swooping down in a steep dive against Royalist swordfish, but then elsewhere I could spot a Union mustang engaging in spiraling aerobatic manoeuvres against a seafire, who appeared to be providing escort for a trio of stuka dive bombers. Training exercises were supposed to be orderly affairs, or at least so I presumed based on all of the ones I've participated or conducted in my experience. Granted, as a battleship, our training regimes were markedly different from those of a carrier. Gunnery and manoeuvres were our bread and butter while they had to worry about air patrols, scouting, escorts, surface engagements, and even anti-submarine warfare on top of the usual manoeuvres and formations that all kansens had to practise. Perhaps the discordian recital I saw before me was normal for them, but rarely seen outside of these pure 'carriers only' exercises.
"So… what is this supposed to teach, exactly?" DeWolf said, clearly as lost as he looked. He adjusted his hat a bit to keep the sun out of his eyes as he craned his gaze upwards, but there was about as much hope for finding answers skyward as there were in the bottom of a tea cup.
"Madness, perhaps?" Choshu answered. When we left the office, she opted to take the box of onigiri with her. I noticed every time a plane passed overhead, sometimes low enough that I could feel the reverberations in my chest, she held the box close to her chest. Part of me worried at some point she might take to protecting her culinary creation with a show of force.
Thankfully, finding Akagi was as simple as looking to where the action was the thickest. If a battlefield was a living, breathing entity, then Akagi was its beating heart; its passion and lifeforce. She weaved through the chaos, around strafing fighters and harrying bombs, dancing around them effortlessly as though each movement had been choreographed and rehearsed a hundred times over. With a menacing cackle and a sweep of her arms, another flurry of crimson talismans soared into the air, transforming into deadly formations of bombers and fighters.
On the receiving end of this most unfortunate onslaught was a tight formation of Union and Royal Navy carriers, at the head of which was the formidable carrier, Illustrious, not to be confused with her sister, the actual Formidable, who was a few strides behind her. They had clustered together in an obvious effort to amass their anti-air firepower, as well as better protect those who were clearly running out of steam. Now normally, Akagi could never hope to take on so many opponents at the same time, no matter how powerful we in the empire thought of her, but the clusters of kansens were all on the backfoot.
"Heads up, more bombers incoming!" one of the kansens shouted.
"My goodness, she's a persistent one, isn't she?" As posed and calm under pressure as most Royalists were known for, Illustrious lined up her rigging and prepared to launch a new flight of fighters. A whole wing of Royalist fulmar fighters began to launch one by one from her flight deck, but like newly hatched fish, the slow and climbing planes were pounced upon by Akagi's predatory planes already hanging overhead. The Sakuran planes swept in from every angle, spraying fire and dropping bombs as they danced around the protective bursts of the enemy flak guns. Again, under normal circumstances, Illustrious could've given any of our carriers a worthy fight, but she was being smothered by the constant, harrying raids. A second strafe, sending up waves of ocean spray and shrapnel, forced her to abandon another launch attempt.
"Come on! Is this really the best the Royal Navy can offer me?" Akagi shouted. Our traditional tactics and training left little room for concepts like mercy and 'sporting chances', so even as she continued to taunt, the pride of the Kido Butai launched wave after wave of strike aircrafts. Her opponents, or perhaps more accurately, victims, could do little except keep up the evasive manoeuvres, even as another wing of dive bombers began their furious descent.
"Watch out!"
The cries were ultimately unneeded, however, as a sharp whistle from the shoreline brought the entire exercise to a screeching halt. Even the bombers in mid-dive obediently pulled away, and little by little, the sky began to clear as everyone recalled their servants.
"Commander on deck!" a kansen shouted, prompting everyone to start rushing back towards the shoreline. I doubt they were eager to see the captain, but rather desperate for any excuse to catch their breath. The Royal Navy, normally known for poise and elegance, looked like a pack of waterlogged felines, scrambling for the relative safety of dry land, and several even dropping any pretense of decorum as they collapsed to the ground.
"Do your training exercises normally end this way?" DeWolf asked, casting a worried, sideways glance to me.
"A few times a month," I answered bluntly. Akagi would push her juniors in the Kido Butai to their limits, but we had always found the fruits of their labours to be worth it. Her methods, though extreme, were born out of the same passion and devotion to the empire that guided most of her choices. A strong empire needed strong warriors to defend its borders, and one could not cultivate a culture of strength using soft methods, or so the reasoning went.
"Captain DeWolf, there you are," a strained but genteel voice spoke up. The last of the Royal Navy carriers to make landfall was none other than Illustrious herself, who lived up to her namesake by still managing to present a dazzling aura of elegance despite her flowing white sundress being ravaged and stained by the brutality of Akagi's training methods. "I know I enjoy a good surprise as much as the next kansen, but I was told this would be a joint training exercise, I expected there to actually be training or teaching involved."
"May I ask what happened?" DeWolf inquired.
Illustrious was still busy wringing the last of the ocean from her hat. "Anarchy—pure, unrestrained and unrepentant anarchy, sir," she said. "One moment we're being led out into the training area and divided into teams, the next moment that fox of a woman was telling us that the only objective was to 'keep your team afloat'. And then enough ordinance being thrown around to make Taradino Bay look like an afternoon tea party." One could see that despite maintaining a calm demeanour, a temper was bubbling beneath the surface, much of which was being channeled into her hat. By the time she returned it to its proper place upon her head, it was little more than a crumbled mess, giving her an overall appearance that reminded me of a fluffy, white cat… after being thrown overboard. "Sir, I understand you wish to foster more unity between the factions, but allowing Akagi to run amok like this is not the way to go about it."
Once more, the captain was called upon to ply his diplomatic skills. "I'm sure Miss Akagi has good reasons for her… teaching methods," he said in an attempt to stay neutral.
"I was trying to teach these tea-toddlers that the world waits on nobody," came Akagi's interjection, followed a moment later by the arrival of my colleague. Unlike the disheveled carriers of the Royal Navy, she still looked fresh and pristine, save for a few beads of sweat upon her brow. "A second hesitated is a second lost forever. To control one's destiny requires action and decisiveness, a never-ending series of choices in a bid to control the tumultuous sea of fate."
"You pounced upon trusting allies with barely a word of warning or preparation. Just what kind of 'choice' did you expect us to make?" an unimpressed Illustrious shot back.
"Any, to be frank," Akagi answered, still playfully collected. "Forward, backwards; port or starboard. What you choose is practically irrelevant when compared to what truly matters: the will to see those choices through. The worst thing to do is to make no choice at all, which is what most of you did as you stared slack-jawed and wide-eyed like a pack of yokels. If you were to present any more inviting a target, you may as well have all turned around and bent ov—"
"Akagi!" DeWolf, thankfully, knew well enough to stop her before her lecturing could alienate the rest of our allies.
"Sir, I was just explaining—" Once more, Akagi's words came to an abrupt halt, but this time of her own volition as she regarded the captain with a growing smirk. "Why captain, is that a new uniform?"
It was rhetorical, of course, as anyone could tell that his uniform was too clean and pressed to be anything but. Before we left his office, he insisted that if he were going to be walking about the base as an officer, he needed to look the part. The blue suit and tie, with its double row of brass buttons gave him a much more traditional look, squared and clean. I could tell DeWolf didn't want the conversation steered in that direction, but just as he was about to speak, Akagi approached him and reached for his neck.
"Your tie is a bit crooked, sir," she said. Whether it really was crooked or not was irrelevant, as she started readjusting it all the same.
"You… um, you don't need to do this," DeWolf said, although his murmuring suggested that the ploy was having the desired effect.
"Nonsense, we can't have our commanding officer not looking his best when on walkabout." Once she had reset the tie's position, she took a step back and gave the captain a quick pat on the chest. "There you go, all clean and handsome."
Illustrious let out a quiet sigh, her annoyance only slightly better concealed than Akagi's motives. "Careful not to sink your claws too deep into him," she cautioned, although I wasn't sure whom the warning was for. "A good officer has to maintain objectivity, after all."
"Don't mind her, she's just bitter because I made a fool out of her precious Royal Navy," Akagi replied.
"She was terrifying some of the younger girls," Illustrious shot back, jabbing at the air in the other carrier's direction. "Sir, you cannot allow this farce of an exercise to continue." A few of the other carriers behind voiced their support for her, their voices amassing like an ocean swell as discontent swept through their ranks.
Before it could go any further, DeWolf put up both hands, silencing the crowds. "Everyone, please," he pleaded calmly, "I understand the Sakura Empire's methods are… unorthodox, but the point of these exercises are for everyone to learn from each other's methods."
"Are you seriously suggesting they use these methods all the time?" a skeptical Illustrious replied.
A valid counterpoint, to be sure, but DeWolf just turned to the nearest carrier of the Sakura Empire that wasn't Akagi, which just so happened to be Ryuujou, who thankfully was one of our most earnest members of the air arm. Though the trims of her coat had been singed and tattered by the exercise and her face still flustered from exertion, the diminutive carrier snapped to attention under the captain's gaze.
"Miss Ryuujou, right?" he asked.
"Yes, milord!" she said as she snapped a crisp, rigid salute.
"Uh… 'sir' will suffice."
"Oh. Sorry, sir milord."
DeWolf sighed. "Nevermind. Ryuujou, is Akagi's training today out of the ordinary?"
"No, sir milord!"
The captain, though, stared at her just a bit longer. His expression didn't convey a sense of certainty in the response.
"W-well," Ryuujou continued, her voice wavering as her gaze darted periodically to her senior, "she might have been a bit harder than usual. And she usually gives a bit more warning beforehand."
Though everyone was busy looking at the captain's expression, I chanced a quick glance at Akagi. Normally calm and collected, I saw a brief flicker of sourness in her eyes, perhaps even frustration. Back in the empire, I don't think Ryuujou would've ever dared to say something so critical of her respected senior. Only Shoukaku and Zuikaku of the Fifth Carrier Division had the fortitude and skill to risk her ire, and even they tended to defer to their senior's wisdom in most matters. Although, Ryuujou's newfound boldness may have had less to do with our location as it did with recent events. For the time being, I decided to stay silent and let the captain handle matters.
The captain surveyed the kansens: most of them were exhausted almost to the point of collapse and the few that could keep their gaze up were giving Akagi a most unpleasant stink eye. After a few moments, he eventually let out a tired sigh. "Girls, take thirty and rest up," he announced.
"But sir—"
Akagi's words were cut off once more as he directed a finger to her. "You and I need to talk."
Though the words were conveyed with all seriousness, she didn't let them shake her bearing and returned with a welcoming smile. "Then by all means, my dear commander, let us talk. The girls could use a little break anyways."
When the captain said he needed to talk with her, I had assumed he would take her somewhere private where the two of them could discuss the matter away from anyone, including Choshu and myself. Instead, all four of us would eventually find ourselves sitting at one of the cafes in the marketplace, sitting outdoors as though this were just a regular social call. Now in DeWolf's defense, it wasn't his first choice, but Akagi, clearly aware of how serious the matter was, somehow managed to steer our direction from the very moment we stepped away from the training yards.
Part of me wondered if we were kept around just as added insurance in case Akagi tried anything… inappropriate. As long as it was a party of four, she still had to keep up appearances to a certain extent. It also gave us a good opportunity to have some tea and a light snack, which Choshu was clearly looking forward to if her twitching ears were any indication. While the others sat outside, I was sent into the cafe to see about getting some cups and plates for everyone. Thankfully, the staff didn't put up much of a fuss because we weren't technically paying customers, but when the captain of the base asked for a tea cup, one did not come up with excuses.
Now it was a common misconception that for those of us in the Sakura Empire that sported extra animal-like appendages, particularly of the ear variety, that these structures were entirely superfluous. Many girls just had a tail or some horns that, true, were mostly ornamental, but those of us who had the ears enjoyed a sensitivity of hearing vastly superior to a normal human. For younger kansen, the extra noise could be a distraction, but time and experience taught us all how to filter out the excess in order to pick up on the important things: like discussions happening just around the corner. Now I had no intention of eavesdropping on whatever was going on outside between the captain and the other girls, particularly since I would be joining them in a moment, but a few choice words just as I was about to step outside gave me a moment's pause.
"So any luck picking out that gift for Nagato?" It was Akagi's voice, but in a hushed whisper barely audible enough for me to discern. "You said you'd pick up a catalog from Akashi's shop."
"I tried, but she was all out when I checked today."
The captain was… buying me a gift? I remembered her making such a suggestion a while ago, but I had thought it was just something she said in the moment to get a reaction from the captain or myself. Was he really taking her suggestion seriously? I found myself torn between not wanting to ruin his attempt to surprise me, and the catastrophic levels of embarrassment welling up inside me if I dared show myself now. After all, what had I done to deserve a reward? Satisfaction in fulfilling my duty was meant to be its own reward, but then again, to turn down the generosity of one's superior officer could be seen as an insult as well, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't happy about this. If my ears wiggled half as much as Choshu's did, then there would be no way I could hide what I've overheard. While it was far from the first time I've received a gift, they had always been either because of a special occasion, or some form of tribute in reverence to my position as flagship and head miko.
"You're getting her a present? Oh, Mr. DeWolf, how devilishly bold of you." Even Choshu was getting involved now, although she sounded to be content just teasing him over it. "Maybe you should just give her a few pats on the head and a scratch behind the ear. She'd probably love that."
The captain? Scratching my ears? I should've been offended by the supposition that I was so easily swayed by such a simple gesture, as though I were a common house pet, but at the same time, it did sound really nice. Once the mental image was in my mind, I could feel the heat spread all the way to the tip of my ears, which themselves flailed about like a flag caught in a typhoon.
"It's not a present. It's just a… token of appreciation. For all her hard work." I don't think DeWolf's words were convincing even to himself, let alone everyone else at the table. "What about the thing you suggested, Akagi? You think that might work?"
"Of course. Quite a few of the girls have ordered one for themselves—it's quite popular. I still remember the product number if you need it."
"Gimme a second. I should write it down or I'm going to forget it."
I knew I shouldn't continue listening, but I feared any sudden movement might draw attention to me. I had to calm myself, both my mind and my heart, and as I was still the oracle to the Sacred Sakura Tree, I required purity in both thoughts and form. After setting down the tray of cups and plates I had been carrying, I clamped both hands down over my rebellious ears, which helped to shut out the rest of the conversation. Next, a rigorous reciting of every prayer I could pull from my memory on short notice. Surely one of the gods would take notice and help purge such selfish, wicked thoughts from my mind. And then to chase away the last of the impurities, calm meditations focused on tranquility and serenity.
A springtime breeze rustling fresh cherry blossoms…
Cool barley tea on a hot summer afternoon…
Sweet potatoes roasting over an open flame on an autumn evening…
Keeping warm by a fireplace on a cold winter's night, DeWolf's arms draped around me…
"Wait, I didn't mean to think that!" Betrayed by my own mind, my words bellowed without any consideration who might be nearby. It certainly came as a surprise to Choshu, who had gone into the cafe to check on me and found me seemingly yelling at myself.
"Is everything okay?" she asked, a skeptical look about her that suggested she was on the fence about whether to walk away or call the provosts. I tried to answer, but all that crawled out of my throat was a high-strung squeak that did little to dispel any notion that I've taken leave of my senses. Choshu just blinked a couple times and then slowly inched back towards the door. "Well, tea's going to get cold, so hurry up with those cups already."
Despite her advice, I lingered indoors for a few more moments to calm my heart. If people were worried about the tea's temperature, they could just put the cup atop of my head and I would surely bring it back to a boil in a heartbeat. And speaking of hearts, mine felt like it would jump out of my chest at a moment's notice. It took a few more prayer recitals, some slaps to the cheeks, and a generous helping of deep breaths before I could finally step outside without embarrassing myself further. Fortunately for me, when I returned to the cafe's patio, everyone was too focused on their own concerns to pay much attention to me. Akagi and Choshu were busy whispering something to a note-taking Captain DeWolf, most likely more to do with their gift-shopping conspiracy.
"Sorry I took so long," I said, feigning innocent ignorance.
"Did anyone ever tell you that you have terrible hand-writing?" Choshu said to the captain as she scrutinized his notes.
"As long as I can read it, that's all that matters," he replied as he tucked the papers beneath an assortment of papers and reports. "Why don't you help Nagato set the table?"
I began setting out plates and cups for everyone, with Choshu helping to pass around her hand-made onigiri, and Akagi took care of pouring everyone some tea. Today's brew was Darjeeling tea, provided to the captain from the girls in the Royal Navy. We regularly rotated the tea in the office, and the captain's fondness for it led to quite a few gifts in the past few days. Suffice to say, we would not be short of anything to drink for quite some time. Personally, I still preferred the green teas of my homeland, but as I sat down with my drink, feeling the warmth seep into my fingers and its rich, fruity fragrance fill my lungs, my anxieties began to melt away. Everything in life just seemed so much better when you had a good cup of tea in hand.
"You know, when you pulled Akagi aside, I was expecting her to get a dressing down, not invited out to a lunch date," Choshu commented. She sounded as though she disapproved, but the way she stared hungrily at the rice ball in her hand suggested otherwise. Maybe she just didn't want to share. "People might get the wrong idea and start causing trouble thinking it's a meal ticket."
"This isn't a dressing down," DeWolf was quick to correct between light sips of tea. "That said, there are some important things that need to be discussed."
"If this is about what Miss Illustrious said earlier, I assure you that she is getting worked up over nothing. This level of training has always been what's made the Sakura Empire carrier divisions so feared. Surely, an esteemed commanding officer such as yourself would want his fleets in top form." Unfortunately, while Akagi's honeyed and boastful words might have worked on an officer from the empire, a foreign-trained one was going to be harder to convince.
"It's not just about the joint exercise, otherwise I would've dressed you down then and there," he replied. There was a subtle heaviness to his work, punctuated by a pronounced silence that followed it, broken only by the faint clink as he set down his cup. "Akagi, I chose you for the senior kansen position because I believed I could trust you, not just to provide honest counsel, but to serve as an example to your fellow Sakurans."
"I could never lie to you, Captain," she replied. What she could do, however, was take very extensive liberties with the truth.
"Except I know you haven't been truthful with me."
Only from familiarity could I notice the faint quiver in her lip as Akagi smiled back. "I'm afraid I don't quite follow what you mean, sir." It was a standard tactic in an interrogation to not reveal more than you absolutely need to, especially when it was something as potentially vague as truthfulness. She wouldn't give an answer until she knew precisely what she was being accused of so that she wouldn't accidentally admit to something he didn't know about. Even I, who would normally step in to protect the honour and integrity of my friends, had to stay silent just in case I implicated her in something worse.
"Akagi, you're talented in many things, but you're no computer expert," DeWolf explained. "You've been altering and falsifying the training records."
Now that came as a surprise to me, seeing as she had never been the type to slack on her duties. "You've been neglecting your training with the other factions?" I asked her, shocked.
"Did you not just pull me from a joint exercise?" Akagi countered.
"One that you're leading, and it was less an exercise and more you just showing off," DeWolf said. "And we're talking about how you've been skipping on the joint-training sessions with your assigned squad."
"I've not missed a day of training," she shot back.
"True, you haven't," the captain agreed, unsurprised and undaunted. "But you've been training on your own time and inserting your data into the reports. But as I said, you're not a computer expert, so you've been leaving your digital fingerprints all over the meta-data."
I still only knew enough about computers to use one, so talk of meta-data just went right over my already vertically-challenged head. The only way I could gauge how accurate he may or may not have been was through watching Akagi's confident smile begin to melt away. The two stared at each other in silence for one of the tensest minutes I've experienced in a long time. If it had been me who made the accusation, she would have surely had a counter-argument already prepared, so I was puzzled to see her grow quiet now.
Discontent with the silence, DeWolf continued on. "This isn't like you Akagi, insofar as your records would suggest. The fact that you're still doing the training by yourself means you're not just doing this to avoid work or the time. That leads me to think it's about the people involved." He leaned back in his seat, making him seem less like a commander and more like a colleague. "If you're having problems with the members of the other factions, you can talk to me about it. I said it from the beginning, your past does not matter when you're here; all I ask is for your loyalty and service to protect humanity. If we keep obsessing over who has done what, we'll be pointing fingers at each other forever."
There was a bittersweetness to the smile that Akagi responded with, her tails drawing inwards as her fingertip traced along the edge of her tea cup. "For a man brought in to assist with administrative duties, you've had a lot of big, bold plans ready rather quickly. You're not the first to want to bring the factions together, but the way you pursued it so… passionately tells me you've given it a lot of thought before. It's almost as though it's a dream of yours."
I wasn't sure how close to the mark she was with her deduction, but DeWolf didn't look amused by her answer. Now it could've been because she sounded like she was deflecting, but I found myself silently agreeing with her. As dim a view he had of his posting, he clearly had grand ambitions, and was so confident in them that he instigated them anyways despite only being an acting commanding officer. In fact, I suspected the idea of a joint kansen task force has been something he's been involved with for a very long time. There have always been officers who played with the idea before, at least in the Crimson Axis, but those were always just fantastical hypotheticals that always assumed a leader-subordinate relationship between the two alliances, and not the equal partners approach that DeWolf had adopted. Anyone with a serious plan for making an alliance work was almost always shunned as 'lacking faith in the strength of the empire', and I caught my share of flak for my actions during the Orochi incident.
"If you knew it was so important to him, why aren't you doing your part to help?" Choshu asked, breaking the lingering silence.
"Because it's important to him is why I took such measures," Akagi explained. "DeWolf's superiors back at naval headquarters are watching his results closely. It's why he's so focused on training scores and results. The other kansens have taken well to working together, but I'm sure even the captain has wondered, if I have been absent from my assigned joint training sessions, why has nobody else raised a complaint." She smiled and let her tails sway behind her prominently. "It's not as though I'm easy to miss."
A good liar knew how to mix in enough truths with deceptions in order to create a palatable falsehood. Did Akagi falsify her records to avoid casting the captain in a bad light? Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons did fit her nature, and she had to have known she'd get caught eventually. I couldn't understand why she would put herself in such a precarious position. As much as I wanted to believe her, I suspected we were not getting the whole truth. She did, however, have a point: whichever squad she was a part of should have reported her absence.
Unless they didn't see it as a problem.
DeWolf let out a worried sigh, sinking into his seat as he brushed back his hair. "You're right: a lot of people are watching what's happening with this fleet, and some would like it to fail." Probably more people than either side cared to admit would like to see the alliance fail. It required compromise and the higher echelons of command were filled with a lot of 'my way or no way' personalities. "I know kansens aren't always afforded the luxury of choice, but I'm willing to offer that to you. We can't make this work if everybody isn't on board, so I need to know, Akagi, what do you want? What will get you on board?"
'What do you want?' A simple question, and yet one that has led to so much grief and conflict over the years. How many kansens have been tempted by the Sirens asking the same question? How many wars had been started over the ambitions of one person? Sometimes the things we wanted came with too heavy a price to pay.
"I think we both know that you can't always get what you want, captain," Akagi replied. "Especially if those wants come into conflict with others, and I'd rather not put mine ahead of yours or the fleet."
"Do you want to stay and help?" he asked, pointedly.
She gave a somber nod. "I would like to, yes."
"Then I need you to trust me, and attend your assigned training sessions. Please. If I lose your support, we risk losing the entire empire."
"I think you overestimate my sway," Akagi replied with an amused smirk. "Plus, you have Lady Nagato with you."
DeWolf looked as skeptical to that claim as I felt. "Those girls fought through hell to bring you back," he said as he pointed off towards the dormitories. "Risked their lives, their standing in the empire. Unity has always been one of your empire's greatest strengths, so don't go telling me that they suddenly won't care what you think. Now there might still be some ruffled feathers, but that's nothing we can't fix. Whatever happens, Akagi, you are under my command, and that means I will take care of you—same as anyone else here."
I wasn't sure if Akagi was genuinely surprised or not, but her pause certainly gave the impression. "You should be careful what you promise a girl, captain; you might give her the wrong impression," she replied. "But if that's what you're proposing, then I'll be sure to hold you to your word. Do you really believe you can give me what I want?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. But as a wise philosopher once said, if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need." A quiet, dry chuckle escaped his lips. It was rare to see him showing such levity, especially while working. He usually conducted himself with such seriousness, which certainly made him an effective leader, but at times I found myself agreeing with my sister's sentiment: he looked nicer when he was smiling.
Sensing a turning point in the conversation, Choshu finally decided she could take no more. "If you ask me, I think what all of us need right now is a nice helping of onigiri," she said as she slid the container forward.
"You're just saying that because you're getting hungry," I remarked.
Despite my disapproval, though, the captain appeared to agree as he reached over, took one out, and offered it over to Akagi. "King George V and the rest of the girls in the Royal Navy are throwing me a late welcoming party. I'd like you to come along; be diplomatic, show them you're willing to be a team player, and let them see a smile that's more than just sharp fangs."
A sweet, but mischievous smile returned to my friend's features as she leaned in to rest her chin upon bridging fingers, and all nine of her tails now stood at attention. "Why Captain DeWolf, if you wanted to ask me out on a date, you didn't have to go to such lengths. I much prefer my men to be direct."
The way his eyes widened in response suggested that wasn't the response he expected. "I… uh, guess that's one way to look at it," he murmured back. I liked to think that whatever the captain's intentions were, a 'date' was not what he had in mind, but now that the suggestion was out there, it would be rude to walk the offer back.
All the same, I decided to try and steer the conversation away, if only to serve as a lifeline for him. "You mentioned a wise philosopher a moment ago, may I inquire to whom you were referring to?" I asked.
"Oh? Uh, Mick Jagger, I think it was."
"Interesting. I do not believe I am familiar with any of his works," I said, pondering the name over. It sounded Germanic, but aside from a passing familiarity with Nietzsche and Kant, I knew little of the philosophies of the region. "Perhaps I should check the library later. He sounds enlightening."
"Uh, yes, there are certainly those who find his work… eye-opening," DeWolf said with a nervous chuckle. I had a feeling he knew more about this person than he was willing to share, but I decided not to press further on it. I figured whatever he knew, he just didn't want to spoil it for me. He then held the container out for me, and I helped myself to one of the rice balls within.
I noticed right away not all of the onigiri were the same. Some had been expertly packed and sculpted into perfect spheres and triangles, wrapped with a thin layer of nori like a well-prepared present. Others, however, were a bit more misshapen, their nori skewed or cut into irregular patterns, although the effort put into preparing them was no less apparent than the others.
"Did you make all of these yourself?" I asked Choshu.
"Not all of them," she answered. "Abukuma helped, as did that San Diego girl I mentioned before. There was another girl who helped, but what was her name again?" She paused, her face twisting as she combed the depths of her memory. "Was it… Ambercrumble?"
It sounded like it had been a real team effort, and wanting to sample the fruits of their labour, I went to take a big bite out of mine. However, I was so focused on my food, I failed to notice the captain's horrified expression, and his cry of, 'Wait, Ambercrombie?' came far too late to stop me. My teeth sunk into sweet, tender rice, where something soft in the middle burst into my mouth.
And my world became fire.
My screams of agony were so great that even Choshu's dimension could have heard them. Pure, unbridled heat and pain saturated my mouth and tongue; to even breathe was like inhaling flames straight from the bowels of hell. I could barely even process what had just happened. Food was supposed to be delicious, not painful. As I clawed at my throat and mouth, trying to smother non-existent flames, all I could think was 'why?' Why was this happening? Why was my food hurting me? And why was nobody doing anything to help me? Akagi was distracted because in my surprise and panic, I had bumped the table and spilled our tea over everything, and Choshu was too busy doubled-over in laughter to help in my plight. My only hope was the captain, but when I looked to him, he was nowhere to be seen at the table.
I collapsed upon the table with ragged, flaming breaths heaving from my lungs. Why did my food make the air itself hurt? Beads of sweat collected upon my brow, as though even the moisture within me fled in search of refuge. I needed something to wash away the pain, but the only thing on hand was hot tea. As much as people said to fight fire with fire, I couldn't fathom a hot drink doing anything but making my situation worse. Just when I thought I couldn't take another moment without shriveling into a dried husk, or worse, turning into a fox-eared bonfire, salvation arrived in the form of a tall, cold glass of milk set down on the table next to me.
"Here, drink." It was Captain DeWolf, much to my relief.
Unfortunately, in my desperation, I had thrown all thoughts of proper manners overboard, and simply grabbed the glass to gulp down the contents. Words could not describe the sweet, blessed relief the milk brought with it, washing away the pain and agony like a cleansing, colloid rain from heaven.
"Salvation," I gasped once the glass had been emptied.
"I-I swear, I didn't know that was going to happen," Choshu said, although any sense of concern was drowned in the barely-constrained fits of laughter she had come down with. I would've said something to dispute that, but I was too busy splayed out in my chair, mouth agape to let any remaining heat vent. The complete loss of any sensation in my tongue didn't help matters either.
"It's fine," DeWolf reassured her as he picked up the offending rice ball. "I can recognize Ambercrombie's handiwork from a mile away." His gaze then fell to the mess left on the table thanks to my panic-fueled flailing: all of his papers now had a bronze tan from the spilled tea, which would've been nice on a person, but less so for one's work. At least nobody's food got ruined beyond a few wayward droplets. "Christ, all of my notes are a mess now…" he sighed while trying to salvage what he could.
"I take it this Ambercrombie is a well-known prankster?" Akagi inquired, her eyes narrowing on the offending rice ball. "To sabotage the captain and Lady Nagato's meal—such a pest should be… taken care of." To no surprise, she immediately received a silent, half-lidded stare from the captain; the kind of look that spoke volumes of disappointment with a single utterance. "With words, of course," she insisted, a whimsical smile returning to her features. "We wouldn't want to upset our allies in the Royal Navy."
"I will deal with Ambercrombie, you just worry about your joint training exercise," DeWolf reminded her. "And I better not hear any complaints about unfair treatment, understand?"
Once wary, Akagi's mood had vastly improved in the past few moments, at least so far as I could tell by how active her tails were, waving behind her like reeds in a gentle breeze. Her ears might not twitch like mine, but I was beginning to think that her tell lay elsewhere upon her.
"I'll be gentle with them, I promise."
I wasn't entirely convinced, but DeWolf appeared to be satisfied, so I held my tongue. He didn't know everything that Akagi was up to, but we had just finished resolving one dispute, I did not wish to introduce a new one. With the matter resolved, we quickly cleaned up the table as best we could and tried to resume our meal. There were still sufficient onigiri left, although most of us were now wary of them, and regarded them with all the suspicion one would afford to an abandoned sea mine.
"I'll be right back; I'm going to get another towel," DeWolf excused himself. The table had been cleaned, but his papers were still damp, and I worried that he might not even be able to read what was on them anymore. As he got up, though, he reached over and plucked the spice-ladened, half-eaten onigiri from my plate, then replaced it with the one from his. "Should be safe. Ambercrombie's mischievous, but she's not cruel."
While he was gone, though, Choshu took the opportunity to scoot her chair closer to mine. "Hey, hey," she whispered, leaning in, "if the captain's going to have a party tomorrow, we should try my idea."
My ears twitched in curious dance, as I returned the gesture in kind. "Which idea was that again?"
Choshu took a quick peak towards DeWolf to ensure he was well out of earshot. "The pampering!" she continued on, excitedly. "If the party's in the evening, he'll work himself to death during the day to make sure everything's done beforehand. He'll be dead tired, assuming he even remembers it. He might even try to skip using work as an excuse. You saw how reluctant he was."
Her reasoning was sound; if I were trying to avoid going to a social gathering, I would capitalize on work commitments for a safe excuse. It wasn't avoiding others, it was a dedication to one's duty. Who could fault a person for that? As the old saying went, it was often easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
"But if we force his hand into relinquishing his duties for the day, then he will have no choice but to attend," I concluded once I had followed Choshu's plan to its logical conclusion. "Plus, as you said, we can show our appreciation for all of his hard work."
She nodded eagerly. "The captain's a bit of a push-over: we can convince him easily."
Even though we only just agreed, I was already devising plans for tomorrow, both in ways to force the captain's hand, and also what we could do. With any luck, we could turn it into a day full of rest and relaxation for him, and if he was secretly getting me a present, it would settle that personal debt as well. The only concern, though, was the way that Akagi was obviously listening in on the conversation, saying nothing but smiling all the while.