Chapter Thirty-Six
"Do I need to list out all of the reasons why this is such a bad idea, or would you just be willing to take my word for it?" Akagi was, understandably, skeptical of Captain DeWolf's decision to take us towards the Ark.
There were few feelings worse than knowing you were sailing into a trap, and not being able to do anything about it. That was, of course, Mutsu's plan from the start: we were now far too battered to continue sailing aimlessly through the mirror sea in search of our allies, and had no other option than to sail towards the relative refuge offered by the Ark. In fact, once it was obvious where our new course was taking us, the incoming fire subsided. They still shadowed us, of course, but it gave us time to prepare.
"Believe me, I'm not looking forward to this either, but we need to buy time for our allies to reorganize and find us," DeWolf explained.
"So that's why you had me slow to three-quarters speed," King George V said, mostly to herself.
The reprieve allowed us to regroup, and we were now all assembled in one of the spare unoccupied ready rooms that, thankfully, avoided having any armour piercing shells drop through the ceiling. Thankfully, nobody had been seriously hurt in the earlier skirmish, so for the kansens it was mostly just a moment to dry off and have a hot beverage before the next battle.
"At the very least, sir, you should stay behind with King George V while the rest of us secure the Ark," Akagi suggested. Were this a few days earlier, I would've suspected that to be simply a ruse in order to gain unsupervised access to the Royal Navy research facility, but now I knew better that her concerns did, indeed, lay with his well-being. "There's no reason for you to put yourself in danger, especially when a hostile kansen is involved."
"The risk to my life is minimal: she needs me alive for her plans," DeWolf explained. "Besides, I have this." He held the shotgun that Akashi had delivered to him beforehand, and while the rest of us had been resting, he had been readying his weapon.
"And why are you so confident of this?" I inquired, even though I had my suspicions as to why.
He was about to answer when King George V spoke up first. "Sir, I have to remind you, alliance or not, this is classified information."
"I'm not going to ask them to risk their lives for secrets," DeWolf shot back. Of course, Akagi and I already knew what those secrets were, but we couldn't admit to that. "Mutsu said that she had a way to 'save everyone', which means she plans to use the Wishing Well to remake everybody from her timeline. The fact that she hasn't done it yet means that she likely needs to gain access to the project's files located in the Ark's database, which would require command-level authorization–my authorization."
"So what exactly is this Ark? And what is the Wishing Well?" Akagi asked, making a very convincing feign of ignorance on the subject of both.
"I can answer that," Dr. DeWolf volunteered. He was far more knowledgeable on the technical details, so it was no surprise when the captain nodded his approval. "Okay, so it all began about six… maybe seven years ago, when the Royal Navy managed to get its hands on a near fully-intact Siren facility located in the Iroise sea. The Sirens are usually pretty good at keeping their stuff out of our hands, so it was a pretty big deal. The Royal Navy wanted to study the thing from top to bottom, so they built an entire facility around the Siren structure; the whole combo became known as the Ark. Then myself along with all the other brightest minds of the Azur Lane were brought in to study and reverse-engineer the technology."
"I thought the Azur Lane was opposed to using Siren technology," I observed, as I recalled it being a common point of objection during international conferences.
"Sure–in public," Captain DeWolf scoffed. "Behind closed doors, the Royal Navy would gladly shove the First Sea Lord down a flight of stairs if it kept them ahead of the Iron Bloods."
"Now Wishing Well had been a pet project of mine for quite some time," Dr. DeWolf continued on with his story. "More of a thought experiment, really, but my research on the Ark provided some new insights and the Royal Navy became very interested in seeing if it was feasible. If it were, it would change the way we made kansens forever. Thus, by order of Her Majesty, Captain Cunningham was placed in charge of the project, and the whole lot of us were put on the Ark for the better part of a year."
"What is it about the Wishing Well that made it so special?" Akagi pressed her original question once again. "The Royal Navy is hardly the first to try and improve the kansen creation process."
"Yeah, but those people always did it in the laziest ways possible," Dr. DeWolf said with a smug, dismissive scoff. "Creating a kansen isn't cheap, and the success rate is very low. But rather than try to better the process, all of the improvements done thus far simply made it cheaper to fail. It was a brute-force method of compensating for the Law of Diminishing Returns. Wishing Well was going to be a game-changer by bypassing the rules that once constrained us." One could feel the energy and excitement in his voice, which was understandable given how passionate he was about his craft and how rarely he got a chance to speak openly about it. "The Wishing Well wasn't just about making it easier or more efficient to make any one kansen. Right now, we can only create kansens from ships that have existed in history. Now why is that? We don't actually pull the ship through space and time, but instead you're built off and powered by the collective willpower and memories of humanity. But now ask yourself: what's the difference between the memory of a real ship, and one that isn't?"
A pregnant silence hung in the air as the rest of us exchanged uncertain glances. As far as thought experiments went, it did provoke quite a few, and I could see why the Royal Navy would be so interested in such a proposal. The Sakura Empire's history was littered with designs and proposals that never got past the blueprint phase: from Amagi, who was intended to have a whole fleet of sister ships; to my sister, who could have been built so much stronger and better than myself.
"It's the amount of collective consciousness," Dr. DeWolf then elaborated. "Even a ship that sailed a single day had the hopes and dreams of hundreds upon hundreds of people poured into it–the sailors, the builders, the designers, the people who walked by the drydocks each day, or read about it in the newspapers. Those are the memories that give birth to kansens. Now I can draw a battleship on the back of a cocktail napkin, even make an entire set of blueprints for it, but I can't make a kansen out of it because I'd be the only one who knows of it. Mine are the only memories attached to it, and there's simply not enough power there to bring a kansen to fruition. The Wishing Well would allow us to condense and focus that limited pool, which would enable us to create kansens from a much smaller collective consciousness. King George V was one of our first proposals to experiment with–there were dozens of different designs made for her. We could not only draw from the memories of those designs, but we could potentially piggyback those off of collective memories of the Royal Navy as a whole, and from that we could create a whole new kansen that would not only be an unknown quantity to our enemies, but wouldn't be hindered by memories of failures and hardships faced by their namesake."
It was a grand idea, indeed, and one that only a fool would think to ignore. For all the powers our memories gave us, they were often also the sources of our greatest burdens. To create kansens that could have all of the benefits and none of the drawbacks of the collective human consciousness could radically alter the balance of power. For factions like the Iron Bloods, who had always been hamstrung by the limited number of historical ships they could draw from, such a technology could answer their greatest weakness.
"You said 'if' you could get it to work," I observed. "What prevented the project's success? And why do you believe Mutsu could succeed where you could not?"
"We couldn't get the catalyst to work," Captain DeWolf answered. He had finished with his firearm and was putting on a vest ladened with ammo pouches and various grenades. More of that 'illusion of control' he spoke of before we departed.
Since almost everyone in the room was unfamiliar with the exact creation process, we could only stare blankly at the captain's explanation.
"It was a focusing agent–used to condense and better direct the energies involved," he further elaborated. "It would always burn out during tests. We tried different designs, different materials, adjusting every variable we could think of. The end result was always the same."
Enterprise, despite technically being in charge, remained quiet as she inspected her bow for damage. "Do you believe that Mutsu has this catalyst? That she can actually complete the process," she asked.
Captain DeWolf nodded. "I don't believe her confidence is born from delusions, but if she does need the rest of the data contained in the Ark, then it's absolutely paramount that she not be allowed to retain control of it," he explained.
Before the conversation could continue, King George V signalled that we were arriving at our destination. We all made one last check of our equipment and then headed above deck. As much as I would have preferred to have kept Captain DeWolf behind while the rest of us secured the facility, he was ultimately safer if he were kept close. Besides, there was no chance he would let himself remain a bystander.
We arrived on the forward weather deck just in time to see the Ark's looming figure emerge from the mist. It was a massive, towering obelisk, so dark that had it not been for the faint pulses of light that ran up its entire length, one could have sailed with arm's length of it and never seen it against the night sky. As my head craned back just to take in the entire sight, a sense of dread and unease began to set in the air, as if the very structure itself was composed of pure malevolence–the abyss given physical form.
At the base of the tower was a sort of collection of interconnected structures that formed a kind of militarized shanty town. There were dozens of individual buildings: some were mounted atop concrete pillars, while others rested on the ocean upon massive, industrial-sized pontoons, and several more clung to the sides of the Siren monolith like some kind of cancerous growth.
"And you spent an entire year here?" I asked. It had only been a few minutes and I already wanted to be gone from this place.
"You put down a few throw rugs, some potted plants, and a nice set of curtains, and it's not so bad," Captain DeWolf explained. "You eventually learn to ignore the crushing sense of futility and the constant buzzing."
King George V swept her spotlights across the structures until eventually settling on what remained of some pontoon docks. They were far too small for a battleship to use, so we had to lower one of her rafts down and depart using that. About half of us in the boat were anxious about our destination, while the other half were steely-eyed and determined. I wasn't sure where Captain DeWolf or King George V fell on that scale, regardless of how stoic they both appeared to be. I stayed close to the captain, but once again I believe it was more for my own peace of mind than his.
Once we had docked and secured the boat, King George V recalled her warship, which was probably desperately needed considering the list she had since developed from the torpedo hits. She, herself, remained uninjured, but now that her rigging was so badly damaged, I worried how she'd fair should we be drawn into a fight with Mutsu or Choshu. That didn't stop her from taking the lead, though, as we hurried off the rain-soaked docks.
"Nagato," Kawakaze said as she handed over one of her spare katanas. "Just in case."
"Remember, we want to take this facility as intact as possible," King George V said as she drew her own sabre. "So no bombs or artillery inside unless it's absolutely necessary."
"Plus the two very squishy humans accompanying you tend not to react well to high explosives or shrapnel," Captain DeWolf added. "With any luck, though, the enemy will be just as restricted."
At the end of the docks, a heavy-duty security door barred our path.
"I don't suppose you still have your key card, James?" King George V asked.
"Left it in my other coat. You?" DeWolf replied.
King George V simply smirked and brandished her sabre. "No, but I have the next best thing." With one swift motion of her blade, she carved out a deep fissure in the door frame, which was just large enough for her to fit her free hand into. She grabbed hold of the door, let out a vigorous shout, and tore the whole thing from its frame.
"You Royalists have no appreciation for subtlety," Akagi commented as she watched the door hurtle off into the ocean.
"The enemy already knows we're coming," King George V replied.
"Doesn't mean you have to make it any easier for them. We're already at a disadvantage; leveraging the element of surprise could help better our odds."
"Fortune favours the brave, Akagi. That's why Britannia rules the waves."
While I was sure everyone in the Royal Navy would agree with King George V's sentiments, it left those of us from the Sakura Empire quietly rolling our eyes when she looked away. Her bravado was reassuring, but risky. One by one, we filed inside. Kawakaze and King George V took the lead, then the two DeWolfs, Akashi, and Enterprise in the middle, and lastly Akagi, Unicorn, and I took up the rear guard. Inside we were greeted by narrow, ill-lit corridors of plastics and sheet metal. Once upon a time, they likely presented a clean, polished look, but time had left them littered and stale. Debris and refuse were scattered all over the floors; left-overs from the Royal Navy scientists, engineers, and officers who were once stationed here. It felt almost like being inside a submarine as we wormed our way through the structure, ducking through every bulkhead and having to watch every step for random pipes and conduits.
"Now that we are here, how are we to proceed in order to find Mutsu and Choshu?" I inquired.
"I assure you, they'll find us," Captain DeWolf answered. "For now, our best option would be to proceed to the data centre. From there, we'll be able to physically remove the drives housing the encrypted files. It should be… I think this way."
Thankfully, there were more than a few signs offering directions, so we were able to stay on course.
"Afterwards, we head down to the power core: some sabotage and a few pieces of high explosives there should be enough," Captain DeWolf explained before looking over to his brother. "It is enough, right?"
Joseph had to ponder it over for a moment, but eventually he gave an uneasy nod. "I… I think we can make that work. Open up the power feeds, destabilize the core, and between the power surge and loss of structural integrity, there's a good chance that at least the parts we built would fall apart. Akashi can probably help with the necessary modifications."
"Sir, this place is too important to just blow up," King George V objected, unsurprisingly. "You… Vicky… Joseph… we all worked too hard on this project just to see it turned into a sunken hulk."
"Denying the enemy this asset is more important than how we feel about this place," Captain DeWolf reiterated.
"Oh, bollocks to that! So it's just a happy coincidence that you brought an entire bag full of high explosives along with you when we left port?" King George V gestured to the bag that the captain had slung over his shoulder; the bag whose contents he never revealed but had instructed Akashi to make sure was loaded before our departure. The fact that her accusation was met with an immediate response was enough confirmation that she was correct about its contents. "At least let us try to stop Mutsu and Choshu before you start putting everything to the torch."
"We can't take that chance," DeWolf stated flatly. He tried to press on, but King George V stepped in front to bar his path.
"Would you just trust in me, James! This isn't the Iroise sea; we can't just give up before we even start."
"Trust in you? How about some trust in me?" he snapped back. Once more, he proved unwilling to back down in the face of the otherwise imposing kansen. In an instant, he was already face to face with her in an intense stare-down. "If any of you had bothered to take your heads out of your arses for one damn minute and listened to me, Iroise sea wouldn't have been such a goddamn mess. But heaven forbid anybody listen to the 'mere' lieutenant commander from the Maple Monarchy. What could he possibly know? Honestly, I can't tell if the Royal Navy hated me more for being an upstart colonial who kept telling them things they didn't want to hear, or because Vicky chose to marry this commoner from across the pond."
"Maybe it was because you were such a stubborn little–"
"Would you both just shut up already!"
The sudden outburst took everybody by surprise, especially me as I never thought I would ever shout so loud at the two of them. Of course, now that I had, every set of eyes were trained on me as though I were about to unload a full broadside.
"You two are so darn stubborn; Miss Cunningham must have had the patience of an ōkami to put up with you two," I continued on despite my initial outrage having cooled into a lukewarm simmering. "Captain DeWolf, I understand that you have your misgivings about trusting the Royal Navy with such a crucial task, but Miss George deserves a chance to honour the memory and legacy of her friend. And George, you must understand that there is far more at stake than your personal feelings. There is no telling what harm could come if Mutsu is allowed to utilize the Wishing Well. You know this, and you also know that ensuring this facility's destruction would be what Captain Cunningham would order as well."
The two of them exchanged sheepish glances for a moment, then both gave a reluctant nod.
"Okay, how about we secure the data first, and then we can see about finding Mutsu," Captain DeWolf suggested. "But if things start going south, we fall back on the contingency plan."
"I can beat her, James, rest assured, but… if things do go south, then please do not hesitate to do what is needed to safeguard the fleet."
Seeing the two of them able to reach a compromise prompted a small sigh of relief. "I am glad that you have come to an understanding. We have enough obstacles ahead without adding 'infighting' to the list," I reminded them both. "I may have never met Miss Cunningham, but I am certain that she would not want to see the two of you fighting over her in such a way. She cared deeply about both of you."
"I can see why you wanted her as your secretary," King George V remarked, confidence renewed as she gestured forward. "Come, the data centre should be just up ahead."
We passed through another narrow bulkhead with a notable stiff door before finally arriving at our destination. At first it was just a darkened expanse with lights flickering in the void, but Captain DeWolf quickly found the light switch. One by one, dusty old fluorescent tubes hummed to life, revealing a large chamber filled with computer servers and terminals. The air was hot and dusty thanks to long-neglected air circulators, and all around there were discarded notebooks, empty bottles, and half-empty boxes bearing the Royal Navy's sigil.
"How long could she have stayed here?" Enterprise asked as she inspected some of the refuse, which included some familiar-looking ration packaging.
"We usually made sure to have enough emergency supplies to last a few days in the event of a storm, and it was a team of at least a dozen personnel," Captain DeWolf answered. Even in the case of some being lost to spoilage, that likely left enough food for one person to last a couple of months, and perhaps even more with disciplined rationing.
The two DeWolfs headed for the most central cluster of computer servers while the rest of us stood watch, with the exception of Akashi who followed alongside the captain. I knew little of the computers we used for our administrative work, so these much larger and seemingly more complex ones may as well have worked by magic for all I could discern about them. Nonetheless, I couldn't help but be curious as I watched a nearby computer terminal flicker to life as the various systems powered up. Streams of jumbled letters and symbols poured across the display, and it took me a few seconds before I realized that they had taken the crude visage of a girl's face.
"What a curious program," I remarked.
The digital face suddenly shifted its gaze to meet mine. "I am sorry, but I am unable to authenticate your credentials," it said.
If the enemy did not know where we were, they would only have needed to follow the sound of my shriek as I leapt a solid three feet back from the terminal. "C-Captain! The face just spoke!" I cried out.
Needless to say, my screaming brought everyone's attention over to me, especially the captain's. "What do you mean 'the face'?" he asked as he hurried over.
"Ah, Commander DeWolf, welcome back," the voice continued, switching its gaze over to the captain. "I presume by the unregistered kansen presence that a counteroffensive was successful?"
I shouldn't have been surprised that the voice appeared to recognize DeWolf, although it was strange that he looked even more surprised than I was.
"TB?" he muttered in disbelief. "Wait, how are you even here?"
"You know this… voice, sir?" I asked.
He nodded, looking strangely crestfallen. "She's an AI that we were provided with when we started our work here," he explained. DeWolf then gestured for everyone else to gather around in front of the terminal. "TB, these are some of my… allies: Nagato, Kawakaze, Akagi, and Akashi from the Sakura Empire; Unicorn from the Royal Navy; and Enterprise from the Eagle Union. You already know my brother and King George V. Why don't you come on out and introduce yourself. Don't worry, we're all friends here."
The face faded away from the screen, followed soon by new lights emerging from a series of small lenses scattered around the console. The separate beams all soon converged, and the visage of a small girl appeared before us. I couldn't tell if it was just an artefact of the holographic display, but she looked deathly pale, save for a single blue streak in her hair, and an equally blue eye that regarded us all with a blank, yet curious, stare.
"Greetings," the small holographic image greeted, followed by a respectful bow. "I am the virtual intelligence adjutant provided by naval headquarters. You may refer to me as TB. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance." The last words sounded uncomfortably forced, as though they were brand new shoes she was still trying to break in.
"I wasn't aware that the Azur Lane had access to such technologies," Akagi commented, an intrigued curl upon her lips. "And to make her such a cute little thing, too. It's rather touching to see you treating her like a flesh and blood individual."
"You can credit that to my wife; she was the one who started that trend, and the rest of us just kind of picked up the habit after a while," DeWolf said as he gave a somewhat embarrassed grin in return. He probably never stopped to consider how it would appear to onlookers. Personally, I thought it gave him something of a paternal air. "What I don't get is she was connected remotely to the Ark. With the mirror sea still in place, she shouldn't be able to access any of these systems."
"Because I am not TB," the holographic child answered. "Or more precisely, I am not fully TB. In order to better facilitate my duties, I had copied a portion of my subroutines to the Ark's systems. This division enabled me to continue utilizing my social interaction subroutines while reserving the primary systems at naval headquarters for data analysis. When the evacuation order was given, the local network became isolated. I was… trapped."
"Ah geeze, I am so sorry, TB. I… I didn't even know you could do something like that," Captain DeWolf apologized profusely. "If I had known, I would've made sure we offloaded your program before we left."
The little hologram shook her head. "That would have put you at an unnecessary level of risk. What you see before you is a copied partition; my absence does not compromise the functionality of the 'me' at naval headquarters. I am expendable. You are not."
"You know Victoria would have disagreed whole-heartedly to that."
DeWolf's mentioning of his wife's name made the hologram perk up in an instant. "Oh. Is Captain Cunningham here as well?" she inquired with a hopeful inflection that felt out of place from a computer program. "I have continued my practising as she requested. Dooooo… re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, doooo~"
There was an almost unsettling perfection to her cadence, so long as one ignored the faint hiss of static that accompanied all of her words. It made sense now why DeWolf had looked more disheartened than relieved to see a familiar face here.
"Victoria, she's… she's not coming back," DeWolf said with an abject sigh. "She didn't survive the evacuation."
"Oh…" TB replied with a notable drop in her voice. "I am sad to hear that."
"I'm sure she would be happy to hear that you're okay," he reassured her. Pushing past the gathered crowd, he sat down before the terminal and started working the keyboard over. "TB, what's the status of all the encrypted files for Project Wishing Well? Looks like somebody's tried to access it recently."
"Correct, sir. There were six unauthorized attempts to gain access to the encrypted project files. None were successful."
"I'm surprised she'd give up after only six tries," Akagi remarked.
"After the sixth attempt and in the absence of outside communication to authenticate, I believed it was best to lock out access to all system files until command authorization could be re-established," TB reported. "Do you know who this person is?"
"Nobody nice. Good work keeping things safe." Captain DeWolf paused for a second as he conducted a quick count of the various computer servers scattered around the room. A few mouthed profanities at the end were not a reassuring sign. "TB, some of the servers look like they've been tampered with."
"Correct. The unauthorized individual made several attempts in order to physically bypass my blocks of the Ark's systems. She has had partial success in regaining control of some Ark control systems, and I am afraid I have been physically isolated from the encrypted project files."
In other words, Mutsu had made a mess of the Ark's systems in order to try and get around TB's meddling. Both DeWolfs were already shaking their heads in dismay, as both of them knew enough about the Ark to recognize how much of a pain we were in store for.
"Looks like we've got a lot to fix," Captain DeWolf said as he rose from his seat. "TB, we need to offload all of the encrypted files. We'll start hooking everything back up together, and I want you to start moving everything into portable drives. And make sure you leave enough space for yourself, as well." Now that we had a tangible plan, we all awaited our new instructions. After a quick deliberation, our captain turned to us. "Joseph and Akashi will assist me in getting the mainframes reconnected. Nagato, you monitor our progress with TB. The rest of you, eyes on all points of entry. Any of you so much as hear a peep, you signal the rest of us. I want radio silence from here on, understood?"
The rest of us nodded in unison, and then set about our assigned duties. As curious as I was about the Ark, everything aboard it, and what had happened in the past, it was too dangerous to continue the conversations. Once we started reconnecting parts of the Ark's mainframes, no doubt Mutsu would become acutely aware of our exact position and plans, if she hadn't already anticipated them. Once both DeWolfs and Akashi disappeared into the depths of the cable jungle of the server arrays, I turned my attention back to the terminal. Monitoring wasn't the most exciting of tasks, but it was important. Although, I soon found myself bothered by the foot-tall holographic visage of TB staring at me in absolute silence. A reminder that she was merely idle while her computer program carried out the captain's orders did little to dissuade my unease. It was like trying to fall asleep in a room full of dolls–dolls that one could swear were watching.
"What is your relation to the commander?" TB suddenly asked.
I quickly gestured to remind her of our need for silence.
"Do not worry. I have modulated my audio output to a frequency imperceptible to human ears, as I hypothesized your canine-features would grant you a wider aural range."
I made sure to lean down and whisper as softly as I could to respond. "I am his secretary ship; I assist Captain DeWolf in his administrative duties." It was only until after I spoke I realized that the hologram probably didn't need me to be close to hear what I was saying, and I promptly righted my position to avoid any further foolishness.
"Captain?" TB replied. "Ah. He has since received promotion to the rank. I will update my records."
"Why do you ask about my relation to the captain?"
I shouldn't have carried on the conversation, but I was too curious, and I could keep watch at the same time quite easily. It was a simple matter of just noting when certain red blinking lights turned green, and then various progress bars denoting the relocation of files. A couple of times DeWolf whispered across the room for a status update, but other than that we were able to progress while barely making a noise above the scampering of footsteps about the room.
"I noted particular modulations in his voice and behavioural patterns that deviated from the expected norm," TB explained in a manner than only a machine of cold logic could. "His attentiveness towards you averaged 14.8% higher than any other occupant in the room. I am also noting a marked increase of your average surface temperature."
Could she have found a more embarrassing way of pointing out that I was blushing?
"I believe you are reading too much into the circumstances," I insisted, perhaps more to convince myself than anything. "He looks to me as a trusted advisor. It is only natural that his attention would be on me during moments of deliberation."
"Perhaps the limited data sampling has introduced bias into my calculations," TB answered in what I could only presume to be an agreement. "I was simply… curious. The only other times the aberrant pattern has been detected was during his interactions with Captain Cunningham."
"J…just a coincidence," I murmured in a last-ditch bout of self-delusion. It had to be a coincidence. There was no way he could think of me like that. I was his secretary ship, nothing more, and the Ark was arguably the last place on earth I should be indulging in such fantastical thoughts.
Before the conversation could continue on, I caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. It was Enterprise, and she was frantically waving to all of us, which could only mean one thing: someone was approaching. We all immediately scrambled for cover behind whatever solid objects we could find on short notice, which were servers and computer terminals for the most part. I worried in particular for Akagi, who had to somehow hide all nine tails behind a stack of Royal Navy crates. From my vantage point behind my computer console, I saw the familiar silhouette of my parallel-reality counterpart, Choshu, enter the chamber. On the one hand, it was a relief to see that she wasn't being held prisoner or under duress, but it was equally disconcerting because that meant she was allowed to roam the Ark freely.
Her dark, vulpine eyes panned across the width of the room. Those were the eyes of a hunter, full of purpose rather than curiosity.
We all held our breaths.
"Come on out, Nagato. I know you're in here," Choshu called out. "I can smell you."
I was skeptical of that claim. While I could hear better than a normal human, as far as I could tell, my sense of smell was the same so there was no reason to think hers was any better. She could have just been bluffing. Or maybe she could. Between all of our work, the battle, and falling asleep on the captain's bed, I haven't had much time to take a shower as of late.
"I know your stink, sister!" she bellowed again.
"I do not smell!" I snapped back, rising from my hiding spot. It was a gamble, but if I kept her attention to me then perhaps she would not realize how many others were here. "I am… relieved to see you are well. Where is Mutsu?"
"Not here. Yet," Choshu said as she strode into the room. Despite having her attention, she was clearly searching the room for signs of the others. Thankfully, she didn't make any overt efforts to find them, but I knew her suspicions were still roused. "I managed to convince her to give me a chance to settle this all peacefully. Because that's what you like to do in your Sakura Empire, right? Talk. Have tea. Parties and festivals."
There was something unsettling about her words: a skulking maliciousness hidden beneath a calm sea of forced politeness. Hungry. Predatory. "What has Mutsu been telling you?" I asked, mirroring her tone.
"Only the truth: there's a way to save my empire, to undo what's been done and bring them all back. All we need is Captain DeWolf." A subtle flash of light heralded the appearance of her sword in her hand, sheathed but its presence alone was enough for concern. And it only worsened when she pointed the hilt at me. "I'm only going to ask this once, Nagato: where is he?"
"And why are you so certain he would come to such an obvious trap?" I countered. I did still have the sword that Kawakaze gave me, but I didn't have nearly the same level of confidence.
Choshu didn't even hesitate to prepare herself to draw. "Because he's a good man, and he wouldn't keep a girl waiting. Now I'm not going to say this again: Where. Is. He."
As she took a few steps forward, there was not a single doubt in my heart or soul that she would cut me down where I stood if I didn't give her what she wanted. However, I didn't need to because of precisely what she said.
"I'm right here," Captain DeWolf announced as he stepped out into the open. He was surprisingly calm, and even left his shotgun behind. "Why are you doing this Choshu? When you left, you were trying to talk Mutsu down, and now you're trying to help her?"
"Because you lied to me!" Choshu suddenly snarled, her voice choked with rage and grief. "You told me you'd do everything you could to help me, and yet you've been keeping Wishing Well a secret from me. You knew this whole time what it could do, and you said nothing!"
Thankfully, despite her rising tone, the captain kept his cool. "Look around you, Choshu," he replied with a subtle sweep of his hand. "Does this look like it was ready to perform a miracle?"
"Only because you ran away! If you were only stronger–"
"You don't think I wonder every day what might've been if I had only been stronger?" DeWolf snapped back, firm but controlled. "You want to know what happened the last time we tried to make the Wishing Well work? Sirens happened. More Sirens than you could ever imagine. And not the weak little mass production models that fold like paper napkins when you shoot at them–I'm talking about the big ones. The ones that can part oceans when they fire their cannons. The ones that can take a shot from a sixteen-inch salvo and shrug it off like it was ocean spray. The ones that can do shit so out of this world that it makes you think you've taken leave of your senses."
"I am a kansen; I do not fear any Sirens!" Choshu barked in defiance.
"Neither did the Royal Navy. In fact, I'm pretty sure King George V said the exact same thing when I tried to warn her that our experiments were starting to activate dormant subsystems in the Siren facility." DeWolf continued on with each step, drawing closer to Choshu despite her aggressive stance. I dare say it even looked like she inched back just a bit when he got within arm's reach of her. "Nobody listened of course. 'He's just being nervous' they said. Scared. Weak-willed. 'A calculated risk', they insisted. Needless to say, they weren't very good at math. And when the Sirens came and our forces became encircled and overwhelmed, the admiral wasn't even alive long enough for me to say 'I told you so.'" His expression began to soften, anger and disappointment shifting to something more sympathetic as he took a step back. "Things were so bad, some hapless, scared-out-of-his-wits officer with almost no real command experience had to take control of an entire fleet, and even then, he could do nothing but watch his own wife take a detachment to draw the Siren's attacks away in order for the rest of the fleet to escape." Then, in a move of absolute brazenness, he knelt down to Choshu's level and clasped his hands upon her shoulders. "There are no miracles to be found here; only more pain. And you've been through enough of that for one lifetime."
To my absolute, stunning surprise, Choshu stood down, her arms dropping to her sides. "Sir, please," she quietly pleaded, "can't you just trust me? We… we won't be making the same mistakes. Mutsu has the black wisdom cube–it'll make the project work. And since the Sirens gave it to her, they won't interfere like they did with you." When she reached up for the captain, I feared she might try to take him by force, but instead she just held onto him and rested her head against his chest. "Wouldn't you give anything to undo the worst mistake of your life?"
DeWolf closed his arms around her and just held her close. "That's not a path you want to walk down, Choshu. Trust me…" he whispered back.
Unfortunately, we were all so distracted by the confrontation between the two, that none of us noticed the encroaching footsteps, not until there was a heavy, resolute thud at the nearby doorway. There stood Mutsu, naginata already in hand.
"M-Mutsu!" Choshu exclaimed as she quickly pulled away. "I-it's not what it looks like. I can explain!"
The red-headed Mutsu gave a sweet, motherly smile back to her sister. "Oh, my dear Nagato, you don't need to explain anything to me," she cooed. "I have to admit, I was a little touched myself." The sweetness melted away to reveal a gaze harder than any cemented steel. "But now is not the time for softness. Captain DeWolf, you have the last piece I need to bring my empire back. Because my sister has such a strange affection for you, I'll give you a chance to surrender it peacefully. Give me access to the Wishing Well encrypted files, and I guarantee you the safety of you, your friends, and your fleet still wandering aimlessly out there. If not, I have hundreds of Sirens waiting for my command."
"You know I can't do that," DeWolf replied flatly.
Whatever calmness she had instantly erupted, her face twisting in a barely restrained rage. "Why?" she bellowed as she stormed towards the captain. "I am here to save lives! What gives you the right to deny me? To decide who lives and who dies?"
Captain DeWolf, though, did not flinch, even as he stared down a blade pointed at his throat. He knew, as the rest of us, that she couldn't risk him harm. Not if she wanted what he knew.
"Nothing comes from the Sirens without a cost," he replied. "I sympathize with your pain, Mutsu, but this isn't the right way."
There was a real chance that Mutsu's anger was going to win out over her acknowledgement that she needed him alive. The blade trembled for a second before a second wind calmed her down, and she pulled it away.
"I tried asking for wisdom before… to know what the right way was," she recounted. "But as I stood over all the broken and burning remains of my friends and loved ones, of my homeland… the only answer I got was silence." For a moment, Mutsu lingered with the captain, walking slow, predatory circles around him. "I can see the warrior in you. You're not some paper-pushing, desk officer. I could threaten you all day and you would not yield, even if I started to take you apart piece by piece. But I already know your weakness… ever since the moment we met on that beach."
Her eyes suddenly shifted to me. Even though I was at least a couple metres away, her polearm gave her enough reach that all she needed to do was pivot on one foot and let her weapon swing out in a wide, lethal arc. Now I had decent reflexes, but even I was caught flat-footed by her sudden aggression. Fortunately for me and my desire towards keeping my head upon my shoulders, Kawakaze was far quicker to respond. A flash of silver fur and drawn steel, punctuated by the sharp toll of blade-on-blade, saw the attack deflected away from me, and my steadfast bodyguard now positioned between Mutsu and myself.
"I was wondering when your friends would show up," an amused Mutsu remarked. "Who else do you have waiting in the shadows, hm? Why don't the rest come on out? Skulking is for submarines, anyways."
"That's fine by me," King George V announced as she stepped out into view. She gave her sabre a few twirls and a quick flourish before settling into position alongside Kawakaze. "May as well settle this like kansens, though it's awfully bold of you to invite an uneven fight."
There was a reason why Captain DeWolf allowed Choshu and Mutsu to depart the naval port without incident, and a reason why his first objectives here did not involve direct confrontation with Mutsu. A fight breaking out now would put Choshu into a position where she would have to pick sides, and I think DeWolf wanted more time to try and reason with her before that choice was forced upon her. Kansens being kansens, however, meant a fight was inevitable the moment the two sides met. King George V was too eager to prove her worth, and Kawakaze would never allow an attack against me to go unanswered, and once those two had committed to the fight, Akagi and Enterprise would surely follow suit, spurred on by the intoxicating allure of the drums of war. After all, we were made to wage war. This was our natural state. For being such beacons of hope and humanity, we sure embraced the darkest and cruellest parts of it.
Alas, as DeWolf had feared, seeing the odds stacked against her sister prompted Choshu to fall in step alongside her. "I assure you, King George V of the Royal Navy, the odds are more than sufficient," she announced, drawing her blade in a slow, almost ceremonial fashion.
"Choshu, please… you don't have to do this," DeWolf said in a last, desperate plea to avoid an escalation.
"My name is Nagato!" she snapped back. "Nagato of the Sakura Empire. And I will not allow any of you to lay one finger on my sister."
As she lowered her stance, she leveled her blade out until it ran parallel to the floor, eyes fixed like a tiger ready to pounce. Mutsu followed suit, assuming a more defensive posture with the tip of her naginata angled down towards her opponent's feet. With the battle line forming up, Akagi and Enterprise stepped out with their own weapons drawn and ready. Each of them slowly flanked off to the sides, creating something of a shallow arc against the two defiant Sakurans. Were this a battle on the open seas, such odds would surely spell the downfall for Choshu and her sister. We would've had range, manoeuvrability, numbers, and overwhelming air superiority. Inside, though, where our riggings had to be kept stowed away and things like displacement and engine power had no sway over speed and agility; where we were all forced into close confines, and surrounded by equipment too sensitive to risk artillery; in those circumstances, I felt far less confident about our odds.
Regardless of how I felt, though, the stage had been set, and I had no choice but to join my comrades in the battleline. I may have not had access to the full extent of my strength, but I could not stand idly by while others fought my battles for me. There was no use denying the nature of our purpose: I was a kansen, and I was made to fight.