Ise POV
Its been three days since the 'Battle of Okinawa' and the whole fleet is enjoying some R&R at Sasebo naval base. Unsurprisingly the press knew of our battle before we got back and every news station is talking about it and all of them blew it out of proportion. A few girls believe they did this as much for morale as they did views and I wouldn't be surprised if that is the truth.
"Abyssals defeated by heavily outnumbered defenders, yeah right."
"What are they saying this time?"
"We were outnumbered 2 to 1 and the garrison 4 to 1," Kako answered.
"They're exaggerating so much I don't know if I'm amazed or disappointed."
"Disappointed," she tossed the paper behind her, "I'm bored."
"Welcome to the club are you new here?"
"Really?"
"Hey, you walked into that one."
"Why don't we find something we can do for the day that doesn't involve arguing," Natori interrupted.
"Well our options are limited since its March and freezing outside," Fuyo complained.
"There's a chance for snow today right," Sanae asked.
"Yeah I think it's snowing right now which is strange, Sasebo doesn't get snow or have partially cold weather in March," I said.
"I don't care how strange it is I plan to enjoy it while it lasts," Sanae said as she stood up.
"A day in the snow? Sounds like a good idea to me," Fuyo said joining her sister followed by Karukaya. "What do you three think?"
"Sounds good, Kako, Natori want to join in?"
Kako jumped up and exclaimed, "Sounds good!? That sounds amazing! Count me in!"
Natori and I laughed at her reaction and she agreed to join us as well. "Great! Follow me I know the perfect spot," Sanae said before she bolted off quickly followed by her sisters.
"Shit, tell the sisters to wait up I need to do something before we go," I said.
"Alright don't take too long Ise you know how those three are when they want to do something together," Kako called as she started chasing them.
Leaving the mess I looked for a secluded place where I wouldn't be disturbed. Deciding that mine and Fuso's quarters would do I headed there and locked the door behind me. Pulling out my smartphone I opened my contacts and clicked on Akashi's number.
It rang a few times before she picked up, "Akashi, its Ise, I need to talk with you about something."
"What would that be?"
"I've had some... dreams but they feel more like flashbacks, visions whatever you want to call them."
"What are they about?"
"That's the thing I don't know they fade away before I can dig deeper. Have other girls complained about something similar?"
"Yeah, when did these start?"
"I had the first one about a month after I was summoned and a few more since then."
"Strange," she whispered. "To answer your question yes every girl had those but usually they start the week they were summoned and end a week later they don't drag on for months."
"Okay, but why am I having them?"
"You don't know," she sounded surprised.
"No, I don't if I did I wouldn't be asking you."
She's silent for a moment, "There are dozens of theories about how shipgirls and abyssals came to be and although we don't have a solid one for the abyssals there is one widely accepted for shipgirls."
"Yes, we're the spiritual souls of warships I know that, how does that help me?"
"I'm getting to it. Yes, we're the spiritual souls of warships so we remember everything our crew experienced. These visions are memories of what you and your crew experienced when you were a steel-hulled ship."
"Why didn't Kawachi explain this to me when I was first summoned," I asked still wrapping my head around the fact that I'm remembering my time as an actual ship.
"She probably wanted your memories to come naturally. It can be extremely painful if you remember them with outside help as they all come at once."
"I guess that makes sense but why are they coming so slowly?"
"I don't know this is the first time something like this has ever happened. Call me as soon as you have another vision I'll see what I can find on my end."
"Alright- ISE LETS GO!"
"I got to go I'll call you back when I have another one."
"Alright, be careful out there."
"I will."
"ISE!"
"I'M COMING HOLD YOUR DAMN HORSES!"
Throwing the door open I marched down the hall toward Kako who stood there with a satisfied smile. I stormed up to her and jabbed my finger in her chest, "I hate you so much right now. Why are you here anyway I thought you were watching the sisters?"
She pushed my finger away, "I was and then I left it to Natori she seemed to handle them well enough."
I rolled my eyes and dragged her with me, "Come on."
"Hey! Let me go!"
Ignoring her complaining I dragged her through the base disregarding the looks we got from both shipgirls and personal alike. Eventually, she stopped struggling so I released her, "I just made it harder on myself didn't I?"
"Yep," I said why too enthusiastically.
She groaned in annoyance, "You're mean you know that."
"Only when I want to be."
"Oh, so you're only mean to me."
"Kako you wound me," I said in mock hurt.
The look she sent me said she didn't buy it at all but she dropped it when we arrived at the base's entrance and found Natori waiting by a Humvee.
"Get in you two we only have six hours before the base wants their Humvee back."
"When did you learn how to drive?"
"A few weeks after I was summoned its why they let me borrow the Humvee."
Getting into the back with Kako we sandwiched Fuyo and Karukaya between us while Sanae rode shotgun.
"How long will it take us to reach your spot?"
"Thirty to forty-five minutes depending on traffic."
The first fifteen minutes of the drive is spent in relative silence and it quickly became awkward as we exchanged glances with each other trying to find something to break the silence. Sanae turned to look at the five of us and groaned, "Well this is awkward. We've been with each other for months, save for Natori, yet here we are acting like total strangers."
"She's not wrong... Natori! You just joined the taskforce where were you stationed before," Kako suddenly asked.
She jumped, surprised at the sudden question, and nearly ran us into the car in front of us. "Dammit, don't startle me when I'm driving," she snapped.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you."
"Its fine just please don't do it again. To answer your question I was stationed at Kure naval base before I was transferred to Sasebo where I was part of a cruiser squadron with my sister before we transferred into your taskforce."
"You see any action when stationed at Kure?"
"Not much, usually we escorted convoys or dealt with abyssal raiders it was a fairly quiet post."
"With all that downtime you had to do something to pass time."
"Mainly training or teaching new girls but that gets old fast so we played a variety of games to keep us entertained."
"I bet the destroyers had some... interesting ways to entertain themselves," Sanae said with a knowing grin.
"Oh don't even get me started those little devils turned the entire base into a warzone with their pranks," she snarled.
"They got you didn't they?"
"Surprisingly no but I saw the aftermath and I helped in getting sweet revenge on the little devils. Since I came out of the 'prank war' unscathed I was given a nickname 'The lucky one' is what they called me.
Fuyo groaned, "The lucky one' the hell kind of nickname is that?"
"You think that's bad you should've heard some of the other ones they came up with I mean what the hell kind of nickname is 'The slimy one?"
I felt Fuyo shudder against me, "A disguising one."
"How did you get revenge on the destroyers," I asked.
"Well, it wasn't as simple as you'd think not all of the destroyers were in on it so we tried to avoid pranking them but we couldn't tell them about our plan for revenge."
"Why?"
"We were worried they might compromise the plan."
"That makes sense if you told anyone outside the group about the plan it would be passed around and could be compromised," Kako said.
"Exactly. So when we enacted our plan a few innocents were caught in the crossfire but it was so worth it."
"You haven't explained to us what the plan was," I pointed out.
"Right, we managed to insert an agent to feed us information and through her, we gained the knowledge of where they would meet to plan out their next prank. So with the knowledge of when and where the meeting would take place, we booby-trapped the whole room with buckets of glitter and flower. As soon as we received the signal we sprung the trap; their shrikes of panic could be heard throughout the base. We rushed in and the room is covered in glitter and flower along with the fifteen destroyers it looked like a bomb had gone off and our group falls to the floor in laughter from the looks on their faces, and soon the entire room dissolved into laughter. I laughed so hard and for so long that my sides hurt by the time I was done and that epic prank brought an end to the Great Prank War."
"They gave up that easily?"
"No, that mainly fell to the base staff who had enough of our war and made everyone involved in the prank clean up the aftermath which took two hours. Once that was done the base Commander personally explained that the war was over and that anyone caught pranking would face severe consequences. We got the last laugh however so victory was ours!"
"Alright, that was a good prank better than anything I could come up with," Fuyo admitted.
"You a prankier Fuyo?"
"An amateur one at best I'm trying to learn but I haven't gotten any better."
"Well, maybe I'll teach you a few things."
"Really!? Please teach me the ways of pranking," she pleaded.
"Absolutely not! I'm not gonna be a punching bag for my sister and her prank's," Karukaya protested.
"Come on sis for me," Fuyo gave her sister the most adorable pout I have ever seen and somehow she didn't cave.
"NO!"
"Sanae you'll back me up won't you?"
"Only if she agrees to teach me as well."
"I don't see why not."
"YES!"
"Natori you betrayed me how could you!?"
"Don't worry I'll make sure our task force will be out of the line of fire everyone else is fair game, just don't go overboard with pranks if you do you'll regret it," Natori darkly said.
"We won't!"
"Yeah, you can count on us!"
"Well alright then. Your training starts next week."
"AWESOME," both sisters screamed at the same time.
"It's hard to believe their warriors at times," I say to Kako.
"Yeah, yeah it is."
For the next ten minutes, we chatted about anything and everything from our favorite music to the new computer that Miyuki bought and the many failed attempts to pry her away from it along with Shirayuki's epic cooking disaster that literally blew up in her face covering her head to toe in chili and had her banned from the kitchen for her own safety.
"Ladies, we have arrived at our destination," Natori stated.
Opening the door the colder air hit me like a hammer as I stepped out of the Humvee. The thicker clothes I wore combined with my crew firing up my boilers quickly warmed me up but left me comfortable in my clothes. Light snow continued to fall and small snow flurries landed on my hand where they melted.
"Come on," Sanae called out as she took off up the hill closely followed by Fuyo while Karukaya stayed with Natori, Kako, and myself. We followed the sisters up the hill in silence taking in the snow-covered landscape, the sun's light shimmered off the snow seemingly making it glow. We reached the crest of the hill and the view of the ocean it offered is breathtaking. The sun's light glimmered off the waves and I pulled out my phone to take some pictures and sent them to my friends. I wouldn't be forgetting this view anytime soon.
"This is amazing," Kako said in awe.
"Amazing, it's marvelous. How did you find this place," Natori asked.
"Exploring really nothing fancy."
"And you haven't shown anyone else," I asked.
"I showed it to Furutaka, Isuzu, Aoi, and Hishi yesterday since they had plans for today and wouldn't be able to come and I don't plan on showing anyone else."
"Come on let's get a picture together."
Kako set her phone up to get a group picture and then rushed back to stand in the middle with Natori while I stood in the back with the sisters standing in front. The camera flashed and she rushed to get a look at the picture.
"It's perfect," she says showing us the picture. The six of us standing together and smiling with the ocean in the background as snow flurries fell around us a beautiful moment forever captured in time.
"That's not the only thing I wanted to show you," Sanae sounded anxious.
I turned around, "What-"
SPLAT!
Something very cold and wet hit me in the face and I quickly wiped it off. Snow fell to my feet and Sanae stood in front of me reading another snowball. Ducking it flew over my head and I created my own and launched it at her hitting her face and knocking her onto her back. She jumped up and yelled, "You'll pay for that! Sisters back me up!"
Two more snowballs hit her from said sisters, "TRAITORS! You will pay for this!" She took off down the hill and took cover behind a snowbank.
"FREE-FOR-ALL! Everyone for themselves," Fuyo yelled ducking to avoid her sister.
I took off getting some distance from Kako and Natori and hid behind a tree while I created a handful of snowballs. Loaded up I poked my head out and spotted Natori and Kako along with the two sisters launching snowballs at each other from snowbanks and trees, Sanae isn't with them and a quick scan around me failed to reveal her. Sneaking up behind Natori I took cover behind a tree and hurled a snowball hitting her in the back, she turned just in time to catch another in the face.
"ISE IS BEHIND US!"
"Shit, So much for the element of surprise."
Throwing one more snowball at her I sprinted behind a snowbank dodging a few snowballs along the way. Staying down I waited on them to focus on each other and glanced over my cover just in time to see Kako go down. Fuyo is advancing on her position so I nailed her in the side of the head while Natori and Karukaya pelted her from the side sending her face-first into the snow.
A snowball hit me in the shoulder and I turned to see Sanae ducking and weaving between trees and snowbanks making it difficult to land a hit. Picking up another snowball I aimed ahead of her and let it fly, it disintegrated when it hit her shoulder knocking her off balance and sending her tumbling through the snow. A sharp whistle to my left reviled Natori and I rolled to avoid her snowball and quickly launched my own in retaliation.
SPLAT!
"Dammit Ise you got me!"
"Got you, you got me!"
"Did we just knock each other out?"
"Yes."
"Son of a- It's all up to you Karukaya!"
"WHAT!?"
"Yeah, Natori and I knocked each other out!"
With Karukaya attempting to knock her sister out I helped her up, "Want to wait at the Humvee?"
"I don't know what they're doing seems far more interesting."
Karukaya and Sanae are trading snowballs with each other from behind cover and their accuracy leaves much to be desired. For a good five minutes, we watch this... it's not really a fight I don't know what to call it. A standoff? Not that doesn't sound right.
"Natori, what would you call this?"
"An insult to snowballers across the globe."
"You're not wrong but that's not what I'm asking."
"How about a mild disagreement?"
"Close enough. Want to head back?"
Instead of answering she handed me a few snowballs and with a sly grin took aim at the sisters, "I like your idea better." Taking aim at Karukaya I let a snowball fly.
"AHHH!"
"YES! I- SPLAT- WHAT THE!?"
"GAME OVER! WE WIN," both of us shouted.
"COME ON I ALMOST HAD HER!"
"If we let you two keep fighting we'd be frozen!"
"You could just go back to the Humvee!"
"And we'd be waiting for an hour! Come on lets get back to the base!"
Chuckling I felt a sharp poke in my side and found Karukaya actually glaring at me. "That wasn't nice."
I smiled and hugged her close, "It was funny though."
She kept her glare up for a second before she smiled, "Yeah it was," she admitted.
I lead her down the hill to the Humvee where we found Natori and Sanae rolling in laughter with Kako and Fuyo laughing along with them. I smiled at the sight and asked, "Want to join them?"
Her smile says it all.