Rear Admiral Richard Drake stood out on the deck of the IJN Bushido, his arms crossed and his eyes closed as he leaned against the bulkhead. The door from the interior that led out onto the main deck kept opening and closing as various sailors went in and out of the ship's interior, and the the constant chattering that went on as the sailors relayed orders and preparations to each other did not make the deck a quiet place to relax. Still, Drake liked the feel of the night sea breeze, so he found it calming to stand out there. He opened his brown eyes and stared at the shiny black sea.
Soon those waters will be filled with blood and the sound of war, he thought. Activity in the Abyssal fleet had increased significantly, so after the strategy meeting, Fleet Admiral Umi had issued an order to all ships saying to be ready to sortie at a moment's notice. That was the reason why there was so much commotion on the deck, though most probably, no actual fighting would take place until the next morning at the earliest.
Drake himself didn't have much to do at the moment. Admiral Belle had stayed on the bridge with a few other senior officers, but Drake himself was not needed, so he was down here waiting. Most of the other officers had already gone back to their respective ships, but since Drake had to leave with Admiral Belle, he would have to wait until her business was concluded. Normally he would be glad to have a bit of time off, but now that he was on the eve of the biggest battle of his career and possibly one that could decide the fate of humanity, he felt kind of uncomfortable just standing there and doing nothing.
He then felt a series of small vibrations in his pocket, and he pulled out his phone to see someone calling him. Blinking at the caller ID, he moved his finger across the slider to pick up the call.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Rich! How's it going?" a cheery voice greeted from the other side. The man's voice had a strange cadence to it, as if someone were speaking in a mixture of British and American accents.
"Fine, I guess. Why're you calling me?"
"Woah, there. That's all you have to say to your dad who you haven't spoke to in so long?"
"It's only been a couple weeks since I last talked to you," Drake responded flatly.
"And that's a long time! I was giving you some space because I know you have to prepare for that battle."
"Yeah, and the fight could actually start any minute now, so…"
"Really? Glad I caught you in time, then!" Drake's father replied enthusiastically, much in contrast to his son's tone of voice.
"Not really. I don't have time to be talking to anyone right now." That was a lie, but Drake was a bit too nervous and on edge to engage in a friendly conversation with his father.
"Hm, why do I feel like you're lying to me? Anyway, I'll let you get back to 'work' soon enough. I just wanted to talk to you once before the big battle. Make sure you stay safe out there, you hear? Your mother says so too."
"I'll be fine. My ship will be in the very back of the fleet, so I probably won't come into contact with the enemy at all," Drake said, trying to reassure his father. He really didn't like it when other people worried about him, even if those people were his own parents. Though he knew they meant well, it only made him feel like a child.
"That's good. Just make sure a stray shell or something doesn't wipe you out, haha!"
Is that something to be laughing about? Drake thought as he sighed. "Yeah, yeah."
"Okay, then! I look forward to hearing about your victory on the news! Don't forget to call afterwards!"
"All right. Bye."
Drake hung up the phone, then decided to head back inside. Kaga was below decks with the battleships, so that was where Drake went as well. However, on the way there, he was stopped by someone.
"Ah, Rear Admiral Drake," the Italian admiral from Tangier, Paola Veronese, greeted him. "I see you are still around."
"Yeah, I have to wait for Admiral Belle before I can leave," Drake said. "I guess it's the same with you?"
"Yes, Ammiraglio Caravaggio is still speaking, so I must wait as well," she sighed. "So, have you just come from gazing at the stars?"
"Uh, sort of."
"Indeed. The view of the sea and the stars at night has always calmed me. My father used to be a fisherman, and he would take me out on trips at night in his small boat. It reminds me of those times," Veronese said with a wistful look in her eye.
"So you used to live by the Mediterranean?" Drake asked.
"The town of Amalfi, to be exact," Veronese nodded. "It was nice… Unfortunately, there is nothing left for me there now. My father and brother sometimes worked for a fishing and cargo company when we needed the extra money, and they perished on one of their cruises during an Abyssal attack. My mother died of a broken heart shortly afterwards. Because of that, I sold our house there and joined the Regia Marina. The Abyssals have taken much from me, and I think it is about time I had a turn at them instead."
Though Paola Veronese spoke with an easy, untroubled tone, Drake could see the sadness, anger, and burning hatred behind her eyes. He had seen those same things in his own stare when he looked in the mirror, and they were unmistakable.
"Hah, but I shouldn't bore you with my history," Veronese waved off after a brief, somber silence. "I'm going to go out on the decks for a bit. If I don't see you before the battle, then I wish you good luck. O la vittoria, o tutti accoppati."
With that last Italian phrase that Drake didn't understand, Veronese headed out onto the deck, and Drake continued down towards the ship girl hold. When he got there, he found that it was a lot emptier than it was a few hours ago. He guessed that most of the ship girls were either wandering other parts of the ship or asleep in their barracks since it was fairly late at night. The only ship girls (aside from Kaga) who were still in the hold were Kongou, Haruna, and Bismarck, and he wondered if they had stayed because they knew he was coming.
"There you are, Te~i~to~ku," Kongou greeted cheerily.
"I see you're still energetic," Drake said, stifling a yawn.
"Of course! The sun never sets on the British Empire, desu!" Kongou declared.
"No British person says 'desu,'" Bismarck told her with a frown.
"S-sure they do!" Kongou protested. "Right, Haruna?"
"Eh…? Um, I…"
"Are we leaving now, Admiral?" Kaga asked Drake, saving Haruna from having to answer.
"Unfortunately not. Admiral Belle is still up on the bridge, so it may be a while."
There was a brief silence.
"... So, uh, the battle will probably start tomorrow, won't it?" Kongou asked in a quiet tone.
"That's what it looks like. We have a winning strategy, though, so don't worry too much," Drake assured her.
"Yeah, of course, desu," Kongou nodded and smiled. Her face then fell a bit. "But those Abyssal Princesses are strong… Like, really strong."
"Maybe for you, but I won't lose to scum like them," Bismarck replied haughtily.
"I did say not to worry too much, but that doesn't mean you should get overconfident," Drake frowned at her. "I won't be there to save you if you get in any trouble, you know."
"Hmph! As if I would need you to save me from anything," Bismarck turned her nose up at him.
"Okay. Just making sure you know that you won't have my orders to guide you anymore," Drake shrugged.
"B-but we can still contact you if we absolutely need to, right?" Bismarck quickly asked.
Drake smirked at her sudden change in tone. "Yeah, I guess so."
"Admiral! Even if we're fighting in a different fleet, we'll still do our best!" Haruna decided.
"I'm sure you will. You two should watch out for each other during the battle, okay?" Drake said, addressing Bismarck and Haruna.
The two battleships glanced at each other. Apart from being in the same fleet, they didn't really interact with each other all that much. They were often sparring partners during training, but aside from that, they tended to keep different company during their time off.
"Yes! I'll help out too!" Kongou shouted, putting her arms around Haruna and Bismarck, much to the former's happiness and the latter's displeasure.
Drake felt his phone vibrate again. "That must be Admiral Belle. Let's go, Kaga. Good luck tomorrow, you three."
Dressed in his finest white uniform, Drake stood out on the flight deck of the USS Raw Screams of Liberty. It was a clear, sunny morning, a stark contrast to the tense air of battle that hung over the entire fleet. Also present on the flight deck were many of the carrier's crew, with the exception being those who were on watch or were engaged in other more pressing duties. They were lined up in an organized formation, standing at attention. The ship girl carrier fleet that Drake was commanding was also on the flight deck, though they were standing a bit off to the side. Drake himself was currently standing beside them as well, waiting for Admiral Belle to finish talking to a few other officers at the head of the formation.
Admiral Belle walked up to Drake. "Well, Rear Admiral? I think you should do the honors for this operation."
"M-me?"
Belle smirked at him. "Yes. I've always wondered what your singing voice sounds like."
"I think you'll regret that decision, ma'am," Drake joked, and Belle only patted him on the back and smiled as she walked back towards the sailors.
Drake sighed, then turned towards the ship girls, most of whom were wondering why they had been called out there.
"Each ship in the USLN is required to go through this pre-battle ceremony before the start of any major operation, so that's why we're all out here," Drake explained. "For those of you who were with me at Los Angeles, Fleet Admiral Wei didn't care about ceremonies, so we didn't do it back then, but it looks like we're doing it now. It's meant to raise morale or something, so yeah."
"And what exactly is the ceremony, sir?" Zuikaku asked.
"Oh, right. Basically you just have all the sailors line up and the commanding officer gives a short speech. Then the commander sings the first line of the national anthem by himself before everyone else joins in, but since a lot of you aren't American, you don't have to."
"And you're giving the speech then?" Shoukaku assumed, overhearing Belle's words to Drake.
"Yeah, unfortunately. I didn't prepare anything in advance because I thought Admiral Belle would be giving it, but fuck it. Nobody's expecting a good speech anyway," Drake said. "Well, looks like I should get started."
With some slight rigidity, Drake walked up to the head of the group of sailors. Each sailor stood with his or her eyes pointed straight forward. They wore neutral looks, but beneath their orderly masks, Drake was sure that many of them were nervous. He really had no idea what to say in a situation like this, so he decided he'd just say as little as possible.
"I'll make this quick," he started, "today could very well be the most important battle humanity has ever fought. The enemy is strong and the enemy is dangerous, but so are you. You were trained for this very moment. Now, it's time to put that training to use. That is all."
Drake then turned around and faced the American flag that flew from the ship's tower. Sighing again to himself, he began singing.
"O say can you see…"
The rest of the sailors joined in after that line, and soon the flight deck of the USS Raw Screams of Liberty was filled with the hearty voices of seamen singing the Star-Spangled Banner.
After the singing of the anthem ended, the sailors shuffled back inside the ship and began preparing for battle. Drake walked over to the carrier ship girls.
"Your voice is kind of terrible, sir," Zuikaku greeted him as he returned.
"Thank you, I'm aware of that," Drake glared at her. "Anyway… Looks like things are about to begin. You all remember the battle plan we went over this morning, right?"
The carriers nodded.
"Okay, then you know that our carrier forces' objective is to eliminate the enemy carriers. From our sortie yesterday, we figured out that the enemy carrier fleet is positioned in the crevice between those two artificial Abyssal cliffs that are sticking up out of the ocean. If we can strike first and fast, the Abyssals won't have time to mobilize their planes to mount a decent defense, and we can overwhelm them before they have a chance to counter. So yeah, that's what we'll be doing. Any new questions since this morning?"
"I actually do have one," Graf Zeppelin spoke up, "How are we so sure that the Abyssals won't mobilize their planes before we do?"
Drake crossed his arms. "Well, it would be suicidal for them to do that. Our fleet right now is more or less concentrated in one spot, which means that all our anti-air fire is also concentrated in one spot. The Abyssals are probably going to wait for our fleet to break up and assume our battle positions before they actually launch their own planes. Unfortunately for them, we're going to launch our planes right now and then break our fleet up, therefore catching them off-guard. By the time they notice our planes on their radar and try to scramble their own air defense, it will be too late."
"So that's why the Abyssals haven't made a move yet…" Zuikaku realized.
"Indeed. And I assume that the presence of the Wo-classes yesterday was to scout our fleet and determine whether our formation was still so concentrated," Kaga added.
Drake nodded. "That's what I was thinking too."
"Hm… So we can wipe out all their air power with this one move?" Graf Zeppelin summed up.
"Pretty much. And if we can nullify their air power, then the rest of our fleet has much more freedom to move," the admiral said.
"All right! We've got the most important job in the fleet!" Zuikaku exclaimed with a grin. "Let's go, then! No need to wait around anymore, right?"
"Guess not. Let's head down to the launching area," Drake agreed.
The ship girls and their admiral went down to the ship girl launching area, where they found the destroyers and light cruisers making adjustments to their equipment. Once again, the normal engineers and sailors who readied the ship girl equipment were busy with other things, so the destroyers and light cruisers had stayed behind to finish setting up the equipment.
"Are we sortieing, sir?" Amatsukaze asked with a salute as Drake and the carriers entered.
"Yeah. Admiral Belle has cleared us to sail at any time, so let's go."
"Roger that."
The carriers made their way over to their respective riggings, as did the destroyers and light cruisers. As Yamakaze walked by him, Drake paused a bit and then grabbed her by the shoulder, stopping her.
Yamakaze whirled around with fright. "W-what is it, sir?"
"You look like you're about to faint," Drake frowned. "You're not scared, are you?"
"N-no, of course not," she replied, though her trembling didn't help her case.
God damn it, I don't have time for this, Drake lamented. "Is this about the last sortie?"
"N-no… I'm not scared. I'm not!"
Drake placed his hand on her head. "Look, that won't happen again. You've got plenty more comrades to fight with you this time, right?"
"Y-yeah…"
Drake groaned in frustration. "You're a warship, Yamakaze. Act like one."
"I'm sorry…" she meekly apologized as her eyes filled with tears.
Maybe I shouldn't be so forceful. "Don't cry. All I'm saying is that you're strong, and that you shouldn't be afraid. Look at your sister, Shigure. She also had the shit beaten out of her before, but does she look scared to you?"
Yamakaze glanced over at Shigure, who was busy getting into her rigging with a hard, determined look in her normally gentle blue eyes. Thankfully, it looked like Drake's words to Shigure did have an effect on the ship girl.
"See? She and Murasame will be with you the whole time. There's no need to worry," Drake told her as he patted her soft, seafoam-green hair.
"Okay… I'll do my best then, sir."
"Good. Now go and sink those Abyssals," Drake said, gently pushing her in the direction of her rigging.
As the ship girls got ready, Drake tapped a few commands on the nearby panel on the bulkhead, opening the door to the launching room and allowing some water from the South China Sea into the launching area. The ship girls stepped off their supports and onto the water, and the vast blue sea stretched out ahead of them as they prepared to sail out of the room.
"All right, you're cleared to sortie. Let's win this battle," Drake announced to them.
With that, most of the ship girls sailed out, beginning the Naval Battle of Okinawa. Kaga, however, stayed behind momentarily. Drake walked over to her.
"Will you be fine here, sir?" she asked.
"Yeah. I told you, don't worry about me," he said with a small smile.
She returned his smile with a rare one of her own. "Then I'll come back to you victorious."
Kaga sailed off, and Drake watched as she and the fleet faded out of view.
Kaga sailed onwards in the direction of the enemy carrier fleet, surrounded by her fellow ship girls. The other carriers sailed close to her, and the destroyers and light cruisers formed a diamond formation around the carriers, prepared to protect them from Abyssal air attacks.
Raising a hand to her brow to shade her eyes from the sun, Kaga got a good look at the two artificial Abyssal islands that jutted out from the blue waters. Up above the ocean and flying towards the structures was the carrier airstrike the fleet had launched. As per Admiral Drake's orders, the airstrike consisted of the vast majority of the carriers' airpower, with only a minimal number left behind in reserves.
"The rest of the fleet has begun to move into their battlestations," Drake's voice cautioned his ship girl fleet through the comms. "The Abyssals themselves have also begun to mobilize to meet them. How's it going so far?"
Kaga checked her planes' feed. "Our airstrike has been launched, and it is too late for the enemy to muster up an organized counter airstrike. Everything is going according to plan so far, sir."
"All right. Let me know if anything changes."
"Heh. This is going to be so easy," Zuikaku nodded confidently.
"Yeah, don't jinx it," Intrepid rolled her eyes.
"Huuuh? You say something?" Zuikaku frowned as she turned to look at the American.
"Maybe I did. So what?"
"Y-you…!"
At that moment, Kaga noticed that the planes had entered into the area above the crevice in between the two artificial islands.
"Shut up, you two!" Kaga ordered. "Get ready to drop your bombs. Do you see the Abyssal fleet down below?"
The carriers all began focusing on their own feeds now, and they were greeted with the pleasant sight of the Abyssal carriers struggling to launch their planes. The sleek, black Abyssal fighters and bombers taxied out of the helmets of Wo-classes, but they needed time to get in the air and establish a cruising altitude, so they were currently helpless.
Kaga was about to start the devastating bombing run, but suddenly, the feed she was looking at cut away and disappeared. Thinking an Abyssal had got lucky with anti-air fire, she quickly switched over to another one of her planes, but soon that also cut off. She switched to a third, but that disappeared as well.
"W-wait, my planes keep getting shot down!" Kaga heard Taihou exclaim from behind her.
"Scheisse! Mine as well!" Graf Zeppelin added as she scowled. "I thought they wouldn't be prepared for us!"
"Zuikaku, what's going on?" Katsuragi asked with a worried look.
Zuikaku in turn looked to Kaga. "What the hell's happening? Why are our planes being downed so frequently!"
Ignoring the cacophony surrounding her, Kaga focused on her plane feeds. She maneuvered one of her fighters upward and slightly away from the battlefield so she could get a better view of what was going on… And when she circled her plane around to take a look at where the bulk of the anti-air fire was coming from, she stared down at a pair of sinister red eyes and a pale, smirking face. Following that, her plane was immediately shot down.
"Damn it," Kaga cursed under her breath as she realized who she was dealing with.
"Kaga," Shoukaku sailed up beside her with a stern look in her eye.
"I saw her," Kaga said.
"I'm afraid it's worse. There's two of them," Shoukaku added grimly.
"Two?" Kaga repeated with a frown. That would explain why our planes are being shot down so quickly…
Shoukaku nodded. "Both the Entombed Anti-Air Guardian Princess and the Air Defense Princess are ensconced within the enemy carrier fleet."
"That's not good. We need to tell the Admiral about this," Kaga replied. She then turned towards the other carriers. "Everyone, recall your planes for now! We're retreating!"
"What planes? I barely have any left!" Zuikaku complained. "Shoukaku, what's happening?"
"Enemy anti-air Princesses are stationed in between those islands," Shoukaku informed her sister.
"Wait, what? We didn't hear anything about that," Ark Royal brought up, her eyebrows furrowed.
"This was unexpected. As I said, we're retreating from now," Kaga said. "Fleet, fall back!"
Drake stood by the main monitor in the situation room. Numerous drones were circling the battlefield, which gave him a general view of the ocean, but since the drones had to be positioned far away to avoid being shot down by the Abyssals, the view he got was rather limited. Instead, he would have to mainly rely on radar and the communications of his ship girls. The carrier he was on was too distant from the main battlefield to actually see anything, which, to be honest, he was thankful for.
There were a few other junior officers working in the situation room, but most of the other officers, including Admiral Belle, were up on the bridge. Drake was allowed to stay below in the situation room to coordinate the junior officers, but thanks to the impressive communications equipment set up by INFCOM, he would be able to contact any other section of the fleet merely by fiddling a bit with his earpiece and console.
Right now, the rest of the fleet was engaged in battle. Both the ship girl and human battleship fleets had started shelling the Abyssals, and the Abyssals were shelling back as well. Roughly speaking, their plan was to eliminate the Abyssal carrier forces and then have the ship girl battleships and heavy cruisers charge into the center of the Abyssal formation with air cover. If the ship girls had air cover and the Abyssals didn't, then the heavy ship charge would shock and easily cut through the enemy defense. The Abyssal formation would then fall apart, leading to disarray and defeat. Afterwards, the regular ships and ship girl submarines would clean up the remainder of the enemy forces. Drake also noticed that there was a fleet of regular submarines stationed behind even the human carriers, but he wasn't exactly sure what they were supposed to do since there had been no mention of them in the battle plan.
"Rear Admiral! A communique from Bushido," Lieutenant Commander Longfellow alerted him. She had light brown hair messily tied in a long ponytail, green eyes, and freckles, and she was the second-most senior officer down in the situation room.
Why is Fleet Admiral Umi sending me a message right now? Drake wondered as he tapped the screen a few times to get the message to pop up.
However, when he clicked 'play,' it was not Umi's voice that he heard.
"Ah… Rear Admiral Drake?"
Drake's eyes widened, and he scowled. "Battleship Princess… Why are you talking to me?"
"Oh, I asked for you specifically. The battle has started, hasn't it?"
"Yeah. So why are you wasting time with me instead of fighting?"
"Do not worry, Admiral Drake. I will be on the battlefield soon enough."
Drake could almost feel the sinister satisfaction creep out of her words.
"But before that, I just wanted to mention one thing," the Battleship Princess continued. "You have bested me in tactics twice now: once at Tangier, and once at that island. However, understand that I do not take defeat lightly. Admiral Drake! This will be the true test of our skills! Who will emerge victorious, I wonder?"
Before Drake could say anything else, the communication cut off.
That cocky bitch… Who does she think she's talking to? Let's see how she feels when her carrier fleet is destroyed.
Speaking of that, Drake wanted to check up again on how Kaga's progress was going. Just as he was about to ask, his flagship's voice sounded in his ear.
"Admiral, the situation has taken a turn for the worse. We've found out that there are two anti-air Princess stationed in the midst of the enemy carrier fleet. I've ordered a general retreat, but we've lost about eighty percent of our planes, and there are still some we've yet to recover. Your orders?"
Drake could hear the edge in Kaga's normally calm voice, and he could understand why.
"Wait, eighty percent of your planes? Are you serious?" Drake replied, trying to keep his tone level.
"Unfortunately, sir. We didn't know the anti-air Princesses would be there…"
The American admiral took in her words, paused momentarily, then smashed his fist against the bulkhead, causing a nearby ensign to jump in fright.
What the fuck! How?! How did I not see this coming!?
He had realized exactly what had happened. The visit from those Wo-classes yesterday was not some sort of 'scouting mission'; it was a deliberate attempt to bait him into attacking. When the Wo-classes brought Kaga, Zuikaku, and Intrepid close to the artificial islands, they made a show of having a large number of Abyssal fighters emerge from the crevice in between those islands, therefore establishing the fact that all their carriers were stationed there. However, Drake had been so caught up in the fact that he now knew the location of their carriers that he didn't think about the possibility of a trap. It was like the Abyssals had dangled delicious grapes in front of a starving animal, only to hit the animal with a stick when it got close enough to bite into the grapes. The problem is that when you're starving, you're not thinking about what the one giving you food has in his other hand.
To make matters worse, this was basically the exact tactic that Admiral Hayama had used in the war games session. The Abyssal bait in this scenario was a bit more elaborate and convincing, but that was no excuse. The end result was that Drake had failed, and he had failed miserably. The ship girl carriers were INFCOM's primary source of airpower, and they had just lost eighty percent of it. Drake's goal had been to eliminate the Abyssals' air capacity, but instead, he found that the Abyssals had done it to him instead.
"... Admiral?" Kaga asked, snapping Drake out of his internal angst.
He clenched his fists angrily. "Retreating was the right decision. Standby for further orders."
"Understood, sir, but every moment we wait, the enemy carriers are preparing their planes for an attack."
"I'll think of something, okay?!" he shouted in frustration. "... Sorry. But I will think of something. Just… Hold on until then, all right?"
"Yes, sir."
Drake bit his fist as he stared at the screen. Most of the officers in the room were looking at him out of the corner of their eyes, and he knew that they realized that something was not right. Truth be told, Drake had no idea of what to do in this situation. He had not expected such a massive role reversal, and now that the fleet had lost almost all of its airpower, he had half a mind to just retreat fully. However, he obviously could not do that, as he wasn't in command of the entire fleet and retreating would be abandoning the entire island of Okinawa to the hands of the Abyssals. A retreat would also be a massive blow to morale, as this was the largest and supposedly the best fleet that humanity had ever put together.
Realizing he was starting to panic, Drake took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and picked up the wired phone on the table beside the command console. The line went straight to the bridge, and so Admiral Belle would pick it up since she knew it would be Drake calling.
"Hello?" Belle's voice answered.
Drake related the whole situation to Admiral Belle, who listened without interrupting. Then, she sighed.
"I know you're not the type, but please tell me this is some sort of elaborate joke, Rear Admiral."
Drake remained silent.
"All right. Let's stay calm, then. The battle isn't lost. Have you thought about what you're going to order your fleet to do next?"
Drake felt like he was back at his training course, and Belle was his instructor again. This time, however, the consequences of a wrong answer would literally be a matter of life and death.
"I… I… My carriers can't fight the entire enemy carrier fleet anymore. I have to order them to retreat back to the main fleet so they can fight under the umbrella of anti-air."
"What main fleet? All the components of our fleet have broken up to go to their own missions, remember? If you pull your carriers back, you'll just be drawing Abyssal bombers to us, killing us all."
Frowning again, Drake thought about the situation once more. If I can't retreat, then…
"I'll have the carriers sail in between the Abyssal islands and engage the enemy in short-range combat. That way, the overwhelming air superiority that the enemy has doesn't matter as much because they would risk hitting their own ships. I'm also fairly certain that any of my ship girls can beat an Abyssal in close combat."
However, Drake then realized that the vast majority of his fleet was made up of ship girls who he didn't train, and he had no idea whether they were any good at CQC.
"If that's your plan, then fine," Belle said. "You're not my student anymore, Drake. Even if your first plan failed, think of something else. Don't forget that you were given your position because we trusted you. And don't think that this is all your fault, because all of us approved the plan together. But either way, I still believe you can win this, all right? Keep me updated."
Admiral Belle then ended the call, and Drake held the phone limply in his hand. He had heard Admiral Belle's words, but he still couldn't get over the fact that his plan had been manipulated so easily.
That Abyssal bitch…! Drake recalled the Battleship Princess' mocking tone. She outsmarted me. She fucking outsmarted me!
As the carriers tried to get the last of their planes out of the Abyssal anti-air deathtrap, the frustration and anxiety among the ship girls only increased. All around her, Kaga could hear the various carriers curse or groan as their planes were shot down, and some of the more collected ones called out positions of enemy planes or the location of the Princesses in order to help the rest get their planes out safely. Kaga herself was focused on viewing the feeds from her planes, and since so many of her aircraft had been shot down already, it was imperative that she try and save every last remaining one.
However, things had become more difficult now that some of the Abyssal carriers had managed to get their own planes in the air. Kaga was currently trying to get three of her fighters out of the area, but she was being pursued by a larger Abyssal fighter squadron. As she was maneuvering her planes, she caught Shoukaku's look out of the corner of her eye. Understanding what that meant, Kaga suddenly turned her planes towards the right, causing the Abyssal fighters to follow. As the Abyssal jets chased her planes, a few more Zeroes suddenly appeared behind the Abyssal planes. The ship girl fighters started firing and immediately shot down some of the Abyssal ones, allowing Kaga's planes to finally escape.
Kaga nodded in thanks to Shoukaku, then checked with the rest of the fleet.
"Keep fighting! We need as many planes back as we can get."
Soon enough, the final ship girl planes began returning and landing on the flight decks of the carriers, though there were much, much fewer than had first flew off.
Maybe eighty percent was too conservative an estimate, Kaga grimaced.
"What do we do now?" Amatsukaze asked, sailing over to Kaga. "Did the Admiral say anything?"
Kaga took a moment to look over the rest of her destroyer and light cruiser escorts. Though they weren't participating in the battle right now, even they had realized that the situation was rapidly deteriorating, and she could see traces of nervousness on their faces.
"Not yet. He should -"
Kaga stopped short as he noticed the Abyssal Wo-classes sailing out of the crevice in between the two islands. However, instead of coming towards her like she expected, they began sailing in a different direction, away from the ship girls. Surprisingly, the two anti-air Princess were also following the carriers.
Kaga held her hand up to her earpiece. "Admiral. The enemy carriers and anti-air Princesses have begun sailing east."
"... East? Wait… They must be going towards the rest of our fleet, which is unprotected and without much air cover."
"What do we do? They're completely ignoring us now," Kaga said.
"... We absolutely cannot let them attack the rest of our fleet. Go in close and stall them for now. I'll try and divert the battleship strike over to you so that we can sink those carriers."
Having spent so much time together with her admiral, Kaga could now tell whenever he was feeling unsure by the tone of his voice, even though he endeavored to hide it. It was clear to her that Drake didn't prepare for this situation, but nevertheless, she still trusted him to make the right decision.
"Understood." Kaga turned to the other ship girls. "You heard the Admiral. We're sailing towards the enemy carriers, and we're going to defeat them with CQC. Their air superiority should offer them less of an advantage if we come that close."
"But can we defeat all of them with our small number?" Shoukaku questioned. "After all, not all of us are trained in CQC…"
"Yeah, some people are just going to hold us back," Zuikaku agreed, shooting a side glance at Intrepid.
Kaga didn't know what to say. "What else can we do? We've lost most of our planes…"
Taihou suddenly let out a gasp. "W-wait, look over there!"
The fleet looked back towards the crevice in between the two islands. There, they saw two figures emerge from in between the islands, sailing straight towards the ship girls.
Kaga narrowed her eyes as she watched them approach. She held a hand up to her earpiece again, adrenaline pumping through her veins.
"Admiral, we have another problem. We've got a visual on the Aircraft Carrier Princess and the Airfield Princess approaching our position."
"... I see. Well, I'll have Fleet Admiral Miiro send his light carriers to harass the Wo-classes instead, then. But this situation is actually better for you. If it's only two enemies, you'll have a better chance of defeating them in CQC."
"Is he serious? Those are two Princesses," Zuikaku muttered.
"Heh. But we have unfinished business with one of them," Akagi smirked.
"Yeah. I'm actually glad for this opportunity," Souryuu added, still mentally smarting from the last time she faced the Airfield Princess.
Kaga looked into the red eyes of the Aircraft Carrier Princess, which seemed so haunting even from this far away. Ever since she first saw her during the diplomatic meeting, the aura of the Aircraft Carrier Princess had been lingering in Kaga's mind.
"New orders, then," Kaga pointed towards the approaching Abyssals. "Fleet, sink those Princesses! Charge!"