Drake leaned against the wall and stared out the window of the Concorde Mk II plane. The scenery below was mostly just an empty sea, but occasionally he did glimpse some clouds that quickly blew past as the jet flew towards Japan at supersonic speeds. He was also holding the handset of the wired phone mounted to the wall up to his ear, waiting for Fleet Admiral Van Dyke to contact him. He had been told by Iowa to expect a call on the secure line on the plane very soon.
Sure enough, following a short beeping sound, Van Dyke came on the phone.
"Rear Admiral. Can you hear me?"
"Yes, sir."
"You should be arriving in Japan shortly. You will be landing at the Tateyama Naval Station and then will immediately board the American heavy cruiser USS Manifest Destiny, which will sail towards the ongoing battle. The objective is simply to relieve pressure on the Japanese forces so that the Abyssals can be driven off. Any questions?"
"No, sir." It looks like I will need to come up with some sort of strategy, but I don't have much information about how the battle itself is actually unfolding. I guess that makes sense since the situation is changing even as we speak, but still… The Manifest Destiny? Now that's a familiar vessel.
"All right, then. I will contact you again if there are any changes."
Fleet Admiral Van Dyke ended the short call, and Drake went back to his seat. Crossing his arms and staring out the window, he tried to think of a general strategy that he could apply to a scenario like this.
"What's with the long face, sir? You look tense!" Iowa noted as she walked over to him. "You should come check out the lounge area. We have all sorts of food and drinks!"
"Yeah, seems like this is a fancy plane," Drake observed.
"Yep! It's usually reserved for VIPs only, but since it's fast, Admiral Van Dyke decided to let us use it… But I guess we are kind of VIPs in this situation anyway!" Iowa nodded.
She doesn't seem nervous at all… Drake thought as she nonchalantly took a seat beside him.
"I assume everyone else is in the lounge?" he asked.
"Yeah. You should see Bismarck - she looks so pale, like she's about to throw up! I guess she has a fear of flying," Iowa grinned.
"Still? Shouldn't she be over that by now?" Drake groaned. "Hopefully we won't have to pay for cleaning if she stains the carpeting…"
Iowa snickered at that. "She'd die of embarrassment if she actually did get airsick! I feel bad for her, but it's still pretty funny."
"... So, are you worried about the upcoming battle?" Drake couldn't help but ask.
"Mm… Not really. I guess it shows, huh?"
"Yeah. I just wanted to know why. I wish I could ignore the nerves that easily too," Drake admitted.
Iowa smiled to herself. "It's not that I don't get nervous, but rather that my other feelings just outweigh my nervousness."
The battleship stood up. "Captain Drake… I may have been born during World War II, but I was also lucky enough to survive the war and then go on to live decades beyond it. Throughout that time, I've seen a lot of things, many bad things and many good things. Particularly, I've seen America change. Our country has evolved in so many ways, and it's become so diverse now. But even as America and the people that make up our country change, the fighting spirit and the refusal to admit defeat lives on in every one of us."
Iowa's blue eyes sparkled. She closed them and brought a hand to her chest. "It's the same fighting spirit that I saw in the hearts of those sailors and soldiers in World War II. If the spirit of ordinary people can burn so brightly, than what excuse does the battleship Iowa have for getting nervous? That's why I remain positive, sir."
Drake was surprised that Iowa gave him an answer like that, but he had to admit, it did help him recover his own courage.
"You should give that speech to the Department of Propaganda or something," Drake teased. "But seriously, you are right. It's good to believe in what you're fighting for, which hasn't always been the case for a lot of people in the past."
"Yeah, America has gone through some rough patches," she admitted sadly. "But that's different now. This is a fight for all of humanity's sake, and it's a war that's even more important for us to win than World War II was. I'm not going to fail here."
Drake stood up as well. "Make that two of us."
Iowa gave him a thankful smile, but their short moment was interrupted by a crashing sound from the lounge area.
"Great. Now I really hope we won't have to pay for any damages," Drake frowned as he went over to check on the lounge's occupants.
There he found Colorado standing in front of an open closet with a horrified expression, a whole set of silverware apparently having slid out of the closet and crashed down onto the floor.
"T-The plane shifted at the exact same time I opened it! It wasn't my fault!" Colorado tried to deny when Drake entered.
"Good God, shut up! You're making my headache even worse," Bismarck complained from where she lay on the couch, her forearm draped over her eyes in an attempt to block out the light.
"Here, Bismarck! Have some water!" Prinz Eugen stood over her with a water bottle.
The two German admirals, meanwhile, were still engaged in conversation with Nelson on one of the other couches.
"So you see, it was then that I was permanently banned from the officer's wardroom!" Nelson declared proudly to the Germans. "But to begin with, it's incredibly stupid that our sailors are no longer allowed to drink on the job! What harm can a few cups of rum do anyway, right?"
"R-Right," Bremerhaven unsurely assented.
Nelson's eyes lit up as she noticed Drake. "Ah, Admiral Drake! Good of you to join us!"
"Yes, we are having so much fun," Ehrhard droned sarcastically.
Nelson slapped him on the back, knocking him cleanly off his seat on the couch. "Don't be like that, Admiral Ehrhard! Have another drink!"
"Oh, they even serve fine wine here?" Drake took a curious look at the bottle on the glass table. "Somehow I doubt that we should be doing this before the start of a battle, though…"
The plane shook a bit more due to some turbulence, causing a bowl to slide out of the top of the closet Colorado had opened, the piece of silverware falling and hitting her on the head before bouncing off and shattering when it hit the floor.
"Close the damn door already!" Drake told her, resisting the urge to facepalm at the shards littering the carpeted flooring of the lounge.
"Y-Yes, sir!" Colorado hurriedly complied, slamming the closet doors shut and latching them back in place.
"Attention all passengers, this is the captain speaking. We are experiencing some slight turbulence as we approach for landing, but everything looks good otherwise. We should be touching down at Tateyama in approximately ten minutes."
"Gut… More turbulence," Bismarck complained, now sitting up with the water bottle in her hand and Prinz Eugen watching closely over her.
"You all right there, Bismarck?" Drake asked, unable to hide the amusement in his tone.
She glared at him. "Do I look all right to you?"
The plane shook with another bout of turbulence, causing Bismarck to spill her water and turn even more pale.
"Ugh… That's it, I can't take it anymore!" She stood up and tried to stumble over to the bathroom as fast as she could.
"Hey, you're supposed to be in a seat when there's turbulence," Drake warned, walking over to her. "I know you're a battleship, but if you knock else something over, Admiral Van Dyke isn't going to like it!"
As soon as Drake finished saying that, the plane jerked again, causing Bismarck to fall and land on top of him.
"See? What did I tell you," he sighed. "Well, at least you only knocked me over and not another valuable - uh, Bismarck…?"
The ship girl had a hand over her mouth and looked paler than ever. "Sir… Please move!"
"Wait, Bismarck, don't -"
"Welcome to Tateyama Naval Air Station. I am Commander Asase," the young Japanese officer greeted them in English with a salute as the group disembarked from the Concorde jet. "Er, the man wearing a T-shirt, you are Rear Admiral Richard Drake, correct?"
"Yes, uh, my uniform had something spilled on it, so I had to take it off," Drake replied. "Good to meet you, Commander. Is the Manifest Destiny nearby? We should sortie as soon as possible."
"It is. We will begin loading now," Asase said. He snapped his fingers and the sailors lined up behind him ran over to the jet to begin unloading the rigging. "We will remove the rigging from your plane and then drive it over to the warship. You all may head there now."
Drake and the rest of the group began following a Japanese sailor as she led them towards the docks. As they were walking, Bismarck glanced at Drake guiltily.
"Admiral… You're not still mad at me, right?" she asked.
"Of course not. You just threw up all over my uniform; what's there to be mad about?" he replied gruffly.
"You're angry after all…"
At the docks, they found the large American heavy cruiser USS Manifest Destiny waiting for them. The sailor leading them stopped and turned to Drake.
"Ah, uh, the sailors in ship…" she started in her rough English.
"Yeah… Sorry you had to interact with them," Drake apologized in Japanese.
The sailor smiled and then saluted before leaving Drake and the rest of his group alone with the ship.
"All right, it's time to embark," Drake declared. "I used to be the captain of this ship, and it looks like the majority of the crew since back then is still around. Just a fair warning, they're not exactly the most pleasant group of people."
"Huh? What does that mean?" Ehrhard wondered.
"Guess you'll find out. Let's go." Drake led the group up to the entrance of the ship.
When they entered the vessel, they found a small group waiting for them. An officer with tan skin and long black hair tied in a low ponytail (clearly in violation of military regulations for men) stood at their head, his keen dark eyes fixed on them. A deep scar ran from his forehead all the way down to his neck, and he smirked as Drake approached.
"Captain Drake… We meet again. Well, I suppose it's Rear Admiral Drake now," the officer greeted with a salute, his voice rough like the crashing of stormy waves against a cliff face.
Drake returned his salute. "You're the one who's a captain now, Eliot. I see this crew hasn't changed since I left."
"Haha. It's only thanks to you that I've reached this rank, sir," Eliot grinned, then glanced at the rest of the newcomers. "I see you brought some beautiful women with you… So those are the ship girls."
Every sailor in the room's eyeballs were glued to the ship girls as they surrounded the exceptionally pretty women. One of the sailors whistled at them, causing the others to erupt in laughter.
Yep. Hasn't changed at all… Drake sighed to himself.
"Hello! I'm Iowa! Nice to meet you, sir!" Iowa was apparently unperturbed as she reached out her hand to Captain Eliot.
"Uh, yeah, nice to meet you," Eliot shook her hand, not expecting her to be so forward.
"All right, Eliot. You realize what our mission is, right?" Drake asked him. "We need to prepare to sail immediately."
"Yeah, I get it, sir. Let's go up to the bridge," Eliot said. "Those fine ladies can keep the rest of the sailors company in the meantime, what do you say?"
A cheer went up among the sailors, and one of them got too overzealous and grabbed at Nelson's ass, startling her. Drake cringed as he saw that, and predictably, Nelson did not take kindly to it. In one swift motion, Nelson grabbed the sailor's arm and jerked him up off his feet. The sailor let out a scream as he dangled from his now-dislocated arm.
"I don't remember saying you could touch," Nelson smiled at him as she tossed him back onto the floor as the rest of the sailors jeered and laughed at their fallen comrade.
"Damn, they're tough," Eliot marvelled.
"Yeah. And if one of them decides to beat the shit out of any of your men, don't expect me to try and stop them," Drake simply said. "Now, can we get to the battle plan already?"
Captain Eliot laughed as he began leading the group up towards the heavy cruiser's bridge. As they went through the passageways of the ship, they saw men lazing around shirtless, men sharing a drink, and even one sailor smoking, only putting out his cigarette when Eliot forced him to.
Vice Admiral Ehrhard walked beside Drake, observing his surroundings with palpable distaste. "What the hell is this, Admiral Drake? Are all American ships like this?"
"Hahaha!" Captain Eliot laughed, evidently overhearing. "Nope, Manifest Destiny is one of a kind. For some reason all the scum in the navy was put on this one ship."
"And just how is that allowed?" Ehrhard replied, incredulous. "Do you not have inspections? How is it that no one above you corrected this?"
"Of course we have inspections. It's just that the sailors aboard this ship are the best in the navy at covering things up and making things look like there's nothing wrong, and that's partly due to your friend Admiral Drake over there," Eliot grinned.
"What? Why would you help these barbarians, sir?" Bismarck asked, sharing her German admiral's disdain for the ship's crew.
Drake ran a hand through his dark hair. "I didn't really help them, I was just doing my job. When I was put in charge of this ship, it had the worst results in the fleet in terms of exercises and inspections. All I did was force them to shape up."
"Please, that's not the full story," Eliot dismissed. "How do you think he managed to get a bunch of ruffians like us to listen to him? As long as it didn't affect our results, he always looked the other way whenever we broke the rules, and even covered for us when we got in trouble with other higher-ups."
"All right, well, half these sailors would be in jail or worse if it weren't for the navy," Drake defended himself when Ehrhard and Bismarck gave him disbelieving looks. "Isn't it better to have them focus what little ability they have doing something useful instead?"
"Yeah, we can fight just as well as anybody when it comes down to it," Eliot boasted. "Okay, here it is, the bridge. Back again, eh, Admiral Drake? Though as I recall, you preferred to command from the situation room, didn't you?"
Drake nodded. "That's probably where I'll be this time as well. The bridge has better equipment, though, so I thought we might as well do our planning here before the battle starts."
"Let's get to it, then!" Eliot grinned. "We actually received some maps from the Japanese stationed on the Hachijo Islands, so we know the general layout of the battlefield. Here."
Eliot went over to one of the touch screens and pulled up the map of the Hachijo Island chain. The friendly ship girls were marked in blue and the Abyssals in red, and from the data the map was showing, there was a lot of red interspersed with blue.
"It is very chaotic…" Bremerhaven noted.
"That's an understatement. And to make things even worse, the initial strategy was to draw the Abyssals in and bomb them from human-made ships and missiles," Eliot said.
"And that won't work if the Abyssals are so mixed up with the ship girls because human-made weapons can't lock on that well to Abyssals. We would need them in one uniform block to be able to hit them reliably," Drake finished. "From this map, it seems like we need a strategy that can separate the Abyssals from the ship girl fleet. Only then can the IJN actually make their strategy work."
"Can we attack the Abyssals from behind and trap them in between the Japanese ship girls and our fleet?" Eliot suggested.
Drake shook his head. "That wouldn't work because they can easily break through our blockade. Our current force consists of a human-made heavy cruiser and four ship girls, which isn't nearly enough to trap the Abyssals in one place. We have to carefully choose where we send our ship girls."
As Drake continued to stare at the map, he realized just how little he could actually do with only four combat-capable ship girls and one warship. He hoped that reinforcements from Sasebo would arrive in time.
"So we really do have to extract the Abyssals from the ship girl fleet," Bremerhaven rubbed his chin, his sharp eyes trying to find a weakness in the enemy composition. "It looks like this will be difficult… There is no strategy I can see that can successfully do that. Perhaps we should just send in our ship girls and hope they can turn the tide of the battle."
There's got to be some way, Drake thought, though he really couldn't disagree with Bremerhaven's assessment.
"Hey, I got an idea," Eliot grinned. "Why don't we rig this ship with explosives and sail it straight into the enemy? We'll leave on the lifeboats beforehand, of course."
"Are you being serious?" Ehrhard was not amused. "Even if you are, you just heard that the enemy is too intertwined with the ship girl fleet. You can't just do something that reckless."
Eliot shrugged. "So what if we sink a few ship girls in the process? Wouldn't it be worth it if we took out the entire Abyssal fleet?"
"Of course not. No more idiotic suggestions, Eliot," Drake rejected the idea.
"Come on, sir. Didn't you only get promoted to the captainship of Manifest Destiny because of the Battle of Tangier? It's obvious to anyone who read the reports from that battle that you know it's always a good plan to sacrifice the few for the sake of the many," Eliot pressed.
Damn this guy, I forgot how annoying he was, Drake cursed internally. "And it's even better to not have to sacrifice anyone at all. Think of something actually useful or shut up."
Eliot merely chuckled at that, and Ehrhard and Bremerhaven ignored him and continued to discuss less risky tactics. Drake, however, found himself hung up on what Eliot had said… Even though the flames of Tangier haunted him to this day, he had to ask himself: did he really regret his decision back then? If he could go back and replay that day once more, would he have made a different decision?
"Admiral. Are you okay?" Bismarck quietly asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.
Drake tried to shake free of those thoughts. "Yeah, I'm fine…"
"It's all right, sir. If you can't think of something, just leave the battle to us. We will push the Abyssals back," Bismarck gave him a confident smile, trying to allay his worries.
Thanks, Bismarck, but there's no way I'm letting you go out there and fight for me while I just sit back and do nothing, Drake decided. The problem is that the only plan we've come up with so far is Eliot's dumb bombing run while we escape on lifeboats… Wait.
Drake knocked his fist on the side of the screen, getting the other officers' attention.
"I think I have a plan."
Blood poured out from the hole in Shigure's wrist, her right hand having been completely chopped off. Smashed up bone shards stuck out from her wrist as the Destroyer Princess' beasts had roughly bitten her hand off, and she panted heavily as she stared down the Princess, a hateful fire smoldering in her eyes.
The Destroyer Princess was also bleeding from multiple wounds, but she was much better off than Shigure. "Idiot ship girl. Can't you see the difference in our strength?"
Murasame had long since passed out due to blood loss, and Shiratsuyu had taken a shell in the chest that smashed her open completely. Yuudachi was still alive, but she had taken quite a few hits as well, and she crouched beside Shigure, growling ferally at the Princess even as her blood mixed in with her sister's as it dripped into the ocean. Yamakaze and Harusame were also standing, both of them relatively unscathed but clearly frightened. They stood behind Shigure with their guns pointed at the Princess, though their grips were shaky.
The destroyer escort Hachijo sailed in place a bit farther away from the battlefield, looking even more frightened than Yamakaze and Harusame as she stood there with her cables attached to the lifeless forms of Murasame and Shiratsuyu. She could not tow the two of them to safety because of the pure chaos going on in all directions and her slow speed while towing two destroyers.
"Sh-Shigure, maybe we should retreat," Harusame suggested.
"Shut up! There will be no retreating until I kill this bitch," Shigure snapped, her voice dripping with venom as she continued to glare at the Princess.
"Heh. Pathetic. A kicked dog like you should know when to give up," the Destroyer Princess smirked. "Perhaps I should kill more of your sisters? Maybe sink them for good this time."
"Like hell that'll happen, poi!" Yuudachi yelled, gritting her teeth and firing a salvo at the Princess.
"Pathetic. This old strategy again?" the Princess looked to be getting bored. Without even looking at Yuudachi's shells, she turned to Shigure, who was in the midst of charging at her at full speed.
The Princess slammed her own engines into full throttle and met Shigure halfway, outmaneuvering the ship girl and knocking her onto the surface of the water by headbutting Shigure with the black covering on top of her scalp. Shigure grunted in pain as she was laid out flat by the attack.
"Your movements have gotten slower," the Destroyer Princess chided, standing over Shigure with a sinister smile. "Take your time in getting up. I'm saving you for last."
The Princess sailed past Shigure and cut through the water at impressive speeds right towards Yuudachi. The blonde destroyer tried to get out of the way, but her injuries had slowed her down severely, and the Destroyer Princess used the black horn on her head to slash Yuudachi's throat open.
Gagging, Yuudachi clutched at her throat as she collapsed, her blood rapidly coloring the water around her.
"Harusame, please recover Yuudachi!" Yamakaze said, steeling herself and firing off a shot at the Princess.
The Abyssal slid out of the way of the shot and targeted Yamakaze next. Yamakaze's eyes widened with fright as she tried to shoot the Princess before she could get to her, but her nerves overwhelmed her and she missed. The Princess grabbed her by the throat and pinned her down.
"You incompetent little cunt. You can't even aim properly!" the Destroyer Princess grinned, enjoying Yamakaze's squirming.
"Let go of her you piece of shit!" Shigure yelled as she finally stood up, shooting off a shell from her main cannon.
The Princess laughed. "Gladly, Miss Shigure."
With her immense Princess strength, the Abyssal lifted Yamakaze up and threw her right in the path of Shigure's shell's downward trajectory. As the Abyssal watched in satisfaction and Shigure stared in horror, the shell detonated as it impacted Yamakaze. Following the explosion, the now-charred and beaten up destroyer fell from the sky and slammed onto the ocean's surface. She did not begin sinking, meaning she was still alive, but she was clearly no longer fit to fight and could quite easily die soon.
"Oh? Bravo! You just killed your sister, Shigure!" the Destroyer Princess clapped her hands mockingly.
"Aaaaaargh!" Shigure roared with rage as she blindly charged the Princess again.
"You've given yourself up completely to your anger and hatred, I see," the Princess noted. "However, if you can't control your negative emotions, then they only serve to harm you. You're just worthless ship girl scum playing at being an Abyssal!"
This time, the Destroyer Princess did not speed forward to meet Shigure. Instead, she reversed the direction of the beasts on her lower rigging, and she jetted backwards, straight into the unsuspecting Harusame who was busy with Yuudachi. The impact completely bowled over Harusame, causing her to drop Yuudachi.
The Destroyer Princess then pointed her hand cannon at Harusame, and she wore a wide smile as her violet eyes burned with ecstasy. "Die, Harusame!"
"Nooooo!" Shigure screamed in agony, but she would not get there in time.
The Princess fired a shot straight through Harusame's abdomen, the shell blowing through her guts and exiting out the other side. The pink-haired destroyer did not make a sound as she fell, her eyes frozen in death. Both Harusame and Yuudachi began sinking.
"No! Fuck you! NO!" Shigure continued to shriek, her anger turning into despair.
The Destroyer Princess finally turned to face Shigure. "I've finished the rest of your bitch sisters, and you are the last one. You said you wouldn't run, right? Look at what you have caused, Shigure!"
Hot tears of rage and sadness welled up in Shigure's eyes as she bared her canines at the Princess, her body propelled by hatred even though she knew it was futile.
Even now… It still ends up like this? Shigure could not believe it.
Out of nowhere, a battleship-caliber shell landed centimeters away from the Destroyer Princess, splashing water all over her and Shigure.
The splash of cold saltwater distracted the Princess, and it also made Shigure stop right in her tracks, as if she had just been slapped hard.
No. I can't let it end like this. A suicide charge won't avenge my sisters or my own failures! Shigure changed her mind and redirected herself towards the bodies of Yuudachi and Harusame instead of charging the Princess head-on. Hachijo was also making a move to recover Yamakaze, bravely fighting through her own fear. It's a longshot, but if I can take them and escape…!
Shigure managed to grab both Yuudachi and Harusame by their collars, a task made more difficult by the fact that she only had one functional arm. This slowed her down, and as she tried to flee, she came face-to-face with the Destroyer Princess pointing her gun straight at her.
"Now you choose to run? You really are a mutt who needs to be put down," the Princess was annoyed.
Shigure had no means to fight back and was about to just make a desperate run for it anyway, but the whistle of another large shell pierced through the sounds of the battlefield, alerting the Princess and allowing her to just barely dodge it.
Another one? So that first one wasn't a coincidence? Shigure assumed.
Confirming her inner thoughts, she saw a figure sailing towards them, separating herself from the general clusterfuck that was the rest of the battle.
No… Could it be? Shigure's tired blue eyes widened in shock.
"A Princess, I presume?" Bismarck said as she sailed into the battle, her confident gaze fixed on the Destroyer Princess. "Gut. I wouldn't mind sinking another."
"Try to separate yourselves from the enemy! Give the marines stationed on the islands a clear target to hit!" Nagato yelled, one hand pressed to her ear mic as the other was held against the side of her abdomen, which was bleeding profusely.
"Focus on the fight! No one is listening to any orders anymore!" Yamashiro barked at Nagato, the aviation battleship's face covered in red as she bled from a cut on her forehead.
The two ship girls were engaged in combat with four enemy battleships, two Ru-classes and two Ta-class Abyssals. The ship girls had put up a decent fight so far, but it was clear that they were losing, both because of the numbers disadvantage and because enemy planes made bombing runs on them every so often.
"We can't win like this! We need to retreat and follow the plan!" Nagato shot back as she sailed backwards to avoid a volley from one of the Ru-class ships. She managed to evade the shots, but the burst of saltwater stung as it sprayed all over her clothes and wounds.
"That's impossible now!" Yamashiro concluded, blocking a punch from a Ta-class.
"Because of you! If you hadn't gone charging so far ahead, nobody would have followed you and our positions wouldn't be messed up!" Nagato accused.
Yamashiro glared at Nagato. "You and the admirals gave idiotic orders, so it's only natural that no one followed them! Do you expect us to retreat and allow the Abyssals to come so close to Japan when they are right in front of us, begging to be killed by our hands!?"
The four Abyssal battleships, meanwhile, seemed to be enjoying the discord between the two ship girls. One of the Ta-classes used her superior speed to charge in close to Nagato, throwing a punch at the black-haired battleship. Nagato dodged it by moving to her right, but the Ru-class from earlier fired another shot at her, forcing her to move back to her left and putting her back in the path of the Ta-class. The Ta-class' fist smashed into Nagato's face, making her dizzy.
Nagato blindly fired her main guns, the recoil running through her entire body. However, she had not hit anything, and the Ta-class punished her miss by punching her again, this time in the abdomen where she was already bleeding. Nagato gasped as she coughed up blood, and the Ta-class kicked her in the stomach, forcing her to her knees.
Her vision blurry with pain, Nagato could not do anything to avoid the inevitable finishing blow from the Ta-class. But no second hit came, and Nagato glanced up to see the Ta-class facing away from her. The Ta-class then sailed away, abandoning Nagato.
What…? Nagato recovered her bearings enough to see what the Ta-class had shifted her attention to.
To her surprise, Musashi was holding a Ru-class up in the air with only one hand, her palm covering the Abyssal's face. A moment later, Musashi crushed the Ru-class' skull, splattering blood and brain matter all over her new black outfit. The Ta-class that had been standing over Nagato was now charging at Musashi, but the Yamato-class battleship was unfazed.
With an eerie calm, Musashi turned to face the new threat and pointed all her guns directly at the Ta-class. Before the Ta-class could even get close, Musashi's guns fired with a deafening boom, erasing the Ta-class. The water rose up slightly due to the impact of the shells hitting the Ta-class, and it began raining blood and bone as the Ta-class' obliterated remains fell down from the air.
The savage finish had stunned the remaining Abyssal battleships, and Yamashiro took that opportunity to tackle the remaining Ta-class, pinning her down and beating her to death with her fists. Nagato tried to stand too, but the pain was too great, causing her to wince and fall back to her knees. To her chagrin, the final Ru-class was sailing towards her at full speed, her guns pointed at Nagato… But with unexpected speed, Musashi intercepted the Ru-class, slamming into her and knocking the Abyssal off her feet.
Musashi picked up the Ru-class by her neck and lifted the Abyssal into the air, much like she had done with the other one. This time, Musashi slowly tightened her grip around the Abyssal's neck. The Ru-class gagged and clawed at Musashi's arm, but it was futile. The Abyssal's eyes rolled back in her head as she slowly suffocated, her arms still jerking about. Musashi continued to take her time choking the Abyssal, her eyes unrelenting behind her glasses.
Soon enough, the Ru-class ceased her struggle, and Musashi tossed her into the ocean in a manner not dissimilar to tossing a rotten apple in the trash. As the Abyssal began sinking, Musashi turned to look down at Nagato.
"What the hell are you doing?" Musashi asked. Her voice was cold. "Why are you on your knees with that pathetic, defeated look? And why is your fleet being beaten? Were you not the flagship of the entire Imperial Navy at one point? You're in quite the sorry state, Nagato."
Nagato looked down, embarrassed. "I…"
"Save your excuses. Stand up," Musashi ordered.
Nagato bit her lip as she tried to stand, fighting past the intense pain searing her abdomen.
"Why so slow? Is that wound enough to incapacitate one of the Big Seven?" Musashi demanded as she watched Nagato struggle. With a look of disgust, she pushed Nagato back down.
"Ugh! W-What are you doing?!" Nagato asked, bewildered.
Musashi gave her a crushing glare. "Quiet. If you're too weak to fight, then sit down and shut up and wait for the others to do the hard work for you."
Musashi then sailed away. Nagato stayed down, ashamed at herself and also angry at Musashi.
Who does she think she is, speaking to me like that? Nagato frowned, clutching her abdomen. Musashi had always been a bit rough and callous, but she had never been this cold and unfriendly before.
Yamashiro sailed past Nagato, stopping momentarily to glance at her. "There are no more enemies in this area. You should be safe here."
Too weak to protest, Nagato could only watch as Yamashiro sailed away to join Musashi.
I don't know what's going on anymore, Nagato sighed. I just hope that everyone can make it out of here alive, or else we may get more girls going down the same path as those two…