Chapter 8: Unsinkable?
Yukikaze 'the unsinkable' was a veteran of the base. She was among the founding 6 and the only member of which still stationed on the base. She was always in the vanguard of the fleet during critical operations, and always the one credited with landing the killing blow. But there was always a catch – she would be the only one to get away unscathed. The others invariably came back limping, some barely even at all. And that weighed on her. Granted, the missions she went on were the hardest, but there it was almost as if an invisible hand shielded her from damage, or rather, and invisible hand pushed someone else in to take the damage meant for her.
Her first admiral had a mental breakdown when Nachi arrived in base close to death, flesh barely clinging to the bone in some places. His replacement barely lasted 6 months, being found dead in his office, on his desk an erroneous report that a heavily-damaged Sendai had sunk on the return route to base, the room reeking of paint thinner. The third snapped and tried to assault her when one of his precious carriers took a submarine torpedo that was aimed at her during a supply run.
Luckily there hadn't been an incident with the current admiral
Yet.
The pre-operation chills were back. She wanted to be able to fight, but she also wanted to protect her comrades – her friends.
What good is fighting for your friends when you can't stop them from getting hurt. What good is protecting them when YOU are the reason they are hurt.
She sank further back into her chair. Her belly was full from dinner, but there was only emptiness in her heart. This feeling conflicted her. To fight is to endanger those she loves, but not to fight puts them all at risk. Again, she wonders, why was her second life a parallel of her first, one doomed to see those who love fall around her while she stands helplessly, watching, trying to grab them as they fall only to see them slip through her fingers.
Her mind wanders further, back to the mission briefing a few months ago. Maps, plans, supply lines, pre-deployment, order of battle, follow up landings from conventional forces…
Wait, shit…
Order of battle…
She knew it off the top of her head, because it was a mirror of her past. And one name stood out among all listed.
Haruna.
Shit…
Yukikaze snapped back up straight in her chair. It was an open secret Haruna was his favourite. The word from the rumour mill was that they were planning to get married when the war ended, if the war ended. Losing her would mean losing him, and the base really likes having him around.
She prayed a silent prayer, thanking whatever power had been protecting her until now, and begged it to help others instead. She decided she had had a good run, and the chance for life should go to someone more deserving, maybe to the Fuso sisters who still avoid her to this day, or maybe to the fairy aviators who will be covering the fleet as it approached the gulf.
"Yukikaze will not sink – let's test that, shall we?", she muttered with a sly grin as she felt the weight of her supposed sins getting lifted off her heart. It was blatantly clear to Yukikaze what she had to do. Only one of them could come back alive, for the sake of the admiral, for the sake of those she holds dear.