E/N: Woulda got these up sooner, but then HOI4 happened and I am a prime WW2 grand strategy sucker.
Chapter 73: POInt
Jersey squinted at the steel-gray horizon, her terrifyingly blue eyes burning like icy daggers behind her mirrored shades. It was a pointless gesture, her targets were well beyond the horizon, she could only 'see' them by way of her Kingfisher's observers. But still, it felt right to squint. The simple, mechanical action never failed to bring some degree of clarity to a confusing situation.
Except for the current one.
Which was just fucking weird.
"Yo, Dessboat?" Jersey waved her hand in the general direction of Kongou's bouncy buns. And also her hair-thingies.
"Hmm?" Kongou let out that little tea-scented humming noise she did when she didn't feel like Dessing.
"Abbys don't fly flags, right?"
Kongou put a slender finger to her lips, her gaze going a little slack as she rifled though her logbooks to double-check. "No," she said, her head bobbing in finality, "Not that I'm aware of, no. Kirishima?"
The other Kongou glanced up from her ever-present notebook, her glasses flashing in the light as glasses—at least ones worn by Japanese girls—are wont to do. "Yes?"
"Have Abyssals ever been spotted flying flags?"
Kirishima thought for a second while a gaggle of tiny faerie in IJN duty blues clambered down her arm to examine her notebook. The tiny creatures worked as one to flip the page, then imminently started arguing with increasingly frantic high-pitched "desu"s that reminded Jersey of dial-up tones. After a minute, they seemed to come to a consensus.
"No," said Kirishima with an air of resolute finally. "Never."
"Well… fuck," was Jersey's eloquent response. She scowled, her arms folding across her chest with a huff. "Hey, Mushi. Vector one of your Petes over, I want another pair of eyes on this."
Musashi nodded, her chest swelling as she prepared a suitably cutting jab about Jersey's eyes focusing on certain… areas. But whatever snark she'd built up evaporated when she caught Jersey's glance. There was something haunting in the American's glare. Something had her worried. Worried enough to show it. "Of course," the Japanese superbattleship relayed the command to her floatplane.
"What is it, Dess?" asked Kongou. Her long hair streamed behind her as she steamed to within a scant few hundred yards of Jersey. Her lips were pursed in concern, and those beautiful gray eyes of hers glowed with compassion at the towering American.
"Well, I found our targets," Jersey idly worried the tip of her long braid. "Four Panzerschiffs hauling ass for the Abyss right where Frisco said they'd be."
"But?" asked Musashi, her gaze flickering up to meet Jersey's as soon as the American glanced in her direction. "There's a 'but', isn't there?"
"Kinda," said Jersey. "They're flying Nazi flags."
For almost a full ten seconds, the sound of waves crashing against fighting steel was all the noise that could be heard.
"You mean-" Kirishima's slightly haughty correction was cut off by a glare from Jersey.
"The Kriegsmarine flag? No." Jersey shivered as she glanced 'out' at her target though her floatplane. She'd know that banner anywhere. A giant blood-red field with a swastika displayed proudly—proudly. Jersey didn't know how, but she knew those abyssal bitches were proud of the evil mark they bore—in the center.
"I see it too." Musashi's muscles tensed under that lovely chocolate skin, her jaw clenching with a groan of stressed steel.
"Something's not right," muttered Jersey.
"Does it, like… matter?" Yuudachi raised her little hand in the air, her scarlet eyes huge with honest curiosity.
"Eh?" grunted Jersey.
"I mean… like…" the destroyer put her arm down and started sketching out the general shape of a box with both hands. "You said it's always good to kill Nazis, right?"
"Well, yeah," Jersey rolled her shoulders, hoping she came off more cockily sure of herself then she felt. "That's always good."
"Then why do we care that they're flying flags? We're still gonna sink em, right?" asked Yuudachi with a curious "poi?"
"Because," Jersey blinked. "Uh… it's spooky."
Kongou hung her head with a sigh.
"What?" Jersey shoot the hyperactive britboat a scowl. "That's a perfectly legitimate military reason to be upset!"
"She has a point, sister," added Kirishima. "The actions of the enemy cannot be simply ignored because they don't fit into our theories of them."
Jersey smiled. "Clever girl." She shrugged, her hands going to rest on the two massive revolvers hanging off her hips. "But Poi-McPoiFace is right."
Yuudachi beamed.
"Those bitches are Abyssals," said Jersey. "More then that, they're Abyssal Nazis. That's evil fucking squared." The battleship felt the wind blow though her hair, tossing it back in a shimmering strawberry-blond wake. It was time for battlethings. "No way in hell are we letting them just sail into the sunset."
Her voice grew from its usual dusky contralto to… an equally dusky contralto that just happened to be THUNDEROUSLY LOUD. "Leave this flag shit to the philosophers, we've got boats to kill."
Kongou beamed and flashed Jersey a typically unsubtle thumbs-up before whipping out a pencil and notepad from… somewhere. "What's our plan?"
Jersey pursed her lips and glanced towards the only real pacing element she hat to worry about. "Yo, Mushi!"
Musashi puffed out her chest until her bandages strained over her breasts and glanced over. "Yes?"
"How fast you feel like going?" Jersey waved to the massive gash in the Japanese super-battleship's torpedo bulge.
"ChEng says twenty-one knots max," said Musashi, "Though he'd appreciate it if I stayed under fourteen."
Jersey bit the corner of her lip and flipped though her copy of Janes' Fighting Ships of WWII, stopping briefly to examine the beautiful line drawings of the heavily-armed British battleships for reasons that weren't at all lustful. Okay, maybe a tiny bit, but her main focus was double-checking the speed of the soon-to-be shipwrecks sailing just over the horizon.
"Okay, here's the plan," Jersey flashed a grin at her little fleet. "Kongou and Kirishima-"
The two fast-battleships snapped to attention.
"Take two Akatsukis each and loop around to encircle them," said Jersey. The Kongou sisters really didn't have the belt armor to reliably keep out eleven-inch shellfire, but they did have the speed and firepower to catch anything that tried to escape the killbox.
The two battleship nodded in agreement and steamed over to collect their destroyer screens from Tenryuu's kindergarten.
"Fubuki," said Jersey, "you're on me-"
"Hai!" Fubuki almost jumped out of the water in her eagerness to salute. "Fubuki will to her best!"
Jersey blinked. "Outstanding. Naka-"
"Hi~ hi~!" Naka giggled and threw up a peace sign in front of her eyes, "Naka-chan desu~!"
Jersey blinked again. "I thought we agreed you were never going to do that again."
"I forgot," said Naka with a sly wink.
"Fuck you too, handlebuns," Jersey flipped her middle finger at the singer, who just rolled her eyes with exaggerates slowness. "I want you and chunni-"
"I'm not chunni!"
"-boat plus poi screening Musashi. Do not let her take any torpedoes, she'll be fucking insufferable if she tanks another fish."
"I'm not insufferable now?"
Jersey wheeled around to flip both fingers at the snowy-haired battleship. "Fuck you, tittybitch."
"Aww," Musashi made a show of swooning with one hand pressed to her chest. With her arm 'accidentally' squishing right into her seemingly limitless cleavage, "She really does love me!"
Jersey's scowl grew to truly legendary proportions. "What-fucking-ever. I want you as my anvil. I've got the speed advantage, I'll murder 'em with the long sixteens and drive the stragglers into your eighteens. Sound like a plan?"
Musashi stroked her chin. "Simple, brutal… I, Musashi, approve!"
Jersey smiled. There were a number of things she wanted for Christmas. Pie comprised about half that list, but getting to hunt down and murder Nazis with her newfound friends, well… she couldn't think of any better way to celebrate the season.
—|—|—
White woke to the telltale sound of something hard and metal smashing against the slatted wood bottom of her bunk. A sound that was followed mere seconds later by quiet muttering and a few even quieter sniffles. By her count, it was just past one-thirty in the morning.
"Shinano?" White rolled onto her tummy, her head hanging just far enough off the side of her bunk to see the towering carrier.
The poor girl barely even fit in her bunk, she looked like a sock monkey someone had wedged into place with a liberal application of grease and hammers. And she was crying quietly into her hands.
"Um," Shinano glanced over at White. Her hands quivered in the still air, and her already pale skin looked almost deathly white. "Did… did I wake you?"
White nodded, "It's okay though. I don't need much sleep."
"Oh," Shinano's massive shoulders slumped, her face sinking as it tried to retreat behind the cover of her forest-green kimono. "I'm… I'm sorry, White."
"It's okayyy," White dragged out the last syllable to make sure Shinano got the message. "Bad dream?"
Shinano nodded dejectedly. "But… but I don't remember anything. I just woke up…" she sniffed. "White, I'm scared. Can-" The giant carrier sheepishly looked over at White's hanging head and inverted pigtails, "Can I sleep with you? Just for tonight?"
"Um," White shifted her weight just slightly, causing her bunk to creak and groan under her immense displacement. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."
"Okay," Shinano sniffed again and let her head fall back against her pillow. Before she could say anything more, the sound of a tiny escort carrier crawling down a ladder in the dark drowned her out.
"I can always sleep with you though," White smiled a toothy smile as she crawled into bed with Shinano. Or actually, on Shinano. With the massive Japanese carrier sprawling over the mattress, there was precious little room for even someone as tiny as White to lay down.
So White contented herself with curling up atop Shinano's warm tummy and resting her head on the carrier's breast. "You're really soft," she said with a smile. All the Japanese girls she'd cuddled with were really soft. It was nice and comfortable, but still… White would've given anything in the world to snuggle up to Jersey's rock-hard stomach just one more time. These soft Japanese girls were nice but… but they weren't her mama.
Shinano smiled. Actually smiled and wrapped her arms around White. "Thank you, White."
"'ny time," mumbled White. The little carrier smiled as she felt Shinano's chest heave with a sigh of contented happiness. And then she shimmied up the carrier's body to plant a quick kiss on Shinano's cheek.
Shinano blushed and gave White a powerful squeeze.
For what felt like hours, but was probably just a few minutes, neither carrier said anything. They just smiled and listened to the sound of each other's breathing. Their hearts slowly fell in sync. A gentle harmony conducting the two carriers into the warm embrace of sleep.
—|—|—
Meanwhile, on the Gulf Coast, a large cruiser pranced around her room with the giggling joy normally only found in ships of destroyer tonnage or below. Her high-top sneakers—one of the first things she'd bought with her own money—scuffed across the carpet as she pranced from one corner of the room to another.
Her long, shimmering silver hair trailed behind her in a loose rippling wake as she bounced around, cutting a stunning contrast against the deep midnight blue fabric of her ball gown.
The cruiser stopped to admire herself in the mirror. She let her hands run down her sides, smiling as the smooth, almost velvety fabric slid under her fingers like freshly-polished steel. She'd fallen in love with this dress from the moment she saw it, but…
But she'd never imagined it could look so good. Her best friend Atago had gone above and beyond with the needle and thread. All Alaska had asked for was a little less room in the bust, but Atago had tailored every inch of the dress. It hugged her body, playing up her distinctively petite chest and broad hips without even feeling tight. In fact, if Alaska closed her eyes, she could almost forget she was wearing anything at all. Atago even added some bits of fur around the collar to mimic Alaska's wolf's fur-lined parka.
"So," Atago stifled a giggle at her friend's obvious enjoyment, "What do you think?"
Alaska sighed, running her hands down her flanks one last time. "It's perfect!"
"PanPakaPan!" Atago threw up her hands in celebration, her whole body glowing with the intensity of her huge smile. "You look so good in it, you know!"
Alaska blushed bright red and pounced on her friend, easily wrapping the shorter, bustier cruiser in a tight hug. "Thanks to you."
Atago had long since gotten used to pouncing Alaska hugs. She didn't even let out a surprised 'eep' at the bigger American's pounce. "You deserve it, 'Laska."
"Mmm," Alaska squeezed Atago tight, "What'd I ever do to deserve a friend like you, 'tago?"
The two cruisers just smiled as the hugged one another, Alaska with her sneakers flat on the deck while Atago stood on tip-toe to at least approximate the American's height.
"Wait," Alaska blinked. She felt… something press into her chest. Something about the shape of….
"What?" Atago blinked.
"One moment," Alaska shoved her hand down Atago's cleavage. Her tongue peeked out the corner of her mouth as she rifled about her best friend's excessive chest.
"What-" Atago giggled, "what are you doing?"
"I think…" Alaska concentrated. It was almost within her grasp… just a few inches more and she'd have it. "I found…" she felt her hands close around something. Something cool and metallic in the sea of warm, squishy Atagoness. She smiled and yanked the something out. "My hotwheels."
Atago tilted her head as Alaska held a trio of the tiny little cars up with a giggly smile on her face. "I…" the Japanese cruiser glanced down her chest, "Thats where those went?"
"Apparently." Alaska smiled and held the cars up next to her cheek, a gentle coo slipping past her lips as she welcomed her beloved toys back to her.
Atago, meanwhile, was more preoccupied with staring down her own cleavage while making a mental list of every small item that'd gone missing from the base in the past few months. "Huh." Apparently she needed to have a meeting with her faeries about the exact definition of 'scrounging.'
—|—|—
Back in Japan, Akagi and Shinano ate their breakfast together. Or, to be more accurate, Shinano ate her breakfast while Akagi looked on in stunned, mortified horror. Akagi knew her own appetite was vast, to the point of having an entire licensed anime devoted to a cute drawn representation of herself eating things. But… but even she couldn't eat like this.
The fleet carrier clawed at her stomach as Shinano popped yet another pile of pancakes into her mouth without breaking stride. Just watching the newcomer eat made Akagi's stomach hurt. The carrier knew her tummy would explode if she ate even half that much.
Quite literally, in fact. Akagi just didn't have enough room aboard for that many supplies, storing them all would mean stacking barrels of AvGas and crates of bombs anywhere they'd fit. All it would take would be one spark and Foom!
Akagi winced as Shinano gobbled down an entire carafe of coffee in one gulp, her own stomach sending pangs of sympathetic worry up to her bridge. Even the ever-cheerful White looked worried at the newcomer's unimaginable gluttony.
"Um," Akagi coughed, forcing her shaky voice to respect her commands. "Um, Shinano?"
The young carrier stopped, her food-stuffed cheeks slowly sagging as she swallowed her latest mouthful with a timid smile. "Y-yes, Akagi?"
Akagi forced herself to look anywhere but the enormous pile of licked-clean plates Shinano had accumulated. A pile that could feed her and Kaga with room to spare. And Shinano didn't even look like she was slowing down.
"Um," Akagi shivered and bit her tongue to force a reboot in her brain. "When… when are you going to start flight practice?" She asked, "I could loan you a few reppus if you need more planes."
"I, uh…" Shinano's face got somehow more sheepish, and the towering carrier tried to make herself very small. It didn't work, given how she was easily a head taller than the already quite sizable Akagi. "I'm… I'm not rated for flight ops yet."
"You're not?" Akagi cocked an eyebrow and tried very hard not to stare at the other carrier's plate.
Shinano shook her head, "When I went to Akashi for a checkup, she… uh… almost fainted."
"Six times," added White.
Shinano nodded, "It was really scary, but…" she glanced at White, who gave her a subtle thumbs up. "But when she finished, she said I'm supposed to go straight to the docks after breakfast to get my watertight bulkheads fixed."
"I lent her some faeries," said White, "But, there's only so much my guys can do without a proper drydocking."
Akagi smiled and ruffled the little American's messy hair. "That's very kind of you, White. I'm quite looking forwards to joining one of your classes." Akagi meant what she said, she'd seen impossible things from American carriers during the war, and she'd heard even more amazing things from her fellow carriergirls.
But she mostly said that to get her mind off the nine entire coffee cakes Shinano just ate like they were nothing.
"Awwwww" White fidgeted in place as she tried to figure out where to deflect her praise. "Thanks, Akagi!" The little carrier reached for her glass of juice, only to notice the watch on her little wrist. "Oh, darnit!"
"Hmm?" Akagi glanced over with a confused tilt of her eyebrow.
"I, uh," White sheepishly piled her dirty dishes onto her tray, "I have to get going. Lesson plans… setup… stuff…" she blushed and tottered over to give Akagi a hug.
"I look forwards to it," said Akagi.
White smiled, then walked over to give Shinano an extra-long hug before bolting off like her usual hyperactive self.
E/N: And now, a little something special from the author. He says it is non-canon by the way. I think...
Atago's Launch Day Special
Normally, beaching a warship is an act of great drama. Either it came the result of some gross incompetence, in which case the drama would occur once The Powers That Be got wind of said incompetence, or it was a last-ditch measure to save a crippled ship from sinking all the way to the inky abyss. In the latter case, the Drama usually happened before the beaching, and continued on afterwards for some while.
But that all changed when shipgirls returned. For the very first time, warships could enjoy laying on the beech and basking in the sun. They could smile at the sensation of sand grains against their hull, and soak in the warm rays.
And one of the warships enjoying a lazy day off at the beach was one heavy cruiser Atago, second—or first, depending on how you count—of her class, currently fulfilling detached service with the US Navy Gulf Coast Command.
Actually, no, that wasn't accurate. Currently, Atago was laying on a pristine white beech in a baby-blue bikini her best friend Alaska had picked out. The heavy cruiser's long blond hair splayed our around her like a shimmering bow-shock. Her pale skin was just starting to soak up a proper sun kissed tan, and her lips were set in a goofy smile.
Yes… yes, this was the life.
"Hey, 'Tago!" Something very large flopped onto the sand next to her, sending a few strands of salt-slick hair up Atago's smiling face.
Atago didn't need to open her eyes to know who it was. There's only one girl she knew with that sweet, caring, and ever so slightly confused voice. A girl she'd spent enough time sleeping on she knew the taste of her hair by heart.
"Hey, 'Laska." Atago propped herself up on her elbows, her generous fuel tanks straining the absolutely adorable swimsuit Alaska'd picked out. The American had an eye for color—how could she not with those elaborate camouflage measures—but she really didn't understand the first thing about sizing. especially for someone of Atago's extreme… displacement.
Alaska blushed. It was a very pale rosy blush, a blush that could only be called such because of how pale the rest of Alaska's snowy-white skin was. For someone who spent all her time working in the sun, the big American cruiser did not look like it. "You-" Alaska blinked. "Um… hi."
Atago rolled her eyes and flopped over onto her belly, her hips bouncing against Alaska's and causing the American to let out a tiny 'eep!' of surprise. "Heheheh," Atago was hard pressed to contain a giggle. So she didn't even try, "You're so cute when you're like that, you know?"
Alaska blushed even more and buried her face in the sun-warmed sand. "'s nah-" She abruptly stopped, pulled her head out of the sand, and started spitting.
"You just inhaled sand, didn't you?" Atago helpfully held a handful of the American's gorgeous shimmering snowy hair out of the way. Because she wanted to be helpful, not just because Alaska's hair was the prettiest thing—even soaking wet—that Atago had ever seen.
Alaska sheepishly nodded. "Mebbe," she mumbled.
"You're a derp, you know that?" Atago smiled and smoothed her best friend's soaking wet T-shirt. Try as she might, Atago couldn't get Alaska into a bikini if she had a crowbar. Which, honestly was probably for the best. Atago might have a hard time finding clothes she could squeeze into, but Alaska had an even harder time finding clothes she wasn't swimming in.
So, instead of the cute red-black two-peice Atago had tried to buy for her, the Large Cruiser had settled for a pair of baggy board shorts and one of her hot wheels shirts. It should have been boyishly unflattering, but then again… Alaska.
"You need some water?" Atago giggled in spite of herself and offered a chilly bottle to her best friend, a tiny faerie—in swimtrunks—darting down her arm to remove the cap.
"Where'd you get that?" Alaska narrowed those sharply angled brows of hers. She looked so mean and focused, at least she did until you'd known her for more than ten seconds.
Atago giggled.
Alaska's gaze dropped to the heavy cruiser's limitless cleavage. Then slowly crept back up to her face with a sheepish wince. "Right, forget I asked."
Atago beamed and handed the bottle over. "It's a nice day, isn't it?"
Alaska nodded and gulped down the water.
"So," Atago played with the belt loop on her best friend's loose fitting shorts. "You been having fun?"
"Oh yeah!" Alaska nodded enthusiastically, her soaking hair whipping around to smack her on the nose. "Ow."
Atago rolled her eyes.
"I went swimming," Alaska brushed her hair out of her eyes, "And then I went body-surfing—it's really just like sailing, and I'm beat." Alaska sighed and flopped onto her best friend's bosom with a happy smile. "Suh suhft."
Atago smiled and ran her hands though Alaska's hair. There weren't many people she'd let co-opt her fuel tankage into their pillows. Besides Alaska, just… actually, yeah. It was just Alaska.
"So, did you meet anyone fun?" said Atago. She'd long since resigned herself to indulging Alaska's need for cuddles. She might be big for a cruiser, but Alaska was downright gigantic. There wasn't really anything Atago could do to prevent the much bigger girl from getting her cuddles.
Not that she'd ever want fewer Alaska cuddles, but that was beside the point. Especially because the moment Atago finished her sentence, Alaska started blushing so hard Atago could feel the warmth in her chest.
"So," Atago giggled, "You met a boy."
"Mebbe," mumbled Alaska from between the cruiser's breasts.
"He cute?"
Alaska nodded.
"You just ran away screaming when he asked you out," Atago sighed, "again."
For a long while, Alaska did nothing. Then she slowwwwly nodded.
"'Laska," Atago sighed. "You're such a derp."
"'knooo," mumbled the American.
"Tell you what," said Atago, "If you find him and ask him out…" Atago made a show of putting a finger to her chin, "I'll buy you another hotwheels car."
That piqued the American's interest. Her head rocketed out of Atago's cleavage—with a TV-remote, three AAA batteries, $5.43 in loose change, and a roll of smarties sticking to her face—"Rhel-ah?" she mumbled.
Atago giggled.
Alaska grimaced and spat out a Lego minifigure. "Oh hey! I've been looking for this one!"
"'Laska!"
"Hmm?"
"Focus," Atago scowled down her own cleavage. She really needed to talk to her crew. Alaska loved her Legos.
"Okay." Alaska dutifully sat back on her haunches, looking for all the world like an eager first grader waiting for instructions. Albeit, a first-grader who towered over even Nagato.
"Boy," Atago waved her hand down the beech.
"Right," Alaska nodded with determined purpose, bounced up to her feet, and starting loping down the beech with that distinctive Alaska gait where it was never quite clear if she was in control or not.
Atago watched her best friend run with a smile. Yes… it'd been a good launch day