Chapter 79: Musashitimes

Battleship Musashi settled into the warm dockyard waters. A happy sigh slipped past her lip as she leaned back against the tile, her arms resting on her berthing pier. Wisps of steam curled off the perfumed water, fogging over her glasses with their warm kiss. She closed her eyes, letting the water work its magic on her torn-open torpedo blister . Musashi'd taken baths before. The showers back at base weren't quite tall enough for her to fit under comfortably, and she liked to soak in the morning. And occasionally play with her toy boats. But ever since the battle off Alaska, her baths had started feeling… different.

Maybe it was the damage she was finally repairing, or the bikini the prudish Americans demanded she wear. But Musashi couldn't shake the feeling that now, for the first time in so long, she'd earned her soak.

Her rifles, the greatest of their kind the world had ever seen, the greatest the world would ever see, had finally spoken their righteous fury. Musashi was no longer a ship. She was a true battleship.

She'd faced down an enemy of undeniable evil. She'd endured the best they could throw at her and laughed off their blows. She'd made them pay for hurting her friends with the might of her rifles. She was satisfied.

Musashi laughed, her bulging breasts just breaking though the oil-slick surface with the motion. She'd earned her soak. Musashi had done the Yamato name proud.

And to top it all off, Musashi got to enjoy her soak all by her lonesome.

Well, not totally. Kongou and Kirishima were a few berths over, repairing minor damage and scrapes from their last engagements. Every so often, a human sailor would wander in—either in fatigues to check in on the girls, or bikinis to join them for a quick swim. But Jersey was elsewhere, which was what really mattered.

Musashi was proud of herself. The sisters of the Yamato name carried the best, biggest naval rifles ever built. Their armor was second to none, and their optics awed the world.

But Musashi just couldn't focus when Jersey did her… hips thing. To say nothing of that American's insistence on baring her midrift in the bath. Musashi was astonished a prudish American could be so brazen.

"Hmpf," Musashi huffed to herself and hugged her chest, squishing her bust up past the surface. She might not have the American's aft, but—

Someone was singing. "But I can shoot it, shoot it-"

Musashi scowled. Naka.

"At over thirty knots~"

"Naka!" Musashi's typically thundering voice boomed across the still waters and echoed off the tile and concrete.

"Hi~ hi~," Naka's giggling Idol voice floated back in reply. "Naka-Chan, idol of the fleet, deeeesu~" She giggled with the last word, and Musashi could just picture her black gloved hand coming up to shield her mouth.

"What are you singing?" demanded the battleship.

"Cover," said Naka. "My fans have been begging me to do a cover album, seeing what works for me."

"No," Musashi rolled onto her side, vainly searching for the traffic cone with her fogged over glasses. "I, Musashi, want to know WHAT SONG ARE YOU SINGING?"

"Oh," Naka giggled. "All about 'dat aft."

Musashi thought for a moment. Big guns, over thirty knots, noteworthy aft… Ah! "Is it about Jersey?"

"Mmhm!"

Musashi smirked. As a battleship of the Imperial Japanese Navy, she was as disciplined as she was valiant. Her mind was forged to precision and tempered with the care of a fine katana. Thoughts did not intrude within it.

The mental image of Jersey dancing in a teeny-tiny microskirt was thus not an intrusive image in her mind. In fact, the mental ideal of the American's cute little ass bouncing every which way was gladly welcomed into the superbattleship's mind.

She'd be in the pool for a while longer, might as well spend her time doing something soothing.

"I, Musashi approve of this song!"

—|—|—

Captain Henry Takeda watched the sun rise over the glittering Caribbean sea with a contended smile on his face. His ship might not be the fastest in the fleet. She wasn't the most famous, or the proudest, or the newest, nor even the strongest. She had one foot—or screw—in the grave already, more floating parts hulk and shore battery than warship now.

But she was his.

He grinned wider as his ship's slender bow pierced though the gentle waves. Even at a mere twelve knots—as fast as he was willing to push the old girl without a pressing need to make her move—she cut though the waves like a dagger. Everything about her looked fast.

Even standing still she looked like a thoroughbred stretching her legs on the back straight. Her bow stretched for the horizon, her slender stern built like a dragster of the seas.

Battleship Wisconsin, the last battleship had entrusted herself into his care. And he would not let her down.

Captain Takeda gave the bridge railing an appreciative pat, scratching the old paint with his fingers like he was giving the old girl a gentle head-pat. She deserved it. And he could've sworn the deck quivered under his feet.

"Good girl, Wiskey." Takeda gave the old battlewagon a final pat. But duty called, it always did.

Just a few dozen miles off the old battlewagon's stern lay the Panama Canal. The single most important lifeline between East and West. Takeda's charge to defend. Wiskey's charge to defend.

Takeda flipped a switch on the intercom and cradled the handset against his ear. "CIC, bridge, anything on scope?" Radar was all but useless against Abyssals, but apparently neither Wiskey nor Big Mo had gotten that memo yet.

"Just the convoy, sir." The TAO's reply echoed though the old intercom circuit. But there was something else… something… some sort of sound in the background too regular to be mere noise.

"TAO, what's that sound?"

There was a long pause. "Uh… the Space Battleship Yamato theme." Another pause. "Sir."

Takeda sighed and cradled his head in his hand. "Space battleship Yamato."

"Aye, sir. We're playing it over the 1MC."

"On an Iowa-class battleship." Takeda shook his head. The Iowa-vs-Yamato debates had become legend even before Jersey and Musashi's feud hit the world media. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Yes sir," there wasn't a shred of hesitation this time. "She seems to like it."

Takeda blinked. Now it was his turn to freeze while his brain caught up with events. "She what?"

"We get an extra three miles out of the radar when we put it on, sir."

"Um…" Takeda blinked. "Copy. Out." He set the handset back in its cradle just as a horrifying realization came to him.

His boat was a weeaboo.

"Dammit, Wiskey."