CHAPTER 2: IMPORTANT WORK

7 Years Before
South China Sea, Midday
Waters Southwest of Manila and East of Cam Ranh

It wasn't fair. There were only two bombers this time, compared to the dozen that came a half hour ago. It's not like the girls were complacent either-the formation was textbook and the maneuvering was precise and timely. But just because you do everything correctly and make no mistakes doesn't mean you will win. The enemy pressed its attack and the attack connected. The girls zigged when they needed to zag.

Akatsuki-chan, let her go!" Inazuma's face was a torrent of tears.

"We're an hour away from Northeast Cay at full speed, we can beach her there. She just needs to de-summon her rigging so I can carry her."

"Akatsuki-chan, she's already gone! Please let her hand go, we need to retreat!"

The eldest sister's proposal was unrealistic. As part of the Spartly Islands, Northeast Cay was deep in Abyssal territory. Her grip was firm and her stance rigid. The waves rolled around her, but she would not drift nor budge. Ikazuchi was her anchor, fixing her in place. There were no tears in her eyes, no break in her voice - just total serenity.

"Please, Inazuma-chan. With our combined engine power, we can lift her head out of the water so she can hear me. After she de-summons her rigging, I can take it from there."

"Wait!" Kuroshio thrust her left hand in the air. She had been keeping watch in order to allow the sisters to grieve. "New contacts bearing east. I'm picking them up on ESM, no range estimate."

"You heard her didn't you? We have to go NOW!"

"Eh? That's a pretty strong spike, they should be in visu-there! Signal lamp!" Kuroshio darted her head eastwards.

"That's our convoy's recognition code." Hatsushimo, the division flagship, raised her guns and moved her finger to the trigger. For the whole day so far, they'd been repeatedly ambushed by abyssals using their own signals against them.

Inazuma turned away from Akatsuki for the first time since the... aftermath... of the last attack. She trained her own guns towards the same bearing as Hatsushimo's. For her part, Kuroshio remained still, with her own main battery turret held in one hand dangling against her hips as she continued to devote her full attention to her sensors.

Hatsushimo's Destroyer Division 21 consisted of Hatsushimo herself, Akatsuki as her assistant, and rounded out by Ikazuchi and Kuroshio. Inazuma was not a part of their unit-she had been running plane guard for the carrier Kaiyou, but attached herself to DesDiv21 when her charge was disabled by a torpedo in the early morning. The poor girl had been taken aboard a cruiser's sick bay and no longer needed any kind of escort.

The reinforced DesDiv21 had set off from the main body off the convoy, tasked by their commander to find some missing human-crewed ships that been scattered from the flanks of the convoy. They never found the ships, just a never-ending series of ambushes from submarine torpedoes and land-based bombers.

"No, stand down, I can see them more clearly now." Kuroshio breathed a sigh of relief. "It's just Shiranui's division. I see Kagerou, Hibiki-"

"Kuroshio-san?" Inazuma glanced over to her wide-eyed divisionmate. "Kuroshio-san!"

She raised her turret to her chest and gripped it tightly, her knuckles turning as white as the remains of the tattered gloves around her fingers. "I only count the two of them."

Shiranui's Destroyer Division 14 was herself, her assistant Hibiki, with Kagerou and Shinonome. Kuroshio already knew in her heart that the Akatsuki-class weren't the only ones who would lose sisters that day, but she'd been hoping against hope that her own class would be passed over for tragedy. She froze in place.

Kagerou bore down on her at high speed and enveloped her in an embrace. "I screwed up. She told me this was gonna happen, but I didn't listen."

Behind Kagerou, Hibiki sported the same expression that Inazuma had earlier seen on Kuroshio. She stared past her, eyes locked on Akatsuki, coming to a full stop several shipgirl-lengths in front of Inazuma.

"Thank God you're here, Hibiki-chan. Give me a hand, I can't do this myself. Ikazuchi must have taken on a lot of water. Once we secure her for towing, we can help her pump out her machinery spaces."

Hibiki remained still, not acknowledging her elder sister's voice.

"Please, Hibiki, I'm losing my grip!"

Startled, Hibiki lurched forward and brushed past a dumbstruck Inazuma.

"Akatsuki-chan... What happened?"

"She was knocked unconscious, she just needs a little help to wake up and get righted."

She stared at her eldest sister for what seemed like an eternity before she instantly de-summoned her rigging. After instantly losing the ability to float on her feet, she exhaled deeply in order to further reduce her human body's buoyancy and sink deeper into the sea. Once she dropped to Ikazuchi's depth, she wrapped her arms around her and re-summoned her rigging, rebounding back to the surface with her sister held tight.

Akatsuki was thrown back by the sudden movement and landed on her bottom on the roiling sea surface. She looked upwards, but it took her moments to comprehend what she saw: Ikazuchi's eyes were wide open, but there was no light behind them. She was just plain gone. Akatsuki's scream reverberated throughout their part of the South China Sea.

Present Day, Shortly Before Noon
Kushimoto Frontier Base

A shipgirl woke up in a cold sweat. She looked at the clock. She'd only dozed off for twenty minutes... The nightmare itself wasn't as distressing as the fact that it had returned after an absence of three years. Why now again, of all times?

Day of Arrival, Late Afternoon
Kure Naval District HQ

After dropping off her bags and trip-mates at Kushimoto, Akatsuki and Yuubari immediately proceeded to Kure Naval Base and presented themselves to the commander of the district's coastal patrol forces, Rear Admiral Ijuin Kiyoshi. Also present were Ijuin's staff and the shipgirls about to be assigned Kushimoto. They briefly exchanged salutes and tried to get down to business.

"As you were, Commander. Welcome back to Japan."

"Thanks, Lieutenant Com-I mean Admiral! Oops, sorry!"

Ijuin's face strained as he struggled to hold back laughter. Most of the men, women, and shipgirls in the room were mortified-standing behind Akatsuki, the battleship Nagato was burying her face into her hands.

"It's fine, it's fine! Even I'm not used to the star yet." He tapped his shoulder boards. "I know three grades in seven years feels sudden, but c'mon, kid, I'm sad that you think I'd be passed over for promotion for almost a whole decade."

"You can't call me a kid, I'm a Commander now!"

He reached out and ruffled her hair. "Still the same as ever, eh? At least you're not calling me just Lieutenant anym-" He cut himself off when he realized that the whole room was staring at him wide-eyed. Ijuin had the reputation of being a gruff stickler, a real martinet. Only three people in the room ever knew him like this. The first, of course, was himself. The second one just slapped his hand away after pulling it out of her hair. The third...

"Ahem." Standing in the back of the room with her arms crossed, Hatsushimo was rolling her eyes.

"Right. Don't worry everyone, I haven't gone down with a fever or anything. Commander Akatsuki and I go way back-I used to be her babysitter."

The lady in question grumbled and reached up to pinch his ear.

He was not that far off the mark. The first time they met, Lieutenant Ijuin was her instructor on modern air defense tactics at the JMSDF's kanmusu training establishment at Etajima. The last time they were together, Lieutenant Commander Ijuin was the human CO of DesDiv21, leading from the rear in a steel ship that was supposed to be outside the combat area.

"Admiral. Commander. Please." It was Nagato, with a serious expression.

"Oh come on, I don't want you of all people lecturing me about losing self-control around a destroyer."

"Admiral!"

Ijuin might have gone too far. He and Nagato weren't exactly on familiar terms-she was there as a representative of his boss, Vice Admiral Totsuka, the commander of Kure Naval District. She was also wearing two hats for the meeting-first as Kure Naval Base's secretary ship and second as Admiral Totsuka's adjutant, a JMSDF officer in her own right.

"Apologies, Lieutenant Commander. We will refrain from further childishness from this point." He still greatly outranked her, however, and could therefore brush off such a faux pas as if it didn't matter. He'd pay for this later, he was sure, but it was still worth it to briefly relive one moment from his happy days with one of his old friends. His face returned to the grim mask that everyone else was familiar with. "Now then, enough with this impromptu reunion. We can schedule a party after all the important work is finished."

Unfortunately, as long as the Abyssals existed, the important work would never finish.

"Commander, when I promised the Lieutenant Commander that the childishness would end, it also applied to you." Ijuin was rubbing his temples.

"I'm not being childish!"

Akatsuki had been offered a pool of destroyers to choose among in order to form Kushimoto's second destroyer division (the first one had her sisters plus Higbee as DesDiv29). She proposed organizing Hatsushimo, Hatsuyuki, Hatsuzuki, and Hatsukaze into DesDiv30.

"Fine, I know I can trust you. But could you at least justify your choices to reassure my staff?" He glanced past Akatsuki's shoulder towards a frowning Yuubari. "And it looks like your Operations Officer needs some reassurance as well."

"First, Hatsushimo as the flagship." She gave a curt nod to the girl, who acknowledged it with a curt nod of her own from her corner of the room. "She was my last flagship before I left Japan. I know her and trust her judgment." Akatsuki was probably the only one. A court of inquiry had been convened to investigate the battle that led to the first Ikazuchi's loss, and it found her performance as flagship wanting. She hadn't held a position of responsibility ever since. "I reject the letter of reprimand in her file."

Murmurs fluttered around the room. The inquiry that generated that reprimand was regarded as sacred by the JMSDF, US Navy 7th Fleet, Philippine Navy, Republic of Singapore Navy, and all kanmusu forces around the Pacific Rim. For Akatsuki to disregard its findings...

The battle-or more popularly, disaster-of TOSG-2703 (TOkyo to SinGapore, year 2027, 3rd convoy of the year) was a turning point in the war. Before it happened, the Abyssals were considered little more than beasts. Always conducting frontal attacks and relying on overwhelming brute force, they had never shown any capacity for creative thought nor a grasp of even the most basic tactics. Nobody was under the illusion that the war would be over any time soon, but they had started thinking of it as a large pest control operation rather than an existential struggle.

Then Ikazuchi died. Shiranui and Shinonome went down with her a scant few miles away. In all, 18 kanmusu and 8 human-crewed steel warships from 4 countries were sunk during that dark day in the South China Sea. It wasn't even close to the heaviest loss that the forces of humanity suffered during the war, but it was the first heavy loss in a decade since the early first days when kanmusu were just starting to be summoned. The court of inquiry and its investigation were the soul-searching the kanmusu and navies needed to do, and its findings were their catharsis.

"I wasn't here when it was happening, I just emailed my statement from Singapore. If I'd been called as a witness, I would have given the judges a piece of my mind."

Nagato's expression hardened. She had been one of the six judges-three of them kanmusu-appointed to the court. "Can we go back to the task at hand, Commander? What about the rest of your choices?"

"Right. Next is Hatsuyuki, I want her to be the assistant to the flagship." Unlike her new division flagship, the girl in question hadn't bothered to show up for the meeting. "Hibiki-chan spoke highly of her in her letters to me, so when I found out she was available, I knew she would be most conductive to personal derailment." She said the last term in English.

The staffers all looked at each other, perplexed.

"Did you mean conducive to personnel development?" Ijuin was grinning again.

"That's what I said!"

"I'm sorry." Nagato shook her head. "How could that possibly be true? She's always checking into Lake Biwa to avoid wor-" She caught herself too late-Akatsuki was frowning at her.

"The way Hibiki described it, she's always saying encouraging things to the other patients and helping them recover more quickly. I'm going to get a lot of people at Kushimoto soon that have never worked with each other before. I think she'll be a big help in bringing everyone together and mentoring the new summons."

Nagato sighed. "I can agree that you've thought it through, even if I disagree that the girl is anything like what you say. What about the other two?"

"Hatsuzuki is the only antiaircraft destroyer available. She'll be Higbee's counterpart in DesDiv30."

Nagato, Yuubari, and the staffers nodded.

"Hatsukaze is, err, um."

"Has Hatsu in her name." Ijuin smirked.

"B-but that's fine if that's the reason for only one of them, isn't it?"

7 Years Before
South China Sea, Afternoon
Hangar of JS Ashigara DDG-178

"Lieutenant! Oh my God, Lieutenant! What happened to you?!" Akatsuki buried her face in Ijuin's chest.

"Argh, you're hurting me worse than the abyssals, kid."

"Sorry! But there's so much blood!"

"It's okay, only half of it is mine. The rest is supposed to be mine, but they spilled it on me during my emergency transfusion." Ijuin smiled weakly. He so desperately wanted to wail and cry about USS Antietam, the ship he had been aboard before it took three torpedoes amidships and snapped in half, but he'd just heard what happened to Ikazuchi. He had to be strong and hold it together for Akatsuki's sake. "I'll be fine, thanks to you and the other girls. You did good work, kid."

"But we failed! We couldn't find RSS Formidable or BRP Gregorio del Pilar."

When his chest started warming up, he was worried that he was bleeding out again. When he realized it was Akatsuki's hot tears, he became even more worried. "But you found Kagerou and Hibiki, didn't you? You weren't looking for them, but you were the ones who saved them. We goofed when we sent their rescue party in the wrong direction, just like we goofed when we sent you to find those ships in the wrong direction-the Chinese found Gregorio del Pilar adrift towards Hainan. They've picked up the surviving crew and are towing the hull back to Manila."

"What about Formidable?"

"Still no sign of her, I'm afraid. But we can't lose hope, if only because the battle isn't over yet." He paused. "But why are you the one reporting to me? Where's Hatsushimo?"

"She's aboard USS Shiloh, trying to comfort Nenohi. She lost two of her divisionmates this afternoon."

He sighed. Why did that girl go to her own sister when two kanmusu under her own command lost sisters of their own? "You're a strong lady, Akatsuki. I wish we could do more for you."

Ijuin (as well as Kuroshio) had no idea that it was Akatsuki who had begged Hatsushimo to visit her distraught sister. She already knew that Ijuin was right-the battle was not over. Who knew if they were going to get through this? Certainly not Akatsuki, who took it upon herself to report to Ijuin and her other superiors so that Hatsushimo and Nenohi could, God forbid, have the last words that she and Ikazuchi never had a chance to share. Nobody could have predicted the negative consequences for the hardworking flagship who was only being sensitive to the feelings of her precious assistant.

Present Day

"Four minesweepers?! That's way less than what Wakayama had!" Yuubari was looming over a seated Admiral Ijuin, her hands planted on the desk he was sitting behind.

Nagato tapped her gently on the shoulder. "You forget yourself, Lieutenant."

"S-sorry, Admiral, but this is a drastic reduction of what Kushimoto was promised when Suzuya, Agano, and I were holding the first version of this meeting a month ago."

Ijuin had winced at the mention of Agano. He opened his mouth to begin his answer, when Akatsuki interrupted him.

"It's fine, it was my idea. We emailed each other about it a day before I arrived."

"Commander! You can't cover the Kii channel with four minesweepers! You should have taken my input before deciding this, I was the operations officer of a minesweeping ba-"

"Yuubari, I'm sorry for acting underliterally-"

"Unilaterally."

"You know what I meant, Lieutenant Commander!"

"Admiral."

"Whatever! But please accept my apology, I was once the flagship of a minesweeping squadron in America, so I was working with my own expletives."

"Expertise."

Akatsuki pouted at Ijuin, who just shrugged.

"Anyway, I saw a way to use less kanmusu to do the same amount of work, so I offered to free up minesweepers for other bases and fronts in exchange for getting some of the other ships and resources that Kushimoto needs."

Yuubari sighed. She could think up of dozens of things that the base needed immediately that weren't even on the horizon. Despite that, however, minesweeping was one of Kushimoto's primary missions and she couldn't wrap her head around the idea of doing it with only a quarter of what she considered the minimum. "So... how are we gonna make it work?"

"If we lay our own mines first, then the abyssals won't be able to lay theirs."

"What."

In exchange for giving up a full squadron of fleet and auxiliary minesweepers, Akatsuki asked for a particular ship right away, a few pieces of equipment, and promises for more ships and other items in the future.

"Cruiser-minelayer Okinoshima, reporting!" The girl in question flashed a V-sign at Yuubari from across the room.

"You see," said Ijuin, "the commander came up with the idea of laying so many defensive minefields along the Kii channel that you'll only have to keep a tiny strip clear for safe passage. A handful of minesweepers should be able to cover that."

"And we're not just getting four minesweepers. I brought Chickadee, remember? That's five fleet minesweepers, plus four kaibokan that we can give light equipment to, that could help our real minesweepers in a pinch."

"If it's that simple, why haven't we done it at every base?"

Ijuin grimaced. "It's not that simple. It frankly sounds like a tremendous pain in the ass. But Akatsuki thinks she can handle it, thinks you and Suzuya can handle it, and thinks Okinoshima and the minesweepers can handle it. Well, can you handle it?"

"Ugh. If my CO has that kind of confidence in me, then I don't want to disappoint her."

"Yay!" Okinoshima practically jumped for joy, then became acutely aware that the entire room was staring at her. "S-sorry, I'm just so happy to finally be able to do my real job."

There hadn't really been a need for minelayers in the Abyssal war. The girls themselves were in high demand because of their versatility, but laying mines wasn't what they were used for most of the time. In particular, Okinoshima had been laying fiber optic cables to keep Japan (and occasionally Taiwan) connected to the Internet, as the Abyssals were fond of snipping them whenever they were found. On average, she had to re-lay cables once a week. Once in a while, they would get cut within hours of being laid. The girl knew that planting mines would be as repetitive as laying cable, but if she had to replenish minefields every week, at least it would be because abyssals were regularly exploding in them.

With all the initial kanmusu assigned, the rest of the meeting was spent settling more mundane matters. Though Yuubari was annoyed at the sacrifices (not just minesweepers) that Akatsuki made without consulting her or Suzuya, she began to appreciate the horse trading that had been done when she learned that all the major construction would be finished before Kushimoto's activation and that its few shipgirls would be swimming in top of the line equipment. There were a few other perks as well.

"You're coming back tonight?" It was Suzuya on the phone.

"Akatsuki-chan got us a couple of helicopters." Yuubari could barely contain her excitement. "Not just for the trip, but permanently assigned."

"Eh? They said no last month!"

"The commander worked her magic. Also, she gave up our third destroyer division."

"What?!"

"Don't worry, she didn't go crazy. We're getting frigates and torpedo boats instead, but they'll have to wait for a couple more weeks."

Yuubari could hear the other girl's sigh of relief.

"Um, what are we going to do about the crew? Are they-"

"Vetted? No. They're not gonna stay at the base, we'll have to call them in when we need them."

"Ugh, that can't be good for efficiency or morale."

"I don't know if this was the Commander or Admiral's idea, but for now they'll be based at Kushimoto General Hospital in the city. It'll just be a short hop away and we can build goodwill with the community by letting them use the choppers when we don't need them. They have priority for vetting too, so hopefully we can work th-" Yuubari suddenly noticed that a woman was standing in front of her, with expectant eyes. How long had she been there? "Hold on a sec. Can I help you?"

"Ah, Miss Yuubari, please continue, this can wait." The woman was somewhat tall, clearly an American. The broad smile on her face was slightly unnerving.

Yuubari uncupped the receiver and returned to her conversation with Suzuya. "I'll forward an email summary of what we got and what we gave up. I'll talk to you when I get back, I think I just met Norton Sound." She clicked 'end call' when she heard Suzuya's grunt of goodbye.

"Oh, you recognized me? I don't recall us meeting before, I'm sorry if I forgot." Her eyebrows had instantly creased in worry.

"No, it was just a guess. You're the second American assigned to the base and I already met the first one." She gave her a warm smile. "What can I do for you?"

Norton Sound presented her hand, palms up. As Yuubari stared at it in curiosity, a smug fairy with its hands on its hips apparated on top.

"T-that's a gunner, isn't it?"

"Yup!" The fairy in question leapt from Norton Sound's palm and onto Yuubari's shoulder, dissolving into thin air as it joined her crew.

"Oh my God, is she for real? She just reported to my captain as a Mark 42!"

The 127mm/54 Mark 42 was a destroyer gun mount. But unlike the other destroyer guns that Yuubari was familiar with, it was a postwar weapon-it even served on in the US Navy until the early 90s and the JMSDF until the late 2010s. It was an autoloading weapon in its real steel incarnation, capable of pumping 40 shells a minute into the air against surface targets 25km away or aircraft flying at up to 15,000m of altitude. It even had /onboard radar/ and multiple types of fire directors for use against different kinds of targets. By contrast, Yuubari's historical twin 14cm turrets from the 1920s were only capable of roughly 12 to 20 rounds per minute against surface targets up to 20km away. They had no anti-air capability and no onboard directors. Of course, since kanmusu weren't limited to their historical armament (or even appropriately-sized armament to their displacement), Yuubari hadn't actually touched her old 14cm guns in years. But the Mark 42 was still lightyears beyond anything she'd ever equipped before.

"Yes, ma'am! Only ten of her exist in the world, and no prospects of any more being constructed for a while, so please enjoy."

"A-are you really giving it to me? Thank you so much!"

"Don't even mention it. I've got lots of presents for my new unit-mates. I want to get along with everyone."

"Ohoho." Yuubari wrapped an arm around Norton Sound and began walking back towards the conference room. "We are definitely going to get along for sure."

"We found Hatsuyuki, sir," said one of the human staffers. "She was at the McDonalds outside the base gate. The workers said she'd been there since last night."

"What in the world?" Ijuin pinched the bridge of his nose. "First of all, why there? Why not the McDonalds in the base?"

Nagato sighed. "I revoked her internet privileges last week. The one inside piggybacks on the base's WiFi network, so she must have been trying to circumvent it."

"Are you sure you still want her, commander? We're pretty eager for you to succeed." Ijuin's voice became low. "I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I watched you get derailed by a dirt-"

"Please don't worry about me, I know what I'm getting into. She'll be perfect for what I have in mind."

Nagato cleared her throat. "Forgive me for butting into your command prerogatives, but she's gone too far this time. She didn't only violate the terms of her last punishment, but she was also supposed to be on CQ duty last night-she just committed dereliction of duty. I don't like the idea of overlooking this just because she had a change of station at the last second." [A/N: CQ is Charge of Quarters, when soldiers are assigned to guard their barracks and handle its communications]

Punishing shipgirls was difficult enough under most circumstances. With very few exceptions, they held no rank in any military and swore no oath towards any country. In effect, they were volunteers in the most pure sense of the term, risking their lives for the sake of humanity as a whole and not technically subject to military law. It worked well enough most of the time, but there were edge cases-Hatsuyuki was one of the prime examples.

Ijuin clasped his fingers together. "First I've heard of her abandoning her post. Strange that the duty runner didn't report that her NCO was missing. That's a terrible example she's setting."

"It's worse than that. Hatsuyuki was the duty runner. The duty NCO at the replacement barracks was Shiranui-san. She never reported that Hatsuyuki was missing and falsified her logs to say that they were both properly relieved. The damage is done and she's corrupted someone again."

"Eh? Isn't Shiranui a new summon? Why was she in charge of someone 10 years her senior."

Nagato raised an eyebrow.

"Even if that senior was Hatsuyuki."

"CQ duty twice a week was another term of her latest punishment. And I thought Shiranui had potential. I guess I misjudged her."

Ijuin heaved a long sigh. "Well, commander?"

Akatsuki fidgeted. She'd always hated staff duty and found it hard to stay awake when she was a junior shipgirl, not yet even an assistant to a division flagship. But she'd never gone as far as just getting up and leaving. "I still think she'll be a fine addition to my team... But I'm not gonna ignore what you said Nagato-san, I'll do something about what she did this time."

The meeting was adjourned. Ijuin and his staffers returned to their other duties, and Akatsuki went off to pick up one of her new subordinates from the brig. But to Nagato, the day's business still wasn't complete. She went after Yuubari, who was chatting with some of the new members of Kushimoto's team.

"I-is this a CH-46?" It was Hayasui, staring wide-eyed at a fairy in her hands.

Norton Sound was a little mournful. "Ah, no. It's an older one, an HRP. We tried really hard, but we just couldn't make any Sea Knights."

"Still." Yuubari was smug. "That means we've got at least /three/ helicopters at our base."

"Oh yeah, for sure," said Norton Sound. "We can't ride inside it obviously, but it can carry almost a ton under its sling."

"Can we ride the sling?"

"Uh. I guess I don't see why no-" She noticed Nagato at the corner of her eye, standing with her back straight and with a stern expression on her face.

"Oh, you need something Nagato-san?" Yuubari noticed her arched eyebrow. "Er, Lieutenant Commander?"

"Just a quick word, Lieutenant." She gave a look at the other two. "Officer to officer."

Taking it as a signal to leave, the two support ships bowed and mumbled goodbyes before slipping away.

"I think it's ironic." Nagato began. "The Americans criticized us about our kanmusu commissioning program, told us it was a bad idea, and claimed it would never work. Then they made Akatsuki-san a Commander almost out of nowhere."

"Um..."

"This isn't a criticism of Akatsuki-san... Were you briefed on what got her a battlefield commission?"

"I only skimmed some of it, I've been incredibly busy this past month."

Nagato bit her lip. "She did incredible work. I couldn't have done it, not in a thousand years."

Yuubari nodded. From what little she read... She couldn't disagree. With Kushimoto finishing construction and the command team finally shaping up, she was looking forward to finally finishing poring over the whole damn thing.

"In some ways, I think her elevation reveals some serious flaws in our program, but in other ways there are things we did right that the Americans ignored. Are you aware that they didn't make her take OCS?" [A/N: OCS is Officer Candidate School, which is exactly what it sounds like]

Yuubari opened her mouth, but made no sound. That was enough of an answer to Nagato's question.

"That's not really as major an oversight as I'm making it sound-the JMSDF begged and traded for her before she could attend. But still... When we started the program five years ago, we were extra careful and took everything slowly."

Two dozen shipgirls were (secretly) tested, vetted, then selected to attend an accelerated term at the Naval Academy at Etajima. After being commissioned as Ensigns, they were sent off to short tours of duty onboard steel ships as if they were mere humans. Yuubari and Nagato both remembered their cruises fondly and often visited their old ships and attended reunions with their crews.

"I get what you're saying... It's more than just being a brilliant tactician and being a natural leader. It's also the boring stuff, the management."

"Exactly, I'm glad you see what I mean."

"With the extra construction resources you're giving us..."

"You will technically be ready to take in humans as early as the end of next week, but we're going to hold off until we see how she handles just shipgirls. The helicopter crews, even though they'll be off-base, are also part of that preparation. The vetting problems are half-smoke-" Nagato smirked. "-and half dead-serious."

"Well, Suzuya and I are there. We'll have her back and teach her everything we know."

"That's good to hear. But there's more than that. I'm in agreement with Admiral Ijuin, and so is Admiral Totsuka, that Akatsuki must succeed. We don't want her career to be sunk by a couple of disciplinary headaches."

Yuubari grimaced. "Hatsuyuki-san..."

"...and Hibiki-san. The second wouldn't normally be as big a problem as the first one, but she's also the commander's own sister."

Was there something wrong with the air conditioning? Yuubari was slightly annoyed as she wiped sweat from her brow.

Nagato smirked once more. "Even though she was in America, did you know the JMSDF tested her for our program? She didn't pass, of course. Don't tell her that."

"Yikes."

"Yeah. That means we really screwed up our criteria if we could miss a natural like her."

Yuubari shrugged. "You live and learn."

"I'm now a lot less annoyed that Suzuya kicked my ass even though she was tenth place in our class."

7 Years Before
South China Sea, Second Morning
Hangar of JS Ashigara DDG-178

"I-I'm sorry, I j-just lost track of her, it was so hectic." Hatsushimo was crying in Inazuma's arms.

Lieutenant Commander Ijuin was lying on a stretcher at their feet. "How the hell?"

"Kuroshio yelled about an ESM spike at midnight and we braced for shell fire, but it turned out to be a radar-directed torpedo attack. We barely spotted them in time, they were oxygen torpedoes. I dodged hard to port to follow what I thought was her searchlight, but it turned out to be Ayanami. After we heard explosions, our group ran north at flank speed. Akatsuki-san wasn't with us when daybreak hit."

Ijuin became nauseous. What the-am I losing blood again? "Hatsushimo." He clenched his fist. "Don't lose hope yet, this isn't over."

7 Years Before
Waters off Palawan, Philippines, Second Afternoon
Quarterdeck of JS Ashigara DDG-178

Ijuin was glad to be on his feet again, sort of-he had to lean against a bulkhead to stay up and his legs were radiating searing hot pain. But at that moment, the important part was that he still had them, and not even a bone was broken-the spall just happened to take a lot of meat off.

"Kiyoshi, my good man." It was Captain Totsuka, the convoy commander's chief of staff.

"Sir!"

"I just got the report of who we lost overnight."

Ijuin sucked air through his gritted teeth and braced for the bad news.

"RSS Stalwart took a bad hit at the base of her mainmast. Looks like it was a cruiser-caliber shell. Her crews controlled the fire and she's underway on her own power. JS Ariake wasn't as lucky. Torpedoes broke both shafts, and possibly her back, so she was ordered abandoned at dawn."

Ijuin nodded somberly.

"It sounds like it was your Akatsuki that got the sorry task of scuttling her." Totsuka grimaced.

"S-she's-"

"Yup. Hibiki is also with her, as well as Sazanami and Murasame. They're with USS Fort Worth and BRP Gabriela Silang-both only took light damage. The Malaysians scrambled their whole fleet to protect them."

"Oh thank God!" Tears were streaming from his eyes. He was too happy to be properly embarassed at crying in front of his superior.

"Their group retreated the opposite way of ours. They already made landfall at Kuantan, Malaysia and will proceed to Singapore as early as practicable."

A/N:

Thanks for reading!

I'm planning to have a lot of flashbacks, if you all don't mind-It's something I'm taking from The Godfather, Part II, one of my favorite movies. Two simultaneous, intertwined storylines-one showing the "present", the other showing how we (or really just Akatsuki) got where we are. I'm worried it could get confusing or choppy, but I'll try to thread that needle carefully.

There's another needle I'm trying to thread-Akatsuki matured in some important ways in the 7 years since she left Japan and saw the world, but she's still supposed to be Akatsuki the try-hard elephant lady that everyone knows and loves.

One final thing-I put the Humor tag, and I meant it! The first two chapters feel kinda melodramatic so far, but I promise this will have more light-hearted moments as well.