Blizzard of the Red Castle
The scene on that cliff was one of melancholy. The sun was all but gone from the horizon, bathing the seascape with golds, reds, and purples. In the dark skies of the East, the moon hung. And there, at the edge of land before it plummeted into the sea, sat a little girl, no more than fourteen years old. And she was crying, her face buried in her knees. To her side, a slightly crumpled sheet of sturdy paper lay. It wasn't very special, just a simple birth certificate, one of millions like it the world over, simply saying that such-and-such a person was born on a specific day at a certain hospital with one person being identified as the mother and another person as the father. But what made this one unique was who the mother was.
This certifies that Fubuki Misaki was born to (FATHER) Haruki Misaki and (MOTHER) Akagi.
Weight: 3.9 kg Length: 40.2 cm
Scarcely an hour ago, Special Type Destroyer Fubuki lived her whole life knowing that she was born Yuki Yamashita, an orphaned girl of two naval personnel from the back country. When she was discovered to be a reborn shipgirl, she began a quiet investigation into who her parents might have been... And found nothing. And then, by a twist of fate, she found her parents... And lost everything she thought she knew.
Akagi, the Aircraft carrier that she had looked up to as a person to model herself after, was her real birthmother. Her birthfather, dead. Her human name, Yuki Yamashita, was a lie. A fabrication crafted by the government to keep her origins secret from the world at large. And herself. For months, her own mother lied to her face about their relation, despite having ample opportunity to come clean.
It is a revelation that would drive most anyone to despair. For a fourteen year old girl? It is a crushing feeling. So deep in the whirlpool of confused and complicated emotions these revelations brought, she didn't even notice Kongo, lead of that class of battleships, sit down next to her, on her right. When she did notice her, Fubuki glared and turned away.
If the British returnee was hurt at the silent dismissal, she didn't show it. Instead, she picked up the sheet of paper at Fubuki's side and looked at it. When she spoke, it was with less energy than what she was known for, her smile having a subdued character to it.
"Ah, it looks like you weren't hatched after all. Good job."
"You knew," the destroyer bit out, her voice raw with bitterness, "you knew this whole time."
"...Yes."
Fubuki's grip on her knees turned her knuckles bone white, her jaw clenching in anger. "H-how long."
"Well, if it weren't for a paper-thin wall your conception would've met the technical definition of a threesome, so I'd say from the very beginning."
"...That's not funny."
"I know."
The duo sat in silence. The younger in a stew of negative feelings and trying to sort through them to ask her next question, the elder in patience, waiting to be asked.
"Who else? Who else knows? Have I just been some, some joke for everyone to laugh at when I'm not around?"
Kongo shook her head, despite knowing that the destroyer wouldn't see it.
"No. Not everyone. Let's see... There's your mama of course, and Kaga, and me. And the Admiral. OH! and a couple dozen older officers that have long since retired and/or died by now. Those are the ones that know the full story. Including who you are. Hosho... Well, she never asked what your name was, and none of us volunteered."
"Liar, Hosho-san doesn't seem to ignorant to me."
Kongo smiled in the face of Fubuki's bitterness.
"Hosho is a very smart lady. She probably figured it out pretty quick."
"And so she's been lying to me too."
"Well, for all she knew, she could easily have been wrong Fubuki. And let's be honest, she'd look pretty silly if she went and called you her grandbaby and was wrong!"
"...Maybe."
Kongo nodded. "Now then other than that... I think Tatsuta was around just before your birth, and she's an observant sort... But I don't think any of us pulled her into our confidence about what was going on. If she thinks Akagi was pregnant, and not fat, then she might think you were stillborn or something. Looking back, we were all pretty gloomy around that time, so it's not a stretch to imagine. And... And that's it. That's everyone that knew about Akagi being pregnant. Of course, every now and again, the story makes the rounds of a shipgirl getting pregnant sometime in the early days, but the baby didn't make it or something. Although, everyone simply brushes it off as an Urban Myth. Something to keep newly summoned girls from 'exploring' with their officers."
Kongo put a finger to her lips in thought.
"So you see, only a few of us have ever been keeping secrets. In fact... I don't think I ever did either."
"You didn't tell me," Fubuki said, shoulders shaking with pent up anger, "you knew I was looking for my parents and you didn't tell me! 'Lying by omission is still a lie' Kongo-san!"
"Yes."
Like a shot, Fubuki sent out a punch, smacking into the battleship's bicep, tears in her eyes. Kongo, naturally, was unaffected.
"You tricked me!"
"Blatantly."
Another punch, water droplets twinkling like stars as the fall to the ground.
"You're horrible people!"
"We should go to Hell."
One more, more powerful than the others.
"Why aren't you defending your actions Kongo-san?"
"Because you're right Fubuki," the battleship said, easing a comforting hand onto the girl's shoulder, "we hurt you, in a way no one should be hurt. In trying to do right by the memory of a good friend and his lover, we've done wrong by you, his legacy."
"I HATE YOU!"
"No you don't."
"Y-YES I DO!"
But despite her vehement claims, Kongo remained calm, her voice soothing.
"I'm sure you feel many things. You are confused right now. The world as you knew it has been tossed upside down, and you don't understand why. And that makes you afraid, afraid other things may be not as you know them. And when you are afraid, that fear motivates you to change the situation. But you can't. This is not something you can just ignore or change, and that makes you angry. And that's okay, that's good. All emotions are good, because it lets us and those around us know that we are invested. They tell others when something is good, or when we have a problem. So don't be ashamed that you feel the way you do, because that means you are alive.
"All I ask, is that you do not let them control you. If you fester and stew in your anger, if you let yourself ferment in your fears, eventually they will be all you know, and you will be unable to recognize the paths out of this pit you are in. Paths you can only reach when you talk about what is wrong with those that love you, and want to help you. So... Let us help you. You have questions. Ask for the answers Fubuki, and ye shall receive."
Like a magic spell, Kongo's words calmed the torrent inside the Destroyer's soul. Fubuki looked up to look Kongo in the face, and saw something interesting. She looked... Tired. Her expression was one with a small, sad smile, and somehow, in the dying sunlight, it made her look... Older. Much older. In the back of her mind, Fubuki made a realization. This wasn't the Kongo she was used to, one who could brew tea in a moment's notice, who could lure out the infamously flighty Shimakaze with hardly any effort at all, who could bring a smile to one's face even in the darkest day. No, this was... This was the Kongo that served thirty years and in two world wars, who watched as the land of her birth and the land of her home drifted apart and became enemies, who watched as her home descended from the first "primitive" nation to gain the respect of the Great Powers of the world who treated POWs with respect, to a Reactionary dictatorship that embraced an idealized past that never really existed, and suffered the consequences of it. And then returned from the dead, serving in a third war for fifteen years... And no end in sight. And despite all that, still had the strength to see the best in the world.
Fubuki then noticed the hand on her shoulder and... Didn't mind it. She turned away to look back over the sea. Kongo took that as a good sign, and moved her hand to start rubbing circles into the destroyer's back. Fubuki didn't protest, pulling her knees back to her chest as she reflected on what else was bothering her.
"The commander is my uncle. Isn't he."
"Mm-hmm."
The destroyer chocked.
"So... Me being the flagship of Mobile Unit Five didn't mean anything."
"Now where did you get that idea?"
"I'm not stupid Kongo-san. Why else would he make me, a green destroyer, flagship of anything with a battleship, two carriers and two cruisers, if not because I was family."
Kongo sighed, her face falling at the display of self-depreciation, and moved her hand around the destroyer's other shoulder.
"Oh Fubuki. You have it all wrong. Daisuke isn't that sort of person. If he was, you'd be as far away from the front as possible, no matter who he inconvenienced or how negatively it affected the war effort. He never expected you to up and take the lead like you did."
Fubuki blinked at that, then turned to Kongo in confusion.
"Then... Then why did he make me Flagship?"
"Because you proved yourself of course. He wanted Kaga or me as Flagship, but as he told us and Akagi - and I quote - 'I can't not in good faith just step back for a moment and examine my options with just, and only just, the admiral's cap on. While the two of you may be more experienced and have the credentials, unless you can get Mobile Unit Five to work as a cohesive whole under either of your commands, I have no official reason to strip Fubuki of the position as long as her judgement and leadership remain sound in the field, or until you can somehow prove you can do better despite the leadership issue.'
"Frankly, in retrospect, the end result was pretty obvious: Kaga gets so caught up in being seen as the perfect warrior that is superior to anything connected to Carrier Division Five, that she will forget to be that perfect warrior. Zuikaku is perfectly capable, but she has the unfortunate combination of a short temper and feeling like she has a lot to prove. Kitakami... Well, she's good in a battle, but I'm not sure she has the situational awareness to give commands. And Ooi is... Ooi is..."
"Is Ooi?" Fubuki offered.
"An incestuous clingy sociopath, yes."
"That's not very nice Kongo-san... But what about you? Why weren't you going to be a good flagship?"
The battleship gave a small snort.
"Oh, I would've been perfect. But I wanted you in the spotlight Fubuki. To let the record show, to prove to both yourself, and prove to your mother, that you have what it takes to command, and to take care of yourself. To prove that you don't need to be babied for the rest of your life."
"Yeah but..."
"But what?"
"...Kongo-san, how can... How can I really know that I'm a good flagship? How can I know if..."
With just a touch of pressure, Kongo pulled Fubuki close, resting the destroyer's head under her chin.
"Fubuki... Do you remember the Five Meditations? Think back, from the first day you came here, to the present. Think back to every time you had a goal in mind. Being worthy of being a Kanmusu, or becoming Akagi's escort, or perusing your remodel. At any time during those endeavors, had you been slothful? Or lacking in vigor? Or felt shamed by act or word, or been insincere? Had you ever halted your efforts before you did all that you could?"
The questions were clearly rhetorical. Fubuki was well aware of what she had endured in order to chase those goals. All of the embarrassing failures while first training. Or how her muscles ached with her first daily runs, of all the bruises she collected during the training battles... No, never once had she backed down in the face of the challenges that stood between her and her goals.
"Mm-mmm."
"Well then, if that's the case, then how could anyone doubt you being deserving of those rewards? Daisuke could have ordered your remodel until he was blue in the face, but it would not happen unless you were ready. And you could only have been ready if you had trained and battled your way to it. Mobile Unit five was only meant to be a rapid response division, but you gave it your all, and managed to earn the respect of four conflicting personalities, and forge them into a cohesive unit. And you know what? The Akagi of last year, when you first arrived, would have never wanted to see you anywhere near a battle."
Fubuki sagged at that. The thought that Akagi-senpai didn't want her near had always been a harsh thing to think about... But with the knowledge that she was also the destroyer's mother? Harsher still. However, Kongo wasn't done yet.
"But guess what? By the time of Second Midway... She was asking you to be her escort. And do you know why? Because you proved to her that you could not only take care of yourself, but also others. That's not favoritism Bucky. That's not nepotism. That's all you poppet. You and nothing more."
Fubuki let out a breath she didn't even realize she was holding. Kongo's words proved to be a balm to her aching heart. But still... There was still one thing.
"But why though? Why the secrets Kongo-san? Why was I sent away?"
Fubuki pushed away from the battleship, hands against her elder's side, her eyes shedding tears anew.
"Why would my mother act like I didn't exist Kongo!" she mewled, gently shaking Kongo as she pathetically demanded answers, "tell me!"
Kongo's face fell, her bright eyes closed in resignation. When she opened them again, she offered a joyless smile as she brushed a lock of Fubuki's hair behind her ear.
"I can't tell you that Fubuki."
"S-sure you can!"
Kongo shook her head.
"Certainly, I have the capacity... But I still can't..." she turn away, behind the pair, "Because that is not my story to tell."
Fubuki turned, and gulped at what she saw: Akagi, not ten meters away, and looking very uncomfortable, fiddling with her fingertips in a way that Fubuki found very familiar. Kongo stood up.
"Fubuki. You are a smart girl. You have proven that not only in the class room, but in the field too. Use that intelligence to make the connections between what your mother will say, and what she means. You are also a kind girl, without a mean bone in your body. What we did was wrong. But we also acted for the right reasons, despite our misgivings. Whether we deserve forgiveness or not will be up to you... But please. Listen to her first, before you judge. Good night. Bucky."
And with that, the battleship bowed to the destroyer, and made her way back to the base. As she approached Akagi, out of Fubuki's earshot, the carrier spoke bitterly.
"You planed this," she accused, "I don't know how, but you did."
Kongo said nothing.
"You had no right."
Standing shoulder to shoulder to the carrier, Kongo stopped. She did not turn to Akagi as she addressed her.
"Did I now? You forget, I am the Big Sis of the fleet, and one of my surrogate little sisters was in pain. That made it my business. Furthermore, I am the battleship of Mobile Unit Five, and she is my flagship. That made it my business too."
Akagi's hands clenched into fists.
"Do you know how many leads that girl has followed? How many dead ends she plowed prow-first into? Akagi, you know that, sooner or later, she'd run out of roads to check. What would have happened then... If she did everything possible... And she still couldn't find anything on her parents?"
Akagi's eyes clenched closed tightly.
"Were you ever going to tell her Akagi? Were you waiting for her to be so far into the pit of despair, that she'd forgive you for 'abandoning' her without a thought, out of relief? Or... Were you just going to continue playing pretend? Act as if she really wasn't your baby grown up? Were you going to smile, knowing that your lack of action was hurting your daughter, just to spare you a moment's awkwardness?"
Tears ran down the Red Castle's cheeks.
Indestructible did not yield.
"If that is the case... You are an even worse mother than you think you are.
"But if that is not the case... Then talk to your child."
Without another word, Kongo resumed her pace, fading into the shadows of the foliage. Akagi remained where she was for a few moments, taking in her surroundings to distract herself. The sun had finished setting, and the full moon's light bathed the world in a soft glow. And there, at the cliff's edge, a teenage girl sat, all alone in the world, confused and sad. For anyone it would be a depressing sight.
It was like a knife to the heart for Akagi, that girl's mother.
Taking in a shaky breath, the carrier squared her shoulders and marched. She had no room to maneuver anymore. There was no way out from this situation except straight ahead.
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts?
No. No she had not. There was one last effort she had not yet exhausted... One she had been putting off for far, far to long.
Fubuki heard the footsteps through the short grass and dirt. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a red and white shape sit down beside her on her left. Just a few hours ago, being alone with Akagi, sitting under the stars, would have been a dream come true. Now though, knowing what she did...
Akagi sat there. She had been dreaming and dreading this conversation for years. Plotting out the discussion, what she would say, what Fubuki may say in reply, and how she in-turn would respond. But now that the moment was here, it was like her tongue had been tied to the roof of her mouth, and nothing could get out.
In doctrine, carriers do not fight. Or rather, they do not fight directly. It is destroyers that engage in battle. Ergo, it is not surprising that it is ultimately Fubuki that starts things.
"D... Did you... Did you love him? The Commander's brother?"
Akagi took in a deep breath, letting it go, and willing her fears to go with it.
"Yes. Yes, more than anyone before or since. He was bold. And brilliant. Haruki could take a Hodge-Podge fleet of half swamped destroyers, engage a full strength Abyssal fleet, and command the battle in such a way that they were all sunk to a hull, and not a single one of his own ships would be lost. And he... At that time, we shipgirls were not too common. We were new, strange things, seen as little different from the Abyssals... But not to Haruki. He was the first man to see me not as simply a last-ditch effort to find a way to fight the enemy, not as a reforged object of war, but also as a... As a woman. He was... He was wonderful."
Akagi risked a look at her daughter, to find her also risking small glances her way.
"He was so looking forward to meeting you Fubuki-ch... -san. He was so eager to find a way to end the war, and do it quickly. A world at war was the last thing he wanted for you."
"Wh-what happened to him?"
The answer was obvious, but she still felt the need to ask. Akagi took another breath, digging up harsh memories, picking at not-yet-healed wounds of the heart.
"There was... An offensive. Three entire fleets encroached on the Naval District at once. On the first day, Kaga-san and I, Kongo-san, Hosho-san, Yuubari-san, Myoko-san, Chokai-san, Hibiki-chan, Shimakaze-san, and the others that had been summoned and assigned here at the time, managed to drive them back. And all that was left was to finish them off... Or at least... We thought so."
Tears pooled at her eyes.
"We got separated, each chasing an Abyssal force. Kaga-san and myself with one way, Kongo and her escorts with another way, and the steel-hull flotillas a third way. Haruki, your father... I learned later that, that he thought that there may have been a fourth force lying in wait. And... A-and he..."
She paused. A tiny choke escaped her lips, and her hands gripped at her hakama.
"He was right. From the way everyone described it, it was like a return to the first days of the war. There was the sudden rain, and flooding... And then they attacked. It wasn't much. J-just a few ships... But then... Then came the landing craft. It was a... It was a raid, whose goal was to decapitate the base. The Admiral, your uncle, he only survived because the damn coffee machine broke and he went to the cafeteria.
"By then, most of my air fuel was used, and I had only a few planes left. I- I could have sent them ahead. To provide distraction, give the base defenses some breathing room. But..."
A tear fell onto her hand. Then another. And another, and another.
"What if an enemy ship stumbled on us? I would have been defenseless. You would have been defenseless. And so I... I..."
"I get it," a tiny voice said, "you don't have to say any more."
Akagi turned sharply to see Fubuki, in a pose very similar to her own, a distraught expression on her face.
"I get it. It's... It's my fault Dad's dead. If you hadn't been pregnant, you could've-"
It was quick, sudden. Akagi didn't even think about it until it was already taking place. She took the blade of her hand, and smacked Fubuki on the crown of her head. The action shocked the both of them. The carrier didn't apply nearly the same sort of force she was capable, but it was more than enough to catch the destroyer's attention.
For the first time, Akagi had disciplined her child.
The carrier didn't marvel at that fact. She could not afford to focus on it, not when her child was saying such sentiments that stabbed her heart deeper than any rejection.
"D-don't. Don't. You. Dare, Fubuki. Y-you... You did nothing, nothing, wrong. You were a baby, growing in my womb. You couldn't have affected the outcome in any way, even... Even if you were capable of understanding. If anyone is to blame, it would be me. I didn't conserve my resources like I should have. I let myself get so caught up in the pursuit that I lost sight of the bigger picture. But even then, even if I had, even if a handful of planes could have made any difference worth a damn, it is war Fubuki-chan. Even if nothing had happened that day, Haruki could have died at any time after that. S-so don't... Don't you ever, ever, think those horrible words ever again! You understand me?"
Fubuki, eyes wide as dinner plates, stared at Akagi, taking in her anguished features, with eyes as hard as iron, and yet exuding a warmth that was unlike anything she felt before, not even from Kongo. With mechanical motions, she nodded. Akagi returned the nod, and returned her hand to her lap as the two descended back into silence. When conversation resumed, it was Akagi that spoke, of her own volition.
"I was weak... To weak to protect him. Haruki was so smart, so clever, that the Abyssals took a page out of his own playbook, and used it against him, because they knew he would have ended the war right then and there if they had let him. I... I couldn't risk losing you too. I couldn't risk them finding out that he had a child. My weakness... My fears... they drove me to send you away. Forced me to... To force everyone around me to act as if... As if..."
"...Is that why? Is that why you never...?"
"Never what? Called? Visited?" Akagi gave a small bark of a laugh, thick with bitterness. "Wrote a damned letter?"
Akagi's gaze turned away from her child, down to her lap, eyes growing dull as she spiraled down an all to familiar road.
"I tried. So many times I tried. Whole reams of paper, wasted with scribblings of my ramblings etched onto them. Heaven knows I tried to build up the nerve... But why would you have accepted me Fubuki-san? I... I'm not a mother. A mother wouldn't have thrown her child away like I did. I'm a failure as a mother Fubuki. I don't deserve your love. Or your forgiveness, if even someone as sweet as you had the capacity to give it..."
The pair sat like that for what seemed like hours, the moon rising, adding more light to the sad scene. Akagi, stewing in her own self-loathing, and Fubuki...
Once more, Fubuki wasn't sure what to think. She had harbored many fantasies about what finding her birthmother would be like. Finding this, a broken person, fully convinced that sending her child to a safe place was a heartless thing for her to do, fully convinced that she was the scum of the earth for doing something that, from all evidence, was the best thing to do, was not one of them. Fubuki's mind didn't know what to do...
But her heart did.
Her hand, seemingly of its own volition, began to move, haltingly edging for Akagi's hand. In time, she placed it on Akagi's. The carrier jerked upright, stared at the contact as if having never experienced touch like this before. She turned to Fubuki, eyes wide, so full of hope, and so full of the fear of trickery. And like that, any doubt fled from Fubuki's mind. She found her mama. Flaws and all, nothing could change that. Kongo was right, Fubuki could understand the why's of it all. She didn't like it, but she could understand it. Of course, there was to much in the way for a normal relationship to happen. Both would need time to adjust. The rest of the fleet would be told... But later. For now? Now it could be their little secret, as they got reacquainted, after far too long apart.
Fubuki scooted closer to her mother, and leaned her head onto her shoulder. Moments later, Akagi leaned her head on top of her daughter's. She released a sigh, and Fubuki could feel fifteen years of stress, fears, and self-hatred leaving her very soul.
And finally, the healing could begin...
A little distance off, a certain battleship stood amongst the foliage, hidden by shadows. She smiled, and turned around, making her way back to the dorms. For real this time.
"Just as planned," she whispered.
This story is a collaborative effort between myself, Mashadarof402, lt_agn02, and Lord K. This Chapter was written by myself.
Kinda surprised at the lack of responses at the last two chapters.