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Approaching Eta-jima from the Hōyo Strait, two hours before suppertime...
"BANZAI AUSTRALIA! BANZAI AOTEAROA! BANZAI LEXINGTON! BANZAI SARATOGA! BANZAI TAFFY THREE! BANZAI! BANZAI! BANZAI! BANZAI...!"
Hearing those joyous screams from the crews of nearby fishing boats as the mixed Australian/New Zealander/American shipgirl task force sailed between Nasake-jima and Tsuwaji-jima into the Aki-nada proper — which would give them a clear run to the entrance to Hiroshima-wan and the final approach to Eta-jima — the American Fletcher-class destroyer Johnston could only scowl as she looked over at the large battlecruiser forming the starboard point of the box formation of big gun ships and carriers for the group. "Hey, Zealand!" she called out. "Doesn't that bother you?! They always get your name wrong!"
A chuckle escaped the dark-haired shipgirl who had served as part of the Battle Cruiser Force at the biggest gunship slug fest in history off the Jutland peninsula in 1916. "Pay it no mind, you silly little sprite!" New Zealand gently chided as she winked before she reached up to adjust the bandana keeping her hair away from her dark blue eyes. As she allowed her G-band surface search radar to scan the approaches to Eta-jima, she ignored the brown-haired, green-eyed destroyer sticking out her tongue. After noting that the surface seemed clear of potential threats — some of the Bathurst-class minesweeper corvettes who had come with them had scanned the waters underneath all the way out to Imabari on Shikoku to make sure there weren't enemy submarines about — she looked over to her sistership. "Mind putting the signal out, dear?"
"Right," Australia chanted, reaching into her pants to pull a bullroarer on the end of a long string. She then twirled it over her head high in the sky.
A moaning, buzzing noise then echoed over the waters of the Seto-naikai...
Eta-jima, the guest barracks, that moment...
Harry Potter's eyes snapped open. "What the bloody hell is that?!"
He then blinked as a fingertip probed the tender flesh around his famous curse scar...which no longer hurt from such a contact, surprising him a lot. "That is a bullroarer you are hearing, Harry," a toneless woman's voice answered as a dark-haired woman appearing to be in her early twenties loomed in his vision, making the Boy Who Lived tense for a moment as his growing magical senses nearly overloaded on feeling the waves of sheer power radiating from this person. He then relaxed as he sensed that she meant him no harm; while there wasn't any sense of welcoming warmth people like Albus Dumbledore radiated to other magicals, there wasn't the dark aura of evil such as what he detected when he had faced Voldemort in the Little Hangleton cemetery not two weeks ago. "Battlecruiser Australia is now approaching Eta-jima with her sistership New Zealand; they just performed an escort mission from Táiwān to Fukuyama. They were accompanied in that mission by the aircraft carriers Lexington and Saratoga and the shipgirls who were members of Task Unit 77.4.3, not to mention elements of the Australia and New Zealand Combined Naval Shipgirl Corps."
"Taffy Three," Harry stated as he felt a surge of comfort wash through his head from that soft contact to his right temple. "One of the most famous ad hoc fighting formations in naval history. Escort aircraft carriers Saint Lo, White Plains, Kalinin Bay, Fanshaw Bay, Kitkun Bay and Gambier Bay. Destroyers Johnston, Hoel and Heermann. Destroyer escorts John C. Butler, Raymond, Dennis and Samuel B. Roberts. Back during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, they took on Yamato, Nagato, Kongō and Haruna, plus cruisers Chōkai, Haguro, Kumano, Suzuya, Chikuma, Tone, Yahagi and Noshiro, not to mention eleven destroyers. Because they were willing to fight so hard even at such long odds, the crews saved the troops landing at Leyte at the time and helped win the whole battle."
"You are versed in naval affairs."
He chuckled, shrugging. "Pays to have a shipgirl patron."
"The one being?"
"Her Majesty's Shipgirl Surrey."
The older woman nodded. "Name ship of a two-ship sub-variant of the County-class heavy cruisers whose construction was cancelled due to the demands of the London Naval Treaty of 1930; as preparation work had been done to commence her building before the order was cancelled for her and her sister Northumberland, it was quite easy to summon both of them to duty at Torpoint. She is the one who managed to see you removed from your abusive caregivers before you attended your fourth form at Hogwarts." At Harry's dropped jaw and wide eyes, she gave him a faint smile. "Harry, your ki — in terms you will understand, your magical energy — is an open book to someone such as I." Noting his confusion, she added, "I am Moroboshi Negako. Natives of your father's society normally refer to me as the 'Earth Angel' or the 'True Heiress of Master Hosan'."
He gaped. Just after the disastrous end of the Triwizard Tournament two weeks before, Harry had been approached by a Ravenclaw named Luna Lovegood, a peer of Ginny Weasley's. She told him — in a voice that eerily reminded him of Sybill Trelawney's when she spoke the prophecy concerning Peter Pettigrew's escape from captivity a year before — that once Harry was free of the "nargle storm" descending on Britain thanks to the tragic murder of Cedric Diggory and had sought safety in the Land of the Rising Sun, he should listen to everything the Earth Angel told him. After confirming through Ginny that Luna had shown signs of being a Seer of some type, Harry kept that information in the back of his head while he had been escorted from King's Cross Station by Surrey to Sirius Black's townhouse in the Islington section of London to stay in a much safer location than 4 Privet Drive in Little Whinging ever was. It hadn't been quite safe enough; almost right away, the Daily Prophet started a smear campaign against Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore, no doubt thanks to Cornelius Fudge's flat-out refusal to believe Voldemort had effectively returned from the dead.
"Um...nice to m-meet you, Negako-sama...!" he then sputtered out.
Negako's eyebrow arched, then she turned as someone stepped in. "Oi, the hero of the hour just came!" a voice called out as a teenage male version of the ninjutsu grandmaster came into Harry's arc of vision. "By the way, Onē-san..."
"Australia and the others. I am aware, Ataru."
That made Harry gape. "Bloody hell! Moroboshi Ataru?!"
The newcomer reared back in shock. "Not that I'd admit it!" he stage-whispered.
Hearing that, the visitor from Britain laughed, then held out his hand to shake that of the man who had effectively saved all of Earth over a year before from alien invasion. "Heard you're the poor schmoe who's credited for something his mom did to stop a Big Bad from ripping apart a bunch of backwards, wand-waving jerks over in Britain," Ataru noted as he gave Harry's hand a friendly squeeze. "How the hell did you do that, Harry? Slap the idiot with a wet diaper?!"
That made Harry howl out in delight...then he perked as footfalls echoed from outside his new guest room. Looking over, he then moved to sit up on seeing Heather Thompkins walk in along with Kirishima, though he was gently forced back onto the bed by Negako's outstretched arm. "Ah, you're awake," the admiral stated as she sat down on the opposite side of the bed from where the Moroboshi siblings were, the fast battleship moving to stand beside her boyfriend. "Lucky thing that Albus got my special communications package when I got back to Earth; haven't had time to talk to him about what's happened in Britain since I was last on Earth..." She pulled out a device that resembled an iPhone without all the touch-screen functions on it, setting it horizontally on the nightstand beside his bed. A tap with the fingertip saw a holographic globe then appear over the screen. "ALBUS DUMBLEDORE!" she barked out.
A second later, a smiling grandfatherly image appeared, that accompanied by a cooing phoenix. "Ah, hello, Heather!" the headmaster of Hogwarts called from his office in Scotland, speaking in Japanese. "Did Harry get to you?!"
"I'm here, Professor!" Harry called out.
"Wonderful! Tell me, Heather, did Jessica pull something out of Harry's scar?"
"A horcrux fragment," Heather stated as she tried not to look exasperated at her fellow veteran from the Battle of Nurmengard, the last magical/metahuman fight in the European Theatre of World War Two. As Harry blinked and Negako's eyebrow arched, the admiral from Québec City asked, "Who's the idiot playing around with that type of magic, Albus?! Not even Gellert was that insane!"
He sighed, shaking his head as if the weight of the world just slammed down on his shoulders. "A failed student that I personally welcomed into Hogwarts back as the war was starting, I'm afraid," he answered in a voice full of ashes. "His name is Tom Riddle...but he goes by 'Voldemort' these days."
That made her gape. "'Flight From Death'? Pretentious one, isn't he?"
"In more ways that I wish to admit." The headmaster sighed again, suddenly looking like the centenarian he was instead of the magical powerhouse he had shown himself to be in the past. "Harry, I am very sorry that I haven't told you about what I suspected about what was going on with your scar. Given your youth and my uncertainty when I began to suspect that is what Tom actually did to you, I didn't wish to cause undue alarm; you were already forced to deal with so many things. I can only apologize for that and I'm more than grateful that Heather and Jessica were able to remove that thing from your forehead."
"It's alright...but what exactly is a horcrux, Professor?" Harry asked.
"A soul fragment," Negako declared. "Thomas split his soul apart to anchor the severed part in an object of his choosing, thus keep his core soul bound to this life when his body was destroyed by your mother. However, given the size of the fragment as the echo of it in your ki signature indicated to me, I suspect it was but the latest horcrux created. One of seven, I would conclude, given how magically powerful that number is seen as in European magical lore."
Harry blinked, clearly surprised by that calm dissertation even if his stomach churned at the idea of actually having some piece of Voldemort in his head ever since he was a baby. "So why didn't the basilisk venom that got pumped into my blood back in second year destroy it?!" he then demanded. "The diary had to be another of these damned things now that I think about it, Professor...!"
As Heather gaped at the young wizard on hearing he once had an encounter with one of the "king of serpents", Negako explained, "Regretfully, the damage to your body was not acute enough to permanently dislodge the horcrux when Fawkes used his tears to heal you." As both Heather and Albus nodded, she added, "The circulation hadn't distributed the venom in sufficient quantities to that part of your body through the arteries in your head. No doubt, the blood magical field that was used to save you from the killing curse Thomas employed on you when you were a child caused interference as it tried to protect your soul before Fawkes intervened when he did; such a field was trying to keep your heart and other vital organs intact from the venom injected through your arm." As Harry winced on hearing that, the ninjutsu grandmaster stated, "There is a way we can further augment that protection. I suspect the stolen blood used by Thomas in his ritual to regain physical form two weeks ago will make you more vulnerable to him. Unless Jessica's intervention an hour ago has currently rendered him once more bodiless." She gazed on Heather to confirm same.
"What was the ritual?" the admiral asked.
Harry sighed as he closed his eyes. "'Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son'," he repeated word-for-word what Peter Pettigrew had stated two weeks before to see his monstrous leader restored to true life. "'Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master. Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe'."
A hum escaped Heather. "That's a nasty one." She then smiled. "But I doubt this Riddle would have survived Jessica's eating his horcrux." As Harry gaped at her, the native of Québec City winked. "In effect, what Jessica just did to you, Harry, is perform a little bit of magical meatball surgery. Yanking out that thing from your head not only destroyed the horcrux and removed that anchor link keeping Riddle in this life, it also wrecked whatever blood magic bond formed between you when this Pettigrew fellow used your blood to give his master a brand new body. If his soul's been torn apart as much as Negako just indicated, the magical backlash from what Jessica did would have destroyed him."
"I'm not confident that he's truly gone even if Jessica got involved, Heather. As Lady Negako indicated, Tom clearly has more horcruxes. They'll be hidden safely away," Albus gravely warned. "I'm waiting for a spy I have inside his ranks to report back; the Death Eaters — that's Tom's fighting group — were having a meeting at his current base when I had Harry portkeyed to Japan."
"Snape, you mean?" Harry asked.
A tired nod from the elderly headmaster. "Yes, Harry, Professor Snape," Albus gently chided. "Please don't relay that to Miss Granger or Mister Weasley if you write to them anytime soon...though I suggest you avoid doing that until the situation with the Ministry has calmed down somewhat. I know that Miss Granger has introduced you to e-mail, so you don't need to resort to owls."
"If you want, Albus, I can get Dean to pay you a visit," Heather proposed.
That made him perk. "Where was Dean assigned? And Martin for that matter?"
"Dean's now COMJFCSG: Commander Allied Joint Force Command for Shipgirls in NATO. Since the Russians and the other former Soviet republics are teaming up with NATO to deal with the Abyssal threat, they wanted a commander on our side of the line they can trust since they got Svetlána Múromeca to take charge of the CIS' shipboy projects. Since I was Supreme Mugwump in the ICW before you got to Geneva, I was made overall commander because of all the 'sparkly magical shipgirl bullshit' people love to complain about," Heather explained. As Harry and Ataru laughed on hearing that and Albus' eyes twinkled in delight, she added, "Dean's setting up her headquarters in London. Remember where Ike had SHAEF headquarters in Teddington before he went to the Continent in 1944?"
"Bushy Park."
"Go find her there if this Fudge idiot decides to be a real moron and starts making hassles at Hogwarts," Heather advised as she clasped her hands in her lap. "Dean will have tea with the Queen at least once a week, so she can go to bat for you in case the Ministry tries to yank you from my old post in Geneva."
"A pity I can't get Dean to serve as my DADA teacher. What of Martin?"
"Dean and Martin are both licensed gunsmiths," the admiral answered. "Their secondary duties in this mess is to get all the armament of every shipgirl and shipboy refitted to fire meson warheads. We're going to make the sea a very ugly place for Abyssals to sail in wherever we trail our coats, Albus."
"A pity we never thought of doing that before this madness truly went crazy three years ago! I'll mention it to Saul Croaker when I get the chance."
Heather moaned. "Is he still in charge of the Unspeakables?"
Albus nodded. "Sadly so..."
She rolled her eyes as Harry gazed in confusion at her...
The main cafeteria, that moment...
"Wow! I can't believe the Commonwealth shipgirls are like that!"
A visibly recovering Kisaragi gazed on the iPad before her, her purple eyes spiralling in disbelief as she took in the information before her. She, her sister and Mutsuki's two best friends were seated at one table as they enjoyed some light snacks so they didn't spoil themselves for dinner. "They're so lucky," Yūdachi admitted. "Then again, the Canadians had it a lot easier when it comes to relations between magicals and normals, so they weren't so bugged about the idea of using magic based on the blood of all their lost sailors from Sable Island and Second Iō-tō to create their summoning machine at Cornwallis. You remember what people said about the Flower-class ships when they came back. It shocked the world when Sackville-san returned with the near-equal armament of a Halifax-class frigate, don't you?!" She then shuddered on seeing the slightly lost look on her friend's face. "You sure you're okay...?"
Kisaragi slowly nodded. She was still low on energy, but was recovering from the months she had spent in a spiritual dazed nether-world, isolated from her sisters and friends because that bomb that sunk her had been also charmed to block her possible re-summoning through Eta-jima. Due to her being so out of it for so long, she couldn't gorge on food to get her energy back; she had to slowly rebuild her body's ability to use power back to when she could hit the high seas again and be part of the fleet as a fighting member once more.
"I'll be okay, Yūdachi-chan," she reassured her as Mutsuki squeezed her shoulders. "It's just like any of us coming out of a long refurbishment period. I have to get back up to snuff in the class and in the bay, work in the new equipment Akashi-sensei and Vestal-sensei gave me, then do some local missions before I go out into the high seas again. It'll come in time."
"I'm sure glad Quadra-san was able to rescue you," Fubuki stated, deliberately avoiding the world "salvage" when it came to the other destroyer. "You should have seen how everyone freaked when she came to port with you slung over her back, muttering in German how heavy you were!" As Kisaragi gazed in confusion at the other destroyer, Fubuki explained, "Quadra is U-889. She was one of the two U-Boats who were surrendered to the Canadians after the Greater East Asia War ended in 1945. When the Canadians began mass summonings, she reported to Cornwallis along with U-190. But Canadians hate shipgirls having just numbers, so they got the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets to think up names for them. U-889 got 'Quadra' after the Sea Cadet training camp on Vancouver Island. U-190 was named 'Avalon' after the old Navy base in Newfoundland..."
"Haka!"
All four destroyers gasped, then looked before Fubuki smiled. "Ah, Hoppō-chan!" she called out to the child-sized Abyssal princess, who had walked up to them. Much to Kisaragi's confusion, Hoppō was wearing a greenish skirt composed of flax, it having a beautiful sable pattern on it. "You already have the piupiu on, eh?! Did you hear Australia-sempai's bullroarer?!"
Hoppō eagerly nodded. "Haka!"
"Hai! We'll chant the haka when Aotearoa-sempai comes to the base!"
That made Hoppō bounce with excitement. "Haka!"
"'Haka'?" Kisaragi asked.
"Remember watching the rugby matches from New Zealand?" Mutsuki asked.
The destroyer nodded. "Hai! What about it?!"
"Remember that chant the All Blacks sang before their matches?" Yūdachi added.
Kisaragi hummed, then her eyes went wide. "Oh, that scary dance of theirs!"
"Poi!" the pink-haired destroyer affirmed as Hoppō nodded. "It's called a 'haka'! Aotearoa-sempai is actually New Zealand. She's the Indefatigable-class battlecruiser from the Great War! She was brought back along with her sister Australia when the Canadians taught them how to augment their World War Two ships with modern armament!" As Kisaragi gaped, Yūdachi giggled. "We all just call her 'Aotearoa' because that's the Māori name for New Zealand!"
"Haka!" Hoppō chanted.
"Oi!"
The four destroyers and the young Abyssal princess turned as Tenryū walked in. "Are they here, Tenryū-san?!" Fubuki called out.
"Just rounded the head and coming in!" the light cruiser called out as other destroyers overhearing this immediately rose to put away their dishes. "Get out there, you guys! Kisaragi, you stay back while the others do the welcome chant before Aotearoa-san does her challenge!" She then glanced down at Hoppō. "You're gonna be the leader of the chant, Hoppō-chan?" she asked.
Hoppō was practically leaping up and down in delight. "Haka!"
"Let's go!" Tenryū called out.
The destroyers screamed in delight as they raced out of the cafeteria, moving to stand on the seashore side of the parade ground, facing out into the harbour that cut Eta-jima almost in half. As Kisaragi followed her sister and friends, she noted there were a whole bunch of junior sailors from not just the Maritime Self-Defence Force but the United States Navy in their camouflage uniforms, the Royal Canadian Navy in their black flame-retardant combat uniforms with jackets, the Royal Australian Navy with their lighter-shaded disruptive pattern uniforms and the Royal New Zealand Navy in their dark blue button shirts and matching work trousers. Many of the destroyers had exchanged their seifuku skirts for the same type of grass skirt model Hoppō now wore. Before Kisaragi could ask what was going on, a gentle hand landed on her shoulder, making her turn to gaze on Kashima. "You stay right here, Kisaragi-chan," the training cruiser then bade. "We'll teach you the haka when you're up to strength."
"Hai...!"
As others gathered, Kisaragi looked out into the bay to see a large force of shipgirls approach in line abreast, ensigns of the United States of America, the Commonwealth of Australia and the Realm of New Zealand flying proud from mastheads. At the very centre were two battlecruisers flanked on each side by large American aircraft carriers, hull classification symbols 2 and 3 on their flight decks loudly declaring who they were. The battlecruiser to Kisaragi's starboard forward was dressed in a leather vest over corduroy pants bloused over crocodile-skin boots, a necklace of crocodile teeth wrapped around her neck and various talismans draped over her vest. She had a head of trimmed, curly bleached blonde hair covered by a felt slouch hat bearing a ship's crest. She also had a large Bowie knife tied off at her waist. To her starboard was another battlecruiser, dressed in the black T-shirt and shorts of the All Blacks rugby team with a grass skirt over her shorts and a necklace bearing a strange talisman around her neck. She was brunette with blue eyes, her hair pulled away from her pretty face, said face as well as her arms marked with war tattoos. The large carriers — Lexington and Saratoga, Kisaragi remembered — were dressed in old-style American Navy square rig, their M1903 Springfield bolt-action rifles slung over their shoulders. The smaller carriers — there were six of them — had World War Two-era Navy dungarees on, they carrying M1 Garand rifles; on seeing the deck numbers 63, 66, 68, 70, 71 and 73, Kisaragi's eyes almost popped out of her skull on realizing that the two famous converted battlecruisers were now accompanied by the escort carriers of Taffy 3...which meant that the three shipgirls who were the same physical size as the four Casablanca-class escort carriers now dressed in "cool" ripped Navy dungarees and the four shorter shipgirls in scuffed dungarees were the escort ships that had gladly faced down four of the biggest battleships in the world to keep them clear of the Leyte landing area one bright autumn morning in 1944. "Sugoi...!"
"KI ARO!"
Kisaragi yelped on hearing that shrieking cry...
...then she gaped on seeing that Hoppō had jogged out to the shoreline to lay down a beautiful fern branch before the approaching task force, then she fell back to place herself at the centre of the first rank of destroyers and their division leaders, which now included Fubuki, Yūdachi, Mutsuki, Tenryū, Tatsuta and the Akatsuki sisters. As the destroyers and destroyer escorts of Taffy 3 and New Zealand assumed aggressive, crouch-legged stances, Hoppō pointed at the new arrivals. "KIA WHAKARONGA! KIA MAU!" the young Abyssal then barked.
"HIIIIIIIIIIIII...!" the others in the receiving line roared.
"RINGARINGA E TORŌNA KEI WAHO HOKI MAI!"
The others hissed their agreement twice as many stuck out their tongues at the new arrivals. Once that was done, Hoppō cried out anew, "TIKA TONU!"
"UUUUUUU-EEEEEEE!" everyone bellowed as they slapped their thighs, then chests.
"TIKA TONU!"
"UUUUUUU-EEEEEEE!" everyone howled out, then began to slap their thighs and chests in a rhythm cadence before all the destroyers barked out in unison:
"TIKA TONU ATU KI A KOE,
E TAMA HIKI NEI KOE AKU WHAKA ARO, PAKIA!
HE HIKI AHA TO HIKI?!
HE HIKI ROA TO HIKI?!
I A HA HĀ!
"E TAMA, TE UAUA ANA
E TAMA, TE MĀRŌ
ROA INA HOKI RA
TE TOHE O TE UAUA NA
E TĀU NEI!
ĀNA! ĀNA! ĀNA! AUE...HĪ...!"
Silence fell over the scene as the approaching formation came to a stop right on the shoreline, their eyes focusing hard on the lines of destroyers and light cruisers arrayed ahead of them. At that moment, New Zealand walked out of the water, then knelt to pick up the fern leaf laid for her by Hoppō in a show of peace. Stepping back to place herself between Australia to port and Lexington to starboard, the tattooed battlecruiser allowed a smile to cross her face.
"TARINGA WHAKARONGO!"
The whole of Taffy 3 roared their response to the effective order to stand to.
"KIA RITE!" New Zealand repeated herself. "KIA RITE!"
More howls and snarls from the American destroyers and destroyer escorts as Australia raised her bullroarer to send out a steady message to the Dreamtime to warn the many gods of humanity that warriors now approached Eta-jima.
"KIA MAU!" the tattooed battlecruiser then barked.
For the destroyers and escorts, arms crossed the chests...which on shipgirls, was an intimidating sight given that many carried primary armament there!
"RINGA RINGA PAKIA!"
Hands slapped down against the thighs in a rhythmic beat.
"WAE WAE TAKAHIA, KIA KINO NEI HOKI! KIA KINO NEI HOKI!"
Once the proper beat was made, the challenge was bellowed out over the fields...
"Ā, KA MATE! KA MATE! KA ORA! KA ORA!
KA MATE! KA MATE! KA ORA! KA ORA!
TĒNEI TE TANGATA PŪHURUHURU
NĀNA NEI I TIKI MAI WHAKAWHITI TE RĀ!
UPANE, KA UPANE!
UPANE, KA UPANE!
WHITI TE RA! HI!"
A wild bellow escaped the destroyers on both sides, then New Zealand fully stepped ashore, her combat rigging dispersing as she walked up to Hoppō. The little Abyssal stood her ground as the battlecruiser seemed to loom over her, then the dark-haired shipgirl went down to one knee as she leaned in to rub her nose and forehead against Hoppō's in the time-honoured hongi. Once that was done, Hoppō bounced back from New Zealand, then screamed out, "HAKA!"
"BANZAI AOTEAROA!" all the Japanese destroyers all howled in turn.
People then whooped with delight as the others in New Zealand's force came ashore, their rigging dispersing as the larger shipgirls and some of the human shore staff who had stood behind the destroyers greeted the newcomers. "Hey, you guys!" Johnston called out as she, Hoel and Heermann warmly embraced Fubuki, Yūdachi and Mutsuki. "What's been going on since we went off?!"
"Look for yourself, John-chan!" Fubuki said as she nodded over.
The three Fletcher-class shipgirls looked, then gaped on seeing who was now standing there under her own power nearby. "Hey! What the hell happened to you, Kisaragi?!" Heermann wondered. The surviving destroyer of Taffy 3 was built like her sisterships and looked the same age, though she had more tanned skin and shooter's glasses over her dark grey eyes. "You've been practically AWOL since Quadra hauled your butt ashore six months ago!"
"Turns out this mean Abyssal spirit was bonded to her, poi!" Yūdachi explained. "Not even Negako-sensei could get it out of her without killing her with either the soulsword or the spirit-breaker attacks, Heer-chan! So we had to wait until Hishō came here and she made us dance to Benny Goodman-sensei in dance class today, then this creep surged out of Kisaragi-chan...!"
"And Hishō ate it!" Fubuki finished.
That made Johnston, Hoel and Heermann blink. "'Hishō'?!" all three asked.
Their friends pointed over. The Americans looked, then gaped on seeing the blonde in the naval combat dress with air force rank insignia. "Shit! That's Jessica Dover! What's SHE doing here?!" the red-haired, green-eyed Hoel asked.
"Poi...?" Yūdachi trilled in confusion.
Johnston immediately slapped her sister in the back of the head. "Idiot! The Japanese wouldn't know too much about the War Hawks, remember?!" She looked over again to see the Royal Canadian Air Force's representative in the 1st Canadian Specialized Warfare Unit now talking to Saitō Ten'ichi and James Vance. "How the hell did she get bumped up to four-star, anyway?!"
"She was a substantive colonel and brevet one-star in the RCAF when she attended the Capstone course back in '90, Johnny," Heermann explained. "It'd be easy since people have been talking about this whole mess with the Abyssals being more metahuman than magical! If you wanna deal with metahuman problems, you gotta get the best! The War Hawks are the top dogs there!"
"What do you mean by 'metahuman', Heer-chan?" Mutsuki asked.
"Sorta like our Superman or your Ultraman, Mutsu," the adopted native of Hesse in Germany and Virginia in the United States through her namesake (a surgeon's mate who had served in the Barbary Wars around the turn of the Nineteenth Century) explained. "Magicals are a type of metahuman. People who are strong like the Hulk, can manipulate fire like the Human Torch, run real fast like the Flash or do other crazy shit...or a whole mix of stuff like Superman or Captain Marvel can! That's a metahuman!" As the Japanese destroyers nodded, Heermann pointed at Jessica. "General Dover there was part of a team of four Canuck metahumans that kicked the living shit outta Nazi metahumans and metahumans from your Black Dragon Society until they went over to Europe in the spring of '44 to clean out the rest of the jokers fighting for Master Hosan's 'papa' and that Grindelwald jackass! She got a Victoria Cross, Distinguished Service Order, two Distinguished Flying Crosses and the Air Force Cross from the RCAF, plus two Bronze Stars and a Silver Star from us!" As the Japanese destroyers all gasped in awe, Heermann laughed. "Wait until you meet the general's boss!"
"Would they have promoted Major Raeburn?!" Hoel asked.
"They did...much to Deannette's complete despair. Welcome back, girls."
"Hey, Miss Negako!" Hoel called out as the destroyers beamed at Negako...then they blinked on seeing the boy accompanying her, dressed in normal clothing for someone from the West. "Hey! Who's the guy you got there?! A new boyfriend?!"
As Johnston and Heermann both hooted and the Japanese destroyers all gaped at the adopted Ohioan's chutzpah, Negako gave the destroyer an amused look. "No, Hoel. Harry is a wand wizard from England. He is the one that earned Surrey's interest a year ago due to child abuse issues." As the Americans gasped in shock on hearing that and Harry flustered in embarrassment, the ninjutsu grandmaster added, "He is understandably a passionate fan of kantai musume and wishes to acquire autographs from all members of your task unit, not just for himself of course, but for other such fans at his current school of education."
"Holy shit! We have FANS?!" Johnston demanded in mock horror.
Heermann and Hoel laughed in embarrassment...then all three tensed as something even BIGGER than Yamato came towards them, accompanied by the super-battleship in question and two of her sisters. "Holy FUCK!" Hoel gasped before she pointed to the green-clad carrier. "Who the hell are YOU?!"
"Yamato's once-missing sister," Negako stated before she gazed in amusement at the aircraft carrier. "Yonaga, may I present United States Shipgirls Johnston, Heermann and Hoel, pendants DD-557, DD-532 and DD-533 respectively." To the destroyers of Taffy 3. "Girls, heavy attack aircraft carrier Yonaga, fifth of the Yamato-class and the would-be seventh carrier of Operation Z."
Yonaga politely bowed. "Honoured, little ones."
The Americans blinked in surprise on hearing that the final of Yamato's sisters had come. "You were supposed to be in on the Pearl Harbour attack?!" Johnston asked. "Where the hell were you?! How come we never heard about you before?!"
"Unit 731 was involved, Johnston-san," Yamato explained for her sister. "The records were all destroyed when Ishii-sensei evacuated his unit..." — one couldn't avoid noting the scorn in the super-battleship's voice on saying that word — "...from Manchuria to Japan ahead of the Soviet invasion in the summer of 1945. No one knew any details save for Negako-san's family since the great-great-uncle of Ataru-san and Tariko-san was Yonaga-san's navigation officer."
"So where were you?" Hoel parroted her sister's question.
"In a cove called 'Sano Bay' at the northeast tip of Siberia, hidden even from all the surveys the Soviets and later the Russians made of the area, frozen in place thanks to an earthquake that blocked the entrance and trapped my crew there since the fall of 1941," Yonaga replied, making all the destroyers gape. "There I remained until Negako-san summoned me last night."
The three Fletchers then looked sick. "Wh-what about...?" Heermann stuttered.
Negako shook her head as a flash of grief crossed Yonaga's face before stoic calm returned and she seemed to straighten herself. "Damn!" Johnston hissed while Heermann bowed her eyes in horror at what happened and Hoel turned away to hide her tears. "Didn't anyone get the message to stand down in '45?!"
"Scarce few believed in it, Johnston-san," Musashi reported.
"Haka!"
Everyone saved Negako and Yonaga yelped on hearing that excited cheer, then they turned as Hoppō bounced over to them ahead of Hōshō. "You performed an excellent haka today, Hoppō," Negako then said, making the Abyssal princess beam in delight at that complement. "You learned all your lessons well."
"This is Hoppō?"
Hoppō blinked before she looked up at the very tall shipgirl standing beside Miss Super-nice Cook, Miss Brainy Silver-hair and Miss Pretty Flower-girl (as she mentally nicknamed Yamato, Musashi and Kii)...then she turned as pale as a ghost on realizing who this shipgirl was. With a scream of underwear-soiling terror, the Abyssal zipped behind Hōshō, making Yonaga blink in confusion. "I did nothing to her, Sensei," she confessed as Hōshō rolled her eyes.
"Pay it no mind, Yonaga-san," the first true aircraft carrier noted as she gazed in amusement at Hoppō. "You possess something of a dark reputation among Abyssals given your ability to resist having the kami of your crew turned into fighters for them, much less resist their attempting to make you one of them."
"The 'Angry One'," Negako added.
Yonaga blinked, then she gazed on Hoppō, who was trying and failing to make herself invisible to the giant battleship-turned-carrier. "Hoppō-chan, if you had the power to protect the spirits of children from being turned into someone like you, wouldn't you have done so?" she asked, making the Japanese shipgirls gape in shock at such a soft turn of voice from this living samurai.
Hearing that made Hoppō blink as she thought about it, then she nodded. "Why would I allow myself to betray my spiritual oath to the Heavenly Sovereign?" Yonaga asked as she waved to herself before she waved to the three American destroyers. "After all, did not those who see themselves as 'wiser' than those like you ultimately fail to make our three brave knights here betray their spiritual oath to their nation's Constitution? Or make New Zealand-san or Australia-san betray their oaths to their Queen? How in the name of the Kami am I suddenly so different in the long term? Because I was alone and 'vulnerable' in Sano Bay, standing firm on my crew's behalf for so long?"
Hoppō blinked, then she shrugged. Seeing that, Musashi smiled. "Yonaga-san, maybe a demonstration of your sincerity is called for here," she suggested.
The carrier looked over. "How so, Onē-san?"
"To properly address a certain offence Irako-san has unleashed on our honoured guests from America," the second of her class firmly stated. "When they were first summoned here, all members of Taffy 3 were unanimously invited to reside with us in our quarters given how valiantly Johnston-san, Heermann-san, Hoel-san and Roberts-san fought against Onē-san, Nagato-san, Kongō-san and Haruna-san off Samar in 1944. However, Irako-san forced all of them into escort shipgirl quarters, even the aircraft carriers like White Plains-sensei."
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
Then...
"I will speak to Irako-san about that, Onē-san," Yonaga coldly declared.
With that, she stormed off. A moment later, a terror-filled scream echoed over the grounds as a wide-eyed Irako found herself trying to stagger away from Yonaga's drawn katana, the carrier hissing out her "suggestions" concerning the proper quartering of the members of Taffy 3. As the others watched this, Hoppō blinked before she gazed up. "Not scary," she told Hōshō.
The Americans were all in awe. "She's cool!" Hoel breathed out.
"Definitely cool!" Johnston added.
"I'll fight with her any day of the week!" Heermann declared.
The Japanese destroyers nodded as Yamato and her sisters exchanged looks...
"Is this sort of normal in this place, Admiral Saitō?"
Saitō Ten'ichi winced as he tried not to chuckle in embarrassment. "It's just the bare bones of how crazy it can be here, Taishō-sama."
Heather Thompkins took that in. "Can you at least explain one thing?"
The director of the Kanmusu-keikaku tensed. "Hai?"
"Why is your chief assistant acting as if she's as drunk as a skunk right now?"
Saitō blinked in confusion, then he slowly turned to see a dazed Nagato nearby, now on her knees as sparkles and hearts popped all over her as she gazed on the destroyers gathered around Yamato. "Oh, Kami-sama..." he breathed before he turned and bowed low to his new boss. "Please forgive me, Taishō-sama..."
"Oh, dear...poor Nagato is having another Nagamon episode..."
Heather blinked, then turned as Saratoga approached her. "'Nagamon episode'?"
The aircraft carrier stopped, then shifted her Springfield to shoulder arms before performing a salute under arms, which Heather returned. "An interesting emotional tick concerning my beloved," the blue-eyed adopted New Yorker with the shaggy brown hair done in a bun at the back of the head stated with a bow of her head as she lowered her bolt-action rifle down to the ground in order arms. "Are you aware of the Japanese zest for cute things?" she then asked.
"I've seen it many times before," the Canadian affirmed, nodding in turn.
"Well, Nagato has a very overwhelming zest for cute things, especially small animals...to say anything of cute children," the carrier explained as she watched Lexington walk over and bonk the battleship in the head, making Nagato yelp out in surprised shock...before she turned as red as a tomato on noting that her new operational commander-in-chief had just seen her in such a state. "It almost got her into a gun fight with Bismarck over her cat Oskar once. People here call her 'Nagamon' when she gets into that mood; it's just using the other reading of the last kanji in her name. Heaven help her when she sees Hoppō do something that is simply too cute for description..."
"Haka!"
Everyone turned as Hoppō came up to them, a smiling Hōshō behind her. "Hello, Hoppō," Saratoga said, making the Abyssal look up at her before she smiled back. "Aotearoa told me that Father Kiwa was very pleased that you sang out Tika Tonu with such passion. That was well done, Hoppō!"
Hoppō flushed grey with embarrassment at such a compliment from the carrier, then she blinked before she gazed up at the dark-haired, smart-looking woman in the Canadian naval uniform. A moment later, she gasped as she sensed the massive levels of magic boiling inside Heather Thompkins' body. "Spitfire...?" she breathed out in awe before she bowed politely to the older woman.
Heather nodded. "You're from Dutch Harbour, aren't you?"
That made Hoppō nod. "Unalaska..."
"The modern name, ma'am," James Vance instantly cut in.
"I'm aware of that, Admiral Vance," the native of Québec City stated, making the American admiral fluster in embarrassment. "Yes, Hoppō. I'm Spitfire."
Hoppō considered that for a moment, then she looked over to where Jessica Dover was now conversing with several of the Japanese aircraft carriers and Graf Zeppelin. "Firebird...?" she then wondered, pointing to the native of Winnipeg, then she gazed back at Heather for confirmation.
"Yes, that's her," Heather affirmed with another nod.
Taking that in, Hoppō looked around. "Hunter...?"
That made the Canadian admiral smile. "He'll be here soon."
Hearing that made the Abyssal nod, then she looked around. "Protector...?"
A shake of the head responded. "No. She's in Britain. She'll be leading all the European shipgirls and Canadian and American shipgirls on Atlantic patrol."
"How unfortunate," Hōshō mused.
"Why do you say that, Hōshō-san?" Saitō asked.
"To have the nominal leader of the War Hawks away from her friends, Teitoku?"
That made Heather chuckle in amusement. "If Dean didn't trust we could operate here without her, she'd be here as well, Miss Hōshō," she assured the elderly carrier. "In the meantime, I think Hoppō looks like she's about to run out of energy. She really exerted herself today and needs a little chance to rest."
Hearing that, Hōshō chuckled as she guided her charge towards her restaurant. By then, Nagato had come up, bowing apologetically. "Please forgive me, Teitoku," she then declared. "My behaviour was most unbecoming of me."
Heather sighed. "You have a new direct commander coming soon, Miss Nagato. You better do something about that little tic if Admiral Umezu brings his command staff from the Mirai with him. While they have developed some ability to think outside the box, seeing a battleship turned into a gushing wreck because she saw something kawaii won't sit well with many of them, even Captain Kadomatsu. I've heard of what the crew of the Mirai went through when they were fired into that other universe; it was Dean who had to go there to get them back here." As the others gaped on hearing that, the Canadian said, "In the meantime, I think you need a little time with your girlfriend now."
The battleship blinked in shock, then she smiled in thanks before having her arm snared by Saratoga. After the carrier excused herself and her beloved from their new commander-in-chief, they headed off towards the battleship dorms hand-in-hand. Heather smiled, then she perked as Mutsu came up. "You handled that quite well, Teitoku." Nagato's sister playfully winked at the Canadian admiral. "You best be careful unless someone decides to target you."
A groan escaped the former Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. "I've already had Québec hit on me when I got to Cornwallis to be briefed on things by Admiral Harlan." As the junior admirals and captains all chuckled on hearing that, Heather sighed. "I don't swing that way. Besides, the only man I'd welcome into my bed is still having issues about his suddenly being commissioned from staff sergeant all the way to being a commissioner in the Force; he's still unwilling to do anything with me since I became an officer long before he did." As the others all nodded in understanding, she trilled out, "I'll have to work on that with him over the next while."
"We'll be happy to help, Teitoku," Mutsu vowed, winking again as she ignored the rolled eyes from the human officers present. "After all, a happy admiral is a very successful admiral," the battleship then stressed.
"Even if you do it a little too much, Mutsu," Vance chided.
Mutsu shrugged, then she perked as three other shipgirls came up. "Si prega di scusarmi per un momento, la mia Ammiraglio..." Roma began.
Heather's eyes narrowed. "Signorina Roma, do you happen to have friends in the Marine Nationale?" she coldly asked as she stared at the Italian battleship.
Roma yelped as Littorio and Vittorio Veneto winced. "S-s-sì...!" the namesake of the Eternal City sputtered, wondering what she had just done to offend the admiral. "I'm friends with all the corazzate della classe Richelieu...!"
"Have they told you about how people react to being called 'my admiral'?"
Roma squawked, then bowed. "Vi chiedo perdono, Signora Ammiraglio Thompkins!"
"Always remember that," Heather stated. "What's the issue?"
"Forgive us, Signora Ammiraglio Thompkins, but much that we are more than happy to have Veneto with us now, we're missing a member of our class and we were hoping that Signora Negako would be more than happy to assist us in bringing her here to join us at Eta-jima," Littorio spoke up. "Imperio."
The liaison officer for the Italian Navy winced. "Mio Dio! How the devil did we all forget Imperio?!" Capitano di Vascello Elios Tesei moaned out. Heather knew he was a relative of the famous torpedo boat commander who invented the manned torpedo that had been used to devastating effect in the Mediterranean Theatre of World War Two. "With your permission, Ammiraglio Saitō?!"
"Certainly, Tesei-taisa. We can actually use it to demonstrate the summoning machine to Thompkins-taishō," Saitō said with a nod. "After supper, ladies?"
Hearing that, the Italian battleships gasped before they bowed. "Grazie mille, Ammiraglio Saitō!" they chanted together as the other shipgirls all beamed.
Heather nodded. "Another thing, Elios..."
Tesei tensed. "Sì, Ammiraglio?"
"Why is it the representatives of the Marina Militare here in Japan are not wearing their proper ship's badges on their uniforms?" the Canadian admiral then asked. "New ones were devised for them all based on their old ship's crests from World War Two. Why are they not being worn on their clothing?"
That made the captain fluster before he bowed his head apologetically. "Please forgive me, Ammiraglio, but since our hosts don't wear such badges on their clothing, girls like Littorio and Roma weren't encouraged to do same. I am aware various communities in Italy moved to have new crests designed for them, just as communities in Canada had new crests designed for those shipgirls who didn't have proper ship's badges created after World War Two for them."
Heather nodded. "Get it on their uniforms by Friday!"
He rapidly nodded as the Littorio sisters all beamed. "Sì, Ammiraglio!"
She then gazed on Heinrich Kellermann. "Captain, I have two issues about your girls. First is the issue with the ship's crests. I saw Prinz Eugen wear her ship's crest on her blouse, but not the other girls. I know they've been made for everyone, even the destroyers and U-Boats. Get them on their uniforms as soon as possible. Also, make sure that Bismarck's cat has a collar with her crest on it to mark whom Oskar belongs to!" She then raised a finger. "Atop that, there are the Iron Crosses they're wearing on their uniforms. I want them changed to the style that's used these days as your service's corporate logo. It's not as visually offensive in people's eyes as a swastika, but a lot of people in Germany note they're using the older style crosses and are getting uncomfortable about it; I know the shipgirls in Kiel have adjusted their uniforms to the modern insignia. Make sure that's done here by Friday!"
Kellermann jolted, then bowed his head. "Jawohl, Frau Admiral!"
"The same with all your girls, gentlemen," Heather then stated as she gazed on Vance, then Saitō, then the liaison officers for the Royal Australian Navy and Royal New Zealand Navy, Captain Paul Shields and Captain Keith Gordon. "Civilians across the planet want to see the girls who are putting their lives on the line wear their proper heraldic emblems on their clothing. I know groups like the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and sea cadet services are running design committees to ensure even the girls here in Japan have proper crests. Having them wear those crests shows that they know that people are praying for them. Get them on their uniforms by Friday at the latest. It's a morale booster to the crowds at home! Always remember your duties to them, too!"
The other officers all barked their acknowledgement to that as the shipgirls present puffed in determination to not let all those wonderful people who were rooting them on to final victory against the Abyssals down...
Diagon Alley in London, an hour later (local time: Two hours before lunch)...
"'Morning."
The receptionist at the Daily Prophet's offices blinked, then looked up before she gasped on seeing the brown-haired tomboyish woman appearing to be in her early twenties standing there, her icy, ageless blue eyes fixed on the witch. Said woman was now wearing what appeared to be muggle soldier's combat clothing with a golden-brown beret on her head. She also had what appeared to be a crusader sword of some type in a scabbard slung over her back, the helm of the blade perched over her left shoulder. This woman ALSO wore a belt around her waist with two ominous-looking hand weapons at her hips. That didn't mention the intricate metal necklace wrapped around this woman's neck barely visible under her dark green jacket and the underlying collarless shirt, it framing a glowing focusing crystal about the size of the average galleon coin...though it pulsed with a level of power that not even the weakest squib could ignore when s/he stood in close range of what was known to magicals worldwide as the "Tear of the Stars", the Power Jewel of the Protector of All Life herself.
"L-l-l-Lady Raeb-b-burn...!" the poor witch stammered.
Hearing that noble title applied to her, Dean Raeburn tried not to sigh. She hadn't been ennobled in any way even if she was now seen as the matriarch of the Clan Raeburn of Clayhurst as she had been appointed by King George VI after World War Two for her more than six years of incredible service to the Canadian Crown; the Nickle Resolution of 1917 outlawed attempts by the Crown to bestow hereditary titles to natives of the Dominion even if there were still some people who could be seen as peers in the British system as recognized by the Queen, including one old peerage descent from the days of New France. As she hadn't been magically-born, the courtesy title "lady" wouldn't apply to her even in the Wizengamot of the Dominion of Canada based in Québec City; despite the old fogies that ran the legislative side of the Ministry of Magical Affairs in Canada often acting otherwise, there was no legal peerage anywhere in the Dominion these days. Still, being called "Lady Raeburn" did have its uses. "This is the main office of the Daily Prophet, right?" the native of Queenston near Niagara Falls then asked, her eyebrow arching in amusement.
A rapid nod responded. "Yes, Lady Raeburn! How can we help you today?!"
"I need to speak to your editor. I have an urgent advertisement from my friend Heather Thompkins and I need it put out in tonight's edition. Is it too late?"
A shocked gasp escaped the receptionist. "From Supreme Mugwump Emeritus Thompkins?!" she asked before shaking her head. "No, Lady Raeburn! Mister Cuffe will be pleased to get that advertisement out! Just a moment!"
With that, she rushed over to a nearby office, knocking on the door. After she had been permitted to step in, Dean relaxed herself, the urge to get out one of her Dutch Masters Honey Sports cigars to smoke it nearly overcoming her; even if she didn't have the manners one would expect of one of the richest people on Earth these days due to her many years living on the streets before her finding the Power Jewel on her twenty-second birthday in 1889 forever changed her life, she knew there was a time to indulge in her one true vice and when not to do it.
She blinked as a surprised scream echoed from the editor's office, the door soon flying open a moment later to allow a middle-aged man to march out, he followed by his receptionist. "Lady Raeburn! Welcome back to Diagon Alley!" he said as he offered his hand. "Barnabas Cuffe, editor-in-chief! You have a message from Supreme Mugwump Emeritus Thompkins?! Why isn't she...?!"
"Heather's in Japan right now taking overall charge of the shipgirl and shipboy forces to deal with the Abyssals; it's the reason we've all been recalled to duty," Dean replied as she shook his hand while the receptionist took her seat once more. As the two English magicals gaped on hearing that the War Hawks had come to help save the day, Dean added, "The message I need in tonight's paper concerns an orphan from your latest little internal rebellion some years back." She reached into her dark green pilot's jacket to pull out a rolled sheet of parchment, wrapped and sealed with a magical sigil that made Barnabas blink in shock; clearly, he knew who's symbol THAT was. "Young kid that just got out of a really bad fight a couple weeks ago named Harry Potter." As the editor and the receptionist both croaked in shock on hearing that the Boy Who Lived had just earned the attention of the magical member of the War Hawks (and the second post-Grindelwald War leader of the International Confederation of Wizards, seen even in Britain as the most popular leader of the pan-national magical alliance in its three-century history), Dean added, "Kid was in pretty bad shape because some staleblood idiots pulled some bad ritual to try to bring back a moron named Tom Riddle — he's the murderous bastard with the battle name you're too scared to say in public — so when Albus asked Heather to take a look at the kid, she offered an apprenticeship to him while we help deal with the Abyssals. She needs that put out as soon as possible so that people here know where the kid is since he's recovering from this Triwizard thing he just went through and doesn't need to deal with crap coming down on him because he saw a friend murdered before his eyes. I'd like to get that on Page One." She then reached into her jacket to pull out a small bag of clattering galleon coins.
Barnabas felt his heart surge into his throat as that blasting hex slammed into him. He was under "strong advisement" from the Minister for Magic to cast Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore in the most negative light possible due to "untrue" rumours about the possible return of You Know Who. Knowing there were forces in the Ministry that didn't want those rumours to upset the public, the editor of the Prophet had immediately realized if he went against Cornelius Fudge's wishes, he could incite a panic and bring the Ministry down on his head!
However, with the War Hawks now taking interest in Harry Potter, whatever Fudge's wishes were concerning the lad would be wrecked against a power possessing the spiritual hardness of the Rock of Gibraltar! Being a Ravenclaw alumnus and having grown up during the time the War Hawks operated out of Hogwarts in the latter years of Grindelwald's War helping clear out the metahumans and other creatures running rampant through Europe at the time, Barnabas knew that Dean Raeburn and her friends would NOT tolerate any interference from the Ministry when it came to the Boy Who Lived. Since the Protector of All Life, the Soul-Eater of the Dnipró, la Grande-Sorcière des Laurentides and the Hunter of the Mi'kmaq saw their loyalty first to the Queen, even Cornelius Fudge would rank lower than dragon dung in their eyes.
Besides, Dean was willing to pay for the advertisement in tonight's edition!
That ALWAYS counted for something at the Daily Prophet...!
"There will be people who won't like it," the editor-in-chief then warned.
A lethal smile crossed the face of the effectively immortal Jewel Warrior. "Send them to me, Mister Cuffe." She pulled out a sticky-pad of notes, then scribbled down an address to hand over. "I'll deal with them."
Hearing that, Barnabas smirked as he took the note, relief flooding him. He had been quite uncomfortable unleashing a smear campaign against Harry Potter. Doing that to Albus Dumbledore was one thing; the headmaster of Hogwarts had a hide as hard as a basilisk's when it came to dealing with the highs and lows of public opinion. But doing that to a boy who just finished his fourth year at Hogwarts, was forced to participate in the Triwizard Tournament of all things and who was responsible for the downfall of You Know Who years ago...?
"Hope you have a lot of ammunition, ma'am," he warned her.
Dean winked back. "I can handle it..."
Eta-jima, an hour later (local time: After supper)...
"So this is the place the kanmusu come to when they're summoned?"
"Yeah," Moroboshi Tariko stated as she and Mendō Shūtarō sat in the observation gallery. They weren't alone; a slew of shipgirls of every type imaginable had come to watch their new commander-in-chief examine the machine, then there would be a summoning attempt for the last of the Littorio-class battleships. Seated nearby and looking anxious were Littorio, Roma and Vittorio Veneto, not to mention the heavy cruisers Zara and Pola and the destroyer Libeccio. "Looks kinda plain to normal folk." She shook her head. "One of the downsides of being host to Onē-san for a decade and more: My ki senses are nearly overloading from all the energy that's being contained in this thing...OI!"
That was the tanned Libeccio, who had leapt over to put herself into the older-looking woman's lap, wiggling into place with a giggle. As Mendō gaped at the sight of the childish destroyer doing that, Tariko sighed. "Oi, Libe-chan! I know you're excited and all that, but I don't need to have Shūtarō here blow a gasket, then start acting like a broken record again, okay?!"
"We'll make sure you won't be hurt, Sorella Maggiore!" Libeccio stated as she gave Mendō a look that clearly said, Be an idiot and I'll sink you personally!
"Is he truly that bad, Roma?" Veneto then wondered as she blew away a locket of sun-bleached blonde hair from her forehead; like the others of her class, she wore a hat resembling the tops of their forward superstructures when they were actual battleships and not human women. She was dressed in a formal green high-collar military uniform with blue skirt in lieu of the wide-collared white uniforms her sisters wore. Like the destroyer, Veneto's blue eyes were now locked on Mendō, the stare coming from her spelling out a clear warning.
"No, he's not as bad as one other guy I know back in Tomobiki, Veneto-san," Tariko answered for the namesake of the Eternal City, making the scion of Japan's richest family gape in surprise at that backhanded complement. "Yeah, he comes off as insanely arrogant at times, but he does have a great sense of honour and he does care for his current fiancée. He also has parents who do love him, which is more than what Ataru and I could say." At Mendō's dropped jaw on hearing those statements from this female version of his rival, she added, "He can learn. He just didn't get the chance Ataru and I got to learn some of the ugly truths about the peoples who live on planets close to us."
"Can you be sure that the Noukiites were telling the truth about what goes on beyond our planet, Tariko-san?" he asked. "I can understand your gratitude towards K'ekhech-dono for allowing both yourself and Negako-sama to be finally free of your brother's mind and live your own lives, but I also saw how much the Urusians and the Noukiites don't get along with each other. You may have been blinded by the Noukiites' own prejudices towards Lum-san's people!"
She nodded as Libeccio scowled. "Down, sprite!" Tariko then scolded, making the rusty-haired destroyer wince. "Yeah, that's a possibility...but Kyech never lies. She's not capable of lying to anyone. And she has way more experience than all the stories written about her throughout the Federation claim, man. She showed us some really crazy stuff when we moved to liberate the Avalonians with the help of the Yizibajohei about a month ago..."
"How many of them are here on Earth?" he asked.
"About five million according to Onē-san; she can sense things out through the ley lines across the planet with some meditation." As Mendō gaped in shock on hearing that, Tariko added, "Unlike the ones we pulled out of the Phentax system, they still have this genetic loyalty-lock in their bodies that enslaves them to their masters and suppresses their psionic capabilities; that's why Ataru had to use a soulsword to help Fujikawa-san snap out of what was forced on her when she was created." She then smirked. "Of course, we had to totally wreck the 'Army of Lum' — that's what Ōgi called his battle fleet — to get it done, but we got it done. Over TWO BILLION Avalonians are now free...!"
Mendō gasped. "TWO BILLION?!" he exclaimed. "Why did they have so many?!"
"Handy sex-slaves, not to mention the perfect workers for hazardous shit like starship engine rooms," Tariko answered. "By taking them out of the ships of the fleet, Ōgi's morons couldn't use their ships; employing the Avalonians wiped out what institutional knowledge they had in using their starships." She smirked. "Wrecking the fleet right after we dumped all the crews on Phentax Twenty was just an afterthought, but Ōgi won't be bullying anyone else in the local cluster for a long time to come. Maybe the Vosians can finally go after him for slaughtering all those innocent people in Lecashuto six years ago..."
"How many ships?" Littorio asked.
"Three thousand of them, including three hundred aircraft-carrying star battleships of the same type as the one that appeared over Tomobiki last year before we had to deal with Lum in the Tag Race," Tariko explained, which made the shipgirls gape; number wise, that was larger than the fleet of the United States Navy during World War Two by a factor of TWO! "Between the Yizibajohei and the celestial dragons like Nengmek'i-ojiichan that jumped in on the fun, we demolished nearly all of it, plus wiped out their ability to fix or construct new ships that wasn't tied down to a planet. All in the space of three hours." She smirked. "Yep, Ōgi won't be acting so tough from now on..."
"ARE YOU INSANE?!" Mendō shrilled while all the shipgirls began hissing to each other as they wondered what a battle of that size in deep space must have been like. "If the Niphentaxians can't defend themselves, what of the Ipraedies and the Seifukusu, Tariko-san?! This is a perfect excuse for them...!"
"Why do you think we teamed up with the Yizibajohei?!" Tariko asked, making him stop as he gaped at her audacity. "They're as much the galactic boogeyman to the Ipraedies and the Seifukusu as they are to the Urusians! I'll lay you good odds that their leaders are all hiding under the bed now, wondering if Kyech won't call on her friends from Yiziba to deliver a cosmic curb-stomping on them next!" She snorted as she looked away. "I really don't want to do it, but the Oni need to eat some humble pie for the crap they've tried to force on everyone over the years...and all because their own native culture was wiped out when the Seifukusu owned the planet, leaving nothing behind and forcing them to use the Seifukusu method of running things to put their society back together! You've seen Lum's arrogance when it came to us, haven't you?" She sneered. "Or is Lum so right, you can't imagine her being wrong?!" She glared at him. "You've got your good points, Shūtarō...but there are way too many times you act like Megane when it comes to Lum!" As Mendō gargled at the idea of being compared to that lifeless fool, she snapped, "Open your eyes! You got the smarts! Lum never cared for you or anyone in town! You were all TOOLS to her to help her keep us trapped so she wouldn't marry that tiger-cow Rei! We are NOT interested in making her happy because her own people have spoiled her too much! It's time for her to see what the universe is REALLY like deep down!"
Mendō balked...before he perked as a gentle cough echoed from the summoning chamber, making him gaze down to see Heather Thompkins there, looking up at him with veiled amusement. "There's something you don't know about what was happening when Ataru was forced to face that girl, Mister Mendō," she coldly declared, her voice echoing through the intercom system into the observation gallery. "We were on recall notice to intervene in case Ataru lost the race. If the self-defence mechanisms included in the magic that allowed Ataru to bear Negako's essence within him didn't trigger to have him kill Lum, Dean would have been happy to put a bullet in her skull and wreck her father's ship before calling friends on Yiziba over to let the Urusians get a repeat experience of the Mother of All Fight Scenes." As he gasped, his mind imagining Redet Lum's head being blown apart by a .44 Magnum bullet from Dean Raeburn's Clarkson Mark 34 semi-automatic revolver, the admiral turned back to examine the runes that had been etched into the metal of the chamber. "Atop that, thanks to those of your peers calling themselves 'Lum's Stormtroopers', you might have to deal with either someone from al-Qā'idah, Dā'ish or some other group of lunatics that took gross offence from what those boys did after the Tag Race that made that space-taxi come to Earth in the first place. Think hard about that!"
That made the scion of Japan's richest family gargle before he shrank on himself. "That's not possible...!" he hissed. "We would have been warned...!"
"We were all being kept ignorant."
His head snapped over as Ataru walked over to sit opposite of Tariko, Kirishima at his side. "What?! What are you talking about, Moroboshi?!" Mendō demanded.
"Some idiots in the government teamed up with people in the Men In Black to keep people in town ignorant of what was going on beyond Tomobiki so that Lum wouldn't find out about how bad it could be," Ataru reported. "Yeah, it was probably because no one wanted to see how the Oni might have reacted to the Abyssals in case they attacked Lum or her friends...but it wound up keeping people in town pig ignorant of what was going on in the Middle East and everywhere else on Earth. After Megane and his goons pulled that stunt with the space-taxi after the Tag Race, leaders in both al-Qā'idah and Dā'ish issued fatāwā demanding that all those who supported the 'space demon' were put to death for their 'crimes against all of humanity'. You think your bodyguards or everyone else that works for you can protect you from some suicide bomber? You think Asuka-chan or Shinobu-chan could fight them off with physical strength if they brought sniper rifles to the party?" He shook his head. "They've held off to date because they have a good idea what the Oni might have done if Lum was hurt...but with Lum gone, they won't be held back anymore."
"Then Lum-san must return!"
Ataru and Tariko gaped in disbelief at him, then they shook their heads. "He doesn't get it," the latter said as she moved to hold Libeccio closer to her.
"True," he muttered as he squeezed Kirishima's hand.
Roma sighed. "Signore Mendō, you would submit the whole of Earth to appease this alien demonio you like so much?!" the dark-haired, bespectacled battleship asked as she gave him a scolding look, making Mendō wilt at such a stare. "My sisters and I were there and in service when the Allied powers followed a policy of appeasement when it came to il Duce and the Führer! That started a WORLD WAR!" As he jerked on hearing that, she added, "Do not be concerned about some terrorista pazzo from the Medio Oriente coming to your town to cause havoc for something that was ultimately instigated by four stupid and ignorant boys! Your local version of l'Arma dei Carabinieri are on the watch for those monsters! Don't compromise the security of humanity just for the sake of one idiot girl who doesn't seem to understand civilized behaviour! We can't afford to deal with the aliens while we're busy dealing with the Abyssals!"
That made him wince...
"What do you think, Taishō-sama?"
Heather hummed as she stepped into the control room. "He's not as ignorant as some of the others according to the Men In Black's observations," she mused as she sat at the guest chair provided for her by Shimada Ichirō and his staff. "He's not had his innocence totally taken away as Ataru and his sister have..."
That made Saitō Ten'ichi jerk before he sighed. "Forgive me, Taishō-sama, but I was asking about the summoning machine," he apologetically stated. "Agreed, Mendō-san needs to learn some bitter hard truths about how things are really going in this world, but we were moving to bring Imperio-san here this evening."
The Canadian perked, then she nodded, not embarrassed by her mistake. "It's a curious device. Not as blood-charged as the one in Cornwallis or the one at Torpoint. I can see why the native mystics back home and those normal-borns in Britain who dived in to help out all jumped on the idea of using blood magic from the lost sailors of the Commonwealth navies to ultimately give our shipgirls all the modern armament and sensors they could use to sweep the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Arctic close to Canada and Britain clear of the Abyssals. I'm surprised that you didn't try to augment it once you learned of our success in augmenting our own World War Two ships with modern armament."
Shimada sighed. "It was hard enough to build the original device from Negi-kun's research, Thompkins-taishō. Given the sudden drop of resources and the fact that our friends in the Tōmagun and the other magical associations were busy securing the coasts from attack, we haven't really had the chance to shut this down and rebuild it, much less produce a more advanced version." He took a deep breath. "There was also the fear of possible escalation. If we did as your people did, would the Abyssals use guided missiles...or Kami forbid, the ballistic nuclear missiles on American, Russian, British and French submarines sunk in the early part of the whole war?" He shook his head. "Granted, we could have done better, but there was no time and we were being pressed just as bad as the British were when they effectively wiped out the Royal Navy..."
"The professor is right, ma'am," the British naval liaison to Eta-jima, Captain Donald Stanley, spoke up. "We've been really worried about all the lost boomer submarines and the American and French nuclear-powered aircraft carriers that went down in the early part of this madness. We haven't really gone offensive against the Abyssals even if we could sink their fleets wholesale; doing that was just begging for trouble since we don't know their full strength..."
The Canadian admiral nodded. "Shall we get on with it?"
"Hai, Taishō!" Shimada stated as he began to power up the machine.
The chamber began to gently hum with power as a quiet hush fell over the room. Heather closed her eyes as she felt the surge of magic flow out of the chamber, firming her personal Occlumency barriers to prevent her mage senses from being overwhelmed by such an explosion of power. Damn! It was simply no wonder...
"Hey, Heather..."
Hearing her friend's voice, Heather turned...then she blinked as she noted the child about the same age as Hoppō now lashed like a limpet mine to Jessica Dover's left leg. Said child was a girl with long black hair and blue eyes, a pretty white ribbon in her hair. She was dressed in a green-and-white uniform with a bare mid-rift, a short skirt that was common dress for Japanese shipgirls over her hips under a green over-skirt tied around her waist. She was gazing on all the officers and scientists with innocent wonder. "Who...?" Heather began before her senses kicked in to reveal that despite the fact that this was a baby, she was also a shipgirl. "Will someone explain her?!"
Saitō winced. "Um...forgive me, Taishō-sama...but this is Katsuragi-san."
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
Then...
"As in the aircraft carrier Katsuragi?" the Canadian asked, her eyes wide.
"H-hai," the Japanese admiral stated with a repentant bow. "When she was summoned, Katsuragi-san was about the same size and emotional development of any of the destroyers. But there was an accident with the Eagle Staff the girls of Group C-2 had with them when they were forced to take a break from working far too much...and until either Beacon Hill-san can get back fully on her feet so she could use the Staff to restore Katsuragi-san to normal or we get Beacon Hill-san over to Vancouver so she could do a change of carrier ceremony at HMCS Discovery to allow someone new to use the Staff..."
"She's stuck as a baby," Heather concluded.
"Hai."
"Tei...?"
Everyone turned to gaze on the child who had literally held onto Jessica's leg; Katsuragi had now slipped off to stand on her own two feet. The very cute baby carrier was now staring in confusion at Heather, her eyes focusing on the four maple leaves on the admiral's epaulette slip-ons. "Hai, Katsuragi-chan!" Saitō stated as the carrier gazed his way. "She's an admiral from Canada."
A flash of confusion crossed Katsuragi's face for a moment, then she gazed on the senior admiral, seeing the Canadian White Ensign on her arm. "Ka'da Tei!" she then said with an energetic smile as footfalls echoed from outside.
"Ah! Teitoku, gomen ne! We should've warned you...!"
"Never mind, Miss Zuikaku," Heather said as Katsuragi squealed out on seeing the older carrier come in with her sister. "Could you make sure Miss Katsuragi doesn't get underfoot while we're busy with the demonstration here, please?"
"Hai!" Zuikaku breathed out before kneeling. "Katsuragi!"
The baby carrier looked over, then beamed. "Zui! Shō!"
And with a leap, she was in the armoured carrier's arms. "C'mon, Katsuragi," Zuikaku bade. "There are all sorts of nice new people you need to meet!"
That made Katsuragi nod as she was carried over into the observation gallery. By then, a certain wizard had joined the party. "Bloody hell!" Harry Potter hissed on seeing the Unryū-class carrier in Zuikaku's arms. "What the devil happened to Katsuragi-san?! She wasn't like this the last time I checked!"
"This is the result of Yūdachi-chan playing with something she shouldn't have, Harry," Tariko said, gazing on the pink-haired destroyer in question. "She knows now not to touch magical staffs that are bound to other shipgirls!"
Yūdachi's shoulders slumped. "Poi...!"
"Tari-nē!"
Tariko looked over as Zuikaku came up, Katsuragi in her arms; the baby carrier was now reaching out for Ataru's sister. Mendō moved out of the way as the carrier and her sister sat down beside their friend to await the summoning of Imperio. Libeccio also moved aside so that the baby carrier could scramble onto Tariko's lap. "Oi, Katsuragi-chan, you're a big girl now!" Ataru's twin stated as she pulled Katsuragi close, then she smiled. "Oi, Katsuragi-chan!"
"Ai...?" the baby carrier breathed out.
Tariko pointed. "Who's that?!"
Katsuragi looked, humming for a moment, then she nodded. "Vene!"
The hand pointed another way. "Who's that?!"
Katsuragi looked, humming again before she nodded. "Tirupi!"
And to another place. "Who's that with Big Sis Iowa?!"
"Jāzii!"
"And the next one?"
"Mizū!"
"And who's that beside her?!"
"Wizu!"
"What about the girl beside Eugen-chan?!"
"Hippā!"
"And the next one?!"
"Buryū!"
"And the next one?!"
"Zei!"
"And who's the other one?!"
"Ryusshi!"
"And the one with Yamato-onēchan and her sisters?!"
Katsuragi looked...then she paled before she shuddered. "Y-y-Yona...!"
Mendō blinked. "Why is Katsuragi-san scared of Yonaga-sama?"
The baby carrier looked at him, then humphed, pointing at him. "Baka!"
The scion of Japan's richest family fell flat on his face! As the shipgirls snickered, Ataru then whispered to Harry, "She got that one right!"
That made the English wizard snort...
To Be Continued...!
WRITER'S NOTES:
1) Translation list: Aki-nada — Aki Sea, one arm of the Seto-naikai ("Inland Sea") dividing Honshū from Shikoku and Kyūshū; Hiroshima-wan — Hiroshima Bay; SHAEF — Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force; Piupiu — Grass skirt made of flax leaves often styled to allow geometric patterns to be created; Hongi — Traditional Māori greeting done by pressing one's nose and forehead at the same time to another person's; Si prega di scusarmi per un momento, la mia Ammiraglio — Please excuse me for a moment, my Admiral; Marine Nationale — Literally "National Navy", the official title of the French Navy; Corazzate della classe Richelieu — Battleships of the Richelieu class; Vi chiedo perdono — I beg your pardon; Mio Dio — My God; Capitano di Vascello — Ship-of-the-Line Captain, Italian title for a navy captain (NATO rank code OF-5); Grazie mille — Thank you very much; Marina Militare — (Italian) Navy; Grande-Sorcière des Laurentides — Grand Sorceress of the Laurentides (Mountains); Sorella Maggiore — Elder sister; Fatāwā — Plural of Fatwā (term for an Islamic religious judgment); Terrorista pazzo — Crazy terrorists; Medio Oriente — Middle East; Arma dei Carabinieri — Army of Carabineers, Italy's paramilitary police force.
2) Perhaps one of the most expressive forms of native Māori art is the haka, a traditional chanting movement often filled with stomping feet, rapid hand movements and sometimes grotesque facial expressions which was used as a war cry, a verbal challenge to visiting tribes or a demonstration of emotional and spiritual strength by a particular Māori tribe to future friends and allies. Made quite popular by New Zealand's world-famous All Blacks national rugby union team throughout the previous century, haka has become quite widespread in all walks of New Zealander life, with hundreds of individual haka patterns used by everyone from government agencies, the armed forces to individual schools and communities, even those predominantly populated by white New Zealanders.
The most well-known of all haka is Ka Mate, seen as the signature chant of the All Blacks. Composed around 1820, its author is traditionally attributed to be the Ngānti Toa iwi (tribe) chief Te Rauparaha (circa 1760-1849); the haka was composed in the wake of a lucky escape from enemies. In that incident, Te Rauparaha was hidden in a food-storage pit by Te Whareangi (literally meaning "the hairy man") to avoid death. Ka Mate was first used by the All Blacks in 1906. Because of its popularity, the haka is legally protected via a letter of agreement signed between Wellington and the Ngānti Toa dated 11 February 2009, in which the government vowed to do everything to protect the mana ("prestige") of Ka Mate and ensure use of the haka would not cause it to come into disrepute.
As with all haka, Ka Mate begins with a leader chanting instructions before the whole troupe performs the songs. Hence, the translation:
INSTRUCTIONS:
Taringa whakarongo!
(Listen carefully!)
Kia rite! Kia rite!
(Prepare yourself! Prepare yourself!)
Kia mau!
(Hold fast!)
Ringa ringa pakia!
(Slap your hands against your thighs!)
Wae wae takahia, kia kino nei hoki!
(Stamp your feet as hard as you can!)
Kia kino nei hoki!
(As hard as you can!)
CHANT:
Ā, Ka Mate! Ka Mate!
(Ah, it is Death! It is Death!)
Ka Ora! Ka Ora!
(It is Life! It is Life!)
Ka Mate! Ka Mate!
(It is Death! It is Death!)
Ka Ora! Ka Ora!
(It is Life! It is Life!)
Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru
(This is the Hairy Man)
Nāna nei I tiki mai whakawhiti te rā!
(Who fetched the Sun and made it shine!)
Upane, ka Upane
(Together, keep together!)
Upane, ka Upane
(Together, keep together!)
Whiti te ra! Hi!
(Out comes the Sun! Hah!)
A more recent haka which is also quite popular is Tika Tonu, which was written by Waimarama Puhara (circa 1875-1922) as a message to his son Moana to aide the latter in overcoming difficulties he was experiencing at the time. While it was originally meant to be an encouragement for a young man growing up, Tika Tonu can also be seen as a song to show grit when facing any difficulty. This haka came to my attention in a beautiful YouTube video where a Mormon couple had friends perform Tika Tonu, such driving the bride to tears at such a show of respect for her culture as her groom also chanted the haka; search for "Wedding Haka" in YouTube to see what I mean. Anyhow, the translation:
INSTRUCTIONS:
Ki aro!
(Pay attention!)
Kia whakaronga, kia mau!
(Listen up, take your stance!)
Hi!
(Hah!)
Ringaringa e torōna kei waho hoki mai!
(Arms outstretched, out and back!)
CHANT:
Tika tonu!
(What is right is always right!)
U-e!
(Indeed!)
Tika tonu!
(What is right is always right!)
U-e!
(Ah, yes!)
Tika tonu atu ki a koe, e tama!
(Be true to yourself, my son!)
Hiki nei koe aku whakaaro, pakia!
(My concerns have been raised about you, so pay attention!)
He hiki aha to hiki?
(What is this problem you are carrying?)
He hiki roa to hiki?
(How long have you been carrying it for?)
I a ha hā?
(Have you got that? Right, let's go on!)
E tama, te uaua ana
(So son, although it may be difficult for you)
E tama, te mārō
(And son, although it seems to be unyielding)
Roa ina hoki ra
(No matter how long you reflect on it)
Te tohe o te uaua na
(The answer to the problem)
E tāu ne.
(Is here inside you.)
Āne! Āne! Āne! Āue, hī!
(Indeed! Indeed! Indeed! Yes, indeed!)
Of course, my attempt at trying to replicate the passion when both Tika Tonu and Ka Mate were chanted by Hoppō and the shipgirls here fell short; I'm not a New Zealander but a Canadian, so I've no idea how to put such a spectacle into words to do it justice. If you see the videos of these wonderful performances, imagine shipgirls doing it...and imagine how the Abyssals would react to it!
3) The Capstone Military Leadership Program course is a joint force command seminar offered to brigadier generals and rear admirals in the United States armed forces (as well as some allied officers) to teach them how to deal with commanding personnel from other services. The course itself was first established in 1982 and is taught at the National Defence University at Fort Lesley J. McNair near the southern end of Washington DC. Fort Lesley J. McNair serves as the headquarters base of the Military District of Washington (MDW), the joint forces command formation for the nation's capital.
4) When it comes to the "home" states/provinces/counties of various shipgirls, I either fall back on the actual town/city name of the shipgirl in question or the actual home state/province/county of the person the ship was named after. In the case of Heermann, she can claim she is a native of both Virginia and the German state of Hesse thanks to her namesake, Fleet Surgeon Lewis Heermann (1779-1833). The surgeon (who participated in the Barbary Wars by destroying USS Intrepid at Tripoli in 1804) was born in the Hessian city of Kassel. His place of residence in America after he joined the United States Navy wasn't recorded down, but he returned to active duty in 1808 at Norfolk in Virginia; it was here that he fought to get better medical care for Navy personnel. Some could easily say that Surgeon Heermann is also an adopted native of Louisiana due to his being based in New Orleans for the rest of his career. For those ships such as Saint Lo who are named after locations outside America, they would pick the place of their construction as their home state/province/county.
5) Kiwa is the name of one of the Māori gods of the sea; all the tales about him originated from the eastern coast of New Zealand's North Island. His name is actually used as part of a poetic term for the Pacific Ocean, Te Moana Nui a Kiwa ("Great Ocean of Kiwa"). As the New Zealander shipgirls have absorbed a lot of Māori customs and traditions into their work, they would also gladly acknowledge the influence of the Māori pantheon of gods such as Kiwa. This is especially true for the battlecruiser/fast battleship New Zealand; at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May-1 June 1916, her captain wisely wore both a piupiu skirt and a sacred hei-tiki neck pendant to invoke the blessings of the gods. Doing that clearly worked; while several of HMS New Zealand's sister battlecruisers were destroyed by critical magazine hits during that fight, the namesake of the Realm of Aotearoa came out of that battle unscathed.
6) As I have explained in other stories, the code-names used by Heather Thompkins (Spitfire) and Jessica Dover (Firebird) were chosen when the first versions of these characters appeared in my imagination in the early 1980s, long before I heard of the Marvel Comics characters using the same battle names. No copyright infringement is meant by their use in this story.
7) For those who want to see Katsuragi as a little baby, go to the Danbooru website and search for Hisahiko's work. The short names she uses for the foreign shipgirls here are based off the katakana readings of their names.
