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Eta-jima, the headquarters building, after breakfast...

"You can come out now, Judy. I know you're there."

A groan escaped the shadows at one corner of the room now set aside for Heather Thompkins' use, making Mutsu spin around as she summoned her rigging...then she stopped on seeing a woman standing there, arms crossed behind her back in the standard military at-ease position as she gazed into the back of the admiral's head, a touch of annoyance on her face. Said woman appeared to be in her twenties, possessing well-styled dark blonde hair and blue eyes peeking out of an angular face. She was currently in Canadian Army Number 3C service dress: A pale green open collar shirt over rifle green slacks bloused into polished paratrooper boots, a matching rifle green knit crewneck sweater over the top. On her shoulder rank slip-ons were the crown over "pip" star insignia of a lieutenant colonel, the rank insignia a stormy grey framed in black. In lieu of the standard national shoulder mark at the bottom of the slip-on, there was a three-letter regimental abbreviation in gold: RCF. "How...?"

Heather tried not to smirk. "Dean knew of you people since well before you were mobilized the first time in the 1890s," she stated as she gazed over her shoulder at the newcomer. "Miss Mutsu, you can put the rigging away. Even if the colonel doesn't understand manners at times, she means no harm." She turned to gaze on the iPad in her hand. "What are you doing here, Judy?"

Taking a deep breath, Judy Barnes moved to sit down after placing her hat on the rack by the window overlooking the grounds. As she dispersed her rigging, Mutsu's eyes went wide as she noted that the newcomer's headdress was an actual grey-fur coonskin cap of all things, the tail tucked over the left side and secured to a place under her cap badge! "'V' Commando was assigned to keep an eye on yourself and General Dover since you've decided to base yourself here in Japan in lieu of working out of Discovery in Vancouver as the Wizengamot hoped you would have done. Much that we know you can take care of yourself, being all the way out here in Japan — to say anything of General Raeburn being in Britain of all places — doesn't make people back home comfortable."

Heather gave the other woman a surprised look. "Since when did the Regiment ever care about what those idiots in Québec City think? You got the order to mobilize from the Queen three years ago when Prime Minister Harper asked for a Magical Royal Proclamation to make the security squads back off and let everyone work together against the Abyssals. There's nothing the Wizengamot can do to force you to do anything, much less force me to do anything."

"I know...but listening to those strutting popinjays say the same thing over and over again can give anyone a headache," Judy complained, which made the admiral chuckle. "Oui, we have the writ to take charge of shore defences against those things and helped reactivate the Navy Reserve Magical Service...but the Wizengamot wants to be seen as doing something." She rolled her eyes as Heather shook her head. "I swear, those fools can be as bad as the idiots over in Britain, much less the isolationist morons still in the States!"

"Ano...?"

Heather perked. "I apologize, Miss Mutsu. May I present Lieutenant Colonel Judy Barnes of Edmunston in New Brunswick. She's the commanding officer of 'V' Commando of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Foresters. Judy, this is Mutsu..."

"Second of the Nagato-class battleships, one of the so-called 'Big Seven' Washington Treaty battleships armed with sixteen-inch guns and part of the first class of the proposed 'Eight-Eight' Fleet. Though now with the original Washington and the 1920s version of the South Dakota-class having answered the call to arms, that will become the 'Big Fourteen'," Judy finished.

"Actually, it would be the 'Big Twenty-two' in that case, Barnes-chūsa," Mutsu stated with an amused smile, impressed that the visiting Canadian soldier was so well-versed in naval matters. "You forgot to include Kaga-san's sister Tosa-san, Akagi-san's sisters Tōgasa-san, Minako-san and Ashitaka-san and the four Lexington-class battlecruisers that were never converted to aircraft carriers; all were cancelled because of the Washington Naval Treaty. All would be armed with 406 or 410 millimetre guns as their primary armament." She then blinked. "Forgive me, Barnes-chūsa, but I've never heard of the Foresters."

"Don't be surprised," Judy noted. "We're the magical corps of the Militia of the Dominion and have been since well before the so-called 'Great Sasquatch Rebellion' of 1892 forced us to remind our American cousins that there IS an international boundary separating their country from ours." As Mutsu looked surprised — as far as she always understood, there had been effective peace between the Dominion and the United States since the early Nineteenth Century — the New Brunswicker added, "In Big Mistake Number Two..." — hearing that made Heather smirk — "...we formed the First Canadian Forester Division to augment the Americans' Seventh Cavalry Division in Europe and the Seventh Marine Division in the Pacific, plus helped secure North America from Grindelwald and supported the War Hawks' battles against the Übermenschen and the Black Dragon Society right to the Battle of Toronto after VJ Day in 1945. You know of that?"

"I know of the Seventh Marine Division," the battleship affirmed. "Yomigawa-gensui speaks of the warriors of that formation with profound respect. Unlike the normal side of the Greater East Asia War, the magical side was fought with considerable civility since Yomigawa-gensui's final goal was to liberate all of Asia and Africa from being enslaved to the European powers; that was strongly supported by both the Americans and the Canadians. If she pulled it off while Grindelwald-daijin wrecked European magical governments and saw the Statute of Secrecy overturned, she would have turned on the militarists who launched the normal side of that war, forged a peace with the Allies, then convince Shōwa Tennō to allow Táiwān and Korea to be independent again since America had been moving to allow the Philippines to be independent around that time. But since Grindelwald-daijin was defeated by Dumbledore-kōchōsensei at the Battle of Nurmengard, the conflicting political goals across the secrecy barrier in both America and in Japan forced the normal part of the war to end the way it did...even if the magical side of that war ended in a mutually beneficial peace with Yomigawa-gensui's goals ultimately fulfilled. Still, she never spoke about Canadian magical warriors fighting with the Seventh Marine Division."

"We only had one brigade loaned over to the jarheads as the round-out formation for the division, much like we sent two brigades to round out the Seventh Cavalry Division for operations in Europe," Judy explained. "The rest of the division was detailed to continental defence, plus supporting Admiral Thompkins and her friends in the War Hawks. Along the way, we helped the Americans reorganize their magical government after they got in the way when it came to the War Hawks and the fights they wound up being involved in..."

"All it needed was a little friendly 'reminder' to President Roosevelt of his ultimate executive powers over the Department of Magic thanks to the applicable clauses of the Magical Constitution," Heather finished. "Of course, that happened AFTER the Übermenschen bloodily demonstrated to the Magical Congress that their isolationist attitudes and magic wouldn't protect them from people who were effectively invulnerable to that. Once Magical Executive Order 9010 was dropped on the Magical Congress, Rappaport's Law was done away with..."

"What was that, Teitoku?" the battleship asked.

"A draconian 'no fraternization' law that tried to force all American magicals to isolate themselves from normal Americans...which also included a prohibition against marriages between normals and magicals, thus guaranteeing that normal-borns that were welcomed into the three main magical schools would have their parents and other relatives obliviated of all knowledge of their existence," Heather said, making Mutsu gasp in horror. "It was passed in 1790...but the Magical Congress totally ignored a clause in the Magical Constitution that allowed magical federal marshals of the peace to serve at the discretion of the President without any sort of operational interference from the Department of Magic; this was meant to check against any dictatorial moves by the Secretary of Magic against the normal government. In Abraham Lincoln's day, American presidents could call on a battalion's worth of marshals to help preserve the peace; that's why the Civil War was pretty much a normal-only affair. However, the influence of isolationism on the teachings of magical students at schools like Ilvermorny, Salem and Seven Hills began to drain the pool of magical marshals to the point where there was no one available to serve Warren Harding.

"After Judy's friends stopped an obliviation squad from attacking President Roosevelt in 1942 because they wanted to find a way to get me out of working with Dean and the others since my using magic was a 'threat' to the Statute of Secrecy..." — here, she made finger quotes — "...he asked the First Forester Division to help keep the magical peace in America while the Department of Magic was given a long-needed housecleaning in the wake of 9010. Rappaport's Law was declared illegal since there was a subordination clause in the Magical Constitution which made the Secretary of Magic answerable to the President on matters that crossed the security divide." At Mutsu's curious look, the former Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards explained, "When the law was seen as in effect, the Secretary had no effective check whatsoever on his or her behaviour as had been guaranteed by the Statute of Secrecy when it came to dealing with heads-of-state. The people who wrote up the Statute realized that to make it truly work, some sort of administrative subordination to the rulers of nations at that time had to be put into place to allow the subconscious magics of the land to help it be enforced. Here in Japan, the Statute couldn't be made effective until Higashiyama Tennō issued his Imperial Magical Rescript of Genroku-gonen declaring his accepting the Statute and legalizing the decrees made by Mahō-Shōgun Tokugawa Kameko which serve as this country's equivalent to the Separation Acts in the British Commonwealth."

"Normal or magical, such power is always controlled by the Crown in Canada or in Britain," Judy added. "Or by the Heavenly Sovereign here in Japan."

The battleship nodded, becoming more fascinated by the moment by this topic. "What of America, Teitoku? Right from the beginning, the Americans rejected having a dynastic monarchy, choosing an elected presidential system instead. How would the American version of the Separation Act have worked then?"

"They followed the Swiss approach," Heather stated. "When Switzerland became fully independent of the Holy Roman Empire in 1648, the magical advisors to the various canton councils discovered then that the underlying magic of their country that bonded Swiss human magicals together as a community had focused on the Confederation's founding document, the Federal Charter created in 1291 between the cantons of Schwyz, Uri and Unterwalden. In America, it was the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution written in 1787 that serve as the national foci for the magicals of that land descent from European immigrants. Thus, when the Magical Constitution was agreed on in the same year the normal Constitution was written, the President was seen as the proper head-of-state when it came to interpreting the clauses of the Statute when it concerned keeping top-level intragovernmental communications active."

"This Rappaport's Law flew in the face of that," Mutsu concluded.

"Oui," the admiral affirmed. "But given how busy President Washington and his government was in getting things properly established on the normal side, the Department of Magic was allowed to go on its own way; the president understood what sort of work Secretary Rappaport had to pour into making her part of the federal government work and see to it American magicals were served."

The battleship nodded. "She's the one Rappaport's Law is named after."

"Oui. Madame Rappaport had a good reason to clamp down hard on that issue; the security breach in 1790 that started the whole thing was quite ugly. But as time went on, the fear of widespread discovery by 'no-majs' — that was the classical term for normal humans in America; you can obviously guess what it means — drove people in the Department of Magic into enforcing that law with zealous vigour. However, since such did win President Washington's support because of his own fear of foreign entanglements, the successive Secretaries of Magic always met with newly incumbent presidents as a matter of common courtesy over the Nineteenth Century and into the first decade of the Twentieth Century." She then scowled. "Until Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1913. The Deputy Secretary of Magic at the time, Seraphina Picquery, was of African descent...and there was no way in Hell that a 'good southern boy' like Mister Wilson would accept that. That caused the 'Scare of 1914' when he threatened to have Seraphina and all other non-white members of the Department and the Magical Congress removed from office by magical executive order. According to what Seraphina told me about that incident when I met her in late 1942, she obliviated the idiot to stop him from using that power to force Jim Crow laws down the throats of the Department of Magic...and all went completely quiet between magicals and normals for nearly three decades until the war started."

Judy laughed. "That KKK-loving fool deserved that!"

As Mutsu giggled, Heather nodded. "That he did..."

"So after Roosevelt-daitōryō forced his magical executive order on them to make them get rid of that law, what happened then?" the battleship asked.

"Well, they had to rebuild first from what the Übermenschen did to them," the admiral answered. "It had been quite bloody in places during the first couple of months after Pearl Harbour. Dean, Jessica, Martin and I were busy learning how to work together and we had to make sure the Dominion and Newfoundland was secured first. We weren't called down to America until around the time of Midway. What was worse for American magicals, radical rhabdophobes on the normal side of the line who held onto knowledge of magic — they're known as 'Scourers' — saw the coming of metahumans as a sign from God that it was finally time to launch a modern version of the Salem witch hunts that saw the ancestral organization of both the Magical Congress and the Canadian Wizengamot formed in 1693." At Mutsu's nod, Heather explained, "After hearing what the Scourers were after and how they were prepared to push things, the president asked Prime Minister Mackenzie King to send Judy's friends down to help out."

"We call it the 'Happy Hunting Time'," the sorceress from New Brunswick noted. "Madame Mutsu, my regiment was first founded as a volunteer militia force that could come to the aid of our Ministry of Magical Affairs to ensure our borders remained secured, especially given prevalent American attitudes towards the founding of the Dominion in 1867; the whole 'manifest destiny' garbage that drove them to nearly wipe out the native Americans as they expanded past the Appalachians all the way to the Pacific. By the letter of the Statute, all member governments cannot maintain active military magical combat formations. We got around it by being a part-time militia that could be called to duty only at the order of the Crown. But it doesn't mean we weren't ignorant of things outside Canada in the days leading up to our first 'international debut'..."

"This Great Sasquatch Rebellion of 1892 you spoke of earlier," Mutsu stated.

"That's right. We've always had a very lenient attitude towards magical creatures of all sorts. When the Sasquatches moved to rebel against the Americans' suppression of them, they were chased north into Canada by the federal aurors...and we mobilized ourselves to send those fools back to America with their magic ripped from them and a warning not to cross the border again without risking all-out war. We had no choice in that matter." At Mutsu's surprised look, the New Brunswicker added, "Our version of the British law that regulates relations with non-human magical beings is known as the 'Statute of the Noble Tribes'. As a commissioned officer of the Canadian Crown, I am obliged to acknowledge the laws of the land within reason per my duties to aid the civilian power when I am mobilized for whatever reason. And believe me, I have friends among the Sasquatches and other sentient magical species. It's how that particular law was written in the first place. Just a logical carry-on of the Magical Royal Proclamation of 1763 that guides our relationship with the magicals of the First Nations, the Inuit and the Métis to this day."

An understanding nod escaped the battleship. "Canadian magicals such as you see beings like the Kobaloi, the Veela and all the lunar therianthropic tribes not as dangerous creatures that need to be either caged or exterminated...but as fellow sentient beings with their own inherent sovereign rights. That's why it was so easy for the Ministry of Magical Affairs to accord Canadian kanmusu the same civil rights as magical humans." She then smiled. "The International Confederation of Wizards didn't care to see that happen and hoped you'd reverse that decision...that is until Tennō threatened to recall Yomigawa-gensui back to duty as his Mahō-Shōgun to properly direct the country's defence against the Abyssals...!" Her voice trailed off as her golden brown eyes went wide in realization. "Oh, my! Barnes-chūsa, are you saying that your regiment...?"

"We are the effective psychological equivalents to Marshal Yomigawa when it comes to how the more conservative magical governments tend to look at Canada as a whole," the New Brunswicker affirmed with a deadly smirk. "'When the Foresters take up their war axes, the world quakes in terror'; that's what a lot of people in Europe and America have always said about us. Thank God that Professor Stewart — he's the current Minister of Magical Affairs — was for getting us into the game right away to protect everyone in the long term since the Mounties' 'W' Division was about to get bled dry due to their inability to force the Abyssals back even with the help of local native magical shamans. HE was the one who went to Prime Minister Harper to get him to get the Queen to drop a Magical Royal Proclamation to shut the idiots in our Wizengamot up; they've never cared for us working together even in part-time service."

"Why?"

"Because we have believed in the basic rule of war, Madame Mutsu: WIN the damned thing and make sure the enemy NEVER comes back to haunt you again!" Judy coldly declared. "We're often seen by many people worldwide as just being too wild to be trusted. We showed it when we effectively exterminated the Scourers when we cleared them out of Canada in the 1870s and 1880s, then went down to clear them out of America in the 1940s. We showed it when we welcomed the Sasquatches into Canada after idiots in Washington threatened to exterminate them all, then showed their aurors what it means to challenge squadrons and troops of real soldiers in lieu of the piss-poor paramilitary force they had been at the time." She shook her head. "Damned miracle that we were able to whip the Seventh Cavalry and the Seventh Marines into shape before they headed overseas. If they tried to fight the Magische Reichsarmee or the Daitōa Kaihō-guntai without any real understanding of how to fight a war, they'd have been slaughtered. That would have made it easy for Marshal Múromeca to sweep in with the Moskvá Mágičeskie Front to subdue America for Djádja Iósef!"

Mutsu winced. Having had to often help her own sister recover from the many nightmares of what she went through in Operation: Crossroads — which soon expanded to helping Nagato's lover Saratoga and others who endured that event like Prinz Eugen and Sakawa — the battleship had a very good understanding of how the politics of that period drove the mass nuclear tests ordered by Harry Truman in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. First coming to light thanks to Ígor' Guzénko's defection to the Canadians in 1945, the total scale of Soviet intelligence operations in the West and gain military and economic advantage over the West — driven out of a very understandable desire to NOT experience a repeat of the sheer destruction unleashed in the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War — was breathtaking to behold in its effectiveness and its audacity. Indeed, if the American magical government had been totally wrecked thanks to Gellert Grindelwald's metahuman allies in the Übermenschen and if someone hadn't come along to help shore the nation's defences against an attack by the veterans who fought under Svetlána Múromeca, the world would be a much different place: The Bloody Siberian She-bear was as known for her hatred of the Statute of Secrecy as her old opponent from World War Two had been.

The world can never be a simple place, the battleship mused to herself. "What are the goals of the Foresters in this war, Barnes-chūsa?" she then asked.

"As I said before: WIN the damned thing and make sure those monsters never come back to threaten us again!" the New Brunswicker growled. "If that means using every dark spell imaginable to destroy them totally and completely once we find out how they arise from the deep like they do, we'll do it! If that means going all out to destroy any potential support for the enemy by those doomsayers who think the Abyssals are God's judgment on mankind for some idiot slight or another, we'll do it! If that means using the residual mesonium particles burned into the Canadian Shield thanks to General Raeburn's Power Jewel and ancient blood magic rituals powered by the sacrifice of thousands of brave Japanese sailors at Second Iō-tō to help you and the other filles navire gain the power to overwhelm the Abyssals with modern technology to save lives in the future, we'll do it! To hell with the damned Statute of Secrecy! It became obsolescent when metahumans appeared in the 1930s...and it sure as hell has no relevance in the face of aliens like what Madame Negako's brother had to deal with over the last year, not to mention whatever these things are that you've been fighting for the last three years! It's not our fault that others have constantly refused to open their eyes to how nasty the real world is!"

"Sit down, Miss Mutsu," Heather then ordered. "Judy, she'll be my aide de camp until Aurora gets here to become CANCOMWESTPAC. Atop that, she and her friends all deserve to know what we're doing back home to help get their gear upgraded so they don't feel obsolescent when fighting with our own forces! And they need to eventually know about what's going on at Gravé! As do I!"

Judy stared at her, then her jaw dropped. "You were never told?!"

"No! In all the four years I've had to threaten to sic Dean on Bill Harlan to get him to back off from dragging me into whatever was going on at Tadoussac, I was NEVER given any sort of explanation as to WHY they wanted me there! Even when I asked about it after the war ended, the admiral and his friends stayed totally mum about it! I couldn't even find out anything when I was Supreme Mugwump! Now I KNOW that the old fool is moving to get Gravé back up to speed again; you just confirmed that the Regiment is helping out!" She smirked. "How the hell was it possible that the summoning chamber in Cornwallis was brought into commission so fast after Drake Harlan lost the whole Atlantic Fleet plus a tonne of friends from America and Europe at Sable Island?!"

Mutsu blinked. Rear Admiral Francis Drake Harlan was the Royal Canadian Navy's effective counterpart to Saitō Ten'ichi in Japan, Joanna Collins in America and Katharine Jones in Britain; his post was designated "Flag Officer Shipgirl Forces" and his current headquarters was at the recently-reactivated training base at Cornwallis on the south shore of Nova Scotia's Annapolis Basin. His biography — as provided to Saitō two years ago by Harlan's operational liaison in Eta-jima, Captain (Navy) Wendy Armstrong — made him a fourth-generation Navy man whose ancestors had been officers in Canada's senior service since its founding in 1910. A maritime surface and sub-surface officer by training with two ship commands and command of the Atlantic Fleet under his belt, Harlan had studied naval engineering at the Royal Military College of Canada. Even if he was a trained and experienced naval operations officer, he always kept up with the engineering side of things no matter where he was, which made his taking charge of Canada's shipgirl project a no-brainer. Yet if there was an older Harlan who had been in charge of the Royal Canadian Navy's magical service...?!

"Harlan-shōshō is magical?!" the battleship exclaimed.

"No, he never got an invite to attend the Institute," Judy replied.

"The Institute of Sorcery and Magic," Heather cut in on seeing Mutsu's confused look. "Our version of Hogwarts; it's on the Sibley Peninsula in Ontario."

"Does he know of his relatives?" Mutsu asked.

"Of course. Being non-magical and born of magicals doesn't have the stigma it would have in Europe; any attempts at expelling 'squib' children from the family would have 'W' Division on the bastards like flies on horseshit!" Judy explained, making Mutsu laugh. "It's understandable Drake Harlan turned out that way. According to friends who helped get Gravé up and working during both world wars, his great-grandfather, grandfather and father poured their magic into making sure what they created there was completely top-notch."

"What DID they create, Judy?" Heather pressed.

The Forester colonel grinned...


Near the refurbishment docks, that moment...

"Ano...!"

Harry Potter blinked before he looked at Inazuma. "What is it, Inazuma-san?"

Hearing the English wizard address her so formally, the childish brown-haired destroyer madly blushed. "M-m-may I c-c-carry Hedwig-san, nanodesu...?"

He blinked, then gazed on Hedwig, who had perched herself on his shoulder. The snowy owl then looked at the destroyer before she hooted as she lifted herself off Harry and fluttered over to land on Inazuma's head. As her sisters gushed at the sight of Hedwig doing that, Tenryū and Tatsuta exchanged looks. "They actually use owls as virtual postmen in your country?" the former asked.

"Hai, they do," he affirmed, trying not to blush too much as both Tirpitz and Imperio continued to hug his arms. "So what's this ceremony thing...?"

"Oh, it's not a big thing, Harry," Kongō stated as she waved everyone on to the large structure that housed the workshops supporting the Kanmusu-keikaku and allied shipgirls, plus the refurbishment docks that were always available to help a wounded shipgirl recover and restore herself to full strength. "Any new kanmusu summoned here gets her first chance to take to the water within forty-eight hours of the summoning. We have so many that came through on Sunday and yesterday who need to get their maiden feet properly baptized by Ōwatatsumi-no-Kami and Arariel-sama after so many years away from their embrace...!"

"Ano, Akagi-san...?"

"Hai, Yonaga-san?"

"Is Kongō-san NORMALLY like this?"

"This is her being TAME today, Yonaga-san."

Kongō squawked, then she glared at the grinning veterans of the Kidō Butai, who were now standing with their once-missing mission mate near the entrance to the main workshop. "It's the truth, Akagi-san!" the fast battleship stated. "How long has it been since Yonaga-san sailed the high seas?! If she denies herself the blessings of Ōwatatsumi-no-Kami and Arariel-sama, she'll be cursed!"

"Stop that, Kongō-san!" Fubuki stated as she came up from the nearby landing, her body already encased in her sea rigging even if the hand-held version of her "A" turret mount packing a pair of 10 centimetre 65 calibre Type 98 dual-purpose naval guns was hooked to her skirt and not on her right hand. "Yonaga-sempai doesn't understand what's going on here! Don't deluge her like that!"

Harry gazed on Moroboshi Tariko. "Is she normally like that?" he whispered.

"She is...and that's why I like her so much," the matriarch of the Moroboshi Clan of Mutsu said with an amused gaze on the fast battleship.

Kongō sputtered as her face turned an interesting shade of cherry while her sisters all laughed. "Tariko-chan...!" the British-born shipgirl moaned.

"Yonaga-san!"

Everyone turned as Akashi and Vestal stepped out of the main workshop. Both were carrying a cargo pallet that was laden with a flight deck almost as long as Yonaga was tall, a proper hassun-nobi daikyū with a long quiver filled with more arrows that the shipgirls had seen even Shinano carry, a backpack that possessed a forest of cannon of three basic types and was topped with both the outward-tilting funnel Yonaga had as a warship and a nice lattice mast fitted with American radar systems, small outer armour bracers filled with more anti-aircraft mounts, a kyūdō-ka's yotsugake to protect the right hand, plus a new pair of zōri that were fitted into what were miniatures of the carrier's hull, complete with thick rudders and a pair of propellers each. Seeing all that made even the other carriers of the Kidō Butai gape. "Um...Yonaga-san, don't you think you'd be shipping a little too much?" Zuikaku asked.

"I had my own armourer's shop deep within my hull, complete with a foundry to forge new steel." As the other carriers gaped in shock, she added, "Remember, my crew were monitoring events via shortwave radio throughout the war and the chances were there that they might have had to deal with a stray Soviet patrol or two." The fifth of the Yamato-class ships then smiled. "Over the years, my air defence armament was tripled in size with scrap iron and other materials we could barter from the Čúkči peoples, who did secretly trade with their Iñupiat cousins over in Alaska. Atop that, there was the odd Soviet MGB and later KGB border patrol craft my crew were able to ambush if they got close to Sano Bay; their disappearances could be simply attributed to the weather."

"A one-ship mobile support base with full attack capabilities," a new voice then said as people turned to watch Enterprise and her sisters come up to join them, followed by Yonaga's sisters, all of them prepared to take to the water. The American carriers wore what appeared to be pinup girl versions of the old Navy khaki service dress: A short-sleeved button shirt with a tie draped over matching khaki hotpants. They also had armoured thigh-high stockings bloused into calf-high boots coloured a mixture of blue, red, white and grey, their hull classification symbol numbers on the outer flanks of their lower legs. "You would have been one hard nut to crack during the war, Yonaga-san."

Yonaga chuckled as Akashi and Vestal moved to start fitting all the rigging in place. "As you would have been as well, Enterprise-san. You had the blessings of all seven Christian saints who look after sailors during that war."

"It got close at times," America's "grey ghost" of World War Two noted.

"Oi!"

Both looked at Tariko's brother Ataru. "You're both beautiful ladies!" he then chided. "Cut it out with the testosterone, okay?! It'll upset the destroyers!"

Yonaga and Enterprise both blushed as some of the others giggled. "Yamato-san, Musashi-san, Kii-san, get into your rigging and get into the water," Akashi then said. "Even if we tried to keep the weight balanced when we upgraded all of your sister's armaments to what was standard for a Midway-class after the war, we want to make sure she doesn't list or have too much weight in the bow or the stern. She has the mass to take it without straining her keel, but..."

"Best be safe than sorry," Musashi completed. "It will be done, Sensei."

All three battleships immediately stepped into the water, their rigging forming around their bodies as they set their engines to station-keeping to await their sister. By then, all of Yonaga's rigging was in place save for her new sea boots and her landing deck. Akashi and Vestal grunted as they moved to lift the latter into place, making all the carriers gape. "You have an armoured flight deck?!" Enterprise exclaimed as Hornet, Yorktown, Zuikaku and Shōkaku helped Akashi secure it to Yonaga's left arm. "What do you have there?!"

"A layer of steel on the flight deck of 200 millimetres, plus a mixed layer of steel and concrete 650 millimetres thick on a splinter deck one level down above the hangar deck," Yonaga stated, making all the others gape in shock at how well protected the seventh carrier was. "In effect, my admiral insisted my flight deck was hard enough to equal my sister's turrets...which is logical in the end as what happened at Midway proved so well." Ignoring the winces from her mission mates who were sunk on that late spring day in 1942, she adjusted her arms to get used to the added weight on her body, then she slipped off her normal zōri to walk into her sea boots, which Fubuki had set on the edge of the water. Slipping them on, Yonaga felted the power of her refurbished engines and boilers flood her body, her new diesel and electric motors also turning on to energize all her systems. "Oh, this is wonderful..." she hissed out...

...and then she pushed off into the open water.

The destroyers screamed in delight on seeing that the carrier was evenly balanced on her keel; even if she wasn't tilting either forward or aft as she moved to join her sisters, Yonaga had bent her knees slightly as she allowed her engines to push her hull forward at about five knots. With a delighted laugh, the others of the Kidō Butai went into the water themselves to join her, followed by the three Yorktown-class carriers. "Everyone, let's go!" Fubuki called out as she got into the water and raced off after them.

Tatsuta, Tenryū and the other destroyers cheered as they followed their friend into the bay. Hedwig flew clear of Inazuma, then soared to land on Harry's shoulder. "Bloody hell!" the wizard snarled. "Better keep an eye on them!"

"You got a hovercycle?" Tariko asked.

"Even better!" Harry called out as he drew his wand. "ACCIO FIREBOLT!"

The Moroboshi twins and the two battleships who had been escorting Harry blinked on hearing that, then spun around as something soared out of the guest quarters towards him. Ataru and Tariko gaped as Harry snared the flying broom, then flipped himself onto the seat as he planted his feet into the footpegs before soaring out after the shipgirls who had headed away from the base and were now swinging to starboard to head out into Hiroshima-wan proper. Seeing that, Tariko chuckled. "You're gonna have a load of fun with that one, Onē-san," she noted as she gazed over her shoulder to watch Negako come join them.

"He has much potential," the ninjutsu grandmaster stated with something of a predatory smile crossing her face. "Go watch over them."

"Hai!"

"Imperio-san, Tirpitz-san, we'll get your rigging out now," Akashi promised.

"Danke!"/"Grazie!" both battleships chimed.

As Ataru and Tariko raced off and the two repair auxiliaries went back into their workshop to get Tirpitz's and Imperio's gear, Negako hummed, then turned back towards the headquarters building to discuss matters with Heather...


Out in the harbour approaching the passage into Hiroshima-wan...

"Even keel so far, Yonaga-san?" Akagi asked.

"I'm alright," Yonaga stated as she felt the parts of her internal structure respond immediately to her desires and commands. "Before we go anywhere..."

She drew her daikyū, then a couple of arrows from her quiver. Before the other carriers could say anything, she notched both of them into her bow, aimed to the north, then launched them. Everyone watched as the arrows transformed into three-ship flights, one of Mitsubishi A7M Reppū fighters and one of Aichi B7A Ryūsei attack bombers, all loaded to bear. "Eh?!" Fubuki called out before looking back; she had placed herself ahead of Yamato, who herself was ahead of her sister. "Yonaga-sempai, why are you putting up combat air patrols?!"

"We are in a war situation, Fubuki-san!" the carrier admonished the destroyer, causing her to wince. "Even if it has been some time since a submarine came into this place to attack the base, we have to be constantly on guard...!" She then tensed as a message came in from one of her A7Ms. "Submarine!"

Everyone gasped before the destroyers immediately moved to do sonar scans. "Where?!" Yūdachi demanded. "I don't have a sonar contact!"

"Are you sure about that, Sempai?!" Mutsuki wondered.

"Just near the approach to the North Base basin!" Yonaga stated. "Vectoring in the bombers to try to chase this one up to the surface...!"

"WAIT!"

That was Enterprise. "E-chan...?" Yamato called out.

The carrier smirked. "Yonaga-san! Get your Graces to straddle this idiot with their bombs! Don't sink her! I think I got an idea who this eight-ball is!"

That made Hornet and Yorktown snicker as the destroyers seemed to slump. "It would be one of them...!" Ikazuchi snarled out in angry frustration.

"They're not being proper ladies!" Akatsuki muttered.

"Nekul'túrnym zmejá..." Hibiki hissed out in Russian.

That made Yonaga laugh, causing the silver-haired destroyer to gape at her. "Ty govoríš' po-Rússki?!" the former Soviet destroyer exclaimed in shock.

"Ja žil v Sibíri v tečénije sém'desjat-pjat' let," the carrier advised...

...then everyone jolted as three 800 kilogram bombs went off well ahead of them, that followed by a shriek of anger, which made the destroyers all gape before they laughed. "I think you got her, Tex!" Yorktown called out.

«HEY! WHO'S THE FREAKIN' NUTCASE DROPPING BOMBS IN THE BAY?!»

All the shipgirls tensed...

...then they gaped on hearing someone scream out, "ACCIO SUBMARINE GIRL!"

Heads snapped up. "HARRY-SENSEI?!" Ikazuchi cried out...

...then the shipgirls jolted on hearing a howl of fright echo from ahead of them as a slender girl about the same size and age of Akatsuki and her sisters tumbled through the air to land in the wizard's outstretched arm. She was a pretty girl with long blonde hair in a high ponytail, possessing blue eyes on a plump face. She was dressed in a black two-piece bikini that showed off her maturing body well, the number 311 in white over her left breast. She had a Balao-class conning tower strapped to her back, that tipped with a propeller at the aft end. Her right arm had a form-fitting vambrace fitted with a 4 inch 50 calibre submarine deck gun on it while her left arm also bore a vambrace, though it was fitted with a twin Bofors 40 millimetre mount and a twin Oerlikon 20 millimetre mount. Three swivel triple tubes for 21 inch torpedoes were strapped to her upper thighs while swivel twin tubes were mounted closer to her knees. Her feet were covered by soft leather moccasins over what looked like her old hull. "HEY!" she screamed out...before her eyes locked on the really cute teenage guy that had just caught her from falling face-first into the bay. "Um...hiya...!" she sputtered out, her cheeks flaming in embarrassment.

Harry gave her an amused look. "Miss Archerfish, I would really suggest you don't try to be sneaky while there are people doing trial runs in the bay," he then advised before he lowered his Firebolt down to allow the submarine girl to get back into the water before putting his wand away. As Hedwig hooted in what appeared to be laughter, he added, "Especially someone like Miss Yonaga here."

He indicated the carrier in question...then jolted on seeing Yonaga's grey eyes sharply focus on Archerfish while four of her new 5 inch 54 calibre Mark 16 guns swung her way, causing the submarine girl to scream out, "HEY!"

"Archerfish," the carrier coldly declared. "Submarine number 311, correct...?"

The adopted native of Maine gulped. "Y-y-yes..."

"Seven war patrols, correct?" Yonaga pressed on. "During the fifth of which, you sank my sister Shinano on 29 November 1944...!"

Archerfish was now as pale as a ghost; all the submarine girls who had taken over the base at the northern end of Eta-jima for themselves had heard of the return of the fifth of the Yamato-class a day ago. "Um, y-y-yeah...!"

"Awarded the Presidential Unit Citation and seven battle stars to the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal you received at the end of that war, correct?"

A rapid nod from the submarine...

...then she gaped in shock as a gloved hand landed on her shoulder in reassurance, making her stare up at Yonaga. "I will be conducting anti-submarine patrols every time I am out in the bay. Make sure your friends know."

As Archerfish blinked in confusion at that calm declaration, all the destroyers and cruisers endured embarrassing bow-faults! As the battleships and carriers stared at Yonaga as if she had grown a second head, Harry smirked.

"Sumasšédšij avianósec...!" Hibiki muttered, wishing she had some vódka.

She then blinked before reaching into her skirt to draw out a small bottle of Stolíčnaja Strasberí sent by a fan in Russia whose great-grandfather had served on her when she had been in the Soviet Navy as Vérnyj. "Xorošó...!"


Meanwhile, at a school in a certain suburb of Tōkyō...

"Were you able to see him?"

Mendō Shūtarō perked on hearing that quiet question from the person beside him in Class 2-4, then he nodded. "I was able to see them both, Shinobu-san."

Miyake Shinobu blinked, then she nodded in acknowledgement of the slight gaffe she made when it came to speaking of her former boyfriend...who now effectively lived as two people, one male and one female; she now understood pretty much how Moroboshi Negako had played into that situation. "How are they?"

The scion of Japan's richest family sighed. "While admitting to being at fault for things he consciously caused in the last year, Moroboshi adamantly blames Lum-san as the source of all that went wrong in his life from the Tag Race onward. As does Tariko-san. As far as they are concerned, Lum-san will not be allowed back on Earth. They even know of a clause from the Tag Race Treaty signed between the Urusian government and the United Nations they can use against Lum-san and all her friends to ensure they will never come back..."

"AND YOU DIDN'T DRAG HIM BACK HERE?! YOU DIDN'T STOP HIM FROM PLOTTING SUCH EVIL AGAINST LUM-SAN?! WHERE'S YOUR LOYALTY TO LUM-SAN, MAN?!"

Shinobu sighed before grabbing the empty desk ahead of her and flinging it into Megane's face, nearly snapping his head off his neck as he was sent flying head-first into the blackboard! As most of the others in the classroom all smiled in thanks at that move to quiet the leader of the Stormtroopers, Shinobu looked back at her ex-boyfriend. "They seem quite content right now," Mendō then added. "Moroboshi is very happy to be with Kirishima-san and Tariko-san is quite earnest in her pursuit of Kongō-san. The destroyers and submarines all like them both; they help all the kanmusu try to better understand what being human is about..." He then smirked. "Hard as it to believe..."

Most of the others in the class nodded in agreement; much that it was sometimes hard for them to predict the behaviour of someone like Moroboshi Ataru, there were things about the man that one could set one's cell phone's clock to! Before Shinobu could say anything more, a voice called out from her left rear, "That's why you'll never be Ataru-kun's friend again, Miyake."

Shinobu spun around to find herself staring at a rather plain woman with short-cut black hair and deep brown eyes, who returned that surprised look with one of disgusted contempt. "What did you say?!" Ataru's former girlfriend snapped.

"You heard me," the other woman said as people quieted down to morbidly watch.

This was a unique event in Class 2-4.

Even if Shinobu had pulled away from Ataru in the wake of his gaining a "wife" in Redet Lum, everyone knew his former girlfriend still harboured deep feelings for the man; witness what had happened when the invitations to the "wedding" between Ataru and the sixty-fourth Rose Queen of planet Elle were delivered three months ago. Because of her sometimes mercurial temper, no one had dared confront Shinobu about what was going on between her and Ataru...

...until now.

"You're really no different than Redet. All you've ever seen Ataru-kun as was your personal punching bag, to abuse and discard at your whim." As a hissed denial escaped Shinobu, the other girl added, "Did you honestly think he would put up with that forever? He couldn't do anything about it when Negako-san and Tariko-chan were in his head; it was a wonder that he was able to pull off the Tag Race against that Oni monster!" As a groaned squawk escaped the dazed Megane on hearing that insult unleashed on his beloved Lum, the girl then added, "Once he was able to really think for himself, he decided he didn't want to have anything to do with you. I can't blame the man! You dropped him for this slick-haired jackass..." — here, she thumbed Mendō, making the scion of Japan's richest family squawk — "...when Redet proved to be too tough for you!" She pulled out an envelope and tossed it onto her desk. "Look."

Stunned by such a hurtful accusation by this girl — whose name always escaped her for some reason, as it did everyone else in the class — Shinobu looked down at the envelope, noting that it was filled with something. Opening it, she gasped on seeing ripped pictures stumble out to form a pile on her desk. Her eyes quickly locked on the torn images of HER there; she was quick to recognize them as portraits taken of her and Ataru over the previous decade, since they were in elementary school. "What...?" she croaked out in disbelief.

"My mother saw it all happen," the girl teased, the sneer in her voice making people in the class wince. "When they came back from Okusei, Ataru-kun and Tariko-chan tore apart their deadbeat parents' house, making sure those two bastards had NOTHING left of him OR Redet or the other alien monsters we've had to deal with since the Tag Race! She watched as Ataru-kun found EVERY photo album the deadbeats had, then take out EVERY picture to destroy them. Tariko-chan culled the ones that had you in them, Miyake. You can see what she did to them." She rose to walk out of the classroom; it was study hall now. "Wasn't Tariko-chan the one who had been interested in you when old man Cherry's cake and Redet's lollipop split them apart in the first place?" With a mirthless laugh, she moved to leave the classroom. "As much a monster as Redet was..."

As Shinobu seemed to lose all the strength in her body, Mendō leapt up to intercept the girl. "Ojō-san! You can't possibly mean such horrid...!"

KK-KRACK!

Everyone winced on seeing the scion of Japan's richest family having his head driven into the floor thanks to a ki mallet. "Keep your hands to yourself!" she snarled. "You're as much a traitor to the human race as Megane is!"

The others watched her leave, then began to look first at the moaning Mendō, then at the shuddering Shinobu, whose face was now awash in tears...


"Oi! Don't you think you were being a little rough with her?"

Inu Chigaiko stopped before she glared intently at Fujinami Ryūnosuke, making the raven-haired woman wince. The beach café tomboy had come up to the student book shelves located outside Class 2-4 to retrieve the last of her belongings before she would load it on a handcart for the trip to Eta-jima. Her father Fujimi figured walking the 833 kilometre distance to the naval base would take fifteen days while factoring in sleep and meals. It would be difficult, but there was no way in heck that they could bum a ride off a fishing trawler due to the Abyssal threat on the coasts and they certainly didn't have enough money for a train ride even on the local Sunrise Yume service. "It's high time your 'friend' makes a choice, Fujinami-san," the girl's basketball team forward said. "Ataru-kun's not the same guy we knew before we ran into the rose bitch. She can't treat him, much less Tariko-chan, like she did before. Not without learning her super-strength won't save her when they shoot her dead with a Lawgiver!" She smirked as Ryūnosuke jerked on hearing that threat towards her friend. "Ask Mifune to show you the YouTube video of the base security cameras showing Ataru-kun killing that Abyssal that tried to attack Kirishima-san."

Ryūnosuke jerked. "What?! Moroboshi KILLED an Abyssal?!"

Three...

Two...

One...

Zero!

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT...?!"

The hallway windows of Class 2-4 flew open as Chigaiko's wide-eyed classmates stared in shocked disbelief at her. "Oi, Yon-san! That's a joke, right?!" Perm exclaimed as some of the people there began to hiss at each other.

A mock surprised look crossed her face. "Who?"

With that, she walked to the washroom, ignoring winces from others in the class. Ever since a certain Hallowe'en party the previous fall, everyone in the school, staff and students alike, found it IMPOSSIBLE to remember Chigaiko's name. The truth about that situation finally came to light thanks to Moroboshi Negako, who revealed to the basketball player's parents Akira and Kindan that Chigaiko was the ninth victim of a terrible magical curse that was meant originally to attack an alumnus of the school known commonly as the "Red Cloak", someone who had terrorized his fellow students over the three years he attended Tomobiki High School. On being told, Chigaiko immediately recalled the old fool; even if it had been decades since he attended classes, the man born Hirota Matabei had come to the school's most recent Hallowe'en party to make people remember his "exploits". In doing so (according to Negako), a very powerful curse embedded within the physical structure of Tomobiki Senior High School that was meant to kill Matabei's girlfriend (which it had done) once more was unleashed, using Ataru as the target point given his status as the school's then-most hated student. Since neither Lum nor Shinobu really loved Ataru with all honesty (as Negako later explained to Chigaiko's parents), the basketball team forward wound up being hit with the curse's effects thanks to an incident where Ataru had gladly protected her from bullies in kindergarten.

Given that Chigaiko was now seen by the Moroboshi twins as yet another innocent victim of the madness that had rocked Tomobiki thanks to Lum, Negako had been pleased to offer a temporary solution for her. She made special omamori that allowed something of a blood ki ward to be formed around Chigaiko. Such gave her the power to nullify the curse's power temporarily when it came to dealing with individual peers or teachers. The permanent solution would come on Friday — no doubt along with the revelation of what that weird Noukiite phrase meant that caused Redet Lum's brat cousin Jariten to freak out like he did before the Dragonspeaker teleported everyone in Class 2-4 back to Earth from the Kashin — but for the time being, Chigaiko could make people acknowledge her by name in real time if she desired. She did that once yesterday when she formally resigned from the girl's basketball team; doing that had given her quite the laugh as her former teammates scrambled around to find out who the hell was this woman they never knew about that was now quitting their team.

Idiots...! she thought when she saw that. This school is full of idiots...!

Reaching the area of the west stairwell landing, she moved to head into the girl's washroom...then blinked on sensing someone step up from the main floor, the school's principal and vice principal Onsen Mark escorting her. Noting how tall she was — she could easily tower even over Sakurambō Sakura — Chigaiko stopped to give her a closer look...then she gaped as recognition dawned.

"Shinano-san...!" she breathed out in awe.

The third of the Yamato-class — by construction number; Shinano now pretty much accepted she was really the fourth of the class given when Yamato, Musashi and Yonaga had been brought into formal service in comparison to herself — blinked before her green eyes focused on the girl now gaping at her, then she smiled. "Inu Chigaiko?" she politely asked as she stopped before the basketball player.

"H-h-hai...!" the shorter woman sputtered, though she did note the flash of confusion in both the Principal's and Onsen's faces when the carrier mentioned her name; the curse targeting the Red Cloak never affected those who had never gone to Tomobiki High. "Um, wh-what are y-y-you doing here...?"

"Oh, I'm here to help your classmate Fujinami Ryūnosuke-san and her father get to Eta-jima as quickly as possible." Shinano pointed out the windows towards the west entrance. A glance outside revealed that a Ground Self-Defence Force Toyota Type 73 medium logistics truck was now parked by the gates, with several soldiers helping the elder Fujinami load his family's belongings onto the deck. Also present were a couple shipgirls in kimono-like dresses; seeing them, Chigaiko wondered if they were part of Destroyer Division One, who had been assigned to serve as Shinano's guard force when the carrier was out at sea. "No sense in forcing them to walk to Eta-jima. I couldn't believe what Tariko-san told me about how she and her father moved here on foot from Chōshi like they did. Have you seen Ryūnosuke-san, Chigaiko-san? We need to get going."

Chigaiko shrugged as she indicated the tomboy in question. "Arigatō," Shinano said with a polite bow...then she winked. "Don't worry," she then whispered. "Negako-san is making arrangements for your family right now."

Hearing that, Chigaiko chuckled, nodding. "Hai!"

With that, the carrier walked over towards Class 2-4. A hush had fallen over the students in the class as they gaped wide-eyed at the tall and curvy battleship-turned-carrier. Ryūnosuke cleared her throat before she bowed politely. "Um...osu, Shinano-san!" she sputtered. "What brings you around here?! Aren't you supposed to be down in Eta-jima with your sisters now?"

Shinano smiled. "My task force and I were allowed to dock at Ōminato when we brought the last convoy from Canada into Aomori and Hakodate to help everyone there get through the fall. Since the next convoy won't stage for a week, I can spare some time to help my new 'special boatswain' get settled in!"

Here, she playfully winked at Ryūnosuke while some of the boys in the class gaped in shock before they began to wolf-whistle. "KNOCK IT OFF, YOU JERKS!" the tomboy screamed out, making the hecklers duck. "Um, gee...!"

"It's alright..."

"Shinano-san!"

People turned as two grinning destroyers on the same scale of cuteness as the sisters of Division Six came charging up the stairs. The carrier sighed. "Kamikaze-san! Nokaze-san!" she scolded. "Stop making so much noise!"

Both Kamikaze and Nokaze blushed as they ducked from Shinano's annoyed look. "Gomen nasai, Shinano-san, but Fujimi-ojisan wants to have Ryūnosuke-san come down so we can get to Eta-jima before midnight," the latter said. As she had been torpedoed and sunk near Cam Ranh Bay northeast of Sàigòn at the start of 1945, the raven-haired, dark-eyed Minekaze-class destroyer often wore a stylish áo dài in lieu of the normal kimono and hakama with high-heeled lace boots many of her peers dressed in. She had the undress ribbon for the Huân Chương Dũng Cảm on her top; the destroyer had received Vietnam's bravery medal thanks to her rescuing many survivors from the sunken submarine Khánh Hoà two years ago while Destroyer Division One had done a sweep of the South China Sea, being wounded along the way. "We're here to get all of Ryūnosuke-san's stuff."

As people in the class gaped in shock, the tomboy blinked before she laughed. "Well, it's not much, girls!" she said as she nodded to the pile of books in her hand...then she squawked as Kamikaze came over to take them. "Oi...!"

"It's okay!" the purple-haired destroyer assured her before heading off.

The Principal watched her go, then he sighed. "You will be missed, Fujinami-kun," he declared as he offered a small folder to her. "Here are your class records. I'm sure Negako-san will see to it you can get yourself into a new school if you don't wish to take the home-schooling route her siblings now do."

Noting he was here to see her off, Ryūnosuke blushed. "Um...dōmo," she sputtered as she took it, then she blinked before she gazed on her now-former classmates. "Sorry to drop this on you guys like that," she apologized before bowing her head...then she squawked as a giggling Nokaze grabbed her by the hand and pulled her off towards the stairway. "Oi! Nokaze-chan! Lemme go...!"

They quickly disappeared down the stairs. Shinano shook her head before she gazed apologetically at her current host. "I am so sorry about that, Kōchō-sensei," she stated with a bow. "All my escorts have heard the wonderful tales about Ryūnosuke-san from Tariko-san and Ataru-san before we headed out to bring that convoy in two weeks ago. They're quite excited to meet such a survivor." She bowed again. "We'll take care of her, Kōchō-sensei. Please excuse me."

"Do be careful out there, Shinano-san," the Principal said with a return bow.

"We will."

With that, the tall carrier headed off to the stairs. She left behind a chorus of stunned faces in Class 2-4 as they watched her. After Shinano disappeared down to the main floor, everyone moved over to the windows overlooking the schoolyard to watch as Ryūnosuke was pulled over to join her father by Nokaze. Once the carrier stepped out of the school, she walked over to join her escorts and the Fujinami family on the truck's cargo deck while the soldiers got into the cabin, then guided the 1 1/2 tonne vehicle away from Tomobiki High School.

Silence fell over the scene as Ryūnosuke's former classmates exchanged shocked and confused looks. Staring at them, the Principal sighed as he beckoned Onsen back to the former's office on the main floor. "They must grow up sooner or later, Mark-kun," he quietly stated, earning a grunt from the other man...


Out in the Aki-nada, two hours before lunch...

This is what I receive for spending all those years isolated in Sano Bay...!

Yonaga was right now doubting her very own sanity.

"YOU BEFRIENDED A WO-CLASS AIRCRAFT CARRIER?!"

The others listening to this all ducked as the raven-haired carrier stared in outraged shock at Haruna. "Hai, I did," the fourth of the Kongō-class fast battleships calmly replied as the ad hoc task force made its way towards Kobashira-jima, an uninhabited islet not even a kilometre wide located north of Hashira-jima near the southern end of the bay. "It was an innocent thing at first." She giggled before she looked at a now-blushing Akagi. "While she was moving to explore what being human was about, Akagi-san got into knitting. Sometime before I got my Kai Ni upgrade last summer, she knitted a beautiful onigiri cushion for me." Hearing that, Akagi tried not to smirk as she recalled what prompted her to actually knit that cushion in the first place given Haruna's passionate love of onigiri and the rice rationing the base had to endure at the time. "It was the first time anyone outside my sisters ever gave me a present, so I treasured it." She then shrugged. "Then one day early this spring, a bird stole my cushion and brought it to Kobashira-jima."

Yonaga shook her head. "What does a cushion have to do with meeting an enemy aircraft carrier, much less BEFRIENDING one?!" she demanded.

"I'm getting there," Haruna chided. "Kongō-onēsama and Nagato-san went after the bird and tracked it to the island. They then discovered that the bird had obtained the cushion for his wife, who was then nesting four chicks. Once I saw that, I left it as is and Akagi-san created a new cushion for me."

"We later discovered that a Wo-class carrier who had been cut off from her mates thanks to the Sanmagun setting up the counter-jamming magical fields was living on the island," Kongō added. "Wokyū-san..." — she ignored Yonaga's look at such an unoriginal name for the enemy ship — "...learned of the birds, then fed and sheltered them from a typhoon that swept through the area. In many ways, Wokyū-san became as docile as Hoppō-chan is. Even Negako confirms it."

"Haruna noted what Wokyū-san did, then befriended her when they were fishing for the birds one day together on the north cliffs of the island," Kirishima added. "She naturally kept it secret from us as we didn't really understand at the time about how the magical commanderies were sowing much confusion among the enemy whenever they came close to the shores of the Home Islands. Akagi-san also discovered Wokyū-san along the way, but stayed silent about it."

"You are forgetting the most important part, of course!" Musashi declared.

"How so, Onē-san?" Yonaga asked.

"Ōi-san and Kitakami-san were on patrol there when I got sick one day," Haruna explained as the group — accompanied still by Harry Potter on his broom, plus the Moroboshi twins on sleek tan-brown machines that resembled a Bombardier Ski-Doo snowmobile with the drive treads replaced by a powerful jet engine and hovering systems — moved into the lee of Kobashira-jima, approaching a beach where there was a trail ascending the sheer cliff towards a wooded plateau. "They were discussing my illness when Wokyū-chan was listening to them from nearby." She then sighed. "Of course, given Kitakami-san's mood swings and very ribald sense of humour, she speculated that my having a cold could lead to even worse illnesses and even death. Wokyū-chan panicked on hearing that..."

"Then gladly created a feast of healthy food for our then-ill friend...and sneaked unarmed into the base to deliver same to her!" Musashi finished.

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"This one risked total destruction sailing into an enemy harbour unarmed and without her air group...all to bring food for Haruna-san?" Yonaga repeated.

"Hai!" Musashi chortled. "Once we recognized her bravery, we gladly allowed her to visit the base whenever Teitoku wasn't looking in our direction. Only when Negako-san came was Wokyū-san accepted in the same way young Hoppō is."

"But she stays on Kobashira-jima since she finds it peaceful there. She built herself a nice little home there close to where the birds currently have their nest," Yamato added as everyone moved to come ashore on the small beach, their rigging dispersing as everyone began to relax themselves. As Harry and the Moroboshi twins landed, Yonaga then came ashore, her rigging vanishing to — well, somewhere! — while the destroyers closest to her all cheered the first successful post-summoning voyage of the Seventh Carrier of Operation Z.

"WOKKYU!"

Everyone turned as a smiling woman appearing to be about the same physical age as Enterprise and her sisters come down to join them. With skin of alabaster, curly silvery hair and pale green eyes, she was dressed in her normal fighting rigging of a strapless armoured one-piece swimsuit over black thigh-high stockings flowing into high heel boots and an ankle-length cape hung from a circular ruff similar to what European nobles in the era of the Renaissance might have worn. She wore a black clamshell-like structure with a large toothy maw where aircraft would launch on her head, that topped with two glowing green radar domes that looked like eyes and ringed on the sides with dual-purpose naval cannon and various anti-aircraft mounts. Four octopus-like tentacles snaked down at angles to her fore-and-aft line from the flight deck, reaching to her knees. Scurrying about her feet were several I-class destroyers, beings that looked like a weird mix of sperm whale and great white shark, though their armament wasn't deployed and they were bouncing around their flagship like a pack of excited dogs following their master. Seeing that, Yonaga could only shake her head, hopeful that when it came time to deal with these things out on the open ocean, their looks wouldn't make her hesitate to wreck them.

"Ohayō, Wokyū-chan!" Haruna said as she grasped the carrier's hands in her own. "We came to visit you and the birds, plus show Yonaga-san around." She waved to the carrier in question. "Please don't be scared of her. She's nice."

Wokyū blinked for a moment, then turned to look at the very tall shipgirl standing with Yamato and her two battleship sisters. She then turned as grey as a hurricane as her own magical senses quickly locked in on the carrier's aura, information that had been passed on by sisters in the Arctic flooding her with total panic as she realized that the Angry One now was on her island...!

"Wokyū-chan, stop that," Haruna scolded. "Hai, she's the Angry One...but she is very impressed when you came to visit me when I was sick."

Silence fell as the Abyssal took that in, then she gazed warily at the tall carrier for a moment before a healthier colour returned to her skin as she seemed to right herself. However, her escorting destroyers were all quaking as they whined in terror. Noting that, Yonaga seemed to freeze them with a glare. "Since when do proper escort ships flee their charge in the face of possible danger?! You should all be ashamed of yourselves!" she icily declared.

The destroyers all perked, then they seemed to shrink on themselves, bowing their heads in guilt at the carrier's scolding. Seeing that, Wokyū blinked before she pointed at Yonaga. "Samurai..." she whispered before pointing down to the daishō firmly secured to the taller shipgirl's hakama on her left hip.

"Hai, Wokyū-chan, Yonaga-san is a samurai," Haruna affirmed with a nod.

"An even better one that I'll ever be," Musashi stated.

That made the carrier blush. "Onē-san...!"

"Miei amici!"/"Meine Freunde!"/"Hey, everyone!"

Everyone perked, then turned to look north. "Ah! Everyone else is doing their maiden voyages!" Fubuki cheered as a mass of battleships and heavy cruisers bore down on the beach, escorted by Libeccio, the three little "murderballs" of Taffy Three and the two German Type 1934 destroyers who had been summoned to Eta-jima over the last three years, Leberecht Maass and Max Schultz.

The destroyers who had come with Yonaga whooped in delight on seeing that as Iowa and her sisters came ashore. "This is just plain weird!" Wisconsin confessed as she went feet dry, her rigging dispersing. She then gazed in amusement at the Abyssal carrier standing there. "This the one, Stick?"

"Yeah, Whisky, she's the one who did a Campbeltown just to get some fresh rats to Dopey here," Iowa stated as she thumbed Haruna.

As some of the other shipgirls snickered, the fast battleship in question cutely pouted at that nickname. "'Did a Campbeltown'?" Yonaga then asked.

"Oh, meine Freunde, you had to have seen it to believe it!" Tirpitz stated. "Campbeltown was a Wickes-class destroyer given over to the British in that destroyers-for-bases deal made before the Americans got into the war." At Yonaga's nod, the battleship added, "Because everyone in Britain was so scared of me going on a raiding mission in the North Atlantic even after they hunted down ältere Schwester here..." — she thumbed Bismarck — "...the British came up with this insane plan to use a destroyer to ram and destroy the gates of the Normandie Dock in Saint-Nazaire in early 1942. Campbeltown was chosen as the ramming ship. It was the most bravest thing anyone had ever seen."

"How many Victoria Crosses was it in the end?" Bismarck asked.

"Five of them, Frau Bismarck," a strange man's voice answered, the resonance of those tones making the shipgirls save Yonaga blush while Wokyū and her escorts quaked in excitement. "Along with that, the personnel assigned to carry out Operation: Chariot were also awarded four Distinguished Service Orders, seventeen Distinguished Service Crosses, eleven Military Crosses, four Conspicuous Gallantry Medals, twenty-four Distinguished Conduct Medals, fifteen Military Medals and fifty-one personnel were mentioned in dispatches."

People turned to look as someone came down. "How the hell did you get here ahead of us, Staff Sergeant?" Missouri asked. "We didn't see a boat..."

"General Dover flew me here when she noted Miss Wokyū on the island and came over to investigate the issue, Miss Missouri," Benton Fraser reported, which made all the destroyers pale in horror as they remembered the previous day's incident with Kisaragi. The native of Nunavut was currently in rugged civilian clothes with his Stetson hat. "Be assured, the general doesn't consider Miss Wokyū or her flotilla a threat whatsoever. She is currently inspecting the bird nest that was constructed for the flock Miss Haruna befriended..."

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH...!"

Everyone jolted. "Katsuragi-chan!" Zuikaku exclaimed.

Benton looked up. "General! Is Miss Katsuragi alright?!" he called out.

"Relax, Benton!" a familiar woman's voice echoed from overhead. "She just had a little spill on a tree stump when she was picking fruit for the birds!"

The carriers all gasped. "How did Katsuragi-chan get here?!" Akagi demanded.

Benton waved the shipgirls and the others to follow him. "It appears that Miss Katsuragi has taken to General Dover quite profoundly as you would have all noted last night when Signorina Imperio, Signorina Zara's sisters and Signorina Libeccio's sisters were summoned, Miss Akagi. When the general came to inspect the island, Miss Katsuragi lashed herself onto the general's leg and refused to let go. Given what I saw when Miss Wokyū's escorts immediately came to play with Miss Katsuragi, I realized there would be no harm to her whatsoever."

The carriers blinked before they giggled. "Looks like the general's got a new fan!" Hornet mused as they reached the crest of the hill, then turned inland towards a clearing that gave everyone a perfect view of the surrounding waters.

Everyone then winced on seeing a sobbing baby carrier being comforted by Jessica Dover. On the ground nearby was a turned-over basket, a considerable amount of fruit having spilled out from it onto the grass. Standing nearby was the sturdy bird shelter that was filled with a beautiful cushion shaped like a ball of onigiri, a chirping couple with their four chicks inside. Zuikaku came immediately over. "Are you alright, Katsuragi-chan?!" she asked.

Hearing that familiar voice, Katsuragi looked over, then sniffed. "Zui..." she burbled before gazing forlornly on the spilled fruit. "Fr't...birdy...!"

"Calm yourself, young lady," a man's voice then echoed from nearby as Wokyū's escorts scampered over to try and crawl over the weeping carrier to lick her face clean of tears. "Our avian friends wouldn't mind a little dirt."

People turned...then all the shipgirls seemed to pale on sensing the aura of DANGER that billowed from the handsome twenty-something man who just emerged from a nearby bush. Said fellow had military-cropped black hair tinged in grey at the temples, a trimmed moustache over his mouth. His eyes were the dark grey of a hurricane which seemed to bore through everyone he gazed at. The man was in the dark blue tactical combat uniform of Canada's national and federal police force, a black tactical vest over his chest and a dark blue beret on his head, the badge of the Force positioned perfectly over his left eye. He had a Smith and Wesson Model 5906 automatic pistol on his right hip and carried the M1D sniper version of the famous .30-06 Garand semi-automatic rifle. Seeing him, the American shipgirls instantly braced to attention as they saluted the man who had killed more Nazi and Imperial Japanese metahumans than all his mates in the 1st Canadian Specialized Warfare Unit combined. "Commissioner Larsden!" Iowa called out respectfully, having spotted the man's rank insignia of a crown, "pip" star and crossed sword-and-baton on his shoulder slip-ons.

Martin Larsden smiled as he shifted his preferred long arm to his left hand, then returned the salute in the palm-forward manner the Force had copied from the British Army on its effective foundation in 1873. "Thank you, ladies." He then moved to kneel beside Jessica. "Now, Miss Katsuragi, you had a little accident here," he then stated as he reached over to gently thread his fingers through the carrier's sable hair. "Aren't you going to clean this up?"

Hearing that made Katsuragi blink before she nodded. "'Ai, Bugyō!" she said as she gave him a childish salute, then moved to right the basket before she scurried about to pick up the fruit that had been spilled. She then stopped as she looked at her collection before she pointed at the strawberries she found. "Bugyō! Di'ty!" she said as she gazed forlornly at the War Hawks' sniper.

Benton knelt beside Zuikaku. "You obviously need to clean the fruit now, Miss Katsuragi," the staff sergeant said as he pulled out a canteen, handing it over. "Use the water. Let it fall on the fruit, then use your hands to wipe them clean. It's no different than washing your hands every morning."

The baby carrier blinked, then unscrewed the canteen before dribbling the contents onto the fruit. Once they were all soaked, Katsuragi handed the half-empty canteen back. "Ari, Benny!" she said with a smile as Benton took the canteen back, then she picked up one of the strawberries and began to rub it.

The others remained silent as she cleaned all the fruit she had collected for the birds. Once that was done, Katsuragi blinked as she looked at her hands. "Benny! Di'ty!" she called out...then giggled as Benton poured some water over the hands. The baby carrier wiped her hands clear of the dirt, then smiled as Akagi handed her a cloth to dry her hands off. "Ari, Benny! Aka!"

"Now that you've done that, young lady, what next?" Martin then asked.

Katsuragi smiled as she reached over to pick up the basket, which was quite larger than she could handle. "Stop!" Jessica bade. "Katsuragi, you can't see ahead of you if you carry the basket! That's why you tripped!"

Hearing that made Katsuragi blink, then her eyes teared up again. Before she could break down and cry anew, Johnston and Hoel came up. "Stand down, kiddo!" the former said as she ruffled the carrier's hair. "We got this one!"

Katsuragi smiled as the two Fletcher-class destroyers picked up the basket, then walked it over to the bird shelter. "Ah! Ari, Jon! Hōe!"

The birds chirped excitedly as they swarmed onto the basket to get at the berries and other fruit there. As the others watched this, Jessica smiled in delight...then her eyes started to glow as she gazed just south of east towards the channel that separated Nuwa-jima from Kurahashi-jima and opened out into the Seto-naikai in the direction of Imabari. "Incoming...!" she hissed out.

All the shipgirls tensed. "Got it!" Enterprise said as she shouldered her own Garand, then fired two shots. The bullets instantly transformed into two flights of Douglas A-1H Skyraiders, loaded to bear with both high velocity aerial rockets and cluster bombs. "Where exactly are the targets, General?"

"Just passing the northern tip of Naka-jima right now, heading towards us," Jessica stated as she felt a familiar hunger claw up inside her.

"Calm down, Jessica," Martin advised. "If you let that thing inside you lose, Miss Hibiki there will pass out. You'll also scare Miss Wokyū's little ones."

Eyes turned to the former Soviet destroyer, who was now gazing in terror at the half-Ukrainian pilot from Winnipeg; she had seen the glowing aura of energy form around the Soul-Eater when she sensed the enemy. Excited chatter then escaped Wokyū, making the shipgirls gaze her way. "Hishō, Bugyō, Wokyū-chan says that this is a group based out of Takaikami-jima north of Niihama," Haruna explained. "They sent out a coded message to her to inform her of what is happening. They apparently were able to avoid the magical blocking screens the Sanmagun and Shimagun put up to protect the islands." After another burst of words, the fast battleship added, "She hasn't been able to sense them before because they've been ordered by their commander to remain silent and observe movements in the Seto-naikai for possible actions by mobile fleets at sea."

"Like a lot of our submarines did during the war!" Iowa hissed out. "That's ten nautical miles! We can hit that from here, for Christ's sake!"

"No, Iowa-san! The back blast will harm the birds!" Yamato insisted.

"What are we up against, E?!" Yorktown asked.

Her sister's eyes were closed as she concentrated on the air chatter from the faeries flying her Skyraiders. "Cruiser squadron," she announced. "Four Ri-class heavies and four Chi-class light torpedo cruisers. Heading right in for us, speed of advance...!" She then hissed. "Shit! They're doing flank!"

"About thirty knots?" Martin wondered.

"Yes, sir!"

The sniper of the War Hawks made a quick mental calculation. "Miss Enterprise, don't attack the group. Let them think they're closing the range undetected."

Jaws dropped as the shipgirls all gaped in shock at Jessica's friend. "Herr Inspekteur! Even if you were able to kill those verdammten Übermenschen with your rifle, your maximum range was three miles!" Bismarck exclaimed. "How the devil do you propose to hit these things when they're at TEN miles?!"

"Yes, it is too far for my Garand, Miss Bismarck," Martin stated as he walked over to the long dufflebag that was put on the ground near the bird shelter, placing the Garand down. "Hence, the reason I brought this with me."

"This" was a nearly sixty inch-long bolt-action firearm with a bipod fitted to the front end of the forestock and a pistol grip holding the trigger. Topping it was a very complex telescopic sight. Extending the bipod, Martin pulled out a magazine filled with BMG .50 calibre bullets. A quick look around revealed to him a large boulder that would serve as a perfect shooting perch; he moved to set the rifle up on top of the rock, relaxing himself against it as he began to scan the area where the enemy ships have been spotted. Seeing that huge and sleek weapon, all the shipgirls couldn't help but stare at such a powerful firearm. "Bugyō-san, what type of gun is THAT?!" Fubuki finally gasped.

"It's a MacMillan Brothers TAC-50 anti-material sniper rifle, Miss Fubuki," Benton explained. "It is designated the C15 Long Range Sniper Weapon in the Canadian Forces. The currently second-longest confirmed kill was made using this model of rifle in Afghanistan by a corporal in the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in March of 2002. Range was 2430 metres."

As the American and German shipgirls gaped at that statement, Jessica moved to stand close to Martin. "How close are you going to let them get in?"

"About four miles," the native of Miramichi in New Brunswick stated as he adjusted his scope before lightly smiling as he focused on the approaching cruisers. "Tut-tut," he then breathed out. "Such a close formation."

He took the magazine and loaded it into the rifle's receiver, then calmly chambered a round. "Yeah, they are pretty bunched up, aren't they?" Tariko noted; she was scanning things with an alien pair of binoculars. "Cocky bitches, aren't they? Just dragging their coats down the strait...!"

"What type of bullets do you have, Commissioner?" Enterprise asked.

"My standard load, magnified since I'm using the BMG .50 calibre round in lieu of the standard .30-06 that the Garand takes," Martin replied. "Range?"

The carrier concentrated for a moment as she got a triangulation from her Skyraiders. "Now 7.2 miles from our position. They're not scattering."

"Again, very foolish. Let's relax and wait."

With that, people quieted down as the birds calmly chirped away as they enjoyed the berries. Wokyū headed to her small hut to get some fried fish and snacks for her guests to enjoy while some of the destroyers went over to the several peach trees to pick more fruit for the shipgirls to nibble on and Katsuragi continued to play with the Abyssal destroyers, giving them some fruit. Benton drew out his own binoculars to allow Harry the chance to look. "You called it right, Tariko," the English wizard then muttered. "Arrogant or what?!"

"They're about to get a sharp re-education, Mister Potter," Martin stated.

The minutes passed as the cruiser force surged between Nuwa-jima and Kashima-jima as they closed the range on Kobashira-jima without any sort of defensive manoeuvres such as zig-zagging. As the shipgirls watched, they were quick to note there was no escort screen for the cruisers and they weren't even moving to aim their weapons. "Possible sacrifice play," Enterprise mused as the enemy force reached the five mile mark. "They think they're dealing with one rogue carrier and her escorts and that we'll not raise a finger to protect Wokyū."

"Or they think Wokyū-chan's still on their side," Ataru noted.

"They are crazed to die," Yonaga grimly noted. "I say we oblige them."

"They want you to do that on their terms, Miss Yonaga," Jessica warned. "Don't give into that urge. That's what they want in the end."

"Almost there," Martin said as he adjusted his aim for wind and spin drift; even if his personally-prepared bullets could do things that no other type of ammunition could match, there were still the potential natural variables.

Another couple of minutes passed. Once the enemy were in Martin's chosen engagement box, the commissioner then smirked as he squeezed off a round. The bullet streaked out of the barrel at triple the speed a normal .50 calibre round flew out of a TAC-50. Five seconds later, the Ri-class in the port forward position folded in on herself as the bullet slammed home and pierced her main magazine before detonating and turning her into a mist of shredded body parts and weapon fragments; the explosion also saw one of the Chi-class cruisers decapitated. By then, Martin had rammed a new bullet into the firing bed, sending it off to hit the heavy cruiser on the starboard forward point in the same location; the explosion from that also killed her accompanying torpedo cruiser and staggered the Ri-class right behind her. A third bullet made that heavy cruiser's head turn into a fine mist as it slammed hard into the trailing light cruiser, causing her torpedoes to explode en masse and making her nothing more than a dirty cloud of smoke and fragments. The fourth bullet then made the remaining Ri-class explode as her magazines went up, leaving one torpedo cruiser left. Martin took her out with the last round in his TAC-50.

Silence fell as the shipgirls gaped at the sight of a police officer having wiped out eight enemy warships with just a SNIPER RIFLE of all things. Martin remained calm as he field stripped the TAC-50 to clean it up. "Miss Iowa, what is the standard tactical range of the Mark 7 naval rifles you have?"

The blonde American battleship blinked. "Um...about 24 miles."

"Miss Bismarck, what of your SK C/34 rifles?"

Bismarck shook her head. "About 22.7 miles..."

"Miss Veneto, your M1934 rifles. How far?"

"Maximum of about 26 miles, Comandante," the Italian battleship stated.

"Impressive. Miss Yamato, your Type 94 rifles. How far can you reach?"

"About 42 kilometres, Bugyō-sama; that's 26 miles."

Martin nodded. "Ladies, as soon as I'm done with you all, you will be able to reach out to at least DOUBLE the combat range with your weapons. If it is possible, I will see the range of your primary armament even TRIPLED!" he declared. "Prepare yourselves to be able to fight over the horizon."

A chorus of dropped jaws and wide eyes answered him from the battleships as Jessica smirked. "Sugoi...!" Fubuki breathed out for them all...

To Be Continued...


WRITER'S NOTES

1) HMCS Discovery is the unit of the Royal Canadian Navy that is headquartered in Vancouver. Discovery is a naval reserve division (NRD), a part-time infantry company-sized unit that can provide peacetime manning augmentation to the full-time Navy as well as serve as an auxiliary training establishment in wartime. Discovery was established at the start of World War One, stood down at war's end, then reformed as a "half-company" in 1924. The ship was christened and commissioned as such as 1941. In the British Commonwealth tradition, units such as Discovery (nicknamed "stone frigates") are seen as no different than warships on the high seas. In the universe of this story, as Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt is located at the south end of Vancouver Island where resupply had to come from air or via ferry, it was decided to relocate the Pacific Fleet's shipgirls and all their support structures at Discovery. Such was also done on the Atlantic side as well; given the exposed location of Canadian Forces Base Halifax in the city of the same name on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, the Canadian Atlantic Fleet was shifted to Discovery's sister naval reserve division, NCSM Montcalm, in Québec City on the Saint Lawrence River over a thousand kilometres inland from the Atlantic. Unlike Discovery, Montcalm's origins ultimately go back just to 1923; there was no predecessor unit that served in the Great War and the ancestral unit of Montcalm was first established a year before Discovery's ancestral unit was reformed.

As an aside, the ship name prefix NCSM means "Navire Canadien de Sa Majesté", which is the French translation of "His/Her Majesty's Canadian Ship" (HMCS).

2) As the names of Akagi's sister Amagi-class battlecruisers whose construction was cancelled because of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 were all used in future ship constructions, the shipgirls mentioned by Mutsu were given new names from other mountains of Japan. Tōgasa was the first Amagi (the name was revised for an Unryū-class carrier built in 1942), Minako was the first Atago and Ashitaka was the first Takao; the second ships bearing the names of the last two battlecruisers were Takao-class heavy cruisers built in 1930.

3) The concept of the Seventh Cavalry Division (Magical) (7 CD) was first mentioned in the third Wizards and Avalonians side stories to Phoenix From the Ashes. In the universe of my stories, 7 CD was the main Western Allied magical combat force during Grindelwald's War; the British didn't have the numbers to raise a sufficient force against Gellert Grindelwald's Magische Reichsarmee ("Magical Army of the Reich"). The Seventh Marine Division (Magical) (7th MARDIV) would be the United States Marine Corps' magical fighting formation for the Pacific Theatre/Tsukuyomi's War of Liberation; their opponents were the Daitōa Kaihō-guntai ("Greater East Asia Liberation Army") under Yomigawa Tsukiko's command. The Moskvá Mágičeskie Front ("Moscow Magical Front") under command of Svetlána Múromeca was the Soviet Union's primary magical fighting force on the Eastern Front during the Great Patriotic War.

4) Translations: Daijin — Minister; Genroku-gonen — Fifth Year of Genroku, the name for the year 1692 CE in Japan; Chūsa — Navy commander/Army lieutenant colonel/Air Force wing commander (NATO rank code OF-4); Djádja — Uncle; Filles navire — The French term for shipgirls; CANCOMWESTPAC — Navy short code for "Canadian Commander Western Pacific"; Hassun-nobi — The tallest model of daikyū; Yotsugake — Four-fingered kyūdō-ka's glove; Nekul'túrnym zmejá — Uncultured snake; Ty govoríš' po-Rússki? — Do you speak Russian?; Ja žil v Sibíri v tečénije sém'desjat-pjat' let — I've been in Siberia for seventy-five years; Sumasšédšij avianósec — Crazy flattop; Omamori — Paper talismans meant to bring luck to the holder; Áo dài — Literally "long shirt", this is a traditional Vietnamese dress composed of a silk tunic with high collars that drapes down to the ankles, worn over pants; Huân Chương Dũng Cảm — Bravery Order; Wokyū — Literally "Wo-class"; Miei amici — My friends; Ältere Schwester — Elder sister; Bugyō — Title for a magistrate in Tokugawa-era Japan; Shimagun — Short for Shikoku Teimajutsu-gun (the Shikoku Magical Association).

5) As noted in the previous part, there is no way the magical government of Britain's American colonies would call themselves the "Magical Congress of the United States" over SEVENTY YEARS before the concept of the "United States" entered political discourse. In my stories, the first magical government in North America aligned to Britain would be addressed as the American Wizengamot, equal in status to the British Wizengamot before the Crown; the bureaucratic organization attached to it was called the Ministry of Magic for the Colonies. After 1776 when the Thirteen Colonies became the United States, representatives from those states would establish the modern Magical Congress (and the American Department of Magic) while those representing Britain's still-existent colonies in Québec and elsewhere would become the Wizengamot of British North America (with the bureaucratic organization called the Ministry of Magic for British North America). After 1867 when Canada became a self-governing colony, the old Wizengamot would break into several operational parts, the central part representing the four founding provinces (Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) forming the Wizengamot of the Dominion of Canada and the Ministry of Magical Affairs. The separated parts which represented magicals in places like Manitoba, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland would eventually re-merge with the Canadian Wizengamot when their host colonies became provinces of the Dominion in 1869, 1871, 1873 and 1949 respectively.

6) The Salem Witches Institute was first mentioned in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. An all-girls institute, it is based in the city of the same name in Massachusetts. The Seven Hills Wizarding Academy is my invention meant to be the all-male version of Salem; it is located near Lynchburg in Virginia. I first introduced Seven Hills in The Icemaidens and the Philosopher's Stone.

7) As I imagine Canada to be quite liberal in the magical worlds thanks in a large part to the War Hawks, more "proper" and "politically correct" terms for various beings would be in the vogue. The word Kobaloi is taken from a Greek term meaning "imp" or "goblin". The term lunar therianthrope is my term for were-beasts of all types; "therianthrope" comes from another Greek phrase that is applied to people who can morph into animals. Naturally in Canada, terms like "muggle" and "squib" would make people there look at you strange.

8) Ōwatatsumi-no-Kami is the ancient dragon-like god of the sea in Shintō lore; he is also believed to be another name for Ryūjin ("dragon god"). Arariel is the angel who takes charges of the waters of the Earth in Jewish Talmudic legends; another name would be "Azariel". The seven saints Yonaga references here when she speaks of Enterprise's luck in World War Two are Saint Ann (mother of the Virgin Mary), Saint Brendan the Navigator (the Irish monk from the Sixth Century CE rumoured to have voyaged to North America), Saint Elizabeth Seton (the first native-born American saint), Saint Erasmus of Formia AKA Saint Elmo (the one from which the electrical discharges on the tops of masts was named after), Saint Maturinus (a French missionary from the Fourth Century CE), Saint Nicholas of Myra (the one whose name was applied as a formal name later for Santa Claus) and Saint Peter the Apostle, Jesus' student and the man traditionally seen as the first Pope of the Roman Catholic Church.

9) The Čúkči are the natives of the far eastern end of Siberia. The Iñupiat are native peoples who normally ranged on the Bering Strait and Arctic coasts of Alaska. The Čúkči are normally called the "Eskimos of Western Čukótka"; Čukótka is the name of the autonomous district (ókrug) that occupies the northeast reaches of Siberia. The Iñupiat could also be seen as "Eskimos" by the traditional definition of same even if under American law, they are grouped with non-Eskimo indigenous cultures that lived elsewhere in the state.

10) I model some of the shipgirls depicted here from the Chinese version of Kantai Collection, known as Zhànjiàn Shàonǚ ("Warship Girls"). Unlike KanColle, the Chinese version was a lot more accessible both on iOS and Android platforms and was designed from the start to have an equal balance of Axis and Allied shipgirls. Such designs can be seen at the Danbooru website.

11) Inu Chigaiko is my creation; she first appeared in The Senior Year story "Darling's Secret Date". Over the years, I've allowed her to develop as the complete antithesis to all the background characters in Yatsura who are part of Class 2-4 at Tomobiki High School; she loathes almost everyone there and would support neither Mendō Shūtarō (too arrogant) or Redet Lum (naïve alien whose presence ultimately instigated the weirdness that haunted Tomobiki). Because she's a "nobody", Chigaiko wouldn't be known to anyone there outside Moroboshi Ataru; over time, I linked her to a magical curse that was used by a former victim of the Red Cloak (who appeared in Urusei Yatsura manga chapter #41) to seek vengeance on the man for nearly scaring her to death once. Of course, the Red Cloak's name mentioned here, Hirota Matabei, is my creation.

12) The story of how Haruna befriended a family of birds and later met and befriended Wokyū was depicted in Hisahiko's Haruna Weather.