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Tōkyō, a house near Ueno Park, an hour before lunch...
"Done..."
Taking a look around the now-emptied family house located off the Shinobazu-dōri, the tall and curvy teenage girl with the rusty red hair and the blue-grey eyes could only nod in satisfaction. It had been a busy month for her after she had been asked by her only true friend to come help liberate an entire RACE from chattel slavery on a planet named Phentax Twelve, a fight that had been horrifying beyond even the darkest nightmares of a writer like Stephen King when the ugly truths about what was happening on that planet became apparent to the metahumans of Yiziba, the Moroboshi siblings and their allies of the Flower Youth of Noukiios. But she had persevered even if she had been forced to literally abandon her magical "birth" form for an Avalonian bioroid body, one that gave her advantages like nothing she could have ever dreamt of.
Once she returned to Earth and Moroboshi Ataru arranged to have his uncle's people go legally transform "Tendō Ranko" into Hayashi Kanami...!
"Hayashi-dono?"
"Hai?" Kanami asked as she gazed on the middle-aged JMSDF second-class petty officer standing at the doorway to the now-empty Hayashi family home, given to her in the will of her recently-deceased paternal grandmother Chiaki.
"The real estate agent's here to process the sale, ma'am," the chief of the detail assigned to help transport Moroboshi Negako's latest human student to the Kure Naval District reported. "Everything's tied down for the trip and the train ticket to take you to Hiroshima has been purchased. You'll be heading there alongside the Fujinami family. Taihō-san will be escorting you."
Kanami blinked, her eyebrow arching. "Fujinami? You mean Fujinami Ryūnosuke? The fisherman's kid from Chōshi that was in Ataru's old class?"
"Hai, the same person. She was just let go from Tomobiki High."
An acknowledging nod responded. "Good for her. She wasn't going to learn how to be a girl among those alien-loving idiots." Kanami then took one last look around the house. Hopefully, the people who would buy it would find it a nice place to live. "Okay," she breathed out. "Let's get this done."
He nodded in understanding. Moroboshi Negako had briefed his team on everything this poor woman had endured since she had been magically separated from Saotome Ranma three months ago, cast aside and seen as nothing more than a burden to her "family". Thank the Kami her grandmother was wise enough to make sure those lunatics in Nerima would never be able to hurt her again! he thought on reflecting on Kanami's tortured history. "Hai, Hayashi-dono!"
With that, she stepped out of her grandparents' family home for the last time. It had been a nice place to live, but it had felt like another person's home when people from Toranoseishin Finances first brought her here nearly a month ago. Much that her life had become a lot easier now that she was legally freed of any influence from any of the idiots back in Nerima, Taitō Ward was still far too close to the sources of her pain for her comfort. Watching her genetic "brother" finally enjoy his life free of Jusenkyō's cursed touch, reunite with his mother Nodoka and finally progress his relationship with her to levels of sweetness that would probably kill a diabetic...! Seeing all that constantly sent hot knives of pain into Kanami's heart and soul, especially since all the other idiots haunting Nerima simply reverted to type, seeing her as a handy target for their own moronic desires and wants. Well, now...!
Kanami smirked.
Oh, yes...
As folks in the West say, living well is the best revenge of all!
"Teitoku..."
Kanami felt her cheeks flush as that voice washed over her, then she gazed on the beautiful brown-haired aircraft carrier fondly looking at her. "Oi, Tai-chan! Cut it out, huh?!" she then teased as Taihō came up to stay close to her while the real estate agent rose moved towards her, papers in hand. "Jeez! You're just as bad to me as Kirishima is to Ataru, for heaven's sake!"
Chuckles echoed from others as Taihō's brown eyes sparkled with passion and amusement. With that, the real estate agent got Kanami to sign the forms to transfer ownership of the Hayashi home to his company for re-sale; Taihō was happy to summon her rigging to allow her flight deck to be used to give her new "special boatswain" a level writing pad. "How soon do you figure you'll have a sale?" Kanami asked as she drew out her hanko and began stamping things.
"I've already got four prospective offers since I listed the property," the agent stated. "It'll be quite the commission once a sale's made."
"Good," Kanami affirmed. Dealing with people outside of Nerima had been a refreshing change. She didn't know if it was some weird curse that haunted her when she was still part of Ranma that made people be totally stupid around him; even if his behaviour had been quite crude due to all the years on the road training under Genma, the reactions of many people to him had been way over the top at times. While she often found herself missing the thrill of fighting others at her skill level, she certainly didn't miss the times jerks like Hibiki Ryōga, the Kunō siblings or the morons from the Nǚjiézú village in China leapt to conclusions about some idiot thing or another, then attacked her.
The look on Nǚ Shānpú's face after Kanami beat her would-be husband Liào Mùsī into a near-coma in the wake of her return from space had been priceless.
That was followed by the look of terror the warrior-maiden from the Bāyánkālā Mountains of Qīnghǎi displayed when Kanami began to tear her apart.
After the warrior-maiden had been rendered into a bloody pulp, Kanami used her new body's touch-telepathic powers to burn a message right into Shānpú's soul while she ruthlessly pillaged her memories for everything she had been taught by her great-grandmother Kělún: «Next time I see you, I will shoot you down like the monster you are, Shampoo! If you send your 'hubby' after me, the same thing happens! You don't have your great-grandmother here to protect you anymore; the Abyssals will see to her the next time she tries to cross the seas from China to return to Japan! Consider this MY Kiss of Death, Shampoo!»
After her new sensei Moroboshi Negako used her own Avalonian powers and the thousand years of martial arts knowledge which was her birthright to blank out Shānpú's and Mùsī's memories of WHO had so badly hurt them, Kanami walked out of Nerima for the final time, leaving her "brother" to his fate.
As Negako coldly declared, "Zhòuquán-xiāng will NOT be denied in THAT manner."
And while there was regret in Kanami's heart knowing that the true power of those springs was going to kill Ranma in the next month or so — especially how it would affect Tendō Akane in the long term — such remorse had been swamped by the tsunami of blood-soaked memories from the Battle of Phentax Twelve.
When she learned that her petty dreams meant NOTHING in the face of how much a RACE of bioroids had suffered in the name of Ataru's would-be "wife".
Those memories had given her some woozy nightmares over the last month, worlds worse then what her undergoing the Neko-ken or the fears of being frozen in her cursed body unleashed on her before she became her own being three months ago.
Which, thanks to Avalonian technology, was now her permanent body.
It was hard to accept such a thing even now...
But given how much the just-freed Avalonians were more than happy to save Kanami in their own way when that lunatic Otako shot her during the liberation of the bioroid factory then marooned on Phentax Twelve, prompting Ataru to literally behead the religious goose-stepping bitch with his bare hands...!
Shaking her head out of her self-reflection, Kanami sighed as she stamped the last paper. "You know where to send the money?" she then asked.
"Hai, Hayashi-dono," the agent assured her. "The transfer should happen within a week or so at the latest. I'll text you when it happens."
"Dōmo," Kanami breathed out as she handed the papers back. Bows and handshakes were exchanged, then she stepped off her family's former property. "Get me the hell out of here, Tai-chan," she whispered as she grasped Taihō's hand.
"Hai, Teitoku!" the carrier said as she guided her special boatswain towards the waiting taxi for the quick trip to Tōkyō Station...
Nerima, the Tendō home, that moment...
"So they're still at the hospital trying to figure out what's happening to the arrogant jerk?" Wahoo contemptuously asked.
Sensing the disgusted sneer in the American submarine's voice as she placed the last of her possessions into the box provided by the nice naval personnel who were helping to transport her from this place, Tendō Kasumi sighed. "Hai," she declared as her feelings for her family and their guests churned deep within her heart. "I have to compliment Negako-sama for making people believe it was something Ojii-san did to make Ranma-kun ill. No one's spoken about Kanami-chan since she left." She frowned as she recalled the reaction — or rather, lack of reaction — from the "usual suspects" when it came to the departure of Saotome Ranma's genetic sister around the time the Moroboshi siblings were going to launch their attack on Phentax Twelve to cripple the Urusians' most powerful intergalactic ally and liberate a race of bioroids from enslavement.
Shaking her head as she recalled the letter Kanami left behind describing her feelings about how people treated her during the two months after the day she was separated from Ranma thanks to Happōsai's incense burner, the eldest daughter of Tendō Sōun closed the box. "Well, that's that," she breathed out.
Hearing that, Yū grinned as she picked up the box and carried it out. "Danke, Yū-chan," Kasumi thanked her, making the Type IX-C submarine blush. Wahoo then came over to offer her arm. "Ooh, a gentleman!" Kasumi teased the Gato-class submarine, making the raven-haired subgirl madly blush. "Makes me feel like one of the nurses rescued by Sherman-taisa and the crew of the Sea Tiger."
Wahoo laughed. All the American subgirls had found Operation Petticoat as funny as heck. Even the Japanese subgirls got hooked on the 1959 Cary Grant and Tony Curtis film; the DVD of that movie always got played by someone every day at the northern base on Eta-jima. "Well, it probably explains why Balao loves to dress in pink all the time!" she admitted as they walked to the main floor, where Tang and Dasher were waiting. "Hey, guys! Guess who's a fan of OP Petticoat?" she told the other subgirls while thumbing her companion.
Hearing that made the others grin. "Well, one has to applaud her good taste," Tang stated as she slipped her arm around Kasumi's. "Just as we guaranteed when you needed to be taken out of this place, ma'am. Total stealth."
"At least you're learning everything Negako-sama is teaching you," Kasumi noted as they walked to the genkan, then slipped on shoes and boots; as American shipgirls always did when ashore, Wahoo, Tang and Dasher were in Navy Working Uniforms, gold oak leaves representing their ranks of lieutenant commander in the United States Navy on their jacket collars and on their eight-point covers, their submariner dolphins glittering in soft gold over their left pockets.
The subgirls were quick to sense the cloud of sadness in the heart of their new "honorary boatswain's mate". "Sure you don't want us to stick some fish in there, ma'am?" Dasher gently asked as she contemptuously thumbed the dōjō.
Kasumi gazed on the building which was the focus of her father's and sister's dreams since before the death of her mother Kimiko effectively tore apart the Tendō family. Remembering the times she had to clean up messes Akane had made whenever she practised in that building, she shook her head. At least Ranma-kun had been responsible enough to clean up after himself, as did Kanami-chan, she mused. "No, Dasher-chan. Thank you anyway. Much that I think it would be satisfying to do just that, it would be hard to explain once people recover their senses after all that's happened to Ranma-kun." She tried not to scowl as the disappointment she felt at his open ignorance of his sister's sufferings crawled up to overwhelm her feelings for him, not to mention the helplessness she felt knowing the "cure" everyone sought to free Ranma of Jusenkyō's cursed touch had condemned the poor man to die...especially in the wake of Kanami's becoming an Avalonian, which had all but guaranteed that Ranma would die according to Moroboshi Negako. "We don't want to undo everything Negako-sama did for Kanami-chan and I when it came time to wash our hands of all this."
"That's true," Wahoo mused as she pulled out a cell phone. "Ono to Big Bird," she called out after the connection got through. "Got your ears on?"
A moan responded while familiar laughter echoed in the background over the sounds of a taxi driving somewhere in Taitō Ward. "Hai, Wahoo-chan! Please, there's no need for that CB lingo!" Taihō answered. "Is Kasumi-san with you?"
"Yeah! We're moving to ship her to Tōkyō Station now. How about Kanami?"
"I'm here, Wahoo-chan!" Hayashi Kanami hailed. "Everything okay, Kasumi-san?"
"I'm fine, Kanami-chan!" Kasumi replied. "The girls are getting everything on the truck for transport. I'll see you at the station."
"Hai!"
The link was cut as they passed through the gates. The subgirls weren't surprised to note Kasumi didn't stop to turn and bow in respect to the spirit of the house; then again, given what they sensed of her over the last couple of weeks as they planned this operation to extract her from Nerima, the eldest Tendō daughter no longer considered this place her home. Everyone then got into the loaned M998 Humvee provided by Fleet Activities Yokosuka; a master-at-arms second class was the driver. Behind the light truck were two more Humvees, one of which would be used as the cargo vehicle to get Kasumi's personal belongings down to Eta-jima. "Let's go, PO!" Wahoo called out.
"Aye-aye, ma'am!" the sailor replied as he turned the gears over.
Kasumi didn't even gaze on the passing buildings as the driver guided the vehicle towards Metropolitan Route 24, which would take them to Route 8 and then to Metropolitan Expressway 5 for the trip to Tōkyō Station. It was hard for her to do such even if this movement would be seen by neighbours. While members of the "Nerima Wrecking Crew", relatives and other hangers-on were now either in school, at Nerima General Hospital or indisposed thanks to Kanami and Negako, the normal residents of this ward of Tōkyō would have taken notice of the American light trucks driving through their streets and stopping by the Tendō residence. By tonight, Kasumi's absence from the house would have been discovered at least by her sister Nabiki. As to how people would react...
In every way imaginable, I'm as much a 'nobody' as Kanami-chan was, Kasumi then mused as the Humvee drove by the entrance to Okonomiyaki Ucchan. Never seen as a person with her own dreams but just a handy slave to take care of the house and cook meals. No wonder it was so easy to finally decide to walk away from it all and be myself for a change. She then gazed on Tang and Dasher, who had moved to cuddle against her; even if the subgirls often got derided as "lewdmarines" due to their overwhelming desire to be intimate with people thanks to their often operating alone while out at sea, they were far more appreciative of someone like Kasumi than even her own family were. Well, once Akane-chan realizes she can't cook and Oba-san finally gets tired of looking after her lazy husband and Otō-san, maybe people will learn something...
A dark part of her mind then snorted. Doubtful...!
Tinworth Beach near Praa Sands on the English Channel coast in Cornwall, that moment (local time: Three hours after midnight)...
"Not sleepy, Drake?"
Hearing that from his closest female friend, Draco Malfoy blinked before he offered his arm, allowing Pansy Parkinson to slide into his embrace. While it was the middle of the night, they and their friends had remained up for hours, having enjoyed a late evening celebration in response to the incredible events early that day thanks to the Boy Who Lived having encountered the Soul-Eater of the Dnipró in Japan. "Not really," the scion of the Malfoy Clan of Avebury stated as he gave the heiress of the Parkinson Clan of Keerford a smile. "In awe concerning what Professor Dumbledore did to get rid of the Dark Lord."
Pansy shuddered on hearing her boyfriend mention that particular man. It had been a hectic and chilling week and more since the end of school, when children of the Death Eaters who had escaped imprisonment in Azkaban a decade before found themselves forced to bow at the feet of the snake-faced maniac that had gladly slaughtered so many when he first moved to topple the Ministry of Magic. While Draco, Pansy and their peers were made to walk the walk and talk the talk to show their "loyalty" to Voldemort, they hadn't liked it one bit. Yes, they hated muggle-inspired beliefs that people such as Harry Potter and Hermione Granger held as sacrosanct...but to condone acts of mass murder to keep Britain "pure" in the wake of the Abyssals' appearance was nothing short of suicide!
Never mind the fact that the muggles now had the shipgirls at their side...!
Draco tried not to shudder as he recalled his first encounter with such beings at Christmas, when four beautiful Japanese kanmusu came to the Yule Ball as Harry's combined dates due to his own shipgirl guardian, Surrey, having been on a mission. The four sisters of the same "class" of "fast battleship" (whatever that meant) caused a sensation among the students from Hogwarts, Beauxbâtons and Durmstrang, acting so human...yet projecting auras of magic that eclipsed that of even Albus Dumbledore himself! Thinking on that evening, Draco had to admit that it was no wonder some of the more conservative people attending that ball had begun to rail about such beings, never mind the quite eye-opening lecture about "burning love" that the eldest of the Kongō quartet had given to many wide-eyed wizards and witches. Even if he hadn't spoken to the Lady Kongō or her sisters that evening, Draco hadn't done anything to bring any sort of unwanted attention to himself from the shipgirls by heckling Harry for dating "muggle golems" in lieu of a real witch. Much that he didn't really care for the idea of muggles making use of such magic to summon the living spirits of lost warships to fight the Abyssals, he was very fond of staying alive!
Besides, comparing the magical aura of a fighting shipgirl like the Lady Kongō to the likes of Voldemort, the man who had once driven wizarding Britain to its knees was a gnat when put up against the passionate British-born, Japanese shipgirl who had come to fight for her adopted homeland in its darkest hour...
"Drake..."
Draco perked, then noting where Pansy was looking, gazed out to sea...
...before he paled. "Oh, bugger...!"
He then jolted on hearing a strange warbling noise, making him look up...
...then he gaped as a muggle machine a foot long came to hover over him before it descended to land gently on the flat top of the wood fence that bordered the beach deck of the cottage the Malfoy family owned on this stretch of shoreline six miles south of east from Penzance. As the two magical humans stared, the rapidly whirling blades atop the device stopped twirling as a hatch opened on the left side of the machine — at least, Draco assumed it was the left side — to reveal a tiny humanoid creature dressed in a dark green bodysuit.
"A faerie...!" Pansy hissed out in awe.
Both magicals bowed politely to the being; regardless of what "wise elders" in the Ministry of Magic often said about shipgirls, such beings were clearly touched by powers truly beyond any sort of mortal understanding, even by the experts among the Unspeakables in the Department of Mysteries. Seeing that, the creature returned the bow, then snapped to attention, giving them that odd hand salute Draco and Pansy had seen Kongō and her sisters use at the Yule Ball when they greeted representatives of the British, French and Norwegian magical ministries as well as the senior staff of Hogwarts, Beauxbâtons and Durmstrang.
«Howdy! Shouldn't you sprogs be in bed right now?»
Both magical humans gasped as their minds registered those words deep in their minds. Gazing on the visiting faerie, Draco and Pansy then blinked; the tiny being had relaxed even if she was giving them a concerned look. The voice that had just echoed in their head possessed a British-like accent, but it wasn't spot-on. "Um...we were celebrating that our families are free of a dark lord that threatened to enslave us all," Pansy answered. "It ran rather late..."
«Oh, that Riddle stirrer!» the faerie replied, her voice full of disgust and derision. As both magicals stared at her, the pilot of the faerie-sized Kaman SH-2G Super Seasprite anti-submarine helicopter in the colours of the Royal New Zealand Air Force's No. 6 Squadron winked. «Don't you fret! Our friends here in Britain will make sure that murdering arse won't cause you more...!»
A series of explosions then lit up the southern sky over the Channel, making Draco and Pansy scream in surprise. The faerie seemed not bothered by it as she gazed over her shoulder. «Oh! Looks like Abyssals are coming this way...»
"WHAT?!" Draco croaked...
...then he turned as white as a sheet as a silver-haired being surged up from the waters twenty metres away, hissing in delight as triple 8 inch gun mounts locked in on the cottages lining the shore. Unseen by him or his companion, other Abyssals of different types and shapes also appeared, their weapons bearing on target; at that close range, it would be a total massacre.
"DRAKE!" Pansy screamed...
«You better duck,» the faerie pilot helpfully suggested.
...just as the ominous whistle of four VERY heavy shells racing at the Ne-class heavy cruiser moving to bombard all of Tinworth echoed through the air, that accompanied by the roaring noise of many anti-ship missiles closing in.
The impact was devastating. As Draco and Pansy morbidly watched, the cruiser's entire body from shoulders to hips disintegrated as magazines went up from the furious impact. Both magicals then gaped as fragments of turrets, guns, other equipment and the cruiser's very head flew at the cottage...only to deflect off some sort of opaque crimson force field that shielded all the buildings there, making Draco and Pansy drop to the deck as the suddenness of the moment came to overwhelm them. Off to both the east and the west of the Malfoy family cabin, the other Abyssals were ripped apart at the same time by both more gunfire and a flock of Harpoon missiles. As soon as what remained of the cruiser collapsed into a heap of bleeding, smoking wreckage in the waters of the Channel, the pilot of the Seasprite shook her head. «Bloody Canucks doing TOT shots! Then again, Toa Rangatira Erinsville has been doing that since bloody 1916...!»
"You're from New Zealand?!"
"Daphne!" Pansy breathed out in relief as her best female friend ran up before she blinked, then she stared at the faerie. "How could you tell...?"
The blonde, blue-eyed heiress of the Greengrass Clan of Mutuantonis in East Sussex smirked as she waved towards her family cottage. "These autogyros...!"
«Please, miss! These machines are called 'helicopters',» the pilot corrected her as she affectionately patted the nose of her Super Seasprite.
Daphne blushed. "Sorry..."
«It's alright!» the pilot assured her. «We know how isolated magical folk in Britain are from normal folk. Damned, bloody crime if you ask me!»
The magicals blinked at the faerie's words concerning their lack of education when it came to muggles; much that they didn't care for muggles at all, that the faerie was so concerned about their lack of knowledge on such subjects was something they wouldn't ignore. "What's going on, Daphne?" Draco asked.
"More of these aut-..." Daphne caught herself. "Sorry, helicopters," she then corrected herself, earning a nod from the pilot. "Well, they landed at all the cottages to throw up wards around the buildings while some 'super battleship' — sort of like Lady Kongō and her sisters, but much bigger! — blasted them apart with her firearms and those missiles Commonwealth shipgirls carry..." She then waved towards her cottage. "An Australian helicopter landed at my cottage. It carried the ward stone that protected us from the attackers." She gazed on the pilot. "Are you really going to try to capture one of those things?!"
«Doubt we'll be able to do that in this particular scrap. Still, we and your law enforcement people can't keep fighting this war without knowing where they come from so we can go forth and permanently put an end to this madness, miss,» the faerie replied as shouts from different cottages echoed over the beach, indicating people there had been woken by the thunder of battle. «Much that we're prepared to fight to protect everyone, this war needs to stop...»
"AH!"
All three magicals looked over. "Loony?!" Draco exclaimed.
A delighted chuckle escaped Luna Lovegood as she ran up the beach and stepped onto the deck. "Oh, my! A helicopter from the Te Taua Moana o Aotearoa!" the blonde would-be reporter/naturalist from Devonshire gushed before she bowed to the pilot. "Excuse me, miss, but is your mothership nearby? I'm a reporter from The Quibbler. I'd like to do an interview. Is the battle still on?"
«She's coming now, miss,» the pilot replied as she returned Luna's bow.
"Bloody hell...!"
Draco, Pansy and Daphne perked on hearing that voice, then looked...
...before they gaped as three girls appearing to be THEIR age calmly sailed up to the shore to inspect the cruiser that had been prepared to wreck the Malfoy cabin. In the torchlight of the cabins, the Hogwarts students noted all three appeared to be sisters, dressed the same way in form-fitting skinsuits favoured by Canadian shipgirls. The grey of the suits was a smoky medium shade than the hazy bluish sky grey used by reborn warships of the Great White North. Pendant numbers were a deeper grey and the boots were black; the pendant numbers were also preceded with the letter "D". All had dark grey kiwi symbols on their left breasts; noting that, Daphne was quick to see the similarity to the kiwi-in-a-ring symbol on the helicopter's hull. They were dusky-skinned with Māori war tattoos on faces and arms; magicals of that Pacific chain of islands were well known in wizarding Britain. Their rigging was composed of a tall, solid pyramid-like mast dotted with radar arrays forward of a square funnel-like structure bearing the dark grey kiwi, that flowing into a hangar topped with a Phalanx Mark 15 CIWS and a surface search radar unit, that itself supporting a flight deck for helicopters. On the sides of the hangar were Mark 41 vertical launch missile systems for air defence missiles as well as single-barrel automated cannon. The quad Mark 141 clusters for Harpoon anti-ship missiles were on their legs above their knees. Vambraces on their lower arms held a Phalanx CIWS on the left arm and a 5 inch 54 calibre Mark 45 naval cannon on the right arm. Of course, Luna immediately recognized, these shipgirls from the Realm of Aotearoa wore jade hei-tiki pendants around their necks and piupiu skirts covering their hips and legs to above their pendant numbers.
"TOT shot with four of those bloody eighteen-inch rifles of hers!" the middle of the destroyer girls muttered, shaking her head as she tried not to shiver at the idea of being hit with such large shells. She had D24 as her pendant, her hair was silver, styled to hold three huia feathers at the back of the head (as her sisters also wore), her eyes were a deep sea blue and her war paint made her look like a living tiki statue from a distance. Before the others could comment, she looked out towards the Channel. "Did we get all the stirrers?!"
"Give us a bit, ya damned kiwi!" someone's voice echoed over the waters as if they had been amplified with a Sonorus charm. The voice had a recognizable Outback accent to it. "We're still doing the anti-submarine sweeps!"
"Keep the helicopters there to protect the cottages, Miss Māori!" a deeper and older voice then barked out from somewhere way out in the Channel.
"Aye, ma'am!" the shipgirl who had called out responded.
Luna's eyes went wide. "'Māori'...?!"
Her schoolmates gazed at her. "What is she?" Daphne asked.
The would-be reporter grinned as she pulled out a pen and pad. "They finally summoned the Tribal-class destroyers, Daphne!" she declared. "Oh, this will definitely make the next issue of the Quibbler!" With that, she bowed to the faerie pilot whose machine had protected Draco's family cottage, then ran off the beach deck to approach the three destroyers close to the shoreline.
«Excitable lass, isn't she?» the pilot mused.
Draco, Pansy and Daphne all nodded, the three still looking quite confused...
"Ata pai!"
Hearing that, Māori turned to see the blonde teenage girl with a spacey look on her face and the silver-blue eyes standing on the beach near the wreckage of the cruiser just destroyed by one of the Ōka Taniwha built in Canada decades ago; she was now dressed in rather dated civilian clothes, though not in the classical robes normally preferred by most British human magicals regardless of which school they attended in their youth. Noting people from other cabins were streaming out of their homes to see what was going on, the destroyer sighed before she slipped around the wrecked cruiser to come ashore. "Ata pai," she greeted the smiling girl...then blinked as she came up to perform a proper hongi with the tattooed destroyer, that making her sisters giggle in amusement, their hands moving to mask their mouths. "What's so funny?" the veteran of the Mediterranean Theatre muttered under her breath.
"She didn't do a haka, Tuahine Paari!" Te Mana advised, winking.
"Well, it would be stupid to distract Toa Rangatira Māori when we're in a potential battle situation," the human girl stated with a calm smile.
That made Māori gape. "You know of me?"
"Her Majesty's Shipgirl Māori. However, I see you're now properly addressed as 'Her Majesty's New Zealand Shipgirl Māori'. Sixth of the Tribal-class of 1937, born at the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Glasgow, launched on the second of September that year. Sadly, you were sunk while docked at Valletta in Malta in 1942; they then found it too costly to repair you, so they towed your hull out to sea and sank it after the war." She then gazed in fascination at Māori's sisters. "Who are you two?" she asked. "Toa Rangatira Māori was the only Tribal-class named after an iwi from Aotearoa."
That made the other shipgirls giggle. "We're more recent construction," the one with pendant D77 answered. She had reddish brown hair in a fashionable ponytail to secure her feathers, light blue eyes peeking out of her face. Her war paint gave her a fierce look. "I'm Te Kaha, formerly second of the Anzac-class frigates, now adopted of the Tribal-class destroyers. My sister is Te Mana, who was fourth of the Anzac-class. When Tuahine Paari Māori heard the summons to come back, we went with her. Which was a good thing!"
"Of course," Te Mana added. She was a tomboyish girl with white hair similar to Māori's, her eyes a medium blue; her pendant number was D111. Her war paint gave her a more wise and stately look in comparison to her sisters. "None of them had any idea of how to use missiles, to say anything of helicopters."
"So I'm old fashioned! Sue me!" Māori declared with a snort.
"Miss Lovegood!"
"Luna!"
The girl perked, then looked over her shoulder. "Oh, Professor Dumbledore! Hermione! Miss Surrey! Over here!" she said, waving people over.
Now approaching them was an elderly wizard in beautifully coloured robes, a girl about the same age as the would-be reporter from Devonshire in normal civilian clothes and a reborn County-class cruiser in her sea uniform, which resembled the dark blue jackets and bell bottoms worn by Royal Navy sailors in the Nineteenth Century. "Luna!" Surrey called out as she ran over...then she stopped as she gazed in confusion at the three shipgirls hovering around the wreckage of what appeared to be a Ne-class heavy cruiser. Noting their pendant numbers and the war paint on their faces and arms, Surrey blinked as she tried to identify these shipgirls from her own internal database of shipgirls. Their gear marked them as having inherited the weapons and sensor outfit of the Type 45 destroyers recently built for the Royal Navy; all had been sunk three years ago even if their souls had been brought back as enhanced versions of their World War Two incarnations, either as D-class destroyers (for Daring, Diamond, Defender and Duncan) or Danae-class light cruisers (for Dauntless and Dragon). However, their main guns looked as if they had been taken off an American Ticonderoga-class cruiser or Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. "Who...?"
Luna Lovegood smiled. "Her Majesty's New Zealand Shipgirls Māori, Te Mana and Te Kaha," she said as she indicated each of the destroyers, then she gazed on them as she introduced the cruiser and the human magicals who just arrived from Scotland. "I believe you are aware of Her Majesty's Shipgirl Surrey. May I also present the headmaster of Hogwarts, Professor Albus Dumbledore. This is a schoolmate of mine from the form ahead of me, Miss Hermione Granger."
"Delighted, ladies," Albus stated with a polite bow of his head. "And thank you so very much for stopping this attack on our shores."
Māori's sisters came ashore so all could exchange hongi and handshakes with the new arrivals. "Lucky for us we were patrolling in this area when we spotted that task force moving in to attack the village," Te Mana stated as she nodded out towards the Channel before she turned back to the elderly wizard as a crowd of magicals began to stream onto the beach. "No doubt, they're now wising up to the fact that you people are moving to better shield the shores of the British Isles from attack, then elected to hit a magical village to sternly 'remind' you all that you're not as powerful as you'd like to think you are."
"Did someone call the Aurors?" Daphne Greengrass' father Cyrus then asked.
"They're coming now, Cyrus," Albus assured him. "Are there casualties?"
"None, Professor," Draco Malfoy affirmed.
Others in the crowd quickly confirmed that statement. "That was thanks to these aircraft that landed on our beach decks before the explosions happened, Professor," Blaise Zabini stated. He was currently accompanied by his mother Vanessa. In his hands was an Agusta Westland AW101 Merlin HM2 helicopter in the markings of the Royal Navy's 829 Squadron. As Te Mana came over to allow him to place the helicopter on her flight deck, he added, "They had ward stones that created barrier fields that deflected fire from the Abyssal ships before that battleship now in the Channel destroyed them with gunfire and missiles."
"What battleship?" Hermione asked, looking around.
"Don't know," the half-Italian heir to the Zabini Clan of Lewisham answered. "She struck from very far out; over forty kilometres from the shore."
That made the dentists' daughter from West Sussex gape. "Forty kilometres?! Not even a BL 16 inch Mark I gun from Nelson, Rodney or the Mark IIs on any of the Lion-class could hit from that far out! Are you sure of the range?!"
"Ever since we had to start worrying about Abyssal attacks, we've all taught ourselves a simple ranging spell similar to how a muggle radar system can lock on something, Miss Granger," Vanessa Zabini answered as Surrey looked out to sea. "The range from our cabin to this mystery battleship was 41,210 metres when she fired. We know the difference between gunfire and missiles."
"She's armed with eighteen-inch guns, isn't she?" the cruiser asked.
Hermione gaped on hearing that; the only warships she knew of that had taken such wide-bore weapons to sea were the Yamato-class battleships...and all three of them were on the other side of Eurasia! "You know this ship?" Albus asked.
"Know OF her, Professor Dumbledore," Surrey answered. "Mostly through stories told to me by veterans of Jutland and a few other places in both world wars."
That made the headmaster blink as his mind ran through that before his eyes went very wide. "The Leviathan Homicidae, Miss Surrey?" he asked, making many of the magicals there gape; even if they really couldn't comprehend the idea of shipgirls and what they were fighting, they understood Latin. "They're real?"
"Not confirmed real," Surrey confessed before she gazed on the destroyers. "Unless you girls can say something about it?" she hopefully asked.
All three New Zealand shipgirls shook their heads. "We can't do it, miss," Te Kaha confessed before she winked. "Not yet, at least." She then perked as the Merlin placed on her sister's flight deck started up and lifted off, turning to head out to sea. "I'm sure that will change very soon. With what we've had to investigate since we were summoned, we'll probably be able to trace down the source point of these things within the next month or so." She contemptuously nodded to the wreckage of the cruiser now disintegrating in the water behind her. Looking at it himself, Albus was quick to see flicking reddish sparkles indicating the shells fired on the Ne-class were augmented with ruby mesonium, the mid-level version of the material composing Dean Raeburn's Power Jewel; such was now melting the Abyssal's remains and purifying the waters.
"Sorry about that," Māori apologized.
"Please, Miss Māori, don't apologize," Albus stated. "However, please extend our compliments to that shipgirl for such excellent shooting, especially if she has such powerful naval rifles as part of her rigging. Also, please advise her to be very careful in the future. Your magic is quite different from ours, but there are certain laws of magic we're all subject to. Such as..."
"Life Debts?" Māori finished. "Don't worry about that, Professor. Elements of 'A' Commando will be along in a while to get the story on this side of the line. Anything that might cause an issue, they'll be happy to help out with."
Albus took that in, then nodded. "Please ask whoever commands 'A' Commando to come meet me when he can so I can ensure no potential problems rise. The Foresters..." — he ignored croaked, horrified gasps from many of the people there — "...do possess a very undeserved reputation among European magicals. I don't want to start a magical war between Britain and Canada in the midst of dealing with the Abyssals; that will definitely make the Queen quite upset."
"Oh, that it will!" Te Mana stated as her sisters laughed. "In the meantime, we have to be off!" She then gave them a dramatic bow. "Po pai, everyone!"
"Po pai!" Luna said in turn, winking at them. "Please tell the Dragon Slayers that I would like a chance for an interview sometime soon!"
That made Te Kaha gape. "How...?"
"She's Luna Lovegood," Māori stated. "She's got Seer blood in her."
The other destroyers perked before nodding. "We'll pass it on!" Te Mana vowed.
With that, they surged out into the Channel, going to flank speed right away as they sailed to the southeast in the direction of the Channel Islands. Several of the younger magicals cried out as they waved the New Zealander shipgirls off. As soon as they were out of shouting range, the thunder of helicopter blades made people look behind them as the faerie-driven machines lifted off people's beach decks to rejoin their motherships. As children tried to chase off after them, Pansy gazed on Luna. "'Dragon Slayers'?" she asked.
"Dragon Slayers, Pansy," the would-be reporter from Devonshire calmly affirmed. "To the kanmusu of Japan, they are called the 'Ryūseizen'. Here in Europe, the term often used is 'Leviathan Homicidae' or translations of same as Professor Dumbledore just noted. Stories about them provide no concrete proof of such ships' existences, not to mention an explanation concerning what they were built to destroy in the first place since they never fought normal warships in either world war...though given that they're clearly active at this time and are shipgirls, they might have been constructed to fight primitive versions of the Abyssals." As people stared at her, Luna added, "They're warships of very large size, clearly influenced by normal naval construction methods, armed with the cutting edge weapons technology of the time they served in. They roamed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean in the Great War and all the oceans in the Second World War while our forefathers fought Minister Grindelwald and Marshal Yomigawa was liberating the colonies in the Pacific and Indian Ocean basins." She ignored the flash of disgust and loathing on the faces of some of the older people on her mentioning Tsukuyomi's War of Liberation, which had completely wrecked Europe's influence over the International Confederation of Wizards. "Those few people who did see the Dragon Slayers often had their memories suppressed of such sightings...but that didn't affect those shipgirls such as Warspite and her sisters, not to mention the other veterans of Jutland, not to mention Leyte Gulf and the other large Pacific battles. They remember them."
"An area-wide memory suppressing Obliviate spell," Albus stated before shaking his head. "Possible, but the power needed for such a thing would be enormous."
"What if the ships had mesonium built into them, Professor?" Hermione asked.
That made the elderly headmaster blink. "A good point, Miss Granger..."
Eta-jima, the base headquarters building, that moment...
"This does not surprise me."
Hearing that casual comment from the ninjutsu grandmaster now seated at one side of the room, Heather Thompkins tried not to roll her eyes. "No! You think!" she snidely declared before she gazed at the iPad Judy Barnes had given her. A device containing information that would kill many people from shock, from hardcore naval historians to the most passionate mugalophobic magical who saw the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy as the one surefire thing to keep him safe from torch-bearing "muggles" wanting to burn him at the stake. "My God...we actually built these things...?!" she hissed out.
"Why the secrecy during the Second World War concerning this formation, Judy?" Moroboshi Negako asked the Forester colonel from northwest New Brunswick.
Beside her, Mutsu was trying not to crush the cup of cold tea made for her by Ōyodo before she rejoined the new commander-in-chief of the world's shipgirl forces in her new office; the disbelief the battleship now felt on hearing the incredible story about what had happened at NCSM Gravé and its sister magical naval reserve division and wartime dockyard based in a remote inlet on the central coast of British Columbia, HMCS Whidbey, was coming close to totally overwhelming her. Then again, she wryly mused to herself. Believing in something like the War Hawks would have been quite difficult...!
"During the First World War, it would be more than understandable," Negako added. "There was no corresponding magical war during that conflict and Canada's steel production capacity was nowhere close to being sufficient enough to explain preparing the necessary raw materials to permit the construction of such large warships. Not to mention forging naval rifles such as the Mark I 460 millimetre naval cannon fitted into Erinsville, Carolina, Lady Elgin and Lady Jane. By the time the Second World War began in earnest in 1939, the Dominion's steel production capability had increased exponentially, along with a marked advancement of indigenous weapons design and production capability; Deannette's Mark 34 revolvers and the Sopwith So-48 Camel II prove that."
"People felt it would have still been hard to explain in certain circles even with what the Übermenschen and the Black Dragon Society — not to mention the War Hawks, the Liberty Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom — were doing," Judy answered, making the battleship seated beside Negako wince as she recalled the archival footage she had seen of metahuman battles that rocked North America from Los Angeles to Québec City, from New York and Washington to Seattle and Vancouver and from Winnipeg to New Orleans. Fighting Abyssals was one thing. Fighting crazed metahumans powered by ebony mesonium that give them abilities equal to major kami was something else! "Naval officers are an observant lot; it's a necessity in their trade. If they saw something like Lady Elgin, they would have wondered how the devil did 'colonials' from Canada build a super battleship that outweighed the passenger liner Queen Mary, never mind how the Allied magical governments would have reacted to that discovery given Minister Grindelwald's ultimate goal of destroying the Statute of Secrecy. Hood, the largest British warship active at the time, was a little over HALF Elgin's displacement." She shook her head. "Never mind the whole matter that forced Admiral Harlan to do what he did to get these ships built so quickly with help from the Kobaloi, the Dweorg and other magical beings when native mystics loudly began to warn of these creatures' coming three years before Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo. Not even the most radical magical theorist at Sibley could accept what he warned about before he had Sunbeam and Sundown built in 1912. I've seen pensive memories from the crews concerning these things those ships hunted. Even if they weren't driven by any recognizable human-level intelligence, these creatures were a threat like nothing no one could dream at the time was possible. If they got out of control, it would have been a holocaust many magnitudes worse than what the Black Plague unleashed centuries ago. Clearly, they had to be precursors to the Abyssals we're fighting now; the magical residue is quite similar when it was compared to readings the battleships' crews took during the war. It was a miracle those ships were able to do what they did without causing a mass panic, to say anything of effectively allowing the Statute of Secrecy to be gutted."
"Not that such would be too bad," Mutsu whispered.
The sorceress from New Brunswick sighed. "Oui, not that such would be bad, especially now. There are enough Internet chat boards and websites out there that explain a lot about magicals. It amazes me the security specialists haven't picked up on it." She then blinked before laughing. "Then again, they were killing themselves trying to keep the Abyssals secret at the start. It's no wonder they just gave up on that sort of thing when everything went crazy three years ago! Waste of time and lives..." She shook her head.
"Are the Ryūseizen now kanmusu?"
Eyes locked on Nagato. Mutsu's sister had accompanied Negako to this meeting between Heather and Judy just after the New Brunswicker had dropped the big bomb about the existence of a formation whose existence had been kept top secret even from the run-of-the-mill magical. Given that such a formation had often forayed to those parts of the high seas not normally frequented by military craft in either world war, it was understandable that the cloak of security over the existence of eight specially-built, sea monster-hunting battleships had been so easy to maintain even in the many decades after VJ Day, especially given the potential links between such creatures and the beings that shipgirls and shipboys worldwide had been fighting over the last three years.
"They became same shortly after Sackville was recalled, Madame Nagato," Judy answered, trying not to wince on seeing the stunned look on the normally stoic battleship's face. Noting that, the sorceress from Edmunston wondered how the Canadian shipgirls at Eta-jima would react to the existence of capital ships in their service...even if the vessels of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron had been shielded from the crews of other warships thanks to the Statute of Secrecy. "They needed no summoning chamber; elder members of their crews who understood the nature of what was happening sacrificed their magic and lives to allow the transformation to occur at their docks in Tadoussac and Smith Inlet."
Nagato and Mutsu both gaped in horror. "What possessed them to do THAT, Chūsa-san?!" the latter asked as she exchanged stunned looks with her sister.
"Because all had relatives in 'W' Division who had died in the defence of the Dominion's shores and had become suicidal," Judy answered as Heather shook her head. As both battleships bowed their heads in sympathy, she added, "Atop that, they learned of the faeries that help you girls use your rigging, so they knew that echoes of their living souls would be reborn as such, thus allowing the ships of CANBATRON ONE to be 'manned' in the traditional sense."
"How armed?" Nagato asked. "Did they get their weapons upgraded?"
Heather hummed as she tapped controls on her iPad. "All secondary and anti-aircraft guns were landed in the 1980s to allow auto-loading weapons and missile launchers to take their places in case they might be needed to deal with a possible return of the creatures they once fought," the admiral stated. "Standard small weapon and missile kit for all of them are eight 76 millimetre 62 calibre super rapid OTO-Melera mounts, eight Bushmaster Mark 38 Mod 2 Typhoon Weapon Systems, four Phalanx Mark 15 close-in weapons systems, sixteen Mark 141 launchers in quad packs for Harpoons and four 64 cell Mark 41 vertical launch missile clusters carrying Standards, Enhanced Sea Sparrows in quad packs and ASROCs." As Nagato and Mutsu nodded in appreciation at that level of armament — both knew Iowa had long dreamed of getting the chance to rearm herself to make her more capable than she and her sisters had been even in the 1980s, a dream shared with Yamato, Musashi, Bismarck, Littorio and Roma — Heather added, "They also have a hangar at the aft end of the hull for two CH-124A Sea King anti-submarine helicopters; it would be easy to upgrade the flight packages for the CH-148 Cyclone. Given how big these ships are — even Sunbeam and Sundown — it doesn't surprise me they're able to carry so much."
"Atop that, the older ships had their British-designed main guns replaced by American-designed weapons before World War Two got started," Judy added. "The Sunbeam-class now carry 12 inch 50 calibre Mark 8 guns in triple turrets while the Erinsville-class and Lady Elgin-class have 18 inch 47 calibre Mark 'A' guns in dual turrets. Argo and Chennalton both have 16 inch Mark 7 guns in quad turrets. People who were doing the initial design work on the Montana-class ships in the States were happy to get test data about four-gun mountings before they switched over to the four triple-gun turrets in the final design."
"How did they get around the Statute of Secrecy?" Nagato asked. "Given how fanatical the Americans were in maintaining the separation between magical and normal back in those days, I doubt they would have taken this lying down."
"Fortunately, Admiral Harlan was friends with President Roosevelt," Judy said, which made both battleships smirk. "Atop that, the issue that forced him to upgrade the older ships was classified as 'metahuman'. As the President was interested in mystery men to help form a metahuman defence force just in case America got dragged into the war and Axis metahumans were drafted to serve Hitler — as the Übermenschen so gladly demonstrated after Pearl Harbour — it was accepted without question at the White House. No one in New York sensed a thing." She shrugged. "Thanks to a very handy 'notice me not' type of area charm over the people who were in the know over this, not even the best memory-retrieval expert in the Department of Magic could discover it unless they were actually there listening to the admiral brief the President on this."
"The same type of charm used on those warship crews who spotted these ships whenever they were in the area performing their tasks," Mutsu noted.
"Since we're magical, we aren't affected anymore by the 'notice me not' charms used on the crews whenever we sailed close to any of these ships," Nagato stated. "That's a relief. Too many of us have dreamt of the Ryūseizen..."
"Understandable," Judy cut in.
"What do you mean, Barnes-chūsa?" Mutsu asked.
The Forester colonel gave the battleships a knowing smile. "If there is one thing Bill Harlan drilled into his people to follow even in the middle of a mission hunting those things down...it was to never forget the law of the sea."
Mutsu's and Nagato's eyes went wide...
Passing between Tsuwaji-jima and Nuwa-jima, that moment...
"LOOK! LOOK! IT'S FUSŌ-SAMA AND YAMASHIRO-SAMA!"
"BANZAI! BANZAI! BANZAI FUSŌ! BANZAI YAMASHIRO!"
"AH! IT'S DAIJŪROKU-KUCHIKUDAI!"
"BANZAI! BANZAI! BANZAI YUKIKAZE! BANZAI AMATSUKAZE! BANZAI HATSUKAZE! BANZAI TOKITSUKAZE! BANZAI! BANZAI! BANZAI DAIJŪROKU-KUCHIKUDAI!"
"OI! WHO'S THAT WITH THEM?!"
"SHE'S CANADIAN!"
"IMPOSSIBLE! THE CANADIANS NEVER BUILT BATTLESHIPS!"
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
Then...
"EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...?!"
As the gawking onlookers — a mixture of fishermen and other people who gladly sailed out from places like Yashiro-jima to watch the shipgirls sail in or out up close; many of the younger people on the Aki-nada seemed to be university students taking a day off classes — all began to chatter with each other as wild theories were tossed about like hot potatoes fresh out of the stove, Fusō tried not to moan as she gazed to her port quarter at the tall shipgirl that was forming the "tail end Charlie" position of their ad hoc formation.
"Um...does that 'notice me not' field of yours still work, Chennalton-san?" the raven-haired lead ship of her class of super-dreadnoughts then asked.
A wry smile answered her from the slender, tomboyish woman in the gunmetal grey sleeveless bodysuit that declared to anyone who met her that she was of the Royal Canadian Navy if one didn't recognize the white ensign now flying from her radar-equipped foremast behind her head of spiky raven hair. "The one handy thing I lost when I became a shipgirl," she replied, her voice flecked with a mix of Québécoise French and central Texan English that sounded exotic to the Japanese kanmusu sailing with her. "Not that it would matter now. The Statute of Secrecy is pretty much finished. Fortunately, there are enough normals and metahumans who are happy to wage a campaign over the Internet to make others find it easier to accept our magical friends. It'll be harder in places that have dealt with dark lords like this Riddle polecat in England..."
Rueful chuckles escaped the others as they threaded their way north-northwest to pass to the east side of Hashira-jima and the west side of Kurahashi-jima on final approach to Eta-jima. "You sure you can carry all of them into the base, Sempai-tachi?" Amatsukaze then asked as she gazed on the sleeping baby Abyssals — all of which rivalled Hoppō when it came to sheer cuteness — now lying secure on the turret tops of the three battleships in their formation.
Fusō chuckled; that had been the sixth time the ninth of the Kagerō-class destroyers had asked that question since they had departed the Izu-shotō with their young charges. "It's alright, Amatsukaze-san. We're almost there."
"What's that Abyssal carrier doing on Kobashira-jima?"
Both Japanese battleships tensed on hearing that question from their new Canadian friend, then they exchanged looks. "That's a Wo-class carrier that pretty much is sitting out the war altogether, Chennalton-san," Yamashiro replied. "She's the one that Haruna-san befriended earlier this year."
"Ah!" the adopted native of la Haute-Côte-Nord in Québec and Dallas in Texas (thanks to her late namesake) breathed out, nodding. "Hai, 'V' Commando did report on that incident. Brave girl, that one." She then perked before gazing to her starboard flank, making all the others perk. "Recon flight."
The Japanese shipgirls all turned to look. "Skyraider!" Tokitsukaze called out. "Markings of VA-6! Enterprise-sempai must have launched them!"
"There's cordite in the air!"
Everyone gazed on their Canadian friend, who was scanning around, her nose twitching slightly. "There was a battle?!" Hatsukaze exclaimed.
"No! There's meson in the cordite residue. Since I'm the only one of my squadron in this part of the world, it has to come from one source."
"Who?" Fusō asked.
An amused smirk answered the raven-haired battleship. "Martin Larsden."
On Kobashira-jima, that moment...
"Hishō! Bugyō! Hoppō scared!"
Hearing that alarmed statement from Katsuragi, both Jessica Dover and Martin Larsden gazed on the young Abyssal; she had come here with Hōshō minutes ago to join the impromptu party that was being held close to Wokyū's home. "What's frightening her?" Harry Potter asked as several people moved to surround the quaking Hoppō, who was switching from gazing fearfully out to the south-southeast to trying to curl herself up in a shivering ball of terror.
"Must be that strange shipgirl sailing with Fusō, Yamashiro and Yukikaze-chan's division," Moroboshi Tariko mused as she scanned things with her binoculars.
People noted that, then Kongō walked over to use her optical scanners and radar to scan that area of the Aki-nada. "They seem alright," the fast battleship noted. "Carrying a whole bunch of kids like Hoppō-chan with them..."
"Oh, my!" Kirishima noted. "It's a good thing that Nagato-san isn't here..."
"Hoppō...sisters...?"
People turned to see a wide-eyed Hoppō gazing in confusion at Moroboshi Ataru's twin. Noting that, Tariko beckoned her over. Hoppō walked over, then squealed in glee as Tariko boosted her up to sit on her folded arm as the latter moved to place the binoculars before the childish Abyssal's eyes. Gazing through the computer-magnified lenses, Hoppō blinked...then she beamed. "Hoppō sisters!" she cheered out as others gathered by the ledge to look. "Hoppō sisters!"
"Where did they come from?" Yūdachi asked.
"Probably from the Izu Islands," Johnston noted. "Fusō and Yamashiro were going to do a sweep of them with Yuki's squad to see if there were survivors from the attacks two years ago. If the only ones alive are like Hoppō..."
"No human survivors," Hōshō breathed out, her shoulders slumping in depression; the appearances of child Abyssals like Hoppō was always a dark sign that civilians had been killed in cartload lots on any of the outlying islands that had been cut off from the mainland of Japan at the very start of the general war. "At least we'll be able to learn what finally happened to the people on those islands once we learn their dialect of the Abyssal language."
"We will sink them all, Hōshō-sensei," Yonaga vowed. "Save for the young ones like Hoppō, of course." She glanced at the young Abyssal in the arms of her navigation officer's relative, making Hoppō gaze warily at the seventh carrier of Operation Z for a moment, then she looked once more through the binoculars.
"Yona! No scare Hoppō!"
That was a huffing and puffing Katsuragi, who was glaring at the taller carrier with all the childish fury she could muster. As Hoppō flushed at her friend's automatically leaping to her defence even against the Angry One, Yonaga shook her head, then gazed out to sea at the formation now closing the range with their position. Her eyebrow then arched. "Who is that at the rear?!"
Others blinked, then they focused their optics out to sea. After a moment, Yamato turned pale as Johnston and Hoel both began to babble like crazy. Kongō was hissing as she gripped her temples to prevent her from shaking her head off her neck and the four members of Kidō Butai sunk at Midway all had tears of joyous disbelief in their eyes. The others were exchanging shocked looks. "No way...it can't be! Not HER...!" Enterprise hissed out, shaking her head.
"It IS her, E-chan...!" Yamato nearly sobbed.
"WHO?!" Yonaga snarled, her hand tightly grasping her daikyū.
"Calm down, Miss Yonaga," a calm man's voice cautioned, making heads turn to gaze on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police commissioner standing nearby. "No doubt, your sister is remembering how half her ship's company was teleported out of her hull after her magazine detonated and she began to sink into the East China Sea in April of 1945. As that ship now approaching us also did for Miss Johnston and Miss Hoel — and Miss Roberts, Miss Saint Lo and Miss Gambier Bay — off Samar the previous October, Miss Kongō a month later off Táiwān and Miss Akagi, Miss Kaga, Miss Sōryū and Miss Hiryū off Midway in June of 1942. As Miss Chennalton's crew were very glad to do while they carried out their primary duties destroying mindless sea creatures that many now think were precursors of what you've been fighting over the last three years."
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
Then...
"Bugyō-sama...she's one of the Ryūseizen?!" Fubuki exclaimed.
"She is, Bucky!" Heermann stated, nodding rapidly. "Sixteen Mark 7s in four quad turrets and two stacks on a gunmetal grey hull, number '49' on her bow!"
"Who...?" Vittorio Veneto wondered.
"One of the Assassino Leviatano, Veneto...!" Roma hissed, making all three of her sisters gape. "Now that I can think of it, half my crew were pulled out of my hull as I was sinking...and there was a vessel like this one close by. Much different armament. Large guns in dual turrets, three funnels and a tripod foremast like the British built on their battleships during the Great War..."
"Lady Elgin or Lady Jane," Martin stated, making the shipgirls all gape at the man-hunter from New Brunswick. "Most likely the former; Lady Jane was assigned to the Pacific division of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron in World War Two while Lady Elgin moved from ocean to ocean wherever she was required."
Jaws dropped. "Bugyō-sama...you know all their names?" Yamato eeped.
"Of course I do," he answered as he observed the formation of kanmusu with the one Canadian shipgirl, a knowing smirk crossing his face. Seeing that made Jessica roll her eyes; excellent sharpshooter that the man-hunter from New Brunswick was, he often let his own pride at his observational skills get the better of him from time to time. He wasn't as bad as Sherlock Holmes or Bruce Wayne could be, but he did have his moments. "Try as those who organized the magical side of the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve did to keep their missions secret even from the average magical, it was impossible to keep it from me since I helped train many of the people who served in 'W' Division in peacetime and mustered into the Foresters and the Naval Magical Service in war."
"We possess battleships, Commissioner Larsden?" Benton Fraser asked.
"Eight of them. Two built before the Great War, equivalent to the Austro-Hungarian Tegetthoff-class though much larger; Admiral Harlan didn't care for putting turrets amidships on hulls he designed. Four built in the early part of the Great War, taking the super-dreadnought concept to a level no one could have imagined even in the 1920s before it was all stopped by the Washington Treaty. Two built before World War Two with help from President Roosevelt; they were test ships for the Mark 7 rifles Miss Iowa and her sisters carry. The one now accompanying Miss Fusō and her sister is one of that generation."
"Bugyō-san, would she know of the ship that was in the Sibuyan Sea when I was sunk?" Musashi asked. "It is not the one Onē-san met near Okinawa...!"
"That's her," Johnston stated as she pointed to the approaching shipgirls.
"...nor is it the one that Fusō-san and Yamashiro-san encountered in Surigao Strait," the second of the Yamato-class finished. "That one was armed like the one now approaching us, but has one funnel. Bismarck-san also knows of her."
"That would be Argo," Martin said as Jessica gaped at him and Bismarck nodded while she was being comforted by Prinz Eugen. Nearby, Ataru and Tariko were exchanging wide-eyed looks while Harry was shaking his head in disbelief. "No doubt, Miss Musashi, the one that rescued members of your crew was Erinsville, flagship of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron. Four dual turrets with guns your size, single smokestack pushed against the forward superstructure?"
Musashi hummed, then nodded. "Hai, that is the one."
"That sounds like the one that was close to the Solomon Islands when Hornet here and Wasp went down," Enterprise stated, thumbing her sister.
"Either her or her sistership Carolina."
"The Canucks built battleships?!" Hornet asked with an incredulous look.
"Magically-built and augmented with mesonium weapons and other equipment, Miss Hornet," Martin calmly supplied. "Constructed with the assistance of the Kobaloi and the Dweorg; the goblins and the dwarfs if you don't recognize their proper demonym, Mister Potter. Shielded from public view by the Statute of Secrecy and our Specialized Warfare Acts...but also masked from most magicals because of the types of entities they were designed to destroy while everyone was gutting themselves out. In essence, the First Canadian Battleship Squadron was the Navy's equivalent to my own unit during the Second World War."
"Does Heather know of them?" Jessica asked.
"No, she doesn't...though I suspect that the Foresters will correct that in due course," Martin calmly answered, which made the pilot from Winnipeg roll her eyes as she recalled meeting members of Canada's magical infantry during the war. "You remember the times during the war when Dean had to go off and meet some Navy admiral in Québec City whenever Heather got messages from Montcalm?"
She blinked. "Yeah! Wait a minute! He was an admiral...and our navy only had rear admirals as chiefs of naval staff until Percy Nelles got his second admiral's stripe in '41. Charles Kingsmill was only promoted as an admiral on the Royal Navy retired list in '17...and he died in '35! Who was he?!"
"Admiral William Harlan," he supplied. "Before you ask, ladies, he is Admiral Drake Harlan's great-grandfather," he added on noting many of the shipgirls perk on hearing that family name. "Graduate of the first class to come out of the Institute of Sorcery and Magic in 1890. He would go on to the Britannia Royal Naval College for naval engineering training, then served on several ships in the Royal Navy until he helped form the Royal Canadian Navy in 1910. He was made director of the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve (Magical), then started the project to construct the Sunbeam-class battleships after he was advised to do such by an Innu medicine man who predicted that a 'terrible war' would soon engulf Europe and that the 'great spirits of the sea' would be roused by such fighting. No doubt thanks to the U-Boats the Germans used."
Everyone winced. "The kami of the seas were all angered by the bloodshed, especially during the Greater East Asia War," Haruna mused. "The Ryūseizen were meant to ensure the true innocents were not made to suffer."
"I always thought of them as the handmaidens of Susanoo-no-Mikoto," Akatsuki quietly said, making many people stare at the childish destroyer. "Yet my crew was rescued by one of them; maybe that one with Fusō-san and Yamashiro-san knows which one it was. I always wanted to thank her for doing that." She then shrugged, the cloudy look on her face instantly clearing up. "Then again, they have to be ladies! Two of them even have 'lady' in their name!"
"Hopefully, they'll love tea as well!" Kongō added, nodding.
"Of course they will, Onē-sama!" Hiei assured her sister. "After all, they make Red Rose tea in Canada! It's the best tea you ever had, remember?!"
"Hai, hai!"
"She's Canadian, Hiei," Enterprise barbed. "They're Timmies fanatics!"
"Tim Hortons makes excellent teas!" Kongō asserted.
Laughter filled the air. "Canadian battleships...!" Tariko muttered, shaking her head. "You Canucks are a weird lot, you know that?! You write the damned book on 'specialized warfare' using metahumans, then you build these superships that were hunting Abyssals and saving thousands of lives when the rest of the world was going insane! Where do you people come up with this stuff, huh?!"
Martin and Jessica chuckled. "We can't build to the level our American cousins can," the former stated as he gazed respectfully on the American shipgirls there, making all of them blush. "Atop that, we never developed the martial traditions they did because we effectively negotiated our way out of British colonial control, so maintaining a large military never made any sense to us. In addition, our leaders are often very lazy; being next to the world's largest superpower does make defence planning in Ottawa much easier even if some people tend to forget their responsibilities to the citizens of the Dominion and our allies." As many of the American shipgirls nodded in rueful understanding at that, he then sighed. "We make do with what we have, Miss Moroboshi."
"Hey, listen...!" Heermann gasped.
People perked, then they blinked as a rich voice echoed over the waters...
It's knowing that your door is always open
And your path is free to walk.
That makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag
Rolled up and stashed behind your couch.
And it's knowing I'm not shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that are dried upon some line.
That keeps you in the backroads
By the rivers of my memory,
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind...
All the American shipgirls gaped. "Who's the Glen Campbell fan?" Hoel asked.
"That's our mystery battleship, Hoel-chan," Tariko affirmed; she was glancing at Fusō's and Yamashiro's formation through her binoculars.
People blinked. "That's a curious mix of accents," Hōshō noted.
"That's quite understandable, Miss Hōshō," Martin stated. "Chennalton was built at a hidden shipyard in the magical district of Tadoussac on the Saint Lawrence River downstream from Québec City...yet her namesake was a native of Dallas." As the American shipgirls gaped in surprise, he smiled. "Peter Chennalton was a professor of transfiguration and conjuration from Seven Hills then on exchange to the Institute of Sorcery and Magic when the war began. He volunteered to serve as an unofficial observer for the Department of Magic aboard the Argo during the mission when her crew rescued a third of Hood's crew and half of Bismarck's." As the German battleship gasped on hearing that, he added, "When your crew were being teleported out of your hull and out of the sea after the British ships left the scene, Miss Bismarck, one of those creatures attacked to consume their souls; those things were then seen just as very ugly soul vampires no different that Dementors." As Harry winced on hearing that, the police commissioner added, "A lucky strike on Argo's 'Y' turret caused the crew escape hatches to jam just as deadly cordite gasses began to fill the space; it could have led to a possible turret explosion like the Iowa suffered in 1989." As the American battleship in question cringed on remembering that horrible accident, the man-hunter from New Brunswick added, "The professor was able to teleport into the turret to get people out of there, plus vent the turret out...but he eventually succumbed to the gas and died."
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
Then...
"Damn...!" Johnston hissed out, her eyes tearing in sympathy.
"Chennalton-hakase died a true samurai," Yonaga stoically stated. "In the very same way as those gallant souls from New York's most brave did in 2001."
"Amen to that," New Jersey stated.
"Did he ever get a medal for it?" Missouri asked.
"An Order of Merlin at least?!" Harry added.
"Not until after American magicals were shaken out of their isolationist attitudes after Pearl Harbour," Martin explained. "America wasn't involved in the war at the time the professor died, so he wasn't eligible for the Magical Cross; it was later awarded at President Roosevelt's order after Rappaport's Law was done away with. The King also ordered that the professor receive the George Cross and the Order of Merlin First Class. He was also awarded the Orden Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves and Diamonds." That made Bismarck gape. "Ironically, one of Admiral Harlan's hidden magical supporters was none other than Gellert Grindelwald. But the professor's real memorial..."
"Battleship Chennalton," Yamato finished, then she giggled.
"What's so funny, Ya-chan?" Enterprise asked.
The Japanese super-battleship shrugged. "I'm sure Texas-san and all the others from that state would love Chennalton-sama once they hear her sing, E-chan."
"That's a good point," Iowa noted.
Laughter filled the air...
"We're here, Tomoko-chan. Wake up!"
A moan escaped the childish Abyssal as she slowly pushed herself into a sitting position on top of "B" turret of the nice Canadian magical battleship that had taken her off Izu Ō-shima a day ago, after two months of wandering around the devastated volcanic island at the entrance to the Sagami-wan. Physically at the age of five in human terms, the silver-haired echo of the lost children of the largest of the Izu-shotō had almost given into total despair and allowed the stormier elements of her soul to overcome her when the battleship with the French-sounding name came to her island, then did something which cleansed the darkness from her. By then, the task force commander by Fusō and Yamashiro stumbled onto the scene. Once Tomoko — her name had been chosen by Yukikaze — was confirmed to be safe, the group went to the other islands in the chain to see what happened there; given the more pressing need to get convoys to Japan and keep sea lanes clear, such investigative missions had been reluctantly put on the backburner by Saitō Ten'ichi's staff. After Kikuko, Shinmi, Noriko, Kanako, Takumi, Mimi, Takemi and Kiyoko had been pulled off the islands where they were born, Fusō directed everyone to base. Given there were nine Abyssal children that had to be transported to safety and the super-dreadnoughts could only carry a couple each due to their Kai Ni upgrades — and the need to keep flight decks clear in case the Abyssals attacked — the Canadian battleship was pleased to help carry four of them to Eta-jima; she certainly had the mass to do such even if there might be balance issues due to everyone being human-size.
"Home...?" Tomoko moaned as Mimi, Takemi and Kiyoko began to stir.
"Almost there," Chennalton answered as she guided herself towards an obvious cove on the north side of Kobashira-jima, the footprints in the sand indicating a considerable number of shipgirls had landed there. A glance up a cliff-side trail revealed a cheering Abyssal child running to the beach, she followed by the utterly too cute sisters of Destroyer Division Six, their two "momboats" and the four carriers of Kidō Butai who had been wrecked at Midway.
"Oi! Minna-chan!" Yukikaze called out, waving. "Look who we just met?!"
The shipgirls on the island turned to gaze on the tall Canadian carrying four tiny children to safety. To the normal observer, Chennalton was the same height as Yonaga, possessing both the spectacular curves and sinewy muscles that marked her as a capital ship in her first life; given that she wore the standard Royal Canadian Navy sleeveless bodysuit even if it was shaded gunmetal grey, her every enticing feature was on display for others to see.
However, shipgirls could look on each other and see the ghostly echo of their first forms still shrouding their human bodies. Chennalton's was impressive. A remarkably wide hull for extra stability to allow better aiming for her quad main gun turrets. A hull a hundred feet longer than the final Montana-class design. A gently-sloped weather deck forward of "A" turret for excellent sea-keeping; the Canadians never ONCE followed the flat forecastle deck aesthetic the British used for their ships until HMS Vanguard was designed in the mid-1940s. An elongated stern aft of "Y" Turret to allow an internal hangar deck below the weather deck for her spotter planes. A well-designed superstructure taking inspiration from both American and British designs, split by two funnels looking akin to what was fitted on a Littorio-class battleship. In her heyday in the Second World War, Chennalton possessed a secondary and anti-aircraft battery that would have made her a perfect carrier escort if her speed couldn't realistically match an Iowa-class. Now that forest of guns had been swept away to allow four large Mark 41 cell clusters to be shipped on her Number 01 level; seeing that, the other shipgirls immediately realized that if she only carried RIM-162 Enhanced Sea Sparrow missiles in the special quad packs designed for the Mark 41 system, Chennalton could put up over a thousand missiles to turn the sky above her into Death Valley for any attacking air formation.
Once her sea boots touched shore, Chennalton sighed. "Could I get people to take these kids off my turrets, please?" she then asked. "I don't want to stow my rigging and force these girls to learn how to jump ship."
Tatsuta, Tenryū and the Akatsuki sisters joined Yukikaze and her sisters into helping the Abyssals get off the battleships' turrets. Once that was done and Tomoko and her sisters were being guided over to meet Hoppō as others came down from the clearing near Wokyū's cabin, Fusō, Yamashiro and Chennalton came ashore, their rigging dispersing. In a flash, the Canadian shipgirl's naval combat dress jacket appeared to cover her top, the White Ensign of the Royal Canadian Navy on her left arm and a black Canadian ensign with the symbol of Her Majesty's Ministry of Magical Affairs for the Dominion of Canada in the fly on her right upper arm. Her ship's badge was over her name tag; seeing that, people could only grin on seeing the white star of Texas embossed with a red maple leaf in a blue field dotted with golden fleur-de-lis symbols marking her birth province of Québec. "Welcome finally to Japan, Chennalton-san," Fusō then stated with an amused smile, remembering to pronounce the Canadian warship's name as shen-oh-ton. "I'm sure you've sailed by the Home Islands many times doing your various deployments during in the war, but..."
"Sadly, given the nature of my mission and the uncertainty my admiral's staff felt concerning revealing what happened even to ministers of magic regardless of what was the actual state of the world at the time, Madame Fusō, I doubt my docking at Yokosuka or any other location worldwide that could take a ship my size would go over well," the Canadian noted, her deep crimson brown eyes sparkling with a mixture of annoyance and wry amusement. As all the destroyers snickered as they imagined the shell-shock having one of the Ryūseizen appear in public like THAT would unleash, she added, "Much that it was hair-raising to sail around staying clear of things until I was needed to destroy the monsters I was built to hunt — not to mention what happened to those sailors my crew rescued — the need to preserve the Statute of Secrecy was always paramount."
She gazed on the four aircraft carriers standing there as she noted Kongō and her sisters coming to join them. "Before you ask, given the perceived need at the time to protect and preserve the Statute — along with the fact those of your ships' companies my crew rescued were legally dead in the normal world — security personnel from the Royal Regiment of Canadian Foresters supporting my squadron performed some intricate memory modifications on the survivors to let them live their lives in peace when it was over even if they had been denied knowledge of their past lives. Unlike our British or American cousins, we would never allow 'muggles' or 'no-majs' to be cast aside like used dishwater."
Hearing that made Kongō, Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū exchange looks, then the fast battleship shrugged. "At least they were given the chance to live their lives in peace and harmony once the guns fell silent," she said as she patted the taller shipgirl's shoulder. "Now, it's time for some afternoon tea..."
"Not now, Kongō-san!" Kaga snapped. "Chennalton-sama...!"
The battleship blushed. "Madame Kaga, please! There's no need for that...!"
"...has been probably at sea for months now!" the carrier finished.
"Besides, it's nowhere close to tea time yet and I haven't had my morning cup of coffee," Chennalton cut in, making Kongō squawk on hearing THAT accursed word. "Afternoon tea is at four o'clock. Right now, it's 11:28 in the morning. I need coffee, so I'm going to raid the Timmies on the base as soon as we find a way to get these little ones over there." Ignoring the cute pout that appeared on Kongō's face after she said that, Chennalton then gazed on the child Abyssals she had helped bring to safety. They were chatting away with Hoppō as more came down to join them, including the humans in the group. "Ah, General! Commissioner!" she said as she snapped to attention, saluting the two members of the War Hawks now on the island. "Modified Argo-class helicopter guided missile battleship, flagship of the Pacific Division, First Canadian Battleship Squadron, Her Majesty's Canadian Ship Chennalton, reporting."
Jessica Dover and Martin Larsden returned that salute. "I just got told of you," the former noted as people relaxed. "I'm sure that Heather will find you insanely fascinating once she learns of you, Chennalton. Once we...!"
"WAIT! YOU'RE CARRYING HELICOPTERS?!"
Everyone stared at Tenryū, who was now gaping in wide-eyed awe at the Canadian. A shocked gasp made people gaze on Yukikaze. "Sempai! You launched both your helicopters while we were passing Shikoku and Kyūshū! Shouldn't they...?!"
Everyone then perked on hearing the warble of helicopter blades echo over the air. "Relax," Chennalton assured the destroyer. "They had extra fuel tanks."
Eyes turned to the sky as two helicopters soared down towards the gathering of shipgirls. Seeing they were moving to touch down, Chennalton moved to step out onto the water to summon her flight deck for them to land...then she perked as a signal came down from one. "«What?!»" she snapped in French. "«Why?!»"
The other shipgirls tried to listen into the communication with the faeries piloting the helicopters descending in their direction. Noting them as they came to a hover — which made Hoppō begin to make buzzing noises as she pulled out her Mitsubishi A7M Reppū fighter to pretend to "escort" the anti-submarine warfare machines — Chennalton then gazed apologetically at Enterprise. "Much that I hate to ask this of you, Madame Enterprise, but would you mind receiving these two?" she asked as she thumbed the helicopters. "They want to tell all their friends flying off the other battleships and the Tribals that they got the chance to land on the most famous aircraft carrier in history."
The American carrier madly blushed as others snickered, then she shrugged helplessly. "I've never landed a pair of helicopters before...!"
"Go on, E-chan!" Zuikaku challenged. "It'll be good practice for us!"
Hearing that from the grey-haired carrier, Enterprise sighed as she stepped into the water, her rigging forming. As she held up her flight deck, the first of the helicopters moved to come down between her midships and aft elevators, landing a little to port of the centre-line. As the destroyers whooped on seeing the Grey Ghost land her first helicopter as a shipgirl, the second helicopter landed aft of the first, earning the carrier another chorus of awed sounds from the destroyers. Enterprise gaped as she gazed on the machines on her deck, then she stared at Chennalton. "These aren't Sea Kings...!"
"No, they're CH-148 Cyclones; you'll know them as H-92 Superhawks," the large battleship said...then she blinked on seeing a flush appear on Enterprise's cheeks. "«No...!»" she moaned in French before she glared at the helicopters. "«WHAT IN THE NAME OF MERLIN'S THE MATTER WITH YOU IDIOTS?! YOU KNOW AMERICAN SHIPS ARE DRY SHIPS! WHY ARE YOU TRADING THAT ROTGUT WITH HER CREW?!»"
One of the faerie pilots stepped out of the first machine, saying something none of the shipgirls there could understand...which surprised them as interpreting faerie-talk was a skill a shipgirl needed to operate out in the ocean with their rigging. As Yamato immediately moved to help support her lover, Chennalton breathed out. "I apologize for this, Madame Yamato," she said as she gazed at the battleship whose crew hers had helped save in the spring of 1945. "When I was a ship, my reconnaissance pilots were all Dweorg half-breeds. Their version of what American magicals called 'gigglewater' in the 1920s could intoxicate your friend Madame Jun'yō with one shot glass!"
"J-j-just n-n-n-noticed...!" Enterprise muttered as she felt her forehead.
Seeing that, the other carriers winced. "Okay, we definitely keep this one away from Jun'yō and Chitose!" Zuikaku hissed at her friends.
The others nodded. "Ladies, what made you do that?" Martin coldly demanded as he walked over to glare at the faeries, making the creatures quail as they found themselves facing the Hunter of the Mi'kmaq...who was NOT impressed by such actions towards an allied shipgirl, especially one like Enterprise.
A feebled warble answered him, which made the commissioner sigh. "It will NOT be repeated," Martin declared in a voice that brooked no objection, making even many of the shipgirls shiver in fear. "Get on Miss Chennalton's deck! Miss Enterprise, you're legally over the limit and in no shape to sail. I trust, Miss Yamato, you can carry your intended back to the base once we finally take our leave of Miss Wokyū. Heather can prepare a sobering draught."
That made the battleship blink. "I can do that?"
"I'm sure she can carry your umbrella while you head back."
That made Yamato blush...
To Be Continued...
WRITER'S NOTES
1) The first scenes of this part were inspired by the short Ranma 1/2 fanfic story Misuteru ("Forsaken"), written by Richard Drozd. For those wanting to read the original story, you will need to locate the archives for RAAC (rec-arts-anime-creative), which was the Usenet name for the main anime fanfic posting group during the 1990s and the following decade before sites like this one became popular. The name "Hayashi Kanami" for a full female version of Saotome Ranma was first used in Phoenix From the Ashes; the actual relationship between Kanami and her late grandparents is the same here as it was in PFtA.
2) Translation list: OP — Military short-form for "operation"; Genkan — Entryway of a Japanese house, where street shoes are removed and slippers are put on; Ono — Hawai'ian name for the wahoo (Acanthocybium solandri), a prized game fish related to the mackerel, tuna and bonito; Toa Rangatira — Literally "master warrior" but also meaning "knight"; Te Taua Moana o Aotearoa — "Warriors of the Sea of New Zealand", this is the Māori name for the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN); Huia — Given the scientific name Heteralocha acutirostris, this is an extinct species (as of the early Twentieth Century) of wattlebird (a type of songbird) from the North Island of New Zealand; Tiki — Māori name for a humanoid statue carved of stone or wood, the word itself is derived from the first man created by Tūmatauenga, the god of war; Ata pai — Good morning; Ōka Taniwha — Monster killer; Tuahine Paari — Elder sister; Leviathan Homicidae — Latin for "Leviathan killer", which is rendered in Italian as Assassino Leviatano; Ryūseizen — Dragon killing ships; Mugalophobic — Adjective version of mugalophobia, my term for a wizard's fear of normal humans (the first part of the word is derived from the Greek word for "field mice", which was used as the translation of the Harry Potter books for "muggle"; Dweorg — Old English term for a dwarf; Daijūroku-kuchikudai — Sixteenth Destroyer Division.
3) The locations of the homes of various British wizarding families noted here are my creation if they don't match what's in the Harry Potter Wikia or Pottermore. Keerford is the old name of Carnforth in northern Lancashire. Mutuantonis is the Roman name for the city of Lewes in East Sussex. Lewisham is a borough of London south of the Thames west of Greenwich.
4) The term "TOT" used by the faerie pilot who helps save Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson is short for "Time On Target". This is an artillery term that indicates all guns in a battery or higher formation would fire at the same time and strike the same location at the same instant to cause maximum destruction. Given the gun platform involved in the action off Tinworth Beach fired four 18 inch shells from a Mark "A" 47 calibre naval rifle and each shell weighs 1746.3 kilograms (3850 pounds), you can guess how much damage such heavy shells would do even to a heavy cruiser! The "why" will be explained in a future chapter.
5) I've always been fascinated by naval matters since I was a child; it helped spark my eventual interest in Kantai Collection. The warships of the First Canadian Battleship Squadron (CANBATRON ONE) introduced here are some of the earliest fictional creations of mine, having been developed while I was still in high school. Of course, there was really no way that Canada would be able to build such capital ships in real life; the political will was never there given the Dominion's location vis-à-vis potential foes and the economic base hadn't developed until World War Two jump-started everything. It depresses me when I think of the sheer lack of political or national will to have an armed military that can stand up on its own and perform its share of missions under the aegis of NATO and NORAD; hence, the statement Martin Larsden makes about it near the end of this part. Of course, once we factor in the magical element of things, constructing ships like HMCS Chennalton became easier to explain.
As an aside, the name "Chennalton" is derived from the name of the founder of the famous Flying Tigers (an American volunteer group of pilots who flew for China during the lead up to the Second World War), Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault (1893-1958). Of course, given that Chennalton was built in Tadoussac at the confluence of the Saguenay and Saint Lawrence Rivers, the French pronunciation of the name (in the International Phonetic Alphabet, it's said /ʃɛn-oʊ-tən/, with the stress on the second syllable) would be used; in America, the "ault" part of the name was pronounced as spelled.
6) In my stories, the Magical Cross of the United States of America is the equivalent of a first class Order of Merlin. The equivalents of the second-class and third-class awards of the Order of Merlin are the Magical Star of the United States of America and the Magical Medal of the United States of America respectively. The Orden Pour le Mérite Magique ("Order 'For the Magical Merit'") is the German version of the Order of Merlin. The Pour le Mérite Magique without any sort of embellishment is equal to a third-class Order of Merlin. The Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves is equal to the second-class award. And the Pour le Mérite Magique with Oak Leaves and Diamonds is equal to the first-class Order of Merlin. I was inspired by the Knight's Cross levels of the Order of the Iron Cross when I first introduced the concept of the Pour le Mérite Magique in the third Wizards and Avalonians story.
