Chapter 7: Kisaragi in a Pinch
The operation was success: considered from complete objective and acceptable causality.
Fubuki, Kisaragi, and YUUDACHI visited their injured friend at the repair dock; inside, the repair dock was full with repairing ship, Mutsuki was one of them. Mutsuki slept soundly in the bath, her new reconstructed arm already attached to her body.
As to not disturb the injured destroyer's rest, Fubuki, Kisaragi, and YUUDACHI went outside before starting their conversation.
"I pray for her to get well soon"
"Thank you, Fubuki-chan" Kisaragi smiled.
"By the way Kisaragi-chan, can you tell me what actually happened with your division? My ears must be wrong somewhere as I heard on the radio that Yuubari-san had gone berserk?"
Kisaragi froze, this was the topic she didn't want to start the most. It could lead to her event as well that she got carried away by the devil gene.
"Fubuki-chan, don't mentioned it. I'm scared, poi!" YUUDACHI crossed her arm shakily.
"Um…well, we can heard the fact later on, so let's go to Mamiya Café for now, is it alright?" Fubuki changed the subject.
"Yayyy~" YUUDACHI enjoyed.
Kisaragi sighed with relieved that she could avoid the subject, YUUDACHI's childish action made her sweat dropped a little though.
YUUBARI, who was accused of abandon her fleet, was in a interrogation room.
Surrounding her were 6 battleships and 12 heavy cruisers: Ise, Hyuuga, Fusou, Yamashiro, Kongou, Haruna, Myoukou-class, Aoba-class, and Takao-class.
"So, Yuubari, will you explain to us why you did your reckless action back there?" the secretary ship Nagato asked. As the new admiral hadn't arrived yet, she acted as admiral on duty.
The experiment cruiser (?) laughed.
"I don't call it reckless, Oh! Dear Miss Secretary Ship. I knew my level and I can gauge their level. The difference is too much that I have nothing to fear."
"Are you saying that you're superior to them?" Nagato raised her voice, the others shocked.
"Of course~"
Nagato's fist flew to YUUBARI's face.
Smack!
She bounced off her chair by the fist impact, but that was not all as her trajectory guarantee that….
CRASH! ! !
…she would crash into the wall, the wall was partly destroyed.
"Nagato-san!" The battleships exclaimed while the heavy cruiser were stunning.
"Then, prove it to me what you've just said right now. Otherwise, it's just your own talk" Nagato cracked her knuckles.
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YUUBARI got up to her feet, she backhand-wiped her nosebleed.
"YOU ASK FOR IT, NAGATO" She stressed her word; she likely got adrenaline rush just after seeing her spilled blood, but now that she heard Nagato's arrogant attitude, her temper was rising furiously with her eyes turn evil-red vividly.
The 3 Demonic DDs sensed the power burst.
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HARUSAME, who was eating a heavy parfait at Mamiya Café, shrugged.
'I'm not needed there, let YUUDACHI handle it'
"Ah! Oishiii~~"
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"That Bitch! Yuuka…." YUUDACHI cursed, Kisaragi startled.
"What? Yuudachi-chan" YUUDACHI cursed was a little audibly to Fubuki.
"N..Nothing, Fubuki-chan. I just remember that I forgot to do something, excuse me" YUUDACHI ran out.
"A..A..Actually, Me TOO!" Kisaragi follow-dashed.
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"That's weird.." Fubuki muttered.
YUUBARI charged, she sent her right fist flying. Nagato sent her fist in response for frontal confrontation.
SMACK!
It turned out that Nagato structure was more fragile than YUUBARI, the momentum went throught entire her shouder, breaking bones section-to-section.
Nagato cried out in pain and was pushed back.
"Really…Is that all you got, Nagato?" YUUBARI mocked. She released more and more dreadful aura any second.
The sight was impossible for the rest to believe; a mere light cruiser won over a battleship in strength?! and a Big-7 level at that!?
Just before YUUBARI advanced to put more punch on the injured battleship, the door was breaking apart: revealed another 2 destroyers to join the party.
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"Oh! Hello YUUDACHI-chan~ Do you come here to join the fun?"
"Shut up YUUBARI! What do you think you're doing? Causing troubles isn't good, I warned you" YUUDACHI angrily opened her devil-mode.
"Come on, Yukki~ I fed up with this boring world already. Nobody gave me a real challenge, Gensokyou is better than-"
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Gensokyo?
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YUUBARI paused for just realizing that she blurted out the very secret information in public; not to mention related people in the scene as Kisaragi was pale as corpse and YUUDACHI had the most furious face.
YUUDACHI's cold voice rang the entire room.
"Now, you've done it"
Honestly, she would love to smack her rival in the head several times to atone this mistake and satisfy her anger. But to do that, this naval base were going to be on fire resulting from her crash.
She tried to calm herself down at the best of her effeort, counting 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...
She succeeded.
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"We're going back, Yuuka….." YUUDACHI unleashed her camouflage spell.
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Shipgirls watched as the transfiguration occurred before their eyes; YUUDACHI & YUUBARI were replaced with 2 older women who had matching hair colour to the original.
Yuuka noted the angry Yukari very well as her eyes still shone dangerously bright, she didn't scare of her but she knew not to mess with her rival when she was at her patient limit. This place would be a goner if the fight between the Strongest started.
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"Whatever you say, whatever you say…" Yuuka shrugged.
The portal opened right in front of Yuuka.
"Get in" The gap youkai commanded.
Yuuka gave her brightest smile to ship girls in the room before followed the order, Yukari bid farewell.
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However,
"Your Real ship girl will be back within a day. Bye-bye, Kisaragi-chan. Hope you enjoyed the Gift (?) I gave you." Then, she ran into her gap.
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All focus set dead on Kisaragi…..
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'Crap! What have I done to you to deserve your prank!?' Yukari just dropped the bomb to Kisaragi, it was natural that she would curse the gap hag.
"Capture Kisaragi now!" Nagato shouted.
Kisaragi sense kicked in, she needed to escape now, who knew what future ahead of her would be if her secret was exposed. So before any of the ship girls act on Nagato's command, Kisaragi already sprinted full speed ahead.
"Shit! Don't let her get away, catch her!" Nagato, after process what weird things she had encountered, marked the demonic destroyer as a link to real answer.
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Somewhere inside Yukari's realm.
'Oh my GOD! I forgot Yuyuko.'
The base was in chaos; the capture order was announce like explosion in a quiet night.
'Hm…What's going on, I wonder~?' A certain pink hair girl in Mamiya Cafe, who was on her 12th parfait, thought for a moment.
'Don't fool yourself, Yuyuko! You knew what happened' She re-thought.
The HARUSAME a few minutes ago was placed by a pink hair woman in a customs blue kimono dress. Yuyuko realized that her time as HARUSAME had ended the moment her appearance was back to original. It was fortunate that Mamiya was out, so nobody noticed her.
Then, the tough decision surface; she should flee now? Or finish her 12th parfait first? It was a painful decision indeed; she knew it was the time to retreat, but she simply couldn't hold herself to devour the snack.
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She heard the commotion closing in, the yelling of Kisaragi name.
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No one in this base was able to catch up with the pre-WWII destroyer model now, even the self-proclaim fastest of the fleet like Shimakaze was outmatched.
Kisaragi successfully shook off the pursuers, now she either escaped this base for good or hid somewhere in order to plan her next move.
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"Ara~ Isn't that Kisaragi-chan?"
She made a full braking, nearly tipped. In front of her, the Ghost princess from the land of fantasy greeted her.
"Y..Yuyuko-san! What-"
However, the sudden rift in the air cut in and Yuyuko was dragged by mysterious white elbow-glove hand.
"Wait!" Kisaragi wasted no time dashing in after her.
CRASH!
At the other side of the gap, she collided with Yuyuko in the back, sent her flying with Yukari for a distant.
"OW!.!.!"
"Shit! My back!"
"Jesus!"
Kisaragi, Yuyuko, and Yukari painfully cried.
After she adjusted to the pain, she composed herself.
She was in someone resident which wasn't belonged to Yuyuko. This might be Yukari or Yuuka residence.
Yuuka watched in amusement.
"Kisaragi-chan! (X 3) Poi (X 1)" Three familiar voices called her.
When she focused her sight on them, she stunned.
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!?
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That awkward moment when the demonic destroyers realized that she was in a presence of others residents who turned their attention temporary to her; Ran and Yuubari who were in the middle of Go board game, Yuudachi who was playing Play Station console with Chen on Winning Eleven football match, lastly Harusame who paused from licking her Matcha cone ice cream.
"Well~wel, they have a lot to catch up so I'll excuse myself" Yuuka formally left the scene.
"Me too, I'm rather tire…." Yuyuko yawned. She followed Yuuka out of Yukari's house right away.
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"OK..We should have a reunion party, shouldn't we?" Yukari mood stabilized
Yukari proposed the idea to brush off the awkwardness, but the other residents gave no response. She absolutely failed her objective. She double facepalmed.
'Suck to be me!'
That night Yukari threw a farewell party for the Ship girls, as ineffective in cheering the mood as it might be, she forced everyone to attend either way. However, they ate and drank normally.
Mostly of the discussed topic was about life in Gensokyo, the three ship girls explained how wonderful this place was and how amazing that things kept fantasy over logic.
However, things got dark when topic changed to Kisaragi's being exposed. The Shiratsuyu-class destroyers went pale, while the thin armor light cruiser raised her concern.
"Are you the same Kisaragi-san we knew?" Her stern voice indicated her concern degree.
"Ye.." She wanted to answer so badly, but the distrusted look from her comrades wounded her self-confidence greatly, liked she got stabbed to the heart.
"I don't know, I think I am the same person, but will you believe me? Tell me honestly!" She grimaced while fiercely glared through her friends' eyes one by one.
"P..poi…poi" Yuudachi couldn't find the right word.
"…"Harusame just only stared in ashamed.
"…I'm going to believe you after you give the resolved answer" Yuubari had hope that Kisaragi would get the massege that she still had some trust for her.
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Kisaragi sighed. The answer was obvious, two out of three ship girls weren't trust her. She personally felt thankful for Yubariu effort to assure, but it's not helpful at all.
"Thank you, your feedback confirm me everything. I'm not wholly welcomed back."
Kisaragi stood up and walked out of the room, Yukari saw her shed tear too. After the devil destroyer was out of sight, she spoke to the remaining ship girls.
"It seems it's your time to go home, children"
Yukari snapped finger.
Before ship girls knew what happened, they fell right in front of the gate of their naval base.
'Now, the left issue is…'
'KISARAGI'