Three days, and two sorties later i was convinced that although Tenryuu was trying her hardest, it wasn´t going to be enough on the long-term. Some improvements had to be made… and so, I had given out the order to fabricate some new equipment to the fairies.
When I got to the factory floor on the early afternoon, though, my eyes nearly popped out of my head as amidst the grimy floor, which aided to the odor of the room which used to be a gym hall and now was full of heavy machinery, some of which reaching up to the ceiling. CNC machines, a small foundry, a forge, automatic hammers and a production facility for ammunition and smaller spare parts- the fairies had everything needed to keep this base going, and equip a thousand men- or a few dozen shipgirls.

Now, though, they proudly presented me something that was more than half the size I was, and was never going to fit on any of Tenryuu´s barbettes. A miniaturized version of the 46cm three-gun turret the Yamato class was famous for- weighing the equivalent of a destroyer and having enough recoil to propel a car a few miles far, at least in real scale, there was no way she`d ever be able to use it.
"…Look, guys, i`m proud of you, doing that on the very first go… but I think you got something mixed up there. THAT. Is not going to FIT on Tenryuu or Maruyu, not even if they both carry it at the same time. What are we supposed to use it for?"
A fairy then bounced up to my shoulder from a nearby worktable, and talked with its tiny voice into my ear.
"What do you mean, spares? Replacements? For what? We don´t have a… what?"
The remaining fairies handed me a sheet of paper, a telex by the looks of it- the one sending it seemed to have gotten the addresses mixed up and sent it to them and not to me.
….The contents of it made my face go pale, and I stared at the turret once again, before carefully setting down the fairy on the ground. "L-look, just… build something Tenryuu`s size now. And… I don´t know, put that thing in storage. Who knows, maybe we´ll get to use it in the future. …I`ll be in my office."
And off I went, turning on my heel and running through the hallway, up the stairs, passing by a surprised Tenryuu and another girl I didn´t recognize, but had no time for. This had to be a mixup of some sort. I just started earlier this week, there was no way….!
I didn´t even sit down, I just grabbed the phone and punched the number in that was noted on the paper, then nervously paced back and forth in my office until the one on the other end of the line picked up.
"Admiral Moran, Sir! Lieutenant Commander Yamamoto here. There seems to be a mixup of some kind in progress, Sir, the fairies received your word sooner than I did, about the transfer… No, Sir, you don`t understand, i`m grateful for it, but we don`t have the resources…"
From behind the doorframe, one, two and three heads popped up, looking carefully into the office.
"Sir! With all due respect, you can´t just dismiss someone because they`re not… kawaii! I understand you only like destroyers, but she`s your responsibili….. yes, I know I outrank you. There´s no reason to remind me. But the fact remains that you`re trying to give away a living person like a kitten you don`t want! …"
My hand that wasn´t holding the phone balled up, and the knuckles popped, fingers growing white. I thought I could see Maruyu swallow and weep out the corner of my eye while I kept pacing left and right.
"Sir. Returning to topic. What do we do about this? There is no way I can support her just now. I`ve just started this Monday, and we can barely supply ourselves by now. Give me a month, then…."
My eyes widened, and my jaw fell as I paled further, causing even Tenryuu to get uneasy, from what I could see.
"No! No, no… no. Don`t scrap her. If you really can´t help it… i`ll take her, i´ll find a way to support her… just… don´t scrap her. I`ll expect her around the scheduled time. …. Of course, Sir. Have a pleasant day."
I hung up by smacking the phone down on the receiver.
"Is what your mother said last night!"

With all three shipgirls staring at me like i´d gone mad, I sat down on my office desk and took a sip of the cold, nasty coffee from the early morning hours that slapped me in the face like Mr T. About now I noticed the grey haired girl that stood slightly taller than Tenryuu, and while her eyes seem out of focus, she was the only one who was still smiling, standing still and waiting for her turn. I remembered something right then.
"…You´re the new arrival, right? I heard something about that earlier this morning." I pointed at her with my finger, the rest of them still holding the coffee mug, as I got up and adjusted my cap. "Sorry about that, you caught me in a bad moment. I`m Shichiro Yamamoto, commanding officer of this base."
"Its fine, Admiral… I am the standard carrier Unryuu… assigned to work with you from now on.." She bowed lightly, and already I found her a bit odd. Why did she… pause her sentences like that? Its like she was really struggling for words. Still, she was… well, the combination of Maruyu´s cuteness and Tenryuu`s good looks… I swallowed dryly, looking her over once, and retreated behind my desk to sit down…

I have to confess something here. Women never interested me… I could get along with them just fine, befriend them, but they never… interested me in a sexual sense. Neither did men, thank the heavens, but in general, I was lacking interest for my fellow humans as partners… since I was fourteen years old, I had been to eight different therapists, and none of them helped much.

Unryuu, and for that matter, Tenryuu too… were quite amazingly attractive in my eyes. And it didn´t help that the carriers choice of clothing was a lot… less restrained than Tenryuu`s. I just felt at ease behind my desk, knowing they couldn´t see what was going on in my pants just then, and looked up Unryuu`s statistics sheet to have some sort of cover about why I went there to begin with.

"So, you`re a standard carrier then… those are pretty costly, too…" I sighed a bit, looking over some other stats, but she interrupted me with a smile.

"I don´t eat much… its bad for my hips…" Your hips are fine as far as i`m concerned, Unryuu-chan, is what I thought, but of course I repressed that and nodded slowly. "Well, either way, we could use the firepower, since you`ve got guns equipped too. …but.. no airplanes?"
She shook her head. "No… my planes aren´t… built yet." How odd. What is an aircraft carrier without aircraft? A battleship without guns, that's what. Maybe she could use that 46cm OH RIGHT.

"By the way." Tenryuu interrupted us, coming fully into the room. "What the hell was that just now, eh? Did he kill your sister or something? I heard something `bout scrapping."
I shook my head, giving off a light sigh. "Admiral Moran`s fairies constructed something he didn´t like by accident, so he gave her to me. He only likes destroyers, apparently."
Tenryuu`s eye lit up in a spark, and she slapped her hands on my desk, drawing… quite close, which made me scoot back a bit. "Oh?! Ohh? What is it? Is it a cruiser? My sister Tatsuta, perhaps?"
"….Its a battleship. A big one." I swallowed hard, spacing my hands apart as far as I could manage to visualize. "Hence me telling him its impossible, but he said he`d scrap her otherwise because no one else he asked wants her."
Tenryuu`s eyes widened about as far as mine did when I saw that cannon earlier. "For serious?! So this lolicon-asshat is gonna scrap someone cuz she`s no little girl?! …Man, I almost want the Abyss to win now."
"I know, I know." I sighed, looking back to Unryuu who still stood there, smiling. "Its going to be a harsh week, Unryuu. I hope you`re ready for a lot of work, because we´ll have to secure a stable and consistent flow of resources if we don´t want to starve Musashi out."

"M…mmu…Musashi?!" Tenryuu seemed like she was about to faint from all the news, and stumbled back a bit. "S-seriously…. This guy…? D-do you know… how… how big…"
I nodded. I heard the rumors… big guns, big appetite. Big ego too, according to some sources, but I wouldn´t be biased until I met her. Afterall, she could be really nice once you got to know her…
"Well, either way, by the time the fairies are finished with Tenryuu`s new equipment we`ll go on another resource run. Then, perhaps, i`ll construct a destroyer to help us out carrying stuff, and-"
Tenryuu cut me off. She recovered faster than I would`ve liked from her battleship shock there.
"And THEN we go on a real battle?! That's what you were gonna say, right?! I`m a cruiser, not a battleship or aircraft carrier, I get that, but I want to fight too! I wanna bash some faces in, ya got my drift?!"
God, what was it with her? I told her numberous times that we needed more resources before we`d have any sort of fighting chance, but she just won´t listen. A glance fell on the Taisho sword in the other end of the room, and I looked back at Tenryuu.
"…Meet me in the mess hall in fifteen minutes then. I`ll give you a battle."
"…Huh? S-say what?!" Didn`t think that was gonna happen, did ya, Tenryuu. Even Unryuu, who was quiet and calm until now, widened her eyes.
"You can handle yourself with a sword, so i`ll be your opponent. We`re still being trained how to use those in military school, after all." I explained to her, folding my hands in a display of calm demeanor. "The mess hall is the best place for that, we can just make ourselves some free room there to fight with. But first, i`ll show Unryuu her room."
With that said, I stood up and adjusted my uniform, leaving the speechless Tenryuu behind and gesturing the carrier to follow, which she did. I gave Maru, who was still standing outside, a grin and a wink, then headed down the hallway.

"Are you sure that's a good idea… Admiral…?" Unryuu asked me, following with her hands folded behind her back. Thankfully, by now my loins had calmed down again, and I forced myself to look another way.
"She needs to cool off her head, and it might be fun, both for her and for me. I see where she´s coming from, we`re not doing much other than gathering resources… and we´ll have to do that a lot more until Musashi arrives, but that's no reason to keep complaining. I can´t change that, afterall."
Unryuu nodded with a light smile. "You and Tenryuu seem really close."
"Huh? …Ah, well, she`s a bit annoying with her antics, but she´s got a good… heart? Boiler? You know what i mean." What was she trying to pull, talking about that?
"Ehehe… An Admiral should be very close to their ships, I think… they`re risking their lives for them, so the Admiral should give them something back for it. Making them feel good, making them happy for the limited time they might have until they sink…"
She had a point there, I had to admit. But she was sounding very… suggestive there. Again, what was she trying to pull? Making them feel good?
"True. Although… I don´t know a lot about shipgirl anatomy, really. Can you guys even… feel anything or is it just like a feedback of data..? …sorry if that sounds insensitive, I genuinely have no idea. The fairies don´t tell me anything."
Unryuu smiled however and gave me a nod. "We feel just as much as you people do… Love, hate, passion, pain, lust… all those things you humans feel… we´re weapons, yes, but the fairies did a splendid job giving us… life."
….Lust? Again, suggestive. I was starting to think she was attempting to toy with me. And I was starting to think I wouldn`t mind that terribly much.
"Lust, huh? Does that mean you guys can… you know? Reproduce?"
A tiny blush appeared on her cheeks, which I found incredibly cute, but she giggled nonetheless.
"Ufufufu~ We can`t bear children, no… a weapon that multiplies would be… bad. But, ah, the process of it… we`re capable of –that-"
Oh. Oooooh. I started to walk a bit behind her, as I felt something happen in my pants again… thankfully, her room was fast approaching, and I stopped beside its door.
"Well, this is yours, Unryuu. I hope it's all to your liking, otherwise i`ll see what I can do about changing that."
Still blushing a bit, Unryuu nodded with a smile, and slid her hand onto the doorknob. "It will be, I am sure of it. Thank you, Admiral… And please be careful fighting Tenryuu…"
I gave her a nod to affirm it, and as she opened the door…
…about thirty fairies were bouncing around on the bed, drinking miniature shots of an energy drink, built a merry-go-round out of an old ceiling fan and rode around on it, while others were doing… things under the bed. It looked like they were trying to drag something heavy out from below it.
"….Oh." Was all I could utter, while Unryuu covered her mouth to hold back laughter. It was a good thing, she seemed okay with what was going on while I was just stunned at the sheer stupidity those little guys were capable of.
"Ufufufu, i`ll get along with them just fine, Admiral, don`t worry about me… I believe Tenryuu is waiting, no?"

After that experience, I almost felt right at home when I got to the mess hall, having picked up the sword on the way there. Tenryuu was already in, waiting for me, having taken off her rigging and yet still keeping the sword in hand.
"You really have some balls, comin` here afterall. I thought you`d do the smart thing and resign. There's no way you´d win against a shipgirl, man." She taunted, stepping into a cleared area in the middle of the hall.
"You want to fight, and as your commanding officer I have to tend to your needs. So here we are- you´re getting a fight." I responded, vaulting over a table in front of me to step into the "ring" as well. Having never drawn the Taisho I didn´t know if it was actually a sharp, genuine sword or just a decorational piece, but for the sake of my neck, and various other limbs, I hoped for the former. Tenryuu grinned lightly, glaring at me.
"Tsk. Well, I give ya that. You –do- have a crapload of balls. I knew that right when you were coming along on a mission with us, but this? Hell, I like ya. You`ve got guts. …Lets see some of them."
With this one-liner she probably heard from a movie, she drew her sword and dashed forth, giving out a war cry- I too drew my sword, taking a few steps forward, but rather than using my own blade to block hers, I whacked the red-tinted edge away from me using the wooden sheath of my sword, then reached out to her with my blade.

She stopped it with her palm before it would reach her chest, though, pressing it away and giving me a harsh kick to the guts, briefly winding me- She really wasn´t going to hold back, huh? That one actually hurt. So be it, I tossed the sheath aside, and held the sword with both hands… briefly thinking it was dull, seeing how Tenryuu could touch it with no problem, I parried two of her slashes with blocks of my own, then sidestepped and brought the blade diagonally upward…
It ripped straight through her uniform, but I could feel it impacting her skin with virtually no damage, superficial, at most. A bit of red oozed out from the faint line I made, but I had no time to say I was sorry, as Tenryuu kept the pressure up and forced me back with a series of fast, one-handed attacks and some footwork.
"I didn´t know shipgirls could bleed..!" I brought out underneath my breathing, and a faint grin appeared on her face.
"Didn`t know ya cared. Its just some stuff that keeps our bodies warm. Looks like blood for cosmetic reasons or something."
From then on in her aggressive assault grew more intense, from barely dodging an overhead swing and parrying a horizontal slash, my options grew limited, I had to turn this around and quick or she might take my head off. I realized just how sharp her blade was in comparison to mine when a slice I had barely escaped cut one of the brass buttons on my uniform in two… I had wondered just how well that sword cut through the destroyers the other day. Still, either my blade was made of a similar material or she was holding back.
My arm was telling me the first thing, because blocking was starting to hurt.
I leaned back underneath a slash aimed for my head, and gave her a harsh kick in the groin instead, which sent her flying half a meter and fall on her side, but she rolled, stopped on her knees and jumped right back up, while my leg was now feeling like i`d limp for a while.
"Fucking snake…" Tenryuu grunted, but still grinned a bit, wiping some sweat off of her forehead while swiping her sword left and right to find proper balance.
"Is that some sort of nickname? You haven`t seen it yet." I teased, somehow I just felt like doing a joke that would make her blush… and It took a moment, but then she flared up red, glared, and leaped at me with a strike. I stepped aside, letting her hit thin air, before bringing down my own sword again, where it crashed against hers rather than slice over her shoulder.
"Is that why you keep aiming for my shirt, ya skirt-chasing pervert?"
"I could aim there for a whole number of reasons…. But those big pillows are a huge target."
A number of diagonal slashes and equal blocks followed, our blades crashing against one another again and again, legs pressing against the opponent in an attempt to break through the defense… in the strain, our foreheads touched, sweat trickling down each of them, and our eyes stared deep into one another- before we both broke the block. I tried to trap her legs and make her fall, but instead, she brought her sword forth and clenched her legs around mine attempting to do the same to me- I would fall, would I try to dodge in this state.

I so loved that shocked expression when she thought her blade would sink into my body, when I actually clamped it down between my upper left arm and my chest… a quarter second later, I spun around on my heel, yanking the blade out of her hand, falling to the ground and burying her under my weight.
Tenryuu`s sword clattered on the floor just out of arms reach, and I couldn´t find a reason not to put my blade against the purple haired girls neck.
"This one goes to me, Ten-chan." I teased, receiving a glare at first, but then she sticked out her tongue instead.
"That was… fun." She admitted, relaxing her body as her arms slacked to the sides. I too eased up, tossing my sword aside, panting shallow breaths on top of her body.
That's when the adrenaline ebbed down, and I noticed how… soft she was. Soft, warm, comfortable…
…this was a girl made of metal, right? She felt just what I remembered my mother to feel like… what human women probably felt like… very, very nice.
"Oi… you can get up now." She groaned, a bit out of breath from having my weight on her chest.
"Nah. I`m enjoying myself right here. Let me bask in my triumph a little, Ten-chan."
"You´re heavy. And who`re you calling Ten-chan?!"
I grinned back at her, my cheeks feeling warm- I didn´t know if it was because of the physical excercise or the closeness to her. Probably both.
"I`ll stop calling you Ten-chan if you stop complaining about expeditions, Ten-chan. "
"Oi! Stop going Ten-chan this and Ten-chan that already! I get it, resources important, battles not important. Now will you get off?" Oh my god this was way too much fun.
"Hm, maybe. What are you paying me?"
"A kick to the nuts, you perverted idiot!"
"Am I now? You don`t seem to mind."
She glared at me. "Shut up."
"You know, I always wondered what was under that eyepatch~"
I reached out for the eyepatch, and as soon as I did, her leg came up to kick me as advertised but still honed down on combat, my legs clamped down and stopped it right there, while my hand brought the patch off of her eye.
Underneath was a burnt, blue-tinted scar, eyelids permanently shut by what looked like a surgical string, a deep, gruesome scar that slowly paled going vertically up her lower eyelid to the forehead. She looked aside, and blushed, falling silent.
"….You had to look, huh."
I nodded. "The fairies can`t fix that?"
"No. They said something about the plans being damaged. Its fine though, reminds me of that damn bomb that struck me back in the days." Tenryuu said in a quiet, regretful voice, and I nodded again slowly, running my finger carefully over the scar, making her twitch. I heard of that, the battle of Savo Island, she survived but lost 53 crewmen out of her complement of 327.
"I guess an eyepatch suits a war veteran like you quite well. Still, I don`t mind seeing that."
"You don`t?"
I shook my head as an answer. "No, its fine for me. That scar`s part of your identity. It's a testament to your long and eventful life, and how you protected your friends and companions. Getting struck by a bomb would sink a destroyer, you know."
Slowly, her face brightened up, still looking to the side, before turning back to me. I had noticed her lights had turned pink again, but her face seemed pretty stern.
"You`re a bastard, you know that? Picking on a girl while she´s down."
"I was just going to encourage you a bi-"
Her hand covered my mouth, cutting me off.
"Shut up, and get up. We`ll do a round of hand-to-hand combat next…. And then i`ll collect your damn resources."

….

"Who is this?"
"A shipgirl. They call her… Shoukaku, I believe... hit by a cut-in attack of Re."
"There`s barely… anything left…"
"Indeed. She will be… ideal for the experiment… Nazara has proposed."

Tubes. Powerplants. Gears and hydraulics all too human and aesthetically pleasing.

The Abyss did not use these… their methods were crude in appearance, but undoubtfully, they were functional. This was the main difference between a shipgirl and an Abyssal. Humans desired aesthetics, which stood in the way of higher functionality. The Abyss didn´t make such sacrifices. Body fluids for the sole purpose of warming it? Useless. Removed from the finished product. Eyes that cannot see in the dark? A hinderance. Abyssal eyes glowed red, but they even saw plasma bubbles on the surface of the sun. Shipgirls that could not breath underwater?
….remove the lungs, replace them with tanks. Now it was a submarine.
The Abyss had no need for aesthetics, they didn´t need to appeal to anyone in general. The Princesses retained some of their original beauty, but they were purpose build to taunt and entangle Admirals into a lethal trap.
This girl, however… a wide array of modifications and changes, which`s scars would take days to heal, covered the skin of someone who used to be a ship, which now… bore life. Flesh, even. An uncanny resemblance to a human, lacking the hardpoints and attachments for rigging that shipgirls had, this woman was an artificial human to boot. In theory, this should give it all the cunning, daring intelligence the humans had, the same unpredictable and unreasonable maneuvers that were so effective against the Abyss would be used against them. Or so was the theory.
This experiment became known as the Abyssal Admiral to anyone uninvolved, anyone who hadn`t heard, or daren`t speak her name.

A week had passed since they put the pieces together, and once more, she came into the war room of the mid-pacific Abyssal base- previously known as the Queen Mary II.
Her long black hair, cut orderly in Hime-fashion, slid over her back and blended into the equally black uniform, red eyes glaring into the room that was populated by three people, not counting herself, Battleship Princess, the Southern War Princess and Midway Princess. Southern War had come for a general overview of the situation, but normally resided in her own base, an ancient human ocean liner that had been dragged ashore onto a tiny island. Battleship Princess had no such base, but rather simply resided in the many shipwrecks of Ironbottom Sound, and Midway… was here for now, left without a home by the humans who had repelled previous attempts of claiming her namesake kingdom of Midway Station.
As soon as they noticed the demonic human, glares from all around fell upon the woman, but all silenced when Midway began to speak.
"My creation… has been completed. I have sent her… out to the Okinawa base, to espionage… and sabotage… their actions." The gallant white-haired princess spoke, placing her scarred hand on the map laid out in front of them. "I hope… this puts your worries to rest, Battleship."
"I did not… worry, Midway." Battleship grumbled. "I was merely insisting… that we do not sit back… and watch that boy come to power."
"Let him rise, and then… crush him with overwhelming force… is what I would do." Southern War Princess interrupted, a smirk on her face. "I do enjoy… to see their faces when… the curtain is drawn." The womans hair was tied into twintails, the hairbands of which seemed like they were on fire to the unkeen observer. Despite this, her attire merely consisted of steel bands standing in for garter belts, a single, armored stocking, heeled shoes and a half destroyed pair of hotpants, the rest was bare. Yet, she seemed not the least bit concerned about it, in fact, she seemed… proud about the display of her body.
"That's a waste of time… and resources, both of which… we have too little of to throw them… in his way. He should be dealt with... swiftly and brutally." Battleship threw in, until the Admiral finally rammed her fist on the table.
"Enough with this bickering! You`re starting to sound like a tea party for old hags…! Midway's spy will take care of the boy. We have bigger problems to get rid of." A glare was received from two of them, while Midway seemed indifferent about what the Admiral said. "Case in point- Admiral Moran of the British empire and his numerous destroyer fleets. Another would be Admiral Hackett and his cruiser-carrier mixture. Captain Tanaka, with the… unusual tactics of her shipgirls, Admiral Kiichiro`s relentless and absolute brutality, Commodore Creed with his large-scale carrier operations, Major General Matsuda`s continuous streak of luck, and Commander Yamanashi… whom I have no comment on."
A moment of silence was given for the last one, as each Abyssal remembered what state they found Seaport Princess in after she was left in the hands of Misa Yamanashi. One would think that woman was a man in the wrong body. And why did Seaport look so happy about it?
"What is your point… Admiral?" Battleship gave back, raising an eyebrow.
"My point is that its pointless to keep attacking their fleets like this." The response was received with glares all around. "We receive shipwrecks in return, but our losses are far higher. Ignore the fleets, attack the home ports. If the docks are destroyed, they have nowhere to return to and become easier prey." A sound logic, and yet…
"Were you raised… in a barn?" Southern War began, flicking her finger against Admiral`s forehead. "The home ports CONTAIN… their fleets. They don`t… attack us with just one of them… the rest remains there, defending that port…! …I can see your point. Truly, I do. But attacking a port… is suicide, so long as it isn´t… a very, very large fleet of ours."
"And whats the problem with that…?" Admiral retorted, now with a red mark on her head. "We have thousands of ships, but only a couple of hundred attack at once."
"Big fleets… have risks to them… a nuclear weapon could wipe out a third of our fleet, should they travel together." Battleship responded, being much more patient than the other two. "And it's simply… too complex, to navigate… thousands of ships around at once."
"Then get the Behemoth to do it, that would-"
Suddenly, Midway's arm reached out and lifted Admiral from the ground, her clawed fingers digging into the womans neck.
"You do not SPEAK in such a way about it…! You do not TALK about the Queens flagship as if you own it! Behemoth is our safe haven, it is NOT up for discussion! Exposing it to the humans could mean the end of our species!" Midway hissed at her, speaking fast and fluid rather unlike the usual pauses between sentences.
Choking and gurgling under the steely grip of the Midway Princess, Admiral brought out no words until the fingers gave way, just as sudden as they gripped around the woman, they also let go and dropped her to the ground, turning around.
"As it seems you are still not ready to command us, Admiral… I will make the decision myself."
Stepping over to another table, which appeared to be a Roulette game table, she pulled a small pearl, shining with an inner light from her gown. On the board, the names of the various Admirals were assigned to the various numbers of the roulette wheel, with a flick of her thumb, the pearl began to roll across and into the wheel. A flick of her wrist made it spin, and the number it landed on made her grin.

"Number seven… Commodore Creed it is."

A/N: Captain Tanaka, Admiral Moran and Commodore Creed are OCs of a friend of mine, used with permission. Admiral Hackett is, obviously, a reference to Admiral Steven Hackett of Mass Effect fame, Major General Matsuda is Major Matsuda from the Pixiv doujin author Tonda and his ongoing series "Macho Admiral and the Fleet Girls", Lieutenant Commander Misa Yamanashi belongs to Pixiv doujin author Buntaichou. I recommend checking out their stories, either on Pixiv or on Danbooru, where they are in translated form.