Friday, January 17th, 2014.

The big guns have arrived, and I didn't even need to call for an exterminator. I'm just surprised I managed to get up in time to go out and meet them when they got flown in earlier this morning at 0840 hours or something. I thought for sure I would oversleep because my body's tired from trying to break the fever as quickly as possible. The other ship girls seemed pretty excited to be receiving more comrades to add to the base, understandably. Just sending out destroyers all the time probably isn't a sound naval strategy anyway.

Like HQ had promised, we got two light cruisers, a heavy cruiser, a light carrier, a standard carrier, a battleship, and a submarine. Here we go...

For our two light cruisers, we got Kitakami (北上, apparently named after some river) and her fellow ship sister Ooi (大井, again apparently named after some river, and if I'm not mistaken, literally translating her name would get me Big Well, hopefully I'm not wrong on that). Kitakami's like a calmer version of Samidare, friendly and chill at the same time, taking things at her own pace and not really bothered by many things, or at least that's the vibe I'm getting from her. But from what I can tell, Ooi is very close to Kitakami. I guess I can understand, seeing that they're both from the same class of light cruisers, but it's not like they look alike to warrant calling them sister, other than their identical uniforms. Plus, Ooi likes being around Kitakami, and when Kitakami talked with me shortly after they arrived, I saw Ooi looking at me a bit...how should I say, it's like she didn't like me talking to her. Jealousy? That's the only thing I can think of that can logically explain Ooi's rather shady behavior towards me. But if that's the case, then she would act a bit sassy towards me when she's talking to me, right? But that wasn't the case when I talked to her after talking to Kitakami. I dunno...I'll just leave it at this, that Kitakami's approachable and easy to talk to, but I should probably do so out of sight of Ooi.

For our heavy cruiser, Takao (高雄, maybe after a mountain? I know there're a couple mountains named Takao but hell if I know which one she's actually named after) has joined the ranks here. Not saying that none of the other ship girls do this, but Takao really carries herself like a professional, whatever that means. Strict, formal, no bullshit, my favorite combination of traits whenever I need to work with other people and call them co-workers. I think I'll come to enjoy working with her. Maybe I should make her my secretary one day and reassign Ooyodo to something else just to try it out, see how she does as my secretary. Not saying Ooyodo isn't doing her job or that I'm dissatisfied with her work, I'm just curious. But why the fuck does she wear such a short skirt? I asked her about it, and she said that that was just how her uniform was made. I asked her if she was fine with it, and she said that as long as people didn't stare so much, she wouldn't mind, but I could tell just by how she sounded that she did have problems with it before. I didn't bother asking since that's probably uncomfortable territory I'd be pushing into, and the last thing I wanna do is alienate a potentially great secretary. Wait, now that I remember, why the hell does she wear airplanes as some sort of strap for her garterbelt? Since when was that a thing?

For our light carrier, we got Shouhou (祥鳳, I think that's Happy Phoenix or something, is there something about phoenixes and carriers in the Japanese navy?). Shouhou reminds me of a little bit more enthusiastic Houshou - well, I guess their names are similar too, while we're at it. Wait, both their names have to do something with phoenixes, right? Are they like part of the same class of light carriers or something? Whatever. Shouhou was nice and respectful, but like Takao, her clothes are a bit...like, I mean, if she's comfortable with wearing that, I guess it's fine, but it's going to be a bit before I get used to Shouhou rocking that sarashi around. I guess if I just treat it like she's wearing a sports bra, I'll get used to it faster. I shouldn't judge, I'm used to guys walking around with no shirts on back in America while on duty. Why should I let myself be bothered by my subordinates who prefer wearing nothing but sarashis? I blame society for inducing me to have double standards. When in doubt about some bad habit you have, blaming it on society is always a safe choice. Like that'll actually do you any good in life, right. I would comment on Shouhou's very obvious rack size as a guy, but I'll refrain from that since I don't wanna feel like I'm seeing my own subordinates like I were some drunk asshole trying to pick up girls off the street.

For our standard carrier, we got Souryuu (蒼龍, I know for sure that it means Blue Dragon, and again it's another one of those cases where someone's got a badass name that doesn't really fit them). She really reminds me of Samidare but more on the mature side, if that makes sense. Like Souryuu can get very cheerful and upbeat as Samidare can, but Souryuu looks and behaves more adult-like. I don't know if I'm doing a good job describing what I wanna say. I think Souryuu's our first twintail girl here - ah crap, never mind, I nearly forgot that Sazanami has twintails too, so Souryuu won't be the first. But unlike Sazanami, Souryuu's twintails are immediately noticeable. At least, they were to me. Figures why I almost forgot about Sazanami's. (Sorry, Sazanami.) And just like Samidare, Souryuu is super nice and kind to me. She's playful, but she won't let it get in the way of work, so she'll be serious when it's time to be serious, and I can appreciate that.

For our battleship, Kirishima's joined us. Goddamn, is she tall. She's slightly taller than me, and I consider myself to be pretty tall at around six feet. I can literally count the number of girls I've met in my life who were taller than me with the fingers on my hands, Kirishima now being one of them. She's basically like a taller, bespectacled version of Takao in battleship form: strict, formal, "professional", whatever that might mean in this context. Those detached sleeves she's wearing look really uncomfortable to have to deal with, and I asked Kirishima about it, but she said she didn't mind them. She saw my stereo system in my office and asked me if I had installed that, and when I told her that I had recently installed it but just hadn't gotten around to using it, she gave me a bit of a bright look, that look of approval or something. So I asked her if she liked music or something, and she said that she appreciated any officer who knew his or her way around electronics. So that probably means she's a techie, which is nice, since now I've got someone to refer to in case I have trouble with whatever devices later on. Probably.

And finally, for our submarine, we got I-168, or Imuya, which is her name if you say it in Japanese numbering. I swear to God her hair looks exactly like sherbet ice cream. Or maybe raspberry yogurt. Either way, just looking at her makes me crave fruits or candy or something sweet. It doesn't help that Imuya herself really likes sweets - I saw her head into the kitchen and come out with an orange popsicle. Besides that, I should've expected that submarine ship girls wear swimsuits. Of course, right, because someone out there who made their "uniforms" was a swimsuit fetishist. Goddamn it, who the fuck was in charge of making these girls' uniforms anyway. But complaining about clothes aside, Imuya is practically Samidare-tier cute, if that makes sense, and that's all I'll say. I'll stop before I go on making a list that ranks all the ship girls here in tiers of cuteness, 'cause my God that'll be a really long explanation I'll have to give to both my subordinates and to HQ if they find me making something like that.

Since they came early in the morning, they had a couple hours to move their stuff into the dorms. The problem with their move-in's that most of them, aside from Kitakami and Ooi, since they're in the same category of ships - er, ship girls - are gonna have to spend the next however many days, weeks, or months until we get more ship girls by themselves in their respective dorms. Like I mentioned way before, the dorms are separated by ship category. I mean, it won't be a big problem or anything, but I am kinda concerned that Takao, Shouhou, Souryuu, Kirishima, and Imuya might get a bit lonely, if that's accurate, because they don't have anyone else from their respective categories. Maybe something like that won't bother them in the end, but I'll keep that in mind in case I notice some of the ship girls being a bit down or something.

Orders from HQ that arrived soon after the new ship girls get fully situated at base basically told me to order everyone back out to Sector B. Luckily, the ship girls who came today are already trained in battle missions, having been through plenty of training and drills of their own back at the mainland, so they know what to do and can lead the destroyers. This time, though, it wasn't a reconnaissance mission I was sending my girls out on, but an actual assault mission. Their objectives were to seek out enemy ships in Abyssal waters at Sector B, around the outer perimeter, and gain experience and information on enemy attack formations and tactics. So at 1130 Hours, with Kirishima as flagship, I sent them out and went back to sleep in my room to try and sleep off my cough.

Problem is, when they came back about six hours later, Samidare was critically wounded. I woke up about an hour after they had come back, so imagine how badly my heart sank when Ooyodo informed me of Samidare's condition when I went back to my office to take care of any paperwork that would've come in over the course of the day. When I went to go check on Samidare, she wasn't conscious. According to Akashi, she may need to take the next three or four days off to recover. I asked what she had been hit by to nearly get killed - or, sunk would be the more appropriate word in this case - and Akashi said that the ship girls reported running into something called the Re-Class battleship, and that Samidare had literally been knocked straight out of battle before they could get into the fight by two direct hits from a 16-inch cannon. Had another 16-inch shell hit the same place that the other two shells had, Samidare's body would've been shredded in half, and she would've bled out before the fleet could get back to base.

Before I left the medbay, Akashi told me to go talk to Murakumo. According to Kirishima, whom I made the flagship for the mission, Murakumo was supposed to have been covering Samidare's right flank, the direction from which Samidare was hit, but Murakumo was too busy taking pot shots at some passing destroyers, apparently some I-classes, and because Murakumo was distracted, the Re-Class was able to get range to be able to take her shots.

I made a detour to my office first to read up on the post-action mission report that Kirishima left on my desk. (In case you haven't caught on by now, I've made it so that whoever's the flagship of the mission is responsible for the post-action mission report so I know what happened during the battle.) They ran into a whole fleet of I-classes and that Re-Class who completely wrecked Samidare. Apparently it was a really fierce battle between them. What I read on the Re-Class from analyzed reports sent by HQ basically said that Re-Class is something of a super-battleship who can easily fight against fleets many times the size of her own, even if she's by herself. The fact that my fleet had a lot of trouble dealing with her isn't surprising, and it's definitely worrying knowing that Re-Class is potentially one of the enemies the ship girls can run into from the very get-go. I was hoping that wouldn't be the case, but Sector B doesn't exactly sound like the place to be all nice and steady and cooperating from the very start anyway. Other than that, the ship girls know what kind of attacks Re-Class has and will use against them, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous, and that was pretty much about it for the report.

After that, I went over to the destroyers' dorm. I've passed by the destroyers' dorm a few times before; usually during nighttime before curfew, the girls would be talking, playing board games or cards or video games, or doing stuff together. They'd be pretty lively, is my point. But this time when I went over to go see if I could talk to Murakumo, it was dead quiet. It doesn't take a motherfuckin' genius to tell that something was really off tonight, presumably because of the fact that Samidare almost died today. I knocked on the door, and Fubuki answered it, barely peeking out from the door, and I asked her if Murakumo was in so I could talk to her. Fubuki asked me if I really did want to talk to her, because Murakumo was in no shape to talk to anyone at the moment. I told her that as her commanding officer, I kinda needed to, because I was already told of her situation. Fubuki almost reluctantly closed the door on me to go see if Murakumo would be willing to talk to me and came back saying that she didn't.

Let me take this time to say that honestly, if I wasn't their commanding officer, I would've just let this go. But because I am, I've gotta do things that normally I wouldn't do, like talk to someone who really needs to be talked to. I ordered Fubuki to let me in, and when Fubuki tried to protest it, saying that I really shouldn't bother Murakumo, I told her that I wasn't willing to repeat myself, so she let me in. I'm almost forgetting to mention that almost all of the destroyers had some sort of bandage on them, with the sole exception of Inazuma, who didn't look too thrilled by the fact that she was the only one who didn't get hit at all. Murakumo, too, had a bandage wrapped around both legs from a couple 5-inch cannon rounds.

When I found Murakumo in her futon (the ship girls can choose whether they want to sleep in a futon or a normal bed, whichever they prefer), she immediately turned her back to me underneath her bedsheets. She told me to go away, that she already knew why I was there in her dorm. I told her to tell me why I was there, then, if she so claimed that she knew, and Murakumo answered that I was there to scold her and tell her that she screwed up badly by letting Samidare get injured like she did. Well, I told her that she got it half right, the part about Samidare getting injured and whatnot. I said I wasn't going to yell at her or scold her. She said she didn't want to believe me. Since narrating our conversation like this is kinda awkward for me to write, I'll just write it out in a dialogue kinda format and hope that I can remember as much of our conversation as I can.

"Why won't you yell at me? You yelled at me before, right? Why shouldn't you yell at me for messing up like this this time?"

"Because this time around, the mistake you made was an honest mistake. You didn't intend on letting Samidare get hurt if you could help it."

"But she ended up getting hurt anyway! How's that supposed to make me feel better, huh?"

"I'm not trying to make you feel better. I'm trying to talk to you and make sure you know what you did wrong and will do what you can to make sure you don't do it twice."

"I know what I did wrong! Now shut up and go away, you idiot!"

"Okay, then, I will. But before I go, can I ask you one more thing?"

"What? Say it quick and get out..."

"Are you more upset about the fact that you got Samidare hurt, or are you more upset that I might've been really angry at you again for getting Samidare hurt?"

"...I don't know..."

"Then next time something like this happens, and hopefully it won't, be more worried about the ship girl who got hurt, not about me getting angry."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Why not? How doesn't it make sense?"

"Because you're being contradictory."

"How am I being contradictory?"

"Because you yelled at me that other day just for dissing Samidare, but now you're not angry at all at me for getting Samidare heavily damaged."

"I said it before, and I'll say it as many times I need to in order for you to get it. That time that I yelled at you, you wanted to hurt Samidare's feelings, so I punished you by screaming my ass off at you. This time around, it wasn't like you wanted Samidare to get hit, I'm assuming. Why should I yell at you for something you didn't intend on doing? If you were a soldier of mine back in America, maybe I would still yell at you. But you girls showed me that treating you girls exactly the same as I would treat my regular soldiers back in America doesn't work. I've learned a bit from you. Hopefully this learning thing can be mutual, yeah? Good night, Murakumo. If you want me to make you cake again to cheer you up, I will. Just talk to me."

And so I left it off there. I could tell that the other destroyers were listening in on the conversation because I overheard Sazanami muttering to herself "It'd be nice if we got some cake too..." as I was leaving the destroyer dorms.

I guess I know what to do tomorrow morning after paperwork.