Tuesday, February 11th, 2014.

Yamato informed me at breakfast that she would honor my decision and retain the title of flagship for tomorrow's mission. I told her that if she brought back good results, then I would dismiss any objection about Yamato not being suited for the flagship position. And conversely, even if she did poorly or the mission turned out poorly, if Yamato felt that she could definitely perform better on another mission, I would give her another chance.

I kind of have a feeling that the only reason Yamato chose to stick with being flagship is because she didn't feel that refusing it was an option. It's kind of like when people say "failure is not an option", but failure's always an option - just never the desirable one.

But when I saw her at breakfast, I could tell she was very nervous talking to me. Her hands were shaking a bit, for God's sake. So I took her outside again, just for a minute, though. I asked her why she felt nervous, and she said that she felt that by accepting the position of flagship, she'd have to meet my expectations of her as a flagship, on top of her reputation as being the single strongest ship girl at base, possibly in existence. I knew that I couldn't tell her that I didn't have any expectations of her, because in Japanese society, if you don't have expectations of a subordinate, that's considered rude, since you're essentially saying that you don't have faith in their abilities or you don't think that they have what it takes to get the job done. So instead, I told her that while I expected her to bring home good results, I said that I would be able to understand if she wasn't able to do so. While I'm hoping we never have a battle like that capture mission last week or so again, one bad mission isn't about to sully Yamato's image in my mind. So I reassured Yamato that she didn't need to go into sortie tomorrow with the burden of fearing that I might devalue her worth or anything if she slipped up somewhere. I advised her to take today's training seriously, though, so that she wouldn't have that same nervousness in combat.

To my relief, that seemed to help Yamato a lot. Her hands stopped shaking, and the smile and salute she gave me were genuine and sincere. She thanked me for taking the time to really take care of her and making her feel welcome. She admitted that she didn't know what to feel when she learned that the commander at the Okinawa forward base was an American, which is completely understandable, seeing how the Americans obliterated Operation Ten-Go to bits - she probably has some bad memories from that, but I didn't bring up Ten-Go again. I've realized that Ten-Go might be a bit of a...sore spot for her still.

Before we headed back to the mess hall, I told Yamato that a happy smile suited her much better than an anxious one. I said it would be a pity to see such a beautiful face be marred with a frown or worry. She blushed pretty hard at that, which amused me. Today's taught me that Yamato's an honest girl who very typically wears her emotions on her sleeves. She presents the paradoxical image of a strong dreadnought battleship mixed with the softer, more feminine young woman that she is because of her human form.

Yin and Yang.

After paperwork, I headed out to the training waters to oversee the rest of the training regimen in the afternoon. It turned out that setting Yamato as flagship was an excellent choice for the fleet. Yamato is a naturally charismatic figure, with her status as a dreadnought battleship and her tall stature, and they worked very smoothly as a coherent fleet, despite only having trained for only two days.

It's such a weird but intriguing sight at the same time, watching the ship girls train. Swirling around on the water and surfing across, boosting this way and that - it's a real feat that girls like these can even exist. It's borderline surreal. Actually, no, it is surreal. I'm commanding a fleet of ships who've been revived from the history books and given human form. If that isn't surreal, I don't know what is. Think about it, how many people in the world can say that they've been in my position?

Ooyodo told me after training that my fleet was fully prepared to go on their mission tomorrow. With our current fleet, their firepower was enough to make an assault mission into Sector B waters possible and feasible. I said that I would keep that in consideration, but likely I wouldn't change the mission plans that I've got in my head for tomorrow. But it's reassuring to be told that my fleet's ready to rock nonetheless.

Later on before dinner, I ran into Takao scolding Akebono after she'd apparently cornered Akebono near my office. I asked what was going on, and Takao explained to me that she was fed up and tired with Akebono constantly shit-talking me and calling me "Kuso Teikoku" (Shitty Admiral, literally) all the time. By this point, that's all that Akebono's cared to call me, so I don't give a shit anymore since I don't take it seriously, and I told Takao to just leave Akebono alone, that if she was that immature not to rectify her own behavior that's so glaringly rude and shitty, it wasn't worth our time trying to correct her behavior ourselves.

Not surprisingly, Akebono hissed at me like an angry cat, calling me Fucking Shithead Admiral. Well, I mean I guess she's ramped up her profanity production.

Takao argued that we couldn't just let her go on like this. This was the military, and everyone here is a soldier living at a military base, so there was to be at least a certain degree of discipline that everyone must follow. Akebono was clearly not following such discipline and needed it, and Takao suggested that I impose heavy punishments on Akebono for her disorderly conduct. And if I would not do so, she would take matters into her own hands and do what she can to correct Akebono's shit attitude.

So in part to calm Takao down and in part to take this chance to find out what Akebono's really up to, I brought Akebono into my office and told Takao to go on and have dinner first and tell Houshou that I would be busy talking with Akebono shortly before dinner. I sat her down in front of my desk.

I asked Akebono why she was making this whole ruckus. Ever since she'd gotten here, I told her that she's been a real fucking pain in the ass. Ruining my cake the other day that was meant for Souryuu (I think it was), calling me Shitty Admiral, not really getting along with anyone else except for Yamato (whom she respects) and Sazanami (who's her ship sister, but even then I've seen them have a couple arguments), I asked Akebono if she ever intended to change her attitude.

"Why the hell does this base have to have an American admiral? How the fuck does that make sense? A pretty stupid-looking one, too, you piece of shit Admiral. Don't you know that it was your country who sank us the first time around?"

...well, how now, brown cow?

What do I even say to that?

I just slowly facepalmed. First Kitakami, and now Akebono.

...well, if anything, I suppose I now know the basis on which she chooses to call me "Shitty Admiral" because really what she's trying to say is "Get the fuck off our island, you fucking piece of shit American".

Nope, don't have the patience for another one. Nope, nope nope nope nope nope nope nope.

Nope.

Nyooooope.

I kicked Akebono out of my office and barred her from dinner for tonight. I told Akebono that if she wanted dinner today, she'll have to settle for Shinsengumi when Houshou opens it up for the evening after dinnertime was past, and if she tried heading to the mess hall for some dinner, I would check with Mamiya and Irako to see if she did and ban her from the mess hall for a week if she tried. I fully expected her to disregard what I said and just go have dinner at the mess hall anyway.

Surprisingly, I saw Akebono at Shinsengumi when I slipped in for a mug of Coke and plain onigiri, and she was eating quite a lot, suggesting that she really did heed my warning, but I bet you my sword that she's in no way happy about it. She probably saw that I got instantly fed up with her once she threw the race card in and felt that it wasn't worth it to nab dinner for tonight. About ten or so minutes into me coming into Shinsengumi, Akebono saw me sitting at the counter sipping on some Coke and left the place really quickly after that.

Houshou, after Akebono left, came out and gave me my onigiri and told me that Akebono had told her about what happened earlier this evening in my office. She told me that I ought to be patient with the girls like Akebono, who have short fuses and get angered easily, even if they threw insults regarding my ethnicity at me. She pointed out that after all, some of the girls still have rather bad memories of the country called America, even if it's been, what, seventy years since the war. I told Houshou that, look, I understand that, the whole hatred towards America thing, but if they couldn't see by now that the America now is a whole lot different than the America they knew and fought during the war, then that was completely out of my control and that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to convince them of this truth. I countered that I myself was under a Catch-22 of my own, because even if I want to change the girls so that they no longer harbor any animosity towards me because of my ethnicity and where I come from, I would never be able to do so because of the very fact that I'm from that place that they hate so much.

Houshou simply said that I ought to be intelligent enough to figure out a way to circumvent that Catch-22. After all, I was a Commander, right? I didn't become a Commander because I wasn't smart enough to figure out how to solve problems, right? She told me that I could find a way to reconcile with Kitakami and Akebono and anyone else who might have a problem with me because of my ethnicity. She said that there was only so much she herself could to talk to the girls, but ultimately it was I who would need to make the effort to make the girls understand.

So I asked her,

"Houshou-san, do you still have any qualms against my country?"

She said,

"No, Teikoku, I do not."

So I tested her.

"Even though you outlived all of your daughters - the carriers - in the war?"

And bingo, I got a reaction out of her.

As soon as I asked her that last question, I knew that she realized I'd been testing her, and that she completely gave it away with her reaction. She left me alone for the rest of the night until I finished eating and left.

I guess I need to admit to myself that I've been too negligent.

Because if even Houshou herself feels this way, I kinda have to wonder,

just how many of the ship girls at my base harbor these similar feelings of hate towards not just me, but towards my own country?

And yet, an even better question is,

Now that I'm aware of this, possibility, how the fuck am I supposed to lead this kind of a fleet from here on out?

A fleet filled with ship girls, any of whom might treat me well when I'm around, but if I'm not...

I don't like it. I really don't like it. At this point, if I let this kind of subtle paranoia get the better of me, it's better for me to petition the US government to pull me from this program.

But let me get this straight: I don't say this because I'm scared of the ship girls creeping up to my room and slitting my throat while I'm asleep, I've had to deal with that many times in the past, and frankly, by this point in my life, I don't really care.

I say this because I would legitimately rather send good men to their deaths in my home post because there, at least those men and I know that we have a job to do and something we all have in common to work towards. I don't know if I can say the same about some of these girls, and worst part is, I don't even know if it's something that can even be fixed.