Thursday, February 20th, 2014.
It was really, really tough getting through the day today. I mean, most normal people should have a tough time getting through the day after they've been shot three times.
A soldier, however, can't use that excuse. I'm a soldier before all else. Therefore, I can't use that excuse.
It's just as simple as that.
So three gunshot wounds isn't enough to keep me from waking up like I usually have ever since Akagi and Yamato came to base. I accidentally woke up the destroyers in my room when I tried to walk over them after getting up, and they all tried to talk me down, saying that I was supposed to still stay in bed and recover for at least a week because that's what Akashi had said. I just shrugged them off, saying that there's at least three days' worth of work that needs to get done, on top of today's, and that lying around in bed using gunshot wounds as an excuse to not do work wasn't really my thing. They tailed me all the way to the kitchens, trying to convince me to go back to bed. They said that I was too weak to work right now, that I wasn't like them who could just shrug off bullets and expect to be all good with a few days' rest.
And to their credit, they're absolutely right. It's not a good idea at all for a human being who's been shot three times to decide to walk around after only three days' rest.
When I reached the kitchens, though, I was surprised to see both Akagi and Yamato there helping Houshou, Irako, and Mamiya with this morning's breakfast. But I'm pretty sure they were more surprised than I was seeing them when they saw me walk in with the destroyers right behind me. Houshou was the first to reach me. She practically begged me to go back to bed to the point where she was ready to get down to her knees to have me go back. Yamato and Akagi were really angry at the destroyers, asking them why they let me come all the way here. Judging from what they were talking about, I'm pretty sure the destroyers were there specifically to keep me in bed because Mamiya and Irako knew that once I'd come to again, the first thing I'd do in the morning was come to the kitchens like it's business as usual. The destroyers said that they'd tried, but I'd just ignored them. I told Akagi and Yamato to stand down, that they weren't at fault for anything.
It turns out that Mamiya, Irako, and Houshou had talked to Yamato and Akagi the night of the day that I got shot and explained to them what I'd been doing for them all each and every morning. They'd explained to the two of them how I was helping out in the kitchens every single morning ever since they'd arrived at base, since they were basically out-eating the entire rest of the base by themselves alone. Yamato and Akagi were more than obliged to help out in my stead, and they'd been doing so since Monday. They told me that from now on, they would help Mamiya, Irako, and Houshou out at the kitchens so that I wouldn't have to beat my head in over it. After all, they were the ones who were inadvertently causing me to essentially work overtime all this time.
So I let them take care of breakfast and lunch duty and headed back to my office. As expected, Ooyodo had gathered up the paperwork and stacked them up on the desk, though I didn't think it was a whole lot at first. But a note that Ooyodo left on my desk explained that she had already sorted through the paperwork already and completed everything that didn't require my signature or anything like that, so what would've probably been seven hours' worth of paperwork got reduced down to only about three, meaning I could get it done in one morning's sitting before lunch. Which I did.
But man, keeping myself awake was hard. Needless to say, I'd lost a lot of blood, and not all of it got replaced during the few days I'd been out. I didn't lose enough to warrant a blood transfusion (we don't really have many standard medical supplies here anyway, because the only person who'd use standard med supplies would be me). So after I sat down in my office to get started on the paperwork, I nearly fell unconscious right there on my seat. I didn't complain or bitch the entire time I was up, so I think I've earned the right to say here in this journal that today fucking sucked. It doesn't matter if those three shots I took back on Monday weren't the worst I've been hit by, it still sucks having to work with three holes in your chest.
Houshou was nice enough to stop by for breakfast and lunch to give me my food so that I wouldn't have to walk over to the mess hall and mess my body up even further.
After lunch, I tried to have the fleet sortie, since my missions got backed up by three days, but everyone refused to sortie. They wanted to stay at base and make sure that what happened on Monday wasn't about to happen again. Without me even telling them to do anything, the girls had, by themselves, organized a 24-hour guard duty on the base. Takao and Kirishima, who'd organized this impromptu guard duty rotation, made it so that there's always two ship girls awake at base at all times. So far, there wasn't anyone else who tried sneaking into the base after those five right-wing guys came in by heli and shot me, but they were on edge. They weren't about to lose their Admiral to some politically extremist terrorists. It's almost like the girls see no difference between guys like them and the Abyssals. Whether that's good or not, I'm not one to judge.
So no sorties until I've recovered a little bit more and the girls are confident that nothing else's about to happen to me. Really, all I need to do now is just carry my Beretta on me at all times for self-defense. I guess it's partly my own fault for not being prepared for a potential assassination attempt like the one on Monday. But that still didn't convince the girls, so no sortie today. Instead, the girls just used today for training.
While I'm too weak physically to get angry at the girls, it's still annoying that the girls are refusing to sortie for my own protection. We had a chance to take down Able One, Able Two, and Able Three for good while the Abyssals were gathered at Able Four, but that opportunity's long gone. Emails from HQ had satellite photos attached that indicated that the Abyssals had since retaken full control of the rest of the Able sector. Whatever they were doing at Able Four, it's now done, and the Abyssals don't feel like they need to defend the place so heavily anymore. This makes me uneasy...I don't feel like I'll feel the same way sending the girls on another mission, now that I know that there was a chance that was missed. I forced the girls to promise me that they'd sortie tomorrow, though. There was no way I would let them use me as an excuse to not sortie, that's not why I was here at Okinawa for.
I swear to God, though, if my fleet suffers more casualties because of the fact that I didn't capitalize on the Abyssals' defensive stance, I'm gonna rip the girls a new one. But as of now, I'm too tired to feel anything.
Inazuma visited me in my office in the late afternoon, after the girls got off afternoon training. At the time, I was going through another sleep attack, which I succumbed to a lot more easily now that I'm wounded and recovering, so Inazuma, when she entered my office and saw me slumped over in my chair with my eyes closed, thought I'd died right there and shook me awake while crying her eyes out. Yikes, I've never seen a girl her age cry like a total baby, but I don't mean that in a mean way. The fact that someone her age would care for someone else so much to the point where they'd just up 'n cry like that is a completely foreign concept to me. In America, people just tell you to man up and deal with it, and that's how I grew up. Whenever something bad happened, you just deal with it and cry either by yourself in a dark corner where no one else can see you or to someone you know really well and whom you trust. I guess it might be a lot more different here.
Usually, the normal me would've just put a hand on her head or something when Inazuma came over to shake me awake. But given my fuzzy mentality and rationale, I decided that hugging her was a better idea, and that's what I did.
"I'm okay," I told her, but she didn't believe me, because she bawled into my uniform for a good fifteen minutes. She left my office soon after she'd calmed down so that I could finish the rest of my mission plans in silence.
Inazuma's launch day is coming up in five days. I'll keep that in mind.
Too tired to write more. I can feel a cough coming - I bet I'll be sick tomorrow with a cold. Sometimes you can just tell if you're going to be sick the next day, and tonight's one of those moments. Gotta get my hibernation on.