Saturday, March 15th, 2014.
Happy White Day. Sweetened with the cherry red syrup known as blood.
At 1000 hours, as planned, the supply helicopters arrived at the Six-Pack. By then, Seal Team Six was already well in position overlooking the Six-Pack. I informed the fleet what was going to happen at breakfast, so the girls headed out with me to the Six-Pack. I told them not to do anything and to stand by just in case of emergency.
Takeda and his ultranationalist supporters got out of the helicopters first as I walked out to meet them, sword and gun by my side. Half his men yelled at my girls to back up, ordering them to not interfere at the threat of scrapping them if they did, which pissed me off, because by technicality, according to the Moebius Pact, the only person who can give the ship girls orders once they're deployed to this base is me, but I didn't show it then. The other half of the men formed a semi-circle in front of me, while the men who barked ordered to my fleet flanked me from behind, surrounding me quickly before they thought I could escape, but I had no plans on trying to escape anyway.
Takeda approached me as his men drew their guns. He said that no matter what I did, I wouldn't be leaving this place alive. As Seal Team Six had predicted, Takeda drew his katana and ordered me to drop my pistol and draw my own sword.
I asked him why he wanted to face me like this. Wasn't killing me immediately just a more efficient way of doing things?
Takeda retorted that all we Americans ever did was do things efficiently, too efficiently. We would never understand the meaning of deliberating on our actions, that we were too stupid to create any sense of meaning behind our shallow actions. They would make a ceremony out of killing me. And with my death, Takeda declared, Japan would finally rid itself of American tyranny and gain complete control over its own rightful military and navy, and that even if the United States wanted to retaliate, the US would never be able to rule Japan again with their iron fist like they'd done for nearly seventy years.
I just shrugged and told him what a pity it was, that his plan wouldn't work, at least not for now.
Seal Team Six sniped all the men surrounding us in a blink of an eye, leaving only Takeda standing. That's the skill of the world's most classified black ops team for you.
The ship girls were just as stunned as Takeda was when they saw all the men get knocked over from headshots onto the lot. Because Seal Team Six used silenced rifles, Takeda didn't even hear where the gunshots were coming from, but he was unfazed. He declared that he didn't know how I'd figured out his plan or what I just pulled off, but no matter what, I wouldn't be leaving here alive, so he charged at me with his katana.
Unfortunately for him, he forgot that I brought a gun to a swordfight. And because this isn't Hollywood, a gun wins every single time.
I put a bullet through his left knee and another through his right hand, forcing him to drop his katana on the ground next to him and leaving him unable to walk. As I approached him, he kept cursing at me in Japanese, calling me probably every single stereotypical Japanese insult for a foreigner in existence. Because Japanese isn't my first language, such insults don't bother me anywhere near as if someone calls me a pussy-ass bitch in English. My favorite part was when he screamed at me,
"Face me like a man and use your sword! Have you no honor? You have a sword on you, don't you?!"
I simply told him that this sword I was wearing was purely a ceremonial sword - no good for actual melee combat. So to get in a swordfight with someone who wielded an actual katana purpose-built for fighting and killing would just be plain stupidity.
Besides, as I told him, I'm just a stupid American foreigner, like he said. How could he honestly expect me to know what "honor" is? Did he really expect me to not use my gun? I just laughed in his face.
And then I put my boot in his face and put my knee on his chest and started whalloppin' the fuck out of him. I punched him in the face and the head for nearly three minutes straight. If there's one thing all American officers can be proud of, it's that we can punch people's skulls in better than anyone else can. My knuckles still hurt about thirteen hours later, but I painted them red twice over. Normally, it's not a good idea to keep punching someone in the head, since the human skull is designed to protect the brain from things like punches, and your knuckles will break eventually if you keep punching someone in the head for long enough, depending on how tough the bones in your knuckles are and if you're not wearing gloves or something to protect your hands. But I didn't care. I even tossed off my officer gloves just to beat the shit out of that fucker personally. My knuckle sandwiches were on a goddamn fire sale, and I had one hungry customer who'd eat 'em all, even if he didn't want to.
By the end of it, he was barely conscious. So I picked up his katana that he'd dropped when I shot his hand, pulled his head up to that he'd barely be able to sit up on his own, and ran him through with his own katana dead center in his chest. And since I wanted to see if a Japanese katana can indeed decapitate someone in one swing - after all, that's what katanas are designed to do, right?
I sent Takeda's head rolling. I barely pulled it off, because I think I hit more bone than was optimal, but I watched his head roll off the pier into the water. I didn't bother going over to see where it landed in the water.
Still standing over Takeda's headless body, I took out my handkerchief and wiped the blade clean. A fantastic sword like his doesn't deserve the same kind of neglect that his body deserves. Seal Team Six emerged from their positions, and Sanford complemented me on my clean decapitation, saying that he didn't expect me to pull it off in one clean stroke like I did. I admitted that it was a lot more difficult than I made it look, that I almost screwed it up.
Seal Team Six took care of the body and ordered the supply choppers to unload their cargo and go about their day normally. It didn't matter if they reported what they saw here to the government, Seal Team Six already captured the whole event today on camera as documented proof and would inform both Third Echelon and HQ about the incident today.
And to my great relief, we received reinforcements, who had been ordered by Takeda and his men to stay in the helicopters while they took care of me. Or, at least, tried to.
Akatsuki (暁, or "Dawn"), the lead ship girl of the Akatsuki-Class destroyers. She keeps going on about how she ought to be treated like a real lady, which I don't really understand, because she's like Inazuma in that she and the rest of her ship sisters look like middle school students at best. Maybe it's because of that long black hair of hers that looks royal purple if you look at it from the right angle under some kind of light or out in the sun. I don't know how well I'll get along with her. It could also be because of her name, her name sounds like it could be a royal lady's.
Hibiki (響, or "Echo"), the second of the Akatsuki-Class destroyers. Practically the exact opposite of the rest of her sisters in some way: serious, soft-spoken, if she ever speaks at all, and expressionless, as though she doesn't bother herself with having something as distracting as her own thoughts. She does what she's told, though, so I won't worry about her being rebellious as Akatsuki might tend to get.
Ikazuchi (雷, or "Thunder"), the third of the Akatsuki-Class destroyers and the closest by far to Inazuma. Inazuma practically screamed her lungs out when she saw Ikazuchi get off her helicopter, since Ikazuchi was the first one to disembark when we went to go fetch them. They could almost pass as twins who have opposite personalities and differing tastes in fashion: Inazuma's got her hair in an upturned ponytail, while Ikazuchi doesn't bother with a hairstyle and is more outgoing and hyper than Inazuma. Given her general enthusiasm, I shouldn't expect to have any trouble having her part of the fleet and giving her orders.
Shigure (時雨, or "Drizzle"), another destroyer from the Shiratsuyu-Class this time. Allow me to say that Shigure is awfully pretty. To me, she holds the same kind of charm that Samidare has, but it's a bit dampened in Shigure because she doesn't smile anywhere as often as Samidare does. If Samidare is the happy beauty, Shigure is the sad, pensive beauty. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but Shigure's always got this look of profound sadness in her eyes. Maybe something happened to her before she got deployed here. She gives me a smile whenever I've come around to talk to her, but after seeing Samidare's smiles, I can tell that Shigure's have no real substance in them, that she's smiling at me purely for the sake of appearing polite to her superior and Commander. It'd be nice if I could change that.
Yuudachi (夕立, or "Evening Squall"), Shigure's companion destroyer from the same class. Oh man, I don't know how they're so close to each other. Yuudachi is completely opposite of everything that Shigure is: upbeat, hyper, bouncy, and always looking for something to do. Plus, she really, really likes getting petted. The first thing she asked me to do was pet her, so I did, but she told me to put some more heart into it, so I did, and she was satisfied. I don't know if I can get used to someone like her. To put it lightly, it's gonna be really weird. At least she's fun to be around, I suppose.
Sendai (川内, named after the Sendai River in Kyuushu), another light cruiser, which is a welcome addition to our small light cruiser squadron. Matter of fact, we need more light cruisers and heavy cruisers. She keeps going on like a broken record about night battles, though. The fleet didn't appreciate her arrival, saying that the "Yasen Baka" (Night Battle Idiot, literally) had arrived. I quickly understood their halfheartedness at Sendai's arrival, because she spent about an hour dancing around in my office chanting "Yasen! Yasen! Yasen! Yasen! Yasen! Yasen! Yasen! Yasen-dayo~!" Thankfully, I've worked in worse and more distracting office conditions before in my pencil-pushing days in the Navy, but that didn't mean that what Sendai was doing was any less annoying. So I kicked her out of my office, but about half an hour later, she hopped right back in, saying that Kiso kicked her out of the cafeteria. I mean, if she ends up being really good at night battles, then great, she'll be perfect for our Operation Blackout missions, but even still...oh God...
Unfortunately, even though I'd hoped for a higher quality posse of reinforcements, they were all we got. I mean, it's nice having more destroyers and all, but another carrier, maybe another battleship, one or two more heavy cruisers, and more light cruisers would've been better. Being a part of the US Navy, having thoughts like this are second nature, because it's rare that we're ever given the quality of supplies we'd need. I guess some things don't change no matter what navy you're a part of.
After this morning's incident, I threw my clothes and uniform into the laundry, switched out to civvie clothes, and went straight to the mess halls and did nothing but make white chocolates and small cakes for the entire base with the supplies the choppers ferried in for White Day until lunch, even for the girls who didn't bother giving me chocolate last month on Valentine's Day.
But the fleet had watched me brutally execute someone, even if that someone was trying to kill me. There's no doubt that I certainly went overboard, and when I spoke with Fubuki later on during dinnertime, she said that the most unsettling part about the incident was the fact that I showed absolutely no emotion or reaction to anything that had happened. To the fleet, I acted as though something like that was completely fucking normal, like it was something I saw on a daily basis to not look as though I gave a shit about it, and for the more sensitive girls, it really messed with their perception of me as their Commander.
Well, that's fine. To me, that's a small price to pay to rid the world of another person like that. I'll just stick that under my invisible track record of community service.
I spent the rest of the evening looking over the armament catalog that the helicopters flew in along with the supplies. I sent HQ a weapons order, so I should get a reply tomorrow confirming or denying my request. For some reason, I feel like they'll deny it.
Before I came to my room to write this entry and go to sleep, I hung Takeda's katana on the wall behind my desk in my office.
It'll stay there, not so much as as trophy, but as a reminder to myself, that most likely, I wasn't out of the danger zone just yet.
If anything, I've thrown myself into the fire now.