Friday, April 4th, 2014.

I woke up to Akebono tumbling onto the floor of my bedroom. Apparently she'd been trying to chase Chika down, who'd wandered into my room, and Batsubyou, who was sleeping on the floor over the night, made her trip and faceplant onto the floor. She gave me her usual abusive greeting of "What're you lookin' at, you piece 'a shit!" and ran out. Well...at least I went from "Shitty Admiral" to "piece of shit". Not that that's an upgrade by any means.

At breakfast, Akebono was surrounded by Akatsuki and the gang, who were acutely interested in Akebono's new Kai powers. Akebono seemed to be having quite the time enjoying her newfound popularity and respect as the up-and-coming ace in the hole for the fleet, but I also discovered that Sazanami, who always sits with Akebono at mealtimes, since they're ship sisters, wasn't keen on joining her. So I sat with her, Fubuki, Murakumo, and Samidare, and asked her why she wasn't going over to eat with Akebono this morning.

Sazanami just gave me a look of quiet disappointment, which is extremely rare for Sazanami.

"Because Akebono got stronger than me," she said. "I don't wanna lose to her."

Oh ho? So is that how it is, a sisterly rivalry? This is surprising in quite a few ways. For one, whenever I see Sazanami, she's always got this rebellious, smug smirk ready to put on her face, no matter what the situation or the atmosphere. She's developed quite the reputation here as the naval base's resident troll and dank memer. That's why Akebono used that 2ch reference on me before, 'cause she learned it from Sazanami. I've also heard from Fubuki that sometimes she feels that Sazanami spends a bit too much time on the laptop. For two, I never thought of Sazanami as someone who would care enough to have rivalries. I mean, yeah, sure, the ship girls who get stronger, better equipment, or the Kai upgrade get some attention for some time, but Sazanami has usually been one to not really buy into the hype surrounding such occasions.

So I asked Sazanami why she felt that way. I asked perhaps if it was because Sazanami was accustomed to being the veteran ship sister to Akebono, that she wanted to feel like the stronger, more powerful one out of her ship sisters? Or perhaps it was because she was a bit resentful that even though she's been here at this naval base in Okinawa ever since the beginning, Sazanami still hasn't received a Kai upgrade while Akebono received it before her.

Sazanami just gave me an uncertain shrug and said that she wasn't sure. All she knew was that she felt a bit irritated for some reason, and that she couldn't quite put her finger on why. I asked if putting her on the waitlist for the Kai upgrade would make her feel better, but Sazanami declined it.

"I don't need to feed my own ego with more power," Sazanami said. "Unlike Akebono-chan, I can derive satisfaction from my own power alone."

Yikes, Sazanami, can you be any saltier. That's just a dead giveaway that tells me you really want to get on Akebono's level.

Because I'd processed the photos and other valuable mission information delivered by the few recon planes that managed to survive their hellish mission profiles into Dog District airspace and back to their carriers and sent them to both HQ and Seal Team Six, HQ's gotten back to me this morning after I sent the fleet out to train. And it's some pretty awful news.

Dog Five, the central island of the Dog District five-island archipelago, got revealed to be the central command headquarters of Sector B - honestly, not very surprising. I had an inkling that that could be the case. I mean, just looking at the map of the sector, it kind of looks that way to begin with. But it's not just the Abyssal headquarters - the recon planes' photos and video feeds showed that there's all kinds of terraforming equipment and infrastructure there, operating 24/7. (See? I was right, they do have some wicked terraforming tech and gear over there.)

But HQ also figured out why they're working 24/7 - they're powering some sort of main reactor structure at the heart of Dog Five. It appears that HQ is taking this new threat very seriously (I have a feeling that the Japanese government is afraid this's some kind of nuclear reactor, as Japan's had multiple incidents regarding nuclear hazards in the past), as they've even notified me of their intention of sending in Japanese special forces team of the 特殊作戦群 (Tokushu Sakusen Gun) or the Japanese Special Forces Group, the JSFG, to investigate the threat. At first, I narrowed my eyes at that, because why the hell would you send in human forces against enemies like the Abyssals? It shouldn't matter how "elite" or "special forces" they are, they're just gonna get slaughtered if they go into Sector B without ship girl escorts. Dunno what the JMSDF and the JGSDF plan on doing with the JSFG.

But that's not all. Much to my surprise, HQ informed me that they would be dispatching a huge squadron of reinforcements to our naval base sometime next week. They explained that I had about a week to train these new reinforcements in preparation of a massive naval attack on Dog District, specifically Dog Five, scheduled about two or three weeks from now, they said they weren't sure exactly when yet. And by huge, they actually gave me an estimate: about fifteen additional members. Now that's the kind of reinforcement we're talkin' about.

However, in exchange, they wanted me to order the fleet to participate in said massive naval attack. They didn't give much detail about this coordinated attack, but they did say they'd get back to me on it. I don't know...this sounds...

This seems like the biggest flag ever for a final battle-esque situation.

I don't know...maybe I'm just pussying out too much...

But regardless, at lunch, I informed the fleet of these news. I asked the fleet to take all sorties and training seriously from now on, because we didn't know what was going to happen. I mean, they already take sorties seriously, but not everyone takes training too seriously just yet.

Today's sortie was...well, it's better if I explain.

So given all this new information from HQ about shit going on at Dog District and now that we have Akebono, who's got this kickass ability that empowers her to one-shot big Abyssals, I decided to send the fleet on another Dog District run. The Abyssals always defend the perimeter of the areas where the fleet's attacked last, so I know for a fact that we can find a lot of big Abyssals for Akebono to sink to her heart's content. In addition, this'll really soften up Abyssal defenses in preparation for this "final battle" thing that I'm getting from HQ. With that being said, I designated Akebono as flagship and deployed them. Akebono sure seemed excited that she'd get to kick some more Abyssal ass today.

Then, when I went back to my office and checked my email, I saw an email from Seal Team Six without a subject header as usual. I opened it, and the only words that it said was

"DO NOT SEND THE FLEET TO SECTOR B TODAY"

That's all it said. In all caps, like Big was screaming at me from across the Pacific Ocean.

So I bolted out of my chair so fast that I knocked over my office chair and caused Batsubyou to jump up from my desk in fright before dashing out of my office to go look for Houshou, whom I found in Shinsengumi. I explained the situation urgently to her and asked her if she, Mamiya, or Irako was willing to head out and track down the fleet to have them come back.

Houshou immediately went over to the storage rooms, fished out her bow and flight deck and gearbox that she hadn't touched in God knows how long, and deployed herself without a word. Houshou went full Charisma Establishment on my ass, now that I think about it. It took her about forty-five minutes to fetch the fleet back to base. Akebono, who was obviously extremely pissed off that I'd called off the mission in which she'd been the flagship for the very first time, demanded to know what the fuck was going on, calling me all kinds of variations of Shitty Admiral, as is her trademark, before Takao came over and bopped her on the head to shut her up. I explained that I'd just been notified by Seal Team Six that I was not to sortie the fleet today, and that I'd just received the email right after they'd left. I apologized to Akebono, saying that the next sortie I'd send them on, she'd retain her flagship status, something that Takao voiced her disapproval heavily about, going on about her usual schpiel on Akebono's deviant and profane behavior and speech.

Well, for starters, I really wanted to know why Seal Team Six told me to pull the fleet back - so until I got a reply back, I spent the afternoon training the fleet out on the practice waters.

Akebono's new equipment and augmentation really fascinated me from what she'd told me, but I still didn't quite understand how Slayer worked. If Akebono had been delivered back to base normally, I would've have Big or whoever came along explain it to me, so I asked Akebono directly.

But Akebono said she didn't know.

What? I asked her, but don't you know how your own augmentation works? Like, the inner workings of it and whatnot?

Akebono just shook her head at me. She said that all she needed to do was look at an enemy, confirm it as a particular target, like a heavy cruiser, battleship, etc., and just aim her torpedoes, and let the torpedo do the rest. I repeated my question again, wording it a bit differently to see if Akebono could give me an answer, but she just called me Shitty Admiral again and said she didn't know.

I don't know if Akebono's just being a little shit with me or what, but...when I went over Akebono's ability in my head again, for some reason...

...it really, really worries me.

The main reason why it worries me is because all the augmentations we have so far in the fleet are well-explained and are clear in their instructions of operation. Well, not Kiyoshimo's Prototype Yamato Cannon at first. But my point is that even with the Yamato Cannon Type 0, we knew how it worked. It's a miniature nuclear reactor that powers a particle-accelerator energy pulse through a cannon, to put it in its most basic definition.

But Slayer...I don't know why I didn't think of this yesterday when I first heard it. Maybe because I was just hyped to have Akebono back after she kicked so much ass in yesterday's sortie. But now that I'm off the hype train and can think clearly about Akebono's internal augmentation, it's so...eck, it's fucking ambiguous as hell. Literally, it's taken straight out of an RPG or something. Everything else is at least scientifically possible with advanced military hardware and tech. But now that I think about it, what the hell makes it so that you arbitrarily do more damage just based on what kind of target you're attacking? How the hell does Slayer know, if it's an internal augmentation, when Akebono's targeting an Abyssal destroyer compared to an Abyssal battleship? It's not connected directly to Akebono's weapons, I don't think. And if Akebono is telling the truth,

Just how the fuck does it work?

And it's not just Akebono. Progressively, we've been getting stronger and better augmentations, and even the Kai upgrades themselves seem like they're getting better, y'know? Because who was the first girl to receive Kai? Well, there were two, Ooi and Imuya at the same time. Ooi and Imuya's Kai upgrades didn't include the double-augmentation slot thing. In addition, ugh - who was it again? - I think it was starting with either Wakaba or Suzuya that the Kai girls began to come with their own personal shielding, just like the shielding on some of the stronger Abyssal ship girls. Needless to say, Seal Team Six's progress on these nifty upgrades for the fleet is obviously making lots of progress.

But Slayer is the first augmentation we've received from Seal Team Six that is truly mysteriously powerful, like it works on...magic. I dunno.

So like...doesn't it feel like they're making a little bit...too much progress?

Or am I just being paranoid?