Wednesday, April 9th, 2014.

Shigure came to wake me up and make sure I didn't randomly die in my sleep overnight.

"Good morning, Admiral," Shigure said, and she gave me a morning peck on my cheek.

That way she said "Good morning", though...honestly, Shigure is growing on me every single day.

I told Shigure she didn't need to act like my wife or anything; I didn't need to be spoiled. But Shigure said that spoiling me was what made her happy, because it would help her feel like she's making amends for all the terrible things she'd done to me. I told her that those things were in the past, and those didn't matter anymore, now that Shigure was back to normal.

Just as I was about to get up from my bed, Shigure climbed onto the bed with me and pushed me down. She added that if she really were my wife, she'd be able to show me everything that she wanted to do for me that involved "making amends".

I told her that I just wanted to keep all my relationships platonic for now. Shigure said she already knew, so she just laid down on top of me, and we laid there together on my bed, just chilling, until my chest started hurting from Shigure's head pressing down on it.

When we left my room, I told Shigure that it wasn't nice of her to be taking extra steps to gain my favor ahead of the other girls. Shigure just gave me one of her warm smiles and held my arm all the way back to my office.

All's fair in love and war, I suppose. Shigure just might be in the lead now, which makes me feel bad for Samidare, because Samidare was the first one to approach me.

Hayashimo still didn't come out of her dorm for breakfast. I wasn't sure if it's just because she's the type who doesn't like eating breakfast (I was sort of like that too back in high school, until I realized that eating breakfast helps with keeping my occasional sleep attacks at bay), or if she just didn't want to show herself, but when I finished eating breakfast, I went over to the kitchens, cooked an extra serving of breakfast with the leftover breakfast ingredients, and took it to the destroyers' dorm. The ship girls kinda knew what I was up to, at least, most of the veteran ship girls who've lived with me long enough to know the kind of person I am. Naganami, though, knew right away what I was up to and told me that it wasn't worth my time going to bring Hayashimo her breakfast.

I just stopped dead in my tracks when Naganami said that and ordered her to report to my office at exactly 1000 hours. I also ordered Takao to make sure that Naganami was excused from morning training to come see me in my office, and I left the mess hall with the fleet in a dead silence.

I found Hayashimo, sitting on her bed with her legs scrunched up against her chest and leaning against the wall on her bunk bed. Hayashimo, like I mentioned before, uses the same dorm room as Kiyoshimo, who lived in her dorm room alone, since ship sisters tend to share dorm rooms and Kiyoshimo didn't have anyone else when she was around. At least we still kept Kiyoshimo's stuff intact, as I found Hayashimo hugging the pillow that Kiyoshimo slept with. I asked her if it was okay for me to sit down on the bed with her, and when Hayashimo didn't answer me, I took that as a yes and sat down slowly, making sure she wouldn't punch me or kick me off. But she didn't. So I asked if she wanted to eat, which she didn't answer either. So I set her tray down on the sheet carefully next to her, making sure not to spill the miso soup, and eventually, Hayashimo put the pillow away next to her and started eating quietly. At least she seems a bit easier to work with.

As she ate, I told Hayashimo again that I was sorry for Kiyoshimo's death. I took the time to explain everything that factored into Kiyoshimo's death - my interactions with her, how I wanted to help her fulfill her dream of breaking her physical limitations of being a mere destroyer and helping her achieve power beyond even her own wildest dreams, the Prototype Yamato Cannon she received that turned her into the most powerful destroyer at the time, how Seal Team Six didn't inform us about the true nature of that augmentation, the fateful Operation Blackout mission profile that was to be Kiyoshimo's last sortie, Kiyoshimo's conscious decision to sacrifice herself so that the fleet wouldn't take more heavy casualties, everything.

Hayashimo didn't say a single word during that whole time. I waited her to finish her breakfast, and I said that instead of having her go out and train, just for today, I wanted her to help me with my office paperwork. I made it clear that I didn't want her to keep groveling like this over the loss of her ship sister. It's tragic, yes, soul-crushingly so, even for me. But we were at war - death was inevitable. Even a Commander like me wasn't exempt - I'd already had my life in danger multiple times, not including Hayashimo's own botched attempt to kill me for the sake of "avenging" Kiyoshimo. Therefore, I needed Hayashimo to recover quickly and join the rest of the ship girls as an effective member of the fleet. I told her to meet at my office at no later than 0915 hours, and I picked up her empty tray and left to go put it away for her in the kitchens.

I didn't actually expect Hayashimo to show up. Well, more like I only half-anticipated her to actually listen to me, and I didn't have any intention to punish her or anything even if she didn't show up. But she did, promptly, too. I'd already informed Ooyodo, who skipped training to help me with today's paperwork, about my intentions regarding Hayashimo, so she got to work getting Hayashimo acquainted with the duties of a secretary ship girl. Luckily, Ooyodo is more mature than the other destroyers (no offense to Samidare, Shigure, and Yuudachi), so she's able to put what Hayashimo did to me behind her, although she's still not exactly happy with her, either.

Then, Naganami entered my office at 1000 hours, as I'd ordered. She was surprised to see Hayashimo there, working on some papers next to me on my desk in her own chair, so I had to explain why Hayashimo was here, and why she was called here in my office.

I told Naganami that she wasn't in trouble or anything. I just wanted to know why she was treating her own ship sister so rudely and so meanly. After all, they're both part of the Yuugumo-Class destroyers, right? They have the same uniform and all, too. But Naganami was uncooperative at first, not wanting to tell me. She said it was none of my business, and she accused me of trying to make illicit, perverted relationships with my own ship girls at base. She even threatened to call the military police on me, which is an empty threat, because I'm granted complete judicial immunity by the Moebius Armament Pact, meaning that I can't be touched by Japanese military police, military court, or civilian court. Besides, the Japanese right-wingers were already plotting out the orchestration of my death anyway. Sooner or later, they would succeed, so all Naganami needed to do to get rid of me was just to wait.

And besides - in case Naganami hadn't noticed by now, I informed her that several of her fellow destroyers already took a liking to me. If Naganami had a problem with them enjoying my company as a person in addition to a commander, then she was more than welcome to go speak with them.

In any case, I asked Naganami to tell me why she didn't like Hayashimo, and why they didn't get along. I said I wouldn't let Naganami out of my office until she told me, even if we all needed to skip over lunch completely. Naganami eventually did start talking, more because she didn't want to stick around in the office, so she just said that she thought Hayashimo was a massive creep, always slinking around the shadows and corners and whatnot, and before they'd been deployed to Okinawa, Hayashimo always spent her time around a few select ship girls, and Kiyoshimo was one of them. I'm getting a creeping suspicion that Kiyoshimo and those few other ship girls were the ones who really understood Hayashimo as a person. And as Naganami talked, my feelings towards her tanked lower and lower. Her hair is flippin' beautiful, mesmerizing, even, but they don't look so luscious anymore now that I know Naganami shit-talks her own ship sister.

So when Naganami finished, I summarized her words as,

"You hate Hayashimo because she seems like a creep."

Naganami asked if I had a problem with that, to which I immediately replied that I did. I told her that she sickened me. Literally, I told her,

"You make me sick."

I told Naganami that she reminded me of the people I knew in high school, you know, those kids whose main priority of attending school isn't to learn or get a high school diploma but to see how much of a popularity contest they could turn their lives into. The tone that Naganami used, it just makes me look at her like she's some kind of stereotypical high school mean girl, which I absolutely abhor. I told Naganami that while it was unfair for me to judge her like this after only two days of knowing her, I couldn't help but view her as some kind of bully to Hayashimo, and having been a kid who used to be picked on and bullied and ridiculed in high school, too, I had a natural inclination against her. That, and having any sort of tense relationship among the fleet was never good and would only get in the way of the fleet's combat synergy and cooperation. If she was mature enough, I would trust Naganami to not let her own personal feelings get in the way of her duty during sorties and battles, but as it stood now, I couldn't trust her to fulfill that obligation. I told Naganami that she needed to learn to get over whatever high school drama-esque, Gossip Girl-style "ermagod, that bitch's soooo ugly" kind of mentality she had, fix up her act, and stop treating her own ship sister like shit.

"At least you had a high school experience," Naganami hissed back at me after that. "None of us ever did, so what the hell do you know anything about us?"

"At least you have other people you can call siblings," I countered right away. "I'm an only child and grew up a fucking loner most of my life. And at least if you made fun of someone, you wouldn't have to worry about other people making fun of you back."

I sent Naganami out of my office and threw her back to the training waters. At least Akebono, although foul-mouthed and bitchy, has a good heart deep down inside. Naganami is the epitome of straight high school malice that's entirely trivial and unneeded in a military base like this. If anyone, Takao should keep a disciplinary eye on Naganami than Akebono.

Nothing else eventful happened today - sent the fleet to Alpha District to engage a large detachment of isolated Abyssal forces, which the fleet dispatched while incurring some heavy damage on the battleships, since the enemies tried to focus down the battleships this time. I napped in the office while they were gone with Toyoda curled up near my head on the couch, and I woke up in the middle of the night with a blanket that someone put over me. So I go up and came to my room to write this, and now I'm going to go back to sleep.

(DD) Murakumo (Automated Reloader Mk. II)
(DD) Sazanami (Cell Reactor Booster)
(DD) Samidare Kai (Water Will)
(DD) Inazuma (Automated Reloader)
(DD) Fubuki (Psionic Scrambler Mk. II)
(DD) Akebono Kai (Slayer, Ammo Manufacturer)
(DD) Wakaba Kai (JDAM Converter, Blind Eye, Kellorian Reactor)
(DD) Hatsuharu (Danger Close)
(DD) Shigure Kai 2 (Standalone Protocol, Targeting Jammer Mk. II, Kellorian Reactor)
(DD) Yuudachi Kai (Mjolnir Cell Reinforcement)
(DD) Akatsuki (Silencer)
(DD) Hibiki (Silencer)
(DD) Ikazuchi (Psionic Scrambler Mk. II)
(DD) Harusame
(DD) Hayashimo
(DD) Urakaze
(DD) Yayoi
(DD) Naganami

(SS) I-168 Kai (Lockdown Converter)
(SS) I-401 (Silencer)
(SS) I-58
(SS) I-19

(AS) Taigei (Medical Nano-Bot Dispersal)

(CL) Kitakami Kai (Weapon Pre-Igniter)
(CL) Ooi Kai (Shotgun Ordinance, Corvid Reactor)
(CL) Akashi (Targeting Jammer Mk. II)
(CL) Ooyodo (Automated Reloader)
(CL) Yahagi (Targeting Jammer Mk. II)
(CL) Kiso Kai (Golden Eye/Crackshot, Corvid Reactor)
(CL) Sendai (Automated Reloader Mk. II)
(CL) Abukuma
(CL) Kuma
(CL) Tama
(CL) Noshiro

(CA) Takao (Automated Reloader, Moebius Reactor)
(CA) Atago (Automated Reloader Mk. II)
(CA) Suzuya Kai (Silencer Mk. II, Heavy Repeater, Moebius Reactor)
(CA) Aoba
(CA) Nachi
(CA) Kumano

(BB-X) Kirishima (Automated Reloader Mk. II, Behemoth Reactor)
(BB-X) Hiei (Automated Reloader Mk. II, Behemoth Reactor)
(BB) Yamato (Automated Reloader Mk. II, Yamato Cannon Mk. I, Fusion Core)
(CC/CVN) Amagi (Medical Nano-Bot Dispersal, Fusion Core)

(AVP) Akitsushima

(CVL) Shouhou (Long Range Scanners)
(CVL) Houshou (reserve)
(CVL) Zuihou

(CVN) Souryuu (Mjolnir Cell Reinforcement)
(CVN) Akagi (Mjolnir Cell Reinforcement Mk. II)
(CVN) Hiryuu (Icarian Reactor)
(CVN) Taihou (Icarian Reactor)