A/N:
As requested, the third entry was based off one of the pivotal episodes of the anime. However, I put my own twist to it in order to meet the request's criteria.
Not much to mention here, since the story style wasn't necessarily experimental. However, I did try to put in as much ambient detail as possible. That, and you may have noticed that the dialogues had no modifying phrases like "Mutsu said" or "Nagato said". This was intentional in order to focus the story on the scene and break down story's sense of identity to the reader so that the story feels more intuitive and less like a story being read on the Internet.
-Akyuu no Joshu
"Ehhhhhhhh?! We're - we're - we're - "
Shigure can hardly believe what she's hearing. Standing with Fusou, Yamashirou, Mogami, Michishio, Asagumo, and Yamagumo in the Admiral's office, the destroyer blinks, half horrified and half amazed, at the bespectacled young Admiral, who pulls off his naval cap and scratches the side of his obnoxiously blonde-dyed short hair. The top of his head, though, betrays the dark brown roots.
"Yeah, it was a real short notice; they didn't even tell me about it either until like, fifteen minutes ago," the Admiral sighs frustratedly. "Goddamn HQ...they could've at least let us know a day beforehand..."
"But I thought this program was only limited to Japanese nationality, sir!" Yamashirou protests. "Since when was this authoriz - "
"Is this some kind'a sick joke?!" Michishio bellows over Yamashirou, drowning her voice out. "Why do we have to sortie alongside an American ship girl? Honestly, this's gonna be so damn annoying!"
"Alright, you girls, just - just calm down there for a second," the Admiral slaps his naval cap back on his head and stands up out of his chair. "I know this's gonna be really awkward for everyone involved, but I've gotta ask you all to just put everything that's happened in the past behind you. After all, she's gonna be a visiting ship girl, and we need to be hospitable. Even if you find that you can't get along, she'll only be here for a week before she gets transferred to Okinawa."
"Admiral, you have not yet answered my question," Yamashirou presses, irritated at Michishio's rude interruption. "Since when was this authorized? And by whom?"
The Admiral sighs heavily and raises his hands in a half-shrug, palms up.
"Hey, listen, Yamashirou, those're some hard questions to be asking me since I don't know the full answers to them. All I know is that construction of American ship girls was authorized quite some time ago - I don't know how long ago, so don't ask - and the authorization was granted by the Emperor himself."
Yamashirou reacts with a forward step and a thrust of her index finger, nearly jabbing the Admiral right in left eye.
"Utter ridiculousness! The exalted Emperor would never authorize such a thing! He - "
"Like it or not, Yamashirou, that's what I've been told, so please don't shoot the messenger," the Admiral says exasperatedly. "And might I remind you that these times nowadays are not like the times of the past, during the war. Japan is not an enemy of the United States of America any longer. In fact, they have offered to expend much of their own resources and time to build their own ship girl fleet like we have to assist in the conflict against the Abyssals. It's not like we helped them build their fleet, all I know is that they were given the basic know-how of the ship girl design, and they took it from there, apparently. Believe whatever you want; your opinion won't change the fact that very soon, an American ship girl's gonna be escorted to our base to stay the week, sorry to say."
"Can't we, like, use her as target practice as she comes into the pier?" Asagumo rolls her eyes. "Yamagumo, don't you think so too?"
"Er...that's...that's taking it a bit too far..." Yamagumo chuckles awkwardly, not knowing whether to laugh at that or not. "We - we're no longer enemies, so there isn't any reason to feel any animosity towards the new American ship girl...I don't think..."
The office door then gets shoved open, and in come the four Akatsuki-Class destroyers, Akatsuki, Hibiki, Ikazuchi, and Inazuma.
"Commandeeeeeeeeeeer!" Ikazuchi call shrilly, "the new girl's here! She's here, she's here!"
"Hawawa, Ikazuchi-chan, don't scream so loudly, we're i-indoors, nanodesu!" Inazuma quickly lunges forward and hugs Ikazuchi from behind, covering Ikazuchi's mouth with her hands.
"Well then, let's go out and welcome her," the Admiral sighs, lifting his ceremonial katana off its rack bolted onto the wall behind him. He straps the beautifully inscribed scabbard, painted with lines from medieval Japanese poetry and decorated with lush sakura petals, to his belt.
"A-Admiral, that's - !" Shigure exclaims, watching the Admiral wear his sword.
"Admiral, a-are you sure you wish to do that?" Fusou asks worriedly. "Even if she is our guest, this new ship girl is still a foreigner. Wearing your sword is - "
"If she's a comrade, she deserves all the respect I can give," the Admiral says staunchly, frowning. "And might I add that apparently, this American ship girl has sailed here all the way from Pearl Harbor without any stoppage or rest. I'm sure she's very tired right now. C'mon, let's go out and greet her."
The Admiral walks out of his office and out to the harbor, flanked closely by this ship girls, including the Akatsuki sisters. As they head outside of the administrative building and out to the main harbor, the Admiral glances at his side at his secretary ship girl, Shigure, whose hair flaps are pressed down by themselves and whose hands are clasped together near her waist.
"Nervous, Shigure?" the Admiral asks.
Shigure nods the smallest nod the Admiral's ever seen her make.
"How so?"
Shigure doesn't answer.
"Well, if you don't wanna say, that's fine too..."
They reach the main harbor and stand above one of the piers that reaches down to water level. As it is low tide today, the pier is not engulfed by the water and can be accessed. They can see the telltale figures out in the water making their way towards the harbor.
"Admiral..."
The Admiral glances back down at Shigure again. A tense, apprehensive look is scrawled all over her complexion, but then again, that's how the rest of the ship girls more or less look, with the exception of the more cheerful Akatsuki-Class destroyers.
"...do you think we can get along with her?" Shigure asks quietly.
"There's no reason not to," the Admiral says simply. "Why, do you think she might be a bit mean? I'll scold her if she doesn't treat you nicely."
"No...that's..."
"Then what?"
"...I'm...I'm afraid that I'll be the one...who can't treat her well..."
"You, the one who - " the Admiral pauses, processing her words. "Don't worry, Shigure. I believe in you. You're a good girl. You'll find it in you to be friends with her."
"Are you sure, Admiral?"
Smiling, the Admiral turns to Shigure and puts both hands on Shigure's head. Like petting a dog, the Admiral rubs Shigure's hair flaps with his thumbs, pressing the sides of his thumbs and rubbing the hair flaps against the base of his index fingers. Wincing at first but closing her eyes and whining softly just like a dog, Shigure lets her Admiral rub her cheeks gently.
"If you can let me do this, then you can get along with the American girl ship," the Admiral says confidently. "It's nothing to worry about."
"Hey, hey, Admiral, now isn't the time to be all mushy 'n stuff with Shigure-chan," Mogami says irritably, stabbing her sharp fingernail into the Admiral's lower back and making him jump.
"Ahooooyyyy! Aye, I see you fine ladies on the pier!"
A milky-smooth Southern New Jersey accented Japanese voice rolls with the waves into the front docks of the Yokosuka Naval Base. As the ship girls lined up along the harbor near the pier watch, the newcomer slides across the calm seawater in the middle of the bright spring day with an aggressively big, toothy grin.
"Finally! After all those hours 'a sailin', I can finally take a goddamn break! Hooooooooooooo-ah!" the American ship girl yells with relief and delight at the prospect of finally docking ashore after a few days of nonstop cruising, and as soon as she brakes to a stop next to the pier, she angles her two triple-barreled six-inch/15.2cm (47cal) turrets straight up into the sky and unleashes two quick bursts of flame that jet up into the air and plume like fireflowers. Her eyes, too, fire up quite literally, and fiery red hazes sizzle from her eyes and blaze into the air momentarily. The ship girls flinch at the vulgar display of power, while the Admiral simply closes his eyes to ward against the heat from the flamethrowers and smiles awkwardly. Having met this American ship girl at the rendezvous point about twenty nautical miles from Yokosuka Naval Base, the girl's escort ships, Yuudachi, Murasame, and Shiratsuyu catch up to the newcomer.
"Awww, c'mon, you could've at least let us catch up, poi!" Yuudachi cries. "And you promised you'd race us here, too!"
"Well, it's not like you woulda won, I'm just better built than you!" the American ship girl laughs almost haughtily. "But if you're still up fer it, I'm down anytime!"
Yuudachi growls angrily. "Then let's race, right now! I can almost keep up with Shimakaze-chan, so there's no way I'll lose to you!"
"Hey, hey, girls, settle down, now's not the time to be racing," the Admiral calls out, getting their attention. "Anyhow, welcome to Yokosuka Naval Base. I'm the commanding Admiral here, Rear Admiral Nishimura Shinji. You are the U.S.S. Phoenix, I presume?"
Phoenix flicks her head backwards, tussling her long, feathery, creamy vanilla white hair with a black hair ribbon pinned on the back, a brilliant mane of hair that could easily be imagined as the wings of the mythological bird that gives her the name. Standing in at five foot eleven, Phoenix wears a short-sleeved World War II-era American naval officer's brown light leather service jacket and a curious Chinese qipao-style skirt with white inlets that fully and proudly exposes the healthy, supple, and squishy-looking thighs and legs. The rear flap of her qipao skirt are tethered with five sentient spearheads the size of obsidian blades and painted an ornate red and black, sharpened like the warlike talons of the phoenix, and these small spear heads float around the American ship girl, darting to and fro, as though taking a good look at the Japanese ship girls. Her fiery eyes are like the smoldering charcoals of a recently smothered fire, ready to reignite at any second's notice, and they emit such a sharp, piercing, blazing glare that it almost seems like anything those eyes look at could spontaneously burst into flame. The ends of her 47 caliber naval guns are quietly spitting out flamethrower exhaust, and Phoenix holsters the M2-A1 Flamethrower onto her belt on her right hip as she steps onto the pier.
"Yessir! Light Cruiser, U.S.S. Phoenix, has arrived to Yokosuka Naval Station!" Phoenix declares proudly. "I have returned!"
The Admiral frowns. "Re...turn...? Er..."
"Aw, never mind the small details, Admiral!" Phoenix laughs loudly as she climbs the stairs up the pier to meet Admiral Nishimura. As the Admiral walks forward to salute Phoenix, the American ship girl snaps to a solid naval salute.
"U.S.S. Phoenix is now at your command, Admiral Nishimura," Phoenix grins with a kind of aggressive smile that never seems to fade completely away from her facade. "I'll be in yer care, yeah?"
The other ship girls, including the ones who escorted Phoenix to Yokosuka Naval Base and are now climbing up the pier, peer at Phoenix - some with eyes of interest, some with eyes of distrust and wariness.
"I'm sure you're very tired from your voyage," the Admiral says, who finds himself an inch shorter than Phoenix, who takes a step closer to him. "We've already made arrangements to - "
Phoenix, without warning, places her hands on the Admiral's cheeks and forward his face slightly upwards to stare into her eyes.
"Mmmm...you seem familiar, yeah?" Phoenix murmurs, almost seductively, as the Admiral freezes up, his eyes captivated by Phoenix's mesmerizingly fiery gaze. Ignoring the Japanese ship girls, who cry foul play at her sudden behavior, Phoenix smirks subtly. "You're not the Admiral Nishimura, are you...?"
"Admiral!" Yamashirou screams, her white headband flapping with the ocean breeze. "Get away from that vile woman, she - "
"Stand owndown, Yamashirou, she's not dangerous!" the Admiral yells, but he's unable to tear his eyes away from Phoenix's captivating eyes. "Obviously I am not the Admiral Nishimura, Phoenix. That's impossible."
"Then lemme ask that in another way. You're not one of Admiral Nishimura's, are you...?"
Admiral Nishimura narrows his eyes, a sense of resentment seeping into his blood.
"And what if I am? What will you do, Phoenix? Sink my ships again?" the Admiral says in such a low voice that only Phoenix can hear him, thanks to the cover of the wind. "This is not Surigao Strait; this is the Yokosuka Naval Base. There is no reason to open old wounds. While you may be our guest, I expect you to behave while you are here. We are no longer enemies and thus do not need to act as such."
Phoenix grins even wider.
"Talkin' tough already, huh? That's good. We need more officers with backbone like ya," Phoenix bares her fanged, talon-like teeth in a dangerous smile as she slowly slides her hands off Admiral Nishimura's cheeks, one after the other. "But yer right, Admiral. Ain't no reason to be diggin' up our graves from the past, and I'm fine with that. But I'm not so sure if these ones over here can manage the same..."
Phoenix glances with a coy but malicious-looking smile at the Admiral's ship girls. The Akatsuki-Class destroyers, Murasame, and Shiratsuyu are looking on with stunned apprehension, while the rest of them eye Phoenix with varying degrees of distrust. Yamashirou and Shigure, by far, are the two ship girls who are giving Phoenix murderous looks, as though they're ready to pounce on her at any moment and tear her to shreds with their bare hands.
"You can relax while you're here," the Admiral says calmly, straightening up and clearing his throat. "That is a responsibility that is entitled to me alone, not you. And I'd like to remind you that physical contact with your superior officers is strictly not allowed in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force. Perhaps you act this way towards your American superiors, but I will not tolerate a second time of this."
Phoenix just laughs again. "Awww, what, we can't be friendly around these parts? Shucks, that's a darn shame, in'nit? But fine, if that's how things're done here, I guess I'll just hafta follow protocol, don't I?"
The American light cruiser scans the faces of the Japanese ship girls surrounding her, and when her eyes fall upon Hibiki, she yelps out in delight.
"Hey, you! You're Hibiki, ain't'cha?" Phoenix asks with an almost disturbing switch of personality from aggressive seductiveness to an excited cheerfulness, hurrying over in front of Hibiki and bending her knees sightly.
"E-Eh? Uh - uh, yeah, I-I'm...I'm Hibiki..." Hibiki, taken back by the sudden attention of Phoenix, takes a cautious step backwards, and her three other ship sisters yelp at Phoenix's approach and hug Hibiki to protect her from the big scary American light cruiser. Ikazuchi steps in front of Hibiki and spreads her arms eagle-wide to stop Phoenix.
"D-D-Don't hurt Hibiki-chan!" Ikazuchi stammers, but she tenses up and whimpers as Phoenix smiles cheerfully down at her.
"Awww, but I jus' wanna meet a girl who's like me!" Phoenix says. "Up we go!"
Simply using her height to reach over the girls, Phoenix picks up Hibiki by putting her hands underneath her arms and armpits and lifting her up out of the reach of Inazuma and Akatsuki.
"H-Hey, put Hibiki-chan down right now!" Akatsuki yells. "You ought to do what a lady tells you to do!"
"A lady? Hmmm, drink some more milk and wait a few years, then we can talk," Phoenix smiles graciously at Akatsuki before focusing her attention on the frightened Hibiki that she's holding up in the air. "Now, you, on the other hand..."
"Phoenix, if you do anything to Hibiki..." the Admiral says in a threatening voice.
"Shucks, Admiral, relaaaaaaax, I'm not tryin'a mess with her 'r anythin'!" Phoenix drawls. "So, Hibiki. Where're your wings? Where's your fire?"
Hibiki blinks down at Phoenix.
"Huh...? Um...uh...I don't...I don't know - "
"Oh, c'mon, you're a phoenix like me, right? We've come back! Show me what you can do! I've sailed all this way to come see you, and you don't know what I'm talkin' about?"
Hibiki just doesn't know what to say, so she just keeps quiet. Sighing with a sad smile, Phoenix sets Hibiki down and backs up a few steps.
"I mean this, Hibiki. You can't be a phoenix for no reason! Surely they built'cha with somethin' like this!"
Phoenix's spearhead talons snap up and spontaneously pop into burning balls of fire.
"Or somethin' like this?"
Raising her right hand, Phoenix pumps it into a fist, and her right fist bursts into a brilliant flame. Hibiki, who was captivated by Phoenix's flamethrower fanfare earlier, stares into the fires in almost trance-like wonder.
"H-Hey, you're scaring Hibiki-chan, Phoenix!" Asagumo yells, trying to get Phoenix to stop, but Phoenix just ignores her.
"Well? Where's your phoenix flame, Hibiki? Don't tell me I've come all this way jus' to find out that the one girl who shares my name in this fleet can't pull this off?" Phoenix asks, her voice becoming steadily more let down and disappointed. Hibiki senses this and hangs her head, shaking it a bit downheartedly.
"I...I can't..." she mumbles. "I don't...have anything like that..."
Phoenix twists her lip, clearly disappointed, but she then takes a step forward with her burning right hand and clasps Hibiki's own right hand with it.
"O-Ow!?" Hibiki yelps in shock and surprise as Phoenix's hand presses firmly against her hand and holds it. At this, the ship girls react: Yuudachi and Shigure, the girls with the fastest reactions, dash at Phoenix; Yuudachi dashes in low to elbow Phoenix in the hip, while Shigure gets a sprinting start and hops in the air, aiming her right foot at Phoenix's head and neck region. Phoenix senses this and quickly backdashes to avoid the destroyers, and Yuudachi, having gone too fast, accidentally crashes into Michishio and topples over with her onto the harbor. But Phoenix hears the clanking of cannon nearby, and she looks up to see both Fusou and Yamashirou, having deployed their ship armaments, confront her with their fully loaded triple-barreled 41cm cannons.
"I knew we should never have trusted you!" Yamashirou seethes, so very tempted to waste Phoenix right here and now. "Acting like that towards our Admiral, and then assaulting one of our destroyers - what on Earth good are you for us, I wonder? Have you not caused us enough pain and destruction already!?"
"Yamashirou! Fusou! Stand down, please!" Admiral Nishimura yells, standing in front of Phoenix to block their line of fire. "The American government will be up in arms if they find out that one of their newly constructed ship girls has been attacked by Japanese ship girls. Calm yourselves!"
"But - "
"That is an order, Yamashirou!"
Grinding her teeth, Yamashirou deactivates her weapons and takes them offline to pack them into her gearbox. Once packed up, she tears herself away, standing behind her older ship sister Fusou and facing her back to the Admiral and Phoenix.
"There wasn't a need to be goin' on attackin' me," Phoenix chuckles, like nothing bad ever happened. "See, look. Hibiki's alright, she's a phoenix, after all."
To the ship girls' surprise, Hibiki's hand is not being damaged by the fire that Phoenix has given her. Instead, it continues to burn on her hand like a torch, and Hibiki, amazed by this, is waving her right hand slowly about, as if trying to make sure that her newfound fire won't go out by itself. Phoenix slowly approaches Hibiki again.
"See? I knew you had it in ya. Birds of a feather flock together, right?" Phoenix grins cheerfully at Hibiki, who stands up excitedly.
"Can - can you teach me?" Hibiki asks Phoenix, unable to contain her excitement.
"Can I teach ya?" Phoenix grins madly, and swooping down, she sweeps Hibiki off her feet and jumps straight back onto the water. "More like, what should I teach ya! C'mon!"