A/N: One guest reviewer has pointed out that F-16s are not carrier based aircraft, I didn't know that at the time of writing. Thanks for pointing it out Mr Guest, but its in too many chapters to change it now, but since its a minor thing, I feel doesn't really impact the story, so I don't really mind that much. Thanks though!
Nico groaned as he lifted his head off the water, his ears still ringing from the rocket bombardment. "Motherfuckers..." He muttered as he pulled himself up to his knees, shaking his head to clear up the tinnitus rattling around his head. The fox-man looked up at the F-16s circling and attacking his siren fleet, the planes still shielded by the Siren towers. He grunted a little as he rubbed his face, still feeling the sting from the burn marks on his face. Nico then looked around the water for the culprit of the burns, but she was nowhere in sight.
"What...where...where is she?" Nico uttered out loud, wheeling his head back and forth looking around the mirror sea for Akagi. With some effort he picked himself back up and recollected his thoughts and position. Nico remembered he was about to strike Akagi, he saw her stumbling away from him, unsteady on her feet, wounded from his own attack. He could have sworn that just as the rockets hit, she fell back into the water.
"Is...is she gone? Did I win?" Nico thought, a manic smile growing on his face. "I fucking won! I killed her! Finally! Now to finish of these traitors, the plan will still work if I kill them myself, its not like the Admiralty will look that hard for these fuckers." He mused, looking towards the human fleet with a smug grin.
The fox man watched the Dominatus for a minute and managed to see which Siren tower was protecting it. With a gesture, he ordered the ice siren fleet to shift their fire from the human fleet to that tower. The siren ships then unleashed a heavy barrage of laser blasts on the shield emitter protecting the carrier.
Captain Jackson could only watch in horror as the tower started cracking and breaking under the firepower. "Come on Akagi...please don't be gone..." He begged internally. Not knowing what could happen next, he reached under the forward console and pulled out an M9 handgun before concealing it behind his back. The tower eventually exploded from the constant fire power against it, the shield around the Dominatus flickered a few times, before finally dropping completely.
Nico made another gesture and his ice siren fleet stopped firing for a moment. He then floated into the air and flew just in front of the ship's bridge, eye level with Jackson. The remaining command staff ran off the bridge away from the coming confrontation. The two men glared at each other as they decided what to do about the other, Jackson knew his handgun wouldn't do much to Nico now, but shooting him still crossed his mind, purely since couldn't do anything else right now, besides he knew he had a bigger problem than Nico right now, he hoped his former CO would see that instead of killing him.
"Captain...you've had your fun little rebellion with your foxy friend, but enough is enough, you and your men could have been remembered as heroes by standing up to Azur lane's tyranny, but instead you've chosen to be traitorous cowards, give me one reason why I shouldn't just kill you all?" Nico monologued to Jackson. The captain groaned in exasperation at Nico's obliviousness to their current situation.
"What for?! Whats the point of doing anything any more?!" Jackson exclaimed to Nico. The fox man went from annoyed to confused at that statement.
"What are you talking about?" Nico asked, not getting why Jackson stopped caring about the battle they were just fighting. The captain gestured to the mirror sea outside of the ship to illustrate his point.
"Don't you realise what you've done?! You've killed the one person who could get us out of this hell hole! Now we're all stuck here!" Jackson yelled to him. Nico opened his mouth to retort, but then stopped upon realising the captain was right. Akagi had created this mirror sea and was the one who teleported them inside, even if they could find her black box, none of the humans had the slightest idea how to use it to get them out.
Nico looked down for a moment, as if thinking, but then looked up and held his arms up in a shrug. "You're right, but I don't know what you're blaming me for, your fox friend was the one who brought us here." He pointed out.
"Oh fuck you! Your stupid command decisions were bad enough, but now you're just being childish, have you ever taken responsibility for ANYTHING?" Jackson shouted at him.
Nico growled hearing that, getting irritated with the captain's constant defiance. "Enough!" He then flew forwards and punched Jackson across the bridge, slamming him into a wall. "You've been an annoyance to me ever since I boarded your ship, constant questions about the water pounder project, misinforming the crew about the kansen and now you've ruined my plans to save the world from those ship bitches!" Nico retorted.
Jackson stood back up holding his chest, Nico's punch had knocked the wind out of him, but he seemed otherwise OK. "You *Cough* weren't saving anyone...moron." He spluttered. "You're just...a sad little incel...impotently angry, you didn't get to order around hot ship women..." Jackson laughed weakly. He knew Nico was gonna kill him sooner or later, but he was going down swinging.
"INCEL?!" Nico roared before gripping Jackson by the throat, making the man dangle his legs uselessly as the fox man choked him out one handed. Gasping as he tried with one hand to try and keep his airway open, Jackson fiddled around the back of his uniform for the gun. "Its men like you and that fucking Commander who make the rest of us look bad, I was top of the list to be assigned to Azur lane! He wasn't even in the top 5!" the ex-commodore ranted.
Jackson didn't respond, instead he finally drew the handgun and shot Nico in the eye. The fox man cried out feeling the bullet bounce off his face, while it wouldn't have done anything permanent, a small bullet to the face would still have stung to a kansen. It was enough of a shock to make Nico drop Jackson, the captain gasped hoarsely as he recovered from the choking attack.
Before Nico could snap out of his daze, Jackson spartan kicked him out the window. Too surprised to stop himself falling, Nico slammed onto the flight deck, back first. Just as he was getting back up, he felt something wet land on his head, he looked up to see Jackson had spat out the window at him.
"Asshole..." The captain sneered. "Even with super powers I still kicked your ass, you really are pathetic." He continued to jest. Nico yelled in inarticulate rage and extended his ice claws. Jackson closed his eyes, preparing for Nico to jump back up and slice him apart.
Akagi, a few minutes earlier.
The red fox-woman was barely awake as she slowly sank into the crimson depths of the mirror sea. No kansen has ever needed to worry about drowning, but she did need need to worry about being crushed by oceanic pressure; Who knew how deep this ocean went. She felt cold, partly from the water, but also from the frostbite inflicting her wounds. She also felt tired, the coolness of the water was oddly soothing on her worn out body, she briefly wondered if she could just rest for a while down here, just close her eyes for a moment, it would be so easy to just nap right now, unable to fight it, she slowly closed her eyes.
"Get up."
Akagi's eyes suddenly shot open hearing a voice, she was no longer in the mirror sea, instead she was laying in a field of flowers, being over looked by an enormous cherry blossom tree. The kitsune looked around for the owner of the voice that had called to her. She then tried to move herself upwards, but she still felt she was underwater, her limbs barely moving.
"Akagi...please get up..."
There it was again, a soft, Asian accented voice, full of confident, but soft spoken authority. She could recognise that voice anywhere. Could it be?
"A-Amagi...where are you?" Akagi weakly asked. "Why... can't I see you? Are...are you...mad at me?" Akagi briefly shed a tear, she hadn't thought about Amagi for a long time, she had tried to push away the memories of Orochi, which meant not properly grieving her sister, like Vestal and Nagato had told her to right after the Red Axis war ended.
"I could never be mad at you dear sister." Amagi's voice told her kindly. "I'm so proud of you, letting go of your anger, saving lives, finding new love; you've grown up so much since I left you." She added happily.
"B-but...Red axis...Orochi..." Akagi asked, tearing up as she spoke. She closed her eyes and sobbed a little, feeling crushed at Amagi somehow seeing what she had done. The fox woman then felt a soft hand on her cheek as she cried. Opening her eyes, she gasped seeing another brown haired kitsune kneeling over her, purple eyed, a wearing a long dress-like kimono, with a red sunshade over her shoulder. She was giving her a motherly smile as she gently brushed away her tears.
"I know why you did it, you were caught at your lowest and preyed on. I know you're a good person Akagi, like I already told you: You could never make me mad at you." Amagi told her, a loving light in her eyes. "You will see me again some day my dear sister, but for now, you need to get up, everyone is waiting for you." She finished.
Amagi then held her free hand out to Akagi. The younger fox woman looked at it for a moment, before looking back up at Amagi with a determined face. Steeling her resolve she willed her arm to move, resisting whatever force was holding her down to grab Amagi's hand. She finally managed to grab her older sister, everything suddenly went white for her the moment she did.
Back in the mirror sea, Akagi's eyes went blank for a moment, before lighting up bright red and becoming slitted like an animal, her tails and ears started changing too, they gradually started to shine just like her eyes, a dark orange, bordering on red glow, illuminated the depths of the water. All of a sudden a huge red surge of red light blasted itself from her, enveloping her entire body and reached high into the sky.
U.S.S. Dominatus
Before Nico jumped up to the bridge to kill Jackson, a massive explosion rocked the whole mirror sea from behind the ice Siren fleet, causing giant tidal waves to smash across the battlefield, be it Siren or human, every ship was battered and rolled by the event, throwing Nico, Jackson and everyone else off their feet.
"Now what?!" Nico complained as he steadied himself. Looking back to where the waves come from, with a shocked face he stepped backwards, seeing a huge pillar of red light rising from the ocean's surface. "What...no...no fucking way..." he breathed out, backing up against the superstructure.
In the middle of the light pillar, a ball of orange fire, roughly the size of a small car, slowly rose upwards along its length. Jackson gasped softly as he watched it, but managed a smile, for some reason just looking at those flames gave him a pleasant feeling of warmth and fuzziness, despite the relatively cold climate of the mirror sea and how exposed he was on the broken bridge of the carrier, he couldn't have felt more comfortable. Nico meanwhile just felt his heart sink, and an oppressive sense of impending dread as the fireball floated towards the fleet.
In a burst of flames, the fireball explosively unfurled, tendrils of orange flame, resembling solar flares reached high into the scarlet night sky, whipping and swaying around the stars at varying speeds, two of the tendrils dipped above the ocean's surface, turning the water into steam despite their height above it, hinting how fiercely hot they blazed.
At the origin point of these giant flames, was Akagi, the massive tendrils of fire had somehow replaced her tails and hair, her ears burned in the same way. Her kimono was completely gone, presumably burned away, in its place were flames in the shape of a bikini, her face had a completely neutral expression, but her eyes shone a bright red, the light visible from even the Dominatus. Nico just watched Akagi return slack jawed, a strange mix of fear and anger brewing on his face at the sight.
"Y-you're dead...you were dead!" Nico then shouted, snapping back to his senses, he flew into the air between the human fleet and his ice-siren fleet, firing more white lightning from his back, he summoned more ice-sirens through his portals, in his panic Nico had summoned nearly four times as many ships as he started with in the first battle, almost a hundred sirens now surrounded Akagi. The kitsune's new form had completely shattered any confidence Nico initially had.
"Shoot her down, all of you, shoot her!" He ordered the siren ships in a quaking voice. Upon his command the ice-sirens unleashed a huge bombardment of laser blasts, ice spears and boulders, as well as more conventional projectiles like shells and missiles, towards Akagi. The sky completely covered in an enormous volley of attacks directed towards her.
Without any change in her expression, two of Akagi's gigantic fire tails criss crossed her body, covering her completely. The ice based attacks turned to harmless steam before getting anywhere near her, the laser blasts somehow bounced off the tails and everything else detonated too early, likely due to the intense heat cooking off the fuses inside the explosive components. The explosions and smoke clouds totally obscured Akagi from Nico's view, with no way to tell if he was doing any damage, Nico was growing increasingly concerned.
Two more of Akagi's fire tails abruptly slammed themselves into the ice-siren fleet, sending up a tremendous cloud of steam from the impacts with the water. The siren ships were ripped in half by the attack, where the tails had impacted them, the ice had completely vaporised straight into steam, and the metal melted into a fiery molten form, dripping like a strange blood from the doomed vessels.
Nico could only watch in horror as the flaming tails snaked through his fleet, destroying everything in their way with alarming ease. The fox man flew upwards before they got to him, he grunted as the steam coming off the water lightly scolded him, if he was still human his skin would have been ripped off. Nico screamed as he looked around him, both hands on his head in shock: his siren fleet was entirely wiped out, sinking fast or evaporating from the heat.
"You...you destroyed them...all of them..." Nico uttered in complete disbelief. The cloud of debris around Akagi slowly lifted, the flaming kitsune still hadn't changed her expression, her piercingly bright red eyes however, locked themselves onto Nico, the ex-commodore somehow felt her gaze on him before seeing it. He shakily gasped seeing those intense, red orbs boring right into his very being, in a desperate bid to stay in the fight, he threw a volley of icicles at her, they transformed into sea fires and made a bee line for her.
Akagi calmly thrust her arm out, in a burst of red fire, five flaming runways opened up like a giant cherry blossom around her, the runways summoned droves of flaming zeroes, which zipped near instantly from their positions on the runways, and flew towards the sea fires in a spiral shaped swarm. The ice planes did their best to fire on the horde of zeroes, but the sheer number of them was just too much, they were swallowed by the swarm, tiny explosions inside the group marked their demise.
Nico screamed and put his arms up in a boxer guard, as the massive cloud of flaming zeroes poured down on him, he kept screaming as they all exploded around him, bouncing him between the planes like a pinball. Nothing he did helped, claws, icicles, flying away, it all just made another zero slam into him and explode. Nico was then thrown from the cloud of kamikaze planes and face planted right into the water below, barely alive after that ferocious attack.
Akagi then made a gesture and the remaining zeroes all flew away, Circling the air above them. She then gently floated down onto the water's surface, somehow, she regulated the temperature of her tails near their bases, so less steam was produced being this close to the water, there was still some faint wisps of it coming off her feet as she walked towards Nico's disabled form.
The fox man coughed as he tried to recover, he lifted his head to look up at Akagi mechanically walking towards him, her face still unchanging as her crimson eyes burned through Nico's soul. He snarled quietly as he shakily stood up, more to convince himself he was still angry rather than scared as hell of this fiery titan.
"You...*Cough* haven't...won." Nico coughed out. "If...you kill me...you're just...proving me...and my uncle right...hehe." He added, smirking like he'd just played a winning poker hand. Akagi didn't react, instead her fire tails wrapped around each of Nico's limbs, restraining him. He just laughed as the tails burned his suit away, as he prepared for her to finally kill him, he figured he'd pissed her off enough for her to do just that, closing his eyes he waited for the end.
Akagi however, all of a sudden spun him around so he was facing away from her, snapping him back to his senses. "Wha- what are you doing?!" Nico demanded. His confusion then gave way to fear as he realised what she was about to do. "No! Not the black cube! I need that!" He pleaded, struggling in vain against the tails.
Akagi ripped the cover off the water pounder suit and found Nico's black box, she then reached inside and without any ceremony, crushed the box. Nico then started screaming in agony as a white light started shooting from his eyes and mouth, for a moment another voice could be heard screaming alongside him; a female one. As he screamed, Akagi then yanked another mental cube from the suit, this one appeared to be the true power source of the device, once it was removed his tails and ears shone a bright white before vanishing into more mental cubes, leaving Nico perfectly human again. He passed out from the pain not long after. The mental cubes then joined up with the one in Akagi's hand.
Before he could be burned too much, Akagi then used a tail to gently place the now unconscious Nico on the Dominatus, she then thrust her free hand towards the human fleet and portals formed in front of the ships, they slowly moved forwards and sent them safely out of the mirror sea. As they left, Akagi turned her attention to the Habakkuk, walking towards it with the now glowing white mental cube.
Azur lane fleet
The Commander, Kaga, Musashi and Atago were all waiting on Kaga's hull. Kaga was still mediating, Atago was just sitting with her legs hanging off the side of the flight deck and the Commander and Musashi both stood at the bow.
Musashi was scanning the area in front of them, just then she went wide eyed and grabbed the Commander's shoulder and looking over at the other two. "Look! Off starboard" She called out. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked where Musashi was pointing: Portals were forming not far from them, and the human fleet was pouring through them.
"They made it...wheres Nico's hull?" The Commander then pointed out, noting the Habakkuk was nowhere to be seen.
"My sister!? Why isn't she with them!?" Kaga demanded, frantically looking around for Akagi's hull.
"We need to find out more, one of you get me to the Dominatus." The Commander ordered. Musashi then picked him up and jumped into the water. Kaga and Atago both quickly followed. They jumped up onto the flight deck and Musashi placed the Commander on his feet. All four then gasped seeing Nico on a stretcher, covered in burns.
"What happened here?" The Commander wondered out loud, as they watched Nico be carried away.
"Commander? *Cough* over here!" Jackson hoarsely called out to him. The Azur lane group then saw Captain Jackson waving them over to him from the bottom of the ship's bridge. He was being treated by a medic. The Commander ran over to him.
"Captain? What happened in the mirror sea? Wheres Akagi?" He asked desperately. "Thats what its called? A mirror sea? *cough* Nico went crazy...your girlfriend saved us...but she...changed somehow..." Jackson explained.
"Changed? What the hell do you mean by that?!" The Commander demanded. Jackson flinched at the Commander yelling at him.
"I-I thought you knew what it was! She...she did this thing where...a pillar of light came from the water...her eyes started glowing and...everything was on fire..." Jackson frantically tried to answer. The Commander's face drained of colour at that description.
"Just...just like Enterprise...she..."
Before the Commander could finish, another portal opened in front of the carrier. This time it was the Habakkuk. Though it seemed different somehow. When Nico had it as his hull, it was a mess of spikes and aggressively jagged ice formations. Now it had a much cleaner look to it and the ice was smoother.
Everyone then saw someone fly from the ship on top of an icy sea fire, they could tell she was a nine tailed kitsune kansen like Akagi, but she was the wrong colour to be her, she circled around the Dominatus for a second before coming in for a landing. The plane screeching to a stop in front of them and the new comer jumped off.
The Commander noted that this new girl was very similar looking to Shinano, same tall height, similar hair style, even the same face and body structure. Where she differed was in her colour scheme. This tall kitsune had dark purple hair, ears and tails. She had deep purple eyes and her Kimono was close to Shinano's own in design, but full of brighter colour schemes compared the darker one of Shinano's kimono. Her skin was also very pale, bordering on albino.
"Who...who are you?" The Commander asked her. The woman looked at him and his group of kansen, who were all just as curious to know about her as he was, with a shy expression, but she gave a small smile and answered, in a voice like Shinano talking in an English accent:
"I am HMS Habakkuk..." She then looked at her plane, opening its cockpit with her thoughts. Everyone else gasped seeing who was inside, it was Akagi, naked and passed out. Habakkuk then flew up to the cockpit and carefully carried her out, bridal style. "I found her lying on my flight deck, do you know her?" She asked quietly as the Commander carefully took Akagi from the pale kitsune.
"Akagi...her name's Akagi..." The Commander told her without looking away from the brown haired fox. Laying her down on the deck, he took his jacket off and lay it across her chest and groin to attempt to preserve some modesty.
"She was barely awake when I first saw her a few minutes ago, she just told me to rush through that portal, then she passed out." Habakkuk explained. Kaga then sat with the Commander, gently holding Akagi's cheek while she lay on it.
"Sister? Please...wake up..." Kaga quietly told her, a small tear forming in her eye.
"We'll get her to Vestal, let her rest Kaga, I have a feeling she needs it." The Commander told Kaga before patting her back. Reluctantly, Kaga obeyed and moved back, allowing two medics to carry Akagi away and following them with Musashi and Atago. The Commander then looked back at Habakkuk with a smile. "Thank you, you've saved her life." He told her with a relieved voice.
"Actually, I think she saved me." Habakkuk corrected. "For a long time, I don't know why but...all I could feel was pain, a lot of it...then it suddenly stopped...and I saw her...telling me to go through the portal...I think she did something to free me." The purple kitsune slowly pieced together, she then smiled back at the Commander. "But I appreciate sir...who are you?" She then asked.
"Just call me 'the Commander.' everyone else does, would you like to join Azur lane?" He asked before holding out his hand.
"Azur lane?" Habakkuk asked, tilting her head curiously.
"Its an organization full of women just like you, Akagi is part of it and so are those three women who just left with her, its their home and it can be yours too." The Commander explained. Habakkuk thought about it for a moment, before smiling and shaking his hand.
"Alright I'll join, I could use a home."