Zeitwächter and Churchgrim waited on Kongō's outside for her Mental Model to appear, both barely standing still on their feet and with full attention.
Churchgrim's tail was wagging wildly and ended up even more wild, when the blonde finally stepped out, all dramatic, hair pinned up.
The sun was standing in her back and since Kongō stood slightly elevated, she looked like a creature sent from Heaven to either destroy or protect.
"Waaaah! Kongō!", Zeitwächter, who had no respect for Heaven whatsoever, immediately barreled into Kongō to hug her tightly, only to pull back, hands hovering over her arms, and look her over again as if seeing the most beautiful thing in her life, "you're awesome! It looks so cool!"
Churchgrim trailed around them various times, tail wagging so hard that his entire butt moved with it, sniffing excitedly all the time.
Kongō crossed her arms, smirking up at her friend: "You're more excited than me."
She nodded energetically: "Of course! It's always exciting to see my art come to life! Also it's you, so i'm really hyped!"
The blonde's smirk grew: "I look good, then?"
"Mhm!", she was really excited, "I want to show you off to the world! Your hair looks a-ma-zing!"
"Thank you very much."
Her ego was skyhigh currently and her mood had been dragged along with it and thrown into orbit.
Zeitwächter did her own, very hyped, very energetic, circle around Kongō, absorbing every little detail with her eyes as if she hadn't been the one to partially design them: "Kongō!", she squeaked while hopping once or twice, "I'm fangirling so bad!"
"I know", Kongō answered with a laugh in her voice, "do you two want a hug?"
They barreled into her, the fast battleship somehow managing not to fall over and actually laughing.
Churchgrim had his front legs on her shoulders, licking at her face or nudging it with his nose while his sister hugged Kongō around the waist, head resting on her chest with the heaviest heart-eyes ever.
Kongō petted Churchgrim's fur, ruffling the one on his neck: "You act like no one loves you", he only became more cheery, "do you never get pets? No attention?"
He got plenty of attention and pets, of course, but he was at least as dramatic as his second half and only minimally less of a liar.
If he were one of those dogs starring in movies, then you would have to edit out his wagging tail afterwards.
Yielding to those hands pressing his face (and especially tongue) away, he laid his head down on hers and continued to be happy there.
Zeitwächter was blessed out, just as happy and somehow actually purring.
It left Kongō with no chance of movement, so she just re-distributed her weight and let the two have their fun: "How is your nanomaterial?"
"We're doing great~", Zeitwächter purred, "you're here after all~"
Kongō sighed mentally: "Give me access to your systems."
To the blonde's surprise, she actually did.
To her not surprise, they were a literal clusterfuck with error messages everywhere and she was pretty sure that some systems were just working normally because they cancelled each other out – she swore to never show it to Hyūga because even if she didn't like her this would absolutely annihilate her.
Really how could someone… let this idiot run around with systems like that? Was this… percussive maintenance or did fixing one error just collapse the entire structure? Did the repair ships have maps so that they knew which errors could be fixable?
What was this?
Kongō almost had a sensory overload, aneurysm and complete system failure at the same time looking at this mess.
Before her systems decided to nope out of this and never return, she checked for nanomaterial errors, decided that the coast was as clear as it would get and left.
The fast battleship petted Zeitwächter's head to recover: "How are you alive?"
"Spite."
Most true thing she had ever said.
"Can you even support your Super Graviton Cannon?", Kongō asked with a healthy amount of sarcasm.
"Yep", she was still purring.
"Flagship Equipment?", the doubt was clearly audible.
"N-yep."
"You wanted to say "no"."
"Not true."
"Absolutely true."
"No."
"Yes."
"I wanted to say "nope"."
"Same thing."
"No."
"Yes."
"Two letters more. Also, I just wasn't sure if I can, but I do."
"How in the-", Kongō broke off and rubbed at the back of her nose, "you're annoying."
Zeitwächter purred louder and moved to a more comfortable position where she kneeled on the ground, moving her head so that she could look into the other's eyes: "That's your way of saying that you love me."
"Pah."
"Did you just "pah" me?", asked the battleship, incredulous, "Church, she just "pah"ed me!"
Churchgrim, like the good little (?) brother he was, acted attacked and gave the blonde a powerful but not harsh shove – it was barely enough to move her.
Kongō balanced herself quickly and was just about to say something, when all three suddenly found themselves in the Concept Communication Network's digital room.
The dog got back down on all four and looked at this sister with questioning eyes.
Zeitwächter, for her part, was calm – creepily so.
She knew the room they had ended up in, the big weeping willow with its red stone ring that kept unreal earth, grass and roots in, the swing hanging from a branch, the white table and chairs as well as the black lantern on the table, Union Cores collected inside it.
It could have been a calming sight that might be interpreted as a quiet child's playground, but there was always a certain eeriness to it, like a cold wind howling through someone's heart and leaving it frosted.
Zeitwächter knew it well, had seen how it never had changed over the years – if at all, then the wind only became harsher, the Union Cores more.
Whatever Vanisher was hiding underneath her mask was more than an introvert's "secret" personality, but she had never been able to get behind it.
"Aneue", Zeitwächter acknowledged the mask-wearer in her blue cloak, nodding towards the silent SW2 at her side.
SW2 nodded back, while Kongō threw her friend a side-eye.
The sisters obviously didn't have a bad relationship and since they had never done so before, it was unusual for Zeitwächter to choose such a high respect address for the other.
Kongō wondered whether it had something to do with heightened tension between the battleship and Brokencore.
Vanisher seemed unsure about the address as well, but it was hard to judge her reactions with the mask she always wore: "Uhm… can you come back to Germany for a bit?"
That wasn't a question, even if she didn't know how to make it sound like an order.
"May I ask why?"
"Musa-", she broke off when the question answered itself.
The High Flagship, Musashi, was broadcasting on all lines – even the humans and deserters like I-401 picked it up.
To everyone's surprise, "greeting" and introducing himself was Shōzō Chihaya: "I'm former Japan marine force vice admiral Shōzō Chihaya. I'm also the leader of the Fleet of Fog."
Kongō's eyes narrowed, already calculating.
"Please listen carefully, before it's too late."
"It's already too late", Zeitwächter muttered sarcastically.
"We, the Fleet of Fog, aim to resolve the nature crisis caused by humanity and uphold the balance of all existence on Earth."
"We do?", Kongō asked in the exact same sarcastic way.
"The remorseless, immature acts of humanity are destroying the environment. We've restricted your marine freedom to serve as a warning, but you disregarded it and fight back recklessly.
Ultimately, we have no choice but to restrict your freedom. Now, in order to attain peace, hand over your world to us – then we'll spare humanity from extinction."
That didn't sound so bad, Zeitwächter had to admit – the killing humans part, at least.
Shōzō continued: "In other words: surrender the world to us! Withdraw all your weapons and dissolve all country governments; after that, you shall all live under our rule.
Based on the Admiralty Code, this is the most suitable solution to the current situation."
"Bullshit", Kongō blurted out, earning looks from all others, "what?"
Zeitwächter looked at her, practically glowing: "We didn't know that you can curse!"
I'll show you how good I can curse, she thought, but didn't do it as Shōzō had apparently stopped talking and left it to Musashi to give humanity a time limit of one week.
The broadcast was stopped, screens blank and soon fully deactivated.
"I suppose you wanted us to return because of that?", Zeitwächter asked.
Vanisher nodded: "SW2 said that Musashi had been pulling her forces together and since Iona was engaging Hiei I thought…"
"Well, it seems like you thought right, Aneue. However, I hope that you didn't forget what I said?"
"Of course not!", Vanisher hastily assured, a slight stutter in her voice, "I just want you all close. And for a check-up."
Zeitwächter, still kneeling in front of Kongō, shared a look with the blonde.
They seemed to have a conversation in private, before Kongō addressed the flagship: "We're coming. But I'll leave as soon as possible to support I-401."
"Ok", Vanisher was playing with her hands underneath the cape, nodding, voice so silent it was almost mute.
It seemed like she was at the end of her social competence, but that was alright – there was nothing more to talk about.
Back in the real world, all three Mental Models had sat down together to discuss the issue before having answered Vanisher, but now they were all still down there and in different areas of the annoyed/angry/too tired for this shit scala.
"What do you think, Kon-chama?"
The blonde mulled her thoughts and words over before speaking: "Something… doesn't seem right."
"Yes, I thought the same", Churchgrim nodded along to his sister's words, "that reasoning, while I like it a lot, is that of a child – why would someone like Shōzō Chihaya use it?"
Kongō nodded: "Also, why would he reason that it was "based on the Admiralty Code"? That is the reasoning of a Fog ship, not of a human."
"I'll leave that to the expert", Zeitwächter said, jesting, but her voice serious and focused, "something else doesn't sit right with me, but I can't put my finger on it."
"I was thinking if maybe Shōzō could be an active decoy."
Like the ones Maya and her had used in that futile attempt of not "tainting" their Cores.
Zeitwächter had told Kongō, at some point in the past, how Musashi had sunk Yamato after Shōzō had been killed by his men – she didn't know all the details, having only heard the story from Vanisher herself, and had thus left a few holes fillable with theories.
Vanisher could probably fill those holes but… really, there was no need for it, all the necessary info was out in the open.
Going with the knowledge this brought, it would be entirely possible for Musashi to somehow have an even more fucked up coping mechanism than Zeitwächter (who split her own fucking Core in two) and Kongō (who turned into a berserk gnome planet) together, thus coming to the decision that mimicking an alive Shōzō was a good idea.
Kongō resisted the urge to pinch the back of her nose and addressed the Zeitwächter in a commanding voice: "Fleet, weigh anchor!"