They had given Kongō time to come to terms with the new information.
Time Kongō hadn't spent thinking because there wasn't anything to think about and had instead busied herself with rebuilding Nagara.
It was a diversion tactic for her heart: concentrating on something else and coming to terms slowly with the actual issue in the background – if it worked, why change it?
She refocused on Nagara, the light cruiser testing her new body for any errors and then coming back to her flagship's Mental Model to report an all-green in the standard clicks of ships without one.
Kongō nodded at her and then nothing happened for a while.
Nagara was waiting for something, Kongō was too.
"...Are you under the effects of the Admiralty Code?"
"I'm not."
That was interesting (maybe it actually wasn't) since she didn't have a Mental Model and therefore no emotion emulator to desert like the infamous I-401.
"Why?"
"Vanisher", Nagara stated, "she said that we all have the emulator necessary for emotions? It's apparently difficult to notice without a Mental Model. I don't understand."
It was a difficult thing for her. Vanisher had told her while repairing that every ship's Union Core was equipped with the ability to feel and think freely, but also that the Admiralty Code was more prominent than that and that a Mental Model was most often needed to "break through".
Nagara naturally couldn't understand it just yet, but Kongō had also been of the opinion that having no Mental Model equaled no emotions – she had never learned it any other way and also honestly not thought too deeply about it.
However, there had been a time where no Mental Models existed and the Admiralty Code hadn't been in effect.
That had been in 2012, when the Fleet of Fog had first awoken and slowly began shooing humanity away from the seas.
Kongō couldn't really remember when the Code had been put into effect – sometime after the Great Naval Battle or while nearing the end of it – but before that, the task of "push humanity away from the seas" was more like a task.
Theoretically, should the ships have wanted, they could have decided to leave the fleet and that would've been alright; the Admiralty Code made that, at least for ships without Mental Model, near impossible.
The blonde barely realized what that could mean for Maya when she answered Nagara: "It's news for me too. Nagara, I will set out now, stay here to support Zeitwächter at port defense."
"Understood, Fleet Flagship!"
She nodded at the light cruiser and then went over to Zeitwächter, her ship floating beside Kongō's, to board: "Zeitwächter."
"Huh?", Zeitwächter half turned towards her, Maya's Union Core in hand.
"I'm setting off now."
Her eyes widened: "Already!?"
"Yes?", Kongō said, slight surprise tinting her voice, "the sooner I go the faster I am there."
Well yes, but… but!, Zeitwächter didn't have an actual reason and even if she did have one, she wouldn't say it.
"I suppose… uhm", she cleared her throat, "are you taking Nagara with you?"
"No", Kongō crossed her arms, "I ordered her to support you with your task."
"Oh, thank you."
Oh dear, Kongō sighed and walked up to her friend to free her face from that one very stubborn hair always threatening to get caught in her mouth, "What is it?"
Zeitwächter was someone who would either shut her own emotions down or start a war for them, but either way she wouldn't talk to anyone about them.
'Why are you crying?'
'Wakaranai.'
'Why are you angry?'
'Wakaranai.'
'What makes you happy?'
'Wakaranai.'
No matter what, the answer would always be "I don't know" even if she clearly knew.
True to that rule, Zeitwächter, closing her eyes for a moment as if giving up, said: "Wakaranai."
Kongō felt the desire to touch her in some way – pet her head, hold a hand, give a hug – but both of them weren't great with bodily contact and didn't like it.
So, instead, she tried to smile: "I'll come back as soon as possible. Where's Churchgrim, by the way?"
"SW2 is trying to court his favour with some meat", the battleship looked at the horizon with a cocked head, "last I checked, it was working, but your seagulls are making an enemy out of him."
Yeah, that was easily imaginable.
Those seagulls had grown unbelievably fond of Kongō for some reason – maybe they liked how warm her armour got – and were only absent when the occasional battle got too intense or it was breeding season. Now however, they were suspiciously absent.
Also, seagulls were seagulls, so food waved around near the water equaled a challenge too good to pass on.
"Fuck off already", Zeitwächter held up Maya's Core, "the sooner you go the sooner you can help your sister-in-soul and I get to figure out this bullshit here."
"Pah, at least wish me luck."
"That's my sentence. What are you gonna do? Sink? Wish me luck, you egomaniac."
Kongō had left soon afterwards, more or less being the accidental countdown for the Fleet of Mask's sortie, while Zeitwächter and Nagara stayed behind.
The light cruiser was already beginning to make her first patrol rounds, notifying her superior officer with an "all clear" everytime, as the others finally moved out.
Zeitwächter sighed.
Well, ok, time to… do her own duty for the day, huh?
It was insane how badly she didn't want to actually repair Maya, even when the instructions had been left behind, simply because Zeitwächter thought Maya to be annoying and also… she supposed that she was scared that Kongō would spend more time with Maya than her.
That's no way to think, Zeitwächter admonished herself, this is for Kongō and no one else.
Before the battleship could talk herself out of it again, she began synchronising their systems as well as was possible.
Maya… well, she looked like shit on the inside. There weren't as many errors as there were in Zeitwächter, but there were a lot.
In her defense, the fella had been literally torn apart and then patched together again like a chimaera or Frankenstein's monster itself, so she supposed that that was fair.
"Ok, you gnome, repairs starting now – if you don't get better I'll kill you for hurting my wife."
The wife was, of course, Kongō.