Hood walked into the cafeteria, froze instantly and made Duke of York almost barrel into her.
"M'lord?", Duke of York moved to look over the battlecruiser's shoulder, feeling her brows furrow.
A child looked up at them, red eyes, short red hair, mostly red outfit with black details."
"Von Richthofen?"
Indeed, that was Manfred von Richthofen, de-aged, looking to be around four years old.
The carrier looked away with a grim expression: "Yes."
Both Brits stared at her, blinking dumbly.
What the hell?
"Richthofen, how did this…", Hood gestured at her, "happen?"
Manfred apparently found the floor very interesting, because she still wasn't looking at them: "It is my punishment."
"...I see."
"Who came up with it?", asked Duke of York curiously.
"Lady Tirpitz."
Yeah, that seemed fitting. Duke had been guessing Scharnhorst, but Tirpitz worked just as well.
Hood crossed her arms: "Did they manipulate your nanomaterial?"
A heavy breath as if fighting a sigh could be heard: "No. I was allowed to fill my ressources enough to regain combat readiness, but not enough for my mental models."
The thing was, Manfred von Richthofen normally had two mental models running around, of which one was a big horse (German carriers apparently liked those) and the other a human with very long hair.
When she had gotten herself in trouble yesterday, the nanomaterial ressources had already been emptied partially due to an earlier battle and she had been forced to cannibalize both hair and horse.
Due to the nature of punishment, she had of course not been allowed enough material to reconstruct them and had instead morphed into a younger body since she at least could fully "repair" that with the intact nanomaterial of her "old" body.
It was double the punishment since her accursed sisters were actively hunting her down to baby her since they knew how much it annoyed her.
Missetat begangen, she thought, which translated to "misdeed committed" but in this case meant "fuck my life".
Anyway, the British ships still looked down at her, apparently not planning to make way: "Pardon me, may I move past you?"
"Apologies, of course", Hood said before they stepped aside and watched the "kid" rush off, not running, but not walking either, then they looked back inside the room.
As usual this early, there was noone there, but she had seemed almost as if being hunted, so what…?
Ah, there was the answer, rushing into the room from another door.
Duke of York pointed to a random door before Lothar von Richthofen could even open her mouth, while Hood just rubbed the bridge of her nose in exasperation.
"Your Majesty, how are you feeling?", asked Bellerophon in her usual, disinterested voice. She wasn't per se disinterested, not expressing much emotion at any given time was merely her norm.
Kongō looked at the battleship, her personal servant, when she entered the pavillion: "I will live", she answered with her standard soft, motherly smile in place.
Beside her, Lion and Mikasa looked up from their tea for a moment.
That had been a relatively sassy answer for her, so she was probably still a bit angry. Understandable, but it would not overshadow the fact that Kongō did not treat her damages with the care they should receive.
Their eyes met in silent understanding: keep an eye on her.
Bellerophon was unbothered by that – she had gotten her answer and didn't care about the tone it came in – and placed the biscuits she had retrieved for the usual morning tea party down in the middle of the table, before stepping back to her usual place at the side with Myōkō.
Dreadnought took a sip from her tea, then put the cup down again: "I was sure the weather would be unfriendly today", she gave a ladylike giggle, "I must say I'm pleasantly surprised."
"Me as well", Lion joined in, putting some biscuits on a little plate and shoving it in Kongō's direction.
Kongō looked at the entire thing without a change in expression – if she had been someone else, her face probably would've been blank.
The biscuits weren't touched, Kongō didn't want them right now, but it seemed like Lion had given them to her more out of routine than anything else anyway.
The little Kongō was uninterested and unbothered by a lot of things, Lion found out.
She would follow her mother or aunt, Princess Royal, around dutifully, completely block every other child ship that came to her to play and ignore the adults.
"Why don't you ever play with the others, Little Diamond?", Lion asked while brushing her child's hair.
"I'm not interested."
Kongō had grown by now, but her face still had some of that baby air and her hair was still kept short.
Lion chuckled: "You are not."
"No."
"Hmm…", the blonde hummed, then hugged her daughter from behind, making her almost squeak, "but how will you ever find friends?", she jested.
"I don't need friends", Kongō answered seriously while Lion rubbed their cheeks together, "I'll have sisters."
"You will", her mother murmured, stopping her "attack".
Sisters Lion would never see in person, daughters she would never know – her heart laid heavy in her chest at the thought and her gut grew taught: "...Maybe you'll have a child too one day."
"...Maybe", at the moment, she didn't want that at all. In fact, she didn't want anything less.
Children? WHat did she want with children? If her countries were to build a "child" from her blueprints, then she wouldn't care for it. Period.
She only cared about Hiei. Her new sister would be called that, apparently, which meant there was a good chance that the new ship could attract the old Hiei's soul.
Now, did Kongō remember her past life? No.
The only thing she remembered from that time was Hiei, in flashes of memory embedded deep inside her soul.
…Maybe she would also care about her two fully new sisters.
Lion noticed the heavy atmosphere around them and decided to lighten it: reaching over to the table where old lady Dreadnought had left biscuits, she took one and held it up to Kongō's mouth.
The small battlecruiser looked at it in confusion.
"Ah~, Little Diamond, ah~"
Alright, that was it, Lion had lost her mind and it had taken her only two years of life.
Kongō didn't open her mouth, but took the sweet and nibbled at it after a while.
Oh.
Kongō took a biscuit and bit into it.
She liked cinnamon and vanilla.
The conversation had continued while Kongō had zoned out and had arrived at a different topic.
Dreadnought sighed: "I was filled with happiness when that dreadful war was finally over, alas, now, we are caught in another."
"That is the case", Lion confirmed, pouring her elder a new cup of tea, "yet, even us old ones are useful in this combat, so do not be so downed."
Of course, that didn't cheer her up. Lion and Dreadnought had just fully miscommunicated.
Mikasa and Kongō made eye contact.
The problem was the war itself, not their usefulness… they couldn't help but sweatdrop.
Another sigh: "You are correct. Yet I wonder how this could have happened? We are not part of the Fleet of Fog's world, yet we might as well be…"
This afterlife had been peaceful for the longest time. Paper ships had been born, fallen ships – even if some carried errors – had been reborn.
Because warships were warships though, they all desired combat to a certain amount and wargames were made. Massprodiced AI, already part of this world when they had arrived in it, existed for the purpose of serving as enemy during those.
No AI had ever been sunk without being recovered and repaired – just as the Great Combined Fleet was – yet they had gone rogue.
They had started fighting, really fighting, against the fleet.
There was no conscience, no soul in them, but they acted as they did, as if being ordered – but by who?
"God", some ships would whisper, making Kongō's mood sour.
"God" was not responsible for this. "God" had given the deity formerly known as 797 a fair warning, 797 "Oki" had told Kongō when she had caught the superbattleship crying.
"A world needs good and bad to survive" was stuck in Kongō's mind. There had been too much "good", so the Afterlife would correct it with "bad".
Simple. Easy. Effective.
She had promised Oki not to tell anyone about the truth, the child tearfully promising to find a solution to "fix this, I promise".
Foolish, Kongō had thought, the solution is war.
War didn't need to cause victims on your own side to be tragic – it was tragic, it was "bad", in its very nature.
If this was Afterlife, then there would be war, because even souls can die.