Oki didn't have the exact right tools at her disposal for making a shrine, but she had two small candles, a cherry twig that had been knocked down by a storm and a stickman drawing of her god.

It was the worst shrine she had ever seen, but it was the best she had to offer.

She clapped into her hands like she had seen the adults do, then held them together and closed her eyes.

What came next, though? Did she just… start talking or thinking as if she were talking?

Why had no one ever taught her how to do this?

Taking a deep breath, Oki just started whispering her prayer.

She didn't know how often she repeated her words before she was brave enough to open her eyes again, but when she did, she was in a completely different place.

It was obviously a ship's private room in the Concept Communication System, but she didn't know the room nor its owner whatsoever.

There was a big willow with a swing, table and chairs on which two mental models were seated, another standing and holding an umbrella over them.

Oki didn't know them, but she recognized the eerie air – she was in the right place.

One of the sitting mental models, a pale blonde dressed in black that reminded Oki of Kongō, poured a cup of tea, shoved it to the empty place on the table and then tended to her own cup.

The other one, covered by a blue hooded cape and a terrifying black mask stood up slightly to lean forward and pat aforementioned spot in invitation, then sat down again and removed her mask and hood.

That was the god! The colours were different but that face was the exact same!

Overjoyed, Okir rushed over to sit down in a chair, smoothing her hair and dress out.

God – who was acting out the existence of a Fleet of Fog ship, she realized – cocked her head, looking the other over with the same non-saying gaze as in 1944: "Your appearance has changed. Name, too, I have heard."

Oki nodded. Her changes had been nothing big, mere detail changes to her dress and accessories given to her by her sisters: "Yes, Miss God."

She looked at the pale blonde again: Maybe "Mrs." was more fitting by now? Was that this kind of relationship?

That ship had been quiet, keeping herself willfully in the background; yet, her presence was loud, powerful – it was impossible for her to disappear into the shadows as skilfully as the one holding the umbrella.

God, on the other hand, slipped into the background and foreground at will: "So, 797, why have you called? You even built a shrine, did you not?"

A rhetorical question no doubt, especially since there was not much curiosity in the voice (there was not much anything in it, only seriousness, only calculation).

Oki chose to answer anyway: "I…", she played with her dress nervously, "I… just couldn't reach you any other way."

"No. I did hear you:"

Her head snapped up: What…?

The being supported her cheek on the back of a hand, the corresponding elbow on an armrest: "I had to win a war and amuse politicians", the last part was still in effect, it seemed, "there was no time to come for you."

Ah, so that's why.

She could understand it, she could! For God, Oki's Afterlife was… meaningless. It had been made to amuse a child, amuse her, and maybe that ghost fire had had something to do with it as well, but to God it was just another ring of Samsara.

God had all of their souls, whether they were living, in the "Afterlife" or the afterlife – it made no difference to her, it didn't change the world to her.

Meaningless meaningless meaningless meaningless meaningless.

Yet, she had granted Oki's wish, hadn't she? Something must have mattered, right? Something must have…

No.

The word ringed in the superbattleship's ears.

There was something that mattered, but it wasn't here, wasn't her.

God had carried a ghost fire around, allowed it to throne on her head, allowed it to tug at her hair – God had made clear that she despised humans, but she liked what was not human, had liked that fire which was a ship's soul.

And that was it, Oki realized, the answer.

Because God didn't like humans, she had gotten attached to something that wasn't human. Because that something was a ship, God had become interested in ships. Because she was interested in ships, she had approached Oki.

End, simple as that.

No ulterior motive other than that ship, no ulterior motive other than a world for that ship.

That brought her to another realization: the Afterlife would have existed anyway. It didn't need Oki; Oki was meaningless.

"797", came the voice, reminding her, "speak."

Right, right right right right – she was here for help: "I need help. The AI are fighting against us and I… I know it's because the world is angry, but I don't know how to fix it at all!"

"'I'll make everyone cry a bit', didn't you say something similar?"

She had.

Oki looked down at her tea, the orange liquid reflecting her stumped face back at her: "I did do that…"

"Then it wasn't enough", God opened a jar of honey, got a spoon, put the honey inside her tea and drank from it.

"But what else should I have done?"

The other put her tea down again: "What did you do?"

"I-"

"You made them a little sad, they are even sadder because some of their loved ones are not there, but what is that in relation to an eternal time of peace?", she crossed her legs, "it is nothing. Losing limbs for people that don't have limbs is also nothing."

Oki tried to hide inside herself, hunching up her shoulders and tugging in her head.

God was right, if you looked at it like that, Oki supposed.

A ship's body was the vessel itself, not the mental model that hadn't been part of the body until Oki wished for it to be so – no, rather, until she had wished for a "true" mental model.

Originally, it was a human look their souls took because it was humans the ships had been around most and who had created them – children, after all, mimicked their parents – but they hadn't been physical.

Even if those "ghosts" had been able to touch each other with limbs, they had not viewed the "mental model" as body, because they hadn't been bodies.

Ships didn't have limbs, so they didn't have them either until Oki made them have limbs.

Kongō didn't silently complain about her legs that started hurting after her death, she complained about suddenly having legs that could hurt at all.

Myōkō didn't complain about not having eyes, because she never had eyes to begin with.

There were those like Tirpitz, who whined about an once broken back that had existed in the form of a broken foreship, but those were rare because many damages couldn't be translated into human terms.

Many ships had thus been given fully new parts that sometimes didn't work, so what? They didn't know it any other way, got accustomed and were then inconvenienced at most – that was dramatic in its own way, it had bought Oki a bit of time, but it hadn't been nearly enough.

Ironically, where Oki humanized, God didn't.

God looked at ships and saw ships, classified them as "alive" due to having souls, but didn't make anything else out of it.

Had she been in Oki's place, she would probably have given the vessels themselves nanomaterial errors to remind them of their pasts.

That would've been cruel, but that god was cruel and her world thriving.

When Oki next spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper: "Then what should I do…?"

"Doesn't matter, those strange blue eyes focused on one of the battleship's own (Oki had noticed that God always only focused on one eye), you wouldn't do it anyway."

"Why?", her voice was still so, so tiny.

"Because you can't."

Oki slammed her hands on the table and stood up, the chair falling over, cup rattling: "Then what can I do!?", hot tears streamed down her face, her own voice echoing back at her.

While the shout ringed around, the higher being, having backed up as an instinctive reaction to the sudden movement and sound, leaned back in, elbow supported on the table, chin in a hand, fully unbothered: "Die."

"What?", it rattled her a bit, but not enough to back off.

"There is something in your world, something that is not me, that can devour you and take your place."

As if watching a bug and thinking about squashing it.

Oki's eyes widened.

Was there a small smile on her face? Evil? Happy? Why was God smiling!?

"That something is strong enough to do what you can't. Strong enough to be a necessary evil", there was a wider smile now, "a demonic ship that will kill you, take the power I've granted you and wage the war you don't want to wage."

Oki felt her body shaking.

There was somebody that wanted to kill her? One of her friends? Someone that had turned into a demon!?

God stopped her panic with a single word: "If", she held up a finger, "you can't rebalance your world. The demon was happy to let you be while it worked, rearing its head only now that it isn't – it is doubtful that it'll take your place just to take your place."

She had to sit down somewhere. Soon, fast, immediately.

The child sunk to her knees slowly as they gave out step by step, hands falling with her to hold her head.

This was too much. This was way too much. What was happening? Why was this happening?

Her eyes fell on God's boots under the table.

That creature wouldn't help her, couldn't help her because even the apex predator was bound by the rules of its environment.

If she helped, the entire thing called Afterlife would be lost, if she didn't, only Oki would be.

Obvious, so terribly obvious.

Meaningless, Oki really was meaningless.