"Thanks for that, Lenin," Le Malin said, completely unfazed by the close call.
With her speed, she could have dodged La Gallissonnière's last attack without issue, but she knew he'd be there to cover for her regardless, and since she had helped him with his fight, she figured she'd allow him to return the favor.
"Don't mention it; now we are even. Are you injured?" He asked Le Malin.
"I'm fine. You should worry about yourself. You are in much worse shape than me. You even used your reactors again," she said with a note of concern in her tone.
The amount of steam coming out of his body was slowly abating, and his skin was going back to its normal shade, but she didn't miss his heavy breathing, the multiple bleeding wounds, the grazes, and the swelling bumps all over his body. Sure, she had seen him take a lot more punishment in the past, but still...
"I had no choice," he shrugged. His opponent was a lot tougher than he expected. Algérie had been holding back on him because she was underestimating him; if the fight had gone on for a while longer, he'd have probably lost. "Besides, your wounds are of more concern to me than my own," he added, brushing off her concern.
Le Malin blinked at his words, a soft blush coming to adorn her cheeks. Realizing what he just said, he cleared his throat in embarrassment.
"Ahem… B-because I'm more durable than you, of course. A-and because I didn't want you to get hurt fighting your comrades... Even though they aren't exactly your comrades—ugh, you know what I mean! I'm glad you are okay."
As he stammered his way through his rant, she couldn't help the giggle that escaped her lips. Then she leaned in to kiss him. It was just an innocent peck on the cheek, but it was enough to leave him slack jawed, with his eyes bulging out of their sockets.
The shipboy began spluttering and stammering, completely taken aback and unsure on how to react. His face flushed again as steam came out of his ears like a teakettle, though this time she wasn't sure if it was due to his reactors acting up or something else. Before he could make even more of a fool of himself, the shipgirl intervened to save him from his predicament.
"Merci, Lenin, for coming to my help when I was frozen in fear. I... I don't know what would have happened if it weren't for you," she said bashfully, but with a heartfelt tone of gratitude and a soft smile adorning her face.
Blushing hard, he averted his gaze in embarrassment. Maybe it was his imagination, but he could feel the spot where her lips touched his cheek burning hot.
"I-I told you; it was nothing. Come on, we've wasted enough time; let's move," he said, attempting to change the subject.
"You are not going anywhere," she declared, her tone suddenly serious. "At least not with those injuries."
"I told you, I'm fine- ouch! What was that for?!" To prove her point, Le Malin had stabbed her fingers into his ribs, making him jump in pain and surprise.
"See? You can barely stand straight. What are you going to do if we run into other enemies?"
"But I can't leave my brother…"
The following deadpan stare she sent him was enough to shut him up. "I'm not saying this twice. Either you come with me, or I drag you back myself."
"Ugh, fine…" Finally relenting, the shipboy averted his gaze as he made for what was supposed to be their way back, albeit begrudgingly.
Noticing him stumbling a bit, Le Malin leaned next to him, wrapping an arm around his back and taking his own around her shoulders to support him.
"Here, let me help you."
He stiffened at having her so close, averting his gaze as he blushed in embarrassment. He muttered a thank you and an apology as he tried to straighten his posture before the two set off.
"Wait, what do we do with them?" She paused in her tracks, glancing back at Algérie and La Gallissonnière.
He also looked down at their unconscious forms.
The two META shipgirls were resting on the roof closest to the water level, where they had dragged them. La Gallissonnière's body was reduced to an empty pincushion where Le Malin had stabbed her with her estoc, while Algérie's face was swollen and blackened by Lenin's merciless beating.
Seeing them like that pained the Vichya destroyer to no end, but they had managed to keep them alive, and that's what mattered the most. Besides, Emperor could heal their lighter wounds in a heartbeat, so there was nothing to worry about.
"I guess we leave them here and pick them up later. It's not like they'll be in any danger," he shrugged. He certainly wasn't going to carry around their dead weight, at least not in his current condition.
"You are right, let's go," she said, before the two set off for their next stop.
Above their heads, the squadrons of Zero fighters from opposing sides, almost identical to each other, had been fighting all the while, a sign of Zuikaku having caught up to the enemy.
They could only hope things went as well for the Sakura carrier as they did for them.
For the Kansen, maneuvering their hulls came as naturally as breathing.
But for carriers specifically, deploying their own aircraft wasn't as easy.
Both were inherent parts of their being warships, but the second didn't come as naturally as the first.
A carrier learning to fly their craft was like a kid learning to ride a bike or to swim; it needed practice to be learned and hard work to be perfected, but once mastered, it will never be forgotten. It was like sending a part of their body to the outside while still retaining remote control of it; it required them to extend their consciousness to their aircraft to properly maneuver them.
For that reason, carriers tended to have a different kind of mindfulness than other Kansen. Fighting, scouting, flying in formation... All those activities that required them to split their focus between multiple aircraft at the same time necessitated strong discipline and a strong sense of control.
It goes without saying that such qualities varied between individuals. Some were better at dogfights than bombing runs, or vice versa; some could have more capacity, some had more range, some had more endurance...
Of course, even among them were gifted individuals who put everyone else around them to shame with their talent.
Zuikaku knew it very well.
As a member of the Fifth Carrier Division, she had expectations to meet and standards to uphold, but since the time when she was still a warship and until the moment she came to life as a Kansen, she had always felt one step behind her peers.
Most carriers tended to use some sort of medium to channel their control over their craft; whether it was an object, like her sister's flute, or a particular routine to strengthen their focus, it varied from Kansen to Kansen.
And then there were those who had such means integrated into their very being; back in her homeland, some of these individuals were the Kitsune Kansen.
It turns out their tails weren't just for show; on the contrary, the number of tails is a symbol of power and seniority for a Kitsune. Not only that, but having a set of nine additional independent appendages in their everyday life granted them better balance and coordination than anyone else, which inevitably influenced their proficiency as carriers. Of course, some of those Kitsunes, especially her more experienced seniors of the First Carrier Division, rarely missed a chance to rub it in her face by showing her up with their superior skill.
Her only way to keep up and to get rid of her feeling of inadequacy was to find a medium herself—something she could put her heart and soul into that could help her reach the same level of mindfulness she sought. Needless to say, her choice fell on the art of the sword, a discipline many Kansen of the Sakura Empire seemed to naturally gravitate towards.
After finding her vocation, she swore to put all the effort she could into her training. Eventually, when it was time to take the battlefield during the war between the factions, she figured she could finally show what she was truly capable of by testing her mettle against worthy opponents. But of course, her newfound confidence didn't last long. During her first sortie as a shipgirl, she was immediately humbled when she crossed paths with the implacable force of raw talent that was the Grey Ghost.
The first time they met as Kansen, Enterprise showed her up so badly that Zuikaku couldn't even land a single hit on her; such was the skill gap between her and the Hero of the Eagle Union at the time.
Of course, she didn't let that sounding defeat push her down. Since then, she hadn't stopped training and improving. She declared the Grey Ghost her rival, but even if she couldn't carry out her wish to defeat her in a real battle anymore, thanks to the peace treaty and the reestablishment of Azur Lane, she had the possibility to train directly with her and to confront herself with many more carriers from all over the world.
Surely all the experience she had amassed over the course of the years would be enough to allow her to take on the opponent standing in front of her.
Oh, how wrong she was...
"Hiryuu-senpai…" Zuikaku let out in a breath.
Standing coolly in front of her was Hiryuu's META version; her long, white hair a stark contrast with the black billowing cape she was wearing and the blackened flight deck by her side. They were standing atop the roof of a high-rise, close to the city center, where all the buildings were taller if compared to the outskirts.
"So it's you, Zuikaku," the META said, looking her up and down. "Judging by how well you were faring against my squadrons, I was expecting my opponent to be Akagi or Kaga..."
The Red Crane gritted her teeth in frustration, her hand clenching the handle of her sheathed katana. Being compared to her seniors, as flattering as it was, always left a bad taste in her mouth.
Since she had gotten separated from Emperor, she had been doing her job as the only other operative carrier of the fleet, that is, engaging the enemy fighters in the air to keep them from attacking her comrades scattered around the place.
All the while, she had been trying to locate the enemy carrier's position. Imagine her surprise when she came face to face with Hiryuu's META counterpart. Though, thinking back on it, it shouldn't have come as a surprise.
The Zeros had been a dead giveaway, but not only that; to say that the battle for aerial superiority had been tough would be an understatement.
While her total number of fighters was higher than her opponent's, Zuikaku had lost one of her airwings at the beginning of the engagement, when she used them to check for the opposing party's hostility.
While Kansen had the ability to conjure more ammo and to deploy more aircraft than their historical counterparts, that didn't mean it was wise to abuse it by exceeding the capacity limit. It entailed putting their Cubes and their energy reserves under too much strain. Which meant if all her aircraft were shot down and she was caught without energy left to defend herself, she'd be like a sitting duck in the ocean.
She had figured playing defensively against the opposing aircraft was the safest choice, if only to give her comrades more time to deal with Temperance and restore the comms, but it didn't take her long to realize that it wasn't a good idea.
The aggressiveness with which those fighters came at her was overwhelming. Not only that, but there wasn't a hint of recklessness in their flying pattern; on the contrary, they attacked with calculated ruthlessness and were unrelenting in their assault.
But if there was something she was used to, it was the First Carrier Division's aggressiveness and the Grey Ghost's relentlessness.
She had had to stop in her tracks and find a nice, elevated place atop a random roof, if only to have a clearer overview of the sky above the city. From there, she could hear the roaring of the engines, the sound of gunfire, and the wind pressure caused by the aircraft flying too close to her head. Sure, she was exposing herself to the enemy, but if that was the price to pay to get the upper hand, she was willing to take the risk.
In the end, it had paid off.
From her new perspective, she had noticed something. She hadn't realized before because of her opponent's aggressive approach, but their attack patterns were all too familiar. Those were the exact schemes she had learned, executed, and practiced against ad nauseam back in her homeland with her comrades, though these were carried out with so much rapidity and ferocity that they were unrecognizable to her at first.
But once she identified the familiar pattern, she only needed to execute the proper maneuvers to retaliate. Of course, that didn't mean her opponent remained sitting idly while she launched her counterattack. The META carrier, from the safety of her hiding spot, had responded in kind, and after that moment, the two sides had been caught in an airborne tug-of-war, each one using their wits to one-up the other.
One would try to catch the other off guard with a new attack pattern, which would help tip the scale of the battle in her favor for a few, brief seconds, only to be pushed back on equal ground with an original maneuver ideated on the spot by the other.
It was like playing checkers; you eat a piece only to have your own get eaten by your opponent, and so on and so forth. One of them would take down an opposing airwing, which would create a window for the other to retaliate, trapping the two in a chain of revenge-kills until they finished their aircraft and were forced to conjure more from their rigging.
Zuikaku had realized it fairly quickly, so she had decided to change her approach.
Keeping her eyes peeled for any possible hideout, she had spotted a particularly tall high-rise in the distance, which the opposing aircraft seemed to be keeping themselves clear of.
Throwing caution to the side, she had recalled one of her planes back to her position before jumping atop it. With it, she had headed for what was probably the enemy's location.
Her intuition had proved correct, and soon, after pushing through the line of opposing aircraft trying to shoot her down, she had reached the place and jumped off the plane, finding herself in front of the META carrier.
"I haven't come here to be looked down upon," Zuikaku declared flatly, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "Drop your weapon without resisting, Senpai; I don't want to hurt you."
Despite her talent, Zuikaku had always been the newbie, the greener Kansen who needed her sister's presence to perform at her best. So it was obvious that Hiryuu wasn't expecting to face her, of all people. She would have never guessed that one of the members of the Fifth Carrier Division would give her such a hard time by herself; her expecting to face someone like Akagi or Kaga was justified.
But in the end, it didn't matter. Hiryuu was just glad she wasn't facing Souryuu. She didn't know if she'd be able to bare steel against her sister, even if it was just her counterpart. Her real sister, with whom she had survived the destruction of their timeline, had passed away during one of their many confrontations with the Arbiters.
"Don't get me wrong, Zuikaku; I wasn't trying to insult you. It's just that your counterpart in my old timeline would have never even dreamed of reaching this level of proficiency," Hiryuu stated coolly as she brought her left hand under her rigging to unsheathe one of her swords. "You are also a lot less bold than I remember; why haven't you drawn your blade yet?"
"Because I want to talk, Senpai. I think there's still a chance to put an end to this pointless battle before someone else gets hurt," Zuikaku responded, unflinching.
She knew there was a chance she'd end up fighting against some of her compatriots' META versions; she had mentally prepared herself and was ready to do so. But then, while she was fending off Hiryuu's planes, her radio had come back to life, a telltale sign of Temperance and her jamming having been dealt with.
That's when she was told about what had happened to Cinder. Emperor had just finished dealing with Queen Elizabeth and Sheffield when he had contacted her to tell her that he was going back to check on the META carrier. The shipboy wanted to see if he could do something, as far-fetched as it sounded, so he couldn't come to her help.
Of course, the news was enough to shock her into almost losing control of her aircraft, until she realized she had to pull herself together if she didn't want to end up like Cinder.
Hiryuu pursed her lips and shook her head in disagreement.
"I take back what I said... That attitude will only lead you to an early grave," she proclaimed. "If you still see me as a senior, then heed my words. On the battlefield, even a moment's hesitation can invite total destruction; when fighting, you have to think about nothing other than how to defeat your enemy."
"I know! I've come prepared, Senpai. But after knowing what happened to Cinder, I couldn't just show up and threaten to kill you," Zuikaku insisted, a pleading undertone in her voice. "Hiyou, Junyou, and the others must have reached Azur Lane by now; they will be devastated when they find out about her. I don't want to be the one to tell them that another one of their old comrades has died. Despite what they said, they still care about all of you!"
Hiryuu stiffened. Zuikaku's words managed to tug at her heartstrings, but she was able to keep her stone face by biting down on her lips until she drew blood, the familiar taste of iron in her mouth calming her down.
"What's happened to Cinder is indeed a tragedy. Our views may have diverged with time, but we all owe her a lot for taking us in," she said, a note of grief and sadness in her voice.
"Then all the more reason to stop this madness. She wouldn't want us to fight each other," Zuikaku insisted. "Why don't you come with us, Senpai? You'll be able to see everyone again-"
"It's too late, Zuikaku... There's no point for me to go back. Besides, I already gave them my last regards when we parted ways. I'm content with how things are turning out."
"What do you mean-"
Ignoring her pleading tone, Hiryuu cut her off by settling into a stance. Zuikaku jumped in surprise as she did the same, unsheathing her own weapon.
"There's no further need to talk," Hiryuu solemnly stated. "Give me your best shot!" She said as she lunged at the other carrier.
Duels in the Sakura Empire weren't decided by brawn. They weren't spectacles, either. There were no fancy moves or dramatic flourishes—just two warriors, ready to bet their lives on a single move. A duel would be decided within the time it took the contestants to swing their blades, usually ending with one of the two having their torso sliced open or their head cut off.
They almost never went over that first move, and even more rarely, they ended in a draw. For that to happen, one needed extraordinary skill and lightning-quick reflexes and reactions—all things that Kansen had plenty of.
Which was why a sword fight between two of those superhuman warriors wouldn't end right after the first exchange.
Zuikaku and Hiryuu knew it very well.
A bolt of black and white on one side and one of a red hue on the other mixed together with flashes of steel as they crossed swords atop the high-rise.
Sparks flew with each clash, the blades touching for a fraction of a second before gliding along each other as the shipgirls blocked, parried, or barely avoided their opponent's move in turn. When an exchange would fail to draw blood, they would step back simultaneously, readjust their stance, and swoop in for another try.
Not only that, but they both also needed to keep their riggings out while splitting their focus between the opponent in front of them and their aircraft still doing battle in the sky.
It wasn't just physically tiring; it was mentally exhausting as well. The longer it went on, the heavier the strain on their minds. If they kept going, the first of them to give in to fatigue would lose.
Eventually, they both began showing signs of exertion. Zuikaku managed to cut a few strands of hair from her opponent with an impetuous swing but winced at the close call as Hiryuu responded with her own, opening a shallow cut on her cheek.
The exchange kept going for a few more seconds before they both noticed something—the edges of their blades, despite being tailor-made for Kansen usage, were slowly being chipped away.
Zuikaku scoffed at herself; the blades being chipped was a sign of them both standing on equal ground, skill-wise.
Despite it looking like that, the Red Crane knew she was at a disadvantage. Her opponent's swings had a lot more power than hers; not only that, but Hiryuu's sword wasn't a katana—it was a chokuto. They differed from normal katanas in that they were longer and straighter, which meant the META carrier had a reach advantage over her. Lastly, Hiryuu was left-handed.
Such a simple fact was enough to throw Zuikaku off her game. She was having trouble adjusting to her opponent's inverted grip and mirrored moves, as her experience against left-handed swordsmen was close to zero, inevitably finding herself on her backfoot.
"What's wrong, Zuikaku?!" Hiryuu barked after they separated for the umpteenth time. "Was I a fool to expect a challenge?!"
Not giving in to the provocation, Zuikaku took a deep breath to calm her nerves as she resumed her stance. She was slowly getting used to her opponent's movements, but Hiryuu had two more weapons sheathed by her side, while she had only one sword. In a battle of attrition, she would lose.
She realized she had to finish it quickly if she wanted to come out victorious, which meant she needed to step up her game even at the cost of seriously injuring her opponent.
She had no other choice; she had to try "that."
"If it's a challenge you want, you'll have it," the Red Crane declared. "Wisdom Crafting."
She brought her blade to the side, smacking the pommel right on the tip of her miniaturized flight deck. A row of fighters spawned on the flattop, and one after the other, they took off. But instead of taking flight, they crashed into the hilt of the sword right after turning into small whisps of flame. The blade took on a bright orange hue, which became more and more intense with each plane crashing into it until literal flames appeared to envelop it. It looked like it had been immersed in a bucket of scorching hot charcoal, the flames tempering the chipped blade.
"A fire sword? What kind of magician's trick is this?" Hiryuu frowned as Zuikaku fell back into a high stance. "No, wait… She's using her planes to transfer her Cube's energy to her sword; how… quaint," she thought.
Hiryuu understood immediately that the fiery display wasn't just for show; those flames were heating the blade enough to make up for the damaged steel.
"This is my last warning, Senpai. Drop your weapon and recall your aircraft!" Zuikaku intimated.
Hiryuu threw away her own damaged blade and unsheathed one of her spares, ignoring her warning.
"Not when you've finally decided to get serious," she said, hiding a pleased smile behind her coat.
"Don't say I didn't warn you!"
Closing the distance with a high jump, Zuikaku lunged at her, bringing her flaming blade down on her. Hiryuu tried to parry the swing with her own, but much to her dismay, the molten blade straight up melted through hers before connecting with her left shoulder.
Wincing in pain, she jumped backward to put some distance between them, bringing her right hand to clutch at her wound. It hurt a lot, mainly because of the searing heat that immediately cauterized the wound, but because of that, there wasn't any trace of blood.
The pain and the following realization made her eyes widen in anger.
"Is this a joke, Zuikaku?!" She bellowed. "That blow should have been the end of me! Don't tell me you are still hesitating!"
The Red Crane gritted her teeth in frustration. In truth, she was trying to impair her dominant side by disabling her left arm, but she had miscalculated her lunge, so she had to withdraw at the last second, lest she ended up killing her.
As the pain subsided, Hiryuu let out a deep breath of resignation.
"That's enough playing games; let's see if this'll shake you up a bit," she said.
Her right hand disappeared into her cloak for a second before coming out holding a deck of cards, which Zuikaku recognized immediately—those were hanafudas.
Hiryuu flung the deck in the air with a flourish, and the cards scattered around her before spontaneously setting on fire. In a second, they were reduced to ashes, and in their place, miniaturized war planes appeared.
Zuikaku's eyes widened in surprise. Hiryuu had converted an entire airwing into hanafuda cards and had hidden them out of sight as spares in case of need. Though these ones were different from the usual Zeros; they were a lot darker in color and seemed a lot sharper than those.
Like a flock of starlings, the aircraft attacked her simultaneously. She hurriedly called upon another airwing of hers, but her reserves were almost depleted. She found herself surrounded by a swarm of miniaturized fighters, with only a handful of her own to protect herself.
Swinging her sword around, she tried to bring down as many of them as possible, but they were too small and swift, and they had already begun dropping their bombs on her. She tried to shield herself with her rigging, but even then, the explosions were too much.
Before they could completely overwhelm her, she crouched down, bending on her knees, and brought her sword to the side in a low stance. She was running on fumes now; she absolutely needed to put an end to this fight with her next move. Using that stance and her rigging, she protected her face and vitals as she braced herself.
Hiryuu, who knew better than to jump in the middle of that vortex of death, could only gawk in surprise as the Red Crane sprang up from her crouching stance, swinging her blade in a wide, blazing arc. The flames produced by her blade raged in tongues of fire, dancing around her in circles as they turned the swarm to ashes.
Before the fire could even subside completely, Zuikaku came out of the vortex, her battered form covered in wounds and filth, charging recklessly at Hiryuu while readying another vertical swing.
Hiryuu quickly unsheathed her remaining weapon, but this time, instead of meeting the other blade, she prepared a thrust, aiming for Zuikaku's torso. Her greater reach would allow her to hit first, and her opponent's momentum wouldn't allow her to dodge.
But right before her thrust could reach her opponent, Zuikaku stopped in her tracks, raised her leg, and stomped down on Hiryuu's blade, locking it to the ground under her foot. Hiryuu didn't even have time to process what happened, as the other carrier had already jumped over her sword, aiming for her rigging.
With a swift motion, the Red Crane cleaved through Hiryuu's flight deck, the molten blade cutting through it with ease. The sudden shift in weight made Hiryuu stumble as she tried to bring her sword back up, but Zuikaku had already prepared another blow.
From her low stance, she swung her sword upward, severing Hiryuu's left hand at the wrist before she could put up any resistance.
The chokuto clanged to the floor, and the META carrier fell to her knees, holding back a scream of pain. Silence filled the air, broken only by her groaning and the sound of aircraft in the sky.
The Red Crane dismissed the flames around her blade before pointing it at the META's neck.
"Well, what are you waiting for? An invitation?" Hiryuu breathed out, panting heavily as she cradled her already cauterized stump against her chest.
Zuikaku was also trying to bring her breathing back under control, but her question left her stunned.
"W-what? No, I'm not going to execute you!" She stammered. "I told you, I didn't come here to kill you, idiot!"
Hiryuu shook her head in disappointment, letting out a sigh.
"I don't understand you, Senpai... You've been so adamant about me fighting you seriously since we met. It's almost like you really want me to..." Zuikaku trailed off as she looked into Hiryuu's eyes.
Her tired gaze and forlorn expression told her everything.
"N-no, this is... You aren't serious… You can't expect me to..." Zuikaku faltered, her hand shaking around her sword as she put two and two together.
"If you don't do it, then the corruption will, Zuikaku," Hiryuu said, cutting her off. Seeing her dismayed and confused expression, the META continued. "The process of Metamorphosis is like cancer in metastasis; it spreads through your body first and your mind later... Everybody reacts differently to it, but the result is always the same. It leaves behind an empty husk as your Cube eventually shuts down on its own."
"D-does that mean... everyone?" Zuikaku tentatively asked her.
"Yes, everyone. All METAs are destined to meet the same end," Hiryuu declared. "The others just haven't realized it yet or are simply in denial."
"B-but then why are you even here?!" Zuikaku inquired. "Why did you embark on this folly? Shouldn't you be spending your time with them?"
Hiryuu scoffed at herself, her mind wandering to the rest of the Ashes.
Reaching the Original Timeline to kill the Creator and create a new timeline with all their friends and comrades still alive and well? When Ash first told her about it, she had almost laughed in her face. That dream was as far-fetched as it could get; the simple thought of achieving it was preposterous by itself. And yet, a small part of herself kept telling her that, maybe, it wasn't so implausible. Maybe it was her naive old self still peering through the cracks of the tough exterior she used as a shell, but it didn't matter; far-fetched or not, meeting her end while trying to achieve such a goal was too much of an endearing prospect. That's why she went with Ash; like elephants feeling their end inexorably approaching, she made her choice and set off for the path that she knew would lead her to her grave.
"Because I'd rather die a warrior's death trying to achieve something worthwhile than slowly wasting away as the corruption gets the better of me. I was expecting it to be one of the Arbiters, but then I found you," she proclaimed. "I'm going to ask you this one last time, Zuikaku; will you do it or not?"
Zuikaku's mind was a mess of emotions.
Needless to say, there's no way she could ever do that, but she couldn't lie to herself. A small part of her, deep into the back of her mind, seriously considered it as she tried to put herself in Hiryuu's place. She could only imagine what the META carrier had to go through to reach such a conclusion. A quick, honorable death instead of a slow, agonizing demise… Maybe if she had been in her shoes, she would have done the same, and maybe if it had been someone else, they would have agreed to fulfill her request.
But she couldn't bring herself to do it. Bringing down her sword on the neck that bore the face of a beloved comrade in what was essentially an execution was impossible for her.
"Don't take this as an execution, but a mercy kill. It'll be a lot easier, and you won't have to feel guilty about it," Hiryuu said.
Biting her lips and swallowing the lump forming in her throat, Zuikaku slowly lowered her blade, much to Hiryuu's disappointment.
"I refuse," the Red Crane declared.
Hiryuu clicked her tongue.
"It seems I was wrong to put my trust in you," she mused aloud.
Without notice, she lunged at her, tightly wrapping her arms around her midriff.
"S-senpai! What are you-?!" Before she could get an answer, Zuikaku noticed the fighters in the sky.
With the white-haired carrier literally on her knees and out of the fight, Zuikaku's fighters had been making small work of the META's planes, but all of a sudden, all of Hiryuu's remaining aircraft had switched course and were now inexorably converging toward their position.
With increasing concern at the impending prospect, Zuikaku tried to pry the other carrier off herself, but with one hand keeping her sword out of Hiryuu's reach and with the other carrier sticking onto her with an iron grip despite having only one hand left, there wasn't much she could do to escape… except for one thing, she realized.
"Do it, Zuikaku! You have to kill me if you don't want to die with me!" Hiryuu yelled, firmly holding her in place.
"You dying won't solve anything! It'll only cause more pain! Why don't you get it?!" She said as the two struggled.
"I already told you! There's no other choice!" Hiryuu yelled. She knew how cruel she was being, but at this point, nothing else mattered to her; just being able to go with a familiar face by her side was enough.
"No, goddammit, I refuse!" She shouted. "I am Zuikaku, the Auspicious Crane, and I won't allow you to give up on yourself like this!"
Giving up on fighting off the META carrier, Zuikaku lifted her gaze, grasped her sword with both hands, holding the blade horizontally behind her, as if getting ready to throw it at the incoming aircraft.
She took a deep breath as she gathered her resolve; her eyes shone brightly, and her katana erupted. Hiryuu looked around her in dismay as the flames came back to life, surrounding both of them in a fiery whirlwind, engulfing the entire rooftop.
The heat was unbearable, and the air was unbreathable, but then the fire condensed around Zuikaku's blade as the shipgirl swung her weapon in a wide, upward arc above their heads.
Like an eruption, a column of fire raised above their heads, taking on the shape of a giant avian-like creature—a crane—as it flew upward. The roar of the flames seemed like the call of a bird as it headed toward the planes.
When the flaming crane met the formation of diving aircraft head-on, it disrupted their flight, its wingspan wide enough to engulf the entirety of the flock. The heat was so incredibly high that it burned them down to their ribs as it kept rising on its vertical course, undeterred.
After reducing every last one of them to ashes, the flames simply snuffed out of existence, disappearing with one final bright flash of light as a parting gift.
As the small, remaining pieces of wreckage rained down on them like burning confetti, the two carriers looked up, one of them in sheer elation at the feat she had just accomplished, the other in pure disbelief.
Hiryuu let go of Zuikaku, defeated, as the Red Crane lowered her sword, her hands shivering with elated relief as her arms lost all strength.
"Hehe… You hesitated, Senpai… You weren't totally committed… You were scared… I could feel it…" Zuikaku said, panting heavily in exertion, looking down at the META carrier with a tired smile. "For that… It's my win."
Hiryuu could only look up at her with an unreadable expression on her face, until fatigue inevitably caught up to her junior.
Zuikaku lost her grip on her weapon, which dropped to the floor with a clang, before falling unceremoniously to her knees and right into her senior's waiting arms as she drifted off to sleep.
AN: Okay, so, hear me out. I know I said that the anime sucks, and that this franchise deserves better than that clusterfuck; I still stand by that statement, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't draw any inspiration from it for this fic. And if you think I'm not giving Kaga her giant fox fire monster eventually then you are sorely mistaken.
After all, the concept of Wisdom Crafting is just a plot device I came up with to justify some of the wacky stuff Kansen can do outside of "summon gun, fire."
Next Chapter: Passing on the Torch