Chapter 5

Nagato and Mutsu hovered over the map on the table in front of them in the command room, with Ooydo sitting by her radio listening for messages as usual. They were waiting for a report from a fleet they sent out to the southeast on reconnaissance earlier that day. Ever since Fubuki disappeared, things have been going as bad as they have to being strange. For starters, there have been daily reports of destroyed abyssals in the southeast despite there just being barren ocean and the Naval District almost never sending fleets there. Secondly, regarding a report given by Kaga a few days ago before the abyssal counterattack and after Fubuki went missing, theorizing that Fubuki may have gone in that direction leading to the suspicion that there could be more out there then they initially thought. This wasn't lost on the enemy either, as they've increased their activity and involvement there, which is why Nagato organized this reconnaissance mission, they couldn't ignore this sudden change.

"You've been staring at that empty patch of ocean for quite a long time." Mutsu comments, "something on your mind?"

"Yes," Nagato responds nonchalantly. "It all seems so strange, as if there's something deeper going on or rather someone scheming in the shadows that set the final stages of their grand plan into action." She says, half curious and half concerned, almost afraid of what might be coming.

"You think that Fubuki is integral to this 'grand plan?'" Mutsu asked.

"Yes," Nagato answered. "It would make the most sense: from Fubuki's sudden and drastic change in behavior after operation MI, her suddenly leaving in the night, the fact that she wrote that letter to Akagi as if saying goodbye yet hoping for the opposite, the reports of destroyed abyssal ships from unknown causes that may include her, and finally the increased enemy activity in a strategically and tactically useless area of sea." She further elaborated. "Looking back, it's almost like when we decided that base MI was the target the admiral called AF. But unlike that time when it felt as if destiny was pulling us in that direction, here it's almost as if the stars that were scattered are slowly coming into alignment to form a new constellation in the sky."

"Do you think the admiral knew?" Mutsu asked, now curious to see just how deep this truly went and for how long it had been like this.

"Probably," Nagato answered, the truth was just as lost on her too. "It would explain everything: why he insisted on Fubuki being transferred here and paid special attention to her, to why he placed such an emphasis on her in his notes. Perhaps he knew that something or someone was after her. Though I wonder if he would've told us he didn't disappear or if he would've kept this a secret."

"That could also explain the unknown cause for some of the destroyed abyssals recently," Mutsu added. "Maybe she did encounter something out there, something that we've or maybe even this world, has never seen before."

"Message incoming," Ooydo called out, immediately getting her pen and paper ready. But after a first few words came through, the radio began a even louder signal, it shocked Ooydo so much that she had to take her headset off. After recollecting her bearings, she put her headset back on but couldn't understand what message was benign relayed to her. "What is this sudden interference?" she remarked annoyed.

"What's going on Ooydo?" Mustu inquired, her and Nagaot looking in her direction.

"Well, I was about to receive the report from Jinstuu, but her message was seemingly changed and became louder, as if another powerful message being sent at the same time had somehow overridden it." Ooydo explained, removing one the headphones and rubbing one of her ears. "That sure was loud."

Mutsuki, Kisaragi, Ooi, Kitakami, Jinstuu, Haruna and Kirishima had just finished the first stage of their patrol when Jinstuu sent the report to command, only to be confused when they requested her to resend it claiming interference had caused the message to be lost in transmission. While she complied and sent the report for the second time, she was unsure about what could've caused the message to be lost the first time.

"Is something wrong Jinstuu?" Kisaragi asked, unsure of what to make of what was essentially her first mission after returning to the Naval District.

"Nothing," Jinstuu quickly reassured her. "Let's continue with the mission." She said as everyone started heading out.

"Why are we out here again?" Ooi asked. "It's nothing but open ocean, why do they think the enemy would be interested?" She turned to Mutsuki, "hey Mutsuki, didn't you mention that Fubuki might have been here, maybe that's why the enemy is suddenly taking an interest?" After she said that, she could feel everyone except Kitakami were now glaring at her while Kitakami only sighed.

"It was only a theory, if any of you have an explanation of your own, I'm all ears."

"Ooi, maybe you should stop bringing up Fubuki, it's not really gonna do any of us any favors dwelling on that." Kitakami suggested.

"I guess you're right." Ooi accepted.

"Let's try and focus on the mission alright." Jintsuu said, hoping that changing the topic would lessen the tension. She immediately attached her seaplane to her catapult, in order to widen their search radius.

"You've been using that a lot," Haruna remarked.

"If you're not careful, you'll break your catapult and maybe even lose your plane in the process." Kirishima added in warning.

"Well we're in the last leg of the mission so this is gonna be the last time I use it." Jintsuu said to reassure them, afterwards she successfully launched her plane. A few minutes later, she received a message, "what already. Girls, we have an enemy fleet nearby, it looks like two destroyers, two light cruisers, and two heavy cruisers." After quickly relaying the message to the others, she ordered the plane to continue on and scout for potential enemy reinforcements.

"Seems like we might have some fun after all." Haruna said excitedly.

"I don't know about that." Kirishima replied. "While they may have decent firepower I'd reckon that we've only found a vanguard fleet meaning the main force might be somewhere nearby."

"Enemy ships sighted," Mutsuki called out, pointing in the direction of the enemy fleet.

"Prepare to engage," Jintsuu commanded, the seven girls then formed a line and turned to where they could all bring their weapons to bear. As they were about to open fire, the abyssals seemed to beat them to the punch and fired first. Most of the shots missed but some of them did score hits against Haruna and Kirishima. "You two ok?" Jintsuu immediately asked.

"We're good," Haruna smiled giving a thumbs up.

"It'll take more than that to take us down." Kirishima followed up with before firing a return salvo which seemed to achieve similar results. While the battleships and the enemy heavy cruisers were exchanging fire, the other five couldn't join due to the enemy not being in range. While there were explosions all around them, they still prepared to open fire themselves.

Jinstuu then receives another message from her scout plane, this one brings her to the edge of panicking. "Kirishima," she calls out, as Kirishima turns to meet her gaze. "You were right, my scout just spotted another fleet heading for us, apparently this second fleet not only has a battleship in it but also a carrier."

"N-No way," Mutsuki stammers, overhearing their conversation. "We gotta retreat right now." She suggests before another dozen or more explosions surrounding and hitting some of them.

"Kitakami, please tell me you're alright." Ooi exclaimed, ignoring that she had taken a hit from the enemy barrage.

Coughing a bit from the smoke surrounding her, Kitakami returned Ooi's gaze with one of her own, "I'm ok." Once the smoke cleared, she could tell Ooi had taken a bigger beating than her, "Ooi, you're hit."

"It's nothing, now let's squash these gross insects." Ooi brushed off her damage, raising her gun along with Kitakami and shooting back along with everyone else. While they were in gun range, they weren't close enough to fire their torpedoes and even if they were, it wouldn't be optimal due to the higher likelihood of missing the target at longer ranges.

The seaplane Jintsuu launched didn't know what to do. While its orders were at the moment to continue reconnaissance, it was almost at a third of its fuel reserves and at risk of attack from enemy aircraft from the nearby carrier. It didn't want to stick around, but aside from returning going against orders it knew its carrying ship was currently locked in combat with the first enemy fleet it spotted, so trying to return and landing on the water would expose it to enemy surface fire. Before it decided on the next course of action, bullets began whizzing around it. After doing the best evasive maneuvers it could, it noticed two abyssal aircraft diving toward it. As they continued to fire, some of the shots grazed on the plane but didn't actually hit. While it was dodging the attacks, it knew its luck would soon run out so it sent a farewell message to Jintsuu. As it waited for the final shots to hit it, an explosion from behind got its attention, looking behind it, it only saw one enemy fighter and black cloud of smoke where the second one should've been. Before the smoke cleared, another unknown plane dove down, as it moved to align the other abyssal fighter in its gun sight, the abyssal made a sharp turn to the right just as the unknown opened fire, the unknown turned as well continuing its pursuit; the abyssals that had hunted the seaplane were now being hunted by this unknown fighter plane. After more weaving and turning with an occasional burst of gunfire, the unknown scored a hit and the abyssal went down in flames and broke apart. The unknown plane then flew closer, so close that the back of the seaplane and the front of the unknown could fit like puzzle pieces. The pilot of the seaplane could then finally get a good look at its apparent savior; it looked almost like a fighter it usually saw, though the airframe was looked thinner and compact, almost more rectangular. The wings too shared this seemingly emphasis on angles with their rectangular shape rather than the rounded ends of the fighters it was used to. On the nose it noticed slits that looked liked there were guns there, as well as what looked liked a gun hole inside the tip of the nose, there wasn't any indication that this plane had wing mounted guns. The color scheme was even more foreign: the nose was dark shade of yellow except the prop dome, which had black and white stripes, making it look like looking at the center of a cyclone when the prop was spinning; all the other areas of the plane were in a equally dark shade of green, on the tips of the wings and the midpoint between the cockpit and tail, a double layered equilateral cross with the inside layer being jet black and the outer layer a pure white was emblazoned as the symbol of whoever launched it. While the seaplane pilot took in the design of the plane next to it, another one also dove behind it, while it was in a prime position to shoot the seaplane down, it didn't seem interested in doing so. After minutes of just straight flying, the plane on its right, tried to do what seemed like a roll towards the other side of the seaplane, but once its angle became ninety degrees it turned hard to the left, its wingman behind followed suit, both now turning away to withdraw. As the seaplane also turned slightly left to get a better view of the two unknown planes that had now formed up together and were now speeding off, it noticed black smoke around the area where it spotted the second abyssal fleet. Now it was critically low in fuel so it dived to make an emergency water landing, despite that, it wasted no time and relaying a message to Jintsuu about what its strange encounter, the smoke coming from where the second abyssal fleet was located and asking if there were any allied fleets nearby that may have engaged it.

"Could you repeat that again," Jintsuu asked, unsure of how to make of this news from her scout. After it repeated the message, she was sure it was real. But as much as she wanted to pass the good news that the odds had just less in favor of the enemy, the difference it'd make was negligible. After an hour after the first shots were fired, things had gone from ok to worse. Attrition from a combination of exhaustion from the being at the end of their mission, the distraction the second abyssal fleet had caused them before, and overall poor morale had turned their fortunes against them. While the abyssals too were suffering from attrition, it wasn't as bad. "At this point, our best option right now would be to try and retreat,". Jinstuu thought. But even that was nothing short of a fleeting chance: if they tried to outrun the enemy, they risked overexerting themselves to critical levels, but if they took a more conservative speed than the enemy would be able to continue harassing them if they decided to give chase.

At the front of the formation, Mutsuki was having a very rough time, she did the very best she could but her small single barrel cannon wasn't able to do much damage, and to make matters worse the damage she suffered meant that every shot she fired took a toll on her stamina and strength, both of which she was having a harder and harder time scrounging up. One of her torpedo launchers was already knocked out by enemy fire and the other was already out of ammo, with none ever scoring a hit. Just when things couldn't get any worse, a new and confusing event suddenly occurred as a low pitched humming could now be heard across the battlefield, it soon became louder and closer turning into a deathly orchestra. It was accompanied by and eventually overpowered by another sound, this one more high pitch like a distant wailing. As the wailing changed into a loud shriek, Mutsuki turned her head up high to see aircraft diving down in their vicinity. If the shrieking was the cry of death, than these planes were the demons coming to wreath their souls for death. As they drew closer and closer Mutsuki closed her eyes tight, "I'm so sorry Kisaragi, but it seems like I have to leave you now. Fubuki, wherever you are, I just wanted to see you one last time." As the shrieking became almost unbearable and explosions could be heard, Mutsuki waited for one of the bombs to end her; an end that never came. As the shrieking faded away, she opened her eyes and couldn't believe what she saw. Abyssal ships were exploding and on fire.

"Those bombers," Mutsuki started

"They weren't targeting us," Kitakami continued.

"But were targeting the abyssals instead?" Ooi finished.

While everyone was still processing what just happened, Jintsuu spoke up, "everyone, we must attack now before they can recover, if they're able to collect their bearings before us than that assistance we just received would've been for nothing."

The others quickly followed her command and prepared to counterattack, "wait a minute what about the other abyssal fleet nearby?" Kirishima asked.

"We don't have to worry about them anymore." Jintsuu answered. "I'll try to explain as best I can later but someone or something already took care of them for us." She quickly elaborated to a greatly confused Kirishima. Utilizing the enemy's surprise from the airstrike and raise in morale due to the other enemy fleet being destroyed, the girls immediately counterattacked and managed to destroy the enemy fleet. While everyone was overjoyed at their victory, Haruna and Kirishima were hugging each other, Ooi had grabbed Kitakami's hands as they both hopped up and down in glee and Jintsuu just breathed a sigh of relief as if all the tension inside her was just released. Mutsuki was focused on something else, looking around she found the planes that had helped them and decided to take off after them.

"Mutsuki, where are you going?" Jintsuu called out, "get back here."

"If we're quick enough, we might be able to catch whoever launched." Mutsuki explained, the other six promptly took off after her. "Think about it, who did you think sent those planes to help us, why were they targeting the abyssals, maybe they ran into Fubuki."

"I know how you feel," Jintsuu responded. "But we can't just rush into this in our current state, plus whoever those planes belong to might get the wrong idea about us chasing after them."

After what felt like an hour, the planes suddenly disappeared behind what seemed to be a veil. When Mutsuki entered, she felt as if she had stepped into a deep freezer with no clothing at all, she quickly exited to the other side. "Why is it so cold?" she asked, violently shivering.

"That looks like a blizzard," Haruna comments. As they all stared at the snowy storm right in front of them, it was almost astounding how much contrast their side was compared to what they saw on the other side.

"I swear, I saw those planes go through there." Mutsuki said.

"Well wherever they are, I doubt they're still flying now," Kitakami commented.

"Well whatever happened to them dosen't matter now, we're basically in uncharted waters right now." Jintsuu said. "We should head back to the Naval district and report what happened." After finding and receiving Jintsuu's seaplane, the fleet of seven girls started the long trek back to the naval district.