Never before has there been such a blade.
The crown prince of the king of Baekje,
who lives under august sounds,
had this sword made for King of Wa
in the hope that it might be passed on to later generations.
Properly, it was Shichishitō: the Seven-Branched Sword. It was just a touch shorter than her arm from shoulder to fingertip, although age probably hurt it in that regard. Even protected in a shrine, the long centuries had robbed the iron of its luster and whatever handle it might have had originally. A few inscriptions in gold gleamed along the length of the blade, although they weren't as noticeable as the branches that came off the blade. Three to a side, and the tip as a seventh.
It was, depending on which histories you favored, fifteen hundred years old, give or take. It was incomparably ancient, so distant from Kaga as to feel unreal, and yet it sat in that ancient shrine still, protected by miko and kannushi who kept on sneaking looks at her when they thought she wasn't paying attention.
She looked up at one of the shrine maidens, and she shrunk under her gaze. "What language is the text?"
"Classical Chinese, ma'am…" the girl sputtered. She might have attempted to tack on a few additional honorifics, but Kaga didn't particularly care to listen.
Kaga felt no need to translate the text, considering that somebody else had already bothered with that troublesome work (and because the study of a dead language seemed perfectly futile). The sword itself was futile as well, considering that those delicate branches would snap off mere moments into a serious fight. A few of the anthropologists who managed to attach themselves to her visit – using her reputation among the faithful to get a peek at ancient history – stepped forward and took closer looks, murmuring about ancient tree motifs from the Three Kingdoms of Korea.
As a weapon, it was unimpressive. She carried a finer piece on her hip. She was a finer piece, inherently. The mere sixty-five centimeters of primitive iron in the blade were probably outweighed by a stretch of her ship's railing. The branches numbered seven, her own large guns numbered five, but hers had the power to wipe out whatever meager smithy the Shichishitō had been forged in, in addition to any fortress that might have surrounded it.
Yet it was steeped in history. It was tribute from Korea, or rather, one of the smaller states on the peninsula at the time, supposedly delivered to Empress-Regent Jingū. Well, she was no longer considered an empress in the sense that she was numbered in that list that stretched from Jimmu to Taishō, but the histories said she reigned for years. (Three of those years were apparently spent nurturing a child in her womb. Yes, just one child. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it mytho-history.)
Kaga wanted to like this idea of Jingū, she truly did. The first woman on Japanese banknotes and stamps, a warrior woman who visited her fury on both rebels and the inhabitants of that 'promised land', Korea… well, perhaps she could do without the rather messy-sounding business of conducting a war while pregnant, but Jingū was a fascinating idea.
Perhaps there should be an emphasis on idea.
Some might say there was a mystical character to their little base's shrine. Kaga didn't see it personally, but there were… how did Kirishima put it? Smells and bells? Yes, that sounded about right. She knew that was a bit of foreign parlance picked up in England, but it seemed fitting. There wasn't issue in adapting Western technical terms…. Regardless, the shrine was occasionally filled with the sound of bells and music, or little trails of smoke from incense would leave it.
Fusou and Yamashiro made the maintenance of that shrine their business when they weren't occupied with dancing to Hiei's tune instead of the gods'. When the smoke rose into the air, the whole place was hazy. Liminal. A place where modern ships comparable with those heroes of antiquity interacted with religion and history that melted into each other. The Emperor's veins pulsed with the blood of a god, an unbroken line that stretched like a ray from the sun.
It was a nice legend. And that's what Kaga thought it was. A legend. Was there some theological truth behind it? Perhaps. Kaga didn't care. What did it matter if the man in charge was descended from a god? Europeans rose to supremacy over most of the world and did so with kings who couldn't claim divine descent, for rather obvious reasons.
There was another ancient inscription, found on the monument of some king of Goguryeo. You'd find in the territory of the Fengtian Government, and perhaps there was some debate to be had about how Chinese the Goguryeo kingdom was. Again, Kaga didn't care. Carved into the rock of a memorial stele, there was a chipped inscription about some event involving Goguryeo, Silla, some unknown principality, and Wa. Time had treated the stele about as well as it had treated the Shichishitō, and it was hard to figure out what had truly happened that year.
Someone had been made a subject by a force from across the sea. Her officers and their admirals would probably tell her this was historical proof of Jingū's great Korean adventure, that this was the first conquest of Korea, a foreshadowing, performed by some centralized proto-Japanese state known as Wa. Or perhaps you could read the passage as Wa crossing over, attacking, and provoking Goguryeo into subjugating them.
It was foggy ancient history. And it didn't matter. Ancient Wa triumphant! Ancient Goguryeo triumphant! Goguryeo would fall to Silla, who would fall to Goryeo, who would be couped into Joseon, who lasted until Japan swallowed them. There. The matter was solved, simply and easily, without squinting at charcoal rubbings and consulting national myths to find a casus belli.
The Westerners had their myths too. The White Man's Burden, the civilizing mission, Manifest Destiny. It was all window dressing, their true intent couched in some form of well-meaning fluff or national myth. Dynastic claims, holy war, liberation… lies to hide the naked truth: it was all for seizure by the strong.
Weakness was something to be redressed, a stage of development you either shook off or perished in. There was no divine mandate, no chosen people, just the stark difference between the weak and the strong. It was cruel, it was demanding, but it was true. Europeans proved themselves capable of unleashing their imperialism on each other – all the proof you needed for that was Germany's recently seized living space – so it had never truly been a matter of colonialism. The colonized just happened to be the weakest.
What Kaga needed – what everyone needed, if they were actually honest with themselves – was strength. Her own strength, plus the strength of reliable allies. Make no mistake: she was loyal to the Empire and the Emperor, even if she didn't believe those divine claims. Japan was strong. She'd do her part to make it the strongest.
Dai-11 was Kaga's. In addition to just being the result of one of the cubes Kaga produced while training, she was thoroughly in the battleship's camp. Other girls might have drifted towards Hiei or Fusou for their coddling, but Dai-11 knew that she had a duty, and that duty was to the Empire and Kaga. One might ask what would happen if those two duties ever diverged… but she wasn't certain that was possible.
When she was dubbed Oite, she wasn't particularly excited. It improved the morale of her crew, which was a benefit, but that was a weakness on their part; she would fulfill her duty regardless of how she was called. However, there were times when she liked her name. Oite, the tailwind… a little push from the rear that drove a plane or ship into the future just a little faster.
She was to be an aide. That fact was determined by her very hull. There were jobs she could not do on her own; all she could manage was to facilitate those who could. It was destiny, and Lady Kaga called her to fulfill that destiny as ably as she could.
Perhaps others might think this a sort of weakness. Wasn't she a free person? Couldn't she be whatever she wanted? Wasn't she a free individual? No. She wasn't. There was no individual. She sprang from Kaga, she sprouted from the mind of her officer. She was forged in a shipyard, mined from the hoary mountains, smelted by a thousand stained, battered hands. Even normal people lived in societies. They depended on a great beast that stretched across the whole country, a complex system they were a mere cell inside.
How could a single person not appear to melt before the might of a whole country? Even Kansen, personifications of ships, only held the smallest mote of power more. Strength had to be worked for and had to be constantly built. If your power did not wax, it wanted. There was no stasis, no sitting on laurels.
Power could collapse under you quite catastrophically, Dai-9 knew. The British, the French, and the Americans were just the most recent examples of an ancient phenomenon. Power could fade subtly, or it could vanish into the wind in a mere moment. If she had any issue with Lady Kaga, it was perhaps her butting heads with the Kongous.
Oh, she wouldn't dare say Kaga was wrong! Just that such an aggressive style might, from a certain perspective, appear like a possible warning sign of the same fracturing that sundered the United States? Of course, Japan took steps to ensure that disruptive foreign influences like Syndicalism were rooted out, but even feuding generals sworn to the same goal could cause chaos, no?
She wouldn't go so far as to say she was more intelligent than Kaga, or anything… Tosa had mentioned the problem too. There, see! Tosa was in Kaga's camp and agreed with her about the way Japan needed to move in the future, but she also thought Kaga could stand to calm down a little when it came to jockeying for position with Kongou and her overall goals.
(Take Aoba and her sister Kinugasa. They had fallen into Hiei's camp alongside Dai-3, but their reason wasn't something like maternity. Kaga made some… comments about strength of character and willingness to fight and suffer that were completely true, but perhaps a bit hard to swallow for ships as fresh as Aoba and Kinugasa at the time. They called her bellicose, but that was just an insult thrown out by Kongou's pacifistic clique.)
Dai-11 wouldn't say something as silly as Kaga being like a mother to her… but she was the great influence in her life. Officers changed, but Kaga stayed the same. Kaga taught Dai-11 the basics and saw potential where others saw the bizarre marriage of a child and an insect, someone to be coddled or treated differently… she had moth wings near her ears, she didn't lack them.
Others might say Kaga was harsh. Perhaps so, but it was borne of a true understanding of the world. Dai-11 might have been the tailwind, but Kaga pushed everyone to be the best they could. When Oite struggled with her reading – so tiny, the ink just seemed to dance across the page – Kaga only chided her for not admitting it earlier before acquiring a book of folktales she helped Dai-11 study.
She enjoyed tackling problems and destroying them utterly. If you couldn't bear her scrutiny or rushed away in embarrassment when she pointed out your problems… well, that was a real weakness, one that couldn't be redressed.
When Kaga gave her a letter, Dai-11 delivered it. No questions, no sneaking a peek to see if she could read the contents. (She probably could! But she wouldn't.) If Kaga didn't think it was necessary to inform her of what was contained within, then that was that, even more so if she stressed secrecy.
The letter in her hands was to be delivered to an officer – those marvelous creatures blessed with all the mobility of a normal human being – and it was not to be seen or read by any other party. It was hidden away inside her jacket as she walked across the base at a painfully leisurely pace. Kaga informed her she couldn't draw scrutiny by shooting away across the base or even going at a steady march. She was strolling. She was meandering.
(Wasn't it a bit more odd that she was wandering about for the first time ever? But somehow, that objection seemed very hard to field when face to face with Kaga.)
Operate normally and get to your destination. It was practically a mission.
"Lady Zuikaku," Dai-11 bowed her head. Kaga was cynical about how strong carriers could truly be, but she was willing to court them just for the sake of denying Kongou an asset.
"Oite." Zuikaku smiled. "It's good to see you out and about. Did Kaga finally set you free?"
She had to tamp down on an urge to defend Kaga. How to extricate herself from the conversation as swiftly as possible… she smiled back. "I have been granted a brief break, yes."
Zuikaku chuckled. "Well, you've been working hard enough for one. Don't let me keep you." With a respectful nod, she was off to wherever. Possibly wherever Shoukaku was.
She passed the letter off to an officer, who got it out of the shipgirl quarter and to where it was needed, and as she went back to Lady Kaga she thought. One of the folktales that she was intimately familiar with – having read it so many times – was that of the Crane Wife. Kaga liked that one.
The story was as such: a man finds an injured crane in the woods and nurses it back to health. Once whole again, the crane departs, and soon enough a beautiful woman arrives at the man's doorstep and offers marriage. Unfortunately, the man doesn't have the finances to support his new spouse, and the wife is forced to weave silks to save their finances. The process isn't good for her, leaving her thin and sickly, but she insists that the husband not observe. But eventually, he stumbles upon the truth: she is the crane, and the fine garments come from her feathers. Considering the husband broke his promise to not watch, she departs.
In addition to just being an oddly relatable tale of a woman who was part animal and part human, it was didactic. There was a gallantry in that sacrifice, Kaga said, but they were also better than the crane-wife. They could share their burdens, working together to produce prosperity… and they were honor-bound, unlike the animalistic crane, to stick by until the very end.
Would the auspicious crane pluck herself down to the last feather for Japan?