Morning did not relieve me of my fatigue, Not really. Now, yes. I wasn't under attack again. But I was still alert, checking my surroundings.

I'd had to slow down to cruising speed at some point in the night, as much as I would've loved to keep running off at tactical combat speed. At a certain point, I got the mental impression of multiple warnings about not severely stressing out my propulsion and blowing a boiler or, possibly worse. Also, that... virtual fairy... - who reminded me of a AI assistant - reminded me that my fuel situation would be depleted before long under peak power speed.

So here i was, left scanning the water for suspicious periscopes, the horizon for Siren ships, and the skies for aircraft activity. To put it simply, after last night, I had to expect that the survivors had to have communicated with higher ups. While I killed a few of them, and maimed another one, there was at the chance that the surviving one might still have been able to find help. And, honestly, I had to assume that she could have sent a message with what had happened.

So now the Sirens knew I was out here, unescorted, and they had a rough idea of where to look for. Being able to get a idea of my last heading as I fled the battle might have mattered had I not also started erratically turning and changing directions to try and keep them off me. And, the open ocean doesn't exactly leave any signs of your passing. Having broken line of sight last night, I was pretty sure I was hidden. For now at the least.

But the Sirens could be searching for me. And, even if they weren't actively looking for me, if they had a way to communicate with each other by being competent in radio, which i'm pretty sure they did - then they probably already knew about the battle from their side, and were already planning their next move.

That is a lot of assumptions, but they're probably all valid ones. as inefficient as bureaucracy can be... anyway. Being only hours later, they didn't have to cover a wide area. There was only so much direction I could've covered in that time. But it would widen over time. I just had to hope that I could avoid detection long enough that whatever assets were being deployed on my head isn't enough to matter much. Until then, all I could do was keep my eyes open for hazards. Which, as I also discovered last night, was actually more weirder and bizarre than i ever thought.

I. for the lack of word, had a... entirely new sense, it was like seeing... no... Sparks of light? No, these sparks didn't have any light, and yet i was aware of them, countlessly many, and further away. they merged into a single wall of twinkles, I don't ever recall shipgirls, Not even the carriers in these kancolle or azur lane fanfics let alone in my roleplaying days having this ability. and yet here i was, able to stretch that new sense, I couldn't help but be awed. it was like a sort of sixth sense, down to even feeling when the clouds in the skies would either form new shapes or break up into smaller stacks of pure, white masses drifting lazily above.

And it wasn't just the clouds. I felt something else in the water, some sort of disturbance that made the waves feel like they were crashing against rocks. There was a sort of strange vibration in the air, It was hard to describe. But the thing that scared me the most was that I felt a similar disturbance again, though far less intense.

Surely even the virtual 'crew' wasn't capable of causing this effect, wasn't it? Bridge crews typically... okay, I don't have 360 all degree vision, but i *can* sense things behind my back and to my sides, Almost as although i'm in tune with Mother Gaia, Or Earth herself. That doesn't mean i can't feel my 'crew' or anything like that, I can feel them on what passed for the bridge, or operating the turrets, or still repairing damage from last night's battle. But it was a very, very odd sensation... Was this new sixth sense of mine overreacting or just basic survival instincts trying to make use of this new feeling, Or was it what being Force-sensitive felt like to a trainee?

"What in god's name? This is really weird..." I muttered to myself, looking around in paranoia. "And there's more."

It's like being connected to the very atmosphere around me, it feels like I'm being able to see, hear, sense, feel and understand everything around to its smallest details, but only at close range, I'm not sure if I've described the sensation correctly.

Speaking of which, what damage i took was minor. but there would be some patchjobs that would need to be done, While these destroyer-caliber shells didn't damage a armor joint or anything, there was splinter damage to minor components and my hull, While that meant it wasn't as bad as if i had been a Akizuki or a Cleveland, I would be stuck with these for some time. And shipgirl biology being what it was, it was showing up in the form of slight aching and soreness in my right arm, Of course. there was a small upside to it, Seeing as being a shipgirl came with it superhuman damage control even by real-world standards. Surprisingly enough, supply was still good. Despite the previous battle and the target practice shooting course, I was apparently still sitting on a mountain of ammunition and munitions, Apparently enough that my main guns would wear out and destroy themselves long before then, So that had confirmed a part of my suspicions then, and it was that shipgirls. Kancolle, Azur all had a massive amount of ammo onboard, even if said storage involved hammerspaces. After all, Ayanami would be unable to reload these torpedo tubes in the anime fast enough, let alone being able to fire off a third salvo!

Of course, this did also apply to my fuel, but even steaming at full speed was eating into my reserves, The fuel line wasn't too bad, but it wasn't completely full either. I could probably go at full combat speed for much more time at this pace, But after that, I'd have to start looking for a place to resupply, or a friendly vessel with supplies to spare.

Also, sleep... Now that was interesting, I wasn't suffering the horrible effects of sleep deprivation, other than just being a little irritable, I certainly didn't feel my head drooping down only to shoot back up either, but I could tell that my body was trying to squeeze in some rest in the form of zooming out or just.. being 'heavy' in the metaphorical sense. I also needed the rest for me to come up with some plan instead of just randomly wandering around, That's a quick way to kill, or sink me before my story had even began.

Not only that, but i didn't want to see what the shipgirl equal of Inflammation was like. A yawn bellowed from me and I shook my head as I pulled back on my hoodie. This was going to be a long haul.

Hmm.. speaking of which, I only had just realized, and it had hit me all of a sudden that I didn't bother to check exactly who I was... Surely if shipgirls knew instinctively who they were, Surely I was capable of doing the same. right? I didn't even know who I was yet, beyond the fact I do have battleship guns and oddly enough cold-war era systems, as I wasn't able to figure out how these RADAR displays all worked or why that HUD had appeared in my vision all of a sudden.

Resisting the urge to punch myself in my head for my stupidity, I closed my eyes. allowing the very idea of who *I* was and what I'm to flow into my mindscape, and to concentrate on it. What exactly I was. anyway? It didn't make any sense, It certainly felt like some sort of magical girl, but it didn't really seem like one, It was almost as if I was just a magical girl in my own mind. And it made no sense because I knew the difference between magical girls and ships.*
So, there's good news and bad news, and more things of interest.

Good news was that I figured out i'm some kind of battleship. Something akin to USN or the Lions if all this stuff is to go by, like the advanced finish and such. However, the hood and jacket are big clues. and that brings me to my next point...

Bad news is that battleships DO not travel alone by themselves, Capital ships were meant to be capital ships, and when capital ships act by themselves. they get overrun too easily and get killed, Shinano and Bismarck come to mind, but even incidents like that Wasp submarine or getting swarmed by planes in the case of Yorktown and Hornet do happen. Yes, there is a ahead-throwing anti submarine weapon on me. But between having to keep my attention on monitoring the horizon and listening for tell-tale noise... it's hard.

And then there's the question of why I can't use my RADAR arrays and of course the 'FLARE' designation on my main batteries. Why were these guns enhanced with electrothermal chemical technology? What did I do that nobody couldn't? How did I manage to wind up with these, in a kanmusu body that isn't mine?

And this brings me to the bizarre part, I was very certain i should not exist, and not for the more blatant reason.

From what i managed to recover according to my onboard computers, of which I'm pretty sure that even the Iowas weren't equipped with 1970s chip or even the very first CPU computers. I'm supposed to be Norfolk, the popsicle-eating shy heavy cruiser, yet I'm the Alsace-class, more specifically Number three. All of this raises some huge questions.

Namely that there was no way in hell I should be a French battleship, I should be a county-class heavy cruiser. not a battleship who never existed. And if that wasn't enough? I had modern weapon systems, L/70 40mm Breda Twins, or Bofors on steroid juices. ADEN 25s on MLG 27 mounts, ESSM launchers with MICAs bolted onto them, a few SIMBAD SHORADs, and 100mm M1968s all weirdly enough chambered in the same cartridges used for the Ducks. That was before getting into the Ikura ASW missile launchers on me, or the heavy 533mm torpedo launchers on me, and lightweight tubes with the much, much superior MU90s. And of course, much to my surprise. P-15s, All with their massively improved Chinese seekers.

I had hoped that I would get this stupid Dutch APAR array working, But apparently modern radar must be a utter pain to work with, I'm suspecting that my complete inexperience as well as the fact i've been running on shipgirl instincts up to this point also ties into this as well. No luck with accessing my computerized databases further as well.

Of course, There happened to be a Russian Nebo-M RADAR on top of my head, What the utter balls? This isn't the modern era where you have to contend with stealth shaping and low-cross section planes, goddamn it!

Still, I cannot complain about at least the old WW2 tradition of having a VHF radar in these early days, and for now I did manage to get the fire-control and surface search radars working. No such luck for the Infrared viewers however, but at least I do have optics for the main batteries as well and amazingly enough. Muzzle velocity radar.

So far, I've been able to get the Muzzle V systems to work, though with less than optimal results. But at least I managed to get the radar and gunnery systems to run properly, though the lack of any sort of guidance for the heavy torpedoes means I am currently stuck with just shooting in a random direction. And with only so much range as well.

Initial report didn't even touch onto the disassembled weapons stowed away inside me, If it wasn't for how serious my predicament was right now, I would have made a joke about how much stuff you can fit inside a shipgirl herself or how they are much more infinitely flexible and able to keep up with the times.

But what was even more bizarre is my ability to summon some kind... of... energy hardlight flight deck, complete with a carrier's shape and everything. What the fuck... How... how was that even possible? I know Kaga or Akagi had these energy riggings. but on a battleship that's not a aviation type? What in the absolute... It doesn't even make sense anymore! What the hell!? I'm already a damn battleship! Why do I need this?!

My mind is reeling at the impossibility of it all, But I push those thoughts aside and focus on the task at hand. Survival.

Right now, My priorities were simple. But I suppose I should look into managing all these planes that seem to be stowed away and hidden inside my 'virtual' hangar, If I can get planes up in the air. that is going to help me out so much with finding anything friendly or alerting me to incoming enemy shipgirls. Besides, it allows me to fight in a different way instead of just being a big-gunned battleship.

Oddly enough, The radio I do have does have both the option to use NATO and Warsaw Pact era codes, and there's even a onboard GPS communicator on me. although that one too is useless because all it says is that it is detecting GPS interference and trying to connect to alternatives in a loop that doesn't end, So much for figuring out where I'm, And I have to stay silent lest I risk interception by EW Shipgirls;Even with modern encryption, I doubt they would be blind to transmissions.

The other thing that puzzles me is the fact that despite my being an actual shipgirl myself. I somehow have a system onboard that can summon a hardlight flight deck and (unusable) carrier aircraft without any seemingly obvious downsides, What in the absolute fuck is even going on here? Am I just dreaming?

A sigh sounded from me, my eyes blinking hard. On a side note however, the sun doesn't seem as bright. Not even the glare seems to affect me in any way whatsoever. Another trait of shipgirl biology? Would certainly make sense, Especially if you have to shoot down dive bombers flying against the sun, Something like polarization of the eyes. perhaps?

It, of course also brought up even more questions, With everything I had on me plus who knows what, Did that also mean I had the ability to see in the Infrared spectrum? UV? What would it look like to me translated into human sensations? What did using RADAR feel like? And what about physical strength? Was it the same as a normal person, or was it enough to flip a car over easily? After all, Kanmusus don't have to follow the rules of Earthly life...

As these thoughts swam through my head, I realized that I had lost track of time. How long had I been sitting here thinking about all of this? Minutes, Hours? Whatever. I ruminate on it later, For now. I need to figure out what ammunition I've got inside me and any other sub-systems I might have before thinking about it any further.

I continued sailing. I couldn't really take any chances right now. Not when I still had so many questions to answer and so little time to do it. And not when the possibility of having a task force dropped on my head seemed very real.

"Norfolk, report in!" A voice suddenly sounded from somewhere in the distance. What the... Was that a hallucination or...!?

I stopped dead in my tracks, listening carefully for any other signs of life as my startled eyes darted around. But all I heard was the sound of the waves crashing against me and clouds drifting in the distance. It seemed like I was alone out here. Or was I? I scanned the horizon again, trying to get a better grasp of where I was in the deep ocean. I had heard that voice, yes. but it didn't look like there was anyone around.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. There was no point in panicking from just a simple hallucination with my radio saying something. After all, it could just be a glitch or some sort of malfunction.

"Anyone, Come in..." I repeated, hoping that maybe it was just some sort of hallucination or maybe it was another quirk of shipgirl biology. But no response came. I waited for a few more moments, but nothing happened. I sighed, deciding to just continue on my way. I was alone out here after all, so it was probably just my imagination playing tricks on me.

Still, it was a little unnerving. I hadn't expected to hear anything out here, especially not seemingly friendly voices. But I didn't have time to worry about it too much. I still had a lot to figure out and a long way to go. I just hoped that I would be able to get to the bottom of things soon. I needed answers, and I needed them fast.

The wind blew through my hair as I continued on, my thoughts drifting back to the voice I had heard. There was no way it sounded that clear, In fact, the hallucinations i had in my life up to this point weren't this long or clear, But every time, it seemed to catch me off guard. It was like the sound of someone calling my name from far away, but I knew that it couldn't be possible.

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. I had work to do, and I couldn't afford to let my imagination get the better of me. I still had a long way to go, and I needed to focus if I wanted to make it out alive without being very much a dead kanmusu. I couldn't afford to lose sight of my goals, no matter how much my curiosity was getting the better of me.

I continued on, trying to keep my mind off of the strange voice and the paranoia of enemy submarines or aircraft. I had a lot to do, and I didn't have time to waste worrying about it.

And yet, As I cruised. I couldn't help but wonder what other mysteries this world held. Whether it would be just a Kancolle analogue or turn out to be like one of these crazy mirror seas stories.