Strength's calculations proved incorrect; she was on her back foot.
She thought she'd be able to easily take care of this male Kansen before going after the one who had taken the METAs away with him, but she hadn't accounted for Emperor's Wisdom Crafting.
The contraption he had used to dispel the mist around them had turned into a copy of her gauntlets, and he was using them as if he were borne with them.
Not that it'd take a genius to do something as simple as throwing a punch, but the shipboy was still incredibly skilled at it.
"What's wrong, Siren? Never learned boxing?" Emperor mocked her as he dodged each and every single one of her blows with the elusiveness of a veteran featherweight. "Shame… You got such nice gloves!" He said as he took advantage of an opening in her guard to deliver a powerful gut punch.
Strength doubled over in pain. Clenching her teeth and straightening her back in a flash, she aimed both her double-barrel turrets at him, but the shipboy was already upon her, pushing her hands up with one of his fists and aiming a straight to her face with the other.
The blow made her stumble backward, but before she could get her bearings, Emperor pressed on with his assault: another straight to the face, a quick jab, a hook to the side of her head... Each blow imbued the Arbiter with a bit of the gauntlet's gravity-altering power, making her heavier and heavier and incapable of defending herself.
"How do you like the taste of your own medicine?!" Before she could fall on her knees, Emperor hit her with a powerful haymaker that sent her flying backward and into the water.
Instead of rushing at her, he decided to deliver the final blow from a safe distance, using the double-barrel turrets on his gauntlets, but right as he was about to take aim and shoot, a shadow was cast over him, and he threw himself to the side, right on time to dodge the massive shark-like rigging's attempt at biting off his head.
"Woah! Hey, ref! Intrusion!" He yelled with an outraged, sarcastic tone.
The monster, which he figured belonged to the Arbiter, moved to circle its owner in a protective manner as Strength forced herself upright, her face reduced to a bleeding mess of cuts and lumps as she regarded him with a hate-filled stare.
As an arbiter, all she ever needed was enough strength and firepower to overwhelm her opponents; she never needed to learn to fight properly. What good would that have possibly done to her?
Well, the answer to that question was right in front of her. The shipboy was physically weaker, but in terms of pure skill, he was far superior to her. On top of that, the advantage she had in the form of her gravity-altering powers had been evened by that weird contraption of his.
Never in her life did she think she'd be shown up in such a way, and the fact that she had been forced to call upon her rigging in a one vs one with a mere Kansen didn't sit well with her, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
She jumped on her rigging's back, and before the shipboy could figure out what her plan was, the monster was already in the air, out of the range of his turrets.
With its owner still on top, the shark opened its mouth and aimed it down at him. An azure glow appeared from the depths of its throat, slowly increasing in intensity with each passing second.
Realization dawned on Emperor. Leviathan had told him about his fight with the Arbiter, and if he remembered correctly, this wasn't a good sign.
"Well, shit…" he cursed under his breath.
The monster unleashed the energy it was accumulating, discharging a massive barrage of deadly energy blasts at him from its jaws. The light of the attack was so intense that it was blinding, and when it landed, everything became immersed in a cacophony of light and explosions. When the light subsided and the spray of water settled, there was nothing left of the shipboy.
From her position atop her rigging, Strength internally smirked. With that nuisance taken care of, she could go back to hunt the others. But first, she needed to let her rigging recover-
"That was a bit overkill, don't you think?"
Her head snapped upward, where the voice was coming from, and her expression turned into a scowl.
The shipboy was still alive. He was hovering in the air with his rigging out; the silver and gold eagle sculpture with a crown atop its head was on his back, its wings resembling aircraft runways spread widely on each of his sides, shining with an ethereal light. He was already surrounded by a flock of miniaturized fighters, but worse of all, his sly, condescending smirk was still etched into his face.
Since when could the bastard fly? Why didn't he do it sooner? Was he underestimating her, or was he just keeping his trump card hidden?
"'Since when can he do that?' Is that what you are thinking, Siren?" He asked her with a mocking tone, causing her scowl to deepen. "Don't give me that look; I can predict anything your dumb, digital brain can come up with. I just used your gravity-altering power on my rigging; it's not as good as my brother Freedom's wings, but it gets the job done."
Only at that moment did Strength realize the situation she was in. Her rigging was paralyzed because the previous attack had almost completely depleted its energy; it would take a while before it could move again, and she was now alone against an opponent that could actually fly.
If she cast her Mirror Sea, she'd be able to even the play field, but she couldn't do so because they were already inside Hermit's, and if she turned her back on him to run away, he'd be upon her in an instant.
No matter what she tried to do, he had her cornered.
"Let's get this over with," Emperor declared, lunging at her from his higher position. He charged a right hook, which she was forced to block by raising her arms in front of her face. The force of the impact was enough to send her flying backward and crash down into the sea, and the gravitational pull it transferred to her was strong enough to keep her down for a few instants.
Instants that the shipboy exploited to close the distance once more.
She tried to get back on her feet, but he came down on her with a kick to the face. He grabbed her right arm with both his hands and twisted it. The scream of pain died in her throat, and her face twisted in a mask of agony as he did the same to her other arm before pushing her down and straddling her.
With both her weapons now disabled, she looked up at him with increasing terror in her eyes as she saw the disgust and contempt in his gaze.
Emperor raised his right fist. "This is for what you did to Leviathan and his Iron Blood friends…" he said, then raised his left fist, "…and this is for what your comrades did to Lenin."
Strength could only close her eyes and brace herself as both his fists came down on her multiple times in a row, reducing her face to a literal pulp.
The situation was getting out of hand.
Junyou META and Zuikaku were back-to-back, holding off the Enforcers' attempts to close in on them, while Hiyou META and Alabama were focusing on Hermit. The two METAs had been out and about for hours before being ambushed inside the Mirror Sea, and they were dead tired, so they had opted to just support their newfound allies.
The only problem was that fighting in an area with such low visibility wasn't ideal for aircraft, and since three of them were carriers, the group was essentially fighting with a huge handicap.
The only one who had the capability of delivering some serious damage to Hermit with her weapons was Alabama. When the Arbiter was close, she would swing her scythe at her, and when she tried to put some distance between them, the battleship would shoot her with her triple-barrel turrets.
Hiyou was watching her back. While the Eagle Union shipgirl was busy with Hermit, she would be on the lookout for the Arbiter's pawns, swinging her blade and throwing her shikigami at any of the Enforcers bold enough to try to approach Alabama from behind.
Still caught up in her engagement with the battleship, Hermit suddenly paused in her tracks as a chill ran down her spine. Strength's signal had just disappeared.
"Tch… that idiot…" Hermit snorted; this was the second time in too little that her comrades had gotten herself killed. But it didn't matter; Hermit alone was more than enough to take care of all their opponents by herself. Until Temperance's radio jamming was up and running, the shipgirls couldn't communicate with each other, and inside her Mirror Sea, they were at her mercy.
Alabama took advantage of Hermit's distraction to shoot her, but one of her Enforcers took the hit for her, falling into the water, dead. The battleship lunged at her, readying a swing with her scythe, but Hermit simply stood there; the lamp dangling in front of her face suddenly lit up with a blinding light, forcing Alabama to close her eyes on instinct, missing her target.
"Watch out!" Hiyou yelled at the battleship as she squinted her eyes.
Alabama had enough time to turn around where Hermit had reappeared. The Arbiter aimed her barrels at her and unleashed a powerful blast. The shipgirl could only take cover behind her rigging and brace herself as the energy blasts impacted her right side, reducing two of her turrets to smithereens. The blast was powerful enough to send her flying away, and she landed on the water with a grunt of pain.
She recovered just in time to see the Arbiter coming at her with an evil grin plastered on her face, her rigging charging another full salvo. She struggled to get back on her feet, but she could barely lift her scythe do defend herself. Right before Hermit could unleash another volley, Hiyou lunged at her from her blind spot, aiming a swing at her neck. The Arbiter noticed only at the last second but still managed to move out of the away, the sword just narrowly missing her.
Hermit pulled back to a safe distance as the Sakura carrier assumed a defensive stance in front of the battleship. Alabama's rigging was half-destroyed, with only her left battery still intact; of course, her body had been caught in the explosion, and her right arm and side were bruised and bleeding.
The Arbiter sneered at them. "Would you look at that? Your only way of damaging me has been neutralized; don't you think this is a good chance to give up-?"
Her words were interrupted by the lamp dangling in front of her face falling into the water, its light dimming down until it disappeared completely; apparently Hiyou's katana did miss her target but had still managed to severe the chain connecting the Arbiter's lamp to her nape.
Hermit looked down at her feet and then at the Sakura carrier's satisfied smirk. Her incredulous expression twisted into a mask of rage as she gritted her teeth.
"You lowly Kansen... DON'T GET SO FULL OF YOURSELVES!"
As the Arbiter screamed her anger at them, she unraveled the chain connected to the other lamp she was holding in her hand. It began glowing with an intense light, until it became hard to even look at.
And when the light subsided, Hermit had disappeared.
"She's gone…" Hiyou said, right as a gun barrel appeared to the side of her head from thin air. The barrel fired, but the laser beam missed the target, as Alabama had managed to grab Hiyou by her uniform and pull her back in time.
The battleship gripped her scythe, gritted her teeth to push back the pain shooting through her right side, and swung at the Arbiter, but the lamp lit up again as the blade passed through Hermit's body, as if it were made of mist.
"What the-?!" The Arbiter rematerialized herself to smash the lamp she was holding straight into Alabama's face, cutting her off.
Hiyou turned to slash at her, but the result was the same: her blade passed through the Arbiter's torso as if it were intangible.
The META shipgirl dodged another blast from the Arbiter, then grabbed a handful of her shikigami and threw them at her. The talismans exploded in a small curtain of fire that the two shipgirls used as a distraction to step back to a safe distance and get their bearings.
"Great, she can become intangible at will, how do we deal with that?" Hiyou asked aloud.
Alabama hissed in pain as she brought a hand up to her face. She was bleeding from her nose; it was probably broken.
"I noticed something," she started, readjusting her nose bone with a wince of pain. "While she was intangible, her body seemed to mingle with the mist in the air. Maybe she can do it only when the fog is up."
"You guessed right, lowly Kansen," Hermit said, appearing in a flash behind them with a grin. "But knowing that won't help you!" She said as she aimed both her triple batteries at their backs.
But this time, the shipgirls were ready. They both dodged the attack by the skin of their teeth then turned in a flash and retaliated with their weapons, but the Arbiter disappeared again into the sea of haze.
"She's also using the low visibility to hide her movements; stay on your toes!" Hiyou said as the two shipgirls came to stand back-to-back. They kept nervously glancing around, ready to react at the slightest sign of the Arbiter's presence, but for some reason, Hermit seemed to have stopped targeting them.
A sudden feeling of dread came over Hiyou, and then the characteristic light of the Arbiter's lamp appeared at a distance from them, right where Junyou and Zuikaku were fending off the Enforcers.
"Shit! Watch out over there!"
Her voice reached Junyou's ears right on time for her to notice the Arbiter's shadow appearing behind her, her barrels already aimed at her head.
"Not gonna happen!" Zuikaku jumped in, taking a powerful swing at one of the Arbiter's triple batteries and severing the three heads from the barrels.
Shock and surprise appeared on Hermit's face. She swung her chain and lamp at the carrier to push her away before retreating back into the safety of the mist.
"Thank you, Zuikaku," Junyou said, breathing a sigh of relief. "But how did you know...?"
"I've learned the hard way how unpredictable those Arbiters can be; I won't be caught off guard ever again," Zuikaku said, her voice full of resolve and determination. "Everyone, she's not always intangible; she has to return solid before attacking! Keep your guard up and wait for your chance to strike!"
By now, the Enforcers had all been taken care of, and the four shipgirls were following Zuikaku's instructions. They were standing back-to-back and shoulder-to-shoulder with their weapons at the ready as they waited for the Arbiter to show her face.
Hermit would appear out of nowhere, right in front of one of them, feint an attack, and then retreat with a grin and an ominous cackle as the shipgirls ineffectively swung their weapons at her. The Arbiter was toying with them like a cat with a mouse, taking her sweet time to savor their struggling. The four were completely out of breath, Alabama in particular, because of her injury; it wouldn't be long before she'd fall to her knees in exhaustion, and when that happened, their formation would break, and they'd be done for.
With that notion in mind, the battleship took advantage of a breather between the Arbiter's attacks to catch her breath.
"I have an idea; on my mark, lower your head and be ready," she whispered to the others.
The three Sakura carriers acknowledged her words as she gathered her resolve. If Freedom were there, he'd probably say that it was too soon for it to work, but this was a gamble she was willing to take; if she failed, then she didn't know what else they could do. She tried to ignore the pain coursing through her arm and the beads of sweat pouring down her forehead, mixing with the blood coming out of her nose. She focused on her Cube and readied her scythe.
She waited for Hermit to make an appearance, and when the Arbiter showed her ugly mug...
"Wisdom Crafting…"
The shipgirl's scythe disappeared into thin air, and Hermit paused her attack in shock and surprise as it reappeared in the battleship's hands a split second later in a flash of light. Although, this time, it was ten times bigger.
"MARK!"
The shipgirls gawked as the gigantic scythe, whose heel was decorated with the bow of the Alabama herself, swung above their heads in a half-moon cutting blow. It ran over the Arbiter with its blade, creating a powerful gust of wind that raised a copious amount of water from the surface before quickly disappearing in another flash of light, making the shipgirl wielding it lose her balance and fall to her knee.
Hermit picked her jaw up off the floor as she recovered from the shock, then sneered. As big as it was, that blade was still a normal weapon; the sheer size of it had scared the shit out of her for a second, but it still couldn't damage her while she was enveloped in her mist.
A sudden pain shot through her right side as the arm that was holding her chain lamp was cut off with a powerful swing by Hiyou. At the same time, her last triple battery met the same fate at the hands of Junyou's sword.
It took her a moment to realize what was happening; the mist around her had been cleared. Alabama's scythe wasn't a bluff; it was just a way to dispel the mist for a brief second to make her tangible again and give the others enough time to attack her. She didn't see them coming at her because of all the water spray in the air, while they were perfectly able to deduce her presence because of the glow of her lamp-
Hermit wasn't able to finish her thoughts that the last carrier in the group took a swing at her neck, her head falling unceremoniously into the water with her shocked grin still etched into her face.
Temperance looked up at the sky as the mist around her disappeared, revealing the orange color of the sunset engulfing the horizon.
The Mirror Sea collapsing could only mean one thing—Hermit was dead. She tried to reach out to Strength with their mental link to ask for an update on the situation, but the other Arbiter didn't respond.
Welp, she was likely dead too.
Their initial plan was simple. Quickly take care of this group of Ashes and then set up another trap for those still out to sea before they came back. What she didn't understand was how on earth could only five tired META shipgirls get the better of two Arbiters and their Enforcers while being lost inside such a disorienting Mirror Sea?
"What a hassle…" the Arbiter breathed a sigh of annoyance.
She didn't know how many Ashes were left alive, but she figured not too many; maybe they were weakened enough for her to take care of without too much trouble, so she figured she'd take a look around and see if there were some stragglers still alive to put out of their misery.
She closed her eyes and focused on her squid-like rigging, whose tentacles stopped flailing around her form. The appendages stood on end as she disabled the jamming she had been keeping up and running until that moment.
And right after doing so, an unfamiliar voice reached her ears.
"Oh, the comms are working again."
Temperance turned to the side to look at the newcomers. They looked up at her in turn, and the Arbiter met their gaze.
Time seemed to stop for a second as the four Kansen gawked at her, probably wondering where the hell she had come from. She figured they had been wondering inside the Mirror Sea the entire time and realized they had gotten that close to her only when the mist began dispersing.
The girl with an estoc in hand and the one with claw-gauntlets she was unfamiliar with, but the other two she recognized immediately. One was the male Kansen her colleagues had captured; she didn't know what he was doing here, but she didn't have time to worry about him as the other Kansen was Enterprise, the hero of the Eagle Union.
Azur Lane must have bumped into the Mirror Sea and interfered with their fight against the Ashes. That's why her comrades had met such a swift end.
With that notion in mind, it didn't take her long to make a decision.
"Don't move!" Enterprise recovered from the surprise, quickly raised her bow, and aimed it at Temperance right as the Arbiter peaced out. Her rigging sported a camouflage much too similar to the one Tester used that made her disappear in a flash.
If Enterprise was there, then the rest of the fleet wasn't far, and as powerful as Temperance was, she wasn't much of a fighter, at least not as good as her headliners comrades. And since those two hadn't been able to come out on top of the situation, she figured she didn't stand much of a chance against an entire fleet of shipgirls, especially if the Grey Ghost herself was among them, so she decided to beat it.
Silence fell as the few remaining clouds of mist dispersed.
"Did she just bug out?" Le Malin wondered aloud.
"For fuck's sake!" Lenin yelled in frustration. "We've been dealing with small fries this entire time... I was itching for a proper fight."
"I-I think it's for the best... Those Arbiters can be rather dangerous," Admiral Graf Spee interjected.
While the three shorter Kansen lost themselves in their banter, Enterprise reached for her internal radio.
"Helena, do you copy me?"
"Enterprise, thank goodness!" The light cruiser breathed a sigh of relief at hearing the carrier's voice. "Where are you? Are you all right?"
"We are fine, not a single scratch on us," Enterprise replied. "What about the others?"
"I don't know; I'm still trying to contact them…"
"I understand… Tell them to regroup and keep me updated on the situation. See you in a bit."
"Roger!"
Enterprise closed the comms and breathed a sigh of relief, then recalled the others' attention before they all began making their way back toward their comrades.
Now that the battle was over and without the adrenaline running through her veins, the pain and fatigue fell on Alabama all at once. Adding that to the further strain of having used her Wisdom Crafting for the first time, and she could barely keep her eyes open.
Zuikaku and Hiyou were holding her up with her arms over their shoulders, with Junyou following them from behind. They were making their way toward the Hermione, but the battleship was essentially a big sack of potatoes under their grip.
For a second, Alabama's mind wandered back to her training. Freedom had told her that the first time would be quite rough, but looking at the shipboys use their Wisdom Crafting with such ease and nonchalance had made it look like it wouldn't be that bad.
Oh, how wrong she was. It wasn't just the wound the Arbiter had inflicted on her; a splitting headache was assaulting her, along with a nauseating feeling of dizziness. Her entire body felt like a single tense muscle, and every movement she made caused her to groan in pain and discomfort.
"Hey, we've arrived; try not to puke on us now," Hiyou warned her as the group approached Hermione's hull. Once aboard, they only needed to follow the ruckus to find the others gathered on the stern of the light cruiser.
"Alabama! What happened?" Enterprise gasped at seeing the group bring along the bruised and battered battleship.
"Don't worry… Enterprise. I'll make it…" Alabama reassured her comrade and friend, her voice barely above a whisper.
Hermione and Helena quickly approached them to free them of the injured woman's weight so they could start treating her.
"You should have seen her, Grey Ghost. She pulled out a giant scythe out of nowhere; it was awesome!" Zuikaku beamed at her.
"She… what?" Enterprise asked in surprise. Zuikaku began recounting excitedly their fight with Hermit and how the battleship was able to pull them out of a tight spot with her strategy. Meanwhile, the other two Sakura carriers turned their attention to what was happening on the other side of the deck.
Fortune was on her knees, weeping next to Renown's unconscious form. The poor cruiser's torso was wrapped in a thick set of bandages, but it still wasn't enough to stem the bleeding of her gaping wound, which was staining the white of the gauzes with the bright red of her blood.
Hiyou and Junyou quickly walked over their comrades in apprehension, the former kneeling next to the destroyer to comfort her, and the latter kneeling next to their wounded friend, trying to gauge the severity of her injuries. Renown's skin was pale, and the warmth was quickly fading from her body. Junyou looked up at her sister and shook her head with a grave expression on her face.
"Gods, Renown… Fortune, are you all right? What happened?" Hiyou asked after noticing the red marks on the destroyer's neck.
"I-I'm all right... T-the shipboys saved me…" Fortune sniffled.
The two META carriers turned to look to the side in confusion. Among the other Kansen present, sitting down on the deck with her arms hugging her knees, was Yamashiro, her wrists and ankles chained up. Next to her, a black-haired man with a black and red Iron Blood uniform was leaning with his back over one of the ship's main batteries, holding the other hand of the chain in his hand.
Hiyou sprung up to her feet, unsheathed her sword, and pointed it at him.
"Oy, you over there! Who gave you the right to chain our comrade up?!" She yelled at him in anger.
Howe and the others got ready to intervene at the slightest hint of aggression, but Leviathan simply stood there, arms crossed, with an unconcerned expression on his face.
"Why don't you ask her yourself?" He said, looking down at the shipgirl next to him.
Yamashiro bit her lips and averted her gaze in shame but was forced to relent under the shipboy's piercing glare. She swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat and addressed the destroyer.
"F-Fortune…" she began, causing the destroyer to jump and wince at hearing her name. "I'm sorry for what I did... I mean it. I don't know what got into me… I completely lost my mind in there."
The destroyer looked down at her feet, completely incapable of looking the catgirl in the eyes.
"It's true… I blamed you for what happened to Fusou, and I hated you for that. But I never wanted to hurt you; I never thought that…" Yamashiro paused, trying to find the correct words. After mustering the courage to raise her head, she continued. "Please, forgive me for saying you should have died in her place. That wasn't me speaking... It would be like spitting on my sister's memory…" her voice cracked as she added the last part, and the dam finally broke. She hung her head in shame and began sobbing softly, tears streaming down her face.
Fortune hugged herself, biting her lips and shaking like a leaf. To say that she was traumatized would be an understatement. Yamashiro's crazy eyes as she strangled her were still fresh in her mind.
On their way there, Leviathan had explained to her how the mist worked, how its effect on people varied based on the physical and mental condition of individuals, and how it amplified exponentially its victims' feelings and longing, thus making them lose control and act on them in an extreme way. The illusions it enacted were just the icing on the cake.
She didn't know how to respond to Yamashiro's words. She believed that her apology was genuine; she wanted to believe it since she was trying her best to find it in her own heart to forgive her, but she was too scared to actually do it, and with good reason, one might add.
Before she could put some order into her thoughts, another voice interjected in the conversation.
"I'm back, ladies. I did as fast as I could!" Emperor's voice reached their ears as the shipboy jumped atop the deck from the water below.
"You are slow, brother," Levithan quipped sarcastically as Junyou and Hiyou gawked at him. So these men were really shipboys...
Emperor sent a sneering fake laugh to his brother, then turned his focus on the shipgirls in front of him.
"Master, over here," Hermione was back after bringing Alabama below deck and caught his attention. His expression took on a serious note as his gaze fell on Renown's unconscious form, and he rushed over her. "We've kept her outside for you, Master. Please, can you do something?"
Emperor nodded at her, taking off his hat, which immediately turned into the miniaturized stasis chamber coffin everyone was familiar with. Hermione helped him lift the unconscious shipgirl inside the contraption.
"Hermione, is there anyone else who needs my attention?" He asked her.
"Miss Alabama is also in need of medical assistance, but her injuries are not as severe as Miss Renown's," Hermione replied. "Miss Helena and I brought her inside; she's resting now."
"W-what did you do to her?" Fortune tentatively asked him as she eyed the weird, glowing contraption resembling a transparent her friend had been put into.
"Fret not, Little Miss; my power has restorative properties for Kansen. I can't heal her completely, but she's out of danger now, I promise," Emperor replied with a reassuring smile.
Fortune's mouth went slack in astonishment before her eyes began welling up with tears. She lunged at the shipboy, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his chest, abandoning herself to a liberating cry.
"T-thank you so much... For everything…" she sniffled as the other METAs breathed a sigh of relief.
"There, there, it's okay, let it all out, you're going to feel a lot better after," the shipboy said, patting her head in a comforting manner.
As Emperor comforted the destroyer, Enterprise approached the only two METAs who were not in tears, unconscious, or tied up and addressed them with a serious tone.
"Now that the situation is under control, there's something important we need to discuss. Can you take us to your leader?"
Hiyou and Junyou shared a look and nodded at the carrier.
AN: So I woke up a few days ago with a couple of people saying that the story was gone for a while and then it was back, but to me, everything was normal. The only issue was the view counter not working, but that has been a thing they have been trying to fix for like a month. I genuinely have no idea what happened there, I don't even know if it happened to other authors or not. I can only assume it was fanfiction having a stroke or something, it wouldn't even be the first time.
Anyway, next chapter will be the last with the METAs for the time being. After that we'll shift pov to the fleet headed to Japan and see what they are up to.
Next Chapter: Business Talk