"Akagi…?"

The kitsune's head turns towards her young charge, swaddled in a thick blanket, covered in Martian snow and rust so thick it makes her head of white hair vanish completely.

"Yes, Kawakaze?"

Her own voice creaks from the cold, her steel hull twisting and boiling within its mortal shell.

"Are the others going to be ok?"

Akagi did not speak immediately, forcing her feet to trudge through the cold, her breath crystallizing into mist in the pitch dark, empty air. She pointedly ignored the shouts of warhounds from behind her, the monstrous animals tracking her, Kawakaze, the refugees and survivors by scent and tracks. She wished for the days when her rigging would have been able to slaughter the pack animals instantly.

But those days were long past her, now, only the remnants, barest echoes of the Siren War remained, the few survivors fleeing from the terrorists that had razed their hopes and dreams.

She forced her feet forwards, finally responding to Kawakaze, hating how her voice felt choked.

"Yes. They will be fine."

The lie tasted horrendous on her tongue, the bitter poison pouring from her lips much like the smile from Amagi had, before she had thrown herself into the hordes of humans baying for blood.

The same smile Kaga had worn when she'd set out for the Antarctic base, seeking the survivors of a dozen different fleets. Seeking a force she could use to fight back, to turn the tide.

The things she had seen had changed her and twisted her, and Kaga had never really been the same after that day.

Akagi shouldered her sister's burdens as well as her own, it was her duty, as her sister, as her family. She couldn't allow anything to stop her, or to show just how vulnerable they were.

That had resulted in fleeing Japan in the late 2000's, taking all they could. Akagi had remarked that they had made a ragtag fleet at best, far too many old capital ships, vessels too honored by the public to destroy and too firmly entrenched in good PR to slander.

So few escorts remained. Dozens of them had up and vanished, and Akagi… even she, had had to come to terms with the reality of the world.

Public sentiment was changing, they were expensive, their technology no longer advanced enough for human wars, those who consented to upgrades, to continued service vanished, never to be seen again.

Or… worse.

Kaga had shown Akagi some of the images of the Antarctic base one evening, after far too much Sake, and far too little restraint.

The images felt to Akagi as though they were etched upon her eyes. Carved into the flesh like a beacon, as if the horrors of humanity would somehow… become lesser.

No.

The image of what they had done to Nagato, would haunt Akagi until her dying days.

The woman's head was removed, electrodes taped to her skull, they had wanted to measure what would happen as the human bodies of the spirits aged, and they had waited until Nagato had reached her later years…

She had been flayed apart, the pieces of her body picked at until there was nothing more to learn from them.

The worst part was that she had been alive, until Kaga had torched the base and brought it down around everyone.

The public outcry, or, lack thereof, had been the final nail in the coffin.

She had fled then, first to the United States, then to Canada, and always, a dwindling amount of the fleets flowed along with her.

She had become a leader, of sorts, and in a moment of true, awful weakness, had listened to the firebrand Enterprise, the woman who had lain her low in a previous life. She had attempted to be diplomatic with the country, asked them politely to allow her to stay, and for a few years… it had been granted.

Enterprise had been gunned down in the street one evening when returning to her home. The US had stated it was a petty crime, a robbery gone wrong, but Akagi had thrown much of her own dwindling stock of electronics and rigging components into finding the truth.

She had been dangerous, to whom, no one would say, but she had been, and thus… she had been removed.

Yamato had never recovered after Enterprise's death. The battleship had always been one to let the hurt onto her, to take the pain so that others would not have to suffer. Akagi remembered the days after the murder, the days where she'd had to take away Yamato's knives, to take away her rigging, and finally… to station guards alongside her at all hours.

When Kawakaze had been born, the first girl in decades to have a shipsoul, born to a human mother cube… she had seen a slight amount of radiance return to Yamato, but it was temporary.

Humanity had returned, baying for blood once more.

Terrorists had slain the head of state of Britain, blaming it successfully on rogue elements of the Royal Navy's former Shipgirl Corps.

Akagi had remembered how Warspite had turned to face them, throwing the stiffest and most professional salute she could at her, how Akagi had bowed low to the floor to keep her fleet from perceiving the tears that soaked her eyes.

She remembered how her shoulders had felt stiffer in the following days, as the public trial, and later the execution had commenced.

"For the safety of all involved, the Shipgirls must be put aside from humanity, those with shipsouls must be tested and separated."

The Governments had done it to protect their people, the terrorists only ever targeted shipgirls, and those who worked with them, and they were scared, Akagi commanded immense power, they thought. Even now, she wonders if she had been more trusting, if they would not have done what they did.

Musashi had lost her partners in a senseless act of violence from the early days, but her snapping, her rampage had been the final nail in the coffin for the few left.

Akagi had seen them all that day, filthy, starving, bedraggled, and all of them burning with a desire to hurt and hate and kill and maim.

She had worked hard to make them fit in within the compound, within the cleared space of wilderness buried deep in the Canadian Rockies.

Medusa had been happy, to have new people, to have new ideas to bounce off of, and for a time, there was talk of revitalizing some of their old components, refurbishing some of the rigging of the less expensive women.

Akagi had dared to hope for that future.

It was a mistake that had cost them everything.

Some of the humans were working on a fix for overpopulation, the unsustainability of retrieving minerals as the sources slowly dried out, but it was decades away, and hungry eyes had turned towards their compound.

Akagi remembered the night it had all come crashing down.

She remembered the pain and screaming and the emotions that had burned her that day as the terrorists breached the perimeter, and chased into the forest, ripping and stripping the land.

Medusa's garden had been ravaged, Akashi's workshop torn apart by the hungry masses.

Baltimore's diplomatic quarters had been burned to the ground, and the woman herself had been dragged into the crowd. Her body, while still youthful and strong as the day she'd stopped aging, had no rigging to protect it anymore.

Akagi, who had been the victor of a thousand battles and the survivor of many more, has seen many things. She has seen the flesh melt off the bones of fellow comrades, has seen the horrors of technoplagues released by the Sirens in a desperate battle for control, has seen the sacrifices of too many good men and women. She had foolishly believed she had witnessed all that the horrors of war could force into her mind.

Akagi had not believed a woman could scream like that.

It had not been a surprise when she had taken her life the following day.

It had hurt her to see it, to be the one who lay her down, who placed her within the ground to rest at last.

Akagi hoped whatever had been left of her tormented spirit found a semblance of peace in death.

"Aunt Akagi?… I'm… I'm tired…"

Kawakaze stumbled, just ahead of her, and Akagi barely managed to catch her before she fell into the snow, the kitsune cast her eyes behind her, terraforming on Mars was limited, and while she and Kawakaze, not technically humans, could endure and withstand the pressures and lack of oxygen more than any human, those humans were still chasing them.

She had thought Mars would have been ideal, and with the last of those endowed with the shipgirls, Akagi had volunteered to be shot above Earth and towards the red planet, hoping that it would be enough.

For a time, the shipgirls had dwindled from public knowledge, had dwindled away until they had little more than a passing mention in earth textbooks that focused on the Siren Wars.

The age of spaceborn piracy had changed everything.

The surprise had been the first thing, diplomats from Earth landing upon their commune and curiously wandering about at the sight of Akagi and her sisters wandering about without their atmospheric suits in biodomes.

Medusa had been thrilled, and had, for the first time, with self sufficiency, been allowed to experiment.

The settlement had been dubbed Kibō, hope, for the future. The Martian lack of atmosphere would have been a problem outside of the biodome, but within it the atmosphere was warm, and Akagi watched the children play happily.

Artificial insemination had been needed, and they had adapted well enough to the challenge of having children up there, as the last of the human supporters died off in those early days, before new ones had begun to flow in. But… she'd been happy, they'd seen the successes.

Now the heavens were ablaze, forces from the fledgling UNE clashing with Koslovic and Frieden forces above.

Akagi had found the conflict boring, and had driven away diplomats from all three of the factions. There were, as it turned out, humans who had remembered them, but by now, her commune had fought long and hard, and they merely wished for peace, unfortunately denied from them.

Medusa, provided ample experimentation and computers, made leaps and bounds in years that had astounded even Akagi's long dulled sensibilities.

As it turned out, greedy human eyes had once again fell upon them for that simple reason.

It had been the Koslovic's first, who had struck the biodome, they had failed, of course, their primary assault had been little more than men with guns in atmospheric suits, and they'd failed to even breach the primary shielding of the compound.

The second and third assaults had been far more successful than the first, and had led to Akagi leading the fractured survivors from within her compound deep into the Martian ice on the south pole. Here lay Medusa's final countermeasure, something so secret that only Akagi and the scientist herself had been permitted to know of it.

Here lay a hopeful solution to the constant war and fighting.

They had human supporters, yes, even now, and those few who had not stayed behind to delay traveled with the rest of the long line behind Akagi.

The doors of the laboratory were lain beneath miles of ice, and to reach it, they would need a nuclear device. Akagi had made her column of refugees stop, and waited for Medusa's signal.

As Mars rotated to face the sun, a flash of nuclear fire evaporated Kibō from everything, and another detonated on the south pole, clearing the way to the subsurface laboratory.

The blasts momentarily blinded all communications and sensors, and when the task was done, Akagi received a simple message on a hardened handset, a confirmation tone from Medusa before the line had gone dead.

The scientist had been one of the best of them, and Akagi did not know if she had survived.

"I know, little Kawakaze, I know… we are almost there."

They trudged onwards, and Akagi carried Kawakaze above her head until the chasm began to crackle closed behind them. The ice would refreeze, rocks and Martian rust covering their tracks as they fled many miles beneath the surface of the red planet.

The building was not entirely theirs, that was the second secret, Medusa had honored Akashi by managing to not take it apart for all of three days, and it had been beyond her abilities to understand, but she had been able to activate a single section of the complex.

The cryotubes.

Modifications had been made to place all those with a shipsoul within them into stasis, or an equivalent, so they would not suffer damage.

Akagi turned her hooded gaze to the lab doors as they began to slide shut, she could just make out the shining star of a crashing naval vessel, paint peeling off its sides and burning as it fell from orbit through the weak, but existent atmosphere

She almost missed the notice from Medusa, signaling that she no longer had time.

The doors sealed behind Akagi, and the tired Kitsune slowly made her way into the complex, following the signs on the walls. Dozens of her people stood there, watching her, a casual headcount revealed… maybe one hundred total awakened, with their shipselves realized and rigging assimilated. Of those, perhaps one dozen were survivors, with over 600 human refugees. They had not been the only ones to settle on Mars, and had attracted others with simple rules and simpler living.

Akagi placed her hand on a scanner, the cold cracking her nails, and she imagined for a moment what Amagi might say, to see her in such a state.

Those words, imagined as they may have been, brought a smile, bitter, to her face, as the system identified her and a voice began to play over the speakers. A voice that Akagi had long known to be dead.

"I am Nagato, Fleet Intelligence. Hello Akagi, are you here because the Sunset Protocol must be activated?"

Her form, there, a smile on her face and rigging in full splendor, glowing with dark light from behind her eyes.

Akagi has to tamp down her surprise, but a small smile curves her lips, even as her eyes tear up.

There is so much she wants to say to her battle sister, so much she wants to say to the flagship she served for much of her career.

But there is no time.

Her people must be taken care of first.

"Yes."

The woman, artificial intelligence, turns to face the crowd.

"I understand, attention, all humans, please, step this way into these pods, breathe deep and wait, everything will be explained soon. However, we do not have the time to do so now. For all of the awakened, please, this way, make certain to take a set of rings from this table, and place them on hands, feet, and neck."

Her voice is clipped, professional, and every bit the Nagato that Akagi remembers.

Akagi watches as her fleet, her last people follow the commands. She would expect them to be more hesitant, but remembers that for the awakened, she has led them as long as they have lived, and for the unawakened, they have been raised understanding that she is the Admiral of their fleet, she is their leader, and she has never led them wrong before.

Slowly, Pods begin to seal closed, and Akagi smiles at each of them, gentle, watching as Kawakaze closes her eyes in one of the rings, watching as she carefully falls asleep, hoping that the stasis will allow her internal systems to fix the damage.

This technology is barely even understood, far more advanced than anything that Akagi had ever used, but she trusts Medusa's analysis, and hopes that they will not sleep too long.

As silence falls amongst the valley, Nagato turns to Akagi and speaks.

"I… am merely an echo, great Fox. Little more than that."

Akagi nods, blinking away the tears. Hacking her cough onto the table now that none can see her weakness.

"I… cough… understand."

"Will you enter stasis as well?"

Akagi does not even take a second to think.

"I must. My people will require my services in the future."

Nagato smiles wryly.

"My predecessor said as much, when she awoke me. I will wake you should anything change. This may feel strange."

Akagi nods, shrugging the light rings on and stepping into one of the pods, a pleasant, warm, buzzing sensation tingles across her, and she knows no more.

A/N: This is the prologue to a crossover fanfic collection, I am tentatively calling it Records from the Void, and it crosses Halo, and Arpeggio of Blue Steel, with slight elements of Kancolle and Azur Lane. Do not expect the abyssals or sirens to appear, that war is long over, but the effects of it are long lasting. This primarily will deal with Akagi's nascent nation state, and the effects her and her brethren's existence have on the rest of the galaxy. This will begin, with character stories set during the period shortly after the Martian State is reawakened.

I hope you all enjoy it, and if you want to read ahead, the next 2 chapters are up on my .

If you enjoy this, please consider supporting me there, it helps me have more of everything to write and entertain you all!

As always, comments and criticisms are always welcome and I love receiving them!

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