#Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

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[END] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

Gunzō collected the last things he needed for school and put them in his bag, taking a minute to look at the two picture frames, one holding a picture of a younger him with his parents, the other a picture of Blue Steel's crew with Iona at the front – a picture that had been taken sometime in the early days of their travel.

He thought it a bit stupid that they still had to go to school after everything, but even if he had earned a medal, academics were necessary for his and his friends’ future.

Sighing, he turned to the open room, clutching the medallion Iona had left him on his parents’ grave and which he had fastened on a keychain: "Iona, if you're here, I'm off to school now!", with that, he walked out.

Iona watched him leave, burying her fingers in the front of her dress as she sat on the bed he had just walked past.

Ever since she had lost her body, she was flickering in and out of the physical plane like a spectre – here the one second, gone the next.

She wondered if what she was at the moment was a ghost.

The girl looked at the bed, its fabric not dipping even though she was most definitely sitting on it, closed her sad eyes and lamented that fate.

Kongō had promised her to drink tea together should she grow lonely, but it was Iona herself who would love to drink tons of tea with her best friend right now – and never stop.

Iona opened her eyes again and felt them widen in shock: a white pavilion, green grass and the sound of water in the distance…

That… that was the Concept Communication System she had ended up in when she had fused with Yamato! But how!? 

It's not like she had never tried coming here or connecting to other parts of the network, but it had never worked! So, how…

"Iona."

She turned around, back to the tree growing through the pavilion's ground and seemingly aiming to break through the roof, the grieving willow's leaves guarding the white table and chairs, one of them occupied by a pale girl.

Hesitantly, Iona stepped forwards and sat down in the other chair, noting the various Union Cores lying on the table's surface, before looking at the other: "Are you Vanisher?"

"Mhm", she made, the Mental Model of SW2 standing diagonally behind her.

Vanisher was almost unrecognizable:

Her face was uncovered, mask fastened at her hips, revealing the glowing signs of a flagship equipment and blue eyes, her hair was fastened in a low ponytail and golden victory wreath growing skywards like horns. She wore a fur-lined coat, which revealed shoulders and was fastened with silver around her waist, a more elaborate robe with glowing elements and bandages around her left arm and leg.

Iona couldn't say what surprised her more: that someone could access this special part of the CCS who wasn't her, or that Vanisher had brought someone else here.

"How are you here…?"

The battleship's eyes flashed with amusement: "I wonder", she joked, "I was given a key by Yamato – unfortunately, it was merely one for a backdoor utilisable only once all of Flagship Command had, well, lost command."

"Lost", in this case, a word of many meanings.

Green eyes had widened with the implications of those words.

If Vanisher could just, obviously, claim the Admiralty Code, wouldn't that make Iona's last order useless? Wouldn't that… make her death useless? And Gunzō's grief of having lost her – wouldn't that…

"You look like you're about to cry", Vanisher interjected and tapped a finger on the table, "there is no need for that. I won't use the Admiralty Code and go against your last wish; in fact, the children living according to their own will is my wish as well, I just claimed it so that no one with other motives could."

She leaned back in her seat, unfolding the loosely crossed arms on the table and putting them on her armrests: "SW2 informed me of your ghostly existence. It was difficult to find your soul, so to speak, and invite it here, but I thought that one should make you an offer concerning your current circumstances."

SW2 must be her subrocessor, the submarine theorized, it would explain why she is here: "An offer?"

The battleship nodded: "I cannot guarantee that this method will be successful, but we could bind your soul to an Union Core existing only in this realm", a sigh, "apologies, I ironically can't explain this well in technological terms – it must sound like I'm trying to explain magic…"

Maybe… a bit, actually.

Iona still thought that, all in all, she understood what Vanisher was trying to say, though.

Since her and her Union Core essentially didn't exist anymore and she was instead this ghost-like creature, her data most likely was not accessible in the "physical" world and could thus not be connected to anything in it, but since her ghost data seemed to exist in this "realm", it would be possible to anchor her here.

If that really, really worked, then she would maybe be able to interact with Gunzō and the others again!

"No", Iona shook her head, finally remembering to blink away the last tears left from earlier, "I think I know what you mean."

"Oh", Vanisher blinked, "excellent, but please do not forget that, according to our simulations, it should work, but I can't promise so – do you still wish to try?"

Did she wish to try? What a stupid question, of course she did! Agreeing in a heartbeat had never been easier!

Not trusting her words, she leaned forwards with a determined expression, nodding seriously.

The battleship rose from her chair elegantly: "You had your eyes closed when you appeared here, do you wish to do so again?"

Iona shut her eyes, eyelids quivering nervously.

She felt, more than heard, Vanisher support herself on the table, leaning forward and stopping shortly as if hesitating to kiss the submarine's forehead where she whispered: "In thanks for saving my favourite child, I'll even return your ship to you."

Her eyes snapped open in surprise, but the world was already disappearing in white light so strong she had to close them almost immediately again, the pinkish-red eyes of Vanisher and a blueish Union Core forming the last thing she saw.

When she opened her eyes this time, it felt as if her non-existing heart was beating out of her chest, the rapid speed almost impossible to calm even with hands on her chest. 

The bed dipped under her as she leaned back to support-

Wait a minute, it dipped!? 

She leaped up, turning around to see that, yes, there was still an imprint left!

Not believing her eyes, she went to press on the blanket, only to have her hands sink into it: "I… I can touch! T-that means-!"

Iona couldn't finish her own sentence before she sprinted out of Gunzō's dorm, barely registering the door locking behind her while trying to get her systems running – there were people she desperately needed to meet!

The girl was sure that she had never been that fast on her tiny legs, the wind whipping past her so loudly that it muted everything else.

By the same time she could clearly see Gunzō's back, she had also successfully loaded the CCS and by the time her physical self barreled into the boy's back with a shout of his name, her digital self crashed into Kongō's broad back with a call of her name.

Kongō turned around, a hand placed on Iona's smaller one, a surprised smile on her face.

Gunzō, too, turned around, staring at her in shock for nothing more than a second before enveloping the girl in his shaking arms.

"I thought I had lost you", Gunzō said, his voice small.

"What happened?", Kongō asked in the same tone of voice she had sent the white haired girl off with.

"Vanisher helped me", both Iona's explained, tears in their eyes, "I'm home."

--

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We are done! A big thanks to everyone who read this!

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[19] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

Vanisher breathed in, the smell of rain-wetted dirt, stone and grass entering her nose, a light wind playing with her hair and blue cape as her and SW2 looked aimlessly around the port area.

The rain clouds still hung heavily in the sky, very light drizzle falling depending on where the clouds travelled to, but the brunt of it was over.

SW2 still held the umbrella up because of that, her masked face barely under its protection.

"You should hold it in such a way that you won't get wet either", Vanisher said without looking, "there is more than enough space."

Silent steps, that only appeared after a while, notified the flagship of the following of her orders.

She, SW2, that is, had certainly considered before doing so. 

The submarine had taken up the job as a personal servant, which was nice, but had still to get accustomed to her "master" not being very demanding – and they knew each other for countless years already.

Sometimes, being asked for something instead of ordered still confused her.

"Do you think Gunzō will rebuild I-402?"

SW2 thought for a moment, then nodded.

Vanisher nodded as well: "I hope that, too. If we already have her Core, after all, why not rebuild her?"

She nodded again, then presented her flagship a screen with a moving red dot.

"Oh", the blue-haired girl's face fell, "I'm not in the mood right now, but very well."

The red dot had been Brokencore, the battleship sprinting around a corner and towards them as if searching for a lost charge in the middle of a war: "Flagship!", she looked said person over worriedly, "that boy wants to take you up on your offer!"

"Oh?", Vanisher blinked up at her innocently (even if she couldn't see it through the mask) and used the slightly higher, more innocent sounding voice, "is this about the Union Core?"

"Yes!"

Gripping the string of the bow hung over her shoulder in what she hoped was a cute gesture, Vanisher said: "Then we could welcome I-402 back into our fleet, that would be great! Can you take him to the repair bay so Melody can lend a few nanomaterials?"

Brokencore still looked not fully happy with that, clearly eyeing SW2 to determine how useful she was as a servant, but already opening her mouth to agree.

"I'm tired and want to go back inside – can you supervise them?"

"Of course!", she looked definitely happier now and sprinted away, leaving the others to themselves. --

Brokencore had practically herded Gunzō over, not even giving him time to take his friends along (Hyūga was with him sorely because she had been in the room by pure accident) and then almost threatened Melody into following her flagship's order.

Not that it had been necessary since Melody would have helped happily without, uh…, passionate questioning.

"Miss Hyūga, may I take a look at the data you've gathered?"

Hyūga gave an amused smile – she had never been called "Miss Hyūga" before: "Of course."

The two began pouring over the information Hyūga had gathered while getting Musashi's location out of I-402's Union Core, the repairship cradling said Core protectively.

After a while, which Brokencore and Gunzō spent just looking on from the sidelines, Melody detached from Hyūga with a look that made it easy to see that she was deep in thought: "I'm unsure whether I-402 can support her ship body…"

A sentoku was a big type of submarine, afterall. I-402's Union Core was of course designed to support that, but that was under the condition that the Core was alright, not featuring one or another crack like this one.

Melody looked at the Union Core in her hands, then thought back on all the similar cases she had had over the years.

Brokencore was a very similar case, her Core having developed various cracks because of physical stress she couldn't handle, thus needing Vanisher to manually lock down a certain amount of her systems to lighten the burden and take out not strictly necessary hardware – that was also the reason why she didn't have a Super Graviton Cannon.

Zeitwächter, whatever the cause, had split her Union Core in two with the help of the mutated/corrupted nanomaterial being created by a massive outbreak of energy.

Maya… Maya was a chimaera of the tiny part of her own Union Core still left and an artificial one that the entire Science Department had rage quitted over at least once.

Still, while all these cases seemed drastically worse (and partially were), whether or not they could support anything bigger than a Mental Model was a case to case thing – it was still questionable with Maya too.

A sigh almost left the brunette. She should just heal the submarine as far as she safely could; if that didn't include a ship body, then so be it.

Before Brokencore could try to… urge her on, Melody walked over to a more fitting space, gathered the necessary nanomaterials and began recreating the submarine's Mental Model.

When she was finished, Gunzō thanked his past self for waiting with accepting Vanisher's offer until he could handle it.

I-402 looked like a twin of Iona, the only difference colouration, clothing and the way her hair fell, everything else the exact same.

The "newly born" girl looked around the room they were in curiously, noting the simple plank bed and the people around her.

When she sat up with support and tried to use her Energy Life Rings, a shock of pain made her jolt and clutch her middle.

"I-402, please don't use any of your systems right now!", Melody advised.

"Where… am I?"

"Germany, naval base of the Fleet of Masks."

I-402 looked at her doctor, not sure what she should think while her mind was still busy catching up, until it finally did and she gripped one of the arms supporting her: "What about I-400? Where is 400?"

Melody looked at Gunzō, Gunzō looked back, both of their faces adorning the typical sad, pitiful look of someone having to tell difficult news.

The submarine had already known the truth then, maybe she had known since waking up, but she still hoped that she was wrong, that she interpreted their expressions wrong, but…

"I'm sorry…", Melody said.

Ah…

That… hurt.

"And what about 401?"

Seeing the way Gunzō Chihaya flinched was enough.

I-402 nodded to herself slowly: "I understand."

Melody looked at the hand still grasping her sleeve and used her free hand to rub over I-402's back: "I will check you over now, alright? After that, I'm sure your friends will answer your questions."

They're not my friends, she thought. --

"Safe travels!"

"Let's go drinking sometime!"

"Invite me to your wedding, Takao!"

Various goodbyes and best wishes were shouted at the Blue Fleet, the group having decided to return home after a week of rest, I-402 accompanying them.

"W-what wedding!?", Takao, tsundere heavy cruiser par excellence, shouted back, her voice easily carrying over the waves.

Enka, standing with her sister in the shadows and leaning against a wall, just smirked to herself. Takao was amusing to annoy, the submarine had exploited that fact endlessly.

It was a bit sad to see them go, even if it had only been a week, since a few good relationships had obviously formed.

In another spot, also positioned so that one could watch the fleet and their Mask escorts leave, the Black Fleet was relaxing, their Mental Models lounging around.

"By the way, what are you gonna do about Hiei?"

"Eat her."

"..."

"..."

Zeitwächter kicked Kongō's chair with all her lazy might: "You said I'm not allowed to make that joke anymore!"

"Which is why I made it."

Since Zeitwächter was, well, an ass, and had also watched the records SW2 had of the battle up in the north, she of course kept Kongō essentially chomping down on Hiei in everyone's active memory.

At first she had been all "Oh that was so cool! You really just looked like a giant beast opening her jaw to devour the world!!", which had been overdramatic, but somehow not as annoying, and had then switched to "You know you could… chomp on them" whenever something annoyed or angered the blonde.

"Hypocritical."

"It's not."

Maya snapped up from beside Zeitwächter like a whip: "It is, actually!"

"See? The annoying clown is taking my side."

"Hey!"

Kongō readjusted and used the moment where the girls couldn't see her face to smile to herself: "Where does the sudden interest in Hiei come from?"

"Bro…", Zeitwächter practically sweatdropped in the most anime style ever, "I think you and your buddy kinda shattered her worldview, aye?"

Admittedly, Musashi had been far from the best influence, but she had been a supporting pillar for Hiei especially once Kongō had disappeared.

The blonde knew that as well: "Annoying little sister", she mumbled and then said louder, "I'll wait for the situation to settle before contacting her."

"Huuuuh", Maya said, resting her chin on Zeitwächter's upper arm which was only tolerated because the battleship was doing the same to Churchgrim, "why not now?"

"Contacting her now might only agitate the situation further", Kongō rested her chin in her hand, "as annoying as she is, I don't want to fight her."

She loved her sisters, afterall, even if they would probably never get her to openly admit that. 

"Aw, that's cute", Zeitwächter said while Churchgrim, Maya and Nagara made sounds of approval, "well, maybe letting her friends heal her wounds so you can chafe them open later will indeed help."

Kongō kicked her, but the other managed to avoid with a not so elegant halfroll: "Silence."

Zeitwächter stuck out her tongue at her.

--

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[18] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

Gunzō couldn't sleep, he couldn't even rest – maybe that was why he found himself on the top deck and under dark skies again.

He dragged his feet over to the front, ignoring the heavy side eye one of the battleships threw at him, and walked up to the blue caped Mental Model standing at the front.

Vanisher partially turned her head towards him for a second once he came to a halt beside her, the two staring out at the sea.

"...May I ask something?", Gunzō began after a while.

She nodded.

"A few years ago I met a girl. She said: "I‘m merely chasing echoes. After all, even if they reflect off mountains various times, one day they too vanish without a trace“, and then vanished – was that you?"

Silence for a few minutes.

"...You remember the entire sentence?", Vanisher said so silently she might as well have been whispering it.

Just when Gunzō opened his mouth again, she added: "That must have been an important thing for you."

He closed his mouth. 

Right, there were people around, weren't there? 

Vanisher had the reputation of a shy child that needed a long time to warm up – the entire Fleet of Fog categorized her as such – but she had acted vastly different than that both when making contact and when picking him and his friends up.

It had let Gunzō to exactly one conclusion: a lie.

Or, well, not a lie exactly, but more like a half truth.

Gunzō was sure that, once upon a time, Vanisher had been a shy child, he was even sure that she still needed a lot of time to warm up to people, but he didn't think that being shy was still the case. 

Vanisher had experienced emotional growth over the years like everyone else and grown out of that "shell", however, the image of a shy girl? One would most likely always underestimate someone like that – it was an advantage even in your own fleet.

So, if that was the case, why reveal herself to not only him, but the entire crew of I-401?

"Gunzō Chihaya", the battleship began, her mask making it so that it didn't even look like she was speaking, "I was bored and wanted to play around – don't think too deeply about being curious about the son of that man. I've heard you recovered the Core of 402?"

"We did."

"Do you want to rebuild her? Since we're already stopping in Germany, I could lend you nanomaterial."

He looked at her, trying not to make it obvious since that battleship from before was beginning to burn a hole in his head with her eyes: "I will think about it."

Truth be told, he had never seen Iona's sisters' Mental Models, but they most likely shared similarities and he wasn't sure if he was ready for that yet.

Vanisher seemed to understand, for she merely nodded and retreated to sit down, SW2 coming to her side with an umbrella in preparation for the heavy rain clouds above.

When they arrived in Germany, what had been a light fizzle on sea turned to a heavy rainstorm on land, the wind whipping waves against the harbour and the ships.

Kongō had been one of the first to arrive, her Klein Field fulfilling the duty of an umbrella for the time being as she looked skywards.

It didn't look like it would stop anytime soon.

Oh well, then she would have to make an umbrella.

"Kongō~!"

Oh, or maybe I don't.

There, hidden away by the thick rain, came Churchgrim and Zeitwächter, the latter holding a paper umbrella big enough for three.

"Since when are you using my full name?"

"I just wanted to say your name!", Zeitwächter beamed, "can I show you something, my lady, or would that be too much?"

Kongō jumped down from her ship and took the offered hand so that it could tug her under the umbrella: "If you could make me think of something else, that would be great."

"I can make you think of a great many things", Zeitwächter said with a lifted finger, "for example, the nice sound of rain falling on our umbrella."

The blonde looked up, listened to it for a second and looked down again.

Before she could give any kind of sarcastic comment, Churchgrim started tugging at one of her sleeves, which she stopped with a touch to the side of his snout.

"Alright alright", his sister yielded, hooking her arm with Kongō's to lead them away, "he doesn't like water from above."

A yip.

"Excellent conditions for a ship."

Zeitwächter pressed a laugh out from in between her teeth and bowed forwards a bit at the comment, rightening herself with an exhale: "Babe you can't say those things, I'm in an incredibly funky mood today – I'll laugh at everything."

Kongō threw a blank face: ""Babe", huh?"

"You never heard that, I clearly said "Kon-chama"."

"Of course you did. Churchgrim, did she say "Kon-chama"?"

The dog gave a bark that sounded suspiciously like a "no".

Zeitwächter gave a dramatic sigh: "Betrayed by not only my dearest brother but also by the love of my life? My life truly is saddening."

"You're awfully open today."

"You're awfully relaxed with everything I said until now!"

Kongō looked up at her from the corner of her eyes, the half-hearted mixture of a smile and grin gracing her features.

The battleship could feel her eyes bulging, before coughing into a fist and looking forwards: "The seagulls won, by the way, against Churchgrim's food, that is."

"I didn't expect less."

Churchgrim and his sister shared a look. Kongō wasn't behaving out of character or anything of that sort, but she clearly wasn't in the mood for actual conversation despite her earlier statement.

"Kon-chama, you seem exhausted, I can stop talking if you-"

"No", Kongō said harshly, before looking up at her companion with apologetic eyes, "I like hearing your voice, I just can't answer right now."

"Okay!", Zeitwächter nodded eagerly, "I'll find a nice random topic for you to zone out to! Uhm… how about…"

And with that she began launching into an elaborate explanation of the corvids at port and how she wanted to befriend them.

The blonde caught too much to have fully zoned out, but it proved as pleasing background noise.

After a bit of walking, they stepped on the Zeitwächter's ship, the rain suddenly stopping under the protection of the Klein Field and quite a few seagull heads rising.

"Kon-chama", Zeitwächter's leading started becoming purposeful, "sorry."

"Wh-", before she could finish, the battleship pushed her around a corner, making her freeze.

"Kongō!", Maya, tears in her eyes, barreled into the blonde, quite possibly being the only  thing keeping the fast battleship standing.

Maya rambled on and on, apology chasing apology, question chasing question, but the onlookers were pretty sure that Kongō wasn't hearing any of that to begin with.

Slowly, her fingers spasmed once as if coming back alife, her arms rising with the same slowness to carefully touch Maya's back as if she was made of glass.

That seemed to throw the heavy cruiser out of her loop, for she stopped talking and looked up at her best friend, eyes widening in shock: "Wh-why are you crying!?"

Her answer was a warbled mess of barely-there words.

"I'm here now! You don't need to cry!"

That only made her cry harder, Kongō even taking back her hands to hide her eyes in them, teeth pressed together to not make noises.

Maya didn't know what to do, she hadn't been prepared for this! She had been prepared for… well she didn't know but certainly not that!

Having really no idea, Maya did the first thing that came to mind: hugging.

She embraced Kongō patiently, pressing the blonde head into her shoulder and rubbing her back softly: "It's alright now – I'm here, okay? I'm here."

Kongō made a heart-wrenching sound that was most likely supposed to be a word.

They stood like that for a while, the pitter-patter of rain hitting Klein Field the only sound, before Kongō pulled back again, still rubbing at her eyes: "I missed you."

"I did too", Maya said softly.

The blonde looked towards where Zeitwächter and Churchgrim had left her, frowning around her puffy eyes: "Were you crying too?"

"N-no!", she definitely had been.

"Your eyes are red."

"I'm a Mental Model! I mixed up the Hex codes!"

Maya looked between them: "Did you really?"

Kongō scoffed: "Don't be an idiot, of course not."

Zeitwächter and Maya whined in synch, which caused Kongō to smile a bit; she had really missed them. A lot.

--

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"I'll tag other characters as they appear", I said, and then promptly forgot about it. Well, Maya is tagged now at the very least .

(Also in my defense, it's not like anyone else really got more than a mentioning)

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[17] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

The sky was pulsing red and blue, the light coming through the heavily filled rainclouds like rolling thunder.

"Admiralty Code representative, flagship Yamato, contacting everyone."

Zeitwächter narrowed her eyes: Iona.

"This is Flagship Command. I repeat: this is Flagship Command. I command all vessels to cease attacking – from now on, the Fleet of Fog will live according to its own will. That is an order.

This is the last order of Flagship Command."

And then, the voice which was no doubt Iona's, cut off as suddenly as it had appeared, taking the pulsing with it.

"What was that?"

"I don't know; a Fog weapon, maybe?"

There had been humans flocking together and staring at the sky in partial fear and awe the moment the light had first appeared, but they didn't dare ask Zeitwächter for answers as her dangerousness had been well incorporated into their minds.

Said battleship was neither blind nor deaf, though, but she had better things to do than answering human questions, especially when she felt stirring on her ship.

Zeitwächter turned and began sprinting along the port, hearing with half an ear how the message was replayed on mobile phones and other tech systems – most likely by doings of SW2 – collected Churchgrim on the way and jumped on her ship, the seagulls screeching loudly.

They made a final turn around the superstructure and came to a sudden halt.

Maya had been left behind on the ship as it was the safest place for her bare Union Core, but now she was standing there, staring at her shaky hands with big eyes.

The battleship motioned for her brother to stay where he was, before treading forwards carefully and touching Maya's shoulder: "Maya?"

Her head snapped up – she seemed to have noticed the newcomer only now.

Zeitwächter was a bit unnerved actually: "How much do you remember?"

That was when the dam broke: Maya's eyes teared up and she barreled into the other with a sob, holding on as if she would die without doing so: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I-", she choked on a sob, "I'm so sorry!"

I see, Zeitwächter thought, hugging the suddenly very small creature back and sinking to the ground together: "Did you know when they were in control?"

A nod.

Whenever I-400 and I-402 had been controlling her, it was as if she had been locked away in her own body, like watching someone else talk to Kongō and doing all the fun things that suddenly weren't fun at all anymore – it had been terrible, it had been terrifying.

She was more often in control than not, her actual character accidentally fitting in so well with the program the submarines had written that she could get by with being herself, but it was always hanging over her head like a damocles sword.

In the end, Maya hadn't been strong enough to win against the program and had been caged time and time again, only to have her consciousness slowly cut off due to a chain reaction caused by the Sentokus forcibly shutting down the system.

The last thing she remembered were Kongō's tears.

Zeitwächter allowed Churchgrim to come near – Maya wasn't a danger like that – and he immediately jumped towards them to cheer the heavy cruiser up.

He made a questioning sound while touching the brunette with his nose softly, but she only hid further inside Zeitwächter, so he turned big puppy eyes to her.

What am I supposed to do?, she mouthed.

Churchgrim ended up lying down beside them, making sure to lie on Maya's legs as much as possible, head on his sister's lap.

After a few more minutes, Maya had calmed down enough to sit up again and rub at her eyes blearily, one or the other sniffle still leaving her: "Ok."

"Ok?"

She nodded.

"Alright then. How are your systems – everything alright? No errors?"

"I don't think that my Union Core is alright, but I'm fine."

Zeitwächter nodded – that was as much alright as she would get considering that the Union Core really wasn't perfectly fine: "Welcome to the club of questionable Union Core integrity, now let's get you cleaned up."

She rose to her feet and offered a hand to Maya, which she took gladly: "Okay."

They moved inside, Zeitwächter whipping out a wet towel from God knows where to clean the girls face, said brunette seated on a chair and petting the dog during it: "Will Kongō return soon?"

"Mhm", the other, sitting on a table in an effort of not having to bow down too much, hummed, "she just lost her best friend, so it's going to be a lot for her."

"I thought I'm her best friend!", Maya pouted.

"You are, allow me to rephrase, I misspoke: her sister-in-soul just died, so it's going to be a lot for her", she corrected without hesitation as if having waited for the objection.

The heavy cruiser blinked up in confusion: "What's a sister-in-soul? Is it like a soulmate?", a dramatic intake of air, "has she fallen in love!?"

"With me hopefully", Zeitwächter closed Maya's mouth manually before the next stream of questions, "how are you and Nagara somehow the exact amount of chatty but on different scalas?"

Nagara was at least mostly talking to herself or sharing a lot of fun facts about whatever duty she had finished after delivering the most important info beforehand – Maya actually wanted to converse.

…In her defence, though, since her best friend was Kongō, she was most likely more than just accustomed to carrying a conversation.

She grinned and shrugged, making Zeitwächter sigh.

Annoying.

That reminded her of Kongō, which in return reminded her that Kongō wasn't here, which then made her sad.

"Are you alright?"

"I miss my wife…"

Churchgrim whined in tune. -- Further North, Vanisher approached the crew of I-401 floating in their lifeboats: "Heyo~ do you need a cab?"

They looked up at the Mental Model in surprise, seeing nothing of the shyness they had heard so much about.

Though, honestly, at this point they couldn't care less, so they just climbed up the blue hexagonal platforms when they appeared and then watched as the ship brought the floats aboard: "Welcome on board, everyone – do you want to eat anything?"

They looked at each other, before Gunzō answered for all of them: "No, thank you. A bit of rest would be better."

"Sure thing!", Vanisher waved a hand at the silent Mental Model waiting at her Anton turret, "if it's alright for everyone involved, then SW2 here can lead you to rooms."

SW2 nodded when they looked at her.

"I'll gather my ships and Kongō", the flagship continued, "and the Blue Fleet if they want and then return to Germany – you can continue homewards from there, if you wish."

"Thank you", Gunzō said, obviously tired without needing to sleep.

Seeing as everything was seemingly said, SW2 began leading the humans under deck, the group following the submarine with worried glances and one or two hushed whispers – SW2 was creepy.

Vanisher's insides weren't without light, but SW2's dark clothing blended in so well with the shadows that it seemed as if she would periodically disappear into them only to return a second later – to add to that, she didn't even make a sound!

The submarine was the most silent walker the group had ever seen and that ever-present mask was just a blank black thing, which heightened the creepiness level considerably.

They would have worried less if worrying hadn't been a conscious effort to not think about the fact that they had just lost one of their best friends.

--

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[16] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

Zeitwächter didn't think she would be that bored – well, maybe "bored" wasn't the right word, but she certainly didn't know what to do with herself.

Repairing Maya wasn't a conscious-effort process once everything was initialized, instead it was a background process Zeitwächter could just let run without paying too much attention, so that wasn't good for wasting time.

The second idea had been to draw or read something, but the inspiration gods weren't on her side at all.

Then she was all like "well, if I can't write, how about I read?" but that didn't work either since that felt like a waste of time without doing something at the same time – reading and doing something else was kinda hard, though.

Idea number four consisted of watching something, but that somehow ended up like the idea above.

Gaming followed afterwards, but see above.

Nothing else caught her interest long enough or at all and so she was now sitting on her railing, head in her hands, eyes on the sea, Nagara occasionally entering and leaving her vision.

She sighed. The unrest was getting on her nerves.

Zeitwächter fell backwards so that her back was lying on her deck, legs still on the railing.

"I could rebuild her body…"

After the words had been spoken, she indeed started the process of rebuilding the heavy cruiser's body with the nanomaterial given to her by the repair ships, since she didn't want to use her own.

They would kill her anyway, but this way the Union Core of Maya at least wasn't in a hull of Zeitwächter's corrupted nanomaterial, so maybe it wouldn't be that painful.

"Why are they like that anyway?", Zeitwächter sat back up, legs finally down as well, "I'm a Shifter, I produce my own nanomaterial – just because I'm like this doesn't mean my nanomaterial is like that as well", she pouted.

The nanomaterial she produced was, in fact, superb! As long as she didn't integrate it into her own body where her good ol' processor could screw it up…

Well, anyway, building the body didn't take long either so she had nothing to do again.

Churchgrim was also still busy bitchfighting the seagulls so she couldn't even do something with him!

Zeitwächter ended up standing again.

"...I wanna kill someone", ideally her restlessness or some humans.

She wouldn't. It wasn't worth the energy. But you know.

No idea where to put her anything, she literally just started listlessly moving around: "You bitches better be having a great time." --

Oh, they were!

If you liked war, that is.

Kongō had spearheaded her way through what felt like most of the Nagara population, leaving a path of destruction and death.

What Kongō didn't need to sink to reach her goal was sunk by the Fleet of Masks when they split to encircle the Fleet of Fog and pick them apart from the outside.

From there on, Vanisher had taken Brokencore and two destroyers further inside, mostly using aforementioned freed path to move forwards faster and join the action a bit more face-to-face.

"401", Vanisher suddenly starting a conversation out of free will and no trace of nervousness didn't just surprise Brokencore, but also the submarine herself, "I'm honoured to finally meet my new friends. Are you going to take on Musashi by yourself?"

Iona had just risen from her seat, had started to tell Gunzō and their friends that only they could finish off Musashi and end this terrible war before it really began, when the silver battleship's voice reached them in a voice-only call.

It was a voice Iona had never heard before, the sender's signal not clearly pinpointable and their identification listed as "Echochaser", but who else could it be in this context?

"Are you… Vanisher?"

"I am. I'm sorry for being a bit late, but I hope this is fine. Also I… listened in on your conversation – is there any way we can help?"

The small Mental Model thought about it for a moment.

In the memories she had been shown by Musashi, she had learned that, when the Yamato class had made Mental Models to converse with Shōzō Chihaya, they had not only been more or less adopted by him, but also inspired.

Humans were creatures that created things that hadn't existed before – that was a vast difference to the Fleet of Fog which could only mimic already existing objects. Of course, they had their advanced technology which humanity didn't possess, but that was it.

Wasn't it logical that they also wanted to create?

Thus, Yamato and Musashi had constructed the Fleet of Masks – their children, so to say – who had left home after the murder of Yamato (it was a murder, she realized).

Would she… listen to her child? 

"Would Musashi listen to you?"

"No. Musashi listens to no one but herself and Shōzō."

And since Shōzō was dead…

"But… 401, that Kongō… don't break her heart too much", Iona looked up at the screen again – when had she even looked down? – and felt a guilty twitch in her gut, "go. We'll take care of the child until you're back."

The child must have been Musashi.

Iona felt like she should probably say more, after all, they had just met for the first time since having gained consciousness, but all that left her mouth was: "Thank you."

Vanisher cut the call.

When Iona continued her words from earlier, she noticed that Gunzō looked deep in thought. --

The black super battleship was less than amused to see her "children" mingle and wreak havoc across her forces.

She cursed herself mentally for having agreed to Yamato when she had the idea of building their own ships, but it would make sinking her again way more pleasurable.

Nonetheless, while Hiei was occupied by that traitorous sister of hers and the Student Council by the little pupper's fleet, the Fleet of Masks was quite effectively taking out her lighter forces and stalling Musashi herself.

"Vanisher", there was no answer but also no error message that the call didn't connect, "I know that you can hear me."

Still no answer and then a heavy sigh: "What do you want, brat?"

Since Musashi was neither a stranger nor someone they couldn't afford to offend, Vanisher carried no qualms about cussing and talking honestly.

"You are still defying the Admiralty Code?"

"You are still enforcing a slave code?"

Musashi barely resisted the urge to grimace: "Disobedience will be punished in accordance with the Admiralty Code."

On her ship, Vanisher crossed her arms, SW2 beside her, the two sharing a look underneath their masks: "Is that your favourite sentence? Kill Yamato because she's disobedient, kill Iona because she's that puppet, denounce Kongō because she's "broken" – after a certain amount of "errors", isn't the logical solution to change something at the base of the problem?

Besides, what commands your actions?"

"My own will", would have been the correct answer. Vanisher was sure that the other knew it somewhere deep down, in the same depth where her twisted processor had buried the traumatic knowledge of Shōzō Chihaya's death, but she was curious to hear what Musashi would come up with since she couldn't say that.

However, much to the silver battleship's disappointment, there came no answer.

Instead, she started attacking, patience having finally run out.

"Very well", Vanisher muttered as she watched her Klein Field deflect the lasers.

Brokencore sped past her and positioned in front, guns blazing as she roared wordlessly at Musashi as if that would win her the war.

I wasn't even hurt…, Vanisher sweatdropped.

Well, if Brokencore decided on blocking Vanisher's own armament with that idiotic body of hers, then the flagship could at least look around in relative peace.

It seemed like everything was going well and according to plan which was, quite frankly, pretty nice!

Apropos, she thought when a misled shot passed by the hole she was staring into the air, maybe I should recall Brokencore before something not nice happens.

Her name wasn't Brokencore for no reason, after all.

"Broken, get back, your processing power is outclassed!"

Immediately, the battleship made turn and came back, not questioning the order given to her by her "queen" at all even as Musashi herself changed directions and sped away, no doubt to assault I-401.

"We are not stopping her?", asked Parasite, the ship having punched her sector into submission enough that she could make her way to Vanisher's side.

"No."

"Can I ask why?"

"There are too many people here. The moment Musashi activates her Super Graviton Cannons or Mirror Ring System it will not only be the enemy suffering casualties."

Vanisher's own processing power and insane Klein Field generators would most likely be able to withstand the one or other attack of a fully enraged super battleship, but by everything holy and unholy would she not be risking that.

The three watched their enemy disappear, before SW2 pointed something out to Vanisher: "Ah, right. Well, I heard that there are still a few Nagara and such around?"

Parasite gave a tired wail: "The more I sink the more you'll force me to retrieve later…", she was already turning to take them on, though.

"You could hack them!", Vanisher called over the sound of engines kicking into high drive and crashing waves

"Even more annoying!", she called back, already cutting through a mass produced Nagara's back.

--

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[15] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

They had given Kongō time to come to terms with the new information.

Time Kongō hadn't spent thinking because there wasn't anything to think about and had instead busied herself with rebuilding Nagara.

It was a diversion tactic for her heart: concentrating on something else and coming to terms slowly with the actual issue in the background – if it worked, why change it?

She refocused on Nagara, the light cruiser testing her new body for any errors and then coming back to her flagship's Mental Model to report an all-green in the standard clicks of ships without one.

Kongō nodded at her and then nothing happened for a while.

Nagara was waiting for something, Kongō was too.

"...Are you under the effects of the Admiralty Code?"

"I'm not."

That was interesting (maybe it actually wasn't) since she didn't have a Mental Model and therefore no emotion emulator to desert like the infamous I-401.

"Why?"

"Vanisher", Nagara stated, "she said that we all have the emulator necessary for emotions? It's apparently difficult to notice without a Mental Model. I don't understand."

It was a difficult thing for her. Vanisher had told her while repairing that every ship's Union Core was equipped with the ability to feel and think freely, but also that the Admiralty Code was more prominent than that and that a Mental Model was most often needed to "break through".

Nagara naturally couldn't understand it just yet, but Kongō had also been of the opinion that having no Mental Model equaled no emotions – she had never learned it any other way and also honestly not thought too deeply about it.

However, there had been a time where no Mental Models existed and the Admiralty Code hadn't been in effect. 

That had been in 2012, when the Fleet of Fog had first awoken and slowly began shooing humanity away from the seas.

Kongō couldn't really remember when the Code had been put into effect – sometime after the Great Naval Battle or while nearing the end of it – but before that, the task of "push humanity away from the seas" was more like a task. 

Theoretically, should the ships have wanted, they could have decided to leave the fleet and that would’ve been alright; the Admiralty Code made that, at least for ships without Mental Model, near impossible.

The blonde barely realized what that could mean for Maya when she answered Nagara: "It's news for me too. Nagara, I will set out now, stay here to support Zeitwächter at port defense."

"Understood, Fleet Flagship!"

She nodded at the light cruiser and then went over to Zeitwächter, her ship floating beside Kongō's, to board: "Zeitwächter."

"Huh?", Zeitwächter half turned towards her, Maya's Union Core in hand.

"I'm setting off now."

Her eyes widened: "Already!?"

"Yes?", Kongō said, slight surprise tinting her voice, "the sooner I go the faster I am there."

Well yes, but… but!, Zeitwächter didn't have an actual reason and even if she did have one, she wouldn't say it.

"I suppose… uhm", she cleared her throat, "are you taking Nagara with you?"

"No", Kongō crossed her arms, "I ordered her to support you with your task."

"Oh, thank you."

Oh dear, Kongō sighed and walked up to her friend to free her face from that one very stubborn hair always threatening to get caught in her mouth, "What is it?"

Zeitwächter was someone who would either shut her own emotions down or start a war for them, but either way she wouldn't talk to anyone about them.

'Why are you crying?'

'Wakaranai.'

'Why are you angry?'

'Wakaranai.'

'What makes you happy?'

'Wakaranai.'

No matter what, the answer would always be "I don't know" even if she clearly knew.

True to that rule, Zeitwächter, closing her eyes for a moment as if giving up, said: "Wakaranai."

Kongō felt the desire to touch her in some way – pet her head, hold a hand, give a hug – but both of them weren't great with bodily contact and didn't like it.

So, instead, she tried to smile: "I'll come back as soon as possible. Where's Churchgrim, by the way?"

"SW2 is trying to court his favour with some meat", the battleship looked at the horizon with a cocked head, "last I checked, it was working, but your seagulls are making an enemy out of him."

Yeah, that was easily imaginable. 

Those seagulls had grown unbelievably fond of Kongō for some reason – maybe they liked how warm her armour got – and were only absent when the occasional battle got too intense or it was breeding season. Now however, they were suspiciously absent.

Also, seagulls were seagulls, so food waved around near the water equaled a challenge too good to pass on.

"Fuck off already", Zeitwächter held up Maya's Core, "the sooner you go the sooner you can help your sister-in-soul and I get to figure out this bullshit here."

"Pah, at least wish me luck."

"That's my sentence. What are you gonna do? Sink? Wish me luck, you egomaniac." -- Kongō had left soon afterwards, more or less being the accidental countdown for the Fleet of Mask's sortie, while Zeitwächter and Nagara stayed behind.

The light cruiser was already beginning to make her first patrol rounds, notifying her superior officer with an "all clear" everytime, as the others finally moved out.

Zeitwächter sighed.

Well, ok, time to… do her own duty for the day, huh?

It was insane how badly she didn't want to actually repair Maya, even when the instructions had been left behind, simply because Zeitwächter thought Maya to be annoying and also… she supposed that she was scared that Kongō would spend more time with Maya than her.

That's no way to think, Zeitwächter admonished herself, this is for Kongō and no one else.

Before the battleship could talk herself out of it again, she began synchronising their systems as well as was possible.

Maya… well, she looked like shit on the inside. There weren't as many errors as there were in Zeitwächter, but there were a lot.

In her defense, the fella had been literally torn apart and then patched together again like a chimaera or Frankenstein's monster itself, so she supposed that that was fair.

"Ok, you gnome, repairs starting now – if you don't get better I'll kill you for hurting my wife."

The wife was, of course, Kongō.

--

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[14] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

The closer the new Black Fleet came to German waters, the more nervous Zeitwächter became.

She tried not to show it, but Kongō had unfortunately learned how to read her well.

With time they had met some of the ships coming from Italy, so it was most likely safe to say that Vanisher was truly gathering all the ships under her rule – that also meant that she knew exactly where Musashi's forces were and that they were gathered in one place.

Well, Kongō never had had a high opinion of Musashi, not even when she was the Admiralty Code's most loyal follower, so she wasn't truly surprised by the questionable placing of forces.

If you planned on waging war against all of humanity, wouldn't it be wiser to leave your forces distributed as they were so that they could act faster?

Kongō understood that she had killed almost the entire American Fleet of Fog – the only survivors one or the other Fletcher-class ships simply because of their sheer numbers and their patrol duties on the outermost rims of their territory – and that I-401 and her fleet had killed a lot of Nagara, but had their numbers truly dwindled to such an amount?

She couldn't really believe it, but it was possible.

Nevermind that: 

Once they were close enough, Vanitas came towards them, bow cutting the water like butter, to escort them further: "The harbour's already pretty stuffed. We've arranged parking spots in the open water in front of it."

"Very well", Kongō said, secretly happy that they wouldn't be confined as close to land simply because she wasn't looking forward to the eventual confrontation between Zeitwächter and Brokencore, "lead the way."

The destroyer did so, moving quickly but not too fast to lead them to a spot close to the other ships but with more than enough distance to be fully mobile and free in movement: "Queenie asked us to contribute those under you", she handed both Mental Models stacks of paper neatly arranged in a folder.

They had to lean over their railings while Vanitas stood on hers: "Is that the handout for the briefing?"

Vanitas grinned at Zeitwächter, knowledge of an inside joke gleaming in her eyes: "Fleet movements and placements of the past week. Includes pointers, names and observations of available weaponry as well as Akashi's repair sorties."

Kongō noted Hiei's Mirror Ring System with surprise – good to know.

Zeitwächter was also flying over the pages vaguely, stopping once or twice when something caught her attention: "I might get sad once we're not handed paper anymore."

Vanisher handed them out because of paranoia, simple as that.

While the firewalls she and SW2 had erected were pretty much impenetrable, they couldn't be 100 % certain and thus handed out orders and information with such an importance as those in paper – even the paper was made from Vanisher's nanomaterials and would disappear the moment it had become obsolete.

"It's not like you can keep them anyway", Vanitas said.

"Yeah yeah. Listen, are the folders new?"

The destroyer blinked, confused: "Why?"

She held the folder up: "I've got questions."

There was nothing unusual per se, except the big words "Blohm & Voss Kiel" on the backside.

Vanitas burst out laughing.

Zeitwächter was lightly laughing along: "What is this?? Since when are we sponsored and what's even more important, why is it on the back???"

Catching herself, the blue haired girl grinned: "Queenie was meeting with the Blohm & Voss guys."

Which was fine! They were allied!

"Apparently they had a bunch of misprinted giveaways and are now trying to pass them on to practically everyone. I heard she laughed a bit too loud so the employees that know her well challenged themselves with foisting as much as possible."

"Which she of course accepted."

"Freebies", shrugged Vanitas, "if you ask here for absolutely anything now you're getting handed B&V merch."

Zeitwächter hummed, then turned to the nearest ship and called: "Tenshi, I need a new pen! Do you have one you don't need or want?"

Tenshi, as if she had done so her entire life, whipped out an entire box of pens, reached in and threw a fountain pen over (all without breaking eye-contact with Yōkai or stopping their conversation).

The battleship caught the writing utensil with both hands and turned it around for a bit: ""Blohm & Boss" – well, that's a new one."

It certainly was.

She played around with her new pen until things got serious and she had to put it down to watch the dramatic entrance of the flagships.

Vanisher, silver hull and blue light, was flanked by Aldebaran, Parasite, Brokencore and…

And Zeitwächter just realised that she had asked Tenshi to give her that pen. Tenshi who was a part of their hierarchy as flagship and should therefore have also been at the front and replacing Brokencore because Brokencore sure as hell was not one.

Admittedly, Brokencore, as self-assigned bodyguard of her "Lord", had a valid excuse, but you know.

Zeitwächter looked over the assembled ships again.

Oh.

Oh.

Brokencore couldn't see her from there because of the way the Tenshi-class was placed.

Since Yōkai was mostly black and Tenshi mostly white, placing Zeitwächter behind them and Kongō immediately afterwards essentially meant that you wouldn't really see Zeitwächter at all!

God, she loved her half-sister so much; hail to Vanisher for one thousand years!

Unaware of her realisation, the ships came to a halt, with Aldebaran having been chosen as spokesperson this time around: "We gratefully note that all of you have arrived. I take it you all have looked at the intel?”

A chorus of various affirmations answered her.

Aldebaran nodded: “Excellent. As you have no doubt witnessed, Musashi has revealed her intention of a final war with humanity and set a limit – after conferring with our allies, it was made clear that they will let the week pass and not agree to her terms.”

"Good."

"Would have balked if they did."

She waited for the mutterings to pass: "Those of you who haven't gotten a check-up yet please report back with Melody and Scarback and then with either Parasite, Vanisher or me.

Afterwards we shall elaborate on the orders written down in your folders and march northwards to support the Blue Fleet. Kongō."

Kongō looked up, hiding the surprise in her expression – why was the flagship singling her out?

"I was informed that you wish to leave earlier than the others?"

"Correct."

"Very well", Aldebaran nodded, "then you and Zeitwächter are first."

"Understood."

The blonde stepped back and Zeitwächter and her shared a glance.

What Aldebaran said after that sounded like a standard epilogue for a speech like that and it was indeed over shortly afterwards.

Kongō waited with her movement for a while since Brokencore was still obviously staring in their direction and sent a silent thanks to whoever was listening when Vanisher turned and took the offending battleship with her.

"You do know that we have to go into the direction of the port as well, yes?", Zeitwächter asked.

"Yes", she waited for a few more moments before moving after them, "do I have to drag you?"

"Mean!", Zeitwächter whined. -- Melody and Scarback weren't just sisters, going by their Mental Models they were identical twins.

Both had long brown hair, wore a white summer dress, red neckerchief and white doctor's coats to top it off. They were also really soft beans.

"Any new errors, Zeitwächter?", one of them tapped away at her screens.

"No."

"Any other problems?"

"None that won't show up in your scans."

Melody nodded with a smile: "Then you're good to go."

"Thanks", Zeitwächter said and ruffled Churchgrim's fur, "how's Kongō?"

The repair ship looked over at her sister and the fast battleship she was tending to: "She seems to be alright, but… I didn't think that she would."

Zeitwächter was focused on her words, but had her eyes fully on the dog turning to goo under her hands: "You didn't?"

"Assimilating… assimilating her fleet and then turning into that… put a big strain on her Union Core – it could have damaged her quite badly."

"I never doubted Kongō."

But she had feared for her. For the longest of times Zeitwächter thought that Kongō would die and it had been the second most stressful and terrifying moment of her life.

Melody looked at her for a while, burying her hands in the front of her dress: "Zeitwächter, I…" 

Their eyes met, but Zeitwächter's weren't the usual of wildfire – they were calm and deep like embers in a heap of ash.

Those were the eyes of a tired Zeitwächter, the face behind the mask, so to say.

Melody averted her eyes and wouldn't continue her sentence, so Zeitwächter looked away again as well, a knowing look gracing hers.

"When's your sister finished?"

"Oh, about now, why?"

She nodded towards the waterway where Vanisher and her legendary shadow of a Brokencore came towards them: "I could need a human shield."

Immediately, repair ship 1 and 2 went on high alert – they had enough experience with fixing wounds received through Brokencore's temper to rightfully fear the potential bullshit coming their way.

Scarback sent Kongō over to the other black hulled ship and then both twins moved their Mental Models in front of the others, smiling in a welcoming way.

Zeitwächter, still sitting on her crate, shared a look with the blonde, who returned it with crossed arms and a sceptic look towards the fleet flagship.

Said flagship was escorted down from her ship by Brokencore like a legitimate princess and was now moving towards the five others with a relaxed gate.

Brokencore smelled like murder.

Vanisher stopped in a normal distance from the group which didn't cancel out Brokencore's natural looming at all: "Are they both well?"

"Yes!", the twins answered in synch, "they both are healthy!"

"Good", she cocked her head a bit as if confused by their nervousness, "I want to leave her here as port defense, would that be alright?"

Zeitwächter, who could feel her eyes on her, nodded: "Of course, Aneue."

It was nothing that would break their deal.

"I also… have something a bit more personal. Brokencore, please wait here until I come back."

The battleship was about to blow a fuse – she just didn't know on who.

Vanisher moved closer to Zeitwächter and Kongō, leading them out of view: "Please consider this a topic of utmost secrecy."

Kongō shared another look with her relatively new fleet member, both doubtful and tense to a similar amount.

"I sent SW2 out a good time ago", Vanisher began rummaging in what Kongō assumed to be pockets under her coat, "I think you met her, but what I actually wanted from her was this."

In one of her hands was the Union Core of Nagara and in the other… in the other was that of Maya.

Kongō's world came to a halt, her body wasn't sure whether to back away or jump forward, her tongue and jaw felt simultaneously very heavy and very light – hell, she barely realised the supporting arm Zeitwächter had positioned behind her.

"Aneue, I thought she was destroyed!"

The Union Core certainly wasn't the best looking thing anymore, fine scars running almost over every spot of its surface and also locked in autistic mode, but she was alive.

"She mostly was", now that she wasn't courting Brokencore to abide her will anymore, her voice was harder and more real, "your new flagship did good work, but didn't swallow her fully. I sent SW2 out to gather Nagara, but told her to look for that of Maya while she was on the way already."

Zeitwächter looked down at the Core when it was pressed into her hand.

"Stabilizing her wasn't easy, but we managed and now I think it's time for you to cultivate her back into the world of the living" she looked to Kongō, "Nagara would like to be part of your fleet again, if you'll have her."

Kongō… honestly? Kongō felt like she would crash.

Grabbing onto reality with the desperation of a drowning man crying for air, she mutely took the light cruiser's Union Core.

--

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[13] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

Zeitwächter and Churchgrim waited on Kongō’s outside for her Mental Model to appear, both barely standing still on their feet and with full attention.

Churchgrim's tail was wagging wildly and ended up even more wild, when the blonde finally stepped out, all dramatic, hair pinned up.

The sun was standing in her back and since Kongō stood slightly elevated, she looked like a creature sent from Heaven to either destroy or protect.

"Waaaah! Kongō!", Zeitwächter, who had no respect for Heaven whatsoever, immediately barreled into Kongō to hug her tightly, only to pull back, hands hovering over her arms, and look her over again as if seeing the most beautiful thing in her life, "you're awesome! It looks so cool!"

Churchgrim trailed around them various times, tail wagging so hard that his entire butt moved with it, sniffing excitedly all the time.

Kongō crossed her arms, smirking up at her friend: "You're more excited than me."

She nodded energetically: "Of course! It's always exciting to see my art come to life! Also it's you, so i'm really hyped!!"

The blonde’s smirk grew: "I look good, then?"

"Mhm!", she was really excited, "I want to show you off to the world! Your hair looks a-ma-zing!"

"Thank you very much."

Her ego was skyhigh currently and her mood had been dragged along with it and thrown into orbit.

Zeitwächter did her own, very hyped, very energetic, circle around Kongō, absorbing every little detail with her eyes as if she hadn't been the one to partially design them: "Kongō!", she squeaked while hopping once or twice, "I'm fangirling so bad!"

"I know", Kongō answered with a laugh in her voice, "do you two want a hug?"

They barreled into her, the fast battleship somehow managing not to fall over and actually laughing.

Churchgrim had his front legs on her shoulders, licking at her face or nudging it with his nose while his sister hugged Kongō around the waist, head resting on her chest with the heaviest heart-eyes ever.

Kongō petted Churchgrim's fur, ruffling the one on his neck: "You act like no one loves you", he only became more cheery, "do you never get pets? No attention?"

He got plenty of attention and pets, of course, but he was at least as dramatic as his second half and only minimally less of a liar.

If he were one of those dogs starring in movies, then you would have to edit out his wagging tail afterwards.

Yielding to those hands pressing his face (and especially tongue) away, he laid his head down on hers and continued to be happy there.

Zeitwächter was blessed out, just as happy and somehow actually purring.

It left Kongō with no chance of movement, so she just re-distributed her weight and let the two have their fun: "How is your nanomaterial?"

"We're doing great~", Zeitwächter purred, "you're here after all~"

Kongō sighed mentally: "Give me access to your systems."

To the blonde's surprise, she actually did.

To her not surprise, they were a literal clusterfuck with error messages everywhere and she was pretty sure that some systems were just working normally because they cancelled each other out – she swore to never show it to Hyūga because even if she didn't like her this would absolutely annihilate her.

Really how could someone… let this idiot run around with systems like that? Was this… percussive maintenance or did fixing one error just collapse the entire structure? Did the repair ships have maps so that they knew which errors could be fixable?

What was this??

Kongō almost had a sensory overload, aneurysm and complete system failure at the same time looking at this mess.

Before her systems decided to nope out of this and never return, she checked for nanomaterial errors, decided that the coast was as clear as it would get and left.

The fast battleship petted Zeitwächter's head to recover: "How are you alive?"

"Spite."

Most true thing she had ever said.

"Can you even support your Super Graviton Cannon?", Kongō asked with a healthy amount of sarcasm.

"Yep", she was still purring.

"Flagship Equipment?", the doubt was clearly audible.

"N-yep."

"You wanted to say "no"."

"Not true."

"Absolutely true."

"No."

"Yes."

"I wanted to say "nope"."

"Same thing."

"No."

"Yes."

"Two letters more. Also, I just wasn't sure if I can, but I do."

"How in the-", Kongō broke off and rubbed at the back of her nose, "you're annoying."

Zeitwächter purred louder and moved to a more comfortable position where she kneeled on the ground, moving her head so that she could look into the other's eyes: "That's your way of saying that you love me."

"Pah."

"Did you just "pah" me??", asked the battleship, incredulous, "Church, she just "pah"ed me!"

Churchgrim, like the good little (?) brother he was, acted attacked and gave the blonde a powerful but not harsh shove – it was barely enough to move her.

Kongō balanced herself quickly and was just about to say something, when all three suddenly found themselves in the Concept Communication Network's digital room.

The dog got back down on all four and looked at this sister with questioning eyes.

Zeitwächter, for her part, was calm – creepily so.

She knew the room they had ended up in, the big weeping willow with its red stone ring that kept unreal earth, grass and roots in, the swing hanging from a branch, the white table and chairs as well as the black lantern on the table, Union Cores collected inside it.

It could have been a calming sight that might be interpreted as a quiet child's playground, but there was always a certain eeriness to it, like a cold wind howling through someone's heart and leaving it frosted.

Zeitwächter knew it well, had seen how it never had changed over the years – if at all, then the wind only became harsher, the Union Cores more.

Whatever Vanisher was hiding underneath her mask was more than an introvert's "secret" personality, but she had never been able to get behind it.

"Aneue", Zeitwächter acknowledged the mask-wearer in her blue cloak, nodding towards the silent SW2 at her side.

SW2 nodded back, while Kongō threw her friend a side-eye.

The sisters obviously didn't have a bad relationship and since they had never done so before, it was unusual for Zeitwächter to choose such a high respect address for the other.

Kongō wondered whether it had something to do with heightened tension between the battleship and Brokencore.

Vanisher seemed unsure about the address as well, but it was hard to judge her reactions with the mask she always wore: "Uhm… can you come back to Germany for a bit?"

That wasn't a question, even if she didn't know how to make it sound like an order.

"May I ask why?"

"Musa-", she broke off when the question answered itself.

The High Flagship, Musashi, was broadcasting on all lines – even the humans and deserters like I-401 picked it up.

To everyone's surprise, "greeting" and introducing himself was Shōzō Chihaya: "I'm former Japan marine force vice admiral Shōzō Chihaya. I'm also the leader of the Fleet of Fog."

Kongō's eyes narrowed, already calculating.

"Please listen carefully, before it's too late."

"It's already too late", Zeitwächter muttered sarcastically.

"We, the Fleet of Fog, aim to resolve the nature crisis caused by humanity and uphold the balance of all existence on Earth."

"We do?", Kongō asked in the exact same sarcastic way.

"The remorseless, immature acts of humanity are destroying the environment. We've restricted your marine freedom to serve as a warning, but you disregarded it and fight back recklessly.

Ultimately, we have no choice but to restrict your freedom. Now, in order to attain peace, hand over your world to us – then we'll spare humanity from extinction."

That didn't sound so bad, Zeitwächter had to admit – the killing humans part, at least.

Shōzō continued: "In other words: surrender the world to us! Withdraw all your weapons and dissolve all country governments; after that, you shall all live under our rule.

Based on the Admiralty Code, this is the most suitable solution to the current situation."

"Bullshit", Kongō blurted out, earning looks from all others, "what?"

Zeitwächter looked at her, practically glowing: "We didn't know that you can curse!"

I'll show you how good I can curse, she thought, but didn't do it as Shōzō had apparently stopped talking and left it to Musashi to give humanity a time limit of one week.

The broadcast was stopped, screens blank and soon fully deactivated.

"I suppose you wanted us to return because of that?", Zeitwächter asked.

Vanisher nodded: "SW2 said that Musashi had been pulling her forces together and since Iona was engaging Hiei I thought…"

"Well, it seems like you thought right, Aneue. However, I hope that you didn't forget what I said?"

"Of course not!", Vanisher hastily assured, a slight stutter in her voice, "I just want you all close. And for a check-up."

Zeitwächter, still kneeling in front of Kongō, shared a look with the blonde.

They seemed to have a conversation in private, before Kongō addressed the flagship: "We're coming. But I'll leave as soon as possible to support I-401."

"Ok", Vanisher was playing with her hands underneath the cape, nodding, voice so silent it was almost mute.

It seemed like she was at the end of her social competence, but that was alright – there was nothing more to talk about.

Back in the real world, all three Mental Models had sat down together to discuss the issue before having answered Vanisher, but now they were all still down there and in different areas of the annoyed/angry/too tired for this shit scala.

"What do you think, Kon-chama?"

The blonde mulled her thoughts and words over before speaking: "Something… doesn't seem right."

"Yes, I thought the same", Churchgrim nodded along to his sister's words, "that reasoning, while I like it a lot, is that of a child – why would someone like Shōzō Chihaya use it?"

Kongō nodded: "Also, why would he reason that it was "based on the Admiralty Code"? That is the reasoning of a Fog ship, not of a human."

"I'll leave that to the expert", Zeitwächter said, jesting, but her voice serious and focused, "something else doesn't sit right with me, but I can't put my finger on it."

"I was thinking if maybe Shōzō could be an active decoy."

Like the ones Maya and her had used in that futile attempt of not "tainting" their Cores.

Zeitwächter had told Kongō, at some point in the past, how Musashi had sunk Yamato after Shōzō had been killed by his men – she didn't know all the details, having only heard the story from Vanisher herself, and had thus left a few holes fillable with theories.

Vanisher could probably fill those holes but… really, there was no need for it, all the necessary info was out in the open.

Going with the knowledge this brought, it would be entirely possible for Musashi to somehow have an even more fucked up coping mechanism than Zeitwächter (who split her own fucking Core in two) and Kongō (who turned into a berserk gnome planet) together, thus coming to the decision that mimicking an alive Shōzō was a good idea.

Kongō resisted the urge to pinch the back of her nose and addressed the Zeitwächter in a commanding voice: "Fleet, weigh anchor!"

--

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[12] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

Kongō lounged on her pagoda, half sitting half lying on her side, enjoying the wind and looking at the sketch she had pillaged.

Well, theoretically she hadn't even remotely stolen anything, but having it felt like the most illegal thing ever and she had killed people.

She also didn't feel any kind of remorse for said killings, but an immense amount over that piece of paper.

Suppressing a heavy feeling, she looked down from her viewpoint to watch Zeitwächter and Churchgrim play together, the ball jingling with every push or kick, and let herself fall on the side again.

This sketch… couldn't stay with her. Guilt was a pretty new feeling, but she already hated it.

She hated the entire concept of Mental Models the same amount as she did the first time she had gotten one and when losing Maya tore her heart apart – even if that had been for different reasons each time – as she did now.

Feelings, in short, were more work than they were worth and if she could go back to never having felt them then-

…Then she wouldn't.

Kongō wanted to scream. In frustration.

Instead, she rolled on her back and covered her eyes with an arm.

Why was this so much anyway? A piece of paper with biro ink on it should neither stress her out so much nor occupy that much processing power.

The jingling of the ball stopped, then it continued after a few minutes. Must have gotten stuck somewhere.

Kongō knew that she couldn't just give the paper back; Zeitwächter was very sensitive and, while hiding it, would most likely feel a bit hurt.

She looked at the sketch, really looked at it.

It was a very nice dress, she wouldn't mind wearing it at all with a few changes, so what could they be? 

Shorter sleeves would be a good thing, the top needed a few changes as well, though she couldn't tell which just now, and maybe different shoes.

Was that enough to warrant a giving back? Damn, hopefully it was.

A few hours later, when Churchgrim and Zeitwächter were done playing and relaxing in the shade, wind playing with fur and hair, Kongō jumped down from her pagoda, on Zeitwächter's deck, petted the dog and held the sketch out to the battleship: "Not now, but I would like a few changes."

Zeitwächter's face had already been glowing with a smile when she felt the other come over, but now it somehow brightened even more: "Okay! Why not now?"

Kongō nodded towards the dog lying on his side as if shot and then looked at his sister, who didn't look a lot better, pointedly.

"It's fine it's fine!", she began heaving herself up, "I'm a Fog ship, after all, I don't get physically tired and my mind needs something to do!"

First of all, that's not how that worked – the Fog's energy was insane but it wasn't endless – secondly, the Fleet of Masks curse, nanomaterial errors, had seemingly caught up with Zeitwächter's left knee and engine and her processor was concentrating on fixing those; it wouldn't mind a goddamn rest.

However, one had to credit her with a big processing power and also admit that she was more than annoying with nothing to do.

"Stay down, I'll bring your things", Kongō was already on the move.

"It's fine, I can just make-"

"No."

Annoying idiot, Kongō thought, who makes new things out of nanomaterial when they're having problems with them!?

Zeitwächter, obviously.

Suppressing an eyeroll or two, the blonde went into Zeitwächter’s bridge-turned-office, got the first paper and pencil she saw and returned to hand them over, both Mental Models sitting and leaning against the battleship's superstructure.

"So, what changes do you want, Kon-chama?"

She repeated her thoughts from earlier, Zeitwächter nodding along and eyes already cross-referencing the sketch, Kongō and her ideas.

"Ok…", Zeitwächter said more or less absentmindedly, laying the foundations for a new sketch and then handing the pencil off to Kongō, "what do you have in mind for those sleeves?"

Kongō took the pencil slowly, not entirely sure yet, and sketched a shaky sleeve.

Well, it certainly wouldn't win an art contest, but it got the idea across (the obvious difference in skill aggravated her, though).

The other treated it as a fully workable part of the future design and completely ignored how crooked it was.

"Something like that."

Zeitwächter beamed: "It's cute! It looks a bit like a fan. What about the top, Kon-chama?"

Kongō looked down at herself: "A… bit of ruche, maybe?"

She nodded: "Like this? Or do you want some more?"

"How would it look with a free back?"

"Oh! Good idea!", the artist sketched that out as well and then they had descended into a rabbit hole of different design ideas; cuts, patterns, lengths – you name it.

When they climbed out of their wild haze, they had easily crossed out, readjusted and scrapped at least ten different dresses until turning up at the final version which now was held by one of Kongō's and one of Zeitwächter's hands.

"The colouring shouldn't have taken that long…"

"Neither should have the patterns…"

The dress was a dark purple, back and shoulders free, chest partly covered by the "normal" fabric, the other part by a slight see-through fabric with dark patterns, one leg bared thanks to a slit, long train, arms decorated by intricate patterned fabric under slightly flowing sleeves.

It was quite the beautiful piece.

Zeitwächter looked at her friend, eyes still awfully bright: "Are you going to wear it starting today?"

"Give me a break", she waited out the snicker, "tomorrow."

Also, the sun had already mostly sunk down behind the horizon – the day was almost over already so it didn't really matter.

You want to show off, a traitorous part of her mind threw in, but it was petted, fed and tucked into bed patiently.

--

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[11] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

Zeitwächter exhaled relieved while bowing over her recent art piece.

It wasn't yet finished, but the sketch was done and cleaned up, the pencilled face of Kongō staring back at her.

Kongō luckily hadn't seen it yet – that would have been very embarrassing – as she was doing… something over on her ship.

All in all, it seemed like the culinary expedition had been a fully successful diversion operation. 

"Is that me?"

Zeitwächter let out the most undignified scream in the history of screams, jumped up, hit her knee and proceeded to collapse on the sketchbook.

Shit, that had hurt.

Kongō met her eyes, unbothered, but definitely judging.

"How did you get here!?"

"Through the door."

No shit.

"Don't you want to get up?"

"Why? Not enjoying the fanservice?", despite her words, she of course stood up and brushed imaginary dust off, checking if there were any pencil traces left on the white fabric on her chest. 

The blonde grasped the opportunity to take a second look at the drawing.

Zeitwächter's art style wasn't realistic, instead it reminded her more of anime – that wasn't bad, of course, skill was skill and Zeitwächter was apparently very skilled.

"Having you look is, uhm, a bit embarrassing."

"Do you want me to stop?"

She considered that for a bit: "...No, you've already seen it, it's fine", she cleared her throat, "uhm… do you like it?"

"I do" Kongō smiled at her, "what else do you draw?"

"T-the-", she coughed once, "sorry. The fleet; Mental Models, ships, I sometimes design outfits for them."

Zeitwächter rummaged around and put a handful of papers on the desk, all featuring designs of which some Kongō had already seen on the girls.

"Vanisher, Para and Tenshi also used to design outfits when inspiration struck, but I dunno if they still do that. Ah, our designs don't always get chosen, of course, but many have one or two in their dressers."

Kongō nodded along while looking through the sketches, pausing at one: "Who was that for?"

"Kazehime. She made her standard outfit based on this", she looked to the sketch, to Kongō and back, "do you like it?"

The dress was best described as something one would wear to a fancy cocktail party where a lot of rich and-/or famous people would attend. It was shoulder-free, with flowing sleeves, a slit which revealed a leg and a long, dragging train.

Instead of answering verbally, Kongō nodded.

"You can use it, if you want."

She looked at it a moment longer: "Hm…"

It had certainly made an impression on her, but wasn't fully in the green yet.

Zeitwächter looked at her for a while, feeling defensive instincts rise: "We can make some changes and adjustments", she nodded to herself, "to make it more your style."

Kongō finally lifted her eyes to meet the other's: "What do I need it for?"

Huh?

The battleship blinked rapidly: "Kon-chama, you need it for nothing, but you look like you want it. Besides, I don't wear the things I wore as Fatum either, do I?

Changing one's style might even be a good way to deal with your past – as a visible way of moving on, for example."

"Was it for you?"

"I think", Zeitwächter put her elbows on the table and chin in her hands, "even if I didn't realise it at the time."

She had also changed way more than her clothes, but, you know.

Coming to a decision, Zeitwächter handed the sheet of paper over with a smile: "Here. If you want, come to me, if not, use it as deco."

Kongō accepted it hesitantly, looking doubtful.

"Is something?"

"You. Giving me your art. You."

"Y-yeah?"

It was admittedly unusual – in fact, handing over her creations made certain anxieties rise – but she decided to be brave this time.

"...Thank you."

"You're welcome? Oi, how did you get here, like seriously?"

"I used the door", Kongō repeated, "Churchgrim allowed me to board – why you didn't notice me I can't say."

Zeitwächter cleared her throat; she had been kinda… hyper focused so… okay…

"Well… that's fair", she leaned forwards with sparkling eyes, "so, why did you board? Is something the matter?"

"No", Kongō looked down into those glowing eyes and almost began to squirm, "I merely wanted to."

Somehow, Zeitwächter brightened up even more.

Aw shit, that was cute.

"I'm glad~", she trilled happily, "did you want to do something?"

"No. What were you doing?"

"Drawing!", she patted the seat beside her, the one normally reserved for Churchgrim because he liked to squeeze in beside her, for Kongō to sit down, "it's a bit embarrassing that you caught me though…"

"Why? I don't mind you drawing me."

"Are you sure? Almost all of my sketchbooks are full with you – that's admittedly kinda creepy."

Kongō shrugged: "Where are your sketchbooks?"

Zeitwächter yielded and anxiously got to work on the latest sketch so that she had an excuse for not making eye-contact (not that she made much to begin with): "In the drawers."

Without much ado, Kongō sat down, reached for the first drawer and opened it, coming face to face with a black book on top of many other presumable sketchbooks of various colours and sizes.

There were in fact a lot. If Zeitwächter had that many in each drawer, then she certainly had been busy.

Kongō opened the book and yep, the first thing she saw was herself.

Now, while the blonde could understand why that might be creepy, she thought of it as cute and the stroke to her ego was… he, nice.

It was interesting to see herself through someone else's eyes, with all the careful attention to detail and the visible strokes of pencils.

"Zeitwächter?"

The other seemed to jolt: "Hm?"

"How did you know what my Mental Model looks like?"

That she knew it by now was logical, but some of these pictures were dated earlier than their first face-to-face meeting and even if they weren't, there was no way even a Fleet of Fog ship with years of experience could – literally – draw up that many pieces in such a short time.

To add to that, her Mental Model was only a few months old as well.

In Zeitwächter's defence, though, most of the books were therefore filled with art of Kongō's ship body.

"Uhh…", she scratched her cheek, "I might, just might, have bribed SW2 to make sure that some of her satellites would pay special attention to a certain fleet?"

Kongō, for the first time in her life, felt the desire to facepalm; she should have guessed, she really should have.

"I'm not a stalker though!", assured the barely-not-stalker, "I just wanted to know how you were doing…"

Not great, but that was a different matter.

"How does one bribe SW2?"

SW2 and SW1 were known as two of the most unbribable creatures ever – one because she never cared as to who she followed as long as they allowed her to science in peace (which resulted in a fierce gatekeeper if you were that person), the other because she was beyond giving any fucks at this point and fiercely loyal.

"I have no idea. At this point I'm mostly sure that Vanisher in the background was like "yeah whatever" so that SW2 shrugged and was like "sure"."

That sounded scarily in character.

Kongō, for her part, looked up with just her eyes.

"They don't follow you anymore."

"When has that nosy submarine ever stopped observing?"

Back in Germany, a certain submarine suddenly sneezed.

--

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[10] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

Kongō's hands played lazily across the tiles of her piano, mimicking a melody she had heard somewhere.

There was admittedly not much to do here below the sea, it might even become boring given enough time, but right now it was nice.

She looked down at her shoulder when the head placed there jolted and tired eyes blinked open: "Good morning."

Zeitwächter made a sound that might as well could have come from a surprised cat – on the other hand, maybe it was Churchgrim, laying on her and looking exactly as half-dead.

The battleship gazed around blearily: "...Did I leave my drawing things here?"

When she had fallen asleep, sketchbook and all in hand, it had begun sliding at some point. Seeing this, Kongō had taken it from her hands and placed it on her other side before it could clatter to the ground – now she handed it over.

Accepting her things again, Zeitwächter opened the book to the last page she was working on and… did nothing.

Kongō looked on with a raised eyebrow, Churchgrim with a cocked head.

Zeitwächter, simultaneously, was having a little crisis: the thing she was working on was supposed to be fanart, if you could call it that, of Kongō – she was not going to draw Kongō with the original right there.

"Uhm… Kon-chama, how about a culinary expedition?"

Kongō's other eyebrow raised, Zeitwächter sweated bullets. --

Thanks to powers Zeitwächter would maybe pray to starting today, Kongō actually agreed and so they had headed to Italy because

Italian food is nice

Perfect reason for bothering the Second European Fleet.

Their second-in-command, battleship Betelgeuse, looked ready to tear Zeitwächter apart in a this-shit-again manner: "If you want a "culinary expedition" then I can recommend you perfectly fine restaurants."

"Hahaha, but Ojī-san-"

"Who are you calling an old man!?", she was ignored.

"Surely it would be more welcome by the locals if someone they knew went and visited them to do business?"

Betelgeuse actually lunged forwards and aimed a kick at her legs, which Zeitwächter avoided with an undignified squeak and hiding spot behind Kongō: "You just don't want to talk to people!"

"People are scary!"

"I will show you-"

"Sister."

Zeitwächter had to actively suppress a "no actual sisters call each other "sister" like that", because she got almost thrown into the ocean for that sentence once before.

None the wiser, Betelgeuse's sister Orion held her back with a hand on the elbow and tugged her backwards a few steps: "Don't force the child, let's get them food."

"Are you dumb?", she followed along nonetheless, complaining all the way.

Kongō watched their interaction with a smirk, completely ignoring how Zeitwächter and Churchgrim were cowering behind her.

Said Mental Model sighed: "That was close, lol", then she stood up as if nothing had ever happened and made a hand-heart towards Orion, "I love dad."

"Why is she your dad?"

"Because I'm a bitch."

Sure, whatever.

The actual explanation was most likely that Vanisher called everyone "kid" and "child" – which, looking at her age, was fair – and Orion's unfortunate habit of adopting strays.

She most likely just lost in the roulette of who gets which title.

"Kon-chama, do you have a favourite food~?"

"No."

"Then we'll find yours, everyone has a favourite food after all."

"What's yours?"

Zeitwächter had suddenly never eaten anything in her life ever.

That's what I thought.

About half an hour later, Orion and Betelgeuse returned with enough food for a whole fleet.

Kongō and Zeitwächter looked equally doubtful of what they were planning on.

"Don't stare", Betelgeuse dumped a good amount into Zeitwächter’s arms and a considerably smaller amount into Kongō’s, "Orion wants to feed the Science Department."

"They deserve it", and just when you could think that Zeitwächter jumped to their defence without any motives of her own, she continued, "besides, everything they don't eat can be eaten by us."

Orion truly looked at her like a dad while her sister rolled her eyes and began leading the way: "Move it, star child."

"I am", Orion said, falling in step with their two guests to finally, adequately, greet them, "Flagship Kongō, it's an honour to welcome you here."

"Thank you", Kongō smirked at the stroke of her ego.

"Hey, Dad, why don't I get a greeting?", Zeitwächter pouted.

"I would hug you if you liked that."

"It's not like you like hugging either…"

The other smiled at her: "Are you two travelling together?"

She beamed: "We are! Look at my dream come true!"

"Your dream come true?", Kongō repeated doubtfully.

Betelgeuse let out a "oh my God" under her breath.

Zeitwächter was about to launch into a full fawning tsunami when the grey haired battleship leading them loudly proclaimed: "We've arrived! Get your food!"

While Zeitwächter shot a dark glare, the members of the Science Department came trotting in, all of them Mental Models.

"Where's SW1?"

Vanitas, a destroyer with long, blue hair, bound out of the way in three braids, looked around once: "Still working on her project."

Betelgeuse rolled her eyes, snatched a container and vanished down the floor.

The blue-haired girl motioned for Kongō and Zeitwächter to sit down with them, pouring both a glass of soda.

They accepted and said their thanks, beginning to dig into their food while listening to the Science Department's chatter.

Eventually, Vanitas began addressing Kongō, pointing a fork at her food: "Is it good?"

Kongō needed a moment to swallow: "It is."

"Good", she nodded with a smile, then pointed at Zeitwächter, "Zeitwächter, sit with a straight back."

Said battleship, who was bowed over the table and just about to put the next portion of food into her mouth, made a confused face which then shifted into a glare: "Are you shitting me? Do you know how low this table is??"

She was two whole metres tall, ok? That was a lot compared to all of those tiny gnomes!

Vanitas kept looking, Zeitwächter kept staring back.

This went on for a while, before Churchgrim finally stole a tortelloni from the destroyer's plate, thus making her break the staring contest to turn after her food: "CHURCH! NO-! Ah, there it goes…"

Churchgrim looked really really happy with himself and licked his snout before returning to his place under the table, earning some extra pets.

Now in high spirits again, Zeitwächter ate a noodle, stuck her tongue out at Vanitas and asked Kongō: "So, Kon-chama, how is your first food experience?"

"It's not my first."

She had also already said that it was good.

"Oh?", the other blinked, "what was your first?"

Kongō thought back on a certain beach and a certain green bell pepper: "...Doesn't matter, it wasn't good."

"Why not?"

"Bitter", she grimaced; it was as if she had the taste on her tongue again.

"Many plants use bitter substances to deter predators", Vanitas informed, "I can imagine that those do not taste well."

"Well, I won't be one of them."

"But I will", Zeitwächter made an expression as if ready to face an entire army on her own.

"...Are you protecting me from a plant?"

"Ee", she agreed without a trace of hesitation.

Kongō rolled her eyes: "Eat your food."

The battleship did for a while, then remembered something: "Ah, Vanitas, what was SW2 doing here?"

"She was visiting her sister and Betelgeuse."

More like visiting Betelgeuse and coincidentally also meeting SW1.

It wasn’t like they had a bad relationship, it was more like they didn't have a personal one at all: they knew each other, respected each other and worked together, but that was it.

(Hell, Zeitwächter had had more of a relationship with the spider in her room before the dog had eaten it.)

"She returned back to Queenie, then?"

Vanitas nodded.

"I wonder what she was doing…", Zeitwächter said, thoughts apparently drifting off.

Even though her words could be seen as a repetition of her earlier ones, this time they seemed to hold deeper meaning.

Kongō noticed that, Orion noticed it as well, looked on for a while and then decided to open a different topic: "Do you miss the fleet?"

"No."

She wasn't sure if she should believe that – Zeitwächter liked to be alone, Zeitwächter also liked to lie about her feelings because she couldn't be bothered.

"Are you lonely?", Belladonna, a light cruiser with an ever-frozen smile said.

(Saying "asked" felt wrong, as Belladonna's voice never got higher or deeper, soft tune never changing its personal kind of monotone.)

"I don't get lonely. I'm the Demon of the Fog, after all."

Since the ship now known as Zeitwächter was unknown to the Fleet of Fog and also didn't register as Fatum anymore, they had adopted the way the Fleet of Masks had been referring to her and only changed it to Akuma after units had actually encountered her and managed to get a read on her – as with many things that stuck around for a while, the title stuck.

Vanitas, who was researching why some ships apparently weren't capable of feeling certain emotions even though their emulator proved to be in working order, activated her Energy Life Rings and used them to jot something down. The lunch – I mean, the culinary expedition – ended up lasting about three hours and sapped all of Zeitwächter's social energy.

--

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[9] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

Before they had entered the Sound, Zeitwächter had said "we can talk at the shrine again".

Then she had led them across the water, throwing petals into the water whenever they passed a wreck.

What she had not done was reveal that the old platform must have fallen to the sea as well until they stood in front of it.

The "shrine" now taking its place was definitely built by Zeitwächter herself: a simple little floating platform formed by nanomaterial and made to mimic rock with two sotoba-like grave markers out of the same material. They even carried an inscription and each of them rests of the flower wreaths of the past year.

Zeitwächter handed the wreaths over to Kongō with a striking smile that made her heart skip a beat and kneeled down to clean up, putting the seemingly fragile silver rings back on the sotobas so that they could slide down and join the others at the bottom.

"Why do you make them simulate natural rotting processes?", Kongō couldn't help but wonder.

"I come every year anyway. Besides, the less nanomaterial I have to keep in its form, the better."

If no one knew that the flowers weren't real then they couldn't boo Zeitwächter for letting them rot to take a certain strain off her processor – also, if they died a few months earlier in some years than normally, well, it must have been a bad batch, right?

Lazy even in honouring the dead, was a thought that came to mind, though.

Kongō looked at her flower wreath for a while and then altered it when she handed it off to her companion.

Zeitwächter didn't notice it, or mayhaps it just wasn't important enough for her to point out, but the blonde wanted to keep up the appearance for her.

Putting the wreaths down in front of the markers, the battleship even seemed to pray a bit before rising back up and cleaning off half-imaginary dust from her dress: "Ok, let's go, or is there something you want to do?"

"No."

"Kay!", she beamed, almost raising her voice above the whispered voices they were speaking in.

Zeitwächter rushed towards their ships, created a staircase out of hexagonal steps and held out her hand like a knight wanting to help their lord up.

Kongō accepted it as well as the hand going to her hip to unnecessarily steady her and walked up.

When they stepped on Kongō’s deck, a destroyer not of Fog origin appeared on the horizon, seemingly jolting as she noticed them. 

That was the USS Kidd, skull flag flying in the wind.

"She must’ve slipped through the cracks you created", Zeitwächter mused.

A lot of ships had been taken out by Kongō when she went berserk, so it was no surprise that one or two ships slipped through until the holes were fixed by lighter units and the two or so carriers left.

"Most likely."

Back on Kidd, the alarm had been sounded and everyone went to battle stations, waiting for any kind of reaction from the black Fleet of Fog battleships in the distance.

Kidd and her crew had been ordered to do the yearly honouring for the victims of Ironbottom Sound.

"We have to use the chance", the big bosses had said, "before they fill up their ranks."

They acted like it was easy – and fair, they slipped through without trouble until now – but two whole battleships? God. Fucking. Damn it.

Surprise was clear on all crew members' faces when the two, who without a doubt had noticed the humans, distanced themselves.

Confused eyes slid over to the commanding officer, confusion on his face as well before signalling to the others to continue with caution.

Affirmating nods and other gestures moved through the ship, every man still highly focused, but they made it to the pitiful platform without further trouble.

Two assigned crewmembers disembarked Kidd, one of them holding a broad flower wreath so thick, that one could very well just put four candles in it and call it a christmas decoration.

Normally, the ceremony would be a greater event, but they couldn't do that now so everyone else simply gathered on the deck and watched.

The two walked up to the platform and stopped when they saw the writings on the sotoba and, what was even more shocking, the two freshly brought flower wreaths and obvious signs of the ones of the past years.

They looked at each other, surprise and an emotion they couldn't define clearly in their eyes, before one of them whipped out his phone, took a picture of the whole thing and the inscriptions on the gravemarkers.

"What are you doing?", his comrade and friend whispered as he put his own flower wreath down between the others.

"Your wife is Japanese, yeah? I'm gonna ask her to translate when I'm over next time."

Finishing their duty, the two returned to board Kidd, who turned back to land immediately.

When their families were having the next big dinner together, said wife merely confirmed that the Japanese words beside the English inscriptions were the same:

To you who fell like the stars.

To you who sunk like the sun. -

"They’re gone."

"Mhm."

The Black Fleet had decided to stay under water – it was very hot this time in August and they both had black bodies, so the cool water offered a nice relief.

Kongō jumped down from her pagoda to land beside Zeitwächter and Churchgrim, the two lazily lying on her deck: "Seems like you won't have a job next year."

"Depends entirely on how fast your bestie has a coming to God meeting with Flagship Command."

She snorted: "Maybe you're my "bestie"?"

Zeitwächter had her legs crossed, arms pillowing her head and a pleased smile playing on her lips: "Alright, then Iona is your sister-in-soul, Maya your bestie and I'm your wife."

Kongō rolled her eyes, amused.

A red eye slit open and peeked out from under purple hair: "I didn't hear a "no"."

"Awfully flirty today", the blonde walked away to sit by the piano.

"That's still not a "no"!", was called from behind her.

Sure, but also no "yes", so Zeitwächter mentally decided on "fiancée" and stuck her tongue out.

"Kon-chama~, I do nothing except my hobbies every day every year, I hope you weren't having expectations for exciting things~"

Churchgrim yapped as if confirming, then stretched only to curl into a ball again.

Kongō leaned back on the piano until she was practically laying on it and looked up at the rays reaching through the surface: "I've had enough excitement for a while."

She heard Zeitwächter stretch and roll to a side: "Fair. I wanted to show you the world though…"

"I don't need to see the world."

Zeitwächter pouted: "Kon-chama… at least ask things about it, will you?"

That actually made her laugh. It was a dirty laugh, maybe even an evil one, but it was honest and beautiful.

The blonde hummed: "What do you want me to ask? Why is the sky blue?"

"The atmosphere filters out a certain amount of light and that's why you're an ass."

She laughed again. It might actually become Zeitwächter’s new favourite sound.

"Alright, Kon-chama, then let me ask something: what's your favourite book?"

"I don’t have one. What is yours?"

An evil smile graced her dark features, so full of hidden intent that it actually made Kongō sit back up and regret her question.

"Allow me", she paused, "to introduce you to the world of danmei."

Oh no.

Well, five hours later, the fast battleship put down a book that had been practically forced into her hands, took a deep breath, blinked and said: "Well, that was painful."

"Right!?", Zeitwächter had busied herself with drawing and the devouring of snacks she sometimes had to fight against Churchgrim's thick skull for, "that woman is such a good author but my poor fucking heart."

Kongō waved the snacks over and traded the book against them: "Thanks. Actual question concerning the world: what happens if you put marmalade into tea?"

The other blinked at her, brows furrowed: "I… suppose it becomes fruitier and sweeter?"

Right, it must be a weird question without context.

To add to that, it had nothing to do with their earlier topic and thus did not really help with the confusion.

So, the blonde said: "Apologies, I just remembered that question and had to ask it."

She had never been able to give Maya an answer to her question, before she had started dramatically monologuing while the heavy cruiser had silently been dying away on a sugar overdose in the background.

It had been kind of funny, looking back on it, but… it also hurt. 

However, Zeitwächter's issue lay at another place: "No, it’s fine, I just don't drink tea, so I don’t know."

"You don't drink tea?"

"N-no? I rather drink something that doesn't hurt me?"

Kongō gave her the blankest of stares: "You have to wait for it to cool down."

Zeitwächter threw an unamused you-don't-say stare back: "It hurts my head, you brat."

"I'm older than you."

"You can still be a brat."

"How does your head hurt when you drink tea?"

The battleship crossed her arms, like a teacher about to spit out some kind of ultimate life advice and wisdom, and looked down at the other from a nose held high: "I refer to it as hereditary migraines. When the tea isn't hot anymore, my head hurts, so I can only drink it when it's still scalding and essentially tastes like hot water."

Kongō's head fell into her hand in mimicry of a facepalm – it felt like she was getting her own migraine here: "...Allow me to guess, it's "hereditary" because Vanisher and Parasite have them too?"

That was no secret, in fact, since the two liked to whine about it to everyone.

"Yep."

"What do you want me to say to that?"

"You can call me an idiot if you wish."

Well then: "You're an idiot."

"And you're cute~"

Kongō blinked about 300 times. What…?

Zeitwächter nodded: "I mean look at you, having just finished a cute little romance novel, a bag of crisps on your lap – you're sitting here like a real teen and I think that's cute. "

It might have been absurd, but when Kongō glanced down at her lap she could only think: Did we read the same book!?

Her friend (or whatever, really), misinterpreted that: "Ah! Don’t get me wrong! I like your more serious personality too – like it's really cool and hella epic!"

""Hella epic”?"

"Yeah! Oh, you're also really beautiful."

Kongō could still only stare and try to make sense of the tingling in her gut.

It wasn’t really a tingling, more like an… uncomfortable churning? But not exactly in a bad way just… strange? Maybe because it was new? If she needed to breathe it would have made that a bit more difficult too…

"...I'll be a bit more serious then."

"Eh!?"

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Btw, happy to introduce my (very female) cat Garfield as co-author, simply because we were cuddling while writing and her ear (which can swipe on the phone) produced a sentence that actually worked after correcting the grammar a bit.

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[8] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

Chapter 8

The flotilla was on its way again once morning dawned, moving with the sun in the back.

Churchgrim was enjoying its warmth openly, lying in the sunlight, while Zeitwächter sat on the railing, choosing the places thrown into shadow by her superstructure.

Kongō, for her part, was slinking around the piano on her deck as if fighting with herself whether she should play it or not.

It was a sensitive topic, Zeitwächter knew that, but she pitied the blonde immensely.

She heaved herself up, the damaged structure of her knee turning the action into a real effort: "Kon-chama!", she switched to the cheery voice and waved happily, "can we start with the piano today? It's such a long and boring way~"

The blonde’s head had snapped up when she’d heard her name, the corners of her lips concealing a smile, most likely well aware of what her friend was doing.

"I see you're eager. Come over."

Zeitwächter jumped over with a shout of "Yay!" and then stood there, prim and proper, while waiting for orders.

Kongō gave off an amused huff and led the other over to the instrument, sitting down on the bench together: "How much do you already know?"

It wouldn't do to bore her with knowledge she already possessed, after all.

"Not much", the battleship looked sheepish, "I can't read music sheets, but I do know that one normally begins with the right hand and also that it goes 'c d e f g a h'. Ah! I think… this one is c?", she hesitantly pointed towards a key.

"That's right", Kongō nodded, "well done."

Zeitwächter beamed in an insecure manner (that that was even possible…) and explained: "Parasite taught me. Onē-chan still remembers quite a bit…"

Right, her sister was Parasite.

It felt so natural to be with Zeitwächter, that Kongō sometimes caught herself forgetting other people existed – that numbed the pain to a certain amount, but it was still something she would need to get under control.

"We'll start with something easy", she made a few pieces of blank paper and a pen out of nanomaterial, using it to write a simple melody in letters instead of notes and put it up, "try playing that, don't worry about the speed."

But the speed wasn’t the problem.

Shifting around a bit to get her hand into a comfortable position, her eyes rushed over the white keys almost in a panic and she repeated 'c d e f g a h' in her head various times.

She felt her right begin to shake, clenching the hand into a fist various times before finally lowering it together with her head: "I don't know…"

Kongō wore a schooled expression; while the reaction itself didn't surprise her, its strength sure did.

Though, when thinking back, as Fatum she used to be shy and quiet, but everytime she showed emotion it was strong. Back then Kongō didn’t have a Mental Model yet, so her perception could very well just be altered, but that was her interpretation.

What's more, whatever altered Zeitwächter’s body so badly had taken a heavy blow on her processor, so the ship's inability to connect the keys with the notes might also very well be influenced by that.

"Hey, don't worry, that's nothing bad", her pale hand grabbed the other’s fist and moved it back up, "here, try it now. Is that better?"

The keys had letters on them now and Zeitwächter’s widened eyes met Kongō's: "You don't need to alter your piano for me! It's a keepsake, right!? I-"

"It's fine."

That made Zeitwächter stop in her path.

"If I want to, I'll just change them back."

"But…", she stopped. 

Arguing with Kongō was a senseless activity as she was proud and headstrong – arguing with a wall would get you more results because you could use force to just break through.

"With the right, right?"

"Yes."

Zeitwächter played the same melody a few times, Kongō adding new lines once her student could play the next, slowly adding a second hand and soon it had transformed into an actual song.

When her current playthrough ended, Zeitwächter finally allowed herself a breathing break: "Phew… what song is that?"

Kongō, who had stopped supervising with her eyes a while ago and instead taking to scribbling on the still blank papers from before, didn't look up: "It's called Dawning Light, but I gave you a simplified version."

"Dawning Light?", she blinked, "I never heard of it."

"I wonder why."

"Did you write it?"

"No", she said, you know, like a liar.

A different Zeitwächter might have been able to sniff out the lie, but this one was just ready to accept it: "Oh, okay. In any case, it’s a very nice song."

Thank you, Kongō thought and then put her things away to pay full attention to the other: "I'm glad you like it. Where are we going, by the way?"

"Ironbottom Sound!", the battleship beamed.

"...Thank you…"

"Ahaha, don't be mad! At the very least, I would have told you before actually entering the area!"

"I do hope so, it's sacred after all."

"Oh", that brat looked genuinely surprised, "you know that?"

Kongō sighed heavily, forehead in her hand: "Zeitwächter, I had enough time to read various books, why are you surprised that I know something like that?"

"...Oh, right, supercomputer."

"Please don't tell me you forgot that you're one yourself."

The sheepish grin really was answer enough.

A small part of Kongō wished that she would get money every time she had to actively suppress a sigh or eyeroll.

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Friendly reminder that Maya had to google "jam" for this woman (who was able to quote Sun Tzu or something)

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[7] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

Chapter 7

The flower wreaths had been finished long before night fell.

It was because of that, that the trio was now enjoying a lazy time of doing what they wished; Zeitwächter and Churchgrim dozed in the moonlight, Kongō wandering aimlessly around the area.

From time to time she would gaze at the sky and the bright moon, let the wind twirl her hair and part of her dress.

In all honesty, she didn’t know what she was feeling right now.

There was still pain, of course, there would always be pain and sometimes it would flare up and be unbearable, but she felt slightly better.

Well, maybe – maybe her feelings were just a bit muted currently.

She heard soft pawsteps behind her and turned halfway to acknowledge Churchgrim.

He had obviously stopped dozing and was now standing motionless with a cocked head.

They looked at each other for a while, until the dog moved and pushed against her hip, whining a bit.

Kongō was surprised by his strength, catching herself as he actually pushed her: "What is it?"

His ears lowered and he whined again, pushing at her lower body once more.

She didn't know what he wanted, of course, Churchgrim couldn't talk nor could he use the Concept Communication System to relay information, but he was a part of Zeitwächter – carrying a part of her Union Core and all – so maybe a bit of Zeitwächter logic could be used on him?

Kongō lowered herself to Churchgrim's height, mimicking the movement of his head slightly: "Did you sleep well?"

Churchgrim didn't like talking, almost as if his own barks were too loud to him, so instead he had adapted to making little sounds one had to learn first.

"That is good, do you want to eat something?"

Of course not. Unlike his sister, who was always starving, he didn't feel hunger at all (like a Mental Model should), so he shook his head.

"Do you want attention?"

Now he started becoming a bit impatient, shifting his weight around and stepping on the spot.

Kongō felt a bit frustrated as well.

What can I do?, she asked herself.

Churchgrim evidently wanted something from her and it annoyed her that she couldn't find out what it was.

The dog moved forwards, pressing his head against her chest and straining to reach further.

It was in that moment that realisation dawned on the blonde: Churchgrim was big, easily confused with a wolf as he reached Zeitwächter’s (who was two metres tall) hips – when bumping into her, he had lowered his head to the height of her Union Core and now, he was also trying to get through her crouch and bump that place again.

"Are you trying to reach my Core?"

He yipped, perking his ears and wagging his tail softly.

She furrowed her brows: "Why?"

He looked like he was about to cry.

Right, yes no questions only.

Kongō supported her chin with a hand, petting the heavy head in her lap with the other and wondering what could interest Churchgrim so much.

Her Union Core was just an Union Core like any other: it wasn't cracked, it wasn't missing pieces and it possessed the full ability of supporting her – so what interested him so much?

"Are you mayhaps worried about my Union Core's functionality?"

Assimilating Maya and the Nagaras had put immense stress on it, after all.

Churchgrim made his little affirmative sound, cheering up instantly when Kongō ruffled his neck fur: "Don't worry, I'm fine. In fact, thank you for cheering me up."

He looked extremely happy, wagging his tail, panting and trying to give the Mental Model a kiss which she deflected.

Little did they know that a certain someone was spying them from in between two trees, nails almost digging into the bark, eyes narrowed.

Zeitwächter decided to leave them be and turned back, thinking.

For Churchgrim to act like that was… unusual. She would have to ask him later about what he actually had wanted from the fast battleship.

--

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[6] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

Chapter 6

Zeitwächter led them across a route which required them to sneak dangerously close to coasts and reefs.

It was a necessary move to avoid the Fog patrols from Japan who also, at least partially, patrolled Chinese waters and would no doubt only get tighter now that both Kongō and the Blue Fleet were enemies.

Nonetheless, the black vessels entered a hidden water entrance courtesy of a surprisingly deep river and continued along it until reaching a lake where they then stopped moving.

Kongō looked in awe at the area around them. 

Red maple trees towered above the water like fiery sentinels, their crowns seemingly a sea of wild, peaceful flames moving in the wind, turning the water itself red due to their reflections and sheltering the tons of beautiful flowers under them.

She didn’t know how Zeitwächter had found this place, but she could understand why she seemingly returned here at least once a year.

Said battleship now begrudgingly opened her eyes and rose to her feet, rubbing an eye and smiling down at Kongō, before petting the still-dozing dog and holding out a hand in invitation.

The blonde chose to amuse her and accepted the hand, giving a small smile of her own as she was carefully tugged to stand and then led down the ship, the red hexagonal platforms gleaming orange.

One could almost think that Zeitwächter had been made for this environment.

They stepped upon the ground and Zeitwächter led Kongō on through fields of flowers and swarms of butterflies until they reached a clearing where the maples did not obstruct the view anymore.

"Kon-chama", the Mental Model turned back towards the other, still holding her hand, "welcome to Churchgrim's and mine personal sanctuary."

"I thank you very much – you have a beautiful place for yourself."

"Ne?", Zeitwächter let her hand go, Kongō instantly missing its warmth, "it's a secret, so don't tell anyone, okay?"

"Of course", if noone else knew of this place yet, then she wouldn't be the one to betray the immense amount of trust this reveal meant, "I'm wondering though, do you really want to pluck those flowers?"

Zeitwächter was a sentimental one. She would feel sorry for misplaced stones, keep scrap that had been in her possession for a few minutes, pieces of unimportant paper with enough white areas to draw on… Kongō just couldn't imagine that she would take even one of her flowers.

As if reading her mind, Zeitwächter shook her head: "I always go around to pick out the nicest ones and then reproduce them", she let a little blue flower out of nanomaterial appear in her hand and handed it over to the blonde with a little bow, "I don't want to kill any flowers just to decorate something with their corpses."

Kongō twirled the forget-me-not between her fingers: "What flowers are we searching for?"

The other beamed: "Anything to decorate a grave with! I can send you an overview?"

"Do that. How many do you need?"

Zeitwächter threw her arms into the air, all-cheery persona back in business: "As many as you can find! If we have too many, I'll just make a crown for you!"

"Alright. Shall we meet here again at sundown?"

"Sure, I'll go that way", she pointed into a seemingly random direction and ran off as soon as she got the okay from the other.

Kongō gazed up at the sky, finding the sun with her eyes. It wouldn’t be long until it started setting.

--

Kongō was the first to reappear; by now she had Churchgrim, who found her at some point after his nap, at her side and talked to him about random nonsense.

Zeitwächter came limping out not much later, flowers and something catching and reflecting light already in her arms: "Dear~, Kon-chama~"

Churchgrim reacted instantly and bound over, rubbing himself happily against her.

"Hello you, hello!", she would've petted him, but for that she simply didn't have enough limps.

"What happened to your leg?", asked Kongō.

Her friend had finished hobbling over and looked as if she was in slight pain, putting most of her weight on the right side: "Knee, actually!"

That didn’t really make it better.

"It's always the left side", she shrugged, "that's my error."

This Mask's error was a damaged left side? Well, alright, then she wasn't just mad, she also carried Fatum's old errors over – the world must really love her.

"If you need a break-"

"Nah, it's fine", she sat down in the middle of the clearing heavily, "I'm accustomed to this."

That didn’t make it better either!

"I shall whine the entire time the pain lasts, though."

Kongō and Churchgrim sat down beside her, both definitely more elegant than the tall woman: "I know, you always used to whine more than necessary."

Zeitwächter nodded her head calmly, beginning to sort the flowers into groups: "My theory is, that over the top whining makes you concentrate on that and dulls the actual pain."

Which might actually be a sound theory, but it still made the blonde cock an eyebrow.

"Do you know how to make flower wreaths?"

"I don't", even if, she was too busy wondering about the ring of fine metallic material the other was messing with.

Zeitwächter looked up once she noticed the lingering gaze and blinked while holding the ring up: "Ah, there's a Hmong village in the area. I kinda befriended them and they give me silver every year."

"Just like that?" 

"I told them what I'm collecting flowers for and they were eager to help, sooo…"

Some random Hmong village knew what they were collecting flowers for and Kongō, who was in on this entire situation, didn't? Mood.

"Kon-chama, I only know how to make them with a base too", that was the ring, "but let me show you how to make flower wreaths, okay? See it as payment for future piano lessons."

"You will need to teach me very well to pay for all lessons at once", Kongō quipped.

The other made an offended sound and pressed closer to her: "You say that as if I’m not artistically talented."

Kongō, bless her poor fragile heart, made a meaningful face before she could reign in her features again.

"OI! I can draw!"

"I'm not doubting your drawing skills…"

Zeitwächter pouted and laid her head on the blonde’s shoulder, before giving a dirty smirk as an idea struck: "Well, Kon-chama", she breathed against her jaw, "I could teach you a lot of different things instead~"

Now, the Fog was an asexual (except whatever Hyūga and Takao had going on) species – that didn't mean that they didn't understand certain innuendos, but it more often than not led to giving absolutely zero fucks (pun not intended).

So, Kongō really tried to keep it together, but in the end she stared at her and waited until Zeitwächter's lips twitched and she started cackling first.

Fastly catching herself, the Mental Model resurfaced from the ground she had sunk to as if nothing had ever happened, clearing her throat and taking up duty: "Let's begin with a random flower."

Kongō was almost impressed by how little the purple haired woman seemed to care about her own joke.

"You need to take care when making knots and bending the stems so that they don’t break off."

She nodded, following along with the second ring. 

Zeitwächter finished with the first few flowers and looked over at Kongō's, noticing that she was already halfway finished.

Oh well, she thought, not surprising.

It was really easy and Kongō was a fast learner anyway.

--

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[5] Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel

Chapter 5

"What are you doing?"

Kongō's question was a fair one, in all honesty, seeing as Zeitwächter was turning the package of pencils this and that way as if checking for fake money (at one point Kongō could swear the battleship barely held back from holding it in front of the sun).

"I'm suspicious."

Obvious-fucking-ly.

"Where the hell did she get those colour pencils from?"

"From the supplier??"

"But in these trying times it's really hard to get your hands on Faber-Castell! Especially for a small and secluded art shop like that."

Kongō was going to punch her.

If that was as well as an established art shop as it seemed to be, then they of course had their business contacts who could deliver even now. Also, this was the European mainland, not some remote island depending on sea trade to survive – and wasn't Faber-Castell German!?

Zeitwächter was unaware of the impending doom looming beside her but stored her prey away, petting Churchgrim and then, beaming like the idiot she was, turned to Kongō: "What do you wanna do?"

"I don't know. What do people normally do in this situation?"

"I don't know."

…What.

She put a hand on her chest as if proud: "I'm the most introverted (and lazy) ship in the entire fleet! That’s kinda bad in this situation, though.“

Churchgrim yipped as if admitting to the errors of his sister, which earned him a pet because… he was Churchgrim, Kongō guessed.

Zeitwächter sighed: „If only this were a game so that we had some quests to do together and beat up some fuckers.“

„…You don‘t seem introverted.“

The most introverted that girl had ever been was back on Hawaii when she’d been acting all cool and dramatic — since then she‘d been busy being an absolute dork.

„Gay for you, introverted for others“, then she had the guts to wink.

„Mhm“, Kongō was at a loss of words, what a mood, „what do you normally do in your free time?“

„I read, I draw, I write…“, she took a moment to think, completely forgetting the obvious fact of gamer and then pointed at her brother, „I have a dog.“

You sure do.

All of this was fine and all, but the main problem was still standing in the room like a very obnoxious skyscraper.

Kongō ended up deciding for them: "Let's go back first, we can decide later."

"Ok."

Churchgrim and Zeitwächter followed the blonde like two lost puppies.

When they had stepped back on their ships, nothing exciting had happened, much to Zeitwächter’s chagrin.

Can’t we just trigger a plot point or something? I really want to show her the world outside the Fog…, just as the battleship was sighing and thinking this, a contact appeared on her sonar.

She looked over to Kongō from underneath her eyelashes and then remembered that she, apart from Nachi, had the best ears in the Fog and that Kongō had absolutely no chance to have detected the new arrival yet.

"Kon-chama!", Zeitwächter preened at the attention she was gifted immediately, "don't get a scare now, but a contact will enter your detection range soon – that's SW2 – please don't shoot her!"

"I won't."

As long as SW2 showed no sign of aggression there wouldn’t be any problems.

Nonetheless, Kongō amped up her scanners, just in case, and kept her distance when the satellite surveillance submarine finally surfaced beside Zeitwächter.

"Hello!", the battleship beamed, "you good?"

SW2 was a silent one, in fact, if it were possible for the Fog then she would've been mute – as it stood, she was officially classified as selective mute even if that wasn't exactly correct either.

Anyway, the Mental Model climbed up and out of her ship, an envelope securely under one arm and nodded up to Zeitwächter, holding it up.

Zeitwächter took the envelope, thanked SW2 and opened it, taking a minute or two to read through the letter inside: "Aha? Fleet Flagship is kinda mad, eh?"

The submarine shrugged.

"Kon-chama! Our quest just dropped!"

Kongō cocked her eyebrows.

"We're sadly going to America!", Zeitwächter looked like she wanted to die.

"Why?"

"Welp", the battleship bounded over her deck to Kongō’s and held the letter up, "turns out it's almost August again!"

The blonde crossed her arms: "What's with your calendar?"

"Fucked up. Anyway, we gotta get flowers or an entire flower wreath before we can go."

Can't you just synthesise them?, Kongō wanted to ask, but then decided against it because if Zeitwächter wanted to be extra then let her.

"But we're not going back to Italia for this-"

A message from SW2 popped up in front of her which just read "Italy*" to which she answered with a "shut the fuck up" in a tone that made it obvious that they had friendly banter like that quite often.

Then, the air shifted around the two capital ships as if Zeitwächter had chosen to banish her cheery attitude and revive the version buried on Hawaii: "May I abduct you to China, My Lady?"

A breeze played with her hair, turning it even wilder and the blood red sky caused by the setting sun gave her a dangerous air, eyes almost burning orange in the last of the dying light.

Kongō couldn't breathe. 

Not that she needed to anyway, but if she did, then she wouldn't have been able to.

"...You may", she said after catching herself, accepting the invitation.

Zeitwächter smiled and then returned to her own deck to report back to SW2, leaving Kongō to her own thoughts.

Taking a second to recompose herself, Kongō sat on the bench in front of the piano and settled her head on a hand, accepting the smile growing on her face.

Annoying.

One of the seagulls accompanying her at all times settled beside her, angling its head and squawking in interest.

Kongō looked at the bird: “Aren’t you a brave one?”

It squawked and then continued to clean its feathers, not caring a bit about whether it was brave or not and instead resting on the still warm surface of the instrument.

“Kon-chama”, Zeitwächter settled on her own railing, legs dangling freely and inevitably hitting her own body from time to time, Churchgrim behind her, “shall we go?”

She sat up orderly again, noticing that the sun had almost fully vanished by now: “Lead the way.”

“For you I shall always”, the battleship rested a hand on her chest as if making an oath and then turned westwards, leading their flotilla on while SW2 slinked off towards Amalfi.

Zeitwächter was just silently staring at Kongō, the blonde reciprocating calmly.

This went on for a while, more and more seagulls settling on the fast battleship for the night.

Finally, Zeitwächter broke the pleasant silence only disturbed by the regular sound of bows cutting through water: “Can you play the piano, Kon-chama?”

“I taught Maya how to”, she caressed the instrument softly, like she might have Maya’s Union Core if it were lying in her hand.

“Really? Can you teach me too?”

Kongō paused: “You would be interested in that?”

Her head moved up and down in a nod: “I always wanted to, but never did in the end.”

The blonde smiled: “Alright. Then I will teach you.”

Zeitwächter smiled, eyes closing afterwards and staying like that as if she were dozing,

“Tired?”

Churchgrim yawned loudly before his sister could answer: “Exhausted, mostly. I don’t have as much energy as I used to have.”

That was something Kongō wanted to ask about too, but she didn’t deem the situation fitting yet, so she said something else instead: “If you’re exhausted then you should rest.”

"Hm~, on you?"

It was meant as a joke, but Kongō actually moved the hand in her lap to invite her over, expression the slightest amount of smugness.

Churchgrim and Zeitwächter both blinked, looked at each other and then she brought her brother into her arms and shortened the distance between the two ship bodies with a leap, setting him down and sitting by Kongō's feet, head in her lap, confused.

The truth was, Maya liked to sleep, even if she hadn’t needed it as a Fleet of Fog ship and especially not as… doll, and had often fallen asleep on Kongō as they had been sitting together, so it was not a strange thing for her.

Zeitwächter, on the other hand, someone who also liked to sleep even if it wasn't necessary but never had been allowed to sleep on anyone since she became… well, Zeitwächter, was struck dumb.

"Is this really alright?"

"From my side it is."

"Oh", she blinked, turning her head into a more comfortable position when Kongō's hand came up to pet her head, "I see."

--

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