Harry Potter & the Shipgirls

[darthcourt10]

Lord K

A.N./ urgh, was meaning to have this done by like Friday. Oh well, IRL gonna IRL.


Hunched over the morning paper and nursing her coffee in the hopes of the caffeine eventually making her feel vaguely more cognizant of the world around her, Norimune gazes in a zombie-like fugue at the sunrise headlines, while listening to something offensively loud and metal-sounding over the radio.

'No sentient being should ever be up this early,' she silently grumbles to herself while basking in the scent of dark roast, cream, and far too much sugar. 'It's cruel, unusual and inhuman.'

Then she cringes, when as if to exemplify her statement of cruel and usual inhumanity, Kagotsuruhe enters the kitchen and announces her arrival with an exceptionally chipper "Good morning!"

Even for Kagotsuruhe's normally subtlety off and stepford-esque behavior, the Blade of Hoplessness has been particularly bright and lively in the mornings of late. The reason for this is no doubt, because of how much of a morning person, Norimune isn't. Having generally been assigned (re; thrown under the bus in the Unrepentant Blade's own opinion) most of the blame for losing Kyoshu and then letting the 'Reunion' with Juuchi at the park get out of hand, for the foreseeable future the nodachi had been roped into playing chauffeur for Kagotsuruhe. Making up for the loss of her sister's Prius until the actress could finish sorting out her insurance claim and acquiring a new vehicle.
Spoiler

"And how are you this morning, sister?" asks the shapeshifting nightmare, that has for today chosen a more modern facade of maidenly innocence, with a brightly enthusiastic smile.
Spoiler

"Rocking on," is the Unrepentant Blade's flatly phlegmatic and semi-awake response, while halfheartedly giving a sign of the horns in return. While the Blade of Hoplessness wasn't the kind to hold a grudge, and the ability to feel vindictive was normally beyond her, Norimune is pretty sure that the sheer amount of smug and schadenfreude Akutoku had been giving off at the nodachi's fate lately, was too irresistible a treat for the cursed katana to passively enjoy on occasion.

Cheerfully descending upon the kettle, Kagotsuruhe then begins making herself a pleasant cup of green tea, while Norimune continues to sip her caffeinated sugar bomb and gaze at the headlines. "So, anything interesting in the news this morning?" queries the smaller blade with polite curiosity.

Norimune gives a neutral grunt. "Meh, it's all the same general doom, gloom, bullshit-filled stupid. The front page is still all stuff about Mahoutokoro and Kyoto. Though there is an article about some diplomatic chitchat between the Diet and the MACUSA Ambassador. Some rumors about some Diet Representative's daughter being a yokai or something. A bunch of junk about how certain potion ingredients are going up in price again because lol-no-deep-sea-access. Then most of the rest of the domestic and local crap is politics, since we're leading up to the election next year. Meanwhile, in the international section we have...."

The nodachi takes a moment to shuffle the pages. "Let's see.... bunch of doomsayers going on about a potential financial crisis if Bosnia and Serbia default on more of their loans to the ICW and Goblin Banks, which could end up dragging down the rest of the balkans magical governments with them..... The French are indulging in their age-old national part time of rioting basically everywhere they can congregate without the nomajs noticing. Looks like it's about more war taxes.... The ICW is jumping up and down about some civil war between magicals in the Republic of the Congo that's spilling over into Cameroon and the Central African Republic, but who the fuck has the time and manpower spare to worry about that on top of all their own Abyssal shit in this day and age...."

Norimune turns a few more pages. "And here we go, last of the major headlines. There's an article on this collective sad sack of shit in the US, where the Magical Congress is taking the board of some company to court over the fact that, since the war basically made them the sole source in North America of some fancy magic-sensitive plant you can't magically transport or downsize to move in bulk, they've gradually raised the price of the plant by five hundred percent. And also some crap about this singer or actress or whatever in New York turning out to secretly have a non-human in the family tree. It's tabloid-y shit, so I didn't bother reading it, but I figured it might interest you." Kagotsuruhe nods and smiles her stepford-smile while the Unrepentant Blade flips another page.

"Oh, and in England, somebody apparently decided to look at the dumpsterfires going on here, and then told their buddies in the Ministry to hold their beer. Can you believe these idiots didn't just think letting dementors hang around their national school was a good idea this year, but that the fuckwit Auror in charge of shepherding the things around then thought 'hey, let's let them check the train full of school children was going to be totes fine'?" Norimune gives a contemptuous snort.

Well traveled as she is, the Unrepentant Blade considers herself as having something of a healthy respect and wariness for pathoknietic beings and magics. Especially since unlike some of her sisters, she lacks for any innate resistances or sheer overwhelming offense powers, and against something such as a dementor, has only her knowledge of sorcery, skill at spellcraft, and luck manipulation to fallback on. Something that was long ago driven home for her, considering who two of her sisters were.

Kyoshu (once upon a time, and still occasionally when she remembered) was deadly in a 1v1 and a right pain in the ass to fight, but at least for Norimune, she'd never been that much of a boogeyman and personal tormentor. Maybe it was because the Unrepentant Blade often passed between owners and wielders like a spare I.O.U. anyway, so she rarely got that attached to anyone she didn't expect to eventually either sell her on, loan her after serious injury, or have die on her at the end. And while Kyoshu may have once rivaled Juuchi in personal skill, the most evil of the Demon Blades had always lacked for any kind of larger strategic acumen, rarely changed her overall tactics, and had never displayed any long term ability to plot beyond her immediate desires. All areas that, while Norimune was admittedly not much better at either, she had at least grown in via osmosis, after trotting the ever changing battlefields of the world across the centuries.

(It also probably helped that her mildly inglorious backstory and reputation likely didn't make her rank very high on Kyoshu's list of 'sister's I need to mentally abuse, torture, take everything from, and lord my superiority over', which while she was thankfully for, occasionally rankled at her pride a little. And then there was the fact that she was outside the country more often than in it, for most of the last three hundred years...)

No, in Norimune's opinion, Kagotsuruhe had always been the more terrifying opponent to face back in the day. Kyoshu was a personal-scale weapon of untouchable domination that made any slip-up fatal, with an untapped potential to sow chaos, mistrust and confusion among the forces, commanders and courts of foes, that the old Sword of Faded memories had never cared to utilize in any useful fashion beyond her pointless sadism and immediate personal entertainment.

But Kagotsuruhe was sheer, overwhelming force. Not even a tidal wave, but a blunt, crushing avalanche of cold. She had the ability to not only reach across an entire area at a range no one else in the sisterhood could match, but she could visit her effect upon multitudes at once. Inexorably burying all under the weight of her freezing will, until they either succumbed or were broken. And unlike Kyoshu's perversely self-centered trails of whimsical torture, the Blade of Hopelessness had the cold, emotionless intellect and the skills learned at the hands of generations of competent masters, to utilize herself to optimal and devastating effect on the rare occasions she took to the field or was drawn into conflict.

There was a reason it was said that of the greatest of the magical Muramasas, Umitsubame was the one Kyoshu hated, Chisuheri was the one that Kyoshu despised, Juuchi Yosamu was the one Kyoshu envied, but Kagotsuruhe was the only one Kyoshu ever feared.

Which, thus brought Norimune's train of thought back to the subject at hand. Sure, Kagotsuruhe was in some ways worse than a dementor, thanks to her intelligence and the nightmarish mishmash of other dark and vile things that were horrifically combined to formulate her blade, fittings, and powers, but that in her mind, only reinforced how nasty dementors could be. At least Kagotsuruhe didn't eat people's souls.

"You got to wonder abut these people," says the nodachi with a shake of her head. "Are they seriously lacking that much brain power? They're lucky none of the kids got hurt. " Actually reading the article beyond just a glance at it's headline aand initial blurb this time, Norimune then makes a mild noise of surprise. "Huh... it actually sounds like the dementors are the ones that came off worse from the incident?"

"Really?" asks the Blade of Hopelessness with mild curiosity as she sips at her tea.

"Yeah," sitting up and frowning, the Unrepentant Blade now starts paying proper attention to the words she's previously been skimming over. "Oh wow, that's.... that's something it seems they actually killed some of them."

Pausing mid-motion, Kagotsuruhe is abruptly oddly still. "They killed dementors?", questions the katana in a now flat tone.

Too engrossed in the article to notice the change in her sister, Norimune continues. "Yeah, there's pics of the aftermath too. Looks like it's ripped from somebody's cell, considering most of them don't seem to be magical photos. Go figure that that Potter kid nailed a bunch with some sort of uber-purification ofuda, but what interests me more is that it sounds like somebody nailed a bunch with something in the style or vein of Heka. I haven't seen that kind of magic since the Battle of Alexandria, and most of it's grandmasters considered it's more powerful spells and curses lost arts after that fight." The nodachi frowns and scratches her chin thoughtfully. "Although, it probably didn't help that most of those few grandmasters who knew the spells which still functioned without the intercession of the gods, died over the course of the Egypt and Syria Campaign. Fucking ICW looking the other way and encouraging the frogs..."

Norimune shakes her head. "Anyway, these pics are kinda neat. If I didn't know any better, I'd say this one almost looks like Umi's handiwork, if it wasn't for the fact that she wouldn't fit in that carriage corridor. And I don't know if this was Potter or the Heka user, but somebody legit burnt some of the creepy cloaked assholes to ashes and bone. Seriously, check this out, it's an honest to god pile of- hey!"

The paper being taken from the nodachi's hand makes her look at her sister in surprised annoyance. The retort that starts on her tongue however, then dies before it can pass from her lips.

No longer is Kagotsuruhe smiling and bubbling with an unnerving not-quite-right-ness.

Instead, there is a cold, emotionless focus behind her blank expression, as she looks intently upon the image of humanoid yet inhuman bones printed upon the paper.

Then the Blade of Hoplessness looks to her sister. Kagotsuruhe isn't one to normally show emotion when she is serious. In fact, she is technically incapable of it, even if she chooses to 'display' expressions for other's benefit and to try and fit in to the social situation at hand. But there are some things she can occasionally feel, that very rarely, she may imperceptibly display.
Spoiler

So when Kagotsuruhe gives Norimune the smallest twitches of the lip, and a slight gleam comes to her normally blank and soullessly empty eyes, the nodachi has to restrain a cringe at the memory that arises. Because for all that the Blade of Hopelessness is without emotions, she almost rivals Chisuheri for self-control over one's own desires and nature.

Subtle though the expression is, that it comes through at all, speaks of what it really is. What in their 'youth', it would have looked like.
Spoiler

Raw, craving hunger and crazed untamed want.

Hollow emptiness, only able to fill itself and feel anything at all, when supping upon minds of others while their intoxicating torment peaks.

Shaking her head, the vision passes, and Norimune does her best to fixate on the current Kagotsuruhe, sitting across from her in the here and now of the present. The modern Kagotsuruhe, who thankfully has intelligence and reason ingrained by generations of competent wielders and masters, to reign in her rare moments of base desire.

"Do you still have your nomaj passport?" asks the Sword of Hopelessness, momentarily throwing the Unrepentant Blade off with the unexpected question.

"Um- what?" Norimune blinks, before shaking her head. "I... yeah, I think it should be current?"

Kagotsuruhe nods, expression blank as if her sister had just affirmed that the weather was indeed fine today. "Perfect. May I borrow it then?"

The nodachi is thankful she isn't drinking, otherwise she may have done a spittake. "What!? Why?!?"

"I would like to go to England," declares her sister in answer, as if such a journey were a day trip to the next town over. "And I believe travel by magical means would be too long and convoluted to organize, considering their prejudices towards anyone other than baseline humans."

"Which just raises more questions as to why you even want to go?!" declares the baffled Norimune. "The only thing that sucks more than the weather and public transport is the magical community, and the only likely change since I was last there is that the aristocracy's' family trees would have gotten more Hapsburgian."

Lifting a hand, Kagotsuruhe raises a pair of fingers and counts them off. "Firstly, you last went there in the 1800s. Secondly, that is why I want to go."

Following where where her sister points her second finger, the nodachi frowns. "You want to go to England because of a possible Muramasa and a picture of what looks like a large pile of ash?"

"But what is in the ash?" asks Kagotsuruhe.

"I dunno?" offers Norimune with a shrug. "The hopes and dreams of a small child, now free of a dementor's gullet?"

"Bones," answers the Blade of Hopelessness, dutifully ignoring her sister's obtuseness.

"So?"

"Dementor bones," elaborates Kagotsuruhe with something that might almost be exasperation. "Bones like the one carved out to make my hilt."

Norimune raises a curious eyebrow. "Your hilt's still good though, isn't it? Sure, Chi's in a league of her own thanks to her regen, but you've got all the same preservation charms and tempering magics as Umi, Juuchi and Kyo. You're even hardier than me."

"But I'm more exotically made than everyone else. And as Kyoshu proved, we may be among some of the hardiest of magical blades barring those made by the outright divine, but we are not indestructible," points out Kagotsuruhe levelly. "Half of my materials are now either impossible to attain or inhumane to acquire in this era, and the rest are ludicrously rare. When was the last time you heard about a dementor being killed in a manner that left enough of it behind that it's bones were intact? We still don't know how or where Muramasa sourced the bone he used for my hilt, or even what part of a dementor my hilt is from."

"So you want to.... what? Take off to England as soon as possible, and then buy them before anybody else can or something, all out of fear of a "vague what if'?" asks Norimune.

"Yes." replies Kagotsuruhe flatly.

The Unrepentant Blade facepalms. "You do realize that I still technically have an international criminal record, right?"

"Only on the magical side," counters the katana. "To the nomaj world, I would simply be another traveler, who's only factor of note is that she has a number of trips to Okinawa on her passport. Once I'm in Britain, I enter the magical world as myself. There's technically nothing illegal about entering Britian through nomaj means, and the average lay-person with no knowledge of tsukumogami would be more liable to pass me off as a foreign tourist than a non-human to discriminate against. Considering that I also transform my appearance for the majority of my theater roles, I doubt anybody would identify me as a foreign actress either."

"There's still one problem with your plan genius!" declares Norimune. "Do you seriously think you can pass yourself off as me?!"

For a moment, Kagotsuruhe's body shimmers, a rippling with black haze coursing over something ivory-pale and non-descript beyond knowing underneath.

Then it reconstitutes, settling and recoloring in a new shape and form, now with tones of dirty gold and woolen magenta.
Spoiler

"Hey, I'd like to think I can!" declares the shapeshifter in an accurate enough approximation of Noriume's brash impertinence, that the real Unrepentant Blade jumps in surprise.

This is the other area where Kagotsuruhe has always excelled, and which Norimune has always been a little jealous of. Adapting to a new use and purpose in the modern world. While Kagotsuruhe sucks at being herself and expressing her own emotions, she has a natural talent for becoming others and aping theirs'. An adaptation of her sense for what people fear most and will garner the strongest reaction from them, turned towards looking for what they will believe and how to reinforce that feeling.

"Hey, that's-" for a moment, Norimune stammers, trying to find some flaw or objection in the plan. "I do not sound like that!"

"Like what?" asks Not!Norimune with a cocky raise of her eyebrows. "I'd like to think after knowing you for so damn long, that I got most of your tones and inflections down pat."

"Y-You make me sound like a one of those whiny, annoyingly hi-pitched tsundere girls!" declares Norimune in an unknowingly whiny, hi-pitched tone as she flushes with embarrassment.

The fake Unrepentant Blade shrugs. "Everyone sounds different to what they think like. Look it up, it's a proven fact!"

The nodachi grinds her teeth. "So you're saying I sound like a whiny, annoyingly hi-pitched tsundere?"

"I'm not trying to." Not!Norimune then pauses for a moment, before then giving the real Norimune a classic Norimune smirk, that even Norimune thinks is punch-able. "But I will say that I got most of your tones and inflections down pat."

For a moment, the Unrepentant Blade stares across the table, trying to figure out if Kagotsuruhe is having her on for some reason, of if she's just pretending to be as annoying and irritating as everyone seems to exaggerate her as.

'fuck it,' she thinks to herself.

Then with a battle cry, Norimune throws herself across the table at her doppleganger, who simply smirks in response. "Would you believe garnering that response, a sufficiently successful reproduction of yourself and your mannerisms?" she asks in the flat tone of Kagotsuruhe, briefly 'breaking character' as they wrestle on the floor.

"I-Idiot! Screw you! I don't sound like that! Go die!"

Unnoticed by the two as they grapple, footsteps announce the arrival of a new person in the kitchen. Drawn out of her office/studio, by the sounds of scuffling and raised voices in the kitchen, Akutoku then appears, sporting a curious frown.

"Hey!? What going on in-" The Sword of corruption pauses and then blinks owlishly at the sight that confronts her.

"-copy-cat faker asshole messing up my-"

"-I'd love to insult you in return, but I'm afraid I wouldn't do as good as nature already has-"

"-raaaghhhh!!!"

Brain briefly failing her, Akutoku stares as the twin Norimunes tussle on the ground in front of her.
Spoiler

Then the red-wrapped Muramasa grins, as an idea comes to mind.

Giggling to herself, the Sword of Corruption fishes around in one of her pockets, before finding a little notebook into which she hastily begins jotting down her thoughts.

Yes.... Yes! This can be part of her next big comiket compilation release!

Tongue poking out as she concentrates, Akutoku then begins mumbling to herself gleefully "Twins! No- Clones! Yeah, that's right! Yuri self-"

Before she can get any further, a noise makes her look up. An angry growling, that is her only warning before she receives dual kicks to the head in tandem, that send her flying.

"NOT ON YOUR LIFE PERVERT!" scream both Norimunes in unison.

 

[darthcourt10]

NotHimAgain

Discussion

-----

It was a strange, weary little council that sat at the Haneda's kitchen table.

Well, okay, it wasn't exactly a strange sight since Benio spent enough time there it could almost be called a second home for her, and Tonbo didn't look half so haggard as Tatsuya and Benio, who only looked slightly so themselves, but "strange, weary little council" sounds much better as an opening sentence, so we'll go with that instead.

"This guy's magic?" Tonbo asked. Tatsuya shook his head.

"I said he might be," he replied, resting his forehead against his hand. "It's not the impression I got from the research we did on the guy. If he is, though…" Tatsuya groaned, and Benio placed her right hand in her left, running her fingers over the ring on her finger. "Well, I hope that fuzzy-mind trick is the only one he has."

"What do you mean by that, anyways?" the Muramasa asked, leaning back in her seat. "You said that you were forgetting stuff, but everyone just decided to give you some space to calm down. So…"

"It was little things, mostly," Benio said, attention still on her ring. "Stuff like why I was going down the stair case, or what I felt urgent about, or what direction I was moving in. But right there, at the end, I think… I think that this," she raised her hand again, letting the jade gleam in the light, "might have forgotten it was enchanted."

Tonbo leaned forward, squinting at the ring. "You really think that?" she said. Benio nodded, and she leaned back again. "Well, that sounds pretty spooky."

"When it happened to me," Tatsuya added, "I was holding a lamp that I think was booby-trapped with a silent alarm or something. It had this button that…" he paused, wincing more out of annoyance than embarrassment, "that I think that I ended up pressing several times. If I was, then I somehow forgot."

"Forgetting, huh?" Tonbo said, looking up at the light. For a moment, Benio thought her face took on a weary sort of whimsy, the kind that came with remembering old, sore memories.

"What's on your mind?" she asked. Tonbo sighed and shook her head.

"Oh, nothing really," she replied. "Just knew a sword that could make people forget things once, is all."

"Really?" Tatsuya asked. "Do you think that she's involved in this somehow?"

Tonbo grimaced. "Unlikely," she admitted. "She apparently went missing during the second World War, something less than pleasant happened to her." She looked down, allowing her bangs to hide her eyes. "From what Juuchi told me, she's… different now."

Benio and Tatsuya shared a look. "Do you think that someone… could have studied her abilities at some point?" Benio asked.

"It's…" Tonbo blinked, then stood bolt upright. "I need to make a call," she said, almost stumbling on her way to the phone. Tatsuya and Benio watched her fumbling in her pockets as she went, then turned to look at each other.

"So, we want Miyuki in on this?"

"Most likely. Shipgirls don't have a problem with mind magic stuff, do they?"

"That's what I've heard. Maybe she could go down, check out that tank in the wall."

Tatsuya huffed, tucking his arms behind his head and leaning back. "You keep coming back to that for some reason."

"It stuck with me somehow. Like, somehow, remembering that was more important than anything else."

"… You think there's a hostage or something?"

"No idea, I just… all I know is that it's important."

"Hey there, war council!" Mamiya said, walking into the kitchen. "What's up?"

"Nothing really," Tatsuya said, sitting up straighter and stretching.

"I'm you sis~ter," Mamiya sing-songed, opening the refrigerator and pulling out a bottle of water. Tatsuya rolled his eyes and looked away, and Benio stifled a giggle.

"Did evening classes just let out?" she asked.

"Yep," Mamiya confirmed, taking a long sip. "And that means that I'll be leaving in a few." She turned, and smiled at her younger brother. "I should be back by the day after tomorrow. Think you can help out at the dojo in my stead?"

"Can't say so," Tatsuya replied. "We're in the middle of an adventure over here."

Mamiya frowned. "Is that so," she said simply.

"Uh, are you okay?" Benio asked. Mamiya's gaze flickered over to her, then she exhaled deeply and stretched her mouth into an approximation of a smile.

"I'm… not happy with it," she admitted, "but you two are pretty good at what you do. I figure you'll make it out okay."

The next moment, Tatsuya and then Benio were enclosed in quick, warm hugs. Releasing her, Mamiya smiled bravely and began to walk for the stairs. She paused, and turned around. "See you day after tomorrow," she said. Going by the tone of her voice, she was trying to make it into a statement.

"Say hi to Ashida-san for me," Tatsuya replied, giving his own variation on the tired smile.

"Don't worry, I will," Mamiya said, giving another smile. Then she was gone.
-----

The old man turned to glare at the tank, rocked as it was by its screaming occupant. Todoh had paid his customary evening visit not long ago, and the subject was still raging.

"When I took her speech," he grumbled, "I never imagined that it would leave her this annoying." The subject, either not aware or not listening, responded by continuing to scream. The old man turned back to his notes, running through them before finally slamming them down on the table in disgust.

"How am I expected to work like this?" he growled, reaching out and grabbing his wand. Turning to the blade that sat on the table, he raised his wand and held it over the offending weapon.

Abruptly, the screaming came to a stop.

As the old man returned to his notes, a dull bang came from the tank. Then another, and another, before it trailed off again. He smiled thinly. Making her forget how to speak had been satisfying, but fairly meaningless in the long run. Taking away her memory of how to even use her voice would probably bring much greater relief in the long run.

Inside the tank, she clutched her throat, breathing raggedly, feeling tears run down her cheeks (she could still do that?), and resting her fist against the wall that defined her world (for how long? It'd been a while, she knew that much), and wondered what had been taken from her this time.
-----

Well what do you think, sirs?

 

[darthcourt10]

Harry Leferts

"Professor? Can I talk with you for a moment?"

Jolted from his thoughts, Remus looked up and found to his surprise that the only people in the room were himself and Harry. A fact that he was unsure what to feel about as he looked at the boy in front of him. Part of that was due, of course, to who was in the classroom with him. Not, as for most, due to Harry being the Boy-Who-Lived.

But, rather, due to the fact that he was the son of two of his best friends.

Every time Remus looked at him he was reminded of them, which caused a bit of heartache and a pang of grief. Whenever he saw the boy with his glasses on, he looked so much like James that he had to stop himself from asking if he was planning a new prank. That was until he saw the eyes, the green eyes... Lily's eyes. When he had his glasses off though, the werewolf could see more of said boy's mother shine through. Features previously subdued coming forth.

There was more then just looks though to the werewolf. From what he could see the mischievousness was at times pure James and other times, it was Lily. Like Lily, he was intelligent and curious about how things that he learned, wanting to take it apart and see how it all worked. Something that James never had really, as he just took it as it was. More then once, he had spotted Harry in the library going over books and making notes in a notepad he had using a muggle pen. A sight that he had seen many times in his youth with Lily, often with Alice accompanying her.

Other times though, he brought forth memories of James. Such as when he had watched from the castle as Harry went through Quidditch practice. It reminded him of his now dead friend's own practices out on the same field. Or when he was walking through the halls with his friends, laughing and talking about something. Such sights made him for a moment see four boys, friends and almost brothers, also doing much the same.

Which was not to say that he mistook Harry for his parents as there were differences as well. James had often walked with a confidence around him, something that Harry shared with his father. But where James' confidence was boisterous and would drag you along like the current in a river, Harry's was a quiet confidence. One borne of his own experiences of the world, and its harshness from what Remus knew. Not a river, but more like a large lake, or ocean perhaps considering what he knew.

Yes, an ocean.

Deep and calm at times, knowing that it had power and did not need to prove anything to the world. But beneath it... one could tell there was currents and eddies. If it wanted, the ocean could easily create rough seas that would smash into, and through, obstacles. Storms that could lay waste to whatever challenged it and in the end wash it all away even if it took time. And then it could become calm once more.

And that was something which had caught him off guard, that confidence. James in school was always wanting, needing to prove himself the best. Whether that was at Quidditch or in school work, he had to be near the top, if not the top. Remus could remember how James would mess up his hair on purpose, a revolt against the fact that his father was known for the hair products to tame the untameable. To prove that he was better then some people through his pranks. But he did not see any of that with his friend's son. From what he saw, Harry did not feel the need to prove himself against the rest of the school. To stand out and above the others, because he was comfortable exactly where he was, in his own skin in a way that his father never was.

Harry may have been Lily's and James' son, but at the same time Remus could recognize him as his own person.

Shaking his head free of his thoughts, the Professor could see that Harry was waiting on him for an answer. "Ah, I'm sorry about that, Mister Potter." To Remus' gaze, something flashed through his student's eyes right then, though it was gone before he could recognize what it was. "You wanted to speak to me?"

Only nodding, Harry smiled a bit and rubbed the back of his neck. "If you have the time and don't mind."

With a hum, Remus leaned back in his chair and smiled a bit. "As a matter of fact I do, though..." Glancing at the clock, he frowned. "I don't think that it will be long as you do need to go to class."

A smirk appeared on the black haired boy's face then. "I got plenty of time, Professor."

Blinking, he furrowed his eyebrows for several moments. Then Remus chuckled some. "Ah, right. I had forgotten about that."

Slowly, Harry walked forward until he stopped and looked unsure. Then, he swallowed some and fixed his green orbs on the golden ones of his professor. "Professor... Moony?"

Eyes widening, Remus sucked in a breath as if he was punched in the gut as the words played over in his mind, including the ones that happened on the train. Swallowing with a suddenly dry throat, the werewolf took a deep breath. "I see... how?"

Understanding the unsaid question, the thirteen year old frowned slightly. "I've been reading Mum's, my biological Mum's, diaries and my Dad's journals. And, well... you're mentioned in them a lot. Including you, ah, monthlies."

For several moments, Remus stared at him before snorting and shaking his head. "Yes, that was Lily's wording for what I go through. Did you know that once she even bought me some tampons and told me that I could use them... The three of us were so confused about what she was talking about." Shaking off the nostalgia, he sighed. "But I am assuming that you want to know why I never contacted you?"

Simply leaning against the desk behind him, Harry nodded with a frown. "I was wondering that, and why you have been avoiding me as well." At the surprised look, a thin smile appeared on his face. "I've learned how to read people."

Bitterly chuckling, the werewolf shook his head. "I see." The clock ticking was the only sound that could be heard for a few moments before he lifted his head and met Harry's gaze. "I suppose that I have, Mister... Harry." Standing, Remus smiled sadly and shook his head. "Its not something that is your fault though, it-"

Amused, Harry's lips curled some. "It's not you, it's me?"

That made Remus blink once more before he snorted. "That was pure Lily."

Grinning as his eyes twinkled, the Potter Heir chuckled. "Really? Fur sure? I mean, I'm not barking up the wrong tree."

Unable to help himself, the Professor chuckled. "Yes, definitely Lily." With a sigh, he walked to the window and looked out. "If you read their journals, then you understand what happened to me? About my time in school?"

Arms crossed, Harry nodded as he leaned against the desk in a way that reminded Remus of his father. "How due to being a werewolf you were isolated?" Turning to the blackboard, the younger male had a gaze as if looking at something far away. "Always on the outside? How you did not think that you were worthy of friendship or such?" When the older wizard widened his eyes, he chuckled with a note of bitterness to it. "Let's just say that I have a feeling that I can understand it."

Head tilting to give him the point, after all he heard that Harry had lived with his aunt until he was adopted, Remus frowned. "No doubt." With a sigh, he leaned against the side of the window. "I wanted to see you, Harry. Oh God, did I ever want to see you... But... but I was certain that you would not want to see me. Most of the world considers those like me as monsters, beasts that could turn and rip out their throats at a moment's notice, who are dangerous to be around."

Snorting, the thirteen year old rolled his eyes before jerking his thumb at himself. "I live with an Abyssal that I adopted as a sister, with another one as a big sister. And also have a hundred or so Abyssals that call me 'Uncle'. Your furry little problem isn't that big of a deal."

Only pinching his nose, Remus let out a huff to disguise a laugh. "Yes, Lily through and through considering that is also what she called it." Sighing, he turned to regard his student. "It wasn't just that, but also guilt, Harry. I was not there when you, when Lily and James, needed me most. I was not there at their side when they died. And... and when you needed me, I wallowed so long in my own grief that by the time I thought about it, you were already at your Aunt's. And I knew that I would not be able to see you, which made it all the worse. I failed you all." Frowning, he remembered those days. While the rest of the country celebrated, he fell into a very dark place.

And it was not helped by the fact that the werewolf had awoken drunk more often then not.

Eyes closed, he shook his head some. "Lily and James would have been ashamed of me for what happened. And that hurt, that hurt so very much, Cub. So much so that I... well, let me just say that it was a spiral and leave it at that."

Considering that, Harry gave a small nod before frowning. "What about when you came to Hogwarts though? I mean... there was nothing stopping you from speaking to me, right?"

Lips thinly pressed together, Remus ran a hand through his greying hair. "There was, but not what you might think. I built the moment up in my head since I got this job. How I was going to greet you and talk. But as soon as I saw you, my courage failed. And it continued to fail, so like a coward I kept putting it off. Some Gryffindor I am." Turning, he looked directly at Harry. "You remind me so much of your parents, Harry. So much that it hurts at time as I can see them in you, reminding me of what happened. Reminding me that I must disappoint them, two of the only people that were close to me, for what I have done." Lightly laughing, which sounded brittle, the werewolf grimaced. "Besides which, what was I to say? How was I going to break it to you?" Spreading his arms, Remus shook his head. "'Hello, Harry, I'm Remus Lupin and one of your parents' best friends.'"

Somewhat bemused, Harry cocked an eyebrow. "Well, that would be one way to break the ice." Frowning, he asked the question that bubbled up into his mind. "So what were you going to do?"

For almost a minute, Remus was thinking before clearing his throat. "Well... I will admit that I was going to use the fact that I was a professor to become something of a mentor. Partially to buy me some time to figure out how to approach you. Possibly special lessons to be honest to get to know you."

Interested, the teen straightened some. "Extra lessons?"

Lips curling, Remus was reminded of a fox for some odd reason, perking up at something that had caught its interest. "As a matter of fact, yes. Wasn't quite sure what sort of thing to be honest, not at the time, though from what I heard you are interested in Defense Against the Dark Arts..." Frowning, he considered things. "In fact, I was going to approach you about the time when we perform the boggart lesson."

That brought a grimace to Harry's face at what that likely meant. "Ah."

Only nodding, Remus snorted. "Yes, well, having your worst fears exposed could be an issue. Though in your case I was going to take you aside and show you what it would transform into elsewhere. Mainly because I am rather sure that it would transform into You-Know-Who."

Much to his confusion, the black haired wizard in front of him snorted. "Voldemort is not my worst fear, trust me on that. Not after facing him three times so far."

Eyes widening some, Lupin's eyes snapped to Harry's and he bit back a snarl. "You faced him!? Three times!?"

With a blink, Harry slowly nodded. "Yes?" Not seeing the twitch in the older man's eyebrows, he began to tick off on his fingers. "When he came that Halloween night, at the end of my First Year when he was possessing a teacher. And again in Second Year when a past version of him came from a diary and was sicking a Basilisk on the school, which I killed and destroyed the diary, killing him that time." Turning thoughtful, he frowned. "I suppose that one time in the Forbidden Forest during First Year might count? Not sure if it does or not, which might make it four times."

Unnoticed by him, Remus had blanched a bit when he mentioned the diary. Then he covered it up and took a deep breath. "Yes, well... the fact that he is not your worst fear is a good thing then, I suppose."

Suddenly, a thought occurred to the thirteen year old and he grinned a bit. "You mentioned extra lessons though, right?"

Confused, Remus shoved what he just found out to the back of his mind to ponder over later. "Yes? Why?"

A glint in his eyes, Harry's grin widened. "You know that spell you used against the Dementors on the train? Considering what happened... you mind teaching me that?"

Remus blinked and then began to smile himself. "I don't think that would be a huge issue, no..."
__________________________________________________________________

Laying with his back against the tree that was his favorite spot on the shores of the Black Lake, Harry hummed as he gently scratched Natsumi behind her ears as she dozed against him with a small smile. For them right now it was an early Sunday morning, though for Natsumi it was more a Sunday evening due to the time difference. Glancing at the Kitsune laying against him, Harry felt his smile grow a touch as her ears twitched under his ministrations, her tails sometimes shifting. "Enjoying yourself, Natsumi-Chan?"

With a soft hum, Natsumi shifted some so that her head was more on his chest as she cuddled against him. "Hai, very much so, Harry-Chan. Its been a long week like always..." Then she chuckled some and kissed his cheek. "Though I like that we can have times like this."

Gently kissing her hair right behind a ear, which flicked, Harry nodded. "Same here, Natsumi-Chan. The two of us just relaxing after what a long week."

Interested by the book her friend was reading, the Kitsune cocked her head to the side. "What's that you're reading, Harry-Chan?"

Blinking, Harry moved the book some. "What? You mean this?" When she nodded, he turned back to the book. "Its something that my Mum wrote during the War. Apparently she was looking at old spells and the like that could turn the tide and make fighting easier."

That made Natsumi all the more interested in what was in it. "Oh? How so?"

Simply glancing at her, the black haired boy brought up his wand and made a motion with it as he concentrated. "Ferrum." In a flash of blue light, a dagger appeared at the end of his wand and then Harry gave it a flick, the blade embedding into a stump. Seeing her wide eyes, he shrugged. "Its a conjuration spell sort of like the Arrow Shooting spell."

Frowning in thought, Natsumi gave a small nod. "I've heard of that spell, wasn't there some Quidditch team that used to use that arrow spell to shoot them off in support for their team?"

Just wincing, Harry nodded. "Yeah, that would be the Appleby Arrows. They used the spell at the games until almost 1900, but were banned after they put one through the nose of the referee. For what should be rather obvious reasons..."

Now wincing herself, Natsumi let out a hiss. "Ah... So the spell you just did?"

Humming, the wizard she laid against glanced at the book. "Well, its a sister spell of sorts and was used centuries ago. Apparently one of my ancestors was very good at it to the point where she could conjure swords and other weapons to fling at her enemies by the score. According to what Mum wrote, said Potter could manage it wandlessly."

Several moments passed before Natsumi peered at the book, with Harry turning the pages to said place. Reading it over, the Kitsune had a look of disbelief. "Wat. No, seriously, what? That sounds like..." Pausing, she blinked. "By the Kami, that does sound like Unlimited Blade Works in a way."

Rather amused, Harry turned the page and tapped one finger. "Look at this one, conjuring a mass of blades and flinging them all together."

Pinching her nose, the thirteen year old girl shook her head. "Oh my Kami... I do not believe that." Then Natsumi narrowed her eyes some. "And you're learning it..."

A smirk on his face, Harry raised an eyebrow at her. "Can you really blame me for wanting to learn it, Natsumi-Chan? I mean, it sounds so damn awesome."

Only rolling her eyes, Natsumi sighed. "Boys." Quickly, said boy turned the pages until he tapped at another page. Eyes rolling across it, the Kitsune frowned. "Wait, this magic can increase one's strength and speed? What the hell? Why wouldn't that..."

With a shrug, the wizard shook his head. "Because it was not much use once mass battlefields and the like went away. I mean, sure, it makes one stronger and faster as well as tougher, but only physically. Though according to my biological Mum's notes? Its also because its hard to use other spells with it active, so it works best if you have a physical weapon. Not to mention, its not easy to learn either. Apparently, her and Dad used to use it fighting against some of the Death Eaters, and Ian Potter used it against some of the nastier physical things during World War One though nowhere near to the levels that others used it."

Simply shaking her head, Natsumi frowned. "That is rather frightening, though there are similar things in Japan." At the look, she shrugged some. "Not big things really to be honest, more like... hmm, flashsteps and such. I heard of one spell that supposedly boosted one's strength to monstrous levels, but had the effect of turning the person into a near berserker. Needless to say, said spell is not really used nowadays."

Harry gave a nod at that, understanding exactly why. Then he lifted his wand up and pointed at the stones on the shore before levitating them. Before Natsumi could ask what he was doing though, the stones began to rotate around them. Head tilted to the side, the Kitsune blinked as the wizard felt some sweat on his brow. "Can't do much with this one, I mean it just grabs physical objects and creates a rotating shield. Mum wrote that it was effective though at blocking the Unforgivables."

Grimacing at that, all his friend did was sigh. "Hopefully you won't have to use it, Harry-Chan."

In reply, Harry kissed her cheek and nodded. "Same here..." Then he went back to scratching her ears as she sighed happily.

 

[darthcourt10]

Mushapi

So Siusan saw Harry and Natsumi relaxing by Black Lake.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She slunk through the undergrowth, her bright red fur covered in mud. She was careful to not draw attention to herself. There were things roaming the forest now that were simply too dangerous. Who thought it would be a good idea allowing them near Hogwarts. Harry child wasn't in danger yet, however…

Siusan paused near the forests edge lost in thought. The child could find trouble like none of the children before him. Oh, her children could find trouble a plenty to be sure, but Harry… the trouble would seek him out. She blamed the Potter blood, foxes were much more sensible.

She scanned the area in front of her until her eyes narrowed. There he was by the lake happily chatting with a pretty young fox. Wait… what! There Harry child was chatting with a young fox. Harry was chatting with a fox. She just kissed him! And he kissed her back!

Siusan began to whimper, it was too much. She needed to go. This was… what was this? Slowly so as not to grab the young foxes attention Siusan slipped back into the forest. When she was far enough away Siusan stopped.

Harry child was in love with a fox. Harry child did not reject the fox. Harry child would not reject her. Siusan was overcome in that instant with joy. It was a joy she had not felt since Lily had been alive, she squealed in excitement. She let out worry she had not realized she had been holding all this time. Harry child did not hate foxes like so many of her descendants had unknowingly come to.

But what if Harry rejected her even then? He might be in love with a young fox, but she had been gone from his life. No. This was a sign. The two of them were like her and Brigid. Surely if he was like Brigid he would understand.

She had only seen them for a moment before slipping away but she was reminded of her own love. Her Brigid. The happiness she had felt earlier though quickly was replaced by worry again. What if, what if their tragedy was repeated? If Harry died before his time and his love was left behind pining for eternity? Were they ready for the possibility? Siusan shook her head. No, she'd make sure the two of them were happy so long as the young fox was right for Harry child. She needed to talk to her, find out her intentions toward Harry child. That is what Grand Mothers did after all.

Under a tree by Black Lake Natsumi's ear twitched. She looked in the direction of the Forbidden Forest, her eyes narrowing.

"Everything alright Natsumi-chan?" Harry looked concerned for a moment.

"Hai, Harry-chan, everything is just great."
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So what do you all think? Not my best piece for sure but it would not leave me alone. Anything that I should change that doesn't feel right? I am on four hours sleep as I write this. I like the idea of Siusan trying to confront Natsumi when she is alone to ask Natsumi questions regarding her and Harry.

 

[darthcourt10]

NotHimAgain

"Hello, this is Tsukiakari. Who am I speaking to—Tonbo-san?"

Honjo, sitting on the couch, perked up.

"I-I'm sorry, but Sempai is currently in England—What? Well, she's—Could you please slow down? I can't keep track of what you're saying!"

Honjo looked up over the back of the couch. Tsukiakari was chatting away, barely even able to finish her sentences and growing more and more agitated. Finally, she slowed to a stop, just short of giving the phone a dirty look.

"Tonbo-san would like to talk to you," she said, handing the offending object to Honjo. The Masamune glanced at the phone, not entirely sure that she wanted it after whatever the exchange the kyo-gunto had just shared with Juuchi's sister was, but accepted it anyways.

"Hello, Tonbo," she said, sitting back and holding the phone to her ear, "what can I do for you?"

"H-Honjo, I need you to listen to me—" the wakizashi stammered over the phone, and Honjo blinked. Tonbo sounded like she was half-driven to tears already. "Oh gosh, I… Uh, you remember what you told me?"

"Is something wrong?" Honjo asked, sitting up straighter. This did not sound like the flippant blade that Juuchi had introduced her to earlier. "Did something—"

"Listen to me!" Tonbo demanded. "You remember what you guys told me about, about Kyoshu, and what I told you about swords being stolen, and the, the guy you mentioned and…"

"Tonbo, what are you talking about?" Honjo snapped.

"I, I think we found someone. Someone there, they didn't see him, but he had memory spells everywhere."

Honjo frowned. Memory did sound like Kyoshu, but that was the Kyoshu of old, not Kyoshu the goldfish. "Listen to me, Tonbo," she said, "I need you to calm down. Take a deep breath, can you do that for me?"

"I think we found one of the guys who mind-raped her!" Tonbo exploded.

Honjo paused, lowering the phone. For the next few seconds, neurons fired, chaining together thoughts, linking "Tonbo's Case" to "Kyoshu" and "Unit 731." She inhaled deeply, let the breath out. Hand beginning to feel clammy, she raised the phone again. "Tonbo," she said.

"Yes?"

"You're saying you found a survivor from Unit 731," Honjo continued.

"I think that's what happened, I could be wrong," Tonbo explained, voice sullen, "But what with the sword thefts and everything, it just feels like too much of a coincidence… Maybe I'm imagining things, but… I thought you should know. And that you should tell someone."

Honjo thought still another moment, considering. Putting aside the thought of Unit 731 for the moment, there was another issue that was rearing its head. "I think," she said finally, "that you need to be the one to tell them."

"What?"

"If you found this, you need to tell them yourself," Honjo repeated. "We gave you their number when we—wait. Tonbo. Please don't tell me you deleted that."

Tonbo didn't respond for a moment. When she finally did, her voice was shaking, almost defeated. "I… I can't. You need to be the one."

Honjo growled, grinding the heel of her palm into her forehead. "Why not?" she demanded, "what's so horrible about talking to any of them that you can't do it?"

"Because family is sacred," Tonbo bit out, voice rising into a shriek, "AND I ALREADY FUCKED IT UP!"

The sudden outburst took the wind from Honjo's sails. She paused, trying to put together a response, before a soft noise over the phone caught her attention. Tonbo was... crying?

"Alright," she said, simply, "I'll do it."

"Thanks," Tonbo sniffled, and hung up.

For a moment, Honjo just sat there, looking at the phone in her hand, wondering if she had any right to engage in whatever it was that estranged the Muramasa from her sisters. Finally, she began to dial.

 

[darthcourt10]

Weaver

A/N: Had some inspiration, although the result isn't really up to my usual standard.

For Patricia, being awoken as a shipgirl was a strange experience on multiple levels. Not that she had any regrets about doing it; as terrifying as the split second after her last heartbeat had been that had all been swept away by the rush of power as her boilers came online and the feeling that a part of herself that she'd been missing her whole life had clicked into place. Besides, as she'd told everyone before hand, she wasn't about to stay on the sidelines while girls who looked younger than her Daniel went out to fight and that hadn't changed one bit.

However, that did sort of connect with one of the things she was finding strange, although it was well below things like her fairies, having radio in her head and a literal internal clock, her extremely variable weight, and all the other obvious aspects of being a ship in human form. Simply put, she was having to see a lot of things about herself in a new light. The most obvious one was the lifelong draw that the sea had had on her, which her family had never really thought about or considered unusual since her father and grandfather had both been fishermen and you don't stick with a job like that when there's other options available unless the sea has some sort of hold on your soul. But there was other things as well.

In her first life she'd been a cruiser designed specifically for the job of leading, backing up and generally looking after destroyers. In her second life she'd spent a good chunk of her school years semi-accidentally gathering a gaggle of younger children around her and looking out for them rather than playing with kids her own age. From what she remembered and what she'd been told her older sister had been much the same before meningitis had killed her.

As an adult she'd still wanted someone to look after. She'd married relatively young and would have started a family young too if they hadn't ended up needing help. Daniel's birth had filled a large part of the hole in her life and she'd filled the space left by the absence of other children by looking after anyone in her vicinity who looked like they needed it, be they family, co-workers or friends of her son. When the war started (and caused the loss of her admin job) she'd thrown herself into volunteering in earnest. She'd helped organise collections of donations for those who'd been bombed out or evacuated. She'd helped in temporary shelters, getting people settled, making countless cups of tea and being a shoulder to cry on for anyone who'd needed it. She'd done what she could to do her bit, even though her family had spent the early and hardest years of the war staying with family well inland. The sea may have still pulled at her soul but her son's safety was more important. Nevertheless, no matter what she did it never felt like enough, something that she couldn't explain until her son brought home a Japanese young woman with an unusual connection to their family who despite being a civilian ship managed to end up dropping quite the bombshell on them.

Now, while she had a lot to get used to, she felt like she was finally where she was needed and doing what she was supposed to. Sort of anyway. She wouldn't be cleared for duty until she'd got the hang of being a ship as well as a woman and as far as she knew no one else from the Ninth Destroyer Flotilla had come back yet so none of her destroyers were around for her to look after (on the bright side, Seydlitz, Moltke and Blucher hadn't come back yet either so she could continue to avoid that problem area for the time being). She just hoped that she'd be more use than she had been the last time she'd need stationed in Hartlepool (speaking of which, she couldn't help but wonder why she'd been reborn so close to wear she'd failed in her duty and had almost been sunk).

However, while her destroyers were yet to return to the world there were still destroyers at Hartlepool, along with frigates, corvettes and naval trawlers. All of them looked so young and had been through so much that even before awakening she'd wanted to wrap them in blankets and fuss over them. Her awakening hadn't really changed much on that front. They may not be her destroyers but they still needed looking after, both at sea and on land, so that's what she'd do to the best of her ability.

 

[darthcourt10]

Harry Leferts

A sigh escaping her as she cut through the waves, Hanna stretched as her training group continued towards the ever growing closer form of Rügen. With the appearance of Natural Borns alongside other shipgirls, it was decided that there needed to be a place for them to learn how to be ships. Britain used the Irish Sea for such, with France and Italy both used the Ligurian Sea for training their Natural Borns. For those countries bordering the Baltic though, it became obvious that said sea, once cleared, would be best to teach their Natural Borns how to be ships. It was also used for those ships who were never commissioned.

In Germany's case, the main area used was a small facility on the island of Rügen.

From where she was sailing alongside, Gorch Fock nodded at the group of shipgirls she was teaching. Once they came ashore, she smiled very slightly. "Ja, very good! Now then, you have all done good and it does my engines good to see it! You may all head to your dormitories and remember, tomorrow will be night maneuvers. Until then, you can rest up."

With that, she walked off to report to the Commandant of the small facility about how well they did. After she was out of sight, Hanna stretched some. "Mmm... I can't wait to hit the showers."

Chuckling, one of the others crossed her arms with an amused look. "Showers? Is that what you are going to do, Hanna?"

Simply rolling her eyes, the Heavy Cruiser nodded. "Ja, and then spend an hour just relaxing in the baths before hitting bed. After the past week of being pushed hard, that sounds heavenly, Sophia. You?"

Head tilted to the side, the Spähkreuzer 1938, the only one of her class, chewed her lip some even as she blushed. "I... might also hit the showers, but then check the shipgirl watchers for news..."

Lips curling some, Hanna walked up beside her and chuckled some. "Looking for some news about Tirpitz, hmm?"

Now looking away, Sophia grimaced some. "Ja." Sighing, her shoulders slumped a bit. "Especially as that is about as close as I might come to her."

Just shaking her head, Hanna clapped her on the shoulder, the sound of steel hitting steel ringing out. "Sophia, I told you, you will get your chance to join Frau Tirpitz as part of her group. And when you do, you'll show her your skills upon the high seas and impress her. You're right behind mein own self in training after all."

Glancing at her, the Light Cruiser seemed embarrassed some. "Do you really think so, Hanna?" Hands coming down to play with her skirt some, she looked down. "Why would Frau Tirpiz even give me a look."

Slowly shaking her head, Hanna sighed some before giving her a gentle smile. "Did you not just hear what I said, Sophia? I am certain that Frau Tirpitz would be happy to have you with her group. It is what your class of ship was designed to do after all, help screen the Battleships. And you have been working hard to make it where they will consider you as part of her escort."

For several moments, Sophia did not say anything right away before she turned to Hanna. "Do you really think so? Because... you know why I wish for such."

Looking around them as they walked towards the small Repair Bath area, the other Natural Born nodded. "Ja, she saved you from the Abyssals when they shelled your town."

With a nod, Sophia smiled sadly. "Ja, I lost mein parents that day without me knowing. One of their Cruisers had come ashore and I could see them, within sight aiming towards me... when suddenly she was destroyed by shells that came from nowhere! And there, out at sea I could see her, Frau Tirpitz having been the one to kill that monster! She was just... so incredible."

Hanna gave a nod at that, having heard the story so many times. About how Sophia had looked towards Tirpitz as a source of strength during the dark days afterwards, even though she never saw her live again, only on television screens and the like. That the Battleship had inspired her to do her best... and then she found out that she was a shipgirl, like her hero. Even more so, she was of the type designed to work with Battleships like Tirpitz.
It went without saying that she had jumped at the chance.

Shaking her head with an amused look, Hanna raised an eyebrow. "Ah! But most would say such about her Schwester as well."

Only shrugging though, her friend shook her head before wagging a finger. "Do not get me wrong, Hanna. I see Frau Bismarck as being great as well! But Frau Tirpitz? She is relatable, approachable in a way that Schwester is not." Then her shoulders slumped some. "But now she has those Abyssal Destroyers..."

Eyebrow raising, Hanna frowned some. "You do not have issue with them being Abyssals, do you?"

Rapidly widening her eyes, Sophia shook her head and waved her hands. "Nein! I do not have issue with that! But rather..." A sigh escaped her. "Rather with them, what use am I?"

After being around her for so long, Hanna was able to tell that her friend was truthful about her feelings. She really did not feel any hostile feelings beyond being saddened that now she might not be able to sail alongside her hero. In reply, the Heavy Cruiser gave her a small shake. "Come now, we both know that Battleships need more then just Destroyers! They need Cruisers as well!"

Frowning, Sophia pointed at herself. "They call me a Cruiser, but I'm more a large Destroyer."

That only made Hanna shrug in reply. "Nein, you are a Cruiser, mein Freund. And a good one at that! Trust that you will reach your dream, I know that you will be able to."

Sophia nodded at that before hugging her. "Danke, Hanna." Tightening the hug, she smiled. "Danke."

Hugging her back, the Hipper only shook her head. "You are welcome, though you don't need to thank me for that."

With a smile, Sophia pulled back before giggling slightly. "I will go ahead, Hanna. It seems that your two shadows wish to talk with you." Another giggle escaped her as said Heavy Cruiser blinked. "I will see you in the Repair Baths."

Once her friend was entering, Hanna felt said "Shadows" come up beside her, smiles on their identical faces as they spoke at the same time. "And you wonder why we all look up to you, Hanna."

Turning, the Heavy Cruiser looked at the other two members of their "Cruiser Training Squadron". Both girls wore white button shirts and short pleated skirts with their pale, blonde hair styled the same way on opposite sides as their piercing blue eyes caught people's attention. Rather amused, Hanna crossed her arms and gave them a look. "You know that people find that creepy, Mia, Mila."

Both of them continued to smile and simply shrugged before once more speaking at the same time. "We do not understand why, Hanna."

Then their eyes widened a bit and they shifted closer to Hanna as one of the male personnel walked by, with the older girl simply placing her arms over their shoulders as they leaned in. Said personnel only gave them a glance before continuing on, all of them having gotten used to how uneasy the two girls got around strange men. However, all were thankful that the two Natural Borns could now turn off their Allure, unlike most Veela, since awakening.

Not that most knew that little fact outside the commander of the Base, Hanna, and the other shipgirls being trained there and the trainers.

Glancing at them, Hanna grimaced a bit as she remembered their story. The girls were Veela whose grandmother had lived in the village by the German Potter's home and had been taken by one of Grindlewald's followers in the closing days of the war and used as... "Servants" of his family, though most called it as it was, slavery of the worst sort. When the family had been killed, according to them, by some sort of wraith the older Veela lead them back to their home village where they met Marie and Johann. Soon after, several German personnel had arrived to help them, though it was also discovered that a number of them were uneasy at best around men with Johann just non-human enough that they could relax around him and the male Swan Demi-humans as well.

And the twins, Mia and Mila were two of those.

However, thankfully, the twins could learn to trust being around any men. Hartmann was one of those who they were comfortable around to any extent and more then once before Awakening, the two had visited the Admiral in his office to play with the Wolpertinger. Of course, Hartmann always keeping the door open when they were in there to help them relax more. The two girls had also attached themselves to Hanna herself, and since becoming shipgirls they had taken to her as an older sister figure. Something that Eugen, gently teasing, had stated that they reminded her of how she acted around Bismarck.

When she had met them though, much to Hanna's confusion, the two had wanted to know about Harry. They had heard about him from Marie, Johann, and Bartholomew. And they had wanted to know more about the Potter. One thing though that Hanna noted was that they especially wanted to know his relationship with not just her, but also the other shipgirls and such. It took some time, but Hanna realized that they were concerned about it. And upon realizing that, Hanna had nearly gotten a concussion from how hard she had facepalmed due to remembering their past.

It had taken time, but the two had relaxed about it. Especially after Hanna had showed them some video taken various times with Harry and herself, as well as others. She had even asked Harry for, and gotten permission, to tell them some of said boy's own past. Something that made them more comfortable, which Hanna was thankful for. Didn't stop them from shadowing her once they knew what they needed, hence the nickname.

Though, from what Hanna had gotten from Eugen, it may well become something permanent as both girls had requested to be placed with Hanna as part of her flotilla. And to be truthful, Hanna did not mind too much about it. She did need escorts after all for missions.

Now, in the present time, Hanna could feel the two snuggling into her side as she smiled lightly at them. She knew that Mia and Mila were tired after all, and likely would knock out shortly after entering the Repair Baths after being pushed as hard as they had been as graduation from the training program approached. "Come, we should be getting inside to get clean before they start to wonder where we went off to, hmm?"

Lightly smiling, Mia nodded against the older girl. "Mmm... They might have thought that you went to meet with Herr Harry early."

At the blush on Hanna's face, they giggled. Only rolling her eyes in good natured exasperation, the Hipper guided them into the Repair Docks. Entering the changing room, the three shed their uniforms before heading into the showers. As they washed up, Hanna noticed that Mila was once more running a finger down her sister's back in some awe. However, she did not comment as she understood that it was due to lack of scars there. When the two had become shipgirls, all their physical scars vanished, leaving behind unblemished skin. Something that still stunned the two from time to time. Instead, Hanna walked over and took a washcloth before soaping it up. When Mila turned to her, the older shipgirl smiled. "Here, I'll help wash your back and you can do your Schwester's, ja?"

Nodding, Mila took her sister's washcloth and began to clean her twin's back, Hanna doing the same for her. Then the Heavy Cruiser let them both wash her back before they rinsed off and started to shampoo their hair. Soon enough though, the three entered the Repair Pool and sighed as they felt it go to work with their tired muscles. Laying back, Hanna opened her arms with the two younger girls entering her embrace and pillowing their heads on her chest. Humming, Mia and Mila snuggled deeper. "This is nice."

The repair fluid gently washing around them, Hanna only sighed in relief. "Ja, it is."

Both twins were silent for a few moments before Mia spoke. "Frau Hanna... we're going to graduate soon, Ja? And you're heading to Scotland?"

With a small nod, Hanna looked down at her. "Ja, that is right. Once I'm graduated from the program I will be heading to Scotland to be stationed on the North Sea. Like I told you, I will be better able to meet Harry once I am there."

Chewing her lip, Mila then spoke up, her eyes meeting Hanna's. "Do you... will we..."

In reply, the Hipper reached up and stroked her hair. "Will we remain in the same Flotilla? With you as my escorts?" When they nodded, she nuzzled first Mila's hair and then Mia's. "What a silly question! I will need escorts after all as I am a Heavy Cruiser! And I shall need someone to control the 1936As! We all know how Destroyers can get." Humming answered her. Feeling Mia yawn, followed by her sister, Hanna leaned down and kissed them both on the tops of their heads. "It would seem that perhaps we need a bit more rest, hmm? I do not think that a short nap would be much trouble."

Eyes closing, the Light Cruisers just nodded at that and soon drifted off to sleep with smiles on their faces. Watching them doze, Hanna smiled and leaned back. Soon enough, she, too, was asleep. Before falling fully asleep though, two thoughts went through her mind. One, was how well they might get along with Harry when they finally met. The other was the odd thought that Eugen might be proud of her for some odd reason she could not grasp.

Then she was asleep and dreaming of various things. Such as having Harry as her Admiral in the future, with her two current Escorts at her side...

 

[darthcourt10]

Shaithan

Badass

Out in the Indian Ocean, a convoy slowly made its way from China to Europe. Its protectors were a varied bunch, encompassing several European girls, European warships and quite a few veterans from Samar who were moving from their Far Eastern station to be stationed in Spain.

"Ah, I remember these waters," one of the older shipgirls mused happily. "Those were the days," she added, while taking a sip from a hip flask.

Johnston's interest was peaked. There wasn't much to do before they would reach Madras the day after tomorrow and getting older shipgirls to tell their stories always excited the destroyer. She would never forget how Aurora regaled her with stories of defending Leningrad or giving the shot that signalled the start of the Great October Revolution. She had even taught the Taffies some of her songs. New Jersey's reaction to hearing Johnston hum the hymn of the Soviet Union had been glorious.

"So, what did you do here back then?" she wanted to know, leading to others paying attention. It looked like story time was once again upon them and there were few things that were as well-regarded as past deeds and sailor's yarn for wiling away dull moments.

The girl chuckled. "Oh, nothing much," she understated. "A bit of cruiser warfare, some raiding, stuff like that," she said, enjoying Johnston's twitching. The Fletcher knew there was a bigger story here, dangled before her nose. And the bait was too delicious. She had to bite.

"Cruiser warfare?" Johnston asked.

"Yes. It was quite the journey I had. It started with the Ostasiengeschwader going home and me getting dispatched to cause some disruption elsewhere, to keep the eyes of the Royal Navy elsewhere. So I went through the Dutch East Indies and started to raid the Indian Ocean, mostly between Australia and India," she explained.

Johnston had large eyes. "Alone? Against the Royal Navy?" she wanted to know.

Emden grinned. "Who said it was only the British that looked for me? The Russians and the French helped as well," she stated with a grin. "And what a journey it was. I snuck into the harbor of Penang, disguised as a British cruiser and sank a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer. I didn't take a single casualty, neither dead nor wounded. Which ensured that my name would enter Malaysian languages as a word for a dangerous and cunning foe," she explained.

Johnston's feather dress stood on end. "Whoa!" she said breathlessly. "That's badass!" she declared, her fingers twitching madly. Her innate desire to rip off the shirt sleeves of a badass conflicting with hearing more of that story. Because she just knew there was more to be had.

Emden laughed when seeing the twitching Fletcher. "Oh, trust me, we did a few more capers," she promised. "Now, from my initial foray into the Indian Ocean it took only a short time for Australia and New Zealand to stop all shipping towards Europe through the Indian Ocean," she laid out, laughing lightly. "Which meant that they needed to find me. Now, I'm not as good as my sister at hide and seek, she kept the Royal Navy busy for months and when they finally sunk her, it was quite easily a low point in how Britain treated neutral countries back then. Their warships violated Chilean neutrality to sink her when she had surrendered to Chile. The girls involved in that prefer not to talk about it," she explained, making Johnston twitch harder.

"Oh, you need to learn patience, little one," Emden said, while poking Johnston in the side. "A good story takes time. And a bit of meandering has to be allowed for one as old as I," she added, leading to a pitiful destroyer whine.

"There was a lot of activity in these weeks. I hunted primarily British ships, sneaking close under false flag and disguised, before showing my true colors. I ran through this part of the ocean as if I owned it. We made a port call at Diego Garcia. My captain had planned to destroy the outpost, but when we came close, they happily greeted us, provisioned us, let us do light repairs and sent us off with the best wishes. No one had told them there was a war going on and my captain didn't want to repay hospitality with hostility," she told the astonished Fletcher.

Johnston for her part simply stared in awe. Sure, no one had told the people they were at war with their guests, but it still took big brass ones to reprovision at an ostensibly hostile port. Then again, sneaking into a major hostile port to assassinate a cruiser and a destroyer before retreating without taking a single casualty. A life of piracy. Johnston felt incredibly awed. This was what hero stories were made out of.

Emden watched to pondering Fletcher at her side, before giving a light cough. "You know, there's more," she promised.

Johnston got shiny eyes. "More?" she wanted to know. "You have assassination and reprovisioning at a hostile port and shutting down maritime trade in an entire Ocean already? Plus changing a language to accomodate your actions! How can there be more?" she asked incredulously.

The old cruiser gave a mirthful chuckle. "There can always be more," she stated sagely. "Such as the raid on Madras, where I sailed close to Madras and shelled the port, setting fuel storages alight and destroying vast amounts of fuel stored in the harbor," she explained. "Just like in Penang, I came in the night and before people got their bearings about them, the devastation hit," she said. "I left, leaving a merrily burning fuel depot behind and in Madras my name has come to mean a sudden, devastating force," she finished, leaving Johnston quivering with excitement.

"I met my end at the Cocos Islands. My captain had wanted to take out a radio station there that was important for British communication in the area. We took the radio station, but a they managed to get an SOS out and HMAS Sydney was dispatched from a nearby convoy to meet me in battle. Unfortunately, my captain had miscalculated, he thought Sydney to be 250 miles out, when in truth she was a mere 50 miles out. There was no time to gather the shore party he had sent. He set out and I went out swinging against Sydney. My defeat is remembered by the Australians as the birth of their navy in its own right. Two of my guns are memorials in Sydney and Canberra. And it was good meeting Sydney again. We hope to be able to meet for the centennial at our place of battle, this time as friends," she told the awed Fletcher at her side.

"That's awesome!" she declared.

"Oh, but it's not over," Emden gave back impishly. "Not by a long shot. Didn't you wonder why one of the German helicopter carriers has an Iron Cross on her bow, something none of her sisters have?" she wanted to know.

Johnston perked up. "Right, she does," she mused, remembering seeing the carrier in briefings and a few convoys she had escorted.

Emden grinned widely. "You see, the exploits of my crew didn't end with my sinking. Remember the shore party?" she asked.

Johnston's eyes threatened to bug out of her skull. "No way!" she said.

Emden laughed. "Yes way. They commandeered an old schooner, the Ayesha, and set out on her, towards the Dutch East Indies. There they were picked up by a steamer headed towards the Ottoman Empire. It was a sad sight for them to see Ayesha go down and if I can ever see her, I'm going to hug her a lot, but they had a plan. A plan as daring as the raid on Penang. Making landfall in Yemen, they travelled through Arabia, to get to the Hejaz Railway. It was an arduous journey through the unforgiving Arabian desert, but they made it. They found the Hejaz railway. And via the railway they reached Istanbul, reporting back for duty," she told. "There was a great reception for them, they were treated to a Hero's welcome. Even the British were impressed. They had already called me a worthy adversary, but this journey? It was something out of an adventure novel. A stranded crew returning home against all odds," she told Johnston.

"Of course, there were other things. The Emperor decreed that any subsequent ship with the name Emden should wear an Iron Cross on its bow. And it's something that has been kept up to this day. Wotan will even add one to my rigging the next time I go in for a refit," she laid out. "My crew were all allowed to add Emden to their surname, in honor of their deeds and their service," she explained. "But yes, these waters carry some fond memories for me. It was here that I left my mark on the world and even to this day it hasn't been forgotten," Emden added, before casting a curious glance at the madly twitching fingers of Johnston.

"Is everything alright?" she asked with concern.

"Don't worry," Hoel interjected. "My sister is quite convinced that badasses shouldn't have sleeves, so she wants to rip off your sleeves. On the other hand, that has landed her in trouble before, so she tries to stop that urge around foreign shipgirls," she explained.

Emden laughed. "Ah, such is youth," she mused. "Always with the funny ideas," she added, laughing some more. "Go ahead, little one, I don't mind," she said.

Johnston gave high-pitched squeal of joy at getting to rip off the sleeves off a badass's clothing, before ripping the uniform with much gusto. "Thank you!" she said breathlessly. "I really don't get to do that often enough!" she added.

Emden ruffled Johnston's feathers. "Oh, don't think of it little one," she said indulgently.

"Say, will you have a rematch with Sydney on the centennial?" Hoel asked.

"No, I don't think so," Emden gave back. "Why?" she asked curiously.

Johnston turned beet red and frantically moved her hands, trying to get her sisters to shut up, but Hoel and Heermann were not to be deterred.

"You see, Johnston here demanded a rematch with Yamato, to underscore her badass credibility," Hoel explained.

"Oh yeah, that was a sight, Johnston here all bluster and bravado, and then, boom, Yamato's opening strike was devastating. She caught Gambier Bay in the blast radius," Heermann went on, while Johnston give off a high-pitched whine.

"All that bluster turned to fluster when Yamato simply handed her ice cream, hugged her, headpatted her and called her a good girl. Complete defeat," Hoel finished, leaving her sister completely flustered.

Emden laughed. "Getting ice cream from Yamato? Can you two honestly say you wouldn't have gone down just as quickly as your sister?" she teased the flushing destroyers.

Johnston grinned widely, finally someone who saw it her way.

"Take it from me, your sister made the wisest choice," Emden explained. "She could have tried to fight, sure, but a true badass knows when it's more advantageous to be soft and fold. Plus, Yamato ice cream. I think even Enterprise would be hard pressed to say no to that. Not after Yamato was taught the secrets of ice making by a few Italians a few years ago," she added.

Hoel and Heermann had to admit that there was wisdom in these words. And Johnston meanwhile felt incredibly satisfied. She hadn't been ignobly defeated, she had folded when it had been advantageous. A scuffle was always fun, but ice cream made by Yamato was better.

"Say, can you teach us a few songs?" she suddenly asked.

Emden shrugged. "I don't see why not," she said, beginning to muse. "Oh, right, how about the Alabama song?" she suggested. "The original one," she added with a grin. "Or the Ballade von den Seeräubern if we have time," she added, leading to cheers from the assembled destroyers. Songs were always a great way to pass time and some lead to very interesting reactions from New Jersey.

"Now, sing after me," she began. "Oh show us the way to the next whisky bar. Oh, don't ask why! Oh, don't ask why!" she sang with her smoky voice, leading an enthusiastic chorus of Fletchers.

-x-x-x-
I hope it doesn't step on any toes. I've tentatively set it around 2011 or so.
Here's the original Alabama Song:
And the Ballade von den Seeräubern

 

[darthcourt10]

Lord K

Fallenworldful said:
You sly kiwi you


I guess it's no surprise that the Boshin War and the end of melee combat as the deciding phase of battle saw even Kago's incredible ace-in-the-hole ability fail to save her wielders. After all, it matters little if everyone around you is suddenly so terrified they can't function if you get nailed in the face with a cannonball fired from a mile away. She's probably more effective now as a sword spirit than she was as a blade because she's no longer dependent on a squishy human wielder who is hurt by her own ability to be deployed for maximum effect.
SkyeFire said:
I dunno, watching Kago go through the process of learning to emotionally connect to people outside the Butter Knife Clan, how to be a partern, lover, and parent... could be fun. Could also be hilarious, depending on how you play it.
And now for some reason I'm seeing Kago as Egon Spengler, somehow... "I'm sorry, Umitsubame, but I've become terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought."​

*-*-*-*-*
The attack had come, swift and without warning.

Just as it had the previous times Kagotsuruhe had seen it happen.

It was supposed to be their tactic in this war. They had even employed it to similarly devastating results upon their foes.

But almost just as often, so too had they found themselves on the receiving end of it's usage.

It had seemed like such an ingenious idea at the time of it's creation; First there was the use of tracking spells cast by spies infiltrating the enemy camp, or covering the battlefield in variants of the Trace or Point Me spells, keyed to the unique magics or artifacts of certain foes and enemy clans. The kind that would only be held by high profile individuals or important leaders of commanding rank. Next, during the battle itself, a trio of teams apparate to pre-selected positions surrounding the perimeter of the area, and attempt to discern through charms or divination, at least the direction of the selected targets from themselves. Even if the enemy had magically concealed themselves from sight or hidden their exact location, just knowing the general direction meant that once bearings were relayed back to one's commanders via vocal-component patronus, it was a matter of simple trigonometry to figure out roughly where they might intersect. After that, falling upon those foes who were unlucky enough to linger in the same position long enough for one's own side to assemble a strike team or lay an ambush was child's play.

What nobody had even considered though, was that if these western inspired tactics were so easy to come up with or reverse engineer, then what was to stop their foes from doing the same?

Even more costly in retrospect, was the other aspect of the equation. Why did the westerners not use such tactics more regularly themselves?

The answer was that the westerners had counter spells and wards to defend against such deep-strike ambush and battlefield assassination tactics, in what few larger scale conflicts, with proper chains of command, they fought against each other.

Counter spells and wards nobody had thought to reverse engineer or develop themselves, in the hasty adoption of the new tactics.

And now they were paying the price for it, with the lifeblood of Japan's magical aristocracy. It mattered not whether one was kuge or bushi, nor whether one believed loyalty lay to the Imperial Court or the Shogunate, who both swore loyalty to the Imperial Throne anyway. An ambush against the unprepared, was just as deadly to all.

Distantly, Kagotsuruhe hears the sounds of battle in the next valley over, muted by the hills behind which they were to wait in hidden reserve. Overhead, a hawk wheels aimlessly through the storm cloud filled sky. Trained only to descend and deliver the message tied to it's leg, to a commander it can no longer find in a field of fallen bodies. The ambush has been mutually devastating to attacking force and Kagotsuruhe's allies alike. What was once an elite retinue to the Urabe clan, was now unidentifiable from the bodies of their foes, which together formed a harvest of gore and riven armor, spread out across the field where they had been awaiting their orders.

Now in the ruined shrapnel of humanity and yokai, there were only a scant handful of survivors.

A number soon to shrink.

Stalking through the carnage, Kagotsuruhe's eyes scan the field unerringly, colder and sharper than even those of the carrion crows already joining the hawk circling above.

Occasionally sweeping her free hand through the air, icicles lance out to impale the heads and hearts of those foes who still live, but are frozen in place. Paralyzed in the chilling grasp of the aura being unleashed upon the field, by the horrific shadows sublimating off the naked steel at her side. Unerringly though, her path is focused on one foe in particular.

A dog yokai sporting an enemy banner begins to howl and claw at his eyes as she passes within a hair's breadth of him. A wizard blubbers helplessly to himself, so frozen with fear that his wand refuses to produce more than the briefest puffs of ineffectual, silvery aether, rather than a patronus. A third man moves to pull out a black-powder pistol, only to find himself meeting her frigidly empty gaze as she locks eyes with him directly. After a few seconds, the man pales to a ghostly white and his eyes shrink to terrified pinpricks. Kagotsuruhe marches on, as he then turns his firearm to his temple instead of her.

A few moments later, a shot rings out.

Finally though, she arrives before her actual target.

The man kneels on one knee, as if struggling to rise against a crushing burden. Even that however, does not stop him from briefly attempting to raise his bow. One nocked with an arrow, dripping something vile and black from the head.

Grabbing the bow and violently ripping it from his hands, Kagotsuruhe breaks the weapon over her knee, before kicking the man to the ground.

Normally Kagotsuruhe is clean with kills. She has always been taught to be brisk, efficient, and never to draw things out unnecessarily. Her preferred method of ice-spear to the face will end it all in less than a second.

But this time... this time something is different.

Though she is not sure why, something burns within her, creating a cutting agony, greater than even the most frigid and piercing of icy spells she has ever cast.

Stabbing her true form into the ground, Kagotsuruhe doesn't need to tear off her gloves, as they are technically a part of her, but she does so anyway. Then, like someone unraveling bandages, the skin of her fingers and hands unwinds into streamers of black cloth and dark haze, revealing things, ivory-white and in the shape of human hands below.

The archer screams, mind reeling and turning in on itself at the sight alone, but Kagotsuruhe is without mercy today.

Lighting fast, she grabs him by the sides of the head, and hauls him up until he is almost face to face with her. Her eyes bore into his, piecing through the defenses of his mind like an avalanche of ice and rock through a peasant's rice-paper house.

She can feel his intoxicating fear, but even as she ignores the hunger for more, there is something else. A new urge, that overrides what centuries of training and learned 'social-norms' at the hands of her masters say. She is being inefficient, illogical, pointlessly drawing this out. She is being cruel.

She should stab him and be done with it.

But something else, unrelated to her expected and normally resisted urges to feed and feel something other than hollowness and need, cries out as well.

Draw it out.

Hurt him as they have hurt the others.

Make.

Him.

Suffer.

Screams assail her ears, and she isn't sure if it's just the man who is so gripped by fear he sounds like a wounded animal, or if she herself has joined in for some unknown reason.

Has she been wounded without realizing it?

The man's eyes roll into his head, shrinking to manic pinpricks. She can feel his thoughts becoming a torrent of nightmares, that even she can barely keep up with, while his hyperventilating breath competes with the rocketing pace of his heart. Spittle and foam start to turn his tortured bellows and screeches into incomprehensibly garbled gargles. The tears that leak from his eyes, frozen open in terror, soon become tinged with blood as the vessels in his eyes start to burst. Trails of carmine that are soon joined by similar red trickles which leak from his nostrils and ears. His maxim-gun pulse now becomes chaotically jumpy and uneven in it's break-neck beat. Finally, his mind's racing thoughts begin to become stuttering and broken, moments before the physical motions of a spasming seizure take ahold of his form.

Her work done, Kagotsuruhe grips the now limp and convulsing archer by his head, and hurls him back to the ground with such strength and uncharacteristically violent force, his skull is dashed open upon the earth.

For a moment, the Sword of Hopelessness stands over her final victim, gaze cold and unflinching while her hands return to normal human appearance. For some reason, she finds herself struggling to breath. An oddity considering that for how devastating the ambush was, it did not overly tax her.

All foes eliminated and the area sanitized of those who might live long enough to do further harm or survive to report the failure of the initial strike, Kagotsuruhe turns around. And then she breaks out into a run, sheathing her true form, and ending the aura of terror that hangs over the battlefield, as she races back across the scene of death. Though there are still survivors from her side, and more than a few desperately in need of a magic user's aid when there are too few left to see to everyone, the Sword of Hopelessness has her mind on one person above all others.

"Urabe-sama! My lord Urabe!?" Racing between fallen banners, and leaping over the corpses of allies and enemies alike, Kagotsuruhe skids to a halt as she returns to where her rampage through the enemy's ranks began. At the side of a young man, impaled to a tree by a magically enhanced arrow through the chest before anybody could even react the force which had appeared in their midst. "Master Inagaki!"

"Ka.... Kago-nee....?"

Realizing that her master is in no state to deal with her being drawn from her sheath so close by at this time, the Sword of Hopelessness' gaze darts about, before she ends up pulling a mundane sword out of another corpse and then uses it to slash through the arrow where it exists the back of her master's armor and pins him to the tree. Carefully supporting him as the now unpinned magical slides down limply, Kagotsuruhe pulls off his helmet to make the disquieting discovery that his youthful features are now worryingly pale and marred by black veins. "Master Inagaki!"

Glancing back up at the tree, the sword-spirit observes that where the arrowhead has entered the trunk after exiting the not-man-but-boy, the sap which leaks out is tinted black and smells of decay. Tearing off his chest armor reveals a similarly ill-boding effect surrounding the flesh where the arrow has entered his chest, and exited his back.

"My lord- you have been poisoned!" Reflexively, Kagotsuruhe begins rifling through his belt. The one she should have been tied to.

The one that she wasn't, because Inagaki was too inexperienced to use her.

That strange wound in her chest that she cannot identify, comes back when she taps into his emotional state to get an idea of whether or not he's in shock or if his mind is being effected.

Damn these politics and oaths of old. Inagaki shouldn't have been here for this fight! He hadn't had enough training yet! He was too young! He was too valuable! He was the last Urabe of the Nanao line left!

With unerring efficiency and practiced motion, Kagotsuruhe does her best to stem the bleeding. While her first aid skills are adequate, battlefield surgery is beyond her forte, and so are poisons. To her increasing concern, whatever substance her master has been afflicted with, seems to include some form of anti-coagulant. And unless she can be certain she can stop the bleeding, all methods she knows for removing the arrow, would instead simply end up killing him or dooming him to die of internal bleeding or lung-collapse instead.

She's on to the fifth type of general poison-curing potion, when Inagaki weakly stops her hand from raising the flask to his lips.

"Master Inagaki? You must drink!"

The lord who is a boy more than a man, weakly shakes his head. "Kago-nee....I don't think.... any of those will work.... this is something foreign.... I think this might be.... watered down basilisk...."

Kagotsuruhe fears she has been stabbed, but prioritizes Inagaki's well being over her own. "If that is so, then I shall just have to get you to a healer!"

The teen's soft grip on her hand stops her from rising. "Kago... even if I lived through the trip back to the main camp..... I doubt anybody has anything strong enough to.... cure basilisk venom..... just lying around....'

The Sword of Hopelessness freezes. "Master Inagaki? What-? What are you saying....?"

"You know.... what I'm saying Kago-nee...." whispers the last remaining Lord of Nanao.

"You speak falsehoods induced by blood loss or poison." declares Kagotsuruhe as she returns her focus back to trying to stem the worst of his bleeding with mechanical speed and motion, only to uncharacteristically fumble unwrapping a bandage. "I will spirit you away from this damnable battlefield. You shall be healed. I shall take you home to recuperate. You shall finish your training like you should have. Your honored grandmother and I shall find for you a lovely wife, to have a veritable horde of spawn with, and one day you shall pass me on to the eldest of them. One day, we shall find ourselves surrounded by a clan once more so populous, and in a time of such peace, that your descendants will doggedly defy decorum by addressing me as if I am some kind of family member rather than a tool."

"But.... you are family Kago-nee...." murmurs Inagaki with increasing weakness. "You're the....."

Kagotsuruhe doesn't quite hear what Inagaki's says she has been to countless generations of the Urabe family for the last 359 years.

Looking down at the reams of now bloody bandages and padding, that still fail to stop the black tainted blood which continues leaking from where the arrow perforates his chest, Kagotsuruhe slowly lowers her hands. The last roll of linen drops into the blood soaked mud surrounding her knees.

Raindrops begin to fall on Inagaki's chest and her knees, no doubt heralding the that the storm above is soon to break.

"What am I to do now Master?" she asks quietly. "Without you, I will have no more Lords or Ladies of the Urabe to serve. Who else has the strength to bear my will? To lend me this semblance of humanity?"

"You.... can...." declares Inagaki with a fast-fading surety. "I trust..... you to... Kago-nee..."

With idly cold, detached logic, Kagotsuruhe notes his increasing shortness of breath. At this rate, the exsanguination and pulmonary edema from the blood pooling in his chest will kill him faster than whatever diluted poison the strike team's assassin used. Which probably was the intention, if the arrow failed to deliver a fatal enough does on its own.

The Sword of Hopelessness then finds her train of thought derailed, as Inagaki reaches up to her with a trembling hand, brushing at her face.

"Master Inagaki, what are you-?" Kagotsuruhe then pauses, as she sees his fingers come away damp.

"S-See Kago-nee.... you're... human enough...."

But she doesn't feel anything?

She only feels wounded.

She wants to torture, and kill, and feed until this wound is repaired.

But she won't.

Because that is not what the Urabe have taught her.

Without them though... who is she supposed to turn to, to guide her?

She.... she doesn't know what to do....

"But Master...." quietly, she picks her bloody and mud covered true form off the ground where it has lain beside them, cradling it in her hands as she looks back to the teen dying before her. "W-What use is a sword with no owner? Where am I to go? Who am I to be bequeathed to. What is my purpose, if not service to the Urabe Clan?"

With faltering strength, Inagaki raises a hand, and gently pushes her arms, and the sheathed steel within them, to her avatar's chest. "Kago-nee.... I bequeath you.... to yourself."

"T-To me?" she asks, chest contracting from some further new attack she can't discern.

"And..." wheezes Inagaki, closer to death with every shallow, gasping breath. "....your purpose.... is... -hgk-"

"Master! Save your strength!"

"-your purpose..." he gasps, drowning in his own lungs, "....is to...to smile..."

"I- what?" Kagotsuruhe stares, uncertain and unclear as to what her master means in what can only be fading lucidity. But still, she grasps at straws to keep him awake. "I-! I can smile! See!"

She knows it's probably a terrible one. She's coated in blood and gore from the battle, and her expressions have always been described as mask-like at best. Mirrors of other people's, applied to her face. Nevertheless, Inagaki smiles weakly, pinkish foam appearing at the corners of his lips, which twitch as he sees who's expression and face she chooses to mimic. "...that's... true... but that's... mom's... smile..."

Seeing the end for the teen is close, Kagotsuruhe slowly places her true form back to the side. For a few moments, she hesitates. Then, for reasons she isn't quite sure, the Sword of Hopelessnes carefully tries to make him as comfortable as she can on her lap. The same way she has seen mothers, aunts and older sisters do for their younger children and siblings, when comfort is needed.

"K...Kago-nee....?"

"Yes Master?" she answers, an unusual and odd waver to her voice.

"....You... need... to find... your own.... one.... Find... what makes.... you smile.... live... and become... our.... the.... Urabe clan's.... living memory..."

Kagotsuruhe nods, as if quiet determination and obedience alone will stop the shinigami's work. "I- I don't... understand but- but if that is what Master Inagaki bids, then... then.... Then I shall carry it out! I will take it upon myself, as your command!"

"...that's... good......." he sighs, closing his eyes.

"Do you have any other commands master?" She asks desperately.

"....hmm..." Inagaki's voice is now barely a murmuring shallow breath.

"What is it Master?"

"........"

Kagotsuruhe blinks, trying to figure out what Inagaki's fading words were. "Master? I didn't quite hear....?"

The young kuge does not respond.

"Master? Master Inagaki?"

Gently she tries to nudge him.

"My lord Urabe, please-"

Hand reflexively darting to Inagaki's medical pouch, Kagotsuruhe stops herself.

Resuscitation....

Resuscitation would be pointless.

Wavering for a few moments, Kagotsuruhe then turns her focus towards the mind in her lap and it's slowly fading soul. Reaching out, The Sword of Hopelessness then brushes them, as her latest, and likely final master, begins to die.

Memories rush past, too quick and rapid for her to discern much sense from outside of brief flashes. Glimpse of life (one cut too short), while the mortal flesh dumps it's chemistry into it's surroundings, producing a final euphoric peak, that only the dead may ever properly know of or understand.

Then begins the slow fade. Like a dying candle, quietly flickering and gutting itself out at the end of a wick. Minutes go by, as she slowly watches everything that is Inagaki... the last of her masters.... the last of her family..... dims and disappears from her perception.

Finally it is over. There is no mind for her to detect, and the vessel is bereft of any form of spirit it is within her ability to sense.

Gone, leaving her behind.

Alone in the mud and blood, with a ruined, cooling corpse in her lap.

Alone, bereft of not only last person she was sworn to protect, but everything she has ever known and built herself around.

Beyond the hill, one of the key battles to decide the fate of magical Japan rages on. Uncaring and unceasing for a sword spirit realizing her world has come apart. Distant cannons and yokai roar, while gunfire and spellfire bark similarly, in a fight for a future which regardless of who wins, will no longer include the ancient Nanao line of the once great and noble Urabe Clan.

"I'm sorry..." Kagotsuruhe whispers quietly.

Whether it is to Inagaki, the countless Urabe she has now failed by letting the line die, or herself, she is not sure.

 

[darthcourt10]

Harry Leferts

Propeller slowing, the Canadian Forces Twin Otter coasted towards the shore at the end of the Labrador fjord. Soon enough, it came to rest on a pebble beach just before a dense woodland. Looking out into the foreboding forest, the pilot swallowed a bit nervously. Mainly because he could almost feel eyes on his craft... and see movement out of the corner of his eye in the shadows of the trees. "Something wrong, Lieutenant?"

The sudden voice made him jump a bit and he twisted around in his seat to look at his lone passenger. A passenger who seemed rather amused be the whole thing. "Um, no Ma'am. It, well..."

Chuckling, Diana Lombard smiled slightly. "Let me guess? You find this place creepy?"

More then a little sheepish, the pilot nodded. "Yes, Ma'am." Glancing back at the trees, he could feel the hairs on his neck prickle. "I've been to a lot of places in the far north. And only a few creeped me out as much as this place."

Eyebrow raised, the Admiral considered him silently before humming. "Interesting..."

When she didn't continue or state what she found was interesting, the pilot coughed. "A-anyways... Just wondering what we're doing here is all." With another glance at the forest, he thought that he saw a shadow flit between two tree branches. "Seems an odd spot for you to order a flight to."

Leaning forward in her seat, Diana gave a chuckle at that, an odd look in her eye. "True, I suppose that there is that. But I have a very good reason to come here." Head tilted to the side, she smiled. "Did you know that this place was one of those I often visited while on the hunt for what was causing disappearances on the high seas before the Abyssals revealed themselves? After my first voyage in the Atlantic as the Captain of the Endeavour we found ourselves here at least once every couple of months."

Shocked, the pilot stared at her. "Here?" Leaning forward, he frowned as he looked around in utter befuddlement. "But... there's nothing here? It's just a Northern fjord with creepy trees. What could be here that would give you the hint of Abyssals?"

Mysterious smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye, the woman only hummed before looking out the window. "What indeed could be here."

As she grabbed a large pack and opened the door, the pilot looked around again in confusion. "Ma'am? What are you doing? I mean, you're not actually..."

Hopping out with ease onto one of the pontoons, Diana heaved her backpack over her shoulders and looked at him. "You have your orders, Lieutenant. Once I am on the beach you are to leave and return tomorrow morning close to noon. Upon arrival, you will wait for me until nightfall, and if I need more time, you will leave until the next day and return. You will not speak of this to anyone except your Base Commander. Is that understood?"

Even though he was still confused, the pilot only nodded. "Yes, Ma'am. Understood Ma'am." Waiting until she stepped onto the shore and walked up a ways, the Pilot restarted the engine and was soon making his way down the forested fjord. The whole time a frown on his face. "Is this some sort of Spook bullshit?" Shaking his head, he began to climb towards the greyish sky. The whole time inside the Lieutenant's head was various rumours that had bounced around the base since the mission had been announced and the Admiral has arrived.

Most of the rumour and hearsay was due to how the Admiral in question, Rear Admiral Diana Lombard had gotten the intel before Blood Week she had. Everyone knew of her voyages in Command of HMCS Endeavour and how she got intelligence that not only gave Canada warning, as short as it was, of Blood Week, but kept them in the fight. He also heard rumours that part of the reason that the USN and RN were not as hammered as they should have been was due to her also contacting people from there who also had been prepared. What was a mystery, however, was how and why she had such intel. Not to mention what sort of information she had gotten as most was still classified to the highest levels.

Even the place he just dropped her off at was mysterious. A lonely, isolated fjord in Labrador, miles away from anything. When he had looked up information for the trip, he barely found anything. And most of what there was available was so redacted that it was more ink than paper!

If anything though, that only fueled speculation as to what she knew and how, usually over some beers. Some of the theories could get silly though. One of the more amusing being that she was in contact with some sort of hidden culture that operated behind the scenes. Another was that she was actually part of a secret agency whose whole purpose was to deal with the paranormal and keep it under wraps with super technology and help from aliens. With said agency having been destroyed during Blood Week fighting a rear guard action. That had made him snort in amusement.

Others claimed though that she had a lover who passed on the information. An Abyssal Princess who had gone rogue before Blood Week and was feeding her information after Admiral Lombard had pulled a Kirk on her. Or that she was the human lover of the Captain of the Flying Dutchman, possibly even Davy Jones himself!

Alternatively, she was the daughter of one of them or a slew of other sea gods.

But the stories always had the same piece, that she would only meet them in isolated areas. And in such lonely places they would feed her information about the Abyssals. Something that the Lieutenant had thought completely and utterly ridiculous at the time when he had heard them. Now?

Feeling as the plane climbed, he pilot glanced at the beach with the last sight being Diana looking up at him before he was over the forest. A shiver going down his spine, he shook his head. Now? Now he didn't know what to think. Flying over some hills, he continued on back to base with his thoughts awhile.

Meanwhile on the beach, Diana watched as the plane disappeared with a slight smile on her face before shaking her head. "Well... might as well get a move on." Adjusting her backpack's straps, she began to hum a tune as she entered the forest. Not bothered in the slightest by the feeling of being watched, the RCN Officer found what looked like a game trail and started to hike along it.

Around her, the only sounds were those that one would find in the northern forest as she got further and further from the sea. The shadows the trees grew only deeper, each forest giant hundreds of years old and rising up above her. So high and thick, one could not see the sky. And from their branches hung old man's beard, looking for all the world like their namesake. On the forest floor and fallen trees, mushrooms of all sorts sprouted. It was a primeval world of sorts. From far more ancient times when strange beings and beasts wandered the planet.

Dangerous times.

Unaffected by the atmosphere, Diana continued her trekking until she came to a small clearing where a large, upright stone stood by a spring. Said stone was covered in odd markings with the Admiral walking forward until she stood before it and placed her hand onto the stone. Fingertips barely brushing the rough stone, she smiled a bit and set her backpack down. Reaching inside, she then pulled out a horn that she brought to her lips and blew as hard as she could. The sound from it echoed forth, bouncing among the trees and stones of the ancient forest before reaching the fjord and ripping out.

Said fjord soon had waves sloshing back and forth in it before they calmed while dark shapes streaked for the shoreline. In the forest by the stone, Diana let out a sigh and closed her eyes while tilting her head before smiling. "Hmm... I wonder, have I improved, or have you gotten a bit lazy."

Hearing a scoff, she turned as a slender being stepped out from the shadows of the woods dressed in furs and a tunic. Said person had skin as black as coal while his eyes burned red as his lips curled upwards some. When he spoke though, it was with a Scandinavian accent. "One would wonder, Diana Ericsdottir." Grinning and showing pearly white teeth, he walked forward and embraced the Canadian who rolled her eyes before pulling back and slapping her on the shoulder. "It is good to see you!"

Lightly laughing, Diana slapped his shoulder back. "And its good to see you as well, Bjarke Colbornson!" Turning, she smirked at the other shadows appearing from the woods. "And you brought other Dökkálfar as well, I see."

Just laughing himself, Bjarke shook his head. "Of course, old friend. Some of these are youngsters and who you likely knew were there. A few being ones that remember you from your previous visits and wanted to come visit you!"

Unable to help herself, the Canadian Officer shook her head as she looked at one in particular. "Selby, just look at you. You've become a fine man, I remember when you reached my hip."

Cheeks darkening, the young man nonetheless had a twinkle in his red eyes. "And I remember you being much younger, Diana."

More laughter rang out among the clearing before Bjarke turned to Diana. "It has been some time now, Diana. Lets head to the hall and you can tell us what tales you have while we feast at the arrival of an old friend!"

Allowing herself to be pulled along, Diana shook her head and soon they entered the area with the hills... except, they were not hills at all. Rather, they were sod roofed buildings. Here and there Diana could see various beings peering out at her, with some young children rushing out and greeting her. Smiling, Diana shook her head and opened her backpack before pulling out some candies and handing them to the youngsters. "Here you go."

Heavy footsteps though made her stand up and tilt her head back...

Quite a ways back in fact to meet the man who now stood before her, about fifteen feet tall at the very least. Clad much the same as the others, he raised one bushy eyebrow down at her while stroking his braided beard. "Diana Ericsdottir, it has been some time. Though..." Furrowing his eyebrows, he gave a look to the grinning children, one of whom looked like a five year old except she stood equal to Diana in height. "I do wish that you would not bring treats here. The children enjoy them entirely too much!"

Slapping her husband in the arm, the giant woman rolled her eyes. "Oh, be quiet, Raðulfr! The little ones enjoy it and it is rare that we see any visitors." Reaching down, she gently hugged Diana to her. "But it is good to see you again, our friend."

A bright smile on her face, Diana hugged the massive woman back. "And it is good to see you as well, Iórunnr." Once she was set down, she patted her belly. "So, I heard something about a feast?"

Laughs met her and soon she was being guided along while looking around. Part of her was still amazed by the story that had been told to her and the crew of the Endeavour so many years ago when they first stumbled across the settlement while in the fjord waiting out a storm. All of them were descended by settlers from the Nordic countries and had been living there since the attempted settlement of North America by the Norse. Their ancestors having travelled there, guided by Loki according to them. Mainly due to persecution back in their old countries which was partially due to not wanting to convert to Christianity...

The rest being that since they were not human, with some of them being descended from Jotun/Human children.

Upon their arrival, according to their Saga, they settled there and in some nearby valleys and fjords with many others. Jotun, Dökkálfar, svartálfar, and some Ljósálfar. Hearing a noise, Diana looked to the side to see a massive, serpentine dragon rise out of a pool of water, really the entrance to a tunnel that went all the way to the fjord. The dragon, really a Lindorn, then transformed into a well built man and was soon followed by others. All of them having lived there for centuries, hiding.

When she had asked why they came out to meet them, Raðulfr brought her before his aunt. Said giant had been a seer, and explained that she saw a way to save many lives and to make their own better in the future by helping them. Through them, they had been put into contact with mermaids and selkies in the Atlantic as well as other creatures. And thanks to them, they had gotten enough information for the government to start building up the RCN. Especially when they had shown the various Ministers and top Officers in the military actual video of the meeting.

Said memory of their reactions still warmed Diana's heart at times.

A smile on her face though, Diana shook off those thoughts and turned to the upcoming meeting. Though she would need to tell tales of various things in return. However, thankfully, telling them of shipgirl shenanigans was more then enough.

Later that night though, the Canadian Admiral sat on a chair while her hosts were gathered around her. Frowning, Raðulfr leaned forward. "You bring us news, Diana?"

Simply nodding, Diana reached into her pocket and pulled out an envelope. One that she soon opened and passed the paper to the giant. "Here, this is from the government to both you and the others. But there is one piece of news to give though." When they looked at her, she continued. "It is official, the Statute is coming down and likely will collapse in the next four years at the latest."

Eyes widening, the various people there murmured to themselves while Raðulfr looked over the paper. For several moments, he was quiet before taking a sip of mead from a large bowl, then passing the letter to his wife who also began to read. Placing his chin on his hands, he regarded the much smaller human before him. Not that he judged her from her height as his people considered her a great warrior in her own right. To become a leader of men, of warriors at her age said much. And her treatment of them made them hold her in high regards indeed. Enough so to continue to pass on information about the Abyssals to her. Finally, Raðulfr gained a smile on his face. "So the government wishes to make a treaty with us? But before then has already agreed to trading food and such?"

More then one of those stared at him before Bjarke took the offered letter and his eyes scanned it in growing disbelief. "This is..."

Taking a sip of her own mead, Diana considered grabbing some more moose meat from the nearby table before deciding not to. "We can't do much right now with the Statute still in force, you understand. But there are a number of sailing ships and the like." With a look at each one in return, she smirked a bit. "Officially, they shall be convoys heading to the northern parts of Canada. Iqaluit and such for example, but some of them will peel off in the area and gladly trade foodstuffs and the like with you for whatever you might be willing to trade." Glancing at the dwarf there, the woman raised an eyebrow. "Mine tailings for instance to be reprocessed..."

With a soft snort, the dwarf downed a bowl of drink before grabbing a hunk of meat and eating it. "It would certainly get it out of the way of our mines. And we cannot do much with it." Eyeing her, he frowned. "Is it worth that much?"

Diana shrugged at that and shook her head. "Reprocessing old mine waste is pretty profitable to be honest. And it would give your community credit for when the Statute falls to buy and trade for what you want. It is not a bad deal to be honest for right now and anything more will have to wait for more negotiations. Generally? I would like to think that Canada has learned from the past. As well, once the Statute falls, what you have done for the country will be widely disseminated and will most likely make you all rise in status as we owe you so much."

Nods met her at that, as she never made it a secret. Something else that caused them to respect her. And so the discussion went on long into the night and continued that morning. After sending away the plane, Diana went back to the talks herself and eventually left with a tentative agreement to meet and to what was offered.

 

[darthcourt10]

NotHimAgain

So, Tonbo and her sisters.
-----

The mid-1890s

Akutoku watched the man shuffle by nervously, then turned to her sister. "Who's that?" she asked. "He doesn't look like a monk."

"He's a local," Chisuheri replied stoically. "He came here earlier today, claiming that he was being chased by a yokai. The Head Monk took pity on him and allowed him to stay the night.

"Really?" Akutoku hummed. Then she grinned slyly. "What kind of yokai?"

"Akutoku," Chisuheri said, glancing at her with a sort of a side-eyed glare, "do you really have no where else you can go?"

"Nope! Norimune's meeting me here."

"Wonderful," Chisuheri said under her breath.
-----


Hours later, Norimune had still not arrived.

"You think she got held up somewhere?" Akutoku asked, tapping her feet and looking up at the night sky.

"I think that you've forgotten how many times you've asked that question," Chisuheri replied flatly. "Why don't you go out to the gate and wait there?"

"Because that would be boring," the other Muramasa replied matter-of-factly. Wisely, Chisuheri chose not to respond to this.

The next moment, it was rendered moot by the scream that pierces the air. The sisters broke into a run, charging through hallways and upstairs before Chisuheri skidded to a stop before a door and threw it open. The sight that greeted them was… dramatic to say the least.

The man come to escape whatever was tormenting him lay on the ground, life fading from his eyes as his blood poured out. Standing above him was a girl industriously hacking him to pieces with a familiar wakizashi.

"Tonbo?" Akutoku exclaimed. "What happened, finally got sick of flower crowns and drinking tea?" Tonbo started, as if from a reverie, and half-turned half-leaned back to face her sisters at a bizarre angle. Her expression was vacant, her face splattered freely with the blood of her victim. Chisuheri's hands clenched into shaking fists

"Akutoku, Chisuheri," she said slowly, as if only now remembering how to speak, "you're here." She straightened, and turned to face them. "That's not good?"

"Tonbo. What. Have. You. Done?" Chisuheri demanded. Tonbo blinked, as if confused by the question and the rage on her sister's face.

"I killed him? Obviously," she pointed out. "I mean, I've got the sword and everything—oh, wait," she stepped forward, pointed herself at the man's forehead, and thrust. "Okay, now he's dead. Should really be more careful about that…"

"This is a temple!" Chisuheri cut her off, stomping forward.

Planting her feet, Tonbo pulled herself from the man's body and examined her blade almost curiously. "Yeah, so?" she asked, "I don't think—"

"Okay, well, I for one am glad that sister dearest has learned the joys of casual murder," Akutoku snarked, jumping in before Tonbo could more or less commit suicide, "but couldn't you have just pushed him out a window or something? I don't wanna be the guy they send in to mop that up." Tonbo silently turned and stared into the space directly between Chisuheri and Akutoku's heads. Then she returned her attention to the corpse, bringing her sword up and down like a piston.

On the third stroke, Chisuheri strode forward, grabbing Tonbo's arm and arresting her swing. "That's enough," she said, voice a growl. "He's already dead."

"No, it's not," Tonbo said matter-of-factly, "it's not enough, he took Mii away." She paused, frowning, as an idea occured to her. "And they…" she added contemplatively, "they took Gin-chan away." She cocked her head back, looking over her shoulder and giving Chisuheri a look so painful that it only counted as a smile because the corners of her lips were turned up. "They're gone! Gone, gone, gone, all…" the strength suddenly vanished from her and she dropped to her knees. "All gone," she said, laughing.

"Well this is mildly disturbing," Akutoku said, taking a step into the room. Chisuheri stood there, looking down at her sister. The anger slowly began to filter from her expression, and she released her grip on Tonbo's arm and knelt beside her, placing it on her shoulder. The wakizashi's laughter ceased completely.

"What are you doing, Chisuheri?" she asked, "I need my arm. Please give it back."

"Tonbo," the other Muramasa said, voice masked in measured calm, "Calm down. What's going on here?"

"I told you, I need my arm, please give me my arm back."

"Tonbo," Chisuheri paused. "Tonbo, you should get some rest. I don't think you're very well."

Tonbo froze. Blinked twice. Then, face morphing into a rictus mask of rage, she spun and brought her sword down with a clang.

"Okay, okay," Akutoku laughed, blade held out to intercept Tonbo, "Let's all take a moment and—Hey!" she shouted as Tonbo immediately switched tracks and swung herself at her, "you're supposed to let me finish!"

"Really?" Tonbo asked, and Chisuheri took the opportunity to punch her into a wall. The two Muramasas watched as their sister stumbled, pushes herself upright.

"Oh, I see," she hissed icily, "That's how it is."

Then she chargeed forward, self raised. Akutoku ducked back as Chisuheri leapt forward, grabbing her arms as the wakizashi came down. Tonbo kicked her in the stomach, knocking her back, then hopped backwards into a somersault as Akutoku swung at her feet and charged after her. Tonbo spun away, evading her attempt to lock up her blade and give Chisuheri an opening.

Akutoku grinned darkly. "Come on," she says, "don't kid yourself! You've always been a wimp—figures that you'd go after an unarmed man. Were you trying to swat a fly and just didn't realize he was there?"

Tonbo looked blankly at her. "No, he killed my family," she replied, "weren't you paying attention?" Chisuheri was behind her suddenly, throwing a punch at her head. Tonbo ducked, blocked another punch with the pommel of her sword, and then kicked her back again. "Chisuheri, you're doing it wrong," she said, ducking under Akutoku's swing. "You're a sword, and swords don't punch they cut. Come on, do it right this time."

"Believe me, I'd love to," Akutoku growled. She jumped back and Tonbo took the bait, charging forward before suddenly jumping into the air and flipping as the Sword of Corruption tried to strike at her. Akutoku had to dive away from Tonbo's own strike, sliding to a halt in front of the corpse. "You just make it so difficult jumping around like that!"

"I'm a dragonfly, remember?" Tonbo asked.

"Seriously?" the other Muramasa spun around, bringing her katana to bear. "How scary—

Then her foot slid out from under her on a puddle of blood and she fell over, trying to regain her balance. Just as quickly, Tonbo's foot was planted in her chest, and she kicked her away.

"To other bugs, yes," she completed the sentence, shifting her head back to evade a punch, another punch, a kick. Chisuheri grit her teeth, swinging faster and faster as she tried to push Tonbo back against the wall.

"I told you…" the wakizashi snarled as Chisuheri's fist approached her face, "you're doing it wrong!" Suddenly, Tonbo flicked her sword into the air, flipping it over the coming fist as she ducked below, grabbing the falling blade in a reverse grip and swinging it up into Chisuheri's stomach, opening a wound all the way up to her chest. Tonbo's own fist came up and caught Chisuheri in the face, knocking her back towards the door.

Blinking, the wakizashi looked down at her hand. "Huh," she said sullenly, "I did it too. Sorry, I shouldn't have done that, I should have—" she leaned backwards, falling onto her back as Akutoku stabbed at her from behind, rolling to the side, "—done it properly. Like you, you're doing it properly. You're a good sword."

"Oh goody," Akutoku replied, "I've been endorsed by another crazy person." Tonbo pouted, rolling to her feet.

"I'm not crazy, Akutoku, that's mean, and you should take it back!" she complained. Akutoku rolled her eyes and charged again.

"Hey," she snarled, swinging away. Tonbo almost danced around her strikes, looking less like her namesake than a demented butterfly. "I call it like it is!"

And then her sword hit the windowsill, and Tonbo had all the opening she needs, kicking her back and tackling her to the ground in the pool of blood.

"Jerk!" she yelled, grabbing her by the hair and slamming her face into the ground over and over again. "Jerk! Jerk!" Blood splashed into Akutoku's mouth and she tried to spit it out, but before she could her head was moving up and then down again. "Jerk! Jerk! Jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk!"

Then, suddenly, she stopped. Akutoku spit out the blood in her mouth, pushed herself up onto hands and knees, and looked up at her assailant just in time to see the last of the rage melt away from Tonbo's face. Glancing back, she followed her line of sight to find Chisuheri, lying on the ground with that massive open wound down her front. Looking back at Tonbo, the only indication of any emotion on her were the tears streaming down her cheeks and mingling with the dried blood on her face.

"So," Akutoku laughed, rubbing the blood away from her mouth with the back of her hand, "let's call that my win—"

And then, suddenly, Norimune's fist was planted in Tonbo's face, sending her flying out the window. "Are you alright?" Norimune demanded, glancing over at Akutoku. The Sword of Corruption scowled, pushing herself to her feet.

"I'm fine," she snapped, pointing out the window, "Go after her!" Norimune pauses, eyes flickering around to take in more of the scene, then she nods and jumps out.

She returned forty minutes, admitting that she lost her.

Throughout the rest of Meiji, the war, reconstruction, and everything that comes after, Tonbo vanishes from their lives.

 

[darthcourt10]

Harry Leferts Omake: Juuchi considering using traditional Potter Methods on Tonbo

Trufla said:
Well, if Harry can achieve the complexity of a Long Lance to do a Torpedo Spam attack, he should also be able to manage reloads on one of the hand-held turrets that we already know he can operate but not reload until now. You have to admit, using his wizard abilities to supplement his shipgirl powers would make sense in the long term. And I can see him putting in some research to achieve this, just to become a more effective naval commander for his eventual Fleet posting. (And if he does manage even part of this, you can't tell me the shipgirls wouldn't be dreaming about Harry joining them on patrols that way.)​

True enough... and now I remember something from Blizzard of the Red Castle...

NotHimAgain said:
I can't say that I remember what this method is, but I'm listening.​

*-*-*-*-*-*


"Well, it shall need some modifications from the normal method, but the general way that the Potter family has dealt with troublesome members of the Black family who have trouble listening should work."

Umitsubame raised one eyebrow and looked at Juuchi who claimed she knew of a way to get Tonbo to at least talk with them and the like. With a look at the others, she waved a hand. "Sure, go ahead."

Clearing her throat, Juuchi smiled smugly. "First, being as I am the only one of us who has not had a bad encounter with Tonbo for the past few hundred years." All of them rolled eyebrows at the smug from her. "I shall take her out and get her drunk. Extremely drunk on various magical alcohols which will incapacitate her for a week due to drunkenness. With that done, I shall track down her Master or Mistress, I forget which, or possibly whoever is above them in the family I suppose. I shall then seduce said person, and get them to force Tonbo to talk with us."

For several moments there was silence before Chisurhe raised a hand. "Your joking."

Beside Juuchi, Tsukiakari shook her head with a slight frown. "Well, it is modified. Usually the Black is male and the Potter seduces his sister..." Frowning, she tapped a finger. "Or his mother in one case. But that usually helps deal with troublesome members of the Black family who will not listen to reason."

Yet again, there was silence before Norimune spoke. "What. The. Fuck. Is. With. Your. Family?!"

Sharing a look, Tsukiakari and Juuchi answered at the same time, one of whom was more smug then the other. "Potters."

 

[darthcourt10]

NotHimAgain

Well, that's the second snip today. Haven't done something like that in a while.

Happy birthday to me, I guess?

Chasing, Chasing

-----

Antonio looked up at the sky, thoughtfully. It was a bit disappointing that the housebreaker—one Haneda Tatsuya, according to the school's files, younger of two children and the tiniest bit of a problem case—lived only a thirty-minute train ride away from the lab. Someone who had figured out that their memory was being manipulated like that should have been smarter… Though, Antonio supposed, the boy might not have expected to have his records hacked so easily.

As he walked, he cracked his knuckles. He would have to move quickly, in and out of the house. Four bodies, smothered. His gloves were in his pocket, just waiting to be put on, and…

Wait.

He turned, looking across the street at the woman walking by with an overnight bag slung over her shoulder and shinai case hanging from her back. Yes… That was the sister, no doubt about it. She was leaving for the night?

This is already more difficult than one thirty-year-old woman who never married, he grimaced.

The house or the girl? Which should he take care of first?
-----

"She's here," Benio said, and Tatsuya looked up from his shoes to see Miyuki crossing the street. He pushed himself off of the street sign he'd been leaning against, stretching and feeling the fading imprint that it left on his skin.

He paused. There was a woman following Miyuki, one that he'd never met himself. "Who's she?" he asked, nodding toward her as the destroyer came to a stop.

"Well hello to you too," the woman replied sarcastically.

"She's the Honjo Masamune," Tonbo said, looking over at her. "You came."

"The way you say it, you make it sound like you didn't want me to," Honjo replied. Tonbo shrugged.

"Maybe I didn't, she said, looking up the street. "Besides the point. We doing this?"

"Give me a moment, running a checklist," Benio said, digging through her backpack. Tatsuya smirked.

"Glad to see you're on top of everything as ever, Mom," he said cheerfully. Benio stuck a hand in the air, pointing at him.

"Dad had better get that rid of that attitude or I'm not making dinner tonight," she sniped back.

Tatsuya chuckled and turned back to Honjo. "Okay, but seriously," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets, "we called Miyuki in because she's supposed to be immune to that mind magic bullshit. This is going to—"

Honjo cut him off. "Tonbo called me earlier to inform me that there was a likely Unit 731 escapee close enough that you could take a train to his house after lunch and be back before dinner," she said, speaking curtly. "One with unusual memory-altering spells at that. If he is who she believes him to be, then I am far from the only one who would have a vested interest in tracking him down and ending him." Tatsuya gave her a blank look, considering her words. Then he turned back to the street sign, leaned over and rested his head against the cool metal, and swore.

"I'm sorry?" Honjo asked. Benio, rising and shrugging her backpack on, waved her off.

"It's not you," she said with tired amusement, "It's… those guys. We've encountered their leftovers before. Now! Who's ready to go and take care of business?"

"Wait," Honjo said, pulling her phone out. "Where are we going, anyways?"

The other four paused.

"You're calling the others," Tonbo said. Tatsuya turned to face her, but paused at Benio's hand on his shoulder. She nodded at the sword, and Tatsuya looked more closely, at how she was hanging like a weighted marionette.

"You make it sound like you didn't want that," Honjo replied, stepping towards the Muramasa.

"Didn't want it," Tonbo grumbled, scuffing the ground with her foot, "Needed to." She turned to face Honjo. "He's hiding out with or as a big-shot professor guy called Todoh Byakuya. You can find the guy's address in like five minutes on the internet." Honjo nodded, thumb rapping out a quick tattoo on her phone.

"Tonbo?" Tatsuya asked, giving her a concerned look, "is everything alright?" The Muramasa groaned, pirouetting slightly as she spun around and started walking.

"Let's get on that train," she said, "if we finish this quickly then we're less likely to run into them."
-----

Mamiya was being followed.

It was a big guy in a suit, following at a distance, but seemingly not making any secret of it. She had paused and looked back over her shoulder several times, and he was still there.

Feeling the sweat begin to form on the back of her neck, she shifted the shinai case strapped over her back. If it came down to a fight, she was going to lose—the man was just too big for anything else—but if she made a show of it, was as loud as possible, maybe someone would hear and come to help her.

Nagawa is going to meet me at the station, she reminded herself, breathing out deeply. If I can make it through the train ride, I'll be safe.

Please let there be people on the train.
-----

"So, plan," Tatsuya said, leaning forward. "Miyuki takes the basement. Honjo, you can go with her, since you're so up in arms about this guy. The rest of us will sweep everything above that, kick everyone we meet's asses, and then go on standby in case you need backup. What time should we assume that you're going to need help?"

Honjo turned to stare at him. "That's… simple," she pointed out. Tatsuya shrugged.

"Well, we're not playing chess here," he pointed out. "Simple plans tend to work better. Less moving parts to worry about." He turned to face Miyuki. "Again. When do we rescue you?"

"You won't have to," Miyuki grinned, punching her palm. Tatsuya rolled his eyes and glanced over at the other two members of the party—Tonbo and Benio. The former was sitting hunched over, arms crossed in her lap and looking down. The latter looked over at Miyuki, then back at him and smirked.

"Seriously? You're asking if the Shipgirl will need help?"

Tatsuya shrugged. "That's fair."

"You'd better not make me regret that," he said aloud.

Below their feet, the brakes began to engage, screeching as they did.

"Tonbo," Tatsuya called, and the sword looked up from her reverie. "Is your head in the game?"

"I've been doing this longer than you've been alive," she replied wearily, "I think I can safely say that I'm ready for this."

"Good," Tatsuya said, not quite meaning it—something was bugging Tonbo, but there was no time to resolve it and he needed her—if not in combat, then on standby in the least. "Those doors open, the mission's on. Anyone wants out, you shouldn't have gotten on the train in the first place."

Benio rolled her eyes. "Stop trying to be cool, you keep failing at it."

The train halted.

With a rush of air, revealing the brightly lit station in the increasingly failing light beyond the windows' limited vision, the doors opened.
-----

Well what do you think, sirs?

 

[darthcourt10]

jmcdavid Omake: Snape is Impressed with a prank

I'm feeling the urge to write something myself. It's going to be up to Kaiju whether this remains an omake or actually becomes canon. Basically, Snape learns about the Day of the Living Dess, and he IS amused.

"Potter, I understand you used some Polyjuice Potion during the summer to perform a prank?" said Professor Snape.

Harry blinked. "Poi? Why are you asking about it, Professor Snape?"

"Polyjuice Potion is very dangerous, Potter. I need to be certain that you were not misusing it."

Sighing, Harry pulled out a Box of Memories. (AN: Way too lazy to look up the Japanese term right now.) "I was planning to show this to Fred and George, see what they thought about it. These are the memories that Kongou-oba had of when we pranked her."

As Snape watched the memories, his lips curled upward. "My word, Potter. Just how many people did you have helping you with this prank?"

Scratching the back of his head, Harry said, "Um, pretty much everyone on the base, sir."

Snape visibly smiled at that. "Well, aside from Miss Kongou's brain clearly being taxed from trying to figure out what happened, no one seems to have been hurt. So I believe what I will do is award 5 points to Gryffindor for a second-year successfully brewing a very advanced potion, and another 2 points for using it to perform such an elaborate prank. You would have done well in Slytherin, with such ingenuity."

Harry grinned. "The Sorting Hat said the same thing, but I knew that if Malfoy and I were in the same House there would be trouble."

Snape nodded. "Very good. Run along now, Potter."

 

[darthcourt10]

Harry Leferts

With a sigh, Mutsu opened the refrigerator and peered inside as Hiei looked over from where she was helping Jane work on some homework. Perched on the Kongou's nose was a pair of glasses. "You okay there, Mutsu?"

Frowning, the pregnant Battleship looked over at Hiei with a slight smile. "I'm fine, just a little peckish." At the look on Hiei's face, she raised one eyebrow. "Honest, I'm fine, Hiei. You and the others need to stop worrying about me over every little thing. Especially John."

Hiei rolled her eyebrows some and shook her head. "And you know why, Mutsu. For..." Glancing at Jane, she shrugged some. "John has his own worries. And it doesn't help that you're overdue."

Just humming as she pulled out some preserves as well as cream cheese, Mutsu toasted a bagel. "Yes, and? I am perfectly capable of handling myself, Hiei." Cutting the toasted bagel in half, she spread first the cream cheese onto it and then the preserves. Biting into half, the Nagato Class gave a wince as she rubbed her stomach. "By the way, why are you wearing glasses?"

Blinking, Hiei reached up with a grin and adjusted them. "They make me look smarter then I usually am, of course! And they also help me do the paperwork better." With a wink, she looked down at Jane. "Right?"

Said teen, a pair of glasses perched on her own nose grinned. "Right, Hiei-Mama!"

Amused expression on her face, Mutsu continued to munch her way through the bagel. "I see." With a shake of her head, she smiled some at the two seated at the kitchen table, Hiei helping Jane with her homework. For all the things changed in the household over the years, some did not. Jane still considered all of them her mothers, outside the Submarines and Shimakaze sisters, and Zuihou.

Though some things had changed however.

One of those things was how Hiei was now sharing a bed with her and John. It still amused her to no end how exactly it had happened, and continued to for a week before they both gave in. Nothing sexual had happened at all, not that Mutsu had expected that. But... she had noticed that both John and Hiei had been sleeping well enough at times. It also brought a smile to her face thinking about it. Especially as Hiei just seemed to...fit.

Part of her did wonder though, even as she played with the ring she had on one finger. Both John and Hiei had been close. Mutsu would not be so crude to state that it had been a contest as to whom would change the relationship first with John between her, Hiei, and Jintsuu as Ari was not quite to that point, though she was sure that the American would have been, and did, cross that point shortly before John proposed. Out of them all though, the Nagato had wondered about Hiei the most during those early months of her sounding out her changed relationship with John. After all, both her and Jintsuu were rather sure that John would go for Hiei.

But then, one day about two months after she started to date the American Admiral, she had taken Hiei aside. She had wanted to know why Hiei did not seem to have much issue with what was going on. Why she didn't try anything considering how close her own relationship with John had been, and still was. Much to her confusion, Hiei had seemed amused at how serious she had been. Which only increased as the Kongou placed a hand on her shoulder.

The Fast Battleship had looked her in the eyes and told her that part of loving someone, was understanding them. Mutsu made John happy, and that was more then enough for her. More then that, Hiei had continued, loving someone also meant that you were happy for them when someone made them happy, even if that person was not you. She was not angry, perhaps a little sad, but more then that? Hiei stated that she was glad that John found someone to heal his heart with.

Jintsuu had stated much the same thing, while Ari had smiled and agreed.

Unknown to them though, that left a very thoughtful Mutsu in the days, weeks, and months after. And after being taken off the front lines due to her advanced pregnancy, none of them had complained. They simply buckled down and took over what had been the Battleship's duties. But all that time being idled meant that Mutsu had more time to think to herself.

And think, she did.

With the last bit of cream cheese and preserve covered bagel entering her mouth, Mutsu nodded to herself. One of the things that she decided was that she wanted her friends to be happy as well. And recent events with Hiei made her smile as it fit into her plans, though she did wonder why Jane sometimes had an odd smile on her face. One that reminded her of said girl's father at seeing an Operation be conducted successfully. Then Mutsu grimaced some and grunted which attracted Hiei's attention. "Mutsu?"

Only waving her off, the pregnant shipgirl shook her head. "Its nothing, Hiei. Just a few stomach cramps, I think."

Still frowning, Hiei turned back to Jane with a small frown as there was a niggling in the back of her mind. As if something was not right, but whatever it was? It was out of her reach and she continued to try and figure it out. 'What is it, damn you...'

Taking a step, Mutsu paused and looked down with a groan. "Jane, be a dear and grab me a mop."

Just blinking, the teen got to her feet and walked over to the mop and bucket before grabbing it. Walking over, she raised an eyebrow. "Why do you need a mop, Mutsu-Mama?"

While Mutsu did not know it, that niggling in Hiei's head grew even as the Nagato answered. "I think that someone spilled some water or some such thing on the floor here. Maybe one of the smols with a cup of juice that was overfilled.

Suddenly, it clicked in the Fast Battleship's mind what that feeling was. 'Wait a second, stomach cramps?! We only get those if we're hungry, which I know that Mutsu isn't...'

Moments later, Jane froze as she came around the kitchen island and stared at the small puddle. Then her eyes widened as her head whipped around even as Hiei leapt to her feet. "HIEI-MAMA!"

As the chair fell to the floor and Hiei rushed over, Mutsu looked between the two, even as she could hear running in the rest of the house. "Jane? Hiei? What's wrong?"

Coming around the corner, Hiei looked down and then trailed her eyes up Mutsu's legs where there was a trickle of liquid. "Oh fuck... Mutsu, I think that your water just broke." Head turning as the other Battleship's jaw dropped and she looked down, Hiei looked at Shimakaze who rushed in. "Shima, go and get the baby bag, now! Jane, get in touch with your father and Ari! I'll get in touch with Jinstuu!"

Hand on her stomach, Mutsu felt another cramp, or rather as she now knew, contraction go through her. Voice weak, she gave a shaky smile to Hiei even as Jane rushed out of the room. "Oh... so that was what that was..."

Just looking over her shoulder, Hiei snorted. "No, really?"

Lips twitching as she tried to keep calm, despite the alarms on her bridge as said bridge crew, along with the rest of her crew, began to panic, Mutsu hummed as she tried to lighten the mood. "Yes, really. Maybe one day you might find out for yourself~"

Pausing in her motion to dial, the Kongou blinked before looking at Mutsu's stomach for a few seconds. Then she met the other shipgirl's eyes with her own and a small smile. "Maybe I will." Ignoring the wide eyed look from Mutsu, she then finished the dialing and held the phone to her ear even as she walked over to the pregnant Battleship and began to help her out of the kitchen. "Jintsuu? Yeah, its Hiei! Mutsu's gone into labor-Yes, she has! Her water broke which I pretty sure means that the twins are on their way whether or not we're ready! Get the docks prepped no-what do you mean you don't know if we go to the docks or not! Dammit, where-base hospital? Some sort of bath, I, wait, what?"

In a near blur, Shimakaze appeared with the baby bag. With a glance at the grimacing, the Destroyer placed one of Mutsu's arms over her shoulders to help Hiei who was looking confused. "Bath? But not in the docks?"

With a blink, Mutsu nodded at the smaller shipgirl, even as her sisters started rushing around and helping. "It was something that John and I looked up, apparently human women sometimes give birth in baths and such. I think..."

Confused, the Destroyer shook her head as she heard Jane's voice on the phone with Arizona. "-What do you mean that Dad just jumped out of the window and, wait, he's running? Where? HE FORGOT TO GET INTO HIS CAR?!"

Sharing a look, the two Battleships also shared a giggle as that sounded way too much like John Richardson...

Their giggles only increased as Jane began to curse the air blue in much the manner of a NCO regarding her father, but using language she had learned watching Tintin with her cousin.
______________________________________________________________

At her desk, Nagato hummed as she typed on her computer. Suddenly, her attention was grabbed as the phone rang. Raising it to her ear, she smiled some as one hand continued her work. "Yokosuka, Battleship Nagato speak-Mutsu? What's going on?" Eyebrows furrowing, she stopped working and didn't notice that the other two in the office were now looking at her. "Why are you breathing so hard and-what?"

When Nagato's face paled, Goto cleared his throat only for Nagato's finger to tap out Morse code. Putting it together in his head, he pointed at the door. "Go!'

Not needing a second opinion, the Battleship was already slamming said door and out of view. Frowning, Ooyodo sighed before picking up her own phone. She did notice the look from Goto though. "First, I need to contact some people regarding a betting ring. Second... put together a gift basket or some such."

Goto's lips twitched even as he leaned back and hummed. 'I wonder who is going to win the bet regarding how John reacted? I doubt that Kongou's bet he jumped out his office window is right though...' A shiver went down his back as he remembered what she would get if she won. 'Though... who wins there? Kongou-Chan or myself...?'

Meanwhile, Nagato was racing across the base. Unlike what most would have expected, she was not running for her car. Rather, her destination was the tunnels under Yokosuka. Entering them, she rushed past various people before coming to one guarded door. The US Marine and JMSDF sailor there blinked though as Nagato approached. "Ma'am?"

Barely slowing, she only nodded at them both. "Gentleman."

Then she was past and into the room where Kitakami-Maru was reading a book. Looking up, the smaller shipgirl blinked at the sight of the Battleship. "Nagato-San? What are you doing?"

Reaching her destination, she finally came to a stop and looked at what was before her. At two spots, large, wooden cabinets stood which looked like wardrobes. Glancing from one to the other, she frowned. "Which one would take me to Britain." Silently, Kitakami-Maru pointed at one, and Nagato realized that there was a metal nameplate on the wall beside it which made her cheeks pinken in embarrassment. "Right. I shall be back shortly."

While Kitakami-Maru nodded, Nagato opened one and stepped inside. After a few moments, she opened the door and found herself in Britain, and walked up the stairs into the main hallway of the house, startling a British Pre-Dread that was there. "Ma'am?"

Just smiling thinly, the Battleship nodded. "I am sorry about this, but something important has happened and I need to contact Professor Dumbledore." Entering a nearby room with a fireplace, Nagato got down onto her knees and threw a pinch of floo powder into the fire and waited until it was green before sticking her head into it. "Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts." Before her, everything swirled before it resolved into said office. Despite how uncomfortable, and wishing there was another way, she looked around. "Albus? Are you here?"

It was not even five seconds before the Headmaster appeared with a curious look on his face. "Ah, Miss Nagato. Is something wrong?"

Taking a deep breath, Nagato let it out. "Sorry about the short notice, Albus. But my sister, Mutsu? You met her at the wedding?" When he nodded, she continued though she was sure he had an inkling of what was going on. "She's gone into labor. While I am not sure of what the Hogwarts rules on such would be, I wish for Harry to come home for this as it is his aunt."

Even as the portraits whispered, Dumbledore smiled some. "Of course, I will go and get him personally." Standing, he was about to leave when he paused and turned. "Would you like me to transport you to Sasebo? I do not mind very much after all, or I could ask-" At a trilling, they looked at Fawkes who bobbed his head. "Ah, it seems that Fawkes is willing to take you there." Winking, Albus leaned down some. "He quite enjoys being around infants, I think that they make him feel young."

Both Nagato and Dumbledore could swear that Fawkes rolled his eyes at that before he flamed away. Inside the house, Nagato felt a weight on her shoulder that she recognized as the phoenix. Relaxing, she smiled and nodded. "I'll see you when Harry arrives here then."

Fifteen minutes later, Harry and his adoptive mother performed a quick stop in Yokosuka and then were off via flaming to Sasebo.

 

[darthcourt10]

SkyeFire Omake: Reactions to Mutsu in labor

Harry Leferts said:
Lips twitching as she tried to keep calm, despite the alarms on her bridge as said bridge crew, along with the rest of her crew, began to panic,​

"GENERAL QUARTERS GENERAL QUARTERS! ALL HANDS TO BERTHING STATIONS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"
"...Lieutenant, that's 'birthing,' not 'berthing'."
"Bbbbbut Captain! We don't have a procedure for that! I've checked every page of The Book! Three Times!"
"Then we improvise. Sound Flooding, Fire, and Collision. Advise Engineering to prepare for heavy, highly intermittent combat loads on the boilers and generators. Stand to all DC crews, and post roving watches throughout the ship -- I want call-outs from every major seam, junction, and watertight bulkhead at 15-minute intervals. Also, inform the galley to prepare for port-and-starboard procedures."
"The... galley, sir?"
"Did you have any children when we were human, son?"
"Ah, no sir!"
"Well, I did. I may not have had such a... ringside seat... but I do recall that this kind of thing can take quite a while. We're going to need to keep all hands fed and rested until we stand down, and that could take several watches."

Harry Leferts said:
Fifteen minutes later, Harry and his adoptive mother performed a quick stop in Yokosuka and then were off via flaming to Sasebo.​

Every time Fawkes travels, a flame was breaks out on the internet.

r0b0panda said:
Oh, those poor male fairies.
Harry Leferts said:
Well, Richardson wants to be at the hospital ASAP. He just, um, forgot his car...​

Dadmiral Richardson: "Forgot, my ass! I can orienteer across this base faster than even Haruna could drive me!"
...really, John?
Dadmiral Richardson: "Okay, so exhausting myself between here and the hospital will help me stop freaking out. Satisfied?"

mikelima777 said:
I assume the bridge crew on Mutsu were looking at the brand new alarm in panic mixed with confusion. After all, they weren't trained to handle "imminent offspring ship launching."​

"When did this alarm get added?"
"Forget that, when did the equipment that alarm connects to get added?!?"
"Dammit, someone get BuShips on the horn and tell them we need the updated schematics, stat!"

Maes said:
"What do you mean, 'drydock gates opening'?"

"What do you mean 'WE DON'T HAVE CONTROL OVER THEM'?"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'WON'T FIT THROUGH WITHOUT STRETCHING'?!"​

"...OOW, get me the ship's carpenter. Thank you. Chief, I need you to sound the stern of the ship. Which part... ah, I'm not sure. Call it, everything twenty frames forward from the fantail. Yes, that's fine, draft whatever help you need. Wha-- buckling? Hull deformation!?! Ah... are there any leaks? Very well, carry on. Keep me informed of any changes, but I think we'll have to ignore any... changes... that don't actually start flooding, for the time being. Yes, Chief, I know -- if the Navy had procedures for everything, they wouldn't need us, now would they?"

 

[darthcourt10]

Weaver

A/N: Big moment here; my storyline has finally connected with the main one. Well, sort of. All my thanks to Harry Leferts for his help with this instalment.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


Friday, 6th September 2013

After almost a week of settling in and not having much to do, Awa Maru decided that she'd had enough of twiddling her thumbs. The issue of exactly what she'd be doing as a ship had yet to be resolved but she reasoned that it would be eventually and that when it was she'd be busy so she may as well put her current free time to good use and do what she'd told Zetland she would. There was of course a wealth of written information about tsukumogami but a lot of it was in the context of folklore and therefore often of both of potentially questionable accuracy and limited relevance to the situation at hand. After some consideration she decided that the best person to ask would be another tsukumogami. Conveniently the only other tsukumogami she knew of was in in Yokosuka which was only half an hour or so down the coast.

Which was why Friday afternoon found her stepping off the surface of the sea and onto a slipway in Yokosuka. Dismissing her rigging and smoothing down her clothes - the ones she'd been summoned in rather than the ones she'd worn on her outings afterwards - she set off following the directions she'd got from other shipgirls in Yokohama.

They led her to what looked to be a former warehouse near the base's repair docks, although the signage assured her that she was in the right place. Entering, she looked around for the woman she'd come to see and spotted her tidying something up behind the counter. Apart from the two of them the only people present were a pair of shipgirls that the liner didn't recognise who were sat at one of the tables and seemed to be focused on their own conversation.

After a moment's dithering over how to proceed Awa Maru settled on the direct approach and walked over to the counter.

"Excuse me. I'm very sorry to bother you but are you Potter Rose-San?"

The woman in question turned and looked at her.

"I am. How can I help you?"

Apologising again for bothering her, the liner introduced herself and launched into a very condensed explaination of her summoning, how she'd met the world's oldest lifeboat and said lifeboat's current circumstances before finally getting to the point.

"No one in England seems to know much about tsukumogami, or at least they didn't in the area I was in, so I promised Zetland-San that when I returned to Japan I would seek out information on her behalf. And while there's a lot of folklore and what not out there I don't know how much of it is accurate, so I reasoned that the best person to ask about tsukumogami would be a tsukumogami. But the only one other than Zetland-San I know of is you which I why I'm here. Again, I am sorry to trouble you like this."

Blinking, Rose gave her a slightly confused look.

"Tsukumogami?"

Still feeling more than a little awkward, Awa Maru nodded. Rose smiled softly in response.

"Well, I will admit that I never expected to be asked about such, but very well. If you will give me a moment to wash my hands, I shall make us both a cup of tea and perhaps bring out some little snacks to share while we talk. Would that be alright?"

The liner nodded.

"That would be perfect, thank you. Again, I'm sorry to bother you about this but I don't know who else to ask."

"Don't worry, it's quite alright."

 

[darthcourt10]

NotHimAgain

Mission Go

-----
Tonbo looked up and down the Todoh residence, whistling softly. "Nice house," she said, glancing over at the window that Tatsuya and Benio were working open.

"Sorry," Miyuki cut in, leaning over the two, "but couldn't we just break the window?" Benio rolled her eyes and stepped away from her handiwork.

"Oh yeah," she replied, dusting her hands off on her pants, "I can just imagine the neighbors calling the police right now." She shoved her tools back into her backpack and zipped it shut, throwing it over her shoulders. "Now come on, let's get in there." She jumped up, hoisted her leg over the windowsill, and rolled to her feet inside.

"Considering how that won't matter in about so much time, though…" Tonbo mused quietly. She looked up to see Honjo smirk at her.

"Let her dream," she said, before running up to the window and climbing inside. Tonbo watched her go, then inhaled, exhaled, and jogged forward.

If we're quick about it, we can be done before they get here… Be quick. Be quick. Be quick.
-----

Mamiya looked around the train car from the corner she was huddled in. Over near the door, a family was seated, mother, father, and a little boy who was flopped over in the former's lap after a long day of whatever fun little boys get up to.

The man who was following her was still on the other side of the door, waiting for the family to disembark.

They'll be on here through Kure, she said so, she reminded herself, pulling her phone out of her pocket and fumbling slightly as she punched in a number that she had been using just a little more frequently as of late. Ever since Yae had moved back in with her parents.

"Nagawa? Yes, hello. I-I think I might be in a little bit of trouble…"
-----

"Well?" Tatsuya said, glancing down the stairs, "Shall we?" The little group paused, turning back and forth and sharing nods. Finally, Miyuki and Honjo turned to him and nodded.

"See you in a few," Miyuki said, and started down, followed closely by the Masamune. Tatsuya watched them go for a moment, then turned to the Benio and Tonbo.

"Where do we want to start?" he asked, glancing up the stairs. "Office first?"

"You're sure this guy is home right now?" Benio asked.

Tatsuya shrugged. "I've got a feeling about this guy," he said, walking forward. "The only real traps we found, provided there weren't others we missed, were in the basement and the study. Whatever's going on here, I'll bet he's keeping the finished product up there."

"How much?" Tonbo asked cheekily.

"Come on and let's go already.
-----

"That girl wasn't kidding," Honjo muttered, stumbling, "It's impossible to focus down here."

"Benio," Miyuki reminded her, "she's named Kagamine Benio. Keep it together."

"Don't tell me that…" Honjo paused—she knew this girl, she really did—"Miyuki." The destroyer cracked a smile.

"You just forgot my name," she pointed out. Honjo groaned—this was distracting her from focusing on… it was not forgetting, wasn't it? She had to focus on not forgetting… what again?"

"Okay," she grumbled, "I see your point." Miyuki grinned, and held out her hand.

"Come on, take my hand," she advised. "We'd best hurry up." Honjo gave the offered hand a dubious look, and turned to look her companion in the face. "Oh come on, it won't bite."

Honjo stomped past her. "Let's just go." Miyuki shrugged and jogged along to catch up.

The door was quick and easy to reach and when Honjo forgot what she was doing right as she reached for the handle, Miyuki simply knocked in in. Inside was the… some kind of lair, that… that Benio, that was her, described, and a, uh, what was the word, a tank of some kind embedded in the far wall and hey, did it just get a lot easier to think all of a sudden? Honjo looked back over her shoulder, at the few steps she had traveled into the room. It looked like the effect cleared up a certain distance away from the stairs.

"Can't think right if you're always forgetting things, huh?" she said dryly, then turned to the table.

And to the katana on the table.

It wasn't magic that drove everything from her mind this time, causing her to bolt over, knocking papers and knickknacks aside as she grabbed and hefted the sword, looking it over. She'd never seen it before, but something inside her heart wrenched, and she turned it over in her hands looking for… the maker's… mark…

No.

Metal shrieked and tore, and Honjo spun to see Miyuki ripping the side of the tank out and clambering in.

No.

Feet hammering the floor, hand grabbing the side to pull herself in, then to hold herself up as she saw Miyuki wrapping a blanket from whatever hold or containment it was Shipgirls used around a rust-haired girl who seemed a year or two younger than herself.

No.

"—okay, I've got you…" Miyuki was saying softly. She looked up at Honjo. "You look pale. You know her?"

"No," she said, holding out the sword. Miyuki scanned it a moment, her eyes widening in shock.

"You don't?" she asked. "But that's a Masamune! How—"

"Oh dear," a reedy voice said from behind them. Honjo felt her body go rigid as she slowly turned—and then reached out and tried to catch the sister she didn't know as she threw off the blanket and charged forward with a soundless cry.
-----

The door slammed open, and the boy who had broken into his house stormed in, followed closely by two girls who's faces he didn't know. Byakuya stared for a moment before pushing the seat of his desk back and standing.

"I am honestly surprised," he said, reaching for the lamp, "that you would come back so soon."

"We work quickly," one of the girls replied dryly. "But trust me, if you just kind of go limp and don't try to fight back, it'll hurt a lot less. Promise." Byakuya raised an eyebrow at the banter, and pressed on the thumb scanner.

"As much as it would probably hurt more," he said, walking to one of the sliding cabinets and selecting a blade, "I find that I would rather not." The children were distracted, glancing around at the now exposed blades surrounding them. "I've been called a master of this craft by some. Try not to die too—"

"You're stealing swords?" the boy cut him off. Byakuya glared at him, but decided to humor him. Very soon, the boy would be dead after on.

"Isn't it natural," he asked, stepping forward, "for a swordsman to desire a blade worthy of him?"

The response he received was far from what he expected.
-----

The old man's wand flicked out. Honjo felt the sword in her hand shudder, and its avatar tripped over her own feet and fell to the ground. She kicked feebly, trying to pull herself along the floor with her hands, but the old man simply gazed down at her disdainfully.

"Honestly," he said, lowering his wand, "have a better care for yourself. The master wishes for you to become his personal weapon, after all. Though…" His gaze slid to Honjo, and to the katana that she wore, "I believe he might reconsider, if you—"

His next words were cut off by Honjo Masamune punching through his shoulder. His eyes widened as the pain slowly registered.

"You?" Honjo snarled as he howled in agony, "YOU DID THIS?" Placing her foot on his stomach, she kicked pulled her blade free and pushed him away. Swinging her sword up in a two-handed grip, she—

"Look out!" Miyuki shouted, and she ducked aside, allowing something to shoot past her head. She slid into another position, bringing her blade up again, but the small colored rock slapped into the old man's hand and he was gone.

"Portkey?" Honjo asked, breathlessly, looking wildly around the room. "No. No! You don't get to run! BAASTAAARD!!!"

"Honjo!" Miyuki shouted through the rage, "Help me with this!" Honjo paused, pushing herself to face the Destroyer, who was kneeling by… by her sister. Miyuki grinned awkwardly, spreading and closing her hands. "I'm… a little small to support her properly," she admitted.

Honjo looked at her impassively. Her sister, yes, she needed help. And yet… rage bubbling through her like a boiling kettle, seeking release, seeking… With a cry, Honjo turned and brought herself down on the table. Wood split, papers went flying, and the whole mess creaked and fell in on itself. Honjo grit her teeth, trying to breathe the anger out.

Then she sheathed herself, and returned to the one who needed her.
-----

The sister disembarked at Kure, almost bolting through the doors. Antonio followed her, again at a distance, pausing as he exited. She was enthusiastically greeting a young girl in what appeared to be a school uniform. Antonio paused, considering. If he were to pursue her now, it would almost inevitably require him to deal with the schoolgirl as well. On the other hand, turning back and going to the house would mean his time doing so had been wasted.

The country of Japan didn't need another schoolgirl, anyway.

Antonio followed them into the night, tracking from light post to light post. Then, they turned right, and he had to jog after them to keep up, just in time to see them go around a left turn.

The next five minutes played out very similarly, the two girls running around one corner and then another and Antonio chasing after them. Somehow, this was starting to feel like a comedy of some kind.

Slowing to a halt, Antonio frowned and cupped his chin. Something—he wasn't sure what—was beginning to gnaw at the back of his mind, and he couldn't ignore it anymore. He hadn't thought it possible at first, given that fear tended to steal peoples reason away, but… Right, left, left, left, right, straight two, left, right, left, straight one… They're trying to lead me in circles!

Grimacing, he broke into a run. Those bitches! They were trying to play with him, the fools! No one toyed with him! He'd show them! He would—

Go flying backwards, wondering at the sudden pain in his chest?

He came too groaning, hand coming up to grasp his temple. How… what had happened?

A foot slammed down on his chest, and he gasped in pain. The schoolgirl who had joined up with the sister was glaring down at him, a mocking glint in her eyes.

"Hello there," she said, "I don't think that we've been introduced."
-----

"That's IT?" Tatsuya exploded. Behind him, Benio facepalmed and turned away, shaking her head. Todoh's disdainful expression fell away slightly, a moment of confusion passing over his face. "That's seriously it? That's your whole reason for doing this?" The man's face began to turn annoyed, and Tatsuya could hear Tonbo shifting into position behind him. "That's pathetic!"

Todoh froze, stunned. Then his face was alit with anger. "Excuse me?" he demanded, gesturing with the sword he held. "What—"

"Oh, shut up!" Tatsuya cut him off. He could hear Benio snickering behind him, almost goading him forward. "You want a sword? There are artisans out there! People who still make them the way they did in the Sengoku! But this?" He shook his head. "This is just moronic." Todoh opened his mouth. "No! Face it, you're treating this like you're the villain of a fantasy novel. I've fought monsters, fairies, crime bosses, cult leaders! This…" He laughed humorlessly. "This is my first delusional child."

Todoh's grip on his sword tightened, knuckles whitening as he raised it to point at Tatsuya. "You…" he hissed, eyes almost glowing in his rage. "Arm yourself."

"Against you?" Tatsuya shook his head. "I don't need to."

Todoh roared and swung. Tatsuya sidestepped the blow almost lazily, bringing a fist up and punching him across the face. Stumbling backwards, the professor regained his footing and lashed out again, but Tatsuya leaned back, then stepped forward and kicked him in the chest, sending him crashing into his desk. As Todoh, still clutching the sword, tried to clamber to his feet, Tatsuya grabbed him by the hair and slammed him face first into one of his shelves.

"YOU!" he roared, repeating the action, "SERIOUSLY! SUCK!"

He released Todoh, and allowed him to slide to the floor unconscious. The sword in his hand clattered to the ground.

Tonbo glanced at the fallen enemy, then back at Tatsuya. "You're not going to…"

"He's not worth the effort," Tatsuya growled, stepping away. "Benio. Come on, let's… What are you doing?"

Benio, arms full of swords stolen from the hidden shelves, looked back at him innocently. "What, this?" she asked, looking down at her load. "Well, I thought that Harry might be interested in some of these."

"Aren't some of those museum pieces?" Tatsuya said.

"Well," Benio replied thoughtfully, "I'm sure he'll be able to figure out which is which, aren't you?"

"Benio—"

The door slammed open and Miyuki and Honjo burst in, the latter carrying an unfamiliar girl wrapped in a blanket. They scanned the room briefly, and Honjo's gaze slid down to the fallen Todoh.

"That's him?" she asked. Tatsuya nodded, and she carefully lowered her charge to the floor. "There wasn't anyone else?"

"We checked here first," Tatsuya admitted as Honjo stalked over to the professor, drawing herself. "He's not worth it, just leave him for the police." The sword spirit paused, considering his words thoughtfully. Todoh began to stir, groaning.

"… No," she decided, kicking the man onto his back and standing over him, sword pointed at his throat. Tatsuya shrugged and turned to the other girls. Tonbo was watching Honjo with open interest, eyes calculating as if trying to decide whether or not to join her, and Benio was filling Miyuki's arms with the swords that she wasn't able to carry. The unnamed girl who Honjo had carried in was staring at Todoh, eyes glowing with hatred. And in the hallway…

"Hey," he said, trying to catch everyone's attention. "Does anyone else hear that?"

Everyone perked up, listening. Tonbo walked over to the door, poking her head out and looking around.

She drew herself back in and slammed it shut, spinning on her heel and walking across to the window, stomping on Todoh's groin as she passed by. "Come on, everyone, let's hurry up," she said almost frantically, fumbling the latch and trying to pull it open. "Out the window, come on, let's go, go, go, go—"

With an almost animalistic cry, the door split open under the blow of a nodachi that cut through the wall as it went. The girl wielding it kicked through the remains and strode into the room.

"WHERE!" she demanded.

The room went silent, everyone considering this new turn of events except for Tonbo, who tried even more frantically to work the window.
-----

Well what do you think, sirs?

 

[darthcourt10]

Savato93

Regalia was quiet as she laid beside her aunt, watching her weakly cling to life.

It had only been a few hours since they had found her… and in that time Renita had gotten visibly weaker. Where she had previously managed to pull herself into a hug with Sunny, she no longer had the strength to even move. She was deathly-pale—even more so than an Abyssal should be. And what's more, Regalia had begun to note just how unnaturally thin the other Re-class was; it seemed she'd spent so long living day-to-day, just trying to survive, that her body had simply wasted away. It was a horrible state of affairs… and one that she absolutely couldn't have maintained for much longer, even without her injuries.

They could only pray that Renita could hang on just a little bit longer, until help arrived.

Hearing the sound of footsteps, Regalia looked up to see Ruadri at the door. She looked across the bed to Fluffy, who had returned to continue nursing her flagship. "I'll be back in a bit. Is that okay?"

The young princess shrugged. "…well, it is your room…"

Nodding, Regalia offered her aunt a small wave goodbye before pushing herself off the bed and walking out. Outside the room, the Ru-class leaned against a wall, her arms folded. "How is she?" she asked somberly.

Expression grim, Regalia glanced back to Renita. "…not well. We tried to hook her generators up to mine, take some of the strain off her boilers… but her systems are old and worn out, not as capable of handling electricity as they used to be. The power I put out on top of what she was generating herself threatened to overload her, so I had to disconnect us." She sighed deeply. "The one reasonable solution I could come up with, and it would just fry out her systems and give us even less time."

Ruadri dipped her head in sympathy. "It's okay, Regalia. You did what you could to help…"

"That doesn't make me feel any better," Regalia grumbled. "She's going to die if we can't find a way to help her." She jabbed a finger at her aunt. "And you all seem completely fine with that fact. Don't you think we should be trying everything we can, no matter how stupid or crazy it is?"

Ruadri sighed. "I know our behavior seems callous to you, Regalia… but you have to understand. We've been through war. We lost hundreds of our sisters in the Scattering—but more than a handful of them died after the shooting had come to an end. We tried to save them, to keep them from passing on to the stars… and sometimes, we did manage to prolong their lives for a day or two… but more often than not, our efforts just caused them more harm and suffering than they would have endured if we had simply let them die in peace. I understand how much you want to keep Renita alive… but even if we succeeded in finding a solution, what good would it do, if we were causing her even more pain in the process?"

"…but… Grandma's on her way, isn't she?" Regalia asked. "If we could just keep her alive long enough for Grandma to get here… she would be alright… right?"

"Yes, that would be good… but things don't always go how we expect them to." The Ru-class rested a hand on Regalia's shoulder. "Renita has suffered enough at the hands of her family… regardless of whether it was deliberate. If she's going to die… the least we can do is let her die with peace and dignity. Understand?" After several seconds, Regalia silently nodded. "None of this is your fault, Regalia. None of us will hate you for not being able to save her."

Stepping over and pulling open the bedroom doors, Ruadri looked to Fluffy. "We could use a hand preparing a place for Mother to operate on Renita. Are you willing to help?"

Fluffy looked to Regalia in turn. The Re-class simply raised a hand. "I'll look after her, let you all know if something happens," she said quietly.

"…alright."

Rising, the Princess followed Ruadri out of the room, leaving Regalia alone with her aunt once more.

Regalia sat down against the wall beside Renita, distraught. She understood that, as warriors, the rest of her family were no strangers to death. They had seen their own kin dying, with nothing they could do about it, and they learned to cope with it. But she wasn't a warrior—she was just a girl. A farmer. She'd never experienced loss the way they had. She wasn't ready to give up on Renita… because she didn't want to watch her die. Not after bringing her family back to her.

But what could she do?

Time passed as she continued to think. Absorbed as she was in her thoughts, Regalia almost didn't notice her disembarked crew trying to contact her. She reached out to her imps, still somewhat distracted… but that distraction was gone in an instant as she received their message:

One of Renita's boilers had just shut down.

Regalia double- and triple-checked her DC team's report, praying it was an error in communication… but to no avail. Renita's #3 boiler could take no more at last—too full of leaks and holes to continue functioning in any meaningful capacity. And with one boiler dead, the others were having to work harder and hotter to keep providing Renita's systems the minimum amount of power they needed to stay alive—which was all but guaranteed to accelerate their own decay.

The imps estimated Renita had fifteen, twenty minutes left at best.

Regalia should have called for someone, anyone, to come help… but what could they do? All their efforts to stabilize Renita had failed, and any other means by which they could possibly take on the work her boilers were doing was either too drastic, or they lacked the suitable tools for it.

Renita was going to die, long before help arrived…

…

…no.

She couldn't let this happen.

Turning inward, she gave a single, concise order:

Cut all power to boiler #8. Disconnect it from as much of me as you can.

For a moment, she received no response. Then, she was bombarded with innumerable retorts from her entire crew. They called her crazy, suicidal. Reminded her that Ruadri's ass (as well as her own) was on the line if she didn't return to Mom safely. Pointed out that the odds of her plan working were slim.

But quite tellingly, out of the thousands of crew… she didn't hear one explicit 'no'.

As her imps set about their task, Regalia tugged off her scarf and removed her parka—they would just get in the way of what she was about to do. Soon enough, Regalia felt her boiler shut down, felt herself grow just a little bit sluggish and heavy. The remainder of her boilers were going strong and steady, however, which was good. Taking several deep breaths, she tried her hardest to calm her nerves, steel herself for what was to come. She couldn't afford to back out of this decision; not now, not when Renita lay dying in front of her.

Gripping the skin of her stomach, pulling it taut with one hand, Regalia began to dig her fingernails into her skin.

Every fiber of her being was crying out that this was wrong, so unthinkably wrong—but she forced it down, hissing in pain as she pressed her nails harder and deeper into the flesh of her abdomen. Her mother, her aunts had all endured worse. Renita had endured worse. She was a Re-class, dammit, one of the most resilient of all baseline Abyssals! She could survive this…

She WOULD survive this.

Finally… slowly, but surely… the Abyssal steel began to buckle.

XXXXXXXXXX

"…no, no, that's deep enough. But it needs to be wider, longer. We're digging a drydock, not a bathtub—Mother will need space to get in and move around while she works, and Renita will need to lay flat."

"How long does it have to be?" Fluffy asked, standing in the trench they were digging—or rather, carving—into the foundation of the palace. With most of the fleet out on the water, keeping an eye out for both Mother and possible unknowns or hostiles, the young princess had been tapped to aid in making an ad-hoc drydock for Mother to use. "Will we be accounting for her tail?"

Sunny rubbed her chin, thinking for a moment. "She managed to carry out Regalia's rebuild in a dock made for shipgirls, so I don't think it matters for her… but given the state of Renita's tail, it may be a good idea to go for it just in case."

Huffing, Ruadri smacked the side of the trench beside her with the back of her fist, breaking away a chunk of rock. "Not that this is too difficult a task for us, but—oh, hold on Miss Tenryuu, I'll get out of your way." Stepping aside, the Ru-class watched as the shipgirl raised her sword. With a few swift strokes, the lumpy and uneven surface she'd been working on came away, leaving behind a smooth vertical wall. "Thank you. Anyway, sister, is there not another place we could maybe set this up? Tanith may be less than pleased by us turning her throne into an operating room…"

Sunny shook her head. "Hey, if you would rather Mother operate in a hole dug out of the dirt outside, then be my guest—"

Everyone froze as a chilling scream pierced the air, coupled with the screech of tearing metal. Immediately, the girls snapped towards the hallway the sounds came from…

…the hallway that lead to Regalia's room.

XXXXXXXXXX

Pain. So much pain. Pain like she had never felt before.

Regalia gasped and whimpered, trembling at the unspeakably wrong sensation of air on her insides, of her own hand inside her body. Every fiber of her being was screaming for her to stop, and she wanted so badly to listen… but she couldn't. Her aunt's life was at stake. Taking a deep, shaky breath, she pressed her hand deeper in, relying on her crew to guide her.

She didn't know how long she spent like that, feeling around inside herself… although it felt like an eternity. But finally, as her blood-soaked hand wrapped around something solid, her crew called out for her to stop. This was it: boiler number eight. Tremors of pain wracking her entire body, Regalia waited, until at last her crew spoke again: all connections to the rest of her body had been severed. The boiler remained connected only by being bolted into the floor.

This was the point of no return. If she went through with this… everyone would likely be furious with her. Sunny, Ruadri, Mom, Grandma… Grandma in particular would be outraged at her disregard for her own safety and health… but it just might save Renita. If she stopped now, she'd only be left dealing with a hull breach… but her aunt would die.

She just couldn't bear to live with that on her conscience. Not if there was something she could do about it… no matter how stupid.

Closing her eyes and gritting her teeth, Regalia clawed into the boiler's foundation… and pulled it free.

The sensation of her boiler coming loose was indescribable; not the pain, that was very easy to describe. She'd felt her boiler shut down, felt her strength fade just slightly… but even then, she'd still felt it inside her. But now? She couldn't feel it at all… it just wasn't there, anymore. Slowly, carefully, she pulled her hand out, fighting to ignore her torn nerves burning and screaming in protest whenever she brushed against them. Eventually, blissfully, her hand came free from the wound.

Clutched in her blood-soaked fingers was something alien. Her mind knew exactly what she was looking at, but it seemed her eyes hadn't gotten that particular memo yet—the thing in her hands seemed to rapidly flicker between a glistening bluish-pink organ and a bulky, shrunk-down piece of machinery, with bits of piping and wiring still attached to it. Most importantly, however… it was undamaged.

"REGALIA!" Suddenly, there was a crash of splintering wood as Sunny's hand punched straight through her bedroom door, tearing it free from its hinges. No sooner was the doorway clear did Sunny charge into the room, with Fluffy, Ruadri and Tenryuu close behind her. "Regalia, we heard screaming, what's goi—" And then her eyes landed on the Re-class and she recoiled in horror. "JESUS CHRIST!"

Fluffy's immediate concern was for Renita, as she rushed to her flagship's side. "Are you alright, Flagship? Did anyone try to hurt you?" It was only after she spared a glance to Regalia did she register the other Re-class's current state—slumped against the wall, a bleeding hole in her gut and something in her hand. "W-what… what the f…"

Instantly, Ruadri was at Regalia's side, her expression full of fear and worry. "Regalia… what happened to you?" she moaned.

"I m-made a choice…" The other girls went deathly still as Regalia held out the extracted boiler in a shaky hand. "Please… h-hurry. Aunt Renita… n-needs it," she gasped.

As the meaning of Regalia's words began to dawn on them, the girls stared at her in utter horror. "Y-you… oh, God. Regalia, please, PLEASE tell me you didn't…" Ruadri stammered.

Tenryuu wordlessly knelt down beside Regalia, a first-aid kit in hand, as she let out a pained sigh. "I-I knew… you'd all just say no… if I s-suggested it—"

"YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY FUCKING RIGHT I'D SAY NO!" Sunny snapped. "This is insane! Stupid! Reckless! We don't even have any of the tools facilities necessary for a proper transplant! Never mind the fact you could have KILLED yourself in the process! What were you thinking!?"

"Aunt Renita's boilers are shutting down… as we speak…" Regalia countered. "There's n-no more time. No m-more options." She held out the boiler once more. "I c-can survive… with one less boiler… she can't. Please… just t-take it. Save her."

Sunny glanced back and forth between Regalia and her dying sister, torn. After several seconds, she let out a moan of frustration and dismay. "God damn it, Regalia… Mother and Tanith are going to have ALL our asses for this… but…" visibly sagging, the Demon reached out and carefully pulled the boiler from her niece's hand. "…even so… words aren't enough to express how much this sacrifice means to us."

Regalia smiled weakly. "I couldn't… just do nothing…"

With that, Regalia's vision went black.

XXXXX

Sunny felt her heart skip a beat as Regalia slumped over. "Is… is she…?"

Tenryuu took the Re-class's hand in her own. "…she's alright," she eventually said. "Probably just blacked out from the pain and blood loss." Bringing out a flashlight, she began to examine Regalia's abdomen. "It looks like she ripped it out through her flight deck rather than the sides, and she was smart enough to disconnect everything before she did so. She's not in danger of dying anytime soon."

The others let out sighs of relief. That particular worry eased for the time being, Sunny turned to the bed. Renita was motionless, her breathing slow and shallow. She was practically comatose, unresponsive to any of the goings-on around her, and her tail looked to be completely dead. On the inside, she was even worse—her imps were reporting that two more of her boilers had shut down altogether, never to reignite. In trying to shoulder their burden, her remaining boilers were rapidly approaching the threshold beyond which a fatal boiler explosion was almost certain to occur.

Regalia was right: there was no time left. This was their last chance to save her.

Leaning forward, Sunny gently pressed the boiler into the tear in her sister's stomach. "Do whatever it takes to hook this into her systems," she told the imps. "Quickly." As the imps grunted their affirmative and scrambled to accomplish what threatened to be their final task, the Demon stepped back and sat herself down against the wall.

All they could do now, was wait…

 

[darthcourt10]

Weaver

A/N: Remember that Japan is about nine hours ahead of the UK, so when the last snippet happened it would have been in the early hours of Friday morning in the UK.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Friday, 6th September 2013

Approaching the tent-like yet permanent structure behind the museum storage building, Dan could hear Zetland's voice coming from inside, speaking in a slightly halting monotone that probably meant that she was reading out-loud.

"...The flames in the stove flickered and danced before his eyes. He turned to look for something that was missing. He stood up and moved towards..."

A small smile tugging at his lips, Dan entered the not-quite-a-building to find that sure enough Zetland was sat on the top step of the platform next to the Sir James Knott, her coat and sou'wester draped over the railing and a paperback in her hands. She stopped mid-sentence and looked up when she heard him enter.

"Hello."

"Hello."

He looked directly at the hull of the much younger lifeboat.

"And hello to you too James."

Turning back towards Zetland he gestured at the paperback.

"What you reading?"

The lifeboat looked at the cover.

"Goodnight Mr Tom. It was in a box of books that one of the RNLI volunteers brought in for me."

Dan nodded.

"I read it when I was in secondary school. Don't worry, I won't spoil it for you."

Walking over the plantform, he stopped at the bottom of the steps and leaned on the railing.

"I've got some news for you."

"If it's about Tyne I've already heard. Repeatedly. I told our James about it before I started reading."

"Do you know her?"

"No. I was stationed down here and she's stationed up in South Shields so I never even met her. In fact come to think of it I barely saw any of the other lifeboats stationed here, except for what I could see from my boathouse or when they took me out. I did see Emma a couple of times though and going by the picture that redheaded lass who works at the museum showed me Tyne looks a bit like her."

"Do you want to meet her?"

The lifeboat shrugged.

"Don't know. Haven't had much time to think about it to be honest."

There was a brief lull in the conversation that Dan broke.

"Anyway, that's not what I came to tell you about. I checked my email at college and found one from Awa Maru. She's been to see that teaset in Japan about tsukumogami."

He pulled a folded up sheet of paper out of his pocket and held it out.

"I printed it out for you to read but the basic gist is, yes, you are definitely a tsukumogami, yes the not being able to get far from your hull thing is normal, and that the way around it is to carry a piece of it around with you."

"Well that's me buggered then. I've only got my hull and I'm not about to go breaking bits off of it."

Dan shrugged.

"There's more in the e-mail. Including Rose Potter's e-mail address so you can ask her things yourself rather than having to go through Awa Maru. Have you got an e-mail account?"

"Er, no. Someone set up that computer contraption in my room but I've barely used it and certainly haven't got the hang of doing so."

Dan nodded thoughtfully.

"I can show you how and set you up with a email address before I go home if you want."

Zetland looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Alright."

Standing up she grabbed her hat and coat and pulled them on before walking down the steps and past Dan, paperback in hand. She turned towards the Sir James Knott.

"Sorry to cut today's visit short James. I'll see you again tomorrow."

Dan also turned to the hull next to him.

"Bye James."

Zetland turned to leave.

"Come on then. Show me how this e-mail thing works so I can get in touch with that tea set. And that's definitely a sentence I never thought I'd ever say."

Grinning, Dan followed the world's oldest lifeboat out of Sir James Knott's home and towards the pavilion that was currently hers.

 

[darthcourt10]

Snippet 77: Lord K

Elevator doors opening, Chisuheri steps out into the cubicle filled office space, package in hand. Though she doesn't work for Nakano Seed, Venture and Hedge Investment Ince, she nevertheless gives friendly waves and passing greetings to those she recognizes as she passes by. Sarutobi grins as she passes the sarugami in the hall, the older yokai leading his two younger interns, Sen and Tsuya, off for a client meeting. A friendly exchange of greetings is given to Junko, as she peers into a break room to query with those not busy, where her target might be. Spotting Kiba and Yuno having a meeting in the latter's office, she gives them nods of greeting through the glass.

At last though, she arrives at her goal. Knocking on the door as a measure of politeness, after a few moments, she hears a slightly accented voice call out to "Entrez"

Opening the door and entering the personal office, Chisuheri is greeted by a realm of numbers, spread sheets, and computer screens which serve as the sole source of light in the room. And at the desk laden with towers of files and papers, opposite the wall of constantly updating stock charts, market indexes, digital ticker tapes, and muted financial news broadcasts, is the shadow behind it all. A deathly pale young man, in a crisp black business suit, mumbling quietly to himself.

"-trente jours non payés, -hmm... hypothèque à taux variable- celui-ci par défaut... -quatre vingt dix non payés -cela ne peut pas être correct?- Si nous convertissons cela en FICO score.... Bon dieu qui est terrible-"

Rather than a Prince of Darkness however, this is a self proclaimed Prince of Finance.

Eyes flicking up to the form that has entered, and then to the blades on her hip, reflexively his lips move as impulse takes hold. "un sabre, deux sabre-"

Friendly mirth then alights his shadowed eyes and colorless face. "Mademoiselle Chisuheri! What a pleasant surprise!"

With a friendly greeting of her own, Chisuheri nods. "Ambroise. You look well."

"As do you my friend, as do you!" Says the wizard as he rises from his desk to give a courtly bow and kiss her hand, "I heard about that business with your sister- for news to reach even a shut in such as me, it must have been quite the event of note. It is good to see that if the rumors were to be believed, you are well recovered."

Chisuheri is unable to resist the slight sardonic twitch at the corner of her lips. "If I am to be honest Ambroise, you should know as well as I, how hard it is to put down those whom the spill of battle can only feed."

The vampire gives a sensible chuckle. "That is true I suppose, though it has admittedly been rather a while since I had the misfortune to drawn into something so crass as a fight. Give me the civilized conflict of numbers and economics any day."

With a wave of his hand, the undead Frenchman moves to change the subject. "Ack, but I degrees. You probably did not come to talk to me about such recent ills. And I am sure this visit is more than just a courtesy call."

The Muramasa daisho set smiles. "Actually, I suppose it partly is."

Placing the package she was carrying on the table, the sword spirit then pulls out a bottle of wine. "Kagotsuruhe had a layover in Paris, and brought a gift for you. She wished to express her thanks to you, for putting her into touch with your friend and getting her a discount on her rental."

Seeing the branding on the bottle, the French Vampire's eyes light up. "Oh my- a Malfoy de Normandie!" A merry grin spreads across his pale features, revealing his fangs as her carefully turns the bottle in his hands. "It has been so long since I last had the chance to partake of one while overseas. Mademoiselle Westenra must have mentioned to her my favoring of the brand."

Chisuheri raises a curious eyebrow. "I take it that is a rare or expensive wine then?"

The frenchman chuckles. "Actually, it is merely rather niche. Normandy is not good country for wine, but I like the taste. A pity that the line the vineyard is traditionally entwined with, does little to grow it's renown. The original family were talented wine makers for sure, but honestly rather terrible as human beings. Nasty business what happened to them, though sadly rather fitting." Shaking his head, the vampire tuts disappointingly. "Tragically, whoever took over immediately after the war was a bit hit and miss at first. Thus the brand never really returned to shelves or regained the historic ever-presence it once had, even if few people truly liked or drank the stuff."

"I see..." says Chisuheri. "So it was one of those 'everyone else has it or is serving it, so I should too' things?"

"I suppose that's true," says Ambroise with a smirk of reminiscence. "That, or people were primarily attempting to, to borrow the modern slang, 'kiss ass' with the Malfoys."

The Muramasa blinks at the frankness of the statement, before shaking her head. Politics were politics, regardless of where one went she supposed. The same could be said of boot-licking too, really.

"And you still drink this label because....?"

The vampire shrugs. "Because it's nostalgic. Because I made my first fortune when it was actually popular, and the owners weren't 'collaborateurs'. Because I'm one of the few people who legitimately like the taste."

Considering her own venerable age, and soft-spot for certain things you just can't find or do these days, Chisuheri finds she does not have much grounds fr a counter-argument without being a hypocrite. "Fair enough."

Looking at each other for a few seconds, both then start chuckling.

"By the way," asks Chisuheri off-handedly when the moment finally passes. "May I ask a curious question?"

"Ask away," invites Ambroise.

"What kind of rental company is run by a vampire?" asks the puzzled sword spirit.
------------------------------------------------


Trainee Auror Samantha Iontach, was not having a good evening.

For one thing, even before the factor of the dementors was included, it was an absolutely shit evening. Thunder rumbled in the distance over the mountains beyond Hogwarts lake, adding an intermittent need to cast charms over the general vicinity as a precaution. This however, only made for brief breaks in the monotony of guarding Hogwart's gates, in the company of floating nightmares in the middle of a bucketing Autumn storm.

Ever since the clusterfuck that was the incident on the train, the number of human handlers assigned to the dementors patrolling the outskirts of the castle grounds had been doubled.

A frankly knee-jerk reaction, as the reason there were so few handlers assigned to the dementors in the first place, was because they didn't have the numbers for anyone else to begin with. Thus the Ministry was now down to the genius logic and situation that 'as long as the Aurors present could cast a Patronus, they could protect the people that the Demontors were supposed to be protecting in the first place'.

Samantha knew what a load of crap that was. She could barely produce an incorporeal Patronus when under training conditions. After three hours of standing out in the piss-freezing Scottish rain, even her warming and drying charms were starting to falter in their effectiveness. She couldn't even blame the dementors for it. At the most, they brought cold and fog. This was undeniably the sole work of mother nature. Torrential Autumn rain and wind, accompanied by thunder and lightning which the dark creatures had no bearing on anyway.

Glancing further down the road towards Hogsmeade, she watches as Auror Savage converses with some reporter and her lackey. Likely someone fishing for a quote on the beefed up Auror presence, no doubt. Right now however, Samantha's main thoughts and focus are on how much she wishes that she had landed her fellow Trainee and friend, Tonks' position instead. She highly doubted somebody who lucked out being paired with as high-flying a partner as Kingsly for training, would be stuck outside playing school-cop and dementor wrangler in this crappy weather.

Shooting another look at the reporters, to Samantha's mild curiosity, they don't strike her as being from the Daily Profit. For one thing, not only is one of them holding a microphone plugged into a recording device on her hip, but the second guy is holding a rather boxy device up to his face. Savage seems to only think it is an unusually slim wizard's camera, but to Samantha..... she would almost swear it looks like a muggle video-recording camera covered in runes and enchantments.

Hearing noise behind her, the surprised Trainee Auror turns around to see the gates that mark the start of the castle's ground opening. Then, in the darkness she sees them. A large form, beside something skeletal and horse-like pulling a carriage.

"Hagrid?" She asks in mild surprise. "What are you doing out here?"

The big man shuffles nervously. Rather than raising her suspicion however, the Trainee Auror recognizes that he is simply (and rather justifiably) hesitant about getting too close to the dementors flanking the gates with her.

"Ah, nuthin' in particular," says the groundskeeper-turned-recent-professor. "Dumbledore just asked if I could send a carriage down for a guest considering the weather. Considering recent events though, I figured I'd come down here myself and give you, Savage and our other... 'gate guards' a heads up now."

Samantha blinks. "Oh, well... thanks for that then Hagrid.'

Glancing uncertainly at the dementors on either side of the gate, the two wraiths only continue to float like silent foreboding statutes. If they have any feelings about this news, neither of them show it. Instead, they remain as they have been for some time now. Staring off into the darkening evening gloom with inscrutable silence, at what little of Hogsmeade can be made out through the pouring rain and is lit up by the sporadic flashes of lightning.

"By the way," asks the Trainee Auror. "Who exactly is our guest supposed to be?"

"I'm too not sure myself," admits the man with a shake of his sizable head, that sends water streaming everywhere from the parts of his beard and hair that peak out from the protection of his coat in the pouring rain. "He just said she was supposed to be foreign."

"Foreign, eh? I wonder what's up with that?" asks the Trainee Auror curiously. Maybe this will be something interesting to talk about as a distraction to how cold and sodden she is, even underneath all her charms and heavy-weather uniform robes.

Before Hagrid can answer however, something odd happens.

Looking up from where it has been nibbling at a patch of waterlogged lawn, the Thestral pulling the coach shuffles listlessly. Staring towards Hogsmeade, the bony creature then gives a shrill-shriek, jerking against it's harness.

"Whoa there, whoa!" shouts Hagrid evenly as he approaches the coach-beast, and calms it's spooked nerves. "What's gotten into you now?"

Looking around for any sign of what could have caused the reaction as well, Samantha then pauses. Something.... Something is up with the dementors....

More of them are turning up....

Rather than behaving predatorialy, or in a hungry swarm for whatever unfortunate quarry or tempting soul has drawn them to the area however.... now they almost seem defensive.... like a spooked flock of birds.

"....what the fuck...." Uncertainly, the Trainee Auror glances back down the road. "Oi! Savage!"

The older Auror doesn't immediately hear her. "-and I can state with full confidence that there is nothing that can get by or intimidate these loyal and obedient-"

"SAVAGE!"

"What!?" Asks the man in annoyance as he turns around.

Samantha gestures pointedly at the numerous dementors congregating or leaving their posts.

"The hell?" breaths the man under his breath before marching back up the road, the two reporters he was talking to just a moment before, forgotten. "Hey! Hey! Get back to your assigned posts and patrols! There's already enough of you here!"

Silently, the dementors ignore him.

"Go on! Shoo! Vamoose!"

A thought then occurs to Samantha, as she glances back at Hagrid and the still nervous Thestral beyond the gates. ".... sir?"

"Don't make me use a patronus!"

A rather disturbing one, when she realizes where the Thestral is staring. "Sir?!"

"What Trainee?!" asks Savage in exasperation.

Quietly, Samantha gulps. "What.... what are they all looking at?"

Pausing, the Auror's eyes widen as he realizes what she has noticed. Every single dementor, along with the Thestral, is staring down that long, dark, rain swept road leading back in the direction of Hogsmeade.

"Sir-"

Savage then cuts her off with a shush.

"What-?"

"Do you hear that?" he asks, a frown creasing his brow.

Quietening, Samantha strains her own ears.

At first, she hears nothing, losing the sound among the sporadic thunder and unrelenting downpour of the rain.

Then she hears what Savage has detected. "Is that... hooves and.... chains?" asks the Trainee nervously.

"That," says the older Auror, "sounds like a carriage."


Staring into the darkness, Samantha feels her spine tingle, the road almost stretching on into an uncomfortable, disquieting infinity in the gloom and rain. Despite, the driving rain, the hair on the back of her neck begins to stand on edge, as though the darkness, the noise finally starts to draw incrementally sharper and clearer.

Hard, heavy, galloping hoof beats from powerful beasts, that thunder through mud and clatter over cobble. Accompanied by the jingle and chime of chains and harnesses, that rattle in time with the cacophony of noise, created by a sizable coach or wagon traveling at speed. Closer and closer it grows, until it is an almost thunderous loudness. And yet through the driving weather, naught can be seen. Soon, the wagon and beasts are close enough, that Samantha can hear the harsh brays and breath of the horses pulling the coach and it's rumbling wheels.

But still it remains hidden in the darkness, mist, and rain.

"Who the hell travels by stage coach in this day and age?" asks Savage in an unnerved tone. Without realizing it, The Traineer Auror finds that she has reflexively closed ranks with him as well. "Where the hell is this thing? It sounds like it should be close enough to see already!"

Before she can respond, their mystery evening guest seems to answer for them.

Out of the gloom and rain, hurtle four galloping stallions, each almost seemingly darker than the blackness of the night surrounding them, and pulling a carriage of equal unnerving tenebrosity. Seeing the impending collision, the featureless, shadow-shrouded driver yanks at the reigns, causing the horses to dig in their hooves with nightmarish bellows, even as Savage pushes himself and his trainee to the side.

Sparks fly from horseshoes on stone, but in retrospect, diving out of the way and into the cold Scottish mud is unnecessary. With a screeching, clattering halt, the carriage and it's black stallions slide to a stop scant feet from where they were standing.

Getting up from the ground, Savage immediately rounds on the driver. "Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing going that fast in this weather?!"

Lit only by two dim, blue fog lamps on either side of the carriage, the the robed form atop it's driver's seat is cast in an eerie light. With an unsettlingly unnatural smoothness, the driver slowly turns their hooded head to face the Aurors. Then, like a spider descending from it's nest, the hunched over form seems to unfurl, silently clambering down from it's seat on limbs revealed to be much to long and spindly to be natural. Samantha hears Savage gulp, as it's unseen, hooded gaze, almost seems to pass through them.

Then, after a brief, almost wary glance at the dementors, the driver turns away.

"H-Hey! Don't just turn away from me! Don't you have anything to say for yoursel-" Before Savage can finish, a flash of lightning lights up the sky, illuminating all the world before them to see in brilliant, white light.

For the briefest of instants, this also includes the glimpse of an outline through the drawn curtains of the carriages window.

An outline of something shifting.

Changing to a form of something in the guise of humanity, from the shape of something human-yet-not.

Samantha feels her mouth go dry, and her mind blank, as if some kind of instinctive reaction is attempt to protect her from remembering the sight she only just barely avoiding seeing in the entirety of it's terrible clarity. Savage is similarly effected. All the two can do, is watch, as the driver politely knocks on the window of the carriage with a lanky limb, before opening the door and droping into a chauffeurs' bow.

At first, Samantha can only see darkness within the unlit interior of the carriage. Then a hand appears, carrying what at first glance, the Trainee takes to be some kind of overly fancy walking stick or stave. Then she realizes it is a sword. A blade and sheath of eastern origin, held in the delicate grasp of a female figure, who now descends from the carriage with unnervingly perfect grace. Garbed in foreign robes, the figure moves with such weightlessness and poise, that the muddy puddles covering the road barely even ripple when she steps off the final rung of the carriage. Tying her blade to her belt, the dark haired woman is surprisingly plain and unassuming as she quietly draws an umbrella to escape the driving rain.
Spoiler

And yet as lightning flashes through the sky above, illuminating her for all the world to see, the four midnight stallions recoil at the sight of the thing in the shape of a woman, whinnying and bellowing, eyes rolling as they rear up. In the background, Samantha also hears the Thestral snorting and pawing at the ground nervously as well, requiring Hagrid to soothe it with his voice once more.

Abruptly, the woman stiffens, and what little emotion was in her unsettling gaze, then evaporates into nothing. Samantha feels both herself and Savage freeze, but the woman's gaze is not on them. Icy cold, her gaze flicks to one of the dementors, slowly approaching the nervously trembling stage coach driver, who has been unloading a pair of steamer trunks from the coach.

The dementor is frozen, seemingly locked in place by the disturbing emptiness that has been turned towards it.

"Leave him." Her nearly whispered, dispassionate words are almost more a statement, more than a command.

For a second the dementor lingers, others moving to it's side to back it up, as they drift towards the unknown woman. Beside the Trainee, Savage curses, no doubt fearing that they may have to intercede if they take an interest in the woman and her stage coach driver. Already Samantha can feel the temperature beginning to drop, her breath becoming visible as the previously chilly Autumn evening begins to drop to near freezing.

Then something unexpected happens. What starts as a slow, gradual temperature shift, suddenly plummets. Ice and frost spread across the ground and plant life, not only between the dementors and woman, but even on the tips of her clothes as well.

Except, the woman shows no sign of reaction, nary even a bat of an eyelid, towards either the attention of the dementors nor even the dip in temperature around her.

The dementors on the other hand, reel.

Samantha feels her jaw drop open, as with seemingly just a cold glance, something in her gaze sends the wraiths recoiling away from her in manner almost like fear.

Slowly, the monsters congregate and circle, but they do not approach. Though lingering, they keep their distance from the woman and the stage coach driver, as he unloads the last of her trunks. For a moment, it reminds Samantha of something. An image she once saw on tv as a child. A school of tuna, predatory fish in their own right, moving together as a slow, wary sphere, as a shark lazily moves through the midst of their school.

Nervously finishing his work, and then turning back to the woman, the lanky driver gives her what seems to be a nod of thanks beneath his hood. Politely bowing her head in return, the woman appears to express a few words of her own gratitude, before the two finally part ways. Returning to his seat atop the coach, the driver is apparently more than happy to be taking his leave of a place so rife with dementors. An eagerness only matched by the enthusiasm of his horses to be away from the woman as well.

With a shake of the reigns, the carriage then rockets back off down the road to Hogsmeade in a cacophonous thunder of heavy hooves, jangling harnesses, and rumbling coach wheels.

What really captures Samantha's attention though, is the woman. With one hand holding the eastern-style umbrella protecting her from the rain, she quietly gestures towards her trunks with the other. Then with her free hand, she makes almost the exact same, slow finger-curling gesture she has seen many dementors do when preforming their limited wandless spellcraft. The Trainee shivers as the two trunks sedately rise from the ground, and take up positions beside her as she begins to walk.

Walk up the road.

Up the road towards them.

Seeing the woman approaching the gates, one of the dementors drifts forwards to intercept her and stop her as part of the normal security precautions.

Like a robot though, the woman's gaze automatically swivels to focus on the wraith that has moved to block her path. Immediately, the cloaked dark creature freezes. Then with equal amounts of horror and amazement, Samantha watches as the dementor backs away, almost looking as if it has been made fearful and cowed. To the side, she idly notes the reporters Savage was previously talking to, both now wielding cameras, and respectively taking pictures and recording as if their lives depend on it.

Giving her momentary impediment all the attention or care one would normally give for a piece of gum on the sidewalk they momentarily stepped in, the woman continues on her path. One that finally comes to a natural halt before herself and Savage.

For a long moment, the woman simply stands before them, silent, unemotive, and unreadable.

Finally, the older Auror finds his tongue first.

"A-And you are?"

"Muramasa no Kagotsuruhe," is her emotionless, blank reply. "Though if written in the western format, it may be listed as 'Kagotsuruhe of the Muramasa'. I have an appointment scheduled here tomorrow morning, but was invited to stay the night since the business that brought me here was rather by good fortune and planned on the fly."

"I, er... see." says Savage with unnerved uncertainty. "I suppose that would be why we didn't expect you."

Samantha can't help but shiver, feeling like there is something very wrong with this woman, if she is even a woman at all. "Uh- sir. Hagrid actually just came down only a minute or two before she turned up. He mentioned that Dumbledore sent a carriage and to expect someone."

"Oh." the wizard doesn't really have a reply to that. "Well, if that's the case, welcome to Hogwarts." Nervously, he pauses. "There is however, just.... one issue," he attempts to point out diplomatically.

Kagotsuruhe stares at the man, her emotionless gaze sharper than any blade, and more chilling than even the harshest winter blizzard. "Do you think a human criminal who spent thirteen years trapped with dementors, would be intimidating to them."

Savage opens his jaw, only to wilt slightly under her gaze. "Er.... well.... No, but..... it's that we've been asked-"

Shifting her focus away from the man, Kagotsuruhe moves to walk between the two mud-stained Aurors, once more paying them all the attention of strangers in the street that just happen to be in her way. Something Samantha takes offence to. Reaching out, she stops the unsettling woman with a hand on the shoulder, just as another dementor approaches and the woman shifts her gaze to meet it's approach.

"Hey! You can't just walk in th-"

Then she meets the woman's eyes, and for the briefest moment, it happens.

Her heart races, and her hands become clammy. A cold sweat beads across her back as a chill runs through her, like knives in her nerves. It's just like the dementors.

Right down to the faint-but-growing sounds -The distant shouting, the shattering of shells, her father and uncle casting shield charms, the Jericho trumpet of an Abyssal dive bomber growing louder and louder as the rain pours dow-

Samantha blinks, once more finding herself in the driving rain. This time though, it is the cold Autumn rain of the Scottish Highlands, and very, very far from the sea.

A touch to her hand then makes her look up at the not!woman politely removing the trainee's fingers from her shoulder. Her eyes however, look off at something else to the side, as if she were purposely pointing them elsewhere. "My apologies for that. I was focused on warding off the probes of all these dementors." she explains with a wave of her free hand at the creatures filling the surrounding area. "But then it was rather rude to peer in uninvited."

"What the hell was that..." she breaths.

The inhuman thing shrugs, before answering cryptically. "Where most eyes are windows to the soul, in mine are only mirrors that offer twisted reflections."

The Trainee Auror just stares, baffled, confused, and more than a little bit shaken.

"Well, good evening to you two then." With nary another word, the self-named Kagotsuruhe turns around and continues on, proceeding up the road. Passing through the gates, she then approaches Hagrid who greets her with the same friendly obliviousness he unintentionally has to everything else horrific and dangerous he has ever encountered in his life. The thestral on the other hand, seems far less keen on the passenger it will now have to convey up to the castle in the carriage.

A tap on her shoulder then startles her back to her current surroundings. Looking up, she finds Savage looking at her worriedly. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," declares Samantha determinedly, as if maybe that might actually make her feel it. "I'm... okay. I don't know what happened back there, but it seemed like an.... accident. Something intended for the dementors more than..." unbidden memories, akin to what a dementor would bring up, once more flash through her mind. ".... more than me..."

"Will you be okay?" he asks her. "Do you feel funny or like you need to take a breather? Be checked out? You're certain that lady didn't do anything worrying to you?"

The Trainee shakes her head. "I just... I just need five, and I'll be good."

She doesn't need five. She's probably going to have Blood Week nightmares tonight for the first time in ages.

Looking up at Savage, Samantha then follows his gaze to the carriage now headed back up to the castle.

"Who the hell is that anyway?" he asks under his breath. "I've never heard of a 'Kagotsuruhe of the Muramasa' before. The name sounds foreign"

"Sir... I don't think that's a who." Quietly, the Trainee Auror gulps. "I think the more accurate question is what the hell is that...."

 

[darthcourt10]

Weaver

Friday, 6th September 2013

Sitting in front of the geriatric and agonisingly slow computer in Zetland's room, Dan looked away from the screen towards the lifeboat watching what he was doing over his shoulder.

"Alright, what do you want as your email address?"

Zetland shrugged.

"I don't know."

"Well you need one otherwise it won't work."

The lifeboat sighed.

"Just give me one yourself. Nothing daft mind."

Thinking for a moment, Dan typed in the most boring option that came to mind.

"This okay?"

"It's fine."

With a slight nod of acknowledgment, Dan continued with the process of setting up an email account.

"This reminds me, have you sorted everything out with your 'yes I am a person' paperwork yet?"

There was a noticeable moment of hesitation before Zetland replied.

"No."

"Why?"

"I can't decide on a surname."

"Really? It's been almost a month."

Zetland snorted.

"A month is nowt. It took them almost forty years to name me Zetland. Before that I was just 'the lifeboat'."

"Fair point . Have you made any progress at all?"

"I've ruled out Dundas since while I owe them a lot I'm already called Zetland and Picknett since while they offered I don't want to play favourites."

"What's left?"

"Guy, since that wouldn't just be playing favourites, Redcar and Lifeboat."

Dan paused in what he was doing and gave her a sideways look.

"Lifeboat. Seriously?"

Zetland shrugged.

"As I said before, it's what's they called me for thirty-odd years. Besides, it's no different from someone being called Baker or Fisher."

"There's a difference, trust me. It'd be like Awa Maru having liner as her surname or Vetch's being corvette."

"Hmm. What are they using as their surnames then?"

Dan finished setting up the email account before replying.

"Vetch's is Smith, like most of the shipgirls in Hartlepool. I can't remember what Awa Maru's is. My point is, just because you are a lifeboat doesn't mean you should call yourself that on official paperwork. A name is not a description. Besides, don't you want to have the option of occasionally being someone who happens to be called Zetland rather than advertising the fact that you're the world's oldest lifeboat all the time?"

"Never thought of it that way. I'm still not ruling it out though."

"Suit yourself. Your account is all set up and ready to go. Think you can manage?"

"I think so, yes."

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

Dear Rose Potter,

My name is Zetland. You've heard about me from Awa Maru. I would like to thank you for your help. I don't really know all that much about what I am other than that I'm not quite the same thing as a shipgirl so I appreciate you taking the time to answer some questions, especially given that you don't know me.

Yours sincerely,

Zetland.

 

[darthcourt10]

K9Thefirst1

Welp. It took long enough. As always, eternal gratitude to Harry Leferts for patiently helping me with working on this, the last part of the Negotiations between Porta and Humanity - and most importantly, letting me know when I was about to do something utterly stupid without need. Also, thanks to him and RCNAnon for a number of little touches that improved the final product.

So, we finally get to the agreements that will be in effect until the end of the Abyssal War, and will likely be copy and pasted to the Post-War treaties. Plus we get clued into how Porta and OLD are back in the UK around Netal Day like Harry described in the chapters that brought us Halifax.

And just to be sure everyone is fully aware: This takes place before Haruna and Rose's wedding, from a few days to a fortnight or so.





Negotiating Table Part III

After the Princess' graphic calling out, no one was interested in pressing more hot-button issues. And instead discussion focused on fine-tuning what had already been agreed on in detail. Additionally, Her Highness had shared more intelligence on not only the various classes of Abyssals indemic to the Atlantic, but also on the known or rumored personalities of Petty Princesses operating in the region. During one such discussion, one of the diplomats, purely out of curiosity, inquired about her usage of the term.

"Well," she replied, "It is what they are. Rulers of Principalities that have formed out of the complete collapse of the Ocean-Spanning Abyss' government. They are but shadows of what had come before them… Though, if you insist we can use the inelegant but accurate term 'Warlord.' But that seems needlessly insulting if you ask me, not to mention cruel."

Lord Admiral Fairbank cocked an eyebrow at that.

"Indeed? And why would that be you Highness?"

"Well, because it at least grants them the acknowledgement that they have attained the rank de facto if not de jure, at least as a fig leaf. To call them something as minor as a 'warlord' would be a slap in the face in all they accomplished. Don't misunderstand, the vast majority of the Petty Princess' are categorically undeserving of the rank of Sovereign by act, word, or method, but – statistically – there must be one or two out there that are not blood-lusting sociopaths like my sisters, so it doesn't seem fair to lump them in with the brutes."

"Do you think there could be other Abyssal Princesses that would be willing to negotiate terms?"

To her credit, Porta did not immediately answer. Instead she took a moment to consider the question, closing her eyes in thought before answering.

"Considering the personalities of my sisters, and how they would have cultivated the personalities of their subjects, I find it very unlikely that any that would have been interested in an armistice, let alone peace, survived until today. If any contact is made with any, it will be a genuine surprise to me – if a welcome one."

The ambassador from Turkey leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table as he addressed the Princess.

"Considering that you know how your kind think, would you be willing to be Humanity's envoy if we find signs of a fleet in the Atlantic, or the Baltic or the Mediterranean, that would be willing to make peace?"

"I do not see why not, provided that I have no other pressing matters of war to attend."

Discussion continued in that manner for hours, through meals and late into the evening. Finally, at the end of the first week, Porta Atlantia decided to broach a subject. The subject of… Territory. And of Boarders.

The minutes of that morning showed Porta opening discussion of what would be her territory, then, justifying it as a cultural norm indigenous to Abyssals as well as a method to ensure the Princess and her realm could efficiently exploit the resources of the Atlantic, put forward a proposal where a large segment of the Mid-Atlantic – centered on her islands – would be recognized as her sovereign territory.

Nothing else was done due to a stubborn back and forth.

That Night…

"Princess – The Hell was that." Demon, on Porta's heels and with a breathless Reivana behind her, demanded. Like a good second, she held her tongue in front of the other dignitaries, but now that they were in the Princess' quarters? "You're on the cusp of getting everything and you risk it all on this bullshit!"

"Oh Demon, don't be dramatic," the Princess replied, "I don't actually expect to get that huge slice of the ocean. The key to negotiations of any sort involved overstating if you're on one side of a transaction, and to understate if on the other. Ten or twenty-thousand square miles out of the millions I started out with is quite favorable, and quite likely what the humans will agree to. It's simply a matter of working them up to it."

"Oh you're working them up all right, but not to making legal exceptions to you little miss snowflake. Your mouth is writing checks your fat ass can't cash!"

Porta rolled her eyes and was about to reply when the Re-Class in the room spoke up shyly.

"I'm afraid she's right Your Highness. I looked it up while studying for my mission, and while serving as your envoy, and the Humans already have a stable internationally recognized code of laws regarding territorial waters, with centuries of precedent to back it up.

"The most you can expect is a few miles of sovereign ocean, and beyond that a few hundred where you have exclusive economic rights to exploit. But beyond that? Your Highness you would be asking them to go against a deeply ingrained precedent, one that, if defied, could potentially result in confusion or even wars among the humans. They'd never agree to that."

Porta scoffed.

"'Never say never' Reivana. If you don't dare you won't know what you can accom-plugh!"

The Princess found it hard to speak around Ocean Liner Demon's knee in her gut. And continued to keep silent when – to Reivana's horror – the Demon gripped her by the biceps, bodily lifted her into the air, and slammed her into the nearest wall, and put her helmeted face inches away from her own. For a very long time, the room was quiet, save for Porta's labored breathing. Her face was an expression of utter shock, one which faded into dread when she collected her power over the Demon… And it did nothing.

"Our survival, is guaranteed. Your Independence, is assured. Angband's life is safe. If you don't get your head out of your ass, all you will accomplish is getting the Humans to go full on Final Solution on us. So you tell me cunt, everything else being equal, is Angband, the one warship I actually like, and the only daughter you approve of in any capacity, getting murdered by the Shipgirls worth the chance that you might make money off of empty ocean?"

For a long time, Porta Abysseum Atlantia was silent. Her mouth worked like she wanted to speak, but nothing came to mind. And as the seconds ticked by her eyes widened in realization at what she very nearly put into motion, with no one to blame but herself. As seconds turned to minutes, Liner Demon slowly eased her onto her feel, but the Elder Princess continued down, sliding onto her seat, hands at her mouth in horror. Liner Demon looked on with apathy, crossing her arms over her chest as she watched her sovereign, silently judging. Meanwhile, Reivana looked on, unsure what to do or say, merely turning from the Demon that cowed everyone in the fleet just by her presence alone, and back to her sovereign, whom she and everyone in the fleet saw as a Goddess-Queen.

After a quarter-hour, Porta gulped, and turned to her envoy.

"Reivana… Could you please show me your books on Maritime Law? I fear I may have overlooked something, and must modify my plans accordingly."

"Of course Princess, I have them right here."
------

The Next Morning

Lord-Admiral Fairbank, The First Sea Lord, was looking over some notes from the PM's office with Price when his American friend Douglass sat down beside him, looking conflicted.

"John my boy, whatever is the matter?"

The younger admiral looked around at the other delegates, calmly and quietly conversing with their aides, and in general acting as if nothing happened yesterday. In fact the Gernman Ambassador, who yesterday was looking fit to burst a blood vessel during the talks, at the moment seemed quite placid. And then there was the bombshell going off from the Abyssal Princess, who had up until then seemed so reasonable and level-headed, the day before.

"I don't understand any of it. Yesterday it looked like everyone was ready to call in airstrikes, and today it's just another day at the office."

Fairbank nodded in understanding.

"Yes well, part of it is blustering, and part of it is understanding how politics is a daily thing, and if you get so tangled up over yesterday you risk missing opportunities today."

"And what about what the Princess demanded yesterday?"

"First rule of negotiations Douglass: Never make your first offer your final offer. What Her Highness asked for yesterday was an over exaggerated proposal to test the waters. We'll work her down. Though unless I miss my guess, going by how her envoy and her Demon responded, I suspect that they were just as surprised, and if they are worth their positions, they'll have had a long discussion with Princess Atlantia.

The younger man looked at the Sea Lord and shook his head in exasperation.

"I hate politics. I miss just being a captain."

"Wartime is the most meritocratic environment a military can be John," Fairbank said as he sipped his water, "while you may have gotten your first flag star from everyone above you dying, those other two on your sleeve are only there because you convinced your superiors that you deserved them."

The American rolled his eyes and groused under his breath when the Princess – who was looking shockingly meek, compared to her usual expression of confidence – and her retinue entered and took their seats. The room was quiet for a very long time, with all in attendance observing Porta, who looked unusually small and vulnerable compared to the days previous. Finally, after a long, awkward silence, she spoke.

"Ladies and gentlemen… Concerning yesterday. After consulting with my envoy and my Second, I have come to realize that my proposal yesterday was… Out of line. As such, I rescind it, and instead I will agree to the internationally recognized standards of Internationally recognized sovereign waters. Hopefully, this will be the only mistake on my own part for the remainder of this negotiations."

The rest of the day's discussions were short, with so many of the delegates preparing for a protracted debate and series of negotiations that never came to pass, the agenda was anemic for the day. And so after dinner the day's talks were ended and everyone retired for the night. Liner Demon and Reivana found that they had to walk faster than normal in order to keep up with Porta, who was moving was best speed while still maintaining an image of dignity to her quarters. By the way she visibly deflated once behind closed doors, Demon suspected the trials of the morning weighed her down more than she let on. The demon looked on as Reivana and Stab fretted over their Sovereign, fluffing the pillows on her bed with the former, while the tail poured a nightcap, provided with the room. The Princess smiled indulgently at her envoy… But the look in her eye told that she would rather have some privacy.

"Reivana"

The Re-Class jerked upright, Stab just barely avoiding making a mess of the scotch.

"Could you take another look at the projections for our oil production? I want to make sure we can honor our obligations as escorts while also fighting a full-scale war."

"OH! Well, it just so happens that I have the numbers right here!"

Behind her helm the demon rolled her eyes in exasperation as she placed a heavy hand on the battleship's shoulder, interrupting her as she was reaching into her hold. Reivana turned her eyes to the demon, her expression uncertain and nervous.

"Well, then. Is suppose that you factored in our reparation oil payments as well."

"W-well, yes. It does, regarding the payments to Spain, Morocco, Portugal and Britain. At least, the preliminary numbers."

"Ah. Then perhaps you should run them again. Just in case."

Reivana's eyes moved from her latest report in hand, then to the demon, and back to the stack of paper. The battleship was dead certain that the numbers she had were accurate, but if the demon had her doubts, could it be possible that she missed something? Stab looked to Reivana, and even though he had no visible eyes it was clear as day that he was irritated when he turned and 'glared' at Ocean Liner Demon.

"Thanks a lot jackass."

Reivana, once more spiraling into a whirlpool of academic paranoia and dragging her tail along for the ride, left the room for her own commandeered accommodations, where she had set up a small library of references for everything from international trade law to economic theory. That would buy them a few hours of peace.

"Thank you Demon."

"She means well. If it weren't for the fact that she's a warship I just might like her."

"No, no. Not that. For… Knocking some sense into me. Before I shot us all in the head."

Liner Demon nodded and eased herself into a chair alongside the bed.

"Yeah well, the thing about gambling is that sooner or later you lose. Some odds just aren't worth playing."

"And I needed someone to tell me when I was going to deep. And throttle me if I didn't listen."

"It is a sign of a wise ruler to surround herself with those that don't buy into her propaganda."

"And I call myself fortunate to have you as my valet."

The Princess smiled at her Demon and leaned back onto the pillows. She closed her eyes and was almost about to doze off when a soft but insistent rapping came to her door. Ocean Liner Demon gestured to the Princess to remain where she was as the hulking armored guardian went to the door, and barely opened it. On the other side, there stood the Portuguese Ambassador, looking quite severe even as he looked around the hallway in suspicion.

"Good evening." He said quietly, to his credit not showing any sign of being intimidated with the quiet visage of the tall Abyssal peaking out from the door. When Liner Demon neglected to answer the man continued.

"I wish to speak with Her Highness. Alone."

Again, the Demon relied on her presence to do the talking for her.

"One-on-one. And not here," he whispered, being sure to emphasize the last part, "It regards a potential avenue for her to gain territory, but these rooms are probably bugged."

The Demon continued to stare for several seconds before holding up a single finger and easing the door closed. Behind the wood there were sounds of faint but heated discussion, but finally the door opened, revealing the shorter form of Princess Atlantia. Without a word she stepped out and firmly closed the door in the demon's face before she jerked her head to gesture to the Ambassador to lead the way. With a nod the man and the Princess quietly walked down to the ground floor and out the back, coming to a stop just outside the back door leading into the garden where no one at any of the windows were likely to see them.

"Your Second is quite the, ah, stoic sort."

"She is not the sort to speak when her presence accomplishes what she wants. Now then, Mister Ambassador, what sort of discussion can only happen without record and without any witnesses, let alone my own trusted aide?"

The man smiled, apparently pleased with the Princess' candor, though it could equally be from the princess crossing her arms under her bust, notable even with her cloak. He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the walls of the house, and spoke in soft tones.

"What do you know of the magical denizens of the world Your Highness?"

Porta cocked an eyebrow, but after a moment's consideration answered honestly.

"Little of substance. They exist. They have powers. But they have managed to stay hidden from the world, meaning it is likely that they have the capacity to tamper with memories, or tight conspiracies with the governments of the world, most assuredly both. Am I accurate thus far?"

The Ambassador nodded.

"Indeed. In fact, for over three-hundred years, they have formed a sort of hidden world amongst the mundane nations of the world. And had it not been for your race's war, they would have likely remained so."

Now Porta was curious, and did not begrudge allowing that curiosity to show as she rubbed her chin in consideration.

"Indeed? Why is that? Is there something about us that affects their powers?"

"Exactly so Your Highness," the Ambassador replied with a nod, "for reasons no one can explain, the presence of both Abyssals and Shipgirls apparently negates the effectiveness of the Magical World's Obliviate spell, the keystone for their ability to hide from society. In a few years it is suspected by anyone not deluding themselves that their so-called 'Statute of Secrecy' will become meaningless, as the Magicals will be powerless in their efforts to avoid the civilized world, and can at last be apart of it. By force if required."

Porta took note of the man's choice of words and tone, but refrained from commenting on it, or even showing any sign that she had read into it. Instead she hummed in thought.

"And this affects me and these negotiations… How?" she said, taking care to tone her words as curiosity rather than as belligerent apathy. In reply, the Portuguese Ambassador reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper and handed it to Porta. The Princess unfolded it to reveal a map of the world, but not one she was intimately familiar with.

There were the familiar shapes of continents and geo-political borders, but overlaying everything were thick lines that crisscrossed the planet, zigging and zagging and crossing over each other seemingly at random. However, there were some that stood out as thicker, darker, than the rest. The most prominent of these lines were in the Atlantic.

It started in the far north in Russia, just east of the middle of the border with Finland, moving northwest across Scandinavia until it kinked straight south off the coast of Norway and kinked again in the Low Countries towards the south west through northern France, into the Atlantic before kinking to the southeast back into France, through the Spanish Heartland and kinked straight west through Portugal into the Atlantic again before kinking South by Southeast, moving over West Africa and over the Atlantic again, kinking just enough that it remained parallel with the African Coast before terminating just shy of Antarctica.

Every point where this line kinked, smaller lines – but still thicker than the majority of the others on the map – branched out into the British Isles, across Europe and Africa, with three very notable lines branching from the kink over the Atlantic off the coast of Central Africa. The western line moving due west to South America, forking about two-hundred miles off the coast of Brazil, the northern line moving as far into that country as the border with Columbia, where it kinked northeast over the Caribbean, again to the north at Havana and terminated over Manitoba. The southern one across Argentina and off the coast of Chile. And to the East two lines radiated, one north into the hinterland of Libya, and the other moving dead East all the way to southern China.

And at the kink where all those lines intersected, off the coast of Central Africa, Porta noted a small speck. An island.

"What you are looking at Your Highness," the Ambassador said at last, "is a map of Ley lines. Currents of magic that flow across the world. In ancient days early magicals tapped into them to power especially potent spells, but these days they are the backbone of all magical forms of transportation. While the Floo Network and Apparation can send an individual directly to a specific destination in seconds, and owl boxes and related cabinets send parcels or small groups of people thousands of miles instantly, Ley lines are still the cornerstone for moving Magical Cargo in bulk quantities quickly and cheaply, empowering the concealing enchantments and other spellwork of large magical sea and air ships, without having to rely on charms and enchantments that need to be maintained, or could be overpowered by a strong enough electrical storm.

"The most important of these lines Your Highness, is what they call 'The Glittering Road,' the longest, strongest singular complex of Ley lines on the planet, servicing five continents, and before the war was the very heart of the International Magical Economy, and is what allowed the Enchanted Royal Ministry, Portugal's magical government, to finance its colonial empire decades after the Kingdom fell and the colonies gained independence on the mundane side of the divide."

"…Mister Ambassador, you had my attention. Now you have my interest."

The man smiled as he pointed a finger at the island Porta noticed earlier.

"St. Mathew Island, Your Highness. The Crown Jewel of the Enchanted Royal Ministry. Or it was, until Blood Week. From what we were told, a few hours before the coastlines started getting hammered, my government's magical counterparts received a flood of distress cries over the wizarding wireless before being cut off. But soon after that all Hell broke loose over the world, so by the time they were able to send Aurors to investigate Blood Week had come and gone, and from reports the island may well have been completely purged of Non-Abyssal life, going by the Anti-Air fire coming from the island. Their magical traders have been able to bypass it of course, but the quickest and easiest path to the Americas for magical trade is severed without this hub, and the other pathways cost them precious hours for perishable products, and the magicals of the world will no doubt pay handsomely to see the trade through the island restored for the symbolic gesture alone. Regardless of who actually owns it.

"Your Highness, my government, and the Enchanted Royal Ministry, are both offering you this island, provided that you can liberate it."

The Ambassador took the map from the Princess' still fingers, and put it away while Porta considered the delicious offer. Even if everything he said about the island other than it existed was a lie, it was still territory that she could develop, with the associated territorial waters to exploit. And if everything he said was true… Once this 'Statute' collapsed she would be poised to be among the first on the Mundane side to exploit untold resources, and rake in enough money to fund an Empire, her debts would be paid off rapidly, and her economy developed to a First World market…

"It is a… Tempting offer…" she said at last, taking great care to not jump at the treat like a starving dog. "However… What precisely is your government asking for in exchange for such a bountiful prize?

The Ambassador shrugged.

"Considering that you have already agreed to reparations and a military alliance? And the fact that you backed off your, er, bold proposal for territorial waters before debate could begin in earnest? Little more. My government just wants you to go to the Azores, and publicly apologize for attacking and invading, and then unambiguously renounce your claims to the archipelago."

Porta prided herself in being able to control herself when needed. And thus, she was pleased at being able to avoid displaying her excitement. After all, if one was going to do a task anyway, being asked to do so for a reward was hardly a burden at all. Although, there was still the tickling feeling at the back of her skull over how easy this was coming.

"Shall you inform the populace that I am coming? Or am I to just 'pop over' and speak to the first tourist with a camera I come across?"

"Not to worry Your Highness," The Ambassador said with a laugh, "we'll send word to the locals as soon as I inform my government."

"…Very well, I will do so. Although, it is tempting enough to make one question the motive of giving it away, when one could use it's potential for oneself."

The Ambassador shrugged and nodded in acknowledgement.

"Fair enough. As to the reasoning… All I am at liberty to say is that the current Minister of Magical Portugal is concerned with certain political movements in the nation, and across the continent, and is willing to see the remnant of the Portuguese Empire collapse if it means these movements are unable to secure funding, and thus cause political unrest."

Porta cocked an eyebrow at that, and was silent for a long time. But the Ambassador held his tongue, making it abundantly clear that she would not be getting anything more out of him. Finally, the Princess smiled and held out her hand, which the Ambassador took and shook, sealing the deal.

Minutes later, Reivana was literally pulled from her tables of economic equations by the Princess.

"Reivana, who among your contacts would know about magical politics in Europe?"

"Er…" she said intelligently, caught off guard by the question, "Well, let's see, the first who comes to mind is Herm-"

"Excellent, contact her and get her to give me the names of people in government that I can talk to directly about magical topics."

The Re-Class was silent, blinking owlishly at her sovereign's odd request.

"…Now?"

"Yes, now."

And that was how Hermione, she who was more lovely than Helen of Troy (Huzzah), was woken up at well past midnight by her Abyssal friend about Magicals, Politics, and who to talk to about such in Britain. And to Porta's delight, Her Majesty's Government had seen fit to include two delegates read-in to the nature of things. One from the military, the other actually in the government.

For the sake of transparency in these opaque talks, she chose the man from government.
------

That morning, Oliver Price found himself being escorted to Princess Atlantia's quarters, at her request. On one hand he was agitated at the unholy hour, but on the other he understood that sacrifices were expected in the name of Queen and Country, and on the gripping hand, part of him wasn't so surprised. After all, there was an almost distressing lack of under-the-table dealing going on at these talks, and he was starting to get worried. So with a bracing breath he knocked on the door.

'Come in!' Atlantia could be heard through the door. Along with her second.

'Princess please! Can't you at least get-'

The Demon was cut off by what sounded like a grunt of pain and the crash of metal on the floor, followed by the Princess repeating herself. Slightly perturbed, the MP hesitantly opened the door and walked in – and nearly had a heart attack. For other than the water clinging to her head to toe from a very recent shower, if the faint traces of steam coming from the bathroom was any clue, her Highness, on all fours over a spread of maps of the Atlantic across her bed, was absolutely unclad. The Elder Princess looked up at the man staring aghast at the vision before him.

"Ah, MP Price," she said neutrally as she waved him in, "come, come, we have much to discuss about sensitive matters."

Price swallowed audibly as his eyes followed the swaying over the Caribbean before forcing himself to avert his gaze – right at the groaning, crumpled pile of Ocean Liner Demon.

"W-w-would Your Highness prefer to take a moment to get dressed?" he asked, mentally applauding himself at how calm and even his voice was.

"Shut up and get in here Price, we are short on time and we have a lot to cover."

The man suppressed a scoff at the word choice considering things. A lot indeed needed to be covered. Taking a breath and desperately wanting a shot of scotch, the man began silently running the numbers of Manchester United's past three seasons as he closed the door in the enthusiastic faces of Private Rush and his comrades – one snapping pictures with his phone – and concentrated all of his fortitude on the Abyssal Princess' face and the words coming out of her mouth.

Three Hours Later…

Lord Admiral Fairbank looked up from his breakfast as Oliver slumped into his chair beside him, looking utterly exhausted.

"Price? Are you all right lad?"

The younger man looked to the First Sea Lord and offered a tense smile.

"Her Highness is looking to purchase repossessed property from our neighbors," he said. Fairbank maintained a neutral expression at the code phrases concerning Phantom Islands known to be owned by the Magical World and currently occupied by the Abyssals in the Atlantic, "and she wants to speak to the legal representatives of the owners concerning the sale." Meaning that she wanted to add a hidden clause in the talks concerning such.

As one of the senior members of the delegation, Fairbank was intimately familiar with everyone else that was also aware of the Magical World. Well. It would mean extra work, but considering the imminent fall of the Statute, a number of phantom islands had the potential to play merry Hell with international politics, so getting rid of them ASAP beforehand would make things much simpler on that front, at a delicate time with a lot of complexities… An idea was soon swimming in his head on how to please all parties, and the First Sea Lord nodded.

"I'll speak with the representatives, and we'll see that she gets what she wants while the owners are duly compensated."

Price nodded, looking ready to collapse in his chair.

"Atlantia is not to be trifled with Fairbank."

"Why is that?"

The younger man turned to the aristocrat dead in the eye.

"Because she is either the most ruthless and amoral negotiator in history, or she genuinely does not care about decency."

Fairbank looked at the lad in confusion, but held his piece. Then it clicked when he noticed that at dinner Price couldn't look at the Jell-O being served for desert without blushing.
------

The following nights, another series of talks, smaller, more direct, and more straight forward, took place on that small back patio. One on one, Porta Atlantia discussed the nature of what she was asking with each delegate who knew of phantom islands owned by their magical counterparts, what could be given, and how to give her a Fig Leaf to take it, while also making promises to ensure a fair trade. In a way, these unofficial secret talks were easier than the official secret talks, given that it tied into everyone's goal of smoothing the transition to a Post-Statute world, something all of the governments involved wanted. After all, many of the islands were not owned by any government other than the ICW, and so forking over the under-developed rocks to a single polity that had a vested interest in not causing trouble made sense if it prevented migraines down the road. Not to say that every single Phantom Island was up for the Princess. There was one that – in a ploy to curry favor to be cashed in elsewhere – Porta swore not to take for herself. It was in the south Atlantic, only a few miles off from the Falklands, which she suggested Britain offer to Argentina in exchange for swearing off their claims to Britain's islands. But there was much horse trading over trade deals and debts and loans and leases to her BioOil process in exchange for islands that had avoided paying taxes for centuries, and despite the hard work Porta enjoyed every moment of it, playing her two loves: Politics and Economics.

The only oddity – for Porta at least – was the last night before the talks were to officially end. Price said that his government wanted to discuss one last item. But when the appointed time came, it wasn't Oliver Price that approached her from the house. But rather, it was an elderly man she did not know approaching from around the front, with a long white beard and head of hair, an elfish nose with little round glasses perched on it… And dressed in the gaudiest red and silver robe she had ever seen, bedecked in streams of sequins and semi-precious gems of every color of the rainbow. Porta prided herself in her capacity to control herself… But she could not help but stare at the old man, eyes wide and mouth open as he eased himself into the other chair on the patio.

"Good evening madam," he said pleasantly, "how might you be this fine evening?"

For a moment, Porta gawked, but soon enough managed to ease into conversation mode.

"Fine, sir… Though I do not believe I have had the pleasure of your introduction."

The old man started as if shocked, though going for the twinkle in his eye the Princess couldn't shake the notion that he was having a laugh at her expense.

"Of course, how rude of me madam. I am Albus, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Grand Mugwump of the Wizengamont, Representative of Magical Britain in the International Congress of Wizards, and – my personal favorite – Headmaster of Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

The pieces began to fall into place, but for the Princess the world was still rotating a slight touch. Regardless, if she was indeed meeting with someone from the Magical side of Britain, she could not afford to be rude. She had no idea what a Mugwump – Grand or Otherwise – actually was, nor the significance of any Wizengamont, but it certainly sounded impressive, which likely meant this Dumbledore fellow was a figure of some importance. Porta gave a smile and shook the man's offered hand.

"And I am Porta Abysseum Atlantia, Princess of Abyssinia."

Dumbledore hemmed and hawed at the name before the metaphorical light shown behind his eyes.

"Ah, Porta, of the Abyssal Tribe, in the Atlantic. Or perhaps more accurately, The Atlantic Gateway in the Abyss?"

"You know your Latin, Your Grace," she replied, finding that she was genuinely pleased at how quickly the man caught on, "and your Roman Culture."

"Well, for those who study the mysteries of Magic, it is well understood that languages that have endured the trials of Time, hold great power," Dumbledore answered, a small smile on his face, "and please your Highness, simply Albus will do. And if we must stand on titles, I would much prefer it if you were to call me 'Professor.'"

"That… Should be no issue… Professor," Porta replied, though she found she could not keep her confusion from her face, nor contain her curiosity about this old man, "But if I may ask… Why? Your other titles seem much more substantial."

Albus gave a little wave to the air, as if the question was so much smoke.

"They are Princess, I assure you. In the Ministry I hold a great deal of soft power, gathered over many decades of study in Magic, doing one task or another on the Ministry's behalf, and having taught over half of the current roster in government positions. But, to be honest, politics is something I have little love for, despite my small talent for the task. My true passion has always been education, nurturing young minds as they mature, that sort of thing.

"From what I gather from our mutual associates in the Non-Magical world, you are similar to me, at least in enjoying something not normally associated with one in your position, yes?"

"…Well, I enjoy politics myself. But… To be honest I am happiest when managing an economy. Meanwhile, my deplorable sisters were all about war, one that wasn't needed."

Porta froze, shocked at how… Honest she was being. This human had been in her presence for only a few minutes and he was having her open her heart as if they were old friends! What was this man?! Although… He certainly seemed harmless enough – in regards to being nefarious at least. He seemed quite… Earnest. Wanting what was best for everyone he met. It was… Refreshing.

Meanwhile, Dumbledore's face fell into melancholy, nodding in agreement. "Yes. Wars usually are. And siblings can be… A hardship, as much as they can be a joy."

The pair were quiet for a long time, the Professor ruminating on memories the topic brought up, and the Princess studying the older human. Finally, Porta broke the silence.

"Professor… Why are you here?"

Dumbledore met the Princess' eyes, and the twinkle of a merry old man was replaced with the sheen of a shrewd man resigned to his business. Without a word her lifted the vast folds of his robe's right sleeve to reveal a briefcase that the Abyssal knew for a fact wasn't there before he moved his arm. Dumbledore gripped the case by the handle and laid it on the small table between them, latches to her. With a pair of clicks and the groan of leather he opened the case to reveal the interior was easily double what it by all rights should have been. Atlantia boggled at what she was seeing, and was so taken with crunching the numbers of the amount of goods that could be moved if a similar affect could be applied to things like shipping containers, that she failed to notice the pair of rugged work boots inside that Albus levitated out and onto the table with a thump.

"Your Highness, I have taken the liberty of crafting this pair of portkeys for your discretion."

"…I beg pardon?"

"Portkeys, your highness. A means of instantaneous transportation between two points. Simply leave one somewhere within a day's sail of the channel, bring the other to your home, and at any time you require, you and one or two others need only touch the portkey to travel to its twin."

Porta looked at the boots bewildered as she accepted them from Dumbledore, the logistical implications staggering, and she felt oddly touched at the practical gift. She was not so foolish as to think that this congress – important though it was – would be the only one between now and her official entrance to the war.

"…Thank you. But… Why give this gift to me?"

The magical man opened his mouth to speak as if to say something, but stopped himself. He took in a breath, but released it without saying anything. Finally, he told a partial truth.

"Given the importance of your alliance, I and other likeminded folk in the Ministry felt it important to play our part."

Porta ran her fingers over the old leather of the boots, and she felt the magical energies imbued into the material.

"This is indeed a fine gift Professor… But the cynic in me says that something is expected in exchange."

The magical bowed his head slightly, lips tense as he gave a small nod.

"Not for me, your Highness. And I will not make it a requirement. But I do wish to ask about if you could be present for the innocent of the Magical World should the fall of the statute be… Exceptionally violent."

The princess leaned back in her chair and rubbed her chin. Meanwhile, Albus returned to his seat and continued to make his case.

"I will be the first to admit that the Ministry, the whole of Magical society, did unconscionable things in the name of keeping the Statute. But there are good people in our society that have had no connection to the atrocities other than being born with magic and living under the governance of the same. I have many people that I call good friends in the Ministry that have family, children, that depend on them. One of them, a man named Arthur Weasley, has over a half dozen children, most adults or almost there, and another, Amelia Bones, has a niece to consider, and both were very keen on making this delivery themselves tonight."

"And why didn't they?" Porta asked.

"Because I am far older than they, far less touchable than they, and unlike either of them, I don't have a family to worry about if I get sent to Azkaban due to being caught doing this."

The Princess looked to the old man, to the boots, and back again, then leaned back and crossed her arms over her stomach in contemplation.

"And this is a condition, I presume?"

Albus was silent… But shook his head.

"No. The portkeys are yours regardless. Forgive an old man for putting in effort where it likely isn't needed. The three of us have been working with the non-magical government in hopes of a gentle fall, and if it isn't, we have a plan or two in place to protect the innocent, just in case."

Porta considered the older human, thinking about the situation, the risks this man had clearly made, what he was asking for, and the risks she herself would be taking if she accepted his implied proposal…

On one hand, if the humans went on a genocidal rampage against magicals, one that made the Nazis and their ilk look mildly agitated, then treaties or no, the war against her race would start anew if she harbored refugees. On the other, he also represented a foot in the door to the magical side of humanity. One did not toss out a rare opportunity such as that lightly, and being able to pick his brain on matters of the Magical world would be a boon…

'And of course,' said a tiny voice in the back of her mind, one that had been growing louder as of late, 'it would be the right thing to do. A way of gaining the moral high ground that could be useful someday perhaps, but still – wouldn't you want someone to take Angband in, keep her safe and protected, if this plan of yours fails?'

The thought of Angband, should the humans turn on her, being protected from Man's Wrath by someone out of the goodness of their heart, suddenly made the risks seem smaller… It was decided. But not without caveats.

"If… It became necessary for you to fall back on Plan F… Hypothetically mind you. I… might be able to shelter a few score to a couple hundred, but no more than perhaps five-hundred maximum. I don't have the infrastructure required to grant asylum to an entire demographic, and I won't for some time. And even if I did, housing a population in the thousands could make the humans nervous."

Dumbledore shrugged in agreement, but otherwise didn't say anything, simply observing the Princess as she mentally chewed on the idea.

"Mind you, in such a scenario – unlikely though it is – I would be taking an awful risk of drawing Mankind's ire, after doing a great deal of work to cool them down, and as a Sovereign my first priority must always be in the interests of my subjects and their safety. So I would only be able to take in the least threatening individuals you see."

"Yes, I can understand that logic," Dumbledore nodded.

"That means that no one attached to a Magical Government would be permitted, regardless of what capacity that attachment was. Nor any of… Whatever your people have for a military force. So that would leave only women and children, and no men of Military age. So anyone fifteen to sixty years of age would be left to themse- Is something funny?"

As she started talking about military age, Dumbledore's eyes regained the twinkle that they had lost earlier, and was visibly fighting a large smile. He waved his hands in mock surrender at the Princess' question.

"No, no your Highness, I apologize. It's just that you clearly misjudge the age a magical can be of use in the Aurors, and thus be a credible military threat."

Porta cocked an eyebrow, but did not appear all that amused, so Albus leaned forward.

"Madam, how old do I appear to you?"

The Princess' face grew more bemused, but shrugged and humored the man.

"I'd say… Perhaps late fifties? Middle sixties perhaps?"

The twinkle in the wizard's eye became almost incandescent as he smiled gleefully.

"In a few months, I will turn one-hundred thirty-five."

Until his dying day, Albus Dumbledore would cherish the bug-eyed, slack-jawed shock on the Elder Princess' face as the most hilarious thing he ever witnessed.

"Magic, madam, is magical."

It took an embarrassingly long time (for her) for Porta to recover her wits.

"Right. Well. Anyway, I think you grasp the gist of what I am saying, correct? The civilian women, the very young, and the… The very very old, and maybe the infirm. And even then, only upwards of a few hundred before I start fretting about the shipgirls circling my shores and their angry human masters. In this hypothetical you understand."

Dumbledore nodded gravely, good humor gone and replaced with a heavy sadness.

"I thank you for your speculation Your Highness. And I wish you the best of luck. Not only in these talks, but in ending this vile conflict."

Porta nodded in thanks, and the pair stood. The wizard and the princess shook hands, Dumbledore collected his briefcase, and began to walk away, when he paused, as if just remembering something before turning back to Atlantia, the twinkle back in his eye.

"Also, I just remembered. I am told that your envoy – Reivana, was it? Reivana – has the love of knowledge of a Ravenclaw. By your leave, I would like to gift her with copies of some of our books for First Years. And when things calm down, perhaps a tour of Hogwarts?"

Porta blinked, then thought. And sighed at how the Re-Class was going to respond at the invitation, and the eyes she would make if she was told her sovereign turned it down.

And dammit she was curious too.

"By all means, share with us. Reivana is the only member of my Diplomatic corps at the moment, but if she gets help and is free, all you need to do is schedule it with her."

The wizard smiled, as if he was privy to some secret joke or the promise of shenanigans to come, and in a pop of displaced air the Headmaster of Hogwarts apparated far to the north. For a long time, Porta stared at the pair of boots, and what they meant. Not only their immediate and practical utility, but also the unexpected connection they represented. And the alliance of survival that came with it.

She prayed it didn't come to that, but the Elder Princess suspected that the doom of her realm, and that of the magicals, was forever tied together.
------

With all the matters settled, all that was left was for the military to organize and plan their response once the Princess' ploy initiated, which Porta claimed would be sometime in January. Plenty of time for war games, planning, and for the paranoid to make contingencies. And thus the talks were concluded, and everyone not directly needed for the closing comments was busy with packing up to leave. For Admiral Chirac, that meant that Teste and Richelieu were gathering their things for the trip back to Brest.

As Richelieu was placing the last items in Ferdinand's suitcase, her cellphone went off. Stepping back, the battleship put the phone to her ear.

"Bonjour! Jean-Bart mon-petit how are you? Mm? It did not work? Oh precious little sister of mine how dreadful! Mmm-hmm…. Mm-hmmm. Oh non…"

"Richelieu?"

The battleship put her hand to the mouthpiece to turn to Commandant Teste.

"Jean-Bart is discouraged. Would you mind finishing the packing while I talk her down?"

Teste nodded in understanding and her lover turned back to the phone.

"Mais Qui, I am here. Now, mon petit, I know that you are troubled by your situation, but this anger is not good for your skin little sister! You are to young to be putting ugly crow's feet around your eyes."

Teste rolled her eyes at the comment as she finished her own bag and moved to Richelieu's. At her side, the battleship gasped as her eyes lit up with an idea.

"I know! You must take a lover!"

From where the carrier stood, she heard the voice of the younger Richelieu-class battleship rise in agitation. Richelieu apparently misread her sibling's source of umbrage.

"You are right!" she declared, as if she had an even better idea, "You will need two lovers! Like me with Teste and Ferdinand!"

At that Jean-Bart was especially agitated, as Richelieu actually had to pull the phone away from her ear, and Teste could clearly hear her.

"IMBICILE! What sort of slattern do you take me for! I am not some degenerate pervert like you!"

"It is not perverse!" Richelieu defended herself, "it is l'amor! And it will help you find joy in life, mon petit."

The other battleship was evidently still unimpressed, but at least she wasn't so loud about it. Then Richelieu perked up as another idea came to her.

"I know! You should find a little boy, and train him to be your ideal lover! As they say, 'if you cannot find the perfect husband, you must raise him!' I have heard a rumor that Warspite is doing so even now! So I would suggest you reach out to her and ask for tips on- …Bart? Jean-Bart? Mon petit? …Why did she hang up on me?"

Commandant Teste sighed. Richelieu was a good friend and an affectionate lover… But there were times when she was just… ugh.
------

Princess Porta Abysseum Atlantia took a breath and took pride in how it was only vaguely shaky, and that her sight was only slightly watery. At long last, what she had planned for nine years, eleven months, with ten days of discussions and negotiations, was finally coming to pass. A stack of 11 x 8 papers, held together with brass fasteners. It wasn't much given all the work that went into its construction, let alone what its ramifications were. But it was a beginning. It wasn't a proper, official treaty. Such a thing would require the involvement of too many factors of government in too many of those involved to do in ten days of talks. What sat on the table was essentially a rough draft of the treaty that would come years down the line. It was a test drive of the relations between the Human Governments and the Atlantic Abyss. But the Last Elder Princess was confident that, if things went well, with her subjects interacting with the Humans and the Shipgirls both in war and in peace, the resultant treaty would not deviate significantly from the agreements sitting before her. Or, at the very least, not in a way that would undermine her power as a Sovereign in her own right.

All around her, the dignitaries, aides, and the personnel that played a role in the drafting of what was already being called The Abyssinian Accords, looked on. The official photographers filling the air with the clicks of their cameras as they jockeyed for position to ensure the clearest angle of everyone of import. And the Princess was the one to have the bulk of their attention. Likely due to the fact that there were plenty of stock photos of the other dignitaries and military personnel, and not even remotely in the slightest bit at all due to the fact that – to Ocean Liner Demon's dismay – the Princess had forsworn the black cloak she had worn for the duration of talks and stood clad in her royal raiment.

In utterly unrelated matters, a fount of memes would be produced from the Group Photos of the Princess, The Demon, and the men and women representing Humanity, with the Princess being front and center, and clearly the shortest of that congress. The most (in)famous being one such photograph having the icon of an online media website of a mature character being photoshopped into the corner. A second memetically propagated image was cropped to focus on Liner Demon, paired with a series of thematically similar images – ranging from one with a quadruple amputee knight in black armor with a boar on the chest, to a series showing the player character from a video game franchise notorious for their difficulty in avoiding death – all captioned with "THATS MY ABYSSAL," or some variant thereof. Another being a photograph taken at the split-second where the Russian Ambassador and Admiral Ferdinand Chirac were both looking behind the Princess at an angle that met at her pelvis, apparently in approval if their expressions could be read accurately (incidentally, a few weeks later the Russian Ambassador's wife filed for divorce). Furthermore, another memetic image was made from that same shot focusing on American Admiral Douglass, as at that time he was the sole participant looking anywhere other than at the camera or the Princess, somewhere slightly off to the left-hand sight of the image, stone-faced. In fact, he looked most put upon, while everyone else was smiling for the cameras. It was also the only image where he was positioned anywhere close to the Princess, in all the others he apparently had moved to the far end. And yet another popular image had the Demon and the Princess replaced with a certain cyborg and wizened old man in a black cloak from a popular science fantasy franchise and used in a comedic late-night talk show. And a few hours after the images were made public, the official shot would be cropped to focus on the Princess and used by an open source Media Trope Categorizing website for their article describing how villainous characters, especially women, are commonly visualized as extremely attractive to members of the opposite sex.

But all of that would be matters of the future. Not even the group pictures had yet been made. That would come after the signing was complete.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, fellow delegates," Oliver Price, the Member of the party currently in power in Her Majesty's Parliament, spoke, drawing attention of all present, signaling the beginning of the official signing. As the United Kingdom was hosting these talks, it only made sense that Her Majesty's Government would play Master of Ceremonies. "We are gathered here, to recognize a most momentous occasion. The signing of a document, likely of significance matching the Malta Conference, almost seventy years ago. Where we make the first, real steps, to finally turning the current war in the Atlantic from a stalemate, to Victory in Humanity's favor. Before we begin passing these accords around for the representatives of no less than thirteen governments to sign, permit me to read it aloud, for all to hear.

"We the undersigned, on July 9th, 2013, do hereby agree to these terms of peace and military cooperation between Elder Princess Porta Abysseum Atlantia, and the Governments of-"

The reading was largely unnecessary. All present had largely heard the document dozens of times, either by drafting one paragraph or another in their turn, or by hammering out the spirit of the topics discussed ad nauseum over the past two weeks. Though this would be the first time the document in its entirety would be heard in one sitting. But everyone already knew what the terms agreed to were.

One: The Princess would, officially, declare allegiance with Humanity, forswearing her Race in their war against the Humans. Porta found the point a little belabored, given that if she wasn't doing so in the first place these talks would not have happened, but nothing was ever harmed by making things blatantly obvious.

Two: The Princess agreed to pay reparations to the governments of Portugal, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, The Kingdom of Spain, and Morocco, for her actions against those bodies during Blood Week and the following seven months. Payments would be made in harvested goods from her realm, hereafter known as the Principality of Abyssinia, of oil, maritime valuables and/or resources, and a 50-year lease to said governments to her Bio-Oil process, with a renegotiation of said lease in 2063 upon an audit of said wardebt.

Three: The Princess would be obligated lend military intelligence as to the Hostile Abyssal fleets in the Atlantic. Said intelligence would include, but not limit to, the structural nature of all known Abyssal classes, along with intelligence on the personalities of any known Princesses or Demons or otherwise leaders of Hostile Fleets.

Four: In the first week of January, 2014, the Princess will be obligated to initiate hostilities with the Hostile Abyssals, and assist in all campaigns alongside Humanity in order to clear their presence from the Atlantic, and to militarily assist in future operations in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. Failure to comply would be grounds for a breach of the Accords and Abyssinia would be seen as hostile.

Five: Upon initiating hostilities, The Princess and Abyssinia would be obligated to assist in Trans-Atlantic convoy escort and defense.

Six: In the event that it was believed that a fleet was suspected of being willing to make peace, and all other efforts to make contact fail, the Princess was obligated to serve as an envoy of peace in Humanity's name.

Seven: The Princess agreed to constrain her fleet's growth to its current size, save to replace war-time losses once she initiates hostilities. Any growth beyond that must be reported to one or more of the signed Human governments. Which was perfectly reasonable. Her fleet was already larger than any other fleet of her Sisters, save for Central Atlantic or Sub-Continental Ocean. Unless someone back home did something spectacularly insipid and start drafting mercenaries without her permission while she was gone, Porta didn't see this provision becoming an issue.

Eight: Humanity would recognize the Island of Antillia, the Great Meteor Seamount, and occupied islands otherwise uninhabited or unowned at the official end of Atlantic Hostilities as Abyssinian Sovereign Territory, unless previously or separately agreed upon. This would include Internationally recognized sovereign waters of twelve miles, with a six-hundred-mile Economic Exclusion Zone, unless already occupied by a foreign power, or separately negotiated.

All in all, Porta was ecstatic with the terms. She got everything that she had hoped for, for prices she was more than happy to pay, provided that she wasn't going to do all of the demands anyway. The last part was especially important. While a consolidated and contiguous state would have been ideal, as opposed to her realm being so divided, she had to admit that Reivana and Demon were absolutely right: Man was not going to alter International Law just for her benefit. A small part of her knew it was a whimsical fantasy on her part, and if the humans sent into talks with her had been more closed-minded, blood-lusty and spiteful, that whimsy would have resulted in the genocide of her and her subjects… And the thought of what Ocean Liner Demon, freed from her enthrallment and once again buried in the madness Porta found her in, and what damage she would do to Human, Shipgirl and Abyssal alike before finally being cut down was enough to keep the Princess up many nights after her mistake was made clear to her. And that was before she factored in things like her daughter Angband, a child murdered in the name of children murdered, and what her fleet would do if they found out the circumstances of her death. After thinking of that, all that the Princess could dream of was her fleet burning London to the ground in a suicidal jihad against the ones that, in their eyes, betrayed their Princess.

And she had to admit, the soft time limit on the Princess to find and occupy any Phantom islands to be found in the Atlantic was a stroke of genius. It provided her motivation to push her fleet to purge the Atlantic and to do so quickly in order to beat the deadline, and in doing so she limited her time to spread out and find them. And at the same time, she could not do so over-aggressively, least she over-extend herself. Either way, Humanity saw Hostile Abyssals die without any risk to their own assets.

In time, Price finished going over the agreements, asked if anyone had objections (Porta had none due to getting the best deal she was going to get, and everyone else was just wanting to go home), and was officially the first to sign the Accords. Then he passed the document to the British First Sea Lord to sign. Then it was passed on to the American, the Frenchman, and the circle of nations represented. And finally, it and a pen were placed before her.

Porta took in a breath, and reveled in the soothing sensation of relief as she slowly released it. The Abyssal Princess turned to her right at Ocean Liner Demon, and smiled as she returned the glance with a nod. The Princess turned to her left, to look at Reivana and her tail, the two most important, and largely ignored, figures in these events.

"My thanks to you, Reivana," she whispered, "and you Stab. I could not have been able to make this possible without you and your efforts."

"Well you can thank us by giving Little Miss Neurosis here some help."

"Stab!"

"It's true, you need help! …Also, is it to late to make a political marriage with me and Vanguard?"

"YES! YES IT IS!"

The ones closest to the whispered conversation barely contained their amusement at the antics of the envoy and her tail, while everyone else looked on in confusion at the Re-Class' outburst. Porta just rolled her eyes and stood up, signing the document with a flourish.

The cameras flashed and the humans clapped, applause which petered out as Porta held a hand out to Liner Demon, who handed her a small knife, and turned to hushed gasps as the Princess slit the meat of her right thumb. Porta Atlantia looked about at the silenced onlookers as she pressed her bloody thumb to the last page, directly below her signature. She stood up straight, and spoke clearly, projecting so that all would hear as she spoke in The Royal We.

"Behold, Mortal Men," she said, as her eyes took on a red glow, a glow that matched what was emanating from the letters printed onto the pages, "behold, for even as Our Honor be at stake for these Terms of Peace, so too shall be Our Life, and the lives of Our Subjects."

Admiral Douglass swallowed as he felt something pulsing in the air, something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand, and brought cold sweat to his brow. A soft breeze seemed to pulse from the Abyssal Princess. In the corner of his eye, the American Admiral saw the Italian Ambassador cross himself and finger a small crucifix he apparently had in his pocket. If the American Admiral was right, the Italian seemed to whisper 'blood magic' under his breath. The Princess lifted her left hand as in an oath, and when she spoke it was with a voice that echoed with Power.

"We, the Ancient Atlantic Gateway Princess, Heir to the House of the Abyss, Sovereign of the Gateway Between the Old World and the New, doth renounce Our Name, and Name Ourselves anew. We Are Porta Abysseum Atlantia, Sovereign of Abyssinia. Into these terms do We impose Our Might, Our Blood, Our Power, Our Authority, into Ourselves and into Our Subjects. Until the work be done, and Peace be Secured Once and For All, should We ever defile these Terms in Deed and in Truth, and betray this Good Faith given unto Us by these Worthies, may Our Life, and that of Our subjects, Our Family, be thus rendered unworthy of trust, and thus rendered forfeit, and cast into the Abyss from whence we came, ne'er to be seen again! In this manner, let Our Word be trusted as Honored before our former foes. As It is Said, As It is Written, So shall It be done. Thus spake The Princess."

When she finished speaking, the supernatural glow from her eyes, and from the letters of the Abyssinian Accords, died, so to did the unnatural wind, and the Princess slowly slumped, shakily easing herself into her chair with the aid of her Second and her Envoy. The room was silent, save for the heavy breathing of the Elder Princess, who seemed as if she had labored for days on end. And as she looked about, meeting the eyes of the humans in the room, her tired, baggy eyes were easy to see.
------

Night had fallen by the time Porta and Liner Demon entered the English Channel. Whereas they entered the Irish Sea from the North to throw off hints of their origins, with peace secured they flagrantly departed due south. And when they failed to leave the way they came, the Lairds of Thule found new ammunition against the half-human Chieftainess, in her apparent paranoia. But the Granddaughter of Central Atlantic was well trained in the art of Scots politics, and so it was simply another day for her.

The pair sailed in silence, Liner Demon on the surface, her Princess below it. It was rare that they felt a need to speak. But when the Princess turned west by southwest off the coast of Brest, the Demon took note.

"A bit early for this turn isn't it?"

["No. We are making a little stop."] the Princess replied, wordlessly dropping a boot into the depths.

"Really. Why? And Where to?"

["The Ambassador for Portugal is evidently, unless I miss my guess, a non-magical from magical breeding, one who resents his treatment from family for not being able to bend spoons with his mind and turn lead into gold. And he made a very tempting offer on behalf of his Non-Magical Government, that I could not refuse: An island that serves as a magical trading hub. If I can liberate it and reinstate the flow of goods, the non-magical Portuguese government will be willing to back my claim. I have already spoken with the British Ambassador read in to the situation, and he promises to recognize it as well, provided I extend tariff free trade between it and St. Brendan's. Which I was going to do anyway. In fact, they won't even pay shipping. Here's hoping the governor of the island is ready for the influx of tax money with all of the companies that are going to want to be headquartered on their island in a few years."]

"Huh. So that's where the provision of scoring 'unoccupied or unowned islands' came from. And in exchange…?"

["In exchange, I do what I was going to do in the first place once peace was secured: Publicly apologize for my part in Blood Week, and renounce my claims to the Azores."]

The Demon made a noise of contemplation, but – failing to find anything inherently wrong with the terms – shrugged and changed the subject, fingering the Olympian lightning bolts on her Warhammer 'gift,' once more quietly feeding on the anger the reminder of her first life inspired.

"Well, it's only a couple days out of the way. Here's hoping that shit hasn't hit the fan with that damn battleship there with no supervision."

["Now Demon, I know she can be a little… Odd, but Canut would not have lived as long as she has if she was unobservant and rash enough to not accurately read her employers. If she took my absence as a chance to build a mercenary army, that would be different, but she hardly seems that oblivious or foolish."]

Thousands of miles away, while talking with old comrades-in-arms of old battles from her days as a mercenary, the Battleship Demon Canut felt a chill run up her spine, and a sensation that she had made a very big mistake creeped into her mind…

 

[darthcourt10]

Yellowhammer

An Egyptian Sunshipgirl in Queen Elizabeth II's London (Part III)

Amisi exited Harrod's with a smile on her face and holds full of the necessities of life such as clothing to wear for her Pharaoh, bathing and hygenic supplies to insure that she presented herself suitably as the future Great Wife of her Pharaoh, and incense of myrrh, frankincense, and cedarwood to honor the Gods and those such as Queen Victoria of the Secrets and Erasmus Wilson who had done deeds of worth that deserved their names to be remembered. She glanced over her Pharaoh and frowned minutely at the look on his face.

"{My Pharaoh, are you unwell? Your face has been red since we visited that child's mockery of a proper temple.}" Amisi sighed, mentally resolving to give Mohamed Al-Fayed a bronze-edged piece of her mind if and when her course crossed that of the merchant who owned the store.

While she could hardly object to keeping the memory of Egypt alive, the combination of details that Al-Fayed had gotten wrong and some of the crass commercialism had shaken her. The less said about her reaction to the custom sphinxes showing Al-Fayed's face the better, since her faeries had paled at her outburst and refused to translate her commentary on such a thing. Trust a third-rate merchant to think himself equal to a Lord of the Two Lands! Ammit devour his heart to get at the greed and pride inside it!

Percy was desperately trying to look everywhere but below her neckline as he responded. "I'm all right, Amisi. It's just the atmosphere was warm and stuffy in there. I was feeling light headed when you were trying on that low-cut dress and needed a bit of ches--" He blushed scarlet and hastily corrected his slip of the tongue, jerking his eyes up to meet hers. "Rest! Rest! That's it. I needed rest!"

Amisi blinked in puzzlement. "{Oh. Well if we on the river I would summon my true self so you could sleep aboard me, my Pharaoh.}"

"N-not necessary. I'll be well. Honest. We just have one more stop to make."

"{Oh, in that case, let your will be done, My Pharaoh.}" Amisi responded, automatically steeling herself for the trial ahead when her Pharoah summoned another of those metal chariots that would subject her to the Perils of the Taxi during the Hour of Rushes.

"Don't worry. I won't call another taxi. Instead we will take the Underground to the Holborn station and walk the five blocks to the British Museum."

Amisi's eyes widened as he approached a moving stairway descending into the earth. "{My Pharaoh! You wish to journey through the Duat!}" She clung to his arm, then as they approached the turnstiles, her face firmed up and her chin rose. "{I am unworthy of treading alongside you as the Ship of Ra travels during the hours of the night. Yet I swear that I shall stand by your side and fend off Apep and Ammit and keep you safe as your journey to the halls of Osiris.}"

Percy blinked as he paid their fares. "Um...no, this is a muggle way to travel through the city. We just have to take the train--" He suddenly broke off as Amisi jerked him behind her as the train emerged from the tunnel.

"{O rerek-snake, take yourself off, for Geb protects me! Get up, for you have eaten a mouse, which Ra detests, and you have chewed the bones of a putrid cat!}" Amisi incanted, trembling at the appearance of the 'large snake of metal' as she recited her spell of protection against the serpent that preyed on sinners in the Egyptian underworld but standing between it and Percy despite her obvious terror. Then her jaw dropped as the train stopped and the doors opened. "{This...is not Apep?}" Numbly she allowed Percy to guide her to a seat on the train.

"No, it is the Underground train. We just ride it to Holborn Station. What did you think that it was?"

Amisi blushed and looked downcast as saltwater filled her eyes. "{I...when the Bark of Ra journeys through the Duat, the great serpent Apep attacks it and must be fought off by Set. It is a great serpent sixteen cubits in length with a head of flint. It also hunts the souls of men as they travel through the Duat to be judged by Anubis. I saw this 'train' and thought that it had come to swallow you. You must think me a foolish girl, my Pharaoh for I nearly committed violent spellcraft with innocents present who could be harmed.}"

Suddenly he took her chin and raised it so he could look into her tear-filled eyes. "No Amisi. You are not a foolish girl, but a brave girl doing what she can to adapt to this brave new world. The Muggle world can be strange to me and I grew up aware of it, how much more must it be to you who could not even dream of the modern day?"

Amisi smiled gratefully, feeling a knot in the heartwood of her keel unclench. "{Truly you have wisdom enough for both of us, My Pharoah.}"

 

[darthcourt10]

Harry Leferts

Staring at the doorway, Jane shifted a bit in her seat before a hand appeared with a steaming cup. "Here you go, Jane." With a blink, she turned to find Harry there with a slight smile on his face. "Got to keep awake after all."

Rather then say anything, the teenaged girl took it and then smiled slightly. "Thanks, Cuz." After taking a sip though, she perked up a bit and felt the tiredness leave her. Something that made Jane look at the cup suspiciously. "What's in this?"

Only taking a sip as he sat down, Harry did not answer right away. "Its something I found in one of the family potion books. Not something huge, but a kind of... additive, I think. Pretty simple to make from some common ingredients." Taking another sip, he felt his own energy levels rise. "From what the books say, it gives a boost when added to a drink, sort of a weaker Pepper-up."

Head tilted to the side, Jane frowned before she took another sip herself. Besides the hot chocolate and slight coffee taste of a mocha, there was another taste. Almost like a cinnamon, but not. With a shrug, the thirteen year old girl downed half her cup. "You could probably make a ton of money with that, Cuz."

With a shrug, the wizard shook his head. "Probably, I know that Goto-Oji is already using it and so is Yonehara when they need a slight boost. Ooyodo-Oba compared it to a flavour shot."

Just humming, Jane considered that for a few moments before nodding. "Makes sense." Glancing to the side, she frowned. "You think that you have enough?"

In reply, Harry chuckled at that. "I made plenty as I'm going to need it for this year."

Needless to say, that got him an odd expression from his adoptive cousin before she remembered how much work he was doing that year at Hogwarts. Internally shaking her head, Jane sighed. But then, looking at the door to where Mutsu was in labour, she chewed her lip. "Um, so, Cuz..."

Leaning forward, Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I, um, already gave something to help." At the confusion, he pointed at his collar bone. "Remember that necklace that I gave to Mutsu-Oba back around June? The one where I told her to wear it?"

A frown on her face, the other teen nodded. "Yeah? What about it?" It was when she took a sip of her drink that she figured it out. "Wait, is that some sort of magic thing to help?"

Slightly nodding, Harry grinned a little. "Got it in one, Jane. It was something used to help Potter women in labour. Not a whole lot, mind you, but it increases the chances of a successful birth for mother and child with a slight amount of pain relieving charms put into it."

That made Jane blink before she smiled some and gave him a slight hug. "Thank you."

Eyes closed, he accepted the hug. "You're welcome, Jane." Pulling back, his smile continued. "Besides..." Winking, Harry continued. "I would have given it to Mutsu-Oba anyways."

Waving him off, Jane snorted. "I still appreciate it." A far off look came to Jane's eyes as she continued to stare. But somehow, Harry knew she was not seeing the hospital around them... or not this one at least. "Daddy's been worried about it."

Rather then say anything, Harry simply nodded as he knew why. As he looked around, he could see the other members of the Richardson household just sitting in various places. Pennsy was next to her sister, lending silent support as Ari stared at the door, almost as if she wanted nothing more then to plow through them. Around the Battleships, the Shimakaze sisters were all sitting, with the Nameship sitting on Arizona's knee and leaning into her. Most who knew her in passing would have been shocked that the Destroyer was not running around, simply staying at her Momboat's side. Those who knew her though also understood that she wouldn't be running around.

Currently though, Arizona was absent mindingly stroking Shimakaze's hair in a way that obviously was keeping her mind calm.

Even as Harry watched though, Zuihou came up with a cup of coffee and a box of donuts before sitting on Pennsy's knee. Said Battleship simply began to stroke the Carrier's hair much the same way that her sister was with Shimakaze. Granted, the only wizard in the group had to hold back a snicker as Arizona smacked a hand that was creeping over the chair towards her donuts away. Moments later, Albie slunk out from where she was hiding behind a potted plant that was suspiciously behind the scarred shipgirl.

A glance down the hall had Harry noticing Archie there standing in front of a fish tank watching the fish go back and forth. Not far off, Jintsuu stood slowly going through stances. The Light Cruiser shifted from one to another fluidly, eyes closed. It was obvious that she was using it as a way to concentrate her mind away from what was going on just mere meters away from where they all where.

To Harry's mind, all of them were waiting for what could happen next. The only one not there was Hiei, and she was in the delivery room with Mutsu and John as well as Nagato. All of them knew that the Kongou was acting as a pillar of strength for the Admiral currently. However, he shook his head free of such thoughts though as Jane tapped him on the shoulder and he turned. "Something wrong, Jane?"

Her eyebrow raised, the non-magical teen pointed at Harry's own collar. "You're wearing a necklace, Cuz? I mean, not that odd really, but..."

Briefly, Harry blinked before he realized what she meant as he could feel the weight around his neck. Reaching into his shirt, he pulled out the object in question. "You mean this, Jane?"

Leaning forward, Jane nodded as she examined the odd thing her cousin was showing her. In the middle of it was an hourglass of some sorts. "Yeah, that's sort of neat though weird." At his snickers, she frowned. "What's so funny?"

With a shake of his head, Harry looked around before leaning in. "Its the time turner that I was telling you about, Jane. Remember?"

Eyes widening, his adoptive cousin's jaw dropped. "Wait, that's it? And..." Furrowing her eyes, she frowned some. "You brought it here? Why?"

Shaking his head, Harry frowned. "Mum picked me up right from Hogwarts and I can't exactly just leave it there to be honest. And, well..." He then turned his head and coughed, unable to look a suddenly suspicious Jane in the eyes. "Call it a bit of insurance."

Once more, Jane's jaw dropped. But this time when she leaned in, a hiss came from her mouth. "The hell, Harry? From your letter, that sort of thing is dangerous to the person trying it! And you would-"

Now looking at her, his eyes hard as the emerald people claimed they were colored like, the wizard stared into hers. "Mutsu-Oba is family, Jane. For family, I will do and risk anything. And I do mean anything, Jane." Eyes darkening, Harry frowned. "And I know that you understand."

Jane held his gaze before nodding, her eyes going just as hard. "I do."

If anyone had really looked at them, they would not have seen two teens there at that moment. No, they would have seen two people who would walk right through the fires of Hell itself and face the Devil himself if it meant that their loved ones would see another day. Neither of them wanted to lose anyone else that they cared for and would fight for any chance, no matter how slim or dangerous, to protect them. Two future leaders who would carve their names into history in the times ahead.

Two who would go on to become Legends.

It was part of the reason that the two got along so well and understood the other. And then the moment passed as Harry slipped the time turner back under his shirt with Jane turning the conversation onto other matters. The complaints that she got from Harry regarding his sword though made her snicker to no end. Especially about finding orange peels in his bed.

Of course, unknown to Jane, a certain sword who had just arrived in her home was currently lounging on her bed and eating blood oranges as she tried to figure out a way to sneak into the hospital. Perhaps a nurse's outfit... hmm, there was a thought. And one that brought back fond memories.

An hour later, the door opened with Hiei walking out along with Aristaeus who was drying her hands on a towel. With a small nod, she looked around while the Kongou pulled down her mask with a relieved smile. "Guys, come in and meet the newest members of our family."

While Hiei did get a raised eyebrow from the Repair Ship, said shipgirl did not comment further on it. Especially as no one else was doing such as well. Moving aside, she let the group into the room as Dewey stood to one side and they gathered around the bed in awe. In it, an exhausted Mutsu was laying back with a blanket in a bundle on her chest. A similarly exhausted John was holding one himself and gave a smile to his human daughter. "Jane? Come here for a moment."

Swallowing, Jane did so and came to a stop as she could not see the face of the infant swaddled in blankets. "They're so small..."

Upon John's face was a slight smile. "Babies normally are. Now Jane, meet your new sisters, this is Mary and Mutsu has Mirai."

On the teenaged girl's face was an expression of awe as she reached forward and the baby gripped her finger in it's tiny hands as the Smols got up on the bedside table to watch. Blinking away tears, Jane looked from the baby in her father's arms to the one in Mutsu's. "Hi, Mary... Mirai, I'm your big sister Jane. And I swear that I'll be the best big sister that you could have, I promise."

Arm around her adoptive son's shoulders, Nagato smiled down at him as he moved to see Mirai. Smiling some, Harry let out a light laugh as his aunt gestured for him to introduce himself. "And I'm Harry, your cousin. Welcome to the world..."

Even as the others introduced themselves, the smile did not fade from Harry's face. If anything, it grew. Internally, he promised that he would make sure that they would grow up as safe as possible, swearing it. Then Harry took a picture to send to Hoppou as he was certain she needed it.

Said picture would later find a place in the Nagato-Potter apartment, and then in his later home.

 

[darthcourt10]

Fallenworldful

So, a third snip. I've fallen way behind already haha. Our resident dapper kaiju writes far too fast for us mere mortals to keep up with.

+=====+
August 15th, 2013
US Fleet Activities Sasebo

The baths at Sasebo were as comfortable as Caroline remembered them. They had been built in a blend of traditional Japanese and Western styles, with the traditional high-vaulted roof, columns, and lintels but built with glass, steel, and concrete rather than wood and paper. A careful balance of humid and dry air left just the right amount of steam hanging in the room. There was a large central bath and row of shower stalls, but small enclaves housed more private facilities as well.

She had occupied one of these, filling the tub with piping hot water and drawing the curtains shut before letting the repair fluid get to work on fixing all the little issues that popped up during a deployment. That little bit of rust? Gone. Some cracked piping? Sealed. A bent railing? Straightened. No one knew how good having every ache and pain washed away in seconds could feel without experiencing it for themselves. Sounds of shipgirls relaxing in repair baths had become a meme for a reason, after all.

It was hard to enjoy it though, with the events of the previous day and night looming over her head. Admiral Richardson had only nodded at her words, no judgement or anger at the admission of weakness. He had Jamaica drop some of her fairies off to help repair the damage to the sidewalks as Hiei notified Sasebo's resident psychologist that they needed her, and they all boarded the shuttle to the base proper with nary a word. That had been an awkward 20 minutes as the other girls that had arrived with the convoy could clearly tell something was up, but held back from commenting. Caroline was faintly sure that Jamaica would've glared anyone who looked like they might ask into silence, anyway.

The debriefing was even briefer than usual, with not a single Abyssal force even coming within radar range of the convoy. Some scattered groups had been sighted from the air, but a few aircraft from Sangamon had sent them fleeing. Richardson gave the usual congratulations, before dismissing everyone else for their few days ashore before they'd begin their trek home again. Again Caroline felt the weight of the gazes and whispers as the others filed out, Jamaica lingering just a second longer before Richardson shooed her out as well.

Before she even realized it, she was before the psychologist's office, staring at the little brass name plate declaring the room occupied by Olivia Wilson. She rested her hand on the door knob but hesitated, a tiny part of her casting about for any way out of the meeting. Richardson quickly put a stop to that.

"Rochester, your new orders are to take as much time as you need to recover."

She froze at those words. "S-sir?"

Richardson met her eyes as she looked back at him. "You're not fighting this war alone, Rochester. Others can take up the slack. It's far more important that you heal so you don't burn out."

Caroline nodded, and turned back to the door. "Yes sir," she responded, and stepped in.

The evaluation went fine at first. Dr. Wilson was friendly, outgoing, and a bit loud. She had asked the standard questions about how she had been feeling, whether she was eating properly, and other little things. Caroline even allowed herself to start to feel comfortable when Dr. Wilson had begun to poke at her background, teasing out the barest outline of what happened in China before she clammed up again. That had been enough to set the psychologist's face into a scowl, and she had stormed out after reassuring Caroline that her ire wasn't directed at her. Everything had fallen apart after that. She'd been given a very clear diagnosis and a small mountain of paperwork to fill out, with phrases like "temporary disability" and "honorable discharge" floating about.

Now she was sitting in a repair bath, her path torn out from under her.

"What a mess," she whispered to herself. No shipgirl had ever been formally diagnosed with PTSD before, despite many having served continuously for eight years now. Even she was—had been—fine in combat, and Caroline had been involved in some of the fiercest fighting around Hawaii in the opening months of the Abyssal War. Maybe subsuming herself in her ship-memories wasn't particularly healthy, but she'd never had trouble summoning her rigging and sailing into danger when needed.

Many believed whatever compressed rules allowed shipgirls to function as they did also dampened the effects of stress and trauma. There was a fair bit of evidence backing up that view, too; plenty of summons and natural borns alike had been involved in days-long running battles often marked with gruesome injuries, only to bounce back fully healed and ready to continue fighting.

Yet past the surface, and outside of combat, she knew that wasn't quite true. She had heard rumors that some of the IJN girls harbored dark memories from their previous lives, and she knew a few USN girls who had similar issues. That wasn't even counting those like her, the younger natural borns who had seen the worst of Blood Week firsthand. The defenders of humanity, the most effective weapon against the Abyssal threat, bore their own mental wounds that their very nature made nearly impossible to mend.

Shipgirls naturally attracted attention. She had fallen over in broad daylight, with dozens of potential witnesses, all who could've captured the event on camera, and her absence from the return convoy would be noted as well. There would undoubtably be a media circus when news of her inevitable dismissal broke. Sure, the Abyssal War looked like it would be slowing down even further with the arrival of yet another group of friendly Abyssals, but shaking the public's confidence now was hardly a good thing.

And besides, it would cast doubt on the hundreds of other shipgirls faithfully serving every day.

Caroline shivered despite the heat. She briefly thought about flicking on the TV to try and distract herself, but reconsidered. Of all the things the endless therapy sessions had covered, it was that avoiding trauma was the surefire way to never heal. Her fairies piped up "Hey, hey hey!" "Hey hey." "Hey?" They started piling up on her shoulder, all clamoring to get their voices heard, before one overeager midshipman slipped a little more dramatically than any unintentional accident warranted and sent them all tumbling into the water.

She smiled at their antics. "Thank you, guys," she said, before scooping them out of the water and letting them climb back aboard. Caroline took a deep breath to steel her nerves, before letting her mind drift back into the past.

Had it really been eight years since that fateful week already? It seemed like just yesterday she had been stepping onto the beach for a day of celebration. And now… A bubble of panic started to worm its way up through her thoughts as she tried to bring herself to focus on that horrible month-

Caroline sprinted through the streets of Beijing, weaving through lines of abandoned cars and piles of rubble at top speed. Her engineers were yelling about her boilers redlining, but Caroline couldn't afford the time to stop. A single pause and the beast chasing her would find the range in instants. Even her own thundering steps couldn't mask the gallop of its pursuit. The buildings suddenly fell away, and her heart sank to her feet. She knew exactly where she was. The red brick wall of the Forbidden City stood to her left, and Tiananmen Square opened before her. If she kept going now, she'd run straight into the Embassy district. There was no way the evacuation had gotten much further. She was out of space to stall.

Caroline took a deep breath as she slowed, and spent just a moment considering what to do. There wasn't very much choice at all, and Rochester turned to face off against her pursuer once and for all.

The monster strode into the square at a slowing walk, mouth bent into that horrible sharp-toothed grin again. Each step powdered asphalt and dished in the road. Its eyes darted around, taking in their arena, and it stopped too. The Re's smile widened even further as it leered at Rochester. "Hehehehehe…" It started to chuckle, and Rochester tensed at the parody of amusement. "HAHAHAHA!" The chuckle morphed into deranged laughter, and-

-and try as she might Caroline couldn't stomp it out. She felt her turbines begin to over rev, and she forcibly turned to the events after those first few months, something she could actually bear to think about now.

China had survived the events of Blood Week, but for many, survival in this case was hardly an achievement. The best estimates pegged the death toll somewhere around 100 million in just the first month of the Abyssal war, with another 20 million following due to famine and disease caused by the collapse of mechanized agriculture in the absence of spare parts and shortages of pharmaceuticals. The Pearl River and Yangtze River Delta attacks gutted the country's economic heartland, with disastrous consequences around the globe.

The central government had held on, if barely. The CCP derived its legitimacy from prosperity, and the devastation wrought by the Abyssal attacks had ripped that away. However, the early Pyrrhic victories against the Abyssals had been enough to assure the people that the government wasn't going to fold, and bought enough time to kickstart a war emergency program. Industry was transferred inland as fast as possible, and central China once more became the center of resistance against a foreign invader.

Trade collapsed overnight. Even without the hundreds of ships lost to Abyssal attacks, there were simply no more goods to ship. Nations dependent on imports from overseas, which accounted for every nation on Earth suddenly found themselves cut off from their suppliers and scrambling to try and resolve the crisis. Vital electronics and machinery suddenly needed new sources, to say nothing of oil, steel, plastics, and even clothing. For a time, it seemed like all hope was lost and humanity would drown underneath the Abyssal tide. Yet, against all odds, they made it out of the fire.

Blood Week and the hellish months right afterwards had stretched on for what seemed like forever, but they had ended all the same and by then desperation had given way to grim determination. The world settled into siege mode, full of recruitment drives, victory gardens, and rationing meant to direct everything to the war effort. The efforts paid off, far quicker than even the most optimistic predictions. Battles morphed from desperate rear-guard actions into proactive intercepts into outright offensives as more and more shipgirls appeared. Then, just in time for Christmas in 2006, a massive convoy sailed from the rebuilt facilities at Los Angeles headed to Nagasaki packed to the brim with food and supplies. The Abyssals sent three attacks against the convoy, and shattered against the awesome power of a whole carrier group and three dozen shipgirls. Caroline still remembered the crowds when that first convoy pulled into Nagasaki harbor.

More victories followed as shipgirls began to sanitize whole swaths of sea, and nukes fell on the greatest concentrations of Abyssals. The Navy even had grown confident enough to take her off duty and send her home for several months in early 2007, citing her age and the now stabilizing war as the reasons. She had stayed benched for a little over two months, bouncing between psychiatrists and counselors trying to treat someone who for all intents and purposes had been a child soldier, and scientists trying to understand how the hell shipgirls worked, before the campaign to clean up the mess on the Korean Peninsula hit a snag in the form of a Princess squatting on the ruins of Pyongyang. All hands were called on deck for that operation, and Caroline had left home after just two months to prowl the Korean coast once more.

After that, she had gone wherever she was needed, fighting battles across the globe. For all her experience, though, Blood Week was still different. Every campaign she had participated in after those terrible early days had been one where the civilians involved knew the risks, had chosen to stride into danger alongside the military to achieve goals like getting that one shipment of supplies through, or were being evacuated and defended by some of the largest fleets ever mustered. When the Abyssals first attacked, however, no one was safe. She had watched so many die despite everything she had done to stem the tide, and had walked out of battles as the only survivor simply due to a quirk of fate deciding she should bear the soul of a warship born anew.

August 24th, 2005
Tianjin, China

The storm was upon her. Rain and wind lashed at her rigging to complement the occasional lightning strikes, but Caroline stood firm. Hundreds of tiny dots lined the raging waters, each an Abyssal loaded with dozens of those zombie-like creatures. Beside her, three PLA soldiers kept a watch with binoculars, waiting for the signal to begin firing the mortar they had with them. A few other soldiers were prying open ammunition crates and setting up sandbags around them. Thousands of others were dispersed along the harbor's waterfront, preparing improvised barricades and pre-plotting kill zones. Once the Abyssals were close enough, they were to open fire with a devastating first strike. Hopefully, the show of force would be enough to lessen the monsters' momentum so a counterattack would be able to throw them into the sea.

Out of the haze, a massive sphere began to take shape. Caroline frowned and checked her radar. The weather was playing havoc with any accurate measures, and it didn't show anything out of the- wait. A flash of lightning backlit the enormous shapes, revealing that there were three of the things powering towards the shore. They appeared on radar just as suddenly, and Caroline shivered. Gleaming white carapace formed a sleek shell only marred by shallow fissures radiating an ethereal red light. Each had jaws the size of a small building, with teeth larger than cars, and bristled with gun turrets.

The soldiers held fire for a moment longer before the radio sitting on the floor of their little foxhole beeped three times. Not a second later, the first mortar rounds were away, and artillery began to rain down on the Abyssal landing force. Caroline stood up as well, bringing her own guns to bear. Her fairies took a few extra seconds to calculate the range to those floating fortresses, then opened fire. Nine 8" AP rounds, each weighing a hundred pounds, joined the wave of ammunition falling towards the sea.

A few small explosions blossomed on the surface of the floating fortresses, marking their white coat with small burns but doing nothing more. The fire directed towards the landing ships was much more effective, and the monstrous boats began to founder from hits. Then it was the Abyssals' turn to reply, and their guns began to flash. Soon they were hitting the harbor wall, where their landing ships used their own clawed limbs to climb up onto the roads. Mouths opened in a parody of landing ship ramps and literally vomited out hundreds of the abominations in a steady stream. Something that looked like a tank emerged, but crawled along dozens of hands instead of tracks. A rocket slammed into it shortly after, and the machine destroyed the landing craft it came from when it cooked off.

Several more of the tanks emerged elsewhere and began to push inland, taking fire and blowing up as easily as the first, but in such quantities that the rockets began to taper off. Then it was their turn to fire, and one of the PLA strongpoints was bracketed by explosions that abruptly cut off the machine guns that had been emplaced there. A wave of the zombies rushed the suppressed gun crews and began to pile into the fortified storefront.

Rochester ignored the sight of strongpoints collapsing before the assault to focus on getting as many rounds downrange as possible. Every shot she landed accurately would buy some critical seconds for a soldier somewhere in the mess down there. She had no time to hesitate with so much hinging on her. They fell like rain onto the docks, stitching a line on the landing forces and leaving a mess of monstrous corpses and shattered hulks behind.

A ragged cheer rang across the radio as a trio of jets streaked across the skies and poured a barrage of rockets into the two Floating Fortresses. The explosions cratered their armor badly, but they kept trucking forward heedless of the damage. The cheers faded away as the monsters drew closer to the shore and the complete lack of effect became apparent.

Even as the huge Floating Fortresses rammed into the shore and began to slowly drag their way inland, Rochester, kept firing at the lighter forces she knew she could help stop. Then her radar pinged, and Rochester took notice. Aircraft were streaming out of the Floating Fortresses. SPAAGs and MANPADs took shots at the wave of ball- and dagger-shaped Abyssal aircraft as they climbed, andPLAF airplanes swooped in and carved through the few that made it out of range. The flow didn't stop, however, and soon there were more aircraft flitting about than even modern antiaircraft tools could deal with.

The Abyssal aircraft began their diving attack runs, the pattern still familiar to Rochester. It didn't take long for a passel of bombers to spot their position and move to attack. She let loose with her own antiaircraft guns now, hoping to stop them from hitting the soldiers around her, while they fired off what few antiaircraft missiles they had.

Eight aircraft became seven when a 5" round struck one head on, then six after her Bofors found another target, then four after two fell to missiles. Then they were releasing their bombs just as they strayed into Oerlikon range, and another two disintegrated into fireballs.

It was too late. None of the bombs struck Rochester, but they landed close enough to throw sandbags everywhere and splash shrapnel off her hull plating. The blasts weren't even powerful enough to damage her rangefinders or drive her crew to cover. She emerged unscathed. The same couldn't be said of the men and women who had been fighting with her just moments ago. Rochester stared at the dark red stains painting the ground around her, as they began to swirl into voices begging her for help-
+=====+
Spoiler: A.N.
Not too satisfied with this. It's really unfocused and infodumpy, and I was intending to split it into multiple segments, but for now it'll do. I'll probably spend january revise all of the snippets I have completed by the end of the year, which should be another 2-3.

 

[darthcourt10]

U.N.Spacy000 Omake: Everyday Lives With Butterknives

Lord K said:
Something sort of hilarious I just realised about the timing of all this, but if Juuchi skipped back to Japan with Harry, that means she just missed Kagotsuruhe's arrival at Hogwarts. She's going to be in for a fun surprise when she and Harry return, and she goes to investigate the source of all the rumors/stories surrounding the 'terrifying woman' who turned up the one night she wasn't in the castle.

Next time, on Everyday Lives of Butter Knives...

"You were expecting a terrifying woman, but it was I! Kagotsuruhe!" the blade of hopelessness crowed. "THE Most Terrifying Woman!"

"Well, yeah, technically, but that's only because you can trigger my Kyoshu induced PTSD," Juuchi said with a shrug.

"That wasn't your line!" Akutoku shouts from the side through a megaphone before waving her arm. "Cut - reset the shot and do it over!"

"Wait, what?" Juuchi asked as she tilted her head.

"And once again lack of communication has done us in," Chisuheri said with a frown. "Like I said it would. Did none of you bring her up to speed on this?"

"I'll be in my trailer," Kagotsuruhe said after contemplating what an actress with nothing to do would say in a situation like this before turning to stalk off and suddenly stopping. She then turned toward Juuchi, marched up to the younger Muramasa, grabbed her sleeve, and said, "No, I came to this castle for an actual reason. You're going to help your beloved older sister with something."

"Uh, Okay," Juuchi said with all the confidence she felt - which is to say none.

Harry Leferts said:
For some odd reason that is hilarious.​

It's more or less how Juuchi reacted to the idea Harry could watch interview and other footage from the #BigFatKanmusuWedding to figure out what her avatar looked like. Actually, there might be a few students that might recognize her as the daughter or little sister of someone who works for Harry. You know, students such as Hannah Abbot, Penelope Clearwater, and Alicia Spinnet who watched the wedding specifically for the outfits and probably watched Juuchi and Honjo's interview.

Harry Leferts said:
cardboard box tank​

... There is a conspicuously cardboard box tank-shaped hole in my memory.

Harry Leferts said:
For some odd reason, that is hilarious.​

It's probably the schadenfreude fueled by irony.

Harry Leferts said:
Yeah, no one clued in about that which makes me sad to be honest. Can you imagine Jane walking into her room and finding Juuchi there surrounded by orange peels, smugging at her?​

I caught on, but I thought it was a natural turn of events. Juuchi is following Harry/making Hogwarts safe. Harry wants Juuchi to stay in Japan. Juuchi either followed Harry to the Richardson home or Harry brought her to keep her from sneaking back to Hogwarts when he wasn't looking. Harry's probably going to spend the night in his cousin's room, so Juuchi is going to claim the bed like the fuzzy little monster she is, and there is no better way to claim territory than by eating on it - well, maybe growing food on it and then eating that food, but Juuchi has no time for that at the moment.

So, with that train of logic, of course Juuchi was on Jane's bed eating oranges. It's the natural place for her to be, and since it felt correct and like just a factoid, I didn't comment on it and instead commented on how Juuchi was contemplating sneaking into a hospital in a nurse outfit as I felt that was more noteworthy.

gaea said:
Does Juuchi impart to Jane the lack of sleep she will suffer through the next few years via smug? Does Juuchi 'vanish' when Jane turns around to get anyone's attention that Jucchi is one her bed?​

"It has come to my attention you are a Potter by adoption but don't know how to Potter," Juuchi said as she pulled Jane into a side hug. "I shall rectify this."

"Wait, what, who are you?" Jane squawked.

"Not to worry though, I too am a Potter by adoption and can teach you all you need to know," Juuchi continued as she began to leave the house with Jane in tow before grabbing Albacore. "You can come too since you're more or less Jane's sister."

*After one whacky hijink fueled escapade later*

"I want to discipline you, but you somehow brought me All The Donuts as a bribe, so now I just feel conflicted," Arizona admitted.

 

[darthcourt10]

Harry Leferts

It was several hours after the birth of Mutsu's twins that found most of those being shuffled off back to the Richardson household. Both Harry and Jane were dozing in the backseat as Arizona drove the rental van back home. On one side of Jane, Albacore was sitting with a small frown on her face. {So... the twins are launched? Why aren't they coming home yet?}

Glancing in the mirror, Arizona continued to drive while glancing at where Shimakaze was beside the van in her enclosed bicycle. The Destroyer easily keeping pace with the van as she spoke up as well. {I've been wondering the same thing, Ou! They should be able to come home with us!}

Hands on the wheel, Arizona was about to say something when Pennsy did. {That is because infants need more care. And they are also the first known children of a summoned shipgirl, not one who had not awakened yet. So they will want to make sure that they are perfectly healthy before they are allowed home. As well, Mutsu will also need to be kept an eye on for the next little while.}

Part of Arizona could make out the scowl on Shimakaze's face. {But that's so slow, Ou!}

Chuckling, the scarred American glanced at Nagato who had a small smile on her face listening to the Destroyer. With a shake of her head, Arizona cleared her throat. {Shimakaze, that is how things are done with human babies. And these are human babies after all, for all that they are also ships.} Getting a grumble of agreement, Arizona shook her head. {I will admit, I am impressed with the Lieutenant Commander for what happened. Giving birth is not easy.}

For several moments there was an uneasy silence before Nagato raised an eyebrow at her fellow Battleship. {And how, may I ask, do you know how giving birth feels?}

With a glance at her, Ari shook her head. {How else? A certain stowaway I have had, has in fact given birth. Compared to some others... I can state that I would rather be shot then go through the pain of childbirth..} Then, she added to that. {Though, I suppose that it would be worth it in the end to hold a child of my own within my arms.}

In the back, her sister hummed. {Yes, I suppose so. Of course, we do have an idea as to where that might come from, do we not? Though I suppose that you are, what? Fourth in line?}

Face turning red, Arizona sputtered some and gave a glare at the mirror directed at her sister. A glare that bounced off her armour as like so many low caliber bullets. However, before she could say anything, a sleepy Jane snickered and shifted a bit. "Ari-Mama... is tied for third... with Jintsuu-Mama..."

None of those in the van said anything for several seconds while Arizona's expression shifted between shock, mortification, embarrassment, and something else. Then she suddenly blinked as a thought occurred to her. {... Has anyone not used their radio and spoken out loud?}

Everyone blinked at that and then shared a look of complete and utter confusion as they answered at the same time. {Um, no?}

Behind her sister's cycle, Karakaze spoke up. {Oh, its simple.} Knowing she had their attention, she continued. {Its MSJB.}

That made Arizona blink and furrow her eyebrows in confusion. {MSJB? And what is that now?}

All of them could hear the embarrassment in Shimakaze's voice as she spoke. {Um, it means 'Magical Sparkly Jane Bullshit.'}

Utter silence met that for a few moments before her Momboat had her face and hand meet each other lovingly, locked in a forbidden romance. {I should not have asked...}

Shortly after, they reached the Richardson household and entered it. As Albie and Harry entered the kitchen to make some food, Jane marched up to her room and opened the door. For several moments, she stood there and stared into the room before her eyebrows furrowed. Finally, her brain restarted and she called over her shoulder to the others. "Uh, Cuz? Can you come here for a moment?"

Down in the kitchen, Harry shared a look of confusion with Albie before shrugging. "Sure, I'll be right there!" Walking up the stairs, he noticed Jane in front of her room and frowned. "Jane? What is it?" Silently, his adoptive cousin pointed into her room and he looked over her shoulder before facepalming. "DAMMIT!"

Curious, the others also came up the stairs and could only blink as they peered over the shoulders of the two humans into the room. Mainly due to the fact that Jane's bed was covered in orange peels, which leant a citrus scent to the entire room. And on top of said peels, was a sword.

A very, very smug sword going by the amount of smug coming from it.

Eyebrow raising, Arizona turned to Nagato who was also facepalming and only muttered back. "Meet Juuchi Yosamu, the Muramasa blade."

With a glance at said blade, which was now smugging even harder as Harry glared at it, the American Battleship hummed. "I... see. Well, I suppose that it should have been expected to happen at some point." Clearing her throat, she got the wizard's attention. "If you would bring her downstairs, Harry. That way Jane can clean up her bed..." Taking a deep sniff, Arizona nodded. "Though it has made the room smell better then usual."

Juuchi simply smugged at that as Harry lifted her up before pausing. Furrowing his eyebrows, he frowned. "Where the heck did a nurse's outfit come from?"

Everyone also furrowed their eyebrows before turning to Juuchi who smugged in a way to tell them that she did not know what they were talking about.

Rolling his eyes, Harry just grabbed her before walking back downstairs. Once they had all eaten, the black haired boy pulled out his laptop as Shimakaze watched. "So you're going back to Hogwarts soon, Harry-Chan?"

As he nodded, Harry gave a small shrug. "Yeah, Shimakaze-Nee. I can't leave the school for too long after all, so I need to head back tomorrow." Fingering the time turner, he shook his head. "Not that there's too much trouble there to be honest. Ron and Hermione are going to lend me theirs. So I'll use mine to go back twelve hours, and then Hermione's which she'll give me to go back twelve more, followed by Ron's for a full twelve hours. That gives me almost two full days if I need to, which I probably won't."

In reply, the Destroyer blinked before shaking her head with a frown. "Seems a bit much, but..." Then she shrugged before remembering another thought. "Oh! I remember hearing that you're going to visit your family properties or something?"

With a small smile, Harry nodded. "Yeah, Natsumi-Chan is going to come along with her friends and we're gathering fruit and the like. There's a lot of blackberries and raspberries among others that we can turn into jams and the like. Also a lot of apples for preserves and stuff, so we got plenty of options." Licking his lips, he patted his belly. "Can't wait, I mean nothing like home made jams."

Raising an arm, Shimakaze grinned. "Send some to us as well, Ou! We can do with some around here and I know that Arizona-Kaa-San would love some in donuts!"

Unnoticed by her, said shipgirl had been listening and blushed lightly at what was being said before shaking her head and going back to the kitchen to speak with Nagato... Not that she would not mind some jams for donuts. Not at all.
__________________________________________________________

Walking along, Kasumi glanced at Akebono who was scrolling through something on her phone. "Anything interesting there, Akebono?"

Suddenly smiling, the tsundere Destroyer held up the phone to show an image of Mutsu with the twins in either one of her arms. In the picture, said shipgirl looked happy, though utterly exhausted. But still extremely pleased with what happened. Lips curling, Akebono's smile grew. "Mutsu-San has given birth to the twins."

Eyes wide, Kasumi leaned in to better examine them before giving a small squeal. "Oh my gosh! They are so adorable!"

Humming as she nodded, Akebono shrugged. "I guess so, though really, Mai is more-" She then froze and looked away. "Um, that is..."

Grin widening, the other Destroyer snickered before a twinkle entered her eye. "You were about to say that your niece is more adorable, weren't you, Akebono?"

A heavy blush on her face, Akebono continued to huff. "Like hell I was. And... and she is not adorable! Mai is, that is... um..."

Unable to help herself, Kasumi began to poke her in the cheek as the other shipgirl puffed them up. "Come on, admit it. You were going to say that no one is more adorable then Mai-Chan. After all, you have pictures of her on your desk and everything along with the rest of your family."

If anything, that made the tsundere flush even more deeply as she huffed and closed her eyes. "I-its not like I find her adorable or anything! She's my niece and, um..." Finally, she coughed and looked around. "A-anyways, Mutsu-San looks pretty tired out due to giving birth and stuff."

While she was rather amused at how her friend had dodged the entire question, Kasumi only nodded and turned back to the picture. "I suppose that she is pretty tired. Remember the lessons we were given on, um, how humans reproduce?" Both Destroyers cringed a bit as said lesson also included videos on women giving birth. To say that all the shipgirls were somewhat grossed out by what they had seen was putting it rather mildly. Shoving that memory back into the depths of her mind, Kasumi shook her head. "I mean, it makes sense?"

Just shuddering, Akebono rubbed her arms. "Yeah, though I prefer how ships just get built and launched. A lot less messy."

The two continued on in silence for a bit before her friend spoke up again. "But... you know, looking at Mutsu-San? It looks like she, well, found it worth it. I mean, she's really happy there."

About to answer back, Akebono took a moment and thought about it as she tilted her head to the side. Unknown to Kasumi, the Ayanami class Destroyer thought back to when her brother's wife gave birth. It was one of those times that she was made her boilers pound a bit faster as she could remember Tanaka dropped everything to get her there. More then that, he actually managed to scrounge up a Jet fighter trainer making a flight heading to a base near Tokyo, with her as the "Co-Pilot". Upon getting off the plane, a helicopter waiting there for "Training" took her most of the rest of the way she needed.

It was something that Akebono never forgot.

Reaching up, she placed her hand upon her chest and breathed out slowly with a smile. "Hai, I am not surprised about that."

Head tilted to the side, Kasumi blinked in confusion before shaking her head. 'Akebono would know more then I would, I guess. She does have a niece.' Unknown to Akebono, the other shipgirl's mind also went back to that time. After all, it showed just how much Tanaka cared for the two after all, willing to do what he could to help them. Even now, the thought of their Commander filled them with warmth. A slight smile on her face, Kasumi's mind drifted to other things. "Hey, Akebono?" Getting a hum, she continued. "Have... have you ever wondered what it would be like? I mean, to be a Kaa-San?"

Eyes widening, Akebono stared at her for a few moments. "I... What?"

Blushing, Kasumi rubbed the back of her neck. "U-um, I mean... we could maybe, have kids in the future? You do have two daughter ships after all..."

That made the Ayanami class blush, but she bit back the retort that almost formed on her lips. Looking down at the picture of Mutsu with her daughters, Akebono chewed her lip some. "H-Hai, I have given it some thought." Then she turned to Kasumi and looked right at her. "But... there's only one that I think is less shitty enough to be their Otou-San."

Lips curling upwards, Kasumi gave a nod to that. "Hai, I know that one of the new Destroyers has my name as well. And... well, there's just one person who's not garbage enough not to be one I would choose to be their Tou-San." Scratching her cheek, she smiled a bit more. "Though, um, that will need to wait a few years yet before it becomes possible."

All Akebono did was nod at that, the two understanding what was unsaid.

Soon after, they reached their destination which was where Tanaka was watching some construction on the base go on. From a safe distance, of course. Beside him, Settsu stood though both Destroyers twitched a bit at what she was wearing... Mainly, she was currently dressed like Musashi. The two were happy though that every time Tanaka spoke to his third Secretary Ship, he looked her in the eyes, and not her... fuel tanks.

With a glance at their own, they sighed.

Upon reaching them, Kasumi pulled out her clipboard and looked at the hole being dug. "So they're making quick progress, Teitoku."

Glancing at her, Tanaka nodded some. "Hai, they certainly are. From what I have been told, the Summoning Pool will be finished by February." Adjusting his collar though, he frowned. "Though that does remind me that we need to go through the answers to our requests in regards to the artwork for the bottom of the pool."

Only going through her own logs, the purple haired of the group gave a small nod. "Hai, there's a few that deserve a close look at. Especially the ones inspired by the Ainu." Eyebrow raised, she turned to him. "Which were the ones that you chose."

Arms crossed, Tanaka gave a small smile. "I did, and for a very good reason. This base is to defend Hokkaido, which is the homeland of the Ainu, a number of whom work on the base. And since we're summoning defenders... we should honor those who call this place home and have defended it as well."

Both Akebono and Kasumi shared a look and a smile at that. Upon seeing him adjust his collar again, the Asashio Destroyer smirked. "What's wrong, Teitoku? Still not used to it?"

When he grimaced, Akebono rolled her eyes. "At least those shitty politicians and shitty Admirals realized what we knew and promoted you. About damn time those shitheads did so." Then her eyes softened a touch. "And as we said, congratulations."

Rubbing his neck, the only man in their group chuckled weakly. "Still sort of surprised by it..." Then he smiled a bit. "Though I am happy, even if its not official yet."

Her own arms crossed over her chest, which empathized her... fuel tanks, Settsu hmphed before adjusting her glasses. "This Musashi will only say that official or not, this Musashi is happy to see it."

Unknown to him, all three shipgirls exchanged a look. After all, there was a party planned for when it did become official and everyone was going to be there. Then they turned back to the Summoning Area being constructed.

 

[darthcourt10]

M1Garand8 Omake: Victory meets Victory

Here's something silly set in the far future while I work on my proper snippets. And since I did say that I want Victory to meet Victory…

Edit: 20/12/2018: Minor dialogue fix.

---

*Omake*
Victory Meets Victory

"Mama!"

HMS Victory paused mid-stride at the very young voice calling out from the crowd. Scarcely she had just finished turning to the source of the voice when the veritable missile that was a little girl barrelled into her stomach and enfolded her in a hug.

"I've finally found you!"

The girl gave a little squeeze, her cheek rubbing on Victory's belly. Victory froze, wincing at the unusually strong arms making her hull creak. Well, not that unusual, once Victory got a proper look at the young girl.

She looked just a touch over eleven, in a stylized navy uniform dress accented in red and white. Beyond the uniform, however, Victory saw a small steel hull barely longer than her, housing a rounded three inch gun, two quadruple missile tube launchers and an eight-cell vertical launch system. And lastly, an unmanned drone strapped to the stern in its white protective casing.

One of the new generation summons, Victory realized. Veterans even before they were called back into new service against the now on-and-off conflict with the Abyssals, they were even more highly coveted than the original generation of shipgirls. And one was apparently looking for her. But why was she here? And why was she calling Victory herself 'Mama'?

Judging from the young shipgirl's accent, she wasn't from a western navy. A closer look from Victory revealed a face of Asian descent, with a hint of Caucasian features, framed by messy brown shoulder length hair. It spoke of a lifelong service in a navy in the east, while born in a shipyard in the west. Not unlike a certain admiral-obsessed fast battleship, actually…

Sending a quiet signal to her Executive Officer, Victory returned the hug, patting the young shipgirl on the back. "Now, what makes you say that, little one?" she said.

With a gasp, the corvette broke the hug, staring at Victory with wide brown eyes. "Y-You don't remember, Mama?"

The general quarters drum rattled as Victory watched said eyes grew watery, along with an exaggerated tremble in the corvette's lips. Hmm… this ought to be interesting... she thought as she schooled her expression into that of polite, motherly interest. "Remember what?"

The young shipgirl took her hand in hers. "T-The night of passion with Papa… How he abandoned you when he found out you were pregnant!" She sniffled, eyes growing frantic. "H-He must have made you forget all about me!"

With a wail, the corvette folded Victory into another hug that sent her hull creaking again. Unseen by the young shipgirl, Victory scrutinized the uniform with a raised eyebrow as her XO flipped through the reams of recognition drawings. It wasn't long before he stopped and held up one particular silhouette. Ah, I see now…

Fighting the urge to break out in laughter now, Victory ran her hand along the back of the corvette's head, just under the headdress she was now sure was a stylized Singaporean navy issue, soothing the sobbing shipgirl.

"There, there…" she cooed. "Now tell me the name of that cad, so that I may give him a nice broadside up his arse."

Letting go of Victory, the corvette sniffled, her face now a mess of tears and snot. Victory produced a handkerchief from her hold and held it out for the shipgirl. Rather convincing display there. The corvette took the handkerchief, blowing her nose upon it. When she returned the handkerchief, an utterly despondent look and her downcast eyes was on her face.

"Papa Dumbledore…" the corvette trailed off, looking increasingly despondent, if that was even possible. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. "But Papa wouldn't do that… right?"

The dual blow of the sadness in the young shipgirl's voice and the watery destroyer eyes hit Victory like a well-aimed broadside. At that moment, she almost wanted to just bring the corvette home and clothe her and feed her and give her the best life she could have… Almost. The corvette almost had her. It was a brilliant performance. But she made two critical mistakes.

Still, Victory needed to play along just a little longer. She folded the young shipgirl into a warm hug. "Oh you poor thing, Ol' Bumblebee wouldn't have done that," she said.

And then, Victory leaned down and whispered into the corvette's ear:

"Because he doesn't swing that way, Victory."

RSS Victory froze. There was a pregnant pause before she deflated in HMS Victory's arm. "Drats…"

"Also," Victory waggled a finger at the corvette, "shipgirls can't be obliviated."

RSS Victory flinched, deflating further. "Double drats…"

"Still, you had me all confused for a second there." Victory gave RSS Victory a pat on the head. "Not bad."

Victory let out a chuckle at the resulting pout from RSS Victory, an idea forming in her head. One that both the Captain and the XO gave a thumbs up to. Giving her another head pat, she said:

"Say, would you like some ice cream?"

At the eager nods of the corvette, Victory took RSS Victory in her hand. She knew a good shop nearby, just off the square they were in.

"And perhaps there is something I can interest you in with your talents."
***

This is the good life, Albus Dumbledore thought as he lay stretched out on his back on the deckchair. The cheery sun, the warm sandy beach, the cooling sea breeze and no one to bother him. No Fudge. No Umbridge. No one to criticize—and burn—his loud colored vacation wear. Victory just didn't understand its majesty, its flamboyant statement to the world.

Such a good life. Unfortunately it ended with a familiar voice full of righteous fury yelling:

"Bumblebee!"

Dumbledore jumped, nearly flipping out of the chair. He looked up, seeing Victory storming up the beach with, most curiously, a girl tucked under her arm. Another shipgirl, judging by her uniform. His mind flicked back to every recent interaction he had with the sail shipgirl, checking if he did anything to earn her ire this time. He came up nothing.

As Dumbledore looked discretely around for an escape, Victory pulled to a stop in front of him. Of course, she had an irate look on her face and would have planted her arms on her hips, if her sole arm wasn't occupied at the moment. The old wizard stared at the sail shipgirl, then at the young shipgirl in her arm.

And then Victory picked the young shipgirl up by her collar like a kitten by the scruff, shoving her at the befuddled ex-Headmaster and said:

"So, when are you going to take responsibility for this, you bony old arsehole?"

A cat grin lit up the young shipgirl's face.

"Papa!"

---

A/N: And thus a pranking team is born.

For a German born corvette, RSS Victory is quite the prankster. Too bad she didn't do enough homework regarding her target, or on the magical world. But hey, she still gets to team up with Victory to prank the crap out of Dumbledore.
Spoiler
This would probably stay an omake, given that I have no idea whether Dumbledore is still alive in 2058 - 59.

 

[darthcourt10]

NotHimAgain

"I'm home," Sayaka called, shutting the door with her shoulder and kicking her shoes off. She frowned at the lack of response, running into the dining room. "I'm ho--" she began to repeat, then froze.

Yamato was sitting at her dining room table.

Not Yamapi. Honest to goodness Yamato.

"Greetings," she said. Mom and Dad were standing off to one side, staring. They must have been doing that for a while by now.

"Afternoon," Sayaka said awkwardly. "I'm Akechi Sayaka." Yamato smiled warmly.

"I, Yamato, know," she replied, holding out a hand. Sayaka glanced down at it dubiously, but lowered her load of groceries to the table and accepted the handshake. "I, Yamato, was told by Harry-kun that you had a smol living with you, and I was hoping to meet her. Do you know where she might be?"

Harry-kun... that was Potter? Sayaka felt her ears grow hot again. No, no, stop thinking that. She wanted to meet Yamapi.

Pulling the edge of the paper bag down, Sayaka dug through the contents before selecting a small carton of strawberry ice cream. She removed the lid and handed the carton to the battleship, who accepted it in confusion. Then she began to walk around the house, opening every window she could find. She was about to start up the stairs when Yamapi's trademark cry of "Matooooo!!" reached her, and she turned around and faced Yamato, who was staring in horrified fascination at her... smaller version, whose face was buried in the ice cream.

Sayaka sighed. "Yeah," she admitted, "you've always got to have food out for her. Otherwise she goes looking for it, and next thing you know she's on the bus to Hokkaido." Not entirely true--Yamapi hadn't quite made it to the bus following that taiyaki before Sayaka had found her and offered her a hamburger at the top of her lungs--but given how close she came to it actually happening, she felt that it worked.

Yamato turned to give her the same stunned look. "What?"