“I still don’t get it.
What’s the exact point of running dozens of ships under the escort of warships and Shipgirls, when they can be devoured at any second?” Ulyanovsk asked.
His instructor had just finished a lecture on the principles of forming merchant convoys.
“And what about the ferry crossing over the Bering Strait and the newly laid railways?” the aviation cruiser pressed.
“Were you even listening to Colonel Preobrazhensky?” the officer asked, eyeing his student with blatant dissatisfaction.
“I’m well aware of the global economic collapse and the Crisis of ’26,” Ulyanovsk replied.
“I just don’t see the logic.
After the global merchant fleet was almost entirely wiped out in just three months, humanity decided to walk down the exact same path.
And use half a hundred Shipgirls as human shields to do it.” “From a purely economic standpoint, the profit outweighs any risk,” the officer explained.
“Railroads couldn’t even dream of the cargo volumes two Triple-E class container ships can haul.
Those are the ones we protect first and foremost.
Next in priority are the bulkers, then the tankers.” The officer tapped the chalkboard.
“If you weren’t listening carefully, a standard convoy consists of one container ship and a bulker as the ‘primary’ package.
Plus a tanker as ‘secondary’.
Those are guarded like the apple of our eye.
Everything else in the formation is just a decoy, meant to be fed to the Abyssal beasts if a threat emerges.” “Decoys?” “The crews manning them are entirely made up of lifers and death-row inmates.
They’re promised a full pardon after a dozen or so runs.” “Has anyone actually lived to see it?” “On this amusement park ride of American generosity?
Stupid question,” the officer chuckled darkly.
“It’s a highly unorthodox solution to shuttle enemy bait back and forth, but the overall survival rate of the convoys has increased.
Cold, hard statistics often kill morality.” “So they pack eight ships into a convoy, and half are just decoys?” “Exactly.
Shielded by two destroyers equipped with MLRS, plus a Kanmusu escort.” “Then what is the point of scrambling such a massive armada just to save four ships?” “It’s the maximum viable size.
Put any more ships together, and the fleet guarantees drawing a massive Abyssal pack.
And no one is going to allocate more Shipgirls for escorts and risk stripping the patrol perimeters.
That’s why, three days from now, I expect you to submit a tactical proposal on how to completely annihilate an eight-ship convoy with an unknown escort configuration.” “Look, I understand we need to wargame every scenario, but what is the point of sinking our own allies?” Ulyanovsk asked, genuinely baffled as to why anyone in the current apocalyptic climate would even consider such a thing.
“Our…
allies,” the officer emphasized the word heavily, “were not very happy that, thanks to their own efforts, we were cut off from the global economy by ’26.
Which inadvertently allowed us to survive the initial Abyssal invasion with minimal losses.” The instructor lowered his voice.
“As a result, the boys in civilian suits had to pull a few strings with a certain someone.” He pointed a thumb behind him, indicating the portrait on the wall.
“To simultaneously lull our probable enemies to sleep and bring the more radical domestic elements under control.” “With his biography?” Ulyanovsk looked up at the President’s portrait.
“I’m amazed that actually worked.” “We got incredibly lucky that the liberal agenda took such deep roots among our partners.
They spent twelve years blindly pouring massive funds into his political figure.
And then ‘The Great Feast’ began, as it’s called in our circles, and the world went straight to hell.” The officer smirked.
“Left without foreign support, a certain someone suddenly became very cooperative.
It was a brilliantly executed, unorthodox idea that solved a mountain of problems—problems piled up by the President’s former supporters and sponsors, both internally and along our borders.
To throw dust in their eyes that masterfully…
I tip my hat and raise my glass, as they say.” “So if we’re ‘friends’ again,” Ulyanovsk used air quotes, “aren’t we going to get hit with massive blowback for sinking their convoys?” “External circumstances have changed,” the instructor replied smoothly.
“Those who were justifiably considered satellites before the Shipgirls appeared have suddenly become major players on the global board.
While we don’t expect any immediate threats from the ‘long haul’ across the Atlantic, we have a very unpleasant neighbor breathing down our neck in the Pacific.” The officer paused, sighing.
“You know, I think I need to ask what our Political Information Department is actually doing these days.” “I’ve filed multiple reports on Vlad Galkin, but apparently they keep getting lost in the mail…” Ulyanovsk grumbled.
*** Watching his guest make herself right at home on his bed, Ulyanovsk couldn’t help but recall a conversation with his very first commanding officer three years ago.
The man loved to repeat that if a problem wasn’t covered in the field manual, you had to use your imagination.
In other words, he encouraged using the gray matter between your ears.
Right now, however, Ulyanovsk’s brain was drawing a complete blank.
He had locked the Abyssal trophies in the safe.
The cursed wardrobe had been dismantled—again.
Therefore, he had absolutely zero ideas about how the interdimensional portal had reopened, letting this new Kanmusu slip through.
Yet, there was no denying the home invasion.
A large, warm, radar-contrasting target had literally crawled over him and claimed his mattress.
Brushing a few stray silver hairs off his clothes, Ulyanovsk peeked into the wardrobe that had somehow closed behind the fox-eared girl.
To his immense relief, he didn’t find a portal to a world of nine-tailed mutants.
But he couldn’t exactly shove his guest back through it either, a fact confirmed by the wooden mop handle currently serving as a makeshift coat rack inside the empty closet.
Meanwhile, the girl in the long blue kimono had finally settled down, claiming the absolute center of his bed.
He offered a silent prayer of thanks to whatever structural integrity the sash possessed, because without it the kimono would have slid further and finished the job of uncovering the silver-haired occupier’s considerable assets entirely.
As it was, the folds had parted enough to put a short white pleated skirt and a long stretch of white-stockinged legs on full display.
[image here] She tucked one of her fluffy tails between her legs and hugged it tight, like a plush toy.
Failing to find a blanket nearby, she yawned, curled into a tight ball, and covered herself with her own massive tails, sniffling softly.
She acted as if she were in her own bedroom.
And as if that weren’t enough, one of her shifting tails bumped into the cruiser’s leather briefcase of classified documents.
The thick, silver fur—fading to a soft lilac at the tip—smacked against the Soviet-era relic a few times.
Then, with a casual sweep, it knocked the briefcase completely off the bed, aggressively sweeping the spot where it had been lying.
The final blow to Ulyanovsk’s stunned sanity was the quiet, deeply satisfied sigh she let out.
It sounded exactly like the relieved sigh of a coal miner who had just hit his five-year quota in a single shift.
The aviation cruiser felt his eye twitch.
Checking his watch, Ulyanovsk unbuckled the thick leather belt from his trousers.
Thanks to the lingering side effects of his reactor refueling, he wasn’t going to be able to sleep for the next couple of days anyway.
And he had absolutely no intention of tolerating interdimensional squatters seizing his sleeping quarters.
‘I really hoped I wouldn’t have to deal with this crap above the Arctic Circle,’ Ulyanovsk thought, creeping toward the ball of silver fur.
Keeping a close eye on her triangular fox ears—which definitely weren’t decorative props—the aviation cruiser closed the distance and struck.
The hardest part was pulling the intruder out of her fur cocoon while adhering to basic rules of decency.
Like a striking snake, he wrapped the leather belt around the girl’s torso, expertly and securely pinning her arms to her chest.
“I’ll keep this brief,” Ulyanovsk spoke in English, mentally lamenting the lack of a desk lamp to shine into his prisoner’s eyes.
“Who the hell are you?” The girl sat there for a moment, blinking sleepily, trying to process what had just happened.
“Mmm?” the girl tilted her head, finally focusing her gaze on the aviation cruiser looming over her.
“Ah…” The guy watched with morbid curiosity as the fog of Morpheus slowly vanished from her massive amethyst eyes, giving way to a spark of actual consciousness.
“I asked a question,” Ulyanovsk said slowly, enunciating every syllable.
“Huh?” the girl wrinkled her nose.
“Who are you?” the guy repeated.
“Achoo,” the fox in human form, dressed in a rather revealing outfit, sneezed quietly and rather embarrassingly.
The metal buckle popped off with a sharp crack, practically breaking the sound barrier before burying itself deep into the concrete wall.
The shredded leather belt slid uselessly down her torso, coming to rest at the base of her tails.
Muttering some rapid, apologetic-sounding Japanese, the girl looked back up at the guy.
Ulyanovsk was currently staring in horror at the ruined remains of his belt.
The aviation cruiser had heard rumors from officers who had served on foreign bases and interacted with international Kanmusu.
He had always been highly amused by the gossip claiming that the Shipgirls’ anatomical features outright violated the laws of physics.
Right now, Ulyanovsk was coming to the terrifying conclusion that those rumors might have been completely accurate.
The girl hadn’t even moved her arms.
She merely took a deep breath.
But that alone was enough to obliterate a military-grade leather belt without a fight.
Two hundred and eighty thousand horsepower completely failed to shift the garment an inch.
‘I highly doubt even the super-battleships can pull off a parlor trick like that,’ the aviation cruiser thought, trying very hard not to remember Admiral Volkov’s disturbing stories about crushing watermelons.
Shaking his head, Ulyanovsk banished the intrusive thoughts, focusing on the problem at hand.
The problem, however, propped herself up on the bed and gently placed her palms on the guy’s cheeks.
“Everything…
is exactly as I saw it,” she whispered in English with a cute, heavy accent, sounding completely mesmerized.
Her eyes began to glow with a faint blue light.
It bore a terrifying resemblance to the burning, fiery gaze of an enraged Abyssal.
But there was no cold, all-consuming malice in them.
Only a warm, comforting radiance that didn’t manifest as literal flames shooting from her eye sockets.
“Everything,” she repeated, “is just like in the visions…” “That’s absolutely fascinating, but maybe you should fix your outfit first?” Ulyanovsk grabbed the collar of her kimono and yanked it upward.
Or rather, he tried to.
“The Creator gave us this form,” she said softly, placing her hands over the guy’s hands and patting them three times.
“I surrender…” Before Ulyanovsk even realized it, he had effortlessly lifted the girl overhead, her legs dangling uselessly in the air.
“Pardon,” he apologized, dropping the otherworldly Kansen back onto the mattress.
“Is that an actual part of your body, or…” “It is useless,” the tailed girl sighed doomed.
“Every time I try to adjust my garments, a voice from above tells me it is ‘not seductive enough,’ and it slips right back down.” The cruiser felt a powerful urge to facepalm—a gesture he frequently used when listening to the absolute nonsense spouted by his subordinates.
“Who the hell are you, a Chernobyl reject?” Ulyanovsk asked, maintaining his firm grip on his prisoner.
“I am Shinano, an aircraft carrier of the Sakura Empire,” the girl introduced herself.
“The Threads of Destiny have guided me here…
What are you doing?” “Don’t get distracted,” the guy nodded, smoothly sliding his right hand down to grip her throat.
“Keep talking.
I’m all ears.” “You don’t believe me,” Shinano sighed sadly.
Even the perked-up ears on her head drooped.
“I absolutely hate it when people start spewing occult bullshit,” Ulyanovsk explained.
“But I also have some experience dealing with guests crawling out of my wardrobe.
You could have just introduced yourself and stated your business.” Shinano lowered her gaze, her ears drooping even further.
To a casual observer, she looked exactly like a kicked puppy that had unfortunately fallen into the hands of a street thug.
Except this ‘kicked puppy’ looked like a supermodel pulled straight out of the wet dreams of a modern anime fanatic.
“Is our very existence not this ‘occult bullshit’ you speak of?” Shinano asked quietly, looking back up into the aviation cruiser’s eyes.
“Forged to bring death and destruction, taking the forms of those we are destined to kill,” she whispered, placing her hands over her heart.
“All to protect our creators…” To the guy, it seemed as if not just her eyes, but her hair had begun to glow.
Even her tails started emitting a faint, pulsing blue light.
“Whatever light show you’re planning, I suggest you stop,” the cruiser advised, slightly tightening his grip on her throat.
“I am not your enemy,” the girl replied, refusing to break eye contact.
“If you were my enemy, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now.” “You know that isn’t true,” Shinano reminded him with a sad smile.
Ulyanovsk seriously debated just snapping her neck right then and there.
Only the highest echelons of Fleet Command and State Security knew about his parleys with the Himes, and even they didn’t know the full extent of it.
If they did, the aviation cruiser would have caught a hypersonic Kinzhal missile with his face by now.
The Spooks wouldn’t hesitate to spend a munition worth half his construction budget to neutralize a potential threat.
“Explain,” Ulyanovsk demanded.
“Distant voices leave their mark upon the water, manifesting in the shimmer of the moon’s reflection,” the girl’s voice turned eerie and monotonous, the glow around her intensifying.
“I told you to dial down the special effects,” the aviation cruiser warned.
“There is a garrison of Shipgirls on this base.
If they sense you—I don’t know you.
And they’re going to be highly confused by a second Shinano aircraft carrier running around.” “The shadow of the new moon shall conceal Shinano,” the girl whispered, extending her right hand toward the guy.
The moment her fingers brushed Ulyanovsk’s chest, he felt a sharp tingle—in the exact spot where the sovereign of the Arctic Ocean had touched him.
The glow around the girl dimmed, but small spheres of dark blue flame began to swirl around them.
Gradually, they elongated, transforming into blue butterflies, identical to the one currently sitting in his makeshift glass jar in Magadan.
Just a second later, a literal hurricane of blue-fire butterflies surrounded the two carriers.
Through the monotonous rustle of wings, faint words could be heard, but Ulyanovsk’s Japanese wasn’t good enough to translate the archaic dialect.
Shinano, however, clearly understood every word.
She closed her eyes and twitched her ears, listening intently.
For a terrifying moment, the guy felt as if he was no longer standing in his officer’s quarters, but was trapped in the middle of a storm-ravaged ocean of blood.
Kanmusu glided across the crimson waves, firing desperately at something in the epicenter of the hurricane.
There, shrouded in a thick, oily black fog, a creature breached the surface.
It looked like several Demon-symbiotes of the Abyssal Fleet merged into one grotesque monstrosity.
Even in such a bizarre form, it was impossible to mistake the metallic gleam of the chitinous armor plates, the predatory maws of its gun turrets, and the humming, concentrated hatred radiating from the crimson flames bleeding from its joints.
Amidst the chaos, faint call signs echoed on the edge of the radio ether.
They were heavily garbled, as if someone was actively trying to jam them, but Ulyanovsk managed to catch a few before the illusion shattered.
He was back in his officer’s hotel room, standing over a kneeling fox-girl on his bed.
She was staring up at him with unhidden terror.
“I’ve seen worse,” the aviation cruiser sighed, shrugging his shoulders.
“But what was the point of all that?” “I wanted to know why the Path of Dreams led me here,” Shinano murmured quietly, pulling her hand away from his chest.
The butterflies swarming around them slowly dissolved into the air.
The ethereal glow fading from the girl plunged the room back into semi-darkness.
Ulyanovsk shot an irritated glare at the dim, half-burnt LEDs in his chandelier.
“Be more specific,” the aviation cruiser demanded, moving his hand from Shinano’s throat to her shoulder.
“Um…” the Kansen looked away shamefully.
The guy’s hand immediately started sliding back toward her throat.
“I…
I saw myself sink after encountering a spawn of Darkness,” the girl began carefully, eyeing the aviation cruiser’s hand.
“At the exact moment a similar creation of the abyss rose from the waves, staining them with blood.
Many worlds, different scenarios, but the outcome was always the same.
But in that specific moment, something happened…
Something distracted the monster.
A raspy voice echoed like thunder in my mind.
It laughed in satisfaction, slowly fading away, and as it faded, the monster calmed down.
What happened to it afterward, we never learned.
The Sirens arrived, deployed a Mirror Sea, and engaged it in combat.
The fleet was forced to retreat.
My dream-moths have been whispering to me about this place ever since…
And about a certain primordial fire that sustains life.” The girl looked around the room.
“But I don’t see it…
Yet it must be here…” Releasing Shinano, Ulyanovsk pushed her slightly away, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.
“Do you even hear yourself?” “Why would I lie to you?” the girl shot back.
“I’m not Martin Septim, find a better excuse,” the guy frowned.
“Who?” “Never mind,” he waved it off.
“And you still haven’t answered the most important question.
A question that, in light of recent events, paints a very interesting picture.
If you’re a clairvoyant, why did you close the portal?” Ulyanovsk pointed to the wardrobe behind him.
“It is impossible to foresee the future in all its absolute details,” Shinano turned away, suddenly finding the headboard of the bed incredibly fascinating.
That sounded highly suspicious to the cruiser.
“And the real purpose of your visit?” “Shinano sees the present, what was, and what will be,” the girl yawned, slowly tipping over onto the bed.
“Shinano is tired…” She settled into a highly provocative pose, though thankfully, her tails covered her bent knees and everything else that shouldn’t be looked at.
“You know,” the guy leaned over the Kansen, who had completely lost all sense of boundaries.
“I’ve shattered the armor belts of the best Japanese battleships multiple times.
And twice, I did it to the Yamato class.
So…” he let the threat hang in the air.
“Do you wish to rest upon Shinano’s breast?” she asked, placing her hands suggestively over the mentioned anatomy for emphasis.
However, quickly realizing that her provocation wasn’t working exactly the way Atago and Taihou—masters of twisting commanders around their fingers—had described, she decided to answer honestly.
“It wasn’t the shards that opened the portal.
You did it yourself.” “Bullshit,” Ulyanovsk shook his head.
“Kanmusu can’t do that.” “The moths of the dream-paths rarely err,” Shinano whispered, placing her hands on the guy’s shoulders.
“Even if subconsciously, you are the source of the anomaly.
An anomaly that will be quite useful to Shinano,” she added, barely audible.
Thanks to modern detection equipment, Ulyanovsk heard the last phrase perfectly.
“And how exactly is a parallel dimension useful to you?” “There is no Nagato or Mikasa here…” the girl pouted, looking away.
“So you just…” the guy was cut off as the girl pressed a finger to his lips.
“If the rule isn’t spoken aloud, it doesn’t apply…” ‘Lazy fox ass,’ the aviation cruiser cursed mentally.
*** [Sakura Empire Base, Azur Lane World] “Why am I surrounded by idiots?” the brunette in the black-and-red Japanese attire groaned, collapsing exhaustedly onto the sofa.
“What happened, Akagi-nee-sama?” Kaga asked immediately, accepting a cup of sake from her sworn sister.
“It seems that appointing Akagi-chan to the position of Assistant Commander was a bit too hasty of a decision,” Amagi smiled kindly, affectionately patting her sister on the head.
“Someone has to maintain order around here!” Akagi instantly boiled over, her blood-red eyes with vertical pupils flashing dangerously.
“Calm down,” Amagi ordered, her voice dipping into a freezing tone despite the deceptively gentle smile on her face, squeezing Akagi’s shoulder.
Seeing that the carrier had cooled off, she added: “Now, tell us calmly…” “How can I be calm?” Akagi winced, feeling a twinge of pain in her shoulder, but tried to maintain a normal voice.
“Our Flagship-sama crawled into a hollow of the Sacred Tree and is fast asleep.
Mikasa-sama bought a mountain of model kits and reeks of glue and paint even more than she reeks of old age.
Ise and Hyuuga have been draining the sake warehouse for two days straight…” “That’s a bit harsh regarding Mikasa,” Amagi choked back a laugh.
“Not anymore,” Tosa, who had been silent until now, spoke up.
“Explain,” Akagi perked up.
“I kicked them out of there and strictly forbade them from showing their faces near the supply depot again,” Tosa raised her sake cup, waiting for a cherry blossom petal to land in her drink before clinking it against Kaga’s.
“Kaga, Tosa, at least the two of you aren’t acting like those shrine guards,” Akagi sighed.
“And the final straw, Amagi-nee-sama: Shikikan took three of our strike carriers and two heavy cruisers and went to the races.” “Where?” Amagi asked.
Kaga and Tosa exchanged silent glances, then turned toward the flagship of the First Carrier Division.
“To the races!” Akagi repeated, her voice trembling with sheer rage.
“After the last Siren attack, the Imperial Household decided to boost civilian morale by hosting international racing competitions.
And the Commander sent Taihou, Shoukaku, Zuikaku, Atago, and Takao as promotional models!
To support the Mitsubishi, Suzuki, and Nissan teams!” “Well, the idea is somewhat sound, in a way,” Amagi mused thoughtfully.
“Besides, the other fleets sent their Kansen as well…” “And as if that weren’t enough, no one can find Shinano.
Someone hid Hakuryuu’s katana, and now the proud dragon is crying in a supply closet.
Akashi and Shiranui are fighting over a kiosk and currently hissing at each other in the main plaza, while the destroyers throw tomatoes at them for entertainment…” Akagi finished her report, having lost all of her fighting spirit by the end.
“Can we just replace the Shikikan?” she looked at her older sister with desperate hope.
Right at that moment, Amagi suffered a violent coughing fit.
That was the final drop.
Clutching her fox ears, Akagi began sobbing loudly, wailing about the absolute chaos in the fleet and the desperate need for a change in leadership.
Exchanging another look with Tosa, Kaga sighed doomed and walked over to the weeping battlecruiser.
Hugging her, the white-haired kitsune began to soothe the flagship of her division, while Tosa helped Amagi recover from her cough.
“Everything will change soon, Akagi-nee-sama,” Kaga said calmly, gently rubbing her sworn sister’s back.
“Change is necessary, if it is for the greater good…” “Do you really think so?” Akagi sniffled, looking up into the blue eyes of the white kitsune with a glimmer of hope.
“I…” Kaga glanced at Amagi, seeking support.
Covering her mouth with her hand, Amagi shook her head slightly, but Kaga made her choice.
“The fleet does not need weaklings.”