The tea party with the maid-Kansen left Ulyanovsk with highly mixed feelings.
On the one hand, it felt like tossing red-hot coals back and forth with bare hands while tap-dancing on a powder keg.
Both Belfast and he had actively tried to pry details about the other’s world without giving away a single shred of valuable classified intel.
And the Head Maid knew her worth, expertly using her assets to try and force the aviation cruiser into a mistake.
Double entendres.
Repeating the same questions from different angles.
All backed up by strategically timed leans forward or dramatic back-arches under the guise of stretching her tired shoulders.
Ulyanovsk had to admit: if someone like Admiral Volkov had been sitting in his chair, the man would have been drooling at the white-haired cruiser’s feet by now.
The guy mentally thanked his Soviet designers for not giving Sirius the same razor-sharp tongue as her boss, even if the younger maid had tried—and failed—to play referee.
The aviation cruiser’s patience finally snapped when Belfast, arching her back and thrusting her chest forward for the dozenth time, innocently asked about his diet.
In response, Ulyanovsk casually asked exactly what laws of physics were keeping her bodice from snapping.
He had absolutely zero desire to explain the mechanics of his nuclear heart.
The counterattack was instantly effective.
Sirius choked on her tea, while Belfast shot him a completely unreadable look.
Then, she simply smiled, and the conversation drifted back to neutral topics—like coordinating the details of their upcoming joint naval maneuvers.
Despite the psychological warfare, Ulyanovsk considered the meeting highly productive.
He even gladly agreed to repeat the tea party in the future.
Even with the Royal Navy’s head of intelligence sitting at the table—because the guy had zero doubts about the true purpose of the Maid Corps.
He had dealt with fleet Spooks enough to see right through the playful maid facade.
Returning to his own room on his side of the portal, Ulyanovsk closed the wardrobe.
He counted to ten, then pulled the doors open again.
This time, closing the doors from both sides had been enough to sever the connection.
The wardrobe was just a regular piece of furniture again, filled with empty shelves and a hanger bar.
No silky lingerie, no Shipgirls tumbling onto his floor.
Satisfied, he gave a curt nod and went to open his bedroom door, where someone was aggressively scratching at the wood.
“You know, talking to another manifestation of a warship is definitely different from shooting the breeze with swabbies in the smoking pit,” the guy muttered, leaning down to ruffle the fur of the cat headbutting his leg.
“You prefer bullying some stray tomcat in the alley over scratching up a post, too, don’t you?” The cat’s amber eyes stared back, radiating absolute certainty regarding his owner’s low intellectual capacity.
Checking his watch, Ulyanovsk set a ten-minute timer and dismissed his combat rigging, switching back into his civilian clothes.
He needed to clean up the remnants of the dinner his feline roommate had so brazenly stolen.
Otherwise, scrubbing grease stains off the kitchen tile later would require thermite just to save time.
The cleanup took slightly longer than planned.
At one point, the guy genuinely thought his pet had been possessed by a crocodile, judging by the sheer, unbridled fury with which Kubik shredded the undercooked chunks of meat.
How nearly three pounds of food fit inside such a compact beast without turning it into an immobile ball of fur remained a profound mystery.
Finished with the mess, Ulyanovsk returned to the wardrobe-turned-interdimensional-portal.
Double-checking that the inside was still strictly mundane, he closed the doors and focused his mind on the exact layout of Sirius’s room.
Noting every minor detail, the aviation cruiser visualized the space perfectly and grabbed the handle.
His palm tingled.
Not painfully, but noticeably.
A second later, a sensation like a red-hot needle dragged a line up his arm to his shoulder.
Glancing at his hand, Ulyanovsk slowly opened the door, listening intently to his instincts.
The wardrobe was still empty, but a thin vertical line of light now split the back panel in two.
Nodding in satisfaction, the guy swung the outer doors wide open and pushed against the back wall.
With a soft creak, the panel gave way, opening up to reveal the maid’s room he had left barely fifteen minutes ago.
“I feel like some decadent aristocrat deciding to pay a midnight visit to his personal maid,” Ulyanovsk winked at the cat.
Letting out a massive yawn from a sudden wave of exhaustion, the guy closed the wardrobe and stretched his arms.
After opening the cursed piece of furniture one more time just to confirm the portal had closed, the aviation cruiser headed downstairs.
He needed to fabricate some MiG models with gun pods for the upcoming demonstration flights, and he hadn’t built those in a while.
It was the perfect way to kill time before running a second portal experiment a few hours later.
However, a surprise awaited him in his workshop.
Deciding to check on his trophies looted from hostile waters, he discovered he was missing one.
The moment he had touched the fragment of an Abyssal Hime’s horn to bring it upstairs earlier, it had melted into thin air, leaving behind only a tiny puff of smoke.
“Interesting,” Ulyanovsk murmured, twirling a smaller shard of a Hime’s horn between his fingers.
“Can they do that too?” His sleepiness vanished as if it had never existed.
Instead, the aviation cruiser felt an unprecedented surge of energy, comparable to the rush right after a reactor refueling.
“I’ll have to test that again later…” the guy sighed, locking the horn back in the safe.
Placing a box of jet model parts on his workbench, he got to work.
*** Several hours later, after spending entirely too much time in a cramped room inhaling plastic glue and soldering flux, Ulyanovsk decided to take a break and test the portal again.
“I wonder, if they ever actually summon any of the older Krechet variants—numbers one through four—what the hell are they going to arm them with?” he asked the empty room, looking at the finished models on his desk.
A perfectly aligned row of eight small, pitch-black fighters remained entirely silent.
“Baku might be able to carry a few MiGs, but the older guys…” the guy chuckled grimly, imagining the reaction of his older brethren.
“They’d be absolutely furious having no carrier-based fixed-wing aircraft.
And I doubt giving them modern choppers would sweeten the pill.
Unless the eggheads somehow birth a VTOL Sukhoi out of thin air…” With a short wave of his hand and a mental command, the plastic models vanished, replaced by eight flat cards resting on the table.
Grabbing a smaller Abyssal shard from his safe, Ulyanovsk marched toward the cursed wardrobe.
Along the way, he was intercepted by Kubik.
The cat aggressively headbutted the guy’s legs the entire walk, practically hurrying him along.
This level of activity from his usually lazy pet was highly suspicious.
Normally, after a massive meal, the furball preferred to nap in his commandeered armchair.
But right now, he was wide awake and on a mission.
“What do you want?
More food?” Ulyanovsk nudged the cat away from the bedroom door with his foot.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Kubik let out an indignant yowl and scratched at the door, putting his owner on high alert.
In the past, the cat only rushed the potential portal when uninvited guests were stepping out of it.
“Don’t start a massacre without my command,” the guy joked, pushing the door open.
Approaching the wardrobe, he glanced back at the furry menace sitting off to the side.
The beast stared expectantly at his human with his amber eyes and gave what looked like an approving nod.
“Alright, let’s roll,” the aviation cruiser sighed, grabbing the door handle.
His palm tingled again.
Just as he was about to pull the door open, the cat suddenly swiped his claws across Ulyanovsk’s leg.
His palm flared again, but this time, the sensation felt less like a pinprick and more like someone driving a red-hot railroad spike through his hand.
Startled, the guy instinctively yanked the door open.
Kubik instantly launched himself toward the resulting crack.
“Hold it!” Ulyanovsk hissed, trying to pin the cat with the door.
But the beast fought like he was possessed.
With strength defying his compact furball physiology, the tomcat shoved the panel aside and bolted through, headbutting the portal doors open on the other side.
Cursing internally, the aviation cruiser chased after him, praying to the heavens that they wouldn’t run into anyone.
The owner of the runaway pet stepped into a spacious room decorated in a distinct Eastern style.
It faintly resembled Shinano’s quarters, though to Ulyanovsk’s untrained eye, the interior here felt much more colorful and vibrant.
Instead of admiring the decor, he focused on retrieving his disobedient cat ASAP.
Kubik had already hopped into a foreign pet bed, settling in like he owned the place.
However, a specific detail in the room caught the aviation cruiser’s eye.
Resting on a nightstand was a wall poster featuring a red race car.
Draped across its hood, propping her head up with one hand, was an incredibly attractive, curvy brunette wearing a light red jacket and a microscopic bikini made of two tiny black triangles.
The other half of the poster was buried under several folders of official paper covered in Japanese Kanji.
Ulyanovsk was no expert in Asian languages, but he instantly recognized the Mitsubishi logo.
‘I really hope I didn’t just crash into the mansion of some Zaibatsu CEO,’ the guy frowned, turning his attention back to the four-legged deserter.
Apparently, the cat found something displeasing about the bed and began aggressively kneading it, prepping a more comfortable spot.
The aviation cruiser had a different plan.
“Let’s get out of here while we still can,” Ulyanovsk muttered, scooping the cat up into his arms.
The furball yowled in protest and tried to squirm free.
“I’ll buy you one exactly like it, I promise,” the guy grunted, holding him tighter.
He turned to leave, but he was too late.
“Shikikan, I haven’t reviewed…” a tired voice echoed behind him, accompanied by the swish of a sliding door.
“…You found Unmei!” the voice instantly shifted to pure joy.
Kubik began thrashing in Ulyanovsk’s grip even harder.
But the guy had already stopped fighting him.
Letting the animal go, he turned to face the speaker, shooting a disgruntled glare at the purring freeloader now happily rubbing against her legs.
“You’re not the Shikikan,” the stranger noted, giving the guy a sweeping once-over.
Ulyanovsk knew that perfectly well, but chose to remain silent as he studied the girl standing before him.
She was almost exactly the same height as Shinano, minus the sleepy guest’s fox ears.
If her skin had a healthy, rosy flush instead of a deathly pallor, Ulyanovsk could have easily mistaken her for a Battleship Hime who had decided to retire far away from the ocean.
Long, coal-black hair cascading down past her thighs and striking, bright crimson eyes were signature traits of the Abyssal Fleet.
But it was her other anatomical features that truly commanded attention, forcing the aviation cruiser to temporarily shelve his professional paranoia.
The recent tea party with two highly attractive maids had definitely primed him for this.
‘Seriously, what is wrong with the Shipgirls in this world?’ Ulyanovsk mentally directed his plea to the heavens.
The question remained unanswered.
The source of his distraction was the stranger’s incredibly generous bust, which noticeably outclassed the assets of Sirius, Formidable, and Shinano.
Yet, they didn’t look grotesquely disproportionate.
The simple black bra she wore actually made them look somewhat modest compared to the open tops of the British Kansen.
Still, the aviation cruiser had to admit that the sight of a wide-hipped, slender brunette standing before him in black lingerie and an unbuttoned white shirt she hadn’t even bothered to close, affected him far more intensely than the maids’ provocative uniforms or Shinano’s slipping kimono.
[image here] “My eyes are up here,” the stranger sighed exhaustedly, pointing a finger at her own face.
“Sorry, but in this situation, only a dead man wouldn’t look,” Ulyanovsk admitted honestly, meeting her gaze.
Right now, the girl in front of him looked drastically different from her image on the poster buried under the paperwork.
The playful gaze and slightly lewd smile were completely gone.
She looked as though she had been forced to do a miserable, soul-crushing job for weeks, resembling a dockworker coming off a triple shift.
She had finally gotten a chance to rest, only to have it ruined by some guy standing in her room.
“I completely understand you,” the brunette shook her head in disappointment.
“But you should still observe basic decency…” Bright orange flames ignited, swirling around the palm she held out in front of her.
“Judging by your reaction, you’re new to the base and unfamiliar with the local rules.
So the punishment will be minor,” she declared, her crimson eyes locked onto the guy.
Because of the close light source, her white shirt seemed to turn translucent, showcasing the stranger’s body in all its glory.
It was an incredibly captivating sight, but Ulyanovsk’s gaze, slipping past her toned stomach, locked onto the fire.
The separating tongues of flame morphed into fiery feathers, melting into the air as they slowly drifted downward.
The display was so mesmerizing that the guy involuntarily breathed out: “Beautiful…” A faint smile touched the girl’s lips.
“Thank you,” she said.
“But please, leave the room and forget everything you saw here.” The temperature in the room began rising rapidly, though it didn’t seem to affect the interior at all.
However, the aviation cruiser’s internal sensors were screaming about the temperature crossing the two-hundred-degree Celsius mark.
More than enough to make a normal human pass out from heatstroke.
That was clearly what the girl was aiming for, judging by her eyes widening in surprise when he didn’t even break a sweat.
“Unmei?” her gaze dropped downward, noticing the cat.
The furry menace, acting as if he didn’t even notice the superheated air around him, purred happily and headbutted the aviation cruiser’s leg, demanding love and attention.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t roast my cat,” Ulyanovsk dropped to one knee and scooped the animal up.
“Yours?” the girl looked even more shocked.
“So he’s been living with you this entire past six months?” The guy nodded, waiting for her next move.
The brunette slowly clenched her burning hand into a fist, extinguishing the flame.
She let out a loud exhale and dropped her arm.
“He wasn’t on the base, was he?” she asked.
The aviation cruiser nodded again, scratching Kubik behind the ear.
“Then where was he?” In response, he silently pointed at the open wardrobe.
“I don’t understand any of this,” the stranger murmured, massaging her forehead with her eyes closed.
“How about you button up, and we talk this out calmly?
Carrier to carrier?” Ulyanovsk suggested, deciding not to hide his nature.
The real cat, realizing the owner of the room had stopped playing the role of a walking space heater, squirmed out of the guy’s arms and demanded attention from her instead.
“Carrier?” the girl repeated.
She dropped to her knees, scratching the beast behind the ear.
“We can talk about that too,” the Soviet aviation cruiser confirmed.
He caught himself feeling genuinely jealous of the cat, whom the girl was currently looking at with eyes full of absolute tenderness and love.
“Interesting things are happening,” the brunette noted as she stood up, giving the guy an evaluating look.
“You can introduce yourself while we’re at it,” Ulyanovsk hinted.
Adding, “Though if you prefer walking around like that, I don’t mind.” “Taihou,” she stated, casting a sideways glance at the open wardrobe.
“Heavy Aircraft Carrier of the Sakura Empire.” “Ulyanovsk.
Aircraft Carrier of the Soviet Union,” the guy squeezed out, struggling to maintain his composure.
He couldn’t reconcile the historical image of Taihou—a flat-chested, almost boyish-looking girl—with the absolute total knockout standing in front of him, entirely unashamed of her practically naked state.
However, this brunette fit the title of ‘Great Phoenix’—the translation of her Japanese name—far better than the Taihou from his home world.
Especially after that fiery demonstration of her lineage.
“Let’s talk, then,” Taihou agreed to his proposal, buttoning her shirt halfway up.
Covering her stomach and hips, she intentionally left her chest exposed.
Ulyanovsk heavily suspected she did it simply to keep the buttons from popping off under the sheer strain.
“Come on,” the Kansen pointed toward the sofa in front of the TV.
“You’re taking all this surprisingly well,” the guy commented, unable to look away as the girl walked past him.
“I’ve known Shinano for a long time.
I quickly figured out that Unmei’s disappearance and her sudden obsession with hiding in my room were connected somehow,” Taihou replied.
Taking a seat on one edge of the sofa, she gestured to the other end, silently offering him a spot.
“And now I’ve just received confirmation,” she finished.
“Fascinating,” Ulyanovsk said, sitting across from her.
“Just tell me, how did Unmei end up with you?” Taihou asked, looking at the guy with keen interest.
Crossing one leg over the other, she draped her left arm over the back of the sofa, propping her head up.
Kubik, still demanding affection, didn’t hesitate to curl up at her feet, purring loudly the moment Taihou’s free hand touched his fur.
“He literally just walked out of the closet,” the aviation cruiser mirrored her relaxed posture.
“Just like that?” the Kansen froze in surprise.
“Just opened it and walked out?” “Exactly,” Ulyanovsk nodded affirmatively.
“I wasn’t going to throw him out into the cold, so I kept him.” “Hmm…” the girl drawled.
“But why did he only come back now?” “You’d better ask Shinano about that.
She definitely knows something.” The cat, annoyed that he was no longer being actively petted, poked his paw at his owner.
“And you don’t?” Taihou asked, fulfilling the demands of her furry overlord.
“Do I look like a clairvoyant kitsune to you?” Ulyanovsk dodged the question.
“You are a male Kansen.
Which is highly suspicious,” the brunette countered.
“And what exactly am I suspected of?” “An interdimensional invasion?” the girl hinted with a smile.
“Which I decided to kick off by attempting to steal your virginity?” “Thereby giving Shikikan Smith another reason to be jealous,” Taihou’s smile grew a little wider.
“So I invaded a family idyll?” Ulyanovsk asked, narrowing his eyes.
“You’re playing with fire,” the girl warned.
“I confess, I have sinned,” the aviation cruiser nodded sagely.
“Instincts.” “Instincts rarely lead men to any good,” the brunette reminded him with a sly squint.
“Not the best idea to start an invasion by making an attempt on a Kansen’s virtue.” “I’m ambitious, and the target in front of me is perfectly worthy of an interdimensional conquest,” Ulyanovsk winked.
Both carriers locked eyes in silence for a moment.
Then, Taihou threw her head back and laughed, shaking her head.
“Some very messed-up priorities in that other world of yours,” she sighed deeply, trying to catch her breath.
“Still, I stand by my assessment.
And besides,” Ulyanovsk smiled, “you’ve stopped looking like a freshly resurrected zombie.” “You are a very weird guy,” the brunette shook her head.
“Takes one to know one,” the guy reflected.
“And you have no right to lecture me about wrong priorities.” “What do you mean?” “Where are all the standard questions like, ‘How did you get here?’ or ‘Why is your anatomy different?’ and all that?” “You wouldn’t answer them anyway,” Taihou shrugged.
“So what’s the point?” That simple gesture caused Ulyanovsk’s gaze to involuntarily drop.
“If you were tied to the Sirens and wanted to attack, you would have done so already instead of chatting,” Taihou continued.
“Our enemies, unfortunately, do not negotiate…” “Logical,” the guy managed to tear his eyes away from her captivating cleavage with visible reluctance.
‘Note for the future—do not open wardrobes after handling Abyssal remains or undergoing a reactor refueling,’ he made a mental note to himself.
“My eyes are up here,” Taihou reminded him with a sly smile.
“I remember,” the cruiser replied.
“But it’s hard to resist, you know.” “Men…” she sighed, shaking her head.
As if protesting his owner’s words, Kubik relocated to the guy’s lap and stared at him demandingly.
“See?
Even Kubik is offended by those insinuations,” Ulyanovsk ruffled the fur on the beast’s scruff.
“And Unmei trusts you, so I see no point in asking unnecessary questions,” Taihou pouted playfully.
“He’d better trust me,” the aviation cruiser snorted, recalling the sheer volume of steaks and cat food the animal consumed.
“He doesn’t respond to bribes with treats, so it’s definitely not that,” the girl yawned.
“He’s a very well-mannered cat.” “Let’s go with that,” the guy didn’t argue, remembering the terrified felines near the mess hall.
“You, on the other hand, look like you desperately need some rest.
A sleep-deprived ship is a dead ship.” “If only this had anything to do with combat training…” Taihou grumbled.
“If I find out who convinced the Shikikan to send Kansen as promo models for racing competitions…” Glancing at the poster on the nightstand, Ulyanovsk mentally awarded the unknown instigator a massive karma bonus.
To his great regret, the aviation cruiser needed to prepare for his meeting with the maids, so his chat with his otherworldly colleague had to be cut short.
“Then get some rest,” he lifted the cat off his lap.
“Play with the furball.” “Thank you again for returning Unmei,” the girl said, yawning once more.
“See you around,” Ulyanovsk said, standing up from the sofa.
“See you around?” “See you around,” he confirmed.
“Because knowing my luck, today definitely wasn’t our last meeting.” “Then see you around,” Taihou smiled.
The moment the guy disappeared into the wardrobe, the girl spun the cat around to face her.
“Did you do that on purpose?” she asked the animal.
In response, the beast squirmed out of his owner’s grip, hopped onto the floor, and began ostentatiously grooming his tail.
The Kansen’s indignant gasp was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Taihou, did you review those documents?” a male voice asked from the hallway with a heavy accent.
“Just a minute, Shikikan!” the brunette called out, snapping her fingers.
In an instant, her shirt and lingerie dissolved into a swarm of glowing blue cubes that rapidly enveloped her body.
A second later, instead of a white shirt, Taihou was wearing a bright red kimono with a short skirt and long, flowing sleeves.
Walking over to the nightstand, she carelessly scooped the documents into a messy stack, grabbed them, and marched to the door.
“So, does everything look good to you?” the short man in a pristine white admiral’s tunic asked the moment the girl opened the door.
“I am not signing this!” Taihou clipped every word, shoving the documents aggressively into the admiral’s chest.
Before he could even voice an objection, she slammed the door shut.
“I am a Kansen, not your personal fap material” she hissed quietly to herself.
*** No matter how hard Ulyanovsk tried to focus on preparing the Abyssal Fleet briefing materials for the upcoming intel exchange, he just couldn’t concentrate.
The reason was a certain smoking-hot brunette whose reaction the aviation cruiser completely failed to understand.
And it definitely wasn’t just the stark difference between the historical Taihou from his files and the Kansen he had just met on the other side of the closet.
The guy would have gladly blamed his distraction purely on the girl’s stunning looks, but he had recently spent time with the Head of Security for the Royal Navy—who was also incredibly attractive and wore a highly provocative uniform.
Not to mention Sirius, whom he had previously seen in almost zero clothing.
Shinano had practically crawled all over him, utterly ignoring the concept of ‘personal space.’ And he had nearly slept with Formidable, holding himself back at the very last second.
He had forced himself to step over his instincts and recognize the massive operational headaches that a moment of weakness could cause.
Even then, Ulyanovsk had managed to maintain a cool head and clear thoughts.
Ultimately, there was only one logical variable left to blame for this newfound hormonal chaos: the absorbed Abyssal remains.
The shard of the Hime’s horn he had brought upstairs to reopen the portal had vaporized the moment he touched it, suffering the exact same fate as the previous one.
And delivering identical physical effects.
Ulyanovsk knew that Kanmusu and Abyssals shared a similar origin—thanks in no small part to his tiny saboteurs—but what had just happened defied all logic.
Then again, humanity knew practically nothing about the Abyssal Fleet.
He wasn’t ready to discuss this with Kommuna yet; he lacked solid data.
The far more realistic option was to interrogate a certain annoying submarine the next time she popped up.
“That’s enough for them,” Ulyanovsk tossed his pencil.
It flew in a perfect ballistic arc, landing precisely in its designated slot in the desk organizer.
“Basic phenotypes of the lower, middle, and upper castes are more than enough to understand the tactical situation at sea.” Sliding the printouts into a folder, he closed the prepared briefing packet.
Photographs conveyed information vastly better than the schematic drawings found in commander training manuals, but the aviation cruiser remembered Sirius’s reaction.
He had zero desire to try and calm down a psychotic battle-maid.
“I’ve got a feeling I’m taking a trip to Baikal for de-abyssalization soon,” the guy checked his watch, pulling a chunk of a Harbor Hime’s claw from the safe.
“Well, the things we do for science.” Shaking his head to banish the creeping negativity, he walked over to the wardrobe, opened the doors, and stepped through to the other side.
“Welcome,” Sirius smiled brightly, greeting him in her room.
“Lady Belfast has prepared everything.” “Lead the way,” Ulyanovsk smiled back, theatrically cracking his knuckles.