Stepping outside, the last aviation cruiser of the Soviet Union scanned the perimeter.
Once his radars confirmed there was absolutely no one around, he buried his face in his hands and groaned.
“How?!
How is any of this even possible?!” He could accept Sirius’s clothes magically resizing themselves.
If this “M-Factor” the girl mentioned was real, then the laws of physics in her world were just built different.
But the rest of the morning’s events completely derailed his sanity.
Shooting a metal zipper tab like a bullet?
Snapping buttons like shrapnel?
Smushing pastries into her own chest?
Even with his access to the Combined Fleet’s secure intranet and the rather…
colorful commanding officers’ forums, the cruiser couldn’t recall a single incident like this.
And those forums had plenty of photographic and video evidence of Kanmusu quirks, heavily ignored by Internal Security.
“But what did that pastry ever do to you…” Ulyanovsk sighed.
Shaking his head, the guy took a few deep breaths to center himself.
Yelling and panicking never solved a damn thing.
He had a difficult conversation ahead with his own command.
He wanted to hope Sirius would magically return home within a week.
But Ulyanovsk was a professional.
He planned for the absolute worst-case scenario.
Which meant assuming the girl was stuck here long-term.
He needed to get her some basic necessities, so he didn’t drain his own supplies.
With that in mind, he headed toward the base commandant’s building to meet his unofficial handler.
“Rear Admiral Sobol, sir?” Ulyanovsk called out, stepping into the office.
The burly man sitting behind the desk looked up from his paperwork with tired eyes.
Once a high-ranking officer in the Pacific Fleet, Sobol had softened up a bit around the edges, but he still looked like a man who could stop a charging horse with his bare hands.
“Ah, Seven,” the officer said, closing the folder and shoving it into a drawer.
“What brings you here?” “I need a gate pass for the city.
And a vehicle.” “I hope this won’t be a repeat of last time?” the admiral steepled his fingers.
“If it was like last time, I’d still be locked up in the brig.” Ulyanovsk always hated Brass offices.
They were too cramped, cluttered with safes and filing cabinets that looked like they pre-dated the Cold War.
The sleek, modern all-in-one PC on the desk looked completely out of place among the antiques.
“My advice?
Turn on the TV tonight.
They’ll be discussing that convoy you hit.
You’re a smart kid, you can separate the wheat from the chaff,” the man said, rummaging through his desk.
“I’ll authorize the transport and the pass, but I want you back by 1800.” “I plan to be done before lunch.” “That’s your call,” the officer said, filling out a form.
“But seriously.
Watch the news.” “What could those talking heads possibly say that the HQ officers couldn’t?” the cruiser scoffed.
“Did you actually listen to them?” the rear admiral chuckled.
When he got no answer, he added, “Exactly.” Sobol tapped his pen against the desk, his eyes narrowing.
“I know you have your own read on the situation.
But think about this: if those were fully loaded LNG carriers, the flash from the explosion would have been visible from here.
And there were three of them.” He leaned forward.
“It ruffled your feathers, sure, but the shockwave was missing.
The kind of shockwave you’d expect from a gas explosion of that magnitude wasn’t there.
So ask yourself: what were they really transporting that made them take such a massive risk, considering they were riding heavy in the water?” “There was an explosion,” Ulyanovsk recalled the death of the American convoy.
“But yeah…
it was a bit weak.
I’ll admit that.” “Exactly,” the officer signed the form with a sweeping flourish.
“The Brass knows what was in those tankers and where they were going.
They made the call that the cargo couldn’t reach its destination.
Besides, I figure it’s easier for you to sink a cargo convoy with escorts than to repeat the events of last year.” He stamped the paper.
“Questions?” “Channel and time?” Ulyanovsk took the slip of paper.
“Any federal network after six.
You can cross-reference with CNN or Euronews.
Our Commander-in-Chief used to call them ‘Kremlin propaganda dumps’, but now he uses them for his own agenda.
Who would’ve thought?” Sobol pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the portrait on the wall—a middle-aged man with a commanding glare.
The cruiser offered an ironic smirk.
After being summoned, he had caught up on the history of the country he never got to serve in his past life.
He was still amazed at how quickly the President—a man practically carried into the Kremlin on the dime of progressive idealists—had flipped his script.
“Try to finish your model kits by the start of next week,” the rear admiral advised.
“Intel is already prepping a testing range.
The firing schedule came down yesterday.” “Thanks for the upgrades, sir, but isn’t it a bit overkill?
They aren’t planning to send me out into the Pacific alone, are they?” “I don’t have the details, but nobody is sending you out against the Abyssal Fleet solo.
That’s a guarantee.” “I’d like to believe that,” Ulyanovsk sighed.
“Permission to be dismissed?” “I’m not keeping you.” Leaving the office, the cruiser headed to the motor pool, turning his handler’s words over in his head.
He knew military orders often had a double, sometimes triple bottom to them, but it was hard to swallow.
The disparity between humanity’s strength and the horrors of the ocean was already vast enough without playing petty geopolitical games.
But he decided to shelf those thoughts until evening.
Right now, he had immediate logistical hurdles to overcome.
Like navigating past the boots sweeping the parade deck to get to his garage, and finding decent plus-size women’s underwear in a godforsaken military town at the edge of the world.
*** “Good afternoon,” the sales associate interrupted the cruiser as he studied a bra sizing chart.
“Can I help you find something?” Ulyanovsk never thought that sizing underwear for a Kanmusu would be harder than calibrating an arresting wire for an incoming fighter-bomber.
Even armed with Sirius’s complete acoustic and radar profile, this store felt like a haystack, and he was looking for a very specific needle.
“I need some lingerie for a girl about this tall,” the cruiser demonstrated, holding his hand flat around chest height.
“Here are the measurements.” He handed the woman a piece of paper with numbers neatly jotted down in handwriting he had bribed a female supply clerk to write for him.
He had learned his lesson after checking online stores—the sheer number of filters had practically melted his Combat Information Center.
He decided it was safer to trust a trained professional who actually got paid to do this.
“Hmm, about five-foot-five to five-foot-seven,” the girl looked the guy up and down, then stared at the paper.
“Wow.
Unexpected…” she muttered, zoning out for a second.
Ulyanovsk completely understood her shock.
In his entire time walking around the city, he hadn’t seen a single woman who even remotely approached the proportions of his otherworldly maid.
He had seen a few plus-size women, but their spherical shapes were a far cry from Sirius’s hourglass figure.
“Genetics were very generous to my sister,” the cruiser nodded.
The associate glanced down at her own chest—safely hidden beneath a white blouse and red vest, maybe a solid B-cup—and sighed sadly.
“Unfortunately, for sizes like these…” the associate drawled, turning her head toward the section designated for women over fifty-five.
“I already checked there.
She’s twenty-two.
She’s not going to appreciate granny panties,” Ulyanovsk snorted, picturing his guest in them.
Though he mentally noted that if the Kanmusu stayed longer than a month, he might buy a pair just to mess with her.
He could pass it off as ‘traditional British undergarments for proper ladies.’ “Then I’m not sure our store can help you,” the associate said thoughtfully.
“Although…” “Sportswear works too, or just some tank tops and T-shirts.” “Follow me,” she gestured.
“Is your sister looking for everyday wear or something…
special?” “She can buy her own party gear when she gets the chance,” Ulyanovsk replied.
“Everyday wear.
Nothing fancy.” “Well, the selection is going to be pretty slim,” the associate smiled, shoving five hangers with panties into the cruiser’s hands.
To his relief, they weren’t overly provocative.
Just standard opaque fabric—not too revealing, but definitely not overly conservative either.
“Now for the tops,” the girl checked the paper again, doing some mental math on her fingers.
“We’re going to have to dig…” A shopping trip Ulyanovsk planned to wrap up in forty minutes stretched into a grueling two hours.
It would have been faster if a second employee hadn’t joined the bra hunt, modeling the items by holding them up against her own chest.
It helped a little, but resulted in way too much small talk.
‘Why do they care so much about my personal life?’ the cruiser mentally scoffed, dragging the shopping bags into his house.
He froze, staring at his hallway.
He took his boots off and peeked into the adjacent rooms.
They were in the exact same state.
Ulyanovsk was never a fan of the military obsession with polishing things that didn’t need polishing, but he kept his living quarters clean without going overboard.
The robot vacuum handled the floors—may it rest in peace, though a replacement was already in the box, waiting to be flashed with custom software.
He managed dust by minimizing horizontal surfaces, and cobwebs were neutralized by a flight of attack helicopters armed with under-wing flamethrowers.
But he had never seen his house this clean.
Not even the day he moved in.
The doorknobs were practically gleaming, and the parquet floor was polished so thoroughly the guy could see his own reflection.
“I thought Master Chief Veshchko transferred to another base…” Ulyanovsk muttered.
A hint regarding the miraculous metamorphosis came from the kitchen.
Trying not to make a sound, the guy peeked inside.
There was his guest.
Wearing the sweatpants—which had somehow morphed from two sizes too big to form-fitting yoga pants—Sirius was aggressively scrubbing the stove with a sponge.
She was quietly humming the British Grenadiers march, tapping her fingers on the countertop to the beat.
Her white button-up shirt was mysteriously soaked, clinging to her skin and outlining the Kanmusu’s curves in agonizing, translucent detail.
But what surprised the guy the most was that the shirt was actually buttoned up two-thirds of the way, even though the top buttons looked like they were fighting for their lives.
The results of her cleaning seemed highly suspicious, and when Ulyanovsk looked up, he found the reason why.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t colonize my kitchen,” the guy announced his presence.
Sirius froze.
She turned around slowly, instantly crossing an arm over her chest.
Her other hand never stopped scrubbing the stovetop.
“What happened here?” he asked, shooting a pointed glare at the yellowish stains coating the ceiling right above the stove.
“I wanted to prepare lunch,” the girl dropped her eyes guiltily.
“And I made a slight miscalculation with the recipe.” “My bad.
That’s on me,” the cruiser stepped in, gently moving the Kanmusu away from the stove and taking the sponge.
“I didn’t plan to be out this long.
Your new gear is in the bags in the hallway.
Try them on.
If they don’t fit, I’ll return them tomorrow.” “You really shouldn’t have troubled yourself,” Sirius shook her head frantically.
“I disagree.
We may be warships, but we should adhere to basic uniform standards fitting our new forms,” he gestured to the girl.
“Even if the alternative is aesthetically pleasing.
Don’t worry about the stove…” Instantly, a squad of fifteen fairies in sailor uniforms materialized on the kitchen counter, armed with mops, brushes, and buckets.
“Clean this up,” Ulyanovsk ordered his sprites.
They threw crisp salutes and enthusiastically tackled the mess.
“Go change.
I’ll throw something together for lunch,” he told the girl.
“Thank you so much,” the Kansen smiled warmly, hastily retreating from the kitchen.
Opening the fridge, Ulyanovsk scanned its contents, running the culinary math in his head.
Finding a frozen block of meat broth in the freezer, a smile crept onto his face.
Since breakfast had been roughly ‘British’, lunch could feature a Russian national dish.
Besides, he was curious to see the otherworldly guest’s reaction to borsch, which probably didn’t even exist in her reality.
Decision made, Ulyanovsk rolled up his sleeves and got to work.
“Um…” came a voice from the hallway ten minutes later.
Turning around, Ulyanovsk saw his guest changed into the shorts and T-shirt he had bought, with the outline of a bra finally visible underneath.
The clothes were a bit snug, but they didn’t look like a textbook case of a woman trying to squeeze into a size zero.
“Fits?” “Yes, thank you,” the Kansen nodded.
“But really, you shouldn’t have…” “Don’t start.
Just help me with lunch so it doesn’t turn into dinner,” Ulyanovsk waved off her protests.
“And remember a simple rule of survival: take what’s offered, dodge what’s thrown.” “Unfortunately, I’m not very skilled at cooking,” Sirius smiled sadly.
“Just keep an eye on this so it dissolves instead of frying,” he pointed to the pot where the broth block was melting.
As the cruiser learned over the next half hour, the Kansen wasn’t bad at cooking; she was bad at coordination.
Her clumsiness manifested at the absolute worst moments, but thanks to the flagship’s rapid intervention, total disaster was averted.
The only casualty was her brand-new T-shirt, upon which she accidentally tipped a bowl of grated beets.
“Could’ve been worse,” Ulyanovsk checked his watch, ladling the finished soup into bowls.
Lunch had smoothly transitioned into dinner, though for Kanmusu not actively deployed on the water, meal times were largely irrelevant.
The cruiser was amused by how the guest initially eyed the bowl of borsch suspiciously, acting like he was offering her a pint of blood.
Eventually, she appreciated the taste.
She even asked for the recipe for someone named “Duke of York,” noting the soup’s striking visual resemblance to blood.
How a bowl of red soup connected to a noble, blonde-haired, blue-eyed battleship maiden dressed in white, the guy decided not to ask.
And while the Kansen surprisingly insisted on doing the dishes, Ulyanovsk took his handler’s advice and decided to subject himself to federal television programming.
“I’ll be upstairs,” he said, handing the girl his empty bowl.
“Come on up if guarding the wardrobe gets boring.” “How did you know?!” Sirius spun around.
“Educated guess,” the guy shrugged.
“I’d be doing the exact same thing in your shoes.” Heading up to the second floor, Ulyanovsk flopped onto the sofa and stared out the window overlooking the harbor.
The weather was turning nasty fast.
He had walked through a sunny city just hours ago, but now, heavy, leaden storm clouds were steadily crawling toward the coast, bringing a storm and a wave of depressing moods to the locals.
Storms had a very specific effect on Kanmusu.
The connection to the ocean, usually weak on land, amplified during a squall.
Some girls started hearing faint whispers, feeling a sense of being watched, and experiencing other intrusive phenomena.
They usually hit girls returning from long deployments or newly summoned ones.
Ulyanovsk was no exception.
To distract himself, he dug the remote out from under a cushion.
“Looks like I’ve got another date night with plastic glue and decals,” he grimaced, pressing the first button his thumb found.
“President of Russia, Alexey Navalny, expressed his condolences to the command of the Combined Fleet,” the host of a famous political talk show announced to the studio guests.
“In his statement, he emphasized the country’s readiness to provide full assistance in transshipping cargo between Asian markets and the United States.
Only yesterday we warned that the US is playing with fire by attempting to bypass the heavily guarded Bering Strait to send cargo to the Japanese Empire directly through known Abyssal nesting grounds.
Sergey Mikhailovich, is this connected to our eastern partner’s recent remilitarization and territorial claims?” “Condolences.
Right,” Ulyanovsk scoffed.
“Paid for a whole referendum to change the constitution just to sit in that chair, and now you’re shooting up American cargo ships.
Naughty, naughty.” The cruiser remembered those ‘territorial claims’ like they happened yesterday.
“You call those territorial claims?!” one of the studio guests flared up.
“Care to explain where that pack of Abyssals came from at such a convenient time?” He remembered that pack, too.
It was the only time he had lost nearly his entire air wing, surviving with a single flight of ASW helicopters.
“Dmitry, are you suggesting Russia found a way to negotiate with the Abyssal Fleet?” the host smiled venomously.
“I think there must be a limit to the demonization of our country.
For now, please stay quiet and remember how Dr.
Betruger and Dr.
Pierce ended up when they tried establishing contact with the Abyssals.
Sergey Mikhailovich, you have the floor.” “It’s entirely possible.
We’ll never know what they were transporting.
All cargo in the port of Lavrentiya undergoes inspection, and our American partners clearly had something to hide if they took such a massive risk.
They still haven’t forgiven us for the destruction of their bases in the Baltics, Poland, and Ukraine.
The fact that we control their trade is grinding the White House’s gears.
Against that backdrop, even Japan’s claims on China and Southeast Asia seem like a minor nuisance to them…” the elderly politician began to sing his usual song.
A soft creak from the stairs distracted the cruiser from the paid talking heads on screen.
“Um, Ulyanovsk, sir…” “Please don’t tell me the downstairs is flooding,” the guy asked with a smile.
“No!” Sirius huffed.
“You just said I could come up…” she finished, her voice softening.
“I did,” he patted the sofa next to him.
“Pick a spot, get comfortable.
Any preferences?” he nodded at the TV.
“I don’t understand what they’re talking about,” the girl admitted awkwardly.
Shifting nervously for a few seconds, she opted for the armchair next to the sofa.
“You’re in luck.
They’re discussing the recent demise of a convoy heading from the US to Japan,” Ulyanovsk waved the remote at the screen, turning to face her.
“That’s awful!” the Kansen gasped.
“Yeah.
Except we built a bridge, several pipelines, and underwater cable lines across the strait between the continents.
It would’ve cost them nothing to send all that cargo over land, but they clearly had reasons not to.
That’s what the suits are arguing about.
Don’t sweat it.
Politics is a dirty game.” “That is certainly true,” Sirius sighed.
“Her Highness gets terribly stressed after the flagship summits.” “Wait, commanding officers don’t dictate fleet policy in your world?” “Their role is logistical support,” the girl shook her head.
“Combat planning and strategy are handled by the fleet leaders.” “Lucky,” Ulyanovsk whistled, turning off the TV.
“Wish we had that setup…” “What else is the leader of the nation for?” the Kansen smiled proudly.
“We have a mountain of Brass, officers, and bureaucrats.
It’s good in some ways, but a massive pain in the ass in others.” “We have those too, but the final word always rests with Her Highness.” “The ship or the human?” the guy had to clarify.
Based on his guest’s stories, the picture of her world was getting dangerously surreal.
“The Kansen of the battleship Queen Elizabeth,” the maid confirmed.
Hearing that, the loud anti-Kanmusu factions in his own world would have instantly felt validated.
Many humans lived in fear that the Shipgirls would eventually seize power and enslave humanity.
Unfortunately, after the governments crushed the fourth wave of feminism that reared its head following the Kanmusu’s appearance, they lacked the resources to deal with the remaining fanatics.
Though Ulyanovsk suspected that suppression was just a political play cynically referred to as “checks and balances.” “Did you guys take over humanity or something?” he finally asked the burning question.
“Why would we?!” Sirius exclaimed.
“Fleet matters are fleet matters.
Who knows better how to fight the Sirens than Kansen?” “Fair point, but…” the guy paused expectantly.
“We still answer to humanity,” the girl straightened her back proudly.
“Easy there,” he side-eyed the fabric of the T-shirt stretching to its absolute limits.
“I know they say third time’s the charm, but let’s not test it today.” “Third time?” the girl blinked.
Then she looked down.
“Cad!” she summarized sharply.
“Guilty as charged,” the cruiser didn’t deny it.
“But since we have some free time, I think I need to show you something.” He stood up from the sofa.
“Something?” Reconsidering, Ulyanovsk sat back down and summoned a transport helicopter sprite, which clattered its rotors as it flew down to the first floor.
“What we’re dealing with over here,” he gestured toward the window facing the harbor.
“And what you might face, worst-case scenario.” “I hope I won’t burden you for too long and will be able to return home soon.” “Mutual,” the cruiser agreed.
“Nothing personal against you, but I can guess what fleet loyalty means to a Kanmusu.” He vividly remembered how, a year ago, Japanese destroyers and cruisers literally threw themselves into hand-to-hand combat against a Hime.
It was a suicide charge, doomed to fail, meant only to buy their carriers and battleships enough time to break contact.
Unfortunately, the ‘Shipwreck’ spares no one.
The heavy thrum of rotors saved him from diving back into the abyss of depression.
Struggling under the payload, an Mi-8 search-and-rescue helicopter fairy dragged a rugged military tablet to its host.
“Don’t mind the weight—it’s three times heavier than a normal one,” Ulyanovsk chuckled awkwardly, noticing the girl’s eyes go wide.
“But it’s domestically produced.
Won’t break if you drop it from the fifth floor.” “What is it?” “A tablet,” the guy shrugged, manually detaching the rigging and dismissing the exhausted chopper sprite.
“Shockproof casing, submersible up to twenty meters, and according to the manufacturer, can survive a nuclear blast…” Powering on the pinnacle of domestic microelectronics, Ulyanovsk quickly pulled up a file on the most common primitive Abyssal unit: the I-class destroyer.
The internal military database provided far better, uncensored photographs than anything mere mortals outside naval bases were allowed to see.
“But it doesn’t matter what this brick is made of.
What matters is what it shows,” the cruiser handed the device to his guest.
The moment she saw the photograph of the bizarre creature—resembling a whale encased in black chitinous armor—Sirius felt the world around her plunge into darkness.
The creature’s elongated body looked crudely chiseled from a slab of metal.
Its eyes burned with an indescribable, absolute malice.
Viscous black fluid oozed from cracks in its armor, and its maw…
on the screen, the maw seemed to move, lunging forward, trying to snap its jaws and rip the girl to pieces.
She had seen something like this before.
Only once.
But once was enough to sear the memory into her mind forever.
Staring at the tablet, Sirius didn’t see what Ulyanovsk called an “I-class destroyer.” She saw the ocean rising like a monolithic tide, birthing a leviathan that blotted out the sky.
Its mere presence spawned a hurricane that seemed to plunge the entire planet into the void.
And in the heart of that darkness awoke a beast.
A child of Shadow and Steel.
The waters turned crimson.
Its newborn shriek of pure horror rattled reality itself, paralyzing the defenders.
Shells and torpedoes bounced harmlessly off the monster.
For every segment of armor ripped away, a new one immediately sprouted from endless, dense shadows.
It felt as if the Kansen’s attacks were only helping the creature gain its true form, rather than dealing damage.
[image here] A sharp sting across her cheek snapped Sirius back to reality.
She frantically shoved the tablet away.
“You know, when you started taking those deep, heavy breaths,” Ulyanovsk leaned over her, “it was honestly pretty erotic.
Right up until your eyes started glowing…” “Eyes…
glowing?” the Kansen gasped, struggling to catch her breath.
The cruiser nodded, debating whether to slap her again or if she was fully lucid.
Seeing her face flushed with adrenaline, hearing her ragged pants…
If her typically maroon eyes weren’t currently radiating a faint, blood-red luminescence, he would have deliberated longer.
In the quiet room, a sharp smack echoed out.
“What was that for?!” Sirius yelled.
“Snap out of it,” the guy said calmly.
“I’ve been trying to bring you back for five minutes.
What the hell came over you?” He mentally cursed his luck.
Newly summoned Shipgirls sometimes exhibited this kind of reaction to Abyssal photos.
But rarely.
And never this violent.
There was fear, sure, maybe an irrational sense of being watched, but there wasn’t a single recorded case of a girl slipping into a deep Abyssal trance from a simple jpeg of a grunt destroyer.
“And there’s a storm brewing today,” Ulyanovsk sighed doomedly, pressing the back of his hand against the girl’s forehead.
“I dread to think how you’re going to handle the Shift…” Her temperature was returning to normal, which was a relief.
“The Shift?” “I’m going to get us something hot to drink, and I’ll explain.
No pictures this time,” the guy answered, draping a throw blanket over her shoulders.
“Looks like Kanmusu and Kansen aren’t that different after all.”