Weigh Anchor!

“I mean hallo! It’s me! Shinkai no idol: Oni-chan!” she said by way of greeting.

Location wasn’t a big issue for her, so she could adapt pretty well to the other’s needs.

Midway quickly notched her bow. As she pulled the string back, the two cams at the top and bottom of the bow spun and locked into place as the carrier locked onto one of the targets. Unlike the first carrier division members, she didn’t have a yugake or muneate. As her fingers released the cams swung back around and thrust the arrow forward. Shortly after the sound of six radial engined fighters filled the air.

Casting a glance over to the blonde, she saw the other’s bow let loose an arrow. The bow was definitely nothing she had seen before, it looked to be a work of a true craftsman. The bow appeared to be much more modern compared to the first carrier division, but to each their own. As the engines of the F8F-2 fired up, she turned her attention back to her practice, and she sped towards the first target. The tubes attached the her hips spun and aimed at her first target.

“I can’t quantify how large the distortion is without more data but it is for the best you, your sister, and your fleet keep any weapons of that nature in lockdown to prevent quantum distortions here. If your engines produce similar distortions they shouldn’t be too large of a concern.”

“I believe that shouldn’t be much of an issue. The last thing we’d want to do is make our situation even more difficult than it already is.” Especially the mirror-ring system, no doubt using such a defensive weapon would cause an even deeper schism between this world and their home.

“Ah, Hood, yes, our relationship, well we have buried the hatchet, it took another duel, one that played out almost similar to our initial encounter all those years ago for us to begin putting it behind us.” Bismarck explained firmly “We still butt heads on occasion but, we are working towards burying the past to forge a new union between our nations.”

“Not everyone has to agree on everything, when we can realize that is when there’ll be true acceptance.”

“Sounds good to me. If we follow this path we can get to the business and political section, and the other way will circle us back to the docks, then past them to downtown. Whichever way sounds nicer to you, captain.” She bounced on her heels a little, a smile at the thought of being able to stick around with him, she had grown ‘accustomed’ as well, though some might call it creepy devotion.

“We can head towards the business and political section.” Chihaya replied, that would give some more time to enjoying the sights. Although they were mostly talking and being absorbed into their conversation. Some would call it creepy devotion indeed, however Chihaya tended to miss those details, or was he simply ignoring her blatant signals? No one but Chihaya knew.

“Ah, yes, that would be quite lovely. I do have some time to kill. The Admiral is so busy training the new girls, he doesn’t seem to have any need to give us any attention. We may as well busy ourselves with something pleasant, no?” 

Stepping off to the side, Akagi nodded and let Shoukaku come alongside her.

“True. I suppose for right now we have better things to think about, don’t we? We can figure it out when it happens.” Takao smiled just slightly over at Gunzou, then bobbed her head. “We have more of this city to explore as well, if you like. Though..if given the option, I would probably choose to stay with you, Captain.”

By now the sun was not too far from it’s high point above them, at least it wasn’t a hot day, if anything there was a small breeze from the south.

“Maybe. I know that Haruna and Kirishima are going to live with Makie, for sure. As for the rest of us, I hardly know what any of us might do. Maybe even never settle down and just keep roaming. As for me? I really don’t know either, the concept of having a place to live in for a long period of time is almost alien to me after being on the sea for so long.”

“That’s pretty much a given, that group will never be inseparable.” Chihaya nodded as she voiced her thoughts. “That’s also understandable as well, the future isn’t set in stone and can be changed. Plus, focusing on the future too much may take away from our present; the best we can do is to work our way to the future and see what it holds in store for us.”

“Ah guten tag, comrade” Although she did not recognize the woman as they never met in a previous life Bismarck immediately recognized the accent of her homeland in the woman’s speech as well as the iron cross she bore on her uniform. “I am doing well, although you will have to forgive me if I do not know who you are. But it is a pleasure to meet you regardless.”

“Ah, Graf Spee, tales of your exploits, while short-lived, are very impressive. Especially taking on three British cruisers by yourself.” Bismarck commented with a small smile. “A fitting title, after all at the time of your launching you could easily outgun most of the British navy at the time.” Bismarck continued on offering a few more compliments to her comrade.

Graf was genuinely flattered and surprised that most if not all the details were exactly on the mark. She was at a loss of words as Bismarck continued complimenting her. After recovering from the surprise she smiled and nodded. “Danke, I didn’t know that so much was known about me.” Giggling a little she added, “It did prove true during the duel with those cruisers, but in the end my crew came first. But you’re very impressive as well, clever and witty for misleading the British into believing you were heading to Germany rather than France and also sinking the Hood alongside of Prinz!”

After a minute or two his message sunk in and she snapped out of it. She tilted her head as she turned to look at him, then nodded slightly. “I suppose. I’ve never seen the inside of these little houses but they seem nice. A large chunk of the population lives in these or even smaller apartments. I presume they do so due to cost and residential area space requirements.

Those thoughts would no doubt be answered at a better time, but for now he still had different things to be focused on.

“Ah guten tag, comrade” Although she did not recognize the woman as they never met in a previous life Bismarck immediately recognized the accent of her homeland in the woman’s speech as well as the iron cross she bore on her uniform. “I am doing well, although you will have to forgive me if I do not know who you are. But it is a pleasure to meet you regardless.”

“Guten tag, the pleasure is mine.” Pausing for a second she nodded understandingly. “Unfortunately we never did since I never made it back to the Fatherland. But I am Admiral Graf Spee, a Panzershiff; the British like to call me a pocket battleship strangely enough.” Although Graf Spee was the Former German Navy Flagship, not too many people recognized her since she was scuttled less than a year into the war.

“I would be glad to come with you, to accompany you on the high seas.~” Yep, she was enjoying herself. The neighborhoods around them opened up a bit and the size of the residences grew a bit smaller and more personal as they walked, all the same.

“It must be interesting to live in one of these houses.”

“Are you going to be going out onto the range for torpedo practice? If so that’s fine, I’ll just get my girls set up in fighters rather than attack aircraft. My load out is mainly post world war two aircraft but the sound of their engines still tends to make some of your nation’s fleet uneasy. They were made by the same manufacturer as the Wildcat and Hellcat were.”

“That’s fine, I will be doing torpedo practice and perhaps a little bit of gunnery. I don’t want to wake up the other girls so late at night so I’ll keep it down in consideration of others. It’s okay, the sounds don’t really bother me too much and i’ll make sure to not disturb your training.”

“It is a problem I had in the soviet union. Our electrical grid was much worse than it is here. I had to construct a large capacitor and only had a 10 second window to go through my gate before the output of the accumulators would drop to the point of dangerous instability. A timed explosive charge kept the device out of the Politburo’s hands.”

“No doubt you’d need some sort of independent power supply that could sustain such high demand for that device. You’d need some kind of energy source that’s powerful enough to be used over and over again without fail. But what piques my curiosity is how and why we were brought here in space and time in particular. Is it possible that there’s a hole between our worlds that are causing us to show up? For some reason more and more of us are appearing which would only make your job harder than it is as of this moment.”

“I think you will excel in anything you choose to do, though.”

“If it is an offer, I’d accept. Thank you as well for believing in me”