"So, it seems that you have quite a few things you want to ask me."
Kawakaze gave Shigure an aside glance, and Shigure nodded slowly as they both walked towards the harbor while keeping a distance from Akashi, the repair ship respecting their privacy and led the way, keeping silent as Shigure and Kawakaze spoke in hushed voices behind her.
Shigure knew that there was the issue of the Battle of Vella Gulf hanging between them as she lowered her gaze and responded quietly, a slight feeling of guilt starting to build up within her.
"I just want to know if you feel anything towards me for surviving the Battle of Vella Gulf."
Kawakaze silently contemplated the question shortly before answering with an honest and simple,
"No."
Shigure looked towards her sister as the trio walked towards the harbor, crossing the barracks along the way as she saw some of the ship girls coming and going on their way to who-knows-where, and the sun today was slightly harsher than usual with a bit of cloud cover to prevent today's temperature from becoming too hot as summer was coming.
She saw Musashi with Mutsu out of her peripheral vision, and she shuddered upon remembering the sight of a bloody Mutsu in the rain and punching through the head of a Ta-Class Abyssal without a second thought, a far cry from her cheery demeanor as she talked to the uptight and proud Yamato-Class battleship.
But those thoughts were pushed out of Shigure's mind as she gave Kawakaze a confused look, trying to explain her point of view.
"B-But I survived a dud torpedo, and you all were sunk while I lived. So why…"
But Kawakaze shook her head slowly as she gave Shigure an understanding look, her eyes containing the kindness of an elder sister that had matured over the years.
"So what? Could you control the fact that it was a dud that failed to detonate?"
Shigure couldn't reply to that, and could only listen in stunned silence to her sister as Kawakaze explained herself to the confounded Shigure.
"I understand if you might feel guilty for surviving, but let me tell you, Shigure. These are things that you can't control. And even if the torpedoes that hit you weren't duds, so what?"
Shigure's mouth opened in an attempt to respond, but came up empty and failed to think of anything as she became slightly conscious of her open mouth and closed it, choosing to listen to her sister's point of view.
Kawakaze nodded at Shigure's lack of answers and tried her best to fill the silence between them as they walked towards the harbor, trying to give Shigure a second perspective on a battle that had sunk her whilst leaving Shigure alive.
"Look, Shigure, these things happen, and if you're prone to having things turn out favorably for you all the time, no amount of complaining from me or self-loathing on your end is going to change that. I've already come to terms with it a long time ago."
Shigure nodded meekly, understanding her sister's reasoning as she tried to explain herself and how she saw things.
"I know. It's just that whenever I see someone who sank in my wake, it just makes me feel a little bad about surviving, even though I know that I can't go back in time to change things."
Kawakaze nodded upon hearing that, looking at her and allowing Shigure to see the maturity in her eyes, and the weariness that was displayed after moving from battlefield to battlefield.
"I know how it feels, Shigure. But we're here now, and I'm here now. I'm not going anywhere."
Shigure faltered upon seeing Kawakaze expressing such brutal honesty with her and allowing her to glimpse into her weary heart, but Kawakaze's eyes hardened as she looked right into Shigure's uncomfortable, shifty eyes as the Kai Ni destroyer addressed her seriously.
"Shigure. Just like how you want us to trust you to come back in one piece, you have to trust me when I say that I'm not sinking."
Shigure looked Kawakaze in the eye, and she could see the "hardened veteran" look in her eyes, being a ship girl that had seen her fair share of death and destruction. And seeing that she had friends and family here in Yokosuka, she wasn't allowing herself to go down anytime soon.
Shigure sighed as she nodded in agreement, deciding to believe in her sister's strength and allowed her to lead the way, looking at the backs of her two seniors, shoulders slightly slouched as though perpetually tired from their experiences, but their backs straightened to exude seniority and confidence in their skills that had been developed and refined throughout years of combat against a never ending stream of Abyssals.
She wondered if it was inevitable for every senior to eventually look like that.
But there was no time to entertain such thoughts upon seeing a crowd of ship girls standing at the harbor, along with a familiar white-uniformed Admiral standing with them.
Shigure noted Admiral Haru's glance in their direction as they approached, and Admiral Haru's gaze lingered on Akashi for a while as though wordlessly communicating something, Shigure making a mental note of that before observing the ship girls gathered there.
Unryuu and Kiso were there, and there were a few more ship girls there that she had never seen before in public.
Hayasui the fleet oiler was there, with her short raven-black hair along with a long-sleeved black and white exercise sweater.
She saw that the fleet oiler was somewhat well-endowed despite hiding it behind her exercise sweater, and she had on a black miniskirt underneath her sweater which ended slightly beneath her hips, and a black collar with metal parts guarding it.
Her thighs were bare, but she had on black knee socks with brown school shoes, and she was also carrying some sort of rectangular baggage that was slung over her left shoulder via a sling connected to it, and her mild-green eyes were vibrant as she looked around with a friendly and amiable expression, a stark contrast from her teammates as Unryuu looked bored while Kiso looked serious with her arms folded beneath her bosom.
The monochrome ship girl standing next to her was the IJA ship girl Akitsu Maru, the pale ship girl looking somewhat embarrassed at the attention Hayasui was showering her with.
She wore a black military uniform top and dark miniskirt while carrying a red backpack with various unidentified weapons attached to its sides, something that was very unusual for a ship girl seeing that their weapons were given to them after they had entered the ocean and not before.
Her skin was unnaturally pale and contrasted with her dark eyes, likely because of the makeup that she put on before this, and she also wore white gloves that carried two things:
A summoning scroll similar to the scrolls carried by the Hiyou and Ryuujou-Class light carriers in her left hand, and a sheathed katana in her right.
The katana itself had a dull brown sheath with gold ornamental designs etched onto its surface, and the handle had a lighter shade of brown as its handle wrapped with a gold-colored metal butt-cap, guard and collar, the golden guard kissing the similarly colored scabbard mouth.
The buttons on her uniform were a similar color of gold, as was the chrysanthemum symbol on the center of her jet black, peaked officer's cap that she wore.
Her hair was dark like Hayasui's and also of similar length, flowing straight down yet barely reaching the collar, oddly making her hair look a bit like a waterfall.
Along with her black thigh-highs and white sports shoes, she was the IJA ship girl that was strangely never seen around other ship girls, Shigure assuming that her katana was essential in helping her fight Abyssals.
Hatsuzuki was standing next to Unryuu, predictably so seeing that she had on pretty much the same bored expression as the Unryu-Class carrier.
Her yellowish eyes were half-lidded as she stared listlessly at nothing in particular, and her dark brown hair was styled in a way that would resemble horns, being held up by the black hair band that read with a gold font, "61st Destroyer Division".
And with an armored corset of sorts with a monochrome uniform top with a black neck handkerchief and a black miniskirt beneath said corset, her metallic tall boots/high heels providing further protection.
The Akizuki-Class destroyer wore some kind of dark skin suit underneath her clothes, blanketing her arms, thighs and even partially covered her neck.
She wore some sort of contraption on her right wrist that Shigure eventually identified as a fire director that was styled like a watch, and she was carrying two Rensouhou-chans in each hand, looking rather different as they both had white spirals for eyes and were obviously more mechanical in appearance with square plates outlining their faces and had paddle-like hands that flapped about uselessly.
The two turrets sticking out their forehead meant that they were to be used in combat, and Hatsuzuki held them affectionately.
The backup fleet stood to the side as the Ise-Class aviation battleships led them, Ise being the comical one and Hyuga the deadpan one, their contrasting personalities managing to somehow complement each other as they chatted with each other while the rest of the fleet stood nearby.
Hatsuharu was the most conspicuous one present, being a ship girl that had an extremely large ponytail swirling around behind her and swishing about gracefully with every turn of her head.
Her uniform was a sleeveless sailor school uniform, the uniform's color scheme being an even mix of black and white that formed sectioned stripes across her uniform that resembled black-and-white roads.
She had silver buttons on one side of her uniform as her uniform was the kind that was something akin to a bathrobe as she wore a brown and silver belt around her waist, and she had on a few long strands of diamond-shaped ribbons lined up diagonally, reaching around her body and head.
She had on child-tailored high heels and her legs were bare as she flaunted them proudly, wearing white gloves that held a folded traditional Japanese fan in her left hand that had golden petals etched into it, gently waving it around in a graceful motion as she talked to Maya, who was on her team.
Shigure could see that her hair line had a distinct widow's peak as her hair parted to flow down the sides of her face, and a red rope held her gigantic purple ponytail up.
Her eyebrows were pronounced, perhaps owing to the fact that she styled herself in a manner reminiscent to that of the aristocratic women of a bygone age, what with the way she conducted herself, talking to others in a dignified yet polite manner whilst using her black fan to help cover her face and fan herself whenever the moment seemed appropriate.
There was some sort of mechanical arrow hovering above her head, somewhat similar to Tatsuta's mechanical halo in that it had yellow LED lights, was shaped in a "V" shape and pointed wherever Hatsuharu was facing.
She did seem to be genuinely interested in the conversation with Maya despite the heavy cruiser somehow finding the opportunity to flex her muscles in the middle of the conversation, and Maya's thick muscles were either the topic of the conversation, or were a quirk that the Hatsuharu-Class destroyer learnt to take in stride.
Shigure could see that everyone was here and they all looked ready to sortie, but something that made her worry a little about her prospects of survival was the grim look on everyone's face, one that accepted the very real possibility of them not returning despite years of combat experience.
Suddenly, saying goodbye to her teammates and sisters seemed like the right thing to do, otherwise she would have been distracted with never having done so at this point in time.
The backup fleet noticed her presence and greeted her with a chorus of greetings, Shigure waving at them meekly but was unsure of how to approach any one of them since she didn't know anybody personally.
But Kawakaze came to her rescue as she patted Shigure on the back and gave her a slight push forward as she introduced her sister to her teammates.
"Yo, everyone! This here's my sister, Shigure! She's been in quite a few battles despite being constructed recently, and even though she can handle herself, it's her first time fighting an Abyssal Princess.
So help her out, alright?"
Shigure bowed towards everyone out of respect for them, as they were senior ship girls who were strong enough to be entrusted with the task of taking on an Abyssal Princess, albeit being the backup fleet.
Maya raised her right arm and brought it down on Shigure's small back, which knocked the wind out of her and made her stumble forward as she struggled to breathe in while trying not to cringe and writhe at the stinging sensation along her spine as Maya heartily welcomed her with a winning smile.
"Yo, Shigure! I know you're relatively new here, but stay with us and we'll get through this, no problem!"
Shigure's started to sweat as she gave Maya a weak, twitching smile, but the purple-haired destroyer of the group opened up her fan to cover her face in a ladylike manner as she approached Shigure, the Shiratsuyu-Class destroyer doing her best to get up and face her senior at her full height.
The Hatsuharu-Class destroyer chided Maya for her action that clearly hurt the little destroyer, her bushy brows creasing a touch, her mouth hidden behind the spread fan as she spoke disapprovingly.
"Maya-san, have you not learnt anything about the moderation of your strength in relation to our fellow comrades? The poor destroyer seems to be in pain."
To which the heavy cruiser sheepishly scratched her head, apologetically regarding Shigure as her look softened from a battle-hungry leer to a concerned look upon seeing Shigure's slightly pained expression.
"Maa, sorry, man! I know that I sometimes fail to moderate my strength, and it takes me a while to understand that not everyone is as tough as me!"
Shigure raised an eyebrow and tilted her head to acknowledge her apology as she looked to Hatsuharu, the Hatsuharu-Class destroyer snapping back her fan to close it before introducing herself.
"Welcome, Shigure-san. We are Hatsuharu, and we are pleased to make you acquaintance. It is undeniable that you possess prior experience in doing battle against the dreaded Abyssals, but it is best if you follow our lead this time, for our opponents will be unlike anything you have encountered thus far."
Shigure blinked twice while keeping on a poker face, taking a second to decipher her archaic way of speaking before understanding her words, nodding while giving her an awkward smile.
She gave Kawakaze an aside glance, to which her sister ship returned her glance and gave her "the look" which meant that even as a backup fleet, they were still a bunch of ship girls with colorful personalities that needed some getting used to.
Hyuga and Ise then came up to introduce themselves, their expressions soft yet mature as Ise raised a hand with her elbow bent in a 90-degree as she smiled radiantly, while Hyuga simply gave her a nod to greet her as Ise cheered.
"Yooo, Shigure! You ready to kick some Abyssal ass?"
Shigure nodded in agreement, and Ise softly patted her on the back, showing considerably more restraint and control over her physical strength as she felt a slight pang of pain that she shrugged off easily, Hyuga's expression softening as Ise expressed their concern.
"How's everyone?"
Shigure blinked, but understood the question as her expression hardened and she nodded energetically in response to that, Ise adding,
"And Hiei?"
Shigure looked away at that, knowing that she had no reason to lie to them about the condition of her teammates, but couldn't tell them what she didn't know herself.
"I haven't met everyone yet, because I want to give myself a reason to keep myself alive in battle and return to check up on them."
Hyuga tilted her head questioningly at that, clarifying Shigure's actions in her mind as she asked.
"Interesting. So you don't wish to bid farewell to everyone and make it sound like a final goodbye of sorts, am I right?"
Shigure nodded, explaining herself as she saw the Admiral and Akashi silently communicating something between themselves.
"I want to come back here, and the thing I know is that one of the things I hate the most is never getting the chance to say goodbye.vIt's quite an unusual reason to drive myself with, and it is quite a big risk, but I hope you can understand…"
But Hyuga slowly raised a hand in order to stop Shigure, politely interrupting.
"It's your personal reason, and it matters not what we think about it."
Shigure blinked before nodding thankfully, noting Admiral Haru and Akashi walk away together from the main group as though going off somewhere to discuss something private.
She looked up to the two aviation battleships, making up a textbook excuse to excuse herself from the conversation and leave, her curiosity starting to kick in as she spoke up.
"I'd like to go to the toilet. To, you know…"
She gave them an awkward smile, feeling guilty inside for deceiving them and trying to listen in on the conversations of her friends, but this curiosity was going to gnaw away at her from the inside unless she knew what they were talking about, and how it would affect her friends.
She felt the hearty yet painful palm-slap of Ise's hand on her back as Ise's smile widened, speaking in a conspiratorial tone whilst giving her a reassuring wink.
"Alright, we got it. We won't be sortieing for another ten minutes, so knock yourself out!"
Shigure coughed and tried to clear her throat as she tried her best to shrug off the stinging impact on her back and the slight numbness around the affected area, made worse by the fact that it was the second time someone did this, and not even three minutes in between the two incidents.
Hyuga's eyebrows creased upon seeing Ise be so insensitive to Shigure's plight as she used her fist to softly bump Ise on the crown of her head, to which Ise's eyes brightened a little from the realization, holding up a vertical palm up in front of her face to apologize quietly.
"Sorry."
Shigure nodded weakly as she left, relaxing her stance as she kept her distance from the two women in front of her.
She wondered if she was going to be court-martialled for this, and eventually decided that it was worth the risk of learning something important.
Shigure wasn't an enemy spy, and she could simply say that she was at the wrong place at the wrong time, although she knew that Admiral Haru or Akashi wouldn't believe her for a second.
And besides, if they were going to talk about something personal instead of something important in terms of worthwhile intelligence, she would instantly walk away and leave them be.
Not that it would weigh any less on her conscience for listening in to the Admiral's important conversation with the repair ship, but it was all for the sake of keeping her friends safe with important knowledge, right?
Right?
She shook her mind in order to erase these doubts as she saw the the pink wooden door of the sole toilet coming up, which struck Shigure as a little odd as there was only a female toilet here despite the base housing a significant number of male sailors that maintained this base, and likened it to having only a few boy's toilets in an all-girl's school, since ship girls frequented this area more often than sailors did.
She remembered the group of ship girls behind her, deciding to walk into the toilet and exit it from one of the windows at the top corners on the wall at the far end of the room on the off chance that someone saw her bypass the toilet and decided to question her alibi, pushing open the squeaky, color-coded door to enter the toilet.
The toilet had well-maintained white tiles covering the room along with soft-pink walls for the four toilet cubicles available, Shigure feeling thankful that there was no one in here to notice the slight commotion she would cause, spotting the window that she knew would be there.
The room slightly smelled of ammonia, but there was also a nullifying agent dispersed into the air to negate the ammonia stench, striding towards the window that was unlocked and seeing that there was no point in locking them when ship girls could punch through them with ease and force it open.
And in the case of an emergency, it provided a quick escape for any average-sized ship girl like destroyers, light cruisers and light carriers.
Not that the ship girls of other ship classes couldn't get through it, the window being quite generous in size, it would just take a little longer seeing that they had more pronounced body parts which might prove cumbersome.
Shigure hopped up and slapped her palms on the cool wall while tapping into her training to utilize her arm strength to pull herself up, using the soles of her feet to push herself up.
No need to exhaust herself before the important battle.
Thankfully, her training sessions and exercises paid off as she easily hoisted herself up and harmlessly tumbled out of the window, Shigure noting that the window was one of those one-pane windows designed to open up with its hinge hanging above the window frame to allow easy access.
She dusted herself off, and was grateful for the fact that she bought compression shorts that prevented her underwear from getting dirtied upon landing as she got up into a crouching stance and tried her best to catch up to the duo.
She knew that fully activating her ship girl mode at this distance would give her away, and knew that she had to follow them whilst keeping her ship girl mode turned off, sacrificing enhanced hearing for the sake of a lowered chance of being detected as she did something resembling a cross between a duck walk and a side shuffle while keeping a low profile, spotting the white blazer of her Admiral as it flared up due to the wind.
Shigure strained her ears to listen in on the conversation between the duo, keeping her hands out to maintain her balance and making sure not to step on any fallen tree branches, having heard of that classic cover-blowing move too many times to count.
She could finally make out some words spoken between the duo, seeing them stop as they met up with the name-ship of the Aoba-Class, the heavy cruiser wearing her signature helmet in the middle of the woods, Shigure mentally tuning out the background noise to focus on the three of them as she heard.
" … You don't really…"
"I think..."
She moved in closer as the three of them stopped in their tracks, feeling conscious of the perilous distance between herself and Akashi and noting that this was the distance where Akashi might notice her, but she'd have to be intently looking for Shigure in order to identify her presence.
Something that benefited her was the fact that the repair ship was an auxiliary ship that wasn't meant to fight in battles, and likely wasn't specifically created to detect the presence of others around her while Aoba had her helmet on and likely took her signal-cancelling medication before heading out, which meant that she was oblivious to her presence, almost entirely eliminating the chances of her being detected by the heavy cruiser.
This gave Shigure some breathing room as she took cover behind a tree to further mask her presence.
It was possible for her to crawl forward while prone in order to get closer, but she couldn't risk it when she had to rendezvous with her fleet later, and didn't want others asking about the dirt or leaves she would get on her uniform.
But this was an acceptable distance for her, seeing that her status as a destroyer would mean that she had a weaker presence than a battleship, who would have her work cut out for her if someone that large and possessed such a prominent signature wanted to stealth things.
Ahh, sometimes it paid to be a weakling.
She listened in on the conversation between the three women before her, and heard their concerned voices.
"... keep our coastal cities on 'orange alert' and be ready to evacuate at the drop of a hat. We'll get the JASDF to help ... the Dutchman. If the Flying Dutchman tries to rear its ugly head anywhere in the Safety Zone, we mobilize fighter jets to try and sink it. Ship girls are discouraged from attempting to go up against the Flying Dutchman as it's carrying heavy firepower, missiles and planes along ... Abyssal fleet."
"So we're doing this old-school?"
Admiral Haru grimaced, but nodded her head as her peaked officer's cap cast a long shadows over her face as she stated the facts.
"Our ship girl battleships and carriers can't exactly... fight it since it can pick its fights while travelling underwater, and the cannons that the ship girls carry are calibrated to scale with the size of the ship girl, not real-life warships. So ... got a good idea of how to sink it, we're gonna need the help of fighter jets to deter it should it try to attack our fleets. I'll come up with something ... until we get more evidence of what they're up to and come up with better plans to face them, I got nothing."
Shigure strained to hear the conversation, leaning in to try and hear the rest of the conversation, piecing together whatever scraps of information she could hear now in order to research more on them after the sortie.
But the next sentence that came out of the Admiral's mouth made her blood run cold with the possible implications and ramifications.
"But we have to consider the ... the Abyssals may be plotting a land invasion for years now... 'Apocalypse'. ... how could they destroy an entire island?"
"U-Um..."
Aoba's meek voice sounded out, trying to give some possible answers to enigmatic questions as the wind finally died down, allowing Shigure to clearly hear everything they said.
"M-Maybe it's not a weapon destroying an island, but they're testing a weapon on said island, and the fallout can't be easily covered up. So instead of covering their tracks, they erased everything to make sure that we found nothing. I mean, we found evidence of their 'Apocalypse' plans even when they thought they could cover that up..."
Admiral Haru nodded, pointing a friendly finger at the heavy cruiser as she commented.
"You may be right. It's possible that the weapon they tested on that island was powerful enough to produce those energy readings back in 2013, and they now know for sure that the weapon is hella powerful. But the downside of testing such a potent weapon is that we'd detect its use and send ship girls to investigate, and instead of trying to cover up the damage caused by the weapon, they probably decided to just level the island. After all, no more island, no more evidence, right?"
Akashi nodded, adding.
"Well, they had a lot of Princesses on scene, so it wouldn't be out of the question if they decided to move the weapon after the test and get the Princesses to annihilate the island when they were finished. And since they went to such lengths to hide this weapon from us, it's possible that it's a part of 'Apocalypse'. But the question is, what would destroy the island to such an extent that would justify destroying the island rather than covering up the damage?"
Everyone went silent upon hearing that, and Shigure spent about a minute trying to pick up anything in the silence, fearing for the future if anything they said here was true.
But Admiral Haru finally decided to break up the conversation as she faced Aoba, placing a comforting hand on the unnaturally meek heavy cruiser as she responded.
"Maa, the two of you can't be worrying about such things at this point in time. Aoba, you need to focus on Project Psyche, and Akashi, you need to focus on your sortie."
Giving Aoba a confident nod, she then turned to seriously regard Akashi as she gave the repair ship a second objective to be carried out after putting down the Southern War Princess.
"Akashi, you're to kick the Abyssal Princess' ass, ask her about 'Apocalypse' and try to confirm as many theories as possible before she sinks, and report back to me. Just leave the thinking to me."
Aoba lowered her head and nodded, but Akashi looked unconvinced as she coolly pointed out something as a repair ship and was responsible for the well-being of the ship girls and workers of this base.
"I do believe that there's something you might forget to think about."
"And what's that, Akashi?"
"Your health."
Akashi didn't even hesitate to point out how tired the Admiral looked, Shigure now noting the slightly hunched figure of the Admiral, and Akashi pointed to Admiral Haru as she pointed out something as a repair ship who was in charge of everyone's health and well-being.
"You're not infallible, and your work is starting to take a toll on you, even more so when you're human and not a ship girl. You need to rest."
Admiral Haru's tone then changed, the bitterness and exhaustion starting to creep into her voice as she defended herself.
"I can't. I need to think about the Abyssals' movements and what their plans might be. There's no time to rest, I'm afraid."
But Akashi wasn't having any of that as she shook her head slowly and pointed out what she could do to the Admiral with the best intentions in mind, Aoba turning to look at her Admiral with a concerned look in her eyes, although her helmet did a good job in hiding the fact that she was slightly tearing up.
"You don't want to fall sick from fatigue again like back in '09 and put us at risk just because you thought you could 'tough it out' for another day, something I blame myself for and would not want to repeat. You know that I can put you under with chloroform or whatever and say it's to make sure you get enough rest, right?"
" … Can you really do that?"
"You wanna put it to the test? I am the medic, after all."
Admiral Haru hung her head and nodded in acceptance, reluctantly concurring.
"Alright, alright, I guess I can afford to get some sleep after this. No point exhausting myself while trying to come up with half-assed plans that'd be dangerous for you all who have to carry them out."
Shigure took that as her cue to leave, and slowly backtracked as she took extra care not to give away her position by stepping on anything that would give her position away.
But her mind was a whirlpool of disturbed thoughts and fears, making her truly fearful for the future of this war as she considered key points like "Apocalypse", "Psyche", The Flying Dutchman, disappearing islands and Abyssal Princesses.
She would never dream that the Abyssals were preparing for another land assault like the American Blitzkrieg of 2007, especially since everyone wouldn't expect another land assault after eight years had passed without so much as a hint of another assault being planned.
No one could keep their guard up for an attack that seemed more and more unlikely to repeat itself no matter how devastating it might be if it actually happened, as they needed to focus their attention and resources on more current events instead of preparing for every possible scenario.
Aoba seemed to be working on some sort of Project that Akashi was certainly privy to, Shigure hypothesizing that the heavy cruiser's unique condition and having changed something within herself to achieve a double-edged power contributed to her being chosen to participate in Project Psyche with Akashi.
As to what this Project was about, Shigure wasn't too sure about that, but she intended to find out after this sortie.
She eventually forced herself to push those distracting thoughts out of her mind, forcibly suppressing them in order to keep herself focused on the important things at hand, which was the operation she was to participate in.
Shigure exhaled softly as she began backtracking while still squatting down on the off chance that they could spot her silhouette amidst the trees, suppressing the morbid and pessimistic thoughts that were beginning to surface in her mind while reminding herself that these things could wait until after the sortie, Shigure spotting the open window that she left open to allow herself to climb back into the toilet.
Standing back up and hopping back up to the ledge, she pulled herself up as she saw that the interior of the toilet was dark, not surprising since most of the toilets here, upon not detecting any movement inside for several minutes, would turn themselves off after a while to conserve electricity.
She couldn't see much of the interior because her body, in trying to fit through the only window in the room, blocked her source of illumination as she stared into the darkness, seeing the shadows shift around in her field of vision as she wriggled in order to fit into the window that was in the open position.
In times of crisis, the adjustable window pane could be punched out and made escape/ entry easier for them since the window wouldn't pose a major obstacle. But Shigure wanted to leave as little trace of her presence as possible, the sensors in the toilet likely picking up some movement, the lights somehow clicking on as she faced the wall she was on, fitting her legs through the window opening and feeling herself start to tumble forward as she leaned in to enter the toilet.
Wait. I'm not even through the window, so my presence wouldn't be able to trigger the sensors. So why…
She failed to finish that thought as she felt her center of gravity shift at the most inopportune time, and she felt herself fall forward into the toilet, gasping as she felt her grip loosen on the sleek toilet walls.
Her bum hit the cold toilet floor first as she winced at the impact, feeling somewhat disoriented at the 180 degree spin and felt her hair become messed up by the tumble, Shigure feeling the pain dissipate through her hips as her left elbow throbbed in pain from hitting something in the room, blinking at the ominous sight before her.
The first thing she saw other than the incandescent glow of the halo-like fixture affixed to the ceiling of the toilet was a figure clothed in darkness, towering above her and preventing the light from directly reaching her eyes, inadvertently overshadowing the mystery figure's features and leaving her identity an enigma.
The blur of cold steel rushed down towards her face before she even had a chance to react, the blade bursting into flames as it severed the air in front of Shigure's face.