Stepping into the Light Carrier Barracks, Shigure reviewed the recorded memory of Hiei's exposition, finally concluding,
"So am I in a Fleet? You didn't seem to say the composition and purpose of the last fleet, and Nagato told me that today was the Fleet exercise, which leads me to conclude that I might be a part of it."
Hiei, a slight air of resignation and nursing her bruised forehead, turned to her to confirm.
"Yep, you and I are to be in the 1st Fleet, along with Ayanami, Tenryuu, Tatsuta and Junyou to be the Second Fast Response team, also known as the 1st Fleet. We're made up of Light Carriers, Destroyers, along with a Light Carrier and a Fast Battleship." pointing her thumb up at herself,
"We can go anywhere in a relatively short period of time while bringing significant fire and air power to the battlefield to protect our turf."
"So do we work together with the 2nd Fleet to cover more ground?"
"Yep. Our analysts estimated that having only one Fast Response team wasn't enough, especially if the Abyssals decide to mount an offensive on several fronts.
Not out of the question for them as we don't even know the upper limit to how many of them they can send out to attack us. So when we finally created the last Fleet, we decided to shuffle the groups around to try to keep up with the Abyssal threat."
Shigure noted that they were outside the Hiyou-Class Light Carrier bedroom, marked out with a "飛鷹" tag above. Hiei stopped and warned Shigure to hold her breath if possible, a piece of advice she would regret not following as Hiei opened the creaking door.
The stench that hung around the air of an alcoholic hit her harder than the sight itself.
Her nose was assaulted by the bitter aroma that permeated through the clothes, bed and room of the ship girl in question, abandoned and finished sake and alcohol bottles littering the room, not unlike the sight of a mass grave.
Torn snack wrappers were peeking out from under the mattress, causing the mattress to look suspiciously thicker, and spare uniforms left unwashed and crumpled, hanging down hangers and the railing upon the frames of the beds.
The toilet seemed to radiate a stench of an uncleaned toilet, betraying the last few times its sole occupant had emptied her stomach into. The Light Carrier known as Junyou was sprawled over her bed, in the last few stages of undress, prone and completely and utterly wasted.
Shigure scrunched her nose as she tried to hold in a slight air of disbelief (but mostly to hold her breath, how much had Junyou been drinking?).
This was going to be her comrade from now on?
Hiei didn't seem too put off by the sight, lightly kicking away beer bottles and wrappers as she stood by the window, Junyou stirring in her sleep as she seemed to notice the arrival of intruders in her room. Hiei sighed as she pulled open to reveal the morning sun, a bane to the now-struggling Junyou, writhing like a vampire exposed to sunlight.
"Get up, drunkard. Your training starts today."
Announcing as she moved over to pull the blanket from the wasted Light Carrier, desperate to find anything to cocoon and protect herself against the blinding light.
"Fuck off, whoever-the-hell-you-are, I'm not drunkkkk…."
"Oh, still got a little fuel in your alcohol stream, yeah? Then GET UP!"
"Come on, fight me, mate, urghh…."
Sighing, Hiei looked to the passive bystander that was Shigure, pleading.
"Think this is going to take a while, could you head down to the Light Carrier rooms to meet Tenryuu and Tatsuta? They should be up right now. Tenryuu's got an eyepatch, purple hair, carrying a sword, and mechanical bunny ears. She'll ask whether you're scared, no doubt. I saw Ayanami in the canteen earlier, she should be at the Training area getting some training done by the time you get there."
Turning to the door with half a mind to get out of the room, she looked back to the Fast Battleship, asking.
"What about the last Light Cruiser, Tatsuta? She'll be with Tenryuu since they're sister ships, but what's she like?"
Hiei, wrestling with Junyou on the bed for control, seemed to develop a concerned look as she pondered how to describe the enigmatic Light Cruiser.
"She's got a mechanic halo, purple hair like her sister, a glaive as a weapon and she's, um… Detached."
Shigure shivered hearing that. Tatsuta sounding quite a fair bit scarier than Tenryuu, as Hiei seemed tense, compared to her indulgent tone with Tenryuu. Even the drunk Junyou was struggling harder, now that she learnt of working with the dreaded Tatsuta.
What did a Light Cruiser have to be like to make everyone uncomfortable mentioning her?
Meeting up with the Tenryuu-Class Cruisers wasn't that hard. A boisterous, senior ship girl swaggering about wearing her dark school uniform wasn't hard to miss.
But it was her quieter and darker sister Tatsuta, that she found herself shying away from as she met them both. Fitting the battleship's description to a tee, the eye patched ship girl was bragging to her,
"My name is Tenryuu. Fufufu, ya scared?"
As Tatsuta, purple hair and eyes with a one-piece school uniform, stood by while smiling like a Cheshire Cat with her light-up halo, content to let her sister introduce them both.
"Me and my sister, Tatsuta, we're one of the strongest Light Cruiser duos out there! So there's no need to feel bad if you decide to follow in our footsteps!"
Shigure, seeing that most ship girls in this base had already decided to humour her, decided to bring up a point which had been bothering her all this while.
Specifically, her eyepatch.
"Tenryuu-san, I'd like to ask about your fashion choice. Isn't your eye-patch going to mess with your depth perception, requiring more computing power to compensate for it? And wouldn't your entire left side be a blind spot?"
The Light Cruiser started, obviously not prepared for such a rebuttal, while Tatsuta simply giggled, content to see her sister shift about as her mechanical ears twitched erratically, thinking of a reply.
"W-Well, it's…"
"It's to give the enemy an advantage, to make them feel worse when they lose."
Tatsuta replied bluntly, causing an awkward silence to fill the uncomfortable air as Shigure started to sweat under Tatsuta's smile.
Now she had some idea of why everyone feared this Light Cruiser.
Tenryuu, desperate to recover, stuttered.
"Y-Yes, o-of course! That's why! I'm so good, I handicap myself to give my opponents a chance to win!"
Moving her left feet to turn, Tenryuu seemed to regain her composure and gait as she raised her hand to point,
"Now then, to the traini— "
And ran right into the corner of a wall.
If the air was uncomfortable before, it was dead silent now.
Shigure raised her hand to ask "Are you alright?" when Tenryuu, failing to contain a sniffle, stated.
"I was preoccupied with my thoughts. That's why. Let's move."
Watching Tenryuu's back shuffle down the corridor, Shigure sweat dropped as Tenryuu seemed to just want this day to be over with. Tatsuta, now trying to hold in her laughter at her sister's silliness, finally calmed herself down to address the bewildered destroyer in her melodic voice.
"Tenryuu-chan is rather clumsy when she's not fighting, so please protect her in times of need, alright, Destroyer-chan?"
Shigure vigorously nodded, not wanting to get on her bad side.
Tatsuta seemed to accept her answer, following in her sister's footsteps before turning back and motioning down the hallway. She took that as a sign to move, following the two Light Cruisers to the Training Grounds.