Shadows Behind the Rain and the Northern Dragon
The Pacific typhoon continued to rage, pouring tons of water onto the coastal mainland and battering the massive military facility with howling, wild winds. In the midst of this natural chaos, the infiltration operation proceeded with an adrenaline-pumping and heart-pounding tension.
On the bridge of Japan's strongest frigate, JS Mogami, hiding behind the fog and the cape's cliffs, the situation suddenly turned chaotic. The tablet screen in Mogami's hand, which had previously displayed the green biometric tracking dots of Izumo and Ayanami, suddenly flickered. There was a glitch on the screen. Static lines corrupted its digital interface. Confused, Mogami swiped the screen left and right, but there was no response.
"Maya! What happened to our closed communication channel?" Mogami exclaimed through her short-range radio. Her face was breaking out in a cold sweat, even though the cabin temperature was already freezing due to the storm.
On the other side, from inside JS Maya's cabin, a panicked tone rarely shown by the Aegis girl was heard.
"Mogami-san, there's massive frequency interference! This isn't from my signal jamming system. An external signal that is much stronger and darker is cutting our lines! I've lost contact with Izumo-san and Ayanami!" Maya shouted.
Mogami gritted her teeth. She stared at the dense forest drenched by the rainstorm. Her intelligence instincts and logic screamed that something terribly wrong was happening in there. Their friends, guests from afar who came to help them, were now in danger, walking blindly without her tactical guidance.
"I can't just sit here watching a dead screen," Mogami growled. She tossed her tablet onto the console table, then drew the sword from the scabbard at her waist, inspecting it briefly before sheathing it again. "Maya, hold your position and maintain EMCON. I'm going down to follow them to the front lines."
"Wait, Mogami-san! That violates protocol! You are the operation supervisor, if you get caught—"
But unfortunately, Maya's words met a different response.
"To hell with protocol," Mogami cut in firmly. "If they get caught, this operation is a total failure. I'm going in now."
Without waiting for another reply, Mogami leaped from the deck of her ship. She sprinted through the muddy forest with the maximum speed of a Japanese shipgirl. The stealth frigate used all her agility to weave through the trees, her sharp eyes trying to find traces of battle.
However, amidst her efforts to catch up with Izumo and Ayanami, Mogami's steps suddenly halted in a small clearing inside the forest. Her instincts caught someone's movement.
From behind the curtain of heavy rain, the figure of a girl slowly stepped forward, blocking her path. Mogami narrowed her eyes. The girl didn't look like a human soldier at all. She had very long, bright orange hair, tied in twin-tails with small hair clips, and bangs that partially covered her forehead. Her green eyes emitted a sharp, murderous aura. She wore traditional Chinese martial arts clothes (Kung Fu) in pure white with elegant golden cloud embroidery motifs, paired with loose trousers and black cloth shoes that looked completely unaffected by the wet mud created by the heavy rain.
"Infiltrating someone else's house without permission. How rude, Japanese girl," the girl said with a condescending tone. She raised her hands, entering a very solid martial arts stance. "I am CN Nanchang, Type 055 Large Destroyer. And your journey ends here."
Mogami took a step back, entering a bare-handed combat stance. As a frigate that relied more on stealth technology and long-range missiles, hand-to-hand combat wasn't her primary expertise.
"We'll see about that," Mogami replied coldly.
In the blink of an eye, Nanchang dashed through the rain. Her speed was incredibly illogical for a destroyer. The muddy ground she stepped on didn't even splash, as if she were gliding on thin air.
Whoosh!
A palm thrust shot toward Mogami's face. The air in front of that palm compressed, creating ripples in the rainwater. Mogami responded by quickly tilting her head. The attack missed by a few centimeters, but the wind pressure was enough to make Mogami's cheek sting even without being scratched.
Before Mogami could counterattack, Nanchang had retracted her arm and twisted her hips, launching a devastatingly hard elbow strike toward Mogami's chest. Mogami crossed both of her arms to block.
BAM!
The collision of bone against bone produced an ear-splitting sound. Mogami was pushed back until her high-laced boots carved small trenches in the muddy ground. Her arm bones vibrated violently, her hands trembling. Not because of the cold, but because of the heavy blow.
"You're too slow for a frigate," Nanchang mocked.
The orange-haired girl attacked again like a storm. Her martial arts technique was a deadly blend of close-range Wing Chun and solid Tai Chi stances. Her hands moved like flowing water, parrying every counter-punch attempt from Mogami, then slipping into the Japanese frigate's deepest defenses.
Smack! Thud! Bam!
Three consecutive punches landed on Mogami's solar plexus, ribs, and shoulder. Nanchang concentrated her kinetic energy on her knuckles, creating a Fa Jin effect—an internal explosive force that bypassed outer defenses and damaged from within. Mogami coughed up blood, her eyes wide wide open enduring the excruciating pain. She staggered backward, her vision beginning to blur. She fell to one knee. She shook her head to restore her sight.
Nanchang gave no mercy. She leaped into the air, spun her body, and launched an axe kick aimed right at Mogami's head. With her remaining consciousness, Mogami rolled to the side, dropping herself into a mud puddle.
BOOM!
Nanchang's heel struck the ground where Mogami had been a second before, creating a small crater and blasting mud in all directions. If that kick had hit her head, Mogami was certain her neck would have snapped.
Mogami panted, struggling to get up. Her black uniform was now soaked by the rain and stained with mud. Her ribs throbbed with agonizing pain with every breath. She knew that fighting bare-handed against a martial arts expert like Nanchang was suicide. She wouldn't last another two minutes.
"I am indeed not a close-quarters fighter," Mogami whispered, staring straight at Nanchang who was casually walking toward her, as if strolling through a flower garden. Mogami's right hand slowly crept to the sword hilt at her waist. "But I know the anatomy of a shipgirl's weaknesses."
Schwing!
Mogami's steel blade was drawn from its scabbard, reflecting a flash of lightning in the sky.
Seeing her opponent use a bladed weapon, Nanchang smiled even wider. "Good. At least you'll die fighting."
Nanchang lunged again, this time with even crazier speed. She moved in zig-zags, dodging the straight slashing lines thrown by Mogami. As Mogami slashed horizontally, Nanchang ducked fluidly, her body arching backward until her long orange hair swept the mud. From that low position, Nanchang launched a sweeping kick aimed at Mogami's ankle, but this time Mogami managed to dodge.
Mogami leaped backward, but it was a trap. Nanchang used the momentum of her sweep to spring back up, then dashed forward and punched Mogami's wrist that was holding the sword.
Clang!
The punch was so accurate and hard that Mogami's sword almost slipped from her grasp. Mogami gritted her teeth, enduring the numbness in her hand. She had to change her strategy. She couldn't match Nanchang's agility. She had to sacrifice something to land one decisive opening. The tactical computer in her brain began calculating probabilities.
Nanchang leaped forward, her right leg pulled back, preparing to unleash a full-power front kick aiming for Mogami's chest. This is it.
Mogami did not retreat. She also didn't block. She exhaled, tensed all the muscles on the left side of her body, and left herself wide open. She screamed.
"Crumble, Chinese destroyer!!!!!!!" she yelled.
CRACK!
Nanchang's kick landed squarely on Mogami's left ribs. The sound of cracking bones could be heard clearly over the sound of the rain. Mogami let out a stifled scream, fresh blood flowing again from the corner of her lips. A paralyzing pain spread throughout her entire body.
However, the sacrifice paid off. Nanchang's leg was now briefly pinned against Mogami's body, their distance locked.
"Got you," Mogami hissed with savagely glowing eyes.
Mogami's left hand clamped down like lightning on Nanchang's ankle that had just kicked her, locking it so the girl couldn't escape. Nanchang's eyes widened, just realizing this fatal trap. She tried to punch Mogami's face to break free, creating bruises that forced Mogami to close one eye. But it was too late for Nanchang.
With her last ounce of strength, Mogami swung her sword from bottom to top. The tip of the steel blade didn't aim for a vital organ; instead, it sliced deeply right into the back of the knee (hamstring) of Nanchang's right leg, which was her main support.
"AARRRGHH!" Nanchang screamed in excruciating agony as her main ligaments and tendons were severed.
Her right leg lost all supporting power. Nanchang collapsed into the muddy ground, unable to support her body weight. Her solid stance was completely destroyed. Mogami released Nanchang's leg, then reversed her sword grip. Using the remaining momentum and strength, Mogami slammed the pommel (the butt of the hilt) of the sword with full force into the back of Nanchang's neck.
The orange-haired girl instantly fell silent, losing consciousness immediately, and her body lay helpless in the mud puddle.
Mogami dropped down, leaning on her sword, panting heavily with her chest heaving violently. She clutched her broken ribs, feeling a piercing pain every time she inhaled. The rain continued to pour over her battered body.
"I might be battered," Mogami muttered, staring at Nanchang's unconscious body. "But at least... the mission continues."
Meanwhile, deep inside the enemy's logistics facility.
Izumo moved like a ghost between stacks of containers and fuel tanks. The rainstorm completely masked her every movement. She channeled her core energy into her palms, manifesting a portion of her torpedo rigging. Not to be fired, but to be transformed into a high-explosive metal cylinder time bomb connected directly to her brainwaves.
No port crew could be seen anywhere, a fatal mistake. A situation highly favored by infiltrators. The storm had truly caught them off guard. They were overly confident.
Carefully, she attached the torpedo bombs to crucial support points of the main ammunition depots and fuel tanks. If these exploded, the entire logistics supply of this base would be paralyzed for months, and that was enough. They definitely wouldn't be as fast as Azur Lane at logistics restocking.
When Izumo placed the fifth bomb in the open logistics area bordering the sea, she briefly lifted her face. A giant flash of lightning struck the night sky, illuminating the violently churning ocean for a few seconds.
In the midst of that white flash, Izumo's pupils shrank. In the distance, far behind the curtain of waves and rain, she saw a massive, pitch-black silhouette. Its sharp-angled bow shape, its bridge design... it looked so much like the steel monster that had destroyed her in her dream.
Nemesis.
Izumo's heart raced wildly. Her head began to throb with pain. But darkness swallowed the ocean once again. The silhouette vanished without a trace.
Izumo squeezed her eyes shut tightly, shaking her head to dispel the fear. "No. It's not real. It's just a hallucination from the remnants of my dream yesterday," she muttered, convincing herself. "I must focus."
She quickly rushed toward the final target: the giant drydock area where the enemy aircraft carriers were repaired and supplied.
As soon as Izumo sneaked into the semi-enclosed shipyard area, her steps halted. In front of her, inside that massive drydock, rested an aircraft carrier with a ski-jump design on its bow. The ship was enormous, much larger than she had anticipated. Izumo was slightly surprised, but she continued the mission while analyzing if there was a shipgirl there.
However, the real surprise wasn't the ship.
On the steel bridge connecting the piers stretching over the drydock, a shipgirl stood waiting for her. The girl had very long, straight blonde hair framing her beautiful and intelligent-looking face behind square-framed glasses. She wore a tight, long-sleeved navy blue crop top with yellow accents, revealing her flat, muscular stomach. Paired with tight shorts of the same color and sports shoes, she looked extremely athletic. In one hand, she held a brightly lit digital tablet, while on her back leaned a nodachi (a long katana) elegantly sheathed, complete with a dragon motif carving on its scabbard.
It was Shandong. The Northern Dragon.
"Did you really think you could sneak into a dragon's lair undetected?" Shandong said with a calm voice that echoed through the roar of the rain pounding the shipyard roof. She carelessly tossed the tablet in her hand toward Izumo, letting the glass screen shatter into pieces.
Slowly, her right hand reached for the nodachi hilt on her back. The sound of metal scraping as the long blade was drawn from its scabbard sounded extremely sharp, making the hairs on the back of one's neck stand up. The blade reflected the dim shipyard lights, revealing its terrifying sharpness.
Izumo did not answer. She knew negotiations wouldn't work here. Her eyes narrowed, locking onto Shandong's every movement. Her right hand immediately drew the ALKA sword, which instantly lit up with a blazing red laser, evaporating the raindrops that touched it. Her left hand followed, drawing the HPLS which emitted an ice-cold blue laser energy. Two swords against one deadly long sword. Swords she usually used to cut down enemy projectiles.
"I will end your foolish infiltration here," Shandong hissed, her eyes glaring sharply from behind her cracked glasses. "Prepare the coffin."
CLAAAANG!
The first clash occurred with a speed that detonated the air around them. Shandong leaped five meters in a single bound, swinging her nodachi from top to bottom like a giant cutting machine. Izumo crossed ALKA and HPLS above her head to block the attack.
The kinetic force from Shandong's slash was so massive that the steel drydock floor beneath Izumo's feet dented inward. The shockwave from the collision of their weapons swept the rainwater around them into a circular mist. Red, blue, and yellow sparks flew brightly, illuminating both of their faces filled with murderous intent.
Shandong gave no openings. Feeling her slash blocked, she pulled her sword quickly and executed a horizontal sweeping slash. Izumo jumped backward (backflip), the tip of Shandong's nodachi blade only millimeters away from her stomach, slightly tearing the outer layer of her white techwear jacket.
As soon as she landed, Izumo immediately dashed forward. Distance was the primary enemy when facing a long-barreled weapon like a nodachi. Izumo had to enter the CQC (Close Quarters Combat) zone where her twin swords could work maximally.
Izumo swung HPLS toward Shandong's neck, an incredibly fast feint slash. Shandong easily parried it using the flat of her blade. However, that was what Izumo expected. While continuing to press with HPLS, Izumo twisted her body and thrust ALKA from a lower angle, aiming for Shandong's ribs.
Shandong gasped. She released one hand from the nodachi hilt, then with an extraordinary acrobatic move, she spun in the air, dodging ALKA's thrust, and landed a hard heel kick onto Izumo's back.
Smack! Izumo was pushed forward, but she used that momentum to roll and stand back up.
"You're quite agile for a light aircraft carrier," Shandong mocked. The blonde girl charged again. This time, her attacks were much more savage and wild. Shandong swung her nodachi from all directions—vertically, horizontally, diagonally. Every slash carried the weight of tens of tons of steel. It would be highly dangerous if that sharp blade were to cleave Izumo.
Izumo was forced entirely into defense mode. She danced upon the puddles of water, parrying, deflecting, and dodging Shandong's rain of slashes. The clashing of metal and laser energy echoed endlessly, creating a symphony of death amidst the storm.
Slash!
The tip of Shandong's nodachi managed to pierce Izumo's defense, tearing the sleeve of her white jacket and leaving a deep enough cut that fresh blood poured heavily. Izumo winced, but the pain only fueled her adrenaline.
"Don't be arrogant just yet, Chinese Veteran!" Izumo shouted.
Izumo deflected Shandong's next slash to the side, leaving the blonde girl's posture slightly open. Without wasting time, Izumo leaped and delivered a devastatingly hard flying knee strike right to Shandong's jaw.
CRACK!
Shandong's glasses shattered to pieces, and her face was thrown to the side. Blood flowed from her nose and lips. Shandong staggered back, but her fighting instincts were terrifying. Even while disoriented, she was still able to swing her nodachi blindly forward.
The wild slash struck Izumo's waist side. Her skin and muscle tore, blood spraying out again, staining the black shirt beneath her jacket. Izumo panted, clutching her waist which felt like it was burning.
The two of them now stood facing each other at a distance of five meters, both wounded, both panting heavily. Their blood mixed with the rainwater flooding the drydock floor. This fight had drained their stamina more than they had imagined.
Shandong wiped the blood on her chin with the back of her hand, her eyes narrowing with pure hatred. "You're quite tough. But this is the end of our dance."
Shandong gripped her nodachi with both hands, raising it high above her right shoulder. She assumed the highly aggressive Jodan-no-kamae stance. The air around her seemed to vibrate as she channeled all the energy from her ship into the blade. She prepared for one finishing strike—a vertical slash that would cleave Izumo in two.
Izumo knew she couldn't block this attack. If she tried to hold it, her two laser swords might lose to the sheer momentum of the nodachi, and she would die. She had to take the biggest risk. Izumo turned off the laser mode on ALKA and HPLS, leaving only their steel blades. She lowered her stance, crossing both her swords in front of her chest in an 'X' shape.
"Die, Japanese Silver Fox!" Shandong screamed.
Shandong dashed forward like a golden comet, her nodachi swung downward with enough force to split a mountain.
In the split second before the deadly blade reached her head, Izumo didn't retreat. She stepped forward, right into the range of the slash. She raised her crossed swords.
CLAAAANGGGGG!
The sound of clashing metal was so loud it was deafening. However, Izumo didn't parry. She let Shandong's nodachi blade slip perfectly into the gap between the intersection of her ALKA and HPLS swords. With the full power of her mechanical Kansen arms, Izumo locked the nodachi with a twisting motion (scissor lock), clamping the long blade so it couldn't be pulled back.
Shandong's eyes widened, her face only a few centimeters from Izumo's. She tried to pull her sword, but Izumo's lock was too strong.
"Let go!" Shandong growled, trying to kick Izumo.
But Izumo had anticipated it. She used all the strength in her legs to twist her body to the side, using Shandong's body as a pivot. With one brutal yank combined with a spinning technique, Izumo forced the nodachi hilt to slip from Shandong's grasp.
The long sword was thrown far and fell with a clatter to the bottom of the drydock.
Shandong, now disarmed, was absolutely shocked. A fatal opening had presented itself. Without wasting even a single breath's time, Izumo swung her HPLS sword in a horizontal slash that was extremely precise and calculated.
The blade didn't aim for vital organs. The slash cut deep into the muscles of Shandong's right thigh and left shoulder—the exact points where the main motor tendons were located.
"AARRRGHH!" Shandong screamed hysterically as paralyzing pain spread throughout her body. Her motor system was instantly severed. Her body lost the power to support itself, and she fell sprawling on top of the puddle of rainwater and her own blood, completely unable to move her arms or legs.
Izumo stood panting over her. Her white jacket was now soaked with water and blood. Blood dripped from her waist, but she remained standing tall, looking down at her defeated opponent.
"Why didn't you kill me?" Shandong chuckled while coughing, blood flowing from the corner of her lips. Her body couldn't move, but her eyes stared at Izumo with a cynical smile full of provocation. "You had the chance. Your sword had already touched my skin. You fool, you bastard... you're too naive. You will regret this mercy of yours. I will hunt you down!"
Izumo slowly sheathed both her swords. She looked at Shandong with eyes as cold as ice under the pouring storm.
"I promised, I will not kill," Izumo stated firmly, her deep voice overpowering the roar of the raging storm. "But, with those wounds... you won't be able to stand and block my path either."
"Izumo-nee!" A voice broke the tension between them. Ayanami emerged from behind one of the large warehouses, running toward Izumo while panting. The large sword on Ayanami's back appeared clean of any bloodstains, indicating she too had managed to obey Izumo's order: incapacitate the guards without killing a single one of them. The striking baton Ayanami used had returned to the form of her left cannon rigging.
However, seeing Izumo's severely wounded and bloodied condition, Ayanami's eyes widened. "Izumo-nee, you're badly hurt, desu! We have to get out of here right away! The base alarms are starting to ring, their backup forces are mobilizing toward the shipyard!"
"We're done here," Izumo said, wincing, suppressing the throbbing pain in her waist every time she took a breath. "Let's go."
They knew that returning through the coastal forest route was impossible. Izumo's wound would slow them down, and the enemy forces sweeping the forest would definitely find them.
"We take the sea route," Izumo decided quickly.
Izumo and Ayanami sprinted toward the edge of the concrete pier and leaped without hesitation into the storm-tossed ocean. Right before their feet touched the water, they manifested partial rigging on their shoes. In an instant, micro-propellers and wave breakers materialized. They glided and surfed over the high-rolling sea surface, cutting through the waves at the maximum speed achievable by an Azur Lane Kansen. They altered their course far toward the open sea, making a wide curve to completely avoid the coastline so as not to be detected by the visual radars and searchlights of the ground guards.
From her helpless, paralyzed position on the shipyard floor, Shandong stared at their departing figures growing smaller, swallowed by the storm. Instead of being angry at her defeat, the blonde girl actually laughed. A laugh that echoed hollowly, cynically, and full of madness amidst the typhoon.
"Interesting... very interesting. You left me alive in your own hell," Shandong muttered while staring at the pitch-black night sky. "We'll see... how long you can maintain that naivety of yours, Silver Fox."
After gliding away to what felt like a safe distance, and JS Maya's artificial camouflage fog began to faintly glow before their eyes, Izumo slowed her pace. She looked back, staring at the silhouette of the Southern fleet base still cloaked in darkness and storm.
Izumo raised her right hand, which was still trembling from her injuries, focusing her remaining core energy onto a single point of thought.
"Time for fireworks," she whispered softly, a satisfied smile blooming on her lips.
With a single snap of invisible energy fingers, a trigger signal was transmitted through the stormy air, connecting her mind to the torpedo bombs she had planted.
BOOM! KABOOM! KA-BOOOM!
In the distance, a series of massive chain explosions tore through the night. Giant, reddish-orange fireballs billowed high, piercing the thick storm clouds, their light outshining the lightning. The shockwave from the blast swept all the way to the open sea, violently rippling the ocean water. The enemy's ammunition depots, main fuel tanks, and central logistics facilities exploded in a chain reaction, creating an artificial earthquake that shook both land and sea.
The Southern fleet's supply chain had been completely obliterated that night in a blazing inferno that the rainstorm could not extinguish. The high-level sabotage succeeded flawlessly. The deafening roar of the explosions became a symphony of victory for Izumo, an absolute triumph achieved purely through wit and physical prowess, without sinking a single ship's soul.
But on the other side of the ocean, deep down below, behind the darkness of the oceanic trench untouched by the base explosion's light, the massive shadow of USS Nemesis continued to crawl in silence. The cynical smile of the girl in its control room seemed to mock the little drama that had just occurred on the surface, waiting for the right moment to turn that victory into ashes.
"You're quite good too. I can't wait to see your face of despair when I plunge it into the seawater later," Nemesis said with a cynical smile.
The rainstorm still lashed the earth mercilessly, but the sight before Mogami's eyes was far more terrifying than the ongoing wrath of nature.
Mogami limped through the remnants of the trees at the edge of the perimeter, clutching her ribs that throbbed with pain from Nanchang's previous brutal strike. When she managed to reach the forest borderline directly adjacent to the dirt road leading to the enemy logistics facility, her steps halted. Her sharp eyes scanned the outermost guard post area, which was now silent, leaving only the howling of the wind.
Under the downpour and the randomly rotating searchlights from the still-standing tower, Mogami saw a pile of human soldiers lying helpless on the muddy ground. They were the ground security forces, ordinary human soldiers assigned to guard the perimeter. Mogami approached cautiously, inspecting one of them. The soldier's breath was still steady, his pulse stable. There were no penetrating wounds, no pools of severe blood. Only red bruises on vital nerve points. They would be unconscious for a very long time.
"Total paralysis in seconds, and purely using blunt force attacks," Mogami muttered in awe. She stared toward the base gate that had been breached silently. "Izumo-san and Ayanami... they truly kept their promise not to take a single human life. A terrifyingly precise control of physical strength for entities possessing as much energy as they do."
BOOM! KABOOM!
Suddenly, a barrage of devastating explosions shook the earth Mogami stood on. The pitch-black night sky instantly lit up brightly from the giant, reddish-orange fireballs rising high from the direction of the logistics facility center. The rumbling sound swallowed the thunder. Fuel tanks and ammunition depots exploded in chains, collapsing concrete and steel structures like kicked sandcastles.
Even though Mogami's radio communication device was still filled with deafening static interference caused by JS Maya's electronic sabotage and the mysterious dark signal intervention, Mogami could smile in satisfaction. She didn't need a radio to confirm the status of this operation.
"Their base is severely destroyed," Mogami whispered, wiping rainwater from her face. "The main mission succeeded flawlessly."
Mogami walked slowly toward the edge of the coral cliff, glancing toward the raging open sea. Through her optical vision adjusted for dawn sight, she saw two small silhouettes dashing through the stormy waves. It was Izumo and Ayanami. They were surfing over the ferocious sea surface using partial rigging on their feet, leaving a trail of white foam that was instantly swallowed by the waves.
Seeing how the two shipgirls from Azur Lane maneuvered amidst the typhoon, Mogami was truly amazed. In this world, shipgirls like herself, Kaga, or Shandong, were merely humans whose souls were bound to giant machines. They had real physical limits and relied heavily on human infrastructure.
"The Azur Lane shipgirls... they don't need human repair docks for minor wounds; they have internal energy that repairs everything. They are the pure manifestation of the ship itself," Mogami thought to herself. "Their power doesn't come from engines, but from the core energy of the soul manifesting steel. Truly different from us who are only 'connected' to the ship's energy."
However, that sense of awe had to be ended immediately. They had to return to the rendezvous point right away. Mogami turned around, intending to dash back toward JS Mogami waiting for her behind the fog.
CRACK!
"Ugh..!" Mogami groaned.
She nearly tumbled over when her right leg suddenly went numb, followed by a sharp piercing pain from the direction of her ankle. The adrenaline that had masked the pain from her fight against Nanchang was now subsiding. Her ankle was severely sprained when she maneuvered to dodge Nanchang's deadly kick earlier.
"Damn it... why now?" Mogami complained while holding her breath. As a shipgirl of this world, a physical injury like this was a serious problem. Her soul might be connected to the ship, but her human body could still get injured. She was forced to drag her leg and walk slowly through the forest, praying that JS Maya wouldn't leave her behind if the situation turned chaotic.
Meanwhile, inside the area of the Chinese naval base that had turned into hell.
Wildfires licked the steel ruins. CN Fujian ran charging through the scattered concrete debris. The aircraft carrier girl paid no mind to her dirtied military uniform. Her eyes radiated panic and anger. In this world, a shipgirl's power came from the synchronization of her soul's core energy with the energy of her giant aircraft carrier. When the base exploded, Fujian could feel those tremors tormenting her soul.
"Shandong! Shandong!" Fujian yelled.
She arrived at the drydock area. Amidst the puddles of rainwater mixed with blood, lay the figure of Shandong. Shandong's glasses were destroyed, and she couldn't move her legs at all. Her motor muscles had been precisely severed by Izumo.
"You're slow, Fujian," Shandong chuckled weakly, accompanied by coughing up blood.
"Shut up! I'll take you to the surviving clinic bunker!" Fujian immediately lifted Shandong's body bridal carry style. Fujian concentrated her soul energy to strengthen her human physique, sprinting away, leaving the ruined shipyard area.
While Fujian was evacuating her comrade, in an underground command center, CN Sichuan stood in front of a screen panel. Her elegant face hardened. Sichuan wasn't using human crews at this moment; she focused her life's soul core energy directly into her aircraft carrier's automated systems.
"They thought they could burn our house and just walk away?" Sichuan hissed.
Sichuan closed her eyes. She let her consciousness flow into the secret hangar. In this world, the fighter jets on an aircraft carrier didn't have human pilots; they were controlled entirely by the soul energy of the aircraft carrier girl. Every plane was an extension of her nervous system.
"All J-20 Air Wing units, take off!" Sichuan ordered.
Twenty units of J-20 Mighty Dragon stealth fighter jets launched from electromagnetic catapults driven by Sichuan's energy. As soon as they took flight, Sichuan could "see" through every plane's sensors. Twenty pairs of eyes in the sky were now searching for the whereabouts of Izumo and Ayanami amidst the storm. The black planes sliced through the typhoon winds, driven by Sichuan's pure wrath flowing through her ship's energy.
In the middle of the turbulent ocean, Izumo and Ayanami continued to cut through the massive waves. Suddenly, Izumo's silver fox ears twitched rapidly. She sensed a drastic change in the air pressure above them.
Izumo manifested her partial rigging. The optical monitor in her left eye was filled with red dots. "Twenty units... J-20s," Izumo muttered. "Sichuan is controlling all of them at once. I can feel the pulse of her soul energy in every one of those jet engines."
The J-20 planes dove, their sensors locking onto Izumo and Ayanami's positions. Izumo knew, without air support, they would be easy targets. Sichuan back at the base was focusing all her remaining soul energy to ensure Izumo sank.
"I won't let us end here," Izumo hissed.
She focused her remaining energy, sending a long-distance telepathic command across the ocean toward Yokohama. "All units... take flight! Support me!"
Yokohama Port Pier
The three Azur Lane destroyer girls—Nimi, Javelin, and Laffey—were still standing loyally guarding the deck of JS Izumo. Suddenly, the entire modern aircraft carrier glowed with incredibly bright neon blue light.
It wasn't just her planes reacting. The roar of JS Izumo's giant gas turbine engines roared loudly, releasing a shockwave that made the seawater at the pier churn violently.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
Three MiG-27K planes shot vertically off the deck with a short landing takeoff, followed by two Qaher-313 drones and four Fenice helicopters. They streaked southward at supersonic speed, controlled by Izumo's will.
However, the real surprise had just begun.
"Look! The mooring lines!" Javelin yelled.
The giant steel cables holding JS Izumo to the Yokohama pier suddenly snapped in unison as if cut by invisible swords. The 248-meter-long aircraft carrier began moving away from the pier on its own. Its propulsion engines worked at maximum, turning the massive hull toward the open sea, heading South.
"Izumo-nee... she isn't just summoning her planes!" Nimi's eyes widened, holding onto the violently shaking deck railing. "She's summoning her entire ship's body to catch up to the front lines!"
JS Izumo glided away from Yokohama with a speed that was illogical for a ship its size. The ship cut through the water, creating massive waves that slammed against the pier walls. The ship moved to catch up with its nine air units that were already flying far ahead.
Javelin, Nimi, and Laffey were now on top of a massive ship speeding forward without a human captain. They knew this was a top-tier emergency situation. Izumo was risking everything, mobilizing her entire existence in this world to save Ayanami and herself.
"The situation is really bad," Laffey muttered, her eyes staring sharply at the Southern horizon. "Izumo... hold on."
The three destroyers prepared to activate their respective full riggings. The aircraft carrier JS Izumo had now officially left the port, slicing through the ocean toward the stormy hell in the South, ready to face twenty dragons controlled by Sichuan's fury. The true war of the sky and sea was just about to begin.
The Pacific Ocean in the Southern territory was no longer just a battlefield; it was a boiling liquid hell. On the deck of JS Izumo speeding through the storm, a tense atmosphere enveloped the three Azur Lane destroyer girls. They realized that now was not the time to merely stand guard. Izumo, their older sister, was risking everything out there.
"Nimi, Laffey! Izumo-nee is calling us! We can't just stand idle on this ship!" Javelin shouted over the deafening roar of the fierce wind.
Nimi (Z23) adjusted her glasses which were starting to fog up with water vapor, her eyes glinting firmly. "According to emergency protocols! Activate full-scale rigging! We will follow Izumo-nee with maximum power!"
In a flash, blinding blue light erupted from the three of them. At the pier that was now falling behind, their original ships—HMS Javelin, KMS Z23, and USS Laffey—experienced a strange phenomenon. The massive steel hulls suddenly fractured into thousands, millions of brightly glowing cubes of light. Those cubes flew, condensed, and merged into their petite bodies, forming majestic and deadly rigging armaments.
Nimi now wielded her twin-barreled cannons, Javelin gripped her glowing electric spear, and Laffey shouldered her torpedo tubes with a completely sharp gaze. They were now true machines of war.
However, their first challenge was not the enemy, but the aircraft carrier they stood on. JS Izumo, rushing in automated unmanned mode, was moving at an absurd speed. The 248-meter giant ship brutally smashed into ten-meter-high rogue waves.
CRASHHHH!
"Waaaa! The ship is flying!" Javelin screamed while planting her spear into the deck to withstand the jolt.
The aircraft carrier truly leaped. Tons of steel launched into the air as its bow hit the crest of a wave, before slamming back down with a thud that shook the entire ocean. Nimi and Laffey had to activate the magnetics on their rigging shoes so they wouldn't be thrown into the sea. Izumo was genuinely pushing her ship's body to its absolute limits.
Meanwhile, at the rendezvous coordinates filled with death.
Izumo and Ayanami were still struggling on the water's surface. The stab wound on Izumo's waist stung increasingly every time she surfed, hitting the waves. The seeping blood began to make her vision slightly dizzy.
"Ayanami... is it... still far?" Izumo asked, panting heavily.
Ayanami, holding onto Izumo's arm to help keep her stable, glanced at the small radar on her wrist. "Just a little further, desu! We're almost at Mogami-san's hiding cape!"
But fate had other plans. Before they could turn toward the cliff's shelter, the deafening roar of jet engines tore through the stormy sky.
RATATATATATATA!
A rain of bullets from the Gatling cannons of Sichuan's J-20 jets pummeled the sea surface around them. The impact of the large-caliber rounds created exploding columns of water towering high, nearly overturning their positions. Sichuan, controlling those planes from the base, genuinely wanted to finish them off.
"Izumo-nee, duck!" Ayanami yelled.
With the agility of a demon god, Ayanami maneuvered in zig-zags, pulling Izumo's body to dodge the lines of fire chasing them from the sky. The bullets missed their feet by mere inches.
From a distance, at the edge of the forest near the cape, Mogami witnessed the scene with a broken heart. She stood limping, leaning against a large, leafy old tree. Her condition was pathetic. Her face was deathly pale, her black Seifuku uniform soaked with the blood she had coughed up from internal injuries after being battered by Nanchang. Her sprained ankle had swollen severely, making every step feel like stepping on hot thorns.
"Izumo-san... Ayanami-san..." Mogami whispered hoarsely.
She saw the enemy fighter jets dive steeply, preparing to release missiles for a finishing strike against her defenseless comrades in the open sea. An immense rage suddenly exploded within Mogami's chest. She didn't care about the rules anymore; she didn't care about her own safety.
"Don't... touch... them!" Mogami screamed with her remaining strength.
Mogami closed her eyes, forcing the highest level of soul synchronization with her ship hidden behind Maya's fog. In this world, a shipgirl felt every vibration of her ship's iron. Mogami force-opened all access to her ship's anti-air missile salvos. She ordered JS Mogami to exit the cape's cover, moving backward toward the open sea to get a clear firing angle.
Mogami raised her trembling right hand, her fingers forming a pistol pose pointing at the sky where the J-20s were celebrating.
"Boom."
BAM! BAM! BAM!
The RIM-152D missile launcher system on the JS Mogami ship spewed four missiles at once. It didn't stop there; five salvos of Aster 30 missiles launched from the VLS cells at hypersonic speeds. The missiles sliced through the rainstorm, streaking to chase the heat of the enemy jet engines.
Sichuan, back at the base, was beyond shocked. She hadn't expected a counterattack from her blind spot.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Nine J-20 jets exploded into fireballs in the night sky, blasted to pieces before they could even drop their bombs.
"You bastards! Find that ship!" Sichuan screamed in the command center.
The remaining three J-20 jets immediately diverted their attention. They spotted JS Mogami, now clearly exposed in the open sea without air cover. With an equally massive rage, the jets dove, unleashing all of their remaining air-to-surface missiles.
BOOOOMMMM!
The missiles struck the left hull and the rear of the JS Mogami ship. Massive explosions tore through the modern ship's steel. Mogami tried to operate her automated cannons manually through her mind to shoot the passing jets, but because of the excruciating pain, her shots went wide.
The final J-20 plane conducted a strafing run. Its Gatling cannon peppered JS Mogami's conning tower section.
CRASH! BOOM!
The ship's conning tower exploded, glass shattered, and the main radar sensor snapped off in flames. The ship was now in a dying state.
The impact on Mogami's body was horrific. As soon as the command tower exploded, Mogami screamed hysterically. Her head felt like it had been split open by a giant axe. Her soul nerves connected to the ship suffered immense pain feedback. She gasped for air, her chest feeling crushed.
"Ugh... hah... hah..." Mogami moaned.
Mogami vomited blood again, this time in a massive amount. It was as if nearly half of her blood supply had been drained out. Her beautiful face was now pale white like a corpse. She collapsed, leaning weakly against the tree trunk, her vision beginning to darken. The injuries on her body mirrored the destruction of her ship at sea.
The final J-20 jet prepared to drop a heavy bomb to sink JS Mogami completely. However, before Sichuan could release the bomb through her mental command...
RATATATATATATATATA!
The incredibly loud roar of twin turbine engines tore through the storm. The muzzle of a 30mm caliber GSh-6-30 Gatling cannon barked from the sky.
Three MiG-27K Floggers had arrived.
The planes came at supersonic speed, sweeping away the rest of the enemy's J-20 jets in a single pass. The planes controlled by Sichuan were shredded into metal scraps before the aircraft carrier girl even realized where the attack came from.
Izumo, still surfing on the water, looked up and smiled even though blood dripped from her lips. "My children... you arrived right on time."
With telepathic control now amplified by the energy of her Wisdom Cube, Izumo directed her entire air fleet to launch a counterattack on the Chinese base.
"All units! Destroy their logistics! Don't leave them with the tools to fight ever again!" Izumo shouted. Her energy instantly put all her combat fleet into assault mode.
The three MiG-27Ks and two Qaher drones streaked toward the already burning enemy base. They fired precision missiles toward the docked enemy destroyers, destroying their cannons and radar antennas until those ships sustained severe damage. The base control tower was blown up with high precision, but true to Izumo's promise, she ensured no missiles hit the human soldier barracks or the shipgirls. She was only targeting the tools of war.
From the ocean horizon, a massive silhouette finally emerged piercing the storm fog.
JS Izumo (DDH-183).
The aircraft carrier arrived majestically, cutting through the waves valiantly. On its deck, Nimi, Javelin, and Laffey stood with active rigging, ready to unleash salvos of cannons and torpedoes if any enemy dared to approach.
Izumo stopped her surfing glide beside her ship. She smiled in relief seeing her little sisters safe. However, her attention was quickly diverted. The AESA radar in her head caught a very faint soul energy signal on the cape's land.
"Mogami...?" Izumo said.
Izumo closed her eyes, focusing her Wisdom Cube energy to pierce the dense forest. The biometric radar in her left eye locked onto Mogami's coordinates. Her condition was critical.
"Ayanami! Take me there! Mogami is in danger!" Izumo ordered.
Ayanami immediately carried Izumo on her back and dashed toward the land. They ran through the underbrush until they reached beneath the large tree. There, they found Mogami.
The smart girl lay weak, her head drooping to the side. Her clothes were soaked in blood, her breathing was extremely thin and shallow. Her weary eyes saw Izumo's arrival; she tried to smile even though it was agonizingly painful.
"Izumo-san... you're... safe..." Mogami whispered before her eyes finally shut tight and she passed out in Izumo's embrace.
Izumo hugged Mogami's cold body tightly. "You've fought so hard, Mogami. Hang in there... I won't let you go."
In the distance, a massive fire was still devouring the Southern fleet base, illuminating the night sky that was beginning to calm as the storm passed. But for Izumo, the real war was only just beginning.
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To be continued
Chapter 17: You Know, I Admire You