The time was 6:30 p.m. in the Japanese island of Okinawa, an island where U.S. and Japanese forces had fought, bled and died for an outcropping of rock to the South of Kyushu back in World War 2.
It was an island which was slightly isolated from the Japanese mainland, but the one naval base which protected the Okinawa Islands were well-connected to the mainland thanks to improved internet connectivity, and had a fair amount of resources stockpiled alongside the occasional ferries which sailed in from Kyushu to keep them stocked up in case of emergencies.
Admiral Kanzaki, Admiral of the Okinawa Naval Base, leaned in close to his monitor screen as he attempted to connect to his second fleet which he sent to Orchid Island, Taiwan.
This sortie was in response to a call which was sent from the island about a strange occurrence which the locals, already used to the presence of the strangely-designed Abyssals in their waters and learnt to avoid them while still sustaining their livelihood as fishermen, still found something strange enough to warrant calling in a ship girl fleet to investigate.
Being a lean man who had a five-o'clock shadow and short oily hair which was recently cut by his secretary ship Shouhou, he scratched at his stubble as he waited yet again for his fleet to get in contact with him, following a series of tried and true steps in which they would establish contact with the locals and determine the situation at hand, and relay it back to Admiral Kanzaki for a quick sit-rep.
Along with being the Admiral of a naval base, he was also one of many Admirals who carried out Central's overseas peacekeeping efforts, his ship girls often being tasked with investigating any situations which were called in by the locals of other countries whenever they reported any abnormalities or strange developments.
Having been at this job for a little more than fourteen years, Kanzaki Hajime was no stranger to dealing with difficult situations, from uncooperative locals of other countries who were understandably still resentful of them due to their past, or tampered scenes where the locals unknowingly messed up crucial evidence, and they had to spend a fair amount of time recovering enough of it to bring back for inspection.
His 2nd Fleet consisted of Aoba, Suzuya, Shiratsuyu, Choukai and Nagara, five ship girls who were chosen partially because of their amiable personalities which were determined to be unlikely to cause friction with civilians of other countries, and Choukai said that they would attempt to get in contact with him at this time.
And in his second attempt to connect with his overseas fleet, he saw that the computer window flickered to life with his ship girl on the screen, Choukai standing on a beach along with a large, unidentifiable object located a fair distance behind her.
Choukai the Takao-Class heavy cruiser was wearing a sleeveless blue blouse along with a white sailor collar and red neckerchief, the uniform top exposing her tough abdomen as she looked back at the Admiral.
She wore black gloves while her long black hair reached down to her shoulder-blades, barely covering her red eyes as her glasses did nothing to hide her ruby-red pupils, and on her head was a headdress which possessed five antennas.
Four of them were sticking out horizontally and diagonally in a symmetrical fashion while a lone antenna stood upright on her crown, the entire contraption possessing loose wires to connect the various antennas to each other, and the only thing which didn't belong in her default uniform was the wireless headset microphone which she wore in order to communicate with the Admiral
And since the camera focused on her upper half, Admiral Kanzaki could only see so much of her as he greeted casually,
"Hey Choukai. How's it look down there at Orchid Island?"
Choukai lifted an eyebrow, an unspoken signal of hers to express the fact that there were no complications as she turned to look behind her and stepped out of the way for Admiral Kanzaki to witness the scene, only speaking to the cameraman,
"Aoba-san, move up for Admiral Kanzaki to see what the locals found. This is obviously the work of the Abyssals, but he needs to see what the hell happened before this blue whale died and washed up here."
He could only inhale sharply as Choukai shifted her body in order to allow Admiral Kanzaki to gaze upon the sight of the beached blue whale carcass, all while Aoba took up the camera and started strolling along with Choukai.
It was almost sad, gazing upon a once-majestic colossus which towered over the comparatively tiny beach umbrellas as it was reduced to a pile of dead flesh and bones, the deceased blue whale likely being an adult since he knew the heights of his ship girls well, and Suzuya standing near an inflicted wound which was taller than her by one and a half times temporarily stopped his breath.
The whale's buckets of blood had already stained the wet sand, the waves crashing in softly in order to wash some of it away as locals surrounded the corpse, attempting to salvage what they could from the dead whale without interfering with the ship girls' work as Choukai turned back to the camera in order to explain herself.
"We arrived at Orchid Island in the morning, at approximately 0943 hours, and we then contacted the locals at around 0956 hours. We spent half an hour negotiating with the locals, coming to the agreement that we get to keep any recovered evidence for free, and we get to spend three hours studying the unusual blue whale carcass without any restrictions. In return, when the three hours are up, the locals get to salvage what remained of the carcass even after the carcass had been here around 0125 hours last night, so some of the whale's flesh had already spoiled."
Admiral Kanzaki nodded along as she spoke, trying to find the highlight of this story as he leaned back in his seat, looking at the situation from a few angles as he did so.
"Hm… But I think I might have missed the punchline here, since whale deaths are sad, but not uncommon. What's the problem here?"
Choukai pointed at the whale carcass, pointing out the biggest wound which was inflicted on the dead animal as the Takao-Class cruiser pointed out.
"The fishermen on the island didn't think too much of this death, but when they studied the wounds that were inflicted on the whale, they found that it didn't match any of the usual suspects, like killer whales. Instead, they called us in when they found these."
And the camera was pointed down in order to focus on the two items in Choukai's hands, Admiral Kanzaki's eyes slightly widening even after having seen quite a few things in his relatively long and colorful career.
The item which filled the heavy cruiser's hands actually sent a small chill down Admiral Kanzaki's spine simply due to their respective sizes, something which didn't happen very often nowadays due to his "seen-it-all" attitude which was shared by almost every Admiral who served for ten years or more.
And even Choukai, being an analytical ship girl who kept her cool with her soft-spoken voice and observant personality, was deathly silent as she presented what looked to be a pearly-white shark tooth and something resembling the end of an elephant tusk.
Or a saber-tooth tiger's canines.
Except bigger.
But the previously pale shark tooth in Choukai's left hand was sharpened to the point of almost expressing its cutting-edge through the TV screen and looked capable of cutting a dropped hair strand, its white luster stained by viscous whale blood, Choukai's glove similarly stained by the substance which dripped from the dislodged shark tooth which was extracted from the flesh of the whale carcass.
It almost eclipsed the Takao-Class heavy cruiser's adult palm, and what baffled Admiral Kanzaki was how a Great White Shark's tooth paled in comparison to what was in Choukai's hand, Admiral Kanzaki now giving this situation his undivided attention as he started considering all possibilities, noting the other dislodged tooth in Choukai's right hand.
It was shaped like a saber-toothed tiger's infamously long canine, about 10 centimeters of blood-soaked steel as whatever unholy creature it originated from was able to take down a full-grown blue whale, the largest animal to have ever existed.
Admiral Kanzaki, placing his elbow on the table and covering his mouth in order to hide his admittedly quivering lower jaw, asking his ship girl about just what the hell he was looking at.
"Alright, Choukai. The tooth in your right hand only seems to match a handful of the Abyssal Beasts which we've encountered thus far, and looks a lot like a shark's tooth, but larger. I have no idea about the dagger-looking tooth, since I'm pretty certain that there are very few Abyssal Beasts which possess teeth which are shaped like that. The presence of two different sets of teeth also doesn't make sense, since this would contradict the M.O. of one Princess or Demon per fleet, and we're assuming that only a Demon or Princess's Beast is strong enough to even hurt, much less kill a blue whale, so what're we looking at here?"
Choukai nodded solemnly in order to affirm her Admiral's thoughts, expressing her own opinion on the situation and the recovered evidence.
"Yes sir, I've considered most of those questions as well. This…"
Slightly lifting the broken-off bloody fang in order to draw her Admiral's attention to it, Choukai continued her analysis on the curious case of the deceased blue whale which was washed up on this little island off the coast of Taiwan.
"I have been unable to determine which Beast this tooth comes from, even when its material composition undoubtedly consists of Abyssal steel. It's an incomplete hypothesis, but until further evidence presents itself, I think we can safely say that these two sets of teeth came from two different Beasts, the likes of which we have never seen before."
Admiral Kanzaki cocked his head, leaning back in his seat as he expressed a thought which came to his mind then and there, speaking into the microphone as he expressed how this attack contradicted the Abyssals' M.O..
"There's a thought which interests me, and it's how this attack goes against everything which the Abyssals stand for. They always claim to have the moral 'high ground' by saying that mankind is a blight to Earth and the animals which inhabit it, and how our over-hunting and overpopulation threatens the lives of plants and animals, this being their main justification for attacking us. This means that they quickly crippled our whale-hunting industry by attacking and even destroying our whaling boats in order to prevent us from hunting and killing any more whales for usable products within their bodies. It doesn't make sense that they'd kill this whale out of the blue, since it'd contradict their own goals."
Choukai nodded as she saw things from her Admiral's perspective, looking down at the remaining piece of evidence as to what killed the largest animal to ever exist, working off of Admiral Kanzaki's points as she remarked.
"Right. And if it wouldn't make sense for a Beast to hunt for a blue whale, since it's an accepted consensus that they likely feed off of steel and fuel like every other ship girl and Abyssal, not flesh and blood.
I present one possibility for the motive of this seemingly senseless whale culling, at least until other possibilities present themselves upon further investigation."
"I'm all ears."
Looking down at the gargantuan Abyssal Beast's tooth, Choukai gulped before sharing her proposed possibility as to why the Abyssals wanted this whale dead.
"Perhaps they wanted to hunt this blue whale for no other reason than for sport. To mortally wound it and allow it to beach itself here, for us to find."
Admiral Kanzaki raised an eyebrow and muttered a slightly incredulous,
"Hm."
But to the ship girls who knew him well, this wasn't exactly an expression of disbelief, but rather a signal for the speaking party to try and convince him of their side of the argument, Choukai acknowledging this as she pocketed the saber-like tooth in order to pull out a sheath of bloody papers from her pocket, looking down at the transcripts of the conversations they had with the locals and drawing their conclusions based off the information they had so far.
"Well, the locals had tried their best to reconcile the size and shape of the jaws which would inflict such a wound on the blue whale, and one of the cleanest wounds dealt was the wound which Suzuya is standing beside. Aoba, move up and let the Admiral see the wound."
Admiral Kanzaki watched the screen as Aoba nodded, walking forward as Aoba called out to the Mogami-Class heavy cruiser with her cheery voice.
"Yo, Suzuya! Smile for the camera, the Admiral's watching!"
Suzuya looked towards the monitor and started waving towards the Admiral, pointing at the gigantic wound on the carcass's flesh as she smiled uncomfortably, calling out to him as she did so.
"Yo, Admiral! You seein' this?!"
Choukai continued with her explanation, the sound of flipping papers sounding out in the background as the heavy cruiser continued.
"The locals have confirmed that this triangular tooth is that of a shark, but they say that its sheer size eliminates almost every known species known to them.
The size and shape of the jaw which inflicted this wound corroborates this claim, and even when we've done the math and reconstructed the jaw which could have done this on the computer, we're hard-pressed to match it to any Abyssal Beast which we know of so far. The jaw size and shape, as well as the shape of the teeth which they possess disqualifies almost every Beast which we know of, and those Beasts who barely fit the criteria, they possess muscular arms which they could've used to incapacitate the whale, but we've detected no bruising or contusion wounds to prove that whatever did this possessed human hands to aid in its slaughter."
Choukai turned to look at Admiral Kanzaki with a grim expression as she finished her explanation.
"Whatever these two Beasts were, it's clear that they could've killed this whale in secret and never allowed it to reach anywhere close to our shores. But they attacked this whale, chased it here and forced it to beach itself in a last-ditch move before bleeding out and allowing us to find its carcass, instead of finishing the job and dragging it into the depths… It's sloppy work, and in my experience, the Abyssals aren't the kind to allow their work to be 'sloppy'."
"So they did it for shits and giggles? That sounds even less like them."
"Well, lest you forget, there exists quite a few dangerous personalities amidst the ranks of the Abyssal forces, such as the Southern War Princess in all its incarnations, as well as the Re-Class aviation battleship, amongst others."
Nodding, Admiral Kanzaki was already considering his next moves as he asked.
"Alright, pack up and bring the evidence back home. We'll study it here and write a report back to Central in order to warn them about the possible presence of a new Beast and allow them to prepare themselves."
But Aoba, standing behind the camera, was the one to talk to the Admiral as she used the camera to zoom in on the shark tooth as she elaborated darkly.
"Wait, Admiral. This tooth is confirmed by the locals to be a shark tooth, but they say that no shark which exists in the modern age possesses shark teeth this large, and they know this since they've met their fair share of sharks. But…"
They all looked down at the two bloody sets of teeth, coming to one conclusion after realizing their current search parameters limited them to animals of the modern age, a convention might have to be reevaluated yet again when one considered the fact that they were dealing with a new Abyssal type.
"This tooth appears to match the tooth size and shape of one other species of underwater animal, but only if we expand our search parameters to include extinct, prehistoric beasts."
Admiral Kanzaki gulped as he leaned in further back into his seat, feeling afraid that he was at risk of falling back and collapsing on his chair if Aoba, of all people, was going to suggest what he feared, almost whispering into the microphone.
"No way. They wouldn't go that far, would they?"
Choukai looked down at the bloody tooth which likely belonged to an extinct prehistoric beast, although its descendants and relatives had survived into the modern age as equally fearsome, albeit downsized predators.
But that did nothing to diminish their effectiveness at hunting and killing prey, and now, Aoba was going to suggest the impossible after dismissing every possibility which they could think up of.
"Admiral. This steel tooth doesn't belong to any Abyssal which we know of, but its general shape is extremely similar to that of a Great White Shark, albeit larger. I have good reason to believe this is a tooth of an Abyssal Megalodon Beast."
Admiral Kanzaki inhaled sharply upon hearing the words which he least wanted to hear, but knew deep down that it wasn't an impossibility.
To create Abyssal Beasts which could easily kill titanic beasts underwater...
Nothing seemed off-limits now.
This was something else entirely, a new Abyssal Beast which was out there, on the loose and could attack anyone even while underwater, a feat which few other Abyssals were capable of replicating due to their inability to attack while underwater.
"And although I don't know who controlled and ordered it to kill this blue whale, I only know that this Beast wasn't working alone. There's another Beast out there, and they worked together to kill this blue whale, likely for sport."