Haruna and company had been sailing for a few more hours now, and it was currently 3.12 p.m. as they approached one of the most important checkpoints in their meandering and ever-changing course towards Aogashima Island.
Before them was the silhouette of Mikura Jima Island.
Haruna was holding Shigure's hand in order to comfort the distressed destroyer as they sailed towards the place which had traumatized the Shiratsuyu-Class destroyer.
But despite her best assurances that Haruna would be alright, she had heard from Hiei that her own doppelganger from the Miura Naval Base was devastated in this battle, so wearing the same face and possessing the same behavior (they were doppelgangers, after all) might diminish the effectiveness of her assurances.
Cue mental sigh.
Her combat ration vest felt a wee bit lighter, since everyone had already taken their lunch by swallowing half of a chocolate-bar-sized ration, and her Fairies were now working a little harder after ingesting a filling meal supplied by the food supply Fairy.
The sky was becoming a little more cloudy than they would have preferred, but it served as a bit of relief from the summer sunshine as they sailed forth, Haruna suddenly detecting a new Abyssal presence in their area.
And it was headed straight for them.
Her cannons bristled in anticipation as she tensed up again in preparation for combat, this time feeling that a battle was unavoidable as Chitose warned everyone about the incoming threat.
"Girls. I sense another Abyssal fleet making a beeline for us. And right now, I can identify three Ri-Class heavy cruisers, one Wo-Class carrier, two Ho-Class light cruisers and four Abyssal destroyers.
They seem to know we're here, and seem determined to stop us."
Sendai sighed as she pulled out a torpedo from a launcher which was strapped to her hips, leaning forward in anticipation while her face morphed into her dead-serious game face as she remarked.
"Well, it's been a good run, but it would be foolish of us to think that we could finish the entire journey through stealth alone. I personally think that for a fleet as big as ours, to go without fighting a single Abyssal fleet all the way up to Mikura Jima Island is rather impressive, but it's time to whip out the torpedoes and the cannons, because I feel that we can't run from this one."
Everyone was uncoupling their cannons from their riggings in order to prepare for battle, and Haruna tightened the straps on her thigh utility pouches while understanding that in addition to being a battleship, she was carrying their combat rations and had to keep herself safe, lest a cannon shell fly in her direction and spoil their rations, leaving them hungry for the rest of the day.
The fact that she was carrying several cans of fuel in her pockets turned her into a walking safety hazard which could be lit aflame should a torpedo or shell hit her in the right spot, and the only silver lining was that she was a fast battleship and thus possessed decent armor and speed in order to handle anything which was thrown her way.
The destroyers and light cruisers in the Combined Fleet unleashed a devastating torpedo salvo as the aiming reticles of her 35.6 Cm Twin Gun Cannons all focused on the Abyssals in the distance, yelling out her command in part to warn her teammates of the discharge of such powerful cannons.
"Fire!"
She was thankful that her ears possessed mufflers in order to help mute the volume of the cannon blast which shook the very air around her, something which she was accustomed to as did every battleship worth their salt, waving away the plumes of smoke in order to watch out for enemy attacks.
The Abyssals responded in kind by sending out two Abyssal Dive Bombers and a Mark II Torpedo Bomber in order to intercept Chitose and Saratoga's Ryuusei and Dauntless Bombers, everyone scattering without a word as enemy shells rained down upon them, the Abyssals squeezing off several shots before being devastated either by the torpedoes, the bombers' dropped payloads or the hail of shells which landed in their general area.
She sailed forward in order to shield Shigure and Kuroshio with her body, holding up her arms in an "X" shape before her vest as small and medium-caliber shells harmlessly bounced off of her skin and rigging and throwing up sparks in the case of the latter, letting out an involuntary, "Tsk!"
After feeling the sting of the mostly harmless shells as they stung her arms and face not unlike bee stings, understanding that while her rigging and skin armor was tough, she was not invulnerable and could be worn down if she took too many shells while deluding herself into thinking that these shells couldn't do anything to her.
She smacked away the minuscule smoke plumes which wafted from her arms as the small steel pellets were crushed against her skin, some even punching holes into her miko uniform, although since she was a battleship, there was no blood being drawn as her skin armor did its job well.
Haruna could hear the shock of the destroyers behind her stemming from seeing a battleship protect them when she was carrying valuable cargo, Kuroshio exclaiming as the shells which came into contact with Haruna's skin and rigging hit the ocean like dead flies dropping dead upon hitting a bug zapper racket.
"H-Haruna-san?!nYou should stand behind us, you're—"
Haruna turned around and remarked hastily, sparing no time for niceties in the heat of battle as she kept an eye out for incoming torpedoes while revving her boat slippers.
"Please don't treat me like an invalid just because I'm carrying precious cargo! I'm a Kongou-Class battleship, and even though these shells may hurt you, they are as harmless as bug bites to my armor! Haruna is alright, please continue!"
Kuroshio's eyes widened at the slight aggression which had seeped into Haruna's voice, but her gaze eventually settled into a determined one as she teased.
"Alright. Follow us through the torpedoes, feel free to tell us to slow down if you can't keep up while carrying those."
While pointing to Haruna's weighty combat ration vest, or for all she knew, the Kagerou-Class might also be pointing at her sizable chest in order to lighten up the mood, sailing away with a cheeky smile plastered on her face while Shigure stepped up and thanked Haruna.
" … Thank you for that. But please, watch out for yourself."
And Haruna took the time to turn the phrase back on her, narrowing her eyes and looking Shigure dead in the eye as she remarked.
"And you watch out for yourself as well.
Please, there is nothing for you to prove, since you've given your all the last time you were here."
Shigure flinched, and she knew that she was spot-on with her assumption of what Shigure was thinking about as the Shiratsuyu-Class destroyer gave a small, yet respectful bow before turning away and sailing off into the distance.
Haruna tailed her, ready to catch the destroyer should she fall in battle and watching on as white-hot steel flew past them with varying accuracy, knowing that the chaos of war would throw off any ship girl or Abyssal's aim, and only a handful of ship girls could hit every shot fired from their handheld cannons after years of persistent training to become dead-eye marks-women.
Watching the silent yet deadly torpedoes sail by her without detonating, Haruna released a breath which she didn't know she held as she then heard the buzz of an oh-so-familiar bomber plane approaching her, and she looked up to find an Abyssal Dive Bomber performing a bombing run and targeting either her or Shigure.
In a break from her polite persona, she cussed mentally upon facing her repressed fear of bomber planes or any aerial threats after the Bombing of Kure, thinking,
Why, oh why, did it have to be bomber planes? Motherf—
Before she abruptly ended that train of thought and caught the back of Shigure's collar, scanning their surroundings for a safe area of undisturbed ocean before using her battleship strength to toss her out of the projected radius of the explosion, jamming her left boat slipper into the ocean in order to come to a stop as the payload dropped from the sky like a bird's dropping falling from the heavens in order to devastate whoever was beneath it.
Her rigging shielded her from the brunt of the explosion, hunching and bringing her shoulders in to keep the combat rations on her vest dry as she pushed off of her left feet in order to propel herself backwards, feeling the drops of water become pseudo-bullets as they scattered and hit her at velocities which could injure a human.
The volume of the explosion was also nothing to sneeze at, understanding that a human who took her place on the battlefield would either be killed ten times over, or be deafened and injured by the shock-wave of the blast as she wiped the seawater from her sleeves, readying her cannons as she looked around for Shigure.
Sure enough, the Shiratsuyu-Class destroyer looked like a drowning cat despite appearing rather thankful for Haruna preventing her from sustaining potentially lethal damage, and they regrouped while the others had gone on ahead as Haruna felt the need to apologize, but Shigure must've seen her remorseful expression as she idly waved off her concerns and casually stole Haruna's line.
"I… I'm alright. Shigure is alright. Please… continue."
Haruna nodded grimly as she turned back to the battle at hand, watching Sendai fling a torpedo into the Ho-Class's helmet as though it were an explosive kunai and ducking as the armed torpedo detonated at point-blank range, engulfing the Abyssal's body with a roaring whoosh of fuel-fueled fire as it burst into flames from the top down.
Fat drops of blazing oil erupted and poured down its neck and non-existent head alongside blood and other unidentified liquids as its arms scrambled in its death throes, refusing to die as it clung to its last vestiges of life before collapsing onto the ocean like a puppet which had its strings cut.
Haruna fired at a Ri-Class cruiser in order to distract it from Kagerou and Shiranui, who were peppering the increasingly annoyed Abyssal with their paltry handheld 12 Cm Single Gun Cannons, allowing a nearby Jintsuu to perform a drive-by shooting by dumping her torpedoes into the water and sailing off while looking away from the explosion which swallowed the Ri-Class whole and gave the two Kagerou-Class destroyers some breathing room.
Haruna could only hear Kuroshio shouting,
"Hell yeah! Cool ship girls don't look back at ex—"
Before Haruna was distracted by a shell whizzing past her head, inferring that Kuroshio meant to finish the sentence with "explosions".
Right then, she felt an ominous shudder shake her entire world as a sharp pang of pain radiated from the back of her skull, throwing her head forward as her mind buzzed and tingled from what she assumed was a shell hitting her in the back of the head.
It was likely a destroyer's shell, since a cruiser's shell was capable of sending her into a mild coma while a battleship's shell, well…
If not for the fact that she was a fast battleship, Haruna was sadly confident that whoever took her place might be sent back to the base in a body bag.
If that's the case, better me than them.
Haruna thought grimly as she attempted to balance herself by holding out her arms, and she vigorously shook her head in order to clear the massive headache which was plaguing her mind after being shot in the bloody head.
God, all these combat rations, and not a single aspirin pill?
She could feel a hand grabbing her arm, and Haruna could hear a light cruiser, judging by the tone of the voice, shout into her ear as she was led away.
"Come on! You need to retreat to a safe area, you're currently not in your right mind to fight this battle!"
Another ship girl pushed against her rigging as she heard and felt another dropped payload detonate about ten meters to her left, flinching as she activated her boat slippers to sail away while her mind cleared enough to see a wobbly sight of Naka pulling her away from the heat of the action.
But she gently pried Naka's fingers from her arm as she cleared her mind with a shake of the head, looking down as she attempted to tune out the ringing noise which still plagued her mind and the slight double vision of the Sendai-Class light cruiser as she responded darkly.
"Haruna… is alright. Turn me back, we can finish this fight."
Kagerou sailed up behind her, having done her best to push Haruna out of the line of fire despite her status as a destroyer, and it was commendable of her to attempt it despite its futility as the name-ship commented on her injuries.
"You sure about that?bYou got shot in the head, and even though it was a destroyer's shell…"
Ah, so that's what it was, an Abyssal destroyer sneaking up from the ocean and shooting her in the back of the head.
Sure, the skin armor on the back of her head wasn't exactly the toughest, but that weakness was compensated by the reinforcement of their steel skull in order to protect their head and brains as previously demonstrated, Haruna reaching up to check the severity of the wound.
A chill was sent down her spine as another wave of pain radiated from the epicenter of the affected area, and she winced in pain while Naka and Kagerou mirrored her expression, Haruna bringing her hand forward to see a sizable stain of crimson fluids smeared on her palm along with some strands of hair stuck to the viscous blood.
Wiping it on her large miko sleeve, her mind came into focus thanks to the rush of adrenaline in her body, looking down at the duo with an intense stare which bore into their concerned eyes as she kept her combat-ready expression as neutral as possible while she remarked.
"I. Am. Alright. We need to back everyone up, and I suggest that you two cover your ears for this next part."
They did as they were told, and Haruna fired as soon as her mental firing module locked onto and calculated a 65.2% of hitting a meandering destroyer who was lurking on the ocean surface, the sheer proximity to the discharge of a large-caliber cannon almost blowing Kagerou her off her feet.
The shell flew true as it didn't even slow down while it punched straight through the I-Class Abyssal, the fish-like destroyer being forced into the ocean by the momentum of the shell before being eviscerated by a glorious explosion from within.
Haruna's skin tingled while another shiver ran throughout her entire body from the excitement of scoring such a devastating direct hit, looking down at the two members of the Combined Fleet as she reassured them.
"As you can see, I'm still combat-ready.
Now, shall we?"
They both nodded, still looking a little shaken by the reverberating shock wave which no doubt shook their bodies and souls to the very core, Haruna taking the lead with her cannons blazing while Kagerou and Naka took up the flank and fired their torpedoes at whomever they could target.
She sailed straight for the Wo-Class carrier, since she knew that Chitose and Saratoga could shut down any other Abyssals if not for the ever-present threat of the Wo-Class's Abyssal Fighters, and she aimed her cannons at the Wo-Class as the Abyssal stood at a distance and away from the main battle, her aiming reticles lining up slowly on her figure.
The Wo-Class eventually noticed her approach and evaded in order to throw off her aim, since the direction where the slow-as-molasses cannons were pointing at were a good indicator of where their shells were going to fly, and unlike small and medium-caliber cannons, Haruna couldn't manually aim her cannons and had to depend on her rigging to do the job.
Their aiming reticles were unlike those of other ship classes, and were most similar to those on grenade launchers in First-Person Shooter games, where the cross-hairs pointed to the North, East and West as per usual.
But to the South of the reticle were several lines of diminishing length in order to allow the Fairies and ship girl to gauge the distance to target, take into account shell velocity and the projected bullet drop in order to estimate the odds of hitting a target after locking onto them.
It would almost be impossible for the chances of hitting the target to be 100% (save for a point blank attack) since factors like the instability of the shifting battlefield that was the ocean, wind velocity and the evasive capabilities of every Abyssal would affect the chances of a hit or miss.
She chanced it with a 26.3% chance of hitting the target, her cannons resounding throughout the battlefield as the shell barreled on and hit the ocean as the Wo-Class twisted out of the way and safely evaded the shot.
But while Haruna was disappointed at the outcome, she saw her chance to press the attack as the Wo-Class was thrown onto the ocean surface by the rough waves caused by her shells hitting the water, and she sailed forth with her game-face on and showing no intent to hold back.
Now, ship girls and Abyssals alike were seasoned fighters, and Haruna knew that in training, part of the "curriculum" was to condition the fear out of each and every one of them as it would cause them to freeze up on the battlefield instead of doing something to save their skin.
But there was nothing quite like seeing a battleship, even if it was a Kongou-Class battleship, charging you with all her cannons reloading and ready to fire again, while knowing that your pathetic cannons weren't going to even dent her armor…
She banked on the fact that the Wo-Class would freeze up and not move, and her expectations were subverted yet again as the lying Wo-Class scrambled back from the advancing battleship, and eventually got to her feet as Haruna got within about two meters from the retreating carrier, and saw something blur from the peripheral of her vision.
Catching it in time with her left hand to discover that it was the Wo-Class's conducting cane used as an improvised weapon, she ducked just as the Wo-Class resorted to Plan B and fired her pod cannons, barely missing her cheek by a millimeter as it tickled her skin and threw up her hair.
Unleashing a bestial growl through clenched teeth, Haruna lifted her right hand and sliced down at the conducting cane, shattering it in two with her formidable battleship strength focused onto the blade that was her right hand just as the Wo-Class tried everything from hair-pulling to kicking at her legs in order to bring her down.
Dropping the remnants of the conducting cane into the ocean, she dealt a harsh left hook to the Wo-Class with her freed-up left hand and caused the Wo-Class to fly back and release Haruna's hair, Haruna having felt the resounding crack of something, likely the Abyssal's jaw, either fracturing or dislocating, neither of which was a pleasant experience.
She leapt forward in order to deliver a vicious flying knee to the downed-but-not-dead Wo-Class in the face, further driving the Wo-Class back as she slammed her kneecap into the nose of the injured Wo-Class with the speed and strength of a fast battleship, being rewarded with an ominous crack of a shattered nose as she was notified that her cannons were reloaded.
Angling her body downwards in order to allow her cannons to point at the downed Abyssal, she stared into the eyes of the Wo-Class, seeing that the stoic Abyssal was expressing the most amount of emotion she could muster in the face of death, taking in everything from the blood which seeped out of her nose due to her flying knee strike to the saliva dripping from her fractured jaw due to her left hook.
All of that was gone the instant she fired at the Wo-Class at point-blank range, knowing that such a devastating cannon salvo at such a close range would be akin to a magic trick, wherein the dissipating smoke would reveal the disappearance of the Abyssal in question.
Yep.
The Abyssal was devastated by eight large-caliber shells at point-blank range and was set aflame by the holes which were torn into her body as she was missing her shoulders, left hip and leg, her head and right breast.
Haruna could have watched the smoldering wreck sink back into the ocean depths, but she had already turned away in order to face the remaining Abyssals.
One Ri-Class and a Ho-Class light cruiser was left, and Jintsuu was dealing with the latter as she fired her handheld 14 Cm Single Gun Cannon into the Ho-Class's helmet, grazing and cracking the helmet in order to allow Naka to do the same.
The aspiring idol had more success in that regard, because the cracks caused by Jintsuu's shell allowed Naka's shell to pierce the armored helmet and caused the Abyssal's head to fall apart as her shell forced shards of the shattered helmet into its skull, guaranteeing death as blood, cerebrospinal fluid and brain matter was scattered everywhere like a popped water balloon unleashing its disemboweled contents everywhere.
Saratoga skidded on the ocean as she performed a sliding tackle in order to trip up the lone Ri-Class, allowing Chitose's Type 99 Dive Bomber to streak down and drop its payload on the prone Abyssal the instant Saratoga scrambled out of range, pulling up at the last second as its engine whirred from the exertion while a fireball enveloped the doomed Ri-Class.
Haruna could see the Japanese rising sun imprinted on the Type 99's silver hull and wings, barely noting the "EII-206" imprinted on its vertical stabilizer in a red font, and the "報國-52" on the aft of its hull with her eyes' powerful zoom function before it flew out of sight.
The Ri-Class barely survived the Type 99's bombardment as it emerged from the smoke, roasted flesh slipping off of steel bones as her eyes were dulled from the searing heat, fire consuming the glowing Abyssal from within as fuel reserves went up in flames and repair systems failed.
Second and third-degree burns plagued her body from head to toe, and her arms were nothing more than bloody stumps after Haruna assumed that her arm cannons blew up from the explosion igniting the gunpowder stored within them, causing one hell of an explosion which took off her arms and left them as bleeding stumps which blood and flaming fuel free-flowed out of.
And after three seconds of stumbling around blindly (likely literally), she exhaled her last breath of smoke before her eyes rolled up as she expired and collapsed onto the ocean, and Haruna sighed in relief after they had defeated all the Abyssals near Mikura Jima Island.
Looking at the sinking Abyssals around them, she heard Sendai remark on hard-earned victory at the expense of losing the element of surprise and stealth.
"Well, looks like we've made a mess of ourselves here. If they didn't know we were here before, they certainly do now. I suppose we should start sailing away from here and start re-routing our course from here on out, hmm?"
Haruna nodded as she patted her combat ration vest down, understanding that she had to keep these rations safe in order to feed her teammates, and they still had a long way to go before allowing the Infiltration Fleet to land on Aogashima Island without the Abyssals hounding them.
After that, she had to fend off Abyssal attacks until reinforcements arrived, whereupon they would turn the tables on the Abyssals by regrouping with the Infiltration Fleet when they were done and make a break for Yokosuka before tomorrow night.
No pressure.