Shiranui had discarded her boat slippers and rigging at the harbor on Aogashima Island before stepping onto land, and Kuroshio had helped Shigure do the same with the remaining boat slipper which was on her left leg.
Shiranui was currently carrying Shigure on her back after Kuroshio had checked her wound at the harbor and had soaked it with Haruna's small pot of water which she transferred from her rigging to Kuroshio's, and Shigure was quite the trooper as the water trickled down her back and must've been excruciating as it rolled over raw and swollen flesh, but as a soldier, Shigure didn't cry out in agony or do anything of the sort, internalizing all of the pain and remaining silent.
The extra cans of fuel had come in handy as it allowed Shigure to burn a little more fuel to keep herself warm and overcome the symptoms of shock, and even though Shiranui had offered to lend her vest to Shigure in order to cover herself up, Shigure politely declined as she now had enough makeshift bandages covering her torso to not require Shiranui's vest, allowing her to focus on the island's geography.
Aogashima Island was quite the interesting land formation as it looked as if a mountain or volcano had collapsed in on itself and formed a caldera, so the fringes of the island possessed sharp cliffs and tall ridges while an outcropping of land on the far end of the island was where an abandoned village was located, and that was where they were headed.
Admiral Haru surmised that whatever weapons they must've transported onto the island for testing, they wouldn't have wasted time in trying to move it into the caldera, since the ridges were too steep for large and bulky weapons to be transported up and down without the risk of incurring some damage, and testing would likely be done at the village, which was built on more even ground.
The satellite photos corroborated this hypothesis this as the Abyssal signatures had suddenly popped up from the ocean before being flown over to the village, and while the intensity of these signatures indicated that something huge was being moved, never once did any of these signatures move up the ridge into the caldera, since they would risk dropping it and damage parts of the weapon in the process.
The road circumventing the caldera had a sharp cliff dropping down into the ocean on one side, while the other side of the road was filled with plants and weeds which were left unattended and attempted to reach out lazily towards the cliff-side.
A rusting guardrail shielded road users from the cliff side in a line abreast formation, having been exposed to the elements for roughly two decades and was diminishing in effectiveness due to rust.
Along the way, Shiranui talked to Shigure and shared the Abyysal readings which they picked up and what they were to expect.
"From what we were able to gather from recent Abyssal activity on the island, the Abyssals have been most active in the village on the other end of this island, and we've even detected use of 'fireworks', probably field-testing their weapons on abandoned human settlements. That's the thing about Admiral Haru's briefing, she needs to keep it vague in order to keep the 1st Fleet in the dark about Apocalypse, and what she failed to mention was that there was a lot of movement around Aogashima Island. Something flew onto the island and unloaded something large, which ran around the abandoned village and caused explosions with its weapons, before packing up and flying back into the ocean in order to submerge back into the depths."
Shigure lifted a tired eyebrow as she acknowledged Shiranui's secret briefing, and Shiranui continued as she had to keep Shigure occupied and not let her slip into unconsciousness, which would open up a whole new can of worms.
"This road leads to the village and circumvents the caldera which makes up the majority of the island. And according to my limited knowledge of geography, I believe a caldera is a volcano which collapsed in on itself, which explains these ridges and sharp cliffs surrounding the bowl which made up the collapsed volcano with a small hill in the middle. Going by the estimated size of what the satellites picked up despite the Abyssals doing their best to cover up their activities, these new weapons are roughly the size of Abyssal Beasts and are certainly larger than any humanoid Abyssal we know of thus far."
Shigure seemed to consider her words for a while as Shiranui focused on putting one foot before the other in order to double time it to the village where they would find some answers while their teammates held off the Abyssals, and the Shiratsuyu-Class destroyer exhaled tiredly and only deigned to ask one question.
"I don't know, I'm too tired to think when I just had my entire back scorched by the flames of Hell before this. I just have one question, and it's that whatever this new weapon is, why couldn't they have just plopped it on the harbor and moved it up the road which we're walking on right now?"
Shiranui considered the question, looking around at the road which they were walking on in order to reach the village at the other end of the island, noting that the road was now a single-lane road, a path which would cause a large vehicle to leave a mark of some sort on the environment, perhaps crumpling the guardrail due to difficulties in cornering or chipping off parts of the rock walls with its armor.
But no matter how far she walked, she found little evidence to suggest that this was the case, which meant that they couldn't transport the testing vehicle or weapon on these roads, because it would be too large to fit and would likely fall off the side of the road when rounding any sharp corners.
She shrugged while making sure not to accidentally smack Shigure on the chin with her shoulder as she answered bluntly.
"These roads aren't ideal for large vehicles to traverse, what with the risk of dropping it over the cliff since the guardrail would provide as much protection as a wet tissue paper in trying to stop an armored vehicle from rolling off the side of this road."
Shigure responded, Shiranui noting that her response was getting a little haggard from fatigue due to her injuries as she hypothesized.
"Here's my next question. If it's so big to the point where it can't fit on these narrow roads, how can it fit on a flying vehicle which can somehow take off in the middle of the ocean?"
Shiranui nodded, understanding the risk of theory-crafting without having visited the scene beforehand as she remarked.
"I don't think we should theory-craft too heavily right now, lest we try to twist the evidence to suit the theory instead of changing the theory to suit the evidence. All we know is that they didn't use this road to transport the weapon, since it was too large and heavy to risk being damaged on such a treacherous road. We need to go into the village in order to find more evidence and make our assumptions from over there, not from here."
Shigure nodded tiredly, collapsing onto Shiranui's left shoulder as the pink-haired Kagerou-Class destroyer focused on the end of the road which stretched out before her, the backs of Kagerou and Arare leading her on while the occasional twinkle of white on the pitch-black horizon reminded her that time was short.