Kantai Collection ~ The Pacific Redemption

Kantai Collection fanfiction by FinnOtaku

I don't own the game that is being used as the base of this work of fiction. Kantai Collection is owned by Kadokawa Games and DMM.

Chapter 1: BB-61, sally go!

Fog Tunnels.

An ocean phenomena that was widely reported by cargo ships and fishing boats all over the world since their sudden emergence late 2000's. While the time and place had varied quite considerably since they were first sighted, certain recurring things eventually became established as years went by:

The fog would be preceded by a sound like a muffled thunder, after which the fog would begin to emit through the waves like vapor from a kettle. The vaporing diameter would increase little by little, until it has reached a large enough magnitude to cover a fishing boat or even a yacht, given the chance. The pillar of fog would remain there for about five to ten minutes, until it would gradually begin to shrink and disappear altogether. And while these pillars were rather easy to spot and avoid, some smaller ships had taken it upon themselves to delve into this mysterious fog and see what it holds within. So far there had been 6 known cases of a ship attempting this endeavor.

All of which concluded with a mysterious disappearance and fruitless search efforts by the locals, which quickly killed any further interest regarding direct contact with this bizarre phenomena.

However, aside from these disappearance cases, no one particularly cared much about these strange pillars of fog, which might've been due to the one last trait that all occurrences of Fog Tunnels shared. Despite numerous reports, this phenomena had only manifested on the open sea, far away from any kind of landmass both continents and islands alike. Aside from one, glaring exception.

Three months ago, a Fog Tunnel appeared in the San Francisco Bay in a middle of the day, marking the first sight of the phenomena near human civilization. Among the confusion, a group of local fishermen approached the sight out of curiosity and shot a fishing net through the fog. According to some reports though, despite flying for what seemed like a very long distance, the net didn't fly out from the other side of the fog. It was from this claim that this phenomena eventually received its peculiar name; a foggy tunnel to the unknown.

As the rope attached to the net finally stopped unfolding itself from the winch, the fishermen slowly began to reel it back in. But as the winch was slowly pulling the net back, the rope suddenly tightened as it zipped out of the water, now hanging steadily above the water's surface. The net had caught something.

Not expecting this sudden turn of events, the men seemed to be excited as they decided to help the winch to retrieve the rope faster by pulling it in with their hands. But as they were doing that, the fog began to tense and the rope suddenly began to be dragged in towards the fog. The men hadn't expected any of this either, but instead of cutting the rope, their curiosity and pride prompted them to try and speed away with the net intact. It didn't work.

Luckily other nearby fishermen soon joined the effort with their own vessels as they gathered around to tow the struggling boat away from the fog along with its mysterious haul. In the end, the net was torn out from the fog and the pillar slowly began to disperse, eventually fading out from sight.

Once the boats had reached the shore, the net and its contents were finally towed in and pulled on the dry land. But as the men were about to inspect their haul, the local police arrived and soon took the fishermen and their catch into custody. While the fishermen were eventually released, what they had found had been passed forward to an unknown party and the details of this incident were shrouded in mystery. For a while.

A few weeks later, a local news station managed to release an interview with some of the fishermen, where they discussed about and - most surprisingly - showed a video clip of what they had found that day during the incident. Even though the interview was taken down in a matter of minutes, reposts of the clip soon began to emerge all over the Internet. However, the story and the video alone wasn't enough to catch worldwide attention at the time.

The video clip showed what had happened after the Fog Tunnel had already disappeared. After getting back to the shore, the men had managed to get the net on land and attempted to untangle what they had captured. But rather underwhelmingly, they had only caught what looked like a small, empty landing craft, a one that a single grown-up man could've just barely fit to sit on with his legs spread out. As dedicated threads spread across the internet, some users quickly took note of the striking resemblance to an old type of landing craft used by the Japanese. But sadly, this remark was not enough to make up for the underwhelming depiction of the haul. The rest of the video was just about the men struggling to untangle the net around the little boat for about half a minute, until the police sirens began to emanate from the background, prompting the cameraman to stop recording.

As the reposts of the news story began to be left undisturbed, many began to believe that all the earlier takedowns were just overreactions, and the whole clip was about to fall into obscurity for the lack of saving graces. That is, until a certain comment was made on an imageboard about the withering subject:

"So, I've been meaning to ask, what's the deal with the little guys on that boat thing?"

At first, people didn't think much about the message, assuming that it was just a weird attempt to make a joke on the internet. But eventually more and more people began to come forward, claiming that what they saw in the clip was a small boat full of bobbleheaded humanoids. And as the copies of the interview began to be taken down again along with the threads talking about these new paranormal remarks, people started to take these claims seriously. People eventually began to analyze the video again with some even making 3D models of the so-called little guys as they had been described. And by the time a month had passed since the whole episode in San Francisco, the matter had been covered by mainstream news to the point that the original news station was able to republish its original interview without any problems.

But even with all the discussion, the amount of questions was still outweighing the answers surrounding this mystery:

What were those little guys? Where did they come from? Where are they now?

What are the Fog Tunnels? What was dragging the boat's rope that day?

It were to take two more months, before any of these questions were to have an answer.

-Beep-Beep-

"Hey, you really think this is going to work?"

"Well, to be honest, I do have some doubts about this."

"Yeah, I know, right? This whole thing just sounds so absurd and I don't think we're the only ones with that notion."

"Hmph, true... If those claims had actually been taken seriously, they would've definitely done more than just give us a permission to search this ship with… This thing."

-Beep-Beep-

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking! I mean, if this works, there's no way even the FBI could cover up what would come next. The whole city… No, the whole world would demand to know about the-!"

"Although, I kinda hope that this wouldn't work."

"Hm? How come?"

"Well, you heard those little guys, right? If this actually works, then that means everything they've told us about could be as equally true."

"Oooh, yeah. That..."

-Beep-Beep-

"But... Even if this doesn't work, we would still need to look into that bunch."

"Yeah, that has been quite a mystery to be honest. I mean, just what on earth could they be? One would think they're aliens or something, but... What kind of an alien would pop out from the sea like that?"

"I've always thought of them as fairies, to be honest."

"Heh, at least that's what they've all been keen to assert lately... Hang on, come to think of it, why is that? Weren't they as confused as us when we first met them?"

"...Oh. Now that you mentioned it, I think I might be responsible for that."

"Huh?"

"You see, it just looked so sad when they had such an identity crisis back then, so I just blurted out my impression of them when I happened to pass them one day."

"...I have several questions about your childhood-related literature."

-Beep-Beep-

"And speaking of questions, should you be pressing something on this thing?"

"H-Hey, hey, watch it! Careful there... And no, I'm pretty sure they just said to point this everywhere until it starts to-"

-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-

"...Do this?"

"Yes... Oh god."

The two strangers had walked their way up to the deck, pointing their tablet-like device towards the bow of the ship. Oddly enough though, while the device did seem to react to something, the only ones present on the deck were just the two of them.

"Well, umm... Assuming that beeping implies what those little guys claimed, I guess this would be one place to be if you want to have some peace of mind or-"

"Just hold this for me, okay..."

The man passed the device over to his sister, and began to walk towards the empty bow, digging his pockets as he went along. As he reached the bow, he took out a hand-sized green capsule, which began to glow with a faint tint.

After walking around the bow, keeping an eye on the capsule as he did, he eventually stopped by the spot where it seemed to glow the brightest. He then moved the capsule a bit more around him, eventually raising his hand and swinging it down in front of him.

But instead of hitting it on his thigh the capsule suddenly got stuck in midair, beginning to glow even brighter. The man instinctively let go of the thing, but instead of falling down the capsule began to sway back and forth in the air.

After a while, the light began to spread beyond the capsule on the air around it, slowly revealing faint outlines of a human figure. However, it seemed to be wriggling in pain, attempting to remove the strange capsule from what now appeared to be the figure's left shoulder. And as the light kept spreading, the figure gradually began to emit voice, though at that point, it only served to establish the amount of its pain even further.

Feeling quite guilty, but mostly startled, the two strangers could only watch as the blurry outlines slowly began to sharpen with the figure slowly gaining color and even emanating a shadow on the deck.

And after a wild trip on the guilt train, the glowing stopped...

She was there.

The Port of Los Angeles, two weeks ago. The museum ship Iowa vanished without a trace.

Despite their attempts, the officials couldn't explain the disappearance by claiming that the ship had to be moved for emergency reparations as the claims were completely dismissed by the public with countless video clips taken from the day of the disappearance.

All of the clips showed the same thing: The ship begins to emit a mysterious glow, getting brighter and brighter, until the ship suddenly begins to fade away like dust in the wind. Many news outlets noted that some of the clips emerged on the social media in a matter of minutes from the complete evaporation, far earlier before the local police had managed to put forward any kind of statements about the incident. But despite all this, the officials refused to come forward to corroborate their story, nor were they willing to comment on the incident any further.

And as things were heating up in the US over this debacle, a small ship, little bigger than a yacht, was slowly approaching the Marshall Islands and its infamous nuclear test site of Operation Crossroads.

After the Second World War, ships from both sides began to lose their purpose and some of them eventually faded away from the face of the earth one way or another. And on a certain atoll, some of these ships left the world in the name of science by the hands of two nuclear bombs.

Some of the partaking vessels were sunk by the blasts, some of them managed to hold on for a little longer, but in the end, every one of them vanished from sight of the deep blue ocean waves.

Although, one ship in particular never truly left the sight and had remained like that to this day.

Towed away from the initial bombing site, a German cruiser Prinz Eugen eventually toppled over in shallow waters, ending up with her stern just merely peeking out above the waves by the small island of Enubuj. That's how she was left back then and that's how she was on the day when a small ship, little bigger than a yacht, was slowly approaching her.

"Hey, you really think this is going to work?"

"Well, to be honest, I do have some doubts about this."

"Yeah, I know, right? I understand when we did this in Los Angeles on a floating, somewhat functional ship, but a sunken one like that... I just wouldn't bet on it."

"Why not? The little guys have been right so far, so I'm a bit more confident about this. And isn't it a pretty safe assumption that a ship's 'soul' would remain lingering around the wreckage after it has sank?"

"Uuh, I guess... But what about the ships that were scrapped afterwards and such?"

"You know, I actually asked them once out of curiosity. And oddly enough none of them seemed to have an answer."

"W-Wait, really? There are actually things that the little guys don't know about?"

"Well, it's not like they're walking dictionaries, you know? They're just... Little guys."

"Huh, go figure... Hey, so, what do you think about her?"

"Her? Well, I think that looks uncomfortable, being sunk and face down in the-"

"Wait, no, not her! I mean... You know..."

"Hm...? Oh, Iowa? What about her?"

"Well, you know, I just... We've been riding this boat with her for two weeks and I just can't see her as some battle hardened naval veteran."

"...I think I see where you're coming from, but can you honestly blame her for being like that? She did seem quite stressed about all the responsibility that was pushed onto her right off the bat, so I'd say it's just good for her to get her mind of these kind of things and get accustomed to her new body while she has the chance."

"Yeah, but... Can she actually put up a fight with a laid-back attitude like that? Do we really have to rely on her if things actually get bad?"

"I'm just little out of touch, jeez."

"Eeek!" The girl suddenly flinched as an oddly clothed blondie had sneaked up on the two.

"Besides, you know I haven't even had a chance to put up a fight yet, Able..." Iowa pouted as she was savoring a small bag of chips.

"B-But, you've been just lazing around this whole trip! How can you expect anyone to take you seriously like this?" the girl called Able moaned, still taken aback that she hadn't heard the battleship sneaking up on them.

"Wha-?! N-No, that's not true, Baker here has taught me a lot about history and stuff after all!" Iowa blurted, pointing towards the man, seemingly putting a lot of confidence behind her claim.

"Hm, really?" the man called Baker noted. "I'd say your personal research on chips and Netflix have been way more successful than what we've done."

The blondie's confidence seemed to take a bit of a blow.

"Ah. Well, I think it's also important for someone like me to learn about the more recent innovations of this generation like Netflix, and such..."

"And the chips?"

"I've just tried to expand my knowledge about the modern delicacies."

A modern delicacy? Able thought to herself, reminiscing the times she ate them when she was even younger.

"Ahem, anyhow! The point is that I haven't been just lazing around, you hear?!" Iowa concluded with her face slightly red with embarrassment,

And it was then that Baker noticed a file in the blondie's hand.

"Hm, what's that?"

While still a bit flustered, Iowa turned her attention to the file. And after a while, she remembered what she was about to tell the two when she was walking up to them.

"Ah, yes! Look, look at this!" Iowa said, as she passed the file to Baker. "It took them awhile, but the little guys finally made it work!"

"Made it work...?" Able mumbled as she glanced over the opened file with Baker. After glancing through the first couple of pages, they finally realized what it was about. "Oh, you mean they finally made that rigging thing work?"

"Yes, now I can finally take my guns with me to these wide open seas. And then, just maybe, I might even be able to..." Iowa smirked as she turned her gaze on Able. "Put up a fight."

Able was about to say something back, but she didn't seem to be able to come up with anything as clever in return, eventually ending up lowering her hand and closing her mouth in embarrassment.

"...Ah, is that her?!" Iowa suddenly exclaimed, running up to the railing when she noticed the stern sticking out from the sea. "Is that the Big Seven Nagato?!"

"Hm? Oh, no, that's not her. That's, uuuh..." Baker took out a notebook and quickly scrolled it through to check out the name he had written down. "Ah, Prints Oigen, a German cruiser. We're about to check whether or not we can 'bring her to life' like we did with you back in LA."

"Oh, yeah, you mentioned something along those lines earlier... I forgot..." Iowa slumped on the deck while hanging her hands overboard.

"Ah. B-But no worries, once we're done here, we'll go straight to the Bikini Atoll. And if this works, it means we may be able to meet Nagato as well", Baker reassured, somewhat relieving the battleship's poutiness.

"Hmm, okay then... So, what's your plan? Are you just gonna go there and stick that... Thing in her like you did with me?"

Seeing the look on Iowa's face, Baker wondered how he should phrase his answer, but he eventually decided to just be honest with her.

"Well, basically yes", Baker said as he pulled out another capsule from his pocket, making Iowa flinch a bit out of discomfort. "But first we need to prepare our equipment so we can find out where Prints Oigen is."

It was from the perplexed and slightly amused looks of the two girls that made Baker take note of his choice of words.

"...Soul. Where Prints Oigen's soul is. We don't know whether it's above the water or below the water, so we need to prepare a miniature submarine if we want to make a proper search around that ship and all."

Strangely, one of the looks hadn't changed even after the clarification.

"W-What?" Baker asked Iowa.

"Uuhm, why do you make it sound so complicated? Why not just go up to her and be done with it?"

"...But, I just said that we don't know where she... Sorry, her soul is. I think we can save much more time w-"

"Wait, you mean that's not her then? And isn't that kind of dangerous?" Iowa asked as she pointed towards the wreckage.

But even though she seemed to point at something in particular, the two were unable to spot what she was talking about, even after moving next to her pointing hand and looking along it towards the wreckage.

"Who are you talking about?" Able asked, now all of the three sharing a perplexed look on their faces. The battleship however, managed to take her expression one step further.

"What do you mean who am I-?! There, that girl, on the propeller! The one who's spacing out!"

...Finally realizing what she meant, the two felt rather confounded for not considering the possibility of someone like her seeing another one like her.

"Or, to save time and money, we could just do this", Baker said as he took Iowa's right hand, brought it closer to him and placed the strange capsule on her hand.

But as Iowa realized what she was holding, she let out a sharp squeal and accidentally sent the capsule flying up in the air. Luckily, Able managed to react fast enough to catch the capsule before it flew overboard.

"Baker, are you serious?! Do you really think she even wants to touch this thing?" Able exclaimed, as she pushed herself off the railing with the capsule in her hand.

"What? I think she wants to get to the Bikini Atoll as soon as possible, so this would be the fastest way to do it. Besides, the little guys already told her that even if she'd try, these capsules wouldn't work on her anymore. These won't react to those who have been already... 'brought back', so to speak."

"...W-Wait, really?" Iowa asked, with a confounded expression of a one who was about to concur with Able.

In turn, Baker looked at her with a confounded expression of a one who was physically present when the fairies briefed the battleship about the subject.

"Oh, now that you mention it, they did say something like that awhile back. I... kinda forgot about it when it made me remember that LA thing. Which I then tried to forget again", Iowa attempted to brush off the mishap by letting out a series of lighthearted laughs.

Brief awkwardness ensued.

"...Wait, so, then we could just have you go over there and be done with this, since you don't have anything to fear, right?" Able pointed out.

While Iowa first attempted to come up with something for her defense, the more she thought about it, the more she began to realize that she really did have nothing to worry about. Even though the progression of this realization was reflected on her face, Baker decided to speed things up a bit more.

"The sooner we're done here, the sooner we can move out."

The discomfort was now completely overthrown by the excitement as Iowa traded her bag of chips with Able in exchange of the capsule and jumped overboard. But instead of sinking beneath the waves like one usually would, her fall was halted on the water's surface like it was ground, yet making quite a grand splash. And once she had regained her posture, Iowa began her dash towards the wreckage, sliding similarly how one would skate on ice.

"BB-61, heading out!"

"...Huh. That was easy", Able said, checking the bag of chips and scooped some of its contents in her hand. "...Oh yeah, that fuzzing about Nagato reminded me, the little guys told me that we're going to start this whole resurrection thing with her once we reach the Bikini Atoll. Why is that, shouldn't we start with the US ships?"

"Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this earlier. While the potato chips and video streaming were the first things she found interesting, she quickly took interest in the WWII weaponry when I was going on about them during one of my... Lectures, I guess...?"

The disbelief was strong on Able's face as she stared her brother.

"...Okay, we've mostly just scrolled through some wiki articles. But anyway, at some point in our searches we ended up researching about this group of ships called Big Seven and their 'off-limits' weaponry, and then it turned out that we'll eventually meet one of them once we reach the Atoll."

"That being Nagato, I presume."

"Yes. And then she went and personally requested that Nagato would be one of the souls to be brought back during our first patch on the Atoll. You might've already heard this, but the little guys just barely managed to stick to the deadline with their capsule production for this day."

"Oh yeah, I heard they finished up with the last one just yesterday. Five in total, wasn't it?"

"Six, actually."

"Huh, so about three per week then... Wait, hang on, did she just request that just so she could try out her guns or something?!"

"W-Well, she did try to reason her request by explaining that we shouldn't make the few Japanese ships on the Atoll feel threatened by having a fleet of US ships greet them after so long. Though if you ask me..."

"She really just wants to test the guns."

"Yeah, it's really not that hard to figure out... Although, if I were Nagato, I'd probably appreciate such a sentiment, so I don't think it's just Iowa being selfish."

Suddenly, a walkie-talkie began to let out some noise on Baker's belt. As he picked it up, he looked up to the wreckage and saw Iowa waving at him with one hand, while holding her ear with the other. Baker recognized the latter gesture and answered to his radio accordingly.

"Yes, Iowa?"

"Well, I was just wondering, can you give me another one of those things? I... kinda missed with that other one."

It was then when he realized that she was still standing next to the wreckage, not on it or anywhere near the propeller she fuzzed so much about earlier.

"Uuh, missed? What do you mean missed?"

"It wasn't my fault, really. My aim was perfect, but the thing just slipped right through her."

"Wait, you threw the capsule?! You're supposed hold it and press the button on top of it to use it!"

"Oooh, so that's what that bump was for."

Despite the reasonably long distance, Iowa seemed to spot the look on Baker's face.

"Ah, I-I mean... Sorry, my bad..."

Baker let out a long sigh, before he continued.

"Just stay there for now, we'll come and bring you another one."

"Ooh, on that little submarine?"

"No, on a little water scooter. It takes way less fuel and that sub is like a size of a toaster."

This made Baker remember something as he cast the radio aside.

"Oh yeah, someone needs to go and tell the little guys that we don't need that sub yet. And that we have to change our plans for the first patch."

"Huh", Able sounded, "why not just go pick up the one she just-?"

"Threw away? If her physical tests are of any indication, that's gotta be miles away by now and we're still going to be stuck on that atoll for weeks either way."

After he had taken out another capsule from his backpack and the water scooter keys from his pocket, he turned his attention to his sister.

"So, Able, which job do you wanna-?"

"Scooter!" Able grabbed the capsule and keys from his brother's hand and ran towards a nearby set of ladders with quite an enthusiasm.

"...Got it", Baker muttered as he turned and took out his walkie-talkie again. "Standby Iowa, Able will bring you another one. And please, climb aboard and use it properly this time."

"I don't think climbing will be necessary now."

Little confused by the statement, Baker took another glance at Iowa and noticed that she was facing towards the wreckage again. However, she was not looking towards the propeller, but much, much lower in front of her.

"I think my throw had captured her attention."

"...I see. Well, you know what to do", Baker said, putting the walkie-talkie back on his belt and began to make his way inside the yacht.

People come. People dive. People leave. That's how it had played out for years.

At first, Prinz Eugen had tried to approach them, talk to them, touch them, but alas her efforts had been for naught every single time. And eventually, she just stopped trying and merely began to follow people around with the slight glimmer of hope that someone would eventually notice her. But in the end, even this smallest glimmer faded away and what remained was the hope that something would come and end her solitude in this mute, empty realm...

So it's no wonder that she realized that something was very, very different this time.

"(What is this person doing?)", Prinz Eugen thought to herself in confusion as she stood in front of the blurry figure, trying to comprehend what she was seeing. The figure waved its hands and moved its mouth as if it was talking to someone. But despite looking around her multiple times, Eugen couldn't find any other figures around for this scene to make any sense to her.

"...Does she see me?" Eugen suddenly muttered to herself. A mutter she had made without thinking as she quickly reacted to it with a bit of a shock. "(W-Wait, no no no no! Don't get your hopes up Eugen, this has to be a coincidence! There's no way that someone would come up to me like this and just...)"

But as she tried to deny the implications of the situation, Eugen failed to notice that the figure seemed to have noticed her slip of tongue. And as the German cruiser glanced at the figure again, she finally realized that it had brought its face right up to hers, forming the following words with its lips:

Yes, I can see you just fine.

And it was then that Eugen felt something from the deep reaches of her soul, quickly making its way towards the surface. While Eugen unconsciously tried to push it down, her long forgotten glimmer of hope eventually reached the surface, though the German cruiser's mind was occupied with other matters for her to properly address that fact.

"W-Wait, what? How can she...? W-What?" Eugen muttered in confusion, having trouble to think straight after decades of being ignored.

It was then when she glanced back towards the figure and realized that another one was closing in on them. And this was also when she finally realized something else about this strange figure that she had been standing in front of her: It wasn't swimming on water, it wasn't on a boat on water, it was standing on water. Just like her.

While she still tried to comprehend all of this, the two figures were conversing with each other. And eventually, the one who was sitting on some kind of a vessel handed the standing one something. Eugen noticed that the shape was quite similar to the thing that had caught her attention earlier, but wasn't quite certain what these things were supposed to be.

The standing figure closed on her again with the strange thing in its hand. The figure raised the hand and as the figure's face was close to hers again, Eugen could make out what the figure was saying by reading its lips.

"I'm... Sorry?"

The hand swung down, but instead of it going through her like many hands before, she suddenly felt a sharp pain on her left shoulder, one that your average human might've described as something drilling through it.

Even though this was something she had never felt before, Prinz Eugen began to scream in pain and began to desperately reach for the source of this sudden agonizing sensation, but she couldn't touch the blurry thing that was now seemingly stuck on her shoulder. In her frenzy she eventually noticed the light that was emanating from this sharp pain and that the light was rapidly spreading across the rest of her body along with the pain.

As the pain grew stronger, she suddenly began to hear something else beyond her own screams.

"-his c-N't b- riG-t! -blE, w- ha-e tO st-p thi-!"

"no, th-s is Just li-e you wH-n we d-d thIs in lA! We j-St have to bar- with thIs for n-W!"

As the sounds kept getting louder each time they bounded back up, Eugen began to hold her ears to muffle out these sounds. With little to no success.

The pain had eventually consumed her entire body and not knowing what do, Eugen's body began spasm violently, trying to instinctively find the pose with least amount of pain. However, despite the efforts, the pain kept growing stronger and stronger and the sounds kept getting louder and louder. But just as Eugen thought she couldn't take it any longer...

It stopped.

She was there.

Iowa and Able watched in slight guilt as the twintail haired girl toppled over, ending up kneeling on the surface of the water while gasping heavily. The capsule that was stuck on her shoulder fell off, but instead of sinking it remained floating on the surface of the water.

Even though the sight of kneeling on water was a bit odd through Able's eyes, Iowa didn't seem to think as much about it as she eventually dared to approach the girl. She knelt down and grabbed the girl's shoulder.

"Hey, you okay there?"

The gasping stopped and the girl suddenly raised her head with an expression of fear and confusion. The girl quickly stood up and tried to dash away backwards from the blondie, but the sudden movement just ended up with her tripping over and hitting her head on the wreckage.

"Owgh!" the girl wailed, ending up kneeling on the water's surface again while holding the back of her head.

"...Yeaaah, that is kinda how things went with you as well, wasn't it?" Able noted while leaning on the scooter.

"W-Well, I don't think it was that bad", Iowa replied. "I was just a bit startled since I had never felt something touch me before."

"And you fell backwards and hit your head on a railing."

Iowa was about to say something, but couldn't think of a way to counter this notion.

"...Okay, maybe it was a little bit like that."

A sound of a splash distracted the two from each other, when the German cruiser was about to get back up. But as they were about to approach her, the girl stopped and turned her attention back on them and began to stare at them with a fierce gaze.

"Hey, hey, no need to look so leery there", Iowa tried to calm the girl down. "Come on, the pain is gone, right?"

The girl didn't seem to think much about it at first, but as she kept staring at the two, she slowly began to notice that the claim was oddly ringing true. She first moved around her fingers, then her hand and she eventually stood back up and began to move around her body to find any pose that would've made her feel that excruciating pain again. She couldn't find any.

"W-Wha-? But... Where did it go?" the girl eventually muttered, not knowing whether she should be afraid or overjoyed about this. As she was seemingly calming down a little, Iowa attempted to approach her again, but the twintail haired girl turned her attention back to the two, backing up a bit slower this time.

"W-What did you do to me?! Who are you people?! Why can you see me?!"

But as the two were thinking of things to say to make her calm down, they realized a bit of a problem with this situation. She was a German, they were Americans. Telling that much to a girl that might still have the mentality from the war could make it harder for them to convince her to tag along.

"Hey, how should we explain this to her?" Iowa whispered to Able.

"W-Well, we should try and gain her trust somehow", Able whispered back. "Let's try chatting with her or something, okay?"

With a loose consensus, Iowa turned her attention back to the twintailed girl, making the girl tense again.

Let's see, she was a, uuh... a nut-see ship or something, Iowa thought to herself. How was it that they greeted each other again back then...?

"Ahem... Prints Oigen! Sick hale!"

"...Huh?" Eugen replied, augmenting her distressed look with a taint of confusion.

Able quickly accelerated and rammed the scooter on Iowa's legs.

"Ow! What was that for?!"

"We can't say that! We can't let her think that we're here in the behalf of the Nazi Germany either!" Able whispered.

"Then what can we say to her?"

"Let's just start with a normal introduction and build up from there. Here, let me show you."

Able moved a bit forward with her scooter, but not enough that the German cruiser would've been able to kick it away. Which she was seemingly preparing to do.

"Ahem. Nice to meet you, my name is Able Marsh. I'm a scientist of sorts."

But before she could continue, the girl's already distressed look was augmented even further with a slight sprinkle of discomfort. At first, Able wasn't sure what triggered this kind of a reaction, until...

"(Oh. Oh god)", Able thought to herself, burying her face in her hands. She's not sure why she hadn't realized it until now, but this might've been even worse thing to say to this girl than the Nazi salute.

"...Hm? Come to think of it", Iowa suddenly said with a tone of voice that implied she had just realized the same thing, "didn't one of the bombs that was used on that atoll have the same name as y-"

"Yes. Yes it did. I... kinda just realized it too."

With both attempts to make good impressions of themselves failed, they were struggling to come up with a comeback before the girl would just try to make a run for it. But lucky for them, it was the German cruiser herself that decided to break this awkward ice.

"Hey... I'm not sure what's going on here, but... Do I have to go back there?"

Taken slightly aback by this odd question, Able was unable to utter but one thing.

"W-What do you mean?"

"Well, I'm getting all these weird ideas of what might happen next, but I really want to know if any of them ends up back to that place. M-My hopes are building up really high right now, and I don't know if I can handle it if I end up back there like this", Eugen tried to keep herself as composed as possible, but her intense uncertainty was gradually manifesting itself through her teary, dripping eyes. "Just... Just tell me, please..."

Unable to grasp what she was talking about, Able could only watch as the girl tried her best to suppress her flowing tears, falling back on her knees as she did.

Eventually, just when Able was about to wonder whether they need to force the girl to come along, Iowa began to approach her once again. But despite the girl tensing up and leering at her in return, the blondie wasn't stopping this time. She eventually was standing right in front of her and with nowhere to back up, the girl could only watch as the blondie knelt down and grabbed her shoulder again. Not knowing what was going to happen next, the girl was about to panic and punch her off, until...

"To tell you the truth, that's pretty much what I thought as well. When I had to go through all of this."

"...Huh?"

"What did they do to me? Why did they do it to me? Will I have to go back? Those were the kind of things I had to struggle with by myself for the first few days. Simply put, it was just pure agony."

"Huh? By yourself? B-But why?"

"Heh, 'why'? Look at me, do I look like someone who could just talk about their insecurities just like that...? Especially when you are supposed to represent one of the oldest, most experienced battleships in the United States."

...The declaration was clear, but for some reason Eugen couldn't find a reason to bring out any resentment towards someone who's supposedly from the enemy side.

"How did you deal with it?"

Thinking about the turn of events that eventually took all that agony off her shoulders, she took a brief glance towards Able and the scooter, and gave herself a small grin before turning her attention back to the twintailed girl.

"Well, I eventually got it out of my system with help from some really, really strange people."

Mesmerized by the battleship's change of behavior after two weeks of laziness, it took Able a while to take note of Iowa's choice of words.

"...Hey, wait a minute-!"

"So, I don't want you to go through the same torment I had to, so I'll say this right now: No, you aren't going back to there. And you haven't been brought here for nothing either. You... No, we both have been brought here for a reason. We still have a purpose to fulfill."

Even though saying that she won't go back to her solitude seemed to have pushed some weight off her shoulders, the last part seemed to push off the rest as she slumped straight on Iowa's chest.

"Huh? H-Hey, are you feeling alright? Is your head still hurting or-?"

"D-Do you... Do you mind if I... Stay like this for a while?" the muffled voice asked with a small taint of weep.

"...No. Not all", Iowa said as she wrapped her arms around the German girl.

A moment passed.

...

...

Another moment passed.

...

...

And by the third time Able's feeling of admiration had been reduced to the point that she was rational enough to think that they should really keep moving on with this ordeal. But before Able had the guts to actually interrupt the moment...

BUZZZZZZZZ!

"Able. Do you hear me, Able? How did it go?"

The radio broke through the silence and - out of surprise - the two shipgirls quickly let go of each other and stood back up with flustered looks on their faces.

"...Well, the first phase worked out just fine, we'll be coming on board after the second phase... And thanks."

With a slight smug grin on her face for being able to pass the blame, Able put away the walkie-talkie and approached the two shipgirls. The speech seemed to have improved the German girl's mood considerably as the signs of anxiety were completely washed away by a relieved, sparkling smile.

"Oh yeah, I don't think I properly introduced myself yet", Iowa suddenly realized, as she looked at the German wiping away the tear marks off her cheeks. "I'm the name ship of Iowa-class battleships from the US, Iowa. You must be Prints Oigen, right?"

"Yes... Hehe, so you did try to spell my name earlier", Eugen said as she finished with her wiping, put on a confident smile and raised her hand for a salute. "Prinz Eugen, the third cruiser of the Admiral-Hipper-Klasse from Kriegsmarine! Now, I may have no idea what's going on yet, but I'll try my best to... Hm?"

Eugen noticed the weird hand motions and the weird expression that the girl on the weird vessel was making while looking at her.

"Uuhm, w-what is it?"

"P-Put your hand down! That is not an okay thing to do these days!" Able half-whispered, receiving a perplexed look from Eugen.

"Oooh", Iowa said as she recognized the pose, "that's what I forgot to do when I tried to greet her earlier. You know, when they used to raise their hands like this and say Sick..."

"Weeeee'll need to go through a few things about that with you two later", Able interrupted, prompting both of the girls to lower their hands.

But as she had managed to make the twintailed girl to put her hand down, it reminded Able again why the girl had put it up in the first place.

"Oh, right, maybe we should clarify a few things before we move on. You probably took a note of it earlier, but Iowa here is an American ship, and I am American as well, but... T-Things are a bit different from when you were in Europe, you see, and the navy you were assigned to back then is... Well, kinda not there anymore... And, the sides that you and her were on then are not around anymore either, but..."

"No, I understand", Eugen said with a bit of a wistful smile. "I've had some... time to think about why I had to end up all the way out here like this", Eugen turned around and pointed at the wreckage, "and I had accepted the thought that... It wasn't for the best of reasons..."

After a moment of silence, Eugen put on a bit more determined look on her face.

"But, even if our countries used to be against each other, you people don't really seem like bad guys, so... I-If I'm worthy of your trust, I'll try my best to help you in any way I can... Whatever it is."

"Hm, that's the spirit", Iowa gave an approving grin and she lifted her hand and held it in front of the German girl. "Now, even I don't really know what's going to lie ahead of us, but I'll be counting on you to see it through, Prints Oigen."

"Ah, yes..." Eugen said meekly as she reached out to Iowa's hand. But as she eventually grasped it, she finally began to realize what this moment implied:

Her time is not up...

These are the people she will be working with, who will be counting on her.

She still has a purpose to fulfill!

"Yes! I look forward to it, Fräulein Iowa!"

"Fr-Frow-line?" Iowa sounded as the enthusiastic handshaking had caught her a bit off-guard. But as the shaking was still going, the wreckage suddenly began to emit a light glow.

"Well well, I think it's time for the phase two", Able noted, Iowa nodding in with an agreeing look.

A bit confused, Eugen turned around to see what had caught the other two's attention.

And now she was even more confused.

"Wha-? What's happening? What's happening to me?!" Eugen yelled as the wreckage was rapidly getting brighter and brighter, to the point you could barely make out any shapes.

"You've lived on it. You've fought on it... You've endured here on it", Iowa said, making Eugen turn her attention back to the blondie. "It's simply something you can't just leave behind, isn't it? But how can you take something this big with you? ...Heh, you can't. Not in this size anyway."

Suddenly, the glow from the wreckage began to fade away, but so did the wreckage itself. At first, quite understandably, Eugen could only gasp as part of her seemed to be fading away like dust in the wind. But before she had a chance to react properly, she began to notice that these dust particles began to circle around her, with the circle of dust getting brighter and brighter as the wreckage kept disappearing in front of her.

But as the wreckage had vanished to the point that it was gone from above the waves, the three girls began to notice that the water was beginning to flow towards the spot where ship was disappearing in order to fill the empty space that used to be the wreckage.

"Uuuhm... Maaaybe we should back up a bit", Able said, turning the scooter around.

"Yeah, that might be for the best", Iowa agreed. But as she glanced over the water's flow, she noticed the used capsule still floating next to them. She swiftly scoped it up and was about to turn and dash away, when-

"Ah, wait!" Eugen suddenly exclaimed. "I-I don't know how to move on water, I've never done this before."

"Wait, are you seriou-?" Iowa was about to ask, but as the current was getting a bit stronger, she just decided to show how. "Okay, uuh, first imagine that you're on ice skates. You push your right leg like this, and then-"

"Uum, what are ice skates?"

"Oh, right, you wouldn't- Uuh, let's see, they-"

But as the current was getting even stronger, Iowa decided to postpone her lecture.

"Thiiis is actually getting pretty dangerous so I'll just show you later!"

"Uwah!" Eugen sounded as the battleship grabbed her hand and the two dashed away from the wreckage. Or what was left of it.

As the three of them had dashed for a safe distance, the glow from the wreck was beginning to fade away. But at the same time the circle around Eugen was now glowing as bright as the ship when the whole spectacle started.

And suddenly as the ship had disappeared altogether, the light around the German girl grew even stronger, to the point that it blinded all three of the girls.

"AAH!"

But as the light faded and their eyes began to gradually function again, a sound of clanking began to emanate from the twintailed girl.

"And with this..." Iowa started. "The tale of Prints Oigen... Will start ane-W-Wait, what?"

The light had faded. The vision was clear. But the image before them was nothing like any of the three had imagined. The rigging was full of rust, covered in seaweed, some turrets were missing and the hole that made her topple over stood out clear as day.

"Uuuuhm... I-Is this how this is supposed to look like?" Eugen asked first looking at Iowa, until the blondie directed her own and - consequently - the German girl's gaze towards the girl on the scooter.

"Oh, w-well", Able started, trying to think of something positive to say, "when we really think about it, the ship was damaged by two atomic bombs and it has mostly been sitting under the water for decades, so it may not necessarily come as a surprise that the rigging may not look as good as new... Oh, hang on. Now that I think about it, are they still radioactive too?"

While Able was in a bit of a panic with her realization, Eugen inspected the odd pistol kind of rigging that had appeared in her right hand. She first checked whether the trigger on it actually does anything... The trigger was completely jammed. She then tried whether the miniature turret on it would move around... The turret was completely jammed as well. She then tried whether the turret's pipes would move a-

SNAP!

Splash...

The sound brought the other two's attention back to the twintailed girl who slowly raised her head to meet the two's gaze. And after a while, the German's expression remained the same, but her eyes slowly began to well with water.

"Ah, n-no need to worry about this! We can easily fix this, you can still help us out just fine!" Iowa panicked, not wanting to have the girl think that she would be returning to her isolation for this.

"Yeah, that's right, we have really, really good mechanics on our ship!" Able concurred.

"R-Really?" Eugen asked with a faint voice. The other two nodded furiously. The German girl then proceeded to snort a bit and wipe her eyes with her left hand.

"Well then", Able said as she drove herself in front of Eugen, "grab onto that bump, I'll lead you to the ship."

"Okay..." Eugen said and the three slowly made their way to their yacht.

Meanwhile, a couple of miles away, the capsule Iowa had thrown away was floating and bouncing along with the ever moving waves. For a while, it seemed like it would've just floated away, landed on a nearby island, possibly made it to the headlines of a local newspaper, but...

BOOM!

A sound like muffled thunder echoed throughout the area, prompting the nearby seagulls to fly off in surprise. And after a while, the neutral tint of green on the capsule suddenly began to turn darker and darker. As it did, a small trail of fog began to emanate under the capsule and the amount kept growing along with the darkening of the capsule's tint.

But rather unusually, the Fog Tunnel stopped growing right after it had merely concealed the capsule in its fog. And it didn't even take a minute until the fog began fade away and had disappeared altogether.

Along with the capsule.

EDIT#1 (20/8/2018):

Hello, I've decided to rewrite some of the chapters of this fic, and possibly write a new chapter for it as well. I had been away from KanColle as a whole for a while now, but after the game's HTML5 update, I feel like now would be a good time to get back to it.

Chapter 1 Afterword: (6/6/2016)

Well, I'm back with more content, but not for the story that most of you have been probably hoping for.

KanColle has been taking my focus from Touhou quite a lot lately, and I've had some stories spinning around in my head, but wasn't sure which one to push out on paper. But I feel like the recent addition of Iowa, the American battleship in the game was the final piece that was missing from the kind of a story I've been hoping to write about this series.

I have a pretty good idea of how the story will go for the next few chapters, so I guess you can expect those for these upcoming weeks. And maybe, I'll someday release another chapter for Touhou Yousai as well.

Cheers.