Author's Note:

This is just a small story about a forgotten and lost little Light Cruiser. I am taking very strong liberties with this one, and I'm mostly keeping to the manga on this story and my soon to come Musings of a Hawaiian Expedition. Not knowing the ultimate fate of this poor little ship leaves a lot of leeway to work with. If the ultimate fate of Nagara is ever addressed, then this will become very obsolete or extreme Alternate Universe.

Disclaimer: I do not own Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio nor any of its characters.

Failure. Within a few fractions of a millisecond before the collapse of my kline field due to 401's corrosive torpedo, I knew it was over. The fatal blow to my hull was dealt amidships on my port side, tearing apart nanomaterials and vital systems while exposing multiple decks to the open air and sea. Had I a human crew, their cries of terror an agony would likely have haunted my union core for the rest of its days.

I-401 and Chihaya Gunzou split my side not unlike I had done mere minutes before to the pair of JMSDF warships that had attempted to delay my assault. Did their spirits rejoice in my sinking? Why am I even considering such things? There is a lot of time for introspection between the clock cycles, I suppose.

A jarring explosion and the dozen or so red failure indicators cascade to the whole system tree. Amid all these failures, I've lost track of what probably went critical that caused the secondary explosions. It really doesn't matter at this point anyways. Split in two, I can still communicate with remaining systems in my two halves, but there is no point as my hull slips beneath the waves.

A few more minor explosions beneath the surface and all interactivity is red, probably worse is that last explosion split the central housing and now my union core is freed from its housing. It isn't damaged, but I'm not sure that is a good thing. My fate is now left to the waves, the sediment of the sea floor where ever I settle, and that human concept of luck if any of the Fog are sent to look for me. Do I even matter in the scheme of things, we can produce my class in the hundreds at least. I was the lead ship of the class, but we are weapons and my kind are easily replaced.

Chihaya Gunzou is ruthless against those of us without mental models, perhaps we are seen as little more than a hull, like most humans view their ships, but would he view things differently if we appeared like him? If at the helm of every fog warship was a girl, could we break his resolve or would he reveal himself to be no different than anyone else?

Pointless speculation, waste of resources, but what difference would it make now for me? Doomed to quiet isolation, a lost speck of light in the endless, dark expanse of the ocean. Alone for an eternity.

No! Without the input, without the network, without purpose, what point was there to existence? Running calculations, power systems, nanomaterials, propulsion, communications, all inoperable and not repairable. Could I use these materials to make something else, a small vessel, distress beacon, no, insufficient processing capacity to fabricate without design specifications. My model does not possess sufficient resources to have 'inspiration' or 'imagination' as far as the human definitions go.

I do have specifications on mental models, the whole Fog fleet has the detailed processes and conceptualized design, but Light cruisers like myself do not possess the capacity to maintain one, our hulls and combat systems, and our primary functionalities without external assistance. I estimate that it would require 1.02% of the processing capacity of a heavy cruiser or higher to support this normally. I can easily overcome this if I re-purpose primary functions. I don't want to be alone, lost, and forgotten on some nameless battlefield.

I.

Will.

Persevere.

"Nagara, you were just following orders." Was the melancholy reply of Iona as she watched the aft section of the former light cruiser slip beneath the surface, its nanomaterial hull already beginning decay. Perhaps a little too quickly, but she did not have long to consider such as her captain approached.

Unknown to those on land at the launch center or the rapidly receding I-401, the remnants of the sunk light cruiser were quickly breaking down into component nanomaterial. Clouds of nanomaterial began coalescing around a flattened metallic sphere about three inches in diameter. This sphere had a number of smaller spheres merged into it. The nanomaterials filled in the cracks that marred the core's surface before they began the process of constructing a form.

The procedure was relatively quick and simple despite the complexity of a mental model. Unfortunately for Nagara, the templates, scripts, algorithms, and procedures took a lot of power. It also only covered the form itself, details pulled from the 'subconscious' of the individual union core, and not any type of clothing except for those few garments identified for personal modesty. Undergarments, a bra and a pair of panties along with a pair of black knee high stockings for some unexplained reason, were all she was equipped with.

She barely had time to run her new hand through her shoulder length orange hair and blink her pale green eyes before the world around her swirled and darkness descended on her consciousness.

New functions swirled around in her 'dreams' as her core arranged the proper functioning of the new form to the appropriate execution threads. What could have seemed like an eternity to an intelligence used to operating on the clock cycles of a quantum computer, Nagara awoke.

Her eyes beheld a small mess of dark green kelp upon which was perched a small baseball sized crab, blinking she rolled onto her back, and her vision swam threatening to toss her right back into unconsciousness. Her energy reserves were suboptimal and her core was unused to the new form which despite its size (and the fact that it held over 90% of the nanomaterial mass of her old hull) was vastly more complex than her ship.

It was then that she recognized the sky and the open air. She was on shore. The pale skinned, orange haired girl, who in this form did not appear any older than 16, bolted to a sitting position and spun around to take in the sights of a portion of the world she had only beheld from the sea. However, such an act produced a tremendous amount of dizziness and darkness crashed in on her vision. Nagara yet again passed out.

A shadow covered the new mental model, as gulls cried and the waves crashed against the distant rocks.

Between the lines:

Despite her analysis, Nagara's core was indeed damaged in the explosion. Not nearly enough to destroy it, but enough to cause a fault in the logic that lead to a unexplained exception loop which had the benefit of forcing her to seek out a continued existence in the only means she had at her disposal. This, which we will find out, comes at the expense of her being able to manifest a ship even if she has access to enough nanomaterials. Though even if she could, she does not have the processing power alone to maintain both a mental model and a hull.