Hey, readers!

I have an important announcement to make at the end. For now, however, enjoy this little "extra."

September 16th, 1942
2045 hours
Truk Lagoon
IJN Musashi
Captain's Cabin

Captain Kaoru Arima awoke from his nap to a knocking on his door.

This had better be important, he thought to himself, "Come in!"

The door opened and in stepped a young ensign, a paper in his hand,

"Urgent message from Admiral Yamamoto, sir."

Arima took the message from the ensign and dismissed him. Once he was alone again, the 42-year old battleship skipper read the message:

Sail to Kavieng ASAP and await further orders.

–CinC Yamamoto

This was unexpected, to say the least. While Musashi had been on standby for almost twenty-four hours, Arima hadn't taken the order entirely seriously.

Unlike her older sister, which had participated in both the sinking of the carrier Hornet AND the invasion of Midway Island, Musashi had yet to see any significant action, leading to a generally lax attitude towards crew readiness at all levels.

Which was why every sailor aboard the giant battleship, enlisted man and officer alike, was dumbstruck either by the sight of Captain Arima racing from his cabin all the way up to the bridge, barking commands at the top of his lungs, or by the order to make ready for immediate departure from Truk.

Nevertheless, about two hours later, Musashi, escorted by the light cruiser Yubari and a ragtag flotilla of destroyers, which had only just arrived, steamed out of Truk Lagoon on course for Kavieng Harbor in Papua New Guinea.

Everyone aboard the ships was thinking the same thing.

What the hell is going on?!

Bismarck Sea
A few kilometers just west of Kavieng, New Ireland
IJN Chōkai
Compass Platform

Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa read over the message that he'd received once more:

Assume overall command of all warships anchored at Kavieng.

Battleship Musashi en route to Kavieng and should arrive within next day. Transfer flag if necessary.

Make preparations to sail on my command. Destination will be sent in accompanying message.

–CinC Yamamoto

While Yamamoto hadn't specified where they would be going, Mikawa had his suspicions.

Guadalcanal.

He felt positively eager to get underway. At last, he would be able to finish what he had started two months earlier off of Savo Island and destroy the American naval presence in the region once and for all.

For now, however, he contented himself with watching the battleships Ise and Hyuga conduct gunnery exercises, his mind already formulating what he hoped was a sound plan of attack for the coming confrontation.

Waters off of Port Moresby
IJN Sōryū
Bridge

The men on the bridge watched as flights of B5N torpedo bombers from both their carrier and Hiryū made a practice attack run on the heavy cruiser Ashigara.

Among those present was the commander of the 1st Air Fleet, more colloquially known as Kido Butai, himself: Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo.

"Sir!" A voice called from behind him.

He turned to face one of his junior staff officers.

The young man saluted and handed him a telegram,

"Message from the Commander-in-Chief."

As soon as he'd heard the phrase "Commander-in-Chief," Nagumo felt a swoop of anger in his gut.

Even if Yamamoto's strategy had worked so far, that didn't make Nagumo think any better of the man. He was still furious over the CinC's recent decision to split Kido Butai and send the carrier divisions that comprised it in different directions. It didn't help that he also had the gall to take Nagumo's two best carriers as part of his entourage to Guadalcanal.

Most frustrating, however, was his decision to send Akagi and Kaga on another raid against Australian shipping, a decision that had led to Akagi blundering across the path of an American submarine, taking a torpedo amidships, and being forced to limp all the way to the port of Surabaya in Indonesia for repairs.

The news of the incident had rankled Nagumo, as submarine attacks were always a grave concern of his. The fact that his former flagship had almost suffered such a fate had angered him so much that he'd immediately issued an order for Kaga to call off the raid entirely and return to Port Moresby.

Nagumo remembered that he'd forgotten to confirm that order with Yamamoto, so as far as the CinC knew, Kaga was still in Australian waters. However, he brushed that concern off and read the telegram he'd just been handed:

Make preparations to sail on my command.

Destination will be sent in next message.

-CinC Yamamoto

"Why are his orders never clear?" Nagumo grumbled to himself.

"Sir?" the staff officer questioned.

"Forget it," the commander of Kido Butai replied, "We will continue carrying out the training exercises as planned. Hopefully, Kaga will rejoin us before we are ordered to depart. Dismissed."

The officer bowed and made his exit. Nagumo returned his attention to the training exercise.

As he watched the Zeros from both of his carriers practice dogfighting tactics, he couldn't help but shake the fact that Yamamoto was planning something big. The man had taken a lot of firepower with him to Guadalcanal. So why would he need more?

The only reason that Nagumo could think of was that he was probably planning another decisive operation to crush more of the American fleet.

Nagumo wasn't sure if he liked that.

I hope you all enjoyed this little extra!

First, to respond to the most recent reviews. I've started doing this since I can't PM everyone who posts reviews here:

cj: Thank you for saying that. Research is a big part in writing this story. I'm glad to see that it's paying off.

fulcrum101: Oh trust me, Yamato and Musashi will see plenty of action when the Battle at Guadalcanal goes down. I can't include them and NOT have them fire their 18.1-inch guns in anger.

HBTW: As the adage goes, you learn something new every day. On the other hand, I'm glad you love this story, and I hope you'll enjoy the rest of it.

Wilhelm: I'm happy to hear that. As for your question, I'd been wanting to write a piece about the Pacific War from the Japanese perspective for a while. I finally got the idea to do so with this story from another fanfic author by the name of fanwright, who wrote an awesome oneshot called Flying Tiger, Crouching Dragon, in which Sokka is a member of the American Volunteer Group, the legendary "Flying Tigers," during the war in China. If you enjoy my story, I'd recommend reading this one as well.

Now, for the important announcement:

I'm going on a hiatus from writing WWII-themed stories, which unfortunately include this story. I made this decision for two reasons, which I'll explain below.

First, since I'm back in college again, I now have the pressures of homework, tests, etc. on my back again. That really limits how much time I have to write, especially when I'm writing a story as research-intensive as this. Add to that the fact that my sleep cycle has been upended for whatever godforsaken reason, and I'm feeling as burnt-out as the Wehrmacht after Stalingrad (okay, that's an exaggeration, but still).

Second, as much as I enjoy writing this story, I want to broaden my horizons a little and try writing something different. I'm toying with the idea of writing fanfiction of the show RWBY.

Again, I'm not abandoning this story, I simply need more time to work on it, time which I currently do not have. As such, while I am going to continue writing and updating this story, things are going to be proceeding at a much slower pace.

I will try and update Tales from the Tokitsukaze at some point, since I already kind of have a third chapter, but it will be hard.

To those of you who have enjoyed my stories so far, I apologize for treating you like this. I really appreciate that you've given my work a chance. It's really motivated me to continue writing.

At the same time, I figured you would appreciate it more if I gave you a chapter that actually had content pertaining to the story in it rather than one that ONLY had my "vacation notice." One of my pet peeves is when I get a notification that a story I'm currently following has been updated and I open it, expecting a new chapter, only to find that all the chapter has is a note saying that the author is ditching the story for something else. What really irks me is if they don't offer a good reason. Since you all take time out of your lives to actually read my story, I'd rather not do the same thing to you.

With that out of the way, thank you all for your time, and I'll see you for the next chapter.