"This is not good." The flagship Zuikaku remarked.

"I reckon that the weather would turn a little bit unhealthy in a moment." The British returnee, or rather, the Britishophile Japanese sailing slightly behind Zuikaku quipped, scanning the sky for dive bombers. Kongou's fascination of the British culture, unfortunately, ranged as far to their resistance to being panicked. Which meant when she said "A bit unhealthy', it could also mean 'a swarm of angry bombers'.

"some wicked luck we have today, and this is supposed to be a simple welcome party." Kongou sighed. "Buggeration."

This afternoon, Zuikaku, Kongou, and few other escort ships were supposed to screen the area to confirm the arrival of an American fleet. They were scheduled to arrive a week ago, but communication got cut short at some point when they were passing through the South China Sea. Then, just yesterday, Zuikaku's base received a weak radio signal compatible with the American standard distress call. The admiral of the base, a stout woman nearing her 40s, immediately arranged for a search party. Zuikaku and another fleet carrier, Souryuu, would form the center of the force, using their aircraft to search the vast area between the base and the last location of the distress signal. It might be considered callous to commit such amount of resources just for a search party, but the admiral was expecting a trap. Thus, Just a few hundred nautical miles behind the main force, the admiral had arranged a secondary force comprising of fleet carriers Kaga and Akagi, a few destroyers, and the battleship Iowa. If it was a trap, then the fleet would be fully capable of mounting a counter ambush.

Well, at least they were supposed to be able to.

"Hmm, that's about twelve full squadrons heading straight for us." the heavy cruiser Aoba confirmed after looking through the massive lens of her camera.

"Kaga-san, you heard that?" said Zuikaku into her earpiece.

"I'll take care of them." a cold voice answered from the other side of the line, straightforward as usual. "Just make sure your airmen stay out of our way."

Zuikaku felt a vein popped on her forehead, but too preoccupied with imminent bombardment to make a decent comeback.

Other than Aoba, Kongou, Souryuu and Zuikaku, the main force also had two destroyers with them, both of the Akizuki class, specializing in AA. Hatsuzuki and Teruzuki had always felt like they were made to compliment each other's personality, with the former being quiet and the latter being almost painfully outgoing, but this time they shared a similar expression. Pre-battle near-panic.

Somewhat further to Zuikaku's starboard, Souryuu readied her bow.

"My planes are loaded. Permission to launch?"

"Launch at will. Hatsuzuki, Teruzuki, try moving forward a bit, screen for enemy reinforcements. Souryuu, we'll keep our planes within their AA range, keep the enemy focused and open to flank attack by the second fleet's air wings."

"understood!" Souryuu replied, short and solid, followed by the slightly trembling voices of the destroyers.

"Kongou, stick close to Souryuu. Aoba, with me."

"Ayayay!" Aoba chirped cheerfully.

"Roger that! Allon-sy!" Kongou replied in a tone that's now basically expected from her. Very-cheerful even in the face of nigh inevitable doom.

As her ships went to their respective position, Zuikaku pulled a white arrow from her quiver and readied her bow. The sky was relatively clear aside from the dark cloud far to the north, and the wind was acceptably stable, a pretty good condition for a carrier operation overall. Unfortunately, the boon of the weather worked both ways, and the enemy bombers had a clear view of their targets.

"Teruzuki, give us some smoke."

"Y...yes!"

Teruzuki broke off from her sister and sailed closer to the carriers. immediately she pumped her boilers with excess oil, resulting in a thick pillar of soot billowing continuously out of her smokestack.

Under the cover of smoke, Zuikaku released her arrow, which transformed into a squadron of four Zero fighters, A6M5, a few meters in front of her. The Zero quickly climbed to join up with Souryuu's air wing, already approaching the enemy squadrons in a finger-four formation.

With trained efficiency, Zuikaku released 4 more arrows, just in time for the first of the enemy bombers to reach the range of Hatsuzuki's main cannons.

"Souryuu! We're going in!"

"Engaging!"

The air wings from both carriers boosted their engines to maximum speed, but Zero were designed for maneuverability and not for a sudden burst of power. By the time they reached intercept altitude, one squadron of enemy bombers had already dropped their load on Hatsuzuki. The destroyer immediately disappeared from sight behind pillars of water splashes.

"Hatsuzuki!" her sister screamed.

"It's fine! I dodged!" An answer came from the radio before Zuikaku could see Hatsuzuki again, and what she saw wasn't exactly comforting. A part of her hair was clearly singed, and her entire left arm looked burned.

"I thought you dodged!" Shouted Teruzuki.

"I did, but one plane I already shot down rammed me."

As a carrier of the imperial Japanese navy, Zuikaku was not vain enough to not recognize the irony contained in that report. But she'd have plenty of time to mull about destiny's sense of humor after she's not at risk of being bombed.

"Teruzuki, enough with the smoke! Go help your sister!"

"Y..yes!"

Teruzuki immediately pushed her boilers and steamed ahead towards her sister, leaving Kongou and Aoba as the sole defenders of the two carriers, and none of those two actually had any remarkable AA characteristic.

Having been sunk before, Zuikaku understood that their AA capability was below standard compared to other navies. Even the Akizuki class, the supposed AA destroyers, only had their notable main batteries to give them edge against air attacks. Their secondary batteries of smaller guns were still of the same mostly French-copied designs as the rest of the Japanese surface ships.

Zuikaku wished they could procure some of those Swedish/Swiss AA guns she had heard so much about, but with the war as it was, keeping a consistent supply of ammunitions and parts from another side of the world would be a nightmare. No, until Japan could establish it's own Bofor/Oerlikon production lines, they had to make do with what they had.

Zuikaku still wished she had better AA secondaries, though, as just when her air wing started to engage the enemy, Aoba suddenly shouted and pointed her camera at the direction of their flank, right at the horizon.

"Torpedo bombers!"

"Oi! Bugger me with a fish fork!" shouted Kongou.

"Kongou! TURN STARBOARD! Aoba! PORT! Souryuu! Slow down!"

Hunched together as they were, it would be easy for the enemy torpedo bombers to score a multi-kill in a single run. Zuikaku herself slowed down, giving her escort the space they needed to maneuver and turn to get most of their meager AA guns to bear.

"Souryuu! How are your planes?!"

"Preparing to launch another squadron!"

"Belay that! You won't make it! Just call a squadron back! I'll deal with the dive bombers!"

"Acknowledged!"

A squadron of Souryuu's air wing tried to break off, but two squadrons of enemy dive bombers suddenly took an offensive stance, diving into the Zero's now exposed rear and firing their machine guns.

"I just lost a squadron!"

"Damn! Hatsuzuki, Teruzuki! prepare for search and rescue!" Zuikaku watched as the enemy torpedo bombers were getting nearer and nearer. Some of them actually fell apart under the combined might of AA fire from the escort and the carriers' secondaries. But just 'some' were not enough.

"Break off formation! Evasive maneuver at your own discretion!"

Zuikaku would not let it show on her face when she was in command, but she was actually starting to panic. They were being assaulted from all sides, and the destroyers were already starting to get overwhelmed. There's no way they would be able to get out of this situation alone.

Fortunately, they didn't need to do it alone.

Zuikaku watched with relief as a hail of tracer rounds rained down upon the advancing enemy torpedo bombers. Half of the enemy torpedo squadrons immediately bursted into spectacular fireballs in a single pass.

"Good shot, Kaga-san."

For all her irritation towards the older carrier, Zuikaku had to admit that Kaga actually did have the most elite airmen out of all the carriers in Japan.

Though it would be nice if the Navy didn't decide to put all of their eggs in a single, very flammable basket.

To Zuikaku's surprise, though, her compliment was only answered by a confused reply from the other end of the line.

"We have not yet engaged the enemy. Zuikaku-san, whatever you saw, it wasn't us." said the demure voice of Akagi.

Equally confused, Zuikaku decided to take a better look at the engaging friendlies. The planes, only specks of black silhouettes at this distance, were strafing the enemy torpedo bombers in a manner inconsistent with the combat doctrine of Japanese naval aviation. They were flying too straight and too fast, putting not much emphasis on aerobatics nor grace.

After their single attack run, downing considerable amount of enemy planes, the fighters immediately broke off and climbed away in a pace impossible to be achieved by any model of Japanese plane. Then, after they had reached a safe distance, they turned in a frankly embarrassingly wide radius, readying for another attack run.

Zero would not do that. They would immediately pursue aerial dogfights the moment they reached engagement range, keeping close to the enemy's tails as much as they could. But nonetheless Zuikaku was familiar with this tactic, and from the look on her face, Souryuu did, too.

"Boom and zoom." Zuikaku remarked. "Kaga-san, we have made contact with the American force."

Her report was answered by silence.

"Is it really her?" Akagi finally gave a proper reply.

"We don't know yet, we're just seeing American fighters."

"Yup yup. Those are Hellcats, alright." Aoba quipped, pointing her massive zoom lens at the general direction of the aerial battle. Or rather, aerial slaughter, as the American aircrafts were already close to annihilating all of the sluggish torpedo bombers.

"Alright!" the boisterous, unmistakable noise of an American fast battleship suddenly filled the airwave. "Now we'll show you how we do things back in the home country! Air superiority! Death from above! American firepower brought up close to the gate of heaven!"

Although she could be somewhat annoying, Zuikaku had found Iowa to be growing on her, and she was not alone in that sympathy. The lead ship of the Kongou-class seemed to be especially endeared by the seemingly shameless blonde.

"Oi, put a sock on it, you continental git."

Although it was a mild insult in essence, the fact that Kongou said it with a smile and the unmistakable tone that she had used countless times before on the American battleship made it clear of how friendly the two of them actually were.

"Aw, come on, you love hearing my voice, don't you?" teased the American.

"yes, certain voice more than another, I'd bet." Aoba said with a teasing grin, followed by an agreeing laugh from Iowa in the radio. Zuikaku was not sure what the heavy cruiser meant, but she did notice the Japanese fast battleship desperately trying to hide a blush under her rigging, botching the timing of a type three shell and nearly hitting a friendly fighter in the process.

Zuikaku decided that whatever it was, it was none of her business, and resumed command.

"Alright, Souryuu, continue with fighters preparation. Kongou, Aoba, get your scout planes out, see if you can spot any more enemy ambush. I don't want us to get surprised again."

Zuikaku gave her command, which was immediately responded by a uniform agreement. Well, at least by the ships in her own fleet.

"To be saved by American planes. Your pride is crying, fifth carrier division."

Zuikaku felt a sting at the back of her head. Guess it was easy to use 'pride' as justification for everything when you had so much of it.

"Save the pretty words for your song, Kaga. I'm sure the admiral would like to hear you sing about your own pride."

Kaga immediately went silent.

It was an off-hand remark, spoken in the heat of the moment. But whether Zuikaku meant it or not, it did strike true.

Kaga had always tried to be an ideal Japanese woman, to show the beauty and civility of the Japanese people over the rest of the world. And the most lauded virtue of a Japanese woman, even amongst the gentlemen of western powers and other countries that generally despised the Japanese almost on principle, was their humility. And everyone but Kaga seemed to know that she had failed miserably in that respect.

And Zuikaku basically just called her and arrogant bitch.

"Ouch." quipped Kongou.

"Ooh. Nice shot. Someone looks mad as hell over here." reported Iowa, maybe a bit too cheerfully.

Maybe she accidentally went a bit too far. Zuikaku made a mental note to practice what she'd preached, to swallow her pride and give Kaga a proper apology later. It would be unpleasant, but she had learned first hand what grudges between fellow soldiers could lead to.

Kaga wouldn't know that, though. She served when the Japanese Navy was still dominating, and every grudges and spites that could negatively affect her performance were compensated by the skill of her airmen.

Zuikaku hadn't had such luxury because all the good pilots got grilled alive inside of Kaga's burning hull.

Which was why she found Kaga's pride so irritating in the first place. Their early carrier doctrine had so much flaws that ended up being exploited by the enemy. Zuikaku learned of this the hard way, but Kaga 'died' believing their doctrine was still superior. As far as battle experience went, Zuikaku actually had a lot more than Kaga! The only reason she got so much respect was because she bullied some biplanes up at the end of nowhere!

Zuikaku felt her anger rising. She knew she must stop. Without taking a breath, Zuikaku emptied her lungs, letting visible steam coming out of her nostrils.

'letting out all the salt', as Kongou had called it.

"My apologies. I was stepping above my station, Kaga-san."

Zuikaku was responded by a quieted 'Hmph' from the radio. She was not sure what that meant.

"I think she's sulking." said Aoba. Not to the radio, of course.

"Eh...uhm…" Zuikaku fidgeted. "Anyway, Kaga-san. Are your planes near? We could really use your help."

She was lying. Between hers and Souryuu's planes, plus the unexpected help from the American squadrons, her fleet had the situation completely under control.

The older carrier didn't respond immediately, but when she did respond her voice was as cold as ever, though maybe a bit calmer.

"We're right on top of you." said Kaga. "If you could break off from the enemy, we'll finish them off in a single dive."

"Understood. Souryuu, disengage."

"Roger."

Covering each other this time, both Souryuu's and Zuikaku's air wings broke off from the enemy formation under the cover of the destroyers' AA. Soon, Kaga's and Akagi's air wings emerged from a thin cloud layer high above the enemy squadrons, closing in fast in a shallow dive.

Ten squadrons of A7M Reppuu, the most advanced naval fighters in their current arsenal, flown by the best fairies in their roster.

Attacking from up high, they quickly converted their altitude into speed. The speed that no older Zero could exploit without shearing their wings off. Immediately they got into firing positions and let out a combined high-saturation barrage of guns and cannons fire that immediately annihilated the enemy bombers.

Again, For all the old-school posturing and inflexibility the old carriers possessed, Zuikaku had to admit that Kaga and Akagi still had the best airmen the navy had to offer.

The Reppuu, as if trying to prove a point, were annihilating the enemy bombers with elaborate maneuvers involving high-skill dives, climbs, and rolls instead of the more sensible and efficient straight strafing.

"Figured you could use some demonstration." Kaga's voice rang out from the radio, now back to her usual confident tone. "Especially you, Souryuu, just because you're not under Akagi's command doesn't mean you could slack off."

Souryuu's body shook, almost as if in fear. "Yes, ma'am! I'm sorry ma'am!"

Zuikaku watched with slight irritation and guilt as Souryuu exasperatedly tried to apologize. Irritation, because it's Kaga, and guilt because Kaga just subtly, and maybe justifiably, took a jab at Zuikaku's leadership, and she did cause Souryuu to lose an entire squadron. Guess she still had more to learn.

"I'm sorry that I'm not a competent leader." said Zuikaku. Not even she knew whether she's being sarcastic or genuine.

Under the swarm of skilled pilots from all the carriers, the Akizuki destroyers and the other escort vessels suddenly found the sky devoid of targets. It took no time at all until the entire sky was clear from the last enemy aircraft.

"Ha! Get back to where you came from you unrefined bunch of deep sea wankstains!" Kongou exclaimed as the last bomber went down.

Zuikaku, however, remained calm.

"Alright, Aoba, try to contact the American carrier. Souryuu, we'll give her fighters some escort. Kaga-san..."

"Combat Air Patrol, we know." said Kaga.

"Should we converge our fleet, Zuikaku-san?" followed Akagi.

"No. We should not give a single large target to the enemy. Keep our planes separated. But not too far. Stay within supporting distance."

"Understood." Akagi buzzed out from the radio, right before Souryuu called up to Zuikaku.

"Ma'am, you need to see this."

"Hmm?"

Due to how they were positioned after breaking off from the enemy bombers, Souryuu's fighters were already flying level to the Hellcats the moment Zuikaku's fighters managed to reach them.

"Wow."

Zuikaku let out an involuntary gasp. The Hellcats were, to be generous, in very poor conditions. Some of them actually had lost parts of their wings, some had fires coming out of their engine cowls, and one had its cockpit windows shattered full of bullet holes. In general, none of the American fighters were in combat condition. And since none of the enemy torpedo bombers were able to fire even a shot, it meant that these fighters were already in this condition since before they engaged the enemy.

Impressive, but even then, they wouldn't last long in that condition.

"Souryuu, you think we could recover these fighters?"

"We've never tried that before." Souryu said, obviously surprised by Zuikaku's suggestion to break protocol.

"Well, first time for everything. Get your fire crew ready."

"They're a bit heavier than our planes. Do we have enough hangar space?"

"Their wings fold tighter, though maybe there will be problems with headroom. If anything, we could just recover the fairies and toss the planes."

"Then can't they just land on the sea?"

"No, we don't have enough ships." said Zuikaku, gesturing at both of their destroyers, scurrying around trying to find Souryuu's downed pilots. "Recovery would take too long, and some of them might be too wounded to swim. We're doing this. Can you contact their radio?"

Souryuu said nothing. But Zuikaku though that she could hear her swallowing before she starting to give landing instruction to the Hellcats through her radio. The American carriers, as Zuikaku understood, operated in a different way from them, and the Hellcats might find it difficult to land without shattering some decks. For example of the two different carrier doctrines, neither Zuikaku nor Souryuu had ever bothered to have landing signal officers. They instead depended entirely on the skill of the pilots to land without wrecking both the planes and the carriers.

Maybe that's why so many of Zuikaku's new pilots back then were sent out on one-way missions.

"Second fleet, we're going to try to recover the American planes." said Zuikaku to the radio.

"Those are big fat planes. They'll go right through your deck." said Kaga.

"Umm...I'm a battleship, and I don't know much about carrier operation...but those girls look like they really need our help." Said Kongou, her spotter plane now also escorting the American planes.

"Wait...are they going to crash? Hey! You're going to save them right?" Iowa said, almost begging.

"Calm down Iowa. The carriers on our end seem to be determined on this." replied Kongou.

"Remember, Zuikaku, you're an asset to the navy. I can't have you out of commission just to save a few planes."

Zuikaku couldn't help but think that Kaga actually wanted to add "especially American planes" at the end.

"your concern is appreciated, but my deck is thicker than yours, and I can't call myself an equal to the Americans if I can't take a few planes crashing on my deck."

"Ma'am, they're approaching." warned Souryuu.

"Good, get ready for emergency landing. Clear all planes, fuel, armaments and flammable equipment from your deck."

"Wait, Zuikaku-!"

Ignoring Kaga's protest, Zuikaku cut off radio contact with the second fleet and prepared her deck. In a moment, her deck was bare, ready to accept some hard knocks.

The Hellcats approached and were ordered to land in the order of the most damaged to the least. The first plane landed on Souryuu's deck. It was a bit bumpy, but surprisingly smooth considering all the damage to the plane itself.

The second plane landed on Zuikaku's deck... and so on, and so on.

Thus far, everything went well.

It was at the last plane that their luck ran out.

"She's going in too steep."

Zuikaku tried to contact the errant plane, but no response.

Souryuu was the first to notice the problem.

"The pilot is unconscious! Zuikaku-san! Evade!"

Even then, Zuikaku knew that it was too late. She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and wait.

An explosion of heat and shrapnels seared deep across the left side of Zuikaku's face. Even with her eyes closed, Zuikaku knew that her wound would be bad. It hurt so much that she couldn't even scream, only staggering backward, hoping to outlast the pain.

Ah, so this is how it felt.

"Zuikaku-!" Aoba shouted.

"Ma'am!" Shouted Souryuu.

"Oh, bollocking twatmuncher!" Kongou shouted.

"Zuikaku-san!" followed the destroyers.

Zuikaku could barely hear the concerns in their voices. Her ears were still ringing from the blast going straight into her ear canals.

"-answer me! what happened?!" Kaga shouted into the radio, sounding genuinely concerned.

Souryuu was the only one able to respond.

"Zuikaku-san got hit!"

"Was it the enemy?" asked Akagi.

"No, it was the American..."

"What!?" Kaga shouted.

"I'm fine!" Zuikaku answered, trying to calm the situation before Kaga decided to send a strike force against the offending American carrier.

"Just took an errant plane to my bridge. My deck and elevators are still fine, I could still operate."

Then Zuikaku realized that she couldn't open her left eye.

"How bad is it?"

"Not gonna lie, lass, you look quite knackered." responded Kongou.

"I see."

Zuikaku was in pain, and she suspected that it would be even more painful later when the shock wore off. Her fairies were working as fast as possible, cutting off burning rooms and pumping them full of carbon dioxide from her engine room/lungs, a trick she had improvised on her own after reading a lot about the damage control of American vessels. Her bridge was hit, and some of her officers were killed, but she suspected that she would only experience minor concussion for a while as her remaining fairies reorganized.

Meanwhile, her med bay was busy accommodating both the pilots of the Hellcats and her own fairies. Few American fairies that are still conscious managed to give her navigation officer a dead reckoning coordinate estimation of their home carrier.

"Alright, I got her position. Let's go."

"Wait, we're still going?" asked Kongou.

"Yes, of course."

"Umm...I don't have a mirror, but you look really bad." said Aoba. "like, half of your face is a bit...gone."

"It looks worse that it actually is." At least, Zuikaku hoped so.

The rest of Zuikaku's fleet looked like they're about to protest, but decided to stay silent.

"Akagi-san, we're going to form up with the American carrier. Can you continue patrolling the area?"

"Understood."

With the bleeding Zuikaku as the lead ship, the first fleet recovered their aircrafts and sailed on without much interference. Halfway to the supposed location of the American carrier, they started to see some sign of battle in the sea around them. Namely, corpses of abyssal ships and planes floating around the wreckages of numerous Curtiss and Grumman planes.

"If she's still floating I'd be amazed." quipped Aoba, all the while taking pictures of her surroundings.

It didn't take long after that for them to arrive at the given coordinate.

"There's nothing here." observed Aoba.

"My plane got nothing." said Kongou, her scout plane had already deployed again.

"Aoba, has the American carrier contacted you yet?" asked Zuikaku.

"I've been trying since we made contact with the fighters, but no, not yet."

"The American pilots in my med bay said they had lost contact with their home carrier two hours ago." said Souryuu. "She could've been sunk already."

That's a possibility.

"I suggest we withdraw, the water seems dangerous, and we're low on AA munitions." added Souryuu.

Zuikaku was about to consider just that when she heard the voice of a radial engine flying overhead.

"Avenger." confirmed Aoba. "Limping, alone."

"Follow her." Zuikaku ordered.

Following the damaged bomber, Zuikaku's fleet soon found their sight hampered by thick white fog.

"Low hanging squall." observed Souryuu. "And radio silence. She must've been trying to hide."

Zuikaku nodded. "Keep your radar at full power."

"I got something." said Aoba, who had recently been made a priority for communication and radar upgrade by the admiral.

"lead on, then."

With Aoba at the lead, the fleet went further inside the fog. A dreadful silence fell, adding to the eerie atmosphere, until…

"I...there!" shouted Aoba suddenly.

Zuikaku and the rest of the fleet took a while longer to receive a visual confirmation. It started as a dark outline on the surface of the fog, and then when they got closer, it became clear that they're facing an American carrier.

"Okay, consider me amazed."

She was white. Too white. Definitely from blood loss. Her short blond hair, slightly lighter than Iowa's, was sticking to her neck and forehead from all the sweat and blood that's practically pouring from her. Her predominantly white attire was nearly blown completely off, leaving her with basically strips of cloth protecting her decency. Her exposed white skin was tainted with various botches of black and blue from burns and bruises. Her face, somehow spared from all the damage that the rest of her body suffered, was looking at Zuikaku with unfocused red eyes.

Despite all the damage, the girl was still tightly holding her launching equipment. In her case, they were in the form of a double-barrelled shotgun and a standard flight deck 'shield', with shells containing her pilots stored in the hangar space just below her deck rigging.

A deck rigging that was still proudly bearing the number '6'.

When they were informed that they're possibly about to meet with the gray ghost herself, everyone in the naval base each had their own different reaction. Most of them were understandably pretty hostile, especially from the ones that had directly dealt with her in the past, like the Midway quartet (sans Akagi), and some destroyers like Makigumo and Arashi. Some of the more battle-hungry vessels like Tenryuu and Musashi, who didn't really care about history, merely looked forward to the arrival of a grizzled, experienced war veteran, ready to fight with them in combat against a seemingly unbeatable foe. Zuikaku herself secretly was looking forward to share experience with the American carrier, having fought her multiple times and survived, one of the few that could claim as such.

But no matter what their opinions were, Zuikaku suspected that, if any of them had seen the sight in front of her now, they would only feel one emotion towards the USS Enterprise; pity.

"By the gods, how is she still floating?"

The girl was short for a fleet carrier, about half a head shorter that Zuikaku herself. But the damage she had taken could make a battleship question their existence.

"Hey, are you alright?" called Zuikaku. Stupid question, she knew, but it's as good as any in this situation.

The American carrier responded by pointing her gun at her.

Immediately, Zuikaku's escort ships pointed their own guns at the Enterprise. The American Carrier didn't look like she's aware of the multiple high caliber barrels pointing at her, either that or she didn't care.

"Enemy...flattop."

The blonde carrier stood still. Her voice struggled, trying to pass the blood pooling in her throat and lungs. Her eyes looked empty.

Zuikaku recognized the symptoms. A lot of her own sailors and pilots experienced it at the closing months of the war. And it never ended happily.

"Fleet, lower your weapons." ordered Zuikaku.

"But..." Aoba tried to object.

"I said. Lower. Your. Weapon." Zuikaku said bit by bit, trying to not raise her voice and risk startling the clearly delirious carrier.

Zuikaku's fleet finally obliged. But Enterprise kept pointing her gun at them, even when her arms were clearly shaking from exertion.

"calm down...we're not the enemy." said Zuikaku, slowly inching towards the smaller CV. "at least...not today."

The Enterprise didn't budge. Zuikaku lowered herself, putting her bow low on the water and removing the string.

"look, I'm unarmed, see?" Zuikaku raised both of her arms, showing the now useless bow to Enterprise.

The American carrier lowered her gun ever so slightly.

"We're here under order to escort you to safety. If you remove radio silence, you could confirm with the battleship Iowa that we are telling the truth."

"Ah." surprisingly even for Zuikaku, Enterprise immediately lowered her gun completely. "Radio room and tower were hit...I...what was I'm doing?" the carrier suddenly looked confused, swinging her head left and right as if looking for something.

"You were traveling from Norfolk, Virginia, heading towards Yokosuka, Japan, taking some detour through Vladivostok on the way. We had lost contact with your fleet midway through the South China Sea. What happened?"

"I.." Enterprise paused, her blood-starved brain desperately trying to find words. "we were attacked...so many planes...my escort...ah!"

Clutching her side, Enterprise dropped to her knees, splashing sea water. Zuikaku immediately leaped forward, catching her before she fell fully into the water.

"Hey, Hey! Don't sink yet!"

Enterprise's face now only inches away from Zuikaku, allowing her to listen to every single one of her labored breaths.

"I...where is my escort? We were attacked...and they were...oh god."

As realization struck, Zuikaku could see tears began to well up in Enterprise's eyes. Losing comrades would never get any easier, no matter how many of them you had gone through. Zuikaku knew this well.

"It'll be alright, if they're still floating, we'll find them." said Zuikaku, trying to sound reassuring. But even then she knew that her fleet would need to withdraw soon, with the threat of enemy planes still looming and her ships nearly running out of anti-aircraft shells. "but first we'll need to get you out of here, okay?"

The American carrier didn't respond.

"Uhh...I'm going to lift you up now, is that alright?"

Zuikaku had to wait for a few moments before the American carrier gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.

Zuikaku was satisfied with that confirmation. Circling her arms around Enterprise's back and thighs, Zuikaku slowly lifted the smaller carrier, rigging and all, out of the water in a bridal carry. There were some advantages in having a human body, and this was one of them.

Zuikaku noticed that Enterprise was covering her mouth. Nevertheless, she could still hear her sobbing. It was subtle, quiet, quiet enough that there's no way Zuikaku's escort could actually hear her, and her free hanging hair was covering her eyes, hiding her tears. But there's no way to hide the fact that you're crying from someone so close to you.

As a Kanmusu, Zuikaku still retained some memories of her crewmembers during the war, and some of them involved watching propaganda movies.

In those movies, the Americans were always portrayed as merciless demons out to hoard all the resources of the world. And likewise, a lot of Japanese ships expected the Enterprise to be a demon, a vengeful ghost that somehow got tamed by the Americans through some form of dark ritual.

But looking at the secretly sobbing girl in her embrace, Zuikaku was not sure how she could see her as a demon.

"Aoba, tell Akashi to prepare the dock, Yorktown-class carrier, multiple bomb penetrations and torpedo hits."

"yes, Ma'am!"

"oh, and Aoba?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Tell the admiral to prepare too." ordered Zuikaku, slightly quieter than her previous order. "Because if I'm correct, our little friend here is about to make things very interesting."

Zuikaku didn't know how correct she was.