A Bulldog's Legacy (USS Oregon in Azur Lane)

Chapter 8: Unpleasant Memories

Oregon woke up feeling comparatively refreshed. A very faint light shone through the windows, indicating that the sun had just started to rise.

Checking the wall clock, he read the time. 5:30 a.m. Never one to sleep in often, unless he had one of his bad nights, Oregon got up.

Mentally he commanded one of his ship's boilers to light, beginning the long process of building up steam and also heating water.

This hot water was used both in the galley and in the cabins' showers. Insulated pipes carried the water from the boiler to its destinations, flushing out and/or heating the cooled water still in the pipes.

The boiler that served this purpose also supplied steam to a generator that provided electricity to the necessary areas of the ship. Alone the boiler was sufficient for stationary operations while docked, but in active service the other boilers provided extra steam to counter the increased load from all the bridge equipment.

Back to Oregon. Approaching the closet in his cabin, he flung the double doors open to reveal multiple uniforms all neatly hung up. Remembering how hot he was yesterday, he chose a much thinner and lighter uniform to wear today.

Oregon had uniforms for almost any season, any temperature. From a polo shirt and shorts for very hot temperatures to a couple of thick, heavy, down-lined uniforms and even a Russian-style ushanka for bitter cold.

The uniform he chose for today was composed of a thin white long-sleeved blouse and similar pants. He opted to leave his cape behind but chose a white version of his broad-brimmed hat, almost exactly the same as his main navy blue hat.

By now he knew the water lines would be good and hot, so he decided to take a shower, mostly because he didn't have time for one yesterday.

Because Oregon disliked certain kinds of surprises, he carefully examined the shower before he entered it, suspecting that some opportunistic shipgirl might have snuck into it in the hopes of catching him off-guard.

To satisfy his fears he thoroughly searched his room before locking the cabin door. To keep his room ventilated he opened the windows, which were made up of special glass that was bullet-proof and also had bug screens on the outsides.

Only then did Oregon feel comfortable enough to begin his shower. He didn't spend too long, taking only 15 minutes to get done.

Oregon couldn't help but examine his rather bold scars. Because they were covered the majority of the time he never really had a reason to remember them. Only when he showered did they make themselves known to him again.

A faintly pinkish scar graced his right foot, bearing testimony to when he had run aground.

What looked like multiple bullet wounds long since healed dotted his entire body, marks of ancient shrapnel hits.

Several small cuts and hole scars, barely visible, adorned his face. If anything, back when he was just a ship his bridge seemed to be hit the most by shrapnel.

Lastly there was a big ugly scar along his chest. It had been there so long that Oregon couldn't remember how he got it.

After his shower he got dressed, arranging his summer uniform carefully. As he checked himself in the mirror one last time he noticed the slight color difference between his eyes, his right eye slightly orange, and his left eye a bluish yellow, of all things.

Uncalled-for memories of his long-dead sisters began to surface, and for a few moments those eyes glistened with tears. Indiana's favorite colors had been blue and yellow, while Massy's had been orange.

Recovering from that unwanted outburst he left his cabin, locking the door behind him.

At this point it was almost 6:00, and the naval base was quiet, save for the occasional lapping of water against the sides of ships or waves softly washing the shore. No other ships seemed to be awake yet.

As he approached the pier the gangplank lowered itself again, allowing Oregon to walk unimpeded onto the pier and begin his walk toward the base.

"All quiet on the western front, huh?" he said to himself, suddenly remembering all that he had heard about the slaughter that had been trench warfare. He should know since he himself had served in that war.

"First the scars, then discovering my eyes happen to match my sisters' favorite colors, and now the horrors of that first world disaster. Just how depressing is this new life going to be for me?"

Oregon suffers from near-crippling depression. Always has been.

It began with discovering back in his old life that the battle against the Spanish would stick with him in a physical sense, as much as he disliked it.

Then bad dreams involving his famous 14,000 nautical mile (nm) race began to haunt him. They provided horrifying theories on basically everything that could have gone wrong on that trip: capsizing, hitting rocks, colliding with Marietta, running out of coal. Any possible accident that could have happpened to a ship of his kind on that kind of journey had presented itself.

Then he found out that his sisters had been scrapped. The two people that could have helped him with his problems were now gone forever. The grief and the sense of guilt for not being able to be with them more often overwhelmed him for a while.

Just as he was just beginning to recover from that, the final straw was learning that he would finally be scrapped.

It was at that point that Oregon gave up all hope and stopped caring about pretty much everything, now definitively knowing that he was unwanted, unloved, useless.

For the number of years he spent in his half-scrapped state in a Japanese drydock, he spent his time basically reliving all his life, this time with all the numerous horrors and possibilities thrown in. Before the tsunami came he had boiled everything down to the conclusion that he and his sisters were built just to be useless.

Once that point was reached, it was all over but the crying, and waiting for the end he never got.

And now Oregon is in an entirely new world, with a promise he's not sure he can keep, and factions of shipgirls who only seem to see him as just another warship that will automatically make their going easier. Only the carrier named Hornet seems to have any measure of true respect and gratitude for what he's done so far.

Definitely not the new beginning Oregon wanted or even felt he deserved. After all he's just going to be a nuisance, a liability, right?

Who would want to take the time to discover this dark side of Oregon, much less want to involve themself with it?