The lost battleship of the southern trench

Chapter 11

3rd person POV, Location Yokosuka Naval Base

"I'm Musashi" Musa repeated "oh! Who are you!? Are you the ones that the Commander here wants me to train?!"

Musashi had a confused face as she looked at the other ship girl who shared a name with herself. Yamato was confused for a short time as well, but it disappeared quite fast, when she spoke "so you're the vetern battleship the Commander told us about. I'm surprised, from how your ship looks like I thought it was Yamato, and I mean your Yamato"

"Ah! It probably would have been Yammy!" Musa said happily before speaking in a more somber tone "if she was still here"

"Hm? Sorry if I'm a little rude, but what do you mean by that?" Yamato asked.

"a week or two ago the Abyssals targeted Yammy and any other capital ships down south. Yammy's Fleet was trying to search some of those abandoned islands like Guam, but were attacked, and sunk"

"Oh..." Yamato said in a somber tone "I'm sorry for your loss. At least you still have your Shinano" Yamato was trying to cheer Musa up a bit, but it actually had the opposite effect.

Musa's tails stopped wagging happily and her ears fell down in a sad manner "Shinano sunk a few years back"

The mood very clearly was saddening for Yamato and Musashi, after hearing that both Musa's sisters had been sunk "I see... sorry for bringing it up"

"Ah, no it is fine" now Musa's ears rose back up to a perked position, and a smile spread across her face "I'm sure I'll get to meet them again soon"

"Ah Don't tell me you're gonna try and scuttle yourself" Yamato now said in a frantic tone as she misunderstood what Musa meant.

"Uh? Nonono! Not that! I mean they might get constructed again"

Musashi tilted her head and asked "constructed again?"

"Do you two not know what I mean?!" Musa now yelled, though it wasn't a full on yell.

"Uh... no it seems" Yamato said.

"Well see we ship girls go through a cycle of death and rebirth. When we sink we can come back to life by getting reconstructed. There have been plenty of examples throughout the war. I think the best example would be USS Hovey, she's a destroyer by the way, I think she has been sunk three times, and has come back three times"

"Ah, she must have suffered a lot of trauma" Yamato muttered aloud.

"That's the odd thing" Musa said "apparently she doesn't remember the pain of sinking those three times. And she said as soon as she died she just woke up again when she was reconstructed. She compared it to sleeping. Though we still don't know what happens after we sink. Some people think we simply 'sleep' like Hovey does, others think that we turn into Abyssals, and yet others think we go to some afterlife. But we don't know for certain what happens after we sink. But... I have hope that I'll get to see my sisters again" now there was a somber mood for a few seconds before Musa broke it when she went back to speaking in a cheerful tone "anyways, since I'll be training you two, I need to know. How much do you know about ship girl stuff already? Like tactics, and fighting that kind of stuff"

"Well, both of us know tactics but, we haven't even been out on the water before. Well unless you count tug boats helping us through port"

Musa froze still for a moment with a blank smile on her face before saying "I see. Well then, first things first! Both of you need training for maneuvering on the water. If you can't maneuver then those tactics of yours are useless. So then get your riggings, we'll be going out to an exercise course. First I need to signal the tugboats so I can get out of harbor"