soundless exile

Chapter 18: Whispered steel, silent sparks

Opening my eyes I find myself in a flaming hole, the fur on my tail singed my hair covered in soot, looking around I noticed I was on the deck behind my ship's citadel, running through the burning wreckage of it. I see several ships. the grey steel contrasts with the blue water, the steam streaming from my burning decks as I run, and the smoke making it hard to breathe.

flying down the deck the smoke and steam only getting thicker as I near the end, I see a hole in the deck, and looking down to see it going straight to the engine room, I feel the ship take another hit, looking out to see the ships out in the water adjusting their guns shifting towards my ships aft. no, it went further, at Tosa's ship.

I hear Amagi echo in my mind, giving a warning, "careful rousha, this would be your first time in actual combat.", "but their threatening mom, your sister", "I know, under orders, disable don't kill", "ok then", Jumping off the side I rushed at the ships, my rigging appearing on me, quickly rushing towards the ships I see them vanish to be replaced by two figures, one in a blue hat, the with a set of pigtails.

Slowing before I reach them they look at me, their heads tilted slightly, one with a smirk, and the other with a neutral expression, the rigging though, catches me off guard, sharks, they had sharks integrated into the rigging, steel forming sharp teeth, protrusions off of the piggy tailed girl's rigging mimicked eyes, the smaller girl's rigging had no such details denoting eyes.

I watched them, their mouths moving, the taller one with the silvery hair, clearly calling out to me, getting slightly irritated by my not responding. The smaller one shakes her head saying something to the other, the taller one nods her rigging readying from a relaxed resting position to an active position. Seeing this I launch forward, rushing towards them, faster and faster reaching my full speed, I jump and unsummon my rigging, this seemed to catch them off guard.

watching as millions of cubes explode outward, enveloping the short fox, before reforming into the hard grey metallic steel it truly was, the ship at full speed, in what would normally take the ship a few miles to reach, was done in mere seconds, forty thousand tons of steel, slamming bow first into the girl with silver hair, and pigtails. a unyielding force, against a very movable object.

Crossing my eyes as the grey mass flys by me before suddenly dissipating into cubes, showing the girl facing away from me, her rigging now facing away, her rigging having no identifying marks, only the fact it was pulling a look-alike, sisters perhaps, it's no mind, I have my orders. firing my torpedos I watch as they speed towards the girl, who was turning around, her ears still oddly unmoving, an oddity for nearly all the girls with animal ears I have met this is the only one that didn't move. didn't change direction to hear the water or voices, I saw the girl look down at the streaking lines in the water only for her guns to vanish like she pulled her rigging into herself, yet she was still floating.

She started to run towards me like it was dry land, the torpedos rushing towards her as she closed the distance, she jumped the torpedos streaking by under her, she was moving like a destroyer, I started to move, attempting to keep her from close distance, her rigging showed back up her guns firing around me, a cold look from her blue eyes, a bronze sheen as I see them approach, her katana drawn.

step by step running toward the girl with the little blue hat I close the distance, slashing into her my hand momentarily bumps her rigging, and a flash of thought fills my mind, not unlike my symbols, instructions, my mind quickly takes them and changes them, sending them back to the rigging, a held thought in my mind as I back away, letting her retreat some.

 I released it, suddenly her rigging came to life, her eyes widened in surprise as her own rigging moved, not under her command, the mouth of it opening and shutting, her eyes widening more in fear as it turned towards her, the mouth biting at her her hands forcibly trying to keep it from biting down on her limbs. Her screams were unheard by me, her mouth open clearly doing so, her blue eyes filled with fear, her hand slips the rigging getting through it taking hold of her neck, and tearing it out, leaving the girl a spreading patch of red in the blue water.

Walking towards the body, I lift her up, pulling a form of identification and putting it in my own pocket, I looked over where I left that other girl, her body missing, either she ran, or she sank looking back to my mom's ship I return to it, summoning my own ship and continuing to tow it.

___

Several hours later
Pearl Harbor

"hey we got a radio contact", "we do, from who?", "I don't know its all in morse, saying they are damaged and requesting to dock and repair", "do we have visual contact?", "uh, we do is it me or is that a set of battleships?", "holly shit, it is and both are tosa class"

Rushing out leaving the other to man the station I run to Wales who looks over, "what is is Cleveland?", "we go radio contacts, both are tosa class", "I thought sakura empire sank her in accordance of the treaty?", "we either she hid or they lied, but by the damage of one and the fact there should only be one tosa class, and we havent heard back from hearless in a bit, I just don't know", "you think she took a battle ship by herself with no crew and towed another one as she left?", "who fuckin knows, she overhauled enterprises engines in like 3 hours, I wouldn't put it past her.", "fair enough, let them enter but keep nearly every gun we have available trained on them, we have no clue if this is a trap or not"

the small bulb on the machine flashes returning a response in morse, I nod at it and quickly respond setting the ship to make for an empty dock, slowly as I headed in carefully bringing in mom's ship with soon to line up with the dock, I run down from the bridge to poke my head over the side and wave at the collection of girls all starting at me in shock.

I watched as several of them started to converse, a few stared at the ship, others at Mom's ship more than likely wondering how it was still afloat, I see wales wave and did a simple come here gesture, I jumped from the side of the ship and landed on the dock, running over to them, none of the girls are surprised at my action of jumping from the ship, they seen me jump from the top of enterprise's ship to the deck without issue, always landing with a roll.

I started to follow wales back to the office, but I tapped her shoulder and pointed at the other ship and gave a one moment gesture, running back I see my mom in my ships bridge looking at the harbor, tapping her I did a follow me motion, and she threw on her cloak, and does so, following wales when we do rejoin with her, soon to head to the office.