Nimbus Child I: Games of War

[REWRITE] Present 1

Kongō – like most other ships – didn't remember her past life. She knew it existed because Mikasa said so and Mikasa never lied.

When Kongō had still been small, a battlecruiser barely arrived in Japan, anxiously waiting for her sisters' births, she had asked what the other Kongō had been like.

"Akin to you", Mikasa had said, "fretting about fitting in, however."

The Kongō of that time didn't understand why anyone would. Today's Kongō remembered the ache of a newly retrofitted body and the fear of losing what remained of her mother.

Not quite the same; not even the right way around, probably, and yet.

She wondered, sometimes, what that old Kongō did for the new her to not have any of those feelings. When Hiei was still alive, her golden sunrise-esque eyes glowing and meeting Kongō's sundown ones with innocent joy, she thought she understood.

Then Haruna and Kirishima had been born, their eyes more "boring", but not less warmth inducing, not less feeding the warm kindle deep inside her.

Nowadays that kindle had burned over from a wildfire into a cold flame and not even the gold making the first kanji of her name could fix all the shards left behind.

"...ngō. Kongō!"

Kongō snapped back into the present – the warm sunrays, the smell of tea and cinnamon – to look up at her mother and the questioning looks of the other old ships, the ladies meeting each day, though their attendance differed.

"Ah, my apologies", the silver-haired ship smiled, "my mind must have wandered."

Lion chuckled, the sound not quite ladylike, but all the more welcome: "We have noticed. What does trouble you, my dear?"

"Oki appears burdened, recently", Kongō touched her chest lightly, fingertips barely touching fabric, "I were to lie if I said it didn't bother me."

Ex-797, that was, named by all of her sisters. There was a gaping hole in Kongō's gut at the thought, it wrenching with the thought of other complete classes – what an ugly thing jealousy was, truly.

The ladies agreed, verbally or with nods, leaving Kongō to take a sip of tea. It was a fruity thing, probably brought along by Kawachi.

"You have tried talking to her?", Princess Royal asked from her place on Kongō's other side.

"Naturally", she had attempted various times. Each and every time the little battleship seemed like she wanted to speak, then withdrew into herself and ran off.

"Her sisters report similar behavior", Mikasa finally spoke up. With her position as Fleet Mother – the ship in charge of raising the young ones – the old pre-dreadnought had a better, deeper knowledge of the fleet members' relationships than Kongō had as flagship.

A fact Kongō regretted, but so was the nature of their statuses; one a caretaker, one a protector.

Sighing, Kongō asked: "Have they said anything to you, Mikasa-nee-sama?"

"No", her brown hair, the silver at its tips so similar to Kongō's one could think they were actual sisters, waved in the slight breeze.

"Neither did anyone to me", Dreadnought noted, lips drawn down into an apologetic frown.

Since Nippon-Great Britain was a united fleet of Japanese and British ships, some ranks were double, one for each "branch". If Mikasa was Japan's Fleet Mother, then Dreadnought was Britain's.

Lion tapped the tray of cinnamon-vanilla biscuits she had slowly slid to her daughter during their morning tea, smiling at her: "When you were still small, your favourite treats would always make you talk."