[Arpeggio Of Blue Steel] Sisters

Sisters

TRIGGER WARNING: very brief mention of suicide.

"IONA! How much longer?" Iori banged her fist three times against the bathroom door. "What are you even doing in there?"

No response.

"Urgh, Iona!"

"Has she still not come out yet?" Sou asked, appearing from around the corner.

"What do you think?" Iori responded grumpily.

Sou made for the door and knocked gently. "Iona, Iori and I both need to use the bathroom. Can you come out please?"

Nothing besides an imperceptible grumble from Iori could be heard.

"Iona, you don't even need to use the restroom! What the heck are you doing in there?" The orange haired girl began to pace quickly, nearly knocking over Kyouhei, who looked like he'd waited a little too long.

"Seriously? A queue?" He looked slightly panicked. "Nature's calling! Who's in there?"

"Iona." Iori almost growled.

"What? Do mental models need to pee?" Kyouhei questioned.

"No."

The three turned to the voice of Hyuuga, who slipped past them to the door.

"Iona-nee-sama? Will you come out? I want to talk to you~." Realising the others were still present, she turned her head to them. "Use the other one, for goodness sake!"

The three humans looked to each other, then dashed off downstairs, knocking a bumfuzzled Shizuka right off of her feet in the process.

"Iona-nee-sama..?" Hyuuga turned back to the bathroom door. "There are two for a reason. Will you come out?"

Shizuka's eyes widened in what looked like realisation. "Mental models need to-?"

"No. We don't." Hyuuga answered the coming question.

This looks like it could take a while. Shizuka thought. With that, she turned back calmly to begin the journey to the lower floor of the base.

They were supposed to have abandoned it the last time they'd left, however, they had ended up having to come back to hopefully restore Heavy Cruiser Takao's mental model. Progress was slow, though, since their supply of nanomatetials had greatly decreased since they first began using the island as a base.

The plan for the immediate future was for them to make sure only one use could be gained from the Vibration Warhead, the prototype of which they had delivered to America a couple of weeks back. The captain, Gunzou, believed that the way to be able to negotiate with the Fleet Of Fog was to not continue to destroy it, but get on an equal level.

Having left Haruna, Kirishima, and Makie in America before making the journey back to Iwo Jima, their plan for the foreseeable future was for the original members to depart from the island, with Takao and Hyuuga stationed there to help conduct research for their next goal...

Negotiate with Supreme Flagship Yamato on the possibility of the coexistence of humanity and the Fog.

Tough one.

"Iona-nee-sama... What will it take for you to come out?" After a long 30 minutes, there was Hyuuga sitting with her back against the bathroom door, trying and failing to come up with a way to extract the love of her life from the small room. "Iona-nee-sama..."

Just then, something caught her attention. A noise. Something like a... sniffle?

"Iona-nee sama?" Hyuuga turned to look questioningly at the door. "Are you okay?" Although she did not know much about human emotions, she had enough knowledge to understand that crying meant someone was feeling something negative, and proper practice was to comfort them.