Tatsuta was now walking around the barracks to allow her body to digest the delicious food that she had eaten while in the canteen, cooked for them courtesy of the skilled senior ship girl Mamiya, who was good with her hands.
She was also trying to review the memory of her training with the Kai Ni heavy cruiser, and although Haguro looked rather meek and passive, fighting her was an absolute nightmare, as Tatsuta could now attest to having fought against her in a 1v1 mock battle.
And being a senior in this base, Haguro could naturally see through her despite Tatsuta's best attempts to try and keep her distance from others to prevent herself from being hurt by the unpredictable events of life.
Haguro, being a ship girl who also had more life experience, had also given her some relevant advice pertaining to her own concerns and problems after handily defeating her, to which Tatsuta was secretly grateful, seeing that not a lot of people approached her and gave her advice that was actually useful.
Things were not going well for Tatsuta.
Well, they rarely did for the Tenryuu-Class light cruiser, but this was a special case where she felt completely out of control despite being an active participant in the battle, which secretly infuriated her to no end even when she was one hell of an expert in maintaining a poker face.
And it just didn't seem nice of her to be angry at a ship girl who looked as though she regretted every action that she had to undertake in order to defeat Tatsuta, looking at the frightened but steady expression and stance of the Myoukou-Class heavy cruiser before her.
Haguro looked as though she were suppressing the fear that welled up within her when facing off against one as dreaded as Tatsuta, the light cruiser breathing heavily as she gripped her glaive, named Sado, a little tighter than usual.
But that wasn't the point, wondering how there could be such a large difference in terms of skill between her and the heavy cruiser when Haguro didn't even sortie with any of her equipment.
Haguro was standing in front of her, leaning in and almost cowering as she brought her gloved hands together and asked meekly,
"Tatsuta-san? I-If you're tired, should we take a break?"
Tatsuta blinked, never missing a beat as she responded smoothly,
"Not yet. I just want to understand how you were able to evade all my attacks, and why you didn't sortie with your equipment when fighting me. I was wondering if you don't see me as much of a threat and not worth using your weapons to defeat."
Tatsuta smiled in a saccharine manner as she considered the possibility of Haguro possibly looking down on her and determined to defeat her without use of her weapons.
But the heavy cruiser pushing her hands out and vehemently denying Tatsuta's claim was something she didn't expect of the timid heavy cruiser, watching her large and innocent eyes express genuine disbelief at that insinuation and trying to correct it, Haguro exclaiming.
"N-No, it's not that, I promise! I respect your abilities, and especially how hard you trained to try and counter my observation skills by attempting to eliminate all visible tells pertaining to your attack moves! It's just..."
Haguro looked as though she deflated from within as her shoulders sagged, the Kai Ni heavy cruiser bringing the tips of her fingers together as she admitted to Tatsuta while looking away ashamedly.
"I really don't want to accidentally kill you, Tatsuta-san."
Tatsuta blinked as she thought about that claim, gripping Sado's shaft a little tighter as she debated herself on whether she should use the new move she thought up of against a senior ship girl.
Now, she had heard that the Myoukou-Class heavy cruisers were all skilled combatants, and that all of them had spent up to a decade in training up on a particular skill that was difficult to emulate or fight against, Tatsuta having heard that Haguro possessed extraordinary battle senses, situational awareness and body-reading skills.
And having heard that the 1st and 3rd Fleet were going to train together, Tatsuta had done the math and eventually concluded that her training partner was likely going to either be Abukuma or Haguro.
And although Shigure going off with Akashi was unexpected, it didn't change the outcome by much, seeing Tenryuu fighting Ashigara, Nagato coaching Hiei, Amagi with Junyou while Abukuma and Yukikaze trained Ayanami, watching the Kagerou-Class destroyer sit on the Kuma-Class light cruiser's shoulders and add another pair of firearm-wielding hands to their bizarre totem-pole fighting stance, Tatsuta sweat-dropping at how energetic they were.
Back to the matter at hand, Tatsuta, in preparing for a potential sparring match between Haguro and herself, had tried to eliminate all her tells and any subconscious movements that the heavy cruiser could pick up on to predict and evade her attacks in time.
But that obviously didn't work, Tatsuta accepting the fact that if it were so easy to counter her observation skills, anyone would have beaten her and she wouldn't have performed as well in battle against the Abyssals, who possessed impressive firepower and manpower to make up for their lack of close-quarters combat skills and would've killed her with a simple shell into her torso or something.
And now, Tatsuta had an attack that she wanted to try out on someone, and the problem here was that she wanted to find someone who could defeat her offensive technique.
Here was a ship girl who possessed (in her eyes) almost godlike reflexes and powerful battle senses that were honed through years of training and could shut down her attack in a way that wouldn't end her life (hopefully), and help point out any glaring issues in her technique.
In the end, Tatsuta decided to go for it, choosing to believe that the heavy cruiser would be able to stop her technique, and she also hoped that she wouldn't accidentally injure the Kai Ni heavy cruiser on the off-chance that the heavy cruiser failed to counter her attack.
Tatsuta dropped her smile, her pupils emptying as she focused all her might and got into her glaive-thrusting stance and feeling her muscles tense up and prepare to strike like a wary snake, coiled and ready to explode at the drop of a hat.
Haguro was also aware of something going on with the Tenryuu-Class light cruiser, because unbeknownst to the light cruiser, the Kai Ni heavy cruiser could feel a purplish-red aura emanate from the light cruiser and cause her halo to glow a predictable crimson red as Tatsuta allowed her killing instinct to take over her body and increase the deadliness of her attack to ensure that she wouldn't hold back despite Haguro being a fellow ship girl.
And finally, Tatsuta burst forward and accelerated from a resting position, achieving a breakneck speed through her leg muscles pushing her forward and her turbines running at maximum capacity.
She used her right hand to thrust her glaive forward and achieve the final burst of speed required to perform the move she envisioned in her mind, shouting in her mind.
God-Killing Spear!
Her execution was perfect, having performed the move exactly as she imagined after going through the motions in practice without the burst of speed to conserve her strength as she flew through the air at a disgustingly swift velocity.
So why was her right temple bleeding, her head reeling from some sort of unknown impact to the side of her head, and her entire body collapsing onto the ocean surface?
Tatsuta's eyelids flew open as she laid down on the ocean surface, trying to remember what happened as she looked up at her HUD, which read,
31 March 2015
12.53 p.m.
And looking up at the ship girl who was blocking out the sun, casting a shadow over her entire body and shrouding her in darkness as the Tenryuu-Class light cruiser squinted her eyes to look at the heavy cruiser watching over her.
Haguro again brought up her clenched hands to cover herself as she chided, looking as though she were about to cry.
"That's not very nice, Tatsuta-san.
I really didn't want to hurt you..."
Tatsuta reached up to her right temple, wincing as she tried to remember how she ended up lying on the ocean surface, feeling the cool steel patch stuck on the side of her head.
She knew that the steel patches were like band-aids, where the "patch" was composed of inert nano-machines to be activated when they were placed on a wound, helping the ship girl body recover faster as the nano-machines went to work, treating the wound and utilizing the steel material that the patch was made out of to replace ship girl flesh if the need arose.
Haguro no longer looked as though she wanted to fight anymore as she was already seated on the ocean and wiping her tears, causing Tatsuta to blink at the show of weakness.
Tatsuta knew when to throw in the towel, remembering how the heavy cruiser shut down her moves prior to her ultimate technique somehow being shut down as she graciously nodded in apology, wiping the sweat from her face as she squatted and eventually sat on the ocean surface as Haguro shifted to give her some space.
She pressed her skirt in to sit down in a ladylike manner, the both of them looking at the rest of their fleet training together and enjoying the silence between them as Tatsuta took the time to catch her breath and nurse her wound.
She shot the heavy cruiser beside her an aside glance, trying to piece together the Kai Ni ship girl's fighting style, and how she was able to evade all her attacks thus far.
Haguro must've picked up on her looking at the heavy cruiser, as the Myoukou-Class heavy cruiser covered her face shyly with a slight blush upon someone looking at her so keenly, stuttering.
"U-Um, Tatsuta-san, why're you looking at me like that?"
"Oh no, I just want to note how you were able to counter my attack without getting even a scratch on you. And besides, you're a beautiful ship girl, so looking at you's a rather pleasant experience."
Tatsuta giggled at that as she covered her mouth, and Haguro was sputtering as she tried to explain herself to the stunned light cruiser while trying to hide her blush.
"U-Um, you see, part of how I can keep track of everyone i-is to feel their killing intent. And when the Abyssals often want to kill you, that killing intent flares up right before their cannons fire. That allows me to perform a split second counter to evade and reflexively shoot back at them, often which they die very quickly. "
Tatsuta nodded at that, nodding as she understood that Abyssals would possess killing intent as they faced off against the ship girls, something which was difficult for participants of both sides to suppress, Haguro continuing on as she looked down at her own shoes.
"I've trained myself up to read and predict the movement patterns of the enemy, and I'm also able to keep track of their position around me, as well as whether their cannons are empty, which I take advantage of to advance and predict when their cannons have reloaded. So for instance..."
Gesturing to Tatsuta, Haguro gave her an aside glance as Tatsuta noted the heavy cruiser's eyes roaming over her sweaty uniform and body as she elaborated.
"I already knew that you were right-handed, and I've already noted the maximum range that your glaive extends and the various ways that you would wield it in with your master hand. Add the fact that I deduced the limits of your speed and agility, as well as your fighting style that is offensive in nature and leaves a margin of safety to protect yourself, giving up that margin of safety to enhance the deadliness of your final attack. Keeping all that in mind, I can counter your every move while also watching the weapons that you carry on your backpack to ensure that I wouldn't get hit by a torpedo."
Tatsuta blinked at that, never having thought about such things before and rather amazed that the heavy cruiser could take in so much information and render her impotent through observation skills alone.
And it wouldn't be out of the question if Haguro detected her killing intent well before she even attacked with any of her weapons and detected the instant that killing aura flared up as a sign that she was attacked, the light cruiser now beginning to see how the heavy cruiser operated in combat as she operated on instinct and observation.
And even if Tatsuta was carrying her handheld cannons, she could picture Haguro whipping around to evade her attacks and squeeze off a shot in her direction before Tatsuta even had a chance to respond should she decide to bring her weapons to the battlefield and overpower Tatsuta.
Her skills might be fearsome to the enemy, but fighting reflexes that had been honed and drilled into the ship girl body could also pose a danger when sparring with allies, possibly injuring them or worse as she felt the cool metal patch stuck to her head.
Tatsuta nodded, heaving as she leaned back to enjoy a cool breeze that had blown in from the south as she looked back at her training teammates.
But Haguro still saw that something was troubling her, and seemed determined to help out a fellow comrade in arms despite her timid demeanor, leaning in to get a closer look at Tatsuta as she asked,
"U-Um, T-Tatsuta-san, is there something that's troubling you? I-I'd like to help give you some advice, because I'm concerned about you as a senior and as a fellow comrade!"
Tatsuta blinked and drew back a little as Haguro leaned in, her eyes innocent and sincere about her cause as Tatsuta thought back about her own troubles.
Well, there was always the problem about controlling her own blood lust and the overpowering urge to feed off of the carnage and destruction of her enemies.
The blood lust, which was useful in battle to spur her on to eviscerate her enemies was slowly beginning to interfere with her daily life and interpersonal relationships, but that wasn't such a serious problem that required help from an external party, right?
Right?
Tatsuta's eyebrows creased at that, and she was stuck between coldly rejecting her senior and sharing her personal issues with someone who wasn't her sister or even her teammate, contemplating as she glanced back at the bright face of Haguro inching closer with her eyes widening in anticipation.
Finally, Tatsuta sighed as she shared her issues with the heavy cruiser so as to get her off her back, leaning forward as she looked down at her boat slippers, watching the reflection of the airborne clouds and the distant figures of her sparring teammates as she elaborated.
"I've often felt the urge to see my enemies bleed on the battlefield, and it's served me well in that I've always felt sated after a good battle, and especially when the enemy dies in a spectacularly gory fashion. But recently, I can't help but feel that that blood lust is seeping into my mind when I'm not on sorties."
Tatsuta hugged her own thighs and held her own weapon Sado tight as she thought about the possibilities that could occur, which were frightening even to her as she remembered what Akashi told her in confidence.
"Akashi-san told me that there have been various Tatsuta that have hurt their own comrades to try and sate that blood lust whenever it became uncontrollable, something that I admit that I wouldn't be comfortable with doing. She told me that I needed to have a few hobbies to pass the time, since 'idle hands are the devil's workshop' and all that, and she offered me the chance to join her as a medic and a surgeon."
Tatsuta shrugged her shoulders as she pondered over the frightening possibility of being allowed to do anything else than what she was created to do, something that she touched upon as she glanced at the attentive Haguro.
"I'm just worried that I might not be a good surgeon, because I'm created to be a weapon, right? So if I ever hold the surgical knife, I might want to hurt the patient and kill her because of my blood lust, although I understand the need to find a hobby or an activity to apply myself..."
But Haguro leaned in again as she seemed rather agitated at that, responding passionately.
"Y-You should accept Akashi-san's offer, because I know that you can do it! You're comfortable when handling bloody situations, and you look like the type that likes to handle knives, no offense, Tatsuta-san!"
Tatsuta blinked at that as she looked into the eyes of Haguro, but she was unable to get a word in edgewise as the Kai Ni heavy cruiser continued on.
"Actually, now that I think about it, Akashi and Mamiya work together closely as surgeons and cooks, as both professions require the delicate use of knives to help ship girls heal correctly and to create delicacies respectively. So, you should ask the both of them to teach you skills in your free time to take your mind off of more morbid things. And also..."
Haguro put up a finger to silence Tatsuta as she tried to talk some sense into Tatsuta, the Tenryuu-Class light cruiser having only seen a handful of ship girls this concerned about her, and looking at the Myoukou-Class heavy cruiser, she was actually beginning to feel something that she currently hadn't felt concerning anyone who wasn't her sister ship or her teammates.
Gratitude.
Watching the heavy cruiser be so concerned about her when she didn't even need to bother in the first place since they weren't sister ships or even fleet-mates, she expected to feel irritated by the heavy cruiser's concern when her issues didn't even involve her.
But that never occurred to her as she watched Haguro's heartfelt and genuine expressions flit across her face as she continued, being concerned for a fellow ship girl without any sort of hidden agenda behind her words.
"This second life that we've been given and reincarnated into human bodies and with personalities of our own would mean that we aren't simply machines of death, but are now able to develop our personality and skills to prove to ourselves that we aren't all about combat and killing, right? And besides, I want to ask..."
Haguro pointed at Tatsuta as she asked a question,
"If you're in control of your blood-lust, then why don't you exert that control? That blood lust isn't the only thing that defines you, so I personally wouldn't recommend relinquishing control and let it blind you to everything you could become."
Tatsuta thought about that, and saw that the heavy cruiser had a point in that her own blood-lust wasn't her only defining trait, and as a few institutionalized Tatsuta could attest to, letting her violent and sadistic urges run wild to cause wanton destruction wasn't a very good idea, and might slowly infest and corrupt her mind, making the entire situation with her blood lust a delicate balancing act.
But was she the one in control?
If one would forgive her for sounding a little like Tenryuu, hell yes.
Tatsuta flashed Haguro a smile, and this time, it wasn't one of those superficial smiles that she put on her face when she didn't know what other expressions to put on to face others, but this time, it was a genuine smile of gratitude at the heavy cruiser having shared her thoughts in a genuine attempt to help her as a comrade.
Tatsuta looked down at her hands, having dropped by the docks and had Akashi check her wound to make sure that she wasn't going to suffer some sort of brain damage before leaving for dinner.
And having rested up the docks, she could clearly remember how the heavy cruiser had countered her attack at the instant before contact.
The heavy cruiser spun around to avoid Tatsuta's God-Killing Spear that moved in a linear path, and Tatsuta could clearly see that the Myoukou-Class heavy cruiser was frozen as she took in all the information concerning her attack as Tatsuta ran towards her.
And when Tatsuta got close enough for her to counter, Haguro, acting on instinct alone at this point in time, spun around to evade her incoming glaive thrust.
She nailed Tatsuta in the side of her head with an elbow strike too fast for Tatsuta to even see coming as her eyes blanked out for an instant, Tatsuta certain that her brains would have been splattered all over the ocean had the heavy cruiser not become aware of her actions and held back at the instant before impact, causing the Muay-Thai-esque elbow strike to become a love tap instead of the devastating blow it was meant to be.
As Tatsuta raised her fingers to inspect the area of impact, she thought about the heavy cruiser's frightening ability to negate her attack so easily, and how she had trained herself up to respond to attacks that possessed killing intent so quickly that she almost wasn't aware of her own action, and would have killed Tatsuta in an instant were she an Abyssal.
Clenching her gloved hand tightly, she tried to grapple with this newfound fear of the Myoukou-Class heavy cruiser's abilities, now having seen a glimpse of what the ultimate ship girl was capable of, and how she felt a chill down her spine as she imagined training herself up to be able to fight like that.
And having previously thought of the kind and meek ship girl as rather weak in terms of her mentality, she now saw that the heavy cruiser, despite having been through so much throughout the entirety of her existence, still stayed true to herself and genuinely wanted to help and protect others, now heavily respecting the heavy cruiser both as a kindhearted person and as a skilled soldier.
Looking at someone like that, Tatsuta thought about Haguro's advice and wondered to herself as she contemplated her own existence and worth, not just to her sister but also to her own newfound teammates.
She wanted her sister and friends to be safe despite keeping herself emotionally distanced from them, and the last thing she wanted to see was her sister cry over her losing control of her own blood lust and having to put her down.
She was finally seeing other ways to apply herself that had never occurred to her before and learn to firmly control a bloodthirsty desire that she had always kept at arm's length for fear of possession.
"Can I become stronger and also protect my friends, despite being who I am right now?"
And the thing was, Tatsuta was strangely feeling a little more enthusiastic about the answer to that question.