Nimbus Try I: Arpeggio of Hurt Steel [English Version]

~Rewrite 9~

A/N: btw, happy to introduce my (very female) cat Garfield as co-author, simply because we were cuddling while writing and her ear (which can swipe on the phone) produced a sentence that actually worked after correcting the gramma a bit.

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Before they had entered the Sound, Zeitwächter had said "we can talk at the shrine again".

Then she had led them across the water, throwing petals into the water whenever they passed a wreck.

What she had not done was reveal that the old platform must have fallen to the sea as well until they stood in front of it.

The "shrine" now taking its place was definitely built by Zeitwächter herself: a simple little floating platform formed by nanomaterial and made to mimic rock with two sotoba-like grave markers out of the same material. They even carried an inscription and each of them rests of the flower wreaths of the past year.

Zeitwächter handed the wreaths over to Kongō with a striking smile that made her heart skip a beat and kneeled down to clean up, putting the seemingly fragile silver rings back on the sotobas so that they could slide down and join the others at the bottom.

"Why do you make them simulate natural rotting processes?", Kongō couldn't help but wonder.

"I come every year anyway. Besides, the less nanomaterial I have to keep in its form, the better."

If no one knew that the flowers weren't real then they couldn't boo Zeitwächter for letting them rot to take a certain strain off her processor – also, if they died a few months earlier in some years than normally, well, it must have been a bad batch, right?

Lazy even in honouring the dead, was a thought that came to mind, though.

Kongō looked at her flower wreath for a while and then altered it when she handed it off to her companion.

Zeitwächter didn't notice it, or mayhaps it just wasn't important enough for her to point out, but the blonde wanted to keep up the appearance for her.

Putting the wreaths down in front of the markers, the battleship even seemed to pray a bit before rising back up and cleaning off half-imaginary dust from her dress: "Ok, let's go, or is there something you want to do?"

"No."

"Kay!", she beamed, almost raising her voice above the whispered voices they were speaking in.

Zeitwächter rushed towards their ships, created a staircase out of hexagonal steps and held out her hand like a knight wanting to help their lord up.

Kongō accepted it as well as the hand going to her hip to unnecessarily steady her and walked up.

When they stepped on Kongō’s deck, a destroyer not of Fog origin appeared on the horizon, seemingly jolting as she noticed them.

That was the USS Kidd, skull flag flying in the wind.

"She must’ve slipped through the cracks you created", Zeitwächter mused.

A lot of ships had been taken out by Kongō when she went berserk, so it was no surprise that one or two ships slipped through until the holes were fixed by lighter units and the two or so carriers left.

"Most likely."

Back on Kidd, the alarm had been sounded and everyone went to battle stations, waiting for any kind of reaction from the black Fleet of Fog battleships in the distance.

Kidd and her crew had been ordered to do the yearly honouring for the victims of Ironbottom Sound.

"We have to use the chance", the big bosses had said, "before they fill up their ranks."