Origin: Admiral Abilities: Captain’s Orders Free Yamato Damashii -100 Beacon of Hope -300 Memories Reborn -600 Gear: Admiral’s Uniform Free Marriage Ring and Documents Free Upgraded Gear (Armor, Armor, & Armor) Free Remodeling Equipment x3 -300

Shipgirls: Flagship: Queen Elizabeth Class Battleship Warspite -150 Type IXC U-boat (Submarine) U-511 ` -50 J Class Destroyer 'Lucky' Jervis Free Maestrale Class Destroyer Libeccio Free John C. Butler-class Destroyer Escort Samuel B. Roberts Free Tashkent Class Destroyer Tashkent Free

Drawbacks: Iron & Blood +300 Shellshock +300

“So,” the darkened hall was filled with silence, “he’s been found. Admiral Ootori has been discovered.” “That rapscallion from the forward base actually made it out?” A voice asked. “How many shipgirls are with him.” “None.” The original speaker replied. “He wasn’t completely,” an hand moved through the air, “there when the scouts found him. He kept reporting his name and number, like he was ​ ​ being tortured.” Again the hand traced through the air. “One of the shipgirls reported that he manifested a broken wreck of a Yamato Class for a moment before it all fell apart and he’s been catatonic since..” “What?” Several shocked voices took to the air. “Indeed.” The original speaker said slowly. “An Admiral who lost every last ship he had under him, but he somehow survived. That could scar a man for life, especially one so young.” “Don’t be coy!” The table shook as a meaty fist hit it. “You said that he could manifest a ship, like the shipgirls?” “That is indeed what was implied by the reporting shipgirl’s brief, yes.” The first voice sighed. “This is big news, however can we focus on the young Admiral who was, for reasons unknown, put in charge of an overextended oil rig? Seventeen shipgirls slain on site, a full twenty-five if you include the submarines.” Some people in the room shifted uncomfortably at those numbers. “The fleet was taken completely by surprise, the oil rig detonated on the water, and there should have been no way for young Admiral Ootori to have survived the attack. Then he’s found, traumatized to the point of catatonic mutterings, with the ability to manifest his late flagship as some kind of defense?” “Are you trying to imply something here, Rear Admiral?” A voice cut out from the silence. “If I find out this was some sick and twisted scheme from Unit 731,” the Rear Admiral’s voice was cold, “I will see you put to trial for this.. This war crime.” “Well sir,” the cold voice cut in again, “if you have any evidence please present it.” “If he’s so broken then should we just send him home?” Another voice deflected. The two who had been speaking turned to this new man. “I mean he’s gone through so much, why not send him back.” “With that kind of ability?” The cold voice asked. “That’s like giving up on summoning shipgirls. No.” “As much as I hate to agree with him,” the Rear Admiral spoke up, “he’s right. I vote we give him a cushy job after he get’s out of the hospital. Somewhere where he can stretch his new powers out.” “The Foreign Flotilla needs a new Admiral.” Someone noted. “It’s a fairly unknown bunch, and they can move out of the way from the primary fighting. There are shipgirls coming and going at all times. No need for him to get overly committed like with his old fleet.” Another uncomfortable shift among the people around the table. “You all have heard the rumors just as much as I have, about the greenhorns like Ootori getting too close to the shipgirls. He’ll be in a place where he can use those new powers, if they’re not just some kind of ghost ship protecting him to it’s last,” several people shuddered at the thought but they dealt with akitsumikami on the regular so they didn’t throw out the notion wholesale as they once would have, “and we can try to keep him off the beaten path this way.” “I’ll second the notion, but only if he recovers from the shock.” A stern voice spoke up. “We can’t give a madman such a placement.” There was a general sense of agreement.

I lay on the bed just letting myself sit there. I thought I’d known despair watching my brothers die out in the gods damned sandbox and being the only one not killed in the blast. I thought I’d understood war when we’d been taught to fear lone children walking towards us as much as charging zealots. I thought I knew agony when the Army sent me home, no longer suitable for battle. Desert Storm had left rents in my soul. I’d been a simple man before I’d become an Engineer for Uncle Sam, but the thing that I didn’t even get to call a war had left me broken in places that were hard to fix. This, this had been my big second chance, but instead of a bright future I was suddenly back in the shit and the memories of what had happened threatened to drown me. Twenty-Five girls slain in my defense. Monsters tearing into their flesh after their spiritual barriers filtered. The flagship, Yamato, taking hit after hit whilst escorting me away from the mass of black hate and crimson eyes. Her shedding the sheltering hull of her ship just to get me a little farther.from the beasts who were pursuing. Her last grand sacrifice as her boiler, her very heart, was shot out to spatter across my face. ‘We,’ I shoved the agony down along with the person I had been in this war with practice ​ ​ I’d only learned year after my war, ‘they had been planning to marry. How did I survive though?’ ​ ​ The memory was hazy and I struggled to put the pieces together. ‘Yamato, she did something. It ​ transferred her rigging over to me. Made me wear her mantel.’ ​ The booms of Yamato’s guns as I felt their recoil, the sensation of artillery strikes bouncing off my new shield as I stood upon water as if it were ground. Ripping and tearing, until finally there were no Abyssals willing to take the field against me. Feeling the emptiness of ammo loss, fuel deficiencies, as a crew not my own tried to hold the hull together. Beaching myself on that lonesome island. Turning and twisting the last weapons on Yamato’s hull to get ready for a last stand… That never came. I’d been there for days, it felt longer but even with my mysterious ability to mantel Yamato’s hull didn’t shield me from the rigors of hunger and thirst. I had visions of all of those whose lives I had outlived coming for me in Abyssal attire. It broke me. I shook my head. It had broken Ootori, but thankfully the brass were willing to send him to therapists instead of losing one of their Admirals, which apparently they were in short supply of. This would take some time to adapt to.

Five months is how long it took, surprising the various therapists at the amazing bounce back. Five long months of dealing with twenty-five more names carved in my heart. Nearly half a year dealing with the in-and-outs of survivor’s guilt. Explaining it was… difficult. There will always be more questions, the lingering feeling that you could have done more, but the past is immutable. A hollow positive bit of information was that the shipgirls who’d been slain at Rig 4444 had all been ‘recovered’. No Abyssals wearing their faces to worry about. The five months also gave me time to go on a visit to the Primary Naval Yards and get the rig Yamato had somehow passed to me so I could requisition use of the repair bay. Using my Admiral rights to get the entire mantel dipped in repair fluid had felt kind of like an abuse of my privileges but what happened afterwards made up for it, sort of. “It’s terrifying to think that it still can mend even this far without her.” The engineers shivered as the mantel threw off blue and green flames every time the system dipped it in. “Looks like the crew is at a total loss as are the guns both the Prototype Forty-One Centimeter and the Fifteen and a halfs. The old Type Zero and Anti-Air is still up and running though.” The primary engineer noted as she turned to me. “Where’s the girl who went through all this, must have been rough.” “Dead.” I said morosely. “You’re having us repair an honest to god's ghost ship?” The engineers took a step away from me as they noticed the flames were staying in the rents of the hull, not really repairing as much as ‘filling in’. “Something like that.” Had been my reply. “We’ll need a refit,” I felt dull and useless as I pulled out some plans, “please help me do this, for her?”

The mobile nature of the Foreign Flotilla made tracking it difficult but moving your base made it open to other difficulties. Warspite continued to rain death down upon a small pocket of Abyssals they’d accidently come upon in their floating fortress-home. The Abyssals themselves had been deep in the water so the initial check had only brought up corrupted sea which they’d tried to cleanse. Then the hidden Abyssal submarines had exploded out of their various bolt holes and the fighting began in earnest. She cursed as her cottoned on to a sub just as it came out of the water, divers knife in hand seeking to cut her sisters off from her support. She hoped they would be okay without her even as she took in the crimson eyes of her foe. Then the light sub was sent flying as a sword bearing fist rammed into it with a dull roar. She felt her eyes widen as she took in the warped skull of her would-be killer as the Abyssal’s corpse skipped across the waves like a stone trailing blue flame as she went. Warspite blinked and then she found herself staring with growing horror at a monster of a different kind. Blue and green fire filled a bullet rent hull of the mantel which followed the back-mounted ‘split hull’ design with smokestacks belching blue-green flames at the back, and wrecked battleship hull-like ‘arms’ which looked more like a demonic suit of armor without the guns that would normally bristle outwards. The signature had been bent behind the head and was coated in the Saint Elmo’s Flame and the belching flame of the smokestacks to form an unearthly halo behind the head, the roar hadn’t been from the mantel being used for an old fashioned ram, but from massed Anti-Air guns laying down flak clouds on the submarines. The thing Warspite saw was like a ship of old folk lore that was used to keep sailors up and about. The burning shell of a hellborne vessel, which rose out of the waters during battle just to sate it’s bloodlust a little more. This thing was terrifying even though it’s armor belt and layers made the one look like some kind of Oni out of the local legends. She couldn’t even see who was within the burning hulk of the Yamato. A glimpse of a trenchcoat here and there among the shrouded flames. Of man shrouded blue flames with a pair of swords drawn.

The Abyssals were subs, light on armor, but even so the flak wouldn't do too much damage. However, they rushed underwater out of primal fear as the airbursts exploded and the AA continued to lay down covering fire for the girls. Perhaps they were less afraid of the guns and the person behind them. “Admiral has taken the field.” Came a voice from the radio. “Designating Admiral’s Ship: Yamato Class Battleship Musashi1.”

1 Yamato Class Battleship Musashi withstood unprecedented damage to a IJN ship when it sank - 19 torpedoes, 17 bombs, & 20 cannon strikes. Despite that, she managed to operate for 4:06 hours & attempt a beaching. This is why the three choices for ‘Upgraded Parts’ were all Armor. I like the idea of Musashi leaving a huge impact on the one who was with her on the front lines for three years, as detailed in Remodeling Parts description. Her guns have been reforged into three weapons, a katana wakizashi and tanto set, because they couldn’t bring the crew back nor reactivate the weapons systems. I like the idea of Yamato Damashii and Memories Reborn working this way, even if it is a step down from what it could get up to as written.