The Battle of Yokosuka - Retreat

0836

Kongō didn't know what had happened. She and her two companions, Ise and Hyūga, had fired at the traitors. Most of their shots had missed, but a few of them hit.

Then, an earsplitting explosion came from Fuji's guns, large plumes of smoke and flame being released above the water.

The shells flew faster than bullets from a machine gun, flying over the the water like shooting stars in the night sky.

Then they hit.

In a heartbeat, the fifteen 18-inch shells tore through the armour plating of the three battleships. Kongo took three shells along her broadside, and Ise and Hyūga each took six.

She felt the burning steel tearing through her before she heard the sound of impact. The crushing steel, the explosions, the pain, it was overwhelming.

As she looked up, she heard the sound of a magazine detonating, and lifted her head just in time to see Hyūga explode in a massive fireball, thousands of pieces of armour plating and equipment flying in every direction.

She looked at Ise, only to see her superstructure collapse, catching a glimpse of her screaming face as she was crushed by several hundred tons of steel. 

Impossible.

Just impossible.

They were some of the strongest battleships in the Imperial Navy. 

There was no way the a few shells could just kill them like that.

It was impossible.

Wait.

If six shells had had done that much damage to them, how much had she taken from the three that had hit her?

She tried to stand up, but couldn't. She couldn't feel her legs at all.

She fell back to the ground, coughing up puddles of blood. She looked up, and couldn't believe it.

It was her legs.

No, not just her legs.

Her entire body below her waist was lying a few feet away from her in a puddle of blood.

She looked down at her body, and saw where her body had been split into two. 

Her organs were spilling out onto the floor, and her nerves had started to shut down from the sheer amount of pain they were being flooded with. 

Blood was rushing out of her like a river running down a mountain, and it was getting hard for her to breathe.

It was so cold, and she was burning in pain at the same time.

Her vision started to fade, and her mind began to go blank.

With the last of her energy, she sent a radio broadcast to all Imperial ships in the area.

"Do not engage the traitors. There is no chance of victory. You will die."

Then, everything faded to black, and the pain finally disappeared.

***

0840

Salem couldn't believe it. No ship could be that powerful. But this wasn't a dream. The three Imperial battleships had just been sunk with a single salvo of 'Margaret's' guns.

The first one to go had had its magazine detonate, and debris had begun to rain down on the water around the sinking remnants of her hull.

The second had had its superstructure collapse to the side, dragging the ship down until she capsized. 

The third ship, which had taken the least shells of all three of them, had lasted the longest. At first, Salem had thought that she had survived the impact. Then, after a few minutes, she saw what had really happened.

With an ugly groan, and a handful of explosions from her engine room, the battleship split in two. 

Her fore section began to lilt to the side, starting to sink. Her aft section, still moving under the power of her slowing screws, pushed forward as it sank beneath the waves.

It was an incredible display of power. Salem realized just how powerful that battleship was. Even with her entire force of fifty ships and over a hundred aircraft, she probably still wouldn't be able to sink her.

And that wasn't even taking into account the Imperial fleets closing in on them from behind. The only saving grace from all of this was the information that the new battleship and the builder, along with a heavy cruiser, had betrayed the Yamato Empire, and just sunk three of their battleships.

The best move that Salem could think of was to retreat from the battle immediately, and then try to peacefully meet up with the builder and negotiate with him. She had to act quickly.

***

0907

"Why the hell did you do that?"

Hasegawa was practically screaming at Fuji. 

"I told you not to open fire, no matter what the situation might be. Why did you kill those three?"

Fuji could barely keep from laughing. She had made up her mind months before that she would prioritize his safety over anything else. How could he not understand it?

He had been injured, so she had returned fire at the ones who had hurt him. It was as simple as that.

She looked over to Myōkō for some help.

She shouldn't have bothered. Myōkō was shaking from head to toe, her eyes glassy.

The Admiral had already repaired her damage and healed her injuries, but anyone could tell that she hadn't mentally recovered. Not just from the injuries that she had just had, which would have done the same to anyone, but also from the trauma of seeing three of her former comrades, whom she had known for decades, just get killed by one of her new comrades.

She was sitting in a corner in the Admiral's Cabin onboard Fuji. After they had escaped from both of the fleets pursuing them, the Admiral and Myōkō had come onboard Fuji, and she had attached a towline to Myōkō's bow.

"Listen, Admiral," she started, tired of being yelled at for being loyal to him, "You were in danger, and Myōkō wasn't able to protect you. I had to do it, or you would have died. Or did you want Myōkō to sink for the sake of your dislike of bloodshed?"

Hasegawa went quiet at that. They all were. 

As much as Fuji wanted to brush it off as just something that she had done for the Admiral's sake, she couldn't hide the self-loathing and disgust that she felt after killing the three of them.

It had felt horrible, killing them. She knew that she could have avoided it; she could have only damaged them, instead of killing them. But she had killed them anyways.

She had been controlled by her rage, but it wasn't just that. She had hated the idea of someone attacking her Admiral, so she had killed them. A fitting punishment for anyone who went against him. 

She had realized, in that moment, that that was who she was. Myōkō could be the Admiral's innocent companion, and she would take on the role of his iron-hearted, merciless weapon. 

Someone needed to kill the Admiral's enemies, and this way, his hands could still stay clean.