Mental_Model_Zao

(Is a lil rusty when it comes to proper writing so bear with me please.)

The Bearing Strait Incident

tags: Dark, Kancolle, Abyssals, OCs, Alt Universe

Chapter 2: The Respite Pt 1

"RUKIA-CHAN!" I snapped awake from my voice being called and Rikka over me, a small first aid kit in hand. "You had me worried, I got your wounds dressed but we got to get you to a hospital asap, you took-"

"Which direction did they go Rikka." I cut her off as my vision slowly stops being so blurry.

She tries to hold me down, "Ru-Ru I know what you're thinking, you're in no condition to cha-"

"Don't care, give me the keys."

"You're insane, do you think you can take on two Abyssals on your own!" She stands her ground, "No, absolutely not I'm not letting y-"

A hard left to her gut, followed a hard right to her temple and Rikka is out like a light. I carry her limp body to the base and leave her on a couch that survived and nick her keys as well as a prized katana she had mounted on the wall on the side tunnel that was spared damage. Takes nothing but a few seconds a minute tops but I take off the moorings and primed the engines, a twist of the key and the speedboat roars to life. I check all the gauges and I shove the boat away from the dock and take off this vessel can easily go double what those freaks can travel if my info was accurate "You're info is indeed accurate but a katana and grit alone isn't going to be enough to take on those that kidnapped your friends." A new voice comments, this one much softer spoken like a wisened mother, "also there is an awful lot of people in here, I'm guessing you're the dominant persona."

"Who are you and how are you in my head."

"Where are my manners." She pauses and manifests herself in front of me and bows in front of me, clipping through my dashboard. For a motherly sounding spirit she looks awfully young with her platinum blonde hair bound in twin-tails, her bangs almost covering her left eye all clad in a blue, gray, and white kimono in an odd pattern. "CA-942 Zao, at your service. I've been looking for kindred soul like your for a long time."

"You're one of those Kanmusu spirits I take it, here to take my body and plunge it into a war that never ends?"

The spirit clearly gets flustered from my remark, she tries to hide it but her beet red face says otherwise. "Yes to the first, not without consent to the second, and the war is winnable but we need better Admirals and better gear."

"Pass"

"Wa-wah" she manages to stammer out before taking a breath somehow and composes herself, "Why pass?"

I can't help but sigh as I look past the spirit and see the Wo and Re that took my friends following something big and... bloated looking and it towing something, "I'm not a puppet. You're in my head I'm sure you can see my memories and why I will never let anyone control me, not now not ever."

Zao stares through me and her blank stare turns to object horror as she clasps her hands over her mouth, "you poor angel," she pauses, thinking quietly then continuing, "your brother used you and as a result your whole family was slaughtered by your-"

"THAT DEAD BAG OF FLESH IS NOT MY FATHER!" I scream out tears beading from my bloodied face. My scream sadly was not heard by Zao but the Wo and the Re I was tailing and turn around. I swear I only blinked and planes and the Re were just kilos away from me. Then the whistling sounds happen again and explosions rock my poor boat as I turn and lead them away.

Zao is pacing back and forth, muttering to herself something I can't make out before turning to me clearly exacerbated and says her piece. "Given the circumstances and the fact I really do not want to see another soul become one of those monsters I'm going to make you an unusual offer. I will make you a Kanmusu and you will be in full control I will just help with guns and auxiliary equipment like AA, secondaries, ect. Just know being a Kanmusu puts an intense amount of strain on not only the body but the soul too so as an added gesture of good will I will... how do I put this delicately.." she pauses and sighs, "I can for lack of a better word... consume those splintered voices, these personas into my being... thus freeing you from their torment, and as a result eliminate the need for you to take that toxic and taxing medication in your pocket. For the first time you will be free of them in exchange for partnering with me and joining the cause."

"How do I know you won't just consume me when my guard is down."

"Because I care about you, your goals, and your friends. When I was a ship I had a Captain and crew I wish I could tell them what they meant to me, the things they did, going above and beyond the call of duty. Even after the war My captain petitioned the US military to rebrand and keep me on active duty and he succeeded, and after the terrible period and tension between Russia and America was resolved I was given back to my home country and moored as a touring museum rotating between America and Japan till the day the Abyssals sunk me. You, not anyone else, remind me of my captain. This is probably the closest I will ever get to thanking them for what they did. I want to, no I need to repay them. Please I beg of you."  The emotion on her ghostly face is of genuine belief. I can feel what she is saying, I... can never thank Winona and Hitomi for what they did for me after that day. they're family... The sisters I wish I had...

"I... Will be in control... Right?" I crack, I just... I don't know why, but of all the voices that have occupied my head, she feels... Real... Genuine... Zao just nods as I ask my follow-up, "and I will be free... Of them?.. All of them?"

She nods and holds out her translucent hand. "Yes, I promise." I sigh and grab it, somehow it feels like... I'm shaking someone's hand and I'm just blinded by a light as I feel a weight added to me and another weight removed, just as she promised. I open my eyes and the first thing I notice are the twin-tails... Blonde twin-tails at the peripheral of my vision and I see all the rigging on my back, the Kimono I am wearing and...  "Sorry I have no control over that, though you'll get used to the bigger bust. It's only-"

"Like three bloody cups bigger! Holy how are they staying place and how is my back not killing me?!"

"Two cups first off." Zao cuts me off for once, "and second off we have bigger issues." Almost on cue a second wave of bombers comes towards me but this time Zao opens up the AA suite and in a flash all the imps get shot down. "You know I can get used to just focusing on weapons its so much easier not have to work a body and guns at the same time, now we need to get off this vessel ASAP-"

I'm already ahead of her and on the water skating after the Wo.  "Focus the guns on Re, I''m going after Wo. This is personal." With a burst of speed I quickly catch up to Wo as Zao sinks the Re with just two volleys of her two-o-three shells. I get right in her face at take my wrist mounted secondary and shoot her point blank in the gut, "this is for Hitomi!" recoiling and doubling over, vomiting black sludge, "and this," as I unsheathe my katana, "this is for Winona."

s-shinnnk! I sail past her as body and head slowly sink into the dark void below us. It takes a few minutes but I close the gap and find the lone transport carrying my friends and-

"And with that I gotta put a pin in it because... the food is here." As I motion to the two waitresses bringing over two trays of very American food minus a single rather plain dish.

<Hey everyone, food is here, which one got the Chieftain chicken sandwich with extra garlic fries?> I point to the hungry Abukuma in civvy clothes across from me.

<Who got the Red Ring of Doom burger with the Annihilator sauce?> 

I giggle and raise my hand .<Me, and here is the release form saying I won't sue if I get hospitalized. Those other plates go Kako to my left, The wings go to those two, Akizuki and Hatsuki, and the... Salmon and rice goes to the fun police Maya over there.>

The rest of the division smile and thank the waitresses... in Japanese while I tell them in English that my friends are super grateful for accommodating us on such short notice and all of them dig in, completely surprised by the sheer amount of food before them.  <I am so glad one of you know English, we had a group like you folks the other day and none of them knew a lick of English and we had to get out our phones and use a translating app and it was just so..>

<I get it, it's all good I promise. I've got it from here and I've written down what they want for dessert right here though I will suggest you make that to go.>

<No problem Mrs..>

<I'm not in port, you can call me Rukia, no Mrs or formalities needed.>

<Okay, gotcha, enjoy the food Mrs Rukia.> Before I could correct them they go back to the kitchen and I just smile, they all look so happy enjoying their first taste of American food. I just hope they don't get too used to it. I just couldn't help but chuckle, it has been a good while since I've had a good nice meal. Well time to dig in~

(Is a lil rusty when it comes to proper writing so bear with me please.)

The Bearing Strait Incident

tags: Dark, Kancolle, Abyssals, OCs, Alt Universe

Chapter 1: That Mission

Ring ring... ring ring... I'm sorry the number you are trying to reach does not have you on it's whitelist. Goodbye. I couldn't help but curse under my breath as I am running from one room in this sterile labs to another, "Winona-chan why you do this to me..." I duck into another open room and attempt to call another friend this time I get an answer "Who is this" a sweet young girl picked up "The police, who do you bloody hell think it is." I retort back

"R-Rukia-sama why aren't you using your phone?!" She manages to stammer before I cut her off, "because the scientists took it, look don't have time, going to find out what happen to Takkun-san and the rest of our crew who were brought here, remember where that opening was in the perimeter where we could fit?"

"Y-yeah" 

"Grab Winona-chan and meet me there in twenty Hitomi-chan, and grab my meds too while your at, I have no idea how long I've been here and I can start hearing the voices stirring again." I shake my head, trying to collect my thoughts as I look for an open computer

"O-on it captain!" The line goes dead.

A few minutes of wandering the halls, making mental notes of signs and exits, and I find an unlocked office with a computer. Some typing later and I find what I was looking for... and promptly wish I didn't... experiment 301, subject name Takkun Tysukino, inoculation went well, subject responded poorly, He has turned into a Re class abyssal and was taken to the dock 42 for disposal. There is more clips, some with sound, some with video all of them either turned it eldritch abyssal horrors or awakened as Kanmusu all of our friends, some of our family too, can't even find out why they're doing this the files are too encrypted for my skills. I grab as much as I can onto a thumb drive I managed to stash and a few minutes as I get close to the exit the alarms finally go off. Looks like probably one of the docs I knocked out finally came too. I'm already outside and at the extraction point when lockdown was called. Guess they didn't read my file enough if they did they would have known cuffs alone aren't enough to keep me restrained for long. Three long minutes pass before the hum of two bikes draw closer, and two familiar faces with them.

"Captain-sama" The younger one shouts and promptly hugs me, I wince and yelp out of impulse as she squeezed the arm that had the IV in, and still dripping blood and she quickly notices, "Y-you okay Rukia-sama?"

I nod get on my bike and take my meds in the saddlebag, "Yeah they Injected me with some weird black crap but they didn't get a full dose, other than hearing a new voice in my head I am more or less okay. But our friends..."

"What happened to them?" the older and taller one asked.

  I sigh and can't help but not look at them directly when I respond. "It... will be easier to show you, we need to get to a safe house, they're looking for me, can't go to the one in Aki they'll be looking which means..."

"No!" Winona exclaims, "Nope, absolutely not, no way no how I am not crawling to tha-that... Harpy!"

Sirens can be heard as I rev the engine, "Stuff it, plus they owe us since I completed her bounty on what happened to several of her minions. They will have no choice but to give us shelter till it blows over."

Winona grunts and shakes her head before conceding defeat and gets on her bike with Hitomi riding shotgun and we all sail off about fifty kilos out, the pain in my arm still there but I just ignore it, I've had worse so far I've had no effects like the others did in those vids and it was almost instantaneous. So.. odd... Takes a good forty five to get over to their base, it's pretty well hidden to be honest one of the old World War 2 bunkers that was built into the ground with an access tunnel to the beach and ocean. Kinda wish our gang had found something half as neat as that. We dismount and stash the bikes, quickly heading to the hatch entrance to the base, a few quick rasps and a voice echos.  "What's the password"

I sigh and give the answer, "Rikka-sama is the... best leader in the world."

"Rikka-what" the voice replies back, almost with a sense of indignation.

"Rikka-tama is the best leader in the world" as I nearly vomit in my mouth uttering such filth.

"Welcome to the Eagle's nest!" With a loud creaking of a wheel, the hatch opens and we all go in and are all grabbed almost immediately by her crew. Laughter can be heard as the sound gets louder and the source appears before us. The gaudy gold jewelery, clashing purple and red ganguro uniform and her raven black hair tied into a loose bun. "You have some nerve coming here, why not go to your play pen filth."

"Yeah, this filth has intel on your missing crew, on our missing crew." I shot back, giving her the biggest grin in defiance.

"Bull!" Rikka fires back, "no one that has entered that base has come out."

"Tell your bloody goons to let go of me and I'll show you, and get me a freaking dressing this stupid wound hasn't stopped bleeding."

She waves her hands and her gaudy mooks let go of us and one of them fetches me a gauze. They lead me to an equally cringy gold and pink laptop as I dress my arm. A few quick key strokes, a brief update to their media player to it can read the files and everyone looks on in object horror, several just outright lose their dinner on the ground and queenie herself just hunched in a corner in complete denial. "I completed your bounty, but... honestly I wish I could say they're okay and we could bust them out, but we know what happens to those who become Abyssals or Kanmusu. They just... lose all memory of their past life as the so called ship spirit takes over. Your gang as well as mine are the only thing keeping most of our brothers and sisters out of this war and our numbers just keep dropping one by one." I pause and help Rikka up and motion to her to join me by the beach, Winona and Hitomi also join me. "I don't understand this war, I don't get the forced conscription, but... what I do get is we deserve a choice, the earth be damned. I'm sure there are enough noble souls out there to win but forcing people like you and me, the ones that don't have family that care or ties to home, it's just not right."

"W-why such... experiments?" Rikka asks.

I shrug and just look at her, still crying over the loss of her sister and several of her crew. I may hate her and her choices but we're all we have left and we need to hold on. "If.. I had to make an educated guess Rikka-san, it's probably because maybe the JDF aren't doing as hot as they claim, maybe the propaganda is just that, all bluster and they're looking for some kind of edge. We just gotta hope that when the dust clears our brother and sisters will return." She just looses it and starts crying into my shoulder, ugly crying her makeup bleeding into the near pristine lab coat I borrowed from the tech I knocked out earlier. Luckily its the good arm this time. "We may be rivals but we do have enough in common, how about a truce in lieu of payment of the bounty, with our numbers dwindling we need every edge we can get."

"Rukia-sama you ca-"

"Shush Winona," I cut her off, "You saw the clips, they're gonna keep picking us off one by one, no one cares about the ghosts of Japan, we're just easy cattle to them. We can fight after the war is over."

She sighs and relents, and Hitomi just nods silently in agreement. I look out at the sea and the stars and just sigh, I got out of the installation in one piece and got some dirt on the JDF, not bad for one ganguro captain. The phone in my coat pocket vibrates and I pull it out to notice it's searching for a signal, without the SIM card its a pretty paperweight so I pass it to Rikka. "Your crew is the more tech savvy ones, think you can root this and flash a custom firmware on it. It would be a sin to be forced to destroy such a nice phone."

"Sure Ru-ru-chan, give me an hour," I wince at her pet name for me as she giggles and gets up, heading back inside, but not before sticking her tongue out at me in jest, "and you'll have a phone to envy the government. Want me to waterproof it as well?"

I nod and she vanishes into the bowels of her base. It's kinda funny it was her 3D printed freedom key I stashed in the knot of one of my twin-tails that was the sole reason I got out so easily. If I didn't nick it off one of her goons a few days back I'd probably still in that lab as god knows what. I just gaze at the sky and lay down on the sand. "It almost felt... too easy."

"Hey captain-sama look at those stars over there, they're so bright." I jolt up and look, those stars are getting brighter and brighter I just barely had enough time to turn around and slam both my friends into the sand as the bright light explodes in front of us. The heat, the shrapnel, the explosion of sand and salt scrap across my clothes and flesh as we are thrown into the base, a loud whistle sound goes past us, so loud my ears ring as it zips and explodes in the tunnel. I lose sight and hearing, it all goes black for what feels like an eternity before I see them. A Wo-class and a Ri-class walking onto the beach and grabs both of my friends. The Ri looks at me, I see her eyes, those glowing blue eye and she goes for me but the carrier stops her. "Leave her, our sister will join us soon enough." I crawl towards them as the leave with my friends, "You can't... take..." My vision starts to blur as I just keep pushing but my limbs give out. I black out and I can hear my name but I can't move, why can't I move, god let me move! I need to save them! I...

"Ru-ru wake up!"

"C'mon wake up Ru-ru, you're tougher than this"

"Wake up dangit"

"C'mon Zao wake up, we're gonna be late"

"I'm sorry Zao-chan"

SWHOOSH! i jump out of my bunk soaking wet, and a Maya, an Akizuki, and a Kako all staring at me, Kako quickly hiding the cup behind her back as my vision begins to come back. "W-what happened?"

"You were having a nightmare..."

"Again." Maya finishes Akizuki's sentence.

"You were scaring us, something about Abyssals taking your friends." Kako adds, clearly the most concerned of the trio. "That must be super scary b-but we need to go, the Admiral called all hands on deck. Apparently some really pretty captain from America is here with some important message, maybe its some cool mission where we team up, ooh I hope we get to go to America~"

I sigh and look at my friends and then my clothes and then back at my friends. "Do... I have time for a shower?" and Akizuki chucks a can at me which I catch, and... its a can of bodyspray for women. Well I got my answer... "Fine I get the hint, give me a minute, I need to at least put on a fresh pair of underwear, these are soaked..." Kako cracks a smile while the other two sigh and all 3 leave eyesight so I can change. "A captain from America eh?" I mutter under my breath, "must be serious if he came in person rather than just using a line like any normal Captain." some clean underwear and one uniform later I've caught up and taking bites out of a granola bar I had stashed in my desk while they just talk about their morning, I nod along to their conversation as we head to where the meeting is but I'm just lost in my thoughts.

"Its okay Rukia. It was only a nightmare" The soft almost angelic voice in my head says, trying to calm me down, "Easy for you to say Zao. That event may be over but the consequences of my choices still haunt me."

The voice manifests herself as a sort of ghost doppelganger of me and stares me down. "At least you aren't fighting this alone Ru-ru, you have me, and you have all the friends you made here. We'll find a way back home."

"You've been saying that for months and the war here hasn't been dragging on as long as it has home. I doubt the tech that brought us here will ever come to light but..." I let out a small sigh, "At least the Admiral cuts us some slack."

"He treats us like a trophy, a prized possession." She glares at me, arms crossed against her chest. "I'd rather be treated like that then thrown into one suicide mission after an other. Look at poor Kiso and Abukuma, they get run like dogs on a track."

"Attention everyone." The Admiral pipes up as the fifty or so of us all gather in the room around him and the American who brought an posse of his own Kanmusu with him, all of them in what could barely be called uniforms. They look more like a cheer squad than trained military personnel but who am I to judge. "Captain Halsey as brought some interesting intel with him and our fight against the Abyssals."

Wait, that tan beefcake is the Halsey we keep hearing about on the comms?! I always pictured him to be this lithe stoic genius not... "Thanks to our spy on the inside we know now for certainty that we have pushed the Abyssals back to their base out in the Bearing Sea, they are regrouping and plan on sieging our Russian and Pan-Asian Allies in Two weeks time." He pauses and lays out a map on the table in front of us and I swear he is flexing intentionally as he does so. "So here is a map of the Pacific, as you can see here we have knocked out most of the bases along the Pan-Asia and Russian coasts as well our American Coasts. However to crush this last bastion we need to capture this area" and points to the port outside Anchorage, Alaska. "This has always been a point of contention between our two forces but this time," he points to a tiny island west of the cost of British Columbia. "We have an LBAS secured here, We clear out their defenses in Anchorage and restore the strip there and bang we have all the ground and air support to crush them for good on the west coast. This is where y'all come in. I'm sure you're aware your Admiral here as already dispatched a joint fleet to Russia to bolster their numbers and why y'all have been summoned today. There are going to be two fleets from here that are going to link up my fleets on the west coast and make two attacks, one will focus on Anchorage itself, and the other the AA installations that surround it a few miles out. And that is basically it, pretty straightforward, we've got a short window before Anchorage is at full strength and the plan will be a wash so Admiral, get your fastest girls on deck we'll ship out first light. Any questions?"

"Well Kako always wanted to see America though I doubt she is gonna pi-" "Zao, Maya, Kako, Abukuma, Akizuki, and Hatsuki get your rigging in order you are going to be the AA fleet." The Admiral remarked and I just... I wanted to make a rebuttal, a snarky reason to opt out, but Kako is so excited and practically dragging me by the arm to the docks to prepare our rigs. I mean how am I supposed to react to that.. "You've never been able to say no to her Ru-ru" The ghost haunting my mind off-handingly comments

"Mind your business Zao." I can't help but shout in my mind, "You're blushing Ru-ru, you can lie to yourself all you want but you can't lie to me dear. Think of it as an opportunity to get some quality time with her"

"What am I even suppos-" and she vanishes once more leaving alone with my thoughts and an overly excited Kanmusu.

"At least the Admiral is sparing no expense and giving us the whole armory to work with. Nuke some Wo and some escorts, shouldn't be too hard right, plus Iowa and Missouri are going to part of our task force as well. What could possibly go wrong?"

(Is a lil rusty when it comes to proper writing so bear with me please.)

The Bearing Strait Incident

tags: Dark, Kancolle, Abyssals, OCs, Alt Universe

Prologue: Project Nightfall

The year is 2057, six years since the final Abyssal has been slain and peace returns to the planet as the countries of the world slowly recover from the global crisis. One by one things return to normal as the Kanmusu Naval forces slowly retire and fade into legend. However, this war was not without it's dark moments and it is not without precedence some nations resorted to extreme mean to save their homes... save their livelihoods. For 6 years any information about the mysterious Project Nightfall has been scoured and purged from newspapers and other medias but slowly as the shattered internet slowly recovers it becomes harder and harder for the powers in play to keep such sordid information secret and today a retired Kanmusu only going by the name of "Montana" has leaked every shred of information about it, the human experimentation, the butchering and harvesting of Living... if you can call them that, Abyssals. So many gains were made, but at what cost? Project Nightfall was a series of experiments and tests to find out what makes Kanmusus and Abyssals tick, what conditions cause a Kanmusu to turn into an Abyssal, and the most vile, finding ways to incorporate Abyssals traits into the Kanmusu forces to bolster their strengths and resilience. Almost 2000 poor souls were subjected to these horrific tests and only 3 presented the traits the Joint Taskforce was looking for.

Before we get into those three souls that were spared worse or better fates depending whom you ask, We must understand how it all began. You see we frankly don't know when exactly the Abyssals appeared but what we do know that a huge mass of them appeared around the same time as a meteor was confirmed to have struck a cruise liner in the Pacific, as far as we were aware or we thought at first... that there were no survivors but as we found later there were. Something about this event kicked off the chain reaction that lead to the Abyssal crisis and eventually the Abyssal war. What we found out was while can't confirm with one hundred percent accuracy we believe something on this space rock mutated a whole class of bacterium that thrive in the salt waters and this bacterium is found in every tissue sample we had of the Abyssals. Then it gets odd the Kanmusu we took blood samples from had an unknown virus floating in their system, completely ignored by the immune system and yet there are clear mental impacts on those individuals, they call themselves ships of the past and have no memory of their normal human lives before awakening as the current Kanmusu form, even their weapons seem to manifest from out of nowhere during the first awakening though the best guess we have is that it has something to do with reconstructing nanoparticles around the person but some strands of rogue DNA does this is beyond us. What we do know is that their weapon can permanently kill the Abyssals and yet when Kanmusu are killed or sunk they end up returning as Abyssals. Hindsight tells us it should have been obvious but it took us this long just to figure this little bit out. So there it is, an endless fight between virus and bacteria scaled up and using us humans as giant meat puppets... but we did break the stalemate.

Project Nightfall, a nightmare for the subject and a bountiful feast of information for the morally questionable. It's quite horrific frankly once we isolated the bacteria that caused Abyssalification (try saying that five times fast) the first thing we did was inject it into animals just to see what happened and honestly... nothing, HIV all over again whatever this microbe was it only affected humans and of course the moment a human was injected with it the transformation was swift and... violent also men who were infected turned into those... abominations you see the bigger and sentient ones keep around like those I-Class or Ha-class monstrosities. The women and female-ish men were spared that but still being a Ri or Chi class wasn't much better fate but it seems those classes had better luck being restored to their human state once defeated by the hands of a Kanmusu. Though the feminine men or "traps" as they are called in some circles were changed forever though it's not something I'd wish on even my worst enemies. However being female isn't all that bad if I do say so myself but I'm drifting off topic here. When Kanmusu were given injections of the pathogen interesting things happened even by my standards. Full health and happy ones showed absolutely no symptoms and when tested hours later found no trace in their blood but remains of the bacteria in the first urine sample after the test. Kanmusu who weren't so positive and upbeat did have a reaction, Flu like symptoms but again their bodies would destroy the pathogen as the first group. When Kanmusu who were on death's door given the injection the change would happen and... Ever seen what an Ancient DD Princess can do to a room of unarmed scientists behind a blast screen? well even with all the "precautions" they took that subject... Well lets just say that scene would even make someone like me question their sanity... if I had any. Then there is Awakening which is the exact opposite of Abyssalification but there were some subjects that no matter how many inoculations we gave would change. It was about a year before we found out it was a cluster of DNA on the X-chromosome and rarely Y, and everyone given that injection would Awaken if those DNA fragments were present. Yes some men and transgender women could awaken but the process is irreversible so even when now the virus is working their way out of their systems and their memories slowly return... I'd hate to be the government official having to deal with that mess. I'm a scientist I just explain what the heck is going on the aftermath of it all is not my problem.  So once we figured out all this we tried different ways to incorporate those desirable Abyssal traits into the Kanmusu and what we quickly learned is that it won't work on those who are already Kanmusus and trying to make the bacteria inert for a sort of vaccine was a lot harder than you would expect since these things were mutating much faster than any pathogen we have come across. Though if you know anything about humanity is if there is a way we find it, and find it we did. The trick to it all was once the bacteria was inert we start the Awakening process and we get lucky we get a Kanmusu with super crazy defense or in my case, superior regeneration, not Deadpool level of regen but still pretty good when staring down 6 or more Abyssals alone. Even with a success like me there were a lot of side effects, most ending in what you expect... But there were 3 that showed no ill effects as far as they knew, Enterprise, Myself, and the one who escaped, Zao. But there were side effects, these much more devious and subtle than the scientists knew. What those effects were, well what fun would that be spoiling it here in the prologue. As we know Zao was from here during the tail end of the war but in a base siege off the cost of Sidney ended up in a parallel word that was 20 years behind us. Unlike me her story is so much more interesting unless you wanna hear about the time accidentally leveled a Naval port because of a clerical error. Trust me its more interesting. I do hope so anyway.

So... The convention has been good minus a few hiccups I'll post pics on my Facebook account eventually anyway since mom and I are taking today off to recover I'd like to take today to just get some thoughts off my chest. The big one, the one I tend to deal with the most, depression.

Depression is one of those chronic diseases that has a million different symptoms and affects people differently and the best way I can describe how it affects me... Is a little bit of storytelling and a preface of the one thing that scares me more than those horrid thoughts... which is silence... silence of people silence of the environment, just not hearing things even something as mundane as birds chirping or bugs buzzing or even the gentle hum of my PC on sleep mode at night scares me and sends my imagination into complete and chaotic overdrive. It's probably why music listening is like a crutch to me and I circle back to constantly when things out of control for me. Most people get annoyed when a song gets stuck in their head but for me... I like it because it gives me reprieve from potentially worse thoughts.

As for my depression... It's like being on a pier, surrounded by an endless sea. The ever changing waters and tides the entire spectrum of my thoughts and emotions, good and ill. For me I am just this girl, alone on this pier with her fishing rod, just fishing this sea for thoughts, for ideas, because thinking about things is better than not even with the risk of bringing up something horrid. A lot of the stories I write, I discuss, I talk about are all based on experiences of my past, some exaggerated, some muted, others altered but the act of fishing, the act of thinking keeps away the silence. Some days I fish up nothing interesting, maybe a bad joke I recalled from somewhere when I was younger, maybe some puns I heard from elsewhere, or some old experience that would make great foundation for a new character in a story... Other times... What I fish up... fights back... things that don't want to be recalled things that I don't want to remember... Trauma from middle school, abuse... Many times I can fight them right back but...

I get pulled into the water... It feels like I'm drowning because I don't just deal with that memory, no, I deal with all of them, at once and the outcomes they have cause, could have caused, how I could have prevented them, just flood into me as I sink deeper and deeper. A lot of times this happens when something bad happens in the real word, sometimes by my own hand accidentally, other by the actions of other people. It's at the worst when it happens in the day, It... feels like being in a nightmare but in the in broad daylight, awake and aware but... drowning mentally. Best way I can describe this is when someone cuts me off while driving just barely missing me, I start thinking about how lucky I am, and what could have happened if they actually hit me, then how that impact would have rocked my car, how I could have... and these thoughts repeat over and over and over, my hands tremble and depending how badly it was... I break down... But... despite this... I always somehow make it back onto the pier in my mind... mostly of because of a few people and the most important person in my life... This person always appears as an angel to me, blinding light and hand outstretched and pulls me out of this sea of darkness. Caressing me, holding me, telling me how much they love me, how much... They cherish me, they... stay with me on this pier till they fade back into the aether and I am alone once more... The only reason I've managed this long without medicine is because there are literally too many people that miss me if I passed away... If I succumbed to this darkness residing inside my own mind. No matter how many times I break down... I sink... someone always save me... I wish I could thank them all. Wish I could tell them all how much they mean to me, wish... I could just somehow show them the impact they have no matter how mundane or small it sounds... It's... Kinda why I always buy gifts for people I cherish if I can... I feel like nothing I do could be ever be enough for all the saving they do.

*chuckles quietly, wiping some tears from her eyes.*

Even writing this is tough on me... But I feel like it needed to be said. It's why I have this boom/burst kinda habit when it comes to gaming. Some days I can play for hours and hours and hours and others I'll... go completely off the grid... I don't mean to.. I just kinda... happens... and it's kinda what happens when there are alot of testing that needs to be done for WGing, some months I can do every classified task I can and then some... others... I have to ask them to keep me active while I struggle with these beasts inside my own personal...

It doesn't help when I have a hard limit of 10 PM EST during the week and I've been working 4, 5, 6, 7... 8 days in a row often time not even getting home to like... 9... 9:30 PM which means I get like... one, maybe two games in before I gotta turn off the rig for the evening... It... is one of the few things I miss from my abusive previous job... I would always be either off or 9:50 AM to 5 PM with the single exception being the super bowl. so I would have hours to unwind and bang out whatever task was given to me. Now It's always a craps-shot what time I'll get out every week different every schedule different from the week before... It's hard to plan out things when you'll never know what your next day off is... Plus there are... other things I wanna do too... I feel like I'm the worst tester WG has in their employ...

If any of you are reading this. I am sorry. I really really am. I know it doesn't mean much... but I do try to make it to the focus sessions and stuff that I can't talk about here... 

I know I need professional help. I know I do. Depression meds are expensive and my insurance status is in limbo atm till Dec 1st...

I'm so tired of feeling like this... Just... don't leave me here alone.. please.. and if my love reads this... I hope they understand why I get scared when they're silent... and I know continuous talking can grate on you... it's... a coping mechanism and I hope you can forgive me...

Please... forgive me...  

Bah! Fell asleep early and woke up now and its only 11:30PM 

baka baka...

and we're out of sleep aids in the medicine cabinet. oh joy this is gonna be a fun night trying to go back to sleep. =.=

well at least I get to ponder a bit. whether or not I should cover my coworker's 2-7 shift tomorrow, on one hand more money for the flex pipe job, on the other hand I could do some work on my car... oh who am I kidding I'm not bold enough to do light body work by myself, my problem is just taking the first step alone like if I had my brother or a friend join me in sanding and stuff and just get a feel for doing it I'm sure I'd be fine doing the rest by myself especially if father approves of the job I did but it's that first step. once you sand there is no going back till you are ready to prime and stuff... I mean my car is worthless from an outside prospective but I've had her for over 4 years she means a lot to me plus I wanna take care of her since in those 4 years she not even at 100k miles yet and I would like to atleast get another 100k more out of her.

This has always been a problem of mine, just thinking and thinking and overthinking, who knows why I'm like this but it's hard to just... Dive into a project even something so simple as rust repair it's not like I'm replacing a head gasket or installing a woofer and amp by myself. who knows how many weeks I'm gonna have till the winter road salts start appearing on the roads once more. I need to get these spots covered especially the small ones near my wheel wells. Plus... It's... more fun doing car stuff with friends I feel less noobish when I have someone equally green helping me. I'd ask father but he has a bad habit of doing things for me rather than doing things with me... Plus our schedules don't even mesh anymore, he's off weekends I work weekends...

kinda wish my friends here lived close to me...  sorry for rambling... Also go watch "That time I got reincarnated as a slime." it's really really really good so far. Episodes need to come faster T.T

I don't know how much more I can keep doing Evenings at this job. I may have hated, no, despised working the store near my home, but my schedule was always the same Open (10 AM) to 5 PM. Always... barring Superbowl then its till end of half time... but this current store. Sure the zone is so much nicer, the customers a lot more grateful and kind but I just can't go from 3 PM to 8 PM to a 3 PM to 9+PM to a 2 PM to 9+PM then Open to 6 the next two days. Also I feel like the Whatever hour+ is such a cop-out to the schedule If you want to 9 then have it to 9, if you want me to 8 or 10 then put it as such, I get it that because how erratic the night customer orders are you don't feel confident in giving a set in stone time but then why not use Rush like the former boss (and my best friend of 27 years) was using. And I just love it when they say some people do close open shifts so why am I complaining. Well good for you that you can function on less than 6 hours of sleep I can't I struggle just getting 8 hours of sleep as it is and you give these may 9 may not shifts it drives me nuts and it severely cuts into what little time I get with Captain-sama. Being in different time zones sucks, being in different countries suck. Being saddled with so much debt sucks so much. It's... so easy to understand why some people crack and end it all... I feel it myself. There isn't much out there for a broken mildly autistic girl who can't stand on her feet for more than 30-60 minutes, deliveries is something I'm good at, something I don't need to talk often on the phone, I don't need to be on my feet for hours and hours and hours *coughshopriteishellcough* Tips are nice... I just wish... I could do something like that and be paid a livable wage... I mean there is Door Dash supposively is pretty decent but according to my brother who does it part time its commission based you basically start getting literally a dollar a successful delivery and tips and as you work faster and get good reviews your base commission and tips go up but... That... just... seems so dodgy to me...

idk what to do anymore... I just... want time... with Captain-sama...

I... just.. want to be free...

Comic Con is tomorrow, I should be happy... but I feel so depressed... It will be the first time I'm going alone... I mean my mom is joining me for her first time at this con but I've always gone with friends, coworkers, boy/girlfriends but this year all my friends are...

Twin are trapped in south carolina, Wa... full time teacher, Kiara... has gone off the grid since the summer. Captain-sama...

I'm... also scared I'll run into my ex.. things... did not end on good terms... Idk why I'm posting this here, maybe because I don't want him to see it or at least here I'm a nobody, maybe a handful of people actually interact with me but I'm just some supertester who does what she can to keep her head above the ever rising tides..

I wish Captain-sama could be with me...

I wish... I wasn't so poor..

*Zao is asleep on her bed, smiling. Her data bands active and the coms tab illuminated with a single active contact.* Zao... happy... Captain-sama is... back... Zzz Wub... Zzz Captain-sama... Zzz

*sneaks up from behind and hugs tightly.* Kako-sama ^.^

> 3/7/2XXX

> Camera feed successfully hacked. We are beyond the firewall and the Model is not aware of the breach.

>> How long do we have?

> Not long, a few minutes. Tops

>> It will do Ibuki, Now lets see what Zao has been doing since she locked herself in that room.

> Very well, let it be on this record that Ibuki does does not agree with spying on her Model... However her Isolation is unusual and this AI's red flag protocol has been initiated.

* The room is in disarray. The once neat and folded bed sheets and covers strewn haphazardly on and around the bed, clothes and outfits scattered across the room. Zao herself... She is on top of her bed, curled up in a ball clutching a framed picture.*

>> What... is she holding onto?

> Magnifying

* It's an Older Picture, a photo of her and the captain, looks like some kind of party off-ship.*

>> Why would she be doing that. The captain is fine... well last we checked right?\

> Affirmative. The odds are that the captain is-

>> Why is she freaking out, can you zoom in on that data band, that one, right there, I think... it's the comms tab she always has open

*the camera swivels around and zooms in on the panel on her data band, it has the captain's signature on it, and it's offline, the date... over 3 days ago.*

>> Well now I get it.

> This AI doesn't, elaborate, please.

>> The captain has been on stuck on the base for months, but Zao and the captain kept in daily contact and now... the abrupt deployment, and lack of contact...

> The deployment means no internet. But why is our Model deteriorating like this?  

>> Because Ibuki... Zao... Has been through a lot. like... a lot a lot. This dimension never had the Terminus War, the horrors, the deaths... the experimentation, It damaged her... not physically but left a sort of a emotional scar and the Captain was a stabilizing factor. An amazing stabilizing factor, I've been with her for years but when she met... she smiled, for the first time in a long time, and now without the contact she is drawing up every possible scenario she can conceive in the absence. From the ship sinking to a local killing-

*a loud crunch sound occurs and the feed turns to static.*

>> ... Bloody hell! Ibuki encrypt the breach so she can't trace it back to us. And make it snappy!

> Right away.

...

C://ZDD.exe/error_log372.txt created

...

.....

 C://

Kako-sama... please... be safe...

> C:// Run Zao_Diary.exe

...

....

> Authentication Required

...

....

.....

> Credentials Accepted

> Zao_Diary:// Add New_Page

> Command Accepted

--- 15/6/2XXX

--- Morale is low. For the most advanced cruiser the fleet has ever created this model doesn't feel like it...

--- What is Feeling? This model has done countless scans, numerous diagnostics and this model cannot find a resolution to this apathy, this... lethargy she is experiencing.

--- What has changed? This model wasn't always like this, drifting in the middle of the Hudson Bay, staring at the clouds, wondering what her purpose was. She used to be

--- Happy.. Carefree even... She was content being an escort, protecting human transports from rogue FOG vessels still disillusioned by the defunct Admiralty Code. The War

--- Was over... Is over but the fighting never ends. This model thinks, recalls, the last time she felt... happy... It as April, this model was stationed in Melbourne, in Australia

--- Escort duties once more but their government required mental models to have at least one human crew member to conduct military operations in their waters, This Model

--- Was assigned a captain, a human who's -error code 33-  someone this model... I... Grew close to. The patrols and escorts were uneventful but the captain made them...

--- Enjoyable... -error code 407- days passed. We... really enjoyed each other's company. It was the closest this mod- I felt... human... -error code 33- didn't see me as a robot

--- A machine, I was just someone -critical error-

--- Loved. I was... I am loved... but I feel empty being so far away.

--- I want to go back... I need to go back... I don't want to be -critical error-

--- Please... Find me... I need -Fatal Error-

...

> Compiler found errors. Continue anyway? (Y/N)

> Y

...

....

.....

> Zao_Diary.exe:// Page_1562 Successfully created

>Zao_Diary.exe:// Encrypt_exe

>Command Accepted

>Zao_Diary.exe:// Exit

...

>C://

I'm sorry...

I was never commander material... Specter fleet needs to cut its dead weight, which includes me. I wish you the world Harby, hopefully you can do what I couldn't.

please forgive me, I just... wasn't strong enough...

Hai! you are my tobiko sushi roll~

/^_\\