The lost battleship of the southern trench

Chapter 18

Flashback end, time skip 5 hours, location off the coastline of Cagayan

The sky around the ship girl's fleet could be seen turning brighter as the Sun was starting to rise. The entire fleet, and the soldiers on land knew that the Abyssals would likely start attacking soon, the hard part was just waiting for when the first shots would be fired.

Musa paced back and forth in front of her turret one and two. She was actually starting to get nervous, the apparent silence was nerve racking. She knew from the night before that there were Abyssals nearby, but something had happened the night before that caught her off guard at first. She felt like there were presences nearby that felt like she knew them. It was hard to tell the direction, but she knew one thing for certain, those presences were her sisters. But for now she just wonder when the fighting was going to happen.

Now she walked to the bow of her ship and looked off in the distance towards the land. She wondered how far the human soldiers had gotten, and wondered if they'd be alright. It was a natural instinct for ship girls to be worried about human lives more so actual humans, it was just how they were built. But now she sighed heavily before turning around to walk to her superstructure.

But she stopped when she heard a frantic voice over the radio "everyone! Something is coming towards the fleet! It's coming really fast!"

"What?" Musa said worried, as she now summoned her riggings. Then she looked off to the East, she saw something coming fast, but it wasn't an Abyssal. The fleet was in panic for just a few seconds, before they started to form up ready for battle. Now Musa along with the rest of the fleet looked towards the horizon "everyone, the Abyssals appear to be here, get ready for battle" Musa said to the fleet "Zuikaku, Shoukaku, get your planes into the air and get the Abyssals spotted"

Zuikaku and Shoukaku both responded with "Hai!" Then the two of them started to launch their planes. After a short moment Zuikaku spoke "the thing that is coming, is a Crimson Ocean"

"What?" Musa asked frantically, as she turned to look at Zuikaku "are you sure?"

Zuikaku nodded "positive, the ocean is turning blood red and it is coming straight for us"

"Uh... what is a Crimson Ocean?" Inazuma asked shyly as she and her sisters pulled up closer to Musa.

Now Takao drew her sword before looking at them and saying "it only forms when there's a high concentration of Abyssals in the area. It makes them stronger than usual, and it also causes malfunctions in our equipment, guns not firing when they're supposed to, engines not running how they're supposed to etc. Even veteran ships can have a difficult time with them"

"Shoukaku, Zuikaku, get your planes to attack at the first sighting of Abyssals, everyone else get into battle formation, and move ahead" Musa now ordered "This will be tough for sure, but we'll pull through. We need to make sure that the human ships stay afloat, if they're sunk then it'll be bad if they need to pull out"

Then the rest of the fleet responded together with "Hai!" Then they started to form up around Musa, with Zuikaku, and Shoukaku going near the rear of the fleet, while Ise, and Hyuga moved to be near Musa. The fleet watched the horizon carefully, as the sailed at about 15 knots. Zuikaku and Shoukaku watched from their planes as the eerie Crimson Ocean spread from the coastline to across the horizon, coming towards the main fleet.

Then as the fleet sailed they could finally see the Crimson Ocean coming towards them. Before it over took them entirely, and kept spreading past even where the Human ships were docked.

Now Zuikaku spotted something from her aircraft. It was a massive Abyssal fleet, being led by Hime, alongside Rem, Sunken, and several other princesses and onis from other bases. Sadly Sunken hadn't been able to slip out at night, so she was forced to come along or seem highly suspicious, especially after what happened with Southern. Though now Zuikaku relayed, what she was seeing "I got a sighting. A massive Abyssal Fleet 35 kilometers to the south of us. There are multiple Princesses and onis. They appear to be launching their aircraft currently"