sakura empires unfinished monster

Baptism Of Fire

       ---Hakuryuu's Task Force----

When overseeing the damage hakuryuu was relieved to some extent as Saratoga wouldn't sink but she was badly crippled and would need to return to port for repairs and rearmament however, she still had to deal with Lexington and her cruiser escorts. The reports of how many planes were left also came in. Losses included were steep, 8 out of 24 fighters destroyed with 3 more badly damaged, 12 of the 29 dive bombers were destroyed with an additional 5 badly damaged, the torpedo bombers sustained high losses too 13 were destroyed and a further 7 damaged. In total she had lost 33 aircraft downed with 15 damaged beyond use. With the 4 spares of each type she was left with 31 fighters, 18 dive bombers and a pultery 7 torpedo bombers. 56 planes in total.

Compared to hakuryuu. Ryujo's strike force didn't fair much better all but 1 Val was destroyed, 8 of her Kates were gone and 7 Zeros were destroyed leaving her only 15 Zeros left. With 15 zeros, 1 Val and 8 Kates Ryujo had 24 planes to her name. A bit concerned at the losses she still had hope that herself and Ryujo could still launch another strike together they still had 19 dive bombers and 15 torpdoe bombers 36 planes wasn't much but they just needed to hit Lexington hard enough to make her pull back but there was still one problem there was most likely a counter air strike ready to have their attempt to bring them down and with their planes still retuning to the carriers they themselves might have to pull out. Going on the radio to Ryujo hakuryuu spoke plainly "Ryujo we lost quite a lot of planes but if we survive this counter strike and recover our planes we can still launch one final strike at them with our survivors prepare your CAP because it's their turn"

Getting her fleet prepared she watched her radar soon the enemy strike would hit them too all she could hope for is that they don't get badly damaged. soon they will have their baptism of fire.

14:52 revenge strike

On hakuryuu's radar multiple unidentified aircraft was coming up on her radar, sounding the alarm the CAP was brought up to full strength Reppu fighters were being launched off hakuryuu by capatuplts similar to Lexington & Saratoga 30 fighters 24 from Hakuryuu and 6 from ryujo was in the air ready to greet the invaders. From the sky's the 20 F4F wildcats dove on the friendly CAP as the 70 dauntless dive bombers split into 3 groups. 24 dove on hakuryuu, another group, 16 went for Ryujo and the remaining 30 either went for tone or Kagero loitering so not all dived at the same time. While this happened the 36 Devistator groups split into 4. 9 went for hakuryuu on both sides thr same happened for Ryujo to put them in a hammer and anvil strike. All around coloured shell dye burst all around filling the sky with lethal lead however it was Hakuryuu's twin 40mms doing more damage compared to the poor 25mm guns. Performing tight turns all of them were in a dangerous game of chicken with the dive bombers and their bombs. Inital near misses would bracket hakuryuu as some missed.

Firing with everything they had sometimes a plane would be knocked out by AA or CAP. Time seemed to slow for hakuryuu as she saw a dauntless diving at her aiming straight for her deck. Performing a full left rudder to try throw it off the bombs would be deployed and pain filled her body as a 500kg bomb hit her and exploded thankfully not in the hangar due to her heavy flight deck armour but a crater was made. Biting her lip to reframe from crying in pain she activated her full focus skill the gun barrels starting to glow as they fired round after round in quick succession her engine overloading and propelling her forwards making the slow torpedo bombers attempt hopeless not like it was much help as 40mm shredded the lumbering warplanes with murderous fire. Besides her Tone was firing as many shells as she could and focused her barrage of AA on the torpedo bombers adament this time to not let any of her allies be sunk this time.

Turning to starboard she would notice a torpedo but just when she thought it would go off it ended up being a dud. From high above SBDs plummeted straight at the two from hakuryuu's view she'd see multiple bombs strike Ryujo starting fires making her activate her fire prevention and air superiority skills to quickly douse the fires. Eyes widening hakuryuu saw her friends Ryujo and even tone took hits a bomb hitting tone on the stern. Propelling her planes forwards they prioritised the enemy bombers nailing a couple. But it was not over, another hit would strike her on the center of the deck making another large crater in her while a near miss tore a hole in her side making her wince in pain. Just when it looked like it was over one final plane would strike the bridge near where hakuryuu had been standing a piece of shrapnel slicing her face and eye this time she watered with some tears as the hot shrapnel cauterised the wound blinding her.

With bombs and torpedoes expended the eagle union planes pulled away covered by their escorts. All together 8 wildcats, 9 SBD Dauntless dive bombers and 24 Devistators has been shot down mostly thanks to the CAP but AA had shot down a good chunk of the Devistators and some of the dauntless bombers. After the attack concluded it was 15:10 hakuryuu had her bridge and flight deck damage with waterline damage as well flooding her torpedoe bulge on the port side. Ryujo had sustained 3 bomb hits and her deck was in ruins, Tone had lost 3.6 knots of speed with one of her catapults destroyed and another damaged, Kagero got lucky and managed to avoid all the bombs besides one near miss giving her minor hull damage. 4 Zeros and 3 Reppus were destroyed while eagle union has lost 41 planes. Having no choice hakuryuu made her way down to the medical bay to be patched up her damage control teams patching up her hull and flight deck while somewhat repairing the island.

Ryujo had to dematerise her ship and go aboard Kagero for rest and recovery. Meanwhile aboard Tone she also ended up dematerising her ship and heading to hakuryuu which deck was planked over where the craters were and went down to the medical bay to check on her. When she entered though she was so taken aback when she saw the state of hakuryuu that she audibly gasped in shock. Tone: "hakuryuu?! What happened to you" she zipped over to her and kneeled down looking at her eye the fright was obvious in the heavy cruiser, she was completely blinded in the eye looking like someone took a hot knife and slashed her face the grimacing look from the fleet carrier made her fall back beforehand she didn't mind when she did this but now with how she looked it was.. Scary. Snatching some medical stuff hakuryuu would grunt in pain and grips her fist so hard her knuckles turned white having to anti septic her eye and put a black eyepatch over it although the large scar going down and up the eyepatch was still visible much to hakuryuu's annoyance.

"Tone, how are you and the others is ryujo and yourself alright, is Kagero hurt?" despite everything she still was prioritising her team. A surprised hug was given by tone who gripped her tight. Tone: "I'm sorry.. I'm really sorry for failing you hakuryuu" the room then would go quiet again.

(alright all this is it for the battle of coral sea let me know what you think and if you think I did well in making it sound realistic for both sides on plane loss and damage. I'll catch you all later)