"War. War never changes."
Fleet Admiral Gorou let out a weary sigh, pulling the curtains closed so he no longer had to look at the sea. He paced to his desk, picked up the envelope, and tore it open.
Once decoded, a classified telegram from the Communications Office would be sealed inside an envelope under the supervision of three absolutely loyal officers in a locked chamber. The envelope was protected with magic—if anyone other than the addressee tried to tamper with it, the entire message would self-destruct.
Even though the telegram was only being sent to the Fleet Admiral's own office, this procedure was non-negotiable.
But despite the secrecy, the young adjutant already knew what this telegram contained.
The entire frontline command already knew the unspoken truth: when Hikaru had broken with Gorou and fled from Silent Horizon, there had been thousands of Commanders and tens of thousands of shipgirls watching.
And now the rumors were spreading—that the man whose name could not even be spoken had returned, negotiating cooperation with the shipgirl headquarters in the south.
To most it was rumor. To the Fleet Admiral's adjutant, it was the plain truth. He had heard it himself at the war councils of the Grand Marshals.
From the way Gorou's expression shifted—anger giving way to cold gloom—the young officer already saw the outcome.
Not just the outcome of a negotiation, but of the entire First Island Chain campaign, perhaps of all the Nation.
Gorou was old. The lion's claws had grown dull, his legs crippled, and even this small wolf, Hikaru, he could no longer suppress.
What the young man saw on Gorou's face was not the wrath of the Fleet Admiral, but the helplessness of an old man at the twilight of his years.
The Iron Lion had become a weary one.
Gorou's face darkened. He clenched his fist, and both the envelope and the letter crumbled into ash in his hand.
He didn't shout, but the order he gave next was filled with impotent fury and bitter frustration.
"Issue the command. Execute Plan No.1. All units are to move immediately to their designated combat zones. Order the 'bait' to commence luring operations by 0700 tomorrow morning. The Abyssal Ryuujo must be drawn into the encirclement. Convene the expanded council of High Commanders—include two more, Takeyama Takeshi and Wakayama Shogo. Execute!"
"Yes, sir!"
The adjutant clicked his heels, saluted, and turned to leave.
Inwardly, he sighed. The old saying went: a king must not raise an army out of anger. The Iron Lion truly was old—so impatient to launch such a critical war.
It seemed the negotiations with Hikaru had gone badly, leaving Gorou feeling like the target of everyone's resentment. Unable to allow his authority to be challenged, he was desperate to win a great victory in the East Sea, to prove to the world that his sword was not yet dulled.
But such a mindset only made defeat more likely.
The young adjutant chuckled silently to himself. Wasn't this exactly the opportunity he had been waiting for?
Fleet Admiral, you are a great hero. And the head of a great hero is worth a fortune.
Gorou slumped into his armchair, leaning back and staring at the plain ceiling above, his gaze deep and unreadable.
Meanwhile, on Okinawa, the Abyssal Ryuujo received the intelligence almost immediately.
She appeared as a dark-skinned little girl with slippery, seaweed-like blue hair and a round face. Beneath her coiled a war machine over a hundred meters long, as thick as a truck—the so-called "mantis shrimp." Of course, that was only a joke. More accurately, it was like a gigantic black iron worm with the head of a serpent, its back covered in segmented silver-steel scales.
In front of Abyssal Ryuujou, lines of dark text flickered into existence, along with a rough phase-by-phase plan of the battle.
The whole strategy of luring her into the trap, hammering her step by step, surrounding her from all sides, and annihilating the Abyssal main force in the First Island Chain—laid out in meticulous detail.
The plan was excruciatingly thorough. Just the portion concerning her destruction alone had been broken into seven phases—long-range reconnaissance and bombardment, mass submarine torpedo attacks, outpost skirmishes off Okinawa, underwater engagements within the chain, air battles within the chain, night-time mine strikes, and finally the grand encirclement and decisive battle. The sheer level of detail was enough to make one's scalp tingle.
As for Ryuujou—if she had to come up with such a strategy herself, she would rather die. Some Abyssal flagships enjoyed playing with tactics, but she was certainly not one of them.
She let out a sigh.
"To pull this kind of trick just to deal with me… these tacticians really do have filthy minds."
[End of Chapter]
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