Shiranui was sitting at her bed, enshrouded in darkness as she strapped her black beanie over her pink hair, this being one of her most conspicuous features which would make her stick out amidst the darkness like a sore thumb.
She was wearing dark clothes which matched her "edgy" and "brooding" personality as described by Kagerou, something which Shiranui disagreed with but never really tried to disprove.
And right now, she needed dark clothes in lieu of her usual uniform, which consisted of white cloth which might reflect any light which was shone her way and attract unwanted attention to herself.
Running through her plan one last time, she was to sneak past the everyone who was on guard duty tonight while keeping her ship girl mode deactivated in order to avoid being detected, sneak into the Staff Building (which was close to the Administration Building), enter Admiral Haru's room and plant listening devices into her clothes in order to listen in on her next meeting.
She would sneak into the laundry room at a later date in order to retrieve the listening devices, and the fact that Kagerou was part of the laundry detail made things easier for her.
No one would be the wiser if she succeeded.
If.
She found out that tonight's security detail in the Staff Building would be Akatsuki, Kitakami, Nagatsuki, Yura and Shouhou, and it was entirely possible that she would meet other ship girls who were patrolling throughout Yokosuka.
But she knew what she was doing, and she knew she could pull this off.
Slipping off of her bed, she could feel her silent sneakers hit the floor as she walked over to Kagerou's bed with nary a peep, watching her sister's peaceful sleeping face as she leaned down to kiss her beloved sister on the forehead, whispering tenderly.
"Sleep well, Kagerou."
Before leaving the room, making sure that none of her sisters were woken up by her on the off chance that they felt her moving by their beds.
Closing the door quietly, she looked towards the nearest window as the corridor she was standing in was dimly lit to provide some illumination without disturbing everyone's sleep.
Checking to make sure that no ship girls or sailors were nearby, she hopped out of the dormitory as she made her way over to the Staff Building, located right beside the Administration Building so that people like the Admiral could stay at the former while working at the latter.
The Staff Building was where officers and guests stayed if they were sent here for whatever reason, and since they were visitors and needed lodging but still had to work, they could opt to work at the office cubicles within the very same building where they stayed while being a stone's throw away from the Administration Building.
Shiranui kept a low profile and avoided the main roads as they were illuminated by lampposts, watching out for human sailors who were patrolling the base on their security-modded golf carts and hid in nearby bushes whenever she heard one approach her.
Despite it being nighttime, the naval base was far from silent as crickets chirped, trees rustled, lampposts hummed while insects buzzed around them incessantly, and Shiranui was familiar with all these sights and sounds as she made her way to the Staff Building where Admiral Haru lived in.
She knew of a pipe which she had found around the back of the Staff Building and could easily climb despite being slightly heavier than an adult human, and for once, she was glad to be a destroyer instead of a heavy cruiser or a battleship, whose weight and armor would make this feat impossible.
Squatting behind another bush as the night blanketed her and kept her concealed against the pitch-black darkness, she noted that Kinu and Hibiki were patrolling the outside perimeter of the Staff Building.
While she was capable of incapacitating larger ship girls, she certainly didn't want to knock anyone out because of how difficult it was to knock someone out without either killing them or causing a commotion, and also because if she were to activate her ship girl mode in order to give her an edge, she would be identified as someone who wasn't on the patrol roster, and then everyone would be on her in an instant.
She waited for them to pass before crossing the road, knowing the location of the surveillance cameras around the base since she, while suffering from bouts of mind-numbing boredom in her past, fantasized about sneaking through the naval base like a spy and uncovered the location of every surveillance camera in the base as a way to pass the time as well as for future reference.
How it helped her now, to know that the main door and every window on the first floor was closely monitored, and the fire exit which she previously considered was also monitored by security cameras.
Coming up behind a dumpster which hid her from a security camera which overlooked the rear exit, she climbed upon its tough cover in order to reach the ledge which she was to get up on in order to reach the steel pipe, after which she could climb up to the second floor and enter via a window.
She had to be careful, though.
The hallway where the window was located was watched by a surveillance camera which swiveled in a 90-degree angle in order to survey two hallways.
Timing was important, and another patrol group which consisted of Mutsuki and Asashio which patrolled the two buildings was bound to approach her in about 13 seconds, and she needed to get to the window before they spotted her.
Heaving as she climbed on the metal pipe, she was glad that she wasn't going to fall to the ground anytime soon as the metal which made up the long pipe creaked in protest upon supporting her weight, but there was no sound of popping nuts and bolts as she made her way up to indicate that it would let her down, in this case, literally onto the concrete below as she reached the second story window.
She slightly opened the window as she brought out her own identity card, wiggling and eventually slitting it in between the button sensor and the window in order to prevent the button sensor from detecting that the window was opened in the first place.
Despite their attitudes being a little lax regarding security, patrol rounds were almost clockwork in both their timing and routine, and an opened window without a patrolling ship girl being nearby would send the entire building into high alert.
Shiranui observed the distant surveillance camera, and after waiting for another three seconds while making sure that no ship girls were approaching her, the surveillance camera spun around to observe the other hallway as the motor beneath it whirred, allowing her to slip in unnoticed as she closed the window behind her and deftly pulled her card out whilst simultaneously shutting the window, being meticulous in covering her tracks.
Sneaking underneath the camera in order to slink out of its field of vision, she remained on the move since she knew that patrolling ship girls were likely on their way, and she would rather not risk anyone seeing her in the first place.
The building was still populated by patrolling ship girls and sailors even in the dead of night, and she climbed the stairs in order to reach the third floor while completely ignoring the elevator, since the ding of the elevator would draw people's attention to it…
Wait a minute.
Shiranui stopped in her tracks, before backtracking and looking at the imposing steel doors of the elevator, considering the change to her plans and how it might be worth it to draw their attention to an arriving empty elevator in order to allow her an easy route to the Admiral's room.
But she eventually shook her head, understanding that even though it would allow her an easy route into the Admiral's room, the ship girls might be alerted to the possibility of an intruder's presence, and it would be harder for her to get out of the building.
Shit, she could hear faint footsteps coming her way.
Gotta keep moving.
While crouching, she sneaked up the stairs to the third floor as she was glad that their radar didn't work as well indoors, and while they had night vision, they didn't possess electromagnetic or thermal vision.
And while she wanted to activate her ship girl mode in order to use her night-vision, she, like the other ship girls in this building, kept it deactivated, but for entirely different reasons.
For the patrolling ship girls, they didn't want to unnecessarily waste fuel for an entire night, and for her, she didn't want her ship girl signature to be picked up by everyone.
Hearing the barely-audible shuffle of another ship girl, she kept moving down the silent hallway as it was flanked by imposing lockers which lined the hallway and silently watched over her progress like monoliths passing judgement over her actions while a window in the distance provided some light.
And as she looked around the corner, she pulled back her head as she saw that Kitakami was standing further down the corridor, and was looking towards her.
The only reason why she wasn't spotted was because the Kuma-Class torpedo cruiser wasn't using her night-vision, and Shiranui was experienced enough to know to only peek beyond the corner with one eye and not her entire head, which might have been picked up by her senior.
But another ship girl was approaching her and cornering her, and the fact that the line-up of lockers were the only things preventing her from being seen..
And while the length of the hallway fully enveloped her in darkness with only a window casting a light at the end of the "tunnel", she didn't want to risk being spotted by the approaching ship girl as she slipped into a locker, partially because she didn't know the combination to every locker, and also because the window would illuminate her silhouette and allow her to be seen as she attempted to pick the lock which belonged to a nearby locker.
Swiveling around to look at the rubbish bin standing conspicuously behind her, Shiranui exhaled exasperatedly as she lifted the cover of the bin, tiptoeing as she placed herself inside the bin which was thankfully cleared by the cleaners before their shifts ended, but still possessed the slight stench of festering leftovers, insects which were sent into a flurry of movement by her actions, an evaporating puddle of unknown liquids which seeped out of discarded drink cartons and cans, replacing the cover after squeezing into it with relative ease.
Shiranui centered herself mentally and tried to blend into her surroundings, grinding her teeth as she thought about how she was taking one for the team by hiding in a rubbish bin of all places, and how she expected Shigure to repay this favor in kind later down the road.
To hide in a rubbish bin, of all places…
Someone owes me, big time.
But she noted that a destroyer, judging by the volume and rhythm of her footsteps, passed by her as Shiranui held her breath, and she identified Nagatsuki greeting Kitakami upon finishing her patrol.
"Yo, Kitakami-senpai. I'm back, so you wanna go on your rounds?"
Kitakami, known for being rather cool and aloof towards destroyers, replied lackadaisically as Shiranui heard another set of footsteps move away from her position.
"Ahh, ahh, whatever. Hold this spot while I make my rounds, and wait for Shouhou to take over your spot."
And Shiranui considered the situation as she sat in the rubbish bin, tuning everything out as she reconsidered her plans to get inside Admiral Haru's room.
The vents around the base were created to be smaller than a destroyer and were filled with fans and filters in order to prevent ship girls like her from entering them, and even if she was to enter one, the grates at the end of the vents needed time to open, time she might not have.
The Admiral's bedroom had no windows and was located at the center of the building in order to protect the Admiral from outside attacks in case of an Abyssal assault, so while she would eventually find several points of entry, she had to find and time them appropriately.
She decided to bide her time, reviewing her memories of the Staff building and possible entry points, including the door to Admiral Haru's room.
Hey, sometimes the easiest way in was the one which no one expected others to use, and while it was difficult for her to enter through the front door, it wasn't impossible.
Ship girls were still human, and someone either had to get a drink or go to the toilet, and while they would get someone else to cover them, it still allowed a small window of opportunity for her to take advantage of.
Light fixtures were either set to low illumination or turned off, so while she had to contend with the possibility of being seen, she wasn't exactly worried about other ship girls spotting her, and as she made sure that no one else was approaching her location, she slipped out of the rubbish bin and placed the cover back on in order not to arouse suspicion.
She made her way down the corridor, feeling rather confident that no one would see her as she detoured around corridors which she knew were observed by cameras and avoided ship girls as though they had the Bubonic plague, now entirely focused on finding more about the happenings in this base by listening in on her Admiral's meeting.
It was immoral and unprecedented, but Shiranui didn't care much for such things.
Sure, she loved her Admiral, and even though she understood that it was wrong, she wasn't going to use this information for nefarious purposes, so it wasn't entirely wrong.
And even though she was going to exploit the fact that Admiral Haru trusted her ship girls to the point where she didn't keep an extensive security detail to protect her at night, she still appreciated Admiral Haru caring for them all, regardless of class.
Her love and respect for Admiral Haru meant that she wasn't going to betray her or do anything of the sort, and in her eyes, that meant that what she was doing wasn't wrong, simply because she wasn't intending to do anything bad with the obtained information.
Not the best way to justify her actions, but whatever.
She rounded another corner when she remembered that closer into the Staff Building, infrared cameras would be used to tighten security, and a few lights would be kept entirely lit at certain hallway junctions in order to deter people like her.
Shit.
She didn't possess any sort of jammer to jam them and allow her to sneak past unnoticed, and she was going to have to find a way around them.
But there was a silver lining in that some rooms weren't locked since locking and unlocking every door in Yokosuka was a chore if it had to be done everyday, and she had some leeway in that she could find a room to sneak into in order to wait for a ship girl to pass by her.
Shiranui peeked around another corner, and her memory served her well as she saw that this lit corridor had an infrared camera watching over it, and Shiranui considered a way to either get through or around this.
To allow herself some time to think, she entered a nearby room labelled "STOREROOM" which was a large closet where paint, cleaning chemicals, unused furniture and the like were thrown and sorted out before being taken out whenever they were needed.
She remembered that climbing out of a nearby window on this floor would allow her to enter a office window on the fourth floor, where she heard several people stroll around up there.
Likely human sailors on guard duty.
From there, she would breeze across the fourth floor in order to climb back into the third floor, where she would then be on the other end of this hallway, bypassing the blasted camera.
Shiranui figured she would find another way around this hallway and the camera, opening the door and mentally thanking the maintenance staff for oiling the doors regularly and preventing any complications from foiling her plans.
Briskly creeping over to the window while crouching, she looked out the window in order to check for patrolling ship girls and humans, and she opened and shut the glass window after replicating her card trick on the button sensor, standing on the small ledge while hugging the outside of the Staff Building behind her.
A breeze tickled strands of her hair as she exposed herself to the elements, and she inhaled the cool night air as she started shimmying on the precarious ledge, somewhat worried that either someone would spot her and raise the alarm or she would slip on something, fall to her death and be resurrected in handcuffs.
There was a built-in crevice above her, and she slowed her breathing as she decided to go for it and spun around on the ledge, slapping her gloved hands on the crevice as she started to sweat, shimmying along the building as she found the window which she remembered leading into an office which belonged to a logistics officer.
The windows on this floor weren't monitored by sensors, because who in their right mind would climb up and into a building through the fourth floor?
She was glad to be rid of the minor vertigo which she felt when on the outside of the building, entering a small office which consisted of a office desk and chair, files which lined the shelves and said desk, and a few framed photos of a well-shaven military man with his family of four, a wife with two daughters.
She approached the office door as she brought out a hairpin which was reconfigured into a pick as well as a small, flat piece of steel which would act as a torsion wrench, and after half a minute of messing with the lock, she unlocked it with relative ease as she dared to slide the handle of the door down without much fuss.
Checking her surroundings, she didn't have time to lock the door behind her from the outside as she heard the faint yet familiar footsteps of military boots hitting the marble floor.
Time to get going.
If the third floor was where the Admiral and other officers stayed, the fourth floor was where some of their offices were located.
A swiveling security camera watched over the window which she wanted to enter on the third floor, and she had a small window of opportunity to climb out from the fourth floor, drop down to the third floor without dying, replicate her card trick on said window and get in before anyone saw her.
No pressure.
It wasn't too hard to traverse the fourth floor since there were only three patrolling sailors here, and she was coming up on an office space with various "L-shaped" cubicles, providing more cover than the hallway on the third floor, weaving in and out of them as she spotted the three guards for tonight.
All of them were tanned, wore navy uniforms and were armed with a flashlight and combat baton, and while one of them was strangely wearing shades while indoors at night, another was fanning himself with a cap which he took off and the last was a discount Sanada Hiroyuki, the three of them sitting at a T-junction near the windows.
And as they split up without a word after having done this for several rounds, Shiranui hid beneath a desk as Shades moved past her desk while the light beam which emanated from his flashlight danced across the floor, slipping out behind him and making sure that Hat Man wasn't going to turn back and spot her as she approached the T-junction where the sailor trio split up.
Following discount Sanada Hiroyuki at a reasonable distance while keeping track of Hat Man and Shades, she slowly slid open the window behind him while making sure that it didn't make any noise and alert anyone.
And she was out.
Closing the window behind her, she spotted another patrolling golf cart which was approaching her location in about ten seconds, the moonlight was illuminating her figure and made detection easier for them.
Gotta keep moving.
She puckered up her mouth and inhaled in order to prepare herself for the drop, and she let go in order to catch the previous crevice which led around the sides of the building near the third floor, and she barely caught it with her gloved fingers, feeling the sharp ache shoot up her fingers and hands as they supported her entire weight.
Gotta keep moving.
She dropped down onto the same ledge beneath her and shimmied over to the window at the edge of the building, spotting Shouhou's dark hair and ahoge moving away from her as she peeked inside the third-floor window, fumbling to get it open with her card before she got caught as she attempted to get some life back in her trembling fingers in order to pull her into the building.
Three…
Two…
Slipping in with no time to spare, Shiranui hurriedly closed the window behind her and hid beneath a swiveling security camera as a shiver ran down her spine, sweat coating her skin as she brought her breathing under control and waited for the other foot to drop.
Because if a sailor had happened to look up and had spotted her climbing in, she expected either,
A) The alarm to sound,
B) A flashlight beam to dance across the window which she climbed in from, or,
C) Shouhou moving back towards her as she was notified of a possible intruder where Shiranui reentered the building over the security earpiece.
Any combination of the above was entirely possible.
But the end never came, and Shiranui, despite maintaining her stoic demeanor, wiped the sweat from her face as she saw that Shouhou rounded another corner and disappeared, and she saw that the security camera was pointed somewhere else, so she made her way around the third floor of the Staff Building.
Passing by the lit corridor and the unmoving camera which watched over it, she bypassed the obstacle as she braved another lit corridor while she watched out for any patrolling ship girls in case she had to duck for cover before they realized she was there.
The corridor leading to Admiral Haru's room was, as Shiranui remembered, monitored by an infrared camera and was guarded by Yura as she stood underneath a lit door.
Shiranui could flip the light switch and attempt to sneak past Yura, but the camera was the main problem here since she didn't have a jamming weapon on hand, and its infrared capabilities meant that it could see her even in absolute darkness.
Shit.
She wasn't sure what to do, but Shiranui brainstormed for a while as she tapped into her prior knowledge of the building and considered possible entry points, eventually remembering something as she sneaked over to two elevated small windows which led into Admiral Haru's toilet.
And this time, she was given a small, but existent window of opportunity to infiltrate her Admiral's room while another swiveling infrared camera looked away briefly.
She tested the window as the camera looked away, but was greeted by the tired creak of the metal joints as they moved again after years of inactivity.
And even if it was a minor squeak, it sounded as if it were the goddamned Krakatoa eruption amidst the relative silence of the Staff Building, and Shiranui fully expected someone to hear her actions as she breathed in through clenched teeth and hit the floor with nary a squeak from her sneakers, hiding behind a corner while waiting for the worst.
But after ten seconds of inactivity with a lack of alarms going off or footsteps increasing in volume as ship girls and sailors alike approached her location in order to investigate, she waited for the camera to look away again as she leapt up to the window and tried again, taking the time to ease the window open without making too much noise.
And right as she felt like letting go and waiting for the surveillance camera to turn away again before climbing in, she heard Yura approach her location (again, judging by where the sound came from and by the volume and rhythm of the steps), sounding as if she was checking a minor disturbance and not exactly rushing to find an intruder.
But if Shiranui was to let go now and attempt to wait at the corridor, she likely would be noticed by the Nagara-Class light cruiser.
Oh, joy.
Shiranui heaved as she used all her arm muscles in order to pull herself in, her arms burning due to the exertions of strength as she breathed in heavily, a layer of sweat permeating her skin and face as she controlled her breathing upon tumbling into Admiral Haru's bathroom, lest she wake her Admiral up as they were now in adjacent rooms.
Looking around her and spotting the usual toilet paraphernalia which the Admiral used, Shiranui braced herself as she silently opened the door and laid eyes upon Admiral Haru's room.
She inhaled sharply upon seeing posters of ship girls being plastered on every wall, spotting everyone from Yamato, Nagato and Ashigara to Kai Ni Shigure and Yuudachi, Kaga, Shimakaze, Kongou, Atago and Takao, amongst others, all posing luridly and wearing titillating outfits and bikinis while taking up almost every square inch of wall and ceiling in the room.
Figurines of a large number of ship girls and other "Ecchi" anime and manga lined the various shelves and were housed within glass boxes, Shiranui being able to identify a few characters like Mai Shiranui from King of Fighters, Hestia from DanMachi, Rias and Akeno from High School DxD, various girls from Queen's Blade, One Piece, Rosario Vampire, Monster Musume, Freezing, Dead or Alive, amongst others, all placed on them.
Admiral Haru specifically wanted figurines of females who possessed fully-developed bodies, and a lot of the figurines featured women with clothing damage or were in various stages of undress.
All of them had large breasts and were posed to emphasize and draw attention to them or their butt, legs or their sinfully curvaceous figures, and whatever scraps of fabric which covered their skin was enough to be considered merely indecent at the very, very best.
Shiranui's cheeks colored, and she looked away as she felt slightly ashamed to be in here, and averted her eyes from the pantheon of figurines as though it were almost sinful to even peek at them, watching Admiral Haru's bed be populated by plush toys, cushions, bolsters and three dakimakuras of Nagato, Mark II Iowa, and Musashi, all posed suggestively and were in various states of undress on the pillow covers as they surrounded a sleeping Admiral Haru, her commander sleep-talking delightedly in her sleep with a stoned smile on her face,
"Ehehe… Boobies…"
While she hugged her body pillows and pressed them against her face.
Shiranui blushed even harder upon hearing Admiral Haru express her transparent love for the large, jiggly parts of the female anatomy even in her sleep, which was why she had a lot of heavy cruisers, carriers and battleships as her lovers instead of destroyers and light cruisers.
But she also understood that this was partially because Admiral Haru saw a fair majority of the light cruisers and all of the destroyers as her children.
And even if she could see the former and the Kai Ni forms of the latter as possible romance partners, she often kept it as a parent-child dynamic unless the ship girls in question explicitly asked Admiral Haru to take their relationship to the next level of their own volition.
She looked over at ohfuckme.
Shiranui closed her eyes and quietly exhaled for an entire second, cursing mentally upon spotting something which she thought she had left well alone in a dark, untouched corner of her mind, as did everyone when they first entered this room and laid eyes upon the six-leveled shelf filled with several hundred doujinshis.
Four-fifths of which, were about them.
Every ship girl of every. Single. Nationality, but the IJN in particular.
To think that there were some of them about her…
Shiranui shuddered, and pried her eyes away from the shelf as her blush peaked at a crimson red while she wiped the embarrassed sweat from her face, remembering too late the one rule when visiting Admiral Haru's room, that much like the sun, you couldn't look at any one particular thing for too long, lest you slide down the slippery slope into perversion and indecency.
She quietly slid open the closet door, sitting herself down in the cramped space as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a zip-lock bag, inside which were her listening devices which she had bought in the past as part of her "spy craze", before the days of the Infiltration Fleet when she was interested in being a spy and wanted to sneak past patrols and surveillance cameras in order to carry out her duty.
While she wished she could use these against the enemy, she opened the bag and rolled the miniature device around in her hand and considered the recent turn of events, thinking to herself.
I'm sorry, Admiral. She knew just where to plant them, namely the insides of the collar, because Shiranui was afraid that Admiral Haru might slip her hands in her blazer pockets and discover them if she planted them inside Admiral Haru's pocket.
Hardly anyone would think to search underneath their collars on the off chance that someone wished to search her Admiral.
Although if they were to use handheld metal detectors…
Shiranui shook her head, realizing that she had no time to spare as she flipped up the collar of Admiral Haru's white blazer, applying the quick-dry glue which she knew would do its job and could be washed away easily, and even if the device was found, Shiranui made sure to wear gloves and put them in a zip-lock bag in order to prevent a strand of her clothes from being entangled in the device.
But upon grabbing the relatively thick fabric which made up the blazer's sleeve, she felt something small and hard in the blazer's cuff, and Shiranui was confused as to what it was, flipping open the flap of the cuff in order to dig out whatever was inside.
In it was another listening device.
Was it the Abyssals?
Her heart froze, but she kept her shaky breathing under control as she tried to convince herself that even if the Abyssals had come on land and bypassed all their defenses, it wasn't exactly feasible for one to sneak past all the patrolling ship girls and sailors—
Which she just did.
Shiranui softly smacked herself on her forehead upon sabotaging her own attempts at reassuring herself, before focusing on the listening device itself.
She couldn't identify any distinguishable traits in its design to even start hypothesizing about who the culprit was, so Shiranui expected that any search into whoever planted this wouldn't turn up any results, and if she asked anyone to trace whoever was at the other end of the line, she would end up implicating herself.
Shiranui crushed the listening device in her hand, checking the Admiral's other three blazers for them.
Yep.
Whoever did this had the same idea as her, to bug all of Admiral Haru's blazers with listening devices in order to maximize the chances of successfully listening in on the meeting.
And Shiranui, knowing that she wasn't going to find whoever bought or created these listening devices even if she kept them, crushed all but one in between her index finger and thumb, dropping them into her pocket as she successfully bugged her Admiral's clothes.
She left one untouched as evidence to be used in a investigation in the very distant future, but more immediate concerns had her shelving this thought for now.
Whoever it was who also wanted to listen in on Admiral Haru's conversation, she put an end to it.
It was possible that whoever bugged Admiral Haru's meeting likely wanted to use it for nefarious purposes, but Shiranui knew that because she wasn't using whatever information she would learn for any shady business, she wasn't in the wrong.