Not real rain. Not proper rain. Just the irritating kind that tapped at the office window like it had opinions and no sense of timing.
Kade sat behind his desk with the second stack of transfer papers in front of him and the expression of a man staring at a minefield someone had labeled future staffing opportunities.
The black lacquered box sat where it always sat—sealed, silent, and increasingly judgmental by proximity alone.
He rubbed at his face once, then at the bridge of his nose, then gave up on both gestures because neither improved the paperwork.
“This,” he muttered to no one, “is targeted harassment.”
A knock came at the half-open office door.
Before he could answer, Tōkaidō stepped in with a slate, a sharpened pencil, and the sort of soft composure that made it seem impossible she had ever once cut at an Abyssal Princess’s gun mount with a katana.
“You called for me, Commander?”
Kade looked up.
Then at the stack.
Then back at her.
“Yes,” he said. “Because if I have to parse another file full of contradictory military phrasing by myself, I’m going to start listing people under ‘incoming disasters’ instead of ‘transfer personnel.’”
Tōkaidō blinked once.
Then, very politely, “Have you not already done that?”
Kade stared at her for two seconds.
Slowly, he pointed at the chair opposite his desk.
“Sit down.”
She did.
He slid half the stack toward her.
Tōkaidō looked down at the files, then up at him, then back down again with the brave expression of someone who had once fought a sea-monster and still considered administrative overflow the more unreasonable opponent.
“There are… more?”
“There are always more.”
“That feels unkind.”
“That’s because reality is poorly managed.”
She accepted this with a tiny nod, as though yes, that did explain several things about Horizon, the Admiralty, and perhaps the entire century.
Kade leaned back in his chair and pulled the top file toward him.
“All right,” he said. “Round two. Let’s see what fresh forms of trouble are heading for my island.”
Tōkaidō poised the pencil.
“Should I make notes?”
“Yes.”
“Formal notes?”
“No. Useful ones.”
There was the smallest shift at the edge of her mouth that suggested she liked this far more than she intended to admit.
“Understood.”
Kade glanced at the file.
Then sighed.
“Oh, good. The first one is a chaos goblin.”
Classification: Cleveland-class light cruiser Kansen
Faction: Eagle Union
Nationality: American
Operational Summary: Small. Fast. Armed. Morally inventive.
Kade looked down the page and frowned.
“Four foot twelve.”
Tōkaidō tilted her head. “That is simply five feet.”
Kade lifted one hand. “No. See, if someone writes four foot twelve on official paperwork, that means they’re either doing it on purpose or the person in question is enough of a problem that numbers themselves are trying to escape responsibility.”
Tōkaidō considered that.
“That seems possible.”
“Thank you.”
He kept reading.
Duluth, apparently, was a Cleveland-class light cruiser from the Eagle Union with a reputation best summarized as do not let her near any place you wish to remain orderly.
She was autistic, self-taught by hyperfixation where it mattered, had corrective lenses, preferred soft comfortable clothes, spoke English, German, and Ojibwe, brewed alcohol, built forts, played pranks, and had the motto:
Don’t be a part of the problem. Be the whole problem.
Kade lowered the sheet and stared at nothing for a second.
“Tōkaidō.”
“Yes?”
“Is this a transfer file or a warning label?”
She glanced down at the text.
“…both?”
“That was my concern.”
Duluth fits Horizon suspiciously well.
Cleveland-class means good AA coverage, strong local-defense presence, fast response, and excellent support for a battered island that keeps becoming more politically inconvenient. Her gear loadout also suggests anti-sub screening, local surface harassment, and the kind of survivability tricks that make annoying little warships stay in the fight long after dignity has packed up and left.
She manifested during early Abyssal attacks on an Azur-type convoy, which makes her one of those girls whose whole identity was forged around protecting what remained rather than playing at old-world pageantry. That tracks.
Also, “borrowing” unused items.
Kade looked up from the file with a deeply offended expression.
“Iowa is going to love her.”
Tōkaidō, very carefully neutral, said, “Is that bad?”
“It is for inventory control.”
-
trickster
-
chaos agent
-
probably a menace in vents
-
hypercompetent in subjects she cares about
-
likely to stash emergency money in places no accountant should ever discover
-
definitely the sort to treat ‘do not enter’ as a narrative challenge
-
Atlanta will either adopt her, threaten her, or both
-
Fairplay may see a kindred little gremlin and make this everyone’s problem
-
Senko will probably feed her once and accidentally gain a loyal pest
-
Reeves is in danger of being taught crimes
-
Wilkinson will disapprove, which means Duluth may decide he is interesting on purpose
-
Kade wrote, under likely behavioral forecast: “Do not let her near sealed stores unless I personally sent her.”
Tōkaidō wrote that down.
Then paused.
“Did you mean that seriously?”
Kade looked at her.
“Yes.”
She wrote it down twice.
Classification: Iowa-class battleship Kansen
Faction: Eagle Union
Nationality: American
Operational Summary: Radar monster, special-operations survivor, and walking case study in why some commanders should have been fed to their own filing cabinets.
Kade read the first page.
Then the second.
Then stopped at the section involving Admiral Salt.
Then read that part again, slower.
His face went still in a way Tōkaidō had learned to distrust.
“…Commander?”
He set the file down very carefully.
“I need you to understand,” he said, “that there are some people in military history who make me want to invent new methods of burial.”
Tōkaidō glanced at the papers, then back at him. “This Salt person?”
“Yes.”
Washington—Washi, Wash, Radar—was an Iowa-class battleship Kansen with extensive self-taught and black-operations training, a nervous snarl that made her look more threatening than she intended, and a history ugly enough to make the office feel colder.
She had awakened under Admiral Willis Lee’s tutelage, which explained the marksmanship, radar discipline, and professionalism.
Then Lee died under suspicious circumstances.
Then Admiral Salt took over.
And everything after that sounded like the sort of human cruelty institutions preferred to misfile under “necessary wartime adaptation.”
Tracking cuff.
Explosive tether.
Coercive black-ops deployment.
Public smile, private leash.
Weaponized patriotism.
Forced obedience used to climb careers.
Kade leaned back.
His eyes had gone distant in the dangerous way they sometimes did when memory and present anger briefly found common ground.
“And the file says,” he said slowly, “that I was the one who pulled her out.”
Tōkaidō had gone very still reading over the abbreviated extraction note.
“You were?”
“In this version of the paperwork, yes.”
He tapped the page where Iowa was listed as the lynchpin for extraction during a closed Admiralty event.
“Oh, that tracks.”
Tōkaidō looked up.
“What does?”
“Iowa stealing a battleship in formalwear.”
That got a tiny sound out of her that almost became a laugh before the weight of the file dragged it back down.
Washington coming to Horizon makes enormous narrative sense now.
A traumatized Iowa-class who knows exactly what command abuse looks like, who’s already been used as a covert blade by a monster in an admiral’s coat, and who was allegedly extracted by Kade from that structure?
Yes. She would end up at Horizon eventually.
Especially now.
Especially after Arizona’s shooting.
Especially after the island openly pushed back against Coalition treatment.
Especially if Washington and Iowa are already close enough that transfer pressure follows operational trust.
Also: Abyssal Princess Pendant in gear inventory.
Kade stared at that line.
“No.”
Tōkaidō looked down. “No?”
“No to that being in my life without a full explanation.”
She made another note.
Ask Washington why she has that. Preferably at a time with enough walls.
Washington is a radar-control monster.
Long-range damage scaling.
Fleetwide targeting support.
Reload manipulation.
Potentially horrifying synergy with Horizon’s guns, AA, and any coordinated fleet action.
In other words, if she likes us, good.
If she doesn’t, that gets exciting very quickly.
-
Iowa and Washington are absolutely going to change the energy of the whole base just by existing in the same zip code
-
Kade is going to hate how much he understands her relationship to command structures
-
Minnesota is going to have feelings
-
Bismarck will clock the scars immediately
-
if anyone from Coalition command tries to “handle” Washington with the old methods, Horizon may simply commit a felony about it
-
Tōkaidō, after a pause, wrote: “Treat gently. Also carefully.”
Kade looked at it and nodded once. “Yes. Exactly.”
Classification: Modified Sōryū-class Fleet Carrier Kansen
Faction: Sakura Empire
Nationality: Japanese
Operational Summary: Tomboy hothead with low self-esteem and enough carrier upgrades to make the airspace nervous.
Kade skimmed the line that described Hiryū as always looking for a fight and a challenge and made a tired face.
“Oh, good,” he said. “Another one.”
Tōkaidō glanced at the file and then looked faintly thoughtful.
“Hiryū-san…”
“You know her?”
“By reputation more than personally.”
That tracked. The Japanese hull families, sister-lines, and rumor networks were practically their own weather system.
Hiryū’s file painted the shape of a girl who looked like trouble and probably acted like it to prevent anyone from noticing the softer fracture underneath. Early twenties. Lanky. Hotheaded. Tomboyish. Social skills low. High energy. Fear of being made fun of because of her intensity and lack of social grace.
Kade set the page flatter.
“Ah,” he said. “So she’s going to fight first and process emotional nuance sometime next month.”
Tōkaidō lowered her eyes politely, which was the closest thing to agreement he was getting.
Hiryū fits the current state of Horizon surprisingly well.
The island is rebuilding its aviation capacity.
The frontline is still unstable.
Akagi, Shoukaku, Shinano, Amagi, and the broader Japanese contingent already create a local network Hiryū could slot into without full cultural freefall.
Also, if she’s carrying a modified, upgraded post-collapse air group with steam catapults, expanded capacity, and multi-role aircraft, then she’s not just another fleet carrier. She’s one of the newer, nastier examples of how this world turned old hull spirits into modernized war survivors while still staying within treaty limitations.
And Midway Folly as a skill name?
Kade winced.
“She has issues.”
Tōkaidō read the line quietly.
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“…yes.”
-
auto-deployed CAP elements
-
strong dive/torpedo flexibility
-
surprise overhead attack utility
-
boosted aircraft output through her Hanafuda-card themed skill
-
upgraded AA and deck systems
So yes, Hiryū is one of those carriers who can make the sky very rude.
-
Akagi and Shoukaku will matter to her immediately whether she likes it or not
-
Amagi may steady her by existing in the room, which is one of Amagi’s quieter talents
-
Iowa’s people will probably enjoy her energy more than command should permit
-
if she’s insecure beneath the bravado, Horizon may accidentally become good for her, which is frankly suspicious
-
Tōkaidō noted softly, “She may benefit from being wanted rather than judged.”
Kade looked at that for a moment longer than necessary.
Then he said, “That’s half this base.”
Tōkaidō did not disagree.
Classification: Richelieu-class Battleship Kansen
Faction: Iris Orthodoxy
Nationality: French
Operational Summary: Angry French war-saint with one sock from the wrong set and enough guns to make theology kinetic.
Kade read the file.
Then reread the line:
Religion: complicated, Christian
Sexual orientation/Relationship status: Catholic
He set the paper down and looked at Tōkaidō.
“What does that mean.”
Tōkaidō considered this with admirable seriousness.
“I think,” she said carefully, “that it means she is French.”
Kade stared at her for a second.
Then laughed once, sudden and tired and real enough that Tōkaidō’s ears twitched very slightly in surprise.
“Fine,” he said. “That’s fair.”
Jean Bart was exactly what the name promised and somehow more.
Richelieu-class.
Fast, hard-hitting, damaged but unbroken.
Angry.
Complicated relationship with faith, politics, and authority.
Deep hostility toward Siren-backed black-market ports and collaborator structures.
Blunt, militarily efficient, soft around animals, and apparently one bad day away from personally sinking contraband theology.
She funds herself through bounty contracts, raiding collaborator caches, and seizing enemy logistics.
Kade pointed to that paragraph.
“So she’s a legal pirate.”
The file itself had, in fact, used that phrase.
Tōkaidō tilted her head. “Would that not upset Duke of Kent?”
“Almost certainly, yes.”
He wrote: Potential future cultural collision: French anti-collaborator raider versus British anti-piracy grandmother. Observe from cover.
Jean Bart coming to Horizon would not be random.
It would be political.
An anti-Siren French battleship with her own independent funding streams and a record of refusing collaboration would fit disturbingly well on a base that is one administrative slight away from formalizing its distaste for centralized control.
Also, if the Mid-Pacific black markets are getting bolder around the edges of retaken territory, then Jean Bart showing up at Horizon could be the difference between “annoying contraband routes” and “someone is about to teach the sea what consequences look like in French.”
-
nasty counterfire tools
-
strong defensive rebuke batteries
-
movement-denial with secondaries
-
good long-range punch
-
likes storm violence in a way that suggests someone once let a battleship learn symbolism
-
Bismarck will respect her instantly or be irritated by how easy it is
-
Fairplay may adore her on aesthetic grounds alone
-
Kaga might find her exhausting
-
Tōkaidō will try to be polite and Jean Bart will probably notice too much
-
if any Siren-adjacent smuggling touches Horizon’s waters later, she becomes very relevant very quickly
-
Kade underlined: Do not let anyone in this office underestimate the French when they arrive armed and offended.
Tōkaidō nodded solemnly as if this were already known law.
Classification: Fast Destroyer Kansen
Faction: French Naval Forces / Jean Bart-adjacent chaos
Nationality: French
Operational Summary: Tiny Musketeer-shaped speed demon with hero syndrome and a chronic need to make every battle a stage performance.
Kade got halfway through the file before he had to set it down and squint at the ceiling.
“All for one and one for all,” he read aloud in a dead tone. “Oh, absolutely not.”
Tōkaidō leaned slightly toward the page.
“She sounds energetic.”
“She sounds like if romance novels and torpedo doctrine had a daughter.”
L’Audacieux—Little Knight, Aramis—was a petite French destroyer with absurd speed, good anti-sub utility, naval mines, torpedoes, charm, theatricality, and a sincere belief that battle ought to be met with elegance, courage, and quotations.
Which, fine.
Kade had seen worse motivational frameworks.
The real issue was that underneath all the swashbuckling energy, she had the exact flavor of insecurity that tended to get people killed if no one noticed in time: a desperate need to live up to noble ideals, fear of being remembered as reckless rather than honorable, and enough devotion to Jean Bart to probably follow her into a furnace with a smile.
L’Audacieux would fit Horizon in the way bright fast fires fit dry wood.
That is not entirely a complaint.
Fast picket work.
ASW coverage.
Escort intervention.
Defensive dash support.
Protective aura effects.
Destroyer morale presence.
Tactically? Excellent.
Emotionally? She’s going to be a lot.
-
Evans is going to either idolize her or challenge her to something stupid within minutes
-
Reeves may be swept up into admiring her before realizing what that means
-
Senko will feed her and accidentally become part of the support constellation she dramatizes protecting
-
Jean Bart’s presence will define her entire emotional weather pattern
-
Tōkaidō read the backstory in silence for a while, then said softly, “She wants very much to be brave correctly.”
Kade looked at the line.
“…Yeah.”
He wrote: Watch for overcommitment masked as chivalry.
Kade set the file stack down.
Then stared at the five names now spread over the desk.
Duluth.
Washington.
Hiryū.
Jean Bart.
L’Audacieux.
The rain tapped lightly at the office window.
Tōkaidō gathered her notes into clean columns because of course she did.
For a little while, neither of them spoke.
Then Kade exhaled slowly and said, “The future of this base appears to be: more firepower, more instability, more emotional damage, and one French destroyer who thinks she’s in a novel.”
Tōkaidō folded her hands over the slate.
“That seems… broadly accurate.”
“Do you ever say something isn’t?”
She thought about that.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When it isn’t accurate.”
He stared at her.
She held the look with serene sincerity.
After a moment he pointed a pencil at her.
“You’re getting better at that.”
“I have a good teacher.”
“That sounded like a compliment.”
“It was.”
He muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like this office was becoming unsafe for him emotionally.
Then he picked up the stack again.
“Anything else I should note?”
Tōkaidō glanced down at the names one more time.
When she spoke, her voice was quiet and thoughtful.
“Most of them,” she said, “do not sound as though they are being sent here because they are easy.”
Kade’s mouth flattened.
“No,” he said. “They’re being sent here because Horizon has become the place difficult people get useful at.”
That sat in the room for a moment.
Rain on the glass.
Lamp light on paper.
The sealed black box in the corner.
The knowledge that none of this was canon and all of it probably would be later in the worst possible ways.
Tōkaidō rose first, collecting the notes.
“I will prepare a cleaner summary.”
“For me?”
“For when you inevitably forget where you put this stack under another worse stack.”
Kade looked at the mountain of papers on his desk, then at her, then back at the mountain.
“…Fair.”
She paused at the door.
“Commander?”
He looked up.
Her expression was soft in that way of hers that always seemed halfway between formality and kindness.
“For what it is worth,” she said, “I think they may do well here.”
Kade leaned back in his chair.
Looked at the files.
Then out toward the rain and the half-built future of Horizon.
“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Tōkaidō’s eyes warmed with quiet amusement.
Then she slipped out of the office, leaving him with the paperwork, the weather, and the increasingly inescapable truth that Horizon Atoll was no longer just a base.
It was becoming a magnet.
For strays.
For warships.
For exiles.
For the angry.
For the useful.
For the broken.
For the ones too strange, too difficult, too proud, too dangerous, or too awake to fit comfortably under anyone else’s neat little command doctrine.
Kade looked down at Jean Bart’s file again.
Then Duluth’s.
Then Washington’s.
Then he sighed the sigh of a man who knew the future had seen his misery and circled the date.
“Wonderful,” he muttered to the empty office. “More weirdos.”
They would be getting ready to leave...
Tōkaidō reached the door.
Then paused.
Kade noticed the pause immediately because Tōkaidō did very little by accident.
“What.”
She turned back with the expression of someone about to confess to finding one more snake in the bedroll after everyone had already agreed the snake situation was bad enough.
“There is,” she said carefully, “one more file.”
Kade stared at her.
“No.”
She held up a thin folder that had apparently been caught beneath the edge of the larger stack and partly tucked under one of the desk ledgers.
“It was under the housing requisitions.”
He looked at the folder as if it had personally betrayed him.
“That means if you hadn’t found it, it would have arrived first and introduced itself before I knew it existed.”
Tōkaidō, after a tiny pause, said, “Yes.”
Kade leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling.
“Excellent. We’re doing ambush transfers now.”
She crossed back to the desk and set the thin folder in front of him with great care, like a person placing a suspicious seashell on a table and waiting to see if it screamed.
Kade looked down.
Read the name.
Then read it again.
Then very slowly pinched the bridge of his nose.
“…Of course.”
Tōkaidō sat back down without being asked this time, which told him she had correctly guessed that whatever this was, it was not going to remain short.
He opened the file.
Classification: Experimental Aircraft Carrier Kansen
Hull Basis: Converted Tosa-class derivative, carrier-form adaptation
Faction: Sakura-origin project with external engineering contamination I already distrust on instinct
Nationality: Japanese
Operational Summary: Mini-Kaga if someone added anxiety, trampoline physics, and way too much attached behavior.
Kade stared at the first page.
Then the second.
Then the backstory note and immediately made a face like he had bitten aluminum.
“Oh, wonderful.”
Tōkaidō looked down at the file. “Is that sincere?”
“No.” He tapped the page. “This says she was engineered by an Ironblood scientist named Otto who thought creating an experimental fox carrier with dependency issues was a normal professional choice.”
Tōkaidō considered the sentence in silence.
Then, very softly, “That does sound like an Ironblood problem.”
Kade looked up.
She lowered her eyes with perfect innocence.
He pointed the top sheet at her. “You are getting dangerous.”
“I spend time around you.”
“That’s not a defense.”
“No,” she said. “It is probably a diagnosis.”
He set the sheet back down and resumed reading.
So.
Kaga Kōtta.
Young. Visually eighteen. Short enough to count as a tactical hazard in crowded offices. Bisexual. Clingy. Fun-loving. Anxiety-ridden. Flexibility and gymnastic movement. Japanese robes modified for carrier use. Armored obi-sash. Blade skates built into her sandals because apparently the universe had decided basic locomotion should also count as a threat vector.
And then there were the actual important parts.
She was, according to the corrected reading of the file, not a natural awakening in the same way most of the others were. She had been developed from an attempt to create a carrier-adapted Tosa-line successor after the original Kaga refused conversion in spirit and doctrine. Rather than accept that answer like sane people, someone in a Sakura-Ironblood research overlap project apparently decided the correct solution was:
make another one, but carrier-shaped.
Kade set the file down again and stared at nothing.
“That,” he said, “is one of the most doomed ideas I have ever heard.”
Tōkaidō, whose relationship to Kaga-related family complications was naturally more personal than most, looked troubled in a very quiet way.
“She would know that she was made to fill a refusal.”
“Yes,” Kade said. “Which is already enough to give a person issues before we add in the experimental upbringing, the dependency, the hyperattachment, and whatever the hell icy fox-fire trampoline magic is.”
Tōkaidō read farther down.
Her ears twitched once.
“…Surface transformation?”
“Apparently she can turn whatever is under her into a rubbery bounce field.”
Tōkaidō lifted her gaze slowly. “Water?”
“Yes.”
“Steel?”
“Yes.”
“Abyssals?”
“The file claims yes.”
There was a moment of silence in which both of them imagined, perhaps against their will, a tiny fox carrier ricocheting violently across the ocean while launching aircraft and laughing.
Tōkaidō folded her hands over the desk.
“That is slightly alarming.”
Kade barked one tired laugh.
“Only slightly?”
All right.
Let’s fix the nonsense into something usable.
Kaga Kōtta fits the current world only if we correct the language around her creation.
Not wisdom cube. Not that.
In this setting, she makes more sense as a pendant-derived experimental stabilization project—something born from a forced attempt to create a carrier-compatible Kansen identity from Tosa-class lineage data, doctrinal templates, recovered spiritual resonance, and Sakura naval demand for more fleet carriers. Ironblood involvement means the project likely used aggressive engineering methods, nonstandard rigging architecture, and exactly the sort of emotionally negligent “orientation” process that leaves a girl functional on paper and unstable in private.
So:
She was not simply “born weird.”
She was built under pressure by people trying to solve a fleet shortfall with spiritual engineering and nationalist impatience.
That fits this world depressingly well.
Her social isolation also needs updating.
Not “online shenanigans” in the modern casual sense.
More like restricted intranet boards, secured fleet message channels, closed contractor networks, and limited contact pools consisting mostly of Otto, approved workers, and the occasional message traffic from ships or handlers she was told counted as “family” without ever being allowed to properly meet them.
That explains the clinginess.
The poor social calibration.
The tendency to latch hard.
The anxiety.
The bizarre mix of excitement and paranoia.
She’s basically a carrier girl who grew up in a lab-adjacent cage with enough affection to form attachment and not enough healthy freedom to form self-regulation.
Which means if she comes to Horizon, she is either going to improve dramatically or make every emotionally intelligent person on this base start quietly plotting violence against her former handlers.
Possibly both.
Under the emotional disaster is a genuinely dangerous light carrier package.
She carries:
-
extra launched aircraft per sortie action
-
passive proximity-based healing for herself and nearby friendlies
-
mobility and defensive enhancement from her bizarre bounce-field ability
-
decent plane complement for a compact carrier profile
-
enough AA to not be helpless
-
enough speed to be a problem if she ever decides “staying still” is a suggestion
She is, in short, a support carrier with movement nonsense, cling-healing, and the combat personality of a sugar-rushed shrine fox who might stab you if she thinks you’re leaving.
That is not doctrine language.
It is, however, accurate.
Kaga Kōtta is not “not well” in the useless vague way people like to write when they want to avoid specifics.
She is:
-
attachment-fragile
-
under-socialized
-
prone to intense dependency bonds
-
anxious in unfamiliar social environments
-
liable to oscillate between affectionate enthusiasm and violent dysregulation if frightened, provoked, or made to feel abandoned
-
probably carrying identity issues the size of a drydock because she knows she was built in the shadow of an original who refused the role she was made to fill
That last part matters most.
A lot of unstable people can be managed by routine.
A person built to answer another person’s refusal is carrying a wound far deeper than routine.
Tōkaidō had gone very quiet reading that section.
Kade noticed.
He softened his tone without really meaning to.
“She’s not Kaga.”
“No,” Tōkaidō said softly.
“But everyone around her probably keeps comparing anyway.”
A small pause.
“Yes.”
He looked back at the file.
That kind of comparison killed people slowly.
Especially the young ones.
Especially the ones desperate to be loved correctly.
Kade took the pencil from behind his ear and started making notes while talking.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s do the damage forecast.”
Tōkaidō prepared to write.
He began counting off on his fingers.
“Kaga is going to hate this on principle.”
Tōkaidō nodded immediately. “Yes.”
“Not necessarily hate her,” Kade added. “But hate the concept, the project, the manipulation, the comparison, and probably Otto.”
“Yes,” Tōkaidō repeated, and there was the faintest thread of satisfaction in her voice at the last part.
“Akagi,” Kade went on, “is either going to become weirdly maternal or weirdly intense about getting this girl stabilized.”
“That also seems likely.”
“Shinano will calm her down by existing.”
Tōkaidō’s mouth softened. “Most likely.”
“Amagi will understand her too quickly and that will either save a lot of time or make everyone else feel underqualified.”
This time Tōkaidō actually smiled.
Kade continued.
“She is almost certainly going to latch onto the first person who treats her like a real person instead of a prototype.”
Tōkaidō’s pencil paused.
Then she asked, very carefully, “And who do you think that will be?”
Kade looked at her flatly.
“That depends on how fast she reaches the island and whether you speak to her before I do.”
That caught her enough that the pencil nearly slipped.
“Commander.”
“I’m serious.”
Tōkaidō lowered her gaze to the slate, but not before he saw the faint color touch her face.
Kade, because he was tired and therefore unwise, added, “You radiate ‘safe older sister who will be gentle and then quietly terrifying if mishandled.’ That’s basically catnip for unstable foxes.”
Tōkaidō made a tiny, wounded sound.
“I do not radiate anything.”
“You absolutely do.”
“That is very rude.”
“It’s also true.”
She wrote more firmly after that, which told him he had successfully embarrassed her and would probably be punished for it later by being handed perfect notes in an unnervingly calm way.
He went on before she could recover enough to retaliate verbally.
“Senko will feed her and that’s the end of that. She’ll be emotionally claimed in under twenty minutes.”
“Yes,” Tōkaidō admitted.
“Atlanta will think she’s adorable right up until Kōtta starts bouncing off walls and into restricted areas.”
“Also yes.”
“Fairplay is going to find this hilarious.”
“Yes.”
“Salem may actually be really good for her if Kōtta doesn’t interpret quietness as rejection.”
Tōkaidō looked up at that.
“That is… true.”
“Wilkinson will be baffled.”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“Reeves is in danger of being swept into some kind of emotionally clingy fox friendship that becomes physically exhausting.”
At that, Tōkaidō’s composure almost broke again.
“Commander—”
“Am I wrong?”
“…No.”
Kade made another note.
Under no circumstances let Duluth and Kaga Kōtta meet unsupervised until we understand what their combined energy does to local architecture.
Tōkaidō read the line.
Then quietly added beneath it:
Especially trampolines.
Kade looked at her.
She kept her face perfectly straight.
He pointed once with the pencil. “See? Dangerous.”
This time she did laugh, very softly.
Kade flipped back through the pages.
“There are also some practical problems.”
Tōkaidō returned to the more serious tone immediately. “Such as?”
“She’s fast enough already. With the bounce-field effect active, she becomes even harder to pin down. That’s good in combat. Less good if she panics on base and starts ricocheting off infrastructure.”
“She would not do so intentionally.”
“I know. That’s why it worries me.”
He tapped the healing skill.
“This passive proximity-heal is useful, but it also means she may develop a habit of physically staying too close to others because the system reinforces attachment behavior.”
Tōkaidō’s eyes sharpened.
“…yes.”
“That will need boundaries early. Kind ones. Consistent ones.”
“Yes.”
Kade tapped the fighter and torpedo aircraft columns.
“And someone needs to look over the air wing distribution. This is a functional carrier package, but if she’s really meant to be ‘mini-Kaga but hyper,’ then half the battle is going to be preventing her from throwing herself into proving she deserves to exist.”
Tōkaidō was quiet for a few seconds.
Then, softly: “You say these things as if you have met her already.”
Kade leaned back.
“No,” he said. “I say them because people built in cages all tend to learn the same bad lessons.”
That stayed between them for a moment.
Rain on the window.
The office lamp humming faintly.
The sealed black box saying nothing at all.
Tōkaidō lowered her eyes and finished the note without comment.
Kade closed the file halfway, then opened it again because apparently he wasn’t done being insulted by fate.
“She’s called Frozen Kaga.”
Tōkaidō nodded slightly. “Because of the icy fox-fire manifestations.”
“Yes. I read that part. I’m objecting on philosophical grounds.”
“To the name?”
“To the fact that someone looked at this whole situation and thought branding would improve it.”
Tōkaidō seemed to think this over very seriously.
Then said, “Would you prefer Trampoline Kaga?”
Kade stared at her in silence for a full three seconds.
Then dropped his forehead into one hand.
“This office is becoming unprofessional.”
She looked down very quickly, but not before he saw the unmistakable warmth in her expression.
“I apologize.”
“No, you don’t.”
“…No.”
He sat up again and finally clipped the file onto the rest of the stack.
“All right. Revised conclusion.”
Tōkaidō readied the pencil.
“Kaga Kōtta is an experimental Sakura carrier girl with Tosa-line baggage, forced identity problems, fox-fire mobility nonsense, and exactly enough clingy instability to turn Horizon into either the first healthy place she’s ever lived or the site of my administrative collapse.”
Tōkaidō wrote all of that down in cleaner language than he used.
Then asked, “And the recommendation?”
Kade looked at the ceiling once more.
Then answered.
“Handle gently. Watch closely. Don’t compare her to Kaga. Don’t let anyone from Ironblood pseudoscience near her unsupervised. Feed her before difficult conversations. And if she starts bouncing off the walls, find Shinano, Amagi, or you before I have to make a policy about it.”
Tōkaidō froze halfway through the last line.
“Why me again?”
Kade looked at her with the tired patience of a man explaining gravity.
“Because she will either trust you instantly or decide she wants your approval so badly it becomes a weather condition.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“No. But it is probably true.”
Tōkaidō finished the notes anyway.
Then she gathered the whole stack—now expanded by one hidden fox-shaped problem—and held it against her chest.
At the door, she paused.
Again.
Kade narrowed his eyes.
“There are not any more hidden under the desk, are there.”
She looked down at the stack.
Then back at him.
“No.”
A beat.
“…I think.”
Kade closed his eyes.
“Tōkaidō.”
“Yes?”
“If one more unstable warship appears out of the paperwork like a cursed origami spirit, I’m climbing into the sea.”
She smiled then. Soft. Brief. Entirely too genuine.
“I will make sure someone brings you back.”
He cracked one eye open and looked at her.
“That sounded supportive.”
“It was.”
She slipped out with the files, leaving him alone with the rain, the office, and the growing certainty that Horizon Atoll was not just attracting difficult people anymore.
It was attracting the ones the world had built badly, used poorly, misunderstood thoroughly, and then sent elsewhere when they became too inconvenient to fit in the proper boxes.
Kade looked at the now-empty spot on his desk where Kaga Kōtta’s file had been.
Then at the black lacquered box in the corner.
Then out toward the dark wet future of the island.
“Fantastic,” he muttered.
Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled.
Or maybe that was just Iowa.