Chapter 8:

Broken Hands

The warship Mitali swung around Azukima and steered herself back towards the direction it came from. The cacophony of warfare surrounded her on all sides, as Azukima resumed her belligerency and unleashed fire and steel upon those that tried to close the opening Mitali had created for herself.

Machine guns, small cannons, and naval artillery all roared behind Mitali, explosions and screams mirroring them in front of her.

On the bridge, Mitali observed the battlefield. Despite the barrage dispatched by the vessel behind her, it was not enough. The warships she disabled were again operational to the best of their abilities and closing in on her.

Soon, there would be no opening.

Columns of water rose alongside her, the echoes of their causing resounding across the ocean.

Time was running out.

Mitali, her front main armaments unavailable, had a decision to make.

To turn, and lay my torpedoes onto them, letting go of time and perhaps the opening.

Or to stay this course of mine, and take whatever punishment the enemy can present me with, and make our escape as immediate as possible.

‘Tis a simple decision.

“Full speed ahead!” Mitali’s voice echoed across the bridge, herself the only listener. Shortly thereafter, her pumps began trembling where they stood, her engines screaming out in pain.

With every knot that she gained in speed, the enemy’s attacks grew in number and accuracy.

With every second that passed, the ocean pushed her back with stronger and heftier waves.

Mitali was now close enough to the enemy that she could make out people on the vessels before her. Some of them manned weapons to shoot at her, bombarding her with everything they had. They ricocheted against her armor and bounced off into the water, bubbles and steam rising upon contact.

With every deflected shell, her hull cracked and bent more and more. Bruises began appearing on her arms, slowly turning her fair skin into a dark shade of purple-

-But she was undeterred.

Before long, she was in the midst of the enemy blockade, one ship at either one of her sides. Both larger than her.

She could feel their glares-

Their hunger for blood-

-Their desire to rip her apart.

She didn’t know who were the ones looking at her with such horrifying eyes, but they were there, they were there turning their guns, readying themselves to take her out of action once again.

She took a step back, the unsteadiness in her legs nearly causing her to fall over. She prevented it by placing her right hand on the command table, thus supporting herself.

Her hands began sweating; her heart beat with torrential power, she could hear it clearly through all of the cannonfire.

Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump.

She knew her body wouldn’t resist for long.

“Mitali! We’re almost out!” Taccilas raced through the stairs and arrived at the bridge. There she saw the girl, her legs trembling as she powered through the blockade.

“Indeed… We almost are.” Weak was her voice, the roar of guns afar nearly eclipsing it.

“Is there anything I can do?!”

Mitali turned towards Taccilas, her eyes were serene like the ocean had once been. “...Do remain here.”

Mitali stood up straight once again, her legs still quaking.

“Stop. That. This. Instant.” She said as she punched her legs once for each word.

And just like that, her body had regained what little composure remained within.

“Is that all?” Questioned Taccilas.

“Indeed, that is.” Mitali then turned her torpedo launchers onto the encroaching vessels, one to each side. Without further delay, she let their loads onto the water and towards those who wished to render her unmoving. Six splashes of water- three on each side- announced the travels of the steel fish.

Not a moment later, a shell landed on one of the launchers, rendering it unusable. Simultaneously, another cut appeared, this time on Mitali’s right hand.

Truly, what an uncouth mess this is.

Given she could no longer support herself, Mitali opted to sit on the command table. Explosions and the whistling of shells was incessant outside, captain Makki and his sailors tried their best to cover Mitali and Taccilas’ retreat, and fire raged across all the vessels involved.

Yet here was this bloodied, beat-up girl.

Who’s snow-white hair had partially turned crimson

Who’s hands now had exposed tissue all over.

Who’s skin had turned purple from the unending beatings.

And she was simply sitting, calmly swaying her legs.

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“Are you okay?”

“...Brief me, is Izuchi unharmed?”

“Yep, I put her to bed in the room I woke up in.”

A shell perforated Mitali’s side, right under the bridge. It penetrated all her layers of armor, piercing and tearing through everything in its path and coming out through the other side. The clattering and crunching of steel consuming all ears aboard the white-haired ship.

Shortly thereafter, Taccilas noticed that parts of Mitali’s silver uniform had been stained by the color of her blood, particularly around her clavicle. His eyes twitched as he saw her.

“I see, I see… For future reference, that one is supposed to be your room.”

“Does it matter?”

“Indeed, it does.”

“Why can’t we just share?”

Three more shells hit Mitali, two hit her under her funnels, and one hit her stern. She could tell they were looking for her engine- for a way for her to cease movement. Her speed had increased up to 35 knots, if she was allowed through, there was no way they would ever catch up to her. The shells all passed right through her armor without detonating, but they wrecked her hull nonetheless, her food storage, a variety of chambers for sailors, and most importantly, her fuel silos, all suffered heavy damage.

Injuries sprouted all over Mitali’s torso, but she continued acting as if nothing had occurred-

-As if it was just another day.

Taccilas’ eyes twitched once again.

“...‘Tis in your eyes, my sailor. Do not worry about me, I will be fine.”

“...I saw a first-aid kit on my way here, I’m getting it and treating your injuries.”

“...”

Taccilas ran out of the bridge and down the stairs from where he came. The instant he did so, a column of water broke through one of the enemy ships.

One of Mitali’s torpedoes had landed.

It was still operational, and her guns were still bracketing Mitali, but this would slow her down, and perhaps make it easier for the crew of the Azukima to lay waste on her.

She took a look at the other side, all of her torpedoes had missed, but the pirates had been forced to turn, thus putting them behind Mitali and giving her just a little bit of breathing room.

She let out a sigh of relief.

The battle wasn’t over, but there would be an instant of peace.

Before long, Taccilas hurriedly came back, a red case in his hands. He stood in front of Mitali, their eyes meeting, and set the first-aid kit on the command table.

“Take off your jacket.” He demanded.

After a few seconds of hesitation, the girl obliged and carefully removed her topmost garment. Under it, her short-sleeved uniform failed to cover the bruises and injuries that had taken root on her skin, dozens and dozens of them.

The color of her skin had been utterly transformed.

Before him was a landscape of purples and crimson.

“Oh.” Blurted Taccilas.

“Your treatment, ‘tis unnecessary. We are still engaged in battle.”

“Can you do your thing whilst I treat your wounds?”

“...I am able.”

Taccilas looked at the girl in front of him. The skin on her arms had become rugged and rough, her silver uniform had been covered in crimson; her hands had been destroyed, to the point she was unable to move most of her fingers. Ragged and broken like a terrible river her blood flooded and poured out from an endless amount of cuts as she just sat there, facing him with her eyes as still as the lakes of summer mornings.

“Escape with me. It’ll be fun!” He had told her.

How dare he let this happen?

In what world did he let a girl that looked as young as him take such punishment?

A girl that was trying to help him, no less!

He came, stole her and then put her in a position where her body would get battered and trampled!

Unforgivable, absolutely unforgivable!

Columns of water continued to rise. All of them now behind Mitali, her rear turrets doing their best to encourage their enemies to turn tail and return home to their families, lest something terrible happen.

He had to take whatever little action he could. He couldn’t go out and sink the enemy that chased them across the ocean, but he could use what little materials he had to perhaps make her pain a little more bearable.

Taccilas took a deep breath and took his hands out of his pockets. Mitali looked down- her eyes instantly widened.

The first thing that got her attention was the color. His hands were red, a dark red, red as if his hands were perpetually bleeding streams of molten metal.

She thought for a moment that a man that had been dead for a year would have more tolerable hands than his, that his hands must’ve been touched by unforgiving lava and fire.

If she were to touch them, she figured his hands would feel like wood, or perhaps like a jagged rock.

He had no nails, his fingers ending unnaturally and bending in strange ways, one of them resembling a blade, another had a flat end. Mitali couldn’t understand how he was supposed to even use them. Did he even have ten? She was unsure of it all. Some of his fingers were abnormally outstretched, and others, far too miniscule. One of his thumbs had what seemed to be three knuckles, other fingers seemed to have only one.

On his palm, he had strange spots with erratic shapes, all of them colored an even darker red than the rest of the hand, nearing dark purple. Some of them, particularly the large one on the center of his palm, shaped like a pupil, looked as if they were ever so quietly pulsating. Mitali thought it looked as if he was holding some sort of liquid within it, but she wasn’t quite sure.

She let out a sigh, and thus Taccilas began what little work he could get done.

A shell impacted Mitali near her stern, a fire beginning to burn. Simultaneously, a new cut appeared in Mitali’s left calf and a burn rash spread around it.

Neither of the two spoke a singular word.

Taccilas picked up what he thought was a small bottle of water and some soap from the first-aid kit, using them to wash his hands.

Ensuingly, he gently poured water over one of Mitali’s arms and used what he thought was a piece of cloth to clean her cuts. Now that her arm was clean, it had become apparent how injured her body was, there was not a place in her arm you could observe that didn’t have some sort of cut or bruise.

Lastly, he wrapped bandages around her arm, he used so much of the material, that by the time he was done, there was not a single spec of skin on her that was visible under the bandages. Subsequently, he repeated the process with her other arm.

“Do you feel better?” Consulted Taccilas. The drums of cannonfire had become more and more distant, Mitali’s speed had increased to nearly 40 knots and they were gaining increasing amounts of distance against their enemies with every passing minute.

But one last shell soared through the air, its whistle an omen for all that observed it.

As Mitali parted her lips to reply, the shell made contact. A pillar of water, no taller than Mitali herself, stood behind her. To the untrained eye, it would’ve appeared that the shot had missed, but a loud crack echoed on the bridge as Mitali’s right foot fell completely limp, a torrent of blood sprouting from her ankle.

“Hm, troublesome indeed.”

Taccilas looked down, then directly at her eyes, and down again.

“What happened?”

“I have lost my rudder. We cannot turn anymore.”

“Oh.”

On that day, under the watchful eye of the Sun and his cohort-

When the winds reeked with the foul smell of unholy gunpowder and burnt steel-

When the ocean didn’t yet burn, yet it bore witness to the conflagration that would, in time, take a hold of him with its indomitable wrath-

-That an irrevocable path was set.