USS ESSEX CVN-88, RYUKYUS ISLANDS SEA, JAPAN

JULY 30TH

6:10 AM

It is said that it is a wife's job to wait patiently at home for her husband to return, I have always tried to do the same every time the battlefield calls for Cesar, but today I can't feel calm for some reason, today even I was nervous. Not because of the enemy this time, but because of how strange Cesar had been acting weird since yesterday, there was something different about him than usual, usually when there are problems he would behave in two ways it seems to depend on the difficulty of what he has to do, calm and technical or angry and violent. But since those black airplanes appeared he has been excitedly looking for a fight with them, putting as an excuse that it was necessary or as revenge for a friend, but I think it is different, his objective was only to fight with the black airplanes, nothing else. Maybe? I really don't know, Cesar looked like his burns damaged much more than his skin, I thought that meeting again with the responsible ones would make him angry, but he wasn't being violent like he was with Goddess Nediadis, but he wasn't being calm either, he seemed to act more on impulse, did he really want to fight just to do it? was it the emotion of the battle that was calling him? he was really enjoying it just the act of fighting itself.

I just had the feeling that something wasn't right today with my husband.

"Tamamo? Is it you?"

"Let her through, she has my permission" said Adelis at the back of the room I was heading to.

All these thoughts did not leave me calm, so instead of staying in the captain's cabin with the others I went to the bridge to the tactical room that Okasan had prepared, at first a couple of guards did not want to let me pass, but then they let me after my mother-in-law gave me permission to enter. Inside was Admiral Mark, several of his officers, Okasan, and my daughters, all watching several monitors on the walls and a larger one that acted as a table and map, on it you could see the icons that represented our warriors from the enemy's, as well as their giant flying boat. I just stood and watched. It seemed that the battle had already begun some time ago.

Charlotte seemed to be concentrating on helping the officers with additional information and risk estimation in decision-making, while her sister was assisting the teams in the air, giving directions to each team individually, although the general directions were spoken aloud for the officers to hear as well.

"More enemy reinforcements detected!"

"Warning! HellFire Elite Squadron detected, use extreme caution!"

"Diamondback is sustaining heavy casualties."

"Call off the attack and integrate with Warhawk, reinforce protection."

"Royal Mace take over with the other squadrons to attack Dandelion"

"Mustang squadron reserves ammunition zero, break off pursuit, and return to resupply." Said Kasumi with her usual dead eyes and emotionless face.

"Tell Elise to back off from there, her job is not to fight HellFire, I need her to focus with the air fortress!" said my mother-in-law angrily.

"Dad has already been informed several times but has refused the instructions."

"She is still focused on pursuing the enemy elite squadron."

"She says she will keep them distracted for the other squadrons"

"Damn it, and now what's that moron doing?"

But despite the complaints, Okasan let it pass and continued to focus on finding the best way to defeat the enemy flagship, it seems that going against his mother's wishes, Cesar was doing a really good job keeping the black planes at bay, so much so that he even shot down 5 of them, even one of the officers celebrated hearing one of the shoot downs. Because of this, the other squadrons were able to concentrate their fire on the giant craft until it was forced to turn back. When Charlotte mentioned the news everyone celebrated as their biggest problem was running away defeated. But while she was still giving the news, Kasumi fell silent in mid-sentence, Charlotte quickly turned to look at her, Kasumi did the same and looked at her sister. Her face was as expressionless as ever, but her gestures were quite strange, they seemed to indicate surprise or shock, something they didn't expect had happened, I was sure of that.

"Girls? did something happen?"

"What happened?" I asked my daughters.

"It's dad, she just used a command to return me from the commuter plane"

"It was damaged and going down."

"Dad was shot down!"

The news froze my blood, from one moment to the next I felt as if I was nailed to the ground. Okasan, in spite of the joyful voices around her somehow managed to hear the sisters giving the news, turned around, and came to us quite worried and full of questions.

"Que!Como!?"

"Cesar!"

"Que le paso! Donde esta!

"Hay no, Dios , no, no no no no"

"Por favor no, no de nuevo!"

(What!? How!?)

(Cesar!)

(What happened to him! Where is he!)

(No, God, no, no, no, no, no, no, no)

(Please no, not again!)

Asked the concerned mother in anxiousness.

But the sisters did not answer any questions, instead, they just stared into the void, standing there doing nothing, not even moving. It seemed that the lack of response made Okasan angrier and angrier, who was shaking Charllote harder and harder looking for answers. Adelis' shouting was getting louder and louder, even going so far as to turn off the celebration in the room. I too was surprised by the news, but I took the lack of response from the twins not as if they were the coldness of a machine, but as if they were concentrating on something else, something much more important, paying so much attention in fact that they were not realizing the force with which they were being moved.

"Mother Levia's GPS was still in the area."

"We have redirected her to the estimated impact area of Dad's plane."

"Right now she is swimming in the direction of the island" the sisters spoke at the same time breaking the silence.

"What does this mean?"

"Is Cesar saved? Is he alive?" Okasan asks even more anxiously.

"We don't know, the GPS only indicates her position"

"We have no further information about what is happening"

"She probably rescued him and is taking him to land"

"Or that she found her body and is returning it for a burial" Said one of the officers in a cruel joke.

I raised my hand and hit his face hard enough to knock him to the floor. I found his lack of manners disgusting, even if he didn't know him and didn't care about his life, his mother was in the same room crying at such news and he had nothing better to do than to make fun of a mother's tragedy. His offense was so great that I thought of bringing down from the heavens a divine punishment for his insolence. But Admiral Mark was also upset and beat him too, much more than he could probably do legally, the officer ended up bleeding and the ship's captain took him out of the room and ordered him to be denied medical attention, indicating that in this way he would remember to have decorum.

When Okasan heard this she really started to cry, it looked like she was having a panic attack, so I took her by the hand to get her out of there, I took her to a different room, it looked like an office, several sailors saw me and tried to get me out of there, but when they saw the mother crying they shut up and continued working in silence. One of them even gave me a bottle of water trying to show compassion for the situation. I opened it and gave it to Adelis to drink and calm down a little, she was still quite nervous, but I kept hugging her and telling her that everything would be ok, reminding her how he was always doing crazy things all the time and that he could still fly like a dragon because of what he had revealed to us the day before. She calmed down a bit after a couple of minutes.

Over the ship's radio, we heard how the combat planes would soon be approaching to land and reorganize. Adelis was insistent that he wanted to see the pilots so he went outside to watch the planes arrive one by one. Until one plane arrived that was different from the rest, this one was scratched with paint and with a lot of insults all over it. The pilot landed and the other sailors in charge of the planes complained to him that he was on the wrong ship again because his original ship was the big ship next to his, the pilot just ignored them and walked on. Okasan somehow recognized him and went running to talk to him.

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"Tu espera un momento!"

"Eres Rick cierto!? Tu estabas junto a el verdad?"

"Tu eras su compañero?"

"Sabes donde esta el? Donde esta mi hijo!?"

(You wait a minute!)

(You're Rick, right? You were next to him right?)

(You were his partner?)

(Do you know where he is? Where is my son?!?)

Rick stared at the mother in amazement, it seemed that he had not understood what she was talking about, she said he did not speak Spanish and Okasan seemed too desperate to remember English. So I decided to step in and speak for her instead.

"I'm sorry, excuse her, but she is very nervous"

"She just got news that her daughter was shot down on the plane and she says you were her partner."

"Do you happen to know anything about it?"

"Do you know what happened out there?"

When Mr. Rick's eyes widened as he realized who the person he was talking to was, he began to act quite nervous about the news.

"Oh, shit, you must be his family, right?"

"My AWACS was pretty insistent that I come back to this carrier to talk about what happened"

"I understand what the hell happened, I really didn't think it would happen so quickly"

"I'm sorry ma'am, the girl that was flying next to me did get shot down"

"It was shortly after we defeated that giant ship"

"She managed to destroy another one of the black planes, but another one of them chased her and wouldn't let her go no matter how hard she tried"

"I came to help her, I even fired a missile that hit her and shattered one of her wings"

"But the bastard was still flying and chasing her"

"He shot her with his machine guns and hit her engines, the girl's plane didn't explode but started to fall"

"I didn't see any ejection from the plane and the black plane kept pushing to destroy what was left"

"I kept pushing to force it to flee"

"After I succeeded unfortunately I had no more fuel and had to turn back"

"I have no idea what happened, I saw the plane hit the water, I didn't see anyone get out when I was coming back"

"...."

"...."

"Maybe she is out there swimming in the sea"

"Which would be fortunate as it is close to the island, so she will only have to swim a little, surely by night she will have reached the mainland"

Rick didn't seem to be good with words, clearly not expecting to have to talk to the family of a fellow soldier so quickly after that battle. He was pessimistic about the situation, but he couldn't show that in front of the mother, so he made an effort to give a message of hope even though he might not share it himself. He simply could not be cruel to a mother crying for her family. Seeing that he was also struggling with what to do in this situation, I decided to go back inside with Okasan, pointing out that Levia still needed to return, and that if anyone knew what happened it was her. Adelis remembered this and indicated that she wanted to return to the inner dock immediately to wait for the girl to return.

It was past noon when Levia finally returned to the dock. She didn't seem surprised to see us waiting for her impatiently, so she swam even faster. The mother didn't even wait for her to arrive and asked for Cesar from afar.

"Don't worry, everything is fine!"

"Darling is safe, she is on the island!"

"Her plane fell into the sea but that's all, when I arrived she was swimming back so I helped her to get to the island faster"

"He's fine, he's alive, in fact as soon as we got to the beach he was looking for something to eat"

"You know him, he is always a glutton"

I didn't doubt that she was telling the truth, after all, she had no reason to lie about something as serious as someone's life. But I was sure she was decorating a lot what happened, although I don't blame her, I would do the same if it would help Okasan feel better and be calmer. The mermaid even handed us the pilot's suit that Darling was wearing, as he said she could use it as proof that he was okay, so Adelis took it in her arms and dried it with a cloth while I helped Levia back into the wheelchair and redressed her to cover her huge tail.

Hope had returned to Okasan after Levia's words and the sign that he was alive somewhere on the island. She wanted to return to the tactical room, she handed me the pilot's suit to hold while she was busy. She was so happy that she even shared the good news as soon as she opened the door and came into the room. I went to my daughters to let them know what had happened, after all, they too had the right to know all the details. There was still a lot to do and Okasan wanted to concentrate on the work to put what happened before behind him as well as possible. The fleet still had to prepare for another battle, this time against other ships. To me, despite being locked up for over a thousand years, it seemed curious how some things never seemed to change, how man even today still sailed and fought on the seas, maybe the ships were different, but they were still ships nonetheless, even now or a thousand years ago, as if some things never changed no matter the time, the day will surely come when man will also fight in space and yet he will still treat spaceships as if they were the ship and the sea.

About mid-afternoon, the twins indicated that communications with the island had been arranged and that Captain Cedric wanted to talk to Okasan to organize the engagement with the enemy fleet. It seemed that the plan was to gather as many planes as possible both from our ships and from the island and launch one more attack on the enemy before our ships had to fight up close, try to weaken the enemy before the combat, the Admiral was convinced by this idea and sent to prepare a second attack, it was the second time that the pilots would go out to fight today, I asked myself what would Cesar have done in this situation if he had not been shot down, would he also have gone to the combat again?

Cedric was in favor of this, but also indicated that the problem with the rebels was worrisome, as they were attacking places where he had placed land units to attack enemy ships and that some had even been stolen, plus they had attacked another camp in the morning. Cedric promised that as soon as the threat of the enemy fleet passed he would send every soldier to check the entire region house by house, he seemed quite annoyed with the insurgents. But while still speaking a soldier near him indicated that they had a connection to the central hospital in Naha and that Xi'an was on the phone, so Okasan was finally able to speak with her assistant from yesterday.

Xi'an seemed to be quite worried about her boss, but seeing that we were all safe on the boat she was happy, as we were not seeing all the craziness that was happening on the island, where they managed to even capture her, but luckily Elise was there to rescue her. Okasan was happy to hear that Cesar was alive, she even saw that Xi'an had his helmet in her hand, so she asked her if she could put him on the phone. But that immediately made the assistant nervous, who indicated that she had gone out for a moment to get some air and had not returned since.

The mother slammed the table, again angry at the news.

It looked like Darling had come up with another one of his "fuck I'm going to do it" moments that usually happen at times like this, the same kind that made him fall out of the sky this morning, he was doing something secretly and without telling anyone where he went, he probably already knew he was being pretty dumb and wanted to do it anyway. We on the other hand could only wait and pray for the success of whatever he was doing. Okasan did not take the trouble of waiting to see what happened to his son.

The planes went out to fight the enemy soon after, which managed to damage the enemy fleet quite a bit, probably weakening them enough to force them to flee before they could be killed directly. And only thirty minutes later Cedric called Okasan in an emergency, it seemed that one of the enemy ships had broken formation and was heading straight for the island, it was acting very strangely, and the pilots only reported hitting that ship once. Although no one said anything at the time, we already knew what had happened and where Darling had gone by the time we left him alone. Cedric said that he himself was leading the group to take possession of the ship when it hit land, as it was already inevitable, my mother-in-law gave him the order to arrest Cesar on the spot as soon as he saw her. And when the battle was over, Adelis took a helicopter directly to the same place.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Are you stupid or do you train for become one?"

"Do you don't even think in the slightest?"

"You're too old to be chasing you around like a child"

"Just look, I lose sight of you for a second, and by the time I realize, boom, you're in the middle of a fucking enemy carrier stealing it like if you become a pirate!"

"How the fuck did you even get there?"

"By flying?"

"Don't even answer me that way fucking moron!"

"This is disrespect, Cesar!"

"I am your mother!"

"How the fuck do you want me not to be angry!"

"What if this had gone wrong?!?"

"I seriously have no idea what the fuck you were thinking by doing this in the first place."

"I had made a big exception by giving you permission to fly a plane, but I just watched it get abused."

"You go out there like you're going to the mini-supermarket to buy rice"

"How did you even think this would be a good idea?"

Okasan was strongly scolding Cesar, who was sitting on the ground still handcuffed to a post. I found the scene most curious, it seemed that the saying was right that no matter how old you are or what empire you own, for your mother you will still be her little son. I, on the other hand, was happy to see that she was doing it because she was really worried about him, her way of scolding him reflected that she didn't want him to do something silly again, to which he only answered that he was carried away by the emotion of the day. His mother scolded him for almost half an hour more because of that.