Our Bonds

Shigure walked in with the days paperwork from Ooyodo.

"Admiral, here are the doc.u.ments sent in from HQ."

"More of them? I won't be able to finish if this continues."

Because of Zuihou's fever, I missed an entire days worth of work caring for her. Despite this, she still hasn't recovered. Right now, Shouhou is helping me nurse her.

"Zuihou-san still hasn't recovered yet?"

"Yeah. The fever is causing her to be in a daze almost the whole time. Akashi is looking into a cure for her."

"Was it bad fuel?"

"I don't think so. Initial checks didn't detect anything out of place. If she spent the entire day under a kotatsu and caught a cold, I would understand. But now it's not the time to bring out one."

"What about a modernization failure?"

"I didn't modernize her, so that's impossible."

"Hmm..."

To suffer from a fever that leaves her incapacitated, this is weird. I know humans can become like that sometimes, but I have never heard of it happening to a shipgirl without proper reasons.

Maybe other Admirals would know about this.

"I'm going to make a call. Could you help me sort out the rest?"

"Leave it to me."

-----------------------------------

I decided to call Kure Naval Base since it was first one I could think of.

"A fever which isn't caused by any known reasons?"

"Yeah. Did any of your shipgirls experience that?"

"Umm... Come to think of it, last week Taiyou was like that for two days. It was very worrisome."

Taiyou, she is one if the new shipgirls found recently, right? Furthermore, she is a CVL.

"Three days ago, Hiyou from Sasebo Naval Base also suffered from the same condition."

Another CVL.

"You think they are related?"

"That only CVLs got incapacitated by this fever? I can see a link. It may be just a coincidence though."

"How did Taiyou recover?"

"She just did. Though she started acting more childish and selfish for a while. I heard Junyou was the same."

Zuihou is already somewhat childish. I won't see any difference if she became like that.

"Anyway, it's nothing to worry about. It has already been two days since she got sick right?"

"Yeah. Today's the third day."

"Then she should recover soon."

"Hopefully. Thanks for the info."

"Your welcome."

He hung up.

So this fever is just a random thing which causes them to be more childish? I still can't accept that as a reason.

"How was it?"

"He said it will go away today. One if his CVLs also gotten the same fever last week."

"I see."

"I hope he is right."

*Knock Knock*

"Admiral, are you there?"

That voice... It was Shouhou.

"Come in."

Shouhou walked in. She wore a worried expression. I can guess something went wrong.

"Pardon my intrusion. Did Zuihou come here just now?"

"No. What's wrong?"

Please let my thinking be wrong...

"This is bad. I went out to change Zuihou's cloth. When I came back, she was gone!"

I knew it.

"She probably hasn't recovered fully, so she couldn't go far. Go check if her equipment was drawn out. Shigure, help me gather a some people to search for her."

"Got it."

"I'll join the search. Join me once you're done."

Shouhou went to the armory while Shigure went to gather some people to help out. This isn't really a big issue, but I can't help but worry when a sick shipgirl is involved.

"Where the heck did you go?"

I went to the docks first, supposedly she would want to take a bath after sweating so much.

Not here. Though I did sneak a peek on Hiryuu and Souryuu bathing.

Next I searched the kitchen. Since Zuihou loves to cook Tamagoyaki, there is a chance that she would be here. Of course, if she were here, Mamiya would have informed me earlier.

Shouhou, Shigure and some other destroyers came to help in the search. We searched high and low, but couldn't find any signs of her. In the end, I decided to sent the girls back since it was getting late.

"Where could she have gone?"

I was back in my office, sitting on my chair. She wasn't in the hanger, neither was she at the aviation practice field. She couldn't have left the Naval District since the fairies have locked down the place. I can't think of any place she might be hiding.

Suddenly I felt some pressure on my legs. Something was lying on my legs. I looked down and was half-relieved at what I saw.

"Ad-mi-ral~~"