"Okay, Taiho—no need to explain."
Hikaru took Taiho's hand, earnest. "I believe you."
No, no—don't say that while holding a girl's hand; men and women shouldn't—oh, Commander!
Bismarck chuckled to the side. "Come to think of it, Taiho is the first J-Faction shipgirl to reach you, Commander. She's quite lucky."
"I'm not lucky at all," Taiho murmured, head bowed, letting Hikaru hold her hand. "I probably saved up my luck from the first half of my life just to spend it today…"
"I'm the lucky one," Hikaru said, rubbing his headache from the nonstop summons. "With Taiho, our carrier group finally has a backbone—and we can fight the long fight."
"Eh—do you need me to sortie now?" Taiho straightened, suddenly energized. "I've been looking forward to it!"
"All right, no need to keep holding hands," Vittorio Veneto stepped in, gently prying Hikaru's hand free and passing him to Repulse. "Knead his shoulders. He's exhausted."
True enough. Taiho's build time had also been four hours ten minutes; dusk had already fallen—Hikaru had been summoning since before dawn.
He was spent, body and mind.
And Repulse wasn't the only one fussing over him: Z17, Saratoga, Glowworm, Yat Sen, Ranger… the girls swarmed—offering water, rubbing shoulders and calves, wiping his face with towels, desperate to tend to every last pore.
Taiho stared, slack-jawed, until Bismarck beckoned her to sit—where she perched, a little stiff and shy.
As for slapping the Commander the moment she saw him… did she say that? She couldn't quite remember. Surely not her.
Since Taiho had just arrived, Hikaru couldn't simply send her off. He would rest a bit longer, chat with her, and ease her nerves.
Some shipgirls didn't need that—Moskva, Lexington, Glowworm—outgoing, gentle, or simply head-empty little girls.
Taiho was different—delicate of heart. A girl like that needed careful handling.
Of course the question of why Hikaru had disappeared came up. He'd answered it a hundred times in the dream-district, but Taiho needed to hear him say, with his own mouth, that he wouldn't leave again. Only then did she relax.
Then they turned to Taiho's capabilities.
As an armored carrier with superior protection, Taiho's standout trait was that even heavily damaged she could still fight—she could, for example, launch her full air wing while in a "moderate damage" state.
That came straight from what her builders had intended in history: reinforce her so that after bombing and torpedo hits she could keep operating as much as possible.
Next: her skill.
Among armored carriers the district had Illustrious, Indomitable, Formidable, and others, but Taiho was first among equals.
One pillar was her stats. Fully strengthened post-refit, Taiho sits at 82 Durability and 85 Armor, far above Ranger's 48/48.
Granted, Ranger is a converted light carrier—naturally a tier below a full fleet carrier. Other fleet carriers don't lag that far behind Taiho in protection.
What truly sets Taiho apart is her skill, not her plane capacity—by design she never achieved a huge historical air group, and on her current card her capacity is only 72, which isn't high.
Her skill, Shuttle Bombing, raises the Evasion of carriers under her umbrella and lets her lead them to attack more frequently within the same strike window.
Roughly speaking, that's about +50% strike throughput—already terrifying.
More survival and more damage per unit time—that's why, with Taiho, a carrier task force can commit to a war of attrition.
Her equipment was fitted to the same concept: two B-25 bombers, one five-star F4U fighter (+13 AA, +3 Luck), and one six-star Reppuu Kai J fighter (+11 AA, +2 Evasion).
[End of Chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
[Check out my Patreon to read 30+ chapters ahead]
[[email protected]/BellAshelia]
[Thanks for your support!]