One of the N-class flagships who'd been lounging off to the side rolled over and spoke in a lazy drawl. "We've got two-point-seven million left here. We've already lost a tenth of the center force."
Abyssal Musashi's cheek twitched. Even if most of the three hundred thousand sunk were the flimsiest destroyers, the number still made her heart ache.
Barely an hour of air raids, and three hundred thousand gone—while they were still nearly three hundred nautical miles from the target. At this rate, by the time they actually reached the enemy's base, would the losses hit a million?
She lifted her head toward the Airfield Princess. "If we send out every bomber and torpedo plane, what about air defense?"
By "air defense," she meant turning aircraft into meat shields and playing bumper-planes.
The Airfield Princess answered coldly. "If you're going to flinch at every shadow, why make war at all? They're weak and isolated and still dared strip fighters for offense. We command five million. What exactly are we afraid of?"
The Fortress Princess chimed in, voice all needles. "If you're that scared, Musashi, just dive under my fortress. So long as the fortress doesn't sink, they can't bomb you."
Hot blood surged up Musashi's throat; she felt like she might explode. She shot the Fortress Princess a murderous glare, then slashed her hand down. "Fine. We'll do it your way. Launch every bomber, every torpedo plane—and the missile destroyers!"
Lady Lexington cocked her head toward Bismarck. "Their center's bomber groups are moving—roughly six hundred thousand."
Bismarck nodded. "As planned. ETA to the battlespace?"
Saratoga answered first. "Around an hour."
Abyssal aircraft were trash; less than three hundred nautical miles—about five hundred fifty kilometers—would still take them an hour to fly.
Lexington's six-star hero aircraft, pushed to emergency speed, could cross that distance in under a minute.
An hour versus a minute wasn't just a gap; it was heaven versus earth—fifth-gen fighters bullying antique biplanes.
That was why four carrier shipgirls with a combined deck load of only three hundred planes could keep the Abyssal center—thirty-plus thousand carriers—pinned and punch-drunk.
Six-star hero planes were just that domineering.
"Keep bombing," Bismarck ordered. "What's our tally?"
Because Taihou had to individually handle every mirrored airframe, she also doubled as the battle recorder. "Estimated 200–350,000 enemy sunk—mostly Abyssal destroyers."
"Two more waves of carpet bombing, then regroup," Lexington said, eyes narrowing in the shock-waves of her own blasts. "Since they've peeled off six hundred thousand to hunt us, let's see if we can pick off a few more flagships. This time, target the unnamed battleship flagships."
While sprinting at full speed, Iowa looked up toward the east.
The sky was banked in cloud, but at the edges of that blanket, one side rained molten gold while the other bloomed with fireballs—gaudy, terrifying, beautiful.
A golden aircraft punched through the overcast and arrowed toward Iowa's fifty-strong relief team.
A sharp-chinned girl in a white soft cap, pale violet eyes, and a black-and-white two-piece uniform—someone who looked like trouble to anyone with sense—caught the plane in her palm and tilted it to her ear.
After listening a moment, she turned to Iowa. "Miss Bush says the densest knot of Abyssal strength—the one with the heaviest flag presence—is under bombardment. The kind that looks like an act of god. Every plane is in color—six-star bombers. And the main body has launched more than half a million bombers south."
The shipgirls drew in breath together—cold air hissing like a chord.
Six-star aircraft: as shipgirls, they knew exactly what that meant.
And half a million bombers? That was the sort of number that could wipe their fifty-girl detachment off the map a dozen times over.
Iowa frowned. "Only San Jacinto's plane made it back? What about the others?"
A shipgirl answered, small voice nearly lost in the wind. "The flak there is… it's like hell. Our planes got shredded the instant they closed."
"It's like a million AA guns firing at once!"
"And tens of thousands of Abyssal fighters milling like sardines."
"Right. Probably only San Jacinto's planes could get in and out of that."
[End of Chapter]