"Do you like the sea?"

The sloppy stubble, the haphazardly cut hair, the neat but very old military uniform, and the smell of tobacco that only perennial smoking can leave behind - this is the image of the man in front of him who asks Tachibana a question.

"I like it."

However, although no matter how you look at this man, he fits the kind of middle-aged decadent uncle that her mother said, the girl still replied cheerfully.

"Ah Xue likes the sea the most!"

Looking at the battleship slowly passing in the sea in front of the two of them, Tachibana Snow shimmered with starry eyes.

"I really want to swim on the sea like these warships...... It's so handsome, isn't it! ”

“……”

The man looked at the girl's shining eyes, unconsciously turned his head away, and cast his eyes on the sea that the girl loved.

Gloomy, dead silent, and with a peculiar stench, no matter how you look at it, a man can't connect the stinking water in front of him with the sparkling ocean in the girl's eyes—even if they are one.

So, unable to tell whether it was malicious or doubtful, the man asked:

"Even if it robs you of everything?"

The expression of excitement left the girl's face in an instant, and she lowered her head in the man's gaze, and the girl saw her legs covered with a blanket...... and wheelchairs that allow them to move freely when their legs are completely unconscious.

"It's the ...... of the deep sea that took them," Tachibana was silent for a moment, then raised her head again, and just like just now, the girl's face still had that bright, sunny smile, "not this ocean." ”

Yes, the murderer who took everything from me was not the ocean I loved.

With this in her heart, Tachibana's mind has returned to that day two years ago.

From a very young age, Tachibana Yuki knew that humans and the deep sea were mortal enemies.

Because of the advent of the deep sea, the blessings of the sea have been taken away, the world has been redivided into closed pieces, and mankind has returned to the darkness before the Age of Discovery, and can only survive on the last remaining technological residues, relying on the charity of the deep sea. In just a hundred years, the sea has changed from a glorified mother of life to a place of death that makes human beings fear and fear, developed coastal cities have become pieces of uninhabited ruins, countless romantic encounters have become lonely wilderness, and the world has changed from a single body to an isolated island, perhaps countries on the Eurasian continent or the American continent can continue to develop with the resources on land, but for this country that even needs to rely on imports to sustain food, But he has undoubtedly been sentenced to death.

If not for those girls.

Sign a contract with a steel ship, abandon your name and future as a human being, choose to live and die with the creation of steel, meet the test of iron and blood with a young body, and exhaust all your life in the gap between war and death, all you want to do is to use the power of magic to make the retro warship gain the strength to fight the deep sea...... The girl who has borne such a fate is called the ship girl. And these girls fighting on the horizontal line and their partners have become the only support for the survival of mankind.

Gradually, under the struggle and sacrifice of countless maidens, mankind gradually recaptured the coast and restored the shipping routes, although it was completely impossible to maintain the same prosperity as a hundred years ago under the harassment of the deep sea, but at least no one will die of hunger, and no one will riot because of fear. Thanks to the efforts of the girls, the era of chaos has finally ended, and although the final victory is still far away, the present human race, at least with hope rather than despair, is moving forward.

For Tachibana Xue, who has just been promoted to Primary 5 this year, it is with the help of the struggle of the girls that she loves the sea, so she can come to the seaside of what was once a forbidden place with her classmates and have close contact with the ocean she loves.

"This is the Monument to the Heroes of the Yokosuka Naval Battle, and what is engraved on this monument is the name of the heroic souls who sacrificed their lives on the battlefield against the deep sea in order to protect everyone for a hundred years, and without their sacrifices, we would not be where we are today......"

Following the teacher to send wreaths and respects to the memorial monument, Tachibana Yuki led her relatives and friends to the observation deck, looking through the railing and a long cliff that was not far away, but it was not close to the sea. At that time, the sun had just risen, and the light from the east turned the ocean in front of me into a sparkle, like a sapphire in a jewelry store, and I wanted people to hide it in the palm of their hands and not let others take it.

Of course, the sea can't be taken away, neither can the Tachibana snow, nor can the deep sea.

Looking at the dawn horizon, the chirping sparrows naturally began to have a discussion that children often have: what should they do when they grow up? Often, the results of such discussions are smiling.

However, when childish words such as I want to be a scientist and a dancer continue to sound around me, Tachibana Yuki, looking at the sea, suddenly said his ideals.

"I'm going to be a ship's mother."

Because I love this sea, and this sea is not unique to anyone, so I want to become a ship girl, I want to gallop on this beautiful sea for a lifetime, and at the same time do my best to protect everyone!

Just like those predecessors on the memorial monument.

Tachibana Yuki, who shouted these words loudly with proud enthusiasm, did not notice the sudden panic on the teacher's face, and the girl with her back to the sea did not know that the moment she turned around, a row of pitch-black shadows appeared on the dawn level.

As if it was ironic, just when the girl said the word protection, the bombardment came.

The vision became confused in an instant, the ears were filled with tinnitus caused by the bombardment, the up, down, left and right seemed to be completely reversed, and the feeling of pain and weightlessness almost robbed the girl of her will. The young body constantly flew up and down in the debris and gale, like a dead leaf in autumn, without any power to rely on, only to let the torrent of death sink and float, and then be completely torn apart in a certain moment.

At that moment, the world of a girl named Tachibana Snow was completely shattered.

"Yokosuka Incident"

In the records and reports of the day after tomorrow, this is how the tragedy that happened in front of Tachibana Snow was named. Under the attack of the deep-sea attack, tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians unfortunately died, more than 10,000 others went missing, the facilities of Yokosuka Port were completely destroyed, and the warships stationed there were seven or eight of them, almost completely breaking the backbone of the navy, which was already greatly damaged. It is said that for half a year after the incident, there were still poor people who had lost their families every day to look for their families in the rubble, but they found nothing and had to leave in disgrace.

But despair is often accompanied by hope, and despite the huge number of casualties, more than 1,000 people still survived the fighting. Although it can be regarded as nothing compared to the huge casualties, the existence of more than 1,000 people in this desperate moment undoubtedly means hope.

As a result, the remaining 1,000 or so people are hyped as children of hope, and they are expected to be over-hoped, and although people will not transfer the sins of the deep sea to them, they will transfer their expectations for the lost family members to these survivors. However, they have forgotten what kind of burden and confusion those who have also experienced death and war, and struggled to survive in that purgatory.

As a result, with the retirement of the former rising star general, Zhuxing Hirohiko, as the fuse, a new contradiction broke out.

"You are the survivors, so you should become excellent with the sake of the dead people!"

People are asking for survivors in this way, but what they see are the survivors who are decadent, addicted, self-defeating, and even violent, and the excessive pressure makes these poor people distort themselves, completely live up to the meaning of the word hope, and become the most unstable group of people in society.

As a result, people's perception of survivors has changed.

They lived up to our expectations!

This was the beginning.

They don't deserve our care!

Then, the malice began to spread.

They are robbing our loved ones of their chances of survival!

In the end, it turns into undisguised venting and chaos.

They're scourges, they shouldn't exist!

The pent-up anger will only become an even more devastating catastrophe when it spreads, and under the banner of justice, the unjustified Baling has spread around the survivors, who are ostracized, spurned, discriminated against, and insulted, without anyone standing up for them, and no one helping them to speak their voice.

And among them, the situation of Tachibana Snow is even more difficult.

Perhaps fortunately, although she was seriously injured in the Yokosuka Port incident, Tachibana Yuki was the only survivor of the entire school that visited the Yokosuka Port at the time. And now, this luck, which makes Tachibana's family feel extremely lucky, has become the girl's biggest misfortune.

"Broom Star! Broom star! ”

The classmates at school said this.

"Devil, filthy fellow!"

The neighbors said so.

"Hand over the life you devoured!"

The self-proclaimed righteous man is clamoring in front of his house.

Murderer! A thief who stole someone's life! The devil who brings calamity!

Such clamor fills the girl's life, society, school, and family, all of which are trampling on her life unscrupulously and violating her dignity without scruples.

Even though the disaster caused her to lose the sensation of her legs forever, even if the torture of the wound never left the girl's body. But the people around them turn a blind eye to this, they only know how to vent their anger, declare their sense of justice, and carry out the spurned atrocities in the name of the public.

Until now, it has not stopped.

"Boring wordplay," the man scoffed at the girl's reply, "but it doesn't matter...... Your illness is a fusion case, right? ”

"Hmm." Tachibana Xue nodded, "The doctor said that such a disease is difficult to cure. ”

Fusion cases are a new type of illness that emerged in a small number of survivors after the Yokosuka Port incident. What they all have in common is that they were injured by deep-sea shelling during the incident, and their bodies were shot with deep-sea shrapnel - and these shrapnel are not just ordinary metals, they are like living creatures that take root in the human body, not only cannot be removed, but are still growing rapidly, like parasites that take away the bodily functions of the injured person, and eventually lead to the exhaustion and death of the patient.

The man remembers that there were eight such cases at the beginning, but sadly, seven of them died within a year, and the one that survived......

"Tachibana Yuki," the man asked in a solemn and serious tone, turning to face the girl in the wheelchair, "Did you just say that you love this sea?" ”

"Of course!"

"So," the man's voice lowered slightly, reaching out and lowering the brim, "are you willing to entrust the rest of your life to the ocean in exchange for the power to protect those people?" ”

……

The man's question was not answered immediately, and of course, the man did not expect a positive answer. After all, even he himself has a grudge against those fools hiding in the interior, and a child like this in front of him must hate those stupid pigs even more......

"Hmm!"

Well, she's definitely going to ...... What the?

"I do!" The girl turned the wheelchair at an angle, also facing the man, raised her head, and replied with a firm expression, "Ah Xue, I am willing to be the ship's mother!" ”

"Even if the rest of your life is a sacrifice, even if you abandon your human identity from now on, even if those people are wantonly hurting you and destroying your life?"

"Even so!" Tachibana Yukichi, "I do, too!" ”

“…… Why? ”

The clouds suddenly dispersed, the sun fell into the clouds, and the girl's originally gloomy face suddenly became radiant, and the pupils also flashed like a glow like stars.

"Because, I believe...... Between people, there is a place of sunshine. ”

At that moment, the girl named Tachibana Snow firmly believed that she saw the arc of a smile on the gloomy face of the man in front of her.

"So...... Take my hand......" The man bent down and stretched out his right hand with white gloves, on which the runes representing the inscribed spell were shining, "In the name of Hirohiko Zhuxing, I welcome you to join, Tachibana Yuki, from today onwards, you are the Yang Yan-type Yabanship, the contractor of Yukikaze!" ”

Witnessed by the dawn level, a girl named Tachibana Yuki stretched out her hand and shook the man's hand in exchange for a once-in-a-lifetime vow.

"Yes, Xuefeng, will protect everyone!"

PS: Hirohiko's biography, as one of the three important characters, Hirohiko has a very dark past, and this memoir reveals, in the six years that were not mentioned, Hirohiko's memories.