Elder brother's garrison

Yubari opened her eyes and looked down at Missouri with some surprise.

"Eh? No!"

"Senior Yubari?"

“This isn’t an illness!” Yubari said to Missouri, her eyes flashing with surprise. “Missouri, this is clearly…”

Chapter 2043 The Tumultuous Road of Missouri

Yubari was speaking when a series of surprised shouts came from the area where Shiro was standing behind her.

It seems the ship girls have already learned about Missouri's illness from Shiro.

"What?! Missouri is sick?"

"Admiral, are you serious?!"

Missouri?

"Is the sick person from Missouri?"

"Ah! How is this possible..."

"She seemed perfectly healthy these past few days..."

"Where is Missouri? Missouri—"

"..."

From afar came the crisp sound of bowls and chopsticks being slammed down, followed by the concerned and excited chatter of the ship girls. The thumping footsteps grew louder as they approached, shaking the floor.

Boom boom boom——

A huge group of ship girls rushed from the main gate to Yubari and Missouri. The massive crowd instantly packed Missouri's side, and the crowd was like a storm on the sea. Yubari, who hadn't even had time to react, was pushed away from Missouri and sent far, far away.

“Yubari-senpai…” Missouri looked at Yubari, who had been swept away into the distance, and subconsciously raised her hand.

But soon.

Several hands then grasped Missouri's raised hand.

Missouri turned to look.

All she could see were the ship girls around her, their eyes filled with tears, watching her.

"Missouri—" Two ship girls immediately rushed to Missouri's side, shouting and stammering with concern, "Missouri! You...you...the Admiral...she...she...she said you're sick and can't stay in Chapter 8 anymore, what happened...?"

"Missouri has been feeling a bit unwell these past few days... but please rest assured, everyone, judging from the symptoms, it should just be a minor illness. She should be fully recovered after a few days of rest." Missouri sat up from the covers, patted the two ship girls who had jumped into her arms, and explained to the ship girls who rushed up to her, while giving them a reassuring smile.

Even though Missouri's complexion didn't worsen, the ship girls who received a positive response from her still showed worried expressions.

"Unheard of! Unheard of!" The ship girls exchanged tense glances, finally looking at Missouri. "A ship girl getting sick is a big deal... The admiral just said that Missouri, you seem to have been keeping it from us for a long time. Is that true?"

"Missouri didn't deliberately hide it... she just didn't show it much."

"Oh dear...you child! You kept such an important thing from us! If the admiral hadn't just told us, we would still be completely in the dark!" The ship girls slapped their thighs upon hearing this. "It's fine that you kept it from us, but what if your condition worsens if you don't receive timely treatment!"

"You're usually so shrewd, why are you being so dense right now!"

"..."

The ship girls cursed, but the heartache in their eyes was even greater.

Missouri has a pretty good relationship with the newbie naval base. She has quite a few ship girls who occasionally keep in touch with her. Although there are few soulmates with whom she has a deep enough bond to entrust everything, she maintains good contact with most of them and can be considered sisters. So when they heard the news that Missouri was sick, these ship girls naturally began to worry about her.

The ship girls inquired about Missouri's condition, showing concern and care. In the midst of their conversation, they even pushed Shiro down in front of Missouri's sleeper berth.

"Admiral, what should we do next?" the ship girls asked Shiro with concern. "Is there anything we can do?"

"Thank you for your concern... but there's probably nothing we can do for now." Xiaobai shook her head, exchanged a glance with Missouri sitting on the bed, and then said to the ship girls, "Anyway, Missouri isn't fit to stay here in her current condition. I'll take her back to the naval base to rest with Super Yamato later..."

"The Admiral is right!"

"Hurry up and get ready!"

"We'll cover for you here!"

"Missouri needs to rest now! Health is the most important thing! Don't waste any more time!"

Before Xiaobai could finish speaking, the ship girls nodded anxiously and urged him on.

Yesterday, the ship girls were still bothered by Xiaobai secretly enjoying herself at the naval base, but today they became surprisingly decisive and efficient when it came to the Missouri incident.

Looking at the pairs of sincere and concerned eyes in front of him, Xiaobai couldn't help but feel moved.

"Okay... then I'll go back with Missouri right now... and arrange the best doctors for Missouri, I'll make sure she gets better!" Xiaobai nodded and said earnestly to the ship girls.

"Admiral, have a safe journey!" the ship girls responded one by one.

Xiaobai also summoned Super Yamato and signaled Super Yamato to open the vortex portal to the naval base. Super Yamato raised its hand, and with a whoosh, a large vortex portal appeared amidst the ship girls.

Just as Xiaobai was about to help Missouri up and walk into the black vortex under everyone's gaze,

suddenly.

A loud call rang out from afar.

"Hey!! Wait—!!!"

The voice was loud and clear, piercing through the ship girls' concerned cries and reaching Shiro and Missouri.

Everyone looked toward the source of the sound, and saw a ship girl in a white coat with pink pigtails on the outskirts of the crowd, hopping and skipping through the crowd, her face flushed, panting as she "swam" toward them.

"Yubari?" The ship girls looked at Yubari, who was walking up, with a puzzled expression.

"Wait, wait a minute, don't send them away yet!" Yubari, panting, pushed through the crowd and reached Shiro and Missouri. He bent over to catch his breath, muttering to himself, "Ouch, ouch... Goodness, I wasn't paying attention and they just rushed out the door... Is this a celebrity meet-and-greet? This is so exaggerated..."

"Yubari? What's wrong? Is something the matter?" Shiro asked curiously as Yubari approached.

"Admiral, I have something to say!" Upon hearing Shiro's question, Yubari quickly raised his hand, nodded to Shiro, and said, "I have something to say about Missouri's condition!"

"You have a clue?!" Xiaobai asked in surprise.

"Hmm... I guess so!" Yubari nodded, patted her chest, and then said seriously to Shiro, "Admiral, actually, when you weren't here just now, I had a brief conversation with Missouri and asked her about her symptoms... I think I might know something about Missouri's condition!"

"Wow! Really!" Upon hearing this, Shiro looked at Yubari as if he had seen a savior.

“Sigh… I do work in this field after all…” Yubari scratched his head and said to Shiro, “Well… I only had time to examine Missouri’s condition just now. Although I have some clues, I’m not sure yet. If you trust me, Admiral, would you be willing to let me examine Missouri’s physical condition again?”

"I'm fine!" Xiaobai nodded trustingly, then looked at Missouri, "Missouri, what about you?"

“Missouri is very comfortable entrusting her body to Senior Yubari.” Misssouri nodded to Shiro. “If Senior Yubari doesn’t have the right to examine Misssouri’s condition… I guess there aren’t many people in this world who do.”

With Xiaobai and Missouri's permission, the surrounding ship girls stepped back, making room for the three people in the middle.

Yubari gestured for Missouri to sit back in her bed. After Missouri sat down, Yubari seriously took out various instruments and batteries of different sizes from her ship's equipment space and assembled them in front of everyone. Then she pulled out stethoscope-like probes from the instruments and attached them to various parts of Missouri's body.

Yubari squatted in front of the instrument, adjusting the dial and staring at the changing numbers, while continuously recording them with a pen.

It didn't take long.

Yubari wrote down a large amount of data in his notebook, then simply tore it off, lay face down on the floor, stuck his butt out and swayed back and forth, and kept verifying and checking the data.

A little while later.

Yubari looked up and let out a long sigh, as if she had come to a conclusion. She got up and walked to Missouri's side, removing the tentacles that had been attached to Missouri's body.

"Yubari, is there a conclusion? What disease does Missouri have?" the ship girls asked hurriedly.

“…Hmm…” Yubari was silent for a moment before saying, “I need to have my pulse taken.”

"Taking a pulse? What's that?"

"It's about placing your hand on Missouri's wrist and analyzing the pulsation information from her veins."

"Oh! I know, it's the one that's often shown in period dramas! I saw Yubari-nee watching that drama a while ago!" one of the ship girls exclaimed.

"Oh...I remember now..."

The other ship girls were stunned for a moment. Although they didn't know when Yubari had mastered this skill, they still signaled to Yubari to act quickly.

Yubari coughed softly, sat down in front of Missouri, took Missouri's wrist in her hands, placed her fingers on it, and closed her eyes to feel it for a while.

Yubari shook his head, then suddenly opened his eyes, his face showing a look of surprise as if he had discovered a new continent, and exclaimed in amazement at Missouri.

"lady!"

"lady!"

"You're pregnant!"

The surrounding ship girls froze, their mouths agape as they stared blankly at Missouri.

"Hehe, I was just kidding." Yubari stuck out her tongue at Missouri. "Actually, I've been wanting to say that line for a while now, haha..."

Boom!

The sound of more than a dozen ship girls falling to the ground could be heard around them.

"Yubari-nee! Be serious! What kind of time is this to be making jokes like this!" The ship girls blushed, feeling both embarrassed and annoyed, and couldn't help but laugh and cry as they shouted at Yubari.

"Sorry, sorry... cough cough cough, I was just trying to lighten the mood..." Yubari scratched his cheek, then released Missouri's wrist and smiled at Shiro, "Hehe... Admiral, after my meticulous calculations, I finally know what's wrong with Missouri."

"What illness is it?" Xiaobai quickly approached. "What do you need me to do?"

"It's not an illness, and there's nothing the Admiral needs to do."

"Isn't it a disease?"

"Hmm, it's not an illness at all... it's actually a good thing." Yubari sighed, looking at Shiro with a complicated expression, "Admiral... our Missouri is going to be renovated."

Chapter 2044 The Transformation of Missouri

Admiral, our Missouri is going to be redeveloped...

Our Missouri is going to be renovated...

It needs to be renovated...

It's been built...

Yubari's voice, echoing through the exceptionally quiet villa amidst the gathering of the ship girls, lingered in everyone's ears for a long time.

"Wh...what?" The ship girls looked at Yubari and Missouri in surprise. "Is it a modification?"

"Hmm... I know this result might be hard for you to accept right now, but please trust my professional expertise. I've done thorough and detailed calculations to arrive at this conclusion." Yubari seemed to have anticipated the ship girls' reactions. She simply nodded, held up her notebook filled with calculations, and showed it to the surrounding ship girls. "I can say with certainty that Missouri's strange symptoms weren't because she had some kind of incurable disease, but simply because her ship equipment had reached the threshold for modification, a physiological reaction."

If someone else had said this, the ship girls might not have taken it seriously, but Yubari's status was different. She was the only technical ship girl in the entire newbie naval base who had participated in ship equipment research and development. Now, she was one of the world's top talents in the field of ship girl research. She was in charge of most of the ship girl modifications in the newbie naval base, so her words carried a lot of weight at this moment and were full of magic that no one could doubt.

"But...but this is different from the modified state we've seen before..." The ship girls were already mostly convinced by Yubari's words, but they couldn't help but voice their doubts. "Generally speaking, don't ship girls who can be modified usually have similar reactions? Like their eyes shining and their aura overflowing?"

“Well… that’s true.” Yubari nodded, sighed, and examined Missouri in the blankets for a few moments before saying, “But frankly speaking, those so-called modification reactions are just common manifestations of ship equipment quality and training levels being maximized. The world is so big, there will always be a few exceptions. Indeed… from a normal person’s perspective, Missouri’s current condition is like having a minor illness like a cold or fever. But I just checked Missouri’s physical condition with specialized equipment. Missouri’s breathing rate is normal, her heartbeat and pulse are normal, and more than 70% of her body surface temperature is within the normal range. However, the temperature of her torso is burning hot, and her muscles are noticeably loose…”

In front of the ship girls, Yubari rattled off a bunch of data that the ship girls couldn't understand, leaving them all dizzy and confused.

"In conclusion, based on my years of experience, Missouri's current performance indicates that her ship equipment level has reached its peak, breaking through that vague bottleneck, and she is ready to undergo modification!" Yubari clapped her hands, waking up the ship girls around her who were still half asleep, and then spoke seriously to them.

The ship girls snapped out of their daze one by one.

"So that means... Missouri really didn't get sick, right?" the ship girls asked Yubari cautiously.

"Don't worry, I'm perfectly healthy!" Yubari gave everyone a thumbs up.

"Great!" The ship girls cheered. In their opinion, none of the long passage they had heard before was as meaningful as Yubari's final conclusion.

"Great, Missouri! I never expected you to start making changes too!"

"Damn it! I really want to get a makeover too!"

"Anyway, it's great that he didn't get some strange disease!"

"..."

The ship girls laughed heartily at Missouri in her bed, offering their congratulations.

Even Missouri, sitting in bed, showed a rare moment of disorientation when faced with the ship girls' congratulations. She blinked blankly and looked down at her palm.

For any ship girl, there are two major happy events that she may not necessarily experience in her life.

The first is to form a contract with your favorite admiral and obtain the ring; the other is to improve yourself through countless trials and tribulations and finally obtain the qualification for modification.

These two joyous events are things that ship girls pursue throughout their lives. Of course, whether it's obtaining a ring or undergoing modification, both events depend heavily on fate, and not every ship girl can have her dreams come true.

"So... Missouri is going to be modified too..." Missouri looked at her palm and murmured softly, her voice filled with a touch of emotion.

"Missouri!" Wisconsin yelled, pounced on Missouri's bed, rolled around in front of her, and kept slapping her thighs, angrily saying, "You're so cunning! So cunning! We agreed to all become unmodified ship girls together! How could you, with your thick eyebrows and big eyes, turn around and abandon us and betray us!"

“Missouri didn’t expect this outcome either…” Missouri lowered her hand and smiled at Wisconsin, who was acting coquettishly in front of her. “Sorry, Wisconsin.”