At the end of the series, when everybody's home safe and disembarked, with the Captain, as befits her rank, coming last... the Harekaze, having suffered grievous damage and barely limped into port, gives a groan and begins slowly sinking at her mooring. The crew and bystanders cry out in protest, but many of them are saluting through their tears, honoring the valiant ship who gave her all for duty.
At the OVA, which takes place after the events mentioned above, Kouko caught wind of a rumor that her class will be disbanded, in light of the sinking and the scrapping of the Harekaze.
Kouko's task of sending confidential letters to each of her classmates doesn't help, as she thought they were reassignments, which will cause the class to break apart.
At the end of the day, after giving out the "reassignment letters" to her friends, she finally broke down in tears in Wilhelmina's arms, as shown in the page image, not wanting to be separated from her family, and in the intro of the second OVA, her breakdown turned into a BSOD.
The main catalyst for Kouko's breakdown was Rin and her crewmates' breakdown, who teared up while telling Kouko that they are headhunted by the other ships.
At the seventh episode, Akeno suddenly broke down during a sudden thunderstorm, and asked Mashiro to take her place on the bridge. As her friends asked why, she told them her Tragic Backstory, in which her parents disappeared when a ship sunk during a storm, even though she's saved, causing her to futilely cry out for them. To make things worse, she blamed herself for not jumping fast enough. Her reveal of the Tragic Keepsake, which is her childhood picture with her parents, doesn't help.
