Odin

"Remind me once again, Graf. What am I doing here instead of the command room?"

"A few weeks after our first meeting, you agreed to share drinks with me, only if I managed to bring mead. Today is the day."

Mead was my weakness. I absolutely loved the sweet scent and taste, the fiery sensation. Nothing to do with the sourness and tameness of beer. I rarely ever could find it though, ever since Germany had moved onto Norway and… well, there was a reason Tirpitz was there for months. I only ever got to taste mead in the first place because I asked Eugen to bring me a bottle, incognito, from one of her missions.

I stared at my glass, enjoying the pleasant fragrance. Not even Graf's and Eugen's titanic beer mugs could mask this perfection.

"Let me try that out before you finish the bottle. I wanna see what you like so much about it."

Eugen shrugged with a mischievous grin "I would do that if I were you, the Allfather may smite you."

My eyelid started twitching. Graf's hair stood up a bit, which was a big deal considering her white mane. No. Let's keep the fireworks to myself.

"Didn't I ask you to stop calling me that?"

"Go cry about it."

This girl…

"Ignore Eugen for now. There's a lot you have to tell me about this entire ordeal. How come a sister of mine just popped outta nowhere?"

Jean Bart's gaze felt intense and serious under the visage of alcohol. Her cheeks had that faint redness that I so often saw in Eugen.

"I suppose there is no harm in telling you now. Gascogne is part of a series of experiments carried out by us."

"By the Ironblood."

"...yes." I said after a brief pause "We have carried out these trials to see how far we can take KANSEN's theoretical limit."

"Hold on a second." said Eugen, slamming her mug on the table "Does this have anything to do with that Ember girl I saw when I went to the Sakura Empire?"

Ah… that was a good question indeed. I had seen what that girl did, through Mimir's keen eyes. Truly a statement to naval firepower. However…

"I can't say, I am not all-knowing. But back to the matter at hand." I poured Jean Bart a glass of mead "Your sister is an unexpected result of our experimentation. You can say the… process, it becomes a reality through the shared wishes of certain groups of people. After our losses, the Ironblood got me, our leader, and a bunch of others."

"So the wishes of the girls from my faction gave birth to Gascogne? Do you expect me to swallow that bullshit?"

"No." I admitted "I don't, because that isn't the case with Gascogne. That was all you."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't know what it was you felt, wanted or went through during your last moments at Casablanca, but it was enough to bring a sister that never existed to life. I won't bother you with my theories, I am pretty sure Lützow and Tirpitz already gave you a chat on the matter."

I don't know what I expected from her. Surprise, maybe, or perhaps an open mouth. But all I got was a frown.

"It is best we leave those sensitive matters for after the world ends. I do have a request, oh Almighty Odin."

I felt a shiver down my spine as Eugen laughed out loud.

"If you promise not to call me that, Graf, I'll grant anything within my power."

"I have been curious as of late, about the status of my sister."

Hardly surprising. Graf was, despite her usual over the top demeanour, a very caring person.

"Give me a second."

I closed my eyes. Focusing on following the roots of the world tree…

"What is she doing now?"

"That, my fellow god-hating warrior, is Odin's specialty. She can see things."

I tried to ignore their voices and focus further, until I saw some light. A landing track, not far inside into the french countryside from shore…

"I have her. In a room with what looks like the base's commander… She is playing with a pocket watch. And the other girl… I think it's Weser, going through a report…"

"I see no less to expect from a sister of mine, who is supposed to aid me in the final slaughter."

"Wait wait, hold on a second. You can look at places?"

I opened one eye and looked at Jean Bart. Maybe the alcohol was starting to have an effect, seeing as how I now got a slightly open mouth. For some reason, that made me smile in satisfaction.

"Not into the future, but present and past are no…"

"Where did Henry Avery hide his treasure?!"

"W-wha..."

"Henry Avery, the pirate king! He had booty worth hundreds of millions!"

"I-I can't look like that, I need a general idea and…"

Jean Bart's enthusiasm faded as suddenly as it had appeared.

"Bah, what good is that skill, then. I can do the same reading the newspaper."

A… A newspaper.

I had been insulted a fair bit by a few enemies, most of the Tolon girls when they first woke up, and by Jean Bary herself, but somehow this one stung the worst.

"E-ehem." I coughed "Eugen, do you also want me to look into Hi…"

"She will be alright." Eugen cut me short "My sister is a stubborn one."

"Eugen, she ventured into enemy territory and…"

"I told you to keep your nose out of my goddamn business."

I sighed. As thick as ever.

"And you, Jean Bart. Anything you want me to look into?"

She seemed to consider her options for a second.

"Saint-Nazaire, been a while since I last saw it."

I closed my eyes once again. Saint-Nazaire was part of Vichy France, or occupied France if you would. Because it could barely be called an independent state anymore.

I instinctively grabbed my sketch book I always carried around from my pocket. My hand began to dance on top of the paper. The picturesque houses, the church, a castle in the distance… and the submarine base, the port, the dockyard…

"So that's where you are from."

I gave her the drawing. Her expressions were becoming increasingly more intriguing with every day passed. Whatever she remembered from Saint-Nazaire must be important for her.

"It doesn't look too different… other than the flags, and symbols, and the empty streets…" she handed the drawing back to me "Is that what your High Command wanted?"

"Keep it. As a token of trust, if you consider you can trust me."

The door behind us opened with a bang. Lützow entered the room, followed by a very cheerful U-556 riding Rio de la Plata once again. Lützow's face showed a very obvious surprise at seeing me here.

"Oh, would you look at that? What is our dear leader doing here, relaxing with a drink?"

I shrugged "I can't tell either, Lützow. I've always thought everyone in this base was far too lax."

Lützow let out a chuckle. "Anyway, our little Parzival here has something to say."

"Oh, what is it?" I took a sip of my mead calmly.

"I checked the meters, as you told me since you were corec.. corcre… coerced into coming here. The lights for PR1 and PR2 in the command room have lit up."

I spewed the entirety of my drink forward, covering Jean Bart entirely in alcoholic flower juice. I coughed up a few times, garnering the suddenly concerned gazes of everyone around.

"I will fuckin' kill ya…"

I ignored Jean Bart entirely, and grabbed U-556 by the shoulders.

"Are you entirely sure they lit up?!"

"I-I mean…"

I shook her back and forth.

"Don't 'I mean' me! Parzival, are the damn lights on?!"

"You're hurting me! Yes, I am sure!"

I let go of her as Lützow checked on her and Graf tried to clean the mead off of Jean Bart.

No, no no no dammit! This wasn't supposed to happen this early, we had at least another month to go! I tried looking into the command room with Mimir's eyes but…. Gah, I am far too nervous for thay to work! At some point I started walking back and forth. This wasn't the plan at all, it should have happened differently!

What to do, what to do…!

"Odin, are you fucking deaf or what?! Answer me!"

It was now Lützow who shook me back and forth. I was far too anxious to reprimand her about it. I had to do something, and do it now!

I separated my hands and an electric arc appeared between them, making Jean Bart go pale. In a distant place of my mind, I realised she hadn't yet seen me use that trick. The loud crackling of the electricity deafened every other sound in the room, even the speakers Gascogne was singing through in the back of the canteen. Soon enough, I stopped once I got everyone's attention.

"I want all of you prepared for combat in the port area in thirty minutes! Uniform and all, with no excuses! Graf, set a perimeter! U-556, Eugen, go to the nursing room and await orders! Lützow, with me to the Command room!"

"Wait a goddamn second…!"

"I'll listen to your complaints later, Jean Bart! For now, go clean yourself, follow the lit hallway!"

I left the room before she could say anything, closely followed by Lützow, headed to the command room.

"I swear to god…" she sighed "Your impulses are almost as over the top as mine used to be. What is this all even about, Odin?"

"It's quite simple, my dear Lützow…" I fixed my beret with the biggest grin on my face. "Even the Heart of the Storm has to pay respects to the King of the Seas."

Jean Bart

The cold water on my face helped drive away the drowsiness of the alcohol, and a bit of the tension at the entire situation. Of course, it also drove away the alcohol, physically. Odin had absolutely drenched me. Legit amazing alcohol, but I would still rather not have been spit all over.

I sighed. At least the night had been somewhat enjoyable. Eugen was more bearable once we were both drunk, and once I got to talk to Graf, she proved to be a very interesting woman, her eccentricity aside.

The only one that I couldn't pinpoint was Odin. I could even understand Lützow's obsession with me given her background. And Graf's willingness to help, to some extent. But the motivation behind Odin's actions were a complete mystery, more so if she didn't have a history, like she often mentioned.

I dried my face with a towel and stared at the mirror. Red face, irritated eyes. I wondered what Jean Bart from a month before would have thought. Sharing drinks with the Ironblood… unthinkable. I decided to just leave the shower room and head back to bed…

"Well, this ain't the way it was before."

Like Odin had told me in the canteen, I had followed a hallway that had been lit up to these showers. Not because I couldn't find them normally, but because I was drunk off my ass, and my half unconscious self had thought it was a show of kindness to show me the way.

However, the lights that were lit now were in the complete opposite direction from where I had come from, and instead of going towards the stairs that would bring me to the dorm wing three decks above, it led to an elevator at the very end of the hallway I had never bothered to fully explore.

"Fair enough, may as well not risk the stairs…"

I entered the elevator, frowning at the control panel. Maybe I hadn't entirely recovered yet and the alcohol was having a bit too much of an effect but… didn't those buttons only show floors below the one I was at? What were even those numbers? -25, -26, -27… 27 floors below the one I was at? Just how deep did this fortress thing go? I hadn't been deeper than level -2 once to visit Surcouf…

And then, my eyes landed on the last button.

PR.

No numbers, just -29, then PR.

The lights for PR1 and PR2 in the command room have lit up.

Without allowing myself a single second of doubt, I pressed the button. For a few moments, the entire box screeched with a terrifying metal sound any person in the navy could ever hear. However, soon after, electruct arcs appeared from the seams, the corners, everywhere, and the engine started, catching me by surprise as I sped down at a terrifying speed, screaming all the way down until it stopped.

And it did, eventually. From floor zero, thirty floors down. How deep was this, a hundred, two hundred meters below the surface? My stomach protested, and my guts almost gave in to that protest. I somehow managed to keep what little I had eaten, and the copious amounts I had drunk, inside of me.

"Burp… oh shit, this is… Bad…"

I looked up. The room I was now in was around ten meters high, and probably went much deeper if the door in front of me was anything to go by. There was an inscription that read 'Priority Research' on the door.

"What… Am I even supposed to be in here?"

I usually wasn't one to be too cautious, but my rigging, despite having been repaired, only had a single turret installed. And I was god knew how deep into the ocean.

But to be fair… this had been where those lights had led me to. I probably could use it as an excuse if I got in trouble. For sure.

"Here goes nothing…"

Before I could touch the doors to push them aside, an idea that was kind of stupid since they looked like they weighed several tons, the doors opened on their own.

The spectacle inside was unlike anything I had seen. Granted, I hadn't seen much in my relatively uneventful life, but something told me it was unlike what most people had ever seen. The room was barely lit by the glow coming from several column spaces rather evenly. Below every one of those columns, there was a control panel, glowing weakly.

I approached the column closest to me. The liquid inside was opaque and didn't let me see what was inside properly. But there was something inside, that much I could tell. Maybe if I messed with the controls a bit…

"NOTICE. STARTING SCAN."

The voice was downright deafening, causing me to cover my ears in pain.

"UNIT IDENTIFIED AS JEAN BART, INTERNAL IRONBLOOD ID 43927. SUBJECT HAS BEEN GIVEN CLEARANCE TO DISCHARGE SUBJECT PR1."

The damn voice was too loud even though my hands were on my ears! What was I given clearance for? Discharging something?

"PLEASE CONFIRM TO DISCHARGE UNIT PR1."

A big, red button shone intermittently. The biggest of red flags. Something big and bad would happen if I pressed that.

"I am here already, may as well…"

I pressed the button, and was met with a hissing sound instantly. A bunch of steam came out of the device, momentarily blinding me.

"What the… it burns!"

Yeah, good going, Jean. It's steam, of course it's going to burn. Next thing I felt was some chilly sensation on my feet. Whatever was inside those things had spilled into a slimy substance that covered my feet to the ankles.

"Ah great. As if this could get worse…"

Then I saw it. On the floor, in the middle of the slime puddle. A body.

It wasn't the first body I had seen. Casablanca had been bloody on our side. Three, maybe four hundred people, piling up slowly in the harbor, next to my guns.

But there was something about this…

A body…

'Priority Research'...

My stomach churned and twisted. Whoever that body belonged to, it started coughing, almost making me jump.

"Oh god, oh no no no…"

My instincts told me to run away somehow. As if some body laying on the floor could be of any harm. But my rational mind said otherwise and I found myself on my knees scooping the slime from around the body.

A few seconds later I was able to finally have some identifying features. Long, blonde hair. A body both men and women would kill for. But the most important thing… the scars.

All over her body. Her legs, her abdomen, her arms, her back, up her neck… the only place that didn't look too battered was her face, and even then she had a small cut on her eyebrow. The scars ranged from what looked like bullet wounds to a burn mark covering the entirety of her back.

I felt an uncomfortable tingle on my back. I had a few scars of my own. Particularly, one that ran down my side. Akashi said I had broken a few ribs and she had to put them back in place. Even then, nothing like this woman had.

Bullet wounds… burn marks… in a secret facility…

Could this… could this be a weapon testing facility?

I felt my stomach protest again, for a very different reason this time. The mere idea crossing my mind was so revolting I had to make an effort not to vomit, again.

"I… I have to get you out of here somehow."

"Mhnnnn…!"

A pained moan when I tried to pick her up. The woman started to shiver on the ground. Now that I stopped for a second, the floor was freezing. I took off the coat Graf had lent me, mentally apologising for the mess, and covered the woman.

How would I carry her out of here?

What a mess…

I undid my belt. The skull-shaped buckle belt had been a gift from Richelieu way back then. I wrapped the woman properly in Graf's coat, laid next to her and fastened the belt around us.

The woman moaned again when I stood up and I cursed. That was all I could figure out. In military training they taught me how to carry an injured person. This was the best I could do with someone completely limp.

The trip up the elevator felt eternal. When we arrived, I peeked out. Noone to the right, noone to the left. Good.

I was halfway through the hallway towards the stairs when I felt the woman starting to slip from my back. I looked around in a panic until I saw the same door I had come out of a while back. The baths.

I kicked the door down and rushed to the showers in the back. I laid the woman down on the floor of one of the showers and turned the shower on.

Now, with proper lighting and with water to clean the filth off, I could properly see everything. Well, that meant mostly the scars. Tens of bullet wounds, cuts everywhere… some more faded than others.

I tried to clean her hair. That face, that body… without the scars, she must have been an incredibly attractive woman. One any man would fight over. How had she ended up like that, in this place?

"...erzo…"

"What?"

I brought my ear closer to her, to try to hear what she was saying,

"The Scherzo…"

"Scherzo?"

The instant I muttered that word, her eyes opened with a gasp. She started hyperventilating, which in turn made me panic.

"Hey, hey hey, slow down!"

"Who are you?!"

"Let's go step by step, right?! Calm down!"

"Why am I naked?"

The situation turned awkward quickly, with the woman blushing lightly as she looked around and reached for the coat Graf had lent me, which was now unrecognisable under the grime that the fur had absorbed to try to cover herself. I couldn't help but let out a fit of laughter, which made the woman obviously uncomfortable.

"What is it about this situation that you find even remotely funny?"

"It's just…" I stopped to wipe a tear from the corner of my eye "It's just unbelievable, you know? Stuck, in this fortress in the middle of god knows where, carrying a woman I found inside a tube below the sea."

"B-Below the sea?"

"What, do you remember anything?"

The woman looked at me, from head to toe. After several seconds of evaluation, she answered.

"I… don't."

"You must be one of those experimental ships Odin mentioned." I scratched my head "One with no history. Doesn't explain the scars though."

The woman looked down, and tried to cover herself further.

"Follow me, I'll lead you to my room and then call Odin. She will scold me if I don't inform her about something like this. She is an information nerd for sure."

"I am not following you."

"Sure thing. I'll just lean at this door frame and… watch you struggle to stand up."

I did as I said. For a second, the woman tried to stand up. But neither her weak limbs nor the wet floor were of much help. She struggled to even press her back towards the wall. And her face was a mess between the effort of pushing herself up and trying to hide the pain.

"Well?"

After a few more seconds of struggle, her limbs completely gave up and she slid back to the ground.

"I… please, don't make me say it."

"There we go." I walked to her, put her arm over my shoulder, not without a pained grimace, and made my way to the door. "Wasn't that hard, was… wait, I'm starting to sound like… dammit."

"Sound like who?"

"You'll meet her soon enough, don't worry about it. All day Jean Bart this, Jean Bart that… really grinds my gears at times."

I felt her muscles relax a little bit. Maybe these girls had some knowledge about the situation ingrained into them? Like who they were supposed to help in war and such? After all, on paper, Vichiya and the Ironblood were supposed to be allied.

It took us, no exaggeration, twenty minutes to go up the single flight of stairs that separated the baseline deck from the dorm deck. Twenty steps, one per minute. The continuous moans of pain didn't help a single bit. Thankfully enough, no one was around. Odin had made sure. And while she still hadn't raised her hand towards me, no one seemingly wanted her angry. With that lights festival a while earlier, I could see why. We walked into the hallway of the dorm deck.

"Jean Bart? What are you doing here?"

I turned around. Tirpitz.

"Could ask you the same. Didn't Odin summon everyone?"

She shrugged "She told me to stay behind and…. Who even is that?"

"I found her wandering a few decks below." I lied cautiously. "Says she doesn't remember a thing so I thought she may be one of those girls like Odin, without a past and such."

Tirpitz's eyes widened slightly as she gestured towards a door.

Jean Bart

"Shouldn't we introduce ourselves?"

"Honestly, I don't think so. Odin will do a big introductory session later."

Something in her gaze told me there was more to it. Maybe that 'I inspire terror' speech she gave me once. She just didn't want our new friend to be too afraid of her.

"Fair enough." I shrugged, "We should focus on figuring out what the hell happened to this woman."

Tirpitz frowned as she looked at her. She had already taken like ten different measurements, from blood pressure to weight. She reached for the drawer.

"Ah, I forgot the thermometer. Bear with me."

She got close to the woman and laid her hand on her forehead. She stood there for a few seconds.

"Your eyes…"

"Excuse me?"

"They look… eh…"

Tirpitz raised an eyebrow "Yes?"

"I… nevermind."

This woman was as strange as a woman could get.

"Your temperature is normal. So are the rest of your vitals. Put those clothes I lent you."

The woman looked at the pile of clothing Tirpiyz had laid on her bed, next to where she was sitting. They were simple clothes, but then again, Tirpitz had an incredibly bland sense of fashion. Probably part of not wanting to stand out.

"I'll support ya."

The woman gripped my shoulder to stand up. Slowly, but steadily, she managed to get the clothes on. Now she looked mostly normal, if not for the still visible scar up her neck that almost reached her jawline.

"Why are you two so… gentle with me?"

I chuckled "You are half dead, what did you expect?"

"You don't know who I am."

"I've spent way too much time alone to be bothered with that." said Tirpitz while putting her instruments back in the drawer "Plus, I also tended to Jean Bart here while I am pretty sure she wanted to kill me and everyone in this base."

The woman opened her mouth, but didn't say anything.

"I think I should also thank you, Jean. For bringing her up here safely."

"How do you know what I was doing? You just saw me carrying her. For all you knew I could be heading out to dump her in the sea."

"You were carrying her to your room, weren't you? You just wanted to figure out what to do before telling us, I guess."

Shit, was I that easy to read?

"... what's with this Jean thing? Getting comfortable or what?"

Tirpitz blushed slightly, stuttering and almost dropping her stethoscope.

"I-I… sorry. I'll drop it if it makes you uncomfortable…"

"Don't bother. Y'all… I can't believe I'm saying this. Y'all are better than I gave ya credit for."

Tirpitz blushed a bit more. Thankfully for her, someone knocked on the door.

"Odin here. Jean Bart, I assume here is where you are."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Yes."

"Ah, it's good to know." I could almost hear her sigh from behind the door. A sigh of relief. "Eugen, Parzival, in, now."

"And here I thought I could enjoy my beer for…"

"Eugen?!" The woman's eyes lit in a single second. "Parzival?!"

Absolute silence. Eugen stopped talking outside. Tirpitz stared at the woman in disbelief. Even I scratched my head. Wasn't this woman amnesiac? What did she have to do with those two?

The door opened slightly. U-556 peeked through, with Eugen behind. It was almost an instant reaction. The second she saw the woman, who had somehow managed to stand on wobbly legs, she started to sob like a waterfall. Eugen leaned on the doorframe as if she had seen an apparition.

"U-556." carefully inquired Tirpitz. "What's the matter?"

But the submarine girl didn't listen. Instead, she missiled herself towards the woman, throwing her onto the bed with a pained scream.

"Hey!" I tried to unwrap U-556's arms "Girl's half dead!"

She mumbled something ininteligible between sobs and tears. Eugen slowly and cautiously approached, as if the presence next to me scared her.

"You died."

"That's what I thought too. Any explanations?"

"It is I who needs explanations!" Tirpitz stood up with her best attempt at sounding authoritative. "U-556, explain yourself this instant!"

"Frau Tirpitz…" the name caused the other woman to freeze in place with eyes wide as plates. "This is your older sister, Lord Bismarck."

What?

No, that had to be a joke, for sure.

The news of her demise had reached even me down in another continent, isolated from everyone. There was no way this woman was Bismarck, right?

A million thoughts went through my mind. I had discovered, cleaned, seen naked and nursed Bismarck? THE Bismarck?! The woman I was designed to fight, the woman whose defeat was my supposed life's purpose?!

"W-what…" Tirpitz's voice broke. "S-Schwester?"

Even in my derailed train of thought, I was aware of how quickly Bismarck's expression changed from sadness, to surprise, to many different feelings I wasn't able to read properly. In the end, she just reached with her hand towards Tirpitz's face.

"So… this is what you looked like…"

Before my man could have any more trouble processing the sudden influx of information, I felt someone pull on me, dragging me out of the room.

"You'll have your chance to ask them, and so will I, tomorrow. Let them have their family time for now."

"HOLD ON A SECOND!" I said, finally out of my stupor "Is that really Bismarck?! THE Bismarck?!"

"What other Bismarck do you know of?"

"Cut that rhetoric, Odin." Lützow joined my outraged question barrage. She must have followed Odin from the command room. "She died. Last year. What U-556 brought back was barely human in appearance."

Odin entered the same elevator I had brought Bismarck from, and we followed her down to the PR floor.

"I am sure you have questions, but so does Lord Bismarck. I dislike having to repeat things, so you will have to wait until tomorrow. I have more important things to tend to at the moment."

"More important than the leader of the Ironblood coming back?!" I yelled "There should be nothing more important than that!"

"I'm sure Lützow would beg to differ."

"Don't bring me into your games, Odin. You still owe us all an explanation."

We reached the same floor, the same room I had found Bismarck in. It was exactly the way I had left it, with all the slime on the floor and the opened column.

"I think this day will prove a good experience for you, Jean Bart. It will help you value what you have, by showing you what others thought they had lost."

My head was starting to hurt.

"Lützow, what was that I promised you again?"

"You said you couldn't guarantee revenge, but you promised me something better."

"That's it." Odin pointed to the second column "All yours."

Lützow winced for a few seconds, then her eyes widened. She slowly walked to the control panel and pressed the red button. Everything went the same as it had gone for me. The hissing, the steam, the slime.

Lützow kneeled on the slime, grabbing the body on his arms and resting the girl's head on her chest. She looked petite, with short white hair and a lightning shaped red bang.

Slowly, Lützow opened a small bottle under the girl's nose, which seemed to get her out of her slumber. Her light blue eyes opened tiredly.

"Deustchland?"

Lützow didn't say a thing. She simply hugged the girl, hiding her face on her neck.

"Deutschland… you are hurting me…"

"... shut up."

"Wait… are you crying?"

"I said shut up." Lützow barely managed to keep her voice from cracking. "The great Deustchalnd doesn't cry."

?

Right at the edge of a mirror sea.

That is where we were.

The mirror sea where I would find my answers.

"If your scan is accurate, there it is. I hope you haven't decided to play with me, Helena."

Not a sound from behind me. As if there was no one there. But I knew there was someone. I knew what she was capable of, of course, but more importantly…

She knew what I was capable of.

"Ughh!"

I fell to my knees. It was the memories. Again. Flowing into my mind the same water flowed through a torpedo hole.

Panting, I fell onto the waves. It was all over.

"This desolation… is this what you felt?"

That woman walked to me. Her hairstyle was impeccable, like it always had been. Her face, the same, with that perfect eyeliner and those blue eyes. But her expression…

She looked around us. The freezing cold of the baltic sea made a stark contrast with the burning wrecks. Here and there, remains floated, carried by the waves. Some, more recognisable than others.

"Did you need to do it?"

My throat felt dry.

"That man… he sold us. He sold our people. He sold my family. The moment he saw we weren't up to the task, he brought those monsters and…"

"And tell me, dear…" The disappointment and pain in her voice were evident. "Was it worth it?"

"I got… rid of him. Of them. Of everyone. The war is over. Now my sister, Eugen, can rest in peace. And you don't have to fight another war."

"If I could have kept you from doing this, I would gladly have fought as many as necessary."

I chuckled."This was my fight. I failed them, it's only fair I follow through, even with this."

She caressed my face, getting one of my bloody bangs out of my eyes as she held me in her lap "Your sense of duty was always second to none."

The water revolved around us for a few seconds. Tentacles. Black. And yellow. Observer.

"Have you come to put me out of my misery?"

"This isn't what I had in mind." She said with a frown "This reset… the 4081st one. I had hoped that waiting until the decade of the 50s to introduce our technology would have been enough of a variance, but in the end it was all for naught."

"You have been through this a few times, haven't you?"

Observer stayed silent. The Siren… such a foreign being. Such terrifying power I had been granted by her, nearing the end of this nightmare.

Hood caressed me again.

"What now, my dear? How do we explain this?"

"Explaining it will prove difficult." Said a second voice behind Hood. I recognised her. She had been there. That day. As our maid of honor. Wales. "The Eagle Union won't accept this as an apology."

I laughed with difficulty. "It's just over for us, is it not?"

"It's what you bargained for." That voice… I also recognised it. Ark. But not Ark. Ark. "You eliminated the european powers from the equation. The entire world is in shambles. Once the Northern Parliament gets their hands on Siren technology, it will all start again."

Her gaze met with Observer's. What had been her goal? Observer's final plot? She took a black cube out, levitating it over her hand. Ark had her blade on Observer's neck not even a second later.

"I won't allow you to cast another one of us into ruin."

"Some, like you, did it willingly." She pointed her finger at me. "Others, however, have no choice."

I regained my senses. Still outside the mirror sea. I looked around me. The mist had somewhat cleared, and Helena was standing. She laid her hand somewhere that seemed empty, but her hand collided with something. Waves started to propagate through the air.

"You didn't run away."

Helena looked my way with a bitter smile.

"If I had tried to run, how far would have I gotten?"

Silence.

"How long will it take you?"

"Whoever laid this mirror sea down knew what they were doing." She frowned, "Give it a day, two maybe."

"Get to it then. I don't have time to waste."