AN: Nothing more to say but thank you all for the reviews, favs and follows. Enjoy
Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Azur Lane except my personal version of the Commander
The Admiral was looking at his new office building with a great sense of pride welling up in his chest. It had been a week since his promotion and the base had to undergo some renovations to compliment his new position. The first thing is a flat upgrade to all the facilities, especially his simple-looking office. Another had been a complete overhaul of the docks, a very necessary change considering the new shipgirls under his command. Some of them being larger than most of the other shipgirls combined thanks to either experimental design. No wonder they never saw service...Some of them were logistical nightmares!
Speaking of logistical nightmares, that was another problem needing to be addressed right away. High Command was mostly straightforward about the development of their ships but these priority shipgirls were very wrong. So much unnecessary weight and armaments for ships of their caliber. Thankfully, with a little help from the eggheads, he 'fixed' their issues quickly. By fixing, he meant entirely redesigning their ships and changing their main guns.
If that wasn't enough, Shikikan really dug himself into a hole during the night of the Royal Ball. Fate seemed to really hate him lately when he found himself waking up completely naked and sleeping in the same bed with an equally naked Shoukaku. Thank the heavens Martin gave him the good news that he wouldn't impregnate these girls because he was sure he fucked up somewhere. He couldn't even remember what happened after she kissed him, but it wasn't hard to guess what. Either way, he and Shoukaku were tight-lipped about what happened that night if asked.
Back to his new office, gone were the rudimentary wooden structuring support and in with steel beams. Entirely new wiring, walls, insulation, and redesigned meeting rooms. High Command was generous enough to include a war room fit with the latest technology available to him. Although, they cheaped out by not making his job paper-free. He still had paperwork to do and phone calls to make with the higher-ups. At least he hasn't glued to his desk anymore.
Stepping inside the building, he immediately went to where his room was and opened the door. The first sight he received was the room almost triple in size compared to earlier. His bathroom was a bit larger, his closet expanded, and a sofa was added in case he had multiple visitors. Overall, mostly room to walk around rather than put more furniture.
He sighed in content, tracing his hand over his desk before taking a seat, "This is great. Now, what was on today's agenda?"
He pulled out a stack of papers, rummaging through them with an entirely new secretary schedule. With a dozen shipgirls joining his large roster, he needed to remake the entire schedule for one specific person-well, two actually. One being a shipgirl that drove fear into the Admiral's heart and sent chills down his bones. Another being Gascogne, that odd shipgirl he met during the event. He got profiles on the six new shipgirls that joined him but there wasn't anything to help him understand them.
Oh well, doing it the old fashioned way was his specialty.
"Herr Admiral~" he heard the sound of death approaching
His pupils dilated until they were pinpricks while his body shuddered at the thoughts of his many possible deaths. He needed to play his cards right and hope that Martin had God's grace in taming the yandere beast approaching. If not, there was one option he had left, and it would probably end up with his death either way.
The knock-on his front door only signaled death's calling, "C-Come in."
When the last line of defense fell, the Admiral steeled his nerves and grit his teeth to what was in front of him. A woman that was slightly shorter than him in height with shoulder-length blonde hair. Strings of red were noticeable in her hair with the distinguishable metal fins on the sides of her head. Her standard Ironblood uniform was quite feminine with how tight it fit her body, accentuating her bosom, and her skirt barely covered her undergarments. Armored leggings covered just under the knee to her foot. Usually, she wore armored gloves but due to being in a friendly port, she didn't wear them. Lastly, her yellow iris eyes with pupils looking predatory compared to the average shipgirl.
Shikikan used what power he had to speak normally despite his legs still shaking with only the desk hiding his fear, "Hello Roon, long time no see."
Roon walked closer to his desk, every step making a metallic clap, "Meine Geliebte, I have returned after a year's time. Did you get my reports?"
Her tone came off as very sweet coupled with her making a cute smile. Yet, the Admiral knew that this was the outward appearance of Roon and not what was underneath. He opened the drawer to find a single folder that weighed several pounds in the number of reports he received. Dozens and dozens of combat reports that made even his most veteran shipgirls look like amateurs.
"I get them all the time. The High Admiral was..." Shikikan was afraid to say what his CO told him in the past, "...impressed with your performance."
The smile on the lady grew more with the compliment she was given. If the desk was the Admiral's last fortress, the Heavy Cruiser shipgirl bypassed it and walked up to him directly. His pupils shrunk more as every step, every movement, closer to him was a step closer to what afterlife there was. Before he could muster any form of resistance or at least the thought of resisting, Roon was straddling his waist. Her face was inches away from his, the cute smile still on her face yet the look in her eye said otherwise.
"I know. He told me himself," the Ironblood shipgirl finally said with her one finger placed over the Admiral's lips to silence him, "He was also concerned with my...eagerness to neutralize the enemy."
"So he did do something." went through Shikikan's mind, his fate left at the mercy of this girl in his lap
He couldn't speak thanks to the finger on his lips nor did he dare to. The last thing he wanted to do was make Roon angry. If a yandere had a scaling of how deadly and scary they were, Roon surpassed that scaling.
He would be surprised when the shipgirl's smile faded from her face and she looked away. Her eyes went downcast like she had been told off by her mother. That unrivaled predator in her eyes faded like her smile which both made the Admiral lose his fear and grew concerned.
"Are you...okay?" he gently asked with a hand slowly rising to her face
He felt a wetness on her face before seeing a thin trail of liquid on her cheek. The Admiral was visibly more confused than ever to see Roon in such a state. There had been one other time that he had seen her cry, and that was when she almost ended his life by accident.
"I...want you to see…" the Ironblood shipgirl spoke, rubbing the tears away from her eyes and looking at her officer
This begged the question, "To see what?"
Her answer was to grab his hands and place them on the 'fins' rested upon her head. The moment his hands made contact with the metal appendages, the whole world went black.
Shikikan groaned with the feeling of a headache rising for an attack. Eyes fluttering open hesitantly, he found his surroundings to be completely different from the personal room. Instead, he was now in another office that had a heavy German influence around it. Papers full of sketches and blueprints were everywhere labeled 'KMS' in corners and the Iron Cross stamped in approval to some.
"I was not even a blueprint," the Admiral turned to see Roon looking around the office, her hands delicately touching the scattered sketches
She stopped at one particular one, a sketch of her turrets but nothing else to compliment them. A frown plastered itself on her face as she held the paper in her bare hands. The officer got up and looked at each other blueprints to find some Ironblood shipgirl designs fully finished. Bismarck, Scharnhorst, Eugen, Deutschland, ect. None held Roon besides the very paper she held-just a couple of turret designs for other ships.
The pieces still weren't adding up in what she was trying to convey, "Is this what causes you to go into your destructive mode? The part of you that everyone fears?"
To the officer's dismay, Roon shook her head, "No. That is a combination of things. A good amount being the anger, frustration, and lack of empathy from the other Ironblood girls."
"You're containing all of that?"
"You thought all those sorties were just battles?" the Ironblood priority ship questioned, "I can feel every emotion they all felt whether they were by your side, against you, or with each other. I can see and feel what they didn't show you first."
That was starting to make more sense. Ever since he got Roon's blueprint, which was made up based off of old folk tales, he had put what Ironblood ships he had to the test. Thanks to the great technology of the Wisdom Cubes, a whole lot of faith and hard work gave him results. But he never thought that every single one of the Ironblood shipgirls were basically making Roon unstable.
"Why not the others?" The Admiral asked
"They either had blueprints or their comrades believed in something to counteract the effects," Roon began, "Can you imagine the only reason you exist is because of faith, blood, and tears?"
Shikikan had no response to that, he wouldn't know how that felt. The scenery began to warp with the office shredding into particles before reforming into a different picture. They were back at the island base but there were many things wrong. The docks seemed to have shrunk, the structures housing ammunition and fuel were rusted, AA turrets were completely gone, and the little town was abandoned. It looked like years had passed by for the island due to the rust alone.
The sun was slowly drifting downwards to make way for the night. The skies clear of any clouds and the water was perfectly still. No sign of the other shipgirls, or even the Manjuu, anywhere.
"What are you showing me?" he asked the shipgirl
Roon was silent, walking across the smaller dock until she reached the end of the wooden walkway. She sat at the edge while looking at the sunset. Her frown never wavered nor her downcast look on her face. The Admiral sat next to her and awaited for her to answer him. There was a reason she was allowing him to look inside.
After several long minutes of waiting, Roon began to speak, "Admiral, what do you plan to do when this war is over?"
Not exactly answering his question but she must be going somewhere with this. The officer took a moment to look at the sun to ponder. What would he do once the war was finished? Assuming they beat all the Sirens and send them packing or outright murdering them.
He actually felt conflicted, wincing at multiple paths he could imagine himself taking, "I don't know. I...haven't thought that far ahead. I guess continue to do what I do best after a vacation."
His answer actually broke the spell on the shipgirl's frown, replaced momentarily by a light smile before she frowned again, "What do you think will happen to us?"
"Hm?" the Admiral looked really confused at such a nonsensical question, "Wouldn't you just go home and ma-"
"What if we get decommissioned or scrapped!?" Roon suddenly raised her voice at the officer, stunning him with her eyes misting up to release tears
Shikikan could only look at Roon's yellow eyes to find her showing a sign of vulnerability to him. This was not a look he ever expected to see from her. A look of a girl who was scared at the possibility of being useless. All her prowess in combat would be for nothing if there were no enemies to fight. No report to brag about and no Admiral to try to get the affections for.
"You're afraid…" Shikikan slowly said, brining the Ironblood girl into an embrace, "You're afraid of being turned into nothing again,"
The puzzle was now complete with the final piece aligning itself. Roon was nothing more than a thought for a possible ship but with no blueprint. The Wisdom cubes allowed her to be made into a blueprint and eventually constructed by Shikikan. The emotions, pain, and victory of her comrades molded her to be the deadliest ship in their arsenal. The war gave her a purpose to unleash those bottled emotions out on the enemy, but also let it out on her own allies. If there was no war, who would need a shipgirl like Roon? She didn't have anything awaiting her unlike the others. She was a nobody without the war.
"Every enemy I destroy...Every Siren I murder by my hand...I do it for you," the Ironblood priority ship stated, "I don't want to be forgotten."
She grasped his hands, staring intently into his eyes with tears flowing like rivers down her cheeks, "Don't forget me...Admiral."
Roon was not the psychotic heavy cruiser that Shikikan always assumed. She was just another shipgirl that had hopes and dreams but with a fate she couldn't bear to think about. The priority ships had at least a blueprint or were built but scuttled. They could at least be reviewed and changed to fit whatever global agreement was made, but Roon, she couldn't. It was only by the power of the Wisdom Cubes alone that she was here.
Shikikan gave the distraught Ironblood a gentle smile, using the thumb of his right hand to wipe away the tears, "No, I won't forget you."
"You promise?" Roon questioned, the tears stopped flowing at that moment
He gave a firm nod before bringing the girl into another embrace. He refused to let her leave his grasp until she calmed down. Sure, the future was scary, but that meant Roon needed to trust him.
The scenery warped again before going completely black and sending the Admiral back to his original spot. He was back in his chair with Roon still on his lap but she wasn't crying and her aura was nowhere as scary as usual. The predatory look in her eyes was gone and looked more normal. Whether or not her destructive personality would play itself out was yet to be tested.
"Come on, I'm going to need a coffee before we get these papers done," the Admiral stated, gesturing for Roon to get off of his lap
The Ironblood shipgirl smiled at him before getting off to let him stand up, "Aye aye, herr Admiral."
For once, the mess hall wasn't destroyed when one of the other shipgirls tried to flirt with the Admiral, but it was heavily damaged.
One of my shorter chapters with a focus on our yandere Ironblood priority ship. I wanted to cover her for a while so here you go. See you next chapter
