It was a paradise. All I could see was beautiful, clear blue water, lush palm trees, and white sandy beaches. And that was the problem. We were slowly sailing around the archipelago, searching for any sign of our four missing submarines, and so far, all of us were coming up empty. I lowered the binoculars and sighed heavily before lifting them to my face for what felt like the fiftieth time. Beside me, I could feel the frustration pouring from Bismarck at the lack of progress thus far.

"Herr Kommandant, may I ask you something?" she suddenly asked, breaking the long, awkward silence.

Without lowering my binoculars, I simply answered, "Sure thing."

"If you had ordered me not to go, and I had gone anyway, what would you have done?"

"I would have placed a call to the Royal Navy and sent the entire Royal Fleet out to bring you back in."

Bismarck lowered her own binoculars and stared at me in disbelief. "You wouldn't."

"Oh, I would. I'd have Hood herself escort you back to base, arm in arm."

"That's just cruel!"

I shrugged. "Maybe. But it would have sent a very clear message, wouldn't it?"

"Ja," She nodded in agreement. "That it would have."

There was a brief pause before a thought ran through my head. "Would you have gone anyway if I'd ordered you to stay?"

"No. I would have followed orders, but I wouldn't forgive you for stopping me. And if U-556 didn't return…"

As her voice trailed off, I lowered my binoculars and reached out for her. My hand took hers and squeezed it reassuringly as I smiled over at her. "For what it's worth, I wouldn't have ordered you to stay at the base. I know how much she means to you and however this ends, you deserve to be here for it."

Whatever response Bismarck had in store, it was immediately forgotten by the sound of the radio crackling to life, carrying the voice of Tirpitz. "Submarines spotted! We're moving in for pickup!"

Without hesitation, I quickly snatched the radio's handset and asked, "Who is it? Do you have a visual?" Bismarck and I shared a nervous glance while we waited what felt like hours for a reply.

The radio finally crackled back to life and Tirpitz's voice cut in again. "It's U-101 and U-73! They're bruised, but alright. They said they split up to draw off their attackers and haven't seen them since."

"Understood. Where were they last seen?"

"U-101 says they headed to your side of the archipelago."

"Copy that. Get those two over here so we can get them to sickbay, and good work out there, Tirpitz."

"Thank you, sir. Tirpitz out."

With a sigh of frustration, I put the handset back down. "Well," I began. "we've got two, at least. And we know they're out in our search area."

Bismarck nodded slowly, her discontented expression mirroring my own, I'm sure. "There's something that bothers me, though."

"What's that?"

"If the Sirens chased them through the archipelago, that would be slow going for them. Even with the time it took to get assembled and out here, we should have run into them, or at least detected them. So why haven't we?"

She had a point there. Why hadn't we run across any Sirens? Even when we were looking at the satellite images, we didn't see any trace of Siren ships in the vicinity. But they had to go somewhere...didn't they? "That's a damn good question," I admitted. "I don't know. We never picked them up on satellite. Is it possible they can teleport out the same way they teleport in?"

"Not without a humanoid-type to open the portals. It's possible they could have been leading a mass-produced fleet and fled once they realized they'd failed to neutralize our submarines."

"I guess…" I conceded, "...still, I'd like to get the hell out of here as soon as possible. Open a channel on all Azur Lane frequencies. Hopefully, they aren't too deep to get a transmission."

Bismarck leaned over and flipped a few switches on the transmitter and nodded over to me. "You're on."

I cleared my throat and raised the handset back to my lips. "This is Bismarck to Parzival and Bull, signaling all clear, repeat all clear. Please surface and home in on this signal for immediate extraction. Again, this is Bismarck to Parzival and Bull, signaling all clear and rendezvous for extraction. Please respond."

We were greeted by the faint sound of background static and I let out another frustrated sigh. "Bismarck to Parzival and Bull, respond." Again, silence. "U-556 and U-47, respond immediately."

The whispered words of U-47 came through the speaker, just barely audible over the static. "Get out of here! It's not safe!"

Three down, I thought to myself. "Negative, we're all clear. No sign of the reported fleet anywhere near the archipelago. Return to ship."

"They're in the archipelago!" she hissed, "It's a hidden base! The fleet is in the islands!"

My blood ran cold and Bismarck and I shared a look of horror before turning towards the large island in the center of the archipelago. "Bismarck to all ships, converge on me immediately. That includes you, 47. Any and all ships within range of this message, form up on the Bismarck. Enemy base located."

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, a rumbling began to fill the air and a cloud of dust and dirt began to rise over the island. We stared in shock as the side of the mountain parted to reveal a massive hangar. A hangar that mass-produced Siren ships were beginning to pour out of.

"Hard to port, all guns to starboard!" I ordered as I slammed the handset down and rushed to the smaller holotable on the main bridge. Bismarck began to comply immediately and I could feel the ship begin to yaw beneath my feet as the fifty thousand tons of steel began to change course. They hadn't jammed radio communications yet, but I was certain that would change. We'd been lucky in the meantime and it looked like all ships had received the order, and were rapidly closing on our position. A flight of Stukas were already en-route from Graf Zeppelin's position, and Eugen and Z46 had begun to form a screen, with Scharnhorst close behind, no doubt eager for action.

"Turrets Anton, Bruno, Cesar, and Dora ready to fire, Herr Kommandant!" Bismarck declared. Part of me wondered if the Iron Blood had fixed the original Bismarck's tendency to knock out her own radar with her main guns. Either way, I'd find out soon enough.

I took a deep breath, the final moment of silence before the storm, and prepared myself. Everything was ready, we had trained for this, it was now or never. "Fire at will!" I barked, and the kansen lept into action. A staccato roar rang through the ship as her fifteen-inch guns began to fire, followed shortly by the constant thunder of her secondary batteries. My view through the windows was gone, disappeared behind a curtain of flame and smoke, leaving me with only the holotable for reliable information. It would appear that the Iron Blood did indeed correct the deficiency, as the holotable stayed steady, relaying a constant stream of information. The 3D model of the first ship out of the camouflaged harbor, a cruiser of some description, erupted in gouts of fire as the first shells began to find their mark. More flashes emanated from the cruiser as she began to return fire, the shells arcing high over Z46, Eugen, and Scharnhorst, clearly aiming for the largest target-us.

"Incoming fire!" I shouted and braced myself against the table as I awaited the impact. The hull rang with the sound of several shells hitting home, and she shuddered violently, but a glance at the status board showed that her armor had held. Bismarck herself hadn't even bothered to brace, simply standing tall in the chaos of battle, a true beacon of the Iron Blood as she continued to pour fire into the enemy.

Meanwhile, Scharnhorst darted across the sea, only slowing long enough to brace herself as she fired a full salvo from her triple turrets, then taking off again at high speed. Eugen continued to fire on multiple ships, toying with them the way a cat toys with a cornered mouse, and Z46 swiftly charged a cruiser that was just leaving the island, dropping a spread of torpedos at point-blank range. The entire column of Siren ships was wreathed in flame and smoke, the visible parts of the ships riddled with massive holes of mangled steel, and yet they continued to press on. And behind them were even more Sirens, including the larger silhouettes of their battleships.

By now, Tirpitz and her group had shown up on the other side of the enemy column and were now adding their firepower to ours. Her first salvo was impressive, catching a Siren battleship directly in her magazine, the resulting explosion consuming the entire ship in a massive fireball. The dying vessel hurled shrapnel in all directions, damaging her nearby compatriots and starting more fires on several of them. Gneisenau and Hipper wouldn't be left out, however, and a combined volley from the pair left another ship a ruined, drifting hulk. Z23 kept up suppressing fire and torpedo volleys, forcing the Sirens to either maneuver out of formation or take the hits.

By this point, Bismarck had to circle around, her guns going silent for a moment as the turrets began to traverse to port. During the brief lull in fighting on our end, I checked and was surprised to find the radio was still open. I wasted no time in opening up a channel to Graf Zeppelin.

"Graf, this is Bismarck. Target the entrance to the enemy base with your dive bombers, see if we can collapse the entrance on top of them and bottle them up."

Graf's cold reply came loud and clear across the radio. "I will crush them beneath the folly of their existence."

With Graf down, that left one other outstanding question. "U-47, 101, 73, are any of you still armed?"

"Negative, we're out," U-47 answered. "I think U-556 might've had a couple, but I haven't seen her since we were separated."

I sighed again, casting a glance at Bismarck, who was too busy or too engrossed in overseeing the battle to react. "Understood. Hurry up and get to Bismarck's starboard side and we'll pick you up."

"On our way."

"I'm stepping out to go recover our submarines, I'll be back as quickly as I can," I announced and grabbed some hearing protection, slipping it over my ears in case Bismarck decided to open fire while I was out on deck. Bismarck herself simply nodded once, still staring at the raging firefight going on near the island. It looked like we had everything under control, but we both knew one lucky shot would be all it would take to turn the tide.

I made my way down the ladders and out onto the main deck, quickly spotting the trio of girls in the water, all frantically waving at me. They quickly made their way to the side of the ship as I tossed the cargo netting over the side for them. As they were climbing up, I thought I caught a glimpse of something off in the distance, behind one of the other islands we had passed. After staring at the area for several seconds with no movement, I wrote it off as a trick of the mind and helped the submarines up the last little bit of the way. All three of them looked battered, bruised, and exhausted but otherwise intact. I hastily ushered them into the ship's sickbay, which was helpfully just aft of turret Bruno, and once they were all situated, hurried my way back up to the bridge.

About halfway there, I heard the roar of Bismarck's guns as she opened fire again, and I quickened my pace. By the time I had made it back to the bridge, it was nearly over. Graf's Stukas had managed to collapse the false island's entrance, the island mountain now resembling a volcano, the top collapsed in on itself, smoke and flame billowing out. A few Sirens were still putting up a fight, but their fire was sporadic and wildly inaccurate, the last shells hurled in our direction not close enough to even spray the ship with seawater. At least, that's what we all thought.

"Good work," I began, "Now all that's left is-" My train of thought was interrupted by the ship lurching hard to port as several heavy shells slammed into her. It took me a second to work out that the shells had to be from a ship on our starboard side, not to port with the destroyed Siren base. Bismarck came to the same conclusion fairly quickly and we both raced to the starboard side to see an untouched Siren cruiser bearing down on us at full speed. That must have been what I'd seen moving behind that island, and with everyone preoccupied with the base or recovering the subs, it managed to get right on top of us. I silently cursed myself for being so careless and not double-checking with the ship's systems.

While the cruiser's armor was no match for Bismarck's turtleback armor at such a short range, the sharpened prow of the enemy ship would do serious damage, especially at the speed it was traveling. Not enough to sink us, but enough to put her out of action for a good long while. Bismarck began to turn the ship hard to starboard-not to evade but to try and get enough of an angle to prevent the Siren's bow from biting deep into the ship. Suddenly, she stopped, a broad smile on her face as she quit maneuvering. For a moment, I thought she'd gone mad and had decided to embrace the impending disaster. That is, however, until four geysers of water erupted on the cruiser's port side. It rapidly began to list, the weight of all that water flooding into the ship pulling it off course and slowing it down. Just as suddenly as the first four had appeared, two more torpedoes sped through the rents already created by the first salvo and detonated. The cruiser lifted out of the water, her keel buckling from the explosions as she snapped in half and slowly sank beneath the waves. Bismarck gracefully sailed past the hulk as it slipped beneath the surface while I tried to piece together just what happened. Just then, something popped up from beneath, a lone figure with bright blue hair and an oversized coat.

"U-556!" I exclaimed, laughing as I threw open the hatch and rushed out onto the wing, Bismarck hot on my heels. I could hear her excited cheers and laughter as she waved to us.

"I did it! I did it!" she whooped, "I protected Lord Bismarck!"

"Congratulations on fulfilling your knightly vows, Parzival!" I called out to her. "Now come aboard so that we may thank you properly! Starboard side, cargo netting!"

"Commander?" she called back. "You're here, too? I fulfilled all my knightly vows! Yippee!" With that, she did an excited backflip into the water and raced towards us.

I turned back to Bismarck, who was beaming with both pride and relief. I think I even saw a tear in the corner of those blue-grey eyes. "How did you know?" I asked.

She simply smiled at me and tapped an ear with a gloved finger. "Hydrophones."

"Of course," I said, "Keep forgetting you've got those. That'll teach me, I suppose. C'mon, let's go greet our savior."

U-556, like her three other compatriots, was pretty battered and exhausted, sporting several large bruises from her run-ins with depth charges, including a nasty-looking black eye. However, her spirit and enthusiasm was higher than I'd ever seen it before.

"We found this big Siren fleet and tracked it back here and when U-47 went to call it in, that's when a few came back out and started hunting us. Just started dropping depth charges everywhere! I couldn't see anything so I went and hid at the bottom and hoped they'd just go away. Once it stopped, I tried to find the others again, but I got all turned around until I heard you on the radio. I started heading back as fast as I could, saw you being threatened by that cruiser, and leaped into action!" She was extremely animated, with big gestures and broad sweeping arm movements which made her story even more adorable but continued to frustrate Hipper, who was trying to check her over for any serious injuries.

Before Hipper could make a sarcastic or angry comment, I gently grabbed U-556's arms and eased them back down to her sides. "And you did an outstanding job, Parzival," I smiled, "Lord Bismarck and I are very proud of you, but right now we need you to sit still and let Hipper check you out, okay? Once she's done, get some rest and then meet us up on the bridge, alright?"

Her spirits dampened somewhat, but she nonetheless relented and sat back to allow Hipper to work. "Oh, alright."

Hipper turned her head and quietly whispered "Danke," and I grinned at the sudden unexpected compliment from the girl.

"Bitte," I whispered back as I stepped away. Bismarck didn't immediately follow, instead stepping forward and peering intently at U-556. Hipper and I both stopped what we were doing and looked over at her, wondering why she was just standing there. I was about to ask her if everything was alright when she kneeled down and grasped Parzival's hand in her own.

Her voice was barely above a whisper, but in the sudden silence that fell over the compartment, it might as well have been shouted from the rooftops. "U-556, you have been a dear friend, and I am eternally grateful for your timely rescue, but...I feel...I feel as though I have not done right by you. You have made a knightly vow to protect me, no matter what, and I want to do the same. And so…" Bismarck released Parzival's hand and stood to attention, "On the honor of the name of Bismarck, and before Neptune, Lord of the Seas, I swear that I will provide assistance to you in your time of need, be it on the water, on the land, in the air, or beneath the waves. That I will protect you anywhere, at any time, and bring you home safe."

U-556 sat there for a moment, her lower lip quivering, tears welling up in her eyes before she shot out her seat like a rocket, crashing into Bismarck and wrapping her arms tightly around the battleship. She was surprised by U-556's sudden hug, but she slowly returned the gesture, holding the girl close to her. I smiled at the tender moment and patted Hipper on the shoulder, jerking my thumb towards the door.

"C'mon, let's give them a minute," I whispered. Hipper sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes, but followed me out of the room regardless.

I was up on the bridge, making the arrangements to have several patrol fleets secure the archipelago before sending in any ground forces to examine the wreckage. While this base may be out of commission, there may be others and I wanted to see exactly how the Sirens were able to pull off such a deception. No sooner than I had dispatched the last batch of orders, the hatch opened and Bismarck stepped inside, a happy smile on her face. Like Bismarck herself, a genuine smile on her face was a rare thing to see. She stopped and fixed me with a quizzical look.

"What?" she asked, looking down at her uniform, then back up at me. "Do I have something on my face?"

I realized she'd just caught me staring at her and I chuckled softly and shook my head. "No, no. Well, yes. Sort of. That smile. I don't think I've seen you smile like that before today."

Her cheeks flushed and she glanced down for a moment. A slight tremor ran through the deck as she turned that beautiful smile on me. "Today was a good day," she declared, and I nodded in agreement.

"Indeed it was. We managed to rescue everyone, you made your promise, we smashed an enemy fleet and knocked out a secret Siren base to boot. I'd say today was a very good day. How did it go with U-556?"

"It went well," she answered, "We just decided to set time aside each week to see more of each other." She paused, hesitating over the next statement. "And I also spoke with my sister."

That certainly raised an eyebrow. "Oh? How did that go?"

"Awkward," she confessed, her smile faltering a bit. "But you have to start somewhere, right?"

I gave her a reassuring smile and nodded. "Of course, and hopefully, over time, it will become less awkward. But I'm glad you've already reached out to her."

Her smile returned and she looked out towards the open blue expanse of ocean ahead of us. "Thank you," she said, "For everything. You know, you're not a bad commander…"

I must have made a face because she immediately followed it up with "What? Is it so strange for me to give compliments?"

I shrugged helplessly. "I wouldn't know, this is the longest we've ever been together. I guess...not? It's a first for me, but thank you. For the kind words as well as bringing me out here on this expedition. It means a lot to me."

"I thought it might," she replied, giving me a cryptic smile. "When you said you envied me, I had something of an epiphany-that you and I aren't so different at times. Both leaders, both bound by duty, although I have something that you don't. I can leave, sail the ocean, feel the spray of the sea on my face. You couldn't. And it's a terrible thing to have a love of the sea and not be able to sail upon it, Ja?"

I don't know how she was able to put it all together so quickly, but she wasn't wrong. This was my first shore command, and while I certainly loved my job, there were parts of it I didn't. Being landlocked was most definitely one of them. "Yeah," I agreed. "Yeah, you're right. It was nice to get out of the office for a little while, and it was truly impressive to see you in action."

"Why thank you, Herr Kommandant, although I hope the rest of the day will be much quieter than this afternoon."

In terms of combat, she was correct, in terms of excitement, oh, that was far from finished with us that day...