AZUR LANE NAVAL BASE

PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII

DECEMBER 7, 1941

5:30 HOURS LOCAL TIME

A person's recommended amount of sleep depended on various factors – especially that person's age. For kids from six to twelve years of age, it's 9 to 12 hours per 24 hours. For thirteen to eighteen years, it's 8 to 10 hours per 24 hours. Lastly, for adults, it's 7 or more hours a night.

Last night, Commander of the Azur Lane Alliance Thomas Adams spent just a little over two hours of sleep before being rudely woken up by the alarms, which would explain why there was a steaming coffee pot and a mug on his wooden table.

Born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, Adams was the first officer in the history of Eagle Union Navy to reach the rank of Captain at the age of 34. Thanks to his charming personality, great leadership, and impressive combat records, it was not surprising that he was the first person that the Admirals looked into when they were still deciding who should take command of the newly-formed global Alliance. Some might think he was demoted to Commander upon being assigned to take control of Azur Lane as kansens often referred to him as "Commander", but that's false. Adams still had the rank of Captain, his eagle insignia, shoulder boards, and dress blue sleeve stripes said as much; it's just that the girls preferred calling him Commander rather than Captain.

At first, Adams was a bit surprised when kansens "mistook" his rank, but after some time the novelty just wore off. Now, literally everyone, both kansens and human soldiers, called him Commander instead of Captain, and they would only address him using the latter rank when someone from Eagle Union or Royal Isles was sent to inspect the base.

Sitting in his office were HMS Prince of Wales, Chief Nursing Officer and Vestal's secretary Colonel Helen Smith, and Private Richard Anderson, Opana Radar Site operator; every one of them was holding in their hands a brown folder containing their respective reports. Because of her role as a Secretary and also her great leadership, Adams put Prince of Wales in charge of recovering the wreckage as well as pollution control. Last thing everyone needed was to have the sea water polluted with aviation fuel and oil.

The blonde Royal battleship had been a great help since day one. Adams was no stranger to desk jobs, but that didn't mean he liked it. Fortunately, thanks to Prince of Wales' position as one of the top-brass in the Royal Navy's chain of command, she had proven herself to be a very dependable secretary as the blonde helped reduce mountains of paperwork for him. Outside of office, she, along with Enterprise, also helped keep the rowdier kansens in line, greatly reducing potential headaches for their Commander.

Right now they're having a small meeting regarding the event that had transpired in the last five and a half hours. Despite the confirmation that the enormous aircraft which crash landed on the beach just outside of the Azur Lane Naval Base was human in design, everyone, both civilians and military personnel, was still on edge. After all, to their knowledge, only the Sirens had jet-powered aircrafts.

For all they knew, this could be a trick orchestrated by the damned Sirens.

Another headache laid upon the three guests from last night themselves. Aside from the unknown kitsune girl, the fact that the other two victims looked exactly the same as Royal Navy's HMS Javelin and Eagle Union's USS Enterprise caused a major uproar among many kansens and the Islands' soldiers. Adams still remembered the looks of shock and horror on everyone's face at the scene, particularly those of Belfast and Javelin.

Last night was the first time that the Commander had ever seen the silver-haired Royal Head Maid broke her usual composure and cried so hard. It literally took two battleships, Pennsylvania and Arizona, just to hold the maid back from chasing after the ambulance and a few other kansens to calm her down. Javelin did not fare any better, either. When she saw the aircraft's pilot, a young girl that both looked and dressed exactly the same as the destroyer, got carried out, she mumbled something along the lines of dreams and nightmare before she suddenly started to hyperventilate and passed out. Being a sensible Commander he was, Adams relieved both Royal kansens of their duties for the rest of the day so that they could properly get their stuff together.

Even though two of the three mysterious visitors looked exactly like the girls under his command, Adams still remained skeptical. Only when he received evidence from the forensics lab indicating that those two were indeed Enterprise and, for some reason that only God knew, Javelin would he be forced to believe.

Taking a quick sip of coffee before putting his mug back down onto the table, Commander Adams addressed everyone in the room. "Let's get this done as soon as possible, everyone. Private Anderson, you're first."

Richard nodded and stood up from his chair before beginning his brief report. "Yes, sir. At approximately 2:07 hours last night, the SCR-270 radar at Opana Radar Site detected three signatures moving at very high speed towards Hawaii from the northwest. Excluding the big signature, the two smaller ones that followed closely behind it resembled Siren unmanned aircrafts. At the same time, the station's radio also picked up a garbled transmission, presumably from the large aircraft's pilot requesting assistance."

The young Private then walked towards the nearby cart where a Tonschreiber recorder was sitting and pressed the play button. The machine's based on the revolutionary magnetic tape machine invented by an Iron Blood engineer back in 1931. As a gesture of goodwill, Iron Blood agreed to mass produce and export the machines to other countries in the world, most of which used these recorders for intelligence purposes.

"The following is the transmission Opana first picked up via radio contact with the unidentified aircraft.", Richard announced, prompting the other occupants to straighten up and pay close attention to the recorder.

At first, all they could hear was static white noise, but after about five seconds they all heard a garbled and frantic young female voice. To Prince of Wales and Commander Adams, the person's voice sounded extremely similar to that of Javelin, a Royal Navy destroyer.

"...-his is... Peli... one dash one... any Azur... Can any... hear me?!"

The Royal battleship and Commander winced a bit in sympathy at the pilot's scared voice. If any of them was tasked to fly an airplane carrying two severely wounded occupants with no escorts while being chased by two Siren fighter jets, they would also get panicked just like that. The aircraft's enormous size didn't help either, as it just became target practice for its two smaller and nimbler enemies.

"Based on her tone of voice,", Prince of Wales commented. "I think they had been chased for quite a while before we picked up their transmission."

The radar operator nodded and continued his report. "Right after that, I radioed the person on the other end to confirm that I had picked up her call for help, but because her message was unclear I asked her to repeat again, only to be met with silence. Radar signatures showed that during this time, all three aircrafts diverted towards the north, flying away from Hawaii. Preliminary assessment suggested that the sudden change of direction was a direct action made by the pilot to evade the pursuing Siren aircrafts. At about 2:08 hours, I attempted another radio contact with the aircraft using the same frequency that Opana had picked up earlier, stating we would treat them as threats. Right after that, a loud bang was heard in the distance accompanied by a bright flash, which proved that the aircraft was struck by a guided missile usually seen used by Siren aircrafts. Radar also showed that instead of finishing off the heavily damaged aircraft, the hostile fighters retreated northward away from the Islands while the remaining aircraft limped its way towards Hawaii, also from the north."

"The following is the last transmission the aircraft's pilot made before radio communication finally went dark.", Richard concluded as he put his report back into his folder and pressed the play button on the recorder again.

"...Mayday... Agh... M-Mayday... We're going down..."

Adams closed his eyes as he absorbed the information. "That's when you sounded the alarms". The radar operator just nodded in return as no further words were needed.

"Her strained voice suggested that she was injured at the same time when that missile hit.", Colonel Smith said, though she didn't know what kind of injury the poor girl suffered when it happened. Even though the same girl had far less wounds than her two passengers, all three survivors still suffered severe injuries nonetheless.

"Those ladies were quite lucky to crash their bird here instead of into some shark-infested waters.", the Commander commented with a sigh as he took another sip of his coffee. It seemed that the other three occupants also shared the same thought as they nodded grimly.

"Indeed, Commander.", Prince of Wales replied. "Just the thought of what could have happened to them makes me shudder."

It was public knowledge that the surrounding waters of Hawaii were also where marine predators called home. Even before the invasion of these alien forces, there had been a great number of reports involving shark attacks from merchant ships and ocean liners. The fact that those three girls managed to crash land onto the beach just outside of their base instead of somewhere in the Pacific Ocean where help was nearly impossible was a great display of sheer luck itself.

"Let us continue, everyone. Wales, tell me about the plane. What have the mechanics found so far?", Commander Adams inquired, signaling it was the blonde's turn to report.

Standing up from her seat, Prince of Wales took out some photographs detailing the extent of damage the unknown aircraft suffered and gave them to her Commander. There were also some pictures taken inside the plane, but since the pictures were in black and white, it was hard to see the details.

Adams had to give the aircraft's makers some credits. He personally saw the wreckage last night when he arrived at the beach just shortly after it crashed. The whole thing was banged up really hard, with lots of burnt marks, dents, scrapes, missing panels and parts. He expected that the interior would be no different but to see that the inside of the aircraft fared way better and even cleaner than outside really surprised the Commander.

"I would like to start with the report on pollution control at the crash site. Lucky for us, aside from the obvious debris of the downed aeroplane, there was no sign of fuel leak anywhere. About the aeroplane itself, after a thorough inspection of the aircraft, we have discovered the following. It is a military transport aircraft capable of carrying ten passengers, excluding the two pilots in the cockpit. Its size is hypothetically comparable to a B17 bomber and its onboard equipment as well as engine design are quite literally out of this world. We could not determine the exact kind of material used to build this aircraft, though we did find carbon, titanium, and other unknown materials in the salvaged components of the aeroplane."

Commander Adams mused on the information he just heard. He had to give credit to whoever built that bird; the fact that its fuselage was still intact after such a violent crash was nothing short of amazing. Adams just wished that the event last night had been just a controlled crash to demonstrate the strength of a new material instead of an actual emergency situation, though.

"Whatever those unknown materials are, they did an excellent job in protecting this aircraft. Never have I seen a plane's fuselage still in one piece after a violent crash like last night.", the Commander said.

Prince of Wales nodded in agreement. When she arrived on the scene, she and many others expected to see a field of debris littered the beach, not a banged up but still mostly intact fuselage. It did make the rescue effort way easier, though, so there's nothing the blonde could complain about.

"It does beg the question, though.", the radar operator furrowed his brows. "What's the origin of this aircraft?"

Adams also shared the same thoughts as the young operator. "Anderson's right. Did you find anything that hints the aircraft's origin, Wales? Like the name of its manufacturer or something like that?"

"Unfortunately no, Commander.", Prince of Wales replied dejectedly. "Aside from what we believe to be serial numbers and some writings, we could not find any evidence indicating the plane's origin. For serial numbers, we found the numbers '061-1' painted on both sides of the rear-mounted engines. We also found the words 'UNSC' painted on various locations of the aircraft, though we could not determine what those words stood for."

Adams silently hummed as he tried to remember whether he had seen or heard of those words before, only to come up empty. Fortunately, that didn't mean it would be an eternally unsolvable mystery, as there were three people who could give him the answers to these yet-to-be-solved questions.

The Commander just hoped that those three could be saved. Not that he doubted Vestal's and the doctors' expertise or anything but after seeing with his own eyes the injuries his "guests" were suffering from, he could not help but prepare himself for the worst case scenario.

After all, dead people don't talk.

"Now that's out of the way, is there anything else you want to report?", Adams calmly inquired, to which the battleship pulled out two photos from her folder and handed them to him.

"When we inspected the cockpit, we found some sort of a compact rifle strapped next to the pilot's seat. We then brought it to the base's armory so the experts there could analyze the weapon. The details of the rifle were taken in these two photographs."

Adams examined one of the photos depicting what he could only describe as a bulky and confusingly-looking rifle. Aside from the obvious pistol grip, trigger, buttstock, and barrel, the rest of the gun just looked so... unconventional.

For one, the Commander could not see where the weapon's magazine was. At first, he thought this gun was some sort of exotic-looking bolt-action or semi-automatic battle rifle like the M1 Garand. That thought was quickly washed away as he saw that the weapon was too short to be a precision rifle, yet too big to be a submachine gun. Despite being weirdly-designed, he gotta admit, this gun looked pretty cool.

Adams then looked into the second photo, this one contained some writings on the side of the gun.

"UNSC again... Misriah Armory... MA37... 7.62 mm NATO... So this gun's ammo has the same diameter as most service rifles, huh.", the Commander mused over the details in the photograph. "What do the guys in the armory have to say about this... rifle?"

The Royal battleship smirked a bit as she recounted the armorers' reactions when they tinkered with the weapon. "Simply put, they were, and still are, in love with it."

Commander Adams raised an eyebrow in amusement. As far as he knew, the boys in the armory were very proud, if not a bit arrogant, of their expertise and were not that easy to be impressed. When the world was still whole before being divided into two separate factions, those same guys had been trying out and working on many firearms made by every nation. So far, no weapon had succeeded in making the base's armorers astonished, as they would always find out issues with the guns, from design flaws to reliability issues. To make those grumpy proud armorers fell in love meant that this MA37 rifle had to be truly amazing.

"Care to elaborate?"

"Well, aside from the lack of iron sights or any sighting device, the armorers praised the MA37 for its excellent ergonomics and handling, relatively lightweight, as well as its very well-thought-out design. They also managed to find the rifle's magazine release and selector switch for firing modes, both of which are ambidextrous, making the weapon very user-friendly. The weapon's magazine is located in the back, making it a bullpup rifle similar to how the Thorneycroft carbine was designed back in 1901. After further tinkering, they also found that the bulky part on top of the rifle is actually a device which counts the weapon's ammo, which is 32, while also working as a compass. When the armorers brought this MA37 to the range, they found that this gun features some sort of recoil-dampening mechanism as when they fired it, the recoil was very manageable unlike other firearms that use 7.62 mm or .30 caliber ammunition."

After she's done with her report, Prince of Wales then took out another piece of paper and placed it on the Commander's table, this one looked more like a request form. "The men are waiting for your permission to put the rifle through some torture tests."

"Denied.", Adams immediately deadpanned. "The gun's owner just experienced a horrible event last night and still hasn't woken up yet. I know they are experts and all but this gun right here is still an unknown piece of technology. What if they accidentally broke it? It would be extremely rude, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, Commander.", the blonde battleship nodded and put the form back into her folder. She had already seen this coming when the guys in the armory sent her this request form along with the reports regarding the aircraft and the weapon found. Prince of Wales could understand the excitement of getting a new "toy" but in her eyes, messing around with a stranger's weapon who was both mortally wounded and did not give her consent was just borderline taboo. The only reason why she made an exception this time was because she was tasked with finding out the origin of the three mysterious guests who made a dramatic entrance last night, and the battleship would do anything within her power to accomplish it.

The Royal battleship then sat back down on her chair after finishing her part, hinting Adams to call the last person, Chief Nursing Officer Colonel Helen Smith, to give her report. "Let's move on, now. Colonel, if you please?"

The medical officer said her thanks to Adams as she began her part. "Thank you, Commander. For the sake of saving everyone's time, I will keep my report as brief as possible."

The others in the room nodded in appreciation. Despite this meeting being an important one, they still had other duties to tend to. It also didn't help that this meeting had been dragging on for quite some time now, so the sooner it ended the better.

"Thanks to Ms. Vestal, we found out that all three patients are in fact kansens, but for the time being we still have no explanation as to why two of them looked exactly the same as HMS Javelin and USS Enterprise. Preliminary examination showed that before the crash, all patients had already applied first aid, evidenced by the bandages and some sort of white space-filling coagulant. We managed to stabilize all three patients, though intensive care is still needed as their injuries are all life-threatening, except for the pilot girl who looked like HMS Javelin. She got herself some bruises on her body, minor scrapes on her hands, face, and a broken leg, and the penetrating injury on her stomach caused by, according to first responders, a big piece of metal has been treated in time. She's expected to wake up soon, sir."

Commander Adams absentmindedly released a sigh of relief that he didn't know he was holding. That was good news as he would soon have one of the guests enlighten him on the unanswered questions surrounding this whole mess.

"What about the other two?", the Commander asked.

The medical officer softened her facial features considerably, showing an expression not unlike that of grief. With a heavy sigh, she softly spoke. "Very bad, Commander. Although I just said that we managed to stabilize the patients, the remaining two still haven't gotten out of danger yet. The kitsune one is missing a left fox ear, some of her tails, and a left pinky finger. We later discovered that she also has a cauterized hole the size of a tennis ball on her right shoulder after we removed the mentioned coagulant. In addition, her face has numerous cuts and she has three broken bones in her rib cage as well as a fractured skull, probably caused by the impact of the crash."

Colonel Smith paused to let everyone register the information she just said. The cauterized wound that she mentioned sounded similar to the kind of injury some people suffered from Siren laser weaponries during the early days of the war. However, there was just one small problem.

"I don't recall seeing any hole caused by lasers on the wreckage.", Prince of Wales said as she put a finger under her chin in a thinking manner. If this kitsune woman suffered from such a wound, surely there must have been at least one hole going through the aircraft's body when the Sirens opened fire on it.

Years of fighting against the Sirens had shown that no matter how armored a ship was, the aliens' laser beams would always punch through, whether it was a human ship or a kansen's ship form. Sure, aside from gutting human soldiers and sometimes lightly armored PT boats, the anti-personnel laser guns obviously did nothing when put against any other naval vessels that were not mere boats; but never throughout the war had the Sirens used such weapons against those vessels. They had anti-ship laser batteries designed specifically to counter those threats.

However, as if it was some sort of a sick joke, that powerful type of weapon the Sirens loved to use against ships actually caused far less casualties compared to other conventional ones like missiles, torpedoes, or cannon rounds. Usually, when a ship got hit by a laser beam, that same laser would just over-penetrate and exit on the other side of the ship. Of course, everything and everyone that stood on its path would get vaporized instantly but it was still far better than having the whole ship blown up, killing everyone onboard. Another great thing was that there seemed to be a rather lengthy cooldown period between shots, and each shot lasted for about five seconds. So, as long as the ships could withstand those five seconds of being gutted by a scorching hot laser beam, they would have a chance to survive and retaliate.

There were still some instances where ships weren't that lucky, though. There were reports of ships lost to Sirens' lasers where the beams penetrated the hull and hit the ships' magazines, causing the ammunition stored inside to detonate and, as a result, destroy those same unfortunate ships. The Sirens weren't stupid either as they quickly caught on and since then had changed their strategy regarding the use of laser batteries. Instead of recklessly firing the beams at long range as soon as they were ready and switching to conventional weapons during cooldown periods, they would use the latter in pretty much every engagement while patiently wait for the ships to come closer and show their sides, and only then would they unleash their laser projectiles at where the magazines usually located. That was why all human vessels were now used as escorts for kansens and whenever the Elite Sirens were spotted, they would stay back and let the kansens handle the threats.

"Maybe she had already gotten shot by a Siren before boarding that aircraft?", Private Anderson suggested. It was the most logical explanation to this, as the only possible way to get such an injury was to get shot by a Siren anti-personnel laser gun. Coupled with the fact that the aircraft she arrived in didn't have any laser holes on its body meant that she got shot outside the plane, probably before embarking it like Anderson said. But that begged another question.

What were the kitsune doing in Siren's territory in the first place?

"We're getting sidetracked here, everyone.", Commander Adams sternly said. He then directed his sight towards Colonel Smith. "What about the Enterprise look-alike, Colonel?"

The medical officer replied with another heavy sigh. "Way worse than the kitsune patient, Commander. Numerous third and fourth-degree burns in various areas, numerous cuts and bruises, a punctured lung, a cauterized hole in the stomach just like the kitsune girl, and a severely broken leg that Ms. Vestal herself is still considering whether we should amputate it to save the poor girl."

Ms. Smith put away her paper and, with a heavy face and soft voice, concluded her report with a little piece of her mind. "This Enterprise look-alike girl's heart has stopped beating for three times in the last three hours, Commander. She literally died and came back to life, not once, not twice, but three times. And each time her heart did that, Ms. Vestal had a panic attack, despite knowing the woman lying on the surgical bed is not really her friend, USS Enterprise. We have used up everything we have available and we're still trying to get whatever resources other hospitals can spare. The fact that we managed to get her and the kitsune patient stabilized enough is already a miracle."

Her report was met with shocked faces and wide-eyes from everyone presented. They had already prepared themselves when the Colonel said that these two particular patients were in very bad shape, but they did not expect the situation to be this bad. Moreover, based on everyone's reaction to the news, it was sufficient to say that Prince of Wales was the most affected by it, mainly because of the amputation part.

Aside from being parts that allowed them to walk around like normal people, kansens' legs also served as their propellers and rudders whenever they deployed their riggings. While other parts of the body were equally as important, the legs were still the most critical for a kansen, second only to the head. The explanation for this was very simple. When a normal ship's propellers or rudders malfunctioned or got taken out by torpedoes, that ship was already dead as it would become a big hunk of metal for the enemy to practice their aim. The same also applied to kansens. No matter how agile they were, when their legs got badly wounded, it's game over.

That's why the blonde Royal battleship got greatly disturbed when she heard that all three visitors from last night were all kansens and one of them might need to have her leg removed. For a kansen, to have even one of her legs removed was basically the same as retiring the poor girl from active duty, which led to her being decommissioned, turning her into a war veteran living a normal boring civilian life.

And no kansen in her right mind would want to live such a life.

Thankfully, Commander Adams was anything but a cold-hearted man like most of the other military officers. He always looked after the kansens under his command, which was why he tried his best to make sure that all of the girls would be in their best shape both physically and mentally before going to battle; or else they would be ordered to stay until he personally deemed them suitable for combat.

In addition, he had already come up with plans to support the kansens in case they were forced to retire. Hopefully, he wouldn't have to take those plans out from his desk anytime soon.

"Alright.", Adams nodded firmly and straightened his back, effectively gaining everyone's attention. He then addressed each person one by one. "Private, you're dismissed. Get some rest, you'll need it for tonight."

"Yes, sir."

"Colonel, tell Vestal that she has my word that more assistance is coming. Even though they are kansens of unknown allegiance, we still cannot afford to lose them. We need answers and they are the only ones who can give us that."

"Of course, Commander."

"Wales, you're to greet Illustrious, Unicorn, Enterprise, Queen Elizabeth and her entourage in place of Belfast. Take Cleveland with you too while you're at it."

"Aye, Commander."

"Good. You have your orders, everyone. Dis-"

Just as Adams was about to send everyone away, the brown wooden double doors to his office busted open, startling everyone as they all stood up and directed their eyes towards the doors. Standing in the middle of the doorway with sweat dripping down her face was USS Maryland, an Eagle Union battleship. Despite being a good kansen in terms of firepower and raw strength, her slow speed made it quite detrimental when sortied with a fleet on Sirens extermination missions. That's why she was mainly kept as the base's chief of security and occasionally sortied with small teams for commissions.

"Mary? Is something wrong?", Commander Adams inquired with a look of concern.

"Commander...", the redhead battleship said between gasps of air. "...the patients..."

Now it was Colonel Smith's turn to be alarmed. She took a step forward and asked hurriedly. "What's wrong with them, Ms. Maryland?"

"One... One of them... just woke up."


SIREN COMBINED HEADQUARTERS

UNKNOWN LOCATION

UNKNOWN DATE

UNKNOWN TIME

When the war dubbed the Siren War first broke out in the summer of 1933, humanity rapidly got overwhelmed by a far more superior alien force called the Sirens. First, they took control of the majority of Earth's various seas, effectively severed international trade routes and disabled the world's navies. From there, they launched numerous air attacks from their mass-produced carriers, claiming numerous lives and wiping countries after countries off the map, sparing only eight countries for some unknown reason. Despite their best efforts to at least buy some extra time for civilians to evacuate, militaries around the world could not stand for even two hours against Siren attacks. It seemed that the day the Sirens successfully took over the world was just over the horizon, and everyone, civilians and soldiers, began to lose morale.

However, in November of the same year, despite being on a perfect winning streak, the Sirens just stopped their advance and decided to play defensively. Although the temptation to strike back at the Sirens at that time was great, military leaders around the world were smart enough to not send what was left of their militaries to their deaths.

The intelligence agencies of the world were also busy scrambling to try and get even the tiniest bit of clue that led to this strange behavior but they all came back empty-handed. What they did find, though, was a seemingly abandoned Siren-made cargo ship drifting in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. At first, everyone thought it was some sort of trap rigged to send any search party who dared to board the ship to kingdom come, but thankfully that was not the case. After careful examination that took a whole week to make sure no traps were hidden inside the vessel, it was towed back to a top secret naval facility in Royal Isles under heavy guard consisting of aircraft carriers, battleships, heavy and light cruisers, and destroyers, their exact number was never disclosed. As soon as the ship arrived, scientists from every surviving nation immediately dove in to find anything that could help them win against the alien menace. Unlike the intelligence spooks, the science teams struck gold.

Tons of Wisdom Cubes, the foundation to create humanoid Sirens, as well as schematics and instructions on how to create one. Of course, anyone with a working brain would never create a humanoid Siren right in their backyard as doing so was basically trying to remove themselves from the gene pool. Thus, with the magic of reverse engineering, 1935 marked the year the first eight kansens, each representing her own country of origin, were introduced to the world. That year also saw the revival of something that had been lost a long time ago among the remaining population.

Hope.

Two years later, in 1937, after building for themselves a sizable fleet of kansens, human forces headed for the seas once again, this time to reclaim what was lost. Heavy resistances were met, sacrifices were made, lives were lost, only this time it was not for nothing.

After three years of non-stop fighting, in the spring of 1940, a major assault on the last Siren's stronghold on Earth was carried out by kansens and surviving human forces from every country. More blood was spilled in all fronts across the globe and finally, for the first time since the war broke out, humanity managed to push back Siren forces and reclaimed what was taken away from them. By now, according to global intelligence agencies, the only Siren-occupied territories were two-thirds of the Indian Ocean, Kara Sea, and one-third of the Arctic Ocean. To every human out there, it seemed that the day when all Sirens got eliminated was just around the corner.

Or so they thought.

Observer hummed in silent amusement as she looked through the data collected from a pair of patrol drones that just returned a few hours ago. No matter how many times she and her "comrades" had played this game of "gathering data through destruction and resurrection", humans never failed to entertain her. In each timeline, no matter how overwhelmed the odds were stacked against them, humans would always foolishly fight till their last dying breath. After that, Siren forces would just go in, finish off what was left of humanity in that timeline, before creating a whole new timeline with some tweaks here and there, courtesy of Tester. Every time they did that, they would give away some pieces of their own technology to give the humans a slight edge in combating them, and the cycle would repeat itself.

There were other ways to gather data without involving a whole species, yes, but it was by far the best and most effective way of doing it. By pushing the humans to their absolute limits over and over again, the Sirens managed to collect an extremely impressive amount of knowledge, with each one leagues better than the last. Observer and her lackeys never knew what these data would be used for aside from the Arbiters, but she did not care. She had her order and she would carry it out.

Besides, it was very fun to watch these over-developed and entitled swine struggle.

Observer raised an eyebrow as she watched the recording detailing the recent engagement of the drones with an unknown jet plane. Originally, those two jets were sent to snoop around that base in Hawaii then rendezvous with the fleet of mass-produced ships led by those two vixens from Japan, or Sakura Empire as the humans in this timeline liked to call it. However, that plan had met a roadblock when a singularity happened. A singularity that involved the aforementioned jet.

This green, big, blocky, rugged-looking aircraft looked nothing like any aircraft available in both humans and Sirens' arsenals, and yet it just appeared out of nowhere. Because the unknown aircraft were doing multiple aerobatic maneuvers to try and shake its pursuits off its tail, Observer had a slight difficulty making out its features. What she did see, though, was that this plane was obviously manmade, judging by the cockpit windows seen in the front.

She immediately thought about The Prototype. Latest updates said that jet planes had been spotted taking off from that kansen's flight deck, so this singularity might be one of those. But that thought was quickly extinguished as up till now, no mirror sea event had been detected anywhere in the world. Also, if any kansen over there had appeared here in this timeline, Arbiters and Enforcers would have had knocked on her doors already.

Seeing none of those two happened, Observer chalked it off as some simple stray singularity and closed the report. For now, just to be safe, she would observe it, gather some intel, and then assign Purifier to get rid of it.

Unfortunately for Observer, her dismissive action would be the start of a chain of events that would change the course of history forever. Had she read the whole report, she would have been more careful about the whole situation and possibly avoided unforeseen consequences.

In the last lines of the report, it said that the drones detected a friendly signal coming from the unknown aircraft.

A Siren, an extremely powerful one, was onboard.


A/N: I don't have much time so I'll keep it short.

To all of my beloved readers, I would like to say thank you for your support. I know that you all are eager to know what will happen in the next future chapters but I'm afraid I have some bad news.

At first, this story as well as my other two other stories would be updated very quickly, maybe a chapter per week, as I had finished my university summer term. However, the COVID situation in my area had deteriorated very fast in the past three months and now, the whole city is under very strict lockdown. It doesn't help that the manpower needed to maintain order and such is not that great so the authority had to turn to civilian volunteers. I guess you know where I'm getting at, right?

Do not be worried though, I will still continue writing my stories, it's just that it will take much, much, much longer to update since I have tons of work to do now and I have only like 4 hours of free time per day. So please, bear with me, chapters are coming, I will not pull the plug on any story and leave my audience hanging.

Again, thank you so much for your support, and I'll see you in the next one.

Take care, everyone!