Chapter 14

Supposedly, Kansen could 'retire' in a sense. Obviously, back in her world that luxury wasn't given to anyone, as they were hard-pressed enough already, all forces needed against the Siren threat. Only old ships such as Constitution could have that glorious treatment, but only because she served as morale for everyone else in the Eagle Union. Minneapolis hadn't interacted with her for quite some time now, but she clearly remembered her nagging at her to 'dress properly'. She did make good cookies though, so it's not like she completely disliked her, just a bit ambivalent toward her in general.

"Is that her? The carrier Bismarck was talking about?"

Hanazuki had followed her along on her journey to find Intrepid, who apparently got the same 'retirement' that Constitution got. A carrier as new and powerful as her getting that treatment was almost impossible to think about, and yet, Minneapolis saw a banner draped over her hull as she approached her.

"Yeah…a museum huh? I wonder what happened to me in this world?"

The last part was said to herself, but considering the fates of others she knew from Belfast, a part of her didn't want to know what happened to her in this reality. Just as Bismarck said though, there were signs of battle damage on Intrepid's hull, scorch marks and parts of her hangar were blown open, but otherwise intact. Now close enough, the two of them jumped up onto her deck. Looking around, aside from the wrecks of planes and firefighting equipment, the deck was completely empty. Not exactly the kind of welcome she expected-

"MINNEAPOLIS!"

Turning around rapidly, the heavy cruiser saw Intrepid sprinting right at her, before leaping up into the air to embrace her in a hug. Instinctively sidestepping away, the carrier was left to faceplant onto her deck as the two of them watched on in a deadpan.

"Ow! Is that really the way to greet your long-lost friend?!"

"...It's good to see you too, Intrepid."

After getting up and dusting herself off, Minneapolis and Hanazuki found out that she knew about their appearance from television. The local news had reported on their appearances extensively, so much so that she was able to know of their existence through the television in the staff room.

"Eh? So, you're from the world Bismarck is actually from?"

As far as she knew, yes. Unlike her, they never 'reincarnated' in this world or anything like that, the mirror sea brought them here for some reason. "It's what we know so far, you at least look and act the same as the Intrepid in my world. Do you know anyone else that's still around?"

She nodded quickly, so there were more of them still around. "I don't know much about Kansen from the other nations, but a bunch of us from the war are still around. There's New Jersey close by, then there's also Massachusetts up north…Yorktown and Hornet are still around, North Carolina as well-ah, there's a list somewhere! So, you planning on finding all of them?"

Not exactly, that was their original plan, but things had changed now. She still wanted to at least meet them though. "Well…sorta. Bismarck has told you about 'Azur Lane' right?"

Another nod, good, she didn't have to explain it.

"Basically, she's started a new Azur Lane in this world, and we're gonna be in it."

"WHAT?!"

Minneapolis and Hanazuki winced at her shout, her stare was accusatory now as she shifted her gaze toward Bismarck's hull far off into the distance.

"And she didn't even invite me?!"

Scratching her head sheepishly, she could already think of a couple of reasons why Bismarck didn't extend her an invitation, not yet anyways. "I mean, you're not exactly…here? No offence Intrepid, but you can't exactly…" She wanted to say fight, but that wasn't exactly accurate. It was more like she wasn't able to use her hull or rigging at all.

"Damn…you're right. Argh! You're telling me I could be out there sailing like you? How do you even get to do…whatever you do anyways?"

Oh, well that was easy, they used the power of Wisdom Cubes-wait. She had one right now!

"Uhhhhh, let's head below decks first, I want to try something…"

Now below decks, Hanazuki had cautioned her if she really wanted to use it, but she was testing a 'theory' right now. If hulls could be made into fully-fledged Kansen by cube alone, perhaps it was also going to work for Intrepid?

"Alright, we're as private as we can be right now, what did you want to try again?"

Instead of replying, Minneapolis just took out the one cube she had stored inside her rigging and showed it to Intrepid. As she was enraptured by the blue glowing cube, she explained what it was. "The Wisdom Cube, it's how we Kansen are able to fight in these forms. So now, I wanna try and see if it's going to work, don't move."

"Don't move? Why exactly-eep!"

Unceremoniously shoving the cube right into her chest, her hand and cube passed right into her body, and sure enough, there was a reaction. The Wisdom Cube began glowing intensely, blue lights spread throughout Intrepid's hull as it seemingly reacted to her-

"I…can feel my hull! I can move a bit of it!"

Soon after she said that however, the light began dying down, and the blue glow that was characteristic of a transformation from hull to rigging gone completely. Even the Wisdom Cube returned back to its original state, and Intrepid's expression was one of extreme confusion.

"Eh? The feeling's gone…but I just felt it! I could move my rudder and control my engines…where did it go?!"

Hanazuki looked at Minneapolis with a hand under her chin. "We know it definitely reacted…but only for a brief moment. Perhaps it was due to there not being enough cubes?"

Now that Minneapolis thought about it, that could honestly have been the case. While every Kansen had 'one' cube that represented themselves, in order for their bodies to be formed in the first place, there had to be a lot of 'lesser' cubes fed into a big one that formed the basis for each individual Kansen. With Intrepid being part of the Essex class, a fleet carrier, the number of cubes needed for her was probably more than one singular cube.

"Oh come on, really?! Well, do you have any more of them?"

Minneapolis shook her head, all they found was only one cube, and she wasn't sure where they could get anymore in this world. Sucking in a deep breath, Intrepid appeared to be in deep thought, only for her to suddenly widen her eyes a dozen seconds later.

"Wait, I've felt that energy before! Follow me!"

As she enthusiastically ran further into her hull, Minneapolis and Hanazuki looked at each other in confusion before shrugging and followed along. Going down multiple levels and through bulkheads that should most definitely have been closed, they eventually reached the engine room.

"Do you know who Howard Stark is?"

"Nope."
"I do not, apologies."

"Ah, doesn't matter. What you need to know is that he's an inventor who worked on my engines after the war. He added something in that felt very familiar to what that Wisdom Cube thing was…here."

She pointed at a sealed box with cables running to each individual boiler below them. Walking towards it, she placed her hand on it before explaining further.

"Anyways, I watched him install a device that somehow powered all of my engines for an brief while without fuel, it's still here, so I was wondering if you could test it out…"

Minneapolis got what she was saying. Walking forwards, she began looking for a seal or lock to open-

"Oh, just break it. They welded it shut decades ago."

They…welded it shut? Whatever it was then, they certainly didn't want anyone finding out. Summoning her rigging, she then dug into the box with her bare fingers, easily going through the steel box and making a hole deep enough into it. What it revealed was…

"What is this thing?"

Inside was the magazine of a gun, at least she thought it was based on its looks. There was no feeder for it however, just some connector point like a battery, but somehow shaped like it was meant to be loaded into a weapon. It was stuck inside a port with cables and other circuitry running around it, deciding to gingerly pick it up, it came off the docking area easily with a click. Inspecting it, there was nothing special about it, but when they flipped it around-

"That's…the symbol of Hydra! What's something like that doing inside my hull?"

A symbol of a skull with six tentacles beneath it was imprinted onto the magazine-like object she held in her hands. Above it was another engraving, it read: 'U.S. Army Property' in big bold letters. Other than that however, there was nothing else to denote where it came from or what it was for, Intrepid however seemed to know something about it.

"You know what this is?"

Her lips thinned as she thought of an answer, it seemed to be something she didn't like talking about.

"It's something I don't know much about, some of the others who were mainly in the Atlantic probably know much more than I do. But the gist is that it was a German-Ironblood for you, a research group that designed experimental weapons. So that was the last thing I ever expected to be in there…"

Experimental weapons and Ironblood were basically the same thing, everyone knew them for that so it wasn't anything significant. Shrugging her shoulders, Minneapolis held out the cube for her to see again.

"So, you want to see if it's anything similar?"

With an affirmative from her, she decided to just slot the cube into the port hoping that it was going to work-

Vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

…To her complete surprise, it did work. The moment the Wisdom Cube touched the port, all of the engines around them suddenly started powering on, causing Intrepid to jump in surprise.

"It really did work! See, it is the same thing! Do you think Howard had a Wisdom Cube or something like that? It may lead us to getting more of those things."

It was an avenue worth exploring, but first things first, where was this 'Howard Stark' currently? "We can try asking, where is he currently?"

Her expression lost a bit of its excitement as she adopted a melancholic expression. "Ah, he died in a car accident more than twenty years ago now, buuuuut…there is his son, and if his reputation is correct, he's an inventor as well."

So she wanted them to go and find his son, sure, why not? But they still needed a name. She spoke again before Minneapolis could ask.

"You want to go find Tony Stark if the news is correct, I think Bismarck is already well acquainted with him. Besides, he wears this red and gold armour everywhere, you can't miss him!"

Red and gold armour…wait, wasn't he the guy-

"I think we've already met him…let's go back and find Bismarck, I'm sure she will want to know of this." Hanazuki stated. Finding herself in agreement, the two of them bade goodbye to Intrepid and began making their way back to where Bismarck was moored. Unbeknownst to them, however, a small drone high above the skies of Manhattan recorded their every move, and with its mission complete, it disappeared back into the skies. The two Kansen were none the wiser about their watcher in the skies.

SHIELD R&D Laboratory
Washington D.C

Among the world's premier espionage and intelligence organizations, few were as well funded and advanced as SHIELD, that primarily was a result of its R&D divisions pumping out technologies that were once considered science fiction. From the Helicarrier's reflective panelling to state-of-the-art cyber capabilities, it wasn't a stretch to say that without them, SHIELD was nowhere as effective as they were now. Unfortunately, their latest assignment completely stumped the team responsible for 'it'.

"That's it, I'm about to submit a request to brute force this thing, there is no way we're ever going to-"

"No, no, we haven't tried everything yet! Come on, give us a little more time-"

"We've been at this for WEEKS! I'm tired, this damn box isn't ever going to open!"

This sort of exchange became commonplace after the second week, as no matter what they tried, whether it was using a regular crowbar, finding an access point to hack it open or even straight up playing a bunch of sounds to see if it was voice-activated, the 'box' before them did not even show an inkling of being opened. It stared at them like it was laughing at all of their prowess and skill, like a monolith that stood standing no matter what. The brute force method was avoided because they knew something was inside of it, and unfortunately, those methods tended to either damage or destroy the things inside.

"Hey, have we tried anything from the PEGASUS project? It's going to get shelved anyways, so we might as well use it before it gets stored for good."

The PEGASUS project was supposed to be their crown jewel until it was unceremoniously announced to be cancelled two days ago. Mankind's newest form of renewable energy, gone forever. What small progress that had in harnessing Iso-8 was only saved in small test samples, and Hydra supposedly had entire factory lines building weapons using it. Sighing, one of the scientists decided to sate his curiosity and took out a small saved sample of Iso-8 in a battery container for use.

"I'm just going to stick it on the lock, what's the worst that can happen-"

HISS

To their complete surprise, the box made a loud hissing noise, as air was presumably let out from being sealed shut. Eyes widened, and even some of the researchers jumped back in shock. Soon, the hissing gave way to movement, and a golden light shone forth from inside the box. As everyone there crowded around it, the box completely opened, revealing…

"Is that…a miniature steering wheel?"

As one researcher wore gloves to pick it up gently, the others all looked at it in confusion. It was indeed, a miniature steering wheel attached to a hydraulics box. A piece of paper was also found neatly folded inside, and another researcher opened it to read it out aloud.

"...Crockheed hydraulic steering gear Mk.1?"

Inside were also instructions on how to install them into 'any ship of your desire' and it even had instructions for 'autonomous sailing mode' available, whatever that meant.

As they all inspected the miniature model, another researcher had a bright idea. "Hey, they gave us six other of these boxes right? Why don't…we open all of them?"

Excited shouts rang out across the laboratory, as the other boxes that were found in the ocean were brought out and opened. The same motions were repeated, but this time, the object that was found inside was…

"Is that…a toolkit?"

As the plain-looking toolkit was brought out, each part of it was inspected. The conclusion that they were regular toolkits was quickly reached, nothing was special about them. A disappointment to be sure, but they had five other boxes to open, so there was still a high chance to find interesting things.

A box was opened, revealing an identical toolkit.

And another, followed by a toolkit, and another, with the same item being revealed. This process repeated itself until the last box was opened, leaving them with six identical toolkits from all of the opened boxes. One of the researchers, frustrated that all of their efforts were apparently spent trying to open boxes containing toolkits of all things, let out a cry of despair.

"WHO EVEN PUTS TOOLKITS IN THESE BOXES?! WHO?!"

"Hey wait, these are all addressed to someone named 'Akashi', it says so on the shipping document inside…"

Indeed, all seven boxes had the same shipping label addressed to someone named Akashi, but that begged another question.

WHY DID SHE ORDER SIX TOOLKITS IN SECURE BOXES?!

AN:

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