Chapter 2: A New Home
"The preparations for the welcoming party are nearly complete! I think we will have time to spare. Have we gotten an update on the arrival of the commander?" said a silver-haired woman in a maid outfit with round glasses.
"I believe that we have around two hours before his arrival, Edinburgh. Even if we are done, we must make the area presentable to our new commander," replied an equally silver-haired woman in a maid outfit.
"Bel, I'm requested by the queen to take care of some chores. Please if you can, put up the welcoming sign before the commander's arrival."
"You can leave it to me. Sheffield." Belfast called out.
Yet another maid who was busy setting up the table looked at her. Her hair was a platinum blonde kept up in a braid, her face seemingly emotionless as if she is an android with human skin.
"Yes, Belfast."
"I want you to help me put up the welcoming banner once we are done setting up the place."
"As you wish."
The door to the banquet room opened up filling the room with the sun's bright lights which directed all of the maid's eyes to the door. A tall lady in a fancy white dress and a sun hat with equally white hair walked into the room. Alongside her is a little girl with purple hair and wearing a white dress. In her hands was a white unicorn plush.
"Ah, Illustrious. Hello Unicorn. What brings two here?" questioned Belfast.
"We are checking out if the banquet was ready for our new commander," answered Illustrious. "The draperies and tables look great so far. What do you think, Unicorn?"
"It… looks good," she said shyly. Her face was hiding behind her plush as if she was trying to bury her head deep into her stuffed unicorn. Illustrious smiled at the sound of her response.
"Belfast? Do you know who will be taking charge of guiding the commander around the Royal Navy residence? If there isn't a candidate for it, I can volunteer to guide him around. I really want to know about this commander that everyone is gossiping about."
"That won't be necessary, Lady Illustrious. The Queen has already assigned me as the one who will guide the commander around. If you would like me to share my knowledge on what I can gather from the commander, I'll be more than happy to oblige," she said as she curtsied with a polite bow.
"Thank you, Bel. This is why you are chosen as the head maid of the Royal Navy."
"You flatter me, Lady Illustrious."
"I have a question for you Bel. Have you heard anything else about this new commander?"
The head maid took a second to think before she was able to answer. "Sorry, but I haven't gotten too much on who this commander is or what his life was before he has been in the war."
"I see. Well, I guess asking will be harder since he is the one who asked for making him sound like a shady stranger. Also, if you don't mind asking. What did the maids plan on bringing to the party?"
"Oh, us maids will be providing mainly the desserts, but as for the main course we will be providing the banquet with eel jelly, beef, wellington, royal gourmet pies, and some more."
"Oh I see," said Illustrious with a sort of worried look on her face. "Well, it's been nice talking to you Belfast. Take care of yourself, try not to push yourself too hard."
"Do not worry Lady Illustrious. As head maid, I can assure you that something like this is nothing more than tedious work."
"Have a… good day Miss Bel," said Unicorn. Her head was no longer buried in her plush and her face showed a shy expression.
Bel showed a friendly smile on her face before responding, "Thank you Lady Unicorn. I wish you a good day. I will see you both at the banquet I suppose."
"We will both definitely be there to greet the new commander," assured the white-haired carrier. "Come on now Unicorn. We have a meeting with the others in a few minutes."
Both of the carriers left the scene with the door closing behind them.
It was pitch black. The back of their head didn't feel like the cushion that he rested his head on when he fell asleep. His eyes were hard to open. The place felt like it was pivoting back and forth as if he was laying in the middle of a seesaw. His head felt sore, lingering with pain at the back of his head. He felt a cold sensation run across his face. He rose up from his sleeping platform and forced open his eyes to see what caused the uncomfortable feeling. He looked around the room to see that he was sleeping in a hospital bed, the room painted white with waxed stone flooring, along with a desk with medical supplies. To his right, Monroe was sitting there with a wet rag in his hand.
"Geez, you seriously tell me if you are awake before you do that."
"Sorry, Monroe."
Monroe was one of the ship's corpsmen. He was still inexperienced, but he still helps around. He touched his head to feel that it was covered in bandages.
"Where am I?"
"You are in the sickbay obviously, unless you injure your occipital lobe during the attack."
"Attack? What attack?"
"Looks like you got retrograde amnesia. Here's the rundown of what happened. You were giving orders to the crew up on the deck since the commander got riddled with bullets due to enemy fighters. With your leadership, we were able to fend off a relatively large attack yada, yada. The same thing that you would do as a lieutenant commander. Although your actions drastically impacted the repelling of the enemy fleet, you didn't take a loss too well."
"What happened? What do you mean loss? We won right?"
"No we won, it's just…" He paused for a second before he continued, "The enemy had their cavalry drop their load near us. Thankfully, almost all of them missed. But, the shock from the blast had Stiles swept from the deck."
"Wait. Is that what happened? No, it can't be right?"
Monroe shook his head in the sound of Shikikan's disbelief.
"Have we found him yet?"
"There was a search and rescue team looking for Stiles, but when the team came back, he was the only person that didn't make it back."
"No, no, no."
Shikikan kept on repeating the word as if it was going to bring his friend Stiles back. Monroe had to find a way to keep his mouth shut so he slapped him in the face.
"Snap out of it. You have better things to do than worry about. Stiles is gone and you have to accept that he is gone. There is nothing that we can do but move on with our lives. You have to accept the fact that we will be losing people, we are in a war. Not everyone makes it out alive."
Shikikan sighed at the sound of Monroe's reasoning. He put his hands up to his face and took a deep breath.
"So what is happening now? Commander Lenard is dead, who is the commander of the ship now?"
"I believe that you would want to get up to meet the commander in person. He is a bit of an asshole, but he knows what to do at these trying times in this war. A great person really."
Shikikan got up from the bed and got on his two feet. A soon as he landed on them, he dropped to the floor. His head in pain, the walls to him looked as if they are being stretched out like clay. He clamped his hands on the two sides of his head as if he was going insane. Finally, it stopped.
"Dude, you okay?"
"I think I'm good. Just a small migraine. Could be worse."
Monroe smiled for a moment before presenting Shikikan a bottle of Tylenol.
"Need this?"
"Yeah, that will probably help."
He took the bottle of Tylenol and gave himself two pills before swallowing them without any issue.
"Well, how long are you going to sit your ass on the ground?"
Shikikan got up feeling slightly better. He and Monroe left to go to the deck, passing by a few crew members who were about to say something about Shikikan but were quickly hushed by Monroe.
"What are they talking about?"
"They were talking about how Captain Winters is on this ship right now and how we are going back to port for repairs."
"Oh, Captain Winters is here? What for?"
"You will know once we get to see the commander."
They reached the deck to see that all of the recruits and seamen are lined up. Captain Winters was in front of all of them. He is saying something that isn't within earshot from the distance that they're at. As they are approaching Winters, all of the recruits looked towards the two. Winters glanced over at what they are looking at to then greet Shikikan.
"Ah, Shikikan. Congrats. You are now the commander of this ship."
"Wait, what?"
"You heard me right. You have been promoted to commander. You have been recognized for your leadership. You will be commissioned as commander after this ship has made full repairs. But as of right now, you will still be lieutenant and will be transferred over to another ship for the time being."
Shikikan turned over to Monroe in surprise. All Monroe could do was give him a slap on the back.
"Wait, did you just call me an asshole earlier?"
"No, I think you were hearing things," he laughed.
"Don't sass me like that."
Shikikan closed his eyes and took a breath to take in what he just witnessed. He has made history. His eyes briskly opened up to feel a hand tapping his shoulder.
"Sir? Sir?"
He has woken up to see that he was back where he was sitting. The flight attendant was the one who woke him up from his painful slumber. He glanced out the window to see that it was daytime and they are flying over the ocean. He came back to look at the flight attendant.
"Yes, what is it?"
"The president wanted to speak to you."
"Sis, don't you think that you are taking this too seriously?" said a concerned twin-tailed blondie.
"Hornet, I told you to not talk about this with me outside of our dorm room."
"Ever since you have attended that meeting, you have been restless with finding answers for our new commander."
"Hornet, I told you not to talk about this any further."
"Well, if you're looking for answers. Why not sign up for guiding the commander around?" said a voice in front of the two. Both of them rotated their heads to identify another carrier in a black dress, white hair, with a blue colored rose that stuck out like a sore thumb on the dress.
"Yorktown!" both of them said in unison.
Yorktown gave out a friendly smile at the sight of her two younger sisters.
"As I said Enty, why not sign up for guiding the commander around?"
"Well… sis, I thought about it, but there are better candidates that would do better at guiding the commander."
"You are giving up already Enty? That isn't very much like you at all."
"Yeah," agreed Hornet, "Why are you giving up?"
"Because I just don't have the inspiration or time to do that kind of thing," replied Enterprise.
"Well, there isn't a war going on as of right now and you did say you wanted answers from the new commander on how he got his rank in such an amount of time. So you have no reason to not consider signing up."
Enterprise started at Yorktown as if she just said something logical that she hasn't thought about which she did.
"The truth is, I'm afraid that I will give off a bad impression to the commander. All I think about is fighting and winning battles, nothing else. I still want to know more about the commander, but…"
"But, nothing. You will go and sign up for guiding the commander. There is no point in pondering about it when sign-ups are almost over."
Yorktown took her sister's hand and dragged her across the dorm towards the sign-up sheet which was on the first-floor entrance of the Eagle Union dormitory. On the sign-up sheet are only five names with their signatures: Cleveland, Baltimore, St. Louis, Bremerton, and North Carolina.
"Go on and put your name on the sheet. It's not like it will bite."
Enterprise stared at her sister for a second before turning towards the bulletin board with the many fliers and sign-up sheets on it. She took the pen that was attached to the bulletin board and signed her name on the board.
"There you go. It wasn't that hard was it now?" she said with a toothy smile on her face. Enterprise stared at her sister with contempt as if she was a small, immature child who was told by her mother that she is grounded. A few seconds later of Enterprise staring at her, Shangri-La came along to pick up the sign-up sheet. She analyzed the paper before turning to Enterprise, "You signed up for this Enterprise? I understand that you have complexity with those who fight well in a battle like Akagi, Essex, and Zuikaku. But, now you want to have conflicts with your superior?"
"That's not why I signed up. I just wanted answers."
"Hmm. That doesn't seem like you at all according to my notes."
"Say what now?"
"Nothing." She had a genuine smile on her face. She left with the sign-up sheet for the voting process.
"Well, let's hope that you win the popularity poll for guiding the commander around," said Yorktown.
"Yeah, that's if."
"You are pretty lucky, Enty. Have some faith."
"Faith huh?"
"Have we decided on who will represent the Iron Blood as the tour guide for our Kommandant?" said the German flagship.
"Ja, there are three. It is between me, Nimi, and Gneisenau," replied Eugen.
"How should we settle this, Eugen?"
"Hmm…" she said with her index finger on her bottom lip. "Whoever, you deem as the best for the job."
"You are just saying that to cause conflict between me and the other Iron Bloods."
"Ufufu, you know me too well."
Bismarck let out a sigh, she continued to ponder about the situation.
"Well, you could be a candidate for guiding the commander around as you are both bold and have a way with words."
Eugen chuckled, "Thanks for the compliment. As for the other two, both of them are good at interrogating and gathering information, so they might be able to get good notes from him. Speaking of, they might intimidate the commander if they say anything that will frighten him."
"I'd feel like it would be the other way around. Remember what we saw in the intel that we received? He is hurt mentally after the war."
"So are you trying to say that I will satisfy the commander in terms of putting him at ease? You are too kind, Bismarck."
"What I'm trying to say is that he has never seen anything like us before. Try to give a good impression not only for the organization but what we are."
Eugen clapped her hands together, "Well then it's settled. I will be the one guiding the commander around the Iron Blood residence. Have fun telling the other two on why you rejected them."
"Wait a second."
It was already too late. Eugen has left the room leaving Bismarck in the dark.
The sound of gunfire and bombs hitting the ocean surface flew across the beaches of the Sakura Empire residence. The sound of steel clashing against one another with the occasional sparks flying from them.
"I'm going to be the one to guide the commander around," demanded Atago
"Foolish dog, you don't stand a chance against the might of the first carrier division, Akagi," Akagi confidently said.
Nagato, Takao, and Kaga are watching off at the safety of eighty meters of the battle.
"Lady Nagato. Can you explain again why we need our older sisters to be fighting this one out?" Takao said.
"Is it not clear enough Takao? This is the best way to determine who is eligible to see who can guide the commander without any conflicts after someone gets picked. If Atago is picked, Akagi might not calm down if Atago does anything that upsets her."
"Are you sure this is the right decision? Atago seems outclassed by Akagi in terms of offensive and defensive capabilities," said Kaga.
A fleet of dive bombers flew across the ocean dropping their bombs around the heavy cruiser. Atago managed to maneuver around the airstrike, but a bomb managed to land around a meter from her knocking her on her side.
"I think that determines the battle-"
"Wait," said Takao.
Atago managed to maintain her balance after the blast and started rushing towards Akagi with her katana. Akagi had her fighters try to shoot her down but Atago's AA guns managed to destroy some of them. The distance between the two got smaller, Atago swung her katana at Akagi but only managed to cut a part of her red miniskirt. Akagi increased the distance between them.
"You pest." Akagi was furious. "This whole sea will be covered in my everlasting fires."
She sent out a large fleet of planes that started bombarding Atago. She only managed to shoot down a few planes, but the fleet was too much for her and got bombarded.
"Akagi, that enough," yelled Nagato.
Atago was barely standing.
"Someone take her to Akashi."
"Hold on."
Takao rushed to the ocean to retrieve her injured sister. Akagi was walking towards with a smile of triumph over the battle that she won and the reward that she got for it.
"Atago, are you okay."
She sighed and replied to her worried sister, "Yeah, I guess I lost."
"Can you stand? Do we need to take you to Vesta or Akashi?"
"I'll be fine. This is nothing but a small scratch."
"Okay, if you say so. We still need to take you to Akashi to make sure you haven't been damaged too much by that bombardment."
"Will I still be able to see the commander afterward?"
"That depends on Akashi, not me."
Takao had her sister in a pack-strap carry. She started heading toward Akashi's shop.
"Akagi, your actions could have been fatal towards your own colleagues. You are too reckless."
"Sorry Nagato, but I did what I needed to win."
Nagato sighed at the response of the kitsune. "For your actions, if Atago returns she will accompany you while you guide the commander around our residence."
Akagi frowned in response to the flagship's punishment.
"Yes, Nagato."
"Yes, Mr. President?"
The president was talking to one of his subordinates until he dismissed them. He rotated his head towards the commander who stood beside him.
"Hello Shikikan, you know how I told you about the gifts during our first talk?"
"Yes, Mr. President."
Shikikan was trying his best to impress the president. He wouldn't want to piss him off just like how he did with Captain Winters. The president called out to his secretary for the gift. His secretary left and returned with two large, silver-colored briefcases.
"You know how you touched that blue cube that you found."
"Yes sir."
He opened the case to reveal multiple rows of the blue cubes that he has mentioned. Shikikan's eyes popped wide open with the sight of the many cubes that he was presented with.
"Our scientists have discovered an anomaly of these cubes that were found near the shores. I can assure you that these will come in handy once you reach the island."
"Sir, I don't fully understand what these things do."
"My apologies, I should have started with the explanation. These are called wisdom cubes and are what caused the appearance of the humanoid ships that came out of nowhere. They appeared around the globe in specific countries. With that said, we all had them moved to an island and created the Azur Lane Organization. This is where you come into play. As of now, nobody was able to get these things to get to react the same way you got them to react. So as of now, when we get to your new base of operation, you will test out if the same reaction will cause these humanoid ships to appear along with their battle capabilities."
"Yes sir. I have a question, sir. How many of these humanoid ships are at the island?"
The president nodded, "Currently there are around ten to twenty of them per faction that we have mentioned in the papers that we gave you."
"So there are around forty or more of these humanoid ships. How will I be able to watch over them all?"
"Well, you are capable of watching over the many recruits and seamen on your ship, what difference do these humanoid ships have?"
"Well for starters, they have massive guns that they can spawn out of thin air. Two they are superhuman as they show great speed and strength as it said on the documents that you sent me. If they are undisciplined, they will provide a world of hell to take care of."
"Then you better get to know them well. If you befriend them and also treat them well in battle, they will follow every order you give."
"How come there aren't any other normal people working with me on this?"
"Oh, there will be. There are highly trained soldiers that will work with you as they will be guarding and maintaining the organization's facility that you will be working in. As for the workload, you can always ask for one of the humanoid ships to help you with your work of maintaining them."
Shikikan took a while to take in all of the things the president said about him and the new home and workplace that he will be in.
"Okay, so what is in the other briefcase?"
"Ah, this will be your paycheck for the month, a certain green, greedy cat and a humble shopkeeper will sell you things to help you with your time in your work."
He opened up the briefcase and revealed several small red gems.
"Wait, aren't these extremely valuable like diamonds or rubies?"
"Not exactly, they also appeared out of nowhere, like the Earth decided to create this new mineral right after the appearance of the human ships."
"So I pay with this?"
"Yeah, the cat specifically will charge you a good amount of these in exchange for the goods. Don't worry, she won't care about the worth of these things, she cares about having an abundance of these shiny minerals. Like a hoarder."
"Okay then, how many are in this case?"
"Around a thousand or so. Don't spend it all in one place. We will be giving you a paycheck via these gems every end of the month, along with your typical paycheck in the navy."
"Okay, that's a relief."
"We will be landing soon. There will be a welcoming party along with a tour of the island hosted by all factions."
"Thank you for the information, Mr. President."
Shikikan turned around to go back to his plane seat. A few minutes later, he looked out of the window to his right to see a lengthy bridge that connected to an island. That must be Azur Island then.
Another few minutes passed, the plane started to land. A flight attendant guided him out of the plane along with the president.
When they exited the plane, they are greeted by the many humanoid ships that resided on the island.
"Welcome to Azur Lane, Commander!" They all said in unison.
Both of them are walking down the stairs to the welcoming committee.
"Welcome to the island of the Amazons, Shikikan," said the president.
"You say what now?"
"Every single humanoid ship is a female. So try to keep your pants on."
"That won't be a problem. It won't be professional for me to be flirting with them."
The president had a smug look on his face.
"You are all tough talk. For someone your age, your biological instincts will kick in. So again try not to get into a relationship with any of you subordinates."
"Tch. I am only here to test out these naval soldiers and this experiment of yours."
Both of them reached the bottom of the stairs. One of the shipgirls came up to the commander and looked at him. He gave analysis from head to toe of the shipgirl. The most notable things that he noticed are the ears that are perked up, her very feminine features, and her amber-colored eyes.
"Ara, I can see your eyes are ogling me in a daze, am I that captivating?"
"No, it's just uh… I have never seen someone who has animal ears before."
"Ara~ how cute. Your embarrassed expression is so adorable."
She brought him in for a hug. His head was buried deep in her bosom, it was warm and comfortable. He hasn't felt this feeling in a long time, for once he felt as if he had found peace. The comfort in the safety of her made him want to stay in this a little bit longer.
"Atago, let him go already," Takao separated the two.
"Sorry, Takao. It's just that he has such a cute face I couldn't resist keeping my hands off of him. I am Atago, for now on onee-san will take care of you."
Shikikan tried not to blush after what she just said and happened. He turned over to the president to see him grinning at him.
He cleared his throat, "Anyways, I am the new commander, pleased to meet you all. I will be the one monitoring you from now on. Thank you for the warm welcome, I will be with the guiding group once I have taken care of the business with the president and his science group's experiment."
He rotated his body towards the president for instructions on where to go. Thankfully the president got his message and started leading him towards the lab.
"You really enjoyed that didn't you."
"I don't know what you are talking about, sir."
"No need to hide it. If you didn't you would have pulled out of that embrace of hers."
"I just didn't want to be seen as rude, okay?"
The president smiled once more at the sound of his response. They finally reached the lab which was a large rectangular shaped building that was windowless. The doors are glass with a metal pole handle. When they got inside, many scientists are dressed in white lab coats with blue latex gloves. Some are testing the properties of the blue wisdom cubes like their density and such. They stopped at a small group of scientists that were handling a cube.
"Dr. Corrian, the person that you wanted to experiment with is here."
A woman who was taking notes on the cubes turned around. She was wearing the same clothes as her colleagues. Her hair color was brown-black and in a bun along with a pair of brown eyes.
"Ah… Hello Mr. President." She turned towards the commander. "So you are the catalyst of these wisdom cubes?"
"Supposedly, that is why I am here right?"
"Yup, so if you can just put on these gloves, protective coat, and these safety goggles."
She handed him a white protective suit, a pair of the same blue latex gloves, and safety goggles. He put them on as she was explaining what will happen after.
"So as of right now, nobody was able to get the same reaction as of the phenomenon that you have experienced. We essentially got nowhere with the research of these cubes. All we managed to do was find out the basics of these cubes. When we try to examine these cubes by taking them apart to find their elemental properties, they just don't seem to be breakable or meltable by any means. You ready?"
She forcefully pulled him into a testing chamber, it was around twenty by twenty meters in terms of length and a singular glass window that let in some light. Both the president and the doctor appeared on the other side of the window. She pulled up a microphone and spoke through it to give him instructions.
"Okay, we will be giving you a wisdom cube right now."
A wisdom cube was brought out through an opening in the room and was closed right after. The commander picked up the cube and examined it. The cube was just like the one that he had found on the beach when he was with his friends.
"Has anything happened when you picked it up?"
"No."
"Do you feel any discomfort or feel anything at all?"
"No, not at all."
"Okay, take off your gloves and touch it like how you did when you first encountered it on the beach."
He obliged her request and took off both of his gloves. He touched it with both hands and felt the cube getting warmer.
"The cube is getting warmer."
"Anything else?"
"It's becoming hot."
He placed the cube on the floor before he got a first-degree burn from holding it for too long. The room began to shine brightly from the cube. The commander was bolted towards the opposite side of the room to get away from the cube.
"Get me out of here."
The door opened as he sprinted out of the experiment room. When he got out the doctor and president are staring through the window as if they were forced to stare at a light at the end of a tunnel.
"Fascinating," said Dr. Corrian.
"What is it?" questioned Shikikan.
"Take a look at what the cube created."
He looked towards the room to see a little girl with blonde hair with twin tails and was emitting electrical currents through her body.
The girl finally said her first words, "Commander, Eldridge reporting in."
"Did that cube just give birth to a child?"