Mighty Eagle, Calm Nest

by xT-Zealot

With Enterprise suffering from a crisis of identity brought on by her battles with the Crimson Axis and visions of a dark reality, Belfast has chosen to take some liberties to bring Eagle Union's ace to London to try and restore her humanity that had been smothered by duty. Meanwhile, the overseers of this timeline consider its continued worth and what they can extract from it.

7. Chapter 7

Author's Note: This chapter had been one of the more difficult ones to get through, mostly due to how I struggled with the lore subject around Azur Lane and how much I had to improvise to fill in the massive blanks that it had, especially years ago. What ended up happening was me becoming more willing to incorporate more of our own human history, such as when it came to Iron Blood as a focus in this chapter. Hopefully it still holds up well and if it doesn't...well...I hope you still gain a margin of fascination and entertainment regardless to how I did so!

---

It did feel as if Enterprise had been under some hallucination at the end of her first day in London. The events that had happened – the walking and sightseeing, punctuated by the clothes shopping, the arcade, lunch, and the grocery shopping – that were meant to situate her for the rest of her stay, had instead made her wonder if those things had really happened once she and Belfast returned to her hotel room and wound the day down with dinner and a long, hot soak in a bath.

That perception became preeminent when Enterprise retired to bed. After changing into her new nightwear and lying down on the mattress, she became aware of a complete lack of resistance to sleep. The once too-large size of the bed was far from her mind, with her thinking instead how soft it was and how her body was grateful for it. The clean, thin shorts and shirt gave her an urge to pull an extra blanket over herself, bringing it tight while her head rested against the pillow.

Sleep was coming unexpectedly fast for her, but not in the way it usually did; swift and heavy on a body that had become worn down from rigorous battles or lengthy patrols and was only now letting exhaustion take over after holding it at bay for so long. She was tired but…content. Going over the day's events with an increasingly groggy mind, she was bewildered as to just how much happened, the activities nowhere near as intense but unquestionably diverse and plentiful compared to her usual days of assignments.

Despite that, she wasn't particularly strained or otherwise battered by them. She was simply tired and that other, odd word: content. A strange combination but it matched what she was feeling, with her human form pushed but not excessively so, leaving her with a feeling of how it had expended the right amount of energy with the long walks and other exertions while the proper rewards – warm food, hot water, clean clothes, and a comfortable mattress -, lulled it into a state that had Enterprise closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep before she knew it.

She didn't have any fretful dreams that night either.

The second day, she supposed, was what felt like the true start of the routine that was very much like and unlike their usual.

Belfast waking Enterprise up was still the norm, although the sunlight that she would unleash when throwing open the curtains was not the disorienting return to wakefulness that Enterprise remembered it being previously. Her eyes jolted open at the disturbance, but the energy that would rush through her body and clash with a hazy mind to identify the disruption of her sleep and establish her surroundings was not as abrupt or disconcerting. This time, she was able to remember where she was in short order, her muscles coiling in preparation to respond to a call for action for but a moment before they relaxed, the restful night and the persistent comforts of the bed and her clothes contributing to the reminder that this wasn't a place where she needed to be so on guard.

It persisted with what would be her initial stop upon awakening, that being the closet. Rather than her coat and cap hanging in place – or if she even bothered to hang them, mostly dropping them off on a nearby chair with the knowledge that she would be throwing them on again as soon as she awoke -, the clothing and her entire uniform had been tucked off to one end of the closet, hidden by the other selections that populated the space: the dress that she wore as well as the white coat, but there were blouses and she had chosen to give pants a try.

When Enterprise had selected what she would wear, she disappeared into the bathroom while Belfast prepared breakfast. Showers would be how she started her day, but she wasn't feeling hurried – more inclined to take her time and enjoy it. She lingered beneath the spray of hot water, letting the droplets thoroughly soak her hair and massage her head before she would shift around so that it would do the same to her face and neck, then finally the artificial rain would soothe her back and shoulders when she presented them fully while she lathered up her hair, fingers kneading her scalp in a way reminiscent of how a certain cruiser had done so.

Even at the end she loitered, wondering if it had always been as strangely relaxing as it was now, with the globs of shampoo splattering off her head and down her body when she washed them off, replaced once more by the hot streams of pristine water.

There were no missions, no patrols, nothing to do with duty, but Enterprise did eventually push herself out of the shower with the thought that she didn't want to keep Belfast waiting. After thoroughly drying with a towel and putting on the ensemble she had chosen, Enterprise left the now humid bathroom behind, trading the steam with the aroma of a well-cooked breakfast.

Going a day without Belfast's cooking and being graced with it again, the carrier ace was positive that it was her friend's food that she enjoyed the most when she sat down to eat. What she considered better was, instead of being at her side, Belfast had taken a seat to join her with her own plate. It was obvious by now that the cruiser was breaking from some of her duties as well, even in the privacy of their rooms. Her maid uniform was stored elsewhere, replaced with her casual clothing, and the proper decorum she usually followed had laxed, something that Enterprise appreciated the more she saw it.

After they had their fill, they went back out into the city again.

There were still a lot of places to go, and many more things to see. Some of what Belfast mentioned before they visited such as Wellington Arch and in-between there was a lot of wandering that was spent in their new game of spotting the blue plaques that Enterprise had been told to look out for. There were, as Belfast later revealed, hundreds of them scattered throughout London, and the sharp eyes of two shipgirls were able to come across them quite often. Writers, poets, mathematicians, musicians, artists, military commanders, inventors, promoters of welfare or civil rights or other studies – each plaque listed a name and the significance of the location such as it being where the individual lived or where they made their greatest achievements. Enterprise didn't know most of them, but luckily she had Belfast at her side to give a brief synopsis which revealed how some of the names here were not native but belonged to foreigners of other countries who were nonetheless honored and respected.

They didn't restrict their visits solely to historical locations. Though she had her cooking supplies, Belfast would use their sightseeing as an excuse to break at a food stall for a quick lunch, tea, or sweet break with her insisting and Enterprise making a half-hearted attempt to resist trying whatever sample the cruiser presented to her, but knowing that Belfast had gotten whatever treat or beverage for her was enough for Enterprise to relent in trying a taste which would inevitably lead her to finishing whatever it was that was given to her. They weren't made by Belfast, but something like the soft-served ice cream or a unique blend of tea was something she enjoyed regardless.

They'd investigate some shops that included more clothing-centric ones. Not as fancy as the boutique they went to, but on occasion Enterprise would examine an item that piqued her interest such as a cap or pair of sunglasses. She hadn't acquired any interest in jewelry, but her expanding fashion sense had her looking at a couple other accessories and she did end up buying trial samples to see how she would feel about them after wearing them for a length of time.

And she did find out what polo was.

…Wasn't her thing.

Most of their travels were on foot, but at times Belfast would suggest a bus for them to sit down and watch the scenery pass by or some other mode of travel that skewed towards a more public presence. One such method was a short river cruise to take them down a stretch of Thames.

The cruise was…enlightening in its own way. It wasn't a long ride, but with the deck populated with humans and she and Belfast leaning against a railing to look out, they were able to catch some of the marine traffic that made use of the lane. There was industrial traffic such as container barges being pulled along by a tugboat to transfer materials but there were other riverboats that Belfast told her were being used by commuters to travel between home and work. And yet there was still room for leisure craft such as luxury motorboats or private yachts.

And yes, there were shipgirls, with a couple happening to be navigating through the traffic during her and Belfast's ride.

"Thames does have its own river police," Belfast said when they caught sight of them. "Shipgirls who are attending the Royal Academy are often assigned to provide assistance as part of training or just to lend a helping hand."

"Has Iron Blood been able to infiltrate this far?" Enterprise asked, the possibility alone incredible to her.

"Perish the thought. Not even after they managed to invade so much of western Europe had they ever dared to encroach so far into the Royal Islands."

Enterprise's brows lifted. Had she accidentally managed to sting a bit of the cruiser's Royal Navy pride?

If she did, the short smile that Belfast presented showed that she wasn't taking the comment as a lasting insult. "Though good practice, the actual assignments aren't meant to be of any significant military nature. Just preventive policing and making sure that safety is upheld. No fighting. There's been a couple incidents where shipgirls have participated in search and rescue such as after an occasional collision. Rare, but it happens. You must've done the same."

"I've escorted merchant ships in and out of New York," Enterprise answered. "Some search and rescue." Although that didn't sound the same as what the Royal Navy girls undertook here, as Sirens and Eagle Union minefields were typically involved with her side, and she herself being sent around so much along the coasts of North America on military assignments that even those instances were rare. There was no scenic route involved either, the militarized portion of the harbor lying on the edges of New York where Enterprise would leave from and return to once she completed her assignments.

She had never given any thought to it – never considered that she might be missing out on anything. But seeing the maritime workings of this river that had become such an important artery to so many facets of the development and maintenance of a key human city had her wondering what a sight the largest harbor in the world could provide. It was that sight that she could've seen for herself many times had she followed merchant ships further into New York or chose to meet them early rather than at the designated rendezvous points.

The more she saw of London, the more she thought about her home port. Everything she was seeing and experiencing that was new to her here in this rare happenstance of visiting another faction's homeport was in fact something she could've similarly seen in New York with ease but hadn't. The usual arguments of how she was too busy, her duty too important, and her skills needed in battle instead of sightseeing were sounding less credible to her now as she became occupied with the mysteries of how much different or similar New York could be to London.

As a result, those responsibilities started to move further and further away from her thoughts when she went on her third day in London, soon followed by the fourth.

Not to say that she didn't have duty in mind, particularly early on when she would inquire to Belfast if there were any updates from Gateway or the world as a whole when it came to a renewal in the various conflicts going on – Siren, Iron Blood, or otherwise. As Enterprise was bereft of any knowledge of how she could keep in touch with local military channels, all she had was Belfast who would answer her questions but wouldn't provide contact information for said channels.

"No incidents worth reporting," was the usual response that the cruiser would give her with an innocent smile.

A response that was frustratingly aloof to Enterprise, a follow-up question about there being any incidents that had occurred giving her a repeat of their unimportance.

"If anything major develops, I promise you will be the first to know," Belfast swore.

The promise didn't make Enterprise feel any better when she thought of how – if an incident did come up -, she and Belfast would have to acquire transportation and waste time traveling to the base to link up with their ships. If some sort of surprise attack or invasion was to occur…

"How about trusting your comrades, for once?" Belfast suggested.

"I do trust them," Enterprise insisted.

"Then you can trust that we wouldn't want anything to happen to our home nation. We are well-fortified, both on land and sea, with our own well-placed security and patrol measures. There isn't a shipgirl stationed here who isn't a veteran. Even with the current threat level, they will remain on guard. A level, I'd like you to know, that is currently the lowest it's been in years." Belfast grinned good-naturedly. "It may be hard for you to believe, but we were able to protect our lands quite fine on our own."

The finely worded retort didn't leave any room for discussion and Enterprise had to put it to rest. With nearly all avenues of military information and contact cut off, once more she was left with London and their exploration of it.

They weren't really doing anything all that different, she and Belfast. Going out, walking around, and then drifting to whatever would attract their attention was the routine that Enterprise had been guided to within the joint base. The contrasts she observed beforehand between a human city and military installation, along with her being the one who would have to change so much to fit in, should've ended up as impediments that would make the repeat of their strategy harder to implement here, even if she did admit that it was possible for her to fit in.

In truth, it was becoming far easier than she could've ever expected.

She hadn't thought all that groundwork that they had made for their stay to be so effective, especially with just how difficult it was to handle being introduced to everything. However, while her initial plunge into the urbanity of the city had left her uneasy, she felt less so during the following days. Repetition was obviously one factor along with trying or seeing something new with each.

A second, and a greater one, was how peaceful London was. The belief she had no place in it, being a shipgirl who spent most of her life in war, had changed. It was partially due to seeing shipgirls enjoying their lives the same way that humans did, but it only really got to her whenever she had a moment to just sit down and relax or when she would lay in bed.

The peace would hit her then and would do so with heavier impact with each consecutive day she spent with a new change of clothes that she wore, with every new view of London she got, every new experience, and having nothing happen. Each day was spent without her uniform, without her ever setting sail on the ocean, and without her hearing any kind of news or update of the current warfronts that she was staying away from.

And the most important piece to that had been Belfast.

Really, none of this would be happening to Enterprise right now if it weren't for Belfast, but she was the prime culprit for pushing her on. Even if Enterprise had ever managed to come here through some other means, she wouldn't be getting anywhere near as far as she was right now without her help. It was more than Belfast offering guidance but also her being here.

Seeing other shipgirls and how they went through the days was helpful, but having someone she knew and trusted right next to her was invaluable. At first, Enterprise had been happy enough with just seeing Belfast taking it easy, the hypocrisy not lost on her with how many times she had privately wished for Belfast to take a break from her maidly duties while she had been resistant to do the same with her own. Later, she realized just how relieved she was to have her with her and was aware that though Belfast would lead her to an activity, it was not strictly for Enterprise's benefit that she was doing so but, rather, because she enjoyed it and wanted Enterprise to enjoy it with her. This included the monuments and artifacts of the history of her nation that she viewed and spoke about with pride, but also the more minor moments that Enterprise had previously referred to.

"It's a warm day today," Belfast had used as an excuse to hand Enterprise a small styrofoam bowl of frozen milk and cream, a spoon extending out from where it had been stuck in the thickest mass of strawberries that had been drizzled on top.

The cruiser, of course, had covertly slipped away to the street stall that sold the ice cream when Enterprise had her attention elsewhere and had already been handing over the money when the carrier had finally noticed. With Belfast returning with not one but two bowls, Enterprise really had no other option than to take the one offered to her.

"How do you know if I'll like this flavor?" Enterprise chose to question, the best she could do to get back at Belfast.

"I don't," she replied, smiling. "I suppose I could've gone with plain vanilla but I'm sure you'll appreciate it. Who doesn't like strawberries?"

Enterprise was already scooping up a spoonful, watching one of the loose strawberries slip and fall back into the bowl. With an internal shrug she gave in, slipping the portion into her mouth and, she had to admit, the cold treat and the burst of sweetness of the fruit in their syrupy coating was a refreshing taste. She picked up a noise of amusement from Belfast but when she glanced over it was to see her eating her own ice cream, the Royal Navy girl closing her eyes in bliss.

"What did you get?" Enterprise asked, examining the green lumps with chocolate chips that were in Belfast's bowl, unable to identify the flavor.

Rather than tell her, Belfast spooned up a sample and extended it to Enterprise. With her hands occupied with spoon and bowl, Enterprise leaned over and ate it.

She regretted it immediately, the bitter chocolate and mint mixture like a punch that struck her mouth and shot up to her nose. She jerked back, prevented herself from following an instinctive urge to spit it out, and forced herself to swallow. She quickly started downing a couple scoops of her strawberry ice cream to rid herself of the offensive flavor.

Belfast laughed. "Mint chocolate, on the other hand, can be a bit of an acquired taste."

"Could've told me sooner," Enterprise replied, lifting an arm to wipe some ice cream that got stuck to her lips from her swift eating with the sleeve of her shirt.

"Up-up!" Belfast chided, interceding with a napkin. "Taking a break from work doesn't mean taking a break from manners."

Enterprise winced at the rough, papery texture being applied there but bared with it. "Right, right," she said, beset by an unexpected impulse that had a tiny grin curving into existence behind the napkin. An idea came to her and when Belfast lowered the napkin, she extended some of her strawberries for her to eat, thinking that it was only fair.

Belfast hadn't expected it, but she smiled and graciously took it in the same manner.

During Enterprise's accessory browsing, the carrier had been viewing a couple caps, leaning to get a closer look but doing little else. After seeing Cleveland with her visor cap, she had gotten a little intrigued by the styles that a vendor was selling. Ball caps, bucket hats, flattops… She had nothing against the beret that had been selected for her, but the fancier boutique had been without these more basic examples and Enterprise hadn't thought it to be that bad of an idea to have more of a variety.

"You are free to try them, you know," Belfast put in, coming alongside Enterprise.

"I know," she replied, though saying so didn't convince her to reach up and take one.

Belfast had no such misgivings, not just taking one random option but also removing Enterprise's beret so that she could place it on her head. The chosen hat – a dark blue bucket hat with a circular striping of red and white – proved to be too big, nearly falling over Enterprise's eyes.

"No," Enterprise deadpanned, pulling it off.

"A smaller size?" Belfast suggested, barely reining in her humor.

Enterprise stopped when she was about to return the hat, giving it a look. She shook her head. "I don't think it's for me." She returned it and found her hand hovering over some others. Her gaze went with it through the rows until they both stopped at the white-rimmed visor of a dark ball cap.

"Maintaining your theme, I see," Belfast commented when Enterprise retrieved it.

"I like white and black," Enterprise said, pulling the cap on. It was looser than her naval cap, the visor protruding much further out, and it led to her playing with it a little as she moved it left and right to find the perfect center.

"I was just making an observation. Truth be told, you wear them very well. Even I struggle to think of a color scheme that would fit anywhere near as complimentary on you."

Enterprise paused, not having seen that coming. Her color preference wasn't something she ever gave any extra thought about. It was just what she was comfortable with. She certainly never viewed it as something worthy of any kind of praise or flattery as what Belfast voiced. Hearing it had her become unusually interested in a small, hanging mirror for more than just to check the straightening of her cap.

"It's a little loose," she noted.

Belfast's reflection appeared within the mirror, Enterprise able to witness how the cruiser was focused on the back. "It's adjustable. If you would allow me…?"

Enterprise grunted an affirmative, watching and feeling Belfast's hands come up and adjust the tuck strap and buckle. The band pressed tighter against the ace's head and after another second the fingers drifted away, and Belfast looked directly at Enterprise through the mirror. "How's that?"

Enterprise shifted her head around, her grip that had never left the visor sliding it to and fro, and then doing it again for good measure. She wondered if she was toying with it a bit too much. It did give her a good feel of it, the added covering and securement more in line with what she was used to, but still relatively light and comfortable.

She checked the mirror again. "I like it."

Not 'satisfied' as had been her opinion of her first ensemble. She liked this little accessory. Enough that she was reluctant to remove herself away from the mirror, wanting to maintain a visual while the material slid against her head as she played with the visor some more. She liked how it looked, it felt, and everything else that was encouraging this attraction she was developing for something that she had selected entirely herself.

"You do look quite proud," Belfast pointed out.

It brought Enterprise's attention to how high her lips had stretched at some point. Seeing it, and seeing Belfast's reflection smiling knowingly, had the carrier doing her best to kill it out of embarrassment. Just as she was ready to criticize how her efforts were too slow, Belfast set something else on top of her head.

"A little more enhancement, maybe?" the cruiser suggested about the pair of sunglasses that were now nestled on the cap's visor.

Enterprise tapped a finger against them, emitting a sound that had her debating and, in the end, accepting the shades.

Even knowing how much Belfast had – and could still be – orchestrating all of this, it was those and many other moments that she shared with her that Enterprise couldn't find any kind of fault or manipulation in them. It wasn't that she was suspecting Belfast of any kind of devious intent, but between the lengths that she went to make all this happen and how she was guiding Enterprise along rather than hanging back and letting her go at her own pace as she did at the joint base, the carrier couldn't help but wonder if there was any additional effort that Belfast may be putting to make things seem genuine.

If she was, then Enterprise wasn't becoming as adept at understanding her as she thought she was. The comments and smiles, or short giggles and laughs, made and shared between them did not give off any kind of falsehood, nor did the pleasant feelings that the carrier experienced whenever she saw Belfast's features twinkling because of them. They were all very natural to her.

And because they were natural and genuine, it meant that everything else was too. Not the kind of logic that Enterprise would usually follow, but there was no denying how she was learning to accept and enjoy what she was finding here in London because she was enjoying it all with Belfast.

So it was how, on another of their nights, when the city no longer felt as alien to her as it once was, that Enterprise decided that this might all be okay.

It might be okay for her to not be fighting. It might be okay for her to drop her guard.

It might be okay for her to relax and enjoy life.

…

Which was when Belfast decided to chart their next course into very old, very familiar territory.

---

It was a gallery of warfare that surrounded Enterprise.

Starting from the iron-forged swords of the Iron Age, the evolution of weaponry went on to the Roman gladius and scutum, the Anglo-Saxon spears and Norman axes, the English longsword and bow, and the rise and current dominance of firearms. Each new development was accompanied by a display of their vicious use – the Roman invasion of Britain with their legions in their phalanxes, the Viking raids and Norman conquest, the rain of missiles loosed by the longbowmen to such effectiveness in the Hundred Years War, and the infantry squares of rifle barrels and bayonets that broke the ranks of cavalry at Waterloo.

Such escalation of armaments on land went alongside the ones at sea. The triremes and quinqueremes that would ram into enemy vessels to sink or board them through the strength of their oarsmen, the longships whose sails had signaled the latest plundering that was to beset an unlucky kingdom, and the sleek 'race ships' that single-handedly revolutionized the entire scope of naval warfare to one of maneuverability and cannon fire that had devastated the galleons of the Spanish Armada and would remain virtually unchanged in the years leading up to the present.

As their designation implied, human emotion and will only consist of half of a shipgirl. The other half was what Enterprise viewed in these displays and dioramas that depicted past engagements. They resonated deeply within the ace, deeper than anything else. This terrible, devastating power that grew to greater and greater heights as time went on and 'improvements' were made to make that power more destructive and far-reaching.

As an aircraft carrier, she was the apex of that ever-evolving power until the next evolution, whenever that would occur. But at the present, with her place at the temporary top, she was positioned best to see how war had changed from the beginning of human civilization to her. And the answer was simple: nothing changed.

Because war never changed.

Thousands of years of history were laid out before her eyes, but she saw nothing different at any point. The combatants could be raiders or empires, the weapons could come in new forms, the tactics could be reworked to best implement or counter them, the entire way of how war was fought could change because of it, but war itself never changed. There were still battlefields that would be selected amongst the expanses of land and sea, armies and navies would meet, and people would fight and die. The reasons for why they would fight were not as diverse, but the overall goal was nearly as immutable: conquest.

She was a ship meant for war – that was one half of her existence. But with war also being an integral part of human nature as evidenced here, her life was not the fifty-fifty split that the term 'shipgirl' could be viewed as. Whether she be viewed as a human or a ship or something in the middle, war itself made up the majority of her life in nearly every sense.

It was why she could relate so strongly to these depictions, such as one painting of an English frigate battling and sinking the galleys of Barbary pirates. The smoke and fire of cannon shots, the wooden hulls that were reduced to the splinters that floated alongside the struggling bodies… The painting was dated around three hundred years ago but Enterprise felt her skin heating with the fires that engulfed a ship, the air growing filthier with the smoke and debris that the artist had done masterfully well to present it as oppressive and choking as Enterprise knew from experience for it to be. Viewing the painting, the carrier felt as if she was there on the scene itself.

The reason humanity created her was for war. Even if the term 'liberation' was used, was she not reconquering the seas in humanity's name, even if their enemy was an entity separate from them?

And what of the rebellion with the Crimson Axis?

The barrage of thoughts got her to speak. "For being so adamant of keeping me from thinking about fighting, wouldn't this be counterproductive?"

They had come to a museum, something that she took as just another ordinary stop in her unordinary break. Belfast mentioned something about one of the wings of the multi-level building having been renovated to host a new exhibit, but she hadn't said what it was and that wasn't what they ended up going to once they entered. Instead, they went to a wing that was dedicated to exactly what it appeared to be: Royal Navy history of warfare.

Enterprise had stopped at the entrance to the exhibit where the flanking signs informed her about what laid beyond, suddenly intimidated by them. Her current attire – a white long-sleeved shirt and black sleeveless cardigan, jeans, and her accompanying hat and raised sunglasses – left her feeling very underequipped in what she saw as another one of Belfast's ambushes. An instinct arose for her to fall back, don her armor/uniform, and return.

But that plan, along with any other method to address this situation properly, was deemed unfeasible as it was with a surprise attack such as this. And as with the more typical ambushes she had to survive through in her line of duty, there was very little else for her to do other than challenge it and rely on her own skill and comrades to see her through. The second, at least, she had with Belfast standing by in support, wearing a plainer attire limited to a white sundress with a sunhat and a short denim jacket.

With her skill blunted and unreliable, that support became increasingly vital. When she did gather up her nerves, it was with an insistence to stick close to Belfast's side when they entered.

Belfast was still nearby, admiring the shining medals and golden tassels of a uniform that would be fitting for Prince of Wales. She was looking at it through the glass enclosure that preserved it, reminiscent of how she had viewed clothes at a regular store. Without turning, she replied, "Fighting is not why we are here."

Enterprise swept over a miniature presentation of a field with ranks of redcoats and twelve-pounder guns supporting them at the rear. "Really, now?"

"We are here so that you can see the elegance in war and the true miracle behind our existence."

It was a much beloved word in the Royal Navy, elegance, but Enterprise couldn't see it having any place here – not in the line of thinking that she had been going down on or in the exhibit. Or elsewhere. "Elegance is something I've never seen in war."

"Of course you haven't," Belfast responded, facing her. "Sirens are not elegant foes. They kill and destroy for a reason we have never been given, toy and manipulate for what seems to be their own amusement, and the only other thing that we've seen as a goal for them was a monstrosity that neither of us wants to so much as think about. Even by just fighting them, one can be tainted by them."

With all the good that she had been feeling in London, the cold chill that went down Enterprise's back was an unpleasant reminder of what had brought her here – so forceful that she nearly shuddered where she stood.

It made the sympathetic smile that Belfast gave her that much warmer, something the carrier took a measure of solace in. "You have been so strong to fight them for so long, Enterprise, but we both know the detrimental effects that it's had on you as we've discussed before we left the base."

"How I had viewed the Sakura Empire when we fought them," Enterprise recollected. Silently, she added the consequences that nearly occurred because of it.

"The Crimson Axis," Belfast gently reminded her.

The carrier wavered at that, knowing what Belfast was leading her to.

They had a truce with the Sakura Empire now, tentative enough to have vessels entering the joint base's harbor and joining an Azur Lane fleet on a supply run. Enterprise had had her concerns about it, but she had come to accept it. A reason for it was, despite what had occurred between Sakura Empire and Azur Lane, it had been a relatively brief few weeks of hostility and direct engagements, culminating in that one battle that had the two enemy factions fighting alongside each other again. Less than a month after the Sakura Empire formally declared war that resulted in few casualties and members turning when they realized how they had been deceived, they requested a ceasefire and started sending representatives for talks.

The same could not be said for Iron Blood. That faction had swept over western Europe, bringing it under their control with the invasion of Vichya. Armies were deployed in the deserts of Africa, footholds being secured to reclaim Europe, and all the while the northern Atlantic had been a constant struggle between shipgirls and hunting grounds for submarines that preyed upon supply lines, sinking transport ships.

There were a lot more dead involved, more tragedies such as what occurred in Mers-el-Kebir, and factions like Iris Libre that expected to have much of what Iron Blood claimed returned to them.

"It's going to be a lot harder to make peace with Iron Blood," Enterprise suspected.

"You may be right," Belfast replied. "But we must remember that they were our allies once, and could be again, just like the Sakura Empire. Though a small force, they were there as well assisting us in the Pacific with Prinz Eugen."

Enterprise didn't have a personal stake on the 'our' part, but it did breed questions. "You've fought alongside members of Iron Blood?"

"Naturally. The North Sea and the Atlantic were protected primarily by the Royal Navy and Iron Blood. Wales in particular had been well acquainted with Prinz Eugen and I had served tea to Bismarck personally."

A sense of foreboding came to Enterprise upon hearing that. While the name of Iron Blood's most prominent leader and being told that her friend had been in her presence held natural enormity behind it, this troubled feeling didn't quite match it – as if it was making the news out to be more than it needed to be.

"You met Bismarck?" Enterprise asked.

"During a few of those times when Hood invited her to share tea with her."

Enterprise couldn't hide her surprise. "Hood did?"

Belfast's lips twitched into a grin. "I suspect that there were quite a few people who were just as surprised with how their relationship came about. When our two sides allied together, the Royal Navy had become the official successor to the British Empire while the German states had barely been united by Prussia when the Sirens arrived and they came under the name Iron Blood. A rivalry between a fledgling empire and a longstanding one with different ideologies was an inevitable result, and Hood and Bismarck became the center of it."

"Why them in particular?"

"How could it not be them? Hood was our most formidable battlecruiser, Bismarck their most powerful battleship. One was named after a naval officer who had become an honored viscount due to his service in several major conflicts protecting the interests of the British Empire, the other after a Prussian politician responsible for uniting the German states and becoming their first Chancellor. Strength, elegance, and national pride couldn't be any more interwoven between them."

"So they met often in battle," Enterprise guessed. "But I take it not always by chance."

Belfast gave it a brief thought, still grinning. "Oh, I suspect a small percentage of their paths crossing were by chance. I'd even wager that their deployments were being purposely arranged by our separate commands in order to pit them against each other. Even without them, Bismarck had a knack for being at the head of some random patrol group that would just so happen to answer what emergency responses that would also draw in Hood. She has quite the competitive streak, even if she'd never admit it."

How lightly Belfast referred to those times and Bismarck was clashing with that persistent sense of how it was wrong that she was doing so. To Enterprise, there was something that wasn't right about it. "What else was she like?"

"Bismarck?" Belfast's brows knitted in thought and then she became intently focused on Enterprise. "Quite honestly, you remind me a lot of her."

Now that comparison felt very wrong to Enterprise. "Me?"

"You both are so stoic," Belfast teased, "with such unhealthy obsessions. For you, your duty. For her, strength. But at least Bismarck had interests; poetry, collecting antiques, and if you really want to strike up a conversation with her just mention anything about weapons." For reference, she tapped a nail against another glass enclosure, this one with a suit of armor of a medieval knight, the hilt of a longsword clasped in gauntlets with the blade pointed down into the floor.

Enterprise stared at her, each characteristic revealed a surprise to her concerning Bismarck. "Oh." The wrongness was not going away. "That sounds different from what I expected."

Belfast looked at her questionably. "Had someone said something else about her to you?"

"Not exactly," Enterprise replied, trying to explain it. "What you're saying is just…"

Half a face shattered, held together by a metal plate with a glowing red lens for an eye, highlighting the insane grin beneath the withered gray hair.

The word and the breath behind it got caught in Enterprise's throat, remaining lodged for a few moments. "Different," she choked out, masking it with a small cough.

"I hope any impressions you have hadn't come from any baseless propaganda," Belfast accused. "She was very cold when Hood first approached her, but I think the poor woman just never knew how to have a normal conversation. Another thing you two shared."

"Not having normal conversations or attracting bothersome Royal Navy girls?" Enterprise questioned, her own grin as weak as the joke she was attempting to use to alleviate the disturbing image that had come and gone.

Belfast's smirk was honest fun. "Well, I'm sure Bismarck would've been fine with their commanders leading them around in circles with a dash of 'coincidental' encounters for the entire war if Hood hadn't been the one to come to her. She invited her onto her deck, and it became one of several rendezvous they would share whenever they would meet at sea, and I had been honored to tend to a few of them. They got along well, and I suspect they both enjoyed the breaks from the constant pressures placed on them and how they found someone they could relate to."

By the expression that Belfast morphed into, Enterprise suspected that it was as much a good memory to the cruiser as it was to the two who benefited the most from it. She was a little ashamed about pointing out what came later. "But it didn't last."

That expression fell. "No, it didn't. What had at first become a celebrated occasion when the sea lanes were restored between the nations and Azur Lane was established, that's when the politics and inner conflict got in the way."

"Iron Blood's annexation and oppression of its neighboring lands."

Belfast did not agree immediately, that and her troubled look hinting to Enterprise that something wasn't right even before the cruiser said, "It wasn't that simple."

Enterprise frowned, confused. "How do you mean?"

"It is true that Iron Blood had annexed many of the territories surrounding it, particularly those of Austria-Hungary when it and the Ottoman Empire collapsed and the Balkan Peninsula fell into anarchy," Belfast conceded. "However, while it was an excuse for some to increase the size of Iron Blood's holdings, there were those like Bismarck who saw the instability of the region to be a threat and one they wished to stabilize in the interest of their own security. The territorial gains and resources thereof were a natural bonus."

Enterprise's brow furrowed at being presented with a point of view that implied being against what she thought to be the generally accepted one held by her and others. "Then they weren't oppressing them?"

"They took them by force, there's no mistake in that," Belfast made clear. "But the situation didn't exactly present many other options, which included the measures taken to pacify the regions." Her troubled look increased. "I cannot confirm or deny all that was reported to have supposedly occurred, but it is likely that there may've been examples of obscenely harsh policies and actions taken by certain commanders on the populaces. All I can say is that Iron Blood's conquest was allowed up until the Vichya Dominion was able to regain contact with their outlying colonies and became concerned about the growing power imbalance in Europe. France and Germany had been enemies in the not-so-distant past, with the First French Empire having once occupied the German states. The lands that Vichya sent forces into to intimidate Iron Blood in particular had been a center of the most recent enmity between them."

The guess that Enterprise made was due to her knowing what occurred. "Alsace-Lorraine?"

Understandably, Belfast wasn't as congratulatory as she was previously when Enterprise could flex what knowledge she had. "The same. Once belonging to France, it was a spoil of the Franco-Prussian War that was taken after their defeat. I doubt there weren't any ulterior motives in mind when Vichya crossed its borders, claiming they were interceding with the tyrannical takeover that Iron Blood was pursuing."

"And got into skirmishes with Iron Blood," Enterprise finished, unsettled by this addition to the explanation that marked a significant event that would inspire the tension within Azur Lane that would lead to its division. Iron Blood, perceiving the Vichya Dominion's advance as an invasion, had responded swiftly and violently, the two forces exchanging fire. The clash had brought the attention of all members of the recently formed Azur Lane to them.

"When the two sides presented their case, Vichya had the stronger one," Belfast said. "The circumstances highly favored them, especially as Iron Blood hadn't made it a secret as to how they had been salvaging and researching Siren technology which was already a divisive topic at that point. With violence having occurred between members, the factions chose this moment to, they hoped, address two important issues: the power balance of Azur Lane and the use of Siren technology. Looked upon as the instigator, Iron Blood took the brunt of the new restrictions and regulations placed on them, including their ceding of territory and the demand for reparations."

Enterprise was aware of that, but that had been with the impression of a newly risen nation needing to keep its ambitions in check. Belatedly, she wondered if that was how those members of Azur Lane saw Iron Blood. "You say it like Iron Blood was the victim."

"That is one view that could be taken," Belfast acknowledged. "Bismarck certainly took it as such. I wasn't present when she and Hood had what would be their last meeting, but I suspect that Bismarck felt nothing but betrayal and let Hood strongly know about it. That was the end of their acquaintanceship afterwards, with Bismarck investing and involving herself more into the political sphere of Iron Blood and providing a voice of how they would proceed in the future."

'How they would proceed' being something that the entire world experienced shortly after. Advancing their research in Siren technology, strengthening their forces and enhancing their shipgirls, all of which culminated in their invasion of the Vichya Dominion and their firm grip on Europe.

"But wouldn't the actions they took justify the regulations that Azur Lane placed on them?" Enterprise questioned.

"It could, but that view isn't something that I personally agree with and, honestly, I find to be quite dangerous as that would be justifying those measures and leaving out the build-up they initiated that had driven Iron Blood to those devastating actions that they nonetheless felt justified to carry out. Nothing can be learned from that. Iron Blood – or, rather, members of their leadership – did possess aspirations that needed to be monitored, but there was a lack of elegance when it came to Azur Lane's handling of the situation." Belfast stared pointedly at Enterprise. "Such as Eagle Union – a non-European power that nonetheless gained such influence in Azur Lane that contributed to Iron Blood's punishment."

Enterprise reflexively bristled, a part of her disturbed of feeling this way against Belfast but her loyalty to her faction influencing her to come to its defense. "They were just trying to maintain the peace that was being threatened."

Belfast inclined her head in admission. "Yes, they and the others, including the Royal Navy, acted with the best of intentions – as was and is the motivation behind what led to this conflict and so many others throughout humanity's history. Although in this instance, could it really be peace that they worked for or a status quo that is no longer relevant?"

It was a question that Enterprise didn't know how to translate or answer, leaving her to follow Belfast when the cruiser unexpectedly turned and led a path through the exhibit. As before, to their left and right were the products of humanity's war-ridden history that they passed and what they came to a stop at was a display board that outlined the reach of the British Empire's holdings that stretched further and further throughout the years. From the sixteenth to the twentieth century, the nation's signature red expanded across the seas, swathes of North America becoming dyed in its color and, even with its later expulsion, remained prevalent within Canada.

Australia, Africa, Asia, India. For an empire that had begun on those small islands, its influence had encompassed what looked to be a quarter of the entire world at the height of its power before the Sirens made their presence known.

"The world has changed so much," Belfast murmured next to Enterprise.

There was a note of what Enterprise could only interpret as awe, but she couldn't emphasize with it. With each piece of land that was colored in, it was with each crimson addition – and loss - that had her imagining the cost in lives that were spent and the destruction that was wrought with the artifacts of war that were behind them. "But war doesn't," she said.

"No, it doesn't." Belfast looked over to her with a genial expression. "But humanity has. I know what you're thinking – your thoughts are always open and honest, and I admire that about you. Among other things."

Enterprise met her kindly gaze, suppressing a minor flutter she experienced. "What am I thinking, then?"

"You're thinking of how humanity can change when we can see for ourselves the endless waltz of peace and war that has gone on since the beginning. You wonder, as many others do, if war is so much a part of humanity that it has become a force of nature that simply happens as long as humans exist. But I'll tell you this: humanity has been changing, and war, horrible as it is, is an essential part of that change that may one day become obsolete."

Enterprise will give it to Belfast that she had been pretty accurate in what she had been thinking about. But the other half that she just said… "That's a hard sell."

"Well…" Belfast dragged, conducting a slow and obvious scan of where they were currently standing, "…there is thousands of years of examples that say otherwise, but you must remember that there are humans behind these weapons. They want meaning behind every swing or pull of the trigger. A human wants a purpose to fight for, and that purpose can lead to as many tragedies as it can to gallantry when it is opposed by one that differs from theirs. What tips the balance is elegance."

"So you say…"

"As humans desire purpose, so too do they desire civility. For all the times that the continents had fallen into chaotic fighting between states, for all the bloodshed that had resulted in the countless differences that came from something as petty as one side being right and the other wrong, how is it that we live in a world today that has become more unified as time went on?"

The obviousness of the answer was matched by the instinctiveness to Enterprise. "Through conquest. One side conquers and assimilates the other, creating a greater whole." That, to her, was the definition of unity as was demonstrated by the empire in front of her.

Belfast exhaled with exasperation. "You and your easy answers. If conquest is the answer, why did empires that were most renowned for it fall? The undefeatable Alexander the Great created one of the largest empires that divided and fell upon his passing. Rome, founded with a brother slaying a brother, and whose emperors were also its generals, was reduced to the fantasies of Sardegna. The Mongol Empire, second only to the British in size, fractured into the khanates which were defeated and thrown out of their holdings."

It was times like these where Enterprise wished that she did possess more knowledge – not only to attain that minor sense of fulfillment whenever she was able to impress Belfast with what she did happen to know, but to also be better equipped whenever she was confronted with philosophical questions that referenced the past as was the case here. If she did, maybe she would be more perceptive in finding weaknesses in the arguments that Belfast was presenting. Routes that she could take and flank or completely rout the cruiser.

As it was, she was woefully underequipped and her mental promises of taking more time to study up in the future wasn't going to be helping her in the present, leaving her lacking a suitable answer save for the one she just gave.

Belfast regarded the maps again and tapped the highlighted Royal Isles. "Great Britain or the British Empire – that's what the nation that became the Royal Navy is commonly referred to when one looks at something like this. However, it goes by another name: the United Kingdom." Her finger hit the center of the largest of the islands. "England." It slid over to a small section to the west. "Wales." It traveled up north. "Scotland." Finally, it crossed over to the neighboring island. "And Ireland, where I happen to be named for one of its cities. Britain, British, or Royal Navy – whichever you prefer, it is these countries and their respective people with their separate nationalities that make the greater whole that it is today. But it wasn't always like that."

She removed her finger from the map and swept her hand to the assembled arms and demonstrated uses. "For a thousand years after the end of Roman rule, invasions, plagues, civil strife, and all-out warfare encompassed these islands and the greater Europe. Scotland, allied with England's historic enemy, the French, was once a fierce foe. These conflicts only grew in greater intensity and frequency with the introduction of enlightened ideas, differing theologies, and the reformations that they incited and clashed violently with the established religious and monarchial laws."

"I fail to see where elegance comes into play in that," Enterprise commented, the unsettlement that she had felt since entering this exhibit growing as Belfast went on. The memories that she had inherited – of warfare, of battle – with her construction eerily identifiable with the history that she was being taught, made even worse by her experiences of war in the present - as destructive and as terrible as it was in the past.

She didn't know if it was her own memories or something else belonging to the elusive, dark force that haunted her but had been absent as of late that inspired an image that came to mind: of the flame-wreathed waters and skies choked with thick, smoky blackness. Maybe it was, in actuality, the truth that had been proven over and over again and what, even she, believed in: that such apocalyptic scenes had, is, and always will be because war will always be.

"Why am I here?"

At her side, Enterprise's hand jolted, stiffened, and then curled halfway into a fist. It didn't fully form or quiver, but the action remained instinctive, especially with the twinge of pain that came with that recollection that leaked out enough for her to know that it was she who had wondered that, and the question was a link to the traumatic memories that she was unconsciously stifling.

She…didn't want to be here. A cold, creeping fear was quietly scraping around within her, and accompanying it was a growing revulsion of this room and all that it represented. She wanted to ask Belfast if she could leave or, better yet, just walk out and hope her friend would understand and let her. She wanted to go back to what they had been doing, relaxing and enjoying themselves, ignorant of the worldly conflicts. For all the resistance she had put up previously against this little break, now she wanted nothing more than to get back to it.

However, she remained in possession of her mental faculties enough to know how unwise that was. Whether she would be able to truly forget about what happened to her or not, she still had defects that were crippling her regardless. The incident in the Pacific had been the primary cause for them, but with Belfast's help she was beginning to see that her issues were always there but had recently brought her to the breaking point due to that event.

Taking these small steps that she knew Belfast was trying to get her to take with this museum visit would, Enterprise hoped, prepare her enough to at least be functional again. She had to…trust in her friend to at least overcome these fears long enough to see the point she was making for her benefit.

If she couldn't do this, what use would she be then?

With the gloom that was befalling her, Belfast's countenance practically sparkled when she faced Enterprise – something the carrier wasn't expecting in the least, along with what came with it. "Enterprise, elegance is inspired by war."

The ace was taken aback by that. "I don't understand."

Belfast seemed to view her reaction as a victory whether or not she knew how her claim had temporarily lifted the gloom over Enterprise. "Purpose and meaning. At the start, such things were based on the empires of old: might, conquest, lordship, supremacy, and all that the strong were entitled to, such as being 'right'. In the face of such blights that wracked the lands, people submitted to them and were allowed to be led by them. But such an absolute system on its own can corrupt and mislead, with many of England's kings and religious leaders having fallen victim and those they ruled over suffering in the wars made in their name."

"So where does elegance come into play?"

"Is it not obvious? What happens when so many groups belonging to so many different ideologies are driven into each other again and again in such terrible and terrifying wars?"

The expectant air Belfast gave of how Enterprise should know did in fact let her figure it out. "They get weary of fighting," she quietly said. Even quieter, with her gaze lowering she added, "To the point where they forget why they are fighting."

There was a touch beneath her chin, a curled finger that got it to rise back up.

"Yes," Belfast confirmed with the compassion that was in those blues of hers. "Leaving a desire for peace, even against who they started out believing to be hated enemies." Her finger slipped away, lightly grazing the carrier's chin in the process. "Even the undefeatable Alexander had to submit to those desires of his troops. But peace isn't the only result. With each cycle of peace and war, humans grew in understanding each other such as the value of their lives and the horrors that come from atrocious acts they indiscriminately commit. This has given birth to concepts such as chivalry, honor, and rules of warfare in order to bring civility to the battlefield."

Though momentarily distracted by the skin-tingling aftermath of the gesture, Enterprise still managed to say, "Elegance."

"Yes. With it, battles no longer become the massacres they once were, and what is venerated are the tales of respect and civility between opposing factions such as what Saladin showed to kings Baldwin and Richard. These effects continue to be more far-reaching and long-term, evolving kingdoms and governments into what we know of today with great unions being formed between once bitter neighbors, cooperation between distant and long-hated enemies, and rights granted to subjects who become equal to those of nobility." Belfast's smile broadened. "Until one day there came an era when the next great nation to be born did so from the limitations set upon by the modesty and humility of its founding fathers and giving voice to the diverse cultural identities of its states through its democratic body."

Earlier, Enterprise had bristled at what she perceived as a slight to her nation, so she didn't expect the degree of admiration she picked up from the other shipgirl that was now stirring her own pride for her own nation. "You always seem to refer to Eagle Union in a negative light whenever you bring it up."

Belfast appeared dubious at the observation. "Do I?" She contemplated her words for a moment. "I think I've been quite fair with my critiques. There is much to admire about it and its ideals as it marked a new precedent for the world and I for one consider its membership of Azur Lane to be absolutely vital. My critiques simply stem from the inherent challenges of a nation that had sought to stay out of foreign affairs and has now found itself becoming such a leading member of a multi-national organization in these trying times. Such responsibility to put on a maturing body that has grown so much in such a short amount of time is bound to cause missteps born of haste and rigid judgment of what it perceives as right on wrong."

"Unlike the Royal Navy?" Enterprise lightly jabbed, that competitiveness having apparently extended to national views.

She may've actually gotten through with that from the minute tightness that she picked up in Belfast's smile. "Pax Brittannica, Enterprise."

"Pardon?"

"Latin, meaning 'British Peace', as the years after the Napoleonic Wars were called before the arrival of the Sirens. When the great powers of Europe had grown so weary of war, Great Britain had become a global hegemonic power that kept peace around the world. The choice of some of our old territories such as Canada and Australia to recognize the Royal Family, I'm certain, was out of respect and fondness for the cultural impacts made by the British." Enterprise swore that there was smugness with that explanation and the reason that she saw some momentary embarrassment from Belfast right after was because the elegant shipgirl recognized that the carrier had scored a rare victory in goading her into such a response in a manner that went past even her loosened limits of composure.

Enterprise found it…endearing.

Belfast's attempt at recovery was similarly so. "But that's part of the point I'm trying to make. The age of empires is coming to an end, and the world is changing along with humanity. Azur Lane, I truly believe, is the kind of ideal that I wish to see fully realized for all our sakes."

"I think Iron Blood would disagree," Enterprise intoned, the conversation returning to the more serious turn. "Among others."

It did little to curb Belfast's optimism. "And it's our duty to understand and assist them most of all. The near annihilation of the Japanese home islands had left the Sakura Empire with almost nothing but its faith, and Germany's need for strength to stand amongst competing empires was what let it prevail against a foe like the Sirens as Iron Blood. That faith and that strength was what made Siren technology tempting to them to begin with and what they turned to fully when they felt they could no longer rely on Azur Lane."

"But Iron Blood had done much more than the Sakura Empire."

"Shall I take a page from your nation's history for this?" Belfast indicated the representation of North America, free from British rule. "The union of the United States had found itself in a great civil war concerning its own sin of slavery, didn't it? Seceding states, and the people who felt more loyalty to them than the nation as a whole, were willing to fight amongst their own families to keep it. Yet despite the massive amount of bloodshed and casualties that they committed against each other, it was not recompense that was demanded from the losing party but reconciliation. Generals such as your Robert E Lee and Ulysses Grant were able to treat each other respectfully when they came face-to-face, with Confederate leaders and politicians being allowed to reintegrate into life of the restored union without punishment. That union, nearly split in half, grew stronger."

"I'm not sure if that's a good comparison," Enterprise replied.

"How could it not be? The only real difference is the scale between then and now: the world instead of one nation."

"A labor practice and technology that can create abominations." The sentence, Enterprise knew, was thick with the offense and emotions thereof of her personal experiences with the most heinous creation of all which she had to force back down with effort.

Belfast took it in stride, calmly explaining, "Both of which are corruptible influences that tarnish the human spirit. Slavery affected both the slave and slaveholder – one being subjected to inhumane treatment while the other had to justify the ownership of another human being by treating them as something inhuman. Sirens and their technology can be just as subtle and just as wretched, with the subtleties and blatancy of their forms able to mislead and deceive the more one is exposed to them."

"…Such as me," Enterprise hesitantly admitted.

The cruiser softened. "Not just you. As humanity first saw and experienced, and what we ourselves did, upon encountering the Sirens was that they were the perfect enemy: something different and unordinary. They appeared as monsters fitting for the name that they were labeled with even if they also have similarities to humans and, by extension, ourselves."

It was a view that had never changed from Enterprise's first sortie against them. Their mass production ships with their sharp lines and jagged angles, and glowing orange-red patterns that were drawn on their hulls and illuminated their bridges in such intimidating fashion made them out as sea monsters who fed on the carnage that they wrought.

Then there were the humanoid types – the commanders. They had bodies that were human, but characteristics such as their eyes, skin color, and rigs similarly belonged to something else that put them more in line with the creatures of myth that they were named after. Then there were their faces and the expressions they would make in battle. The number of those Sirens that Enterprise had encountered was much too high for her liking, but they seemed restricted to either blank boredom or amusement to outright sickening glee.

In fact, the higher their rank, the deeper into such demented cruelty they appeared to be.

And yet, there was what Enterprise could only describe as emptiness behind even those expressions. A fakeness to it – like a doll that was trying to mimic something lifelike but only accomplishing in becoming more unnatural because of it.

"They're nothing like us," Enterprise declared. "But…that's where the danger is."

"We've fought the Sirens for decades and we're still fighting them," Belfast said. "We've made progress, but the war continues on and on, and the Sirens have proven to be incapable of giving or being the recipient of respect or mercy. As a result, there inevitably comes a point where our weariness and desire for this long conflict to end causes us to search for new methods and answers to fight. Better weapons."

"The Sirens and their technology."

"Quite right. Iron Blood and their need to grow stronger sees Siren technology as weapons that can be turned for their use. Potential dangers and caution can be overshadowed by how shipgirls and humanity could use it for better purposes because we are so much different from Sirens. So they take and don their arms."

Their arms – the hulls and gun turrets that were too-similar to the Siren production models – had Enterprise frowning heavily. "Do they not know how they appear because of it?"

Belfast became visibly saddened by the question. "Bismarck is a smart woman. She is also very honorable and, at her core, a very caring person. As the pride of Iron Blood, the most powerful battleship, and the recipient of such a revered name, I know that she sees her actions as something she is obliged to take and justify as a sacrifice for the shipgirls she commands and the humans she protects. She will cling to those ideals but all the while she will be aware of the wrongness that she is surrounding herself with while others follow her."

"Meanwhile," Enterprise voiced the grim realization that came to her, "we see what they are using and condemn them for it. We start seeing them as an enemy."

"And so initiates such a miserable descent where Bismarck and other Iron Blood girls immerse themselves further with that technology. They become more accepting of it and more desperate to justify it, leaving them vulnerable to the more despicable nature of the Sirens."

"Akagi and Kaga..."

Belfast silently nodded. "Everything we saw in the Pacific unveiled the true extent to the inelegance of the Sirens and, with it, a course that we and humanity can be seduced to as easily and as unfortunately as those Greek sailors of legend. There could be no better example than that warship and its weapons."

Weapons of such mass destruction, able to be fired and delivered at any point across the seas with but an order. And the force behind it…

A head tilted, a fox-like ear nearly brushing the overhead umbrella as it mimicked a motion of what could be meant to be innocent curiosity. It was a gesture that was at odds with the purple orbs, empty of everything except the bottomless despair that was directed down at her and the short, miserable curve that made up that mockery of a smile. "Can you feel them, Enterprise?"

Pain suddenly lanced through the carrier's head. Enterprise managed to stifle a cry that wanted to come out, but a hand leapt to her temple regardless, eyes squinting and her face scrunching in pain as she took a stumbling step to the side, her legs instinctively bracing so that she didn't take another.

"Enterprise!?"

It wasn't a chill – a fleeting frigidness that would've passed through quickly. It was cold but more encompassing, and not something that struck inwardly but swept outward along her skin. How far it would've gone Enterprise wouldn't know as the warmth and comforting pressure of an outside source interceded and drove it away.

The pain in her head similarly receded, but the intensity it had struck with left behind a throbbing pang. Enterprise was able to overcome it, widening her eyes from their squinting and restoring her vision. When she did, she found Belfast standing in front of her, the cruiser having crossed over in order to get a gentle hold on her one shoulder to keep the ace on her feet if it was needed and so that she could be better targeted with the concern that was aimed at her.

"I'm okay," Enterprise managed to get out even as she gave her temple a soothing rub.

Belfast became fixed on it, her other hand having already been raised but held back from touching it herself, and it motivated Enterprise to stop and lower her own to give credence to the claim even as the ache lingered. It didn't meet much success with settling Belfast's concerns, she maintaining her look and her grip. A mix of annoyance and shame had Enterprise pulling away, the quick and rough manner in which she did so making her feel bad when it left Belfast standing there with her hands raised but now holding nothing.

She wanted to make some kind of attempt to downplay the sudden attack but knew that she wouldn't be able to create anything convincing. Though she had been hiding the symptoms of what she thought to be with success, the fact of the matter was that Belfast knew best of what was wrong with her and Enterprise hadn't forgotten that. Hiding her earlier attacks had been meant to keep the cruiser's morale up along with her own and it got much easier when the attacks had ceased for the past few days

But to come to a place like this, they both had to know what could've been involved. Enterprise was avoiding her eyes, but she still saw how Belfast's attention went around them to the exhibit and didn't make any effort to hide the second thoughts that she was having about bringing them here. The uncertainty felt out of place for all the times that Belfast had never shown such before, doing little to improve Enterprise's mood.

Belfast refocused on her. "Should we…?" She left the rest of it out in the open, giving an added emphasis of the choice being entirely Enterprise's.

Enterprise knew what Belfast had been trying to do, had admitted to herself that it was something that needed to be done, but…

"Yes," she answered.

She just really wanted to leave now.

It didn't make what she saw as a retreat any better when she and Belfast left through the door and got out into the hall. Calling it as such did inspire some measure of fight in her. Enough that her flight didn't take her completely out of the building, instead getting her to cut it off at a distance that she deemed adequate to get her far enough away from that room.

The cutoff point was motivated by what they were able to see from it. They were located on the second floor, and they had a good view of what Enterprise thought to be an impressive exhibit that made up the majority of the first floor: an expansive and intricate display of geographical locations divided into sections that featured grasslands, savannas, and so on. She and Belfast had crossed through it previously on their way to the second floor, the carrier having taken her time to admire the realistic depictions of animals that inhabited those areas such as zebras, gazelles, foxes, lions, and smaller critters such as beavers and prairie dogs in the detailed recreations of their environments. From their current position, Enterprise could better see the avian specimens that hung from the ceiling or perched on the high branches of synthetic trees: small sparrows and woodpeckers to the larger and fiercer owls and hawks.

Along with the calming stream of a waterfall, there were the sounds of people mingling down below, Enterprise able to see them pointing out random animals and talking amongst each other. Here, at least, Enterprise could understand the worth of the exhibit and the excitement it attracted. These locations had probably been hard enough for Londoners to travel to and visit with the world at peace. With the introduction of the Sirens, such opportunities had to be close to impossible to now.

But why an exhibit for warfare? Enterprise wondered. It hadn't just been her and Belfast who had been there; there had been other human visitors as well which didn't make sense to her. Wouldn't something like that be the last thing that people wanted to see right now?

Wouldn't they want to just forget about it?

Enterprise glanced over where Belfast had situated herself next to her. She was looking below them as well but not really staring at anything with how deep in thought she was. Enterprise could make a guess at where her thoughts currently were, and the carrier ace again felt regretful about what happened.

To create elegance in warfare that could change humanity to make war itself obsolete. She wanted to believe that and had seen for herself evidence of what Belfast advocated…but there was far more that suggested the hopelessness of the situation.

The war with the Sirens was still ongoing with no true end or an objective that could lead to the end of that threat. Azur Lane had fractured, and even by some miracle they managed to repair it, would they really be restored to what it once was? Or would it remain weakened, with a greater chance of breaking again? Even with one victory achieved and a severed link being mended – the Sakura Empire – would they be able to manage it to the same degree with Iron Blood? And what about the questions surrounding Northern Parliament? The Sardegna Empire? What else could happen to make this uncertain situation even worse while the Sirens remain, unending?

That invisible, soul-encumbering weight slung itself over her shoulders like an old friend. That burden, though temporarily lifted, was righting itself back on top of her so effortlessly as she drifted back to those thoughts of the complex simplicity of war. Its terror, its violence, and yet having been allowed to take place repeatedly throughout history. Her attendance in these current battles, and the memories of the previous ones that one exhibit would never be able to recount, threw more and more weight upon the mantle.

The words that Belfast had passed on to her, so full of hope and confidence, became commodities of gullibility to the weary champion. And though she had been able to relax and envied the humans who spent their days in their cities, away from the fighting, she now viewed that as the picture of ignorance.

War was still out there. It was happening. And it would never change.

So how is Belfast able to see it as anything but that? Enterprise suddenly wondered, the thought cultivating a curiosity that was diverting her thoughts from a complete descent into melancholy as she focused on the shipgirl beside her.

Belfast had been at this for as long as she had. They had been constructed for the same purpose, battled on the same waters, fought the same enemies, and had been at each other's sides at the worst of it in the Pacific. There were even some experiences that the cruiser had that Enterprise didn't such as a personal, firsthand look at how former allies became enemies with Iron Blood.

So how is it that there was such a divergence of opinions between them?

"Do you really think Bismarck and Iron Blood can return?"

Belfast raised her head, the suddenness of it and how she turned to face Enterprise with widened eyes saying how she hadn't expected the question. Quickly though, her pleasant composure returned to present a smile and an answer to the inquiry. "Yes, I do."

She can say it so confidently… "Why do you believe that?"

"The lull is still going on, isn't it?" Belfast stated matter-of-factly.

"It is…" Enterprise replied, not seeing the meaning behind it.

That baffling development occurred again, when Enterprise's cluelessness served to encourage Belfast. "Shouldn't that say plenty? Before, during, and after the Sakura Empire's uprising and its conclusion, Iron Blood had yet to escalate the conflict in any real significance."

Enterprise couldn't find relief in that. "They could be using this time to secure their territory and assess the situation. The whole point of this supply run is to keep them guessing, isn't it?" Privately, she was also concerned about Iron Blood using this chance to further develop what could be their own Siren superweapon.

"You may not know this, but it's been believed that this conflict could be far worse than it currently is. There's been our joint campaigns against them, but Iron Blood had yet to respond in kind with additional aggressions on any additional fronts. Even our skirmishes in the North Sea can't really be considered as anything more than that, with the attacks on our merchant and transport ships being conducted with what we can conclude as a modicum of restriction, given what intelligence we have of their submarine force. There has even been an instance of a submarine openly broadcasting after a sinking so that a rescue force could be sent out sooner."

Enterprise hadn't heard about all of this. "And you believe it has to do with your elegance?"

"Yes, of course. If the Sirens had taught humanity anything, it is the value of human life and unity that only comes against such a fearsome foe. Bismarck had known this, still does, and that's why there is hope." Belfast touched the center of her chest. "It was those ideals that created the miracle of us shipgirls."

"Miracle…" Enterprise repeated, yet another word that was alien to her. 'Miracle' had never been something she considered suitable in the world of battles that she had been thrust into.

Belfast nearly beamed. "We were created for the protection of humanity, and they did so by imparting all their emotions and ideals into us. It's the exact opposite of what we've seen from the Sirens, and that's what makes us living miracles. We are more than humanity's weapons, but their conscious that guide how we administer our actions in battle. War is terrible, Enterprise, but on the other side of that coin is the true beauty of how this world is shaping to be in spite of it, with a growing abhorrence for it. You, me, Bismarck, Hood - we are what humanity currently is because of what they were, and we can show them what they can be. That is a great responsibility of how we fight for humankind in their place."

Enterprise's vision suddenly became unfocused. "…To be careless will not only disgrace ourselves but lead them and this world we live for into decadence."

Belfast stared at Enterprise with amazement. "That…" Now she was beaming. "I couldn't put it better myself!"

Enterprise blinked and made a slight shake of her head. Those words… She said them, but it hadn't been of her own volition. The sentence just came out, with her having no control over her lips that spoke them.

It was like someone else had said them and had done so through her.

"But you understand!" Belfast said enthusiastically, having the wrong idea because of it. Reaching over, she tapped a finger against Enterprise's head. "These memories we hold are the lessons learned of humanity's past – the accumulated wisdom that is now a part of us. By being granted human consciousness, all that had been sacrificed to bring the world to this point remains intact, moreso than a mere exhibit. As humanity's hope and monuments to their wisdom, we can help carry them to a better future."

Wisdom? Future? Enterprise looked away, staring blankly ahead.

That was not something she had ever heard of before, put in that way. The memories she held had been, to her, confirmation of her duty: to be the weapon that humanity needed in their time of need. The latest and greatest weapon that was the most suited to the latest battlefields. That was how the past and present were linked to her. That was what let her know what was right and what was wrong. She would fight humanity's enemies, and that had been the Sirens.

Anyone who went against what she knew to be right was wrong. And that made them her enemies, too.

But…that was wrong. She had learned that but had never been able to find a replacement for that thinking. What was she supposed to think? What were these memories, and her existence, for if not to fight and defeat her enemies with both being so immersed in war? What was a weapon without war, and what was war without a weapon? War would be unending, unchanging, and a weapon would always be needed.

Had that, as a result, become a future that she had unconsciously accepted? For all her focus and drive to meet and end the battles that were right in front of her, had there come a point where that would be all that her future entailed with that line of thinking?

And did being forced to face such a reality have something to do with what happened to her, going by the fear that coiled in her belly and the growing pressure in her head?

But if that's the case, then… After calming her brow that twitched in pain, Enterprise refaced Belfast with only one question on her mind. "What future is there?"

Belfast smiled widely.

---

Enterprise had all but known that there was a more elaborate ploy going on. When Belfast mentioned a new exhibit, but said nothing else about it, a flag had been raised. The Eagle ace wanted to credit herself in thinking that she was becoming more attentive to the tactics of the Maid Corps, particularly the misdirection that its head maid had employed by bringing her to the warfare exhibit, but it felt a little too easy for her to pick up on.

Or had the mention of the new exhibit itself been a misdirection for the warfare exhibit which was meant to make her forget about the new one which Belfast would spring up on her later?

The cloak and dagger style, Enterprise decided, was never going to be something that she could become remotely adept at.

Even if she was able to somehow decipher the method, she wouldn't be able to recognize the overall goal that was being worked towards because that required more worldly knowledge that she severely lacked while Belfast had it in spades. Just thinking of what she would have to do to close that gap was daunting to her.

Suffice to say, there had been no way for her to know just what was involved with the second exhibit Belfast had wanted to show her, because even when she stared up at the sign that told her exactly what it was, she had no idea what it meant.

"A...space exhibit?" Enterprise read aloud.

"Yes," Belfast confirmed with a wider than normal smile.

Enterprise switched to her. "I don't understand."

"You know about space, don't you?"

"I do," Enterprise replied. "Things like stars and the moon, right?" The sign she read had a picture of the moon with a bright, starry background.

"And other planets, too; Mars, Saturn, Jupiter."

"But they're nothing like Earth." To Enterprise, they were just bigger, brighter stars in a clear night sky. Lifeless rocks as far as she was aware.

"Have you ever wondered about the significance behind them?"

"They're reliable navigation tools," Enterprise answered honestly. "Stars and the moon help you find your way if you're lost and provide light at night. There have been times where I was able to survive thanks to them."

Most of those tales took place earlier in the Siren War, establishing a solid, impenetrable bulwark which was followed by the constant string of vicious advances made again and again in order to loosen and break the Siren hold on the seas, and the equally brutal defenses to keep their foes from regaining it. The chaotic flow of battle could create the most extreme of situations, and shipgirls could find themselves stranded in the middle of it, bereft of direction.

Three of those instances involved Enterprise herself and had been the foundation for what would be her extravagant reputation. Amid the desperate, unrelenting pushes made by Eagle Union against the Sirens and her regularly positioned in the vanguard, she would become separated from her groups. Days and nights could pass with her out at sea, never knowing where she, her allies, or the enemies may be.

For those times and those times alone, she was thankful for when night descended, and she was able to use the stars as guidance. As instinctive as it was for her and other shipgirls to fight, it was also in their nature to be able to identify and use the stars and the constellations they formed as references for their position and where friendly lines were as human sailors have done. It was because of that that she had been able to survive and return to her comrades not once but several times no matter how many days it would take her to return.

As scary as the dark of night would become to her, stars had always remained as a reliable, reassuring blanket of security over her head when the black of the abyss was so close to her feet.

"And the sun?" Belfast prodded.

"The sun…" Enterprise shrugged. "It's the sun. It provides light, warmth, things like that." When Belfast continued to look at her expectantly, Enterprise went scraping for more. "I know it does other things. Plants use the sunlight as food and…uh…"

That was really all that Enterprise could come up with. The sun, being the big ball of fire it was in the sky, had an obvious purpose and she never contemplated anything further than that. It rose and fell in a regular, unchanging cycle that had it making up the light of day while the moon was the symbol of night that would come with its absence. It was a simple, constant truth that was all the relevance that Enterprise needed with any other explanations for its other roles unnecessary.

That apparently wasn't enough for Belfast, Enterprise getting another one of her smooth eye rolls, but a corner of her lips remained quirked, and her tone stayed pleasant. "I pray that your simplification hasn't kept you oblivious to the fact that our sun is also a star."

"It hasn't," Enterprise replied with an increasingly narrow look. She had known that but couldn't find the significance that Belfast had referred to. The sun was a star, but it was the one that was so close and near with its brilliance during the daytime while the thousands of others were mere pinpricks on the other side of that cycle.

She unconsciously tilted her head in thought. With Belfast having brought that up in particular, was there something she wanted Enterprise to figure out? The sun is a star…

If their sun was a star, then that meant those stars were also suns. And that meant…what, exactly?

The sun is a star, and the stars are suns, Enterprise rolled in her mind, searching for the next path that would lead her to some grand epiphany of what it meant. Such a thing wasn't happening though, the obviousness of it all keeping her from uncovering something like that and getting her to believe that it was because there was nothing of significance to it. Was that common sense a deception in its own right, then?

So deep in thought, she didn't realize that Belfast had been angling closer and closer until the shadow cast by her sunhat was noticed by Enterprise. The carrier glanced over, saw the sudden and unexpected closeness of their faces – little more than a foot apart – and jerked back in surprise.

Belfast giggled and returned to a proper distance. "Forgive me. I admit that I quite enjoy such thoughtful looks of yours, and you've been having them so often lately that the temptation was overwhelming. I feel ashamed to be the one to say that you are overthinking what's right in front of you."

Enterprise didn't know how to take that, and part of that had to do with how she was still recovering from the dangerously close proximity that Belfast had initiated to the point of what she thought to have been a near-collision. It had her flashing back to what she had named 'The Pocky Incident'.

She's been doing that a lot, Enterprise mentally noted, recounting the number of times that Belfast had been infringing on her personal space – a poke against a pouting cheek, a finger to her chin, the grasps on her hands on arms.

Perplexing as they remained though, she still couldn't say that she disliked it, which spawned conflicting feelings about the growing number of them.

"Well, this really is right in front of us," Belfast spoke, referring to the open door that she now made her way through. "Why wait any longer?"

Enterprise followed her into the room, expecting and seeing the silhouettes of glass enclosures, podiums, and displays that were natural to an exhibit, lit by small lamps or spotlights in order to have what they presented visible. The need for their presence was due to the dimness of the room, darker than the warfare exhibit, that had enough lighting that they had easily reflected off the shiny hilts and medals of their samples.

Her first impulse was to look up, a natural direction when searching for an appropriate light source, and found a sky of false stars on the high ceiling. She couldn't make out any fixtures or signs of more obvious lighting, getting her to wonder if the specks of light were meant to act as an imitation of a starry night. That theory gained ample evidence when she saw a cratered, gray face of what had to be their moon when her gaze trailed down a wall, a couple streaks of light that had to be shooting stars, a cluster of what to her appeared to be floating rocks, and…

Enterprise became locked onto something she had never seen before at night. She thought it to be some kind of cloud but…was that really what it was? It was shaped like one, but it was dustier in appearance, not as dense, which made it more like a transparent veil that the stars shone through rather than be concealed by. It created magnificent colors like and unlike a regular cloud would depending on the sun's positioning.

"Did you know that it has been suspected that the Sirens came from space?"

The query brought Enterprise back to ground level, it and the subject involved accomplishing that easily. "Did they?"

She felt like she had been played with again when she saw the expression Belfast sent over her shoulder. "I believe the official word is 'inconclusive', but it did grant a renewed interest in astronomical observation. Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, with records having been uncovered all the way back to Mesopotamia. Even before humanity had explored the seas, there had always been an interest in the realm of the stars – first as a plane for the divine, which then became to be further understood through the budding sciences."

Stone tablets on a pedestal caught Enterprise's eye, a helpful text card not only identifying their Babylonian origin but providing a translation of it as a record of a sighting of a particular comet. Following it were pictures and photographs of ancient stone temples or crude arrangements that more informative cards extrapolated as means of observing or mapping the sun and other solar bodies.

Something tingled within her. She couldn't identify why, but something about these primitive structures and their assumed purposes generated a sense of interest in her. Seeing them and thinking of how even the most ancient of humans had sought to understand more about the stars above them, so out of reach, and how it had contributed to the modern era thousands of years later was…inspiring, she guessed what that feeling was.

"This has never changed," Belfast went on. "These displays are all due to the worldwide efforts of the empires and nations of the past and present. For every century, new discoveries and further progress were made in order to see and uncover what was beyond their reach no matter what adversities were present at the time. The establishment of the first calendars, the hypothesis and confirmation of Earth's spinning on its axis, the mapping of the other planets and their motions, all of which has led up to this."

A lot of the surrounding displays were restricted to charts and pictures. A few listed the stars and constellations that Enterprise had memorized and had been the key to her survival. There were more physical specimens, such as a full-sized telescope and small models of modern observatories.

There was one model that Belfast directed her full attention to, and one that Enterprise didn't need the cruiser's help to identify.

"This is our solar system," Enterprise figured out, but there was some uncertainty that was absolved when Belfast gave her a confirming nod.

The model had its obvious indicators, such as the small labels that were placed on the large, orange ball in the center and the nine planets that orbited around it to name them for what they were. The uncertainty, however, was unavoidable.

"I've never seen something like this before."

"To be fair, you are far from the only one," Belfast said. "With all that has happened and the threats before us, it has blurred our vision to anything else. But that in itself provides a rousing effect when seeing something like this, doesn't it?"

It was an apt description. The planets that she had only been able to view at night were suddenly before her very eyes. Their color, size, placement, orbital paths. Her own views suddenly seemed so paltry when she was able to see the literal formation and projected motions with this more in-depth look.

She paused, her body angling around to get a proper view of one specific planet. The tiny paper identifier was there, but she eventually decided to point it out to Belfast. "This is Saturn?"

"Yes."

"It…" Her head craned around it a bit more to be sure. "It has a ring."

The Saturn Enterprise knew was a bright yellow spot in the sky, brighter and steadier than a star. When she saw the red sphere that was Mars, it was as she viewed it from afar except closer. But what was the explanation behind this phenomenon?

"Rings, actually," Belfast corrected. "Although we don't know how many. But they're not whole, continuous pieces as you may be thinking. Dust, debris, and other small particles are theorized to have been pulled in and remain in orbit through gravitational forces."

For one who had always been satisfied with her own simple views and opinions of what was in front of her, Enterprise was positively unsatisfied with the short explanation that Belfast gave her. Where did all this debris come from and how had they composed so perfectly, so close together, that they made up such a deceptive formation? Why did none of these other planets have such rings? 'Gravitational forces' was not enough for her. "That's all?"

Belfast expressed a bit of regret, but overshadowing it was the delight that was in response to Enterprise's interest. "I'm afraid the exact reasons for the construction and shape have not been fully uncovered either. One hypothesis is that there may be something hidden within the rings and exerting its own influence to stabilize them but there's no clear evidence, just guesses. Current telescopes are not powerful enough to see such details. Either better ones have to be made or…"

Enterprise perked up. "Or?"

"We have to go into space and get a look at it ourselves."

Without context, the idea presented could've been taken as a joke, but there wasn't one for Enterprise to find from Belfast. "Go up there ourselves?"

"It's another frontier," Belfast said with a smile. "The stars that have been over mankind's head, unreachable, but inspiring wonder and a desire for exploration and discovery. Does it not do the same for you, Enterprise?"

Enterprise looked at the model again. The planets that she had been so dismissive of beforehand now began producing questions the more she looked at them. When she was able to take her attention off Saturn, she zoomed in closer to the sun, where the smaller Mercury was located – so small that Enterprise wondered how it remained in existence with that giant fireball right next to it. What was it like, orbiting so close to it?

Earth's neighbors, Mars and Venus, felt closer than she ever thought of when she followed their orbits. But there had to be much distance between them. And why was it that Earth, with its ocean blues and forest greens, was so much different from them? Them and the rest of the planets in their solar system.

Wasn't there another somewhere, just like Earth?

That question was the key behind the significance that Belfast wanted her to understand, but it wasn't quite there yet for Enterprise who switched back to her. "Can we even go up there?"

It wasn't the answer to the question Belfast posed, but that didn't sway the enthusiasm behind her words. "It's quite possible, and sooner than you may expect. Although our priorities remain on the Sirens and the Crimson Axis, there is talk behind the scenes about the future. Rocketry is considered the most likely method, but even if we manage to leave Earth's orbit, there's a variety of expected and unexpected dangers that could be encountered if we were to travel to even our own moon." The corner of Belfast's lip was tugged higher. "And then there's the next massive hurdle of what it'll take to go beyond our solar system."

Enterprise was already beginning to feel slightly overwhelmed by this already, the questions that she was already having multiplying even further upon being teased with gains that went even further past the picture that she was seeing. "Beyond all of this?"

With nary a word, Belfast moved on and Enterprise followed.

This was all doing something to Enterprise, and venturing further into the exhibit empowered this feeling that was coming over her. It was something that she had felt before, but the occasions she did, she knew, had been nothing but pleasant remembrances. It would come when she thought of humanity's previous undertakings as explorers, not conquerors. When she would think of the treacherous voyages that had been undertaken, in untamed and unexplored seas, and the wonders that would be uncovered by braving through those dangers, there was that nostalgia.

But she had never truly been a part of that, and the memories that bred such fond recollections were not truly her own, instead passed down to her. And those memories of adventure through exploration had been overshadowed by those of violence when she had been brought into an era where there was no longer anything left to discover but, instead, to fight and destroy for what had been claimed and needed to be retaken.

What she felt here was entirely her own when Belfast began listing the trials and tribulations that were suspected to be involved if human beings were to leave the safety of the only planet that had encouraged life. Beyond the protection of Earth's atmosphere there was the vacuum of space, barren of air or gravity, and radiation such as what was being given off from the source of light and warmth that was their sun. And once they were away from it, there was nothing that could offer a replacement or safe haven due to the inhospitality of these other worlds which was when Enterprise learned of the astronomical distance known as light-years and the trillions of miles that made up a single one. Using that to measure the distance between each planetary light revealed the calculated time it would take to reach them if the force necessary to break out from Earth's gravity and into space was ever achieved. A time that could last as long as years depending on the destination.

But weren't such risks similar in essence to what sailors had faced and triumphed over in the past? Wooden ships, more vulnerable to the seas that could become wild and destructive due to the whims of nature, with sails that made long voyages last months. Her home in Eagle Union had been thought of as nothing but a sudden, swift drop into nothingness at the end of the world. Now, it was only one half of the completed Earth, with steel hulls and engines accelerating the time of voyages to days or weeks between its continents.

So, what was worth overcoming these risks? What was the big discovery or discoveries that were to be made? What could be achieved when humanity triumphed and improved because of it?

She and Belfast followed the markers for that. The belt of asteroids that was located between Mars and Jupiter, the specimens of meteorites that had been excavated from their crash landings on their planet, and snapshots of anomalies occurring within space, such as those interstellar clouds that had first caught Enterprise's attention and she now had a proper designation for. And instead of generals and military commanders, she saw names that held major significance in the field of astronomy: Aryabhata, Ptolemy, Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton. They were names that were separated by the ages, but their work and theories paved the way for what had become scientific facts of the present instead of victories on a battlefield from long ago.

Those little crumbs led them to the complete picture that was mounted three feet off the floor on the far wall of the room and protected by a layer of glass – the grand finale. It was a massive chart that was ten feet wide and half as tall by her estimate. Not a photograph but an artist's rendition.

It was a vortex. The core was a bulge of blazing light, made possible by a mass of gas and stars densely packed together. Going outwards, they stretched and thinned, forming into longer, more translucent arms that curved into a spiral, where individual stars were easier to make out, but would take an eternity to count them all.

That was what Enterprise saw. Eternity. Infinity. It was a still image, but she could imagine this vortex in motion, the glittering arms winding round and round, collecting matter from the edges of the void that they scooped up and used as material to form more of those solar bodies and the systems that were swept into in this unceasing circulation.

Standing in front of it, Enterprise was transfixed. The Sirens, the Crimson Axis, the war-ridden past and present that had been all she knew, they were the furthest that they had ever been from her mind. Creation, life, light – that was what she saw filling her vision and her thoughts while simultaneously expelling anything else that wasn't that.

"This is our galaxy. The best representation that we could make of what we know." Having taken position at one edge of the chart, Belfast began moving more towards the middle so that she could point out a spot somewhere between the core and the edge of it. "Somewhere right here is our shore."

A shore to the much vaster sea. Once contained to the edges of the landmasses that were surrounded by the oceans, was this how early humans saw it when they viewed that endless horizon? Seeing nothing, thinking that there may indeed be nothing beyond, and yet that in itself encouraging the endless possibilities of what could be out there.

There was a chart – a map – right in front of Enterprise, signs of what could be beyond the void of their patch of space, but what she was experiencing couldn't be any less different. After all, for the first time in her life she could keenly relate to the memories and sensations that inspired humankind to set forth towards that horizon and what had been suppressed by those of warfare.

The sun is a star. The stars are suns. The rationale came back to her again when Enterprise thought about trying to think of which star was their sun in that spot that Belfast had indicated, filled with dozens already. She knew the futility of it though, the chances of mistaking their sun for someone else's-

Someone…else's…

Enterprise's eyes widened in realization and in a pitiful attempt to take in all that was their galaxy – their ocean. The representation was too big, obviously, forcing the carrier to move her head left and right in order to cover the full expanse of it as the already unlimited possibilities somehow increased even further.

"Stars are suns," she muttered aloud. Vaguely, she noticed the encouraging nod from Belfast, which got her to voice the rest. "Then does that mean there could be others out there? Civilizations, I mean."

"It's very possible," the Royal cruiser replied. "Maybe not with every single one but I don't think I have to say just how many stars we're able to see at night. Or how many are right here."

No, she didn't. Enterprise was envisioning that starry landscape at this very moment. She pictured the dots that decorated the night sky, too many to count even if it wasn't clear and cloudless. Each represented another solar system, with planets like the one that inhabited their own, and each one able to hold the potential to create and support life that could lead to an entirely different civilization. Earth was one, with tens of thousands of visible stars surrounding it.

To be able to travel between the stars one day as they could the continents to meet and understand civilizations that could be so much different or so similar from theirs…made up of beings that must have thoughts like theirs – wants and desires to bring them to such heights as humanity was trying to reach at this very moment.

"Is it that overwhelming?"

The sheer weight of such prospects had Enterprise's head growing so heavy that she unconsciously bowed it, and even then it felt like it was about to burst with the infinite potential in each one. She got herself to raise it regardless in order to see Belfast who had her body tilted along with her chin in order to get a look at her. "It is."

"Yes, I can see that." Belfast righted herself, mouth stretching to either end of her face. With her white dress and hair, and the sparkling of her blue eyes in the dim lighting, she could almost belong somewhere in the picture behind her if it wasn't for her sunhat. "I'm glad, because now you can believe me when I say that humanity can change. Everything you see here is due to mankind as a whole, with these images and knowledge that was not collected by a single party but through generations of humans who made the first discoveries and those who are striving to build up and reach towards what their ancestors started with each passing of one era and the start of a new one. Even in the face of destruction, the members of Northern Parliament, Iron Blood, Eagle Union, Royal Navy, and the rest of Azur Lane could not be stopped from looking forward to seeing how they may prosper."

She fixed her gaze on Enterprise, becoming serious. "Enterprise, one day, this war will be over."

That brought Enterprise back, but not in the way that the carrier expected. The reality came rushing back in, but it did not sweep away the ambitions that she had just been entertaining. They shook as a dream did when real life was making its return, but they were not dashed into pieces. They remained standing.

"I don't think you ever believed that and wouldn't have if I told you so an hour ago. You hate fighting, you are weary of it, it has scarred you horribly, and yet I saw on your face plain as day that you were convinced that it was not only the purpose of your existence but all that it will ever be. By extension, you believe that it'll be all that the humans you protect will ever be." Something different glittered within her eyes, only for a second, and Enterprise forgot about it, drawn more to her words. "By showing you this, I hope for you to see the future that humanity can achieve with the values that your name embodies."

"My name?"

"Enterprise: an undertaking that entails much difficulty and effort in order for it to be realized." Belfast motioned to the representation of their galaxy again. "And this may prove to be the greatest undertaking of all, but you have to believe that humanity itself is inherently enterprising. It is how we have reached this stage where we can finally reach and explore this frontier that had been before us since the start of creation. It is that essence and this future that I want you to believe in, this ascension that humanity can achieve, because it will help you in seeing the elegant existence that has nothing to do with fighting."

Enterprise gave another long look at their galactic ocean again, full of thought. The magnificence of it made everything – humanity, Sirens, shipgirls, their wars – feel so insignificant. However, the fact that she was able to stand here and see it for herself with the strides that had been made by humanity's descendants of thousands of years ago did not leave her feeling that the next step was impossible. It was here, the means to get to it were there, and thus it was possible.

It was not enough to discard that great weight that she felt and what she had always carried. It felt heavy now, trying to keep her anchored in place with the weight of the battles and what she had suffered because of them. She could feel reality once again making another run against imaginations that were without substance. To crush them as effectively as it had been slowly, torturously, crushing her.

It may have been able to prevail here, just as it had done before with all that it had previously taken from her for her to submit to it. It had left her jaded, doubtful of anything that she had seen as false hopes and irrational pretending when it clashed with what she personally saw and felt.

There was integrity here, though, and it kept those imaginations from caving against reality. It let her think of what it would take for humanity to rise so high and sail so far on this new plane. To do so in the scattered fragments that it currently was now was ludicrous, but to think that it could unite in order to overcome this was almost as impossible.

When humanity was presented with a malevolent foe far beyond their imaginations – the Sirens – they had united and achieved such a feat of imbuing life into metal to fight against it. But this foe was the personification of war and all its destruction and cruelties, making it the double-edged sword that could become a dividing force as it was a unifying one when it came to just what it would take to vanquish an enemy, leading them to the current situation of infighting.

But this adversary known as space was something different, far beyond them, and the methods to defeat it were not rooted to the bloody means of violence. Instead, the means came from the honest, pure, and inspirational nature of mankind that had allowed it to advance – to change – as far as it has now. The lengths that they would have to go to were immeasurable, the number of hurdles immense, but with each bit of progress, with each obstacle overcome, they would come closer to achieving victory in an entirely different fashion.

By doing so with such means, where conflict would be nothing but an impediment, then could that, also, lead to war itself becoming obsolete to this future that was being proposed?

That question broke apart into many more, some of which she wanted to ask Belfast then and there, but when Enterprise addressed her, she held them back when she saw that the cruiser was distracted by something. She was peering at something past Enterprise's shoulder, and the ace reflexively looked over, searching for something but not seeing what may've caught Belfast's attention amongst the displays and other human viewers.

"One moment, Enterprise," Belfast excused herself, walking around the carrier and toward a darkened corner of the room.

Her pace was slow, unhurried, with no sign of approaching a threat she may've noticed so Enterprise couldn't think of what got her attention. Had she spotted another shipgirl somewhere? Enterprise hadn't detected anyone else other than them.

Belfast slowed even further, and Enterprise squinted when she thought she saw a quick, miniscule movement of something darting behind a pedestal that held one of the meteorite fragments. Taking unusual care, Belfast angled around it but didn't go any further. To the Eagle champion's increasing incredulity, she bent her knees to bring herself low, and seemed to be saying something but Enterprise couldn't hear her or see who she was speaking with.

After a while, the temptation came for Enterprise to go over and see what was going on, but that was when Belfast extended a hand out, a slight wave of her fingers indicating for someone to take it.

And someone did, with a hand that was much smaller than the cruiser's.

With it in her possession, Belfast stood back up and returned to Enterprise, keeping her link intact in order to guide her new companion. All that the carrier was able to do was stare at who Belfast brought over, feeling very confused.

"We have a little bit of a situation," Belfast declared with a short, apologetic smile.

---

It was a child.

A human child.

To be precise, it was a young girl. Younger than even the most junior of destroyers that Enterprise knew of, with Belfast being the one to guess that she couldn't be much older than two years old. Enterprise chose to defer to her friend's guess. An aging-challenged shipgirl was a poor judge of identifying a human's age, leaving her to rely on Belfast's personal experience with them.

She wore a small red, checkered pattern dress with twisting flowery designs and frills. She had light green eyes, but Belfast decided to chime that a child's eyes commonly changed colors when growing up, same with their hair so her thin, auburn hair may change to a different tone or texture overtime.

Again, Enterprise decided to defer to this knowledge, stowing away any thought of asking how Belfast knew these things. She just chalked it up as something else that Belfast just knew.

She did ask one thing though, that being why Belfast had decided to bring a child into their care, and the answer explained the situation all too plainly: the little girl was lost.

From what they were able to surmise, she had gotten separated from her parents at some point, possibly in the same space exhibit that they found her in. Any hopes to reunite her with them quickly didn't pan out too well, the two shipgirls questioning the few humans that were nearby if the girl belonged to them and being told that she didn't.

During that time, Enterprise couldn't help but take several glances at their unexpected charge. She came up to Belfast's knee, and ever since the cruiser had brought her over the girl remained with one hand clasped in Belfast's, the other arm occupied with some kind of doll that she had been found with and hadn't let go of. On occasion their eyes would happen to meet, and the girl would immediately duck her head more behind Belfast's skirt, afraid. Apparently, the mere minutes or so of their acquaintanceship had been enough for that child's mind to decide that she found the gentle Belfast to be a more reassuring presence and not so with Enterprise.

This certainly reminds me of something, the carrier recollected, the first time she was formally introduced to Unicorn having been when she had been acting the exact same way with the exact same Royal Navy maid no less.

Though Unicorn at least had the capability of shy, embarrassed speech, this girl hadn't spoken a word and Enterprise wondered if she could. Even from some gently prompting from Belfast, the girl hadn't given them a name that they could use to refer to her, her disappearing within the material of Belfast's skirt when asked. With nothing else to go on from either her or the people around them, they took her outside of the exhibit to the larger hall with the idea of the more open and lit environment would be preferable to spot any frantic-looking adults. When met with similar results, they had to plan out their next move.

"There's the service desks that are around," Belfast said, the girl still at her side. "I could locate one of them and have them make an announcement."

"Alright," Enterprise responded, the plan easy and sensible enough to her.

"While I do that, wait here with her."

"Ok-" She stopped short. "What?"

"Her parents have to be looking for her," Belfast reasoned, expression serious. "Someone should remain here with her in case they decide to double back."

"Yeah, but…" Enterprise began, the reasons and excuses that tripped and tumbled over each other due to the unexpectedness of Belfast's plan throwing her off on how to respond.

Belfast transmitted a short grin, "You don't think you can handle it?"

Enterprise took minor offense to that. "I can handle it." She glanced down, ready to say how they should just both go or something reasonable like that and found herself the recipient of watery, red-rimmed eyes staring up at her. She hesitated, finding something unsettling about being their focus.

"Little one," Belfast addressed the girl, bending down in order to be eye level with her.

The girl stared back, silent but wide-eyed.

"I'm going to go find your mommy and daddy." The cruiser was speaking with a remarkably soft and tender voice the like of which was a first for Enterprise but what she had exclusively used whenever she would speak with the child. She pointed towards her. "This is Enterprise. Can you stay here with her until I find them?"

With one arm clutching tight around her doll, the girl turned to look up at Enterprise, her features still as sorrowful and scared as when they first uncovered her. They returned to Belfast, the watery eyes lowering and the girl making the tiniest of nods with a small, incomprehensible mumble that Enterprise thought sounded like an 'okay'.

The smile that Belfast gave her was as affectionate as the motion she made when she released the girl's hand, patting the top of her head that became a caress down the side of her face, her thumb rubbing out a spot of glistening moisture at the corner of one eye. "On my honor, I promise I'll bring them back. Keep being a brave girl until then, okay?"

Enterprise viewed the scene with fascination, the degree of care that Belfast was giving to the young child something that she hadn't seen. She again recollected how Belfast had escorted Unicorn but, even then, this was new.

Which made this feeling of déjà vu even more eerie. Why did it feel like she'd seen something like this before when she knew for a fact that this wasn't so?

Belfast rose back up, her next bit of assurance for Enterprise. "I will return as speedily as I can. I trust that you'll be able to handle things until then."

Enterprise frowned, feeling like she was being patronized with another of the cruiser's quick, badly hidden grins doing little to dissuade her from that impression. What was this compared to a battle? "I'm sure I'll be fine."

Belfast didn't say anything more, bowing to her and giving the child one last gentle smile before she turned and made her way in a direction that would hopefully lead her towards prompt assistance.

Leaving Enterprise alone with the girl.

Things quickly didn't become as 'fine' as Enterprise initially believed, a very awkward atmosphere establishing itself when she looked down at the girl and found herself the recipient of those widened eyes once more. They stared at one another, neither doing nor saying anything.

Was she supposed to be doing something right now? Enterprise lifted her hand, a hesitant and awkward grin being forced into existence. "Hey…"

The girl kept staring. Then those eyes began to water again.

Oh…

With her face scrunching up, the first tears slipped through while her mouth twisted into what could only be the beginnings of a wail.

Oh no! The battle-hardened champion of Eagle Union felt the onset of panic that had her instantly dropping to her knees, her hands flying up to try and placate the girl but immediately becoming frozen as she had no idea on how she should do so. The loving, open show of physical comfort that Belfast had freely given was something that came to Enterprise but what she thought to be inconceivable for her to do, leaving her hands to flail helplessly.

"H-hey, hey…" Similarly, her verbal assurance felt anything but, instead steeped in the same awkward panic that had her desperately looking around with the vain prospect that Belfast was already returning with the girl's parents to save her from this situation when nary a minute had gone since her departure. "It's okay…"

The girl's sniffling increased, a hiccup interrupting it with the noise sounding dangerously close to turning into full-on crying.

I may've underestimated the situation, was Enterprise's judgment, thinking that she had made another critical error in her assessment of yet another set of circumstances that had come so unexpectedly. Her extravagant repertoire of skills and battle experience were made impractical, leaving her with no idea on how to contend with this. Should she just ask some random passerby for help?

She could still hear the girl's sniffling, but it did not escalate into the sobbing that she was fearing and could only assume it was a matter of time before it occurred. So it was completely unexpected to her when she felt a small grip take a bit of her hair.

Enterprise swiveled back around and was met with an unusual sight. The child had used her lowered position and turn of her head to seize as much of her ivory lengths as her small hand allowed her to. With them in her possession, the girl was looking at them with what could only be fascination, her fingers rubbing the strands between them. Many of them slipped through, the puny digits awkward and clumsy, and she reached out to reclaim them.

The girl's interest made no sense to Enterprise, but as the tears that had already fallen weren't being renewed with another wave, the shipgirl decided that reasoning wasn't a necessary thing. She even pinched a bit of her hair and held it out, which the girl immediately took to resume her clumsy examination.

Enterprise thought she heard something, and she leaned closer, tilting an ear closer. "What?"

"…ama…"

Confusion was the only response that Enterprise could answer with. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Hama…"

It was hardly any better than the soft mumbling that she would utter when Belfast was able to encourage a response from her, and even then, there was a bit of an added garble that Enterprise could only suspect was due to the chubby cheeks of the girl. With no clue as to what she was saying but satisfied that she wasn't about to cry, Enterprise mentally shrugged. "Okay."

Remarkably, her indifference got something out of the two-year-old. Though her face remained messy from her previous crying, her reddened cheeks and eyes had cleared just enough for Enterprise to witness the girl pout as if she found the older shipgirl's inability to understand making her the immature one. "Hama."

"I don't understand," Enterprise replied.

"Hama!"

Enterprise winced, the sudden liveliness of the girl involving a tug against the hair that she still had. It didn't really hurt, the child possessing the strength of one, but the uncomfortable tug did have her lightly grabbing it in order to mitigate another one if it were to repeat. "I don't…"

She trailed off. Along with the tug, the girl's livelier actions included an erratic gesturing of her other arm that had her doll. Having always kept it tight and close to her person, Enterprise hadn't really gotten a look at it. With it out more and with the girl having her hair, Enterprise thought she was making the beginnings of a connection when she saw that the doll's hair was similar to her own. It led her to seeing the red and black bow that decorated the top of its head, right between a set of small but discernable…

…Cat…ears…?

Enterprise suddenly became very interested in the doll which had a very familiar black and white attire. Gently, she took the child's hand and manipulated it just enough so that she could finally get a good look at it.

The wide turquoise eyes stared back at her in their plushy glory, a bit of black thread having been sewn in to give the doll the curve of a smile. Surprising, as Enterprise was more used to the agitated scowling and pouts of who this doll was mimicking.

Otherwise, this was a rather accurate portrayal of Hammann, complete with her star-spangled tie.

Enterprise stared at it, shocked, and it was only when the girl pulled it out of her grasp that she was knocked out of the stupor that it put her in. When she refocused, it was to see the small human once again clutching the doll close to her, albeit in a more protective fashion.

"Mine!" the girl declared.

It clicking now, Enterprise pointed a finger towards the doll. "Her name's Hammann."

The girl blinked, looking at her cherished possession, and then back to Enterprise. "Hama…"

"Hammann," she corrected.

Those eyes, no longer watery with tears, narrowed. "Hama!"

"Ham-mann," Enterprise pronounced slowly.

"Hama!"

"Ha-" Enterprise sighed, giving up. "Okay. Hama."

The girl smiled, giggled, and rubbed her face against the doll-sized Hammann. At no point during the exchange did she relinquish her other possession: Enterprise's ivory hair that was being loosely tangled around her fingers which resumed their rubbing.

An unexpected lifting at a corner of her mouth got Enterprise to smile as she watched her, feeling something else lifting in her chest in response to the scene. So, this is a human child.

She had seen them from afar during her and Belfast's expeditions throughout the city, an occasional bus ride, the passing of a park or playground, or the crossing of a pavement putting her in closer proximity to them than she had ever been before. Evidently, a military base or contested waters weren't exactly the appropriate environments to bring children to, leaving her with the shipgirls who had adopted appearances more closely resembling them.

There was still a fine line between them and actual children whether they be the likes of Unicorn, Norfolk, or the shipgirls of Destroyer Squadron 23 – the "Little Beavers". No matter how young they appeared or how recent their commissioning had been, they all possessed the same power and knowledge as the rest of their seniors. It made their bodies strong, their integrity stronger, and all of that with an instinctive handling of using the armaments that they donned for a duty that had been engraved into their souls and what they would carry out.

A shipgirl with two years of service would've been through multiple sorties and credited with destroying dozens of Siren vessels – more than enough to earn their veterancy. Enterprise doubted that her and her sisters' official records were reliable enough to give an accurate count of how many ships they had sunk in their two years.

It was a very different case with a human child. With the human race already appearing delicate in comparison to her, one of the reasons that Enterprise had hesitated to comfort her was that she was afraid of accidentally breaking the girl. Her presence was like her body: tiny, soft, and barely growing. When she touched her hand, the girl's bones felt brittle, the plump skin meant to protect and cushion them until she had grown enough so that they could more tautly stretch over them and the muscles that would develop – a process that would take as long as over half of Enterprise's current service length.

Same with her mental and emotional capacities: struggling to form and convey words and understand what someone else was trying to teach her, to fear and cry over unknown situations with unknown people, and to take joy in simple things that could fascinate and comfort. True, there was Unicorn with her own plush toy and Norfolk with her jittery nature, but it was difficult to really compare them to this two-year-old child.

Is it really that different, though? Enterprise wondered, once again struck by how similar this girl was hugging her doll and how frightful she had been earlier, just like those two.

No, there was no denying the end results: Unicorn and Norfolk were both shipgirls, their birth and purpose vastly different from this girl's. With that in mind, Enterprise thought back to the space exhibit and what Belfast had been trying to teach her: about war and its future, along with that of mankind.

But one of the questions that she wanted to ask, and what she hadn't been able to, was if there came a time when war would be obsolete just like she predicted…where did that leave shipgirls?

She didn't know. Even with all they had seen, watching and seeing shipgirls integrating in the world of humans, she couldn't answer her own question. Her nature – the nature of all shipgirls – was for war. Their power and their weapons were what the human race needed and called upon to protect them.

Even now, Enterprise couldn't be bent from that position, which left her with that all-important question: what was to happen when there no longer came a need for them and their power to fight?

There came another tug from her hair, and Enterprise looked down, nearly surging when she saw just how much of her lengths were getting tangled between the girl's fingers. "I think that's enough," she advised, untangling them.

It was a laugh that the girl made, her arm and body performing joyful, spastic motions as a form of resistance against Enterprise's efforts.

The delighted laugh echoed in her ears and in her mind, overwhelming her thoughts and getting Enterprise to smile despite how her mission to free them was getting harder. "Okay, okay," she fruitlessly shushed. "Calm down, let me just get this…"

She managed to untangle them but had to accede to the girl's insistence that she keep some of her locks in hand. The girl was much brighter, smiling now when their eyes locked, and she was giggling from what appeared to be a joke that was restricted to her own childish mind.

Enterprise felt her own smile grow, making her speculate if it was her ingrained mission to serve and protect humans that explained the warmth and lightness in her chest, and the easy settling of her troubling thoughts. Was this due to the witnessing of a more personal, direct sign of a mission going well, as it was clear that she was doing now?

And was that, in turn, inspiring a sincere, fervent want to protect this girl? The urge felt purer and far more compelling than it ever had in too long of a time for her to question if she ever really did so.

It got her to try to make conversation, too, she pointing to the Hammann plush toy. "I know Hama."

The girl stared, some of her glee diminishing with it being her turn to not understand what the carrier was saying.

Even with the knowledge that she should be using short, simple words to speak with the girl, Enterprise didn't know how to keep it any simpler. "I know Hama. She is a friend."

The child blinked curiously. "Fwend?" There was a slight slur to her voice, undoubtedly due to those same chubby cheeks.

"Yes, friend," Enterprise replied with a nod. "A good friend. I…owe her a lot." Thinking about her junior, it was the first time the carrier wondered if she had ever really expressed her gratitude to Hammann. She thought she remembered at least saying thanks for saving Yorktown's life, but with the whirlwind of emotions and events that had occurred during then, Enterprise questioned whether she really did express just how grateful she had been with how much Hammann had cared about Yorktown to save her at the risk of her own life.

She had been having more time to think about a lot more things, and despite how long it had been, she was beset by a compulsion that she couldn't follow through right now but was having her create a note of sincerity for when she would meet Hammann again: to more appropriately convey her gratitude. Enterprise had never refused, but at the same time she couldn't recall ever really ratifying Hammann's inclusion into the carrier family – not like Hornet. She just accepted it with her usual indifference and little else and, looking back on it, she was regretting it. That, and much else that she had neglected concerning her family…Hornet most of all.

Thinking back to the promise that she made with them, Enterprise told herself right then and there that she would fulfill it to the fullest extent that she could once they reunited.

At least I'll have a good lead-in for that, she thought, smiling to herself at the scenario for when she told Hammann about a child who took such comfort in her likeness. The same girl who was giving her doll another hug.

"Did you like the space exhibit?" she asked. She was on a roll now, might as well keep going. When she got another confused stare, she pointed towards the door that led to the exhibit. "Did you see stars?"

The girl followed her finger and nodded. "Yeah. I shaw stars."

"Did you like stars?"

"Yeah," she said. "Pretty."

"Do you want to go to stars one day?"

She got another stare. "Goh to stars?"

"Yes." Enterprise pointed her finger up. "Go to stars?"

The girl looked up towards the ceiling, leaning so far back in order to do so that Enterprise worried about her falling over. She didn't and soon came back with a nod. "Yeah!"

"I see."

She guessed that that was another real difference between humans and shipgirls. This girl, though slower to mature, with a body and a mind needing much more time to develop, just made it all the better for her to make the choices that would shape her life. She would grow, learn and see the world at her own pace, which would lead to her being able to choose what she wished to do with her life. Maybe it was to go see stars if she really wanted, or it could be something entirely different.

Not so with shipgirls. They came into being instantly, in the forms most appropriate and with the weapons most effective, and their missions in life clear. Their purpose was to fight, and they were the best at it. As much as they imitated the humans they protected and even had their own hobbies, desires, and wants to enjoy life, there was no getting around to what made them what they were.

But…that was just something Enterprise had always known. She had known and accepted that. This entire trip had been shifting her understanding in some things, getting her to see the elegance in life as Belfast had put it, but the core of how she viewed herself and her place in the world remained unshakable.

It was just how things were.

…Nonetheless, she was starting to have a clearer picture of why she was doing it – the worth of it. As different as this girl's life was to her own, with her ability to grow and choose whatever she wanted, that innocence and potential was something that Enterprise wanted to protect, especially with the context that she had acquired from today's exhibits. Hers, and the millions of others like her.

Maybe that would help her overcome her disability and get her to fight again.

"What's your name?" Enterprise asked. With the girl more open and comfortable, maybe she could finally learn that. "Name."

There was no misunderstanding in this instance, the girl able to discern what was being requested. And, to Enterprise's sense of accomplishment, she fulfilled it. "Sophie."

"Sophie," Enterprise repeated. A nice name. A very…human name, she guessed.

Sophie pointed towards her. "Name."

Guess she forgot. Hers wasn't as short and simple as Sophie, after all. "Enterprise."

Her face scrunched up, her lips fumbling over the name. "Entewpise."

"En-ter-prise," she pronounced.

"Entew…pwise."

"…Better," Enterprise dubiously complimented.

By the look that came over her face, Sophie seemed determined to try again until she got it right, but that was when a hysteric cry reached them, getting both to turn. The loud noise put Enterprise on alert, but it was the exact opposite for Sophie who immediately darted away and towards the source. "Mama!"

She rushed into the arms of a woman, and Enterprise had a better idea of what Sophie's hair would become, going by the redder shade that the woman possessed.

"Don't you ever do that again!" Sophie's mother hissed with suppressed emotion. No anger, but overwhelming relief and love going by how she squeezed Sophie tight and peppered her with kisses, her daughter eagerly returning it with her own desperate clinging. A man who had to be the father joined in, enfolding both of them in a family embrace.

Enterprise kept her distance, feeling no compulsion to go over as she didn't see her place anywhere in that reunion, and was relieved when Belfast came over to her side. "Nice to see that you survived."

Enterprise scoffed indignantly. "I did say that I could handle it." She motioned her chin to the family. "They were easy to contact, I guess?"

"They actually happened to be at the same desk when I arrived," Belfast explained. "Made it easier for me to know they were the right people, given how anxious they were."

"I can imagine," Enterprise commented, going by the emotional sight in front of her.

"Everything went well with the girl? No trouble?"

"None, and her name's Sophie."

That got Belfast to turn to her with what the carrier thought to be exaggerated astonishment. "She told you her name?"

Enterprise's gaze shifted sideways, and she made what she wanted to be a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. "All I did was ask."

She was already predicting that Belfast wouldn't let it go that easily, but a fortunate interruption took that moment to come into play. Though, by the arm that suddenly came around her and pulled her into a tight embrace, Enterprise immediately began second guessing if it really was fortunate.

"Thank you so much for looking after her!" Sophie's mother thanked her fiercely.

Enterprise silently wheezed, caught off guard by the amount of vigor that was behind the hug. That was only part of the reason why her arms remained at her sides, the other being that she was stuck with an indecision of whether she should return it or pry herself free from it. "It was no problem, miss…"

Regardless, she and Belfast received some additional thanks and one more embrace like that one before the two parties chose to go their own ways. While the family was leaving, Sophie peered over her mother's shoulder and waved towards the two.

"Entewpwise!" she called, making it clear as to which one of them she was directing it to.

Enterprise subtly grimaced, sensing Belfast's immediate attention being brought to bear on her, and the return wave was inspired to delay what she knew was coming for as long as possible. There was sincerity in the gesture though as Enterprise watched them depart, Sophie still waving while her mother and father exchanged a few words before they leaned towards one another and shared a quick kiss.

Enterprise's hand froze at the display.

"Seems you two got along very well in the short time I was away."

"It was nothing like that," Enterprise insisted, her hand lowering but gaze lingering forward. "She was a nice kid once she calmed down a little."

"Hm, yes…I saw that."

A touch got Enterprise to turn, and she saw Belfast having reached over to smooth a certain section of her hair. It was, she soon identified, a small mass of ivory strands that had become and remained curled, the aftereffects of Sophie's playing of them. Belfast glanced up at her, smiled cheerily, and Enterprise had another urge to look elsewhere which she followed through with.

"Well, you didn't seem like you would be bad with handling children," Belfast noted.

"Not really a worthwhile skill," Enterprise downplayed, soon supplying it with facts. "Last I knew, children aren't exactly permitted personnel for a military base." Then she added, "And we can't have any, anyway."

It was a casual, throwaway statement, and with it all the factual obviousness that she had viewed something like the sun with. She couldn't remember when, exactly, she heard about it, but she knew that shipgirls couldn't have children. Having no interest and unable to really see why she would anyway, she thought little else of it. It was yet another thing that kept them separate from humans.

Belfast went quiet, uncharacteristically so, and that was already sending Enterprise a signal that something was off before there came an equally uncharacteristic low of, "No, we can't."

Sophie and her parents were already gone, but that wasn't stopping the Royal Navy cruiser from staring ahead as if she could still make them out. That was what Enterprise saw when she chose to look back at her, their shared height negating any chance of the sunhat hiding the blank, far-off stare that Belfast was in the process of making.

Enterprise wavered at that. Had she said something wrong?

"Do you know why our forms are female?"

Enterprise paused, the unusual question and how Belfast was still looking ahead delaying the answer that, for once, she knew for her latest trivia. "I believe I do. Sailors commonly referred to ships they sailed as 'she', didn't they? That created a perception of how ships are viewed which carried over to our creation."

Belfast dipped her chin in acknowledgement. "Accurate. Now, can you explain why that was?"

Detailed answers like that still weren't Enterprise's forte. "Not really."

There was a twitch of Belfast's lip. "Well, you were the one who said that sailors shouldn't feel anything special for their ships, so I guess that was expected." She had obviously been trying to form it into a playful verbal nudge against Enterprise but, like the facial gesture that didn't form, there wasn't anything really behind it. "The truth of the matter is that they did. It's a natural response for humans to seek relief and comfort, and sometimes that can establish a personal connection to even inanimate objects."

"Like a doll," Enterprise supplied, remembering Sophie's plush toy.

That did get Belfast to express a congratulating smirk. "A good example, and one of the many that show how humans project their desire to be cared for. Just as naturally, women would commonly serve as a basis due to being seen in their nurturing roles. Sailors, having to face much hardship when out at sea and needing to entrust so much to the vessels that ferried them, inevitably established such a connection. There's a significant number of ships throughout history that skew towards feminine names such as the Santa Maria – Christopher Columbus's flagship."

Enterprise was feeling some added motivation to try and get ahead to make the deeper connections relevant to the subject, and she immediately voiced the one she found. "Our creation was in response to the Sirens. Humans wanted something to fight them, but also protect them. That perception grew even stronger."

"Very strong, and the results speak for themselves. We still require sustenance and can eat regular food, we can get sick or fatigued if we do not properly take care of ourselves, and we still possess other biological functions that are the same as any other human. And yet for all our likeness to humans…we cannot accomplish that."

Enterprise knew what she meant by that and, she was certain, the facts surrounding it were something that Belfast didn't like. With how much time they were spending together and how they both have loosened their conduct that came with upholding their respective roles, Enterprise reflected that it was a given that they would not only come to learn more about herself, but she learning more about Belfast. She had been picking up the signs – glimpses behind the image of the always composed Royal Navy head maid -, but this was a significant peek behind that persona.

She didn't really want to continue, but at the same time…she wanted to understand more.

So she asked, "Has it ever been discovered as to why?"

"There's biological reasons," Belfast started, her tone and the information she would provide saying how she had investigated it. "For example, our bodies do not undergo menstrual cycles and, even then, there's speculation of whether we would be compatible with humans given that all shipgirls are, obviously, female, and so a human would be the closest to a suitable partner. As for why that is, that remains to be an uncertainty. There could be particular views of the perceptions that we're based on that could've been involved, or it could be something that had been exchanged for the sake of the harmonization in the relationship that is inherent with the ship and girl of 'shipgirl: the ability to create life in exchange for our long lives. Whatever the reason is, we cannot have children. It is what it is."

It was a statement that Enterprise lived by – truer than most, as she really did see her life as being what it is with little change expected to come. Hearing Belfast say it, however, felt wrong to her, and something she wanted to ask was if not being able to have children was all that bad, given what they could accomplish.

That, however, set off every alarm bell in her body and if she had been in any close proximity to her ship, she was certain that the more literal alarms would be blaring to alert her in the highest volume possible that she was about to run into the equivalent of a sea mine if she did so.

It was fortunate she didn't with what Belfast added in. "We are still mortal, and there have been those who reached the end of their mortality in battle. Their fates, and those they leave behind to remain vulnerable to such dangers, instills thoughts about what they can leave behind. Nothing may be able to change that, and what we can do is valuable, but it is a shame that those who wish it cannot leave behind such a measure of immortality."

Enterprise thought about Yorktown. The only kind of legacy that she would've left behind was the one that she had gifted Enterprise: a certain bald eagle. Enterprise treasured him, gave her a measure of assurance of how Yorktown could still be with her in some way…and that made her question if that was something that had motivated Yorktown to first take him in. Had she, like any other shipgirl out there, wanted to leave something behind for the rest of them, so that she wouldn't be forgotten? So that they could live on in some way?

A different question came to her mind. "Belfast."

Finally did Belfast look to her. "Yes?"

"Do you...?"

Belfast stared at her with a mock-up of her usual composure, complete with a short smile that assured that she was listening and would welcome any question. But that was what it was: a mock-up. That blankness remained, and the carrier suspected that something was hiding behind it. For how easily Belfast was able to able to bring it up, Enterprise also got the strong impression that every effort was being made to make sure that nothing was being given away because of how there was absolutely nothing for her to make out.

Enterprise's instincts weren't blasting a warning like last time, but with all that they just went over, asking a question like that…she looked away. "Nevermind."

A question like that just didn't seem appropriate.

A silence came between them, an insistent tugging occurring within Enterprise in Belfast's direction – a line trying to fish and reel in what she wanted to ask out into the open but what she stubbornly resisted.

"That doesn't change how our long lives are a blessing," Belfast volunteered to resume. "Unlike so many, we can not only fight for mankind but live to see how it will change and evolve through our efforts. Many great thinkers and historic figures had long since passed by the time their ideals were realized – not so with us. What we do, and what we will see because of it, will be our legacy, as will the generations that will grow under our care. Children such as Sophie will be allowed to grow up in an environment where they can live as they please, protected from the touch of war. When she was born, the scars that the Sirens inflicted upon London had already been erased. In a few more years, God willing, our conflicts will be over. After that, well, by then she'll have grown old enough to decide how better to cure the symptoms of these wars – because life is the only antidote for destruction."

There was a more genuine smile now when Enterprise drew back to her, and the carrier took heart in that as she believed in Belfast's words. Maybe, with a picture of a starry future in her mind, she would be able to see it when humanity finally broke that barrier – when the wars ended, and they could move on to the next frontier. She had no idea how long that would take, could only assume a long time with many battles left, but at least now she found something to hope for. A more solid, attainable goal.

And when they reached it, those who had been protected and inspired by their example would be able to move forward, and when shipgirls such as Enterprise would no longer be needed, she would welcome that, too.

There appeared to be nothing else for them to say, procedure taking over with them to go on their way, and it was with that procedure in mind that had Enterprise predicting how Belfast would probably stop and offer to get her to test whatever local cuisine that may happen to be around.

She took her first step and then halted when there came a sudden stiffness in her neck, a tingling soon following that brushed up and down, getting the hairs there to raise.

This wasn't new, and it was this feeling being something that she knew all too well that got Enterprise to turn around, eyes searching.

At first there wasn't anything suspicious within the small groups that traveled together. Nothing to explain this feeling of being watched. Then again, when Enterprise would experience it on sorties, there would be nothing but the open ocean waters. But that never stopped her from having those moments of feeling like someone was out there, looking at her from afar.

Sometimes it truly ended with nothing, but then there were other occasions that involved Sirens warping into existence moments later, and Enterprise had decided to take more stock in that feeling whenever it presented itself, much like it was doing now.

Even here, where Enterprise hadn't felt any sort of threat or distress in the middle of this human city. She wasn't pinging anything – no unusual contacts -, and she couldn't find anything wrong with the sight of people just going on about their day in a museum.

Then their eyes met.

It was scantly a moment, the other happening to be in mid-turn when it happened, rounding around a corner. But in that fleeting instance their gazes met and Enterprise knew, past the ragged ends of graying hair with the equally graying lavenders, that the other had meant for it to occur in such a timely manner that she was already gone before Enterprise could think or do anything except watch how the frayed ends of a cape or cloak followed after her.

A line that was fishing for her attention, with an irresistible bait.

And Enterprise went for it.

---

Everything, Belfast decided, had gone even better than she had planned.

For the past several days, she had watched and been heartened as each one passed with further and further improvement to Enterprise's condition. She could see it so plainly, that resistance that had been torn down, with Enterprise loosening her grip around that ravaged armor of hers once she began to realize that there wasn't a need to keep it as sloppily placed as it had been, with those sharp edges rubbing against her wounds, leaving them incapable of healing. It left her more open, more exposed to what she was seeing and feeling for herself. As a result, that human spirit within her was being stimulated by human influence in a way that the cruiser could assume hadn't been done in far too long, leaving an opportunity for those injuries to her heart and her spirit to finally begin healing properly.

As her maid and her friend, Belfast was silently rejoicing. It was a joy, she knew, that exceeded what she usually felt from a job well done. An explanation could've just been the difficulty of the assignment and the potential cost of failure that she had viewed before she set out, which involved another shipgirl's way of life on the line. A challenge that she had not encountered in a long time, with the reward being gifting the ideals of elegance into one who had been spiritually and emotionally starved of it.

But Belfast knew and admitted to herself that it was more personal than that. Her duties and her successes were all about being able to read and understand the feelings of those she served in order to know best how to address and handle them. When they were beset by hardships and were becoming bowed because of them, it was her duty to support them and get them to raise their head high again whether it be with the preparation of a particular treat they enjoyed, providing encouraging words and statements that they would be more receptive to, or setting the perfect environment that would inspire their hearts and ease their minds of burden.

This included Belfast being attuned to her own feelings in order to know whether or not she was acting appropriately and to make the proper self-corrections if she was not. That self-awareness was arguably the most important quality that a maid was to possess so as not to shame herself and that of her charge, an instance that could irreparably damage that sacred master/servant relationship – a crime that couldn't be matched in terms of sacrilege.

So, it was with it that she could recognize that some of her actions were not as selfless or strictly professional as was typically her norm. Nor were her own reactions to another smile that she saw on Enterprise's face, particularly after placing her in situations that would throw her off but what would have her rebounding with acceptance and growing self-confidence.

Today was exceptionally rewarding in that regard, seeing the wonder and fascination that had been out in the open when Enterprise had viewed the map of their galaxy. Admiration, as Belfast stated, was something she felt when it came to how honest the carrier could be with her feelings when properly drawn out.

However, was it really just admiration that was an apt description to what Belfast had really felt?

It certainly wasn't when she had seen Enterprise with that child, and even then the words that could be more suitable for that may still not be enough to describe how Belfast had been coerced into acknowledging one particular factor of their existence as shipgirls that left them wanting concerning that matter of legacy.

It did trouble her and made her question whether it was influencing her actions to the inappropriateness that she feared. She dedicated a few seconds to it, wondering if any of that self-correction was needed, but decided that it was unnecessary. The results, she ruled, were more than enough to justify it, which included the ones achieved by that unexpected situation. These minor deviations to her usual conduct, she also deemed, were appropriate.

It also put a different set of fears to rest: how Enterprise would react being in that exhibit of what she detested the most. Belfast had always had something like that in mind, knowing the necessity of it, but worrying about the risks regardless of how much time and effort she prepared for such a confrontation to take place, delaying it as long as she could.

It was, however, a success. With it, Enterprise could see the wisdom of the past behind their creation that has led to the present joys that she was experiencing and the possibilities of the future – all of which that would not only be able to inspire her to fight and protect it again, but also to look forward to what may come along with the rest of them.

There was just one thing left to achieve, and that was to turn Enterprise around to that one constant disagreement of theirs and what, Belfast knew, would be the most difficult hurdle. But if she could accomplish it, she was certain that she would be able to keep that promise that she had made to Enterprise. A promise that was just as important to her as it was to her charge.

Fortunately, she had a plan for that, too, but the time wasn't right yet. For now, she turned to look back at Enterprise, about to voice a suggestion of where they should stop for one of the breaks that was one of several that she had compiled and all of which could align perfectly with their schedule depending on what Enterprise felt like.

It never came when she realized that Enterprise was not behind her like she expected.

"Enterprise?" Startled, but not concerned, Belfast looked around, assuming that maybe something had caught her attention nearby and she would be able to locate her in short order.

When she still didn't see her, that was when she began to worry.

---

A sign would appear again just as Enterprise thought she had lost track, something that began to be a pattern. She would round a corner into another hall, just like the other had done, but rather than find her, she would instead be forced to scan what seemed to be fruitlessly for her presence, only to see the ends of that frayed cloak or ragged hair just as she was about to give up and, simultaneously, when the other was disappearing around another corner or disappearing down a flight of stairs.

And each time Enterprise was spurred on to follow with additional haste to her steps, regardless of how she became increasingly aware of how obviously she was being led around as she traversed back down to the first floor of the museum.

She had no other choice. It was a pull too strong to resist, backed by a certainty that she had to follow. The sparse glimpses of the silhouette suggested how, if she did not act, then this chance threatened to so easily slip away from her along with any answers or understanding that could benefit her.

Something that was difficult to attribute, given just who she believed the other to be and – if she was – then it shouldn't be possible for her to be here. Enterprise didn't know why she was so certain of that, but it was one of the questions that could be answered.

The chase did not last long, but even so there didn't seem to be anyone else taking note of the other. No one else's head or attention was being turned, it only being Enterprise who was aware of her and scrambling to follow, up until there came a point where the string of clues was suddenly broken.

It left her in a side passage that branched out from the main viewing areas. Short, with no other obvious destinations save for a door on the left side that was adorned with a yellow sign that said how only authorized personnel were allowed beyond it. It didn't deter Enterprise, she approaching the door and giving the handle a try as there was no other option.

It didn't budge.

She gave it a look that said how this shouldn't be, even if the reminder was still there as to how it was not meant for public access and, naturally, it would be locked. But there was no other alternative, as another look around the area offered no other direction save for the one she came from, and there was no signal that directed how she should go back. She tried the door handle again, but it remained unyielding to her efforts.

Should she really go back? She looked around one last time but, like the door, there was no change. Frustrated, she stepped away from the door, her hand slipping away from the handle as she prepared to go back.

There came a click from the door as soon as she did so.

Enterprise rotated back around, waiting, but no one was opening it and passing through. Tentatively, she reached back to grasp the handle and push it down.

The silver lever gave easily, the door miraculously unlocked and, with a small push, swinging slightly ajar.

The mysterious happenstance got her to pause and deliberate the situation more cautiously, a reminder now present of how she was not within any kind of summoning distance to acquire her rig if there was a threat beyond this point. She had her own martial abilities, tempered by her years of fighting, and fierce in their own right even without the physical boost of her gear.

Whether it really was a physical confrontation that the other was seeking or not, Enterprise pushed the door open the rest of the way and went through regardless.

It was a storage room, the dead giveaway being a few of the wooden crates that were visible immediately upon entering, soon followed by several more as Enterprise ventured further in. Most were sealed up, but there was a small area where a few were open, revealing how some were partially filled, while the rest were empty. Merchandise was scattered around, whether to be loaded or unloaded Enterprise wasn't sure but she didn't conduct any kind of examination of them, instead looking around for another clue from the other as to where she was to go or see.

There was nothing except what was here in this room, and though it was large it was also open enough that she could see that there was no one or thing of interest. Where are you?

Eventually she did glance at the exposed product. They were, she soon identified, what she had seen plenty of today: models meant to be displayed and viewed by the public. Their type, on the other hand, was something that she had not seen today: bits of coral, shells of differing shapes, and plastic-formed fish ranging from colorful clownfish to spiky blowfish.

The models were of oceanic nature, possibly for an exhibit that either did exist or had been packed away, leading Enterprise to guess that these might've been taken out during the aforementioned remodel for the space exhibit. Going by the examples, these were centralized to sea life around coral reefs with crabs, sea horses and turtles, anemones-

And the frightening, serpentine form of an eel.

Enterprise inhaled sharply, an icy grip coming around her heart when she found herself the focus of empty black eyes. The eel's jaws were ajar, revealing a mouth full of sharp, needle-like teeth. It lay on its side atop another sample of reddish coral, creating a picture of an animal that had been resting before Enterprise's entrance had awoken it and led to where it had frozen in mid snap, seeking her out.

It was preposterous but the shipgirl felt her pulse quicken with the thought of how such an imagination really was the case. It stilled her, and when she moved it was to create further distance with slowed movements.

"Can you feel them, Enterprise?"

It was like those fangs managed to reach the rest of the way and drive into her brain. This time there was no stopping the cry that escaped her, her hands flying to her head as pain of such intensity exploded within her skull – an outside force driving into her mental defenses. And rather than be repelled, they seized upon the obstacle, gnawing on the defenses to break through.

"How they rage and scream, even in death?"

Enterprise couldn't recall it, but she saw that she had fallen to her knees when she forced her eyes open, having squeezed them shut and kept them so as the onslaught persisted. The floor that she viewed softened and blurred. Against such pain that included terrible agony behind her eyes, she believed that it was the sickening nausea that was responsible for making the solid surface become fluid. Like water.

"Once you've understood, our destiny will be right there, waiting for you to seize it."

The memories began leaking through, Enterprise tipping and falling into the water-like floor-

And then she was sinking. Into the dark waters she sank, filling her mouth and her lungs. She choked but didn't drown as she was pulled further and further down, the cold becoming freezing, her already hindered thrashing being restricted further as the pressure of the depths grew. There was darkness, but it was not total. Somewhere up above, a violet light glowed sinisterly, hardly providing anything against what would be the perpetual darkness that was surrounding her.

But it was enough for her to see them when they drew her attention with their whispers. They slinked into her mind, muted, but steadily growing in volume and giving her direction of where they were coming from.

They were all around her. She could barely see in this darkness but saw the silhouettes. How many they were she couldn't tell, but they were numerous. That violet light played across them, giving them an eerie, phantasmal quality as it highlighted pale skin and glinted off ruptured metal.

The whispers in her mind grew in intensity, growing louder as they increased in number and volume. They grew more threatening, more violent.

Like sharks they were circling, and like sharks they suddenly turned and came for her, all of them reaching for her, all of them together calling for her.

"G̸̩̉͋͘ ȑ̷̡̜̱̥̱͝ e̷̡̖̞͉̯̎ ŷ̴̻̹̥̬͈ ̴̫̺̐̂̍G̷̩̞̅̋̊ h̴̻͊̿̑͘ ò̶͇̽ ş̶̡̤̼̟̍ ţ̸̩̙̈͌̈́̏!̷̡̨̩̤̜͗!"

And the first of many of her screams were drowned out within the abyss as they ripped into her.

It was pain that brought her back, Enterprise gasping and choking as she returned to the storage room, able to breathe again. The vision was torn away, ripped segments drifting and floating before they were snatched up and forcibly returned to where they had been sealed. Any attempt to recall them was disrupted by renewed agony that had the carrier ace thrashing her head that she still clutched from side-to-side while spasms had her body shaking violently, legs and feet kicking against the floor as she rolled pathetically.

She didn't know if she had been screaming, but her throat felt hoarse as if she had been. She tasted blood, struggling lucidity letting her identify that the source was a bitten lip.

It was a roll that put Enterprise on her back, and it was the returning clarity that let her see someone standing above her.

It was the other, dressed in a uniform like her own save for the shredded black material that could've once been a greatcoat but had been reduced to a cape as mangled as her messily shorn hair of graying ivory. And rather than those lavenders, it was crimson eyes that stared down at her, as hot and angry as her glare and her scream.

"HOW COULD YOU FORGET!?"

The door to the storage room slammed open. "Enterprise!"

The interruption and the recognizable shout shifted Enterprise's attention and that was enough. The other was there, then she was gone, leaving Enterprise alone until Belfast replaced her. Even upon seeing her, Enterprise could only stare dully at her, her hold on reality not yet returned.

"Enterprise!" Belfast breathed, frightened and remaining so even as she knelt and gathered the suffering Eagle girl into her arms. One squeezed, as if that alone would settle the quaking Enterprise, while the other swiped at the bangs that were plastered to her forehead, unavoidably encountering the trickle of blood in the process and immediately acquiring a handkerchief in order to wipe it up.

"It's okay," she shushed and continued to do so. Once she cleaned up Enterprise's lip, she renewed her embrace, arms crossing over once around her and holding her tight, her hands finding and fingers slipping between her own and offering another comforting squeeze. "I'm here. Please calm down."

Pain echoed within Enterprise's head, lessening but not going away with Belfast's soothings, same with how her body kept tremoring, her hands especially shaking even as they answered Belfast's reassuring motions with their own desperate grip.

But nothing, not even Belfast, could do anything about what she felt churning within her. That dark and brutal force, reawakened, and what it was dead set on reminding her of her place now that it was able to, eating away at her from the inside and at the supportive foundation that she had been building and what began to crumble as it expressed its truths.

There was no future, because there was none to be had for a lie.

And she was being such a fool in believing that everything in this world was anything but a lie.

---

Author's Note: I had once gained a bit of criticism from a reader on the subject of war and conflict and how Belfast's philosophy had presented it. Given that they had experience that I couldn't possibly relate to, I had bowed to it and admitted that the viewpoint that I presented was, in the end, one of a writer attempting to bring what they may think is a unique take on certain views that has the advantage of being implemented in a fictional story where such simplification and naivety could be gotten away with unlike the harshness and complexity that real life can be, especially given the conflict that has since ensued in our present. I will thus repeat the same thing that I said to them: I am just constructing a story with morals and lessons that are fitted for it, with the goal being to at least make it enjoyable enough to grant me at least a bit of forgiveness for what naiveties certain readers may come to see with my writings. I hope I had ended up succeeding with them as I had for the many others who had expressed their enjoyment of this story and will do the same with any new readers.