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.

12. Chapter 12

It may not have solely been Enterprise who had undergone a change last night, the possibility occurring to Belfast when she found herself looking at a stranger the next morning.

She had been brushing her hair, the action all part of her routine that she was conducting with the measured strokes that didn't require conscious effort with how long and how many times she had done it throughout her life, as was the case with all that was a part of her strictly managed life. Fortunate, considering that very little of her attention was focused on the actual task, hand and brush moving entirely on memorization while her gaze stared ahead at nothing. When her awareness did return, the glaze over her eyes lifting, what she ended up seeing was a woman who appeared very much in conflict.

She was referring to herself, reflected in the mirror in front of her.

With it, Belfast could see the white of her teeth that were upon her lip and the remnants of the distant look that vanished as she returned to the present. However, what she brought back with her were the contemplations that she had been undergoing on that distant mental plane. They had troubled her then and, as she could plainly see, were troubling her now.

Her brushing came to a gradual stop, though instead of pulling away the soft bristles remained within her hair as Belfast's attention became centered on her reflection.

How strange it was to see herself like this, with brows cinched together while her cheeks drooped, both heavy with what they represented: uncertainty and doubt. To think such things would come to burden her, in this way, when she had fashioned her life to be just like this simple chore: one of effortless control to serve obvious outcomes. But it was both that were currently on pause, what was so plain on her features a visible representation of what she felt twisting within. That same uncertainty, that same doubt.

And maybe, hidden within them, shame.

They had nothing to do with what happened to Enterprise last night, as all that Belfast had to feel concerning that was utmost relief and satisfaction. It was the breakthrough that she had been waiting for and had seen it when she had been staring right into Enterprise's tear-filled eyes.

They had been the eyes of a woman who had been too strong for far, far too long finally letting go. London had finally broken down the barriers that Enterprise had erected over her heart with the pieces of the originals that had been shattered in the Pacific and what she had desperately tried to rebuild. She had been loosening her grip during her time here, then retightened in response to her nightmare, but the banquet had been the perfectly timed counter to not only loosen it again but let it give way entirely. Because of that, the elegance of the peaceful world that Enterprise fought for but cut herself off from had found its opening and flowed in to grace her heart.

The amount of tears she had shed and how hard she cried had told Belfast just how starved she had been, with the cruiser having very nearly been moved to her own when she had held her. Every quake and heave of her body while the skirt of Belfast's dress had grown increasingly wet had been alike to a flower that had been deprived of water and sunlight being given its fill, the rejuvenating effects getting it to bloom with such intensity to leave it weeping.

And what a beautiful flower that Belfast had seen, even if its petals had yet to reach full maturity. But they would so long as Enterprise did not sever herself from the world again, and Belfast was confident that she wouldn't. It would be impossible for her now.

So, no, when it came to Enterprise there was nothing for Belfast to be worried about.

Although…that might not be entirely true.

It was peculiar as to how readily and how vividly it was for Belfast to recall the events of last night centered around her charge. When she had first seen Enterprise in her dress, the Eagle ace awkward which then became embarrassment when she became the target of admiration from their peers but, overtime, she had taken note of her steadily adjusting to the environment as she socialized, ate, and then…the dance.

Belfast felt the tugging at her lips, the cloud of reminiscence coming back over her expression as she thought about that – how it had been Enterprise who had been bowing and requesting her hand, bringing her to the dance floor, and though Belfast needed to teach her when it came to the actual dancing, the end result had been achieved: the cruiser tucked up against her, their arms around each other, just them and the music…

But the picture had not been as perfect as that, Belfast ending up to where she had expressed her anger towards Enterprise and before then…

That was when her fond expression became contorted by those drearier feelings she experienced upon remembering her own missteps. The regretful actions that shouldn't have occurred but did, manipulated by what she should've been immune to but was so easily controlled by, all of which led to such inappropriateness from who should be the Royal Navy's infallible head maid. And, as before, Belfast was brought back with the shame of her lapse in conduct, the doubts it bred, and the uncertainty of what it meant about herself.

But now isn't the time for that, Belfast asserted, setting those worrying thoughts along with her brush aside as her internal clock told her that she had to continue with her morning schedule.

This morning was important as she would be witnessing the true aftereffects of what Enterprise had gone through. What Enterprise had come to accept, and what decisions she made based on them, would be what this trip had been meant for. The culmination of all their efforts, complete with the good and the bad that occurred, would make itself known.

Belfast wanted to be certain of what she was expecting, but nervousness ate away at her all the same. Understandable, considering the magnitude of whatever she saw would mean, but nonetheless there was a different kind of doubt that she found herself contending with as she dressed, her movements as automatic as they had been with her brush, and her features once more distracted, this time by a question.

Should I have stayed with her?

She was referring to when she had left Enterprise out on the balcony. The logical argument, backed by her experience with tending to so many others, was adamant about leaving Enterprise to herself. What the carrier had been reawakened to and what she had to sort out was to be accomplished by her and her alone. Belfast's presence would've been unnecessary.

It would've been a distraction, Belfast decided more forcefully to better convince herself. Enterprise had needed to do whatever she would decide on from here on out entirely on her own, with the least amount of interference from outside influences.

But…Belfast had done that before. After the Mirror Sea, she had left Enterprise to herself, believing that the conflicts brewing within her were something she needed to confront and sort out by herself. What ended up happening was Enterprise spiraling further down towards negativity and despair, forcing Belfast's hand to intercede. Even then she hadn't known the extent of what it was that was assaulting Enterprise and, really, still wasn't sure despite what she had come to learn.

And then…Orochi.

Belfast had been about to open the door to the connecting hallway and make the quick venture to Enterprise's room. What happened instead, when her hand enfolded the knob, was for it to stay there while her body kept going forward in a lean that had her forehead resting against the door.

What may seem ludicrous to anyone else was how Belfast decided that she had time to spend a minute or two like this. One of her priorities remaining to be an adherence to her schedule, the head maid let this gale of apprehension storm about for the prescribed time she was giving it – the same amount she was giving herself to try and disperse it with sensible reasoning that the current situation and the one before were different and, thus, better credited the decision she made. Any insistence to the contrary was wrong.

And yet she failed to convince herself within the allotted time so, in the end, Belfast compartmentalized it and set it aside. There was no time for her to appropriately deal with it right now. She closed her eyes, breathed, and by the time she opened them again she was standing straight while her face was schooled to its appropriate structure to greet the day – and her lady – with another good morning.

She had a job to do.

She didn't know what to expect to find when she entered Enterprise's room. The carrier still being outside on that balcony wasn't out of the question, and that was what Belfast was worried about when the first thing she saw was the undisturbed bed. However, a closer inspection revealed that the bed wasn't made to Belfast's usual standards; the covers not entirely smooth, the pillows not as orderly placed. Someone had slept in it and then cleaned up afterwards.

It said a lot about Belfast's attention to such details when she was able to notice and make her assumptions about that before she smelled the smoke.

Smoke!?

It wasn't heavy, but when was the scent of smoke inside a building ever a sign of anything that wasn't disastrous? That got Belfast to rush out of the bedroom, passing the bathroom – the door open, leaking humidity telling her that the hot water had been in use recently – on her way towards the source of the smell: the kitchen.

"Ah…!"

She heard Enterprise's panic before she saw the scene that was to greet her, and what she did see had her stopping and staring, flabbergasted.

Enterprise fumbled about throughout the kitchen. When Belfast came in, it was to see Enterprise wiping vigorously at the countertop, trying to clean some kind of mess before the wisps of smoke coming from a pan had her rushing to the short stovetop, blindly dumping the small towel she had been using onto what she wanted to be the counter but what ended up sliding off it and towards the floor instead with a wet, splattering sound.

There was the clattering of the pan as Enterprise quickly moved it from an active burner to an inactive one. Reaching for a spatula, she began using it to scrape something off the pan. A black, crusty, smoking something that began making the dirty stovetop dirtier with the burnt flecks of a clearly failed experiment.

Belfast took another glance at the counter, getting enough of what she needed to see with just that: a small bowl with a carton of eggs next to it, broken shells and spilled yolk splattering both beneath and around them. The poor cleaning had expanded the mess with yellow smearing that stained an open bag of bread, a couple slices that had fallen out soaked, and torn bits of raw bacon was similarly located close to its ripped open packaging.

Thanking a higher power that the hotel's fire alarms hadn't been triggered, Belfast quickly made her way over once she finally managed to recover and flicked a switch above the oven to open the vents to begin clearing the air of the smoke.

The action got Enterprise to realize she wasn't alone anymore, her head whirling to the cruiser. "Belfast!?" She looked towards her mess, appearing to be entertaining some kind of vain attempt to hide the evidence but realized the futility of it. "I was trying-"

"Go open the balcony door," Belfast calmly instructed as she took the cookware from her possession. "It'll help ventilate."

Without another word Enterprise turned and sped out to do just that while the cruiser fanned and smothered out the smoking pan.

Belfast raised the spatula for examination, finding the plastic having begun to melt. Already writing it as a loss, she soon had to do the same when she got a better look at the pan and the black char that was now stuck to what had once been a non-stick surface. She was pretty sure that this had once been eggs because what bacon that Enterprise had tried to cook was set on a plate that she was now noticing, the extra-crispy pieces more solid but just as black and just as charred.

"I can explain…" was the first thing Enterprise began to say when she returned, head bowed with guilt.

"No need," Belfast replied while she set the pan and spatula back on the stovetop. "I think I can figure things out just fine."

"Ah…" Enterprise scanned the area, taking a better note of her mess with shame coloring her cheeks. "You probably can."

Belfast happened to notice the temperature that the burner had been set at. Suppressing a sigh at the knob that was turned to the highest setting, she turned it off before deigning to face Enterprise. Crossing her arms over her chest, a corner of her lip crooked into a grin. "Good morning, Enterprise."

The carrier didn't respond immediately. Then, sheepishly, she returned, "Good morning, Belfast."

The cruiser identified that subtlety: Enterprise very rarely ever addressed a morning as 'good' to the point where Belfast assumed that she had a vendetta against it. Such a morning as this would definitely not have qualified for such an adjective, but there she was using it so freely.

Belfast gave Enterprise a quick visual scan. Save for the filth that she acquired from her cooking attempts and what was staining her clothes, Belfast could identify the straightness of her hair, properly cleaned and dried from a shower. Then there was her face, rested from a good night's sleep, her emotions standing out effortlessly on her face. Normally, the reason that she was so easy to read was due to how she had such a lack of control over her emotions, but there were always attempts for her to try and control them.

Here, the reason that her expressions stood out more to Belfast was due to how the feelings behind them were not encumbered by even those attempts of vain control. They were being given free reign, without the stubborn lines that would usually accompany them.

"Sleep well?" Belfast finally asked. "I hope you had gotten plenty of it before making your bed."

Enterprise shuffled in place and Belfast questioned if it was continued embarrassment over the present situation or if it was her noticing the other efforts that Enterprise was putting towards this morning. "I got enough."

"I know you already showered but you may want to consider taking some time to clean yourself up again."

It got Enterprise to look down at herself, her arms spreading out to better do so. She was wearing one of her white shirts, a poor choice with how obvious the yellow yolk stains were along with the dusting of black char. A wringing of her fingers turned into a wiping at the bottom of it, creating new stains of what had also become stuck to her hands. Belfast kept herself from chiding Enterprise about that, the carrier already feeling bad enough with what she had caused.

Despite the obvious evidence, Enterprise's guilt drew her back towards the mess. "There's still a lot to clean up."

"I'll take care of it." She could see the objection coming a mile away. "It'll give me something to do while you clean up. Then we can worry about breakfast." Glancing at the ruined pan and spatula, she added, "I do have a spare."

"Um…" Enterprise's gaze slid to the side.

Belfast followed it towards the sink where another pan had been deposited into it, just as ruined. Instead of exasperation, humor attempted to bubble to the surface and what Belfast gamely prevailed over. "Well…" she began, barely preventing a hitch, "I have a spare of a spare in my room."

"I'm sorry," Enterprise apologized.

"No need. I for one prefer a more eventful morning to start off today."

Enterprise viewed her strangely, questioning – and rightfully so, probably – about there being a preference for such a disaster. She didn't ask further about it though, instead taking another look at her sticky hands. "I'll be quick," she promised before going to get another change of clothes.

Belfast focused on the mess but waited until she heard the closing of the bathroom door and the running of water. Then her hand came up, her shoulders bunching as she hid how big her smile stretched. A giggle came through, the cruiser congratulating herself on how brief she made it, until she took another look at the blackened state of the cookware, the spilled egg yolk and broken eggshells, and the other casualties of this poorly administered attempt at cooking, and then the giggle returned, twice as hard and long.

To think how such a display could be taken as such a very, very good sign of what kind of transformation Enterprise was undergoing. It was so relieving along with being so very funny.

But it was something that needed to be cleaned up regardless which Belfast did. There was still nothing she could do about the pans, listing them as total losses. The rest of the fallen – the broken eggs, burnt bacon, and yolk-soaked bread slices – she put to rest at the bottom of a trash bin while she gathered up the survivors for another upcoming attempt that would honor their sacrifices with the aid of a new pan that she retrieved from its station in her room. After that, there was just the spilled yolk and other food-based debris that needed to be swept up.

By then Enterprise had returned with a clean shirt – black this time, she having learned her lesson – and the regrets that still dominated her face. They were lifted somewhat when she saw the now clean kitchen.

"So, you decided to try and cook," Belfast said upon her return. She expected and wasn't disappointed when Enterprise's face fell, the mighty carrier ace becoming more akin to a small animal who knew that they had done something wrong.

A small, adorable animal with how she struggled to meet Belfast's eye but her lavenders constantly flicking away as she shuffled in place. "Emphasis on tried," she quietly said.

"I've seen worse." At the look she received from Enterprise that doubted her claim, Belfast revealed, "Edinburgh's occasional clumsiness can still manage to start a fire now and again." She let a smirk slip into view. "You managed to avoid that much at least."

"I've never really cooked before," Enterprise got around to giving herself some form of defense. "I can't even remember the last time I was in a kitchen."

"You've never been assigned kitchen duty?" Belfast asked, curious.

Enterprise shook her head. "I had…other things to do."

Belfast knew that those 'other things' had to be her numerous battles that demanded the might of Eagle Union's most powerful carrier. With the reputation she acquired because of it, putting her in the kitchens would've likely been seen as ridiculous.

Not that she would even bother with the mess hall, Belfast thought, the convenience of ration bars and canned food having probably taken hold of Enterprise by then. All the reason for Belfast not to miss this chance that was available. She turned towards the stove and dialed the temperature to a much lower heat – a third of what Enterprise had set. "So why the change of heart all of a sudden?"

Though her back was turned as she set the pan on the burner, she listened carefully to the pause that she was met with before Enterprise hesitantly replied, "I just…wanted to, I guess. You've always been cooking so I wanted to give it a try."

The smile that Belfast made was properly hidden when she asked, "Are you perhaps looking to start cooking for yourself?"

"…I've been thinking about it."

Similarly, the growth of that smile was also something Belfast kept hidden as she added a little oil to the pan. These were all very good signs. "In that case…" She beckoned Enterprise over her shoulder. "Let's start with this first lesson: cooking is not about turning up the heat as high as possible and throwing food on it."

She could imagine Enterprise's confusion before the carrier figured out what was going on, leading to her eventual approach that took her next to Belfast. "I just wanted to get it done before you woke up."

Belfast had been shortening her smile, but the sudden hop that her heart made nearly did the same to it when she was able to figure out what Enterprise meant by that: she had wanted to cook to surprise her. She got both to settle for her to continue her teaching. "Control over heat is most vital no matter what you're cooking." She gestured to what she had the burner set to, causing Enterprise to make another self-deprecating expression. "You want a steady, even heat. The eggs I make require it because you have to take into consideration the whites and the yolk. I already added oil so…"

Belfast retrieved an egg, cracking it against the edge of the pan and smoothly breaking it in two to drop the contents into it. There was no hissing or sizzling upon making contact, the yolk bulging out from a pool of whites, free of bubbling. At the corner of her eye, she saw Enterprise watching with undivided attention.

"Season later, not now, when it comes to eggs," Belfast continued, carefully tilting the pan around. "You want to maintain consistency until after the whites have set, and the yolk cooked."

"This was the part when they turned brown," Enterprise murmured guiltily.

"And got stuck to the pan, I'd wager. Then the yolk broke apart when you tried to remove it because it had only been cooked partway through."

"And then everything turned black…"

Belfast giggled, a more modest one this time, but she nonetheless took enjoyment with how the sound got the pink coloring to return to Enterprise's cheeks. She sprinkled some pepper and then raised the pan to transfer the egg onto a plate with a new spatula. "Remember, just because you took it off the pan doesn't mean it isn't cooking anymore. Residual heat will contribute to the flavoring of the seasoning by the time you're ready to eat."

"I thought watching you was enough," Enterprise said while admiring a completed product that wasn't a charred stain. "You made it look so easy, but it's actually more complicated."

"Not at all," Belfast replied. "Cooking is an art form. What matters most is developing your own technique. The more intricate details come later when you refine it." She set the spatula down, sliding it over to Enterprise, and then handed her a fresh egg. "I'll teach you the basics and, in time, you will acquire your own if that is what you want."

Enterprise looked upon the egg warily, as if expecting it to explode at a moment's notice. It transferred to the way she took it, handling it with an overblown view of its fragility that was the consequence of her mistakes, still fresh. But when Belfast moved to the side, there was only a short delay before she took her position in front of the pan.

"A quick strike," Belfast advised, and then rephrased, "or not even that. Imagine one or two hard taps."

Enterprise lined the egg to the edge of the pan with a squint so full of concentration that Belfast could feel the humor twitching along the corners of her mouth. She didn't intervene, waiting until Enterprise made her first tap against the pan that produced a small crack on the shell's surface. It wasn't enough, creating superficial surface damage on the shell and it was when Enterprise was about to break the egg with just that that Belfast said, "A little more."

That managed to double the tension in Enterprise's very stiff movements when she tried again after being told it wasn't enough but now dealing with a shell that was already cracked. She forced herself to strike it against the edge again anyway and made a small noise between a hiss and a gasp when the edge went in deep, and the shell began bleeding whites. Quickly Enterprise held it directly over the pan and broke it the rest of the way, and this time it was a 'tsk' she emitted when tiny shell pieces fell along with the yolk.

"Nothing to worry about," Belfast assured, leaning over to delicately remove shell pieces with her nails. "You got it."

Enterprise didn't say anything, but as she tossed the shell away Belfast saw her short, pleased smile.

That was how the morning proceeded, with the two of them working over the stovetop. While Belfast handed over ingredients and instructions, Enterprise wordlessly followed them, absorbed in her task. Dialing knobs to Belfast's suggestions for when they moved on to the bacon and toast, and of which Enterprise carefully nudged and flipped with the spatula.

Remaining next to her, Belfast's gaze would always go to Enterprise's face after she had finished her next bit of help. From there, she could see the determination, which then smoothed into a more relaxed, pleased expression when Enterprise was left to watch the progress of the cooking food until she had to shift it around again.

There was a commitment that had scarcely been there before. While Belfast had seen it in the past, it had only been when Enterprise had been in battle – whether protecting her allies or defeating her enemies. But once that fateful day occurred, it had gone missing, even when Enterprise had tried to return to what she thought to be her normal.

Belfast had seen hints of it again, such as during Enterprise's personal match with Montpelier and its aftermath. There had been that and a myriad of other emotions that would peek out here and there, but though they were signs of progress, they had only been in response to Belfast's promptings that were made with the assistance of her home nation. Those successes were not initiated by Enterprise, who had merely been wandering and waiting for them to come to her. Belfast had known that and had been hoping that after experiencing enough of it, Enterprise would acquire a desire to search for what could make her happy.

She had thought that Enterprise had been on the verge of it before her nightmare occurred and put her in a full retreat from what had been bringing elegance back into her life. Knowing that she had been so close, and now finding herself so far from it, had been a trial that had affected Belfast more than she expected with her not knowing how much until the banquet. Her efforts and planning to make sure everything went perfectly, and the unexpected occurrences that she would normally welcome but what she had silently decried such as her attempt to bring Enterprise out on a dance, had been a strain that she hadn't anticipated.

It had been what Enterprise said to her that ended up pushing her so far, and it was the main reason for the shame she felt when thinking about it. But she had been angry and desperate when she heard from Enterprise's own mouth of what was keeping her from becoming happy and rather than follow it up with a way to fix it, she had instead accepted the possibility of how things may be too late and, even if it meant that Belfast would fail, she didn't want the cruiser to bear any responsibility and had dared to thank her for her efforts that were in danger of being pointless.

To have been threatened with such a failing, and to see the expression that Enterprise was making now, in a pursuit that she initiated herself, no matter how miniscule it may be…

Belfast experienced a magnetic pull that was trying to bring her closer to Enterprise's side. Just a step, but if Belfast took it the tingle that was also running up her one arm would become stronger in its temptations to be placed around Enterprise. Somewhere – anywhere – that could let her again feel what she had when they had danced and when Enterprise surrendered herself to the cruiser and the sensations that had blessed her heart again.

But Belfast didn't. She couldn't, and she mentally ridiculed herself with how desperate that longing became when she steadfastly opposed it. This was not the time. She couldn't interfere, not at such a vital juncture, and not in such a way.

"Belfast?"

Not with such…inappropriateness.

"Belfast?"

Belfast blinked, needing to hear her name a second time before she paid attention and saw the concern that Enterprise directed at her. "Oh, sorry," she apologized, presenting one of her smiles that was constructed more from her training than anything else. "Your progress was going so smoothly that I was so confident to leave it to you."

No, no, she couldn't falter. Not here, not now.

At the very least, her save was enough to deflect any unnecessary sense of there being anything amiss with how Enterprise received the praise with a small, shy smile – something that forced Belfast to smother what she felt about witnessing that.

"Did you want anything else on your eggs?" Enterprise asked, motioning to one of the two – now full – plates. "I don't know how you take yours."

"They're perfectly fine as they are. Shall we put them through the final test?"

Enterprise's anxious excitement was palpable during the time it took for them to clean up and sit down with their plates. Belfast took it upon herself to go first and immediately identified the crunch of a microscopic piece of eggshell that had escaped their notice. She made no outward sign of discovering the imperfection, aware that Enterprise was watching her. After swallowing her first bite, she smiled and said, "For a first try, I think it's rather exceptional."

She was tempted to use perfect but figured that Enterprise wouldn't have believed it. And though the eggs weren't 'perfect', Belfast wouldn't have technically lied because, to her, the carrier having done all this on her own was perfect to her.

Her selected compliment was enough either way, Enterprise digging into her breakfast to, what Belfast assumed, distract herself from the noticeable blush that came from hearing it. She then brightened for a different reason when she took her first bite. "It is good," she said, looking at her plate in disbelief that it was of her own handiwork before she resumed with gusto.

Belfast watched her for a few moments, smiling, before she started eating again.

They didn't exchange much else in terms of small talk, content with cleaning their plates. Enterprise finished first, a testament to how much she enjoyed it, and got up to wash her dishes. Belfast finished soon after, but as she was poised to get up Enterprise leaned over from the sink and took her dirty plate.

"Let me," she said, already bringing it beneath the faucet. Belfast didn't object, instead using this for another chance to sit and watch how much Enterprise had changed.

It worked, she thought. It really worked.

She could see it so easily, this early in the morning. How Enterprise stood straighter, her head higher, her eagerness in not only the act of cleaning and when she had been preparing breakfast, but what must've gotten her out of bed with the motivation to do all of this.

This was no sign of improvement but of actual success.

"Do you want coffee?" Enterprise asked halfway through. "I'm not really confident in making tea yet."

Yet. Belfast paid special attention to that. Yet. "Coffee sounds wonderful for today."

Nodding, Enterprise put away the dishes before opening a cupboard for a pair of mugs.

It may still be premature, but there was no ignoring what Enterprise was doing of her own, unprompted volition. Belfast already knew that her main objective for the day was going to be establishing further authenticity of this change not being a temporary thing but more permanent. She needed to confirm that it was going to be what would stick with Enterprise here on out, beyond London.

And, most importantly, would keep going even if Belfast was no longer around.

But what was the best way to do it? The answer came all by itself: she would let Enterprise decide.

"Do your morning plans happen to account for what we should do after breakfast?" Belfast asked her casually. "You seem so enthused. There's just today and tomorrow left before we ship back out, but there's still much we can do before then. Any ideas?"

Belfast was thinking that there must've been something that Enterprise had seen and been interested in but hadn't been willing enough to speak up. With how many places they had visited, there had to be something that she would want to experience or know more about and would now be eager to pursue any such interests. It would be the best way to capitalize on her change.

What Enterprise responded with was not what she expected. She returned with two steaming mugs, giving one to Belfast. With her hand free, she used it to scratch at her cheek. "I was actually going to ask if there was anything you wanted to do today."

The cruiser stared at her, already forgetting about the mug she was holding. "Me? I think I've regulated our sightseeing plenty enough as it is. You should get your chance now. Isn't there anything you want to see? There must be something."

Enterprise was nodding the entire way to her chair where she retook her seat. "There's a lot I saw that I liked, but that was when it came to me that even if you were guiding me the entire time, they were all places that were for me."

"I may've wanted to visit them too, you know."

Enterprise took a sip of her coffee while giving her another nod. "I do, but they were all new things to me, and I got far more out of them than you probably did. Isn't there somewhere you want to go, just for yourself?"

As this was an unexpected twist, Belfast considered the question while drinking some of her coffee – and hiding a wince when she did. Enterprise had decided to go for one of her stronger brands, without any sort of cream or sugar. Belfast guessed that certain habits weren't going to change that quickly.

Mistakenly perceiving her delay as a form of reluctance based on modesty, Enterprise pressed, "I would really like to know."

Belfast was a little surprised by the insistence, but it did convince her to think seriously about it. Somewhere where she would like to go?

There was one place that came to mind, though it had nothing to do with the city. She almost considered forgetting about it, but then decided that it may be perfect to have a kind of break from the city that wasn't the brooding that Enterprise had been doing before the banquet. While the cityscape had been of invaluable help that may've finally gotten through to the carrier, the cruiser was beginning to believe that to best see how Enterprise changed, some seclusion may be more appropriate.

Although it wouldn't solely be for Enterprise's benefit, as it may be something that Belfast could use as well. Some peace and quiet may not only better prove to Belfast just how far these changes that Enterprise was exhibiting had gone, but it may aid her in deciding what to do next.

This included how she was going to approach her own feelings that were bothering her.

"There is one," she said and witnessed Enterprise perk up. "But it'll take some time to get there."

"I don't mind," Enterprise replied immediately. "Wherever you want."

With the idea now lodged in place, Belfast was layering plans around it. Nothing elaborate as that would undermine the whole point of the location, but if Enterprise was developing a genuine interest in cooking…

Thoughtful, Belfast looked towards the counter while raising her mug to her lips but halted at the last second.

She had to do something about this coffee before anything else first.

---

Naturally, they were going to need transportation. She could've called for it but reasoned that what she was planning was better suited for a car that they could rent out for the afternoon and take their time with it, just the two of them. It also created a legitimate excuse for them to go out on foot for a bit to get to a nearby rental place and one that Enterprise agreed to, the Eagle girl intrigued by the arrangement which included Belfast imparting some additional lessons in their kitchen to properly prepare for what she had in mind. Its legitimacy was also enough for Belfast to use it to resume her observations over Enterprise within the public streets.

She, however, opposed the temptation when it came to her once again about shortening the space between her and Enterprise when they made their way out and outright shot down the idea of guiding her by the arm as she had done multiple times before.

She couldn't do that. Not just here to prevent interference, but she may also need to consider halting such acts entirely for the immediate future…depending on what she would come to conclude after this.

This was all up to Enterprise now, and what Belfast saw were the continued gains that she was making.

The carrier, for starters, had immediately sped up when they left the hotel, enough to come aside Belfast for the walk. Once she was at her place, she shoved her hands into her pockets, lifted her head, and breathed as if she was taking her first real breath of London air. And maybe she was, in a sense.

She was not shying away. Her eyes were wide and open, actively surveying the streets while she would naturally tilt or twist to flow with the foot traffic of the pavement. Though Belfast was restricted to keeping Enterprise at the corner of her vision with the occasional discreet glances, she could still get the proper reading from her.

It was the same kind of development that had occurred just last night, although not as severe. Enterprise had become better conscious of her environment, realizing just what it was that was around her. During the banquet it had overwhelmed her, and Belfast had noticed how she had been staring out at the city during their ride back, as if she was seeing what she had been exploring for the past week for the very first time. That had been at night though, the daytime showcasing plenty more, and Enterprise was soaking it all in.

How Enterprise was looking, moving, breathing – Belfast believed that she was seeing a different person. Someone who was no longer maintaining detachment from what was so obviously in front of her, conscious of it or not, and would leave her so alone even in the middle of a crowd.

This was…so very good.

Belfast had gotten enough of her examinations by the time they got to the rental location, she filling out the paperwork in short order and supplying where everything was to be billed to – an arrangement that Wales had contributed to and what could've been partly to blame for how George had caught on. She was grateful for it regardless, as she was for the other resources that had been provided, although she had made sure to use them in moderation for things that she deemed necessary, this being one of them.

It did feel good to be the one doing the driving today. After loading their things in the back and she got behind the wheel, Belfast was mildly startled with how she so easily fell back against the seat while gripping the steering wheel, the peaceful drive that she was envisioning inducing an advanced sense of calm.

It convinced her that this was very well in order. This stay had proven to be very eventful, after all. Far from the 'break' that this whole thing had been made out to be.

I suppose this would be a break from a break. The small joke influenced a smirk to tuck into a discreet corner.

Enterprise fell in next to her, and how she laid back appeared to concur with her thinking.

They had to get through the blockade of city traffic first, and being in central London was going to make that obstacle an enduring one. Belfast did not mind though and as she snuck another look at Enterprise, she saw that she didn't seem to be either. The ace had her hands folded on her lap, her chin up and slightly turned in a lazy focus off to the side as she watched everything go by.

There wasn't a single hint of her previous posture, whether it be a straightened back with locked knees when they took a crowded bus or when she would have a fist against her cheek to better prop her rigid stare against the city. She looked…relaxed, and Belfast had to remind herself more than once to keep her attention on the road with this inclination to get as much of this sight as she could to better mark down this as additional proof to Enterprise's beneficial change.

"We left in a rush last night," Enterprise suddenly spoke up.

Neither of them had so much as made a mention of last night or what had occurred, and with how she had been acting, Belfast wondered if Enterprise was avoiding it. It was the closest that she could consider worrying about Enterprise's change in personality – an unknown that had the potential to take away from the wonderful progress that was happening depending on how and if the carrier would bring it up.

On that, Belfast decided that it had to be Enterprise who had to do it, so she was very attentive when she replied, "We did."

Enterprise became bothered. "Did you tell Newcastle about saying anything to the others?"

"She assured me that she would provide a suitable explanation to any who would ask about our departure." It had in fact been what she and Newcastle discussed shortly before they left the Royal Palace, not that Enterprise had been in a condition to know. "I have nothing but confidence in her having been able to do so."

"I do, too," Enterprise promptly agreed, but she remained bothered. "But I still feel bad about leaving so suddenly like that, what with how we've been away from them the entire time."

"You did put on quite the appearance for them," Belfast dared to proceed with this. "This is my opinion, but they seemed quite satisfied with you having been out there." She noticed some minor movement, Enterprise shifting in her seat, and when she brought her into view, she saw her troubled expression harried with some flustering.

"It was embarrassing," she complained. Then, grudgingly, said, "But it was…worth it…I guess…"

Belfast had a wide grin that almost broke into a laugh at how Enterprise was acting but it was mitigated with a suggestion of what she should say next. Should she really…?

She decided to. "After tomorrow, we'll be back at base and making the long voyage with our supplies. You'll have plenty of time to properly catch up with them."

Silence ensued, but Belfast didn't take the immediate plunge into regret. She had to know. There was no avoiding how little time they had left, and while she would rather have waited a little longer, she had chosen to go with this flow, hoping…

Enterprise was still this time, her gaze becoming distant in a search for a reply that she wasn't sure she should voice. "…I think I might be looking forward to that."

Belfast was glad that the traffic had chosen that moment to come to a temporary standstill. She didn't show any outward reaction, but that was due to how the hesitant response stunned her.

Could this really be it? Was it actually happening? She had been sure that Enterprise had finally been put on the right track but to be this far? Her change that was becoming this certain?

The car in front of them pulling away brought her back with her foot reflexively getting off the brake and then slowly accelerating to fall in with the resuming traffic.

Enterprise must've recognized the importance of what she had said as both of them let a good block go silently by. As it was Enterprise who was responsible, it was also Enterprise who felt that it was her duty to rectify it. "You'll probably think its dumb, but I never thought that there was a time when you weren't the head maid."

Belfast eventually followed her lead. "I don't think that at all. Instead, I'll accept that as a compliment. But, no, I didn't start with that position. Like you, I worked hard to earn it."

"Newcastle told me a bit of what you were like as her subordinate."

Belfast couldn't help but stiffen at her tone. "Oh? And what did Newcastle have to say about me?"

Enterprise grinned. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"I believe I just asked, didn't I?"

"But I don't think I should tell you."

"Miss Enterprise…"

Such conversation was what helped make the ride out of the city go quicker, the point where the cityscape devolved into the modest suburbs coming sooner than what Belfast believed possible as they discussed just what Newcastle had said about her – with Belfast needing to correct certain interpretations that she felt her former teacher unfairly made – while also going into other points about the night such as Enterprise's hectic dressing with Victorious – which, no, groping was not a proper method of measurement for normal people, no matter how much they claimed about being artists –, Enterprise mentioning and Belfast providing an eye witness account of Cleveland's dance with Sheffield – the Eagle cruiser battling a case of moderate blushing for most of it -, and other entertaining incidents.

Other than Enterprise's misgivings about their departure, they didn't touch on what happened to her. Belfast did not consider it as something to worry about though, as they freely discussed the rest of the night easily.

However, Enterprise's description of what she and George talked about was rather scant. She remarked on being wiser to the Knight Commander's gluttonous nature although, at the same time, it was that nature that had given her additional incentive to proceed on the path to cooking. As to what it was that Enterprise had claimed was what she had needed to hear and what got her to seek out Belfast for their dance she did not divulge, and Belfast didn't ask.

And that was because Belfast didn't want to ask, for reasons that had to do with a disquieting feeling that she felt when she thought about them together. Reasons, she knew, that were shamefully selfish.

Ironically, for her being on the lookout for anything that she could find troubling with Enterprise, it was within herself that she found a problem to an otherwise groundbreaking development that was proving to be a persistent one.

The open plains of England's countryside assisted in her forgetting about it for the time being, as it did with anymore discussion dying out between her and Enterprise, the two of them lulled by the hills of soothing greens that rose into colorful plateaus, abundant with fields and copses of trees. Out here, civilization came in the form of the stone and brick of small villages and farms.

And, if one knew where to look, they could find the monuments of the past with old towers and forts. Past one farm there was a spot that Belfast knew well.

The old lighthouse acted as a guide for the rest of the way where there was what may've been an even older defensive wall. Short and mostly in ruin now, what weather and time-eroded sections that still stood were outnumbered by the collapsed piles of broken rock. They formed a rough barrier at the front of the lighthouse, but Belfast had never pursued a confirmation as to whether it had been meant for the lighthouse or a different kind of structure that had originally been there and what the lighthouse replaced, given the obvious age difference of it and the demolished wall. What stood next to them in healthier growth was a large specimen of a sturdy English oak tree.

This was their stop, right at the edge of this cliff where they all sat, overlooking the English Channel with London now a good two hours back.

Belfast left the car parked in the dirt road that led up to the lighthouse before getting out and then reaching back inside to grab what they brought with them: a basket and a thick blanket. When she searched for Enterprise, it was to see that instead of waiting for her, the carrier had already started to wander away, looking at the lighthouse and the wall as she drew closer to the cliff.

Belfast let her do what she wanted while she went to set up their spot. Beneath the shadow of the giant oak, she laid out the blanket and set the basket down on top of it. From that, she extracted what would be their lunch: a simple fair of sandwiches, where most of the ingredients were made up with sliced cucumbers and tomatoes along with other healthy vegetables, but there were meats and cheese to cater to a more Eagle Union standard. The preparations had been an opportunity to introduce Enterprise to the universally accepted sized cuts of vegetables and meats, along with their even distribution on their chosen bed of bread with additional condiments.

Under Belfast's gaze, she could tell which were hers and which of the more lopsided ones with their imperfect placements were done by Enterprise. She set them all together along with a few pastries and the tea that had been prepared to go with it. Once finished, she went to retrieve Enterprise.

When she had last checked, Enterprise had been nearer to the cliffs. Belfast had been expecting that she was going to get a better look from the edge, but what she saw instead had her stopping and staring in quiet surprise. "Enterprise…?"

"Yes?"

Enterprise had strayed over to an intact portion of the wall that was at a high waist height. Then, for a reason that could only be known to her, the carrier had apparently gotten on top of it where she was now walking along it with her arms outstretched to help balance her.

"Why are you doing that?" Belfast asked.

Enterprise shrugged, which didn't slow her in putting one foot in front of the other. "Thought I could get a better look at everything from here."

The vantage point couldn't have contributed much in terms of height, but Belfast silently watched as Enterprise made her impulsive crossing with that relaxed smile that was appearing so constantly now. A loosened brick shifted under her one foot as the carrier turned to face out towards the English Channel.

"But I guess I mostly just felt like it," Enterprise then admitted, her back turned while her arms came down to rest her hands at her hips.

With her own position, Belfast couldn't see any of what Enterprise was seeing. That was fine as, somehow, the carrier was proving to be a rather striking figure that Belfast was fine with viewing, deciding that the food could wait another minute.

Something then caught Enterprise's notice, having her turn towards the lighthouse – which was when the loosened brick beneath her foot gave out.

Belfast lurched, both with her body and with her heart when she saw Enterprise suddenly falling backwards. However, the carrier's other foot used what semblance of placement it had left to push off the wall just enough for the carrier to bring her feet back beneath her so that she could land in a crouch. The save got Belfast to exhale with relief.

"You startled me," she said, drawing closer. "Thank goodness for those reflexes."

Reflexes which Belfast had also come to worry about. Was this another sign of improvement, or had that just been luck?

Enterprise rose from her crouch but didn't turn to her, instead squinting at the lighthouse. "I thought I saw something."

Belfast followed her gaze, staring up at the tall structure. She didn't see anything, though – nothing that could be considered out of the ordinary. The lighthouse was no longer in use, abandoned long ago. "What do you think you saw?"

"I don't know…" Enterprise responded slowly, perhaps expecting whatever it was she may've seen to take that moment to pop up and show itself. When she and the cruiser remained for a little longer but still didn't see anything, she eventually shook her head. "I guess it was nothing."

Belfast wasn't having any better results, so decided to leave it at that. "I finished setting up everything."

Enterprise turned and followed Belfast towards the picnic spot. Whatever she believed she had seen, she forgot about it when she took a seat on the blanket, Belfast having placed it close enough to the oak where Enterprise could – and did – lean back against the sturdy trunk, the thick canopy of leaves giving more than enough shade for this sunny noon. She took one of her imperfect creations, Belfast already making her assumption that Enterprise wanted to take responsibility for them and what got Belfast to take another sandwich that the carrier made for herself before pouring some tea.

Enterprise took the cup that was passed to her with a nod, having already taken a bite of her sandwich and what she chewed as thoughtfully as how she stared at their surroundings. Belfast didn't want to distract her, leaving the two of them to enjoy their meal in peace. The cruiser took glances, which then became longer looks as Enterprise didn't seem to be paying attention, leaving Belfast to watch as she ate her food with breaks to drink tea, already going for another sandwich once she finished with her first one.

The whole time Enterprise kept looking out with that thoughtful look, content. Watching her, as shadows and sunlight played across her peaceful visage, Belfast felt her heart warm at the sight, and how it sped up an added beat with something so simple as how Enterprise brushed a thumb at the corner of her mouth, doing away with some crumbs that were stuck there. Belfast was without any inclination to remind her about a napkin due to how it would ruin the sight she was taking pleasure in, wanting it to continue with her having the exclusive right to it.

Ah, but…that was wrong, and reminded her again of one of her regretful reactions last night: that being with George.

She had thought long before, after she had been informed of how the Knight Commander may've gotten herself involved as her personality had a want to do, that it would turn out to be beneficial for Enterprise. George had all the military bearings that Enterprise would respect, and a heart that was unwaveringly kind and responsible for giving her such a penchant to give aid against whatever trouble that she would get so much as a whiff of. It made her, as Belfast knew, such a charismatic and effective leader of the Royal Navy, so much so that it had created those unintentional issues of how she may be overshadowing Queen Elizabeth in certain regards.

Originally, such a combination had been something that – Belfast believed – would not only help George connect with Enterprise, but also bring out that potential that the cruiser knew to be in Enterprise: the potential to be the same kind of leader that George was. Enterprise, true to form, was completely ignorant of how other shipgirls looked to her and how her achievements had shaped their image of her – not just in Eagle Union, but within the Royal Navy, too. As harmful as it had been to her, her dedication and perseverance to her missions and her protection of her comrades had created a reputation that had gone far across the borders that had people knowing her long before getting to meet her – allies and enemies alike. And that reputation had been proven to be far from undeserved.

She was a fantastic warrior, but towards the end of the campaign against the Sakura Empire, it had been so obvious that she could be so much more than that with the right help.

And yet, when she had witnessed George take Enterprise's hand and place her lips upon it, what Belfast encountered instead was an issue alike to the one that had come between George and Her Majesty: that the commander of the Royal Knights would be too good of a match for Enterprise, and Belfast had felt threatened by that.

She had become jealous. Belfast knew it, couldn't substitute the feeling for anything else, and was immensely ashamed of it and what she let it do to her, to the point of wrongfully emphasizing certain of George's charact traits and bringing up those issues that were well in the past and had no reason to be mentioned. With how much Belfast had been thinking of how a meeting with George could benefit Enterprise, there she was trying to besmirch an interaction, no matter how little the comments she made may've been.

It was inexcusable, and something that Belfast would've and should've never let happen. As much as she didn't want to accept it, she couldn't deny that with all the time that Enterprise had been spent under her exclusive care and all that Belfast had been granted because of it – including being brought into so much of Enterprise's confidence that the carrier had shared so many of her secrets -, Belfast had developed such a personal attachment to her.

That in itself shouldn't have become a major problem as Belfast had established connections of such nature in the past with others who she tended to – precious connections among those of the Royal Family and the shipgirls beneath them -, but there was a significant difference between them and the one that she had with Enterprise: that being these feelings that Belfast had for her.

The same feelings that had pushed her so much into bringing Enterprise here, that gave her such joy in being by her side and performing actions to put her closer, and what she had been initially able to explain away as appropriate due to the severity of Enterprise's case until the banquet when she had experienced so much happiness when she had the carrier to herself on that special night, and being threatened by any who would trespass on it.

It was those feelings that were also here, in this wish for this tranquil moment with just her and Enterprise to last for a very obscure but very extended length of time.

"It's very nice here."

The casualness of Enterprise's remark, and how her attention was at the cliffs, aided in keeping Belfast's return from her contemplations from being unnecessarily hasty, the cruiser only feeling a slight jump of startlement before she effortlessly replied, "It is."

Enterprise's eyes slid over to her. "Do you come here often?"

"As often as anyone of our stations can," Belfast answered. She switched her view towards the lighthouse. "A couple times a month at least."

"Better than what I would've been able to muster, if I had such a place."

The easy way that Enterprise said it despite the implications of her wording encouraged Belfast to produce a faint smile. "I would see this lighthouse constantly during crossings through the English Channel. Later, while taking a ride through this section of the countryside to get a view of the sea from the cliffs, I happened to notice it again and found this spot."

The lighthouse had stood out in the background of the fields of the farm, and it had been on a whim that led to Belfast finding the path here. The oak tree that they were seated under was as immense as it was back then, instantly providing a spot of rest, and when she took it, Belfast had been seduced almost as quickly by the distant splashing of the waves upon the cliffs and how the sea breeze would rustle the branches and leaves of the oak. With the view that the nearby cliff provided of the Channel and its traffic – boats occasionally providing their own noise -, there was something about the aged lighthouse and even older wall of an ancient fortification, with a fertile farm nearby, that came together to supply everything that Belfast was looking for in such a quiet place.

"This is pretty far from London," Enterprise noted. "We were driving for a good couple of hours, weren't we?"

"Sometimes you want to get away from the city."

Enterprise didn't reply right away. "Do you feel that way often, too? Like…more than when you can come here?"

That got Belfast to look at Enterprise quizzically. "I'm not sure what you're trying to say."

Enterprise didn't appear to know either, making a face that said there was something that she wanted to get at but did not quite know how to do so. In the end, she decided it was better to be more upfront. "I guess I'm trying to ask if things can get that hard for you at times, to want to come out to a place like this so often."

Belfast blinked, now seeing what Enterprise meant but being confused by it anyway. Her head maid duties – for that had to be what Enterprise was referring to – being hard for her, hence her wanting to come to a place like this, away from it? Normally, she would either take such a question as a slight to her pride that she knew she had concerning her position, or a fault of her own making by having slackened in her duties enough for someone to notice and fomenting an urge to correct it, but she didn't experience either.

Instead, because it was Enterprise who was suddenly asking, all that Belfast was urged to do was provide an explanation. "I never consider my duties as head maid 'hard'. They do require a lot of responsibility and demand much of my attention, but never to a point where I believe you're trying to infer."

A mix of emotions played over Enterprise's countenance, how easier she was to read proving valid. The carrier did seem abashed about what she was asking, but at the same time what she had asked and what she got in response was proving to be…unsatisfying? Was it her or Belfast who was the cause of that? Belfast couldn't say, and she was strangely bothered by it.

"You do a lot," Enterprise then said, looking to appease whatever it was that was distracting her. "Not just for me. You're respected by so many of the Royal Navy because of how much you do and how they rely on you because of it. It just made me wonder if you're a little like me with how much you do."

Belfast believed she was starting to get a picture about what this was about and wondered who she should blame for this. Had Newcastle said something? George? Both? Maybe others? "You're asking if my duties are keeping me from being happy."

Enterprise became more guilty. "Nothing like me, we both can agree on that much, but I can't help but worry if there have been things that you haven't been able to do or wanted to do more of but couldn't."

This was…very unexpected. However, against Belfast's own expectations, it wasn't unwanted with how she felt something filling within her chest at this apparent worry that Enterprise had for her. She was pleased and even…hopeful?

She suppressed the last, but a soft smile came anyway when she answered. "I can assure you that I have become quite satisfied with my life. My position can be demanding, but it was a position I wanted and what I can accomplish with it has made me happy. My time spent has also made it very manageable, so worry not about it ever being as difficult as you fear it to get as it has given me acceptable room to indulge in moments of leisure such as this. It also-"

She stopped, what she was about to say next being put on hold as she suddenly asked herself if it was appropriate. A speedy review not only approved it but told her that there shouldn't have been a need for this delay in the first place. What she was going to say was natural and appropriate.

The sole reason for her halting was due to who it involved that was making her second guess herself: that being the woman who she was talking to.

"It gives me the opportunity to acquaint myself with people such as you," she continued. That warmth she felt spreading within her heart leaked into her smile, but she assured herself that it was acceptable to promote sincerity for her next statement. "I consider myself very fortunate to have been able to meet you, Enterprise."

There was a cant to Enterprise's head, the carrier having caught the pause, but there was nothing to worry about there as her eyes widened slightly, her jaw slackening enough to be visible, and then she was looking off to the side, too embarrassed to face Belfast after what she heard.

"I see," the Eagle ace replied in a quiet hush, staying that way until she slowly brought Belfast back into view with a tiny squint. "So, there isn't anything that you really want?"

Belfast's eyes flicked up in a display of thought, but it was over with much faster before she said, "Nothing at all."

Enterprise fixed her with that searching look, but it then smoothed over with the satisfaction that she had wanted. Nodding in acceptance, she downed what tea she had left and then held the cup towards Belfast, passing her a smile.

Her own remaining, Belfast took the teapot and poured some more for Enterprise.

Her placing the pot back on the blanket once she was done was when she knew for sure that what she said had been a lie.

"I never really got to speak much with Edinburgh," Enterprise said, changing but not changing the subject. "I guess with what you said about her and what little I've seen, she's not as, uh, proficient as you, even though she's the lead ship."

"Something which does vex her so," Belfast replied. "Although her track record speaks for itself, as she very well knows."

"Must be hard for her at times, having a sister like you."

Belfast pulled up a smirk. "Comparing me and her to you and Hornet now, are you?"

"I…might be," Enterprise conceded, a new mixture of feelings taking place – some of which that were due to her own troubled relationship with her younger sister ship. One, Belfast could see, that she longed to correct.

She decided to help her there. "The comparison isn't without merit. I jest at her clumsiness, but Edinburgh has her list of accomplishments that are worthy of praise. My reputation and my position, however, does outshine them and I recognize how it makes her experience moments of inferiority."

"The hardship that comes with being under the shadow of a sister ship."

"But one that can be overcome by reminding them of how much they are valued. Something that can be done as easily as spending a bit more time with them or passing just a few a words so that they know it."

Enterprise quietly took that and the advice that was with it. "She is still your sister. You still love her."

Belfast had been about to pick up her own teacup but didn't. What is going on here?

She had thought that they had moved on to Enterprise and her problems, and while that may be the case, Belfast felt like she was still the center of attention. Even after seemingly placating those odd worries that Enterprise had expressed to her about her responsibilities, when Belfast looked to her what she saw was that same type of searching look that she had moments ago. While she didn't mind as Enterprise's active interest was another good sign of her obvious change…why was she asking so much about her? It wasn't just the questions she was asking here, but ever since this morning their conversations had the tendency to be more focused on her. They were here because Enterprise had wanted her to select a place she enjoyed, after all, and even with Belfast trying to bring the focus back towards the carrier, she felt like it was being tipped towards herself anyway.

"I do, of course," Belfast replied. "And before you continue, I have to say that you seem to be concerning yourself with quite a lot about me. May I ask why the sudden interest?"

In this instance, she didn't know what to think or how to feel about the small blush that she saw in response to her own straightforwardness. What she knew she wanted, however, was an answer. Why was Enterprise seeking to learn so much about her, with it being as obvious as it was now? This day was meant to capitalize on her reawakened heart and have her begin searching for what she wanted in this life that had opened for her.

She shouldn't be asking about Belfast, no matter how much the Royal cruiser may secretly be feeling about it and what she couldn't allow herself to admit to.

That became a difficult thing to do with what Enterprise said next, with her gaze directed to where she was busy nursing her cup. "I'm not sure. I've never…" Her head sunk a little lower. "…really been interested in someone else's life before."

The rustling of the overhead leaves, brought on by a breeze, sounded exceptionally loud to fill the silence that followed with Belfast staring at Enterprise and the carrier actively avoiding it.

…The things that Enterprise could say so unexpectedly and yet so easily, with so little thought as to what she would cause because of it.

The feelings that Belfast had been keeping restrained heaved with a demand for clarification. 'Interested'? What did Enterprise mean by that? Against her own wishes, the galvanized sentiments tempted Belfast with the possibilities of what could be behind today's dialogue, the worst being a chance of them being able to be reciprocated by Enterprise.

Ask, they beseeched. Pursue.

But Belfast stayed pitted against them. She couldn't do that. This had to be about Enterprise, not about her. It couldn't be about her. Not at this stage.

A bird-like call broke in between the two shipgirls, attracting their attention towards the top of the lighthouse.

"I thought I saw something," Enterprise said, sitting up.

It stood tall on the gallery deck of the lighthouse, its posture one of fearless supremacy befitting a creature that knew no predators. Over the edge of the deck, it surveyed the waters of the English Channel with eyes as sharp as its beak. Feet of yellow keratin and talons tapped audibly as it paced upon the deck, its wings ruffling in readiness for the takeoff that it was searching for.

"That's an…eagle?" the carrier asked, uncertain.

"A white-tail," Belfast identified, unable to hide the surprise that came with it. Its brown coat was not as dark, and it was lacking the white head of the bald eagle of North America, but the imposing form of such a raptor and the appropriate color of its tail feathers didn't leave any question of what the bird was. "A sea eagle that inhabits areas near large bodies of water."

Its appearance aided Belfast in burying those temptations with the weight of knowledge that she possessed and fell back on. "It's a cousin of the bald eagle. I've never seen it around here before though, and for good reason: it was declared extinct from the Royal Isles years ago."

"Extinct?"

"Human interference," Belfast regretfully explained. "Mainly through hunting."

The eagle spread its wings to a span appropriate to its size. Then, with a screech, it leapt from the lighthouse and dove past them, disappearing down over the cliff.

"If I had to guess," Belfast resumed when it was out of sight, "habitat changes and population growth has led that one back here from elsewhere in Europe. I once said how the fish population had boomed because of the Sirens' control of the seas, and that could've been a factor. For all the destruction that Sirens have razed, there had nonetheless been opportunities for life to persist and grow."

"Do you think there's a nest up there?" Enterprise wondered as she examined the lighthouse again.

"Quite possibly. It prefers cliffs as suitable nesting areas, but maybe it decided that this here would be more than adequate. I sincerely hope that this is a sign of how there could be more of them somewhere and that the Royal Isles will once more be graced with their presence."

Enterprise gave off the impression of being in deep thought again, unconsciously sipping at her tea as she switched between the lighthouse and where the eagle had flown. "You said it was humans that caused it to go extinct here."

Belfast had known as soon as she said it that it may be something that Enterprise could become hung up on. "I did."

Enterprise frowned, but it was not as heavy as Belfast had become accustomed to it being when she was presented with one of humankind's flaws. Instead of a thick shroud of gloom, there was a light of consideration that was effective in turning it into a shade that Enterprise was able to look through with the willingness to find something past it. It was with that that she asked, "Do you think that it'll just happen again, even if we defeat the Sirens?"

Belfast recognized the deeper meaning: that this was but one of the mistakes that could come about again, even after all they went through. But she also saw the optimism within Enterprise, and that was what she sought to encourage. "Humankind had become so used to exploring and acquiring what they would find that they had taken so much for granted. That is a reality. But another reality that they have come to understand with this war is how much of a confined space that the Earth really is. I have faith that if the time comes where it is returned to them, they will treat it with the respect and care that it is due; yet another lesson that they will take with them, even if they were to go beyond it."

She had chosen her statements wisely, furnishing them with what would appeal to how Enterprise had come to such a revelation that was likened to that while reminding her of the potential of mankind's future that she had been enthralled with. Together, they would allay these worries of hers while acting on her burgeoning relatability to mankind that Belfast could see was closing that gap that had once been so tremendous between them and this shipgirl.

How Enterprise reflected on it with that thoughtfulness got the cruiser's hopes to rise and soon they were happily met with the promising reply of, "I think I can believe that."

They ended up eating most of the food, leaving behind the few leftovers that Belfast returned to the basket where they could finish them off either during the ride back or at some point afterwards. Giving themselves time to cradle teacups that they took less and less sips from, they were soon returned as well and it wasn't long before Belfast was folding the blanket, their picnic getaway concluding when she loaded everything back into the car.

Enterprise had ended up at the cliff's edge but was keeping a respectable distance that lessened the risk of her accidentally falling off it. Out in the Channel, there was a fishing boat passing by along with a larger cargo ship, both heading in the same direction. Enterprise was watching them.

"Are you ready to depart, Enterprise?" Belfast asked.

She felt a need to stand dutifully, with her hands folded at the front of her skirt as she came upon Enterprise's back. The ocean breeze swept up the cliff and towards the carrier champion who remained unmoving while her long ivory hair moved in languid waves like the ones that were occurring down below.

"I was able to remember what it was that had been bothering me last night."

Belfast felt the personal chasm that opened wide between them upon hearing that, with a depth greater than the one that was at Enterprise's feet. "Is that so?" she calmly asked.

Enterprise wasn't turning around. "It was when I met Yorktown for the first time, after I was born. The Docklands reminded me of how Long Island was back then, and if I had been born sooner, I wonder if it would've looked a lot like this place here." She shook her head. "I don't think it would've mattered. Right from the start I could only think about what was waiting for us out here in these oceans, because of how well I felt I knew them to be. They were so vivid to me, and I was blind to everything else."

Another breeze blew up from the Channel, Belfast watching as the strands were toyed with.

"Whatever didn't have anything to do with them I either ignored or didn't want, including our human forms. But it was Yorktown who was there to smile at me and embrace me as the sister she had been waiting and fighting for, with no certainty of whether I or she would've really been there for that meeting, with mankind as desperate as it had been. It was because of her and, later, Hornet, that I was able to understand what it meant to be alive and to be happy for it."

Her fluttering hair got in her face when Enterprise turned, and it caused her to bring a hand up to tuck them to the side and keep them there. A few errant ones remained, passing over her lowered eyes, her lips, but she was able to meet Belfast's eyes regardless when she raised them and said, "But knowing what to do with my life – how I could live – I didn't have a clue until I met you." She looked past Belfast's shoulder, over at the peaceful lands. "Now, I feel that I can see so much, do so much, but before that…" She switched back to Belfast. "I hope you'll accept this one when I say thank you for what you've done for me. You may feel fortunate to have met me, but…I feel far more fortunate to have met you."

There was nothing that Belfast could do to contend with this. It was entirely unfair, with Enterprise looking as she did with hair aflutter, a hand at her cheek to place enough back so that the cruiser could see her grateful smile and the rosiness of her cheeks of such vitality that let her fit so well in this portrait, with the life of the Royal Isles that was Belfast's cherished home.

It did away with whatever doubts Belfast had left. She had succeeded with her endeavors. Enterprise had become the woman who she had wanted to see beneath the stern of that burdensome duty, who she had glimpsed upon during the Pacific campaign, and who she wanted to have returned to her when an abominable evil had taken her away.

The woman who Belfast had fallen in love with.

---

It was not as if Belfast was a stranger to love. When she was born, she was certain that it was love that was essential to her existence: love for her nation, love for her queen, love for those who fought for them, who suffered for them, and love for the world that allowed for the very beauty of life and all its facets to exist upon it, theirs most of all.

A source for that love could very well be the mysterious memories that shipgirls inexplicitly possessed when they were born – the knowledge of a world much like the one they had become conscious of for what should be the very first time and yet what they viewed with niggling déjà vu. Some would dismiss it as such, but others would remain aware of it before the great conflicts that they had been constructed to take part in this one would have them forgetting about the ones that had occurred in such faraway, ambiguous seas. Phantom experiences could suddenly arise during moments when they would least expect them, but whether they left any lasting impressions depended on the shipgirl and the experience itself that could be triggered by a sight, a location, or a meeting with another shipgirl.

For Belfast, such experiences were more frequent than most because of how London seemed to consistently inspire them. Namely, it would be from the great River Thames that Belfast would be haunted by pleasant sensations of basking warmth under a sun's rays while peace, life, and elegance went on in another river, in another city, that must've existed once but what she could not recall with enough substance to be real.

Nonetheless, when she had been born in a war-torn era with such suffering and destruction, it was those apparitional figments that she sought to recreate for the sake of those who were wishing to be saved and those like her who were fighting to fulfill those wishes that birthed them.

She had been given weapons, power, and a natural ability to use them, but it was not such a conventional force that would let her achieve the great desire that she held: to serve, to comfort, and to provide respite.

That was something she could not do as a warship.

To her great fortune, there was already an elegant establishment that had been made within the Royal Navy: one built of etiquette, honor, and grace that emboldened the human spirit that dwelled within the formidable constructs known as shipgirls. That had been the fabulous court of Queen Elizabeth, ruled by the leaders of the Royal Family, defended by the Royal Knights, and maintained by the Royal Maids.

It was from within the Maid Corps that Belfast knew her calling to be. Submitting herself to the current head, it was from there that she would begin her pursuits.

As a warship she would defend humanity and let it flourish as it once did. But as a maid, she would be able to bring forth the elegance that would supersede the violence of their inhuman enemies.

Such pure notions would not to be confined to the Royal Navy. When she had been introduced to those whose origins were of other nations, whose virtues consisted of differences to the ones woven into the existences of her and her own, Belfast had nonetheless recognized the humanity they all shared equally, their differences the beautiful diversity mirrored in their human creators and what would be the basis for the alliance known as Azur Lane. And, thus, she would tend to them all equally.

Naturally, there would be hindrances, whether they would be the first frustrations she would experience when she failed to meet her own standards – standards that were held higher than Newcastle's – or when the first breakdowns in the unity of Azur Lane would occur, leading to the regretful tragedies of their separations.

But never once did she let herself stumble, driven by the spectral images of a wondrous place that had gone through miseries both small and catastrophic but what had eventually become the center of delightful celebrations of peace and unity. By believing in that and in the enduring spirit that was in humans and their creations, her love and loyalty would never waver.

Nor did it, allowing her to acquire her position and giving her power that was not what she could destroy with her guns and torpedoes but what she could create with delicate and graceful care. With it, the elegance she held dear could be brought to the hearts and minds of those she wished to provide for, the methods best to use based entirely on what she nurtured in her subordinates or what she performed herself whether it be respectful courtesy to her enemies or the dedicated services to her chosen lady.

Her love had been for the happiness of others, and that was where her happiness was. It was a selfless love, a selfless happiness, and she had never felt a compulsion for anything selfish because of this sense of how she had received more than what she deserved in that phantom place, where she had been so fortunate while so many others had not. This life she had now would be for them than it would be for herself, and she was content with that.

If there was one thing that she could say that she wanted, it was what she already knew was impossible for her and her kind. And though she did not consider it to be a significant detriment, she was reluctant to say how that impossibility wasn't an influence in her abstinence for a more selfish love.

But what she could not have there, she could still be satisfied with by giving her all to everyone else.

That was what Belfast always thought, until she met her.

If Belfast thought herself to be such a fortunate soul, then within Enterprise she saw a very unfortunate one. A familiar one. From when she had first felt the weight in her arms when Enterprise fell into them and when she peered into her agonized features, Belfast had experienced an uncanny remembrance of her. As she would later relate to Illustrious, that remembrance would gain increased detail of how there may've once been a time and a place where Belfast had known of Enterprise but had missed a chance to support her.

It was that same place where Belfast had a fate hinted to be of rich elegance, but for Enterprise the cruiser wasn't supplied with anything at all about what hers may've been. All that this knowledge would recall for her was of how Enterprise had been just as reputable as she was now and then…nothing.

It was a sense that would come to constantly haunt her when Enterprise became her lady and she got to understand more about her. As she saw the life she was leading and how much she was sacrificing, all the way to her own humanity, what Belfast refused to see was for this woman to become nothing as being her reward. Not like the fate that had befallen her in what felt like another time, in another life.

Especially not with how undeniably beautiful she was seeing Enterprise to be.

Maybe part of that was due to Belfast seeing herself in Enterprise. What Belfast saw was someone like her who was dedicating her all to everyone, with the skills that they were blessed with. While hers had been to heal, Enterprise's had been to fight. The carrier's method more directly saved lives, earned her greater notoriety, but carried the greater risk of leading her to an unhappy existence with such proximity and abundance of the violence of this war with the Sirens, as had clearly been the case, whereas Belfast had been able to more easily gain happiness with her methods.

To turn those methods towards Enterprise, to get her to obtain her own bit of selfish happiness, was for Belfast to see how brilliant she was. In the process, what became roused within the cruiser was for her to also become a bit more selfish. With Enterprise, there was someone who she wished to dedicate herself solely to, something that she had never felt before. For the great majority of her life, she had been content with swearing her fealty to Her Majesty and the Royal Family, as that was where she could best serve her fellow shipgirls. To want to be of service to one, and only one…

She had thought that to be admiration, not a more exceptional, singular form of love.

That was until the woman who she thought to be admiring had been taken from her.

No one had been there to see her when she had found Enterprise, and not even Enterprise seemed to remember her tears – both then, and for those secretive moments when she thought herself alone during the days afterwards when her heart had been breaking over what had happened to Enterprise that had her going through her examinations with such a lost, deadened look on her face. A failure that Belfast couldn't bear, and one that she could not leave as it was, when she had seen Enterprise off from the joint base.

And so came her plan, born of such desperation and selfishness that it would have Enterprise in her care, for her to fix - entirely hers.

Such selective cluelessness, apparently, was something else that she and Enterprise shared. The extent of her selfishness, what her admiration really was, had been there even before then, but Belfast had always been avoiding it, always keeping herself away from it, because of how she had forgotten what it meant to want for herself when she wanted so much for everyone else.

The want to be in someone else's warmth, to be of someone else's attention, to be the object of someone else's happiness. A want that she became more aware of the longer she was within Enterprise's presence, when she saw more of the woman she had thought to be lost.

Until, finally, she had been holding her in her arms, seeing her in her eyes, when she came back.

And Belfast knew that she didn't want to be separated from her ever again.

That, even she had to realize, was love in all its selfish glory…even though she had no idea as to what to do with it.

---

Belfast stood where she was, how her fingers curled but did not bunch the material of her skirt the only sign of how she was trying to tamp down against an overflowing well of affection that was seeping out as a response to this splendor. The centerpiece that was Enterprise smiling at her in that way, in that pose, transcended the usual norms of what she once defined as beauty.

The words she wanted to say were all there but would've come out as an incomprehensible mix-up that would've had little resemblance to any kind of language, nonetheless English. She did not have the breath for them anyway, Belfast entirely without it, which had her messy response being lodged and building up within her throat that had become dry even though she had drunk plenty of refreshment.

But these feelings refused to be held back, the pressure that was trapped behind the words rising to force them out, whether Belfast was to give her consent or not.

It was consent that Belfast would not give, and she enforced her authority over herself with a painful swallow that she hid with a bow of her head, the movement assisting in dispersing the pressure in her chest as she exerted her impeccable control and forced her unruly emotions into tyrannical compliance.

She could not do this.

"This is thanks that I will wholeheartedly accept," Belfast said.

This was not the time for this.

It was so strange. She should be happy right now. She was happy, as when she lifted her head it was definitely what she felt when she caught Enterprise's smile again, the measureless gratefulness that was there for Belfast having kept her promise – to the carrier and to herself.

"And…"

But the words that did come to her, though presentable in their more orderly lines that were drawn by the happiness she did feel at seeing Enterprise like this, felt hollow, and her delivery manufactured.

"There is nothing that I would want more than to remain by you in order to witness just what it'll be that you decide on doing with your life to achieve your own elegance."

She did want to stay with Enterprise, and yet that bit of honesty was so lacking in conveying even a sliver of the feelings that were trapped behind her proper presentation. As a result, her smile, her face, her heart…

All of it felt so painful to her.

But she proved to still be an expert of such deception, with Enterprise unable to see through the façade as her smile grew. "I want you to stay with me, too."

There had to be a procedure for this, but Belfast had no clue of what it could possibly be as she turned on her heel, needing to look away from Enterprise. She could barely pick up the sound of the carrier ace moving to follow her.

Just because Belfast had never encountered a desire for it, it didn't mean that she believed herself unworthy of love or that she had never seen it occur among other shipgirls. The first would be of such hypocrisy if she did, and for the second what she had witnessed of love tended to be – more often than not – fleeting moments of carnal satiation influenced by the stresses of their long battles that weren't meant to last. Of that she had seen with Wales, whose secret hobby of wanton intimacies had once led her to making a pass towards Belfast before she had reminded the battleship as to who controlled her tea and her snacks.

That Belfast had no interest in and had never provided such a comfort to anyone else because of how such acts would tarnish the sanctity of such a moment of oneness between others and what it may cause to her and her charges if she were to do so with such an emptiness of feeling that would've resulted in such thoughtless ease of surrender. Unfortunately, what other incidents she had witnessed – particularly when they involved cross-faction relationships – were of more regretful results, as had been the case with Hood. And when she thought about that…

She would not risk that with Enterprise. Not when she had finally overcome her trauma, her human soul bright and shining.

A winged form suddenly rising from over by the cliff signaled the return of the eagle, its talons clutching a fish. Belfast and Enterprise both paused to look at it in time to see it land back on top of the lighthouse before disappearing further into it, taking its catch with it.

Like that eagle that had managed to find its way here, it had to be Enterprise who had to be allowed to find what she wanted. Belfast had done her job in mending her wings to do so, but she needed to let her fly on her own now. She had no knowledge of how to properly contend with this phenomenon called love, so she had to rely on her experience of when she had assisted in the healing of others that had let them sail again, without her.

It was such bad timing. Belfast would be more willing to learn and to pursue were it not for this stage where she could positively establish it being where she needed to step away. Her past actions that had been to draw Enterprise out, to keep her away from what tormented her, had to be reversed. Now that the carrier could see and choose to do whatever she wished, Belfast had to distance herself so as not to become an obstruction. With her having regained such stable wings, Belfast refused to-

She had been resuming the trek to the car, expecting and sensing when Enterprise caught up…right before the carrier reached over and took her hand.

Belfast jerked her head over, her eyes wide, and what she saw was Enterprise turned away, avoiding her, but the squeeze that she made over the cruiser's hand transmitted enough of there having been no mistake of her intentions.

What Belfast immediately thought of was this gesture that she had performed last night when she had taken Enterprise's hand, followed by the lesser ones that she had made more frequently…and then she debated as to whether she should be regretting them or not if it meant creating a dependency that Enterprise may be gaining for her.

Should she…rebuff her?

Her appendage had grown tense within Enterprise's grip, as stuck as Belfast was when it came to what she should do. Pull away? Return it? Just what was appropriate here? What was the proper etiquette? She did not know.

It was a question of how Enterprise would feel depending on which action she took that had Belfast's fingers better slipping through Enterprise's to create a proper grip. With it, she could feel the relieved relaxation that came through it on Enterprise's side, and Belfast was congratulating just as much as she was ridiculing herself for her own selfish desires that were using it as an excuse for this.

She did not want to risk all this on something she had no knowledge about, with countless complications and unknowns of what could come of it. Not with what could be lost if she failed, and what she would gain being rooted more to her own selfishness than it was for Enterprise's, with Belfast having no way of knowing if the carrier would return her feelings…or if she was making a mistake even if she did.

They may be separated soon, and when that happened who knew what would happen to either of them in this ongoing war. They had lived so long as it was, but it had also taken this long for circumstances to bring them together at last. If they were to return to their respective nations, with no way of knowing when they'd meet again or if they couldn't meet again…

For all this chaos that was going on within Belfast, there was this hope that remained present. Just as humanity had not given up even with the threat of extinction, Belfast couldn't do it either, especially not with how much she taught Enterprise of it and how essential it had been to her recovery that had finally happened.

Things could work out somehow, in some way, and though Belfast wanted Enterprise to be able fly on her own, there was nothing that said that her flight path couldn't come back towards her.

They still had a bit more time here, then during the voyage back to the joint base, and then whatever time they had left there. Maybe that'll be enough for Belfast to know a bit more about how to proceed from here and work to get an outcome that would be preferable for both her and Enterprise.

---

"The transfer is complete," Observer confirmed while extending her arm out. "You have your mission."

Hovering above her palm was the fragment, pulsing as volatilely as ever before. A pair of hands seized it and yanked it out from her possession.

"Eeeh, so this is her?"

Observer watched amusedly as the one across from her examined the fragment, holding it high above her head. She tilted it from side-to-side, her own golden yellow eyes fixed on the fragment – right before she suddenly burst out laughing.

"Ahahaha!" she cackled, a maniacal laugh accompanied by the same echoey, guttural connotations that belonged to the more intelligent forms of the Sirens. This combination, with her high and loud glee, was nearly akin to a crackling blanket of static purposely designed to grate on the very sanity of those who would be exposed to it for too long. "How pathetic!"

With a vicious, ear-to-ear grin, she brought the fragment closer so that she could peer directly into the crystalline structure. "Is she even alive right now? Is she? Is she?" She shook it vigorously, trying to rattle the energies that were stored within. "Hey, can you hear me in there!?"

"She remains functional," Observer answered for her, getting the Siren to stop. "Although she is deteriorating rapidly."

The analysis that Observer oversaw soon after noting the sped-up rate confirmed it. As for the cause, she was almost as sure that the reason was because of the tepid link that this Key had established during the Orochi experiment with the current one. Because of the significant transformation that the present Enterprise had undergone, that lifeline had nearly been severed completely. It was but a mere thread now, and it was insignificant in maintaining the previous Key's tie to this reality.

Once that thread gave out under the immense strain, this Key would meet the same fate as the subjects in her world – to be lost and erased in the space between this world and the other. Observer reckoned that it was sheer power and will that was maintaining her existence, and she couldn't determine just what that kind of stress was putting her through.

This Key had been broken long ago, so Observer couldn't come up with a suitable way to describe the state of the continued degradation of something that had already been shattered.

What she did see, however, was how fascinating it would be if these two Keys of opposing realities and their current code nexuses would intersect with each other; one who had managed to undergo such a restoration, while the other was tearing what pieces of her that were left apart in her attempts to stave off her own termination.

It would be such a shame to miss out on this opportunity, as had been determined.

"It's been estimated that her lifespan will last for, at most, twelve hours of this simulation's timeframe if we do nothing," Observer predicted.

The other Siren giggled, her face drifting away from the fragment. "No wonder you're in such a hurry, and with all these tools you're providing!"

"Well…this just so happened to provide incentive to go ahead with an escalation."

An 'escalation' was a phase meant to stimulate a simulation upon it reaching a certain point, with favorable criteria. Typically, it would commence during a lull in the warring conflict between the two constant powers – Azur Lane and Crimson Axis. And always an operation based on it would be against Azur Lane and its two primary factions: Eagle Union or Royal Navy.

As had been proven to the point of indisputable truth, the factions of the Crimson Axis were destined for failure no matter the timeline or the simulation. It was more than a matter power or an adherence to the script of the Prime World, but simply due to the ideologies of the factions such as Iron Blood and Sakura Empire that made any kind of victory that was already impossible to achieve to be completely incompatible for what the Sirens desired.

It was an irony that Observer found particularly delicious. The reason for the breakaway of the Crimson Axis – as the subjects espoused – was due to their views on how Siren technology would be what would allow them to ensure mankind's future, but the fact of the matter was that how far they went into their implementation of Siren technology could make them little better than proxies of the Sirens themselves, as has occurred in previous simulations. By embracing it, by combining it with their own riggings and bodies to a particular extent, the closer they were to forfeiting the very future that they believed they could obtain by using it.

The reason that the Sirens were conducting these experiments was for humanity to be able to evolve and surpass their limits. The Crimson Axis, being those who would integrate themselves with Siren technology, had the constant danger of becoming invalid, their primary use to provide a civil conflict that would incite growth in those of Azur Lane who sought to overcome them without it or those within the likes of the Sakura Empire and Iron Blood who could muster up the fortitude to ascend above what they incorporated.

Nonetheless, it was in the Sirens' best interests to lend a helping hand occasionally, thus an escalation: typically, a direct attack on one of the capitals of Eagle Union or Royal Navy. Such an action would create a rippling effect throughout the world, ideally with the Crimson Axis being emboldened by what they would see as both a show of Azur Lane's weakness and justification in their judgments concerning the implementation of Siren technology. As a result, conflict would escalate whether it be in a direct battle of arms or ideology.

Not every simulation would qualify for it, and this one previously hadn't. Based on the profiles of the subjects and the current state of this world, it was considered that this type of operation would not only have little effect but may incite an outcome that would lead to the opposite.

But now there were very unique factors in play, and the window of such an exceptional opportunity was shrinking. They had been forced to make a decision, and so they had – a rare instance, that, which was intriguing in its own right.

Not that they wouldn't exert at least a modicum of discretion, which Observer conveyed now. "Still, do try to take some care with that body. Due to the circumstances, it was deemed prudent that a more advanced model was to be provided to secure the odds of success."

"Hmmmmm?" The Siren glanced down at herself, and then towards her rigging that hovered above her, touting its array of beam cannons that flanked a distinctive, hammerhead shape. "Hehehe, now that you mention it…" She bent her neck left, then right. "I do feel a bit more…" Then, in an appalling display, her head did a slow spin on its own, her body remaining in place as it completed its rotation and came back forward with a mechanical clack as something came into place. "…Prone to mayhem?" That initiated another bout of giggling. "I'm not promising anything!"

Observer aped her cruel grin. "I thought you would say that, so I decided to provide a secondary target to entertain you until the opportunity comes to fulfill your primary objective."

She fed the data through the network, a stillness coming to the other Siren while her eyes lit up as she downloaded the data packet. The glow receded, showing how she was appearing to read an invisible string of text.

"Oooh, a plaything, you mean?" the other Siren questioned with some excitement as she read down the lines.

"A target that has proven to be quite essential to the development of this Key, much as the subject Yorktown was," Observer elucidated. "Whether this world is to be deleted or not, we must always strive to collect as much data as we can, with any that have to do with the chosen Keys being of great importance. Recordings will be thoroughly made as to this Enterprise's response to what'll befall this subject."

The Siren read further on and then her features drooped. "Aw, this one doesn't seem like she'll be that much fun but…" They brightened again, and then she sang, "Ob-ser-ver~ I don't see any recommended actions~"

"Is that so?" Observer feigned cluelessness. "Must've been an error in the transfer. Oh well. I'll leave that up to you."

The other Siren stared, having the capacity to appear surprised for all of a few seconds before she let out a peal of laughter that had her clutching her stomach with an arm, the other still holding the fragment. "Oh, Observer! You've been so good to me lately!" She swiped a finger beneath her eye, doing away with a tear that wasn't there and would be impossible for her to produce anyway, making it an empty mimicry of a human-like gesture that was at odds with her very inhuman grin. "Maybe I don't want this world to end!"

"That'll all depend on the completion of your mission."

The Siren commenced an extravagant, mocking salute while placing the fragment within a compartment of her rigging. "Aye, aye, ma'am!" She spun on her heel, turning it into a dancey spin before she made a hop towards the exit, causing the finned tail of her gear to slap at the air as the underwater predator it similarly mimicked would do. Observer could make out her excited giggling even after she had left.

It is important to enjoy what you do, Observer noted. Sometimes the most simple of human sayings possessed the greatest wisdom which contributed to such a personality to be selected for that mayhem-prone subprogram. The same went for herself as she diverted her attention back to the data streams of this world, her hands coming up with fingertips touching.

The script had been finalized. They've attacked London many times now, and with such thorough data that was provided for every simulation they were able to predict the exact moves that the pieces on this chess board would make, even accounting for all the variables that were involved with this world's setup. Everything was predicted to proceed as they were meant to. As for the outcome…

"That will be all about you, Enterprise, as it frequently is," Observer declared, her digits bending and straightening in her own gesture that she had decided to imitate. "The stage is about to be set, so give me an entertaining show because it really is your world that is at stake."

---

Enterprise had arrived in London with nothing. Now, she was leaving with plenty that she was struggling to carry. Or, at least, to fit in the suitcase that was laid out on her bed.

Even after folding them as best as she could, Enterprise still had to apply some forceful coercion out of the clothes of her newfound wardrobe to get them all into the case that she had bought during one of her last afternoons in London. The shirts and dresses, pants, hats, shoes, and other accessories that had come into her possession. This included the dress that she wore at the banquet.

She didn't think that she had that much, but as she emptied out her closet and began feeding everything into the case, she started to regret not taking Belfast's suggestion about going a size up. Started to, and then that regret was overtaken by a stubbornness to get everything in there anyway to prove her wrong.

During the stuffing that was to make use of every inch that she could get, Enterprise would be struck with sentimentality for each bit of article that she struggled with. The black dress that had been the first thing that Belfast had chosen for her, the white shirt that Enterprise selected along with the black cardigan to go with an even more casual look with her jeans, the hat and sunglasses, and of course the banquet dress. There were a lot of memories that she had gained along with these clothes, Enterprise feeling her mouth curve with nostalgia whenever she touched them.

She really had gotten a lot out of this city, in more ways than one.

Now if only it would all fit in the stupid suitcase!

She got everything in, the problem was that the lid wasn't closing for some reason. When she brought it down on top of the pile, it would refuse to come down enough for her to properly zip it up, it bulging when Enterprise tried to do so which led to the zipper refusing to cooperate, getting stuck at a very strained section that the slider refused to pass over because the teeth of the miniscule chain were too spread apart. After one hump that proved even more stubborn than she, Enterprise took a step back in a temporary retreat, crossing her arms before stroking her chin.

The problem was the lid. If there was only something to weigh it down…

Enterprise paused in her stroking as the imaginary light bulb clicked on above her head. She glanced at the door to the connecting hallway between her and Belfast's room, trying to see or listen for a sign if the cruiser was about to come over.

Doesn't seem to be, Enterprise deduced. In that case… She waited another second just to be sure before refocusing on the suitcase, ready to initiate her plan.

"Hup!"

She wasn't sure what possessed her to make that kind of small noise, filled with the motivated breath she blew when she made her jump upon the suitcase, landing with her butt on top of it for greater weight directed on the necessary area. The tactic worked though, with the position giving her the added benefit of being able to lean over and pull on the zipper, navigating around her legs where needed until the slider had traveled to the other end.

And done! she declared with a sense of accomplishment before she hopped off and rotated back around for an inspection.

The lid visibly bulged once her weight was removed, the teeth of the chain straining but holding.

…Should be fine.

The suitcase remained closed, but Enterprise made a mental note to herself to keep jostling to a minimum. As for what she was going to do when she had to eventually open it again…she'll cross that bridge when she got to it.

The connecting door opened and Belfast entered, not one but two suitcases rolling behind her. Enterprise saw it when the cruiser looked at her first before immediately switching to the bulging suitcase on her bed, and then she returned to the carrier with an arched brow.

Enterprise gestured towards her suitcase, prideful. "I got it all in there."

Belfast kept that brow directed at her before sighing. "So it may appear. It also appears that it'll burst open at a moment's notice."

Enterprise shrugged. "It hasn't yet." It's been a minute since she managed to do it and it was still closed. That should prove that it would stay that way. It was also enough for Enterprise to declare herself the victor, and the tiny grin she saw quirk up on Belfast's face she labeled as her concession.

"I'll set these by the door while you finish getting ready," Belfast said, disappearing with her luggage to do just that.

Next to Enterprise's now packed suitcase were her boots, naval cap, and overcoat. She started with the boots first, sitting on the edge of the bed to fit them over her belted stockings before throwing on her coat. She barely registered the sound of something very light and soft landing on the floor. She looked down, spotting a white cloth, and when she bent down to pick it up it was for her to see that it was actually a glove.

Where did…? She checked her coat pockets, feeling the same texture within one of them. She pulled it out.

"Oh, what's that?" Belfast asked, having returned to see Enterprise holding the gloves in front of her for inspection.

Enterprise rubbed her fingers upon the gloves, feeling that cloth and nylon mix as she traced the decorative seams. "I tried these before, when Victorious was picking out my dress. They felt nice, but I put them back when she said they wouldn't fit." She looked up curiously. "Do you think they were sent by mistake?"

Enterprise had left her uniform at the Royal Palace along with Belfast's, which the cruiser was also wearing. They had been generously delivered yesterday, but waiting until now to don it again had made Enterprise unaware of the gloves.

"What do you think?" There was small, knowing grin that was present on Belfast's face.

Enterprise's thumb gave the material another thoughtful rub. "…I think Victorious sent them as a gift?"

"I believe you're correct, and it would be impolite to try and return them, wouldn't you think?"

"I guess so…"

Without saying anything else, Belfast went to the side of the bed where Enterprise's cap rested, soon picking it up and holding it out to her.

Enterprise sat there before eventually standing up and taking her cap. After sliding the gloves back into her coat pocket for safekeeping, she set her cap on her head, adjusting the brim to center it and then running her index finger down the badge to be certain that it was centered.

She felt something off and wondered if the miniscule weight that was added to her one pocket was the culprit. When she shifted her shoulders to try and better identify the problem, she came to a different conclusion.

After wearing the clothing that was currently stored in her suitcase for so long, and now wearing her uniform with an untroubled mind, Enterprise was suddenly bothered by the exposure of her shoulders and how her coat hung more from the skin of her upper arms. It was accompanied by how others had commented about it previously and the carrier had a rather unexpected suggestion of how she should maybe do something about this when she got the chance.

"All set?"

Another time, Enterprise told herself before nodding towards Belfast. "Ready."

As the suitcases and their uniforms indicated, today was to be their departure from London.

It was an occasion that Enterprise would've dreaded a couple days ago, and that dread would've found plenty to sustain itself with the fears that had been inseparable companions to Enterprise back then due to their limitlessness. The fears of her defects, her fighting capabilities, how others would see and speak of her, what it would mean for her future, her enemies that seemed so numerous, and her other foes that were outright impossible for her to comprehend or think of how she would battle them. There had been so many fears that they had been suffocating her, bringing her to the breaking point.

Enterprise was without them when she retrieved her suitcase, more worried about her recommendation of how she should keep sudden disturbances from making her a fool. And when she reached the door with the two suitcases at the ready, she was struck with another thought which had her taking the handle of one of them.

"I can take them," Belfast spoke up, reaching to take the other and the one that Enterprise had seized.

The carrier shifted it away from her. "I've got it. You're doing the checkout and everything, right? Least I can do."

Belfast paused with her hand still out. "Are you sure?"

"Won't be a problem."

Belfast relented, her hand withdrawing before Enterprise got what she wanted: a short smile of thanks. "I'll leave it to you, then."

Enterprise liked it when she smiled.

The checkout went without incident, Belfast returning their keys to the desk while Enterprise waited for her, spending the time to survey the few guests that were in the lobby. A couple gazes she met, and Enterprise had exchanged easy nods of acknowledgement by the time Belfast came back and, together, they went through the sliding doors.

Their limo was already parked and waiting for them to take them back to the base. After Enterprise provided some assistance with loading their stuff in the trunk, she got inside with Belfast.

It wouldn't be much longer. Just one ride left, and then Enterprise could picture what would come next after reporting to the base commander. The supply ships would already be loaded, and while the slower cargo vessels would need time to set sail and form up, the shipgirls of the escort fleet would be making their final checks and preparations, ready to immediately join up with the supply ships once they had formed up. Enterprise fancied that she would be heading right to her carrier body and depending on whatever delays that would be spent with her running through her checklist, she would be taking to the seas with the rest of her comrades.

The seas, and whatever would be waiting for her both on the journey back to the joint base and whatever assignments would come afterwards to better return her to the daily business of the war whether it be with the Crimson Axis or the Sirens.

"How are you feeling?" Belfast asked shortly after they departed.

That was what Enterprise was trying to figure out, now that she had reconciled with the expectations of what was to happen next and what they meant. "Do you want me to be honest?"

"Of course."

At the floor of the vehicle, Enterprise's feet shifted back and forth on their heels while her hands did the same at her lap, her fingers curling and folding amongst each other while her legs slowly rocked. There was an anxious energy that was making its rounds through her, difficult to contain within her body and the passenger compartment felt too small to let her relieve herself of the excess.

"Honestly…" Enterprise began as her toes went as high as they could go, her legs tense and fingers clenching, and then she forced them all to settle as she breathed out, "I can't wait to be back."

It wasn't the answer that Belfast was expecting, going by how both her brows rose together. It was only when Enterprise passed her a crooked smile that Belfast felt it safe to return it, the relief visible even to the carrier champion while she joked, "Have you finally gotten tired of your stay here?"

It was a jest, but Enterprise felt obligated to say, "Not in the least." She partially swung over to the view of her passenger window so that she could look out at the city. "I wish I had been of a better state than I was before to have appreciated this."

Going back through everything, much of what Enterprise underwent was a series of regrets, even to the most inconsequential of details. A store that had caught her attention but what she never stepped in, an activity or game that she hadn't tried, a treat that she passed on, things like that. They steadily heightened, with Enterprise wishing she had been a better conversationalist to Cleveland and Montpelier, to have engaged more with other shipgirls in such public environments like the park, and this went to humans, too, when she had constantly shied away or ignored their attentions. This, naturally, brought her back to the night of the banquet and how much she missed out there.

If there was something good to get out of such regrets, it was what Enterprise went into. "It does make me want to see the others again. Not just to make up for what I missed out with them here but what I missed out for…well…a lot of things. At the joint base to start, but then there's the other bases, with my other comrades."

It was an indirect way of saying how she wanted to make up for the many years of her life where she had secured herself in her darkening isolation, keeping her away from her comrades when they were not on the battlefield, and even when they were she would rush on ahead and leave them behind. In that way she had abandoned them with her unwillingness to make a connection to them, and for some she knew were no longer around for her to be able to. It was a fault of her own making, and one that she used to further cut herself from them and from the rest of the world.

As a certain glutton of a battleship had advised and what Enterprise intended to follow through on though, it was for Enterprise to celebrate and enjoy with those who still lived on for their sakes. "I want to show them a better person. A better me that they can rely on, and not just for fighting. And I really want to speak with my sisters again."

"I could talk with Jacob," Belfast suggested, still using the first name of the base commander. "He may be able to find out if Hornet is still at the joint base."

"Would you?"

"I will definitely do so."

Sometime ago, Enterprise would've declined the offer, not wanting to impose on anyone for her own selfish wants. Instead, she nodded and flashed Belfast a grateful smile. "I would really appreciate it if you could." She paused, an iota of her past unwillingness resurfacing before she added, "I'm sure Hammann wouldn't go anywhere without her but if you're already going to be asking…"

Belfast dipped her chin, her own lips curving. "I'll inquire about the both of them."

"Thank you, Belfast."

"You are most welcome. Have you thought of what to say once you see them again?"

"I was thinking that 'I'm sorry' would be a good way to start off any conversation." Enterprise then shrugged. "If not, I did get those souvenirs. Would you consider bribery acceptable?"

Belfast issued a brief chuckle. "For this I would."

"Right, just making sure."

They were crossing one of the bridges, and Enterprise used the opportunity to get what could be one of her last look at Thames. The clean waters of the river and the traffic that passed through it, lively and peaceful – two words that she'd never thought she'd use again to describe even a river like this, with how it led to the oceans that had been her constant battlegrounds.

"Have you had any visions?" Belfast then asked. "Headaches? Anything at all?"

It was a necessary question, but Enterprise could tell how she hadn't wanted to ask and would've probably preferred leaving it with how calm that the last days had been. Maybe Enterprise would've felt the same, too, but instead she was almost glad to say, "Nothing. I haven't experienced anything like that since the banquet. It feels like all that was just a nightmare that I've woken up from."

To write everything off as 'just a nightmare' seemed such an outrageous thing to do, with all that had happened, but there was no other way for Enterprise to say it. She felt like her eyes had been opened after being closed for so long, lost in the landscape of depression where every day felt like an extension of such a miserable dream that she was forced to trudge through, fighting and winning battle after battle that were never ending, but still getting worse as it went on.

The Pacific felt like it was the beginning of the end of that nightmare, but it wasn't the one that any would've wanted. It was the kind of end that, rather than for the nightmare, it would've been for Enterprise. An end that would've come when she wouldn't have been able to go on any longer, when she would've been placed in that one fight that she couldn't even finish nonetheless win, when she knew that but was heading towards it regardless. And then…that would've been it. The end, with her having no way to prevent it – only to meet it, despite how certain she knew the result to be.

But then a miracle occurred: she woke up.

The malicious intent of a dark presence that was always dwelling within the recesses of her mind, the glimpses of a world that became overrun by the blackness of violence, where any chance to look away or deny it was crushed by pain and truth of what was meant to be and what she really was – it was gone. All gone.

And what had come to replace it was this world of light, color, and life so intense to prove that this was what was real, not what had been the source of all her dread with their visions and dark voices that was the stuff of those nightmares.

"…Maybe that was all that was," she said.

"Maybe it was," Belfast said, sounding just as hopeful as Enterprise. "Do you believe yourself to be capable, then?"

Capable of fighting? That must be what Belfast was referring to, but Enterprise had a thought of how she may be asking much more than that.

Was she capable of living?

Enterprise's answer was for both. "I won't know until later but…" She looked to Belfast, the smile she made she believed to be partly of her own volition with how quick and easy the energy came to make it was. "I don't feel afraid anymore."

She was glad when she saw how big Belfast's answering smile was, and delighted with how she had been the one to cause it like this morning. There was so much about Belfast that, like London, Enterprise felt like she was seeing better now. How…nice she was, whether it be how she smiled, how she looked in general, how Enterprise was always glad to be near her, talking to her, sharing these days with her, or even this space in the limo with her.

When Belfast was happy, she was happy, and she was happier when she was the one to make her happy.

Which was why she was troubled when she saw a noticeable rise within Belfast, the cruiser about to say something, and then came a recession that reduced her stance and whatever it was she wanted to say, leaving her with, "I'm so happy for you, Enterprise."

And then she faced forward, leaving behind what had been cut off.

But Enterprise kept her gaze on her, aware of a growing concern that had developed but not for her. It was for Belfast.

The final two days had been spent without much in the way of excitement, the two shipgirls having been satisfied with more languid activities to meet the incoming end of this vacation, with Enterprise better absorbing what she could now receive from London. What actually made up most of yesterday and the day before was for Belfast to continue imparting Enterprise lessons in the ways of the kitchen, emptying out what food they had left in their fridge to do so while accomplishing some clean up of what they weren't going to be taking with them.

There had been one last visit they had decided to make due to a suggestion that Enterprise had been given during the night of the banquet. It had come to her yesterday, and she had been urged to bring it up to Belfast. She hadn't been sure why, but guessed that the threat of leaving an opportunity unexplored and having no way of knowing when she'd ever have the chance again had given her nagging incentive.

Whatever the reason, Belfast appeared happy when Enterprise mentioned that there was a place she was interested in seeing and was all but ecstatic when she repeated the name: Westminster Abbey.

Apparently, words like 'sacred' and 'holy' did not do that place justice, as Belfast had been sure to explain to her. This was not just to humans, but for shipgirls as well. Enterprise would learn why.

Starting as a simple church, it would be rebuilt and expanded on throughout the ages into the grand cathedral that it would become. Its original purpose was to be a royal burial church, a task fulfilled with the death of one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings, Edward the Confessor. Later in that same year, it would be the first Norman king who would hold his coronation there after his successful conquest of England: William the Conqueror.

Close to a millennium later, the abbey would serve its purpose to hold the coronations of all of the historic monarchs of England, the wedding ceremonies for their royal unions, and the burials of their final resting places, right up to the present. With the entombment of Prime Ministers and the memorials of thousands of other prominent individuals throughout British history whether they be poets, scientists, or military leaders, Westminster Abbey – now under the direct control of the royal sovereignty – was seen as a sort of Valhalla for the Royal Navy.

It was the very heart of British history, where the successive kings and queens would begin what would be their shaping of the portions of history that consisted of their rules whether it be with the closed fists of unyielding tyrants or the open palms of accepting reformists. The eras of peace and chaos, prosperity and poverty, and the subjects who would make their names in the bloodshed or the fortunes would all contribute to what had made the British Empire what it was and what the Royal Navy would be the successor to.

Enterprise experienced that when she walked along the carpets and choir benches of the High Altar, the preserved scepters, thrones, and other ancient royal artifacts presented in their displays, and the graves and memorials of the tombs.

But what she could also feel were the impressions that were emanating from them, specifically from the tombs. Her once muddled senses that had been flushed by the life and elegance of the Royal Palace until they were cleared again became acute to the emanations of the artifacts and the memorials.

There were regrets, doubts, and even lamentations of how some of the dead had lived, with goals unfulfilled, dreams denied, or their reigns ruthlessly cut short. Then there were others who had brought to their graves the great rejoicing of their victories, the recognition of the magnificent standing that they had achieved before passing, and the pleasure of having been able to serve whether it be in their battles or their arts.

But no matter of what spectrum these impressions may be, behind all of them what Enterprise could make out was the loud and boisterous vitality that could transcend death and the following ages. Whether it be their rage and greed, their benevolence and humility, or their passionate elations, what was left behind in their wake were their marks on history that would encourage the envy and pride of those who would come after, the examples which would be imitated and sought to be surpassed, and what would go on to continue to influence the direction of humankind.

They were the personifications of the adventuring spirit of mankind, both in life and after death. The spirit that was supposed to have been imparted into shipgirls but, for Enterprise, it had been smothered with these conflicts of the present and all that she could gain from the past were the same bloody conflicts that made them so unending and her actions thereof – along with her existence – pointless, when the only entombment for a shipgirl was the oblivion of sinking into the dark abyss.

But the life that had been returned to it was drawing greater breath from these ghosts. From a thousand years ago to a mere decade or less, Enterprise could see the consistency in not only the conflicts but the unwavering, unending drive to become better. To be raised higher, no matter what challenges may come to impede them, and what had become built from them. London was but the modern body that had grown around such an ancient heart, with all that has come to be in it. This included shipgirls.

From them, Enterprise could see why the Royal Navy was what it was, and why the shipgirls were who they were. With the examples of the previous Dukes of York, the Princes of Wales, the Queen Elizabeths and King Georges, all right here in this mausoleum for the ships who were born of those names, the Eagle carrier wished to take back all that she had said about what they created and what they honored to be of imitation and 'pretend'.

What Westminster Abbey was as a source of the Royal Navy elegance had to be close or on par of how the Sakura Empire revered the Sacred Sakura Tree as a source of their cherished faith that brought meaning not only to their lives but what they would see in their deaths.

For the last, the abbey did the same with a tomb that Enterprise was eventually drawn to.

It was separated from the rest of the grave markers like the altars and caskets of the prestigious monarchs. What it lacked in opulence, it had in exception with the iron slab that had been embedded in a floor that – for all that Enterprise had seen of the rest of the cathedral – had previously been of either stone or marble. There had been words engraved into it, with a bronze statuette of a crowned lion watching over it at the head, but there was very little else to it.

But what Enterprise could sense from it was what had her coming to stand not only in front of it but to kneel down and put her palm upon the iron to better perceive the impression she got beneath it: an existence that was not a single whole.

Enterprise looked up, still touching the slab, to see where Belfast was standing next to her. "There's a shipgirl buried under here."

Belfast nodded with a somber smile. "Yes, there is."

Enterprise read the engravings on the slab, trying to search for a name or whatever that could identify who the shipgirl was. She didn't get anything like that. "Unknown?"

Belfast smoothed the front of her skirt before setting down on her knees, a hand coming over her heart while her head bowed towards the grave marker. "This grave," she explained when she finished, "was made during the closing months of the Atlantic campaign of the Siren War. A long and costly campaign that had started when the Sirens first arrived and ended with the declaration of the reunification of the eastern and western halves of the world when our nations broke the Siren blockade. Many sailors and shipgirls perished throughout the course of the campaign, their remains never recovered or identified."

She also laid her hand down, her fingers passing over the engravings. "There is another grave that was made in honor of those humans, but this one is dedicated for shipgirls. This slab here was constructed out of hull pieces from a shipgirl's rigging, and beneath that the remains of a body. Who she was, whether the remains and the pieces were one and the same, is all unknown. They were what was recovered from the seas, with no idea of which engagement they came from what with how sudden and confusing things could happen out there. It was miraculous that they were able to salvage enough to bury; her Wisdom Cube was too damaged to produce a signature. There was nothing to identify her."

Yet Enterprise was still able to sense something, and Belfast had to as well. It was more than what the artificial construct that this shipgirl possessed, and closer to what filled the rest of the tombs, permeating the air. Its vitality, its energy, was as…soulful as that of these kings. As real, as longstanding, and as belonging.

Because of what mankind had become it had been able to exist, and because of mankind it was able to be immortalized in this way.

And Enterprise could finally appreciate the beauty in that.

"She was a warship but possessed the ideals of humanity," Enterprise said. "It was what she lived by, fought for, died with, and she had not done so alone. For so many like her to sink alongside of humans, mankind could not permit the injustice to let them be lost and forgotten any more than their own. So this memorial was created to show that they had their place amongst them, in life and in death. A promise of how they would not be discarded and left behind when their duty was done."

It wasn't the exact words, but it was the engravings that put her in the right direction and what Enterprise figured out on her own. She had fought alongside humans once, a long time ago, until they had exited from the warfront with her remaining at the vanguard. When the only humans who she was left in contact with being the ones who would repair her and order her out to fight again, it was she who had forgotten them. Because of that, she was ignorant to memorials such as this, of how the civilization they returned to was as much for her as it was for them.

But not anymore.

It was what Belfast had been intending to deliver, and Enterprise commandeering that got the cruiser to direct widened eyes towards her even after Enterprise had finished and she turned to meet them. "Am I wrong?" she asked.

Belfast blinked, that caught off guard, but then what lit up her face was of such pride that Enterprise was surprised by how glad she was to see it.

Enterprise was…happy. Very happy. For her to be able to say that, and to succeed in making Belfast look like that, confirmed for her as to how everything had become so clear and right. What had confused her for so long made so much sense now, what she had been blind to she could now see, and what she felt she had no place in she now had the opportunities to find it.

"You're right," Belfast replied, and Enterprise was already immensely happy with that. But then the cruiser initiated a slight lean. "Enterprise, you are so right."

Her smile was wide and dazzling, but even Enterprise could detect the restraint that had wrapped around and seized her movements, her body's slight motion having been meant to be more before it stopped, what she got out verbally with that breathy tone being all that was allowed before her lips stilled and there was hesitation of what she wanted to say next.

There was that glistening in her eyes, what Enterprise had only seen once before, and even with how Belfast was holding herself back Enterprise took it as another sign of her friend's joy that was in response to what she had said.

Belfast was happy, maybe even happier than she was. Enterprise believed that she could be sure of that.

Can happiness hurt?

The question and its ambiguity was not what Enterprise had ever been prone to have before. But there it was, passing on by, and then doing it again in response to what she was seeing from Belfast. Then she felt the touch of Belfast's hand against hers, the cruiser's having wandered to where it was nearly laying on top of hers upon the iron marker of the deceased.

Belfast's features flickered, and in that split second that it occurred her hand withdrew, the glistening of her eyes gone. Her smile remained present, the genuineness of her happiness was still there, the essence of it was there, but as for the additional details that could betray just how happy she was they had suddenly been erased.

They had slipped past the limits of her composure, Enterprise having found previous instances of them and Belfast recovering from them endearing. However, this was not one of them, instead more in line with how she had been trying to hide a life's regret, or when she had been denied a dance that she wanted. The unnatural mask of those times was not here, not in its totality, but…Enterprise was concerned.

Belfast resituated herself upon her knees with her hands folding and resting upon her chest. "You've really come to understand so much, Enterprise. To describe how such a realization had been able to occur in the midst of such terrible times between human and shipgirl, and what it had meant for us going forward…I'm moved. Truly moved."

A description that Enterprise thought better for what she had seen of Belfast moments ago, but now had been replaced. Her more controlled tone and the gesture she made to present herself to Enterprise like this felt like…an act. Or half-act, as while the performance was made for the propriety of the mood, the emotions behind it were honest. Enterprise just wished that she could say just how honest.

But for the sake of what was in front of her, Enterprise had bowed her head towards the grave marker, placing her hand over her heart as she had seen Belfast do. That, at least, got just a scant more of the secreted emotions to slip into view again.

Since then, Enterprise had decided that despite all that was being offered available to her, what she wanted to start with first was Belfast.

Except now she had a better idea of how she wanted to approach this, with what she wanted to believe to be a better appreciation for her precious friend. It was what got her to notice how Belfast was acting differently; the teasing that she used to be more prone to having lessened, her eagerness to guide and push/pull Enterprise along with her she was not as possessed of, the light that would become twinkling mirth in her eyes having…diminished.

If Enterprise had remained the same person as she had been before, she would not have noticed it, and even with something so obvious as what had occurred at the abbey, she would've done as she did too many times before: letting it sail on by with her forgetting about it and moving on. The reasoning, she remembered, had been because of how their acquaintanceship would have to come to an end eventually so why bother investing so much into what wasn't going to last?

She hated herself for that. There were probably other things she would hate herself for later once she remembered them, but this was what she was currently hating the most because it had to do with someone who was responsible for getting her to wake up from the nightmare she had been living in.

She wasn't going to do that anymore. Maybe their time was limited, maybe it was going to come to an end, but what Enterprise wanted to do now was use that time to the fullest. She wanted to talk with Belfast more…be with her more…learn more about her, including what it was that was bothering her. She had wasted so much time already.

She wanted Belfast to rely on her. She wanted to be…appreciated by her, as Enterprise was now appreciating her. She wanted to make something between them that would last even if they were to become apart, and wouldn't be so one-sided with just how much Enterprise felt she owed Belfast.

Was this what friendship really was?

She would use the time to figure that out. After they set sail with the supply fleet, she would have Belfast come aboard her deck like last time. Or…should she go to Belfast's once they were on the open seas? It wouldn't be that much quicker, but Enterprise felt that she couldn't wait for the time it would take for it to be Belfast to be the one to come to her.

Really, she felt like she couldn't wait for them to get to Gateway but Enterprise exerted patience. What she wanted to do and figure out would be better when they had the privacy to do so, once Enterprise made her desired greetings to her comrades and finished all the busy work for the voyage.

Even if it was limited, they still had time.

It was what Enterprise believed in until she would be proven to be very, very wrong.

---

It happened towards the end of the ride when they were about to come in sight of the base. Though it wasn't in view yet, they heard it. A loud, blaring sound that could be heard for miles, as it was intended to, and it reached them across the distance and through the glass of the windows. It lasted for a good five seconds, died out, and then repeated again.

Enterprise only needed to hear it once before every muscle in her body froze while the rush of adrenaline was sent surging with the acceleration of her heart rate. This response, so shocking to leave her still for the second she needed to process it, passed, and what replaced it was the reflexive action to move and do something to prepare for what was about to happen.

But because of where they were, the only thing she could do was spin around to Belfast, and what she saw had to be the same look that had to be on her face.

"Alarms," Belfast gasped.

"An attack," Enterprise breathlessly added, and then she was pounding on the glass divider to their driver, yelling, "Get us to the base as fast as you can!"

He needed no further urging, the vehicle accelerating way beyond whatever limits had to be posted here.

The problem remained of how Enterprise and Belfast still couldn't do anything but wait. It was a terrible feeling, being unable to do anything but fret uselessly, but what else was she supposed to do? The alarms were coming from the base. Base alarms meant either an attack that was either impending or could be occurring right now. Enterprise didn't hear any explosions but that could easily change, and it still wasn't telling her much.

"Now?" she asked aloud, unable to believe it as her feet tapped against the floor impatiently, her arms crossed tight over her chest. "After all this time, now we're coming under attack?" She directed her next question more directly to Belfast. "Do you think it's Iron Blood?"

Even Belfast couldn't remain unaffected, her back straight but tense, her visage of the same visible fret that Enterprise was displaying more openly. "There had been no hostilities. Nothing that could hint to something like this."

"Not unless this was what they were preparing for."

Belfast shook her head. "There would've been signs. The North Sea is more easily and heavily monitored. Any kind of Iron Blood fleet movements of extravagant size would be detected way in advance, and the same goes for us. When it comes to naval combat, Iron Blood has relied more on its submarines and precision attacks by smaller, more mobile squadrons with our patrols trying to match and intercept them. For a direct assault on the Royal Isles in the significant force needed…it has never happened before."

That didn't mean it wasn't happening now, but Enterprise would at least defer to Belfast's expertise, and what it pointed to as the likelier culprit. "Sirens, then?"

Belfast's features scrunched grimly. "It has been a long time since there was last such an incursion but…they would be the better candidates."

Which still didn't mean anything positive, but Enterprise was making the assumption anyway.

Sirens. So it was happening now, much sooner than she wanted it to be.

She was going to be fighting again.

Any chances of it being otherwise were dashed when they finally caught sight of the base and the telltale signs of a preparation for a major naval engagement: warships launching from the docks, with a few bursting into scattering light that had to be shipgirls transforming them into their riggings. Nearby, there were what had to be the cargo ships they had been meant to escort that were docked at the logistics half of the base but, unlike the warships that were rushing out in their formations, they were remaining in place for their safety.

Enterprise noted a few things. Though shipgirls and their warships were heading out, they were still making time to form up and the skies weren't populated with any large number of planes. What few she did see flying into the distance appeared more to be scouts that were going to locate and assess a distant threat, not fighters and bombers that were seeking to engage one that was immediate.

Given that she still couldn't hear anything like cannon fire or detonations, Enterprise could safely assume that whoever was attacking them was still a ways off, giving them time to prepare. That was the closest she could take as being good news.

The frenzied activity was rampant within the base itself, personnel and materials alike being rushed through to complete their own tasks: maintenance crews topping off the ammunition and fuel of what ships needed it, and then storing and securing everything else into their warehouses and hardened bunkers while officers and gunnery crews went to their stations whether it be their ops centers or the base's own defense guns. At one point or another, a shipgirl could be made out amongst the more uniformed personnel, sprinting towards the docks.

There was still enough order for the limo that carried Enterprise and Belfast to get through the gate and have a path to navigate what could've been all the way to the docks, but Enterprise knocked the divider again. "The headquarters! Take us there!"

"Not the docks?" Belfast asked her.

"We can report in there and see where they need us," Enterprise explained, even though she knew that they could easily do that from their ships while casting off and receive such orders when they launched. But what Enterprise really wanted that could be accomplished at the headquarters… "I want to see what we're dealing with."

Normally she would be rushing towards her ship, intending to get to the battle site as soon as possible – and occasionally getting ahead of her comrades in the process. She may've done the same here anyway, but if the battle hadn't been initiated yet and there was time to prepare…then she wanted to be prepared to.

This was going to be her first battle since Orochi.

Enterprise was able to think its name again, could probably even say it without the accompanying, crippling fear if she wanted to. Although she wasn't afraid, she felt a powerful sense of caution. She didn't want to rush in as thoughtlessly as she used to. Back then, she may've deemed this caution as cowardice but…that wasn't what she was thinking of it to be now

Belfast seemed to approve of it with how she smiled and said, "Lucky for you, I should be able to get us into the command room where Jacob would be now. We'll get everything we need there. Being the head maid does have its perks."

Enterprise looked to her fully. "Thank you, Belfast. Really, thank you."

There was too little time for Enterprise to express just how thankful she was for having been able to meet Belfast. She had said it already, could probably do it a million more times, but with this latest of show of Belfast's constant, unending support, Enterprise didn't think that she would ever be able to convey just how happy she was to have her from when she first barged into her quarters to being seated here next to her.

Instead of a twinkle, there came that flicker again and Belfast bowed her head. "It shall always be my pleasure."

The limo stopped in front of the headquarters and without wasting any time they got out and sped through the doors.

Belfast's authority did end up getting them through the security checkpoints to reach the command center. Within, the room that was more insulated from the outside world, where officers were focused on monitors, displays, and screens, was a bit more composed. But there was still nervous energy that charged the room, the movements of the officers who leaned over to pass on data and intel down the line or made calls to announce the status of the progress of the assembling warships hurried and, occasionally, loud but just enough to be heard over the rest of the disciplined din.

At the center of what was probably the closest to the bridges of the old production warships he once commanded from was Commander Jacob Riley who stood in front of a larger tactical display. On screen, what Enterprise could glimpse of it as she and Belfast approached was an overhead view of a map of the mouth of Thames that widened into the North Sea. One icon shaped like a large pyramid marked Gateway, within the throat of the river, and disgorging from it were blue square and rectangular icons of what had to be friendly warships that were assembling towards the mouth, the size and shape of the icons influenced by whether the ships were smaller cruisers and destroyers or the bigger battleships and aircraft carriers. There were also tinier chevrons depicting forward scouting aircraft. As the icons came together, they would combine and become greater hexagons that Enterprise knew to be identifiers of warships forming into their battlegroups.

Further east into the North Sea were the same markers of what had to be their patrols which were currently sailing west to join up with their main forces. Trailing behind them were additional contacts, except these ones were red.

Those were enemies, and after a few seconds ticked by, those contacts multiplied.

"Enterprise and Belfast reporting in, Commander," Belfast announced, the situation having her address him by rank as she stood at attention with Enterprise.

Instead of the tactical map, Riley had been engrossed in a handheld pad that he was pulled from. His weathered features had been of grim determination, but when he saw the two shipgirls they laxed immediately.

"I knew you two were en route," he said, relieved to see them, "but hadn't been able to keep track of whether you arrived or not. Given the circumstances, I hope you can forgive me." With a short shrug and even shorter grin, he added, "And understand if I don't know whether I should be glad for that or not."

"Whichever it may be, it seems that you need all the forces you can muster," Belfast noted, her attention on the tactical display.

Riley adopted his previous expression, but with less determination and more grim. "As you can surmise, the supply run has been scrubbed. The cargo ships will remain in port while the escort ships have been reassigned to repel the enemy forces that have appeared with the rest of the defense fleet."

"Is it Sirens?" Enterprise asked.

"SG radar had picked up their signatures as soon as they warped within the western half of the North Sea. What patrols were nearby investigated and confirmed the presence of Siren mass production ships and humanoid types, right before they had to retreat when they began sailing towards the Royal Isles due to their numbers."

"How many?"

"Nothing exact, but can confirm the presence of multiple fleets. Our radar is still picking up more contacts by the minute, and minor skirmishes and harassment attempts from our patrols to slow or divert some of their numbers has let us determine our best prediction as to where they're inbound when their approaches remained steady."

Enterprise could see it in real-time. On the map, the red enemy contacts had kept increasing, steadily growing into a broadening patch that the patrols could no longer brave against as they retreated in the face of it. The carrier experienced a sinking feeling when the direction of the retreating patrols – and the advancing enemy – were all heading to one place.

"They're coming here," she realized.

Riley gestured with his pad. "As has been confirmed, and their current numbers have reached nearly a hundred ships."

The news shocked the both of them, Enterprise knowing that Belfast had to be thinking the same thing she was when they exchanged the same wide-eyed surprise.

A hundred warships, commanded by humanoid types? The only time in recent memory that the Sirens had mustered such numbers was during the final battle with Orochi, with a constant wave of ships and a screen of Testers having been thrown at the combined Azur Lane and Crimson Axis fleets in the defense of their monstrous flagship. Yet so shortly after that here they were, with another such force, and they were all heading to London.

Why here? Why now?

Riley looked between the two, giving them time to let it sink in. "The Royal Palace has already been notified with reinforcements on the way. King George had already left and-"

"Commander Riley, I have arrived!"

The base commander looked over the top of Enterprise's head. "…and here she is."

Striding up in full uniform, with all its gold tassels and embroidery, her long cape trailing behind her, and medals gleaming at her chest, King George V presented a far more commanding and majestic figure than she did in a dress. Her call had been enough to grab attention, but it was her august image that got a portion of the officers at their stations to stay on and follow her, even after she passed by them.

They were caught and drawn into a temporary orbit before they eventually went back to their screens. Enterprise couldn't blame them, as a sun's pull was a powerful force, and that was what she was comparing George to be in her battle dress, her presence nearly blinding when she came to attention next to Enterprise.

"Enterprise, Belfast," George greeted, bringing them into the vicinity of her bow that included the base commander with Enterprise manipulated to return it while the cruiser curtsied. "Good to see you." Standing tall once she straightened, with her hand laying upon the shiny handle of her sheathed officer's sword, she oriented to Riley with a shinier smile. "So the Sirens have come to knock at our gates, Commander? How bold of them."

The grimness that Riley had presented was incinerated by the battleship's aura, inciting a humored grin. "Seems that way, Knight Commander." He passed her the handheld pad. "Nearly a hundred ships by our latest count. I've integrated the escort ships into our defense and given the order to assemble at the outermost of Thames."

George hummed as she took the pad, examining it, and then doing the same to the wider map. "Exceptional positioning. General Suetonious could not have done better. Add the ships that will be sent in from the Royal Palace and this is already becoming a more even fight – as the Sirens will soon come to despair." She handed the pad back. "I'll be out to take direct command momentarily. Any reports from the rest of the Isles?"

"We've been going down the list of our outposts. Ireland has detected no suspicious activities, and nothing north or east of Scotland either. So far, alerts and evacuation orders have been sent to the towns and cities that could get caught up."

George nodded to each update, imagining the positionings in her head and what they covered. "What of our southwest?"

There, Riley frowned. "We've been experiencing delays in reports. We had been able to raise Devonport and they were checking in with their patrols. I can see if there's been an update."

"Please make that your priority. Before that though, has there been any unusual movements concerning Iron Blood?"

Enterprise couldn't help but feel impressed with how George was handling herself, calmly navigating from one issue to the next in a fashion as unbroken as her demeanor despite with being faced with one hundred Siren ships suddenly warping and aiming for the home port. Although rather than calm, she was more enthused and, going by what Enterprise had come to learn of her, the impression that she was actually eager for this occurrence wouldn't be far-fetched at all.

"There hadn't been anything of the sort this morning," Riley answered George's question. "By all appearances, it was just going to be another merry day of paperwork and routine."

"We can always count on the Sirens to remain so inconsiderate," George replied, though she seemed almost happy by said inconsideration. "But keep an eye out. Iron Blood had to have noticed this the same time we did."

"I'll relay that along with getting an update from Devonport." Riley went to do that, and beneath the tactical map the three shipgirls watched as that patch of red drew closer to the wall of blue that stood to oppose them.

"If I may have your expertise for a moment, Enterprise?" George asked.

Enterprise turned to her, surprised, as she had assumed that the only order she was to be given was to go out and join the defense. "What do you need?"

The battleship examined the tactical map with a thoughtful expression. "Based on your experience, do you find something unusual about this attack?"

"Unusual?" Enterprise looked to the map, not sure what help she could provide. She was a warship that was better acclimated to the frontlines, with the combat in front of her, not the wider picture, and George was doing quite fine on her own.

"Anything at all," George urged. "Whatever doesn't feel quite right to you, no matter how small."

It being George who was asking, Enterprise was inclined to try and do what she could.

The sheer size of the Siren fleets was what came to her again, but she didn't feel like she needed to point that out. Other than that, she couldn't see anything else as being unusual. The Sirens were making their way towards them, with the Royal Navy and its Eagle Union allies setting themselves up against them. The positioning of their forces were solid, the carrier not believing that she could offer anything better there, and at the moment they were just waiting for the Sirens.

There came a tingle, one that occurred within her bones. It was a feeling that told her how something was off – different from what she had come to know about Sirens and her life that consisted of attacking, being attacked, counterattacking. Just a constant repetition – attack, attack, attack – that had become carved into her with uncompromising lines that would notice when something slipped away from them.

"We're just waiting for them…" she murmured. At that distance, at that pace, she estimated that she would still be able to get to her ship, sail out there, and be in position with plenty of time to spare before the two opposing fleets came in range of each other. That was not a luxury she could say she ever had before. "They could've come in closer, and maybe even been on us by now."

"Yes," George agreed. "They're being rather generous, aren't they?"

The calm way that George took that peculiarity was at odds with the worry that the carrier felt. "Do you think they're setting something up? Or maybe that Iron Blood is really involved?"

"I don't think Iron Blood being behind this is in the realm of possibility, to be honest," George answered with a curious tilt of her head. "Iron Blood may be quite the proud proponent of Siren technology, but only by displaying their strength to use it in their gear and ships – something they can exert dominance over. If there are Siren humanoid types involved as the reports say, that changes things, and would imply that Iron Blood is colluding with them – something that I think Bismarck would absolutely refuse to do, even after all this time. Even the Sakura Empire never went that far in the Pacific, so the reports say, save for two notable exceptions." She then made a thoughtful nod. "Although I wouldn't count out Bismarck being opportunistic and make the situation benefit her, the peace we've had 'till now and the silence of our borders isn't going to make Iron Blood an immediate concern, if at all."

"So if there's anything else going on, then it's the Sirens that are behind it," Enterprise reasoned.

"They could be. But even if they were, there's a little bit of a problem." George pointed to the gathering of red contacts. "That being this rather large fleet that's coming at us. We can't really ignore this, even if we believe something to be off."

"So what are we going to do?" Enterprise asked, not sure what the battleship was getting at. "Are we going to change anything?"

"There doesn't appear to be a reason for us to deviate."

Enterprise frowned. "Then what was the point of asking me?"

George smiled merrily. "A kernel of motivation to help expand on that perspective of yours that we spoke about, except for the battlefield. Maybe we'll get some results there, too."

The carrier's brows lowered, but as usual George remained unaffected.

"Knight Commander."

George's gaze flicked over. "Ah, that would be Commander Riley. For now, move out and join with the rest of the line, Enterprise. I'll be out there shortly."

While George rejoined with the base commander, Enterprise did the same with Belfast who had been standing with dutiful composure, reasserting her maidly etiquette now that they were returning to the war. As much as Enterprise thought the war to be coming back too soon, Belfast reverting to her proper self she was even more reluctant to see again. So, with the help of her exchange with George, Enterprise made a showy sigh of exasperation and a joke.

"I don't know if I want George's help anymore."

There was a subtle curve to Belfast's lip and Enterprise swore that she also caught a spark in her eye. That made her feel a little better, enough for Enterprise to begin walking out of the command room with Belfast falling in behind her.

"Belfast!"

They both stopped and turned, seeing George with Riley.

"I may be needing your expertise now," the Knight Commander said, unveiling guilt of having to call for it.

She still had a smile propped up, and that would've given Enterprise assurance that whatever she needed Belfast would be just as quick and as minor, but that was until she saw Commander Riley. He had that pad extended out in George's direction, the two having apparently been looking at something, and whatever it was had gotten the elder human to reequip a measure of the grimness from before.

That got Enterprise to experience that tingling feeling of wrongness again.

Belfast looked to her, and she must not be as ready to fall back into her role either because for just a second Enterprise saw the passing shadow of reluctance that went across her countenance at being called away. But then she jerked her chin towards the exit. "Go. I'll catch up."

That reluctance she glimpsed didn't make things better, Enterprise undergoing her own, stronger version that had her standing there, hesitating.

Belfast's cheeks softened and she touched her arm. "We don't have much time left. I'll be with you shortly."

Behind her was the tactical map, still showing the progress of the approaching Sirens and how they really couldn't waste any more time. Enterprise leaned back on one heel, about to rotate and go, but wanting to take a second to ask…

Will you?

But instead she nodded and took off through the exit.

---

The way from the headquarters to the docks was clear for Enterprise to sprint through. What few maintenance crews were left were locking down the rest of their fuel and ammunition stores with the assistance of the manjuus before they would find secure shelter for themselves. And with the majority of the warships having gone to the open seas, there were only a couple left at the docks which included Belfast's smaller cruiser body and George's more immense battleship.

It was easy for Enterprise to find her carrier body.

Although her ship had remained here while she had been miles away in central London for the past week, Enterprise had always been able to maintain a link with her ship. While it was required for shipgirls to be at a close enough distance to their ships in order to control them, even if they would end up as far away as Enterprise had been, the ethereal tether that connected them would remain in play.

Though she had spent such time with such distance from her ship, Enterprise could always feel her ship. Even when having been left with prioritizing her human body, she knew what it meant to have the steel bones that were her frame, the skin that was her armor plating, and the oil that was her blood. While she would walk, play, and eat with her human body there was always a vivid impression of her ship and its components that were morphed over her biological ones. Though she could not control them, she would never lose what it was to be a warship – that other half of her existence.

That all said, there was something that would nonetheless weaken with such distance, and when she caught sight of her ship, Enterprise experienced it strengthening again. Her Wisdom Cube that was within the core of her human body, but synchronized to her ship, acting as the medium that had them resonating together upon coming to such close proximity again. One that was so much smaller and delicate, while the other was of such mass and scale, but were in fact two parts of one whole. The latter embodied pure mechanical might of a war machine, but the former was of the heart and intuition that was needed to effectively command and use that might.

The strength of metal with the strength of the soul. Without one, she was just a girl running around a base. Without the other, she was just a ship floating on the water of a dock. When together, it was those strengths that would nullify those weaknesses.

That was the power of a shipgirl.

In the process of reaching and uniting those two parts together again, Enterprise passed a couple dockworkers that were in the process of leaving. Her one shoulder was slapped by the hand of one who had reached out to stop her.

"Woah, hey!"

The impact got Enterprise to spin around, her remaining forward momentum forcing her to perform a couple small, backwards skips before she could come to a stop and see who had literally been grabbing for her attention.

The dockworker was female, her coveralls stained with grease, and a couple smudges on her reddened face that were resistant to the droplets of sweat from hard labor. The white teeth of her broad grin broke through it all. "I was getting worried you weren't going to make it, and after all the overtime I put into that girl of yours!"

Enterprise stared at that grime-stained face in confusion until her tone – and that grab – got her to remember why it was familiar. "You're the one that checked me when I arrived here."

"Oh, good, you remember me!"

Enterprise looked down to her filthier coveralls. "Were you working on my ship?"

The dockworker gave her a thumbs up. "I said I was gonna give her the old human touch and I gave it to her good! Been a while since I worked on an Eagle Union carrier, and my first for a Yorktown-class! Don't worry, I guarantee that she's in tiptop shape, and right on time, too, eh?" She reached over, and Enterprise was induced to another shoulder-body shake. "Give 'em hell for me!" She bent down, picked up a box of tools and jogged after the rest of her coworkers.

Enterprise watched her retreating back, unconsciously checking the straightness of her cap. Then, suddenly, she called, "Wait! Your name!"

"Linda!" she called back. "Make sure to take care of both of yourselves out there, Enterprise!"

Both…? Enterprise silently asked until she checked her ship. Ah, right.

Though she continued the rest of the way, the short interaction stuck with her, as did the tiny smirk that she became aware of when she ascended up the boarding ramp. Linda…seemed like a nice person.

There had been quite a few humans who had been nice to her, but it was only then that she had wanted to make the effort to ask and learn another of their names, right next to Sophie.

It helped get her through her systems check. As her consciousness flooded back through her ship body and its parts, she turned on her boilers, put her turbines through their test cycles, and manipulated her rudders for her steering. All responding to her commands, all optimal. She didn't notice any kind of delays or stiffness there, or when she switched over to her planes. Machine gun belts loaded, bombs carried to the maximum, and when she pulled on the flight sticks and depressed the rudder pedals, they were not bearing any kind of unusual heaviness.

Already things were proving to be responding better compared to when she had last been out with her ship. Maybe even better than a time before that, but Enterprise chalked that up as a suggestion influenced by being reunited with her ship after so long away from it.

She had expected that gratification that came with returning to the other half of herself, but she had also been anticipating for when that would die out and be replaced with something else that would be linked to her old reactions of what she saw with her weapons, all loaded to carry out their destructive work in yet another battle, as she did in the countless ones before, and like the one she was preparing for now. All the same, and all still going.

She didn't experience anything like that. As she familiarized herself with her ship, as it responded to her so readily, the gratification did not lessen and instead grew to the point where Enterprise was, perhaps, glad to be back with it again.

She was grateful for that, because when she would glance over the side of the ship and back towards the docks, she needed it to help her with the disappointment of not seeing Belfast coming out to meet her. Come on, Belfast…

Enterprise was still experiencing a restlessness to go out there towards the battle, and being with her ship was making it stronger. She could almost say that she may in fact be ready to fight again.

But there was still a hesitation that she could feel within her when she thought about it. The reluctance did have to do with not wanting to go out there until Belfast could come with her, but there was also something else to it. Not fear…not really…but there was something that was causing a stay in her hand and in her thought processes, all the while making her…reconsider.

About fighting? The upcoming battle had something to do with it, but it wasn't swaying her from how she knew that she had to fight. But there was…something going on that was of a more cautionary nature, and it had been the same when she had wanted to stop at the headquarters instead of the docks.

She put that aside when she saw the familiar white form heading in her direction and went back down her boarding ramp to meet Belfast.

Enterprise knew that something was amiss when the concerns that she had left the command room with and had grown as time elapsed didn't disperse with Belfast's arrival. Instead, they grew with the simple question of why Belfast was coming to meet her directly without calling her rigging so they could immediately head out together. Such an insignificant detail, but it got Enterprise's gut to churn and it didn't settle until she dropped back down to the docks.

Although instead of settling, her entire stomach dropped when she saw the regret that was on Belfast's expression, leaving Enterprise to stand there, mortified at what it represented.

Oh no…

She knew. She knew from when she had left the command room that something happened, with Belfast staying behind having made her worry that what should be a moment of separation to become longer.

That look on Belfast's face confirmed it before she said, "I'm needed elsewhere, Enterprise."

Enterprise stood there, stricken, which made the cruiser's expression become more forlorn when she finally asked, "Where?"

"We're not getting anything from Devonport," Belfast explained, with a bit of a rush. "They haven't gotten back to us with updates, and we cannot raise them. I'll be going with Hood and a cruiser squadron from the Maid Corps to investigate once they arrive from the Royal Palace."

"I'll come, too," Enterprise immediately said, stepping forward with little thought.

"Enterprise…"

"That has to be what the Sirens are up to. Let me-"

"Enterprise," Belfast interrupted, "no."

The firm refusal struck deep, lodging itself within Enterprise's chest and stopping her cold.

Regret washed over Belfast, her next words quiet. "We don't have time to argue. Before I left, the enemy numbers had increased to over a hundred. We can't spare anyone else, least of all an aircraft carrier. You're needed here to do what you do best while I have to do what I do best."

How cruelly Enterprise was being reminded of the tides of war and how suddenly they could shift in even crueler fashion. In just a few seconds, any notion of sailing out there to engage the Sirens was wiped out, simply due to how Belfast would not be there with her.

"This was not how I wanted this…" Enterprise said, her tone as heavy as her heart. "I wanted…"

She had wanted to be guarding a supply convoy. She wanted to be able to talk with Belfast like she thought that they would've been able to do. Though this battle had sprung up instead, canceling that, she would've gone out anyway as long as she had known that Belfast would be with her.

For her to not be…

"This isn't what either of us wanted," Belfast agreed. "But this time had to come eventually. It just came much sooner, as tends to occur in our line of work."

But not this soon, Enterprise thought, keeping it to herself. Though shocked, she could still feel shame at how this was affecting her and how she hated it, when she should know better. She had sworn how she wanted to use everything she had learned to show a better version of herself during a limo ride that suddenly felt like such a long time now, and here she was refusing to do so.

All because Belfast wouldn't be next to her like always.

Unknown to her, Belfast shifted uncomfortably where she stood, her own resolve doing little better with fate's despicable intervention. At one point the maid turned back towards the waters, staring down where the Royal Palace reinforcements would be arriving from. Then, after turning back to Enterprise, she took a tentative step forward.

A palm cupped Enterprise's cheek, the material of the glove and metal that was around it keeping her from experiencing the entirety of Belfast's warmth but the carrier was brought back regardless with a start.

Belfast looked particularly sorrowful as she caressed Enterprise's cheek. "This is what we're meant for, in order to protect what we hold dear," Belfast whispered, which was only a part of the reason as to why Enterprise leaned closer to listen and experience more of her touch in the process. "Please remember what it is that you've come to see from this world again, and what'll give you your reason to fight again."

Enterprise stared into Belfast's eyes, witnessing the maid's own unfiltered emotions. A battle was fought, one that was almost won by a participant that had Belfast on the verge of doing something. Enterprise didn't know what, only being sure that Belfast was going to do something when she registered the cruiser's face come a centimeter closer, her head going through a microscopic tilt…

But then the would-be victor was dragged back down along with Belfast, who instead said, "And know that you have something to come back to now."

Quickly – much too quickly – Belfast spun around, her hand leaving Enterprise's cheek, and then she jogged off towards her ship.

The chill of her departure made the sensation of her warmth leaving her face all the more frigid. Enterprise stood rooted there, waiting but not seeing her look back.

…She needed to go.

The realization got Enterprise to make the second trip back up her boarding ramp, feeling as heavy as the anchor that kept her ship in place and remained that way for the time that Enterprise stood atop her deck for several seconds.

With her returned proximity to her ship, she was able to identify when her ship's radar detected incoming friendly contacts. A check in that direction showed another small flotilla of ships coming out from further inland, their destination obviously the frontlines. In it, she could make out the ships and riggings of additional shipgirls, the sight of Town-class cruisers and Illustrious-class aircraft carriers making it obvious that they were the additional forces of the Royal Palace.

A couple of those cruisers slowed, falling behind the main group of reinforcements, and one certain battlecruiser made her way closer to Gateway. After a flash of light on the docks, Belfast – equipped with her rigging – sailed out to meet Hood.

The distance and Belfast's gear kept Enterprise from making out any details, only seeing a blue and white silhouette meeting on the waters, talking, and then accelerating together to meet up with the rest of the squadron of cruisers. She couldn't see if Belfast was making any kind of look back. Meanwhile, the rest of the flotilla began to move past Enterprise's still-docked carrier.

I have a job to do, Enterprise told herself. She had what she was best at, with her orders received.

She shifted towards the Royal fleet, intending to follow, but then her hand brushed something that was poking out of her coat pocket. She glanced down, saw the fingers of a white glove, and took it along with its left-handed partner out.

Enterprise knew that one of the carriers out there was Victorious, the same shipgirl who made these gloves. She was of a similar warship to Enterprise, but had sewn these with the skills that were outside the primary reason for her construction. She was going to serve out that purpose, but what had allowed her the opportunity to acquire such a skill would be there to welcome her back.

Slowly, Enterprise brought over the left glove, sliding it onto her hand and tugging it down to her wrist. The right one shortly followed.

They were comfortable. They were warm. Enterprise flexed her fingers, stretching and testing the gloves.

London had been good to her, and there had been a lot of people who had been good to her. They had all welcomed her, provided her with more than just these gloves, and it was her time to return the favor. Except it wasn't such a give-and-take a relationship; Enterprise knew this to be more than something so crude.

She had always known the strength of a shipgirl. She also knew that power, and its purpose, was to fight.

The meaning of a shipgirl, however, was what had eluded her so well to the point where she didn't think she would ever uncover. But because of this city, because of these shipgirls, because of these people, she had learned.

A shipgirl was more than a weapon that had been summoned in a time of need, when a heinous enemy required a new form of technology to combat them. They had come into existence with the knowledge and intuition to fight, with the weapons that they could use most appropriately to achieve it, but if that had been truly all that humanity needed then why were shipgirls not more similar to Sirens? Why these human forms that could feel and experience fatigue in both body and spirit? Why couldn't they fight as tirelessly and with such single-mindedness as the Sirens?

The answer was in those human forms and the souls within them – all so unique, and each one irreplaceable.

A shipgirl's form was more than about replacing hundreds with one, with the control over her warships being so total not just for efficiency. While a shipgirl had such strength and had such control, what they also had in turn were the wishes behind them; those of those hundreds of crewmembers, and that of humanity that had summoned them into being with such earnest feelings.

It created will, and with it something even more important: diversity of thought. The hundreds, the thousands, the millions that put their hopes behind one shipgirl created that, the culmination making it impossible to create such a limited pool of shipgirls, with only one function and thought. It was what made their bodies, their personalities, their likes and dislikes, dreams and fears, all that more human…and what would let them have a place elsewhere off the battlefield.

Humanity needed their weapons for their wars, just as they always had since the dawn of their time. But those wars ended eventually, just as this one would. Enterprise couldn't think otherwise. However, though this war would end, it didn't mean an end to the weapons that were being used for it. Enterprise would fulfill her role as a weapon, but when peace came, the role she could fulfill was nothing short of innumerable.

She had her aircraft, their guns and bombs, and she had her layers and layers of durable plating. That was what she needed to carry out mankind's need for wars to be won. But for peace…those weapons could be disarmed, her planes removed, her armor plating stripped away…and what could replace them were components that would fulfill the peaceful ideals of humanity: to explore, to provide betterment of how mankind lived on this world, or give them a way to become better. They could have just as much need for her in peace as they did in war.

She could change just as much as humanity can. She can live for what she wanted, as any other human.

That was the meaning of a shipgirl: not a weapon of mankind but an expression of it, one that can achieve what it can't in war and peace, but able to define their own futures for themselves all the same.

So this feeling…?

The hesitation she had noticed about going into battle again. It wasn't cowardice, just as she thought.

Instead, it was a realization that this must be what self-preservation was: the ability to care about her own life. It made everything more precious, and for her what was most precious right now was a certain maid who she wanted to be with but couldn't, making it hurt but also creating a desire to see her again. But first, she had a battle to win.

There were things she had come to care for. There were things she wanted to see and wanted to do. She wanted to understand and improve. She saw value in that. She saw the value in her existence and what had gone into creating it, and what she could do with it.

It was what she wanted to fight for.

Something was sparkling at her peripheral. Enterprise looked to her right, blinked, then left, ahead of her, and then she spun around to check behind her.

They were all around her. Floating above her deck, her bridge, her planes. Before her eyes she saw bits and pieces being chipped away from her ship body before they began floating into a hover. Miniature specks, almost like dust, but Enterprise could see what they really were: the crystal-like cubes that spun and shifted and folded upon themselves, the whole time glowing with such sparking blue light.

They were the materials of her creation, but she had never seen them like this before, with their glittering colors that were hovering around her like a field with their specks of light. Never as…pretty as this, where the only thing she could compare it to being the field of stars that she had seen and their infinite possibilities.

Enterprise reached out with a finger and placed the gloved tip against one, feeling the energy that radiated from it and began flowing into her body.

These were more than construction materials. What each speck was packed with were those prayers that constituted her being. Together they were as countless as the stars, and each one was just as infinite. And all of them were a part of her.

The human touch, huh…?

Enterprise breathed as her awareness extended, inhaling the air of this world while these energies flowed inwards. She felt powerful in a way she had never known before. She felt more alive than she had ever felt before.

She would fight, but fight so that she and everyone here could live. She knew how to do both now.

Starting with this…

"Enterprise…," she began to say as she thrust her hand forward, the cubes flashing into blinding light as she then cried, "…ENGAGE!"