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.

14. Chapter 14

The heavy murk immediately reduced the group's visibility, so much so that Hood was compelled to immediately issue an order. "Spread out but keep within sight."

Following it soon proved that the individual members couldn't go very far from one another. Belfast dared not go more than the few yards she took before stopping, otherwise the closest member to her – Sheffield – would become a hazy outline that she could lose during a moment of inattention along with the rest of the squadron.

The reduced visibility itself wasn't the only thing that contributed to the caution that Belfast felt though. Once the group had entered, she experienced a creeping sensation that came from how the fog so easily wrapped around them, how thoroughly it cut them off from the rest of the English Channel, and not strictly by sight. A chill went down her neck, crawling along her shoulders and back, to her hands and feet, and there was an odd itch to her eyes that influenced a heavy blink to get it to pass.

The miniscule reactions were like her body suddenly needing to acclimate to new surroundings, as did the electrical systems of her gear – a sudden sluggishness in their functions and readings that influenced a quick reboot to refresh them. Only by doing so did everything feel normal but not necessarily right. Although knowing the futility of it, Belfast glanced back but saw any trace of the outside that they had come from having been completely erased by the fog.

There was a headiness to it that was playing with her senses – all of them. They had noted their location before entering, locked onto their direction of travel, but all that became irrelevant when all they had was the surrounding haze and what of the empty waters that they could see. Without any landmarks or additional sights to reference their current travels or beacons that she could ping, direction, progress, perhaps even time of their sailings could become suspect.

If it weren't for them knowing any better, they could be in the middle of the ocean instead of the English Channel with how total the coverage was - how silent, empty, and dark everything was as the sun was similarly blocked out by the haze. Belfast knew the Royal Isles so well, and that went for the English Channel. There was a certain feel that she had come to attribute to it – in the air, in the waters, in the general surroundings of her beloved home – that she had recognized and basked in when she had returned.

It was disturbing how the fog was making everything feel so alien to her.

"Unnerving," Curacoa couldn't help but comment, Belfast barely able to make her out. "I've had foggy sailings before but this…"

"Makes me think of what I've heard talked about in the Pacific," Sirius said next. "They say the Sakura Empire was somehow able to produce strange seas that weren't of this plane."

"The Mirror Sea," Hood extrapolated. "We never learned how they were able to do it."

"The only one who possessed the knowledge was Akagi," Belfast informed. "Last I knew, neither she or Kaga had resurfaced since the last battle, or has there been a change since then?"

"None that I've heard. Given Sakura Empire's current state, it'd be difficult for them to hide any news of reacquiring their most senior and powerful carriers without something getting out, no matter how questionable those two's actions were."

"A little more than questionable," Sheffield said, her tone and expression particularly severe as she referred to the First Carrier Division. "Edinburgh and I saw Akagi and Kaga speaking face-to-face with a Siren elite. The black Wisdom Cube we acquired came directly from that Siren."

Curacoa's hazy outline gave a sudden start. "This is the first I'm hearing of it! So the Sakura Empire using those mass production ships and the construction of some sort of superweapon…"

"All came directly from the Sirens," Sheffield confirmed gravely.

"And the Sakura Empire went along with it?" Curacoa asked, aghast.

"Nagato claims she didn't know," Hood explained. "And we haven't obtained any reason to believe that she or anyone else in the Sakura Empire as a whole were privy to what was really going on. However…" She let it hang there, but the traces of her disapproval were almost as heavy as the surrounding fog.

They still went with it, Belfast mentally finished.

Even she struggled with her feelings at times when it came to the Sakura Empire's actions despite knowing full well the nation's history. Though having been sown with the seeds of aspirations of imperial power to contend with the western nations, the Japanese home islands had proven how insignificant they were in the wake of the Sirens. A great percentage of the scholars who have since begun chronicling the history of humanity's struggle with their otherworldly adversaries have come to an agreement that it was the West and a bit of luck that was responsible for the existence of the Sakura Empire.

It was the western empires that had attracted and taken the brunt of the Siren invasion, leaving the islands of Japan to contend with token forces that had nonetheless extorted a great toll from them in loss of territory and life. Several of their earliest shipgirls such as Mikasa and Kongou could not have come about without the research and influence shared by nations like the Royal Navy, and the resources that would go on to further expand that navy was supplied by the trade that Sakura would not have been able to eventually grow to such an extent without. Out of all the nations, it was the Sakura Empire that relied on the benefits of Azur Lane the most.

Those decades of dependency on the other nations while it styled itself as an empire was what would establish its ambitions both in its territorial gains like in the Western Pacific and its own technological advances, the Sacred Sakura Tree the more significant but not the only mystery surrounding the Sakura Empire. When Azur Lane began to fracture, the Sakura Empire was further incentivized to take their destiny and that of mankind's into their own hands, whatever it took.

This, naturally, would cast influence over the shipgirls themselves who had been birthed from such ambitions and became so revered. Enough for Akagi and Kaga to be so willing to cooperate with the Sirens, and Nagato being pressured to grant them such freedom with such a lack of oversight.

Belfast remembered needing to temper Enterprise's views of the Sakura Empire after what happened, persuading her away from the mistakes that had been responsible in initiating this civil war in the first place while getting her to see the value of young, aspiring minds like Shoukaku and Zuikaku. But even Belfast was not totally forgiving, possessing her own condemnations of the Sakura Empire that she did not think were unjustified.

After all, it was their brazen negligence that had given Enterprise to the Sirens and put her through that suffering that remained untold.

Sirius brought the dialogue back. "So the question is, is this fog part of a Mirror Sea?"

"It was a bit more obvious than here," Hood replied. "A storm that swept us into a world of violet skies and dark waters, with a kind of red singularity as its star. If it's really something of the Sirens, they may be able to create something more subtle than what Akagi did but…we're still in the English Channel." She looked around with obvious uncertainty. "At least I think so…"

"Doesn't feel like it." Curacoa hugged her arms against herself. "It feels cold and creepy."

Belfast agreed but did not feel that 'creepy' fully described what else she felt. Her radar remained active, her radio cycling through channels to pick up any sudden transmissions, and she was still relying on her eyes, ears, and even her nose to signal her the first sign of potential trouble. All she got instead was silence from her radio, nothing but the splashing of the water they cut through, the chilly air, and the fog that, more and more, was appearing endless.

So why did she feel like she was being watched? The prickling at the back of her neck, like someone was hovering right behind her, but what another glance dispelled as not being actual. Unless there was something out there that could see her, out of range from her own sight and sensors and much better at peering through the fog.

When no one added to Curacoa's description by sharing what she felt, Belfast chose to keep it to herself.

"Should I send my Walrus out?" Southampton actually offered her extra effort. "I don't know what else I could see with it but it would be something."

"Hold for now," Hood answered. "Let's give it-"

Belfast's radar suddenly lit up with contacts, the eerie silence that had been accompanying them since their entry unceremoniously blasted by the laser cannons that illuminated the distance ahead of them, the fog's lessening just as abrupt.

"Sirens!" she called in warning.

"Evasive maneuvers!" Hood ordered. "But don't engage yet!"

Belfast had brought her shells up, ready to throw, but held them in check even before the battlecruiser had issued her order, limiting her response to an evasive action to port in case any of the shots they were hearing were for them. Firing first was not always the wisest course of action, less so in the world of covert agents. The others performed similar maneuvers but each held their fire.

None of the shots that they heard were coming for them. Ahead, Belfast could see the familiar triangular silhouettes, their red-orange glows giving them better shape as they materialized within the mist. The fog still hung around them but had become less opaque, enough for Belfast to make out the numbers of what was obviously a Siren fleet, with more silhouettes and the light and sound of laser cannons reporting more of their number in close proximity.

None of them were pointing their hulls or their guns towards the cruiser squadron, instead remaining focused on what it was they were attacking. Of that Belfast could barely see, needing to use the purple luminance of the energy projectiles to try and follow them towards a target. What they impacted against and highlighted with their explosions was a solid shadow, already dotted with small fires, and with their help Belfast recognized what she was seeing even with the greater distance.

It was the massive wall of a cliff, with the fires and smoke that were coming from certain spots being gun emplacements that had been knocked out. There was the break in a shadow – a gap – and beyond it Belfast could hear the cannon fire that thundered in response to the attacking Sirens, shells whistling, with some ending with explosive detonations upon hitting their targets. Against the Siren assault, however, the defensive fire was not as impressive.

Belfast felt as if she had been suddenly doused with ice water. "Hood, it's Devonport. The Siren fleet is trying to break into the bay."

"It doesn't sound like they reached it yet," Hood responded. "The fire we're hearing must be coming from Breakwater Fort. Our forces are making a stand there. They're still holding out."

For now, but it wasn't looking good. While the cliff walls were on fire, so were the hulks that were sinking, just shy of the bay's entrance. An obstacle that was impeding further progress from the Siren fleet, but while waiting for it to be cleared they fired with impunity, waiting for the moment when they could make another attempt against the embattled defenses. If Breakwater fell, there was going to be nothing between the Sirens and Devonport – or Plymouth. The base and the city – as well as the millions of humans and their shipgirl protectors – would be at their mercy. The losses would be enormous, and the aftermath would be as monumentally damaging.

"The Sirens haven't noticed us yet," Sheffield noted. So intent on their assault, there weren't any ships that were breaking off or making any sign of having noticed the intrusion to their flank.

"The activity and the fog are probably hiding us," Hood guessed. As the cruiser squadron had come to a stop and remained hovering at the edge of where the fog had been clearing, they still had a bit of cover. "Let's keep it that way for now. Maintain radio silence."

"We look to be pretty deep in their lines," Sirius recognized.

The battlecruiser was already thinking the same thing. "Look for a sign of the flagship. If our luck continues to hold, we can locate it. Best case, we can help turn things around if we take it out, but at the very least it'll buy a lot more time for outside reinforcements once Echo spreads the word about this." She rolled back a blue sleeve, needing to look closely at the watch that was there in order to read it. "Take five minutes to perform a search. I'll remain here and provide support in case we're spotted. Whether you find it or not, return with all haste once the limit is reached. We'll think of a plan afterwards."

Belfast synchronized her own watch to the time limit. Five minutes, with this fog, didn't sound like much but they were pressing their luck already with it. They had a golden opportunity right now and they had to make the most of it whether that included such a precision strike against the leadership of this fleet or not. Any longer and their risk of detection and the closing of the window multiplied.

There was also the question of whether Breakwater can hold out for even that much longer. With all that in mind, the cruiser squadron soundlessly separated, each member vanishing as they went on their chosen search area.

Belfast swept her sights over what she could at her section of the Siren fleet, the declining fog cover giving her some hundreds of meters of visibility between her and the closest mass production ship – a light cruiser. Its shape was still murky, giving Belfast some positivity of how her smaller form could remain undetected for a little longer, but she remained on edge for when one of its guns may start traversing in the direction of her or someone else of the group, whether it be due to its sensors getting enough of a read on her or the rest of the cruiser squadron to notice. Though the flashes of the ongoing bombardment could do the same by illuminating them, there remained debates of mass production ships being able to 'see' in the traditional sense or were just that wholly dependent on their systems or humanoid flagships to locate and identify targets, especially in an environment like this.

The head maid kept the dangers of detection in mind but didn't let it get in the way of her search. When she didn't see any obvious signs of the flagship from her current position, she began to drift to get a better angle.

As Sirius accurately surmised, they seemed to be well within their lines. The ships that Belfast could make out were not performing overly aggressive actions. Occasional shots were fired, but in a way that was more supportive for the ships that Belfast could hear trying to force their way into the bay before the Royal Navy defenses fired in return to beat them back.

But is it just the assault forces they're supporting or are they providing cover for a flagship as well?

If so, finding it was going to be difficult as it had the same advantages that the cruiser squadron had. Even if they couldn't find the exact position, just a general location that they could confidently act against may be enough if it meant giving the shipgirls of Devonport some relief.

There came lights in the sky that did not belong to cannon or laser fire. They were not followed by a thunderous report of explosive combustion or the cracking of ignited energies, for starters, and by snapping her gaze to them Belfast believed she could make out shadows soon after as well as the whine of jet engines.

Siren fighters, she identified. She didn't think the skies would be suitable for fighter craft, no matter how advanced they may be, but the Sirens were apparently fielding them albeit not en masse. And how these fighters were being launched…it wasn't from a heavy cruiser or a carrier.

Not a production-type carrier at least.

Emboldened, Belfast used the hints to justify getting a little closer. A destroyer materialized next to the light cruiser, and hiding behind the pair…

It was the shapes she managed to make out first, their aspects of a creature rather than anything of the human form being what made them so noticeable. Long and tendril-like, how they curled and waved could be like those of a sea anemone but how they did so in the foggy canvas gave them such a sinisterly monstrous look. One suddenly whipped towards the sky and the bright flash that Belfast witnessed before repeated again, another jet being summoned by its movement.

Amidst the tendrils, there was something that looked remotely human.

That was enough for Belfast who made her retreat towards the group where Hood stood watching and waiting while the other maids did what they could with their reconnaissance, her cannons ready to support them in case any were discovered early.

"I located the flagship," Belfast reported, Hood swiveling at her approach. She pointed in the direction. "There's a destroyer alongside that light cruiser, and behind them is a Siren humanoid type. A carrier. It's launching what sorties it can with its jetcraft but its primary focus appears to be directing the fleet."

"A Conductor?" Hood asked.

With those tendrils, with its control of the fleet as well as its jetcraft, a Conductor was as apt of a description as it was a designation, but Belfast shook her head. "No."

On top of the other traits that Belfast had been able to make out, there had been something else. She had seen the glowing highlights of its gear, and the color had better differentiated it from the red-orange of the production model warships.

But it hadn't been the familiar golden yellow. It had been a different color. A rarer and more dangerous blue.

"It's an upgraded class," Belfast revealed. "A Strategist."

Hood's brows lifted appropriately. The regular humanoids could be challenging enough, but an upgraded model of the higher classes was almost in another league. Armor, shield strength, weapons, and their ability to command and control were stronger and more efficient than their lesser counterparts.

"That has to be the flagship that Echo mentioned," Hood theorized, resting her chin on her knuckles as she considered the situation. "Fitting for it to be at the head of an attack like this. It'll be challenging, but our foe's selection may prove to work in our favor."

"It's a carrier," Belfast said. "It doesn't have weapons like a battleship or even a heavy cruiser. Its main strength is its superior ability to control its jetcraft and manage a fleet. The fog may be reducing the effectiveness of its jets but what is being emphasized is its capabilities of command."

"We launch a surprise attack, surround it, restrict its movements and that of its craft, and hit it with everything we have." Hood glanced up at Belfast with a furtive grin. "Such a strike just so happens to be what the Maid Corps specializes in."

"As long as there's a battlecruiser who can provide the suitable amount of firepower," Belfast returned, the plan granting some levity despite the situation with how it could be a means to turn it around.

"Rest assured, I will provide and then some."

Belfast curtsied. "We can initiate the attack immediately, once the others return."

They did in short order, each one not having dared to break the prescribed limit. And when they did, they were each asked if they had found anything that could be a flagship. None of them did.

Hood quietly pondered over each report and then glanced up. "Is anyone able to pick up radio traffic?"

Curacoa spoke up. "I have, but even at this distance it's hard for me to make out anything. Our radios are very limited in their range, even when we're this close."

Hood frowned. "More than unfortunate." She stood silently, Belfast needing to give her lady credit with how she remained so composed while everyone waited for orders, the sounds of the siege filling the silence as a constant reminder as to what was going on and what was at stake. Finally, there came a nod. "Okay, the Strategist will be our target. We know the process here."

They did, of course, the plan they formed to eliminate the humanoid one that they had practiced – and put into action – many times before. It didn't even take a minute for them to iron out their formation and attack approach. While Belfast, Sirius, Sheffield, and Southampton advanced towards the Siren fleet, Curacoa remained at a distance at their backs, with Hood even further.

Time was very much a factor here. With Belfast in the lead, they launched their attack.

Their first targets were the destroyer and cruiser that were in their way, with Belfast's opening attack being on the former. The sound of her torpedoes launching from their mounts and the subsequent splashes in the water were effectively masked by the battle, with no way for them to be detected as they streaked through the water towards her target. Nearby, Sheffield and Sirius launched theirs, going for the larger cruiser.

When the production ships did appear to detect them, it was because the cruisers had come close enough to be picked up by their sensors. By then the torpedoes had already crossed more than half the distance, and when the guns started to turn at the approach of the cruiser squadron, the underwater ordnance struck their hulls.

The lines of the two ships became disfigured by the explosions that were sowed from bow to stern, the impacts punching holes clean through their armor layers and getting them to rock before they straightened and then began to list the other way when seawater started flooding through the massive openings. Rather than go around the stricken ships, Belfast leapt up and traded the rushing waters for the deck of the destroyer.

Its forward guns didn't get a chance to orientate towards her, Belfast flinging her shells from her fingers to destroy them, her already running to cross to the other side while ignoring the heat and pressure of their destruction. Over by the enemy cruiser, similar eruptions occurred as its weapons were also disabled.

Reaching the other side of the deck, Belfast leapt from it and fell to where the Strategist awaited.

The blue lighting of its gear was the only real obvious difference between a Conductor and a Strategist. Their models possessed the same black long coat, the same hair that was just as lengthy, with the same gray pigmentations of the strands and of their skin that the Siren humanoids possessed. The rest were more minute, the modules and projectors on the Strategist's gear more numerous, more advanced, as was the headset that was worn atop its head – a device, Belfast assumed, meant to better keep track of and manage whatever fleet it controlled.

Then there was the expression that Belfast was faced with when the Strategist regarded her. Its lips did not quite stretch as far to broadcast its desire for thorough destruction. They were a bit more tamed, controlled, and though the emotions remained with a feeling of being feigned, Belfast nonetheless experienced an elevated sense of caution with how it viewed her arrival. It was like the cruiser could see the algorithms and calculations that it was using to process her, the formulas more sophisticated than those used by its lesser brethren. It created a semblance of what could be considered as experience that surrounded it.

Even more reason for Belfast not to hold anything back, not that she ever intended to. Every single one of her batteries opened up on the Strategist.

The glowing of the projectors grew in intensity, heralding the energy shield that formed around the carrier. Belfast's shells struck against it, their detonations dispersing across the entire expanse of the barrier in a bid to overwhelm it, but it didn't flicker or show any sign of faltering, standing strong throughout the entire barrage.

Belfast did not fault her guns for that. She had to admit, the modified dispersal pattern did make the assault a little impressive, but it wasn't going to get through that easily. Not with that shield strength.

Around the Strategist, the dance pattern of its surrounding tendrils changed. Numbering half a dozen in number, each one was in fact a flight deck that, together, could unleash a swarm of jet fighters in short order. But they also possessed an array of defense lasers, Belfast getting a look at them when two of the rectangular tendrils swiped in her direction, the barrels heating up.

She was already moving to evade but a helpful distraction was already coming in the form of shots that began hitting the Strategist from the other side at a rapid-fire rate. The Strategist shifted its attention, and that was when the fire paused and was replaced by another dispersal of shells from another set of six-inch main batteries. Their volley was just as impressive but, like Belfast's, failed to create any sign of weakness in the protective barrier.

But Sheffield was just as undeterred, filling the time needed for her main batteries to reload with the firing of her handguns that were shaped after her secondaries, emptying out the barrels of one and then quickly following up with the other as she sped along the Siren's starboard side.

The Strategist calculated that it needed to evade as well and started retreating from the two maids, Belfast and Sheffield both giving pursuit.

The flight decks flapped in their direction, a wall of laser fire coming for the Royal cruisers. Belfast cut hard to port and ducked to avoid some of the beams but forced herself to accelerate through the hail of fire, even if it meant taking a pair of shots against the armor at her forearms, her quietly hissing at the heat that was generated from the deflection. If they had been heavier cannons, she wouldn't have risked it, but the carrier's weaker armaments were something she could handle if it meant keeping fire on it, her six-inchers letting loose with another wide-reaching assault, soon followed by Sheffield who was as dogged as maintaining their attack.

The reason for their persistence came in the retreating Strategist's path: torpedoes, courtesy of Southampton. The Siren carrier appeared to detect them though, its flight decks whipping at their approach. Its array of defensive lasers fired into the water and were successful in detonating them early, their explosions at a distance that were harmless to the Strategist.

But that didn't matter. Out from the fog, at the Strategist's blind side, came Sirius. Spurred on by the commencement of the battle, the Dido-class cruiser came charging at full speed, her sword out and extended towards her side, with both hands clasped around the long handle. The swing that she made upon reaching the Siren was heavy and powerful.

"Hyaaa!"

Her cry and her attack were more appropriate for the knight she was better viewed as, but Belfast would forgive Sirius's decorum as the blade slashed against the Strategist's shield. It held, even against that, and the Siren glanced her way before two of its flight decks came lashing at the maid in response. Sirius parried one with her sword, dipped beneath the other, and went full reverse as the lasers fitted to them then fired, using her blade to block what projectiles she couldn't evade as she zig-zagged, her five point twenty-five-inch dual-purpose guns returning what fire they could.

Once more, it was another continual onslaught meant to expose another line of attack, that being the torpedoes that Belfast and Sheffield had launched and what Sirius managed to get clear of when they detonated at the feet of the Strategist.

"Hood, now," Curacoa's voice suddenly came over the radio.

Belfast felt as much as she heard the powerful booms of Hood's main batteries, putting the firepower of the cruisers to shame. The BF fifteen-inch Mark I naval guns had been introduced with the launching of Queen Elizabeth, Warspite, and Hood, and had proven to be such fearsome weapons upon their hulls. While perhaps not as lauded for its firepower as the sixteen-inch guns of the Big Seven and the later battleships that would equip them, the Royal Navy design had proven to be at the peak of reliability and accuracy and has since remained unmatched.

Belfast had witnessed just what kind of damage her first lady could inflict with them at ranges that shipgirls around the world would be hard-pressed to come close to matching. It was those instances and the many others that would establish her reputation as The Mighty Hood, and Belfast had rightful reasons to remain impressed here. Even if Curacoa was acting as an extra pair of eyes, relaying the Strategist's positioning so that Hood could better overcome the debilitating fog, Hood managing to accurately dial in and hit the Siren with her first barrage was a testament to her life's experience when it came to battle.

The results, too, were impressive. The fires and turbulent waters of Belfast and Sheffield's torpedoes had yet to settle by the time Hood's shells struck, and those remnants were blasted away by the immense fireballs that pushed aside even the thick fog layer, better letting witnesses see when the Strategist was as propelled away by their fiery extravagance, its shields flickering from the inflexible blue to the weaker yellow while it swerved and stumbled, such a high-ranking model of the Sirens nearly tumbling outright as it sought to right itself and its course.

"Good hits, Hood," Belfast reported in, she and Sheffield already moving forward to resume their attacks.

"Of course," Hood replied like it was all that anyone should expect. "All thanks to Curacoa's impeccable guidance."

"I humbly accept your compliments, milady, and will be sure to remain worthy of them," Curacoa politely answered.

"By all means, please do so. And if it's not too much trouble, see if you can make what contact you can with Devonport or its defenders. It's about time they learned that help has arrived."

Belfast and Sheffield sped towards the buffeted Siren and saw that Sirius had beat them to it. The Strategist's struggle to right itself brought it face-to-face with the cruiser who slashed what would be the humanoid's bare middle, but the shield had the sharp edge sliding along its surface instead. Its flight decks twisted, bringing to bear its lasers to ward her away, but Sirius ducked under their line of fire, a few of her white hairs becoming singed but nothing more as she sped around the Siren's starboard, rotated, and slashed a line down the barrier that covered its back.

Regaining its bearings despite the melee, the Strategist sought to create distance between it and the maid, something that Sirius wasn't going to allow – and wouldn't have, if incoming fire didn't force her to disengage and fall back.

A mass-production heavy cruiser materialized out from the fog, its heavier cannons firing to separate Sirius from its flagship. The maid knight had an expression that was close to being a scowl as her weapons turned to address the threat, her previously stoic features having become a bit more animated with her efforts to strike down a foe that she was now being interrupted from.

Detonations suddenly occurred at the heavy cruiser's bow. Torpedoes, but they hadn't come from Sirius.

"It's mine!" Southampton claimed, on a direct course for the heavy cruiser.

Startled, Sirius watched her go by. "Are you sure?"

But Southampton didn't bother answering, letting her guns do it for her as she fired upon the heavy cruiser, even as additional shadows appeared and became more Siren hulls that were trying to intercede.

"Trust in her, Sirius," Belfast transmitted.

Sirius wavered but her grip was refortified on her blade and she turned back towards where she was needed.

They had to keep the pressure on. As she and Sheffield fired upon the Strategist, Belfast could make out how the Siren was scanning its surroundings. While its smile remained, like before Belfast could read the calculations it was making, factoring in the variables that the Maid Corps was continuously throwing at it and formulating answering strategies on how to deal with them. It was beginning to assign elements of its fleet to take care of them, and if too much time passed then destroying it was going to get a lot harder.

Its eyes of otherworldly blue became fixed upon a point in the distance where Hood had to be positioning herself for another attack – its greatest threat. Its flight decks gestured upwards, light flashed into existence, and that light became half a squadron of jet fighters.

Belfast's hand shot up, the dual four-inch gun that was mounted upon the back of it firing. It was joined by Sheffield's secondaries as they shot at the fighters, each achieving a kill. Four remained, but instead of chasing after them when they banked towards their assigned paths, the head maid and her subordinate switched back to the Strategist and resumed firing with their main guns.

The reduced squadron didn't get far. Curacoa slid beneath their path, her entire complement of twin four-inch and two-pounder guns unleashing a rising storm of anti-air fire that shredded them to pieces.

Behind her, there came another magnificent report of Hood's second volley.

The first shell struck the top of the Siren, the second lower, and Belfast saw the Strategist folding back against the blows before its entire silhouette was again wrapped in another hellish embrace by the rest of the barrage. It parted from it again, its yellow-hued shield flickering, struggling to not drop into the red.

A different kind of lighting flickered along its gear, in a different manner. The holographic beds of its flight decks suddenly glowed brighter, as did the modules affixed to its form. Its eyes flicked along Belfast and Sheffield, then Sirius and Curacoa, and finally from where Hood's attack came from, and Belfast could see a plan having been finalized and what it intended to follow, going by how they began to glow brighter the same way that its gear did.

"It's charging an attack!" Belfast warned.

With a carrier, there was only one kind of attack that it could charge up for. With its many decks, it was about to launch the full might of its air wing all at once. To counter their goal of overwhelming it, it was going to overwhelm them in return. Even if they could weather what was about to be unleashed, it would make them cease their attack and if the carrier could marshal more of its fleet or, worse, slip away from them…

"We have to take it out now!" Sheffield declared.

Belfast's crossed her arms in front her, fingers full of shells. She flung them all in one motion, and her main batteries fired after them along with Sheffield's. Knowing the folly of getting into melee range, Sirius instead got close enough to launch some torpedoes.

They all struck against the weakening shield which had made its drop into a dull red. It stuttered, the modules that powered it sparking as they began to overload, but the barrier held, even if its brightness was now eclipsed by the building energy of the Siren's gear.

"Hood?" Belfast queried.

"Another second."

The stretching of the Strategist's grin told them that they didn't have that, and then the tiny form that had been hidden behind it lunged at its back.

Her cane held in reverse, with her one hand braced against the jewel-encrusted top, Southampton plunged it towards a point between the Strategist's shoulder and neck. Throwing her full strength and weight behind it, the needle-like blade passed through the shield as its modules gave their final, sputtering gasp, the point stabbing into its intended target and making its diagonal journey through the Siren's torso before exiting out through its waist.

The Strategist was still possessed of its smile, but its form went through a sudden seizure in response to the penetration. Southampton made it worse with how she dangled from the taller Siren and then began swinging her body around, trying to tug and work her weapon around as much as she could. The green-tinged ichor of the Strategist spurted from the entry and exit wounds while the building light of its gear dimmed, the power and the attack that it was meant to be put behind fading along with it.

Its attack had been stopped but it wasn't dead, the Strategist regaining enough of its faculties to try and reach around for the tiny cruiser to remove her while its flight decks began thrashing. Southampton managed to connect her feet against one and used it as a platform to flip forward, over the Siren, and ripping her cane free as she landed back onto the water.

The Strategist immediately locked onto its miniature assailant, its flight decks folding in front of it to administer their full retribution on her.

With another cry Sirius swung her blade down, slicing three of the decks in half along with the Siren's left arm, severing it at the forearm. She and Southampton then reversed, both firing with their guns, and the Strategist was forced into a jerking, uncontrollable dance as their shells dented and perforated it, its remaining flight decks taking a resemblance of shredded ribbons along with its coat while its limbs and torso became bent and deformed.

Hood's third and final volley finished it off, the Strategist being slammed into the water when the shells hit and embedded themselves into its body, the flesh holing and warping around the projectiles like compromised hull plating before the high explosives did the rest, their eruption scattering its debris where it would be immediately lost in the concealment of the fog and, soon after, the depths of the English Channel.

Belfast breathed, not realizing until now that that was something that she had stopped doing when the Strategist had been on the verge of launching its attack and remained frozen when Southampton had committed to her own to prevent it. Remembering what the other Town-class had been doing earlier, Belfast looked for and found the remains of the heavy cruiser and two destroyers, all three ships dark and lifeless as they sank.

"That's my eighty percent effort for this lifetime," Southampton informed them. After getting some help from the sea to wash the blood from it, she now had her cane braced behind her neck with her arms, leaning her head back against it while her body did the same in a way that was as lazy as her drifting.

Sirius looked at her incredulously. "Eighty percent?"

Southampton smiled cheekily. "Yep, and I'm not doing it again. Can I take my break now?"

"Not just yet," Belfast replied.

Southampton's smile collapsed as she sighed, how she deflated running a very real risk of her just keeling over. While Belfast tried to keep her grin from getting too big, Sirius's expression became one of growing respect for her.

"Hood, Strategist eliminated," Belfast then chose to report.

"Excellent work," Hood responded. "Hopefully it means this fleet will become disordered. Curacoa, did you manage to contact Devonport?"

She didn't answer, that and the unease that Belfast immediately felt got the head maid to look for her.

"…Curacoa?" Hood asked again.

Belfast spotted Curacoa, the cruiser standing with a hand at her ear. Belfast couldn't see her expression at this distance where the mist blurred just enough of her features to leave them unreadable, but when she finally answered Hood, her tone was anything but assuring.

"I was trying to raise them earlier but was getting too much interference; I don't know if they heard me or not. When we were fighting the Strategist, I did my best to monitor what radio traffic I could. There was still interference, but I think I was able to pick up transmissions from Breakwater. I wasn't sure if I was hearing right but…Hood…"

Although there weren't any Siren vessels approaching them, they could still hear the loud cracking of energy cannons of those that were still exchanging fire with the Royal Navy defenders. Belfast had been expecting the steady, unbroken sound of such energy discharge to become more intermittent and random as was always the immediate result when a Siren fleet had lost the direction of its flagship.

It wasn't. To Belfast's ears, the fire remained unbroken, sounding like a siege that remained ongoing with no hint of faltering.

Sheffield was next to notice, frowning while her eyes narrowed, fingers stroking the trigger guards of her handguns. Southampton suddenly straightened, her lazy drift coming to a halt while all good cheer was erased. The last was Sirius, having yet to make any move to store her sword and definitely not doing so now as she scanned their foggy surroundings with it ready to cut down whatever may come next.

Curacoa slid closer to the group, her hand dropping from her ear, and Belfast saw how positively grave she looked when she locked gazes with the head maid. "I don't think the Strategist was the flagship."

A boom suddenly came from overhead, getting them all to look skyward. It wasn't a sound that belonged to any kind of cannon, but a sort that could be described as a double thunderclap of a breaking barrier, the effects of which sent pressurized waves strong enough to disperse a section of the fog and carried down to the cruiser squadron, Belfast feeling how the shockwave rattled her as it did to the surrounding waters.

She hadn't seen what caused it, not on the first run, but within the cleared skies she saw it when it made its second run overhead, darting across with that speed, the sound of jet engines giving way to another dual thunderclap of a sonic boom.

She also heard the laughter. From over her radio, from the air it fell from along with the effects of the sonic boom, they all heard it. A high-pitched, guttural noise that besieged their minds as it did their ears, scratching and clawing at both. Belfast reflexively brought her hands up to cover her ears while dialing back her radio and saw the others doing the same.

She happened to catch eyes with Sheffield and Belfast saw the same recognition that she knew she was sharing with her.

They had heard this sound before. This laughter. Recently, too, and so they both knew that it meant nothing but terrible danger.

Despite her attempts to mitigate it, Belfast could hear it getting louder. Closer.

"Incoming!" she shouted, a warning that was immediately drowned out by the object when it came jetting in, this time right amongst them.

The resultant wave buffeted them all, picking them up and throwing them around. Belfast's head snapped away from the wall of pressure that smacked into her, her feet leaving the water as she was lifted up – cannons and all - the same time as the water's surface was forced down into a crater of fluctuating seawater. Though it was blind luck that her heels managed to land first, Belfast couldn't prevent herself from falling backwards, landing on her rear while her hands reflexively dropped back and braced herself up.

She had to fight through a blurred field of vision and ringing ears as she tried to take stock of her surroundings. The black and white uniforms of her subordinates let her know where they were – scattered, and all of them battling with their own physical debilitations as they struggled to pick themselves up.

There was someone else with them, too, something else Belfast noticed while she had been scanning for the rest of the cruisers but only when she was able to count for them – and control her clumsy, wavering vision – that she could center on the form that was standing right in the middle of them.

"Oh, is it that time already?" Belfast heard it ask in a much too merry tone. "I thought it was a bit early when I suddenly lost my support, but it turns out you're actually right on the mark!"

That voice, and with the fog having cleared because of her entrance, Belfast could get a good look at the Siren. Even with her recovering vision, she could still make out the shape of its gear, its form, and with it the head maid could be certain of just how dire things were.

Her first reaction was to inform Hood immediately but Curacoa beat her to it. "Hood, the situation is more extreme than we could've imagined."

"Is that who I think it is?" Hood asked.

With the appropriate amount of dread, Curacoa replied, "Yes. It's Purifier."

---

The defending quartet of jets were taken apart by the pair of descending Wildcats, the two planes banking away soon after to not only clear the path of the following Albacores, but to direct anti-air fire away from the bombers as they dived towards their true target: a Siren mass-production battleship.

The warship had already taken extensive damage and was beginning to submerge as it took on water. It was practically a lifeless hulk at this point, but the one surviving forward battery continued to send out orbs of powerful energies even as the flames that burned on its deck could reach and detonate the capacitors that continued to feed them at a moment's notice. The Albacores hastened that progress when their bombs dropped and put it out of commission, the battery in mid-charge for another shot before it was silenced forever.

The battleship remained active, but it was reduced to what paltry anti-air guns that were left and their fire was slow and ineffective. Yet the commands that were being issued from the bridge had them maintain what fire they could even if the lights were flickering with losing power while its hull continued to fill with seawater. The Albacores flew away, unaffected.

A web of lasers from a different kind of battleship caught the bombers, surrounding and then closing in to cleanly mince them into the individual pieces that were left to rain down over the naval battlefield.

Its targets annihilated, the Smasher-class Siren searched for more, the long-barreled laser cannons and their mounts acting as the long legs of a marine crustacean that its rigging mimicked. Over its right eye, a metal patch lit up with data as it cycled through targets before a beep signaled its locking onto one. Unlike the majority of its brethren, its expression was of stern concentration as it swung around, its cannons and their segmented-like bending bringing them to bear as it watched with arms crossed.

Shells struck its form, but despite the armor-piercing capabilities of these particular shells, there was very little piercing involved. They struck the Smasher but then bounced off, their tips blunted, leaving the Siren unaffected as it fired another web of hull-melting heat.

"Yeowch!" Cleveland exclaimed, ducking under one laser, skipping and spinning to avoid another that would've taken a foot, only to have a line burn through her cape and score the armor of her rigging.

"Full…power!"

Cutting through the air was the thin, traditional missile in the form of a javelin, its tip lit with gathered energies. It pierced one of the heavier beam cannons mounted above the Smasher's head before those energies were released, injecting them directly into the internal workings of the weapon and having it blow, the Smasher being blinded by the fire and smoke.

The explosion launched the javelin away, sending it tumbling back to its owner who jumped and caught it, spinning it once over her head before bringing it to rest at her side.

"Gotchya!" Javelin celebrated.

The smoke cleared, showing the Smasher facing in her direction, its targeting patch lit with new data while its laser cannons swiveled towards her.

Javelin flinched at their glowing readiness. "Uh oh."

"Javelin!" A destroyer came to her side, bringing the wide blade of a sword up to guard her.

Javelin looked to her. "Ayanami!?" She glanced at the Sakura ship's blade, then the Smasher, and she brought her javelin down to cross with Ayanami's weapon. It built up power again, but that power became shared with the sword it was touched with, a sheath of energy surrounding them.

The Smasher fired, all its lasers focused on the two, striking the paired weapons. Both shipgirls braced but immediately began getting pushed back by the combined fire, the improvised shield they were making holding but the metal of their respective weapons beginning to noticeably heat up, an orange glow starting at where their weapons were intercepting the lasers but creeping down the blade of the sword and the shaft of the javelin, threatening to burn the hands that gripped them.

The Smasher wasn't interested in waiting, its remaining beam cannon traversing to begin lobbing explosive energies at them.

The tattering report of machine gun fire suddenly came from above, tracers coming down like a bright shower upon the Smasher. Though not equipped with shields, its heavy armor shrugged off the damage, the only reaction the assault got was for the Siren to glance up into the sky at the pair of Wildcats that had returned to initiate such an attack run.

Not so when Enterprise launched her arrow from her place on the back of one. The projectile pierced through the other beam cannon, the force ripping it free from its mount, with it soon detonating. The loss and the shock of the detonation got the Smasher to flinch, its focused fire on the destroyers scattering, and it was enough for Ayanami and Javelin to immediately separate and disperse.

Enterprise touched her radio. "Nevada, go."

All that was left of the sinking mass production battleship was the bow that remained sticking above the water and what Nevada circled past to get a clear line on the Smasher. Her cannons already adjusted for the upcoming attack, she fired at the Siren.

Nearly the entire right side of the Smasher vanished. Its arm went flying as did the legs of its rigging, a huge chunk of its torso being removed and forcing the rest of it to bend awkwardly over the empty space as it fell backwards. It lay there, staring up sternly at the sky while it made futile efforts to get back up – its actions like a crab on its back trying to roll over, but to do so with half of its legs missing.

"Oh my, still functional, are you?"

Its patch having fallen from its face, the Smasher looked up from its position to see a Royal Navy shipgirl smiling sweetly down at it, eyes closed. At her side, there was a massive block of metal that served as the platform for her three sixteen-inch triple turrets, all of which swiveled to point their nine barrels at the disabled Siren.

"Could you do me a favor?" Rodney of the Nelson-class asked nicely. Her eyes opened, their violet coloring matching her hair, but there was a glint to them that was as much a savage contrast as her guns were to her own shapely form when she said, "Disappear."

Which was exactly what happened. Against the guns of one of the magnificent Big Seven, any explosion that could've come from a detonating core was drowned by the amount of seawater that ballooned and became displaced by the full power of those weapons. There was not even a shred of perceivable debris, all of it swallowed by the erupting ocean that fulfilled Rodney's 'request' to the letter.

Nevada sailed up to Rodney, whistling lowly while her brows were high, impressed. "For a Royal Navy girl, I have to say that that was pretty cold."

Ignoring the water that dripped from her now wet hair and gear, Rodney looked at Nevada peculiarly. "Oh?" She dropped her cheek into her palm, thoughtfully concerned by the Eagle battleship's description. "I was only doing what should be natural, wasn't I?" Her sweet smile returned. "There should be no mercy towards our enemies."

Nevada grinned broadly. "Oh, I like you."

Rodney giggled.

Seeing the results from her position in the sky, Enterprise transmitted, "Thanks for the assist, Formidable. Smasher has been sunk."

"Good to hear," the Royal carrier returned, happy that her Albacores hadn't died in vain. "That's it for me for a while, though. The rest of my bombers are being rearmed."

"Roger, we can clean up the rest here." Closing the line, Enterprise used the time to survey the overall battle.

Skirmishes ran on continuously in the sky, the massive dogfight having been reduced to more scattering engagements as the Azur Lane fighters worked to respond to new air threats that were trying to take the skies that they had control over. With that control remaining in their hands, bombers swooped down, initiating runs that had to number in the dozens by now with how long the battle was going. They would drop, pull up, and Siren decks would be broken by the static explosions of bombs.

Just the same, the backline of their battleships persisted with their sustained supporting fire. Whenever Enterprise saw and heard the latest barrage of their ships firing, the water rippling mightily while fiery clouds exuded from their gun barrels, there would be seconds of silence before a grouping of Siren ships suddenly lit up, their shapes shattering against the munitions that made impact.

And then there were the vanguards. Almost like dots from where Enterprise was looking when compared to the more massive Siren mass production ships, but when those insignificant specks made contact, the weakened Siren formations immediately crumpled, their lines being chewed apart before being swallowed by the watery depths they would sink into, their flame-ridden hulks extinguishing, fading, and then disappearing entirely from sight.

But there were still more, Enterprise able to see the numbers that continued to enter the estuary. A sobering sight, showing just how much longer they would have to keep this up, but Enterprise believed they could do it. They would win this.

So why did she feel like something was wrong?

Like when George asked her to review the movements of the Sirens for the coming battle, Enterprise felt something off. The Sirens were just advancing, entirely focused on flooding the estuary with their numbers that were being cut down so easily. They weren't deviating, with no other forces seeking to strike elsewhere. They were just sailing into this grinder, with no apparent objective other than to sink.

Sirens were dumb but not this dumb. The rank-and-file production ships and humanoids, yes, but the higher overseers who would be orchestrating this would have some kind of direction or goal. Far be it for Enterprise to suggest that she would ever know what they would want, but in every single one of her previous fights with the Sirens there was always a reason for them. Something that would make them as hard-fought as Enterprise painfully remembered them to be, with a goal that she could perceive Sirens being able to achieve if they won a particular engagement, and even if Azur Lane won there would always be a cost for victory.

Like Yorktown. Like herself.

A successful attack on the Royal Navy home port would count as such a great cost, but the method of attack that the Sirens were using here didn't match up. Enterprise dared not use the word easy but…this was just too inefficient.

Her old self would've never thought like this, and Enterprise wondered if this had anything to do with what George said about expanding her perspective on the battlefield; to look at the greater picture rather than what she needed to destroy right in front of her.

"Enterprise, it's George," came the Knight Commander's timely message.

"I hear you," Enterprise replied. "Do you need me somewhere?"

"Yes, but not here."

The wording alone was enough to elevate her bad feeling, but the haste that Enterprise could hear behind George's otherwise calm delivery was a nerve-spiking confirmation.

There was something going on. Something was happening. She was right, and if she was right about this then she was right about where she knew George wanted to send her next. The same place she had wanted to go instead of here from the beginning, and though she had resigned herself to this it had always been there at the back of her mind, even with all the good she had been doing here.

"It's Devonport."

Enterprise's Wildcat turned so sharply that only a Siren jet could've matched it, and if her state of mind hadn't gone careening towards the direction it was set on, she might've been concerned about possibly damaging it. But the Wildcat had completed it, putting it on the course she wanted, and that was all she cared about.

"One of our shipgirls assigned to it had escaped from an attack on the base," George reported, not realizing that every word she relayed was hammering such distraught further and further home. "We're still unsure about the details, but the Sirens are somehow jamming communications. She's saying it's due to some sort of fog. She met up with Belfast and the cruiser squadron and told them the same thing."

Enterprise would've remained silent, but Belfast's name had her instantly asking, "Where's Belfast now?"

"According to our girl, she and the rest of the squadron went to assist in any way they could," George responded. "We can't get in contact with them, so they probably entered the fog. I have utmost confidence in their abilities, but they may be dealing with a significant enemy force. Not only that, but more than likely there's at least one elite-ranked Siren commanding it. We're mustering what we can to send immediate backup but until then-"

"I'm already on it," Enterprise interrupted, not needing anything else.

"…I'll send help as soon as I can," George promised. "Godspeed."

The line went silent.

Dammit. Enterprise's one hand clenched into a fist, and she had to stop herself from punching it into her plane's canopy. Dammit, dammit, dammit!

She should've gone with Belfast. She knew something had been wrong and, dammit, she had been right. She shouldn't have been wasting her time here, in a battle where she wasn't needed when it had been so obvious-

She felt another line open. "Enterprise!"

It was Victorious, but as soon as she heard her voice a sudden surge of intense irritation had Enterprise nearly making a shout of "Not now!". She didn't want to hear anything, didn't want to be distracted by anything that wasn't going to help her in getting to Belfast.

No, calm down.

The direction came from a cooling drop that dripped onto the rage of emotion. Victorious…was a comrade. A friend. The fact was enough to tame the blaze she felt burning inside of her, ready to incinerate anything and anyone who got close.

But Victorious is a friend, Enterprise repeated. She didn't want to be angry at a friend, not when this wasn't their fault. Enterprise reached for her radio, found herself fumbling for it, but when she got it, she was able to establish some control by then. "Victorious, I'm needed somewhere else."

"I know! Take these!"

Enterprise's new course was taking her near the assembled carriers. Looking over the side of her plane, the ace spotted four planes flying up to meet with her. It took her a second, but she recognized the bend in their wings.

"Corsairs!" Victorious said. "And I just finished dressing them up with something special!"

A bright aura suddenly formed around the Corsairs and Enterprise felt a tingling in her head as well as her flight deck. A transfer, Victorious reaching out with her presence from her planes and what began receding once it encountered Enterprise, leaving her open to assume control. She hesitated, but Enterprise soon answered in kind, her flight deck turning to accept them.

The Corsairs flashed and then streaked forward to connect with her flight deck. When the light vanished, Enterprise could see the now miniature planes slotted onto her rig.

A rush of information and sensation flooded into her brain, causing a mental flexing to occur as she became situated with the new addition to her fighter complement. Their weight, their construction, their weapons – and Enterprise blinked at the last.

They did have something special there.

"I'm not expecting a return!" Victorious assured her. "Use them however you want!"

Enterprise tried to think of what to say as her flight deck rotated back into position. "Thank you," she settled with. "I will."

"Good luck!"

The line went quiet again and Enterprise breathed a very long sigh.

This wasn't wrong, she told herself, her anger giving under the presence of the new planes.

It hadn't been wrong for her to come here instead of going with Belfast. It wasn't a waste. The threat at Devonport hadn't been a sure thing yet, but this had been. She had done good here and had gotten something good in return, and not just with these Corsairs.

But Devonport was a sure thing now, and she had gotten permission as soon as it did. Which was why she had to go.

The lines of the carrier's features became harsh but determined. So, go.

The engine of her Wildcat seemed to get louder, the propeller moving faster.

Go.

Her eyes began to gleam again.

Go, go, go, go!

And her plane went.

---

Purifier.

The name represented the total erasure of existence. Within the biblical texts of the ancient times, one of the very first of mankind's innovations – fire – became the ultimate means of cleansing. From the absolving of sin of the body and soul of the individual to the end of days where the final judgment would be brought upon the unworthy of humanity, fire became synonymous to such purification. A belief that was maintained throughout the proceeding ages.

The arrival of the Sirens turned it into reality, and within their ranks arose one who was most suited for it.

Getting to her feet, Belfast looked upon the precursor of such culling with the icy clawing of rising fear.

All the way back to the start of the Siren War, there had been hopes for negotiations. A peaceful resolution between humanity and the Sirens. Soon enough, that hope became desperation when it was revealed just how powerless humans and their inventions were against these invaders. Even as the unarmed ships that sailed into the middle of the ocean, waving their white flags, were instantly vaporized by a Siren vessel while the humanoids would later walk upon the latest island or city that they came from, void of reason or pity as they extinguished every bit of life to be found with their frozen smiles, there had been hope for dialogue. Their advanced technology and the human-like appearance of the emotionless dolls of the burgeoning apocalypse, they rationalized, had to be following something which they could reason with and establish peace – even if it meant surrendering to it.

Then she appeared, and with her the worst of the calamities that would befall humankind.

The sinking of the Russian Baltic Fleet, the Mediterranean Blitz, the razing of the Philippines, the firestorms of the American West Coast, the Glass Trail of the Yangtze, the desolation of the Korean Peninsula, the purge of the Nagasaki Prefecture. In every single one of these examples and more, where the events were remembered for the immeasurable slaughter and disastrous military defeats, the survivors would all report hearing one thing that went on with each one, from beginning to end, the first and last thing that anyone would hear.

Laughter. Cruel, inhuman laughter that would go on even after the last of the bodies had been incinerated and the last trace of civilization along with them.

As humanity began to classify and catalogue the various Siren models, acquiring names for the monsters that they were coming to fear, she became the exception. The unique one. The monster among the monsters, as there always was in such lore.

The Scavengers, the Chasers, the Navigators, the Smashers; they became the norm of this struggle. The heads of the fleets of advanced warships that must be taken. Even the upgraded models – the Explorers, Trackers, Oceanas, and Peacebreakers – were but the escalated variants of the fight that humanity must overcome with their shipgirls. The Testers became seen as the final, unexpected barriers that would drop in humanity's path, and prevailing over them meant additional progress in their reclamation. Whether it be in the ones or twos or threes or even more than that, over time these monsters became something that humanity could fight and even win against, albeit with the cost that was expected of the war that they could now make with them.

But there was only ever one of her at a time. One Purifier. And whenever she appeared, there would be no fight. No struggle. Only death. It was when she became known through her atrocities across the globe that humanity understood that there was no room for negotiation. No peace. Not from an adversary that possessed something like her.

And through her, it became undisputed that what the Sirens wanted to purify humanity of was their sin of living.

It makes so much sense now, Belfast figured out, though in no way did the understanding provide any sort of mollification for the situation that had gone beyond the worst-case scenario.

A massive attack on the home port while a second was administered at another important military base, with a new weapon they had never experienced before. To overpower Devonport's defenses, they would not only need a large fleet but an overseer that would be just as formidable. The kind that would make a Strategist a support ship when compared to her. And if they succeeded, the damage that would follow…

It was all perfect for Purifier, wasn't it?

She could see the rest of the cruisers getting their bearings and understanding the gravity of their situation. Sheffield brought her hand and full-sized guns up, but her usually stoic visage was broken by a curled corner of her mouth that unveiled teeth that were gritted tightly together. Sirius brandished her sword, but the way she held it diagonally across her body was in more of a defensive posture rather than one of attack. Southampton adopted a similar one with her cane but the way she held it and the expression on her face better said how she doubted that it or her own cannons would amount to anything with what they were dealing with. Curacoa remained hovering in the background, her drifting uncertain, trying and failing to think of what position she could possibly take up to provide any kind of support against this.

Even Belfast's slipping of her shells between her fingers was an action made of unconscious familiarity – a vain gesture to promote a semblance of security - rather than with any real thought of them being effective.

Purifier…

Her list of deeds was as long as they were heinous, and even the use of shipgirls hadn't done much to mitigate the chaos that would result if she suddenly deigned to make an appearance – or the casualties. There had been berths at the Royal Palace that had suddenly gone empty because of her unexpected intervention in what would be a mission or routine assignment that no one could plan for. The only correlation to be found with her appearances was the amount of devastation she would leave behind with each one.

By those accounts, Belfast knew that Purifier's most recent action – single-handedly assaulting the Azur Lane Joint Base, destroying multiple ships and facilities in minutes – was tame in comparison. It had been her first ever encounter with the Siren, and Belfast had watched in disbelief when the assault she launched against her had resulted in no effect.

Enterprise's intervention was what prevented any of them from meeting their demise that day, as was how Purifier's mission had been to reclaim the black Wisdom Cube that had been in their possession. Her weapons, armor, speed, agility, strength…they were in a completely different league of their own. The only thing that could contend with them was if they were able to gather a subjugation group to deal with her. Or if there was a shipgirl like Enterprise around.

But Enterprise wasn't here, and a cruiser squadron was below the recommended level of force needed. The nearest military base was under siege, and they had no way to contact anyone else. The only viable option would be to retreat…and Belfast doubted their chances of that, leaving them to stare with dreaded anticipation as the Siren's golden gaze swept over them.

When her head turned to better take in her current encirclement, the one above her followed with a swing of its hammer-like shape. Out of all the Sirens, hers was the most recognizable: a giant hammerhead shark, which was gruesomely fitting. Sharks had been the creatures that superstition wrapped up and became the first sea monsters that sailors feared, with one being how this mallet-like head could be used to put holes in the hulls of ships or lifeboats. Even with better understanding established since then, sharks remained mysterious and frightening creatures, and them being a common sight of the naval-focused conflict with the Sirens where the aftermath of an engagement would have them feasting on bodies and terrorizing survivors awaiting rescue, it was a reputation of reality twisted by fear.

And like how they were drawn to the scent of blood, opportunities for such carnage would be what would inevitably draw Purifier from her worldly prowling and administer with the massive beam cannons that protruded from the large fins of her rig. Hovering at her sides were her secondary weapons: a pair of autonomous drones with their dual laser cannons, meant to extend her reach and her firepower to greater ranges.

Then there was her human form, clad in the white sailor-like shirt with its yellow neckerchief, its cropped appearance and the tight shorts exposing her midriff. An attempt to give her more of a personality, it appeared, with her extraordinarily long hair that, even gathered in the high tail behind her head, would extend far past her feet while her bangs were thick and unruly, with two additional lengths falling down the front of her shoulders and to her hips.

Like all other attributes that the Sirens adopted for their humanoids, however, there remained faults. Her short, tight clothing just enhanced an unnatural thinness of her limbs and the thick consistency of her hair was enough to be artificial – kind of like how, despite how it should be dropping well into the water beneath her feet, the descending hair was being manipulated by some kind of mysterious control that kept it in bends and turns, frozen in a breeze that did not exist but nonetheless had it out of the ocean's reach.

But the most unnatural and frightening of her appearance had to be her face with its exceptionally wide eyes, open to all so that they may recognize how, unlike the other humanoids, there was something dwelling within the golden yellow lenses that was very real, very malicious, and very mad. Worst of all, Belfast could see that not once during Purifier's surveying of them did her gaze obtain any kind of focus on any one of them. It remained entirely unfocused, never fixing on one point or individual, as if she was trying to look at the entire world that was around her. With her smile, it was like all she was looking at was just one big joke.

Belfast reckoned that the punch line involved incinerating everything that she could see and beyond until the entire world was nothing but fire and glass.

"Oooh, it's the Maid Brigade!" Purifier suddenly spoke brightly while there came a dark giggle. "Such a range – old and classy, but new and sexy as well!" Her fingers twitched impatiently at her sides, her smile expanding its twistedness, and her eyes somehow grew larger, flashing ominously. "Makes me want to mess up each and every one of you!"

"Belfast," came Hood's voice, quiet, as if afraid to be overheard by Purifier. "Is she remaining stationary?"

"For now," she replied under her breath.

The line was filled with silent tension before Hood said, "I have a firing solution. We'll strike first."

Belfast didn't answer or make any other comment that would verbalize the feeling of how unwise that seemed but knew that they had no other choice. Not only could they not run but they wouldn't, not if it meant losing Devonport. Even if victory may not be feasible, if they could at least distract Purifier long enough for the situation at the base to possibly turn around or if additional reinforcements could arrive…

They still had to act like victory was still possible, even if victory didn't necessarily mean them triumphing over this sort of enemy.

Belfast tensed in preparation, the miniscule movement enough to bring Purifier's attention to her, and it may've very well been her imagination, but for a second Belfast thought she saw the Siren's eyes focus on her, zeroing her in, and her smile became grotesquely knife-life despite a mere fraction's change occurring.

Then Hood's cannons echoed with booming fire.

Purifier's secondaries were already moving, flying up and each positioning themselves above her before unleashing individual streams of golden fire into the sky. The beams flashed at a certain point high above, detonations soon following as they intercepted something.

Belfast knew what they were and what it meant: the drones had shot down Hood's shells!

"Oh?" Purifier questioned, smile wide and full of teeth. "Does this mean we're starting now?"

Sirius chose to attack when the Siren began to giggle ecstatically. Lunging at the Siren's back, she swung high with her sword, the edge coming for her neck.

Without even looking and moving faster than even her drones, Purifier's hand came up and slapped the underside of the blade. It went high, the edge scraping across the surface of the shark-like gear, the deflection putting Sirius off-balanced and completely open for when Purifier spun around, her shark-like rig following her so that its tail smacked into the cruiser's side and sent her flying.

That wasn't all, the Siren's movement planned so that she could reach out with her other hand and seize both of Southampton's wrists, the other cruiser having acted alongside Sirius to plunge her cane into Purifier's stomach but the needle-like tip was stopped an inch before it could, leaving the tiny shipgirl to behold the manic features that lowered to her level, staring not so much at her but the space that her head happened to occupy.

"Well, aren't you a little shrimp?" Purifier observed, still giggling. "Maybe I should start with you."

Visibly regretting her selected action, Southampton's arms strained as she reversed hard but the grip on them didn't even budge.

Belfast threw a fistful of shells, but dual beams struck down from above, vaporizing them before they could reach. Sheffield's attempt at support was better, fire from her handguns at least reaching Purifier, but to the dismay of all who witnessed the effects it was to see how her rounds bounced off the hull of her rigging, leaving behind nothing but scratches.

It got Purifier's attention, her rounding on Sheffield, but not until after she punted Southampton away with a hard kick. "You, then!" she cackled, the jet engines of her rig launching her towards the other maid.

Belfast made a move to assist but another pair of beams sliced across her path to stop her. She looked up, suddenly finding herself the target of the drones that descended on her, firing as they approached. She immediately evaded, sliding left and right as her cannons fired in response to the drones which initiated their own evasions, spinning and dancing around the incoming projectiles as they fell upon the head maid, their cannons resuming their fire.

Belfast dropped beneath one pair of lasers and then sprung up from the water with her hands to get out of the path another fired by the second drone, the patch of water they touched hissing and steaming. The drones made circular motions around her as they followed her, the cruiser needing to use all her skill and focus just to dodge as they fired one after the other, the flashing light and heat of near misses followed by the second-long boiling of seawater letting her vividly know of the danger of being struck by one of them.

Elsewhere, she could hear the cracking report of additional energy weapons being responded to by the cannons of her fellow maids. In between, she heard Purifier's contorted laughter.

"She's too fast!" Curacoa gasped over the radio.

"And too close to the others," Hood added, frustrated. "I won't be able to hit her like this."

Determined to break free and help her subordinates, Belfast impatiently waited for her turrets to reload as she stopped short, energy beams passing through the space where she would've been. She sidestepped, angling away just in time from the attack of the other drone, the light and heat coming too close for comfort, but she didn't let it faze her as she immediately accelerated through the path that reopened when the energy of the first dispersed.

As the two drones pursued, Belfast's cannons traversed and fired, using the wide dispersal of her shells to good effect as the machines separated, one maneuvering wildly to the left to avoid the shots while the other went a straighter right.

That one! Shells falling into her hand, Belfast threw them at the right one.

They hit straight on, Belfast experiencing a pulse of victory as it went spinning away from the exploding contact. With one down, she produced shells in her other hand as she focused on the remaining one, hoping to take it out in shorter order.

That was until, to her shock, she heard the energy discharge to her right and the telltale illumination of approaching energy beams.

Belfast tilted her body away just enough so that the energy beams missed burning into her body, but she felt the heat and damage as they passed alongside a section of her rigging, close enough that she experienced her armor plating melting and peeling away from her hull.

The drone to her left made a quick correction and fired.

Belfast dropped her readied shells and held her arm up, her armor there coming into play. She did her best to angle it but still had to gasp as her armor took the brunt of it, agony blazing along her left arm as the lasers melted through cloth and metal, the patch of skin beneath blistering and then blackening.

Willing herself through the pain, Belfast went full speed away from not one but two drones, the other having rejoined.

It wasn't destroyed? She didn't remember these things having that much armor, the drone she struck sporting a few dents but was otherwise functional. Did their armor get upgraded?

Their forms did look bulkier than what Belfast recalled, but it wasn't just their armor. The firepower was not at the level of mere laser cannons as her arm could now attest. All that and their speed didn't seem to have been reduced in the least.

"I can't do anything back here!" Hood exclaimed. "I'm getting closer. Curacoa, help Belfast!"

"Yes!"

Anti-air fire soon came to give Belfast a reprieve, the undamaged drone being knocked away by the lighter but still impactful rounds, the other one also retreating.

"My thanks, Curacoa," Belfast said as the other cruiser came to her.

Curacoa immediately looked at her arm. "You're hurt."

"It won't hinder me." Belfast flexed her limb, workable, but it encouraged a renewed scorching of pain that she endured. "These drones have been upgraded."

Up in the air, the two drones regrouped, circled together once, and then started dropping back down towards the maids.

Curacoa better put herself between them and Belfast. "Get to the others."

Belfast passed her a startled glance. "You sure?"

"This is what I specialize in," Curacoa replied, determined, her AA batteries aiming up.

"But their armor…"

"The one we need to focus our best efforts on is Purifier," Curacoa told her, her gaze not straying from her targets. "Elders should protect the children, and juniors need their superiors. Let me have this."

There was no room for further discussion, what little that Curacoa said and what Belfast had to judge based on that and the situation making it so that when Curacoa charged at the drones, Belfast broke off to rejoin the others. One drone was about to correct its course towards the head maid until the start of Curacoa's anti-air fire had it aborting and swerving around to engage the other cruiser.

Coming to the other battle, Belfast would soon see that it wasn't going well for her other subordinates.

From this distance, what she could see best was the hammerhead shark charging at its assailants, swimming in the air dramatically towards one before whipping around and making a pass at another, its head swinging left and right, and driving off each one it came close to pulverizing. If she wanted to, Belfast could compare it to some cornered beast gnashing its teeth and all the natural weapons it possessed to fend off who it was surrounded by and who kept fighting no matter how much it was struggling until the point came where it would finally tire and succumb to them.

But that would be disingenuous to what was really going on, even before Belfast saw the crackling display of that shark's beam cannons and heard the laughter of its slaughter-happy mistress.

Southampton, Sirius, and Sheffield all scattered at the latest onslaught of the advanced beam weaponry, returning what fire they could, but compared to Purifier's awesome power the shells of the cruisers proved laughably ineffective to the Siren. High-explosives detonated upon her and her gear with little effect while armor-piercing blunted and ricocheted, leaving behind superficial markings. If one was seeking reason, the inadequate weapons may embolden the Siren to get in this close while also limiting the use of any of their arms that could do damage – namely, their torpedoes and the shelling of their only battlecruiser.

It would get obvious to anyone very quickly, however, that Purifier did not need reason to immerse herself so closely in this fight, as the flying battleship flew from one to the next, eager to provide equal distribution of her wrath to each of her opponents that were more victims of a bloodthirsty predator that knew it had the upper hand than anything else.

This was what made her so terrifying. Unlike the other humanoids, it was clear that Purifier enjoyed this. The destruction that the humanoids carried out so mindlessly, Purifier did so ecstatically. Her movements, attacks, everything – behind them was a true obsession for the butchery that had her swinging, flying, and blasting with the express purpose to cause as much as she can. It made her unpredictable. Wild.

Though pointless, Sheffield fired both her handguns as the Siren came for her. Laughing the whole way, Purifier started spinning like a top, Sheffield's rounds bouncing off against the metal skin of her rigging as it closed the distance, seeking to whip her with its tail or smash her with its hammerhead. Sheffield reversed with all the speed that she had, her body leaning back and arms stretching behind her as each part of the monster rig came a hairsbreadth from hitting her, her eyes huge and her flinching with each near miss as they viciously swiped at the air right in front of her.

Sirius followed, her cannons doing what they could to slow or distract the Siren. Eventually Purifier halted, not so much to spare Sheffield but to answer Sirius's challenge when the sword-wielding maid closed in, hoping her weapon would do what her cannons couldn't. With arms folding behind her, Purifier was far from afraid even as she retreated from Sirius's flurry of swipes, her body tilting this way and that, the maid's slashes just shy of cutting.

Going by the shakes of her form and her tightly-pressed lips, it was all that Purifier could to stop from laughing at her attempts, something she couldn't hold back anymore when, with a sudden peal of such glee, the jet engines of her rigging suddenly ignited and both her feet launched up, striking Sirius at her chin and sending her reeling.

Rather than continue with the backflip, Purifier rolled around with engines still at full blast, her course and direction now at Southampton who had been setting up what looked like a torpedo launch until she became the target of another salvo of energy beams. The smaller cruiser was interrupted by the hole that burned into the starboard deck of her rigging, melting the barrels of one of her turrets but – blessedly – missing it and its magazine. She probably didn't feel so lucky when a searing graze touched her left leg, another striking fuller into her shoulder and knocking her onto her back, the cloth of her uniform burnt away and the skin beneath matching the blackened patch that Belfast possessed.

Rather than finish her, Purifier stopped and lifted herself higher into the air. Then, cackling, she performed another spin, this one in midair, and the beams that were fired from her weapons were focused, steady columns that began cutting and boiling the water that they created lines through, with the danger coming for the shipgirls. They all dived away, Southampton just barely managing to scramble and accomplish a desperate lunge away from the expanding ring of energies.

Getting the clearest target she had so far, Hood fired at the elevated Siren.

The beams were already dispersing, the power used for them going back to Purifier's engines as she blasted up and over the flying shells. She flipped upside down and then rocketed back down, soon resuming the flip so that the tail of her rig could come smacking towards Sheffield.

The maid managed to successfully dive out of danger a second time. She turned and pointed her guns at Purifier.

The Siren had already straightened enough to fire at her.

A beam consumed Sheffield's left hand. There was an explosion, the handgun that she had been holding ripped out of her grip and being carried away before it detonated within the gullet of the hungry energies.

Dropping her other gun, Sheffield clutched her arm to her chest, her eyes wide and face white, about to scream but didn't.

Her hand was gone, nothing left but the cauterized stump of her wrist and the burnt ends of her sleeve.

"No!" Belfast cried out. In range, she fired with all her turrets.

It was an unladylike thing to feel, but the sound of so many reports, how Purifier was obscured by the smoke and fire of so many shells hitting her at once, granted Belfast a modicum of satisfaction although her outrage didn't leave her lost to what she expected to see when the sight cleared: Purifier remaining at her feet, hardly the worst for wear when she rotated towards the head maid, her slasher-like smile anticipating the next challenge.

That was until Purifier hesitated upon sighting Belfast. "Oh," she said, her obvious bloodlust waning for just a moment along with her smile. But her expression soon twisted into something even more appalling than what she had been sporting so far, and this time there was no mistake when the cruiser saw how those eyes centered with clear fixation on her, and with it she could see something less basic and far more sadistic glittering behind those lens-like eyes. "Not yet."

Belfast stopped, startled but also very disturbed by such wickedness being directed at her.

As quickly as it happened, Purifier's expression reverted to its all-included chaos as she spun around and suddenly took off with another blast of her engines.

Sirius had leapt at the Siren, her blade high above her head, intent on powering it with weight, momentum, gravity, and the outrage that was upon her face. That was until Purifier slammed into her, the maid suddenly finding herself folding over the head of her rigging as the Siren carried both of them into the air, looped around, and dived towards the water, a loud and wide splash following the collision as the pair vanished beneath the surface.

"Sirius!" Belfast raced to where the Dido cruiser disappeared, stopping and staring where she last saw her, the broken surface stilling by the time she got to it. She looked but couldn't see any sign of her in the dark waters.

Southampton and Sheffield both joined her, each with their own measure of pain that they had to bear but as worried about their comrade as Belfast was. They stared at the one point before they turned and separated, each one wordlessly taking a direction and an area for themselves.

"Can anyone see her?" came Hood's worried inquiry.

"I don't," Belfast replied first, her search random and growing desperate.

"No," Sheffield replied, short and quiet, but her agony a secondary concern.

"I'm looking!" Southampton frantically replied.

"What happened?" Curacoa asked immediately upon arrival, her uniform now having a collection of holes that had been burned into it, with two of her Mk XVIs reduced to half-molten slag. "The drones suddenly went underwater!"

"Sirius was taken," Belfast quickly explained, her eyes not leaving the water for a second. "We don't know where she is."

Curacoa had become riveted on Sheffield and her missing appendage, but then she shook as if struck by lightning. "Siri!?" Like the rest, she immediately looked down and began mirroring their search patterns.

Belfast wasn't getting anything, not with her eyes or her equipment, and her heart sunk further and further down when no one else was reporting anything. All she heard was the continued siege of Devonport, but neither she nor the others were paying attention to it, entirely concerned with their section of the battlefield, for one specific comrade, the only thing they wished to see or hear to be a sign of her.

The loud and violent splash was thus as deafening to them as the distant cannons, along with the following gasp and wet coughing.

"Siri!"

It was clear who got to her first, Belfast turning in time to see Curacoa dropping down next to the floundering body.

"Siri, Siri, it's me!" Curacoa said, collecting the coughing girl and partially lifting out of the water, not just for air but to check any amount of flooding in her gear or injuries. "You're okay, Siri! God blessed, you're okay! Just breathe!"

With hands seizing the front of Curacoa's apron, Sirius concentrated on that, her body heaving with each waterlogged cough that expunged more and more seawater out from her lungs. Her eyes were squeezed shut, wet hair stuck to her face, clothes soaked and transparent, but it was clear that she was alive and Curacoa's sagging relief conveyed how her check for anything else that could be wrong went. She hugged the girl to her, patting her back to try and give assistance.

Belfast's sigh deflated her in almost the same way, but it was a momentary comfort, her resolve hardening as did her slow and careful search around them, this time for something else.

It wasn't over yet.

What came next was a more explosive upheaval of water, a familiar hammer-like shape rising out from it, which was then followed by that laughter.

"Ahahahaha! Oooooh, were you all so afraid for your friend? Were you losing hope? Did I keep her under long enough for you to think her dead?"

The despicable Siren was hovering to and fro, languidly spinning around, her hands clasped and pressed against a cheek in a mocking attempt of concern which she further insulted with her ongoing cackling.

"Tell me, tell me!" she instructed with maddened fervor. "I want to know! She struggled, but I kept her down as long as I could! I even brought her eeeexxxxxtra deep!" She straightened, did another twirl, and looked upon them all beneath the light of her eyes and her massive grin. Then she leaned down, a hand cupping partially around her mouth as she 'whispered', "Between you and me though, I totally expected her to sleep with the fishies!" Grin now reaching her eyes, she leaned back, hands now clutching her sides as she bellowed with laughter.

"AHAHAHAHA! MAYBE NEXT TIME!"

Belfast wasn't aware of having drawn her shells, but she did become aware of the pain at how tightly she gripped them between her fingers. Curacoa was glaring up at Purifier with fury, Sheffield having found and now tucking her remaining handgun beneath her arm so she could rack the slide with her one hand. Southampton was silent, but her form rigid and eyes harsh. Sirius blindly reached for where her sword would usually be mounted.

"Oh!" Stopping, Purifier looked up, seeing how the cruiser's blade was in fact lodged into the head of her gear. She reached up, freed it, and let it drop. "You can have that back! Not that it'll do you any good!"

"I have her," came Hood's cold statement. "Get ready."

Belfast had been keeping track of the outline that took a more definite shape of the battlecruiser, her having been approaching as stealthily as she could to get in what they all hoped would be an effective range.

"So, who's next?" Purifier loudly mused as the water beneath her sloshed, one of her drones extracting itself out in preparation.

Belfast watched it, then switched back to Purifier – and then darted back down to the drone again as alarm raced through her.

One drone.

"Firing."

Belfast's hand shot to her radio. "Hood, get back!"

There came the loud crack of laser cannons – exactly where Hood was. Golden light blossomed and the battlecruiser's cry was transmitted in all its agonized volume.

"Hood!"

Purifier broke into another round of raucous laughter. "Sneaky ship not so sneaky!" She turned and raced in Hood's direction.

Belfast's fire was instantly joined by the others, but their combined attempt was too slow, most being left in the wake of the jetwash of her engines as she flew towards Hood. Belfast accelerated to catch up.

It wasn't going to be enough, she seeing when Purifier reached Hood, the Royal battlecruiser missing a turret, one of the arms that it had been mounted on having been melted through by the beams that had gone on and burned into her back, her painful hunch better revealing the smoke that rose from behind her.

"Congratulations!" Purifier cried as she came before her, her main cannons warming. "It's you!"

Hood looked up, features scrunched with pain, but forcing her remaining turrets to blindly fire at nearly point-blank range.

"Woops!" Purifier spun to the side, the shells going wide, and when she reorientated her cannons back to Hood it was to show them brimming with full power. "Almost!"

She fired.

The beams converged on Hood, melting through multiple sections of her armor, her rig, but the most devastating was the one that hit high at her chest, burning a hole through the Union Jack capelet and the chain that held it, the garment flying away while the beam continued blazing its path through the blue coat underneath, the mortal construction beneath that, until the energy lance was exiting out through her back where she had been hit seconds ago.

Hood stumbled, jaw dropping but doing so without noise. Her eyes were wide but her pain – suffering, but an indicator of life and consciousness regardless – began to die out as quickly as it came. Her stumble turned into a complete giving out of her legs and with nothing but the creaking of her ruined gear she crumpled upon the top of the water.

"Hood!" Belfast cried out in horror.

Hovering over the downed battlecruiser, Purifier watched but didn't see any sign of movement as her drones retook their positions at her sides, the Royal ship remaining in a limp heap. Their barrels illuminated, the Siren settling with watching the upcoming show that would follow with an ecstatic grin when they would fire and carve Hood up into additional pieces.

Belfast heard Curacoa's desperate cry before she fired. At maximum range, the volley nonetheless connected with the drones, sending them away, energy particles flashing randomly through the air. A couple shots bounced off Purifier, the Siren not paying any mind to it, only being drawn away when she turned, hands shooting up to clasp together and catch a descending sword between their palms.

"Fiend!" Sirius snarled from behind the sharp edge.

Purifier only laughed in her face, letting herself be forced back.

While Southampton and Curacoa both sailed to back Sirius up, Belfast saw to Hood.

The head maid could still feel the heat radiating from the hole in Hood's chest, wisps of smoke exuding from its circumference when she got to her. Everything that she could see of the internal damage was black and cauterized, the attack clean and efficient but still sickeningly brutal when it came to its thoroughness. The first thing Belfast did was immediately lift Hood's body up, needing to put a stop to the flooding that she saw already occurring with the bubbling around the battlecruiser's broken gear. She could make out a separate weight that sloshed around in what compartments that had been affected, but what Hood lost from the damage was more than what she had gained from seawater.

Checking that Hood was still drawing breath came after that, and it was what she confirmed to be so when Hood's head lolled in her direction, limp, but her lips still passing air between them, slow and weak.

"She's alive," Belfast reported, aware of Sheffield being nearby.

"Then if I may say so…we should leave..."

There was an odd kind of strain to her subordinate's tone and when Belfast brought her in sight it was to see Sheffield with her one arm extended, the stump of her other on top to keep it steady. Her hand was open, fingers stretched out to their fullest.

Her palm was directed to the duel that went on, Sirius again making repeated strikes at Purifier that the Siren was deflecting aside with her arms. Around the two, the drones circled around but were being held back by the fire of Curacoa and Southampton.

The space in front of Sheffield's palm wavered, becoming charged with power that gathered into a ball of energy that formed and then slowly expanded. Sweat beaded down the maid's pained expression, her breaths as much a struggle as this task was for her.

"Excuse my…overstepping…" she gasped.

Belfast shook her head, slinging Hood's arm around her shoulders. "No need, Sheffield. We did all we could here." She stood up, bringing Hood with her while she opened a channel. "Southampton."

The Knight glanced in her direction which became a further turn when she saw Sheffield and the metal canister that Belfast grabbed from her rig.

"We're retreating," Belfast ordered, pulling the pin.

Southampton gave a quick nod, beginning to reverse while she also unpacked a canister. "Sirius, jump back now!"

Sirius didn't even look, instantly halting in mid-swing before following the order.

Sheffield closed her hand into a fist and the gathered power leapt forward into its own brilliant beam, aimed directly at Purifier.

The Siren had stood in momentary confusion when her adversary abruptly fled but that was until she saw the attack coming towards her. Rather than make a move to avoid it, she stood in apparent acceptance of it as she giggled, "Oooohoohoohoo!"

Her hands came up, catching the beam as it did with Sirius's sword, but it was entirely the power and force behind it that saw her flying backwards with it.

Belfast had already tossed her grenade, as did Southampton. The two canisters dipped into the water, buoyed back up, and from their ends began expelling thick clouds of smoke to fill the area between them and the Siren.

"Take her," Belfast said, transferring Hood to Sirius while Curacoa caught Sheffield when she was starting to fall forward.

"Where are we going?" Southampton asked.

"Devonport." It was Hood's only chance. "We're going to have to try and break through the blockade. Get in touch with the defenders to help if we can, but Hood needs to get to a repair facility as soon as possible. We'll have to make our stand along with them there."

There came a loud whistling, getting them all to turn to the sky to see a familiar ball of energy launching over the smoke cover and to the fog-shrouded heavens. Within, Sheffield's discarded attack detonated into a dazzling flare.

"Let's go!" Belfast ordered.

They didn't need any further urging, the group leaving with their wounded. Belfast lingered at the rear, taking out a couple more smoke grenades that she distributed in an arc behind them to better cover their escape.

There was nothing more they could do. Without Hood, they had even less chances of stopping such a merciless enemy as Purifier and continuing to try would mean her death as well as their own. Maybe they could buy a bit more time, but the cost would be too much and too certain at this point. Hopefully the situation at Devonport had improved and what help they could still offer would allow it to hold long enough for more help to arrive.

Ahead she could see the rest of the cruiser squadron about to reach a thicker portion of the fog cover. If they were lucky, entering it would secure their escape and assist in their reaching of Devonport.

One-by-one, all five of them soon vanished from her sight.

Belfast heard the whine of jet engines right before Purifier dropped in front of her path, preventing her from doing the same.

"Heeellloooo~" the Siren cooed maliciously.

Belfast made a move to try and go around but found her path blocked by one of the drones dropping there. The thought of going the other way was cut off when the second came to do the same.

"Belfast, are you still with us?" came Curacoa's voice, static lacing over it. The fog's interference already starting even with this short distance.

The head maid began to slowly back away, her reply calm. "I see you. I'm right behind you. Keep going."

"It's time it's time it's time it's tiiimmme~" Purifier sang lowly, her head bobbing side-to-side as she floated closer.

Curacoa came again, horribly garbled. "I…n't…ee… Be…?"

"Keep going." Belfast turned off her radio.

Purifier was still bobbing her head, still drawing closer, her wide, unfixed stare on the space that Belfast happened to be occupying. Behind it, Belfast could see not the calculations but the imaginations that were being entertained by the rampancy that this specific Siren's higher processes were run by. Senseless, with the only purpose it was devoted to committing being how it could get the most out of the world it found as its playground, with anyone in it objects to torment.

"You want me," Belfast accused, coming to the conclusion based on the clues she had gathered. How Purifier had so gleefully beaten and injured the others, with any actions against Belfast being to separate her such as at the start of the fight. Such as now. "You're targeting me specifically."

The surety of it came when Purifier deigned to recognize her particular existence even momentarily, Belfast able to make out the sadistic visions that swirled around her and her only. The Siren then giggled. "Aren't you a smart one?"

Belfast continued drifting back, away from her allies, away from safety. The math had changed. It was no longer a cruiser squadron that would have to stay and buy time with their lives on the line. Now it could be done by one cruiser, one life, that could ensure the survival of five others and more.

This was acceptable, with Belfast intending to get the most of it however she could. "Why?"

"Hehehe, well there's an idea." Extending her arms out Purifier spun around once, but while her body made the rotation, her head remained in place, staring down at Belfast. "Why don't I just float around here and spend time telling you aaallll about it like the villain I am?" When her body completed its revolution, her neck flexed and there came a metallic clack as something returned into proper position. "Or how about I go ahead and start trying to kill you and see how long your smarts can keep you alive?"

Her accompanying drones hovered closer, their barrels warming.

Belfast's hands became filled with shells as she dropped into a stance, her quietly swearing, "Bugger."

---

Enterprise came across the fog in short order – much too short an order, but to the carrier it was still unacceptably slow.

Seeing the fat expanse of the mist filling the Channel and encroaching upon the shores of the Royal Isle, Enterprise did not feel it necessary to examine and give any extra thought to what was clearly right in front of her. All she considered was the relevant location and direction of which she should enter that would give her the shortest possible flight to reaching the besieged base and city shortly after she did. Once she had, her Wildcat dove right in.

There was a wrinkle of disturbance between her and her plane, it briefly rocking, but it smoothed over as did her connection to it. The Eagle ace felt odd tingles course through her human form, an itch at her eyes and sluggishness of her systems, but they passed as well, leaving her to try and navigate through the thick fog as best as she could without crashing into anything that may unexpectedly appear.

She had entered at an elevation that was only a couple hundred feet, the waters of the English Channel having been below her before she had entered and the cliffs of the Royal Isle to her starboard. She had wanted to use both to help guide her to where – she had thought – she would eventually reach the inlet and the bay that would be where Plymouth and Devonport resided in. However, she expected to hear plenty of the attack that was supposed to be going on long before she got there.

The fog proved to be thicker than she expected, her losing complete sight of her landmarks the second she entered. Taking extreme care, she guided her plane further down until she could make out the waters beneath her, putting her at a little over two dozen feet. She still couldn't see the Isle but while being convinced that it remained at her starboard and her course should remain accurate, she chose to fly unerringly along no matter what the risks were of such low flying. Speed was of utmost importance to her right now.

She expected to hear something at that point. She did not.

Nor did she after what had to be minutes of flying straight on.

Impatience shared a line with anxiety, and Enterprise felt herself crossing it as frantic possibilities began to invade. Had she overshot? Impossible. If there was a fleet action going on in the middle of the English Channel, there was no possible way she'd miss it. She'd more likely crash into a Siren ship, although she would be detecting something of it before she did. Could she have drifted so far south that she could've gone around it, despite being sure that she wasn't deviating? No, from what she saw the fog wasn't reaching the coasts of Europe so if she had drifted that badly she'd have flown out of it. She was on the right track.

But after a bit more time passed, she started to seriously second guess herself.

Enterprise looked down, still able to make out the water beneath with no change. The Channel was below her, and to her starboard should be the Royal Isle, even if she couldn't see it right now…

Although she had been told of the communications problem with this fog, she touched her collar anyway. "This is Enterprise of Eagle Union contacting Royal Navy base Devonport. Can you read me?"

There was nothing.

Enterprise began cycling through channels. "This is Enterprise to any Royal Navy naval personnel, please respond."

All she got was static.

"This is Enterprise to anyone who can hear me, respond!" Her voice rose. "Anyone! Now!"

No change.

This time she did strike her plane, her fist bouncing against the fuselage, leaving a dent. Looking to the foggy wall to her starboard, Enterprise guided her Wildcat into a turn.

As before she was careful, waiting for when a coastal landmark would materialize or the solid shape that would become a cliff to let her know that she was dangerously close to crashing into it and she would turn away. But when nothing of the sort appeared, she dared to sharpen her turn with a growing need to see for certain that the Royal Isle was still right there and she was, in fact, still in the English Channel.

But nothing arose, and Enterprise was sure that her turn had started to become a full circle.

Was she not in the Channel anymore but had flown into the Atlantic Ocean without noticing?

That can't be, Enterprise denied, but it was the least inconceivable thing that she could think of.

She pulled up hard, sending her Wildcat skyward.

She'll get out of the fog. See where she was. Try again. It infuriated her, but what other choice did she have? She didn't know where she was anymore, and it'd take way too long trying to figure it out while still in the grip of this mist.

She should've reached well past thousands of feet by the time she realized that something was very wrong.

The mist remained all around Enterprise. It was not breaking into clearer skies, and there wasn't a single ray of sunlight beaming through the higher she climbed. It was as stifling as ever.

Enterprise was struck with a terrible suspicion. Reversing her climb, she instead started diving back down.

After only a few short seconds she had to pull up again or risk crashing into the water that appeared right beneath her.

Enterprise experienced the strangulating hold of the realization that came over her and the rage of knowing who was responsible. Sirens!

She turned her plane, but it and the several others she made were random, vain efforts to try to unveil some change in the environment. Left and right, up into another climb where she made turns and spirals and then down into another where she would break wide. They were movements that proved all the more useless when all that Enterprise got was the heavy murk that was unchanging as the waters, proving the futility of her actions no matter how desperate they became.

It was all a Siren trick, and the absolute worst kind that could be used for the current situation: a Mirror Sea.

Even if it wasn't the same as the one before, Enterprise knew that communications were going to be the least of their concerns if it was even remotely the case. If this mist was some kind of access point to a space that was outside of reality's laws and well within the whims of the Sirens, then any sort of reinforcements were just going to end up exactly where Enterprise was now: lost.

Assistance may never come to Devonport, and those who try may end up in a place that could be even worse. Like her and this never-ending, inescapable stretch of sea or Belfast and wherever she may be.

Enterprise was ready to scream out in frustration, the only thing she felt she was able to do, being powerless for anything else. Present her with an enemy she could fight, and she would win. Give her something that she could see and touch and beat and she would do that. That is what she had done for all these years, all her life, and what she had been coming to see as something worthy again. But this…this…

She had never found a way to deal with something like this, where the means of victory could not be achieved with her own powers or her own arms. There was nothing for her to outmaneuver nor shoot down. No obvious target or passage that she could take and get her out of this. When her Wildcat broke from its maneuvers and settled on a singular path, Enterprise slumped forward.

She was alone.

Helpless.

No, Enterprise told herself. Not yet. Think!

Her face had fallen into her hands, her readiness to surrender and wallow in this despair while her Wildcat flew on with no destination – a journey as low and barren as the one the carrier was about to drop into.

But that would mean losing.

And she couldn't lose. Even when she had been willing to, Belfast wouldn't let her. None of them would. Because of that she was able to find herself and her reason for fighting again, and with it her freedom to see what she could live for after that fighting was done. They had done that for her, and she wasn't going to give up when they needed her at a time like this.

For them, and for Belfast most of all, she would find a way to win, even if she didn't know how to right this moment.

But you do know.

…Yes. Yes, she did.

Because she had broken a Mirror Sea before. Her control had not been fully her own then, but if she could just…

The tips of her fingers touched her temples.

…She just needed to remember how she did it.

Enterprise felt the cold treble of fear that tried to get her to deviate but doing that would just send her back to the flailing that would not achieve anything. Choosing to shy away from it would not help her. To give into this fear so easily simply because she was afraid and instead reattempt what had already been proven to not be a solution was the height of idiocy, and the shame of trying when there could be others fighting for their lives overwhelmed it.

But she was still scared. She was scared of failing, but what she was more scared of was succeeding. To again touch what she never wanted to again, thinking that she would have no need of it anymore. That power, its secrets…and what damage it had led to her suffering from it. To endanger herself again and her new, wonderful view on her life and that of this world if she so much as brushed with what had nearly destroyed her…

But for them…for Belfast…

She would do it.

Her fingertips pressed against the sides of her head, and she felt the resistance spring up immediately: those solid walls that surrounded the forbidden knowledge, and the daggers poised threateningly over it to destroy it all rather than let her have it. All for her own good.

Enterprise couldn't force her way in. Smashing at the walls would just have those daggers plunging if she did, and going deeper if she did not relent. She had to ease her way in. Take it little by little.

I don't need it all, she assured, brushing gently against the stone. I just want this.

What should not be but what always had been. Power that was and wasn't hers. Familiar but unfamiliar. New but ancient. What she had grasped once but what she was sure she held countless times.

A power beyond the ages, beyond this world, beyond its planes. Connected deep to her core, but what branched out into directions too many to count, where they led unknown to her yet she somehow knowing where they all inevitably converged because she herself was one of those links that all came from the same source. The beginning that was not what was in front of her when she opened her eyes but the one that came with the name she had already known before hearing it.

That power that was also of such knowledge that was as frightening as it was enigmatic.

But I need it.

She needed it to get out of here. She needed to get to where the battle was, where she could fight. Where she could save. To not meant that there were those who would die, and she understood what that entailed – what would be lost as well as who.

Although she would admit that there were those she cherished more than most, because she was selfish, but all the more reason for her to have it.

I need it.

The stone was being worn away, softening, as another obstacle of her own making had done.

I want it.

A flaw developed and it was that Enterprise pushed against, willing it to give, and the crack formed.

So give it to me!

The minute breach was enough, her reach going through it, passing between the line of daggers, and she seized it.

Enterprise dropped her hands, lifted her lids, and her eyes blazed gold.

The vaporous prison became clearer before her illuminated gaze, its deceptive solidity now brought into open question as Enterprise viewed it with a golden tint. It was still around her, unrelenting, but Enterprise could better see the fluctuations that shaped the obstructive cloud.

It was not as obvious as what Akagi had constructed, the Sakura carrier's caster-like formation of the Mirror Sea having created the great weakness that inherently came by being the summoner. It had been what allowed Enterprise to isolate her from it, rip it out from her control, and send everyone who had been caught in it elsewhere while she had dealt with her. This was not to say that Enterprise's own handling had been less sloppy, her interference creating chaos that had shaken the bounds of reality, and with it Enterprise had been able to see-

That wasn't important now. It wasn't what she wanted or needed, and letting her thoughts drift to it would cause unnecessary distractions.

She needed to focus on getting out of here.

The fluctuations that she could better see were layered over each other, and Enterprise could see something in them. Some sort of patterns of symbols that she couldn't quite make out, but she could understand constituted the true makeup of this mist. It was much more complex than the previous example, with no obvious source in sight, leaving Enterprise doubtful that she could take over or disassemble it as easily as before, but she didn't need to. What she needed to do was create another breach. Another flaw in these patterns that were so obviously fabricated and, thus, malleable to not only whoever was behind it but what Enterprise could disrupt.

She identified the possible avenue when she noticed how certain fluctuations appeared similar, and when she moved her Wildcat side-to-side to test something, she saw how they turned, converting the layers that they invaded into their specific pattern.

The action was all so these fluctuations could remain with Enterprise, keeping to the space around her like a cage.

Annoyed, Enterprise reached over, the glow in her eyes brightening while her Wildcat made a turn. When she saw them shift, coming to reestablish their trapping of her, Enterprise interceded, forming a block in their invasion lane to one of those layers.

The indistinguishable patterns came to a sudden stall, and their response to overcome it created a lag. As a result, a section of the fog weakened.

The Wildcat turned at an impossible angle, entering the breach, and Enterprise was through.

---

From her seat in the time-space stands, Observer leaned forward, an expectant viewer that had become hooked by a particular action that she had just witnessed, and the potential development that it could hint to heightening her intrigue.

"So, the bird managed to slip through the cage," she commented.

It was the cage that was of her own design though and what made her position as more than just a viewer. She was the director watching the rehearsal of her approved script, those who were following it the actors, and the cage that they entered her stage. The acts they were to perform were to be of her calculated direction, the scenery to change by her signal, whether that be to trap, misdirect, or allow safe passage through. All of which, like any good play, meant to create the rightful transition of scene to scene, act to act, until came the climax and grand finale.

Her script accounted for all of it, and yet even if it was followed to the letter, the finale she envisioned reached without deviation…she would be unsatisfied.

A play would just be a play in that instance if it was to go from beginning to end like that. Nothing extraordinary and, when it came to an audience that this one was being performed to, nothing that could be considered of importance. Nothing that would be worthy of review or continuation.

For the epic that she wanted, it could not be reached by her direction alone. She needed her actors to improvise and express the creativity that would come with it. To do that and to inspire the one who had such vision but who would be moved to alter it to accommodate their artistry, then there would be the makings of a masterpiece.

And Observer believed that she had witnessed something very much like it with the star actress.

"She's reinitiated her Awakening," Observer murmured, reclining back upon her throne, her smile just a bit bigger.

According to her script, it was getting a little too early for Enterprise to make her entrance into a more exciting scene. There needed to be a little obstacle for the dear heroine – a struggle that would fit better for a more timely and exciting arrival when the question of whether she would be able to make it on time or not was finally answered. To delay it as long as possible in such a way was to generate the highest of exhilaration when she did – or the deepest of despair if she did not.

But to have such a development of the situation and of the character herself…why, then there was something special.

"Congratulations, Enterprise," Observer praised. "You have my utmost attention."

The Key had been able to successfully tap into her potential again, and to do so with such a radical change of her nexus. While the immediate results were exciting, they were also inspiring Observer with the possibilities of what could happen next.

"Namely…" she mused as she rewound to the previous scenes, her finger raising to tap at certain points. "What it could mean with here, here, and here."

They were bursts of very interesting data, happening not once but multiple times. The first had started at the onset of the battle and had occurred again and again as it went on. Observer compared them to what was recorded in the great library and found matches to let her know for sure what this could mean.

These were trigger points that could've brought Enterprise to a stage that was meant to come after her Awakening. Their frequency was a sign of how close she was, but because of how she had yet to reinitiate the protocol in her new conversion she couldn't reach it.

But now that she had…that was going to increase the odds in the heroine's favor for when the climax arrived, and the great antagonist would come to confront her. If she could achieve it in time.

"But you don't care about that," Observer said, her smile foully twisting. "And I wonder if you would even if you knew. No, no, the only thing you care about is if you're going to make it in time."

And despite the unexpected triumph, Observer still didn't know what the prediction was to that.

In the name of progress, she had left that to the vagaries of Purifier.

---

The deadly beams crisscrossed over each other, seeking to take either Belfast's head or her legs.

The cruiser had but a moment to react and it was for her to drop back while jumping up, twirling between them. They did not touch her body, but she felt them burning through her long skirt, her rigging acquiring additional energy scoring as they grazed her hull.

She landed back on her feet, but she immediately noticed the large shape coming at her side, the hammer-like head swinging in her direction. She took a quick leap back, it barely enough to get the charging shark to miss her.

"Aw, missed again!" came the passing remark.

Belfast wanted to fire at the source, but the drones had already changed position and were firing at her again, keeping her in the retreat that she had been forced to take ever since the start of this battle.

Purifier took a spot in the air where she could watch, giggling down at the head maid. "Smart and nimble! I wonder how much longer you can keep it up!"

A question that Belfast had to wrestle with every time Purifier would make a remark like that one after she completed her latest pass.

It was all just a game to the Siren, the deadliness of it only applying to Belfast. As the cruiser retreated and avoided the fire of her drones, Purifier would wait for the moment where she could dive down, intent on taking a piece out of her directly, and what Belfast would also manage to avoid by the barest of margins.

A hit from Purifier would take her out, if not instantly than to the follow-up attack of her drones. True to the image of her rigging, she was the circling predator while Belfast was the struggling prey, trying to take the bite that would maim the cruiser. Once that happened, it would only be a matter of time before Belfast bled out, and then what would be left was the carcass that Purifier could feast on in the frenzied killing that would satiate her appetite for blood and carnage.

Belfast did not think for a moment that such an appetite would be appeased by her offering alone though. Knowing where Purifier would go next and surviving for survival's sake was what had her continuing to live and what her cannons extended with what fire they could muster up in return.

A shell struck one of the drones, getting it to tumble away, right before it turned its tumble into rotating spiral that steadied it and had it coming back after her. The blow wasn't without effect, its armored body sporting a new dent.

Both drones had been given a thrashing by Curacoa, and it was probably the only thing that was keeping Belfast alive. There was a discernable wobbling of their movements, and the one that Belfast had just struck displayed a delay of charge with its next shot, the laser that was produced from its one barrel noticeably weaker when compared to the one next to it.

Purifier cocked her head in its direction.

She's going to get bored. Hardly any kind of consolation, but Belfast could at least read and predict that much of the Siren's savageness. A weakening such as that was going to get her to try harder on her own part. If that happened, Belfast could estimate her chances of surviving for any length of time to get cut in half.

Not that they were great to begin with, or weren't already decreasing the longer she remained out in the open like this. Those drones weren't the only things with a growing collection of damage as her gear could attest to.

I need cover.

It would provide more than just defense. Cover would give her moments of a break, and the opportunities that came with them. Maybe even chances to make some sort of counterattack.

Her options were pretty scant though. The only accessible cover she had…

Belfast glanced at her port, noted the vague shape in the distance, and made a hard turn towards it.

It put a delay in whatever considerations Purifier was entertaining as she watched her, the Siren mockingly asking, "Where do you think you're going now? It's only you and me here!"

The shape in the distance became a more definite and familiar profile and was soon accompanied by additional ones that consisted of another group of Siren warships, all of them making the journey to add their numbers to the continuing siege of Devonport. With the drones still chasing her, Belfast sailed into the middle of them.

Purifier had still been following, had paused when she saw the Royal cruiser's destination, but her reaction was the same as always: giggling manically. "Hehehe, I see now!" Her engines whining with sudden power, she jetted after Belfast. "But do you think that's going to stop me?"

Not at all, Belfast silently replied.

She was counting on it when the drones stuck with her, showing no hesitation as they lined up their latest shots, and then began drawing the power for them even when Belfast was sticking right to the hull of a mass production destroyer before they fired.

She dodged both, but instead of cutting through the air it was the hull of one of their own ships that they struck and boiled through, individual trenches melting into the exterior and compromising what compartments they pierced through. Still sticking close to the Siren destroyer, Belfast went around its stern, her guns firing and encouraging the drones to continue.

They didn't need any encouragement. Without any kind of discretion between friend and foe they kept shooting at Belfast, their beams and her own shells ravaging the production ship's bow. The destroyer itself wasn't doing anything in response, keeping to its course even as its foundation was being taken apart by high-explosive shells and penetrating lasers. Even as its speed began to drop and its hull began dipping below the waterline, it sailed on regardless as best as it could.

Believing that she had done enough, Belfast angled her course to the next Sire ship in line, intending for the same outcome.

But that ship along with the one next to it were suddenly obliterated when lightning strikes of superheated bolts cut molten swathes into each of them, with explosions soon erupting. As the ships shattered, their fiery deaths were accompanied by the mad laughter and the whine of jet engines as Purifier flew through the smoke that plumed up from them.

"We'll play by your rules!" Purifier called, smile wide and as insane as the sight was of her hovering over the burning hulks of her own ships. "For the few seconds they'll add to your life, that is!"

Her foe's lust for destruction to the point of destroying her own ships hadn't surprised Belfast. She had witnessed that as well, when Purifier had damaged the same fleet that she had summoned during her attack on the joint base and expected the same here.

But that may prove to work in my favor, she thought, making a modification to her strategy. Reducing the numbers being fielded against Devonport was one merit to this, but it wasn't the only one. She was trying to bait Purifier, goad her further into her frenzy, and through that create an opening. With it, she would then strike.

But the prospects of what she could achieve with any kind of attack that she could pull off weren't optimistic. She didn't delude herself for a moment that she could destroy Purifier, but if she could inflict some kind of damage - enough damage…

Belfast leapt high towards the deck of a mass production battleship.

The lasers of the drones followed her, but it was the only enemy fire she had been having to worry about. The production battleship, much like the rest of the ships in the formation, did nothing but keep moving forward, ignoring the chaos that soon took place on its very deck as the barrels of its main batteries were sliced clean off by lasers, the turrets themselves detonating when shells were tossed at them, and the fire that resulted immediately went wild, swiftly spreading to encompass it.

With the heat of those flames around her, Belfast ignored that and the choking smoke as she moved between what cover she could take right before it was vaporized by the drones, her squinting barely making out their silhouettes and the coalescing energies of a coming salvo that she would get out of the way of. Flak cannons, radar and sensor stations, defense lasers and beam cannons, the battleship was becoming stripped of them, leaving behind the gaping, burning wounds that soon spread to its very bridge as Belfast ran around it.

A laser passed over her shoulder, so close that her skin blistered. Another deflected off the plating of one of her starboard turrets, her feeling it when the armor and two of the three barrels sagged from the heat.

Having been unforgiving in their pursuit, the drones suddenly backed off.

Belfast knew what that meant. She turned and vaulted over the side of the dying battleship just as another downpour of destructive rain fell upon the warship.

She had already launched her anchor behind her when she turned to look up while falling, her seeing what her radar would've told her was coming way too late.

"Game's over!" Purifier declared as she fell upon the cruiser, her arms outstretched, ready to take her in.

Her anchor caught onto something from the ruined battleship, and with all speed Belfast reeled it in, getting yanked away with Purifier flying past. Twisting around, Belfast placed her feet against the side of the production ship and released her anchor just as she kicked off it.

Purifier had managed to halt shortly after while still in midair. She looked over her shoulder, confused, and was met with the armored heel that dropped right onto her head as Belfast kicked her.

With a noise that expressed her shock at actually being hit, Purifier fell and crashed onto the water's surface below.

Belfast was already throwing shells even before she landed, them hitting and detonating against the prone Siren. They weren't going to do anything, but Belfast wanted to keep her down until…

Once her feet touched the water, she launched her torpedoes.

The splashes were followed by the short trails of the munitions making the quick journey towards the downed Siren where they exploded upon making impact, the amount that the cruiser had launched creating such a blossoming of water and fire that she instantly lost sight of Purifier.

Got her! Without question she had gotten her, but Belfast didn't mistake that for victory. She drifted back and a glance up was enough for her to see the drones that were making their way to the scene.

They were still active, which likely meant Purifier was still active, the maid switching back to where the explosive remnants were settling, expecting to see the Siren there.

She wasn't. There were bits of flotsam that could be debris bobbing in the leftover waves, but there was nothing more than that.

Belfast looked left and right, and then up in the air, but didn't see anything except for those drones. Didn't hear anything. Where…?

Then she looked down and saw the shadow rising beneath her feet.

With a gasp Belfast jumped back but the water was already erupting around her. Something stabbed into her leg, the cruiser instinctively smothering a scream at the onslaught of pain that came not just from the sudden bite, but when that limb was suddenly wrenched forward, her falling back and then flipping around as she was pulled in.

"Hehe, caught you~"

The agony at her leg and her pained grimacing was only part of the problem of her figuring out what was going on, the main one being how Belfast was now suddenly upside down. Her hair and arms hung beneath her, but she was being held aloft high enough that they were shy of touching the water.

Looking to the source of her pain, it was for Belfast to see her right leg trapped in the maw of a hammerhead shark, spikes that hadn't been there before having protruded with the purpose of capturing the limb and doing so by stabbing and gripping it like the teeth that they were pretending to be. Part of her skirt had been caught, keeping Belfast from seeing the full extent of the damage, but how the fabric had become so visibly slick with the blood that began dripping from that shark's jaws was gruesome enough. As was her pain.

Purifier's features slid into her view, replacing the sight of her trapped leg with her own triumphant grin. "You proved to be more fun than I thought you would be!"

The Siren was leaning in close, well within Belfast's arc of fire, and even if she wasn't and Belfast could try and shoot her, the drones that dropped on either side of her, their cannons leveled at her, made it obvious of the reprisal that she would be tempting if she did.

Frigid horror wrapped around Belfast's heart with the realization that she was caught with her unable to do anything as she refaced the Siren.

"You even got quite a hit on me!" Florescent blood trailed down the Siren's face, but she uncaring of it when she brought up a hand and lifted ruined bangs, unveiling the ragged wound of torn skin over her scalp, and the cracked casing that was the skull beneath. "See? See?"

It wasn't just the wound there. From what Belfast could see and make out from her position, there were additional cuts along Purifier's form, some with accompanying dents, and that sailor uniform partially torn. It was her gear that seemed to have taken the brunt of Belfast's torpedo strike, the cruiser able to make out the serrated edges of armor that hinted to breaches that disrupted the sleek, shark-like profile.

But it was the wound at her head that Purifier was drawing attention to. The wound that she pulled on, tearing the synthetic skin further, while pressing into it with her fingers, the crack there spreading, glowing ichor spurting out, all the while her smile remained large.

Belfast forced herself to remain unmoved, even when she felt wet specks land upon her face.

Purifier eventually stopped, dropping her arms and folding them upon her knees that were situated in the low crouch she was in so that she could be face-to-upside down face with the cruiser. She tilted her head one way and then the other as she looked at Belfast.

"You don't scream much though," Purifier noted. "Takes some of the fun out of it." Her grin, not having lessened despite the observation, then stretched. "That other one didn't either, even when I blew off her hand!"

Belfast silently glared.

"But you're supposed to be la-dies~" she then sing-songed. She leaned forward a bit more and her hand tapped gently against Belfast's cheek. "And ladies aren't supposed to scream, right?" When she got no response, her tapping became more of a slap. "Right?"

There came another slap, this one stinging.

"Right?"

Slap!

"Right, right, right?"

Slap, slap, slap!

Eyes burning as hot as her cheek, Belfast suddenly punched at Purifier's grinning face.

The Siren caught the fist, the pair of shells that were clenched in it stopping right before they could penetrate her eyes. Her grin became bigger. "Heh."

Both barrels of Belfast's four-inch gun fired directly into that grin.

Purifier's head jerked back, her now looking straight up, but Belfast didn't feel the grip on her hand lessen. After a few seconds, the Siren lowered her head back down, the cruiser unable to see any damage from her ineffectual attack. Not even to wipe that grin off her face.

There came the sound of groaning metal, Belfast trying to keep from grimacing but failing as her features began twitching with pain.

Purifier tightened her grip on her fist. The four-inch gun that had shot at her crunched beneath it, the shells that Belfast held dropping away as the protective plating around her hand gave way beneath the pressure. There came the snap and pop of bones, her fingers standing little chance as they became distorted. Belfast's jaw stubbornly clenched.

"Still nothing?" Purifier's eyes flashed with something that had her lips parting further to show off her teeth. Then she began grinding them together.

Belfast's form shuddered, seized, and shook with more obvious pain.

Above, the teeth that had her leg were busy sawing into it.

A steady drizzling of red fell between Purifier and Belfast, the former watching intently as the latter thrashed uselessly. The muscles and veins in Belfast's neck stiffened and bulged with her struggle to remain silent, her teeth clenching so hard that there was the possibility of them cracking as she heard the ripping of her skirt and felt the tearing of flesh, the scraping against bone.

Fingers seized her hair, bringing her head closer to the ear that Purifier turned to her. "Come on, come on!" she encouraged, giving the maid's head a rough shake. "I can't heeaar yoouuu!"

Belfast remained silent, even as tears gathered beneath her tightly sealed lids, even amongst the present and intensifying fear of the torment that was severing the connecting tendons and tissue of her leg, the bonds they constituted weakening until there would be nothing that was holding what was so vital together.

That was until it stopped.

"Well, this was fun…"

The bone-breaking pressure at her hand vanished along with the grip on her hair, the broken appendage limply falling and hanging alongside badly disheveled hair. Belfast blinked against the sweat and tears that had been stinging her eyes to see Purifier standing back up, slapping her hands together.

"Unfortunately, I think our playtime's over." Belfast's vision cleared enough so that she could see how little the parting was phasing Purifier, who was smiling and waving a hand of farewell. "But hey, thanks for playing! Maybe I'll actually try and remember you if there's a next time!"

Figuring out what she meant by 'next time' was the last thing that Belfast had to worry about. At either side of her, the drones hovered closer. Close enough that she could feel the heat of their gathering energies and the charging of the air as they prepared to fire.

But those sensations, as well as her pain, were suddenly numbed as Belfast stared at the lights and what they meant.

She had been presented with death before. Whether recognizing it in a deteriorating situation or it being right in front of her as it was now, Belfast had faced it. There was always a natural repulsion at meeting it, but overtime Belfast had established such a cooling temperament with the reminder of what she had accomplished and that her life had not been unfulfilling. At times like these, she would think of what she had accomplished, including what had been done right before her death. Her subordinates had escaped, she had given them time, and though she would not be around to see if it was enough, she had at least did that much and had faith in the rest.

But that temperament and those comforts were not with her here.

Instead of the assurances of her fulfillments, what came to her mind was a certain face, and with it everything that created such longing: her name, her voice – what she wanted to speak with again, touch again, be with again. Those missed opportunities that she forced herself to endure, with the calm, collected reasoning that it was for the best, were suddenly hurting so much.

She'd rather not die, but she really didn't want to. Not just because of the natural desire of all beings to want to live, but because of this great regret that suddenly became so unbearably obvious. There was something she still wanted out of this life that she had thought to have been fulfilled. Something that she hadn't been able to obtain and what she wouldn't be able to now. Not with who she wanted to obtain it with.

And that was making something within her scream, forcing her to try and forestall it as her unbroken hand and its mounted gun came up, intent on fighting to the last even as she recognized the inevitably of it.

I'm sorry, Enterprise.

She targeted one of the drones, her barrels aiming right between the two balls of energy which suddenly dissipated.

Confusion halted her, Belfast staring with her arm still pointed. Checking the other drone and seeing it hovering with cooling barrels as well didn't help in her understanding of what was going on.

Before her disbelieving eyes, the drones rose and moved away from her.

"She's here…"

Belfast looked at Purifier.

The Siren wasn't paying any attention to her either. Her head was turned, gaze affixed at a point in the sky. What she was looking at the cruiser didn't know as when she turned to follow it all Belfast saw was their foggy surroundings.

But Purifier was turning towards it, beginning to approach it, so fixated on it that Belfast was suddenly released by her rigging, the cruiser collapsing upon the water.

There came a giggle. "She's here."

With a crippled leg and hand, Belfast did her best to sit up and see what was going on. As she did so, she heard it. A faint buzz, which then grew louder. A sound that she knew very well.

It was the buzzing of a propeller.

"She's here!" Purifier was making her way towards it, her giggle now a cackle, her spinning on one foot, her arms out at either side of her as she repeated it. "She's here, she's here, she's here!"

She stopped, facing towards the coming sound, her arms now out in a welcoming gesture. Belfast couldn't see it, but towards the sky Purifier stared up, her vision narrowing with true focus upon what could be the only thing in the entire world that could draw her attention so.

"It's Enterprise!"

---

From the thickest of the fog a Wildcat burst through. Turning on one wing, it went hard to port, righting itself when it was now traveling in the right direction, and then tipping its nose down as it started its approach on an obvious attack run. Atop its fuselage there came a sudden series of flashes, lights leaping out, and within the air immediately around it four Corsairs came into being.

All five aircraft dove down towards Purifier.

Cheering at them, the Siren's beam cannons fired upon their approaches.

The planes juked in response, but being the central target had the Wildcat taking hits, a beam shaving off layers from its belly while another penetrated at a point almost perfectly between its starboard wing and the cockpit. With fire and smoke, the Wildcat dropped – but not before a figure leapt from it and onto a Corsair that lowered to catch her.

The four planes evened themselves out and made their response to the Siren but not with the bright illuminations of tracers or the heavy loads of bombs. Instead, from beneath their bent wings came sudden plumes of smoke, spears of metal launching like and unlike the missiles of Siren jet fighters. They were fast, unguided, but powerful rockets.

The drones flew from Purifier's side, their lasers intercepting and having some of the rockets explode into balls of fire. Between the number of rockets and their own battle damage, however, some of the munitions got through.

"Woop!" Purifier called as she avoided one, water exploding behind her as it detonated. She avoided another, but a third struck right on top of the head of her rigging, the explosion blowing off a chunk of the mallet-shaped head. Another removed a third of one of its fins along with the beam cannon attached to it. Undeterred – really, excited by the hits – Purifier launched herself up to get away from the rest so that she could fire at the planes again.

Her weapons tore through the Corsair she was aiming for: the one the piloting shipgirl had jumped to. The other three planes retracked and fired at the Siren, this time their tracers mixing with the couple more rockets that were expended. She flew to the side, avoiding what her armor wouldn't deflect, and then she spun around to track the Corsairs when they flew over her, aiming to take down another.

A curious frown suddenly dragged down her lips and then she turned back the other way.

From the burning descent of the Corsair she had shot, Enterprise lunged from it and towards Purifier, her eyes blazing gold.

A bow caught Purifier across her chest, the carrier pushing down and forcing both of them to fall. The Siren had little time to react, and less time now before she crashed back to the ocean, Enterprise on top of her, her knees driving deep into the battleship's middle.

Purifier felt the buckling of her internal structure, the contusing of the bio-like components against such unreal strength, and all she did was laugh before igniting the engines of her rig, spinning it and her around to fling off Enterprise with the tail lashing for her.

Rather than let her, the carrier was already throwing herself off from Purifier, going right over the whipping tail in the process. Purifier continued with her spin anyway, using it to get back to her feet, and she immediately sought to reacquire Enterprise.

What she got was an arrow impacting against her chest.

"Guh!" she involuntarily expressed, and then another arrow exploded in her face. "Gah!"

With her vision temporarily blinded, her drones dropped between her and Enterprise, the machines firing in her defense.

Having been charging back at the Siren, the drones did little to deter Enterprise. She nimbly ducked, dodged, and leapt over the lasers, the last action done so that she could kick one of them, sending it flying away. For the other, she swung with her bow.

The second drone's attempt to fall back failed when the added reach of Enterprise's weapon caught it. The drone's armor, damaged already, failed completely against the force that the thinness of the weapon concentrated to a smaller area, leading to the limb of the bow to not only break through but bisect it completely.

The two halves of the machine hovered there for a moment, electricity sparking between them, and then both blew up.

Purifier registered the loss, but was unable to do anything, her vision only now clearing from the smoke and concussing hits. And what she saw immediately after showed that she had a much bigger problem.

That being Enterprise crouched below her, her bow raised, and the head of another arrow pointing directly at Purifier's chest, its point brimming with the same power of an unlocked Awakening that she could see clearly in Enterprise's eyes.

Then Enterprise released it.

"Waaaaaaah-ahahahahaha!" Purifier's cry became full-on hysterics when the arrow caught and then sent her towards the skies.

The compromising of her central compartment, the heat of reddening metal immediately around the penetration, the acceleration that drove one deeper while the other led to the torturous bending and morphing of her construction.

It was all so fantastic.

As was the moment when the arrow detonated.

---

Enterprise didn't spare the following fireball a glance, her already turning her back to it as she searched around.

She quickly found her. "Belfast!"

The golden light in the carrier's eyes disappeared, her wanting and needing to see her friend with her own sight as she immediately sped to her.

Belfast was balancing herself precariously on her one knee, her other leg splayed out awkwardly, which had her using her one hand to keep her steady. Hearing her name, the cruiser looked up and stared at Enterprise with a look that said she couldn't believe that the Eagle ace was here.

"Enterprise…?" she asked, the verbal question just as unsure.

Enterprise shoved her bow into her rigging, dropping to her knees when she was about to reach Belfast, sliding the rest of the way as she judged that to be the quickest and best way possible for her to immediately wrap her arms around the cruiser and pull her into a tight embrace.

Her warmth Enterprise basked in, beset by what felt so good and of such relief with her in her arms. The vice that had been crushing her chest relented as soon as Belfast was brought against her, but it wasn't enough. Her one arm locked tight around her thin and slender body, what she wanted to keep tucked to her forever while the hand of the other that was around her shoulders brushed along the back of her head, fingers running through her hair, touching an ear which had it running along a smooth cheek.

"I made it," she whispered fiercely to Belfast, but mostly to herself as it went on like a mantra in her head. She made it. She made it, she made it, she made it. "I made it."

When had she ever felt so happy to have arrived on a battlefield, just in time?

Belfast was still in her arms, not responding in kind, but Enterprise would've been fine with just being able to hug and touch her like this. Then the maid's own arm came up, wrapping at first loosely, and then tightening.

"Enterprise," Belfast then said quietly, the most beautiful thing that the carrier could think of hearing right now. Then her voice rose, letting Enterprise better hear how it was thick with what she couldn't convey when she said her name again, the cruiser doing her part to try and sink deeper into the embrace. "Enterprise."

Lost in whatever emotion that was lacing her voice and actions so, Belfast tried to grab her with her other arm – which was when she jerked and made a smothered noise that was of obvious pain.

Enterprise instantly pulled back, looking over, and that was when she saw the mess that was her hand; the broken fingers and the crushed metal of her armor and miniature gun that was around them like some crude cast.

Then she noticed the pooling blood in the water and saw Belfast's leg.

Borrowing an example of Hornet's vocabulary that managed to sum up everything perfectly when inflected with the right amount of horror she felt, Enterprise wrenched open the medical compartment of her rig and tore out the aid kit stored there.

Suffice to say, she didn't think her arrival was as 'on time' as she originally thought anymore.

"Your leg!" she exclaimed. "Let me see it!"

Guided by her self-treatment of her own injuries – and of the helpful advice Vestal would give when criticizing and then correcting her sloppy applications – Enterprise applied the tourniquet before beginning to dress the leg, fighting against the wave of nausea when she got a good look at the extent of the damage.

She'd seen plenty of gruesome injuries, but other than the terrible memories that this specific kind invoked, it being Belfast who had such a thing made it so revolting.

But she retained enough of her reasoning to recognize that Belfast wasn't that critical. The injury was awful, but a shipgirl's healing capabilities could be just as impressive as their strength. Enterprise was just making sure that it wasn't going to get worse until Belfast could get treatment at a repair facility.

It didn't instill much comfort though, especially when she saw the rest of the damage done to her and her gear. After finishing with the dressing, Enterprise reached over, her palms cupping Belfast's cheeks, wishing she could do something about how ashen her face was or how her usually bright and mirthful countenance had become burdened with fatigue and anguish.

Belfast's eyes met with hers, Enterprise seeing for herself the glassy sheen that was over them, her heart getting ripped to pieces in the process, but then the cruiser reached up with her good hand, taking one of Enterprise's and holding it close while she nuzzled against the other. She closed her eyes, a droplet slipping from one, but her lips turning into a small smile as she surrendered to the carrier's touch.

Then they shot open, growing huge while Enterprise experienced a welling of disbelief and rage when there came that manic giggling.

"HeY, hEy, hey~" came the call, having become more distorted. "wHat AbOUt me~ LOOk At mE~"

With a storm she knew to be clouding over her features, Enterprise removed her hands from Belfast, stood up to her feet, and did just that while she reached back for her bow.

"HAhaHahAhaHa," Purifier laughed, the volume fading in and out, and hardly discernable anyway with how it crackled.

Smoke rose from the charred skin, some of her blood that leaked bubbling faintly from the heat. Her sailor uniform was mostly gone, nothing left hanging but shredded, singed strips, but all that was exposed was the mess of metal parts, misshapen beyond recognition, and torn, leaking materials that were of some mockery to actual, organic materials that had been blasted into the open by Enterprise's attack.

The Siren's head was hanging lopsided upon the crooked stand that was her neck, tiny flames burning at the ends of select locks from her disheveled hair. The head wound that Belfast had inflicted and what she further aggravated had grown, the entire patch of skin from the center of her forehead to above her left eye gone, complete with the eyebrow. What was left was more of the metallic casing, further cracked, and leaking more of her fluids that dripped down her eye but what didn't even blink.

"I wAS sO worRIed- OH, hOLd oN!"

As she was speaking, Purifier's head started sagging and tilting to the left, clearly not of her control. She reached up, gripping her chin with one hand, centering it while the other formed into a fist and punched into the side of her neck. There was a bulge there, one that was being pushed back in before it stopped. Purifier punched it again.

After a third punch there came a snap followed by a vibrating clack, the bulge disappearing, and Purifier worked her head around.

"A JO-ooooke that a certain sore loser decided to play on me," she explained, the action having apparently improved her voice. "I think I fixed it now."

Both her eyes sparked oddly, a tiny wisp of smoke now exuding from one ear. All the malfunction did was make her giggle, it and her glowing, bloodstained smile making her look more deranged.

Enterprise glared, her bow back in her hand as she started approaching.

"As I was saying," Purifier restarted, taking a wobbly step to the carrier as well. "I was so worried, Enterprise, with how Orochi broke you! I didn't think you'd ever get yourself fixed! But here you are, even better than last time! If it weren't for this new body of mine, there probably wouldn't be anything left of me right now."

"I'll fix that for you," the Eagle girl threatened, stopping when only meters separated them.

Purifier vibrated with the crackling cackle she emitted. "And jokes, too! I'd gladly take the offer but, you see, I had my turn so I have to go back in line! It's someone else's turn now! I'm just here to set up the meeting!"

"Who?"

Purifier didn't answer, appearing to be waiting as she stood there smiling.

Enterprise raised her bow, pulling the string back as an arrow formed. Sighting down it, Enterprise aimed directly at that demented visage, brilliant gold seeping into her eyes as she drew on her power.

She was going to destroy he-

The gold in her eyes stuttered madly, Enterprise reeling as the tint falling over her vision became tainted with darkness, the colors swirling along with everything in front of her, dizzying vertigo hitting and getting her to stumble.

"̵̘͆̈́͗Y̷̡̤̯͍̥̘̅͋̎̒ ̶̜̩̙͇̤̮̼̀̍̈́̉Ô̴̦̙̑̄̄̃̇ ̴̢̢̮͚̠͋̿̈́Ũ̸̡̧̡̼͓͇͗̎̕͝͠͠!̵̨̢͈̠͙̳̀̏̄͘͝"̶̡̻̟̭͚̔͒̓̄͝

Enterprise spasmed, her back locking, her bow falling from her grip and landing upon the water with a splash as she suddenly lost control, the sudden seizure that went through her paralyzing her limbs. Within her mind, the numbing white noise came again.

"̷̱͖͎̺̣͓̗̞̏̓͛́͐̃̐Y̸͍̯͈̤̤̯̆̚͝ ̶̛̬͉̼̮̩̝͉́̉͌̄̓̚͠O̸͇̠͈͊͋͘ ̴̟̄̏͝ͅŨ̶̥͓̦͔̣͛͐̿͝ͅ ̵̩̘̦̫̿̈̄Y̷̨̧̬̰̣͒̄̆̂͋̏ ̵̠̣̔͝Ò̴͓̱͕̝̙͆̃͜͝ ̴͈͓̩͇̐̒͜U̵̢̧͙̹̠̟͠ ̷̧͎̺̹̣͓̞̋̏Ỷ̴̨̡̖̞͙͆̈͊̔̕͜ ̷͍͚͓̐̾̕̕͝ͅǪ̸̠̼̘͇̀̽͝ ̵͚̞͕̏̈͑͆Ų̵̞͇͓̰̹̱̠̌̒͌̐̕ ̶͎̥͙͊̽͛͝ͅͅỲ̷̭̤̞̲͉̭̖̗̅̀̚ ̴̖̀̍̍͛̚͠O̸̠̜͔̜̮̫̥̓ ̴̡̧̳̐U̸͓͉͓͍̾̿̈͑̂̑̚!̸͍̦̪͓̙̱̎͐̌̕̕͝!̴̞̑̿̐̆̐!̸͒̒̆͜!̶͔̺͔̗͓͘"̶̮̖̝̫̗̃͆̅͘͝

The voice! Its violence, its malice, descending upon her mind as the paralysis did over her body. Enterprise went to grab her head, but her hands didn't get far, stuck as tightly as the rest of her.

"Someone wishes to speak with you~"

Purifier had come to stand in front of Enterprise. With the Eagle ace unable to do anything, the Siren reached up, a compartment opening in her damaged rigging that her hand dug in. And what she brought out…

Enterprise's eyes went wide, her gasping, and then forgetting the next part that came with breathing as she stared at what Purifier held.

A broken, floating, crystal fragment, pulsing with dreadfully familiar colors.

No! she now mentally gasped. No, no, no!

Why was it here? It was supposed to be destroyed! She destroyed it! It shouldn't be here! It's supposed to be gone! Gone, gone, gone – never to haunt her again! She remembered-

A particularly strong pulse came from the fragment at the same time that the presence that flooded into her head seized the string of the memory. Then it began following it to the source.

"̵̟͜Y̸̛͚̞͚͐̕͠ ̶̡̤̍͛͘͠È̶͓̉̏ ̶̡̘̬͙̃S̷̰̎̐̊!̸̣̺̘͓͂͐̋"̴̤̗̪̿̇͝

Stay away!

Her plea was ignored as the invading entity found itself at the walls that it had attempted to overpower previously. It rammed against it, Enterprise shaking as the answering pain stabbed out to repel it.

The presence retreated but only a step. Then it advanced again, carefully, sliding against the walls.

Until it found the flaw that Enterprise had made.

And then it began to flow in.

"̶̧͍͚̐̆͒Y̷̬̙͊̒̆͝ ̷̡̹̟̾͝ȯ̵̧̞͙͝ ̶̭̳̻̦͌̌̏u̵̬̍͌͒̓ ̶̝͇̌͑W̷̖̖̃͘ͅ ̸̱͛̓͘i̵̢͚̓ ̷̢̝̬͕͂̄̅l̴̲͙͒́ ̴̡̦̯̑l̸͉̬̖̩͒̌̈́ ̸̟̲̈́Ṛ̸̗̾̕ ̵̨̝͑̍͝e̵͓̟̗̋̈́̅̌ ̷͉̖̌̆͋̍m̷̦̀̌ ̶̠͖̣̺̌͂̂͠ě̷̤̻̍͜͜ ̵̡̌͠m̷̨͎̦̌̀̿ ̵͚͖̖͊b̴͔͝ͅ ̵̛̫̤͖̀̑e̷̻͎̽̔ ̶̛̭̺̈̚r̵̫̦̋̉!̶̪̣̥͐̌͐"̴̹̯͝

There came a different tap against her head. Her attention split, Enterprise barely registered how the fragment was now against her forehead, Purifier keeping it pressed there with a finger.

"Annnnnnnd…boop!"

Purifier pushed.

Without breaking the skin, the fragment phased through, disappearing into Enterprise's head without leaving a mark of passing.

The light instantly vanished from the carrier's eyes – the golden light and the light of life, making them dead and empty. The intense struggle also ended, the strings cut, and Enterprise fell, collapsing upon the water's surface.

---

Purifier nudged the unmoving Enterprise with her foot as she leaned over her, inspecting her, and then she barked out a laugh. "Hey, that went rather well!" She paused, looked at herself, and she shook with added humor. "Some are going to disagree, I guess!"

Observer was going be one of them, probably. She did say that she wanted Purifier to take care of it. Oh well, eggs and omelettes, forgiveness and permission, elbow grease, blah, blah blah. Purifier didn't need access to Observer's repertoire of smarty human sayings to come up with something and throw it back at her.

Well, she was going to need something to do now, what with the wait that she's going to have to put up with-

Shells exploded against her rigging.

The Siren paused, her head canting as she watched smoking, burning fragments of her gear rain down in front of her.

…Was she forgetting something? Purifier looked up, her smile for once missing as she was more confused by what had just happened.

"Get away from her!" Belfast demanded.

Purifier stared with continued perplexity at the maid-dressed cruiser who stood as best as she could, shaking with the weight she was putting against one leg, the other heavily wrapped in bandages. Her one arm hung at her side, with the iron-wrapped pulp of flesh and bone that was her hand. The other was up though, holding onto the shells there. What turrets that weren't partially melted traversed their barrels towards her.

Oh yeeeaaaah…. Purifier remembered her little toy now. Such a very nice look that she had currently, too. Buuuuuuut….

Purifier turned her back to Belfast.

She had gotten bored of it.

The corner of her lips quirked into a dark smile when the beams suddenly shot down from high up, striking directly at one of Belfast's turrets. The armor melted and boiled instantly, the turret disappearing as the beams entered…and found its magazine.

Purifier listened for it but still didn't hear her scream, even when the magazine exploded and hot shrapnel lacerated the cruiser's uniform and the skin beneath. The explosion sent her tumbling and then slamming into the water, blood from the newly created wounds and the oil of her gear showering where she landed along with the debris. She came to a rest, as unmoving as Enterprise, surrounded by the bleeding and smoking wreckage…and the bubbling that began as her gear started taking on water.

So what now? Purifier asked herself again as her surviving drone came to hover next to her. She glanced at Enterprise again, waiting, but when nothing happened she began to balance on her heels. She could go back and make strafing runs against that little fort as she had been doing, but she didn't want to leave. She wanted to be right here, not missing a moment.

"Don't take too long," she said towards Enterprise before she began to rock back and forth, clasping her hands behind her as she began singing. "London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down~"

Speaking of which, she wondered how Observer's predictions were going when it came to that.

---

"Knight Commander, we have additional ships incoming," Curlew reported.

George grinned shortly but there was a sour tracing of it that spilled into her response. "The Sirens want to keep at it, do they?"

Even with Enterprise's departure from the battle it remained in their favor, the Siren fleets unable to make any kind of gains that didn't end with them being blown to pieces, their leadership decapitated, and forcing the next one in line to meet the same fate. Unfortunately, the Knight Commander couldn't take as much joy in it now with how their problems had gone beyond this engagement.

She waited for her main batteries to launch another thunderous salvo and then she turned on her heel, opening a private channel during the silence as they reloaded, replaced by the distant report of her shells hitting, claiming another kill. "Massachusetts, I need you up front."

The battleship next to hers dispersed, the girl upon its deck falling and then speeding ahead upon the water, her cannons now mounted at her sides as she replied, "Right away."

If there was another Siren fleet coming, George was going to need her firepower to make sure her breakout force would get through and make their way to Devonport. The reports that Curlew had been updating her on were far from reassuring; what recon flights and investigating ships that could be spared and had been sent from their other outposts having been late in their updates, with any attempts to communicate with them having failed. This included their cruiser squadron and now Enterprise.

Even George was not immune to the uncertainty that could be instilled with developments that went outside her preferred conduct in how to fight battles, and the Sirens were certainly playing a new type of game. She did have questions about if the decisions she was making were the wisest – that she may in fact be putting the shipgirls of her command in greater danger by making the moves she was so limited in choosing because of the hectic and unknown circumstances.

But the inaction of too much second guessing can end up being far more costly, she told herself. As is the hesitation if you let it linger.

Her only remedy was to act as she believed to be best, and to trust in those she led as much as they trusted her to lead them.

"Curlew, how far out are the new arrivals?" she asked next, coming to her attendant. For now, the decisions she needed to focus on making was how to create the best opening for the breakout.

The maid did not reply immediately, her looking out at the estuary with a pair of binoculars. When she lowered them, it was for her to then turn and offer them to George. "You're going to want to look at this."

The suggestion was of the cool unperturbedness of such a veteran shipgirl that Curlew was, but the wording was all the recommendation George needed for her to grab the binoculars and bring them up for her to see through them.

She spotted the new fleet in short order – a gathering of black and red hulls, all sailing towards the battle in perfect formation.

But George immediately recognized there being something off with these ships. The glowing red highlights that were the mark of Siren ships were absent on these warships, and the black and red coloring was not as total. There was the gray of iron, the brown of wooden decks, and a quick sweep of the main guns of a few of them revealed not a collection of laser turrets and beam cannons but the long, smooth barrels extending from squat turrets.

There was the jagged impressions of jaws on a few of their prows, but the construction of these ships was much more human-like. And when a just-as-human form happened to float into the view of the binoculars, George saw not gray, alien skin but a uniform of black and red, with gear that brandished dominate maws of ferocious metal beasts.

The new fleet that was making all speed to the battle wasn't a Siren fleet. It was Iron Blood.

And the ship in the middle, the flagship…

She had already been one of the largest battleships ever built by human hands, but the modifications she had undergone since her construction made her ship a true iron behemoth. Armor that had already been formidable and was now rumored to be impenetrable, all the while being such a stable platform for the massive dual turrets that acted as her main and secondary batteries that had single-handedly led to the destruction of what has become well over a thousand Siren ships. That was before they had then become turned against the ships of Azur Lane who were not immune to the intimidation that being the targets of them created.

George adjusted the binoculars to better see her: the caped figure that stood at the forefront of her deck, standing as tall as the standard that she held planted at her side, the flag waving, the full expanse of the red background and the black iron cross that stretched down it free for all to see.

But that flag was just a flag when next to this shipgirl. She was the true representation of the iron and blood that would give rise to the great empire that had come to be equal to those that had already come long before it, and its power that had allowed it to defy and challenge them all. That strength was her strength, her name alone an icon that that reddened cloth couldn't compare with once someone heard it, with the eyes that would be drawn going to her instead of it.

Bismarck.

Iron Blood's most powerful battleship lifted that flag, initiating the activity that immediately took over the fleet: warships flashing, transforming into the rigs of the shipgirls that accelerated forward whether by air or by sea. From the deck of a singular aircraft carrier, planes arose: Bf 109s, escorting Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers and Fi 167 torpedo bombers.

As for the warships that were left behind, their barrels elevated in time with that of their flagship, ready to fire at her command.

But which of us do you see as the enemy today? George silently asked Bismarck who remained at the center of her view.

Bismarck slammed her flag back down and the entire Iron Blood fleet fired.