Ryan had never seen the harbor bustling with so much activity since he had assumed his place as commanding officer of the base.
Preparations needed to be made to face the upcoming threat of the Original Sirens, so it was time for the flagships to take their leave and go back to their homeland. Not only that, but the fleet tasked with searching for the Ashes' location was ready to depart at any time.
It was decided to set sail in three separate fleets. The Sakura Empire, the Dragon Empery, and the Northern Parliament delegations would all follow the same route until they parted ways for their respective homelands. The European delegations—the Royal Navy, the Iris Orthodoxy, and the Iron Blood—would do the same, following a different course than their allies. Lastly, the search fleet would follow an entirely different route under Helena's guidance.
For that reason, bulins and manjuus were hustling around, resupplying all the designated warships with provisions for long trips, and running the last checkups before departure.
The docks were teeming with Kansen wanting to say their goodbyes and wish good luck to their faction leaders, friends, comrades, sisters… and brothers.
The Royal Navy Kansen were there to send off their queen and her escort, with Elizabeth taking advantage of every last second to revel in her subjects' attention. The same was happening with the Iron Blood and the other factions, with Hood waiting her turn to say her goodbye to Bismarck.
Aquila and Chaser were chatting with Sparviero and Emperor before bidding them farewell. The Royal escort carrier, having to follow her queen back home, was a bit downcast at the prospect of leaving her newfound brother so soon; the time they had spent together felt like a blur to her, and Emperor was doing his best to console her, hugging her and patting her head affectionately.
Dunkerque was finally out of her hospital bed, albeit sitting on a wheelchair pushed by Vestal. She was surrounded by her Iris and Vichya comrades, who were wishing her all the best before leaving, with the promise of an Orthodoxy delegation soon to be stationed at the base as to not leave her alone during her recovery.
Meanwhile, Richelieu was lecturing Le Malin on the proper etiquette to uphold during her stay with the other Kansen. Yorktown was happily conversing with Akagi, thanking her for taking so much of her time just for her, while Kurama and Kaga were waiting on the side. The white fox was trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible to hide the not-so-subtle marks on her neck.
Leviathan and August were hugging each other close. The shipgirl's duties as senior Kansen back in her homeland and the shipboy having to take part in the search fleet meant they wouldn't see each other for a while, and they were making the most of every second they could before parting ways.
"This isn't goodbye, my dear. You don't need to be so desperate," August said, her head resting in the crook of his neck.
Leviathan's eyebrow quirked up. "August, you are the one clinging to me like a limpet on a rock, you know?"
"Comparing your mistress to a mollusk, how dare you?" She replied sarcastically.
"Ahem…"
Someone cleared their throat next to them, and they parted to acknowledge their presence. It was Deutschland, who was regarding them with an uncharacteristically uncomfortable expression.
August understood immediately and took her leave, sending a telling look toward Leviathan, who responded with a nod of his head.
"What is it, Deutschland?" He asked her.
"Oh, nothing important." The Iron Blood shipgirl shrugged. "As you know, my sister is coming with you to search for the Ashes, while I'm forced to go back home with Bismarck and the others. I want to make sure you understand that just because I'll be far away doesn't mean you are allowed to put her in danger. You already know what happens if she gets a single scratch because of you."
"Thanks for helping my sister; please, look after her while I'm away." Leviathan mentally translated. "Don't worry, Deutschland; I won't allow anyone to lay a finger on her."
"Yeah, you better." The shipgirl turned on her heels, but before she could walk away, she turned her head to look at him with a demurer expression. "Also, thanks for everything you've done for her," she added right before leaving.
Leviathan let out a soft, pleased smile. In the end, it seemed that August was right. Deutschland had finally warmed up to him; too bad they had to part ways so soon.
Since arriving at the base, the shipboy had been keeping his promise, helping Admiral Graf Spee with the issue of her gauntlets. The two carved out some time for themselves whenever they could, so that Leviathan could teach her how to manipulate her own Cube; it didn't take long for her to pick up on it, enforcing his theory of this world's Kansen being much more attuned to their Cubes than him and his keen. By now, Spee was perfectly able to take them off at a moment's notice by focusing on her Cube's wavelength, but she still struggled with putting them on, having to do it manually, but the thought didn't bother her as much as it did before. Thanks to that, and thanks to the friends she had found in Javelin and the other destroyers, her mood had taken a turn for the better.
They had become such close friends that both Spee and Javelin had gone to their respective flagships together to beg them to be officially transferred under Ryan's command and remain at the base so that they could spend more time with their friends. It took a bit of convincing, especially for the queen, but in the end, both Elizabeth and Bismarck gave their approval, but only after Spee and Javelin promised not to slack off, of course. Now that both were officially part of Ryan's fleet, Spee could volunteer to accompany Leviathan and the others in the search of the Ashes, and that's exactly what she did.
Aside from Spee, Leviathan, the two other shipboys—Emperor and Lenin—and Hermione, who was still officially under Elizabeth's command despite being Emperor's personal maid, and Le Malin, who was there as a representative of the Iris Orthodoxy but also for personal caprice, the rest of the fleet was composed by Kansen stationed at the base. The others were: Helena, Enterprise, Zuikaku, Alabama, and Howe.
Carabiniere was going to the Sakura Empire with the other group, along with Massachusetts. According to Shinano, having more "masters of the Cubes" to help her in case only one wouldn't be enough for her plan to work was the best bet, so Freedom and Sparviero were going with Kurama and the Japanese delegation to the Sakura Empire.
The problem was that the two shipgirls were both under Ryan's command and needed to get his permission before being essentially relieved of their duties, even if for a brief amount of time. Massachusetts said that she wanted to "try something" and needed to get as far as possible from the base to do so, and the trip was the perfect chance. On the other hand, Carabiniere, according to Littorio, was getting rather uneasy at the prospect of leaving her charge (boyfriend) for an extended period of time. In the end, Ryan relented under their insistence and allowed them both to go, with the promise that they wouldn't cause trouble for Nagato back in the Sakura Empire.
Of course, Kiyomi was going with them; the chairwoman had decided to add her own escort to the fleet and head for her homeland, where she'd assist Nagato with the preparations and inform her peers in the council of everything that transpired during her "inspection" of the base. Nimitz, instead, was staying back for a few more days to help Ryan with logistics before departing for his station in New York's port and resuming his own work.
Ryan, after saying his goodbyes to the flagships and the chairwoman, and after wishing good luck to his Kansen and the shipboys, went to stand on the docks, like he had been doing rather frequently lately. He watched with the Admiral and all the other shipgirls on base as the large number of warships raised anchor and began sailing through the bay. They filed out of the entrance in turns as the deafening sound of their horns blared in the air in a loud cacophony, accompanied by the cheers and cries of the Kansen around him as they waved goodbye to their friends.
Once the last of the warships had left, a hand came to rest on his shoulder, and he turned to see Admiral Nimitz's wrinkled face smiling at him.
"Better get back inside, son; we've got a lot of work to do."
"Yes sir."
AN: As I said in chapter thirty-seven, this was going to be a very short chapter, and that's because I'm taking a short break after this... from updating, not writing.
Let me explain. The thing is, up until now, I've been writing many chapters in advance because I wanted to maintain a consistent update schedule of around one chapter per week while also having plenty of time to deal with real-life stuff in case it presented itself.
I have to say, I've been doing a pretty damn fine job at it; I've never missed a single update, and I've been churning out chapters with an average of 6k words each, which, if I have to be honest, is something I've never seen people do in all the years I've spent reading fanfictions on this site, with a few exceptions, of course.
But enough self-congratulation and back to the story. As of the moment of writing this, I've been reduced to only three chapters ahead. In a normal situation, I wouldn't have a problem with simply upping the pace at which I write since I'm not even close to experiencing burnout, but unfortunately, I can predict that the next months of my life will be rather hectic, which means I won't have that much time to keep up.
Don't worry, I won't disappear without notice only to reappear months or a year later with an apology as many authors do due to a lack of inspiration or general laziness. I'm having too much fun writing this story, and I intend to see it through to the end. I'm only skipping the next couple of updates, but no more than that; during the next two or three weeks, I'll just get more chapters in line to give myself an extra edge before delving into the next arc.
And without even doing it on purpose, last chapter marked the end of Act 3, while this interlude acts as the prologue for Act 4, which will lead us toward the endgame. Keep in mind that just because this chapter is called "interlude" doesn't mean there will be forty more chapters before the end of the story; if things go as planned, it should be roughly twenty, maximum thirty.
Also, for anyone interested, I wanted to give some background on how this whole thing started in the first place.
Basically, I got to know Azur Lane after watching that clusterfuck that was the anime; it was so bad that it convinced me to check out the game and see what it actually was about. It was also the time I started getting into fanfictions; I already knew and read a few of them, but I started doing it more regularly only after playing the game and only because I stumbled upon a few of the most known at the time, like the evergreen "Chronicles of the Siren War" by SabatonBabylon, while I was trying to learn a bit more about the lore.
Unfortunately, I haven't played the game for the longest time for various reasons (no, I didn't go bankrupt for spending all my savings on shipfus, if that's what you are thinking), but I never actually stopped thinking about it; the nostalgia remained lingering in the back of my mind for months, eventually resulting in the initial concept of the story you are reading.
In the beginning, it wasn't supposed to last this long; the joint Azur Lane fleet and the Commander were supposed to get lost inside a massive Mirror Sea, where they'd find their male counterparts in the same predicament, and they would start fighting the Sirens side by side to escape. It would have ended with everyone going back to their world after the expiration of the Mirror Sea, and it would have lasted around ten chapters. But then one idea after another started building up, and I thought, "Why not? Why shouldn't I find a way to squeeze it in there?" and before I realized it, the story turned into a full novel.
And speaking of the story, this is a good time to ask you for a proper review. Grammar, pacing, exposition, action, dialogues, character introspection and interactions—or anything you might have an issue with, this is the time to address it. I'm not saying that I will necessarily act on them, but I promise that I'll take them into consideration. I'm writing this story mainly for two reasons: to improve my writing in a non-native language and because I wanted to dump into writing all the stuff that has been cooking in my mind for all this time. If the complaints are for the main plot or the basic premise of the story, though, I'll graciously take them too, but I won't budge; if your problem is just "there's shipboys, so it automatically sucks," then I ask you not to bother and go take a walk.
Although I guess this wouldn't be an issue in the first place for those who've read this far.
Or if you want you can just say what you think about my OCs or which one is your favorite; I'm genuinely curious about it.
Also, remember that I'm always open for clarification on stuff regarding the story, so don't be afraid to PM me if something isn't clear; I'd hate to leave people confused about something just because of some oversight on my part or a lack of clarity in my writing.
And that's about it. I think I've been dragging this AN for long enough, so I better stop here.
You'll hear from me again in two to three weeks, depending on how satisfied I am with the progress I've made.
And to quote a certain guru of this community, "Fair winds and following seas!"
Next Chapter: The Curtain Rises, the Mist Falls