Disclaimer [read by Enterprise]
The following is a nonprofit fanfiction. AZUR LANE and all associated characters are property of Manjuu Ltd., Yongshi Ltd., and Yostar Games. Please support the official release. Awaiting your arrival at port, Commander!
Steel Oceans Under Different Skies
CHAPTER 1: THE COMING STORM
Thunder rumbled outside as the storm settled in, the first drops of rain pattering on the roof of my house. "Another day, another storm," I muttered, no stranger to the Nature Coast's "2 PM summer storms" that the weathermen loved to report on.
It was the rainy season in the area, and with the hurricane season just around the corner, it was a lot of wet. Not that I really minded, of course - given the sea breeze fronts that blew the weather in, I got a perfect view from my street of the westward-moving clouds. They were a beautiful shade of slate gray, with flashes of white and hints of deep blue inside, and they never failed to remind me how beautiful Florida could be. Of course, these were still storms, with lightning that could lance down and take me out were I to stand too far outside the safe walls of my house, or could hit a telephone pole and play havoc with the electricity. Those instances were rare, of course, but when lightning flashed down close to my home and ripped the air with a tremendous crack, it always made me jump. Thank goodness for surge protectors on my computer...
Speaking of which, I'd just fired up Bluestacks, an Android emulator that ran on Windows 10, to get some work in on what I'd come to know as "the Fox Mine". It was the colloquial name for World 3-4 on a rather popular "Collect 'Em All" game featuring anime girls that were the personifications of World War II-era warships, a little game called "Azur Lane". I'd gotten into it mainly because of the cute shipgirls, of course, but it was a nice little game with a simple and remarkably generous gacha system, filled to the brim with enough naval history trivia and lore to make it interesting, and packing an epic and interactive retelling of the war in the Pacific theater. Everything from Pearl Harbor, the Midway strike, and Guadalcanal had a presence in the game, and there was lore aplenty about the European front.
And that was without even talking about the shipgirls and how faithful the developers had been to the warships they represented, from the Japanese Kongou-class fast battleships to the German Scharnhorst-class battlecruisers, from the tiny yet mighty Fubuki-class destroyers to the massive 60,000 ton Iowa-class battleships. Every shipgirl was lovingly represented, and there were few games that had managed to do the subject matter anywhere near the same justice. But for me, the cream of the crop was the Sakura Empire's almighty First Carrier Division: Kaga, a no-nonsense carrier with a cool and collected attitude, and Akagi, a fiery and passionate carrier with a temper and a love that could set the ocean ablaze. It helped that the pair were exceptionally gorgeous nine-tailed foxes (and that I was into fox girls only made me fall harder), with a long and proud history in the game and in real life, and that both were among the best carriers in the entire game. For a time, a six-Kansen fleet with Kaga and Akagi was the meta-defining answer to just about every opponent, and if the player could muster the skill and luck to bring them home, no one could touch them.
While their power and sheer might was undeniable, though, that was not my main draw. No, instead, before I'd gotten into the game, I'd read up on the lore to see just what I was getting myself into. And what was revealed to me was a carrier being offered a promise by Sirens, the primary antagonists of the game's storyline, in exchange for her service... that promise being the revival of her long-since-dead sister-ship, a sister Akagi had back when she was still a battlecruiser, the battlecruiser Amagi. And she had fallen for it, and had sold herself and the Sakura Empire to the Sirens, with the hope that someday, her beloved sister would be brought back.
But it wasn't just the Sakura Empire the Sirens made dance on strings, either. In the lore of the game, the Sirens drew the Iron Blood - the game's version of Nazi Germany - in with the allure of Siren tech to beat back the Sirens themselves. The Sirens, in turn, used the Iron Blood to further their own designs, and the Iron Blood had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. Thus, the Sakura Empire and Iron Blood formed the Crimson Axis, with the Sirens lurking in the background and manipulating everything to suit their own goals as Kansen (the game's term for the shipgirls) fought against Kansen on the high seas. And it made my blood boil, and my fists clench, just reading about how the Sirens had tricked and manipulated people into doing their dirty work for them, turning Kansen against Kansen, friend against friend, ally against ally as the Azur Lane and Crimson Axis battled in the open waters and beneath the waves.
The worst part? The navies that had formed the Crimson Axis were once part of the original Azur Lane, an anti-Siren alliance formed in the wake of the first Siren attack. The very navies and shipgirls fighting the good guys now had once fought against the Sirens at first, and it was the Sirens who'd turned them, making them fight against their former allies. It was an absolutely despicable move, and the more I read, the more it made me angry. These were digital representations of historical warships, pixels on a screen representing ships whose time had long passed, and yet I couldn't help but feel a burning rage at the thought of the Sirens playing people for fools and using their emotions against them. And I couldn't help but think of the Crimson Axis navies not as enemies but as allies who had just lost their way.
I wanted nothing more than to punch the Sirens in the throat and make them pay for what they'd done.
And so, I'd thrown myself into the game, wanting to see just how I could fight back against the Sirens in a virtual world, to build a multi-navy fleet that could crush the Sirens beneath the weight of its might. For me, no Kansen was off limits - whether she was a member of the Azur Lane, or a Crimson Axis Kansen, no shipgirl was too evil to earn a place in my fleets, and I was willing to give any Kansen the benefit of the doubt. Some players had their choice of favorites, but for me, every Kansen was equal and every Kansen deserved a place on the front lines. Were it not for the six-ship limit for deployments, a limit of three vanguard ships in the front and the main fleet in the back, I'd have had every Kansen in my docks out there, kicking ass and taking names.
Which lead me to my current goal, and why I was still on Chapter 3. Chapter 3 revolved entirely around Midway, and the main antagonists were none other than Akagi and Kaga. In the story, Kaga had fallen in 3-1, and Akagi had met the same fate in 3-2. However, there was one node in 3-4 that was the only place where one could recruit both of the Sakura Empire's top carriers: the Boss Node, involving Hiryuu. For twelve days now I'd thrown myself against 3-4, hoping for the .75% chance that either one of the Sakura Empire's greatest carriers would appear, and even incidentally reuniting Enterprise with her sister-ship, Yorktown. While that was a nice bonus, telling history to go crawl back under its rock in the process, that was not the real goal. Instead, the main goal was to get those carriers into my fleets and onto the front lines, ready to fight against the Sirens. And yesterday, I'd come away with a win in the form of the snowy white Kaga... who then immediately joined the Avenger Fleet, fighting alongside Enterprise.
It had been a glorious sight, and a victory hard won. And so, with one Sakura Empire carrier in my collection, and a second out there, I had to go get her. And so, I opened the game, and logged into my main account. "Okay, today's run through the Fox Mine is brought to you by the letter 'A' and the number 0.75," I joked as I clicked the mouse. "Let's go get you, Akagi! Alright, Sirens, just who the hell do you think we are?!"
With that, I was off.
The storm continued to rage outside as I pitted myself repeatedly against the Siren-controlled Hiryuu, knowing the Second Carrier Division's time would eventually come as well (I was not looking forward to the Rabbit Mine). Again and again, Hiryuu fell, and each time the battle was over, I found myself with a shipgirl that was neither Kaga nor Akagi, and seeing as how I'd already "unsunk" Yorktown, any further drops of the nameship of the Yorktown-class fleet carriers were free Medals of Honor (which I could use to potentially buy more shipgirls). I'd broken into odd habits, waving a fox plushie over my keyboard and mouse whenever I started the boss node. It was a silly superstition, and it felt weird as hell, but I couldn't help myself. I even had "Thrust Through The Heavens With Your Spirit" playing on repeat in the background. "C'mooooon!" I hollered. "Let's goooo!"
A loud clap of thunder echoed through the air, almost as if in response to my words, and as I heard the sound, my determination only grew. "You're not gonna beat me, you stupid Sirens! One way or another, I'm rescuing Akagi from your thrall! Just watch!" As the battle against Hiryuu kicked off, both Kaga and Enterprise sent tons of aircraft out, utterly swarming the Japanese Aircraft Carrier and forcing her to rely on her fighters, a fight she was doomed to lose. I had the battle down to an art at this point, and my eyes were glued to the screen as the boss node continued on, and Hiryuu went down again. Then, as if the heavenly choirs opened, I saw the image of Akagi's face in the loot drops with "NEW" emblazoned across her forehead. "FUCK YES! I got her!" I screamed as I leapt to my feet, pumping my fist and shouting like a madman. "I got her! I got Akagi! At last, after nearly two weeks of work, I have wrested the Fox Siblings of the First Carrier Division from the clutches of the evil Sirens! How do you like me now, Observer Alpha?! HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?!"
I'd been so focused on my game, however, that I didn't even notice the lightning outside had changed from the typical pale blue-white to brilliant gold, the clouds roiling and seething with energy as the lightning lanced downwards towards the ground, and my home. I was far too focused on the smiling face of the brown-haired kitsune that now dominated the screen with "NEW" in the top left corner. Akagi's voice emanated from my speakers as she spoke her predefined line upon acquisition, saying, "We finally meet, Commander. However, there appear be too many eyesores here. Please allow me to "clean up" a bit before we deepen our relationship. Hehehe~" and making my heart leap into my throat and pound faster, her seductive voice sending chills of excitement down my spine.
But before I could say or do anything, a massive crack of thunder and a bright flash of lightning outside my home caused me to jump, startled, and I spun to face the window. Thus, I didn't see the monitor as eerie golden sparks raced across it, or hear the computer whine as the surge of energy poured through its circuits. However, what really got my attention was Akagi speaking again, the look on her face changing. "Commander..." she said, and there was a tone in her voice that sounded like concern. "I'd... I'd brace for impact, if I were you..."
I blinked. "What the-?"
A massive thunderclap echoed through the air, drowning out everything and filling the air with a deafening roar as the monitor suddenly filled with golden light, and my eyes went wide as the electricity in the air intensified, filling the air with an electric tang and causing the hair on my arms and the back of my neck to stand up. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I yelped. "Oh, this is SO NOT CASHMONEY-"
That was when a bolt of gold lightning struck the power lines and raced into my house, and everything went dark as the electricity shorted out to everything except my computer, the hardware now practically screaming like a jet engine. The monitor's golden glow brightened to the point where it was a beacon of light, and I threw up my arm to protect my eyes. "Oh shit!" I yelled, and my heart began to pound wildly in my chest as I backed away from the monitor. Golden arcs of lightning shot out and began to wrap around me, and I screamed in fear as my body was bathed in the strange and terrifying lightning, and my skin began to tingle with the energy. Then, I felt a pulling sensation from the center of my chest, the golden lightning lashing out from my body and piercing into the monitor, and the golden glow began to grow brighter. "Shit, shit, shit!" I cursed, and then a scream tore its way from my lungs as I felt myself being dragged through the monitor, the screen rippling like the surface of a lake. "NO, NO, NO, NO, NOOOOOOOOO-!"
My head disappeared into the monitor, and then the rest of me, and as I passed through the monitor and was sucked in, the world turned gold. The moment my feet disappeared, though, the computer whined and began to smoke, the surge of energy having overloaded its circuits. And as I disappeared, the monitor went blank.
Then, with a final crackle of electricity, the computer outright exploded in glorious blockbuster fashion, a golden pulse of energy blowing my chair back against the far wall and knocking my bookcase over as a cloud of thick, black smoke billowed into the room.
