20th May 1941.

Overcome by the influence of the device on the back of her neck, the need to prevent death befalling her comrades and to free the humans of Britain, as well as the potential of using the latter to integrate the British Isles into Iron Blood, Bismarck accepts Zero's deal and she shows the Battleship a hologram of her rigging. Unlike any normal rigging, this one resembles a mechanical Hydra, a mythical creature that is a dragon with three heads, the middle head had one of Bismarck's main guns on the back of its neck. The other two held her secondary guns and its wings had two other main guns on them, with the final gun on its back. It can also breathe fire and shoot a massive energy beam out of the mouth of the middle head.

Bismarck beheld it and couldn't find the words to describe her amazement. Zero, seeing that she has a powerful Kansen like Bismarck fully under her spell, smiles and says, "This will be my gift to you. Sentient rigging. You and your friends will all be able to summon theirs and start researching upgrades to all of them, if you desire. Their power will give you the edge you need against the Royal Navy, and indeed any other country with Kansen, all you need to do now is focus on summoning it. That, I cannot teach you, as it is unique to every Kansen. I'm afraid you need to figure it out yourself."

While it was true that none of her comrades could summon their rigging yet either, she was still hesitant to allow this beast made of steel to directly control her armament. Zero could read her like an open book, and says, "Don't worry. The monster will control your guns, but you will control the monster. It will be an extension of your will. Remember, bring me Battlecruiser Hood's Wisdom Cubes, and this rigging shall be yours."

Before Bismarck can question her, Zero opens a portal and steps through it just before it closes. The Battleship thinks about what she saw in her vision and decides she will do anything to protect her ships. To protect her sister and U-556. She goes back to sleep, or at least tries to, as she's now haunted by the little submarine dying in front of her, even though she knows it wasn't real. Yet.

The next day, she keeps getting flashes of the vision. Seeing all of the possible brutal ends of the Iron Blood Kansen. The two that stand out to her the most are U-556 because of the violence shown by the strange-looking Kansen, and Eugen's fate, with the two colossal explosions. She's shaken out of her thoughts by Lindemann again, "Bismarck!"

She looks at him and says, "Ja?"

Lindemann gives her a look of concern. "Did you get enough sleep? You spaced out again."

"I did? Sorry… I just…" she stops herself, as telling him what happened last night would probably make him and Lütjens flip out.

"You just… what, Bismarck?" Lütjens pushes.

"… I just have a bad feeling. That's all." Bismarck lies. It seems to work as Lütjens adopts a proud stance.

He proclaims, "Nonsense, Bismarck! Your ship is the finest ever put to sea! Nothing the British have could possibly best it! Not even the so-called Mighty Hood!"

Bismarck gets a flash of Hood in her vision. She gets some sort of small pain in her arm, even though there's nothing wrong with it. She winces and asks, "The Mighty Hood… what do you know about her?"

Lütjens says, "She is a Battlecruiser made during the Great War. Battlecruisers are designed to have the firepower of a Battleship and the speed of a Cruiser. Luckily, as far as our intel is concerned, her armour is not up to modern standards and her two submerged torpedo tubes have been removed. Her normal torpedos still function, however. If we encounter her, we must not allow her to use her speed advantage to close the distance to use them. Her guns also still pack quite a punch. No matter who she may be sailing with, she must take top priority, do you understand?"

Bismarck thinks about what would happen if Hood uses her speed and opens fire. She needed to be ready. "Jawohl, Herr Admiral."

"You sound impressed by her, Lord Bismarck. Is she someone who you'd like to join in your hot, steamy gangbangs over there~?" Eugen says over the radio, much to the surprise of Brinkmann.

"Shut up, Eugen…" Bismarck sighs, regretting giving her the idea to tease more people.

Belfast docks her ship in Gibraltar and helps Sheffield walk to where the Ark Royal is docked. Ark takes Sheffield in and looks at the white-haired maid, "Thank you, Bel. I'll take good care of her, I promise." Belfast curtsies to her and heads back to her own ship to depart. Ark sits Sheffield down on a bed in her own ship and says, "Now get some rest, Sheffield. You're to remain with us until you recover. It could become very dangerous around the North Atlantic with that new ship out there."

Sheffield just huffs and looks away. Ark sighs, "Look, I know you want to get out there and get your revenge on Bismarck, but that eye and arm of yours aren't exactly doing you any favours, are they?"

Sheffield silently concedes and lays back on the bed. "I suppose you're right, Lady Ark Royal…"

"Does Vestal need me to do anything for you?" Ark inquires.

Sheffield shakes her head, "She says I just need rest now that I can feel my arm again. She was called back to Hawaii anyway. The Sakura Empire seems to be up to something."

Ark nods, "Alright then, get some rest, Sheffield. You've done enough." And then leaves the room. Sheffield doesn't think she's accomplished anything. She got caught, injured and gave away the fact the Royal Kansen know how to use riggings, thanks to her own incompetence. She's ashamed of herself and feels she failed her Queen and Commander. She had to make it right. She couldn't just lay there. She shakes her head and gets up again.

4 days later, Bismarck has gotten more rest, is back in control of her ship and is now sailing steadily towards the northern coast of Iceland. She swapped the role of lead ship with Eugen, who is now following her. She can't help but think about what will happen if she fails this mission or any other in the future. She tries not to let the pressure get to her, as she needs to set an example to Eugen and the others.

When Bismarck gets close to the northern entrance of the Denmark Strait, she and Eugen almost crash right into the ice sheet that has halved the width of the water between Greenland and Iceland due to how foggy the weather is. Having corrected her course, she gets two unknown contacts on her radar behind her, but they're too far out of her range. She would ignore it as she's been ordered to avoid engagements with warships, but she sees that they're following her…

"We found her! I see her on my new radar! She's just reached the Strait! Lady Hood, Bismarck is leading with a Heavy Cruiser behind her! Where are you!?" Suffolk yells into her radio.

Hood chuckles at her enthusiasm and says, "We're almost there, Miss Suffolk. Keep them distracted for us, will you?"

Before Suffolk can answer, her teammate rushes ahead, "I'll do it! Wish me luck!" Norfolk may seem scared of everything, but she'll do anything for someone like Hood.

Suffolk stares in bewilderment wondering where this courage came from and goes after her, "Norfolk, wait!"

Lütjens looks at the radar contact approaching their port side. "Bismarck, I see a ship on radar."

Bismarck responds, "What about it, sir?"

He looks at her, "I wish not to see it anymore."

Bismarck simply nods, aims her turrets at the ship, and fires, but then puts her hands on her ears, screams and falls to her knees. Lindemann yells, "Bismarck!? What happened!?"

Norfolk just narrowly escapes being obliterated by the salvo and retreats back to Suffolk in tears, "Waaaah! Too loud! Too scary!"

Suffolk yells at her, "Norfolk! Don't do that again, do you hear me!?" While reprimanding her, she doesn't notice the two ships changing formation…

Lindemann holds Bismarck and sees her ears are bleeding. A constant ringing in her ears drowns out the sound of him asking her what happened. He hears Lütjens slam his fist on the radar. "Admiral? What's wrong?"

Lütjens looks at him and says, "Her guns are so damn loud that she's broken her own radar! We're blind in this damn fog now!" He then grabs the radio, "Brinkmann, take point with Prinz Eugen! Our radar is gone!"

"Jawohl, Herr Admiral." Brinkmann responds and Eugen nods, having heard it as well. She shifts to the front, a little worried about her flagship's hearing. "With respect, sir, should we not go back for repairs?" Brinkmann then asks.

"Negative." Lütjens denies, "The Royal Navy's capital ships have probably only just left Scapa Flow now that those two contacts have found us. We should have plenty of time to shake them and disappear."

Bismarck manages to stand and clean the blood out of her ears with a paper towel. She winces when she gets too close to her now damaged eardrums. Her hearing somewhat returns. "Scheisse… Herr Kapitän, I won't be able to use my radar now…"

Lindemann puts his hand on her shoulder and says, "It's alright, Fräulein Bismarck. Prinz Eugen is leading now."

A few hours later, Eugen contacts the Bismarck, "Herr Admiral, I can hear something on my hydrophones. Two sets of propellors from the port side."

He responds, "Size?"

Eugen's voice becomes cocky as the fog lifts enough to see their silhouettes. "A new King George V-class Battleship and The Mighty Battlecruiser Hood, Herr Admiral. How interesting."

"Scheisse…" both he and Lindemann say. Bismarck's hearing had come back enough to hear Eugen's report and braces herself for a real fight, the vision flashing through her mind again. She had hoped not to run into Hood of all ships as her first battle, but now she'll have a chance to sink the legendary ship before she can start sinking her comrades.

Prince of Wales sees they're too late to cross the T in front of Bismarck and sees the opposite has instead happened. She and Hood are both staring down the broadsides of the two enemy ships. "Bloody hell… we should've set off sooner! If I hadn't wasted so much time with my bloody checks…"

Hood comforts her, "Worry not, Wales. We shall simply get ourselves closer and use our speed to get our own broadsides on them and I shall ready my torpedoes. Hopefully they'll be so distracted trying to shell us these they won't see them. Suffolk confirmed Bismarck is the one in the front, so we should focus on the lead ship. Am I correct, sir?" She looks to Admiral Holland stood next to her. He had been assigned to give his tactical advice should she need it. Him being there unfortunately prevents her from using her rigging, however. Wales had been given Captain Leach and he comes with the same downside. Fortunately, they're comforted by the fact that Iron Blood don't know how to use riggings anyway, and their ships have more armour, firepower and range than their shrunken-down riggings, with the trade-off of being slower.

Holland looks back at her and nods, "Well said, Lady Hood. Show them what real Naval power looks like." Hood salutes him and fires the first shots of the battle.

The two had heard what Bismarck's ship looks like from Sheffield, but the distance and fog obscures their true sizes and their silhouettes look very similar. The two enemy ships being on the horizon doesn't help either. Wales just puts her trust in Hood and says, "Then I'll cover you, Lady Hood!" She takes aim at the ship behind the one they think is Bismarck. They get close enough to fire. Wales looks to Captain Leach, who nods. She fires her first volley, it doesn't manage to hit. "Damn it all…"

Leach says, "Not to worry, Lady Wales. We have plenty of ammunition. Try again."

They get closer and Holland looks at the ships with his binoculars now that the fog had started to clear. He sees Prinz Eugen is the one in front and her guns are far too small to do any significant damage to either the Hood or the Prince of Wales. The steel behemoth behind her, however... "Oh, bloody hell! Switch targets!"

Wales takes aim at the true Bismarck instead of Eugen. She lines up her secondary guns and manages to strike 3 hits on the Iron Blood Battleship. Although she had drawn first blood, her forward quadruple turret suffers malfunctions and is rendered inoperable. "Shit…" she thinks to herself, now worried she won't be able to fully support Hood and prove herself. She looks to her Captain again, "Sir, my forward turret has stopped working!"

Leach winces. "Well… we'll just hit them with everything else then!" He pats her shoulder, trying to comfort her.

Seeing the water suddenly shoot up from shells hitting the surface and exploding, Lütjens tells both ships to hold fire, even as Eugen's deck boards start splintering. Bismarck practically begs him for the order to fire back, not wanting to be sunk by the woman who had been tormenting her dreams, but Lütjens remembers his orders to avoid engagements with warships, as the mission was commerce-raiding.

Eugen almost gets a shell right into her deck, instead scraping the paint down the side near her anchor and rocking her to the side as the shell explodes against her belt armour. She yells in a serious tone, "Herr Admiral! We need to return fire before we're sunk!"

Bismarck almost stumbles as she shakes off the pain of taking the hits to her ship.

Lütjens relents. Eugen is right. He says, "Alright, but both of you make sure your guns are trained on the Hood, then wait for my command!" They both nod and take aim at the Battlecruiser leading the charge. When she gets into optimal weapon range, Lütjens yells, "FIRE!"

Hood and Wales look in wonderment at the two huge smoke clouds coming from the enemy ships as they both fire full volleys at Hood, who casually looks at Holland and says, "Brace for impact, sir."

Wales focuses on trying to bring her rear turrets into the fight to use the rest of her armament to compensate for losing her front quad turret. She doesn't even realise at first that Hood had been hit until she's contacted by her again.

"Oh, dear…" she says in a slightly pained voice, "It seems I'm now on fire…"

Wales' eyes widen as her beloved's wooden deck burns. "Hood! Forgive me! Let me take the lead!"

Hood says, "No, Wales. It's not your fault. Stay in formation. It will take far more than that to take me down…"

Wales takes comfort in her words, "Alright, Hood, just… be careful…" she takes aim at the Battleship in the rear again and fires…

Eugen smirks at having caused a fire on the Hood with her HE shells, but stops when she hears Bismarck over the radio yelling.

Bismarck stumbles as her ship takes a hit. She looks at her Admiral, "Admiral Lütjens! My port-side fuel tank has been hit!"

Lütjens exclaims, "Oh for the love of— when we sink these two, we will have to go back for repairs! Bring down the Hood, Bismarck!"

Hood and Wales watch the next salvo from the Bismarck, following the shells as they all fall in the water around the Hood, except for one, that cuts right through the water and penetrates the hull right below Hood's armour belt. They both fall silent as the several long seconds ticked by before Wales says, "Hood, there's fire shooting out from below your main mast!"

Holland thinks, "Wait… isn't that where…?"

Hood's eyes widen and her heart sinks. She gets a feeling of dread as she nods, "Yes… it is…" she radios her comrade, "Wales… I'm so sorry… I… I lov—"

BOOM

Her voice is cut off by an explosion in her magazine that shakes the waves. Her higher up rear turret flies out and up into the sky along with a massive fireball and a cloud of black smoke rises as her ship breaks in two, jumps out of the water, then falls back down break-first like a V. Wales can only look on in absolute horror as her love starts to sink.

"HOO-" Wales yells out. The force of the explosion is so violent that the shockwave shatters the windows of Wales' ship. A piece of shrapnel from Hood's hull flies through the window Wales is near, leaving a gash across Wales' cheek, splitting it open from the corner of her mouth to her ear and makes her fall down. She hits her head on the floor and gets knocked out.

Leach, who has also suffered shrapnel injuries but Nat as severe, reaches out to her, "Wales!" He quickly turns the wheel to prevent crashing into the Hood. He stares out of the bridge window. "Admiral Holland… Lady Hood… Oh my God…"

Prinz Eugen and Bismarck look in awe as Hood's bow points into the sky like a cathedral spire. The former smirks and says to the latter, "Nice shot, Lord Bismarck… anyone would think you're trying to impress your handsome officers~"

Brinkmann points to something shooting across the water towards them, "TORPEDOES!"

Caught off-guard, Eugen just narrowly dodges the torpedoes launched by Hood the second before her ship exploded, as some kind of last hurrah along with the Battlecruiser's turret firing by itself as the ship sinks.

Having ignored Eugen's remark, Bismarck wonders why that was so easy. "Is this all the Royal Navy is capable of…?" Before the relief of getting rid of the "Mighty" Hood before she can hurt her comrades.

Lütjens doesn't seem at all affected by how the sinking of the Hood. Instead of cheering, he remains calm and collected, then orders, "That Battleship is still a threat. Drive it off or sink it."

In unison, Bismarck and Eugen yell, "Jawohl, Herr Admiral!"

Leach gets down to Wales shakes her, "Wales! Wales, wake up!"

Wales is in a bad way. She's heavily bleeding from the severe wound on the right side of her face. Some of her teeth also seem to have gone missing or have been damaged. It's a miracle she's still alive. He says to her, "We're not losing you as well…" he takes full control of the ship and retreats back towards where Hood had sank while Wales wakes up and stares at the ceiling, feeling her torn-open cheek. For some reason, she can't even feel the pain.

Lütjens orders, "She's retreating! Don't let her get her comrade's Cubes! They both advance towards Hood's wreck, driving off the Prince of Wales. "Cease fire, she's running away. Bismarck, damage report."

Bismarck reports, "I have a fuel leak from one of my forecastle tanks, one of my boiler rooms is flooded and I have a slight list on the port bow. Also, my seaplane and catapult are gone, sir."

Lütjens, "Scheisse… Brinkmann, Eugen, damage report."

Eugen confidently reports, "Just a few new battle scars, Herr Admiral. I was not directly hit. Those sneaky torpedoes missed."

Brinkmann adds, "I have also suffered no injuries. We can carry on."

The Heavy Cruiser was still fully seaworthy, but Rheinübung was Bismarck's mission, meaning that Eugen has to return to port as well to link up with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Lütjens considers his options. He knows the Royal Navy won't let this go unanswered. It's going to get bloody. He can keep Eugen with them or cover her escape and let her find her own way back.

As the only three surviving Manjuus from Hood get picked up by the ones on Wales' ship, Hood finds herself sinking along with both halves of hers. She can't feel anything so she doesn't even notice her now missing legs. As Wales retreats and the air leaves her lungs, she has only enough energy to gaze up through exhausted eyes at the surface of the water as it gets further and further away, until it is obscured by the shadow of the hull of the Battleship that had just sank her. The only sound she hears is her own thoughts…

"Wales… my love… please… stay strong… for me…"

She closes her eyes as her body and mind are returned to their Cubes, which start to float to the surface…