The sounds of seagulls and the waves crashing on the shore woke Zuikaku up from her slumber. When she opened her eyes, she was confronted by the glaring shine of the sun. After taking a few seconds to adjust to the light, with great effort, she managed to sit up and take a look at her surroundings. "Where am I? What am I doing here?" Zuikaku asked no one in particular; her memory still very foggy. After taking some time to sort through her memories, Zuikaku's eyes then widened as she remembered why she was there. "No! The Sirens! They took Tsubaki! I have to find her!" Zuikaku then tried to stand up, but she forgot about her wound from earlier. "This hurts! Everything hurts! I can't get up!" Like before, she came here, Zuikaku tried to get her body to stand up, but she couldn't. Looking at her wound, she could see it was starting to bleed badly, and she was starting to go light-headed. "No...I have...to...find...Tsubaki...I...have...to..." Due to the blood loss and the effort of Zuikaku trying to move her body, she blacked out again and was unconscious.
A group of KANSEN were heading in a certain direction; their commander had received news of a strange signal in the area they were heading towards and sent them to investigate. These ships were part of the Iron Blood faction of the Azur Lane. Their flagship was the legendary Bismarck, and she was accompanied by her sister ship Tirpitz and Graf Zeppelin. Some distance in front of them was their vanguard, which consisted of three sister ships: Admiral Hipper, Blucher, and Prinz Eugen. "Ugh, I bet this is nothing again," said Hipper. "Every time that idiot sends us out to investigate these signals, we don't find anything. How did he become a commander anyway?" She voiced her complaints to her fellow vanguard members. "Oh! Come on, Hipper," replied Blucher. "We know you don't mean that. Every time he has a job or mission, you are one of the first people to volunteer. Admit it, you love him as much as me!"
"I don't love him! He's an idiot! And you're an idiot too!" Hipper responded back to her sister, the blush on her face, however, gave away her true feelings. Prinz Eugen then decided to speak up. "I take it you both remember that he is married, correct? And that he has a child? So, if I were either of you, I would focus on the mission. He clearly has no interest in anyone else other than his wife." This caused the two others to stop bickering and get back to the mission at hand; Eugen herself wanted this over as soon as possible, she had a lot of alcohol to get through back in her room. The signal that was reported led the group to a small island. The vanguard arrived first and decided to wait for Bismarck to show up and give them their orders on what to do. After several minutes, Bismarck landed on the beach along with Tirpitz and Graf Zeppelin. Bismarck took a quick look around the area before deciding to tell her fellow Iron Blood ships what to do. "We will spilt up into teams to search the island, if you find something, fire into the sky so we know your location, I will go with Eugen, Blucher and Graf Zeppelin you will search the western coast and Hipper and Tirpitz you will search the east, does everyone understand?" The shipgirls nodded that they did and all went off in their respective directions.
Hipper and Tirpitz had searched the eastern shore of the island for half an hour without seeing anything out of the ordinary. "I knew it. This was another waste of time," Hipper thought to herself. "When I get back to base, I'm going to give the commander a piece of my mind!" However, her thoughts were interrupted when Tirpitz held her arm out in front of her. Tirpitz then looked at Hipper and pointed in a direction. "Look over there, Hipper; do you see what I see?" she asked. Hipper looked in the direction Tirpitz was pointing. At first, she did not see anything but then found what her fellow KANSEN saw. "Wait! That looks like a person! What are they doing out here in the middle of nowhere? Are they alright?" The two of them then ran toward the person to check if they were still alive and possibly get some answers about what had happened.
As they got closer, they could see the person was a gray-haired woman; when they were right next to the woman, they could see she looked in very bad shape—she was unconscious and had what looked like a gunshot wound, one that was bleeding heavily. "Hipper! Fire a shot into the air! Let the others know where we are! This woman needs help!" Tirpitz told Hipper, and she did as she was told. After the shot was fired, Tirpitz knelt down and began checking the woman and did what she could to stop the bleeding. "Hello, can you hear me? Don't worry, we are here to help you. You're safe now." Tirpitz told the woman, even though she was unconscious; just in case she woke up, Tirpitz wanted to let her know that they weren't a threat. As Tirpitz was giving aid to the woman, Hipper was studying her and noticed she looked familiar. "I've seen her around the base," said Hipper, "She is from the Sakura Empire, but what's her name again?" Racking her brain, Hipper then remembered who this woman was. "I know who she is! She's the sister of the commander's wife, Zuikaku, but what is she doing out here? Shouldn't she be picking up her niece from school?"
Looking at Zuikaku more closely, Hipper began to notice something was off about her. "Wait a minute, doesn't Zuikaku have brown hair and not grey?" Hipper then came to a chilling realization about her. "Oh no! She's not the Zuikaku we know! She's a META ship!" Hipper then pushed Tirpitz away from Zuikau and pointed her cannon at the unconscious KANSEN. Tirpitz was angry and confused at what Hipper was doing. "What on earth are you doing, Hipper! Have you gone crazy! This woman needs our help! Put your weapon down immediately! That's an order!" Tirpitz shouted at her. Hipper responded, "This woman is dangerous, Tirpitz! Look at her! Doesn't she remind you of someone?" Tirpitz looked at the unconscious woman. After some time, she could see what Hipper meant. "This is Zuikaku from the Sakura Empire. Why is she here? And why does she look different from normal? What is Hipper getting at?" Tirpitz took some time to think. Eventually, her eyes widened, and she came to the same conclusion as Hipper. Seeing that Tirpitz understood where she was coming from, Hipper spoke to her. "She's a META ship, Tirpitz. She is dangerous; if we don't destroy her now, there is no telling what she could do. We don't know how powerful she is. She could kill us all."
Tirpitz could understand Hipper's reasoning; the factions of the Azur Lane had clashed with META ships before, at times helping them and other times fighting them. Nobody could tell which ones were allies or enemies. Tirpitz, however, had an idea. "If this Zuikaku is a META ship, she could be useful. She could have information on their plans; we would know what they plan to do before they even do it." With this reasoning, Tirpitz stood in front of Zuikaku and spoke to Hipper. "Stand down, Hipper. That's an order. This META ship could be useful to us. She could have important information that we could use against them; it's best to take her into custody and find out what she knows." Hipper was not happy with this. "Sorry, Tirpitz, but she could be our enemy. If we take her back to base, she could lead them right to us. What then? It's a risk I'm not willing to take." A stalemate then formed between the two of them; neither was backing down. A voice, however, then spoke from behind Hipper. "Stand down, Hipper, do as my sister says."
Looking behind her, Hipper could see Bismarck and the other three ships approaching. Bismarck then got right in front of Hipper and looked her in the eyes before speaking to her again. "We are taking this META ship back to base," she said. "I agree she could have vital intel, that is my order." Hipper tried to argue her case, but seeing the look on the face of Bismarck told her that her decision was final. Defeated, Hipper simply hung her head down and accepted the order. Bismarck then looked at Graf Zeppelin. "Graf Zeppelin, you will be in charge of carrying this META. The rest of us will give you cover; I trust you are happy with this?" Graf Zeppelin was not happy at all, she agreed with Hipper. This META could be dangerous, but she didn't want to argue with the flagship. Picking up the unconscious Zuikaku, Graf Zeppelin stepped onto the water, the other ships then forming a defensive formation around her. Once she saw everyone was ready, Bismarck gave the order to move, and they headed back to base.
Back in the Azur Lane HQ building, a man was sitting behind a desk, currently he was sorting out paperwork and reports. He was just over six feet tall with short black hair and a thin black beard; this man was the commander of the Azur Lane, and his name was John Grey. On a couch near his desk sat a white-haired woman in a kimono, currently she was drinking tea from her homeland. This woman was a KANSEN, a member of the Sakura Empire, and she was also John's secretary and his wife, her name was Shoukaku. The atmosphere in the room was pleasant and quiet, as John was doing his paperwork, he occasionally looked up at the clock on his wall, glancing out of the corner of his eye, he also noticed that Shoukaku was looking at the clock as well. "Don't worry Shoukaku, they will be here soon." He thought to himself, as the pair were waiting for some people to arrive. The people they were expecting meant a lot to them, one person in particular however, meant more to them than the world itself.
After some time, fast footsteps were heard as well as a voice "Calm down Tsubaki, they will be here, they haven't gone anywhere." Hearing this, Shoukaku had a smile on her face; she put down her tea and stood up as she waited for her visitors. The doors of the commander's office flew open, and there stood a five-year-old young girl with white hair. When the girl laid her eyes on Shoukaku, they sparkled and she ran towards the KANSEN. "Mama!" The little girl shouted as she was heading towards Shoukaku. Shoukaku got on her knees and embraced the girl in a hug when she reached her. "Aww, my little Tsubaki, mama has missed you." She told the girl. "How was school?" Tsubaki replied. "I loved it mama, I really loved school." John looked at the scene in front of him and smiled; seeing his family happy and together warmed the man's heart. He then noticed someone else at the entrance, it was his wife's sister Zuikaku, and she looked tired.
"You okay, Zuikaku? Tsubaki hasn't given you any trouble, has she?" John asked the KANSEN. Zuikaku replied, "No, commander, she just has too much energy that I can't keep up; it's tiring having to run after a child." John let out a small chuckle, knowing what Zuikaku meant—there were times back at home Tsubaki gave him and Shoukaku the complete run-around, being a parent was difficult yet rewarding. Shoukaku then picked up Tsubaki and walked up to Zuikaku, speaking to her. "Do you want to stay for some tea, Zuikaku? You look exhausted, and we wouldn't mind having you for some company." Zuikaku smiled and replied, "Of course, sister, it would be my pleasure." All of them then sat themselves on the couch and began having tea while discussing the goings-on in their lives and Tsubaki.
It was late when the family was interrupted by a knock on the door; John told whoever was at the door to come in and Vestal walked inside, and she had a look on her face that told John this was urgent. "My apologies, commander," she said. "There is something down in the medical bay that you should come and see straightaway." This got all the other occupants in the room, minus Tsubaki, worried. They all thought that one of the shipgirls that were sent out on the mission earlier had gotten injured. John stood up and told the others, "I will go and see what it is. Shoukaku, it's best you head home and put Tsubaki to bed. Zuikaku, I thank you for today. I will see you tomorrow." Shoukaku got up and gave John a quick peck on the cheek. "I understand. I will see you at home." Zuikaku bid John goodnight and then he left the room with Vestal.
As John and Vestal were walking to the medical bay, he asked her questions about what was going on; she replied that it was best for him to see for himself. She also mentioned that no shipgirls were injured, which gave John a sense of relief. Even though he had been the commander of the Azur Lane for quite some time, he still cared for all the girls under his command. Once they arrived at the medical bay, Vestal stopped him before he entered the room. "Before we go in, commander," she said, "you might want to brace yourself for what you're about to see. There was a reason I didn't want to tell you in front of Shoukaku and Zuikaku." This really put John on guard; what was so bad that his wife and sister-in-law couldn't know? He then nodded and spoke to Vestal. "I understand, Vestal. Please show me what's inside." Vestal then opened the door and John mentally prepared himself.
Once inside, Vestal led the man to a bed furthest away from the door in the room. Once John saw the occupant of the bed, it shook him to the core. "No way! It can't be!" He thought. "But she was just with us! How is this possible?" The occupant of the bed was none other than his sister-in-law, Zuikaku. This Zuikaku looked different from the one he knew; her hair was gray and her skin was deathly pale. He also noticed bandages around her stomach, indicating that she was injured somehow. John tried to think why she was like this. "This shouldn't be possible! How can two Zuikakus be here at the same time? Wait…gray hair…deathly skin…where have I seen this before?" After some time thinking, the man came to a shocking conclusion; he now understood why his wife and her sister couldn't know.
"This isn't Zuikaku! This is Zuikaku...META!"