A few days before the most recent events, in an unspecified spot of the ocean, a ragtag group of six shipgirls was hastily sailing in formation, tired and out of breath.

"I'm so sorry…" Fortune said from the back of the formation as the group sailed forward. The metal pieces of her iron maiden-like rigging attached to the chains wrapped around her body were floating around her, dragging her down.

"How many times do I have to tell you? Stop apologizing," Renown replied sharply. "What's important is that we got what we wanted," she added, patting the ragged sack she was carrying over her shoulder, which held the fruits of their labor inside.

"B-but… It was my fault Yamashiro got hurt… She's definitely going to hate me when she wakes up…" the destroyer said, glancing at the aforementioned shipgirl, who was lying with her back on the side of Arizona's rigging, sleeping peacefully despite the wound on her back. The twisted lump of charred metal was big enough for both battleships to lean on, but the Eagle Union woman still had to hold the other steady lest she fell into the water while they moved.

Fusou approached the destroyer with a motherly smile and a reassuring tone, patting her head in a comforting manner. "Don't fret, Fortune, my sister won't hold it against you. If anything, she'll double up on your training when we get back, but she definitely won't be angry."

"Uuh… I just can't seem to do anything right; I should seriously consider changing my name to Misfortune…" the destroyer whimpered, hanging her head in shame.

"God, you are so annoying! If you feel so bad for messing up, why don't you carry this for me?!" Renown angrily threw the bag at the destroyer, whose contents spilled into the water at her feet when she tried to catch it.

"Oh no!" Fortune yelped.

The whole group silently came to a stop as Fortune clumsily crouched down to collect the bunch of Wisdom Cubes before the waves could drag them away. The chains binding her limbs hindered her movements so much that she only succeeded in spilling more of them into the water.

Repulse turned to glare at her sister, silently reprimanding her, to which Renown responded with a shrug and a twist of her head as Fusou crouched next to Fortune to help her.

"Fortune, we know you are still getting acclimated to your rigging; we've all been there. We knew the risks when we decided to bring you with us, but you can use the practice, and that's why we decided to do it for a simple hunt," Repulse intervened to encourage her, to which the destroyer replied with a nod of her head, still a bit dejected.

The newfound power their META-state granted them was like a double-edged sword. None of them were able to summon their old hulls after undergoing the process, and on top of that, their new rigging was extremely hard to handle. So it wasn't rare for inexperienced Kansen like Fortune to lose control during a fight, ending up hurting their allies.

When a trauma gets embedded too deeply into the mind of a shipgirl, those negative emotions take over, corrupting the Cube. That corruption spreads through the entire body, like tumor cells undergoing metastasis, altering the appearance of their rigging and their abilities with it. The Sirens called the process "Metamorphosis," and by their words, it was irreversible.

Needless to say, the trauma of being the sole survivor of your timeline makes for a perfect startup to the process.

"Come on, we've been out in the open long enough. Those mass-produced vessels must have alerted the Arbiters of our presence before we brought them down; we should hurry back before they catch us," Arizona said, attempting to change the topic.

Everyone agreed with her, and the group set off again for their destination—the island they used as a hideout. It was just an inconspicuous speck of land in the middle of the ocean that wasn't even marked on the maps. Though to be more specific, the island itself wasn't their hideout; rather, it was what was hidden behind the Mirror Sea they had cast on said island, inside which they spent most of their time when they weren't hopping through the timelines. Unfortunately, the Mirror Seas weren't eternal, and to keep one up for an extended period of time required a constant supply of energy, which they severely lacked. They usually acquired it from the Cubes they scavenged from the Siren vessels unlucky enough to cross their path during their expeditions outside.

And today was their turn to go out on a hunt. The only problem was that the Arbiters were constantly on their heels, scouring the seas for any sign of their passing, so they needed to keep their guard up at all times; no wonder they were all so on edge. They had been able to sink a bunch of patrol vessels and also ambush and destroy an entire scouting fleet, but Fortune had lost control of her rigging in the middle of the fight, wreaking havoc around them, and eventually involving Yamashiro in the process before managing to bring it back under control.

Arizona let out a wistful sigh, glancing at the unconscious catgirl sleeping on her rigging. Powerful as they were, they were still a group of misfits that Cinder had managed to put together from the ashes of the different timelines they traveled. They were scraping the bottom of the barrel just to survive, and Fortune was their latest addition. They had zero external support and barely enough sustenance and supplies to go by, which was why they needed to avoid confrontation with the enemy as much as possible.

And that was also the reason why establishing contact with Azur Lane was their top priority.

"Arizona, how much longer is it going to take for Helena to make contact with her counterpart?" Repulse asked her, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"She says it's going to take a few more days. The signal she's using won't be detected by the Sirens, but it will give the other Helena some nightmares at the beginning. After a few days it'll stabilize into a proper distress call, but even then, she'll have to decipher it on her own."

"Well, let's just hope she'll be smart enough to realize…" Renown trailed off.

After that, the group fell into a pensive and nervous silence, only broken by the sound of the waves partying from under their feet; the sun, which was already setting, enveloped the horizon in a bright orange hue as they approached their destination.

It was at that moment that Yamashiro woke up, shooting up in her seat in panic only to wince in pain, almost losing her balance from atop Arizona's rigging. Fusou was there to catch her before she fell as the other battleship slowed down her pace.

"Kuh… Fusou-neesama, what happened?" Yamashiro asked, trying her best to fight the pain coming from her back.

Fortune was the one who replied. Still holding the bag of Cubes in her hands, she approached the wounded battleship in shame. "Yamashiro, I'm sorry; I didn't mean to hit you! I don't know what happened. I was so scared that I completely lost control…" she began frantically apologizing, but Yamashiro interrupted her.

"Ah, so it was you, Fortune-chan," Yamashiro said with a mischievous glint passing through her red eyes. "I wonder what I'll have you do to apologize when we get back~"

"Uuaa… P-please forgive me!" Fortune whimpered, completely missing the mirth in the catgirl's voice.

A soft smile appeared on Fusou's face at the banter between her sister and the destroyer. When Cinder and the other META shipgirls had appeared in front of her and Yamashiro to offer help and whisk them away from the smoldering wasteland that was their timeline, she had only accepted because she was desperate; she would never have expected things to turn out as well as they did. Granted, their situation was anything but sunshine and rainbows, but after a long period of suffering and after thinking she'd never see her little sister laugh and joke with a friend again, hope had begun blooming in her heart once more.

Lost in her thoughts, Fusou noticed a light blue flutter of wings in the corner of her eye; it was a butterfly. "What's a butterfly doing in the middle of the ocean?" was a thought that didn't even cross her mind; the Sakura shipgirl simply followed it with her gaze, watching it come to rest on Fortune's shoulder.

Her eyes widened as realization slowly settled in, and time seemed to stop around her as she remembered. In the past, every time she saw one of those butterflies, tragedy struck right in front of her eyes.

Dread took over. Without thinking twice and without uttering a word, she lunged at the destroyer, pushing her out of the way with all her enhanced strength, making her lose her grip on the sack she was holding.

Time seemed to slow down as everyone looked at her with bemused expressions, which were replaced immediately with alarm and dismay as what seemed to be a mechanical tentacle appeared from the water at her feet and stabbed her in the stomach.

Fusou lost all her strength as the appendage impaling her lifted her body into the air. She heard her sister yell her name but didn't register the set of jaws clamping around her, crushing her rigging and her body into pieces with a single snap.

Everyone was too taken aback to react as Fusou's rigging and body disappeared inside the metallic maw of the… thing that had just appeared from under her feet. The audible crunch that resounded in the air shook them out of their stupor.

"FUSOU-NEESAMA!" Yamashiro yelled in despair as what was left of her sister fell into the water.

"Arizona! Take Yamashiro and get out of here!" Repulse yelled at the battleship.

Arizona grabbed a hold of the distraught catgirl and dashed away from there as Yamashiro kicked and screamed under her grasp.

More tentacles appeared from under the surface, flailing around the metallic body that was slowly emerging from the water. Repulse and Renown jumped out of the way, but Fortune was still down and trying to get her bearings, so the former of the cruisers had to grab her by the collar and drag her away.

The trio came to a stop at a safe distance to take a good look at their assailant.

No matter how you looked at it, the creature was a giant, metallic, squid-like monster. It's light bulb-shaped body, completely covered in black and gray plates and traversed by yellow lights, was hovering vertically above the surface of the water thanks to what seemed to be some kind of orange glowing thruster situated on its underside, where the mouth of a squid is usually supposed to be. A row of multiple glowing, yellow orbs was around the mid-section of its body, resembling flashlights, probably the eyes of the creature. Ten long, slender tentacles protruded from the lowest section, and the topside was adorned with an opening full of sharp metal plates, shaped like a grinder—the maw that had just crushed their comrade's body before their very eyes.

"What the hell is that? Another Siren contrivance?" Repulse wondered out loud.

To them, the answer was obvious, but then something happened that made them question their certainties. Instead of going after them, the creature began rummaging around with its tentacles in the water. It took them a moment to figure out what it was doing, and then Renown shouted in alarm.

"That bastard's taking the Cubes!"

Indeed, when Fusou had pushed Fortune, the cubic contraptions had fallen out of the bag and were scattered all over the place around the monster, which was picking them up one by one with its long appendages, bringing them up to the "mouth" atop its "head" before swallowing them whole.

At the sight, realization hit the three shipgirls.

"It was after them since the beginning…" Repulse voiced what was on everyone's mind. "It attacked Fortune because she was the one holding the bag."

"Oh no, you don't! We need those!" Renown unsheathed her straight sword from her back, summoned her molten claymore in her left hand, and bolted, her guns already aiming at the monster.

"Sister, wait!" Repulse tried to hold her back, but her sister had already rushed ahead. She summoned her own blade and turned to Fortune. The poor destroyer had fallen on her knees and was cradling her head in her hands, shivering like a leaf in despair.

"But that means... N-no way... Fusou... for me…"

"Fortune, get a grip! Renown and I will try to salvage as many of the Cubes as we can; you get the hell out of here!" With that said, Repulse rushed behind her sister, who had already taken her shot at the monster.

The squid was too distracted to defend itself and took a direct hit to the "face." It recoiled back in surprise, letting out a powerful metallic screech, but it seemed completely unscathed, much to the battlecruiser's shock. Repulse moved to flank her sister and added her own to the mix, but only succeeded in making the Siren aware of their presence.

It turned to face them, its "eyes" seemingly scanning them in curiosity, until its gaze fell on the Cube that Repulse had picked up from the water. It began menacingly flailing its tentacles in the air, its eyes glowing with an even more intense yellow light in a display of intimidation.

"As expected," Repulse muttered, hiding the Cube in her pocket. Since it was after the alien contraptions, it wouldn't allow anyone to steal them. If they wanted to take them back, they had to destroy it first.

As the monster began hovering toward them, both sisters aimed their guns at it again and fired upon it with everything they had. Their rounds impacted its body with a chain of explosions powerful enough to make it reel back.

When they ceased fire, they waited for the smoke to clear before assessing the damage they had inflicted on the monster, but to their dismay, their combined barrage wasn't even enough to put a dent in its armor, leaving only multiple charred patches on the steel of its body where their rounds had connected. The Siren quickly regained its bearing, angrily grinding together the teeth-like metal plates atop its head, producing an earsplitting screech that forced the two shipgirls to cover their ears and grimace in pain.

"I think we made it angry," Repulse said.

"What gave it way?" Renown retorted sarcastically.

The squid lunged all of its tentacles at them, trying to stab them like it did with Fusou, but this time, the shipgirls were prepared. They both quickly backstepped out of their range, trying to reach a safe distance from where they could resume their assault on the Siren, but to their dismay, the tentacles began extending even further from its body, chasing them down all the way to their position.

"Seriously?!" Repulse yelled.

The sudden development took them by surprise, making them hesitate. It was only a second, but it was enough for the two to find themselves surrounded by a tangle of metallic tendrils, which began flailing around them like whips.

The battlecruisers began ducking and sidestepping under their blows. They were quick on their feet, but the continuous assault left them no room to retaliate. The monster had forced them into a deadly dance, one where the slightest distraction could cost their lives; it was essentially a battle of attrition, and they were bound to lose it eventually.

Renown managed to dodge all those coming at her, but Repulse was reached by one of those appendages; it pierced her rigging's left turret, keeping her in place. Panic took hold of her as she desperately tried to pry off the blasted tendril, but she could only watch in dread as the other ones took notice of her plight and began converging toward her all at once, their pointy metal tips aimed at her, ready to turn her into a pincushion.

She had already resigned herself to her fate, but then a spark of blazing red blinded her sight for a second. Renown, now free from the pressure the tendrils were putting on her, had enough time to take a running start and leap to her sister's defense, gaining enough momentum to slash at the appendages converging toward her, severing two of them and repelling the others with a powerful swing.

"Sister…" Repulse managed to find her voice, breathing a sigh of relief at the close call.

"En garde, sister; if we can't kill it, we just need to disarm it!" Renown declared, doing the same with the one keeping her sister in place, her sword hot enough to melt through the thin metal plates covering it with ease.

"Right!" Repulse replied as they both took a stance, ready to counterattack.

Fortune had given up.

She was on her knees, hugging herself with her arms, tears freely streaming down her face.

She wanted to die. The feeling she thought she had abandoned came back to haunt her once again.

After spending who knows how long in her timeline of origin alone, having survived all her comrades, she thought she had reached her limit, and all she wanted was to disappear, but after Cinder appeared in front of her with the other META shipgirls, reaching out to her and offering her another chance, she thought she'd be able to take it. Her new comrades had been very understanding, welcoming her with open arms and comforting words. With all of them coming from similar situations, for a brief amount of time, she thought she'd be able to claim back what she had lost because of the Sirens, but with her new condition, things quickly began turning for the worse.

She almost got herself and her new comrades killed multiple times, either because of friendly fire or because she messed up during an encounter; no matter how much she tried, the thought of losing everything again clouded her judgment and made her lose her mind, both literally and figuratively.

If they didn't hate her before, they most certainly would now that Fusou was gone because of her.

Fusou… Dear, sweet Fusou... Always ready to cheer her up with a smile and an encouraging word. She wagered no one would mind if she took her place. In fact, everyone would prefer that. Fortune herself wished she could do it. The shrine maiden deserved to live more than she ever will; after all, she still had a sister to take care of in this world, while Fortune… she had nothing.

As the unsavory thoughts took root in her mind, Fortune noticed a light blue flutter of wings in the corner of her eye; it was a butterfly, circling around her face, as if trying to catch her attention. It moved downward, coming to rest upon a cubic object floating right under her nose. It remained there for a few instants before flying away and disappearing into thin air.

Wondering what it could possibly mean, Fortune felt compelled to pick it up. It was a Wisdom Cube, but this one didn't belong to the batch they were transporting before the Siren appeared; this one felt different—it was Fusou's!

She could feel it—the last vestiges of life slowly abandoning the Cube as she held it in her hands. More tears began pouring down her face, pain and guilt assaulting her as she began bawling her eyes out, hugging the Cube to her chest.

Suddenly, her thoughts were inundated with a new feeling of relief. She was taken aback for a moment; that feeling didn't belong to her. She looked up from the Cube she was holding, and much to her disbelief, Fusou was right before her.

Maybe it was a ghost, an apparition, or maybe her tired mind was making her see things, but the one standing on the water in front of her was none other than the shrine maiden, who was regarding her with a soft smile, much like the one she had given her a few moments before dying.

She brought her ghastly hand to rest upon Fortune's head in a comforting head pat, and her lips parted. No sound came out of her mouth, but the destroyer heeded her words nonetheless.

"Thank goodness…"

Then, the shrine maiden leaned forward to bring her face right next to Fortune's ear. The destroyer closed her eyes as another wave of emotions filled her, and when she opened them again, Fusou was gone, as if she had never been there in the first place, her Cube now completely inert in her hands.

The sound of the battle that had become muffled took over the ethereal atmosphere that had been enveloping her until then, bringing her back to reality. Fortune sniffled and wiped her eyes, her lips trembling in fear but also with a newfound resolve.

She picked herself up and focused on her Cube.

Meanwhile, the monster was back to screeching in anger. Three of its tentacles' tips had been replaced by red, hot stumps, marking the spots where Renown's melting claymore had cleaved through them. It was flailing them around as if trying to cool down the scorching heat spreading through them, and once it was done, it turned to glare at them, the light in its eyes becoming even brighter.

This time, Renown and Repulse didn't wait for its attack; they took the initiative and lunged at him. At the same time, the monster directed its other tentacles at them like before, but they both shot their guns in unison, hitting the bullseye and making it stumble midair. The tentacles lost a bit of their speed and precision, and the shipgirls managed to navigate through them more easily until each of them found one that was stretched enough for them to cut through.

Two more down, five to go.

The creature didn't relent and kept swatting at them, but now that its appendages had been reduced to half their initial numbers, the shipgirls were having a much easier time dodging its attacks.

Renown parried one of them with her straight sword, dodged the next one, and cut through it with a spinning slash.

Four.

Repulse did the same with two more, her two-handed grip allowing her to put much more power behind her swings than her sisters'.

Two.

Those swings left her more exposed, and the Siren took advantage of it, directing one of its remaining limbs at her from her blind spot, but Renown was already there to cover for her sister, severing the offending appendage before it reached her.

One.

The monster paused in its tracks, seemingly stunned by the turn of events; nine of its weapons had been rendered useless, and it was essentially defenseless, so it stopped attacking and retracted its remaining appendage. The two shipgirls took advantage of it to close their distance; they knew that their rounds had no effect on its armor, but maybe they could use their scorching hot weapons to tear through its plates like blowtorches and put an end to this fight.

But they weren't ready for what was coming next. When they got close enough, the squid lifted itself higher into the air, increasing the energy output to the thruster on its underside, moving out of reach from the shipgirls' dangerous weapons. Then it proceeded to retract all its tentacles inside its body, leaving itself barren of any protection for a few instants. A flash of light and a sizzling hiss later, ten new and completely untouched appendages came out of the same spots.

The shipgirls came to a stop and looked up at the monster in shock and dismay. "Bollocks!" Everything they had done had been for naught, and now that fatigue was starting to get to them, they weren't sure they could keep up with another bout with ten more of those things.

But the Siren didn't direct its tendrils at them like it had before. This time, it outstretched each and every one of them outward to their maximum reach, and before the two battlecruisers could even wonder what it was up to, it started spinning vortically like the head of a string trimmer and then began descending on them in a free fall.

Repulse and Renown could only turn on their heels and bolt away from there. They threw away their weapons and dismissed their turrets to give themselves an edge in their escape, but deep down they knew that no matter how quickly they reacted, they'd never be able to get out of the Siren's range in time. So, Renown came up with another idea; she lunged at her sister and grabbed her by the arm. Repulse turned to look at her with a terrified and confused expression, but instead of replying, Renown began spinning on herself, lifting her sister up and using all her enhanced strength to hurl her many feet away from there.

Repulse landed safely on the water with a yelp and quickly scrambled to her feet, looking at her sister. Mouth agape and eyes wide, her scream of horror died in her throat before it could come out as the monster descended on her like the axe of an executioner.

Then a loud clang, like a metal rod getting stuck in a cogwheel, resounded in the air, and the Siren's spinning came to an abrupt stop a few feet above Renown's head.

The poor battlecruiser was huddled in a fetal position on her knees, covering her head with her hands, and didn't have the courage to look up until the sound of metal thrashing about shook her out of her stupor. She quickly scrambled to her feet, eager to put as much distance as possible between herself and the creature as its tentacles began flailing around haphazardly once again.

Once she was out of harm's way, Repulse threw her arms around her neck. "You idiot! What were you thinking?!" Renown breathed a sigh of relief as her sister berated her, but then her gaze moved to the side and her eyes widened in shock.

Fortune was standing many feet away from them, completely free from the chains of her rigging, her indigo eyes shining with an intense light, her arms extended above her head and toward the monster, and her tear-streaked face bearing a determined expression.

The Siren was still in the air, thrashing about with its tentacles, struggling against the chains wrapped around its light bulb-like structure; they clogged the joints from where its tentacles protruded, binding them to its body. Those chains were connected to another metallic structure above the monster. It resembled an iron maiden, and Renown recognized it immediately; it was Fortune's rigging, but this time, she seemed to be in perfect control of it. The torture device was a lot bigger than it appeared to be when she had its parts dangling around her, almost as big as the body of the Siren.

"Get out of there! I got this!" Fortune shouted at them.

Yep, she was having trouble keeping the thing in place, but she was completely in control this time.

The two sisters complied, moving out of the way as the Siren kept struggling under its bindings. At the same time, the body of the iron maiden slowly began opening, the shutters of its cabin parting menacingly to reveal the rows of metal spikes covering the interior. Then, the chains connecting the Siren to the metal contraption began dragging the monster's body upward, and once the Siren took notice, it doubled up on its squirming.

The squid was too thick for the torture device to trap it in its entirety; for that reason, Fortune forced it to stretch those shutters even further, making them expand laterally like menacing spiked wings before making them clamp down on the monster's body, engulfing the Siren like a flytrap with an insect. Even then, only the upper section was trapped in the mortal vice, leaving its underside exposed to the air. But the metal spikes and the pressure the rigging was exerting on it were more than enough to bend its armor inward, eliciting loud, metallic shrieks of anguish from the monster.

Renown and Repulse came to a stop next to Fortune, watching in awe as the shutters of the iron maiden clamped around the Siren in a deadly embrace.

"Way to go, Fortune!" Renown cheered, strongly patting her back.

Fortune couldn't help the giddy smile that came to adorn her lips at the encouragement. She was about to reply with an equally cheery response, but the following cry of alarm made her pause.

"Watch out!"

She looked up at the still trapped monster just in time to see that it had tilted its body slightly to the side so that its underside was aimed directly at them, its thruster glowing with an intense yellow light as it released the beam it had been charging all the while.

Right before the light reached them, she felt someone push her and Renown away. They both managed to turn in time to see Repulse's panicked expression before the laser hit, and she was completely enveloped by the light. It was so intense that it blinded them for a second, and the force of the impact sent them to crash into the water a few feet away.

Once the blinding light subsided, they lifted their gaze. Nothing was left of Repulse, except for a few strands of hair blowing in the wind.

Fortune was too stunned to react, until Renown's heart-wrenching scream shook her out of her stupor. The destroyer turned toward the Siren, still ensnared in her rigging's hold. It had stopped struggling, its tentacles dangling motionless like hanged men from the side of its body; that laser beam was probably its last act of defiance before death.

Her face contorted in a mask of pain and anguish, and she pointed her outstretched arm at the monster before aggressively clenching her hand into a fist. Her rigging loosened its grip on the Siren's body for a brief second before clamping down on it with even more force than before. The squid's body, having already reached its limit, couldn't withstand the added pressure and caved in with an audible crunch before the iron maiden let go of it, making it plummet into the water with a loud splash.

Renown had fallen to her knees, completely defeated, trying to process what just happened. Her sister just died in front of her eyes; the person with whom she had shared everything in life, even the pain and the guilt of being the sole survivor of their timeline, was gone.

Fortune scooted closer to the battlecruiser, her fury slightly quenched, only to be replaced by more guilt and sorrow. "Renown, I… I'm sorry; it's my fault. If I were quicker... Repulse-"

"Stop apologizing, idiot!" Renown lunged at her, wrapping her arms around her neck. She buried her face in her shoulder as she wept her sister's passing.

Fortune was a bit dazed at the beginning, but then leaned into the embrace, hugging her back. More tears began pouring from her eyes, and soon, her own sobbing joined Renown's.

As the two of them mourned their lost comrades together, Fortune noticed a small fleet of shipgirls approaching their position; she recognized Arizona's bulky rigging and Cinder's black billowing cape and white flowing hair.

She figured Arizona and Yamashiro had managed to get to their hideout safely, launch the alarm, and come back with reinforcements.

Too bad there was more bad news awaiting them.

AN: "And you are sure, one hundred percent positive, that none of those monsters followed you here like the one that attacked Leviathan and August?"

"There were no Sirens alive around us at that moment besides that straggler, I promise. Unless, of course, there was one of them beneath us, where we couldn't see it. BuT wHaT aRe ThE cHaNcEs?" -Emperor, ch29.

If anyone is wondering… yes, this Original Siren came with the shipboys, just like the one in chapter seven, only it was literally too out of sight for them to notice.

About its design, it was inspired by the Yu-Gi-Oh card "Fishborg Planter," but with the color scheme and the peculiarities already described in the chapter.

Also, remember that this is an AU, which means everything that has been said about the METAs has been readapted for the story, so don't take it as entirely accurate canon information.

Next Chapter: Interlude - Parting Ways