Shinano's eyes fluttered open. She propped herself up to sit on the rough tatami she was lying on and rubbed the sleep off her eyes, then she turned to glance to the side, where she could see Kurama doing the same.
"Did it work, Shinano?" Kurama asked her after shaking himself awake.
Shinano pursed her lips, looking down in shame as her ears drooped atop her head.
Kurama already knew the answer without needing to guess. He let out a breath through his teeth, crossing his legs and resting his face on his hand, his tails falling around his body inertly.
"I should have known," he muttered. "What the hell was I expecting?"
Shinano winced at his tone; the disappointment in his voice was as clear as a day.
It was her fault. She had gotten his hopes up by asking for his help in trying to reestablish a connection with the other world's Nagato's dream. She had been trying to do it by herself for a while, but without success. She hoped the shipboy's assistance would help her succeed where she was failing alone; that's why she had called him back to the Sanctuary. In a burst of optimism, she had even hoped to allow the shipboy's consciousness to travel across reality and enter his mentor's dream along with hers.
However, despite all their efforts, it was all for nothing.
"I'm sorry, Kurama," she told him with an apologetic tone. She sat up on her knees, placing her hands on the floor in front of her before bowing deeply, her forehead touching the ground. "I was sure I could do it with your help... I didn't mean to give you any false hope... Please forgive me."
"Stop that," Kurama told her with the barest hint of irritation in his voice. With a sigh, he stood up and moved closer, kneeling down in front of her and putting his hand on her shoulder in a comforting gesture. "I'm not blaming you, Shinano. You did everything you could, and for that, you have my gratitude," he continued, his eyes sincere and his expression resolute. "But I think we should stop here. I gave up on seeing him again a long time ago. It's enough to know that at least you were able to talk to him."
Of course, that was a lie. A half-lie, actually. He wasn't mad at her; how could he? If it weren't for her, they would have never made any progress at all. But that didn't mean he wasn't feeling extremely frustrated.
In hindsight, it was his fault. He had let himself get his hopes up, and now he was paying the consequences, the disappointment weighing heavily on his mind.
Feeling like he was about to have a mental breakdown, he straightened himself up and averted his gaze from her, a dark shadow obscuring his face.
"Come now. We've been cooped up here long enough. I don't know about you, but I'm starving," he said, turning his back on her.
Shinano didn't say anything as she watched him leave. His body language was a clear indication of his current state of mind, but she couldn't bring herself to stop him. She'd probably do more harm than good if she tried talking to him. Besides, she also wasn't exactly in the best of places with her head at the moment.
"I'm so ashamed of myself," she muttered, staring out the window at the massive trunk of the Sacred Sakura sinking into the base's central lagoon. She trudged across the tatami until she reached the window and rested her head on her arms, leaning against the frame. Gazing up at the tree with a sullen look, she began spacing out.
The Sanctuary hadn't yet recovered from the massive attack it had suffered at the hands of the Sirens. Despite the Commander having sent a lot of bulins to help, not much time had passed since the siege, and the harbor hadn't yet been cleared of all the rubble.
Luckily, the inner part of the Sanctuary had been spared by the destruction, and the Sakura Kansen, after having spent a couple days at the joint base, had quickly returned to their home; the Sacred Sakura needed all the protection that could be spared, and the recent events were undeniable proof of that.
It was just before the incident with Tower that Shinano invited Kurama to the Sanctuary. When news of the emergency arrived, he chose to stay to protect the Sacred Sakura in case the joint fleet failed to intercept the Arbiter in time. In the end, things had gone how they had, and now, a few days after that, he had decided to stay to carry on with this commitment.
During that time, Shinano and Kurama had tried to reestablish the connection with Nagato's dream several times; the shipboy would use his own mental energy to fuel her power, and she would take care of establishing the connection through the Sacred Sakura Tree, just like they had done the first time. She desperately wanted to give Kurama the chance to communicate with his mentor, but much to her own chagrin, their attempts had always resulted in failure.
Never in her entire life had her power failed her like this. She had long since gotten used to its unpredictability, but this time, she just couldn't wrap her head around what was up with it. It felt like she was back in the early years of the war, when she could barely even understand how it worked.
Every time she tried, she simply couldn't find Nagato's dream. It was like it had simply disappeared, almost as if her flagship's male counterpart had stopped dreaming altogether. But that didn't make any sense; the shipboy was in a coma, and dreaming was the only thing he could do. As long as his unconscious body remained close to the Sacred Sakura, she should be able to reach him easily…
Wait, maybe that was the problem. Maybe he wasn't there anymore. Maybe something happened that forced the people around him to move him away from the Sacred Sakura. Maybe he was… dead?
She shook her head vehemently, pushing away that thought. There was no way he was gone just like that. That would be too cruel.
"Please, give me a sign…" she pleaded, looking at the tree. "I'll take anything... But please, don't leave me hanging like this..."
A sudden, light breeze blew in her face, slightly ruffling her hair and sweeping the tree's cherry blossom petals into the air around her.
Shinano's eyes widened as a newfound sense of realization took over her, and she felt like berating herself. How could she have forgotten something so important?
All the times she had tried to contact Nagato and all those naps she had taken in that room with Kurama by her side had not been in vain. She had gotten so used to having everything in her mind as clear as a day that she had forgotten the stuff dreams were made of.
For after waking up, although she couldn't precisely recall the details, she felt that she had indeed dreamed. The sensation was unmistakable, even without the memory to support it. It was the typical feeling of waking up with a vague, slippery sense that she had experienced something vivid and meaningful, but whose details eluded her. Her attempts at grasping at the fragments of memory only caused them to dissolve the moment she tried to focus on them, like trying to catch smoke with her hands.
She did dream those times; she just couldn't remember what it was. That's what was driving her crazy.
Yet her prayer must have been answered. Sure, everything was still veiled behind a thick curtain of mist, through which she couldn't seem to navigate, but she had managed to remember one tiny, important detail.
"I have to tell Shikikan Travis…"
Ryan let out a long sigh as he flopped on his desk in front of him, the last bit of paperwork for the day finally done. Going back to his office after what happened felt like waking up from a fever dream.
He gazed out the window to see the sun setting, the orange taking over the sky slowly giving way to the dark of the night.
One would think, after that whole mess with Tower, that the situation around the world would become more stable—or at least as stable as a global crisis could be.
Well, think again.
The Sirens didn't let up after the emergency; in fact, they seemed to have dialed up the intensity of their incursions. The low-tier humanoids Observer and the other Elites used to deploy against the shipgirls seemed to have disappeared completely—those deployed by Tower were likely their remaining ranks—and the mass-produced vessels they were so used to fighting were slowly diminishing in numbers, replaced by more and more of the Original Sirens' units.
Things were shifting up, and humanity's smaller outposts around the globe were falling one after the other. The still very much present power vacuum wasn't helping with the situation; if anything, it was slowing down their response even more.
And yet the alliance was holding strong.
Ryan's program of making the base self-sufficient was slowly coming together, and the support he was gathering from both the public opinion and the more influential spheres was growing exponentially. After the success of the operation for Tower's subjugation and the statements of Bismarck and Jean Bart on national TV, the doubts plaguing the minds of the people had been almost completely cleared. The world was starting to openly turn to Azur Lane, looking up to his fleet as what he aspired it to be—a beacon the masses could look to in order not to lose hope in these dark times.
All that, of course, came along with a bunch of expectations and responsibility much heavier than ever before and, as one would expect, with an increased workload for both him and the Kansen.
The influx of commissions from other ports was steadily increasing, with a growing array of requests for escort missions, salvage operations, and even trade deals; sometimes other ports would even employ them for watch duty. All that coupled with the need of independently procuring their own supplies—such as oil, ammunition, spare parts, and various other more mundane necessities—everyone found themselves with barely a moment to catch their breath.
They were all starting to feel the effects of the tighter schedule. The longer patrols, the increasingly more dangerous sorties, and the ever more frequent skirmishes with the Sirens were slowly tiring everyone out.
"At this point, they'll take us by exhaustion," Ryan thought, rubbing his eyes as his gaze fell on the small calendar on his desk, anticipation slowly building up inside him as he stared at the impending date he had marked.
A sudden knock on the door made him straighten up in his chair. He cleared his throat and gave the go-ahead, the expression on his face relaxing visibly at the sight of Shoukaku.
"Yes, love, is something the matter?" He asked her as she stepped into the office.
She smiled at the moniker but didn't walk up to his desk. Instead, she remained in front of the door.
"I just came from the communication room, Shikikan; I bring news from the Sanctuary," she told him with a serious tone, making him perk up. "Shinano-sama wishes to speak with you."
Akagi perked up at the sight of Ryan and Shoukaku getting out of the administration building. She had come all the way from the Sakura dorm to see if she could catch him out of his work hour, but of course, as always, there was already someone by his side, whether it was his bodyguard, the head maid, or his secretary.
Usually, their interactions played out this way: she would shamelessly accost him with a sultry smile and proposal for some alone time together, which would promptly be followed by his refusal, accompanied by a vaguely poor excuse that would leave her seething in anger and frustration.
It was always like that; sometimes he didn't have time, other times something urgent required his attention elsewhere, and other times someone would come looking for him to pull him away with perfect timing.
This time, though, that didn't happen. Instead of stepping forward to meet them head-on, she stepped to the side, slipping into a side alley, waiting for them to pass by while remaining out of sight.
As they walked away, she stepped back into the open, letting out a wistful breath as she noticed the two lovers interlocking their fingers. For some reason she couldn't quite explain herself, the sight didn't make her boil in anger; it only left her with some mild irritation.
The thought of tailing them peeked from the back of her mind but was quickly smothered by a burst of resignation. With a sigh, she turned to head back the way she came, when a sudden voice stopped her in her tracks.
"Akagi, there you are!"
She glanced to the side to see Yorktown approaching her, a big smile on her face as she waved at her.
"What is it, Yorktown?" She asked the white-haired carrier.
"Oh, nothing important. I just wanted to show you something. Are you free?" Yorktown asked her with a hopeful smile.
Akagi blinked, unimpressed, but saw no reason to refuse her.
"Sure; I have nothing to do at the moment," she shrugged.
"Great; let's go!"
"Look! I was finally able to get the hang of that maneuver!" Yorktown sang with the excitement of a little kid as her Hellcats danced in the sky. Rigging out and arm outstretched toward the sea, she stood at the edge of the training bay, with Akagi standing right beside her. "And look, I can make them do this!" She added, willing the formation of miniaturized aircraft to sharply change course, preparing them for the next move.
While Akagi had already seen what Yorktown could do with her new rigging, the Eagle Union carrier was excited to properly showcase it to her. After all, the Sakura did go out of her way to help her out when she was still afflicted by the corruption. Yorktown liked to think that it was also thanks to Akagi that she had managed to adapt so quickly to it. She had also kept practicing the maneuvers the Kitsune had taught her, and she couldn't wait to show her the fruits of her efforts.
But as much as she tried to impress her, Akagi seemed completely indifferent.
"Yorktown, did you bring me here to brag?" Akagi asked her, a veiled accusation in her tone.
"Huh? N-no, I just wanted to show you the progress I've made with the maneuvers you've taught me," Yorktown said, fidgeting awkwardly.
Akagi narrowed her eyes at her, an unimpressed look on her face. By now, she had spent enough time with the other carrier to figure out when she was hiding something.
"Actually… I saw you earlier, hiding from Shoukaku and the Commander," Yorktown trailed off, unable to look her in the eyes.
"And you thought I looked so pathetic you decided to come check on me?" Akagi said, sarcasm dripping in her tone.
"N-no, not pathetic! It's just that you are usually more... forward," Yorktown tentatively said, trying not to upset her more than she already was. "While earlier you looked so... defeated."
"Hmph, defeated…" Akagi scoffed. "I suppose that's an accurate way to put it," she mused aloud, looking out to the sea.
Silence fell between them as a sullen mood took over.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Yorktown tentatively asked her.
"Not really…" Akagi shrugged.
"It might help to get it out of your system," Yorktown pressed, trying not to sound too pushy.
"I don't need help, Yorktown," Akagi replied. "I've just lost motivation, that's all."
That's right. Akagi, the pride of the peerless First Carrier Division, had given up on her quarry.
It wasn't something she had decided out of nowhere. It was something she had been pondering for a while, specifically since Amagi had recovered from her condition.
Initially, she had decided to pursue the Commander for that specific reason. The man supervised the greatest fleet of Kansen on the planet, had contacts and acquaintances with the top brass from all factions, and was personally involved in the fight against the humanoid Sirens—now Antiochus—and the investigation of their modus operandi before the whole mess with the Original Sirens began. Both human officers and Kansen would bend over backward just to get acquainted with him, and anyone who managed to become close enough to him would have the capacity to influence his decisions and, therefore, the direction of the war and the efforts of the entire alliance, at least to a certain extent.
But that wouldn't have been enough. To reach her goal, Akagi would not only have had to gain his favor but also become closer to him than anyone else, and she had plenty of ways in mind to do so.
The idea had been to seduce him—to use her charm to make him fall at her feet. And once she had a good grasp on his heart, she'd use her "love" to coerce the man into doing her own bidding. She'd rule the fleet from behind the scenes, and she'd have the assets, the resources, and the power of Azur Lane at her disposal.
Her plan, contrary to what many would believe, wasn't just a way to satisfy her thirst for power; her intention was to use all that power to achieve her main goal: to find a cure for Amagi's condition.
She had been ready to burn everyone and everything that got in her way. The fact that he was already involved with Shoukaku was the one thing she hadn't anticipated, but that simply meant she would have had to steal him from her. But in the end, she had gotten what she wanted; Amagi had recovered, and she hadn't needed to lift a finger.
That's what had left her stumped.
She was happy, of course—ecstatic, even. Her sister was healthy and kicking; her one and only purpose in life—that wasn't to wipe out the enemies of the Sakura Empire—that had made her push forward for the past few years, and that had almost caused her to commit treason by fraternizing with the enemy had been fulfilled.
But it had all left her with an emptiness inside that she didn't know how to fill. It wasn't her who had saved her sister; it was someone else. And while she would be eternally grateful to all those who had taken part in it, she couldn't help the feeling of inadequacy from taking over, the flame of her passion slowly burning out.
She had tried to keep it from snuffing out completely as much as she could; she had kept going after the Commander despite all that, putting up a stiff mask of nonchalance as she kept nagging him for attention. Until, slowly, she realized she was only making a fool out of herself with her half-assed attempts. And now, all she had left was that lingering feeling of disappointment and incompleteness, accompanied by a feeling of jealousy for her insufferable junior.
Shoukaku had succeeded in what she had failed, despite not having any grander objective in mind. She had done it by simply following her heart, spurred by the purest of intentions, and had achieved what Akagi now found herself craving.
"But that won't do!" Yorktown piped up, shaking her out of her thoughts. "There's still so much that needs to be done. You can't let something like this keep you down!"
"Hah, says the one who was on the verge of collapsing into depression," Akagi scoffed haughtily.
"Yes, and thanks to whom was I able to get out of that?" Yorktown retorted, keeping her gaze steady.
"Ugh, please spare me the part where you tell me that you want to repay me for that," Akagi said, scrunching her nose. She knew where this was going.
"That's exactly what I had in mind," Yorktown said with a sheepish smile. "But now I have another idea."
Akagi rolled her eyes in annoyance at that.
"And what, pray tell, is that about?" She asked the other carrier, exasperated.
Yorktown smirked, a playful glint passing through her eyes. She knew what she needed to do to lift Akagi's spirit.
"I challenge you to a duel."
The draining system pumped the liquid out of the preservation capsule, and when the hatch opened with a loud hiss, Empress stepped outside.
She looked down at her hands, her disbelief concealed by her poker face. Her new body was still soaked with the preservative liquid, and she could feel it dripping down her form onto the cold metal floor of the well-lit room. She didn't think she'd ever get to… feel things again. The time she had spent inside her own Cube after her defeat at the hands of that male Kitsune wasn't that long, but it still felt like an eternity to her.
"Welcome back among us, Empress," a voice she recognized reached her ears. Observer was leaning over another empty capsule on the other side of the room, looking at her with a sardonic grin. As usual, she was wrapped in the mass of black tentacles that was her rigging. "I suspect you have questions."
"Quite," Empress said, narrowing her eyes at the other Elite. "For starters, who is she?" She questioned, pointing at the woman with heterochromatic eyes standing idly by the side.
The grin Devil was wearing widened, and she stepped forward to address the Arbiter.
"The Creator calls me The Devil XV, but you can just call me Devil," she stated, her words ringing in Empress' ears like chimes. "Now that you are awake, my master would like to speak with you," she added as she stepped toward the automatic door, which opened to let her through. Before she crossed it, she turned once more toward the bug-eyed Arbiter. "Oh, and clean yourself up before you step outside; we wouldn't want someone to slip and hit their head, not after all the work the bulins have done to make this place presentable."
Empress followed her with her gaze as she left the room, the door closing behind her with a loud hiss, leaving her with more questions than before.
"She's quite something, isn't she?" Observer piped up, wholeheartedly enjoying the Arbiter's stupor. "She took me down on her own while I was under the Original Sirens' control."
Empress' head snapped on her comrade, her eyes widening even more. Too much information was being thrown at her all at once, all without any sort of context to help her in the process.
"Don't fret; everything is going to be very clear to you very soon," Observer told her, her tentacles squirming in amusement. "Seriously, though, you should hurry and dry yourself up. The Creator is quite the character, and you wouldn't want to make a bad first impression, would you?"
With that said, Observer turned to float away through the door, leaving Empress behind to try putting some order in her thoughts.
What the hell happened while she was sealed away?
"How are you feeling, dearie?" Anzeel asked Fortune META as she helped her sit up on the bed.
"A bit dizzy..." the destroyer said with a slightly slurred speech after a few seconds of taking her bearings.
"It's normal," Vestal META said from the side. "It wasn't long, but you've just woken up from a slumber much deeper than any normal anesthesia-induced one. You'll recover in no time."
"What's important is that you aren't feeling any backlash," Anzeel said. "The procedure went smoothly, but it's best if you stay here a few more days, just to be safe."
"Alright..." Fortune said, rubbing her eyes with her hands, still a bit dizzy.
They were inside one of the many refurbished rooms of the hidden base Azur Lane had previously snatched from the Sirens. As planned, as soon as the fleet had returned from Brest, Anzeel was transferred here with the Reality Lens to immediately begin working on curing the METAs.
Vestal META had offered herself to go first so that she could help the doctor take care of the rest of her comrades once their turn came, and the first was Fortune herself.
Everyone had agreed unanimously that the destroyer should take priority, but Fortune had objected, stating that she didn't want to step ahead of her senior comrades. In return, they had all said that waiting a few more days wouldn't change much for them, so, after a bit of convincing, she had relented.
Fortune knew that both the Creator and the Antiochus were here, but she hadn't seen any of them yet. As soon as she had arrived here with Massachusetts' power, she had been ushered to the deeper parts of the underwater complex, where the Reality Lens was set up, and she had been put to sleep by Anzeel and the META repair ship.
She had just woken up from that deep slumber. The room she was in seemed like a lab repurposed as a sick bay, with dark colors the same as the rest of the base's interiors, paired with the bright white of the medical equipment brought over from Azur Lane.
Even though she didn't know the exact process behind it, she knew that the operation was supposed to free her only of the corruption caused by the Metamorphosis, but for some reason, that seemed to have worked on her state of mind as well. After the dizziness and the nausea went away, she began feeling better, as if a huge weight was lifted off her shoulders, making her heart feel lighter.
"Everything okay?" Anzeel's voice shook her out of her thoughts.
"Uh, yes, doctor; I'm fine now, really," Fortune said to the concerned woman. Only then did she realize that she wasn't wearing her usual outfit but a simple blue hospital gown. "Though I was wondering... What exactly did you do to me?"
Anzeel paused, sheepishly scratching the back of her head. "Well, it's a bit hard to explain."
In actuality, it wasn't. Anzeel had removed Fortune's Cube from her body and had put it inside a specialized case-like contraption she had brought with her from the Original Timeline to prevent it from "dying," then she had used the Reality Lens to cleanse it of all the impurities she could find, and then she had transferred it inside one of the many preservation capsules they had at their disposal. From there, she had worked on rebuilding the shipgirl's body around the Cube from scratch, following its intrinsic directives.
"You don't need to concern yourself with the whole process, Fortune," Vestal META came to her help. "The operation was akin to a Cube transplant, but it's too complicated even for me to understand, so don't worry about it."
Anzeel nodded vehemently in agreement, grateful for the intervention. She didn't need to tell the destroyer how she had plucked her Cube from her body to stuff it into a machine to keep it alive or how she had literally thrown her old body into the base's incinerator. The last thing she needed was to rekindle her trauma.
Fortune's new body had the same identical appearance as before, only it was free of the corruption afflicting it—just like her rigging—and that's what mattered. The shipgirl simply needed to get used to… everything again. This was like the first time her Cube had brought her to life; only, this time, it was a new body with an old mind, and she had plenty of previous experience to speed up that process.
Of course, Vestal META had witnessed everything; she had undergone the same process before the destroyer, and she would remain at the base as the doctor's helper until they had gone through all the METAs.
"If you say so," Fortune said, deciding not to press the matter. "What am I supposed to do here while I wait?" She inquired. She didn't like the idea of standing idly, doing nothing while everyone else did their part against the Sirens; most of all, she didn't like the idea of hanging around a base full of Antiochus.
"Nothing," Vestal META declared. "Take some time to get used to your new body, see if there's any issue with your rigging... Just keep your mind occupied, and don't mind the other occupants, understood, Fortune?"
"Understood," Fortune nodded, the other shipgirl's stern tone of voice almost overshadowing her good intentions.
After a few more minutes of checking up on the META destroyer, once she felt satisfied, Anzeel called the end of it.
"Phew, we are finally done," she said, breathing a sigh of relief. Two METAs cured in about forty-eight hours. She wasn't sure she'd be able to finish them all on time for the planetary alignment without exhausting herself.
"Thank you so much, doctor," Fortune told her with a genuine smile as she stood up from the bed. "I don't know what else to say to express my gratitude."
"Aw, that pretty smile of yours is more than enough of a reward, dearie," Anzeel cooed, her heart swelling with affection. "Now, get going. We should send word to the Commander and call forth the next pair. Can I leave it to you, Vestal?" She asked the other shipgirl.
"Of course, doctor."
Empress walked into the control room of the underwater base, the automatic door opening for her. Greeting her was the sight of all her "colleagues" standing idly around the room.
Strength, Hermit, and Temperance were standing stiffly on one side, in silence. All of them had forgone their rigging and equipment and were standing one next to the other, looking around nervously. They all turned to acknowledge her in unison, their eyes expressing relief at the sight of their superior now awake.
Observer, Tester, and Purifier instead seemed to be much more at ease than them. They were acting too relaxed, as if their own creator weren't standing a few feet away from them. Of course, that's because Observer and Purifier had already had enough time to get accustomed to his presence.
And speaking of the Creator, there he was. The man was standing in the middle of the room in front of the main console, surrounded by monitors and interfaces, with Devil standing beside him; he was giving his back to them, and his arms were crossed as he fixed his eyes on the displays in front of him.
When Devil took notice of Empress' arrival, she turned to address him.
"Master, everyone's here."
"Good; we can get started," Aoste stated, turning around to regard the Antiochus in the room. They all straightened their backs, standing on attention, eagerly awaiting to heed his words.
Empress didn't make it in time to join her comrades before he started speaking, so she found herself right in his line of sight, awkwardly standing in the middle of the room between the other two groups.
"First, introductions are in order," he started. "For those who don't know me yet, my name is Ryan A. Travis, but you all can call me Aoste, or doctor, or master, if you wish... I hail from the Original Timeline, and I am your 'Creator,' as you call me," he spoke, his gaze scanning the room and the Antiochus in front of him one by one.
When his gaze lingered on her, Empress felt her breath die in her throat. She couldn't help but notice his resemblance to the commander of Azur Lane as she absorbed his words. So, the same feeble human who commanded the Kansen was their Creator? Preposterous, was her initial thought. There must be some kind of mistake.
And yet the sheer pressure she felt in his presence was real. The feeling of impotence and submission assaulting her wasn't just an artifice caused by her bemused state of mind; it was entrenched in her very being.
She needed to confirm it, even if it meant coming out as disrespectful and insubordinate. This was too important.
"You call yourself our Creator," she spoke up, trying to keep her voice steady. "But do you have proof of your words, or do you expect us to follow your orders just like that?"
Silence fell into the room. Devil suppressed a smirk as the other Antiochus' eyes widened in shock. Aoste, on his part, looked nonplussed.
"Empress, self-destruct," he ordered.
As if an external force had taken control of her will and body, she summoned one of her eye-orbs, the spherical contraption appearing in a flash of light, hovering beside her. It turned toward her, its single eye slowly charging up an energy beam, aiming at her head. A sudden feeling of dread took over as she was kept in her place by an invisible force. She realized she couldn't move or command the drone to hold fire.
She closed her eyes, awaiting the inevitable. Was she really about to die in such a pointless way right after coming back?
The sound of a single laser beam going off resounded in the air, but she felt nothing. Only silence followed before she heard the sound of metal clattering as her eye-orb fell to the ground. When she opened her eyes, she noticed the contraption lying on the floor, destroyed and smoking as another drone she had never seen before hovered in its place next to her.
The thing turned and flew back to its owner before disappearing into thin air as she recalled it, and Empress eyes fell on Aoste as the man lowered the arm he had used to signal for Devil to intervene.
"Do you believe me now?" He asked her.
She nodded her head vehemently, her composure slowly coming back to her.
"Good. Now, let's get to business."
He turned his back to them after beckoning them forward, and Empress took it as a sign to be at ease, allowing herself to breathe again. The other Antiochus closed up behind him as he fiddled with the main console, and she moved closer to her Arbiter comrades, regarding them with a questioning look.
"Don't ask; we know as much as you," Hermit told her in a hushed tone.
"Yeah, we only woke up a few hours before you," Temperance added.
"We tried asking those three, but all we got was ridicule and laughter," Strength supplied, glancing at the other three Elites with barely concealed annoyance.
Observer, Tester, and Purifier were snickering under their breaths, whispering between each other, not even trying to hide their amusement at the sight of the bemused Arbiters.
"No way, really? That's what happened?" Tester wondered aloud with an exaggerated tone, her mocking eyes fixed on them.
"That's right, and listen to this…" Purifier began, her voice lowering to an imperceptible level.
Tester had also woken up a few hours before. After the mess with Tower, Ryan had sent her Cube to Aoste so that he could work on making a new vessel for her as well, but contrary to the others, she knew everything that had transpired since she got put under the Original Sirens' control; all thanks to Observer and Purifier, of course, and the trio couldn't help mocking their Arbiter comrades about it.
But Empress had too much stuff on her mind to care about their clowning.
"Strength, your speech..." she asked the other Arbiter, surprise and confusion evident on her face.
"He fixed it, just like that," Strength stated matter-of-factly.
Empress hung her head in thought. Strength's speech defect was the result of a flaw in her mainframe, which carried over to her Cube and subsequently to her vessels. Zero had tried to fix it multiple times in the past, but the issue was so intrinsic within her program that even their leader couldn't correct it. The fact that the man had succeeded where the Original Program had failed was another irrefutable proof of his claims.
As Empress came to that conclusion, a euphoric sensation began spreading through her body. So, it wasn't a ruse. It was true. This man was the Creator. She felt something tug at the corner of her lips, quirking them upward. She was so ecstatic that she could barely contain her elation, and she was forced to cover her mouth with her hand to hide the smile coming to her lips.
"Eugh, wipe that smirk off your face; it's disgusting," Purifier gagged in disgust.
"Silence, heathen," Empress hissed, her patience now running thin. "There's a limit to how much mocking I can endure before I snap you like a twig."
"Hehe, why don't you give it a try? You'd be surprised," Purifier retorted smugly, knowing full well that the new directives Aoste had installed in their Cubes prevented them from attacking each other.
"You little-"
"Enough."
Aoste's stern but measured tone of voice was enough to shush them. He glanced behind him at the group of Antiochus as they bickered and threw barbs at each other.
"It almost feels like I'm back in my lab," he thought. "Devil, explain to them the situation while I finish with this," he said as he returned his attention to the screen.
"Of course, Master."
What followed was Devil's shortened but detailed retelling of what happened during the time the Antiochus had spent as Cubes. They all hung on her lips as she talked, especially Empress. She was the one who had missed the most stuff out of all those present, as she had been defeated way before Azur Lane got in contact with Zero and struck a deal on Lenin's liberation. She needed to be brought up to speed more than the others.
Strength, Temperance, and Hermit, on their part, knew about that. They were aware that Zero had put Azur Lane on the METAs' tail, and Strength had even assisted them in finding their quarry after they had defeated her. But none of them could have expected the rest.
The Original Sirens had arrived, had captured the seed, and were using it to replenish their numbers. The bastards were also getting rid of their old troops by throwing them in battle to then recover their leftover Cubes and convert them into more of their own. Furthermore, they had used the weapons the Antiochus had amassed to deal a hard blow on humanity, and not only that; they had found out about Tower—their most guarded secret—and had unleashed it.
Imagine the surprise on the Antiochus' faces when they found out that Azur Lane had managed to bring her down, rigging and all. They shared a glance but didn't utter a word, the news leaving them speechless. And after Devil finished her speech with a quick explanation of the current situation, silence fell in the room as they processed the sheer amount of information she had dumped on them.
"Well, what are we waiting for? Why don't we go get the seed back?" Hermit blurted out after a few moments of quiet.
"Because by amassing too many forces in a single place we'll leave ourselves vulnerable to their counterattack," Aoste stated, turning to look them in the eyes now that he was finally done with his work. "Counting both Kansen and manned fleets, we don't have enough numbers to attack the seed and protect our shores at the same time. Those were the Commander's words, by the way; not mine."
"But Master, a battle of attrition will give them enough time to regroup. It won't be long before they launch another large-scale attack, and at that point, humanity will be doomed," Observer objected. "The time to strike is now; we need to take advantage of the fact that their forces are spread all over the world to harass the factions. Send us; we'll take the seed by ourselves-"
Aoste raised a hand, prompting her to pause her rant.
"Even assuming the Sirens have few enough troops protecting the seed for you all to storm in and recapture it on your own at this very moment, I can't let you," Aoste said. "You are too vulnerable. No matter how many failsafe measures I put in your programs, their Flayer-types will breach them. You'll fall under their control again, and we'll be back to square one. We cannot allow it."
The man's eyes suddenly hardened as she began scanning their gazes one after the other.
"I was told about your modus operandi, and I was not pleased with it at all," Aoste stated, his tone sharp and concise, making the Antiochus stiffen up on the spot. "While I agree that sacrifices need to be made to achieve absolute victory, there's no point in taking the seed without a home to return to after. Even in the Original Timeline we knew that much when we pushed the Sirens back."
"Then what are we supposed to do… Master?" Empress inquired, surprising even herself at how naturally the moniker came out of her mouth.
"We wait," he stated. The Antiochus around him exchanged uncertain glances, so he felt compelled to elaborate. "In a week, the planetary alignment will be upon us. TB is already working on the hardware for the portal. When the moment comes, the shipboys will go back to their world and return with reinforcements. As for you, you all are going to support Azur Lane in keeping the Sirens at bay until then."
"Yes, Master," the Antiochus all acknowledged his words in unison.
"What if the male Kansen fail?" Empress inquired, voicing what was on everyone's minds. "What if the portal doesn't last, or if their comrades refuse to help? What are we going to do if that happens?"
"Then we'll have to find another way," answered Aoste. "Tester, you are the last one we've retrieved from the enemy's clutches; I want a report on what you have on them: numbers, planned attacks, convoy routes... anything you can remember that might give us an edge in the short term before they change up their plans."
"Of course, Master~"
"You have your orders," Aoste stated. "Dismissed."
AN: Happy 2025, everyone! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
How have you been?
Me? I've been great—family, friends, studies, holidays… Nobody gives a shit. We're all here for another reason.
I'll admit I didn't get as ahead as I wanted in terms of chapters written. There were a couple of things I was unsure how to write that took me some time to figure out, but ultimately, I'm more than satisfied with the result.
You'll see what I've been cooking later. For now, we are back, but we are not quite in the thick of it yet. As always, I'm taking my time to set up some stuff before we get to meat of the matter.
And this time, no more delays. It's a direct countdown to the planetary alignment.
Stay tuned for more!
Next Chapter: Change of Plans
