I really hoped I'd meet some girls from the main fleet someday—preferably girls from the Royal Maid Corps. An all-purpose head maid like Belfast would be nice, but a white-haired maid like Sirius would be even better.
A sweet little maid like Sirius, with that sinful body and absolute devotion to her Commander—and she was even an Oath Ship who had received a ring. If they truly reunited, Ye Ming felt certain he could properly display the prowess of a predator.
But for now...
After breakfast, he would take Laffey to a wedding dress shop to have a dress custom-made.
Laffey would definitely look even prettier in a wedding dress than she did in the game.
The warm morning sunlight spilled into the living room. Looking at the adorable little girl beside him, Ye Ming's heart settled into warmth and peace as well.
White Eagle War God
At the same time Ye Ming decided to take Laffey to buy a wedding dress, an unprecedented war was about to unfold in the alternate world known as Azure Lane.
The world of Azure Lane was a blue planet whose surface was covered by 71% seawater. Humanity had been born, grown, multiplied, and developed its own civilization amid that vast blue.
Yet alongside it, ambition and desire continued to swell. Beneath the seemingly tranquil global order, hidden currents churned.
Then, one day, unknown enemies emerged from the ocean. With overwhelming combat power, they defeated the scattered human factions. After their defeat, humanity lost control of over ninety percent of the seas, while its technology and standard of living rapidly regressed. Humanity developed a deep fear of the ocean and those unknown enemies, calling the monsters that dragged them into the darkness of the deep sea "Sirens."
During the battle against the Sirens, beings known as Ship-Girls gradually became active and became the primary force resisting them.
Ship-Girls were spirits modeled after warships that had existed in history, awakened from Wisdom Cubes by people with special talents. They possessed human appearances, firepower, speed, and resilience greater than steel warships, as well as tremendous potential for growth. Even now, as the Sirens grew ever stronger and evolved from ordinary cannons to all sorts of advanced weapons, highly trained Ship-Girls still possessed the power to confront them head-on.
Those rare individuals capable of awakening Ship-Girls were known as Commanders.
For decades, Commanders had led their Ship-Girls on the front lines against the Sirens. Though the deep-sea Sirens were numerous, heavily armed, and held an enormous advantage, the Commanders had relied on shared information and mutual support to trade blows with the Sirens, maintaining a fragile balance.
But not long ago, that balance had been broken.
Along the southeastern coast of the Southern Continent, a Special Sea Area resembling a "domain" had appeared at some unknown point. The Special Sea Area was the Sirens' home ground. Sirens within it received enormous enhancements, while Ship-Girls entering it suffered severe weakening. Even highly trained Ship-Girls would be utterly defeated.
Worse still, as time passed, the Special Sea Area continued to expand, seemingly intent on devouring the entire planet in one sweep.
Faced with this massive crisis, every nation united. Under the headquarters' coordination, dozens of elite Commanders from nearby waters formed a powerful Joint Fleet with their main Ship-Girls and charged into the Special Sea Area to subjugate the Sirens.
The result was a crushing defeat.
To be honest, Zhou Xiaoguo was more panicked than anyone. As one of the relatively rare female Commanders, her Port District was located right along the southeastern coast. As a rookie female Commander, she only had one Ship-Girl, the destroyer Yukikaze, and Yukikaze's training level was extremely low.
When the Joint Fleet was defeated a few days ago, Zhou Xiaoguo had even considered running away. It was shameful, but as a Commander, she absolutely did not want her young wife, Yukikaze, to sink.
But now, even though she was already inside the Special Sea Area, Zhou Xiaoguo no longer felt the slightest panic.
Because her heart was filled with overwhelming shock.
The Siren waters, once a mysterious and unfathomable battlefield, had turned into a one-sided slaughter not long after the battle began.
And this time, the ones being slaughtered were the powerful Siren fleet.
Carrier planes filled the sky, while cannon fire roared everywhere. Whenever a Siren warship tried to resist, it would inevitably be blasted to pieces by multiple carrier planes and barrages of artillery.
"Who exactly are you people?"
Zhou Xiaoguo's face was full of disbelief. This fleet was so powerful that it completely exceeded her imagination. Compared to the fleet before her, the Joint Fleet from before was so vastly inferior that the difference was enough to drive one to despair. The members of that Joint Fleet had all been the finest elites among the nearby Ship-Girls.
"Us? We're merely rootless duckweed with nowhere to call home, drifting from place to place only to find him, return to his side, and become ordinary Ship-Girls again."
Standing beside Zhou Xiaoguo and serving as her guard was a beautiful blue-haired, violet-eyed girl.
Zhou Xiaoguo remembered that when she had introduced herself earlier, the girl had claimed to be the light cruiser Helena.
"Ordinary Ship-Girls?"
Zhou Xiaoguo stared at the one-sided battlefield across the sea, her expression numb.
"Aircraft carriers Lexington, Saratoga, Essex, Casablanca..."
"Battleships North Carolina, Washington, South Dakota, Georgia..."
"There are even precious Submarine Lolis active beneath the sea..."
"Wait! That should be the light cruiser San Diego, right? Why is her anti-aircraft fire so terrifying!?"
Zhou Xiaoguo widened her eyes as she watched a red-haired girl charge straight into a formation of Siren carrier planes and deploy her rigging. Amid thunderous cannon fire, in the blink of an eye, the girl shot down the entire Siren aircraft formation with her anti-aircraft guns.
"Because San Diego was retrofitted by the Commander. If Ship-Girls' rarity and growth potential are divided into white, green, purple, and gold, then San Diego has already surpassed the limits of gold and reached the rainbow tier—Legendary at Sea."
Helena seemed accustomed to such shock and explained patiently.
Zhou Xiaoguo did not hear Helena clearly. Her attention had already been firmly captured by a white-haired girl in military uniform, looking valiant and heroic amid the distant battlefield.
As an aircraft carrier, she should have been hiding somewhere safe under the protection of destroyers and cruisers, launching carrier planes from afar to strike the enemy. Yet the white-haired girl did the opposite, charging at the front. The moment she raised her hand to launch carrier planes, she rushed toward a Siren carrier and slammed her fist into it.
Such brazen behavior naturally drew the Siren warships' attention. Dozens of bombers and countless shells poured down upon the girl like a torrential rain.
A terrifying explosion thundered across the sea. Vast quantities of seawater were blasted high into the sky before cascading down in a brief downpour. Once the curtain of rain fell, the unharmed white-haired girl had already charged toward another Siren warship. Behind her, only the Siren carrier remained, swaying as it sank beneath the sea.
Charging, then charging again—the white-haired girl was like a terrifying beast that had entered a land of tiny people, rampaging across the battlefield with no one able to stop her.
Zhou Xiaoguo was completely dumbfounded.
"Who is she?"
Zhou Xiaoguo's expression was blank, her voice dry.
"She is White Eagle's pride, the aircraft carrier with the most brilliant record in White Eagle history—the Grey Ghost, the White Eagle War God. At the same time, she is also the Commander's second Oath Ship."
"Her name is Enterprise."
Enterprise.jpg
Helena watched the white-haired girl's valiant figure in battle, her tone tinged with sorrow.
Once, the girl born for war had finally shown a peaceful smile because of the Commander. But now, she was slowly slipping back into the abyss of war.
Because the girl's harbor of the heart, her Commander, her husband, had vanished.
Commander, where did you go? Has the mysteriously vanished Laffey already found you?
Everyone, Helena misses you all so much.
Helena watched Enterprise's unstoppable figure at sea, her heart heavy.
The next second, Helena's eyes widened in surprise.
In the distant waters, Enterprise's figure, along with the carrier planes she had launched, suddenly vanished without warning.
Workplace Unspoken Rules?
Okita Souji had hidden in the bedroom and overheard Ye Ming and Laffey's conversation. When Ye Ming said, "From now on, rely on your Commander a little more," Souji knew she was finished.
Before she had even begun, she had already fallen into defeat.
The defeat had come so suddenly that even Souji, who had experienced the bloody storms of the Bakumatsu, could not help but panic. Her mind went blank, and she leaned weakly against the door as though she had fallen into boundless chaos. Only when she heard the door opening did she suddenly realize what was happening and flee through the bedroom window in a panic, without even thinking to deal with the traces she had left behind in the room.
No one could understand Souji's feelings at this moment.
In Souji's heart, Ye Ming was her fellow disciple, her childhood sweetheart, the companion who had walked through the bloody turmoil of the Bakumatsu with her, a seeker of the same path, and the lover she had ultimately chosen.
So when Souji came to this unfamiliar world and, after encountering the game Fate/Grand Order, painstakingly found Ye Ming through a vague instinct only to discover that he had lost his memories, Souji did not hesitate or feel lost in the slightest.
Maybe losing his memories was not such a bad thing.
At the very least, he could cast aside that heavy past and start anew in this peaceful country, living only a tranquil and warm daily life.
That was what Souji had always believed.
But now, before she had found the right moment to act, someone else had beaten her to it and gone straight to the finish line.
The blow was so severe that when Souji saw Yae Sakura and Fu Hua confronting each other outside the Breakfast Shop, a nameless fury rose within her, and she spoke cruel words she never would have said to strangers before. "Don't you two find this ridiculous?"
Souji pointed at Yae Sakura. "I don't know how long you've lived, but since you call yourself the Shrine Maiden of Sengoku Shinano, you must be at least five hundred years old by now, right? The Yae Sakura who confronted me yesterday was a battle-hardened warrior, a gentle and calm Shrine Maiden. But now, you insist on playing the part of a spoiled, chuunibyou girl?"
Souji looked toward Fu Hua. "And you? I heard from Yae Sakura that you were born in the previous era of civilization and have lived for more than fifty-five thousand years. Fifty-five thousand years—how many sunrises and sunsets, how many changes of sea and land, how many dynasties rising and falling, how many reunions and partings? Is this really what an immortal who has seen every facet of human life should look like?"
"Wanting to be closer to the person you like, wanting their attention, wanting to be with the one you love—there's nothing strange about that. Everyone has such thoughts. But what happens after you get together? Will you keep pretending like this? At home and outside, in bed and out of bed, pretending for your entire life?"
"Why can't you be a little more honest?"
Souji's voice gradually lowered. "If, on the first day you met him, you had walked up to him openly and told him your feelings and thoughts without holding anything back, the result would definitely have been much better than it is now."
But now, it was already too late.
Although Laffey was only a little girl, after hearing Laffey's conversation with Ye Ming, Souji had vaguely guessed that Laffey was not the only Ship-Girl. For some unknown reason, the others simply had not been able to return to Ye Ming's side with Laffey.
Ship-Girls—girls from yet another world.
Just like her from Chaldea, and Yae Sakura and Fu Hua from the Honkai World.
Do he and I still have a future?
Souji did not know.
But perhaps it did not matter that much?
Before you continue