Azur Lane: The Siren War and the Hymn of Steel Beasts

I - II : Bismarck & NY Harbor

"When I lost my rifle, the Army charged me 85 dollars. That is why in the Navy the Captain goes down with the ship." — Dick Gregory

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Bismarck roused from her unconscious state to find the comfort of a blanket covering her and the softness of a mattress underneath her as she tried to make sense of what had happened prior to this. She was in a normal sortie before being separated from her friends, forced to combat the Abyssals alone and seek cover in a squall, everything else was blurry as the blonde shipgirl held her head and sat up on the bed. She can't recognize the room even though there wasn't much but white walls or dull furniture, and shouldn't she be in a repair dock instead of laying in bed due to her damages? Bismarck heard a rustling sound to her right, snapping towards the source to find a dark-haired female occupying a chair, and she was staring at her with a raised brow.

The person's black sharp bangs covered her right blue eye and a yellow string hung from the left side of her head. As for her attire, it was a blue cropped jacket with red and yellow accents, a white and yellow collar and black garter straps on her arms over a white collared buttoned shirt with a cleavage cutout. A red slim and fit corset also wrapped around her midsection with hints of yellow alongside a blue belt; complemented by a circular golden buckle on her mid-torso. Moving further downwards, she wore a black pencil skirt with a blue waist cape and a white wide garter to pair with the black thigh-high heeled boots. To top all those off, the female wore a pair of white leather gloves currently holding onto a book she was reading.

"Good morning, you were sleeping so peacefully there, I didn't want to wake you up from it. And to think that they found you like a stranded fish on the beach, I thought you'd be out cold for a few days."

Bismarck stared at her without uttering a single word, the only thing running through her mind at that moment was who it was that she's looking at. She has no absolute idea, did the naval base get a new ship? And if they did, who is it? Another British shipgirl?

"What's wrong..? Is there something on my face?"

The German battleship shook her head before replying, "Who are you? A new shipgirl?"

"Hm? I'm supposed to ask you that question, who are you? And what were you doing in the North Sea, in the Royal Navy's waters?"

Bismarck was bewildered at the response, holding her head as it aches when she tried to probe on her memory. That's right, she was on a sortie to protect the convoys passing by Norwegian waters alongside her fleet members and having encountered a heavy presence of Abyssals, she split the fleet into two to protect the convoys. It all happened too fast for her to piece what occurred then, but she did remember saying that she'll distract the enemy and bring them away from the civilian ships. The squall, her last stand, and a wave crashing onto her. She muttered something incomprehensible to the female.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that."

"My name is Bismarck."

The room fell silent for a few minutes, Bismarck looked up to see that the dark-haired female seemed hesitant and in disbelief.

"What..?"

"There's no way that you're her."

"I'm not lying! I'm Bismarck! Just… who are you!?" the blonde pointed at the female, glaring at her.

"HMS Ark Royal of the Royal Navy."

Bismarck flinched at the name and nearly stumbled over her words, "You look nothing like her..!"

Ark Royal flipped the book she was reading close, leaning forward on her seat to study Bismarck carefully. "Aside from the same hair color, I don't see how you're the Bismarck that I came to know. But you do have a rigging similar to that of Iron Blood, without the shark aesthetics at least."