The Betrayed Commander and The Abandoned Tsundere (Azur Lane: Origins 1)

Chapter 28: New Year's Reflections

After Christmas, the hype levels at the Outpost plummeted. No one was excited for or cared about New Year's. Except for, you guessed it, Sora and Hipper. I probably wouldn't have to say that because at this point you know who I'm talking about. Anyway, Hipper had asked Sora to go to a shrine with him and they were now waiting for the time when they had to leave. I think you all know where they're waiting so I'll skip over that.

'You know, this place has a completely different vibe at night.'

'Sora did you really just use 'vibe' to-' Hipper sighed. 'Never mind.' The two of them were watching the starry night sky.

'2396 has been one hell of a year, hasn't it?'

'Yeah. I can't believe it hasn't even been a year since we met. It feels like that was ages ago.'

'If I remember correctly, when we first met you were pretty emotionally unstable. Which is completely understandable because of what happened to you before that.'

'Is that really the one thing you had to remember?'

'Well... I mean... uh, anyway, at that point I had to make a slight variation to my plan because of your emotional and mental state.'

'You never told me what this plan was, even after it was done.'

'I didn't? Oh, well, my plan was basically to get you to drop the tsundere act around all of us and it worked.'

'...'

Sora decided to move on from this topic. Quickly. 'Uh, the Sirens attacked really soon after that, didn't they?'

'Yeah, they did. And that was where you got your rigging. I remember you running towards the end of a pier, carrying a strange tech pack, taking a black Wisdom Cube out and smash it on the ground. Before jumping into the water.'

'And after that I did a World of Tanks tank destroyer player and found a nice rock to shield myself with while sniping the Sirens. Until they found me and sniped me back.'

'You made me so worried there. Especially when you woke up and started fighting again while injured.'

'One of the reasons why I could wake up and continue fighting was Yamato and Musashi. They gave me a boost.'

'Yamato and Musashi...?'

'Didn't I tell you? My rigging is a combination of Yamato's and Musashi's.'

'No, you didn't tell me. And why didn't you? That's so cool!'

'Anyway, after single-handedly defeating Arbiter, I landed myself in my first hospital visit this series.'

'Yeah, I was still really worried, you know.'

'I know. Moving on, it was nice having Takao there to tell the other ships to not jump on me when I entered that room. I like having responsible and reliable ships like Takao and Enterprise here at the base. It makes things so much easier and also gives you a break from constantly doing stuff.'

'When you got out of hospital, we had lots of fun, remember? We captured Akuma, there was the confession, we went on a date-'

'And then the flower.'

'Yeah. The flower.'

'But, hey, it worked out alright. We're still alive. And that brings us to now, sitting right here, on a bench, reflecting on the year.'

'Yep. I guess it's 'New Year's Reflections.''