I will die in the dark to finish what we couldn't do.."Contain The Bismarck"

Chapter 8: A Spy and a Goal

"The victor is not victorious if the vanquished does not consider himself so."

- Quintus Ennius

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Somewhere in the Azur Lane Base, Eagle Union
May 1st, 1942
1426 hours

"I must say, this tea is certainly exquisite Miss Belfast," Illustrious said praising Belfast as she looked at the dark red tea.

"Thank you very much miss Illustrious," Belfast smiled as she did a curtsy looking down, "May I know your opinion on the tea Miss Essex?" She turned her attention over to Essex who was sitting on a sofa chair for one person.

"I'm more of a coffee person but..." Essex looked at Belfast pausing for a second before continuing "Good, it's good, I just need to adapt to the taste." She took another sip from the teacup.

Essex couldn't help but dislike the tart taste of the tea, she didn't know what kind of tea it was but from her knowledge of working with the royals, she suspects that it was Rosehip tea. It was certainly a change as caffeine was the usual drink for her, it kept her awake and it was bitter but not bitter where she felt like barfing it all out. Right now, she did however it would be quite rude if she said it out loud so she kept her mouth shut for now.

However, their break was cut short as the PA was heard being turned on with a panicked voice yelling, "Code Orange, I repeat, we have a Code Oran-!" The female yelling in desperation over the PA system was immediately cut off as glass shattering was heard followed by a loud thump. "D-Dewey!" Footsteps were heard over the PA system as the girl ran over to her friend, "A-are you ok?" They could only sit in shock just like other shipgirls around the base who were listening to it all. It didn't stop there however, a gunshot was heard over the radio followed by Ardent's scream of fear with the PA beginning to crackle from the static that now entered the system. Some ships knew that someone damaged the PA system it was coming from while others were confused knowing little about fixing things.

"You know..." A different voice spoke over the radio but Illustrious and Essex recognized it.

"Isn't that-" Essex was cut off as the PA system continued.

"...Your purple-haired friend put up a better fight than those three in that room..." The voice got louder and louder with a click from the shoes as the girl came closer to the damaged PA.

"P-please! Spare me please, I have sisters!" Ardent was heard begging over the PA with fear in her voice, the three could only listen as the talk continued,

"Oh?" The 'Ironblood' replied sadistically, "Tell me then, how many sisters do you have?"

"M-me a-and my ni-nineteen sisters s-so twenty-" Ardent was cut off by a gunshot that startled Essex but kept Illustrious unmoved except for her face.

"Well, now they have nineteen.~" The 'Ironblood destroyer' said deviously as the footsteps of her running with static coming over the PA was heard. Soon enough, it was followed by the base's air raid siren.

Essex didn't waste a second as she jumped from her tea placing the teacup and saucer down on the table, grabbing her jacket, she ran to the door opening it before running out with sheer determination and anger in her eyes. Illustrious ran over to the window looking outside as shipgirls and manju's scrambled to stop the Ironblood that was now running rampant around the base.

"Belfast, make sure the Commander is alright, we don't want him to be kidnapped!" Illustrious ordered turning around to face Belfast. The head maid only bowed and began to run to the Commander's office while the ensuing chaos of shipgirls ran in different directions with weapons in hand like an angry mob hunting for the Kraut. Turning back over to the window watching this, Illustrious grit her teeth, "May the light lead us to win this war."