Content Warning: The following events are purely fictional and dramatised for entertainment. Hclegend and his associates do not consider these as anything more than headcanon. Any and all inaccuracies can be blamed on him not playing the game in months. The Commander is based off of the author's experience with Azur Lane and has been presented as accurately as can be. This includes having Lady White Heart of the Hyperdimension Neptunia series as his canonical secretary. For whatever reason.

It was another day at the headquarters of Azur Lane, the sun shone down on the harbor/base as the sole male occupant walked in for his daily grind. The Commander held his head in one hand, having had one too many shots of whiskey the night before after a very successful mission involving the capture of several Iron Blood ships.

Taking care not to slam the door behind him, he entered his office, hoping to be alone for at least a minute or two to gain his usual composure. It was most unfortunate that he wasn't alone.

"Commander." His secretary, one White Heart, a being not of this world barked, dressed in a regal dress, holding several important-looking papers in her duck egg blue gloved hands. "Here's the daily report."

He waved the papers away. "Cool, I don't care. Why are you here anyway? Shouldn't you be scouting with the other CPUs?"

"Because," she growled, slamming the papers down on his desk. "I wanted to talk to you about this asinine choice in clothing." She pointed to herself and her poofy dress topped with tiara. "Do you know how many looks I get on a daily basis with this fucking outfit on?"

The Commander sighed, placing both hands on his face as he sat down. "We talked about this Blanc. You can't go around in that skintight outfit of yours. That combined with your… features would lead to a media shitstorm about the leader of the navy being a freakin' lolicon. Again." He remembered the last time that happened when he was caught patting HMS Unicorn to calm her down after she tripped. Illustrious hasn't looked at him in the same way since.

"Whatever." She sighed in frustration as she proceeded to leave the room. "I'm taking the day off anyway, as I haven't seen my sisters in a while, so I'll be home in Gamindustri. So… Bye." She opened the door to find a certain purple pudding lover impatiently waiting outside.

"Blaaaaanc! Come on already! If we're here for much longer this story will be classified as a crossover!" She whined adorably as the more serious of the pair sighed in frustration.

At least the Commander was left in silence. Taking the time out to enjoy some hair of the dog, he decided to get up. The work wouldn't do itself after all and his secretary had fucked off to do something more interesting.

Leaving his office, he wandered aimlessly around the base, seeing many familiar faces as he made polite talk with many of his subordinates. He'd long gotten over the fact that these shipgirls were in fact, soley female and that most of them had no interest in a 20-something with below average… Everything.

Most of them anyway, as he approached the canteen, he had nearly bumped into his greatest fighter in the entire fleet. The woman who had single-handedly held off Iron Blood forces while crippled and lived to tell the tale. Hell, she even looked past his lacking features and genuinely had feelings for him, as indicated by the fact she wore the Oath Ring.

"Ah, Commander." HMS Hood smiled warmly at the man in her life, always happy to see the Commander, even on her worst days. "Good… Well, afternoon now. I would offer you your morning cup of tea, but it was going to get cold so I enjoyed it myself instead. I hope you don't mind."

That was just like Hood, the glory of the Royal Navy. She was British to the core, never letting one of her truly perfect cups of tea go to waste. "Perfectly fine, my ladyship." He nodded, charmed by her kindness as always. "You are as caring off the battlefield as you are merciless on it."

Some would find this behaviour rather irritating, but most in the Azur Lane base had gotten used to the daily polite flirting between the duo. If anything, Hood had earned the right to be so open with the Commander, being by far the MVP of Azur Lane as a whole. Glory of the Royal Navy indeed.

"I wish you two would get a room." The lead ship of Eagle Union, USS Enterprise walked in to grab some coffee, being one of those while not entirely opposed to the Commander wanting to be with whoever makes him happy, was more than tired of the constant flirting at her workplace. Especially since Enterprise herself had a bit of a crush on the merciless warlord. She wasn't hot or anything, she just had an inspiring work ethic!

"Has Helena found anything on the Sakura Empire?" The Commander snapped back into work mode, knowing that Enterprise wouldn't tolerate their flirting at her workplace for much longer at this rate. They were barely holding off the Crimson Axis even with their new recruits, so losing Eagle Union's support would turn the tide of the war in bad ways.

"No? She's been helping San Diego with her idol career. Don't know where she gets that confidence from on-stage." Enterprise shook her head. Eagle Union had a hell of a work ethic… In everything but warfare.

The Commander shrugged. "Fair enough. Guess I'll go check on the Shipyard, see what the Wisdom Cubes have for us." And with that exchange, he headed out to the Shipyard to do just that, Hood in tow.

Arriving at the shipyard, The Commander and Hood observed the goings on of the busy birthplace of new shipgirls. For some unexplained reason, the Wisdom Cubes never gave the same result twice, resulting in not just Royal Navy and Eagle Union recruits, but Sakura Empire and Iron Blood ships as well! Naturally this would have led to some conflicts, but the Crimson Axis ships seemed more than willing to assist Azur Lane, seemingly unaware of their former rivalry.

Whatever the reason, any new recruit was immensely helpful despite the random nature of ship creation. They were all united against the Crimson Axis and by extension, the Sirens too.

"Commander!" A nerdy looking shipgirl ran up to the leader of Azur Lane in a panic. "Your ships from yesterday's Build Orders are ready to be deployed!" She adjusted her glasses.

"Thank you Langley. You may go back to… Doing your nerdy shit or whatever." He waved the small shipgirl off as the pair approached the summoning station. He'd poured thousands out of his own Coins into this latest batch of summons and he didn't pretend to understand the process, but it added shipgirls to their ranks so it had to be good.

The blue cube shimmered as the machine rotated it, causing the light shine brighter until it was blinding, before fading.

Stepping out of the summoning gate was a platinum blonde woman, similar in stature and build to Hood herself, with piercing blue eyes. Unlike the Royal Navy's glory, she opted to show more skin, with a tight officer's uniform covering most of her body. Clutching a hand to her head, she looked around in confusion, which was a typical response to this process and the scientists had no real explanation for it, let alone a solution.

"Where… Am I?" She spoke with a light Germanic accent, so she was definitely from Iron Blood. The Commander himself found it difficult to keep up with his own fleet, let alone the enemy's but Hood knew who this was from a single glance.

"KMS Bismarck. I thought I sunk you." Her bile was scarcely contained at her rival ship, which was unsurprising. The two had clashed many times and were considered the two greatest ships of all time. Their final clash at the Battle of the Denmark Strait was legendary for lasting several hours, both ships sustaining massive damage as the Royal Navy was forced to retreat. Hood could still feel her scars as she remembered that day…

"HMS Hood! Do you copy?" The Commander's voice called over the radio communications, panic in his voice as he didn't want to lose any more ships today. "Disengage right now! You're barely held together at this point!"

"I refuse." She stated point-blank. She was on one knee, her rigging sparking as she clutched her arm, bleeding all over her union jacket.

"Excuse me?" The Commander's voice turned from fear to anger. "Did you just willingly disobey a command?"

"Yes." She spat, her mouth filled with blood. "I have to finish this."

"Finish what? The rest of the fleet has retreated! You'll die out there if you stay! Iron Blood reinforcements are inbound in t-minus 5 minutes!" He relayed what USS Helana had told him not moments before.

"Not retreating, are we?" Bismarck gloated, wincing in pain as she tried to laugh. She was just as bad of a condition as Hood herself. "It'll be the last mistake you make, mein fraulein."

Hood shook her head, struggling to stand on her own two feet. "If you had any common sense, you'd retreat." She retorted, death in her eyes as they circled each other. "Iron Blood reinforcements are on the way, you have no reason to stay here."

The German battleship laughed through her own agony. "We both know that's a lie! Our rivalry is unmatched! You came here on a suicide mission because of me! But alas… It ends here." She aimed her remaining cannons at her sworn enemy. "Say hi to Prince of Wales for me."

A new wave of anger washed over Hood. "You… You did that to her?" She remembered how her ally went down in flames, ambushed by a Sakura Empire Destroyer on a mission gone wrong.

"Well, I'm the one who caused it. I wouldn't waste my ammunition on such filth." She disregarded her ally as if she was talking about a bad restaurant. "You on the other hand? Akagi and Kaga sent me here specifically to take you out. I'd say we're equals in that sense, but only one of us is avoiding a watery grave today."

Hood had used Bismarck's running mouth to her advantage, as she had trained her own cannons on her. "Me." She said, before unloading her entire arsenal, annihilating the Iron Blood's most fearsome ship in a barrage of explosive shells.

After the dust settled and confirming that all there was left was debris, Hood escaped to the best of her damaged ability before reinforcements could arrive to finish her off.

Hood snapped back to reality as her rival ship waved a hand in front of her eyes. "Mein fraulein?"

Hood slapped her with a gloved hand. "D-Don't call me that, you slutty excuse for a warship!" She put her hands to her mouth. "Commander! I'm sorry I said such words near you!"

The Commander shrugged. "My secetary usually calls me a fucking pansy at least 3 times before I finish my morning tea. Surprising show of anger from you, though!"

Bismarck simply rubbed her cheek, the skin reddened. "I see." She said simply. "My apologies, Commander. If I knew I'd garner such a response..."

"Don't worry about it." He dismissed the former Iron Blood's concerns. "We have no idea how the hell this works, otherwise we would have recruited you sooner! You're a legend among Azur Lane!"

Hood rubbed her temples. "Of course she was. I'll go make some tea." She simply said before leaving the room, rage filling her core for the first time since that fateful day.

After she left the room, Bismarck had the decency to rub the back of her head in an embarrassed manner. "Well, zis will make relations with you awkward now, won't it?"

"First time I've seen her so angry. What did you do?" The Commander was shocked at his beloved's temper.

"Vell, you know that already." She adjusted her cap, confidence bursting from her, but not her clothes thankfully. "I am KMS Bismarck, the number one Battleship in Iron Blood's ranks! I have many tales of glorious victory… But why am I here? The last thing I recall was…"

"Me." The anger in Hood's voice haunted her. "My own hubris cost me my life. This second chance… Am I deserving of it?"

The Commander put a hand on her shoulder. "Course. Might be a little weird to work with your enemies, but I'm sure you'll adapt. Hell, I know some Sakura Empire ships that would be ecstatic to know of your return to the living world."

Bismarck put her hands together happily. "Excellent! We will celebrate our reunion over some glorious Iron Blood beer and sake!"

The Commander nodded in agreement. "Nothing wrong with a drink. Let's go."

The pair walked out, ready to exchange war stories of battles past and fight for the world's future together.

A/N: I'm unsure if I should continue this. I have some ideas on future events, but between not really playing Azur Lane anymore and writing an entirely different story, this may remain as a simple one shot.