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

Chapter 8: Battle End

A/N: The picture is close enough so whatever. I'm tired.

Sora continued to charge Arbiter, the orange-yellow energy from his eye trailing behind him. He had to get closer. Getting closer was proving more and more difficult the closer he got; more and more Sirens could shoot at him as he entered their main battery range. The Commander was dodging shells from the enemy but not as well as he could have before.

The Sirens' leader began to charge her beam again. This time, Hipper was ready and fired a full salvo at it before it could launch. 'I won't let you do that!' It barely scratched the cannon. Said cannon fired at Sora and he somehow managed to dodge. 'Everyone, focus fire on the leader's beam weapon if you can,' Hipper yelled to the allied forces. Most of them shot at it and it blew up before it could be fired again.

'Tsk.' The Empress wasn't impressed. Sora continued to fire at every Siren he could with his secondaries while aiming his main guns at Arbiter. She was forced to move to avoid the shells. The fact that the commander had gotten close enough to shoot at her was rather impressive, seeing as the main turrets were heavily damaged from taking hits just minutes before which had reduced their range and accuracy dramatically.

Admiral Hipper watched as Sora grew closer and closer to Arbiter. He managed to land a few hits but not enough to stop her. What the commander did next amazed all who saw what he did. Sora reached out in front of him and one of the main turrets on his right side dematerialised and reappeared in his outstretched hand as a katana similar to Takao's.

'Heh, didn't know I could do this,' said the commander as he closed in far enough to engage Arbiter in melee combat. They blocked strike after strike from each other. Sora also tried to hit the enemy leader with his main turrets and scored a few hits.

The battle dragged on for another good thirty minutes before something happened. Sora decided to take a risk since the battle was getting nowhere. Instead of going in for another counter slash, he stab his katana at Arbiter. Somehow, she managed to stop it. The commander summoned another katana and stabbed at Arbiter again. She jumped back before it could hit.

Sora's risk didn't pay off; he was lucky Arbiter didn't try to stab him back. Sora spoke, or rather, thought, too soon. The Empress slashed at him and made a long cut straight down his left arm from just below his shoulder to around halfway up his forearm. Luckily, it wasn't very deep.

They continued to dance for another solid half hour when, once again, Sora decided he needed to do something. He was getting close to his limit and about to collapse from exhaustion. The commander ducked to avoid Arbiter's next slash and slashed upwards with one of his katanas in return, pulling her katana from her grip.

Sora jabbed his other katana at Arbiter, which pierced her heart and came out the other side. The Empress slumped against the katana as she spoke her last few words, 'Well, I... guess this is it. Congrat... ula... tions.'

The commander was about to fall unconscious from exhaustion. He used his remaining strength to use his other katana to stab Arbiter's head through the jaw and ripped it of her neck. The Empress's body sank beneath the waves as Sora held her head up on his katana and face his side.

'We've... done it...,' he panted before falling unconscious. His body crumpled as the rigging disappeared and Hipper caught him before he reached the water. She checked his pulse. He was still alive.

'Good work out there, Commander,' she whispered to him, knowing he couldn't hear her. The allied forces slowly finished off the remaining Sirens as Hipper took Sora to the main base's sick bay, which doubled as a small hospital.

Nothing appeared to be majorly wrong with Sora. After he'd been tended to, most of the left side of his body was covered in bandages, mainly for the small cuts from the shrapnel from the island blowing up.

'Ugh...' Sora opened his eyes. He was lying in a hospital bed. Admiral Hipper was at his side.

'Commander, you're awake,' she exclaimed when she realised he had woken up.

'How long was I out for?' he asked as one of the doctors walked in.

'Three days,' the doctor responded. 'She hasn't left your side the whole time, only leaving when she had to.'

'More importantly, is there anything wrong with him?'

'He's mostly okay,' the doctor said. 'But due to being very narrowly missed by the beam weapon, he has sustained some permanent injury.' Both Hipper and Sora wanted to say something but let the doctor continue. 'Some strange particles were detected from the beam when it was fired. We don't know how or why they do it but they somehow damage human muscle tissue. Some of the muscle tissue in the left side of his body, mainly his arm, shoulder and leg, has been damaged. Permanently.'

'The particles slowly eat away at the muscle but they don't last for a long time, maybe a month or so. Like I said, they eat at the muscle very, very slowly. Moving the affected muscles will cause them to erode faster so eventually, you won't be able to walk but that would take decades. Possibly even the rest of your life.'

'Your body will try to repair the damage but to no avail; it's permanent, like I said before. Until your body gets used to the decreased muscle tissue, it will try to use the missing tissue which will cause the remaining muscle to tense up from the strain. You will need to have the tension massaged out of your muscles so that it does not cause further damage. Any questions?' Sora and Hipper shook their heads.

'I guess this means you won't be able to fight, even though you got that cool rigging.'

'Hipper, you know I don't have to be on the front lines right? I can still snipe from afar; I don't need to move once I get into position. But then, we did kill all the Sirens so I doubt we'll have to fight again.' This worried Hipper.

If we don't need to fight then we've lost our purpose, thought Hipper. If we don't have a purpose, we'll be scrapped.