=================

Right after the announcement from Vestal and the ultimatum from Belfast, Vestal decided that she had enough of this tension in the Commander's office and left to take a breather.

Belfast barely had any sleep for 48 hours, also left the room. Tired, and full of regret.

So the remaining girls in the room are Hood, Wales, the 4 starters, and the new maid Sirius.

And one, distraught, and depressed, Caster.

The information is still processing in Caster's head.

Frozen in denial. All of his subconscious is talking all at once in his head.

"No..." A whisper uttered from his lips.

His right hand, held his head, feeling a severe headache that is giving him pain.

His head lowered to his pillow and loud, but muffled cries were soon hitting nearby girl's ears. Most notably, Sirius, and the 4 starters, in turn, ran to comfort him.

The sobbing... Even with the pillow smothering his face, it was loud enough to reach Wales and Hood's ears.

In turn, the 2 also stood up and came to Caster as well.

His happiness is at an all-time low. Nobody outside of Enterprise has seen Caster, their best leader yet, crying.

And yet, here we are. All the girls seeing the tears dampen the pillow and everyone trying their damn best to comfort him. But seems never enough.

All of this. A breakdown.

Of his mental state.

=================

"Commander? Why do you seem so calm in everything?"

"It's because..."

=================

"When a leader is unhappy, the rest of the team will feel it also."

"That's really what he said to you?"

The ghost perked up and stopped whatever she was going. Probably games.

Helena sighed, "He already taught me a lot even though it was very short."

"A few sentences, but all of them meaningful."

Helena at this point is still lamenting the Commander's situation. And she already told the whole story to Long Island.

Not saying that she was ignoring Helena since she was playing games, but she was understanding enough to listen all the way.

But the one quote from Caster earlier just made her stop and look at Helena. Her head down, and visually, trying her best to not tremble and cry.

Long Island was frozen. Unsure of what to do. Then the door busted open.

"Helena!" Cleveland's eyes darted to Helena as soon she went into the room. She sat down and started comforting the trembling Helena.

Long Island sat there and watched. And also reflected on what just happened in the last 2 days.

She never thought that the last few days would be so rough for everyone and do the Commander specifically.

The ghost has been never silent for this long. And fortunately, Cleveland was there to break the silence for her.

"It's okay, Helena... Commander will not fall easily with this."

Helena in turn, hugged Cleveland with her tears flowing down to Cleveland's back.

'I wanna help...' Long Island pondered in silence. 'But how do I do that?'

=================

"Don't take too long doing that nya! You need breaks, nya!" Akashi blurted out as she's directing the little 'critters' on constructing the new dorm building for the Ironblood members.

Like, they could have used the old dorms that they used when they were with Azur Lane back then. But Caster decided to be more accommodating and just ordered to build a completely new one.

A good decision in terms of the morale of the newcomers, but terrible in the finances department.

And this made her remember the conversation she had with him earlier just after the depression train hit Caster straight at his noggin.

=================

"Commander... Since you know the new advancements that we made, in turn, we also used a lot of resources for them."

"And with those said resources... It almost ran out. And we're trying to make it back."

Caster as of now just finished balling his eyes out in a mental breakdown half an hour ago. And he really didn't need more bad news thrown at him to worsen his condition.

But he didn't tell Akashi that he is not in the mood, and the maid Sirius forgot to tell Akashi before the conversation.

So basically, he's forcing himself to hear even more terrible news that won't help with anything in his life.

"The money is getting dangerously low, nya. Some if not all research will be halted."

Caster wasn't even surprised at this point. Everything in his life right now has gone down the drain. The question in his mind was: 'How did it get so low in the first place?'

"But the good news is, we accumulated a lot of oil. So we can use that oil for more commissions in a day. Thus, giving us more oil, and most importantly, gold and more resources."

Caster is encouraged. Well, his face isn't really saying that but he felt that this problem can be turned around quickly enough to not be a problem in the future.

"Well, since I am terribly sick and demotivated, I'll just listen to you. Do whatever you can to get our resources back." Caster answered and gave his command to Akashi. His voice in true monotone, and possibly dead inside.

Akashi nodded and left.

=================

Since the news scattering to all the girls in the fleet, somehow, the productivity and resource yield from commissions has gone up.

Akashi herself was confused at first, not believing this news when she pulled out the statistics. It took a while of thinking while working at the same time to know the reason why this is happening.

And she got to a conclusion.

'Sadness is an emotion that everyone avoids, nya. That no one wants to do anything with.'

'And to an extent, people cope with sadness by working. And working. And working till they get exhausted.'

'All of that work to ignore the problem, nya. To not make them think about it. Just how far can people go just to try and walk away from the problem?'

But like the business person that she is, she used that coping mechanism to her advantage. By getting more commission requests per day, the resources were pouring in.

Another problem that she had with this resource dilemma, that she still needed to repair the base since the last battle with the Sirens.

So the new gathered resources were all poured back into repairing infrastructure and... Building new ones. Like the Ironblood dorm buildings.

And the Ironblood saw this generosity and were inclined to pay them back at least a little. So the Ironblood girls were asserting themselves into commission fleets.

And they already authored some great performances. Tirpitz dominating as usual, And with the duo of Z23 and Eugen, which Nimi was ecstatic seeing her faction mates again, were unstoppable in some missions and were hard carrying everyone else.

Aside from that, just before she realized that resources were running out, she found some new blueprints for more new PR ships.

And Akashi was understandably frustrated that she didn't get to start looking into the new blueprints. But money is of the essence and more excessive spending could lead them to a dangerous path that they can't move away from.

All of this inside thinking just made Akashi stare at the ground for so long that one of the 'critters' that was building the Ironblood dorm was forced to get close to her and snap her out of it.

"Nya!?" Her ears perk up and she raised her head to the construction site. The dorm is already close to done.

"Now, take a break, nya..."

=================

The time was closing into dinnertime. The day was going as normal as it can get but with Caster's injury and everyone's depression.

Caster was having his 'reading time' in his office. With him reading a book on his lap. His reading experience is mostly unimpeded, something that Caster appreciated.

He was the lone person in the room, AC on making him more than comfortable and this is a moment or a time in Caster's life that he wishes to get more often. Just read in his lonesome, the environment, it's just one of those moments anyone would wish would continue to eternity.

But alas, nothing is all quiet and peaceful for too long in this world, as Sirius, the new maid comes in with a tray in her hand.

All things considered, she was a new and possibly clumsy maid due to her being related to Dido, so the prospect of holding a large tray holding a lot of food, worried Caster.

But by the looks of it, she was doing well on her own compared to her much more clumsy sister.

And it did not take long to arrive at Caster's bed. She put down the tray on the Commander's table and set up the eating environment for Caster.

In a matter of seconds, there was a little table in front of Caster. Not put on his lap, but it was elevated a little bit.

But it was large enough to put the food on to that said table.

Caster was so confused that he didn't even look at the food he got for tonight, he was just more amazed at the table put over his legs. Enabling him to eat without much movement or effort.

"What is this called?" Caster looked at Sirius and pointed at the table that was holding all of the food.

Sirius unsurprisingly thought about it for a little while.

"I think that is a 'breakfast table', my honorable Master." Sirius gave her response to a very odd question from Caster. She sure wasn't expecting that.

Caster was enlightened, but it gave him another question.

'Honorable Master?' Caster's eyes widen a bit. 'These honorifics are getting too much for me.'

As he looked at the food, he got much more vegetables than he would normally take. And the beef stew that he always got from Hornet's cooking now became full veggies stew.

"I think that imposing this too healthy diet on me suddenly is not the way to go for now..." Caster deducted. Not liking the drastic changes in his diet out of nowhere.

But he wasn't really shying away from the food. Like, can he really do anything about it?

He started to eat the meal on his own. Not needing the new maid's help.

"I'm glawd to meet you... Sirius, am I corrwect?" He said while his mouth was near full.

And the maid somehow understood the 'Eating' English of Caster.

"Yes, my name is Sirius, my honorable Master." She kneeled before Caster.

"I do hope I can contribute to your record of stunning victories."

"Everyone is a cog in a machine. You're not gonna get left out." He said before he finished his vegetable soup.

"By the way, I know you're the 2nd ship of the Dido-class, where is she right now?" He raised an eyebrow. Because he hasn't seen her since he came back to base.

She started to take the plates of the breakfast table.

"She's currently serving the Queen. She was called by her Majesty."

As she was finished taking out the plates and removed the table from Caster's lap, she was trying to find something on the tray she brought into the room.

With Caster staring into the abyss and the abyss stares back, he snapped out of it as Sirius rushed out of the room with the door still half-open.

"What is she doing? Doing a speed run?" He was taken aback by the sudden speed of Sirius.

He was waiting for Sirius to come back warp speed again. He is just expecting it... Any second now...

"Tch." He turned his head back to lay down on his bed.

But not without Sirius bursting in the room again and she gave Caster the chills by the sudden snapping of the door. Which by the way, was still somehow stuck to its spot.

"My honorable Master!" She came into the room which looked like some packets of... Pills in her hand.

'Medicine? Oh, that's normal.'

He laid down on his bed but as Sirius was coming close to the bed, she suddenly lost balance (oooh, I wonder.) and fell down straight to Caster on his bed.

Caster had no way to protect his injured shoulder from the maid's fall but it somehow did not pain him at all.

'Is this one of the otherworlder perks? I somehow don't get hurt by a 500-ton ship falling on me?!' said Caster absolutely bewildered. He is supposed to feel severe pain. BUT NOT THIS TIME APPARENTLY.

"Where is this supreme luckiness from the fight?" Caster muttered under his breath. Still thinking about that fight. Clearly bothering him still.

But another stroke of his luck, Sirius's face is in stranger danger distance from Caster's face. But Caster is sure not seeing this as a good thing.

Sirius being the inexperienced maid that she is, her face went up in pink fumes and started to panic.

"Oh, no. My honorable Master, I think I may have defiled you! This lowly maid should be punished." She raised her head and started sandwiching her face with both of her hands.

By that one sentence, he already felt the incoming vibes that Sirius was radiating.

He took a deep breath. "Sirius."

"Yes...?" She stopped dead in her blushing mess and looked at Caster.

He was silent for a bit. Looking like second-guessing what he's about to say.

"I'm not that type of leader, okay? I don't care if you're a maid. Or a ship made for a battle for that matter. That feeling you have is a part of being human."

"And you don't have to be so harsh on yourself. We all make mistakes."

And he grew a smile.

"Just don't slip next time."

=================

After the debacle, it is now nighttime... Normally, everyone should be asleep and just having their well-persevered rest for the next day.

Well, except for some 'night-owls', and...

"Th... This... Sucks..."

Caster.

He's not supposed to be awake at this time of the night. If he was, it would be at 4 AM. But it's not 4 AM.

It's currently 2 AM.

And he is not liking the circumstance he is in. He's awake at an awful time of the night, and someway, somehow, he can't go back to bed and sleep again.

Something in his brain is blocking his ability to sleep.

Caster just accepted the inconvenience and tried making it better...

Starting with moving aside the curtains to look out the window.

He liked this setting once again. The view outside of his office was very beautiful. He's looking over the south docks and beaches. And clear skies and the moon shining light what is otherwise pitch-black darkness in Caster's office.

It was like last time. All of it was calming.

And with him and his psyche for tonight, he started to wander into his deeper thoughts.

The ones he would never question at the moment but have time to think about it when he's alone.

"The financial deficiencies..."

"Akashi did what she needed to do." Caster told himself. But he knew in him that it is probably his fault also for being not responsible enough with resource management.

And again, to counter-act this, more commissions are being done to 'break-even'. But it wasn't even doing that since the everyday costs of the base being run at an acceptable level were still outweighing the rewards.

And with the ramping up of the commissions, they could be invading a different faction's waters unintentionally. It may not matter since he has the backing of the 4 major factions anyway but Caster isn't oblivious of the smaller factions.

He knows that they exist and he's scared that they might look like the 'agitators' of conflict. Which the Azur Lane Coalition desperately didn't want right now.

And with this, he moved away from the window and he kneeled down on his bed.

"God..."

"Challenges are challenges and to prove human resolve, we, as a coalition must solve them."

"But I pray that my injury will heal in time. Give me hope in this perilous time. Thank you."

And on that note... The thoughts seg-wayed into the 'vision'. The white Wisdom Cube.

The things he saw on that vision days ago should have been memories by now. And like any other human being, he would start to forget about it.

And because of that reason that it still kept sticking out in his thoughts. He somehow can't ignore it. And made worse since he's alone.

It just kept bubbling up to the surface level of his brain.

"Is this truly telling me something now...?"

Caster leaned back to his pillow. Starting to ruminate on everything he saw in that vision. Which by the way, he can still remember it like it just happened.

And from what he can remember, the other visions he had with that cube was more telling of how he molded himself to be the person he is now but all those visions did not have a lasting effect on the Commander of Azur Lane.

The story was strange. The fact that he still remembers all this is strange.

"The girl... She stood out. Way too much."

He kept thinking about who those 2 people might be.

And all the hypotheticals were all slowly coming together to make a whole conclusion.

He forcibly got up from his bed and opened his closet. Despite Vestal and Belfast telling him NOT to do it at all at the recovery process.

He checked his closet and took something out of it. And put it on his bed.

A full-black uniform and a black naval hat to boot. There was a plethora of white, near unseen strings going around the uniform. Signaling that it was damaged, but sewn together by one of the maids he's guessing.

His eyes widen.

"THAT WAS ME?"

He kept his voice down to not wake anyone or anyone hearing him.

Looking at the clothes on the bed, and remembering his introduction in this world, this sure was the same clothes before he transitioned to the naval white.

Then this just made the other question have so much more weight.

"Who is that girl?"

He put back his uniform in his closet and slapped himself back to bed.

"I hate this..."

The vision has made him disillusioned at all ends. And no doubt that this will bother him.

But regrets only happen when you think about them. And it transitions to second-guessing...

The road he's suddenly on could lead him to peril. How will he respond?

Word Count: 3136 Words.

11:20 PM
9/23/20