Chapter Text
A petite kansen stood in front of the academy at the Azur Lane base. The young woman looked to be in her late teens or early twenties. Strawberry blonde hair hung just to her shoulders, curling just under her chin to frame her fair-skinned face. Her bright blue eyes showed a look of uncertainty as she gazed up at the tall brick building before her.
Entering the academy, she tucked a strand of reddish hair behind her ear as she looked around curiously at the classrooms with their maps and charts adorning the walls. She checked the slip of paper she’d been given by the Commander and peered up at the room numbers. As she approached the room she was looking for, a flood of young destroyers emerged jostling past her. A tiny girl with pink hair wearing a pink and white sailor dress turned her large magenta eyes up at the newcomer. “Sorry, ma’am!” she piped up as she was swept away by the tide of her peers.
Smiling, the redhead stepped away from the wall where she’d flattened herself to escape the wave of young kansen and tapped on the door frame of the still-open classroom. “Hello? I was sent here to see Langley?” she called hesitantly into the room.
A bespectacled, gray-haired kansen in an Iron Blood uniform turned away from the whiteboard she had been erasing. “Langley was called away unexpectedly,” she replied in a lightly accented voice. “I am Koln, Konigsberg class light cruiser of the Iron Blood fleet, and one of the other instructors here. Perhaps I could assist you?”
The smaller redhead stepped further into the classroom. “I’m Torsk, Tench-class submarine of Eagle Union,” she introduced herself. “The Commander said that I’m to be one of the instructors here?”
The solemn Iron Blood cruiser brightened. “Ah, sehr gut,” she said, a small smile curving her lips. “We have been in need of a submarine instructor for quite some time! Let me finish with this, then I will take you to the classroom that we have prepared for you.” Koln quickly finished cleaning the board, picked up a clipboard off of the desk at the front of the room, and then led Torsk through the corridors. “Aside from Langley and myself, our other instructors are my two older sisters, two destroyers, Z23 of Iron Blood and Amazon of the Royal Navy,” she explained, “another Eagle Union carrier, Ranger, and occasionally Houshou, one of the Sakura Empire carriers. She’s especially good with the younger kansen.”
Torsk co*cked her head to the side. “Like that last group you just had?” she noted with a smile.
”Indeed,” Koln said wryly, nudging her glasses further up the bridge of her nose. “You will have some of those personalities yourself. Some of the submarines can be rather… exuberant.” Koln showed that small smile again. We are glad to have you here,” she continued as they turned and entered one of the classrooms. “We’re fine teaching the basics, but we cannot teach submarine warfare techniques.”
”—Yeah, if we’re underwater, that’s a bad thing!” The cheery voice came from a few feet above, where a blonde kansen stood on a step stool.
Koln blinked in surprise. “…Yes… that is true,” she said a little glumly. The blonde tapped one more picture of a fish onto the wall with a decisive nod and hopped down. “Torsk, this is my next older sister, Karlsruhe,” Koln grunted as Karlsruhe threw her arms around her sister in a big hug, but gave her that small smile. “Karlsruhe, this is Torsk, an Eagle Union submarine. She’s the new submarine instructor.”
”Oh!” Karlsruhe gasped excitedly, “Commander said you would be coming soon!” She waved an arm at the classroom walls. “I decorated your room with fish and other underwater things. I know some of the other submarine girls prefer to stay underwater, so I thought it would be more homey. D’you like it?”
”It’s beautiful!” Torsk said, looking around. There were pictures of sea life all along the top of the walls, broken up by sea grasses and corals. The bulletin board at the back was bordered with columns and blocks to make it look like sunken ruins. There had been a lot of work put in on this. Torsk was a little overwhelmed. “This is very kind of you!”
Karlsruhe grinned and Koln leaned her head against her sister’s affectionately. “That’s just Karlsruhe’s way,” Koln explained. “We’ll leave you to get settled in and get things arranged how you like. Langley should be back shortly. I can have her come here if you’d prefer?”
Torsk smiled at the two cruisers. “That would be great, yeah,” she said. I’ll see you later.” The sisters waved as they left Torsk’s classroom.
