This is a fanfiction project created purely out of love for the source material. Azur Lane is owned by Manjuu, Yongshi, and Yostar, and Tomb Raider is owned by Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montréal, and Square Enix. I do not claim any ownership over these properties. All rights to the original characters and settings belong to their respective creators. This is simply a creative work made for enjoyment and storytelling.
"True soul" Error?!
"What an asshole" Thoughts
"Stay safe," Dialogue
Chapter 1 - Arrival
He awoke on a rough pebble beach, coughing violently, each deep breath clawing its way up his throat like it was the last taste of that sweet oxygen he would ever get.
Eduard gasped as the world came into focus. Cold air. Mist. Pebbles were digging into his back. His clothes were thoroughly soaked, weighed down by seawater. His body trembled as if it had not expected to wake again.
He raised a shaking hand to his temple.
There had been blood. Pain. A fall.
And yet… no wound. No gash. His fingers came away clean. However, the throbbing migraine lingered. He tried to remember how he got here… At first, only fragments came. The Endurance, engines humming beneath his feet. The taste of salt on the wind. Lara laughing at the bow, Roth adjusting course, cameras rolling as Whitman rehearsed his lines like the world owed him applause. Storm clouds. Too fast. Too sudden. Lightning flashing violet. Water is rising in unnatural ways. Something hovering, impossible and beautiful, above the waves. A woman? A machine? Both?
That smile.
And then, impact. The shriek of torn steel. Screams. Metal folding like paper. The ship was ripped apart. The sea was dragging him under. He'd surfaced once. Just once. Then blackness.
Yamatai.
The shattered island. The jungle was tearing at his boots—the climb to the shrine.
Sam, screaming inside the storm-wracked temple.
Subject 7, if he could still be called that, bellowing madness through a mouth no longer human. Twisted limbs. Eyes gone blue and blind with rage.
And then... something else.
Not his.
The images came sharp and clean, not memories, not dreams. Like a reel of film threaded behind his eyes.
A great hall, steeped in shadow and gold. Servants in flowing robes pressed flat to polished stone. Incense curling from bronze burners shaped like serpents. Low chanting. Endless. A rhythmic pulse of reverence and dread.
At the centre stood a woman in layered silk. Robes rippled around her like water—her eyes, like coals behind porcelain. A single hand raised, delicate. Her power was absolute.
And they bowed lower.
"Not devotion. Obedience."
Another flash. A ceremony. Sacred. Terrible. A priestess screamed as dark symbols burned themselves into her skin. Others held her down, murmuring words in a language he didn't know but understood anyway.
Not with the mind. With something deeper.
"The vessel must carry."
"The sun must always rise."
Then came power.
It overwhelmed him, the scale, the age, the reverence wrapped in terror.
"What am I seeing?"
"This isn't a myth. It's too detailed. Too intact."
"These memories... they're not mine."
His head throbbed under the pressure, like thoughts were being poured into a space too small.
And beneath it all, a hum. Familiar. Subtle.
Mechanical. Organic.
It wasn't the wind. Not the sea.
It was coming from his satchel.
Eduard blinked. Reached for it.
The artefact. Cold, silent, and somehow alive.
It pulsed faintly in his hand. Not visually. Not sonically. A vibration deep in the bones. A presence.
A reminder.
"I haven't forgotten you," he whispered. "God help me... You haven't forgotten me either."
He let the satchel drop back against his hip and drew a steadying breath.
"Later. I'll unravel it later. If I'm going to survive whatever this is, I need shelter first."
He pushed himself to his feet, legs stiff, spine aching. The fog swirled around him, thick and wet, but then he noticed it. No, not an it, a her. She lay only a few feet away.
Eduard froze.
He hadn't seen her in the mist. Not until the coughing subsided, not until his senses had started returning to him. She was there, motionless on the wet stones, half-shrouded by sea spray and vapour.
His heart skipped. He moved to her quickly, ignoring the sharp bite of gravel beneath his knees.
She was face down, unmoving. But no visible wounds. No blood. No twisted limbs.
Just stillness.
He hesitated only a moment before carefully rolling her onto her back.
Warmth. Not fevered. Not natural. The storm had soaked everything – him, the air, the ground – but she radiated a strange, subtle heat, as if the wind and cold had bent around her out of respect.
Her skin was smooth as porcelain, pale but not lifeless. Her long, raven-black hair flowed across the stones, damp but unsullied. Twin locks framed her face like strokes of calligraphy, and just above her temple was a butterfly-shaped hair clip, metallic blue, glinting with an almost sentient shimmer.
He squinted.
No… not just one.
Others.
Tiny flickers, butterfly-shaped. Dancing in and out of his vision, appearing and vanishing at the edge of perception. Ethereal. Watchful.
And then, her ears.
Fox-like. Dark-furred. Elegantly tapered. Too fluid in detail to be artificial. Too lifelike to be a decoration.
They twitched once. Sharp. Responsive.
"She's not human. Or she was once, and something changed."
Her clothing supported the thought. A kimono, or something like it, tattered by time but still regal. Deep crimson and obsidian, threaded with gold patterns. The garment was cut high at the thigh and bound with military precision across the waist and chest. Not purely ceremonial. Not purely functional. A priestess. A weapon. A relic made flesh.
Now, she lay before him, peaceful, her chest rising gently with each breath. Her face untroubled, serene, untouched by the storm that had tried to kill them. He reached out and brushed a lock of hair from her cheek. Warm. He checked her pulse. Strong. Steady.
"No bruises. No bleeding. No signs of trauma. She's alive. But unconscious."
He shook her shoulder gently. "Hey. Can you hear me?"
No response.
"Please… 'Wake up.'"
He tried again, this time louder. Nothing. Not even a stir.
"She's breathing. She's warm. But not waking. This isn't sleep. This is... suspension. Or stasis. Gods. Listen to me. I'm starting to sound like Whitman."
He sat back, the rain pinging off his jacket. The butterflies drifted again, then vanished.
Behind her, half-wreathed in fog, loomed the Fusō. Whole. Gleaming. Unbroken.
His heart lurched.
"The Fusō..." he whispered. He had seen her broken. A carcass of rust and steel, slumped on Yamatai's cursed shores. He had crawled through her ruined heart, slept beneath her fractured deck. And yet, here she was, untouched by time or decay. No rust. No scarring. Just cold, proud steel rising against the mist.
To his left, concrete bunkers jutted from the rock like rotted teeth, German design. Familiar. Old. Too old to still be in such good condition. He recognised the style from books, field surveys, and grainy black-and-white photos. Atlantic Wall fortifications. Nazi-era. Not Japanese. Not Pacific. Europe.
"God help me, I'm not in the Pacific anymore... Where am I? How far did we fall?" Eduard tried to make sense of it all but felt even more confused. "How far did it pull me? None of this is right. But whatever brought us here, I feel like she is part of it."
He studied her face, calm even now. Her very presence pressed against reality like a weight. As if she were some foreign object not part of this world.
"I can't leave her even if I wanted to. Even if I thought she was dangerous. Because she's not just unconscious, she's connected. To this place. To all of it. I know it."
Eduard exhaled slowly and braced himself. He slid his arms beneath her. She was heavier than she looked, at least a head if not two taller than he was, dense with quiet strength, but he managed. He lifted her into a bridal carry, boots shifting against slick stone.
"You're not staying here," he muttered. "Not while I can still stand."
And with that, he turned away from the shore. The mist closed behind them like a curtain. And the artefact, buried in his satchel, hummed once more, softly. Watching. Waiting.
"Dit is waanzin." He muttered to himself in Dutch.
He gritted his teeth and turned toward the interior of this strange place, shifting her weight in his arms.
"Dry ground. Fire. Four walls and a roof. One thing at a time, Eduard." He repeated it like a mantra. He had learnt it from Richard, who told him it had kept him alive through numerous adventures. "Don't chase ghosts." The words were clear in his mind. "Don't chase questions. Survive first. Survive long enough to ask them later."
And so he moved. Through fog and silence, with the shore at his back, gravel beneath his boots, and a woman in his arms.
This must be somewhere in Western Europe… Not the right climate for Norway, nor the pristine sand beaches of France, and it didn't remind him of home as the Dutch shores had always done. And somehow, the Fusō was here too. But there was no time to question it.
The landscape revealed itself in grim detail. Beyond the fog lay a small settlement consisting of houses in an older Germanic style, reminiscent of the beautiful villages he had seen while visiting the Alps. Eduard trudged toward them, the woman still cradled in his arms, her warmth a strange contrast to the chill gnawing at his soaked clothing. Every step was deliberate, careful. His muscles burned, but he refused to falter. Up close, the houses were worse than he'd hoped. Roofs half-collapsed. Doors swinging on rusted hinges. Beams blackened with rot and sea-wind.
No shelter. No security. No safety.
He turned in a slow circle, breath clouding the air. Cracked beams. Collapsing rafters. Leaking roofs. Too exposed. Too brittle.
"They've been empty for decades. Maybe longer. No insulation. No working stoves. No windows intact. The next storm would level them."
He looked down at the girl in his arms. Still sleeping, warm, and impossibly calm.
"She won't last a night in there. Neither will I."
He adjusted his grip and turned inland. That's when he saw it, just past the edge of a rough, overgrown airstrip: a concrete hangar, low and long, its silhouette like a crouched animal in the fog, ready to pounce on its prey. The only structure that appeared to be built to endure.
"It's not much better, but it's something. If there's fuel, tarp, or even one corner of dry floor, it's a start."
He crossed the airstrip slowly, boots dragging against the uneven ground. The rain had turned parts of it into mud. The hangar loomed larger with every step, its outer shell weathered but intact. Thick walls. Reinforced roof. A rusted sign lay on the ground.
Sonderbasis 12 – Zugang Verboten
Base 12 – No Entry.
He didn't hesitate. The hangar doors groaned as he forced them open with his shoulder.
Inside, silence. Dust. Rusted beams overhead. Faint shafts of light cut through the broken roof, illuminating the skeletons of aircraft, including seaplanes, which were dormant and covered in tattered canvas, like fossils half-excavated from time. He set the girl down against a wall, careful to prop her head with spare cloth he found lying around.
Then he searched.
Old Jerry cans, some dry, some still full, when he sloshed them gently. He tested the weight of one and nodded to himself, 'Fuel'. He set it carefully near the hangar wall, away from any leaks or open metal shards.
Tools. Rations. A rusted pot, which he quickly added to his satchel. If he could find a clean fire and draw from the well outside, boiling water wouldn't be impossible.
The air was thick with the scent of rust and machine oil. Above him, pale beams of light cut through fractured gaps in the hangar roof. Dust danced in the shafts, stirred by every movement.
Eduard made his way toward one of the planes tucked under a sagging tarp. It was an Arado Ar 196. The plane looked remarkably intact, its cockpit sealed and relatively undisturbed. There was a ladder next to it, which he used to climb up to the cockpit. He leaned in, peering through the glass. The interior was remarkably well-preserved, with gauges, wiring, and seat padding intact.
"Looks like she could still fly… Maybe. With luck. With time."
He exhaled, jaw tightening.
"If I had more time... more training..." He shook his head. "But I'm not a pilot."
A sharp, wet cough cut through the silence behind him. The woman!
The sound pierced the stillness like a cannon shot. Eduard spun around too fast, heart in his throat as he stumbled down the ladder. He rushed back to her, but in doing so, his boot caught on the same jerrycan he'd set aside. He stumbled. Tripped. Fell hard against the concrete with a muted grunt, the jerry can clanging over beside him, rolling once before settling with a heavy metallic slosh. He winced, clutching his elbow. The pain didn't matter. He was already scrambling back toward her.
She had quieted again, no sign of distress beyond the single cough, but her face was flushed now, colour blooming unnaturally beneath her cheeks.
"A fever?"
"No, she was warm before. But this is... spreading."
As he reached her side, something pulsed inside his satchel—the artefact.
Not a sound, but a pressure. A sensation beneath the skin, like sonar. Subtle, constant, and impossible to ignore. It tugged at him, not forward, but sideways.
To her. Specifically, to her left. His eyes fell there, and he saw it now. A butterfly-shaped hair clip, nestled just above her left temple. Delicate. Metallic blue. Glinting faintly in the dim light, like it had been waiting to be noticed. His breath caught. He knew that shape. I knew it well. He reached into his satchel, fingers closing around the twin he had taken from the wreck of the Fusō.
The moment he touched it, his brows knitted in surprise.
It was warm. The same warmth she radiated—a gentle, living heat, like it had a pulse of its own.
"It's not just hers… It's... part of her."
He looked at her again. Her hair was parted in the same way, the second temple bare, as though something had always been missing. Without knowing why, only that he must, Eduard leaned in and gently brushed her hair aside. With slow, careful fingers, he clipped the second butterfly above her right temple.
It clicked into place with a whisper of metal. And the moment it did, her whole body seemed to settle. Her breathing deepened. Her expression softened. The tension that clung to her features melted into something close to peace. No light flared. No sound broke the quiet. Just stillness. Completion. As if a mechanism had locked into place.
"What the hell are you?"
In his satchel, the artefact pulsed again, once.
Warm, like the clip. Like her. A soft echo in the bones. Not a signal. A response. The moment it clicked into place, her breathing deepened. Smoother. Calmer. The flush in her cheeks lessened.
No dramatic change. No magical awakening.
"I don't know what you are," he murmured. "But you're not just asleep."
He sat back on his heels, eyes flicking between the artefact and the girl. "You knew her before I did, didn't you?" he whispered.
He looked at her, serene, yet still, like a painting caught between brushstrokes.
Then the warmth returned.
Not from her, but from the artefact itself. Stronger now. A steady rhythm matching the beat of a heart, not his. It was humming. Calling. He swallowed hard. His thoughts were racing in his head.
"This is stupid. But everything about this has already defied logic."
Almost without thinking, he leaned closer. Gently, he pressed the artefact to her chest, just below her bountiful chest. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a breath. Not his. Hers. A long, deep inhale, and then a flicker of red light, low and deep, began to bleed out from where the artefact touched her. It spread around her, forming a halo across her skin, soft, glowing veins of crimson light tracing along her collarbone, across her cheeks, and under her eyes. The clips in her hair pulsed in sync, twin butterflies glowing faintly.
Eduard stared in awe. Then, her fingers twitched. A shiver ran through her frame. Her chest rose again. And again. Her lips parted. Her eyes opened. They glowed for a heartbeat, deep garnet, rimmed with fire, and then settled into a beautiful blue. Focused. On him. She did not jolt. Did not gasp. She simply stared.
"…You," she whispered.
Eduard froze. "You're awake."
Her voice was like the echo of a forgotten hymn. Low, melodic. Measured.
"I remember… everything," she said. "The fire. The fear. Yamatai's collapse."
Her hand slowly found the clip in her hair. "I had almost given up. Lost everything. I waited in silence… for so long."
She blinked slowly. "And then… You found me."
Her gaze fixed on him again, sharper now and gentler. "You're the one who reached through the dark. You carried me. Protected me. You chose me... when there was no reason to."
Eduard opened his mouth, unsure of what to say.
She placed a hand against her chest, over the artefact's lingering warmth. "Before I met you... All I could do was pray. I had lost all motivation to sing hymns or even lead lost souls to the light. But now –" her voice softened, barely above a whisper, "– now, seeing your face... I feel I've rediscovered my purpose in life."
A pause. Her lips curved into something fragile. Earnest.
"I was meant to disappear, Eduard Hollandia. That world, the sea of wreckage, that silence – I-I thought it was my end. But your voice... it pulled me back. You gave me a reason to open my eyes again."
Eduard's heart beat painfully in his chest. He had no words. She tilted her head, gaze fixed on his, calm yet unshakeable.
"You're different," she said softly. "Not like the others I've known."
"I'm no hero," he replied, almost to himself.
"No," she said, then smiled. Faint. Certain. "But you're mine."
She studied him for a moment longer, then continued. "You came to me, frightened. Alone. And still, you did not run. Not even when the cruel woman turned her wrath upon you." Her voice faltered slightly, just for a breath. Then she reached out and took his hand. Her touch filled his thoughts with calm. Her fingers curled around his, warm, impossibly soft, as if the gesture itself were sacred. She met his eyes, searching, almost tender. When she spoke again, her voice had the clarity of a vow.
"I am Fusō. A memory reborn in metal and ash. Lost to the storm... until you found me." She drew his hand to her chest, just above her heart. "And I pledge myself to you now and forever, milord... not out of duty, but because you gave me a chance to live again."
Eduard lowered the artefact, his hand trembling. "I didn't do it for a reward."
She smiled again, this time with something bittersweet in her eyes. "I know," she whispered. "That's why it means everything."
She slowly sat up, movements fluid and deliberate. A faint clinking followed as her heeled geta touched the floor, echoing through the vast hangar. Her war-scarred rigging shimmered into view, proud, red-black, and impossibly adorned.
She turned to him again, eyes steady.
"I'm not of this world, Eduard Hollandia. And neither, I think… are you."
Her words lingered, suspended in the stillness of the hangar like a final note in a hymn. No wind. No sound. Only the distant groan of old rafters and the faint pulse of the rigging behind her, fading slowly into stillness.
In the distance, far off in the shadows. The Jerry can he had tripped over earlier, which he had forgotten, was dented and lying on its side, having begun to leak. A single bead of fuel had formed at the mouth of its loosened cap. It slid down the side in silence. Then another. Then a slow trickle. The liquid crept outward, snaking in a thin line across the dusty floor. But instead of pooling, it disappeared, not evaporating, not staining, simply vanishing, absorbed into a shallow opening, almost unnoticeable unless you were looking directly at it. A perfect line, too straight to be natural, etched deep into the concrete.
And somewhere far beneath the hangar floor, something stirred.