Azur Lane: Riptide

Chapter 4: Familiar Ties

Lutzow made his way into the mess hall with his head hanging low, he never really liked places with large crowds, but he needed food. As he filled his tray with food and made his way to an empty table. He sat alone for a few minutes before four people came over and sat at his table, they where his siblings, Admiral Hipper, Prinz Eugen, Blucher, and Seydliz. "Guten morgen brudder." Seydliz greeted as he sat down. 

"I thought I told you guys I prefer to sit alone." Lutzow grumbled as he picked at his scrambled eggs.

"We know but Blucher called for an 'emergency family meeting' I have no clue why though." Hipper grumbled as she took a bite from her hash brown. 

"Well I called this meeting because I have some important new." Blucher said before taking a deep breath, "I have been transferred to our base in Norway as the result of an exchange program between the new Azur Lane bases." Blucher announced to a mixed reaction from her siblings, Eugen was proud of her, yet sad to see her go, Hipper, ever the tusundree just wished her luck, but her face showed that she was going to miss having her sister around, Seydliz however had a different reaction than both of his half-sisters.

 "Blucher." he said reaching into his coat, pulling out an envelope. "When you arrive in Norway, I want you to give this to Tirpitz." he said as he handed the letter over to her. 

 "Hm, does baby brudder have a crush on the Ice Queen?" Eugen teased causing Seydliz to blush. 

"That is none of your concern Eugen." he said regaining his composure. "Anyway, did you guys hear what happened at the party last night?" Seydliz questioned.

 "If its about Hood and Bretagne reuniting I don't want to hear it!, I heard them 'catching up' from my dorm last night!" Hipper said facepalming, Lutzow winced at Hood's name. 

"I don't even know how that's possible, but no." Seydliz said as he voice lowered to a whisper, "I heard that there was an altercation between two Royal Navy ships and Akagi, that one of them made an attempt on her life." he said as Eugen chimed in.

"Do you know who they where?" she asked.

 "Nein, all I heard is that it was a Royal Navy ship and that Akagi is in a safe house off-base, I heard that Musashi was freaking out when he got back to the Sakuran dorms last night. 

"Musashi? You mean her brooding bodyguard, right?" Eugen says remembering meeting him a few times during the war, he was usually in the background of her meetings with Akagi and Kaga, occasionally chiming in with his own comments, or threating those who acted out of place around Akagi. 

"That doesn't sound good what do you think Lutzow?" Blucher asked him as he was trying to get up and put away his tray, "I personally don't care, those Tommy's are are strange crowd." He said as he left the table to hopefully continue his day without any more social interactions.

Olympia woke up in his dorm, he instinctively turned over to wrap his arms around, nothing, he looked at the empty part of his bed as he sighed and got up, he turned to look at the framed photograph, it was of him and Arizona, in each others arms as she held up her hand to show an engagement ring on her finger, Olympia gave a sad smile as he remembered that day. 

Flashback

Olympia was holding Arizona's hand as they walked down a beach in Washington, it was rather misty but nether of them minded, Olympia always liked it when it was misty out, it gave the world a sense of mystique, that you could be alone and no one could see you for miles, as Arizona leaned her head on Olympia's shoulder, the two of them stopped as they sat down in the sand, "Hey Ari?" Olympia said turning his head towards Arizona.

"Yes Olympia?" Arizona said, her beautiful green eyes popping out in the mist.

 "We've been dating for about four years now and while the war has been raging for a while and I don't know when it will end, but I just want to ask you something." he said digging into his pocket.