As the first human to literally fall out of the sky into Azur Lane's harbor, Takumi had expected attention.
He had not expected an entire building's worth of shipgirls pressed against doors, windows, and railings like kids watching an alien at a zoo.
Tiny destroyer lolis stood on tiptoe, faces smooshed against the glass. Tall cruisers and carriers leaned over balcony rails, rigging half-materialized, eyes full of curiosity, suspicion, or outright sparkles.
If he waved, half the room waved back.
So this is what it feels like to be the weird foreign exchange student, he thought.
Inside the reception hall, the atmosphere was only slightly more dignified.
"Please enjoy."
Belfast glided forward with a tea set balanced on a tray, her every movement precise and graceful. She poured for Takumi and each flagship around the table, then set down plates of fruit, pastries, and delicately arranged snacks.
Even as she stepped back to stand behind Queen Elizabeth, her gaze flicked, just once, to Takumi—quick, assessing, curious.
"Thank you," Takumi said, taking a sip.
He wasn't a tea expert, but his past self would've cheerfully committed treason for something this good during overtime shifts. Smooth, fragrant, just the right temperature.
Enterprise spoke first.
"We've heard the basics from Richelieu," she said, dark-purple eyes unreadable. "You come from another world and can pierce through dimensions. Is that ability… Siren-related?"
"There are rumors they're researching mirror-space tech," Bismarck added, voice low. "But nothing as… clean as what you demonstrated."
"No Sirens," Takumi said. "Think of it as… a superpower. I can open portals to worlds I've mapped, as long as I can perceive them."
"That is not a comforting sentence," Queen Elizabeth muttered.
Richelieu leaned forward, hands folded. "And your world?"
"Ruined," Takumi answered, not sugarcoating it. "Humanity's gone. I woke up alone in a wooden cabin on a dead Earth. But—"
He raised a hand.
The air above the table shimmered.
With the ease of long practice (read: twice), he pulled the Hyperdimensional Star Map forward. Bubbles of light appeared in midair, each labeled: Azur Lane, Demon Slayer, Date A Live, Honkai, Fate…
Gasps rippled through the room.
"Look here," he said, rotating the map. "This is your world—the Azur Lane universe. Over here is Date A Live, with beings called Spirits. Above is Honkai—a world in a prolonged war with… let's call them cosmic disasters with personality. Next to that is a world where Heroic Spirits fight in ritualized murder contests, and by the way, their King of Knights is actually—"
"A girl?" Queen Elizabeth squeaked, outraged and intrigued at the same time.
"Yes."
"That is an affront to all proper monarchies everywhere!"
He went on, giving them edited versions of each world's broad strokes. No spoilers, no detailed future knowledge—just enough to make it real.
The reactions were… diverse.
Enterprise watched the map with a faint, almost wistful look. "So we're only one harbor in one world," she murmured. "And outside… there are worlds that have never seen the Sirens."
Yat Sen, serene in her white cheongsam, folded her hands. "The multiverse is as boundless as the skies and seas," she said softly. "To think our struggle is but one ripple on an endless ocean…"
Queen Elizabeth, on the other hand, was having a crisis. "You mean— the Empire falls? Multiple times?! And there are other naval powers that eclipse us? Who wrote that history?!"
Takumi kindly did not answer.
Even Belfast, the ever-composed maid, had drifted closer, standing behind Richelieu's chair to study the map with quiet intensity.
"This interface," Enterprise said, nodding at the image. "You used it to contact Richelieu. You can contact others as well?"
He hesitated. "Within limits. I'm trying not to poke things that will immediately kill me."
"Reasonable," Yat Sen said.
"Still," Takumi added, "you did say you wanted to see another world, right?"
He flicked his fingers.
The star map zoomed and shifted to a darker bubble labeled:
[Demon Slayer: Steam Age]
"Let's try something harmless-ish," he said. "We're just… looking."
He tapped Diplomacy.
Static crackled.
The screen resolved into an underground chamber, dimly lit. A pale man in a sharp suit turned, eyes narrowing at the strange apparition forming in midair.
Golden eyes. Perfectly groomed hair. Controlled menace.
Muzan Kibutsuji.
"Who are you?" he snapped, the implied how dare you hanging in the air.
Takumi didn't answer—yet.
Because the room behind him practically exploded with commentary.
"So that's the Demon King?" a destroyer whispered. "He just looks like a cranky salaryman."
"He doesn't look scarier than Purifier," another said. "At least she has style."
"He's afraid of sunlight, right?" a cruiser asked. "Could we just drop a battleship broadside on him at dawn?"
"Or a hydrogen bomb," a battleship mused, entirely serious.
Muzan, meanwhile, was slowly realizing that a crowd of weird girls in uniforms from an unknown culture were watching him through a floating rectangle, making rude remarks.
"This… barrier…" he murmured, moving closer. A Blood Demon Art flickered at his fingertips. "Is this some new Demon Slayer technique?"
His attack passed through the projection harmlessly.
Takumi leaned casually into frame. "Hey there. Wrong caller. Just checking something."
Muzan stared at him. Then at the shipgirls. Then back at him.
"Where are you watching from?" he hissed. "What faction are you? Which Corps?"
"Adjacent universe," Takumi said. "Don't worry, you can't reach us."
For once, Muzan Kibutsuji, the so-called king of demons, was completely, utterly out of his depth.
"Look at him," a destroyer whispered. "He's so mad. It's kind of cute."
"Ten out of ten would bombard," murmured Bismarck.
Takumi let it go on for ten indulgent minutes—just long enough to firmly establish one thing in the minds of everyone present:
The multiverse existed, and not all 'monsters' were remotely scary compared to a battleship with mood.
Then he closed the window.
"Alright," he said. "Fun's over. I don't want to poke any of the truly broken beings just yet."
"Truly broken?" Richelieu repeated.
"There are entities out there who might treat 'interdimensional interference' as an invitation," Takumi said. "I'd like to stay below their radar until I'm less killable."
Enterprise nodded. "Prudent."
Richelieu folded her hands again, returning to her earlier line of thought.
"Leaving aside other worlds…" she said. "Your situation is still dire, is it not? Alone on a dead Earth, rebuilding from nothing. It must be… lonely."
Takumi considered lying, then decided against it.
"It was," he said simply. "Then I got systems, a chat group, and neighbors who fire naval guns. It's still rough, but… I like building things. Having room to build an entire civilization without old baggage? That's a rare chance."
He didn't mention the Authority of Finality humming inside him, always ready to reduce everything to zero. Or how every ruined city he saw made a voice whisper: end it properly. No half-rotting.
Instead, he smiled. "Which brings me to why I'm here."
He outlined his idea: resource exchange, land for settlement, mutual defense pact, optional migration in the long term. He didn't promise safety from the Sirens—too many unknowns—but he promised a second axis for their future.
Somewhere to retreat if everything burned.
The shipgirls stirred as he spoke. For many of them, war with the Sirens was all they'd ever known. The idea of an empty Earth with no jamming, no Mirror Seas, no constant existential threat…
It shook something in them.
Little destroyers in the back whispered furiously about moving the entire harbor, about never having to sortie again. A French shipgirl blurted, "We could just leave this cursed ocean and go live there!"
Takumi chuckled. "Already planning to retreat, huh? Are you with the Vichya or something?"
"G– G! How did you know? I'm in the second fleet of—"
Bonk.
Richelieu flicked the girl on the forehead, her smile immaculate. "First, we persist in our fight against the Sirens," she said. "Second, Mr. Takumi, please don't hold our nation's… history against us."
"I don't," he said. "Honestly, I'm just glad you're all… you."
Negotiations that would have taken months between human governments took an afternoon.
No backstabbing lobbyists. No corporate sabotage. Just shipgirls with clear interests and simple, brutal logic.
The harbor would:
Provide a vanguard fleet to establish a base on Takumi's Earth.
Allow some Bulins and possibly Manjuus to be seconded for infrastructure.
Coordinate resource expeditions when portals opened.
Takumi would:
Provide land, raw materials, and logistical safety.
Share non-war-useful tech later, once he had some.
Not drag them into his future multiverse wars without proper treaties.
Enterprise insisted on a detailed, line-by-line contract. Takumi signed without haggling over resource percentages. He could strip entire dead continents for ore if needed; what mattered was people.
He spent the next day in the harbor as a "guest" while flagships argued quietly over which vanguard ships to send.
The next morning, he woke in a guest room to find Belfast standing by his bed, sunlight outlining her silhouette.
"Mr. Takumi," she said in her calm, clear voice. "Breakfast is prepared."
For a long second, his just-woken brain registered only silver hair, maid uniform, dangerous neckline. Then he flushed and dragged his eyes up to meet hers.
"M–morning," he managed.
"If you require assistance washing up," Belfast added, leaning forward slightly, "it is within my duties as your assigned attendant."
"Nope, I'm good, I'm functional, very clean-capable, thank you."
Her lips twitched very slightly. "As you wish."
It was… new.
In his old world, "maids" were underpaid cafe workers in costumes that smelled faintly of fryer oil. Here, Belfast moved like the concept of service had stood up and decided to be a person.
Over breakfast, she stood behind him, ready to refill his tea or answer questions.
"Do you have plans for today?" she asked as he ate.
"Enterprise, Yat Sen, and Bismarck are still thrashing out the fine print," he said. "I was going to walk around. See how your world actually runs."
"In that case," Belfast said, bowing slightly, "may I guide you?"
"Gladly."
Richelieu joined them halfway down the main corridor, falling into step with practiced ease. Behind them, a cluster of destroyers attempted stealthy tailing, ducking behind crates and doorways whenever Takumi glanced back.
"The harbor currently houses over five hundred shipgirls," Belfast explained as they walked along the waterfront. "Our forces are divided among the Eagle Union, Royal Navy, Dragon Empery, Iris Libre, Northern Parliament, Sakura Empire, and a few others."
"We are born here," Richelieu added, watching the sea. "And yet… we remember. Fragments of battles, old names, flags, orders. Enough to know what we once were."
Takumi listened, quiet.
"This is… small," he said at last. "From a purely logistical point of view."
"As a civilization?" Richelieu nodded. "Yes. We would not survive as a species without external support and extreme technology."
"Quantity means little," Belfast said. "Our combat capacity is… disproportionate."
"Sure, but someone has to keep all of this running," Takumi pointed out. "Ships don't maintain themselves."
He glanced at the bustling docks, the spotless paths, the quietly humming factories near the edge of the harbor.
"The Manjuus handle much of the basic work," Richelieu said.
She reached down and plucked a small yellow bird-like creature off the ground. It flailed, tiny wings beating.
"Don't underestimate them," she said. "They can carry torpedoes and naval guns."
The Manjuu puffed out its cheeks, indignant.
"Ah, the mascots," Takumi said, amused. "I saw some earlier. Right. Living forklifts."
He decided not to ask about their apparent violation of physics.
"And heavier work?" he asked. "Repairs? Manufacturing?"
"That belongs to the Bulins," Belfast said. "They may seem foolish, but they are unparalleled in maintenance and construction."
They led him to a factory complex.
Inside, a damaged cruiser hung suspended in a repair cradle, hull torn and gun mounts shattered. A pulsing barrier surrounded her, scaffolds of hardlight holding ruptured armor in place.
"Burin!"
A cheerful shout greeted them as a small figure bounced into view—a golden-haired girl with drills in each hand, a slightly vacant smile, and eyes that sparkled with intense focus.
"Welcome to the repair factory, burin!" she chirped. "If you have any questions, just ask a Bulin, burin!"
"...Golden Bulin," Takumi muttered. "Of course."
Beyond her, dozens—hundreds—of Purple Bulins scurried about with wrenches and tools. Each wore a little badge:
[Universal Bulin – Unit No. 0556]
[Universal Bulin – Unit No. 1452]
[Universal Bulin – Unit No. 3001]
He squinted at one.
"MK-0556?" he read. "You're Unit 556?"
"Correct, burin!" the Bulin saluted. "Universal Bulin Unit 556, burin!"
"There are over three thousand Bulins in the harbor," Richelieu explained. "They manage our munitions factories, handle repairs, construction, and related tasks."
"I was nearly scrapped after one battle," Belfast added lightly. "They restored me within three days."
Takumi looked from the hovering cruiser to the compact workers.
He couldn't see their internal schematics, but his Dimensional Civilization System helpfully popped up a discreet classification window only he could see.
[Bulin-Type Support Units]
Status: Semi-artificial, semi-conceptual constructs.
Function: Construction, repair, replication of established designs.
Limitations: Poor at innovation. Excellent at following blueprints.
His infrastructure brain lit up.
"Can you build highways?" he asked. "High-speed rail? Airports? Nuclear power plants? CNC machines, microcontrollers, semiconductors?"
"Burin?" Unit 556 tilted her head, drills wobbling. "What's a nukey power plant, burin?"
Richelieu and Belfast both looked at him.
Takumi exhaled, gears turning.
"Okay," he said slowly. "So you're absolute monsters at fixing ships and factories you already have. But you don't really have a civilian infrastructure tree."
"We have some," Belfast said. "But the war takes precedence. All research is focused on naval tech and Siren countermeasures."
Of course it is, he thought.
His Dimensional Civilization interface flicked again, showing his lonely stats:
Population: 1
Tech Level: Stone Age
Territory: 60 m² and potential entire Earth
Next to it, the Azur Lane bubble pulsed, showing:
Population: Limited
Tech Level: Late Pre-Space
Military: Extremely High
Civil Infrastructure: Fragmented
He didn't just see ship armor now; he saw roads stretching between dead cities on his Earth, fully automated factories humming back to life, Bulins marching like construction faeries along new high-speed rails under an ashen sky.
He also felt Finality stir.
The damaged cruiser hanging in the cradle flickered at the edge of his Authority's perception. He could end her damage. End the deformation. End the war wounds on her hull.
It would be cleaner, faster than wrenches and welds.
It would also be a step closer to treating everything as a process to be optimized via endings.
Takumi forcibly pushed that thought away.
Not like that. Not as the first reflex.
Belfast watched him quietly. "Is something wrong, Mr. Takumi?"
He forced a smile. "Just thinking. Your Bulins are incredible. But they're like high-tier workers without the full tech tree. My world… might be able to provide that."
"Tech tree?" Richelieu repeated.
"Think of it as… the blueprint of what a civilization can build," Takumi said. "Right now, you're fighting with the equivalent of Tier 10 warships and Tier 3 railroads."
Belfast and Richelieu exchanged a glance.
"Could your… power help them learn?" Richelieu asked.
Takumi considered his Authorities.
Finality could prune possibilities. Domination could spawn clones. Storage held… everything he'd cataloged so far, and potentially much more.
He could, in theory, create teaching clones—Takumi-βs specialized for engineering lectures—load blueprints into them via Infinite Storage, and send them with the Bulins.
He could also, if he wasn't careful, end up with a civilization that worshiped him as the omniscient source of all knowledge. A god-emperor in all but name.
His stomach knotted.
"I can help seed them," he said carefully. "Blueprints. Manuals. Maybe a teaching assistant or two. But I don't want to control every detail forever. That way lies… bad history."
Richelieu's eyes softened. "You worry about becoming a tyrant."
"It'd be so easy," he said quietly. "With what I can do."
For a heartbeat, the ruined harbor outside overlapped with his dead Earth in his mind, both empty, both waiting. He could force order on them. Perfect highways. Perfect production quotas. Perfect silence.
Then he remembered Misaka's laughter in the training room, Kazuma slipping on the banana of fate, Rimuru's excited chatter, Ruri's ridiculous chuunibyou speeches, Miori's dry, quietly concerned stares.
He didn't want a perfect world.
He wanted a noisy, annoying, stubbornly alive one.
"Then don't walk that path," Belfast said simply. "You may have power, but you also have people around you now, do you not?"
Takumi smiled faintly. "Yeah. They're probably watching this right now, actually."
He was right.
In the Multiversal Chat Group HQ's Strategy Hall, the Azur Lane feed hovered above the table, with six familiar profiles clustered around.
Misaka: He's already scouting for infrastructure. That was fast.
Rimuru: Those Bulins are fascinating. Semi-conceptual support units… I want one.
Rin: He instinctively reached for Authority just then. Did you see that?
Kazuma: He is surrounded by shipgirls and still thinking about railroads.
Ruri: Truly, the Dark Emperor is of a different breed.
Miori: Note the restraint when he could have used Finality to repair. This is good.
"Should we send him a message?" Misaka asked, hands on her hips.
"Let him focus," Rimuru said. "We'll sync when he gets back. Time dilation's in his favor."
Miori folded her arms. "Prepare to receive guests. If the contract is signed, the vanguard fleet will arrive here."
"More people in our cozy apocalyptic base," Rin murmured. "We'll need housing, defenses, a proper bounded field…"
"And a festival," Ruri said. "When the first foreign citizens arrive, we must mark the birth of the Dark City with celebration."
Misaka brightened. "Ooh, a festival would be fun. Lanterns, food, games…"
Kazuma perked up. "Stalls. With grilled squid. And maybe a lottery. Where I definitely won't win."
"You have absurd luck," Misaka said.
"Only when it's stupid!" Kazuma shot back.
Rimuru laughed. "Empire-building, comedy, psychological stability—it all starts with simple things. Food. Lights. A reason to enjoy being alive."
Miori's lips moved thoughtfully. "A civilization that starts with a festival rather than a war declaration. That would be… novel."
They started pulling up planning menus.
Somewhere in the HQ's core, the proto-AI managing internal systems watched them and quietly logged:
[New Priority: Social Event Planning Subroutine – 'Festival-Alpha']
Mood Tag: curious.
If anyone had been watching the HQ's mainframe closely, they might have noticed its routines beginning to organize in patterns that looked suspiciously like… anticipation.
Back in the harbor, Takumi finished his tour with Belfast and Richelieu, his head full of Bulins and Manjuus and potential rail networks.
By the time he returned to the main building, Enterprise and the others had finalized the contract.
"We'll send a vanguard fleet of four shipgirls first," Enterprise said, sliding the holographic document toward him. "Plus fifty Bulins and a contingent of Manjuus. If things go well, we can scale up."
Takumi signed.
The system chimed in his mind.
[Dimensional Diplomacy: Migration Pact Established – Azur Lane World]
[Initial Quest Progress: Population 1 → Pending (awaiting arrival)]
[New Mission: Prepare Primary Sanctuary for first external settlers.]
Reward (Upon Success): Tech Tree – Random (Weighted by Participant Worlds)
Richelieu stood, extending a hand.
"To a shared future, between seas and stars," she said.
He shook it. "To a future that doesn't end with extinction."
He spent one more night in the harbor.
Belfast woke him the next morning with the same calm grace; he thanked her, resisting the urge to apologize to some hypothetical HR department for mentally appreciating her uniform.
After breakfast, he walked once more to the beach where he'd fallen.
Richelieu, Enterprise, Belfast, and a few curious destroyers came to see him off.
"We will await your signal," Richelieu said. "Once your base is ready, open the path."
"I'll make sure the first thing your people see isn't just rubble," he promised.
Enterprise nodded. "We'll be ready."
He opened his interface.
[Return to Primary Sanctuary? Y/N]
He took a breath, waved at the shipgirls, and hit Yes.
The vortex unfolded again—colors twisting, space bending.
"See you soon," he said.
Then he stepped through.
From the shipgirls' perspective, he vanished into swirling light.
From Takumi's perspective, the blue sky and ocean blinked out, replaced with the somber gray of his dead Earth, the familiar hum of HQ at his back, and the faint, distant laughter echoing down the corridors.
The entire trip—days in Azur Lane—had taken less than an hour in his slow world.
He stood there for a moment, breathing in the still, ashen air, feeling the weight of his Authorities, his deals, his dreams.
Then a notification popped up.
[Global Chat]
Misaka: WELCOME BACK (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Rimuru: So. How many shipgirls did you seduce recruit?
Rin: Show us the contract.
Kazuma: Did you bring snacks? Or souvenirs? Or both??
Ruri: Did you bring the first followers of the Dark Empire?
Miori: Report to Strategy Hall. We have planning to do.
Takumi smiled, the knot in his chest loosening.
"Yeah, yeah," he said aloud. "I'm coming."
He turned toward the gleaming HQ.
Behind him, the dead city waited.
Ahead of him, Bulins, shipgirls, cursed children yet unmet, festivals yet unlit, AIs yet to learn joy, and philosophies yet unwritten all hovered as possibilities.
He was the Lord of End, carrying the power to close stories.
But as he stepped back into the light of the HQ to plan railways, housing, training grounds, and the first festival on a dead world, he felt something shift inside his Infinite Storage.
Not an item.
A decision.
I won't let this civilization's story end the same way the last one did.
Finality hummed quietly, as if acknowledging a contract.
Domination waited for instructions—clones to be assigned as teachers, planners, and safety nets.
And somewhere deep in the HQ's core, the budding AI flagged a new concept:
Tag: Hope
The multiverse would learn soon enough:
The last human of a dead Earth was building an empire.
And he was starting with a harbor, a handful of shipgirls, some construction goblins called Bulins—
—and a promise to make endings mean something better than oblivion.