Enterprise's words hung in the air like a ceremonial bell.
"May our collaboration bring prosperity and development to both worlds."
She extended the document toward him, formal and composed, white naval uniform immaculate, captain's coat draped over her shoulders like a mantle of authority.
Takumi accepted the file.
Two copies, crisp and heavy. The Azur Lane logo was stamped in the corner, the text dense with clauses: trade, immigration, research cooperation, non-aggression, mutual defense, dimensional transit protocols.
It really did look like something from an intergovernmental summit—if you ignored the Manjuus outside the window hauling torpedoes like oversized bread loaves.
He skimmed through the contents one last time.
Land and resources from me. People and tech from them. No conquering, no exploitation, no unilateral war declarations through my portals.
It felt… right.
He signed.
Name: Takumi.
Title: Representative of Primary Sanctuary Civilization.
Enterprise signed below him. Her signature was neat, decisive, cutting through the lines with the confidence of someone who had gone toe-to-toe with apocalypse more than once.
The system chimed quietly in his vision.
[Dimensional Treaty: Azur Lane – Primary Sanctuary]
Status: Ratified.
Effects:
• Migration Corridor (Limited) unlocked.
• Resource Exchange Route (Periodic) unlocked.
• Joint Research Permission granted.
[Initial Quest – "Increase Population to 20+"]
Progress: 1 → (Pending Arrival…)
Richelieu stepped forward, her expression softer than usual.
"On behalf of Iris Libre," she said, "I welcome the birth of your world's first alliance."
Yat Sen nodded. "May your seas be calmer than ours… and yet never stagnant."
"Commander, Commander!" a destroyer chimed, tugging on his sleeve. "When we visit, will there be snacks? And beaches? And no Sirens?!"
"Working on it," Takumi promised. "Snacks are guaranteed. Siren-free is… highly probable."
A few shipgirls had already quietly started calling him "Commander" during the test days, half joking at first, then increasingly natural. The word stirred something… complicated in his chest.
In another timeline, he would've been just a salaryman with a boss breathing down his neck.
Here, people looked at him and saw—
Commander.
Leader.
Anchor point of a new reality.
The part of him wrapped in Finality whispered: This is the beginning of a new narrative axis. From here, civilizations bend around you.
He smiled carefully and pushed that thought down.
"Takumi." Enterprise's voice brought him back. "When will you open the path again?"
"In your terms? A few years," he said. "In mine? A month or two of prep work, maybe less. My world runs slow."
Richelieu's eyes sharpened. "Slow…?"
He explained time dilation again. Different flows between worlds. For them, he'd vanish for a long while, then reopen the door.
"For us," he said, "you'll be gone for maybe a coffee break. Which, selfishly, is nice."
Belfast bowed slightly. "We will prepare the vanguard fleet. And a proper farewell ceremony."
"And I'll prepare the landing zone," Takumi said. "And baths. Kazuma will mutiny if I don't."
They looked confused at that last name; he just smiled.
Enterprise extended a hand.
"Until we meet on your world, then, Commander."
He shook her hand.
"Until then."
The portal back to his Earth bloomed open above the harbor's beach, the air folding into prismatic light.
As he stepped through, dozens of shipgirls watched—some curious, some solemn, some already arguing over who'd get to go in the vanguard.
Richelieu raised her spear in salute.
"Do not disappoint us," she called.
"I'm competitive," he called back. "I'd rather surprise you."
Then the light swallowed him.
He stepped out into the Strategy Hall.
Dead gray sky outside. The hum of HQ behind him. Ash, ruins, silence.
Home.
And yet… less lonely than before.
He didn't have time to savor the feeling.
The door hissed open and Misaka almost collided with him.
"You're back!" she said, sparks popping in her hair. "You took forever!"
"For you it's been, what, ten minutes?" he said.
"Exactly," she said indignantly. "Ten minutes is forever when I'm curious."
Rimuru floated in after her in human form, followed by Rin, Kazuma, Ruri, and Miori—a small, chaotic parade of multiversal misfits.
Rimuru grinned. "So. Cube integration. Treaty. Potential army of shipgirls. Spill."
Takumi lifted the signed treaty; the HQ interface caught the gesture, scanning the document in a beam of pale light.
[External Contract Ingested.]
[Civilization Matrix Updated.]
[Migration Protocol Template: Imported.]
He summarized quickly: absorption of the last Wisdom Cube, tests on the harbor shore, destroyer-graded durability, Akashi's meltdown, and finally the alliance.
By the time he finished, Misaka looked impressed, Rin looked intrigued, Miori thoughtful—and Kazuma deeply offended.
"Wait," Kazuma said. "You can tank naval gunfire now?"
"Small ones," Takumi clarified. "Don't get ideas."
"And you still look like a regular guy?" Kazuma pressed.
"More handsome," Ruri said solemnly. "The aura of the Dark Admiral has intensified."
"That's not a thing," Takumi protested.
"It is now," she replied.
Miori cut in before the teasing got out of hand. "Functionally, what matters is that your survivability increased. That gives us more room to experiment. But we must calibrate your use of combined systems."
Rimuru nodded. "Right. You now have:
– Authority (Finality, Domination, Storage),
– Wisdom-adapted body,
– Flagship Interface,
– Dimensional Diplomacy & Chat Group.
Most protagonists get one cheat. You're edging into 'walking singularity.'"
"Which is exactly why we need doctrine," Rin added. "Use-cases. Limits."
Takumi, half-exasperated and half-relieved, raised his hands.
"Got it. No going full Eldritch Commander. Priority for now: infrastructure and reception. The treaty's live. How soon can I realistically house, say, four shipgirls and a swarm of Bulins?"
The HQ answered before anyone else.
[Task Chain Suggested:]
Clear Landing Zone.
Construct Temporary Housing.
Create Basic Infrastructure (power, water, shields).
Social & Cultural Buffer (Event).
[Optional: Name the first settlement.]
"Name the…" he muttered.
Ruri's eyes lit up dangerously. "Necropolis of the Eternal—"
"No."
"City of Final Dawn—"
"No."
Misaka raised a hand. "What about something simple? Like 'First Harbor' or 'New Point Zero' or… 'Sanctuary City'?"
Rin considered. "Sanctuary has a nice ring. And describes the intent."
Miori nodded. "It also sets a tone. This isn't an empire of conquest. It's a refuge."
The word settled into the room.
Sanctuary.
Takumi looked out at the shattered city through the high glass, then back at his friends.
"Alright," he said. "Let's build Sanctuary."
They moved fast.
Time was on Takumi's side here; five minutes of their chatter might as well be a week in Misaka's Academy City, in Rimuru's world, or in Rin's Fuyuki.
He invoked Domination.
A second clone peeled itself out of his shadow: Takumi-γ this time, marked with a floating tag only he and Miori could see.
[Domination-Clone – Takumi-γ]
Role: Infrastructure Planner / Safety Auditor
"Go through my infinite storage," the original instructed. "Pull anything that can be turned into building material: prefabs, steel beams, wiring, solar panels, water treatment modules. Coordinate with HQ-AI."
"On it," γ said, already half-dissolving into a stream of data toward the central core.
Rimuru and Miori headed to the Strategy Hall, compiling a layered plan: automated turrets keyed to Takumi's Authority signature, Wise Cubes powering shield nodes, basic street layouts.
Rin and Misaka teamed up—much to Rin's initial dismay—to work on defensive magecraft-tech hybrids.
"I'll set up bounded fields," Rin said, tracing sigils in the air. "Detection, barriers, contamination filters."
"And I'll power them with lightning when needed," Misaka added cheerfully. "And maybe run the first arcade. Just saying."
Kazuma, after much negotiation, got saddled with—according to the system—"morale & resource procurement."
Which meant, in practice, that any time someone thought "we really need X," his absurd ability would have a chance of making X appear via insane coincidence, provided the situation was stupid enough.
He tested it accidentally by complaining:
"I wish we had an industrial-scale takoyaki machine. You know, for the festival we're apparently throwing."
A moment later, a construction drone in the HQ coughed out a forgotten street vendor stall module from some dead city, mostly intact.
Everyone stared.
Kazuma pointed at it. "See? This is my power. Respect it."
Ruri patted his shoulder. "Blessed be the Fool of Probability."
While they worked, Takumi took a moment alone in the Strategy Hall.
The Hyperdimensional Star Map floated above him, each world-bubble pulsing faintly.
His gaze swept past familiar neighbors—Demon Slayer, Date A Live, Honkai, Type-Moon—then paused on a dimmer bubble at the map's edge.
[Black Bullet: Cursed Generation – Gun Age+]
• Status: Ongoing Civilizational Crisis.
• Notable: High percentage of persecuted, supernaturally adapted children.
• Risk Tier: Medium-High.
He focused; details swam up, blurred by distance and energy limits.
Still, the gist was clear enough: a world where children born with power were treated like living weapons and monsters. Used. Feared. Thrown away.
His hand tightened around the railing.
This, he thought, is what I don't want Sanctuary to be.
He didn't have the capacity yet. He barely had a settlement starting. But the idea nested quietly in his mind:
Cursed Children would need somewhere to go, someday.
Spirits rejected by their worlds.
Herrschers seeking a place without constant war.
Artificial intelligences too self-aware to be chained.
Sanctuary.
Finality pulsed in his chest, and for a second the star map distorted.
Lines between worlds sharpened. One possible future flashed: a network of gates connecting dozens of civilizations, all bending subtly toward a central black sun—him—like a gravity well.
Worlds bowing.
People praying.
Civilizations defined by his whims.
His breath hitched.
Miori's voice cut through the haze.
"Takumi."
He blinked.
She stood at the entrance, glasses glinting—not with light, but with concern.
"You almost let it slip," she said. "Finality. It was trying to collapse these into a single 'dominant narrative.'"
He exhaled, shaky.
"Yeah. For a moment, I saw… everything pointing at me."
"That is the danger of godhood," Miori said quietly, stepping closer. "The universe looks simpler if there is only one axis. One center. You."
She looked up at the star map, then at him.
"Don't be that center."
"What should I be, then?"
"A junction," she said. "A host. A negotiator. The one who makes sure different stories meet without devouring each other. Your power is to end—but your role can be to connect."
The simplicity of it grounded him.
"Connect, not consume," he repeated.
The black sun inside him quieted again, pulling back from the map like a sulking cat.
"Thanks," he said.
Miori nodded, as if it were just a minor debugging suggestion. "Come. Rimuru wants you to approve the festival plan before the AI turns the main plaza into a food court."
"…I'm listening," Takumi said cautiously.
By the time "day" rolled into "evening" in Sanctuary (the HQ simulated its own lighting cycles; the sky outside remained the same gray), the basic first phase was done.
The Landing Zone: once a collapsed highway intersection, now cleared of rubble, reinforced, and covered by a shimmering, semi-transparent dome powered by Support Cubes and Takumi's Storage-fed generators.
Housing: modular, clean, functional—not pretty yet, but with enough privacy that even tsundere shipgirls wouldn't complain too much.
Core Utilities: water purification lines from a reclaimed river, basic power grid, emergency barriers, and a comms relay tied into the Chat Group.
And at the edge of all that:
The beginnings of a plaza.
String-light brackets waited for actual lights. A street-stall module (Kazuma's takoyaki miracle) sat off to one side. HQ's AI had projected overlays of possible festival layouts, with color-coded crowd flow paths and "fun density" calculations.
[HQ-AI Suggestion:]
– Add lantern clusters here, here, and here.
– Install small stage. Music probability increases mood by 23%.
– Place food stalls near but not blocking access to baths.
If Takumi squinted, he could see the AI's emerging personality in the notes. It liked efficient happiness. It liked brightness in otherwise dead places.
Misaka, Rin, Ruri, and Kazuma had formed a festival committee.
"I'm in charge of games," Misaka declared. "Target shooting, ring toss, maybe a shock-resistance contest—"
"No electrocuting the guests," Takumi said.
"Fine. Mildly shocking."
Rin drew up plans for a temporary shrine-or-stage hybrid. "Call it a 'philosophical corner.' We can put up questions about civilization and let people write answers."
"You want to host an ethics booth?" Kazuma asked.
"Someone has to, or this all devolves into vibes," Rin sniffed.
Ruri proposed "The Altar of the Dark Admiral," and was promptly vetoed 5–1.
Kazuma handled food and drinks with terrifying enthusiasm, leveraging his absurd ability to "randomly discover" more intact equipment from nearby ruins.
Rimuru orchestrated logistics with the AI.
Miori kept a quiet eye on Finality readings.
And Takumi?
He hauled beams, approved blueprints, created Support Cubes, and tried not to think too hard about the fact that this was the first celebration of his civilization.
When they finally stood at the edge of the dome, watching the flickering test lanterns glow against the dark, he felt… something shift.
The dead city beyond was still broken.
But here, inside the dome, light bobbed, cables hummed, and people's voices echoed off fresh metal.
The system picked that moment.
[Initial Quest – "Increase Population to 20+"]
Status: Incoming Migration Detected.
– Source: Azur Lane World
– Vanguard: 4 Shipgirls, 50 Bulins, assorted Manjuus
– ETA (Primary Sanctuary Time): 3… 2… 1…
The air above the Landing Zone twisted.
Light spiraled, forming a familiar vortex—smaller than the one over Azur Lane's beach, but denser, anchored by runes Rimuru and Rin had helped the system inscribe.
Misaka crackled excitedly. "They're here!"
Kazuma straightened his stolen festival apron. "Okay, everyone act cool, this is our first impression, do not mention Dark Empire stuff—"
Ruri lifted her fan. "Welcome, vanguard of the Dark—"
"Ruri," everyone said.
She sighed. "Fine. Welcome, guests of Sanctuary."
The vortex opened fully.
Silhouettes stepped through:
– A proud battleship with familiar blonde hair and elegant rigging.
– A serious carrier with eyes like knives and a coat like a flag.
– Two more shipgirls, one refined, one grinning.
– And around their feet, a tide of Bulins and Manjuus, spilling onto cracked earth with cheerful cries of "Burin!" and "Chirp!"
They froze for a heartbeat, taking in the sight.
Ruined skyscrapers in the distance. Dead sky above.
And here, under the dome:
Light. Clean structures. An HQ that looked like it had dropped from orbit. Lanterns testing their glow. People from worlds no shipgirl had ever imagined.
Takumi stepped forward, Authority quiet but present, gravity of Finality wrapped in the gentler frame of a "Commander," not a god.
"Welcome," he said.
His voice carried, backed by the HQ's subtle acoustic support.
"Welcome to Sanctuary. First city of a world that ended once—and won't end like that again."
Richelieu stepped down from the portal, spear at her side, rigging shimmering.
For a moment, they looked at each other.
Then she smiled.
"Commander," she said. "You move fast."
"Dead planets are good motivation," he replied.
Belfast bowed to him, then to the others. Enterprise surveyed the area like a battlefield, measuring defenses, exits, structural integrity. A destroyer tugged on Kazuma's apron.
"Is that food?" she whispered.
"Yes," Kazuma said gravely. "And you have no idea what you're in for."
The HQ-AI logged new entities, updating its internal models.
[New Residents Detected.]
Population: 1 → 1 + 4 + 50 + (Manjuus…)
Mood: rising.
Tag: beginning.
The system chimed one more time.
[Initial Quest Completed – "Increase Population to 20+"]
Reward Unlocked: Initial Technology Tree x1 (Randomized Among Neighbor Worlds)
Rolling…
The star map flickered.
One bubble glowed brighter, lines of potential reaching for Sanctuary.
Takumi felt the weight of hundreds of futures gathering above his head.
Misaka leaned close. "Whatever it is," she said, "we'll break it in spectacularly."
Rimuru smiled. "And rebuild it better."
Rin's eyes shone. "And study it."
Kazuma muttered, "As long as it helps with hot water, I'm in."
Ruri's fan hid a grin. "Our stage expands."
Miori simply watched Takumi, making sure his eyes stayed his own as power gathered.
He inhaled.
Exhaled.
Finality pulsed.
Domination aligned.
Wisdom hummed.
Sanctuary lit its first true lamps as the reward descended—
—and under their glow, for the first time on this dead Earth, a small crowd of people from different worlds laughed, bickered, and looked around with that most dangerous of all human expressions.
Hope.