First Resonance

[November 13th, 22:55 JST]

Nagano Prefecture – Outskirt town

The rain had stopped hours ago, yet the streets still hummed with memory, a low charge crawling along the gutters. Reina adjusted her earpiece, crouched behind an armored transport, her eyes sweeping the fog-thick street ahead.

“Dolce, do you copy? Tempesta here. How’s the evacuation?”

Emi’s voice came soft through the channel.

“Everything’s proceeding smoothly. A small village is easy to clear. The military’s been a big help. What about your side?”

“I’ve spotted black mist near the far end of town,” Reina replied. “That’s the crash zone of Meteor 117; they really came from it.”

Her earpiece crackled — then a scream of static.

“This is Squad Three! Contact at the back street of Section Four. Requesting backup!”

Gunfire rattled through the comms, echoing across the night.

“I’m on it! Pull back, now! Search and rescue only! You can’t hurt them with bullets!” Reina darted from cover, boots splashing through puddles as she sprinted toward the distress signal.

“Mika, take my position. Keep your eyes on the fog. Everyone else, hold your line,” she ordered between breaths.

A brief grin cut across her face. “I’m enough for this one.”

The backstreet was narrow, lined with vending machines and low roofs glistening from the earlier rain. Two soldiers were firing blindly into a rolling mass of black haze, each shot vanishing without sound or spark.

“Save your ammo,” Reina called out, sliding to a halt beside them. “Modern weapons won’t touch them. Watch and learn.”

She stepped forward. The fog reacted as soon as Reina made her presence known. Its front edge quivered, lifting before twisting into jagged silhouettes threaded with faint red eyes. Hundreds of shapes moved as one, their collective motion blurred the horde into a single entity, a living tide of smoke that breathed as it crawled closer.

Reina unclipped her D-Mic from her belt, a slender black cylinder gleaming faintly beneath the streetlight.

Standing tall, she raised the device to her lips.

Onstage, it was an instrument for music, a voice that brought people hope under the lights.

But out here, its purpose changed. When the runes awakened, there were no lyrics to follow and no melody to recall. It became a song that existed before language itself.

“Tachibana Reina,” she murmured, calm and precise. “Codename Tempesta. Engaging target.”

The mist shrieked without sound and surged forward.

She drew a slow breath, then sang.

No lyrics, no words. She resonated with her D-Mic.

It wasn’t a melody born of practice or memory. The sound that left her throat carried no language of this age, a frequency older than speech itself. The device merely awakened it, teaching her the tune her soul already knew.

Every Diva sang differently, yet the source was the same, a forgotten system of magic born from relics unearthed in the old world.

The D-Mics they wield now are only echoes of those artifacts, reverse-engineered through fragments of Novium to make the resonance whole again.

To them, it wasn’t learned music. It was survival — an instinct as natural as breathing once the soul was tuned.

The first note shattered the air like glass under pressure.

For an instant, the world seemed to remember something ancient and hold its breath.

Light rippled outward from her voice, spreading through the mist-heavy air in widening rings. Mana took shape around her, visible now as a luminous haze that clung close to her skin like breath made light.

The wet asphalt reflected her glow; puddles trembled, their surfaces turning to mirrors that captured the storm within her. From those mirrors bloomed faint sigils shaped like musical notes, each one spinning outward, circling her boots before slowly rising in spirals along her body. The patterns moved in rhythm with her heartbeat, weaving around her until she stood at the center of a silent, radiant score.

Two runic sigils awakened in her eyes — circles of pale light, revolving like twin halos as the D-Mic awakened, glowing in bright cerulean as they were perfectly in tune with her pitch.

“Ars Aria: Fulminare Cantus.”

Bolts descended, not from clouds, but from the shape of her melody itself. Arcs of light bent midair like musical staves drawn across the night sky. Each strike left shimmering afterimages that hung for half a second before fading.

The impact cracked the ground. Shockwaves rippled through the puddles, scattering faint halos of light across the wet asphalt.

A sharp scent of charged mana hung in the air, and the world itself seemed to shift, as if they now stood inside a field woven by the song.

It wasn’t just sound anymore. The resonance had bent space around her, turning vibration into reality — the Cantus Veil, a domain only high-level Divas could manifest.

The mist convulsed, red eyes bursting one by one into sprays of black vapor that drifted upward before dissolving into silence.

Reina lifted one hand, fingers poised like a gun, and squeezed the trigger of her imagination.

A sigil sparked at the tip of her finger, lines of light folding into shape before discharging in a single breath.

A bolt of lightning shot forth, clean and absolute.

It cut through the horde in a blinding streak; everything caught in its path vaporized, leaving only a scorched trail carved into the pavement.

This air hissed in its wake, the heat warping the surrounding space, yet every ripple stayed contained within her domain.

When the horde closed in, she shifted stance.

The D-Mic’s hum deepened, harmonizing with her voice as lightning condensed along her arm, shaping into a blade of living thunder.

She advanced through the horde with a dancer’s grace.

Her left hand held the D-Mic close as she sang; her right swung her blade in measured arcs, every step a beat in her own rhythm. Sparks trailed her movements, each strike bursting like a note of light — beautiful and violent, a storm of thunder dancing within a sea of shadow.

The horde never touched her. Every shape that lunged was erased before it reached her, their forms dissolving against the haze that shimmered around her, nullifying every attempt to break through.

When the final shadow broke apart, silence fell, so complete it rang in her ears. The ground smoked with black scars, and the glow around her slowly dimmed.

Reina lowered her D-Mic. The sigils faded from her eyes, her aura receding as the last trace of her song slipped into silence.

She pressed a finger to her earpiece, her voice calm and measured.

“Horde exterminated, just a cluster of Level 1s. Returning to initial position.”

Her reflection shimmered faintly in the puddle at her feet, uniform spotless, expression unreadable.

The night had returned to its usual calm, broken only by the distant pop of a transformer — applause arriving too late to matter.

“Acknowledged. Continue with your team’s original mission. We must secure the site for the extraction unit to retrieve the meteorite,” a cold voice replied through the channel.

“Understood, Producer,” Reina answered.

In the Aria Corps, their field commanders were called producers, half manager and half tactician, handling the Diva’s tempo both onstage and on the battlefield.

She gave the two soldiers a short hand signal. “Back to your post. The line’s secure.”

They nodded, shaken but alive, and retreated into the road leading toward the main camp.

Her earpiece buzzed again.

“Tempesta, do you copy? Basilisk here. Fog’s gathering along the main street. it’s starting to move. Permission to initiate assault?”

“Negative, Mika. Wait for regroup. We’ll take them down together.”

Reina adjusted her grip on the D-Mic and broke into a run. The rain-slick road flashed beneath her boots, puddles scattering light as she moved.

“Emi, status on the evacuation?”

“All civilians cleared. The military’s sealed the perimeter,” Emi replied. “No risk of crossfire.”

“Roger that. Tempesta out.”

She ran through the deserted streets, puddles glinting with streetlight reflections beneath her boots. At the main road, the armored van loomed out of the mist. The squad crouched behind it, six silhouettes outlined by the haze, each gripping their D-Mic and ready for the next move.

Before anyone could speak, Command’s voice broke through the channel, clipped and urgent.

“Team 02, be advised: multiple signatures inbound. Not just front contact. You’re surrounded. Estimated five thousand Level 1 CODA, mixed with confirmed Level 2s and several roaming Level 3s.”

Emi frowned. “Why would Level 3s join a horde? They’re supposed to hunt in small packs. I thought we’d only face against Level 1s and 2s.”

“We’re investigating,” Producer replied. “Preliminary data suggests Meteor 117 is emitting a frequency similar to Level 3 resonance, drawing them in.”

A brief silence followed. The surrounding fog began to thicken, swirling and heavy, almost alive.

Reina gaze sharpened; every Aria Crops unit knew the sign. The denser the fog, the greater the CODA presence. What had once been a harmless mist was now a warning written across the air itself.

She exhaled through her nose, a small, defiant smile touching her lips.

“Copy that. We’ll handle it. Have our tea ready when we get back, Producer.”

The voice on the line softened.

“I will… Take care, girls. Sorry to throw you into this mess on your first mission.”

Reina smiled faintly. “See you later, Producer.”

She looked over her squad.

“Looks like we’re on our own. How do you feel? They say the first mission’s always the toughest.”

Nana cracked her knuckles, flames flickering between her fingers. “We were trained for this. We’ll be fine.”

Momoko spun her mic lazily, “I’ll just blow them away before they can blink—”

“—Do CODA even blink?” Misaki cut in with a grin.

Laughter broke the tension for a moment.

Emiko’s hand tightened around her D-Mic, knuckles pale. “I’m ready,” she whispered, quiet but steady enough to mean it.

Mika chuckled under her breath, the stones around her boots vibrating in response.

Emi said nothing, only checked her D-mic one last time before stepping up beside Reina.

Reina nodded once, her expression calm and resolute. “Let’s move.”

They stepped out from cover.

The black fog swelled from every direction, an ocean of shadow threaded with glints of red eyes. Among them lumbered the larger shapes of Level 2 CODA, their bodies half-formed and glistering like molten silhouettes. Behind those, massive beasts prowled, Level 3 CODA whose warped, animalistic moved with their eyes burning in hunger.

Reina raised her D-Mic. The others followed in unison.

“Shirakawa Emi, Codename Dolce. Ready.”

“Tatsuna Mika, Codename Basilisk. Ready.”

“Nagai Nana, Codename Helia. Ready.”

“Uyeda Momoko, Codename Galea. Ready.”

“Miyagawa Emiko, Codename Seraph. Ready.”

“Kishi Misaki, Codename Atlas. Ready.”

Reina’s voice cut through the comms, clear and commanding, like a conductor raising her baton.

She began to sing, her tone steady and resonant, slowly joined by the others one by one.

Seven voices layered into a single vibration, frequencies merging in perfect harmony. Their bodies become surrounded by shifting sigils shaped like musical notes, each pattern moving in sync with their rhythm until seven radiant lights pierced though the fog.

Reina stood at the center, her outline defined by a luminous haze as the aura warped around her form

Lightning began to coil faintly in the air, the ground trembling under the weight of their combined hum.

Seven pairs of runic sigils flared within their eyes, each rune distinct, symbolizing the unique magical lineage awakened through their D-Mics.

“Ars Aria: Fulminare Cantus.”

The world shifted.

The scent of charged mana filled the air as space itself began to tighten. The surrounding fog stilled, slowing as if caught mid-motion.

Only those within could feel it, the invisible boundary where resonance bent reality itself. The Cantus Veil was a domain of magic and song, unseen yet unmistakable to every Diva inside it.

Their voices pulsed together, a single heartbeat made of sound. The air shimmered, alive with ancient magical energy that no words could fully describe.

For the first time, Aria Corps Team 02, the Tempesta Unit, sang together.