Cataclysm (Part I)

[November 18th, 20:00 JST]

Ibaraki Prefecture – Outskirt of Ami Town, Inashiki District

Night settled over the outskirt of Ami Town as Tempesta Unit took their positions around the darkened forest.

Nana and Misaki held the east ridge; Mika and Momoko waited along the overgrown south trail; Emi and Emiko watched the dried riverbed.

And Reina stood alone at the northern edge, pale moonlight brushing the tips of her silver-blue hair as she scanned the surrounding.

The mist had begun to thicken slowly, crawling across the forest floor in tightening coils. All of them felt the shift in their skin. The instinctive warning only CODA presence could trigger.

Takeshi’s voice crackled through the comms, low and urgent.

“Stay sharp. The frequency isn’t holding still. It keeps jumping. Whatever’s out there is moving fast. Assume every angle is hostile.”

“We’ve been standing guard for almost two hours since the first ping,” Nana muttered. “Does this CODA know how to teleport or something?”

Reina let out a short breath that passed for a laugh. “Careful what you ask for. A teleporting CODA isn’t something we want to deal with.”

“… I was just joking…” Nana replied, voice tightening.

Reina swept her gaze across the shifting fog. The forest answered with a stillness that felt wrong.

Where are the crickets? It’s too quiet.

Then it came.

A deafening screech ripped through the night, so sharp it rattled their earpieces. The ground trembled beneath their boots.

Takeshi’s voice shot through the channel, strained and clipped.

“CODA frequency confirmed! It’s—East! Move! Regroup with Nana and Misaki, now!”

Reina was already sprinting, branches whipping past as she tore through the forest. The others broke into a run to converge on the ridge — leaves bursting underfoot, twigs snapped like bones, their hearts pounding as they closed in on the danger.

“Producer?” Misaki’s voice came through, steady but tight. “Re-check that signal. We heard the screech, but in front of us it’s still nothing but mist.”

“No—it’s right in front of you,” Takeshi shot back. “The frequency just spiked again. It’s… it’s a Level 4!”

Silence. Half a second at most.

Then the forest split open with a second screech, sharper and rising into a piercing, high pitch.

This time Nana and Misaki heard the unmistakable sound beneath it: Heavy, thunderous wingbeats cutting the air like blades.

“It’s… in the air…” Nana whispered.

The mist above them twisted, pulling apart like torn fabric as a creature nearly nine meters tall descended through the fog. The Level 4 CODA emerged with a wingspan wide enough to eclipse treetops, its skeletal wings made of black mist reinforced by glowing Novium veins, each flap warping the air with tremendous pressure. Its torso was a hollow ribcage housing a swirling red core, with several swollen sacs pulsing between the exposed bones. The head was long and spear-like, its jaw opening sideways to reveal vibrating Novium tentacles, and clusters of hexagonal red eyes glared down at the ground. Four taloned legs dangled beneath its massive frame, joints edged with mist-forged blades, and a trailing vaporous tail coiled behind it, sharpening into a blade as it descended.

“Producer… its here,” Misaki whispered. “Right in front of us. Looks like it hasn’t noticed us yet.”

“Copy that,” Takeshi replied. “JSDF had deployed two Mitsubishi F-2 to engage the target.”

Reina and the others regrouped the moment the transmission ended, eyes locked on the massive silhouette above the trees.

“A Level 4… can fighter jet even hurt something like that?” Reina asked.

“We’re about to find out” Mika said as the distant roar of jet engines grew louder.

The Level 4 CODA raised its head, eyes sharpening as two distant lights streaked toward it. The roar of twin Mitsubishi F-2 engines tore across the night sky.

A sharp whistle split the air.

Two AAM-5 missiles screamed upward, slamming into the CODA’s ribcage in twin bursts of white flame. For a heartbeat, its mist-body scattered, ribs flashing through the smoke.

Then the creature reformed as if nothing had touched it.

Its screech shook the treetops.

The CODA surged forward, wings beating hard enough to bend branches below. It shot toward the first jet, forcing the pilot into a desperate bank; the aircraft rolled sideways, barely slipping past the creature’s spear-like beak.

The second F-2 looped behind it for another pass.

The Level 4 responded instantly.

It climbed in altitude, then folded its wings inward and dropped one of the swollen sacs from its ribcage.

The sac burst midair.

Not a fireball.

Not an explosion. 

But a compressed shockwave sphere.

It slammed into the second F-2’s hull. The rear of the craft began to disintegrate almost instantly.

A dark silhouette shot from the jet before it vanished completely, parachute bursting open as the pilot drifted downward and disappeared into the forest canopy below.

The remaining F-2 pulled away, engines at full thrust, abandoning the airspace the moment it realized it didn’t even stand a chance.

The CODA shrieked at the fleeing F-2, wings flaring wide, then turned its gaze downward. Straight toward Tempesta Unit.

Reina instinctively drew her D-Mic, her team following a heartbeat later. Resonance surged through them as they began to sing. Musical-note sigils sparked across their bodies, elemental runic light sharpening in their eyes as their voices synchronized.

“Ars Aria: Fulminare Cantus!”

“Ars Aria: Aqua Cantus!”

“Ars Aria: Terra Cantus!”

“Ars Aria: Ignis Cantus!”

“Ars Aria: Ventus Cantus!”

“Ars Aria: Lux Cantus!”

“Ars Aria: Gravitas Cantus!”

The Cantus Veil burst outward in a dome of shimmering force just as the Level 4 CODA dove. Its speed so fast the air cracked like thunder.

“Scatter!” Reina shouted.

They moved, but not fast enough.

The creature’s spear-like beak slammed into the earth where they had stood a second earlier, the impact splitting the ground open. A violent shockwave blasted outward, hurling all seven girls backward. Reina rolled across dirt and roots; others crashed against thick tree trunks or fallen logs, pain jolting through their bodies.

Before anyone could recover, the CODA tore itself free from the crater and shot upward again.

Still singing, Misaki forced her voice steady and raised one trembling hand.

Her sigil blazed, gravity folded in on itself above the creature before slamming downward, pinning the CODA against the shuddering earth. The ground cracked deeper under the crushing force.

But the effect lasted less than a second.

With a furious roar, the Level 4 shattered the gravity well. Misaki gasped as the backlash ripped through her resonance, throwing her off her feet. She would have slammed into a boulder if Nana hadn’t caught her mid-stumble.

“Don’t break our resonance!—Momoka! Nana!” Reina commanded through clenched teeth.

Both girls adjusted instantly, their voices trembling but aligned. Fire and wind roared to life, swirling into a burning vortex. Instead of forming a tornado, they compressed their Aria into a narrow spear of spinning flame wrapped in spiraling wind.

Misaki shifted the air pressure, giving the spear a violent upward launch.

The CODA dodged, but the spear exploded midair. Rains of embers scattered across its wings and ribcage. Flames crawled along the glowing Novium-veins like ignited fuse lines.

The monster shrieked, rising higher, wings blazing unevenly as it steadied itself at altitude.

The clusters of red hexagonal eyes flickered rapidly — calculating.

Then the sacs began to fall.

One after another—

A dozen swollen, baglike masses dropped from its ribcage, descending in a spread pattern wide enough to cover the entire clearing.

“Barrier!” Reina barked.

Emi, Emiko and Mika reacted instantly.

Water surged upward under Emi’s command. Sigils pulsed around her as a wide water shield formed overhead. Mika slammed her foot onto the ground, pulling stone upward in overlapping slabs, forming a solid layer beneath the water’s surface. More pillars erupted from the dirt, locking themselves into place to stabilize the entire structure. Emiko’s sigils flared to life as she cast a thick veil of light across the top, reinforcing the entire frame with shimmering protective sheen.

The sacs hit.

Shockwave hammered the shield from every direction. The entire structure shook violently.

Cracks raced through Mika’s stone. She drew more earth from the ground, reinforcing every weak point she could reach. Their singing wavered but did not break. Their voices held, will overpowering their fear and pain.

Reina didn’t wait.

The moment an opening appeared in the bombardment, her sigil lit beneath her feet. She launched upward in a burst of lightning, spinning midair as she summoned her signature saw-like current around her leg.

She slashed through one of the creature’s wings in a flawless arc.

The Novium veins burst into mist, scattering like fractured glass. The CODA lurched violently. Its wings unbalanced, flight destabilized but still airborne.

Reina barely registered the recoil.

The Level 4 reacted instantly.

It rammed her with full force.

Reina crossed her arms to shield her head. Blue and gold sigils flared behind her as Emi and Emiko instinctively reinforced the luminous haze around her body with water and light barriers.

But the impact shattered it.

Reina was thrown downward.

She struck the ground like a meteor, carving a shallow trench through dirt and rock. Pain exploded down her ribs and spine. She spat blood but forced herself upright, still singing through ragged breaths, the protective haze flickering around her body like a wounded shield.

If I wasn’t a Diva from Project Harmonia… I’d be dead right now.

Beneath the cracking shield, the temporary gap Reina created bought the team a breath of space.

“We need to change method! We’re too defensive!” Mika shouted, voice shaking.

Misaki raised her free hand, deepening her resonance. Several dark sigils bloomed overhead, twisting gravity in all directions. The falling sacs slowed, froze midair like grotesque orbs suspended by invisible threads.

Their resonance linked through the Veil.

No words were needed.

Nana and Momoka unleashed simultaneous bursts of wind and flame, detonating the sacs before they reached the ground. Shockwave chains erupted across the sky, one exploded sac triggering the next.

Mika seized the opening. She dismissed her stone shield with a sharp stomp, then raised her free hand. The ground answered. A massive pillar of earth shot upward. Emi and Emiko leapt onto it, gaining altitude as the tower surged skyward.

A blue sigil flared in front of Emi: water compressed into a curved disc of hardened glass, a sniper lens

Emiko steadied her breath, still singing, one hand gripping her D-Mic.

Light gathered at her fingertip, shrinking and sharpening until it became a needle-thin beam.

She fired—

Then fired again—

Then again—

Rapid shots of highly concentrated Lux Cantus, each one piercing the sacs still clinging to the CODA’s ribcage.

The detonations rippled across the monster’s torso. The CODA shrieked, rage twisting into agony as its altitude dropped sharply. It crashed into the ground with a tremor that shook the entire forest.

Its damaged wings twitched, charred mist clinging to the torn veins. Its torso was partially exposed, the red, swirling core at its center laid bare to the girls.

The Level 4 CODA lifted its head and released a roar that vibrated in their bones.

Reina wiped the blood trailing from her lips, the white uniform torn from the crash through dirt and rock. With ragged breaths and stinging bruises, she clenched her D-Mic.

“… I’m not done with you.”