Ar Ciel, a dying world that had lost its land and ravaged its sky. A vast sea of death cloaked the entire surface, only the most extreme mountain peaks barely poking out through the noxious clouds. A field of plasma from an ancient disaster cloaked the edge of the atmosphere, preventing access to outer space for all but the most sophisticated and advanced vessels.
This was the reason why the surface and sky of Ar Ciel had both been completely inaccessible for many hundreds of years. Even the final attempt to repair the shattered world had ended in failure. All hope seemed lost, yet despite this adversity, a few citizens still clung to life on the Three Towers of Ar Tonelico, massive constructs which stretched all the way from the distant surface, deep within the sea of death, straight up to the border of the atmosphere.
Here was the First Tower, a grand masterpiece of wave science built in the region of Sol Ciel. It was equipped with a pair of gravity control devices, the plasma bells, designed to support the floating continent known as the Wings of Horus, as well as a weather control device needed to render the air at such a high altitude breathable and comfortable. Though the East Wing had been mostly lost in an ancient war, some remnants of it still responded to the damaged plasma bell and managed to avoid plunging into the toxic sea of death.
Skuwat Island, the largest surviving fragment of the East Wing of Horus, was a place rich in minerals and host to a mining village of the same name. The massive Tenba Corporation had built a base near the island's centre to extract and process the valuable metals, and many of the villagers worked in the processing plants, whether as executives, security guards, cooks, or lowly factory workers. And at the top was an up-and-coming ambitious young man who'd recently been rising in the ranks at Tenba – Bourd Rade.
But Bourd wasn't satisfied just being the overseer of a remote region like Skuwat village. No… he had already concocted a plan to impress his superiors and obtain a promotion. At this very moment, he and a subordinate were discussing the final stages of the plan in his office.
"Melvin. Is everything ready for the operation?" Bourd asked.
The man with him, Melvin, nodded.
"Yessir!" he said.
"How many have you gathered?" Bourd asked.
"Two hundred soldiers," Melvin said. "One hundred and eighty reyvateils. A little over half of them are class A or B. The rest are class C."
"Perfect," Bourd said. "Those lizard bastards won't even see what's coming. Tell the men that we march out in one hour, then bring me my gear."
"Understood, sir!" Melvin said.
With that, Melvin bobbed his head and left the room. Bourd got to his feet to gaze out the window. Though it faced the tower, Skuwat was far enough away for it to be reduced to a mere haze filling the centre of his vision. To the left and right were clear sky, while straight ahead was something looming, just barely visible through the morning haze, rising up as high as the eye could see.
"The star singer, was it?" Bourd muttered to himself. "She's just a reyvateil, right? This should be a piece of cake. Even if she's a rare pureblood like Kyle says, a reyvateil is just a weak woman without her song… and this shall be the first step to a new world. If we can truly gain the power of Mir… nothing will be out of reach!"
3764 AD, Skuwat village, Wings of Horus, Sol Ciel.
As Bourd gazed out at the tower, the morning rays of sun beat down upon the village of Skuwat. Several people were already up and about, watering their gardens or taking a morning walk. And in a particular house on the north edge of the village, slightly larger than most of the houses there, the rays filtered through a window onto a pair of young girls sleeping in their bed.
The elder felt the sun on her face, and her eyes fluttered open. She sat up, blinking, then gasped.
"Ah! Today's the day!"
Yes… it was the day she had planned to leave the island to visit an old friend. She turned towards the younger girl sleeping beside her and shook her gently.
"Eumelia! Eumelia, wake up!" she shouted excitedly. "It's almost time to go!"
After a few minutes, Eumelia finally opened her eyes with a groan to see the girl shaking her. The younger girl didn't feel so good, however. Her head was pounding, she felt hot all over her body, and all things considered, she felt like she didn't really want to move.
"Aurica… w-what's going on…?" Eumelia asked.
Eleven-year-old Aurica Nestmile blinked at her, tilting her head, and giggled a bit.
"Huh?" she said. "Did you forget already? We're going to see Claire! You want to see her, right? After all, she finally managed to get some time off…"
That matched up with Eumelia's memory as well. She recalled the excited discussions from the past few days. Their plans hadn't accounted for her suddenly falling sick on the day they left, but… she wanted to see Claire too, so she decided not to say anything for now. Maybe she would feel better after a good breakfast.
"Ugh… okay," Eumelia said.
She got up and somehow managed to get dressed despite the throbbing pain in her head, eventually heading downstairs with Aurica. Mr Nestmile was already at the table, reading a newspaper, and Mrs Nestmile was just finishing up breakfast. Aurica hurried forward to take a seat, fidgeting a little in her excitement.
Eumelia blinked a few times, trying to clear her vision. It was just a little bit blurry for some reason she couldn't quite comprehend. Then she suddenly tripped over her own feet somehow and went sprawling on the floor with a yell.
"Eumelia!?" Mrs Nestmile gasped.
"E-eumelia, are you okay!?" Aurica exclaimed.
Her mother came running over to help her up.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
Though she wanted to say she was, she found it was difficult even to speak through that throbbing pain.
"Yes… no… I don't know," Eumelia muttered.
"Let me see…"
Mrs Nestmile pressed a hand against her forehead and gasped.
"You have a terrible fever!" she said.
"Huh!?" Aurica gasped. "But she was completely fine yesterday…"
"This… it's probably the same thing that you went through last year, Aurica," their mother said.
"Eh?" Aurica said. "You mean… the awakening…?"
"Yes… though I'm surprised it's already upon us," Mrs Nestmile said. "Since Eumelia is two years younger, I thought we'd have until next year… but it can't be helped. This means… I'm sorry, Eumelia, but you'll have to stay home."
"But… but I wanted… to see Claire too!" Eumelia protested.
"Even if you left the village now, you'd pass out before you get the chance to see her anyway," their mother said. "I'm really sorry, but… it's too dangerous to let you travel in this state. Aurica… will you be okay by yourself, or would you prefer to stay home too?"
"Ehh… well, I haven't seen Claire for a whole year!" Aurica said. "Who knows when this chance will come again? I wanted to see her together with Eumelia… but… she'll recover in a few days, right? So… I'll go by myself. I'm sure I'll be okay as long as Claire is with me."
"Okay," Mrs Nestmile said. "Eumelia… do you think you can eat breakfast?"
"I think so," Eumelia said. "Probably…"
So her mother helped her to the table, and she settled down to eat. Somehow she wasn't all that hungry, but she forced herself to finish the food on her plate anyway, knowing that it would probably be several days before she could eat again.
Once the meal was finished, Aurica helped their mother wash up and then got her things ready to leave.
"I… I want to see Aurica off!" Eumelia blurted out.
"But you could collapse at any moment!" Mrs Nestmile protested.
"Then, shall I go with her?" Mr Nestmile said. "If I'm with her, it should be fine."
"Well… alright," Mrs Nestmile said. "Goodbye, Aurica. Give Claire my regards."
"Ah… mine too," Eumelia said. "Tell her I'm sorry I couldn't come."
"Yes, I will!" Aurica said.
So the three of them left the house together and walked through the village. Eumelia focused on putting one foot in front of the other, barely registering her surroundings. A few passersby greeted or waved to their father as they headed down the main street and left the village, making for the nearby port. They waited about ten minutes for an airship to arrive. Then Aurica got to her feet to board it.
"Um… Aurica, please come back soon!" Eumelia said.
"Of course!" Aurica said. "I'll see you in a few days, Eumelia! Take care of Don Leon until I get back!"
"Y-yes!" Eumelia said.
And with that, she boarded the ship. Eumelia watched until she disappeared inside the cabin, at which point her father spoke up.
"Well, shall we head back home?" he asked.
"Yeah," Eumelia said. "Um, but… I'm feeling very tired… can you carry me…?"
"Of course!" her father said.
He picked her up and headed back to town, and before she knew it, Eumelia had lost consciousness entirely.
As she slept, strange images kept flashing through her head. Most of them were abstract and nonsensical, but there was one that kept recurring – a young woman with long, silvery-blonde hair. Somehow, that woman seemed very familiar, and every time Eumelia glimpsed her in the dream, a warm feeling spread throughout her body.
"…Presia aterra cremia sos viuy lonfa, yehar lamenza der soare mea."
The singer stood in silence with her eyes closed until all echoes of her song in the vaulted room had receded into mere whispers. Then she opened her eyes with a sigh.
"Tastiella! Is it time to eat yet?" she called. "I'm starving!"
The silver-haired woman who was with her nodded.
"You may take thirty minutes for lunch," she said.
"Thank you very much, granny!"
"But Misha… do not tarry any longer than that," Tastiella said.
"I won't," Misha said. "I'll be back in thirty minutes!"
"And stop calling me granny!"
With that, Misha exited the Crescent Chronicle and worked her way back through the twisty corridors of the tower interior until she emerged outside, into the teru town of Em Pheyna. She got something to eat at the usual place, then wandered through town while she ate. After a few minutes, she noticed some sort of commotion over near the gate, and made her way closer to it out of curiosity.
To her surprise, she found herself looking at a brawl… no, a battle. The attackers were a group of humans backed by reyvateils, while the defenders were of course the teru warriors of Em Pheyna. With both sides throwing magic around, the battlefield was almost like a display of fireworks if you ignored all the people.
"Found you."
Misha screamed as a big, beefy man in armour leapt down from a nearby rooftop.
"You're the star singer, right?" he continued.
"Um… y-yes," Misha said.
"Then you're coming with me," the man said.
"Huh? No! I can't!" Misha exclaimed.
Taking a step back, she opened her mouth to sing.
"Fou paks ga heighte jen—"
"Oh no you don't!" the man exclaimed.
Brandishing his lance, he lunged at her. She stumbled and fell, her song interrupted before the magic could activate, and the last thing she remembered was something striking her in the head.
Eumelia woke up to a gnawing hunger the likes of which she'd never felt before. Opening her eyes, she stared up at the ceiling of the room she shared with Aurica. After laying there for almost a minute, she managed to sit up. Reaching behind her head, she touched the back of her neck and felt the subtle indentation of the install port that had appeared there. It was in roughly the same place as Aurica's and her mother's install ports.
"So… I really am… a reyvateil," she muttered.
A string of words floated up from her subconsciousness… fou paks ga heighte jenge. She instinctively knew what would happen if she sang those words – the simplest of all red magic, which did nothing but build up a ball of symphonic energy as she sang. Upon cessation of the song, the ball of energy would then be released upon anyone unfortunate enough to be in her line of fire. Or if she wished to cancel the attack instead of unleashing it, a little extra care in how she ended the song could achieve that.
But there was no-one to attack here, and she didn't want to ruin anything in the bedroom, so she didn't actually sing the words. Instead, she just let out a sigh and flopped back down in bed.
At that moment, her mother entered the room with a damp cloth and blinked in surprise, presumably noticing that her eyes were open.
"Oh my!" Mrs Nestmile said. "You're already awake!"
"I'm starving," Eumelia said.
"Yes, of course you are," her mother said. "I have some soup ready just for this purpose… I'll heat it up for you right away!"
With that, she left the room. Eumelia sighed and rolled over on her side. As hungry as she was, she didn't feel like she could move much right now. Some time later, her mother returned with a bowl of soup, and Eumelia managed to prop herself up enough to eat it. There was no spoon – she simply drank directly from the bowl. She could almost feel the energy returning to her body as she gulped it down. When the bowl was empty, she let out a long sigh.
"Would you like seconds?" her mother asked.
"Yes please!" Eumelia said. "And probably thirds and fourths too!"
Her mother chuckled. "You can have as much as you want," she said. "You've been out cold for almost eight days, so it's no wonder you're so hungry."
"Isn't that a bit shorter than average…?" Eumelia said. "I think Aurica was out for ten days…"
"It varies from person to person," her mother said. "Mine took nine days… I think that's around the average, actually. Anyway, I'll get you some more soup."
She took the bowl and left the room, and this time Eumelia decided to get out of bed and move around a bit. Now that she had been energized by the soup, she didn't feel so weak all over. That said, there was still a strange ominous feeling welling up from inside her, like something terrible was about to happen. She couldn't put a finger on it, though. Even if something terrible was about to happen, the feeling gave her no indication of what, how, or when.
With a sigh, she seized Don Leon off the dresser before flopping back down on the bed. He was Aurica's favourite stuffed animal, a tiger with a red cape and a pot helmet. Though she'd never told Aurica this, she'd always felt that Leon should have been the name of a lion, rather than a tiger, but she couldn't quite explain why she felt that way.
"Don Leon, what is this ominous feeling I have?" she wondered.
Naturally, the stuffed animal didn't respond.
"I just have this feeling that something terrible is going to happen," Eumelia said. "It's similar to that sense of deja vu I've often had since I was really little, but… much, much worse…"
The stuffed animal just stared back at her, but she imagined reassurance in that gaze.
"I hope I'm just imagining things too, Don Leon," Eumelia said. "I mean, what's the worst that could happen, anyway…?"
At that moment, her mother returned with more soup, and she hopped up to return Don Leon to his perch before taking the soup and gulping it down.
But the answer to that question would come the following day, with disastrous results. Eumelia was woken by a ruckus in the main room and got up to head downstairs, still in her pyjamas. Her father was taking down the spear that had been on display above the fireplace for as long as she could remember. A feeling of dread began to creep over her.
"W-what's going on?" Eumelia asked.
"Eumelia!" Mrs Nestmile said. "Whatever you do, don't leave the house!"
"The teru tribe is attacking," Mr Nestmile said. "We have to help Tenba hold them off!"
"So just stay in your room until we return!" Mrs Nestmile said.
For some reason, Eumelia had a sinking feeling that she would never see them again if she let them go now. It was just like the ominous feeling from the previous day, only about ten times stronger, and a touch more defined.
"N-no… no… d-don't go!" she pleaded. "Stay here with me instead!"
"I'm sorry, but we just can't," Mr Nestmile said. "Don't worry – your mother and I are both strong. We'll be fine."
"B-but…!"
"If anyone else comes in here, hide under the bed until they're gone," he said. "Understood? We'll be fine, really we will!"
"But… but I'm sure something terrible is about to happen!" Eumelia protested. "I… I don't want to be left all alone! Please… please stay!"
Mrs Nestmile stepped forward and threw her arms around her, and Mr Nestmile chuckled and patted her on the head.
"It's just a few teru," he said. "We should be more than a match for them. Wait for us upstairs, Eumelia. We'll be back before you know it."
"B-but the teru have powerful magic!" Eumelia said. "Even with Mama's song magic… there's no way you can make it through if you're outnumbered! A-and um… y-you can't trust Tenba! They won't protect you!"
She couldn't quite explain why she thought that way, but something inside her was certain that Tenba was not their ally here. It wasn't just a suspicion – it was a certainty. Though she couldn't explain the reason, she was absolutely certain of it.
It wasn't as though she had a particularly bad opinion of Tenba, for the most part. They'd had a presence in Skuwat for as long as she could remember, and most of the villagers had a favourable view of them. To be sure, there had been some nasty rumours floating around recently… rumours that they beat reyvateils, or even refused to pay them sometimes. And while no-one else in the village had really believed the rumours, something about them had always struck true to Eumelia… was that why she was sure they couldn't trust Tenba?
No… that couldn't be the full reason… yet no matter how much she tried, she couldn't find the source of that unease welling up inside her, the thing that made her distrust Tenba. Whatever it was, it was locked up so tight that she couldn't even recall it. It was a mystery, and yet… she couldn't help but trust that feeling, somehow.
Her father chuckled. "Don't tell me you believe all those rumours?" he said. "Didn't you know that they provide your mother with the life-extending agent she needs to live a long life? And they bring nothing but prosperity to our village."
Some corner of Eumelia's mind wondered if that was really a good thing. Diquility, the life-extending agent, was as vital to a reyvateil as air, so if you looked at it in another way, it meant that Tenba held her mother's life in their hands, to do what they pleased with. If her mother didn't take diquility once every three months, she would surely die. It wouldn't be an instantaneous death, mind you. There would be time to obtain some diquility from another source… but Tenba also had a complete monopoly over its manufacturing and distribution. If it was once or twice, she might be able to obtain some from the Church of Elemia, which regularly bought in bulk from the company to share with their oracles. However, unless she wanted to actually join the church, that wasn't a source that could be relied on for the long term.
But now wasn't the time to be musing on the morality of monopolies. Dismissing those thoughts, Eumelia twisted her mouth for a moment in contemplation, then extracted herself from her mother's arms and turned to gaze up into her father's eyes.
"Say, Papa… how deep have you dived into Mama…?" she asked.
Her father blinked. "Why are you bringing this up all of a sudden…? I think I made it to… level six…?"
She then turned to face her mother instead, meeting her eyes.
"Mama… then you must have a lot of different song magic, right?"
"Um… yes, about ten or twelve songs," Mrs Nestmile said.
"And… do you have any tranquility…?" Eumelia asked.
It was a weird name, but tranquility referred to a sister substance of the diquility that reyvateils relied on. It wasn't enough to sustain her life, but installing tranquility while a reyvateil sang would replenish her energy and allow her to maintain her song for longer.
"Ah, good point," Mr Nestmile said. "We should have a few somewhere…"
He rummaged around under the counter and came up with a bag of tranquility crystals. Eumelia reached out and seized her parents' hands, squeezing them tight. Even now, she felt like she'd never see them again, but what could she even say to stop them? They were a stubborn pair. She'd already said everything she could think of to convince them to stay back, and it had all been in vain. The most she could do now was to try to increase their chance of survival.
"I… I really don't want you to go," Eumelia said, pouting. "But… I can tell that you'll go anyway, so… please… for Aurica's sake, try your very best to survive, and come back home to me!"
Mr Nestmile ruffled her hair with a chuckle.
"Like I said, your mother and I are strong," he said. "We'll be fine."
"I want to believe you, I really do," Eumelia said. "But… fiiiiine."
She released their hands and held out both her own with the little fingers extended.
"I'll wait… but you better come back! Pinky promise!"
Both her parents curled their little finger around hers.
"We promise," her mother said.
And with that, the two of them opened the door and ran outside. Eumelia stared at the door for several minutes. She still couldn't explain why, but something told her that she would never see them again. She considered running after them, but then she heard the sound of an explosion outside, so she decided to follow their advice for now.
With a sigh, she slowly mounted the stairs once more, but somehow she managed to trip over the final step, lurching forward and slamming her forehead against the floor of the upstairs hallway. The impact caused her to black out.
Suddenly, memories that surely weren't hers flooded into her brain. Where they'd come from, or how they'd ended up in her head, she couldn't even begin to comprehend. They were memories of a different life, a different person, in a completely different world. The memories were fragmented and incomplete, but from what little she could piece together, they belonged to a man who'd lived on a lush planet called Earth, in an island country called Japan. At the age of thirty, this man had seemingly died of a new illness known as 'covid'.
Eumelia did not know what 'reincarnation' meant. No, it would be more accurate to say she had never heard of that word until this very moment. The idea of a soul being transferred from one body to another was a foreign concept to her. As such, she failed to understand the full implication of these memories. To her, they were just an odd quirk that had suddenly appeared in her brain, little different from conjuring up a story from whole cloth.
Because of that viewpoint, she might have dismissed those memories as little more than a curiosity, if not for one crucial thing that stood out. Mixed in among those memories of another world were images that clearly depicted Aurica, Don Leon, and even Claire, the childhood friend who Aurica was visiting.
The daughter of the village chief, Claire Branch had left the village last year to work for Tenba. She was a talented reyvateil who had managed to develop several song magics even without a dive partner, in contrast with Aurica who had only managed to develop a single one. The new image of Claire in her head was several years older than the one she knew, with an ample chest, but she was recognizably the same person.
But those images didn't just stop at familiar people. Image after image flickered through her head, each paired with a name she'd never heard of, and then with a start she recognized that silver-haired woman who she'd glimpsed during the fever dreams of her awakening. The name paired with it was Shurelia, but after a split second of thought, a second name for the woman surfaced – Eoria.
That gave her quite a start, because while she hadn't previously associated a face to the name, Eoria was already familiar to her – one of the Trio of Elemia worshipped by the church, alongside Frelia and Tyria. They were said to be legendary goddesses from ancient times who had made people happy with their song – presumably, ancient reyvateils.
Though she'd already regained consciousness, Eumelia rolled over onto her back and just lay there on the floor for several minutes, combing through those new memories as best she could given their fragmentary nature. Bits of trivia on reyvateils were mixed in there – apparently, not all reyvateils were dependent on diquility, for example. It was too much to hope that she was one of the lucky ones, however – only a pure-blooded reyvateil, artificially grown in a tank, would be free of that dependency.
There were quite a few significant gaps in the memories – in nearly all cases, she couldn't tell the sequence of events that would link all the key points together. But she soon realized that viewing them as memories was perhaps incorrect. Rather than memories, it would be more accurate to view it as a prophecy – they were visions of things yet to come, forming a multi-year saga that would culminate in the reclamation of the planet's surface from the deadly sea of death that currently covered it.
And as if to confirm itself by predicting the current state of affairs, she saw references to the destruction of Skuwat village in there as well. This served to unveil the mystery behind her feeling of dread at her parents' departure just now – the prophecy must have been within her all along, locked up tight inside her, but leaking out just enough for her to get a strange feeling every so often. If the prophecy came true, she really would never see them again…
But then, she realized something else odd about the visions. She didn't appear in any of them, not even once. She couldn't even find the slightest mention of herself – not even a passing note that Aurica had had a little sister. Someone working solely from the visions would have no way to know that she had ever existed. A new feeling of dread rose inside her at this discovery, and she suddenly wondered if she was destined to die today.
"No!" she suddenly shouted.
She pounded the floor once with her fists, then leapt to her feet and raised her right fist into the air.
"I won't just accept that! If Mama and Papa die and I die, then who will be left for Aurica!? I can't just leave her alone with nothing but Don Leon for company!"
But just as she jumped to her feet and let out a rebellious shout, there was another explosion, this time much closer. The sound mostly drowned her voice out, but just as she finished her tirade, a massive spear of ice punched a hole through the wall right next to her. Letting out a scream as it just barely missed her, she took a step back and tripped over her own feet, landing solidly on her butt, staring at the glacial construct that had just invaded her home.
Her mind was brought back to the present by a voice from outside.
"I thought I heard a scream! There's someone in that house!"
"If they're not attacking, it's not worth it," a second voice said.
"Even so, I'd better double-check!" the first voice said.
Eumelia got to her feet again, rubbing at her back, and made for the bedroom just as the teru opened the front door. Fortunately, thanks to the stairs and hallway, there wasn't a line of sight from the front door to the bedroom she shared with Aurica, so she hadn't been spotted yet. Unfortunately, the two teru decided to come inside and, after about a minute of looking around downstairs, one of them began to climb up to the second floor.
Panicking, Eumelia looked around her room for a place to hide where she wouldn't be spotted. Her mother had recommended under the bed, but unfortunately there wasn't enough space for her to easily squeeze in – there were too many toys stuffed under it. It might work if she draped the blankets over the side, but did she have even time for that? The teru was already on the stairs, and she had no idea what he would do if he found her. Would he kill her? Kidnap her? Do unspeakable things? It was even possible that the teru wouldn't harm her, since she wasn't trying to attack, but she had no way to know.
There had been bits of trivia about the teru in the prophecy, but it wasn't enough for her to base a decision on. Between the prophecy and what she'd learned from her parents and others in the village, all she knew was that they were a humanoid species that lived up on the tower, blocking humans from climbing any higher than their town; that they had dragonoid horns and a tail; that they wielded powerful unique magic that could hold its own against song magic; that they divided themselves up into clans; and that young teru traditionally went on a journey to find a familiar. None of that trivia seemed useful in this situation.
She could hear the footsteps right outside her bedroom door. Had she acted fast enough, maybe she would've had a chance to hide under the bed, but it was definitely too late for that now. But that was when words suddenly surfaced unbidden from her subconscious. It wasn't the words for the basic symphonic energy attack, but different words that described her current situation and desires. Without even thinking, she shut her eyes tight and muttered the words out loud to herself.
"Was yant ga re fountaina elle teru… was yant ga re fountaina elle teru… was yant ga re fountaina elle teru… was yant ga re fountaina elle teru…"
And then, like it was the most natural thing in the world, she opened her mouth and a song came out, the words forming spontaneously on her lips before being stashed into her brain for later retrieval. The terror from earlier wasn't gone, but it was as if the song suppressed it for the sole purpose of enabling her to sing.
"Did you find anything?"
It must have been the voice of one of the teru who had come into her house. The responding voice, almost right next to her, startled her into opening her eyes, but she dared not stop singing.
"I swear I heard a scream, but there doesn't seem to be anyone here now."
The teru was close enough for her to hear the sound of his breath. She could see the short, spiky horns jutting out of his red hair, and his deep red eyes. He wore leather armour and carried a spear. As she edged away from him, for a second he turned and looked right at her. She fancied that their eyes met, but she desperately kept singing and continued edging back towards her bed. She could feel that she was rapidly running out of song energy and knew she wouldn't be able to keep it up for much longer.
Fortunately, she didn't have to. The teru turned to leave the room, and she kept the song up for several seconds more just to be on the safe side before collapsing on her bed and gasping for breath. Something pink that had been hovering in the corner of her vision vanished as the song ended. Her mind raced at the sudden turn of events. What had just happened…? She struggled to piece it together as she calmed down, but after several minutes of ruminating she could think of only one conclusion.
She, Eumelia Nestmile, had just crafted her first song magic.
"But what kind of song is it, I wonder?" Eumelia muttered. "It somehow managed to deceive the teru into thinking I wasn't here… maybe an optical camouflage…? I more or less get what it does, but… I wonder how it works… and what are the limitations…?"
Sitting up with a sigh, she cautiously ventured back out of her room. There was now a gaping hole at the end of the hallway overlooking the street, so she approached it slowly and peered outside, but there was no-one in sight. After checking twice more to make sure there was really no-one in sight, she headed downstairs to find that the front door had been left ajar, and carefully peeked outside again. There was still no-one in sight, whether teru or human, so she stepped out of the house completely and looked around.
The main street was completely deserted, but she could still hear some sounds of fighting in the distance, probably on the secondary street or even beyond the limits of the village. Several of the houses were even on fire. If the fires were left unchecked, there would be almost nothing left of Skuwat Main Street. But it wasn't as though she could do anything about that by herself. If she'd had a water song magic, it would be a different story, but the only song magic she would be able to use right now was the one she'd just crafted and the basic red magic known instinctively by all reyvateils.
"I've gotta find Mama and Papa," she muttered.
The Nestmile residence was on the outskirts, so she headed into the village and took the first right. Almost immediately she gasped in horror, for there were several dead bodies there, most of whom she recognized as residents of the village. Fighting back tears, she broke into a run, turning left and then right until she reached Claire's house. The flames hadn't reached this far, and the direction of the wind suggested they likely weren't going to.
That was where she found them, lying on the ground.
"Mama! Papa!"
As the sounds of combat receded further away, soon fading into silence, she knelt beside her parents and hugged them. Their clothes were in tatters and there was blood everywhere, but she didn't care. The tears she'd been holding back now flowed freely.
"Mama, Papa! Wake up! Don't leave me!"
"Eu…melia…"
Apparently, Mrs Nestmile was still barely alive.
"Mama!"
"Please… run… save yourself…"
"I can't just leave you, Mama!" Eumelia protested.
"You must… the teru… too strong… can't win… and Tenba is… just as bad… just like… you said…"
"Y-yeah… I thought so…"
"Eu…melia… please… take care of Aurica," her mother said.
"No! Don't talk like you're going to leave me!" Eumelia protested. "I'm a reyvateil too after all! I should be able to heal you somehow with song magic!"
"It's… too late," her mother said. "Even if… you could… craft a song… it would be… too late. Save… yourself… keep Aurica… company… and… stay… strong…"
With that, the light of life faded from her eyes, and Eumelia broke down sobbing over her body.
Skuwat village wasn't the only place ravaged by the conflict between Tenba and the teru. In the nearby Tenba facility, a young girl the same age as Eumelia hid in a storage closet, shivering in fear while listening to the sounds of combat outside. She didn't know why the teru were attacking, but she knew there was no way she could possibly defend herself if she was caught. The teru possessed powerful magic, after all – powerful enough to overwhelm all but the most powerful song magic. That was why her father had shoved her into the closet as soon as he'd understood what was happening.
"Krusche, hide in here and don't come out unless it gets quiet," he had said. "I'll try to come for you as soon as I can, though. Promise me you won't move, understood?"
Krusche flicked her ponytail forward over her shoulder and idly twirled it. The action helped keep the fear at bay a little. Outside she could still hear the crash of thunder and falling masonry, mixed with the clanging of metal upon metal as the battle raged throughout the facility.
But eventually, all those sounds finally died off. Krusche took a few deep breaths, counting to a hundred in her head, and then opened the door. The first thing she saw was her father, sprawled over his work table. The room was a mess, trashed by the battle.
"Dad!" Krusche exclaimed.
She ran over to him, fishing out her trusty tablet from her pocket and pressing it against his body, but it was too late – the man was already dead.
"Daaaaad…"
She allowed herself to cry for several minutes, but eventually she wiped her tears away and began to explore the ruined facility. The teru had completely trashed the place. The normal passage leading out from her father's workplace had been caved in, but she found a hole in a nearby wall that led into another room, then followed a corridor until she reached a gaping hole in the outer wall. There were a few bodies scattered along the way as well, both human and teru, but none of them seemed to have any life left in them. She tried not to look too closely at them – she was no stranger to blood, having had her share of accidents, but looking closely would have forced her to acknowledge that they were well and truly dead.
"Wow… they really did a number on this place," she muttered.
Suddenly she heard a noise from just outside – a human noise, like a grunt or a groan. Someone besides her had apparently survived the ordeal. Cautiously, she peered outside to see the source of the noise. There was a man lying sprawled on the ground out there, his nose pressed into the ground. His left arm had been mangled beyond recognition, and there was a bleeding stub of a tail poking out at the base of the spine, identifying him as a teru. The body of a small dragon lay a short distance away, perhaps the man's familiar.
He was clearly not a threat, so Krusche hopped outside and ran over to him.
"Hey, mister, are you alive?" she asked.
"Ugh…" the teru said. "B-barely…"
"Hmm… then maybe I can help!" Krusche said.
"Don't bother," the teru grunted. "I doubt… there's anything you can… do…"
With that admonishment, he seemed to lose consciousness, but Krusche wasn't one to be deterred by something small like that. She took out her tablet again and pressed it against the man's back, tracing out the symbol engraved on it. The thing glowed, and the man's smaller wounds closed up, while even the larger ones seemed to at least stem the flow of blood.
"As I thought… the cure tablet is useless for something like this arm," Krusche muttered. "Hmm… what to do, what to do… yeah… I guess there's no choice but to take it off, huh?"
She dug out a dagger and planted one foot on the man's left shoulder while using the dagger to amputate his ruined left arm. Then she used the cure tablet on him one more time to stop the bleeding from the fresh wound, and let out a groan as the symbol flashed twice before going dim.
"Already out of juice, huh," she muttered. "I really gotta find a better way to power this thing… but at least it seems like he should be able to live with this much. Maybe I should also make him a new arm… something cool, like a gun arm…"
Eumelia wasn't sure how long she stayed there, crying over her parent's bodies, but it must have been quite awhile, for by the time she became aware of her surroundings once more, the sun was high in the sky, beating weakly down upon the scene, its warmth held back by the distant blast line far, far above. Wiping away the last of her tears, she got to her feet and looked around. Then she wandered through the village morosely, looking in vain for any other survivors, even checking inside the houses… but there wasn't a single one. The houses on Main Street had been gutted by the fires, but the houses on the secondary street were mostly intact, apart from a few holes from explosions or maybe ice magic. The fires themselves had apparently burned out, perhaps because of the strong winds currently barreling through the village.
After confirming there were no survivors, she decided it was up to her to give them a proper send-off, which in her mind meant dragging everyone back to the village chief's hut so they could all be together. This took her most of the afternoon, as she ignored her grumbling stomach and forced herself to keep going.
It was when she returned to the main street to retrieve the last few bodies that she ran into something unexpected. There were people there, four young women probably at least ten years older than her. They all wore similar clothing – a white shirt with a red tie, a matching orange pleated skirt and blazer, and a silver tiara. They each had a whip clipped to their waist, probably meant as a weapon. One of them, a little taller than the others, had long black hair. Another had short black hair and wore a headband with wolf ears. The third had long blonde hair tied into twintails. The last one had short green hair and wore some kind of mechanical headpiece that looked like it could be a communication device, since it had an obvious antenna on the right side of her head.
"Daaamn," the black-haired woman said. "What happened to the village?"
"Firkin confirms there's no-one alive," the wolf-eared girl said.
"Belle too," the twintailed girl said. "She hasn't seen anyone either. There's a pile of bodies further in though. Someone must have taken the time to line them all up."
Suddenly a large dog strolled up behind Eumelia, startling her as it began sniffing her. She let out a little squeal and tripped, landing squarely on her butt.
"No, wait," the wolf-eared girl said. "Firkin just found a survivor."
She turned to point to Eumelia and the dog, and the four women approached her. Eumelia picked herself up and dusted herself off, turning to face them warily.
"Kid, what happened here?" the black-haired woman asked.
"B-before that… um… w-who are you?" Eumelia asked.
The woman nodded. "I suppose you're right, it's only fair that we introduce ourselves," she said. "Perhaps you've heard of us, actually. We are…
Suddenly the wolf-eared girl struck a pose. "Sailor Beast!"
The twintailed girl followed her example. "Sailor Bird!"
The green-haired girl also struck a pose. "Sailor Heart!"
"And… Sailor Leader!" the black-haired woman concluded. "We are the rumoured Sailor Squad!"
The Sailor Squad… she actually had heard of them. They were a rumoured band of thieves who'd made a splash across the Wings of Horus in the past two or three years due to successfully pulling off some incredibly daring heists.
"But… doesn't Tenba have a bounty on you guys?" Eumelia asked. "Why would you come to a village like this where someone could turn you in?"
"We only came to filch some of Skuwat's metal so we can repair our gear," Sailor Leader said. "But I noticed the village seemed oddly quiet. Since I grew up here, I wanted to check it out… but could you tell us what happened here?"
"Um… I didn't see it in much detail but… I think Tenba did something to anger the teru tribe," Eumelia said. "They were being chased, and they passed through our village and dragged everyone into it… and now they're all…"
She knew about that not because she'd seen it or because anyone had told her, but because that explanation was contained in that mysterious prophecy of hers. Of course, she couldn't be sure how much she could rely on the prophecy, but it was certain that it had correctly predicted the destruction of Skuwat village.
Thinking of how everyone she had ever known was now dead, other than Claire and Aurica, brought tears anew to her eyes. She tried to wipe them away, but they wouldn't stop.
"Damn… that's harsh," Sailor Leader said. "How'd you manage to survive?"
"I… I was just… lucky, I guess," Eumelia said. "Though I don't feel very lucky…"
"You the one who gathered all the bodies into one place?" Sailor Bird asked.
"Ah… yeah… I thought I should… give them a proper send-off," Eumelia said.
"A send-off…?" Sailor Leader said. "That's not a bad idea, but… how does gathering them together help?"
It had been an idea taken from those mysterious memories of another life, so perhaps it wasn't surprising that they didn't get it. Rather than cremating their dead, the people of the Wings of Horus usually buried them… though throwing them off the edge to plummet into the sea of death was not unprecedented. But the edge of the island was a fair distance from the village, so that was no more viable in her mind than burying them.
"Ah, um… it's absolutely impossible for me to bury so many people," Eumelia explained. "So I was going to… burn them to ashes…"
"Ah… I see," Sailor Leader said. "Then, do you mind if I help? As I mentioned earlier, I actually grew up in this village too, you see. I also knew many of those people."
"Oh, um… yes, that's fine," Eumelia said.
"But before that, would you like to join us for dinner?" Sailor Leader asked.
"Dinner!?" Eumelia gasped. "I… I haven't eaten all day, so…"
"Then you'd better join us!" Sailor Heart said. "It's not good to go hungry at your age!"
"Actually, um… if you want, you could use the kitchen at my place," Eumelia suggested.
"Ah… is your place in better shape than these?" Sailor Leader asked, gesturing at the gutted houses on Main Street.
"Yeah… there's a hole in the wall on the upper floor, but that's it," Eumelia said. "The fires didn't reach my place at all."
"Then how about you lead the way?" Sailor Beast said.
So, Eumelia led them back to the Nestmile residence, where they began to prepare some food, using ingredients they had with them as well as some from the Nestmile stores.
"But… is it really okay to offer me dinner?" Eumelia asked. "I kinda thought that… you were bad guys… so it surprised me a bit…"
"Well, we're thieves, so if you want to keep things simple, I suppose you could call us bad guys," Sailor Leader said. "But we only steal from the rich… which mostly means Tenba, of course. Mostly, we steal diquility to give to the people of the Falcon's Claw, because they have a really hard time down there."
Eumelia knew that Falcon's Claw referred to a fragment of land floating much lower than the main Wings of Horus, not far from Skuwat village. Sometimes, it also counted the even smaller swarm of land fragments orbiting the main one.
"Huh!?" Eumelia gasped. "There are people living on the Falcon's Claw!?"
The revelation seemed to tease out a few as-yet-unnoticed fragments from the prophecy, suggesting that there was something interesting down there… but she couldn't quite make out what it might be. Perhaps it would come to her eventually…
"Yup, there sure are!" Sailor Heart said. "There aren't a lot though… probably less than there were in this village? Not much more than that, I'd say. Only they're a lot more spread out. Many areas are too dangerous to live in due to howling wind and ferocious monsters."
"Diquility… that's the life extending agent for reyvateils, right?" Eumelia said. "Why would you steal that…?"
"Wow, you sure know your stuff, for a squirt," Sailor Leader said. "Yes, it's the life extending agent. We steal it from Tenba because they have far more than they need, and the people in remote areas such as the Falcon's Claw or the Lower Terraces don't have a way to get it for themselves. And we need it for ourselves, too – with our status as outlaws, neither Tenba nor the Church of Elemia will sell us diquility. We can only buy it at a premium on the black market, or steal it for ourselves."
"Huh… so you're all reyvateils, too?" Eumelia said. "Is that doggy your pet?"
"Firkin's the very first beast I ever summoned," Sailor Beast said. "We've been together for about fifteen years now."
"Are all of you summoners, then?" Eumelia asked.
"I'm the only one who isn't," Sailor Leader said. "I actually used to work for Tenba, but I quit because I couldn't stand the working conditions. That was at least ten years ago now…"
"So you're not really bad guys after all," Eumelia said. "Huh? Wait… doesn't that mean… Tenba are the bad guys? Is Claire going to be okay working for them?"
"Life's not that simple," Sailor Bird said. "You can't cleanly split everyone into good guys and bad guys. There are good guys at Tenba, and there are bad guys at Tenba. Chances are, your friend will be fine… especially if she's strong."
"I was classified as a C class reyvateil, so things were tough for me," Sailor Leader added. "But A or B class reyvateils were treated a lot better."
"Claire is really strong," Eumelia said. "I think she's A or B class, probably. So I guess I shouldn't worry about her… though I'd still like to see her just to make sure…"
Eumelia fell silent as she watched the squad prepare some kind of hearty stew. Despite her words, she still had some misgivings about Claire's current condition. It was probably related to something she'd glimpsed from the mysterious prophecy earlier, but she couldn't recall the specific vision that was the source of the unease. Certainly there was the fact that later visions showed Claire as independent, but if the prophecy included a reason for her to leave Tenba, Eumelia couldn't find it. Just leaving Tenba was not ominous by itself, right?
Once the stew was ready, Eumelia pulled out the bowls, and they filled them with the stuff and passed them around. She took hers and scooped it down gratefully. It had some kind of unidentifiable meat in it, and some strange spices, but it wasn't bad. She asked for a second helping, and then a third, fourth, and fifth helping before she was satisfied. Finally she laid her bowl down.
"I'm stuffed…"
"You sure ate a lot," Sailor Heart said. "You must've been really hungry."
"Well, like I said, I hadn't eaten all day," Eumelia said. "Plus, it was only yesterday that I woke up from the awakening coma…"
Sailor Leader blinked. "The awakening coma…? Then that means you're also a reyvateil?"
"Ah… yes, I'm sorry," Eumelia said. "I didn't mean to hide it from you…"
"No… that's alright," Sailor Leader said. "It's not something you're obligated to share with strangers, you know."
"Say… um… can I ask a favour of you guys?" Eumelia asked.
"You can ask all you want," Sailor Leader said. "I can't promise we will grant it, however."
"Well then… um… please make me your disciple!"
The four of them stared at her in surprise.
"Why would you want that?" Sailor Leader asked. "The kind of life we lead is no life for a child – we're always on the move."
"But… you're strong, right?" Eumelia said.
"Well… yes, I suppose so," Sailor Leader said.
"And not just your song magic… you can fight with your fists and feet too, can't you?" Eumelia said. "Those whips you have look like they're meant for fighting."
"Well, I wouldn't say we're especially good," Sailor Leader said. "But better than the average civilian, I suppose. Most of our strength lies in our songs, but we can definitely hold our own in hand-to-hand if we have to."
"And you're summoners, which I think is really cool," Eumelia said. "You see, I want to be strong too, so I can protect my big sister… and also, I thought if I could summon birds, I'd be free to fly through the sky…"
Sailor Bird burst out laughing.
"Well, you're not wrong about that one!" she said once she'd calmed down. "If you summon a roc or a garuda, you could certainly ride it through the sky. Even a giant vulture might be able to carry you if you're not too heavy. That said, you might not have the affinity for birds… how would you feel if that were the case?"
"Ah, I guess… I could find something else…?" Eumelia said. "If I just want to fly, there's also dragons or drones, right?"
"That's true, but you might not have that affinity either," Sailor Heart pointed out.
"Well, I want to at least give it my best shot!" Eumelia said, pouting a bit. "I don't want to give up before I even try!"
"Just to clarify, were we to make you our disciple, what is it that you wish to learn?" Sailor Leader asked.
"Well… song magic, especially how to craft new songs without diving… summoning… hand-to-hand combat… something like that?" Eumelia said. "Maybe other things I haven't even thought of… oh, and I can make myself useful to you guys as well! I have a stealth song magic!"
The four squad members exchanged glances.
"A stealth song magic?" Sailor Leader said. "I've never heard of such a thing. Would you mind showing us?"
Eumelia nodded. Getting to her feet and turning to face them, she opened her mouth and started to sing the song from earlier.
"Fou paks ga fountaina sii mea dea clare fusya."
As the song burst forth from her lips, a pink unicorn poofed into existence next to her head, startling her a little. It proceeded to loop around her while she sang, flicking its horn at imaginary invaders. That must have been the pink thing that she'd glimpsed the first time she used the magic. She knew that most song magic was linked to a humour, a tiny fairy-like existence that lived inside her mind and only materialized in the real world while she sang the song. The humour for her stealth magic, then, was this pink unicorn. She decided to call him Sneaky Nick.
"Huh? W-where'd she go?" Sailor Heart gasped.
"Teleportation…?" Sailor Bird said. "No… only the teru can do something like that, right? That kid's clearly not a teru."
"She said stealth, so probably she's just invisible?" Sailor Leader said. "But I can't even hear the song…"
Eumelia stopped singing then, Sneaky Nick fading out of existence once more.
"There you are," Sailor Beast said. "That really surprised me…"
Sailor Leader looked at the other three in turn.
"What do you guys think?" she asked. "Should we accept the kid's request?"
"Well… I'm not strongly opposed," Sailor Beast said.
"I'd like to accept her," Sailor Bird said.
"I think she might shake things up a bit," Sailor Heart said. "Especially that song magic of hers… it's quite unique."
"I see," Sailor Leader said.
She turned to face Eumelia.
"However, we'll be leaving first thing in the morning," she said. "Is that still fine?"
"Ah… we can't just wait an extra day or so for Aurica to come back?" Eumelia asked.
"You can wait, but we won't be waiting," Sailor Leader said. "And I can't say we're likely to meet again if that happens."
"So you're saying… I have to choose between you and Aurica…?" Eumelia said.
"Yes, that's about right," Sailor Leader said.
She didn't like it… but according to the prophecy, Aurica should be somehow fine for the next six years, so… maybe it would be okay? It wasn't like she'd never be able to see Aurica again, after all. If she got a chance, maybe she could even meet her again before that. This, on the other hand, was an opportunity that was too good to pass up. She didn't want to be a weak reyvateil who had to be protected. She wanted to be more like Cocona.
…wait… who was Cocona? The name had spontaneously popped into her head, but it wasn't one she'd heard before. But the answer came moments later as an image of the person in question flashed into her head – it was that mysterious prophecy again.
"Fine… I'll choose you," Eumelia said.
"Then, welcome," Sailor Leader said. "If we're gonna be working together, I think we should share our real names. I'm Vivian Cailbret… what's your name, kid?"
"Um… I'm Eumelia Nestmile."
"My name is Nicky," Sailor Beast said. "Nicky Estminster."
"I'm Elen," Sailor Bird said. "Elen Hale."
"And I'm Muriel," Sailor Heart said. "Muriel Schnellern."
"Nice to meet you all!" Eumelia said. "Alright, um… now that we've eaten, I'd like to take care of the fallen…"
"Right, and I promised to help you with that," Vivian said. "I probably know a few of them myself…"
So Vivian helped out by carrying the remaining bodies over to the chief's house, and after Vivian spent a few minutes looking over them mournfully, they set the pile of corpses on fire. Vivian sang a requiem for the fallen, and after a minute or so, Eumelia also joined in.
After staying the night in the Nestmile residence, the party departed Skuwat village early the next morning, giving Eumelia just enough time to gather a few precious possessions from her house and leave a letter for Aurica, carefully tucked beneath Don Leon on the dresser. Instead of following the main road west to catch an airship to the mainland, they headed south, where Elen sang to summon two gigantic rocs to carry them. After they had climbed on, the rocs took off, following the directions of Elen's song and swooping down below the main Wings of Horus. There were several smaller islands floating down here, which like Skuwat Island were remnants of the original East Wing of Horus before it was shattered in the ancient Virus War. The largest of those islands was known as Falcon's Claw, but the Sailor Squad instead approached one of the smaller ones, floating even lower than the main one and sort of hiding in its shadow, sheltered somewhat from the wind by the larger island next to it. The island was just large enough for a single house and a small vegetable garden.
They hopped off the rocs, and Eumelia looked around in fascination.
"Wow!" Eumelia said. "Is this where you guys live?"
"Well, more or less," Vivian said. "We don't come back here very often, though. If we spent too much time here, it would be discovered too easily. It's more of a stash place than a home, really. We spend most of our time on the move. However… this time we'll be staying here for a few days to lay low."
"Oh…? Why's that?" Eumelia asked.
"Well, we just pulled off a really amazing heist in Nemo," Nicky said. "So we need to give the search a little time to cool off. Plus, we need to repair our headgear – that's why we needed the Skuwat metal."
"Speaking of your headgear… where did you get those from?" Eumelia asked. "They're really pretty…"
"Oh, there's an old ruined temple on Falcon's Claw," Muriel said. "We found an old recipe card for these star tiaras there. Turned out to be super useful, so we made one for each of us. Would you like one too? I think we got enough metal to make an extra one."
Hearing the name 'star tiara' drew out another fragment from those oracular visions from earlier, revealing the usefulness of the item. Though on its own it only had minor defensive qualities, it could also be used as an ingredient for an ultimate armour exclusive to Eoria.
"Yes, please!" Eumelia said.
"Well, though it does have some defensive effect, it's mostly decorative," Vivian said. "The real usefulness comes from the fact that they serve as our public identity. That means if we take them off, it's pretty easy to pass unnoticed. So you probably don't need one, as we don't intend to publicize you as part of our team… but it's not hard to make, so if you want one, I'll make it for you. We've got the extra material after all."
"Thank you very much!" Eumelia said.
"While Vivian is repairing our tiaras and making one for you, how about we see if you have what it takes to be a bird user?" Elen said.
"Alright!" Eumelia said. "I'll be in your care!"
Hymmnos Corner
In this section I'll provide translations of any Hymmnos passages that occur in the main text.
"…Presia aterra cremia sos viuy lonfa, yehar lamenza der soare mea."
This is the final two lines of EXEC_CHRONICLE=KEY. It roughly translates to "I'll invite your soul shaded in darkness to salvation, and may the words of prayer I craft for you release you from your deep grief." (translation taken from the EXA_PICO wiki.)
"Was yant ga re fountaina elle teru…"
The words Eumelia used to craft her stealth song. Roughly translates to "I shall cower here, hiding from the teru. as I wait for this to end."
"Fou paks ga fountaina sii mea dea clare fusya."
The opening line of Eumelia's stealth song. Roughly translates to "I shall nervously cover up my secrets with a transparent shroud as I wait for this to end."
"Fou paks ga heighte jenge!"
The song to summon a ball of symphonic energy, which Misha attempted to use on Bourd and Eumelia recalled after her awakening. Roughly translates to "Though I'm nervous, I'll injure the enemy so this can end soon."
