A Spacequake: officially, a natural disaster.
For ordinary people, that was the story.
The truth was that a Spacequake was the spatial distortion produced when a Spirit crossed from the Neighboring World and manifested in the real world. To prevent these disasters from recurring, certain regions had established official anti-Spirit organizations—their logic being simple: eliminate the Spirit, eliminate the catastrophe.
AST—the Anti-Spirit Team, Japan's designation for these units.
By appearance, this particular unit consisted of a group of young women in mechanized combat suits that were, objectively, rather revealing. Beyond their battlefield aptitude, many of them had lost family to Spacequakes and harbored a deep personal hatred of Spirits.
Their track record was, to put it charitably, dismal. Sending this kind of force—elite by name, mass-produced in practice—against Spirits capable of leveling a street with a wave of their hand was roughly equivalent to pointing a handgun at a fully armored Iron Man.
"A Diva, and something else unidentified… is that a male? Looks like it. Strange—I thought all Spirits were female."
"Attack!"
The violet-haired girl who'd just been in a standoff with Yimi lit up at the sight of her guests, spread her arms wide, and weaved effortlessly through the incoming missiles.
"My, what lovely visitors. Wonderful, wonderful. You're all beautiful girls."
Even with Gabriel operating purely on its functional ability, the Reiryoku boost alone was enough to close the distance before AST could react. In an instant she was behind the white-haired soldier, running a hand across her cheek with the easy brazenness of someone with no social inhibitions whatsoever.
"Would you tell me your name?"
"Tch." Origami Tobiichi spun and slashed. She dodged again effortlessly.
"Everyone—would you like to hear me sing?"
Yimi looked up from below, mildly bewildered.
This big dumbass can fly? How? She doesn't even have wings.
Certain that she herself couldn't fly, Yimi bounced twice experimentally. When she couldn't reach, she gave up on the idea.
She glanced at what remained of the theater—half of it newly demolished by an AST grenade.
Time to go.
With Miku rendering the entire AST unit flustered and helpless, no one had the spare attention to worry about the smaller, less impressive creature down below.
Despite fighting and losing, losing and fighting again, this particular engagement was their most humiliating yet—they had lost the entire battle while being groped, teased, and thoroughly outplayed… or had they even been fighting? It was more like a one-sided rout with extra indignity.
By the time AST was driven back, Miku noticed that the cat she'd been trading insults with had vanished. In its place, a blue-haired girl roughly her own age was standing nearby.
"Shiori, it's your turn. This Spirit looks like exactly the type for you, don't you think?"
"Could you not phrase it in a way that could so easily be misunderstood…" The blue-haired girl in a school uniform brushed a lock of hair from her cheek, doing her best to conceal what was, in fact, a nearly invisible earpiece.
Below, a panel of voters—hardened veterans of yuri visual novels, well-connected social elites who had been terrible to many women, habitual nightclub-goers, and other assorted eccentrics—were already deliberating.
Three options:
① You seem familiar. Have we met somewhere before?
② Your voice is beautiful. Did you train your voice specifically?
③ How much for your panties?
Vote opened. Vote closed.
"Shiori: choose ③."
"…?"
Not understanding it at all, thoroughly unwilling, and yet impossibly obedient, Shiori honored the "elites'" choice.
"U-um… how much would your, uh, panties go for?"
"Hm?" Miku blinked, then laughed lightly, already recovering. "How about a trade for yours?"
————————
This date would go on record as one of the smoothest they'd ever run.
"Her affinity started this high? She doesn't seem like a difficult target. Leading with an ambiguously suggestive opener under a female identity—even if it causes embarrassment, feigning natural airheadedness is a valid recovery. It's a gamble."
"More likely the target just has a pre-existing preference for girls."
Ten thousand meters above (~32,800 ft), aboard the Ratatoskr airship Fraxinus, the red-haired girl in the command chair bit straight through the lollipop in her mouth. "But something's strange. A Spacequake definitely occurred, but we're not detecting any Reiryoku signatures. And the Spacequake pattern doesn't match any of the Diva's previous ones. Did any of the cameras catch something unusual?"
Ratatoskr—the organization on the opposite side of the philosophical spectrum from AST, advocating for peaceful acceptance and sealing of Spirits. The method for sealing: the blue-haired girl currently on a date with Miku below. She possessed a singular ability—in brief, Spirits developed strong affection for her, and a key kiss during their vulnerable moment would seal their Reiryoku, along with the involuntary Spacequakes that came with it.
That was the theory. In practice, certain Spirits could also perform a silent manifestation—appearing in the real world without triggering a Spacequake at all.
"We did capture something, but it isn't clearly identifiable." The woman in the seat below—dark circles like bruises under half-lidded eyes—brought the footage up on the main screen.
Their surveillance system should have nullified backlight interference, and yet the footage showed a golden radiance filling nearly the entire frame, spreading in every direction—like cracks tearing across the sky over Tenguu City, yet vanishing without leaving any trace of damage.
Light that appeared to extend dozens of kilometers in every direction, and yet only this one camera, the nearest, had captured it. All the others showed nothing out of the ordinary—as if only this device had been singled out.
The golden light faded. The footage seamlessly transitioned to the moment AST was being toyed with by Miku, the precise instant Yimi dismissed her Stand. The other cameras recovered well enough to catch what followed: a small, round creature with markings like a panda darted out from an alleyway. On passing a cat dozing on a step, it deliberately slowed, crept close, and delivered a deliberate smack—sending the sleeper straight into the air.
Reine, the dark-eyed woman, stared at the cat in the footage for a long, silent moment.
"…Come to think of it, there's really no way to look out for stray animals during a Spacequake," Kotori murmured.
Though presumably any cat or dog with working instincts would have sensed the Spacequake coming long before any person did.
"That's not quite what this is, Commander." Reine pulled up the earlier surveillance footage one by one. "There is no sign of any cat matching these characteristics in the surrounding area prior to the new Spirit's arrival. We can say with 95% confidence that this cat is connected to the Spirit we couldn't capture on camera. We may be able to gather more information during the Diva capture operation."
"Trying to ask one girl about another girl in the middle of a date is a terrible play." Kotori sat cross-legged in her chair, gripping a black-and-white-striped over-the-knee-socked ankle and rocking it idly. "Focus on the Diva for now. I just hope this Reiryoku-concealing Spirit isn't the Nightmare type…"
...
Meanwhile, the escapee in question had found a small garden.
She finally had a moment to open the mission panel and look things over properly. Ignoring the side quests that wouldn't help her get home, she focused on the main mission.
Main Quest: Defeat the First Spirit.
"That's definitely the big dumbass!" Yimi reached her conclusion: Miku Izayoi was the First Spirit.
"Notice to Host: this determination has no factual basis, and you are operating at 100% spite."
"It's her." Yimi trusted her own judgment.
She'd arrived in this world and been insulted by a total stranger. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got.
"…You have one gacha pull available. Use it now?"
"Pull."
"Skipping the wheel animation automatically."
A white arc solidified into shape. Floating before Yimi was a strange little blue vehicle.
[Wiggle Car]: A child's toy. Allows normal navigation across certain uneven terrain, though it makes a persistent buzzing sound. With the right approach, it can deliver the full impact of a runaway dump truck.