Planet III. Surface.
Streaks of light formed by the tail flames of interstellar shuttles tore across the darkened sky like meteors. As those "meteors" cruised low over the city skyline, deafening sonic booms and the shrill wails emitted from their broadcast systems instantly stirred waves of clamor, curses, and cries for help throughout the burning metropolis that had already descended into total disorder.
"Damn it! Where are the GHQ multi-national forces stationed in Japan? What about their epidemic response and disaster relief units?"
"Idiot, moron, bakamono! You're still counting on them? GHQ and the UN can barely protect themselves! Didn't you see? The troops that were guarding and sealing us in have already withdrawn! This is the end of the world! Aliens are invading! It's over—we're all going to die..."
"Compared to dying in agony and turning ugly after being infected by the Apocalypse Virus, I'd rather be blasted to death by aliens!"
"Hahaha... weren't those GHQ bastards so arrogant before? Let's see them be arrogant now! If the aliens have planet-destroying weapons, they should hurry up and use them. If I die together with scum like me who were born in the quarantine zone, it must really sully those high-and-mighty types, right? Drag them down with me—it's worth it! Hahaha..."
"Wuuu... I'm not even infected with the Apocalypse Virus. I don't want to die..."
Within the virus-sealed zone known as Tokyo, inside the enclosed high school marked on the map as Tennouzu First High School, the campus—once meant to brim with youthful vitality—now lay in shambles.
Blast-proof sandbag walls, barbed-wire barricades, semi-permanent fortifications, gun emplacements, and watchtowers—none of which should have appeared near a school or within city districts—had all been erected.
Abandoned military supplies lay scattered everywhere due to the panic. Empty ammunition crates. Spent shell casings. Discarded magazines.
Strangely, aside from these remnants, there were no GHQ soldiers to be seen on campus at this moment. Only groups of boys and girls in blazers and sailor uniforms remained—crying, venting, some shrill and hysterical, others collapsing into madness, a few eerily calm.
A careful observer would notice that part of the quarantine barriers had been set facing inward toward the school itself. Clearly, those barriers had been intended to contain the students.
Yet with the disruption caused by visitors from beyond the stars and the withdrawal of GHQ's epidemic control forces, the relatively complete isolation perimeter had, by coincidence, turned the school into a temporary island of relative safety within the chaotic city.
Temporary.
"What should I do?"
On the third floor of the teaching building, a brown-haired boy with red eyes stared blankly through the glass at the apocalyptic chaos outside the campus.
The venting and clamor of his classmates—whose anxiety and pressure had reached a breaking point after the reappearance of the so-called "Lost Christmas Incident" from over a decade ago, the renewed spread of the Apocalypse Virus, and GHQ's declaration of Tokyo's total quarantine—seemed not to affect him.
The boy, delicate-featured and somewhat frail in build, slowly took out his bar-shaped mobile device, put on his earphones, and unfolded the electronic screen.
Displayed on it was an online diva singing.
Light pink hair. Deep crimson eyes. A costume like celestial feathered robes. A girl with the face of an angel.
"Inori... was I wrong?" The boy's expression twisted in pain as he raised his right wrist and murmured in confusion.
Unfortunately, no one could answer him.
A white loading circle spun endlessly at the center of the screen. The network had been cut. Communications were down. Even the song had lost its broadcast channel.
Staring at the frozen face of the digital songstress, the boy suddenly felt his heart twist in agony.
The halted image, the severed connection—it was as though everything was telling him that the bond between him and her had been completely cut.
From the moment he had refused to use the power of the "King" within him, feared drawing forth the Voids born from human hearts, rejected the missions of Funeral Parlor, and retreated back to school in dejection...
They had become strangers.
Perhaps two hearts that had missed each other might still have a chance to mend like a broken mirror—but—
Rumble—
The night sky had already turned a blazing orange-red, only to be smothered into a murky gray-black by thick smoke.
Instinctively shrinking his neck, the boy's vantage point from the third floor gave him a clear view. Across the street plaza not far away, a skyscraper with massive neon signage and LED glass curtain walls was tilting amid explosions and devouring tongues of flame.
From all directions came the continuous crackle of automatic gunfire.
It seemed that GHQ's mass-produced Endlave units had been blasted out of the air. Immediately after came laser detonations that raked the ground like streams of tracer fire—flashing clusters of light scattering wildly, leaving molten, lava-like splashes on buildings and hardened pavement.
At the same time, the roar of gunfire intensified.
Stray rounds even crossed a distance of over a thousand meters and landed inside Tennouzu First High School. One unlucky student had already been struck by shattered debris from a bullet impact on the wall, blood streaming down his face as startled cries erupted around him.
In war, the most helpless are always ordinary people.
GHQ treated them roughly as suspected infected. As for the "aliens," that went without saying.
Beneath the tilting skyscraper, orange-red flames engulfed the panicked crowd in the plaza. Screams, shouts, and wails blended into a chaotic, piercing cacophony.
Then the next moment—
Rrrrrumble—
The building collapsed.
Deep crimson firelight and dust surged outward with earth-shaking tremors, swallowing the surrounding streets. The thick smoke blanketing the city churned and expanded like a raging sandstorm.
"Everyone, stop standing around! Don't stay on the upper floors—get down to ground level and stay near open areas!"
As the overwhelming tide of debris surged toward the school, shouts erupted among the students still lingering upstairs. Their trembling voices carried barely suppressed sobs.
"Hey, Shu Ouma, why are you just standing there? Run!"
A classmate, seeing Shu Ouma still staring blankly by the window, called out in concern.
Slow to react, Shu's body moved on instinct. He ran a few steps, then heard a rapid series of impacts against the classroom windows. A flash of light streaked past. He felt a searing heat across his back.
No matter how inexperienced or avoidant he might be—no matter how often others pointed at him and called him cowardly—he had still completed several missions for Funeral Parlor. He had undergone basic training. He had seen blood.
At the very least, he knew how to dive and find cover.
Rolling across the floor, curling his body inward, Shu wedged himself beneath the raised platform of the teacher's podium.
Almost the instant he flattened himself, the storm of shattered debris smashed through every window in the building. Thick smoke overhead cast a suffocating veil over his vision.
Boom! Bang! Crack! Crash—
The world spun. His senses blurred. The murky air made every breath burn with suffocation.
After a long while, when the chaotic noises gradually subsided, Shu—face pale—struggled up from the pile of rubble.
Inside the classroom, desks and chairs were scattered in a chaotic heap against one wall.
A gaping breach had opened in the exterior side of the building.
Chunks of reinforced concrete, twisted car parts, mangled phone booths—every kind of wreckage imaginable—had been hurled here by the shockwave. Shrapnel riddled the walls like a hornet's nest. The structure trembled on the verge of collapse, exposed rebar jutting from the gaping breach that now lay before Shu Ouma's eyes.
A darkness that was at once blinding.
Darkness, because the city's power grid had finally and completely failed.
Blinding, because flames burned wildly amid the ruins. The river channels were clogged and buried beneath dismembered construction debris. From the collapsed plaza within view all the way to GHQ's distant base, fire spread in a continuous line. It was as if everything in the city had been set alight.
The once-bustling streets were replaced by wreckage. The riddled avenues held only the silence of the dead and the wails of the living. The sky was filled like scattered petals with shot-down fighter jets, helicopters, and drones tumbling from above. On the ground, the remains of roaring Endlave units burned and shattered in the flames.
Bang!
An Endlave exoskeleton-type remote-controlled combat armor was smashed violently into the gray, dust-covered center of the school's athletic field. Immediately afterward, a heavy armored box truck was kicked over as if by a careless foot, plowing across the lawn before flipping onto its side, its frame twisted beyond recognition.
"Run? You think I can't find you just because you're piloting a remote drone mech?"
A pitch-black figure landed with a thunderous crash.
That was—
Holding his breath, Shu cautiously raised his head, focusing intently on the figure.
The silhouette gave no hint of gender. A humanoid form clad in fully enclosed exoskeletal armor.
Rip—
The dark figure moved.
First, she violently tore off the Endlave's head. Then she swung a blade crackling with electricity and split open the wide cargo compartment of the armored truck.
"Agh—cough cough—damn it, let me go!"
That voice—shrill, coughing blood yet still arrogant. That face. The gray-white Endlave pilot suit marked with red stripes. Pale skin. Blonde hair. Violet eyes.
That bastard.
Shu remembered him clearly.
GHQ Second Lieutenant, Daryl Yan.
In one of the few missions he had carried out for Funeral Parlor, Shu had personally witnessed how this man—under the desperate pleas of others—had perversely shot an innocent mother to death right in front of her child.
"You truly are a genuine piece of human trash."
In the heavy silence, Shu heard it clearly this time.
Japanese.
A crisp female voice.
Pressing Daryl Yan's head down, the arm glowing with violet-red light released him, as if it had already obtained the necessary information. The woman in black armor let out a soft sigh.
Then, without hesitation, she drove her blade straight through the GHQ lieutenant's chest. The high temperature of the energy sword even produced a sizzling sound like meat on a grill.
She withdrew it smoothly and swept the blade sideways.
With a sharp slicing sound, the headless corpse slumped to the ground.
"What a nuisance..."
Resting one hand on her hip, she glanced toward the interior of Tennouzu First High School, where students hiding in corners stared at her in terror, too afraid to make a sound. She shook her head slightly before activating her internal communicator.
"Hello, hello. This is Alvitr. I've arrived at Tennouzu First High School. One of the owners of the Void Genome that the Science Bureau wants—the younger brother of Sakuraman Mana, the so-called 'Eve,' son of Sakuraman Genji, and adopted son of Sakuraman Haruka—is enrolled here, correct?"
"Oooh, Alvitr, I saw that! You beheaded him—just like an executioner from ancient times. So clean and decisive..."
The voice responding through the communicator was bright and clear, with a youthful tremor—pleasant to the ear.
"Enough, Susannah. Stop drafting your fantasy novel in your head. Aren't you sorting out the occupied GHQ Tokyo Bay headquarters in District 24? Let's focus on the mission..."
Knowing Susannah's personality, Alvitr quickly cut her off.
"And honestly, decapitation really doesn't suit a delicate Valkyrie like me. Don't go giving me weird nicknames. Hmph, I really don't know how Captain Durandal and the others got used to it."
Though Alvitr disliked such brutal methods herself, the Imperial Soldier Tactical Manual required strict adherence.
Not just Valkyrie units—even patrol officers followed the same rule.
That is—once hostile intent had been confirmed and combat initiated, unless the target possessed necessary value, one must confirm whether the enemy had been completely killed.
In short, from the most basic soldier regulations, the Imperial military encouraged finishing blows.
Two shots to the chest and one to the head. Or decapitation.
Both were officially endorsed methods of confirmation.
Every time she read that section, Alvitr could not help but sigh.
As expected of the Imperial military.
Afraid of enemies coming back to life, perhaps?
Of course, she also knew that every clause written into the tactical manual was backed by lessons paid for in blood. The Empire must have suffered for it once.
"And Susannah, don't you dare drop the ball. Save your compassion for after the campaign is over."
"Yes, ma'am! Understood, Officer Alvitr!"
The response was energetic and brimming with enthusiasm.
"Let me check... Through our suppression operations against Funeral Parlor and GHQ, mm, an auxiliary force major just informed me that they've captured Funeral Parlor's leader, Gai Tsutsugami. Through interrogation and soul-searching, we've basically grasped the full connection between the so-called Apocalypse Virus, the Void Genome, and the 'Lost Christmas Incident.'"
"The compiled data is still being uploaded to the central database."
"Mm. According to the intelligence from Gai Tsutsugami, he separated from Shu Ouma not long ago. I'm certain that because Shu is avoiding using his power, he should currently be hiding inside Tennouzu First High School."
"Avoiding? Mm, got it. Send me the comparison profile for the Void Genome."
Alvitr nodded and cut the connection.
She clenched her fist and gestured forward for her squad to follow. Then she bent her knees and leapt upward. Amid the screams and cries of the students, she landed atop the main teaching building with a thunderous boom.
"If he's one of the rare carriers of the Void Genome, then that means he's different from ordinary people."
Activating infrared sensors and a specialized detection array, Alvitr scanned the entire campus from within her sealed helmet.
Soon—
"Found him."
On the third floor of the main building, the imaging of a male student's right arm differed significantly from everyone else's.
"Brown hair, red eyes, average build... Shu Ouma. That's him."
Boom!
Without hesitation, she dropped down. The already battered wall was shattered once again by overwhelming force. The shockwave sent the brown-haired boy—who had been staring at his right wrist in hesitation—flying onto the floor.
"Y-you... who are you? What do you want?" Shu stammered weakly, propping himself up on his elbows.
"Void Genome."
Shing—
The energy blade ignited. Plasma light flashed.
In a single stroke, his right arm was severed at the shoulder.
The limb spun through the air and was caught firmly in Alvitr's grasp.
A moment later, realization struck.
Clutching the stump of his shoulder, Shu let out a muffled groan. His dust-streaked, ashen face froze with pain, fury, fear—and reluctance.
"Aaahhh!"
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