While Chu Zihang's academic future was being decided at Cassel College, Daigo faced challenges of a very different nature back in his own world. The peaceful routine he'd hoped for after returning from the Bamboo Staff was proving frustratingly elusive.
"Daigo," Rena said as their patrol vehicle navigated Tokyo's busy afternoon traffic, "you've been acting completely strange since you got back from leave. What's going on with you?"
Her observation was delivered with the blunt concern of a teammate who'd worked closely with someone long enough to notice subtle changes in behavior. During the weeks since his return, Daigo had become increasingly distracted, jumpy at unexpected sounds, and prone to staring into space as if seeing things invisible to others.
"Strange? I don't think I've been strange," Daigo replied with forced lightness, scratching the back of his head in a gesture that only emphasized his nervousness. "I feel like I've been perfectly normal lately."
"Really?" Rena's skeptical tone was accompanied by a piercing stare that made him shift uncomfortably in the passenger seat. "Because from where I'm sitting, you seem like you're constantly on edge about something."
"I'm really fine, Rena. There's nothing to worry about," he insisted, though his defensive emphasis suggested otherwise.
The truth was far too complicated to explain. How could he possibly tell her that he'd spent his "vacation" in another world, befriending other worldly beings while learning to control cosmic powers that could reshape planets? That he was currently sharing his apartment with a thirty-million-year-old warrior who'd once tried to kill him but now treated him like a beloved long-lost lover?
"I still think you're hiding some—"
"Rena! Car! CAR!" Daigo's urgent shout interrupted her analysis as he pointed frantically ahead.
Rena's head snapped forward just in time to see their vehicle bearing down on a delivery truck that had stopped suddenly in their lane. She slammed the brakes with enough force to throw them both against their restraints, rubber squealing against asphalt as they skidded to a halt mere inches from disaster.
"Holy—" Rena caught herself before completing the profanity, instead letting out a shaky breath while pressing a hand to her racing heart. "That was way too close."
"Maybe you should focus on driving instead of psychoanalyzing your passengers," Daigo suggested with evident relief at the avoided collision—and the successful diversion from uncomfortable questions.
"Fine," Rena muttered, though her expression promised the conversation wasn't over. "But we're definitely talking about this later."
Their destination was a construction site in Tokyo's rapidly expanding commercial district, where workers had made an unusual discovery while preparing foundations for a new office complex. The site supervisor—a weathered man whose hard hat bore the scars of decades in construction—met them at the chain-link entrance with obvious relief.
"Thank goodness TPC responded so quickly," he said, leading them toward a section of excavated earth surrounded by caution tape. "We've never seen anything like this before."
"What exactly did you find?" Rena asked, consulting her electronic notepad while Daigo surveyed the construction equipment and worried-looking workers.
"That's the thing—we're not sure what it is," the supervisor replied, pointing toward what looked like a large metallic structure partially embedded in the earth. "We were digging the foundation when we hit this thing about thirty meters down. Problem is, this whole area was underwater just ten years ago. Whatever this is, it's been buried for a very long time."
The object was roughly cylindrical, composed of some kind of metal that seemed to shift color depending on the viewing angle. Despite being buried for an unknown period, its surface showed no signs of corrosion or decay. Strange geometric patterns covered its visible portions, creating designs that seemed to hint at both technological sophistication and artistic beauty.
"Any idea how large it is?" Daigo asked, crouching beside the excavation to get a better look.
"We've only exposed about a quarter of it so far, but our ground-penetrating radar suggests it's at least fifteen meters long and maybe three meters in diameter. Whatever it is, it's big."
Rena was already setting up scanning equipment to analyze the object's composition and structure when an unexpected figure appeared at the construction site's entrance. A young girl, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old, walked past the security checkpoint as if she belonged there. Her appearance was striking—long dark hair framing delicate features, wearing a simple black dress that seemed oddly formal for the industrial setting.
Most notably, she wore what appeared to be a golden flute suspended around her neck on an elaborate chain. The instrument gleamed with an inner light that didn't seem entirely natural.
The girl approached the excavation site with obvious purpose, paying no attention to the surprised construction workers or TPC personnel. When she reached the edge of the pit, she lifted the flute to her lips and began to play.
The melody was hauntingly beautiful—complex harmonies that seemed to resonate not just in the air but somehow in the bones and soul of everyone present. The notes carried an ancient quality, as if they'd been old when humanity was young.
Then the buried object began to respond.
A deep, thrumming vibration emerged from the earth as the metallic cylinder started to glow with soft, pulsing light. The geometric patterns on its surface brightened and began to move, flowing across the metal like living things seeking new configurations.
"What the hell—" the construction supervisor stumbled backward as the ground beneath their feet trembled in rhythm with the mysterious music.
The object's vibrations grew stronger, creating harmonics that made the air itself seem to sing. Dust and small stones danced in the air around the excavation, caught in invisible currents of energy that defied explanation.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the music stopped. The girl's flute fell from her lips as she swayed unsteadily, her eyes rolling back before she collapsed entirely.
"Quick! Help her!" Daigo rushed to catch the falling girl before she could strike the hard ground. As he lifted her unconscious form, a strange sense of familiarity washed over him—something about her face, her presence, triggered memories he couldn't quite grasp.
"I feel like I should know her," he murmured, studying her peaceful expression with growing confusion. "Like we've met before somehow."
"What?" Rena looked between Daigo and the unconscious girl with obvious bewilderment. "How could you possibly know her? She just appeared out of nowhere!"
But there was no time to pursue the mystery. The girl needed medical attention, and the strange object—now dormant again but clearly connected to her somehow—required immediate investigation by TPC's research teams.
Back at TPC headquarters, the mysterious cylinder was transferred to Horii's laboratory for comprehensive analysis, while the girl was taken to the medical bay under the care of Mayumi Yanase, Shinjo's younger sister who worked as a civilian nurse for the organization.
Despite his best efforts and most sophisticated equipment, Horii found himself completely stymied by the object's properties. It appeared to be made of metals that didn't match any known periodic table, arranged in molecular structures that his instruments couldn't penetrate or analyze. Every attempt to take samples failed—drills broke against its surface, lasers were absorbed without effect, and even ultrasonic probes revealed nothing about its internal composition.
"I've never seen anything like it," he admitted to Captain Megumi during his preliminary report. "It's like the object exists partially outside our normal physical laws. The only time it showed any activity was when that girl played her instrument."
In the medical bay, Mayumi was having her own frustrations with their mysterious patient.
"She won't speak to anyone," Mayumi explained when Daigo and Rena came to check on her condition. "When she first woke up, I tried to communicate in Japanese, English, even some Chinese and Korean I picked up in school. Nothing. She just sits there with her head down, completely unresponsive."
The girl—who looked fragile and lost in the medical bay's sterile environment—remained exactly as Mayumi described. Her dark hair fell like a curtain around her face, hiding her expressions while she sat motionless on the edge of the hospital bed.
Daigo approached carefully, projecting as much gentle reassurance as possible through his body language and tone of voice.
"Hello," he said softly, crouching down to her eye level. "My name is Daigo. I'm with GUTS—that's the organization that brought you here. Can you tell me your name? Can you tell me if we've met before?"
For a long moment, silence stretched between them. Then, slowly, the girl raised her head to meet his gaze directly.
"Saki," she whispered, her voice barely audible.
"Saki? That's your name?" Daigo felt a flutter of recognition at the sound, though he still couldn't place where he might have encountered her before.
Saki nodded once, a barely perceptible movement that confirmed her identity. But when Daigo and Rena tried to ask follow-up questions—where she came from, how she knew about the buried object, what the flute's significance might be—she withdrew back into her shell of silence.
With no additional information available and medical scans showing the girl to be in perfect physical health, TPC's leadership decided to postpone any decisions about her status until Horii's research yielded more concrete results. Director Sawai's humanitarian instincts prevented more aggressive interrogation methods, though some within the organization quietly suggested that extraordinary circumstances might justify extraordinary measures.
Around four o'clock that afternoon, while most of the headquarters staff was engaged in routine duties, Saki suddenly opened her eyes in the medical bay. She remained perfectly still for several minutes, listening intently to the sounds of the building around her. When she was satisfied that no one was nearby, she slipped from the hospital bed and moved with surprising stealth toward the laboratory levels.
Her navigation through the complex corridors was unnaturally precise, as if she possessed intimate knowledge of TPC's layout despite never having been there before. Security cameras tracked her movement, but the afternoon shift change meant that most monitoring stations were temporarily unmanned.
In his laboratory, Horii had fallen asleep at his workstation after hours of fruitless analysis. The mysterious object sat under bright examination lights, its surface reflecting the harsh illumination without revealing any of its secrets. An apple core on Horii's desk testified to his attempt to maintain energy through the long research session.
The soft sound of flute music penetrated his dreams, gradually pulling him back to consciousness. As awareness returned, Horii realized the melody wasn't part of his dream—someone was actually playing music somewhere in the building.
"Who would be playing a flute in headquarters?" he wondered aloud, yawning as he stood and stretched muscles cramped from sleeping in his chair.
Following the haunting melody through the corridors, Horii discovered its source in his own laboratory. Saki stood before the mysterious object, her golden flute producing the same complex harmonies that had affected it at the construction site.
"Incredible," Horii breathed, his scientific excitement overriding any security concerns as he watched the impossible unfold before his eyes.
The object was responding again, its geometric patterns flowing and shifting as if alive. But this time, the reaction was far more dramatic than the simple vibrations they'd witnessed earlier. Seams appeared in what had seemed like solid metal, revealing intricate mechanisms within. The cylinder was opening like some kind of technological flower, each movement accompanied by soft chimes that harmonized perfectly with Saki's music.
As the object completed its transformation, brilliant light erupted from its core—not harsh or painful, but warm and somehow welcoming. Horii raised his hands to shield his eyes from the intensity, temporarily blinded by the display.
In that moment of visual confusion, Saki slipped past him and disappeared into the maze of headquarters corridors. By the time Horii's vision cleared and he realized she was gone, alarms were already beginning to sound throughout the building.
But the girl's escape was only the beginning of their problems.
High above Earth's atmosphere, the Delta Space Station's long-range sensors had detected something unprecedented: a silver object of enormous size approaching their solar system at impossible velocities. Its trajectory would bring it directly to Earth within hours, and the life-force readings it emanated suggested intelligence far beyond anything humanity had previously encountered.
"All Defense Team members to the command center immediately," Captain Megumi's voice echoed through headquarters' communication system. "We have a Code Red situation developing."
As the team assembled in their war room, the main display showed telescopic images of their approaching visitor—a creature of living silver that moved through space with the fluid grace of something born to the cosmic void.
"Delta Space Station will attempt to intercept the target with their Bakir Cannon," Captain Megumi announced grimly. "If that fails, Defense Team will be humanity's next line of defense."
"Understood!" the team responded in unison, though each member privately wondered what kind of weapon could possibly stop something that had traveled between stars to reach them.
The Bakir Cannon was one of humanity's most powerful defensive installations—a directed-energy weapon capable of obliterating entire city blocks with a single shot. If something could survive its concentrated force and continue toward Earth, conventional military responses would prove utterly inadequate.
"Captain," Vice-Captain Kojiro interjected, "given the timing of this creature's approach and the girl's mysterious connection to that artifact, should we be attempting to locate her? She might possess crucial information about what we're facing."
Megumi considered the suggestion carefully before shaking her head. "The target will be in cannon range within minutes. We'll deal with immediate threats first, then pursue secondary intelligence gathering if we survive the encounter."
On the main screen, they watched the Delta Space Station's weapons systems lock onto their approaching target. The Bakir Cannon—a marvel of human engineering designed to protect their world from exactly this kind of threat—charged to full power and fired.
A beam of pure energy lanced across the darkness, carrying enough destructive force to sterilize continents. The blast struck the silver creature directly, creating an explosion visible from Earth's surface as matter and energy collided in a brief, artificial star.
For a moment, hope flickered in the command center. Perhaps humanity's defenses would prove adequate after all.
Then the explosion cleared, revealing their visitor completely unharmed and continuing its inexorable approach toward Earth. If anything, it seemed to have absorbed the cannon's energy, growing slightly larger and more radiant than before.
"Delta Space Station reports weapon ineffective," Yazumi announced with barely controlled panic in his voice. "The target will reach Earth's atmosphere in approximately fifty minutes. Projected landing site: Tokyo Bay."
"Defense Team, scramble all aircraft," Captain Megumi ordered. "This is what we trained for, people. Whatever that thing is, we're all that stands between it and seven billion innocent lives."
"Yes, ma'am!" The team's response carried grim determination as they rushed toward the hangar bay, each member privately wondering if they were running toward humanity's salvation or their own destruction.