Fanfic / Distortions (Symphogear)

The Curse of Balal was not the end. The past cannot be ignored.

— Tagline

The Curse of Balal may have been broken, but five millennia of history cannot be undone so easily. And as the Symphogear Adaptor’s prepare to move on into the next stage of their lives in the new world of tomorrow they thought they have created, they suddenly become aware that history may be stalking them from the shadows.

Distortions is a Symphogear fanfiction that takes place after the events of XV.

The story can be found on Sufficient Velocity, Spacebattles, FanFiction.net, and Archive of Our Own (the AO3 and SV links are the most up to date versions of the story). There is an omake collection of posts from Sufficient Velocity on Archive of Our Own that can be read here. However, due to real life developments, Nuker declared the story cancelled, posting a partial completion of Chapter 41.

There will be spoilers for Symphogear, so it is recommended that you have seen the entire series before reading.

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Distortions provides examples of:

• Akashic Records: Sefer Hachaim, known as The Book of Life in Biblical mythology, is a recording/monitoring device left by the Custodians. Emily said that the Horsemen used it's record to show her Miku killing her father, but Samantha tells Hibiki that Emily was never approached by any member of the Horsemen and Caprice tells Maria that it was destroyed with the Curse of Babal. Elfnein realizes after a encounter with the Pale Man that he at the very least has a record of it.
• Bait-and-Switch: In Chapter 17 we have a scene of Kirika begging Shirabe not to do this and Shirabe saying that she is sorry. They're actually playing a game of Uno and Shirabe just won herself the hand.
• Battle Couple: Since Miku is now both a Symphogear Adaptor and has hooked up with Hibiki, the two are basically now this. Similarly, Shirabe and Kirika have also gone official in the fic and likewise constitute an example.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Shirabe scares the hell out of a classmate who gave Kirika a hard time after their identities and pasts became public, all without ever raising her voice.
• Big "WHAT?!": Chris and Maria's reaction to Qiao Cai introducing herself as the new Symphogear Adaptor from China.
• Big "WHY?!": This is the reaction of SONGbird, a low level worker in S.O.N.G., in the Supernatural Forums to Hibiki declaring her love for Miku during the press conference.
  Alright, on to the next questiTACHIBANA WHY
• Blood Knight: Timoty Darmawan. He's just as Hot-Blooded as Hibiki and fights the main characters because he wants to challenge himself.
• Bluff the Impostor: While Hibiki's family is being moved to by some SONG agents, Koyomi Tachibana, Hibiki's grandmother, asks some questions about how Hibiki has been doing, like has the media been keeping her from getting enough sleep due to the media circus or how has she been eating. Their answers, that the media has been keeping her up when Hibiki could sleep through a tanker truck exploding and eats three meals a day when she eats much more than that, tell her that they know nothing about Hibiki and aren't connected to SONG in any way.
• Boom, Headshot!: Genjuro ended up being taken out this way in the second chapter.
• Brick Joke: During a hospital visit with a victim of a Horsemen attack, Hibiki realizes that Chris acts a lot like a Tsundere and wants to use this to tease her. Later, while Chris is congratulating Miku for achieving Amalgam, Hibiki teases her about worrying about them by actually calling her a Tsundere.
• Cartesian Karma: Samantha Acampona blames Miku for killing her brother even though she did so while brainwashed by Dr. Ver. She justifies this by claiming that Miku allowed herself to be brainwashed.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Part of Kirika's issues is due to a letter that she wrote to Shirabe when she thought she was Finé's vessel. This letter is the focus of several of her songs and a few skits in the OVAs.
  • Chris is shown to be a fan of The Amazing☆Singing Hood!, the title song happening to be a song that she sung one of the AXZ OVAs, even being shown in one of the Omakes to been in the Supernatural Forums with her username being a reference to the show.
  • As shown in AXZ, Kirika makes a big deal out of setting up a birthday party for one of the wielders, in this case Maria.
  • One of the targets of a Horsemen's attack is the Undersea Dragon's Palace.
• Deal with the Devil: What Samantha Acamporra admits she took by joining the White Noise.
• Deity of Human Origin: What the Four Horsemen believe is happening to the Adaptors after the events with Shem-Ha. That they are becoming a new species dubbed Homo Sapien Sumphonia that must be exterminated by any means for the human race's survival. And the data they've collected indicates they are at least partially correct.
• Elite Mooks: The Automen, androids built partially from reverse-engineered Autoscorer parts, are these to the Staples. They are slightly tougher to take down and have weaponry (either gamma-ray lasers or rapid-fire coilguns) actually capable of hurting the Adaptors in their transformed state. Ironically, their robotic nature makes them psychologically easier for the Adaptors to fight then the Staples.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Chris and Tsubasa are given nicknames of Megadeth and Samurai, respectively, by the American Soldiers that they end up saving from the Four Horsemen in Panau. Neither of them are pleased by this development.
• Empty Shell: The Staples are clones of human soldiers who have undergone genetic modification which eliminates their ability to feel emotions, sense of self-preservation, pain reflexes, any semblance of free will, and have radically reduced abstract thinking. Their mental state is described as "only a few steps above Noise".
• Even Evil Has Standards: Despite all of the experiments that the science wing of the Four Horsemen have done, which includes kidnapping receptor children to test a gene-engineered bio-weapon dedicated to wiping out Finé's descendants or cloning brain-dead versions of all of the Adaptors, they refuse to give the go-ahead to an idea to create test tube babies using the Adaptors' DNA.
• Everyone Knew Already: It's noted that when Hibiki and Miku declared that they were now a couple, the responses were mostly along the lines of "wait, was there a point when you weren't a couple?"
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: S.O.N.G. is confused by the lack of fallout in the area where the nuclear weapon hit. Elfnien realizes the nuke that The Horsemen used was a pure-fusion weapon and they are willing to use it without any second thoughts.
• Flat "What": Ogawa's reaction to hearing that China has an Adapator almost ready and wants her to join S.O.N.G. as part of an agreement for them to support S.O.N.G.
• First-Episode Twist: Genjuro Kazanari, the commander of SONG and a mentor to the Adaptors, is killed in the second chapter.
• The Fundamentalist: Mwikiza Gowon is a Christian fundamentalist who believes that SONG's use of Heretical Technology makes them "false gods" that he must eradicate. When Miku attempts to talk him out of fighting in Chapter 6, he justifies his attempts to kill her by saying "human notions of good and evil do not apply to God," so as an instrument of His will, he's blameless.
• Gas Mask Mooks: The Staples usually wear gas masks when not operating subtly. This also hides the fact they are clones.
• Henpecked Husband: After Miku tells Hibiki that she is doing her summer homework as soon as they get home from Maria's birthday party, Chris just says that Miku has Hibiki "whipped".
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Kir Voronin's stock-and-trade. His very first action in the story involves shooting Genjuro from 3 kilometers away with his sightline obscured by a host of trees in a park. His next two shots at Hibiki and Miku don't so much miss as are unwittingly intercepted by their bodyguards.
• Insult of Endearment: "The dumbass" is Chris's affectionate nickname for Hibiki. Pretty much stated by her on a message board to be the case.
• The Internet Is for Porn: Qiao Cai mentions that there has been a lot of artwork of the Adaptors on the internet after their identities became known. When Shirabe shows interest, Tsubasa and Maria quickly warn the others that they will wind up stumbling across a lot of porn if they try to search.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: What has seemed to happen to Emily after she has woken up after trying to attack Miku. She is unable to remember anything that has happened recently.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: As a continuation of Symphogear, many of the major twists and events of previous seasons, like Chris' involvement with Finé and her Heel–Face Turn, Maria, Shirabe, and Kirika's involvement with F.I.S. before joining S.O.N.G., Miku being possessed by Shem-Ha, are mentioned without much thought.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Yumi, like in canon, has conversations with others that feel like this including this conversation in Chapter 16:
  Yumi: Besides, it’s not like anime has steered me wrong in the past!
  Hibiki: Who knows? We might be living in an anime.
  Yumi: Eh, maybe all the prior stuff. What’s happening right now feels more like the fanfic to an anime.
• Mad Bomber: Caprice Calcattera, a member of the White Unit of the Horsemen, deals with explosives and seems to only care about creating as much chaos as possible with her bombs.
• Mage Killer : The Horsemen fancy themselves as something of a cross between this and Cape Busters. Their avowed objective is to eradicate all of the supernatural and they use nothing but high technological weaponry in their efforts to do so. Yet the suspiciously advanced technology does lead to questions from SONG of where and how they got it from.
• Meaningful Name:
  • White Noise refers to a steady background sound that can help mask otherwise distracting noises. The White Noise Squad use a implant known as the Apegear to poach the phonic gain generated by the Adaptors songs and ensure they can take on the Adaptors on an almost even footing.
  • Sabin is a measurement of sound absorption and the codename for The Horsemen's Project 51E141: an effort to develop a weapon specifically to kill Symphogears.
• Mysterious Watcher: The Pale Man, an individual who has been watching the events. Strangely only the Adaptors and Elfnein have been able to recognize him. Anyone else, even those who he has talked to directly, only seem to recall how pale his skin happens to be.
• Mythology Gag: A few to XDU:
  • Brisingamen, Hermes Sword, and Gjallarhorn appear on a list of relics that the Four Horsemen made that S.O.N.G. takes from a base.
  • Kirika is scared when going through the Haunted House with Shirabe and Elfnien, several Memorias show that she is easily scared by ghosts and horror despite modeling herself as a grim reaper.
  • Maria, while looking at a clone of Chris, says that her hair looks "floofy" when it is down, a description given by some fans to the alternate universe version of Chris shown in the "BAYONET CHARGE" Event.
  • The revived Doctor Ver speculates about being a music producer, which happened in the "Kimono Rumble" event.
  • Not related to XDU but Kirika tries to use "Saori Takebe" as an alias, confusing the others.^note Same Voice Actress for both roles
• O.C. Stand-in: In canon, Komichi Ayano was just one of Chris' classmates, and she hardly appeared outside of her debut episode in G. Here, she is Shrinking Violet and a possible Love Interest for Chris.
• Paparazzi: After the girls' identities are leaked to the press, the media invades their privacy to try and get an interview out of them.
• Perspective Flip:
  • The flashback at the beginning of Chapter 17 is one of the events of episode 4 of G from Komichi's perspective, showing Komichi's reasons for trying to befriend Chris and why she asked Chris to sing during the school festival. It also showed her reaction to the reveal of Chris' identity as an Adaptor on the news.
  • There are also the Omakes, which focus on the reactions of certain characters to the events depicted in previous chapters.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: The White Noise Squad, the Four Horsemen's anti-Symphogear fighting force. Each of them is an Empowered Badass Normal with their own eccentricities and personal reasons to fight against the Adaptors.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: The villainous group call themselves The Four Horsemen and they name different parts of their organisation around elements of The Book of Revelation, it is unclear in-universe if using the name is meant to be symbolic of their goals or just a coincidence.
• Revenge Before Reason: Lieutenant Samantha Acamporra knows what she's doing is wrong, but she's so full of hatred towards SONG for her brother's death that she doesn't care.
• Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: The story starts off noticeably quite dark and depressing with several events such as Genjuro's death. After a while though, it shifts back into the usual tone of Symphogear.
• Shadow Archetype: The White Noise Unit are this to the Adaptors:
  • Samantha Acamporra is Hibiki's, being what Hibiki would become if the events Hibiki has gone through would cause her to abandon the idealism she has about the world.
  • Jwa Ji-Eun is Tsubasa's, being how Tsubasa would have turned out if she was made into an avenger rather than protector, raised with nobody in her life but Fudou, and then left to boil in that kind of environment for years.
  • Mwikiza Gowon is Chris', being what Chris would have ended up becoming had she not ended up being saved from the path she was heading towards by working with Finé by Hibiki and Genjuro.
  • Timoty Darmawan is Maria's, whereas Maria wishes to take her weakness and improve herself to become stronger, Darmawan is obsessed with building upon his existing strength.
  • Caprice Calcaterra is Shirabe's, while Shirabe is passionate but relatively reserved, whereas Caprice is outgoing but relatively impassionate.
  • Kir Cheslav Voronin is Kirika's, both of them have issues with their own self-worth, but while Kirika's issue is just a flat out lack of value in her own self-worth, Voronin's problem is that his entire sense of self-worth is tied up in his skills and abilities as a sniper.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • DoubleTheFun, a member of the Supernatural Forums wants to ship all of the Adaptors with one another. In fact, their reaction to Hibiki's confession of her love for Miku is to celebrate wildly.
  • The maids of Tsubasa are trying their hardest to get her and Maria together.
• Shout-Out:
  • There is a NERV VR Headset for sale that was bought by Yumi.
  • The appearance of the Staples are identical to those of the Blackwatch troops.
  • Val Verde appears again.
  • A Four Horsemen base is located in Panau.
  • General Fai is the commander of the Chinese forces in chapter 11.
  • While infiltrating a Horsemen base using Shenshoujing, Miku briefly wonders if she should adopt a eyepatch and bandana.
  • Darmawan's response to Hibiki's surprise at his gauntlets managing to reform after she completely shatters them?
    Darmawan: Nanomachines, girl!
  • There are a series of Omakes done in the style of forum posts talking about the recent events in the story. They are even subtitled as "Totally Not a PHO Interlude".
    • One of the forum members is named Kamen rider 555.
    • Another is named DoubleTheFun.
  • Kirkia, Shirabe, and Elfnein see Cutie Healer: The Simulated Motion Picture Experience while at Fuji-Q Highland.
    • Shirabe and Kirika talk to themselves over the film giving funny comments and observations about it. Elfnein even mentions that their behavior was like that of the show.
  • Qiao Cai shows the Adaptors artwork of them done by visqi Visquick.
  • The Flying Fortress that Miku and Hibiki attack and destroy in Chapter 22 is based on the Aigiaon from Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation.
• Sniper Duel: Chris gets into one with Voronin in chapter 6. She loses.
• Stunned Silence: The reaction of everyone when during a press conference done for the Adaptors after their identities become known, Hibiki admits, without even giving a second thought, that she and Miku are in a relationship to the entire world.
• The Unmasqued World: One of the first things that the Four Horsemen does is reveal/leak the identities of the Adaptors, all of the classified information on relics to the world, and information on the different government involvement and connections in recent events that have occurred over the past couple of years, causing massive PR issues overall.
• Villain Has a Point: Shem-Ha's Assimilation Plot was terrifying for those who were trapped in it (i.e. everyone except for Hibiki and Miku). Chris points out to Hibiki that this shared trauma could cause people to turn against the Adaptors if Sumphonia is revealed to the public. In light of this and the fact that the Four Horsemen know about Sumphonia, the Four Horsemen's actions are understandable.
  Chris: Dummy. You didn’t experience Shem-Ha’s attempt to connect us. It was the most terrifying thing we’ve ever experienced. At that moment, everyone but you and your girlfriend lost everything that made them human - your free will, your emotions, your individuality - and became a part of Shem-Ha’s network. Those kinds of moments leave scars. If people had really thought that we were becoming something like Shem-Ha, then they just might turn against us.
• Wham Line:
  • Chapter 12: Tsubasa is in a base of the Horsemen and finds a laboratory with a very familiar individual in it:
    Tsubasa: Kanade?!
  • Chapter 16: After Hibiki and Miku have have a conversation with Yumi about what has been going on recently with the Horsemen and Yumi leaves Miku asks Hibiki a question that was bothering her during the conversation:
    Miku: Hibiki, has the information we’ve learned about the Horsemen’s organizational structure been made public?
    Hibiki: I don’t think so. I recall Director Ogawa saying that it’s kept classified right now. Something about not wanting the Horsemen to know what we know about them, I think.
    Miku: Then how did Yumi know that the Horsemen’s combat arm is named the White Unit?
  • Chapter 18: Chris talks with Professor Makoto about staying grounded in spite of all of the big changes in her life. She’s careful not to mention what the Horsemen think is happening to her. After Chris leaves, we get this line from the Professor showing that he knows more about what's going on then it appears:
    Professor Makoto: Thank you. Whether sapien or sumphonia, I’m sure you’ll remain human to the end.
  • Chapter 21: Hibiki and Miku have just finished a battle with a Horsemen Airship when they suddenly hear a large explosion behind them:
    Narration: A sullen stillness fell over the two adaptors as the roar faded. Neither really could think of anything to do other than watch as the mushroom cloud grew and solidified in the distance.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The Adaptors, used to fighting Noise and Alca-Noise, have some discomfort dealing with the Staples, due to them being human clones that don't just vanish (into carbonized ash for the Noise and into red-like mist for the Alca-Noise) when they are defeated by their Gears.
• Why Are You Looking at Me Like That?: The Adaptors are trying to figure out how to get Miku to activate her Amalgam when Maria says out loud that maybe her need to protect someone might get it to work. Tsubasa agrees but is wonders who would work, after a moment of thinking everyone turns to Hibiki.
  Hibiki: What? Is there something on my face?
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: One poster on Supernatural Forums has this reaction to learning that The Illuminati are, or rather were, real, and were lead by a demon (while Adam Weishaupt wasn't a demon, he loooked the part well enough).
• You Killed My Father:
  • The identities of the Adaptors being revealed cause major issues for Chris, Maria, Kirika, and Shirabe due to the actions that they took prior to their Heel–Face Turn.
  • This is Samantha Acamporra's reason for joining the Four Horsemen for she holds SONG responsible for the death of her brother.
  • Miku is even attacked by Emily for the belief that Miku killed her father while wearing Shen Shou Jing during the Frontier Incident.

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