The Global Defence Bureau against Distortions. Also commonly referred to as GDAD is a global defence initiative formed by a coalition of various nations. Formed during the late 19th century as a response to new extraterrestrial life suddenly appearing on earth or as we call it today, Distortions.
Furthermore, thanks to the ongoing partnership with "Technology of Combined Arms", it has become significantly easier to interlink and respond to a tear in reality. In spite of new technological advances, the entropy of tears opening hasn't changed.
Most commonly located around large metropolitan cities their buildings are easily distinguishable by unique blends homaging to past architectural design, culture, gods and unique energy resonance antennas stretching far up into the clouds.
Likewise, Tokyo's headquarters dubbed "Inari" preserved traditional Japanese woodwork along its windows on each floor while incorporating sleek and modern designs of a compact corporate building.
"Greetings." Ayanami said.
"Good day, what's your reason to enter the headquarters today ma'am?" Guarding the front entrance, stood a tall armed officer holding a rifled weapon.
"I'm here for a business meeting today, my name is Shinano Ayanami." While explaining her reasoning, she handed both her identification and appropriate paperwork to the guard.
After a few minutes of proofreading and verifying her identity, he promptly forwarded the information through his radio towards the front desk to which they gave her a green light.
"Alright, you are free to enter. Who is the child behind you?"
"..?.." Standing behind her mom. Yumi seemed somewhat disinterested in interacting with him. Mostly, due in part to being stuck in a minor food coma. Yumi's mind craved Gyoza.
"She's my daughter. Her name is Shinano Yukihime." Hearing her words, his somewhat tensed expressions seized and instead softened.
"Understood. Welcome to the headquarters, Inari." Opening the door for the pair, they walked through without any further difficulty.
Making their way inside, the interior was made of various contrasting materials and decorations. The floor was composed of specialised anti-blast alloy whilst the ceiling had a unique chiselled marble pattern alongside large hanging chandeliers.
Furthermore, the walls were filled with paintings of past and present Stabilisers that had been inducted into the hall of fame.
"Oh my goodness, that is Amaterasu! And Susano as well! Oh! Thor and Loki! Wow! Aphrodite is stunning!" Her eyes were peeled to each unique frame. Every stroke from the painter told a story about their times in history, their eyes detailed to perfection showcasing their emotion and essence as deities.
Although she had already seen those paintings a dozen times over her career, Yumi's mom still smiled as she herself hoped that Yumi would one day end up inducted during her lifetime.
"Do you wish to end up there in the future dear?" She asked Yumi.
"Yeah! And then I will be remembered throughout all ages!! Just like them..!" Laughing whilst enjoying the moment, Yumi and her mom walked through the large hallway, all while chatting away admiring everything until they eventually took an elevator and reached the 3rd floor meeting room.
Gently knocking on the door, it was followed by a moment of silence before being reciprocated by the permission to enter. Answering the call, she opened the door and in front stood three familiar acquaintances.
"Hello everyone, it's been a while!" Greeting her former colleagues politely, Yumi was standing beside her watching and bowing.
"O-o-oh! Hey Ayanami-san! Long time no see!" In front to her left, a relatively short man stood wearing white cargo pants and an oversized short-sleeved turquoise shirt waving back. His lanky build, messy green hair and large grey oval eyes coupled with round shaped glasses his already soft face further.
"Long time no see Aoto-kun. I hope you had a good time in Greece."
"Haha, it was f-fun!" Reciprocating Aoto's innocent smile, Aynami eyes peered right next.
"..It's been a minute, Ayanami-san." To Aoto's right, a middle aged man stood with parted smooth dark brown hair, a moustache and beard. Towering over Aoto, he held a cigarette while tapping his foot on the floor, his sharp black eyes with red veins were an indication of stress compared to the others.
Compared to a few years earlier, he appeared noticeably slimmed down. This was most telling by his incredibly sharp jawline and slim nose.
"It has, Xiaodan. I pray you haven't been too hard on yourself lately." Xiaodan barely gave an answer back, instead just nodding faintly in acknowledgement.
Whilst everyone continued exchanging small talk and handshakes, one of Aynami's female colleagues slowly waltzed up to Yumi and greeted her.
Her hair was silky dark blue, eyes warm orange with long black eyelashes, and on her shoulder was a sigil representing the Sun's Cornerstone. She stood half a head shorter than Ayanami wearing a simple black dress and bamboo straw hat.
"Hello! Are you perhaps my dear friend's daughter?" Reaching her medium sized hand out, she gently shook Yumi's hand so as to not intimidate her. Despite her hand appearing brittled with small scars all over, they felt both soft and inviting.
"Ah, Y-yes.. Nice to meet you." With nerves getting the better of her, Yumi hid a portion of her round face behind bangs.
"My name is Hisano Yoko. You can call me Yoko-san! What's yours miss?" Crouching down to Yumi's head height, Yoko tried to ease her tension with a warm reassuring smile.
"Shinano Yukihime.." Flustered, she didn't seem to be budging at all. Luckily for Yoko, she had a perfect plan in mind.
"You have a pretty name princess-chan! Do you wanna come check out some cool technology in development that helps us track Distortions, Entropies and Stabilizers?"
Winking at her softly while pointing at an unassuming door, she was informed early that Aynami was bringing her daughter alongside, who happened to be interested in Stabilizers and Tears in reality.
"..Really?" Slightly bringing her face out of her platinum hair, Yumi's tension seemed to have eased slightly while her curiosity was continuously mounting.
"Mhm! Grab my hand and I'll show you!"
"..Oh Okay!" Happily wrapping her small arms around Yoko's, both made their way out the door together. During which, Yoko kept telling Yumi about her own travels.
"Yoko-san never changes huh?"
"Pfft, yeah. A-always the same, haha."
With Yumi taken out of the room, Ayanami and her friends could at last begin their discussion. Gathering around a hand crafted wooden round table that had glass panelling at the top, it showed a map of the current world. On top of the glass, were small pentagonal arrow pieces made of wood with names ingrained. In Japan, a piece with the Sun's Cornerstone name was laid.
Likewise, in the USA, the Technological Unification of Combined Arms stood. And in Europe, Ruler of Olympus. Furthermore, there were several scattered pieces of "Miracle Constellation" throughout the world with no specified location having a concentrated zone. Lastly, on the Pan-Pacific continent, A. Terra, Amaterasu's name stood signifying her current whereabouts.
"First of all, let's start by getting this out of the way." Breaking the silence and speaking first was Xiaodan's deep stern voice.
"I assume everyone here is aware of Amaterasu's increase in activity lately. I mean, let's be real. A 10.0 combat rating throughout the year is suicidal, especially considering the era we're currently in."
"I agree, does anyone here have a theory as to why she's exerting herself so hard?" Whilst talking, Aoto put down a tablet showcasing Amaterasu's average combat report numbers.
Raising her hand, Ayanami seemed to have theorised a possible explanation of the activity.
"She might be preparing for something big. Although tears in reality haven't appeared as often compared to preceding decades, one thing has remained constant every time one has broken our sky." Opening her suitcase, she pulled out research papers from various different sources compiled into statistics.
"This is..!?" Both Aoto and Xiaodan said in unison.
"As you can see, the energy yield at impact has steadily increased, which has resulted in more devastation in initial blast zones. In addition, the strength of distortions has rapidly grown stronger throughout this current decade." Grabbing the first paper in hand, she put it forth on the table rather aggressively.
"Here's a chart comparing the 1990's and 2000's."
"Although Tears in Reality opened more frequently before now, each distortion was weaker in strength, by quite a lot actually. The average distortion registered during that time period was between Category 2-4."
Shuffling through the array, she put down another paper compiling the statistics of the 2010's so far.
"Compared to today, the average distortion at MINIMUM is a registered Category 5.
At the concurrent pace we're going at. By 2019, there might be a possibility of Category 9's becoming the standard.
"The media might not be showing it, but Stabilizers are struggling more than usual. Soon they might start dropping like flies forcing us old people out of retirement, which would mean that we'd all need to activate our Singularity and reignite our Mana valves to full combat readiness. Which will and can cause real health complications.."
"My god.." Aoto took a step back, almost bringing himself to both knees. He held onto the table's edge with pure goosebumps.
"Damn.." Xiaodan wasn't better, his tapping had reached a point where it halted abruptly.
Shocked by the revelation, everyone went quiet for a minute trying to regather their thoughts and composure. The silence was deafening to the point where they could hear their own heartbeats with Yumi and Yoko talking in the operations room next door.
Eventually it was sliced strongly by Aoto.
"How many active Stabilizers do we currently have who exceed an overall Combat Rating of 5?"
"Around 700, give or take."
"Of them, what about 7, nearing 8?" The power curve between so much as a few decimals between each individual integer bare great leaps in combat and ability prowess.
"Excluding projected talents/prodigies that are still too young and in school. That'd be the super rookie Hotaru, Siberias Mikoya and maybe a few humans from 'Miracle Constillation'." Therefore, it is considered exponential, not linear.
"And how many of those exceed 8 or 9?" Staring at one another, everyone in the room knew only one active Stabilizer that exceeded 8-9.
"A-a-Amaterasu Hiroku.." "..Amaterasu Hiroku." "Amaterasu Hiroku!!"
"...AUGH!!! Seriously!? Fuck this shit! This world has gone too shit" Furious, Xiaodan stormed outside with rumbling steps. With only Ayanami and Aoto left in the meeting room and collectively understanding the gravity of such a possible future, they let out a sigh of deep disappointment.
Curious whether or not the government had been informed yet he decided to ask her.
"Does the government know yet?"
"No, and unfortunately I doubt they would reveal it to the masses either so as to not cause any unwanted panic in this so-called 'peaceful' era. They're really stubborn about changing their ways after all. Curse those old farts still clinging onto the old economic boom..!" Ayanami explained with a heavy heart.
"A-a-and that's why they're still relying on Amaterasu so heavily for the dirty work. How disappointing really." Sliding a chair from under the table, Aoto sat down deflated. Following his demeanour, Ayanami stood in place, holding her head down slightly.
"I agree, Aoto-kun. Not to mention the worst side-effects a tear in reality brings.." Aoto's glance turned towards Ayanami. Likewise, hers turned towards him as well.
"Mana decay." They both said in unison.
"A form of thread cancer that eats away at your mana cells and destroys your cellular energy circuit, leaving you unable to ever use a valve again. Usually formed when an individual is present during the initial blast zone of a reality tear." His hands began shaking with goosebumps visibly showing around his arms.
"Or similarly, when somebody is exposed and overloaded with a large amount of condensed energy close to the host." Ayanami's expression turned grim, memories came flooding back, witnessing civilians affected by the widely considered incurable-disease.
"Eventually the entropic energy can't sustain itself anymore, completely collapsing within the host's body, resulting in death." Sitting with her arms crossed besides Aoto, Ayanami could only pour her heart out.
"I shouldn't have retired too early if the world could turn out this way.. Now my child might bear our burdens leftover." Ayanami bit her lip hard, to the point her red lips almost began bleeding.
Feeling her heavy regrets, Aoto put a hand on her shoulder in solidarity.
Just then, the door leading to the operations room slammed open. It was so loud even the table rattled momentarily.
"Whaaaam! The legends arrive!" Walking out was Yoko carrying Yumi on her left arm. Yumi herself was holding onto an unknown piece of equipment that was somehow able to display holographic information.
"We are back, mom!"
"Oh? Where'd Xiaodan-kun go? And what's with the darkened atmosphere?" Yoko peered around, sensing both their depressed demeanours, she most likely realised what topic they had been discussing.
"Mom! Look at this! It is still in an experimental phase, but it can display almost anything! Also the device is small enough to fit onto my palm!" Flaunting the device in front of everyone. They all couldn't help but to laugh together with her.
"Hahaha, shall we take a break Aoto-kun?"
"Hehe. Y-y-yeah, I think it's best for us." With the mood mildly brightened, the pair began sorting the scattered research papers back together into her suitcase before heading towards Yoko and Yumi.