Prologue
From the ancient times, we always have a desire for something new, either from us or from others. One of humanity basic instinct is to craft, to invent, to make something that can solve their problem.
From something as simple as a stick plus stone to something as complex as a rocket for space travels, we human always found something to solve our problem.
Following our desire which is insatiable by nature, one question always pop up with this ‘inventions’.
“What will be the next?”
In the year 2016, with more information and new technology appearing everywhere, we began to ask more. The question is asked everywhere, but no one sure about the answer. Some people try to predict it. Maybe it’s the perfect cancer cure? Or maybe mars colonization? Or maybe time travel?
At the end of 2017, a small team of researchers answer the question with two things.
A thing human can only dreams until now, Artificial Human. A living constructs with capability and appearance almost resembling human. The inventors called it ‘Anima’. An Anima needed a personality to function, whether from an A.I. or a human mind.
And the other is something much unexpected. A device with the ability to transforms music to weapons and armors. The device is named ‘Taliesin Armory’ or T.A. based on the god of song itself. T.A.
The invention attracted many country attentions, mainly for military purpose. However, the inventors despise destructions and calamity brought by war. They refuse to spread the invention in fear of wars. But they knew, conflicts are bound to appear, and their invention will soon be a part of it.
So they gathered the leaders of the world. The inventors promised to give all country their inventions with several conditions.
- From this day, all sorts of conflict in form of wars and destruction are banned. Instead, a new form of resolving conflict will be created. A country can create a team consisted of ‘Living Vessel’ or human and equipping them with the ‘Taliesin Armory’ to perform a series of competition with specific rules.
- All country are prohibited to create Anima independently, instead an independent group will be formed to create Anima to sell in specific place at each country. All country is allowed to order a specific Anima to be made.
- All military are to be used only to engage with criminal and world common enemy.
- If should any country did not follow the rule above and other few rules added later. The country will be judged as world enemy and their Anima and T.A. will be confiscated forcefully.
- An Anima is not considered a property and will receive the same treatment as any other human being. Including being able to marry and form family as they have the capabilities to do so.
Surprisingly, almost all country accepted this, especially countries with small military and constant terror from others. The leaders of most country with advanced military are disagreeing at first. But after a long debate and discussion, the entire world agreed to the condition. Shortly after the meeting, all of the country focused to accommodate the new technology. Special cities to conduct ‘Music Battle’ are built. Animas and T.A. are being produced and spread to whole world.
Not until 2019 the changes are made visible. Ten new cities dedicated to the competition are built. One on Australia, Three on America, three on Asia, Two on Europe, and two on Africa, with more coming soon. People start to see the Animas, which are modeled after virtual singer and artist like Vocaloid and UTAUs. Singing now became one of the world focuses. Schools start teaching the art of singing and songwriting as one of their main subjects, lot of applications are sent to the musical department at many campus.
Although conflict still remains, the world has a less destructive way for resolving it.
This is a tale of the age of music.
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Senta City, Japan. January 2019
Senta City, one of the most advanced cities in the world located south of Chiba prefecture on top of an artificial island. The city is built in 2017 to house the ‘Music Battle’. The city is a center for Anima activity and T.A. user.
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The city is not restricted to T.A.s and Animas. It also became a heaven for musician and music lover. The city is flooded with musicians and aspiring idols, T.A. users or not. The music shops are one of the main attractions in the city, from your usual small-time street vendor to a supermarket dedicated to music.
In one of the city small shops, the shopkeeper is in a state of annoyance.
The reason is his customer, which now listening to a music player. The source of the shopkeeper’s annoyance is a big pile of disc and cassettes beside the customer. It all began several minutes ago.
The shopkeeper is doing his daily routine, managing the shop where customer is as rare as ghost. He sighed every time he saw a customer coming only to end up at the megastore across the street. Because there's seems to be no customer coming, He decided to close the store.
Before he leaves his counter to close the store, the store bells rang.
‘Ohh, a customer!’ He quickly walked to greet the customer. When he saw the customer, he became surprised by what he saw. A beauty with long silver hair and heterochromatic eyes, red eye on the left and blue eye on the right. The beauty wore a simple hoodie and jeans.
‘Wow, flat. But she’s sure a treat to the eye.’ The shopkeeper stood still looking at his customer and unconsciously fixing up his shirt “Is there something you need?”
The beauty in front of him looked around the store before handing out a piece of paper to the shopkeeper.
“What’s this? Oh, is this what you’re looking for?” The shopkeeper read the note, which apparently contained a list of albums “Soraru, Mafumafu, Lon… You seem to be a big utaite fans huh. This might take a while, you can wait at the listening station there.”
The beauty nodded and proceeds to the listening station, selecting a cd and booting the music player.
‘She’s sure a shy one heh.’ He walked to the room behind the counter.
A few minutes later..
“Whew, this missy sure is a big spender.” The shopkeeper returned from behind the counter bringing a box full of CDs and cassettes. He put it on the top of the counter and then he went to the listening station.
And that’s how he got to see the amazing scene. A beauty listening music with a calm expression… and a mountain of discs and cassettes beside her.
Before the shopkeeper could say anything, the beauty noticed him and quickly ran to the box, checking it like a children looking at candy.
The shopkeeper sighed and walked to the counter to scanned the disc and cassettes in the box.
“Hah, at least she’s cute, if not I already kicked her out.”
After 10 minute of scanning machine sound, the shopkeeper wrapped the box and sum the total in the cashier machine “That’s all will be 245 muse. Would you like to register for a member card? You get 20% discount for every purchase above 100 muse for only 20 muse a month.”
The beauty nodded and handed out the money. The shopkeeper then pointed to a device with fingerprint on top of it “Please scan your fingerprint there. Then it will automatically create your card.”
The beauty put her thumb on top of the device. Then a card appeared from the device with a mechanical sound.
“Is this all miss?” The beauty nodded and took out a note book, which confuse the shopkeeper, then she showed a page on the note to the shopkeeper.
On the note it said [Thank you very much.]
The shopkeeper smiled and replied “Your welcome, come again!”
The beauty quickly left the store with her box.
“What a nice and cute girl. Too bad I already have a family.” A notification appeared on his cashier machine. “Oh, it’s her profile. Hisoka Kazumi..Student..”
The shopkeeper keeps looking at her profile (Author note: Don’t worry, the registered profile doesn’t show personal information beside the usual stuff.) until he saw something that change his expression.
“Gender…Male?!”