2026-03-14: Chordioid
- Cutscene: Chordioid
- Cast: Tamaki Uchida, Umie Akabane
- Where: Aoba Ward, Sumaru City
- OOC Date: 2026-03-14
- IC Date: 2012-10-08
- Summary: Tamaki returns home after her excursion with Umie to Kazusa's Atelier, the Neo-Lunar Palace. She reminisces about who exactly served as inspiration behind her contributions to their prepared vessel and recounts what she had told her of chord theory.
(BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPAuO6fFV1A [糸奇はな] わすれられぬ歌/UNREMEMBERABLE SONG - Itoki Hana)
Earlier in the night, Tamaki had gone on an excursion to Kazusa’s Atelier, alongside Umie. Once Tamaki had returned to her small studio apartment in Aoba Ward and unpacked her things from her sports bag – her practice sabre, a few snacks and water bottles, first aid kits, a moonstone pin, a feather-covered scarf – she let her attention linger on one before she placed it on her bedside table: a small figurine.
The figurine is a miniature recreation of the vessel they made. It depicts a six-winged humanoid songbird – a robin, specifically. A halo floats above her head, and she’s dressed in orange-and-black bardic garb. She chirps out songs while she wields a harp and attacks by plucking its strings to send holy arrows towards her targets.
Her name’s Aeolia.
(So named for the Aeolian mode in Aristoxenian tradition. In modern tradition, the natural minor scale; the white keys on a piano played in the sequence of A - B - C - D - E - F - G.)
Tamaki and Umie made her together through a collaborative effort. Tamaki knows that she shouldn’t only see her own contributions to the project; Umie provided just as much as she had. Despite that, both in their vessel’s angelic form and role as a musician, Tamaki starkly sees the visage of someone from the past.
Reiko Akanezawa, member of Karukozaka High School’s Music Club.
On occasions such as tonight, Tamaki thinks that she hears Reiko’s echo persist throughout today. Logically, she knows that that’s impossible. It is an illusion: she hears the void left in her absence; implied, but nonexistent.
A chordioid, as she would have called her own absence, Tamaki thought to herself. Fragmentary voicing.
A chordioid is a chord which does not technically qualify as a chord for a given chord theory. They may exist in sheet music and practical play, but they do not have an associated chord symbol.
For example, take the C major seventh chord – 'Cmaj7' in chord notation – and use it as a base. In full, it consists of four notes: the root, major third, perfect fifth, and major seventh: C - E - G - B.
Sometimes compositions use this chord as a base, but omit a note. Jazz chord theory often omits the perfect fifth from Cmaj7 – the G – resulting in C - E - B. Its loss does not significantly alter how the chord sounds, and its omission 'trims the dead weight,' so to speak.
Drop the major third instead – the E, for C - G - B – and its quality noticeably changes to the ear.
In either case, the base chord – the full Cmaj7 chord – is only implied, despite the missing notes.
Tamaki narrowed her eyes at the figurine in suspicion. Its existence seemed to taunt her. It spoke of a potentially fatal mistake.
It’s leaking out. Especially in Sumaru City, it’s dangerous to let other people know about what transpired at Karukozaka High School. Rumors need a foothold in the first place for their transformative power to take root.
If she does not say anything on the matter, as long as she lets the past remain buried and preserved, outside of the reach of public consciousness, then the truth remains safe. It is hers, and hers alone.
Even so, why does she insist on providing other people with hints of it? Is there not some truth to what Jun Kashihara had said about his memories of Tatsuya Suou, "the dream must remain a dream"?
EARLIER THAT NIGHT
Neo-Lunar Tower, Corridor Before the Manifest Gallery
Tamaki gives the disc with their angelic bard a glance, then looks back up at Umie. "Do you ... think it's still possible to sense where someone went after a cognitive space collapsed around them?"
Umie's lips open with a sympathetic sound, especially at the last bit. "... So I take it... there's someone you're looking for."
Tamaki nods to confirm Umie's guess. "Yeah. Uh. You know how Miho Ijuuin vowed to search for Yua Ijuuin? And actually found her?"
She briefly pauses, then preemptively protests as a breathlessly quick aside, "I keep up with watching sabre fencing in the Olympics."
"I have a friend who didn't make it out."
Oh, thought Umie. Tamaki means... her friend. "... If you ever need my skills, Uchida-san..." she solemnly begins, "all you ever need to do is ask. Especially if it's to find someone."
"... But there is another way." Umie points to herself. "The people you get to know."
"Anyway. You have people who can, and will help you."
NOW
Why had Tamaki said anything to Umie at all? Why did she risk unsealing the truth, thus exposing it to danger?
She had managed fine so far. The chordioid functions perfectly in the melody of this world, even with Reiko and Ideo absent from their parent chord. It was enough to know their continued existence is implied, frozen in some eternal coda, neither confirmed dead nor alive. To want more would be greedy.
No. You know that isn’t good enough.
She wanted to practice what she had preached. She now found herself in the same predicament that she and Umie had put Suou-kun in, insisting that he doesn’t need to handle this alone, that they’re there and willing to help.
From this position, she could see how well-meaning others are and taste how bitter their offers to assist must have been. They do not know what they do. While she had been frustrated that her offers to help other people had been rejected, she now saw what they did: she saw just how tempting it was to push everyone else away.
As she readied for bed, with one last look in the bathroom mirror, Tamaki exhaled a weary sigh. She stared back at her own reflection and steeled her resolve again.
I don’t know how, but Kashihara-kun managed to do it. He managed to strike the right balance.
One day, so will she.