CTF arrive back in XDU, where Genjuro totally wasn't waiting for them, and hand over Shenshoujing to Elfnein, who confirms she can actually fix it. Once fixed, Miku's brought to the sim and given a shot of LiNKER. She has the same feelings as her previous Wielder escapade of SAVE HIBIKI with less yandere feedback loops; she transforms unexpectedly easily. SimNoise give way to Chris going easy on her as a test given she'll be facing Karma-Noise, before getting officially registered as a temporary wielder with a warning to not be reckless.
Miku heads through to the Edgeverse, and Chris explains how it's all the small things being off that shows a parallel world in a futile attempt to be called Senpai before they get hurried to 2div. Who have an urgent message from Nagatacho about a complete relic there that's playing up; the Karma's being prioritised. Miku's suprised at how Gen and Basa are basically identical. A Noise alert sounds; good timing for Miku, because she's eager to save the Edgebikki that'll be there. She actually gets a 'sure' out of Edgebikki before running off to pursue her. In any case the Karma-Noise arrives; Miku gets elbowed out of the way by Edgebikki after getting too close to the Karma. Unfortunately, they run out of time again, and Edgebikki runs off without a word.
Later, Miku's come to the conclusion that the elbow was Edgebikki trying to protect her. She resolves to talk to her while 2div discusses countermeasures for the Karma-Noise. Exposition explains why they can't use Ignite(Karma curse) or S2CA(it relies on Bikki), leaving them with only teamwork as an option, so they resolve to train with this world's Tsubasa. She's a lot less optimistic at working with Edgebikki than CTF, and clearly doesn't quite consider Edgebikki worthy; CTF are just relying on Miku.
Speaking of her, she seems to have come across Edgebikki training; Edgebikki goes "Why do you keep showing up and who do you think you are", so Miku exposits and gets a 'Go away' for her efforts. Miku thanks her for protecting her, but Edgebikki insists that wasn't her intention; Edgebikki retreats; she considers her having helped Miku impossible because she doesn't help people because no one helps her. She proceeds to deny that she's feeling bad about brushing off Miku's thanks before Noise sound.
At the safehouse, CTF don't think Edgebikki will cooperate yet, but Miku thinks she was baiting the Noise away from damaging stuff; that she's subconsciously still Hibiki Tachibana; CTF are still skeptical, but they'll respect Miku's judgement. The next day, Genjuro, to Chris's shock, has managed to get the simulator to do Karma-Noise. As his movie obsession is sci-fi instead of kung-fu, he's an outright inventor and generally good with tech. Incidentally, Kanade's one is into mystery; Maria's just realised that Genjuro runs entirely on movies. CTF think the Sim-karma is too weak, while Basa and Miku are trying to one-up eachother in weaknesses; they're stuck with getting Edgebikki to cooperate. Miku heads out for more Bikki-wrangling, while Tsubasa wants to face off against Ignite.
Back with Bikki-wrangling, Miku requests to work together with Edgebikki. Bikki tells her to
make her and transforms; she'll only cooperate if forced to. She proclaims that her fists will do a lot more than hurt if they hit, and Miku insists that her fists aren't made for hurting people; this gets Miku slapped away; meanwhile, two Karma-Noise have no showed. One's populated, which CTF and Basa are dealing with....but the other has showed up near Edgebikki and Miku. The attempt by Miku to get Edgebikki to run fails, so she instead transforms too. Edgebikki, due to her negative emotions getting hit by the curse, isn't doing so well, but charges despite that; there's a kid around, so Miku gets the kid out of there. Once back, Miku effortlessly matches Edgebikki's movements to Bikki's shock.
Meanwhile, the other team is struggling, and Basa asks them to stall it. She's Superb Songing, and collapses once the Karma vanishes; the earth promptly starts shaking.
Naturally, we cut to how Edgebikki is finding Miku's synergy with her much easier than her normal fights. It's jogged her memory about
her Miku. They continue to stay in sync until Miku reiterates that she'll help Hibiki. They cut to the signal at the Memory Ruins surging as a Relic bursts out of the ground in front of CTF: Goliath, a purple thing with a 'Zillaish build. It's even stronger than the Karma, and is stomping CTF; they'd like to have a word with whoever stored something that dangerous down there. It then suddenly dissapears as we cut to Edgebikki getting triggered by Miku's words; having recieved no help, she becomes overwhelmed by negative emotions and goes berserk....
....then
absorbs the Karma-Noise. Miku begs her to come to her senses as XDU's Bikki suddenly has a relapse in her world. Miku's words aren't doing a thing as she gets punched, and trying to exhaust or neutralise her just gets the beams dodged. Eventually, though, Edgebikki stops for a moment, and Miku KOs her.
At HQ, Tsubasa's alive but down for the forseeable future; Goliath gets explained as David's one that the US had tasked Japan to research, only recently moved to the Memory Ruins. It seems that the battle's Phonic Gain caused it to awaken, more specifically Tsubasa's Zesshou. They now have Goliath to deal with too; it's active during day but sleeps at night, as in legend. While it goes underground when not in battle, they'll try to exploit that. Meanwhile, Egebikki had no lasting injuries, but has already GTFOd. Finally 2div looked up the local Miku, who never went to Lydian due to her parent moving; they haven't contacted her because she might not remember Bikki and aren't sure dragging her into this is a good idea. Miku, however doesn't think she'd forget about Hibiki, so 2div will just keep an eye on her for now. The SONG gears train; they discuss AltMiku, and Miku wants Hibiki to understand she isn't alone.
While on standby and looking for food, Miku runs into Edgebikki helping an old lady, which Miku considers another sign that the Bikkis are the same at core. Edgebikki justifies it as the lady being in everyone's way otherwise, but Noise promptly gank the old lady, sending Edgebikki into a rage as the other Gears arrive. Noise dead, Bikki drops to the ground in despair...as the old lady turns out
not to be ganked, having been moved away by someone else. Edgebikki's feeling
extremely confused at feeling good for helping people.
A few days later, nothing significant has happened, and Maria wonders if there's a Goliath in XDU as well, and if they can locate the hibernating Goliath; Miku speculates Goliath caused the Gjallarhorn alert. They can't really leave things alone yet, though they think XDUbikki might be better by now and the alert might be dying down if it was Karma?
We promptly look back into XDU to reveal constant Noise attacks, the alert getting stronger, and Bikki still down...
TO BE CONTINUED...
