A story of songs and siblings.note Art by Rei
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."The light of a Symphogear cuts through even the darkest evil, but the power of sibling love makes it go further beyond."
Symphogear X2 is a Symphogear fanfiction by EpicLinkSam. It's a retelling of the canon show, but with a bit of a twist; Hibiki, Tsubasa and Chris all have twin sisters based on their parallel selves from Symphogear XDU. The addition of their siblings causes a few twists and turns for the story, diverging the path from the canon story we all know.
The story can be found on Archive of Our Own and FanFiction.net, though Archive of Our Own is the definitive version of the story.
The author also tends to commission art for the story, and all art pieces can be found here.
Symphogear X2 provides examples of:
- Actor Allusion:
- Akira doing a Momotaros impression. Both characters are voiced by Toshihiko Seki.
- Maia sings "Kindan no Resistance" in the first Lost Song chapter. Parallel Tsubasa (who was Maia's base) is voiced by Nana Mizuki, who also voiced Ange.
- Adaptational Angst Downgrade: Thanks to the presence of their twin sisters supporting them, Hibiki, Tsubasa and Chris are mentally much happier.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Akira Tachibana (Hibiki and Rui's father). In canon, he abandoned the family out of cowardice from the harassment after the concert, and was said to have verbally lashed out at them due to the circumstances. The family abuse doesn't happen here thanks to Rui supporting her father. However, Rui falling into a coma that the doctors believed she'd never wake up from was the catalyst for him leaving the family out of despair. The rest of the family didn't blame him, as they knew how close he and Rui were. When he does come back, he's on better terms with Hibiki, and acknowledges that it was his own choice to leave, emphasizing how it wasn't Rui's fault.
- Adaptation Distillation: Combined with Mythology Gag, instead of faking their deaths after stopping the chunk of the Moon, Hibiki, Tsubasa and Chris return not long after, which is what the mobile game, Symphogear XDU did with the story.
- Adaptation Expansion: There are multiple original scenes added thanks to the presence of the Twins, as most of the story is from their point of view. For example, while Hibiki and Tsubasa first fight Chris, Rui takes the time to hang out with Miku and see the meteor shower, since Hibiki wasn't able to make it.
- Cerebus Call-Back: All the comedic moments involving Rui with her love for Kamen Rider become this once she's revived as a cyborg much like a Showa-era Kamen Rider. Unlike the actual shows, Rui is unable to accept the fact she isn't human anymore, and actively seeks to become normal again.
- Content Warnings: Certain chapters have these, whenever they delve into relatively darker content compared to the original canon.
- Contrived Coincidence: Maia points out how there are three sets of twins where one of the sisters are a Symphogear-user. Rui then adds that it "feels like some really crappy fanfiction."
- Deconstruction: Rui's arc during Lost Song is one to Showa Kamen Riders and their conversions from human to cyborgs. TEC had put Rui under this process in order to save her life, but instead of springing into action like always, she is utterly broken by the revelation. She hates her new body and wants to be normal again, unable to move on from her loss.
- Disabled in the Adaptation: Jeanne shoots out Ver's left eye in the climax of the G arc.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Maia's the foolish sibling to Tsubasa's responsible sibling. Hibiki and Rui also have shades of this.
- In Spite of a Nail: The fic tends to use The Stations of the Canon for several events.
- While her presence does help this greatly, Maia leaving the Kazanari household from Fudou's abuse meant Tsubasa would still have a terrible upbringing. Even after coming back, their relationship wasn't completely healed without Kanade's presence, and her death still causes Tsubasa's colder personality earlier on in Season 1.
- Akira still leaves the Tachibana family, despite Rui's support. In fact, her coma (and diagnosed eventual death) is what caused him to leave this time.
- Rui grabs Maria's Gungnir to finish the fight, essentially giving Sector Two the possession of the relic. Unfortunately, her new Relic Battle Mode ends up causing her to become damaged from the feedback from Gungnir, letting Kirika snatch it back.
- Interrupted Suicide: A flashback reveals that a few days after Kanade died, Tsubasa tried to hang herself out of Survivor's Guilt. Maia walked in before Tsubasa could put the noose around her neck and promptly tackled her sister to the ground, then gave her a You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech, encouraging her to live on for Kanade's sake.
- Lost Food Grievance: Maia tries to finish a sandwich while going to respond to an alert. Unfortunately for her, she ends up dropping it on the floor after bumping into Maria and the older Kazanari becomes crestfallen. Maria was forced to drag Maia along lest she continues to mourn the loss of her meal.
- My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad: Rui, Maia and Chris occasionally argue on who has the best younger twin. Said younger twins find this exhausting.
- My Fist Forgives You: After Shuri catches up with Chris and Tsubasa, Shuri slugs the former in response to Chris running off on her own to take Solomon's Cane from Dr. Ver. All with a smile on her face. Later on, Maia follows up by tugging on Chris' sideburns for shooting Tsubasa in the back and to get back at her for doing the same thing earlier. Chris, Shuri, and Maia assume that Rui will top it off with a right hook of her own but much to Chris' relief she ends up hugging her and asking that she doesn't pull a stunt like that again.Maia: Aww, I was betting on a punch.
Shuri: Maia-san, please. - Named by the Adaptation: Hibiki's unnamed mother in canon gets the first name Asuna.
- One-Steve Limit: An interesting variation. Tsubasa tends to go on a Last-Name Basis for her friends, but this ends up becoming an issue since the Tachibana and Yukine twins share last names. As such, she has to call Rui and Shuri by their first names in order to differentiate them.
- Orwellian Retcon: The initial draft of the story had an additional character in the form of Masato Jin. He was removed from the story once the chapters were transported to AO3.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: Several scenes where the Twins or any other new characters have little-to-no impact on are entirely cut. For example, Hibiki and Tsubasa's first fight with Chris is completely cut out to an Offscreen Moment of Awesome.
- Promoted Fangirl: In-Universe example. While she will never admit it, Rui loves how she gets to be a Henshin Hero.
- Story Arc: The main 5 original arcs from Symphogear, but also the inclusion of "Lost Song", which takes place between GX and AXZ, loosely adapted from one of the stories from XDU.
- World of Snark: Chris and Shirabe as per canon, but Rui and Maia bump it up to eleven.
