User blog:Seieireppa/God Eater:Universitas, chapter 48: On the Edge of War

The time had come.

The anti-Feldman task force, made up of the world’s—and time itself’s—strongest God Eaters who had been gathered for the purpose of killing Isaac Feldman, former branch director of Fenrir’s Far East Branch who now sought to crush the world under his might, had all made it to the Horizon. Beyond time and space, they had gained power that defied the concept of power itself, now standing on the precipice of action, prepared to chase Feldman across time to end his life.

But it wasn’t going to be easy. Feldman now had reached the Horizon for a second time, and he now possessed powers that eclipsed their own. Only by uniting their strength and working together would they be able to fight on even footing with Feldman… but that was something the members of the task force were more than capable of doing.

The thirteen members of the task force—Sigma, Nanako, Idenn, Blake, Jack, Ken, Baluar, Beoblade, Nia, Kaitlin, C, Arthur, and Lyrr—had spent the last three weeks steeped in training session after trainings session. Sigma had come up with training regimens for each member of the task force that highlighted the deficiencies in their Horizon powers, focusing on covering for them through individual tactics as well as pairing with other members whose powers complemented them.

Sigma, for example, possessed the supposedly almighty ability of time erasure, but Feldman had shown himself during the last battle to have come up with a countermeasure, being able to move within the erased time. For this reason, he paired himself up with Blake and Jack, whose Horizon abilities were that of rewinding time. Using their abilities in concert with each other should compensate for Feldman being able to counter Sigma’s directly.

Arthur’s ability was the ability to call upon the knowledge and energy of all his selves across infinite universes. He could convert their Oracle reserves into his own, functionally giving himself unlimited energy. For someone like Bal and Nia, whose shared ability functioned as a connected beam of Oracle energy, Arthur would be able to power up their joint attack to a limitless degree by sharing his power with them, vastly increasing their combat potential.

Ken was an odd case, however. He possessed the ability to time leap, to jump back in time himself without actually rewinding time. This would result in a branching timeline where the events would change based on Ken’s actions post-leap, while events in the time from which Ken jumped would remain the same. To functionally make this ability battle-ready, Sigma had him pair up with Nanako, whose ability, gained from her alternate-universe self, was the ability to move events from one timeline onto another. This would allow Ken to affect events in another universe, then have Nanako “transplant” them onto the main timeline. It would take some practice, but with this, they should be able to gain an insurmountable edge against Feldman.

However…

“What do you mean, you ‘can’t do it?’”

Ken’s words rang out across the training hall. Presently, he and Nanako were attempting to test the combination of their abilities, with Ken time-leaping and damaging the training dummy in the past before Nanako “moved” that event onto their main timeline. However, no matter how much they tried, Nanako couldn’t get her ability to work.

“Like I’ve said,” she answered, “I can’t do it. I can’t affect events across world lines.”

Ken stamped his foot. “Then what’s even the point?! How are we going to be able to fight Feldman if you can’t use your ability when it matters?”

“Calm DOWN, Ken,” came Nanako’s words. “Remember what I told you all earlier? I was told by myself from the other universe that I’d ‘know when the time is right to use it.’  It looks like I can’t just use it whenever I want… so lay off.”

Ken scoffed, turning away. “Fine… just explain it to Sigma so he can come up with an alternate training regimen, or something.”

“Ken.”  Nanako’s words rang out simple and clear. “Just listen to me. You might have that Horizon ability that you can use freely, unlike me… but I still have way more fighting experience than you. We all have our shortcomings—all of us—so instead of putting me down because I can’t use my ability at will, you should be working with me to find a way to compensate for that… something that should be my focus as well. It’s what Sigma would want, and you know that.”

Ken glared at the floor. “As much as I hate to admit it…” he began, kicking his feet, “…you’re right. I need to focus on how to better myself and our teamwork instead of bickering about who can do what. Sorry, Nanako.”

“It’s no trouble,” came Nanako’s cheerful reply. “Now, where were we…?”

Far up above the training room, Sigma sat in the lounge, pondering to himself the events to come. With everyone training as planned, the task force should be able to double its combat potential by the time Feldman returned once more. However, he was still concerned about Nanako. He knew that her power was different, that it affected events on a far wider scale than others’ did. He also knew that there were certain limitations on its use—she likely wouldn’t be able to call on it at will.

Chances were that she would be discovering this right about now as well. Sigma knew that he had to come up with countermeasures in case it came down to it… but in that moment, a new thought struck him.

It began as a simple curiosity at first, a mere “what-if” question to himself, the answer to which he rolled over in his head.

What if Feldman did triumph in the end?

What if the task force failed, and Feldman achieved his end goal?

Knowing the answer to this question, Sigma thought, would grant him the ability to formulate a long-term counter-plan to deal with the effects of Feldman’s actions in case the worst did happen.

So, to this end… Sigma decided to take action.

Standing up, Sigma stretched out his hand and clenched his fist. Before him, suspended in midair, a portal opened up, a jagged vortex that split apart time and space to lead to parts unknown.

“I’m just going to take a look,” Sigma mused to himself. “I shouldn’t be gone too long…”

And as he stepped through, the portal closed—

—and Sigma had vanished.

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