User blog:Seieireppa/God Eater ∑: The Maxim of Possibility, Final Chapter

Nanako’s body was suffused with a gentle light as she rose into the air. From her back and arms, countless blades of varying sizes emerged, forming into one large rotating ring behind her back and multiple rings around her arms.

She could feel the bandages around her dead eye come undone. As they loosened their grip around Nanako’s head, the eye she thought was gone instead shone forth with a brilliant beam of energy that punched through the walls of the Gehenna’s body as it let forth a deafening sound.


 * Close your eyes…


 * Nanako, can you hear me?

Sigma’s voice echoed in Nanako’s head.


 * Yeah, I can hear you loud and clear.


 * Good.  We’ll need to use those blades to stabilize the vortex.  Focus your will on the center of the vortex and let loose with all your power!

Nanako did as instructed, focusing all her power on the vortex before her. As if responding to her will, the blades circling around her halted their movement and shot outwards, changing directions mid-air and impaling themselves through the vortex’s whirling walls. Little by little, the raging torrent of temporal energy ground to a halt, appearing as though it were a frozen whirlpool.

All of a sudden, however, Nanako and the rest of the members of the joint task force who were present found themselves buffeted by an immense shockwave front. The vortex, having halted, was releasing en masse the energy that now had nowhere to go.


 * Sigma, what’s going on?


 * The timelines are beginning to come undone!  With nowhere to go, all of these futures are turning outwards and releasing all their potential energy at once!  We have to act fast!


 * Okay, so what do I do?


 * You have to find the courage to face your future, and the futures of everyone here, head-on.  Gaze into the vortex, brace yourself against the energy of the frozen timelines…


 * …and OPEN YOUR EYES!

Nanako steeled herself and slowly lifted her eyelids. In response, the beam of energy blasted out once more, aiming directly at the center of the frozen vortex.

What happened next could only be described as someone pressing the rewind button on a remote. As more and more energy from Nanako’s eye poured into the vortex, it began to spin in reverse, pulling the formerly outflowing timelines back inwards.


 * What’s going on…?


 * The energy from your eye is forcing the Gehenna to reset itself.  It’ll rewind itself, and all the futures it brought about as a result of its actions, to a zero point!


 * And that means…?


 * The future is being undone, Nanako!  Keep it up and this timeline will be restored to its rightful state—

—but Nanako couldn’t keep it up. Little by little she could feel her eye giving out, the energy output gradually fading until it stopped entirely.

Without the energy influx, the vortex grumbled and began to spin in its initial direction once more, shattering the blades holding it in place…

…but Nanako had come too far to let their mission end in vain.

She steeled herself again and began to walk forward.

“Nanako, what are you doing?” came Croswell’s worried yell.

Nanako glanced over her shoulder. “I’m setting things right,” she replied. “Croswell, Natalia, Baluar, Beo… and Sasha and Lyrr as well… I’m sorry, and goodbye.”

And with that, she turned around and walked into the whirling portal before her, her body consumed by a blinding brilliance which expanded outwards, swallowing everything——


 * MAY 15TH, 2074

“So you’re really leaving us, then?”

A voice came from behind Nanako as she stepped onto the extended bridge that led onto the boat that would take her to her destination. Over the past seven years, what later became known as the Gehenna Incident found its way into the legends told among Fenrir and its members, the grand tale of two people who together fought and vanquished the greatest threat humanity had ever known and likely would ever know. Only the people of the Glasgow Branch knew the truth, of course, but since then Nanako had grown into someone who was more than capable of living up to the legends that existed about her.

And on this day, the twenty-first anniversary of her birth, Nanako Kawashima was preparing to take the next step in her journey of life. Once she boarded this ship, she would be on her way to return to Japan, the land of her birth, to do what Cyrus Casterfield had wanted her to do all those years ago – she would join the Fenrir Far East Branch and finally take the God Arc compatibility exam to become a God Eater. This, she knew, would truly make her parents proud… and, hey, maybe she’d see them again, should she find them at the Far East Branch.

Nanako put aside her stray thoughts and turned to face the crowd that had accompanied her to the pier.

“I sincerely thank all of you for raising me these past twelve years, especially in Cyrus’ absence. You are all like family to me, and I will miss you dearly. But now, I leave to start a new chapter in my life. I will return to the land of my birth and enlist on the front lines as a God Eater to fight the Aragami.

“The Gehenna Incident seven years ago taught me something – if we want to fight for humanity’s future, we have to do it ourselves. Sure, we can make more weapons like the Gigantes to drive off Aragami, but what worth is a future won at the cost of human life? This is what I learned from Cyrus… and from you, Sigma. You taught me that if I want to make a difference, that difference has to start with me.”

Nanako smiled, wiping back tears. “Farewell, my dear, dear friends. I pray you find yourselves well down the line!”

And with that, she stepped onto the ship that would take her over the seas to Japan—

—and towards the future she had worked so hard to win for herself and for all of humanity.

THE END