User blog:Seieireppa/God Eater:Universitas, chapter 34: Strength to Destroy, Strength to Protect, part 1

The previous day had been quite eventful.

Not one, not two, but FOUR of their own had made it to the Horizon and attained the power to fight Feldman. Truly, this was a cause for celebration—but there was no time for such revelry.

Today, Sigma had gathered Beo, Ken, Bal, and Nia in the Liverpool Branch’s training facility. In lieu of waiting patiently for the others to reach the Horizon on their own, Sigma decided that he would train those who had, and bring the rest to the Horizon himself in two days’ time.

“Here’s how this will work,” explained Sigma. “I will start at 20% power, and I will fight you one by one—or, in the case of Baluar and Nia, I will fight you both at the same time. Your objective, as it was in the case of Baluar’s foolhardy challenge, is to land a single blow on me. If you can succeed in that, I will increase my power and fight you at 50%. Here, your objective will be to render me incapable of battle. Am I clear?”

Everyone present nodded. They were all ready.

“Good,” Sigma continued. “In that case… Beoblade. Come forward, and the rest of you, step back.”

Beo stepped forward as instructed.

“Good. Beoblade, the power you gained from the Horizon is that of quantum superpositioning, the ability to project a ‘copy’ of yourself to any location while still actually only existing in one place at any given time. This is advantageous because it could allow you to slip past Feldman’s barriers and attack him or his Boundary Aragami from multiple angles at once. Therefore, today, we will simply be training your projection abilities. Do you remember the sensation you felt when you first used that ability atop the Branch?”

“Yeah,” came Beo’s reply. “It was kind of like…”  Beo struggled to remember that feeling, the sensation of his consciousness expanding outwards, his sphere of awareness encompassing everything around him—

And then it happened; a second Beo appeared a short distance away. At this, Ken, Bal, and Nia all applauded.

“Very good,” came the voice of Sigma. “However, keep in mind that neither of these are true clones or copies. An attack on either will damage you. Therefore, you should focus on canceling your projections at a moment’s notice, using either of them—or any, if you can manage more than two—as the ‘base.’  Now, I will erect a simple barrier, much like the one you saw Feldman use back in that battle. I need you to attempt to bypass it using your superpositioning.”

Beo nodded his head. “Understood, Sigma. Here I come!”

Sigma threw up a spatial barrier around him while the two Beos—which were, of course, in fact only one—began to concentrate. And then, in short order, a “third” Beo appeared, directly outside the radius of Sigma’s barrier.

“Good, you’ve got a handle on directional positioning,” came Sigma’s voice, “but you must master distance perception. Cancel your projection and try again.”

Beo did as instructed, reducing himself to a single Beo while concentrating once more—and then it happened; a Beo appeared within Sigma’s barrier, God Arc already mid-swing—

—only to meet with air, as Sigma was no longer where he previously stood, instead standing a good five meters away.

“I’m glad you managed to fine-tune your directional sense,” Sigma exclaimed, “but did you honestly think I’d stand by if you simply appeared directly in front of me? You’ll have to do better than that if you—”

Sigma’s words were cut off as he felt a hand on his shoulder. He whirled around, and there stood Beo, a grin plastered across his face as the two other Beos in the room grinned similarly.

“…I will admit,” Sigma mused, “that was pretty good. Beo, the true essence of your technique is teleportation—should you master the timing of projecting and canceling at the same time, you will essentially be able to teleport without limit. I want you to work on this when you have the time. Now… Ken, come forth.”

Beo took a seat against the rear wall as Ken stepped forward.

“Ken, our training will be somewhat more unorthodox,” explained Sigma. “However, you and I are both attuned to the flow of time, and all those who have been touched by the Horizon are as well, to a smaller extent. Ken, your power lets you perform short-range, so to speak, time leaps, leaping back in time to your position and state mere seconds to minutes previously. This is something not even I can do, as my time travel abilities are limited to long-range, so to speak… so I will have you hone your powers so you can complement me in battle.”

Sigma shifted in place, scratching his head.

“Let’s see… ah, yes. Ken, I want you to leap back in time and, hmm, tap me on the shoulder. Don’t tell me when—I want you to surprise me. Understood?”

Ken nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Ken, our training will be somewhat more unorthodox,” explained Sigma. “However, you and I are both attuned to the flow of time, and all those who have been touched by the Horizon are as well, to a smaller extent. Ken, your power lets you perform short-range, so to speak, time leaps, leaping back in time to—”

At that moment, Sigma felt the tap, turning to his side to see Ken standing there. He gave Sigma a simple smile, as Sigma realized what had just happened.

“Alright, Ken… you pass,” came Sigma’s words. “Now… Bal and Nia, your test will be extremely simple.”

At those words, Bal and Nia stepped forward.

“You probably know what I’m about to say,” began Sigma, “but I’ll say it anyway. As with Beoblade, I’m going to throw up a barrier, and I want you two to break it with your ‘perfect unity’ in any way you see fi—”

What happened next occurred in the span of a fraction of a second. Bal and Nia, who stood on either side of Sigma, generated the beam of energy between them before Sigma could finish his sentence. Had he attempted to time-erase out of the way, he would likely still have been hit, because the events of the erased time still occur. Without consciously thinking about it, Sigma immediately threw up a triple-layered barrier as Bal and Nia’s beam broke through each layer in quick succession, almost faster than he could create the barrier at all.

“Shit,” thought Sigma. “I didn’t anticipate that level of power… that could do some serious damage if it hit me.”  The instant before the last barrier shattered, Sigma activated his time erasure and threw up another barrier, only narrowly evading the path of the beam as he moved away.

“I must say,” exclaimed Sigma once the time erasure had worn off. “I certainly did not expect you to attack before I’d finished explaining your test… but nonetheless, you both certainly passed. Now, let us return to the lounge for a short break before getting into part two of your tests.”

Everyone present nodded before turning to leave the training chamber. However…

“Say,” called out Ken, “does anyone else feel a little cold?”

“Now that you mention it…” came Nia’s reply. At this point, everyone except for Sigma had begun to shiver from a sudden onset of cold temperature—and it was only getting colder, and quickly.

“What the…” began Sigma, only shortly realizing what was going on. “Shit! Everyone, get ready! We’re under attack by a Boundary Aragami!”

Bal ran to the elevator and hit the alarm button—the instant before the wall of the training facility burst open, letting in a butt of freezing air along with the apparent culprit.

“A… Boundary Yan Zhi…?” Beo stuttered, his teeth chattering from the cold. “Oh, come on… what… perfect timing…”

Shortly after Beo spoke those words, the elevator doors slid open, discharging Arthur, Lyrr, and Blake into the training facility. All of them had responded to the emergency call, and all of them carried their God Arcs, primed for battle.

Immediately, all of them were hit with the wave of cold that permeated the room. The temperature was probably around -13°C by now, and it was swiftly dropping.

“If this k-k-keeps up,” chattered Arthur, “we’ll be f-frozen alive! I c-can’t let that happen!”

Arthur brandished his massive God Arc and charged headlong at the Boundary Yah Zhi, bringing his blade crashing down on the Aragami—only to find his strike blocked by a shield of ice that had formed in midair.

Without wasting any time, Arthur brought his God Arc back to deliver a barrage of subsequent strikes, only to find them blocked identically, by shields of ice that formed spontaneously, keeping Arthur’s God Arc at bay at a distance of less than a meter from the Boundary Yan Zhi.

“Goddammit…” muttered Arthur, his stamina swiftly drained by the cold. “How am I supposed to touch this thing?!”

As he was preparing for subsequent attacks, Bal’s voice called out to him, cutting through the chilled air.

“Arthur!” Bal shouted. “It’s flash-freezing the air! That ice isn’t coming out of nowhere. If you can hit it with a blaze-elemental bullet, that should be enough to nullify its shields!”

“Good thinking, Bal!” Arthur called back as he shifted his God Arc to its gun form and let loose a massive flame bullet towards the Boundary Yan Zhi—however, not even this was enough, as the resulting shield of ice brushed off even the mighty fires of Arthur’s gun.

“Shit!” cursed Beo. “The temperature’s down to -35°C and dropping! That ice is only going to get more powerful… what the hell can we do?!”

Arthur silently cursed his foe while laying more attacks into the Boundary Yan Zhi, all of which were blocked effortlessly by the Aragami’s ice shields. If standard attacks and bullets wouldn’t work… all he could do was keep attacking until it tired!

With a mighty roar, Arthur held his blade back and charged up for a Charge Crush—perhaps he could pierce the Aragami’s defenses through brute force… but as his blade swung down—

—time froze to a halt.

All around him, everything in the room—humans and Aragami alike—had ceased all movement, the frozen breath of his comrades having halted in midair as clearly visible butts.

“What… the hell…?” came the voice of Arthur, who found himself no longer cold. “What’s going on…?”

And as he spoke those words, the world around him warped and twisted, swirling into a single point that expanded outwards into a strange wall, as if someone were projecting a video onto a flat surface. Where his surroundings used to be, only darkness remained—and behind the wall, a single brilliant blue line spread outwards until it reached infinitely on in either direction.

The Horizon had chosen Arthur… and he would have to pass its test.


 * Do you have what it takes?

And there was that voice.

“The hell do you mean by that?” Arthur shot back.


 * In front of you lies everything you strive towards.  Your future and your own dreams are behind this wall, a wall that represents your own weakness, doubts, and shortcomings.  If you cannot prove that you have the strength necessary to surpass your own limitations, then you might as well give up here.

Arthur gripped his God Arc’s hilt and gritted his teeth.

“Like HELL I’m giving up here! I’m going to bust down this wall, kill that Aragami, and then rid the world of the Aragami threat once and for all! And nothing you can throw at me is going to stop me!”

And as Arthur charged forward brandishing his mighty blade—

—it began.

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