User blog:Seieireppa/God Eater:Universitas, chapter 20: Feldman

Kota gasped audibly. “Former Director Feldman? But… he disappeared completely five years ago and hasn’t been heard from since!”

“That’s right,” interjected C, “but what I have to tell you all concerns what he was doing before he vanished. I’m sure you’ve all had more than a few encounters with the Boundary Aragami… especially that girl who calls herself Idenn. In truth, the first sightings of them were in a remote location on the Japanese landmass approximately six years ago, in 2075. A man calling himself If had begun developing them for reasons I’ll get to in a second. In truth, though, the name of If was merely a guise, a front for a certain individual. This individual was none other than Isaac Feldman himself.”

Everyone on scene gasped.

“As for those reasons I spoke of earlier,” C continued, “it is altogether likely that Feldman had been planning a coup on Fenrir, using the Boundary Aragami as his weapons to crush those who stood in his way. However, before he could carry out his coup…”

“He vanished.”  Those words came from Soma, who stepped onto the scene. “One day, in early 2076… he vanished without a trace, and his Boundary Aragami along with him.”

C scratched her head once more. “No one, not even myself, has any idea as to how this happened. Soma told me that it could have been a result of Idenn’s Lifespring, but…”

“According to Idenn’s report,” Soma chimed in, “she never actually used Lifespring until she was already fighting Feldman face to face, in the future… so we’re at a bit of an impasse.”

“I know of one way,” interjected Beo, “but… it seems way too unlikely…”

“Please,” Ken spoke up, “if you know of anything, anything at all, please tell us! This concerns me as well, after all, so even the smallest bit of information would be of help!”

All around Beo, everyone shared the same expression. They all beseeched Beo for anything he could do to help bring the truth to light.

Beo, meanwhile, sighed and gazed skyward.

“I’m sure he’d take issue with my revealing his identity so soon, but…”

Beo gazed back at the crowd of assembled God Eaters.

“Are any of you familiar with the name—”

“That’s quite enough.”

A voice cut through the sky above Liverpool, silencing Beo’s words as a massive beam of Oracle energy sliced through the air, missing Beo by an inch as he dodged out of the way and looked towards the source of the beam.

There, in the air above them, was a massive portal, a seeming opening in the fabric of spacetime itself. From within the opening, something sinister gazed back, something with innumerable glowing eyes and countless tentacles which quested forth in search of prey. These tentacles gripped the edges of the portal and pushed outwards, widening the opening so that the being on the other side could egress through.

The God Eaters gathered there on the Liverpool Branch’s roof could only watch on in horror as the Boundary Ouroboros slowly emerged from the portal—

—but what truly caught everyone’s attention was the figure astride the Aragami’s head.

“You…” Kota began, his face white as a sheet. “You’re former Director Feldman!!”

“I’m so glad someone here recognizes me,” came Feldman’s grandiose reply. “You… you’re Kota Fujiki, aren’t you? The little puppy who stayed at the Den instead of moving to Cradle with the rest of the First Unit? As if you could protect anything with your meager level of strength… but I digress. Now that you’re all onto me and my objectives, I can’t exactly allow you to continue to live… especially not when that Idenn girl is still here with you. Once I’ve finished with you, I’ll go and take care of her… and then I’ll turn my attention to the one who brought me to the future in the first place. Without that thorn in my side to stand in my way, I’ll be free to dominate the planet with my Boundary Aragami, and then…!!”

Feldman’s words were cut off as two successive blast gun shots exploded in the face of the Boundary Ouroboros before a fusillade of assault gun rounds pelted the Aragami, causing it to reel back and throw Feldman off as he landed gracefully on the ground and faced the new arrivals.

Before him stood his nemesis, Idenn, her God Arc charged and ready to take him down—but beside her stood two people he did not recognize.

“It looks like we made it in time, Blake,” exclaimed Idenn, as she shifted her God Arc into its blade form and readied it for combat. “You ready?”

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least slightly nervous,” came Blake’s reply, “but more than anything, we need to take this guy down.”

Blake turned to face the third person, an older man with spiked black hair and eyes the color of the deepest ocean.

“Are you ready… grandfather?”

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