User blog:Seieireppa/God Eater: The Butterfly Effect, chapter 12: Fugit, Inreparabile Tempus

There was little in the way of conflict in the 28th century.

That is to say, there were certainly localized disputes here and there, but anything close to war was unheard of. The future was a peaceful time, the future to which Will had given life.

Without Aragami, there were no God Eaters… and so it was that Silas was stunned into silence by the sight that he beheld now.

Will and Sigma moved like gods of war, their every step blindingly fast and calculated to a cold extreme. There were no wasted movements between them as their God Arcs clashed over and over again, the sound of blade impacting blade resonating throughout the crash site. Here fought two God Eaters who had reached the pinnacle of their existence as those who once fought against humanity’s ultimate foes.

Certainly, Sigma was the stronger fighter. His raw power and speed were greater, for sure, but Will had lived his entire life surviving from one day to the next. For Will, his entire existence had been one where he never knew if he’d live to see tomorrow. This gave him an edge when it came to battle experience… so no one could tell who would come out on top here.

Sigma leapt aside as Will delivered a swift slash upwards from below, connecting into a handspring as he regained his position and retaliated with a forward thrust from Will’s right side. However, Will was already there, slipping to the side of the path of Sigma’s blade and countering with a slash across Sigma’s midsection, drawing first blood.

“Your movements are good, Will!” Sigma exclaimed, seeing his own blood for the first time. “You wield that blade quite nicely!”

“Thanks!” came Will’s response, as he spun around for a second strike. “I learned from the best, after all!”  However, Will’s blade was once again met with Sigma’s own, as the latter parried Will’s strike and delivered a kick to Will’s gut, sending him sprawling.

“Indeed, you use that blade well…” Sigma began. “You’re almost as good as me—but almost isn’t good enough!”

However, as Sigma went for a finishing blow, Will surprised him by rolling backwards into a handspring, delivering a solid kick straight to Sigma’s jaw and sending him reeling as Will leapt into the air and regained his position.

“Have you forgotten, Father?” Will spoke, his voice making apparent his excitement. “I spent ten years of my life learning how to survive from you… and thirteen more surviving on my own!”  Will thrust his God Arc into the ground before jumping off it, hooking the hilt with his foot, and kicking it directly at Sigma’s head as the latter only barely dodged. “I spent every day of my life making sure that I’d see the next! Against someone who isn’t even trying to kill me…”

Will, still airborne, kicked Sigma in the temple, before landing and retrieving his God Arc.

“…there’s no way I’m about to lose!”

Sigma straightened himself out and turned to face Will. “Oh…” he began, “… so you want me to go all out, is that it?”

Will flashed a wide grin. “Hell yeah! Gimme your best shot, Father!”

In response to those words, Sigma thrust his God Arc into the ground, unmoving. To anyone else, this might have looked strange, but Will knew what was coming. The instant he stepped back, a white blade erupted from the ground before him, Sigma having extended his God Arc through the ground to pursue Will. But even still, it wasn’t done, as the blade snaked through the air in pursuit of Will as the latter parried and dodged it accordingly.

As Will leapt skyward to evade the blade’s reach, however, he found his way blocked by Sigma, who abandoned his God Arc to meet Will’s retreat and seal off his path of escape with a single punch that sent Will rocketing to the ground.

“What… the…?” Will gasped, slowly rising to his feet as Sigma returned to retrieve his God Arc and retract the blade.

“Have you forgotten?” came Sigma’s words. “The God Arc you hold was once a part of my own body, made from the same Oracle cells. It would only make sense that I could control it remotely!”

“Heh…  I guess so.”  Will spoke those words as he rose to his feet. That punch had dealt a bit of damage, but he wasn’t even close to being done. “You know, Father… seeing you pull that with your God Arc gave me a little idea…”

“Oh?” Sigma mused. What could Will have come up with?

The answer, as it would seem, was almost immediately apparent.

“I am my father’s son,” spoke Will, his voice utterly calm as he held out his God Arc in front of him. “And you are my father. Your blood flows through me… and your Oracle cells are within me! So it would make sense…”

Will concentrated with all his might on his God Arc.

“…that I can do THIS!”

And with those words, his God Arc began to ripple and shift, changing to its gun form and beginning to pulsate with immense amounts of Oracle energy. This was no normal bullet he was preparing to fire—it was a hereditary technique, knowledge of which Will possessed against all possibility. Perhaps it was a memory within his Oracle cells he inherited from his father, but one way or another, he was about to unleash every last ounce of his power into this one attack.

Here and now, he would prove to his father that he was strong.

“Take this! My love, my anger, and all of my sorrow!!!”

At those words, Sigma grinned, shifting his own God Arc into its gun form and beginning to charge the same attack.

“It’s been a while since I pulled this one out,” he mused. “I never thought you’d be able to use it, too… but no matter. I will meet you attack for attack, with every last amount of my energy!”

And with that, both of them unleashed the energy stored in their God Arcs, twin rays of condensed Oracle energy that reverberated with the frequency of what felt like the world itself. When these beams met, well…

It didn’t take long to find out.

The clash of Will’s and Sigma’s attacks sent out massive ripples of energy, like successive blast shockwaves that pulsed through the air and shook the environment around them.

“The planet’s not built to handle this kind of energy,” exclaimed Sigma, who wore an uncharacteristic expression of excitement on his face. “If we keep this up for too long, the fabric of reality itself might very well come apart! And besides, what about that friend of yours?”

“Oh, Silas?” Will spoke through gritted teeth. “He might be just a human, but he’s hardier than most. I’m sure he’ll be just—

Will did not finish his sentence. As they clashed beams, they could see the world around them begin to fall apart at the seams, the energy output of their clashing attacks having an effect much like an earthquake would on a tall skyscraper. The land tore apart around them, trees uprooted and were blown away, and the very planet itself began to shake.

And the destruction was hardly limited to the physical, either. As time wore on, small cracks in space and time had begun to open up—

—one of which appeared directly beneath Silas, swallowing him up.

Will had barely any time to react, ceasing his attack and sprinting towards Silas’ position…

…but it was too late. His outstretched hand barely missed Silas’ own, as the latter vanished into the distortion.

“Silas…” Will spoke, his breath unsteady. “No…”

In spite of his grief, Will quickly found himself picked up by Sigma, who helped him to his feet. “The planet’s falling apart, Will,” he spoke, his voice firm and commanding. “If we stay here much longer, even the residual energy in our God Arcs will be enough to send it completely over the edge. I’m leaving, Will… you should do the same.”

“And how are you going to do that?” demanded Will. “I have the technique Silas imparted to me, but…”

“And where do you think HE obtained knowledge of that technique?” Sigma countered. “Lifespring was something your mother invented. You think she wouldn’t have passed it onto me?”  With nary a word, Sigma began the activation process, the atmosphere undergoing a subsequent change as Sigma’s own immense Oracle energy pressure was easily detectable.

“Goodbye, Will. Here’s hoping we meet again. And if not, well…”

Sigma looked down at his feet, then back at Will.

“If you don’t make it out of this alive… give my regards to Idenn, will you? Tell her I’ll be along before too long.”

And with that, Sigma blinked out of existence entirely, leaving nothing behind.

Will merely slumped against the ground, the shaking causing his entire body to vibrate.

“And once again,” he mused, “I’m all alone. How cruelly ironic. Oh well, I should probably get going anyway, before my staying here causes the planet to fall apart entirely.”

Will glanced down at his God Arc, which he shifted back to its blade form.

“Silas…” Will spoke solemnly. “I don’t know where or when you ended up, but you damn well better be alive, you bastard. As for me… I’ll continue your research. I won’t let all your efforts go to waste… my friend.”

With those words, Will began the Lifespring activation process, reminiscing on the time he’d spent with Silas and his father before he, too, blinked out of existence, to return to the year 2705.

In all likelihood, the planet would be safe. It would take a bit for things to settle down… but, in time, all anyone would remember would be a particularly violent earthquake, and that would be that. With the time loop sustained, the future was, relatively speaking, safe. As long as humanity had Fenrir and the God Eaters… things just might turn out alright.

Don’t you think so, dear reader?

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