User blog:Seieireppa/God Eater:Universitas, chapter 2: Arrival

The alarms at Anagura were ringing off the hook. Something had breached the branch’s defenses — and whatever it was, it had appeared at the precise moment of midnight on January 1st, 2081, and it had done so without being detected by any of the branch’s radar and other detection systems.

Was it an Aragami? A stray human from an outlying settlement? Whatever it was, the highest concern was how it had managed to breach every form of defense the branch had to offer, only setting off the alarm that triggered when something physically touched one of the branch’s outermost gates — and something of that level of urgency warranted only the most urgent form of suppression in response.

As Soma and the others readied themselves for possible combat, tension was high. Either they were about to face something so weak that the sensors didn’t even pick it up, or they were about to find themselves face-to-face with something so unfathomably powerful that it would crush them without a second thought before doing the same to the base and everyone who lived within.

No matter what, they could not let that happen. And so the strongest God Eaters currently at the Fenrir Far East Branch departed forth through the northwestern front gate of Anagura —

— but what they found was no Aragami.

No, what they found awaiting them was no harbinger of destruction, but rather an ordinary girl, clad in a red uniform and sprawled out on the ground.

Well, ordinary insofar as a mysterious visitor carrying a brilliant green God Arc could be, at least.

Somehow, this girl with hair the color of the sky and eyes of deepest emerald had slipped through their defenses and ended up as close to their gates as was physically possible. How, of course, was a matter for another time, as this girl was very clearly injured and required urgent medical care.

“Kota,” commanded Soma, “I need you to radio for a stretcher immediately. I’ll stay here with Emil and Erina to perform emergency medical procedures until the medical team gets here. Can I count on you?”

Kota nodded before pulling out a radio and calling in the medical team. Meanwhile, Soma approached the girl and laid her out, bandaging her wounds as Emil listened for a pulse and Erina administered a recovery ampoule.

With immediate danger out of the way, it was only a few minutes until the branch’s medical team arrived and loaded the girl onto the stretcher along with her God Arc before hurrying back inside, with Soma and the rest following close behind.

No matter how Soma looked at it, something just didn’t add up. It should have been physically impossible for anything to slip through the branch’s defenses — land, air, and subterranean modes of approach were all accounted for, and their surveillance network extended out well over a mile past the base’s outer walls.

So how could she have —

“No… that’s not possible,” Soma muttered, a shiver overtaking his body. Perhaps it was the cold… or perhaps it was a sign of what was to come…