User blog:Seieireppa/God Eater:Universitas, chapter 61: Opportunity Knox

“Mother… father…  I’m here.”

The new arrival, apparently named Willard, cracked his neck from side to side as he stood there amongst the members of the anti-Feldman task force. His God Arc, a sleek, unearthly white short blade, was unfamiliar in shape or design to all those gathered there—all, that is, except Nanako, Sigma, and the mechanically-enhanced Idenn.

Nanako remembered it from a time long ago, a time before she became a God Eater. A certain man had come to the Glasgow Branch to murder Nanako’s mentor and adoptive father, and he had wielded that blade to do the deed.

To Sigma, he recognized the blade as his own, a blade he himself had bestowed at the moment of his own death, far into the future.

And to Idenn, she knew that blade all too well. It was that blade that had dealt her the blow that had ended her own life, far into the future.

And yet, here they all were. Gathered here, prepared to face down the man who had caused all of this in the first place. All thanks to a certain someone and her ability, an ability that, until now, had remained dormant, save for a sole instance.

“Nanako…” Sigma began, turning to face the woman who stood there with her two God Arcs grasped in shaking hands. “Care to explain?”

“I guess… alright.”  Nanako holstered her God Arcs on her back and wiped her brow of accumulated sweat. “Ken… remember when we were training together and I couldn’t activate my ability?”

Ken scratched his head. “Yeah, I do… what about it?”

“Well,” Nanako continued, “do you happen to remember what I mentioned my ability was?”

“I think…”  Ken tapped his chin in thought. “If I’m remembering correctly, it was the ability to… shift world lines, or something like that?”

“In the future, the distant, distant future,” interjected Sigma, “the world is… was… will be in ruins. Only a handful of people survive, and I can count that number on my fingers. Anyway, remember back when I vanished for a while and nobody knew where I was? I had the idea to travel to the future to see what the world would be like, assuming we all succeeded in defeating Feldman. Well… assuming, at least. I had no way of knowing whether the future I arrived at was such a future, but nonetheless… when I arrived, I found a certain someone. I found Idenn.”

“It was a welcome change to see Sigma again,” spoke the mechanical Idenn. “I had ended up in that time by mistake, by pure accident, after my Lifespring malfunctioned and spat me out in a time far removed from my own home time. After that, I quickly found that my powers no longer functioned, so I couldn’t very well go anywhere anymore. I was stuck there, with no one familiar… until Sigma arrived.”

“Once I found Idenn there,” continued Sigma, “in the ruined, desolate future, I made up my mind. I would trust the rest of you to do what it took to defeat Feldman… while I stayed there in the future to keep Idenn safe. And then, well…”

The mechanical Idenn blushed, or at least she would have if any blood still flowed through her body.

“It’s kind of hard to say…”

At this point, the new arrival, Will, stepped up.

“I happened.”

Will’s words broke the awkward atmosphere… but no one quite knew what they meant.

“Er…” C spoke, ruffling her inhuman hair with one hand, “what, exactly, does that mean?”

“It means that Sigma and Idenn here… I’m their kid. They’re my parents.”

world explode

Everyone in the vicinity let out an explanation of pure shock and surprise. If anything, they’d expected Sigma and Nanako to… but Idenn…? The revelation came completely out of left field.

“But enough about me,” continued Will. “Nanako, perhaps you’d like to explain what this all has to do with your ability?”

“Er… gladly,” she replied. “My ability, which I gained in another world, another ‘what-if’ timeline from this one, is the power to shift world lines. I can ‘bring’ events from other world lines onto this one, making it as if those events had occurred here, and vice-versa.”

“In the future,” explained Sigma, “I died, killed at Idenn’s hands. Not ‘this’ Idenn ‘now,’ of course, but the Idenn that came to the future presumably after Feldman’s defeat. She, too, was killed in that future, shortly after she gave birth to Will, but in order for her to continue to defeat the Aragami, in the name of protecting Will, I gathered all the God Arcs I could from our fallen comrades and made her a new body. One of invincible steel, of weapon and Aragami fused. She exerted her will over it, making it into a weapon of her own… and she used this weapon to slay Aragami, to purify the world to keep our child safe.”

“But even that wasn’t perfect,” the mechanical Idenn interjected. “Since my body was entirely made of weaponized Aragami… complications were bound to arise. Eventually, I lost control of myself, with my only guiding impulse being the desire to be with my beloved and son once more. This was years and years later… ten years, maybe? Twelve? Anyway, I returned to Sigma and Will, but when I got there… I could only watch in horror as I murdered Sigma with my own hands.”

“I remember the day all to clearly,” spoke Will. “Painfully so. The moment she did the deed, the moment her blades pierced my father’s body, I ran over to him, picked up his God Arc, and attempted to fight back my mother myself. And then, well… she just left. Her rampage ended and she just left. After that, well, a lot of stuff happened, and I tracked my mother down at the age of 23 and killed her myself. To bring the both of us closure, and all that. And then, well… I was all alone, the last human alive. That was it… or so I thought.

“I’d been keeping a sort of audio diary at that point, for the last three years. At the final entry, I spoke of my desire to keep going, but also of my desire to just… not be alone anymore. That was all… and, well, something heard that wish, and that something responded. I ended up in the dimension you all call the Horizon, where I learned a few things. Namely—”

“Will.”  Sigma cut in, his voice cold and curt. “Don’t say anymore. Please.”

“…fine, old man.”  Will glanced away, at the ground, a sour expression on his face.

The mechanical Idenn let out a small laugh. “Our little boy is going through a rebellious phase, isn’t he?”

“Oh, don’t get me started,” Will snapped.

At this point, Nanako stepped forward.

“Now that all that has been explained,” she spoke, “I can get back to matters. My power, the power to alter and shift world lines, must have activated a little while ago. When it did, the events of that ruined future were overwritten, replaced with a future in which Sigma and Idenn still existed, so they could come and aid us in our struggles against Feldman, in our attempts to make the world, the future, right again.”

“Heh,” exclaimed Ken. “I guess that’s as good a definition of ‘when it’s needed’ as any, huh?”

“At any rate,” interjected Sigma, “the time for explanation is over. Feldman is waiting… and Idenn and I have yet to fulfill our purpose for returning.”

Nanako looked at him, somewhat confused. “Your… purpose? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sigma glanced down at Nanako, his eyes displaying a mix of sadness and fiery determination.

“You’ll find out before too long, Nanako. But for now, there’s naught we can do here—”

“—but press onwards.”

Will and Idenn spoke those words at once, causing both of them to look at each other with a quizzical expression before breaking out into uncharacteristic laughter.

“I guess you really are your mother’s son, aren’t you, Will?”

“Haha…” he spoke, his face finally displaying a genuine smile for the first time in a very, very long time. “I guess you’re right. Now come on… mom, dad.”

Will hefted his God Arc, as Sigma did the same, and faced towards the portal.

“We’ve got work to do.”

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