User blog:Yuka Ichinose/God Eater: Infinity Paradise, Chapter 3

''For a youngling, to live in a world infested by Aragamis is truly a nightmare. To witness people brutally and helplessly die with one's own eyes... To become powerless and do nothing but cry... It was painful... Everything plays back like a movie...''

To see it all...

It'll hunt one forever...

Wouldn't you just wish to die that very same moment?

Because...

"Yuka!"

The sudden yell pulled her back to the present reality she was in, and various other sounds came registering into her ears: growling, screaming, yelping, and a bunch of few other noises that were indistinguishable at the moment. In matter of seconds, she found a red bullet sweep past her, missing her face by a dangerous inch, and flew upwards, followed by a pained growl. She looked up to see an Ogretail landing on the ground. It didn't get the chance to stand up any further, as another God Arc pierced through its body and blood splattered to all directions.

"You call yourself a veteran?!" Soma scowled at her. "Don't space out lest you wanna die!"

She wished to retort and make a witty comeback, but there was nothing that came through her mind at the moment, as it was too busy kicking her reflexes to work. The only thing she did was to see him glare from the corner of her eyes before both of them darted off to opposite directions. Her attention shifted to one of the Ogretails to her right, about to strike down Kota firing at the group of Zygotes hovering above, and she shot. Before the Aragami could recover from the attack, she dashed, slicing her way through its belly, and afterwards swirled around, along with her God Arc changing form, to shoot about two or three more of the flying monsters. Lenka and Alisa were doing great in her opinion, though Kota seemed to be having a bit of a trouble in the battlefield. Ah, but he'll surely be fine... Soma...? No question.

"Crap. Bullets..." She hissed, noticing the disappearance of the glow on the side of her weapon. She reached down for the small pocket strapped on her right leg, but, oh dear Lord, it was empty. Such a great timing.

Seeing the Zygote above her be devoured took her by surprise, only to find that it was Alisa. "If you're short on bullets, then there's nothing to do but devour them..."

"That... might be a problem I doubt you'd understand..." There was a string of clicking sounds as Yuka raised her Arc, sectioning a swooping Zygote in clean half. Receiving a small scoff from the Russian, both girls resumed to work. In a short while, the ground where all five of them stood had been littered with blood and dead bodies, each of them catching their own breaths. "That's about twenty of them... Ogretails alone," she said. "Hibari did say there were thirty, yes? And she also mentioned about all these number of Zygotes."

"But man," Kota sighed, stretching both arms. "This place is huge. Hope we find the remaining ten so we could go home already."

Soma shouldered his God Arc and turned away from them. "Tch, then what are you all standing around for?" Yuka only rolled her eyes at such statement, skipping to follow the track of the fellow veteran and dragging her own weapon along. "Well, just admiring the magnificent masterpiece the five of us spent sweat and blood on," she grinned in response. "That's not a bad thing, is it?"

"Quit it, you..."

She flashed him an even wider grin.

***

"That's the last one," Lenka announced to the group, as his God Arc devoured the last Ogretail's core. "Shall we all head back then?"

They had successfully extracted the cores of the required Aragamis, with an addition of a few Zygotes', since they weren't included in the mission. It was indeed time to return to the Den. "We definitely should," Kota agreed with his usual lively attitude. "I'm beat..."

"Let's pick up some speed then," Yuka invited, as she rose from sitting on the floor. "I'm dying for a nice cup of hot chocolate. Do you want me to make you some too, Soma? You used to love it ye--" She was cut off by the sharp glare thrown at her direction, making her to quickly avert her gaze. "I mean, a bit of a throwback."

Six years. Wow. Just parting from him in matter of six years, she honestly was no longer quite used to him snapping at her. Not wanting to infuriate the male, Yuka turned to the group of younger God Eaters instead. "You three should put more time in training." She didn't wish to be biased and throw Kota Fujiki a worried look, so instead, her gaze shifted between Lenka and Alisa. But Soma made the decision of being rude and busting her bubble: "Says the one who was spacing out a while ago..."

"... and the one who ran out of bullets," Alisa added with a roll of her eyes.

"Sie Kerle wählen auf mir aus!" She cried out, chest and cheeks both puffed out.

"Fungiert Ihr Alter dann," Soma snorted.

"Ich bin fungierend mein Alter, dammit."

The series of German statements continued to be thrown back and forth as the God Eaters descended from the location. Even during the ride home, Yuka continuously screamed, shouted and cried various foreign words to Soma, which the remaining three guessed were just common things girls simply adore complaining about. And Kota found it surprising since the very first day he was teamed with Soma, he was immediately told to shut up. He hadn't even said that much.

Finally, Yuka's lips twisted to a sour frown, upon finding out that the other had fallen asleep on her, and everyone fell to tired silence, with the night going idly by. But afterwards, the frown disappeared with a sigh, seeing that there was nothing else she can do. "It's been a fun day," her usual cheery and calmer self told the others who remained awake. "Bleiben Sie nah an allem, das Sie froh Sie sind froh lebendig macht."

"That sounds interesting." Lenka.

"What does that mean?" Kota.

"Ostan'tes' blizko k chto-nibud' kotoroye delayet vami radostnyy vas zhivo."

"Huh?"

With Yuka smiling and Alisa keeping her straight face, they said in unison, "Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive."

''I wanted to write something more than a thousand words and have Hemingwayapp.com to give me a grade higher than 5, but I guess I couldn't. I'm a 17 year old with a writing graded good. It's depressing.''