User blog:Baluar/God Eater: Fall of the Heavens, chapter 29: To the bitter end

As she played some videogames with Alice, Nia immediately and unerringly knew something was wrong with Baluar. She simply knew to trust her instincts, and something convinced her that he was actually in more peril than he had ever been.

After making a few calls to know where could she drop Alice when she went away (and finally deciding to send her over with Lindow and Sakuya), Nia contacted the Branch director and politely requested the fastest plane available for personal use.

Despite the fact that normal God Eaters could never dream of being allowed a plane and a pilot just on a whim, there was something in Nia's voice that caused the director to shudder. He knew she had talked politely, but underneath her calm exterior there was something he'd rather not know about.

Before an hour passed, Nia was already on her way to wherever her brother was. She knew he was in South America no longer.

He was in the dark, alone.

''He knew he was unconscious, he just knew it. There was no logical reason for him to find himself in the middle of a pitch-black void when his consciousness was so frail, when he really should be using all his energies for surviving the onslaught of foreign Oracle Cells. And yet, there he was, in the middle of a pitch-black void, with nothing to do, hardly any feeling crossing his head (if his consciousness' self image could be considered to have a distinct shape, of course), and only allowed to think.''

That's when he noticed it.

''At the very edge of perception, there was something even darker than the already pitch-black void that surrounded him. After a few seconds of careful observation, he noticed that the darkness was ever approaching, from all directions. No point of space could be safe from it.''

''Was there anything but darkness, in the first place? Even the fight with the Aragami that wounded him so grievously seemed like it was set in the distant past. His logical mind thought that it couldn't have been too long, only a couple of months at most, or else he would be already completely devoured by the Oracle Cells, physical body and consciousness alike.''

''Still, he felt so detached from everything, that not even the approaching darkness (which, he realized, was probably how his brain saw the ever-advancing foreign Aragami cells) could alter his calm one bit. To be in the dark, alone, was bad enough, or so he would have thought normally. Now, all he could focus on was one thing: survive.''

''Despite the fact that he couldn't even control his consciousness' image before, now he was controlling it. He was fully geared, as if his self image was always that of an Aragami hunter, first and foremost. Katty was at his back, although he knew this wasn't the empathic weapon (whose personality came from himself) he was so used to. Instead, it was a mere representation he had created in his head, of how he saw him self.''

''However, representation or not, he could only wait to see if its sharp blade was enough to make the darker-than-black darkness to retreat from his mind... or at least to fend it off.''

''Were it enough or not, he'd die fighting. He was not the kind of man who would give up in the face of adversity.''

''He had his defects. He was selfish on occasion, prideful to the point of being obnoxious at times, lazy to do anything that wasn't hunting or playing...''

''But if there was one quality the man he used to be certainly had (because he couldn't even be sure it was himself anymore, and not just a random image he thought was himself), it was his utter refusal to give up. He would never give up without a fight. He would never die without fighting until his last breath.''

The darkness approached, and he, emotionless as he had been up to then, drew his sword for what might have been one final time.

Then, a flash of emotions crossed his mind.

''There was hope. After all, he could only hope to succeed. Else, nothing else would matter.''

''There was despair. He was, indeed, fighting an abomination trying to consume him from within, and hardly had any idea of how those kind of things worked out. He could end up damaging himself in the attempt to resist the attacks from the foreign cells.''

''There was love. He did, in fact, miss everybody, especially his sister, whom he remembered was in the other corner of the world, and wished he could have said them all goodbye.''

''And, finally, there was cold resignation. "If I have to die... so be it."''

"Until the bitter end."

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