User blog:Seieireppa/God Eater:Universitas, chapter 52: Au Bord de la Contre-Attaque




 * KEN, C, AND LYRR’S GROUP

“I must say, this is certainly a familiar sight.”

Lyrr spoke these words, a sentiment reflected in Ken’s calm, familiar expression and C’s assured stance as the three of them stood outside the gates of Fenrir’s Far East Branch.

The year was 2074.

Here, they would intercept Isaac Feldman on his way to join the Far East Branch as the new Director and attempt to strike him down here and now…

…but something was amiss. Ever so slightly, something felt off.

Now was not the time to dwell on such gut feelings, however.

“According to Nanako,” began C, “we’ve got two options. Either Feldman hasn’t fled to this time from the future, in which case we simply kill him with no trouble, or…”

“Or…?” echoed Ken.

“…Or he has, and we die horribly.”

“In that case,” laughed Lyrr, “what choice do we have but to fight?”

“True enough,” came Ken’s answer. “Anyway, according to Nanako’s intel, he should be arriving any moment n—”

Ken’s words were interrupted by a loud bang echoing over the horizon, accompanied by the sound of something hitting the ground nearby.

“Oh… what a pain.”

Lyrr’s bored words echoed what had been the sound of his own arm being blown apart and falling to the ground. Already, the blue flames that heralded the activation of his Horizon ability had flared up, wreathing the wound on both sides as Lyrr picked up his severed arm with his other hand, sticking it on his shoulder stump as the flames did their work, repairing the damage.

“What the…?” exclaimed Ken, drawing his switch blade and taking a stance. “Where’d that come from?”

“Don’t bother,” replied Lyrr, drawing his God Arc and shifting it to its gun form. “We’re under attack by an Aragami capable of extreme long-range combat. I’m willing to bet that—”

Lyrr interrupted his phrase, moving his head to the side as another shot whizzed by.

“—that it’s either a Kyuubi, a Gboro, or a Ravana… and since this wasn’t a laser or a geyser of water…”

Lyrr dropped low and pointed his God Arc at a point that neither of the others could see, firing off a shot towards the horizon. Faintly, a pained cry could be heard from a great distance away. Whatever it was, Lyrr had landed a direct hit.

“Boundary Ravana, huh?” interjected C.  “How can it hit us from this far away?”

“I’d imagine the Horizon’s power has something to do with that,” came Lyrr’s reply. “Either way… it’s no match for my eyes. Oh… and hit the deck.”

Ken and C immediately dropped to the ground at the instant that two balls of flame whizzed overhead, passing through where their bodies had been an instant ago.

Instantly, Lyrr responded by shifting his aim a few degrees to the left and firing off two shots in rapid succession. Again, the Boundary Ravana’s cries could be heard, indicating that Lyrr’s shots had found their mark.

However, as Lyrr reloaded, the spent Oracle Ampule hitting the ground, a shot came out of Lyrr’s blind spot, impacting his neck and taking his head clean off.

Both Ken and C gasped audibly as Lyrr’s head hit the ground… but again, already the flames of Lyrr’s Horizon ability were at work, burning at the edges of the wound as Lyrr’s headless body reached down and picked up his head.

“It’s mad, now,” Lyrr spoke, placing his head back on his neck as the wound was erased by his ability, “and it’s begun to charge. The two of you, get ready. It’ll be here in about a minute, so—”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” came C’s words, as she pointed off in the direction Lyrr had been firing.

What Lyrr saw when he looked in the indicated direction was a curious site indeed, for the Boundary Ravana, light blue in color with even brighter flames burning at the core of its cannon, had stopped dead in its tracks, clawing at the air around it but remaining perfectly still otherwise.

“C… is this your doing?” came Lyrr’s words, to which C responded with a grin and a silent nod.

“Well… I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Gimme a sec here…”  In the span of a single moment, Lyrr aimed his God Arc and emptied his Oracle stock, piercing the Aragami’s core with successive penetrating rounds. Within a few seconds, the Boundary Ravana collapsed to the ground, its Oracle Cells dissolving without its core to hold them together.

“So…” Ken began, “what exactly did you do, C?”

“Well…” came C’s reply, “as far as it was concerned, we were right there in front of it, so it devoted itself to attacking what it thought were willing and eager targets. That kept it still enough for Lyrr here to deliver the finishing blow.”

“Damn…” shuddered Ken. “Your ability is as scary as ever, C…”

But the three of them had little time to relax, for the instant Ken finished speaking, the three of them felt something behind them, something that warped the very atmosphere and instilled in them a sense of dread, the feeling of a small mouse staring down a much larger predator.

“Shit…” Lyrr exclaimed. “Shit, shit, shit! We drew the short straw here! Everyone get ready! He’s coming!”

And just as Lyrr spoke those words, a massive hole was blown open in his gut, the sniper toppling lifelessly to the ground as the flames from his Horizon ability beginning their work.

“I see that at least one of you has a bit of backbone to you,” spoke a very, painfully familiar voice. Ken and C turned towards the voice’s origin point to see an all too familiar sight, for there stood Isaac Feldman, wreathed in blue flames and surrounded by a spherical barrier.

“Feldman…?!” spoke Ken. “But… you should be…!!”

“An ordinary human? Is that what you thought?” came Feldman’s reply. “You’d think so… but you’d be wrong. For you see, I was visited not too long ago by a man who claimed to be me from the future. He looked exactly like me… but his eyes were a piercing shade of green. He told me that a team of God Eaters from the future would be coming to kill me, so he imparted his powers and knowledge to me, as I was he and he was I. And I must say, these powers are no small amount of awe-inspiring… this barrier especially. It flawlessly blocks all attacks from all possible a—”

Feldman was interrupted mid-sentence by the sound of something impacting his barrier. Ken had thrown his God Arc at him at high speeds, causing it to rebound off and fly back into the air, but Ken had wasted no time in leaping airborne, grabbing his God Arc, switching it to its Buster Blade form, and driving it down onto the barrier, only to have it blocked just like before.

“What a rude little boy,” uttered Feldman, as he repulsed Ken with a simple hand motion, the barrier blowing him backwards.

“Shit…” cursed C.  “With only three of us, there isn’t much we can do right now, and we can’t escape through time…  Goddammit… goddammiiiiiittttt!”

Indeed, all hope seemed lost…

…but at that moment, a shot rang out, and Feldman staggered.

“What… what the…?” Feldman exclaimed, clutching his head. Through his fingers seeped an entirely unfamiliar sight to him—his own blood.

Before Feldman could react, another shot rang out, and another, and Feldman fell to his knees as his barrier dissipated.

“''Dis donc, Monsieur Feldman. Tu dis que t’es l’homme… non, l’éxistence le plus puissant du monde… mais mes balles pourraient te faire trébucher sans effort.''”

An unfamiliar voice called out from behind the gathered God Eaters. As Lyrr finally stood up, the three of them turned around to behold an incredible sight.

From the distance, a single man approached their position. Appearing impossibly old—few people lived to be that old anymore—the man could be seen tossing away a single cigarette as he shouldered his gun-form God Arc. Each step rang out clearly through the sudden silence as the man approached Feldman, who had been laid low by successive headshots.

“Who… no, what are you?!” gasped Feldman, as he opened a portal at his side, preparing to flee.

“''Qui suis-je, tu poses? Véritablement, j’suis ci qui te tuera. Si tu as des dernier mots, Feldman… dis-les maintenant.''”

Feldman gritted his teeth, blood dripping from the bullet holes in his skull… before falling sideways into his portal, which closed behind him before the rest of them could pursue.

Ken stepped forward. “I don’t know who you are… but thank you. You saved us.”

“C’est pas un problème… ah, wait, sorry,” exclaimed the man, before correcting himself. “It’s not a problem. I was in pursuit of the man you call Feldman for some time now, having been warned of the threat he would pose ahead of time.”

“Ahead of time?” inquired Lyrr. “But who could have told you?”

“Not who,” corrected the man, “but what. You see, I’ve been wandering the Earth for many, many years. Longer than any of you have been alive. All I wanted was somewhere to rest, somewhere to finally settle down and get away from all this… but pardon me, I digress. It’s time for a story.”

-

<-- Previous chapter