God Eater: Fates Entwined

1 - Moonflower

"Hibari, are you available?"

The operator on the other end of the line immediately answered, "How can I help, Director?"

Paylor Sakaki brought his gaze back at his monitor, at the report he recently received. It was from Soma, in regards to the retrieval of the Nova's Remains scattered across the lands. He had other units assigned to this task, but the operation continues to move rather slowly. On a related note, he pulled up another report to his screen. It had been sent to him only a few hours back, about something massive composed entirely of what he believes are pure Nova cells. Although Paylor had set aside the idea that something that had devoured the Nova's remains would have mutated in a few months' time, it still wouldn't be very good to simply brush this detail off. After all, from his experience, Nova cells could both be helpfully good or destructively bad.

Finally, he returned his attention towards the operator waiting.

"I'm sending you a certain God Eater's name. Can you put her in the line for me?"

"Right away, sir."

It wasn't very long until Hibari notified him that his request has been processed. Really, she is such a reliable person. What would the Far East do without her? Sakaki gave a quick thanks to the operator before moving his attention towards the new call. "Congratulations on being appointed as Director of the Far East Branch, Doctor," a new female voice greeted.

"It is quite a taxing job, but thank you, nonetheless, Aki," he replied.

"So, is there anything you need, sir?"

"I'm changing your unit's current objective. I want you to investigate this massive Nova creature you have stated in your report."

There appeared to be some sort of pause on the other end. "It's not exactly a creature, Director."

Paylor cocked up a brow. "Interesting. What exactly is it then?"

"Err, it's a tree."

****

Time does pass pretty fast.

The last months had been another roller coaster of emotions—fear, hope, anguish, relief. The grief brought by Aegis' fall still hung low in the air but everyone has to move forward at some point, right? Besides, those cores wouldn't be harvesting themselves from Aragamis.

By some sort of miracle, they tracked down signals from Lindow's armlet. It was despair all over again, especially with the continuous reminder that their former captain might have already turned. Right from the start, they knew what they had to do, but of course, none of them wanted to accept it. There's no such thing as only one way, that was what she said. That's why there are Three Fates, not one.

"Back then, was there any other way?" Lenka found himself questioning the air once again as he sat there, the view of the Outer Ghetto spread before him. "The irony... that it had to come from you."

She just apologized and ran, thinking there was no other way, then left them forever.

So now, it's just him, Alisa and Kota who are actively participating in retaliation assignments. On rare occasions, they could rope Soma into the fray too, but when it's just clean-up operations or nothing that much of a threat, he simply ignores with a scowl, then hole himself up inside the laboratory for days.

The raven-haired captain instinctively flinch when he felt a cold feeling dampen his left cheek, and he immediately looked up, only to find his fellow God Eater taking a seat by his side and offering him a can. His golden eyes moved towards the object in her hand and he could only smile helplessly. "Alisa, you do remember our unit has a rule about the First Love Juice, right?"