Chapter 109: Sadogashima

All of a sudden, Shiro jolted from his sleep, making him assume a sitting posture while having his eyes closed. Once he lazily opened them, it revealed a hazy gaze.

This stayed for a few seconds before he fully woke up from his dreams.

After breathing deeply for a few seconds, he finally calmed down.

"This is... troublesome."

His ears became slightly reddish, a sign of his shyness. After all, he just dreamt of some explicit scenes... with Altera at that. Ever since he met her personally, he didn't stop dreaming of their memories together.

Five days had passed since their meeting, and it's been 25 days in Chaldea. Meaning, he accompanied her every time 4 hours had passed here in Terra.

While her Saint Graph is attached to Chaldea, she can still visit other worlds, albeit she couldn't last long before she disintegrates. Still, he managed to have 'dates' with her all around Columbia due to the fact that he 'recorded' every single place when he rode with [Motored Cuiraiser].

Through it, their relationship became more familiar. His connection with her also helped, as it's the reason why he felt the unprecedented closeness with someone else.

Shiro felt that if it's her, he can fully trust her.

"I wonder what'll happen if I met her earlier..." He mumbled as he thought about this. If it really happened the moment he woke up, it's like finding light amidst darkness.

Thinking about what he is about to do today, he soon got up and prepared. He wore his casual wear consisting of a black jacket and shorts with many pockets.

Surtr went to Siesta, a coastal city, to find something related to her; thus it's only him living here for 2 days now. She has the [Interdimensional Phone (R)] that he gave from the Store, so only one message of hers and he'll arrive.

As for his matter today, he already told her about it 4 days ago.

Opening the Chat Group interface, he selected [World Travel] once again and chose Kouzuki's world as the destination.

"I finally have the chance to pilot that thing."

Upon the thought of piloting [GN-001 Exia (SR)], he became excited. While he has the strength to obliterate an entire hive of BETAs alone, it's a man's romance!

Even when he couldn't use his [Weapon Enhancement Cards] since he used it on another weapon, he felt that Exia is enough to breeze through Kouzuki's world.

[World Travel Initiating. Destination: Yokohama UN Base]

[Warping in 10... 9... 8... 7...]

[3... 2... 1...]

With a flash of white light, he soon arrived in a new world. However, he felt something repulsing him the moment he did so!

'Fuck.'

Shiro didn't expect that he would receive rejection this strong, if not stronger, from a seemingly normal world.

Heck, there's not even a proper person who wielded supernatural powers here! Save for the fact that only 00 Unit, Sumika, has the power... power...

'I should've expected this.'

Without any other choice, he went back to Terra. Then, he took out the spiritual core before transferring his consciousness to it.

He opened another aurora curtain leading to that world. The moment he stepped into it, he arrived at that world once more. Using Spiritron Particles, he formed an outfit similar to the one he wore a moment ago.

From what Shiro had seen, it seems like he landed on top of the base. Here, he could see the ruined Yokohama City from below as well as the coastline from beyond.

Iron Lattice Fencings are situated in this rooftop, creating the high school ambience from other anime. Although, it doesn't change the fact that this is a military base, one that trained soldiers with the age of high school students.

What's more, things turned darker real fast starting December 10 2001, the date where BETAs attacked this base at one time. There's also December 29, 2001, the time when the said BETAs managed to infiltrate their base, causing bloodied hallways and ruined facilities.

"It's... Hm, November 11th, alright. Just in time, then." He muttered before opening an aurora curtain connected near the stratosphere before he entered.

Unknowingly, another person visited this 'rooftop'. He wore the uniforms of Eishi recruits, a military outfit with a gray theme. Both his hair and eyes are brown-colored, yet his body underneath his uniform is well-toned, forming a sharp contrast as to how recruits are supposed to look like.

(A/N: Eishi are the term for TSF, a mecha, pilot.)

"Was there no one here?"

When he arrived here, only the rustling of wind can be seen. With his sharp six sense that he acquired through deaths in countless failed world lines, he managed to 'see' a person here.

Soon, he tossed this matter in the back of his mind and focused on enjoying the view up here.

*****

Beings of Extra Terrestrial origin Adverse to the human race, BETA for short, are the carbon-based mining organisms that was first spotted from Mars in 1958. They entered the Moon in 1967 before entering conflict with the human race in 1973.

Since then, the 7 billion population that Earth has is reduced to a mere 1 billion. Many countries fell, but the utmost limits of humanity got squeezed out as a result.

TSFs, or also known as Tactical Surface Fighter, is the result of it. The complications that Shino's and Kuroneko's peaceful world when it comes to making it got solved decades in advance to fight for humanity, for the survival of their race.

Still, it isn't sufficient as all it did is to buy more time for them. Henceforth, the Alternative Plans came into being.

They are the plans that humanity made for their continued survival. Out of five of them, only 2 remains viable, namely: Alternative Plan IV and Alternative Plan V.

The former sought to use "00 Unit" to communicate with the BETAs while the latter planned to send 100,000 talented humans to another galaxy for the race's continued survival.

While the former looked stupid, there's a number of reasons why it's still there. One of them is a finding, in which it's proven that BETAs saw humans as "non-living". They thought that if they started communication, there's a chance that the BETAs will recognize them as "living", which can promptly stop the war between them.

Alas, only Shiro and Kouzuki knew that in less than 1 and a half months, the fate of humanity will be decided.

Will they choose the pacifist route, or will they choose the desperate route?

The gears of fate started turning, making their future into a new one...

Zoom-!

"GN Particles sure are convenient..."

With its help, Shiro used optical camouflage and other kinds of concealment that would hide him from any satellites above. Moreover, his energy tank remained at a constant rate since he didn't exceed the rate of which the GN Drive produces GN Particles.

This is another advantage of the GN Series, their mobility.

It didn't take long before he stealthily arrived near Sadogashima, the island/hive where the BETAs would initiate their attack. Shirogane Takeru already informed Kouzuki and the latter already acted based on the canon, but this is a turning point.

If Shiro alone manages to resolve it without the use of magic, he can cut off the opportunity of Sagiri Naoya, the Captain of the Capital Defense Division, who would start the coup d'etat against the Government for forsaking their independence; allowing them to be subjected under United Nations. To be more specifically, the United States.

Landing in Niigata, the land opposed to the island from the distance, he began observing the future battlefield.

Using his [Six Eyes], Shiro saw through the ground and saw... BETAs numbering thousands digging tunnels under the sea floor.

"...As expected of these insects."

It'll be impossible for them to go to Yokohama without going through here, thus they attacked Niigata. Simply put, this defense line is on their way, and they bulldozed everything here.

Taking out the GN Beam Sabers on the back of Exia's shoulder armor, he headed to the place where a Heavy Laser-Class is located.

Bzzzt-!

With Exia's speed, the surrounding BETAs only noticed one of their highly-valued personnel being cut into half by a strange "TSF".

Click-!

Shiro disabled the beam sabers and stashed it in its shoulder armor once more while his GN Sword attached on Exia's right hand folded in a straight way - GN Particles began coating the edges of the blade, amplifying their destructive power.

RING-! RING-!

BEEP-! BEEP-!

"They're late by a few seconds." Shiro commented as the alarms of the naval ships from the distance rang out. The soldiers inside the TSFs that arrived here under a strange order from their superiors now wore serious expressions.

No one knew... This is the day where the fates of the many would change.

*****

A/N: To Muv-Luv, we go~! The memories of Muv-Luv is blurry for me, actually, so I'll only try my best to recall the things after the Coup Arc and before the Yokohama Base Defense Arc (Where the Chomp scene happened).

Fact #62: Hajime Isayama once said from an interview that one of the main inspirations of Attack on Titan is Muv-Luv. If you played the game (or watched the bad anime adaptation), you'll notice that there are some scenes of AoT that is referenced to it. One of them is the Colossal Titan in the first ep being slightly above the wall. Another is Eren crying in the first chapter, which is the same as Takeru waking up in the first scene. There, it is shown that they both had visions of the future. Isayama played it during his High-school years in a PS2, and is said to be heavily influenced by a shocking death scene (presumably the CHOMP scene). Quoting from him:

¨I got the idea for AOT from the computer game, the whole universe was under attack from Aliens, I thought if those monsters ate humans it could be very interesting, the cruelty of man-eating titans.¨

There you have it, you can blame a certain Sergeant's death being the main factor for all the deaths in Attack on Titan, I guess...

PS: That death is definitely in my top 3 most memorable deaths even after a few years had passed since I went through the story. The sheer shock that I had and that startling Alarm BGM is an experience that is hard to replicate...