From the Start: Short Stories

Chapter 1 - Celebrating

This will be a collection of short stories following the events of my From The Start story. I advise reading that story before starting this one as the protagonist, Winter, goes through many physical changes which will more than likely be mentioned in these stories.

These stories will only feature the one pairing of the protagonist and Kanon. Feel free to imagine your own character in place of mine.

This chapter is an immediate follow up from my story From The Start.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE GOD EATER FRANCHISE HOWEVER I DO OWN MY OC.

Winter's POV

The difference in noise is very apparent as I walk along the corridor with the intention of entering the lift at the end of it. With every step I took, I found myself beginning to regret the decision and was beginning to have second thoughts.

'I'm not exactly the most sociable of people so why the hell am I going to this party? Is it because I'd feel guilty if I didn't go? There are people that want to see me at the party. Why else would Sakaki have came directly to my room to tell me to attend?' Multiple thoughts whirr around in my head with most of these thoughts being negative.

"Maybe I shouldn't go." I stop in front of the lift with my finger hovering near the button to call for it.

"But I don't want to disappoint them. What would they think if I couldn't show up to a simple party?" I quietly murmur, contemplating my two options of whether to go or not. Swallowing all of my nerves, I quickly press the button and begin to hear the lift moving to my floor. It would be impossible to not hear it. I'm sure that even the people furthest away from the lift in the party would be able to hear it screeching up to my floor.

"I just hope that I won't cause a scene when I step out of the lift." I give a nervous laugh before scratching my head; the fear of messing up in social situations making me feel itchy all over.

'It's not too late to turn back.' The words flash in my head.

'I'm sure that not everybody will be at the party so they won't even know I wussed out on going.' The thoughts grow even more as the lift comes to a stop and its doors open.

'Maybe I could just sit in one of the corners. Surely no one will notice me.' I judge this thought to be my best option for if I do attend the party.

'That way I can't make a fool of myself.' My mind begins to process this option and before I know it, I have stepped into the lift and rotated 180o so that I am now facing the corridor that I had walked down. Looking back at it, it doesn't look all that large so why did it take me a long while to just reach the lift? With a reluctant sigh, I press the button to take me to the lower levels of the Den, hoping that I can just slip out of the lift and stand in one of the many corners to try to hide myself.

The noise grows considerably louder as I pass each floor leading to the final stop. At this point, my mind has stopped thinking about turning back and is just trying to think about how to conceal myself while I'm at the party.

'Maybe hiding in the darkest corner will do. Or maybe a corner that is the least populated.' However, all my thoughts go blank as the lift stops and its doors are opened. Looking around, I can't see anybody on this level of the Den and immediately assume that they are all partying near Hibari's desk. I step out of the lift and take a look towards the stairs that lead to the lower section. I notice a few heads of hair and realise that my assumption was correct. They were all partying and looking like they were enjoying themselves.

"I'd only ruin their fun if I go there." I mumble to myself.

"Social gatherings aren't your thing?" A person to my right speaks to me. I turn to the owner of the voice to see Soma on one of the Terminals. I walk to the terminal beside him.

"Not really. I'd much rather prefer a smaller party." I answer him with a small smile on my face as I log onto the terminal.

"I'm guessing you're the same." I tell him as I turn my head towards him. I notice he has a small plate of food resting beside the terminal.

"I doubt that was really a guess." He states and it wouldn't take a genius to know that he was right. After all, Soma has always preferred solitude over company. Hence why he finds it hard to get along with those that aren't in his Unit. But he is slowly becoming more sociable. Unlike me who was deciding on sitting in the shadows until the party was over.

"Typical, even now you don't want to take a break. I bet that, even if you narrowly avoided death in a mission, if someone had asked you to go on another mission that you'd take it up without hesitation." Soma tells me.

"Unless you are suggesting we go on a mission now then shut up." I joke with him. Thankfully he has learned how to take a joke and lightly laughs it off.

There is silence for a few minutes before Soma breaks it,

"So why did you come down here if you weren't going to join in?" He asks.

"At least I can say I was there if anybody asked me." I give him an honest answer as I steal a bit of food from his plate. If he notices he doesn't tell me.

"I'll just hide here until the party ends. That way, I can just say a few simple good-nights so that people know I was actually here." I continued my explanation however, I wasn't expecting him to laugh at it.

"What?" I ask him in genuine confusion.

"You won't be able to hide with them arms." He says in between laughs as he points to my Gawain-like arms. I'm just thankful that his laugh isn't loud enough to attract the people in the party. Or that's what I thought.

"What's so funny, Soma? Oh, Winter!. What up bud?" Due to the language that this individual uses, I already know who it is and don't bother looking at him as I answer.

"Not much, Kota." My answer is simple, but the fact that I didn't turn around to know who it was made Soma laugh even more. Although, my facial expression of "I'll kill you!" that I directed at him probably contributed to his laughter.

"Why not join the party then, bud?" Kota asks and I feel his arm around my neck, pulling me away from he terminal I was at. My hands grip a hold of the terminal to prevent me from being pulled any further.

"Oh, so that's the way you want to play it, eh?" He asks before and I hear him walk away.

Once Kota is far enough away, I give look to my right with the intention of giving Soma a death glare, and possibly even telling him how I plan to end his life but to my surprise, I find that he is not there.

"Must have left when I was preoccupied with Kota." I quietly say to myself, not wanting to draw any more attention. For the next few minutes, I fiddle with the terminal and read a few new NORM database entries. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I would be interrupted with a pair of slender arms enclosing around my waist.

"Kanon?" I ask in surprise and feel her cuddle me from behind.

"It's just as you said, Kota, he's hiding near the terminals." I hear Alisa say which makes me realise that at least her, Kanon and Kota are behind me.

"You will go to this party, Winter." Kanon's grip on my tightens and I begin to realise what is happening. I latch my hands onto the terminal as I try to fight off the second round of pulling. Kanon is quite a bit stronger than Kota and so it is harder to maintain my grip. It gets to the point where I have to use my Gawain-like claws to grip onto the steel frame above me so that I wouldn't be taken with her. I feel Kanon's position shift and hope that she has given up. My breath is taken from me as her grip tightens even more and she whispers into my ear,

"You have two options" She begins and I can feel her breath on my ear. "You can either come with me to the party or we'll get all the other God Eaters to pull you to the party. I suppose the real question is," Her breath and tone give me a nervous shiver, "Do you want to walk to the party or be dragged?" She asks, still with her face next to my ear. When I don't answer she says,

"Well? You're wasting time. It's not a hard option once you think about it." Her grip tightens even more and I can swear that some of my internals organs have been squashed. I try to tell her, "I'll walk" in a calm manner but what came out was more of a nervous squeak,

"I-I'll walk." I could almost imagine her smiling face beaming into my back as I squeaked. I relinquish my claws' hold on the steel frames above us and log out of the terminal.

"Good choice." She moves away from my ear but keeps my waist on lockdown.

"You can let go of my waist now, you know." I tell her, she loosens her grip but keeps her arms around me.

"I'll keep them here in case you try to escape."

I turn around as I notice that I've properly logged out of the terminal. Kanon relinquishes her grip as I do so but she quickly fastens her arms around me once I've moved away from it. With all this commotion, I almost forgot that Alisa and Kota were watching. Looking into their faces I see the same emotion on both of them. Alisa was smiling almost sadistically but Kota seemed fearful of Kanon's methods. I walk through the middle of them and they walk alongside me. In my eyes, it looks as though they are sealing any possible exit.

"Your girlfriend is scary." Kota whispers to me. Unfortunately, he doesn't realise that his whisper was almost as loud as his usual speech and so the two girls heard him.

"What was that?" Alisa asked in an annoyed voice to tell him to repeat what he just said. Kanon didn't respond and I can only assume that she is smiling madly behind me back.

Once we got to the stairs, it seemed like we had attracted everyone's attention. Everyone was staring up at us and I got the chance to see who was present and who they were talking to. It seems as though everyone was just mingling with each other no matter which Unit they belong to. I began my descent down the stairs and notice the two new recruits, Annette and Federico, swarm towards the bottom of the stairs.

'Just think of everybody here waiting for a mission briefing. Yeah, a mission briefing.' I think to myself in an attempt to calm me down, tricking my brain into thinking that we were all going on a mission as one big unit. It doesn't work though and soon enough I am bombarded with words as I reach the bottom of the stairs. As they speak, Kota and Alisa leave my sides and head further into the crowd of party goers.

"Would you mind helping me, Winter? I need more training! I've already asked everyone in the 2nd Unit to think of exercises to add to my daily training regimen. I want to become a real God Eater... I want to be able to help you... You... You're my hero! I remember the last time we were on a mission and that was when I was just starting! We haven't been on a mission since then! But I'm going to get stronger! Strong enough to protect everyone! I believe that I will only get stronger if you help me. Then I'll be able to fight by your side!" Annette says in a few breaths. Her excitement astounds me.

"Sounds like you have quite the fan." Kanon lets go of my waist and takes my hand. I don't know if she knew I was nervous or was just becoming uncomfortable in holding my waist. Either way, it calmed me slightly.

"Y-Yeah sure, I'll help. I'll think of new ways you can train. Then you can fight alongside me." I tell her nervously with an arm behind my neck, still amazed at the praise she gave me.

"I want to train as well! I'm going to become the strongest God Eater out there and to do that, I need to get stronger than you!" Federico exclaims and I can see the passion in his eyes.

"Why do you want to train with me if you want to be stronger than me?" I ask him.

"Because I need to get as strong as you before I can beat you! Will you help me train?" He asks.

"Urm... Yeah, sure."

"Great! How about we start tomorrow?" Annette shouts.

"Uh..."

"8:00 sharp! Be there!" Annette shouts and prances away.

"Great! I'll see you there then!" Federico exclaims before leaving.

"Uh... What just happened?" I ask out loud.

"Well it looks like you've made plans to train with the new recruits." She says with a smile on her face.

"Did I?"

"Come on, let's go and see what the others are doing." Kanon shouts as she drags me by the hand to where the rest of our Unit is which just happens to b next to the food table.

When we get to the food table, I take one of the plates that have been left out to the side and start filling it up. Kanon lets go of my hand and begins talking to the females of the Unit. I'm sure I heard an "it worked" from one of them.

"It's about time you showed up." Lindow says as he pats my right shoulder.

"Uh huh." I speak, not really listening to what Lindow has to say as I turned my attention back to filling up my plate.

"I was beginning to think that you weren't going to show up."

"Uh huh." Hearing my response, he leans towards me and whispers,

"I hear you took the bait." Now that brings my attention to him. I stop grabbing food, turn my head and ask,

"Bait?"

"Yeah. Did you really think that Soma was standing there to get away from the party, Harley?" Speaking of Soma, he also appears to have taken an interest in the conversation. All my attention is drawn at the sound of my forename which I had thought that only Soma and Kanon knew. I give Soma a questioning glance.

"I didn't say anything. But I did tell you that I wasn't the only one that heard you that night." He responds as he notices my look.

"Anyway," I change the topic of conversation back to Soma acting s bait, "how was Soma acting as bait?" I ask the males of the group as I notice Kota heading towards us from the other end of the food table.

"Well, Kanon thought that you wouldn't attend the party unless we did something to make you. Sakaki wanted to get in on it and so we got him to try and convince you." Lindow then laughs.

"It was a well thought out plan." Kota chips in before allowing Lindow to continue.

"Kanon read you like a book. She thought that you would just try to stay in a corner of the room so we got Soma, here," He pats Soma on the back, "to wait at the terminals, making it look like he was working on it. We knew that you would join him. All that would remain is to alert the rest of us about your arrival." He chuckles again.

"When Kota arrived, I had taken my leave to tell the others about your arrival. We were hoping that Kota would drag you to the party but he told us that you kept tight a hold of the terminal." Soma explains casually.

"And that's why I did what I did." Kanon speaks up, I turn towards her to see that the girls were listening in on our conversation. The girls had big smiles on their faces.

"You threatened me." I say simply to Kanon.

"I wouldn't think of it as a threat. More like, a bit of friendly encouragement." She answers.

"I never would have thought you'd be scared of a girl." Lindow pats me on the back. He seems to have a habit of that.

"Whatever, now that you're here, why don't you talk with the other God Eaters. You may have eve gained a few fans." Sakuya tells me.

"He's already spoken to Annette and Federico. They are definitely fans of his." Alisa informs her with a flick of her hair.

"Fine. I'll speak with a few people. After I've eaten." I tell them and head back up the stairs to the couches.

As I reach the last few bites of food, I notice a few people climbing up the stairs out of the corner of my eye. Leading of the group owns silver hair and an eye-patch. I pretend I didn't see them and continue eating.

"Ah, Winter. There you are." She says as she leads her group, which I now see to consist of Tatsumi, Brendan, Shun and her.

"Winter." Tatsumi greets me.

"Oh, hi everyone. What brings you all up here?" I ask, with the hope that they soon leave. I want to eat my food in peace. That's the whole reason why I came up here. Gina sits to my right, a little too closely while Brendan sits to my left. Thankfully, Brendan knows about personal space, something that Gina doesn't.

"We just wanted to know how the mission went." Brendan states stoically. I find myself becoming annoyed at that tone.

'Wait. Is that what I sound like? Wow. What a pain I must be.' I think to myself before answering his question,

"I'm sure you can tell by the celebrations."

"What he means to say is, how was the battle? Kota told me he was epic but other than that just told me to see you." Tatsumi explains.

"Yeah, tell us all the juicy details." Gina says from beside me before leaning back into the couch with her arms crossed, possibly implying that she won't leave until she gets a good answer.

"Don't get me wrong," Shun starts, "I'm not interested in the fight. I want to know how much it pays."

"Of course you do." I sigh, "Well, I checked earlier when I was at the terminals and I think I was paid 18000FC (Fenrir Credits)."

"18000!" Shun repeats in surprise, "I should have went with you!"

"But then the reward money would have decreased." I tell him.

"That doesn't matter! The missions I go on only pay 5000FC! The next time you get a big paying job you are taking me on it!"

"that's quite the demand..."

"I've got to tell Karel about this. We can bring him along too!" Shun shouts in joy as he runs back down the stairs.

"Anyway, about the battle?" Tatsumi brings the topic back.

"I just gave out some orders. I told Kota, Alisa, Sakuya and Kanon to carve out an opening whilst Lindow, Soma and I ran straight towards it. The Nova jumped into the air so Lindow and Soma jumped after it and chopped its wings off." I notice that they are paying close attention and so I continue, "Then I jumped towards it and using both of my God Arcs, made it crash into the ground." I explained.

"Wow, that sounds pretty cool." Brendan states stoically and I can't tell if he is being serious or sarcastic.

"Yeah, it does." Gina says from beside me.

"Well, I've tired myself out now so I'll be going to back to my room." I leave my seat, wanting to leave before anyone tries to start another conversation. I couldn't be more thankful that the lift was already on this floor and got in straight away, pressing the button to return me to the floor that my room is on.

'I'll be able to lock the door to my room so that nobody will be able to get in.' I think to myself as the lift moved up the floors.

As the lift stops and its doors open, I see Kanon waiting further along the corridor. I step out of the lift and she walks towards me. I expect her to be mad but as she grows closer, I can't see any emotion on her face.

'Yeah, she's mad.' I think to myself, raising my arms in preparation to block any of her attacks. She keeps up her poker face as she stops right in front of me. I hear the lift move back down, blocking any chance of escape.

'Actually, the stairs are nearby.' I think to myself and try to move myself towards them.

"I thought you'd run back up here after you ate." She smiles and it looks to be quite caring instead of a sadistic one.

"Well, you lasted 30 minutes. I suppose that's good enough. Just remember that you have a popularity event to go to soon."

"Wait, What?!"

"Yeah, Sakaki's already told me that he plans on hosting a popularity event for you. It'll give your fans a chance to meet you." She tells me happily before walking to my side, still facing in the same direction.

"You did a good job today. Don't worry though, you'll get over your social anxiety eventually. Although, I didn't really think that it was that bad. You aren't the type to express your fears so I had to learn it for myself. I think that your actions today has shown everyone that even you fear something." She whispers to me.

"Go to your room and rest. You did well today. I will make it my main objective to make sure you beat this fear." She repeats before continuing her walk to the stairs and down them. Her words surprise me but I'm glad that she is accepting of my inability to socialise. I walk back to my room where I relax and eventually fall asleep.