+++++ Fursui, Selaru, Indonesia. (Monday + 9)
Maria had believed that she could not have become more disturbed by what they had witnessed on their journey south. Standing on a wharf, watching a variety of fauna engage in an orgy of indiscriminate violence in the ocean, she made the executive decision to stop attempting to convince herself that she'd not see worse in Australia.
Inari finished checking the route they'd have to take to reach the world's only island continent against several different maps they'd looted from a nearby Australian naval vessel after clearing out the few mutated humans remaining onboard. "We should be able to get close enough to our entry point to make the jump after only an hour of travel…with luck."
"You want us to ride in an unarmored boat for an hour," she pointed to the chaos unfurling just under the waves, "through that?"
The kitsune matriarch shrugged, reaching Maria's side and gesturing to their vessel. "I don't want to, no. I'm afraid we don't really have a ton of options though. The only hint I was able to find before whatever it is that's blocking all long-distance communications kicked in was that there was a fight at an Antarctic research station between a group calling themselves 'Gehirn', a 'demon', an 'insane woman', and a 'boiling mist of black vapor'. The Silent One was fairly clear that this Second Impact starts in Antarctica, and that means that our chances of finding an answer to bring back to him is tied to finding out what's happening there."
"And you're sure that he's preventing this insanity from infecting people around him?"
"This is your bi-hourly reminder that the only place we haven't seen this madness is a bounded dome with a radius of roughly twenty kilometers from the Shrine I forced him to defend," she declared in the same tone of voice used by railway systems to announce stops. "Had I not tricked him into staying there, it is entirely possible that there would be no life anywhere on this planet that was not…whatever these things are."
Maria jumped over to their vessel, grimacing in irritation. When she felt her travelling companion land next to her, she glared at the woman. "You know when he realizes that he's been tricked, he's likely going to kill-"
"He's too soft-hearted. They'll be fine, so long as they don't aggravate him too much." Moving to the pilot's seat, she cranked the engine and set them in motion. "Take a seat," she called over the noise, "I don't want to dump you in the water accidentally."
+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Monday + 9)
The sky was darkening as Shinji reached the stairs leading up to the shrine, Unit-01 still securely in place around him. He stood, motionless, looking up at the gate resting at the top of those steps. Waiting for him within were thousands of questions. Dozens of people that would insist on talking to him. A whole host of explanations to be given and received. Two more dead women to contemplate.
"Your mind is troubled, your heart unsteady, that you would forget my offer makes sense." The tiny woman on his shoulder patted his head, leaning down with a comforting smile for him. "I will speak to them, in your stead. Not for you, not as your voice, but so that you need not. I understand the situation well enough to answer many of their queries and have even more information that will be of use to you after a good meal and actual rest. I will wait outside of your Fir Trees of Solitude, and when you are ready, we shall speak again."
He nodded twice, remaining unwilling to use words anywhere but where he had declared 'safe'. Starting the final piece of the journey, he contemplated what he had done in growing the trees from nothing. At first his thought was simply to hide. To give himself a place where he could curl up and sob like the broken child he was. The longer he focused on the trees, however, the more he leaned into the concept that words held magic. If he focused all of his efforts towards keeping outside influences away from that small place, then he could give himself a location where words held no magic at all. Where he could say whatever he wanted to say without the very fabric of reality around him twisting itself to do terrible things at his lexical missteps. If it worked.
A smaller portal set into the outside of the main gate swung open, a Marine wearing fatigues urging him to come inside quickly. "Good to see you again, Pilot. Anything for pass down?"
"We saw no enemies readying an assault, and were unable to make contact with any, save one, who would be appropriate allies." His shoulder-lady remained in place for the moment, keeping her word. "Has an Akaname been sighted about?"
"Uh, yeah, we saw one." Closing the door behind Shinji, he gestured down to his knee. "About yea high? Kinda red?"
"That would be who I speak of."
"One of the Tengu brought her in, introduced her to the rest of us so we knew not to shoot her. She's around somewhere, as far as I know." He coughed uncomfortably, keeping pace with Unit-01. "I'm sorry to ask, but I have to know your identity as well."
"I am a friend to the one who wears this burden," she rapped one knuckle against Unit-01's helmet, "and am one of two of my kind. We have no name, at least none that your tongue could pronounce. Once he chooses what I shall be known as, I will gladly give it to you to use."
The man shrugged, accepting that if Unit-01 was allowing the entity to exist on its shoulder that there was little reason to doubt the veracity of the statement. "Roger that. Try to let us know if you leave, we're maintaining a roster of everyone on post so that we don't leave anyone behind in an evacuation." Inclining his head in a show of respect for Unit-01, he turned on his heel and jogged back to his post.
Shinji had intended to move towards a place of safety amidst the chaos, but on seeing one woman in particular he had a change in heart. He had not been the only person to lose someone. He also had not been the only person to admit to not understanding anything at all about what was happening. When he saw Rei Hino sitting alone on the bench he'd once delivered a tree branch to, keeping her word to him despite all of the pain she must be feeling, he decided that even if he wouldn't speak…he could at least listen.
Rei had watched his movements, had remained motionless as he changed his direction, and only once he was within socially appropriate speaking distance did she say, "Silver is a good color on you, especially matched with the red piping."
As he remained in his armor, carefully seating himself on the bench to avoid breaking it, his shoulder-friend agreed with appropriate restraint, "The purple did not look terribly garish, but the silver does carry its own strength. He will not be speaking to anyone, Priestess. Not you, not anyone else that comes over to pester him while he offers you his shoulder and ear. I must go and attempt to keep my word…might I ask that you not judge him for his silence?"
"He doesn't have to say anything if he doesn't want to." She considered the woman for a moment, then returned to looking into Unit-01's eyes. "I know what he's thinking, even without his voice in my mind."
"Then I will take my leave. It should not make an appearance, unless he or you are threatened." Stepping down invisible stairs to the ground, she turned back and bowed a farewell before heading over to cut off several people who were moving towards them. "Back! Back, I say! Do none of you know the story of the sleeping wolf? This is how moons get eaten, you know, and you only have the one to begin with."
"I would say that you make very odd friends, if I thought you actually had accepted any." With her dark hair glowing with the reflected light of the torches along the wall, Rei looked every inch the refined shrine maiden she was. Her tone did not betray her broken heart, nor did her words express anger or disgust. She was comforting someone, and it was quite clear she was taking comfort in turn. "Thank you." The way his head tilted slightly was enough to demonstrate she had his attention. "For thinking to check on my grandfather this morning, after you sent the bitch packing. You could have prioritized any number of other people. Any of a hundred other places. Instead, you chose to go to the one place that would have the most defenseless people. You demonstrated that inside of that…metal shell, there is a kind heart that has been gifted far too many unkindnesses."
He had chosen to check on the priests because they were on the way to everything else. He wasn't intending to do anything noble, or honorable…he just wanted to do what he could. In the end, that decision might very well have cost Tsuruko and Ritsuko their lives.
"I won't demean either of us by trying to balance what we've lost." Shifting her weight, she leaned against his shoulder and rested her head on his pauldron. "I am…'sorry' seems like such a wasted word to use here. Your entire life has been filled with suffering. With misery. With any small light that you might reach for snuffed ruthlessly by people who should have done everything they could to feed that flame instead." A dark chuckle escaped her lips. "Our pasts follow a rather similar path, actually. You were sent to live with someone after your mother died, just like I was. Your father wanted nothing to do with you, instead focusing on his career to the exclusion of his responsibilities as your parent, just like mine. The differences begin there, though. You were abused. Mistreated. Forced to learn to play the piano, the cello. To learn how to cook, to clean, to care for clothing. My grandfather encouraged me to take up music to come to terms with my mother's death. He showed me how to cook so that I wouldn't have to eat what he did. He taught me to clean so that I could pay proper respect to the kami. Showed me how to look professional so that people would take me seriously. I was nurtured…you were neutered. We both hurt, though. Just because you've become numb to it doesn't mean that your pain is any less than mine."
His decision to not speak seemed rather beneficial to him, now. He had no idea what she wanted him to say. What she was asking of him, if anything. She had lost, just as he had. She was lucky, in that the person she was sent to treated her kindly. He wasn't as lucky. If he hadn't come into her life, her grandfather would be alive. Tsuruko and Ritsuko would be alive. Makoto and Ami would be alive. The list of dead continued to grow, all because he had been pulled here. She should be blaming him…but instead she was laying against him, tears quietly running down her cheeks.
"The light of this world is dying." The admission was presented to the world in a numb, muted, voice. "I have not seen Phobos or Deimos for some time. I haven't heard the deer breaking branches around the hill for even longer. The spirits haven't spoken to me since the youkai moved everyone here. The radios aren't even receiving static, neither is the television that he thought he'd hidden from me in his room. I don't know what to do, Shinji. All I know is that you and I have to dig in. We have to find more within our hearts, within our souls." Strength returned to her voice, "Usagi is off doing the kami know what, Kaiou-san is still unconscious, Minako-chan is starting to come apart at the seams trying to think of a way to do some good…and all that means is that you and I…we need to support them. We need to support one another. Usagi and I might fight, a lot, but I cannot believe that she's not out there doing what she can to help. I am more sorry than words can express that we've lost good people to this insanity. That Akagi-san, who I think you could very easily have learned to love, was killed. But I need you to not give up." Tilting her head back so that she could stare up into his eyes, she demonstrated why fire was hers to control. "I need you, Shinji. I need you, not this," she tapped Unit-01. "Grieve. Let yourself mourn. Go into that beautiful tree you made, and cry or scream or punch the ground or whatever it is you need to do to get your mind right. If you need to remain silent out here, if you need to lock your mind away to stop from lashing out at the world, I understand. Believe me, I understand. Just be ready to help me help them when we figure out how to stop this…ok? Don't let yourself become just like every other man out there. You've shown me that not every man is a monster…don't become a liar now."
Forcing himself to look away from yet another compelling woman, Shinji scowled at the ground between his feet. He still could not say for certain that he would have loved Ritsuko. He had enjoyed having Tsuruko treat him as an equal, the way that she demonstrated confidence in him and his character doing wonders to uplift both. The problem was, he could have said the same about Makoto, or Ami, or Saeko, or even Hygieia. Despite his initial doubts, he was almost certain that Epione wanted him to be healthy and happy. He knew that Panacea would have sacrificed everything to save him. He had become surrounded by good, kind, women. They were dying at a phenomenal rate.
Rei kept her silence, the situation clear enough to her. The man she had just asked a terrible favor from was pushing that request through a formula that only he would understand. She hadn't seen anyone quite like him in her years of observing people, not even her good friend Mercury had been quite as socially awkward as Shinji still was. The difference between the two, the thing that set Shinji apart from Ami, remained that Ami always considered the costs to herself before making the selfless decision, Shinji never would worry about what life did to him. His concern would forever be the costs borne by those he would want to help. The curse he carried with him, in his own mind. Her musing was cut short when Unit-01 shifted its arm to hold a fist above her lap, fingers up. "Is…something wrong with your arm?"
Shinji carefully removed the gauntlet and bracer on his right arm, leaving his bare hand and forearm exposed. Slowly uncurling his fingers, he displayed a ring of iron that he had modified judiciously. When she lifted her hand to take it, he closed his fingers again to prevent that. When she looked at him in confusion, he shook his head and leaned it closer to her. He refused to speak, but he trusted she would understand what he was saying.
"You…you're asking me to promise you that I won't break your trust." Sitting up, her back straight and shoulders back, she lifted her chin and declared, "So long as you fight at my side, I will never willingly harm you. Come what may, and to the bitter end, you and I will face it together." When his fingers unfurled again, she carefully took the ring out while maximizing her touch against his palm. She wanted to show him that he had nothing to fear from her anymore, and wanted to know in turn whether he would still flinch from her touch. The only tremble she sensed from him was one of nervous anxiety, not fear, which buoyed her heart. The first finger she attempted to put the ring on was her ring finger, which she discovered was too small to hold the ring in place properly. Shinji replaced the armor to his hand and arm before tapping his own middle finger. "Oh. Ok, that makes sense. Wouldn't want anyone to mistake this for a wedding ring." She slipped the ring on the proper finger, then froze. "That…came out wrong. I'm sorry."
When she looked up at him, regret for her statement clear in her eyes, he motioned that he understood. He had sized the rings that way on purpose. The last thing he wanted was for his tokens to be taken as proposals, not with the number of women he intended to give them to exceeding one in total.
"No," she disagreed, "no it is not ok. What I said was most likely taken by you to mean that I wouldn't want someone thinking I was married to you. We do not know each other well enough to marry, on that we both agree. However, the thought of someone thinking I was getting to know you better, that I was trying to understand the man inside the warrior, that is something I would not be upset about. I wouldn't want someone thinking I was married, because I am not married. I will not live a lie, or present one to the world, just as you try your hardest to help people see your own truths and to see that your wants and needs are not like other men's. You, whether you believe it or not, are someone I happily call my friend." Standing up, she smoothed out her skirt and then placed a kiss on the top of Unit-01's helmet. "If you and I turn out to be compatible enough, then I would also happily call you husband. Taking a few steps backwards, her hands clasped behind her back playfully, towards the part of the shrine that had served as her personal apartment, she smiled sadly at him. "For now, let's focus on keeping everyone alive long enough to see if we can even call each other boyfriend and girlfriend, ok?"
Shinji watched her depart with a slight frown that none but he would know was present. Another woman, another offer of companionship. This time, though, there was no offer of 'sharing', no declaration that he would be given to other women as well. More importantly for his immediate needs, he now had four women he had marked with the same type of token that he wore on his own person. It didn't narrow things down as much as he'd hoped, what with trust being something he had little of for anyone anymore, but what he felt from Rei Hino was vastly different than what he'd felt from the Triplets when he'd given them their own rings. Standing up, and heading towards his tree, he failed to take note of Minako hiding behind a nearby tent, glaring daggers at where Rei had moved off to.
+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Monday + 9)
"And what have you gained through observation, then?" Lithion sat atop one of the walls lining the shrine, reading his book while discussing the situation they faced with Tungsram. "Not that, of course, observation is a terrible idea or even in this instance something to decry, but for someone who swore an oath to not change his mind on anything so that she would gain access to him…you've done remarkably little accessing."
The feminine youma shook her head, her eyes still fixed on the silver-colored monster speaking to the Sailor. "It, not him."
A small sigh of disappointment. "He is still very much there, you know. Even in the midst of that ocean of negative energy, he was present."
"It."
"And he are the same." He kept his tone free of condescension and irritation, if barely. "It is not a distinct entity, to be feared or hated. He is not a distinct entity, to be loved or lusted after. He did make a choice, yes. He has chosen to accept responsibility for dragging this world kicking and screaming through flame and misery to a brighter future. He has chosen to become something darker in the service of-"
"If you even contemplate uttering a fraction of that word, you will have to grow eyes in your colon to read that damnable tome of yours," she snapped waspishly.
"…As you wish." He had no desire to antagonize his ally, despite her own lack of reciprocation on the matter. "This world has made it farther than any before it. Perhaps that is due to him, and it, remaining ignorant of their unity."
"When it declares itself, when it speaks its name, you'll understand my fears." Stalking off angrily, she leapt over the wall further down the way and made her way towards points unknown.
Lithion's next sigh of disappointment was not so small. "And people think that I'm the pessimist."
+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Monday + 9)
Shinji's tree had undergone fairly serious external changes, the efforts of both Kodama and Mujina balancing a meticulously aesthetic design with what was clearly, even to his untrained eye, imposing defensive fortifications. Normally he would have paused to take in the architecture, to appreciate art and functionality so beautifully melded together, but the Silent One's pain was growing beyond tolerance after the use of his magic to create a token for the long-haired Sailor. He did not notice the small clusters of youkai bowing to him, awe and wonder etched into the core of their being. He did not notice the humans pause in their movements, attempting to understand the sudden change to an already bizarre situation. He did not notice the non-youkai supernatural beings motion for his attention. Pain and hatred and anger pushed all other concerns away.
The door to his sanctum had been covered over by an addition to the main structure, a large door leading into that new building opening without him touching it and closing behind him as soon as he was inside. Within that first room was decorations and ornamentations intended to guide any visitors to the attached rooms that they would seek. To the left was a room intended for observances. Orderly rows of carefully crafted pillows for people to kneel on and a platform at the far end which currently held the bier he had created upon which Ritsuko laid in state. To the right was a pair of rooms, the closest to the main entrance existing as a mixture of security checkpoint and information booth, the furthest from the main entrance a unisex and multi-species bathroom intended to provide necessary relief for all manner of life.
The Tengu and Jorōgumo that staffed the security checkpoint stood and rendered proper courtesies to the Silent One, aware even as they did that it would go unremarked upon. Through both instinct and character, they were able to easily sense the emotional turmoil broiling within him and were none too eager to distract him from whatever it was that he'd chosen to pursue.
The only other door in the room led him to the first thing outside of his own mind and body that he noticed. Sarah McDougal hopping up from one of a multitude of chairs at a large dining table, concern and anger clinging to her as she asked, "Have you eaten today? You…look like you haven't eaten." How she was able to determine that through Unit-01 remained a mystery to everyone present. "Sit down. I just finished making something to test the kitchen in here out, you can have that." Hurrying over and tugging him towards the chair she'd just vacated the blonde teen disrupted the storm building in him. "Need to make sure you're eating properly, since apparently nobody else is bothering to make the effort."
The target of the declaration, the trio of kitsune that Shinji had gifted rings to, reacted by rolling their eyes in tandem and waving off the accusation. "If you would listen to the words we use, instead of just hear them, you would understand that we can't tell him to do anything. Our role is to comfort him and soothe his moods."
With Unit-01 seated, Sarah scoffed and moved towards the small kitchenette nearby. "Some girlfriends you are. I thought Japanese women understood that feeding your man is part of keeping your man. Someone else is going to come along behind you and snatch him away if you don't stop him from running himself on empty."
There was far less wind in their sails as they looked away from him and each other. "We aren't his girlfriends."
With a suitably sized portion dished out onto a plate, Sarah looked at them askance while setting the food before Unit-01. "Then why are you wearing jewelry he gave you? That's a girlfriend thing." Her attention shifted to Shinji for a brief instant, "Hat and gloves off at the table."
Under a watchful eye, Shinji removed the arms of Unit-01 at the elbow, setting them down on the surface of the table carefully to avoid scratching anything. The helmet followed, finding a place between the two bracers, exposing the hint of confused contemplation that he was directing to the young woman. Said consideration only lasted a brief moment before the lure of food was too great to ignore any longer, and with far more haste and only slightly reduced manners, he began to eat ravenously.
Sarah sat down next to him, both across the table from the Triplets, taking a cloth out of her omnipresent overalls and Unit-01's helmet in hand to begin wiping down the surface of the armor. "If you aren't his girls, then that's all the more reason to make sure he's ok. Guys work themselves to the bone. Never take a moment to consider their own health, but they'll bend over backwards to take care of yours. Dad's like that." Her voice dropped in volume as her motions became more pronounced, "Keitaro-san was like that."
Not that he would say it even if the magical rules governing his speech would allow it, but the food he was eating at the moment was only a few steps above Misato's attempts at cooking. With the food in his stomach giving him greater capacity for thought beyond anger, hate, and hunger, he began to mentally dissect what went wrong in the kitchen.
Whatever it was that had so offended the young blonde was now properly removed from Unit-01's helmet, and so she moved onto other spots while redirecting the conversation, "So why the rings, then?"
"Just because we aren't his girlfriends doesn't mean we aren't interested in being his girlfriends." The kitsune had taken note of Shinji's distaste for whatever he was eating, as well as the fact that he continued to eat it regardless. "Why would we refuse pretty gifts just because we aren't yet dating?"
"Because the last thing he needs is a bunch of women snapping at each other around him," she declared bluntly. "He went out today to try and find out what's going on. Out into a bunch of monsters. He managed to direct seventeen more people to safety while out there. How many less will he be able to save next time if he's worried about people thinking he's keen on one woman over another?"
"Which is why we wear them on our middle fingers."
"Is it also why you're always around his stuff? Hugging him and riding on his shoulders? If you're going to mark him, at least do him the decency of claiming him publicly." Sarah held out the helm, turning it this way and that in the light to see if anything else needed cleaning. "Giving him someone to come home to is good, sure, but this 'who's going to be the woman to claim him' nonsense is going to get him, and us, killed."
Shinji's chewing slowed, his eyes shifting over to contemplate Sarah for a moment. He hadn't directed anyone to safety, at least that he was aware of. The incongruities didn't stop there, though. She was now the first woman he'd seen since he arrived in this hell that actively spoke of affection without adding the precondition of him having more than one object of said emotion. The other portions of the comment also made him question what he'd allowed to happen, and how it reflected on the women around him.
"He already has enough of a problem with women like Hera talking about him as if he was their husband. Women talking about-" Sarah stopped briefly when all three Kitsune motioned for her to where Shinji couldn't see them, before glowering and bulling ahead, "No. No, I am not going to prance about the truth around him. He's a big boy, he can handle people talking about things around him. Not everyone is ok with this idiocy regarding him single-handedly repopulating entire species." Her volume rose as her temper grew, "Not everyone thinks he should be treated like some stud to be passed around to the cattle to ensure the herd is 'stronger'. He's a human being, with human needs and human feelings. Keitaro-san didn't have anyone at his back and look where it got him. I'm not going to make that mistake again now that I finally see what I let happen. I'm-" This time, she stopped because she felt Shinji's hand gently touch her shoulder. When her head snapped over to face him, she saw reflected in his eyes what was in her own heart. The last two words she'd speak at the table that evening were for him and him alone, "I'm not."
He nodded twice, once in understanding for what she was trying to say to him, and the second in understanding what it was that she couldn't quite find the words to say. She was speaking from the position of a person who'd never had stability. Speaking as a child who'd grown up with only one parent. As a child that had seen enough death to last several lifetimes. She'd been given a brief respite in the presence of a man that had attempted to be a constant for her, a few years of solace, and then it had been ripped away violently. She wasn't asking him for love, or sex, or anything he didn't understand how to give. She was asking him for permission to exist in his life, and pleading for him to give her a place to find her own footing. The squeeze of his grip on her shoulder was enough of an answer to both. This, he would defend.
Sarah herself nodded in agreement. She wouldn't apologize for defending him, and she wouldn't take anything she said back. She had spoken what she believed to be the truth, and that was that. Setting aside his helmet and picking up the first gauntlet, she began to pick at the dirt and decay that had clung to it over the course of the day.
The silence that settled in the aftermath of the outburst was strained, at least on the opposite side of the table. The Triplets were not at all comfortable with what Shinji had just been told, nor with the fact that he'd just shown approbation to the one telling him it. They were a set, they always had been and always would be. Before Shinji came into their lives, they'd believed that they'd eventually just become old spinsters at some out of the way shrine, blessing lives with luck or mischief as the mood struck them. Now, sitting across the table from them by a woman that was only tangentially interested in him, was a man that accepted their quirks and personalities for what they were. Accepted their honesty and their presence as a unit. A man that, apparently, did not share their outlook on love.
After finishing his food, his body grateful for the energy despite his mouth hating him for the taste, Shinji pulled over a notepad that had been left on the table next to a pen and wrote out the proper recipe and steps to take to prepare the dish as intended. He felt that it wasn't communication with someone outside of the room, as what he was doing would be left out in the open for anyone who wanted to read it. Whether Sarah read it or not didn't matter, ultimately, and therefore he was not speaking to her through the act. His plate and silverware were taken away by Mika, with Misa and Miwa watching him write, and so when he finished writing he retrieved the components of his armor that he'd removed, then allowed the armor to wriggle its way back into his body before walking through the final door into his room.
Behind him, Sarah watched his back, frowning at the Triplets as they moved into the room she herself had been forbidden from entering.
+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Monday + 9)
Rei sat down in her old room, looking at the tatters of the life she'd lived for years. Many of her possessions had fallen over in the earth-rattling combat that had destroyed most of the city: glass picture frames shattered, a bonsai she'd kept since she'd moved into the shrine crushed under the weight of the pot it had been planted within, her writing equipment strewn about. All these physical reminders of her life screaming at her that her existence was never meant to be permanent. The picture she'd kept where she'd see it every day, the one image she had of her mother smiling, had a hole punched through it by the frame of the picture of her and her grandfather the day she arrived at the shrine.
She wanted to cry more. She wanted to finish purging the sorrow from her body so that she could focus on keeping people alive. Ultimately what she wanted mattered little, since her body had nothing more to give to her. No more tears could be shed, the medication she'd taken having its intended effect. "I can beat youma. I can beat evil aliens. I can't beat chemistry. How stupid is that?" With the extreme anti-anxiety medication affecting her, her startle reflex didn't kick in when her door slammed back open and Minako stormed in. "Well…you knocked this time at least."
The blonde Sailor of Venus had a clear topic on her mind, and she was going to share it with the Sailor of Mars, "I'm already facing competition from Miss Perfect, since whenever she shows up she manages to cause him to stop and listen to her and her alone. The walking Greek Statue acts like she's already married to him, walking around holding his arm and smiling with those perfect teeth. Those three foxes simper at him every time they see him, always jumping to do everything he asks. Now I have to deal with you trying to-"
"Make a friend?" Rolling the hand that held the gift she'd been given, she urged her friend to get it all out. "A male friend? Improve myself, as well as him, by exposing both of us to things that we're uncomfortable with? I'm assuming that what you're trying to tell me is that you're interested in him and I should 'back off' and 'let you have him'. That I should allow you to treat him as an object and not a person. That his interest, in whatever or whomever, should be ignored by me whenever it would be inconvenient for your efforts to shove yourself into his life?"
Her retort took the form of a full-throated roar, "I'm not the one wearing a ring!"
"No. You're not. At least, not yet." Unflappable, she considered the band on her finger. "I can feel something from this, and no it is not what you're thinking it is." Minako stalked over and made to snatch the ring from her only to find that the medication her friend was taking did not dull her combat abilities. With the other woman off balance, Rei gripped her wrist and slammed her down onto the bed, levering her arm up and driving a knee into her back. "You are going to submit to an inspection, and if I find anything that even remotely looks like a piece of jewelry it is coming off. We can do this the easy way, or I can apologize after the healers patch you up. Your choice."
Muffled by the soft surface and unable to gain traction on the sheets or pillows, her volume dropped dramatically, "I'm not infected, you cow! I'm just angry!"
"So you're willing to do this the easy way, then?" She would not take a risk with one of her few remaining sisters. "I don't have to get creative?"
"I am going to kick your- OW!" Her arm was twisted further, leading to her flutter-kicking her feet against the mattress.
"I'm not opposed to tearing your clothes off. After several years of experience completing tasks while dodging groping animals, I've become rather talented at only using one hand."
"She is not infected." Usagi's voice drew both women's attention, leading to Rei carefully allowing Minako up again. "That particular threat has been rendered mostly ineffective. The Angels that he brought with him can't find purchase in either of your souls." Sailor Moon stood just inside the doorway, looking as if she hadn't slept in years. Her energy, her aura, everything about her that had so often declared to her allies that she was an unstoppable force once properly motivated seemed almost completely absent in the woman. The mountain of responsibilities she held was now crushing her flat.
Venus set aside her issues with Mars, preparing a united front against the woman they both loved and loathed. "What brings you to our neck of the river today?"
There was hurt in her eyes, the misused colloquialism ignored for the moment. "I'm taking a break from being perfect for a bit."
"You earned that one," Mars muttered to Venus. "Where have you been going? Why aren't you here, fighting with us? Do you have a plan, or are we just winging this?"
"The Moon, because one more person fighting here isn't going to make a large enough difference when the enemy has already won the battle, and yes…I have a plan." She looked down at her folded hands, running her thumbs along her forefingers. "What I'm not sure I have, though, is his support. The plan will only work if he cooperates, and…I don't think he'll want to cooperate."
"Hold on, let's go back to the souls thing." Minako gestured between herself and Rei. "What's wrong with our souls?"
"They're not conflicted enough," Rei answered for Usagi. "When you look at the five of us, which two stand out as people struggling with acceptance? As lacking in consistent affirmation and affection? As dealing with inner turmoil on top of external teenage drama?" She pointed to their spiritual center. "Until Shinji-kun was forced to kill them, her family showered her with love and affection." That finger moved to Minako. "Until that bitch killed him, your father made you the center of his world. Your mother's perception of you as a perfect little girl was shattered when her world was upended, but that perception was present because she loved you so much." She then tapped her own chest. "My father doesn't love anyone but himself. I know that, and I've accepted that. My grandfather is…was not a perfect man, but he was a good man. He was the only reason I gave Shinji a second chance at all, and the only reason I've accepted that I was wrong about him. We don't have the darkness inside of us that they'd use to twist our minds. Even after they tried to tear that structure down around us, we remained strong. We're fortified by love. For our families, for each other, for ourselves."
"For Shin-Shin," Usagi added quietly. "You've put a lot of thought into this."
"I had to try and make sense of why she's so over-the-moon for him but hasn't gone murderer-stalker like the other two. I was watching out for my sisters and trying to do what you asked me to do with regards to him."
"What'd you ask her to do?" Minako looked between the two black-haired powerhouses. "What'd she ask you to do?"
"Give him everything I could offer him, and more." Rei remembered the night they lost Ami vividly. The way Usagi stood there as a woman changed by terrors beyond understanding. "Not let him forget what he is inside of that armor he wears."
"I asked her to do exactly what she has done." Usagi gave a proud smile to the woman she quarreled with constantly, a pride that carried with it loss beyond description. "There are, at a rough estimate, a few thousand humans left on Earth."
Minako's jaw dropped. Rei, even through the fog of medication, felt her heart begin to pound in her ears. "What…what happened?!"
"The Naoko Akagi that Shin-Shin met was not the Naoko Akagi who was the mother of Ritsuko Akagi. She was a sentient mass of proteins in the shape of a human woman, capable of altering humans with mere cells of her being. She was an Angel, and she had been seeding this planet with poison for decades now, waiting for the precise moment to strike." She paused, frowning off towards the apartment complex. "I need to let her know that she wasn't her mom."
"She died. Killed by an Angel last night." Rei wasn't surprised that Usagi didn't know everything, and took a sad pleasure in seeing that her rival winced at the news herself. Whoever you are in there, you still have a heart. "Is the real Naoko Akagi dead too?"
"I think so, but I'm not sure. How did…how poorly did he take it?"
"He hasn't spoken a word to anyone that I'm aware of since it happened. Tsuruko Aoyama, another woman he'd become close to, was bitten by one of the zombie things that attacked alongside the Angel. She apparently committed suicide to avoid becoming one of them…in front of him."
Usagi's eyes clenched shut, her heart breaking at the knowledge that she wasn't able to stop the world from killing people around Shinji at will. "He needs someone to encourage him to talk. He's going to bottle all of this up until he shuts down completely." Blinking her eyes open to force away the tears, she looked between the two other Sailors she trusted. "We have lost this battle. We didn't even know we were fighting it until it was far, far too late. Pluto abandoning her post allowed the Space Time Door to be used by…evil. I have already spoken to the only being I know of that could possibly fix this, and he refuses to intervene more than he already has."
"Who…why?" Minako was not prepared to hear that there was someone even more powerful than the things they were facing wandering about.
"He's called 'The Wanderer', and he won't intervene because this isn't the universe he lives in."
Rei's eyes narrowed, some shard of knowledge tickling her mind. "How did you speak to him?"
"Politely," she shut off the topic of discussion. "We need to focus on what we have available. If we can convince Shin-Shin to help us, we can still bring several thousand people here to safety."
Minako's frustrations were growing. "And why is here any safer than wherever they are?"
"Because he believes it to be, now stop asking questions that aren't related to us saving lives!" Usagi's body became wreathed in dark flames for a brief instant, her temper cracking. "We do not have time to stand around and play twenty questions. We are facing at least three monsters that are stronger than Metalia, and the only reason we haven't been killed outright is that at least two of them are very, very, scared of what Unit-01 is capable of when it's angry. Almost all of humanity has either been turned into abominations or killed and then turned into abominations. The 'why' of this is irrelevant. So unless the question is related to the plan, sit on it."
+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Monday + 9)
Shinji quietly contemplated what he'd just learned from and about Sarah McDougal. Had he been too distracted? Possibly. It did seem that every time he began to seriously contemplate accepting someone's feelings for him as genuine that they died, or were attacked, or his attention was diverted onto some emergency. The list of commonalities began to line up in a row for him, individual incidents snowballing into larger catastrophes. Looking up at the wall containing the natural art depicting the dead, he allowed his memories to go beyond the moment of their death to the moments leading up to that terrible fate.
"Makoto was planning a future," his voice was coarse from disuse, the sound wrong in his own ears.
The Triplets chimed in at the unexpected statement, "Her loss was-"
Ignoring the distraction, Shinji continued talking to himself, "She wanted to earn her fair share. Wanted to build a life from the platform she had, instead of having it handed to her by me or anyone else. Looking back, she wasn't interested in purely physical attachments. She'd hug me because I needed hugs…or she did. But a hug is nowhere near what's been done by others. She wasn't rushing towards that." His head tilted slightly to the side in thought. "She became more despondent when I paid attention to others. Her smile would stiffen, the tip of her thumb would press into the first knuckle of her index finger…but she didn't push me away from them. She didn't insist that I…."
They tried again to interject, "It's not-"
"She came over with Usagi after I ran away…that was stupid. Thinking that because I'm 'second' that I'm somehow 'less'. I didn't want to be compared to someone else for the rest of my life, but I didn't bother asking if that was what was happening. It only makes sense to compare meals, after all. If you have a really delicious loaf of bread, any loaves after that are going to be compared against it, even if the first loaf didn't end the way you wanted it to or didn't satisfy everything you needed…it's just a matter of the human mind rationalizing its environment based on pre-existing knowledge. Whatever, it's not about me right now."
"You don't-"
"Did I not notice Ami?" His eyes moved to the image of the other Sailor present on his wall. "I told her that I thought she was beautiful…I thanked her for healing me…. But did I give her a chance to tell me how she felt? Would it have mattered?" His eyes drifted back to the first image. "Does coming first mean that nothing should come after? If I would have been happy with Makoto, should I have even contemplated Ami? What about Usagi? Or Minako? Or even Hygieia?"
"What about-"
"Is that what any relationship is, ultimately? Never-ending guilt over feeling like you would be just as happy with another woman as you are with the woman you're with?" He looked towards the depiction of Saeko Mizuno. "Her husband left her for someone younger. Someone 'new'. The way she spoke to him, he'd been in a series of relationships that failed. Did they fail because he wasn't happy…or because he couldn't be happy? Is something missing in him, and not them?" A brief pulse of memory brought to mind his father's face. "When she died, he sent me away. Why? Because I reminded him of her? …Because she was inside Unit-01, and he…he wanted to bring her back?" Unable to look at the mural of Ritsuko, he looked instead down to where that wall met the floor. "Is that what love is? Unwavering devotion to a single-" With his knees loose, and standing as he was, he wasn't in a position to stop himself from stumbling forward as he was tackled from behind by the Triplets.
All three clung tightly to him, trying to will themselves into his thoughts through physical force, "You can't just-"
Righting himself, Shinji's temper flared in response to the incessant intrusions on his train of thought. "Out!" Reaching behind himself and prying Misa free, he tossed her towards the entrance before sending Mika and Miwa right after. Branches formed from the walls, grabbing the trio and shoving them through the opened door. "And stay out!" The door slammed shut, reacting to his will, a single branch from the cluster he'd willed into existence snaking over to deposit three jade rings in his outstretched hand. Glaring down at the gifts he had just given to them earlier that morning, he crushed them into powder and tossed the remains away from him to be reabsorbed into the ground. "I should have known better. I wanted to trust them. Wanted to trust that they understood me." The drumbeat of rage slowed with the irritating factors elsewhere for the moment. "I'm not sure anyone can understand me." He returned to a general contemplation of the portraits on the wall. "How can they, if I don't understand me?" A brief image of Rei Hino came to mind. "She…felt right. She wanted to get to know me, wanted me to get to know her. She didn't want me to be her boyfriend without being my friend first, didn't want other people thinking we were serious when we're just learning about each other. Didn't try to use her beauty to distract me from her flaws. That feels right." He focused on Makoto again. "I think that's what she wanted…I think that's…normal?"
+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Monday + 9)
Minako had stopped talking entirely, struggling to process what was both an audacious plan and an unforgivable abdication of their responsibilities. She knew her opinion on the matter, and would express it when asked, and anticipated that Rei was of a mind with her. The logistics of moving so many people safely seemed beyond them, to say nothing of feeding, housing, and employing them to prevent boredom and demoralization. The idea of simply conceding that the Earth was lost and abandoning it to live in a gilded cage on the moon smacked her as admitting absolute defeat. How could she, or any other person sworn to defend life, ever look people in the eye again if they let their enemy take over the planet?
"Assuming we have any chance of moving so many people to where they can't be infected…how exactly do you plan on establishing farmland up there?" Rei's tone indicated that she was willing to entertain the debate, that she wasn't being snide or contemptuous of the other woman, but it was clear from her body posture that she was not yet convinced. "I know that you didn't pay a lot of attention in your classes, or we wouldn't have had so many problems in study sessions, but the moon lacks arable soil, shielding from solar radiation, and more importantly for our immediate needs, a breathable atmosphere."
"All of which can be created by working with the youkai Shin-Shin has gathered," Usagi assured her. "Inside his suit, he doesn't need to breathe. He also has protection from even worse radiation than the sun puts out. We'll send him up first, have him create a series of radiation-shielded buildings with a breathable atmosphere using plants, restore the Palace so that it's airtight, and then we rely on the food we can bring up there for a bit while we cooperate with the youkai to address the issues of growing crops up there. The yuki-onna can make snow, which can be melted into water. The Kodama can grow trees that produce fruits and nuts. So long as we can find a relatively intact farming supply store, we can take the seeds we'll need to diversify diets."
"And what happens when they attack us up there? Do you have a fallback plan?"
"I do…but I won't share that plan until it's needed. The fewer people that know about it, the less likely it is we'll need it." Her head shook slightly, indicating a serious doubt. "Only one of the monsters we're facing could reach us anyway, and so long as Unit-01 is around they're not likely to force a direct confrontation. The gain is too minimal for the risk they'd take, since Shin-Shin doesn't want the power it's seeking anyway."
Rei nodded slowly, demonstrating trust in her compatriot. "Ok, sell me on that part. Who are we facing, and why can't they reach the moon?"
"Three people competing for the same prize, but right now it's really only two. The First, the version from Shin-Shin's world, was already in a weakened state before he came with him here. Then, when it attempted to recreate its children it used more of its power. They failed, and now he's too weak to do much of anything but wait to be killed by one of the other two. The second is our version of the First. They were forced awake by the arrival of the First, and now they're fighting the third because the First isn't worth spending energy on right now. The third…killed the being we knew as Chaos. With Metalia dead, Chaos was trying to find the next puppet it would use in order to skirt around the Laws that prevent it from taking direct action against the galaxy. This new entity, the third monster, resurrected Chaos as one of its henchmen. It has far greater power than Chaos, and was the one that redirected Chaos' attempt at pushing me to Shin-Shin's world. It knows that without him, this universe will simply vanish. It will probably try to seek a truce with him, and so it's not likely it will attack."
"So this first-"
"First, it's not just the first one I was talking about. It was the First Angel, the reason for what Shin-Shin called Second Impact." Usagi motioned with her hand to apologize. "Sorry, go on."
"No, I think you answered my question…." Rei considered the changes to Usagi, deliberately lingering over her hair and clothes. "It was trying to communicate with you. To control you. It used your grief over that jackass Tuxedo Mask to stop you from being able to defend your family. It attacked your family, changing them into monsters. When it failed to stop you, it attacked Makoto-chan, and then Ami-chan."
"Yes…they're dead because I was too stubborn to listen to the strange voice in my head." She scowled, angry at herself. "It offered a compromise. It would inhabit Antarctica for a few decades, restore a 'seed' there, and then leave for another planet. I would be its body, and leave with it. The Earth…wouldn't have had the problems it does now."
"And you didn't think to tell anyone?!" Minako's outburst drew both women's attention, each having mostly forgotten she was there. "You start hearing strange voices in your head offering you magic beans, and at no point in time do you look at any of your supposed sisters and say, 'hey, someone I can't see is talking to me and wanting to take over my body'. You don't warn Makoto or Ami so they can be on the lookout for it? YOU don't give US a warning so that we can try and defend our families?! The fuck is wrong with you, Tsukino?"
When Usagi's eyes hardened, Rei held her hand out between the two women. Keeping her voice calm, and her tone even, she made an attempt at keeping the peace, "I'm the first person to jump on her when she does something scatterbrained, you know this. With everything we had just been through, with the stress of meeting Shinji for the first time, the discovery that we had all been lied to by that jerk Mamoru Chiba, it is perfectly reasonable for her to doubt that she wasn't just having intrusive thoughts. When everything went downhill, it went downhill so fast that we had barely enough time to do anything but react. We act older than we are, and she switches between ageless and five years old at the drop of a hat, but we're all still just teenagers faking like we know what we're doing. Our enemies are outside this room, Minako-chan. Let's keep the attacks aimed at them."
"I am not above criticism, no matter what you think, Aino." Usagi had to work to keep her tone in line with Rei's, "I accept that I brought this on us by ignoring a serious problem. I agree with you that if I had acted then I wouldn't be filled with regret now. I was too naïve, too starry-eyed, too optimistic about what we had and could accomplish together as a team. That's why I have been going around doing what needed to be done. That's why I no longer have my natural hair color, or my natural skin color, or the ability to transform into my natural combat gear. I have been going around picking up whatever pieces of hope I could, no matter the cost to myself, because I recognize that it is on me to fix this." Her clothes shifted to the much darker variation on the traditional Sailor Senshi gear. "Look at this and tell me that you see hope. That you see someone intended to inspire people. That you see someone good. I have gone around the world trying to create holes in their battleplan, I have had to stand by and watch people die so that I wasn't killed before I could give you a chance to inspire people to fight back. I've been wandering around like some sort of assassin-thief-terrorist losing bits and pieces of myself while absorbing every single scrap of power I could from the only untainted source of it on this planet!"
Rei pressed on that point, "And that would be?"
Usagi looked down in shame, the head of steam she had been building gone from her as if it had never been there. "The Second Angel. She…was the antithesis of the First, and the mother of the human race on the world Shin-Shin came from. She…in our world, my kingdom was built on her grave."
+++++ Author's Notes:
GunMetalSnail429:
RE: "Her" and Kaworu.
Well, part of the reason NGE was so wildly successful is the dual meanings that infuse the trinities spread throughout the entire story. Unit-01 as destroyer and mother. Shinji as king and pawn. Rei as Angel and human. Etc. Etc. Something that people who understand Japanese would have recognized more easily than those who do not, Kaworu is an androgynous name. The concept of agender and asexual Angels fits neatly into the fact that Kaworu may very well have chosen the more bishounen (handsome boy) features in an effort to befriend Shinji, understanding that Shinji did not understand women at all and would have been far too intimidated or confused by another example of a female seeking to enter his life. For all anyone knows, Kaworu could have chosen to be more feminine instead.
RE: Shinji and peace.
If he wants to find peace, he's gotta earn it. No character worth reading about can ever just be given success; they have to fight for the keys, search for the door the keys fit to, defeat the guardian at the gates, set up camp on the other side of the door, defend that position until relieved...or overwhelmed. Peace is more costly to maintain than war, and it takes true strength to hold onto it for long.
Prodigal Priest: RE: Gratitude.
I appreciate that you took time to express your enjoyment of my tale. Don't worry if you don't have time to do so, often or at all, because I understand well that real life has to take priority over these breaks from the grind. I'm grateful that I have people willing to read my lexical incontinence, and every gesture given in return, large or small, is meaningful to me.
Ghost Man:
RE: Learning new words.
I learned a long time ago that I wouldn't get in trouble for telling someone that their attempts at prevarication were so much 'bovine fecal effluvium'. Because, of course, I didn't say 'bullshit', so I couldn't be punished for implying 'bullshit'. It probably says something about me that I spent time when I was much younger finding colorful euphemisms to swear without swearing...
RE: Unit-01's detachable p...parts.
It has changed, and that change has come in more than a few ways.
RE: Golden Apples.
Hera's actually made more than one reference to both the tale and the Ancient Greek traditions it spawned. I kind of feel bad writing her character, honestly. I think I might be doing it a disservice.
RE: Lawful Evil.
Interesting side-story. I found out, early on in my workshopping of this story, that writing 'Chaos' would require writing chaos. Attempting to detail, in any sort of detail, the random incoherence that word describes would lead to me not only losing a bunch of people along the way, but would also make creating any sort of 'endgame' an exercise in pointlessness. As was stated earlier in the story, 'Chaos' literally cannot plan. It's chaotic. 'Chaos' can't have meaning, or intent, or purpose. It must exist as it exists, formless and unchanging. Chaos is, at its core, a tautology. Needlessly repeating itself, doing everything it can to remain unanticipatable. Eventually, any being that would strive to be 'Chaos' would become bound by that strict demand...or lose the mantle. The instant it had a 'goal', it would become predictable. The very moment it even formed a coherent, cohesive, thought...it would lose. That means that 'Chaos' can't remain sentient, "Mindless chaos" is, as I said, a tautology. Thought predicates order, and order cannot coexist with chaos. ...Well, at least I thought it was interesting.