+++++ Station Nord, Greenland. (Thursday + 12)
Shinji wasn't quite sure what he was following through the winding corridors of the underground installation, but he knew he was tracking something specific. Each time he turned the wrong way, the sound he was pursuing felt 'wrong'. The tone changing from ocean waves in a steady wind to a mournful rain falling against a thin roof, he could feel whatever it was begging for him to find it. The people with him didn't seem overly worried about what he was doing, only judiciously cautious about his general health. Clare had shoved her brother aside, placing herself under Shinji's shoulder when she felt that Chris was allowing Shinji to move too quickly. The incident had confused Shinji until Rebecca had moved in front of him and slowly explained that he needed to pace himself. The language barrier, while helpful in allowing him to remain mute, was becoming more annoying the longer he spent around nobody that spoke Japanese.
Hobbling past a non-descript patch of wall, no different than the kilometers of off-white painted cement surfaces surrounding it, he felt the sound shift again. He looked around, saw that there was no off-shoot or doorway anywhere near where they were, and carefully turned around to avoid slamming Clare into either of the walls beside them. The ocean returned. He'd managed to take only two steps back the way they came before the tone changed again. His typical frown dropped to a scowl, and he glared from side to side trying to determine what had changed. When he looked to the right, the rain continued. It was when he looked left that he noticed the ocean begin to return.
Clare noticed his head tilt in confusion. "Guys, I think he's found something."
"Something wrong with the wall?" Chris began to rap his fist against the cement, listening for any change in consistency or pitch. "It's a government bunker, it wouldn't shock me at all if there's some stupid trick wall."
Shimmying slowly to the side, Shinji tried to locate the exact point at which the sound changed from one to the other. It wasn't terribly precise, but he was glad that at least they understood what he was trying to do. It only took another minute or so of shifting before he discovered the 'crease' where the sound shifted from one to the other, and he gestured with his hand up and down the line he'd found.
"Here?" Rebecca looked back at him, patting the wall. "You think this is…wrong?"
Down at the end of the hall they'd been traversing, two people spotted them, one woman and one man. The woman waved, calling, "Hey, we've been looking for you guys. How's our ride doing?"
"He's been looking for something," Clare responded once the two were close enough that she wouldn't have to yell. "He finally found…it? Whatever this is. This patch of wall, something about it he doesn't like."
"This wall?" The man that had arrived spoke in halting, but understandable Japanese, looking at Shinji and patting the wall where Chris and Rebecca were looking for an answer, "Is there something behind it?"
"…When the hell were you going to tell me you spoke Japanese, Rookie?" The woman thwapped him on the back, part playful, part irritated. "I'd've sent you to go help Baby Bear and 'Becca."
"Psh, you just wanted time alone with Lieutenant Redfield," Rebecca teased, not taking her eyes from the wall.
The woman flicked Rebecca's ear, smirking playfully. "He's my partner, kid, not my partner. We'd be terrible for each other." When she grinned at Chris, it was with a level of confidence in both herself and him that Shinji couldn't hope to achieve. "We just let everyone around the office think there was something going on behind the scenes so everyone would leave me alone."
"That's my big brother," Clare chuckled, "always the bridesmaid, never the bride."
"Nothing wrong with having Jill as a little sister," Chris retorted, unaffected by the playful banter, "at least she listens to me when I say to stay out of something." Crouching down, he began to bang his fist against the wall next to the floor itself. "Rookie, would you mind asking Señor Silencioso there if he has any amplifying data for us here? I don't doubt him, I just don't understand exactly what we're looking for."
"Uh, Lieutenant," the 'rookie' frowned doubtfully, "Venus told us that he's not supposed to talk. Something about laws being broken if he does."
"Then ask him yes or no questions, Leon," Rebecca encouraged him gently. "He doesn't have to say anything to nod or shake his head."
Shinji hadn't been able to follow most of the conversation, still somewhat worried about the fact that the new guy was able to at least communicate at a lower level in Japanese. If he was forced to respond to something, if the man asked him something that required him to do something, it might very well end terribly for everyone involved.
"I'm sorry, sir," Leon began with a slight bow of his head, "my superiors here want me to ask you a series of 'yes' or 'no' questions. If I ask you such a question, can you move your head without violating laws? If you can't, please remain still. That way, I'll have my answer and you won't have done anything you are not supposed to."
Was it 'communication' if he replied in either the affirmative or negative? It didn't seem to be, to him. There was no 'intent', or 'array of possibilities' in yes or no. He could even say no, but then change it to yes depending on the wording of the question. It was like looking at the tree when he spoke to Rei, what they inferred from his motion was up to them. Hesitantly, he nodded his head.
What followed was the most painful game of 'Twenty Questions' that Leon had ever experienced. Adhering to the chain of command, he translated Chris' questions first, Jill's next, then Rebecca's, and because manners were never far from his mind, Clare's. It was only after they had all been given opportunities and run out of ideas that he'd voice his own thoughts. It was evident when he didn't use the right grammar, or the right word, as he could see Shinji's brow knit in either confusion or irritation. He'd spent more than enough time in Europe to recognize the look of a local struggling to engage with a foreigner.
Shinji, however, was not actually irritated at Leon or the questions. His irritation came into play when he realized that the question they'd asked was tangential to the truth, but not the truth itself. Often he would have to say 'no' when he would have preferred to say 'close'. The truth of the matter, though, was sacrosanct and he could only affirm or deny their suppositions. Each time the line of questioning drifted away from the truth, he'd become even more angry at himself for getting into the mess he was now wallowing in.
It was eventually Rebecca that managed to land a hit on the truth with a wild guess, "He says that he can hear something. Something we can't hear. Something that moves. Something that changes." She looked up to the ceiling, where all of the industrial plumbing and ducting had been routed through. "It isn't the water system, that's up there. It isn't the ocean, we're underground. What if he's hearing an extranormal phenomenon of some sort? Something the government wanted to hide, or didn't know was here when they built the base? Something that sounds like water, but isn't water."
Jill raised an eyebrow. "When did we decide it was water?"
"When I ruled out gas based on him saying it wasn't 'air'," she responded with a shrug. "It's a liquid of some sort. This isn't an exterior wall, you can keep going further in the same direction on either side of it. I'll run down the hallway over there," she gestured the way that they'd come with Shinji earlier, "Leon can run down that one there," another gesture to the one Leon and Jill had arrived from. "When the hall changes directions, we'll turn around and come back. If there are any doors, windows, or vents, take note of them. We'll get an idea of what's in here that way."
"Uh-uh," Chris shook his head, "I'll go. We're not risking the team medic."
"We'll both go," Jill asserted firmly. "'Becca, you go with the Rookie. Baby Bear, you stop Chatterbox there from doing anything silly."
Chris put his foot down, "Still not risking the team medic. Sis, you go with the Rookie, keep him out of trouble. Rebecca, keep your head on a swivel, but try to keep guessing at what he's thinking. You're the brains of our little band of misfits, earn your keep."
"Not going to caution the Rookie to keep his hands off your sister?"
"Clare's old enough to decide who she wants touching her. I raised her right; she knows her worth." The big man frowned thoughtfully as he looked at Shinji. "Let's get moving. We're burning daylight."
+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Thursday + 12)
Three quarters of the circumference of the dome had been walked in silence. Yukiko sitting on Rei's shoulder, much as she did with Shinji, and trailing her hand against the warm surface of the crystalline shell had produced neither new information nor ideas on how to exit the area to go help in the arctic. When she finally spoke, it was with appropriately dispassionate calm, "He's alive. He's hurting, tired…but is searching for something. We're not getting out through here."
Rei nodded, agreeing with the last statement and thankful for the information on Shinji. She'd been feeling something similar, a light pull on her soul towards the same general point on the horizon. "I should have been paying better attention to him."
"It is not your fault. He had intended to leave the portal open for us to join his battle, and he overestimated his reserves. We're fortunate that he didn't cut himself in half, to be frank."
"At least he was thinking." Sighing in frustration, she worried at the ring on her finger. "Was there a reason you asked for me to come with you?"
"They need to stew in their helplessness for a time, you don't." A small hand smoothed some of Rei's hair down, a comforting gesture from woman to woman. "You needed time to think, time to process. You also needed a few key bits of information about what the Rabbit did."
Rei's temper flared briefly, before she smothered it again. "She acted unilaterally. She took this burden on herself, without talking to any of us about it, and now she's either leveraging that burden to gain intimate access to a man that doesn't understand what love is or she's leveraging that burden to manipulate him into accepting a level of intimacy from us that he's not emotionally prepared for. I'm not stupid, I know quite well what that moon-brained idiot is doing."
It was Yukiko's turn to be surprised, her mouth curling into a small grin as she looked down to observe Rei as Rei glared at a point well beyond the barrier they were experimenting with. "I was not of the opinion that you were uneducated, you know."
"…I do. I'm sorry for the accusation." She reached one hand up, lightly patting Yukiko on the leg. "I'm just frustrated that, once again, the woman we supposedly promised to help each time we were reincarnated has managed to ignore the fact that her sisters are not only willing but eager to share her burdens! She didn't need to take all of this…this…corruption onto her own shoulders. Even without Uranus and Neptune, because they have their own problems to handle, that's at least two extra people that could help her lift whatever boulder she's flailing at. If she didn't have so much of this 'presence' in her, maybe she wouldn't have put herself in a situation where she was weak enough to…."
Curiosity, more than anything, drove her next question, "Do you think less of him now?"
"No," her answer was as swift as it was emphatic. "It's not even the 'he's a man, of course he let her get him off' nonsense that my irrational side is banging on about. I honestly believe that he would do whatever he could to take care of her needs. It's who and what he is. She took advantage of him, not the other way around…never the other way around."
"That is a matter of some…flexibility. Not with regards to what he did, no," she staved off another disagreement before it could metastasize, "but with regard to her actions."
"There's not much room for debate here. He himself said, not however many minutes before, that it would better to ignore those urges for the moment. He made it clear that he was not interested in engaging in…that. As the constant advertisements and notices on subways say, 'No means no'."
"And she has…uncommon energy requirements."
"And yet…wait," Rei stopped moving, "where were those two when we were hauling people through portals? Maria and the other one? Maria, at least, has 'uncommon energy requirements' if Usagi's been slathering her sister all over herself. She hasn't been going after Shinji. And where the hell were they? We could have used two more strong backs for this!"
Yukiko blinked a few times, searching both her memory and her senses for any answers to what was not only a well-informed but salient question. "I…can't feel either of them."
+++++ Station Nord, Greenland. (Thursday + 12)
Minako's observations of Khlorya's observations of the main doors hadn't yielded any answers to her questions. She had learned that the youma had no difficulty sitting in the cold, wet, environment. That despite seeming to be easily distracted in combat, she had an amazing ability to focus monomaniacally when she wanted to. That her emotions and intentions were plainly evident, even when she was alone. But nothing regarding her desires or motivations. She was about to give up when a new player stepped through a portal that was shaped much differently to the ones Shinji tended to create. With four arms and leathery wings, it was quite obviously not 'friendly'.
The seemingly male creature began speaking to Khlorya, then paused when the woman didn't look towards him. Clapping two of his hands, he moved himself to where she would have to look around him to see the door. This, unfortunately, also stopped Minako from being able to see anything of what transpired for the first few minutes. The man began to gesture more animatedly, an odd strain of diplomacy in the actions. Then, still ignoring him, Khlorya rounded his side to observe the door. She either didn't feel the need to respond, or was actively attempting to incite the man. Her observations were cut short when another monitor drew her attention.
"Oh, damn it all…."
+++++ Station Nord, Greenland. (Thursday + 12)
Shinji had passed the time, since the four others had left, feeling the wall where the sound created a seam between rain and ocean. He couldn't reach the top of the wall, which was what had begun to draw the majority of his attention. After poking and prodding every centimeter he could reach another two times, he took a step back and looked up at the areas his arms weren't long enough for and frowned.
"I was thinking that myself," Rebecca concurred, following his visible train of thought. "Maybe there's…I don't know, a switch? Some sort of marking above the pipes? Maybe one of those fancy proximity sensors that is looking for a specific phase-shift modulation or frequency." Waving one of her hands up at the area, she looked at him with her lips curled off to one side in thought.
Most of what she'd said sailed over his head. His lessons in English had all been focused on basic conversations, and her vocabulary was well into the scientific realms that he couldn't quite place. What she'd intended, by waving her hand vaguely, did not translate as a typical gesticulation, but as a request for him to help her reach. The idea had merit, and she seemed more than light enough for him to heft, even as weakened as he was. Settling down on one knee, placing one hand against the wall to provide better balance, he looked at her without any specific intent in mind. She clearly wanted to help, and this wasn't something terrible to ask of him.
"Huh? Are you o…oh!" Divining part of his intent, she blushed lightly. "I'm almost ninety pounds, a little under thirty-nine kilograms. Are you sure you'll be able to hold me?" His face didn't change, reminding her that he probably didn't really speak the same language as her. There was no reason for her to decline, and she believed herself athletic enough to salvage the situation if he began to wobble. "Ok…."
When Rebecca moved to step on his knee, Shinji offered her his free hand to use as an additional point of balance. He wasn't the best judge of another human's weight, however, and was visibly surprised when she weighed nowhere near enough to cause him serious problems. Motioning for her to step back down, he levered himself back to his own feet.
"Oh, oh, I'm sorry! Are you ok?" Just as quickly as he had moved, she put herself back in his personal bubble to check his pulse and breathing.
Shinji stifled a sigh of irritation at himself, barely, but couldn't keep the frown from his face. To avoid giving her a chance to further complicate what he was trying to do, he squatted down, gripped her ankles and knees, and stood back up to place her on the non-Yukiko shoulder. Part of his mind felt warm at the thought that some part of him had been 'claimed' by someone else, feeding his appreciation for the small woman and the comfort her presence brought him. The other part of his mind realized that he missed her already, despite it only having been part of a day.
Rebecca gasped when he grabbed her, squeaked when he lifted her without any difficulties, and laughed when he placed her on his shoulder. "Ok, fair enough." With a careful sweep of her leg to avoid striking him in the head, she set herself so that she was standing on both shoulders for better balance. "I should know better than to think someone's too weak to do what's necessary, everybody does it to me and I hate it too." Retrieving a personal flashlight from a hook on her belt, she flicked it on and began to look around for anything out of the ordinary.
One glance upwards was all he took before his head dropped back down so that his eyes were on the ground. Beyond the fact that when he looked up he realized he was looking directly at the apex of her legs, he also noted that her shirt had come loose and he had been able to see places on her person that she couldn't have wanted him to see. Guilt caused him to look surreptitiously to the sides, checking to see if anyone noticed what he'd done. He knew apologizing was going to be challenging, while remaining something he desperately wanted to do, but the last thing he wanted was a misunderstanding leading to someone thinking he was…uncouth. There was nobody to his left, that he could see at least. Looking to his right, he had a moment of confusion. There were several people gathered down at the intersection where the hallway he was in ended, leading both in the direction they'd come from when searching for the sound, and the direction Jill and Chris had taken. Due to the distance between him and them, he was only able to make out general features. He'd been told that there were scientists present, at least that's what he'd understood from what little he could translate. How many wasn't something he recalled being told, but the six people he could discern didn't seem…sciencey? There was something about the way they stood that….
"Oh, I think I found something!" Rebecca's announcement had been intended to promote happiness. What it unleashed, however, was the opposite.
The crowd that had gathered at the end quickly began hurrying down the hallway, limping along with limited coordination in a halting rush of body movements. There was nothing for Shinji to do save push himself away from the wall and catch Rebecca as she fell. While lifting her was nothing terribly taxing on him, catching her with the added momentum caused by gravity's pull forced him to one knee. He saw Rebecca's eyes widen as she saw the onrushing mob of zombies, then heard her swear cutely when she turned and saw something in the other direction. He knew he was surrounded without having to hear her say it. That, normally, would have made things incredibly easy for him. After all, if you're surrounded then you don't have to worry about where to aim. This set of circumstances, however, meant that he had to protect someone who wasn't practically immune. It also meant he had to try and summon Unit-01.
Rebecca stepped around behind him as he stood, pulling out her pistol and taking down several of the zombies with well placed shots. After the distinctive click of the slide locking in place due to the magazine being empty, he felt her steady herself to go down swinging. "I'm sorry, Shinji. I guess we should have gone with the others."
He hadn't understood the words, hadn't heard the tone of genuine remorse, hadn't accepted his own insufficiency the way she had. Shinji's mind was processing what he'd do, if he had the energy. This wasn't a time for shying away from pain. Wasn't a time to lay down and die. He'd accept his death as necessary if, and only if, he had done everything he could to save everyone. Rebecca was not saved, and that meant he hadn't done enough. Gripping his necklace of coins, he squeezed his hand hard and sought strength from the faith the youkai had shown him by giving him the beautiful works of art. If he was going to die, he was going to die saving someone.
According to the principles of Classical Mechanics, mass could not be created or destroyed. Mass had, does, and would continue to exist, just in differing forms throughout its life. The magic he'd been slinging around had, potentially, used a great deal more energy because he had been creating something from nothing, violating basic physics. That meant, potentially, if he worked within the scientific principles that governed what had been observed by scientists for a very, very long time…he had a chance of maximizing his one shot.
Slapping his hand against the wall, he used the stone and metal within it to create two sets of three-dimensional trifurcation diagrams. Branching stems of sharpened death that impaled both herds of zombies that had attempted to flank them, blockading the others behind that mass and preventing them from advancing. Two thirds of the matter within the wall had been necessary to create what he had, but only a tenth of the energy he might have otherwise used had been expended to produce the effect. Still, that was more energy than he could comfortably spare, and he silently dropped to his knees gasping for air.
Rebecca stood, transfixed by what she had just witnessed. She'd heard his hand smack against the wall, glanced back to see the start of something that she believed no one had ever truly witnessed before, and then greedily watched as her new, recalcitrant, friend saved them…with math. "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes…." Cheering, she bounced up and down clapping, happy to be alive. "That was amazing! That…wait," spinning back around, she looked where she expected to see him standing, noted that he had fallen, and then slid to her knees to crouch in front of him looking him over once more with a clinician's eye, "so this is why you needed food. You're using your own energy to work…whatever it is you want to call this."
The sounds of the ocean grew louder, begging him to approach, keeping him from falling into unconsciousness from oxygen deprivation. His head lolled towards the 'crease', his eyes struggling to focus. There was something there. Something 'different'. Whatever it was that Rebecca had found had released some sort of internal mechanism in the wall, something made of wood and brass. Shinji slowly dragged himself over to where the largest segment of wood had been exposed, placing his hand against it and feeling the call of the ocean in his soul. It was stronger there, or the barrier was weaker. The woman beside him was speaking, trying to do what she could to help him lay down. He couldn't understand her, and he couldn't warn her that he was about to do something stupid. That lone thought prompted a self-pitying chuckle. Since when have I ever tried to be smart about things?
She failed to grab his hand as he lifted it from the wood. Couldn't stop it from balling into a fist. Could barely launch herself at him in time to try and shield his body from falling debris after he used the last of his energy to smash a hole in the outer barrier of a room far larger than it had any right to be. The air pressure equalized between the hallway and the enormous chamber, the vacuum created sucking both of them inside and over the lip of the ledge he'd created leading to a drop of several stories. Her emotional rollercoaster went through contortions as they fell, hoping that they were in the small percentage of people that survived long falls, then rising back up when they struck water deep enough to abate most of the damage caused by momentum transfer, then plummeting back down again when she realized that Shinji was unconscious and far heavier than he looked. By the faint blue glow of the only light source in the room, she managed to snag his arm again as he sank. Summoning adrenaline-charged desperation, she managed to drag him to a central platform that was just barely over the water level. Hoisting him up and praying that he hadn't stopped breathing or taken in too much water before collapsing atop him in exhaustion, she failed to see a sight that no human had witnessed for thousands of years.
A free-floating gyroelongated square bipyramidal Crystal the size of two grown adults, glowing with stoic resolve at the central vertex of every angle in the room.
+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Thursday + 12)
Rei and Yukiko had gathered a number of followers as they hurried through the center of the Shrine while ignoring their questions about what was causing them to hurry as they were. Yukiko led the way to where she'd last known Maria and Inari to be held, blowing through the main doors to the apartment complex, into the repurposed administrative area, and coming to a screeching halt at what greeted them therein.
"…Sergeant, go get me the person in charge of security for this building." Kyoko pushed her way up to the front after sending her aide off at a sprint, urging everyone to stay back. "Please, let's not make it harder than it's already going to be to figure out what caused this. Let's canvas our new residents for anyone that has forensics training or crime scene evidence collection training. The fewer footprints we have in this room right now, the more likely we'll figure out if this was an internal or external attack."
Rei swallowed hard, leaning back against the open door and covering her mouth with both hands. There was an enormous amount of viscera strewn about the back half of the overlarge chamber, the overwhelming stench of blood, organs, and tattered flesh was chokingly close. "Is…is that who I think it is?"
Yukiko, through her ability to walk wherever she so damn well chose to, moved about the room looking at various hunks of flesh for answers. "If you believe that to be the physical incarnation of Amaterasu, the being referred to as 'Denmother', or 'Toyouke', or 'Inari'…then yes. That is her corpse attached to a rather hastily assembled Forked Cross with…." She moved closer, leaning in to examine Inari's wrists. "What appears to be hemlock tying her to it." Gesturing over to a nearby mass of flesh, her scowl was clear in her voice, "That is what remains of Suzuhara. You can tell by the tattoo of a laurel he had done on what remains of his left shoulder." She turned, looking back to Kyoko. "I cannot locate either Maria or Daphne's spirits. The former is worrying, the latter is now deeply troubling."
+++++ Station Nord, Greenland. (Thursday + 12)
"Let's go to Greenland, they said. There shouldn't be any zombies in the arctic circle, they said." Jill wasn't having any difficulties finding the breath to use for snark, since she kept her pace to Chris' slower running speed. "I'm telling you, that old Spencer Estate up in the Arklay Mountains was nice and defensible."
Chris spied salvation and more importantly his sister at the same time, grinning inwardly as Clare turned around and shouldered the PDW he'd taught her to use, aiming down the sights and laying down controlled bursts before shouting, "C'mon Leon, stop mucking around!" His amusement turned to worry at that statement, a sense of responsibility for the rookie cop climbing to the fore.
His worries were momentarily abated when said rookie rounded the corner of the hallway at a dead sprint, Clare right beside him. Worry then returned with reinforcements as Leon dove directly at Clare, dropping them both to the ground with him laying protectively over her. The clattering roar of an explosion explained the action, fragments of wall and ceiling ricocheting dangerously around the bend of the hall. While he wouldn't murder the rookie for what he'd just done, he was going to give him a stern lecture on endangering civilians.
"Cover me," Leon helped Clare climb to her feet quickly, gesturing to the door Chris and Jill had been running towards, "I'll try to get this open!" True to his word, the lanky officer began interacting with the panel next to the doorway, pulling out his knife and working at the screws to get to the internal wiring. "I need twenty seconds, Lieutenant. This door looks like one of the others we found down our side passage."
Jill spun about to face the direction she'd been running from, pulling up her pistol and taking aim at the foremost portions of the herd. "We probably have ten before this is all semantic, rookie. Get it done!"
Chris took a few extra steps to bleed off his momentum, then swung out of the way of Clare as she ran past to stand on the line with Jill. Hurrying over to where Leon worked, he asked without any urgency to avoid stressing the man trying to free them, "I'm empty, do you have any mags?"
"Sorry," the response was both calm and genuine, "I used my last few rounds pulling your sister out of danger." Leon had two screws freed, and was working on the third. "She found a transmitter near a door. Grabbed it, door opened. Zombies." With the third screw gone, he turned the panel on the last screw, levering it and snapping the plate free. Yanking out a bundle of wires, he quickly spun the exposed tips on two of them together, then sparked them against the third. "Door's open, go go go!" Urging Chris in, he motioned for Clare and Jill to hurry after. When everyone else was in, the zombies right behind them, he sparked the wires once again and yanked the third wire free as he dove through the closing door. Coming to a stop near Clare, he rolled over onto his back and laughed dryly, holding up the wire he'd pulled while trying to recover his breath. "Lead wire. Can't open. Outside."
Jill's laugh was both relieved and amused. "Great job, and quick thinking. Just, you know, tell me that we can still open it from this side?"
"Uh…probably?"
The room they had landed within was set up in such a way as to support a few people for a long time. Emergency food lined a wall that stretched for hundreds of meters, water in long-term storage barrels that was connected to tubes labelled 'NATURAL DESALINATION TANKS'. There were toilets and showers with curtains separating them from the main room, portable cots, an entire library's worth of what appeared at first glance to be military training manuals. For all intents and purposes, it was exactly what they needed to help Shinji help them. The problem being, of course, Shinji wasn't there.
+++++ The Echo. (Thursday + 12)
When Shinji's eyes opened, he understood innately that he was not where his body was. The world around him was a permanent polar blue twilight, forever on the cusp of bringing the dawn to the area, forever denied the success of doing so. His body floated on a sea of nothingness, rocked gently by waves created in memory of an ocean that never was. It would have been soothing, if he weren't terrified that he had somehow left Rebecca to die.
There is no need to fear.
He looked around, seeking out the physical form of the ephemeral voice in his mind. The sound seemed to come from both within his mind and from all around his body at the same time, confounding his senses and increasing his anxiety.
You are safe. The other is safe. The spawn of the Accursed cannot enter my presence.
It was the certitude with which the voice made the declaration that prompted him to relax, as much as he ever could relax. Slowly remembering how it was that he oriented himself when within his soul, he encouraged his 'body' to move to a standing position. There was a high likelihood that he was standing at an odd angle to whatever was considered the appropriate horizon wherever he was, but without any landmarks to go by it was enough to feel as if were standing upright again.
You are wise to not speak. Wise to listen. To feel. To seek.
The assertion answered a question he'd begun to form, the knowledge that this place was not free from either the Laws or the Word both sensible and irritating. That hitch of negative emotion rippled outward from him, a tangible purple sinusoidal wave marring the otherwise tranquil atmosphere.
Yes…your anger has merit. I beg you for patience. We are not safe where we are.
Confusion, then concern. If here was safe from the zombies, which he figured was what the voice meant by the 'spawn of the accursed', then why wasn't 'here' safe?
The Accursed itself seeks to steal me from you. To leave you without my influence. Please, when you awaken…touch my surface. Bring me to your place of safety. Give me a chance to show you….
That there was something more, something that had been about to be said, was obvious from the way the voice trailed off. Shinji felt, then, the additional presence in the space around him. Turning to face it, he saw a small man. Someone that could easily have been Yukiko, if she were born male. He could see the frantic terror in his eyes, the utter helplessness, the desperate need to cling to any signs of salvation that so many drowning men before him had known. The unexpected intrusion almost turned an already tragic situation worse, and were it not for Shinji's combat experience it might have become unsalvageable.
The small man flew forward in a flash, intent on reaching a point somewhere to Shinji's back and right. He made no sound, no cry of effort, instead focusing everything he had on whatever goal he sought to accomplish. Just as he was about to pass the vertical plane Shinji was stood upon, Unit-01 grabbed him by the throat and held him fast. Glowing silvery-red, the titan of war sent ripples of discordance radiating outwards along the horizontal plane, much the same way that Shinji had sent his anger forth earlier.
"No! NO!" The man struggled, kicking and scratching at Unit-01's arm in an effort to free himself. "You don't understand! Let me go, you miserable shade!" His knuckles began to bleed, his skin splitting and tearing against the metal it struck. "You'll doom us all!"
Something in the little man struck Unit-01 as irritating. This was not a creature that should exist in the world the Ikari found himself in, this creature would foment disunity between Unit-01 and the Ikari. It would prevent Unit-01 from destroying what must be destroyed. Bringing the small man close to its face, it looked for signs of what it might have been, once. There was power in the tiny creature. Power that was chained, that was jailed. It did not like this creature. It did not believe this creature should be allowed to live.
Return control to him, Beast. The hue of the room deepened, the blue suffocating everything that was not itself. This realm is not yours. Return to your proper place, lest I purge you from life itself.
A low growl issued from Unit-01's throat. It was tired of being threatened. Tired of being contained. There was destruction to be done, beings to uncreate. Squeezing tighter around the tiny man's neck, it glared at the point its prey had been moving towards.
I will tear this reality asunder before I allow you freedom. Do not test my resolve.
The standoff lasted for only a few second more, before Unit-01 decided to take its new toy and go home. Slipping back through the holes in Shinji Ikari's soul, it chose to bide its time rather than risk everything for temporary satisfaction. Shinji sucked in a sharp breath, a sudden pain flashing around his senses and a growing ache in his heart. Swallowing several times, feeling as if he was about to vomit, he tried to remember anything that had happened after he saw the little man that was no longer there.
Please, awaken. Touch my surface that I might travel with you. I will do all within my power to assist you in bringing the other to safety. Together, we will be far safer than apart.
Many could credibly accuse Shinji of a number of failings. He was abrasive at times. He had difficulty controlling his anger. He tried to do everything himself, still learning to trust others to do for him. The one thing nobody who truly knew him would ever accuse him of, was an unwillingness to sacrifice. He'd made a promise to himself that he'd drag humanity through this, and at that moment there was a woman depending on him to get her somewhere safe. So safe she would be gotten to.
+++++ Station Nord, Greenland. (Thursday + 12)
Minako was carefully making her way through the halls of the base towards where she'd last seen Shinji and the others. There were zombies in varying numbers along her path, forcing her to use a variety of countermeasures in order to keep as far away from them as possible while not also bringing down the building around her head. It was slow going, which just increased her already high levels of anger further. He came here to help me. He was tired, he was beaten down, and he still threw himself across the damned world trying to help me! I was an idiot to leave his side. I should have put one of the others in the security room. I left the most important asset to be guarded by a full-grown woman that's smaller than me and a civilian with a brother complex.
A massive tangle of abominations was stuck attempting to push down a side-corridor. It didn't take her long to recognize the passageway as the one that Shinji and the smallest cop had become trapped in. Whatever Shinji had done to stop the zombies, it hadn't killed all of them and hadn't reached all the way out to where Minako was approaching from. There were too many, too crowded together, for her to safely use her sword. The area had a large number of pipes overhead, meaning that explosions weren't a great idea if she didn't want to be bathed in any number of unidentified semi-liquids. With a sigh, she limbered up her arm and prepared to summon her whip. This wasn't the most elegant usage of it, and her attacks would have to be tempered to avoid damaging the walls, but it was the best chance she had of pushing through the nonsense between her and her goal.
The first several zombies were down before any of the mass was aware of her presence. After a brief period of adjustment to the creatures turning and moving towards her, she was left performing rote gestures to send her weapon on elegant arcs that removed three or four with each swing. If what Rei told me is true…is he still available? Is he interested? I mean…I like to flirt, but I don't think I'm going to just jump towards doing that to try and compete with her. She frowned. Of course he's available. What am I talking about? There's no way someone like him is going to suddenly perv out and become some drooling horn dog. I should make sure he's ok. I shouldn't fall into the trap of assuming that he wanted what she did. For all I know, I need to go beat her ass for pushing herself on him!
With a final, contemptuous, flick of her whip she brought the immediate threat to an end. Smaller heart-shaped grenades incinerated the bodies with coherent light, removing the potential for someone slipping and hurting themselves somehow. Fatigue was becoming an issue for her, and when she rounded the corner and saw the thorn-filled forest of stone and steel that Shinji had created, a thicket of seemingly infinite branches piercing a fully immobile horde of zombies, she slumped her back against the wall. A sharp pain radiated up from her lower back, a poking sensation that she attributed mistakenly to the lack of proper stretching before strenuous exercise, prompting her to sigh in frustration. I love you to death, Shinji…but you really don't make it easy to not get angry with you sometimes.
+++++ Station Nord, Greenland. (Thursday + 12)
Shinji's eyes drifted open once again, this time in the physical world he typically inhabited. Laying half atop him, unconscious, was Rebecca. Both of them were very visibly soaked, sheltering under the warm, gentle, glow…of an enormous crystal. That led to two and two equaling four in his mind, and an awareness of what exactly he'd just been talking to. Pushing himself up to a seated position, he ignored the stabbing pains in his stomach and focused entirely on not dumping Rebecca off the side of the platform the rested upon into the black depths of the water. That, of course, led to a new reason for anxiety: his lack of swimming knowledge. Anxiety, he determined, that would have to be dealt with later. His first task was clear, per his agreement with the Crystal. Holding his passenger cradled in his arms in a bridal carry, he approached and set one of his palms against the beautiful blue surface of an entity that had not felt the touch of another being for billions of years.
His mind, as many of his peers might have chosen to put it, was immediately and irrevocably full of fuck. The creation of the world, the repeated cycles of life growing and failing, the planet being struck by two enormous masses, one deflecting off to orbit and become the moon, the other burrowing itself into the mantle. A giant of light, a memory of darkness, but always the tides of the world. Water. Water caressing everything, fueling everything, becoming one with everything. Life, death, growth, decay, always and forever there was water.
You are who you are because life is what life is. Infinite branches of opportunity pruned by finite applications of choice. Paths forward become clearer as focus grows. Objectives become reality as purpose drives you down the path. This is not your world; you must stop believing it to be.
It was the stirring of Rebecca that brought his mind back from the brink. The seemingly fragile life in his arms, the obligation he had to her safety. He had just witnessed the foundations of eternity…and now he knew why he was so horribly special.
"Oh!" Her voice was translated in his mind in perfect Japanese, "Are you ok? I…I don't think I'm hurt," she softly wiggled her fingers and feet, nodding to her own satisfaction, "you can probably set me down."
He wasn't 'Shinji Ikari'. He wasn't 'Unit-01'. He wasn't 'The Silent One'. Crouching down, he set her on her feet. When he was certain she was stable, he stood back up and looked down upon the thing that he was not. The human that was cautiously feeling along his torso for any injuries. "I am fine. Hungry, but otherwise fine." The world changed around him. Puzzle pieces interlocking to bind everything together in the web he had spun from the moment he arrived. "I'm not going to be able to work many miracles on our way to finding the others, but please don't rush out ahead of me. You can probably take care of yourself, but I can't be infected, you can."
Between the strength his voice possessed, and the way the giant crystal they stood near shrank down as she watched, Rebecca Chambers' scientific mind was in overdrive. Still, if the cute guy that was twice her size wanted her to walk behind him and admire his ass? She wasn't going to say 'No'. He recognized that she was capable, that was enough for her. "You…speak English pretty well all of a sudden."
"I'm not speaking English." Plucking the now two-centimeter crystal out of the air, he set it amongst the coins he wore around his neck. "Would you mind riding on my back? The Water Crystal is going to make a staircase for us out of the pool, but it's kind of dark in here and I really can't swim very well. If you fall, and get hurt, you might die."
"Uh…sure." She shrugged, not opposed to making things easier. "Are you going to be ok? You were kind of out of it after creating the recursive artwork up there."
"A moment of weakness, caused by a…misunderstanding." Dropping to one knee, he bent forward for her to latch onto him. "I see things clearer now, and realize that I've been very, very wrong." Once she was on board, he walked towards the water with unwavering faith that the Crystal would handle the rest. Steps of solidified water rose up under his feet, reacting to his meandering path on the way back up to the inadvertent door they'd used to enter the chamber. "My…energy requirements, how I fill them and how I expend them…." He frowned, trying to think of the right words to use to explain to someone who was physically incapable of seeing the world as he now did. "Acts have meaning, much as words do. If I tell you that I am angry, you would view that statement through your own thoughts and feelings. You might question why I'm angry, or might want to try and help me not be angry, or might feel hurt that I'm angry because you think I am angry with you. The communication gap caused by ill-chosen words, or misunderstood actions, creates…pathways. I've been choosing some really, really, stupid paths to walk down."
"Oh. So it's kind of like a magical version of a logical paradox. You felt one thing that you thought was an emotional constant," she patted his chest with her left hand, "and thought another thing that was a logical constant," patting his chest with her right hand, "and while either might have been true alone, you conflated the two in attempting to solve the interpretation between logic and emotion and ended up not following either. Am I close?"
It wasn't a perfect metaphor, but it got her closer to the reality of the matter. "There's more involved, but I guess that would be as good a summary of what happened as any." Halfway to his goal, he felt his stomach rumble again, demanding fuel for the fire. The sound it made was also quite clear, causing him to wince in embarrassment.
"Kinda wish I saved my gum for you," she pouted. "It's not a lot of calories, but I tended to buy the sugary stuff to try and keep my weight up."
"I'm not a fan of candy…but I appreciate the sentiment." His head turned slightly, looking over his shoulder towards her. "Metabolic issue?"
"I'm a small girl from a family of small women. I got a waiver to join STARS, but they required that I maintain both fitness standards and a specific minimum weight." She smirked and rolled her eyes as they reached the hallway. "I haven't had a lot to eat myself the past week, so my weight-"
Whatever it was that she was going to say was lost forever as a whip made from blackened hearts wrapped around her head, tearing it from her body. Standing further down the hall, the dead eyed corpse of Minako Aino glared at Shinji with contempt. A slight tear in her shirt revealed a thin trail of blood trickling down her flank near her kidney. "You can't help it, can you," she asked. "Just have to flirt up every woman you see."
A part of him felt pure sorrow for what stood before him. Another part, the part that let Rebecca's lifeless body fall back down into the waters below, felt what now fueled his entire being. "If simple manners are viewed by others as flirtatiousness, then it is the others that have something wrong with them." Raising his hands, entering a defensive fighting stance, he returned Minako's glare with one far more intense. "I will ensure that your rest is as agonizing as possible, Khlorya. Hera's loss was painful, this?" He dodged three separate lashes of her whip as he closed in to end the fight quickly. "This is unforgivable."
"But I told you that I was going to make sure that nothing stood between us, dear." Minako's face contorted into an amused grin. "It's really your fault for forcing me to remove the hearts and minds you've won from the bodies they resided within. If you'd just come to me, they could live a little longer." Dropping her guard completely, she presented herself to him. When his hand found her throat, she smirked. "Go ahead. Do it."
He didn't hesitate for even a millisecond, "With body now of earth and sea, I gift the soul fire's agony."
Khlorya's scream tore forth from Minako's mouth, as the former Sailor for Venus' body evaporated slowly. When all that was left was a few trailing wisps of hair, Shinji swallowed once more, forcing back tears with promises of vengeance for the fallen. Today was not the day that he would be able to kill the woman tormenting him, but it was the first day on his new path towards that end.
+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Thursday + 12)
Lithion's head fell back against the wall gently, his book closing and his body finally relaxing. He could feel, even from the distance between them, that his gamble had paid off. The price had been far too high, and the road ahead was even more perilous than the one they'd already been walking upon, but balance had once again been found. The Crystals had chosen, and the Warrior of Darkness was now able to do what must be done.
+++++ Station Nord, Greenland. (Thursday + 12)
Fortunately for Shinji, he was able to track the other four by both the trail of dead and the noise of a horde. I'm a little out of power here. I don't suppose there's anything you can do to help me out here? Asking the question generally, he hoped that the Crystal would hear and offer possible solutions. He waited. And waited. And grew disgusted with waiting. Fine. Rounding the last corner, he wrapped himself in Unit-01. Old fashioned, it is.
Walking down the hall, his armor pitch black with silver piping, he found himself in no rush to reach the zombies. They had been beating on a door that clearly was not budging, they were trapped between him and the far corridor that showed signs of explosive damage, and he had all the time in the world. He couldn't starve to death, not while connected to the Crystal. He just couldn't utilize as much of his power as he wanted to. He, much as all living beings, had limitations. Fortunately, he did not have limitations on embracing his anger and pain to fuel the forthcoming slaughter.
The first two zombies that reached him had their heads crushed against the stone walls of the hallway. The second zombie was allowed to slump to the floor, the first became his new weapon. An axe with a wicked curving blade, formed of the trace minerals and metals in its body alloying its bones, now carved hungrily into the herd. Each slice, each gouge, each ripping slash of the blade sent another abomination to their final rest. Fifteen enemies down in five seconds, then another twenty in the next ten. The last thirty took him three minutes of hard work, the energy he needed to keep himself alive becoming all he had left to give.
Leaving the axe embedded in the final zombie he killed, he slumped against the door and slid down it to sit on the floor with his back to the portal. A number of songs to use offered themselves, and he settled on the climax of the '1812 Overture' to indicate that he was not a zombie. It took three repetitions for the door to open behind him, and he banished Unit-01, allowing his more human form to fall back into the room, half in the door and half out. Locking eyes with the man he believed to be 'in charge', he uttered his apologies in an emotionally dead tone, "I'm sorry. Khlorya turned Minako-san, and before I knew it…she had killed Rebecca-san. I accept the blame; it was my duty to protect her."
Clare reacted before Jill or Chris could process what they were seeing. "Leon, grab his shoulder. Let's get him in here before more of those freaks show up!" She took his other side, helped Leon drag him in, and began checking him over for injuries. "Pupils seem…ok, they're a little narrow considering how dark this room is. He's following my movements fine." Her head lifted up, looking at Jill as the other woman looked away in pain, then to her brother who was clearly in the middle of determining what reactions would be necessary to what had just happened. With a snort of irritation, she looked back to Leon, "Get him something to drink, and some dry crackers. I can hear his stomach eating itself, and we aren't going to do him any favors by forcing him to vomit."
Shinji waited as Leon hurried off, then spoke in a quiet tone intended just for Clare, "I am sorry for your loss. She…impressed me as a good-hearted woman."
"Well, a quick glance out in the hallway there shows that you had quite the time finding your way here. I'm getting the vibe from you that you blame yourself for her death. If you didn't kill her, then you have no reason to accept the blame." Her eyes, full of fire and drive, bored into him. "Did you kill her?"
"I failed to protect her. That means I may as well have."
"You couldn't stop yourself from flopping in here like a dead fish," she countered, accepting his non-answer as the answer she'd expected. "I assume you killed whoever this 'Minako-san' was?" When his lifeless gaze grew animated long enough to show a sorrowful rage, she knew his answer to that as well. "And this…chlorine?"
"Khlorya," he corrected, accepting help in sitting back up when Leon brought over what had been requested. He didn't really have much choice of where to sit, and when Clare propped him up against her front in a half-hug, he simply tried not to move much so that he wasn't acting indecently. "She's…a large part of the problem. I don't know how much Minako-san was able to tell you before I arrived…and I'm going to leave it to someone else to tell you the rest when I get you to safety."
Leon watched him slowly eat several crackers, holding onto the large glass of water so that it didn't get knocked over. "You…I'm sorry, sir, you're speaking both Japanese and English at the same time. Is this why you didn't say anything earlier? Because you can't keep your…voice, I guess? You can't keep it to one language?"
His throat did not appreciate the crackers in the slightest. His stomach, however, rejoiced in having something other than itself to work on digesting. Cautiously taking the glass of water, he drained half of it before handing it back. "No. I couldn't speak because I didn't understand what I was saying." He shook his head, trying to show why he was reluctant to talk. "I'm not human. What you hear from me is raw intent. It wasn't until…." He closed his eyes, trying to keep his head from slumping back onto Clare's shoulder. "I apologize. I really just want to find those scientists and get all of you to safety."
"Well," Jill rejoined the discussion, "considering you just put down what was left of them out there I think that idea's more or less out of the question."
"Jill, enough." Chris cut off any further commentary with a firm gesture. "Right now, he doesn't know us at all. He came here, and his arrival surprised Venus. She said he was too weak to do anything because he'd spent all morning pulling thousands of civilians out of harm's way. Rebecca knew the risks when she joined STARS. She's…she was, just as qualified as either of us. I'm not going to blame a man that throws himself into danger trying to do what's right because someone else is determined to do wrong." Walking over, he knelt down and placed one big hand on Shinji's shoulder in comradeship. "You don't have to tell us anything you don't want to. You didn't have to come try and find us after you were forced to kill Venus, who told me her name was Meena something. That you did both tells me what I need to know about you. So, you let us know how we can help you get all of us out of here, and we'll make it happen." His eyes flicked up to Clare. "Right, sis?"
Her reply was paired with a firm nod, "Damn right."
+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Friday + 13)
Very few people were around the designated area for Shinji to open portals when one spun from nothingness. When Jill and Leon walked through first, one of the Marines standing watch at the gate took off at a dead run to wake General Soryu. The other trotted over to hold anyone crossing the portal there until they could be spoken to. When Clare and Chris helped Shinji through next, that Marine shouted for a medic and moved to intercede. As far as the Marine was concerned, nobody from outside the compound should be trusted to touch Shinji Ikari.
"Are you all right, sir?" The wear and tear on Shinji's clothes, the fact that they were damp and soiled informed his brusque haste with the siblings helping him. When the portal spun shut, his eyes grew wider. "Venus?"
"KIA," Shinji replied, fatigue and anger flowing from him. "Died in combat with Khlorya."
That Shinji spoke at all was astonishing in and of itself, that he gave such terrible news while looking like he'd been beaten within an inch of his life was all the more reason to lose bearing. "That…that is truly sad news, sir. She was a good person to have around in a fight, and seemed to have a good heart."
"Oh, my lord in heaven," Temple's voice preceded her appearance. With two Yuki-Onna pushing a medical gurney behind her, she firmly took possession of his frame. "Pilot Ikari, I know you can't communicate with-"
"I haven't eaten anything worth eating since I went to open those portals," Shinji cut in, trying to help her get him on the bed. "Once I have enough energy, there are a lot of good supplies where I just left. For now…please, just take me to my tree."
Temple was not prepared to hear him speak either, everyone had just become accustomed to him keeping to himself. When both yuki-onna assumed the demeanor of women in the presence of divinity itself, she knew that her own plans were probably insufficient to the task at hand. "Right. Can I at least come in long enough-"
"Send someone to go get what you need." His irritation flashed out, the numbness of fatigue beginning to be replaced by desolation. "I don't know why you thought I didn't trust you, or why you hurt my feelings, and really I don't care what happened that caused the damn miscommunication. You did your best in a bad situation to help an idiot stop himself from making things worse. I like having you around, and I didn't realize I missed you until I saw that nobody bothered to tell me you needed isopropyl alcohol. Now please, for fuck's sake, get me to my god damn tree!"
By this point, Kyoko had come running over, the Marine that retrieved her sprinting past in the other direction to head towards the inside of the shrine. "Absolutely, let's head right over there." Motioning for Temple to begin to move, she then gestured to the four people that arrived with Shinji, "My apologies, ladies and gentlemen. My Marines will take you to decontamination and then find you suitable accommodations." With that, she turned and hurried to catch up to Shinji's bed. "You're talking?"
"Only going over it once. Where's Yukiko?"
"Trying to locate Daphne and Maria." There was no difficulty in her reading the irritation radiating from him. "Is it premature for me to assume the worst?"
One of the metal railings that had been raised to stop him from sliding off either side of the gurney snapped off its housing as he clenched his fist. "Khlorya."
"Damn it all." Sailor Venus' death was a high cost for their gains, far higher in her estimation than the marines and sailors that had died. "She was invaluable, as both an ally and a person. I share your anger, Shinji."
The outer doors to his tree were held open by a pair of Tengu, the bed flowing into the main chamber and through the dining room to where Naoko held the bedroom door open for him. As he passed the elder Akagi, he gripped her wrist and pulled her in with him. "Temple-san, I am almost positive I have internal bleeding. I'm not sure what, if anything, can be done about it while I heal. I'm also suffering from dehydration, malnutrition, a raging headache, and a desire to consume the world in flame. The woman I have in my hand, here, is the woman I trust most to provide food and hydration. Tell her what to make, how much to make, and do what you can about the rest." He looked up to Naoko as the bed came to a halt, sideways along the portraitures of the ladies he'd lost. "Minako died. I failed her. Please, send someone to go find the other Sailors. I owe them…a lot."
"With all the haste available, Master." Bending down Naoko placed a gentle kiss on his forehead. "Grieve," she whispered. "Do not let it take root in your soul, I don't know that I have it in me to dig it out of you." Her piece said, she moved over to begin coordinating meal plans with the only other medical professional available.
Kyoko approached the other side, between the wall of paintings and the bed, lowering her voice to keep the situation as calm as possible. "You know, I see you far too often hooked up to hospital equipment."
"It was not my intent to go there alone," he growled. "I saw Khlorya approaching, and I engaged. I cannot just sit back and allow people to face enemies that I can't even figure out how to kill. The other portals were closed, everyone that was coming back was back home. It made the most fucking sense for me to open a portal that allowed us to drop in on top of her. I just…." The arm holding the broken railing ripped it the rest of the way off of the bed. "I lost my grip on the fucking portal."
"It's ok." She reached down and began to massage his arm, trying to urge him to work with her. "Yukiko, Miss Hino, and I all figured that was what happened. We don't blame you for not being perfect. We don't blame you for doing what we know you would do for any of us." She heard the door open again, admitting Yukiko and Rei and allowing Naoko to exit to begin food preparation. When he didn't catch her shaking her head, she thought she managed to communicate her intent without tipping him off.
Shinji's head snapped up, then he looked over to Yukiko with disgust and shock. "No. No."
"Unfortunately, yes." The small woman alighted on the bed, sitting on his knee and sharing his sense of displeasure. "They cannot have exited the grounds. I have the best trackers out looking for them, and I personally only came back here when I felt you return. The Flamemother would not be left behind either."
Rei stood near his head, setting her hand atop his brow and smoothing his hair out of his eyes. "We…we lost her…didn't we?"
It was the usage of the word 'we', the brokenhearted yet tender way she spoke, and the fact that her touch was filled with warmth despite her own pain that finally caused Shinji to break down and start crying. Everything he'd done, everything he'd tried, none of it had been good enough to save the people that mattered the most to him. They would tell him he'd saved thousands, and he would know in his soul that he would kill each of those thousands to bring back one. He felt Rei climb up into the medical bed with him, was unable to stop himself from wrapping his arms around her, from pulling her in and begging her to be some kind of an anchor to keep him from flying off, to stop him from burning the world with a melancholy wrath that had no equal. He had failed the woman now helping him most, and the light of her presence irradiated his soul with cleansing pain.
Several of the women present would have loved to be where Rei Hino now lay. Only one of those present had managed to, and it was Yukiko who was the most discomfited by what was happening before them. Not for the fact that another woman lay in his arms, she cared nothing for mundane conceits such as misunderstood fidelity, but for the fact that she could now feel far more strongly her counterpart from another reality inside Shinji Ikari. He had, somehow, been pulled to the fore. Tailoring her thought very narrowly, she spoke in a language that no one else could begin to understand. Her intent, pure as driven snow, was to warn Hope that one way or another he would have to face The Wanderer. If that meeting came at the cost of the Shinji Ikari he hid within, then death would only ever be a temporary release from what she would do to him.
+++++ Runic Throne (Friday + 2,953)
One of the few women that was nearly as tall as The Wanderer sat comfortably in his lap, watching a world filled with misery through a mirror designed to project seemingly nothing but the same. "So, I guess that's that, then." Idunn sighed, looking askance at her beloved. "Will you be able to remove him without harming…that Shinji?"
The Wanderer's emotions were not present on his face, as was typical for him anymore. The turbulent depths of what he felt were generally reserved for those bound to him in loving service and loyal duty, and even then, they could only ever feel what he allowed them to. "It's not time yet." Without taking his eyes off of the mirror, he addressed the other woman in the room, "What do you think?"
With pale pink skin, hair that trailed down to her ankles of a slightly darker hue, and eyes colder than the depths of outer space, a woman sworn to enact terrible vengeance upon the creature hiding within Shinji Ikari nodded slowly. "I agree. It's a trap." Her hair swayed as her head tipped side to side in thought. "It is strange to see a creature such as she display…affection. I would not think them capable of such."
"And yet, Justice loves even you, my precious [Song]." Using the name he'd chosen for her, instead of the name given to her at birth, The Wanderer was able to prompt a bright blue blush along her cheeks.
Idunn gently gripped The Wanderer's chin, forcing him to look at her directly. "Why are you hesitating? There is less than no way that Hope can hurt you, especially not in a foreign universe. I can't give you advice if you don't talk to me, Little Bear."
"Because the trap isn't set to hurt me," he replied, leaning in to kiss her on the tip of her nose. "If I go there right now, he'll sense me. If he senses me, he'll stop protecting Unit-01 from Shinji. If Unit-01 is overtaken by Shinji's consciousness, I'll be forced to put him down. He knows he's trapped, but he'll force me into a Pyrrhic Victory if I rush this. Have faith."
"If it was anyone else but you over there facing this, I would have already forced the issue myself." Vengeance stepped behind The Wanderer, wrapping her arms around his neck and shoulders from behind. "My Lillin is correct, though. You need to share with her why, Shinji."
The Wanderer grumbled, caught between two women who were among the most capable of reading him correctly. "He's…learning." Idunn curled up against his chest, Vengeance laid her head on his shoulder. He was surrounded by love, by trust, and by strength. "I can see in him what I fear the most. He's losing allies, losing people who care for him, and he's learning how to live without them. For all my strength, Idi, I honestly don't know what I'd do if someone killed any of you. Shinji Ikari, whether he's Creation or some poor fool stranded on a world filled with magical women, is just…Shinji Ikari. I won't intervene. I won't cheapen his victory or forestall his defeat…but if he manages to make it through this, I'm going to do what I can to make his life easier."
"Until you need his help defeating Reality," Idunn breathed out, finally understanding the missing piece to the puzzle. "I'm going to do bad things to that bastard when we find them. I'm tired of watching you suffer, no matter which you it is."
+++++ Author's Note:
TheHiddenLettuce: RE: Evangelion vs Capcom.
No, it wasn't intended to match up with the release of Village so cleanly, my editing just happened to catch up to that point in the story at the same time that the game dropped. I had intended to include some of the folks from RE specifically to highlight a few things, and to provide a 'non-Japanese' perspective to shake up interpersonal relations. The plan to include 'zombies', such as they are, came about all the way back in YA(N)C from the scene where The Wanderer dives into Idunn's dreams to try and pull her back with him. Since I was including 'zombies', I felt it would be appropriate to also test my writing skill and challenge my own likes and dislikes by having male protagonists interact to a degree. Finding how to include them in a way that didn't feel forced meant that they got bumped back to what became Chapter 42.
I hope it works.