There Is (No) Hope

by BardInTheForest

Shinji Ikari was not a young man that lived an easy life. Each good that the universe teased him with was typically met with a greater evil. Now the only pilot capable of fielding an Evangelion against a series of reborn Angels, he will have to adapt to new allies and new foes. The world has changed, and there is no running away from it anymore.

47. Chapter 47

+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Saturday + 14)

The planting of the tree went far more smoothly than the finding of it. Daphne kept Shinji close to hand as she urged the roots of her tree to enmesh and coexist with the roots of what she insisted was now 'their' tree. Occasionally, she would ask him to move some specific root, or shape some particular branch, each time with a quiet, gentle, tone that spoke in the twin tongues of grief and hope. She made it clear, through word and deed, that while she wished fervently that they had not been forced into this coexistence, she was determined to make it peaceful and mutually sustaining. "Tragedy takes from life, but life…like our tree, is designed to adapt to that tragedy and thrive." Shifting around to stand in front of him, between him and the trees, she looked directly into his eyes and spoke from her heart, "I loved my husband. I looked forward to showing my daughter what a true Elder is. I had hoped to include several of the women in our life as older sisters, to give her examples to aspire towards. But that is only my half of our tale. You, unlike I, have never once felt what it means to be truly loved. Have never been gifted the peace that it provides. Here, in front of our tree, I declare that my life is forever interlocked with your own. We, I believe, are friends. We have struggled together, you have given me purpose after my life's goal was ripped from my hands, and gave me xenia when I had nothing to offer in return. These are not the acts of a dead man. They are not the deeds of a monster. Grow in love with me, as I grow in love with you. Become, once more, the great man that I watched fight an Ent with nothing more than a knife. We have lost. We will yet lose. But that does not mean we are left with nothing."

Shinji could feel her emotions washing over him, much the same way as he had felt Rei's earlier. That fact prompted an idea, one which sparked interest in something beyond trudging forever onwards in his war against the Angels or the demons that followed the four-armed terror. Reaching down, he lightly took Daphne's right hand in his left. It felt so tiny, so fragile to him, and yet he knew that it was far stronger than his own larger paws. With a small pulse of energy, he crafted a ring formed of twisted strands of titanium in his right hand and deposited atop her palm. "Trust…is what I had intended these rings to signify. As much as I can trust anyone at all, I had hoped that these would remind me every time I saw them that I gave them to someone for a reason. A visual mnemonic, of sorts." With his fingers resting atop the ring, he could feel the smooth contours of the band as they pulsed with life. "Each one…is unique. Like the woman I gave them to. This one isn't…it isn't like the others, in a different way. Each cord in the band…it hums, vibrates on a frequency that is used in the arpeggios I heard from the Crystal that had taken up residence in your tree. I love music. I love how even a minor dissonant note can throw off an entire piece. When it's played, without flaws, it's magical. When you stop looking for the flaws, and just enjoy the performance for what it is…it's truly magical." Taking his fingers away, and closing her hand over the ring, he made his counteroffer, "When you are ready, put this on. When I see you wearing it, I will know that you are ready to…grow. I'll take my cue from you, and…try."

A vine of ivy crawled up her leg from the ground, around her dress and down her arm, looping through the inside of the band three times before crawling with its prize to hang around Daphne's neck, displaying the ring for all to see. "Then for now, I will keep it close to my heart. I enjoy falling asleep to music, myself. Perhaps this will ease the nights to come, for more than one reason." Stepping against him, she hugged him without any indication of distance or rift between them.

Slipping his arms around her, cradling her like the fine art she was, Shinji tried to put his heart into the embrace. She deserved his best effort, for however long she would let him give it.

"Few women are blessed with one man that loves them for who and what they are," she whispered, hints of tears in her voice, "how blessed am I that in my life I would be given two?"

Wherever it was that Providence had gone for the past few weeks of Shinji's life, her return was as welcome as a monsoon after a drought. Shinji sensed, more than heard, the alarm being raised by someone who had noticed Khlorya's arrival. Ares' axe, now his own, sprang to his hand and helped him block the thrown dagger that was intended for Daphne's skull. Surrounding himself in Unit-01, he stepped between the woman he'd sworn to protect and the woman he'd sworn to kill. A rumbling growl set the woman behind him in motion, "Get everyone in place. We're out of time."

"We've been over this, dear," Khlorya stalked over towards Shinji, each step placed with enough force to set her assets to jiggling with a blatantly seductive allure, "I'm not technically supposed to be fighting you. I'll make you a deal, you and I fuck like rabbits right here, in front of everyone, and I'll stop killing the whores gathering around you." A shimmering arrow of pure silver smashed into her shoulder, sending her flying awkwardly on a course perpendicular to her approach, and through several empty tents.

"Counteroffer, bitch," Rei Hino, wielding what had once been Artemis' bow, kept up a barrage of arrows towards where Khlorya had last been seen in the tangle of canvas cloth, "you stay the hell away from my Shinji and I don't face-fuck you with a quiver-full of arrows!"

Shinji himself, now operating with competent supporting fire, charged towards where Rei had been focusing her attacks. When Khlorya ripped apart the cloth that had tangled itself around her, he was there with an enormous boot to smash into her face. His follow-on attack was thwarted when she took the tents, and his footing, with her, forcing him to stumble backwards off-balance.

This provided an opening for Mizore, who had been the one to call out the incoming in the first place. Using gravity and mass to assist her, she slammed an enormous boulder of dense ice against Khlorya, allowing it to shatter and lacerate her with countless shards of razor-sharp frost. "Clear!"

On cue, a multitude of vines wrapped around Khlorya's limbs and throat, hefting her off of the ground. "I will not, and cannot, allow myself to be pushed around by puffed up, self-important, cows like you any longer. I am no wilting lily, no shrinking violet…." Daphne had both fists lifted before her, arms bent as if she were hoisting something off the ground herself. "I am Mother Earth, and you are no longer welcome in my domain!" The tendrils began to slam their prey against the ground chaotically, their pace and force increasing with each wet thwap.

"That's your cue, Pet," Maria helped Shinji stand upright. "Get everyone to safety, let us overwhelm her with numbers." When he went to move towards Khlorya, Maria once again interposed herself and shook her head firmly. "No. Get the civilians to safety. Sometimes within chaos lies opportunity, strike now while everyone's distracted."

The concept of retreating before the enemy was completely alien to him now. It took Shinji another several heartbeats to realize that what she was telling him to do was honestly the most sane course of action. In his mind, preventing anyone from dying meant killing whatever was threatening them. That had been what happened every time he entered Unit-01. Thing showed up to kill, he was sent out to kill the thing. Simple. Understandable. It was what he predicated all of his plans on, and what he'd thought was best. "…Right. Do you have your people segregated?"

"Yes." Her smile was the rising of a full moon, a gentle brilliance that washed over him with the promise of glory yet to come. "Thank you. Now please, hurry."

Turning away from the fight, taking those first few steps somewhere else, was agonizing. Retreat meant death. That was to forever be the universal truth, there was no victory to be found in cowardice. Once he was in motion, once he'd overcome the conditioned mania that drove him long enough to move towards where the evacuees had been herded, he pushed himself into moving faster. Once he was done, the fight would still be there. The women behind him, the powerful warriors giving their all to give him the chance to save the world, were waiting on him. A gentleman never kept a lady waiting.

+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Saturday + 14)

Usagi wanted to cry. She wanted to collapse into a ball and weep until the world went away. She had a task placed before her that required nothing more from her than to do the one thing she was fundamentally predisposed to never do: she had to let someone else suffer for her success. When the heavy tread of Unit-01's boots approached, she shoved every ounce of melancholy away to turn and face the man she loved with all the joy she could summon. If these were to be his last moments with her, then she would make those moments everything she was allowed to. "I have a gift for you." She held out the now shortened Glaive of Silence, the haft chopped off to rebalance it so that it resembled an axe, and a message that could only be seen by Shinji engraved upon the blades. "This weapon is probably one of the most powerful in the entire universe, and I can think of no one better for it to be with than you."

Shinji looked at it, frowned, then realized that Usagi wouldn't see his face with his helmet on and removed that so that she could note his emotions as he responded, placing it under his arm, "Are you sure? This was used by one of yours, shouldn't it stay with you?"

"Shin-Shin, you are 'one of mine'." Taking his hand and placing the axe in it, she used her now free off-hand to put his other gauntlet around it, binding it to his existence. "I trust you as I would trust any of my sisters. As I would trust a beloved husband. I know your true heart, beneath all the pain and all the sadness. What you are here to do…is not done with hate, or anger. This is how you demonstrate your love for me. By making sure that I'm safe, by making sure that I have what I need to be what I am." With the Axe of Silence bound to him, she urged it to vanish and allow her to embrace him one final time. "Build me a world worthy of glorifying who and what you are." She jumped up, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him hard. I love you, Shinji Ikari. I love you so, so much.

It was at that moment that he knew that she knew what he was doing. That, unlike everyone else, she knew that he wasn't sending them to the moon, or to another planet, but instead to the future he was going to bleed for. She knew, and because she loved him, she wasn't going to interfere. She was going to sacrifice her desire to be beside him to take up his fight in the future if he failed to deliver. She was suffering in a way he would never have to…and she was doing it because of love. When she broke the kiss off, and set her face against his neck, he reached into the fires of misery itself to offer a slender reed to support her, "I don't regret meeting you, Usagi. I just wish it could have been somewhere that we could have spent the time needed to help me see the world how you see it." Tightening his grasp around her, he took a deep breath and held it in. This was all he'd ever have of her, and so he'd soak it in as he could. "I can't ever replace you. I'm sorry, if I fail to deliver this world to you."

A loud explosion broke the moment, both warriors turning to look towards where Khlorya was now wildly fighting back. Usagi, being who she was, pushed off of him and shoved them off the metaphorical cliff they were dithering atop, "Do it. They need your help. I'm going to see you as soon as I get there, my dearest, dearest love. I know it in my heart."

What was left of humanity, of the youkai, was all gathered in a corner of the Shrine away from the fight. Thousands of souls, of lives from a wide variety of backgrounds, all gathered together to be the light he would cast into the future where it might have a chance to shine all the brighter. Taking his helmet out from under his arm, he set it on his head and latched it down. Glowing with gold, fortified with steel, he lifted his arms out to his sides and prepared for a level of pain that transcended the concept. The portal he created appeared above those he was sending into the future, where nobody that would remain in the present could see what was to be. Dropping it around the evacuees, into the rocks beneath their feet, he closed it so that it ate a portion of the Shrine's stones as well. With nobody left in his time that could know what was to come, no paradox was left to complicate what he was to do. With no means to travel back to this time, with The Space-Time Door sealed, no more interference was possible. With nearly all of his energy spent, though, he was out of the fight.

+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Saturday + 14)

"Think that's our cue, sis." Chris Redfield kept his eye on the heavy hitters that were pushing the strange woman farther away from the Shrine. Lurking in the shadows of what had once been the main gate, he patted his sister on the back, and gave her the same smile he'd used when it had been time to put down the horse she'd loved. "No regrets, right?"

Clare Redfield had grown substantially since that moment a decade ago, had become a strong enough person to know when it was time to make the sacrifice play, had gained enough skills to keep herself alive while doing what had to be done. "None whatsoever. I'll grab his feet, you take his shoulders. I'm faster backwards, so I'll lead towards The Tree. We get him to Miss Akagi, then we barricade the door and pray hard."

He was proud of the woman he'd raised. "On three."

"One."

"Two."

Both together took off without speaking the last number. Sprinting the distance between where they'd hidden and where Shinji had toppled over with Unit-01 disappearing inside of him, clutching at his stomach and groaning in agony. Clare arrived first, her lighter weight and track and field experience giving her a faster initial top speed. With a wry, sassy, grin she grabbed Shinji's ankles and winked, "Surprise!"

Chris, a heartbeat later, shoved his hands under Shinji's shoulders and hefted him up off the ground, following Clare's lead towards their destination. "Have you ever considered reading up on military strategy?" The big man could have run forever, and so he was surprised that Shinji weighed as much as he did. "It was a big part of my time in the Academy, learning how not to kill myself by not planning what would happen after I won."

Ignoring the ongoing hostilities, and fortunate enough to avoid much of the shrapnel it caused, Clare agreed with her older brother, "It really helps. I mean, knowing where to get a beer afterwards? I can't tell you the number of times I ended up losing the post-combat buzz looking for a decent bar that doesn't have gropey assholes after kicking some wannabe biker's ass for getting handsy." Mule kicking the door to The Tree open, she pursed her lips as she backed into the entrance. "You know, that really makes me seem like a bitch. I promise, I do try to talk people down first."

"As you should," Chris kicked the door closed again, hurrying towards the dining area, "I didn't raise an asshole."

Sarah greeted them, holding the back of the chair she needed them to put him in. "Naoko, he did it again."

"He tends to, dear," Naoko handed Clare what she'd need to run an I.V. drip after the American set Shinji's feet on the floor. With Chris keeping Shinji upright in the chair, she motioned for Sarah to begin feeding the stricken Pilot. "To him, the only way is all the way."

"I can respect it," Chris clapped Shinji's shoulder twice. "Whatever these rings that shopkeeper gave us are doing, they're working great. I couldn't tell you were speaking Japanese at all."

Shoveling food into Shinji's mouth as fast as he could chew and swallow, Sarah snorted out a laugh. "What's funny there is, we're the two people who you'd be able to speak with. My mom was from Oregon, Doctor Akagi here's a genius."

"No shit?" Clare worked efficiently to get the I.V. started on Shinji. "We were born in Oregon too, whereabouts?"

"Astoria, from what I was told."

"Small world, Seaside." With the shunt in, she looked up at her brother with faux innocence. "Chris, why aren't you barricading?" When he rolled his eyes and moved off to do as he was asked, she lowered her voice to speak only to Shinji and Sarah. "He raised me himself, he doesn't like talking about those times. Growing up orphans, there were some…not great times."

"Small world indeed," Sarah chuckled darkly. "The man who raised me wasn't my father, and I never knew my mother. Shinji here was abandoned by his father, and only vaguely remembered his mother. We're gathering a regular orphanage here."

Naoko came back around the side of the table, another bowl of food in her hands and an I.V. bag over her arm. "Open up the drip all the way, dear. We need to get these in him faster. Mizore prepared them for him herself, and I have to assume the fight's going to need him before the end."

Even the minor relief of something in his stomach beyond acid and pain allowed Shinji to shakily lift the arm not attached to medical tubing enough that he could grab the bowl Naoko brought. Ignoring the heat that began to scald his lips and tongue, he poured it down his throat. She was right, and better that he worry about blisters later than corpses now.

+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Saturday + 14)

Rei was impressed with how well the women with her were coordinating with one another, all without need for actual communication. There was an instinctive flow to the fight, a give and take that gave them enough of an advantage to keep Khlorya away from any of them. Individually, she was not pleased to admit that the creature in the shape of a woman was much stronger than them. Even as a unit, they were barely able to force her towards the boundaries of the Shrine. Each of them agreed that this was for the best, in the hopes that once she was outside of the Shrine, Shinji would be able to erect another barrier to give them some breathing room.

"Do any of you realize who you're fighting to defend?" Khlorya was protecting herself from Mizore's wintry blasts with a section of the apartment complex's wall, tearing herself free from Daphne's vines before they could overwhelm her again, dodging what she could of Maria's magic, and trying to keep one of those three between her and Rei. "Who he truly is?! I'm trying to stop him from destroying everything, and all of you keep getting in the way!"

None of them bit on that particular declaration, nor would any of them have changed what they were doing even if it were true. Redemption existed for anyone who worked to receive its glory, and Rei would never accept giving up on someone interested in working hard let alone someone as doggedly determined to save lives as Shinji. If he ever appeared to begin straying from the virtuous path, then it would be her task to drag him back to it by any means necessary. He was a man worth standing at her side, and she would be damned if she allowed the universe to rip him away now that she'd accepted that truth.

A droning roar, reminiscent of an enormous rusted trumpet calling out, announced that the fight was no longer limited to two sides. Daphne darted carefully out of immediate danger long enough to look across the ruins of the city, her displeasure growing as she announced the latest arrival, "One of those accursed Angels approaches."

"Frostmother," Maria charged in and struck Khlorya with an enormous explosion of flame point-blank, "you and the archer go do what you can! We'll handle this, here."

+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Saturday + 14)

"Explain to me again why we can't do this later?" Haruka was hefting heavy loads of dirt and rock out of the way of the Mujina that stayed behind to help. "They're up there fighting, and we're down here hiding."

Michiru, leaning against the wall of the tunnel they were digging, kept up the steady drip of water that loosened the soil enough for the badger youkai to work with. "Because we don't win unless we control these things. If this attack is a feint, or if this is her target, we need to stop her from succeeding."

"Besides," the Mujina cackled, "we're digging right under where she is. Once we gets the pretty, we can climb on up and tear into her from below."

Dumping the loose earth behind the group, Haruka rolled her hand expectantly towards her paramour. "Yeah, I know we're looking for something. What is the 'thing' we're going for?"

"Meh, I forget you witches ain't got the ears or eyes." The lady badger easily ripped a car-sized boulder free, tearing it in half and offering the sections to Haruka. "There's an old magic under this shrine. Asleep, but terrible powerful. Matches the two what the Elder's already got."

"That he is holding in trust for the ones that will join with them." Michiru looked to Haruka, her gaze full of meaning. "We're fighting a multi-front war, Haru-chan. I'll never regret staying behind with him, but there are going to be some changes coming."

Tossing the two segments of boulder behind her, Haruka felt the beginnings of worry growing in her gut. "You know that one of those things won't be how much I love you, yeah?"

"Nor will my love for you."

+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Saturday + 14)

Keeping a roving shield in place to slow down the attacks of the Fourth Angel, Mizore shouted over the noise to her partner for the moment, "He used to fight these things?"

"He says he was a lot bigger." Rei began experimenting with empowering the arrows she fired from her new bow with the power she summoned using her traditional bow of flame, finding that she was having some luck at piercing through the odd hexagonal barrier that protected the orb she knew was the target. "Considering this thing's bigger than Tokyo Tower, I'm going to guess he was huge where he came from."

She threw both herself and Rei backwards, narrowly avoiding a crushing blow by one of the oversized tentacles attached to the alien abnormality. "I'm guessing you haven't seen him this time around, he's pretty big here too."

"Two and three quarters meters in his armor is pretty tall, yeah, but it's not that tall." Six rapid fire arrows blasted the tentacle back away from them, causing the Angel to twist and tumble.

Creating a ramp of ice to keep the creature off balance, Mizore giggled girlishly. "That wasn't what I was commenting on."

+++++ Hikawa Shrine, Azabu-Juban, Japan. (Saturday + 14)

The battle of Daphne and Maria against Khlorya was an exhibition in magic against raw brute force. Maria's strengths of clever imagination and natural power combined well with Daphne's elemental might and fearless determination, stymying each attempt by Khlorya to engage in direct melee combat. Daphne had a lifetime of evading both unwanted attentions and physical confrontations to draw upon, Maria had countless ages of brawls to fall back on. Neither wasted time speaking to the other, they both knew the stakes and each wanted to do whatever was necessary to eliminate the threat to everyone. Neither was happier than the other when an enormous axe slipped between them, embedding itself in their foe's midsection. Neither was filled with relief either. They could feel how weak he was, how he'd rushed himself back into the fracas. Despite their misgivings, they also knew that there would be no better chance to eliminate a hated opponent than this.

Unit-01 charged in to hold Khlorya's attention, intentionally turning her about so that her back was to the other two. The axe had done damage, but that damage was healing just as fast as everything else that had been tried. Ripping his weapon free, he dismissed it from the physical plane of existence and fell back on his fists and knees. Shinji knew he'd have to practice to become comfortable with his new arsenal, but a fight to the death was the worst time to try and learn a new weapon.

Khlorya caught one of his punches, twisting his arm into a joint lock. "You know you're making it difficult to show you I love you, right?" Driving him down to one knee, she ignored the assaults from behind her, seemingly drawing power from proximity to him. "Nothing you do will change how I feel. Nothing you say will change how I feel." Leaning down, glaring into Unit-01's eyes, she whispered, "I'll leave them all alone, forever and ever, if you'll just let me show you how much I love you. If you'll let me give you what that vapid cunt gave you. Think about how wonderful it could be Shinji. We could eliminate the Whitespawn and the Blackspawn. We could gift this world to these…women. We could spend eternity travelling the stars, bathing in the glorious abyss between worlds. All for the low, low price…of you letting me love you."

"What's looks exactly like fire," he panted out through gritted teeth, "but never actually burns?"

"…Huh?" Her eyes widened as a portal opened directly under her feet, the vacuum of space on the other side sucking her through it and down into the sun.

Slamming it shut before it could do any more damage to the Shrine, Shinji closed the portal and wobbled to his feet. "Two thousand Yen says that bitch is back before the weekend." He was breathing heavy, his pulse hammering in his throat, and the first two steps he took towards the Angel nearly landed him back on the ground before Daphne and Maria caught him.

Maria nearly toppled over herself, trying to hold up the mountain that was Unit-01. "Pet, it's Saturday."

"Oh." What options he had at hand flit through his mind. "Daphne, do you think you could rig up a slingshot?"

"I can, with your consent, resolve the situation more easily." The Dryad to his other side looked at him earnestly, seeking permission before just acting of her own accord.

"You have my consent to do what you believe is best for the rest of time," he sighed out. "Just to save us from this dance every time you have a good idea."

"As you will it." Stepping free of his arm, she created a thick rope of vines from under Unit-01 just as she had for Khlorya. Drawing her hand to the side and pinching her fingers together, towards his back, she set it to winding up. Opening her fingers as if loosing an arrow, she set it to launching him directly at the Angel. "…He might come to regret that statement."

Maria had her lips bunched together and pulled up towards her nose, her promise to herself that she would try with all of her might not to be jealous over everything that was happening reminding her that she was, by nature, extremely jealous. "Yep. Probably going to."

Just as he arrived at the battle, he felt Mizore take control of his trajectory by creating a winding pathway of ice to support and propel him. Summoning the Glaive of Silence, he let himself be maneuvered directly at the Angel's Core, and with every ounce of the momentum he'd been given he sliced directly through the giant red orb, bounced off of the interior flesh of the now falling Angel, and was saved from slamming into the ground by a combination of Daphne weaving several nets of vines to slow his descent and Mizore creating a thick mattress of snow to cushion his landing. Rei dashed in, pulling him out of the way of the crumbling corpse the size of a skyscraper, and wound up sitting on top of his chest after his weight was too much for her to carry alone.

"Well…ok." Rei looked around, feeling keenly the sudden emptiness of what had been moments before a place full of life. "We…uhm, we won?"

"We won the right to another day." Mizore walked over, offering her hand to help Rei stand. Pulling her gently to her feet, she shrugged the other shoulder with a weak smile. "No small feat, in a world such as this."

Struggling to sit up, Shinji grunted both his agreement and his frustration, "I offered to send you to safety."

"I'm offering to put you over my knee," Rei retorted hotly. "We are the last living beings on Earth, Shinji. There's nobody else here for you to impress with your suicidal stoicism anymore. Would you kindly at least consider grieving for a few moments for what we've lost?"

"Other than my humanity?" Standing up, his body and stance unsteady, he let Unit-01 go back inside of him. Every word he said was pronounced carefully, every syllable teetering on the brink of him losing control of his anger, "My sanity? My desire to feel anything ever again? I realize that it's probably tacky for me to focus specifically on what's been ripped from me since I arrived in Tokyo-3, not to mention since I arrived here in the original city herself, but ultimately I think I've been grieving for what I lost long enough. I promised the world that it was going to burn for what it's done to me. For what it's taken as the cost of another day of humanity wasting the gift it had been given. For making monsters out of mortals." Turning about, he began limping towards The Tree. "Take your time. Grieve all you want. I have thousands of years to punish this world for what it's taken from me…I don't have even a second to waste."

+++++ Hikawa Shrine. (Saturday + 14)

"It's been, from his perspective, a little more than two weeks since he arrived. He's spent…ninety percent of that time? Maybe more? A lot of time physically hurting." Michiru sat at the dining room table, laying her upper torso over a box that had contained the Crystal she'd helped extract from beneath the Shrine itself, which had unceremoniously attached itself to Shinji as he walked past them on the way to the bedroom. "That's after he spent however many months fighting those Angels, and fourteen years being abused by a madman. What you feel, when you sense his pain, is not only that…but the countless times we've failed to even reach this point. His…existence, as much as we would like to call it 'life' it really isn't, is as nothing more than an exercise in endless pain."

Rei had her forehead in her hands, her elbows resting on the table, her own anger roiling over everything that had happened. "I know that…. I'm just…it's over. We lost. Yes, we just lost a battle, one that looks a hell of a lot like a war when you stop and really look at it, but we lost. I think I've earned the right to be a little bitchy about how his first statement was getting on me about having chosen to stay behind and face this with him!"

"Lady, I hate to break it to you, but I think we're insane for choosing to do this." Clare tapped her finger against the tabletop, leaning in and speaking decisively, "He's not getting on you, nor is he looking at you in anger. He's hurting, not just physically, but in his pride! All that power he has? All that strength? I don't know much about your society, or how men view themselves in it, but where I come from someone with that much sway failing to save anyone would come away stinging."

"Well, since we're going all 'Neo-Imperialism'," Chris sat back in a chair away from the others, sharpening his knife as he spoke with deliberate caution, "mind if I ask how many women are currently going for the 'prize'?"

Rei scowled at him in disgust. "Excuse me?"

"You're excused." Rolling the knife across his knuckles, he sheathed it and stood up. Spreading his arms wide, he indicated the room full of women. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of competition on the surface, but every time someone's mentioned his name, at least four of you look towards that room. He's in there with the little pixie lady, who I'm pretty sure has a thing for him too. In my experience, shitting where you eat is never the best course of action. Considering the lot of us are all that's left, however, I can understand a number of you being interested in someone as honorable as him. What I want to know, before this all goes sideways because of hormones and immaturity, is how many women are currently aiming for him."

"Most of them," Haruka answered with a frustrated groan. "He agrees with you, by the way. He doesn't even believe love exists, to hear him speak of it. So that's an additional aggravating factor on the melodrama at the table right now."

Blowing out his own frustration, he scrubbed one hand over his head. "Damn. To be honest I was kind of hoping that it was limited to two or three of you."

"Why?" Rei snapped, "So the others could swoon for you instead?"

"Not interested," he retorted with a chuckle. "I was thinking that perhaps, since we're all that's left, we could help him understand that 'society' is what we make of it. That if everyone can be chill, that him and those few ladies could share time with one another without invoking catfights and threats of castration."

"He's gay," Clare declared out of nowhere. "Has been his whole life. None of you have anything to worry about, regarding him making a move on someone."

"…Sis."

"Hey, 'Neo-Imperialism', remember? I want this shit over with as much as you do. We've got a world full of zombies to kill, defenses to buttress, crops to sow, and a deadline to meet. At some point in the future, I'm probably going to hit on hm too because…to be frank, he's kinda cute. I was going to step back, because 'Becca clearly was gaga over him, but now? Game on." Standing up herself, and moving towards the door leading to the main chamber, she rolled one hand dismissively. "I don't care who else he's sleeping with, either. So put that worry out of your heads, ladies. I can have a nice happy sexlationship with him safe in the knowledge that I can count on both hands the number of available partners he has."

After his sister closed the door behind her, Chris sighed again. "I'm sorry about that. She hates drama. It's why I'm looking for a reasonable solution to this problem, so that it doesn't drag on for the next few years."

"The thought is appreciated." Daphne had spent most of the discussion planting various flowers around the room, intending to use aromatherapy to soothe tempers and fears. "I aim to leverage my position to encourage him to accept others, myself. Right now, I'm the only person that knows for certain where they stand with him, I think."

Sarah pushed her chair back, leaning on her cane and looking at Chris. "Let's go for a walk. I'm a little gimpy right now, and I'll need some help moving things out of the way. Also, I'm pretty sure you could carry me to safety if a zombie creeps close. I want to go find that badger-lady and fix the walls before it becomes a problem."

"Solid plan." Chris clapped his hands, ready to work. "On your lead, little lady."

With two more people out of the room, the remainder grew even more silent. A wide variety of thoughts permeated the storm clouds brewing, fears atop worries atop anxieties atop anger. None of them were untouched by their own concerns, which were heaped atop the undercurrent of what the walking weapon of mass destruction in the next room was about to do.

+++++ Hikawa Shrine. (Saturday + 14)

Shinji was laying down in his bed, frustrated and feeling impotent. Every time he felt his sorrow creep towards the edge, felt it begin to summon tears to purge him of his pain, anger would swoop back in and chase the tears back into the shadows. Every time he felt his wrath begin to dominate everything inside of him, a pure white-hot blaze that would scour him completely of his cares, he felt the tide of sadness pull itself back up along the shores of his heart. Neither could ascend without the elimination of the other, and both fought viciously to remain within him.

His eyes were closed, his left forearm laid across the bridge of his nose, his right hand resting atop Yukiko's diminutive form. The powerful Constant was lying atop his chest with her front to his, her head just under his chin and her arms looped around his neck. She had something she needed from him, though he'd be damned if he could explain what it was. That she wasn't fussing about seemed to him that she was receiving that thing, that she hadn't left meant that perhaps it was an ongoing need.

"I have travelled from one end of the universe to the other," she spoke in a quiet, hospital visiting hours-type voice. "I have seen the death of galaxies, torn apart by forces beyond their control. I have witnessed as living beings breathed their last, devoid of any possible future…and never once have I met someone with such a mixture of thought and emotion as you. That you are so alike The Wanderer, and yet so completely different, frankly boggles the mind."

"I'm sorry that I don't better resemble an asshole willing to create dimensions simply to destroy them when they don't meet his cryptic parameters." He had a momentary pang of conscience, not wishing to take that kind of tone with a woman he was happy still wanted to be around him. "…Sorry."

"It has been a trying time." One small hand slipped out from behind his neck, caressing his cheek and ear. "I appreciate that you still recognize when you have displayed poor manners, and that you consider me worthy of better manners." Her affections lingered as she asked, "What keeps you from slumber?"

"…I can't let go."

"Of?"

"Anything, everything…." Making certain he did not strike her, he slapped his hand down on the bed beside him. "I can't get out of my own head, I can't get out of my own way, and I can't make any damn sense of the people out there!" He gestured vaguely towards the door. "I didn't want any of them here, and now they're angry that they're stranded here! I don't know what to do, other than do what feels right, and what feels right is getting out there after I've rested a bit and killing anything that isn't in this Shrine right now."

Shuffling herself about, she moved so that she sat on his chest with her calves on either side of his neck. "They're not angry with you, they're angry with the situation," she kept her explanation free of any heavier emotions, leaving the words to stand on their own with the man beneath her. "They're angry that they have to be here, because that is what they expect of themselves during moments like these. That anger does not direct itself at you, though. They are frustrated with you, but considering that you are frustrated with yourself I think that's only reasonable. Nobody knows from one minute to the next what you're about to do."

"…You're naked again."

"We were attempting sleep. We have discussed what that means."

He let his eyes travel along her form. She was perfectly proportioned for a woman her size, it was just that her size was very, very short. The fact that he wasn't an abject mess of apologies and self-recriminations caused him to frown thoughtfully. "I'm comfortable with you being naked."

"That's good to know."

"Why choose to look like a human?"

"Because it's what your mind is comfortable with. I didn't come here to harm you, and I'm eager to make any effort I can to prevent accidentally doing so."

"…Why choose to be barely above my knee in height?"

"Because it's what my mind is comfortable with. What I am, which you have realized I am, is best presented as a small piece of a bigger answer. Relying on what I represent alone is a quick path to disaster. But living without it, like you seem to be able to do, is antithetical to the entire idea of life." Looking down at herself, she searched her entire body for something. "I think I'm cute at this size…do you not agree?"

"You're…more than cute." Lifting his hand up off the bed, he wrapped it around her arm to demonstrate the size difference. "But I'm…nervous, about touching you."

A hint of playful flirtation entered her eyes. "And you'd like to touch me?"

He completely missed the enticing hint bouncing off his forehead. "You make sense." His mind was nowhere near affection or romance, two concepts inextricably linked to him. Letting his hand slip free of her, he also missed the glimmer of disappointment at its absence in her eyes. "You're here because you need something from inside of me. You're helping because you've grown to like me, somehow. You sit here, completely nude to the world, because to you it's just a visual representation of an abstract concept. If you wanted, you could appear as a fourth dimensional construct."

Leaning forward, she pushed his chin up to close his jaw before he continued on under false assumptions. With her hands remaining where they were, she brought her face closer to his. Her hair slid forward, broadly obscuring her form while still allowing peeks at her peaks. "I came because I needed something from inside of you. I'm here because I wish to stay and determine whether or not you and I might become compatible beings. I understand that this concept is foreign to you, but I find it incredibly easy to imagine spending the endless march of time at your side. You are not the most handsome of men, nor the most intelligent, nor the most creative. Nor, however, are you middling at any of these parameters. Much as I have travelled the universe witnessing the lonely wandering of balls of rock, gas, or liquid, I have also seen many species of life moving about in their own time. Of all that I have witnessed, I have never seen one such as you. A bourgeoning giant that would remain a flea, a harbinger of war that would bring only safety, a limitless existence that dwells on picayune semantics. You neither tire of your strength nor make the best use of it. You are content to be who and what you are, and content to become what you must to see that others need not become worse. You interest me, and for that alone I deem you more than worthy of my companionship." Crossing that small distance remaining, she pressed her lips against his and released his jaw to run her fingers through his hair. I am patient, and will give you the time you need to come to understand my mind on this matter.

As much as he didn't wish to, he slowly began to cooperate in the display of affection she was insistent he receive. What he felt for and from her wasn't the howling need he grew to know from Hera, or the endless longing he felt for Rei, but instead something that differed from those two in that it was both tangible and ghostly. Her physical presence was a balm to his anxiety, the pressure she exerted against him whenever she touched his form making it easier to no longer feel as if he was going to fly apart at the seams at any second. The way she knew his thoughts without any verbal communication required allowed him to feel as if one person, of everyone left with him on Earth, would always understand what he'd meant when he acted. What stood out at the moment, though, was that kissing her made his pain recede ever so slightly. I'm…sorry, for assuming why you stayed.

Joy suffused her at both the reciprocation of affection and the honesty of the apology. And I'm sorry that life has blinded you to what you could have, if you simply reached out to grasp it.

+++++ Hikawa Shrine. (Saturday + 14)

Rei sat atop the apartment complex, on the barrier wall surrounding the edge of the uppermost level, looking down at the wreckage of the most recent fight. There was an Angel's corpse lying halfway inside and halfway outside the north wall. There was a new tunnel that had been created to reach a crystalline power source that she'd never known was there. There was a massive crater that had been sacrificed in the present for a chance to save a future she'd never see. There was an enormous pair of trees embracing one another that dominated the southwest corner where there was once a building housing a youkai's spirit. This was no longer the home she remembered it being. No longer the place where she could hide from a world gone mad.

"I'm…sorry."

The words, just as much as the person speaking them, startled her enough that she yelped. She had been so absorbed in the maudlin act of trying to let go of her past that she missed the man responsible for her having a future approaching. Looking back at him, initially with frustration for her own damaged pride, she quickly softened. He'd come up here to apologize to her, and that wasn't something that deserved petty irritation. "Thank you. I'm sorry that you thought I was upset to be here."

With his hands in his pockets, Shinji shrugged. "But you are upset to be here. You're just not…upset at me because you're here. I told you that I don't know what I'm doing."

Reaching back towards him with an open hand, her fingers splayed, she gave him the smile that she knew would forever melt his knees and his heart. "Come. Sit down here with me." She had never anticipated in her life to that moment that she would ever have such total control over another human being. Without hesitation, he walked over to her, stepped up onto the ledge, and dropped down so that he was sitting a socially acceptable distance from her with his legs dangling over the ledge. It remained her job, however, to take his hand. Nobody's perfect. She could let the small things go, for now. Better to spend energy fixing the big things. Making scooting hops over, she wrapped his arm around her and held his hand so that he was holding her tight. "You are not wrong when you say that I'm upset to be here. I'm upset the world's died. I'm upset that humanity is down to less than one millionth of the population it was at the beginning of the week. I'm upset that you're in such terrible pain." Laying her head down against his shoulder, she smiled sadly. "But I'm happy that at least I have a group of people to fight alongside that aren't going to roll over and give up. That a man with a good, if confused, heart looks at me like I'm the brightest fire in the night sky. That someone so beaten down by life trusts me enough to sit on the edge of a building, listening to me whine."

Shinji felt wonderful where he was. It was a sense of belonging that warmed his entire body from toes to nose. The shrine maiden deserved to know several truths, though, and he prepared himself for the problems it would cause. "We…should probably talk about some stuff."

Her anger swelled, and she stomped it back into place before it could manage to further ruin the moment they were sharing. He could not know that this was 'a moment', because he likely never had any such moments in his life. "About Usagi?"

"…Among other things, yeah."

She was surprised, to an extent, that he hadn't let go of her. She could tell he was emotionally conflicted about the now-safe Sailor, the way they refused to solidify around any one particular designation for the woman could and probably did mean any number of things. But he held onto her, not out of obligation…but out of need. "Would you like to start, or should I?"

"Whichever you think is best." He hesitated a few seconds, then pushed out a heavy breath. "I don't have much…any, really, experience in talking about stuff like this. I could probably do a lot worse than following your lead."

If there was any relationship between them in the future, Rei knew to her bones that she would have to be careful about how intoxicating it was to have a powerful man so willing to bend knee to her every whim. It wasn't healthy for either of them, and wasn't something she ought to encourage. "It makes me happy to know that you're willing to follow me. Too many men…too many people have difficulties accepting women as leaders in anything."

"Too many people are idiots. Misato-san was my Tactical Commander, the woman who was in charge of how we engaged the Angels. I…miss her. A lot. She wasn't perfect, but she was really my first exposure to women, and she never once seemed incapable of leading. She was exceptional, or she wouldn't have been in that position…but exceptional probably shouldn't be confused for singular. A-anyway, I'm babbling. You start."

Rei paused to categorize the information she'd just received from him. She'd wanted to see the world he'd come from, if for no other reason than to try and understand how terrible it truly was. But now she wanted to see the world he'd come from so that she could meet a woman that had left this impression upon him. "Does it bother you that I'm interested in seeing if we're compatible?"

"…Yes, and no."

Keeping the sting that answer caused hidden, she followed up with, "Would you mind expanding on that?"

"I wish I knew how."

"Well, let's take it a step at a time, then. Why 'Yes'?"

"Because I truly believe that you could have done better than me. Because every time I've thought that I understood love, it's turned out to be something completely different. Because…because I…."

She felt his body slump, felt his emotions tangle themselves, and engaged before it could become uncontrollable for him. "As to the first point, that's not limited to any one person." Her statement caused him to begin to recover, her words leading him to logic he could grasp that would allow him to constrain his own emotional flotsam. "You could do better than me, after all. There's always 'better' for anyone, depending on how they view the situation they're in. Right now, with a future of hard work ahead, the man beside me is someone that I truly believe is a great fit for my life. I truly believe that we can balance learning about one another, learning about how to be better than we are, and learning how we fit together."

The admission on her part that he could do better than her triggered a series of arguments and counterarguments. Logically, she was correct. 'Better' was a subjective quality, and her interpretation of the quality in herself was as valid, if not more valid, than his own. With his mind occupied, and his guard lowered after having received an important piece of data to work with, his mouth struck while he wasn't actively overseeing its operations, "I'm terrified of choosing incorrectly, and hurting everyone." Everything ground to a halt as he heard what he'd just said, his muscles locking tight.

"I know how that feels." She was well aware of what he had meant, but also knew that it wasn't an admission of 'playing the field'. "Sometimes you have to just operate on faith. Trust that you're going to do what you believe to be the best thing to do, and hope beyond hope that it doesn't explode on you. Making friends with Usagi was one of the most…challenging decisions I've ever made. She could be so arrogant, so selfish, so thoughtless…and then turn around and sacrifice everything she had to make sure that we were all safe. She walked around as a mimicry of a human, putting on airs that she had flaws so that we wouldn't shun her…and by doing so hurt all of us terribly. Whether it was childishness on her part or willfulness, her desire to seem imperfect made all of us feel even worse. She could be perfect, and we couldn't. She had the choice, we didn't." Pulling his arm tighter around her midsection, she whispered out, "She wanted you, she struck first…and now none of us can have you without her permission."

"…What do you mean 'struck first'?"

"I mean I know what happened after Naoko-san arrived. I know what happened after you specifically stated that 'urges' should be put aside until we've handled the current crisis. I know that a woman I had thought better of didn't bother listening to you, didn't bother respecting your boundaries, didn't bother making sure you would be able to handle the aftermath of her own selfish desires." She was beyond angry at Usagi, and was not doing the best job of keeping that anger out of her voice. "She pushed an insecure, timid, young man who was reeling from crisis to crisis into allowing her to…to…."

His emotions couldn't decide whether to be embarrassed, angry, confused, or ashamed. "I…I agree that what she did was demeaning to her, I just-"

"To her?!" Her head whipped around hard enough that she forgot his arm was restraining her hair, causing a wince of pain at having her hair yanked by her own motion. This caused her already tenuous hold on her temper to fail completely, and her volume to raise dramatically. "Shinji, what would you think of a man doing that to a woman? Would you just sit there and think, 'wow, she's really lucky that while she's going through all of this bullshit, she had this guy she just met a week or so ago there to suck on her ladybits?' I may not know you completely, but I'm pretty damn certain you'd snap that guy's head off for taking advantage of an emotionally compromised young lady!"

Part of him was cowed by an angry woman yelling at him, the standard Shinji Protocols activating. Part of him was growing angry that someone was yelling at him about something he himself was confused about. Part of him wanted to try and explain the entire situation, and the remaining part of him simply wanted to leave and get away. "It's…it's not that simple."

"Well, no. No of course it's not that simple." Shifting her posture to face him more fully, she began speaking with her hands as well as her voice. "Did they really hit it off? Did the woman consent? Was it regret after the fact that caused awkwardness between them? There's a million questions that come along with any display of human sexuality, which is why I think you're right to say that it's best to just take it slow! You, Shinji, were doing the best possible thing! That's not only praiseworthy, but it is literally part of the reason that I realized how wrong I was to blame men for everything. But if some asshole took advantage of a friend of yours, there's no way you'd be this reluctant to do whatever you could to help the situation!"

"She's part succubus." It was becoming harder and harder to know what was 'right' with his emotions at the moment. "She…she needed…you know…."

"And that makes it better, somehow? That gives her the right to just suck on you whenever she's feeling a little peckish?"

The woman beside him had already led him closer to several answers he'd been looking for, and so he asked if she knew the answer to this one as well, "Who else should I send her to? She…she said that I'm who Endymion would have been, in my world. If she doesn't love anyone but me, would it be right of me to tell her to go somewhere else for what she needs to survive?"

She caught herself about to ask if he loved her in return, realizing that his opinion on the matter was already well established. "That neither makes it right, nor excuses her behavior. I still don't know why she went around grabbing those shards of power that made her into what she became. She never explained why, so why are we stuck coping with her self-centered decisions?"

"We?"

"There are times where I really want to grab you by the nose and shake your head back and forth until you listen to me," she groaned out. "Yes, we. Even if you and I never go further than holding hands and hugging, I'm still going to be your friend. That means that your problems, and yes this is a problem, are our problems. So we now have to figure out the answers. I'm not leaving you to face this alone. If you and I hit it off, then I'm really not going to leave you to face this alone. I will not accept someone I care about being abused."

"I…I think Yukiko wants to see if she and I can be more, too." He pushed hard to get it all out on the table, "I have an obligation to Daphne, as the only being left capable of giving her children. Naoko has told me flat out that she wants to…you know." He looked away from her, out towards the horizon beyond the glow of the torches atop the walls. "That's why you deserve someone better. Someone who…who doesn't have these kinds of obligations."

True to her word, she reached over and grabbed his nose between her thumb and forefinger, pinching hard and dragging his head to look at her. "One, Daphne-san deserves better than for you to view this as an obligation. Yes, what happened is terrible. It's tragic beyond my ability to describe. However, it is what is. Let her grieve, just like you're supposed to be doing, and then let her be with you if she's able. Two," she shook his head slightly, to keep his attention, "I never said that I wasn't willing to work out a compromise with other women. Before we lost her, that was what Minako-chan and I were planning on bringing to you. We wanted to shield you from all this other nonsense the only way we could think of. Now that it's just a handful of us? What point is there in arguing over you? Yukiko-san is, as far as I can tell, a good woman who cares about you. Mizore-san hasn't been flirting with you as much as she'd like to because she respects boundaries. Does it suck that we have to spread you thin like this? Yes. Does that mean I'm not interested anymore? No. This is our reality, either I accept that and move on or I get stuck in an endless recursive loop of nostalgia for supposedly better times that I view through rose-tinted lenses. Now, is there anything else that you'd like to get out?"

Working his facial muscles around after she let go of his nose, he frowned in irritation. "But it's not fair to any of you."

"No, it's not." She spread her hands and shrugged. "But considering I don't see any taiyaki being sold around here, I'm pretty sure we don't have to worry about 'fair'. This is our life, and I'm not going to waste it or ruin it by pretending that I won't hurt inside if I tell you that you and I are going steady and everyone else can butt out. These are good people, Shinji. Good people. Naoko-san deserves a chance to receive affection and affirmation. Mizore-san deserves a chance to be cared for. Daphne-san deserves a chance to be a loving wife and mother. I could continue on, but if you don't get the point by now you're beyond my help. I hurt that none of the other ladies will have a chance at a 'normal' relationship. Our choices are either nobody, or everybody, and at least by choosing everybody there's a chance that someone will become happy. Relationships are essential to being human…and I promise you that all of us are hurting just as much as you are. So…just don't give up on…it."

The jarring realization that she hadn't once mentioned love reminded him that not only was she abiding by the terms he'd dictated the evening they were speaking of, but that she was sincerely attempting to adjust to who and what he was. Her actions weren't driven by selfish desire, at least not solely, and that meant that her words carried far more weight. "I…uhm…." He carefully pulled her towards him, wrapping his arms around her. "Hug."

For Rei, nothing had truly been resolved, but it was evident that she had made a great deal of progress regardless. Eagerly returning his embrace, she made an attempt at deflating the tense atmosphere so that they could part amicably, "That is what we're doing, yes. Someday, you'll learn more words in proper Japanese, if you keep studying." His small chuckle was reward enough, and set her own heart at ease. It would take work to become his princess, but it was work that she wouldn't mind doing if the reward was a strong, caring, man at her side.