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.

54. Chapter 54

+++++ The Edge of Reality. (?)

Yukiko sat upon the gigantic chair that had long been hers to occupy. The miniature planet that hosted it, orbiting with perfect precision beside five other such thrones and planets, offered an unrivaled view of the final physical object in the entirety of the universe. She had, before she'd met Shinji, often thought to herself that such a grand construct as the polished obsidian barrier must have been crafted by a true artist. Now she simply wondered what The Wanderer was thinking when he'd chosen a non-reflective surface that somehow managed to still remain visibly distinct.

"I am compelled to agree with our dear brother," Charity intoned gravely. "What Hope has done is not without its merits or explanations, though it does seem that his presence has caused her to…stray?"

Prudence leaned forward, wagging their finger at each of the others. "We cannot allow interference with whatever The Wanderer has planned. The best course of action is to agree to keep her apart from Chaos until such a time as he has matured past these bouts of incontinence."

"The best course of action, according to your rather…conservative viewpoint," Courage growled. "I do not deny that The Wanderer is the strongest being any of us could contemplate, nor am I proposing that we go against His wishes. We must see past the relationships we possess with one another, and see what such a pairing might cause to the greater whole! One of us, mating with an entity empowered to not only decay the Order we represent, but specifically designed to become the arbiter of all of our future. What might come of that? What horrors might we unleash upon an ill-prepared universe? Sometimes, the most courageous decision is abstaining from our desires so that the greater good may be upheld."

"But is that just?" Justice had, true to his word, fought vehemently to allow Hope the freedom to do what she felt was best so long as the rules were obeyed. "He enjoys her presence. She enjoys his. Perhaps it is The Wanderer's will that they enjoy one another, perhaps it is not, perhaps The Wanderer simply does not care one way or another! We so rarely interfere with one another in matters that do not pertain to our areas of Dominion. Is this really the best time to change that firmly established decision?"

"This does interfere, though." Faith had remained largely neutral throughout the debate, preferring to allow her siblings to speak as they would and glean insight from what they chose to say. "Shinji Ikari is a being that is more powerful than any other, though he does not know it. He lacks faith in his convictions. He lacks the courage to seek out his boundaries. He lacks the prudence required to choose the path of wisdom over the path of righteousness. He overflows with charity, giving of himself to any who might ask it of him regardless of merits. He strives to ensure that justice is done for those who have been killed. Most damningly, specifically to this situation, is that he has had no hope. Nothing he has done has been with the concept of a brighter future for him. He firmly believes that he will die. Now that Hope is absent, however…." Gesturing to the sun they all orbited, she displayed the scene unfolding between Shinji, Rei, Mizore, and Ireul. "Look upon his existence. Tell me, what spark do you see building?"

Prudence gasped. "But how? How can he now have hope when she is as far from him as is possible?"

"Because he comes from a universe where black is white," Yukiko sighed in irritation. "There is no hope, there. Here, freed of that terrible realm, my intent is to be the hope he needs."

"At the expense of the hope that grows within him." Faith eyed her younger sister with a glower. "This is selfish of you."

"A false hope, an anti-hope." She slammed her tiny fist down on the armrest. "A seed leftover from when that coward invaded our universe to-"

"We do not know that is true," Charity interrupted. She motioned for calm. "The best interpretations of the data we have available to us do not lead us to believe that this is either a false hope or a true genesis of self-produced hope. Our best course of action remains allowing this to play out as it will. If it is an anti-hope, as you believe…then I will go with you as well. Between us, even he will be unable to deny the truth."

"And how long would you have me wait while the man I love is-"

Faith stood. It was not a violent motion, or an aggressive motion, but instead a simple assertion of her existence. "You will wait as long as you must, as we all must. If you love him as you say you do, you might choose to believe that he is capable of the greatness you see in him. Whatever it is that has happened to you, sister…do not let it overwhelm you again." With her piece spoken, she walked off to be about other tasks. The decision had been made, as far as she was concerned. Patience was required in this, and so patience would be enforced.

+++++ Hikawa Shrine. (Wednesday + 32)

The small kitchenette that Rei had in her quarters was capable of producing more than a small amount of food in less than a short period of time. While the Sailor for Mars demonstrated that capability, Shinji had to fight against the urge to get up and assist. Twice he had tried, being asked politely, then told firmly, to let her do this for him. Sitting near the firepit that sat in the center of the main space, analyzing the engineering involved in making certain that the smoke from the fire went up the chimney and not out into the room around it, he eventually caught sight of a bamboo flute lying on a small table in the corner of the room.

Such an instrument clearly meant that she was either learning to play, had once known how to play, or actively played. To Shinji's mind, it meant that perhaps she enjoyed music as well. If she enjoyed music…perhaps he could do something for her while she did something for him. That would balance things out, and potentially show her that he was honest in his assertions that he hadn't meant to hurt her feelings. A quick memory analysis brought to the fore where he'd left Ritsuko's cello, and a sudden surge of sorrow was ruthlessly squashed. She was dead, he was not, and he owed it to the living to not spend his time with the dead. A silent creation of a portal later, he caught the instrument as it fell through the gap in space and time he'd created.

He had long since grown adept at tuning an instrument in near silence, as he had to practice to retain proficiency but also would be beaten if he practiced too loud. The plucking of the strings was covered over by the sounds of cooking, and in short order he introduced music to the room he was sitting within. As was usual for him, he played with his eyes closed. Feel, more than any other sense, was how he guided music through his body. His mind was a catalog of paper scores, and without any effort he could easily transcribe onto any written surface a flawless scoring of whatever song he'd learned. There was a brief second of tension as the sounds from the kitchen slowed, then a release of that tension when Rei giggled and the sounds of cooking resumed.

Instead of playing through any one piece, he focused on a medley of songs that brought their best components together to flow through a history of the cello. A dim light began to grow within his mind, a resonance that changed what it was he was playing midstream. A swirl of four brightly shining colors spinning around and supporting a malleable blob of nothingness that absorbed the radiated light. Not greedily, not hungrily, but passively. As the colors grew in strength, so did the nothingness. As the nothingness faded, so did the colors. The ebb and flow of their existences was tied to one another, and would forever be tied to one another. The colors fed off of the space created by the nothingness, the nothingness was given strength to create by the colors. The four spectra, red and blue, green and yellow-orange, merged at the boundaries to create a pure white that defined the boundaries between their radiance and the void within. Black became white, white became black, neither seeking dominion, both ruling with unflagging certitude.

Two of our Warriors have chosen to take up the call. Each gifted the opportunity to become greater than they are by your sacrifice. We do not speak to you out of deference to your station, Warrior of Darkness, not because we despise you or think less of you. The voice Shinji had heard first with the Crystal in Greenland spoke clearly through the music he played. You are freed, for now, to become what it is you were born to become. Think of what you would have this world become. Hear our song, and know peace. Feel our touch, and know love. You are not complete, alone. You are not without a future, now.

The song wound to a close, the music that he had been hearing from the false Crystal pillars completed by the true Crystals. In his chest there was a war raging, now. Wrath and love vied to dominate his being. The desire to go forth and destroy each of those false idols that would lead the world he was rebuilding astray. The longing to stay here and love and be loved by the women that remained. When he opened his eyes, he saw Rei standing before him, her hands clasped tightly in worry. He saw, in her eyes…hope. "There are many things in my life that I truly, deeply, abhor." Gently setting aside the cello and bow, he brought his hands back to lay upon his legs. "That I did not have you in my life from the beginning…is probably the greatest of those things."

"That's sweet of you to say, but I'm still very worried about you right now." Rei took a step closer, placing her fingers just under his jaw to feel his pulse. "I have never heard a cello be played in such a manner as to produce the sounds of both a piano and violin accompaniment. To look at your face while you played, I don't think you were playing that particular song."

He reached up and placed his hands around her waist, and looked into her eyes. "I need you."

"And I will always be here to help you. Right now, I'm thinking of how I can help you get your heartrate down."

"No." Shinji stood, picking Rei easily up off the ground and holding her at eye level. "I need you. Not Usagi. Not Selene. Not the woman that claims to love me eternally but chose to stay away from me when she had the chance to be by my side. I need you. With your rough edges, your mood swings, and all your other problems." Things felt right, now. For the first time in weeks, he could see clearly what had to be done. "I can't win this fight alone. I can't expect to bring happiness to the people we saved if I remain miserable. I can't heal if I'm constantly wallowing in the razorblades of my past. I need you, Rei. Please."

She looked at him for a few seconds, biting into her lower lip. "Promise me you aren't going to try and find a way to kill yourself."

"If I have to give my life, it will be because I don't have any other way to succeed."

"…Promise me that you'll work on forgiving yourself for those that we've lost."

"With your help. And the others'."

"Promise me you'll give me an honest critique of dinner?"

His first startled laugh broke the seriousness of the situation completely, which prompted him to pull her against him and hold her in the father of all bear hugs. "You saved the hardest part for last intentionally, didn't you?"

She could have stayed as she was for the rest of time, perfectly content with the world. "You know me, I enjoy challenging you to be your best."

Her scent filled his mind with memories of his short time together with her. He didn't want to waste another minute. Setting her down, he kissed her forehead. "Then let's sit down and eat. It smells great, I'm sure it can't taste any less."

+++++ Hikawa Shrine. (Wednesday + 32)

Mizore was standing back with Rei, watching as Shinji explained to Sarah what Daphne and Ireul were doing. The yuki-onna, adept at reading people from a distance, had to admit that she liked what she was seeing. "So, did you manage to convince him to climb in your bed?"

"Nope." Rei was perfectly content. She had just had the best date of her entire life, speaking with Shinji of nothing more complicated or dire than whether or not adding tofu to stir fry was appropriate for lunches. Something had been set loose in the man she loved, and he had been radiating with the desire to have her near him for two straight hours. "Ate lunch. Talked about cooking." Her lips curled into a devious grin. "He told me how badly he needed me."

"And you didn't push him into bed?"

"Planning on doing that later tonight, once we can give it the proper attention it deserves." A small, covetous, part of her mind shrieked denial of what she was about to ask, but the greater part of her realized that perhaps she should begin as she intends to carry on. "Want to join us?"

Mizore gave her a sidelong look. "You serious?"

"As a heart attack." Turning away from Shinji she leaned in to address her fellow Crystal bearer. "Listen. I know you've been flirting with him as best you can for the past few weeks. I know that you, much like me, are going to be a part of this big group…relationship thing. I have no idea what I'm doing, he has no idea what he's doing, and if we're going to have things be awkward anyway…we should have them be awkward with the three of us who are holding onto these Crystal things. Look me in the eye and tell me that it wouldn't be just like the universe to throw something horrifying at us right when we're about to…be intimate."

"You do know I think you're cute, right? I'm naturally inclined to play either team, I just don't really tend to flirt with non-yuki-onna women." Mizore shrugged one shoulder. "I just didn't really push it any further than I did the other night because of the whole religious academy thing."

"I went there because my father insisted. I have no interest in converting to Christianity, but I also can't deny that their school is one of the highest ranked in the nation. Shinto is where my heart is, and where it will remain."

Shuffling over closer, she slipped an arm around Rei's waist and placed her hand on her hip. "I'm going to be a little more openly flirty from now on."

"I'm going to hope that I don't have a massive panic attack when we jump him later tonight." Not quite ready to be romantically affectionate, Rei set her arm around Mizore's shoulders and hugged her close. She wasn't repulsed by the idea, she wasn't attracted to the idea. In her heart, she believed that neutrality was the best way to describe her opinion on the matter.

"You and me both."

"There, there, stop!" Shinji clapped his hands hard several times to gain everyone's attention as he urged Daphne and Ireul to halt their efforts. "Right there, see?" He gestured to the bottom of the clear bowl they'd created to do small-scale refinements to the successes they'd had initially, to something nobody else seemed to be seeing. "It's clouding, right there." He wagged his finger under it in a tight loop. "Give it a few seconds."

"Are you certain?" Ireul settled down onto her knees peering up into the bowl. "That could just be-" Without warning the mass changed color to a bright, leafy, green. "…I stand corrected. You have excellent instincts."

Shinji pumped his fist in a tight punch by his hip. "Yes! Daphne, please tell me you are going to be able to replicate this?"

"With sufficient strength, yes." Her smile was radiant, soaking in the joy that she could feel coming from Shinji. "I will need to lean on you some, however. This is not an easy task, and as we are intertwined I may be able to borrow from your reserves enough to make it work."

"Anything you need," he offered, bringing Sarah against him in a side hug. "Anything at all."

"I will hold you to that, Shadow." Her smile did not dim noticeably as she turned to Ireul, though she missed Shinji's moment of confusion. "This could not have happened without your assistance. I may detest what you did in ignorance, but if you continue to do what you can to make it right…I will petition him on your behalf."

Ireul looked down to the ground before her knees, remaining in her kneeling position. "This is woefully insufficient to even begin to make a mark upon the debt I owe. I swear I will pursue every avenue available to restore life to this world."

Shinji felt a sudden pang of regret. Not for how harshly he was treating someone who society would have deemed a war criminal. Not because he was taking joy in the success they'd just achieved in such a short time. But because he had thought of Ireul as nothing more than a monster, even after she'd apologized. In his heart, he had not attributed a true individuality to her, and that was a horrible thing to do. "Every journey begins with a single step, they say." Squeezing Sarah one last time, he approached Ireul and offered her a hand. "This was a good step." Her hand was cold physically, but there was a warmth in her grasp as she accepted his help up. "Don't fixate so completely on the terrible that you allow yourself to be dragged down to immobility by it. We're here to fix things…not break other things."

"So, what do we need to do?" Sarah switched gears away from Ireul to help rein in her own anger at the situation. Looking to Daphne, she kept her tone even. "Is this going to be one big glob that you let sail around the ocean's currents, or a bunch of tiny globs that we dump around the world?"

"We'll need nautical charts, oceanographic charts, tidal data," Mizore was in agreement with Sarah that the conversation needed to move away from the essential irritant in their midst, "might be able to find all of that at the harbor. Might need to go looking for an intact library or military base."

While he understood what they were doing, and even sympathized with why they were doing it, it struck Shinji as wrong that they couldn't at least allow him to praise someone for doing something correct. In his mind, if all you did was badger and belittle someone, then what reason would they ever have to improve? If you couldn't admit someone you despised had done something good, what hope was there for peace? "Sounds like a fieldtrip, then. Unless you have some advice, Ireul?"

"If I had the capacity to speak to my brother Sachiel, he would be able to assist us. Much like my portion of reality lies within fear and terror, his is water in all its varied forms. As it is, however, I believe that the Frostmother is correct. We might be able to find some rudimentary computers that have the data as well." The Angel looked to Shinji with a sad smirk. "If we had the Magi, we wouldn't have to worry at all, would we?"

"I'd kill for access to one of the dummy terminals we used in class," he snorted out a laugh. "They maintained an offline library of almost everything we're asking for, because we used it constantly in our Earth Sciences classes."

"Could you design one?" Rei moved closer to Shinji, choosing to support him over wallowing in pointless anger. "Is there a way to?"

Ireul latched onto the effort, intent on showing that she knew what was happening and wanting to ensure that Rei knew she appreciated it. "Perhaps, given the appropriate resources and time. I would want to model it off of Shinji's brain scans, unlike the original which was based off of Naoko Akagi's. I don't trust my own recollection of her thought processes, as the difference between her and I is far greater than simple personality. Shinji is nearly as intelligent, and would be far more trustworthy in my opinion."

"I think that would be a terrible idea." Sarah held her hands up, warding off Rei's sudden glare. "Do you want an angry artificial intelligence making decisions for us? I spent some time talking to Naoko about the world she'd come from, so I know what these Magi were meant to do. I've also read Ellison and Forster. I'm all for technological solutions that make things faster for us, but we need to seriously consider what we'd unleash by creating an AI that sits around with nothing to do but plot angrily for a couple thousand years."

Shinji blinked a few times. "…That's a very solid point." He gave her an approving grin. "I knew I kept you around for some reason."

"It's because you like my ass, silly." She winked at him, enjoying the teasing. "I think the idea can be useful, but we might want to discuss it more broadly before we start walking down that particular path."

"Thank you, Miss McDougal, for reminding me of how little I understand about your culture." Ireul's statement was without any rancor, a genuine offer of gratitude instead of a sarcastic retort. "I will gladly listen to your wisdom, whenever you wish to offer it to me."

Her reply was a few heartbeats in coming, an internal debate occurring on the very wisdom that had just been praised. "Ikari."

Startled by her suddenly calling him by his last name, Shinji could only manage a brief, "Huh?"

"Sarah Ikari." She looked at him challengingly. "Whoever my father was, he never stayed around long enough to give my mother his name. It's always been my dream that I would find a man worth accepting that gift from. I have. You're him. So, Sarah Ikari."

"Miss Ikari, then." Ireul inclined her head in respect. "I believe congratulations are expected, after an achievement of this type?"

"…They are. And thank you."

Shinji observed Sarah without speaking, contemplating what he should feel about this development. He hadn't planned ahead with regards to his relationships with any of the women present, except for Rei. His hope, such as it was, was that she and him would find an appropriate time to engage in clumsy attempts at intimacy sometime soon. He had no idea what he was doing, but he knew that he'd have to find appropriate 'precautions' to avoid a pregnancy that they could not afford at the moment. Now he was being told by someone other than Rei that he was now 'taken'. Did that obligate him to do anything? What was expected of him now?

"Hmm. Daphne Ikariouli," Daphne tasted the words. "Truly, these two languages were never meant to be combined in any respect. I believe I will simply use Ikari, and not attempt to bridge the divide linguistically."

"We do have it easier," Mizore looked to Rei with a shrug and a smile, "being from the same country with the same heritage and all."

"…Rei Ikari. It will take some getting used to, but I believe it will fit comfortably in time." The shrine maiden laid her head down atop Mizore's, joining her in smiling towards Shinji. "Poor Shinji. Surrounded by love, with no idea what to do with it."

"Feel it. Listen to it." The Crystal's statements made a little more sense now that Shinji had been given the right prompt. "I'm still working on thinking of myself as someone who deserves any of you, let alone all of you. But I'll try harder."

Ireul watched with a pain in her heart as Shinji was swarmed under by four women. The conversations she had previously with her counterpart from another dimension outlined an entity that granted both guidance and freedom, safety and adventure, lust and romance. The 'other her' was pregnant. A mother-to-be. Here she stood facing the possibility that because of a terrible lie, she might never know what it was to be loved so by such a man.

+++++ Hikawa Shrine. (Wednesday + 32)

Following a lively dinner filled with optimism and discussion about how best to gain the information they needed, it was decided by the four newly named Ikari wives that another bath was in order. This time, the hope was, that Shinji wouldn't have another dizzy spell like the one that took him from them last time. "You said that you forgot something. You couldn't remember what it was. I came down, we got some sleep, and we attacked the day with renewed energy." Sarah, as usual, was dismantling Shinji's objections before he could voice them.

Shinji, however, was now planning slightly ahead of the blonde's arguments. "…Fine." Pushing his chair back quietly, he stood and set his fists down on the table, looking over towards their dinner guest. "Ireul, would you like to join us? If it would make you more comfortable, I can wear a blindfold again."

The sharp intake of breath from Mizore through her teeth was unmistakable. Rei's mouth quirked off to the side as she debated how she felt about the offer. Daphne had been caught off guard by the statement, and was sitting back in her seat contemplating something that only she knew. Sarah's jaw clenched hard, clearly unhappy. All of that informed what Ireul was about to say, "Perhaps-"

"No." He shook his head slowly. "No. I'm not having it. Anger, hatred, contempt, none of it. We just lost over ten billion more lives, on top of the several billion from my Earth, because of whatever irrational bullshit started all of this. I have never heard once of Angels and humans talking to one another. Not until you and I stood face to face. If we're just going to give in to that anger, to that hatred, then I will drown this reality in it myself." He punctuated the final word with a punch against the tabletop, making all of the dishes jump slightly. "I will become an avatar of wrath that ensures nothing remains standing. I will march across this entire universe leaving nothing but destruction in my wake. I have so much anger in my chest, all day, every day…and I'm fucking tired of it." Pushing himself back upright, he crossed his arms. "Swear to me, right now, that you did not understand that diplomacy had never been tried."

With her hands neatly folded in her lap, and her eyes fixed on her plate, she tried not to quail under the power being wielded before her. "Under the Laws, I do so swear."

"Swear to me that had you known, you would have tried talking to humanity."

"Under the Laws, I swear that had I known the true nature of the Lilin, I would not have done what I have done. I would have sought other means of achieving our ends."

"…Expound."

"I doubt sincerely that communication would have been achievable without hostility. There were Lilin in the reality we came from that sought to use our war to shape their own ends. You and your allies were pawns, just as much as my kin and I. I do not doubt that you would have sought dialogue…I cannot swear that I would have attempted what I believe would be a precursor to even greater destruction."

"Fair enough," he agreed easily. Turning back to everyone else, he set forth his decision, "Did she murder billions? Yes. Were we, in her eyes, not only an enemy but a blight upon this world? Also yes. Look me in the fucking eyes and tell me that if we could have eradicated mosquitos from the world, that you wouldn't be fully in favor of it. Tell me that if Inari came back that we wouldn't grudgingly accept her despite her deeply racist thinking. I'm not asking you to forgive, or forget. I'm asking you to stop creating so much fucking anger. I have a hard enough time containing my own…and…all of you are tied so deep in my heart." He swallowed a lump in his throat, clenching his jaw to stop the frustrated tears from coming. "I'm trying to open myself up…stop shoving hate in the gaps."

Rei quietly stood from where she had sat throughout dinner, her hands fidgeting with her cloth napkin, the rest of her calm and poised. "…I would like an apology from her, for what was done to my sisters."

"I apologize, without reservation or hesitation, for the actions undertaken by my kin." Ireul looked over to Rei, sincerity radiating from her. "Their aims may have been benevolent, but their foolish lack of critical thinking led to the exact type of hostility I just mentioned. We should have spent more time seeking another path. More time questioning the one we'd been set upon. Had we done so, countless tragedies would not have unfolded. And so, again, I apologize."

Her attention, throughout the apology, was focused on Shinji. Watching his thoughts, his emotional state, and how he took it all in. Rei was satisfied, for the most part, that her point had been made. "Thank you, Ireul-san, for accepting the burden placed upon your shoulders by those you call family."

Daphne created a small bunching of flowers, setting them down before Ireul. Lavender tied with rose leaves, she stated her intentions to the other woman without a word spoken to her. "We all carry a heavy burden, it seems. I think that I agree with our shrine maiden that perhaps we all must consider well what those we have aligned ourselves with have done, and how we may best undo whatever lingering malaise remains." She looked to Mizore, then bowed her head solemnly. "I would never have conceived of the use of those weapons, Frostmother. I, however, am the last remaining Elysian. Please, accept my apology for that terrible wrong."

The cascading effect of what Shinji had just stated so bluntly was both reopening scarred wounds and cleansing them. Mizore was stiffly glaring at an empty point in space, her jaw clenched hard and her fists clenched harder. "I guess none of us are clean." Her words and tone didn't match up at all, "I slaughtered more than my fair share of Elysians. Used their blood to work out my anger at the entire situation. At my own inability to…." Her gaze returned to the present, and she looked at Daphne with a shade of contrition that she'd not often shown. "It was a stupid war. A pointless war. I regret my part in it."

"Yeah, well I 'regret' that our resident virus decided to unleash a zombie plague on humanity." Sarah leaned her elbows on the table, her cheek lying upon her joined fists. "I 'regret' that it took the murder of a very, very good man to get me to realize how immature I was allowing myself to be. I 'regret' that all of this could have been avoided if someone hadn't deployed an uncontrolled tsunami of cannibalistic murder machines."

Rei attempted to intervene, "Sarah-"

"No," the blonde American cut her off hard. "I'm not going to sit here and sing 'Kumbaya' with someone who managed to outdo Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot combined. If we took every atrocity from every developed nation in the world and combined them, humanity would still only be a rounding error in comparison to her death toll! Yeah, I'll work with her. Yeah, I'll cooperate in fixing everything. No, I am not going to pretend that she's anything but a sentient virus that's one 'oops' away from undoing everything we're trying to do!" Gaining her feet violently, she stormed into Shinji's room and slammed the door.

The silence left in her wake stretched out, each of the four non-Angellic denizens left behind filled with varying degrees of chagrin and pain. No two of them had the same motivations for attempting to push the uncomfortable reality of the situation into the past. None of them would even agree that the motivations the others had were valid, or even palatable. Each of them knew that the only chance they had of preventing Shinji from spiraling back down into a severe depression had just been nuked from orbit.

"…Well, that's that." Shinji slid his hands into his pockets, then looked over to where Ireul was sitting with her eyes closed and her body very still. "Ireul, let's go start looking for the charts while everyone gets some sleep."

Daphne knew that he needed to be doing something when his moods darkened, and was willing to forgo sleep to help him work through the problems. "I will come-"

The flare of anger that sounded through a low growl and three words reminded everyone of what he'd warned them about, "I didn't stutter." After three short breaths, his voice was calmer. Extending one hand to Ireul to help her stand up, he kept his attention focused on her instead of everyone else in the room. "Let's start at the harbor. I believe Mizore had a good idea."

"As you will it." Ireul was not stupid enough to try arguing with him on the matter. Accepting his offer, she politely recovered her hand after standing to not further infuriate the women that would be left behind. When the portal spun open, she was the first through it.

When the portal closed behind Shinji, Mizore snorted out a morose chuckle. "He didn't go to the harbor."

Daphne eyed her youkai counterpart. "How do you know that?"

"Because the air that came through the portal didn't smell like fish."

The entire evening had, as they tended to around them recently, not gone the way she had wanted it to. Rei was leaning against the table with just shy of enough force to shatter it. "I'm starting to think that maybe I shouldn't love him as much as I do."

"Perhaps a bit overdramatic, though I understand your anger with him at the moment." Daphne moved over to embrace Rei, intending to help the Sailor to calm herself enough to speak with her mind instead of her heart. She stopped two paces shy of completing the action when Rei glared up at her. "I only seek to help."

"Right. 'Help'. That's what we're going to call this, then?" Turning to face Daphne, she leaned her hip against the table and crossed her arms defensively. "You hopped pretty quickly from Suzuhara to Shinji. I didn't see anything about your other husband having a tree tying you together. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that have kept him alive?"

"…I am going to be charitable and say that you're merely venting your emotions."

"Am I? Or am I trying to understand him better? Instead of evading my question, why don't you answer it. Why are you able to tie yourself so inextricably to Shinji that you survive your head being removed, but you couldn't do anything of the sort to protect Suzuhara? Why did you run, if you were essentially immortal? Why are you so quick to jump in bed with Shinji after supposedly losing the love of your life?"

"Am I supposed to stay celibate for the rest of my days? Should I just ignore my physical needs because it's inconvenient?"

"Well, you could always have tried waiting a couple of months," Mizore commented before Rei could retort. "I may have nothing but the most unfiltered contempt for Elysium, but I did pay attention to what Sun Tzu said about dealing with an enemy. Why was it that you never planted a sapling for Suzuhara?"

Daphne stepped back away from the table, realizing that she had put herself where she was flanked on both sides by the two Crystal-bearing entities. "What have I done to deserve being the punching bag?"

"Answer. The. Question."

"Or what?" She eyed both aggressors with darkening humor. "Are we going to fight?"

"It's a possibility." Rei kept her posture relaxed. "Why are you being evasive about this? Embarrassment?"

"Because it isn't any of your business," Daphne replied.

"It involves Shinji," Mizore retorted sweetly. "That makes it our business."

She went to leave the room. "My first marriage does not involve Shinji."

"Only its dissolution." Rei moved purposefully to block her exit, standing as a living wall between the Dryad and freedom. "If you're worried about being the only one who's embarrassed, until I saw Shinji nude yesterday, I honestly had no idea what a man looked like without clothing on. When I first heard his thoughts, unfiltered, I realized how wrong I had been about a great many things. One of which, by the way, is the value of secrets. It's not really very high; rock bottom prices. Let's stop trying to keep worthless trinkets about, shall we?"

"I don't answer to you, child."

"We answer to each other. That's how families work." She had started this argument because she was angry, but the more she thought on the issue the more she realized that she was on to something. "If you want us to be one big happy family, then yeah…you answer to us."

Mizore read Daphne's nearly imperceptibly telegraphed blow perfectly, determined that it was aimed for Rei's head, and countered it with a kick to the backside of the Dryad's knee, sending the attack's trajectory off enough for Rei to slip under it and gain a hold of her arm. As quickly as the fight had started, it was over. Rei stood on Daphne's buckled knee, preventing her from gaining her feet again, and had her arm in a painful joint lock. Mizore walked around to stand in front of them, and crouched down to be at eye level with Daphne. "So…when I was hunting your kind, one of the things that I noticed was that you were extremely predictable critters. Always with the plants left where unsuspecting hunters would never think to look. Always the wrong genus for the weather. That little message to Ireul earlier was cute, by the way. But here in Japan, we also have a history of using flowers to communicate subtle intentions to others. Now, before I'm forced to demonstrate that your connection to him is not nearly as inviolable as you believe it to be…sapling?"

"I'm here for the same reason you're here." Daphne glared at her interrogator, the calm and poise she typically held allowed to vanish now that they were reverting to type. "Power."

"I realize that it's more than a little cliché, but I trust Mizore a lot more than I trust you…and I know she's not here because Shinji's strong." Rei bent Daphne's arm ever so slightly further back. "She sees in Shinji a chance to have what she never could from that young man whose death precipitated that war. I can feel how attracted she is to him. I know that part of that is because she's a youkai and he's an Elder, but she's strong enough in her own mind to see past that. If she was just trying to fuck him to gain power, she'd have done it already. She's had more than enough chances."

The yuki-onna's heart warmed at the knowledge that Rei trusted her so expressly. "If he'd have agreed to, then yeah…he and I would have already gone there. I'm not the kind of woman to use my orifices as weapons, though. Want to explain further, 'Dryad'? Clock's ticking."

+++++ Australia. (Wednesday + 32)

Ireul had held her tongue as Shinji walked around the glass caverns he'd brought them to. She wasn't certain as to his intent, and with how focused he looked she didn't dare interrupt. Her position in his life was tenuous, and despite his apparent overtures towards greater diplomatic leanings…she was still one wrong comment away from annihilation.

"Stop that," he stated with quiet calm. Crouching down, he probed one specific spot with his fingernail, attempting to pry something free. "I understand that I've been…unpredictable of late, but if I wanted you dead you'd already be dead. I'm just hoping that Mizore and Rei understand hanakotoba as well as I do, and are handling the situation more calmly than I would have." Rubbing the organic fluid he'd found between his fingers, he frowned in thought. "I'm sorry that Sarah was so blunt."

"…You know that's terrifying, right?" She still hadn't moved from her spot, the sensation of standing at the edge of an infinite abyss too strong for her to do otherwise. "Your…temper, swinging from one extreme to the other."

"You should try being in the center of it sometime."

"I'd prefer not to, thank you for the offer." Taking one step towards him, a physically painful step that went against everything she believed sane, she followed her declaration up with, "Why bring me here?"

"Because I need an unbiased opinion, and you're the closest to that I can think of. Anyone else without a seriously vested interest is a few thousand years in the future." Shaking his head, he brushed off the fluid. "I don't understand how she survived this." One hand gestured around the cavern. "Yukiko's hand was showing serious damage, and she's one of the most powerful entities I've ever seen. That four-armed asshole didn't stand a chance against me. Daphne was killed, in my lap, right here," he pointed firmly at the ground, "and then I unleash enough power to blow a hole through the Earth's crust and turn everything around me into glass. To regenerate you have to have enough material to reincorporate yourself. That's just physics. Nobody can make something from nothing without a lot of power…and I can't imagine you'd have much power left after being incinerated with the kind of heat I was throwing around."

She was impressed, and reminded that Shinji Ikari was many things, but he was no idiot. "What was that liquid you were toying with?"

"Muddy condensation. I thought maybe it was blood, or even sap. It's too thick for the first, and not tacky enough for the second."

Ireul shifted another step closer to him, then another. After taking a deep breath, she took the final step and knelt down to look at another sample of what he had found herself. "…No traces of RNA. Odd."

That drew his attention back to the ground near him. "Wait…then how did it get here? I glassed this place. It's not like that left loose soil around. If something tracked it in here, there'd be…bits. Skin, oil, residue, something."

"Exactly. Hence, 'odd'."

His mouth twitched a few times as he began and ended several thoughts in rapid succession. "You have RNA, yes?"

"I am RNA."

"I have RNA. Does Mizore? Does Daphne?"

"I can't think of a reason to say 'no'. I can think of very few self-animate entities that do not possess RNA. A few of my siblings, and a specific form of non-carbon-based life that I was made aware of recently." She rocked her head side to side, clearly hedging her bets on something. "I am no mineralogist, nor vulcanologist, but it also does not make much sense that the…material, we'll call it, itself does not have any RNA. Most dirt, soil, or composite that would aggregate like this should have some signs of RNA in it. It is reflecting light with a wavelength of around six hundred nanometers, putting it in what Lilin would term 'brown'. That doesn't seem…consistent. This cave is mostly basalt, with some few strains of other associated minerals. Nothing that would clump together in a brown mass. It would be grey, green…perhaps even black."

+++++ Hikawa Shrine. (Wednesday + 32)

"Am I supposed to be tethered forever to someone that isn't able to live a life as long as mine?" Daphne glared daggers at Mizore. "Should I accept polluted air when clean air is available?"

"You should probably try to be certain that you're ok with living around them for a long time, if you're going to gleefully become pregnant by them." Mizore's eyebrow hitched, her mouth drifting towards a disappointed scowl. "Where did we first meet?"

"…This is your fault, now."

+++++ Australia. (Wednesday + 32)

"Could I have caused this?" Shinji gestured down to the substance, vaguely indicating the few other splatters he saw. "With me accepting the duties associated with Chaos, accepting that I'm both Titan and Elder, that I'm…whatever the hell I am?"

"Not directly, no." Ireul stood slowly, still avoiding any hostile-seeming acts. "If you're asking me if there is a chance that this just randomly happened as it has? Yes. There is an infinitesimally small chance of that occurring, given an insane number of coincidences and prior happenings. If you're asking me whether or not I believe you caused…this? The evidence is overwhelmingly against that conclusion."

His eyes drifted towards the north. "Are you certain I have RNA?"

"Would you feel more comfortable if I showed you an example of the specific strands I perceive in you?"

"How far away can you be, and still see it in someone?"

"I do not 'see' RNA, not in the sense you're implying. It's not something I passively do, either. I have to…feel, is the best word this limited language possesses, the dead cells being shed by the entity. This world, even as barren of fauna as it is, still bursts with strands of varying RNA sequences. If I were 'feeling', we'll call it, all the time? I'd go insane."

Shinji rolled his hand impatiently. "Ok, how far away can you be and 'feel' it in someone?"

"It is easiest to do while in the same room as them. I can filter out a lot of the nonsense that way."

"Have you 'felt' the ladies?" He paused. "I did not mean that the way it came out."

"No, I have not sampled their RNA. I felt it would be a violation of our compact."

"When I open this portal, stay out of whatever situation we return to. Do not attack, under any circumstances. If there is anyone there who lacks RNA, call out their name. If it's everyone…just shout 'stop', and brace yourself for me to shove you back out of the way." Unit-01 slid into place around him, the armor seeming angry as it did so. The external speakers clicked on as he asked, "Ready?"

She was standing in the same general airspace as the miniaturized version of the biomechanical abomination that had killed so many of her siblings. As the fusion of human ingenuity and the antithesis of her branch of life. She was here…and she was being spoken to with a measure of trust that she could not comprehend. "I am forever at your service."

Shinji ripped open a portal back to the dining room, into a scene straight out of his worst fears. The table was destroyed, chairs scattered and splintered, walls coated in frost, flame…and more of the same substance he'd found in Australia. Calm, despite all reason, kept him in its grasp. Turning his head slightly towards Ireul, he delivered her marching orders, "Find Sarah, keep her safe."

"As safe as I am capable, I swear it."

With a nod of affirmation, he marched towards the exterior doors, summoning the pair of axes he'd been gifted by two very different people. The hallway was coated in the same materials as the dining room, the flooring and ceiling scarred and tattered. His eyes went reflexively to where he had Ritsuko lying in state, and his forward momentum stopped cold. The shrine that had been built around her body was in ruins, her body crumpled and broken on the ground. He took one breath, then exhaled it slowly. Another breath, another slow exhale. His head then turned back to the path before him, and he began his march once more.

Outside of the tree, there was a rolling brawl between Rei, Mizore, and the woman he now knew was not Daphne. Rei and Mizore were holding their own, but were clearly fighting to detain rather than eliminate the imposter. The fake Daphne, if that was the truth of the matter, was clearly fighting to kill. The Crystals were doing what they could to protect the women bearing them, the plugsuits absorbing or deflecting mortal blows but not able to prevent the kinetic energy from disturbing their internal organs. None of the women appeared fully healthy anymore, but none of them were in any hurry to give up the fight.

Regardless of the brutal conflict before him, or its genesis, Unit-01 moved without significant haste. Rushing wouldn't serve any purpose. It was already far too late to change the outcome, and far too early to worry about the ramifications. A few stray chunks of rubble impacted it, none hindering its forward progress in the slightest. After three quarters of the distance had been covered, Mizore took note of its approach and almost lost her life for the moment of inattention. Unit-01 did not lose focus on its goal, and ignored the ballistic trajectory of the yuki-onna after she had been blasted away from the fight.

'Daphne' noticed Unit-01 and glared at it, dodging a few strikes from Rei as she did so. "You should not be here."

"Rei…please stand down." Unit-01 gestured with the axe Usagi had given it, motioning for Rei to move to safety. When she hesitated, he urged her on again. "Please. See to Mizore."

'Daphne' watched Rei stare at Unit-01 for a moment, then lunged after her when she turned her back. Her fist impacted Unit-01's chestplate, the miniaturized God of Death simply ignoring the space between where it had been and where it wanted to be. The pain that impact created registered both audibly and in her features as she grimaced. "You need to let me do what I am here to do."

"No, I do not." Unit-01 towered over her, both axes at a low ready position. "Is she alive?"

Her retort was acidic, "Are any of us?"

"I can kill you in any number of ways to prove to you that you were alive, if it would appease you. First, I will have you tell me if she is alive."

"You already know that answer."

"…I see." Without warning, he buried Ares' Axe in her torso from shoulder to navel. 'Daphne' gasped, then gagged, in shock at what had just happened. "I told him to take you with them to save you from this. I'm not taking prisoners. I'm not accepting dissenters. You swore to not harm me, which is why you never struck at me. What you failed to grasp, for whatever stupid reason, is that an assault on them…will always be an assault on me."

Brownish sludge sloughed off of Tungsram, as she revealed herself to be. Her disguise failed with her life force, and her eyes were perplexed at the impossibility of what had just occurred. "Y-you…c-can't …."

A backhanded swat with the Axe of Silence performed the necessary function to end that conversation. Shinji's anger burned through Ares' Axe, incinerating what remained of the youma's body after he let go of it to turn his attention to the injured. Unit-01 faded away, no longer needed for the moment, revealing a deeply pained young god. "How's she doing?"

Laying with her head on Rei's lap, the shrine maiden sitting with her back against the outer wall, Mizore coughed up some blood as she went to speak, "She feels like she just got her ass kicked by a freight train, because she forgot that losing focus in combat is fatal."

He knelt down by her side, wiping the blood away from her lips with his thumb. "I'm sorry. I thought maybe Daphne was just…I don't know, hiding some dark secret. That she wasn't as 'nice' as we thought she might be…."

"You believed her because she was believable." Rei kept one hand on Mizore and placed the other on Shinji's cheek. "This isn't your fault, it's not like either of us noticed anything until she gave Ireul lavender, of all things. I'm just glad you got out of the way, because it wasn't until Mizore commented on the fact that you didn't go to the harbor that I began to get angry enough to start seeing the inconsistencies."

"Lavender?" Mizore grasped for Shinji's hand, smiling through her pain as he gave it to her. "I don't know what you're talking about, I just didn't trust the bitch."

"I guess you weren't into hanakotoba," she replied with a loose shrug. "Lavender means 'faithful', in the Japanese system. In the Victorian system we studied in High School, it meant 'distrust'. Most people who use the 'language of flowers' to pass along secret messages like that are aware of its status as a 'mixed message' plant. I'd hope that a Dryad of all people would know that better than us."

"…I thought it meant 'bitter', like…emotional bitterness." Shinji shook his head, dismissing the issue. "Doesn't matter. Daphne really is dead, and so is Tungsram now. I warned them. I warned everyone. Nobody hurts people under my protection anymore." He did not fail to miss the look between the two women, and his heart sank. "She killed Sarah…didn't she."

Rei nodded, looking down in shame. "The bitch was playing along with us, pretending to be hurt by the joint lock I had her in. When Sarah stormed out of your room to ask us what was going on, she…Mizore wasn't the only person who lost focus in the middle of a fight."

"It's not her fault," Mizore urged him to understand, squeezing his hand hard. "That bitch threw her directly at me, and I dodged to make sure I could defend her while she recovered."

"She wasn't aiming directly at her though. She was aiming at Sarah, using Mizore's trained reactions in a twisted feint to kill…."

Shinji's eyes drifted shut. "Right." His jaw worked mechanically, attempting to either stifle the outpouring of grief or enable the processing of his rage, and failing at both tasks. "Let's get you in bed, Mizore. Ireul should know what we can do to help heal you, and Rei and I will take care of it so you don't have to worry about her touching you." Carefully picking her up in a bridal carry, he stood with help from Rei and began walking towards Rei's apartment.

"We're…not going to the tree?" Rei was more than slightly confused, expecting him to retreat to his 'place of safety'.

"I'm going to tear it to the ground once she's comfortable." He shook his head slightly, anticipating their response. "It's a monument of misery. It's my decision."

+++++ Hikawa Shrine. (Thursday + 33)

Rei and Mizore were inside of the former's apartment, the latter unconscious with the benefit of Ireul's knowledge of medications that would appropriately sedate the youkai without harming her. Shinji was hip deep in tearing apart the tree, being observed from a distance by that same Angellic being. Dawn had broken a few hours past, the world continuing its march around the sun despite the events that had stripped it of most of its defining character within its family of planets. There was little that she could do at the moment without engendering suspicion, something she wished to avoid not due to the fear of being caught…but out of the fear of losing that tiny flame of trust she had been shown the previous night.

She ruminated on the impulses and thoughts she'd had when looking down upon the crushed and broken form of the last remaining human on Earth. She would not go as far as to say that she felt empathetic for the young woman specifically, nor would she dismiss the idea that she was feeling some form of sympathy in general. Many races had died by her touch. Many worlds emptied of their life to allow for her siblings to populate them anew. This world, this insignificant speck of mud and lava spinning pointlessly in a sea of emptiness, had no more value than any other. And yet, a part of her cried out that a terrible tragedy had unfolded here.

A branch split oddly, a large section swinging loose from the main trunk connected by a more flexible piece of bark. The branch connected, hard, against Shinji's head sending him tumbling back off of the tree and onto the ground several meters below. Ireul was up and in motion before she thought better of it, and arrived at his side just as he was getting his bearings. Placing her hand on his chest gently, she urged him, "Be still. Blows to the head are known to cause unseen effects that will not manifest for some time."

His eyes blinked a few times, his pupils attempting to focus on the woman beside him. "How, guh…how is it that I'm able to melt through several kilometers of the Earth's surface, traverse time and space with a thought, and murder everyone and anyone around me…but I still get knocked on my useless ass by a tree branch?"

"Follow my finger." She began a basic concussion protocol. "It's because of your self-cognition at the moment you're injured. If you are more focused on what you once had been, or on those facets of your personality that you associated with them, you're more susceptible to physical harm. You've lowered your guard, if you prefer that analogy. In time, you'll likely find yourself no longer injured so often."

He tracked her motions without any problems, processing what she was telling him as he did so. The idea had merit, fit comfortably into logical expectations, and had just the right amount of 'magical bullshit' to account for the world he was now responsible for. "Diagnosis?"

"Optimistic. But I think I'll be monitoring you a little more closely than I was. Just because you're ok now, doesn't mean you'll be ok when the swelling starts."

Taking her hand from his chest without demonstrating any indications that he disapproved of her touch, he nodded. "You could have been sitting over here the entire time, if you'd have rathered." Standing, he dusted himself off and stretched out his shoulders. "I meant what I said last night. Hating you isn't going to change anything that's happened. Hating you isn't going to bring back the dead. It's not going to fix the future. It's not going to do anything but encourage me to hate everything and everyone that's ever wronged me…and considering how long that list is, I think it's best that I try to avoid that for now. I don't want to get angry, lose control, and just start killing everything that opposes me."

"…Do you feel angry often?"

"I'm angry now." He shrugged.

"Do you think you might feel…not angry, someday?"

The focal point of his eyes grew off into the distance. To a future that seemed to never take on any semblance of permanence. To a place, a time, that he honestly did not know if he was capable of even conceiving of. "…I don't know." Bringing himself back to the present, to the tasks at hand, he frowned slightly in thought. "I guess I try not to think about it. No use getting my hopes up…just gives the universe something else to take away from me."

Whatever it was that she was feeling, it centered on the man before her. "Would you mind terribly if I attempted to find some way to help you not be angry?"

"As long as it doesn't involve meditation, and you keep helping me return life to this rock, you're free to do whatever you feel like doing within the rules we've established." He began to climb the tree again, intent on finishing the task before the day was over. "I'm not making other people's choices anymore. Never ends well."