+++++ NERV. (Monday, August 23rd, +2)

With Shinji explaining how he used the cards to the Section Two agent that had entered her classroom earlier that day, Mitsuru pulled Maya aside to have a brief, but necessary, chat. "I apologize for the forward nature of the question, Lieutenant…but what is your intention towards Shinji-kun?"

Maya had half-expected the question, and had her answer already prepared, "I want to see him healthy, happy, and whole. I'd like to spend time with him, and not as his therapist. He's a lot of fun to just talk to, though now I know why his insight is both amazing and stunted. The way he views the world is unlike anything I've seen in person, and the way that he connects with people is…all too understandable now. You show him basic human kindness, he'll run through flaming razor blades for you."

"I agree." She looked back to Shinji, then shook her head and returned to Maya. "He is already garnering interest from…most, if not all of the ladies in our classroom."

"Absolutely no shock there. He's attentive, intelligent, and good looking. His awkwardness has some charm to it, and if you didn't know what we just learned you'd swear that he was subtly flirting when he compliments you."

"What would you advise that I do?"

Maya shrugged. "Let him choose. He seems to have developed some coping mechanisms around interpersonal relationships. He doesn't shy away from displays of affection, so long as they're not aggressive. He might see offers of friendship where you or I would see blatant attempts at seduction. If you want to be his friend, just make sure that whoever is hitting on him isn't the type to push him for sex on the first date. Until I have a few sessions with him, there's no way of telling what he'll do if faced with that."

"I do not encourage my peers to engage in such things, regardless," Mitsuru responded firmly. "Our focus should be on our studies, and risking pregnancy only impairs our ability to prepare for future success."

"Then you've got your answer. If he's attracted to someone, or if he's just interested in getting to know them, have a talk with them and get a feel for their intentions. In private, warn Shinji away from bad actors. I wouldn't encourage you to become domineering, though. You're not responsible for his life, and he might not appreciate someone dictating every facet of it now that he's free to live it on his own terms."

She breathed easier. A support network was building around him, and she wasn't going to find it necessary to look over her shoulder at someone who Shinji accepted physical affection from without complaint. Pulling out one of her cards she kept that had her contact information on it, she handed it over to Maya with a professional smile. "Thank you. If there is anything I can do to help, please do not be afraid to contact me."

"Likewise. You're going to have more contact with him than I will, if you see something and you're not sure what to do my phone is always on. Any time, day or night."

The elder Kirijo walked out of the building into the subterranean parking structure, stretching her arms out elegantly with a broad smile on her face. "I'm very sorry to have kept you waiting, Shinji-kun, Mitsuru-chan. Let's head on home and have a nice family chat over dinner."

Mitsuru nodded again in gratitude to Maya, then moved to walk alongside her mother. "Will someone be picking up his bags? He only has his schoolbag with him."

"He has no possessions." Her face hardened almost imperceptibly. "I have already arranged for a clothier to be waiting for us, as well as a cobbler. He will have a wardrobe worthy of standing by you. Personal effects will be acquired tomorrow. I've arranged for him to have the afternoon free for us to go to the sales display warehouse. If we don't produce what he'd like, we will at least have a good idea of how to find it." She paused as Shinji opened the door to the limo for her, motioning for the driver to stand back and not make a point of it. "Thank you, Shinji." Stepping into the vehicle, she moved to her preferred seat.

"Would you mind sitting next to me, Shinji?" Mitsuru set her hand on his arm as she moved past to enter the vehicle, keeping a friendly smile on her face. She was concerned that he would feel she saw him as 'dirty' or 'worthless' after what they'd learned, and she was determined to not suffer that thought to live. He had been made a victim of someone who was worthless, and such things did not smear off like mud in her mind.

Shinji looked away as Mitsuru bent down to enter the limo, not wishing to seem as if he was eager to ogle her. Catching sight of Maya, he lifted one hand enough to indicate that he would miss her, and received a heart-shaped hand signal in return with a glowing smile. After Akane set her hand on his back and pushed him towards the car, he himself climbed in and sat where he had been requested to. He found that after the door was closed it was a tighter fit than he'd anticipated, though, as Mitsuru had set her knees together and tilted them towards him to rest them against his leg. The smaller bench seat was an odd choice in his mind with the other two larger bench seats available. "I…uhm, I'm sorry to-"

The elder Kirijo clicked her tongue chidingly, wagging a finger at him. "No more apologies, now. I offered, before your mother said one word about the matter. I am thrilled to help you, and overjoyed that you get along so well with my daughter. The past we all carry, whether from embarrassing moments of youth or tragedies inflicted, does not need to live in the present. Any time you need my help, Shinji, I beg that you seek me out."

He knew she was hiding something. The part of him that was Unit-01 was screaming that she had hidden tales. The problem he was having centered on the truth that she also was being completely honest. She wanted to help him. "As you say, Kirijo-san."

"I would take it as a kindness if you would instead call me Miyuki." She held a smartphone in one hand, and flicked her finger between the two of them with the other. "Also, if you would refer to each other by your given names. There's enough mindless formality outside of our house, I'd rather not reintegrate it inside of the house if we can avoid it."

"As you wish." He hadn't just been chastised, he knew how that felt. He also hadn't been talked down to. He wasn't really sure what had just happened, and so he kept his mouth shut. The limo became quiet, which amplified the odd feeling in his chest every time the vehicle turned close to or more than ninety degrees to the left. Mitsuru's knee pressed against him, and he'd shift how he sat to give her more room. The next time they reached a turn, without having noticeably moved herself she managed to press her knees against his leg again. He was about to ask if he should move to a different seat when she gestured out the window opposite them.

"I've always loved this view," she offered, with a mix of nostalgia and worry. "But with that bizarre orb in the sky now, instead of the sun, it looks so different."

Miyuki looked up from her phone again, out the window and up to the floating ball in what passed for the sky. "We're calling it Kagutsuchi, just to have something to call it. We're fairly confident that it is moving through phases, darkening on one side and brightening on the other, but we need more time observing it."

The name glanced off of a memory of the history lessons that had been pounded into his brain, and Shinji ventured, "The son of Izanagi and Izanami?"

"None other." She put her hand out towards him. "Could I borrow your phone for a moment? I'd like to put some important numbers in there for you."

As he went to lean over to hand his phone to her, Mitsuru gently took it from him, her touch lingering on his hand. "Shinji, you really must learn to ask for help." Passing the device along, she looked back to him with a comforting smile. "Especially from me."

"I…." His mind waffled between two options, and when mother and daughter looked at him with sincere curiosity, he chose to be daring. "I…was raised to do things myself."

"I would not use the word 'raised' in connection with your past. 'Indoctrinated' might be adequate, if we are to choose from less pejorative terms." Miyuki began comparing her phone's listings to his, amending things as she felt appropriate. "Regardless, I am achingly pleased to announce that you are not there anymore, and will never be there again. In our home, under our roof, you will look to find ways to exercise those skills you never were allowed to learn. You will bring those points of deficiency to Mitsuru, or me, and we will find appropriate venues for you to discover how to live a whole, healthy, life."

Mitsuru nodded, agreeing enthusiastically. "We won't make fun of you. Maybe there are even things that I've never seen, or done, that you could show me!" The idea seemed to delight her. "Wouldn't that be fun? Helping each other learn new things?"

His mouth clenched, again, as his mind retained control over what it uttered still. When Miyuki rolled his phone, urging him to spit it out, he inwardly sighed. "I'm…just waiting for the other shoe."

The elder Kirijo laughed softly. "That is a condition that none of us who have experienced tragedy will ever be free of, I'm afraid. I promise that we will do our best to keep all footwear properly secured in a locker where it cannot leap out and assault you, but I can't promise that the sneaky things won't find a way out of their prison anyway."

The anxiety about 'the catch' shifted towards a worry that there might not ever be one. The idea that he might live his entire life afraid of something that would never happen was almost as worrying as the first.

+++++ Ritsuko's Temporary Room. (Monday, August 23rd, +2)

Sitting on the bed, her back against the wall and Maya on her lap, Ritsuko hugged her 'best gal' as a way to calm her own temper. "I agree, and I hate myself for agreeing. This is what is best for him. But he's such a good guy! Can you imagine how much fun we'd have in the lab with the way he tends to look at things? Who knows what discoveries we'd make."

Maya let her head fall back enough to look up into Ritsuko's eyes, a calm acceptance having grown in her that the world was simply changing too rapidly to rely on the old comforts. "Is that the problem? Or is it that you'd like to get to know him better?"

"I have you, and you are more than enough for me."

"That wasn't what I asked." She lifted one finger up and booped her senpai on the nose. "You are a sucker for hard-luck cases. You helped Misato get her feet under her after her mom died, and you two had a lot of fun together after that asshole Kaji dumped her. She drifted away from you romantically when she realized that she prefers men to women. If she was emotionally available, you'd still be with her. I'm comfortable with that, because I know you're an honest woman who would tell me if things were trending towards cheating."

"I'm not going to cheat on you with Shinji. He's-"

"Vulnerable, adorable, and delectable," she interrupted firmly. "I'm not into guys, but I'm not afraid to admit that he somehow turns my key. You teasing me about it is a bit of a bitch move, though."

Ritsuko set her head against the wall, and closed her eyes. "That was just me feeling inadequate. Stupid abandonment issues."

Maya giggled. "More like 'volumes'."

"Bitch," she snorted with a chuckle.

"But I'm your bitch." Waiting for Ritsuko to look at her again, she smiled calmly. "He's going to need us. He opened up to you, and he lets me give him physical affection. I'm going to be trying to get him to accept that his past has happened, that it doesn't need to live in his present, and that it will not define his future. You could try to get him to accept a friendship based on mutual interests, and sometime in the future we could both…see if he's willing to share a couple of bitches."

Ritsuko frowned slightly. "I'm serious, Maya. I have you."

"And I'm just as serious. We could both have him, once we've helped him move past the very serious, damaging, trauma he's experienced. If, big emphasis on that word, that's what he wants. I'm talking about making the offer, not steering him towards it."

The idea had merit. She could show him how much fun they were, and the worst-case scenario was that she ended up with a male colleague that would make the end of the world slightly less boring. "I'll think about it."

A knock on the door broke the mood, and Maya quickly stood and moved over to the lone chair in the room. Sitting there as if she'd never been anywhere else, she didn't miss Ritsuko's look of irritated anger. While she had no interest in her love being angry, she also felt a surge of guilty joy that the woman who loved her was tired of the show they had to put on.

Ritsuko leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb and opened the door so that it rested on her other shoulder. She wanted nothing to do with the world outside the room for right now, and was not in a mood to tolerate what she would term 'idiotic bullshit'. Seeing Misato disrupted her anger, however, as she realized that the Tactical Commander wouldn't have been made aware of what had happened in Shinji's past. "You don't look thrilled."

"Well, I just found out that not only was my pilot here after school, he was also just shipped off station without anyone telling me!" The lavender-haired officer poked Ritsuko in the belly. "Let me in, I want to bitch about life."

The day was apparently just not going to go the way she wanted it to. "You can join the session. Maya and I are already several topics in." Opening the door fully, she gestured towards her bed, offering the seat as a way of obfuscating the fact that it had just been used for more intimate sharing.

"Oh, cool. Hey Maya-kun," Misato greeted her junior with a polite wave and smile.

Maya tried not to sound either disappointed or nervous, "Good evening, ma'am. Pilot Ikari had a meeting scheduled for him with the Commander, and after that meeting he left with Miyuki Kirijo. That's all we've heard, at least."

"Yeah, that's basically the RUMINT that's been travelling around." She flopped down onto the bed, taking her coat off and tossing it into a corner. "Don't get stiffbacked just because I'm here, Maya. This isn't 'on-duty' time, this is ladies bitching about life time."

"More than enough of that to go around." Ritsuko hopped up on the small chest of drawers closer to Maya, crossing her legs at the knee. "I hope you weren't wanting to put him back in -01, though. We're still not sure why his synch ratio blew the previous records out of the water, and exposing him to that again without a desperate need isn't advisable."

"No, no," Misato waved off the idea, "I wanted to get to know him some, is all. Maybe take him out to dinner, knock back some drinks, and swap lies about our pasts. He's going to have to trust me to put him in the best possible position out there, if that beast returns, and I have to give him a reason to do that."

Maya didn't like that idea at all, for more than one reason. "He's seventeen, ma'am. He also shouldn't be drinking with the medications Sub-Commander Zeppelin has prescribed."

"Bah, a little whisky never hurt anyone." She rotated a finger, not caring about prescription warning labels. "Besides, I'm sure he's a lightweight. Most people are at his age."

"I've heard my mother mention that he might be getting an Executive Assistant soon. I'm sure you can schedule some time for debauchery with whoever gets that job." Ritsuko was of a mind with Maya, and knew enough of what happened when Misato got to drinking to know that she didn't want Shinji near that. "Of course, you're going to have to find somewhere that serves whisky before it's even possible. You might have noticed the odd orb in the sky. Or the fact that you can see Okinawa in the sky above us if you squint hard enough."

"I still have my own supply," Misato shrugged, "and my apartment was cleared for reoccupation earlier this morning."

Maya blinked, a surge of compassion rising. "Is…Pen-Pen?"

"He disappeared." Her eyes shifted to Maya, and she offered her a grateful smile. "I'm sure we'll find him when we find everyone else."

"I hope so. He's an adorable little scamp."

Wanting to get the conversation away from Shinji, Ritsuko silently thanked Maya for having a good heart. "Our observations of the area have given rise to several competing theories about what has happened. The most compelling I've seen is that somehow space has become folded in our local area to include a fourth consistent dimension, and from our frame of reference as three dimensional creatures we're unable to see outside of the projection. From the outside world's perspective, this area would be something similar to a black hole. You'd see the area behind the event horizon instead of seeing whatever was inside."

Maya jumped on the bandwagon, "Could it be a naked singularity?"

"It's possible, but from our frame of reference it'd be pretty irrelevant. I can't think of anything that could possibly penetrate the event horizon without becoming exceptionally dead. The collapse into infinite density as they transitioned from one frame of reference to another would do a pretty decent job of creating little more than a pretty light show to whoever was observing the attempt."

"Misato no understand big words. Make dumb." Misato wiggled her fingers towards Ritsuko, imploring her to fill in the blanks.

"I would need a whiteboard, several colors of markers, and several hours to begin to dent your self-enforced ignorance on this. Most of the explanation involves math well above the basic ballistic trajectories that have proven to be your allowed limit. The best I'll give you is that you can think of it as a big sphere made of a one-way mirror. What Maya is saying is that we can't see out, but they can see in. That mirror is made of death for anything trying to pass through from their side. From our side, all we'd do by going up is land on the other side of the sphere somewhere. The distance from us to that thing that replaced the sun is too high for most aircraft, and we're not eager to risk a negative outcome by lobbing a rocket at it."

"So how do we fix it?"

Maya snorted out a small sound of disgust. "Assuming we're right? We'd have to figure out a way to escape a black hole. Assuming we're wrong? By figuring out what's actually happened. For right now, the best we can do is continue to observe the phenomena and feed projections into the MAGI."

+++++ Kirijo Residence. (Monday, August 23rd, +2)

'Home' was something of a misleading word for the building Shinji arrived at. To him, 'home' conjured up an image of a modest structure, often connected to other similar structures, that had enough space for a family to avoid sitting on one another directly. 'Home' was a place where you slept, ate, or studied. What the Kirijo family defined as 'home', from his perspective, would be better termed 'palace'. He might be bargained down to 'manor', if it weren't for the fact that he was fairly confident that the building was nearly as deep as it was wide.

Mitsuru watched him look at the house she'd grown up in with a bit of apprehension. She wasn't sure what he would think of her now, and she didn't want him to start to build a wall between them constructed of misunderstandings and societal expectations. The first idea that came to her mind was, to her, also the best idea. Carefully settling her arm in his, she started him up the walkway to the main doors. "Welcome home."

His mental blockade broken, he turned his attention to the woman at his side. Her presence gave him a similar, yet slightly different, sensation from the one Maya's gave. He truly enjoyed being around Mitsuru; he also had no idea why. "I…uhm," reaching the threshold for the door, he spat out the formulaic phrasing that he used whenever he entered the house he'd grown up in, "I'm sorry for bothering you."

Both came to a screeching halt as Miyuki spun around and looked at Shinji with a smile that was as alluring as it was unrelenting. "No. For as long as you choose, this is your home. You are not an interloper, intruder, or burden. Myself, my daughter, and our staff welcome you here as a resident. Welcome home."

He tried to come up with an appropriate response, and ran directly into a blank wall of nothingness. "Y-yes, ma'am."

Mitsuru felt her heart ache as she realized the most likely reason for him not knowing how to respond. "It is generally acceptable and considered traditional to say, 'I'm home', when someone welcomes you home." His eyes shifted over to her, and she smiled warmly and again stated, "Welcome home."

"I-I'm…home."

"It will come more naturally with practice, and I intend for you to have much by the way of practice," Miyuki assured him as she turned about and moved into the main entry hall. "For now, let's move to the sitting room."

Walking alongside Mitsuru, with her on his arm, Shinji suddenly became aware of dozens of eyes upon him. Two women off to one side of the ten meter wide hall, speaking with each other in low tones as they watched him move. A trio of ladies stood at the railing on the second floor, near the top of the sweeping staircase, fixated on what he was looking at. A lone, heavyset, woman stood at the mouth of an adjoining hallway, tapping a pen against her thigh as she nodded to herself. He tried to shake the feeling that they wanted something from him, tried not to superimpose his previous life atop this current one, and spied salvation when Miyuki opened a large door leading into a separate chamber revealing the most beautiful piano he'd ever seen. "Is…is that a concert grand?"

Mitsuru released her hold on his arm, albeit a bit reluctantly, and stepped behind him to close the door as they walked through it. "It is, yes. Do you play?"

"I…uh…n-never on…it's so beautiful."

"Perhaps you would favor me with a song?" Miyuki gestured towards the piano, giving him permission to touch it. Looking towards a nearby bookshelf, she mused aloud, "I have a variety of sheet music to choose from, what…would…." Her words trailed off as she recognized the first few notes of a song that typically was only performed by those with many years of experience. The sprightly song required a great degree of manual dexterity, and the tempo it was played at often demanded far too much of those who only dabbled in the instrument. "La Campanella," she informed her daughter, the young woman coming to stand by her as they listened to their new housemate enjoy himself. "Arranged by Franz Liszt in 1851 as a part of his Grandes études de Paganini, S. 141. Widely considered one of the most challenging pieces ever written. His right hand must jump more than two octaves at an allegretto, his left nearly three. Precision, speed, and all without overtaxing the muscles in hand and forearm lest he falter in tempo."

Mitsuru couldn't take her eyes off of the joy in Shinji's face, nor overcome the fact that he was playing with his eyes closed. "It's enchanting."

"It shouldn't be possible to perform this flawlessly without some form of a warmup." Without a formal bridge, the piano began to exude a new piece, causing her to slowly shake her head in disbelief. "Étude Op. 25, No. 6. Frédéric Chopin. Often affectionately referred to as the 'Study in Thirds'. Mastery of the art of playing in thirds is widely considered a gold standard for concert level pianists, the right hand moves with great speed and semi-quavers through the intervals. It is a short piece, but full of the joy and life of music." A sudden sour note brought her eyebrows together, a slight frown on her face.

For Shinji, his eyes had snapped back open and he turned white as a sheet, then carefully played through the same portion again, reproducing the sour note. His right arm began to shake, a tension that hadn't been there before forcing him to remove his hands from the keys. "I'm sorry," he apologized in a rote, emotionally dead, tone. "I failed to account for how my music selection would create a failed experience. I am prepared for whatever rightful punishment I am to receive."

Miyuki swore under her breath, "Merde." Moving swiftly, but not visibly hurriedly, over to Shinji she deployed the charm that had helped her control a multinational corporation despite facing societal idiocy. "No, no, no, it's ok." Once she was standing next to Shinji, she set one hand on his shoulder, and danced the fingers of the other through a progression that included what she knew to be true. Once she hit the correct key, the hammer striking the strings and producing a foul sound, she shook her head and exuded reassurance. "The piano must have just now lost its tune. It has been some years since it has been put through such a test, and it is most definitely not your fault for this."

He wasn't there, however. The sudden shock too much for him after having spent even a small amount of time in a place of joy. "I must not blame the instrument. I must not blame the instrument. I must not blame the instrument."

Taking note of the position of his hands, she dropped the fall board down over the keys, causing a loud and jarring clang. When he jumped in shock, she sat down on the bench next to him and hugged him with one arm while patting his knee with her other hand. "An excellent display of skill, Shinji. I will make every effort to get someone out here to tune this properly so that you can help me relax from time to time with your enviable abilities."

Mitsuru was right behind her, leaning against the piano and adding effusive praise. "I'll have to bring out my violin, so that the two of us can play together. I had no idea you were so multi-talented!"

Faced with two women who were more than happy with what he'd done, his conscious mind began to try and realign itself with reality after the period of unconscious activity. "I-I…thank you. I'm glad I got to play such a gorgeous instrument. It must have cost millions."

"It was a gift, actually, so I honestly don't know how much it cost. You are right," Miyuki stood up, bringing him with her and away from the piano, "a similar model would likely cost millions. I play, from time to time, when I need to relax my mind." Coming to a stop near the bookshelf that was full of neatly organized folders of sheet music, she gestured vaguely to the shelves. "Once I have the piano tuned again, I welcome you to make use of it whenever you wish. The room is soundproofed, and so you will not be disturbing anyone by doing so."

He read the titles emblazoned on the spines of the folders, amazed at the breadth of the selection available. "I…uhm…thank you. That's…that's really generous of you."

The door to the room opened after a polite knock, a sharply dressed woman stepping in and surveying the scene briefly before announcing, "Dinner is ready, madam. Shall I guide Mister Ikari to a washroom so that he may refresh himself?"

Miyuki felt his shoulders tense, and chose to press him towards accepting the new reality of his life instead of coddling him too much. "Yes, Yuko, thank you. Please make certain to write down anything he requests be kept in stock, we will be consolidating that list and then spreading the purchases out amongst the local shops to not overtax any of them."

"Of course, madam." Turning her body to the side, the woman gestured with both hands towards the door. "Please, Mister Ikari, if you would be so kind as to accompany me?"

After her mother urged Shinji forward, Mitsuru felt a pulse of irritation. He was facing a difficult situation, a complex recovery, and he was not supposed to be passed around to those he would see as strangers on his first day in his new home! Her tone, however, remained calm and composed, "I'll see you at the table, Shinji." The hesitation he felt, obvious in his bearing as he walked to the doorway, tugged at her even harder.

Once the door was closed behind him, Miyuki motioned for patience. "There are some things that we cannot afford to allow him to dwell upon. He is stronger than you think, and that he knows you will be waiting for him is fortification enough."

"He's been a victim. I'm not eager to see him continue to hurt."

"And I am not eager to see your future husband live his life afraid of his shadow." She spoke with kindness laced steel, understanding her daughter's contention but not approving of the inevitable outcome. "I know my business, and if I have ever seen a man more willing to brave the dangers Tartarus poses then may I be struck blind. You will be there for him, for the rest of your lives, but for right now we need him to discover the strength that we know he possesses. Greater victories will build from smaller."

Mitsuru blinked, several times. She couldn't have heard her mother correctly. "I'm…sorry, my what?"

+++++ Author's Notes:

FlightLight: RE: Jungian Mechanics.

The story will have a mixture of all five main-series Persona mechanics, as well as SMT:N, as they reflect off of the themes of Evangelion. Jung, Freud, Nietzsche, et al. I'm still setting up the story's excuses at the moment, as you can see, but Tartarus (and others) will become a larger part of the story as they progress.