+++++ NERV. (Wednesday, September 1st, +11, Waning Crescent 2/4)

Ritsuko watched as the woman she loved stormed back and forth swearing like a sailor with a sore tooth. That was not to say that she did not also continue to do her work, after all nobody else could do her work, but watching Maya was something that was also happening. "You couldn't have known that they were going to do that."

"It's my job to know!" Screaming out the self-reprimand, she stomped her feet rapidly to stop herself from picking up and throwing things. "How am I supposed to manage this if I see him only a few hours every once in a while? How can I stop him from being approached by women that want to jump the line if I'm nowhere near him?! He's going to school again, he's going to be surrounded by young, attractive, eager-"

"Do you want to move in with him?" The idea wasn't unappealing, at least not to Ritsuko herself. Sure, she'd have to watch Shinji spend time with young women that had no idea how to handle high performance machines, but she'd also be there to handle the high performance machine herself. With Maya. Which was going to happen before the damned anomaly she was trying to comprehend pulled him away from them. "The floorplan has more than enough space for extra people. We could share a room, make it easier on him to come and spend time with you and I."

Unable to be upset at her love, Maya groaned out a frustrated sigh. "Every time he has sex with someone outside of any attempts at impregnation reduce our chances of successfully impregnating people further."

"That's if his body produces gametes at a rate similar to your normal human male. It's entirely possible that, seeing as he's only half-human, he's capable of producing as much as he has the few times we've taken samples each time. We'd have to stress test the system to know for certain."

"This is so disgustingly unscientific. Disgusting and unscientific."

"Yep."

Maya scowled at her love. "Really? 'Yep'?"

"Not sure what you want me to say," she admitted with a shrug. "You give me my choice of outcomes, he spends the rest of his life with us either testing the boundaries of human potential in bed or in the lab. It's not my choice, we've tried a multitude of ways to fix this, and if we're going to save humanity we can't leave possibilities on the table simply because we wish they weren't possibilities."

"It's been a week and a half!"

"Maya, sweetie, owner of the most delicious pair of legs I know of, even before we lost the rest of humanity the smartest people in the world lived in this city. We have more . per capita than every college and university on Earth. If you think we haven't been spending every waking second trying to think of ways to resolve this without forcing Shinji to doink every woman himself I'm going to have to ask you to put in for some leave so you can try actually sleeping for a couple of days."

More of her fire died off. "I know you're right…." Stomping over and hugging Ritsuko with petulant dismay, she huffed out, "That doesn't make me any happier."

+++++ The Runic Throne.

The Silent One sat in a chair with his feet resting on the broad meeting table with his ankles crossed and his hands laced behind his head. A great deal of information had been gathered, presented, and was now in the process of being absorbed by people with a better grasp of strategizing and planning than him. His point of view on the matter had been stated to be important based on his own personal experiences. He had not yet been asked to chime in, but he was fairly confident his 'brother' would know what his response would be.

Silence had claimed the room, save for the occasional shuffle of paper or clinking of varying materials that contained drinks against the tabletop. Several hours had passed since the meeting began, several hours in which time stood still for everything save the meeting itself. "The first thing I think we need to do is figure out a way to communicate with Lily's sister." Misato had drawn a conflict table, and tapped the segment with the greatest number of connections to other points on the table. "Do we not have a way to reach that…area?"

"They're blocking access from within, somehow," Maria replied with a shake of her head. "I doubt that," she glanced at Lilith, who was scowling with murderous intent, "our sister is the one that's doing that, though. There are special circumstances that allow access to the Velvet Room, and…I think there are very few people we could send that we would want to send, even if we were capable of sending them at the moment. Lilith, myself, either Ireul or Iruel…or Leliel."

The Wanderer, still reading through an enormous packet of reports, asked curiously, "Why not me?"

"It is a crease in the architecture of existence. Trying to fit an ocean in a thimble would risk creating an even larger problem than we are already facing, my love," Lilith responded.

"I keep telling you to lose some weight," The Silent One snarked quietly.

"I would, if I was allowed to make my own food all the time," The Wanderer snickered, happily playing with his brother. "Can we send him, instead?"

Maria shook her head, inwardly happy to see the byplay. "The size of the oceans involved is not substantial enough to make a difference."

"Rei-chan, she's calling me fat again," The Silent One faux-complained to his wife.

"If you allowed me to make your food, you wouldn't have put on so much weight, dear." The version of Rei Hino that came from The Silent One's universe patted his knee, going through her own stack of paperwork at the same time. "Why can't we use the portals?"

"I tried. Couldn't."

"Could we send someone to where this Shinji is?" Misato lifted one hand slightly to request a moment to clarify when The Wanderer eyed her in irritation. "Not to help him, but to try and play a game of telephone between where Eisheth-san resides and where we are?"

"That's skirting very close to interference." Setting aside the stack of information, The Wanderer frowned in thought. "I can't risk sending either me or my brother, for fear that whatever erased the male population of Japan is able to do the same to us somehow. I won't risk one of our wives' safety by sending them in our stead. Anyone we send would have to accept that not only are they potentially going to die immediately, but that if they survive they might very well be stuck there forever, or for the duration that the reality remains viable."

The Silent One pulled out what he referred to as 'the magic phone', thumbing the menu button and speed-dialing a well-worn number. Tossing it down on the table and stabbing the speaker button, he resumed his repose.

A lady's voice responded after two pulses, "Aye, cap'n?"

"I need a Lima Whisky Bravo that doesn't care about lacking a return ticket, females only due to the destination. No special talents other than proficiency in Japanese needed."

The Wanderer's voice was layered with clear disapproval, "I don't think that I like that as a plan."

"My crew, my responsibility, my decision," he replied with a slight heft of one eyebrow. "You don't want to interfere, I understand why and even agree with why. I'm not interfering if I send someone who has no special qualifications beyond 'Pulse' and 'Communicative'."

The woman on the phone spoke into the pause, "I'll have a volunteer ready for you in ten, cap'n."

"Thanks." Hanging up the phone he met his brother's eyes evenly. "We are at war. In war, people risk death. Risking death does not mean actualizing death. Since we can't go ourselves, and you're not wanting to risk one of our specialists, then I have to get the intel we need with the tools we have at hand."

With a frost growing in his voice, The Wanderer reminded his brother, "She is a human being."

"She is a military asset. Just like me, just like Misato-san, just like everyone that's not you. If you're not there to fight Reality, none of the rest of this matters. If the worst thing that happens is we lose one soldier in an attempt to establish communication with a less powerful version of you, it's a worthwhile risk and an acceptable loss." He gestured with two fingers towards Lilith. "She risked more for worse reasons, and if it weren't for you expressly asking me to keep my ass in this chair I would have already gone and seen about exploring this 'Amara Network'."

A heavy silence hung over the room. The most powerful being known, the entity responsible for Creation itself, was glaring at what was likely the only other entity capable of fighting him. The latter, unfazed by his brother's anger, met anger with apathy. The former, not wanting to involve others in what was ultimately an internal argument, asked for the room, "Could everyone give us a few moments, please? Perhaps prepare something to eat for everyone, while you wait."

The Silent One felt Maria and his Rei Hino hesitate, dealing with their unspoken question with a tilt of his head towards the door. He wasn't defenseless, nor was he honestly in danger at all. While he'd had increasingly verbose arguments with his brother, he knew that they were still ok with one another because every time an argument ended he was visited by his niece within the hour. The Wanderer was being forced to continue to make unthinkable choices, and it was up to The Silent One to give him a chance to rage against those decisions before eventually accepting the logic that he knew he already knew.

When the only two in the room were those that had once been 'Shinji Ikari', The Wanderer laced his fingers together and leaned back in his chair. "There are ways to manage this without risking lives. We could send a drone, for instance."

"Recorded messages would increase the delay, and there's no guarantee that we would believe them. He smells emotions, a human being would give him something to work with. I know you hate risking lives, and I understand that I can seem nonchalant about death, but neither of us really want to drag our feet on this. If that ball in the center of his world is an Impact Event waiting to happen, we need to act." Gesturing to the holographic map of the oddity they'd created, he remained unmoved by such failings as empathy. "The other option that I see is you erase it."

"We need his skills."

"We want his skills," he corrected.

"It's a point without a distinction, unless we plan to simply erase every instance that suffers occasional setbacks."

"Fair enough."

Slowly bobbing his toes in time with a song they both knew, The Wanderer considered his counterpart for a time. "Why?"

"Because my part in this shitshow gave me a responsibility to temper your…desire for order and surety." He shrugged his shoulders, resuming his repose. "You don't come to me for plans, you come to me for solutions. If we had a better plan, or if I could think of a better solution, I wouldn't be tossing someone through a portal to see if it worked. We're going to be in there trying to impregnate women in T-minus whenever you restart time. I figured that instead of worsening your headache and becoming accessory to sexual assault, we'd at least give this the old college try."

He breathed out a short sigh. "If one life doesn't matter, how can any lives matter?"

"Easily, by offering the one life the chance to make a difference for the rest of them." Spinning open a portal to the transport bay on The Jade Circle, he looked at the woman he'd picked as the commanding officer through the hole in spacetime. Standing next to her was a short, squat, Marine. On the ugly side of plain, with an enormous chest that was likely far more muscle than fat, she stood at parade rest waiting for further orders. "Corporal, front and center. Commander, thank you."

Saluting smartly, the naval officer said nothing. Moving quickly through the portal, the Marine corporal moved to a place that she felt was best within the confines of the room and announced her presence with a salute, "Corporal Ota, reporting for duty."

The Silent One set his feet on the ground, then stood up to acknowledge the salute himself. "Couple questions, Corporal: do you have any dependents, do you like travelling to strange, familiar, places, and do you understand that this might kill you?"

She resumed the position of parade rest, sounding off with a strong, "No, yes, yes, sir."

"Excellent. Stand by while we prepare some documentation to prove who you are and share what we can. Take this time to write out a will and a letter to your NOK." Looking to his brother, he left the question unspoken. The Wanderer could overrule him, but at the moment his solution was better than continuing to bang his head against a wall stalling for time.

The giant deity couldn't argue against the facts of the matter. "Death gratuity comes out of your funding."

"No shit. I pay her salary, not you."

+++++ Tokyo-3 High. (Wednesday, September 1st, +11, Waning Crescent 2/4)

Waiting for an open lane in the pool, Chie and Ulala stood at the fence separating them from the track and field where Shinji was learning how to fight more efficiently from now-Captain Valatok. Ulala, along with everyone else from their classroom-slash-household was now bound together after he returned from the principal's office and insisted that they not waste any more time. She could feel the pain he endured trying not to hurt the woman teaching him, the fear he had of the same, and the degree to which he hated himself. "How did you not notice this?" The question was not asked in anger, nor was the intent pejorative. They were a family now, and as a family they had a responsibility to one another.

"I did, but focusing on it wouldn't have helped him." Chie's muscles twitched, reacting to what she saw of the training with what she knew should be done. "It was the first thing Yuka and I talked about, was what to do about it. We can't stop him from doing it, and Yuka thinks that we can only really show him that he's better than he thinks he is. Yukiko kind of let the cat out of the bag when he let her in, and even with it out in the open he hasn't shifted his opinion of himself or us."

"…It makes me want to cry."

"Yep."

At some statement that they couldn't hear from the distance they stood from the speaker, Shinji stopped letting Andreja move him at all. His actions switched to those of a more combative nature, and while he was still tossed around from moment to moment he at least began to put up the type of resistance that would allow him to learn better. Neither of the ladies liked watching him potentially be harmed, but they both appreciated greatly seeing him begin to push out of his comfort zone.

Down on the field itself, Shinji had a moment of clarity. Feeling his metacarpals, wrist, elbow, and shoulder begin to violently complain about the way he was being contorted in preparation for a takedown, he chose a new pathway for all of them that didn't involve being face down on the grass with Andreja chiding him again about giving up. Using her leverage as a point of articulation, instead of as the lock it was, he front-flipped to unwind the lock's momentum and used the combination of his rotational momentum and her grasp on his arm to throw her instead.

At least, that was his theory. What happened in reality was that his front flip landed him a kick in the chest and an unceremonious landing on his face.

"Cute, yes. Effective? No." Andreja rested on her knees next to him, letting him catch his breath and bearings. "You see, once you lose connection to the ground, you lose all of your leverage, yes you do. Friction, traction, and counterforce. Without even one of these three legs to support your motions, you are no longer fighting, no, you are dancing. We are not dancing right now."

He was surprised at how much he hurt. He'd honestly not thought that 'practice' would become so painful. "Remind me to try dancing with you sometime. Might hurt less."

"I will teach you ballet later," she rubbed the small of his back, "for now, I teach you to be around for 'later', ok? Listen to your body, it will tell you what to do."

Letting all of the tension out of his body, he slowly released his breath as he allowed himself to enjoy the touch. "I understand your point about relying on the 'weapon' too much. I shouldn't trust that I'll always sprout those tattoos each time I need them. But if I listened to my body, I'd…I think I'd hurt you."

"I am a big girl, and I have stayed in shape as I have grown old, yes I have. Do not worry for my safety, trust I can handle a little pain."

It was at that point that Shinji rolled over onto his back, away from the comforting touch of a woman that only hurt him because she needed him to be able to protect himself from others that did not care for him nearly as much as she did. His plan, if the impulsive rebuttal he was about to unleash could be termed 'planned', went awry when suddenly a pair of combat boots, a full set of Marine BDUs, a zippered cloth sack with papers inside, a sensible and sturdy bra, and a flimsy set of delicate female undergarments landed along his body, with the last piece settling gently on his face.

+++++ The Runic Throne.

When The Silent One closed the portal, anticipating that the Corporal he'd sent into it had made it to the other side, he was struck immobile for a second by a thought he couldn't quite understand. Standing in the enormous meeting room they'd been using, just on the other side of where the portal had been opened, the Marine NCO was stark naked and looking around in confusion. His first thought was a brief flash of irritation at the idea not working. His second thought was that the naked woman's backside was incredibly muscular and taut. His third thought arrived as she turned to face him in that same confusion she'd been enduring the entire time when, due to the height difference between them, he was able to bear witness to a gloriously shaped pair of breasts that combined feminine curvature with hardened combat professional despite each being close to the size of his head. Whipping around quickly, he coughed delicately, "Could someone please get the good Corporal some clothes?"

The Wanderer, having closed his eyes the first instant he'd realized what happened, sighed with a hint of his own frustrations. "It was a good attempt. Now we need to figure out why it failed."

"Here, sweetie," Bardiel moved to intervene herself. Wrapping the young woman in clothing that both supported and accentuated her femininity she complimented her in the only way she thought appropriate, "My husband and his brother were not surprised to see that you hide your bounty well, they're merely attempting to avoid lingering with their eyes over what their minds are unlikely to soon forget."

"Oh, uhm…yeah." That the young Marine was blushing was obvious. "Hard to be seen as a fellow Marine when the boys are all gawking at the curves. Easier with this ugly mug of mine being their only idea that I'm a lady."

"I would not say you are ugly," The Wanderer stated with his typical calm honesty. "Can everyone have the perfect symmetry of my wife, or her sister? No. Does asymmetry denote that you must then be ugly? Of course not. Your flaws do not overwhelm your spirit."

The Silent One knew his face was blushing slightly, as this situation was entirely his fault. Looking at his younger wife, he quietly begged for some help in how to respond. Rei Hino, having become something of a mischief maker since dying and being returned to life through a miraculous series of events, curved her lips into a Cheshire Grin before saying, "Corporal Ota, would you mind coming with me for a bit? Let's get some tea and have a chat."

"Straightaway, ma'am." The young Marine jogged past The Silent One, the bounce of her physical gifts drawing his attention through sheer volume of motion, leading to him clamping his eyes shut and tilting his head back.

When the door closed behind the pair, Misato whistled low, "She's going to give herself health problems if she keeps binding those beauties up like that."

"Kind of a shame she's assigned to Bravo," Ritsuko agreed. "I'd like to play with them for a bit, see how they perform."

"She's free to leave The Jade Circle if she wants," The Silent One groaned out. "Anyone have any ideas as to what the fuck?"

The Wanderer scratched the side of his face, turning back to look at where the portal had been standing. "Not really. It's not an organic versus inorganic problem, otherwise there would have been more materials left behind. Her panties were entirely silk, and her bra was seventy-five percent non-synthetic."

"Wait, what?" The Silent One turned to face his brother with a frown. "You saw through the portal?"

"No, I saw through her clothing. I performed a health check before she went through, and saw what she was wearing as I did so. The long-term health consequences of using these portals can't be assessed if we don't gather data."

"…You checked under her clothing?"

His face grew stern. "I check everyone. I saw her when she came through, as well. You do realize that if I want to see the female body without clothing on I can literally just make one, right?" Snapping his fingers, he created a limbless, headless, torso. Leaving it dangling in mid-air, he raised an eyebrow. "It stopped being a forbidden zone for me when I claimed responsibility for all of Creation. If someone comes in my immediate vicinity, I do a health check. If someone goes through a portal where I can see them, I do a thorough health check. I have nine PhDs, sixty-three wives, Lily only knows how many fiancées, and MAGI-net access. If I wanted to be a lecher, I'd have a much easier time using any of those instead." Dismissing the faux body, he scowled at his brother.

The Silent One frowned, feeling the sting of an honest rebuke he knew he'd earned. "Why mention the PhDs?"

"Do you have any idea how many nude cadavers I've had to examine?"

"…Sorry."

The Wanderer blew out frustration with a harsh puff. "No need. We both know where it's coming from."

At that moment, Asuka Ikari walked into the meeting room with a cart holding a large amount of food and drink. "Hey, sorry it's late! Sprout and Mushroom were doing their best to keep me from burning everything, and I was focused more on not letting my anger get the best of me."

With a long look of shared humor with the other man that had once been Shinji Ikari, The Silent One responded, "Indeed."

+++++ Author's Note:

One totaled vehicle later, your itinerant author is continuing to lament his choices in life. As far as decisions go, I think I made the best of a bad situation in choosing to risk the uncleared side of the road over a head-on collision with an oncoming car, but I believe that my vehicle would argue the point after losing traction on ice and coming to a halt due more to Newtonian physics than appropriate functionality.

Taking an airbag to the face is something I'd hoped I would never have to suffer through again. Looking at my finances, I kind of wish I'd just eaten the steering wheel so I didn't have to deal with yet another mountain of numbers with a negative symbol attached.

Stay safe out there, folks.