We Are (Not) Cursed

by BardInTheForest

(Pax Ikari vol III) When Shinji Ikari rides the train from Nagano to Tokyo-3, he is made the epicenter of a reality altering event. With the reality he had occupied now changed forever, he must conceive of a future that will accomodate diametrically opposed ethos. A man who has never known love is now responsible for the fate of the very humans he's been kept from, for good or ill.

47. Chapter 47

+++++ The Red House. (Friday, September 3d, +13, Waning Crescent 4/4)

"I have not, and would not, request a military cordon!" Resisting the urge to pull Shinji away from a window that she knew could take a direct RPG strike and just wobble slightly, Shiori was raking a JSSDF Captain over the coals. They had arrived to find a mixture of JSSDF, Section Two, and her people arguing over responsibility for securing the perimeter of the Red House. After rushing Shinji inside, and finding the people responsible for the other two detachments, she'd quickly surmised that Section Two had reacted to the JSSDF's appearance and allowed the agent that Shinji recognized from one of his first escorts to return to her duty. "I will find out who forged my authorization, you get your people the hell out of my AO."

While not thrilled at having a civilian dressing her down, the military officer remained polite. "Ma'am, I cannot-"

"Actually, you can. You will. The alternative is I call the police to come and arrest all of you for trespassing! This is private property, you have not been invited in, and it is only because Ikari-san is an amazingly gentle man that I haven't ordered my people to disarm your company and stack you like cord wood in that deuce and a half to wait for the cops."

As his existence had been invoked, and Shiori's statement rang clearly of what Shizuko had done the night before, Shinji felt an obligation to speak on the matter at hand. "Shiori…the Captain was ordered to come here at the request of the Prime Minister's office. She's been trying to tell you that no matter what she might think is best, she's not a high enough rank to have an opinion on the matter." Looking away from the window, he saw gratitude on the face of the Captain and frustration on the face of Shiori. "Maybe instead of kicking her out, we could ask that she set her people to patrolling the routes between the houses? That way she's helping keep me safe, but isn't interfering with your personnel?"

"An outstanding plan, Pilot Ikari." The JSSDF Captain exuded relief at his speaking up and stopping Shiori from continuing to push for something she couldn't provide. "I will requisition some extra equipment and establish a visible simultaneous presence in the areas along your alternating routes. Your close protection team seems to have this area well secured, and I see no reason to interfere in a well-run operation."

"I'm hearing a 'however' that I'm not happy with," Shiori ground out.

"…However, I will have to remain with Pilot Ikari to deconflict our efforts."

"No you will-"

"Shiori," Shinji growled out angrily. He couldn't understand why she was being so adamant about removing the entirety of the military from his presence. Turning from the window completely, he walked over and stood near the JSSDF Captain. Leaning as close as he felt was socially appropriate, he tried to see if she had any scent to speak of. Fabric starch, coffee, light floral deodorant, and a bland soap of some form. Straightening back up, he looked to Shiori and shook his head, "It's the same as you. If it's there, it's under a bunch of other scents."

Shiori's gaze, when aimed at him, was not angry or unfriendly. It spoke more of a worry that he might be harmed. "It's not that blue smoke, though?"

"I don't smell it, no. That doesn't mean it's not there, just that if it is it's not as powerful as say…Kashiwagi-sensei."

The Captain had the bearing of someone who wasn't sure if she should be offended or not. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't quite follow."

"It's nothing important," he said by way of apology, bowing slightly as he moved back towards the window. "You know as well as I do that they're going to keep sending people until we accept one of them. Let's take advantage of the fact that she's at least willing to listen to me, and ask her very nicely to not put me in a situation where I have to start glowing a very angry red."

Shiori couldn't hide a smirk when the Captain blinked, clearly doubting that she'd heard the threat that Shinji just levelled at her. "He's quite serious, Captain. He's a sweetheart, until someone pushes him too far."

"Kyoko-sensei?" Shinji saw through the house's window the sub-commander step out of a Section Two SUV, and waved back at her as she greeted him with a friendly wiggle of her fingers. "I didn't expect her to be here for this." Instinct made him start towards the door to open it for someone he liked, and a light cough from Shiori reminded him that he was not supposed to do that. Planting himself where he could greet Kyoko appropriately, he waited for her to be escorted in and ducked a polite bow of welcome. "Good morning. Is…everything ok?"

Setting one hand against his jaw, she stroked a thumb along his cheek with a calm smile. "Of course it isn't, Mein Herr. I'm about to ask you to do something terrible, and I would not ask you to do that without seeing you face to face." Lowering her hand, she hooked it through his arm and moved towards the elevators. "Komm, let us plan out this tragedy we must endure."

Alone with Kyoko in the elevator car, Shinji felt that he could try and ask something that was bothering him without upsetting anyone, "Is it…ok if I don't…you know…."

"Each of us must come to understand mortality in our own ways. Some rage against it, others submit to it without a sound." Laying her head against his shoulder, she continued her efforts at comforting him. "Do not let anyone tell you that you 'must' feel any one way about what has happened. You feel poorly for their death, as does your mother, as do I. Know that I am ever ready to take a call, at any hour of the day, to listen to you as you learn and grow." She smiled when he set his other hand atop hers. "Alles wird gut."

His worries began to ease. If someone as brilliant as Kyoko Zeppelin said that he wasn't mourning wrong, then he had no logical reason to feel he was being a bad person. Taking a deep breath to further steady his nerves, he noted her scent almost as an afterthought. Without thinking through what he was doing, he leaned closer and verified that she did in fact have the scent he'd found coming from her. He was then somewhat surprised to find her lightly place her lips against his.

A gorgeous pair of blue eyes fixed on the matching pair he owned, her demeanor unruffled, her lips slowly removed to reveal her fully serene countenance. Her voice shifted pitch ever so slightly towards a smoky heat, "Kann ich Ihnen helfen?"

He wanted her. He wanted her in a way that began to push other thoughts out of his head. "…Bitte…."

"Mmm," she gifted him with a hint of a pout, "clever. How do I translate one of the more versatile words, in this context?" Catching him inhaling ever deeper, she ran one nail under his chin. "What is it you smell, I wonder."

He smelled something intoxicating. Something he didn't think he would find so alluring, and yet each breath taken in made him want to take her into one of the rooms they were moving towards. Why do I find the scent of blood so thrilling? The car stopped on the medical floor, the doors opening to reveal that Naoko had also determined that her presence would be necessary for the day's trials.

The tableau, as set before the elder Akagi, presented Shinji as being instructed by her fellow sub-commander with the point of one nail threatening to cause him injury if he continued to disappoint. Observing the serenity Kyoko displayed, and the aggression Shinji was poised to unleash, she filed this information away for later. "Not enough coffee, my dear?" Lightly grasping Shinji's arm, she tugged him out of the elevator and took up the mirror image of what her colleague had done to get him into it. "It's not often that I see Kyoko pull out the claws to instruct someone."

Caught off guard and uncertain of what they were heading towards, Shinji engaged the typical pattern of evasion that kept him from being beaten in his prior life. "It's my fault, Akagi-sensei. Zeppelin-sensei was reminding me that I have obligations to meet, and was trying to stop me from making a decision she likely would have disagreed with."

"Ah, but to be young is to make mistakes." Naoko patted his elbow, steering him towards the radiology lab. "Making mistakes while we're young is how we learn to not make them when they truly matter. I wouldn't be overly eager to jump in bed with a bunch of random strangers either, so at least I understand what it is that bothers you so much." Once inside the sizable room, she set him down on a bed that was connected to an enormous donut-shaped machine. "Before we go any further today, I need to get a scan of your wonderful mind. Lay flat, put your head on the pillow please."

Shinji was quick to obey, though he caught sight of Kyoko looking at him curiously. Before he could think of what to say, the bed began to slide him towards the aperture so that his head was enveloped by it entirely.

After a few seconds, through a pair of speakers, he heard Naoko's voice, "Close your eyes, lay as still as you can, and this should be over in ten seconds. When the machine says hold your breath, do try to follow instructions."

At that, a loud whirring sound began. Like he had his head inside the world's largest vacuum cleaner. Jamming his eyes shut when the machine told him to hold his breath, he tried to analyze his own thoughts regarding what he'd just discovered. There was no doubt in his mind that Kyoko Zeppelin was a beautiful woman, and he was under no illusions that she was anything but someone that any man should feel blessed to know, but he'd only ever felt that way about two women and each of them was directly tied to his very being. He hadn't even wanted to be with Pixie that badly.

"And, done." Naoko's voice declared success, and also that he could resume breathing. "That…is certainly not what I expected to see."

Much of what followed was swallowed up by the noise of the bed moving and the machine spooling back down, as Kyoko and Naoko had a discussion regarding what it was that they'd just taken a picture of. Curiosity won out over caution, and he made his way through the varying machines in the room to the 'safe room' where the two ladies were analyzing a three-dimensional model of his brain rendered on an enormous monitor. Basic familiarity with how a human brain should look allowed him to notice the elementary issue at hand. "Is that…the Magatama?"

"If by 'Magatama' you mean the odd little tube in your spine, yes." Naoko tapped her pen against the screen where the base of his cerebellum sat. "It seems to have integrated itself in several key areas responsible for very specific functions. Sight, speech, olfactory, and long-term memory, just at a glance. I'll have to look at the slices of the parietal lobe to see what's happening there."

Kyoko traced one of the strange links between him and his passenger. "It's not invasive. It isn't intruding, which is rather odd. Typically a parasitic organism seeks to integrate itself physically into systems to prevent being dislodged or affected by the lymphatic system."

Something disturbing occurred to Shinji. "Would I know if…if it was…."

"Not seeing anything that would indicate it was influencing your decisions," Naoko admitted with a shrug. "It's not controlling what you see, because the portion it's interacting with isn't the portion responsible for processing what you've seen. The Broca's Area might be of some concern, if it weren't for the fact that you speak like a seventeen-year-old male human with little modern experience and too much book learning. While it might be able to encourage you to develop a taste for something different, or prefer one type of scent over another, it's not exactly going to be able to use that to make you do anything you don't want to." Tracing another section with her pen, she added, "It's not touching the primary motor cortex, or the supplementary motor area. The sections of the premotor cortex it is near are responsible for spatial guidance. That's mostly engaged in getting you ready to move faster, the subconscious pre-staging of commands that tell the body 'dodge that punch' or 'grab the ball', things like that."

The calm way the two scientists were telling him what they saw helped him relax. "If…uhm, if you don't mind…I'm going to go upstairs and read up on the first round of…."

"Volunteers," Kyoko offered. "Lieutenant Ibuki tried to stay 'in-house' for this round. People that we already have background investigations done for, as well as the ability to track their medical records easier. The Prime Minister did make a request for one volunteer from her applicants, which we allowed in the name of diplomatic relations." Lightly scratching his chest, she tipped her head towards the door. "While I understand that you will likely seek to ensure that they receive adequate attention, I ask that you keep in mind that the more women we can involve in a day the higher our chances of successfully stopping extinction."

"Yeah…." He nodded and left the room without expounding further. They knew what he was thinking, despite not being able to read his thoughts. It was written across his face, plain as day. Neither he, nor the women he would now be attempting to impregnate had any real choice in the matter. This was a business exchange, and that meant what he wanted mattered little.

+++++ The Blue House. (Friday, September 3d, +13, Waning Crescent 4/4)

Yuka glared at the plate of food that had been set down before her. They had all found out, after asking why Shinji wasn't joining them for breakfast, that he was already 'at work'. Rise and Chie had, with asynchronized eloquence, put voice to the group's opinion of the matter. Isako and Sadayo, at that point, had quickly intervened to remind everyone that what he was doing was essential for stopping humanity from disappearing entirely. Mitsuru, sitting by Yukiko, was quietly soothing and reassuring the young innkeeper. Alone, for certain values of loneliness, Yuka was free to slowly push the food on her plate into different positions while she thought of ways to murder everyone that touched Shinji at that house without risking screwing up the birth rate.

"Mistress Kirijo," Chiaki announced her presence in the room with a quiet voice and professional bearing, "your mother is requesting to speak with you regarding the unfortunate events yesterday. Should I inform her that you are otherwise engaged?"

"I'll take over." Yuka picked up her plate and shifted one spot down to sit next to Yukiko. "I need something to do that doesn't involve being angry."

Giving a grateful look where Yukiko couldn't see, Mitsuru let Yuka know that her efforts were greatly appreciated. "We're all angry, Yuka-chan. What happened was terrible, what's happening is terrible, and I understand all too well how different two people can be when handling grief."

Waving her school president away, Yuka set down her utensils and picked up Yukiko's. "I'll make you a deal, Yukiko-chan: you take a bite, and I'll take a bite. That way, when Shinji-kun gets home, we'll both have the strength to force him to sit still and accept how we feel." Sectioning off a piece of the omelet, she held it before the fragile beauty's lips. "We've got to stay strong. For him, for each other. Right?" The morsel was taken from her, silently. That was enough for her to keep her word, and so she grabbed her own tools and began her own assault on food.

"So, ok…I know I'm not the brains of our little troupe, but is there any actual reason why Shinji-kun has to…you know…manually?" Chie looked to her teachers, trying to address the situation obliquely while avoiding treading over the same ground for the millionth time. "I mean, we had perfected the test tube baby thing, right? Make sure the cells are all doing their thing, then…slip it back in the mom, right?"

Sadayo shrugged, herself at a loss for explanations. "You have the general idea, Chie. We were talking about it last night, actually, and the best we were able to come up with is the fact that we're dealing with a young man who can tether people to his soul. Once magic got involved, science kind of took a back seat. We don't know why all of you can go to that other dimension. We don't know why you have this 'Sachi-kun', or why Yuka-chan has this 'Amara-chan', or even why, despite not being able to go to other dimensions, Isako has been able to become part of the Grovemother's defense of the school."

"Yeah, I'm going to put a big old asterisk on 'defense' there," Chie retorted with a scowl. "They didn't even give us a head's up that it was there! What's up with that?"

"It arrived, and acted, before they could do or say anything," Isako replied, motioning for calm. "They acted as quickly as they could, and kept that monster from smashing anything or anyone else while Shinji went and got in Unit-01. They're actually rather disconsolate, Grovemother-sama has been weeping this entire time, as have the trees closest to where it happened. They've been keeping the more 'wild' youkai away, and killing those who insist on intruding, but against these aliens…they're just not suited for direct conflict with them." She smiled sadly as Yuka got Yukiko to take another bite. "Nobody but Shinji really is."

+++++ The Red House. (Friday, September 3d, +13, Waning Crescent 4/4)

Name: Yuna Arai.

Age: 36

Profession: Human Resources Officer

Likes: Astronomy, mountain climbing.

Dislikes: Global Positioning Systems, lycra.

Ambition: Provide every employee with the tools they need to be the best they can.

Shinji found that his first partner was an extraordinarily eager participant in the process. Not content with lying back and letting him work, she put everything she had into 'achieving success'. After forty-five minutes had passed the transaction was completed, whereupon she spent five minutes holding him tight with her legs, keeping him still to 'not lose anything'. After he'd stood up to go take a shower and ready himself for the next room, she urged him to 'not lose her number' with promises that whether or not they'd succeeded this time she was more than happy to do what she could to make his life a little better.

Waiting for him in the showers, Maya was quick to make an effort to gauge his mood. "How are you feeling? Is everything ok?" Taking up a washcloth and helping him clean himself, she tried to maximize her touch to soothe any nerves. "I picked her to be first because she scored highest on the questionnaire."

"She smelled of carrots." A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. "Which I think is probably the strangest thing I've come across since this started, but it just…fit." Surrendering control of his own sanitation, he let Maya run the show while his hands lightly explored her sides. "I'm ok. She wasn't…there was no negativity in what we did, from her side. Her emotions screamed of being happy from start to finish, and afterwards she didn't make everything awkward." His lips pursed, as he mused on a thought. "I think she was genuinely excited."

"But that's good!" If he wasn't going to dwell on the negatives, she wasn't going to drag him towards them. "I'll mark down that she'll be on the shortlist for repeat attempts, if this didn't work."

The idea appealed to him, mostly because if he had to do this he'd rather keep the number of women down and focus on building some form of rapport with them instead. "Ok." Pulling her onto his lap, he hugged her close and breathed in her glory. "Thank you," he murmured into her shoulder. "Thank you for being here. Thank you for helping me. Thank you for remaining who and what you are. I'm…."

She could have sat in his lap forever. "Same. Senpai and I would be completely inconsolable, if we lost you."

+++++ The Runic Throne.

The Silent One stood in the observation lounge with his brother. The pair of titans wearing matching scowls as they watched Lily, Maria, and Qodeshah 'have a sisterly chat'. The seething hatred Lily held for Qodeshah was evident in every statement she made, every motion she punctuated those statements with, and every breath she took. Maria had seemed, at first, to be amenable to hearing out Qodeshah's reasoning on the plot. The longer the latter talked, the more his wife and lover seemed like her older sister. "We can't let her return. Even if they don't imprison her somewhere, or kill her, there is no way we can allow her to go back and risk everything you and I have been doing going to waste."

"I dislike interfering in our wives' affairs." Looking at his brother askance, The Wanderer made it clear that he wasn't negating the point, simply amplifying his own.

"But you don't disagree."

"No, I do not." Leaning his arm against the glass separating them from the ladies, he tried to think of any reason to potentially allow it to happen. "I…I started this intending for everyone to have a choice. I wanted everyone to be free to join us, or not, as they chose. What we're looking at by eliminating her is sending the message, across all the starry multiverse, that free will has limits."

The Silent One snorted in disgust. "Of course it does. We're not going to allow the [series of clicking sounds] to continue their rampage across the Norma Arm. They don't do 'sharing', and we can't allow one form of life to fully dominate the entire galaxy. It's the same damn thing with her," he stabbed the glass with one finger, "and her stupid plan. She would be making the choice for millions of Lilin, to say nothing of the spirits or wildlife. There's no way we're going to be able to give her idea a fair referendum, and there's also no way that she's going to get a majority of people to agree to live the rest of their lives on the inside of a Dyson Sphere centered on a delusional megalomaniac. How is it not fine to send the message to everyone listening that while we're perfectly fine with people making their own choices, we're not on-board with genocide or universal domination?"

"Because I'm guilty of both genocide, and universal domination? Hypocrites don't tend to carry a great deal of sway with rational beings."

"Ok, Mister nine PhDs, at some point you might want to at least glance at Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals."

He rolled his eyes. "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. Act as if the maxims of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature. Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end." Gesturing with a thumb over his shoulder, he eyed his brother sternly. "I showed you the original print of that work, it was a gift from Gretchen on the day of our wedding. Kierkegaard would argue that by binding myself with laws that I give myself, I'm simply engaging in self-delusion and make-believe, acting without grace. We can argue between deontology and consequentialism all day, if it would make you feel better, but at the end of that day we still need to explain to the common adult entity why it isn't a case of 'rules for thee, but not for me'. That, despite what Hobbes or Locke would assert, I am not the central authority that is responsible for preventing people from living in a constant state of mutual competition. I want mutual competition. I want life to understand that it can only grow through conflict. I just don't want the conflict to wind up depopulating entire fucking galaxies!"

"I'm sorry, all I'm hearing is, 'Waah, I'm a god. I have to tell people not to be sopping twats to one another and I'm afraid they'll unfriend me on the MAGInet'." Holding his serious expression until The Wanderer began to laugh, The Silent One smiled contentedly and rapped his knuckles against his brother's chest. "Try keeping it simple, man. There's nothing out there but what we want to make. So let's stop worrying about the outlying extremes and focus on preventing the most harm. If someone absolutely has to attempt genocide to feel like they're living free, then I'll pay them a visit and help them reconsider that decision."

+++++ The Red House. (Friday, September 3d, +13, Waning Crescent 4/4)

The second and third volunteers came and went with similar success to the first. Enthusiastic consent delivered emphatically, followed by a low-pressure request for future engagements. Sitting in the shower, preparing for the fourth of the day, Shinji held Maya close with a sense of hope that things might not be as terrible as he'd feared they would be. "You…you've really picked some wonderful people. We're trying to save the world, and I'm not being forced immediately into…bad encounters. They're coming away happier than they arrive, and I'm the one responsible for that. I know it can't last, but at least I know it's happened."

To hear him thank her, to tell her that she's done something that's helped make everything easier on him, made her glow with joy and seethe with impotent rage. She was making a difference in his life. She was stopping things from continuing to crush him. She was being held by him. She was responsible for what was happening. "I am really glad to hear you say that. This…sucks, really there isn't any better word to use here. But since it has to be done, knowing that I am being helpful to you…."

"You're more than helpful." Standing up and setting her on her feet, he turned off the shower and began to mentally prepare himself for the next attempt. "I've known you for less than two weeks, and I never want you to leave my side. Every time you look at me, it makes me feel like I can do anything. It makes the…the voice in the back of my mind shut up. It makes her shut up." He pushed out a smile for her, setting his hands against her cheeks. "Ritsuko is the luckiest woman alive, and I am unbelievably lucky that she's even sharing this much of you with me." Pressing his lips against her forehead, he moved away to towel himself off. He couldn't linger, not if he wanted to be 'done' for the day at any reasonable hour.

Maya watched him towel, watched as he put on his robe, and watched as he left the bathroom that comprised the central hub of the top floor of a torture house disguised as a quaint manor estate. Her heart felt like breaking, it felt like it was full of joy. She was helping demean and abuse a man that looked at her as if she were flawless, and she was being thanked by him for the experience. I swear to puppies, if you start crying you miserable wretch…. He is dealing with this with grace and dignity. You keep smiling for him. You smile even if it breaks your worthless jaw.

Taking the time to once again clean the surfaces they'd used, she threw on her own robe and picked up her tablet to begin processing the information he'd given her regarding the woman he'd just been intimate with. Each volunteer was going to receive dedicated medical examinations daily until the window for conception had passed, and she was determined that those women who'd done what they could to make things easier on Shinji would also receive some form of recognition for their actions. In her mind, they could have just laid there and made him do all the work. They could have made it awkward. They could have done any of a thousand different things that would have spelled disaster for the day, but they didn't. They stepped up when called to act, they carried through on their word, and they delivered.

It took her nearly an hour to finish the paperwork, interspersed with reporting to Kyoko and Naoko via instant messaging what was happening. Shiori was seated in the waiting room, alongside the JSSDF Captain that had been ordered to follow through on protecting Shinji. The two had reached a mutual agreement to leave the other alone, and neither was interested in bothering Maya as each had realized that she had the greatest degree of responsibility for Shinji in the current environment. When, unexpectedly, an explosion rocked the entire floor, shattering glass and sending the door from the room he was currently inside flipping end over end into the other wall.

Whatever animosity they had was swiftly set aside, and both Shiori and the Captain had their sidearms out as they raced to determine what had just happened. Other agents began to flood into the area behind them, leaving Maya sitting at the table with a horrified expression stuck on her face.

Inside the room, Shinji lay in the fetal position clutching his head and moaning in pain. Blood, viscera, and bits of cloth and wood liberally decorated every flat surface of the room. He was slow to respond to requests for a status update, but quickly complied with the Captain as she began performing a casualty check. The source of the gore was quickly determined to be the other participant in the attempt at pregnancy, mainly owing to no other rational explanation for the absence of her presence in the room.

Somehow, she had exploded. Somehow, Shinji had survived.

+++++ NERV. (Friday, September 3d, +13, Waning Crescent 4/4)

"And I'm telling you that she went through a complete examination before she was allowed in the building, let alone before she was allowed within yelling distance of Shinji!" Shiori slapped the table, slightly ruffling the paperwork that she, Misato, the JSSDF Captain, and Andreja had been going over while looking for clues. "The documentation, the photography, the videos, we didn't just fake this. If we wanted him dead, he'd be dead."

Andreja was looking over the photographs from the scene of the blast. "This is not from an explosive, no. You see," she spun one photo around for Misato to look at closer, "no burns. Explosions create heat, yes? The sheets, they were expensive?"

"To hear Lieutenant Ibuki talk, everything was of the highest quality Miyuki Kirijo could find," Misato agreed. "Probably some form of silk. It'd turn to ash if exposed to flame, and these aren't even charred."

"Limited to a small frame," the big engineer moved a picture of the woman in question over, "not much space to place explosives. Even with creative hiding spots, you are limited to things that will cause exothermic reactions, yes? Suicide bombers, they are obvious to see if you are familiar with where to look. She has no scars, no recent surgeries. That leaves the three cavities, any of which would have been noticeable to a basic examination. Too much evidence against explosives. Witchcraft?"

Shiori groaned. "You're still dealing with a blast pattern that emanated from within the deceased. Mix a few things up right inside a person, they can explode, sure, but the force sent a steel-reinforced door through a gymnastics routine across the hall. If we have to start doing endoscopies on every woman we send in, we'll bloody well do it, but I can't protect against voodoo."

"And what would you look for?" The JSSDF Captain frowned in concentration as she read through the security checklist. "In order to find something, you need to know what you're looking for. If this is, as Captain Valatok is indicating, magical in nature there's likely nothing science can do to determine who can and can't be trusted."

"You have very little faith in the scientific method," Ritsuko announced as she walked into the meeting and dropped a stack of papers down for everyone to read. "I'll give you three guesses who smelled 'wrong', and your first two don't count."

Shiori was the quickest to pick up on the statement. "Wait, she smelled like that blue smoke he goes on about and he still…."

"He does his duty, whether he finds it agreeable or no," Andreja asserted firmly in Shinji's defense. "This smoke, however, how does he smell it? Did nobody else smell this?"

"His olfactory system is being amplified by his little passenger." Ritsuko tapped the back of her neck where the Magatama existed on Shinji. "Each person seems to have some sort of scent marker that he picks up on. Those of us he's more ok around tend to have things that he doesn't mind smelling. Flowers, foods, things that signal to his body that 'this person's good to go'. Those of us that he's less enthusiastic about being around seem to have what he describes as an 'empty' smell. As poetic as he is when he describes it, he's not exactly giving us anything tangible to work with. It's thick, but hollow. Empty, and blue. Nothing except 'smoke' really has something that triggers understanding."

Misato spread her fingers wide. "Doesn't matter if we understand it. Just matters that we now know that whoever doesn't smell right isn't on the guest list. How certain are you that this isn't just a coincidence?"

"The evidence was rather demonstrative, wouldn't you think?" Ritsuko snorted out a laugh. "He boinks three women. Carrots, fresh linen, and oatmeal. None of them have decorated the hospital ward with their insides yet. He boinks the fourth woman, who smells like a number of other women he's not been enthusiastic about being around, and she pulls the world's worst magic trick. Unless we want to ask him to do another live trial, I'm pretty sure that we can declare the mystery solved."

The JSSDF Captain shook her head slowly. "But what caused the explosion? I've heard stories around the campfire of people having phenomenal sex, but typically the superlatives are metaphorical and not literal."

"My guess: defensive reaction."

"Shinji's body reacted by…what, blowing her up from within?" Misato eyed Ritsuko warily. "You're not saying he did this intentionally, right?"

"Hardly. He ejaculated, his ejaculate determined his partner was unacceptable by whatever criteria it chooses mates by, and 'boom'." Ritsuko spread her hands to imitate a mushroom cloud. "The walls get a fresh coat of paint, Shinji gets physical and psychological trauma, and we're left attempting to determine what chemical markers are present that causes everything to go off."

Andreja gently gripped Ritsuko's shoulder. "How bad is he?"

"Sedated. His bruises have bruises. I can't imagine he's going to be sunshine and rainbows when he puts it together that his decision to proceed despite the warning signs directly led to an innocent woman dying." She felt three sets of eyes begin to bore into her, and gave them an even look in return. "You can ignore who he is all you want, but I am looking at this from his perspective. He is a deeply traumatized young man, and what we have asked him to do is now going to cost him serious pain. Now I would recommend the four of you stop wasting time looking for an enemy that doesn't exist in this instance. We know how to stop it from happening again."

+++++ The Blue House. (Friday, September 3d, +13, Waning Crescent 4/4)

"You are fucking kidding me!" Chie's grip on the stair's railing turned her knuckles white.

Sadayo clicked her tongue. "Language."

The energetic brawler's head slowly turned to look at her teacher. "You are fucking kidding me!" Taking one hand off and pointing directly towards where Shinji lay asleep, she pushed on harshly, "Why aren't we going there? Why am I being told that dinner's ready, when instead we should be inside a vehicle heading towards where he is lying unconscious after a woman exploded while he was being forced to have sex with her? Now, again, and for the final time, what the fuck?!"

"There are safety protocols involved, Chie-chan," Isako wasn't thrilled to be forced into agreeing with the decision to remain where they were, but she also wasn't going to gainsay the people in charge of keeping her students safe. "Right now, they're still trying to figure out what happened. The last thing they want is a bunch of variables added in at random. I am certain that when it is safe for us to go, our security will take us there."

The poor agent that had been tasked with delivering the bad news nodded eagerly. "Exactly right, ma'am. Once my boss gives me the green light, we'll be heading there straightaway. Miyashiro-san is giving us updates every five minutes, even if the update is 'no update'. She's not going to risk upsetting Ikari-san by making all of you wait for information."

Slamming her fist down on the bannister that she stood behind in frustration, Chie turned away and moved over to the corner of the room to get her temper back in control. Boyfriend, husband, lover, or even just someone she thought fondly of, her place was at his side when he was dealing with tragedies. She wasn't the best person for him to have around, because all she could really do is sit there and hold his hand or whatever, tell him that she'd be there for him…but she knew that would be enough for him and that's what made her so furious!

Sadayo allowed Chie to make the attempt at self-soothing without further comment. She wasn't upset at the young brawler, she just wanted her to develop the type of eloquence that she knew she was capable of based on her test scores. "I'm worried about Yukiko-chan's resilience." Engaging with her fellow teacher on the next in a seemingly never-ending line of problems, she drew attention away from Chie for the time being, "She's been crying almost non-stop."

"I agree. I'm glad her mother has called, and is doing what she can from where she is." Isako frowned in thought as her eyes focused on nothing. "The Grovemother is upset, more angry, I think. Apparently, Shinji was presented with what she is calling 'a hollow flame'."

"Ok…vague."

"Give me a minute, please." She let her eyes drift closed, concentrating on the meaning behind the words. "She says that there are certain…creatures? It's not just humans, I think she means. He can't mate with everyone, his…connection to the fortunes of eternity, whatever the hell that means, will…act to save him?" Her eyes opened, displaying a hint of worry. "She's saying his sperm is semi-sentient, and will make its displeasure known if it is partnered with ovum that would result in…something bad."

"…What?"

"I'm translating into Japanese from what basically amounts to tree-speak. She's telling me, as best she can without showing up in person, that the reason the damn tests failed was because his body is preventing the artificial reproduction of life. It's to stop people from cloning him. The woman exploded because whatever might have come from that pairing, it would not have been 'good'."

"From whose perspective?"

"I don't have words for what she said. Bigger than her. Bigger than the thing that trapped us here." She shivered with a sudden wave of cold fear. "Bigger than a one-eyed giant made of pure love, whoever that is."

+++++ NERV. (Friday, September 3d, +13, Waning Crescent 4/4)

Unlike what had been passed along to important decisionmakers, Shinji was not actually sedated. His ears were still ringing, his body still aching, and his mind had become too focused on pairing the fresh memory of three young women's blood being splattered across the school courtyard with the fresher memory of a woman in the throes of ecstasy exploding while screaming his name. He'd faked unconsciousness, a trick he'd learned to perform at five years of age, and once he'd been left alone he instead chose to sit up in his bed and practice with his deck of cards.

Maintaining his mental discipline, avoiding thoughts that would relay themselves as words, he put his focus squarely on determining what was wrong with him. It could not be a coincidence that he'd not had any significant reaction to these events. Anger, certainly. But anger was something that simply was. It was as much a part of him as his blue eyes, his black hair. But there was no despair. No sorrow. No…no catharsis. People died because of something he either did or had done to him. The responsibility for that should, in his opinion, be crushing him to death…not simply existing as a distant, vague, irritation.

His search for inner meaning was interrupted, producing a surprise burst of relief, by the light in the room vanishing completely. One measure passed, and he found himself sitting with his back against a wall made of the murkiest marble. Collapsing his cards into one stack, shuffling them with one hand, he pushed himself upright with the other. The floor was a dazzling frosty blue, the heat from his hand shifting it slightly towards white before the material resumed its natural coloration as the heat he produced was leeched away by the surrounding atmosphere.

A slimy growl from behind him failed to induce a reaction from his startle reflex, instead allowing him to calmly turn and face the first in what he presumed would be a very, very, long line of corpses in potentia. Rotten and molding, a cluster of reanimated humans were shuffling towards him, occasionally sloughing off hunks of hair and flesh.

Naked, save for the dagger that seemed to only exist within Tartarus, Shinji had no doubt that he likely looked like a madman when he bowed politely to his foes. "Thank you for volunteering." He'd seen the glowing runes appear on his flesh, here. Orangish-red when he'd been told that the enemy was weak against flame. Green when wind was required. He wasn't human…not anymore. "I should probably just accept that, and stop thinking that I'll ever understand anything." With a smooth draw, he slipped what he knew to be the seven of diamonds free from its fellow cards and launched it sidearm towards the closest zombie.

The laminated card spun unerringly, picking up speed and radiating white with increasing intensity as it sailed towards its fate. Without delay between contact and ignition both card and zombie adiabatically ignited, before a leaping tongue of flame lashed out setting the next closest shambling corpses alight, which then set the next rank aflame. Shinji watched with stoic curiosity as dozens of inhuman abominations vanished from existence, and only when the last stinking scrap vanished from sight did he let the observer know he knew that he was not alone. "I don't know what you are…and I don't think you're the one who brought me here."

Where there had been four limbs of equal length, there was now only three. The fourth arm remained amputated, a casualty of the last time the creature made of pain and spikes had involved itself with Shinji. Instead of the inevitability or irritation that had previously manifested itself in the entity's bearing, there was curiosity. It had no reference to draw information from for someone like Shinji, save for the awareness that for the first time it had been wounded by another. Slipping back into the shadows between seconds, it decided that conflict was best avoided for now.

He'd destroyed nearly fifty undead ghouls, and felt nothing. He'd allowed the thorn monster to leave unmolested, and felt nothing. That left him two choices: either he marched through Tartarus killing everything he came across in the vain hope that he'd feel something, or he sat down and did nothing. Hikaru's commentary on his 'reductive nihilism' became the deciding factor that sent him walking deeper into the metastable labyrinth. After all, Nietzsche had intended his philosophy to spur humans into action. Only in action could one find control.

+++++ The Blue House. (Friday, September 3d, +13, Waning Crescent 4/4)

Mitsuru had no sooner hung up with her mother than the door to the room she'd taken the call in slammed open, revealing an incredibly angered Chie Satonaka. Before she could question the woman as to what had set her off, Chie had moved up to the table and slammed both palms down against it. "He is in Tartarus. Alone." Her voice could have frozen time, given physical force, "I am going. Whether you want to come, or bring the others, is up to you. I made this stop because I respect you greatly, and trust that you aren't about to ruin my opinion of you."

"We can't take Yukiko-chan in," she left no room for debate there. "She's taken too much, and is likely to endanger our mission. We'll leave her here with the teachers and take Yuka and Rise with us."

"There you are." Yuka hurried into the room, dragging Rise behind her. "Shinji-kun is in Tartarus, Rise put Yukiko-chan with the teachers, so it's just the four of us. Let's go!"

Mitsuru looked to Chie, who simply shrugged and said, "Go team."

"Let's not go rushing outside just yet." Hikaru appeared at a neutral distance, a gentle flash of light declaring her presence. "You don't have the right intel, which means you're walking into a minefield blind."

"Chie, shut up." Rise pointed directly at her friend just as she was about to lay into Hikaru. "Going off half-cocked is what got Ulala-chan, Eriko-chan, and Sumire-chan killed. We're not going to be able to help him if we die because we acted without thinking, which means that he won't be able to kill the next monster, which means that what's left of this world dies with us."

With pride in her friend, Mitsuru added her own voice to the idea, "Rise is right. Hikaru-san, what do we need to do to get to him?"

"First, you need to accept that you're far more important than you think you are." The faux student gestured among the four actual students. "Yes, he's the only one that can use the perversion of nature that has given you a fighting chance against The Great Will. No, your only utility is not in acting as his support. He needs each of you to seek ever greater strength, because just like those decks of cards he toys around with he's only as sturdy as the whole itself lets him be." With two fingers, she pointed to Yuka. "She has an innate grasp of magical theory, she's exceedingly close to being able to manifest that magic outside of what you call Tartarus. She asks questions, doesn't accept the status quo as the authoritative answer, but more importantly, she does accept what others would call 'lesser' because it's what she wants."

Yuka had moved over, hanging off of Chie's back with her arms around the brawler's neck, to stop someone she liked from getting themselves killed. "Ok, but that's like…a lot 'Fortune Cookie' wisdom, y'know?"

"Those koans exist because they contain deeper meaning. That meaning is only relevant to the person seeking it, which makes specificity almost impossible," she agreed, motioning for patience. "What compels you to seek the will to push harder for what you want isn't what would push our little actress," she flicked a finger towards Rise, "which means you have to look for the truth behind that koan on your own."

The philosophy behind her explanation, and its roots in Zen Buddhism, was something Mitsuru was familiar with. "There are many paths to enlightenment, though the destination remains the same. My question is why is this particular bit of truth relevant to our current dilemma?"

"Because what you call Tartarus is only ever able to manifest what you bring into it. The four of you share ideals, which allows you to act and react with one another in what was only ever meant to be a space for a single person experiencing a single truth. It's a labyrinth because what you call 'humanity' has begun to perceive it as a shared 'overmind'. A gestalt of consciousnesses that can see, touch, and understand one another. Your superstitious belief in telepathy managed to will into existence a mutated form of telepathy. Essentially, you over-wrote reality." Hikaru spread her hands helplessly. "It then became twisted, taking on a mind of its own. It can draw from anyone connected to it, exist anywhere that someone can perceive it. The state of mind you four are in? You're going to land a very, very long way from where he is right now."

+++++ NERV. (Friday, September 3d, +13, Waning Crescent 4/4)

Yui Ikari's mood was what most people would generously describe as 'exceptionally Yui Ikari', as she spoke on the phone to one of her oldest friends, "Miyuki, that answer is not acceptable at this time."

"I am ardently seeking a better one, Yui." Miyuki Kirijo was not accepting, and would not accept, the baffled shrug of an answer she'd received from her own scientists. "I have little doubt that my daughter is selecting whomever amongst her peers is best suited for a foray into Tartarus and was intent on calling her back to provide what resources I could when you contacted me."

"Do you think they can find him?"

"I don't think what I think will affect what they think in the slightest. My daughter has found herself growing ever fonder of your son, I do not see her forsaking him regardless of the odds."

"A fanciful way of saying, 'No', old friend."

+++++ Tartarus. (Friday, September 3d, +13, Waning Crescent 4/4)

After the second card bounced harmlessly off of the odd, animate, stone statue Shinji took a moment to analyze what he'd seen. He'd found, through the time he'd spent fighting the ever-growing hordes of enemies, that each enemy had a generalized weakness. Paper burned, frost melted, nothing presented any significant complications for someone who understood basic physics. He'd even found ways to destroy those things that had no 'natural' weaknesses. Facing something that stoically endured what Shinji believed should work against it, allowed him to pause for actual thought. "So, I guess this is your turn to attack me, then."

"My purpose is not to destroy you, merely hinder," the statue rumbled out quietly. "Beyond me, a greater power prepares itself for your challenge."

"Ok." Stepping slightly to the side, Shinji began to walk past the mobile obstruction. When the statue moved back into his path, he simply shoved it aside and continued moving forward. "If you're not going to fight, then stay out of my way."

Swinging wide around him again, the statue planted itself once more in his path. "I am bidden to not yield this hall. I cannot harm you, not by order but by the truth that I pose no threat to you."

Shinji slowed to a halt just before the statue. Looking at it eye-to-eye, he quirked one eyebrow. "If you pose no threat to me, I have no reason to destroy you. If you don't move, you're giving me a reason to destroy you."

"My existence is unnecessary. My duty only requires my effort."

"Duty does have a way of making us do things we'd rather not, doesn't it?" Unsheathing his dagger and slicing the statue in half along a diagonal axis in a single motion, Shinji slapped the top half behind him down the hallway. "Now let's go see what this 'greater power' has going for it."

+++++ The Blue House. (Friday, September 3d, +13, Waning Crescent 4/4)

Rise was the first to speak after hearing the manner in which Shinji was comporting himself, "He…doesn't care?"

"Why should he?" Hikaru waved off the sudden rebuttal from all four women. "From his perspective, you hormone-addled gits. He's been asked to sleep with a couple million women he has no incredible interest in. Every woman he impregnates puts that much bigger of a barrier between him and any woman he does have interest in. His life has been effectively reduced to 'prized stud that occasionally occupies a semi-sapient murder giant to engage in city-destroying combat. What's his future? What's his motivation? Life in a gilded cage, where everyone else is making his every decision? Do you really think that anyone sane and-slash-or rational wants to live like that?"

"The temporary joy of holding someone he cares for…becoming lesser and lesser as his obligations keep him at a distance from them." Mitsuru had seen a similar play act itself out between her parents. "He's…his mind has sectioned away those parts that are too painful for him to handle right now. He's not acting with all of his faculties at the moment. He might care, but just can't care right now." The class leader nodded slowly to the logic before her. "If we go into Tartarus full of desire and drive, we're not going to land in the same place he's at. We can't reach his 'headspace', not as we are."

"Who's this 'we'?" Chie set Yuka aside and moved to the door. "He's angry. I'm angry. You three sit here and try to figure out how to get him back to normal, I'll go get him back to us." Pausing in the doorway, she looked to Hikaru with a frown. "You coming?"

The immortal shook her head slightly. "The last thing you want is me in there with you right now. You're not ready for what that would cause, yet, and I'm not interested in getting a lot of people killed. By the way," she snapped her fingers, creating a whirling vortex near the door, "this would probably be faster than running to the school through hostile crowds."

+++++ Tartarus. (Friday, September 3d, +13, Waning Crescent 4/4)

While it was not correct to say that Shinji was being hard-pressed to hold together an offensive against the golden-skinned giant woman he had discovered down the hall from the irritating statue, it was also not entirely correct to say that he was managing an effective offense against the three-eyed goddess. His dark grey tattoos were now limned with a bloody crimson glow, the cards he was bombarding the giant with thrown at near-luminal speed, and each successive defensive movement he was required to make put him in a marginally less optimal position to attack.

His first two punches had scarcely moved his foe, producing nothing more than a mocking smile on her lips. She had begun their confrontation with what she believed to be a reasonable offer: he could serve under her for all time, lending her his strength so that she could 'return the world to what it should have been'. He would no longer need to fight against the Heralds of The Great Will, no longer need to serve as a slave to the women of the world, no longer have to wonder what his purpose in life was. She had only been able to get out the first three words before she was forced to defend herself.

Sliding underneath an attempted sweeping kick that would have sent him into one of the labyrinth's walls, Shinji sent two cards up against the back of the giant's knee, the first hitting with a blast of concentrated air to send her off balance, the second exploding with concentrated cold to prevent her from recovering that balance quickly. It was at that point which he noticed the vortex appear at the top of the room. He would have attempted to engage the newcomer, had the scent not reached his nose before her silhouette reached his eyes. Oranges.

Chie altered her course on contact with the ground, not needing justification to attack a giant woman that had clearly been attempting to murder the only man she'd ever kissed, let alone slept with. Her right fist, just before landing against the giant's jaw, became wrapped in solidified liquid of some variety. On impact, the force it imparted was enough to snap the giant's head back violently. A follow-up corkscrewing uppercut showed that her left was now adorned similarly, landing under the giant's jaw to send the back of their head slamming against the wall behind her. Choosing not to press the offensive, Chie danced backwards five steps and kept her guard up. She couldn't restrain a feral grin when Shinji moved up alongside, rather than in front of her. She had his trust, and she would prove worthy of it even if the price was her own life. "Miss me?"

"I always miss you." Holding out one hand, a trio of cards floating listlessly in the air above his palm, he kept his eyes on their opponent. "I have no idea what I'm doing, or what you're doing, but I think if we do it together we'll stand a better chance of not fucking it up."

"I've been a part of worse plans." She prepared to dash in for another strike as the giant returned to its feet, wiping the blood she'd spilled from its lips. Faintly, in the furthest reaches of her mind, she was concerned about how distant Shinji sounded. A worry for another time. "Let's show the bitch how to dance."

+++++ Kirijo Manor. (Saturday, September 4th, +14, New Moon 1/4)

As the clock on her desk rolled over to a new day, Miyuki listened over the phone to her daughter's explanation while reading the report that Chie's signature was located within the ergosphere of the vaguely defined 'central mass' of Tartarus. That her daughter was certain that their entrance to the labyrinth would not allow them to accompany Chie Satonaka on a rescue mission was worrying, that her advisors were telling her that anything that went where Chie had gone was theoretically unlikely to be able to return was horrifying.

"I have confidence that Chie-chan will bring him back, mother," Mitsuru summed up. "What I need from you is a way for him to receive some time to learn how to grieve. Our instructors are more than willing to work with us, to balance the lesson plans with emotional growth, but if I cannot give him any time to learn I will be unable to do anything to help him grow!"

Their sensors were detecting fluctuations that were nearly on par with the event that warped all of reality. "I will do what I can to support you. I only wish that he had not been forced into enduring further tragedies. To my knowledge, my team is the only one that has reported any progress with likely methods of deprogramming him." She was spending what might be the last moments she had with her daughter discussing the man she'd wished would become her son-in-law. "What of you? What wish do you have hiding behind your masks?"

Breathing out a faint sigh, Mitsuru's reply was something of a surprise to her mother, "That my relationship with him would not become the same as yours with father. I can easily see him becoming hopelessly entangled with work, failing to eat properly, failing to rest properly…failing to notice that he had not touched me for far too long."

"…Your father was not the only guilty party."

"I know. But I cannot convince a man with his responsibility that I am worth more than the world, because I do not believe that to be true myself. Nor could you, for the same reasons."

A heavy spike in energy led to a significant rumbling of the ground around her. "I am far more proud of what you have done than you know, Mitsuru-chan. Succeed, or fail, I have never doubted that you had given everything you could to anything you set your hands to."

"Thank you…."

+++++ Tartarus. (Saturday, September 4th, +14, New Moon 1/4)

Ten minutes into the combined fight Chie's floating backflip had come about as a desperation move, needing to avoid a slashing strike their opponent only barely telegraphed. With the momentum she had built up, the angle of her own attack, and the dimensions of the geography around her, she'd given herself the best odds she could to not be cut in half. Her heart sank as she saw Shinji rush into the void she'd just left behind, fear growing wildly in her that he would now be the recipient of the blow meant for her.

For his part, Shinji was simply taking the most expedient route to resolving the problem available to him. Would it hurt? Probably. Did he care? Not really. Pain, as all things are, was transitory. Stamping one foot against the giant's knife-hand, he used her own force to assist him in jumping at an angle towards the nearby wall. Contorting his body to use what friction he could produce against that wall, he then launched himself directly at the woman's face. His gamble paid dividends, his foe began to laugh at what she believed was masculine foolishness, and instead of shoving the cards he'd chosen against her face he forced them into her mouth to the back of her throat.

The only thing Chie could think to do was catch him as Shinji fell in an awkward tumble after bouncing off of the giant's face and breasts. 'Catch' became a prescient intention when the giant's head exploded into a gory mist of golden-red innards. That explosive force slammed into Shinji's back, sending him accelerating into Chie. It did Chie no further favors by pressing her off-kilter so that she caught Shinji sideways across her torso instead of in her arms like she'd meant to, the pair of them sliding and skipping off the floor only to end up crashing into the opposing wall at the other end of a lengthy hallway's terminus. Clinging to consciousness, she patted at her lover in the hopes that he would move so she would know if he had survived. All she heard, owing to the pressure wave of the blast, was a loud and hollow ringing sound.

After three of her loosely controlled slaps against the only exposed portion of the Magatama, Shinji weakly batted at Chie's hand, pleading silently for her to stop moving so that he wasn't being jostled either. It hurt in ways he thought rather creative to turn his head the mere centimeters he did to face her. She, like he himself, was covered in blood, dust, and debris. She was still beautiful, a fact that was not hidden in his gaze. "Ow," he uttered, far louder than he thought he did owing to his own hearing loss.

Not that his volume mattered, Chie could only read his lips. Nodding her head slightly, she smirked in commiseration, "Ow."

Slipping his left hand, the one closest to her face at the moment, down along her neck, Shinji gripped her shoulder and pulsed that grip twice to show without words what he felt. His gift, in return, was her painfully lifting her hand to hold his wrist with warmth and companionship. Whether or not she saved him, she at least stood alongside him and fought. She put herself at risk, to give him a greater chance at success. She did so without taking over or taking things away from him. She was a partner, a peer, and a person that he never wanted to lose. With his cheek now resting on her upper thigh, he weakly smiled and dared making an attempt at saying something new, testing how it would feel, "I love you."

Tartarus stopped. The world outside of Tartarus stopped. The connection through the Amara Network and their reality stopped. A foundational force, stronger than any of the four natural forces that provided physical laws of motion, snapped into place between Shinji and Chie. Perfect understanding passed through that force, taking their bond and filling in the missing pieces that took it from mutual affection to its complementation. What it was could not be described in the words humans used to relay even the loftiest ideals, such meager explanations as 'love' or 'necessity' failed to even mar the surface of the truth. They were, now and forever, one.

+++++ The Runic Throne.

The Silent One and The Wanderer watched their brother's actions. Weighed his decisions in the moment against what they themselves might have done in the same circumstances. Both had hope climb higher when Chie arrived to support him. Both had a moment of relief as they saw Shinji and Chie move after the explosion that had sent them skittering down a hallway. Only one of them spoke, after witnessing Shinji offer himself completely to Chie only to receive everything she had in return.

"Well…fuck. I really didn't think that was going to work." The Silent One laughed quietly. "He actually managed it. Defused the Instrumentality buildup by channeling it into actual, heartfelt, love."

His brother, the man known to most as 'The Wanderer', simply nodded in response. His eyes never left what he knew only he would see. Standing, further down an adjacent corridor, was a threat to the newly discovered peace Shinji had within himself. A creature that he did not believe could or should have survived. Without a word, he turned and left the observation room. He had to consult with his wives.