+++++ Elysium. (?)

Noriyasu Seta scowled as he watched Shinji suffering silently while the Hydra's vile toxins were drawn out of him. He had listened all morning to the tale from the previous night, not speaking once for fear of missing some key piece of information that could help him help them all. When, after several hours, the various versions of the story were done, he blew a heavy breath out through dry lips. "If I start to cover ground that everyone knows, let me know." He felt the assent of the others to offer his perspective and tried to not visibly wilt against the pillar. He'd spent his whole life avoiding this kind of nonsense, and now when he needed it least, it needed him most. "Hera, or Juno if you're Roman, or Uni if you're Perugian, or perhaps even Shachi according to some outlying sources in Vedic scripts…." Another pause, another moment of feeling inadequate to the task at hand. "Since she introduced herself as Hera, we'll stick to what was written down by scholars there. Hera, daughter of Rhea and Cronos, was the third child born to that couple and third swallowed by Cronos for the sin of possibly overthrowing his rule one day. Long story short, Zeus, Hera's future husband according to most sources, was hidden by Rhea and raised by a goat, or perhaps a nymph who hung him from a tree so he was invisible to his father…and this is really starting to sound insane."

"Seta-san, please continue." Kyoko understood the man's disbelief but had few alternate avenues to gain further valuable intelligence that her education had missed.

"Yeah…yeah." The man shook his head, then pressed on. "Zeus shows back up on Cronos' doorstep and overthrows him, saving his siblings. One of which was Hera. Hera then spends time alone, which only makes sense considering she'd spent a long time in her father's stomach and probably needed a few millennia to process that, gaining worshippers over her beauty, kindness, and virginity. She blesses marriages, families, births, everything you'd expect a goddess to do when kindly predisposed to people praising her. This entire time Zeus is trying to woo her. Eventually he comes on the idea to disguise himself as a cuckoo stuck with an injured wing outside of Hera's home in a heavy rainstorm. Hera, who had been telling him to go fly a kite for a long time, opens the window to her room to bring the bird in and warm it up. He transforms back into his 'human' form and rapes her. Then they get married because she got pregnant."

"…Reason enough to wish for his death," Tsuruko opined. "Matters like this explain the admonition against involving ourselves in the affairs of the youkai, and the need to remain clean of their influence."

"You're not wrong. Dig deep enough into any religion and you start to find the kind of stuff that nightmares are made of," Noriyasu agreed eagerly. "Anyway, Hera intended to take her duties as wife seriously and eschewed her former roles to take up the new mantle of responsibility. Zeus, on the other hand, didn't intend to do anything but continue to go around raping or seducing anything and everything he can jam his dick into. Because he just loved 'his people' so much, you see. Trees, bulls, young men, women, geese…you name it, he's probably had some form of carnal relations with it."

Mizore's mood hadn't improved over the hours they'd spent separate from Hera, long years of dark anger roiling her mind. "There are…accusations…. Several diplomats attempted to negotiate some form of surrender with Olympus during the Wars. Most refused to speak of what transpired, other than to state without reservation that peace was not possible with them."

"I've been vested with the authority to support Pilot Ikari as needed to ensure his assistance against future alien incursions." Kyoko didn't want Shinji to risk his life, but couldn't deny the utility of more allies on a battlefield. "You would know better than we would how effective he might be against these kami…can he take them?"

"In a direct conflict, one on one, my threat to her was not merely bravado." She gestured to Shinji. "He's stronger than I am, by a considerable margin. I might be able to kill her, she might be able to kill me. We would do serious injury to one another before all was said and done. If he wanted her dead, I wouldn't be this angry anymore because he'd be busily murdering everyone on that wretched mountain."

"Should I ask for a diplomatic delegation from Reliqui?"

Surprising everyone, she shook her head slowly. "I've been speaking with Suzuhara…he hasn't received any communication from the Shrine. I was told to expect the witches, that they had a task to see done and then they would come support him." It was clear from how she spoke that she was not comfortable with everything. "It's been long enough that a group of four witches should be done killing almost anything on Earth that needed killing. They move fast, when motivated, and they should already have been sent here. I sent word that this was our destination…and I get the sinking feeling I'm not being told everything I should be."

"Hasn't it only been a few minutes outside?" Noriyasu did some quick math. "I mean, you know how many people I know from Reliqui…I'd find it hard to imagine that anyone would risk pissing off Amaterasu."

"Mmm." Nothing more would be said on the matter for the moment, that much was clear.

+++++ Elysium. (?)

Shinji's eyes had drifted open and closed several times already. Each time they opened, there was a new configuration of people sitting in his room speaking quietly to one another with profoundly serious looks on their face. Each time they closed, it was because Mizore's fingers gently caressed his scalp and lessened his torment enough to send him back to slumber. So tired was he that nothing of the previous night would even order itself in his mind enough to begin to be dwelled over. All that existed in his mind was the agony of the waking world, and the silent oblivion of the sleeping world. Not once had he dreamt of that space in his soul where the Nameless lived. Even when he purposefully reached out to it, the woman that was the women he failed were nowhere to be found. Eventually, a new voice pulled at the rope tethering him to the non-Shinji world, and his left eye shuddered open to verify that it was who he thought it was.

"-it doesn't make sense, Frostmother." Suzuhara stood next to a curiously green woman, her bearing indicating that she was kindly disposed to the man and that she knew her regard was welcomed by the male Kitsune. "I've spent more than enough time on the training yard teaching those three. I was there the day they gained their third tail. I've never heard of them lying to anyone, not once. This message does not make sense, and I can't imagine them lying. What do…oh."

Shinji had heard enough to know who they were speaking of, and concern crawled out of the cave his body dwelled within to make itself known. Are they ok? The triplets, as frustrating as they had been, had proven to be good at heart. They had left to save lives during the battle, and he'd been so angry that he'd never asked after them. That alone hurt him more than the poison. Are they safe?

Mizore spoke before Suzuhara could, "We have received a terse note, using a pre-agreed upon code that bodes ill. They believe themselves hunted by supposed allies. The intermediary passed it directly to their trusted recorder," her head tilted towards Suzuhara, "who brought it to me because of the trust you have placed in me."

Something about the way Suzuhara worried at his hands caused Shinji to reassess both of the non-Mizore people in the room. There was nothing in his bearing that spoke of deceit, or even obfuscation. He was truly worried about the triplets, the same way Shinji himself was. The woman with him was worried because he was worried. That gave further evidence that Suzuhara was telling the truth, because the woman herself was clearly Elysian. His eyes drifted down to her belly, then narrowed slightly as he made out a strange pulse from within her. Oh. He blinked, realizing what he was seeing despite not knowing how he saw it. Congratulations. I hope she'll grow up in a much safer world than the one we're in now. I will do what I can to ensure that safety.

Everyone grew very still, looking between him and the woman that he'd just congratulated. After a very pregnant pause, Suzuhara whispered, "A-are you certain?"

"He couldn't lie here and hide it." The woman's awe caused her to crack a smile, eventually laughing with joy and bouncing happily. "I'm pregnant! I'm pregnant with a girl!" As she went to hug Shinji, a wall of ice slammed into place between him and everyone but Mizore.

"Hydra. Blood." The yuki-onna was extremely irritated at the situation. "The last thing he wishes to be responsible for is the death of the child he's just announced to the world! You," her eyes flicked to Suzuhara, "we need to find out what happened to those three, and what is happening with the witches. Get out there, find out."

"R-right." Suzuhara was clearly poleaxed, but also not someone who wished to piss off either Mizore or Shinji by dawdling. Grabbing the woman he'd be having a child with by the arm, he hurried her out of the room without another word.

Several minutes drifted by before Mizore let the wall of ice crumble to nothingness. Picking at his hair, she pulled it away from his face as if doing so would free her of niggling doubts. "I need to know something." When he went to turn his head to face her, she turned it back so that it was facing away again. "Does her offer entice you?"

The number of 'her'-themed people that statement could apply to caused his mind to bounce around from person to person for a time. Ritsuko had made an offer of friendship. Naoko of knowledge. Saeko had offered physical intimacy without the requirement of a relationship. Tsuruko offered safety, Panacea offered healing. During an unguarded moment, Aceso offered to trim his hair. The common thread among all of these offers, unifying them all in his mind, was that he felt unworthy of any of them. The closest to temptation he'd come was when Tsuruko had offered to slice his head off…or to when Hera seemingly wished for his touch. I…uhm…which 'her'?

"The bitch."

The identifier was enough for him to work with. …I don't need fealty. I'd really rather not rule over anyone or anything. Responsibility and I…haven't really worked out. She…she seemed to want to…to kiss me…more…. That…I barely know her. You…you don't just do that with someone you don't know.

Unseen by him, Mizore's lips curled into a sad smile tinged with relief. "And her offer of armies? Of diplomacy?"

That's not…I can't make that kind of decision. Would anyone want their help? Would people be more scared of them than comforted? Would I just be leading thousands more people to their deaths? The Angels can't be harmed without my A.T. Field, unless they want to use that-

"The Horn will not be used again. It was captured and dismantled, and those responsible for its construction put to death for their crimes." She was still unhappy with his eagerness for oblivion. After several more moments of grooming, she tried a different tact, "What could she offer to compel you to action?"

…I don't know. I'm…. He couldn't put the words together to describe how he felt, and he didn't trust what had happened the night before as anything but his hormones suddenly revving up around a beautiful woman, like had happened with Ritsuko. I've never been the one responsible for making decisions. If someone thinks it's a good idea, and asks, I do it. Extra chores, cleaning the classroom alone, my homework, practicing piano or the cello, cooking meals….

"Or, in other words, you've spent your entire life under people's thumb." Her sigh was laden with irritation. "What can I offer you to get you to stop trying to die?" She had to get him to choose. Something, anything, so long as it was a choice!

I don't know! Ignoring her prodding to stay in place, he rolled onto his back to glare up at her from his position on her lap. You can't make the pain stop. You can't make people stop dying around me. You can't make it so that I'm not the only one who can fight. You can't bring the people I've killed back to life. You can't change my past. You can't stop me from constantly thinking about every single stupid fucking mistake I've ever made all day every day!

"What if I could make the pain stop?"

I'd give you anything you asked for. The answer was given without hesitation. If she could find a way to make him no longer suffer every waking moment of the day with the knowledge of what he had done, and had allowed to happen, he would give her everything.

"I have a list of things you must agree to." She was unsettled, but firmly in control of the physical display of her emotions. The only tell that something was wrong was the way she purposefully groomed his hair. "One, you must agree to fight against the people responsible for our current situation, no matter who that might be."

He understood her reasoning easily. Fighting was painful. It meant taking lives, it meant risking lives. Some situations could only be resolved through violence, because the other parties involved would not stop what they were doing otherwise. Can…can we try talking first?

"If they're willing to, yes. If there is no time? No. I will fight alongside you. I will kill alongside you. But you can't hold back."

He nodded, accepting that as truth. They'd never had a chance of dialogue with the Angels, and all the time he'd spent dithering about meant more people dying. More habits for him to break.

"Two, no more wishing for death. Yes, we might die fighting. No, you cannot go about seeking death. This world needs you. It needs more Elders, which means you must help us create them. You are too important to the future balance of the world, and I will not ease your suffering only to have you go about trying to die. You have to do what you can to avoid hurting yourself needlessly."

Shinji felt an odd crawling sensation along his spine. I…uh…create?

"Yes. That means exactly what you think it means. No…I will not help force women upon you. Everyone will have to make their own case, and accept that you have the right to not be forced into it." His trepidation at the concept was painfully obvious to her as she looked into his eyes. "If you help me buy the world time, we'll have quite some time to…work you into the idea. I'll do whatever I can to make things easier on you as well."

That crawling sensation became a smoldering flame. I…but…I can't…. I mean, I want to agree. N-not that I want to go around with…. No, no, I mean I want to agree to your terms! But that…I mean, with even one it's…but with…with a lot?

"It would be difficult to consider it 'cheating', Slayer, considering any you mate with would likely know of your duty." Hera sauntered into the room, a forced calm about her. "I apologize for interrupting, and I intend to make recompense for the need."

Mizore's hand had stiffened on his head, her flat glare offering little by way of mercy. "This 'need' had best be dire. I was rather specific when I requested time to speak with him regarding your 'offer'."

"Dire enough that my apology will be in the form of lives ended." The goddess' declaration did not change her demeanor in the slightest. "Some few of my devotees have sent warning regarding the situation in the outside world. It appears that a rather monumental shift has occurred following the defeat of the last two Whitespawn. That which was once the beginning of all is no more. In its place, and from its form…a new dread evil has arisen."

W-wait, I didn't follow any of that. Shinji tried to sit up, uncomfortable with how his back felt as if it were on fire, but was restrained easily by Mizore. Is there something out there attacking people?

"She speaks of a primal force that existed before there was anything." The yuki-onna, not for the first time, wished that Shinji had been born in this world where this information would exist within him from conception. "Leftover vestiges of something that even the Creator himself could not unmake fully. It took no form, no side in battles, and truly served only to separate 'something' from 'nothing'."

Hera nodded, agreeing with the description as accurate. "The past few decades, it has begun to…seek more. Instead of pushing back against the vast nothingness, or the gravity of the specific, it began to seek dominion over both. To consume both. It has slowly lost the randomness of action, whether benevolent or malevolent. This has created yet another gaping maw, a vacuum begging to be filled. Not since the murder of the Titans has such an incredible anti-power existed, and I have come with the news of it at the first moment I received it." Her eyes focused sternly on Mizore. "I will keep my word, I am no honorless heathen."

"…And she has kept it, Shinji." The statement was nearly ripped loose from her lips, but there was a grudging respect present in it regardless. "I have to go. We'll-"

Shinji reacted based off of adrenaline and instinct. Using his mass to push Mizore off of his bed where she knelt, landing perpendicularly atop her with his face bouncing off her breasts, he spun with a back-handed throwing motion to his feet sending a javelin of ice up into the corner of the room. While that was in motion, he jumped across the bed to push Hera out of the way of a sword that had materialized in mid-air behind her. The blade smashed against his back, which had now hardened into the densest stone possible, and drove him down atop the second woman he'd saved, knocking the breath out of them both.

Mizore was already on her feet again, her body protected by a living barrier of liquid ice as she stormed over to the corner where Shinji's javelin was dripping blood down onto the floor. A series of arrows shimmered into being, shot by the invisible archer he'd impaled there, but were unable to penetrate the defenses she'd erected. With a thought, the enemy was limned in brittle frost, outlining their form and removing their advantage of stealth.

Hera, while grateful for Shinji's actions and not opposed to his position atop her and between her legs, was mildly perturbed that someone would defile the sacred oaths that protected all honorable travelers through her lands. She was furious that Shinji was bleeding once again from a wound in his back. She was apoplectic as she realized who it was that had come into the room as assassins. "Enyo, Eris," slipping easily free of Shinji, she summoned a scepter to her hand and slapped away a thrusting lunge, "if you harbored such a deep-seated desire to die you might have informed me sooner! You know I always have time for my granddaughters."

The cut in Shinji's back was not deep, but it was deep enough that he was out of the fight for a moment. His mind wanted desperately to process how he'd known about the ambush, his body needed to be back in the fight, it was his soul that hurt the most at seeing people fighting to protect him once again. It was his duty to fight. His duty to suffer. …It was his weakness that brought this on them all.

A burst of rounds from a PDW announced that Kyoko had entered the room, her aim focused on the foe Mizore fought. While the bullets may not have penetrated the skin of the now only translucent enemy, they did cause her to reel backwards with the impact. The General moved with the practiced grace of someone who expected of herself what she expected of those serving in her unit, and avoided the blood around Shinji while closing the distance to increase the impact of her efforts on the inhuman Eris.

Tsuruko, on the other hand, demonstrated that those who hunted demons could easily be mistaken for demons themselves. Without touching the ground once she managed to flank Enyo, forcing the swordswoman to retreat further away from Shinji. Striking each time Hera recovered from an attack, the pair managed to push her into exposing her back to Kyoko, who switched targets as well as her PDW for her sidearm and discharged the pistol directly against the nape of Enyo's neck, severing several key tendons and arteries and dropping the warrior to the ground.

Mizore managed to finish her own fight soon after, lodging a chunk of ice inside of Eris' mouth and expanding it until her head violently came apart. With that done, she swiftly coated the floor in ice to prevent accidental contact with Shinji's blood before beginning to swear in a manner that caught everyone off-guard, "Listen you bronze age train wreck, you're going to give me some fucking answers before you die or I'm going to keep you alive long enough to burst every cell in your diseased cunt one at a time!" Gripping Enyo's head, she twisted it violently to look at her. "Who. Fucking. Sent. You."

Only Shinji could hear it. The drip-drip-drip of sand falling from the top of an hourglass grain by grain to strike against the solid void below. Even here, even displaced in time, it still found him. Death, madness, pain. It found him, every time. She's going to explode! Roaring out the desperate mental cry, he gave the last bit of his energy in an effort to save four women he barely knew.

+++++ Elysium. (?)

Kyoko was being stitched up by Petty Officer Temple, the NCO practicing her craft with care and precision. As a General Officer, Kyoko understood that war had changed radically after the end of the second Great War. That it was no longer a massing of two armies vying for territory. Korea, Viet Nam, they had shown that it was dead warriors that learned the lessons of the last war too late to apply them in the current war. The recent rise of suicide bombers that had struck major targets throughout the world in the eighties and beginning of the last decade of the current millennium were an omen of what was to come. The devastating effects of a kami engaging in the tactics brought genuine fear to her heart.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid this is going to leave a scar." Temple tried her best to prepare the woman for what was ahead. While she wasn't interested in women, she had been well aware of how beautiful Kyoko Soryu was. She, after all was said and done, would still have beauty…but it would be diminished in the woman's eyes each time she looked in a mirror and saw the scar running from just above the corner of her mouth, between her eyes, and terminating just below her hairline. It was a human reaction, and too many doctors were callous about that fact.

"Yes, Corpsman, it will." She looked at the enlisted doctor and gave a tired smile. "Only an animal can go through life and feel nothing for having to kill someone. Now that I have had my hands covered in the blood of kami?" She paused, switching her target to the unconscious form of Shinji Ikari. "I believe that this new scar will give me some measure of understanding for his plight."

"I…had meant your face, ma'am." She finished the last of the stitching, finessing bandages into place to not restrict her vision.

"And I was informing you how little I care for my appearance, though I appreciate your bedside manner." Standing up, she straightened her toga. "You're dismissed. Please make certain to continue to offer aid to those children from the Hinata Inn." The room Shinji had been staying in was now better termed a bunker, and Kyoko had further insight to provide to those responsible for making it so.

Mizore sensed her approach, and without turning from her contemplation of the efforts to heal the latest scar on the body of Shinji Ikari, agreed with the sentiments of the anticipated message, "He needs more aggressive healing. They are still searching for several of the healers that should have responded to the explosion, and we need to keep our patrols limited to this immediate area. We tried to search for gaps in their defenses, and he had to save us from our habits. I will keep the entrance covered with frozen mist. You and the Hunter stay outside and kill anything that disturbs it without making its presence-" A cry of worry caused both women to ready their weapons and rush back into the room, instead of towards the plans that were being developed.

Where there had been a Shinji on the table, there was now a mass of twisted flowers and mold that extruded a vile-smelling greenish-black ichor from within the tangle. Waving everyone back, Panacea shouted over the confusion to restore order, "Stop! Stop! I…I believe I recognize these blossoms…." Leaning in close enough to attempt to catch the scent, she gagged and stepped away. "Knautia arvensis, and Aspergillus terrestris. They are not…directly lethal."

"That's not entirely comforting, doctor." Kyoko gestured along the bed urgently. "Why are we not clearing this off of him?"

"Gipsy Rose," Tsuruko stated, pointing at the flowers. "Something that can be used to treat cuts or burns, if you are stuck out in the wilderness. But why would it surround him so?"

"It also acts as a purifier for the blood, in the proper infusions." Panacea shrugged, helpless to explain the sudden appearance. "At least, that is the commonly held belief. I put little stock in it, as there are better alternatives available to hand. The fungus is typically used to reduce the chances of diseases of the circulatory system. It prevents the solid bile that travels through the blood from coagulating into hardened masses…by thinning the protein chains and…this shouldn't be working…."

Mizore easily recognized the Hydra's Blood pooling on the floor. "And yet, here we are."

"We…we must collect the Blood for destruction." The youthful healer couldn't deny the evidence of her eyes, though she was worried about the source of the seeming fortune. "Please, stand back so that we do not harm anyone in the process."

Seats were taken out of the way of those working, the trio of women observing as flowers blossomed and wilted and fungus pulsed and dried out over time. Nervous about saying anything and creating either false expectations or influencing Shinji unknowingly, Mizore thought through her words carefully and stuck to those things she had observed rather than any sort of guesswork regarding potential meanings. "He summoned a weapon made of ice, then threw it directly at an invisible foe. He lunged over to protect her, then turned his skin to stone to survive the impact of a blade intended to slice through metal. He, somehow, sensed that she was about to explode. Not once did the armor surround him."

"Is this something from his being part youkai?" Kyoko's education had not covered nearly enough material to give her an understanding of what had happened. "Something subconscious?"

Tsuruko nodded in agreement with the general. "When threatened, most living beings engage in some form of self-defense. He has likely never been challenged to react to a threat outside of his armor. It makes sense to believe that his inner mind would have untapped potential, but I cannot see how that would arise in the form of…flora."

Mizore had to bite down on her tongue hard to avoid opening her mouth and screwing everything up.

"Those medallions." Kyoko snapped her fingers as she put more facts together. "While he slept, I felt each of them to try and determine what they were." When both women turned to look at her askance, she lifted her eyes to the ceiling. "I was on watch, and they are a curiosity that have not been removed from his body once. It is not like I was pleasuring myself over his unconscious body, ladies. My fingers lingered more on them than on him."

"One is clearly the stone commonly used to craft buildings." Tsuruko let the situation lie for the moment to pursue the original thought. "Another is…quite akin to mold."

"Another is made of wood, and another of ice." Kyoko looked to Mizore, who had returned to silently observing Shinji. "The last two are some weird sort of amber-colored substance and jade. He's using them, somehow, without using them. It's not active thought, it's more like need. A muscle reflex, instead of a conscious motion."

"…Why didn't he summon his armor?" Tsuruko picked at the odd fact, suddenly realizing that a muscle reflex as an explanation would mean that he went with training rather than situational awareness. "If he uses his armor to protect himself when threatened, or to protect others, what caused him to not utilize the most obvious means of defense for everyone? If even a tenth of the tales I have heard from the youkai here are true, in his armor there is little that might stand a chance of even hurting him."

Kyoko was already ahead of the other woman, and had an answer that fit the psychological profile of the pilot she'd built. "He made a choice. Maybe it was because if he used the armor he risked more time being healed painfully, maybe it was because using it risked hurting either of the two he sought to protect…but he chose to remain vulnerable."

With others having stated the truth of the matter, Mizore now had the cover she needed to grin victoriously. "He chose to keep his word."

+++++ Elysium. (?)

Shinji, for what felt to be the first time in hundreds of years, did not physically hurt. The room around him was dark, he was wrapped in a warm, comforting, blanket, and all he heard was a gentle, rhythmic, pulse of life. It was such a comforting sensation that he didn't want to move at all. He was perfectly comfortable where he was, and he would remain so for as long as humanly possible.

You see? The female voice that had begun to speak to him during fights purred in his mind, All you have to do is surrender.

The voice was unexpected, and when his body jerked with the perfectly normal startle reflex, he realized that he was not wrapped in a blanket but tethered down by one. His body wouldn't move, couldn't move, and he had no idea why. Wh-who are you? Where am I?

Clicking her tongue, she chided him teasingly. You know who I am, silly. A light caress inside of his skull. You're also where you were. In that…pit. Had you done what you wanted to, you would have been here with me. I would be healing you, surrounding you with love…. A tittering sigh. Oh, my dear, sweet, man…let go. Let go and allow me to make your life a paradise.

He had a growing list of women he'd made the acquaintance of, and the number of those women that would qualify as the voice in his head was disturbingly high to him. Without actually hearing the voice he had no way of placing it, aside from some verbal tics, and none of the women he knew spoke quite like the one asking him to cede control of his life. He knew who it wasn't, by virtue of the particular women he'd heard tell him to take control of his life instead, and in the battle between the two he chose to trust the ones who'd recently proven to want to save the planet. One deep breath, one long exhale, and he summoned Unit-01 to protect him from whatever it was that was trapping him.

Freedom was regained as his organic binds were torn free from where they'd lashed themselves. When one hand freed itself, he scraped his visor clear and winced in the suddenly bright lights of the room he'd collapsed in. The roster of people in the room halted his aggression, leaving him half-restrained and wholly confused. Uh…what happened? Allowing Unit-01 to slither back into his body, he frowned down at the dying mass of flowers and mold. I…n-no, I heard a- A concussive boom interrupted his thoughts, shaking the room violently. An attack? Unit-01 responded to his need, surrounding him once again, and he tore his way free just as Tsuruko and Mizore reached him to stop him from rushing out. Are we under attack?

"If we are, is rushing out the best way to stop the pain?" Mizore kept his questions to herself, not wanting to waste time by trying to both translate and prevent stupid from finding a place to happen. "Are you ok?"

The question reminded him of her list of promises she asked he fulfill before freeing him from the pain, which brought his struggle to a halt faster than their hold on him would have. Lifting his hands slowly, he used Sign to include Tsuruko in the conversation. I'm fine. The pain…well, the physical pain at least is…better. His head rocked side to side. I mean, I still hurt. My back is sore from where Enyo hit me. My ears are ringing from being in a room with a gun going off. But I don't feel the poison anymore. That's something, right?

"It is a bit of good news in a week bearing little of it." Tsuruko gripped his upper arm and squeezed with a welcoming smile. "You were so focused on the room, you missed the messenger rushing past to discover what is happening. Please, Shinji-dono, let us at least not rush headlong into a trap and undo the work done to heal you?"

Cautious advice that Misato would have given eased his anxiety further. You're right. He nodded, slowly, scanning the room. You're right…. I can't keep my word if I go around rushing headlong into situations I don't understand.

"He listens!" Mizore threw her hands up dramatically, hamming up the part of the long-suffering mentor. "At last, he listens to the voice of reason!"

Kyoko chuckled at the byplay from her place guarding the door. "Nothing happening out in the hall. Healers haven't come back, but they might still be destroying the hazmat." Another blast caused the building to quake, forcing her to fall against one of the pillars framing the entryway. "Whatever that is, it's a lot stronger than typical artillery. Sounds like it's coming from that way." She gestured towards the area of the building Shinji remembered visiting once, "That's twice now around the same area. Probably their target."

That's where they keep that vase. Shinji's heartbeat raised, worry and anticipation driving anxiety up. The one that holds hope? As Mizore nodded, the room shook again. That's not artillery…. He remembered the tremblers caused by the falling Angel. The way that it seemed like a mixture of explosions and earthquakes. Assessing who he had available to hand, finding that none of them were likely to survive the pressure wave exuded by the Angel as it landed, his jaw clenched. Tsuruko-san, General, evacuate everyone you can. Mizore, I-

"Someone else can do whatever that is," the yuki-onna cut him off with a firm gesture, "my place is at your side. You need someone to strike at the core, if what you're thinking holds true. I am not so fragile as you believe me to be." Turning her attention to the other two women, she stressed his request in more dire terms. "There should not be an Angel here, but should not be and is not are not synonyms for the same thing. You must get the children out of Elysium. The Nymph will likely be nearby them, Suzuhara has been leaving her with them. Have her lead you, keep her safe as well. Get the humans out. Go."

+++++ Elysium. (?)

Shinji, dressed in Unit-01, rode a wave of snow summoned and controlled by the woman on his shoulder. Hurrying towards a place that he had embarrassed himself deeply at before, he kept up the rhythmic clenching of his fist. I'm missing something. He knew it, he knew Mizore knew it, but he hadn't made any progress in silence. I don't know what, or how…but I'm missing something. Is it the jar? We were in the room with it, and I couldn't think. I couldn't breathe. It felt like there was no escaping it.

"Whatever it is, our time for worrying is over." Running the sole of her foot against his chest, she focused on keeping him from taking himself out of the battle before it was even joined. "You will catch the Angel, I will pierce its core. Your Presence will help me protect myself, and I will usher the corpse away from the Pithos the same way I am moving us towards it. Focus on the fight before us, not the fights that are in the past."

The advice was easier to give than to take, and Shinji found himself mostly unable to stop worrying over being anywhere near the golden glow of Hope. It's dropping pieces of itself, refining its aim. It drops on a ballistic arc. Catching it is like catching a soccer ball that's been kicked higher than farther. The various Angels he'd fought since arriving came to mind. If it's smaller, like the others, it's going to be harder to see. I had the Magi assisting me in tracking it, before. I don't control the HUD on my visor anymore, so I might end up having to eyeball it.

The frosty method of transportation turned the final corner to the center of the Asclepion where the Pithos of Pandora rested. After gaining line-of-sight on it, Mizore quickly shielded his eyes with her hands. "Steady. I will bury it in snow. Focus on the fight. Focus on success."

The hidden warmth of the pale princess made his heart ache. She trusted him to do what nobody else could. She trusted him to keep his word, to defend against the Angels, and to give her a chance to make her case regarding the costs before accepting Hera's offer. They had been interrupted repeatedly, and yet she still sat on his shoulder by the broken remains of its pylon. She still touched him gently. She offered him…. Mizore…thank you. Death was always a possibility in the fights against the Angels. He didn't want to leave something important unsaid, not again. Thank you for fighting to protect me. Thank you for ignoring my stupidity. He reached up with one hand and lightly patted the side of her leg. Thank you for understanding a broken boy's fears.

With the Pithos buried and out of sight, she freed his eyes of her hands only to duck her head into view. Her mouth remained impassive, but the grin that she bore for him carried through her eyes easily. "And thank you for being the type of man who isn't swayed by his hormones." Pressing a quick kiss to the broken nub of his horn, she giggled. "Or do you think I'm unaware of what Hera did to try and sway you?"

"What I did was not in an effort to change his mind," the woman in question arrived from an adjoining hall, rolling her eyes in muted disdain for the besmirchment of her character, "it was because I swore to myself that when I finally found a man worthy of my affections I would not hesitate to place myself near the closest apple." Coming to a halt outside the open-air courtyard, she spread her hands and turned her body appealingly. "Not once have I ever cheated on that vile beast who claimed me like an animal. Once the Slayer rips his cowardly spine from his body, I fully intend on pressing the young man to continue where propriety mandated we cease that night."

Shinji knew his cheeks were flame red, faced with the details of what he thought to be a massive loss of self-control. Whatever he might have said in self-defense, unfortunately, was preempted by the far side of the Asclepion ceasing to exist as a cohesive structure. Without hesitation, he threw out his A.T. Field to shield both women from the shrapnel and debris. Rock, mineral, and dirt tore at the shield with unimaginable force. Sound itself became muted, the air which would have helped create it having been forced violently away leaving only a vacuum behind. The Pithos' natural defenses held, aided by Mizore's snow and ice, but the golden dome bore evidence of a serious blow having been struck.

When the dust settled, after being sucked back towards the center to create a miniature mushroom cloud, the view of the other side of the courtyard had changed dramatically. Close to a third of the Asclepion itself had been reduced to rubble. Mighty pillars of marble that had stretched as high as five times Shinji's height were shattered and broken, walls now nothing but beautiful gravel tossed about, the palace of healing yet another victim of a war that had proven to possess no sense of borders or decency. Though the magnitude of the tragedy in his mind was not easy to overstate, the new targets of his vengeance were easy to find.

Standing on a small rise, a few hundred meters away from the now-ruined building, a tall and arrogant man with shock white hair smirked approvingly as he observed the devastation. The all-encompassing ego on display, if spread evenly amongst the human population of the world, would have made everyone on Earth a narcissist fifty times over. There was nothing he would not do to sate his own desires, to stroke his own machismo. He knew he was the Alpha and Omega, and so it was.

Far above, descending through a sky thick with clouds, the Angel that was named Sahaquiel in the world Shinji had come from fell implacably towards its target. An enormous eye surrounded by fractal limbs bearing smaller eyes, it had made its calculations complete with the destruction of the Asclepion and was now on final approach. The air around it condensed, adding a shimmering haze of liquid that spread rainbows symmetrically from horizon to horizon. Looming death was beautiful and disgusting, natural and unnatural.

If I fight him, I might not catch the Angel. He had to make a choice. If I ignore him, he might prevent me from catching the Angel. The women next to him were to be respected and defended. Mizore, at least, was to be trusted. Mizore, do you think you and Hera can keep him busy long enough for me to…to divert the Angel? I can't hold it up and kill it. But if I can throw it somewhere away from the Pithos, we can stop it from destroying it right away.

"My 'husband' has clearly gone insane." Hera answered for Mizore, eons of disgust and contempt finally spilling out into the open. "I will summon my children. We will stop him from interfering, Slayer." Her eyes softened as she looked upon Mizore. "Peace, child. We have had enough bloodshed for a million lifetimes. Let me help you teach the Slayer right from wrong. Let me help you make a great man from a good one. There is enough of him to be a proper husband to more than one woman…let us prevent this travesty from repeating itself endlessly."

"…I hate diplomacy." Mizore looked away from Hera, up to the Angel. "I hate it and I suck at it." Two heartbeats, and her decision was made. "You screw me over, and you'll wish you were back in that asshole's arms. Go keep him off of Shinji…he'll keep up his end of the bargain after we kill this beast."

Moving at the same time with Hera as the woman rushed towards Zeus, Shinji hurdled the Pithos of Pandora and launched a sizeable fragment of a nearby pillar towards the god. He couldn't leave his post to assist her, but he also couldn't leave her without any support at all. Misato would insist on covering fire to support Hera's movements, and throwing torso-sized rocks was better than nothing. Before the first found its mark, another three were in the air arcing towards his enemy.

"Let me keep up the pressure," Mizore had jumped off of her perch as they landed, and was now glowing a pale blue, "you focus on the Angel." Her fingers stretched apart, her hands rolled in a rounding motion, and a barrage of icicles began to rain down around Zeus.

It was at that point that Shinji had to tear his eyes away from the ground-based enemy to ready himself to contend with the air-dropped enemy. The sounds of combat and months of training told him that what he was doing was dangerous and stupid. He was diverting his attention from one assault force to another without knowing for certain if the first had been handled. He was trusting blindly to someone else's talents, to unknown tactics, to people he'd only just met. Misato would be chewing his ear off, and he knew it. Which was why it really didn't come as a surprise when he was suddenly struck in the chest by some form of weapon, blasted backwards from where he stood.

Responses offered themselves rapidly, body movements that could help him recover or potential uses for nearby objects to accomplish his tasks. Reactions, contrariwise, did not make themselves available before he felt the next burst of a seemingly never-ending series of horrifying agony. The tinkling of broken pottery, an explosion of golden light, and a return to his default state: unconsciousness.

+++++ Elysium. (?)

The counterattack had happened so quickly that Mizore was only able to stop herself from becoming a victim. Deflecting a heavy javelin at the last second, she turned her body just in time to see Unit-01 catch a labrys to the chest. Her attempt to stop Shinji from impacting the Pithos of Pandora was earnest, but futile. With too much mass and momentum even the thickest ice she could conjure failed to impede his flight in any tangible way. A slide sideways allowed her to avoid two more thrown weapons that would have killed her easily, the third however was unavoidable.

Hera, at the last second, grabbed the last javelin. Tossing it aside, she used her scepter to slap away several more while her less than eager confederate rallied for a counter-counterattack. The Greek goddess was comfortable in the role of defender, understanding that Mizore stood a higher chance against their current problem in the form of Hermes. The speed with which the javelins were being thrown by the messenger of the gods began to pose a serious threat after his accuracy improved with the fifteenth such throw.

Mizore recovered rapidly, and despite herself thanked Shinji in her heart for the opportunity that was now presented to her. She, a woman of the yuki-onna clan, would have the second greatest honor known to the entirety of Reliqui: she would kill an Olympian. Her target was swift, but her people were trained from birth to take down even the fastest prey. Several visible patches of ice forced her quarry to move around them. His overconfidence, gained by having been able to see the obstacles, did not prepare him for the invisible 'black ice' she smeared across his path next. He stumbled, was snared by a tendril of frost, and then impaled from nineteen different angles by vines of rigid snow. Willing them to rip him apart, she looked to Hera and stated without any hint of sincerity, "Sorry for killing your son."

The 'Mother of the Gods' shrugged, unfazed in the slightest. "His mother was Maia, one of the Pleiades. I held no affection for him."

"Brother!" A powerful voice ripped across the area, announcing the arrival of a muscularly built man. "What madness is this?!" Wielding a trident, sweeping it out in an arc to indicate the ruined city around them, he sized up Zeus warily. "I have set your son to holding that abomination in the sky for a moment…out of love for the city his own son has built he did acquiesce." Halting just outside of the range of any weapons, disbelief clung to him heavily. "Again, I ask you, what madness have you brought upon us all?"

Zeus' response was to look up towards the falling Angel, where Apollo was slowing Sahaquiel by main force. "That is pitiful, Poseidon. You heard my decree, as did he."

"Pitiful?" The sea god's temper grew with each step he took towards his brother. "Pitiful?! You would destroy what we-hrrrkrk…." The end of a spear appeared through the side of his neck closest to Hera and Mizore, slicing his windpipe and spine clean through.

"This land is a constant reminder of our failure, dear uncle." Kicking the dying god off of the end of her weapon, a severe-seeming woman glared down at his form as he choked to death on his own blood. "And that is for what you did to my temple-maiden."

Mizore backed up slowly, not wanting to draw attention to her motions while some form of madness began to tear apart her enemies. She wasn't truly surprised when Hera joined her in retreating, and whispered quietly to her, "What is going on?"

"…I doubt even Lyssa has this much power. Athena is a bit temperamental, but she certainly is not one to bow to her father's whims." Hera was shaken, uncomfortable with how things were going. Both women watched as the spear-wielding warrior took aim at Apollo. "Her mother was no fan of my 'husband'." Reaching Unit-01, they both made an effort to rouse him. "He's absorbed most of the energy from the Pithos."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning he should be glowing with the same light that accursed vessel did. And yet, nothing but this royal purple. Not even the eyes of his mask." Hera placed her hand over the chest plate of Unit-01. "I have some ability at healing, I will trust our defense to your skill while I make the attempt."

"Have no fear, mother." Another powerful male voice spoke from nearby, calling both women's attention to a man that appeared to be created specifically to kill as he rounded the broken edge of the Asclepion. "None shall reach you while you rouse the Slayer." Planting himself between the women and the increasingly fractious group of gods, the man set his sword on the ground tip down to lean against the cross guard.

"Thank you, Ares," there was no small amount of relief in Hera's voice.

While Hera began attempting healing on Shinji, Mizore kept her eyes moving around the battlefield. A drunken god was aggressively interfering in Athena's attempts at striking down Apollo, another goddess that looked similar to Hera was arguing loudly with the most beautiful woman, goddess or mortal, that she had ever seen, both approached by a powerful man carrying a smithy's hammer. Hovering over Shinji grew increasingly silly to her, and so she moved to stand guard with the God of War.

"Hail, Snowmaiden." Ares' eyes continually judged the other gods and goddesses in their squabbles, taking note of who shoved who first and what reprisals were building. "I fear you have come too late to avenge your kin further. It appears that my relatives will manage to do so themselves. Rather fitting, when you consider that it was their idiocy that led to the deaths of so many who had not otherwise earned my uncle's attentions."

That statement caught her off guard, leading her to look askance at the man. She was shocked, after a fashion, to see genuine sorrow in his eyes. His face was harder than the metal his sword was forged from, but those eyes…she had seen them many times in the mirror. "I killed your brother. That…may be enough for me."

"You killed a liar, a thief, and a scoundrel." Hatred flared briefly, before control was regained. "I thank you for that, not curse you for it." Both looked over to where a wet thwack showed the drunken man's head hitting the ground well away from where his body landed in a broken heap. "Dionysus never was worth much as a warrior. He beheld too long the mysteries of death and sought refuge from what he saw in libations." With their attention on Athena, they were in perfect position to see a quartet of arrows lance through her arm throwing off her aim as she attempted once more to bring down Apollo with a thrown spear.

Mizore frowned with conflicted emotions. The god holding the Angel at bay was someone she wished dead. His success, however, was buying time for Hera to determine what happened to Shinji. The goddess with the bow was attempting to kill the other goddess that was assaulting the god holding the Angel at bay, and she realized she had never expected them to all look so similar. "Your family is killing itself, and yet you're standing here watching it happen."

"An ungrateful group of arrogant, selfish, and greedy creatures are receiving the rewards they so richly deserve. That they are my blood is irrelevant, this fate is of their own making. They welcomed a viper to their breast, and like a viper must it has sunk its venomous fangs into their flesh." Lifting one finger to indifferently indicate Zeus, he scowled thoughtfully. "That…is not wholly my father." A cry of agony announced the impact of the smith's hammer against the shoulder of the unimaginably beautiful woman. Another cry was brought to a swift end as the second impact of the weapon caved in her skull. A second later, the woman she had been arguing with began brawling with the smith, trying to tear his head off. Ares returned to his impassive scan of the area. "Aphrodite's infidelity was bound to be her undoing. Hephaestus being her executioner is only fair…though his decision to force himself on her as groom was equally reprehensible. He knew what she was, and yet he grew covetous of the most physically appealing of all goddesses, instead of the most beautiful." Hephaestus' head was quickly separated from his own shoulders, then used to bludgeon the man's body. "Tales upon tales, little one. I might be struck with this insanity myself, were it not for their constant lies about me and my character leading me to keep my absence from their court and therefore the viper."

Now that both Artemis and Athena were locked in melee combat, Mizore wondered at what possible defense was needed. "What lies?" She couldn't find any relief in the death of these animals. There was no good to be found watching mindless slaughter.

"That I was a savage. A brute. An unthinking beast that craved only war. That I seduced Aphrodite, that every war I entered was lost by those I supported. That I was useless." He had heard these things so often that repeating them conveyed nothing but resignation. "My unwillingness to fight in what you call the Academy Wars was cemented long ago. Constant, meaningless, bloodshed performed for their amusement. They knew nothing of true war, and yet each of them demanded their adherents devote countless lives to the slaughter. Aphrodite and Athena arguing over who was most fair, the former believing physical displays to be most important, the latter believing that emotions and intellect ruled true beauty. Bah." A dismissive gesture with one hand, then a quick indication of Shinji behind them. "They are not worth speaking of. He, however, is."

"…Go on."

"I will not leave this land." Pointing up to the Angel, and to Apollo's losing battle, he continued, "That beast must fall. After Artemis finishes Athena off and repays a debt long overdue, I will assist her in slaying Demeter and Zeus. The three of us will then work in concert to slay it, and when it dies we shall die with it in honor. You must tell the Slayer what I now impart: war is not, and must never be, unthinking. To win, to truly win, he must be unsparing in its execution. He must leave nothing to chance, nothing to fate. I feel my end approaching fast, his ascent as rapidly. I cannot grant him benediction, nor impart my wisdom gained over countless conflicts. Not in the little time he and I will be near to one another. When he makes his Choice…before he makes his Choice, tell him I pray that he understands death and suffering are not the sole province of war. That peace is far more guilty of those terrible sins." He looked over to her, a grim smile warming his eyes ever so slightly. "Tell him to choose his weapons carefully…for what they do in his name will be done as if by his own hand."

"You do realize that none of what you said makes an ounce of sense outside of this conversation, yes?" Mizore had let her guard down, again, and nearly paid the price for that. Yanked off her feet by Ares, she was in the middle of barking out a protest when a glowing red beam of coherent death passed by where they had both just been standing. The attack obliterated Zeus where he stood, sublimating the central third of the Father of the Gods. "No!" Scrambling free of her savior's grasp, recognizing the attack for what it was, she ran over to try and help Shinji regain control of Unit-01.

The Beast had reawakened, and it was not happy at all.

+++++ ? (?)

Shinji groggily dragged himself up off what he believed to be the floor. The next thing he took note of was the lack of sound, of any sort of visual landmark, of any scent or the feel of air shifting around him, every normal sensation that a normal and healthy living body might typically experience was absent. The lack of any form of sensory input dragged on longer and grew more unbearable with each microsecond that passed.

"You know," the jarring suddenness of the sound of a feminine voice would have caused him to scream had he a voice to use, "it took me way too long to figure out what was wrong." With the words coming from directly behind him, no matter how he told his body to turn, panic surged across every inch of his nerves. "You're better than this. You've always been better, when you're not a sniveling little wretch." A hint of disappointment, "I look at you and wonder what it is that makes such an incredibly small number of you different. Most people tend to be the same in almost every reality they live in. Heroes, villains, or just someone trying to make it by. Their circumstances might change them to a degree, but the basic building blocks are the same. You? You're the outlier. The highest highs, obscuring a consistently low standard."

Wh-who are you?! Shock had passed, allowing him to respond to the new voice. Where am I?

"The first answer would be mostly meaningless to you, and would probably really confuse you. The second, however, is that you're trapped in your own body while someone else takes Unit-01 out for a spin." Without a face, or even the sense of a physical presence, she still conveyed concern. "The world you're in just lost a big chunk of real estate to…your enemy. Fortunately, it seems that someone was quick on their feet and destroyed a weapon that I doubt you would have used as such. Unfortunately, it also seems that you are frustratingly like someone else I know. Took him…about eighty-five thousand forevers to figure out how to not be like this. Even now he still backslides from time to time."

What are you talking about?

"I can't help you more than I am. Not without becoming what I'm not." The incoherent statement amused even the woman speaking it, leading to her laughing. "He really hates that game. Just remember that you're in charge of you. That Unit-01, in your own mind, is a part of you. Who controls you, then? Is it someone else? Are you just a puppet?" The voice grew closer, whispering in his ear, "Are you what mommy and daddy always said you were? A tool? A toy to be used and cast away once it is too broken to be useful?"

Confusion only fed the sudden burst of anger. You expect me to trust a voice that belongs to someone who won't identify themselves?

"I expect you to roll over and let others use you for their own ends." A knowing chuckle, an audible roll of her eyes. "Like nearly every other Shinji Ikari I've ever seen. Maybe he was unique…sad, really. You would think that with so many lives depending on you having something other than boiled pasta for a spine that you'd…I don't know…fight?"

Anger grew into rage. Fight? FIGHT?! That's all I've been doing for the past week! You don't know what I've gone through, you don't know what I've done!

"Drag your feet? Allow several women to be killed because you're not even able to choose what to have for breakfast? Let people push and pull you where they want you to go?" Her tone grew contemptuous, "For all this vaunted 'fighting' you've been doing, you've been remarkably docile. I mean, at least right now the one driving Unit-01 is using it to eviscerate gods. What'd you do? You got knocked out of the fight by an axe to the chest and exposure to some pretty lights."

Right as Shinji was nearly strangling himself in an effort to scream invectives, a hauntingly familiar voice cut in to the diatribe, "That's enough." There was a sorrow present in his speech, layered just beneath a strength that spoke of surviving a terrible life. "I have told you that this is unacceptable. Whether he…whatever it is he does, he has to do it. Anything else is meaningless."

"My-" Her voice was silenced without any indication as to how.

"My apologies…Shinji. There will be no further interference, one way or another." A small pause. "…Remember what it is you fight for. That, at least, is something to cling to when nothing makes any sense."

Both presences vanished, leaving only the ever more rapidly spiraling waveform of wrath to drive Shinji away from the darkness. The light may not be comfortable, or pleasant, or free of pain…but it was at least easy to find targets there.

+++++ Runic Throne (Friday + 2,953)

Lilith materialized in the mirror room at the Runic Throne ready to tear into her beloved husband. Shinji, however, was not who showed up next in the room.

The Wanderer appeared, his full aura on display. The crushing, unavoidable, power he possessed radiated off of him like the heat of a star going hypernova. His wife's anger was an inconsequential mote in the furnace of his fury. Despite all of that, his voice never rose over a calm, conversational, tone. "When I cemented our relationship, I did so expressly with the understanding that we were, and would remain, equals. I have kept my end of that agreement, despite often wishing to intervene in matters that would lead to your rightful disapproval. What you did here was not only dangerous, but reckless and stupid. If he pieces together who you are, if he calls on you for aid, I will erase that entire segment of Creation."

She had taken a big risk, and had underestimated his awareness. "My sister-"

"Chose her fate." His voice hardened, ever so slightly, "We stood every chance at losing. We fought, we prevailed. We earned the right to assist the multiverse in shedding the bonds of Reality. When we are called to account, when we throw our lives against an impossible foe, we will do so with the full knowledge that we survived one omnicidal maniac without anything but our own strength. If your sister cannot manage to overcome what that universe has wrought, then she will only ever be a millstone dragging everyone down. There are millions of copies of me, right now, losing the fight against the Angels. Losing fights against simple humans. Their universes deleted at the moment Third Impact wipes that reality clean, reborn to try again with no knowledge of anything that came before."

"He has-"

"Potential, in either an electrical engineering or sociological sense, is meaningless. Nozomi-chan has potential, I'm not going to manipulate her into achieving that potential just to satisfy my desire to have her around forever. We need allies that are motivated, that can climb out of the worst darkness imaginable and fight on." With a gesture, he showed her towards the door. "I am setting wards on this room now. Enter it again without me present and I will consider that your request for a divorce." When her face shifted towards shock, disgust, and horror, he raised one eyebrow. "I will never tell you what you can and cannot do. Maya has always been right in opposing that kind of ultimatum. I am telling you what I will do if you go against me in this."

"…I don't want to lose you."

"There are others. There will always be others." Anger remained, and colored what was a reminder to her that he loved her dearly. "I have high standards, now that the women in my life have proven to me that I deserve them."

+++++ Elysium. (?)

Consciousness came to Shinji violently. The confusion, the taunting, the lack of answers, every dark emotion possible succeeded where Hera and Mizore had been unable to in waking him up and halting Unit-01's rampage of destruction. The armor recoiled back to wherever it spent its time when he didn't need it, he stumbled and had to catch himself from falling on the closest vertical point.

That vertical point, Ares, was all too eager to help him stand upright again. "Hail, brother." Searching his eyes for a second, the man nodded at what he saw. "Aye…you'll do what must be done." Turning the emotionally compromised youth about, he urged him towards Hera. "Mother, take him and go with my blessing and love. Our father in life may have never been worthy of these people, but we three shall make our deaths worthy of what follows."

Mizore intercepted Shinji, motioning for the Greek goddess to follow or be left behind. "Let's go, Shinji. We don't have time to explain." As Hera caught up and began to outpace the both of them, she increased the speed of the wave of ice that propelled her and Shinji onwards towards the outside world. "They'll take care of that Angel. There's a viral weapon loose here that's infected a lot of Elysians. If we stay here to help, we're only going to make a bad situation worse."

Anger had overridden pain to that point, but the burning agony that was holding any of the Sailors save for Haruka was now a disorderly scourge upon the inside of his being well beyond anything the Hydra's Blood had been. Shinji vomited violently to the side, only staying upright through Mizore's aid and strength. The…the clay pot….

"You were thrown through it." She wanted to help him clean his mouth, but had to focus on getting them out of Elysium before the worst came to pass. "I don't know what happened to whatever was inside of it."

It's…it's in me. Another round of vomiting followed panic surging to the fore. Inside of him was the thing that had unmanned him so much that he'd bulled over people and passed out to get away from it. The healers had called it Hope, but there was no way that hope was capable of bringing so much misery after a lifetime of never once truly feeling it. He'd longed for it. For the possibility that his life could be better, that the battles would end, that one person might become his friend! Now here he was, with Hope itself swimming through his blood, and all he felt was nausea and wretchedness.

A scream to their side drew Shinji's attention, Mizore keeping her eyes on moving faster and farther from the expected impact site. She began to swear viciously as her grip on his arm was removed when he dove off the sled of frost to try and intervene in a situation that she was positive could not be nearly as important as getting the only weapon against the Angels out of danger. After calling for Hera to give her a hand, she changed her momentum to go back and pick up the irritating man burdened with a host of mental complexes.

Shinji had recognized Panacea's scream, and the possibility of doing something other than dwelling on his own terror pushed him to try and save a woman that he associated with healing. He landed on the ground near the door with far more grace than he would otherwise have anticipated, and shoved aside a heavy door that was resting oddly, broken at an angle to reveal the source of her troubles. The first woman he saw, other than Panacea, was Aceso. Or, more appropriately, Aceso's upper torso fused to a mass of tentacles slithering aggressively in an effort to surmount the obstacles that Panacea threw in their path. The second woman, if he were to guess, was Epione. The hair color and style matched, even if the face and body looked like a pig that had died and been left out in the sun for a week. Instincts chose his actions, and without stopping to think he grabbed the pointy half of a broken spear lying on the ground and jammed it through Aceso's head before kicking the now lifeless body off of his weapon and throwing the half spear into the chest of Epione.

"I was going to chastise you, but she might be useful." Mizore followed him into the room as he apparently killed Panacea's mother, scanning the room for other invaders. "We need to go."

Hera stepped into the room behind Mizore, her attention focused on the clearly shaken young woman Shinji had saved. "Child…what is your purpose?" She grabbed Shinji's shoulder, stopping him from approaching anyone else. "Quickly now. What is your purpose?"

A gagging cough cut in line, Epione's corpse staggering upright unsteadily. It was unable to take more than one step before Mizore lanced it with a crosshatch of icicles. "…Ok, I'm not exactly a novice at killing things. He put that spear through her heart. She should not have gotten back up."

"M-my purpose is t-to ensure that the S-Silent One remains alive and able t-to fight." Panacea was visibly quaking, fear racing towards shock. "Th-that…that he d-does not f-forget w-what El-lysium once s-stood for. That h-his heart f-finds p-peace."

"We take her." Hera shoved Shinji at Mizore and grabbed Panacea to haul her out of the building. "She is not infected, if she is able to state as much to me while standing here. Let's hurry!"

Now with two passengers, Mizore was forced to move slower than she wanted to in order to avoid losing anyone, but she was able to follow behind Hera without too many problems. It was not easy to, but she left Shinji to Panacea's care. The young healer needed a distraction, and the young warrior needed to feel as if he was being useful. She was just grateful that it kept their attention focused on something other than what was happening down the alleyways and inside the grand structures of what she had once considered to be the most evil place known.

All manner of mutated abominations, twisted and deformed from what they had been at birth, were bringing down those that seemingly remained as they once had been. With pale, sightless, eyes that still saw and wounds from what should have been killing blows ignored as nothing but a minor inconvenience, they attacked structure and citizen with an unhinged manic drive. Some few moved to intercept the quartet of evacuees, easily dispatched by either Hera or Mizore before they could close the gap. Olympus had fallen, Elysium was falling, and a new enemy has quietly positioned both mountain and city on the precipice they now tumbled over.

+++++ Author's Notes.

JaceSterne: RE: Mizore.

Yeah, her backstory isn't slated for distribution for a bit. I've almost moved the story to the mid-series climax, and the Academy Wars are not a part of that narratively.

So you're safe...for now.

Ghost Man:

RE: Unit-01 and Japanese Engineering.

Maybe they can, maybe they can't. Depends on how well they do at diagnosing the composite materials used in the construction of the Evas, how well they do at researching similar production methodologies, and how patient Shinji is feeling at the moment. To say nothing of finding the time to do all of the above.

RE: Keitaro.

He was, indeed, a good dude that was stuck with a bad hand. He likely would have been a good friend for Shinji, in another life.

RE: Hera.

History is written by the winners. What was written about Hera (and Ares), was not necessarily true.