Kept ya waiting, huh?

This was actually the chapter I had the most fun writing so far. I hope you enjoy!

CHAPTER 7 - Fission and Fusion

"Well?"

It was always odd the places that tea could show up. Kanako always found herself having tea while she had meetings this grave, even when she had met with NERV earlier this week. Across Japan, really across the world, a million times a day, meetings were held, and tea was had with those meetings. She wondered if this was the most important meeting that tea had ever been had over. She, admittedly partially for her ego, decided that this was at least in the 99th percentile of important meetings.

She was distracting herself. She knew it. Even for a god like Kanako Yasaka, dealings that were as important as what TOUHOU was doing left her nervous. She hoped it wasn't obvious behind her sunglasses. She'd never been a fan of sunglasses before Tokyo-3, but before Tokyo-3 her strength could speak for herself. If your eyes spoke for themselves, you gave away your emotions, and lost a negotiation, so she wore them more often than not, now. She cleared her throat.

"Commander Junko, was it? I know this is a poor time, but I believe I may have a piece of new technology that you will be able to make great use of in the operations of Tokyo-3." The god pushed out her smile about as wide as it would go. She hoped it was disarming, or at least made her look in control if it wasn't.

"I have read your message. I appreciate the secrecy… but I have to say that you're lucky that you even managed to meet me at all. Your tightfistedness with this information has given way to obscuration of it. Currently, you stand before me with nothing. Change that."

Harsh. Kanako tried not to react, but she'd never imagined the co-commander of TOUHOU to be so outwardly blunt. She'd seen the commander on television a couple times, whenever she may have to give brief addresses on whatever the United Nations needed TOUHOU's staff to speak out back when they were, on paper, accountable to the public. Junko was like a proper lady in those interviews, measured and pure. Kanako was distracting herself again.

"Yes, well. The reason for that secrecy was a good one. What if I told you that the Moriya Shrine, the very spiritual heart of Tokyo-3 and the perfect marriage of the power of the gods and the science of modernity-"

"Do you think I'm in the mood for humour?"

Kanako sighed. Perhaps this was why her pitch to NERV had failed. "I have laid foundations for someone loyal to me to obtain power equivalent to that of a fully-functioning nuclear fusion reactor. Accept my terms and its power is yours."

Junko's face remained stony behind her hands, which she had unconsciously come to join together in a finger tent, blocking herself from Kanako's view. She was considering it. Perhaps she doubted it. Perhaps she didn't know if she could trust her. Kanako knew that Junko didn't have much of a choice. Even as she spoke more strongly and seriously, Junko wasn't a god.

Of course, Kanako didn't know what Junko was, exactly. Some sort of spirit she'd wager, but far from a god. She was a spirit who piggybacked off the innovations of man to do her bidding. Kanako tried not to laugh at the irony, of course. She wasn't much better, but at least she only required faith from mankind, not robots. And also, Kanako actually contributed to the innovations herself. She'd like to see the woman across from her give a Yatagarasu to a hell-raven.

Kanako was about to speak again when Junko, finally, responded. "What are your terms? I cannot give you more faith, the presence of your shrine in Tokyo-3 is already far beyond what is feasible."

"When the next Oni is produced, Sanae will pilot it."

"That is not possible."

There was a beat. Kanako felt a couple beads of sweat begin to form on her neck. "Isn't it?"

"As most details of the Oni project are classified, I'm afraid I can't explain the inner workings of them, nor their relationships to their pilots. However, the personality types- the psychological aspect- of the pilots is an important factor. The Da Sheng Zhuang institute has tested every child in the city, including Sanae, and she is invalid."

"But a boy from the middle of nowhere on the Japanese coast that just happens to be the son of your co-commander is? Not even mentioning the Hakurei shrine maiden, stemming from a proud lineage of being Yukari's-"

"ENOUGH! The decision… what am I saying? There is no decision here! Sanae is invalid for piloting the Oni, and you should be thankful that she can't! When one of my pilots just got a hole blown through them by the lunarian monstrosity that is hovering above us as we speak, why would I want to waste my time being squaked at by a vagrant god from Suwa who is only alive because she's leeching off the faith produced by my city?"

Kanako stood up, and turned to leave. When she got to the door of Junko's oversized office, though, she couldn't stop herself from turning back around and speaking her piece. "The gods of Yamato have ruled this country for longer than you've been roaming this earth. Making an enemy with the lunarians, whatever you did to do so, was perhaps the most foolish thing you possibly could have done, but making an enemy with the gods of this land would doubtless exceed that." And with that, she left.

TOUHOU may have been a labyrinthine, confusing bureaucratic hell, but Kanako had already figured it out from tip to tail. Junko was a spirit, all right. A spirit of vengeance haunting the halls of mankind's greatest hub of innovation, trying to claw its grudges from the past into the city of the future. Picking fights with gods like a child at the grown-up table, not knowing that she's only there to be kept an eye on.

Kanako smiled at the image.

o0o

"Reisen?"

"Yes, ready."

The head alchemist was the only person allowed on the surface at this time, and for a good reason. Standing on a grassy hill on the other side of Lake Ashi, the hovering, octahedral angel was still large enough to dwarf the city under it. Reisen wasn't wearing her sunglasses, and was staring at the angel with a stern, red-eyed gare.

The angel, seeming unprompted to an outside viewer, suddenly blasted a beam of purified energy in Reisen's direction. The blast flew straight over her, causing her to flinch just slightly, only to blast the countryside behind her. Reisen reached up and laid a finger on her earpiece.

"Confirmed. The angel seems to believe my illusions are real, that wasn't just a fluke."

"Affirmative. Illusion vaporized. Next!"

Reisen wiped some dirt off of her suit jacket, watching with a completely flat expression as the angel paused. It'd be more efficient, and spare more lives if she just use her illusions, but Misato had to be sure, didn't she?

She let out a breath. Reisen could manipulate wavelengths and induce insanity, even to the angels. Well, only for a second with the angels, before getting lost in the angel's alien mind started to harm her more than it. She'd even offered to get closer under cover, to manipulate the angel's mind directly, but Misato had insisted otherwise. The job of the head alchemist now was just making illusions on the fields of Tokyo-3's countryside.

The angel flung a laser in another direction. Reisen's comms crackled to life with Aoba's voice. "Type 12 self-propelled mortar vaporized!"

And Misato's response? "I see that. Head Alchemist Inaba-"

"Returning now." She flipped her sunglasses open with a flick of her wrist and put them on, before walking back towards one of the myriad secret elevators to get down to the Geofront. During the slow walk back, Reisen found herself hoping that Misato's plan was a good one. Then, when she realized she was not only expecting with certainty that Misato would have a plan but also that it would work, she shook her head like she was trying to shake the thought off of her.

She was too distracted to see the Angel behind her deflect the Type 12's blast like it was nothing, with an AT-field strong enough to be seen by the naked eye.

o0o

Misato was about halfway to a plan.

In her defense, that was still lightning-quick. It'd taken Reisen less time than expected to get back so she didn't exactly have a wealth of time. Nonetheless, they'd all piled into Junko's office, to deliver a half-briefing-to-Reisen-half-plan. Along with her and Misato stood Makoto Hyuuga, who had increasingly become Misato's unofficial number two, and sat in front of them all at her desk sat Junko herself. Commander Ikari stood behind them, looming over the conversation but also looking rather awkward, standing for a conversation not suiting the man.

"…in conclusion, all forms of conventional weaponry at our disposal: Guided missiles, bombs, and artillery have proven ineffective. Whichever non-conventional weapons currently at our disposal, including several abilities and magical items we possess, have also failed to halt the angel's advance. The fifth angel appears to be planning a direct attack on the Geofront once it finishes drilling through our defenses, which it is now doing and will be finished doing at approximately 00:06 tomorrow morning." His piece said, Hyuuga stepped back. Misato, standing in front of the group of three, murmured out a thank you before turning to Reisen, who has standing ramrod straight at both commanders' presence.

"What is the condition of Units 00 and 01? We need to get through that AT Field."

"Unit-01's third armour plate was completely melted through. We have spare purified plates, but it'll take around three hours to switch them out. We're lucky it isn't worse, three more seconds and… Both Oni and pilot would have been unsalvageable. Unit-00…"

Maya Ibuki, Reisen's second in command, stepped forward as she stepped back. "Unit-00 is still experiencing errors in feedback. Reimu's sync ratio remains unstable and heightened emotion seems to be the exception, not the rule."

"So, in an actual battle…"

Misato completed the thought. "She'd be better served fighting something like the first two angels, but in a technical fight like this she could throw a wrench in everything. Well, what's the status of Unit-01's pilot?"

And Hyuuga's turn to speak came again. "He's physically fine. His pulse is .8 and rising, although not outside acceptable limits, and his…" he let out a sigh. "chakras are realigning."

Misato nodded, finally seeming sure. Maybe she'd finished formulating her plan in just that instant. "Well, he has a little under ten hours to wake up, and we can't even do anything with Unit-01 for the next three."

"Very good." Junko finally spoke up, sending a shiver down the four employee's spines. "However, may I ask why you've all come to me? I need a plan, not a dialogue."

"Oh don't worry, I have a plan. I've already gotten two yeses and one conditional yes from the Magi," Reisen's ears twitched at the realization that Misato had used the Magi behind her back, "and I believe our best shot is the use of an ultra-long-distance shot aimed directly at the enemy from outside its range. As I doubt we can negate the angel's A.T. field, a piercing shot of approximately one hundred and eighty Gigawatts of pure energy will definitely be enough to… 'contaminate' its purity."

Junko's lips twitched, almost forming a smile before quashing it. Oddly, it was Gendo who spoke next, rather than Junko. He usually wasn't the one responding for both of them. "How will you fire a single shot of such magnitude, Captain Katsuragi?"

"Why, I already have a way to do that. The JSSDF's experimental positron rifle program-"

Misato stopped when she noticed Reisen stiffen at its mention. She raised an eyebrow, but cleared her throat and continued. "The JSSDF's experimental positron rifle program has been known to us for some time, and I, for one, have known that as recently as two months ago they were working on it. Now, requisitioning it should be-"

"The JSSDF's positron rifle program was shuttered five weeks ago. Our most recent reports indicate that the funding and equipment were merged into the budget of the arms manufactory company NERV." Gendo, once again surprisingly, was the one to say it. He said it while staring at Reisen, an interrogative stare of 'why doesn't she know about this?'

"NERV? Rits'- wait, why wasn't I told about this?"

"Do not forget your clearance level, Captain Katsuragi. Aside from any leaks to the general public," 'which is how you know about this at all' went unsaid. "information pertaining to NERV is on a need-to-know basis. You now need to know of the positron rifle." That clearly wasn't the end of the conversation, but the rest of it would presumably be had in Reisen's next performance review. Nonetheless, Misato was just left to stand still, almost frozen. She'd gone pale.

"Ah… there's no positron gun?"

Then, to everyone's shock, Junko stood up. She walked past her desk, walking with the same practiced grace of a woman who almost seemed formless, and then walked past Misato, Hyuuga, Reisen and Maya. Only when she'd passed them, she said "Misato, with me." Rather clumsily, nearly tripping over her shrine maiden uniform, Misato followed.

Then, Misato realized that her commander was walking towards the Geofront's car elevators. "Commander?" Misato tried to hide the fact she'd never actually gotten Junko's surname.

"Are you familiar with the Moriya shrine's location?"

"Sure! I drive past it a lot."

"Very good. You will be driving me there."

"N-now?" Misato stopped in her tracks, prompting Junko to do the same. When her commander looked back at her, Misato felt almost more unnerved by the gaze she received than at the suggestion. Junko was smiling that flat, emotionless, soulless smile. Even at her desk, she had bothered to wear a neutral expression. "But the Moriya Shrine is in the middle of town! Won't we be within range of the angel?"

"If it did not fire upon Inaba, it will not fire upon us. Perhaps it cannot see such small things as humans. Regardless, we must go to the Moriya Shrine." Junko's joyless smile only widened. "After all, they possess something you need."

o0o

"Should we have left?"

"Nah. Sanae's safe, and that's all that matters." Kanako passed a mug of coffee to her co-god. Suwako took one sip, and spit it out. "Gehh… I don't get how you can drink this stuff black!"

"What can I say, I like my coffee Qian (lacking sweetness)!" Kanako laughed at her own stupid, untranslatable joke as she passed a plate of sugar cubes to Kanako. Her partner took one with a sign.

"I still hate that you got addicted to this stuff. Whatever happened to tea?"

"Well, coffee wakes me up more. And… we're gonna have to be awake for this."

"Yes…" Suwako looked out from their shrine's position. It was on an elevated hill in Tokyo-3, in fact the very mountain that Kanako had brought with her, but that didn't give them the high ground. It only gave them a better view of Ramiel hovering over them, casting them in shadow as it drilled through the ground, presumably towards the Geofront. Towards humanity's destruction. "It's a pain that the human world has gotten so violent. Shame that you dragged us to the epicentre of that violence, too."

"H-hey! I didn't know the mortals were gonna pick a fight with the Lunarians! I just brought us to where the faith was, you can't blame me for that!"

"Yes, well, it doesn't matter now." Suwako had sugared her coffee to her liking and finally took a full sip. "We'll have to fight it soon. Have you recalled Reiuji?"

"Yes. A goddess must protect her shrine, and for that I cannot spare a single resource. That Satori's a good girl for letting me borrow her pet so often."

"What if we could give you a better plan than just running up to it and hitting it?"

The two had been standing on their steps, looking straight upwards, and so hadn't noticed the car pulling up nor the two women's arrival. Kanako almost fell over when she heard Misato's voice, and when her head shot back down only to lock eyes with Junko, she swallowed her coffee and started choking. Suwako started patting her on the back.

"Hello, Kanako. It seems that you were correct. I need to speak with your associate. The one who, I believe, 'could wield the power of a fusion reactor'?"

The woman Junko had come with held her expression well. It was a sign of her professionalism that she wasn't reacting at all to a statement such as that, and as a conversation as insane as this one was bound to be. Kanako, despite herself, smirked a little at that. Another shrine maiden, but at least this one was an adult. Nonetheless. "Well, have you reconsidered my proposal?"

"I'm afraid not. Regardless, we will be taking your associate. Summon her here."

"She is already coming. However, she is loyal to me and me alone! I'm afraid when she comes, she'll probably blast through you. That is, if I'm not already done with you." Kanako handed her cup to Suwako, who sighed and went inside. She then snapped her fingers, summoning four massive Onbashira and seemingly giving life to the massive shimenawa rope behind them, animating it only to have it tie itself into a loop behind its god and master. With the regalia complete, Kanako almost looked like a battleship, pointing its mighty cannons at the two interlopers. Neither woman seemed phased. "Brave, eh?"

"Heh, nope!" Misato smiled widely. "You just won't launch a single attack. Sorry, a single danmaku."

"And what makes you say that, shrine maiden?"

"That." She pointed upward at the angel. It was almost eerily silent, its impossible ability to hover without a sound nearly letting it go forgotten. "Why do you think the angel hasn't fired at you two? Why do you think it didn't fire at us when we drove straight under it?"

"Well, perhaps one side of this ridiculous Earth-Moon conflict knows not to annoy the gods of Yamato."

Junko's blank smile didn't change one bit at the obvious barb, and neither did Misato's. She just shook her head. "It only fires at things that directly threaten it. We can't just let it live, it's drilling straight into the Geofront and is going to kill us all eventually, but as humans, or even as gods, we're harmless. It doesn't know anything more than that, so it won't know intent if we, say, start fighting and actually hit it. Now, do you trust yourself to not accidentally hit it?"

Kanako looked up again, at the angel taking up the vast majority of the sky. There was something to be said about teenage shrine maidens; they usually couldn't get one over on you that easily. "You still can't 'have' my associate. Not that it'll matter, once she's here she'll be able to destroy that thing with a single shot."

"Without the angel firing a revenge shot directly at your shrine?"

There was a pause. How the hell was Kanako supposed to admit she hadn't thought of that? Not with words, of course. Her silence, and her neutral, if quickly reddening, face did the talking. Misato's smile got a smug quality, and Junko's blank smile finally got some emotion in it. Not joy, mind you. Merely smug, shit-eating satisfaction as she closed her eyes and tilted her head.

"We will be taking your associate to a position on Mount Futago, where she will be firing as many blasts as it takes while being held and protected by Onis Unit-00 and Unit-01. As the shot will be coming from across Lake Ashi, we believe the angel will not fall on your shrine. And in case you still want to argue:" Misato handed a piece of paper to Kanako, who was obviously tired of the interaction. The paper itself contained a requisition order. "As of fifteen-hundred hours today, Utsuho Reiuji is now a ward of the state, and any associated weapons have similarly been requisitioned under TOUHOU special forces until the time after which the enemy is defeated. Commander Junko and I will be waiting here until Ms. Reiuji arrives. Thank you for your cooperation."

o0o

Shinji finally began to stir only when the sun had started to set. For a while, even though he was nominally awake, he didn't want to open his eyes and confront the outside world. The world that seemed to do nothing but inflict pain.

"You're bad at faking, you know."

He hadn't even heard anyone come in, and the surprise of a voice had him shoot up, although he immediately regretted it. "H-Hakurei? …Bad at faking what?"

Indeed, Hakurei- er, Reimu was sitting next to his his hospital bed. She must have been there a while. "Bad at fake sleeping. I don't think they're gonna let you sleep through the angel attack. If they did, I'd have tried it."

"I wasn't…" Wasn't he? "Sorry…"

"Why are you apologizing? Anyways, here." She lobbed a bundle of clothes at him, and he caught it.

"What are these- AH!" He was buck-naked! He quickly bunched the blankets around him as he lay back down, apologizing all the way. Reimu snorted, and spun to face away.

"They're new clothes. Well, spare clothes. They had to cut you out of your old pair when… when your heart stopped."

Shinji nervously looked down and placed a hand on his chest, failing to notice Reimu's body language as he felt for his heartbeat. When he looked back up, he only focused on the clothes, which he then began putting on. "What even are these? Is this… a Shrine priest's outfit?"

"It's just a robe-" Actually, it was a Shrine priests' outfit, if as much as Reimu's was a Shrine maiden's. It had a blue Jōe, a large, poncho-like shirt, but Shinji's was far smaller than the usual form, with it almost hugging his body. Underneath it he had a white set of pants and an undershirt, both of which looking more practical than traditional. He'd also been given a black, conical eboshi hat, but he was just staring bewilderedly at it in his hands. When he looked back to Reimu for answers, she floundered. "It's- uh, it was from Misato. Ask her."

"O-okay!"

The two expectantly looked towards the door, waiting for Misato to burst in, but when she didn't, silence quickly took back over. Reimu cleared her throat. "Anyways, the plan. Misato says we gotta be ready at '1730' and that we'll be activating our Onis, and moving to Mount Niko at '1800'." She looked at Shinji expectantly. He sighed, and offered to take the booklet that Reimu had been given obviously as an afterthought. She handed it over.

"It… it says Mount Futago, not Mount Niko. And these are military times, so…" He looked at a clock hanging on the wall opposite to them. They were starting in an hour. Reimu looked at the clock with a strange, sort of vacant expression. She looked sort of lost. "Are you okay?"

"Wh-yeah! I… uh… there's no eighteen on the clock."

Reimu couldn't read analogue clocks. Shinji tried not to giggle at least a little at the realization, even if it made sense. How long had she even been visiting the world outside Gensokyo? "Reimu, we start in an hour."

"I know that." She lied. "Anyways, have some food, too. It's western stuff, but it isn't that bad, and it's free."

"I like western food…"

"Uh… right."

He ate in silence, as Reimu took the seat next to him. The diminishing sunlight made it hard to fully enjoy the (admittedly hard to enjoy at the best of times) hospital food, since all he could really think about was time running out. Time in the day, time before they'd have to sortie… time before he would have to confront the angel again. Having the exact play-by-play plotted out in a booklet, almost staring at him while he ate, certainly didn't help.

His eyes drifted over to the clock. They left in sixty minutes. Fifty-nine.

"Reimu?"

"Yeah, what's up?"

He wanted to complain about the angel. He wanted to beg Reimu to pilot alone, to face the angel alone, which she would have. He didn't want to deploy again. He didn't want to have himself carved to bits, have his head feel like it was caved in and rotting away, or feel like he was being burnt through like an ant under a magnifying glass. He wanted to shove off everything to her. Take that little black book which planned for him to stand in front of a 'human-sized object' with a shield while Reimu stood behind it higher up, and just rip it and its plans to shreds.

But Shinji remembered when they'd found her in the mansion, nearly getting killed under a hail of knives and talking like she'd done that sort of thing before. She'd already done this, and she'd probably already felt pain like that, hadn't she? So, the want to make Reimu fight for him died in his throat. And in its stead, he asked…

"Why do you pilot, if it causes you so much pain?"

"Because I have to keep things as they are." The answer was instant, and had Shinji turn his head in shock. Reimu was stonefaced. It's like the answer was so obvious that she didn't even have to think to give it. "Because if I don't solve incidents, they'll remain unsolved. Gensokyo will change… everything will change… and it shouldn't. It's the Hakurei Shrine maiden's job to deal with incidents. The fact that it's come to using giant robots and making fourteen year olds do half the work is already bad enough, huh?" She forced a bit of a grin but it was completely joyless. Then, she stood up, and left without another word.

o0o

"Wowie! I didn't know that the world above was this bright!"

"Actually, it's usually even brighter- please don't stare at the industrial floodlights, you'll go blind."

Utsuho Reiuji was truly a force to be reckoned with. Kanako wasn't kidding, she had truly given the power of the sun, or at least the power over nuclear fusion and fission, to this hell crow. Utsuho had the power of the mythical Yatagarasu within herself, and she would be an important asset for TOUHOU, hopefully into the future.

She was also an idiot. It was endearing, more than anything; It reminded Misato of Cirno, but it was a little less adorable when Utsuho was obviously a fully grown adult, and also was alleged to have as much power as a nuclear bomb somewhere inside her stature. Christ, the woman was tall, too.

All in all, Misato hadn't enjoyed babysitting her ever since they had gotten back from the Moriya shrine. The birdbrain had mostly understood the why of why she'd be working with TOUHOU tonight, just not the… TOUHOU part. Once again, it was like Cirno, a complete Gensokyo isolate who had still managed vague grasps of modern technology and culture up through the Meiji period, but was otherwise mostly at a loss with the modern world. Hence, Misato hoping she wouldn't get radiation poisoning by covering Utsuho's eyes with an arm.

"You'll go blind if you look at bright lights like that for too long. Come on, you'll be getting your orders soon!"

"But it's so bright, it reminds me of my [ultimate power]… orders? Oh, do you guys want me to do something?"

"Yes. As we discussed in the car…"

"Is that what that was about? I thought you were talking about me!" She looked unduly smug about 'deducing' that.

"I was talking to you."

"You weren't looking at me, though!"

"I WAS DRIVING! Ugh…" Misato buried her head in her hands, and tried to ignore Reisen's uncontrollable laughing. Unsurprisingly, Junko hadn't been able to stomach much more than the car ride with their little WMD in a dress, and had pawned her fully onto Misato at her first opportunity, going off to "handle operations." Misato, for reference, Misato was the tactical operations commander, and the current operation was literally right here. Without their bosses nearby applying pressure, even Reisen couldn't keep a straight face forever.

"Laugh it up, fuzzball. You're the one who'll have to deal with her if we ever actually want to use her for energy."

"Oh! You guys wanna use me for energy?"

Reisen started laughing all over again. Misato found herself in desperate need of literally any distraction, fortunately found one when her two pilots arrived. "Shinji! Looking good!" She punctuated it with a thumbs up, finally getting her own moment to laugh as he flustered and stammered out something inconsequential about his new duds. Misato would never say it, but she could barely even see how they looked against the harsh floodlights. The only reason she could even tell them apart was because of Reimu's signature bow, but Shinji could use the confidence boost. "Anyways, now that we're all here, we can begin! Shinji, Reimu, this is Utsuho Reiuji. She will be the energy source we'll be using to destroy the angel."

There was a beat as the pilots' reactions were swallowed up by the blaring lights. Shinji was the first to react, or at least the first who's reaction Misato could actually tell was happening. "What do you mean by that? Does she… like… know how to beat the angel?"
"Yes. You two will be shielding her with halves of a giant shield, as it will likely take her several seconds to charge, and recharge if she misses."

"Actually…" Reisen was still short of breath from laughing. "We took them off of the space shuttle. Or, it was a space shuttle, and then after second impact, NERV used it for a while for SSTO flights. We split it in half for both of you, and you are both to use it purely to defend Ms. Reiuji. Do not attempt to deflect any shots unless they are aimed at either her or either of your Onis, especially since they may not withstand the target's counterattacks for more than a single shot."

Misato nodded and continued. "Reimu, you'll be standing in front of Utsuho, to intercept any innitial attacks- if they come- from the angel. Shinji, since your sync ratio is higher, you'll be positioned behind her to catch any attacks that may manage to get past Reimu. Utsuho will be between the both of you… yes, Utsuho?" The woman was waving the arm encased in the Yatagerasu's third leg like she was raising it.

"You mentioned that the target contains a Tokamak reactor within it on the drive here. How many kilowatts of energy approximately does it generate and/or will be needed to damage it?"

"Oh, um-" She was taken back by Utsuho asking such a smart question, and looked to Reisen for an answer. Reisen shrugged. "We intended to use the entire power of Japan in a single concentrated shot." Utsuho nodded along, she was acually following along.

"Okay. And how can these two shield me? They're so short!"

Nevermind. It was another display of Misato's professionalism that she didn't facepalm in response. "Pilots Hakurei and Ikari will be piloting Onis." When Utsuho's face lit up, she continued. "…Giant robots that we call Onis." And there the expression went, vanishing like dust in the wind. "Any further questions? From any of you?"

"Do I get a giant robot, too?"

"No. Now, go prepare, the three of you."

o0o

There was always a terrible sense of anticipation before battles started like this. Shinji couldn't tell if it was better or worse when they had a physical clock counting down, right in front of their faces. Midnight was almost here. All they could do now was sit in their cockpits and wait.

"Begin."

It wasn't noticeable at first, without the floodlights to light them up it was really dark on Mount Futago's twin peaks, too dark to notice the human-sized hell raven between them devouring a brick of Plutonium like it was a cake. Then, she started to glow. First like someone had lit a single christmas light between the two Onis, then like a white campfire, then as bright as a white bonfire. Through comms, which Shinji found himself focusing on for no other reason than that Utsuho was starting to hurt his eyes, someone yelled "Fission confirmed! Energy building!"

The seconds ticking by, as they watched their energy source slowly warm up while they just waited for the angel to blast them all to Xanadu whenever it deigned to, were agony. The unsure feeling that it was all already over, and that they were just waiting for it to be made so.

The only thing that filled the agonizing wait was the crackle of comms. It was Utsuho, and despite the staticy crackle of her already dying earpiece, the call out of "halfway there" was relieving in it of itself. They were halfway done with this nightmare.

And then, the agony ended, only to be replaced with a waking nightmare. Their ears were deafened by Maya's frantic report through comms: "High energy reaction detected within the target!"

It was now or never. Reimu squared herself behind her half of the shield, and Shinji held his high. Utsuho started flapping up, glowing like the sun as a boiling red energy started to coagulate around her arm cannon. Utsuho had accidentally left her comms open, so everyone, both the two pilots and all of the TOUHOU personnel at headquarters, could hear her call the name of her spell card.

Blazing Star - "Ten Evil Suns"

And the world lit up.

Utsuho truly held the power of the Yatagarasu within herself, for the blast she sent might as well have been the sun coming to Earth, no, ten suns, blasting out of her arm cannon like beads of molten glass being pinched from a whole into marbles of pure, superheated energy. They danced around each other as they flew straight at the angel with an almost godlike, unstoppable power. Ten roaring suns against a single child of the moon.

Then, the angel responded in turn. There was nothing glamorous, nothing awe-inspiring, nothing beautiful in the way of danmaku, in the angel's answer to Utsuho's spell card. As simple as its appearance, the Octahedron only responded with a single laser of purified energy. It threaded straight through nine of the suns in a single instant, with the energy interference causing the remaining one to fly off into space, as if it was clipped and knocked off its path. The beam headed straight for them, straight for Utsuho, only for Reimu to catch it with her shield, a hideous bubbling, boiling sound taking over the world as that shield proved as useful as a piece of cardboard in a flood. The beam wasn't long-lasting enough to reach past her shield, but that shield was toast.

Their communications lines were pandemonium, and they could only just barely make out Misato's call of "Utsuho! Shoot it again!" Which was only answered by Utsuho an agonizing second later.

"Reloading! But I can't fly, my wing was clipped!"

"Crap! We'll have to- SHIT!"

It was obvious why she was saying that. Before Utsuho was even glowing, the angel lit up again, and this beam was not just for dispelling false suns. It shot straight at Utsuho, and it was going to go through Reimu's Oni to get there. When the world lit up, Reimu suddenly realized she would die here. Truly die. She had no shield, and in a giant technological monster like this she couldn't dodge even if she wanted to let the hell raven behind her die. This was-

Then, the light winked out. Reimu honestly thought she'd just died, but no, the light was being blocked by a shield.

Shinji's shield. And the boy's Oni was just behind it, taking the brunt of the concentrated, pure energy blast. Even as it started to carve through his shield. Even as it got through that shield and started to carve through him.

Explosion Sign - "Peta Flare"

She'd been far too distracted by what was happening in front of her to even register Utsuho, but the raven's second blast didn't disappoint. A stream, no, an inundation of popping, crackling spheres of pure energy struggling to even support their own cohesion under the power they contained. The flood, emerging from her arm cannon before fanning out, eventually became so thick that it might as well have been a single, pouring flow, blasting past the angel's beam, past even its AT field, and, like it wasn't even there, past the angel. Or more specifically, through it. It was less like being shot by a gun, and more like being dissolved by acid. The angel was simply gone. Reimu could already hear the hollers of celebration whooping through comms, but that sound was drowned out by the pounding in her ears as she ran over to Shinji's heavily-burnt Oni. Without even a word, without being able to hear anything through the blood pounding through her head, she ripped open Oni-01's neck, removed the partially-melted entry plug, and lowered it to the ground as gently as she could before popping her own entry plug and flying straight to Shinji's.

"Shinji? Shinji!" The door to the entry plug wouldn't open- Shinji wasn't opening it. Shinji couldn't open it. He could be knocked out, he could have brain damage, Reimu rummaged through her robes, looking for anything to open the stupid door, but she had nothing, Shinji could be dead, Reimu had no options, He's just a Human, you should have protected him, and then Reimu grabbed the stupid door with her hands, twisting it and trying her best to ignore the awful feeling of her hands melting, until the plug gave way.

Shinji was alive, even as bad as the entry plug around him looked. He was lying there, looking upwards with a vacant expression, but still alive. Why had he even done that? Why had he dove in front of her?

"Shinji?"

Hearing his name, he focused, and made eye contact with his savior. "Rei…mu?"

She nodded her head, wiping away something that had been irritating her eye. "Why did you do that? You could have gotten killed! Again!"

"Because… I had to save you."

"I- I didn't need-"

"Someone needs to protect you, too…" And with that, Shinji slipped away again, slumping over with a couple more coughs, before going back to breathing as softly as a feather. He had taken the brunt of the fire himself, and it showed. Reimu sighed, and the tension finally released.

o0o

bip… bip… bip…

Shinji wondered if he was getting too used to the hospital. Had this been the third time? He sighed.

He'd definitely been here enough times to discover a pattern. He'd wake up to the sounds of the TV, or the somewhat cool light of the midday sun pouring through the hospital's giant, slightly tinted windows. He'd sit up, rubbing his eyes, maybe remark about how familiar the ceiling was, say something else, and Reimu would respond with something snarky, revealing she'd been waiting there to chastise or interrogate him. He sighed.

"Reimu?"

Utsuho responded casually. "Nah, but she'll be back."

Shinji slumped back into bed, noticed the disparity, and shot back up to meet the eyes of the hell raven sitting in the chair Reimu usually occupied, not a care in the world. Well, not exactly. Although Utsuho was sitting with her hands on her legs like a well-behaved schoolchild, she had a pretty big bandage on her forehead, and a wrap nearly taking up the entire length of one of her wings, making it look like a yin-yang when contrasted with the other. She, like Shinji, wearing a hospital gown, although she was a little too big for it.

"Did you…"

"Did I what?"

"Your wounds… did you… get them from the angel?"

She seemed like she'd completely forgotten that she was hurt until Shinji pointed it out. "Oh! That angel sure was tough, huh? I was honoured to fight another wielder of the ultimate energy, Fusion power. I feel bad that I had to use fission to match it, but I think it was for the best." She talked about using fusion and fission power like it was nothing, like it was throwing a punch in a fight! Even now, Shinji could still be caught off-guard by what came out of Gensokyo.

"Right, right. Reisen's actually pretty mad that you did such a number on the angel, you gave her nothing to work with." Reimu walked into Shinji's room, joining the conversation as she did. She was, for once, wearing a hospital gown. The three of them were a matched set.

"Reimu? What happened?"

Reimu, with an embarrassed blush, presented her hands. Her bandaged hands. "Your Oni's entry plug gets really hot apparently. When I tried to open it, I damaged my hands. It apparently wouldn't have been as bad if I was wearing gloves, so now the big shots are talking about making us wear combat stuff." She said the last part with a sigh, almost as if not being allowed to wear work clothes in the Oni was worse than burning her hands badly enough to end up in the hospital.

"Why didn't you use a spell card?"

"Ah… It was pretty stressful, and when you're solving incidents you have to think quick… it doesn't matter about getting things perfectly right if you don't get them done quick… eh…" Reimu obviously just didn't think to do it in the moment. Shinji couldn't help but giggle a little.

"What's so funny?" Reimu and Utsuho actually asked it at the same time, although their tones were obviously different.

"Nothing… I'm just waiting for Reimu to start yelling at me again."

"Why would Reimu yell at you?"

The titular shrine maiden got even more embarrassed at that. Shinji just laughed again. "She doesn't want me to pilot, since she thinks it's a shrine maiden's job."

"Hakurei shrine maiden's. And-"

"But you guys were both so good out there! You shielded me from the concentrated fusion blast, and then when she was about to be blasted you dove in front of her and stopped the laser even though it was like Woooosh! Boom! And then I was like Bwaaaaaaaang and… I don't know how you guys got so big or found that giant armour, but I don't know if I woulda been okay if you guys weren't there. Both of ya!"

That had shut Reimu up, apparently. And Shinji too, since he was still as unused to praise as ever. Utsuho immediately lost focus, grabbing the remote and turning on some kid's cartoon that immediately caught her attention, her face lighting up as the two pilots looked at her, then back to eachother, with confusion and a little bit of concern for the bird's mental state.

"Does she… work with us now?" Reimu shrugged, but Utsuho, surprisingly, responded.

"Nuh uh, I'll go home soon enough. Miss Kanako still needs me in hell… it's too cold here, anyways, and you TOUHOU guys keep giving me annoying letters."

She pulled out a vertically-folded letter and gave it to Reimu. "This isn't a letter, it's a job offer-" Then she read it and almost fainted, handing the letter to Shinji. When he got to the price that Utsuho was being offered, the exorbitant price, he could only laugh again.