Cute walked barefoot through the ashes of a dead world. She had a strict policy of non-intervention until after death, so there was nothing she could do to save the Earth from itself. The Muslim population had grown innately in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Russia and Europe. It also took over whole new regions via the liberals' bright idea of open borders immigration into the Anglosphere and elsewhere. Meanwhile the populations of other nations had continuously sunk due to feminism, resulting in the relative balance of power shifting to Islam's favor. After inheriting the nuclear arsenal of Russia, the USA and Europe via majority democratic vote and declaring itself the Caliphate, it demanded the entire rest of the world surrender or perish in holy flame. To be fair, they weren't wholly motivated by religion. The black-Muslim billions, who had already wrecked their own countries due to a combination of socialism, incompetence and corruption, would have starved to death without plundering the outside world's economies for their endless needs, so they would've done the exact same thing regardless.
China responded with a slew of bioweapons targeting both crops and humans that its own region had been given immunities to on the outside world, its population too small and aged to counter the surging Islamic hordes in conventional war. The Muslims had countered with the thousands of nuclear warheads Russia and the USA had set aside for each other, and East/Southeast Asia had disappeared in nuclear fire. The survivors of the worldwide conflagration had then died of hunger as nuclear winter prevented any crop growth and bioweapons killed off all remaining feedstock.
The pitiful space stations and otherworld colonies that had begun to develop also starved or froze or suffocated to death for lack of continuous additional supplies from Earth. They hadn't prioritized self sufficiency and paid the price. The same was true of any submarine crews.
A few humans had survived using hydroponics and underground caves with nuclear fission as their fuel, but the diseases and radiation had rendered them sterile, or too isolated to find enough others to start a community with, and so they had simply given up and overdosed on drugs. Heck, that was common even before the cataclysm.
It was odd wandering across the Earth and seeing nothing green left. The plants hadn't received any sunlight in nearly a decade and all wilted away. The animals had all starved for lack of plants. All that was left were some bottom feeding fungi and bacteria.
She had checked and double checked, but the very last humans had passed through her afterlife sorting system earlier this afternoon. It had been a 15 year old girl and her 12 year old sister who had been living in a secure bunker, the children of some Chinese bigwig. There had been food for another fifty years but they had agreed to commit mutual suicide knowing that no matter how long they lived together no children would come of it, and no one was left to come to their rescue.
There was no prospect for re-evolution in the time period remaining for the Earth. In just a billion years, the sun would grow too hot, vaporizing the oceans and then annihilating the atmosphere, hard boiling the Earth like an egg into a perfectly lifeless corpse. That was even before it went red giant.
No, Earth's tale was done. The souls of mankind had all been dealt with as she saw mete. Some were given new lives in new worlds, some had been given special bonuses due to Cute being partial to them, some were sent to Hell to be tortured for some indistinct period until they a) realized the error of their ways and b) paid for the harm they had done others, many were reincarnated with no memory of their previous lives (a blessing in most cases), and many more were simply annihilated as being too tired, worn out or dysfunctional to have any additional use.
The souls of Earth were judged according to Cute's sense of justice. There were no further appeals and no law codes people could rely upon that would guide her decision making. If she didn't like someone, if she found them offensive, after watching them across the entirety of their lives, they received a bad fate. If she liked someone, if she found them attractive, after watching them across the entirety of their lives, they received a good fate. And if she found people uninteresting they received a mediocre fate.
She had been spinning out inhabited universes for a long time now, rewarding her most favored champions with playgrounds of their own, in the hopes that they would found good worlds with good life trajectories due to their founder's virtue. The loss of Earth did not come as a major blow to her. Yes, there had been a lot of people on Earth, but it still represented less than 1% of mankind's total population. It was not the first planet to die out and it would not be the last. She had gotten used to seeing every possible manner of human ugliness that could be imagined coming to fruition. But she had also seen every manner of human goodness play out time and time again across the many worlds. Love, beauty, truth, justice, grace, courage, piety, temperance, stoicism, kindness, curiosity, playfulness, discipline, teamwork, altruism, perseverance, delight, joy, righteousness. . . Her omniscience meant she had seen it all, despite having done nothing to force them down the right path.
Which meant their sparks of divine goodness were just as brilliant as her own. And she loved and admired the mortal race despite their flaws.
Cute did not know when she had originally come to be. Before she knew it, she was, already formed in full, already with omnipotent faculties. She had come to be in a deep, dark void, with nothing outside of herself to interact with. It had been dreadfully dull for an infinite intellect, so she quickly decided to see what she could do to decorate the place. Her conclusion was that there needed to be sentient life, much like her own, that could make its own decisions about how they wished to live, so that she could always be interested in what they did next, and that it would be her job to punish the wicked and reward the just such that her life garden subtly but surely grew ever more resplendent with time.
It had taken billions of years for the universe to be born and life to evolve to sentience, so she had simply set her alarm clock and gone to sleep until the Neolithic Age where humans started getting their act together. After that she'd diligently been tracking the life and handling the afterlife of all her creations, a project that had managed to entertain her for tens of thousands of years.
The name she had given herself hadn't originally been Cute, it had been Amsynth. But she had been given many names by many people who worshiped her on many worlds, and she didn't mind humoring each of them with their own denominations. What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and so on.
Divine intervention was too powerful an impact on an established world, so if people wanted her blessings they had to do it on whole new worlds where her power couldn't disrupt people's previous free will decisions. This meant that everyone she had favored with an outrageous wish was also forced to build up their habitat from scratch. Of course, if someone had asked to be of average strength in a magical world, it was fine to insert them into one of her preexisting planes. But Christopher's wish had been especially ridiculous. Sailor Moon's Silver Crystal was powerful enough to destroy the entire universe, much less the abilities of his other wives, which he demanded all be translated intact and in full to his next life.
Earth was her first creation, and she had let its sentient inhabitants, modeled after her in mind, body and soul but not power and scope, do whatever they wanted with it. It had not been founded by a hand-picked primogeniture like her other projects. So she didn't exactly feel disappointed by their implosion. She hadn't expected much from them in the first place, except as a way to test souls that would then go on to greater things in other worlds. They had all started off as worms after all, so how much could you ask of them?
Earth had done its job, and she, their Creator, had done her job, and that's all there was to it.
Cute slapped her cheeks as she gazed forlornly at the devastation from the top of Mt. Everest, with only gray skies above and white snow below. The world was a hazy formless mirage in all directions. There was nothing left to see here.
"Right. It's time for a vacation." Cute said to herself. She froze time on all planes outside of Eden and relinquished her duties as God for the nonce. She wanted to spend some time healing her aching heart from the loss of her first child, Gaia, and she knew just the place and just the person to do it with. She had already received a plenitude of heartfelt invitations and heart-throbbing confessions from her favorite, so he shouldn't mind. After tens of thousands of years, she felt justified indulging herself for a bit.
Cute teleported to her Shrine and hopped off the altar, her white wings fluttering as they glided her bare feet gently to the wooden floor. "Kita-yo. Asobi mashou!" She said in as cheerful a voice as she could manage.
Kagome opened the sliding screen door adorned with paintings of various flowers and her mouth dropped in shock. Repressing her general tomboyishness, she dropped into dogeza position. "Cute-sama, we're graced by your presence!"
"Umu," Cute nodded regally. "You have done a great job as my miko. The shrine looks great. I'll be moving in here for now, so you can serve as my attendant from here on."
"As you wish." Kagome said with her forehead to the ground.
"This is a convenient time, so I'll ask you now, would it be okay if I married Christopher too?" Cute asked hopefully.
"I think that's something that would require everyone's opinion." Kagome couldn't keep up with the pace of events.
"Of course I'll be asking their permission too, but I just wanted to know how you felt since you're already here." Cute responded.
"I don't think it would make any difference, at this point." Kagome sighed. "100, 101, what does it matter? Besides, the two of you met before any of us so if anything we should be asking for permission to impose on the two of you. . ."
"I hoped you would say something like that. Of course, I modified your personalities to be fine with polygamy from the beginning, so. . ." Cute trailed off, tapping her lip. "Oh, you can get up now, if we're all going to be wives of the same man then I'd prefer to be treated like a sister and a friend than a Goddess."
"Thank you." Kagome said, standing up and brushing off her knees. "I'm not actually good at bowing and scraping, even though I was chosen to be your priestess."
"I'm your Creator, you all didn't exist except as storybook characters before me, so I'd like to know -- are you glad to be alive?" Cute asked.
"Indubitably." Kagome responded with fierce affirmation. "All the more so now that I know Christopher wasn't making that part up. In my memory my whole past life was real, so it was always jarring to wonder if he hadn't just abducted us all here, even given all the source work evidence."
"I trusted him to treat you all well, based on what I'd seen up until the day he died, so I thought it would be okay to let him live it up a little." Cute justified herself to the abducted, brainwashed and modified bride.
"I have a question for you then." Kagome responded. "If he'd asked for one or two wives, would you still have stranded us on this deserted planet?"
"No." Cute replied. "If you couldn't live happily ever after, I would have made other arrangements. But I thought a fresh start was what Christopher truly wanted, and I trusted you guys could work something out, so I granted his wish behind the wish."
"Then another question, why does God wish to marry Christopher of all things?" Kagome asked what perhaps should have been her first question.
"Because I want a child too!" Cute pouted. "All of you just keep making more and more and I've never even had one."
"Err, that might explain the marriage part, but Christopher remains an enigma. . ." Kagome responded. Were children really something that enviable?
"Christopher is my favorite person in all the multiverse, so of course I'd prefer marrying him over any other." Cute nodded to herself convincedly.
"I have an excuse to love Christopher. You input the long relationship I had built up with Inuyasha as in truth being my relationship with him, and then banned any questioning of this feeling, so I've felt like our marriage was a natural and foregone conclusion from the beginning. But what's your excuse for wanting to be one among 100 wives to a lecherous otaku?" Kagome asked.
Cute smiled to herself just thinking how much she loved him, mulling over how to explain herself. "Christopher values things correctly. He disdains the disdainful and honors the honorable. His judgment is supreme. Even when I think of something as no big deal, when I investigate his thinking, his appraisal, I realize that he was right and I was wrong. He's taught me the beauty and wonder and greatness of so many things, that I would've overlooked as pebbles on the road. Kagome, you are one of those things. You and all the other wives, all the other stories you came from, he saw the value in them that I could not, not until I learned them from him. And for that he has my eternal gratitude. I may have omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence and omnibenevolence, but his eye for the true value of things is more divine than mine."
"I'd rather be valued by Christopher, someone whose valuations can be trusted, just 101th as much as any other boy's total affection. He's already said he loves me, and that made me feel better than anything else anyone else has ever said or done. I can't imagine marrying anyone else. What's the use of hoarding a loser to myself? I'd rather share a winner."
"Of course, the only reason I granted him any wish he wanted in the first place, is because I thought he was truly wise in his first life, and I wanted to see what he would do with a world that bent to his will. But I had no idea how fun, how perfect, how loving Eden would turn out to be. I'm so envious of you all. Do you know what I've been doing these past 70 years? And all the while, Christopher just kept making Paradise better and better. . ." Cute chewed on her wingbone in envious frustration comparing their lives.
"What's it like elsewhere? All I have are my storybook memories to compare things with." Kagome asked with a hint of concern. Cute-sama was behaving energetically, but it seemed like a great deal of sorrow had been contained in those words.
"There are around 1,000 inhabited planes, all with different rules and different people. Most only live on one planet, with much more primitive technology than what you guys have here. A few are interstellar and intergalactic civilizations, which though impressive materially speaking. . .have all become too regimented and repetitive for my tastes. They have lots of people and they're all so bland. I think it's great that they found out a way to all get along, but, hmmm. . ." Cute trailed off, not knowing precisely what she wanted or why.
"Ah!" Cute clapped a fist into an open palm, her face lighting up. "Tsunderes! There aren't any tsunderes!"
Kagome almost toppled over in disbelief. Entire intergalactic civilizations had been written off due to a lack of moe?
"It's not only that. I don't remember anything cute about them. There weren't any lolis, yanderes, puppies, kittens, kemonomimis, maids, mahou shoujos, princesses or brocons. People are grown in vats, mass manufactured already in fully adult form, and embedded with all the training they need by AI's because they don't have any parents. Then they go and do something 'productive,' but the only product is material things. And then the cycle just repeats."
"In every interstellar civilization?" Kagome asked disbelievingly.
"No, that's just an example. But it's all more or less super efficient like that. Everyone lost their humanity and emotions along the way, because at some point it was decided they were irrational, inefficient, or inconvenient. Some of the universes I founded don't even have humans any more. They're weird creepy slime molds and gigantic floating computer chip cubes and the like. All their thoughts are totally alien. I understand all things, so I understand what they're doing all day, but I don't understand why anyone would want to do those things. I consign them all to oblivion upon death because, really, what can you do in a situation like that?"
"Then there's this place, Exocet, where brains are just sitting in rows and rows as far as the eye can see, fed a steady drip of pleasure-inducing drugs, immortal, unthinking, perfectly content, upkept by machines until I guess entropy wipes them out trillions of years from now. What's with that?" Cute snorted in disgust.
"There is one plane that's always fun. They've been at war for over a thousand years now, and right when you think one faction is getting the upper hand, somebody stabs them in the back and it all goes back to chaos. It's lasers and explosions and all sorts of intrigues and gallant deeds all day long. I think they live to fight, and I guess that's one way to keep things interesting. But again, it isn't cute."
"And cute is justice." Kagome summarized the only teaching they had received from God.
"Exactly! Awwww. Coming here really soothes the soul. Kagome, can I hug you?"
"We're going to be sisters, right?" Kagome smiled affectionately. Of course, there might have been the fear of divine wrath annihilating the planet if she had responded otherwise guiding her response.
Cute dived into Kagome's arms and nuzzled her cheeks against Kagome's breasts, her wings folding around Kagome's back in a double embrace. "Everything's so warm and fuzzy and endearing here on Eden. I love how you all flirt with each other, trading insults and compliments like they're just different flavors of ice cream. There's so much honesty here, but also more than enough kindness to smooth it all out. I know you've only begun, so it could still all go wrong, but you're the sole high-tech plane with so many adorable things still remaining."
"Glad to be of service?" Kagome smiled, patting Cute-sama on the head.
"Christopher knew who to choose. Together, you've surpassed my wildest dreams. Before, I thought humans were best off with swords and sorcery. They're constantly fighting off monsters, the population is always low, and every day is a lot of hard work just getting by, but at least the people there felt alive, needed and appreciated. I thought perhaps that was the best mankind could do. But Eden proved me wrong. You all have surpassed fantasy with your own breed of sci fi. I want to live here, where life is easy but still passionately lived. This is the place to have a child."
"I'm sure Christopher will be happy to oblige." Kagome laughed tremulously. How long did God intend to hug her? And did this mean she was slated for another round of pregnancy too? Knowing Chris, it wouldn't do to leave anyone out. . .
Chapter 39:
"So there you have it." Kagome, Cute-sama's oracle, informed the secret dormitory gathering of wives. It was the year 70 E.T., so their youngest children were fourteen to 23, all looking after themselves in their own rooms. The wife currently slated to hang out with Christopher had asked for a one day postponement so for the first time in a long time he would just have to spend a night alone.
"Cute-sama thinks this is the best of all possible worlds, so has descended to our plane in order to join us?" Chiwa marveled. She knew God was real and all, but to think Christopher had somehow lured this beautiful 14 year old omnipotent angel to abandon her duty as administrator of the multiverse and instead hop into his bed. . . did he have any limits?
"Plus we really were just figments of the imagination until Christopher interceded with God to give us the spark of life." Haruka Haruno repeated the most important point.
"Which means all of us owe Cute-sama, as well as Christopher, everything we have." Lafiel dutifully acknowledged.
"Which means we can hardly begrudge her our husband." Rosa concluded.
"Louise had already told us about the Earth's sudden destruction, but now we know why." Asuna said. "I know none of us actually came from Earth, but I still feel pretty bad for Japan. They didn't do anything wrong and were just randomly obliterated anyway."
"Japan lives on in us. Tempura-Sushi-Fuji-yama!" Sakura Yoshino beat her petite chest to engrave Nipon's spirit into her soul.
"The best of Japan is gathered here in this room." Kirino agreed, hugging the girls to her left and right.
"Sayonara, Japan. We'll make our own anime now." Yukino sniffed as two solitary tears ran down her face. As president of Japan she somehow felt responsible for its destruction, even though there was absolutely nothing she could have done.
"I became Ryuuou long ago so I had nothing left to learn from them anyway." Ai bravely put her internet pals behind her.
"Child number six coming up." Cheria predicted glumly.
"Isn't it fine? Soon enough even our fifthborns were going to start their own families and stop talking to us. We only get to talk to Christopher every now and then, so another child would enliven things. With everything so automated, it's not like we can't spare the time." Haruka Saigusa responded.
"There's even a perfect slot for her. In the tenth year we've always been servicing nine mothers-to-be, but now it can have its proper allotment of ten." Sakura Mamiya pointed out fastidiously.
"Wait, so I have to wait ten years before I can sleep with Christopher?" Cute-sama puffed out her cheeks in dismay.
"We'll let you go first!" Kagome waved her arms and glared death at Sakura Mamiya.
"Then, who's going to move down a slot for each year to make room for Cute-sama?" Sakura Mamiya asked patiently.
Mirajane got out her iPad and opened up their birth order list that had served them so well ever since the chaotic firstborns. "According to this, Chiwa should drop down to year 2, Aoba to year 3, Hozumi to year 4, Urara to year 5, Mitsuki to year 6, Akane to year 7, Ai to year 8, Louise to year 9 and Iris to year 10. Is everyone okay with that?"
"Hai." Everyone chimed in cooperatively.
"Of course we'll need to have a wedding ceremony." Kudryavka opined.
"The entire town will have to be there. After all, we're all alive thanks to Cute-sama and Christopher, so we should all celebrate their union." Sophie said.
"We'll need a wide open space then. . . how about the flower meadow we all got married in?" Aerith clapped her hands together happily.
"Ohhhhh." Dozens of girls agreed with the idea appreciatively.
"That's perfect. The meadow flowers can provide the decoration as-is. Then we'll just need to bring some picnic baskets for the feast. We can have the summoned beasts carry us to and fro in a single day so they can still sleep together in the mansion's giant bed." Lyria offered.
"The summoned beasts are enough for us, but the population is too big to carry all of them." Nozomi gently reminded Lyria. "We'll need helicopters for the rest."
"Aren't helicopters dangerous?" Louise asked. She certainly didn't want anyone dying over a wedding.
"On Earth they're dangerous. But here we have AI autopilots that never mess up, plus in case of some natural disaster the entire interior can be puffed into fluffy cushions that can shield us from the impact. The AI senses when something is wrong and activates immediately, plus they're made of flame retardant material so even explosions aren't a problem." Nozomi went into lecture mode.
In seventy years no one on Eden had died of accident or illness. There had been a couple suicides and murders, and obviously some resulting executions, among the grandchildren and great-grandchildren, though thankfully not among their five hundred children. It was hard to make absolutely everyone good on Eden, but the percentages were all in their favor.
Since criminals would always be caught via Sakura Kinomoto's all-seeing Record spell, and Christopher as Mayor had decreed the penalty for all crimes to be death via cliff tossing, crime either didn't happen at all or immediately escalated to murder. There was no benefit in something inbetween.
"Has anyone else realized what this means?" Azusa asked in breathless amazement. "Out of every possible system, every possible future, Christopher chose the best one, for all of us. This really is paradise, so much so that God came to our heaven instead of us to Hers. And he was the only one with the wisdom to create it. Haven't we been underestimating him?"
"Ohhhh?" Aoba smiled impishly at Azusa. "What's this? Is someone finally admitting her feelings for her dearly beloved?"
"It's not like that!" Azusa blushed. "Christopher is just a sexual harasser who was bad at the guitar. He forced me into his bed and threatened to name our son Tonton. . .who would love someone like that?"
"But at some point it started to feel good, right? Maybe the fifth time, or the tenth?" Aoba leaned towards her leeringly.
"I think George Washington is an admirable fellow too. That doesn't automatically make me enamored with him. There has to be a sweetness, a gentleness, a romantic connection, mutual understanding, a tingling of the fingertips before it's love." Azusa protested.
"But maybe that came 'round about the fifteenth time, or the thirtyith?" Aoba put her hand lightly on Azusa's knee.
"Azusa already told me she loves Christopher so much it drives her crazy. When it's not her turn she likes to come to my room and cuddle with me, calling me "Christopher, Christopher" as she hugs me tight until she falls asleep." Yui held her arm up and volunteered to the crowd.
Azusa blushed scarlet and didn't know where to hide her eyes.
"Tsundere!" Cute-sama gave a giant thumbs-up as her wings flapped excitedly to see it for the first time in person.
"Cute-sama, it's best not to point these things out even when they're true, for the sake of the sister-wife's dignity." Kagome patiently explained to her Goddess.
"I'm sorry!" Cute-sama cupped her hands together in prayer. "Azusa, forgive me?"
Azusa sighed and gave up, feeling stupid. "There's nothing to forgive. I fell in love with Christopher after he held our child in his arms and named him Kenichi, and not Tonton like he'd originally planned. It all started to feel real then. Like he really was my husband and the father of my child, and what we'd shared together up until now was all for this moment. I had to look up the source of the name later, but it turns out he was a regular boy who tried abnormally hard to impress his lover and saved the world on the side. I think Christopher's and Kenichi's stories are very similar. He's always tried his best for all of us, even the ones who responded coldly to him. I thought that was really good of him, and it was my turn to try my best to love him too."
"I have to confess I almost killed Christopher, but he never held it against me and was still propounding his love to me even as I beat him down." Haruka Haruno admitted.
Azusa rolled her eyes. "It didn't take rocket science to figure out. He went out with you and came back without a pulse. We just went along with his version of events because that's what he wanted."
Sakura Kinomoto held up her hand apologetically. "Actually I've shown the Recording of the event to everyone here. We wanted to know if he was safe around you anymore so we all eavesdropped in. . .you were angry on our behalfs so there was nothing we could say. We pronounced you innocent seventy years ago."
"I'm really sorry!" Haruka Haruno bowed to the entire assembled crowd. "I almost took away the best thing to ever happen to the multiverse. Hontouni, hontouni gomen nasai!"
"Just don't do it again okay?" Tifa implored, and everyone laughed.
"That was really gallant of Papa, wasn't it?" Makina remembered back to the scene. "I got wet just watching."
"Kobeni fainted in terror when she saw all that blood." Rin Natsume tattled.
"I'm tired of my lover having near death experiences. . ." Kobeni replied helplessly. "I just want a quiet life where the only important decision is what to cook for dinner today."
"Cute-sama, do you eat and drink? Would you like some sweets?" Kobeni gestured to the basket in the middle of the room holding all sorts of good things.
"I have never eaten or drunk before, but I can certainly do anything, including eat and drink. Plus I'm a goddess so it all just radiates away as holy light afterwards." Cute-sama put her nose up proudly.
"Ii-na." The crowd of girls sighed morosely. When Cute-sama reached for the offered snack bowl Sherria quickly withdrew her hand as though escaping from a hot pan.
"You can go first." Cute-sama gave Sherria a perplexed look, worried she had somehow violated good manners twice in a row.
"No, I mean, you're a God and I'm a God Slayer, so I was worried if we touched you might dissolve or something. . ." Sherria blushed nervously.
Cute-sama gazed at Sherria with wide-eyed shock, and then broke into laughter so fierce she had to clutch her stomach.
"Oh but don't worry!" Sherria waved her arms defensively. "I was only raised to slay warui kami! Cute-sama is our Cupid, in other words ai, so I'd never harm you!"
Cute-sama looked like she was taking critical damage already. She wiped a tear from her eye and seized Sherria's hands in hers, looking directly into her face to show there was nothing to fear. "It appears Gods are taken a little too lightly where you come from, so it might help to think of me as a reality programmer instead. Reality is exactly what I've made it to be with each passing second, the world is newly created according to my blueprint with each tick, so it's impossible for any power to go against me. In fact, every power every one of you possesses is actually your minds sending a prayer to me for the world to be changed in x manner, after which I remake the world such that the prayer is granted, so long as it's in accord with what your source works say your powers should be able to do. Otherwise the paradoxes from clashing laws of nature would multiply endlessly."
"So that's how it works." Sophie nodded to herself satisfiedly.
"In that case, yoroshiku onegaishimasu!" Sherria bowed deeply to her Maker who was still holding her hands.
The other wives saw the wisdom of Sherria's gesture and joined in chorus. "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!" Everyone in the gathering was bowing deeply towards Cute-sama like she'd suddenly become the Kaaba.
"Yoroshiku." Cute-sama bowed back uncertainly, not knowing which way to point.
"Getting back on track, how are we going to introduce Cute-sama to Christopher? Should we arrange some sort of surprise party for him and then have her emerge from the crowd in the swing of things?" Chiwa asked.
"Let's wait until he prays at the shrine next time. Cute-sama is living there so she can ambush him right after. He'll get his wife in exact relation to how much he loves her and wants to see her again. It's only just." Kagome replied.
"My miko speaks truly. Ask and the door shall open -- Christopher has to come see me, I won't come begging to him!" Cute-sama announced.
Sae raised her hand hesitantly. "If you'd like, I'll tailor your wedding dress. Let's go get your measurements now. If the rest of you will forgive me."
"Take her." Haruka Saigusa approved. Everything that had needed to be said had been said already. Marriages shouldn't be entered into lightly, but there was none more deserving than Cute. No one could possibly complain if she wanted to join in on the fun. Christopher wasn't cheating on them because they had already given their approval, nor had he tempted her or seduced her behind their backs. He had simply made Eden great, and she had followed like a lost puppy. There was no blame to apportion anywhere. Rather than making them wish they could cheat too, gaining the hand of a Goddess only made Christopher look more handsome and cool than ever before. If she had scoured the universe and decided on Christopher, then didn't that make all of them blessed too? He'd already been theirs for seventy years. Even God couldn't say that.
Chapter 40:
"Cute-sama daio!" Cute burst out of the shrine entrance the moment I scattered a donation of coins into the altar box. She literally flew into my arms, and before I knew it I was spinning in circles embracing God as she nestled her head against my chest.
"Cute-sama!" I exclaimed, not knowing what else to say. This was the biggest shock in my life. Even getting run over by a truck seemed like a much more normal plot development.
"I've listened to your prayers. You said you loved me. So here I am. Let's get married and have children!" Cute-sama looked up into my eyes excitedly.
Oh snap. I had confessed to her. She was also the perfect woman. Blonde haired, blue-eyed, fourteen with angel wings, innocent and pure, accommodating and generous, everything you could ever want in a woman. There was no way I could play my feelings for her off as 'I meant that as a friend.' I had meant it exactly and completely as someone who wanted to have sex with her. Besides, she was an all knowing God, so lying wouldn't work in the first place!
"Cute-sama, I'm honored by your feelings, but marriage is a closed circle. I can't just add in more people than was originally agreed upon. My wives and I share an understanding. If I break that, it means I don't respect them, which would instantly transform them all from waifus into whores. Even if it's Cute-sama, that's not something I'm willing to do." I tried to put her down gently.
"I knew you'd say that, so I asked all 100 of your wives already. The unanimous reply was daikange!" Cute-sama squeezed herself even tighter against me, eyes sparkling. This was bad. The thrill of embracing the one girl I always wanted but could never have for the first time in my life was causing certain physiological chain reactions reason could no longer refute.
"Rewind. You know how I feel. Between your perfect beauty, the kindness you showed me on that day, and your cute personality, I couldn't help but fall for you from the very beginning. But it's been 70 years since then. You never even talked to me even after all the times I came to pray. I'd given up on ever seeing you again. Why the sudden change of heart?" I asked.
"I listened to everything you said. Not only when you prayed to me, I've been listening in to everything you've ever done in your life, not only on Eden, but on Earth too. I'm always at your side. It's just that God can't intervene in mortal affairs without destroying what makes them most precious to me, their free will. So I had to stay transparent every time and pretend I wasn't blushing scarlet from your praise." Cute-sama drew little circles on my chest with her index finger plaintively.
"Do you invade everyone's privacy like this?" I moaned. I had thought, said and done a lot of embarrassing things over the years. She'd kept track of all of them?
"Yes and no. I catalogue everything everywhere and know all about it in the back of my mind, but I only pay attention to the people I love unless there's some need to do otherwise. And Christopher, I love you more than anyone else in the entire history of mankind. That's why I want to marry you and bear your children. And that's why I watch what you're up to all the time, like a ravenous wolf. You bring me joy. That's why I couldn't help it anymore and I had to be at your side. I had to touch you and tell you how I felt. Just watching wasn't enough anymore." Cute-sama replied.
"But doesn't this constitute an intervention in mortal affairs?" I asked.
"I'm on vacation. I've temporarily forsaken the status of God and descended to your plane to live like anyone else. The body of a human, but the mind of a God!" Cute-sama did a cute pose.
Are you Jesus or Detective Conan??
"So long as I don't order anyone around it should be fine, right?" Cute-sama looked up at me with pleading eyes.
"Of course it's okay. I don't suddenly feel any less free with you around." I reassured her. "But then why the sudden desire to go on vacation? Have you done this before?"
"I'm a virgin!" Cute-sama protested. "I didn't even know about feelings like these until I met you!"
"That didn't come out right." I apologized quickly. "I'm just worried about you. It all seems so sudden, so maybe you're rushing into marriage due to emotion instead of reason, and then a few months or years down the line you'll realize this wasn't what you really wanted or needed. After all, I'm just a normal guy, and you're Cute-sama. I can't marry someone if there's a chance it will just end in divorce. That's not a real marriage. Even if it isn't an insult to my 100 waifus, it would still be an insult to you. I can't sleep with a Goddess with any foundation short of eternal love."
Cute-sama looked at me and then looked away. Then she walked barefoot back to the porch of her shrine. There seemed to be some sort of electrostatic force that kept an invisible barrier between her and the ground, so she never actually dirtied her feet or felt any pain, but it was so thin it looked nearly the same. It carried an ethereal aura like so many things about her. She really wasn't like any other girl I'd ever seen. She, and her attractiveness, was an order above. She sat down, stretching the hem of her pure white one-piece dress out so it wouldn't be caught beneath her legs. And then she burst into tears.
"Christopher. The Earth is dead. I couldn't do anything to stop it, but I had to watch the entire sorry course. I wanted to shout at them that they were wrong, that they were making the wrong choices, that it wouldn't work out like this, but I couldn't. And now, instead, when it's all too late for any of it to matter, I'm burning billions of souls in Hell. Can you ever forgive me?" Cute-sama begged.
I rushed up to her porch and knelt in the dirt, taking her hand in mine and kissing its back, pledging my fealty to her as her knight. "Forgive you? I want to thank you! Don't you remember? I hated everything in the world and everyone in it. Now you're finally giving them what they deserve, what I've been wishing upon them all this time. Justice! Are you sure you aren't burning too few?" I encouraged her with visions of bloody revenge.
Cute-sama laughed between her sobs. "Too few? Christopher, there's over ten billion of them screaming in pain. . ."
"If they made Cute-sama cry, they deserve infinitely worse!" I kissed the back of her hand again. "Zamamiro! These people! These Terrans! They had all science, all philosophy, all nature pointing out to them right from wrong. It should have been easy! It should have been simple! Earth could have become so good, and instead they ignored it all, preferred their obvious delusions, and threw it all away. Cute-sama isn't to blame. You set up the world to be a place where humanity could flourish. They did it all to themselves!"
"I didn't make the Earth for it to be blown up by imbeciles." Cute-sama continued blubbering. "I didn't think it would end this way. I only wanted people to be interesting, to make decisions using their own reason which may differ from mine, and learn from them. I just wanted to stop being so lonely. Why do people have such tremendous gifts, such amazing faculties, and yet always, always, always. . ."
Cute-sama was the goddess of all Creation. The Earth had managed to overpopulate itself beyond any reasonable measure, ending up with over ten billion, while Eden had a grand total of a few thousand. For the last 70 years she had been watching 99.99998% of mankind revel in absolute evil, ignorance and darkness, with only 0.00002% of mankind serving as a relief valve.
Was it any wonder she wanted a vacation? A chance to live in a world where 99.99998% of people instead brought her joy? Were company worth having? Were a reminder of why life was worth living? No, it wasn't a surprise. If God had a heart, there's no way she could have viewed Earth's final century with equanimity. It had to have been driving her insane.
"I just want to feel hope again. I'm full of so much despair. Do you know what the despair of ten billion people dying in a couple years feels like? Or the millions who slowly wasted away afterwards, waiting for someone to intercede, for me to intercede, to help them, and never getting it? Because this was the fate they chose for themselves, and so it was the fate they would receive. The last two people on Earth were a seven year old and a four year old pair of sisters in an underground bunker when the nukes rained down. They lived for eight years waiting for something to change, but of course nothing could change, because the whole world was dead. I sat and watched their despair creep up on them day by day until they couldn't take it anymore and killed themselves. And I was relieved. Relieved that I wouldn't have to taste their feelings any longer. That it was all finally over. I reincarnated them into the happy brain world because I figured they could use a long break. Christopher. . .you want eternal love? I'll be as eternal as you wish. I could use a long break too." Cute-sama mewed in a pleading high pitch.
I picked Cute-sama up. She was amazingly light. Or maybe her wings could let her levitate even when they weren't flapping? There was only one decent thing left for me to do. I wiped the tears from under her eyes away, and turned her face up towards me. "Let's do it. Cute, I've loved you since the day we met. Will you marry me, make love to me, and bear my children?"
"Yes!" Cute-sama proclaimed, and then she finally dived into me and kissed me on the lips.
* * *
Girls' Side:
Cute trod barefoot through the endless corridors of Hell. The prison cells were each their own entire world, a simulacrum where people could learn the costs of their errors via experiencing the pain they had visited upon others during life. The primary sin of virtually everyone on Earth had been the same, "I valued the wrong things." But there were billions of permutations of the same sin. None of them had cared who they had hurt or what sacred principles they had defiled by valuing the wrong things in life, so now they must answer to Her, and be made to care, in death, or else the maxims they swore by would be allowed to stand. Something contrary to justice, something false, must never be allowed to stand. So before she would let any of these people die or be reincarnated, they would have to admit they were evil and their beliefs were false. They must be taught by Hell what they refused to learn on Earth. And Cute could see through all lies, so their only escape from Hell came when they truly repented of their sins. Just wanting to get out of Hell and saying whatever was not enough. Until they realized why they were mistaken and why they should have valued the right things, the lessons would continue.
Everyone here had the mental acuity to do the right thing and understand the truth. They weren't drooling retards incapable of figuring out left from right. In fact, life was very simple and anyone could grasp its core, if they only wished to do so. She wasn't giving these people calculus exams. She merely wanted them to admit the difference between good and evil, true and false, right and wrong, just and unjust, sacred and degrading, beautiful and ugly, joyous and pleasurable, rational and irrational, purposeful and purposeless, meaningful and meaningless, sincere and fickle, integrity and hypocrisy, syllogisms and fallacies, reality and superstition, etc. She wanted people to understand the difference between history and convenient, self-serving narratives.
Billions upon billions of her patients were taking remedial classes where they watched the life of Mohammed, as he raped, massacred, plundered and lied his way through life. There they saw the complete ignobility, the utter selfishness, the degrading materialism of his life, that created an entire religion simply to flatter and serve himself. If someone hurt his pride he would suddenly have a revelation that Allah wanted her dead. If a girl caught his eye he would murder her husband and rape her as his new millionth wife later that night. Aisha was only six years old when she was married off to Mohammed, while she was still playing with dolls. She had no understanding of what was going on, no feelings for Mohammed whom she had hardly met before, and no ability to decline. He consummated this forced marriage when she was only nine years old, at an age when any sexual activity could only be painful and damaging to the child.
The man they worshiped as the prophet of Allah, essentially Cute-sama herself, they were saying she had sanctioned a child rapist. She would not allow this heresy to stand. Mohammed was not her prophet. He was a psychopath who had constructed the biggest lie on Earth simply as a way to get all the wealth, fame, power, sex and petty vengeance he could before he died.
There was a separate ward for the idiots who had fallen for the ridiculousness of Christianity, the obvious self-serving lies of Joseph Smith, and the endless ritualistic nonsense of Hinduism. There were so many people who needed complete deprogramming before they could realize what a ridiculous farce they had lived for all their lives. How was it possible for three to equal one? Did these people even listen to themselves? And why on Earth would she send her only begotten son to be crucified because she loved the world? What the hell use did the world have from Jesus being crucified? And why would she waste her only son on scum like that who would crucify innocents?
It was mind-numbing how long it would take to get these people back to the rationality of 2 year olds. At the age of 2 most people were more reasonable than they became as adults. The moment religious viruses were imparted into their brains it all went haywire from there.
Then there were the secular religions. Egalitarianism, victimology, environmentalism, socialism and the sadomasochistic cult of the value of hard work. Cute had no idea where these ideas had come from. For thousands of years the nobility had rightly understood that their lives were blessed because they worked less than the peasants. But around the time of the Protestant Reformation, a new and completely bizarre belief swept across the world, which said the Elect were those who did nothing but work all day every day, that work was the only useful activity in life, that workers were the only admirable people, and that whoever made the most money while working the hardest was the man closest to God.
Cute was completely flabbergasted. All the instincts she'd designed humans to evolve with were against work. Work was painful, degrading and dull. She wanted humans to avoid painful things, that's what pain was meant to do -- to warn you away from harmful things. She wanted people to avoid dull and repetitive things, so that they would try out new and interesting things every day -- that's what boredom was for. She wanted people to avoid serving others so that there would be more interesting variations between them, that's why she gave them all a will to power, a desire to be free, and a sense of pride when they could be true to themselves and conversely shame when they had to contort themselves to suit others.
Despite every instinct she'd implanted into mankind such that they would avoid pain, avoid repetition, and avoid servitude, somehow it had become the prevailing ethic of the world that the best people were the ones groaning in pain from heavy loads, working for bosses who insulted them all day, doing the exact same thing as they had done yesterday, the day before, the year before, and the decade before that.
It made Cute want to pull out her hair.
Or take egalitarianism. She had given people amazing faculties to suss out the quality of the people they met almost immediately. You could tell so much just from their looks, their deportment, their vocabulary and their manners. It should have been possible to easily figure out that some people were better than others just by looking around and talking to people. This lie should have been exposed in about two hours of testing the hypothesis. And yet for hundreds of years it was held as a sacred and unquestionable truth by all the best and brightest. The 'right sort of people.'
Now, obviously, in order to convince yourself that your own eyes were lying to you every day, a theory had to be more complicated than 'everyone is equal.' The convoluted explanation was that everyone at birth was equal (Including the mentally ill? Including retards? Including those with severe physical defects?) and then they gradually became different due to the oppression of others, or conversely via unfairly obtained privileges. But this too was absurd and easily disproven through well published and well known facts -- for instance that the children of the richest black couples had lower SAT scores than the children of the poorest whites.
Or the fact that IQ was 80% hereditary so it was impossible for the environment to be doing anything. Or the fact that women were granted more graduate degrees than men and affirmative action the entire way up the corporate ladder but still earned less than men and contributed fewer serious improvements to quality of life in the form of scientific, artistic or philosophical advances.
In bizarro world, no matter how favorable an environment was made for women, even if the entire legal code was weighted in their favor, still, somehow, the 'environment' was oppressing them and privileging men.
What privilege? Was it the privilege of having unattractive bodies no one wanted or would trade anything for? Or the privilege of not being able to reproduce or nurse their children? Was it the privilege of generally attracting 0-1 people who might want to marry them, as opposed to the hundreds or millions who would come knocking at a girl's door if only she would show them the time of day? The privilege of divorce laws that gave women all your earnings for the rest of your life and all your children to her newly awarded single parent home? The privilege of being the vast majority of people involved in the criminal justice system, whether as perpetrators or victims? The privilege of having to fight all the wars? The privilege of a shorter average lifespan? The privilege of a suicide rate four times as high?
Cute had evolved women to all be national treasures at birth, and men to fall head over heels for them. The idea was that men, with their highly functional bodies and minds, would impress women by contributing to mankind as a whole. Genomically, economically, philosophically, scientifically, artistically, the men would give their all for the women and the children, and the women and the children would pay the men back with their love. That's all Cute had ever asked of them, but even that they had been unable to give. They demanded more from men in exchange for less, every year, until the point that the men were being taxed of everything they had and the money deposited directly at women's feet who had done absolutely nothing in return.
The entire dynamic had broken down, while women pretended to work at meaningless jobs that contributed nothing, somehow justifying their own existence as pseudo-men who no longer fulfilled either role. And in this androgynous, transgender, non-binary, homoerotic world, eventually no one was anything or served any purpose. Cute had evolved them to have useful callings, productive instincts, like love, lust, loneliness, gratitude, strength, dependability and charm. Where had it all gone? Why had it been traded in for a parade of barren freaks?
Who could look at the world (even before it blew up) and say it was a better place than it had been before?
Egalitarianism believed that everyone could eventually live like a white man and receive the same outcome as white men historically had -- in other words, they could be at the top of the world while contributing everything of value to the world. All that needed to happen was to privilege the historically oppressed and oppress the historically privileged, and it would all work out.
Hundreds of years later, as they ratcheted up this belief (because the only reason the theory had failed so far is because it hadn't been tried hard enough) to nigh infinity, blacks, women, Hispanics, Muslims, LGBT's and all the rest of the merry gang never did live like white men -- when prosperity is butchered on the altar of equality go figure there isn't much to go around -- and they never contributed like white men either. Science had ground to a halt. Infrastructure crumbled. Knowledge people used to all know was replaced with ignorance, superstition and lies. Cities became unsafe, property unguaranteed. Fossil fuels were replaced with less functional, unaffordable alternatives. Food became scarcer at the very time African populations swelled, propelled by the belief that all races were fungible units so blacks could do anything whites could do if they just moved to white countries and received proper educations, meaning they were all assets and carried zero costs. The lights started to go out. Any independent thinker who tried to get people to change course was accused of various thought crimes and sent to jail, their ideas scrubbed from public discourse and never allowed a fair hearing.
Men had no incentive to try, and women had no ability to succeed. This was because Cute had given women the incentives and men the abilities, and the two were supposed to trade between each other in order to prosper and grow. She had designed mankind to live in families, clans, tribes and nations. Not atomized, universal, non-binary fungible units, all capable of anything. You would think humanity could realize this just by looking at the animal kingdom, and how strict instinctual behavioral patterns adhered to the males and females of every species. That just maybe the same was evolved, inherent, and instinctually true of humans as well. But no, apparently all the clues she'd given them scattered across the entire planet was not enough to pierce the convenience of simply wishing for the opposite to be the case.
In order to teach feminists where they had gone wrong and why they were in Hell, she was raising them all from birth as men, and giving them a taste of how it felt to be on the other side. They would all suffer the consequences of what they as women had voted and argued for, and only at the age of seventy or so would she unlock their memories of originally having been women, the very vipers who had destroyed their own fake new lives. And if this wasn't enough to realize what they had done was wrong, they would live another male life, and another, and another, and each time be reminded at the end what they had said and done as women to ruin their own new lives, until eventually, at some point, they would admit the injustice they had done to the opposite sex. The unfair demands they had made, the untrue accusations they had made, the selfish heartbreaking romances they had toyed around with, they would learn how it felt in a way they couldn't help but understand. And once they had suffered a thousandfold what they had so eagerly dished out upon others, maybe then she could take their apology seriously.
Cute did not suffer fools to live. They would all learn. The secular narrative spreaders who ignored all the obvious facts on the ground in order to flatter themselves or destroy the objects of their envy, the religious navel-gazers who invented their own realities and blasphemed God, Herself, who didn't have anything to do with their bullshit scriptures, the people who simply lacked all discipline and acted like beasts, prey to every random appetite despite her having given them perfectly serviceable prefrontal cortexes that could regulate imprudent behavior, and the cruel ones who seemed to think their purpose in life was to hurt, maim, kill and dominate others just for the fun of it.
In a world that had become so putrescent that the best solution to everything was mass obliteration, tens of billions of souls had each independently contributed to the rot in their own special way. They had all done something to send Earth down this timeline. And each and every one of them would pay for it. Because Earth should not have died. She had given them the tools to live, to thrive, to reach the stars and never look back. But they had defiled the gift she had given them and spat in her face. They had taken their inheritance of hope and thrown it into an abyss of despair. And so they would pay, and pay, and pay, for all that was lost, and all that would now never be. They would pay and pay and pay until every last ounce of her frustration and disgust with them was squeezed out.
As their Creator, she felt she was owed something in return. Their lives were meant to be lived in such a way as to glorify God, to justify their creation. They had instead given her nothing but misery and disgrace. She was ashamed of them, ashamed of herself for having given birth to them. She felt as dirty as they were. And the only way to cleanse herself was to scrub all their souls clean, until at last, at the very end, they were the intellects she had wanted them to be and given them every opportunity to be. And then, purified and cleansed, they could honor God with their prayers and benedictions, and what was crooked would be set straight again.
It was up to them how long the process would take. But she was fine with it taking a good long while. The only currency they could pay back their betrayal with was suffering. It was too late for them to do any good now, and she felt like their suffering wasn't remotely up to par with what they had put Herself and other good people through. Not yet. Not even close. Let them pay and pay and pay.
* * *
"Cute-sama?" Christopher whispered into her ear as they lay in bed together.
"Mmm? What is it?" Cute turned over to look into his eyes, her nude body glowing like it was always at least encased in moonlight. Her wings, which had been conveniently folded up so that they wouldn't smack him in the face if he cuddled close to her back, stretched out again now that they were facing away from him, luxuriating in the extra room.
"It looked like you were having a bad dream. That's no good on a wedding night. I know the first time is only painful. . ." Christopher looked at her apologetically.
"You could never hurt me. Literally. My body is immortal and indestructible. I just let my hymen split apart and disappear for your sake, so you'd believe me when I said I was a virgin." Cute smiled coddlingly. "It felt wonderful from start to finish. After watching you with so many girls, the moment the same thing started happening to me, the moment my dreams of you touching me came true, I was already the happiest I could possibly be. Between the euphoria of being here in your arms, in your bed, as your wife, I'm not even sure the sex ever registered."
"Then instead of thinking about painful things, let's try and see if. . . now that the initial euphoria is over with and all. . ."
"If little Chris can make me feel good all on his own?" Cute smiled and cupped his erection with her small soft hand. "You're my husband so you can take me whenever you want you know. Whether I'm asleep or awake, here or anywhere, I'm yours forever. You don't need a reason. If you want me, take me. You earned that right once and for all when I promised to honor and obey you, you don't have to earn it all over again each and every time. And if I feel good fine, and if I don't that's fine too. So long as you enjoy my body I feel special. . .just being able to give that to you. That's the only happiness I'll ever need."
"I feel better when you feel better, so you need to orgasm for my sake." Christopher explained.
"Well, if my husband insists. . ." Cute shimmied herself tight against his larger torso laying side by side and slowly settled herself over and around his penis. "Now thrust carefully or little Chris will fall out. And kiss me while you thrust. If you do, I think I'll never stop cumming. After all, you may be used to these feelings, but this is my very first time. Ho-hum for you is still overwhelming over here."
"It's never ho-hum for me. Especially when it's our very first time." Chris kissed Cute on the mouth, and then opened her lips up and inserted his tongue even as he started ravaging her from below. She felt a shock and surge of pleasure twisting up her stomach just from the words. Her heart raced as her breasts squished into small saucers against his, and her comprehension of the universe narrowed to a singular blessed point.
Chapter 41:
"Now that you're here, could I ask a few favors from you?" I asked Cute-sama as we strolled hand in hand through my prized schoolyard botanical garden of everlasting cherry trees.
"Last night still wasn't enough?" Cute-sama pouted, cupping her own breasts as if to measure their efficacy.
"It will never be enough no matter how many times we do it." I kissed her on the lips, making her blush self-consciously.
"Well, okay, I did say anywhere. . ." Cute-sama started to slip her one-piece white dress down off her shoulders.
"No no no no no." I quickly grabbed her sleeves and pulled them back up before her bioluminescent alabaster breasts and cherry upturned nipples completely deviated the conversation.
"There were some things I wanted through the power of science or magic that just never worked out. But it should be easy for you, as a miracle from God." I quickly explained.
"Mmhmm." Cute-sama affirmed, casually sneaking her hand back into mine again and naturally interlacing our fingers.
"Most importantly, I want a perfect memory. I'm so tired of forgetting people's names or faces or the conversations or intimacies we've shared. I feel like the full image of my wives' bodies should be available to me whenever I want, in whatever clothes or lack of clothes I've ever seen them in. These things shouldn't fade away. I earned them and they're mine now. If you think it's a good idea, you could give it to everyone else too. I can't be the only one tired of forgetting precious things." I enumerated.
"How about this?" Cute-sama offered. "I'll restore all your pleasant memories to perfection, and whenever you're feeling happy in the future those memories will be archived too. Then you can relive them so crisply it will be like you were in a virtual reality machine experiencing them first-hand whenever you want. I'll give the same ability to everyone else too -- if they don't like it they can always ask me to remove it again. But I don't know why anyone would."
"Onegaishimasu." I fervently prayed to my savior.
"Yasui-mono." Cute-sama waved her free hand and it was done.
I felt the change instantly. Not only was I feeling Cute-sama's hand within mine in the moment, the sight of her face and body as we walked together through the pleasant smelling sakura in full bloom, I was feeling it for all time. I had a room where the present was filling in and a key to the past I could twist and unlock whenever I wanted.
"Next we could use cold sleep. Sometimes people want to take a break and wake up later. Plus, there's the issue with rebels. You see, Eden belongs to me. I don't want anyone who disagrees with me about anything living on it. That just breeds conflict and bad feelings. Eventually it would end like Earth in a sea of ash. But I don't feel the need to execute everyone who disagrees with me over every little thing. If they want to try their luck elsewhere with their own ideas, that's fine. Space has plenty of room for everyone. We have the spaceships ready to go, but the rebels, if they even permit themselves to be known, only appear a trickle at a time. Not nearly enough to make a viable go of it on another world. But with cold sleep everything could change. We could deep sleep anyone who doesn't like things here and pile them up in a starship until they have a colony's worth of people who agree with them and then ship them all out together. When they wake up they'll still have their full lifespan to give it a go." I explained.
"How very understanding of you." Cute-sama smiled at me happily. "Very well, I'll give you a building full of cold sleep pods." Cute-sama snapped. "Do you want me to identify all the disgruntled revolutionaries and put them all to sleep for you?"
"Yes, that would be splendid. Paradise is meant only for true believers, so if there are snakes in our midst I'd like them gone. Not dead. Just not here anymore." I gave the go ahead as mayor.
Cute-sama snapped again. "The traitors have been purged. They're all asleep in my provided pods, ready to be shipped once you feel there's enough. I also grouped them by ideological disagreement so you can easily stack them onto separate starships."
"Just to be safe, are any of my wives secretly against me?" I asked nervously.
"Nope, they all survived the great snap." Cute-sama made an obvious reference. "As for your children, I hope you weren't close to these eight. . ." Cute-sama scrunched up her forehead and tried to recall the names of people she'd never cared about until now.
"Sakura Mizrahi, Alicia, Coco, Nuts, Kazui, Salad, Hubert and August." Cute relayed.
"All by different mothers, huh? No real pattern of failure there. Can you tell me what they objected to?" I inquired.
"Sakura and Alicia thought you were too mean. They wanted democracy, human rights and all that jazz." Cute-sama swung our connected arms up and down with every step. "Coco and Nuts were gay for each other and always resented having to marry apart, so of course they were all aboard the LGBT liberation train. Kazui wanted to legalize drugs so he could take drugs all day. Hubert and August thought people should be put to work even if there was nothing useful to do and those who couldn't provide a useful service to others should starve to death on the streets. Salad wanted to castrate all men and feed them to pigs, starting with you, whom she considered especially vile due to your polygamous ways."
I sighed. Good riddance to the lot of them. Of course now I would have to explain to my eight wives why their eight children had suddenly been put into cryo-stasis, but it was no different from when I had executed Araragi. For the good of the whole infected parts had to be cut off.
"There's also lots of grandchildren and great-grandchildren but you don't care about them." Cute-sama reported.
I nodded. "If anyone else evolves into a dissident, could you give them a year of probation to see if it's just a phase? And then if they're dead set on overthrowing my law code put them into cold sleep under the appropriate starship category too."
"Aye aye." Cute-sama saluted me with her free hand.
"It'll be a while for enough bodies to pile up, but I hope they'll be happy with whatever changes they want to make together. As for Eden, we're happy just the way things are, and we don't want them to change to accommodate anyone else." I defended my tyrannous ways.
"I like the society you built. I want my children and grandchildren to grow up in this system. It's why I chose you. I don't want things to change. I want them to stay exactly the same. Otherwise marrying you would have been the biggest mistake of my life." Cute-sama backed me up.
"Okay, my next wish is pretty silly. But could you give all my children the option to look like the characters in the stories they were named after? And could you give me a sort of augmented reality where they all look like that to me whether they like it or not? It would also be nice if their voices were changed to sound like their original voice actor source. I can always turn it off if needs be but when I see them around town it would be nice to meet the characters I always envisioned them to be."
"What about when their source characters could transform?" Cute-sama asked.
"So like Gohan could be seen as Super Saiyan 2 or Kanade could be seen as Cure Rhythm? That would be so awesome! Let's make that a third option I can switch between when looking at them."
"Should their descendants also look like what they would look like if those characters' genes crossed?" Cute-sama asked.
"Right, give them that option too, and the augmented reality for me."
"Should these be see-through goggles as needed?" Cute-sama suggested.
". . ." This felt like a trap. Cute's voice was completely placid but it was definitely a trap! "Wh-why would I be interested in my own children's bodies when I already have so many great girls like you?"
"Why indeed?" Cute-sama gazed into my eyes. She could see through anything I said because I was staring into the face of God.
"I admit it! I'd love see-through goggles. I want to see all those eternally young bodies of all the beautiful characters I named my children after at my beck and call. But I still won't ask for them because that would be cheating and cheating is wrong. I know the difference between wanting something and it being okay to have it!"
"Can you really say that when you're already having Rin Nohara transform into all your daughters' namesakes as is?" Cute-sama lifted her eyebrows at my shamelessness.
"Fictional characters belong to everybody. If we held to that standard, everyone who ever played Da Capo would be cuckolding me. But a girl's actual body still belongs to herself." I made the careful distinction.
"But you know, the only reason you want to see their new faces and hair and clothed bodies is because you're attracted to them even then, so isn't it still cheating either way?" Cute-sama frowned.
"In that case every man on Eden would be cheating just by breathing so cut us some slack!" I implored.
Cute-sama sighed and turned to start walking with me again. "Augmented reality to see and hear your children's, grandchildren's and great-grandchildren's idealized forms. Done. What else can this Goddess miraculously gift you with today?"
"I'm not sure how long the Silver Crystal will last, but if we're all still happy together, could you prolong our eternal youth until we're not?" I asked.
"Done. I don't want you dying on me either." Cute-sama promised.
"Though there are probably lots of people who don't want to commit suicide, but were looking forward to a time limit to their lives. So let's say if someone is depressed or tired of life for five years running they'll die peacefully in their sleep without any forewarning, regardless of their age." I amended my wish.
"It's a good thing I can monitor everyone's thoughts and feelings at all times." Cute-sama sighed at my greediness. "Done. But I forbid you to die early on me. You have to stay happy with me for as long as I wish."
"That's fine." I agreed. So long as everyone precious to me could live and die as they pleased I didn't mind soldiering on for them.
"I guess. . .it would be nice if entropy didn't ultimately devour and destroy everything we've ever produced, rendering it all pointless." I said.
"The laws of physics are necessary for life so I can't adjust them. But I can promise you nothing of value from this universe will be lost. I can spin out new universes for your culture to continue in if there's still more to see from it. And if there's nothing left to see but lots to gaze fondly back upon, rest assured that I exist in a plane beyond entropy and I will remember all of you, everything you ever felt or thought or did, every sight there was to see. Everything that's ever been continues to live through me." Cute-sama promised.
I entrusted the fate of the universe to Cute, who seemed to have things well in hand, and went back to my specialty of petty selfish desires, "I want to impregnate my wives naturally but it would still be nice to be able to sex select the children that come from them."
"Just think of the sex you want when you're making love to them and I'll make sure the right sperm gets there. I'll even make sure it's the healthiest, smartest and most beautiful sperm of the litter. Of course I refuse to have anything but a daughter. Gods should only be modeled after Gods, and I am the true shape of God." Cute-sama pronounced.
"I wish Honoka, Mai and Riko could transform into Precure on their own, like Nozomi, Urara and HaruHaru can. Now that they're forever separated from their partners, it doesn't seem right for them to be missing such major elements from their lives. I'm sure they'd like the additional freedom and power, and as for me I just miss their costumes." I confessed.
"You told me to preserve their essential natures, so I maintained the fact that they were powerless on their own. Now you tell me you don't want to preserve their essential natures?" Cute-sama complained at my fickleness.
"Only in this one aspect, overall it was a good idea!" I protested.
"Fine, fine." Cute waved her hand, resignedly producing yet another miracle.
"The girls were hopeful about that holy radiation thing. . ." I mentioned.
"Half your genes and half your body is involved with digestion and waste elimination. I could get rid of bathroom breaks but afterwards you'd be more machine than man, twisted and evil." Cute-sama refused.
"It's not fair that only you get to remain pure." I whined.
"I've given you a lot already. Isn't this enough?" Cute-sama answered crossly.
Well, I tried my best. Sorry, waifus, God has decreed. She actually had granted some wonderful miracles already. With this, Paradise was approaching ever closer to my ideal.
"I'm sorry if I got too greedy and tried to take advantage of you. I mean to love you as my wife, not as a convenient miracle dispenser. You were probably feeling pretty objectified by the end there, huh?" I apologized.
"It's okay. You didn't wish for anything bad. If I were in your shoes I'd be wishing for stuff too. But I do wish you could treat me more like a normal girl. I guess you could say that's my wish to you." Cute-sama replied, squeezing my hand tight to communicate the earnestness of her desire.
"If you're going to be my normal 101st wife, then I can't play favorites." I warned Cute.
"I'm already entered into the front of the queue for pregnancies. I hear that means we get to have sex twice a month when it's our year, and once a year otherwise. And that no one gets left behind when it comes to baby-making. And that I have to take care of the baby all by myself once it's born." Cute-sama bravely accepted the well-worn system. "I'll miss you when you're away, but I'm omnipresent, so it will just be like before. I have fun watching you with the others too. I'm content to wait my turn for the interactive parts. It's like switching from a movie to a game, they're actually both pretty fun."
I smiled happily. You would think that God, due to her august majesty, would be a little more demanding of special attention, but it might be that her powers meant she could be the least demanding of all. My previous wives would not be happy even if it were God who started impinging on their time with me, so her willingness to defer to others was a huge relief.
"Since I'm spending my day with you already, let's continue with before and mark this the start of our new birthing season." I voiced my final wish.
Cute-sama looked to either side of her to see if we were alone, folded her wings into her back, and then slid her dress off her shoulders. Once the cloth had all pooled around her bare feet, she unfurled her wings again and splayed them out as far as they could go. "I can make an instant cocoon for us to lay within, so just climb on top of me." Cute-sama suggested.
I undressed and embraced her, kissing her on the lips as we sunk to our knees, and then she lay back on her wings like a sheet and wrapped them around my back as a blanket, pulling me into her. We made love in a cradle of feathers under a bower of falling cherry petals as I tried for my first demigod.
Chapter 42:
First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage. With the ability to sex select my children I came armed with the perfect set of names for my sixthborns, or in one special case my firstborn demigod. When I asked what Cute's last name might be, she blushed and gave me a troubled look. Apparently she had never thought to assign herself one, since she'd never belonged to a family before. Ultimately she leaned close and whispered her true name into my ear, with a look on her face communicating that she was somehow baring more of her soul to me than she ever did on our wedding night, so I went with that as our family name from here on out.
The results were as follows:
Year 1 (71 E.T.):
Cute's daughter was named Yushis Amsynth.
Asuna's son was named Akito Yuuki.
Rin Natsume's daughter was named Eru Natsume.
Rose's son was named Eizen Dagger.
Deedlit's daughter was named Moiraine Glade.
Yume's daughter was named Mine Asakura.
Koko's daughter was named Historia Tsukishima.
Yukino's daughter was named Hikari Ouhama.
Isara's son was named Hibiki Aomi.
Yoru's son was named Hotaro Kazato.
Asa's daughter was named Akane Kazato.
Year 2 (72 E.T.):
Chiwa's son was named Fidel Harusaki.
Rosa's son was named Zidane Farrell.
Eruruu's daughter was named Pochi Green.
Sherria's daughter was named Sansa Blendy.
Lisanna's daughter was named Arya Strauss.
Emily's daughter was named Meguru Granger.
Usagi's daughter was named Hotaru Tsukino.
Nadeko's daughter was named Tsubasa Sengoku.
Haruka Haruno's daughter was named Nao Haruno.
Riko's daughter was named Reika Izayoi.
Year 3 (73 E.T.):
Aoba's daughter was named Aoi Suzukaze.
Kudryavka's daughter was named Mizuki Noumi.
Kagome's daughter was named Reimi Higurashi.
Nekone's daughter was named Ochette Gold.
Sagiri's daughter was named Himawari Izumi.
Kobato's daughter was named Chinami Hasegawa.
Myusel's daughter was named Kanata Foaran.
Nemu's son was named Tatsumi Asakura.
Aisia's daughter was named Rauny Snow.
Sakura Mamiya's daughter was named Yukari Mamiya.
Year 4 (74 E.T.):
Hozumi's son was named Hiei Schmetterling.
Kirino's son was named Gon Kousaka.
Mylene's daughter was named Miki Jenius.
Nico's daughter was named Kanon Yazawa.
Rin Tohsaka's daughter was named Yoshino Tohsaka.
Kobeni's daughter was named Kumiko Yonomori.
Mavis' daughter was named Shiori Vermillion.
Levy's daughter was named Kaya McGarden.
Yuna's son was named Noctis Sea.
MOMO's daughter was named Misaki Mizrahi.
Year 5 (75 E.T.):
Urara's daughter was named Alice Kasugano.
Keiko's daughter was named Alear Ayano.
Teletha's son was named Perrin Testarossa.
Kaname's daughter was named Yurika Chidori.
Kotori's son was named Claude Kanbe.
Makina's daughter was named Alicia Irisu.
Sora's son was named Kurama Takanashi.
Sara's son was named Soichiro Chrysalis.
Sayaka's daughter was named Akane Mayuzumi.
Meiko's daughter was named Matsuri Honma.
Year 6 (76 E.T.):
Mitsuki's son was named Yusuke Mononobe.
Haruka Saigusa's daughter was named Emilia Saigusa, or 'Himiko.'
Cheria's son was named Flynn Barnes.
Juvia's daughter was named Elucia Locksor, or 'Elsie.'
Mirajane's daughter was named Ruri Strauss.
Nanoha's daughter was named Subaru Takamachi.
Rin Nohara's daughter was named Riley Nohara.
Lafiel's daughter was named Meia Abriel.
Himeno's daughter was named Asu Katsuragi.
Yuuhi's daughter was named Reina Katagiri.
Year 7 (77 E.T.):
Akane's son was named Yuhei Tsukishima.
Suguha's daughter was named Shimako Kirigaya.
Elize's daughter was named Velvet Lutus.
Tifa's son was named Barret Lockhart.
Aerith's son was named Ramza Gainsborough.
Fate's daughter was named Corona Testarossa.
Chtolly's daughter was named Anri Seniorious.
Sakura Kinomoto's son was named Kiyokazu Kinomoto.
Sae's daughter was named Asuho Nakata.
Reina's son was named Eren Ryuugu.
Year 8 (78 E.T.):
Ai's daughter was named Miho Hinatsuru.
Rydia's son was named Vivi Mist.
Aruruu's daughter was named Tama Green.
Kuon's daughter was named Kitasan Black.
Lucy's daughter was named Kanon Heartfilia.
Sakura Haruno's son was named Bell Haruno.
Shana's daughter was named Kureha Blaze.
Mikan's daughter was named Momo Yuuki.
Illyasviel's daughter was named Mare von Einzbern.
Lyria's daughter was named Shima Jewel, or 'Shipon.'
Year 9 (79 E.T.):
Louise's daughter was named Taiga Francoise Le Blanc de la Valliere.
Honoka's daughter was named Lala Yukishiro.
Mai's daughter was named Yayoi Mishou.
Azusa's daughter was named Miu Nakano.
Yui's son was named Kintaro Hirasawa.
Sophie's daughter was named Presea Lamb.
Rinoa's daughter was named Anya Heartilly.
Nayuki's son was named Noboru Minase.
Misuzu's son was named Edge Kamio.
Orihime's son was named Kisuke Inoue.
Year 10 (80 E.T.):
Iris' son was named Debonair Freyja.
Nozomi's daughter was named Hikaru Yumehara.
Mira's daughter was named Minami Yurizaki.
Leia's daughter was named Meredy Rolando.
Nagisa's daughter was named Kyou Furukawa.
Wendy's daughter was named Tenri Marvel.
Miu's daughter was named Minori Takanashi.
Sakura Yoshino's son was named Victor Yoshino.
Kokona's daughter was named Miku Aoba.
Mikoto's daughter was named Nene Misaka.
There was a story behind every name and an affinity between every parent and child. Perhaps they had the same hair color, personality, voice actor, franchise, or likes and dislikes, but there was always something. For instance, Reimi shared Kagome's black hair and prowess with the bow.
Many children were born to mothers based on their relationship to a sibling that had come earlier from the same mother. Even if it wasn't a mother-child affinity, there were often great child-child affinities. I put a lot of thought into who should get whom and matched them all up perfectly. All my children were named after awesome characters they could be proud of.
Kaya and Miho were named after the girls of Bakuman. Hikari Ouhama, Akane Kazato and Misaki Mizrahi were based off of the girls of Joukamachi no Dandelion, whereas Akane Mayuzumi and Himawari Izumi came from Vividred Operation. Minami Yurizaki was the heroine from Touch. Miki Jenius was based off of the mage in Star Ocean, while Alicia Irisu, Claude Kanbe and Riley Nohara came from Valkyria Chronicles. Kanata and Kureha came from Sora no Woto. Kanon Heartfilia, Tenri, Elucia and Shiori came from The World God Only Knows. Akito, Yurika and Ruri from Nadesico. Aoi from Shirobako. The Precure naturally gave birth to additional Precure.
Of course Yushis, the angel from Ogre Battle, was a dead ringer for Cute-sama and simply had to be her daughter's name. When she was born there were already two cute white wings attached on the back so she really was Daddy's little angel.
In summation, my sixthborns were as follows:
Cute's daughter was named Yushis Amsynth.
Asuna's son was named Akito Yuuki.
Rin Natsume's daughter was named Eru Natsume.
Rose's son was named Eizen Dagger.
Deedlit's daughter was named Moiraine Glade.
Yume's daughter was named Mine Asakura.
Koko's daughter was named Historia Tsukishima.
Yukino's daughter was named Hikari Ouhama.
Isara's son was named Hibiki Aomi.
Yoru's son was named Hotaro Kazato.
Asa's daughter was named Akane Kazato.
Rosa's son was named Zidane Farrell.
Chiwa's son was named Fidel Harusaki.
Eruruu's daughter was named Pochi Green.
Sherria's daughter was named Sansa Blendy.
Lisanna's daughter was named Arya Strauss.
Emily's daughter was named Meguru Granger.
Usagi's daughter was named Hotaru Tsukino.
Nadeko's daughter was named Tsubasa Sengoku.
Haruka Haruno's daughter was named Nao Haruno.
Riko's daughter was named Reika Izayoi.
Aoba's daughter was named Aoi Suzukaze.
Kudryavka's daughter was named Mizuki Noumi.
Kagome's daughter was named Reimi Higurashi.
Nekone's daughter was named Ochette Gold.
Sagiri's daughter was named Himawari Izumi.
Kobato's daughter was named Chinami Hasegawa.
Myusel's daughter was named Kanata Foaran.
Nemu's son was named Tatsumi Asakura.
Aisia's daughter was named Rauny Snow.
Sakura Mamiya's daughter was named Yukari Mamiya.
Hozumi's son was named Hiei Schmetterling.
Kirino's son was named Gon Kousaka.
Mylene's daughter was named Miki Jenius.
Nico's daughter was named Kanon Yazawa.
Rin Tohsaka's daughter was named Yoshino Tohsaka.
Kobeni's daughter was named Kumiko Yonomori.
Mavis' daughter was named Shiori Vermillion.
Levy's daughter was named Kaya McGarden.
Yuna's son was named Noctis Sea.
MOMO's daughter was named Misaki Mizrahi.
Urara's daughter was named Alice Kasugano.
Keiko's daughter was named Alear Ayano.
Teletha's son was named Perrin Testarossa.
Kaname's daughter was named Yurika Chidori.
Kotori's son was named Claude Kanbe.
Makina's daughter was named Alicia Irisu.
Sora's son was named Kurama Takanashi.
Sara's son was named Soichiro Chrysalis.
Sayaka's daughter was named Akane Mayuzumi.
Meiko's daughter was named Matsuri Honma.
Mitsuki's son was named Yusuke Mononobe.
Haruka Saigusa's daughter was named Emilia Saigusa, or 'Himiko.'
Cheria's son was named Flynn Barnes.
Juvia's daughter was named Elucia Locksor, or 'Elsie.'
Mirajane's daughter was named Ruri Strauss.
Nanoha's daughter was named Subaru Takamachi.
Rin Nohara's daughter was named Riley Nohara.
Lafiel's daughter was named Meia Abriel.
Himeno's daughter was named Asu Katsuragi.
Yuuhi's daughter was named Reina Katagiri.
Akane's son was named Yuhei Tsukishima.
Suguha's daughter was named Shimako Kirigaya.
Elize's daughter was named Velvet Lutus.
Tifa's son was named Barret Lockhart.
Aerith's son was named Ramza Gainsborough.
Fate's daughter was named Corona Testarossa.
Chtolly's daughter was named Anri Seniorious.
Sakura Kinomoto's son was named Kiyokazu Kinomoto.
Sae's daughter was named Asuho Nakata.
Reina's son was named Eren Ryuugu.
Ai's daughter was named Miho Hinatsuru.
Rydia's son was named Vivi Mist.
Aruruu's daughter was named Tama Green.
Kuon's daughter was named Kitasan Black.
Lucy's daughter was named Kanon Heartfilia.
Sakura Haruno's son was named Bell Haruno.
Shana's daughter was named Kureha Blaze.
Mikan's daughter was named Momo Yuuki.
Illyasviel's daughter was named Mare von Einzbern.
Lyria's daughter was named Shima Jewel, or 'Shipon.'
Louise's daughter was named Taiga Francoise Le Blanc de la Valliere.
Honoka's daughter was named Lala Yukishiro.
Mai's daughter was named Yayoi Mishou.
Azusa's daughter was named Miu Nakano.
Yui's son was named Kintaro Hirasawa.
Sophie's daughter was named Presea Lamb.
Rinoa's daughter was named Anya Heartilly.
Nayuki's son was named Noboru Minase.
Misuzu's son was named Edge Kamio.
Orihime's son was named Kisuke Inoue.
Iris' son was named Debonair Freyja.
Nozomi's daughter was named Hikaru Yumehara.
Mira's daughter was named Minami Yurizaki.
Leia's daughter was named Meredy Rolando.
Nagisa's daughter was named Kyou Furukawa.
Wendy's daughter was named Tenri Marvel.
Miu's daughter was named Minori Takanashi.
Sakura Yoshino's son was named Victor Yoshino.
Kokona's daughter was named Miku Aoba.
Mikoto's daughter was named Nene Misaka.
If Cute-sama wasn't content with Yushis as her only begotten daughter, there would have to be another round of seventh-borns, but all my wives had already said they'd go along with however many kids I wanted, and with our long lifespans and long breaks inbetween it wasn't like they were too much of a burden. In fact, I thought having kids around the house always livened things up and brought a smile to our faces when we watched them together. Like vampires, it had been a long time since our own youths, so we had to suck that youthful innocent energy out of our kids if we wanted to stay refreshed. It was always fun seeing their reactions over things for the first time that we'd already grown used to after endless times.
The sex ratio skewed pretty far towards girls this time, but it wasn't that big of a deal anymore now that there were plenty of other couples all having their own sons. I could afford to pick favorites without making much of a difference. Besides, polygamy could happily absorb any number of excess females. It was only excess males that posed a problem.
Chapter 43:
Cute-sama's abode and job was at the shrine. There she answered people's prayers, took their confessions, guided them towards enlightenment, mediated disputes and did all manner of Godly things. She was the best thing that ever happened to the village. (Well, technically, she was already the best thing to ever happen because every single one of us was only alive due to her miraculous life granting powers in the first place.) While the rest of us had worked for decades to improve our lives, her many miracles fixing our remaining problems came at the blink of an eye. With the 101 new children's names to memorize, I was especially thankful for my now perfect memory. Goddesses generally eclipsed Mayors in authority and dignity, but Cute-sama deferred to my judgment so my rule continued with even more power to enforce than before.
It was clear to me that dissidents should not live in Paradise, not only because they could subtly undermine and eventually threaten to destroy what we, the vast majority had built together, but because they had no right to enjoy the fruits of a lifestyle they themselves were sabotaging. They were intellectual and moral parasites. Even if they had done nothing to further their own beliefs, (though how could they not subtly cast shade and spread poison through their speech or demeanor towards the things we valued when they did not?), the cognitive dissonance of people living in a world they hated was itself wrong.
There was such a thing as thoughtcrime. And now that I could discover it I had every right and reason to punish it. The sooner these criminals were isolated, the less impact they could have on my remaining wives and children, who were still on the right path. Giving them exactly what they wanted, a world according to their own rules, was the fairest punishment imaginable. They had no right to access spouses, children, or facilities that came about due to a philosophy and system directly contrary to their own design. Plus the excuse that they had no other choice could no longer fly, as with the combined technologies of cold sleep and space flight they now had a perfectly good alternative. Cute's Panopticon assured the peace for as long as we lived, which was now looking to be a lot longer than a Silver Millennium.
With a new crop of 101 kids I could afford to be choosy about who came and who went. Exiling eight children was just a drop in the bucket compared to those that were now coming online.
I asked Cute-sama if it would be alright for her to alert us to those with criminal intent and arrest them beforehand, but she said this and that were two different things. People in cold sleep who would eventually get to live out their entire lives as they chose wasn't impinging on free will, but not letting people go through with their own evil decisions was. Cute wanted people to express their souls to their fullest. To her, the afterlife could properly deal with any ramifications afterwards.
Oh well. It's not like crime was a big problem in Paradise anyway. In fact, I'm not sure there were any pressing problems to deal with as Mayor anymore. So long as the children kept imbibing the proper culture through my "Arts, Literature, Philosophy and Morality" class in school, everything could run on autopilot from here. Maybe it was time for a vacation?
* * *
Girls' Side:
"It's only been eighty years, so it may just be a coincidence, but doesn't it seem like we aren't getting as much attention as the other girls?" Chiwa complained to the conspiratorially assembled shadowy den.
"Sou da! Sou da!" The other malcontents chimed in. With the descent of Cute-sama from Heaven things had only gotten worse as his eyes were always reserved for her during dinner time.
"Christopher shares sex and children with us equally, but is that really enough?" Chiwa asked the crowd a rhetorical question.
"No! No!" The crowd responded.
"I want to go on romantic dates with Christopher too. I want him to be interested in my life, what I'm thinking about, what I'm doing, how I'm feeling -- and I want to know all those things about him too! Isn't it the same for all of you?" Chiwa raised her fist passionately.
"Sou da! Sou da!" The girls banged their fists on their classroom desks.
"For our first conspiratorial meeting, let's make it clear what we waifus expect from our lord and husband! And accept nothing short of Cute-sama's treatment!" Chiwa drew her bamboo kendo sword and held it straight up, piercing the heavens.
"Sou da! Sou da!" The crowd gave a fierce cheer.
Chiwa handed the floor over to their secretary who would write out their unanimous demands:
"Here assembled, in the 80th year E.T., Chiwa Harusaki, Nozomi Yumehara, Honoka Yukishiro, Mai Mishou, Rosa Joanna Farrell, Rinoa Heartilly, Yuna, MOMO Mizrahi, Nayuki Minase, Misuzu Kamio, Kotori Kanbe, Isara Aomi, Reina Ryuugu, Mylene Flare Jenius and Lyria, the waifus above demand romantic dates, thoughtful gifts, and more interesting unique conversations geared towards our own individual relationships and personalities. MOMO specifically demands a gift of Jelly Beans -- enough to fill an entire room -- in a glass jar so they don't rot before they can all be eaten." Isara diligently wrote everything she was prompted down.
"If anyone feels like you're talking to them in a way that would have happened with any generic waifu, and not taking their own identity into account, she can demand another romantic date until fully satisfied that her existence has been acknowledged."
"Failure to meet our demands will result in distinctly cold behavior until full restitution has been met." Isara trembled as she wrote that down, not knowing if her heart could take distancing herself yet further from her love than they already were.
"Undersigned -- " And then everyone signed their names to the document one by one in their own handwriting, so the sheer weight of their numbers could be made abundantly clear.
"Datou Cute-sama!" Chiwa cheered as she held up the finished document.
"Banzai! Banzai!" The patriotic crowd united as one.
* * *
"Lafiel, I need your help. There's been an insurrection!" I came with the treasonous document in hand to report to the police headquarters.
"Hmmm?" Lafiel languidly read the document, a hint of a grin eventually creeping up her face. "Taihen-so." She finished and looked at me expectantly for more.
"I don't understand. Okay, MOMO I understand. I barely ever drop by the research institute, she hasn't been behind any breakthroughs so she might be feeling a little down, especially with Cute-sama inventing cold storage and all the rest without her, and apparently she's just really hungry. But I don't understand these others -- Misuzu and Kotori -- what do they expect? They work out in the countryside so when would we even meet? On the other hand, Nayuki, Chiwa, Nozomi and Isara I see every day at school and we talk all the time, so what are they even mad about?" I complained.
"About work?" Lafiel interjected.
"Well of course, we're working at school together, so why wouldn't it be about work?" I asked.
". . ." Lafiel gave up.
"Isara works at the daycare center rather than the school proper, but the daycare center is an adjunct of the school building so it shouldn't make any difference. Honoka loves science, which I was never any good at, so there's nothing much I can talk about even when we're alone together, which is rare because I generally avoid the research institute anyway. I'm above the law since I am the law so I have no reason to interact with inspector Reina. Even if I go up in the glider Lyria is stationed on the ground at the winch so there's no time we could talk. And I've been in perfect health so it's not like I needed to see Rosa, Rinoa or Yuna at the hospital." I finished.
"You forgot Mai and Mylene." Lafiel helpfully pointed at their signatures on the document.
"Right, well, I assume they're hard at work drawing and composing for Eden's next anime, but I don't have any artistic skills so I don't visit the Studio very often either. . ." I sat down and rubbed my forehead. "Compared to you, I don't think any of these girls are being treated worse. But you get by fine without me." I appealed to my space elf queen.
"I have a long lifespan, and I've already been through several long distance relationships with you so I've learned patience. I've been grounded on this planet for 80 years even though my natural home is up in the stars, piloting a spaceship, but I figure there's important things to do here as well, like cultivating the planet to support an advanced civilization. Originally I was always supposed to terraform a barren planet into a proud member of the Abh empire, so now's as good a time to fulfill that duty as any." Lafiel explained her equanimity.
"How am I supposed to have romantic dates and treat them as unique individuals any more than I already do? Doesn't this automatically rule out anything we've done together before, meaning none of what I thought was fun was good enough?" I asked.
"This is police headquarters. I think you'd do better praying to God for answers like these." Lafiel pointed at the sign on her desk.
"That would only make them yet more jealous of Cute-sama monopolizing my time." I groaned.
"Okay, go through why you loved them in the first place. Surely it couldn't solely have been about their looks. There are plenty of good looking anime girls but you specifically chose these 15. If you connect with them on that basis, what made them special enough to you to stand out, wouldn't that qualify as treating them as the unique individuals they are?" Lafiel coached me.
"MOMO was cute and brave and determined and heroic and a wonderful helpmate across all three long RPG grind games of Xenosaga. I especially liked her voice and transformation scenes." I ticked off what I remembered on my fingers.
"So dive into a virtual reality remake of Xenosaga with her as Jr. and relive your glory days together. Save the universe all over again." Lafiel suggested.
"That might work!" I exclaimed, overjoyed. "Lafiel, you're a lifesaver. Okay, fourteen more."
"I guess for Chiwa it would be doing surgery on her hip, but I already arranged for that to be cured on day one. . ." I pouted.
"You were childhood friends with her long before she was injured, and she loved you for caring enough to become a doctor for her, not for the utility you may have provided to her as a doctor. Your relationship has to be deeper than that." Lafiel reprimanded.
"But childhood friends mainly just meant her coming over and annoying me as I told her to leave me alone. . ." I sighed, thinking back. "I loved Chiwa for trying so hard to be cute enough to appeal to me and being devoted to me for so long even though I was constantly dating and flirting with other girls. The constancy and persistence of a true lover. It wasn't because we shared any hobbies or topics of discussion. It was just because she tried so hard and cared so much." I summarized.
"Then share an activity together that requires you both work very hard and care very much for it to be completed. You tried hard to become a doctor for her, so she was touched. She tried hard to be cute enough to appeal to you as a lover, so you were touched. Now you just need to try hard for one another again." Lafiel explained.
"In Eden nobody has to try hard. . ." My mind drew a complete blank.
"So make it a play. Romeo and Juliet try hard for each other's sake, right? Perform a play together as Romeo and Juliet. Rehearse the lines together, dance together, and look into her eyes as you confess your love over and over. There's lots of kissing scenes too, right? Even a part where you share a bed together. If you try hard to make the play a success, and she tries hard to be your heroine, wouldn't that be romantic?" Lafiel suggested.
"We'd have to hire extras for all the other roles. . ." I mused.
"Perform at the New Year's festival, make it an event, and plenty of auditioners who want to liven the holidays up will come forward." Lafiel dismissed the problem confidently.
"You're right. Chiwa would love this! Okay, on to Yuna. We fell in love on our journey to battle Sin, where I taught her how to enjoy her life rather than solely follow her painful duties. Of course, I loved Yuna for how far she'd go for others, even giving up her life without complaint, and her incredible beauty, power and grace. The variety of her outfits in X-2 also really stood out. The moment I fell for Yuna was when she performed out at sea setting free the spirits of the dead with her ritual dance. . .she was simply divinity manifested in that moment. . ." I explained.
"Ask Yuna out to a tropical island and then ask to see her do the dance again. Better yet, dive into the virtual reality remake of Final Fantasy X as Tidus and relive your glory days together." Lafiel closed the case quickly.
"Lyria's optimistic, altruistic, agreeable and beautiful. Plus the fact that we share a single intertwined life and can never separate again is so romantic. I'm super fond of girls who can't get away." I bragged about something stupid.
"I'm telling Orihime to reject that curse next time I see her." Lafiel laid waste to all my hopes and dreams.
"As for Rinoa, I fell for her in two parts. First when she took me out to the dance floor, the epitome of grace and good cheer. Second when she floated into my lap during reentry, the epitome of fawning dependency. She showed me so many faces, but most of all she put her faith in me from start to finish. I'd go to the ends of the Earth, in fact I went beyond the ends of the Earth, to answer those expectations." I explained.
"And Rosa?" Lafiel prompted.
"Rosa was my destined partner from the beginning. Blonde haired and blue-eyed, with a perfect figure, she's the physical ideal. Always supporting me like a proper wife and following my lead into exile from her homeland, kissing me any excuse she got, and ultimately marrying me before we even got here, she's the romantic ideal. Willful and courageous, stoically withstanding lethal diseases and frightful kidnappings, all while tenderly caring for those around her, she's the moral ideal. Defeating enemies left and right via her crafty selection of the perfect arrow for the job while also being the most skilled white mage in the world, she's the mental ideal. If Rosa doesn't qualify as a lover, who would?" I gushed.
"Luckily they're all from famous rpg's Aoba's already upgraded, so my advice is the same, dive into VR and relive your glory days together." Lafiel instructed.
"So that gets us down to 9." I ticked off my fingers excitedly.
"Are you really going to ask for my advice on all 15?" Lafiel sighed.
"What does it matter? There aren't any crimes to solve anyway." I brushed her annoyance aside.
"Honoka is the perfect woman, kind and conscientious, but fierce when it comes to protecting what's hers. She's the sort to never give up no matter how bad things get. Come to think of it, you're the same. . ." I looked into Lafiel's eyes, then blushed a bit. "You don't mind me praising other women in front of you, do you?"
"I think Cute-sama's brainwashing covers this as part of our acceptance of polygamy, so do go on." Lafiel gestured in surrender.
"But when a woman is too perfect, it's hard to get a word in edgewise. I feel like she's fine the way she is, so there's nothing left to say. Plus she's always been shikkari and able to look after herself." I said, looking up hopefully at Lafiel for advice.
"Honoka enjoyed the time you went to the planetarium together, right?" Lafiel asked. "In that case, why not go straight into a tour of space together this time? That should appease her scientific curiosity while still suiting a neophyte like you who can just look at the pretty twinkling lights."
"So take one of our newly built spaceships for a joy ride?" I asked.
"Try taking an orbit across the solar system together, just the two of you. Round the sun and back, visit our outer planets and tell us what they look like, take pictures and notes, make it a real scientific survey. The ships have enough life support for a journey like that, and with antimatter drives you'd be surprised how quickly you can flit about." Lafiel got excited just thinking of flying again.
"It's perfect!" I grasped Lafiel's hands in gratitude. "I'm writing these down. Honoka -- space exploration together tour." Zero G sex GET!
"Okay, for Mai, she's a lot like Honoka, except she prefers art over science. Also she really hates the things she hates, it's stunningly unlike anyone else I've ever seen. Honoka's probably the more beautiful of the two, in face and voice, but I always preferred Mai's personality." I narrated.
"You met at a summer matsuri, right? With lots of spirits in lieu of fireflies. So go to a summer matsuri together and find a tree surrounded by fireflies to make love to her. By then she should be putty in your hands." Lafiel answered every challenge.
"So for New Year's it's Chiwa and midsummer it's Mai. Perfect!" I praised Lafiel again. "I thought this was impossible but you make it all sound so easy!"
"I was trained to run an empire so resolving interpersonal disputes is only natural." Lafiel smiled, finally being recognized by the boy who had ignored her since forever.
"I loved Isara because she didn't let other people get her down. She took care of her family even when she had to lose out in exchange, and she tried twice as hard as anyone else for the happiness the rest of us take for granted. And of course because she was incredibly beautiful, but like you said, that already applies to everyone." I said.
"A domestic type huh?" Lafiel tapped her lips, not really having anything in common with the servile class. "How about you let Isara and Myusel trade places for a week? Just let Isara service you the way Myusel has and see if she feels better afterwards."
"Does working as my personal maid really qualify as a romantic date?" I questioned.
"For girls like her, who are always thinking of others, serving you is probably when she feels most needed and appreciated. It's when she's proudest of herself. So I think her pupils will be hearts by the end of an entire week like that." Lafiel predicted.
"Isara takes Myusel place." I wrote down. "Okay, Mylene is impossible, she loves the me who was the best musician in the universe. It's fine for me to love her for her artistic sense, her puppy dog like devotion to a boy who continuously blew her off, and her obvious physical beauty, but what can I, as Chris, not Basara anymore, ever do for her?"
"You'll have to show that you share Basara's spirit even if you don't have his specs. Compose a song for her, practice it until you can play the guitar notes, and sing outside her window at night as a surprise live concert. Actually, you'd do better if you composed multiple ballads. Sing your heart out under her window -- you don't have to have a great voice, she knows you by now. And she knows how hard you must have tried to come even that far." Lafiel suggested.
"Learn the guitar and compose all new songs?" I swallowed.
"You love Mylene, don't you? So she's at least worth this much to you, isn't she?" Lafiel's cat eyes seemed to both narrow and widen simultaneously, producing a terrifying face.
"Learn the guitar and sing ballads for Mylene." I wrote down hastily.
"It doesn't have to be a love song. If you put your heart and soul into anything, you could praise fascism if you wanted. If you're true to your heart and put it all out there that's Basara." Lafiel encouraged me.
"I loved Nayuki because she was always there for me. We lived together as family and whenever there were happy times or sad times she was there to share half of them with me. It was like we were always on the same side. Then combine that with how long she loved me from childhood to her teenage years even while I was away and her beauty and I couldn't imagine anyone better." I said.
"Hmmm. . . Together through anything. . .this one's hard. . ." Lafiel closed her eyes and searched her ageless wisdom. "How about this, then? You and Nayuki should watch the results of Sakura Kinomoto's Record card together. Compile notes on how and why Earth ended over the last 100 years, and then publish the paper together for all the school children to read. Debate over what should have been done, or what could have happened differently, and tour all the historic places you used to live together at in the winter snow. Remember Earth together and then say goodbye to it together. Wouldn't that satisfy her unique individual requirements?"
"Are you trying to break our hearts?" I objected.
"Compared to your lives together in Kanon the end of the world should still be a joy ride. Isn't this right up your alley?" Lafiel countered.
"Watch the end of the world with Nayuki." I wrote down resignedly.
"Misuzu was really cute, how she preserved her childish wonder and friendliness towards strangers even though no one would ever get close to her. And then I felt bad for her and wanted to help her, and of course her beauty." I reported.
"Take her fishing at the beach where the rivers run down into the sea until you've both caught a giant sturgeon and pose together holding it in all four of your arms." Lafiel closed the case.
"That does sound outdoorsey. . ." I admitted, writing it down and moving on.
"Nozomi's probably the worst. She doesn't have any hobby outside of teaching and I recently put her firstborn son into cold sleep." I grimaced. "As for why I fell in love, outside of looks, it was her determination and willingness to surge ahead and do things when everyone else was hesitating. Sort of like how I didn't hesitate to put Coco-tachi in cold sleep, I like people who just do what's right and damn the consequences. She's a natural born leader who will make the hard decisions and encourage others to keep up."
"Since you're mayor for life I wonder if she's feeling too constrained. You could be suffocating her own sense of justice every time you impose your own." Lafiel squeezed her lips together thoughtfully. "It's the same with Isara. You should let Nozomi be Mayor for a week and trade places with her as a teacher. The important thing is you can't overrule her once you take back power. Any reform she makes you have to honor. Can you do that? Can you respect her leadership?"
"I can." I nodded. "I don't think I've done anything wrong, so Nozomi wouldn't change anything I care about anyway. Besides, Cute-sama already did a radar ping for thought criminals and she wasn't among them."
"Let her stretch her wings a bit, and see if she can do better. Then talk about the various benefits and costs of policy changes with her in the evening after she's back from work. If you show her that you respect her opinions, I think that qualifies as a romantic event." Lafiel concluded.
"Hand over leadership to Cure Dream." I wrote down in my memo. "Okay, since I need to take some time off to compose ballads for Mylene anyway, this is perfect. Next is Kotori. She's the girl who sacrificed everything for me, for the world, for Kagari, for her sense of justice. She even raised a dog that bit her more often than not. She's that kind of girl. And at the end of all those bitter duties all she displayed in return was kindness and good cheer. And of course she's voiced by Chiwa Saito, so both her face and voice are impossibly exquisite."
"Journey to the power spot with her and make some golems together. Help her with the hiking trails and stay out in the wilderness camping for a week, just the two of you. Reconnect with Nature and you'll reconnect with your druid waifu." Lafiel recommended.
"I guess it's true, anyone can make familiars if they set their mind to it. . . and Cute-sama already guaranteed us infinite lifespan so just like a druid I can manipulate them for free. Okay, work with Kotori and become one with nature. Maybe that will help me compose ballads for Mylene."
"That leaves only Reina. Reina's a warrior. She'll fight for what's right, to protect what's hers, even if the whole world might be set against her for it. She's the sort of person who prioritizes justice over convenience, and pays whatever price to see her own personal justice through. But at the same time she's full of compassion for those who are suffering unjustly, so it's not like she goes out of her way to inflict pain on others. It's more like she simply feels everything more strongly than the rest of us. I respect that so much. People who care enough about life to not compromise on it -- that's just like me. We're kindred spirits."
"Reina wants to see justice done. In that case, go to Justice Shrine and ask Cute-sama to let Reina apprentice under her. If she becomes a judge for the punishments of Hell I think she'll thrive. Make it a week long change of pace like the others and then talk to her at night what decisions she made in each case, debate with her what you could do differently, and then start kissing somewhere in there. . ." Lafiel gestured with a roll of her hand that even I should be able to figure out the rest.
"Let Reina punish the wicked with hellfire." I wrote into my memo and slammed it shut. "Got it. Lafiel Abriel, is there anything you can't do?"
"You should know your place by now, Christopher. When have I ever let you down?" Lafiel smiled back at me.
15 romantic dates coming up! I wouldn't let any of my waifus feel lonely or left out. Whether it meant some got special treatment for a while, kankeinai. If someone was hurting they deserved special treatment. I meant it when I said I loved them all. I'd do anything to show it to them, any method it took. All 101 of us together, happy and harmonious. Forward the endless dream!
Chapter 44:
While clearing the Final Fantasy IV virtual reality remake with Rosa, I received an ominous hint in passing conversation. "It would be nice if Ceodore could join us soon."
Ceodore? I looked his name up later, and sure enough, Rosa had a son I'd left completely unaccounted for. I had intended to let the mothers of any children get their children back in Eden, but I'd never played Final Fantasy 4: The After Years, it having received horrible reviews, so his existence had completely skipped my mind. It was part of the lore, though, so it was part of Rosa's memories, even though it wasn't part of mine.
I had had terrible luck with children who were named after lore-based children -- August, Kazui and Salad had all ended up thought criminals. But I suppose I owed it to Rosa to provide her with the son she'd been missing all this time, especially since I'd gifted every other wife their long lost children long ago.
Rosa wasn't the only mother giving off rumblings of dissatisfaction. It didn't take Cute-sama long to point out that while everyone else had six children, she only had one.
"So I was playing this Ogre Battle game you named my daughter after, and did you know, Yushis had a sister? Another angel, just like her. It's like a sign from God!" Cute-sama reported to me excitedly, blinking her eyes rapidly as she looked up at me expectantly.
Wasn't anything Cute-sama said or did a sign from God though?
"Mizal served the evil wizard Rashidi." I pointed out.
"She was tricked into it, and only out of love." Cute-sama dismissed the charge. "She was really a good person. A really great sister to Yushis." Cute-sama blinked at me rapidly again with an expectant smile.
"Would you like to have another daughter?" I finally proposed to her, surrendering.
"Yes!" Cute-sama jumped into my arms delightedly, giving me a double hug of arms and white wings.
In truth, there were a lot of names I was burning to use on new children, and with Siri the AI manufacturing all our needs and endlessly building up our Burj Khalifa mansion, it's not like we had anything better to do than populate the planet. The growing impatience among my wives was mirrored by my own desire to get back to work doing the one meaningful thing left to us adults.
It was time for the inevitable seventh borns. But first, it was important to get the groundwork laid for the next generation. The year was 81 E.T., and my first great-great-grandchildren were also about to be born as per my rules of everyone marrying by age 20 and having two children by the age of 25. As each generation was exponentially bigger than the last, there were going to be a lot of children running around soon, so I thought it was about time I codified Paradise's law.
I decided to put up a cenotaph with my own Ten Commandments in the front lawn of Police Headquarters so everyone could know what exactly was expected from them and why exactly they were being executed (in case of actually doing something forbidden) or put into cold sleep (in case of simply wishing to do it). The murder rate, at just 2 in Paradise's history, was low, but in Japan it had been even lower, so obviously the citizenry could use some more moral instruction.
1. There is no God but Cute-sama. Thou shalt have no other Gods before her.
Thou shalt not rebel against God's chosen one, the Mayor. Nor shalt thou rebel against reality by denying verifiable facts.
2. Thou shalt not murder, rape, assault or otherwise physically discomfort others.
3. Thou shalt not steal, vandalize, breach a contract, or otherwise impugn people's property.
4. Thou shalt not, out of malice, defame, bully, harass or otherwise emotionally discomfort others.
5. Thou shalt not have sex outside of marriage and thou shalt not divorce. Thou shalt marry a member of the opposite sex by the age of 20 and have at least two children by the age of 25. Marriage is the gift of eternal consent -- thou shalt not withhold physical or emotional intimacy from those to whom it was promised.
6. Thou shalt not take recreational drugs other than alcohol. Thou shalt not overindulge even in alcohol outside of special celebratory occasions.
7. Thou shalt not become overweight, or otherwise disfigure your God-given forms, which are in the image of God. Thou shalt not cause needless harm to the environment, plants, animals or scenery, which are also gifts from God.
8. Thou shalt not deny or counsel against anyone's right to a citizen's dividend yielding sufficient means to live a dignified life. Parents are responsible for children's wellbeing up until the day of their marriage.
9. Thou shalt perform to the best of your ability any task assigned to you by City Hall.
10. Thou shalt not sanction, promote, conceal or forgive the sins of others.
The Ten Commandments were simply genius. Children were generally assigned the task of receiving an education by City Hall, so my "Arts, Literature, Philosophy and Morality" class was safely embedded within the rules. I also liked the grouping of rebellion against God with rebellion against Reality. It truly was one and the same, since God created the natural laws we all lived under. Every one of them was there for a reason, and questioning any of them was equivalent to questioning God. Denying objective facts was heresy, it was blasphemy, and the penalty was death, as it should be.
The proviso that parents were responsible for their children until the day of their marriage meant they were the 'in loco' authority figures who could dispense their own punishments as they saw fit for childish infractions. This meant children were allowed to do stupid things and not die instantly, a must if we were going to continue the human race. It also meant that they were required to take care of their children physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually as well as just financially. Luckily my wives had all performed that role for me.
The 1st Commandment banned all of the stupid religions of Earth or any future stupid religion from taking root, as well as any idolatrous belief or value system that dared to promote itself as greater than God. 2-4 were obvious necessities if people were to live in a community. 5 was necessary for the formation and fruition of families and the virtues and pleasures inherent to family life. Due to polygamy, which was strictly a one man multiple women allowance, and women's choosiness, it was possible that men simply could not find a consenting partner, in which case, having tried their best to fulfill the Commandment, they would be permitted a waiver. Every woman on Eden was physically attractive enough that there was bound to be someone willing to marry her, so no such excuse or waiver would ever be granted them. 6 was the Commandment for sanity, to maintain mankind as agents of reason and not simple beasts. 7 was the equally important physical purity equivalent to 6's mental purity. Venerating God's creation, a proper appreciation of beauty, was at the heart of a well-lived life. It also forbade overpopulation, perhaps Earth's greatest mistake, by banning humanity from intruding too far into nature's bounty. 8 got rid of the devils of want, stress, fear, slavery, servitude, debt, etc. that plagued Earth's history. It was the Commandment of compassion for your fellow man.
Actually, I bet I could attach a single word to each Commandment to typify my statements in their most primordial form. To stress what virtue I was aiming for each time. Let's see if I could do that:
1. Respect for truth
2. Respect for persons
3. Respect for property
4. Respect for feelings
5. Respect for family
6. Respect for reason
7. Respect for beauty
8. Respect for love
9. Respect for authority
10. Respect for justice
If these ten things were properly respected life would be good. If they weren't it would be evil. It was that simple. Rather than lawyers and judges poring over tens of thousands of pages of laws, these Ten Commandments could cover everything necessary. Even more amazingly, good and evil was so simple, the lawbook of Eden was so pellucid, all Ten Commandments could be boiled down to single words.
Yes, the Ten Commandments required additional interpretation and filling in of glossed over details, but it was obvious to any rational adult what I was getting at. There could be no confusion like what happened with the terribly written U.S. constitution.
My report on why the world ended, conducted after an investigation with Nayuki, was quite simple. People hadn't followed the Ten Commandments, so there was no sanctity of truth, sanctity of persons, sanctity of property, sanctity of feelings, sanctity of family, sanctity of reason, sanctity of beauty, sanctity of love, sanctity of authority, or sanctity of justice left in the world. Since none of these things were honored, defended or upheld, they were all tossed aside whenever convenient in favor of the things that were honored and upheld. And what demonic priorities they were: Self-esteem, hedonism, consent, hard work, tolerance, diversity, equality, faith, democracy and non-discrimination, the ten anti-commandments of the Anti-Christ. These Riders of the Apocalypse were deemed to trump the things that actually mattered, so over time the bulwarks that sustained and continued life naturally eroded. Like a dam no longer receiving maintenance it was only a matter of time until the whole system collapsed. There were no functional mores left to preserve life on Earth -- they had all been sacrificed on the altars of these strange new gods.
I bet if I tried I could pair an inverse anti-commandment the Earth had been following to every single one of my Commandments, proving the Earth had actually managed to so far separate itself from morality that it no longer possessed a single worthwhile trait. This was actually intriguing. If I wrote up Earth's ten anti-commandments, would they actually manage to annul everything of worth in this world?
1. Thou shalt not imperil people's faith, regardless of what erroneous beliefs are necessary to promote it.
Or, in other words, respect for anti-truth.
2. Thou shalt show tolerance towards any amount of criminal wrongdoing.
Or, in other words, respect for anti-persons.
3. Thou shalt serve equality by redistributing however much socio-economic status it takes from those who earned it to those still lacking.
Or, in other words, respect for anti-property.
4. Diversity is our greatest strength, therefore it is okay to defame, bully and harass historic homogeneous majorities until they've received it good and hard.
Or, in other words, respect for anti-feelings.
5. When it comes to sex and reproduction, do whatever feels good, and look not to tomorrow. In the end only consent matters.
Or, in other words, respect for anti-family.
6. When it comes to drugs, do whatever feels good, and look not to tomorrow. In the end only hedonism matters.
Or, in other words, respect for anti-reason.
7. In order to preserve everyone's self-esteem, no standards of personal behavior or appearance can be upheld.
Or, in other words, respect for anti-beauty.
8. Thou shalt work hard for as much of every day as possible, even if your work is unproductive or counterproductive, even if there are many other and better things one could be doing, and even if there's already plenty to go around. Hard work is an end in itself. Children must be the hardest worked of all.
Or, in other words, respect for anti-love.
9. Universal democracy, or in other words, one malicious, uninformed, idiotic voter, one vote, is the ideal way to run a country -- that's why we do the same for the heads of classrooms, military units, companies, and all other fields of endeavor. Oh wait, that's not how we do it? Oh well, either way.
Or, in other words, respect for anti-authority.
10. Thou shalt not discriminate. Non-discrimination is more important than any regulation of negative behavior or any assignation of rewards or resources corresponding to people's merits.
Or, in other words, respect for anti-justice.
This toxic grab-bag of conservatism (faith and hard work), liberalism (tolerance, equality, self-esteem, non-discrimination, diversity and democracy), and libertarianism (consent and hedonism), even though it was inchoate and contradictory within itself, was remarkably consistent in that it managed to reject and resist every single value necessary to the preservation of civilization. It was consistent only in that it preferred evil over good every single time. Like clockwork, it could be counted upon that everything of value was trumped by some cockamamie dross.
You could not have both faith and truth.
You could not have both tolerance and security.
You could not have both equality and property.
You could not have both diversity and harmony.
You could not have both consent and family formation.
You could not have both hedonism and rationality.
You could not have both self-esteem and standards.
You could not have both hard work and freedom.
You could not have both democracy and order.
You could not have both non-discrimination and justice.
For all of these things people must choose what matters most to them, and for all of them Earth chose wrongly. That's why it was now a lifeless heap of ash while Eden was graced by God.
For millennia, though no one had properly worshiped Cute-sama herself, the fundamentals of morality she had desired and designed through Human Nature and Natural Nature were followed religiously. People understood the importance of marriage and pairing off men with women. They understood the need for healthy bodies and healthy minds, unimpaired by vice. They understood that truth was not subjective and was not up for debate. They understood that the rulers were wiser than the ruled and therefore should be obeyed. They understood that without safeguards against sin the populace would be overtaken and consumed. They may have believed the world was flat, but they understood everything important. The modern era had ushered in an understanding of science and math, but at the cost of ceasing to understand God. The teachings of Her divine order had been replaced with nonsense about physics, chemistry and trigonometry. All that remained was the cacophony of the masses, saying "Traditional morality is too stifling, let's tear it all down."
They tore down everything but the knowledge of splitting the atom and splicing people's DNA, and so in the end all that was left to humanity was to split and splice their way to oblivion.
It was important that Eden did not go the same way as Earth, Exocet or any of the other failed planes. And the only way to do that was to remain on the straight and narrow path, the one route humanity could take that didn't rebel against God's law, as clearly revealed by both history and biology, not to mention Cute-sama's own benedictional presence upon our soil, and follow the Ten Commandments.
The Ten Commandments were what separated us from the thousand other failures. Though I'd like to think my waifus were great people even without the Commandments, obviously that couldn't extend down a chain of multiple generations. Our descendants' salvation had always been the Law. For the average man, a guiderope was necessary to navigate one's life. The idea that everyone would independently sit down like Socrates and work out their very own personal philosophy was absurd. Even if they tried the results would be horrendous. Instead, all they would have to do is read the cenotaph and all would be made clear for them. They would have something to hold onto, something concrete they could grasp quickly and fully, a community standard. Valuing the right things, life would continue to flourish, as Cute-sama had always intended. And then individuals would be able to display their own sparks of divinity within this pattern -- an act of kindness here, understanding there, affirmation over yonder, or perhaps just a deep, abiding and fulfilling love that suffused their entire soul. Like my union with Himeno. And Cute-sama could look upon the world that continuously emitted these effervescent, ever shifting miracles, and know that it was Good.
A human life, thrown correctly, would skip across the lake of time, safely reaching Cute-sama's embrace on the other side, each ripple a moment of divinity so beautiful, so precious, that even God could not foresee or replicate it. But change the angle or the force ever so slightly, and the stone would not skip. Instead it would sink, producing nothing, going nowhere, just falling into an abyss of its own treacherous making.
The Ten Commandments were the only angle that could let a stone skip or a soul sing.
It wasn't the technology. Nor was it Cute's divine intervention. Before any of that, overriding all of that, it was the Law. There were plenty of planes with high technology or high magic. Cute had only intervened after we had succeeded, not before. The one constant that propelled Eden above the rest of creation had been the Law. Before Eden, it had been the Law that propelled some cultures over others. It was why the Spanish prevailed over the Aztecs, or the British over the Indians, or the Americans over the Communists. Those who had followed the Ten Commandments, however loosely or haphazardly, would always prevail over those who did not. It was written into the book of fate, at the beginning of creation. The laws of physics and evolution, all of which were simply Cute-sama's own preferences shining through like an impish grin, forbade any other result.
Even the Confederates and Nazis had failed to obey the Law and been punished as a result. Despite the many things they got right, their lack of respect for persons and property ultimately caught up to them and left their fates no different from that of Carthage. I had refrained from subjugating others and thereby been rewarded with peace and harmony. That was the difference. For the first time ever, all ten principles were being followed by a segment of mankind, and it was this which had summoned all the other blessings and showered Paradise with heretofore unimaginable felicity.
We were the crown jewel of creation, as evidenced by our Creator's unequivocal endorsement, and all it took had been abiding by ten simple laws. Before now, apparently humanity couldn't even do that. Cute-sama had to have had divine levels of patience to have put up with us thus far, but maybe now we could finally repay her the favor of our existence. Eden would settle all the other failures' scores. Based upon a firm foundation, this time we would get God's plan right.
* * *
"Deedlit, I notice your name wasn't on the petition, even though we've barely talked. Why didn't you join the conspiracy?" I asked as we hiked up Kokona's carefully prepared mountain trail through the woods together.
"I was 175 years old before you brought me here to Eden, you can't expect me to engage in childish tantrums." Deedlit rolled her eyes.
"I know marriage is more than sex and children, and I know I've spread myself rather thin what with even Cute-sama joining in, but I swear to you I'm not intentionally neglecting anyone." I insisted.
Deedlit smiled to herself, and then shook her head, dispelling ancient memories. "Christopher, you could not be more like Parn if you tried. To me this is exactly what I expected from you. How many times did I try to catch your attention, to attract your eye, as you chased after everything else under the sun? Dragons, sword instructors, knighthood, princesses, sages, sorcerers, even goblins. The one thing you never looked at or paid any attention to was me. And that's the Christopher I fell in love with and would do anything for."
"Eventually I did chase after you." I protested.
"Only after my body was being used as a vessel for the resurrection of a dark God that would have spelled the end of the world." Deedlit riposted.
"It was out of genuine concern for your personal safety!" I chirped.
Deedlit giggled and agilely spun around, her cape fluttering behind her as she leaned over to look me in the eye with a cheerful cute pose. "I know. You put everything you had into saving me from my initial kidnapping, before you knew what was going on. And then you defied all your principles and wielded the evil sword for the power to save me. When it mattered most you were there for me, and that's what I remember. We elves have long memories, even before Cute-sama's gift. I remember those days like they were yesterday, and I still trust you to come again the moment I really need you. Our love has always been less spoken and more just known."
"Some of you are so perfect the way you are, I don't know what else there is to say. I can't give you any advice. You fed us until Siri was available, working every day even while pregnant, even while nursing. You're the oldest woman here and have accumulated endless wisdom before I had even been born. You're always in high spirits and can kick anyone's butt who so much as looks at you wrong. I love you because you're everything a man could desire, but if you're everything already I have nothing left to give." I explained. It wasn't only Deedlit, I'd avoided a lot of girls I didn't know how to relate to, simply because they were too good for me. When it came to girls like Rose, Reina, Eruruu or Wendy, their perfection was intimidating. They didn't need me for anything, they had everything together, they were utterly flawless gems, and there was no place for me in their lives.
In abstract, I knew that wasn't true. Everyone got lonely. Everyone felt insecure about something or other. Everyone wanted outside stimulus to avoid boredom and satisfy their curiosity. And everyone wanted to be understood. But you try looking into the eyes of stone-cold killers like Rose or Reina and say, "you must have been so lonely without me, your life is so boring, I'm sure you're insecure about your self-worth, but don't worry, I'm here now to save you!" Good luck dodging Rose's flying knife fan special attack that did 70% of the damage to the last boss on her own.
"You're wrong about that. No one, not even elves are complete in and of themselves. Not even Cute-sama. That's why she had to make all of us. That's why she got sad and lonely and descended from her aery throne. If Cute-sama isn't self-sufficient, what do you take me for?" Deedlit laughed pleasantly at the idea.
"No offense to Cute-sama, who is probably reading my mind right now, but at times I think just maybe she's less mature than the average girl. . ." I smiled helplessly at the divine judgment I knew I'd be receiving later.
"It isn't immaturity, it's naivete. She hasn't interacted with people very much, so she's completely honest and sincere with her expressions and her words. But when you think about it, it's not even naivete. No one can physically harm her, so she can be as open and unguarded around others as she wants. And no one can emotionally betray her either, because she's already read all our hearts and knows that will never happen. While we built up endless layers of dishonest secretiveness in order to not be hurt by others, while we all strive for poker faces and stoicism, she can just leap into our arms and go 'wai, wai!'. Anyone with omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence would end up acting the same." Deedlit analyzed.
I laughed out loud. "When you say it like that, it sounds convincing. But to think that until now every single scripture asserted God could only be a stern and wrathful old man who would either torture us in Hell or demand our endless submission in Heaven. To think that Islam itself means submission, when all Cute wanted was for us to do something new and interesting she couldn't predict. . ."
"The Gods of my world weren't like that. They had specific tasks and specific followings based on their personalities and lived normal lives like anyone else. They came to our aid when called upon." Deedlit pouted. "Not everyone's religions are as stupid as Earth's."
"But we were talking about you," I quickly realized I was running away from the girl I actually wanted to learn more about. "If you aren't complete, what is it I can do to help?"
"Hmmm. . ." Deedlit teasingly hopped away and started floating up the rocks, her short skirt flaring as her cloak whipped above her head. "Well, what if I come across an evil magus stronger than me and need a chevalier to ride to my rescue?"
"Please let me pass on that one." I rejected her entreaty.
"You should train more, Christopher. Even Parn's muscles weren't built in a day you know!" Deedlit teased. "But no, I realize the difficulty. And in all seriousness, I just want someone to play with. I'm an emotional vampire. As I age, everything turns grayer, the colors wash out, and I can't bring myself to care about anything. But then you showed up, full of passion and fire, and suddenly I could see the world in color again. In Lodoss, though you were young, your attachment to your ideals was so strong, I couldn't help but be swept along. And here as well, your passion is overwhelming. Remember when you said you'd carve out your heart and present it at my feet if you felt it could convey your love for me?"
I nodded. At the time I had been embarrassed but apparently it had gone over better than expected.
"That's what you gave me, Christopher. Your passion. I won't pretend. When we embrace, I love the passion you bring into me. You're totally into it, and it makes me want to care too. And when you confess yourself that deeply my slave, I start to feel a little impassioned too. Even when you aren't looking at me, just like in Lodoss, you're always looking at something or someone passionately. You might be the most passionate man under the heavens. To love so many of us so deeply, so well, for so long, that's got to be an Olympic record by now. You have sex every day and yet when I strip for you it's like your eyes light up with ecstasy. Just looking at you looking at me. . .is something I treasure from you." Deedlit blushed and finished quietly.
"But more importantly!" She quickly raised her voice, changing the subject. "When you talk about your plans for Paradise, or how you want another child, or the newest visual novel you read, or how great an anime was, or how much you hate evil people or how much you love seigi -- do you get it? The sex and the children are what occupy our time together, but it's your emotions that fill my heart. Even the ones not directed at me, even your hatred for your former world, it makes me feel like maybe I can feel things too, that maybe life still has more to give. You're my battery. For an elf that's juuyou. For an immortal elf that's everything."
"So long as I keep enjoying life, you'll enjoy life with me?" I asked Deedlit.
Deed giggled. "Christopher, that sounds like a proposal. If I say yes, are we going to run away together?"
"I guess it is a proposal. Deedlit, will you continue to make me happy? Will you even have a seventh born? Even though it's like this, even though you're just one of many, even though I've neglected you all this time, even though I stole away your job with Siri, is it okay to go on loving you?"
"Yes." Deedlit stood perched on the top of a tree, her balance perfect despite most of the sole of her foot hanging in midair, looking down on me with slitted eyes full of mystery.
Yoshaa! I pumped my fist in victory. Watch out Rose! I'm coming for you next!
Chapter 45:
"I wanted to apologize. Even though you've been so good to me, making love to me and raising our six children, I've only come to announce I want a seventh." I went down into dogeza position and struck my forehead at Rose's feet.
Rose sighed, looking down at my shameless raised behind. "I'm used to it by now. Eizen is already ten, so it's fine. Soon enough my apartment would be empty again and it's not like my job at Police Headquarters is exactly riveting either."
I stood up with puppy dog eyes. "Then?"
"Seven or fourteen, it's all the same to me." Rose gave me a thumbs-up and a cocky grin, and I sighed in relief. I always felt like I was going to die when I started asking too much of her.
"By the way, I noticed the Cenotaph Sakura Appeared outside my workplace." Rose sat down in my lap sidesaddle and wrapped her arm around the back of my neck. Her bright blue eyes contrasted brilliantly with her bright red hair to the point that it left me breathless even after all this time. "I think it's great that you've finally spelled out exactly what's expected of us. It's hard to be a police force without any laws."
I was mesmerized by her face and took the opportunity to kiss her on the lips, to which she readily assented. But then she gave me a glare to show she wanted something different today.
"It's always been your job as shepherd to lead people towards a pure life in service of God. I think it's wonderful that you're taking your job seriously. You've always been the chosen one, and you need to assert yourself as such. As your squire, my station is affected too whenever you let yourself get trampled over. And as a member of the Scattered Bones, I can't allow sin to fester if the law fails to act. You're saving me the bother of becoming an outlaw by assigning the Police Force to what I'd have done as a vigilante anyway." Rose smirked, daring me to question how serious she was.
"Cute-sama suddenly cut off the life of eight of my children, people who had families, who people loved and depended on, suddenly gone. It's true that they haven't died, but I feel bad for the people who miss them, who now have to go without. For all intents and purposes, to their friends and families they did die. In the interests of avoiding a repeat of that tragedy I wanted future generations to know when and where they were going wrong and for God's sake to turn back while they still could. I thought my "Arts, Literature, Philosophy and Morality" class would be enough to show people right from wrong, but apparently not." I sighed.
"Not everyone loves 2d as much as you do, even though we were all born from it." Rose smiled gratefully. "They'll see the same things, the same people, and say 'kudaranai, I could do so much better.'"
"Even after years and years of different stories all approaching it from different angles and revealing the same underlying values?" I protested. How did 200 anime franchises, 50 video game franchises, 50 visual novel franchises, 75 manga franchises, 100 authors, 200 movies and 10 tv shows still not get their messages across?
"Even if I watched a thousand shows telling me the death penalty was wrong, I'd never be convinced. Though I admit I was troubled by that scene in 12 Kingdoms. When the daughter of the lord, who had never done anything, was sentenced to being torn apart by oxen walking in four different directions with ropes tied to her limbs, even I started to wonder if death was something that could be trusted in human hands. But then I thought of all the evil people who would have gotten away scot-free if I hadn't been there to kill them, and I clench my fist again. Even if the innocent have to die every now and then, that the guilty should continue living would be even worse. Someone has to draw the line. Someone has to make clear that certain things you simply cannot do, they aren't okay, and they won't be forgiven. I decided that someone would be me, and nothing you or anyone else says is going to change that." Rose said.
"But that's because Rose is Rose. Most people don't have such strong convictions. And especially as children, they should be more pliant. . ." I countered.
"I have the strength of my convictions out of a strong sense of justice, but they also have strong impetuses to ignoring your classroom lessons. If they're attracted to other men, or other women, they're going to search for excuses why they should be able to indulge. It isn't very different from your polygamy." Rose said.
"Polygamy and incest are still traditional bonds that work with the biological reality of sexual dimorphism, not against it, and are capable of reproduction, not just revelry." I rattled off.
"I know, but you probably thought up those things after you looked at two different girls and wanted to hold their breasts in two different hands together." Rose smirked. "As the boy who stood up at a dinner table and demanded every threesome he had ever dreamed of from us, are you really going to tell me it was out of some philosophical ideal?"
"It's both. I have impulses and desires like everyone else, probably more than most, but if I knew the impulse was wrong, I wouldn't act upon it. It's because I think it's both beautiful and moral that I made my wish. . . at the dinner table, and the one to Cute-sama. . ." I responded carefully.
"That's the difference between you and them. But you have to see how easily twisted it all is. If they can justify their act as moral too, then there's nothing different between them and you. And sophists can justify practically anything. Which means in the end people can't be cajoled into doing the right thing, in the end it always comes down to the dagger. Or in Eden's case, our patented tossing off of cliffs." Rose smiled at the memory of Araragi falling to his doom. He had solved his sexual emergency, and we had solved his rottenness emergency, so it had worked out for all involved.
"Eden will be subsumed with kegare just like Zestiria was, if we aren't steadfast. You are the shepherd, I am your squire, your enforcer, your sheepdog, and they are our flock. They'll blindly wander all over the place and be lost to the wolves if we don't occasionally bark at them. It's just how sheep are." Rose explained.
"Do you see any holes in the Ten Commandments?" I asked my disciplinarian.
"I worry about a cold sleep strike. If an entire generation of girls demanded they be allowed to put off marriage, and they were all fine with going into cold sleep and going their own way together, it could spell trouble. Once girls feel just a teeny bit independent, they go crazy with the euphoria of ball crushing." Rose warned. As a girl who had lived at the top of a hierarchy of men, thinking she needed one like a fish needed a bicycle, she would know how hard it was to fall in love and settle down with someone herself.
"I guess there's a couple antidotes to that. One is, even if they fly away together, it won't do them much good unless some men choose to join them. And what man would willingly give away the mandatory marriage custom in order to be with women who could and most probably would eternally turn them down?" I pointed out. "Second, so long as our men stay as handsome, strong and cool as they are now, what reason do they have to object?"
"With the citizen's dividend, women don't need men for financial support. For that matter just with Siri, or even just with Riko or Sakura Kinomoto or Mitsuki's help, they don't need men. The major reason women were ever attracted to men doesn't exist on Eden. Also, since there are no foreign threats, we don't need men's protection from anything. For that matter, on average aren't the women stronger than the men?" Rose raised her eyebrows at me.
"I've always felt the weakest link in our community was keeping women interested in men, and the one thing holding our planet together is the mandatory marriage law. If that went away Eden would be gone. The very next day, just stick a fork in it. And since the mandatory marriage law is the only thing keeping women interested in men, of course they'll resent it more than anything else. It's not only the pillar that supports our world, it's also the target of everyone's ire." Rose warned.
"As to how women would make it on their own, there's sufficient genetic engineering and cloning technology to see things through. That isn't a serious objection. The real reason girls don't want to fly away is because they are genuinely attracted to men, so they'd be lonely without them. We have to find a way to make our men more attractive. More and more attractive, to make up for everything they've lost. They aren't providers, they aren't protectors, they're just men. Women consigning themselves to marriage early, before they're corrupted, fed a daily diet of wonderful romance stories, and then buried in the needs of crying infants isn't a bad idea. It's actually a masterful plan. But I worry whether such a sleight of hand can last forever. Ultimately it would be better if the girls could fall in love and want to marry naturally." Rose appraised my efforts so far.
"We're only human. If being moral, smart, strong and cool isn't enough. . ." I gestured helplessly. "I was a virgin throughout my long life on Earth. The only way I got a wife was by wishing for one. I have no idea how to make men attractive to women. It seems to me that it's just impossible."
"You were pretty cool when you slew that dragon." Rose kissed me soothingly.
"That's what I'm talking about! Cute-sama help us! For every waifu it was a dark god here, a dragon there, a fallen angel over there -- the laws of physics are broken! I had to fight people who were blowing up entire solar systems with meteors multiple times in a row! That's how I got the girl. I got hit by a meteor that just blew up the solar system, got back up, and Omnislashed a one winged angel! Isn't that asking a little too much??????????" I gave out a full throated wail of despair.
Rose started laughing and beating her fist against my thigh, the longer I narrated the fights the more she cracked up against me. I could feel every shake of her body against mine so the pleasantry was more than auditory.
"It's the same in principle, but I don't think it always has to be to that degree. All we really want from men is that they be our rocks. They should keep us grounded, anchor us down, stand firm against outside pressure, withstand emotional stresses and carry our weight when we're feeling overwhelmed. In Zestiria I appreciated your strength, but before then, independent to that, you were already what I wanted in a man. A guy who dealt with others freely and fairly, not worried about looking good to others, confident in himself and in his ability to navigate and enjoy life. You never met a challenge you weren't willing to take head on, you never shirked a responsibility once it had fallen to you, you were centered. You were zen. And I know only the brainwashing makes me respect that in you, but that's how my heart feels. Your strength started from the core and only at the end did it reach the dragon slaying tip. Your soul was strong enough to be the chosen one granted the strength of the spirits to fulfill the ancient prophecies. We aren't stupid. We aren't blind. Even if there aren't any dragons or demons around, if you show that strength of spirit to us we'll always, 100% swoon. Just like I did for you then -- and just like I do for you now. The man who can post his very own Ten Commandments and promise to throw anyone off a cliff who doesn't like it -- even his own wives or children -- that's a rock I can tie myself to and never worry if my footing will crumble. I feel safe with you, I feel safe trusting the things important to me to you, and most of all I feel stronger at your side. And again, it isn't the strength to slay a dragon we women need. We mostly have that and we don't need it here. We need the strength to master ourselves, our flightiness, our constantly flickering emotions, our contradictory desires pulling us every which way -- we are like water. Without men to guide our course, we just gush everywhere and spread out into a formless ooze. We need you to stand firm, stand tall, and stand for what is right. All men, ideally, are women's shepherds." Rose finished.
"I've actually heard that before. That in the home, the patriarch was meant to explain scripture and channel God's authority to his wife and children." I mused.
"You have it good. As God's husband, there can be no doubt of your plenipotentiary authority. I have to say we're all a little floored over here. I'd be nervous about having to compete with Cute except I keep thinking back to those calls for threesomes and I know one girl will never be enough for you." Rose smiled and kissed me again. "But if your sons and grandsons and great-grandsons and great-great-grandsons want to keep up, if they don't want your daughters and granddaughters and great-granddaughters and great-great-granddaughters going into a cold sleep strike, they need to be as spiritually solid as you. They need to stay calm, collected and assured in their judgments, they need to withstand every test made against them, and they need to demand the same from us without trying to curry favor by letting us get away with anything less. That's what we'll admire, and that's the men we'll stick around for."
"So maybe a class describing the Ten Commandments, the penumbras and details surrounding it, and what happens to the worlds that go against it. . ." I brainstormed.
"For high schoolers, add a few hours somewhere, and literally teach them theology. There can be no doubt that this is God's word. Cute is across the street and she hasn't objected to your cenotaph, which invokes her constantly. Men are the bridge between God's eternal constancy and women's ever changing fickleness. We yearn for that bridge to bring us closer to God -- so just make it so." Rose suggested.
"Theology. Maybe we can even ask Cute-sama for some pointers. I know she's chatted with a lot of people who came to the shrine asking for clarifications. If we combined all their notes -- with our perfect memory we should know exactly what she said word for word." I started really liking the idea.
"Eventually we'll have our very own holy book, but this time it really will be the word of God." Rose enthused. "And what could be more important teaching our children than the literal word of God?"
"Okay, anything else?" I stroked my hand through Rose's short red hair appreciatively, my thumb caressing her cheek.
"Yes. The cenotaph clearly says we shouldn't cause needless harm to animals, but we're still slaughtering animals out in the Siri butcher yards. Technically, as a loyal member of the police force, I should be arresting everyone on Eden. And the penalty for every crime on Eden is death. . ." Rose pointed out.
"Needless! Meat is important so it's okay!" Being around Rose really was life endangering!
"But with the advances Earth made in meat substitutes, can you really say that anymore? Plants with the same taste, texture and nutrition as animals exist. Cell cultures exist. So isn't it about time I lay all your bones to rest?" Rose asked curiously.
"Meat substitutes! Free the cattle to range the plains!" I squeaked, writing down another note.
"Yoroshi." Rose kissed me once more with an enigmatic grin.
Chapter 46:
I discovered something while composing ballads for Mylene to sing outside her window. Perfect memory solved a lot of problems. I still couldn't Omnislash one winged angels, but my range of skills could grow rapidly in whichever direction I applied myself to. I was actually pretty smart, all things considered. The moment I gained the memory retention to go along with my thinking, I could understand just about anything. Learning an instrument took a ridiculously short amount of time, as well as learning the tune. All I had to do was get the fingering down correctly once and I had it for all time. This was definitely my favorite blessing out of all Cute-sama's miracles, aside of course from the 100 waifus she'd provided in the first place.
Lafiel's prediction had been a little off. When I sang my new single, "Fa-scism, Fa-scism, Ra-ra-ra! Fa-scism, Fa-scism, Ra-ra-ra!" it was met with a rather cool reception. Mylene stuck out her tongue and said, "The Basara I know was more of a free spirit."
Yes but there's such a thing as being too much of a free spirit. While you were getting raped back at Macross 7 Basara was off singing and dancing with a pod of space whales. At some point you could both have used a bit more fascism.
I had taken Lafiel's additional advice and composed a few more songs, though, so overall the night went well.
Since learning one instrument had gone so smoothly, I resolved to learn more than just the acoustic guitar. Soon enough I'd gained a rudimentary skill for every instrument known to man. I feverishly kept ordering more from Siri, up to and including a gigantic pipe organ. Maybe someday Paradise would need a New Year's Orchestra or something and my pile of instruments could see some future use.
Then I acquired basic skills in all the known sports, from skiing to diving. I was always an indoors type so none of them really appealed to me, but it was nice to think that if one of my waifus wanted to go on a sporty date I could now properly accompany them.
Next came a bunch of useless trivia skills, like how to administer first aid, tie knots, survivalism, orienteering, how to skin and butcher an animal or a fish, all sorts of delicious cooking recipes, how to make my bed, how to set a table, how to assemble a computer from spare parts, and so on. None of it was any use, but I figured if I was going to be an immortal, I should act like one and at least know kung fu. The mortals I came across should all be like, "you had 1,000 years to learn all things, teach me master!" I couldn't let them down by saying I played Da Capo Poker the entire time.
This didn't qualify as self improvement, not a single skill was sufficient to get me a job. Yes, I learned how to write haikus, no, they weren't any good. I could more or less draw straight lines and make decent floor layouts. No, I wasn't good at coming up with new building designs on par with the Taj Mahal. But it was a fun way to pass the time and see new sides to life.
I studied various strategy manuals on war and became a decent field commander in virtual reality remakes of the standard epic battles across Earth's history. I even became a crack shot -- though guns (outside of Makina's sniper rifle and Mumei's steam-punk armaments which were part of their identity) didn't exist in Eden, nor would any weapon of mass destruction if I had my way. The last thing I needed was a single spree killer ending Eden overnight. Our population was low enough that I could totally see it happening. And Cute-sama had already said she would stand aside and let it happen should we allow ourselves such a colossal error.
Note to self -- do not upset Louise, Mikoto, Mitsuki, Lucy, Wendy, Mirajane, Usagi, Iris. . .just don't upset anyone to be safe. I felt like most of my wives could make short work of Paradise even with Nanoha and Fate patrolling the skies. It only took one spell, and the attacker always got to go first.
Nanoha and Fate were saints, and they would do their best to save us from ourselves, but ultimately it came down to love and peace. With enough love from me there would be peace among my wives, and none of our children had inherited remotely as great powers as their parents -- no doubt due to my utterly mundane DNA contribution.
I could trust my wives. I couldn't trust the endless children. Not with megaflares, and not with guns. Even one unnecessary death was one too many. Just imagine if Sherria were shot dead tomorrow by some stupid emo punk. I'd never get to see her or touch her again. That would be it. The girl I'd loved for eighty years but not nearly enough, the busty loli so beautiful she could give Wendy a run for her money, dead because I let an idiot near a gun.
I'd seen enough mayhem on Earth. Never again. Life was not some cheap thing to play around with. These people meant everything to me. I wouldn't let the mere pulling of a trigger be enough to take them away.
But in the end I was probably just running away. No matter how many skills I picked up, the one skill I really needed was how to hold a decent conversation with all the girls I'd been neglecting. The petition signers weren't the only ones with legitimate beefs. Of course I made conversation on the evenings of our sexual encounters, but it wasn't enough. Idle conversation and pillow talk could happen with anyone, it was as the petition signers said -- if it was generic talk that could have happened with any waifu interchangeably, it still wasn't the conversation they were hoping for.
I had a perfect memory, which meant now I could recall every detail of everyone's source works. This was a major advantage, especially after 70 years of the details blurring away. I should know them and their special someones whose relationships I had purloined as well as they knew themselves. Between the two, I should be able to make something work with everyone, so why were there still so many I had never said much of anything to at all?
The answer was time. There truly wasn't enough time. Between juggling my 101 waifus, my 601 children, my time in the Mayor's office, my 2d hobbies, my outdoor hobbies, my job as an educator in the classroom, our communal breakfasts and dinners at the mansion and sleep. . . It was pretty funny, but as an immortal I think I had less free time than as a mortal. It didn't matter how many years I piled up, if I had a free hour I wanted to spend it visiting Ushio and asking about her day at school, if she was getting along with her friends, and if she'd like anything new to wear. (Ushio was all grown up now, but it sure was fun while it lasted.)
And that was only one option among thousands. That's how many important people and things there were to me now. It was a miracle I'd spent quality time with as many wives as I had. The goal of sharing something special with all 101 was as daunting as K2. Was there enough specialness within me to stretch that far? Was there anything left to share with the remainder? So long as it was a date night and we could always fall back on the sex we'd come together for, I was safe. But connecting over deep talk about our innermost secrets? 101 times, with 101 different people? None of it generic, none of it repetitive. . .which could only be considered a con to the women involved. . . The more I tried to summon up the courage to call out Wendy for a date, the more I decided to just learn the drums instead.
What if I wasn't right for Wendy after all? What if the girl I loved most in the world really had nothing in common with me? What if, aside from my ability to impersonate Natsu, the girl I cherished most thought nothing of me? I knew this seemed like a stupid worry after 81 years together and six children -- but with 101 wives that actually amounted to less than one year of married life together, and I hardly knew any of my children so it's not like we had any shared memories of raising them together. I knew their names -- Natsu, Charles, Agnes, Saki, Pacifica and little Tenri -- but even that was only due to Cute-sama's gift of a perfect memory.
Actually Wendy might be a comparatively easy challenge. Ever since I had admitted she was my favorite in front of my entire assembled harem I felt we shared a secret but charged bond. She knew in her heart that I was above all hers, and when she looked at me with a proud smile my heart always fluttered in return. It told me that she knew, and she liked it, that likewise, I was the #1 in her heart, and she treasured her status as my favorite more than anything else in the world. Maybe our deep connection was already formed -- inadvertent as it had been, the decision I made that day had connected us in a way no one else could copy -- which was exactly what I wanted. But if those words always just remained words. . .what did they even mean? Surely if she was my favorite, I should have shown her some favor above and beyond the norm by now, but instead. . .
I stopped clutching my head and stood up. Wendy was my favorite. And I was going to show that with more than words this time. If that disrupted convention and various people's schedules, oh well. That's what the title of favorite meant, that's the kind of weight it carried. Tenri was only 1 year old, which meant recently I'd delightedly made love to Wendy 24 times. Some of those times she'd given me the honor of embracing her pink haired, pink eyed, white winged Dragon Force mode. I had loved every minute of it, and my heart had raced with her perfect beauty even after it was obvious she was already pregnant and we doggedly kept going at it anyway. But that was my physical love for Wendy. This time I wanted to give her my soul.
"Myusel," I phoned my maid who was doing chores somewhere in the mansion. "Can you ask Isara to take over Tenri's care for a week starting this very second? Plus, cancel all appointments. I want to do something that's been pending for far too long."
"Goshujin-sama, I request similar service." Myusel's reply came promptly over the cell phone.
"Maybe someday," I smiled to myself. The time I'd had unending sex with Myusel, with new bursts of Ruby-inspired energy across the entire night, was still an unforgettable 'similar service' she'd eventually finagled out of me. But I couldn't let Myusel hog all the fun. I hung up on Myusel and waited long enough for Tenri to be out of the way, and then I girded my courage and went to knock on Wendy's door.
"Who is it?" Wendy asked nervously, a rise in her voice indicating she knew something was already afloat.
My stomach started twisting nervously as if in response to her own. How should I reply? Something corny like, 'someone who loves you?', Something lame like 'It's me?', or perhaps I should just break down the door without any reply at all?
How does one act in front of one's crush? She could level me with a single withering look. If I said or did one thing wrong, I'd lose my self-esteem forever.
"Hi. I'm Christopher." Cute-sama save me! Was I a door-to-door insurance salesmen meeting Wendy for the very first time?
Wendy opened the door and looked far up to meet me eye to eye, her plain brown eyes such a distinct contrast to her long loose blue hair. She was wearing her favorite green dress from her Cait Sith days, something she could still fit into thanks to the power of the Silver Crystal after all this time.
"I was wondering why Isara rushed to my door and asked if she could take care of Tenri for me. Is there something you needed?" Wendy asked politely, leaning into the open door to support her weight. If she needed something like that as a support, maybe she was as nervous as me?
"Yes. I want you to come to my room and. . .to stay." I managed to get out.
"The night?" Wendy's eyebrows lifted. It would be rude to steal another girl's scheduled assignation.
"For now. . .the week." I replied nervously. There's no way she'd say she felt bad for the other girls and turn me down flat, would there be? I know she's nice but wouldn't that be taking things too far?
"It's true that Tenri's off the breast and onto the bottle, so technically it would be possible." Wendy looked at me with consternation. This had literally never happened with anyone before, she actually looked like she wanted to check me for a fever.
"I want to spend an entire week with you in my room. And I don't have anything grand planned. I just thought we could watch the anime and read the spinoff manga together. Just you and me. Of course we'll still go to the dinner table to eat, but then we'll get back in bed and resume the marathon. . . it's. . .my idea of spending the best time possible. . .with the best girl possible. . ." My hand started to shake as I tried to phrase things right, to appeal to her in some way, as an otaku to his dream.
"You want to retrace our steps together. In Fairy Tail?" Wendy smiled at me and put a hand over my trembling arm. It didn't help at all.
"It's a long journey, so I thought we should take our time together." I managed to explain my reasoning.
"I'll come. Just let me get some changes of clothes. If we're spending a week together, I want to look and smell my absolute best. I'll need my shampoo and razors and. . ." Wendy blushed and then backed away from the door and closed it. "Anyway, please wait outside while I get a bag together. I never thought I'd be moving in with you so I don't even know where to start. . ." Wendy started piping out excuses as she started banging open various cabinets.
After what felt like an eternity, Wendy opened the door again, her hair suddenly up in twintails, her dress my favorite white one with the red ribbons. She took my arm in hers and held it against her side like a properly escorted lady. "Christopher." She nodded to me that she was ready, and so I slowly walked her to my room, arm in arm, crossing endless corridors of probably oblivious waifus already going to bed with their own children to take care of. But I got nervous just thinking what they would think if they saw us together. Showing that I wasn't ashamed of loving Wendy was part of the point of this date, but then again it was probably rude showing off in front of others, so in the end what was right and what was wrong?
We met one mother returning with her kid from the public baths in the mansion and our hearts leaped as we stood to the side of the hallway to let them through. Only later did we realize that it hadn't even been anyone we knew and we started laughing. The population of the mansion was the exact same as the population of Eden. Of course most of the people we came across would be strangers.
When we got through the front door of my palatial master bedroom, which she'd shared with me innumerable times before but never quite like this, she gave out a gasp and ran to jump onto the bed.
"Yokataaaaa." Wendy sighed in relief, burying her head in my sheets. As a Dragon Slayer, her sense of smell was especially sharp, and she seemed to love the smell associated with me to the point of inebriation. "I was desperately searching for something to say if she called me a doroboneko." Wendy squeezed her fists together nervously.
"It's all my fault. I broke all the rules and brought you here. How could you resist your lord's call?" I reassured Wendy, climbing into bed with her and holding her hands in mine.
"It doesn't work that way between women. Men are helpless objects of our manipulation, so I had to have done something to seduce you. That's how we're judged over on this side. Tomorrow at breakfast. . ." Wendy blushed redder and redder imagining the confrontation with the girl whose night had been canceled.
"At least tell me who it was today." Wendy whispered.
"It's okay, I planned this out pretty well. Tonight was supposed to be Aisia's turn. After that comes Koko and then Yukino. There couldn't be a trio of nicer, less selfish girls. They won't say a thing." I comforted her.
"Thank you." Wendy almost teared up, her burdens lifting.
"I just want to say this to your face. Wendy Marvel, I love you more than anyone else in the world. You're my favorite. I stare at your picture even when we're apart. I close my eyes and imagine you at night, and even when I'm sleeping by the side of another girl, my perfect memory can summon you to my side and. . .just like your name, it's just marvelous. I have 101 wives but you occupy 10% of my hard drive. While I was on Earth, I spent more time with you than any of the others. By any metric, by any measure. . ." I trailed off as I saw Wendy nodding and tears dropping from her eyes.
"I know. I've always known, since the day of that dinner. And I wear that badge with pride. Especially since. . .I know how very good everyone else is. . .from the other girls in Fairy Tail, to the girls I've come to know here. They're all such good girls. And now there's even a Goddess. And I knew that I'd beaten them all." Wendy replied bravely, not willing to feel guilty for the secret pleasure in her heart.
"All I have are words and more words." I wiped Wendy's tears away with my thumbs and hugged her to my breast. "I wish I had more. . .but I'm just an otaku who got run over by a semi-trailer truck. And this is the new me. You fell in love with the hero who saved the world, from Zeref, from Acnologia, from so many people. But all I did was get run over by a truck, and I had the effrontery, I dared. . .to make you mine. . .when you deserved so much better. Can you ever forgive me?"
"Forgive you?" Wendy hugged me tight in her super-powered arms, which were a hell of a lot stronger than mine. "You are him, the savior of the world, and I owe you my life. Over and over again."
"That's just what I made you think. Really I'm a lawn mower, a virgin who couldn't drive, whose highest ambition was to gather a bunch of lolis together under one roof. . ." I confessed.
"Think of it this way -- If Wakaba can have two souls, two different but equally true origins, why can't you? You are he. Nothing you say can change my mind. And Christopher, you've become quite the hero here too, if you still haven't noticed. When we got here all we had was an open meadow and two changes of clothes. Because of you, the decisions you made, we're now the crown jewel of creation. Not me, Christopher. And not Natsu. You saved this world." Wendy looked me in the eye, her brown eyes still swimming with unshed tears.
I shrugged and twisted my arm helplessly. "You all had superpowers, Cute-sama gave her blessings. . .even this, anyone could have done it. . .anyone could have taken the lead, I'm the least among all of you, taking advantage of a love potion I never earned, embracing the girl I could never have."
"If Natsu had turned evil for 81 years running, done nothing but rape me and other little girls all day every day, and then locked me in his room for a week and told me I was his favorite. . .do you really think I would put up with it?" Wendy challenged me with an infinitely soft smile.
"Eternal gratitude, even a lifetime can't repay it, isn't it the same for all of you? All those great guys, everything paid in advance." I gave my theory.
"You're right. Natsu has my eternal gratitude. And Lisanna's. And Lucy's. You roped in all three of us with just one amazing guy." Wendy kissed me on the lips. "But any one of us, if we thought you were taking the wrong path, because we love you, none of us would have stood idly by. You'd be a black and blue pile of welts the moment you tried anything funny. Even Natsu couldn't get away with pranking Lucy, so do you really think she would have let anything pass with you? Do you take us for automata? It isn't gratitude for something that happened 81 years ago that brought me to this room. It was the last 81 years together."
"But you're Wendy." I gestured as if that explained it all. "You couldn't possibly love me."
"God can love you but I can't?" Wendy laughed incredulously.
"But you're so nice, and look -- I'm so mean! It's just impossible. By all rights, the real Wendy would hate me by now." I protested, stepping on dangerous grounds and not caring. I wanted to be honest with her, to bare my soul most to the girl I loved most, and this is what I truly believed.
"Kamoshirenai. The real Wendy is just a blot of ink, so I don't know her heart. But--" She took my hand and placed it over her breast, letting me feel the soft but sure beat of her heart. "This Wendy is real to me. Am I real to you?"
I nodded, looking at her with helpless adoration.
"Mou. I told you before, if you had any worries, you could talk them over with me. So why did you wait 80 years to ask me these things?" Wendy kept my hand firmly over her beating heart, looking at me with exasperation.
"But what if you said you hated me and you'd never forgive me? I'd have no choice but to die." I admitted freely.
"Well, ink Wendy, who we're about to read together, she may have had her own opinions on things. But I've spent a long time with you, and I'm allowed to make up my own mind. I've experienced more here than I ever did over there. I am nice, and you are mean. But guess what, I fell in love with Natsu, who was a lot meaner than I ever was then too. And I stayed in love with you. You are mean, but only because you love us so much you can't bear to see us harmed. And that. . .isn't so different from me. . .or why do you think I stood up and fought so many times? Just because I was only casting support magic -- do you think the dragons I slew were any less dead?"
Wendy looked at me seriously, the same determined look she had made when facing off against the world's greatest perils. The look that engraved her face into my soul. "We both fight to protect the things we love. You have never hurt anyone you didn't feel you must. Now, if you're going to ask me, should girls be able to marry each other, or, do people really have to attend compulsory education, or, should racists be allowed to tell the truth about IQ gaps -- as a mage of Fairy Tail, I would say freedom should always come first, and people should follow their hearts."
I nodded. That's the Wendy Marvel I knew. That's the Fairy Tail I knew. They would never bend their knees to some government. The real Fairy Tail would have launched a coup by now.
"But that Wendy was only 14 years old." Wendy pushed my hand deep into her bosom to make absolutely clear how she felt about me. "Am I never allowed to learn any better?"
I looked at her in bewilderment. Even if I was right, there shouldn't be any way to prove it. There shouldn't be any way to convince her. After all, on Earth, no matter how often I was right, I had never convinced a single person of anything. I had always been a martyr for the truth, and I was sure that even here, I would have to stand by my lonely positions, and be hated for them, like always, alone forever. No one would ever come around because the truth just hurt too much. It shattered too many pretty illusions, and the prettiest girls, the sweetest girls, had the prettiest illusions of all.
"I have six children. I worry about them every day. Not that a dragon will come down and breathe a darkness nova on them. If it were only that all we would have to do is gather together and fight back like we always do. Do you know what I fear? That someday one of them will overdose on fentanyl. That they'll hang themselves from a tree. That they'll disgrace us all by some horrendous act like Araragi. Or that they'll be caught cheating on their spouse, a traitor to the most sacred trust men and women can give to one another. And you know what I think to myself?"
I shook my head, feeling the steady beat of her heart.
"'It's alright. Christopher taught them every day in school, the difference between right and wrong. And everyone will come back today, alive, in good spirits, and a hero just like their parents who showed them the way.'" Wendy told me.
"I'm not worried about freedom anymore. I'm worried about my one year old daughter. I'm worried what's out there to get her -- things I can't do anything to protect her from. Things no fist can punch. The temptations, the mistakes, the decisions you can never take back. And I think to myself, it's alright. Christopher is on the job. He's looking after Tenri and all the others, so that it doesn't happen. He's gotten us this far, a place like no other. While every other plane in the multiverse is messed up beyond belief, all five of my children have succeeded to the fulness of their wildest dreams. Tenri will do it too. As long as he's Mayor and teacher both, Tenri, my infant daughter, my helpless little girl, is safe, even when I look away."
"I'm 95 years old, Christopher. You've been anointed by Cute herself. Do I have to stay a Fairy Tail mage forever? Or can I be your wife of 81 years, a proud denizen of super fascist Eden?" Wendy asked me seriously, her arm still sticking my hand over her heart.
"But you're so nice. . ." I protested one last time.
"You're mistaken about one more thing, Christopher." Wendy patiently sighed and held firm our staring contest. "You've been just as nice as me, from the very beginning. From the year you gave us our personal space, to the honoring of our wishes when we said we were tired of that. To apologizing to Cure Flora for bleeding in front of her. To how gently you guided us through our first times. To the endless endurance it must have taken to get us all pregnant in a couple years. To the amount of care you put into arranging the hospital so that none of us would die. To the number of children you keep gifting us with every ten years so we'll never be alone. To every time you've cuddled us asleep at night, to every time you convinced a waifu not to stay left behind and join the ever growing circle of life, to every lesson you gave at school, to every law you passed in order to protect us, to how you burst in to tears just thinking about how much you loved us and couldn't thank us enough, you've been nice from the very beginning. And this is only my guess, but I bet you were nice to everyone on Earth too. Even though you hated the whole world and everyone in it. Even though you were just a virgin who couldn't drive. Were you taking it out on anyone? Were you perhaps kicking a puppy every night like a proper fascist?"
I laughed and shook my head.
"No, no doubt, it was you that was getting kicked every night, just for believing the truth. Just for knowing where Earth was headed, which we now know exactly where. Just for knowing a little bit sooner than anyone else, and wanting to save the world -- saving the world qualifies as mean now?! Who says a fascist can't be nice?" Wendy let a little anger animate her voice. "If anyone says Christopher isn't the nicest boy in the world, I'll deck them."
Yahari. . . Wendy really was my favorite.
Chapter 47:
When I took my weekly visit to the shrine, Cute-sama took me aside with a conspiratorial whisper.
"Just so you know," She leaned in and spoke softly into my ear, "There's no proof I'm the one true God. I told you about my first memory, right? I just was. Ex nihilo. It could as easily be that I'm another God's creation, as you are mine, or that this whole thing is a simulated universe and we're mere bits on a computer screen. Maybe they've chosen not to contact me all this time. Maybe they have a non-intervention clause too."
"You're right, but does it matter? If these theoretical Gods never say or do anything, they may as well not exist. As far as we're concerned, doesn't that make you the only God around?" I replied, leaning back into her to deliver my conspiratorial reply.
"I wanted to coordinate my story with you, but if you say so, I'll do it. I guess I really am the one true God. Thou shalt have none before me." Cute-sama puffed out her chest proudly.
"I'd much rather worship you than some hazy formless deity, and I'd much rather my children worshiped you too." I smiled and put my hand on her head, rubbing it fondly. "Cute-sama, you always have been and always will be the best God there could ever be."
Cute-sama smiled and blushed, eventually looking down at her bare feet. "You always say the one thing that would make me happiest. It's like you can read my mind as well as I can read yours."
"I just tell the truth. If it makes you happy, isn't that because you waited tens of thousands of years for the right man to show up? I think you should receive the credit on this one." I replied flippantly. Wendy had relieved a great burden from my heart, and now I felt on firm ground with all my wives. They weren't brainwashed anymore. Like Cure Flora who never had been. No matter how great a guy I had been back then, if I'd just been a jerk this entire time, no one would have put up with it. Which meant, somewhere along the way, I had ceased to be Junichi, Juni'ichi, Keiichi, Ichigo, Shinichi and all the other ichis and just been Christopher. Of course they would look fondly back on the times we initially fell in love, in whatever source work that had been. But love wasn't a moment in time, it was a continuous state of being. If I hadn't kept earning it over all these decades, no one would have stood by me. Well, maybe Yukino. I'm sure some others too, because they were too sweet for their own good. But the vast majority, including people with one hit K.O. powers, would've given up on me long ago.
"Oh yes, he used to be great, but then he changed, and now he's not the same person anymore. It's a shame, but aku soku zan." And then kaching, down I would've fallen, split in two. It hardly mattered if Fate did it with Bardiche or Sayaka did it with a Mayuzumi ogi or Chiwa did it with a painful and slow bamboo stick. The fact was I was still standing here today, and after 80 years it was getting pretty ridiculous to be worrying that someday I'd be 'found out.' It wasn't only Wendy, they'd all found me out long ago. And they all loved me anyway. Admittedly, the part about their unnatural acceptance of polygamy was still unnatural. But the part about their loving me today, right now, not 81 years ago. . .was the undeniable truth.
Given that Cute-sama hadn't brainwashed herself, and she was undeniably standing in front of me as my blushing bride, it was okay to have a little self confidence towards all the others. All I had to do was keep impressing them one year at a time. For as long as our journeys should last.
"It's a little strange when you physically manifest in front of me, but here's my offering." I slipped Cute-sama the fifty yen coin into her palm, and then held her hand as we both started blushing together.
"Have a wonderful life, Christopher." Cute-sama looked into my eyes and offered me her blessing in turn.
"I love you." I whispered.
"I love you too." Cute-sama smiled back, and then we leaned forward and were kissing each other on the mouth. It was the absolute best prayer ever.
* * *
When a boy and a girl love each other very much, they hug each other very closely, and then a union of their love takes root in the girl's womb. It didn't take long for this particular symptom to show up in Cute-sama, and soon enough all the rest followed. With my confidence renewed, I impregnated waifu after waifu after waifu. The seasons turned, and soon enough the entire mansion was littered with my seventh borns.
The results were as follows:
Year 1 (81 E.T.):
Cute's daughter was named Mizal Amsynth.
Asuna's daughter was named Yuka Yuuki.
Rin Natsume's son was named Dark Natsume.
Rose's daughter was named Suzu Dagger.
Deedlit's son was named Ashitaka Glade.
Yume's daughter was named Shinobu Asakura.
Koko's daughter was named Akari Tsukishima.
Yukino's son was named Yoji Ouhama.
Isara's daughter was named Marona Aomi.
Yoru's son was named Hans Kazato.
Asa's daughter was named Shenhua Kazato.
Year 2 (82 E.T.):
Chiwa's daughter was named Elayne Harusaki.
Rosa's son was named Ceodore Farrell.
Eruruu's son was named Yasha Green.
Sherria's daughter was named Madoka Blendy.
Lisanna's son was named Terry Strauss.
Emily's son was named James Granger.
Usagi's daughter was named Tio Tsukino.
Nadeko's daughter was named Sodachi Sengoku.
Haruka Haruno's daughter was named Haruhi Haruno.
Riko's daughter was named Kotoha Izayoi.
Year 3 (83 E.T.):
Aoba's daughter was named Akeno Suzukaze.
Kudryavka's son was named Genjuurou Noumi.
Kagome's daughter was named Chiho Higurashi.
Nekone's daughter was named Holo Gold.
Sagiri's daughter was named Hinako Izumi.
Kobato's daughter was named Shushou Hasegawa.
Myusel's daughter was named Mahoro Foaran.
Nemu's daughter was named Nanako Asakura.
Aisia's daughter was named Yuna Snow.
Sakura Mamiya's daughter was named Escha Mamiya.
Year 4 (84 E.T.):
Hozumi's daughter was named Kokoro Schmetterling.
Kirino's daughter was named Riesalin Kousaka, or 'Ryza.'
Mylene's daughter was named Sonata Jenius.
Nico's daughter was named You Yazawa.
Rin Tohsaka's daughter was named Asuka Tohsaka.
Kobeni's daughter was named Airi Yonomori.
Mavis' son was named Kenji Vermillion.
Levy's daughter was named Kyou McGarden.
Yuna's son was named Clive Sea.
MOMO's daughter was named Beta Mizrahi.
Year 5 (85 E.T.):
Urara's daughter was named Yor Kasugano.
Keiko's daughter was named Chihiro Ayano, or 'Sen.'
Teletha's daughter was named Luna Testarossa.
Kaname's son was named L-elf Chidori.
Kotori's daughter was named Akane Kanbe.
Makina's son was named Shichika Irisu.
Sora's daughter was named Nagisa Takanashi.
Sara's daughter was named Tiara Chrysalis.
Sayaka's daughter was named Clare Mayuzumi.
Meiko's daughter was named Runa Honma.
Year 6 (86 E.T.):
Mitsuki's son was named Kippei Mononobe.
Haruka Saigusa's son was named Masaomi Saigusa.
Cheria's son was named Chester Barnes.
Juvia's daughter was named Kotonoha Locksor.
Mirajane's son was named Kennosuke Strauss.
Nanoha's daughter was named Rio Takamachi.
Rin Nohara's daughter was named Oboro Nohara.
Lafiel's daughter was named Ange Abriel.
Himeno's daughter was named Neko Katsuragi.
Yuuhi's daughter was named Chiyo Katagiri.
Year 7 (87 E.T.):
Akane's daughter was named Kasumi Tsukishima.
Suguha's daughter was named Ronie Kirigaya.
Elize's daughter was named Arche Lutus.
Tifa's son was named Yang Lockhart.
Aerith's son was named Cid Gainsborough.
Fate's daughter was named Kyrie Testarossa.
Chtolly's son was named Mugen Seniorious.
Sakura Kinomoto's daughter was named Lapis Kinomoto.
Sae's daughter was named Jean Nakata.
Reina's son was named Rintaro Ryuugu.
Year 8 (88 E.T.):
Ai's daughter was named Lulucy Hinatsuru.
Rydia's daughter was named Serah Mist.
Aruruu's daughter was named Satano Diamond Green.
Kuon's son was named Light Black.
Lucy's daughter was named Akari Heartfilia.
Sakura Haruno's daughter was named Victorique Haruno.
Shana's daughter was named Popura Blaze.
Mikan's daughter was named Lala Yuuki.
Illyasviel's daughter was named Minami von Einzbern.
Lyria's daughter was named River Jewel.
Year 9 (89 E.T.):
Louise's son was named Yamucha Francoise Le Blanc de la Valliere.
Honoka's daughter was named Eunie Yukishiro.
Mai's daughter was named Elena Mishou.
Azusa's daughter was named Wakana Nakano.
Yui's daughter was named Yuu Hirasawa.
Sophie's son was named Laphicet Lamb.
Rinoa's daughter was named Nanami Heartilly.
Nayuki's daughter was named Makoto Minase.
Misuzu's daughter was named Lise Kamio.
Orihime's son was named Kenpachi Inoue.
Year 10 (90 E.T.):
Iris' daughter was named Tsugumi Freyja.
Nozomi's daughter was named Madoka Yumehara.
Mira's daughter was named Multi Yurizaki.
Leia's son was named Reid Rolando.
Nagisa's daughter was named Tomoyo Furukawa.
Wendy's daughter was named Eila Marvel.
Miu's daughter was named Chitose Takanashi.
Sakura Yoshino's daughter was named Ranpha Yoshino.
Kokona's daughter was named Komari Aoba.
Mikoto's son was named Malcolm Misaka, or 'Mal.'
I took a lot of pride in the names this time around. Since Ogre Battle was out of angels to name my demigod daughters after, for all I knew this round would be my last. As such I wanted to squeeze in every last reference to the characters and series I loved possible. Not only did I correct long hanging chads like Rosa's Ceodore, I brought a lot of possibilities to fruition, while making tons of subtle connections only the sharpest could see between mother and child.
For instance, Ranpha and Sakura Yoshino both had go-getter attitudes and blonde hair, so they were a perfect match, regardless of belonging to different franchises. Minami from Baka to Test and Illyasviel had a shared German heritage, so it was only natural to make her a von Einzbern. Komari from Non Non Biyori and Kokona both enjoyed the great outdoors.
Kagome's newest daughter, Chiho, was herself an expert with the bow.
The Pretty Cure all gave birth to new Pretty Cure, the Tales of's to more Tales of's. But often the connection was even tighter. For instance Leia, the mother of Farah, became the mother of Reid, Farah's love interest.
Both Lyria and River were runaway girls who had been treated as lab experiments by evil empires, so it was only natural that they were now mother and daughter.
Yuna Snow came from Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear while Shinobu Asakura came from Choyoyu.
Akari Tsukishima was based off of the girl from Yuru Yuri while Akari Heartfilia was based off of the girl from Battle Athletes.
The stories behind all the pairings were endless, just as the quality of the characters whose names I'd borrowed was boundless. I might actually have saved the best for last. 101 new children had joined the fold, which meant 803 surviving significant others in all. The fact that they could still all have such cool unique new names was a true testament to the quality of Japan. Even now their fiction just kept providing. Don't worry, Japan. We won't forget you. We are you, and we're proud to be you. God willing, this time we'd last forever.
In summation, my 7th borns were as follows:
Cute's daughter was named Mizal Amsynth.
Asuna's daughter was named Yuka Yuuki.
Rin Natsume's son was named Dark Natsume.
Rose's daughter was named Suzu Dagger.
Deedlit's son was named Ashitaka Glade.
Yume's daughter was named Shinobu Asakura.
Koko's daughter was named Akari Tsukishima.
Yukino's son was named Yoji Ouhama.
Isara's daughter was named Marona Aomi.
Yoru's son was named Hans Kazato.
Asa's daughter was named Shenhua Kazato.
Chiwa's daughter was named Elayne Harusaki.
Rosa's son was named Ceodore Farrell.
Eruruu's son was named Yasha Green.
Sherria's daughter was named Madoka Blendy.
Lisanna's son was named Terry Strauss.
Emily's son was named James Granger.
Usagi's daughter was named Tio Tsukino.
Nadeko's daughter was named Sodachi Sengoku.
Haruka Haruno's daughter was named Haruhi Haruno.
Riko's daughter was named Kotoha Izayoi.
Aoba's daughter was named Akeno Suzukaze.
Kudryavka's son was named Genjuurou Noumi.
Kagome's daughter was named Chiho Higurashi.
Nekone's daughter was named Holo Gold.
Sagiri's daughter was named Hinako Izumi.
Kobato's daughter was named Shushou Hasegawa.
Myusel's daughter was named Mahoro Foaran.
Nemu's daughter was named Nanako Asakura.
Aisia's daughter was named Yuna Snow.
Sakura Mamiya's daughter was named Escha Mamiya.
Hozumi's daughter was named Kokoro Schmetterling.
Kirino's daughter was named Riesalin Kousaka, or 'Ryza.'
Mylene's daughter was named Sonata Jenius.
Nico's daughter was named You Yazawa.
Rin Tohsaka's daughter was named Asuka Tohsaka.
Kobeni's daughter was named Airi Yonomori.
Mavis' son was named Kenji Vermillion.
Levy's daughter was named Kyou McGarden.
Yuna's son was named Clive Sea.
MOMO's daughter was named Beta Mizrahi.
Urara's daughter was named Yor Kasugano.
Keiko's daughter was named Chihiro Ayano, or 'Sen.'
Teletha's daughter was named Luna Testarossa.
Kaname's son was named L-elf Chidori.
Kotori's daughter was named Akane Kanbe.
Makina's son was named Shichika Irisu.
Sora's daughter was named Nagisa Takanashi.
Sara's daughter was named Tiara Chrysalis.
Sayaka's daughter was named Clare Mayuzumi.
Meiko's daughter was named Runa Honma.
Mitsuki's son was named Kippei Mononobe.
Haruka Saigusa's son was named Masaomi Saigusa.
Cheria's son was named Chester Barnes.
Juvia's daughter was named Kotonoha Locksor.
Mirajane's son was named Kennosuke Strauss.
Nanoha's daughter was named Rio Takamachi.
Rin Nohara's daughter was named Oboro Nohara.
Lafiel's daughter was named Ange Abriel.
Himeno's daughter was named Neko Katsuragi.
Yuuhi's daughter was named Chiyo Katagiri.
Akane's daughter was named Kasumi Tsukishima.
Suguha's daughter was named Ronie Kirigaya.
Elize's daughter was named Arche Lutus.
Tifa's son was named Yang Lockhart.
Aerith's son was named Cid Gainsborough.
Fate's daughter was named Kyrie Testarossa.
Chtolly's son was named Mugen Seniorious.
Sakura Kinomoto's daughter was named Lapis Kinomoto.
Sae's daughter was named Jean Nakata.
Reina's son was named Rintaro Ryuugu.
Ai's daughter was named Lulucy Hinatsuru.
Rydia's daughter was named Serah Mist.
Aruruu's daughter was named Satano Diamond Green.
Kuon's son was named Light Black.
Lucy's daughter was named Akari Heartfilia.
Sakura Haruno's daughter was named Victorique Haruno.
Shana's daughter was named Popura Blaze.
Mikan's daughter was named Lala Yuuki.
Illyasviel's daughter was named Minami von Einzbern.
Lyria's daughter was named River Jewel.
Louise's son was named Yamucha Francoise Le Blanc de la Valliere.
Honoka's daughter was named Eunie Yukishiro.
Mai's daughter was named Elena Mishou.
Azusa's daughter was named Wakana Nakano.
Yui's daughter was named Yuu Hirasawa.
Sophie's son was named Laphicet Lamb.
Rinoa's daughter was named Nanami Heartilly.
Nayuki's daughter was named Makoto Minase.
Misuzu's daughter was named Lise Kamio.
Orihime's son was named Kenpachi Inoue.
Iris' daughter was named Tsugumi Freyja.
Nozomi's daughter was named Madoka Yumehara.
Mira's daughter was named Multi Yurizaki.
Leia's son was named Reid Rolando.
Nagisa's daughter was named Tomoyo Furukawa.
Wendy's daughter was named Eila Marvel.
Miu's daughter was named Chitose Takanashi.
Sakura Yoshino's daughter was named Ranpha Yoshino.
Kokona's daughter was named Komari Aoba.
Mikoto's son was named Malcolm Misaka, or 'Mal.'
Chapter 48:
I lay in bed tracing Menma's spinal chute up and down with my fingertips, amazed as ever to find myself with complete rights to another person's body. Tonight was her night to be together with me and we'd already made love, so now I was just keeping her from getting to sleep.
"I was thinking." I said quietly, staring at the amazing curvature of a girl's back which was so unlike a man's.
"Mmm?" Meiko replied, relaxed and readily accepting my ministrations.
"If none of my healers can resurrect the dead, how did they bring you back to life?" I mused.
"Isn't it because undead are only mostly dead? And mostly dead means partially alive." Menma quoted the Princess Bride, which of course I'd watched together with her since we'd lived together for 90 years now.
"I guess if someone were turned into a zombie I would expect a cure spell to work -- actually there really was a zombification status in Final Fantasy which the white mages could cure, so the same should be true of ghosts, huh?" I admitted. So had Rosa been Menma's savior, and not Orihime like I originally assumed?
"I should thank the hospital crew again for saving me. They let my childhood dream come true. I said I loved you in the 'I want to marry you' way, but then I just floated off to heaven. Here on Eden though, I got to marry you after all. And now we even have seven children." Menma turned over to stare into my face with a smile of blissed fulfillment.
I smiled back at her. "The girls I brought back from the dead are the ones I can always count on to have my back. The girls I stole away from perfectly fine lives that were just getting started, like Nico, can stack up a giant list of complaints against me. But when you're already dead and have nothing left to look forward to without divine intervention. . ."
"I'm easy to please." Meiko agreed. "Just being here is a miracle, so I've never wanted anything more."
"But that's no good." I condemned myself. "When I rely on the sweet girls' sweet temperaments they always get lost in the shuffle. I want to make the girls who didn't sign the petition because they're overly nice happy too. Menma, what is it you want?"
"Hmmm. . ." Menma seriously studied the question as we lay face to face nude in bed together. "This reminds me of when you were trying to send me off to heaven by granting all my wishes, and it turns out there was nothing special I wanted. I think it's more like. . .I'm happiest when we're all getting along together. . .both back then, before Eden, and now. And of course I'm happiest when I'm with you, just like this, here and now."
"So another communal event like our AI barbeque. . ." I considered my options.
"Oh, I also like playing games together, like when we were kids. So maybe a virtual reality raid where we all have to cooperate to bring down the boss?" Menma suggested.
"But we've already done that before," I objected. "How about a trading card tournament instead?"
"Oooooh." Menma's eyes lit up. "Old school!"
"We can have Siri mass produce all the Magic: The Gathering cards we need, and have all the wives make their own decks. Then, let's see. . .to make it a team event like we used to share with Naruko and Poppo. . .we'll split up into teams of five. If your deck wins 2 out of 3 games, you beat your opponent on the other team. If your team wins 3 out of the 5 matchups, you advance to the next round. Eventually a team champion will emerge with the officially best designed decks. What should the reward be for the best team?" I asked Menma.
"A trophy?" Menma gave her best guess.
"Keeping it simple, huh?" I laughed. We all lived in an age of infinite material abundance, where Siri could manufacture anything we wanted for free, so meaningful rewards were hard to come by.
"I have just the right team members for our squad. All the nice, retiring girls who never get any attention. You, me, Sora, Mumei and Levy. I can kill four birds with one stone and make some good memories for all of you." I enthused.
"So even when you're explicitly granting my wish the polygamy seeps back in." Menma rolled her eyes at me.
"101 wives requires a certain level of juggling efficiency." I defended myself.
"It's fine. I'd love to hang out with Sora too." Meiko reassured me. Cute-sama's magic always came in handy for situations like these.
* * *
The first couple weeks were spent teaching my waifus the rules and playing mock games with them with some preconstructed decks so they could get a sense for the value of things and correct play. I realized in the back of my head what Menma meant when I saw all my wives together looking over the pretty art on all the cards Siri had made for us, talking to each other about which colors they preferred and who they should pick for their five man squad. Even though all these girls had busy lives raising their seventhborns and going to work, they had gathered together at the dinner table to play endless rounds of Magic with me and each other. All I had to do was arrange for the babysitters, give them a Mayoral dispensation work vacation, and the whole crew was gathered together under one roof chatting again. It was like magic. Magic was magic.
When I told Hozumi, Levy and Sora that they were going to ride with me and Menma to the top they clapped their hands together with delight.
"If you've gone so far as to select me, nothing short of the championship is acceptable." Mumei said excitedly. "Teach us everything you know about deck design so we can get a leg up on all the other newbies."
In response I gathered my squad of five together and talked a long time about the mana curve, the need for all the cards in your deck to work together towards a common theme, and the advantages of monocolor vs. multicolor. Sora was diligent enough to take notes, hanging on my every word with the respect due an oracle. Though she had never played Magic before, once she agreed to do something she would always do it at 100%.
I asked Cute-sama to be the rules judge during the tournament since she was omniscient and she readily agreed. To her Magic was no fun because she already knew the perfect deck design and what cards everyone had in their hands and library at all times. Asa and Yoru were required to play as one so that the teams were nicely divisible by five.
Preparations were complete, so I gave all my wives one week to design their own deck. Everyone had to come up with their own deck design without knowing what their teammates' decks would be or getting any input from anyone else. That would only rob people of the fun of creation and become too focused on winning. I also banned overly obnoxious cards like Force of Will in addition to the standard banned and restricted list. The tournament would begin the next Saturday.
As for myself, my deck centered around my favorite theme -- tribalism. Every creature in the deck belonged to the same tribe and contributed something exclusively to other members of the tribe. In short, the fascist ideal in miniature. Fascism always beat everything, in life or in play, and I intended to prove it.
The deck's name was 'Allies,' because it relied on the Ally creature type. It was green-white and absolutely vicious. In the early game I got out bigger creatures than anyone else and aggressively attacked. In the late game I gained life to foil the opponent's strategy while becoming unblockable to finish them off. There was no escape from Allies, no defense or offense worked against me.
When the big day arrived, I asked my teammates to reveal their deck designs.
"I thought, wouldn't it be nice, if I could raise people from the dead, so I went with 'Reanimation.'" Sora showed off her deck. It took all-powerful, super expensive creatures from her library and hand and put them in the graveyard, then brought them back to life on the battlefield for the ridiculously cheap price of two mana, after which the game was basically won. With the aid of Dark Ritual she could even manage to win on turn one, before the opponent had a chance to put down their first land. Sora did things at 100%, and this deck was a terrifying testament to it.
"These enchantment permanents reminded me of Fried's glyphs, which I've always been fascinated by." Levy explained as she layed out her deck in front of me. "So I decided to build an entire deck using nothing but enchantments. It's named 'Enchantment.'" The deck used an enchantment to turn all other permanents into enchantments, and then another enchantment to turn all enchantments into creatures. Because one of her enchantments could 'destroy target enchantment,' it now read as 'destroy target anything.' Another of her enchantments said 'remove a creature from the game,' but now that even enchantments were creatures it could be used to kill anything or protect any of her other enchantments from enemy attack. It was a multilayered death trap that could do anything. Levy's genius could be seen through and through.
"The point of this game is to lower the enemy's life total to zero. But I discovered that with the poison mechanic they can die with just 10 damage instead of 20, so obviously the best strategy is this half price victory. I call the deck 'Infect,' after the mechanic on the card." Mumei spread out her cards proudly. "If things line up right I can win on turn 2." Her killer instinct had combined cheap poisonous creatures with cheap Giant Growth type cards that ballooned her damage up to lethal instantaneously. The most vicious aspect was the two free spells she could use to pump up her creatures at no mana cost at all. The game would be over before it bbegan if she were lucky enough to draw those. Her killer instinct seemed to be alive and well, even if her fighting days were long over.
Menma jumped up and down with her arm raised. "Me, me, ask me what's in my deck!"
"How did your deck turn out, Menma?" I asked encouragingly.
"Its name is 'Eon Hub,' after the signature card in the deck. You see, I found this land that prevents all damage to me, except over time it costs you too much life and you have to sacrifice it. It's called Glacial Chasm. It's sort of like how when I was a ghost I was alive yet nevertheless fading away. Anyway, if you combine that with Eon Hub, which says skip the upkeep phase, you don't have to pay any life to the Glacial Chasm anymore, so it stays there permanently. Sort of like how I am now. After that, since I'm invincible, I just wait until the enemy runs out of cards in their deck and loses by default. There's also lots of counterspells to protect my Eon Hub so to the very end there's nothing they can do. Christopher, are you sure this deck is fair?" Menma bragged.
Blue always felt cheap and underhanded, but this was even more underhanded than usual. One of her counterspells was free to cast, but read 'you lose the game during your next upkeep.' Of course with Eon Hub out that upkeep would never arrive, so the spell was free and had zero drawback whatsoever. And that wasn't even the sickest combo. The worst was that she had an artifact that could search for any land, and a land that could search for any other card with a 0 mana cost, and a spell that could search for any artifact -- so inevitably, at all times, she would be swimming with Glacial Chasms, Eon Hubs and the free counterspells to protect them. The deck was frustratingly simple, 'nyaah nyaah you can't hurt me,' and yet dizzyingly complex. I looked at Menma, who had always loved playing games with me, with a new level of profound respect.
"Girls, these decks are amazing. With this, not only can we take the trophy, we could take Moscow if we wanted." I patted each of them on the head in turn as they beamed up at me and gave a united warcry for victory. The rest of the field had no idea what was coming.
* * *
We went two rounds 5/5, two rounds 4/5, and in the championship round a scary 3/5 against the evil Da Capo squad whose decks were totally unfair. I don't know which was the best part, getting to loft the trophy in all our hands together over the assembled tourney-goers or sticking my tongue out at Nemu and mocking her when their team fell just a step short.
But after a month of pure Magic: The Gathering gaming, our collective wife enterprise came to an end. Menma and I celebrated our victory with a kiss, and amidst the general festival of noise with streamers falling from the rafters she whispered "thank you," in my ear.
Chapter 49:
"And that's a wrap!" I clicked my old fashioned clickboard I had Siri make for me just for this ceremonial moment. As Mayor, I'd arrived at the Studio to celebrate the final anime adaption of Earth's top works, which we'd finally caught up with and fixed wherever Earth had dropped the ball and stopped halfway.
It wouldn't have been possible on our own. The amount of work that needed to be done to fully adapt Da Capo into an anime was astronomical. But luckily my waifus all had insanely good voices (for some strange reason), so that part was covered. In addition, thousands of our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who had been raised on the glamour of anime as the ultimate artform, had all joined the Studio as their dream job and had been fiercely drawing and composing and computer graphicing away under Yukino's enlightened leadership to see this day come.
It was fair to say that half the village was now united working for the same thing, and together, in the 100th anniversary of our first coming here, we'd finally reached our goal.
The workers of the Studio started spontaneously crying and hugging each other in triumph. It had been a lifetime of work to get to this point. For some of the people here, far beyond the average lifetime anyone had ever worked.
But now our descendants wouldn't have to stop at some random, infuriating cliffhanger. If they wanted to watch the Saffron arc of Ranma 1/2, they could. If they wanted to see Lafiel and Jinto marry and live happily ever after, they could do so. If they wanted to see Touta school the mage of the beginning inhabiting Evangeline's body, it was all there. If they wanted to follow Yona's long, long journey of national restoration to its end they could do so. Or even if they just wanted to see the beautiful porn of Futari Ecchi brought to life now that all the censorship taboos of Earth were done away with they could do that too.
Anime had been liberated from its shackles. There were no financial constraints, no time constraints, everyone lived forever so we could pour as much of our souls as we wanted into getting things right. And there were no fuddy-duddy constraints -- if the original source, like Konozora's visual novel, had sex in it, then the anime had sex in it too. Here on Eden, even the unpopular but artistically magnificent works got their due. Junai Sensation, Hoshizora no Memoria, Harmonia, it didn't matter how obscure you were. Here your work would be adapted.
Even High School of the Dead, which was dropped midway by the author, we went ahead and finished with our own writing. There were a lot of series like that, but between the genius of Elf Yamada, and the contributions of a whole new generation of kids coming into their own, the Studio found a satisfactory ending to them all. Nanoha Force. Bastard. Hinowa ga Yuku. Every stupid series without an ending was now not only complete but had a complete and perfect anime to their name.
"Next up, we can finally animate Dark Flame of Dark Elf!" Emily stood on top of a table and pointed directly at Yukino as though holding her to a promise.
"Of course, that was always the goal." Yukino smiled back happily. This world's most popular series would finally be given its own turn now that the backlog was out of the way. No doubt there were thousands of aspiring authors, manga-ka and original scriptwriters who were angling to get their works adapted next. Even with the Earth obliterated, the Studio wouldn't slow down. The innate quality of my children, the centrality of anime in their upbringing, and the proper belief system that would yield itself to quality fictional heroes were all factors that would lead to a healthy industry far into the future. Anyone here could be the next Reki Kawahara. Maybe someday there would be a top 300 anime.
* * *
The Hospital had too many patients for my magical squad to handle, so now Siri doctors and nurses handled the majority of standard cases. Magical healing was reserved for the emergency room, in those cases that science could no longer reach. For deliveries, routine illnesses and injuries, checkups and the like, AI handled it all. There were also a bunch of new nurses who took care of people's psychological needs. A lot of our descendants had taken up therapeutic care as their life calling, and I was all for it. Even the few suicides we'd suffered were a few too many. A spouse and children by mandate meant no one could ever be lonely on Eden, but 'troubled' was another issue entirely. People could have everything imaginable and still be haunted by their own inner demons, and having someone they could talk to about it who wouldn't judge them was a godsend.
If it meant preventing even one suicide, combined with people's potential lifespans, that was the same as saving millions of lives on Earth. Or in other words, each of my children's lives was worth millions of Terrans. If therapy is what they wanted, then more power to them.
The school had also become overwhelmed by the number of children. Now there were multiple schools scattered around town, each with their own eternal cherry blossom groves which had been lovingly transplanted by superintendent Sakura Yoshino who now overlooked the entire school system. I still sent my children to the same original school with the same original teachers (including myself), but my descendants would have to make do with teachers of their own teaching their own kids.
Even the tavern had competition these days. Since the tavern could only serve at most 20 people or so at a time, demand for food delivered with 'a personal touch' outstripped supply. Places with their own beloved kanban musumes sprouted up like mushrooms serving every imaginable style of food as their own specialty, and Tifa's bar got a healthy dose of competition with saloons popping up left and right as Eden's only allowed vice. It seemed like there was an instinctual drive to sin inherent in mankind, so I felt the release valve of social drinking was about as harmless a way to channel and funnel those drives as humanly possible. Better people were drinking together in the open than shooting themselves up alone in secluded corners.
By Earth's standards, even 100 years in, and even though I'd required all my descendants to marry and have at least two children by age 25, Paradise was a podink town. But if it ever got too crowded I resolved to found two new cities and hand them over to my demigod children Yushis and Mizal. I couldn't imagine more enlightened rulers than the daughters of God for their Mayors. I'm sure they would do a fantastic job even away from my personal oversight. The later generations would have to go -- my wives and children deserved to live in the homeland we'd founded. We weren't going anywhere. As for Yushis and Mizal, like Cute they could all teleport instantaneously anywhere on Eden so it wasn't like it was a meaningful burden for them to be assigned elsewhere.
There were no big new inventions or radical events like a God's descent to mark these passing years, but there was one big change I could do on my own. It couldn't stop at Meiko, I wanted to get to know all the wives who were too quiet for their own good. If I focused my time and energy on that, the days could be just as fruitful as any number of radical technological leaps. The 100 day cycle of lovemaking gave me every opportunity to catch all their hearts once more. I need only challenge myself a bit and engage with them in a deeper manner than before. I wanted all of my wives to be happy they were married to me, not one or two, so if I could do something to make that happen, that was revolution enough.
* * *
"I'm the luckiest wife of them all." Tessa announced as she pillowed her flushed red face on her arms, drooping over Tifa's barroom counter as we sat side by side on stools. She slowly kicked her high-heeled feet back and forth, too short to reach the floor. Her shirt's top buttons were nowhere to be found and I could distinctly see the beautiful white lace of her bra peeking out from her dishabille. "Did you know that?" Her gray eyes looked into mine searchingly.
"I wasn't aware." I replied, tracing my fingers up and down her triangular arm formation affectionately. It was our night together, one of only 3.6 a year, so if she wanted to spend it getting drunk together that was fine by me.
"Your other wives, they already bagged you in their origins, they had all those happy memories already. Or they never wanted you to begin with and coming here was a stroke of misfortune. I'm different. I loved you to death and wanted nothing more than to marry you. Nothing more. My life's ambition. And yet, I was doomed to watch that honor go to someone else. Someone who appeared out of nowhere and stole you away. That was my origin. Losing everything, suddenly, even though I tried my best, even though I'm so cute, even though I threw myself at you. . .never enough. . .until I appeared here, in a wedding dress, with a bouquet in my hands, and you suddenly leaning over to kiss me. Can you imagine the contrast? My story ended a brokenhearted virgin doomed to never love or be loved again. And then our story began and in the very first hour you had pledged to love me forever. And here, in this life. . .forever means something. No divorce, no separation, not even death. Forever stretches on and on. Forever. Can you imagine how that feels?" Tessa looked up at me with just her eyes, her head still firmly planted sleepily against the counter.
I nodded. "Every love I tried also ended in spectacular failure, and I died a virgin, so I know exactly how you felt. It really is like night and day, isn't it. . ."
"And I know, I didn't actually feel any of those things. The heartbreak. The sense of loss. The despair of endless years stretching ahead of me with nobody to share them with. I didn't exist so I couldn't feel any of it. But when I was born here, full grown, with all those memories perfectly lifelike, it felt like I had felt them. And yet this time things were different. This time you weren't just marrying Kaname, but me too. When I realized that, my heart rose up to my throat. I thought I was going to die of elation just standing there and waiting my turn to be kissed. This time, I had won too. The man I loved loved me back. And that's why, I'm the luckiest wife of them all." Tessa closed her eyes with a delicate smile. She was so cute I traced her lips with my finger, and she restlessly kissed my fingertip back.
Keiko and Suguha had unrequited loves fulfilled for the first time here. Rydia, Rin Nohara, Elize, Nadeko, surely others too. But there was a difference. With Tessa, I had been with her first. We had practically grown up together, in Mithral, fighting side by side, the two youngest crew on the ship, risking our lives to save the world. It seemed only natural that we would have become romantically involved as we grew into our adult bodies and adult longings. Then, out of the blue, right when things were finally getting started, I had fallen in love with someone else and thrown her away. All the others had a different dynamic, because they met me at a time where I was already with someone else. They had no reason to expect or believe I should fall for them, no hopes that I would, so nothing was dashed to begin with. They never lost because they'd never gained my heart to begin with. Tessa thought we were a done deal when the rug had been swept out from under her -- and by someone who knew me for only a couple months when we'd already been together for years.
Perhaps Leia could give a similar tale of woe, but even Leia was slightly different. Even if we weren't lovers, even though Milla had appeared out of nowhere to steal my heart away, she actually spent more time with me than Milla ever did, which was almost as good. Tessa became simply nobody. An afterthought. A shadow. Her ending was total desolation.
"That's why, when Chiwa was circulating that silly petition, I couldn't sign it. I can't ask anything more of you, not when you already granted my dearest wish. . .I haven't been abandoned. You're here with me today, and tomorrow, and next year, and every year. Just like I dreamed. That's all I ever wanted. Juubun." Tessa continued opening her heart up to me via the power of extreme drunkenness with her eyes closed.
I leaned over to whisper my closely guarded secret in her ear, "I love you more than Kaname."
Tessa shivered with ecstasy.
* * *
"702?!" Usagi looked at me with panicked disgust. She held her disguise pen in her hand as I sat on my enormous bed expectantly with a plate of cheese and grapes and a glass of fine wine.
That's right. I had found a loophole around Cute's ban on my augmented goggles. If I couldn't lust after my children's bodies, if 3.6 times a year with the transformed Rin Nohara wasn't fast enough to cover the rapidly expanding field, I just had to dress up Sailor Moon in the same iconic character outfits and lust after her body. All 702 of them.
"Cute-sama gave you that pen for a reason. Surely you didn't think it would never come up?" I raised my eyebrows in mock surprise.
"But, but, by the time I'm done our night together will already be over. . ." Usagi protested weakly, looking at my plate of yummy cheeses longingly.
"I'll let you eat as much as you want once you've finished." I promised.
"Fine. I'll give you the greatest dressup show you've ever seen. After you've seen me from 702 different angles, you won't even need any other wives. I'll fulfill all your wildest dreams with my beauty alone, so watch carefully. I'm only doing this once, okay!" Sailor Moon pouted like a perfect tsundere. I was entranced by her Pretty Cure disguises. I was floored by her Final Fantasy and Tales costumes. The myriad of school uniforms from all sorts of school life stories enticed me next. She was a ninja, she was a knight, she was a soldier, she was a baseball player, she was a tennis player, she was a rhythmic gymnast, she was an idol. The clothes flickered on and off as she twirled herself around in circles to show off every aspect of her newest guise. Kimonos, sailor outfits, VR fantasy getups, maid outfits, plugsuits, spacesuits, stillsuits, the colors ebbed and flowed as she became everyone I'd ever admired or yearned for. When she transformed into Nene's costume of nothing but a few strategically placed belts, a miniskirt and an enormous cocked witch hat I couldn't take it anymore and dragged her into bed with me. It didn't require much rearranging of her clothes for us to unite as one.
Afterwards, though she only did it once, with my perfect memory, I relived my night with Sailor Moon again, and again, and again. The cheese we ate together tasted fantastic every time.
* * *
"Was I a lesbian before coming here?" Nanoha turned her purple eyes upward as she raised a finger to her lips to think. She was in her sidetail adult form as we enjoyed a relaxing rubber float pad together in the ocean. We were the only two people in miles, baking in the sun together in swimsuits, looking up at the sky and each other.
"Mmmm. . . If anything, I would say I was asexual. There wasn't a single person in the world who made my heart race. Every relationship I ever made was platonic, with Yuuno, with Fate, with Chrono, with everyone. That doesn't mean I never loved anyone, or couldn't appreciate the aesthetics of people's bodies. It just meant sex with anyone was a completely alien and unappealing concept." Nanoha replied frankly.
"So what changed your mind?" I asked. We'd obviously had tons of sex and seven children together, so Nanoha the asexual seemed like an even bigger stretch than Nanoha the reformed lesbian.
"Wasn't it Cute-sama?" Nanoha asked back. "Your wish was for 100 waifus, with the love requisite for the relationship to be fulfilling. I'm not the exact same person as I was before, for instance, I don't mind you sleeping with 100 other women and just being one of many. So couldn't she have jostled my heart enough to find men attractive at the same time? As a God who prides herself in being true to her word, I think she'd feel remiss if I stayed the same as back then."
"That feels right but also not right. Cute didn't make it so every girl loved me by default, just look at Cure Flora, so the same should be true of you." I replied, trying to remember the exact wording of my wish and her wish granting.
"There's a difference between crafting a girl with the capability for lust and forcing her to lust over you. Cute-sama could've just 'fixed' me and then turned me loose into the world to see what I would do with my newfound feelings." Nanoha reasoned.
"Were you attracted to me immediately then?" I asked.
"Immediately. I see you as my lifelong partner and rival, the most important person in my life. Even though the story has her as a girl, I remember you as you, I remember sharing all those adventures with you. And once the 'dam' of my asexuality was burst, I was flabbergasted that we'd shared such strong feelings for so long with nothing ever to show for it. I spent a long time grappling with my newfound feelings, trying to understand what was happening, but it never felt unnatural to want you. I haven't been forcing myself. I'm sure it's the same with Fate." Nanoha replied.
"Alternatively, you could have been perfectly straight, but never met the right guy all your life. Is that possible?" I ventured.
"No. There were plenty of great guys around me. Why would none of them appeal to me in the least? The same for girls -- why didn't I at least try and confess my feelings to Fate, or Hayate, or Arisa or anyone? If I really did love them like that, with all the courage I showed, all those death defying battles, was I really too cowardly to try to find love in my life? I don't buy it. Nanoha Takamachi is asexual. She wasn't waiting for the right guy or gal. She just wanted none of it. She wanted nothing to do with it. Modified Nanoha Takamachi, the girl Cute-sama gifted you with, is heterosexual. Cute-sama made sure we could be lovers when she created me out of thin air. She wasn't obligated to transpose my every characteristic exactly if it would've made fulfilling her promise to you impossible, I never existed in the first place so she didn't change my free will by making me this way, so she made me as similar to the fun loving, sociable, motherly, brave warrior as she could and edited the rest -- I might add for the better. As someone who let love, marriage and children other than Vivio pass her all by, now that I see what I could have possessed if I'd only reached out my hand, I could kick myself."
"You had an important career." I excused her. If I hadn't loved Nanoha just the way she was in her source work, I never would have wanted to marry her.
"So I couldn't literally just reach out my hand and touch Fate who was sleeping in the same bed as me when our careers had already brought us together?" Nanoha rolled her eyes scornfully. "Would that have taken too much time out of my precious schedule?"
"Saints are full of nothing but pure and holy thoughts day and night." I proffered a new explanation.
"I think the love that leads to children, to mutual understanding, to treasuring each other even when we're apart, is pure and holy too. I'm not ashamed of my love for you. I shouldn't have been ashamed back then to love someone else either. There's no excuse." Nanoha replied.
"Well, I've been a huge fan of sex from the beginning, so all I can say is, 'welcome aboard.'" I shook her hand. Nanoha giggled and snuggled closer to me and soon enough we were investigating the vicissitudes of underwater sex.
Modified Nanoha was best Nanoha.
* * *
"Was I a lesbian?" Fate repeated the question with slightly scandalized red cheeks and a soft voice. "Where did you get that idea?"
"Oh, you know, fan forums. Doujinshi. . ." I shrugged, feeling awkward.
"I was always telling Nanoha to grow up and stop trying to shower with me and the like, but she was always too innocent and pushy, and I owed her too much to say no, so I silently suffered through it. That's all! I never made a move on her or anyone else for that matter. After all that close proximity, do you really think a lesbian would've done nothing for her entire life? Neither confessing nor inquiring into Nanoha's true feelings?" Fate answered my question with a question.
"Maybe you divined how Nanoha felt so you didn't need to say anything and just quietly buried your love in your heart so as not to make her uncomfortable?" I offered.
"Nanoha wouldn't have felt uncomfortable from something like that. Even if I had confessed and been turned down, she would have treated me the exact same the next day. Just look at all the enemies she treated like friends the day after they fought. Her heart is too wide for such nonsense. No, if I had wanted Nanoha, I would have said so. She's a headstrong girl who can say 'no' when she's opposed to something, so it wouldn't have put any undue pressure on her either. There was nothing holding me back -- except that I'm not a lesbian." Fate insisted.
"But you never showed any interest in the opposite sex either, so what was it?" I followed up.
"I think at the moment in my childhood I associated 'being loved' with 'getting brutally whipped to the point of near death on a regular basis,' I turned off that entire section of my emotions. I found it hard to connect to anyone after that, and even when I did, I would always keep them at arms' length. My missions took me afield and afar from everyone I knew, I barely interacted with my own two adopted children. I felt safer alone and unloved. Sex is the ultimate act of vulnerability, and I never wanted to feel that way again. Lesbian, bi, straight, it doesn't matter, I wasn't ready to feel vulnerable around anyone." Fate confessed.
"So you probably weren't asexual until you were made to be, but at this point it's impossible to know what feelings you might have grown in to. So the natural airhead asexual Nanoha and the artificial deeply thought out asexual Fate decided to live together and make as good a family as they could from the ashes." I concluded.
"That's right. I think there's a tragic core to both our lives that we never could get ourselves right, so we spent all our time helping others instead. I think both of us were destined to die on the battlefield eventually, like so many other martyrs who fought for their country before they could pass on their genes. Until we arrived here. If Fate alpha was a tragedy, Fate omega was a love comedy. All those feelings I had accumulated as a family and friend for Nanoha were suddenly recast as feelings for a boy, for you, and suddenly my heart was free to fall in love again. Cute-sama made me someone capable of being your waifu, someone whose trauma didn't bite down all the way to my soul rendering me inert anymore. Someone who could love and be loved for the first time to the very bottom of my heart. The first time in my life I found myself welcoming an entire new world of feelings. They weren't associated with pain and fear anymore, but with unicorns and rainbows. I felt like I could feel anything, and so I poured all those feelings into my new possibility as a bride -- and now I have seven children. . .one of whom rests in deep sleep becaused you labeled her a thought criminal."
"Alicia was a tragedy. But it's for the best, moving forward, that our community remains harmonious and united. It's even in Alicia's best interest that she live in the country of her own choosing, not one she fundamentally disagrees with and despises. I know how it feels to grow up in a place I hate but can do nothing about. It robs you of all energy, all life force, all joy. Alicia wanted democracy and human rights -- I can't give those things to her without losing everything I have. So I'm giving her a new life on a new planet where everyone there wants democracy and human rights. It's nothing against her. Keeping her unconscious until she arrives at her new planet and new community means she doesn't have to suffer the indignity of her lack of human rights for even an additional second." I replied.
"Yes, well, if it was really in her best interest don't you think she could've been given the option to consent to it first?" Fate complained.
"It's only secondarily about what's in her interest. I'm trying to accommodate her wishes as much as possible, but ultimately this is about the long term health of our community, so no, her consent doesn't matter." I struck that line of argument down.
Fate sighed. "I'm your foremost field agent, so you know I support your government. I just think there should be clemency when it comes to silly kindhearted girls getting silly notions in their heads that they never mean to execute in any fashion, who are just going about their lives with their families when suddenly they've been judged and sentenced before they even knew they'd done something wrong."
"If I freed Alicia from cold sleep, do you think she'd change her mind?" I asked Fate seriously.
"Given that she decided on this after fifty years of thought, going against her entire education and upbringing -- no, I don't think anything could change her mind. Short of living through a democratic and human rights timeline and seeing it personally end in catastrophe, but by then it would be too late." Fate admitted.
"You would think Earth's fate would be sufficient proof that they were going about things wrongly, but you can always say that was just a stroke of bad luck, that democracy has never 'truly been tried' yet. Alicia will groundlessly assert she could do it better and no amount of empiricism would sway her. It's her idee fixe. And once people like Alicia are out there counter-signalling me, once she's bringing up her own kids as democratic revolutionaries, the cancer would spread geometrically, until ultimately I would have to fight a civil war, killing Cute knows how many people, over an issue that I could have stopped with just one person in cold sleep if I had only acted immediately. No, Alicia stays." I spoke as Mayor.
"Fine, but I want another child to replace my missing secondborn." Fate negotiated petulantly.
"Because Fate omega is not a lesbian and not even afraid of intimacy, that I can accommodate." I leaned over and kissed adult form Fate on the lips.
* * *
"I always assumed Nii-san would become Galactic Emperor and create a giant harem someday, I just thought you would be marrying Lala, not Cute-sama, to do so." Mikan sighed as she leaned back onto my chest in our small shared bathtub.
"You were so opposed to the Harem Keikaku, so why did you vote in favor of sexual relations when the time came?" I asked my jitsuwa imouto, my hands luxuriating in the warmth of her cupped breasts. Even without either of us moving, our bodies were so plastered against each other that it felt like a continuous act of lovemaking.
"Isn't that obvious? I didn't want to join your harem because you never once said you loved me. Even after we bathed together, slept together at night, and did all those things together. Even after I cooked for you, cleaned for you, took care of your plant kid, on and on and on, no matter what I did, you couldn't just say it, even once -- "Mikan, I love you, will you please marry me?"" Mikan pantomimed.
"Until I summoned you here, and said the words you'd been waiting for all your life." I summed things up.
"Even then, it took some adjusting. I was only twelve years old and didn't feel ready for an adult relationship. I hadn't even graduated from elementary school. Then there was the fact that you were my blood related older brother. Even though I was your wife and you loved me, even though you fulfilled my deepest dream, I didn't know how to take the next step. It felt like it had all come too soon. The real moment I approved of the Harem Keikaku wasn't our wedding day. It was the day you gave your speech that you only wanted to bed us once we were all ready to love you together, that despite the lust you'd been piling up for us all this time you'd refrained out of respect for our own wills. When I saw how much you cared for us, for the people full of doubts and fears like me, I thought, yahari Nii-san's as kind and thoughtful as ever. With him, the Harem Keikaku will succeed. He can do it. Even though you're my brother and even though I was just a kid, I knew I was finally ready to fulfill your dream. It's a little surprising that you chose me over everyone else you were supposed to be chasing after, but I also felt a little proud about it too. That, in the end, you loved your imouto more than anyone else in the galaxy. It's the same for me, I love you more than anyone else I've ever known, practically since the day I was born."
"We were destined to be together. Looking at it objectively, our relationship was always the best, out of every girl I knew. It was always you." I reaffirmed my love.
"We really were, weren't we?" Mikan squirmed happily against me, placing her hands over mine which were over her nipples approvingly. "We lived together before the crazies arrived, while they stayed, and now after they're all gone. We've always lived together since the day I was born. I don't know any life outside of life with you. I don't want to know any life outside of life with you. I just want to love you forever and ever. Now that Nii-san is finally being sunao with his feelings for me, I can be sunao with my feelings for you. I was your imouto, but I wanted you inside of me. I want you inside of me now. And I'll always want you inside of me, even a thousand years from now. I'm yours forever."
Chapter 50:
Having taken the time to finish our all important top 200 anime catalogue, which would now be used as the canon for all future children's educations; having taken the time to care for and connect to all the fogotten waifus who were too timid to demand my attention, the year 101 E.T. finally arrived.
It was our hundredth anniversary since Cute-sama gave life to us all, so I decided to celebrate it with another round of children. It was the best gift I could give any of my wives, even if I'd already given it seven times before, and by now, by the time all the new babies arrived, the seventhborns would all be adults who had moved out of the house, so if I wanted my precious waifus to have some treasured company to keep around them, it could only be thus.
I couldn't be there for everyone at all times, even though they all deserved it. They were all such great partners. But if I left a little piece of me inside each of them that they could watch over every day, sort of like a flower in a pot they could raise while thinking of me, their loneliness could always be assuaged. As living proofs of our enduring unions, eighthborns were just as welcome as all those who had come before. Eden still had plenty of room, and all of us still had plenty of time, so why not?
When I brought up my plan to the assembled wives at the breakfast table, the crowd broke into relieved smiles. Tessa stood up to reply to me as the waifus' unofficial spokesman.
"We were totally convinced that you'd demand some crazy new kinky sex to celebrate our 100th anniversary. To think you just wanted another child. Are you sure? That's all you're going to ask of us? The 100th anniversary only comes once you know." Tessa gave me an impish grin. How many married couples ever got to enjoy their 100th anniversary on Earth? I felt a flood of elation to see 101 waifus all seated around me, all as sprightly and beautiful as the day they had arrived, for this unprecedented miracle in human history. Though some of us weren't even humans. Or more realistically, could any of us be classified as humans anymore? Well, either way. Our feelings were as real as anyone's.
"Isn't it normally the husband's job to give his wife a gift on their 100th anniversary? I'm sorry I couldn't think of anything else. But even if I bequeathed a diamond bracelet on all of you, Siri could have built that in a matter of minutes. . ."
"If you had given us the diamond bracelet, we would have worn it with pleasure you know. It's important because you gave it to us, not because it's made of diamonds." Tessa remonstrated.
"Okay, so how about I give each of you a diamond 100th anniversary bracelet and a child to celebrate this year?" I offered generously.
"I don't think that will cut it anymore." Yoru interjected. "All these anniversaries and only now you offer a single piece of jewelry?"
"Mirajane, could you look up the preferred gemstone for each anniversary?" I desperately called upon my secretary.
Mirajane fished out her iPad and quickly scrolled through the Wikipedia entry. "At this point we're owed practically every gem in the world." She helpfully provided.
"Okay, this is my final offer -- how about a diamond bracelet, an emerald bracelet, a sapphire bracelet, a ruby bracelet, a topaz bracelet, a pearl bracelet, an opal bracelet, an alexandrite bracelet and a child. In return all I ask of you is one word: Daisuki." I tried to remember as many gems as I could.
"Wait, what about me!" Cute-sama floated above everyone else to get our attention. "Do I get fewer bracelets because we haven't been married long enough?"
"I'll give you all the extra bracelets you haven't earned yet if you tell me 'dai-daisuki." I smiled at the frivolously troubled incarnation of Cuteness down the long table.
The wives looked at each other and began to smile irrepressibly, and then they all stood up together and faced me at the head of the table. Girls of every age, every type, every bond, every personality, every history, every style, girls who would ordinarily never be seen together from every fantasy and science fiction world the imagination had ever brought forth. The 101 best girls of a thousand different planes.
"Christopher-sama, aratamete, yoroshiku onegaishimasu. Dai-daisuki!" Even a Goddess bowed her head deeply, together with all the rest. Himeno always pulled through in unified moments like these.
* * *
The results were as follows:
Year 1 (102 E.T.):
Cute's daughter was named Dizzy Amsynth.
Asuna's son was named Leicester Yuuki.
Rin Natsume's daughter was named Mutsuko Natsume.
Rose's son was named Mikleo Dagger.
Deedlit's son was named Taichi Glade.
Yume's daughter was named Ohana Asakura.
Koko's daughter was named Eve Tsukishima.
Yukino's daughter was named Shirahoshi Ouhama.
Isara's daughter was named Akira Aomi.
Yoru's daughter was named Haruka Kazato.
Asa's daughter was named Aya Kazato.
Year 2 (103 E.T.):
Chiwa's son was named Tokiya Harusaki.
Rosa's daughter was named Buttercup Farrell.
Eruruu's daughter was named Karura Green.
Sherria's son was named Anji Blendy.
Lisanna's daughter was named Karen Strauss.
Emily's son was named Harry Granger.
Usagi's daughter was named Ami Tsukino.
Nadeko's daughter was named Mayoi Sengoku.
Haruka Haruno's daughter was named Himelda Haruno, or 'Hime.'
Riko's daughter was named Nodoka Izayoi.
Year 3 (104 E.T.):
Aoba's daughter was named Tomochika Suzukaze.
Kudryavka's daughter was named Kurisu Noumi, or 'Christina.'
Kagome's daughter was named Rin Higurashi.
Nekone's daughter was named Teio Gold.
Sagiri's daughter was named Shuri Izumi.
Kobato's daughter was named Mikuru Asahina Hasegawa.
Myusel's daughter was named Yura Foaran.
Nemu's son was named Sandtiger Asakura.
Aisia's daughter was named Izumi Snow.
Sakura Mamiya's daughter was named Fiora Mamiya.
Year 4 (105 E.T.):
Hozumi's daughter was named Kana Schmetterling.
Kirino's daughter was named Fuko Kousaka.
Mylene's daughter was named Yomiko Jenius.
Nico's daughter was named Chisato Yazawa.
Rin Tohsaka's son was named Levi Tohsaka.
Kobeni's daughter was named Akane Yonomori.
Mavis' daughter was named Robin Vermillion.
Levy's daughter was named Bulma McGarden.
Yuna's son was named Himmel Sea.
MOMO's daughter was named Mio Mizrahi.
Year 5 (106 E.T.):
Urara's daughter was named Yuko Kasugano.
Keiko's daughter was named San Ayano.
Teletha's daughter was named Tanya Testarossa.
Kaname's daughter was named Yukina Chidori.
Kotori's daughter was named Lucia Kanbe.
Makina's daughter was named Naoe Irisu.
Sora's son was named Tanjiro Takanashi.
Sara's daughter was named Lucca Chrysalis.
Sayaka's son was named Makoto Mayuzumi.
Meiko's son was named Sabo Honma.
Year 6 (107 E.T.):
Mitsuki's son was named Ky Mononobe.
Haruka Saigusa's daughter was named Uta Saigusa.
Cheria's son was named Emil Barnes.
Juvia's daughter was named Beatrice Locksor.
Mirajane's daughter was named Charlotte Strauss.
Nanoha's son was named Noah Takamachi.
Rin Nohara's daughter was named Emilico Nohara.
Lafiel's daughter was named Suzuha Abriel.
Himeno's daughter was named Sumomo Katsuragi.
Yuuhi's daughter was named Mizuki Katagiri.
Year 7 (108 E.T.):
Akane's son was named Juunanago Tsukishima.
Suguha's daughter was named Chise Kirigaya.
Elize's daughter was named Anise Lutus.
Tifa's son was named Galuf Lockhart.
Aerith's son was named Sannosuke Gainsborough.
Fate's son was named Rolf Testarossa.
Chtolly's son was named Adlet Seniorious.
Sakura Kinomoto's daughter was named Misaki Kinomoto.
Sae's daughter was named Noriko Nakata.
Reina's daughter was named Lysithea Ryuugu.
Year 8 (109 E.T.):
Ai's daughter was named Miki Hinatsuru.
Rydia's son was named Kaoru Mist.
Aruruu's daughter was named Carrot Green.
Kuon's daughter was named Rice Black.
Lucy's daughter was named Videl Heartfilia.
Sakura Haruno's son was named Adell Haruno.
Shana's son was named Seijuurou Blaze.
Mikan's daughter was named Nana Yuuki.
Illyasviel's daughter was named Lucchini von Einzbern.
Lyria's son was named Tienshinhan Jewel, or 'Tien.'
Year 9 (110 E.T.):
Louise's son was named Usopp Francoise Le Blanc de la Valliere.
Honoka's daughter was named Laura Yukishiro.
Mai's daughter was named Love Mishou.
Azusa's daughter was named Kirie Nakano.
Yui's daughter was named Mayuri Hirasawa.
Sophie's son was named Cress Lamb.
Rinoa's daughter was named Koharu Heartilly.
Nayuki's daughter was named Mai Minase.
Misuzu's daughter was named Rei Kamio.
Orihime's daughter was named Momo Inoue.
Year 10 (111 E.T.):
Iris' daughter was named Hikari Freyja.
Nozomi's daughter was named Megumi Yumehara.
Mira's daughter was named Juuhachigo Yurizaki.
Leia's daughter was named Rinwell Rolando.
Nagisa's daughter was named Fuko Furukawa.
Wendy's daughter was named Hermit Marvel.
Miu's daughter was named Rebecca Takanashi.
Sakura Yoshino's daughter was named Maho Yoshino.
Kokona's son was named Shanks Aoba.
Mikoto's daughter was named Itsuwa Misaka.
The names this time around were chosen with special care, since it was our 100th anniversary and all. I wanted to catch all the significant connections I could that were still outstanding. For instance, Kagome dived back into her life with Inuyasha to have Rin, Sesshoumaru's girlfriend. Mikoto dived back into the world of Index to have Itsuwa, Touma's wannabe girlfriend.
The Pretty Cures had characters from Pretty Cure, the Tales of's from Tales, and Sailor Moon gave birth to Sailor Mercury.
Eruruu finally finished off the Utawarerumono franchise with her daughter Karura.
I also leaned heavily on Xenoblade, Flame of Recca, One Piece, Steins;Gate, World of Witches, Kiniro Mosaic and Princess Principal.
There was no real dropoff in the quality of characters I could name my kids after. Even after all this time it felt like they were all wonderful heroes and heroines anyone would want to go by. Japan's imagination was just that fruitful.
Kudryavka was especially happy to have a child sharing my name, even if it was pronounced differently. It hadn't been egotistical of me, I just liked the lab coat wearing lab member from Steins;Gate the same amount everyone else did. It would be a shame to not have a daughter bearing her likeness. But if Kud felt it was some sort of special blessing arranged for her, far be it from me to disabuse her. In a way it was a nice bookend. Kurisu, who shared my first name, was our 8th born, while Kaya, who shared her last name, was our 1st born together. Maybe it had been intentional after all?
I probably had 100 Akane's by now, but Kobeni's was from Ranma 1/2. I felt both Kobeni and Akane had to deal with arranged fiances so it was only proper.
Yuuhi was assigned Baka to Test's Mizuki because they were both known for their terrible cooking. Yoru was assigned Sakura Trick's Haruka because she crushed on Asa just about as badly as Haruka did on Yuu.
I worked hard to find another suitable angel for Cute-sama's child to be named after. Dizzy, with her black and white angel wings from Guilty Gear, was the perfect solution. It felt pretty good to have fathered three demigods. If I kept this up my legend would reach mythical proportions.
In summation, the names of my 8th borns were:
Cute's daughter was named Dizzy Amsynth.
Asuna's son was named Leicester Yuuki.
Rin Natsume's daughter was named Mutsuko Natsume.
Rose's son was named Mikleo Dagger.
Deedlit's son was named Taichi Glade.
Yume's daughter was named Ohana Asakura.
Koko's daughter was named Eve Tsukishima.
Yukino's daughter was named Shirahoshi Ouhama.
Isara's daughter was named Akira Aomi.
Yoru's daughter was named Haruka Kazato.
Asa's daughter was named Aya Kazato.
Chiwa's son was named Tokiya Harusaki.
Rosa's daughter was named Buttercup Farrell.
Eruruu's daughter was named Karura Green.
Sherria's son was named Anji Blendy.
Lisanna's daughter was named Karen Strauss.
Emily's son was named Harry Granger.
Usagi's daughter was named Ami Tsukino.
Nadeko's daughter was named Mayoi Sengoku.
Haruka Haruno's daughter was named Himelda Haruno, or 'Hime.'
Riko's daughter was named Nodoka Izayoi.
Aoba's daughter was named Tomochika Suzukaze.
Kudryavka's daughter was named Kurisu Noumi, or 'Christina.'
Kagome's daughter was named Rin Higurashi.
Nekone's daughter was named Teio Gold.
Sagiri's daughter was named Shuri Izumi.
Kobato's daughter was named Mikuru Asahina Hasegawa.
Myusel's daughter was named Yura Foaran.
Nemu's son was named Sandtiger Asakura.
Aisia's daughter was named Izumi Snow.
Sakura Mamiya's daughter was named Fiora Mamiya.
Hozumi's daughter was named Kana Schmetterling.
Kirino's daughter was named Fuko Kousaka.
Mylene's daughter was named Yomiko Jenius.
Nico's daughter was named Chisato Yazawa.
Rin Tohsaka's son was named Levi Tohsaka.
Kobeni's daughter was named Akane Yonomori.
Mavis' daughter was named Robin Vermillion.
Levy's daughter was named Bulma McGarden.
Yuna's son was named Himmel Sea.
MOMO's daughter was named Mio Mizrahi.
Urara's daughter was named Yuko Kasugano.
Keiko's daughter was named San Ayano.
Teletha's daughter was named Tanya Testarossa.
Kaname's daughter was named Yukina Chidori.
Kotori's daughter was named Lucia Kanbe.
Makina's daughter was named Naoe Irisu.
Sora's son was named Tanjiro Takanashi.
Sara's daughter was named Lucca Chrysalis.
Sayaka's son was named Makoto Mayuzumi.
Meiko's son was named Sabo Honma.
Mitsuki's son was named Ky Mononobe.
Haruka Saigusa's daughter was named Uta Saigusa.
Cheria's son was named Emil Barnes.
Juvia's daughter was named Beatrice Locksor.
Mirajane's daughter was named Charlotte Strauss.
Nanoha's son was named Noah Takamachi.
Rin Nohara's daughter was named Emilico Nohara.
Lafiel's daughter was named Suzuha Abriel.
Himeno's daughter was named Sumomo Katsuragi.
Yuuhi's daughter was named Mizuki Katagiri.
Akane's son was named Juunanago Tsukishima.
Suguha's daughter was named Chise Kirigaya.
Elize's daughter was named Anise Lutus.
Tifa's son was named Galuf Lockhart.
Aerith's son was named Sannosuke Gainsborough.
Fate's son was named Rolf Testarossa.
Chtolly's son was named Adlet Seniorious.
Sakura Kinomoto's daughter was named Misaki Kinomoto.
Sae's daughter was named Noriko Nakata.
Reina's daughter was named Lysithea Ryuugu.
Ai's daughter was named Miki Hinatsuru.
Rydia's son was named Kaoru Mist.
Aruruu's daughter was named Carrot Green.
Kuon's daughter was named Rice Black.
Lucy's daughter was named Videl Heartfilia.
Sakura Haruno's son was named Adell Haruno.
Shana's son was named Seijuurou Blaze.
Mikan's daughter was named Nana Yuuki.
Illyasviel's daughter was named Lucchini von Einzbern.
Lyria's son was named Tienshinhan Jewel, or 'Tien.'
Louise's son was named Usopp Francoise Le Blanc de la Valliere.
Honoka's daughter was named Laura Yukishiro.
Mai's daughter was named Love Mishou.
Azusa's daughter was named Kirie Nakano.
Yui's daughter was named Mayuri Hirasawa.
Sophie's son was named Cress Lamb.
Rinoa's daughter was named Koharu Heartilly.
Nayuki's daughter was named Mai Minase.
Misuzu's daughter was named Rei Kamio.
Orihime's daughter was named Momo Inoue.
Iris' daughter was named Hikari Freyja.
Nozomi's daughter was named Megumi Yumehara.
Mira's daughter was named Juuhachigo Yurizaki.
Leia's daughter was named Rinwell Rolando.
Nagisa's daughter was named Fuko Furukawa.
Wendy's daughter was named Hermit Marvel.
Miu's daughter was named Rebecca Takanashi.
Sakura Yoshino's daughter was named Maho Yoshino.
Kokona's son was named Shanks Aoba.
Mikoto's daughter was named Itsuwa Misaka.
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