I lit the last candle, and put it up on the windowsill before blowing out the match. It wasn't solstice anymore, but I needed the soft, glowing lights. They reminded me of the nights I'd spent watching the Christmas tree, in the dark, and watching colourful shadows dance on the wall.

It was going to be a long Christmas Eve night. Kaminari and Rei were spending the night at the Taras, and they'd left just less than an hour ago. I still had all evening left, to distract myself from the ghosts of Christmas past. The emotional scars that my parents and their church had left ... and the physical ones that I'd given myself, while I'd lived with them.

I don't like thinking about this stuff. You know? I've got my own apartment, paid for with the settlement money. I'm going to college. My life isn't nearly as interesting as Kaminari's, but as long as I'm a side character in her story I want to be defined by how helpful I am. I don't want to be "the one with the tragic backstory," not when she and Rei have so much to deal with already.

It's just ... it's really hard, some nights. Especially this night of the year.

I sat down on the couch, in the dark, and wrapped a blanket around myself. The whole apartment building was silent; I guessed everyone had gone home to be with their families. Wouldn't it be great to have one, I thought?

No, no, that won't do. Be still, I told myself. Do your solstice meditations. Focus on the candles, the quiet, the softness. These are the longest nights of the year. Remember that spring comes again ... remember not to take this season for granted.

I blinked, as I remembered the thing I had scheduled for February. The appointment with a transformation specialist, in Japan. I hadn't thought about it for so long. But they'd asked me to confirm, just a few weeks ago, and I had.

I'd signed up for their waiting list the day Kaminari had boarded her flight for Sapporo. It'd hurt so much to see her off, and to see her in so much pain. It'd seemed like this was my only hope of being with her again.

I mean, I guess I could teach English there after I graduate? Or just visit, every so often. But based on what Rei had told me, and some other stuff I'd read online, that wasn't going to give me what I wanted. I'd never be anything more than "the foreign boyfriend," defined and judged by his foreignness. I felt enough like an outsider already, without everyone thinking I was one as soon as they laid eyes on me. Or speaking a language I barely understood.

Why did it hurt to think about that?

Why did it hurt so much?

What kind of life did I really w-

My phone chimed, with an email notification. It was from Rei. All it said was "Mistress' parents recognized me."

Oh shit.

I tapped the notification and hit "Reply," trying to figure out what to say. But I got another two emails in rapid succession:

"I am going back to your apartment, if that is okay. Please tell me how."

"I am cold."

Why was she emailing me? I thought. Was this like the thing in anime where they always use email instead of texting each other? I guessed she didn't have my Discord or LINE contact info ... wait, why was I hung up on this? She needed help!

I raced back to my room to get my tablet, careful not to knock candles over, then came back out and unfolded it in my lap just as the central heating kicked in. "Where are you?" I emailed her back. As long as we were doing single-sentence emails.

"In front of the Taras' house."

Oh geeze. I looked up transit directions from there to here, and screenshotted the route before sending it to her. "You can use your phone's map program," I told her. "Just type in-" and I gave her my address.

It was a minute before I heard back from her.

"Map program?"

I stared.

"Wait," she wrote back.

"I found it."

"I am sorry for my rudeness."

Fffffff ... was this because they'd kept her locked up for so long? Did she not know how to use anything more modern than her old laptop? I remembered the Rei from the anime had had executive function issues ...

"I am headed towards the train station."

"Please tell me how to board the train."

I started typing. "Kaminari should have given you a slip of paper. That's your ticket. Make sure you have it on you, then get on-" I told her which train she needed to board.

Another minute or two passed. I pulled the blanket back over me, and set my tablet down on top of it.

"I do not have it," she wrote.

"I must have lost it."

"I am sorry."

"Okay," I wrote back. "You can use the vending machine. Do you have any Canadian coins on you?"

"No."

I took a deep breath. "Can you go back and ask Kaminari for some?"

"No."

I squeezed my hands into fists. Not because I was angry with her, but because the situation was more tense than I'd thought, and I wasn't sure how to handle this.

"Okay ... " I wrote. "In that case, just get on the train anyway. If someone asks you for your ticket, speak Japanese and act confused."

"はい。"

I giggled, in spite of everything.

"The train will be here in six minutes," she wrote. "I am cold."

Understandable, I thought ...

"I am sorry. Please forgive my rudeness and complaining."

I finished messaging Kaminari, to let her know what was happening, then typed a response to Rei. "No worries," I told her. "Let's get you back inside where it's warm, eh?"

"ええ。"

Heh.

I looked at the map to see where she needed to go next. That's when I remembered she'd need to take two separate buses back from the train station, and she still didn't have any cash.

I closed up my tablet and tossed the blanket aside, then blew all the candles out one by one before throwing on my winter coat and scarf, and grabbing a handful of change from the jar. It wasn't until I was out on the street that I emailed her from my phone:

"I'm bringing the change that you need to take the bus home."

"Are you going to turn me into a Canadian girl?" she replied.

I started explaining what "change" was, before I realized she'd done that on purpose. Then I facepalmed. "Ha ha," I wrote. "Wait for me at the bus stop, okay?"

"Okay. Thank you, Claire."

---

I talked with Rei some more, over the half-hour or so that it took to make my way to the stop. But her responses got slower and terser, and finally stopped.

When I got there, I saw why she was cold.

Rei was sitting on the steps of a building next to the bus stop, in one of the few places where the snow had melted, huddled into a ball in just a sweater and long skirt. She'd gone out bundled up in her winter gear, but she must have left the Taras' in such a hurry that ...

"Oh my goddess. Are you okay?" I rushed over to her and offered her a mittened hand.

She just shook her head, her eyes squeezed shut.

"The bus will be here in eight minutes ... it'll be warm in there, okay?"

She nodded, and shivered.

I took off my coat, and tried to drape it over her. But she shook it off, and I thought she was just shivering at first but she shook it away more violently the second time.

"Rei, what's wrong?"

She just shook her head.

"You don't want to wear the coat?"

She shook her head again.

"Why not?"

I saw her mouth words, but couldn't hear them.

"What was that?" I leaned in closer.

"Bad girl," she whispered.

Oh shit.

Was ... was my girlfriend abusive?

Had she ordered Rei to leave the get-together? Had she sent her a nasty email, to punish her for leaving? What had she done? I knew Kaminari seemed more self-centred after her transformation, but I'd thought she was healthier this way ...

Seven minutes left.

I took a deep breath. "Your, uh, your Master orders you to wear this coat."

"Not my Master."

"This concerned stranger politely requests that you wear their coat."

"Not a stranger."

What was that supposed to mean?!

A gust of wind took my breath away and prickled at my exposed face. "Rei, please, there's wind chill and ... " This wasn't a situation where logic and persuasion would help, was it?

She didn't even shake her head this time. She just huddled into a ball. A tight, shivering ball.

My phone's clock was still showing seven minutes left.

I squeezed my eyes shut and my hands into fists, and I shook with more than the cold. Then, I did the unthinkable.

"I, uh ... " I sat down next to her on the steps. "I have written, like, a ton of fanfiction about your character."

Rei blinked.

"About you!" I corrected myself. "I mean, you said you're the character, so it's about you. Sorry, I'm acting like you're just a voice actress here ... "

Rei looked down at her shivering arms, her hands wrapped tight around her tiny body.

"And I mean ... " I swallowed. "We don't have to go into what exactly I wrote. Okay? That's like, you don't, uh ... "

Wow, I was outside in a Canadian winter and not wearing a coat, but it felt like I was burning up inside. I suddenly wanted to take off my sweater.

"Look, I'm just, the point I'm trying to make ... " I grabbed a handful of snow and squeezed it tight in a white-knuckled grip. "You spent so much of the series thinking you were worthless. Right? You only started to open up when someone else showed you even a hint of kindness. Well, that's what I wanted to do. I wrote stories where you could be safe, and surrounded by people who treat you like the person you are, until you could see yourself as one."

Rei closed her eyes, and I thought I saw tears form on them.

"And yes, my self-insert was part of this. Okay? I wrote all these scenes and conversations, where she helps you realize how valuable you are, and it was all touching and emotional and stuff. But like, now you're actually here and I have no idea what to say, so a lot of good that did me?!"

My voice turned into a nervous squeak. I took a deep breath of frosty air, to try to keep from panicking.

"I just ... I know you're a person. And you deserve to be safe and warm."

She was quiet for a moment. I decided to keep quiet too, to avoid digging myself any deeper.

Finally, she raised her voice a little above a whisper, and said through chattering teeth "So your character was female?"

I choked on my own saliva, and started coughing and hacking and gasping for breath, as Rei put on my winter coat. Then, just as I caught my breath, I felt her latch onto my arm and rest her head on my shoulder.

I tried so hard not to shiver so much that she let go. And she didn't, all the way across two buses and back to the apartment.

---

On the way, she explained what'd happened. By email while sitting next to me, since the bus was still too loud for me to hear her soft voice.

Kaminari's parents recognized her not because they were fans of Evangelion, but because Kaminari had wanted to cosplay a while ago and they'd forbidden her after Googling it. They hadn't connected the name with the character; they just recognized her blue hair, pale skin, and striking red eyes, from the "immodest" girls who did cosplay.

That led to a conversation where Rei clarified that no, she wasn't an otaku or cosplayer, she was an actual anime character. Which opened an unbelievable can of worms with them, to the point where they started preaching at her.

To the point where she was in such a hurry to get out that she left her coat (with her ticket) behind.

Kaminari didn't follow because she didn't realize Rei had left the house, and because she was standing up to her parents to defend Rei. When that argument ended, she emailed Rei in tears, apologizing for her parents' actions and for not realizing she'd left ...

... and Rei decided she was terrible, because she'd "made" Mistress cry.

At this part of her explanation she started crying into my sweater, still clinging tight to my arm, and I had to show her which coat pocket I kept tissues in.

Did Kaminari have this effect on her, somehow? Or was it just everything catching up to Rei? I remembered what she was like in Evangelion, and tried to imagine her being stuck in that situation for twenty years. Being owned by a government agency, and barely having a life or a sense of self. What would that do to a person?

The Rei from Kaminari's emails, before she TSed, was fiercely devoted to her. If Kaminari were here, I thought, she'd be the one comforting Rei. Telling her it was okay, it wasn't her fault, and she loved her. She wasn't here right now, though, so I did my best to tell her all that ...

... well, except for that last part. I didn't know her well enough, right?

Anyway, we managed to get back home somehow, after a short walk back from the bus stop. Both of us were chilly, since we'd split my winter wear between us, so when we got back I suggested she take a warm shower. Meanwhile, I climbed into bed, bundled up in my blankets, and shivered.

What a day, I thought ... what a long, nervewracking handful of days. And that wasn't even taking the "questions of identity" into account, that Rei had said I should ponder.

I messaged Kaminari to let her know what was happening, and she said (in English) that she was heading home too. No sooner had I put my phone away than I heard a knock on my bedroom door.

"Um, the towels are in the cabinet," I said.

"May I come in?" Rei asked.

"S-sure!" I still had some shivers left in me.

Rei opened the door, and walked into my room in her underwear.

She was almost a silhouette against the door. But I could see her skinny, pale outline, and the places her underwear covered. She didn't strike a pose, or speak in a breathy voice. She just carried herself naturally, and said "I am cold," in her usual monotone.

"Actually, you're pretty hot!"

... is what I wanted to say, but did not because I didn't know her well enough. "Okay ... ?" I said, trying to fight down my sudden arousal and wondering if I was supposed to.

"The optimal way for us both to restore body heat is to insulate ourselves together, and maximize skin contact between us. Shall we?"

My body definitely wanted to, but I was freaking out. Wasn't this a little sudden?! "W-what would Kaminari say?" I asked.

"Mistress ships us. She would approve."

Crap! Okay, time for Plan B: State the obvious. "You have me all wrong!" I blurted out. "I didn't bring up the fanfics because I wanted to reenact them!"

"Do you want to reenact them?"

Her eyes shone, in the light from my wall charger. And I couldn't look away, except to stare at the rest of her body.

Crap.

"Why don't you tell me all about them?" she asked, as she walked towards me around the bed. "You enjoyed writing them, did you not? Tell me what you wanted to do to Rei-chan."

Was she mocking me?! It was so hard to tell what she-

She sat down on the bed beside me, and put my hand on her breast. "Show me," she said.

... I showed her.

---

About an hour later, the front door creaked open, and Kaminari took off her boots before closing it and yawning loudly. 「What a day ... 」she said, in Japanese. 「Dear goddess, what a day.」

I froze.

"Rei? Doko ni- ano, where are you and Claire?"

"In here," Rei called out, her arms and legs (and other parts) intertwined with mine.

"Oh? What is going on?" Kaminari asked, as she hurried down the hallway towards us. Then she got to the open doorway, and squeed. 「Holy crap, you did it! Congrats!」

「Thank you,」Rei said, and squirmed.

I just moaned. My mind had given up on processing this situation a long time ago.

「I'm so sorry for」something something,「Rei!」she said.「I'm truly sorry.」

「No worries,」 Rei said, her eyes still locked onto mine as she made me hers.

Kaminari squirmed, while watching us.「Is it okay if I, you know-」

「Naturally,」Rei said, and poked my arm. "Claire, Mistress would like to join in."

I just nodded and groaned, and resigned myself to sharing a bed with my ... lovers? Girlfriends? Girlfriend, and voraciously sexual anime crush?

Maybe this is what it's like to have a real family, I thought.

And then I let them love me, and each other.

---

That'd be a good place to end this story, wouldn't it? They all snuggled happily ever after.

Turns out, Rei's an insomniac.

Here's what happened that night while I was asleep, according to her:

She lay there holding on to me. I was sandwiched in between her and her Mistress. She did not smile, but was feeling very light on the inside.

Mutual satisfaction achieved, she thought. Task complete. Was this light feeling happiness? Yes, she realized. Love and happiness achieved. Afterglow experienced.

The corners of her mouth turned upwards a little. Then she felt a coughing fit come on, and she grabbed her phone from the nightstand before slipping out of bed silently, and closing the door behind her as quietly as possible. Only once she'd run out into the living room did she allow herself to cough, muffled by her bony arm.

The lights were off out here. She was alone, and naked. Something felt good and primal about that. Something also felt cold, though. So she bundled up on the couch, in the blanket I'd left there, and felt her body temperature return to its optimal levels.

She sat there like that, in the dark, for more than ten minutes. She didn't do solstice meditations; her mind just naturally cleared itself. She didn't think about anything, because there was nothing to think about.

Until my words from earlier came back to mind.

"Do you enjoy being Rei?"

It was the first time she'd been asked that, by someone who was concerned.

It occurred to Rei that from an outside point of view, becoming a compliant trauma victim with a number of health conditions probably wasn't a good thing. It was something to be alarmed by. And she felt, as she had before, that the only reason she'd become Rei was because she was already her, in spirit and mind. She just hadn't realized it until she had watched that show.

Had she grown at all since then, Rei asked herself? Maybe. But why did it matter? She had no choice but to be Rei, so what was the point in asking?

It wasn't like she was valuable, anyway. Or any kind of a "transformation specialist." Only one person had ever been transformed by Rei Ayanami, and that was her. Everyone else, she was just picking out other people's songs for. Finding the thing that would change them, before they did it themselves.

Wouldn't they have just done it themselves? If they'd wanted to change that badly. Kaminari-sama had already been in the process of transforming herself, physically and mentally. All Rei had done was find someone else's song to help speed it along. Between her, Kaminari-sama, and the singer and songwriter, her contribution to this process was the least important. And the people she changed went on to lead exciting, fulfilled lives ...

... while she remained stuck as this fragile, helpless creature, who had nothing to offer the world except her embodiment of a fetish.

Rei sighed.

She decided that she didn't like thinking about this.

She would rather think about Kaminari-sama and her girlfriend. She had come to think of me as a girl, by then, and was sure that I would soon as well.

Now Rei decided to meditate, putting her palms together in front of her and sending a prayer to the deity we had enshrined. 「Inari-sama,」she asked,「please let me be the person to change Claire, so that she may have a fulfilling life like Mistress does. Thank you.」

Having done that, Rei turned on her phone, to look for songs which could do that. It wasn't like she was going to fall asleep anytime soon.

She saw that she had a number of unread emails, from the time she'd curled up in a ball and hadn't responded to me. She tapped on them one by one, then swiped to dismiss them, the corners of her mouth turning upward a little without her thinking about it. I was so sweet, she thought. My concern for her was so touching. And so were other parts of me.

Rei got to the email I'd sent, where I'd linked her another raid boss theme from the Final Fantasy XIV OST. "Just something to listen to while you're waiting!" I'd said. Rei nodded slightly. This would help her find out what would change me.

She got up from the couch and dug in her open suitcase on the floor, looking for her spare set of earbuds. It took her a few minutes to find them. But finally she put them on, plugged them in, and tapped on the link.

Rei instantly knew she was going to die.

A chorus of feminine voices wailed their lament, of the soul that was meeting its end. Rei froze, sweating hard as they filled her mind, knowing what was happening to her and scared of what she'd become. Then an organ and drums both kicked in, as one of the singers sang in a slow, breathy whisper:

Ula menida tula oh
Tela omnida tula ei
Ona ramuhda deme os
Nola tulama tela ei

What language was this? Rei wondered. What were they saying to her? How long did she have, to ask herself these questions?

Soul without a name, heed my call
Sin doth stain the hearts of us all
The worm hath burrowed deep and hath grown
Soon he too shall reap what is sown

Her name meant "zero," the way it was spelled. That was almost like not having a name, wasn't it? But what sin had she committed, that warranted being destroyed? Destroyed, and replaced by someone else?

Maybe it wasn't her sin, she thought. Maybe it was all the crimes that had been inflicted from outside, on her body and mind. Maybe her heart was stained by others' sins.

The music picked up its tempo, and the voices reached a crescendo.

Step into the storm, know its mercy
Let the wind and the rain crash down over thee
Lightning bright, thunder bold
Guiding us forevermore!

Rei felt like she was literally being buffetted by a storm. She clung to her identity like a rain poncho, but there was nothing to anchor her to it; no love or regard for herself. It blew away in an instant, the changes crashing over her like a wave, leaving her scalp and skin tingling all over.

Then the person who used to be Rei heard the singer continue, in her breathy near-whisper. But this time, she wasn't singing to her.

Soul fallen from grace, ware thee well
Judgment thou must face, thine own hell
The worm stirreth within, black as night
Breeding deeper sin, foul its blight

Reiko -- "grateful child," or "child Rei" -- rushed to the light switch and turned on the lights, looking down at her teenaged breasts and her fair and unblemished skin. It had colour to it, it would tan and not burn, it was normal and wouldn't draw stares. Her short hair wasn't naturally blue anymore, but black, like a normal girl's.

But her eyes ... they stared at her from the hall mirror. They had gone from blood red to a cool magenta, almost pink. Some kind of mutation? Or her soul shining brightly inside her? She wanted to scream, she wanted to run ... she wanted to sing. To make a spectacle that no one could ignore.

Soul, thine end is nigh. Take mine hand
All life must return to the land
Lingered hath the worm, overlong
Purge thy flesh of fear and be strong

Reiko felt like she were the one singing the words. Mouthing along with them. Hating her parents and Mistress' parents; hating the government agents; hating everyone who had hurt the person that she used to be. Feeling anger at them, and knowing what it was as she felt it, for the first time.

She had boundaries, and they had been violated. But she would destroy the system that'd done this to her. She would bring the terror and judgment that they deserved, like a force of nature. A bolt from the heavens. And if she couldn't? Then someone else would. And she would make sure that they knew that.

Step in from the storm, praise its mercy
Let the sting of the rain ne'er stray far from thee
Lightning bright, thunder bold
Freeing us forevermore!

The singers raised their voices into a triumphant yell, kicking up the storm of transformation to its height. Twenty years of pain and fatigue were blown away like dust in the wind, and Reiko was renewed as though they had never happened.

Now lift thine heavy head and vanquish thy sorrow
Lightning doth strike
Thunder doth roll

Now turn thy gaze ahead and look to the morrow
Lightning shall strike
Thunder shall roll on

Reiko pressed stop on the music player, and doubled over gasping for breath.

She had been dancing without realizing it, in the middle of being transformed.

Her entire body felt light.

She was deeply confused.

What had happened?

In the time it took her to process all this, her body had already recovered. She felt like she could go at this again, if she had to. But somehow, she knew that that wouldn't be necessary.

She took a deep breath and stood up, walking on shaky legs to the mirror and looking herself over.

It didn't feel or look alien at all. It just felt like her body, the same as always. It was completely different from Rei's, but that was alright, because she wasn't Rei. She was the girl in the mirror, and she accepted that.

Reiko blushed, and smiled.

She stood there for a while longer, feeling herself and trying out different expressions. She liked seeing the girl in the mirror smile, even shyly. It looked good.

Maybe she hadn't grown up yet. But then, Rei never really had, either. It was time to do this right. And to set things right, or at least sing about them as loudly as possible.

Well ... actually it was time for bed, she realized, and yawned.

Reiko took care of some things in the bathroom, then climbed back in bed with me and her Mistress. And she smiled, because she was happy.

---

Anyway, we started dating soon after that. So that's how my second girlfriend became fluent in High Sylphic.

Not that I was exactly rushing to get involved with a first-year schoolgirl. Actually, my first thought after waking up Christmas morning and seeing who was beside me was "oh my goddess, I'm going to jail!"

I ... may have blurted it out and woke her up that way.

She didn't mind, though. If anything, she was more affectionate to me that day. She and Kaminari practically clung to me, while I read English visual novels out loud for Kami's listening practice. Even when I made pancakes for them, I had trouble prying Reiko off of my arm, which was more than a little awkward since she didn't have clothes that fit her and decided to go around naked instead.

That's how I spent my first Christmas with my new family, even if I was trying not to think of them that way just yet.

Finally, on Boxing Day, she bundled up in Kaminari's loose-fitting clothes and we braved the crowds to get her new outfits.

As you can see, I snapped a picture of her modelling them. I think she turned out pretty well, don't you?

---

Reiko would've gotten in trouble for what she did next, if she hadn't been a "licensed transformation specialist" already.

See, in Japan you need a license to transform other people on purpose. Otherwise you can be liable, if they or their family decide they don't like it. So like, that one chiptune artist from Scotland? Who made the game OST that changed twenty people's genders around? She'd absolutely be in jail if she lived in Japan.

Reiko, on the other hand, was untouchable. And so was her band, by extension, since she was the lead singer. That's right; she started a freaking rock band, under the stage name Ran Mitake, with people she knew who'd gone to the immigration program or Kaminari's high school. (That's where I got the album art of her, up there, based on the photo I took.) I dunno if that makes her an idol, per se, but it definitely put her in the business of TSing people. And due to the way that the laws were worded, anyone she TSed into a Japanese girl became eligible for immigration, so long as they did the deed or tied the knot afterwards.

Was it destiny, I wondered? As Rei, she'd been treated like an object and used for the government's purposes, just like the fictional character. Now her band, Afterglow, was an instant hit, and had started playing original songs after doing fan covers of anime OPs. She even wrote a song for the idol group Pastel*Palettes, and it's got three confirmed TSes so far!

After the first few didn't affect me, I kind of let down my guard around them. So when their debut single, that I'd already listened to, got an AMV for it (potential epilepsy warning), I loaded it up eagerly. I was happy for Reiko and friends, and loved cheering them on.

I should have known.

I should have known.

But I didn't until my hair started feeling thicker and heavier, and spilled out over my shoulders ...