Chapter 8:
There was a polite knock on the door that I had come to associate with Mirajane's steady professionalism. "Come in." I said, while idly rewatching an anime on my desktop computer. The office of mayor rarely had to intercede in what was becoming a smoothly oiled machine.
"Honoka invented an automated cow milker and chicken egg collector, so Makina and Kagome want to know where you want to send them next." Mirajane reported.
"This is the second time their work has been stolen!" I ranted. Hunting had already become pointless in the advanced neolithic period we had entered, but to think the 21st century had already arrived.
"Would you like for them to go back to school?" Mirajane suggested as the default. My harem was, after all, a bunch of school girls.
"Makina likes to wander around outside. A normal school is a little too stifling. And as for Kagome, she still has trauma from all the studying she had to do to graduate high school the first time." I rejected the offer.
"Okay, how about we build a shrine?" I brainstormed. "Kagome is a bona fide shrine maiden with spiritual powers. Maybe it's time we started worshiping God. We actually know she exists and is benevolent and just and loving and beautiful besides, so all the more so we could at least dedicate a single shrine maiden to her."
"A shrine for Kagome. I'll tell Sae Nakata to build the costume for her, then." Mirajane jotted down a note on her iPad.
"It's not a costume when it's literally worshiping God at a literal house of God." I objected.
"Sir, if I may be so bold, I think you just want to see Kagome in a shrine maiden outfit." Mirajane said in a deadpan.
"Makina enjoyed her work baking bread at a bakery, so we'll have her join the Tavern crew. Just two cooks for the whole town is pretty overwhelming. And now that we have eggs, milk, butter, cream, cheese and shortening Asuna's wanted to try out some more intensive and varied creations." I decided. My knowledge of everyone's past made me the perfect man for the job-assigning job, if I did say so myself.
"Very good sir." Mirajane jotted down the new role assignment and turned to close the door behind her. "Are you sure you aren't bored or lonely, cooped up in this office? There's 100 wives flitting about all around you."
"They're here too," I pointed at the screen, "I like reminding myself about your pasts. If I didn't occasionally refresh my memory, it would be difficult to remember all 100 of you. And besides, I can't be seen as the only one playing while everyone else is working."
"But you are in fact playing." Mirajane noted in a deadpan.
"But I'm not rubbing it in people's faces. It's the appropriateness of it all. The symbolism." I stressed.
"Sakura Mamiya, could you go tell Makina and Kagome of their new job placements? Also, tell Sakura Kinomoto of her new construction work, Lucy about the need for a new foundation, sewage and garbage line, Juvia about the new water silo she'll need to fill on her patrols, Mikoto about the new battery pack she'll need to provide, Cure Flora about decorating and designing the shrine grounds, Sae Nakata about the formal clothing, and anyone else whom I left out that needs to know something?" Mirajane left the room to relay my orders.
"No problem." Sakura Mamiya replied calmly. "It's good to have a job to do after so long."
I heard the door closing as Sakura Mamiya left City Hall, and thought I would get back to my anime when Mirajane re-entered the room.
"Is there something else?" I asked.
"I just wanted to see my husband hard at work," Mirajane had a mature smile that revealed nothing.
"I would work if it helped anyone!" I insisted. "We're a small village and everyone is good hearted so how many laws do we need?"
"Thank you for summoning both me and Lisanna together." Mirajane continued. "Though I'm sure it was just because you wanted us for threesomes."
I had wanted them for threesomes, so I couldn't exactly defend myself there.
"So you did." Mirajane raised her hand over her lips in scandalized surprise. "I'm not sure how I'm going to break this to my little sister."
"I can't help it that you're both so beautiful. If one of you looks perfect and the other looks like the other due to being sisters, how can I choose? The only option was to love you both." I explained forthrightly.
"Asa and Yoru are identical twins." Mirajane mused, following the bread crumbs.
"That's right, I want threesomes with them too. But we even did that together already in their origin so there's nothing you can say this time." I boasted.
"Himeno, Yume and Nemu look an awful lot alike." Mirajane mused.
"A foursome would be great too!" I admitted. God had conditioned all these girls to be okay with polygamy so a foursome wasn't asking too much.
"Should a grandmother and granddaughter really be having sex together?" Mirajane asked.
"I'm already married to multiple blood-related sisters so I think that ship has already sailed." I said with dead eyes.
"Including me." Mirajane pointed out.
"Including you?" I repeated in surprise. Mirajane nodded wordlessly in confirmation with a look of composed neutrality. So Elfman had been her most special person. I could have sworn it would either be Makarov or Laxus. . .
"Dear, have you ever thought about seeing a therapist?" Mirajane asked plainly, clearly not as into incest as I was.
"This is what every normal healthy boy feels in his heart." I said in a zen like state.
"Does God really want you as a worshiper?" Mirajane continued.
"We already met and she likes me very much!" I said in a high voice.
Mirajane leaned over my mayoral desk and kissed me on the lips. "I like you very much too. I just don't think it's as much as it should be. What can we do to alleviate that problem?"
"I don't have the superpowers I used to have, so all I can do is treat everyone with kindness and respect. I'm actually doing my best here." I gestured towards the entirety of Paradise.
"Which one of us looked perfect, and which of us was just the sister?" Mirajane asked.
"Lisanna." I looked her in the eye.
"So I'm the sister." Mirajane sighed. "Well it can't be helped, you prefer small breasts." Mirajane cupped her own with a small regret.
"If the girl is good enough, kind enough, brave enough and devoted enough to the people around her, if she's so much better than everyone else I've ever seen, then even girls with big breasts look really attractive to me." I kissed her back with a forcefulness to make my feelings for her completely clear.
"I want to thank you for something else. Thank you for Lucy," Mirajane kissed me on the lips. "For Wendy," Mirajane kissed me again, "For Levy," Mirajane kissed me again, "For Juvia," Mirajane kissed me again, "For Mavis," Mirajane kissed me again, "And even I guess for Sherria," Mirajane kissed me again. "I always felt like our guild's mother, so it's nice to have so many Fairy Tail mages together. It's a home away from home, just with a lot less violence. You must have loved us very much, to take up so many valuable harem slots all together."
"I love Fairy Tail as much as you do." I replied forthrightly. "I love you all so very much. You're my ideal. I wish I could have included even more."
"Ara, but then I wouldn't even get to spend this much time with you." Mirajane smiled and put her hand over mine. "I think you have enough girls to choose from, don't you?"
I nodded sheepishly. "Until I can really connect with everyone's hearts I already think it's too many."
"You're worried about the one vote against you?" Mirajane smiled. "What if it were me?"
"You'd have every right, I summoned you here even though I knew there hadn't been enough groundwork and preparation in your heart for marriage, I was just that desperate that I hoped it would work out somehow." I confessed.
"Because Lisanna without Mirajane was unthinkable." Mirajane posited.
"It's not only that. It's more when you were interacting with Laxus, or Makarov, or Wendy, or Lucy or Erza or Natsu or Gray. . . I just, warmth just bubbled up within me and I wanted to be with you and feel your love like they did. I love your voice, I love your singing, I love when you cried for Fried's sake. I love you so much." I tried to measure my feelings with my spread out arms to show her.
"Be that as it may, you're going to have more trouble convincing the girls who don't get to spend every day with you. 99 wives thought it was okay for you to sleep with Himeno, but that doesn't mean they were okay with being next." Mirajane pointed out.
"I want to win over all 100 of you, not only the mystery one." I ceded.
"How about a date?" Mirajane asked.
"Like, now that we have swimsuits, let's all go to the beach? Kind of thing?" I asked.
"100 dates with 100 girls, where you can try to win us all over. Maybe if you're lucky on the next vote you can sleep with Himeno." Mirajane suggested with a playful smile.
"There aren't many good date spots on a primordial world. I can't exactly go shopping with her." I pointed out. "Plus I have work."
"Oh?" Mirajane arched an eyebrow, looking around for work.
"I mean in general. Who would like me if I took a 100 day vacation?" I asked.
"But to each of them, you only took one day of vacation for their sake in an entire third of a year." Mirajane pointed out.
"Did I spread myself too thin?" I asked.
"Not necessarily. If you can convey your earnest feelings to everyone like you have with me. I don't think anyone here resents you." Mirajane encouraged.
"But if I randomly recite a laundry list of reasons I love someone it just feels so phony. I love everyone here for real and specific reasons. I chose them for themselves, when I was allowed to choose anyone. They must already know this. I don't want to flail about like a fish searching for approval." I replied.
"If you don't do anything, nothing will happen." Mirajane reprimanded.
"Then how do I do it? How can so many wonderful, beautiful, perfect girls all decide that they want to lay with me? Love poems didn't work on Earth, they won't work on Eden." I challenged.
"I guess you have to make them happy with you, happy with themselves, and happy with the place you're leading them to. Where are you leading us, Christopher?" Mirajane asked.
"I want a world where everyone matters, everyone is loved, everyone agrees on everything, everyone enjoys their lives, everyone can tell the truth and be rewarded, not punished for it, everyone can have an intact family, and everyone can set their eyes on the things that really matter all the live long day." I said.
"It's nice to be in a world that isn't prejudiced against demons." Mirajane smiled. "I can tell the truth about myself and everyone just thinks my wings are cute."
"I was so tired of living by lies. Mowing lawns, smiling and nodding when stupid, evil people say demonstrably false things, getting stuck in traffic, with money so hard to make that we're all too old to have children by the time we can afford a house to put them in. I wanted this." I gestured outside. "This emptiness. I wanted to fill this emptiness with things that mattered, things that worked, things that I could actually care about."
"Like children?" Mirajane asked.
"Like people worth talking to." I replied.
Mirajane stood up and walked to the door. She stopped with her back turned to me. "It's a vast world, Christopher. If you show each of them a volcano, a crystal cavern, a waterfall, a canyon, a fjord, a glacier, a hot spring, a geyser, a cute native creature, don't you think you could manage something? Maybe they'd enjoy talking to you too. As things stand, your desk is your #1 waifu."
Secretaries really did get too involved in their boss' lives.
