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."