Chapter 58:

　　"Good lord that was a lot of sex." I sighed in relief, finishing my final foursome after 471 years of effort. The year was now 614 E.T. and I was finally able to do something else with my life. The waifus who didn't want to wait around so long between turns had all taken advantage of cold sleep, but I had had to live through each and every day so that the endless turnstile could keep turning. Had it been worth it to devote 3/4 of my life to threesomes and foursomes? Of course. What else should boys devote their life to than that? It's why I had wished for 100 waifus in a harem in the first place, why not devote my life to that one wish's fulfilment? It would have been a waste of a wish otherwise.

　　Every imaginable combination of everything good in this world. Every imaginable blend of flavors my beautiful girls could emotionally and physically provide. And with a perfect memory, I could still taste them all, in fact, I could relive them like they had happened that very minute whenever I wanted. Cute's miracle guaranteed these foursomes for life, not as one-off, long lost events that faded away as quickly as they occurred. So not only did I have the best foursomes with the best girls of all time, I had them for all time. You could call this a 471 year investment for glorious sexual reliving over the next millennia. Especially since I couldn't ask these girls to accompany me forever, by having these memories locked down and in place, I could say goodbye without ever truly parting with them. If I ever missed any of them, I could recall one of the thousands of foursomes I had partaken with them and feel like they were right by my side again. And with this many different precious memories of them, it would never feel too old or repetitive to dredge up again.

　　"I'm so tired of breasts and buttocks!" Nekone agreed as she sat still impaled by my waning penis atop me. "And all of them bigger than mine, mocking me wherever I look or touch! Why does Anii-sama have to include me in every stupid idea?"

　　Come to think of it, she had been at the end of her rope when I announced my plan to impregnate her for a tenth time too. . . had it become a sort of fun minigame to see how far I could stretch this poor girl's patience somewhere along the way?

　　Haruka Saigusa kissed Nekone on the cheek in solidarity. "Look at it from my point of view. I'm always outnumbered by pettankos and reminded I don't suit Christopher's tastes at all."

　　Somehow I'd managed to prolong Haruka's inferiority complex another 600 years.

　　Rin Nohara posing as a cat-eared, gray-haired Mio kissed Nekone's other cheek. "I'm so bland I can't even be myself, doesn't that make me the most pitiable?"

　　"What are you talking about!" Nekone glared at the imposter. "You're the only girl who's still novel to him after 614 years, competing with you is the scariest challenge of all!"

　　"I love all of your bodies." I meekly interceded.

　　"But honestly, if you'd known about Mio ahead of time, would you really have selected a minor side character like me?" Rin challenged me with yellow cat eyes, creating a strange battlefield where the more I complimented her the angrier she'd become.

　　"After getting to know you all this time, there's no way I'd trade any of you for anyone, no matter how well they were written. Another girl from another story I may have a month of memories with, but when it comes to you all that's measured in millennia." I held up my free hands to pat Mio's catears and Haruka's sidetail devotedly.

　　"Actually, divided by 101, 614 years is only 6 years of memories. A sufficiently well made game can be played for a year, so that's no guarantee at all." Nekone used her intelligence far too effectively.

　　"You know, if you'd asked, I could have dressed up differently and wore my hair in different styles." Haruka piled on. "You didn't actually have to marry 101 girls to get these various looks."

　　"You two are still being overly manipulated by his smoothtalking. The important thing is he never actually denied that he would have gone with Mio if he'd met her first!" Mio glared at me for liking Mio.

　　Though if I'd actually known at the time, I probably would have preferred Mio's mother Nia. . .or maybe both. . .a mother-daughter threesome would have topped that time I got with Nemu and Yume in salaciousness. . .speaking of daughters, Umi would have been nice too. . .

　　Three girls started punching me for the daydreaming look on my face.

　　"I only want you, past, present or future, I swear to Cute!" I shielded myself from yet another life threatening beatdown. "Things have gone so well with all of you, so much better than I could possibly hope or imagine, there's no way I'd prefer a gamble on the unknown! I'm glad I chose you! Lucky! Fortunate! Blessed! No one else could top this! The least of you towers a thousand leagues over the best alternative! Whose statues stand at the top of Paradise? Who am I encouraging people to emulate even now?"

　　The three seemed a little mollified when they considered that point. If I'd actually changed my mind about any of them, I wouldn't have deified them as far as the rest of the populace was concerned. In a city of millions, they still stood above the entire skyline, no one else. They were God's chosen sentinels, and everybody on Eden knew it, learned it in history class, and breathed it every time they looked out the window.

　　"No more stories better than ours." Nekone put her hands gently on either of my cheeks and made me stare deeply into her red eyes.

　　"I'll never cheat on you in any way, shape or form." I swore.

　　"I can't believe he has the gall to say that in this situation." Haruka sighed, snuggled up against my left side while Rin-Mio hugged my right.

　　"We're going to have to tell Elf to tone down the quality of her heroines." Nekone warned her bedmates.

　　"It's an endless parade of rivals!" Haruka sulked. As people who had emerged from pure imagination, it was no use telling them they were only worried about figments of the imagination. In fact that might make them more worrisome than the real people walking the streets.

　　"So what are we doing next?" Rin Nohara asked curiously.

　　"I guess it's back to the 100 girls in 100 days cycle. You complain about foursomes now, but you'll miss me when you have to wait so long, with foursomes we got to have sex more often you know." I replied.

　　"Most of the sex we got was with each other, not our husband, so I'm not sure that really counts." Haruka complained.

　　"I was thinking more about our lives in general." Rin Nohara protested down a more meaningful tangent. "We've given you the children you wanted and the sex you wanted, so what do you want from us next? What do you want from me next?"

　　"Well, next on the agenda is conquering the universe." I proposed.

　　"Our descendants can do that. What should I be doing?" Rin insisted.

　　"I guess the last thing I want from you, from all of you, is your understanding and affirmation. If you understood me and the things I care about fully, and then, even after fully understanding them all, approved of everything, then I could accept you fully in turn as a part of myself. As a fully extended, fully connected bond of trust." I explained.

　　"So we just have to call you halla?" Nekone asked. Nekone liked to read a lot so of course she'd read 'A Requiem for Homo Sapiens' by now.

　　"That and not hit me, which clearly indicates disapproval." I smiled at our ability to communicate whole books' worth of concepts with single words due to cross-pollination of source work memories.

　　"I feel like smart waifus have an advantage in this task." Haruka complained.

　　"Actually I think observant waifus are the best off." Rin Nohara, the most observant, bragged a little.

　　"Cute-sama is the best off either way." Nekone wailed. "She reads his mind and knows everything!"

　　"No, it's Wendy who is best off. Remember when they spent that month together all alone? She must have understood him then." Haruka Saigusa connected the dots.

　　"It's anyone who can get him to open his heart and talk about his past." Rin Nohara pointed out. "If we don't know him he can't possibly be sure we really love him."

　　"I understand Riki, he's the one who wanted me to think that was his past, so why does that set me behind?" Haruka complained at the unfairness of her life.

　　"I didn't want any of you to have to dishonor or betray the memories of your loved ones, I loved the yous who loved those people already, it was fundamental to your identities." I explained the purpose of my wish.

　　"Who has he told about his life on Earth? We could interrogate them." Nekone seized upon the quickest and easiest solution.

　　"A secret between them would be their most precious possession, the other waifus would never tell us." Haruka quickly saw the problem.

　　"Divulge all your secrets!" Rin Nohara shook me like a tree. I laughed and enjoyed the rippling contact with three different beautiful nude girls.

　　"If it were that easy anyone could do it. I only expose myself to those who have shown no stab will follow." I turned Rin down. In truth there was nothing to say about my past life. Having no power, unable to influence anyone, none of my decisions ever mattered, so essentially I never truly lived. None would profit from my regaling tales of old Earth. My true self was nothing but my values, only by seeing the beauty in what I valued could anyone approach that inner core I thought of as 'me.' And I'd already broadcasted those values to everyone on the planet freely and incessantly, they were carried by the very names of all my children and taught in class every day. The next step wasn't for me to make.

　　"At least tell us how many second stage waifus you already have." Nekone liked to read a lot, so of course she'd read Lensman already, and was able to condense difficult concepts from entire series into single sentences when talking with me thereby.

　　"You're all precious to me." I avoided that sandtrap.

　　"You said to 'understand me and the things I care about fully,'" Rin Nohara made use of the perfect memory she'd been given by Cute just as much as I had been. "If you won't cooperate on your side, I need only understand the things you care about instead. They can't run away or hide. I'll watch every anime, read every book, listen to every song, play every game, and then come back before you and ask you again."

　　Haruka and Nekone nodded at the wisdom of that plan. "We could even do it together and talk about what we don't understand to each other." Haruka suggested a little hopefully. Suddenly this trio of girls, who had ended up my last lovers by pure rolls of the dice as to who would go next, were becoming a true triumvirate before my eyes.

　　"Suppose we do love you down to your very core, and you love us enough to acknowledge our genuine love for you, what then?" Rin challenged me again.

　　"What else? We proselytize the things we both affirm to everyone else. As much as we can, as deeply as we can, to as many as we can, starting with our own children, so that they can love it too." I gazed upon the internal blazing starscape of the future.

　　"So the greed stretches on and on." Rin Nohara bit her lip, realizing what she'd gotten herself into by marrying me.

　　"I guess it wasn't about the four hundred years of foursomes after all." Nekone seemed to be struggling with the concept that I wasn't a wholly depraved individual.

* * *

　　Kuon sat opposite me in my mayor's office, going over the details of world governance in a well-worn routine after 600 years. She was wearing her peridot, spinel, amethyst, moonstone and onyx gemstone bracelets from our 200th, 300th, 400th, 500th and 600th year anniversaries, a tradition we'd had to invent ourselves given there was no precedent on Earth for our situation.

　　"Congratulations on completing your long-held dream." Kuon politely acknowledged the fact that she'd known me longer as a sex demon than anything else. Thank goodness for perfect memories or she would have forgotten everything else about me entirely.

　　"It was as wonderful as I'd imagined it to be." I reminisced happily. Foursomes weren't just about the unique positions and sights you could see, they were the melding of four minds, four hearts, and four souls. They were chemistry, producing new compounds that acted differently than any one element alone. A sort of fractal infinity that came about by putting things in new situations and environments rather than trying to endlessly add on to what you already had. A new way to multiply life.

　　"Whenever I wish for things, God punishes me by granting some twisted mockery of the wish to hurt me with, so why do you always get exactly what you want?" Kuon frowned bitterly.

　　"Because Cute-sama is better than Uitsualnemetia?" I conjectured.

　　"I wonder if I wished upon Uitsualnemetia to overthrow Cute, since in my story wishes really were granted, and Cute promised to recreate us with our full powers intact, wouldn't she be required to. . ." Kuon mused until I put my hand over her mouth.

　　"Let's not find out." I suggested gently.

　　"I'm sorry." Kuon reflected, her tail drooping at the realization of how far her jealousy was taking her.

　　"To be fair, your white-haired evil self is really cute, so I wouldn't mind so much." I gibed.

　　"Ahem." Kuon's tail wagged with a little more spirit. "Other than our lives changing from the last four hundred years, I wanted to talk to you about the problem of discrimination. Because we treat our children better than our grandchildren, and our grandchildren better than our great-grandchildren, and everyone takes after us as an example, we've created this weird hierarchical nobility. And since no one dies, the class stratification keeps expanding further and further. I've seen grandchildren demanding great-great-grandchildren marry them just because they're of purer blood."

　　"That doesn't make any sense. Everyone is descended from the same top rank echelon, no matter how much the blood mixes it's exactly as pure." I objected.

　　"They'll say they're closer to the ideal original mix and thus better." Kuon quickly continued.

　　"But then why have children at all? Why not clone everyone forever? The point is to stray from the original mix to see if chance can come up with something better. We already have enough of what came before." I parried.

　　"Good. Now repeat that at your next public speech and convince the purebloods." Kuon put down her sheet of paper.

　　"Nobility is great, hierarchy is great, but it comes from the soul. The great-souled shine with a worth no title or raiment can wax or wane. You can see them from across the street, or at least after watching them for a while, seeing everyone they meet feel better about themselves and the world than they felt before. The children I banished are much purer than they are, do they think those off-worlders are better people too?" My bewilderment at their irrationality expanded the longer I considered it.

　　"But we do, in fact, treat our children better simply because they're our children." Kuon pointed out.

　　"It's my obligation as a parent to love someone who is born into this world loved by no one, because they haven't had the chance to meet or impress anyone yet. Otherwise they'd be totally alone and unloved. It's a sacred trust. It doesn't have anything to do with their closeness to Eden's origin." I sighed.

　　"But you do at least hope that our kids are better than their kids, right?" Kuon smirked.

　　"Well, yeah." I shrugged helplessly. "Otherwise that would mean we weren't as good at providing a wholesome environment for our children as they were. I need as many of my children to stand out as possible or my self-esteem would be shattered."

　　"You have the fragilest self-esteem in the universe." Kuon pointed out mirthfully.

　　"So what, like a proper king, I treat all my subjects equally? Or else I have to start calling everybody the duke of somesuch and the earl of whatnot?" I asked for input from my lieutenant, who supposedly was supposed to be sharing the burden of rule with me.

　　"Create a new hierarchy, an officially recognized one, that anyone can aspire towards. An order of the golden ribbon or something, that people from any generation can earn, based on something genuinely meaningful they accomplished." Kuon advised.

　　"That would certainly make the purebloods with no golden ribbon look ridiculous, but any awards I give out will have the same taint of bias, like, 'oh go figure he chose that guy.'" I pontified.

　　"This is tougher than it looks. Golden Ribbon bearers can't just be sports champions or quiz champions or the like, it's supposed to represent inner nobility. Really I'd like it to be awarded to people with the happiest homes. In this world of plenty the emotions you give others are your only true feats." Kuon sipped her tea. She'd been able to glug her beloved sake for the last four hundred years now that we weren't giving any fetuses alcohol syndromes, but during work hours I still restricted her options.

　　"But how on Eden do we know who has the happiest homes objective--" Then I stopped and hit myself on the head.

　　"There is one person who knows everything objectively." Kuon realized at the same time as me.

　　"The person you were trying to kill off a few minutes ago." I pointed out.

　　"I'm sorry!" Kuon asked for forgiveness again.

　　"In the interest of looking unbiased, though, we're all excluded from the honor." I decided.

　　"Which conveniently means we don't have to ask Cute-sama whether we failed, or embarrass some of us by losing to our own kids." Kuon agreed, liking the sound of that.

　　"Not that we would fail." I quickly corrected.

　　"Oh of course not." Kuon quickly agreed. "The next item on the agenda is the off-worlders you spoke of. I wanted to know if you were really okay with sending more and more people--"

　　"Stop! I don't want to hear it. I don't want to know anything about Modernity, Sheol, Anarchy Park, Thugville, the People's Republic or Opium Den, good or bad. It's their planets and up to them to make of them whatever they wish. The policy will continue as before. For all I know they're all doing way better than us and making our planet look like a laughingstock or some sort of pre-Hell." I stopped her short a second time.

　　"But you do know all those people are going straight to Hell after they die, given that Cute-sama is here not there, so even if we are a pre-Hell compared to them. . ." Kuon protested weakly.

　　"Maybe it's worth it to them. Or Hell won't be so bad and they'll get out quickly because they're only doing minor sins. Heck, maybe they'll convince Cute she's wrong and they're right by living so well she can't deny them any longer." I shrugged.

　　"I think that's quite the stretch given that Cute hasn't budged in 500 years. . ." Kuon pressed.

　　"Maybe Gods think in different timeframes than mortals." I stubbornly countered.

　　"Okay dear. I'll leave these reports full of mortality statistics, birth rates, per capita gdp, life expectancy, education levels, technological sophistication, height, weight, crime and all the rest in this wastebasket here. In case you're curious." And Kuon chucked all the papers away. "Meanwhile, a lot of people have been petitioning me about this, so now that you can drag your mind off of foursomes for a second, our nation is in want of a flag and an anthem. After six hundred years I think our population is big enough to merit one, right?"

　　"I guess we're no longer the only nation around, what with Thugville and all, so we do need some marker to distinguish us from them. . ." I admitted. "Okay, how about the flag is white, with a circle in the center. Only this time it isn't red, but gold, because we aren't Japan, we're Japan's ideals."

　　"Somehow I feel like this is showing favoritism to Nekone." Kuon complained, but nonetheless wrote the answer down.

　　"We can fly the flag over all our public buildings, to denote which buildings represent and serve our united will. If private places or people want to display their patriotism they can always join in, but that would be up to them." I dictated. "As for the national anthem, it should be 'After you Sleep,' from Heaven Burns Red. The song is beautiful, quiet, sad, but powerful, hopeful, and ever-rising. The crescendo bespeaks of an undauntable, triumphant purpose. Armies could march to war listening to that anthem, and children could fall asleep listening to it on their mother's lips. We can play it before any athletic match or any of my official appearances as Mayor."

　　"You'd better hope your speeches can live up to that intro." Kuon smiled, writing it all down. "So what about our national animal?"

　　"Let's carry on the nobility that dates back to Rome and make it the eagle." I made another easy and quick decision.

　　"National flower?" Kuon went down the checklist.

　　"What else but a sakura tree in full bloom?" I replied instantly.

　　"The national seal?" Kuon continued.

　　"The hundred of us standing around Cute elevated above, like our statues." Again the answer was obvious.

　　"And our pledge of allegiance?" Kuon asked.

　　"I hated giving the pledge of allegiance in class. No one should be obligated to swear an oath to anything, especially if it's an obvious lie." I quibbled.

　　"Treat it like the national motto or the Lord's Prayer, then, some shorthand thing people can recite if they really love their homeland. We won't make the kids recite it, we can just let them know what it is, like 'In God we Trust,' or 'E Pluribus Unum.'" Kuon offered.

　　"Strangely both of those already fit really well." I commented, musing on what could summarize Eden pithily enough. "Okay, how about, 'I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the Galactic Empire of Eden, and to the values, for which it stands, one nation, under God, with beauty, truth and love for all.'"

　　Kuon smiled again, writing it down word for word. "Maybe your speeches really can live up to our anthem."

* * *

　　"Cute-sama, I'm sure you overheard our conversation already, but could you find out who was encouraging and inspiring the other people in their vicinity the most, by reading everyone's emotions in real time as they encounter each other, and then give the top 1% a golden ribbon?" I went to the shrine to put Kuon's plan into operation. Government worked a lot better with a Panopticon.

　　"I will if you give me five more angels." Cute generously offered in turn. Oh snap! The protection of four hundred years of foursomes was no longer available to fob her off with!

　　"Do you think good angel names grow on trees?" I wailed.

　　"All I know is everybody else has ten children and I have five." Cute cutely counted very low and simple numbers.

　　"But think about it, they're demigods, surely they count double!" I excused myself.

　　"If you had given me Ayu, Charle, Camyu, Nephren and Ithea we'd already have a full allotment of winged girls." Cute pointed out impatiently.

　　"But those girls had close ties to their mothers in the source works and couldn't be spared." I explained.

　　"Do you want your golden ribbons or not?" Cute pouted.

　　"Could we at least make them quintuplets?" I gave in, like I always did, to that puffed cheek. Who these mystery five could be was totally beyond me, but maybe I could figure something out in the year it took for her to give birth to them.

　　"There is a winged girl whose name you haven't used yet, though it wouldn't be unique." Cute bailed me out seeing that my mind really had drawn a total blank. And since no babies could be made until I was satisfied with their names, Cute had a huge incentive to move things along this time.

　　"Kanade from Angel Beats. I thought of her too, but is that really okay with you? Her personality was almost robotic--" I objected.

　　"No, it was from a book much more obscure than that. So obscure I'm the only person who remembers it anymore, and that only because I remember all things that have ever been. Rei was a girl with black butterfly wings chased with violet." Cute explained.

　　"If you miracle up a copy I'll definitely check this girl out, but that still leaves four more. . ." I pondered.

　　"Never mind the wings. Read 'Dead Enders', 'Choice Givers' and 'Followers and Emulators', and I guarantee you'll want all five of these girls to be your daughters. I want all five of these girls to be mine. You let the demigods govern our satellite cities all around the world, so all five of them will have a very special role on Eden. Presumably when we go into space they'll start governing whole planets or galaxies of their own as your regional administrators. In that case, more than having wings, more than having unique names, it's okay to name them after wise people you'd want to rule the world." Cute-sama advised.

　　"If you guarantee I'll like them despite all the rules they break, I'm sure I will. So what should we call them?" I asked, more curious than I'd been about anything in ages. What kind of book, what kind of girls, won the endorsement of God?

　　"Rei, Chiharu, Kotone, Aiko and Shiori."