Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ EndGame ❯ Correlation Unknown ( Chapter 3 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

"Senpai?"

It took Maya's eyes some time to adjust to the darkness as she entered the room. Despite the hour, so early in the morning that the darkness of night still reigned, the lights in Ritsuko's office were all turned off. It was one of her idiosyncrasies, as Maya had learned over time – when she truly needed to think, Akagi Ritsuko worked alone, and in darkness.

There was a rustle of movement in the far corner of the office, where the soft glow of a multi-layer penetron screen provided the sole and very inadequate source of illumination in Ritsuko's personal computer laboratory. Carefully Maya navigated the various obstacles, her pupils adapting to the darkness. Ritsuko looked up as she approached. "Hello," she said unenthusiastically. "You're early today."

Maya smiled. "I brought coffee."

Ritsuko allowed a careful, controlled uplifting of her spirits at Maya's mention of the beverage. "Thank you," she said, accepting the teacup, savoring the soothing warmth of the steaming liquid through the ceramic. The blond-haired NERV head scientist pushed herself upright in her chair, took a small sip, and allowed a contented – albeit weary – sigh to escape her lips. "Is it morning already?"

"Almost," Maya said. "You really shouldn't keep pulling all-nighters, much less three nights in a row. I'm sure you'd work better if you had some rest, senpai. At least an hour or two."

"It's alright. I couldn't have slept even if I wanted to." She pushed her wheeled chair out of the way. "Take a look at this and tell me what you think."

Obligingly Maya obeyed, bending over to take a better look at the penetron screen. A debugger was loaded with no more than sixty lines of machine code – a fairly small program, by any standard. Too small, in fact, to be anything remotely useful, other than perhaps a computer virus. As her eyes roamed over the code, however, she felt her breath quicken. "Senpai," she gasped. "This is..."

"A modified version of the S.H.O.D.A.N. operating system kernel, build 00.00.0." There was a slight smile of approval on Ritsuko's face at the speed with which her protege recognized the heavily obfuscated code for what it was. "This was as much as I managed to extract from Shinji's computer before the security systems triggered. I had to make extensive modifications to it to make it fit our hardware, and build a custom debugger to handle quantum bit data, but it's more or less there."

"An OS kernel in sixty lines of code, from Shinji-kun's computer." Maya breathed incredulously. "Does it actually work?"

Ritsuko's response was to set her teacup down on top of a precariously stacked pile of papers and reach for the keyboard. "I don't know," she replied honestly. "Why don't we find out?"


~*~

With meticulous care, Shinji set the fluffed pillow neatly on the bed, arranging it at exactly the correct angle.

The bedsheets were patted down and wrinkle-free, the blanket folded with razor precision. Since he had no belongings to unpack, and hadn't bought anything during the three days that he had been occupying the spare room in Misato's apartment except for some spare changes of clothing, the room was in exactly the same state as when he'd moved in. Which was how he wanted it to be when he left.

A ray of early morning sunlight from the window barely missed the white snow ermine, curled up and asleep on a corner of the desk a moment ago, but now lifting its head and observing Shinji with beady eyes. The Avatar, for the most part, was casting one last look at the sparse room to make sure that everything was in satisfactory condition. "Well," he said. And then a hint of uncertainty crept into his voice. "That's that, I suppose."

"Kyu."

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?"

Shinji turned around. Misao was standing between him and the shoji that was the exit from his room, arms crossed with a testy look on her face. Her holographic visual form was currently dressed in loose, hanging pajamas that exposed a bit more than Shinji felt comfortable with. "I told you," he said as calmly as he could. "I've decided. I'm going to tell Misato-san I'm not going to pilot that machine."

Misao pinched the bridge of her nose with a thumb and index finger in annoyance. "Shinji, I'm trying to stop you from making a big fat mistake. You HAVE to pilot EVA-02."

"You've been saying that since yesterday," Shinji frowned, "only you won't tell me why."

"Because –" Misao cut herself short in the middle of her retort. She glared at Shinji in a fit of irritation. "I can't tell you, okay? My programming forbids me to. At least not until you recover your memory." She groaned. "Shinji, I know this doesn't make any sense, but you need to trust me –"

Shinji flipped open the PET strapped to his wrist, pressed a button, and Misao's visual form vanished amidst a flurry of luminous cerulean particles. "Shinji," she demanded. "Listen to me, you idiot. You're going to destroy sector integrity if you don't pilot that damn thing! The event progression of this sector –"

Her voice was cut off as well as Shinji dully pressed a second button, muting the PET's audio output. He wasn't in the mood for any more discussions about the subject, not when his stomach was already queasy from mentally rehearsing how to best break the news to Misato, and especially not with a talking computer that possessed an eerily human sentience.

The past two days had taught Shinji that Misato was not a morning person. Today was no exception – the Katsuragi residence seemed quite deserted, with its occupants still fast asleep save for himself and Hisame. The soft drone of the television showing a travel programme hummed fuzzily in the background. Gingerly he slid open the shoji to Misato's room and peered into the crack. "Misato-san?" he called out. "Are you awake yet?"

An unearthly groan was his only reply.

Shinji pushed the shoji open wider. The room was strewn with boxes, clothing, the contents of her handbag, books, and even stray articles of lingerie. In the middle of it all was a futon, with the sheets bulging up in the shape of what looked comically like a large bread bun, completely hiding Misato beneath it. "Misato-san?" he tried again.

"I just got back from night duty," came the drowsy reply. "I don't have to go to work until later, so please just let me sleep..."

Shinji swallowed. Perhaps now wasn't a good time – no, he caught himself. Just do it now and get it over with. "Uh, Misato-san," he began, wishing the butterflies in his stomach would settle down as he rolled out his carefully-rehearsed speech. He wondered if she would be angry. "Actually there's, erm, something I need to tell you."

"Heeey, that reminds me," Misato said groggily. "There's something I forgot to tell you about yesterday..."

The doorbell buzzed, cutting Misato off in mid-sentence.

"I'll, uh, get it," Shinji volunteered, suddenly grateful for the interruption, yet annoyed by it at the same time. He wondered who the visitor was as he made his way through the apartment – he had no friends, and it was too early for any of Misato's to visit – the doorbell continuing to buzz all the while. Muttering an oath under his breath, he finally scrambled his way to the door and palmed it open –

– and found himself face-to-face with Ayanami Rei.

"Ohayo gozaimasu, Ikari-kun," she said quietly. "Are you ready to go?"

"Erm," Shinji stared at her in confusion. "Where are we going?"

Rei returned his stare with an equally questioning look. "To school. Classes will begin in 35 minutes' time. As this is your first day, I am to accompany and show you the way, per Captain Katsuragi's orders."

Silence reigned for a moment, and then Shinji's brain lurched back into action. "I'll be right back," he promised as he retreated back down the hallway. "Just give me a moment!"

This time he all but ripped the shoji to Misato's room off its grooves. "Misato-san," he inquired, mustering whatever self-restraint he could, "would the thing you forgot to tell me about yesterday happen to involve Ayanami-san escorting me to school, by any chance?"

"Aa, she's here already?" Misato purred happily. "Your junior high academic transfer just cleared yesterday. Enjoy yourself at school, okay?... zzz..." she lapsed back into a semi-catatonic torpor.

"Academic transfer?" Shinji choked in panic. School? He hated school! "But –"

"There's three sets of seifuku on the kitchen table I bought for you yesterday," Misato slurred thickly. "Textbooks are all digital, and you'll have a computer at school, don't worry... zzz... heywhaitaminute," she jogged herself back to wakefulness for a brief moment. "Isn't today Monday? Take the burnable garbage to the trash for me on your way out, onegai." A hand extended out from beneath the futon, waving somewhat cheerfully at him. "Itterasshai..."

Shinji's shoulders sagged in defeat as Misato fell back into deep slumber. This was going to be a very bad day.


~*~

While Shinji had braced himself for the customary early morning rush hour, the crowd was conspicuously absent. Only a few people shared their carriage as the magnetic levitation train sped through Tokyo-3, and he remarked as such to Rei.

"Most of the population evacuated or moved to other cities," Rei explained. She did this in her usual manner, quiet and expressionless, not looking to face Shinji as she spoke. "The invasion of the Third Angel sparked mass panic among the public. Not many people want to stay inside a war zone."

"So it's a ghost town now?" Shinji asked dubiously.

"There are still people."

"Sou ka," Shinji replied, trailing off. Out of the corner of his eye he stole a brief glance at Rei. Over the last two days Shinji had realized that he wasn't much when it came to conversation and people skills in general, but Rei managed to make even him look extroverted. She'd also healed faster than he'd expected – he had last seen her bedridden with bandages and IV drips, but now the blue-haired girl seemed to move with no obvious discomfort. She still had a loop of gauze around her head and an arm slung in a cast, and moved with a slight hobble, as though it hurt to place her weight on her right leg – but otherwise seemed generally fine.

The Tokyo-3 maglev line ran underground for the most part, but in sections of the megalopolis itself the train ran above and over the traffic. They reached one such part now, allowing Shinji a birds-eye view of the city. "Hmm," Shinji frowned, pointing into the not-too-far distance. A large crater pockmarked the ground. "What's that?"

Rei turned to look. Construction workers in orange jumpsuits, assisted by cement trucks, cranes and various other machinery were at work building – or repairing – the sizable portion of the city that looked like it had been ran over by a gigantic bulldozer. Oddly enough, only the landscape and infrastructure showed signs of damage; most of the buildings were in perfect condition. "The aftermath of the attack," Rei replied. "When you piloted EVA-02 and defeated the Third Angel."

Shinji stared as a crane lifted a steel beam into position. A small seed of doubt began to gnaw at him. It had been a simple matter to convince himself that it was none of his business, that he wasn't needed, in the quietness of his room at Misato's apartment and dismiss the absurdity of it all. "Ne, Ayanami-san," he said. "Why do you pilot the EVA?"

Rei answered without hesitation. "It was what I was born for. It is my place in this world."

As mysterious as ever, Shinji thought. He considered asking her what she'd meant, and then decided against it for now, settling instead for: "And if you had a choice not to?"

"Captain Katsuragi tells me you haven't decided whether to join NERV," Rei said, turning to cast a sidelong look at him. "Do you wish to not pilot Evangelion Unit 02, Ikari-kun?"

"Of course not," Shinji scowled, throwing himself back into his seat and folding his arms. "I'm a civilian, not a soldier. I don't want to get caught up in all this."

"I am alive today because you fought. If you had not, we would all have been destroyed."

"Says you and the rest of NERV." Shinji fidgeted slightly. Why was he getting so worked up? "Don't you think that there's something wrong with this at all?" he asked. "Fourteen year old kids piloting giant robots to save the world?"

Rei returned to staring straight ahead. Her eyes held the expression of looking through things without actually seeing them. "If you will not pilot EVA-02, then I shall," she said. "Ikari-shirei wishes me to. As long as he commands it, I will continue to do so, without fail."


~*~

The rest of the journey passed in silence. They disembarked at a transit terminal, and Rei led the way to school, three blocks away, walking with a slight limp as Shinji followed her a small distance behind.

The classroom was exactly he'd expected – an uninteresting, standard room filled with rows of desks, almost fourty in total, a larger teacher's desk at the front, a blackboard scrawled with yet-unwiped notes from yesterday's lessons. In its own way, it was an indication that his life was quite a normal one, as long as NERV was removed from the equation.

The one thing that bothered him was how the atmosphere in the classroom changed ever so subtly as he followed Rei through the door. The general chatter continued, unabated by their arrival, but people were observing him while trying to not make it obvious that they were. He'd planned on taking a nice back seat and quietly removing himself from attention, but since there were more desks than students, the back of the class was mostly empty, and sitting alone there would've only made him all the more conspicuous. Neither was sitting in front with everyone else an attractive option. A brief moment of indecision later, he settled himself with a small shrug onto the nearest desk, which happened to be next to Rei's, and immediately felt the attention silently focused on him almost double in intensity.

As Misato promised, there was a computer attached to the desk. He whiled away five minutes fiddling with it, ignoring everyone else except Rei, who ignored him, until the bell rang.

"Stand! Bow! Sit!"

"Class, we have a new student today," the teacher announced, an elderly man in a plain white shirt who squinted at his students over a pair of bifocals. "Would you like to come forward and introduce yourself, Ikari Shinji-kun?"

No, thanks, Shinji snapped inwardly as he stood up and made his way to the front with deliberate slowness. No less than twenty five pairs of eyes returned his gaze as he looked over the class. He cleared his throat. "Ikari Shinji, transfer student from Hakone, Kanagawa. 178cm, 50kg," he said curtly, reciting the data from his personal files Ritsuko had given him to read. "Any questions?"

A hand shot up. "When's your birthday?" a bespectacled girl asked.

"No idea," Shinji snapped. Which wasn't a lie; he'd genuinely forgot to remember that one from his files. "Next."

Another hand. "Any hobbies?"

"Certainly," Shinji said briskly. "Quantum chronodynamics, software debugging and disassembly, and collecting popsicle sticks. Next."

This had the effect he was looking for: it caught his interrogators off-guard and threw them into mild, disorganized confusion. Shinji grinned briefly, pleased. Hopefully that was that. "Right," he announced with an air of finality, wrapping up the whole affair. "Nice to meet you all. Now –"

"Is your father Ikari Gendo, the commander of NERV?"

Shinji froze. How the hell had they found THAT out? Twenty five-odd pairs of eyes stared at him with renewed interest. Even the teacher was looking at him. He cast a pleading glance for help at Rei, who was staring out of the window with unconcerned aloofness, and Shinji mentally damned her to the nine levels of hell for abandoning a fellow pilot to the crossfire. "Uh... I..." he swallowed, and then pointed at another raised hand. "Next question, please," he said hastily, hoping to completely avoid the subject altogether.

"Is it true that you piloted the giant robot last week?" the same bespectacled girl asked, waving her hand energetically. She seemed oddly familiar, and the feeling of impending doom swept over him as he realized that she was the nondescript-looking girl who'd sat behind him and Rei on the train.

"I... erm..." Shinji mumbled. Exit frying pan, enter fire. To hell with this, he thought. "Yeah. Sort of," he mumbled reluctantly. "I'm not really sure – YAAAGH!"

Pandemonium descended upon the scene as the whole class converged upon him like moths around a spotlight. "What?!" "Really? Oh wow, cool!" "Hey, how were you chosen?" "Were there any tests?" "Weren't you scared?" "What's the cockpit like?" "Hey, what's the name of a robot?" "Does it have an ultimate attack?" "Amazing! We're so proud of you!" "Ikari-kun, where do you live? At the older part of the city?" "Are you dating anyone at the moment?"

"T – tasukete yo, Ayanami-san..."


~*~

The telephone boomed, shattering the peaceful nothingness of Misato's dead-tired slumber with the force of a World War II air raid alarm. It wailed repeatedly, punishing Misato's attempts to ignore it with unrelenting brutality, the unearthly noise pounding repeatedly at her skull and eardrums with jackhammer-like vehemence until she finally gave up. A fumbling hand located the receiver, and Misato picked it up, placing it groggily against her ear.

"Mosh... mosh... zzz..."

"Katsuragi-ichii?" The voice on the other end was calm, efficient, and remarkably Ritsuko-like. "We've just received a Class 3 alert from the JSSDF. A Code Blue pattern is headed for Tokyo-3."

Misato sobered up instantly, her catatonic torpor melting away as another part of her mind seemed to take over. "Understood. I'm on my way there right now."


~*~

Class had been strange. Mathematics had been no challenge – it felt like he'd long ago mastered the concepts of whatever the teacher was saying when everyone else still struggled to grasp the basics. Neither had English, which he spoke more fluently than than even the teacher, much to his own surprise. On the other hand, he knew next to nothing about geography, and even less about history – at least the parts they'd covered in class. The Middle Ages and the American Revolution wouldn't have been a problem, but Second Impact... that had been new, and very odd.

He'd spent some time exploring the school grounds, and now sat beneath a tree at the northern edge where the field was quite deserted. Much to his surprise, Misato had left a bento for him on the kitchen table. He peeled off the sticker that declared "For Shin-chan, with love" finished off with a smiley, opened the bento, and removed from it a... a...

A cup of instant ramen.

Shinji stared at the disposable plastic cup and fork, not at all amused. It was, ostensibly, the only food Misato had on hand other than tinned instant curry and a freighterload's worth of Yebisu beer. Which meant he needed hot water, unless he wanted to pretend Misato had packed crackers for him and eat his instant ramen raw.

"Funny kind of lunch you've got there, dork."

"Hm?" Shinji looked up. A meaty fist grabbed him by the collar before he could do anything else and pulled him roughly to his feet. This failed to be very intimidating, however, as his assailant turned out to be shorter than he was. "What the –"

A blow caught him squarely on his cheek, snapping his head sideways. He reeled back several steps in disorientation, and then regained his bearings as quickly as he'd lost them, his body tense and alert in readiness for action. He recognized the two boys as his classmates – the one who'd hit him was built like a typical jock, with short, closely-cropped black hair, and cracking his knuckles. His buddy was standing a small distance back, wincing as though he felt for Shinji's pain. Large, round glasses and untidy hair. Two names flashed across Shinji's mind from the roll call in class earlier that morning; Suzuhara Toji, Aida Kensuke.

"Nice timing," Shinji's eyes narrowed, wiping the spittle and blood from a busted lip with the back of his hand. "I don't know what you want, but I've built up a crapload of stress since this morning, and I need to work it off." He grinned. "Wanna do it, punk?"

"Bring it on," the jock growled. "I'm not half through with you yet, you bastard."

"Sorry 'bout that, newcomer," the bespectacled nerd grimaced. "His kid sister got hurt in the robot incident. Well, that's his excuse anyway."

"Hah?" Shinji stared at him weirdly. "Are you retarded or something? What does that have to do with – oh..."

The second blow struck him above his stomach cavity and just below where his ribcage parted, catching him on the diaphgram. Reflexively he stepped back to reduce the impact, but even then his eyes watered and he bent over from the blow, staggering back as the air was knocked out of him.

"Get up!" Toji snarled. Before Shinji could accomplish any significant progress to that end, a third punch landed on his nose. He tripped over a tree root as he reeled back, hitting the grass with a dull thud, and lay still.

"C'mon Toji," he heard Kensuke mumble nervously. "Give him a break already."

The sound of heavy breathing – his own and Toji's – filled his ears as he lay sprawled on his back, gazing up at the late morning sky with a comatose blankness, and waited for Toji to pick him up again. To his mild surprise Toji failed to do so. A few moments later, receding shadows and the sound of fading footsteps told him his antagonists were taking their leave – either the jock had already worked off his anger, or he'd gone as far as his bravado allowed him to.

Shinji licked his broken lip, tasting the coppery tang of blood. The sun was bright, but not so bright as to make looking at the sky uncomfortable, so he did just that, watching the cumulus clouds twist themselves into myriad shapes. His face and stomach ached dully from Toji's blows. Well, he thought to himself. That settles it. The first thing to do after school was to head home, wake Misato up and tell her that him piloting EVA-02 wasn't going to happen. Ayanami-san could do it. Heck, she was practically itching to do it. And with years of training behind her, she'd be less likely to step on people's kid sisters while doing it. Me, I'll just lie here and look at clouds, he thought. Ho hum.

The clouds were pretty, and so was Rei's petticoat. Come to think of it, her legs weren't all that bad either. Shinji gazed idly skywards, chewing on a metaphorical stalk of grass as he tried to decide which one of the three looked nicer, until an atypical ray of consciousness shone through, and he wondered why was Rei's petticoat hovering over him...

"Yaaah!" Shinji yelped, scuttling away. Rei was standing over him, her blood-red eyes piercing his own with unnerving intensity. "You crazy woman! Don't sneak up on people like that!"

Rei ignored his outburst. "We've got an emergency call." She paused, almost as if to let that fact sink in, and somewhere in the city, a set of alarm started wailing as if on cue. "Unit 02 will be needed. Are you coming, Ikari-kun?"

Shinji stood up slowly, dusting himself off. A few moments of uncomfortable silence passed, punctuated only by the rising howl of the alarms. "No," he said finally. He didn't dare to look at Rei in the eye. "I don't think so. I guess I'd better head for the shelters instead."

"I see," Rei replied. "I'll go, then."

"Good luck, Ayanami-san."

He managed to wrench himself to look at Rei's back as she ran off. The First Child had taken less than ten steps before her right ankle failed her and she tripped, crashing forward onto the dirt with a small cry of pain. Shinji bit back the urge to rush to her aid as she awkwardly picked herself up with her one good hand, her frail, trembling body betraying the iron resolve within, and then set off again, this time at a slower, more careful limp.

He turned and walked away. His hands were balled into fists, and he badly wanted to punch something. He'd expected its coming, but he'd hardly prepared himself for its magnitude now that it was finally here, as the cavernous, seemingly-bottomless mound of shame welled up inside him.


~*~

"Target is within visual range," Shigeru reported. The Command Center had been galvanized into a hive of activity by the approaching Angel. A large blip moved with unnatural speed on the radar, penetrating into Tokyo-2 territorial waters. "Intelligence has designated it with the codename Shamshel."

"Assume battle stations," Fuyutsuki ordered. "Intercept response Level One."

"Roger," Maya replied. "Level One alert status engaged. Preparing anti-aircraft interception."

"Tokyo-3 transforming to battle formation," Makoto said. "Initiating accommodation of the central block."

The last vestiges of fatigue from lack of sleep still brushed at Misato's mind, only to be banished by strict discipline. "What's the status of non-combatants and civilians?" she asked.

"Reports are coming in. Evacuation is progressing as expected. Sections One through Seven are clear."

Good, Misato thought. The blip on the radar encountered the JSSDF defensive perimeter, and tore through them like they were wet tissue. One more concern left on her mind nagged at her as she mentally reviewed her to-do list. Shinji hadn't outright refused to pilot EVA-02, but he hadn't agreed either, which meant they had no guaranteed pilot at the moment. At least Rei was with him at the moment, which was a small reassurance.

She was about to ask where Rei was when Maya spoke. "Fault detected in Section Three. The retraction mechanisms for structure 3-14 are malfunctioning. We've still got nine meters of its height currently trapped above ground surface."

"Which building is it?" Ritsuko demanded.

Maya punched up the data in seconds. She was professionally trained, but even then she gasped as the computer triangulated the position of structure 3-14, and a slight note of alarm crept her voice as she reported the output.


~*~

Locating the emergency shelters was more trouble than Shinji had expected, especially since he still didn't know the layout of the school very well, and that it was now deserted. They'd obviously done drills before to have evacuated this quickly, and it soon occurred to him that nobody would come looking for him, since he was supposed to be out saving the day instead. It wasn't until he paused at the science lab, wondering which way to go, that he noticed his PET was silently vibrating like a mobile phone.

He stared at it cautiously for a moment, and then, curiosity getting the better of him, folded the device open.

Misao's holographic visual mode appeared, sitting on a laboratory table and glowering at him. "Where do you think you're going?" she demanded.

Shinji suddenly felt defensive. "The place where anyone with half a working brain cell should be right now!" he shot back. "What do you want me to do, go out there and play the hero? I might as well climb up the roof and jump down for all the good that's going to do."

"You won't die, you idiot!" Misao snapped hotly. "You've survived much worse!" She groaned in disbelief. "Aa mou... I can't believe someone like you actually managed to become an Avatar. You were never like this before, Shinji. Not some self-serving coward who leaves injured girls to fight for you while you run."

Shinji felt his pent-up frustrations over the last few days finally reach critical point. "I'm sorry, okay?" he shouted. "I'm sorry I'm not living up to your expectations of the old Shinji! I don't remember anything! What do you want from me?" He paused for breath. "Fine, I'm a self-serving, gratuitous bastard of a coward! I don't care if other people die in my place, just as long as I don't get hurt! Is that what you want to hear? Are you happy now?"

His words reverberated down the empty hallway, bouncing between the walls as he struggled to recover his breathing. He and Misao stared at each other silently in a match rigged against him, since his opponent was a hologram and didn't need to blink. Finally he looked away. "I'm sorry," he said in a small voice.

"For what?" Misao asked.

"I don't know. For everything."

Misao pointed with an index finger. A holographic video screen unfolded into existence in mid-air before Shinji, depicting an aerial map of Tokyo-3. "Various important buildings are usually retracted into the Geo-Front during states of emergency to protect them from harm," she explained. Shinji looked at her, baffled, and she continued talking to prevent him from interrupting. "Heavy urban damage often occurs from combat, as you saw this morning. Unfortunately, right now there's a malfunction in the retraction mechanism for the Tokyo-3 General Hospital, leaving it trapped and exposed above the ground."

"The hospital?" Shinji's eyes widened. "There're people in there, right? I mean, the elderly and the comatose and the people too sick to run –"

"Among them, plausibly, the kid sister of the boy who hit you during lunch break," Misao finished. "It doesn't matter. Even the able-bodied aren't going to be able to escape, since they're trapped in such a position that they're cut off from the underground evacuation tunnels."

"But that means..."

A portion of the map magnified itself. "This is where we are now," Misao said, and a small pulsating dot indicated their position. The Geo-Shelter entrance is here. And here we have an emergency passageway that leads straight to NERV headquarters. I don't know, but you MIGHT still make it if you run really fast." She gave a nonchalant shrug. "Anyway, it's up to you."

And then she was gone.

Shinji's knees gave way slowly from beneath him until he was kneeling on the ground. His earlier outburst had drained him like a twelve-mile marathon, but somehow he felt better now that he'd let it out of his chest. At least now someone knew, even if that someone was only a computer AI persona. She'd seen his real self, at his very lowest, instead of the facade he'd had to show everyone, and she hadn't hated him for it. Which meant things weren't likely to get much worse.

And then he picked himself up and ran, retraced his steps all the way back to the school field where Toji had punched him. He set off towards the direction he'd seen Rei go, running as hard as he could as though his life depended on it, and then some more.


~*~

"Is he gone?" Kensuke hissed as Shinji's footsteps faded away.

Toji risked a peek around the corner. The corridor was empty. "Yeah," Toji said, heaving a sigh of relief. For a moment his own wrongdoer's guilt thought Shinji was here to apprehend them, until the latter had begun shouting incoherently. "What's he doing here, anyway? Isn't he supposed to be getting ready to pilot that giant robot?"

"Who knows?" Kensuke replied. "C'mon. We better get going before someone else comes along."

"Oi Kensuke." Toji frowned. "You really serious about this?"

"I've got to see this at least once in my life," Kensuke said. "Not just the dumb text-only newsfeeds they show to us civilians. Who knows when the enemy is going to come again! Last time it was fifteen years, it might be fifty years next!"

"Ya know, we could get into serious trouble for this, and by serious trouble I don't mean bein' chewed out by the teach," Toji replied as he followed Kensuke at a run down the hallway. "Assuming we don't get killed first!"

"We're in trouble as it is. You physically assaulted a NERV agent, remember? They're probably like the military and stuff."

"Hey!" Toji protested. "That was different!"

"Aw, c'mon, Toji," Kensuke said. "You let him have it pretty hard. Thrice! If he refuses to pilot that robot we're all going to die. Doesn't that make it your obligation to watch him fight?"

"Tch. Remember, it's all YOUR idea if anything happens!"

"Hai hai," Kensuke obliged. He frowned as they ran down a flight of stairs, and Toji leapt down six steps of the last flight. "Say, who do you think he was talking to in the corridor just now? Everyone's in the shelters by now, there's nobody around at all."

"Beats me." Toji shrugged. "Probably your own imagination. All I heard was him shouting like crazy."


~*~

//"A special state of emergency has been declared for the Kanto and Chubu regions surrounding the Tokai district. All residents must evacuate to their designated shelters immediately. Repeating: a special state of emergency has been declared..."//

Buildings sank into the ground, leaving only steel hatches on the streets to mark their location, their place taken by a myriad of missile bays and anti-air machine cannons. Reinforced barricades popped up at strategic defensive positions. The streets were deserted, its populace having evacuated to underground shelters, and the steel-shuttered form of the Tokyo-3 General Hospital loomed in the distance, trapped and unable to retract into the relative safety of the Geo-Front, all while the alarms continued to howl.

As awed as Shinji would normally have been at the mechanics and engineering of it all, he was too preoccupied with the nondescript heavy steel door, marked with the words R-7 in bold red lettering, to pay it much attention. His NERV ID did not authorize him to enter the emergency access points, as he was now finding out firsthand. Desperately he swiped his card through the slot again, with no effect.

"Great," he mumbled. "Just great. What do I do now?"

He slumped forward, his forehead hitting the door with an audible 'thunk'. Not for the first time he wished he'd gone with Rei when he had the chance. Perhaps he could hotwire one of the many cars abandoned by the roadside and drive to NERV headquarters – no, he caught himself. That wouldn't work, and not least because his knowledge of cars went little further than turning on the air conditioner.

The beep of an electronic lock opening shook him from his thoughts. "Hm?"

And then he all but lost his balance from leaning on the door as, without preamble, it swung silently inwards. He was stopped from tumbling headlong into the passageway beyond only by a small hand that gripped his. "Ayanami-san!" he cried in surprise, whirling around to face her. "What're you doing here?"

"I was waiting."

He detected a brief hesitation in her voice. "Waiting?"

"Only NERV personnel are authorized to use the emergency routes, Ikari-kun. You would not have been able to reach Central Dogma alone." She removed her card from the slot reader, and then thrust it at Shinji. "Take mine."

"That wasn't the point!" Shinji protested. "This is an emergency! What if I hadn't come?"

"You would have come," Rei said quietly, the slightest hint of defiance in her voice. "Even if you have forgotten everything, you would still come. Ikari-kun is Ikari-kun. That is not something you can easily change." She stared at him, and again Shinji found himself engulfed by her ruby-red eyes. "The passage stretches over two kilometers. Take three right turns. There is a five-seater maglev train that is activated by an authorized ID card. You will be at Central Dogma within ten minutes."

"Me?" Shinji blinked. "What about you?"

"I cannot run. I would only slow you down if I went along." She turned to look back up the deserted street. "I will return to school and enter the Geo-Shelter. There is still sufficient time before the Angel –"

She gave a small gasp of surprise as Shinji backed into her, and then physically picked her up in piggyback position. She was lighter than he'd expected, even given her size. "Don't be stupid," he chided lightly. "I came back because I decided I couldn't live with myself for abandoning you, Ayanami-san. And if you think I'll do it again, you don't know me half as well as you believe. You got that?"

The steel tunnel was illuminated every few meters or so by halogen lights set into the walls. Rei wrapped her uninjured arm around Shinji's neck, feeling the cadenced jolt of his body as he ran briskly. His breathing was rhythmic and controlled, his hands steady as they held her. He smelled mildly of sweat and scented soap. It had been a long while since she had touched another human being, and the sensation of being this close to someone else both intrigued and confused her.

"Ikari-kun?" she said.

"What is it?"

"Can you teach me how to collect popsicle sticks?"

Shinji missed a step, almost falling flat on his face. "Popsicle sticks?" he blurted.

"You said during class that you did that as a hobby."

"Ah." Shinji sweatdropped, mentally facepalming himself. "Look, I'll explain that one later, okay?"


~*~

"The 34th tank battalion has been wiped out. Target has reached the final defensive perimeter."

Now close enough to Tokyo-3 to be visible on the main screens, the Angel vanished briefly in fiery explosions as it was hit by concentrated artillery fire, only to emerge unscathed a moment later, ignoring the conventional weapons firing futilely at it as it coasted smoothly past. A waste of good taxpayer money, Misato thought ruefully. The Fourth Angel had chosen its time well. Commander Ikari was away, and they had no dependable EVA pilots at the moment. If only it could have had waited another week to show up...

Maya swiveled around in her seat, clutching a telephone receiver in her hand. "The JSSDF has ordered a complete withdrawal of their remaining forces. They're demanding that we launch an Evangelion immediately."

"Meddlesome jerks," Misato muttered. "I'd have done it anyway. Bring up Rei for me on line seventeen."

"No need for that," a voice crackled over the intercom. "You know, Misato-san, you sound really different from when you're at home."

"Shinji-kun! Where are you?"

"We're..." A brief pause. The sound of rapid footsteps echoed in the background. "Five minutes away from entrance R-7. You know, Misato-san, about the proposal you mentioned to me that day, I was wondering if it's too late to say yes."

She heard Ritsuko chuckle behind her, and, despite herself, she smiled as well. "Actually, you're just in time. When can you start?"

"I thought I'd write a will first, but then I realized I don't have anything to give away. So I guess I'm good to go."

"Glad to hear it. We're reconfiguring Unit 02's biometrics for you now. Dr Akagi will meet you at the docking bay." She grinned. Nothing like planning a good counter-attack to soothe the nerves. Raising her voice, she ordered: "Activate EVA-02 and standby for launch. We're moving out!"


~*~

"Any abnormal reactions to LCL, Shinji-kun?"

"Negative," Shinji said calmly, instantly tasting the liquid in his mouth. "Breathing feels a little strange, but I'm fine."

"Good," Ritsuko's voice said over the communications system. "The Evangelion is operated by direct neural pulses. It should act like an extension of your own body, and is controlled the same way. Sensor and neural input will be fed directly into your brain. Simply put, you'll be seeing what it sees, feel what it feels, and it will move as though it is your body. Do you understand?"

"Hai."

"Your power source will be an external umbilical cable attached to Unit 02's back. With it intact, you'll have effectively unlimited operation time. If it gets cut off, the internal battery packs will provide five minutes of power before Unit 02 shuts down." Ritsuko's voice had the edge of a drill sergeant in it. "Various emergence points, power junctions, weapons equipment buildings and recovery zones are scattered throughout Tokyo-3, which have been indicated on the onboard computers. Captain Katsuragi will act as your commanding officer; you are to follow her orders to the letter."

"Understood."

"We'll be initiating the power supply and neural connections shortly. Standby for synchronization."

Shinji's hands tightened on the butterfly grips. The walls around him were curved and cylindrical, while he was drowned in the reddish, comfortably warm oxygenating fluid that flooded the entirety of what passed for EVA-02's cockpit. EVA-02 was not a robot; he knew that much, at least, even though its armor had been repaired and now concealed the bioroid's true face. He had been put into a large white cylindrical device, which housed the cockpit-like space he was sitting in now, and inserted into the upper end of EVA-02's spinal cord from its back. Right now he felt like a parasite deeply burrowed into its host's nervous system, preparing to be neurally linked to EVA-02's brain to provide the controlling consciousness that EVA-02 presumably lacked.

"Scared?"

Misao's voice, muffled by LCL, sounded strangely androgynous. Shinji managed a brief smile. "A little bit," he lied. "I feel better now, though. I guess you were right. I should have done this in the first place."

"I'm still angry at you, mind." He could almost picture her visual mode sulking. "You used to do that a lot when we first met. Turning me off when you felt like it, and then begging for help when it suited you. Jerk."

"I'm sorry," Shinji said contritely.

"You've said that already," Misao snorted. "How does this place feel? Remember anything yet?"

"Not really," Shinji winced. The LCL-filled entry plug both looked and felt decidedly unfamiliar. "Ne, what was I like before? I guess you're the only one around me who knows anything about my past, other than Hisame."

"It's not really a matter of what you were like, Shinji. It's more of who you were. We're safe for now, hiding here in this sector, since time passes differently on the other worlds. Hopefully he won't notice us for a while since you possess Shinji's quantum signature. But the longer we're here, the closer this world slips towards temporal collapse, and as soon as Seth realizes you're trapped here and lost your memory we're as good as dead."

"Seth?" Shinji blinked. "Who's that?"

"Come again, Unit 02?" Ritsuko's voice said over the radio.

"Sorry," Shinji stammered. "Just thinking aloud to myself."

The curved walls of the entry plug seemed to light up and melt away, and all of a sudden Shinji was suspended in mid-air, with the walls around him showing a full lookaround of his surroundings. His senses swam, and all of a sudden he felt himself pinned in position by a set of steel restraints – the very same ones, in fact, that held EVA-02 in place. "Synchronization complete," Ritsuko said. "How do you feel?"

It took some effort, but Shinji soon found himself capable of switching his perception between his own body and Unit 02's. He cycled through the process a few times, just to get the hang of it. "It's kind of... hard to say," he said carefully. "But I'm in no discomfort, if that's what you mean."

Ritsuko seemed duly satisfied. A small video feed open at the lower left corner of his vision – or was it EVA-02's? He wasn't sure anymore. "Standby for launch, EVA-02," Misato said. Even though he couldn't see it, he felt himself moving as the gantries holding EVA-02 backed the machine up against a pair of electromagnetic rails on the far wall. "Ready, Shinji-kun?"

"Ne, Misato-san," he said, more calmly than he felt. "Will I die?"

Misato held him with a steely gaze through the video link. "No," she replied resolutely. "You won't die. Not while I'm in charge of this operation."

Shinji closed his eyes, exhaling bubbles, and cleared his thoughts. For the first time, he felt his fear leave him, and he smiled briefly.

"I believe you," he said. "I'm ready."


~*~

The grassy hillock was the ideal vantage point for two reasons: the elevation provided a perfect view of Tokyo-3, and it was a good distance – a mile or so – away from the city. Despite his enthusiasm, Kensuke still had the presence of mind to not wish to be in the thick of action when the Angel showed up. He and Toji raced up the flight of stairs carved in stone that led to a decrepit, abandoned shrine at the hill's peak. "I see it!" he shouted, clearing the last few steps. "Toji! Get your ass here!"

"Shut up! Ya probably want the whole world to know we're here or something!" Toji hissed vehemently. And then he saw the Angel as well. "Christ..."

The dark shadow that floated through the city bore a frightening resemblance to a monstrous cockroach, with an elongated abdomen, greatly shortened legs, and two eye-like markings on top of its bloatedly conical head. It finally stopped in the middle of the city and turned itself upright, though its head remained parallel to the ground to form a right angle with its erect body. Two additional limbs on either side of the Angel's upper body lashed out in flexible, lengthy tentacles of pink energy. A red core glinted, nestled beneath where its head connected with its thorax.

"Oh man." Kensuke let off a low whistle. "Looks like we hit the jackpot."

"Okay," Toji muttered uneasily. "Now that we've seen that freak, can we get out of here now?"

"You're gonna miss the next good part," Kensuke grinned. "It's coming!"

Toji was about to ask what exactly was coming, when he heard it as well. A steel hatch opened in the middle of the streets amid wailing sirens, allowing a rectangular, featureless building block up shoot upwards. As it reached its maximum extent and slammed against its restraints with a resounding crash, the front of the block folded open like a collapsing accordion, allowing the armored form of EVA-02 to step out onto Tokyo-3, directly facing the Angel.

"This is awesome," Kensuke breathed. Tears of manliness streamed down his face as he pumped an arm emphatically. "I've been waiting all my life for this!"


~*~

Shinji had moved as soon as he felt EVA-02 released from the final interlocks, his muscles almost stiffened from the tense anticipation of waiting. Shifting his awareness to EVA-02, he took a step forward to brace himself, and opened fire on the Angel with the EVA-scaled assault rifle before he had even managed to so much as properly look at it. The weapon responded reassuringly with a thunderous roar and a blaze of fragmentation shells, and within seconds the Angel had vanished amid a thick cloud of smoke.

His breathing was ragged as he released the trigger, having emptied the entire magazine at the monster. "Is it dead?" he asked hopefully.

"Your AT Field isn't deploying," Misato barked at him. "Watch out for –"

Almost on instinct Shinji fell in a crouch as a glowing tendril of energy lashed out towards him. He looked up, his heart skipping a beat as the Angel emerged unscathed from the gray fog of ammunition smoke. A resounding crash echoed as the top of the block he'd emerged from fell to the ground, sliced off cleanly by the glowing energy tentacle. "How do I deploy an AT Field?" he cried.

"Calm down and relax," Ritsuko instructed over a second comm-link. "The more you panic, the less effectively you can control Evangelion."

Shinji gave a feeble laugh. "Heh. Calm down and relax. That's a good one – ACK!"

EVA-02 threw itself into a reverse somersault, discarding its now-useless assault rifle, as Shamshel's second appendage whipped down to strike him. Steel-clad feet landed with a shattering crunch several yards away, trampling a telephone booth underfoot, as Shinji regarded his opponent once more. Melee combat was next to impossible, as he was liable to be sliced apart within seconds. He tried to keep his voice steady. "Do you think I could have another rifle, Misato-san?"

"Block D6," Misato replied. "It'll be there in six seconds."

"Thank you," Shinji gasped, watching the Angel advance with unnatural speed, its tendrils flailing the air before it. EVA-02 flung itself sideways as the height of the building behind it was neatly halved by a glowing tentacle. Shinji ran, his mind frantically scrambling for options and finding none as he ducked in and out among Tokyo-3's buildings. Shamshel, on the other hand, was unhindered by the obstacles, slicing apart everything that stood in its way with lethal efficiency as it hunted down its prey, and Shinji's heart skipped a beat as he felt a tendril coil around his ankle.

A flash of intense agony shot up his leg, and he writhed in reflex even though the logical part of his mind screamed at him that it wasn't his real leg. For a brief moment he wondered if EVA-02 had been amputated of its foot, until he realized that the he was airborne, being lifted up by Shamshel's tentacle, and an instant later he crashed face-first onto the ground, almost snapping his neck, as the Angel suplexed him with incredible force. Savagely he ignored the blinding pain, which was drowning out Misato's words over the static-riddled comm-link. It wasn't until his vision cleared that he realized why Misato was shouting at him – looming over EVA-02's fallen form was the Tokyo-3 General Hospital building, its windows protected by steel shutters. It had narrowly escaped destruction from EVA-02's left arm, which had missed smashing the building by less than five feet.

Shit, Shinji thought. Shit, shit, shit.

He lashed out with EVA-02's free foot with as much force as he could muster. The kick landed with satisfying impact against the Angel's torso, forcing it to relinquish its grip on his ankle, and buying Shinji a few precious seconds for him to stagger back to his feet. He turned around, limping on EVA-02's injured ankle, barely in time to see Shamshel renew its attack, striking simultaneously with both tendrils.

This time he had nowhere to run.

But he had learned one thing from Shamshel grabbing his foot: EVA-02's armor was capable, at least for a few moments, of standing up to the lightsaber-like tentacles that had sliced through buildings with terrifying ease. With a frenzied, reckless scream, he reached up as the tendrils whipped towards him, seizing them with EVA-02's hands, and desperately held them at bay.


~*~

"What's he doing?" Toji breathed incredulously. "He's crazy!"

"No he's not," Kensuke muttered. "What do you think is behind him?"

For a moment, the unremarkable structure directly behind and below EVA-02 was indistinguishable from the numerous other fake city blocks to Toji, before the location of the structure permeated his brain. "The hospital?" Toji mumbled. Incredulousness quickly gave way to panicked fear. "I thought NERV said vital infrastructure wouldn't be in the line of fire! My sister's in there!"

"Exactly," Kensuke gritted. "If he moves, the hospital is done for."


~*~

Pain swept through Shinji like a sheet of searing flame. It felt as though he was gripping at a pair of white-hot steel rods whose other ends were stuck into a live power socket. EVA-02's armor held, but that only made it worse – had he gripped Shamshel's tentacles with his own hands, his nerve endings would have been burned away in an instant, but the EVA unit's armor refused to yield, ensuring a steady supply of inhuman, indescribable agony.

He screamed unashamedly, his pain, confusion and panic all but drowning out the last vestiges of reason from his mind, yet failing to override the one, insanely single-minded resolve to defend the building beneath him. As Shamshel pressed him with crushing force, the supple tentacles belying their tremendous strength, wisps of charred smoke began to curl from EVA-02's hands where he held the tendrils. The armor plating had finally been burned away, and the Angel's tentacles were now carbonizing the organic skin and flesh of EVA-02's hands with their immense heat. In a sudden, brief moment of clarity, Shinji realized that he was about to lose consciousness, his brain's defense mechanism against the overload of pain his body was experiencing and had no way of blocking out.

Well, he thought. If you want me that much...

EVA-02 crushed asphalt as it dug its heels into the ground, and then, instead of pushing against the Angel, pulled it sharply towards itself with its right hand. Shinji failed to notice to faint shimmer of air as EVA-02's AT Field deployed, but he felt his own forcefield snap open, neutralizing the Angel's. As the floating behemoth tumbled towards him, out of control, Shinji cocked back his right fist, stepped forward, and punched the creature squarely on the glowing orb beneath its head as he released his deathgrip on the tentacles.

"We're giving you a Stimpack dose," Misato said grimly. "It should help with the pain. Lure the Angel away from the hospital immediately; we can't risk you being trapped again like that."

"Roger," Shinji gasped weakly. A small sensation pricked at the back of his neck as he felt a hairlike needle extend from his seat to pierce his skin, releasing a potent mix of psychotropic painkillers directly into his bloodstream. Almost immediately he felt his pain lessen, muted from a fiery, unspeakable agony to more tolerable levels that allowed usage of his hands without excruciating pain. And as a plan began to formulate vaguely in his mind, he realized that the dose of analgesic might prove itself far more useful than Misato had expected.

The Angel lacked feet and hovered through the air as its primary means of movement, and the force of Shinji's punch had hurled it back further than it might otherwise have had. Shinji tabbed a control on the instrument panel of his cockpit, causing EVA-02's right shoulder wing to snap open and deploy a knife handle, the blade of which vibrated to a white-hot cutting edge as Shinji drew it.

"Well," he whispered. "Here I go."

EVA-02 charged, massive feet pounding the streets of Tokyo-3 with fearsome force as it bore down upon Shamshel like an ironclad battleship preparing to ram down an enemy craft. There was no technique or science behind the lunge, only a mindless, kamikaze-like tenacity. Shinji screamed an unintelligible battle cry, thrusting the progressive knife towards the Angel's core – and managed to only inflict a minor surface wound, jamming less than a quarter of the blade's short length into his adversary's body, before his own arm was ferociously sheared off at the elbow by an energy tentacle, leaving only a stump that spurted LCL.

"Shinji!" Misato snapped. "What're you doing? Retreat and engage in medium-range combat! You can't fight him at close quarters!"

"It's... okay," Shinji replied between gritted teeth, offering silent a prayer of thanks for the painkillers in his bloodstream. Yet even then he sensed that his body was on the verge of physical collapse as he staggered back towards Block D6, the front of which folded open to reveal the spare assault rifle Misato had sent him. Not much time left, he thought. "I'll be going for the checkmate now, Misato-san."

He pulled the assault rifle free with EVA-02's remaining left arm just as the weapons block fell apart into neat halves. Despite the wracking agony he was in, Shinji managed a brief smile. The progressive knife had failed to deal any significant damage, but it was lodged in Shamshel's core all the same, stuck at a somewhat upward-pointing angle. And as the Angel turned, whipping its other tentacle at him, Shinji tensed his legs, jumping as hard as he could. Sensations of being in EVA-02's body had told him that, even when scaled to proportion, the bioroid was stronger than the average human by far, but even then the force of his jump caught him by surprise. EVA-02 leapt almost ten times its own height as Shinji adroitly compensated and recovered his balance, and then, as he felt his own impetus canceled by gravity, he leveled the assault rifle, engaged EVA-02's targeting systems, and opened fire.

Instantly Shamshel was engulfed by the explosion of fragmentation shells that screamed down upon it from almost half a mile up in the sky, its opponent shooting madly as it fell back towards the ground, and causing the Angel to disappear amidst a grayish fog once more from smoke generated by the assault rifle's ammunition. Shinji couldn't see it anymore, but neither could it see him, and it was standing still while EVA-02 plunged towards it at gravitational acceleration, a mental image of the Angel's last position burning lucidly in Shinji's mind.

"Rider Kick."

The cloud of smog dispersed instantly as the full force of EVA-02's descent plowed into the Angel like a fiery red meteor, and Shinji felt a satisfying crunch from his outstretched right heel connecting with the hilt of the progressive knife wedged in Shamshel's core. The weapon vanished, driven and buried deeply into the Angel's body in a single instant. As he vaulted off, landing several blocks away, his strength failed him, and he crashed involuntarily onto one knee.

A welcoming darkness began to invade his senses. He surrendered to it, slipping into cataleptic unconsciousness, and the last sight his brain registered was that of the Angel. The glow of its core and energy tentacles had faded entirely, and it stood still and unmoving, silhouetted against the bright afternoon sky.


~*~

"Evangelion Unit 02, activation ceased," Makoto breathed, breaking the tense silence in the Command Center. "The target has gone completely silent."

A few seconds ticked past, the staff frozen into stunned inaction by the sight of EVA-02's last desperado assault against the Angel, and then the Command Center dissolved into a collective cheer. Misato felt herself go weak as she released the breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding. "Dispatch the recovery crews," she ordered. "We'll be retrieving Unit 02 using Route Six. Medical teams on standby!"


~*~

"As far as we can determine, he seems perfectly fine," Ritsuko reported, consulting her notes. "At least, he's in much better condition than after fighting the Third Angel. His unconsciousness should be just due to extreme cutaneous and somatic pain, and the sedative side-effects of the Stimpack dose."

"How long will it last?"

"It depends, but it shouldn't be more than two days at most. His body is unhurt; all he needs to do is sleep off the stress placed on his nervous system."

"Good," Fuyutsuki grunted, settling back into his chair. It was five hours after the battle, and he was carrying out his duties as the most senior personnel at NERV Tokyo-3 headquarters in Gendo's absence. "At least we won't have both our pilots incapacitated during the next attack, unless the next Angel decides to arrive tonight. Ikari would not be pleased to return and find out that the Third Child is out of commission as well."

"He doesn't act like it, but his two sorties so far indicate extensive combat experience," Misato said. "During his first battle he disabled the Third Angel in a matter of minutes, with no prior training. He had a harder time against the Fourth, but things still went much better than we could've hoped."

"Where did he obtain this experience?"

"His files show no indication of it," Misato said. "Section Two agents are already at Hakone to investigate his past in detail. As soon as we have that data, we can use it to begin his amnesia therapy as well."

Fuyutsuki turned his attention to the photos on his desk. He frowned. "And these two children?" he asked, his tone clearly indicating that this was the very last problem he'd expected to present itself.

"Shinji's classmates," Misato said. "We intercepted them nine hundred meters southwest from the battle site, on Futaba Hill, where they witnessed the fighting. Initial background checks indicate they're clean, but we're putting them under Level 5 surveillance for now, at least we find out how much they saw."

Fuyutsuki nodded after a long moment. "I suppose that will do. I'll expect the details in your report, Captain Katsuragi. Dismissed." He paused, and then remarked, almost as an afterthought: "Take the day off tomorrow. Working three straight shifts is, I suspect, quite unpleasant."

Relief washed visibly across Misato's face. "Thank you, sir," she squeaked.

The NERV vice-commander, aged yet not quite ancient, waited until Misato was gone and safely out of earshot. "I believe you mentioned that your preliminary report on Bogey-1 is complete, Dr Akagi," he said.

"Yes sir," Ritsuko nodded. "Unfortunately, most of it is still conjecture at this stage. If we ever get the chance to observe it again, I could..."

"That is a concern for the future," Fuyutsuki ruminated. "Right now we need to know what we can. SEELE will undoubtedly take... measures in response to Bogey-1's existence." Briefly he thought of Gendo, and suppressed a shudder. Even though he was once Gendo's mentor who now deferred to him as superior, he had never envied the elder Ikari's position, and now he coveted it even less. The thread that held Damocles' sword above Gendo's head was a lethally thin one.

"Sir." Ritsuko stepped forward, producing a neatly-constructed report, and placed it on Fuyutsuki's desk.

It was almost two hours later before she exited her superior's office.