Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ In the Dark Room ❯ Focus ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

 

 

In the Dark Room: Focus

 

By Midnight_Cereal

 

Kei Sakamoto's face was frozen by a nameless distress for a long second. After that second her brows knitted and twitched, her breath hitched involuntarily, and the moisture that had been steadily gathering in her brown eyes spilled down her flushed cheeks. Kei stood in the newly empty corridor, sorrow personified. It was about then that Maya had sincerely wished she had not asked if Kei's office mate, another engineer named In-jin Chi, had also survived the massacre.

 

She had to ask. After twenty three weeks away from Nerv -days filled with endless and excruciatingly thorough joint U.N. and Japanese government inquiries, wondering if she escaped the wholesale slaughter initiated by Seele and the JSDF only to be imprisoned for crimes against humanity- she had to know, here and now, who it was she was going to see again. Not In-jin. Not Reiko, Yuri or Genma. Not Chelsea, Yukino, or Big Rob or Misato.

 

Not Ritsuko.

 

And suddenly Maya was moving, embracing Kei. It was all she could do to reign in her own tears.

 

“They…they're all gone…” Kei managed when she could finally choke back her despair. “They killed them…like dogs, Maya! He was burning! He looked at me and In-jin died burning!” Kei's good arm shuddered against Lieutenant Ibuki's back. “He was burning…” Then Kei wept again, and Maya let her regain her composure before speaking to the engineer.

 

“They're not all gone…” Maya motioned to the door in front of them. “…there are people -a lot of people- behind this door. They're all just as ready as you and I to make new memories…okay?”

 

“O-okay.” And with that, Sakamoto pulled out of the clench, ran her fingers through her tightly pulled-back black hair, and calmly stared at the threshold. “Thank you for that…how are you so strong after all this?”

 

Maya did not answer, devoting her entire will to quashing the sudden, bitter, mirthless laughter rising within. The other woman did not press, and together they entered.

 

It was one of the largest rooms in the main complex, but it still filled Maya Ibuki with crushing sadness that the number of people standing or sitting or leaning against its walls could've filled the space twice over. Sub-commander (no, commander) Fuyutski was standing at the head of the enormous ovular table, his long, weathered face calm. Did he always look that old? Hyuga, Aoba, and a woman she did not recognize were standing and holding a low conversation before they noticed her and waved. She returned it, but did not go over, choosing instead to further survey the room.

 

She estimated ninety, maybe a hundred people. Maybe. Then there were another hundred that weren't here, she knew, those that were too angry or too broken mentally or physically. The Second Child, Maya darkly mused, was probably all three as she currently sat, alone, in the newly reopened Nerv infirmary. The German girl was still imbued with the remnants of her old pride, and didn't show the first two when the tech visited the teen an hour before she found Kei in the hallway.

 

There was nothing, however, that could hide the third thing, not rolling down the sleeve on her surgically repaired right arm, nor dipping her head to mask the gaping hole where a beautiful blue eye should have been shimmering. Oh no, Maya had the distinct pleasure of being the only person -aside from the team of doctors doting on Asuka- that knew exactly where and how severely the girl had been so savagely maimed.

 

An image on her laptop during Asuka's final, futile last stand, when victory seemed almost within reach, suddenly flashed on the back of Maya's eyelids as she blinked. It was Unit-02's left occular signal destabilizing, fluttering and finally collapsing onto itself, the afterimage of the orange plasma momentarily seared onto her retinas as the red-head's scream ran through her like lightening.

 

Suddenly, Maya knew what she could do for Asuka Langley Sohryu. It was a poorly-kept secret that Maya Ibuki deeply respected Ritsuko Akagi yet questioned her morality. The young tech openly questioned the ethics of the dummy plug system, and by extension, the nature of Rei Ayanami's existence.

 

Now, finally, actual good could come out of this science. She couldn't do anything for Rei, who had not been seen since Third Impact. She could do something for Asuka. She could do something for Shinji.

 

Who was here.

 

“Today we will review a preliminary restructuring plan developed with the Hamburg and Massachusetts branches,” she heard the commander say as she eyed Shinji leaning forward and clasping his hands together, elbows on knees.

 

“But I first want to thank everyone for finding the courage to bring themselves here today, even after everything that's happened.” Shinji was hardly breathing. “I'll also ask you to forgive those that chose not to join us. We've all suffered, and they've chosen another way to cope.”

 

There, Shinji blinked. He finally blinked.

 

“Know now, with absolute certainty, that Nerv has survived this, and will continue operating under the auspices of the United Nations. Under what capacity is unknown at the moment.”

 

Maya had an idea of what capacity that would be. That Nerv was still operational, and that high command wasn't shackled in some European brig waiting for judgment to be passed, had all to do with three wise men sitting in Central Dogma. From a purely analytical standpoint, abandoning such supreme technology made little, little sense; the U.N. would need people to tend to Naoko Akagi's brainchild.

 

Shinji's eyes met hers and then something indiscriminate on the floor in front of his chair. They stayed there as Commander Fuyutski continued his speech.

 

“Whatever capacity that is, all that matters is that we're free of the beasts that have defined this organization since its inception. That is something I never thought I would have the priveldge of saying, but I can now, thanks to men and women that bore our crosses, at detriment to their own happiness.”

 

Fuyutski paused and then looked over to where Maya was standing. No, in front of her, lower. “Shinji, please look at me.”

 

The despondent Child did not move at first, and then slowly and deliberately sat up and swiveled in his seat to meet Fuyutski's earnest gaze. Maya turned away from the emptiness in the pilot's eyes.

 

“You and I both know that the words haven't been invented that excuse what you were put through, you and Rei and Miss Sohryu. And Mister Suzahara. Nobody who has ever worked at this place, and I mean no one, wanted this for you. That includes your parents, both of them.”

 

Ikari looked on, impassive.

 

“I won't bother trying to validate that or placate you with weak apologies, so I will just say thank you. There's a place for you and Asuka, if either of you choose to stay here. Our resources will at all times be at your and her disposal, whether or not you decide to remain.”

 

The old man motioned to behind Ikari, to what was left of the First Branch's six-thousand and twenty two scientists, technicians, soldiers and doctors.

 

“But you should take a look behind you, at the faces of these people. You saved them, and they all know it. Whenever you pass them or someone on the street or see your classmates, you should feel proud. If this is the result of Third Impact, no one has a right to complain. We all have a second chance-”

 

“Not everyone had a chance.”

 

That was Hyuga. Why was his expression so different from the one Maya felt on her own features and saw on the faces of nearly everyone she had looked at? Anger flowed like magma, genuine, righteous, and barely contained beneath the surface of his bookish exterior. It seeped into the man's naturally docile voice, permeated his words…and for some reason was being received with total indifference by the brown-haired pilot.

 

“I'm glad you have that look on your face, Shinji,” Hyuga continued, and the venom with which he uttered the boy's name rushed the camaraderie from the room like air from a crushed diaphragm, “because now everyone can see the look that this…hero wore when he was saving the world. I was about to thank him, too. Then I remembered; I know better.”

 

“You mean it's not enough that he got put through hell?” someone, a man, immediately, indignantly responded. “He's just like us. I don't need to know anything else to thank him.”

 

“Don't listen to Hyuga, Shinji,” a woman in a far corner said. Kei.

 

Hyuga turned in the direction of his first opponent. “He is not like us. You know why?” he asked, pointing straight back at the Third Child with a rigid, accusing finger. “Did you have any other choice except to fight, or hide, or beg for your life just to save yourself, I mean besides dying? No? Me neither. But he did. He could've made everything right,” the snap of his fingers crisply reverberated in the stunned silence that ruled the conference room, “like that. Just like that. We were all being murdered, and you know where he was, what he was doing? Hiding. Hiding! Under some, some ass-fuck stairwell, just waiting for someone to put a bullet in his head.”

 

Maya could only stare with a detached fascination at Makoto Hyuga, a person she had simultaneously learned to associate with calm professionalism and the goofy awkwardness of a fifteen year-old fan boy. That man had been replaced by his serious, angry identical twin, a man that was by the second being consumed by an immeasurably deep resentment, who visibly fought to unclench his jaw before speaking once more.

 

“You make this world, and it's just like the last? Fine. You bring back everyone that was alive before Third Impact? Bueno. But…sitting in a corner? Are you fucking kidding me? We're all hiding and fighting and praying, and we're hoping we live long enough to be saved and you're not even TRYING??”

 

He took a small step, another, one more toward Shinji Ikari, who had not moved a muscle during the Lieutenant's indictment. “I don't thank you, because you gave up. YOU GAVE UP!”

 

Maya flinched as she felt the last three words more than she had heard them.

 

“There are people, Shinji, hundreds of people that are dead that didn't have to be. Hundreds of people. Dead. Died waiting for you. Hiding and dying for you.” Hyuga's young face finally, slowly began to resolve the ugly rage that had contorted it. Then, in an empty and nigh-audible whisper, “Looking for you.”

 

With his last three words, the source for his nearly tangible animosity was clear to Maya.

 

“Hyuga,” she called gently, “who did you see?”

 

He looked at her guardedly. “What?”

 

“I…I saw Ritsuko.” She turned her eyes from Shinji to her associate.

 

His mouth hung open for a moment and then he closed it along with his sad, tired eyes. “Who do you think?”

 

No one said anything then, not the minute after, or the minute following. For a short while Fuyutski-sensei bore holes into the side of Makoto's head, and then his subordinate turned fully to meet his gaze, unwilling to back down, seemingly steadfast in his position…which was what? That Shinji Ikari should live the rest of his days in shame? That the boy wasn't deserving of a little slice of happiness, ever?

 

“I trust you are finished, Lieutenant?” the commander finally asked.

 

Hyuga shrugged. “I just wanted the savior here to know where I stood. He's going to have to think really hard about how he's going to live this down. I almost feel sorry for him.” With that he broke eye contact with his superior and scanned Maya, Aoba and Shinji in a quick arc before moving towards the door.

 

“Lieutenant!” Fuyutski shouted.

 

“I don't think anyone wants me here right now. Half our staff isn't here anyway. Just send the slides to me like you'll do for them.” He reached for the digital chevron marked `open'.

 

“Get the fuck back here.”

 

Hyuga's finger and Maya Ibuki's spine froze at the chill of Gendo Ikari's order. Logically, Maya knew that Gendo Ikari could not have been in the room issuing commands to subordinates, that what was left of the supreme commander had been found in the cavernous room of Lilith, nothing but legs and a lower torso, as if it was rent from its upper half by some enormous malevolent oni.

 

Shinji, his son, was standing, and oh, what the woman would have given to have had the lost and fragile boy that had been sitting in his place just a moment ago, ages ago.

 

Shaking with rage or fear or confusion or something else entirely, Lieutenant Hyuga's head twisted over his shoulder to venomously glare at the Third Child. “I…I don't think you should be saying…ANYTHING…to me right now-”

 

“I'm not going to ask you again,” Shinji easily told the unstable man. It was easy for him…

 

For just a second longer Makoto Hyuga's digit remained extended and hovering over the `open' chevron, and then he spun on his heel with a terrible swiftness. “What?” He stalked toward Shinji Ikari with maddening focus, the fists at the end of his pumping arms clenched into tight clubs. “What? WHAT?”

 

Just when Hyuga had been standing in front of the son of Ikari long enough for Maya to conclude that her former coworker was, miraculously, staying his hand -and not pummeling the sole object of his hatred- the Eva pilot bowed.

 

As his wild eyes darted from person to person behind his black frames, Hyuga somehow looked nonplussed and incredulous with spectacular ease. “You don't think,” he licked his lips, “that this is going to make up for…what is this?”

 

“I'm not expecting anything from you,” Shinji confessed, “I just want you to know where I stand.” This, Maya concluded, was being calculated by the fifteen year-old. Every word, every movement made and not made, the pitch of his voice -already deepened from when she had last seen him five months ago- all calibrated for maximum effectiveness. And whether he realized it or not, Hyuga was falling for it, because he remained silent as Shinji remained doubled over.

 

“You're right. About everything. Everything you said. About my weaknesses, how they controlled me. I killed all those people and I might as well have shot them like those soldiers did. It's easy to kill people when you're already a murderer.”

 

The thing that charged Hyuga with his righteous bravado wasted away with those words, and its departure slackened the twenty-four year-old's shoulders and loosened his fists. He was definitely listening.

 

“Dad was right to bring me here. Who else does my job better than me? It doesn't matter if it's Angels, or civilians that don't get to evacuation shelters in time. Or friends. I can kill anything now, without even trying.” Shinji shrugged. “I don't know if I'll ever be comfortable knowing that about myself, but just accepting that…that should count for something…right?”

 

No other sound than Shinji Ikari's indifferent voice was audible in a room hosting one hundred men and women. Hyuga just looked down at the back of the Third Child's head, now only daring to blink.

 

“I killed Misato Katsuragi that day. I know it. I am sorry-”

 

“I got it,” Hyuga finally said, “I got it. I got it-”

 

“I am not finished. Shut up.”

 

The man just stared down at the bowing teen before his mouth closed with painful slowness. Smoothly, precisely, Ikari rose. “I am sorry,” said Gendo's son, “that she is gone, nothing more. Not because I took her away from you.”

 

He meant it, thought Maya, just now when he shrugged, he meant it...

 

“So be angry at me, Hyuga. Scream, threaten me, give me dirty looks, call me the devil, evil. I don't care anymore.”

 

Then he looked beyond the glasses and the confused, myopic eyes. Into Hyuga. “The only thing you will not do, ever, is tell me how I should live. Or do you hate me enough to crush Misato's last wish? Because if you do…” Something raw and ugly and black permeated Shinji's expression before he could successfully purge it. “…I'll make sure you get to know me really well.” That look again, and this time he did not try to rid himself of it. “I promise.”

 

…I'm scared of Shinji Ikari.

 

Hyuga breathed little, said less. What was there to say? The gauntlet had been thrown down at his petrified feet, an ultimatum delivered by the son of a tyrannical and unscrupulous mad scientist, a man that had outsmarted the entire civilized world for the past two decades, and this boy had apparently inherited all of his father's less appealing traits. Spontaneously, without warning. You could see it in Makoto Hyuga's face, the defeat that came with the knowledge that he was outclassed and thanks to his sudden vitriolic soapbox filibuster, outnumbered and unwanted. Why was he still standing there?

 

“I'm finished. You can leave now.”

 

Ah.

 

Maya watched Hyuga's back as he marched out with as much dignity as he could muster, which looked like very little. By the time she had turned away from the empty hallway beyond the door and back to Shinji, he was sitting again, small and slouched, facing the front of the room where the commander still stood.

 

“Um…let's get started, shall we?” Fuyutski smoothly transitioned. The sound of laptops being awoken and note pads being rustled was everywhere at once. Maya grabbed a seat next to Shinji at the table. She had to say it now, before the mild commotion died down and the lights dimmed.

 

“Hyuga will come around. Don't worry about what he said,” she whispered. Her hand crept to his slumped shoulder and landed like a feather.

 

“I know…but it's okay if he doesn't. If…if I don't honor what Misato wanted, if I don't find my own answers, then she died for nothing as far as I'm concerned. That can't happen.”

 

Pleased that he had at least answered and thoroughly relieved by his gentle tone, she worked up her courage. “There's something I want to do for you and Asuka…”

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------

 

“Dinner? That does sound good. You really don't have to, though…”

 

“I know I don't, Shinji, but that's why it's a treat, isn't it? Besides, I'm your guardian and I hardly do anything for you two. I don't want Mariko to get the wrong idea about me.”

 

“Misato was the same way. You don't need to feel obligated to do a thing.”

 

“Wow. You know, Asuka was right about you.”

 

“Huh? W-what do you mean?”

 

“Sachiko, what's Mariko's status?”

 

“Her heart rate's a little above normal, but data from the first synch tests for all previous Children are similar. She's just a bit nervous. Synch rate holding at thirty-three percent.”

 

“What was Asuka right about?”

 

“Sachiko, open the com-link. Can you hear me, Mariko? How are you feeling?”

 

“I can hear you…I don't feel queasy anymore. Asuka was right, you get used to breathing this stuff once you relax.”

 

“Maya, c'mon…did Asuka say something about me? What did she say about me?”

 

“Lower the plug depth to minus five.”

 

“Yes ma'am, lowering plug depth.”

 

“Mariko, you're going to feel a slight increase in pressure. That's perfectly normal. Tell me if you start to feel discomfort.”

 

“Okay…Asuka was right. Does LCL always smell like blood?”

 

“Hang in there, okay? It won't be much longer. If we get a good reading in the next minute we'll be done for the day.”

 

“Heart rate sixty-eight, systolic at one-twenty, psychograph nominal, synch rate holding at…thirty-one percent.”

 

“…That's it? I suck at this, don't I?”

 

“Everyone does at first, except Shinji here. I was sitting right in Sachiko's seat when he came in and hit…wait, I…Shinji, you remember your first synch rate?”

 

“Can't you just tell me what she said?”

 

“Sachiko, mark the time and file this data dump.”

 

“The time is 1711 JPT, data dump 16-A.”

 

“Mariko, you can relax now. They're going to drain the cage, and when you get out you'll have to empty your lungs. From what Asuka tells me it's best if you exhale to get as much LCL out before trying to breathe normally. After that, just go to the locker room and get dressed. You can go home after that, okay?”

 

“Sounds delicious.”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“Roger.”

 

“Emptying cage.”

 

“What did she say? What did Asuka say about me?”

 

“That you were really, really easy to tease.”

 

“Oh, I…oh. You know, I'm not really…oh.”

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------

 

“Oh, Maya wanted me to tell you we're all going to dinner on the weekend. Her treat.”

 

Asuka's humph could be heard even as she pulled her blouse over and above her head. “Doctor Ibuki? Voluntarily spending time with us? Now that's really weird.”

 

“She seemed to relish the idea,” Mariko diplomatically stated, peeling off the black neoprene plug suit. “Asuka, I'm not trying to tell you your own opinions or anything, but I don't see how anyone would not want to be friends with that woman. She tries really hard, you know?”

 

Asuka paused in undoing the hook on her bra. “Then you can tell she's hiding something too, can't you?”

 

“Isn't everyone? Here, at least? Whatever it is, it isn't affecting her job.”

 

“Oh, yes it is.” The red-head tore open the seal on her new plug suit. “She didn't tell us you were coming here until the night you arrived. We were all probably in Nerv at the same time, and didn't even know. We didn't know you were staying with us until you told us at school.”

 

“Okay, yeah, but how is that her responsibility?”

 

“Mariko…she's our legal guardian, mine and Shinji's. And now she's yours, too.”

 

As she glanced over her shoulder, Asuka was oddly relieved that she saw Mariko truly frown for the very first time. “She…didn't tell me that.”

 

The Second Child pulled the suit up to her hips and turned fully to the other girl, who was gathering a towel and washcloth. “See what I mean? It's okay to be a little absentminded when we're talking about remembering birthdays and people's names, and that's all. But that isn't all here, and it never was. She could get us killed while we're in those little tubes or fighting an Angel.”

 

Mariko wore the look of someone pretending to consider another's opinion while secretly thinking of something more pressing, but Asuka finished anyway. “I like Maya as much as you seem to. But I can't trust her. Not fully.”

 

“Do you think…” The short-haired teen suddenly lost, and just as suddenly regained her voice. “…do you think we'll have to fight Angels? I thought they were gone.”

 

Now wondering why Mariko had initially trailed off, Asuka looked into the girl's eyes, which were not on Asuka's own, but below, at…oh.

 

Giving a dramatic sigh and waving her hand, Asuka rolled her eyes. “Go ahead,” she commanded exasperatedly, “just ask, right now. Get it over with, get it all out of your system.”

 

“Angels…they did that to you?”

 

If Angels had done this to me, Asuka thought, it would be so much easier to deal with.

 

The German looked down at that, which was not just one thing. If it was just one thing, she wouldn't be relegated to a lifetime of beach trips wearing one-piece bathing suits.

 

That was an elaborate and chaotic network of countless off-white scars running across her torso, ridges that rose above and trenches grooved below the surface of her undamaged skin. As one very stupid girl had once put it in the locker room during P.E., it was `as if she had been mauled by a pack of angry wood chippers'.

 

“Not Angels,” she stated simply, “During the battle before Third Impact, the enemy had Eva's also-”

 

“This all happened at the same time?!” Improbably, Mariko's green eyes widened even further.

 

“Just about.” Over the course of one minute and forty-eight seconds. “They had some…weapon that could pierce my A.T. Field.”

 

“I thought you just felt what an Eva felt, though.”

 

“Yeah,” Asuka shrugged ineffectually, “Me too.” She shrugged again and pulled the rest of the suit over her bare shoulders.

 

“I'm sorry I asked about it, then. I didn't know it was so…sorry. I didn't mean to stare-”

 

“Don't be sorry!” Asuka interjected irritably as she slammed her locker with some force. “You meant to stare and to pry and you're not really sorry. Just be upfront about it and don't be sorry. I'll tell you if you're hitting too close. You'll know right away.” The plug suit hugged her body with a soft hiss.

 

The new pilot ran a hand through her short LCL-soaked hair before she nodded. “Okay. I…that's fair enough. I'm the same way, actually.”

 

What if she's like us? What if she's had it rough like us?

 

“Shinji used to do that all the time, apologize for nothing and…never mind. Look, I'm not pissed that you asked. I understand. I'm a mess down there. But it wasn't as bad as it looks.”

 

It was worse.

 

Rescue teams had cut her out of the remains of Eva Unit-02, the girl nearly a corpse herself. A hundred and eighty-two individual punctures, lacerations and gashes were identifiable when she had initially been hospitalized in Tokyo-2. Many ran parallel to each other a uniform width apart, stenciled in from her sternum down to her floating ribs. Rows of exact punctures formed bloody arcs across her abdomen, thighs and back, as if she had been repeatedly bitten by a giant feral man.

 

Her right arm had been split down the middle from the webbing between her fingers to her elbow. She was fortunate the instrument that had caused the injury was so precise, as repairing the limb would be that much easier. Fortunate.

 

A Delovye Cloaca substituted for her own stomach while a team of doctors took two weeks to plan and perform surgical repairs. A month later a particularly deep gash between her shoulder blades became infected, and she was fed a potent cocktail of antibiotics to kill the bacteria.

 

After a week of waking in the middle of the night violently ill, the infection had disappeared. The wound on her back had never fully healed. Nevertheless, doctors told her she was lucky the gash wasn't any deeper, or the bacteria might've reached her spinal column.

 

Surgeons found two exit wounds -each fifty microns in diameter- in the back of her skull during the procedure to remove her ruined eye. MRI's were consistent with those injuries and the two small holes in her left orbital socket; something had pierced her brain case.

 

It was a miracle an operation wasn't needed to relieve pressure on her brain to accommodate some type of swelling. It was a miracle that only once every other week she felt dizzy or suddenly lost her balance. It was a miracle she was watching the back of Mariko Buick retreat to the showers in stereo.

 

Asuka didn't know how many laws, how many codes of ethics Maya broke, how many lies the woman told so that she could grow the Second Child a new left eye; Asuka didn't care, to be honest. The German tried squelching the small knot in the pit of her stomach that never failed to grow when she thought of it.

 

How long was it in between the time she had been transferred to Nerv medical and she had regained depth-perception? How long should something like that take? Was the one she had now the first they grew, had they made mistakes, had to start over? How many sky-blue eyeballs were sitting in some…place in the bowels of Nerv, in some vat of LCL, waiting for a transplant that would never occur?

 

Did they stop at the eye?

 

The knot grew larger as she stepped out of the locker room. Shinji and her did not often talk about their time at Nerv before Third Impact, but he did tell her about Rei. All about Rei Ayanami. Once, when she had made as full a physical recovery as possible, they had went down to the Room of Gaf with Doctor Ibuki, farther down than Asuka thought the facility ever went, deeper than she ever wanted to go.

 

If it was some attempt by the Ikari boy to make Asuka feel some measure of sympathy for the First Child, it had failed. If anything the discomfort she felt when she dared turning her thoughts to Rei had multiplied. Before she saw the tanks, that person was merely everything Asuka wanted never to be; willfully obedient, unquestioning, her desire to live (truly live and not just breath and blink and sleep and eat) wholly crushed, as was so blatantly evident in Rei's dim red eyes, her perpetual frown, and her monotonic, clipped speech. Defeat, given human form.

 

Those reinforced fiberglass walls were full of portent. Asuka could see herself, dozens of her, floating empty husks that snapped to her as one when they sensed her standing among them. Neither life nor death was reflected in their collective gaze, only the mindless thirst for the soul they waited to claim. Empty, floating, staring, waiting dolls. Smiling-

 

“Maya's waiting for you, she just wants to do a few-OW!!”

 

Shinji massaged his newly bruised shoulder as Asuka slowly lowered her clenched fist, panting heavily.

 

“Serves you right, dork! Who told you to sneak up on me like that?!”

 

“Sneak up? I was standing right in front of you, and the hallway's empty except for us, how-”

 

“Okay okay okay, I'm…” She fought to dampen her frazzled nerves with a final deep breath, “…sorry. Maya's not in her office, is she?”

 

“No, why?”

 

“No reason.”

 

“Oh…what were you thinking about?”

 

“…Rei.”

 

“Did…you want to talk about it-”

 

“No.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Silence. Then she spoke.

 

“Why is she staggering our synch tests again? Doesn't she know this is really inconvenient? Ritsuko didn't have a problem doing three pilots at once.”

 

He shrugged. “Different people, different system. Maya's good, but probably not like Doctor Akagi. She doesn't want to make any mistakes.”

 

She rolled her eyes and snorted. “God, that woman's so retarded. I don't do her job, but I mean, please, it's a simple synch test. How can you screw that up?”

 

“I'm going to go home to get some dinner ready…please be nice to her, okay?”

 

“Aren't I always?”

 

“Yeah, you've just been on her since Mariko got here.”

 

“I'll be on my best behavior, dad,” she responded sarcastically, curtseying in a most exaggerated manner.

 

“That's my little girl,” he said proudly, patting her bowed head as he walked past.

 

Thirty seconds later he limped into the locker room.

 

 

End of Focus

 

 

A/N: Yeah, yeah I know…Shinji would never say those things. I know. But hey, I'd think that being forced to fight Kaiju for the father that left you a sniveling snot-ball after you witnessed your mother disappearing, standing by helplessly as the best friend you ever had was crushed into a mangled, bloody pulp, being absorbed by a giant biomechanical hell-beast then being subjected to uncompromising self-interrogation, being forced to kill the only person that ever told you they loved you, watching the only significant mother-figure in your teenage life being gunned down…

 

What was my point, again? Oh yeah, Watermelon: Nature's Rugby Ball.

 

Random A/N: In the Dark Room: No Need for Omake

 

Asuka frowned. “You're supposed to be a photographer, right?”

 

The back of Mariko's head nodded as she fumbled with something, careful not to trip over the tripod as she stepped over a leg to tweak something else small and plastic. “Yup.”

 

“How long is it supposed to take you to set up that camera?”

 

“As long as it takes to get it right.”

 

“Can you get it right in another minute? We've already been standing here for three.”

 

“Well, it's not like I have something better to do at the moment. I don't really mind, Asuka,” Shinji interjected lightly.

 

“Yes you do mind. Shut up,” Asuka interjected lightly.

 

Mariko paused in adjusting a small, important-looking knob to favor the German with an apologetic smile. “I want this to be perfect, you know?”

 

“You said yourself you're an amateur. Who cares if it's perfect?”

 

At last, the black-haired American stepped away from her prized possession as if admiring a work of art, and then quickly skipped over to where her roommates were patiently waiting. Asuka, for some reason known only to herself, stomped on Shinji's foot just before Mariko wedged herself between them.

 

The green-eyed teenager thumbed the small remote in her hand, and the camera emitted a high whine.

 

“Smile,” said Mariko.

 

 

Next Chapter: First Exposure