2015

Misato Katsuragi could not remember the face of her father. It (he) was something she had put an enormous effort into ignoring over the years, over the nine years since he had left. Not vanished, not disappeared, just 'left'. She received regular correspondence from him on the first of every month, which she sorted directly into the nearest wastecan. It was always best to be organized. She received offers from an organization called NERV to see him on her birthday. Every year.

Just four weeks ago, she responded as passive-aggressively as she could, apologizing profusely for not being able to attend due to her packed schedule and 'other responsibilities'. The finger quotes were important (if perhaps difficult to express when not in person), she thought, to let him or whoever kept offering know that she knew her place in her father's list of priorities. At the very bottom, of course.

Her friends at the municipal high learned very quickly not to talk about him. She brushed off questions with a spectacularly obvious discomfort that quickly drained the conversation. It wasn't like there was much to talk about in any case; for 6 years he had been a part of her life, and for nine years he had not. Nine was greater than six: therefore, he was a piece of shit.

She assumed he had been there, anyway, vague muddled recollections of a short man with scraggly hair straining to make themselves known. Her mother had died in a shelter two years after Second Impact, or so she was told. She couldn't recall the nightmarish years following the bloody dawn of the new millennium. But what she could recall, with perfect clarity, were the words her father imparted to her before she was sent to live with her uncle (once-or-twice-removed?).

"I'm very sorry, Misato, but I have other responsibilities now."

It was all very professional. Very honest. In a way she thought she admired him for his strength; to send his own child across the country and make sure to never once visit took fortitude if nothing else. In a way, she knew she would never forgive him for abandoning her.

So when three uniformed NERV men walked into her classroom after third period, she knew there was only one reason for them to meet her in person. To absolutely no one's surprise, her father was dead. And she was to join NERV to continue his work.

2015

It was much easier to leave her uncle's house than it was to arrive. She had been drenched in her own tears, the picture of a miserable child as a man she did not know struggled to comfort a child he had never met. He was not a bad man, she thought. He was kind enough to raise a child, and mindful enough of what kind of space a teenage girl needed. He was enough to fill whatever hole her father had left, but he could never be anything more than that.

So when he choked up at her leaving, promising to call every day, it came as a shock to her that she felt more pity for him now than she had felt in her entire life. She screwed her face up and hugged him for the last time, before the suits escorted her to the car and whisked her away.

"Goodbye."

One of the suits, grey hair on a black three-piece, turned around from his shotgun seat and smiled. "My name is Kaworu Nagisa. It's nice to meet you, Miss Katsuragi."

She smiled back, the words coming out automatically, "Thank you, it's good to meet you as well." She extended her arm, gave his waiting hand a quick, firm pump, and sank back in her seat. He had pale red eyes, blood vessels speckling the iris. Albinism? Contact lenses?

"I am the leader of an important project at NERV. Might I assume that you know what NERV is?" The smile seemed glued to his face.

She assumed that whatever her father had been sending her for nine years would have helped her know. Had she bothered to read any of them. Nagisa seemed to understand her ignorance, and began his spiel, "NERV is a research and defense administration founded by the UN and run through a private military contractor. Its research focuses include genetic sequencing, splicing, and the initial production of industrial and military technologies based on both."

"Is that what my father worked on?" Something heavy had settled in her stomach, and the words slipped out before she could stop them. "Genes and guns?" For the first time in years she realized that she knew nothing about him. She tried to pass it off as idle curiosity, fooling everyone, she was sure, "I just… never really got to know him after he left, y'know?"

Nagisa was still watching her, with the open smile she now assumed was his default expression. "Of course. It must have been difficult to be apart for so long. And to return now?" He shook his head.

"He was the key to our most important project. With his death, we were left with an incomplete and rather useless product. Which is why we don't have a choice in who we recruit, you see. If we could afford the time to wait until after you had recovered from his death, we would have." She bristled at that, trying her best not to state the obvious: why should she care if he's dead? She settled for looking out the window, consciously not meeting the reflection of his eyes. They were the nucleus of a three vehicle caravan, blasting through the express lane completely unhindered.

He continued, staring straight through her, waiting for her to face him again. "I know that you don't enjoy hearing all this. But I am being honest because I believe that the sooner we deal with this, the better. We need you, because you can pick up what he left behind. If only because you are his daughter."

His daughter. It was a true enough turn of phrase, she was indeed biologically his. But she had no idea what Nagisa thought he was doing. Misato was no idiot. The tightness in her stomach was quickly giving way to anger. She was not that man's daughter, no matter how much they would want her to pretend.

"It was uniquely keyed to your father. And because you are his direct descendent, we believe you will be able to operate it." His eyes crinkled at the corners as his smile grew. "We aren't blind to your pain. You do not need any love or respect or whatever you might think we want you to have for your father. You just need to be genetically similar to him. At least, that is the current theory. It may not work at all." He gave a helpless shrug, a put-upon gesture for an intelligent man playing the fool.

The anger that was building in her gut slowly simmered out. She had thought (who knows what she had thought they needed her for? To guess which body was her father's?) that Nagisa had been making excuses for him.

She turned back to Nagisa and looked him in the eyes. "All right. I'll try to h-help if you really do need me that badly." It was so ridiculous that she was having a hard time not laughing.

He turned away, seatbelt clicking for the first time he entered the car.

"Good. All we need is for you to try. No one expects you to be perfect the first time."

And, with that last, horribly confusing statement, the sky vanished entirely as the lonely caravan entered a tunnel. A single sign stood lonely vigil as the rumbling of engines faded.

NERV PROPERTY

NO TRESSPASSING

AS UN OPERATIONAL SECURITY DECREE 2GF

VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT

THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION

2015

The GeoFront was stunning. Misato had known about it in the same way you might know about any natural wonder without actually seeing it; a wonder to be sure, but nothing particularly important. But this space, illuminated and lush under the most advanced city in the world, was almost too much to take in.

Nagisa stood next to her in the linear rail car, staring out at the wonder before him with a face that could be carved out of stone. He was an attractive man, to be sure, tall and almost elegant. The more she thought, the more she liked his neutral (severe) expression as he ignored her. It seemed more honest, somehow.

Looking at him more closely, she realized she hadn't been paying attention earlier in the ride. He was wearing a turtleneck undershirt beneath his jacket, despite it being easily one of the hottest days of the summer.

"Hey," she said, tapping his shoulder. He blinked, face molding back to its default smile. "Sorry, looked like you were thinking pretty hard over there. Uh, I was just wondering, why are you wearing that shirt? It must be like 35 degrees out?"

He cocked his head to the side, nodded as if coming to a decision, and tugged his collar down.

"I'll trust you."

Her eyes widened in an instant.

His neck was a mess. A thick, bleached scar ran its way around the front, cutting cleanly across his adam's apple. As he slowly turned, she saw it continued in a perfect circle around his neck. Blotchy color of bruises, blood, somehow not yet healed (How could you heal from that) crisscrossed the Scar. It didn't feel right to just call it a scar. There were scars, and then there was The Scar.

She didn't mean to (it would be wrong to act disgusted after he just showed you his personal whatever the fuck that was) but she backed into the opposite wall, eyes wide, mouth agape.

"W-what…"

There wasn't much else she could say as Nagisa replaced his collar with a frown.

"I'm… I'm sorry?"

"No. It truly is my fault." He said it with warmth, smile back. "I should have warned you. But I have an unfortunate weakness for the dramatic. This sort of thing always gets me in trouble with the Commander. That woman dislikes me, I believe."

"Uh huh." She had calmed down enough to step away from the safety of the wall.

Nagisa continued, clasping his hands together. "And to answer any questions you might have, I was born this way, as hard as it is to imagine. It is a defective vertebra in my neck that causes the pockets of bruising you see. The scar is more like a birthmark, I have been told." He spread his arms wide, palms up in a shrug.

"Now that you know my secret, I believe I will tell you another. This life is not..." He was thinking, smile gone.

"Easy. Easy! This life is not easy…" Smile back. "For any one of us here. The GeoFront hides the true ugliness of a humanity struggling under a yoke that may be too much for it to bear. But please, keep this in mind." Misato had no idea why he was still talking.

"Though the people here struggle with their burdens, there is no need for them to do it alone. That applies to you as well."

He shook his head, corrected himself.

"Especially to you. The Commander wants this to be a great shock for you, and I will not directly go against her wishes." He was speaking animatedly, getting closer to what he truly wanted to say (more honest) with every word. But she had the feeling that Nagisa was speaking an entirely different language than what she understood. She politely nodded, looked out the window. Waited for the rail car to arrive at the station still hundreds of meters below. Faster, faster.

"You are not alone. If you need anything, let me know. If you feel overwhelmed by anything, let me know. I am your new commanding officer, and I take a great interest in the well-being of my… underlings, shall we say?" His eyes were smiling at her and she wondered if this entire moment had been a joke.

"My commanding officer?" It was the one thing she could latch onto that didn't seem like a complete farce. Was she supposed to be taking this spew seriously?

"As you are now a part of NERV's piloting corps, you are under my command and my supervision." He seemed surprised that she seemed surprised by this news.

"I said I'd help you." She felt the sinking feeling in her stomach again. "I never said I'd join the pilot cor… Air Force? Are you some kinda recruiter?" This was a new gimmick.

He laughed, a pure sound echoing in the cramped rail car. "I am a recruiter, in a sense. I guide those who NERV needs to where they are supposed to be. You do not yet understand the significance, but I can tell you in no uncertain terms that you are one of the most important people in the world."

She began to ask why exactly she was so important, what exactly her father was working on, when exactly she would be allowed to leave, who exactly Nagisa was, when he interrupted her.

"We are arriving. The Commander will speak to you after we disembark. You will receive your answers. Do not worry." The way he was constantly smiling, expressing such concern for her reminded her uncomfortably of her uncle. If only because the two were nothing alike.

The car slowed to a stop and a uniformed guard saluted Nagisa as the doors opened. He returned it, then took Misato by the hand. It was so surprising, such an intimate gesture from someone who she could not understand at all, that she found herself going along with it.

She followed his path out of the rail car and took her first steps into a world as uncertain as the one she left behind.

"We should have brought her here sooner. Ritsuko isn't ready for this any more than she is."

"No. Giving her too much time to think would result in her leaving. Nagisa will ensure that she will pilot at least once. You and I will ensure that she understands the importance of continuing."

"You say she would leave. But, if we had prepared them earlier, given them something to work towards? We might be willing to s-sacrifice them, but they need to…"

The voice trailed off, apparently struggling to find words.

"They need to at least think they can trust us."

"Ritsuko trusts us only because of her circumstances and the incident with Unit 00. She will never fully trust us because of her father and our association with him."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Fine. But, you can call him Kaworu. He's told you enough times, that it shouldn't be some sort of…of issue between you two."

"I prefer Nagisa."

An exasperated sigh echoed through the depths of Central Dogma. Some things, it seemed, would never change.