"Sempai?"

The blond-haired scientist ignored Maya for the moment, purposely focusing her attention upon the malformed facial features of the gaunt violet bio-mecha dubbed "Unit 01."

She'd never been given any sort of actual explanation for the Units' appearances. The Angels' features were dictated… somewhere, reportedly. But the Evangelions? No.

What data she had been able to gather suggested a 'normal' person's gaze tended to slide away from the Eva, as though they very much wanted to look elsewhere, even subconsciously, classify it as part of That Dark And Scary Background I'd Rather Not See.

Obviously, the foolishness that convinced so many people to keep pouring money into the emaciated things had absolutely nothing to do with their appearance.

"Status report," she commanded, quite used to keeping her voice level. A good scientist or researcher went far with such a skill, of course.

"Unit 01 still isn't responding to external commands," Hyuuga answered. After a brief, uncomfortable pause, he fidgeted. "Is it… ma'am, does that mean it's… asleep… again?"

She stared at him for a moment. "Yes," she said at last, sighing. It was never easy to remember exactly what everyone's NERV security clearances were, what any one person knew or not – much less all the 'explanations' given to those without the appropriate security levels. Was Hyuuga's nervousness due to believing that such a term couldn't be applied to inanimate giant robot mecha, for example, or did huge bio-mechanical monsters unnerve him, in general?

Ritsu turned her attention back to the Unit in question, half-heartedly noting the color of her hair's roots in her reflection upon the control room's window. Almost time to dye it, again, she thought, frowning. The primary reason she bothered to dye her hair, at all, was to remind her of one specific person. What would Mugi think of me, now?

Assuming someone ever did locate Tsumugi, anyway. Mugi had disappeared during Second Impact; everyone in their group refused to believe anything bad had happened to her. Mugi only ever had good fortune… right?

Someone – Ritsu couldn't remember who – had joked that perhaps Mugi might have gone underground, biding her time until the day she conquered the world…

Hmph. Ritsu mentally snorted. Why was practically everyone and their pet mecha harboring a wish to conquer the world?

Well, her own stupid security clearance wasn't high enough to gain her that knowledge. Or details she actually did want to know, such as how in the world her old friend had managed to become one with… well, Unit 01.

Officially, the most recent records merely stated that Yui had been the test pilot for Unit 01, and nothing more. Ritsu had attempted to search for the answers, herself, even to the extent of burying minute stealth processes deep within the Magi, filtering any information that appeared to even remotely relate to Yui directly to her.

All that computer power, and yet every flood of results she received were little better than those few times in the distant past she'd bothered with using an Internet search engine.

Still, she knew her old friend far too well not to notice Yui's influence upon Unit 01's behavior.

Yui was, without a doubt, asleep. Even after all this time, there was only one tried-and-true, guaranteed way to rouse her…

Again, Ritsu sighed. "I'll place the order for another extra-large cake with the Catering staff," she announced, not bothering to meet the gazes of anyone else in the room. "Maya, you'll head the group to bring it here."

"Yes, sempai."

Well, guess we're going to have more leftover cake in the cafeteria for a while. Hopefully, everyone remembered her edict not to eat cake anywhere within range of Unit 01's audiovisual sensors.

She had yet to invent an 'official' explanation as to why they would need to commission a giant cake to 'wake' an Eva – for the second time! – particularly something Maya and the rest of the crew would believe, much less whoever had been saddled with baking the things. Blame Gendo for investing in huge mecha.

Then again, she hadn't even explained why Unit 01 had recently decided to hug Unit 02, either. Asuka occasionally looked too much like Azusa for her own good…

"…Mio…"

"Mio!"

No reaction. Ritsu narrowed her eyes, then smirked as another thought came to mind. "Mio-chan…," she sang in hushed tones, leaning closer to her friend's ear. "If you don't wake up in five seconds, I'm releasing the tarantulas–"

Mio immediately sat bolt upright, screaming, "NO!" Comprehension overcame raw terror; her heartbeat eased, and she leveled a glare at her stupidly-grinning tormentor.

Brown. Ritsu's hair was just as she recalled, drawn away from the other girl's face with that simple hairband, that hadn't been there when… "A dream," Mio realized.

"Yeah." Ritsu considered joking that Mio had been snoring the entire time, but let it pass. She stared at the TV for a moment; it was off, as Satoshi had enough sense to turn the thing off before he took a bathroom break, or whatever. "You do know this isn't a good place to fall asleep, right?" She snorted. "Especially not when my little brother's starting another one of his stupid Evangelion marathons."

Mio rolled her eyes as the memory returned. She'd heard Ritsu gripe about Satoshi's obsession with the series, several times. Deciding that taking a seat at the table while the younger boy watched TV wouldn't hurt, then actually watching a bit of the show and being mildly interested enough to ask Satoshi what was going on… now, that had been a mistake.

Satoshi had insisted upon giving her a complete recap of everything that had happened thus far, along with detailed character profiles. Ugh – no wonder she'd fallen asleep and had a bizarre dream.

Not about to give Ritsu another chance to make a joke at her expense, Mio stood, taking a moment to brush her long, raven hair back into place. "Are you ready to go, then?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ritsu replied, waving a hand dismissively. "Just had to take care of a few things for Dad, first."

To her continued bemusement, the other girl turned and all but sprinted the handful of feet to the genkan, wasting no time in retrieving her shoes. Clearly, Mio wanted to leave before the little geek returned, and hit the Play button.

Ritsu couldn't blame her in the least. Stupid Satoshi – he'd probably conveniently spoiled the entire first half of the series for Mio, and was waiting for her to wake up, to spoil the rest.

She grumbled. It was his fault she knew more about Evangelion than she believed she should. All those times she'd had to–

"Ritsu!"

Eh? Oh, right. Bleah. Knowing Mio, the scaredy-cat was waiting for her on the sidewalk… for the moment.

Well, she'd just have to go ahead and blame her little brother for this, too. He deserved it, didn't he? "Wait up!" she yelled, adding a hasty "I'm leaving!" for her brother's benefit, before hopping through the front door and sliding it shut behind her.

Mio, as she had half-expected, was already walking. "Hey, what's with the big rush, Mio?" Ritsu asked, matching her pace. "Don't you wanna watch the next few episodes? Or maybe Satoshi'll be happy to give you the abbreviated version, if you asked."

There, one of the reactions Ritsu had come to expect whenever she teased her dark-haired friend – Mio stiffened, slightly, and began to walk faster. Hadn't Mio learned she could never get away… not that easily, anyway? "You're gonna miss the best part!" Ritsu persisted. "There's this enormous metal spider..." She raised her hands high for effect, then thrust them before Mio's face, waggling her fingers in imitation of a large creepy-crawlie.

"Ritsu…!" Once again, Akiyama Mio's fist found its mark. "Knock it off!"

"Oww!"

With apologies to Anno/GAINAX, and Kakifly/KyoAni…

This is my first attempt to truly write anything for either Eva or K-On!, and I'm sure it shows.

It was inspired by a thought I had while reading an assortment of Eva crossover fanfics, recalling that, yes, K-On! does have characters named "Ritsu" and "Yui," doesn't it?

Given the setting, I didn't dwell on Yui, Mugi and Azusa as much as I probably should, and fans of Ui, Nodoka, Jun and Sawako will probably be disappointed as well, but I hadn't been able to invent simple ways to include them when I'd written this. Maybe at some point, I'll rewrite this…