"Ikari..." Go away, voices in my head. I've got a hangover.

"I-k-a-riiii..." Okay, so Shinji had never been hung over in his whole life, and probably never would, what with the fighting monsters in a giant hate machine and what not, but he really wasn't up for one of these crazy self-reprimanding dream sequence things. Huh. Maybe he's stuck in Unit-01 again? That would explain...

"IKARI!"

"Wa-wa-waugh!" Shinji choked out, as he was forced into the land of the living by the gentle caresses of...who the heck was shaking him anyway?! That might be something to ask, oh great detective. Wondering where that little mental put down came from, Shinji hesitantly opened an eye and asked, "Um, c-could you stop shaking me, please? I'm pretty sure I'm, uh, fresh..."

Yaowza.

"What." Clipped the still impatient voice of an older, curvier Asuka Langley Soryu, who looked as though she had been poured into a policewoman's uniform. He would almost think Halloween had snuck up on him, but for the whole "older" matter, "Are you staring at, third?"

"Third?" Shinji asked without thinking; his mouth felt like it was stuffed full of cotton balls, and his whole body had that strange, detached feeling the Third Child endured whenever he had to pilot Unit-01. There were times when the Evangelion seemed to know what to do better than him, some sort of strange...instinct that had saved his life in the struggle against the Angels more than once, and it felt just like this-like a second person was politely asking if it could drive for a while. A new set of instincts, full of secret knowledge, hints of long nights, old coffee, sweat, gunpowder, and dried blood.

"Yep!" Fortunately Asuka, as always, was prepared to strike him out of any dangerously deep thoughts in the name of the great and glorious goal: paying attention to her. "Captain Katsuragi posted the new rankings an hour ago! I guess your little fainting spell made the old bat realize her pwecious invincible Shinji was as human as the rest of us. And guess who made sec-ond?"

"Hikari Horaki." Shinji somehow summoned up a deadpan despite the fact that his head was doing things that made his knife fight with the Third Angel seem like a skinned knee. "Was that really Professor Fuyutsuki in there?"

"What did you hear?!" Suddenly, he had a face full of Langley, which was as terrifying as ever, "I just knew that little no-talent by the book kiss up was gunning for my spot! Thinks she's something because she reorganized the robbery division. -well, I was going to gloat a little more, but I can't let my partner mope around like this when my position is in jeopardy! Now, buck up! I know you knew the guy from college, and he was a friend of your dad's, but...well, actually that's why..."

"You're kidding." At least, Shinji couldn't help but think, she had the decency to look sheepish. "Do you seriously think-"

"Who else can?"

"Who else can what?" A third voice chimed in. Shinji hesitantly looked to his left, and wished it surprised him more to see a taller, somehow skinnier Kensuke Aida leaning against the door, a press pass on his lapel and a smug smile on his face. Pointing a tape recorder towards the pair, the reporter adjusted his spectacles cheekily. "Is that confirmation on a connection between this case and the original Angel murders?"

"Aida." Asuka snapped, smoothly standing up so as to subtly remind Kensuke who could clobber who if it came down to it, "What the hell do you think you're doing here?"

"Teaching." Kensuke replied with a shrug and a little smile; and as if on cue, a pale young woman with short blue hair stepped out from behind Kensuke, turning a dispassionate eye over the crowded little office before raising a miniature camera up to her eyes.

Click.

"...Ayanami?" A wide eyed Shinji murmured under his breath.

Click.

"What the hell?!" Asuka bellowed before moving forward in order to physically shove the pair of reporters from the room; it was to Aida's credit, as a man and a reporter, that he was able to hold on for as long as he did against the Rhineland fury, "You bring a camera in here? Ten seconds after we get off of a crime scene? Do you /want/ your press pass revoked, or do you just like me pummeling you in the neck?! I swear to God, Aida!"

"Can I quote you on that?" Kensuke asked in a unmistakably sly tone, smirking and winking at the indomitable Officer Langley in a fashion that caused the woman to blush, briefly, before finally kicking the door shut with a foomph!

Leaning against the door, Asuka let an exhausted breath out, wiping her brow and mentally cursing the fourth estate. "Sorry about that, Shinji. I didn't think that even Aida would sink to busting in on a crime...scene..." Asuka blinked at the conspicuously empty office. "Shinji? Shiiiinjiface? Shinjadoodle?"


A trick Shinji Ikari had learned over his time as an Evangelion pilot, when it came to enduring high weirdness without going completely out of his mind, was to try and take a step back from a situation. View it as though he weren't directly involved, observe the good and the bad as though he were deciding if the plot to a television program was good enough to put actual effort into watching or not. For a moment he wondered, idly, if this was how Father did the things he had to do with his trademark frosty professionalism.

And that was a second trick Shinji had learned; when his mind didn't want to confront a situation, he'd let it wander to something even worse. Okay, so, Shinji Ikari, professional milksop and occasional unlikely savior of the planet Earth, had woken up to find himself...Shinji looked in the bathroom mirror again, wincing at how much he resembled Father. Older, more lines under his eyes, the same sunken cheekbones, but, thankfully, facial hair seemed to stop at a rough five o'clock shadow...all and all, it looked like he hadn't slept in a week. Idly, Shinji wondered if all of his dreams were so unflattering. It'd fit. He had never really had a dream this vivid before, as he looked into the strange, green eyes, Shinji had always thought his occasional bouts of insomnia, a smile that he'd never seen on Ayanami's face, even when she smiled for him, kept him from really dreaming, which may or may not have been the whole point, orange, a terrible, plastic orange and it was all fake, false, a lie, a.


"You." The familiar voice, softer than usual but still possessing all of the best qualities of a brick to the face, bludgeoned him back into awareness. Why was his hand bloody? "Are the stupidest, craziest, drama queeniest..."

"Queeniest?" Shinji couldn't help but ask, and was rewarded with a sharp jolt of pain as the woman tugged a shard of glass out of his knuckle a little faster than she really needed to.

"And back to the jokes." Asuka sighed a little, shaking a few drops of some chemical that bubbled and burned when exposed to raw flesh and, Shinji was certain, was probably supposed to be good for him. "You know, I could have had Ryoji Kaji as a partner. Now there is a policeman..."

"And Captain Katsuragi's boyfriend..." Shinji found himself muttering, tapping his chin with his unblemished hand and looking mildly grouchy. Why was he grouchy? This was normal; this was much preferable to being pile driven into the ground by the woman. "Don't get too worried, we can just order out for dinner."

And then everything changed; he felt pressure just light enough to notice but heavy enough to threaten to throw him straight out of his chair, a terrible, smothering warmth spreading across his shoulders and whispering into his ear. "That an in-vi-tation, Mister Sleuth?" Oh God she was getting closer and closer and she smelled really nice...

"Ow!" Shinji stumbled backwards, somehow avoiding a cackling Asuka as he rubbed his sore nose. "T-that's playing dirty, you!"

"Oh man, it's just..hee!...so nice knowing I can still do that to you." She ruffled Shinji's hair in a light way that reminded the Third of Misato, even as a squirming feeling entered his gut. "If I didn't have duty tonight, I might just take you up on that..."

"We'll make a rain check." When the hell did he get confident enough to-well, it's Asuka, eating with Asuka's /normal/, even if he's in some crazy dream world where she doesn't think so. "I've got to talk to the old man and..." Shinji was moving, horrified at what was next coming out of his mouth. "...I've got a date tonight anyway."


The door closed with a slam and an exhausted Shinji Ikari leaned against the foot-thick slab of metal, sliding down into a crouching position and focusing on just breathing. It was kind of a cold way to get himself in the right mindset...but, well, it wasn't like she was above doing the exact same thing to him, right? And this was important. This was necessary. This was the best chance he had at cracking the case before more people died. He needed to be at his best, right? Right.

"You would get more accomplished in a day," The second man in the room said, not bothering to look up from his newspaper, "If you did not need to agonize over anything resembling a decision you might have made every ten minutes."

Immediately, Shinji's senses went into overdrive; the shine reflecting off of the clear plastic wall that indicated that the usual consequences of the second man trying to touch that wall, a few thousand volts running through his body, had been turned down so as to allow the pair their customary chess game. Shinji had tried speaking with the prisoner once, without the accompanying game, only to spend the better part of three hours being aggressively ignored. It was the one scrap of power the old man had so, of course, he needed to cling to it with all the ferocity of a tiger who was old enough to start getting weak, but not quite old enough to be able to admit it yet. "...father."

The newspaper rustled, slightly. "Boy."

Resisting the urge to sigh, Shinji tapped down the stairs, idly looked for anything resembling a tripwire, and sat down. Faint black and white lights flickered in front of him; father had already made the first move, a silent anticipation of Shinji's visit. Wordlessly, the younger Ikari attached the neural headset to his hair, wincing a little at the pinching sensation as his mind was connected to the holographic chess set in front of him. A black pawn moved forward two spaces and, finally, the man folded his newspaper up, carefully marking his place with a delicately folded page, and laid it beside him.

Gendo Ikari had managed to keep much of his razor sharp demeanor, despite having been trapped in this special jail cell for the past six months. His beard was, perhaps, a little thicker, his eyes a little darker, his cheekbones a little more sunken than usual, but these subtle alterations only enhanced the elder Ikari's ominous appearance, making his similarity to a starved, feral dog all the more obvious. Shinji couldn't help it; it was bad enough seeing those features on his own face, seeing them on someone who really knew how to use them to the fullest effect made the boy swallow. "They treating you well?"

"Within expectation." The newspaper rustled again, as the white knight moved. "They are too afraid of giving me an advantage or, worse, to enable the true nature of the Angel Murders to spread beyond the handful of people who guard the truth."

"And the food?" The black rook inched across the board, as Shinji matched where he thought his father's gaze would be, barring that newspaper in the way. Stupid newspaper.

"They continue to insist on attempting to provide food I 'enjoy.'." The elder Ikari sighed, taking a moment to rub the bridge of his nose, as if reliving some terrible frustration. "Your doing, I presume?"

Shinji moved another pawn, not bothering to hide his smile

"I'm thirty, sir." Shinji found himself saying, in spite of all probability and reason, "Don't you think it's about time you came up with a more accurate condescending nickname?"

"I still have the liberty to make up my own mind." The older man looked a little bored by everything, steeping his fingers in front of his face and resting his chin on his hands, so as to obscure any lower facial movements. "And I choose not to indulge in the vulgarity that would come from the accuracy you desire. Are you going to ask me anything of merit, or shall I resume my mid-day nap?"

"How are you getting messages out of the prison?" Shinji offered in a voice stronger than he had ever been able to use in the actual presence of his father, "And what does Professor Fuyutsuki's death have to do with your plan to escape and resume your work?"

"Again, you reveal the feebleness of your perception." Gendo murmured, idly taking one of Shinji's rooks with a bishop. "Escape is irrelevant. My role in the scenario has been completed. All that remains is to wait."

"And what," Shinji bit his bottom lip, concentrating on the game for a moment and, finally, moving another pawn. "Exactly are we waiting for?"

The old man chose this moment to lower the paper, meeting Shinji's gaze with his own dispassionate one, as the sickly remains of a smile irked up the corners of his mouth. "The end of the world, of course."

Shinji stared, for a moment, gripping his fingers together a little harder, so Father couldn't see them shake. "I thought that's why you started killing to begin with, Father." Shinji was amazed that he was able to keep his voice from cracking, "Mother's death set off a chain of events described in the new dead sea scrolls you and Professor Fuyutsuki were working on translating. You believed that avenging her death was the only way to prevent it."

Now, it was Gendo's turn to hold back emotion; Shinji had learned to read the old man's face over the years, the tightening of the skin, the flicker of fire in those cold, dead eyes, the faint raising of the upper lip. It warmed Shinji's heart, if he was honest with himself. "You know, Shinji." Oh shit. Father didn't use his name unless he had something terrible up his sleeve. "While you were an...adequate investigator, and deduced my actions as I had anticipated, but I did not think you strong enough to actually stop me." Gendo's face flashed with...with something Shinji couldn't quite identify, "I was proud, to be honest. Perhaps I shall be wrong again about your capabilities." And now, the taught, withered look transformed into something more, well, more natural on Gendo's face, a sneering, superior smirk. "Or perhaps..."

Emotion welled against Shinji's chest, he couldn't determine which one so he just sort of mashed them all together into a terrible screaming casserole of the soul. "If this all was a part of your plan, Father, I'd be dead by now." Shinji said with the certainty of the desperate, "You hate loose ends."

"An end is not loose until it serves its purpose." Gendo sighed with the air of an old argument revisited, propping his paper back up. "You are the Third."

The dam broke. "Never!" Shinji shouted, leaping to his feet and pounding a fist against the transparent glasssteel. ...ow, Shinji thought, that was a bad idea.

"You will." Gendo spoke as if he were a clergyman discussing the reality of God, "You have no choice, sharing my greatest weakness. The death of the Second will force your hand, as the First forces the Second's."

"You're blackmailing the copycat." Shinji snarled, holding his face away from the window by virtue of both of his hands pressing violently against it. "I saw the crime scene. She wasn't enjoying it, not in the way you did. Who is the First Child! How are you communicating?! Answer me!"

"Believe what you want." Gendo sniffed, sounding disappointed. "Checkmate. Enjoy your date."

"I'll find proof, old man. This time, you're going to fry like a two yen shrimp..."

"Innocent until proven guilty, boy." Gendo adjusted his paper again, sighing faintly. "But I have come to enjoy these little chats of ours. You managed to remain civil for most of the game, this time. Perhaps some day, before old age claims me, we will be able to converse as adults."


With a sigh, Shinji slapped the door, rubbing the bridge of his nose and trying to get a hold of himself. Even in this strange body and with this new, competent mind, it seemed like some aspects of his existence was never going to change. Bile weld up in his throat as the pointlessness of it all grabbed him by the throat and squeezed with enough force to trap him against the wall, head hung, trying to find some motivation to do anything besides throw himself out of a window.

Shinji's grim thoughts were abruptly cut off by the unique sensation of a mass of bone and muscle violating his personal space by the traditional path of crashing into his face; the force of said action caused Shinji's jaw to crack, his neck to snap to the left and his feet to kick forward in a sensation laymen would call 'being knocked the hell out from under him', resulting in his kicking selfsame feed lamely in the air as Shinji flew, for a second, as freefall grabbed his guts and twisted maliciously, finishing him off with a bone crunching slam onto the floor. Eyes watering, Shinji was at once terrified and relieved to meet the enraged face of Toji Suzuhara, a little more unshaven but otherwise enduring, giving Shinji the exact same look he gave the first time the two of them met, just outside of school.

"Suzuhara!" Another familiar voice snapped out. To the outsider, Hikari Horaki's voice sounded strong, commanding, and confident, the mightiest weapon of a formidable woman. It bothered Shinji a little that he had, seemingly by accident, come to know the class rep well enough to tell that she was actually terrified and desperately pleading with Toji. "Sister or no, don't you dare think I won't report you for this!"

"Well, if I'm already in trouble..." Toji's voice had lowered into a cruel growl, as he struggled with the woman's grip on his arms, "...I might as well finish th'job!"

"Could you go for the gut?" Shinji found himself asking, politely, as if he wanted directions to the bathroom. "I have a date tonight, and I think it would be sort of rude if I came in with a black eye. Don't want her thinking I'm the sort of guy who does that for easy sympathy points."

The sheer improbability of the statement-or, some memory that was and was not his bubbled in his brain, because Suzuhara indulged in that exact practice in order to have an excuse to walk with Horaki to the infirmary-seemed to shake his co-workers out of their respective rages. Shinji took advantage of this lapse in hostilities to cautiously stand back up, brushing himself off, and promptly be lifted by the collar of his shirt and slammed back against the wall, held firm by a coldly furious Toji.

"You said...you said you caught him." Toji snarled and, for the first time a sliver of fear stabbed into Shinji's armor of resignation, "...that the Angel Killings were over. You said!"

"Check the tapes." The chill in Shinji's voice startled him; Hikari taking a step back and covering her mouth with her hands terrified him, "The prisoner has not left his cell, there were no signs of tampering. It was a copycat."

"For a case we don't admit happened?!" Toji snapped, his face growing redder and redder, as if determined to contrast Shinji's rapidly chilling demeanor. "I'm a cop too, Ikari, don't you ferget! First place I checked wuz the records-"

"Thank you." Shinji replied dully, almost seeming to grow sleepy in response to the other man's bonfire of hate, "That saves me the time needed to rule out suspects not directly connected to the department."

"You knew?!" Hikari, of all people, finally said, eyes wide and mouth open.

"I suspected...rather, shared your suspicions, Detective." Shinji nodded his head towards Toji in salute, "But I could not be sure, and therefore had to trust in others while I followed a lead that I was uniquely qualified to investigate."

Toji leaned in, then, close enough to touch Shinji's nose with his own. "So if you knew where I'd be, and where you'd be...where the hell was the guy keeping this son of a bitch from finishing th'job your ol'man started on my sister?!"

Shinji's eyes widened and, for a moment, he was honestly unsure if he was going to tell Toji, or try to bite his nose clean off. "The prisoner," Shinji paused for emphasis, "Is not aware that Asuka is on duty tonight."

"...I don't like bein'manipulated, Ikari." Despite Toji's gruff tone, however, Hikari had let out a breath, and Shinji knew that he had endured the worst of the conversation.

So, obviously, he had to try and make it worse. "I'd suggest making the process a little more difficult in the future, then, Suzuhara." I'm insane, Shinji desperately thought, In this crazy future I've obviously gone completely insane.

"...thank you." Toji dropped Shinji, who landed with a thump against the floor, turning around with a snap and shoving his hands into his pockets.

Why? Shinji thought, shocked; Asuka liked Mari, the his-but-not-his memories insisted, when protecting a cub, employ a lioness. "Thank me when the criminal is caught."


Socializing. How did Shinji ever convince himself that this was even the clever illusion of a good idea? A normal day capped off by willingly spending time with an attractive woman in a room that smells like garlic and butter; even the air had an oily quality that could come from being around too much pasta, where the subtle flavors become overwhelming through sheer numerical advantage. Is she sweating? Is she ready to order? Did she ask me something while I was spacing out and is still waiting for an answer?! Oh God, wha-

"It's hot."

"Yes."

Good to see I'm still a winning conversationalist, Shinji thought wryly, loosening his tie and marveling at how the albino woman across the table from him could take everything with the same softly stoic attitude. It was impressive, really, the kind of self control that took, and some traitorous part of Shinji's mind wondered if her monotone would endure under any sort of pressure...

"Ikari."

"Y-yes?" Oh God she can read minds.

"Thank you."

...this was shaping up to be a memorable evening. "Ah, you're, um, w-welcome?" Smooth, Shinji.

Red eyes met with his blue, and Shinji could swear he saw a flicker of laughter in them, as Ayanami pointed delicately at the vegetarian of the menu. "You remembered."

Oh. "Oh!" The great detective. Shinji rubbed the back of his head, lamenting the loss of that strange, guiding confidence he had felt earlier. "Well, um, endemic memory and all. Seems great until you realize that when a song gets stuck in your head...it never gets back out."

A giggle. Crazy dream or not, Shinji knew full well that no Rei Ayanami anywhere giggled, and this aberration against natural law put him immediately on the defensive, even as he dispassionately broke a breadstick in half. "When you said you were a student, I didn't know you meant journalism."

"Mister Aida is a dedicated teacher." Rei noted coolly, "It is more educational than the library, as well."

I'll bet, Shinji couldn't help but think; despite being unsure about what part of Rei's sentence he disapproved of so darn much. Wait - his mind's eye flashed with visions of himself and Ayanami; meeting over a library desk, a scant few weeks after he had arrested his own father for being the infamous serial killer who had ritualistically slaughtered some of the city's most influential politicians, scientists, businesspeople, and a young girl named Mari for some damn reason. An awkward young man, he was surprised at how easy a friendship had developed, talking about the pressures of work, the rumors of corruption still being rooted in the Neo Tokyo educational system, sharing recipes, getting snapped at for observing that Ayanami really looked a lot like his...

Oh God. Rei's small, unassuming smile reflected in the ever widening eyes of Shinji Ikari. "The food has been enjoyable." She said, softly, "But perhaps there is somewhere else you need to be?"


"Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhh!" Asuka Langley Soryu stretched awkwardly, letting out a lioness's yawn and scratching her...the small of her back with slow, deliberate motions. Where is that itch...? "-oooh yeah, that's the stuff." Asuka sighed happily, continuing to claw at the troublesome patch of skin until, finally, the itch was banished. The inevitable fate of all of her enemies, hao hao hao! Normally, the great Asuka Langley was above this sort of thing...well, at least in public, but...

"Well, you don't mind if I'm myself, do you?" Askua murmured to the girl she was sharing a room with, gently brushing a lock of hair out of Mari Suzuhara's face. Askua had never considered herself the maternal sort, but considering the unfortunate genetic burden the younger Suzuhara had to bare, the kid was, well...adorable! And an excellent listener, being unconscious and all. Yep, had nothing at all to do with residual guilt about the kid being stuck in a hospital bed, practically comatose thanks to the attentions of a psychotic old man who thought her being alive doomed the world.

Sitting down with a sigh, Asuka rubbed her temples, trying to force the oncoming migraine out before it really took root. "You'd be the only one." She let slip because near-solitude meant that Asuka could indulge in a break or two from the constant stream of perky, can-do attitude that everyone else she knew thought came naturally to her. Well, almost everyone, but she wasn't thinking about him right now, or how badly she wanted to break a few of his teeth. Thud.

Wait, Asuka thought, I didn't do anything that gave off a meaty 'thud'. Frowning, the woman listened again...and the strained sound repeated itself. "The hell was that?", Asuka muttered to herself as she quickly got to her feet, weapon drawn, shoulders tensed, eyes narrowed in concentration, there was only one thing holding the avenging angel of Neo Tokyo-s third precinct back; could she leave Mari alone?

But there wasn't a real choice in the matter; Asuka Langley was the best cop on the Neo Tokyo police force, to flinch in the face of danger was bad enough, but hesitation in the performance of her duties? Unacceptable. Impossible. She'd...stop being Asuka. Clicking her gun's safety off and slipping out of her shoes, Asuka carefully padded to the door and glared up and down the hallway, senses fully alert for any aberration. Asuka could smell it first, her nose prickling at the all too familiar smell, like a pile of wet, moldy pennies. In spite of her natural bravery, years of training, and the overwhelming sense of pride that refused to allow her to call for backup or something similarly sensible, Asuka found herself frozen, trapped against the wall by the force of a primal wisdom that could not let her walk into the mouth of a dragon, metaphorical or otherwise. Asuka treated these instinctual revelations the same way she treated any advice she'd been given by an authority figure in her life, violently ignoring it in the loudest way she could manage, stomping down the floor and towards the source of the stench, a chipped old janitor's closet. Freshly flush with victory, Asuka deliberately wrapped her fingers around the doorknob, and imperiously tugged.


"Come on..." Shinji muttered as he pounded the numbers of his cell phone with increasing desperation, "Come on...please..."

"Ha-llo!" Asuka's voice rung out chipperly, and Shinji started right away, "Asuka, I was wrong, I thought that...nevermind what I thought, just stay in Mari's room! Don't look at anything anyone's given you until I get there, your life is in-" "-too bad for you that the great Asuka Langely Soryu has something better to do than talk to you right now! Which, let's face it, could be anything. Especially if you're a certain JERK named Shinji JERKari who can't keep his JERK eyes off of every blue haired strumpet he sees walking down the street. If you are not that full of jerk, please leave a message after the beep!"

No no NO! Damn it, damn it, damn it, what did a guy have to do to get a taxi in this town?!


Click. Click click. Click click click click click. "Locked. Damn it!" Asuka snapped; both because of the frustration and because a suspicious closet locked from the inside was just never a good sign. Feeling the white hot heat of frustration bringing her blood to a simmering boil, Asuka propped her right foot up against the door, wrapped both hands around the doorknob and let out a silent war cry, tugging at the portal with all of her considerable strength and inestimable fury. The door strained, shook, shuddered, and finally let out a high pitched screech, the death howl of a rusted old lock that finally burst open, sending the broken down old door flying open, and Asuka flying back into the wall with a terrible thumpittythwack! Leaned against the wall in a rough sitting position, it took the woman a moment to shake the haze from her senses, and she idly wondered if she managed to give herself a concussion as, finally, the world came back into focus...

...and, in consistency to the natural human reaction to sights such as what was laid out before Asuka Langley, her thoughts turned, briefly, to the bizarre. Any other time, Asuka's shell shocked brain insisted on thinking, I'd have kicked Aida's teeth in for getting as good of a look as he was at the moment.


Shinji vaulted up the stairs two and three steps at a time, cursing the elevator for deciding to be out of order yet again. One, two, three, how could he have been so blind?! Father had practically gift wrapped the answer for him, and all Shinji could have been bothered to deduce is that, surprise, his old man was still a jerk after all this time. He even called it; Shinji shared his father's fatal flaw, the petty vindictiveness most often seen in small, starved dogs trying to hold on to a bone, and was so tied up in being angry that he wasn't able to see Father spelling it all out, right in front of him. And now it was all happening again...

"Damn it!" Shinji shouted as he tripped over himself, slamming into the staircase face-first with a jaw rattling thud! He didn't have any time to lose...


"Gott in Himmel." Asuka's professionalism warred with the urge to close the poor man's eyes, one of those simple decencies that made being human something tolerable enough for people to get out of bed every morning. No one, not even a reporter, deserved to die like that, Asuka decided, and like a chill down her spine rationality suddenly liberated her mind from her pride; she hit her silent alarm, alerting headquarters that something was going down at the hospital. Her next priority, she knew, was to get back to that room and make sure little Mari Suzuhara was allright or introduce a lot more than the daily recommended dosage of iron into the chest and throat area of whoever was trying to make the kid less than allright, and with the terrible determination of a cornered lioness, Asuka stood up, sighed at Kensuke's body, and noticed something she hadn't before. Keen senses trained to pick up minute details betrayed her, and Asuka's eyes were drawn like magnets to the small, blood stained manila folder nestled under Kensuke's arms, sucked into the tide of the neatly typed words on its front.

Soryu, Kyoko Zeppelin.

Classified.


"Freeze!" Shinji shouted, shoving his way into the hospital room, gun pointed forward as his eager eyes desperately searched for some sign of change, some subtle hint that would confirm his worst fears. Mari was breathing, seemingly undisturbed, no sharp, coppery smell, the heart monitor was beeping steadily, the stuffed animals were lined up in an orderly fashion...

...blam! Jermaine the Giraffe's adorable plush head exploded into a morbid rain of stuffing, bead eyes, and smoking, blackened felt.

"That's your only warning." Shinji was surprised that his voice was capable of barking anything, "Get up." But this whole surreal experience had not come close to preparing him to end up looking into the calm, impassive gaze of an unrepentant murderer. "Ayanami?"

Those frozen lips of hers, lightly specked like the rest of her face with a tiny slash of dried blood, spread slightly, the Rei Ayanami equivalent of a savage, mocking grin. The real horror, to Shinji, was in the subtly of it all...this wasn't fake, like at the dinner. This was Rei actually emoting, taking a dark satisfaction in her work. "To an extent."

Shinji's hands shook; only the faint gleam of the scarlet tinged straight razor in Ayanami's hand kept him from dropping the gun from sheer shock. Suspicion was one thing, but what hope did he have against living, breathing facts standing right in front of him? "Who's blood is that?"

"Aida." Almost a year of knowing Rei had trained Shinji's senses to pick up the tiny fluxuations in her normally icy face that indicated pleasure.

"...why?" Shinji couldn't help but ask.

"The human body cannot endure losing a certain amount of blood, which tends to expel rapidly from the veins once the slight difficulty of the skin is resolv..."

"You know what I mean!" There he was, barking again, Shinji thought to himself, somehow intimate and detached from the same moment.

"I no longer had a use for him." Ayanami's face was damningly consistent, as though discussing the finer points of gardening with a fellow hobbyist. "But I did have a use for his body."

Shinji's eyes widened; if he didn't know better, he could've sworn that Ayanami was referencing the brief, lewd thoughts about the depth of her student-teacher relationship with Kensuke that flashed through his mind at the end of dinner. Horror ripped at his spine, as other possibilities sizzled through his brain...

Almost kindly, Rei interrupted. "The second needed to see."

Ayanami's words violently stoked the dim coals that laid in Shinji's gut; after all of this unnatural intelligence and the layers of mystery, something as familiar as the sudden, monstrous, nearly uncontrollable urge to beat someone to death with their own arm was almost a welcome source of stability to Shinji. The stinging bile of normalcy surged up in his throat and he couldn't keep these strange, larger lips of his from curling back, or his tongue from briefly running over his canines. "Who is-"

There are many kinds of clicks in the world, some with more power than others. Some clicks, like the handle of a door, can bring excitement, warning, or embarrassed races to the bathroom to wash one's hands. Others, like the noise made by the hammer of a gun cocking itself back, instead had the power to instantly dominate a conversation, no matter how unique the circumstances.

"As if..." The worst part, Shinji could not help but think, was how quiet she was. He could handle screaming, cursing, tantrums, hurled furniture, he could even handle breaks, near sobs, the faint hint of tears; but that whisper, old, ruined leather cracking as though the fire of her soul had gone out for the evening, come back to find her husband in bed with the tramp next door, and found out that, somehow, he had gotten custody of the kids? What chance did he have against that? "...you didn't know." The ghost of Asuka's voice continued, "Neither of you move. I haven't decided who I'm going to shoot yet."

"Asuka..." Shinji breathed, hating the minute look of surprise on Ayanami's face. Like she was expecting the red haired policewoman to be a little more dead than she was at the present moment.

"Did you know, Ikari?"

"Know?"

"Cut the crap, Ikari. Did. You. Know."

"Yes, Ikari." Rei's sense of timing was as terrible as ever. "Tell her."

Shinji breathed for a second. Did he know what? What were they talking about? And inside, something in him squirmed, some knowledge so terrible that he could not bring himself to realize consciously burst out of his mouth. "I suspected." Shinji said, closed his eyes, waited for oblivion...and, after a second, continued. "But I didn't have any proof...or even any evidence. I honestly don't know the specifics. Just...my dad doesn't believe in coincidences, and your mom and my mom being colleagues was too much of one to ignore." Shinji had to take another breath, waiting for the heat, the smoke, the pain.

"And?" That phantom of his friend pressed on.

Shinji resisted the urge to scowl at the faint look of satisfaction on Ayanami's face. "I...I know, I keep things from you sometimes. A lot of the time. And I really am trying to get better with that, but...it's just how my mind works. I suspect lots of things, terrible things, all the time, and the last thing I want to do is hurt someone because of..."

"I said cut the crap." Asuka should've yelled by now, oh why wasn't she yelling...and a terrible possibility opened itself up to Shinji's mind. It wasn't just a choice between shooting himself or shooting Rei, was it? "You've never been above saying something just to observe someone's reaction. Last warning."

"Fine." Shinji took a second to breathe. "That's true sometimes. I've never done it to you, though. If I had anything but a vague suspicion in the back of my head, a shred of solid evidence, the first thing I would've done is tell you, but without that...how could I say something like that based on a crazy hunch? How long have we worked together, Asuka? You know me better than...just about anyone, these days. Do you really think I'd use what I know to hurt you?"

Silence filled the room for tense few seconds until, again, Asuka's scarred croak of a voice managed to speak. "I thought I knew a lot of things, Shinji. I don't anymore. I'm sorry." Click.

"No!" Shinji shouted, lunging at the empty air. Holding his heart, as if he was unsure why it had any right to still be beating, Shinji sat still for a long moment before screwing up the courage to look around. Above, a familiarly unfamiliar ceiling, to the left, the still...but steady breathing of Toji, lacking stubble, and Kensuke, lacking the loss of most of the blood in his body. Fourteen again. And to his right?

"Ow!" Shinji squawked, wide eyed with panic.

"It's just a needle, Third Child." Tsked the winner of 'Best Bedside Manner In A Clandestine Government Organization' a horrible three years running, Ritsuko Akagi. "The Commander's on his way, but you seem to be fi...healthy."

Briefly, Shinji wished he was back at the Mexican standoff from hell. "I...has something happened, Doctor Akagi?"

"Well, Shinji..." Ritsuko's face thawed, slightly, revealing the stress and tension of a woman who hadn't slept in days, "That's what we were hoping you'd be able to tell us."