It was called a reassignment, but Asuka knew that it was exile.

"They're being foolish if they think the March won't collapse without the Mark Two," she snapped.

"Germany has already agreed to the deployment of the Mark Five," Kaji replied. He had a patient, detached tone to his words, and Asuka bristled under it. She hated being patronized.

"How did they get the Soviets to agree to that?" she asked, scoffing. "There hasn't been a German military mission inside Soviet territory since the end of World War II."

"Extinction tends to focus one's attention sharply."

"Whose? Humanity's, or the Soviet's?"

"Take your pick."

"It didn't focus their attention enough to keep them from making that stupid mistake," Asuka snapped. "I tried to tell them."

"You and everyone else. It doesn't matter: the Russians made their bed. They get to lie in it." Asuka glared at him, and said no more. The entire episode made her feel sick. She had killed a lot of Angels in her short life. She had been good at it. She enjoyed it, though she wouldn't admit that openly.

She had never killed humans before.

"Anyway, stop thinking about it," Kaji sighed. "Japan is nice. It's quite the location these days, what with Nerv Central and all of that."

"You just want to get home. This whole thing is like a joke to you."

"You know better than that."

"I do. That's why I said it." Kaji gave her a narrow glare.

"Just because you have a higher IQ than me, don't you start to assume it means you know me as well as I know you," he warned.

"And why shouldn't I?"

"Because you are a brilliant EVA Pilot with a very narrow focus. I am a handler trained to read people, and it just so happens that my specialty is in knowing, reading, and understanding you. It's safe to say you're in over your head at the moment."

Asuka dropped the point, and turned her glare to the window, looking outside at the Atlantic as it rolled away below her. They sat in First-Class, Pan-American Flight #2241, just an ordinary man and an ordinary girl on their way to the United States. No matter that there was no resemblance between the two, and they spoke more as equals than as a guardian and as a ward. No matter they had started their journey together in Turkey, after meeting at an American military base, though this was certainly not common knowledge to their fellow passengers. They should have been holding up a certain pretense, if just for appearances. At the moment, Asuka simply didn't have the patience for such underhanded dealings. She was jumpy, exhausted, and maybe...just maybe...a little bit frightened. Frightened of the future, frightened with the residual tremors of her ordeals in the past two weeks. Just frightened.

And now, what little patience she did have had just been shot out of the water. When Kaji spoke to her so frankly, it indicated that a particular topic of conversation was done. End of story. That was it. Asuka respected him enough not to continue needling him, but she didn't feel inclined to complain about anything else at the moment. So, she simply sat and seethed in her silence.

That being said, she really did want to talk about…something. Anything. When there was too much silence, she began to hear the voices again. Children's voices, shrieking, screaming. That was her fault, all that noise.

No. It wasn't her fault, but it was, and she hadn't determined whether she wanted to let it go or stew over it. She didn't feel guilty about it, but that didn't mean she wouldn't later. What galled her more was that, somehow, she knew that she was being made the scapegoat for someone's decision, somewhere. Either that entire…day…had been a terrible mistake or a deliberate choice, and someone somewhere somewhen had decided that she would be the one to pay for those events. She didn't know why, but she was smart enough to know that this was the case. It was easy for people to forget that she was just as smart as she said she was.

God in heaven, how that galled her.

She turned, and sharply elbowed Kaji's arm. He yelped loudly and a bit shrilly in the cabin, earning odd looks from a passing stewardess. "What the hell!?" he gasped, rubbing his arm.

"Well? What are you going to do about it?" she snapped. There had been no reason for her action, and she wasn't going to pretend there was. She simply felt the need for someone to suffer along with her.

"Nothing, what can I do about it? Smack you?" He rubbed his arm in protest. "Seriously, what was that about?"

"I'm angry, and you're an easy target," she grumbled.

"Well, don't do it again," he scolded. "We have a long couple of days until we get to Tokyo. I'm not above sedating you for however long it'll take."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Hit me again." Asuka glared at him, but didn't take the challenge. She had already been banished from where she had covered herself in glory, as much as she disliked the place. She had no intention of arriving to her destination of exile as a drooling, incoherent mess.

"Where's the Mark Two, do you think?" she wondered aloud, changing the subject.

"All over the map, aren't you?" Kaji said. "I imagine it's taking the short cut. By plane to the Black Sea, then south through the Bosphorus, towards the Suez. Down, and around the Subcontinent, and…assuming it doesn't get picked up by pirates…all the way to Japan."

"Your attempt at humor irritates me," she said. If the Mark Two was traveling by sea, it would do so at the heart of a massive, military convoy, complete with at least one carrier, one battleship, and a couple of cruisers and destroyers for escort. It would be one of the few times an American fleet would be allowed into the Black Sea, and she was certain that the Soviets were throwing as much red-tape at them as they could, if just to posture for a bit. They were mad, and they wanted to rub it in as much as they could. It would be the latest in a long line of provocations attached to Asuka specifically.

There had been that whole fiasco following That Day, but that in the end that was no more than posturing, too. The Soviets couldn't touch her, or the Mark Two, for long. To do so would invite the enmity of the rest of the world, and possibly instigate a war. That was a bad thing to do, when you're throwing everything in one direction already. She had known, as well, that she would be all right in the end. Still, that was a long week for her. A very long week.

"Stop that," Kaji said, and she glanced at him. He pointed at her arm. She looked down, and realized she had begun digging out pieces of her skin with her nails. It had become her stress habit in the past couple of days. Exasperated, she waved her hand and pressed the 'CALL' button. When the fresh-faced young stewardess answered it, Asuka requested some napkins to staunch the blood. After the white cloth exchanged hands and the wounds were covered, Kaji finally asked, "How long is this going to be a factor?"

"What? What is 'this?'"

"Stop being coy. This self-abuse. It's just picking, but when does it become more?"

"I was a prisoner of the Soviets for five days. How long do you think it's going to be a 'factor?'"

"That's not what you told your debrief team."

"What do you think I was going to tell? I had no interest at the time to start an incident. I wanted to leave."

"Fair enough, but you're putting up a big fuss over leaving."

"That's because this is a punishment, Kaji. You know that!"

"It's not…it's not punishment," he sighed. "We don't see it as that. The Americans do not see this as punishing you."

"Simply because you say something is not a thing, does not make it something else."

"I have no idea what you just said."

"How many Angel attacks occur in Japan during the year?"

"What?"

"Is there a Japanese March? Is there a Corridor that leaves the Zone and bypasses all the other Marches?"

"No, of course not."

"There's nothing for me to fight there, Kaji," Asuka said, pleading. "That's what I do. I'm good at that. I'm a fighter, and I am the best fighter of the First Generation Pilots. You've seen my record, you know that's a fact."

"I do, and I know that there is more to that than simply piloting the Mark Two," Kaji added. "That's also because very few of the First Generation Pilots are on the Marches right now. All the Nerv Countries have been stingy with their resources."

"I don't care about them, I care about me," she stated. "That may sound selfish, but it's a fact: I cannot be neutral about this. Kaji, they've taken my purpose away from me."

"You're being melodramatic."

"Stop patronizing me! How old was I when the Mark Two was deployed to the Urals?"

"You were seven," he said.

"And I'm thirteen now," she pleaded. "I've been fighting the Angels my entire life, as far as I care. And I was good at it. I was the best."

"I know," Kaji agreed. "So good that you didn't have the nightmares the other Pilots have, because you could be assured that your Eva was stronger, or your talent better. You didn't have to worry about your AT Field collapsing, or being boiled alive in your Plug, or being crushed, or ripped to pieces, or—"

"Stop trying to guilt me, you know I had as much a risk of dying as anyone out there."

"You didn't," Kaji said. "But I won't argue the point. And I won't try to change it again. You're right, you've been…pulled out by the roots. And this is going to sound mean, and I'm sorry for that…but deal with it. This is how life works, you take your lumps and you move on. Did you think you'd spend all of your life at Ural Central Post?"

"I figured I would stay there until the job was done," she protested.

"And when would it be done? We don't have the resources to mount an invasion of the Zone. All we can do is stop the freaks that come wandering out. The job will probably never be done, and as it stands, there are other places that need Evas. You can't Pilot forever, so maybe some downtime will be good for you. Let you unwind a bit, help them in Eva development. Train some new blood. That sort of thing."

"Really? Is that what we're doing in Japan?"

"…Well, I mean…."

"You don't know why I've been reassigned, short of 'Go to Japan.' So, don't you go and make assumptions if I'm not allowed to." She grumbled, and crossed her arms. She wanted to elbow him again on principle, but the specter of sedation hung over her head, so she instead tried to go to sleep.

The attempt failed.

The longest stop they enjoyed was in Los Angeles, waiting four hours for their connecting flight to Hawaii, then on to Japan. It was an awkward and uncomfortable time, which seemed to emphasize to Asuka how behind the times she was. That was fair, considering she had just come from a six-year tour-of-duty fighting cosmic horrors in the middle of the still-living corpse of the Worker's Paradise. Being someone as intelligent as she was, however, the failure to keep pace with changes irritated her. She didn't like not knowing things, and as soon as she stepped off the plane, her ignorance was jammed in her face every step.

In truth, though, it started with the school girls.

Kaji was in the restroom, and Asuka was leaning against a wall scowling as a group of the vapid, airy things seemed to materialize out of nowhere around her. They didn't even register her presence, barely acknowledged she was there, but that was small comfort to Asuka. They were thunderous and grating things. They were screechy, noisy, insistent creatures. They were all giggles and rapid chatter and squeaks and squawks and noise upon noise upon noise. She resisted the urge to cover her ears, and simply watched them all. They were dressed in matching school uniforms, with plaid skirts, knee-high socks, black-and-white shoes, and wool shawls. They must have been going to or returning from a class trip. She managed to pick up little snippets of their conversations, things about boys and girls they didn't like, or fashion. Celebrities. Gossip. School. Jibber-jabber-jaw jaw jaw.

Trivial things. Good God, was this what children her age talked about?

As suddenly as they appeared, they were gone, bubbling down the concourse to somewhere else. She stared after them, catching a whiff of perfume in the air. She sniffed at it like a terrier for a moment, then shook her head. She didn't wear perfume, hadn't for as long as she could remember. She wasn't a vain girl, and had never made an effort to be vain. She was particular about her appearance to a point, she supposed: it was all part of responding to problems in proactive manners. When she had her first zit, she took it as a sign to put some effort into skin care. When her hair became frayed, she put effort into maintaining it beyond cutting it. Cutting it would have been too far, the last severed link to a childhood that seemed very far away. Still, she hardly styled it or anything.

All of those girls had different hairstyles. A veritable garden of bobs, curls, perms, colors, ribbons and bows and barrettes. The perfume lingered. Even now, in her mind's eye, Asuka could see the little baubles and bangles they had accrued around their uniforms, watches and bracelets and jewelry. All the little assorted jujus of fashion and 'girliness,' whatever that was. Asuka pondered on that for a moment. She knew nothing about these things.

She didn't care about them, for they had no intrinsic importance to her. They were meaningless things, but it aggravated her that she didn't know about them. Even trivial knowledge was knowledge. It galled her when confronted with something that she knew nothing about. She hated ignorance, and could not abide the ignorant. She did not like being in that crowd.

The next blow to her pride came when Kaji finally exited the rest-room and the two of them walked side-by-side to the food court. They passed a kiosk with what Asuka thought were large calculators, but a second-look told her they were, in fact, phones. Phones with small computers in them.

"What is that?" she demanded, pointing at the Kiosk while looking at Kaji with an expression that could only be described as despairing. He glanced at the kiosk.

"Looks like this year's PDAs," he said. She looked at him uncomprehendingly. "Personal…Data Assistants. They've been around for three years now. Look, I've got one." He pulled one from his coat pocket, and she recoiled as if betrayed.

"You had that all this time and said nothing about it?" she demanded.

"I thought you knew about them."

"No, there's…nothing like that at the Post!"

"Odd. Must be some weird rule the Soviets have in place," Kaji mumbled. "These things are great. I can use it like a phone, a calculator. Check this out, I can send and receive typed messages, I can actually read word documents. This is a pretty slick device." Asuka stared at it like Kaji held a small sun in his hands. He shook his head. "Asuka, you pilot a two-hundred meter tall cyborg, don't tell me this is fascinating to you."

"Look at these things!" she railed, jerking a thumb towards the kiosk. The pudgy salesman manning it moved between her and the PDAs a little protectively, somewhat irked by her outburst. "Do you think that there's anything like that in Russia? This sounds like an amazingly versatile tool."

"Again…cyborg. You Pilot a—"

"Stop using that like it's relevant!" Asuka insisted. It was a small thing, this revelation, but it spoke of technological changes in the world at large. Technological changes that heralded sociological shifts, economic adjustments, a whole galaxy of new things. New things that she knew nothing about. She slumped at the realization, and stared at the floor, feeling defeated.

Kaji waited patiently, studying her miserable posture. "Do you or do you not want me to feed you before we leave?"

"…I'm not hungry."

"I bet you're thirsty. Coffee? American coffee, that's not instant made?"

"…Maybe."

"That's a yes."

"Of course it's a yes," she whined. "Just…let's go." She stormed ahead, feeling uneasy and out-of-place. Shouldn't she be happy to be back home? To be in the States?

No, not really. Home was ten years ago. The world had changed, and she had not.

They stopped at the food court and made an order for coffee. After finding a table, Kaji said he was going to run by a newsstand for a paper. The coffee was paid for, so all she had to do was hold the table. She made a sarcastic comment about her doubt as to whether or not she was was capable of the task or not, but did no more than that. In time, a young waiter stopped by, depositing two cups, some cream, and a small pitcher of milk.

"And where are you traveling, young lady?" the waiter asked, trying to be friendly. Asuka glared at him.

"Do you ask all your customers that, or just the 'young ladies?'"

The waiter jerked in surprise. Something in the tone and the phrasing of the question caught him off guard. The girl in front of him certainly looked young, and her voice sounded young, but the way she was sitting and now the way she talked, he wondered if he was instead speaking to a dwarf or a stunted adult. "I didn't mean to be rude," he stammered. He was flustered that he may have been rude, but he was also irritated on the possibility that this was a girl, and she was being disrespectful. That depended, of course, on whether he was talking to a child…and he wasn't sure at the moment.

"Really? Then how would you ask that question in a way that's not rude?" she demanded.

"I…don't know?"

"Is that a question? Are you asking me if you don't know, or are you telling me?"

"…Would you like a pastry with the coffee?"

"If I wanted a pastry, I would have ordered one at the register, wouldn't I?" It was about that moment when Kaji returned with a newspaper. The waiter looked at him with an expression of open pleading. Asuka turned her gaze away from the man. "The coffee's here," she said. There was really nothing to do about salvaging the situation, so Kaji simply waved the befuddled man away as he sat down. With something very much like gratitude, the waiter scurried off.

"That was rude," Kaji said, but quickly added, "but I know you don't care about that, so can I at least ask you not to terrorize any more adults on the way over? Or…anyone, for that matter?"

"I make no such promises," she said, pouring milk into her cup until the black coffee turned muddy brown, then caramel colored, then a cream color.

"I will extend the parameters for sedation if I need to," Kaji warned, popping the paper open. He just settled his eyes on the first headline when a tiny hand came over the top and snatched the paper away in a frenzy of rustling. He sat motionless, probing his teeth with his tongue as he still gripped the two scraps of newsprint that had once been attached to the front-page.

"Read the sports," she grumbled. "I have catching up to do." For a moment, Kaji did nothing. Then, he reached over, snatched the paper away from Asuka, and tore it up, slowly and deliberately before dropping the pieces on the floor in front of her. She glared at him, and crossed her arms. He crossed his arms in turn, daring her to do something about it. "That was petty," she grumped.

"Here. Read the funny-pages," he said. "Kids your age all read the funnies."

"I will do no such thing," she hissed. Kaji pulled out the comics section, and dangled it in front of her, insistent. Bouncing one of her feet in agitation, she snatched the paper. "I'll read it, but I refuse to like it," she hissed, hunching down behind them. Smiling, Kaji opened the sports page, and the two of them read in silence, killing time before their next flight.

The coffee was quite good.