Asuka opened her eyes as the plane touched down. She believed she had been sleeping, but it was hard to tell. She thought she could smell the scent of boiling flesh, but she knew that this was something in her mind. There was no boiling flesh. There was no bursting organs, bubbling viscera, shrieking and sobbing and screaming. There was just the plane, the runway, and her. She turned and looked at Kaji, who hadn't woken up despite the bump of the landing gear against the tarmac. A thin fuzz of drool had collected at the corner of his mouth, which reminded her to check her cheek. Sure as sure, she had drooled a bit as she slept. It was nice to have the foibles of others as a reminder.

It was nice that the most she could worry about at the moment was a bit of errant saliva. She rubbed her eyes and looked out of the window. Tokyo in the winter was dreary, and white, and no less busy than it was at any other time of year. At least, she assumed it was no less busy. Looking at the sheer number of aircraft parked at the terminal, she had to assume that was the case. Busy, busy, busy.

It made sense, of course, considering that Tokyo was home to the Nerv Pact's headquarters. It was the first stop away from mainland Asia, the last stop on the way in, and currently swelling under a refugee population that the Japanese government was discreetly, politely, and insistently trying to foist off onto other countries, Australia and the United States especially. That was a rather dunderheaded policy to her, but what did she know? She was just a Pilot. And despite her parentage, she wasn't Japanese. Not even remotely. What did it matter her opinions on Japanese national decisions?

Though, technically, she wasn't even American, despite being a citizen. She was Asuka, and she Piloted the Mark Two, and that was that. She was a country unto herself. What business did she have telling other countries what they should do with their domestic and foreign policies?

Still, she could call it like she saw it. And ever so occasionally, she could see the pieces and make a deduction. A decision with an outcome that would more often than not be correct, or at least manageable. Half of the time, it wasn't so much about choosing the correct course as it was choosing the workable course. The one with the least consequences, most benefits, and the most realistic scheme of implementation. She turned and jabbed Kaji in the cheek with her thumb. He squirmed awake, punching the chair in front of him and earning a small curse of frustration from its occupant. He assessed his surroundings, turned, and stared at Asuka.

"What do you think about the refugee situation?" she asked.

"…It's not too late to sedate you," he said quickly.

"We're pulling up to the gate."

"My point still stands." He continued to stare at her, and she stared back. "What about what refugee situation?"

"The refugee population in Japan."

"I have…no idea how to…why are you asking?"

"I was thinking about it," she said, as the pilot began speaking over the intercom. "Don't worry about it."

"Oh, thank you for setting my mind at ease," Kaji murmured. Eventually, the lights came up, and the passengers began to stand and exit. Kaji led Asuka down the aisle, gave his polite thanks to the flight crew, and headed on into the terminal. Asuka followed closely at pace, matching his long-legged stride with short, sharp, measured steps of her own. They passed some of the slower passengers, and entered the busy throng of the airport. They got the number of their flight's baggage carousel, and continued on their way.

As they walked, Asuka's head began to throb. There was too many people. Too many people, too many voices. The wonder of it had begun to leave in Turkey, had become dull and faded in the United States, and now it was simply oppressive. It was far too oppressive, and she found herself pushing closer and closer to Kaji until she bumped into him with a gasp. He turned and looked at her.

"Are you okay?" he asked. She swallowed, and a little glassy-eyed, nodded. He smiled, a genuine and honest smile. "Not too much longer, okay?"

"Fine," she agreed, nodding a bit more firmly. She was out of her element. It scared her.

They retrieved their bags without too much fuss, and headed to the departure area. It was choked with civilian vehicles, small and large buses, taxis, so many vehicles. So many models, so many colors, so many voices. She trembled from the sensory overload.

After a few seconds on the sidewalk, Kaji said, "Oh, that's us." She followed his dismissive gesture, and she saw a woman roughly Kaji's age standing in front of a blue four-door and holding a homemade sign high over her head. On it, in black ink on a crisp, white background, were the characters for BAKA. In order to ensure there was no misunderstanding, Romanji characters spelled out the word in English just below. The woman was quite pretty, but her expression was bland and empty. Maybe even a little threatening.

Kaji dragged his suitcase along behind him. "Hello, Misato," he said, smiling.

"Kaji," the woman replied, her tone both sultry and icy at the same time. It produced a remarkable effect. "Hi. Long time, no see. No calls. Or letters. Not even a carrier pigeon."

"It is…so nice to see you."

"Uh-huh."

"Really."

"Yeah."

"…No hard feelings."

"Oh, no. None at all. Forgiven and forgotten." As she spoke, she began to tear the sign in half, punctuating her words. Asuka studied the woman, then glanced back at Kaji. She coughed. Misato turned her eyes to the girl, and smiled. It was like one person had left and another arrived, the change was so stark. "You must be Asuka. I'm Misato Katsuragi, it's a pleasure to meet you." She bowed.

For a moment, Asuka's right hand jerked, the automatic desire to extend her hand and offer a handshake. The tremble passed, and she reciprocated the bow. "Thank you. It's nice to meet you, too." She wished that could sound more convincing. It didn't.

The woman picked up on it, and was surprisingly gracious. More to the point, she seemed to understand part of the discomfort. "You sound exhausted. You must have the worst jet lag of all time." She turned to Kaji. "Did you guys have any stops between here and Russia?"

"None longer than changing one flight for another."

Misato shook her head. "Why not travel by way of India? Wouldn't that have been quicker?"

"It would have, which is why I bought tickets to Bombay," Kaji said, circling to the car's trunk. "And that's where anyone following us would go."

"Of course. You deliberately took the long way. The ways in which the Great Ryoji Kaji's mind works," Misato said, unlocking the trunk.

"It wasn't entirely his idea," Asuka said. "The exit route we took was one of five preplanned ones. I picked it, in the end."

"And who were you supposed to be hiding from?" Misato asked, wearily opening the driver side door as Kaji opened a rear passenger door for Asuka. "The KGB?"

"Who knows?" Kaji said. "I make no assumptions."

"So why not travel by military transport?" Misato insisted. Kaji gave her a withering look.

"This was already discussed. There was an entire ops plan. Do you not remember the ops plan? The reason for why this route was picked, as well as this method of travel? My understanding was that everyone involved in the key points of this journey had been briefed."

"I'll be frank: I saw your name as one of the key planners, and I just stopped reading." Kaji seemed lost between words at that.

"Really? Are you serious?" he managed.

Misato gave him a chilling look. "Of course not. Can't you tell I'm joking?"

About ten minutes into the drive, Kaji had given up being polite, and the conversation between him and Misato had turned into a low-level simmering brew of verbal jabs. For the most part, Asuka tuned them out, watching the dusted city outside. In time, the cityscape faded as she picked through the inner recesses of her brain.

Misato Katsuragi. She knew the name: that would be the Ops Director for the Mark One. One of the most prestigious positions in the Evangelion community, and probably one of the most dead-end ones as well. It was a strange post of responsibility: to be in charge of the field operations of the most powerful Eva ever constructed…and the only one that had never been deployed. Quite the contradiction.

Asuka tried to remember if there was a military commission in there. Was there? Maybe. Probably. Most likely. Asuka made a mental note to ask when she had the chance. All the Evangelion units fell under the militaries of their host nations, but that didn't mean everyone connected to those units were military personnel. Kaji, for instance, had never served in uniform in his life, and he held a relatively high position in the American Nerv community.

It was all simply a matter of finding where she fit into things. At the end of the day, she was still a Pilot, there was still an organization, and she had her place in it. The faces were different, though. The location brought with it a new culture, a new way of doing things, new this, new that. She was overwhelmed with the new. She bumped her head quietly against the window, feeling the cold of the glass seep through her skin. Thinking about the new reminded her of the old. How she had made it her own. How it had gone wrong on That Day.

And how it had ended afterward. She opened her eyes, suppressing a shudder. She was smart enough to know what had happened in that week. What they had been trying to do, trying to accomplish. She knew how these things worked, and adults could be hamfisted in their temper-tantrums. And that's all it had been: a temper-tantrum, with her as the target. A tantrum that involved sensory deprivation, repeated questions in the dark, and a massive violation of her rights as an American citizen and an Evangelion Pilot, but what could be done about that? There was nothing to do. She had accepted it when it started, accepted it in the midst of the process, and still accepted it now. She had accepted it even before she had made the decision that had exiled her from the March.

Hated it, but accepted it. It was the nature of things. Acceptance was the best way she could think of to deal with it. She turned back towards the front of the car. Misato had asked her a question.

"I'm sorry?"

"Are you hungry?" Misato asked agian. "I haven't eaten, and I bet you need some food."

"It would be nice," she agreed, though she wanted to sleep more than eat.

"How about some tempura? Something Japanese? Oh, better yet, steaks! I bet you could do with a steak after being out on the front for so long."

"That…does sound tempting," Asuka said.

"I'm sure Kaji would love to treat us to steaks, wouldn't you?" Misato asked, which set off a new round tense conversation. Asuka closed her eyes, tuning it out yet again, but allowing the voices to lull her into a sense of calm. Very soon, she had drifted into a light but restful sleep. She didn't dream. This was good.

The room stank of cigarettes and coffee. Smoke drifted and pooled against the ceiling tiles, staining them yellow. There was the whirring, rolling click of a film projector in the back, and numbers were counting down on the large screen, jerky and uncertain. They completed their countdown, and the image was that of black, roiling clouds, illuminated by light sources somewhere off camera. There was a strange, still quality to the image.

"Was this camera automated?" a woman asked.

"It was mounted on a forward observation vehicle," came the reply. The image panned to the right, and the light sources were finally revealed. There was something burning in the distant, revealing the sharp outlines of humanoid, somewhat humanoid, and decidedly-not humanoid shapes clashing against each other. They were shadow puppets, playing out a Punch-and-Judy sideshow of horrors. The shadows tore into each other, and even as grainy as the image was, there was no mistaking the violence in the distance. The camera zoomed, but it revealed nothing, unable to focus on the gory battle. Unable to provide more than the black outline as stark white beams glittered in the sky, and something burned so bright. So bright.

"Here," someone said, and the camera zoomed back and panned to the left. A massive, red leg cut into the image, and then another. On the faded film, the red was muted into something coppery, like dried blood. With impressive speed, the giant pushed further into the frame, pushing towards the battle. The camera continued to pan, covering the giant's hunched back and massive, shoulder pylons.

The time ticked down as the giant surveyed the battle. A minute. Then two. Then five. It was a small eternity on the screen, in the midst of a battle, and there was something to be said about the patience displayed. Or perhaps it wasn't patience. Perhaps it was hesitance.

At five minutes and forty-one seconds, the giant raised its hands, holding them towards the distant battle. Little sparks began to appear in front of it, so small that they could be mistaken for flaws in the film. Then, the sparks became actual, defined bolts of light, defying physics and logic as they drifted slowly and ponderously in the direction of the battle. And then, there was light.

For a brief, awe-inspiring second, the frame was just white, the barely perceived outline of the giant a black smudge in the center of it. The next couple of frames were gray and blue, the film having been unable to adequately record the bright light and being irreparably damaged under the intense exposure. When clear images finally returned, the world was slowly but surely spinning, end over end, as the ground and the sky exchanged places in an almost polite manner. Then, the image cut with unnerving suddenness.

The entire film had been silent, save for the few comments and the rhythmic click of the projector. Without prompting, the lights came on. The occupants of the room turned towards each other as the technician fiddled with the projector in the back. The blond-haired woman present flicked some ash off of her cigarette. "I've seen it, and I still don't believe it," she said. "How powerful was the blast?"

"Any instruments trained on the area were unable to register it. It was that powerful," the oldest of the two men said.

"Good God."

"God had nothing to do with it," the younger man said, flicking his thumb against his forefinger in an agitated manner. "I predicted that the AT-field capabilities of the older Evas would far exceed anything humanity could conceive of."

"That just sounds like a boast," the woman teased.

"It was. That doesn't make it inaccurate," Gendo Ikari replied. The flicking stopped. "With that imagery, it's going to be harder than ever to prevent them from allowing the Mark One on the field. And with the Mark One finally deployed, and the Mark Two working in support, we might…we might…be able to begin an expedition to the heart of the Zone."

"That's getting ahead of yourself," the older man warned.

"That's the point of the entire project, and it's what we've waited years for," Gendo retorted. "And now we have the chance. Two of the strongest Evangelions in the world, in Japan, at the same time. And my contacts in the SDF have hinted that there may be a request for assistance from the Chinese."

"For what?"

"Who knows? Perhaps they need to scale back their forces, or redeploy them. Perhaps another corridor is forming, or one of their First Generational Pilots has become unreliable or questionable: I could see that happening with Li Qinqin, it's why they have her on the Gobi March. Whichever reason comes, we must be ready to make the most of that opportunity."

"Which means we need to speed up the timetable on the drones," Ritsuko Akagi noted, stubbing her cigarette and running a finger through her hair. "I'm going to be busy."

"Yes, you will be," Gendo agreed, without sympathy. She rolled her eyes and stood.

"I see how it is. Fine. I'll get some projections for you on how much we'll need to devote to get them up and running on time. Expect them tomorrow at noon."

"That'll be fine." Akagi knew she was dismissed.

When she had left, the technician following behind her, the older man turned towards Gendo, leaning towards him in a conspiratorial manner. "There were Evas at the end of that blast," Kozo Fuyutsuki said.

"Yes."

"How many?"

"The final tally: five Greater Angels, eight Great Angels, assorted lesser entities numbering perhaps…fifty…and seven Second Generation Evas, thirteen Third Generation Evas, and their Pilots, and thirty-seven soldiers in the area for the forward observation unit." Gendo removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, still strained from studying the screen in the dark. "The Evas were all from the Second Frontier Guards Unit, the observers were from the attached 113th Rifles Guard. The report made a point of saying that."

"All Soviet casualties."

"Oh, yes," Gendo said. "All Soviets."

"What exactly happened?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"It seems a combination of bad decisions," Gendo explained. "The Soviets detected this choir early, but only dispatched four Third Gens to deal with it. I have no idea why that decision was made, and my contacts in their military are just as bewildered. When they encountered greater numbers than expected, the last remaining one was able to send a request for assistance, which was answered by no less than thirty Evas, and it was still a close fought match."

"When did they finally deploy the Mark Two?"

"They never did deploy the Mark Two: Pilot Soryu deployed herself. Apparently destroyed a good portion of the Mark Two's berthing bay in the process. The records are garbled, but it seems the Soviets had made a point of refusing to accept the Mark Two's assistance, and the Americans decided to let them choke on it. And refused to deploy even when it was clear that it was needed."

"So Soryu took matters into her own hands?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"Yes. What you don't see on that film are the Evas that got away: she had been broadcasting a general retreat for the ten minutes prior."

"That's why she waited…she was waiting for them to clear the area."

"And when they were unable to, she made a choice. And a lot of people are dead because of that. Fifty-seven. And that's not counting the injuries."

"Injuries?"

"The Soviets only released fatalities, though I can make a conservative guess that maybe…one hundred? Two hundred? Between people blinded from looking at the AT Field discharge to injuries from the blowback, as well as those hurt when Soryu broke out of the berth…well, it's quite the tally."

"You keep saying 'appears.' It 'appears' that the Americans did this, and it 'seems' the Soviets did that."

"You know as well as I do that we have to piece this stuff together. The actual orders are still sealed and classified, and a good portion of the transcripts that have been released are heavily edited. At the source."

"Someone is trying to cover themselves," Fuyutsuki noted, lighting a cigarette himself.

"Two someones at least. There were poor command decisions made on the Soviet end, and a very clear decision made by the Americans to exacerbate that decision. I'd wager that the command teams on site made stupid decisions for whatever reasons, and that they are pointing their fingers at Asuka together to try and avoid the chop from up above."

"It bothers me that, after a long history of relying on the Mark Two to clean up their messes, they suddenly both decide that this would be the day it would stay home." He pulled at his lip. "Are there any other American Evas at Ural Central Post?"

"No. Only the Mark Two, and that was a big diplomatic concession. The Soviets don't like foreign military missions in their territory, even though it currently contains the Zone of Seclusion," Gendo said. "National pride and all that."

"Is it true, what they're saying? About the Mark Five?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"It'll be true when it happens, but I'm inclined to think that it will."

"…You're hiding something."

"You'll have to be specific."

"You know something or other about what happened at Ural Central Post."

"I have…a suspicion," Gendo ventured.

"Well, out with it," Fuyutsuki said, gently. Gendo took one of the older man's expensive cigarettes as toll.

"I think it might have to do with a fellow named Kihl."

"I don't know that name."

"Lorenz Kihl?"

"…The 'Lorenz' does ring a bell. Oh, wait…that big fellow, the German? At the conference in…was it '82?"

"That would be him," Gendo confirmed.

"You think he had a hand in this? Somehow?"

"It's possible. It doesn't exactly have his fingerprints on it, but the deployment of the Mark Five is too neat a coincidence. Either he engineered circumstances, or he simply knows how to take advantage of a situation."

"And how would a man like him see deploying a strategic asset as 'advantageous?'" Gendo gave Fuyutsuki a knowing look, and the older man nodded. "Oh. I see. So, now it's a race."

"It would appear so. And we haven't even left the gate yet. It's irrelevant, I think…between having the Mark One, the Source, and the weapons technology we have, catching up will be child's play."

"Don't be overconfident," Fuyutsuki warned.

"Me? Never," Gendo replied, looking at the blank screen.

Notes from GobHobblin: Passive voice is the most infuriating, evil creation of the English language. I have to fight really hard to excise it from the larger body of the text, though I tend to leave it in dialogue (because, realistically, very few people will realize when they're speaking in passive voice, and there are even fewer who would actually care about it). Despite that, it irritates me so much whenever I see it in text.