"Stop squirming." Misato said in an exasperated voice.

"You're performing surgery on me and you gave me aspirin for painkillers. I think I'm entitled to a little squirming."

"Okay, first these are just a few stitches NOT surgery. Second, judging from some of these scars, It looks like this is not the first time you've been through this. At least I promise to do a better job than whoever botched this one here on your side." she said while pointing at a particularly messy scar on his right side just above his waist. She smiled at Shinji's embarrassed grumbling. Then she thought what kind of situation would have forced him to give himself stitches, making the smile disappear. She decided to change the topic "Did you know I was a corpsman when I enlisted?"

"Yes."

There was a short pause in the conversation then, during which, the only sound came from Misato as she worked her needle on Shinji's shoulder. Shinji's honest answer had caught her off-guard. She let out a tired sigh and tried, but failed to keep a note of anxiety from her voice.

"Really? And what exactly do you know?"

This time, it was Shinji's turn to sigh, he wasn't completely sure how she'd take this. But it was not worth keeping from her and he wanted to be honest with her. "You were a corpsman for fifteen months, until your sergeant got your squad caught in an ambush and a bullet through his head for his efforts. Your corporal broke down, and your whole squad would have been wiped out had you not taken command. You managed to turn the tables on your ambushers through your leadership and got your squad to safety with just that one casualty and two wounded. A month later you were promoted to sergeant and given command of your own squad."

"How do you know all that?" There was tension in her voice, her vocal chords sounded as if they were struggling against something and her shoulders shuddered ever so slightly.

"Your military records are public enough, that practically anyone can walk in the ministry of defense and ask for a copy. I had a much harder time finding out anything before your time at university. Every time I tried I hit a blank wall. Your past is is pretty well guardAAAH!"

"So you've been what; stalking me?" Misato said, there still was anger in her voice. But underlying that, there was a small sense of relief. He hadn't been able to discover anything about her teenage years, that part of her past was still hers alone. She cut the thread on the last stitch with a sense of finality that seemed to extend to the conversation itself.

"I prefer to think of it as being thorough." He said through gritted teeth. "Katsuragi-san, you were the only link I had to Nerv. I needed to know what sort of people I'd be getting involved with. Besides you did send me a photo of yourself showing off your cleavage."

"I did do that." She said as she started dabbing the stitches with disinfectant. "In my defense all I had to go by was an old picture of a 14 year old you. And you looked a lot more teasable back then. A lot more awkward and shy. There doesn't seem to be much of that boy left now."

"You'd be surprised."

Misato wasn't sure how to reply to that comment, so she ignored it "Well I'm done here." She said as she put away the first aid kid. "We'll need to come up with some story to explain you staying at home and away from Nerv and college tomorrow."

" I think it's best if we keep it simple and boring. Let's just tell them I'm hungover."

Misato made an unpleasant face, as if she'd unexpectedly bit on something sour. "I'm not too fond of using that as an excuse. Once you tell that, people will start spreading rumours about how Shinji Ikari is a drunken idiot."

"Precisely." he said with a conspiratorial gleam in his eyes.

A few days later Shinji visited a particular section of the Geofront Misato had directed him to.

"Mister Fox, may I have a moment of your time?"

The elderly black gentleman looked up from his workstation, with a bemused expression. "Well now, that's a surprise, usually most everyone calls me Fokusu-san, it's been years since I've heard anyone calling me Fox, let alone mister."

"I thought you'd appreciate it"

"And you were right, now what can I do for you Ikari-san?"

"Actually, I'm in the market for very specific gear. And I understand you're a man who knows how to get things?"

There was a pause as the elderly man eyes seemed for a moment lost in recollection. "There was a time," he said his stare still a thousand yards away, "where my job was not only to get things, but design and make sure they worked properly. Now, those days ended some years ago, after I was informed by Fuyutsuki-san my engineering services were no longer required. Not in so many words mind you." He turned his gaze upon the young man before him, focused on the here and now once more. "They even tried to make it sound like a promotion. Chief custodian of blueprints, designs and prototype models. What I soon discovered it really meant was that I was made the janitor of every single discarded and obsolete design ever made for Nerv. I'm the chief of a department with a total staff of one."

"And yet, you're still here?"

"I did sign a rather draconian non-disclosure agreement Ikari-san. Nerv likes to keep any and all information related to the evangelions pretty close to the chest." He let the silence hang on for a second before resuming in a more cheerful tone. "Now what is it you're looking for Ikari-san?"

"Back in the day we had all manner of teams working on all kinds of different designs for Nerv. Amazing work of engineering, not just the Evas, the geofront itself. We run into all sort of problems, not the least of which was transport to and from the surface. I helped design a couple of the conveyer systems myself. Of course many of those designs concerned the pilots as well. Ah, here it is."

They'd stopped before a large metal cupboard. Fox hit a specific corner on one of the drawers while pulling until it finally slid out.

"So one of those teams was tasked with designing the pilots' plugsuit with minimal instructions. The only thing they were told was to include a number of electrodes for medical monitoring. So they focused on safety. Triple kevlar weave, under a special kinetic absorbing polymer prototype and a nomex outer layer, the suit is tear, fire, and even bulletproof. Of course no one bothered to tell them how the pilot's plug would be filled with shock-absorbing LCL, which made the whole suit over-engineered."

Shinji had a good look at the suit of body-armour. Sliding his fingers over the smooth material. "Doesn't seem like such a bad idea to me, giving the pilots an extra layer of protection."

"True, but command thought the 35 million yen it costs could be better spent somewhere else. Besides, even I had my reservations that this suit would help much against anything able to hurt the pilot through the eva's armour-plating and the LCL . Now Ikari-san may I know what your interest in an obsolete piece of equipment, is?"

"You've heard of spelunking, Mr. Fox? Cave diving?"

"Spelunking, really?" said the older man in amused tones but worried tones. "Ikari-san, you're one of the three most important people in the planet, an Eva pilot. Your job description is already dangerous enough. Why would you knowingly place yourself in even more danger?"

"Mr. Fox;" there was a pause as he gathered his thoughts, "do you have any idea what it feels like to stand before a creature capable of destroying an entire tank platoon by itself without breaking a sweat?"

"Can't say I do."

"And until a few days ago I didn't either, but I can assure you, it was terrifying. I think the only thing that kept me from shutting down from fear back then was, paradoxically, how utterly terrified I was, if that makes any sense. It's not a situation I want a repeat of. So I thought that by placing myself in situations of controlled danger, I could cope better with a real one. That is, by giving myself little scares, I can better handle a big one."

"That seems, reasonable enough." answered Fox, obviously still worried and not entirely convinced but unwilling to press the issue.

"However Mr. Fox, I'd appreciate if you didn't tell command about these activities or the equipment I'm borrowing for…"

"Ikari-san, all of what you see here was designed and made for the pilots to use. You're a pilot, so as far as I'm concerned, you can use it however you want."

"Penguin one, this is shadow one, over"

"Loud and clear shadow." Misato spoke into the headphones' microphone from her car's seat. "I still don't understand why I agreed to do this."

"Because when I finally do something monumentally stupid, you'll want to be the first one to say 'I told you so'?"

"Partly, the other reason is to save your sorry ass, and how is this not monumentally stupid already?"

"This isn't stupid, just a bit crazy."

"Breaking into a triad base of operations full of their most cutthroat members. I'd say that was more than just a bit crazy." Misato's tone switched them from playful banter to a more concerned serious one. "Shi...adow one are you sure? I don't think this is a…"

"I need to test the new equipment, and I need to start gathering info on the upper echelons of the Tokyo-3 mob. As for the base of operations part. This is a relatively minor brothel and the triad members who run it are not high enough up the ladder, but not so low as to not know anything. It shouldn't be too heavily guarded."

"I know, we've gone through that already, but you know, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy."

"I know, I promise I'll abort if I see things might go south."

"Just try not to stop any bullets with your face, it doesn't usually work."

From his vantage point on the roof of the neighbouring building, overlooking his objective, Shinji packed away the binoculars with which he'd been monitoring the activity on the 'Pink Fortune Cookie'. Placing them in the small pouch attached to the small of his back on the survival suit. Committing to memory the position of the windows next to and overlooking any fire escapes, and those of the buildings nearby.

"I know," he said as he walked away from the roof's edge, "commencing operation, shadow one out."

In an almost inaudible whisper Misato said by way of goodbye "please be safe."

Shinji turned around and sprinted with all his might towards the edge of the roof, throwing himself off it. He landed on top of the building opposite the one he was on. Crossing the 6 meter divide to the slightly lower building with a wide margin to spare. A few seconds of lockpicking later he entered the building itself.

Traversing the building's corridors proved remarkably easy, the few guards that were posted in the different floors were either, half drunk, distracted with other concerns, or bored out of their minds and not paying attention. He made it all the way to the administrative office without so much as a mouse squeak. The door was locked, but that didn't stop him for more than a few seconds. He went inside.

"Penguin one, I'm in, I'll start looking for evidence."

"Try looking for any false floors or hidden drawers, that's where I'd hide any incriminating bookkeeping."

"True, but you're not an overconfident idiot working for the triads." Shinji said while looking at a large file cabinet, with one of its drawers half open. A quick look at the folders made it clear, that whoever worked in the office wasn't worried about secrecy in the least. The folders were marked with labels like 'hitjobs', 'meth', 'coke'. One of the labels had 'bitches' written in red ink. Somehow Shinji doubted it involved dogs.

He grumbled into his communicator, while he took pictures of the documents with a small low light camera. He spoke to Misato, more than a bit annoyed at the present turn of events. "This is almost disappointing and infuriating. I know the mob has this city's police in its collective pocket. But for them to be this blatant about it!"

"Yeah, I didn't expect it to be this easy either. They probably think they're untouchable" replied Misato.

"Which raises the question, what or who makes them feel so secure?" Shinji examined more of the folders in the file cabinet. There was something strange about the dates on some of the labels. "Hmmm, Penguin one, can you tell me how long has this place been operating under its current ownership?"

"Not really, let me check the police reports." The sound of rapid typing came through Shinji's ear-piece while Misato used her Nerv credentials to access the police reports from a mobile data connection. "Six years, why?"

"Some of these folders have dates going back as far as 10 years. Whoever their bean counter is. He's been doing their numbers for a very long time. Which means they trust him."

"What do you mean?"

"Find the accountant, follow the money, hit them where it hurts them the most."

"Smart, and dangerous, how do you propose to do that though?"

"For now, I'll just focus on getting as much of their bookkeeping as I can, I'll try to figure out his identity later."

There was a sigh of relief from Misato, and Shinji smiled under his skimask. She'd obviously feared that he might want to take on the whole building by himself. Not that she was entirely wrong, but she didn't need to know that.

Footsteps on the corridor warned him that company was incoming, he scrambled to find a hiding place. The office was too small and bare. Nothing he could hide in or behind. He looked at the open window and through it, there was no fire escape on this side of the building, no gutter pipe he could grab either. He looked up, and measured the distance, if he jumped up with all he had from the window ledge, he should be able to grab hold of the one on top of him.

He flexed his knees and jumped; his right hand barely managing to catch the ledge of the window right above the office he'd just left. He steadied himself and forced his body to hang from that awkward position, completely immobile, soon he became a barely visible lump in the building wall, hidden by the shadows.

The open window carried the sounds from the office directly towards him. Three men, judging from the sound of their footsteps had entered the room. One of them talking in a rather satisfied and loud voice, telling some amusing anecdote. "So anyways, he keeps crying and begging us to stop, that it was all his boss' idea, that he was just doing what they told him to, and that he won't ever even think of doing it again. So of course we hit some more."

"Hadn't you already broken most of his teeth already?" Asked a second voice.

"Which is why the whiny asshole should have known better than lying to us. It was his boss who told us the bastard was trying to deal without his say so, in our territory no less. So when he said he was just doing what they told him. Well I couldn't stand that bitch lying straight to my face."

"He really couldn't." said a soft-spoken third voice. "So by the time he's finished with the second beating, the guy's face looks like a bloody raisin and he's barely breathing. So we play the good samaritan and drop him off at the hospital. Literally drop him."

"You have to learn better self-control Wen."

"It wasn't my fault, that goddamn pastrami-brain was just begging to be hit. He had one of those faces, the kind that makes you want to punch it until it's inside out." said the first voice, now identified as Wen.

"It's true, he did."

"And from what you tell me, that's exactly what you did." said the second voice. "Point is, you can't go around giving in to your impulses like that all the time. You need to be more subtle." There was the sound of a chair being dragged and papers being handled. "You don't need to punch someone in the face to make him fear you. Look at Bei Fong, that guy would have made your idiot crap his pants before he even touched him."

"Well, Bei Fong, creeps even me out."

"And me. But he wasn't always like that, 15 years ago he was mugging wallets at gunpoint and not being very good at it."

"No shit, how did he change so much?"

"Had something to do with the guy he ran around with, they'd known each other for years. They were as tight as a jap and a chinese could be in this town. Best friends for ever, bros for life and all that crap. Well his bro got into some ugly business. Some kind of double murder, the thing made waves and upset some people at the top. They wanted both the investigation and him out of the picture. So they asked him to take care of it, quietly. After that, he became an ice cold bastard."

"Who was the guy?"

"Don't remember. Anyway, get me the shipping invoices. There was trouble with the latest import of fresh produce from the mainland."

"What happened?"

"We expected twenty, but only got fourteen. It's not that they didn't ship them, but that they arrived unusable or dead. And some of the fourteen we got weren't all that good either. The boss got really pissed and said that if that filthy korean thought he was going to pay for the full shipment he was higher than a kite. Specially since he paid twice the usual rate"

"Twice? What was in that shipment?"

"Really, really fresh produce, of the kind that's barely ripe."

"Really? Anything good?"

"Wen you keep finding new ways to gross me out. I didn't know you had those kind of tastes, and frankly I'd have liked to stay ignorant."

Hanging from the wall of the building outside the office, Shinji's muscles strained against the growing rage that threatened to overwhelm him. Every fiber in his body screamed for him to burst into action. The gloating and dismissive tone of the men in the room only made it more difficult to remain calm.

"But yeah, a couple of cute ones. It's actually a pity, I've got a twelve year old niece that's the spitting image of one of those girls. Breaks my heart, really. Ah, here is the invoice. It's quite a bit, if Hyung Sook doesn't pay the boss back the difference there's going to be trouble."

"So, you done?"

"Yes." There was again the sound of a chair scraping against the floor as someone got up and the sound of papers getting picked up and placed in folders, suddenly interrupted by a triumphant cry. "Yuu Chiru! That was it!"

"What?"

"The name of the guy Bei Fong used to hang around with. I remember now. Nasty business. A double homicide of a very high profile couple thirteen years ago. Yeah, Yuu Chiru!"

Then the window exploded inwards and a whirlwind of pure rage descended on them.