Disclaimer: I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or any of the things I want to in this world of ours. The only thing created by me on the NGE area is this fanfic series. If you sue, I'll sue back.
"The mission is accomplished and the research material is collected from the Eva's, sir." Ritsuko rushed forward and snatched the file holding the research material from Shinji's hand. She sat down and eagerly started reading through it, drip of drool forming in the corner of her mouth.
"Very good, all of you. You may from now on consider yourselves on leave for the time being. You will be contacted when the leave is over. I believe that Akagi-sensei has something to talk to you about."
"Yes, thank you, commander. As you all know, Shinji has been collecting series of data during your mission in the parallel dimension of the angels. These data will be fabricated by our top computers, the MAGI, and give us the information we need to improve and evolve our Evangelion units using the S2 engines. This will take some time indeed, but for the time being, thank you is all that I can say to you all." They bowed and were dismissed with an incredibly simple question.
"What happened in the dimension, and how the hell did you get out of there?" Shinji then had to draw it up for the curious commander, vice-commander and doctor.
Shinji talked for a good hour and a half due to the repeated requests of details from Ritsuko's side. He finished at last and inhaled deeply.
"Thank you Shinji. We will start the calculations as soon as you have left" Gendo looked down on the thick folder now put on his desktop and sighed. He had always hated reading anything thicker than the newspaper, and here he was now, stuck with a folder twice the size of the Sunday specials and it seemed to snicker at him. Gendo hurried up and dismissed them quickly with a flick of his wrist towards the door.
Back at the apartment buildings, Shinji and Rei waved a quick goodbye at Asuka and then started walking up the stairs. Asuka shot glares that would make an angel cower in fear, but it went unnoticed by the couple halfway up the stairs, however, Rei did feel an uncomfortable feeling between the shoulder blades. Asuka sighed and started walking towards her own shabby apartment, determined on making up a plan to make the couples' female part suffer for, as Asuka thought, "stealing her Shinji-kun" away from her. She patted the Luger in her pocket and cursed when it went off, burning a hole in her pants.
"When did Major Katsuragi say she would be back, Shinji-kun?" Rei sat on the couch, her fists balled up in her lap as always when she sat in that couch.
"I don't know really, she said she'd be working late, so I guess she'll be back the usual time."
Shinji slammed a frying pan down on the table as he realized something.
"Were we really allowed to keep the weapons?" Rei looked to her right on the couch where the weaponry from the fight against the seventeenth angel lay. Rei had the feeling they should need them again.
"I think we'll be requiring these tools of warfare soon enough." Shinji halted for a second as he heard her utter those formal words. She had not done so in a long time. He shrugged it off however, and continued to cook dinner.
The dinner was eaten during silence and later the dishes were cleaned up under a similar silence, the only thing breaking the silence while they washed the dishes were the phone-call from NERV, telling them that the Eva's would be ready within a month.
A tear rolled down the pale, smooth skin of the half-German girl lying on the dirty old bed in the equally dirty old apartment. Asuka never really made an effort cleaning the place up since she though of I as an impossible task and that Rei would be back there to live there anyway. However, Asuka had started doubting that Rei would ever come back to the filthy hole of an apartment when Rei stayed at the clean, bright and with good company filled apartment of Misato. Asuka wiped the tear off her chin and sat up. She decided to take the actions against Shinji's girlfriend up a notch.
Asuka looked at the bottle of penicillin on the counter and then at the parts of the Luger on the table set up for oiling and caretaking. Asuka walked over to the table, sat down and started reassembling the parts, doing it as delicately as possible and oiling the parts she then pressed into place. She used such care as a mother would to a child. Asuka grinned as she snapped the clip into place and aimed at an image of Rei put up on the wall. The shot echoed through the apartment and dust rained down in the corners from the roof as a small hole appeared on the picture, right in between the eyes. Asuka grinned and tucked the gun into the holster under her arm and walked out the door, shielded by the shadows of the night.
I get a sense of foreboding as I look out the balcony, Rei-kun." Rei looked up from her book and focused on Shinji, who stood by the glass door to the balcony. Rei stood up and walked over next to him. She could do nothing but agree. The moon was big and bright, the clouds shining cold by the moons beams behind them. No stars were visible behind the clouds, and the night was quiet. Too quiet. They shrugged it off and walked over to the couch to read side by side before bedtime. Misato were back and out cold in her room. She had resumed her drinking the moment she got to the refrigerator after getting home from work. Neither of them noticed the shadow slipping in under their balcony, pulling out a rope with a hook, aiming for the balcony rail.
Neither Shinji nor Rei noticed the hook flying up towards the handrail of the balcony. Nor did they notice it missing its target, swoop back down and hitting the thrower on the head. The muffled cry in pain also went unnoticed, and so did the clanking of metal against metal as the hook finally attached to the rail. The shadow started moving up the rope.
Shinji yawned and was surprised to see Rei do the same.
"I think it's time to go to bed, Rei-kun." Rei nodded a bit drowsily and followed Shinji as he stood up and started walking towards the bathroom. They both entered and the apartment once again was covered with silence save for the gritting of teeth and the nigh inaudible sound of the balcony door sliding open.
The rattle of the pills in the jar sounded far too high for Asuka's taste as she dripped a pair of each into the food and candy in the refrigerator. But it soon stopped as the last pills found their way into the last digestible thing in the refrigerator. The pills plopped down into the half-eaten fast-food package and Asuka put the empty pill bottle in her pants pocket. She started to get friendly with the dark, and her eyes adjusted just fine. She pulled up the Luger and turned the laser-sight on.
The red dot played over the room, temporarily staying a few extra seconds on particular things.
She moved swiftly across the apartment and pushed the bathroom door open just a notch. Just so that she got the gun barrel inside with a clear shot. The dot focused at the back of Rei's head, and it lingered there, while a delicate finger squeezed the trigger further and further in, the hammer following, ready to punch down on the cocked bullet. The hammer retracted once more, before punching down. The shot echoed, ear-shattering in the small bathroom. The empty shell sounded like a little bell as it fell to the floor, smoking. Blood and bits of bone splattered over the bathroom mirror, where a spider-web of cracks appeared around the small hole in the middle. A scream echoed shortly after, and Asuka dropped the gun, letting it clatter on the floor.
Alright, I thought I should start with the A/N (Author's Notes) now. First of all: sorry for the pause between the updates, I am using a laptop with a wireless internet connection that always goes haywire as soon as I'm about to make something important. Secondly, I thought I should start off with some of the questions and answers I've received. First of all I want to say that I do know that Rei can swim and Shinji can't, but I made it the other way around because of the romance factor (Shinji helping Rei to learn something, plus, they get to be close) and I think this will have some significance later, I'm not sure. Anyway, more A/N is coming up, with more answers hopefully.