Hi again! Donderkind here again!
Welcome to Chapter 11 of Unbroken.
Massive thanks to DarknessIncumbent for much encouragement, inspiration, and especially for Beta-reading this chapter. A task, I'm sure, that would have broken many a lesser individual! Thank you, my friend. May your Yebisu never run dry!
Unbroken
Chapter 11
The Unforgiving Minute
"La journée sera rude." Robert-François Damiens, 28 March 1757.
Misato looked at her long-time friend in surprise. "That's it? That was her only condition?"
Ritsuko Akagi drew heavily on her cigarette. "Uh huh."
"And the Commander consented?"
"When I put it to him he didn't even consider it for more than a second. He just said 'Agreed'. You know, in that way he does, and that was it."
"I don't get it."
"Mmm," Ritsuko replied. "I've got to admit that it was the last thing I expected."
The purple haired Major rubbed her face tiredly before reaching out and lifting the mug of murky-looking coffee to her lips and sipping loudly. She grimaced at the flavour before taking another sip and placing the mug back on Ritsuko's desk. "She has been acting weird lately, for her anyway. But this was one thing I never would have suspected. I didn't even think that she liked the boy!"
"Do you suppose that she's becoming unstable, or should I say more unstable?" The blonde Doctor said with a thin smile.
Misato frowned at her friend. "What's with you Rits? She's a teenage kid with some pretty serious issues. I think that we can both remember what that was like. Though as I also remember, no one was making us pilot giant unstable robots against unholy messengers of Global destruction! Why not cut her some slack? Doesn't this at least show that she's capable of some compassion?"
"Little Miss Perfect? Compassionate?" Ritsuko said bitterly. "Just because she does one apparently nice thing, don't go trying to tell me that she's turned into Mother Teresa! That girl is only capable of looking after her own needs. This proves nothing. I'm sure that she's got some ulterior motive for this."
"You might be my friend, Ritsuko, but that doesn't mean I don't think that you've become bitter and angry lately." Misato said. "I don't like you talking about one of my kids that way."
"Sorry, Momma Bear." Ritsuko replied sarcastically.
"Hmph."
"So how did she take the news anyway?" Misato asked after a short silence.
"Not how I expected, actually." Ritsuko said. "I swear that when I told her she went genuinely pale. I thought for a second there that she was actually going to puke! You'd think that I'd told her that we were sending her to her death or something. I'd have thought that someone like her would have welcomed the chance to prove herself with this, especially after the disaster over in America. Instead I thought that she was actually going to refuse until the I told her that if she didn't do it then Shinji would. That seemed to really take the wind out of her sails! She just sat there looking pale and didn't speak or ask a single question for over ten minutes. The only thing that she did say eventually was to ask for the transfer of that girl the Infirmary."
"I don't get it, and it gives me a bad feeling." Misato said with a shiver. "It also seems weird to me that the Commander was so determined to have her do it."
"Well," Ritsuko said. "The Marduk Institute have yet to find the Fourth Child, so it makes sense to have her on board for this mission. If something does go wrong, then we don't lose one of our more valuable assets like Shinji or Rei." The blonde doctor spat out the last word.
The Major scowled and put down her mug with a thump. "Don't take this the wrong way Ritsuko, but fuck you!" Misato swore forcefully. "I'll see you at 0800 in Matsushiro, with Asuka!"
Dr Akagi watched as her friend stormed out of the cramped office with a bitter smile. "You're just pissed off because deep down you know that I'm right." She said to the empty room. Though she herself was also puzzled as to why Gendo had been so adamant that the Second Child perform this activation. She knew enough to realise that the Fourth was ready to be brought on line in such a case.
She lit yet another cigarette and returned to the data for configuring Unit 03's core for the Second Child.
Shinji Ikari couldn't sleep. The confusion and concern that swirled in his mind did not permit him the release of slumber.
It had all started when Misato and Asuka had come back from NERV about two hours earlier, long after the dinner that he had prepared for the three of them had gone cold and the plates had been carefully shrink-wrapped and placed in the fridge.
xxxxx
Finally, after ten pm, the two women of the Katsuragi residence had come through the front door. Misato tiredly announced their arrival with the customary "Tadaima!"
Before Shinji could respond, Asuka had raced through the apartment and into her bedroom, shutting the door forcefully behind her. Shinji had looked at Misato for some kind of explanation. The Major had just shrugged and headed for the fridge to collect a beer.
With a sigh Shinji had taken their meals out of the other fridge, but Misato just shook her head.
"Sorry, Kiddo," She said. "We kinda ate at the NERV cafeteria… Well, I ate. Asuka didn't seem very hungry for some reason."
"What's wrong, Misato? Why is she so upset?" He asked her forlornly.
Misato had rubbed her hand tiredly over her face. "I… I really don't know. Maybe it's the bad news from over in Third Branch in America. She did live there for a couple of years before moving to Germany once the construction of Unit 02 was started, so she was bound to have known a couple of the people there."
"Oh." Said Shinji, feeling somehow ashamed of not knowing that. "Th-That's terrible."
"Yeah…" Misato said pensively. Shinji began to clear the uneaten dinner away again. "Hey," Misato said more brightly. "Could you pack those in a couple of containers to go? Asuka and I are going to be in Matsushiro tomorrow for the activation test of Unit 03, and the cafeteria over there is a real death trap!"
"Sure." Shinji replied quickly spooning the meals into two plastic containers. "Will you be gone all day?" He asked a little forlornly.
"Yeah, and probably overnight as well. I've asked Kaji to stay over. Is that okay?"
"Yeah… that's okay. So, why is Asuka going with you?"
"Silly!" Misato said more brightly. "We can't do an activation test without a pilot!"
"Oh… yeah, I guess not."
"Though I must say that Asuka doesn't seem too thrilled at the prospect." Misato said before reverting to a more teasing tone. "Maybe it's the thought of being away from her lover-boy for a whole night!"
"Wha..?" Shinji said with a blush.
"Come on, I know you two have been getting closer lately!" Misato said teasingly. "Who'd have thought that my quiet little Shinji would win the heart of a fiery European maiden!"
"Misato, not so loud, she might hear you!" Shinji said in a forced whisper. "I-It's not like that! We… We just decided that we like to… ummm… be with each other… I think." His uncertainty showing through plainly in his voice.
The Major relented a little. With the unusual and tragic events that had come to light in the last few days, she felt that she should cut the boy a little slack. "That's okay, Shinji-kun," she said warmly, "All that I ask is that you don't get her pregnant is all!" She wasn't able to resist one last teasing shot.
"Misato!" Shinji hissed in horror, his face a bright red beacon in the small kitchen.
xxxxx
Shinji still squirmed when he remembered the older woman's raucous laughter at her own tasteless joke. Asuka moaned and held him closer in the bed, her pretty sleeping face set with a deep frown.
He had been hugely relieved that she had not seemed to be angry with him, that evening at least. When he had finally plucked up the courage to knock on her door she had slid it open almost immediately. Shinji had been shocked at the pale and drawn appearance of the Second Child that had stood before him at the doorway, dressed in her long pink sleeping t-shirt. She had pulled him into her bedroom and down onto the bed, where she had simply clung to him like a limpet.
Shinji just lay there, uncomfortable, seeing as he was still dressed in his school uniform. After what felt like an age he could feel her breathing become more relaxed and regular. As stealthily as he could he disentangled himself from her arms and sneaked back out to his own room, the one that they usually shared, and had changed into his own sleeping attire. Just as quietly he had crept back to where Asuka lay and gently climbed back into the bed, the girl's sleep apparently undisturbed by his brief absence.
He was so confused. Nothing he could imagine could have had this effect on the bright, invincible Asuka that he thought he knew.
As he looked down at her Asuka's eyes opened. Even in the dim light of the bedroom the blueness of them took his breath away. He was also suddenly very aware of how close the redheaded girl's face was to his own.
"You going to just lie there staring at me all night, Shinji?" She whispered.
"Um…. No." He replied nervously.
"Good." She said with a yawn.
"Asuka?" He asked after several minutes silence.
"Yes?"
"A-Are you okay?"
The girl propped herself up on one elbow and looked at him. "Yeah," she replied sarcastically, "Wonderful. What's not to be okay about?"
"You seem… different… worried or something." Shinji said with a hint of fear in his voice. He still wasn't comfortable talking so directly to the red haired girl.
Asuka had dropped her head, her loose red hair briefly obscuring her pretty face. When she had lifted it again, Shinji was shocked to see that her eyes brimming with tears.
"I'm scared, Shinji." She said simply.
"Scared?" Shinji repeated in confusion. "You're not scared of anything, Asuka. You're the bravest person that I know."
Asuka just let herself give a small, sad smile at the boy. He looked so earnest in the dim light, so caring, so alive. She found it hard to believe he was the same broken boy that she had worked so hard to keep alive back at the old farmhouse in the wilderness. The boy who's happiness had somehow become one of her main reasons for living.
"I'm not brave, Shinji-kun, I'm terrified! Terrified of failing. B-Be strong for me, baka-Shinji..." she said softly, "I don't know how I'm gonna do this."
"I-I don't understand, Asuka." Shinji replied, his face a mask of confusion.
Instead of replying, Asuka leaned forward and kissed the boy on the lips, passionately, desperately. Like she was trying to draw strength from his very soul. Clumsily, Shinji returned the kiss, deeply confused and also worried at the same time by the wetness he could feel on the German girl's cheeks.
Finally Asuka broke off the kiss.
"Be strong for me…" She murmured as she snuggled against his chest. He held the girl awkwardly until she finally settled in his arms and her breathing grew more regular and less hitched and ragged. Eventually the boy also found some peace in sleep, even if it was sleep filled with dreams of dark forebodings.
The night inched its way forward to an unwanted dawn.
Rei Ayanami was worried, and the unfamiliar sensation was making her feel sick to her stomach.
A nameless concern ate at her insides. The blue haired girl was totally unused to such strong feelings and emotions. Initially she was concerned that she was experiencing some form of food poisoning. But the symptoms didn't fit with those that her research told her she should expect from such a condition. Eventually she came to the conclusion that the physical symptoms she was observing in herself were in response to the unfamiliar conflicting worries and urges that were filling her head that morning.
The blue haired girl finally lifted her head from her desk and watched as the other students prepared themselves for the school day.
The members of class 2-A had been dwindling gradually to a core of about a dozen or so students, essentially composed of those who's parents had not as yet packed up and left Tokyo-3 for the safer areas of Japan. This day, though, that number was even smaller. Rei looked around curiously to see who was missing.
The Second Child, of course, was at that moment likely in transit to the test facility at Matsushiro. The activation of Unit 03 was due to take place at approximately 1430 hours that afternoon. So her absence was neither unusual, nor particularly bothersome to Rei.
Class Representative Horaki was present and bustling around the classroom, marshalling the remaining pupils and making sure that there was nothing to reflect badly on the students when the bell rang and the old sensei appeared.
Pilot Ikari was there. The boy sat at his desk looking tired and worried. She knew of his recent attachment to the Second Child. She supposed that she should disapprove of such a coupling. Certainly the Commander appeared to find the idea of his estranged son bonding with the German teen particularly abhorrent. As for Rei herself, she only felt a small pang of something that she felt unable to quantify as yet as a specific emotion. The First Child had been conditioned all of her short life to eschew personal desires and attachments. She did not desire to take the Second's place in Pilot Ikari's affections, yet somewhere deep in her psyche a primordial need for something… other… lay no longer quite so dormant.
Indeed, these feelings both towards the Third Child as well as her recent inexplicable urges to interact with Pilot Soryu had been building within her gradually for the last several weeks or more. She did wonder, with the still unfamiliar pang of guilt, if these were the result of her no longer taking her prescribed medications that Dr Akagi was so adamant that she use on a daily basis.
Rei could not identify exactly when or where the onset of the urge that had seen her flush over a month's supply of the medications down her apartment toilet had come upon her. The desire to be rid of them had been so strong that the girl simply had not the will to refuse it.
It had come to her as she sat alone in her apartment one evening after walking home from NERV following another routine round of Synch tests. Rei had sat on the side of her bed in the dingy apartment, simply awaiting the regular hour when she would rise, take one of the capsules from the zip-lock bag on the counter, and then swallow it down with a small glass of rusty tasting water.
That evening, the hour had long passed for her to take that nightly capsule. Yet Rei still sat on the side of the iron framed bed. She had stared at the bag of red and white pills on the counter top. Her desire to obey the instructions of Doctor Akagi was still strong. She had never disobeyed such an order in the entirety of her short lifespan. It was the will of Doctor Akagi that she take them. That had been all there was to say about it.
That evening something was different.
That evening another will seemed to be imposing itself upon the blue haired girl. A voice, as familiar as her own, yet somehow alien to her psyche, made her feel that the capsules were somehow wrong. That if she continued to take them her purpose would never be fulfilled. 'Doctor Akagi has told me I would die if I cease to take my medication.' She thought in response, trying her best to defy the reasoning of that voice. 'Doctor Akagi does not wish us well,' her own voice answered her in her mind. 'Doctor Akagi hates us. Doctor Akagi desires the Commander for herself. In her eyes, we are an impediment to that desire'.
The voice was compelling yet she had felt a pang of guilt that she had found what it said so attractive. She had become accustomed to this voice, listening to its urgings as they had come upon her from time to time over the last few weeks. It was the same voice that had urged her to seek out the Second Child several times. It was the voice that had slowly seen her view of the Commander and his purpose for her shift in a way that she had yet to fully comprehend. It was her voice. Her will. Or so it seemed. Yet it what it urged her to do often ran counter to the way she had been conditioned to see herself and how she fit in to the world.
Finally, however, Rei had no longer been able to resist the call of obedience. She had risen from the bed. She had padded in bare feet across to the counter and filled a grimy glass with water from the tap. She took one of the capsules from the bag and looked at it in the dim light of the small kitchenette. It looked innocuous enough. A tiny red and white cure for the new and strange uncertainty inside of her. Rei took a small sip of water and placed the capsule in her mouth. The voice was silent. She swallowed. Still the voice was absent from her mind.
Feeling strangely empty inside she looked again at the zip-lock bag full of pills that Dr. Akagi had given her just days before. Now she saw that they all looked quite different to her than they had mere seconds ago. The red half was leeching into the white side. The pills were all turning a deep crimson hue. The colour of fresh blood. As she picked up the bag and looked at it the pills seemed shift and move within the plastic. The contents of each capsule began rapidly bursting before her eyes and from them seeped a viscous flow of red liquid, like small bloody eruptions that soon filled the bag with thick red fluid with the now empty shells of the capsules floating within it.
Rei's stomach heaved at the sight and, still holding the bag, she quickly ran to the bathroom of her apartment and emptied the contents of her stomach in to the toilet bowl.
As she hunched there, breathing heavily. She noted the small red and white capsule she had just swallowed now floating whole and undamaged in the water at the bottom of the bowl. She turned her head and looked at the zip-lock bag still clutched in her sweaty hand. All of the little red and white pills still sat innocently inside it, showing no sign of the horror that she had witnessed mere seconds earlier.
'Now that you have seen what they are poisoning us with, are you still resolved to take them?' The voice that was her own asked her in her mind. Rei looked at them and thought about trying to swallow another capsule. Immediately her stomach lurched again and she dropped the bag to the grimy, tiled floor as if it had burnt her.
Eventually she had picked it up again with distaste, opened up the zip lock seal with sweaty fingers, and emptied the contents into the toilet bowl. She pressed the flush and within seconds all of those hateful little red and white capsules that had held her in their thrall were gone.
The girl knew that what she had done would make Doctor Akagi and probably the Commander very angry with her. Nonetheless Rei felt a unfamiliar surge of guilt-tinged relief at being rid of those disgusting little red and white capsules.
Since that day nearly three weeks earlier Rei Ayanami had noticed many varied and subtle changes in the way that the world appeared to her. She no longer felt nauseous all of the time. Bright light, even sunlight, were not painful for her to be out in anymore. The most unfamiliar and yet strangely pleasurable thing was the new-found ability to experience unfettered emotional responses to the people and events around her.
Even here in school she let the feelings and emotions of her classmates around her wash over her. She found the unfiltered emotional output of her fellow teenagers very agreeable to observe. Certainly she had felt better than she had at any other time in her life in those last few weeks.
She looked around further and saw that Kensuke Aida was present also. The spectacled boy sat at his usual position at the back of the class. His laptop already open in front of him as he tapped idly at the keyboard. Trawling for information on the Evangelions or some other military trivia, Rei guessed.
However, she noted, the desk immediately to the left of Mr. Aida's, the one usually occupied by Suzuhara, was empty. Why would the tall student, who seemed to be one of pilot Ikari's constant companions at the school, not be in today?
It appeared that Rei was not the only one curious as to the track-suited boy's whereabouts.
After casting a critical eye over the students under her jurisdiction, Hikari Horaki walked quietly to the back of the room to where Kensuke Aida sat. Looking around strangely nervously, Rei felt, the pig tailed girl spoke quietly to him.
"Kensuke… Where's Tou… Suzuhara today?"
"Touji?" Kensuke replied more loudly. "Oh yeah, he won't be in today. His little sister is being transferred to the NERV hospital this morning, and he's gone to make sure she settles in okay."
"Really?" Hikari answered brightly. "That's great news!"
"Yeah. I've haven't heard Touji sound so happy in ages."
"It's so nice that he cares for his little sister so much.." Hikari said. "He's so kind and compassionate!"
"Um… yeah.. I guess." Kensuke answered uncertainly.
"Yes… anyway. That's good news..." Hikari replied suddenly blushing. "L-Let him know that I'm v-very happy for him!"
"Sure thing, Class Rep!"
Rei watched them standing awkwardly for a few more seconds as the Class Representative's face grew more pink under the spectacled boy's gaze. 'The Class Representative appears to be embarrassed.' Rei thought to herself curiously. Strangely Kensuke appeared to find this amusing and was chuckling to himself at her discomfort.
Happily, for Hikari, the bell sounded for the beginning of the school day. Immediately she was back in Class Representative mode.
"Come on everyone!" She yelled. "At your desks before Sensei arrives!"
As if summoned like some kind of geriatric djinn, the old man appeared at the front sliding door of the classroom and made his way to his desk.
"Rise… Bow… Sit!" Hikari barked. The students obeyed automatically.
And so, the latest lesson of Second Impact Studies was underway.
Rei sat staring out of the window, apparently disinterested in the world around her. In reality her insides were still in turmoil. She could not escape the certainty that somehow, somewhere, she was urgently needed. Though for what she still had no idea.
The school day continued its slow grind on to recess.
Misato cursed as the truck that they were travelling in jolted over a pothole, causing her to spill some of her coffee on the front of her skirt.
"Ah, crap! You'd think that they'd do something about these goddamned roads! Look at my skirt!"
"Yeah…" Asuka answered, without even glancing at the Major from her seat. "It's a modern tragedy."
"Hmph." Misato replied to the jibe, still trying to mop up the spill.
After a few moments she finished as best as she could and looked over at her young companion. So far on the long and occasionally bumpy ride towards Matsushiro she hadn't been able to coax more than a couple of syllables out of the girl. Beneath her red hair the German teen looked pale and sweaty. Here bright blue eyes stood out against her alabaster skin, though her face had a slightly sunken hollow look.
She looked to Misato like someone who was being haunted by some horror that she could not fully comprehend. Asuka's body language was completely defensive, like she was trying to make herself as small as possible in the spacious seating in the truck's cab.
"You doing okay, kiddo?" Misato asked with forced cheerfulness masking her concern.
"Mmm…"
"What's eating you, Asuka?" The Major said in a kindly tone. "Ever since you were told about this activation you've been acting like someone ran over your puppy. What's up?"
"You… you wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
Asuka rolled her eyes at Misato and let out a heavy sigh.
"You know something Misato?" The redhead began. "I've realised that up to now… I've been just playing around in the shallow end… You know, going along pretty much as I always have, I guess…"
Misato looked puzzled. "You have?"
"Yeah." Asuka answered her. "And now… to use a well worn cliché, I realise that... this shit is gonna get real, and I have no idea what the fuck I'm gonna do about it!"
"You sure do swear a lot these days…" Misato observed, before gathering her thoughts more coherently. "What's going to 'get real', Asuka? Is it about Shinji? I know that you two are a lot closer these days. I've been turning a blind eye to the fact that you two have started sharing a room, 'cos I know what the two of you have been through. I'm actually really happy for you. I trust the two of you to be smart, even though you're both young. I know that you're smart enough not to take things too far just yet."
"You know about that?" Asuka said with some alarm. "I thought that we were being a bit more careful about it than that."
"I know that you two thought that you'd outsmarted me!" Misato replied with a condescending smile. "But I've been around for far too long for you to pull the wool over my eyes, Asuka. You should know that you can't keep any secrets from me!"
A knowing smile briefly crossed the young redhead's face. "I wouldn't be too sure about that, Misato…" She said quietly.
There was a few moments silence between the two women as the truck bounced and rocked along the poorly maintained road. Then a frightening thought struck the Major. "Oh god... You're not pregnant, are you?"
To the Major's surprise and relief Asuka actually laughed. Her careworn expression briefly giving way to a more relaxed smile. "So what was all of that about 'trust', Misato?" She said when she had finally finished. "No, for your information, I am not pregnant! I am still a virgin, thank you very much!"
"I'm glad to hear it!" Misato replied with a relieved sigh.
"For now… " The redhead muttered, casting a sideways glance at her guardian. In return Misato narrowed her eyes at Asuka meaningfully before deciding that the German girl was probably just joking with her.
Another uncomfortable silence settled over the cabin.
"How much longer until we get there?" Asuka finally asked.
Misato looked at her watch. "About half an hour or so."
"Great…" Asuka murmured sullenly. She drew her knees up to her chest as she huddled back into her seat. "I feel sick…"
Misato frowned as she looked over at Asuka. She was feeling deeply troubled by the redhead's dark mood. Rarely, for the purple haired woman, she was completely at a loss for words in the face of her ward's apparent distress.
The convoy rumbled on slowly through the tumbledown villages that dotted the landscape around Matsushiro. Even at this hour of the morning the stifling heat beat down on the landscape making it appear to Misato a ruined wilderness, completely devoid of human life.
"Misato…" Asuka finally broke the silence, although she still refused to meet the Major's eyes.
"Yeah?"
"If something goes wrong here, tell him… tell Shinji that I died instantly."
"Wh-What?" Misato said in complete shock. "What the hell are you talking about, Asuka?"
"Nothing…" Asuka answered, already regretting what she had said.
"Doesn't sound like 'nothing'!" Misato said. "I don't know what's going on with you, Asuka." She was now feeling genuine concern for the girl's state of mental well-being. "You know that you can tell me anything… in complete confidence."
"Careful what you wish for, Misato."
"Will you stop being so goddamned cryptic!" She just about yelled at the girl. Finally Asuka looked at her. Misato was shocked to see tears in her bright blue eyes.
"Fine," Asuka said with a sad smile. "If I survive this… and let me tell you, that's a pretty big if! Maybe… just maybe, you, me, and Shinji can have a serious talk."
She turned back to the window effectively ending the conversation.
"Well… good." Misato replied to the girl's back. Her own sense of foreboding now settled firmly in her gut.
Matsushiro Base 1357hrs
Asuka spat into the basin, trying to clear her mouth of the bitter taste of bile. Pooling a little of the running water into her cupped hands, she brought them to her mouth and gingerly sipped some of the metallic tasting liquid. She gripped the sides of the basin tightly as her stomach convulsed one more time before, with a force of will, she kept the liquid down.
"This is ridiculous." She muttered to herself. "Get a grip, Soryu… she can't have brought you back just for this! Can she? It doesn't make any sense… I mean how many times are these stupid robots going to kill me?"
She looked up from the swirling water and into the mirror. A pale and bloodshot eyed girl in a red plug suit stared back at her.
"Ikuhayo, Asuka." She said grimly to her reflection
"Miss Ayanami, is everything alright?" The old sensei asked querulously.
Rei looked around her in mild surprise. All of the remaining students of class 2-A had turned around to stare at her. She did not remember standing up, but she was now on her feet standing behind her desk, with her plastic backed school chair lying on the floor behind her where it had apparently fallen when she had risen.
Her hands were gripping the sides of her desk painfully, the flesh of her knuckles turning white with the strain. She was faintly aware that she had spoken, though she could not remember what it was that she had actually said.
"Yes, Sensei." She said after a pause.
"Then please return to your seat."
Rei sketched a small bow and righted her fallen chair, before sitting down behind her desk once more. A couple of the other girls in the class giggled at her, before being silenced by a look from Hikari.
"Very good." The sensei continued. "Now, if there are no more interruptions, we shall proceed. Mr Aida, please continue reading."
"Yes, Sensei." Kensuke said before returning to reading aloud from the U.N. approved Second Impact Studies textbook.
Rei let her thoughts wander once more, her gaze straying to the view out of the classroom window. However, her thoughts were disturbed by the strong sensation that someone was staring at her. She turned back to the classroom and almost immediately found herself locking eyes with the Third Child. Shinji was staring at her intently, though also in some obvious confusion. After several seconds he broke off his gaze and returned his attention to the text in front of him.
Rei felt sick.
Her first sight of Unit 03 did little to quell the purple haired Major's anxiety.
The black Evangelion had a feral air to it that radiated menace even from the safety of the cramped bridge at the Matsushiro base. Misato watched as the cylindrical entry plug was slowly lifted into place behind the neck of the enormous grinning robot.
She toggled open a communications window.
"How's it going in there, Asuka?" She said.
"It's freaking freezing in here!" Came Asuka's reply over the speakers, causing a chuckle from several of the Matsushiro techs on the bridge. Most of them only knew of the Second Child from reputation, and it seemed that there was little genuine sympathy for the German girl.
That annoyed Misato enormously. "What's with the LCL temperature?" She barked at one of the smirking techs across the bridge.
"It's just been shipped from cold storage in Tokyo-03. Once the recirculation system comes online it will reach operating temperature in a couple of minutes." He answered.
"Make it happen, lieutenant!" Misato said harshly. "I'll be holding you responsible for any delays"
The man stiffened. "Yes, Ma'am!" He answered smartly.
"Man…" Misato muttered shaking her head. "Why the hell do we have to come all the way out to goddamned Hicksville for this stupid test."
"Because NERV doesn't have the capacity to support four Evangelions at Tokyo-03 at the same time." Came the answer. Misato looked around to see that Ritsuko had just entered the bridge.
"Well, look who finally decided to turn up." Misato griped.
"Actually, I've been here since 0530 this morning," Ritsuko answered primly, "or did you think that the core would just configure itself?"
"Meh." Was Misato's only answer.
Ritsuko glanced briefly over the plug's telemetry readings. "She's ready to go." She said simply.
Misato let out a sigh of relief. "We're all clear, Asuka!" She said cheerily over the comm.
"Roger." Came the strained reply. "Let's do this already. The waiting is killing me."
With a groan of machinery the plug was driven into the back of the Evangelion. The back armoured plates slid smoothly over the insertion point, covering up any evidence that the plug had ever existed.
"Begin start up sequence." Dr. Akagi ordered.
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Pilot vitals are reading elevated heart rate and limbic activity." One of the techs reported. "Cortisol readings in the LCL spiking above nominal levels."
"Asuka," Misato said through the Comm. Channel. "Keep it together! This is just a routine activation, you've done this a hundred times."
"Let's just do this!" Asuka almost snarled back at her.
Misato and Ritsuko glanced at each other.
"Clearing absolute boundary." Another tech said.
Misato looked tensely at the screen showing the wavelengths of the pilot and the Evangelion as the two lines appeared to firstly clash and rebound off each other, before finally beginning to harmonise. The green and red lines were slowly reaching some kind of equilibrium.
"Absolute borderline passed. All systems green."
"You okay in there, Asuka?" Misato asked. "Your synch rate is hovering just above 43 percent! Well done!"
There was a few seconds silence. "Really?" Came the girl's astonished reply. "You mean that there's no problems? At all?"
"Well, duh." Misato replied with a grin. "Was there ever any doubt?"
She was overjoyed to hear Asuka actually laugh in response to her question. "Well… maybe just a little…" She replied.
Misato smiled at the girl's happy tone. A far cry from the ball of tension she had been last time they had talked.
"43 percent is still pretty marginal." Ritsuko said in the background, barely noticed by the Major. "I think that we should increase the plug depth by 0.8."
"Roger." One of the techs replied, tapping at her console. "Increasing depth by 0.8."
"See, Asuka?" Misato said brightly. "You were all worried over nothing!"
"Maybe… Though if you ever tell…" The girl's voice stopped mid sentence. "Wait a second… Something's different…"
"Dr Akagi," The tech said nervously, "We're reading some unexpected resonance in the synchronisation matrix."
"Let me see…" Ritsuko said as she started rapidly tapping at her own keyboard.
"Different?" Misato asked. "What do you mean different, Asuka?"
"I… I don't know…" Asuka answered. "It's like there's something…"
"Wavelength feedback detected within Unit 03!"
"What did you say?" Misato yelled at the tech, a sick feeling beginning to form in the pit of her stomach. Before he could answer her a gasp over the communication channel from Asuka caught her attention.
"Asuka, are you alright?"
"Sh-She's so beautiful…"
"Who is?" Misato shouted back in alarm. "What's going on, Asuka? Talk to me!"
"So beautiful!" Asuka repeated. "Just like I remember…"
"Asuka! Answer me! What do you see?"
"Mama… "
"Oh my God!" Ritsuko shouted. "The waveform is collapsing in on itself! It's going to… "
She was drowned out by a piercing scream from the Second Child.
"Asuka!" Misato yelled. "What's going on Ritsuko?"
"Massive energy spike detected within Unit 03!" A tech called in alarm.
"Wavelength detected, Blue!" Another screamed.
"What did you say?" The black giant was now beginning to heave and convulse against its restraints. Misato was only paralysed for a split second before all of her combat training kicked in. "Eject the plug! Transmit the abort code."
"Unit 03 is rejecting the signal!"
"Re-transmit! Inject Bakelite into the cage!"
Asuka's scream was still clawing at the inside of Misato's skull as the Major desperately tried to contain the writhing Evangelion.
Suddenly the screaming was cut off as the communication line went dead.
"A-T Field detected! Energy spike reaching critical levels!"
Just before the world exploded in white, she saw the jaw restraining bolts shear clean through as Unit 03's head reared back and its mouth opened in a horrific parody of a scream.
"I need you to focus, Shinji!"
"M-Miss Ibuki…" The boy stammered, his distress clear even through the communication channel. "What about Asuka, and Miss Misato?"
"We don't know yet!" Maya said gently, trying to calm the boy. "All we know is that there's been an incident at Matsushiro. All of our communication lines with the base there are silent."
"B-But Fath… the Commander said that there was an Angel?"
"That's right, Shinji." The young lieutenant replied grimly. "Our sensors indicate a blue wavelength in the area. That's probably what's blocking our transmissions. Once you land I'm sure that things will become more clear."
"Lieutenant." Came the voice of the Commander from his position above the bridge. "Please refrain from engaging in unnecessary conjecture with the pilots. We need the communication channels clear in case more important information comes to hand."
"Y-Yes, sir."
The silence over the bridge weighed heavily on the young tech. She bowed her head over her keyboard and prayed a silent prayer that Dr. Akagi had not been hurt.
"Wings 00 and 01 approaching drop zone." Came the harsh metallic voice of the flight commander of the huge Evangelion flying transports.
The three main techs turned to look up at Commander Ikari, who merely nodded a their unspoken question.
"R-Roger." Hyuga stuttered, feeling lost without Major Katsuragi's guiding hand. "Drop on my mark."
"Shinji, Rei." He continued as he waited for the coordinates to align with the projected drop zone. "Once you've landed, rendezvous with the mobile support column and connect your umbilical cables. Then await further instruction."
"Hai." Both Children replied automatically. Rei's face a mask of placidity, Shinji's betraying his deep anxiety and concern.
After a few more tension filled seconds the coordinates on Hyuga's monitor flashed green. "Eva wing, on my mark…" He called over the channel. The numbers stopped flashing. "Release!"
The cameras onboard the two transports showed the Evangelions releasing and dropping rapidly toward the Earth far below. Units 01 and 00 quickly became small coloured dots against the landscape. Two small plumes of dust finally marking their landing points. Switching to the Eva's external feed, they were guided to the support units and told to await further developments.
They didn't have to wait for long.
Asuka Langley Soryu was fighting for her life.
Initially she thought that maybe the test was going to be okay. Maybe the Angel would take on a different form this time. She had breached the synchronisation threshold with Unit 03 far more easily than she had expected. She even reached a more than respectable 43 percent on her first try. Nothing sinister or out of the ordinary had occurred.
She had actually felt overjoyed at the result, even allowing herself to laugh in relief. Not even feeling any concern as Dr. Akagi had pushed the plug depth deeper into the American Evangelion. Maybe Lilith had pulled some strings to save her ass in this test? Maybe…
Then things had gotten weird.
The swirling kaleidoscope of colour that accompanied the increase in the plug depth had held little interest to her. She had seen such light-shows more times than she could count during her young life. This time though, it was different.
The plug grew darker and the colours changed and began to form an image that floated in front of her. The image that quickly formed was that of a woman in her late twenties. Her auburn shoulder length hair waved in the LCL of the plug and her bright blue eyes were almost a mirror of Asuka's own. The woman radiated an overwhelming sense of peace and surrender as she smiled at the girl. Forgetting everything else, Asuka had been lost in the kindness of the woman's eyes.
Asuka had reached out to her, but the apparition drew back, almost seeming to fade against the darkness of the interior of the plug. The German girl's heart was pierced by a longing to touch the woman. She faintly remembered calling out to her.
"Mama… "
At that the woman had come forward once again, her arms reaching out to the girl in the pilot's seat. As the hands had passed through Asuka's own a sharp stab of cold pain had lanced through Asuka from the point of contact. At that everything had changed.
The beautiful, serene face of her lost mother has begun to peel and suppurate before her horrified eyes. The skin blackened and sloughed back from the top of her head down. Hair, skin, and flesh putrefying and peeling away from the skull. Within seconds all that was left was a leering death's head that still grinned at the girl who cowered in the cockpit.
The empty eye sockets stared at her as the apparition leaned in closer to her, almost seeming to touch her face as she pulled away from it in disgust and horror.
'Die with me, Asuka.' It whispered into her mind.
Asuka screamed and it seemed had blacked out for some time.
When she had come back to her senses she wasn't in the plug anymore.
Asuka sat up in from the mattress that lay untidily on the floor. The fire was dying down, giving little light or heat in the dank living area of the small farmhouse. The wind howled outside and the bang and rattle of the shutters was far louder than it usually was.
She looked around the small room. She was alone. Shinji was nowhere to be found. Pulling the blanket up around her shoulders she got up from the bed and searched the small kitchen and living areas for the catatonic boy. Still he was nowhere to be seen.
"Scheiße!" She swore. Something tugged at the back of her mind, telling her something wasn't right here. That thought was scattered by a steady drip-drip of water that was coming from the bathroom.
Running to the door of the bathroom and bursting through it she was assaulted by the stench of old death. Shinji lay in the tub, the copper coloured water barely covering his naked body. He lay stiffly and awkwardly in the bath. She rushed to the side of the tub. She could see in the pale light from the opened window that his skin was grey and lifeless. His eyes were half opened, but unseeing. She reached into the cold bath and pulled his hand up out of the water. A long, bloodless slash ran the length of his left arm.
Down beside the bath a shard of glass caught the light. Asuka picked it up. Dark dried blood stained its jagged edge.
She held his cold dead hand to her face. "Shinji…" She cried. "Shinji. Why? Why would you leave me like this?"
"The boy knew what was inevitable." A dry lifeless voice came from above her. She looked up to see her mother, bare feet a metre off the floorboards, hanging from the light fitting on the other side of the bath. "Why do you resist? Why did you not follow me all of those long lonely years ago? Die with me, Asuka! Die with him."
"No!" Asuka cried out.
"It is pointless to avoid the inevitable, child." The hanging form of her dead mother said to her condescendingly. "Why do you refuse my love?"
"No…" Asuka whispered. "You're not real! None of this is real!"
"Die with me!"
"Never!"
"Stupid child." The voice of her mother said churlishly. "I was going to make this easy for you."
Suddenly the cabin, her mother, and Shinji disappeared from around her, leaving her in blackness once again.
"Wondergirl! I could use some fucking help here!" Asuka yelled into the void.
"Acquiring visual on target." Aoba said over the comm.
A horrified hush fell over the bridge as the Angel crested the rise.
"Th-That's the Angel?" Hyuga stammered.
"Correct." The Commander replied sternly.
"But th-that's an Eva!" Shinji's voice cracked as he spoke.
"No." Gendo's answer was absolute. "That is your target. You must destroy it."
"Asuka..." The boy said quietly. "She's in there… isn't she?"
"I don't know, Shinji." Maya answered. "Our sensors are being blocked…"
"Irrelevant." The Commander interrupted the young tech. "Evangelion Unit 03 has been designated as the 13th Angel. You must destroy it or perish."
"No… It can't be…" The boy whispered plaintively.
Rei listened to the boy's distress. She knew that the Second Child must inevitably be within the entry plug of the rogue Evangelion. She tensed herself. She would try to bear the brunt of this assault. To protect the Third Child from the horror of destroying the girl he loved if nothing else.
She narrowed her eyes as she watched the black Evangelion clamber across the low hill in the distance, making its way inexorably toward to two waiting units. It move with a feral, animalistic motion, more akin to a crawl than a walk. It let out a low growl as it seemed to spy Unit 01 standing to her right.
Unit 00 was the closest to the beast. Once it had come closer she willed her Evangelion forward on a converging course with it.
"Unit 00, moving to engage." Rei said simply over the communication channel.
Asuka watched in horror as the thin, vein like, tendrils moved and writhed up her limbs and towards her body. each one carving a path of exquisite agony through her flesh. As they bulged and ran her plug suit tore and fell away, exposing the livid red path that they took.
"No…" She moaned. "Don't touch me…"
Before her eyes a long bloody mark travelled the length of her right arm. From between the knuckles to the base of her shoulder. Blood began to seep from it into the surrounding LCL giving it a cloudy appearance. As her suit disintegrated further other long forgotten wounds on her chest and belly began to ooze blood as well.
"Interesting…" The voice of her mother spoke to her from the surrounding darkness. "You are far more corrupted than I could ever have imagined."
"Go to Hell!" Asuka screamed.
"How quaint." The voice mocked her. "You Lilim are such children!"
"Wondergirl! Help me for fuck's sake!"
"Who is this being you keep calling to? Is it one of your primitive gods that you pray to in the darkness?"
Asuka kept struggling to hold back her terror as the tendrils came closer to her body. "Ayanami!" She said quietly, unable to hold back the tears that dissolved instantly in the LCL. "You owe me! Help me, please!"
Rei's nerves screamed in agony as the left arm of her Evangelion was blasted away to prevent further contamination. Unit 03 had been too fast for her, she had been unable to do anything to effectively engage it. It had simply brushed her attack aside with apparently minimal effort.
Once it had her Unit 00 down it had begun to pour some kind of vile viscous liquid into Unit 00's left arm. Rei could feel the poison of it infecting her through her Evangelion. Despite the excruciating agony it had caused her, she knew that the Commander had made the right decision in blasting the arm off to prevent further contamination.
As if it had achieved its goal the black Eva abandoned Unit 00 in the rice field where it had fallen and stalked towards the still stationery form of Unit 01.
"Shinji… I'm sorry." Rei whispered to herself.
She watched in mute horror as Unit 03 stalked over to the purple Eva.
"Pilot." She heard the stern voice of Commander Ikari over her still active communication channel. "Engage and destroy the target."
"No!" Shinji screamed in response. "Asuka's in there! I can't!"
Unit 03 reached Unit 01 and with ferocious speed its unnaturally long arms lashed out and clasped around the throat of the Evangelion.
"Arrrgh!" Shinji's strangled cry echoed over the comm.
"You must engage. If you do not then you will die."
"I'd rather die than kill Asuka!" Shinji gasped out. Still Unit 01 did nothing to prevent the rogue Eva from squeezing the life out of it.
"Very well." The Commander said. "Lieutenant Ibuki. Ready the dummy plug."
Maya gasped and looked back at the Commander. "But sir, the dummy plug hasn't been tested properly! It's still unstable!"
"It's still better than a pilot that won't fight. Do it!" Gendo ordered.
"Y-Yes sir!"
With stumbling fingers Maya began countermanding the fail-safes that prevented the dummy system from taking the control of the Evangelion Unit from its pilot. Before she had even disabled half of them a cry from Lieutenant Aoba caught everyone by surprise.
"Second blue reading detected!" He shouted in alarm. "It's coming from within Unit 03!"
Maya paused at her work in shock, the dummy plug system completely forgotten, as on the screen the rogue Evangelion suddenly tilted its head back and let out an ear splitting roar.
"Ayanami!" Asuka screamed again, fighting the agony that felt like it was tearing her body apart. "How is letting me die in here supposed to help Shinji? Help me you ethereal bitch!"
"I grow weary of your primitive squawking, Lilim." Her mother's voice said haughtily. "It is time to end this."
A new violence entered the assaults on Asuka senses as the Angel poured more energy into overwhelming the girl. Asuka screwed her eyes up and held back against the tide of pain attempting to violate her soul. As it grew nearer to engulfing her she felt her will becoming weaker, she knew that she would not be able to resist the Angel's onslaught for too much longer. "Wondergirl…" She whispered desperately. In that moment she felt the presence of another enter her. At that same moment she also felt that she gained a new strength to resist. It was like another will held her in its grasp. Instead of the foreign and harsh presence of the attacking Angel, this new sensation had a familiar feel to it. While grateful for its sudden intrusion into her losing battle with the violation of the Angel, she couldn't help but feel there was something faintly smug and annoying about this new presence.
Asuka grinned at her new found sense of power. "About fucking time, Wondergirl!" She snarled with a new-found ferocity.
With this power she used her will to push the other back from her body. Her eyes glowed red as the Angel retreated from her, a small hexagonal shield appearing before her, pushing the tendrils and pain away from her body.
"This is the light of my soul!" Asuka said in a voice that was no longer her own. "You shall not pass!"
"Arrogant Child. You dare to talk of things you cannot comprehend!"
"This is the light of my soul!" The voice that was not Asuka's repeated. "You shall not pass!"
"Oh…" The Angel's voice said with some surprise and apparent annoyance as its attacks relented. "I see now that the whore is here too. I should not be surprised. I suppose in a way that it is fitting. It matters not anyway, for it is too late now. See how your lover dies at your own hands."
Without transition Asuka was sitting back in the entry plug of Unit 03. She was still wearing her plug suit, which was whole and undamaged.
She could see from the cockpit Unit 01 in front of her, the long black arms of Unit 03 clamped around its neck, the thick strong fingers deforming the armour with the force of the pressure that they were exerting.
Vainly she heaved and pounded on the control yokes in a futile attempt to wrest control of the Eva away from the Angel. Still the fingers dug into the throat of Unit 01. Sickeningly she could feel the flesh and armour of the purple Eva giving way as if it were her own hands doing the strangling.
"Shinji!" Asuka screamed, attempting to use the communication channel. "Shinji, can you hear me?"
Static was her only reply.
"Shinji! Answer me, dammit!"
She almost squealed with joy when she heard the faint and crackling reply. "A-Asuka? Are you in there!"
"Shinji…" She said. "I'm sorry to have to do this to you! I need you to fight back! Don't let them take control of the Eva away from you!"
"But, Asuka. I don't want to hurt you!"
"Don't worry about me Shinji!" Asuka replied. "I need you to get this thing as far away from the people down there as possible! Then, when I give you the word, raise your A-T Field as strongly as you can! Can you do that for me?"
"B-But Asuka…"
"Please, Shinji?" She pleaded.
"Okay!"
Asuka watched as Unit 01 raised its arms and began pulling the hands of Unit 03 away from its neck. It only took a couple of seconds for the black Eva's hold to be broken. Asuka felt a stinging pain in her hands as Unit 03's were wrenched away from their stranglehold.
"Atta boy, Shinji!" She yelled in encouragement. She could feel the Angel trying to get to her to stop her interference, but a force was holding it back, preventing it from getting to her. Emboldened she wrenched at the control yokes. Disappointingly she wasn't able to wrest control of Unit 03 away from the Angel, but she was able to impede its progress just a little. The black Eva moved awkwardly now as it attempted to counter Unit 01's attacks on it. Each carefully timed move from the purple Evangelion was designed to move them both as far away as possible from populated areas where people might be put in danger. Through the pain transmitted to her from the rogue Eva, Asuka couldn't help but be impressed by the skill that Shinji showed, and having an Angel's eye view of the battle was strangely exhilarating, if not a little terrifying.
When she judged that the timing was right she yelled out. "Shinji, get back!"
She watched with some satisfaction as Unit 01 retreated about 20 metres from where she still struggled for control of Unit 03.
"A-T Field up now, Shinji!"
Seeing Unit 01 step further back and raise its field, Asuka quickly clambered over to the back of the cockpit. Flipping open a red panel at the rear of the pilot's seat, she twisted and pulled the D handle up with all of her might.
"Unit 03 has initiated its self-destruct protocol." Aoba said in a stunned voice.
There were gasps from the other members of the bridge crew around him.
Up on the command bridge above them the Sub Commander spoke quietly to his former pupil.
"Is this what you wanted, Ikari?"
Gendo just let an imperceptible smirk show. "It will suffice as well as any other." He answered. "The Second is stronger than we gave her credit for. She may yet prove useful to us, if she lives."
Fuyutsuki chewed his lower lip as he watched the battle play out on the giant screen in Central Dogma.
Shinji watched in horror as the black Evangelion writhed and clawed at the earth as if it was in the grip of madness. The feeling of impotence he felt in not being able to help Asuka, as she fought desperately to save herself, gripped his heart with agonizing pain. It had nearly broken him to have to fight against Unit 03, knowing that she was inside. With as much care and skill as he could manage while still fighting off the now clumsy attacks of Unit 03, Shinji pushed the infected unit away from the support teams and the farmsteads that dotted the area.
He wanted so much to save her. To be the one who protected the only person he had allowed so close to him since he was four years old from harm. To spare her the horrors that he knew she must be experiencing inside Unit 03. He would have given his life to be in that Evangelion instead of her.
"Shinji, get back!" He had heard Asuka scream over the sound only channel.
Without hesitation he stopped Unit 01 and moved back about twenty metres from the other Eva. His chest heaved painfully as he watched the continued struggling of the black Eva. In his mind he went back to the previous night that they had spent together. To the feeling of helplessness he had at the obvious pain that Asuka had felt. The desperation of the girl as she had kissed him and held him close in the dark of her bedroom. He clenched his fist. He was not going to let Asuka be harmed. He would rather die first.
The alarmed voice of Lieutenant Aoba crackled over the comm.
"Unit 03 has initiated its self-destruct protocol!"
Shinji's heart dropped into the pit of his stomach.
"Asuka!" The boy screamed.
Asuka wrenched again on the eject mechanism, the sound of gears groaning under the strain of trying to expel the plug from the back of the Evangelion sounding all around her. It seemed that the armoured plates protecting the back and neck of the Unit were seized shut by some kind of tarry substance. She could feel the Angel trying to claw her back into itself, so that she might die with it.
"No dice, bitch!" She cried. "I am outta here!"
Unfortunately, it seemed her words were overly optimistic. No matter how hard she pulled at the lever the Plug was firmly stuck.
"Shit!"
"Asuka!" Shinji's voice crackled over the comm.
"Shinji!" Asuka screamed back. "Get your A-T Field up, goddamn it!"
Instead she suddenly felt Unit 03 lurch and she was thrown from her seat as the Eva suddenly lurched over and was thrown face down onto the ground.
"Shinji! What are you doing, idiot?"
There was no reply but the sound of armour plating being wrenched from the back of the Eva.
The bridge crew watched in a mixture of horror and amazement as Unit 01 flipped the still struggling, though mortally wounded, Unit 03 over. It then pinned the struggling unit down on the ground with its knees. As they watched the purple Evangelion drew its progressive knife and stabbed precisely down into the upper back of the black Unit.
Unit 01 then wrenched the back plates of armour off with brute force. The cameras showed that the plug was partially ejected, though still held in place by the strange blue tarry substance that oozed from the back of Unit 03.
The small rocket motors around the top of the plug fired, forcing the cylinder just a little further out from the back armour. Unit 01 grabbed the plug with both hands and with sheer force pulled the long white tube out of the gore.
Clutching the plug to itself, Unit 01 then drew back from the rogue Evangelion and hunched over with its back to it, at the same time raising it's A-T Field to maximum.
"Unit 03's core has reached critical!" Aoba called out.
Within a less than a second almost all of the surrounding countryside for 300 metres was obliterated in an enormous explosion as Unit 03's core collapsed in on itself and vaporised the black Evangelion almost completely. The screen in Central Dogma went offline as the sensors were either knocked out or destroyed in the blast.
Quickly the visual feed was re-established using a camera on a NERV satellite in orbit above Japan. Zooming in on ground zero, no trace of Unit 03 could be seen in the blasted landscape around where it had died but for a thick column of bloodshot smoke.
A short distance away Unit 01 still sat, hunched over and only lightly damaged, while still cradling Unit 03's entry plug almost tenderly in its arms.
In the flashing strobes of the emergency crews it took him a few seconds to recognise her.
"Katsuragi!" He called out.
She looked up, her eyes red and tired. "Kaji?"
Overcome with relief he rushed over and enveloped her in a tight bear-hug. "I'm so glad that you got out!"
"Oof!" Misato grunted at the impact. "Oww… my arm!"
"Uh… sorry, Misato." Kaji said sheepishly.
"That's okay, you oaf!" Misato said with a smile.
"Are you okay?" Kaji said worriedly looking at her heavily bandaged left arm. "You're hurt?"
"Yeah, I'm surprised that I made it out with just a banged-up arm." Misato replied, gesturing to her bandaged limb. "Fourteen of the cage crew weren't so lucky."
"I know…" Kaji replied. "Still, we were lucky that we got off so lightly with this one."
"Lightly?" Misato said incredulously. "Fourteen people are dead, one Eva is totally destroyed, another one crippled. Not to mention how many people have been hospitalised. Plus there's a shiny new crater for the ordinance surveyors to write me yet more angry letters about!"
"Yeah… but at least the Angel was destroyed, and the kids are all in one piece."
Misato's eyes took on a new shine. "How are they? How's Asuka? How's Shinji taking it?"
"Yeah.. well.. Shinji's under confinement at the moment. Seems there was another clash of wills between father and son during the battle."
"What?" Misato asked worriedly. "That's the first anyone's told me about this! What happened?"
The pony tailed man looked around him nervously. "I can say too much here! Too many eyes and ears." He whispered.
Misato also glanced around as if expecting men in trench coats to be loitering nearby. "O-Okay." She said. "What about Asuka? Was she hurt?"
"I only got to see her briefly afterwards as they were putting her in an ambulance. She was pretty heavily sedated, but the paramedic told me that she wasn't too badly injured. Just 'Banged up a bit' in his words."
"Thank god!" Misato sighed in relief. "Though what her mind will be like after an experience like that god only knows!"
Kaji smiled. "She's a tough kid. I think that she'll be okay."
"Yeah, she's a good kid."
"I hear that she's taken a bit of a shine to young Shinji? Poor boy's going to need to keep his wits about him to keep up with that one."
"Yeah… about Asuka…" Misato said.
"What about her?"
"You know how she's been acting a little oddly lately."
"Yeah." Kaji answered. "It could just be youthful angst. I think my line of work makes me a little paranoid sometimes. I was probably reading too much into what she said."
"I don't think so…" Misato said quietly. "She seemed to have some kind of premonition about what was going to happen today… It was really weird."
"Premonition?" Kaji replied in confusion. "Like ESP?"
"I don't know." Misato looked around her again. "Look… I'll talk to you about this later."
"Sure." Kaji replied uncertainly. "So… How's Akagi?"
"Ritsuko? Fine… I guess. She got off more lightly than I did physically. Though mentally she seems to be taking it a lot harder."
"What do you mean?"
In the back of one of the portable situation vans about twenty metres from where the two former lovers were discussing the fallout from that day's disaster, a blonde figure in a lab coat with a heavily bandaged forehead sat with her laptop in front of her.
Ritsuko Akagi's eyes widened as she analysed the data she had streamed from the MAGI back at Central Dogma to her personal access point. She wiped her face to clear the hot tears from her cheeks as the incontrovertible realisation that the figures on the screen were telling her.
"He knew… He knew that this was going to happen…." The broken woman whispered over and over to herself. "He knew and he sent me here to die…"
End Chapter 11
Hope that you enjoyed Chapter 11 of Unbroken. I can't be too sure how long it will take to get Chapter 12 up and posted. Between some long delayed study and travel coming up in the next little while, it may take a little longer to write. Then again... I think that time has well and truly shown that I suck at predicting when my next update will come.
So... Watch this space I guess!
Cheers
Donderkind.