Authors Note: Translations from German: "Gott verdammte Sohn - von - a – Weibchen!" = "You God Damned Son of a Bitch!"

"ES MÖCHTE DIE KANDARE SCHMECKEN! ES MÖCHTE DIE KANDARE SCHMECKEN!" = "It wants to taste the curb! It wants to taste the curb!"


Sub Commander Kozou Fuyutsuki, PhD, looks up from his endless mounds of paperwork, requisition forms, and budget proposals as someone knocks on his office door. He looks past his desk, past the sizeable office and rug, and at the doorway itself.

"Got a minute?" Pieter Sohryu asks.

Not waiting for a response, the Supreme Commander of NERV walks in, sipping at his coffee mug. It has been two days since the Second Child, for lack of better words, went Sick House on the Third Angel's ass. At this point, all that is left is cleanup and rescheduling.

"I had an idea," Sohryu says, leaning on Kozou's desk, "We're looking at the current timetable. If the Angels keep coming at the rate they have been, we're looking at somewhere between eighteen months to two years. Right?"

"That's correct," Kozou says, putting down his pen, "What's your idea?"

"Nearest high school to Tokyo-3's 35 miles north. We can't have the pilots that far away from the Geofront in case of an attack. We can homeschool them, but that's damage to their ability to socially interact. So what I think…"

"Build a high school," Kozou finishes, sitting back, "Alright. Say we do. They're graduating at the end of this year."

Pieter nods, sipping his coffee.

"Have the Evas assist in construction," he says, "Gets it done faster, and we get a PR victory. We'll keep the classes together, because we both know that every kid in the Pilot's class is a potential Pilot candidate. The teachers don't need security clearance because Section 2 tails the students."

Kozou nods, absently staring at an ammunition requisition form.

"The administration is another matter," he says, "The background check for a principal will take months. But you wouldn't be telling me this unless you had an idea. So who do you want running this school?"

Pieter sips his coffee for a long moment, then closes the lid of his mug.

"You."


In Central Dogma, the speakers crackle for a brief moment, before coming alive with the Sub Commander's voice.

"Lieutenant Ibuki, please report to my office immediately."


"What was that for?" Sohryu asks.

"I want her to give you a complete physical," he says, "So I can figure out at what point you lost your mind!"

Pieter sips his coffee.

"I take it you're not a fan of my idea."

"That's an understatement," Kozou tersely responds, "Pieter, why exactly are you choosing me for this?"

"A), you know the pilots. B), I can trust you. C), I've been throwing the idea around of promoting Katsuragi and giving her more responsibilities. She takes over some of your load and I free you up to administer this school. D), You were a department head at your university. You know how to administrate."

Kozou rubs the bridge of his nose, before turning and glaring at his superior officer.

"Too much hinges on everything the Committee tells us being foolproof," Pieter continues, "What if it's not? I'm not going to discontinue these kids' education at junior high level. If we make it through this, I want them to be able to live a relatively normal life afterwards."

"Japanese, European, or American?"

"Make it multi-cultural," Pieter says, "I can work in some sort of bonuses to senior staff to teach classes."

Kozou glares at him.

"Teach," he asks, as the door opens and Maya walks in, "You want…Command staff to teach high school classes."

"It's a stretch, but lessens how many background checks we need," Pieter says, "I know most our science staff are more theorists than teachers but-"

"Commander?"

He turns to Maya, pushing up his glasses.

"Yes, Lieutenant."

"Sorry to interrupt," she says, "But…if you're looking for teachers, I have education credits."

Pieter and Kozou look at each other, then at her.

"You do," Kozou asks.

"I minored in education for my graduate degree," she responds, "Oh, Doctor Akagi said she would be in within the hour. Commander, if you have the time, she wanted you to meet her in the Dummy Plug chamber."


The elevator doors open, revealing a white, sterile hallway. He recognizes it to an extent. It is an infirmary area, but not one he has been in before. She takes his wrist and pulls him along, her normal chattiness and bravado subdued. She told him that, after the synch tests, there was someone he should meet.

Shinji agreed, and so he walks with Asuka down the hallway, past empty rooms and bright lighting.

The room is at the end of the hallway. She cautiously opens the door and leads him in, the only sounds other than their breathing the slow, steady ticks of machines and humming of electronics.

The bed is surrounded by chairs for visitors. The patient, herself…

The patient, Shinji realizes, looks almost exactly like Asuka. Red hair, lighter skin than her. Beautiful in a classically beautiful way. Her hands are folded on her stomach, her face peaceful and serene, as if she is only sleeping.

Not as if she has been in a coma for seven years.

"This is Kyoko Zeppelin Langely Sohryu," Asuka says, "My mother."

She pulls up a chair, sitting down, taking one of her hands and squeezing it.

"She was the designer of my Eva," she continues, "And she test piloted it. Mama's been down here since."

Shinji pulls a chair up, eyes going to her hand, then to her.

"This is what you fight for, isn't it," he asks.

"When I started, it was so I'd be the best," Asuka responds, "I told myself if I was the best, Mama would notice me. But…but not after she tried to kill herself. I mean, I'm not the best, right? Kaworu's got a better synch score than I do, Rei's…well, Rei's Rei, and you have more kills than me."

She smiles, faintly, her lips a tight line.

"So why would I fight to be the best," she asks, "What would that do? I fight for her. Maybe, when all the Angels are gone, we'll find some way to bring her back."

"Noble goal. Excuse me."

They turn in their seats just as Dr. Ikari walks in, holding a cooler in his left hand.

"Father," Shinji says.

Ikari acknowledges him with a nod, taking out a bag full of yellow fluid and disconnecting a similar bag from an IV drip.

"This is a new treatment for Doctor Sohryu," Gendo says, "It was actually developed by Shinji's grandfather."

The two stare at him as he makes connections to the bag.

"Your mother's father is not someone you met," he continues, "Mr. Ikari is on the funding committee for NERV. Neither of his children talked with him much. I deal with him out of necessity. That, and we are much alike."

Shinji sees the twitch on Asuka's mouth, but she grumbles to herself and turns back to her mother before she says anything.

"Uncle never talked about him," Shinji says.

"His choice."

He checks the bag one last time, takes the cooler, and walks out, closing the door behind him.

"Yeah," Asuka says, "I bet he's an a__hole just like him, to."

"I guess…"

"We're so lucky you don't take after your dad."

"I guess…"

She turns to him, sharply.

"It's just…," Shinji stammers, and shrugs, "My father's all I know. He's not going to tell me anything about my mother. Not anytime soon."

They fall silent, save for the steady beeping of the machinery.

"Don't quote me on this," she says, "But…there might be someone who can tell you…"


The doors open and Sohryu catches the tail end of an argument. Grunting something German and inappropriate, he walks into the large, dimly lit room to find one of his favorite and least favorite people waiting.

"Doctor Akagi," Sohryu says, "I'm assuming you called me down here because you want me to shoot her."

Naoko Akagi gives the Commander a dirty look, scoffing and turning away, as Ritsuko rubs the bridge of her nose and gives Pieter a pained smile.

"Sorry you saw that, Commander," she says, "I just got back to check up on the Plug system. I've been in contact with NERV-America, and Unit-03 is two months away from final inspection and shipment."

Sohryu grunts, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Got it," he says, "So, we need to tell the Fifth."

"Yes. Start training her," Ritsuko says, "Shinji turned out well, but we can't rely on shoving an inexperienced child into an Eva any time an Angel shows up."

Naoko mutters something, folding her arms as she looks at the murky yellow tank surrounding them.

"Why's she here?" Sohryu asks.

"I'm here," Naoko says, interrupting Ritsuko before she can respond, "Because I helped Gendo crack the angel genome and create Rei. And I think I know what is happening to her."


Sub Commander Fuyutsuki looks up as someone knocks on his open door. At some point, he needs to remember to close it. Maybe lock it. And set up spike strips while he's at it. He looks up and finds to his surprise the Third Child standing in the doorway, with his not as common nowadays expression of a deer in headlights. It is around this time that Kozou realizes he hasn't said as much as two words directly to him since he arrived.

"Yes, Shinji?" he asks, "What can I do for you?"

Between Sohryu's idea for a school and the general maintenance of a multi-national paramilitary organization, there is little time he can put aside for small talk. He is patient, he is the foil to Sohryu's own bravado, but he wonders if this is just going to be another in a long line of distractions.

"Sub Commander, sir," Shinji says, "I…I wanted to know if I could ask you about my mother."

Well, maybe not. Maybe it turns out to be something absolutely vital. Depending on the perspective. The second most powerful man in Japan smiles, faintly, and gestures him forward.

"Take a seat, Shinji."


It was built in Chernobyl. A massive factory, deep in the ground, built in order to grow Abomination. Its caretakers know the outcome of their project. Some don't care. Some are motivated by curiosity of what will happen. Some are simply paid well. The labyrinthine facility is built antiseptic, more resembling a hospital than a factory of war. But it is such. It has built a weapon on the price of generations to come.

But today, they all pay in full.

The soil is first, then the roof of the facility. It does not tear away as much as rise, disassembling part by part. From the sky a shadow descends. A shadow in human form. Darkness trails behind him as he descends into the pit, his presence clouding their visions and minds as he floats before them.

"You have done well," he says, his voice reverberating, "In time, the Nine would have been enough to carry out your Instrumentality. You would have succeeded beyond your wildest dreams."

A hand clad in brown and black leather extends towards the tank. It is over three hundred feet long, two hundred feet wide. The man's hand pulses with red light, and the locks on the tank release.

"Unit 09."

Beneath the shadows, two eyes glow bright blue.

"Rise."

The air turns still and every monitor in the facility blinks out.

Then metal ruptures and a massive white, black lined hand bursts through the metal. Scientists and engineers begin screaming as the tank rips down the middle, a massive form tearing it open as two white feathered wings rise from its back.

Its long face splits in a toothy grin, two beady black eyes at the front of its snout. Its core displayed prominently on its chest and its long fingers dripping with yellow nutrient fluid, it peers for the first time on the human life around it.

And roaring, it sends its fist into the catwalks, pulverizing the flesh around it. It throws back its head and roars, glaring at the shadowed form floating before it…

And it bows.


"When your mother was working on her PhD, I was her advisor," Kozou says with a smile, "In fact, I ended up in a roundabout way introducing your parents. Sometimes to my regret."

Shinji tilts his head, eyes wide in a mix of confusion and astonishment.

"I've known your father for a long time, as well. Believe it or not, he was not the stoic he is today. He had a tendency of getting into trouble. I bailed him out on more than one occasion. And yes, in that way. He had a tendency of getting into bar fights."

"I find it hard to see my father like that."

"Your mother changed him," he continues, "She saw something in him. He went from an angry delinquent to the man he is today because of her. She threw herself into everything she could. Her projects, her marriage, and finally you. You have to understand something about your father. If your mother had not died, he probably wouldn't be that different today. He was never a doting, gushing father. He has always been standoffish, but is simply more constructive in being standoffish these days."

Shinji nods, hands folded in his lap.

"Watching the two was something else," Kozou continues, sitting back, "I assure you, Shinji, your mother was just as good at manipulating as your father is. Especially in getting your father to do anything she wanted."

Shinji smiles a little at the idea. Of his father cowering and scraping along behind...behind someone.

"I don't remember her very well," he finally says.

"Your father destroyed every picture he had of her following her death," Kozou says, quietly, "That was how badly it affected him. That was how much she meant to him."

"So there's no pictures of her, are there?"

Kozou sighs, face pensive, and reaches into his desk. He takes out an old, dusty, leather bound book, blowing off cobwebs and coughing before placing it on the desk.

"I saved a yearbook. From our college."

He opens the book, turning to a page, and a sad smile comes across his features. He turns it, and hands it to Shinji.

"Middle of the right page."

Shinji's eyes wander down, and finally come to the picture of a young woman with short brown hair, a smile on her face and features he swears he sees every time he looks in a mirror. In the picture, she is maybe ten years older than him, maybe less. The smile is directed at the camera, but for a brief moment, he remembers that same smile. The genuineness of it, the love and affection behind it.

"That is your mother. Yui Ikari. I never told your father I saved that picture."

Shinji's breath catches in his throat as he attempts to form the words. A thank you, gratitude, but he can tell that the reaction to finally seeing his mother's face is enough for the old man. Which is when the second part of the realization hits him.

"I...wait. She looks just like..."

For a moment, Kozou hopes that he will say she looks just like him, and leave it at that.

"...Rei."

But he is not so lucky.

The old man sighs. He reads the reports. Shinji knows of Rei's origins, knows of her abilities. He does not, however, know the full story. But, there is no getting out of this. Even if it ticks off Gendo, he might as well be the one to tell him.

"Shinji, there's a very good reason for that..."


Kaworu unlocks the door to the apartment and walks in, and finds a familiar face making coffee.

"Hello, Mr. Kaji," he says.

Kaji turns, sipping at his coffee, and waves to Kaworu.

"Hey, kid. Keep it down. Misato's sleeping off the wedding."

"Understood," Kaworu says, walking to the fridge, "You enjoyed yourselves?"

Kaji chokes on the coffee.

"I see," Kaworu says with a raised eyebrow, "I will not say anything. If anything, I imagine it will upset Pilot Sohryu. But she seems to be taking more interest in Shinji than anything else."

"Wait. Back up. When did that happen?"

Kaworu retrieves a can of soda, opening it and turning to his former bodyguard.

"There was a fair, Shinji asked Sohryu to it, and she accepted. They seem to be getting along quite well."

Kaji ponders that and shrugs.

"Huh. Well, at least that's two of you getting along. Is Ayanami still stabbing you?"

"I went with her."

Kaji begins choking again.