Disclaimer: I do not own Evangelion or Noir

The Black Hands of NERV

By bissek

Chapter 12

The Third Sapling

Time passed. While Rei "recovered from her injuries", the other three pilots were put through joint training exercises. After the events that happened during the attacks of the Eleventh and Twelfth Angels, the personality conflicts between the pilots had been reduced considerably. As a result of this, Misato was finally able to get an actual three-pilot unit together, rather than a two-pilot unit with an extra or three pilots by themselves.

The joint training between the three pilots ended up extending to activities other than piloting. Asuka had approached Kirika and offered to teach her to swim. Once it was revealed that Shinji couldn't swim either, he was dragged into the lessons as well. While neither sibling was likely to reach the skill level necessary to get a SCUBA certification like Asuka's in the near future, Asuka was able to get her colleagues to the point where they could keep themselves afloat.

In return, Kirika trained the other two in combat. Shinji took to the advanced marksmanship training that his sister offered well. Asuka appreciated the thought of getting extra close combat training; she did have problems with the lessons themselves. Most of them stemmed from the fact that the Fourth Child could take her down without breaking a sweat. Asuka wasn't very fond of losing, and she ended up losing without landing a single return blow nine times out of ten. And the tenth time she still lost. At least Asuka could salve her ego with the fact that Kirika couldn't fight at her full capacity in an EVA the way she could.

As for Kirika, she had once again taken up her old hobby of painting. In her free time, she had acquired a paint set and some canvas and was in the process of creating two landscapes: One of the interior of the GeoFront as viewed from the top of one of the entry points, and one of Tokyo-3 as seen from the park that overlooked the entire city at sunset. Those that had seen the works in progress were of the opinion that they were good enough to hang on the wall of a private residence, but were hardly museum quality. Section 2 grumbled about the need to guard the Fourth Child at night while Mireille guarded the Second and Third Children at their apartment. Privately (and accurately), Asuka was of the opinion that the guards weren't needed: Should anyone try to attack Kirika, she would probably find a way to kill the attacker with her paintbrushes.

That was the state of things when the anniversary of Yui Ikari's death came around.


Kirika looked around the enormous graveyard. The graveyards she had seen in Europe were nothing like this one. The graves there tended to be of various sizes and shapes, with each tombstone a unique creation, some of them just giving a minimal description of the dead person, while others gave a brief description of the life that the deceased had lived. The variety gave the graveyards a sense of character, reinforced by the winding paths crisscrossing across the grounds.

This graveyard had no character beyond bleak uniformity. In every direction, thousands of identical black slabs were laid out in perfect rows. The only color anywhere lied in the flowers that were placed in front of random tombstones across the field. The markers were almost perfectly identical, as if they were all mass-produced in some factory. The only difference between one slab and the next was the name and dates engraved upon them. And that was all that was engraved on any of them. It was as if the end result of any life was to have that life reduced to those two basic facts, which would then be carefully filed in this place and then be forgotten. Even from the perspective of someone whose life had been centered on the concept of death, it was a depressing thought. The marker she stood in front of decreed that the only thing one needed to know about her late mother was:

Ikari, Yui

1977-2004

Such limited information didn't answer any of the questions that Kirika had about her. What kind of person was she? How had she died? And did she participate – either by action or deliberate inaction – in turning Kirika over to Altena? Kirika knew that at least one of her parents was involved in that, but she didn't know which one – or if it was both.

A helicopter landed in the distance. Commander Ikari exited the helicopter and approached the grave where Kirika and Shinji waited. The Commander addressed Shinji.

"It's been three years since the two of us have been here together, hasn't it?" He asked.

"And the first time all three of us have ever been here together." Shinji responded.

"Indeed."

"I can no longer remember her face."

"Neither can I." Kirika added. Unlike the implied lie that Kirika had given Shinji about her amnesia (She had never revealed that she had recovered most of her memories), that was the truth. Whenever Kirika thought of 'Mother', the only image that came to mind was the woman who taught Kirika to kill – and who Kirika knocked into a lava pit.

"I've tried looking, but I haven't been able to find a picture of her anywhere." Shinji continued.

"I destroyed them." Gendo said. "Images are unimportant. My memories of her remain, and that is what matters."

That might be the case for a man who was in his late thirties at the time of his wife's death, but it was hardly the case for children who were four at the time. Kirika had heard that the Commander was far from the most considerate man in NERV. That rumor was apparently quite true. A few minutes passed in silence, and then the Commander turned and headed back to the helicopter.

"Shinji?" Kirika asked. "How did she die?"

Shinji sighed. "Kaa-san was working on some experiment. She had taken us to work that day to show it to us. She walked into some strange device. Something went wrong… and she never came out."

Kirika flinched. She knew exactly what being a witness or near witness to the death of someone important could do to a person. Mireille had been the one to discover that her family had been killed. At the time she found the bodies, Odette's musical pocketwatch was still playing from where it dropped on the ground. Whenever Kirika could opened her watch – which, as a close replica of Odette's, played the same tune – Mireille's mind flashed back to that day. After a while, Kirika got in the habit of getting the time from Mireille's watch whenever they were together, to spare her partner the memories.

Shinji continued. "Three weeks after that, the Commander sent me to live with an uncle. You stayed behind. When I asked why, he said that he had a use for you, but not me. He never said what that use was. When he had me come to Tokyo-3, I thought that you'd still be with him."

Kirika felt a darker part of herself wakening when she heard that. A use for her, that Shinji had no part in? She had a pretty good idea as to what use that might be. She hadn't been turned over to Altena until after her mother died. That meant that regardless of whether or not she was a Soldat, she had had no say in turning over her child. This meant that all blame for that lay with the surviving parent. Kirika's gaze locked onto the retreating form of Gendo Ikari.


Shinji was glad that his sister had come with him to visit their mother's grave. It had been a yearly ritual for him for the past decade, even if the Commander didn't always show up to pay his respects to his wife's grave. This was the first time that Kirika had been able to attend.

Shinji wasn't all that surprised when she asked him about their mother's death. Given her inability to remember anything else about her, it wasn't surprising that Kirika would be curious about that. And even though Shinji had trouble remembering anything else about his mother due to his extreme youth at the time she died, that day was indelibly burned into his mind, no matter how much he wished otherwise.

What he wasn't expecting was Kirika's reaction when he took the story forward to their separation. When he got to the point about her being useful when he was not, Kirika's eyes began staring at the Commander's back. But it wasn't that which got Shinji's attention. It was the expression on Kirika's face.

For a moment, Shinji thought of comparing it to that of a predator marking its prey. But then he realized that was inaccurate. A predator would show more emotion. Kirika's face showed no emotion at all, just a focused sense of purpose emanating from her cold, seemingly lifeless eyes. No, this wasn't the face of a predator. This was the face of an implacable force of nature, promising certain doom upon anything that stood in its way.

Shinji hadn't wanted to believe Asuka's story about how Kirika had calmly taken out a group of assassins before Section 2 even noticed they were there. But seeing his sister like this, he realized that it was very true. He wondered what could possibly have turned her into someone who could be like that.


Chloe was packing for her first mission since her illness. This mission was unusual for her. Normally she arrived at her destination, killed her target, and then went on her way. She rarely stayed at the place where she worked for more than a few days, so it was unusual for anyone there to get a chance to get to know her well enough to be able to describe her in any detail, and she was generally gone from the area before any search for the killer of her target could get started.

This time was different. Apparently, it was likely that she would be needed for multiple jobs in the Tokyo-3 area over a prolonged period of time, so she would need to create and maintain an actual identity there. Rather than being a wraith that simply passed through, she would have to be an actual person, with a fixed address. This would lead to having neighbors who might notice her comings and goings. In addition, nobody had been able to come up with a convincing reason for a 14 year old girl to travel by herself to Tokyo-3 and not be able to attend school. So she would end up with a sizable portion of her time constrained by a class schedule, and end up with a second group of people who might be able to recognize her should she ever be caught on film. And while Les Soldats could make any evidence that might turn up against her vanish in the long run, in the short term having policemen after her would be a serious inconvenience. She doubted that any of them could capture her, but having to hide would prevent her from getting any work done, and killing any cop who tried to question her would draw far too much attention to herself.

But the mission had its advantages as well. Kirika and Mireille were also in Tokyo-3. So Chloe would have all the time she needed to redeem her former partner. And while she was not allowed to kill Mireille at this time for fear of compromising her primary mission, there was nothing keeping her from planning a strike to eliminate her enemy… and enacting it on her way out of town once the mission was over.

But as she packed, Chloe realized that one of her possessions was missing. No matter how hard she tried, she could not find the fork that she had gotten from Kirika in Paris anywhere.

That fork was the only physical tie that Chloe had to the girl of her dreams. She had carefully held on to it as a symbol of the hope that they would be together again someday. It was the single most important physical possession that Chloe owned. But the only other person to have the slightest inkling of what that simple utensil meant to her was Altena, who was dead. In all likelihood, some member of the hospital staff found it on her, didn't know why it was there, and tossed it in either a silverware drawer or a trash can. The fork was likely gone forever.

Her packing was interrupted by a technician. Apparently, the people working on creating the identity she would be living under wanted her to come up with a last name. There was one that kept popping up in the back of her mind, so she decided to use that.

"Langley".


It was a rainy day in Tokyo-3. Actually, it was a total downpour. Weather reports claimed that it would stop in the early afternoon, but that didn't help anyone who had to walk to school in the morning. The various students squelched their way through the storm and hurried indoors. Once they made it indoors, they all removed and hung up their soaked raincoats quickly so that they could begin the process of drying off that much sooner.

As Kirika made her way to her homeroom, she saw something unusual and froze. One student wasn't wearing a raincoat. She was wearing a dark green cloak. A cloak with a very familiar cut and of a very familiar shade of green.

"What's wrong Kirika?" Shinji asked.

Kirika shook her head. It couldn't be her. Chloe was dead and had been for months. It was just a coincidence.

"It's nothing. I just saw something that reminded me of someone I once knew." She replied.

"Who?"

Explaining the whole story about her and Chloe would take too long, and touch on things that Kirika did not want to reveal. She decided to give a highly simplified version.

"Someone I once considered a friend."


"Stand! Bow! Sit!" Hikari called out.

The class obeyed the representative's orders. The entire class was present for the first time in weeks, as Rei had finally been released from the NERV hospital. The class was about to get a little larger.

"All right class, we have a new student who transferred in today." The teacher announced. With that, a girl with very dark red hair entered the room.

"Hello. My name is Chloe Langley." She said.

Nobody noticed the way Kirika stiffened, because Asuka's reaction was much more impressive.

"CHLOE?!" She shrieked, jumping out of her seat.

Chloe looked at the red-haired girl that stormed towards her. She looked like an older version of the girl that appeared in her dreams. Given that those dreams were all about her early childhood, it was entirely possible that this was that girl, now grown.

"Where have you been all these years, Chloe? Why haven't you kept in touch with me like you promised?" The girl demanded in German.

This person knew her? Delving into the foggy depths of her memories, Chloe came up with a name that might match the girl.

"A-Asuka?" She asked hesitantly.

"How nice of you to remember me, cousin. Of course, it would have been nicer if you hadn't taken ten years to do it."

Hoping to deflect her apparent relative away from questions concerning what she had been up to since the separation that she couldn't remember, Chloe tried to bring in some harmless small talk.

"How's your mother?"

"She's dead. She died three months after you moved. Of course, you would have known that if you had called. Or written. Or let me know your new address so I could write you. What were you doing that kept you so busy that you couldn't contact your family once in all these years?!"

The conversation went downhill from there.


Kirika had never been one for recreational reading. In fact, if a book was not something that she had been instructed to read, or on a topic that was relevant to some goal she had set out to achieve at some point, the odds that she had read it were pretty much zero. As such, she had virtually no knowledge of the common fiction genre known as the horror novel. But had she that knowledge, she would undoubtedly have thought that she was in one. Because there were two people in her classroom that had apparently come back from the dead.

Rei Ayanami had been pummeled to death in a training accident, receiving a broken neck and an indeterminate number of potentially serious internal injuries. By rights, the only way she could have survived would have left her paralyzed from the neck down. But here she was, perfectly unharmed.

Chloe 'Langley' had been stabbed through the heart. She had effectively died in Kirika's arms, having landed there after being stabbed. Unlike Rei, there was no possibility for a miraculous medical technique repairing the damage. Kirika had killed Chloe personally. She had attended her funeral, such as it was. As one of the world's premier assassins, she knew a corpse when she saw one. Chloe had definitely been dead. Her reappearance, alive and apparently related to one of her coworkers, was very confusing.

And what was she to do about Chloe's return? At one point, Kirika had considered her to be a friend. She was one of the few people in the world to truly know her. After the Final Guidance, Kirika learned that she was also the only friend she'd ever had for most of her life. Not that the person she had been back then had ever really understood what friendship meant.

That friendship had shattered the moment that Chloe tried to kill Mireille. With that act, Chloe had shown herself to be a faithful Soldat, one who considered all personal considerations, such as the wishes of a friend, to be subordinate to her orders to ensure that only two Saplings survive the final trial. As much as Kirika would have liked to have reclaimed her former friend, she knew that Chloe could not be trusted.

Looking at her terminal, she saw that since the 'discussion' between Asuka and Chloe was preventing the teacher from starting the class, the students were spending their reprieve from the endless purgatory of Second Impact lectures to have a massive chat room session. The topic in question was the connection between Asuka and Chloe. Most of what was being speculated about was totally wrong, as the conversation was being held in German, and Kirika was the only other person in the room who knew that language.

Kirika entered the chat room and started providing the class a running translation. Hopefully that would keep her mind off of wondering what was going on in this increasingly strange city.


By the time Asuka finally calmed down, there were only five minutes left in the period. The teacher tried getting things back on topic, but the class as a whole found the translation of that impressive diatribe that the German had produced far more interesting than a monologue about Second Impact. On the whole, the students had learned more about Asuka in that forty-five minute period than they had in the entire time she had lived in Japan.

The next class was gym. Because of the rain, it had to be held indoors. As there hadn't been a gym class first period and the teacher had spent the time doing paperwork in his office, the gym was locked. When the doors were unlocked, the gym was revealed to be a mess. Apparently, the kendo team had forgotten to put away their gear before locking up the evening before. Muttering to himself about having a word with the team captain when his class happened next period, he instructed the class to clear away the mess.

Chloe headed to a pair of shinai that were lying on the floor. Picking them up, she carefully checked the balance of each. Then she threw one to Kirika. The instant Kirika caught it, Chloe charged, her own shinai at the ready.

Kirika blocked the blow, and then slashed at Chloe's knees. Chloe jumped over the blow, and then swung at Kirika's head. When Kirika blocked the strike, Chloe punched the other girl in the face with the hilt of the practice sword.

The watchers gasped at that exchange. Attacking an opponent's legs was an illegal move in kendo. So was attacking with the hilt. But this wasn't a kendo match. This was a duel in the true sense of the word, where there was only one rule: win.

The two combatants slowly circled each other, looking for an opening. Kirika found one first. Her foot slid into a discarded helm and threw it at Chloe with a sudden snap kick. Chloe darted to the side and advanced while the people watching from behind her ducked for cover. One running slash was blocked, then Chloe kept on running past, evading a return cut. As Kirika gave chase, the reason for that move became apparent. Chloe reached a corner of the gym, then ran onto the wall, her momentum enabling her to keep moving to the adjacent wall, then spring off of it, attacking Kirika from the flank. Kirika rolled backwards, falling below the strike, and threw Chloe across the room. Chloe landed on her back, and smoothly rolled to her feet. The battle was rejoined.

The two rained blows upon each other continuously, neither managing to land a hit with their shinai. Kirika was forced to duck under a brutal swing at neck level, countering it with a backwards somersault that spun her weapon along the axis of rotation. Chloe was outflanked and nearly struck from behind, but she flipped over her opponent and would have landed a strike on Kirika's neck had a sweep kick not taken her feet out from under her. Back and forth the battle went, with neither opponent able to keep an advantage for long.

Finally, Chloe made a mistake. It was only a minor mistake, which would have been unimportant had she faced a lesser opponent. After a downward strike that had been dodged, she was a trifle too slow in recovering her stance. Kirika struck, hitting the shinai in the hilt. The weapon was knocked from Chloe's hand. Kirika spun, her sword aiming for Chloe's throat.


Asuka had known that Kirika was good for some time. Killing seven people in a matter of seconds with found materials will prove that. This was reinforced by the way she had mopped the training room floor with Asuka several times a week for the past month. But she hadn't expected anything like this. Watching an expert take out a weaker opponent without any effort was impressive, but it wasn't a true demonstration of skill. A true demonstration comes when an expert faces an equal. Such was the case here.

Kirika and Chloe's duel had demonstrated combat skills that Asuka had never even dreamed of attaining. She hadn't thought them possible outside of a movie (Of course, since Kensuke had pulled out his camera by the third strike, it arguably was a movie – now).

The fight was also brutal. Had any of the blows launched been made with a real weapon, they would have been either lethal or crippling if they connected. Yet despite this, Chloe was smiling throughout the entire battle. Finally, Kirika knocked Chloe's shinai from her hand. Then she brought her weapon in to strike Chloe's throat.

While it was a lot harder to do permanent damage to somebody with a shinai than it is with a real sword or a bokken, that didn't make it impossible. And given the way that Kirika fought, there was a good chance that she knew how to do it. Chloe had started the fight, and given how many times Kirika had had to fight for her life, she would likely kill her attacker on pure instinct. While Asuka was still angry about Chloe's lack of communication over the years, she didn't want her dead. A cry escaped her throat as the bamboo blade stopped a mere centimeter away from Chloe's unguarded throat.

Chloe's reaction was not what Asuka expected.

"I never could best you with the sword." She reminisced fondly.

"Remember that." Kirika responded coldly.

"What the heck was that?" Demanded the teacher. "Why were you attacking a fellow student?"

"Attacking? That wasn't a fight, teacher. That was just a light spar. Kirika and I have been sparring at a higher level than that for years." Chloe said. The entire class looked at her like she had grown a second head.

"Light? Light?! If that was light sparring, then what do you call a higher level than that?!"

"Normally we use real swords."

The entire class gawked at statement. The image of the past five minutes being redone using actual weapons flashed through their minds. All thoughts of punishing Chloe for starting a fight vanished from the teacher's head as he made a strange noise, and then passed out.


As two students carried the teacher to the nurse's office, the class started to gossip. The revelation that one of the pilots considered a no-holds-barred kendo match with real swords to be a normal workout made them speculate that maybe the other pilots were trained like that as well. That led to speculation as to the nature of the 'training accidents' that had caused Rei to be hospitalized on two separate occasions since the Angels started appearing. While this went on, Shinji noticed the other thing that Chloe had let slip.

"How long have you two known each other?" He asked.

"One year" "Ten years" Came the contradictory responses.

That got the attention of the class. The newcomer had known Kirika before her amnesia. And wherever it was that the two had vanished to in their ten year separations from their relatives in the class, they had apparently gone there together.


The class had divided into two groups. One group was clearing away the kendo gear, while the other group (The larger one) gossiped about everything that had happened that morning. While this was going on, Shinji approached Chloe.

"You knew my sister when she was younger?" He asked.

"You're Kirika's brother?" She responded.

He nodded. "Didn't she ever speak of me?"

"No. Not once. In all the years we knew each other, I don't think we had ever talked about our families. The topic never came up." That was actually rather strange, now that she thought about it.

Shinji looked disappointed at that. Chloe could sympathize. Encountering Kirika in Paris and being treated as a total stranger had been painful for her. She could imagine what he must be feeling to learn that he had apparently been forgotten during the years they'd been apart. She put a comforting had on his shoulder.

"What was she like back then?" Shinji asked a few minutes later.

"Magnificent." Chloe answered wistfully. "She was probably the most focused and dedicated person I've ever met. Once she made up her mind to get something done, the only way to stop her was to do it yourself before she could. I've been trying to live up to the standard that she set my entire life."

The two spent the remainder of the period reminiscing about the girl who had become a central figure in both their lives.


Kaji had been busy. Careful examination of the public portions of his commanding officer's record had revealed that while the man had been involved in politicking for career boosts on occasion (Reaching flag rank in any military organization without the endorsement of at least one person who already had it was extremely difficult), he had never obtained any long-term patron looking after his career. The boosts in question all appeared to be the result of actions already taken that brought benefit to the individuals giving the career boosts. That didn't match the Soldat concept of providing favors and expecting payback later.

Fairly certain that the head of the JDA wasn't compromised by Les Soldats, he had sent in a report describing what he had learned of the organization. The revelation that there were two conspiracies involved with NERV was not one that brought much joy to Japan's intelligence services. Even more consternation was brought about when Mireille informed Kaji that Gendo Ikari had been confirmed to be a Soldat. Kaji had already known that Gendo was a SEELE agent. But was he a Soldat mole in SEELE, a SEELE mole in Les Soldats, or planning to betray them both?

JDA Intelligence was creating an entire new section to investigate the new conspiracy. That section had not been reported to the Diet. There was no way to tell how many members of the Diet were compromised, given the level of corruption there. In the meantime, Kaji was continuing to investigate NERV, trying to find out the nature of the schemes of either group trying to pull the strings there.

That was what had brought him and Mireille to the deepest subbasement of Terminal Dogma. He was about to open the sealed entrance using a forged passkey when he heard a pistol being cocked.

"I thought you two were up to something." Misato said. "Kaji wouldn't normally spend so much time flirting with a woman ten years his junior."

Kaji knew that with Misato having the drop on them, trying to fight without a distraction to buy them a bit of time was futile. So he tried a different tactic.

"Misato," He began, "Have you even wondered why of all the places in the world, the Angels always attack here? The only Angel that wasn't proven to be trying to reach Tokyo-3 was the 6th, and that could have been on its way here when it ran into the Pacific Fleet. Why do all the Angels attack the only place in the world that is equipped to defend against them?"

"It's the Evangelions. The Angels are attracted to them."

"Misato, EVA-02 was in Germany when the Angel attacks began, and no Angels have attacked Hamburg. There are currently eleven Evangelion units in various states of construction in places around the world other than Tokyo-3. If the Angels were after the Evangelions, they could have attacked any of the NERV facilities building them. No, Misato, the Angels are coming here because they're looking for something. And that something is this." With that, he swiped the card through the reader.

The massive doors opened. Inside, there was an enormous cross. Nailed to the cross was a gigantic humanoid figure whose legs were missing. A gigantic spear, the size of a small warship, was embedded in its side. Orange fluid oozed out of the nail and spear wounds, flowing into a large pool at the base.

The three intruders entered the room.

"What is this?"

"An Angel. NERV has been using it to create the Evangelions. And for some reason the other Angels are seeking this one out."

"Why?"

"Why are the Angels looking for this one? Or why is NERV doing this? I don't know the answer to either of these. But I intend to find out."

The three stood in silence, staring at the monstrosity. At the same time as they did this, Kirika entered a restroom, pulled out her cellphone, and tried to contact Mireille to tell her about Chloe's return. Unfortunately, due to Mireille's location in the most heavily shielded point of the GeoFront, the call was lost.


The sky was still gloomy, but it was no longer raining. Students filed out of the school, carefully avoiding all the puddles that formed during the day.

Mireille walked to the school gate, ready to pick up her charges. She saw a fourth person walking close to the group she was to escort. When the group was close enough that she could make out who it was, all the color drained from her face.

"Hello, Mireille." Chloe said. "It's been a long time."

Mireille looked at the girl who had nearly killed her – and by rights should be dead.

"A very long time indeed." She replied. "You're looking rather pale."

"I've been ill."

"I had heard. Your doctor must be very good. When I left France, your prognosis was terminal."

From the tone of Mireille's voice, it was rather obvious that she'd been hoping that Chloe would die. Whatever had passed between the two in the past, it was clear that the two didn't like each other.

"Do you two know each other?" Asuka asked.

"Oh, yes, cousin." Chloe responded. "Our paths have crossed a few times over the past year.

"By the way, Kirika, I believe you dropped this the last time you visited our teacher." Chloe produced a silver pocketwatch from her bookbag and gave it to the other girl. "Now I'm afraid I must be going. I still haven't finished setting up my apartment."

With that, Chloe left, leaving behind a large number of witnesses to the conversation who immediately began churning the school rumor mill even more rapidly than before.


As Chloe headed down the street, she considered her own actions during the day. Why was it that she had never even thought of her cousin before running into her today? How was it that she and Kirika could spend nine years together and never once discuss their families at all? What in the world had gotten into her to have a practice match with Kirika in front of the entire class? And to reveal the full extent of the matches the two had had in the past? All that had accomplished was to ensure that she stood out in the eyes of her classmates, when standing out was the last thing she wanted.

What was wrong with her? Before her illness, she had always been calm, reserved. The only people to ever see her otherwise were Kirika and Altena. She would never have shown her combat abilities in front of anyone who wasn't either an ally or somebody she planned to use them on a year ago. What had happened to make her do something that reckless? It was almost as if she was acting like a totally different person at times.

A car drove by her, running through a large puddle. As she tried to dodge the worst of the splash, the water flew towards her and then stopped; crashing into an invisible wall and running down the wall towards the sidewalk. Having just walked through the point where that wall had appeared, Chloe knew that it hadn't been there a moment before. One more question to ask: What had just happened?

Ten minutes after Chloe had left the area, a team of NERV researchers appeared to investigate the AT field that had spontaneously formed for half a second and then disappeared without any explanation.


A light on Gendo's telephone went on. The Commander of NERV pushed a button.

"What is it?" He asked.

His secretary's voice came through the line. "The First Child wishes to speak with you, Sir."

"Send her in."

Rei entered the office and addressed the Commander.

"There is a new student in our class."

"And why should this concern me?"

"The new student is named Chloe Langley. She is apparently a cousin of Pilot Soryu, who she had not been in contact with for ten years. She is also an acquaintance of Pilot Yumura, with their relationship going back approximately the same amount of time as the separation between her and Soryu."

Gendo frowned. If this girl was connected to his daughter from that time period, then it was highly probable that she was also a Soldat. He hadn't known that the Second Child had also had family connections with that organization.

Rei continued. "Judging by a fight that had broken out in one class, Ms Langley's skills in combat are comparable to Pilot Yumura's. Later conversation revealed that she holds a great deal of personal respect for the Fourth Child, and was apparently trained by the same teacher. This respect does not extend to the Fourth's Guardian. She and Agent Bouquet appear to dislike each other intensely. Agent Bouquet expressed her disappointment that Langley recovered from some illness that she had suffered."

"Interesting… Is there anything else?"

"One more thing. Judging from the expression on Agent Bouquet's face when she first encountered Ms Langley, I would say that in addition to disliking her, Agent Bouquet also fears her."

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Dismissed."

After Rei left, Gendo considered the report she had given. If Kirika and this Chloe had had the same teacher, then the newcomer was almost certainly a Soldat. And if Bouquet, who could face seven to one odds and emerge unharmed, feared her, then Chloe was a very dangerous Soldat. The question then was why she was sent.

Was it to set a second pair of eyes on Kirika? Or was it to watch him?


Masahiro was watching a movie in his home when he heard the front door open. Since he had locked the door, he knew something was wrong. But before he could investigate, a figure glided into the room. Because the figure clung to the shadows of the dimly lit room, all he could make out was the rough height of the intruder, but he could sense that this person, whoever he or she was, was very dangerous.

"Good evening, Ishikawa-san." Came a quiet voice.

"Who-who are you?" He asked.

"I am Noir."

Noir. The elite enforcer of Les Soldats. What had he done to bring Noir's attention to him? He had been faithful to the organization. Why did they send a killer to him?

"I have a task for you, Ishikawa-san." The cloaked figure continued.

He heaved a sigh of relief. Whoever Noir had come for, it wasn't him.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I need you to tap into the data records of the MAGI, and retrieve some information for me. When you have done so, send the information to me by this means." With that, Noir threw a folded piece of paper onto a table.

"What do you wish to know?"

"The address of a NERV employee named Rei Ayanami."


A/N: This story has now cleared 10,000 views. Thank you, all.

I know that the anniversary of Yui's death took place before the 12th attacked, but Kirika probably wouldn't have come along if she hadn't learned to trust Shinji, which was something that was fixed to that event. So I swapped the events.

Shinji's separation from Kirika was a traumatic parting while both of them were still reeling from a traumatic incident. Asuka's wasn't as spectacular. Chloe's parents announced that they had a new job that required them to move, then the whole family went away. Chloe was turned over to Altena after they had relocated away from people who would notice if their daughter vanished. Far more damaging to Asuka was the fact that when her mother went insane shortly after the Langleys moved, Chloe was not there for Asuka to turn to the way that Shinji and Kirika could (briefly) turn towards each other.

When I came up with Chloe's resurrection, I knew I had to have something similar to the duel between Chloe and Kirika from episode 24 happen (Though in the show, they weren't using practice swords). I've never tried to do a fight scene like that before. How'd it turn out?

The youngest person Kaji is seen to flirt with is Maya, who is 5-6 years younger than him. The oldest person Kaji refused to flirt with is Asuka, who is 15-16 years younger than him. Exactly where between these two points he places the cutoff point of 'too young for me' is open for debate.

My thanks to Kiros Razer, James Axelrad, mikek3332002, Taeniaea, DarkJackel and gunman for the reviews.