It had taken a little bit for Mari to get Asuka and the Evas back to the hangers, but it hadn't been particularly troublesome- just a bit awkward, really. Still, the Evas were back in their cages, and cleanup was underway up in the city.
Asuka, meanwhile, was still pretty drained, for reasons unknown to Mari. It wasn't dangerous, but the girl seemed far more exhausted than anyone who'd been piloting for that amount of time should be. That was why Mari now sat on a bench beside the Second Child, providing some support for her while the girl sipped some sort of sweet drink to get her energy back up. The brunette kept one arm around the German, who was still slumped into her, a faint smile still gracing her tired face.
"Hey, Princess?" The girl asked softly. Asuka glanced towards her.
"...Mm?"
"In a while, you think you'd be up for a little chat?"
A faint nod, and another sip of the drink answered her question.
"Mm."
Mari sighed, and pulled her partner a little closer.
This was just fine.
Neon Genesis Evangelion:
(Not) the End
Chapter 037: You Can (Not) Go Back
The man waited, looking out from the balcony at the mess of destruction that had consumed a sizeable chunk of London. Across the city- melted wrecks of buildings, shattered streets, blast craters, and places where the infrastructure had simply been torn apart by the passage of giants. The man waited, and took it all in.
.
"It's a big mess," someone else said, their shoes clapping against the hard floor. Kaji turned, watching as Charles Illustrious leaned back against the wall, a few metres away.
"...You speak Japanese?" The inspector asked, a little curious. He hadn't talked much with the man before, mainly due to business, but he'd be fine with having a chance to speak with the only father of a Pilot who seemed to get along with their child.
"A little," Charles answered. "I learned it because of my wife. I'm not very good at speaking it, but I can understand it well."
Kaji nodded. He could guess why the man was using Japanese- the same reason Mari and Asuka had chatted in English in Tokyo-3; he wanted this conversation to be between them and them alone. A smart move, if a little obvious.
"Well, you're right," Kaji said, looking back at the cityscape. "It is a pretty big mess- I wouldn't be surprised if this branch has to shelve some of their projects while they fix all this up."
"However, I doubt you've come over to talk with me just because you want to point out how much the city looks like something Godzilla walked through, Mr. Illustrious."
Charles sighed.
"Yes," the man admitted. "I came to talk because of the girls."
"They aren't going to be able to stay here much longer," Kaji says. "Not now that the Angels have resumed their attacks. Their break ends when the next one shows up; that was the deal."
Solemnly, Charles nodded.
"Of course."
.
"You know," Kaji offered. "It's probably fine if they stay a little longer- just a day or so. After all, preparing everything for their return is going to take a while."
"You'll have your chance to say goodbye, don't worry."
.
It had been a little over half an hour before Asuka's exhaustion had cleared up- and while the girl was still a little bit woozy, she'd made it pretty clear that she didn't want to remain in her LCL-soaked plugsuit any longer. Thus, with Mari able to keep an eye on her, they'd been cleared to head back to the lockers.
Of course, that was when Asuka had remembered Mari's request.
"Hey, Four-Eyes?" the girl asked, looking over at the Fifth Child. Mari paused, fingers freezing at the second button on her shirt. "What was it you wanted to talk about?"
Mari exhaled.
"...Back during the battle," the girl began, as she resumed fiddling with her buttons. "When you'd told me your plan, you and Unit-02 were… different. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before!" Mari turned, and looked Asuka in the eyes- not angry, not hurt, just… curious.
"What was that?"
.
Asuka frowned, and leaned back on the bench a bit, propping herself up with both hands.
"Well," she said. "Well."
"Four-Eyes, have you ever… talked to your Eva?" the redhead asked.
"Well… yeah," Mari admitted. "A little bit."
"Has it ever talked back?"
Mari blinked. The girl's brow dropped, slightly concerned by this turn. The fact was… she thought it had. Not as words, per se, but Unit-05 had always seemed to have an almost emotional reaction to Mari's words, like it could hear her and understand her. And even then, that had been before whatever had happened with Unit-02 against Sandalphon.
The girl's response was a single syllable, whispered through barely moving lips.
"Yes."
Asuka seemed to sink down a little, and sighed. The girl mumbled something indistinct, the hint of a smile playing across her lips. Her body rocked forwards, bringing her face closer to Mari.
"Okay. So, a few months back, when I fought the Seventh Angel, I… that was the first time I'd gone Perfect Synch."
Mari frowned, and raised an eyebrow in quick succession.
"I made the name up on the spot, okay? Just drop it," the girl said before Mari could interject, and quickly moved on. "The point is, I… talked with Unit-02- or rather, it talked with me. And I told it to do something… anything, really, to prove it wasn't just a useless puppet. And, well, it did."
In the wake of the girl's last words, a heavy silence seemed to fall across the room. Mari slouched a bit, her eyebrows knitting as she started to really consider, really think about what her girlfriend had just told her.
The Evas were… alive. It wasn't just her imagining Unit-05's 'responses', it wasn't just a hallucination she'd had while stuck in Sandalphon, and it probably wasn't just the cyborgs' programming going awry that led to them going berserk. Not when she had evidence that someone else had experienced this as well.
The Evas were alive.
.
"Now, um… it's not really perfect," the German said, breaking the silence at last. "I don't know the details of whatever goes on there, but it seems to just take a lot out of me when I do it…" Asuka trailed off, setting her focus on Mari. "... Hey, Four-Eyes, are you alright?"
The girl blinked, and quickly nodded.
"Y-yeah, I'm fine. That's… that's all."
"You sure?" Asuka asked again. "You look kinda shaken up."
"Just… processing some heavy stuff, Princess," she explained. "Gonna need a bit, but I'll be fine again then."
"Okay," Asuka replied, a little reluctantly. "If you're really sure." The Second Child reached over, and clapped a hand down on Mari's shoulder.
"Come on, Four-Eyes. Let's get going."
.
As the two of them stood up, and grabbed their things, Mari's mind finally reached a decision.
~Someday,~ Mari thought. ~Someday, I'm going to tell her. I promise.~
And with that, Mari left, following Asuka out of the room.
.
- Berlin, Germany
.
"Nagisa," the old man said, his cybernetic voicebox intoning the words with notable displeasure as he advanced out of the shadows. "There has been a… complication."
The silver haired boy waited silently for the Chairman to continue. He wasn't surprised by the man's irritation; the Human Instrumentality Committee utterly despised any change to their scenario that wasn't in accordance with the Dead Sea Scrolls. Kaworu had no such worries.
"Of what sort?" he asked. Kiel Lorenz, head of the committee, seemed to frown under his visor and mask.
"The recent attack," the man rasped. "It did not go as expected. What do you know?"
Kaworu Nagisa closed his eyes, and let the faint hint of a smirk tug at his lips. The old men were growing more dependent on his insights with each altercation- and that suited him just fine.
"The Call may affect us all, Chairman, but it does not bind us without give," the boy answered at last. "We may have to heed it in the end, but there is plenty of room to act freely- certainly enough for the Eleventh. I cannot explain it completely, but one could portray its actions as… selfless, in a sense." Kaworu lifted his gaze to meet Kiel's, staring at him with warm, red-gold eyes.
"After all, did it not free a suffering sibling- one who would otherwise have had no chance for the union it so desired?"
The old man did not respond.
.
"Of course, there are their actions after that," the boy continued. "That was more likely the doing of the Third, than anything else. Perhaps it desired revenge against the Unit that had led to its imprisonment. Perhaps it had simply lost any further regard for life. I do not know."
Now, the other man spoke up.
"This… cooperation," he said, any expression hidden by the mask he wore. "Do you know; will any others do the same?"
A thought came to the boy's head. A thought of the remainders; of seven shapes, churning and roiling in their own essence, each waiting for the moment they would arise. A thought of the empty space between oblivion and eternity, where the star-faced child spoke with the glowing wings. A thought of a giant of light, rising up with seventeen souls buried in her chest.
Kaworu closed his eyes again.
"...No. None of the Angels will do that again. I am certain of this."
.
"Good."
Seemingly satisfied, Kiel turned from the boy. Slowly, he began to walk away, retreating back into the shadows. Kaworu hung there, floating in the LCL without a word.
The boy thought.
.
.
It didn't feel like a last day, oddly enough. There wasn't any hint, nor a particular mood that told the Children 'your stay is over'. It just felt… normal. If neither had been aware in the first place, they probably wouldn't have guessed.
Of course, eventually, the time came. Nerv had finished preparing the Evas for transport, and the Children had finished preparing themselves. Mari, Asuka, and Kaji all stood at the docks, waiting alongside Charles as the ship finished its last few checks before their exit.
"Well," Charles said, and turned to face the other three. "This is it, I guess."
Mari nodded back slowly, and looked over at her dad. "Yeah," she replied. "I'm… I'm gonna miss you, Papa."
The man smiled.
"I'll miss you too, Mari," Charles said. "You as well, Asuka," he added, nodding to the Second Child. "Thanks for helping Mari recover."
The girl blinked at that, before replying with a knowing smile.
"Well, you know…" she said, before slinging an arm around Mari. "I'm sure as hell not giving her up."
A foghorn blared from the ship, catching everyone's attention, and making it very clear that it had finally finished its preparations.
"Well, that's our cue," Kaji noted. "Time to go, girls."
As the two sighed, and begrudgingly separated to grab their luggage, the inspector looked over to Charles, and gave him a grateful nod.
"Thank you, Mr. Illustrious, for the help."
"No problem," the other man replied. "I'm glad I had the chance to help out like this. Until later then, Inspector."
.
As the ship pulled away, Asuka walked over to the railing. Mari was already there, one hand supporting her while the other one waved to the man on the shore. The Second Child leaned up, taking a spot next to her.
A few seconds later, Mari's waving wound down, and her hand dropped back down to the railing.
"Hey, Four-Eyes?" Asuka asked.
"Yeah, Princess?" the brunette replied, glancing over out of the corner of her eye. The other girl took a breath.
"You know, your dad's… actually a pretty cool guy."
Slowly, a little smirk crept onto the girl's face.
"...Cooler than Kaji?"
Asuka turned, and over-exaggeratedly raised a single eyebrow.
.
"... Maybe."
Mari snorted.