Chapter 3 - It's My Fault

Midday came and went before Asuka and Misato finally roused themselves from bed. Perhaps mindful of the fact that she would soon be driving, Misato didn't have her usual wake-up beer. Asuka declined Shinji's offer to make her lunch, stating that sitting in LCL didn't always agree with a full stomach. Having already ingested the viscous substance twice himself, Shinji agreed.

Misato drove to NERV in her usual insane way, potentially breaking at least three traffic laws but somehow not causing an accident. Shinji gave thanks for the fact that Asuka hadn't learned to drive from the mad woman. And for seatbelts.

He wondered if the car had airbags.

At NERV, as Asuka headed off to the changing rooms, Shinji said, "Good luck," to her retreating back.

Asuka gave a lazy backwards wave and replied, "I'm the best pilot there is, so this'll be a breeze. But thanks anyway."

Misato brought Shinji with her to the bridge, somehow managing to find her way without any problem this time. His presence earned him a raised eyebrow from Doctor Akagi, but she apparently saw no need to kick him out.

"Everything's ready on our end," Ritsuko said to Misato, before turning to address the bridge crew. "The Second Child?"

"Just entering the cage now, ma'am," replied Maya. One of the holographic screens shifted, now showing the view from a security camera pointing at Unit-01's berth.

"Purple and green?" Asuka's surprise and slight disgust came undisguised through the speaker.

"You're complaining about the colour?" Misato asked chidingly, causing the girl on the screen to look around for a moment before realising the voice was coming from the comm system. "It's only temporary, if everything goes well; then you can get back in your own Eva when it arrives."

"Unit-02 can't get here fast enough," grumbled Asuka as she folded her arms and glared at the purple behemoth in front of her. "Bad enough I have to try and sync with an obsolete model. Well at least it's not pink. Bah, let's get this over with."

The bridge crew began calling out orders and status reports, the technical words blurring together and flying over Shinji's head. The first start-up attempt failed, which didn't seem to surprise anybody on the bridge, but Asuka made several snide comments about the 'outdated piece of junk' she was sitting in. Several minutes of calibrations and technobabble passed. In the middle of it all, Shinji somehow heard Asuka mutter to herself.

"Come on... I gotta do this. I don't want Shinji to get hurt..." Then came a sudden yelp and Asuka glared at the camera. "Hey! Did one of you jokers bump the temperature control?! It suddenly just got warmer in here!"

The bridge grew gave each other confused glances, and even Ritsuko looked baffled. "We haven't done anything of the sort. Readings show the LCL temperature is still at thirty-five degrees Celsius."

"Well something happened," Asuka insisted. "Eh, never mind, it's cooling down again."

The second attempt appeared to go the same as the first for a minute until, with an audible rumble that Shinji could swear he felt in his feet...

"Unit-01 has activated!"

"Yes!" cheered Misato as she pumped a fist in the air.

"Nice work, Asuka!" Shinji exuberantly added, feeling like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. NERV now had a real pilot to protect them.

"Naturally," Asuka replied with a grin. "I mean, look who you're talking to."

Ritsuko was less cheerful, but there was still satisfaction in her voice as she asked, "What sync ratio are we looking at?"

"Holding steady at thirty-six point two," Makoto reported.

Ritsuko nodded. "Less than I hoped for, but better than I expected. Let's go through some quick simulations to get her acclimated to Unit-01. Oh," she added as a thought occurred. "Just to make sure, please project your AT-Field."

"Huh? Oh, sure." Asuka concentrated, and the air in front of Unit-01 shimmered for a moment.

"Field deployed," said Shigeru.

Nearby, Maya frowned as a bit of data caught her eye. She called Ritsuko over, who hummed in thought as she tried to make sense of what she was reading. Eventually she said, "Might just be an error. Keep an eye on it though, and let me know if anything changes."

With that out of the way, the simulations started.

XXX

Misato and the two pilots finally left NERV at around six o'clock in the evening. Her driving was a bit more subdued, but still more reckless than Shinji would have liked. They got home and Shinji immediately began preparing dinner before Misato decided to do it herself. As he prepared the meal, all three were in the kitchen to discuss the possibility of the two pilots getting their own apartment.

"Well... I suppose that would solve the problem," Misato conceded. "But why not just have one of you move to the new apartment?"

Asuka groaned and rolled her eyes. "Because that still wouldn't be fair. One of us would be getting kicked out instead of shoved in a closet."

Misato quirked an eyebrow. "Kicked out? I think you're starting to exaggerate a little, Asuka."

"The point is, this is the fairest thing for both sides."

Shinji turned the rice off. The meal was almost ready; he just had to wait for the meat and vegetables to finish cooking. This would be his first time cooking for Asuka, and he fervently hoped she wouldn't hate it. He wondered if it would be difficult to learn some German recipes. There was little doubt in his mind that at some point Asuka would make a request, and he wanted to be-

"Shinji?"

-ready for it. At the moment, the best he could do was make an attempt at a Baumkuchen. Besides his language tutoring, there hadn't exactly been much demand for anything German while he had been living with his teacher.

A chopstick bounced off the back of his head, and he turned around. Both females were staring at him.

"Er, sorry," he said. "Got a bit distracted."

"Thinking about what?" Misato asked, and Shinji groaned internally. She had said it in that tone of voice. The woman had definitely reverted back to Misato the Roommate. "About how you'll be living with Asuka? Nobody else around? Free to do whatever you like?"

"Misato!" came the twinned outbursts from Shinji and Asuka, both their faces turning red.

"W-we may be pen-pals," Asuka embarrassedly continued, "but that doesn't mean I'm going to... to just hop into his bed!"

Misato snorted into her hand. "Oh boy! I'm going to have so much fun teasing you two!" The two teenagers glanced at each other nervously, but their eyes shot back to Misato as she continued. "Even if I won't be seeing you as much as I'd hoped."

"Won't be-" Asuka began, before Shinji interrupted her.

"Does that mean you agree to this?"

"Of course," replied Misato, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "If this is what you've both decided on, I can't very well turn around and refuse. Well, I mean... I could have refused, and stuck one of you in your own apartment, but neither of you would be happy with that. Besides, you'll only be next door." Her gaze turned wistful. "And I suppose you're both at that age where you'll need some privacy..."

Misato grinned at the sputtering and stammering she caused in her two wards. She gave them a moment to recover, then said, "So! When do you plan on moving over?"

"As soon as possible," Asuka wearily replied. "Please."

Despite how he felt about leaving Misato 'on her own', Shinji nodded in agreement. He wanted to talk to Asuka soon about the contract they had both signed several years ago. At the time it had given them a few chuckles when they spoke of it afterwards, and when Asuka had asked about the chocolate, he said it had been incredibly tasty. But now the contract was coming back to bite him in a way he never would have expected. There had to be something they could do about it.

"Alright then," Misato decided. "After dinner we'll move all your stuff next door. Speaking of which, is something burning?"

Shinji yelped in surprise, and turned his full attention back to the stove.

XXX

Apart from Asuka's grumbling about 'sleeping on the floor' when she gathered up the futon she would be using, the move went smoothly. Since all they had were personal items such as clothing, the rest of the house was almost completely bare. Asuka said that she would try to get more of the things from her German residence sent, but added that it might not be likely as she had already received pointed comments about how much was going to get shipped. In the meantime, Misato arranged for a delivery.

"Right, that's all settled," Misato said as she ended the call. "By this time tomorrow you'll at least have essentials like toiletries and some furniture." Asuka opened her mouth, but she was quicker. "Yes, Asuka, I made sure you'll be getting a 'proper' bed. Now sort out who gets what room, preferably without arguing."

"Asuka should get the master bedroom," Shinji immediately said, and pressed on before he could be interrupted. "As I said before, you'll need more space. This apartment is the same as Misato's, so I already know that the other bedroom will be fine for me. The bedrooms aren't that much different in size anyway."

Asuka narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him. "How the hell do you know the size of Misato's room?"

"When I was first cleaning up her apartment, there was quite a lot to do in her room." Shinji rubbed the back of his head, then shuddered. "There was like... a pile of beer cans stretching almost to the ceiling." The pile had fallen on him. It had taken a sticky, bad-smelling hour to clean the room up.

Misato folded her arms and harrumphed. "A couple more days and I would have completed Yebisu Tower."

Shinji was about to continue, but then he noticed the evil look Asuka was giving him. "Um... what's wrong?" he nervously asked.

"If you cleaned Misato's room, you must have also handled her dirty laundry," accused Asuka.

"W-no! All I do is put things into the washing machine!"

Misato jumped in. "Scared of Shinji touching your things, Asuka?"

Asuka's face reddened at her teasing tone. "Scared? No, I just don't want a pervert putting his hands on my unmentionables!"

"I'm not a pervert," Shinji mumbled. Again, he went unheard.

"Ah, then there's a simple solution to that," replied Misato. "Just do the laundry yourself."

"Wha- oh come on!" Asuka growled, then huffed. "Fine," she relented before stomping over to Shinji, looking him dead in the eye. "Mark my words. If anything of mine conveniently happens to go missing, I will know exactly who to blame."

Shinji gulped in a suddenly-dry throat. His first instinct was to angrily deny any allegations that such a thing would happen, but what actually came out of his mouth was a feeble, "Y-yes, Asuka!"

"Good boy." As if a switch had been flipped, Asuka's mood changed as she gave him a cheerful smile. "Anyway, I suppose I'll take the master bedroom. Apart from the size they're identical anyway, right?"

"Yep," confirmed Misato. "They've both got windows and good ventilation, as well as built-in wardrobes and doors to the balcony."

Asuka blinked. "These apartments have balconies?"

Shinji nodded. "They sure do," he said as he walked through the empty living room to the sliding door leading out to the balcony. The three of them stepped outside into the cool evening breeze. To their left and right were more sliding doors leading to the two bedrooms.

"Ooh, I really like this," Asuka enthused. She looked to the left at the slanted wall that was used to partition the building's balconies. "And Misato's balcony is right on the other side. We could just climb right over to get to her place."

"Please don't," cautioned Misato exasperatedly. "We're seven floors up. I really don't want to have to report a death to NERV because you got lazy and decided to take a shortcut."

"Spoilsport." Asuka stuck out her tongue at the woman trying to ruin all her fun.

They stayed out on the balcony for a few more minutes, enjoying the breeze and discussing what else the apartment would need. Eventually, Misato turned and headed back inside, and the two teenagers followed.

"I think that's everything for now," said Misato. "I have a key to this place, and I'll get you two a key to mine. Tomorrow your stuff should arrive while you're at school so I'll leave my key with the Section Two patrol on this floor."

"Oka-wait what?!"

Shinji backed away from a suddenly fuming Asuka.

"You'll be going to school with Shinji," Misato clarified. "I know you're already a college graduate, but it's important that you attend school while you're here. You may be a pilot, Asuka, but I want you to get as much out of being a kid as possible. You're only young once."

Asuka grumbled and muttered some things in German that Shinji would hesitate to say out loud, but she eventually, if reluctantly, conceded.

"That's all settled then," said Misato with a smile that Shinji felt was perfectly calculated to aggravate his new roommate. "Feel free to duck into my place tomorrow morning when you wake up so you can shower and breakfast and such. Goodnight, kids! Don't have too much fun on your own!"

And with that she departed, leaving behind a fuming redhead and a boy who felt like he was standing too close to a rumbling volcano.

He then opened his dumb mouth and tempted fate.

"Are... you alright, Asuka?"

Asuka sharply breathed in, causing him to flinch away slightly, before letting it all out in a protracted sigh as she slouched forward.

"I was hoping she wouldn't do that," she mumbled. "I've got two degrees, for crying out loud. What can I possibly learn by going through school again?"

"Seeing as I was home-schooled before coming here, I don't have an answer for that. It'll be my first day there too." Shinji tentatively took a step closer, then another when Asuka failed to react. "But please, at least give it a chance. Sure, you might not learn anything new, but we'll at least be getting out of here and doing something that isn't NERV-related. And who knows," he added with a shrug. "Maybe you'll make a dozen friends."

Asuka huffed in amusement. "Well, at least I'd be going there with you. That could make it tolerable."

Shinji smiled. "Let's hope we end up in the same class then."

"Yeah, well... we'll sort that out when the time comes. In the meantime, I'm going to hit the sack. Hopefully my internal clock can set itself to the local time without too much hassle."

"Okay, goodnight, Asuka."

"'Night, Shinji."

The door to Asuka's new bedroom slid closed. Shinji turned to leave, beginning to think about how his first day of school would go, and almost missed the sound of the door opening again. He swivelled around. "Hmm? Asuka? Is there something wrong?"

The redhead didn't respond right away, instead moving closer to him while her face began to turn slightly pink. When they were face to face again, she finally said, "Shinji... it's really, really good to see you after all these years. I'm glad we became pen-pals."

Quick as lightning, she wrapped her arms around Shinji for a swift hug before darting off back to the bedroom and slamming the sliding door shut.

"...Y-you too," Shinji replied to the empty hallway.

He was tucked into his own bed before he realised he'd forgotten to ask about the contract.

XXX

"Um, hello, I'm Shinji Ikari."

"And I'm Asuka Langley-Soryu! Charmed, huh?"

Their introduction to Class 2-A went about as well as Shinji expected. Half the class stared at Asuka's hair, while the other half stared at... the rest of her. Only one person besides the teacher was actually polite, and that was the brown-haired class representative. Hikari Horaki swiftly introduced herself to Shinji and Asuka, and got them up to speed on the class laptops they had received from the front office before sitting back down again.

Shinji was all ready to start paying attention to the lesson, but then the teacher began to talk about pre-Second Impact life. Confused, he looked around the class. Nobody, not even the class representative, seemed surprised. In fact, most of the students were already staring at their laptops. In front of him, Asuka turned and shot him a puzzled look, to which he could only shrug.

"Hey," came a low voice from behind around ten minutes later. Shinji twisted in his seat and saw a light-haired boy with glasses staring curiously at him and Asuka. "I'm Kensuke Aida. You two came to Tokyo-3 recently, huh?"

"Brilliant deduction," Asuka sardonically replied, before realising how loud she had spoken. She continued in a lower voice. "I would have thought the fact that we transferred to this school today would be enough of a clue."

Light glinted off his glasses as Aida adjusted them with a smirk. "People have been leaving after the attack, fearing for their own safety, but you two came right on in. I wonder..."

"What are you getting at?" Asuka's voice turned dangerous.

Aida leaned in. "You two work for NERV, don't you?"

Shinji struggled to keep his face blank, but apparently even that was enough of a clue. Aida grinned widely, before glancing past the pilots at something, gulping nervously and making a great show of ignoring them. Shinji looked around and saw Horaki giving them a scathing glare. He blinked, then turned back to his laptop.

Apparently he was so bad at keeping a secret that he'd accidentally outed himself less than an hour into the first day of school. At least nobody else had heard them, being focused on ignoring the droning of the teacher. He sighed and looked over the top of his laptop screen at Asuka, who just rolled her eyes at him before turning around.

"So much for operational secrecy," he heard her mumble.

Lunchtime thankfully came quickly. Asuka and Shinji left the class, following the emigration of students towards the cafeteria. The moment they stepped up to the counter, Shinji immediately wished he'd thought ahead and made lunch himself. The cafeteria's menu selection seemed to range from bland to suspicious. Fearing for his continued existence, Shinji picked something he could actually recognise and moved off to a table. Asuka soon followed, having picked the same thing as him for perhaps the same reason. They found an empty table and sat down, and were hardly surprised when Aida sat down next to Shinji, which earned him a groan of frustration from Asuka.

"So if you're a NERV employee, do you know who the pilot of that giant robot is?" Aida asked as they began to pick at their food.

"What the hell makes you think we even work for NERV?" Asuka shot back, stabbing something on her tray with a plastic fork.

"Ikari gave no reaction at all, like he'd been expecting the question. Anybody else probably would have been confused-"

"Enough of that, Aida!"

A beleaguered Shinji looked up at the interruption. Horaki was there, carrying her school bag and a bento box, glaring daggers at Aida.

"It's their first day here and you're already harassing them," the class representative continued as she sat down next to Asuka. To Shinji, she sighed and said, "Sorry, Kensuke's kind of obsessed with military stuff. But if he knows what's good for him, he'll keep his mouth shut."

Aida raised his hands in surrender before becoming intensely interested in his meal.

Horaki proceeded to ignore him. "Hopefully, people will just think you're children of NERV employees, but I get the feeling that people are going to work it out eventually."

"Wait," said Asuka. "We didn't even talk much when we first met you. How did you figure it out?"

Horaki smiled. "Observation. There's suddenly a lot of men in black suits in and around the school, and I'm sure there's three more janitors than there were yesterday. In a way, NERV itself outed you two. You're obviously important if security here got tightened up this much."

Shinji and Asuka groaned simultaneously.

"Some people here aren't all that bright," Aida noted, "but I think even they will work it out when you disappear right before an alert."

"Let's just handle that when it happens," said Horaki, before shaking her head. "Anyway, I don't suppose you've seen Toji today, have you Kensuke?"

The boy swallowed a mouthful of food and shook his head. "No, not for a couple of days."

Horaki's face fell. "I called him at home yesterday after school to try and find out what's going on. He said he'd been busy with something and would try to come in today."

"Wait, he didn't tell you?" Aida asked, before sighing. "Well, I dunno if he would want me to tell you this, but his little sister got hurt in that attack. She's in serious condition in hospital, and Toji's there because nobody else in his family can spare the time."

Horaki gasped, while Asuka's eyes widened. Shinji froze in the act of chewing a mouthful of probably food.

"Apparently she was in a building that got hit by the robot. Some rubble fell on her and Toji had to free her by himself."

Shinji's stomach began to twist as he forced himself to swallow. He and Asuka stared at each other for several seconds, before he suddenly got up and stumbled off. Behind him he heard a clatter, but he kept moving, weaving in between tables. His gut churned as he made his way towards the nearest bathroom to the cafeteria. Somebody stepped through the door as he got near, saw the look on his face and swiftly backed out of the way, holding the door open as he almost ran in.

As he reached the first stall, he heard a familiar voice order the boy away, but he didn't have time to think about that person's presence as he fell to his knees right as his stomach did a flip, and he proceeded to be violently ill all over the inside of the toilet.

He had been in that Evangelion. He had been too incompetent to pilot it, falling flat on his face the moment he tried to take a step. He had been unable to stop the Angel hurling him into a building.

He was the reason a young girl's life was now ruined.

A long minute passed before he felt brave enough to lift his head, taking several shuddering breaths to try and ease his roiling stomach.

"Whatever you're thinking right now, it's probably wrong."

Shinji looked over his shoulder. Asuka was standing behind him, hands on her hips and a discontented expression on her face.

"It's..." Shinji winced at the acrid sensation still in his mouth. "It's my fault. I was piloting."

Asuka blew air past pursed lips. "And of course I'm right. Now get up." She lifted him by the back of his shirt and hauled him over to the sink.

As Shinji began to wash his face, she said, "NERV's the one to blame for leaving everything until the last minute. If they had anybody smart in that place, you would have been brought in at least a month ago. Instead, you show up literally at the time of the attack and have no chance to work out how to pilot."

Shinji was still rinsing out his mouth, so Asuka continued. "If you want something to blame, then blame the goddamn Angels instead of yourself. Got it?" He paused, and gave a slow and hesitant nod. "Good. Now let's get out of here before people wonder what I'm doing in the male bathroom with a boy."

Shinji's face immediately turned red.

XXX

There was only about ten minutes until the end of the lunch period, but Shinji and Asuka headed back to the cafeteria. Aida and Horaki were still sitting at the table talking to each other and looked up as the pilots drew near.

"The food here sucks," Asuka immediately said. "Bad enough that it didn't sit well in Ikari's stomach."

"Ah, I should have warned you," Aida sympathetically replied as he glanced at Shinji, who was maintaining the facade by holding a hand to his stomach. "Apparently the school's funding isn't all that great, so they've been cutting corners. Decent food seems to have been the first to go."

"It always is," said Asuka. She pushed her now cold food tray away and held her head in her hands. "Ugh, I don't want to eat anything else from this place, but I'm still hungry."

"Oh?" Horaki perked up, before reaching into her bag and bringing out another bento box. "Would you like to have this then?"

Aida glanced down at the bento box and smirked. "Was that supposed to be for Toji?"

Horaki blushed and began to stammer, but Asuka came to the poor girl's rescue. "If that's alright with you, then sure."

The bento was passed to Asuka, who opened it up to find a much better meal. She took one bite and Shinji watched her eyes snap wide open. Evidently it was far superior to the slop they had just been subjected to. After a couple more mouthfuls, she looked up at him. "Hey, you want some?"

Shinji shook his head after a moment's thought. "No thanks, I'm not very hungry anymore."

Asuka kept her gaze on him for a few seconds, before shrugging and returning her attention to the bento. She managed to finish the last bite just as the end of lunch bell rang.

Class 2-A's next subject was maths, and thankfully the teacher stuck to the subject instead of talking about Second Impact. As a result, the rest of the day passed far quicker than the morning did. Shinji and Asuka bid goodbye to Aida and Horaki at the school gate and headed home. Halfway there, Shinji's stomach began to rumble. Loudly.

"Okay, there's one thing you can blame yourself for," Asuka remarked. "Turning down the offer of food."

"Sorry, but I definitely wasn't hungry when you asked me," Shinji sheepishly retorted. "At least we don't have far to go. Maybe I'll start dinner when we get ho-... to Misato's place."

"She's pretty much stated that her home is still our home, Shinji. Speaking of which, you did remember to get her key before we left this morning, right?"

Shinji nodded. Misato had left a note on her kitchen table with her own key, stating that she would get their key when she went into NERV and that they could borrow hers for the day.

"Good. Wouldn't want to be locked out when you're hungry, would you?" Asuka looked thoughtfully skyward at the cloudless sky. "I suppose we could go out and get something to eat if that happened..."

"I don't have any money though," said Shinji.

"Yes you do." The Second Child pulled out her NERV ID card and waved it in front of his face. "This also doubles as a cash card. Your pilot's pay gets put directly into a bank account-"

"But I'm not a pilot..."

Asuka huffed at Shinji's interruption and waved a finger in his face. "You sortied against the Third Angel, making you eligible for hazard pay, so unless NERV has been spectacularly lazy or stingy, you do have some cash to your name. You should be able to use that card anywhere in Tokyo-3 to pay for stuff." She paused and frowned as she looked at her card. "Hmm, I'm not sure if it always uses the local currency or if you need to get someone at NERV to modify it. I'd better check with Misato before using mine. Wouldn't want to try and pay for something in Euros here."

"Speaking of Germany..." Shinji rubbed the back of his head. "Are you now able to talk about what you did there when we were pen-pals?"

"Well I star-" Asuka stopped walking. She looked down at the ground and clenched a fist. Shinji was about to ask if he'd said something wrong when she violently shook her head and said, "Eva training and college. That's all."

Something in the tone of her voice suggested that he had almost stepped on a conversational landmine. All he could do was attempt to dodge the shrapnel. "Oh. Um... sorry for bringing it up."

Perhaps she was looking for anything to change the subject to, because Asuka unfroze and continued walking. "You seem to apologise a lot, don't you?" she shot over her shoulder.

Shinji moved to catch up to her. "Really? Sorry about that." He immediately winced at his choice of words, while Asuka gave him a pointed look.

"There's something we need to sort out after dinner, too," Asuka said after a few minutes of quiet. "You know what I mean, don't you?"

It only took Shinji a second to work it out, and he sighed. "I'd forgotten about that. It was nice thinking that I was a normal person again."

"Knock it off with the self-deprecation," she barked, gripping his shoulder hard enough that Shinji could feel her nails start to dig into his skin. "We're going to sort this out and you'll be fine to pilot. Just you wait."

XXX

It was probably the fastest dinner that Shinji had ever cooked and eaten. Spurred on by Asuka's insistence, he had made something quick and easy. Apart from Misato's portion, now covered and in the fridge for when she got home, there were no leftovers to turn into tomorrow's lunch, so he made a mental note to try and get up earlier to remedy that. The very instant that the dishes were cleared away, Asuka practically dragged him next door to their own apartment, where they stopped upon noticing that Misato's promised furniture for their place had most definitely arrived.

The kitchen now looked almost exactly the same as Misato's, minus the penguin fridge, while the lounge room had a coffee table and a comfortable looking green sofa with matching lounge chairs. There was no television, which Asuka almost complained about before remembering that there was one next door. The bedrooms were almost carbon copies of each other. Perhaps whoever was handling the order had misinterpreted it, because both rooms had a Western-style single bed. There were even a couple of deck chairs out on the balcony now, which cheered Asuka up for reasons Shinji did not know and dared not ask about, considering the gleam in her eye.

After a few minutes of arranging their bedrooms to suit them, Asuka and Shinji met in the lounge room, where she slapped a familiar piece of paper onto the coffee table.

The contract. That Shinji had signed. Offering his soul for some damned chocolate.

"So how are we going to handle this?" Asuka wondered after a few minutes spent reading the contract once again. "It states that the pact is binding even if this paper is destroyed, so that option's out."

"Could we edit it?" Shinji suggested. "Wipe out the fill-in bits and put something else in?"

Asuka hummed in thought. "I think that might count as physical destruction since you're removing something."

"What about just writing over it then?"

After another minute of contemplation, Asuka said, "Well it can't hurt to try, can it?" She got up and headed to her room, returning seconds later with a pen which she handed to Shinji. "Since it's your soul, I think you should do it."

"Um, okay..." Shinji fumbled the pen, causing Asuka to click her tongue in exasperation. He sat down on the floor next to the coffee table and pulled the contract closer. He spent a moment re-reading the contract again, before touching the pen to the paper and-

"Excuse me."

"Huh?" Shinji looked up. "What's wrong, Asuka?"

Asuka was silently staring at him, eyes wide in shock. He called her name again, before realising that the focus of her attention wasn't actually on him, but at some point past his left ear. His heart rose into his throat as he slowly twisted his head around.

"Holy shit, I want my hair to look like that."

Shinji's head stopped turning for a moment, as he quirked an eyebrow at Asuka's response to... whatever was behind him. A million possibilities for Asuka's state ran through his mind, but they were all wrong.

"I believe we have something to discuss."

A woman was sitting on the back of the lounge chair behind him, her sensibly heeled shoes resting on the seat cushion. She was clad in a business suit so black that it seemed to suck the light out of the room, but what caught Shinji's attention most was the hair.

Whereas Asuka's red locks could resemble a fireball when she was in motion, and Shinji had actually thought of her at one point as 'flame-haired', this woman's hair was an actual ball of fire. It streamed down her back and was lush enough that she could potentially use it as a fiery cloak if she felt like it. Surprisingly there was no heat radiating off of her, and the chair she was sitting on was not bursting into flame.

She raised an eyebrow. That was also on fire. "Are you going to just stare at me all day?"

Shinji finally remembered to scream.