A heavy silence fell over the kitchen following Asuka's shocking reveal. Somehow, someway, Shinji Ikari had managed to land himself not within the bowels of a physics-defying enigma or something as equally extraordinary, but inside the mind of his frequently contradictory roommate, inside the head of Asuka Langley-Sohryu. The sheer ridiculousness of the idea made his own head spin.
One thing was for certain, however: Shinji was very glad about listening to Asuka's prior advice. As he was feeling right now, he seriously doubted his knees could have supported the weight of his body.
"I'm... inside of Asuka...?" the young man eventually repeated, his eyes looking through the young redhead sitting before him. "W-What...? B-But how...?!"
"I… have no idea, maybe it was the Angel?" Asuka sighed. "This sort of thing has never happened before."
Much to the redhead's dismay, it was painfully apparent that her truthful answer had done very little to bolster Shinji's spirits, even if it was clearly better than keeping the young man in the dark. Nevertheless, it was also obvious that Shinji would need some serious time to process his situation, and that was time that Asuka was more than willing to offer him. She had things of her own to think about, after all.
"I guess you were the strange thing I felt before, then," the redhead eventually surmised after a long period of silence, narrowing her eyes for a brief second. "Silly me, of course you were. I can actually feel how you don't belong here right now if I don't let my assumptions cloud my judgement.
"I never knew you could laugh as hard as that, though. Did something funny happen?"
"Something happened, alright," the young man replied, arms instinctively moving to hug himself. "Not exactly funny, though."
"Do you want to… speak about it?"
"Not now, please. Just..." Shinji shook his head, looking like he had suddenly aged an entire decade. "Can you start again? From the beginning?"
"Telling you..."
"Where we are. Who you are," the Third Child continued, grabbing hold of the tea he had discarded before. "That kind of thing."
Asuka nodded, and reclined back into her seat with a sigh. After all, the concepts that Shinji was asking for were, in essence, very simple for her to understand, but explaining them to someone without the ability to see things as she did would prove to be quite a bit more of a challenge.
Besides, Asuka didn't fail to notice how hard the young man's hands were shaking, either. It looked like whatever explanation she decided to go with would also have the added difficulty of needing to calm Shinji down.
No biggie.
"Well, like I said before, this is the inside of Asuka's mind. Her consciousness, where all the concepts, beliefs and desires that make Asuka Asuka gather," the redhead began, struggling to come up with a decent simile for her definition. "You could think of this place as one big puzzle, I guess. One in which the different pieces of Asuka's personality work together to make a big whole."
"So... you are something like that, too?" Shinji interrupted, watching her intently over the top of his mug. "A piece in the puzzle?"
"Simply put, yeah, although I guess my actual value would be more along the lines of ten or twenty pieces, if we account for an Aspect like Miss Thou being worth a single one..." Asuka trailed off for a second, before waving her hand with a click of her tongue. "But I guess that's not such a great comparison, anyway. The precise truth is far more complicated than that."
"...How much more complicated?"
"Quite a bit. Like, are you familiar with Jungian psychology?"
Even if no actual answer followed, the blank look Shinji sent her way told Asuka everything she needed to know.
"...Guess not," the redhead sighed. "Not that surprising considering that the Walls of Jericho went over your head."
"The... Walls of Jericho?" Shinji echoed, the name sounding vaguely familiar to him for some reason. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"It's important because..."
A frown grew over Asuka's features, her voice going silent for several seconds. Long enough to make even Shinji Ikari impatient.
"Because...?"
"Sorry, I... went blank there for a bit." The redhead shook her head, focusing back on the task at hand. "...Oh, well. Guess it's really not that important, then; let's just say that I am important around here and leave it at that for the moment. I'll show you how later but, for now, on to the minor Aspects that you'll find around here."
"...Okay," Shinji agreed, following on the girl's initiative. "You said earlier that you thought I was one of those, didn't you?"
"Mhmm."
"But shouldn't I have looked like Asuka, then?"
"Not necessarily, minor Aspects can show up as many different things. There are some for Kaji, Misato, Hikari..." Asuka elaborated, motioning with her hand towards Shinji. "A minor Aspect that looks like you has appeared before, too, although not in the same context you were in."
"I see. How did it appear, then?"
"The context? Oh, it was..."
The frown returned to Asuka's face, the redhead falling into contemplative silence a second time.
"Is something wrong?"
"No, it's just... I... don't remember," Asuka replied, scratching the top of her head. "...Funny. That's never happened before, either. What's with me today?"
"Maybe you're... tired?"
"I can't get tired," the girl retorted. "And before you ask: no, I know it happened, but the details are fuzzy. Like it's lingering right at the edge of my memory, or something. It's kinda frustrating."
The girl's words matched her expression, the frown that had appeared a pair of times before slowly but steadily growing in size, something that made alarm bells sound within Shinji's own mind. Mainly because he had no desire to find out whether this... piece of Asuka handled frustration in the same manner his actual roommate did.
"So... you said that the Asuka from before is a part of Asuka? Isn't that a bit weird?" the Third Child asked, managing to win the girl's attention back. "I mean, it's just that... she looked and sounded so different."
"Yup, she is Asuka, just not the Asuka you know," the redhead answered, going back to a positive mood in the blink of an eye. "Think of her like a mask, of sorts."
"A... mask?"
"Yeah. Like, haven't you ever seen Asuka act differently with different people? I mean, I'm sure you do it, too."
Shinji thought about the redhead's words for a few moments, quickly coming up with plenty of cases in which they could apply to Asuka and him both. In Asuka's case, though, Horaki-san seemed to be the best example, considering that the Class Representative was about the only person his roommate appeared to be completely at ease with.
"I guess..."
"That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. In this case, though, it's more about relaxation and leisure than social interaction. Going by previous experience, Miss Thou probably came to be due to Asuka immersing herself in some sort of story, like from a book or something like that."
"Oh, okay," Shinji acknowledged, figuring that it didn't sound that weird for his mental images to actually exist within his brain, all things considered. Shortly after, though, his eyes went wide. "...Wait a second, that means that the real Asuka..."
"Is going around, living her life as usual?" Asuka supplied with a grin. "Bingo!"
"That's a relief... I thought that she was stuck here, too." The young man let out a breath, happy to finally have one of the questions that had been bothering him for a long while answered. But then, another realisation came to the forefront of his mind. "W-Wait a minute! And what about me?!"
Asuka blinked, taken aback by the sudden change.
"What about you?"
"Yeah!" Shinji insisted, pointing a finger at the outside. "I mean, if I'm here, who's out there?!"
"Oh, that. I... have no idea. I'm sorry."
"And can't you find out?!" The Third Child stood up, his chair clattering to the floor with a heavy crash. "I mean, you said that you're important here, right?! Can't you... look through Asuka's eyes, or check her memory or something like that?!"
"I could... once," Asuka replied, looking away with a strained smile. "But then stuff happened, and I... kiiinda can't, anymore."
"W-What do you mean?"
Asuka scratched the back of her head, groaning at the idea of another complicated subject. Nevertheless, she slowly brought her head back to its original position...
"That's another one of those things that's pretty hard to explain, but I mean that-"
...and that was when her eyes went wide as saucers.
"Omygosh, Shinji!" Asuka exclaimed, pointing a finger to his hands. "W-What's that?!"
"W-What's wha-?"
Shinji followed Asuka's shaking finger and looked downwards, quickly finding out that all he could see was the kitchen's table.
He was seeing it through his hands, though.
"What the hell?!"
"You're... fading away?!" Asuka speculated, eyes fixated on the quickly panicking young man. The girl's head turned to look behind her a second later, though, her attention moving to a point far beyond. "...No, you've been recognized as a concept and are being modified along with the rest of the plane?! But that shouldn't happen! Don't tell me they-!"
"Asuka!" Shinji interrupted, bringing the Asuka's attention back to himself. "What's going on?!"
"Don't worry, this is happening because Asuka's situation just changed! You're only being swept into the flux!" the girl quickly explained, leaning forward to grab Shinji's hands. "You'll probably wind up somewhere else, but I'll find you, okay?! Just remember: whatever you do, don't-!"
But whatever it was that the redhead had intended to say was cut short by a sudden shift in scenery, the Third Child blinking only to find black space all around him. The warm contact of Asuka's fingers also disappeared from his own, doing very little to calm the young man.
"Asuka?" Shinji screamed into the void. "Asuka?!"
But no answer came, other than the familiar feeling of having his senses suddenly assaulted by both sickening sights and sounds.
The Third Child writhed through the brief, painful experience, and then slowly opened his eyes, dreading what he would find. And Shinji was right to feel so, for he quickly recognized his surroundings:
White, clinical and terrifying.
-O]|[O-
"I'm here to interrogate the prisoner."
Ritsuko Akagi's request echoed slightly down the long and mostly deserted corridor of detention cells. A place that struck fear in NERV employees and Tokyo-3 citizens alike, legends about the oversized brig of NERV HQ were a dime a dozen, often drawing inspiration from classic spy movie stories or so-called historical facts about the GESTAPO and KGB.
The most infamous theory claimed the brig to be the final resting place of all those people who crossed Gendo Ikari and his personal army of Section-2 agents, or merely even looked at them funny. But the far more boring truth of the matter was that, like many things in NERV, its detention centre was simply unnecessarily large and highly inefficient for reasons that Ritsuko wasn't privy to, if there even were any.
The Commander was more than happy to exploit the urban legends for all they were worth, though. They were a simple and effortless way of furthering his control over HQ, after all.
"Understood, ma'am," the agent on the right nodded, signalling to his teammate and turning to open the door. "If you'll follow me..."
"Of course. But first, I'd ask that you disconnect the camera feed."
"What? But Ma'am-"
"We'll be discussing confidential matters, matters that are not to remain on tape," Ritsuko elaborated, her voice dropping a few degrees. "I trust that the Commander requested the same thing?"
"Y-Yeah..."
"Then think of this as an extension of his request. I'm but tackling the same set of issues."
The two guards shared a brief look, showing a great example of unspoken communication before the same guard that had spoken began to shake his head.
"But still, ma'am, we need-"
"Confirmation from the Commander?" Ritsuko finished, pretending that her patience was wearing thin. "Should we interrupt his work just for that? I do not believe he would take kindly to that."
A fairly audible gulp reached Ritsuko's ears and the blonde had to fight down the urge to laugh when both guards shared a very different type of look. The urban legends were quite useful, indeed.
"...Tell Shinjiro to cut the feed." The guard on the left nodded his agreement and went to do as he'd been told, disappearing through a side door a few steps away. The lead guard then turned to Ritsuko, finally opening the security door and leading the way forward. "This way, ma'am."
The guard led her down a short corridor, before opening a second door and stepping inside. He then remained at the door side, allowing Ritsuko entry and unhindered view of the cell's interior.
It was cold, dark and far from luxurious, but even in the darkness, it took Ritsuko no time to identify the figure of her former friend: lying on the mattress that barely passed for a bed and with her back facing towards the door, Ritsuko needed no extra guesses to figure out what Misato had been doing previous to her entry. It would appear that the Commander had made no effort whatsoever to soften the blow of the latest news, not that Ritsuko had really expected him to.
"Whenever you're ready to leave, ma'am, or if anything happens, just press this button," the guard explained, motioning to an intercom device right beside the door. "I'll be waiting just outside."
"Very well. Now leave us."
With a nod, the guard did as told and the door to the outside closed behind Ritsuko soon after. Just to make sure, the scientist followed that with a glance towards the security camera in the corner of the room, quickly confirming that it was indeed offline.
Finally free of prying eyes, Ritsuko took her mask off, allowing her shoulders to drop and her body to relax. Slowly, she moved further inside the room, grabbing hold of a forgotten chair next to the wall and sitting on it with a tired sigh.
And then she bided her time, silence enveloping the room as Ritsuko waited for her former friend to make the first move.
Unlike many others, Misato didn't test her patience.
"Why are you here?"
Misato's voice sounded coarse to Ritsuko's ears, but the undertone of anger was still unmistakable.
"Am I not allowed to be worried?"
"You can do whatever you want, but I was honestly betting on you laughing at me."
"What you did was reckless, I won't deny it," Ritsuko replied, keeping a witty comeback from slipping past her lips. "But I want to believe that you thought me a better person than that."
Misato merely scoffed, her back not moving the slightest from its position.
"Why are you here?"
The Major repeated herself, in a tone that made it clear that she had no mind for fake pleasantries.
"I'm here because I've got things to discuss with you," Ritsuko answered, slipping back into her mask. "Things related to your quest with Kaji."
"Thought so," Misato scoffed for a second time. "Well, I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Ikari: you can fuck right off."
"I'm not here on his behalf."
Her former friend stiffened for a brief instant at her comeback, the emphasis having the effect Ritsuko had been looking for. Over her shoulder, one of Misato's puffy eyes finally made an appearance.
"...What?"
"A third party recently contacted me. A group that, by the sound of things, was... acquainted with Kaji," Ritsuko reclined back on her chair with a sigh. "He was a really popular man."
"Save the jokes," Misato turned to sit up on the bed, now giving the blonde her full attention. "A third party? That's the first I've heard of it. Where are you going with this, Ritz?"
"You don't need me to tell you where I'm going, Misato. You're smarter than that."
"I still want to hear you say it."
Ritsuko shook her head with a roll of her eyes at Misato's insistence. She figured that humouring her was the fastest way forward, though.
"I'm going to pick up where Kaji left off, and do what he could not," the Head of Project-E narrowed her eyes at her former friend. "Happy now?"
Misato, for her part, merely glared back. She spent several seconds intently watching for any signs of deception on Ritsuko's face, her search turning up little in way of results.
"Fuck me, you're serious."
"Of course I'm serious. Since when have I been one to bluff, Misato?"
"You're right, outright lies are more your style." Misato spat, before standing up for what appeared to be the first time in hours. "And you're just going to turn your back on Ikari… just like that? Where does this sudden change of heart even come from?"
"I took a long, hard look at my life choices and didn't like what I saw," Ritsuko replied, eyes falling to the side. "This is my attempt at making things right."
An explanation that only earned the doctor yet another scoff from her former friend.
"Very cute, Ritz. Too bad you've made it clear by now that you're not exactly good Samaritan material. Why don't you try again?"
"That obvious? And here I thought that all that was needed to get on your good side was to be foolishly idealistic." Ritsuko didn't fail to notice the way in which Misato's hands clenched at her words, barely managing to stop a smirk from blossoming on her face. Two could play that game, after all; she then sat up straighter in her chair, returning to a more serious approach. "The situation has changed. It's really as simple as that."
"Because of this so-called third party?" The Major began to pace up and down the cell, her feet threatening to stomp a hole into the ground. "No, even if they're really a thing, they're just a convenient excuse. The truth is that you had a falling out with the two commanders and now you want out, isn't it?
"What happened, Ritz? Did the goals of NERV stop aligning with your own?" Misato stomped back to the centre of the room, trying her utmost to glare answers out of the blonde. "Something to do with their Angels in the closet? Or is it more about the shadowy cabal in the background?"
Efforts that brought her little more than silence and a raised eyebrow for the longest of times. And even after that, it wasn't Ritsuko's words that broke through the blanket of silence, but rather a string of amused chuckles.
Laughter that only served to test the Major's patience even further.
"What's. So. Funny?"
"Watching you try to play the police interrogator with just a fraction of the facts," Ritsuko casually answered, easily ignoring a glare that would have melted lesser women. "I suppose Kaji is to thank for you finding out about Lilith and SEELE? Not that it matters. You don't have the foggiest idea of how deep the rabbit hole goes, Misato."
"What do you know, Ritsuko?"
"A sizable chunk of the Truth Kaji was so obsessed with: Second Impact and why it happened, the Evas and Unit-01, the true purpose of NERV and SEELE as well as the plan that Ikari and Fuyutsuki hatched from it," the Doctor stood up, responding to Misato's withering look with a sharp one of her own. "All of that and much more, but those are Truths I'll only tell you if you agree to help me. I don't think this is a hard question."
A sharp intake of breath answered her words and, unperturbed, Ritsuko watched as her former friend's expression went through shock, sorrow, and all the way up to barely restrained rage, before finally settling back on a steely mask once again.
"Fuck you, Ritsuko," Misato spat, slowly heading back to sit on the bed. "Only you would use Kaji like that."
And Ritsuko's eyes followed her, a slight pang of guilt resonating within her as Misato's words replayed in her mind.
'...You're right about that, Misato,' Ritsuko agreed, before mercilessly squashing the feeling. 'But unfortunately, the means must be on the same level as the end.'
"I do what I have to, because the world I'm entering doesn't allow for half measures. There will be time to pray for the dead later," the doctor took a quick look at her watch, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Now, give me a straight answer, Misato. I can't stay here forever."
But in spite of Ritsuko's warning, Misato offered no quick response. Instead, she spent several long moments staring at the floor, no doubt weighing her situation, Kaji's legacy and the credibility of the Doctor's words and how they could change the playing field.
"Fine, let's assume for a second that I agree to join forces," Misato eventually began, her eyes never rising up. "Why go to the effort of recruiting me?
"Because you're the Operations Director of NERV, obviously. No one in the entire world could measure to your tactical knowledge of the EVAs, and I'm sure that my… supporters will also see it that way."
"In case that they need to destroy them?"
"I'm not privy to that kind of details yet," Ritsuko replied, for she honestly didn't know. "But if it will serve to assuage your fears, they appear far more interested in Ikari and SEELE than in the Children."
"That doesn't help," Misato tightly shook her head. "Your third party could simply consider them a non-issue to eliminate."
"Perhaps. But that's all I have."
"...Fine, let's continue: as you said, I'm the Operations Director of NERV. But have you forgotten that I'm also stuck here?" Misato motioned with her hand, indicating the room around them. She then rested her elbows on her knees, expression turning downcast. "Besides, the last time I tried to make a difference I only made things worse. Kaji was wrong about me."
Ritsuko had to keep an aggravated sigh from slipping past her lips at her former friend's words. The conversation wasn't going in a direction she liked.
"Don't be ridiculous," she countered. "The Third Child is alive."
"Clinically so. I may not be a doctor but I still understand the reports, Ritsuko."
"Then you've also understood the ones that mention the manner in which you saved Unit-02 and the Second Child, all while defeating the Angel? You won the day, Misato."
The Major's eyes suddenly rose to meet Ritsuko's, caught somewhere between surprise and anger.
"You call that a victory?"
"Would you rather call the successful continuation of Mankind a failure?"
"For fuck's sake, Ritsuko! You know what I mean!" Misato shot up to her feet, emphasising her next words with her fingers. "Kaji is dead. Shinji is gone. Asuka hates me. And after all this time I still can't figure out what's going on in Rei's head!
"And not only that, now you come from out of nowhere! After being a willing instrument to most of the above since God knows how long, you suddenly come and tell me that you want my help?! That you want to do the complete opposite of everything you've been doing up until now?! And I'm supposed to believe you?!"
"It's never too late to start over. Isn't that something Kaji would say?" Ritsuko's words were as a calm sea to Misato's raging typhoon, the blonde trying her hardest to claw for a positive outcome. "What will you do, otherwise? Stay here and wallow in your own self-pity? Cry about the Third Child's condition? About the Second's rapidly deteriorating stability?"
The Major's eyes fell to the side, her hands clenching into tight fists.
"They…" Misato spoke, in barely more than a whisper. "They don't deserve this..."
"...No one does. But this is a war, Misato, and they're our soldiers," Ritsuko pressed further forward, secretly wondering why she needed to remind a military commander of such a basic concept. "By the time that you started your little family project, you were fully aware of what could happen every time they were sent out to fight."
"And that makes it right?!"
"That makes it necessary."
Misato's non-verbal response resounded throughout the entire cell, confirming Ritsuko's fears: Misato Katsuragi would not be joining her.
"...You're being childish, Misato." Ritsuko backed away a step, a hand moving to caress her cheek. "Childish and short-sighted."
"I'll take that over heartless," the Major spat, motioning towards the door with her head. "Now, if you've got nothing else to say, I'd like to be alone, friend."
For a fleeting moment, a part of Ritsuko thought of clashing with Misato, of telling her about how her own revenge-driven motivations weren't so different from the ones of the person she was calling 'heartless'. Of how, for all of her moral manoeuvring, Misato had been equally as guilty and irresponsible on the treatment of the Children she suddenly seemed to care so much about.
But it was her professional side, logical as it always was, who told her that there was very little point to fighting that battle of wills. Her efforts and energy had no need to be wasted on misguided hypocrites, and it was because of that that the Doctor forced her body to relax and return to its usual poise.
"...Unbelievable."
And with no further words, a disappointed Ritsuko Akagi turned to leave the prison cell.
She had hoped that Misato could be reasonable, that she could look past the inconsequential issues and work towards a greater good, but her belief had been clearly misplaced. The Operations Director of NERV wouldn't prove to be the asset Ritsuko had been looking for, not in the immediate future, at least. But although her loss was a considerable blow, it was by no means a critical one.
"Ikari will get you out of here the moment the next Angel arrives. He doesn't have a replacement for you, and he can't afford to find one so late into the game." Ritsuko briefly looked over her shoulder after she pressed the intercom button, regarding the sorry sight of someone she had once respected. "Try to get your head out of your ass before then, Katsuragi."
The door then opened and closed with a slam, leaving Misato Katsuragi alone with her thoughts once more.
-O]|[O-
Shinji Ikari's second expedition through the decrepit hospital was far more cautious than the first. After all, and contrary to the many past declarations of his redheaded roommate, he was not an idiot and more than capable of learning from his mistakes: which meant that rather than carelessly open any doors he came across, the Third Child was very methodical and safe in his investigations. Rather than hurry along the myriad of straight paths, Shinji Ikari made sure to check each and every one of his corners. And, finally, the young man made a point out of not yelling for help on the very unlikely chance that someone would respond.
Last time had more than established how that was a terrible idea, and while he hadn't seen any proof of the medieval nightmare being around, it more than paid to be careful.
'Why do I keep being sent here?' the Third Child wondered, brushing his fingers against one of the faded nameplates. 'And why does this creepy place exist in Asuka's mind? Did… something happen to her in a hospital?'
It was no secret to anyone with a modicum of perception that Asuka Langley-Sohryu wasn't exactly fond of hospitals, what with the redhead bring all fidgety every time that the Pilots had been admitted into NERV's hospital wing. Asking her about it usually made her very cranky, too.
More than usual, anyway.
Shinji sighed and walked away from the decrepit door, continuing on his way and devoting a part of his mental capacities towards trying to figure out the mystery wrapped within an enigma that was his current situation. Needless to say, though, his efforts yielded fairly lacking results.
"I should probably ask that Asuka from before about this when I get out of here," Shinji considered, doing his best to ignore how easily an 'if' could fit into that thought. "She seemed to know a lot about what's going on in here.
"I guess that makes sense. I mean, who better than Asuka to tell me about what's going on in the inside of Asuka's mind, right?" the young man groaned, tiredly shaking his head. "Argh, this is confusing…"
It was then, however, that the Third Child noticed someone staring sharply at him, and when his eyes rose to find the source, Shinji spotted a little girl in a dark dress standing a dozen steps further down the hallway. Alone.
Once again, Kensuke's damned ghost stories came to the forefront of his mind, which, coupled with his previous experience in the hospital, made it bad enough that Shinji would have certainly not taken his chances with the new arrival had it not been for the tell-tale red hair.
"Asuka…?"
Shinji stared back at the little girl, amazed for a short moment at how finding different versions of his roommate wasn't doing much to surprise him anymore. At his call, however, Asuka's young face shifted from the ever-present annoyance the Third Child had come to associate with her and took on all the surprise that should have been his.
'Is this the same Asuka I saw the last time?' Shinji scrutinized the little girl, comparing her to the short glimpses he'd caught prior. 'I thought she looked taller...'
But then the little Asuka turned on her heel and disappeared around a corner, cutting the young man's comparisons short.
"H-Hey!" Shinji called out, moving to follow. "Asuka, wait up!"
However, this time around the Third Child made sure to keep a respectable distance away from his target, close enough that he would not lose her, but far enough that he would have time to react to whatever this place decided to throw his way in a worst case scenario. A single instance of seeing his life flash before his eyes had been quite enough for him, as far as he was concerned. Besides, while the last time it had been a rusty knight hot on his heels, there was no guarantee that things would be exactly the same as then. There could be a red EVA roaming around the hospital for all Shinji knew, and he had no intention to find out.
'...Speaking of, was that thing a part of Asuka, too?' the young man considered, recalling the other Asuka's confusing explanation about Aspects and whatnot. 'No, it couldn't be. Asuka is angry a lot of the time, but it wasn't just angry. It was… something else.'
Deciding to leave the theorizing for another time, Shinji tailed the little Asuka until she guided him to a corridor he recognised. A hallway that looked in distinctly better shape than the others he'd traversed, now that he noticed, and that had seen the Third Child go from one end to the other in record time not that long ago. Two times, and in opposite directions.
The feeling of déja vu became even stronger when Shinji saw the little Asuka enter the same door that had been entered the last time, too. A fact that, knowing what had happened then, made the Third Child brace himself for a chilling scream.
But one that never came, much to the young man's surprise.
Caution winning over curiosity, Shinji tiptoed forward until he arrived at the rough spot where he had once been forced to stop and then became still as a statue. He held his breath and counted to ten, half of him expecting the door that had just been closed to explode outwards as it had done in the past but, once again, his assumptions were proven wrong.
Nevertheless, the young man didn't decide to test his luck for quite a while longer. After all, it wasn't like Asuka could go anywhere, and Shinji didn't feel like proving that he could trip on the same stone twice.
Shinji slowly walked over to the closed door, the series of cautious actions and absent consequences repeating itself ad infinitum until his hand finally rested on top of the door's handle. Getting himself ready for anything, the Third Child worked the handle...
...and the door refused to budge, much to his disappointment.
"Weird, why won't the door open?" Shinji muttered to himself, recalling how no other door in the hospital had barred his way. "...Did she lock it?"
"Of course it won't open," an unexpected voice answered his rhetorical question from somewhere behind him. "What? Did you think that you could just waltz into anyone's deepest secrets?"
"Huh?"
"Well..." before he could turn around, Shinji felt fingers grab a hold of the neck of his shirt. "Turns out you can't."
And Shinji barely managed to catch a glimpse of red before being slammed against a wall, finding himself face to face with someone he didn't need much time to identify:
"By the way, who the hell are you?"
Red hair and blue eyes… check.
Plugsuit… check.
Threatening growl… check.
Wanton violence… double check.
This was Asuka, all right. Maybe even his Asuka; Shinji's aching neck and back certainly agreed with that last assessment.
"Ouch! Asuka, that hurts!"
But the plugsuit-clad redhead paid no attention to Shinji's complaints, merely tightening her hold on the young man's shirt.
"Stop bitching and start talking, before I make you-!"
A fearsome roar and the boom of something being torn to pieces swallowed the rest of Asuka's threat and, as one, two heads turned to look down the hallway the noise was coming from, one far more terrified than the other.
"...Right, she's still rampaging about. Tch, and we had made so much progress…" Asuka grumbled, before looking at Shinji out of the corner of her eye. "...Let's take this somewhere else."
And in a literal blink of Shinji's eyes, the hospital corridor vanished and was replaced by surroundings that the Third Child had grown to become intimately familiar with. Surroundings that, for a change, had nothing to do with either fog or rain.
For Shinji Ikari was now standing within the EVA gantries. And much to his dismay, the idea of a red EVA appearing from out of nowhere had suddenly become a lot more likely.
"...Okay, let's continue: Who. Are. You?"
The fact that the collar of his shirt was still in the grip of said EVA's designated Pilot didn't do much to assuage his fears, either.
"I-I'm Shinji! Shinji Ikari!"
"I can see that, stupid, that's not what I'm talking about: you sure look like one of the spineless idiots that used to wander around here a lot, but every single piece of information I have on you tells me you're not. What's more, everything points to how you shouldn't be, period." Shinji's eyes widened as he saw Asuka pull her right fist back. "So you better start enlightening me before I decide to trust my data."
And at the sight of the growling girl and the prepped fist, Shinji felt something well up within him, something other than fear. Something that he hadn't felt in weeks, ever since before the advent of the Twelfth, starting as a pinprick in his chest and quickly swelling to reach every single pore in his body:
An irrepressible urge to butt heads with Asuka. An urge that Shinji wasn't completely sure where it had come from.
"And what do you want me to say!? I don't know what's going on, either!" Shinji exploded, pushing against the railing behind him to get back on proper footing. "Ever since I ended up here I've only been lost, chased and... made fun of, and the only explanation for all of it I've heard sounds just… insane!"
Maybe it was something about the way in which she expressed herself, sounding so like the Asuka he knew, always a hair's breadth away from biting his head off; or maybe it was his own mind's way of throwing in the towel and asking for a recess but, in any case, Shinji's outburst was certainly something that Asuka had not expected, at least if her shocked silence was anything to go by.
Not that the Third Child registered it, busy as he was in going through his personal meltdown process, other than to instinctively leverage on the weakened grip on his collar.
"I've had it with all of it! I'm sick of the fog, I'm sick of the hospitals, I'm sick of all the Asukas running around and not making any damn sense!" the Third Child shut his eyes tightly, showing his left cheek to his attacker. "Hell, you threatening to punch me like this is the closest I've gotten to something I know! So just- just do it! See what I care!"
But the blow Shinji had been expecting didn't come right away, a frown growing on Asuka's face, instead.
"What the...? Y-You're just a Shinji, you're not supposed to-" the redhead then shook her head and tensed back up, the moment of confusion gone. "Actually, screw that! If you want a fist to the face so much, then I'll be happy to oblige!"
"WAIT!" a third voice suddenly came from the right, stopping Asuka mid-strike. "Y-You are getting conflicting readings because he isn't any kind of Aspect!"
And, in unison, Shinji and the plugsuited redhead turned to meet the new arrival: an Asuka that, by all accounts, seemed to be the self-proclaimed important Asuka Shinji had met last time. She had foregone her previous clothing for a familiar yellow sundress, though.
"Oh, the brat finally showed up," Pilot Asuka groaned, narrowing her eyes at the third comer. "Did you get bored of playing with your toys already?"
A comment that made Asuka recoil back as if struck, before she began to stomp her foot on the floor.
"I-I'm not a brat!"
"Right. Tell me that again when the first thing you do after losing your admin rights isn't to build yourself a multi-coloured storybook farm. Seriously, how childish can you get?" Pilot Asuka's voice then turned mocking. "Did it at least make you feel better? Make the booboos go away?"
"Grr…!" Asuka redoubled her stomping, hard enough that it made the platform tremble a little bit. "Why do you always have to be so mean?!"
"Because someone has to. Not all of us can afford to be as naïve as you, you know? As if that was something brats would understand."
It appeared for a moment that Asuka would counter with a rebuttal of her own, but she decided to remain silent at the last second. A sight that only made her counterpart scoff in disdain.
"U-Umm…" Shinji eventually broke the silence, tapping the hand of the Asuka that was still holding onto his collar. "...Can you let me go now?"
"And where did all your guts go?" said redhead then turned towards him, somehow looking even more angry than she had been until now. "Pff. Boring."
And with a pull and a shove, Pilot Asuka separated Shinji from the railing he'd been pressed against and violently pushed him towards her double, the Third Child barely managing to maintain his balance.
"A-Are you all right, Shinji?!" Asuka quickly caught the unbalanced young man, before sending a hot glare in her counterpart's direction. "You didn't need to do that!"
"Give me a break, it's not like he's going to shatter into tiny little pieces," Pilot Asuka then motioned with her head towards the Third Child, who had just quickly jumped away from his helper's embrace. "Now, you were saying something about this Shinji not being like the others...?"
"Y-Yeah! But tell me where he was first!"
"Sure," the Pilot shrugged with a roll of her eyes. "He was at the hospital."
"A-At the hospital?!" Asuka exclaimed, mouth wide. But her surprise quickly morphed into anger. "You- You nincompoop! Why did you bring him there?!"
"Bring him? I didn't bring him. Unlike some, I don't make a habit out of wasting my administrative efforts on superfluous bullcrap," the Pilot countered, making Asuka flinch. "And before you ask, no, chances are our dearest third wheel had nothing to do with it, either."
"What? And you expect me to believe that he just appeared there following a grand-scale REM transformation?" Asuka rallied, pointing an accusing finger at her other. "I don't think so! You had something to do with it!"
"And why would I do that?"
The finger fell, and with it whatever energy Asuka had managed to muster behind her counter.
"Huh?"
"You heard me," the Pilot repeated, fixing Asuka with a hard stare. "I didn't even know what the anomaly was until I checked it. Why would I toy with a REM transformation and bring an unknown into the one place we have all agreed not to mess with?"
"B-Because…" Asuka tried her best to come up with a comeback to her double's admittedly sensible argument. "B-Because you're a meanie…?"
But, disappointingly, her best effort proved only good enough to earn her a light smack on the top of her head.
"Try again, brat. Besides, we've been too busy running damage control until now to even think of handling our other duties." Pilot Asuka then motioned towards Shinji. "Now, about this guy...?"
Shinji and Asuka shared a brief look and, at her nod, they spent the next few minutes trying to explain the situation to the best of their abilities. From the Angel attack, to their meeting, and to Shinji's sudden disappearance. At the end of their tale, Pilot Asuka's expression had turned a nice shade of sceptic.
"So you're telling me that he's the real deal? The Shinji Ikari that Asuka interacts with every day?"
The plugsuited redhead moved closer to the Third Child, giving him an appraising look over that made Shinji's feeling of dejá vu return with a vengeance.
"...You really don't look like much, even in person," the Pilot sentenced, causing Shinji's head to hang a little bit. "I honestly wouldn't buy into you being the great EVA Pilot that you are if I hadn't seen it myself."
"...Thanks?"
"Whatever," she scoffed, stabbing a finger at Shinji's chest. "And while this talk is nice and all, why don't you hurry up and get out? You're giving us a whole lot of trouble in here."
"I would if I could!" the young man countered, gesturing with his arms at the area around him. "But how am I going to do that?"
"True. I guess we don't have a door around that could easily get you to where you belong," the Pilot sighed, scratching the back of her head. "Maybe that wouldn't even be enough, considering how you were looking the last time."
"You know what happened to me?!"
"...And you don't?" the redhead blinked, slightly taken aback by how quickly the Third Child had shifted gears. "From what we know, it had something to do with-"
But the Pilot suddenly cut herself short much to Shinji's frustration, eyes moving skyward for a second before she raised a finger.
"Hm? Hold on a minute." Asuka then turned around, producing a cellphone from out of thin air and bringing it to her ear. "Yeah, I'm here. What is it?"
And just as quickly, the Pilot pulled the phone away from her head with a cringe. Whoever was on the other end of the line was loud, loud enough that Shinji could easily identify them as female.
Not that the Third Child would have needed a clue to make that assumption, at this point.
"Wait, slow down," Asuka demanded of her caller. "What do you mean that a minor Aspect has just entered HQ?"
Less frantically than before, the voice began to retell her report to an increasingly confused Pilot, but the confusion of the plugsuited redhead wasn't what grabbed Shinji's attention the most: that honour went to how the Third Child noticed the Asuka beside him suddenly go stiff as a board.
"She's challenging the 'Dragon King' and his two lieutenants...? Wrecking and looting all the hardware she finds along the way and calling it 'Hero Tax'? The hell are you talking about?" Asuka echoed, her voice sounding more and more suspicious by the second. "Look, I'm busy. I know you analysts don't have a lot in your plates, but if this is a joke-"
At least until she turned to face them once again and her eyes fell on her twin. After all, Asuka had taken to doing a very obvious attempt at concealment. With whistling and everything.
Which, needless to say, had the opposite effect on the one she'd been trying to fool. With a furious roar, the phone she'd been holding flew out the side of the platform and vanished into the depths below, before the enraged Pilot charged straight for her double with fist held high...
"The hell did you do, you stupid brat?!"
...and struck Shinji Ikari square in the face. A young man who, upon being unwillingly propelled by the Mk.1 Sohryu Fist Engine, relished in the joy of flight for the briefest of instants before falling down to the floor, groaning in pain.
"SHINJI!"
"Oh crap, why did he-?" the Pilot's eyes widened, looking back and forth from the spot where the Third Child had landed and the place where he had jumped in front of her strike. "I… I-I didn't mean to-"
"What is wrong with you?!" her double demanded, and the plugsuit-clad Asuka blinked herself back into a semblance of awareness. Quickly, she noticed her other helping Shinji back to a sitting position, as the young man massaged the left side of his face. He was in quite obvious pain, but it didn't look like anything important had been broken, thankfully.
Her twin, on the other hand, looked angry like she had honestly never seen her. Which only served to rekindle the flames of her own rage.
"W-What is wrong with me?! I should be asking what is wrong with you!" the Pilot countered, every bit as furious. "Weren't you satisfied with forcing your stupid plans forward?! Now you have to throw a tantrum and wreck HQ because the rest of us don't want to put up with your shit?! You only have yourself to blame for what happened to that moron!"
"What?! I wasn't the one who punched him!"
"As if that mattered! Would we have been in this situation in the first place if you weren't such a goddamn child?! If you didn't think that pulling a prank now of all times was such a great idea?!" The Pilot turned around with a huff and pulled out another device. She began to brush her fingers over its screen, her expression darkening as lines upon lines of text scrolled past the glass. "Scheiße, the damage will probably take forever to fix! Gott, that's why you should never be left in charge of anything, brat! You always mess everything up!" The redhead then faced the pair once more and angrily pointed a finger at the sitting Third Child. "Now pick up that idiot and get the hell out of here before I force you out!"
"You don't need to tell me twice, you big bully! I hope that Miss Thou finds you and gives you a big whack over the head!" Asuka shot back, grabbing a proper hold of the young man and furiously raising her own fist. "And don't you even think of coming near Shinji again, or I will be the one to knock your lights out!"
And without offering the time for a witty comeback, Asuka closed her eyes before the two disappeared without a trace. To where, the remaining redhead didn't need more than a single chance to correctly guess, not that she was planning on following.
She had far more pressing and difficult matters to attend to for the immediate future.
"...Tch. What a stupid brat," the Pilot grumbled, taking a second to gauge where her attention would be needed the most. "I sure hope she'll at least try harder than the last time."
Her ill-humoured words fading into the distance, the plugsuit-clad redhead disappeared into thin air like her twin had mere moments before, hoping that this so-called 'heroine' wouldn't prove as dim-witted as some other people she could mention.
-O]|[O-
"Are you all right, Shinji?"
Shinji suddenly found himself resting on something soft and comfortable, probably a bed, if he had to guess. More than likely, he quickly figured, he had been caught in yet another one of those weird shifts like the one the Pilot Asuka had pulled off earlier, which probably meant that he was safely back at the farm again. And with no nausea to speak of, to boot.
It would have been funny to think about how used he was getting to such sudden transitions if it didn't hurt to do so, really.
"My head hurts…"
The Third Child stated the obvious, continuing to rub the left side of his head. His skull hurt something fierce, not quite as badly as it had during the fight with the Third Angel, but quite a bit worse than when Toji had punched him, or anytime Asuka had felt a more direct conveying of her displeasure over something or another was in order.
...Shinji had quite an extensive knowledge of head injuries, now that he thought about it. Although that probably wasn't a good thing, especially since thinking still hurt.
"No wonder it does. She didn't hold anything back." Asuka muttered bitterly, before she sighed and sat down in a chair at his bedside. The redhead then leant forward to check him for injuries. "...You didn't have to do that, you know? It's not like she can permanently hurt me or anything. She's always like that."
"...Sorry."
Still, and while getting in the middle of the incoming attack hadn't probably been his finest idea, the Third Child surprised himself by realising that he would do so again if presented with the same choice. After all, Shinji didn't really understand what the conflict between the two Asukas had been about, but he wasn't about to sit still and let the one person who had helped him in this place so far get a punch to the face.
"Don't say you're sorry," Asuka chided him softly, smiling as she took a better look at his eye. "I appreciate what you did, silly."
And as the healthy teenage boy that he was, Shinji noticed the change in the girl before him. Because while the Third Child had always been aware of how pretty Asuka was, he had never thought that she could look… dazzling. It was mind blowing what a difference a genuine smile could do on someone like her, really, and the young man's brain and hormones were more than happy to have him commit the image to memory.
The archives of his mind weren't entirely sure about whether such an earth-shattering event would happen twice in their lifetime, after all, considering that this first taste had required a literal dive into Asuka's psyche and a healthy punch from a might-be fragment of her personality. Replicating a situation on the same level of ridiculous could be a hard thing to do.
...
...And perhaps it would be for the best that it was so.
"She…" Shinji began, coughing into his hand to break away from the strange train of thought. "She knew something."
"And we'll find out what it is, don't worry," Asuka reassured him, deeming her check-up complete and standing up from her chair. "But for now, you should get some sleep, Shinji. You're looking terrible, and not just because of the eye. I might use the time to lie down a little bit, myself, but I'll still wake you up if something important happens, all right?"
For a second, Shinji considered asking Asuka what the point of sleeping was for her if, by her own admission, she couldn't actually get tired, but the Third Child's brain not-so-kindly reminded him with a quick stab of discomfort that he was too exhausted to argue. Still, and while he failed miserably at stifling a yawn, Shinji did find the time for one final (and somewhat worrying) question that tied into the sleeping arrangements.
"Okay, but where are you going to sleep? Wasn't there only a single room…?" The young man asked, recalling the layout of the farmhouse. He then groaned tiredly when he remembered yet another important detail about the person beside him. "Don't tell me: I'm going to find a second room the very moment I wake up, right?"
And at that, Asuka merely laughed and ruffled his hair.
"Good boy."