Asuka woke up to the beeps of an overworld theme coming out of the television, blue eyes groggily managing to identify the 8-bit character she'd been controlling standing idly within a deep forest. Obviously, she had fallen asleep once again while trying (and failing) to find her way to the next step in the digital adventure, probably due to how badly she had slept throughout the night. An experience that she had repeated in this impromptu nap for the most part, albeit with one small exception:

"Shinji...?"

She distinctly remembered the Third Child being a part of it, although not massively so. A strange event…

"I am not Ikari-kun, Pilot Sohryu."

…that was quickly overshadowed by an even weirder one. After all, the voice of Rei Ayanami was not one that Asuka had been expecting to hear right as she woke up.

"GAH!" The Second Child shrieked, losing her balance and falling out of her cushion and right onto her back. The redhead recovered with enviable swiftness, however, moving to point an angry finger at the nonplussed bluenette. "W-What are you doing here?! This is my room!"

"I apologise. I didn't mean to surprise you, although I do believe it to be fairly late in the day for sleep," Rei responded, bowing her head slightly before she motioned towards the door. "In response to your question, Section 2 allowed me entrance once I explained my intentions."

The redhead promptly threw a pointed glare towards the door.

"Best bodyguards ever," Asuka scoffed, rising to her feet and crossing her arms. "So? What do you want, Wondergirl?"

"I came to collect you, Pilot Sohryu. They have urgent need for us."

Asuka's entire body went rigid at the First Child's cropped statement, her mind quickly filling in the missing spots with a shortlist of reasons for which urgent need of EVA Pilots could be needed. The forefront of which Asuka honestly didn't feel ready to face just yet, much to her personal shame.

"Is it... an Angel?"

"No."

And just as quickly as it had tightened, the Second Child's body relaxed with a drawn-out sigh.

"Gottseidank," Asuka muttered under her breath, before she scoffed at the other girl and plotted a course towards the bathroom. "Way to get my hopes up, First. Whatever, I'll be out in a second."

True to her word, Asuka satisfied her necessities and made herself look somewhat presentable for her high standards in just a few short moments. A feat that would have normally taken somewhere around fifteen minutes on a good day, but one that the Second Child had decided to cut short this time due to the high likelihood of LCL being involved in whatever it was that she was supposed to do. It was simply pointless to spend long amounts of time making herself look as good as she usually tried to when the orange goop would certainly make short work of her efforts.

Not that Rei would have minded much if the redhead had taken her sweet time getting ready. That, Asuka quickly confirmed the moment she stepped into the living room, much to her surprise.

"...What are you doing?"

"I am navigating this map," Rei replied, controller in hand and not taking her eyes off the TV screen. "It would appear that this character I'm controlling is intended to go into this structure. It resembled a fortress, so I thought it important."

And at the word 'Fortress', Asuka jumped in front of the television and began to inspect the screen as if it had suddenly become an old CRT, letting out an exasperated growl before long. After all, and much to the girl's chagrin, Rei had managed to find the location that Asuka had spent several hours vainly searching for in two minutes flat.

The Second Child's mood took a quick and sudden dive towards the negative, a swing that the old and innocent Famicom brutally paid for: with a mighty slap on the poor device's plastic surface, the redhead promptly turned the console off and earned herself a confused look from her unwanted companion.

"Why did you do that?"

"Because I was the one playing the stupid game, not you," Asuka crossly responded, taking the controller off of Rei's hands and putting it into the device's tray, before she pushed the console out of the bluenette's reach. "Besides, I thought that you said we needed to go somewhere."

"Oh. That is correct," Rei agreed, looking for a second as if she had completely forgotten the purpose of her visit. "Lieutenant Ibuki has asked for our help. Due to the attack of the Fifteenth Angel, it seems that some of the internal systems of Unit-02 are in need of calibrations for the synchronization tests tomorrow."

"Great," the Second Child groaned, knowing exactly what the word 'calibrations' meant for her immediate future. "Just what I was looking to do today: a whole lot of sitting in an Entry Plug doing nothing. And why do you need to come, again?"

"Unit-00 is to be used as the baseline for the calibration process."

"Wonderful. So not only do they screw up my free day, now my Unit-02 is going to feel clunky and weird. They're not even hiding their sabotage attempts now, are they?" Asuka moaned, her words managing to earn her little more than another perplexed look from her guest. "Fine, whatever. Let's just get this over with, Wondergirl."

And leading by example, the Second Child threw open the door to her apartment and stepped into the hallway, stopping just for a second to throw a dirty look at the Section-2 agents before she stomped down the corridor with Rei following a step behind.

No words were shared between the two girls for the longest time, red and blue following the green line that led the way to the testing facilities with nothing but the sound of shoes hitting the tiled floor. A rhythmic tip-tap that was far more lethargic than the breakneck speed that Rei had come to associate with most things Asuka, but a fact that the bluenette never commented on.

'A calibration synch. Hours of sitting in the Entry Plug doing nothing. A long while alone, sitting in the… Entry Plug,' the redhead pondered, feeling a cold numbness take over the pit of her stomach at the thought of being surrounded by the familiar metallic walls. 'Shit. Why do I want the walk there to take as long as possible?

'Is it because of the last battle? Because of what that winged bastard dredged up? God knows I can't catch a wink of sleep without going back to it…' Asuka blinked, remembering an important detail about the nap that Rei had so rudely interrupted. 'And just why did I dream of Shinji, while we're at it? Why was he… there? Was it because of what happened…?'

"Are you concerned?"

Asuka jumped a little at the voice suddenly intruding into her thoughts, narrowing her eyes at the serene girl walking at her side.

"Me? Concerned about Shinji?" the redhead scoffed, getting her mind back on track nigh instantly. "HA!"

"I wasn't talking about Ikari-kun."

Or almost back on track.

"Oh," the Second Child grimaced, quickly crossing her arms and falling back on old tricks to claim control of the situation once again. "Then what were you talking about?"

"The synch-test that Doctor Akagi scheduled for tomorrow," Rei elaborated, ignoring the heated glare thrown her way. "I didn't fail to notice a downwards trend in your latest scores and-"

"Nobody asked for your amazing observation skills, honed by hours of staring at goddamn trees, First."

The bluenette then came to a stop and finally looked into the narrowed eyes before her, not because she wanted to, but because ignoring them and continuing on her way would have meant running straight into an angry Second Child.

Not that the fury in the girl's eyes did much to keep Rei from saying what she had intended to.

"If you don't open your heart to her, your EVA will not move."

Words that made the Second Child blink and hold back on her anger for a second, a second that she used to try and comprehend the roundabout and plain strange expression that Rei had used for what Asuka supposed was meant to be advice.

'As if I could possibly need any advice from you.'

"Great, so now you're a fortune cookie," Asuka sneered, throwing up her arms. "You ever thought about writing those messages out? I'm sure you'd make a killing."

"The only beings I'm interested in killing are the Angels."

"...Oh, just forget it, you damn robot," the redhead angrily shook her head, before turning to march down the hallway once more. "And stop following me."

"I'm not-"

"Yeah, whatever."

The silence between the two girls returned in full force following Asuka's rude dismissal, and several more minutes of walking sounds filled the endless and nearly empty hallways of NERV HQ. One corridor succeeded another, the boring monotony of grey surfaces broken for just a short minute-long elevator ride to their destination floor before walking through more hallways became the two Pilot's main, dull occupation, once more.

'Why does this place need to be so stupidly massive, anyway? Are they compensating for something? I swear, it's going to take longer to get to my EVA from here than it would from the apartment, and that's almost out of the freaking city!'

To make matters worse, a fairly loud rumbling of her stomach let Asuka know that she was feeling rather peckish. Quite natural, considering that she had only eaten a quick sandwich before trying to leave for the surface some time during the morning, and that it was quite likely well after noon by that point in time.

Unfortunately, a quick detour through the cafeteria was out of the question. Not only because 'quick' in the NERV HQ scale of the word would probably mean close to half an hour, but also because there was no guarantee that doing so would go down well with the lab crew. Mousy Ibuki might have been the one to call for the Pilots, but Doctor McBitchFace herself could very easily be the one doing the actual calibration test, for all she knew.

And Asuka would be damned if she was going to give the woman the satisfaction of getting any more ammo against her.

'So not only am I going to be bored out of my mind, my stomach's going to be trying to consume itself. Gott in Himmel, can this day get any worse?'

"Are you concerned?"

And Asuka rolled her eyes skywards at the sound of the familiar voice opportunely intruding into her thoughts once more.

'...Ask and ye shall receive, I guess.'

"Ugh, now we are repeating ourselves, Wondergirl?" Asuka groaned tiredly, looking at Rei out of the corner of her eye. "What, did your programming glitch, or something?"

"No. This time I am asking you about your thoughts on Ikari-kun's condition."

"Oh." The redhead frowned, taking a moment to think about how to best put the myriad thoughts she had on the Third Child's condition, added to the fact that it was Rei who was asking. In the end, the Second Child settled for her usual brand of dismissive. "Well, I'm annoyed that he gets to sleep through this while I must pick up his slack. Lazy idiot."

And with her words echoing down the hallway for a brief moment, it was Asuka who then suddenly found herself in the need to stop walking, lest she run straight into the First Child. A Pilot who looked indignant and offended, in a manner in which Asuka hadn't seen her ever since the day Shinji was swallowed by the Twelfth.

"...What?" the redhead eventually cut into the silence, feeling just the slightest bit intimidated despite herself. "You got something to say?"

"Ikari-kun risked his life to save yours, Pilot Sohryu," Rei replied, in a voice that could have frozen water. "You should not speak ill of him."

"Well, I didn't ask him to save me," Asuka shot back, putting a hand against her chest. "And where are you getting that from, anyway? I didn't need his help!"

An assertion that Rei offered no direct response to, merely maintaining her silent staring. A heated look that, despite her previous words, the redhead quickly found she was unable to match.

"...It's not my fault that he's like that."

"I didn't say you were at fault, only that you should respect his decision," the bluenette stated, turning to continue on her way once more and leaving behind an unspoken message that Asuka needed no translator to understand. "I plan to visit Ikari-kun when Lieutenant Ibuki has no more need of our help. You're welcome to join me, if you want."

Blue eyes rising from the spot of flooring she had been analysing, the Second Child followed the retreating form of Rei Ayanami until it disappeared around one of the labyrinthine corners of NERV HQ, the girl's gaze remaining transfixed onto the spot long after the bluenette had left the area. Asuka's brain furiously went over the First Child's final words, her mind's eye going back and offering her a crisp image of the last time she had seen the slumbering Shinji Ikari.

An image that sent a shiver down the girl's spine...

...and drove her to punch the nearby wall with all her might.

"...And what's the point in going there?" Asuka growled under her breath. "Just so that I can see him like Mama was?"

Ignoring the mounting pain in her knuckles, the redhead pulled her arm back for a second strike, but stopped herself short of actually completing the full punch. Because she could hear them, the voices of the two idiot bodyguards muttering to each other, no doubt deciding whether they should stop the crazy girl that was getting her kicks out of punching walls.

Not that Asuka would give them the chance. Remembering that Doctor McBitchFace would grab onto whatever scraps of an argument she could produce just to save face, and that arriving much later than Rei would do her no favours, the redhead sent the Section-2 agents a brief glare and took off at a brisk pace in the direction the bluenette had disappeared.

And all the way, Asuka cursed the First Child for bringing to mind the damned thought that would no doubt be keeping her company during the tedious multi-hour calibration test.

-O]|[O-

Shinji Ikari tossed and turned in his bed. He felt exhausted, but his body and mind just plain refused to surrender to the comforts of sleep, and whether that was due to the few remnants of adrenaline still coursing through his body, or because the myriad thoughts and revelations of the last few hours still cruised unimpeded through the young man's mind, he couldn't tell.

Who knew? Perhaps Shinji's own subconscious had grown savvy to his situation, and was merely waiting expectantly for the other shoe to drop and turn the Third Child's world upside-down again, just like it had during all the past tribulations of the day. And that was assuming only a single day had passed during his stay in Asuka's mind, of course. It was hard to say with all the gloom, fog and constant rain.

In the end, and realising that sleep was going to be a hard thing to achieve for the moment, the Third Child rose from the bed with the intention of finding something that would help. Raiding the kitchen to prepare himself a relaxing infusion was the first idea that popped up, but maybe even talking to Asuka for a few minutes would put his mind at ease long enough to catch some sleep later, unlikely as that idea seemed.

Whatever plans Shinji had, however, were brought low the moment he laid eyes upon the red door sitting in the corner of the room.

"What the...?" the Third Child froze in place, staring curiously at the foreign object. "That wasn't there before."

The young man turned to check on the actual door of the room, quickly confirming that the crimson gate looked nothing like its counterpart. The fact that the wooden door wasn't painted red and orange and was also lacking the cursive decorative motifs that would have looked more at home in an old book's cover than a door should have been a dead giveaway, though. It wasn't glowing with a faint light, either. A comforting glow that put Shinji at ease, somehow making him feel... safe in an almost nostalgic way. Like nothing bad would ever happen to him.

Before Shinji could stop himself or even clearly think about what it was that he was doing, his feet were carrying him towards the red door, towards the source of this familiar feeling that he could not name.

And then he touched it, and he was in his room no more.

Following his first instinct to look around, Shinji found himself in a fairly big hall with wide bookshelves lining the walls, a beautiful carpet set on the floor and a crackling fireplace within the wall opposite him. It was a very comfortable-looking chamber, as well as very… western. A kind of vintage room that the young man had perhaps seen once or twice before, and even then only in movies.

But it wasn't the ornate and relaxing decorations that caught Shinji's attention. That honour went to a pair of armchairs, sitting side by side and looking towards the fire, wide enough for whoever sat in them to be almost completely obscured from sight. And there were people actually using them, although the only details the young man could glean from his position were a pair of frail arms resting on opposite armrests, and a few, stray blonde locks of hair coming out of the sides.

"Who are you?" A voice asked from the armchair on the left. Female, weary and definitely older than Shinji.

"I…" the Third Child began, before he caught himself and bowed, doing a proper Japanese greeting. "My name is Shinji Ikari, ma'am."

For some reason, Shinji had the feeling that he should show proper respect to this woman, or women. Nevermind the fact that they couldn't actually see him, although if the two females were in any way related to the Asukas he had met so far chances were small details such as direct line of sight wouldn't really matter.

"Ikari…"

What mattered was the slight hint of anger that Shinji heard inflected on his given name.

"Is… something wrong, ma'am?"

A quick check behind him revealed the crimson door to still be there and available for a tactical retreat in the space of a few paces, much to the young man's relief.

But it also revealed something else.

"Asuka?"

Sitting in a third, much smaller armchair, and facing away from the other two, was Asuka Langley-Sohryu. A plugsuit-clad version of her, although something told Shinji that this Asuka wasn't the same one he had met not that long ago.

Probably the fact that his jaw was still intact.

"Come on, you stupid robot, work." Shinji heard Asuka mutter through clenched teeth when he walked closer, hands grasping the armrests tightly. "You are my doll. You are supposed to listen to my commands!"

And while the other two had had specific mannerisms and ways of talking that were familiar, yet unlike the Asuka he knew, this one sounded frighteningly close to the original material. The mark of frustration showing on her face was also one that Shinji had seen on his Asuka with increasing frequency before the last Angel's attack.

The similarities were such that the Third Child allowed himself to think about the possibility of this scene being a reproduction of whatever it was that the real Asuka was doing at the time. Probably one of the myriad of tedious synch tests that the Pilots were routinely tasked with taking in their Evangelions, if the way she was sitting and focusing herself on the task were to be any indication.

'So Asuka's sitting in the Entry Plug of Unit-02? Is that why I'm seeing this? Does that mean that I'm somehow... linked to it right now, too?' The young man pondered, remembering how he had always felt like there was the almost indiscernible trace of some other presence with him every time he synced with Unit-01, a fact that Shinji had learned to ignore over his months of piloting.

Until now.

The Third Child turned around, looking back towards the fireplace.

"...Wait a minute. Robot…? Hers?" Shinji repeated Asuka's words to himself, walking closer to the other two armchairs. "Are you… EVA?"

"She won't listen."

Shinji blinked at the non-answer, although his ears didn't fail to pick up on how… sad the words had sounded.

"Listen? Listen to what?"

"I… know you, Shinji Ikari. I have felt you… before," the woman on the left continued, very much ignoring him. "She... thinks about you, too."

The Third child spluttered at the words, feeling heat rise up to his cheeks, but he found no chance to cut in.

"Please help her," the woman continued, the timbre of her request going from sad to begging. "She won't listen. She won't reach out to me. She won't-"

"She won't die with me."

And Shinji's embarrassment promptly turned into a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, as he turned to stare wide-eyed at the back of the armchair that had remained silent until now. The seat from where a strikingly similar, yet somehow different voice to the one prior had come from.

"...W-What…? Die…?" the Third Child echoed. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"

But the rightmost woman didn't reply. Instead, she kept calling for 'her little Asuka' and muttering about death and how... happy she was, all the while clutching something to her chest that Shinji couldn't see.

'Little Asuka? Does she mean the one that was in that hospital?'

The Third Child gulped loudly, the coldness spreading to the rest of his body until he was feeling jittery. After all, and obviating the disturbing call for the death of his teammate, if even the tiniest fragment of this room could be tied back to the damnable hospital in any way, shape or form, that meant that it was a great time to leave, as far as Shinji was concerned.

Which is why the Third Child wasted no further time in turning around and making a dash for the crimson door...

"Don't go… Please help her…"

...at least, until the woman's voice stopped him dead in his tracks. A faint tone of desperation had worked its way into her begging, managing to freeze the young man's hand right as it was about to grab the doorknob to freedom.

"...Help? A-And how am I supposed to do that?" Shinji replied, cursing his deeply ingrained servile nature for keeping him rooted to the spot. "I don't know how! And what's more, even if I somehow could, Asuka never lets me!"

"Please help her… Please help her… Pleasehelpherpleasehelpherpleasehelpherplease..."

"...Are you even listening to me?" The Third Child wondered, his words quickly being swallowed by the recurrent appeal that was slowly and steadily growing more and more desperate. Shinji roughly shook his head, unable to understand why he was being given such a task.

'How could I possibly help Asuka? Me? Stupid, wimpy, Shinji? There's no way I could…' the young man thought, eyes locking on to the door before him. 'Yes, that's a stupid idea. I… should just get out of here. Focus on getting back home.'

"Dammit, not again!"

But the Second child's familiar, angry voice suddenly boomed through the room, cutting through the repeating mantra and silencing the entire chamber with no effort. Her shriek had been painful and raspy, with an undertone of sorrow that made her sound so… vulnerable.

So unlike Asuka.

"Tomorrow is the day," the girl continued. "You can't keep failing like this, Asuka!"

It was then that the Third Child looked down at his hand, noticing how close to the door's handle it had stopped. He could just easily grab it, twist it, and he would be out of the room in the blink of an eye, but he found himself unable to do so, unable to just... walk away, even though he knew that there was simply nothing that he could actually do.

With a weary sigh, Shinji turned back around and quickly found the room to be gone, along with the two armchairs that had been there prior, replaced by what looked like an endless, blank void. The only seat that remained was the one closest to Shinji, the one that sat a redheaded girl who tightly held on to armrests that looked close to snapping from the pressure they were being subjected to, eyes sealed tightly shut as if she wanted to block tears from coming out.

Asuka looked absolutely miserable, offering a completely different image from the one that Shinji had come to associate with the spitfire Second Child, usually brimming with confidence and bravado even in the bleakest of times. She looked like a completely different person from the one Shinji had spent many rocky weeks fighting alongside (and fighting with), like a shadow of her usual self.

A shadow that Shinji didn't like, and one that the Third Child would have loved nothing more than to dispel, if only he knew how.

"What was it Ayanami said? 'Open your heart to EVA?' Shit… I can't believe I'm even considering it..." the Second Child muttered wistfully, burying her face in her knees and bringing Shinji out of his contemplation. "Goddammit, Shinji, this is all your fault… Why won't you wake up already?"

And with those final words, Asuka and her armchair disappeared, leaving the Third Child alone with his thoughts and the blank void.

'Wake up? What did she mean by-?'

Then, he was suddenly being shaken.

"Shinji! Shinji!" a different Asuka yelled to his face, sounding like she was close to hysterics. "Wake up!"

"A-Asuka?"

The Third Child blinked his disorientation off and focused on the girl, quickly recognizing her before he looked around and did the same for his surroundings: it seemed as if he was back at the farm.

"Finally!" the Asuka in the yellow sundress let out a relieved sigh at his response, taking her hands off his shoulders. "You had me worried sick!"

"...What happened?"

"I don't know. I came in to check on you and you were just… standing there," the redhead explained, making a spaced out face to illustrate her point. "I called you and shook you and tried to snap you out of it, but it was like you weren't even there!"

"That's right!" Shinji exclaimed, focusing back on the corner of the room. "The door!"

But, much to his surprise, the space before him was empty.

"Door?" Asuka echoed, following the young man's gaze. "...What door?"

"The door! There-There was a door just now! Right there!" Shinji insisted, turning the tables by grabbing Asuka by her shoulders. "It was large and red, and- and it was glowing!

"Shinji, I built this farm and I'm 100% positive that I put no doors to anywhere there, especially weird ones with lights on them." Asuka replied. She then carefully shook off Shinji's hold and took a step back, her worried look coming back in full force. "...Are you sure you're alright?"

"But it was there! And these two crazy women were there, and Asuka was there and- and she said something about me not waking up and what the hell is going on?!"

Shinji grabbed his head with both hands and violently shook it from side to side, as if he was in some sort of indescribable pain. Stunned into silence, all Asuka could do was watch as the young man blew through the worst of his tantrum, before he slowly sagged to the edge of the bed and sat down, burying his head in his hands.

"...Guess you're not alright. Look, I-I'm not saying I don't believe you, you know? It's just…" The redhead trailed off, thinking of how she was supposed to handle such a situation. Eventually, she forced a strained smile through. "Mmm... H-Hey, about the door... Maybe it turns out that you're a sleepwalker and had a nightmare?"

"And you don't think I would have noticed that kind of thing before?!" Shinji's voice rang through the room in response, managing to bring even the ever-present sound of the raindrops outside to a stop. Not that the young man noticed, hidden and unheeding behind the walls of his fleshy fort.

At least, until a sliver of voice reached Shinji's ears, breaking him out of his contemplations.

"...I'm sorry, that was a stupid idea. I'm just full of those, aren't I?"

The Third Child froze at the words, not because of their content, but because he had heard that same tone being used mere moments ago. Sure enough, when Shinji's eyes swiftly rose to find Asuka he was quick to notice that she looked as close to tears as the Asuka in the armchair had been.

And her final parting words, 'This is all your fault', promptly popped up at the forefront of his mind.

"No, wait! Asuka!" the Third Child pleaded. "It's not your-"

"I'll leave you alone for a while."

But just as Asuka had been, she suddenly wasn't, likely gone to some faraway part of the realm to where Shinji could not follow. And who even knew if she would be coming back? Shinji certainly wouldn't blame her if she didn't.

"...Dammit. Good going, Shinji…" the Third Child lamented his blunder, burying himself back into his arms. The bed didn't feel half as comfortable as it had been before. "...I just want to go home…"