The hum of equipment filled the sterile room, underpinning the silence. Normally Maya never noticed it. Now she couldn't get it out of her head.

"No unexpected harmonics detected at standard operating depths," she reported. "C-Type analysis shows no lasting effects from the cross-compatibility experiments."

"Increase plug depth to maximum-plus-five and run it again," Ritsuko said.

Maya pressed the buttons, looking out through the console window to the three test plugs half-submerged in a lake of coolant. She cringed a little inwardly as the pilots' faces on the camera feed took on a subtly strained look. The three of them were being pushed hard today.

It was necessary, of course. They had to ensure the Evas were safe to use. But Maya still felt sick.

Something was wrong. Not with the tests, they —so far at least— seemed to be coming up clean. But her mentor and Captain Katsuragi had somehow started throwing up ominous exceptions.

Usually they talked. Not much, not about anything in particular, but a low-grade background banter Maya listened to as she worked. Not this barren silence filled with the whirr of machinery, broken only for what was unavoidable to say.

It wasn't her place to wonder, to pry into her superiors' personal lives. Maya reminded herself of that, again and again. But still the thought sat in her chest, gnawing itself out an ever-growing hole. After the malfunction with Unit 00, Ritsuko had seemed… troubled. Worse than, really, but that was the only word Maya would let herself think. She didn't know what happened between the two women, but… surely if Ritsuko needed a friend, she needed one now more than ever?

She sighed and dragged her mind back to her work. Test after test, procedure after procedure all added up to the same overall picture. Asuka still far outstripped the others in sync rate, with Rei and Yuki improving only sluggishly. Wherever they looked, there was no hint of the hidden feedback loop that had caused Unit 00 to go berserk during the compatibility experiments.

And then, eventually, it was over. Ritsuko leaned in close over Maya, reaching past her for the switch that toggled radio to the pilots. "We're done. You can go now."

Hatches opened on the three test plugs, retractable bridges extending over the lake of coolant. Directors Katsuragi and Akagi turned to go, heading for opposite doors.

"Ma'am, wait."

Ritsuko paused in the doorway, turning. "What is it, Maya?"

She took a deep breath. "I was just wondering…"

What happened between you and Katsuragi? The question sat on Maya's tongue like a lead weight. She had been working up the nerve to ask all through the tests, but now the machinery had stopped. The hum that had filled her thoughts was gone. Her fingers curled into fists in her lap as the moment stretched, thinner and thinner.

And snapped.

"...if we would be starting the seventh stage of the Magi restoration tomorrow," Maya finished, instead.

"Ah, No," Ritsuko said. "I have to attend Kiyomi's wedding tomorrow. Hopefully the day after."

"Have fun, Ma'am!" Maya pinned her smile in place until Ritsuko left. She did a quick mental calculation on the odds of anyone watching the security footage from this particular room. When she was sure no-one was looking, she slumped forward onto the console in front of her, face hidden.

It would have been inappropriate to say anything, anyway.

and

She's your BOSS, remember?

And, finally

I'm such a coward.

❀—❀—❀

Asuka walked slowly down the row of bathroom stalls, carefully checking each for occupants. All empty. She continued until she reached the final stall, the one just out of view of the security camera. It had taken her the better part of a week to find this spot.

NERV Japan's bathrooms were all built to the same identical plan. At least, in theory. But the women's bathroom one level down from the pilots' lockers was positioned directly under the coolant tank used for synch tests, and its ceiling was a foot lower as a result. The decreased height of the ceiling moved the camera, and changed the lines of sight just enough.

Asuka opened the stall door and had a seat. Mentally, she reviewed the route she had taken to get here, making sure no-one could have noticed or followed her. Only then did she reach down into her bag and pull something out.

It was pink. It glittered. And she hated it.

Asuka stared down at the book, forcefully reminding herself that anything electronic she could get her hands on would be subject to the Magi. Paper was the only way to keep secrets. There hadn't been many options in Tokyo Three's shops, at least this one looked like it would take more than a couple minutes to pry open.

But it was still inescapably, nauseatingly something made for a child.

She had replaced the cheap heart-shaped toy it came with with a sturdy five digit combination lock and shoved it down to the very bottom of her bag, trying not to think about the fact it was there. But it was. And she needed to use it, if she wanted to be any use to Kaji and Misato. If she wanted to find out what was really happening.

Asuka swallowed her disgust and opened the diary, trying to touch it as little as possible. Entry for the 17th of October:

Her pen moved across the page, noting down tiny details of how Ayanami and Amagiri carried themselves, how they'd behaved in the locker room, the glimpses she'd managed to get of their synch readings. Occasionally she stopped to close her eyes, replaying events in her head. Even the tiniest detail could be important.

Or it could all be useless.

Asuka's grip tightened on the pen, the unbroken line of cursive german juddering to a halt. She shut her eyes. She would do it. She was Asuka Langley Soryu. She'd be vital to this, crack it all wide open and pull the truth bleeding from inside.

Somehow.

Asuka itched to do more, to go further than just taking notes. Staking out the dolls' apartment, breaking into Dr. Akagi's office, she knew could do these things. She would be good enough. She had to be.

Kaji was the only thing holding her back. Asuka could still see his face, dark eyes looking into hers in a way she'd never seen before. Not as a charge to take care of, or even as a friend, but as a partner. A co-conspirator. Someone he trusted with information that could end his life.

She wouldn't let the trust in those eyes turn to disappointment. He had made her promise, and she'd hold to it. Nothing reckless. No matter how much it felt like thorns under her skin to watch him and Misato go into danger while she stayed behind and scribbled notes.

Asuka shoved the log-book back down into her bag and stood, striding out from the camera's blind spot. Her mind boiled with thoughts as she left the bathroom, plans and theories and patterns rising and sinking again. Under all of it burned determination, the same smouldering will she'd used to bend hundreds of thousands of tons of armored giant to her will.

She WOULD prove what had happened. All she needed was time.

❀—❀—❀

By the time Asuka reached the surface the sun was low in the sky, casting the city in shades of amber and bronze. Hikari Horaki stood waiting by the gate. Asuka emerged, she tossed something to her.

"Thanks, class rep," Asuka said as she caught the juice box. She pierced it with the straw, letting the watered-down flavor of apples start to wash the metal tang of LCL from her mouth.

Hikari wrinkled her nose. "You still smell like that stuff."

"It's part of being a pilot," Asuka said as the two girls fell into step next to each other. Walking home from tests with Hikari was something she'd done for a while, though the class rep was usually more talkative than today. She didn't mind. Silence suited Asuka fine as they crossed the empty blocks.

"So, I have a favor to ask…"

Asuka blinked, dragged from her thoughts. "Huh? Like what?"

Hikari told her.

"Absolutely not!" The book was heavy in Asuka's bag. She still needed to review, consolidate. "I don't have time to go out with some random guy!"

"Please?" Hikari pressed. "Ever since he found out I knew you he won't stop asking my older sister about it, and she won't leave me alone."

"That kind of desperation is pathetic," Asuka said, crossing her arms. "If he wants to talk to me he should do it himself. To go through someone else is the act of a coward!"

Asuka found herself thinking back to Kaji's lectures: every person who knew a secret was an extra moving part in a machine, another place it could break. Fewer was better. It was the reason she couldn't tell Hikari, couldn't let her in without risking herself and Kaji. Couldn't share why she was so… busy now.

But… maybe there was another way. Inside Asuka's mind an idea germinated, roots digging into the soil. She could get Hikari's help without telling her.

"Although… I might trade a favor for a favor," Asuka said slowly. "I'll take this loser on a date if you do something for me."

"Thank you!" Hikari said, rushing forward to grab Asuka's hand. A moment later she let go of it, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry. It's just been rough with Kodama bugging me constantly. Sometimes I wonder if it's really her who wants to see you. So, what do I need to do?"

"I'm… concerned about Rei and Yuki," Asuka lied carefully. "Can you check on them for me?" The words felt like they'd burn her tongue even as she forced them to sound casual. "Only, you can't tell them it came from me."

Suddenly Hikari was smirking.

"What!?"

"Nothing! Just, it's cute that you don't want them to know you're worried," Hikari said.

"IT'S PROFESSIONAL!" she exploded. Asuka's nails dug into her skin. "I pilot with them, I need to be able to trust them!" In her mind, an image rose up. The third in a set, hair dyed red to match her eyes.

"If you say so," Hikari said, laughing. "Anyway, this is my street. I'll see you at school tomorrow," she said as she turned to go.

Asuka stood for a long moment, watching Hikari leave. She took a deep breath and turned to go too, towards another long night pouring over her notes. Whatever it took to get the truth.

As she passed a trash can she threw away the empty juice box. It really hadn't done anything at all to help the bitter taste in her mouth.

❀—❀—❀

Hikari finally caught up with Rei the next day during lunch, on the roof of the athletic building.

It wasn't the roof people usually went to. The top of the main building was paved, with a fence at the edge and even a few benches here and there. It was meant for spending time on. This one wasn't. Dirty gravel crunched under Hikari's shoes as she walked between ventilation pipes, electrical transformers, other things she couldn't identify. All the parts of a building kept out of public view.

And there among them was a blue-haired girl with a book open in her lap, eating something from a vending machine.

Hikari took a deep breath. Talking to Rei could be… difficult. She had a stare that felt like it could pin you against the walls. But it was her duty. As class representative it was her responsibility to make sure that all the students under her were okay. She had to do this.

Which didn't mean it was easy to know how to start. Hikari sat down opposite Rei, the sun-heated metal of an air conditioning unit nearly burning her back. Rei didn't appear to notice her.

Um.

Time seemed to melt and warp in the heat as the silence stretched. Hikari ran through dozens of openers in her head, each sounding more awkward than the last.

"Can I help you?" Rei asked, still not looking up.

"I—" Hikari swallowed. Honesty. Honesty was the best policy, especially because she couldn't think of anything else. "I wanted to check in on you and your sister."

"My sister?"

"Yuki. Yuki Amagiri," Hikari said. She hesitated. "You two are related, right?" The family names were different, but they looked identical aside from the hair. Most of her classmates called them 'the pilot twins.'

Rei turned a page in her book. "Genetically." There was something in her voice Hikari couldn't quite identify.

A nasty thought was starting to form in Hikari's mind. "How long have you known her?" she asked, already suspecting the answer she'd get.

"A month."

She'd been right. Guilt, sympathy, began to pool in Hikari's chest. It was always just so easy to forget about Rei, the quiet girl in the back of the class. People like that, you never stopped to think that they had their own lives, their own struggles. "Have you ever had any family before?" she asked softly. A breeze blew over the roof, touseling her hair.

"No. NERV sees to my needs." Rei carefully marked her place in her book and looked up, red eyes locking unblinkingly onto Hikari's own. "Can I ask the reason for these questions?"

"It's my job as class representative," Hikari said, fighting the urge to look away. She had been lucky. Even with Mom gone, her family had mostly stayed together through the chaos after Second Impact. Not everyone was so fortunate. There was even a term for them: impact babies. Children left without a family or records.

Somehow, she'd just assumed the pilots were above things like that. Stupid of her. "Is it scary?" she asked eventually. "Having someone for the first time?"

Rei was silent for a long moment, finally breaking eye contact. "I don't 'have' her."

"You do," Hikari said, conviction entering her voice. She couldn't fight Angels, couldn't do anything to keep her family safe. She was on the wrong scale, too small a person to do anything like what the pilots did. But this at least was a problem she could help with. No monsters, no military operations, just a family. "Even if you didn't grow up together, you're still alike. You've always been sisters, even if you didn't know it yet."

Rei's gaze fell to the machinery and constructions around them. "I don't know how to be a sibling."

Hikari smiled. "You'll figure it out. Are you the older or the younger?"

A moment's thought, then: "Older."

"An older sister's job is to look out for her little sis," Hikari explained. "You've been around longer, you know more about the world, so you can help keep her out of trouble."

"I see."

Hikari kept her smile up, biting back the awkwardness. "If you need any help just ask me, okay? I have two sisters, so I've had lots of practice."

"Understood."

Distantly a bell rung. Hikari pushed herself to her feet, grateful on some level for the out. "Well, I'd better get going. See you in class." She didn't regret coming, though. In her chest, a tiny flicker of pride was glowing.

Behind her, Rei looked like she was trying to solve a very complicated problem.

❀—❀—❀

Misato discreetly massaged her temples, silently cursing the thoughtfulness of whoever had arranged seating for this wedding. She should have seen it coming. It was public knowledge that she and Ritsuko were —had been— friends. And her and Kaji's plan had involved the two of them seeming to draw close again as cover. It shouldn't be a shock that some planner had seated the three of them together at one table. It was considerate.

They couldn't have known it meant she was sitting next to the woman who had held her at gunpoint less than a week ago.

The buzz of voices and laughter came from the tables around them, only underlining the way their few thin, clipped attempts at conversation collapsed into silence. Not that Misato knew what she would have said even if she had been able.

It would have been simpler to hate Ritsuko, easier. She couldn't manage it. All three of them had changed so much since their time in college. Back then they had been kids playing at adulthood, trying it on like a too-big coat. Misato knew she wasn't the same naive young woman who had signed up for the UN peacekeeping armies. She had seen things. She had done more than a few of them herself. Why was it such a shock that Ritsuko had changed just as much?

It was just that Ritsuko had always been the sane one, the one that seemed to have it all figured out. Rits had been the exasperated voice of common sense in the chaos she and Kaji attracted. When Misato had come home too drunk to stand, Ritsuko had put her to bed. When she had lost a third of her skin and nearly a tooth wiping out on a borrowed motorcycle, Ritsuko had been there with bandages and iodine to affectionately call her an idiot.

It was like coming back to a place she used to live and finding that the entire block had been demolished. The two images didn't fit together. One was the Ritsuko who insulted her coffee, who joked that Misato shouldn't be allowed within fifty feet of a spice rack. The other was the woman crying softly as she aimed a gun at her heart. Someone who had gotten lost somewhere in those years apart. Someone she couldn't afford to not consider an enemy.

Kaji was a comforting presence beside her, tucking into the food she and Ritsuko only picked at. Maybe if she had written more, been better at keeping in touch… but no. Regrets were for later, staring down the inside of a bottle. The question was what she was going to do now. An image of Asuka rose in her mind, alone under a pitiless white light. Another face she had been shocked to see cry.

You can't help them both.

Her stomach twisted. Misato wasn't at all sure she could manage to help either. But if it came to a choice, she knew on which side she'd fall. She'd hate herself for it, but she had acted against NERV for Asuka. She could add one more burning bridge to the inferno. Even this one.

Ritsuko flagged a waiter to their table to refill her drink. Again. And that was wrong too: back in college, Ritsuko had always been the one to hang back, to stick to fruit juice and seltzer water when everyone else was plastered. Now she was acting like someone actively trying to get as drunk as she could.

Then again, maybe she was just trying to deal with the silence. Misato badly wanted to do the same. It would have helped her feel better at least, but old instincts refused to let her guard down next to some who could be an enemy. So she forced herself to take tiny little sips, hating it.

The wedding went by, little by little. Each moment passed like it was being pulled out by the root. Misato tried not to look at the clock too often. Eventually it was late enough that her one excuse was plausible.

"Well, I should get home to Asuka," she said finally, standing. The words felt strange in her mouth.

"I'll have an early night too, then," Ritsuko said. By now her cheeks were slightly flushed with alcohol. She stood, or tried to. As she rose she wobbled, grabbing Misato's hand for support. "Sorry," she said. "These heel are murder. And I haven't gotten this… this in a long time."

Kaji said something, but Misato didn't hear it. She kept her expression carefully, rigidly neutral as the three of them made their goodbyes and headed out. They went their separate ways.

Misato drove for a couple minutes, then pulled over.

It was only then, sitting alone in her car, that she carefully unfolded and read the scrap of paper Ritsuko had pressed into her hand.

❀—❀—❀

Ants marched in single file across Rei's ceiling. She didn't know where they were going. Presumably they did. Guiding them wasn't her responsibility. The ants had simply turned up one day and never left. They had been the only living things in her apartment beside herself. No longer.

A month before Yuki had arrived, a bird had died in the stairwell of the building. The ants had found it before she did. Rei had passed it twice every day, watching in snapshots as a living body became just pieces.

Ants had crawled between the thing's feathers, into and out of the empty sockets that had once housed eyes. Rei had seen the same kind of birds eat ants, send entire formations scattering for cover. But they would consume it for their purposes regardless.

So much like humans.

In the other room, a sound Rei had been tuning out stopped suddenly. Dr. Akagi had given Yuki a laptop shortly after her creation. As far as Rei could tell, Yuki used it only to play a tiny collection of pop songs over the tinny speakers. Either Yuki had gone to bed, or the laptop's battery had died. Rei just listened, the same way she listened to traffic noises and the screaming whispers of the cicadas.

So many ants, all alike. She wondered if they could tell themselves apart. Did one ant look at another and think 'this one is special'?

Could she?

She and the Fourth Child weren't siblings in the usual sense. Rei of was certain of that. It was impossible to be born to the same parents when neither had been born. They were a product of humanity's hands, not it's blood.

No. You are not a human work.

Rei forced the thought down, back to the place it came from. A locked door in her mind, a spot left carefully unexamined. She and the Fourth Child were alike. Similar, but not the same. Two objects in a set that had always been empty beside herself.

Someone who wasn't a part of the thing called Rei Ayanami. Someone like her.

It was a fact, the data in, conclusions drawn. Long since, really. But fact and interpretation were opposite sides of a vast abyss, one she hung over by the finest thread.

You've always been sisters, even if you didn't know it yet.

It wasn't true. Not in the literal, biological sense. They hadn't grown up together. They hadn't truly grown up. But…

You've been around longer, you know more about the world. An older sister's job is to look out for her little sis.

Someone like her. Someone who would experience the things she had. Someone made for a purpose, a living instrument, replaceable. Someone surrounded by mirrors of herself, alone.

Alone.

Rei made a decision.

She shut her eyes and listened to the soft sound of her younger sister breathing. Above her, the ants marched on.

❀—❀—❀

Misato held her pistol in one hand. The other held the scrap of paper Ritsuko had slipped her. It hadn't said much, just a time and place.

The time had been later the same night, hours away then. The place was here, a half-built room deep in D-wing. Somewhere that would be finished just as soon as NERV's budget could stretch to fit the seventh phase of construction. Misato's footsteps echoed against the unfinished concrete as she approached. She let them. Better not to take anyone by surprise.

A bank of windows filled one wall, bathing the room in the red emergency lights that filled the geofront at night. Ritsuko sat silhouetted against them, facing away from her. There was a large, empty bottle lying next to her chair.

Without turning, Ritsuko spoke. "Did you consider Shinji your son?"

Misato drew up short. "What?"

"I said, did you think of Shinji as your son," Ritsuko said softly. "That's why you're doing this, isn't it? To find out what happened to him."

"I—" Misato cut herself off. Her first thought was a mental flinch, to deny it on reflex. But Ritsuko deserved more than that, even as Misato was carefully ready to aim the gun in her hand. She could at least offer honesty. "He could have been. He—we were starting to feel like a family. If we had had more time…" She trailed off. No time for grief, not here, not now.

"Then you deserve to know what happened to him," Ritsuko said. Her voice was almost a monotone, blank. "You're familiar with Personality Transfer OS, how the Magi run off an imprint of a human mind?"

Misato nodded. "Yes." After the Eleventh Angel had attacked the Magi she'd spent a few frantic nights researching, making sure she knew what she had to defend.

"Yuki Amagiri carries within herself a piece of Shinji Ikari, harvested before his death. That's how she's able to pilot Unit 01."

Misato went very still. Her grip tightened on the pistol. "Is she Shinji?"

"No." Ritsuko's toneless voice was starting to wobble, to crack. "The commander thought it would be… kinder… to take only what was necessary to pilot. Maybe if we had more time, if I had been able to be more complete—"

Misato recognised the words. Not the specifics, but the meaning. If I had been a little bit faster, if I had just done something different… She heard them every night, echoing in the silence. "Shinji's death wasn't your fault," she said softly, hoping the words were true. "You did everything you could."

Ritsuko flinched as if she'd been struck. She was several feet in front of Misato, facing away, cast in silhouette, but even so the effect was visible. She was silent for a long time, and when she spoke again her voice was again cold, walls up. "…That's kind of you to say," she answered. "Does that mean you'll stop?"

Misato stopped to think about it, actually consider the question. She had answers now. Not all of them, not the whole picture, but pieces of the puzzle. Far more than she would ever have been told if she kept her head down. She could say that that was enough. The Angels were still coming, and she'd be no good to anyone if she was killed by her own side before she could help stop them. She knew Kaji wouldn't blame her for stepping away. The truth wouldn't bring Shinji back.

But this wasn't about Shinji, not really. Ritsuko had asked about the wrong pilot.

Misato had never thought of herself as mother material. She was crass, sloppy, cold and distant. Someone who could barely handle her own life, let alone someone else's. It was hard to imagine anyone less suited to be Asuka's parent.

But it didn't matter. No-one else would. Asuka was her responsibility, a life entrusted to her care. A life that had already had far more demanded of it than the world had any right to ask. If Misato didn't look out for her, there was no other soul in NERV who would. And in order to defend, she needed to know what she was defending against.

"I'll stop," Misato said.

"You liar." Ritsuko made a sound somewhere between a snort and a sob. "You really are just like him, you know that? No matter what I say, you won't stop. Not once you get an idea in your head."

Something glittered on the concrete by Ritsuko's feet in the red light. A tear. Misato opened her mouth to speak, but Ritsuko kept going.

"You won't just die. A brilliant tactical mind, and a maternal relationship with two pilots? There's no way they'll waste that." She gave a hollow, tattered laugh. "And it'll be my job to do it to you. My own friend!"

"I'm sorry," Misato said. She didn't know what else to do.

Ritsuko took long, ragged breaths, getting her breathing under control. "Don't be," she said, wiping her eyes and finally turning. "I'd forgotten how I get when I'm drunk. You don't have a clue what I'm talking about, do you?"

"I guess I'll find out," Misato said, swallowing. "Either one way or the other."

Ritsuko gave the saddest smile Misato had ever seen. "There's only one way, Misato. When you're caught, I'll try not to let it hurt too much. That's all I can do."