Chapter 8 - I Should Have Realised Sooner
As Unit-01 descended into the depths of the Geofront on the launch catapult, Asuka stretched her arms out and arched her back before glancing behind at her two unwanted passengers.
"Some very serious men are going to have a very serious chat with you two," she remarked.
"Oh, we're in very serious trouble," Suzuhara moaned. "I told ya we shouldna snuck out, Ken!"
"So worth it," Aida replied, seemingly unfazed by his impending interrogation if the grin on his face was anything to go by.
"Says you!" Suzuhara held his head in his hands. "I'm tellin' them it was all your idea, since it was!"
Asuka raised an eyebrow. "So why'd you follow him?"
"'Cos I wanted to try and keep him outta trouble, Red." Suzuhara's hands dropped back to his sides as he glared at Aida. "This dumbass told the class rep we were just takin' a leak, then told me he was gonna sneak out ta watch the fight. I didn't want him to end up splatted, so I tagged along to try'n keep him outta trouble!"
"And look how well that turned out," replied Asuka. "Well you're loyal, I'll give you that."
"Yeah. Thanks," Suzuhara spat. "Now I'm gonna get disappeared by secret agents just because I didn't want my buddy to get hurt."
The launch catapult came to a gentle stop at the bottom of the lift shaft. Clamps that were laying in wait for Unit-01 attached themselves to the Evangelion's cradle, and began the slow process of transferring the purple behemoth back to its holding pen.
"You don't know that we're gonna get disappeared," said Aida. He turned to Asuka. "...Are we?"
Asuka thought about trying to scare him, but the success of her first combat operation had left her in a good mood. Still, she wasn't quite sure what would happen to them after what they had witnessed. "You might. Or they might just interrogate you for a while. Just go along with them, don't try anything stupid, and you might get to see tomorrow."
Suzuhara let out a groan of dismay, then a sigh of defeat. "Well if I don't make it out alive, tell my lil' sis I'm sorry I disobeyed her. She warned me not to get in trouble again."
Unit-01 gently bumped against the back wall of the cage, where massive restraints locked into place around its arms and legs. The armour plate covering the entry plug slid aside, and the plug began to exit the socket.
"You mean your sister that's in hospital?" Asuka inquired as the LCL began to drain. "Oh, by the way, you'll want to breath out as hard as possible to get this stuff out of your lungs."
The two boys almost retched as they did so. After a bit of coughing, Suzuhara spoke with anger in his voice.
"Yeah, after your boyfriend almost killed her."
Asuka fought down the blush at the label. "He's not my boyfriend. I've just known him for a long time. And the reason your sister got hurt was because NERV didn't have time to train him before the first attack. He got brought in literally at the last minute and didn't even know how to walk." She got out of the pilot seat and glared daggers at Suzuhara. "But he still went out there and defeated the Angel. If it wasn't for him, you and your sister would be dead."
The angry teenager matched her steely expression, the two of them staring at each other. Behind the boys, the entry plug's hatch opened and a black-suited man leaned in.
"You two, come with us," he barked.
Suzuhara held his stare a few seconds longer before blinking and looking away. "We'll talk later, Red," he said before stepping out of the plug, Aida close behind. Asuka let out a sigh as she ran a hand through her LCL-slicked hair. She needed to wash the stuff off before it dried out.
One ludicrously quick shower later, Asuka headed for the bridge. Though she wanted to take the time for a full wash, something more important needed to be dealt with.
XXX
"Where the hell is he?"
Doctor Akagi and Misato looked up at Asuka as she stomped towards them. Ayanami was also there, but she didn't turn to greet her.
"There's a proper way to speak to a superior officer," Doctor Akagi chidingly said. "That wasn't it."
"Oh sure, I'll just waste even more time," Asuka replied sarcastically, glaring at Doctor Akagi, who quirked an eyebrow at her before turning back to the tablet in her hands. Misato simply folded her arms and stared at the disgruntled redhead. Finally, Asuka sighed and snapped off a salute.
"Captain Katsuragi. Doctor Akagi. Could you please give me any information you have on the disappearance of Shinji Ikari?" She just barely kept her eyes from rolling, and the adults probably sensed that, but both of them relaxed slightly.
"That's better," said Misato. "As for your question..." She glanced at Doctor Akagi, who only offered a shrug. "We don't know yet. NERV's main goal right now is clean-up and retrieval of the core."
Asuka could hear the frustration in Misato's voice. The woman clearly wanted to be involved in the search, but her own duties prevented her. That was the only reason why Asuka didn't explode in anger at NERV's apparent lack of care.
"What about his Section Two detail?" she ground out. "Aren't they supposed to be near him whenever he's out of the Geofront?"
"The lockdown was only recently released," said Doctor Akagi. "Ikari slipped out beforehand. As a result, all we have to go on right now are cameras. The MAGI are trawling through the footage, and..." She paused. "Ah hah. Got him on Gate D3."
She tapped a few buttons, and the holographic projection in front of the bridge shifted. The view it now showed was clearly from a ceiling mounted security camera. It showed a certain young boy walking straight out of NERV without even a glance directed his way from the gate guards.
"Got ID on those two idiots?" Misato asked.
A button press later, and now the screen showed the profiles of the gate guards. Misato seethed, before shaking her head and looking at Asuka. "I think that's all we're going to get from the cameras. From the timestamp, he left the Geofront only a few minutes after the end of your fight. But... why?"
Asuka looked down at the ground and rubbed her forehead as she tried to work out what had made Shinji leave. There were no pressing engagements that she could think of, and school would likely have been cancelled for the rest of the day due to the clean-up. Looking up at the screen as the footage looped, Asuka noted the slightly hunched back and downturned gaze of her roommate and friend.
"He's unhappy," Asuka blurted out. At the curious looks from the two adults, she hastened to clarify. "Look at him. He looks like he's walking to get away from something, not going home."
Misato and Akagi looked at each other.
"He's running away," Akagi mused. "I had a feeling this might happen eventually."
"Why would he not go home?" Rei asked. Asuka thought she could almost detect a hint of worry in her normally monotone voice. "Where else could he go?"
Misato sighed and rubbed her eyes. "I don't have an answer to either of those questions."
Asuka folded her arms. "How long until you can actually bother to start looking for him?"
"His Section Two detail left the Geofront as soon as the lockdown was lifted," said Akagi. "That's only a few men though. The rest of Section Two have their own duties we can't pull them from just yet."
Slapping a hand to her forehead in exasperation, Asuka growled. "Fine. But I want to know immediately the moment you geniuses find him. And when you do, I want to be the one to bring him in." She turned to leave, catching Ayanami's eye for a split second as she did so. Was that sympathy in those strange red eyes?
"Why do you want to get to him first?" asked Misato, tactfully ignoring the fact that a subordinate had just tried to order her around.
Asuka paused before leaving the bridge. She took a deep breath. "Because I should have realised sooner that there was something wrong with my friend."
XXX
The longer shower at home did little to comfort Asuka. She wanted to be out there, helping to find Shinji. But Tokyo-3 was such a large place, and he might not even be in the city by this point.
Asuka gently banged her head against the tiled bathroom wall as hot water cascaded down her back. She was a college genius with two degrees, yet she had been too dumb to notice that Shinji was feeling depressed. Having only known him face to face for a few weeks, his shyness had seemed normal, considering he had been practically yanked out of the quiet life he'd had before coming to Tokyo-3.
Talking through words on paper and a computer screen could only do so much for learning about somebody.
Now it was clear there was something wrong. Did Shinji feel threatened by her? She had occasionally attempted to trade some friendly barbs with Shinji, rather like poking him with a stick to see if he'd bite back, only for the boy to instantly apologise for whatever minor thing she had pretended to take offence to. It was as if he didn't want to risk any sort of conflict at all. It was kind of... boring. He rarely ever spoke when the three pilots were together at school, seemingly content to just listen in most of the time.
Asuka roughly turned off the taps and stepped out of the shower. She dried herself off, before dressing in what she liked to call her 'comfy clothes'. She didn't expect to hear anything from Misato or Section Two for a while, seeing as there was so much area to search, so she didn't plan to be going out again for a while.
Except she hadn't had dinner yet. Asuka's stomach growled, and she groaned in frustration. Something she was already starting to miss was Shinji's cooking. While he wasn't a world-class chef, he certainly knew his way around a kitchen better than Misato and herself combined. Then again, considering Misato practically had negative cooking skill, that wasn't saying much.
Asuka still couldn't figure out how the mad woman had once managed to make dry soup.
A couple minutes on the phone and twenty more of waiting resulted in a decent enough take-out dinner to satisfy Asuka's stomach. She took the leftovers next door and put it in Misato's fridge, but she had a feeling her guardian wouldn't be home for quite a while. It wasn't even twenty-hundred yet, but clean-up and the resulting paperwork would likely conspire to keep Misato at NERV until after midnight at the earliest, at which point she'd likely grab a beer or two and go straight to sleep. And then wake up and grab another beer. Or two.
There was nothing worth watching on Misato's television, and she didn't feel like trying to stumble through her homework. The work itself would be almost insultingly easy, but Asuka had some trouble reading the kanji. Not that she'd ever want to admit it.
With nothing better to do, she laid in her bed and played her handheld game device for a couple hours before finally deciding to turn in.
XXX
Morning dawned, and Asuka grumpily rose with it. She ran a comb through her hair just enough to smooth out the bed head, then proceeded to the kitchen with the intent of grouching at Shinji until breakfast was placed in front of her. She was sitting at the kitchen table for two minutes before remembering that he wouldn't be there to cook anything. Her head fell to meet the table, eliciting a grunt of annoyance.
She made do with cereal.
As Asuka was preparing to get ready for school, some good news finally arrived. Some automated system from Tokyo-3 Municipal High School sent her a text saying that there would be no school that day. She honestly didn't know whether to consider it a good or bad thing.
After un-preparing for school, Asuka went next door. Misato was predictably still asleep, so she left the television off. The overworked woman needed sleep more than Asuka needed to be entertained by whatever morning programs were running. Instead she resorted to reading magazines and playing games with the sound turned down.
It was close to midday when Misato finally crawled out of bed, stumbling past Asuka like a zombie. Half a minute later, Asuka heard the traditional shout that signified that Misato Katsuragi was now awake. She gave it a few more minutes before heading into the kitchen, where her guardian was slowly munching on the take-out leftovers.
"Before you ask, there's been nothing so far," said Misato. "We've managed to set more men onto the search, so it's only a matter of time now, especially with the MAGI keeping an eye on the cameras in the city."
"That's if he's even still in Tokyo-3," Asuka replied as she sat down at the table next to Misato.
"He'd need to use his ID card if that were the case. And those things are monitored." Misato smirked. "NERV is paying you, but we're going to get suspicious of any large purchases or withdrawals. You probably won't be stopped, but we are going to make sure you're not doing anything illegal."
"Somehow I don't think Shinji is going to buy a car and skip town."
"No, but if he hops on a train, he'll need to use his card to validate." Misato threw the empty food container over her shoulder, where it bounced off the wall before settling neatly into the trash can. The empty Yebisu can followed, landing in the recycle bin next to it. Misato clearly had plenty of experience, as she'd done it without even glancing behind.
"And then you'll move in?" Asuka inquired.
Misato shook her head. "No. For starters we don't want to scare Shinji. Having the train suddenly stop and get filled with black suits wouldn't exactly paint a good picture. He might panic. Besides, you did imply yesterday that you wanted to talk to him. We'll just find Shinji, observe, and let you take it from there."
"Good."
XXX
The rest of the day passed slowly. Misato did have to return to the Geofront to do some more paperwork, but she returned a few hours later with some good news.
"We got a hit on Shinji's card," she said to Asuka as they tucked into another take-away dinner.
The redhead almost spat out her mouthful of food. "What? Really? Where?!"
"It was only the one hit, and it was on a train that goes out past Lake Ashi." Misato took a bite of something hideously spicy before continuing. "We got the footage from the train, which showed Shinji staying on for quite a while before getting off at Hakone Jinja Station with that smart-ass kid you picked up during the fight."
"Aida," supplied Asuka. "The one who thought he could do your job."
"Arrogant little... boy," Misato muttered. "I just wanted to see how well you would do. Anyway, there were no cameras along whatever route the two of them took, so we've lost Shinji for the moment. Before I left, Ritsuko mentioned that somebody was going to see if they could find out anything from Aida's home address. If he and Shinji aren't there, maybe there's a clue as to where they've gone."
Asuka exhaled and tapped a finger against her forehead in thought as she tried to recall anything relevant about the nerd. Unfortunately, all that really stood out was his obsession with anything related to NERV or the military. "Well I've got nothing," she finally admitted.
"I didn't think so," replied Misato sympathetically. "You'd already be out there if you did."
Letting out a growl of frustration, Asuka slapped a hand onto the table. "I should have seen that something was wrong with him. What kind of friend am I to not bother paying attention to him?"
"Stop putting yourself down. You were paying attention to him." Misato ran a finger around the rim of her third can of Yebisu. "Shinji's just a very shy and quiet person. I saw that rather clearly during his first days here. He almost seemed like he was forcing himself to ask me about starting training."
"Shinji asked for it, huh?" Asuka quirked an eyebrow.
"Yeah. Took him a few tries, but when he finally got the words out I asked why he wanted to start training so soon. You know what Shinji told me?" Misato leaned back and looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "He said, what was it... um... Oh yes. 'A friend gave me some good advice a while ago for dealing with unpleasant but necessary tasks. Just because you don't want to do something you have to, doesn't mean you should put it off until the last minute.'"
Asuka's eyes widened as she quietly finished her own quote. "'If you get it over with as soon as possible, you'll feel much better afterwards.' I was the one who told him that."
"I kind of figured that. So!" Misato suddenly leaned forward in her chair. "I've yet to ask either of you how this pen-pal thing started. Care to share?"
Asuka sighed. At least telling the story would help pass the time.
Eventually the two of them decided to head to bed. Asuka noted that Misato didn't take a Yebisu can to bed with her, which implied that her guardian would likely be starting work relatively early tomorrow.
In a way, that turned out to be incredibly correct.
XXX
Asuka grumbled sleepily as something shook her shoulder. "Gerroff," she mumbled as she tried to roll away from the invasion of her sleep time.
"Just wake up, Asuka, I've got good news," came the intruder's exasperated reply. With about as much enthusiasm as a bear getting interrupted in the middle of hibernation, Asuka finally sat up in bed. And just like a bear, she was growling and ready to shred somebody.
"We've found Shinji," said Misato, who was crouched down next to Asuka's bed to look her in the eyes.
That woke her up. "Where?!" she demanded as she almost leapt out of bed. Her clothes from yesterday were still on the floor, and she picked them up. There wasn't time for complicated things like opening a closet door.
"Lake Ashi, on the opposite shore from the city." Misato turned around to give Asuka some privacy. "The agent who went to Aida's residence learned from the boy's father that he likes to go camping. Fortunately for us, Aida's smart enough to tell his father exactly where he camps out, and a VTOL flyover found their site right where it was supposed to be."
"And what damn time do they call this?" Asuka grouched as she pulled her shirt over her head. She glanced out of her window through the partially open curtains. There was a faint light on what little she could see of the horizon, the phenomenon that tended to get called 'false dawn' which meant that there was still around an hour until sunrise.
"You did want to know as soon as possible," Misato reproachfully said. "But I reasoned that neither you nor Shinji would want to be woken up at two in the morning."
"Like this is much better," grumbled Asuka. "So are we heading there now?"
"Very soon." Misato pushed a cup of coffee into her hands. "It's a bit of a long drive, but I want to get there just after dawn. You know Shinji's an early riser."
"Well at least I have something else to be mad at him for."
"...This is a good thing?"
XXX
"I think you can work out the rest."
"Yeah," said Shinji as he and Asuka walked through the woods. He didn't know where Asuka was going, so he was simply following along behind her. He frowned. "Wait, you said that Misato dragged you out here. And after that you said you demanded she bring you here."
"N-never you mind that!" Asuka snapped, but Shinji could still hear relief in her voice. "Anyway, we should reach the car soon. Unfortunately, Misato did mention that you'd have to be taken back to the Geofront for your disappearing act first."
Shinji sighed. "I figured as much," he dolefully replied.
"They're going to want to know why too." Asuka glanced at him. "You gonna be okay telling them what you told me?"
"I guess."
Asuka came to a sudden stop and folded her arms. "None of this non-committal crap, Shinji. Yes or no?"
Shinji looked at her. There was anger and frustration in her body language, yet it was clear Asuka was concerned. He took a breath. "Yeah, I'll tell them."
"Good. And if you want, I'll be there too."
"Only if you really want to," Shinji said with a slight smile.
"What did I just say about being non-committal?"
The smile faded. "But... you just said the same sort of thing..."
"Yes or no, Ikari!"
"Erm... thank you for the offer, but..." Shinji tried to square his shoulders, but no matter how willing his mind was to live up to the concept, his body just didn't seem able to make the attempt. "I think I need to deal with this myself."
Asuka's glare softened. "That seems like a good answer. You might actually get out of this unscathed." She turned and resumed walking. "I'm still going to dema- strongly request that they find something for you to do."
"Like what? I can't pilot."
"For all you know they might find a solution. Stop being so damned negative."
"I'm sorry..."
"And stop apologising."
"Sor-...um..."
The conversation trailed off. A few minutes later, they crested a hill to a familiar and welcome sight. Misato's sports car was parked just in front of them, the owner reclining on the hood almost like she was a magazine model. She didn't stir as the teenagers approached, and Shinji soon realised why as a hideously loud snore ripped through the air.
Asuka let out an exasperated sigh as she stomped up to Misato and none-too-gently shook her awake.
"Wstfgl?" was Misato's eloquent greeting.
"Got him," replied Asuka.
Misato shook herself awake, before looking at Shinji. Two seconds later, he was lifted off the ground in a bear hug by an exuberant woman babbling about how she was glad he was alright, did he have any idea how worried she was, and so on.
"I'm... back," he whispered into her ear.
"Welcome back, Shinji," Misato whispered right back. "Let's get out of here."