A Glass of Wine (Chapter 24)
Rainwater washed the cement of the streets and the glass of the buildings and the violet armor of the monster that stood in the middle of Inoki Avenue. The rain was heavy, but the boy within the beast could not feel it. All he could sense was the constant press of the armor and the weight of the positron rifle clamped to his starboard shoulder, its barrel raised steadily to the threat beyond the sky.
((()))
Two days previously, Shinji stepped into Class 2-A's homeroom. No one noticed his arrival except Hikari, who stood and crossed the room to greet him. She wore a smile that barely seemed forced, and when she welcomed him back and asked if he had managed to meet up with Ayanami, he told her that yes, he had, and managed a smile of his own.
"Well, same desk as always," she said. "If you realize you're behind on anything else, please let me know."
Shinji thanked her and took his seat. Out of all the recent surprises in his life, perhaps the strangest was the idea that Hikari Horaki had become a friend. He was unsure how close a friend she really was, but her what help she gave was appreciated. Not that she could solve the true problems in his life, but the problems she could solve—organizing late homework, advising him on tutoring, and blocking his name out of the cleaning schedule so he could concentrate on make-up work—possessed a normalcy which helped ground him. A reminder of the regular life he always felt just outside of.
He sat down at his desk, prepped his laptop and notebook, and intentionally ignored the two kids standing at the back of the room, by the windows.
((()))
"Is he looking at us?" Asuka said, her voice low. She kept her eyes on the school yard outside.
"No," Kaworu said.
"Don't look directly at him."
"You asked me to see if he was looking at us."
"Yeah."
"How am I supposed to do that without looking at him?"
Asuka sighed. "Look sidelong."
"Sidelong?"
"Like you're checking a blind spot or something."
"I don't know what that means."
"Forget it, then. Just stop."
Kaworu stopped, and looked at her instead. He was taller than her by enough that it was noticeable. It was a fact that she quite liked, though she had never told him so. It would be weird to compliment someone on their height. It's a thing they couldn't even control, after all.
"Why do you care if he's looking at us?" he said.
"No."
"Oh," he said. "But you had me check if he was looking."
"Drop it."
Kaworu seemed to drop it. His eyes moved beyond her again, back over the classroom. She could tell by the way his body moved in her peripheral vision—a slide of his white button-down, a shift of his weight.
"Would it matter if he was looking at us?" he said.
"Is he?" she said.
"No." Kaworu turned away from the room completely and joined her in looking out the window. "You seem to care a lot."
"I don't."
"You don't have to lie to me," he said.
Asuka clenched her hands and looked up at him, angry words already forming on her tongue. She stopped when she saw his face. There was something in his posture, his expression, that made it impossible to yell at him. He had not accused her of lying, just pointed out that she did not need to do it to him, and she found it hard to hate him for that.
Gradually, her fists relaxed. "Yeah," she said, "I know. Sorry."
Kaworu smiled his easy, frustrating smile. "Tell me what's wrong."
"I just don't know what to do with him. We live together still, but I don't think I've said more than a few words to him in the past month. Ever since the thing."
"The last Angel attack," Kaworu said.
"Yeah, that. And before." Asuka kept her voice low. "I think I hurt him pretty bad. I don't like it."
"You feel bad?"
"Yeah, I think so. I'm not used to it. Feeling this way."
It felt strange admitting that aloud. It was a feeling she had grappled with in silence for a month—the idea that she was wrong, and that she should do something to rectify it—but putting it into words was difficult. It was hard to put herself on a ledge and give another person the chance to push her off, and harder still to admit that maybe she deserved the push.
But the push never came.
"You shouldn't feel that way," he said.
Asuka blinked. "What do you mean?"
"You are an Evangelion pilot," Kaworu said. "You care about that duty. He does not."
Asuka turned for a moment and looked at Shinji, sitting in his desk, laptop in front of him. She thought about the night she first kissed him, on the veranda, and how she walked back to her room after and laid awake for hours, replaying it in her head. Then she thought about him lying there in all that red liquid, hands held up while she kicked at him.
Asuka turned back to the window. Kaworu stepped closer to her, as close as a boy could get without putting his arm around her. She leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder, and his arm soon wrapped around her. They hadn't kissed since that day beside the lake, but they had found their own patterns in the weeks since, an odd kind of familiarity that grew between them. She was used to him now, and came to miss him when he wasn't around.
"It's hard," she said.
"Because you used to love him," Kaworu said.
"I never told you that."
"You didn't have to."
Asuka rested her head on the edge of his shoulder. "I'm a mess."
"No, you are not. You're perfect."
Asuka crossed her arms and looked at the slight reflection of the two of them which overlaid the distant skyline in the shimmer of the polished window and wondered again if any of this was real. She felt so immediately comfortable around this boy she had met scarcely a month before. At the same time, she was not sure if it was right.
Partly, she wished he had never said that word. It made things so much more complicated. Kissing him was one thing. It mattered, yes, but it wasn't some huge declaration. How long was it before she kissed Shinji? Probably a month, though it felt like a lifetime ago.
When did she know she loved him? That was the bigger issue. Kissing him was one thing, but loving him was quite another. Did she know when she wrote that letter? Probably before that, she realized. Not the moment she met him or anything stupid like that, but not long after.
The answer came to her suddenly, and she stood upright.
"Is everything okay?" Kaworu said.
"Yeah. Yes." The bell rang, and Asuka realized she didn't have time to go into it. "Can you come over tomorrow?"
"To your apartment?"
"Yeah. Can you do that?"
"Yes. Why?"
"I'll message you the rest," she said, and walked to her desk.
((()))
Misato got off the elevator to find two agents standing at the door to her office. Their presence didn't shock her. If anything, she was amazed it had taken them this long. She was almost to the door when they hit her with a ma'am, do you have a moment to talk.
"Anything you need," she said, thumbing the door open. She stepped inside and threw her purse onto one of the uncomfortable chairs she kept for visitors, of which she mostly had zero. "Come on in, boys."
"We're investigating the disappearance of Ryoji Kaji," said one of them.
"We have had no contact with him in several days. When was the last time you spoke with him?"
Misato plopped down in her desk chair. "About a week ago, I think. The evening of the day Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki passed away."
"Where?"
"His apartment," she said.
"For what purpose?"
"Personal visit," she said. Then, when that didn't seem to satisfy them, "Boys, do I really need to get more specific than that?"
"Oh," said the younger of the two. "Oh."
The older one seemed unfazed. "How would you characterize Mr. Kaji's relationship with Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki?"
"I wasn't aware that Inspector Kaji had any relationship with the sub-commander beyond a formal working dynamic."
"He harbored no hostilities toward the sub-commander, then?"
Misato raised her eyebrows. "I don't understand what you're getting at."
The older one nudged the younger one, who produced a datapad and set it down in front of her. On it was security footage of the intensive care ward where Fuyutsuki had been kept, specifically the hall outside his room. On it, she saw Kaji exit the room in civilian clothes, a visitor sticker plain on his chest. He disappeared from frame. A moment later, a panicked team of nurses and doctors swarmed the hall and disappeared into Fuyutsuki's room.
The younger agent paused the video and took the pad away. The older agent watched her from behind his sunglasses.
"Major Katsuragi, do you know anything about why Mr. Kaji was in that hospital room a moment before Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki passed away?"
"No," she said, meeting his gaze without issue. "I don't."
The older one sighed. "Very well. In light of your relationship with the inspector, I'm afraid we'll be requisitioning your firearm, and you'll have to deal with additional security checks until this matter is resolved."
"Am I being placed on administrative leave?" she said.
"No," the younger one said. "We just have to keep a closer eye on you than normal, ma'am."
"Your mobility around headquarters is restricted," the older one said. He stabbed a glare at his cohort, who immediately shut up. "Your normal duties will continue as normal, but know that you are being watched most closely, Major."
"I understand," Misato said. She un-holstered her automatic and set it on the desktop. "If there's anything else I can do, please let me know."
The agent took her firearm and turned to leave. "We will," he said. "Have a good day."
((()))
The equipment sat in the corner for months, unused and unnoticed, except for the one time she stubbed her toe on one of the standee legs and hobble-cursed her way into the kitchen, looking for something to hit. But otherwise, nothing. Eventually, the bundle of neoprene mats, signal boards, wires, and speakers took on the unarresting personality of a ceiling fan or a potted plant—a thing which was present, but mostly didn't matter.
It would have gone on not mattering but for the idea which hatched in her brain, sometime after the Fifth Child said that stupid, stupid word. She thought about it hourly, and often when she least expected it—when she was in the bathroom or walking to school, or finishing dinner or watching TV. Other times it popped in her head when she was talking with him, or eating with him in their little spot on the roof, behind the air conditioners. He had said it several times since. Almost every time she saw him, in fact, and she told herself she wasn't concerned by it anymore.
What did concern her were the instances where he laughed, or when she caught him looking at her in that certain way, because it was in those moments she thought that, maybe, she wanted to say it back.
And that's how the idea came to be, and how the equipment that had languished so long in the corner of the living room ended up dragged into the center of the carpet, its neoprene mats flattened out, its wires plugged in, its signal boards on and synchronized. She set it up without pause, telling herself that she had to do it. She just wanted to know if this was real. It didn't matter if she was unsure what "this" was or what "real" even meant, but she was certain that if she could synch with him, and make this work, then maybe it was real enough to measure up to the love she once had for someone else.
She finished the set up and changed into her dance clothes just in time for the doorbell to sound. When she opened it, she smiled.
"Hey," she said.
"Hello." Kaworu gave her a little smile back. Behind him, the walkway glistened with sprinkled rain. "You look nice."
"I know," she said.
He had a shopping bag in his hand, and an umbrella in the other. "I obtained pants that stretch, like you said."
"And a t-shirt?"
"You didn't mention a t-shirt."
"You can't wear a button-down shirt when you're dancing."
"Don't people dance in suits?"
"Not this kind of dancing." She stood aside and gestured to the living room, through the kitchen. "Get in here and we'll deal with it."
He got in there. They dealt with it.
((()))
The funeral was small and preceded by no wake. The sub-commander's cremation was carried out almost immediately after his death, according to his written wishes, and he was interred beneath a standard headstone in the grave fields beyond the northeast border of the town. A Buddhist priest spoke a sutra to the slight assembly, but it seemed like he might have rushed through it on account of the rain.
Misato and Ritsuko stood together beneath separate umbrellas, the former in her black dress uniform and beret, the latter in a blue dress. When Misato picked her up from her apartment, she questioned the choice. "No black?"
"I knew Kozou for most of my life," came the response. "He wouldn't want me moping at his funeral."
Hard to argue with that.
After the service, the two women placed flowers at the tiny grave marker and walked back down the hill to the line of cars parked against the shoulder of the throughway. Misato started her Alpine and waited for Ritsuko, who had stopped to talk to an older woman. Misato watched them. The woman was unfamiliar to her, and when Ritsuko gave her a hug, she became even more confused.
Ritsuko got in the car after a moment.
"Who was that?" Misato said, putting the car in gear.
"His sister," Ritsuko said.
"I didn't know he had a sister."
"Yeah." Ritsuko tapped a cigarette out of its pack. "May I?"
"Sure."
((()))
Kaworu took his uniform shirt off and stood in the living room in his undershirt and new shorts. "Socks or no socks?" he said.
"Socks." Asuka tossed him his headset and tape player, the aux cable fitted into its blocky housing. Her own player was clipped to her waist, the headset lingering around her neck.
Kaworu followed her example. "What kind of dancing is this?"
"The gaming kind," she said, stepping onto her mat. The circle pads blinked in a random standby rhythm, cycling around and around the grid, waiting for her to begin. "We listen to the same song, at the same time, and try to hit each circle simultaneously."
"How do you win?"
"Together," she said. When he looked at her, she shrugged. "It took me a while to get used to it, too. You have to try and not compete with the other person. Just try to synchronize with me and then we win together, by not screwing up."
"I can do that."
"Well, don't feel bad if you can't all at once. It took Shinji and me most of a week to get good at it."
Kaworu grinned that fast-becoming-familiar grin and put his headset on. "I'm not Shinji Ikari," he said, and took up position on the mat. "Ready when you are, Second."
Asuka smiled and got into position, too. She set her player for half speed and clicked play. She waited through the tick-tick-tick of her player synchronizing with his. Then the music began.
The piano kicked in first, echoing from ear to ear, and then the strings swept up, seemingly from behind her, and she was moving. Left foot back middle, right foot back middle, right hand to mid outside, then the first big sweep from right to left, her feet crossing each other and spinning, so that she was facing the scoreboards. As she turned, she caught Kaworu watching her, his feet mimicking hers perfectly, barely a quarter-second off.
The percussion hit—once, twice, three times—and she spun again, raising one hand up, towards the TV. She leapt back, feet landing at the low-outside positions, then made a crossing advance up to the high-inside. It had been months but she still remembered the dance with near-flawless precision. It felt good to do it again, like wearing an old sweater. She kept her footwork deliberate, so her new partner wouldn't get lost, even at half speed, but it was hard; she wanted to cut loose and enjoy herself.
A glance to her left found him in perfect synch, his eyes not leaving her feet. The scoreboard confirmed that he was directly in line with her. No mistakes.
Frowning, she spun back down the mat, rushing through the next six movements with as much precision as she could muster. He kept right with her, the lights snapping off almost as soon as they appeared, confirming his steps.
Well, it was at half speed.
The dance ended, the two children lowering their right arms at the same time. Asuka took off her headset. Kaworu did the same.
"How was that?" he said.
The scoreboard listed zero missed steps—a perfect score.
"It was okay," she said. "But that was half speed. Let's crank it up."
Headsets on, speed at full. They took their positions. Tick, tick, tick.
The full-speed dance went much the same. She kept her footwork clean and orderly, assuming that at twice the speed as the first time, he would be lost. She assumed wrong. He kept right with her, flying through the movements as if he had been born to do it, his black socks mirroring her movements across the red circles. When the music finished, and she dropped her arm, the scoreboard had nothing new to tell her.
"Better?" he said.
"Yeah," she said, though by now she had lost her smile.
"Did I do something wrong?"
She shook her head. "Let's go again."
"Do I need to change something?"
"No. Let's just go again."
The piano rushed in once more, but Asuka barely heard it. Something was off about this experience, though the specifics of it eluded her. The frustration built inside her until, when the strings swept into her ears, the confusion had calcified into a dead-certain determination to throw him off balance. She kept her footwork quick but sloppy, hitting one note a millisecond early and then almost missing the next one. When she used to do that, Shinji would anticipate her, and either hit ahead of the beat or behind her to catch her or slow her down.
Not so with Kaworu, who never missed a synchronized strike. He managed a perfect duplication no matter what she did, so that even when she deliberately whiffed a string of notes, he whiffed them alongside her. It was as if he was not dancing to the beat but dancing to her.
The song ended, their arms dropped, and she stripped the headset off. Kaworu looked back at the scoreboard. "We missed seven notes," he said, "but we never lost synch. Is that good?"
"Yeah, that's good," she said, because it was. If she and Shinji had made three one-hundred percent runs in the first day of training, Misato would have been ecstatic. In the space of a few minutes, she and Kaworu had eclipsed any level of synchronicity she had accomplished with Shinji.
And yet she was unhappy.
"Did I do something wrong?" he said, again.
"I'm gonna get some water," she said, and walked into the kitchen.
She got her water and stood by the sink, thinking. Her face and neck were hot, perspiring from the sudden exertion of the three dances, and she tugged at the low collar of her leotard to let some air down her chest. She suddenly wished she had put her hair up.
It really was an excellent score. Kaworu was phenomenal, but something seemed off. After a moment, she wondered if it was her fault. Was she looking for problems where none existed? Was she just hunting for a reason to dislike a kid who had been nothing but nice to her? Was she running from this good person because she, in reality, was a crappy kid?
Maybe.
Asuka took one last sip and then tossed her glass in the sink. She headed back toward the living room, intending to apologize, and found her dance partner missing. "Kaworu?" she said. She looked at Misato's room, but the door was open and she saw no one within. The veranda, too, was empty.
Asuke frowned and walked down the short hall to her bedroom. She found him there, standing in the middle of her room.
"This is my bedroom!" she said, entering after him.
"I can see that." He looked around. "It's much bigger than where I sleep."
"You're not supposed to be in here!" she said.
"Why not?"
"Because a boy isn't supposed to be in a girl's room, that's why."
"So you've never had a boy in here?"
"No!" Asuka said. Then she thought about it for a moment. "Well, Shinji has been in here, but only a couple of times."
"So Shinji is allowed but I'm not?"
"Yes. I mean, no. I don't know."
Kaworu walked over to her little desk and looked at the notebooks and makeup scattered across its surface. "You don't have any pictures."
"What?"
"On your desk. Don't most people have pictures of their families?"
"I'm not most people," Asuka said. Watching him poke around her room felt uncomfortable, but also somehow thrilling. She thought to tell him to get out again, but decided not to.
He flipped open a notebook and looked at her handwriting. "What is this?" he said.
"School notes," she said.
"You write in German and English." It was such an innocuous observation that she had trouble staying mad at him.
"Used to, yeah." She sat down on the edge of her bed, one leg folded under herself, and watched him. "I've started using the kanji lately. It kinda came to me all of a sudden."
"After you started having your dreams," he said.
"Yeah, after those." She forgot she told him about that—forgot so completely that she struggled to believe she ever had. "I'm still having them. At least, I remember them when I wake up, I guess."
Kaworu closed the notebook and looked at her closet. The door was open and her dresses were visible, all draped in a neat row. His pale hand glided across them, fingertips brushing the hem of each in turn. Asuka's eyes watched his movements, running from his fingers to his forearms and up to his bare shoulders. He was completely dry. Had he not sweat at all?
"Stop touching my clothes," she said.
"Why?"
"Because I told you to stop."
"Okay." His hand dropped to his side. He looked at her. "You're not a bad person, by the way."
"What does that mean?"
"The dance," he said. "We synchronized faster than you thought we would."
"Yeah," she said.
"That isn't because you're somehow bad. We're just very compatible."
"Why?"
Kaworu smiled and stepped closer, so that he was just in front of her, his face looking down from above. "I'd say it again, but you didn't like hearing it the first time," he said.
Her ceiling fan chugged overhead, and she felt the sweat drying on her legs. Rain pattered on the room's lone window pane. Asuka sat back on her bed, propped up by her elbows, and looked up at him.
"Maybe I—" she started, then stopped when the wail of alert sirens split the air. She sat up, listening.
"Is that for us?" Kaworu said.
"Yeah, it is," she said.
The slide of a door, the creak of feet on hardwood, and she spun around to see Shinji exiting his bedroom. Asuka's stomach dropped at the sight of him. Had he been there the whole time she was out dancing in the living room? How much had he heard? How bad did this look?
"Shinji!" she said, shooting upright.
The Third Child looked at her with level calm. He noticed Kaworu, but said nothing of it. From the entryway, she heard the insistent pin-pom, pin-pom, pin-pom of their Nerv escort notifying them it was time to go.
"Ready?" Shinji said.
((()))
They drove most of the way in silence, the road unfolding before them until the trees thinned to residential buildings which gave way to the heavy structures of the city proper. The windshield wipers chugged along, sluicing the rain in heavy rivulets.
"Noticed the commander didn't come," Misato said.
"He doesn't cope with death well," Ritsuko said.
"As opposed to the rest of us who just love it?" Misato snorted. "He worked with the guy for, what, fifteen years? I hope when I die you can at least attend my funeral."
Ritsuko cracked the window and tapped her ash out. "You think you're going to die before me? Major, please."
"Of course. I drink like a fish."
"I smoke like a chimney. You can breathe without a liver."
"I'm sorry, I didn't know you were a physician."
"I'm definitely not."
They came to a red light. Misato flicked on her turn signal. "I got a visit from some goons yesterday," she said. When that earned no response, she continued. "They asked about Ryoji. Whereabouts, when I last saw him, etcetera."
"I had a similar visit," Ritsuko said.
"They also asked if I knew anything about his connection to the sub-commander."
Misato looked at her friend, who didn't look back. She cracked her window again, tapped more ash out.
"Rits, could Kaji have—"
"I don't think so."
"Then why all the questions?"
Ritsuko shrugged. "When they asked me when I'd last seen him, I said it hadn't been for days. You?"
"Same."
"And I haven't heard from him since then. Silence. No calls, no email, nothing."
"Also same."
"So," Ritsuko said, "he's gone to ground. Hiding somewhere. For what or why, I don't know."
"But what about when we—" Misato said, then caught Ritsuko's eye. Her friend pointed to the ceiling of the car, and gestured to her own ears.
More bugs, from someone else this time, and Ritsuko knew about them. Misato flushed red.
"What about when we were in college?" she said, changing tact. "He used to just disappear for days. Half the time he was just avoiding responsibility."
"That does sound like Kaji," Ritsuko said, joining in on the lie.
"Yeah," Misato said, even though she knew it didn't. He was missing, the sub-commander was gone, and Ritsuko seemed to think they were as trapped as they had always been. Her brain kept spinning in new directions, but all she found were dead ends. There seemed to be no way out of this doomsday scenario. A part of her wished she could just go back to being ignorant.
The light went green for a split second, and then the traffic light blanked itself and became a strobing emergency warning. Billboards flashed the same message. A second later, the car phone squawked, but Misato already had it in her hand.
"Katsuragi," she said, gunning the car across the median, cutting off a slew of civilian traffic. The street quaked as the city reconfigured, towers sinking while defenses grew. "I'm on my way now. Give me a sitrep."
((()))
The Third and Fifth Children rode together, crammed into the back of a Nerv sedan. Asuka was not there; with Unit 02 in disrepair, she was considered a priority-two asset, and as such was transported in another car.
Kaworu looked out the window. Shinji did the same. He looked for the Angel, but saw nothing. Maybe it was too far out for a visual as of yet.
His SDAT was dead, and he couldn't bring himself to just put the earpieces in to dissuade conversation. He hoped that not giving the Fifth Child a single glance would be enough to keep the conversation at bay.
He hoped wrong.
"So, Third." Kaworu looked across the backseat at him. "We haven't spoken yet."
"Nope," Shinji said.
"Well, I'm Kaworu. Kaworu Nagisa. Designated pilot of Evangelion Unit 03. I hope we can be good friends."
Shinji turned and looked at him, one eyebrow raised. The entire introduction felt canned. Looking across at the pale boy with his synch clips in his white hair, Shinji got the indistinct impression that he was talking to a caricature. "What are you talking about?" he said.
"We should be friends," Kaworu said. "We're both Evangelion pilots, we go to the same school, and you used to be close with Asuka."
In his whole life, Shinji Ikari could only remember having wanted to punch someone on three occasions. One was a big farm girl named Himari who knocked over his lunch in the second grade. Another was a boy he met in a playground when he was even younger than that, who pushed him off the swing and caused him to scrape his face in the pebbles. The third was Kaworu Nagisa.
Shinji took a deep breath. "I don't think that's going to happen," he said, as evenly as he could manage.
"Really? It would be nice."
"Probably not," Shinji said, turning back to his window. They spent the rest of the ride in silence.
((()))
Misato made her way into the command center alongside Ritsuko. The center was already on high alert by the time they arrived. Commander Ikari was in his tower, overseeing the operation. Misato clicked her cellphone off as she entered, and saw Lieutenant Hyuga hang up his desk phone at the same time. Their conversation continued without missing a beat.
"Unit 01 and Unit 03 are both in the launch bay," Hyuga said, tapping up an overlay of lift exits across the downtown area. "The city is in full defensive mode, awaiting instructions."
"Has the target moved?" Ritsuko said, taking up position behind Ibuki's console.
"No, ma'am. It's been stationary this entire time."
Ritsuko glanced at Misato. "What is it waiting for?" she said.
"Don't know, don't care," Misato said. She looked up at the commander. Unsure what her actual authority was now that she was under investigation, she figured a little diplomacy would not hurt. "Sir, permission to prepare a long-range strike?"
"Permission granted, Major."
Misato turned back to Hyuga. "Sortie Unit 01 through downtown A-2. Send a positron rifle up the armament tower. We'll rely on that for our first level intercept solution until we have a better option."
"And Unit 03?"
"Backup only. What about Unit 00?"
"Rei isn't here," Aoba said. "Her detail radioed in about twenty minutes ago and said she's unavailable. We've had no word since."
"What does that mean?" Misato said, with more venom in her voice than she intended.
"Pilot Ayanami is otherwise engaged," Commander Ikari said, from above. "You will have to make do with two Evangelions for this engagement, Major."
"Understood, sir," Misato said out of reflex. Clearly, whatever tension had developed between the commander and Rei had not run its course. She cast a knowing glance at Ritsuko, but did not get the comradely response she was looking for—the scientist turned back to her work without comment.
Hyuga cleared his throat. "Ma'am? Unit 01 is deployed."
((()))
Rainwater washed the cement of the streets and the glass of the buildings and the violet armor of the monster that stood in the middle of Inoki Avenue. The rain was heavy, but Shinji couldn't feel it. All he could sense was the constant press of the armor and the weight of the positron rifle clamped to his starboard shoulder, its barrel raised steadily to the threat beyond the sky.
Misato's voice found him. "How's it going?"
"Fine," he lied.
"Good. We're working on a solution down here. Until then, you're our eyes and ears. If it tries anything, hit it with everything you've got. Understand?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good." Misato was quiet for a moment. "It's good to have you back, kiddo."
"Thanks," Shinji said, though he did not feel thankful. The truth was that the plug felt strange. A month spent away from its embrace had tinged it with a slight unfamiliarity, as of returning home after a trip, where old smells are suddenly rendered new again. The seat, the yokes, the screens, and the sounds were all the same, yet he found comfort they once gave him elusive. The droning of the plug and the gentle slosh of the fluid gnawed at his mind, drawing out the kind of thoughts that the real world so easily blotted out. Suddenly, the certainty with which he had returned to the cockpit seemed stupid.
The manual targeting visor clamped down in front of his face. On his picture-in-picture, satellite feeds gave him a clear look at the Angel—a body of striated crystal, angling in random symmetry out from what might have been a core structure. But from his targeter, even at maximum magnification, the Angel was only a blip of light.
Why was he here, anyway?
His original justification was to come back for Asuka, when he thought she needed him, but she made it pretty clear that he was wrong. Then the reasoning changed, and he figured he would pilot to honor the injuries Toji had sustained in Unit 03, and make that sacrifice worth something. But then Toji made it very clear what he felt about that particular justification, and so it, too, died away.
His reticule could not solidify. On comms, he heard someone register the fact that he Angel was still squarely out of range. It had not moved in the twenty minutes that Shinji had watched it, maintaining a geo-synched orbit that was just outside of his defense envelope.
"Keep trying to get a lock," Misato said, in his ear. "We're moving Unit 03 up with the positron cannon. Hopefully, it will have the necessary range."
Unit 03. The new kid. Kaworu.
Shinji's jaw clenched, but he managed a response. "Copy that."
He told Rei she should do whatever she wanted, and make her own choices. It was good advice. On some level, he supposed he, too, was following his own advice. He was here by his own choice—his own ill-considered, unfounded choice—but it gave him no solace. He saw no point in any of it. Did he want to impress Asuka, show her again that he could pilot? Did he just want to prove he was better than the new kid? Or did he want to sit here, do his job, and in pursuit of it learn who he actually was, and what he was actually capable of?
As if he could ever get something like that out of this stupid machine.
"Shinji, your psychograph is fluctuating." The voice belonged to Lieutenant Ibuki. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he said.
"Just take a deep breath and try to concentrate," she said.
"Yes, ma'am."
He followed her instruction, breathing deep, the liquid in his lungs chugging in and out with heavy slugs. He kept his eyes on the target, breathing in and out, trying to blank his thoughts.
It proved impossible. His mind was a mess. He thought of Asuka dancing with Kaworu, of her sitting in her room with him. The thought of Kaworu Nagisa did not bother him initially, but today, when he considered that there might be another person in her life who could talk to her and lay next to her and kiss her, he felt hatred. It was a broad hatred that did not discriminate between either of them, so that he felt he hated Asuka as much as if not more than he hated Kaworu.
And then he felt worse because it seemed so awful to hate someone for being happy just because she wasn't happy with him.
Maybe it would be better if he did nothing at all, and had nothing to do with Asuka anymore. Maybe he didn't need to interact with Ayanami anymore, either. Or Kensuke, or Toji, or Hikari. Maybe it was best that he just sat here, in the seat, and did the only thing anyone truly wanted out of him.
Moreover, he just felt like giving up.
His reticule blinked, and for an instant, showed a clean targeting solution. "I've got a lock," he tried to say, and then the distant pinpoint of light became an all-consuming inferno, a spear of sensation from some luminous corridor beyond time, and he could see and hear everything and nothing all at once. A peal of thunder echoed through his mind, brought forth from a voice that was not his own as something greater forced its way into his soul, rending the edges of his sense of self.
Shinji Ikari screamed, eyes shut, and pulled the trigger.
Author's Note: This chapter was a few days late. I'm aiming for another update in two weeks' time, though that's subject to change based on the requirements of my wedding, which is happening in five days' time.
The story as a whole will be finished this year, probably by October/November. I've really appreciated the reviews in the chapters since Kaworu appeared. You guys have been great.
Happy 4th of July to my fellow Americans in fanfictionland. Later.