Asuka Langley-Sohryu stared with wide eyes at the unremarkable surface of her room's ceiling, a drab, and exceptionally ordinary white area that not even the soft, ethereal glow that shone on it, courtesy of the small lamp she had just turned on, could salvage.
But that was fine. The Second Child wasn't interested in the lacking beauty of the upper part of her room, after all. She was far more concerned about the unexpected words to which she had just fully woken up.
'...No way,' Asuka refused, wondering why she had even bothered answering to the clear remnant of her dream. 'Don't be stupid, the voice from yesterday was just your imagination speaking...'
"...Asuka?"
The Second Child messily jumped from her bed and rushed towards her bathroom, managing to almost knock over four pieces of furniture in three seconds flat. But, once again, the girl didn't much care for her room appearing as if a raging rhinoceros had just rushed through, preferring to instead throw the toilet's door wide open and look into the biggest mirror that was at hand.
The frenzied eyes that stared back were akin to those of a demon out of hell, the effect further amplified by her dishevelled bed hair.
But for a third time, the Second Child didn't care.
"Fuck, fuck, FUCK!" Asuka breathed wildly, quickly checking that there was nothing wrong with her face, particularly with her eyes. "I was kidding about going schizo!"
"Asuka!" the voice inside her head insisted, as happy as if they'd just found a treasure. "You can hear me?!"
"No! No, I can't!" the redhead plugged her ears, shaking her head wildly. "GO AWAY!"
But Asuka's efforts to block the sounds proved useless, the voice appearing to bypass her hands to go straight into her brain.
"Asuka, listen! It's me, Shinji!"
"No, no, NO! You can't be! Shinji Ikari is in a coma! A freaking weird coma that no one knows anything about! I know what I saw!"
"Asuka, that's what I'm trying to explain! If you will just listen-"
But Asuka didn't comply with the voice's request, actually going even further against its wishes by shutting her eyes tightly and pressing her hands against her ears so hard that it actually hurt.
'Goddamit! Voices in my head, stupid voices in my head... But why does it always sound like...?' the girl wondered for an instant, before she redoubled her efforts to ignore the hallucination. 'No! Don't listen to him! Don't listen to him!'
"A-Asuka?" the boy's suddenly nervous voice rang inside her mind. "C-Can you stop that? Things are getting a bit weird here..."
'You can't end up like-' Asuka ignored it, an image of a hospital bed flying through her mind's eye. 'No, I won't end up like her, talking to dolls like they're people! I WON'T!'
"ASUKA! LISTEN TO ME, DAMMIT!"
The thunderous yell snapped the Second Child out of her flashback, the young woman staring at her own reflection in sheer shock.
Had she just... heard Shinji Ikari swear?
"Wha-?"
"I am Shinji! Stupid Shinji, alright?!" the voice roared a second time, a hint of anxiousness now clearly audible behind its words. "You're really not imagining things, so you can stop freaking out now!"
"But that... doesn't make any..."
"I know, it doesn't make any sense! But you have to trust me! Please!"
Asuka paused, struck silent by both the sheer anger the voice had displayed at first and the almost desperate pleading that had come right after. That alone already made the voice sound eerily close to the two extremes Shinji Ikari had exhibited in the past, one during most of his interactions with others and the other in the one or two instances in which she herself had succeeded at pissing him off.
Her sudden doubts were also supported by the fact that she could hear the sound of heavy breathing on the 'other side', which made zero sense if the voice really was some sort of illusory and intangible projection of her own fabrication. Unless it was a really authentic auditory hallucination, of course. After all, Asuka had no real prior experience in the realm of disembodied voices to be able to tell what was possible and what wasn't.
...Or so she hoped.
On the other hand, and assuming that it indeed was Shinji talking to her at that time, how could he possibly be breathing if his body was down in the cranial ward? That made no sense at all, either.
"...I can't believe I'm even considering this..." Asuka finally whispered hesitantly, grabbing onto the sides of the sink for support. "Is that... really you?"
"Yes! Yes, it is me!" the voice confirmed, suddenly jubilant. "Something happened when I helped you during the last Angel attack and I've ended up like this!"
"But that was days ago!" Asuka protested. "Why haven't you said anything until now?! Do you have any idea how... much you pissed me off with that stunt?!"
"I'm... I'm sorry," the Third Child promptly apologised, sounding more like his usual self. "I-I tried to, but it wasn't that easy! Until now I've only managed to talk to you for a moment at a time, like during your last synch-test with Unit-02!"
"...I didn't imagine that?" Asuka unconsciously brought a hand to her forehead with a frown. She then swallowed tightly, looking all around her. "So... a-are you like... a ghost, now? Where are you?"
"I'm not a ghost... I think," Shinji replied, the Second Child starting to feel some very familiar annoyance at the boy's constant uncertainty. "And as far as I know, I'm... inside your head?"
Asuka slowly turned to stare back at her own reflection, second guessing her sanity again.
"...What."
"I-I'm serious!" Shinji quickly insisted. "That's what I've been told and... pretty much the only thing that makes even a bit of sense at this point."
"Told? Told by who?"
"It's... complicated."
"Have you forgotten who's the genius here, Third?" Asuka grumbled threateningly. "Start talking-"
"They say that speaking to yourself is among the first few signs of madness, you know?"
Asuka paused and blinked at her image in the mirror, before she let out a deep, annoyed sigh and stomped towards the bathroom door. From the other side Mari Makinami waved back with a big smile, clad in her usual clothing and sitting on the edge of her bed.
"Oh!" Shinji gasped, recognizing the twin-tailed girl. "That's-!"
"How did you get in here?" But Asuka ignored him in favour of glaring at the new arrival with the force of a thousand suns, which only made Mari grin wider.
"Oho! I'm as silent as the finest of ninjas, just so you know!" Mari boasted, mimicking a mask with her fingers and covertly looking to the sides. "And as skilful as the greatest of thieves, too! Not to say-"
"Those two morons just let you through, didn't they?"
"...Actually, that might have helped a little, too. But I'm still an awesome ninja!" the Fifth Child enthusiastically exclaimed, giggling and dropping down onto her back. She then casually continued with her tale, blissfully ignorant of Asuka's eyes almost going supernova. "Anyway, they heard some crashing noises a short while ago, you see. They were discussing how to handle it when I came out of my room, so they asked me if I could lend them a hand."
"...And why couldn't they do it themselves? That's pretty much their job."
"They figured that it couldn't be anything dangerous with the way the room layout works and their own guard schedule, but still didn't want to barge into a lady's room uninvited, from what I understood. Especially yours," Mari then raised an arm and lazily motioned at her surroundings. "I wondered why that was for a little while but it all became clear the moment I put a foot inside this place. I mean, you'd need a lot more than their puny pistols to survive in this jungle of an apartment."
"It's not always like this, for your information," Asuka protested, grimacing at the mess her strange awakening had caused. "Maybe getting a tiger in here will stop people from just waltzing in whenever they like, though."
"Ha, as if a big kitty could stop me! I'm a ninja!" the Fifth Child cheered again, her other arm shooting upwards to meet the first. They remained like that for a brief time, falling back to the girl's lap when she sat back up once again, seeming to recall something. "...Oh, but shouldn't you be ready for the synch-test already? We're going to be late at this rate, you know?"
The Second Child's eyes widened at Mari's words. With all the chaos of the last ten minutes, she had completely managed to forget about her Pilot obligations for that morning.
"The... crap, that's right," Asuka groaned again, palming her face. She then grabbed a lock of red hair and played with it between her fingers for a second, before quickly letting go of it in disgust. "...And I still need to shower."
"Shower? What for?" Mari echoed with a raised eyebrow. "We're going to be sitting in LCL, remember?"
"I didn't shower yesterday, and I'm not showing up at the test all smelly-like," the Second Child replied, quickly grabbing some fresh clothes and running some calculations in her head, "I'll be out in ten... no, five minutes," Asuka then paused at the door, prior to pointing a threatening finger at the apartment's other occupant. "Don't. Touch. Anything."
The bathroom's door slammed shut without waiting for a response, Asuka focusing all of her attention into cleaning herself up as quickly and efficiently as humanly possible. She began by turning the shower's faucet on so that it could start heating up, before hurriedly taking off the baggy t-shirt and short pants that she normally used as her pyjamas. Asuka then swiftly began to take off her undergarments when...
"I-I'm not looking! I'm not looking!"
...Shinji Ikari's flustered voice scared her out of her wits.
"Shit, Third! Don't scare me like-" Asuka angrily chided the young man before she cut herself off, her eyes slowly travelling to her own reflection as she ran Shinji's actual words through her mind. "...Wait, you can see what I can see?"
"L-Looks that way."
"And you didn't say anything?!" the redhead hissed indignantly as she quickly covered herself, cheeks flaming up at the implication of what she'd been about to do. "At least turn around, you pervert!"
"I can't!"
"What do you mean you can't?! Are you so dense that the concept of turning around is foreign to you!?"
"Ehm..." Mari's concerned voice suddenly came from the outside, startling them both, "...Is everything alright in there?"
"Yeah! Yeah, it's fine!" Asuka yelled back, quickly thinking of an excuse. "I just... couldn't find my shampoo!"
Explanation that was followed by a few seconds of silence, Mari obviously judging just how believable it actually was.
"Okay, then, take it easy! But not too easy, eh?" the Fifth Child accepted the lie, her voice growing softer in the distance. "In the meantime, I'll just be playing some Punch-Out over here!"
"...And what part of 'don't touch anything' didn't you understand, you idiot?" the Second Child muttered, glaring at the spot where Mari's head would have been, had Asuka been capable of staring through walls.
With a deep sigh, Asuka resigned herself to letting her newest teammate do as she willed. After all, if there was one thing that the Fifth Child had proven the day before, it was that there was precious little that could stop her from doing something, anything, once she had taken a special interest in it.
Asuka's somewhat aching shoulders were a testament to that.
"...Goddammit, this is shaping up to be such a shit day, already,"the Second Child softly whined, barely resisting the urge to tear at her hair. Not that there was anything she could do to prevent it, so Asuka instead dangerously narrowed her eyes as she reached backwards for the strap of her bra, focusing the entirety of her self on making a specific message and image combination very clear to the young man that was apparently residing within her mind."And so help me, Third: if I so much as suspect you peeping on me I'll find a way of ramming my foot up your ass so hard you'll taste the dirt on my soles!"
Efforts that yielded her an actual answer, much to the girl's surprise. Or actually, not so much an answer, but rather the sensation of Shinji Ikari meekly nodding his head at her, in that submissive and immensely infuriating way of his.
Curious as it may have been to communicate without words, however, Asuka found herself scowling at the more than predictable response as she readied herself to practise the art of showering while staring at the ceiling.
-O]|[O-
Following twenty minutes of traversing the absurdly large hallways of NERV while Mari complained about how some 'Pizza Pasta' guy was really unfair, both Pilots made it to the labs, buzzing with activity in preparation for the day's tests. Asuka was quick to spot Akagi among the workers in the room, poring over screens and data with her mousy assistant in tow and apparently completely oblivious to their entrance which, if previous experience was to be trusted, meant that there was still a bit of time left until the actual tests started.
'...Figures that hurrying over here would be all for nothing.' The redhead mentally grumbled, propping against an out of the way wall to watch over the preparations that remained. Meanwhile, Mari wasted no time in gallivanting around the entire room, exploring like a child at a theme park as she went from terminal to technician to scientist, asking them about their work or even about things completely unrelated to it.
The Second Child's eyes followed the other girl in her quest for information that was basically useless for her job as a Pilot, something that Asuka was fairly certain the Fifth Child was already aware of, but that Mari didn't seem to particularly care about. She was far more interested in leaving whatever unlucky sod she was talking to stuttering in confusion with her out of place questions and weird actions, helplessly begging for assistance that rarely came because all the other people in the room were too busy with getting the test started in something approaching schedule.
But what really ticked Asuka off, rather than watching a fellow EVA Pilot make a fool of themselves and ridicule the entire Pilot corps with their failure to show pride and a proper dignity in their station, was the fact that no one, not a single stupid technician or egghead ever blew the girl off, no matter how ridiculous the question or how... 'unjapanese' the approach. On the contrary, almost all of the people that Mari interrogated in the short interval had left the conversation with a small smile on their faces, as if having some random moron waste their time with inane inquiries about nothing and everything was something to be happy about.
"Idiots, the lot of them," Asuka brooded, narrowing her eyes at the sight. "I bet it would be really different if I was the one asking stupid questions."
"Did you ever try asking nicely?"
Asuka jumped slightly when she heard Shinji's voice. Mari had gotten her so distracted with her stories and later antics that she hadn't even noticed just how silent the young man had been the entire time after she had left the shower. In fact, she'd almost completely forgotten about the recently self-proclaimed resident of her mind.
Which was quite the feat considering just how bizarre and uncomfortable the entire thing was.
"What was that, Third?" Asuka hissed, feeling her irritation at the indecisive pervert rise up again.
"I said that maybe people would be friendlier to you if you were nicer to them from time to time." Shinji shot back, ignoring the dangerous tone on the Second Child's voice.
"What's this? Lessons from Shinji Ikari, the social animal?" Asuka mocked with a roll of her eyes. "Oh, but I'm not sure if I'm worthy of receiving such enlightenment, Great and Almighty Shinji-sama."
The girl's words were only met with silence for quite some time, and Asuka found herself filling the void by gritting her teeth in equal parts annoyance and self-beration. After all, here she was, finally given the chance to speak once more with the person that she had spent days hoping would wake up and answer her, and what was the first thing she did?
Rip him a new one over some stupid criticism, of course. She wouldn't be herself, otherwise.
Hell, it was no wonder that the Third Child seemed stunned, really. No, the sensation was different than that: it felt like a slight twinge of exasperation, wrapped in a layer of disappointment.
"Why do you always have to be like that...?" Shinji eventually replied, his aggravated sigh filling most of Asuka's awareness. "Fine, do what you want. I was only trying to help."
"R-Right, and who said I needed your help?"
Once again, the words escaped almost without permission, and Asuka regretted them just as quickly when the feedback she was receiving turned even sourer. Why did she always do that, react in the worst way possible? Sure, the Third Child had an innate gift for pissing her off, but this wasn't how Asuka had wanted things to go before she opened her mouth.
It was amazing just how easily they could get into their usual dynamics, really, a cycle that not even being stuck inside the other's head could apparently improve upon.
It would have been funny if it wasn't so sad.
'...Damn. Not even an hour since you found out that he's mostly fine and you've already managed to make him mad,' the young redhead inwardly chastised herself. 'Good going, Asuka.'
"...Actually, I'm not mad," Shinji unexpectedly dismissed. "But there's nothing wrong with saying 'sorry' from time to time if you're that worried about it."
And the Second Child felt a heat spread all throughout her face in response. She had not planned for that private observation to be public property.
"Wh-What the hell?!"Asuka blurted, barely remembering to keep her voice low."Stop reading my thoughts, you idiot!"
"I can't, they just... sort of pop up in my mind!" the young man defended himself. "...Guess it's got something to do with this place."
'...Well, that's just great. So I can't even have some privacy, anymore.' Asuka was the one to sigh this time, grabbing the bridge of her nose in exasperation. Her eyes then landed on Mari, who was still busy doing her meet and greet. 'Gott in Himmel, this is going to be worse than dealing with the idiot greenhorn...'
"Why do you keep calling her an idiot, anyway?" Shinji asked, sounding genuinely curious. "She seems really nice from what I've seen."
'Are you stupid? Because she is one, obviously.'
"And... why?"
'Do I really have to go into simple, simple terms, Third? Fine, where do I even start?' Asuka continued to grumble, mentally ticking the items off one by one. 'She is nosy, loud, hyperactive, way too chummy with everyone and she has no combat experience with her EVA, to boot! Her so-called sense of humour absolutely sucks, too!'
"...Still don't see where the 'idiot' part comes in," Shinji replied, now thoroughly confused. "I mean, with the way you describe her, she sounds exactly like she's half Misato and half you, honestly."
"SAY WHAT?!"
Asuka felt Shinji instantly flinch back at her indignant exclamation, clearly having realised the error of his ways a second too late to pull back, not that such awareness was going to save the boy from receiving the earful of the century, of course. How dare he compare her to-
'Huh...?'
Asuka stopped her planned rebuttal of the Third Child, owing to the fact that she could hear the distinct sound of a dozen chairs and twice that many feet swivelling around to turn her way, for some reason. She raised her eyes, being quick to notice that she had become the laboratory's centre of attention.
...
It was only a second later that Asuka realised she had yelled her last thought out loud.
"I said that the routine nerve check-ups of areas Beta-12 to Delta-97 have come up with no issues that would impede the test," Doctor Akagi promptly spoke, staring at the redhead with a raised eyebrow. "I fail to see what was so surprising about that."
"I..." The girl swallowed tightly in response, feeling every single eye in the room staring straight at her and wishing she could turn invisible. "...Don't mind me, I just... had a bad night. I guess I fell half-asleep on my feet."
"...I see." Ritsuko turned back to the monitors after a few moments of intently staring at the girl, a smirk growing on her face. "Well, all preparations are finished on our end, so if the Second Child is quite done catching up on her beauty sleep, I propose that we all get started."
A round of chuckles filled the room following Ritsuko's words, the gathered technicians and scientists focusing back on their work after sending encouraging looks and smiles at the hard-working child. A completely innocent gesture that followed a completely innocent joke for most of the workers, more than thankful for the brief break from their monotonous, everyday tasks.
The same couldn't be said of the veiled criticism that had laid hidden behind Akagi's words, however, not that Asuka could call her out on it without coming across as little more than a brat, something that would only succeed in giving the accursed doctor even more ammunition against her.
Seething with impotent fury at the entire situation, Asuka turned her attention back to bringing rightful retribution on the one directly responsible for the entire embarrassing mess.
'Do you see what you made me do, stupid?!'
"I... sorry." Shinji quickly and quietly apologised. After all, even if completely unintentional, the whole situation had been his fault, no two ways about it.
'As if that's going to fix anything, you dimwit!' the Second Child angrily replied, although Shinji could tell that the sheer enmity on display wasn't entirely, or even mostly, directed at him. 'Argh! That goddamn-'
"Don't be so harsh on Asuka, Akagi," another female voice suddenly intruded into the room, bringing the hearty snickers to an abrupt end. "You know perfectly well she's been having a few rough days."
Asuka turned in the voice's direction so quick that her neck almost popped. And then she gaped.
She was dressed as she always had been, in her black and white clothes and red jacket, and entered the room with the same commanding presence that invariably followed her around during work hours. To Asuka, it was like she had gone back in time, her guardian looking as if nothing at all had happened during the last four days...
...as if she had never been forced into a prison cell because her ward just hadn't been good enough.
"That's-!"
"M-" Asuka breathed out, still not believing her eyes. "...Misato?"
"It was just an innocent joke, Katsuragi," Ritsuko shot back without even bothering to turn around. "You used to like those."
"...I used to like many things about you," Misato muttered to herself before she turned towards Asuka with a warm smile... "Hey, kiddo. Good to see you're doing-"
...and the breath was almost entirely knocked out of her lungs.
"Misato!"
"H-Hey!" Misato blinked, staring in shock at the red missile that had just impacted her midsection. "...Where did that come from?"
"Misato, I..." the young redhead stuttered, struggling for words. "I'm..."
"...You what?"
"I'm... glad you're okay," Asuka half-finished. "After how badly I... screwed up in the last fight, and after I heard that you had been taken away because of it, I..."
"Hey, hey, hey. You didn't mess up in that fight," Misato reassured her, putting a finger under Asuka's chin and raising the Second Child's head so that she could look directly into her eyes. "That bastard would have caught any of you off-guard, so I don't want to hear you beating yourself up over that, alright?
"On the other hand, the one thing I do want you to think long and hard about is the part where you disregarded my orders," her guardian continued, her voice morphing into the dreaded Major Katsuragi pitch. "Granted, I don't know if it would have changed anything in the long run for that specific scenario, but that shouldn't serve as a precedent. It will not happen again, alright?"
"Y-Yeah..."
"Good... Good." Misato's voice turned softer once more and she pressed Asuka's smaller body tighter against hers, hand now reaching to comfortingly pat the back of the girl's head. "Are you... dealing well with the memories?"
"I'm... managing. Somehow."
"That's good. But if you want to talk about it, you just let me know, alright?"
"I..." the Second Child carefully extracted herself from the embrace a little bit, just enough to be capable of gauging her guardian's sincerity. Once more, Misato appeared earnest, and Asuka couldn't help the small smile that tugged at the edge of her lips. "...Thanks."
She then looked upwards, frowning when she caught sight of a recent addition to Misato's apparel that the redhead had failed to notice at first glance: it was a black leather choker around her neck, with a red plastic cover on the front and a tiny, red light blinking from time to time beneath the surface. It looked to be on far too tight for it to be a normal accessory and, besides, Misato's usual cross was still hanging from its usual spot, too.
"...What's that?" Asuka asked, the girl hearing Shinji's voice ask a similar question at the same time.
"Oh, it's... a gift."
"You suck at lying, Misato," Asuka admonished, turning her head to the side just enough to peek at what lay beyond her guardian. A pair of stone-faced Section-2 agents appeared to meet her eyes, having come in right behind the Major.
"You think they're..."
'Her watchdogs?' Asuka finished for Shinji, quickly joining the dots. 'Yeah, I'd bet they are, Third.'
"And you didn't give me much time to prepare," Misato protested with a small sigh, bringing the girl's attention back to her. "Look, it's nothing big. I'll explain-"
"That was so cute!" a young voice suddenly interrupted from the side and, much to the Major's continued awe, Asuka promptly jumped a metre away as if Misato had caught on fire, looking all sorts of embarrassed.
Which while a funny sight in and of itself, of course, had left Misato honestly missing the warmth of the girl's unexpected embrace. It wasn't that often that Asuka had allowed the older woman to hold her, after all.
Or ever, to be more precise.
Nevertheless, bygones would be bygones until the next time a similar chance presented itself, Misato figured. She then followed the direction of the voice, finding herself face to face with an unfamiliar face.
"And... who are you?"
"Oh, silly me! I'm the Fifth Child, Mari Makinami!" the surprisingly sociable girl greeted, extending her hand forwards. "Nice to meetcha!"
A gesture that Misato quickly reciprocated, still reeling a bit from the sheer amount of extroversion on display.
"Fifth-?"
She then suddenly cut herself off, briefly staring at her intertwined hand before she looked up at the girl before her. Mari's smile remained unchanging, still plastered to her face and looking like something straight out of a comic book...
...but the vibe Misato was getting was no longer a carefree one.
"The Fifth Child, yes," Ritsuko impatiently interrupted, still focused on her work. "Haven't you been briefed about her?"
Mari quickly let go of Misato's hand with a nod of her head and made a beeline towards Asuka, taking great delight in teasing her further as the Major looked on with narrowed eyes, to the Second Child's mounting embarrassment. Misato kept on watching the pair for a few more seconds, eyes drilling a hole into the back of the Fifth Child's head, before she finally turned to regard her former friend.
"...I was let out not thirty minutes ago, and I had to shower away the muck from days of jail time. There hasn't been much time for pleasantries, let alone briefings."
"Well then, just know that she'll be working under you from now on," Ritsuko's explanation was quick, the doctor throwing a brief stare at Asuka. "But we really need to get started at this point. Are you ready now, Second Child?"
"Yeah, sure," Asuka crossed her arms and looked away, miffed at what jokes the new Pilot had made and was in the process of doing, all at her expense. "Whatever."
"Good. I will expect a performance on the same level as yesterday's," Ritsuko then turned towards Mari. "Fifth Child?"
"Ready and itching to go, Doc!" Mari pumped a fist into the air, all while making sure she was always standing next to her teammate, no matter what Asuka tried.
"...Well, at least someone's enthusiastic," Ritsuko muttered, ordering the two Pilots forward with a hand. "Get into your Entry Plugs, you two."
And so the two girls complied with their orders with varying levels of enthusiasm, Mari setting a blazing pace as she led Asuka by the hand and towards the gangway, much to the redhead's continued protests.
Yet another scene that Misato would have certainly cracked a smile at, seeing Asuka be dragged around in just the same manner she always dragged Shinji, had it not been for the weird feeling that she had gotten from the Fifth Child.
'Shinji...' the Major's thoughts then turned to her other ward, the sweet young man that her actions and decisions had ended up hospitalizing for an indeterminate amount of time, if Ikari's reports were to be believed. A casualty of war that had been avoided one too many times, the military part of her mind tried to rationalize, but it was in far too crushing of a minority to ease the heartache that came with that knowledge.
...
A visit to his hospital room was in order after the day's obligations were done, Misato quickly decided, since that shouldn't break any of the stipulations of her conditional freedom. And she should probably offer Asuka to join her, too. Try to ease the girl's mind on things a little.
...
Asuka's presence in the same room might keep her from breaking down again, too.
"That's a nice fashion accessory," Ritsuko suddenly commented, taking a second to look at Misato out of the corner of her eye and breaking her out of her thoughts. "It suits you."
"Thanks," Misato replied, walking closer to the main consoles. "I thought that the usual wardrobe needed a bit of a shakeup."
"And the Commander graciously offered to help?" the doctor scoffed. "It is an effective way of ensuring your loyalty, or at least your non-interference, I'll give him that. I suppose it has all the bells and whistles?"
"It's probably a safe assumption," Misato agreed, figuring that Ritsuko was referring to monitoring devices such as a microphone. "How come you don't sound surprised about all this, by the way?"
"Because the only thing I'm surprised about is that he didn't put another one around the Second's neck for extra insurance," Ritsuko muttered, low enough that only Misato should have been able to hear her. "Must have been the only one he had on hand."
The Major merely grunted, offering no response that could end up landing her in trouble. She had two more pressing issues on her mind, anyway.
"Has there..."
"There's been no change whatsoever in the Third Child's condition, I'm afraid," Ritsuko replied, allowing just the smallest hint of sympathy to seep through her professionalism.
"...I see," Misato sighed, thankful that she hadn't gotten her hopes up. "And what was that you mentioned earlier? Something about Asuka's results?"
"I'd rather not say anything on that yet, since we're still not clear on whether it will actually happen a second time. Trying to recreate the same situation once more is basically the entire reason why the Second Child is even here today, actually," the doctor elaborated, refocusing on her instruments with a shrug. "Because of that, it will probably be far easier to show you if and when the results are repeated, rather than try to explain the issue beforehand."
"Right," Misato acknowledged without much enthusiasm, crossing her arms as her eyes watched the two Pilots quickly make their way towards their Entry Plugs. "So, just sit tight and wait?"
"Basically. Oh, and..." Ritsuko trailed off for a second, Misato spotting a small, teasing smirk on her former friend when she turned to look. "...try not to lose your head while doing so, eh, Misato?"
"...Zip it, Ritz."
-O]|[O-
"You know, about that necklace thingy the Major was wearing..."
The Second Child pointed her eyes at the back of her teammate's head, trying her best to ignore the giggles that followed their passing among the maintenance crew of the EVAs. By this point, Asuka had long since given up on trying to untangle her hand from Mari's, instead settling for allowing the whole shameful display to be done as quickly as humanly possible.
"What about it?"
"It kinda reminds me of that one movie, 'Battle Royale'?" Mari continued. "It looks just like one of those collars that had a bomb in them. The ones that would go off if someone broke the rules?"
Asuka narrowed her eyes at the Fifth Child. She had never heard about any movies with such a title, but it wasn't hard to picture what Mari was talking about.
What was hard to picture was anyone putting such a thing on another person for any reason.
"And why would Commander Asshole put something like that on Misato? Because she went against orders?" Asuka replied, rolling her eyes at the absurdity of the idea. "Isn't that going just a bit overboard? It would probably break a ton of international humanitarian agreements, too. Isn't it far more reasonable for it to be just some monitoring device?"
"I don't know, I'm just saying what it reminded me of," Mari shrugged, turning around just enough to give the other girl a nonchalant smile. "But hey, I guess if her head goes 'splat' at some point, now we know why."
The Fifth Child then stopped at the part where the gangway split, each segment leading towards the waiting Entry Plug of a resting Evangelion. Mari, however, did not stop because it was time to part ways with the Second Child for the time being, but rather because her companion had quite forcefully extricated her hand from Mari's grip at the same time that the twin-tailed girl had finished speaking.
When she turned around, Asuka was frowning at her. And while that was nothing completely extraordinary, granted, the redhead seemed to radiate a bit more anger than usual.
"...Don't say that."
"Hmm?" Mari blinked, but was quick to catch on to what the redhead meant. The Fifth Child waved her hand dismissingly. "Oh, don't take it so seriously. It was just a bad joke."
"Well, don't joke with shit like that!" Asuka roared back, prompting the other girl to take a step back. The redhead's voice brought all eyes to them again, but for very different reasons this time.
"Oookay, fair enough. Sorry," Mari admitted, putting her hands up in surrender. She then smiled and offered her hand up for a fist bump. "Hey, let's forget about it and knock this one out of the park, alright?"
The Second Child stared at the extended appendage for a second and then back at Mari's amiable expression, seeming to consider what to do for a moment or two. In the end, Asuka scowled without a word and stomped her way towards Unit-02's Entry Plug, Mari's eyes following her all the way until the Second Child slipped into the long cylinder.
"...That was pretty bad, and kinda stupid now that I think about it. Damn Katsuragi making me mess up..." the Fifth Child muttered with a sigh, scratching at the back of her head. "Oh well, she'll get over it. Might make it up to her later, somehow."
Mari's eyes then turned towards the horned helmet of Unit-01, a feral grin spreading across her face.
"...But now I have more important things to focus on."