An. Still not depressed enough to create and own NGE.
So I promised yer a lot a chapter within a fortnight, and today I'm looking at it, and it's not ready. BUT, I figured it can be nicely cut in two, and the first part I am quite happy with. So here it is, I get another fortnight to finish the Suite 3,03. As ever, many thanks to Broken Wings Healed for her unyielding support, tips and just generally being the superb person she is. I hope you lot took my advice and read some of her fics.
Nonameasushin, Calborghete, Lovemichi, Vastnesofstarts, thank you all for the comments.
Any comments are much appreciated.
without further bumbling dig in and enjoy.
Suite 3.02 You do (not) need confession
"By the order of the government, a state of Emergency was declared for the Tokyo and Kanto regions. All citizens must seek their assigned shelter. This is a drill, repeat, this is a drill."
The two pilots looked at each other over the table at the Katsuragi apartment and dropped their phones. Asuka let out a huff of disappointment while Shinji put on a relieved expression.
When Shinji got up, Asuka chuckled: "Where to?" She refilled her coffee cup and made no effort to get moving.
Shinji looked over his shoulder and said: "To the shelter" almost without thinking.
"Slow down Baka, we are pilots, if we go anywhere during an emergency, we go to Geofront. I texted Misato, she says we go, we go there, she says we don't we stay put, and have that talk about Wundergirl."
'I almost forgot', Shinji thought to his surprise. It was true enough. He was so worried about Misato being out that soon, Kaji being gone and pancakes, he somehow managed to push Rei off his mind for the morning.
He felt a rush of guilt, but before he could mope about that any further, Asuka got up and walked to the stove. "We are to sit tight, Shinji, also school should be cancelled today," she said, starting to make tea.
"So, last chance, if you changed your mind," she said as she poured the hot water into the kettle.
Shinji shook his head, much as it may be unpleasant. He needed to get that weight off his chest, only now realising how much.
Asuka set the tea on the conference table and sat on the couch, pointing to the seat right next to hers. 'If I sat in the armchair it would be like a session with a therapist,' she noted with amusement.
She squeezed Shinji's shoulder as he sat next to her: "Remember, I don't judge you and I will NOT judge you no matter what you say, I promise," she said with as much assurance as she could muster 'Let's hope I can keep that promise. It is not like I am the one to pass judgements...'
If she was to judge Baka for anything, she made another promise to herself to take those judgments to the grave with her.
Shinji relaxed a bit and looked into his teacup. "You said you wanted me to start from the beginning, you meant when I turned up in the city, or when I met Rei?"
"When you set foot in the city," she said before going back to listening intently. Shinji went through his first day at Tokyo-3, at first making them both chuckle from time to time at Misato's antics.
Then he got to his father's letter: "...and that's why I came in the first place..." Asuka cut him off: "He wrote, 'Come' and nothing else? Shinji, next time we are in one room with him, you hold me, or I am going to make you an orphan!" she said before calming down and drinking some tea.
"...And then he had Rei brought in on a stretcher. She looked battered. But she would have sortied out to fight the angel..." he trailed off.
"Idiot," said Asuka fondly, "You saved the city, the human race and Rei Ayanami's life. You said it, she was in no shape to fight, but they would have sent her out had you refused. Which you could have, instead you gave in the commander's scheme because you are just that kind of selfless Baka."
"I could? You said it yourself had I not dealt with the Angel, it's game over," said Shinji with an air of fatality.
Asuka looked at him pensively: "Shinji, you ever play chess?" He shook his head: "I know the basic rules, but I don't play, I play shogi a bit though, that's similar right?"
Asuka nodded: "Far as I know. Well what I wanted to talk about is a concept, a thing, called 'Forced Error': that's when you are only left with bad plays and worse plays," she explained, finally truly calming down from her homicidal outburst.
"You did not want to be manipulated by the commander, so in that sense, you lost. But you played it the best you could. You made him show his colours by using the scheme in the first place. Imagine the Pervert… Aida, I think, right?" Asuka waited till Shinji nodded in confirmation. "Well, imagine him in your place, they would have to restrain him from jumping in at once."
Shinji nodded again, 'Kensuke would go for it, probably even now, but how is what I did a win?' he thought. He drank some tea, both to get some more time to form his thoughts and because Asuka learned how to make really damn good green tea 'That's just her thing, pick a thing and master it showing no effort,' he noted.
"How does that count as a win?" He asked at the end and looked at Asuka, rapt attention in his expression.
She smiled. "Imagine if you would go with it no question asked, you think you would accept that Gendo Ikari is about as much use to you as a father as tits on a fish?"
Shinji had to smile at her choice of words and nod as she had a point.
Shinji got back to his story and told the rest of the battle against the third angel as well as he remembered it. He was surprised when Asuka positively beamed at him when he mentioned that he did jump to grab Rei when unit 01 almost threw her off the bridge and into the LCL tank.
"See, your 'people saving thing'!" Asuka declared.
Shinji sighed; he learned by now that to try and dissuade Asuka from saying that was pointless.
She did not say much other than to occasionally ask for a detail or two and promising to give Touji a good thrashing for the fact that he hit Shinji after Shinji "saved his ass from getting eaten by a monster".
They laughed boisterously at Shinji's vivid description of Ritsuko's reaction to Misato's cooking.
"...and then she gave me Rei's new ID and asked me to bring it to her before the sync test on the next day, saying that she forgot to do that herself," said Shinji, growing a bit tense.
Asuka frowned: "I worked with and around her for years. That is the first time I hear about her forgetting something like that…" she noted before falling silent again.
"So I went to the address Dr Akagi gave me. The doorbell did not work, but the house entrance was broken in, so that cancelled out."
Asuka gave him a worried look: "Doors were broken in?" she asked and Shinji nodded, "I found the floor and the door number, and the flat door was broken too."
Asuka gave him an incredulous look. "You are saying that any thug that would put their mind to it could just walk up there in the dead of night and wipe out one-third of the force that keeps humanity alive? Etwas verdammte Disziplin! Ein verdammte Zirkus! Die ganze japanische NERV-Abteilung ist eine Nervenheilanstalt!"
Shinji caught just enough German from Asuka over time to understand that this was not a praise.
"Sorry, Shinji, you were saying?" said Asuka when she calmed down again.
Shinji looked at her uneasily and... 'Is he blushing?' Asuka thought. 'Why would he? If this was an anime or manga, he would probably walk in on Wundergirl in some inappropriate situation,' she thought with a grin.
"I tried knocking, when no one answered, I let myself in, thinking if she is not at home, I'll leave the ID on her desk or somewhere." Shinji drew a breath: "Asuka, the place is a dump, and that's not only because Rei does not bother cleaning. I saw broken glass, naked electric lines and the paint flaking off the wall… Then I ran into Rei… Literally, we both ended up on the ground." Shinji trailed off.
As he went on from there Asuka thought: 'It does not take an empath to see that you are not telling me everything, apologising for all the way from wherever Wundergirl lives to NERV is excessive even for you...' she thought. He was not lying. Shinji was so terrible at lying she sometimes mistook it for sarcasm when he did.
"So she hit you for denouncing a man who would at least threaten to send her to certain death not a month before that?" Asuka asked incredulously, absentmindedly draining her teacup and trying to refill only to find the kettle was empty. Shinji pushed his half-full cup to her.
"I think my father is the only person to treat her with kindness. Other than maybe me," he shrugged.
Asuka fixed him a stare. "No 'maybe' about it, Baka," she said before murmuring thanks and sipping some of Shinji's tea.
She shook her head "And I am not buying that The Commander Ikari-" Asuka said in her command tone "-treats Wundergirl Rei with any real kindness. Shinji, in Germany it is illegal to treat murderers the way Rei is treated."
At that, Shinji looked at her crestfallen. Asuka sighed and pulled him into a hug. "Baka, You are NOT responsible for Wundergirl's treatment. The Commander is. You are only responsible for what you do about it now."
She listened to Shinji's breathing, and could not help but smile when he hugged her back. She thought to maybe prompt him to go on, but decided to let him speak when and if he wanted to. 'And this is nice,' Asuka smiled and closed her eyes for a moment.
Eventually, Shinji got talking again, never letting go of her while he spoke. She learned that he was looking at Rei at school because he was just as unnerved about her weird detached outlook as Asuka. 'Yep, but with Baka, it is born out of concern, not out of Wundergirl just rubbing off wrong on him,' Asuka thought with a whiff of a guilty conscience. 'You never once gave her proper attention after she declined your "Friendship", did you?'
Asuka had to admit that. When Rei blew her off, she just took it as a sign of arrogance and moved on, after all, she had all the friends she needed in Hikari.
She tried to suppress that feeling by focusing on Shinji as single-mindedly as she could, his words, his voice, his scent, 'Mint and menthol shampoo? Really? Baka?'
"...and then she told me I do not need to fear the angel because she will be there protecting me, but you know as if someone gave it to her as an order, to go out there and protect me no matter what. To die for it, if necessary. Asuka, I am not worth that!" he said as he drew in another lung of air.
Asuka pulled him closer. "Baka Shinji. You do not get to decide that. The only person who can decide if you are worth it for Rei to die protecting you is Rei," she scolded him and smiled. "I know that your world would get incredibly bland and unbearably empty if I buy the farm, so I will not die for you. But I will do anything short of that and you ARE worth it".
But the smile was half a mask: 'He is right in one thing, if Rei got ordered by the commander to go and die to protect anyone, she would just do it, because "Ein Befehl ist ein Befehl!" But just how badly brainwashed is she?'
Asuka mostly tuned out when Shinji went through Operation Yashima, she knew most of the relevant details from reading the AAR that was sent to Nerv Germany.
But soon she paid him full attention again "...and I told her to please not say sayonara when going out to fight..." she was not sure why, but it seemed like that bothered the Baka a great deal.
"Does that not mean something like godspeed?" she asked? Offering a wish of luck to a fellow pilot seems appropriate, though Asuka has never thought she needed any… 'And you never offered any to the others, right?'
"Ehm, I don't think so, the closest translation is farewell, or goodbye, in the sense that you or the other person are leaving for a long time or forever," Shinji offered.
'Now it makes perfect sense if she set out to fight as if she was not going to return…'
Asuka squeezed him tighter. "What was then?"
"Rei asked what she is supposed to do in such a situation," Shinji cracked a smile. "I said, why don't you try smiling?"
'That's it, he is just too good for this craptastic word,' Asuka thought
Asuka must have been sitting there holding onto Shinji for minutes because he ended up nudging her to get her attention. "Yeah, Baka?" she responded looking at him.
"That is pretty much it, soon after Misato told me to pack up and then we flew to Over the Rainbow. You know the rest," he said, slumping a bit, looking way too drained for what might have been an hour-long talk.
'Yep, I know the rest,' Asuka thought and felt a sting of shame. "Shinji, I am sorry for slapping you, the other two earned it, but I know you now: you would not even dream about sneaking a peek at my panties."
She laughed as Shinji turned bright beet red. '...Or I hope you would dream, but you are too much of a gent to actually do it,' she thought and smiled at him. "And I can not take striking you back, so next time you actually do something perverted and I want to slap you, you get a freebie."
Shinji was near catatonic with embarrassment, so a moment later he realised Asuka was checking his heartbeat, musing "You do appear alive," with a grin.
"Yeah, just, can we not talk about that moment? Like forever?" he eventually croaked, almost stuttering. He looked around, but Asuka was not letting her hold on to him. '...And I don't feel like running away,' he realised.
The redhead nodded and schooled her face into a serious expression, though still a hint of smile present.
She looked him in the eyes. "Shinji, I can not give you absolution for not helping Rei more than you already did, that is for Rei… but, you already did a LOT more than anyone can demand, expect or ask from you. From where I sit, you did wonders by her. And if you want to do more, I want to help. And I want to get to the root of why Commander Ikari treats one of his prized pilots as a scum," Asuka finished with more than a hint of anger in her voice.
She did not ask, but she was, even years later, quite sure that the "until you quite literally have to choose to break off or asphyxiate" kiss they had counted as a thank-you kiss.