Authors Notes:
Thank you for your patience guys, was a bit stuck writing this chapter for a little while, but updates should be coming more frequently now. I hope you people are excited for the upcoming chapters, which I'll be trying to stick to a schedule of an update at least every month. (Some may be quicker depending on content and my life schedule.)
I'd also like to thank my new Beta reader/ Editor OddzadnEnz on discord (BeyondtheDarkside101 for FFN) for the tremendous job of editing this chapter for me.
Chapter 3: Recourse to Subterfuge
Fishing Trawler Goromaki 78 km off the West Coast of Japan.
The cool sea breeze off the coast of Japan always provided a nice respite from the scorching heat of the eternal summer. And yet, despite this relieving wind, they trawled more and more, desperate to gather what fish they needed and move on.
Pulling up their most recent catch revealed all manner of strange deep-sea creatures. Not that such finds were entirely uncommon, but it was strange for their sheer volume. The captain of the Goromaki a Mister Hiroshi Sato, mused as his crew finished pulling up the first net, while another still trawled the depths.
"It's just like last week Captain. All these deep-sea fish and nothing else- it's not natural," his first mate commented, surveying the dozens of abyssal creatures dragged to the light: Chimera, deep-sea mackerel, a six-gill shark, and various other grotesque creatures. The shark's eyes bulged, and many of the other fish looked misshapen as rapid decompression killed them when dragged to the surface.
"You're sure we set the net depth, right? we shouldn't be getting these kinds of fish," Hiroshi asked, his thick brows furrowing as sweat dripped from his face.
"Checked and triple checked sir," his younger first mate replied, scratching his head in confusion.
"It's weird, it's like something drove them up here and scared all the other fish away." The first mate continued to stare at the grotesques in the nets. "Something big I might add sir."
"Not again with these silly conspiracies about sea-monsters and giant sharks again. What was that one called?"
"Megalodon?"
"Yes, that nonsense. Stop reading those awful Kaiju manga, it's muddling your brain," the captain derided, more venting his frustrations with having yet again sub-par catches, than upset at his first mate's vivid imagination.
"Very well Mr Takahashi, bring the last net in let's hope it has better result," he called to the boatswain, as the winch for the second net started to wind up.
Continuing his lecture to Takahashi about the idiocy of believing in Sea Monsters, the Captain was caught unawares, when the ship halted in an instant. The shock sent the captain flailing into a nearby wall and several other crew to the deck.
A loud groaning sound could be heard as the winch and boat engines strained to move even an inch.
"Did we hit a reef?" Hiroshi demanded, getting to his feet, the frothing of the waves increasing as he urged the man at the helm to "give her all she got!"
Takahashi shook his head as he went down to the deck to help figure out what was stuck. The captain's gaze was directed to the steel cane up ahead. It was bending, bending down like a massive fishing pole.
"What the- ".
The ship began to be pulled under, water rising as the back end of the ship was dragged into the depths by this unknown force. Men screamed as anything not tied down tumbled towards the waves.
The steel winch couldn't take anymore force and it snapped. One shard of metal flew screaming into Takahashi, impaling him, while knocking other's overbroad, all killed in an instant. Takahashi himself was dragged to the depths, blood spewing from his ripped entrails.
As the winch snapped, the force pulling the ship was severed and the ship lurched upwards as buoyancy kicked in. Many surviving crewmembers were tossed around as the ship's upwards momentum shook the ship, much in the same way a little floating toy may rocket to the surface if dragged under in a bathtub.
In the chaos, Hiroshi leapt into the water, narrowly avoiding being hit by the capsizing vessel as it tumbled and twisted over itself. His breath became ragged as he tried to swim to safety. but found no safety about him.
As the men squabbled to find rafts to which they could hold themselves, a deep rumbling sound erupted from the Depths. "SHreeeoooonk!"
Captain Hiroshi was wrong to doubt his first mate. There are Monsters in the Deep.
In transit to Nerv HQ, outside of Geofront.
"I can't believe we just get out of quarantine for radiation treatment and they're forcing us to do more sync tests. We can't get a break here!" Asuka complained, not particularly to anyone, but more generally to her two companions Shinji and Rei, who were all on their way to the sync tests.
"Well, it beats boring lessons in a sweaty classroom, right?" Shinji replied, facing Asuka as the conveyor-belt bridge continued to propel them forward.
"Yeah, I guess that's true Third- Wuahh!" Asuka admitted, before a sudden halt in the conveyor-belt sent her tumbling off her feet and sent a certain Shinji Ikari right on top of her. Unfortunately for the redhead the boy landed quite lewdly between her breasts.
Asuka's face turned scarlet as Shinji raised his head slowly, meeting her gaze. The boy was mortified, words hitching in his throat as he soon realised his hands were on her breasts too.
"Oh no I've done it again." He whispered. "Pervert, get off me!" she shrieked, punching the offending boy in the head as he attempted to scuttle away from the furious girl, hoping to get away with his life still intact.
"Get back here you Perverted Bastard! I'll kill you!" Asuka roared, becoming more terrifying than any Angel as she sprinted forward after the fleeing boy, who was at this moment spurting apologies and excuses, much to his own doom.
"Please Asuka! I tripped, I swear! Please don't murder me!"
"I'm going to do worse than murder, I'm going to rip you, limb from limb Third!" she raged.
While their antics continued, Rei, who had only been mildly shaken by the sudden stop, noted the lack of power in the facility. Lights, machinery, and tools switched off as the gigawatts of power which usually flowed freely stopped entirely.
'The backup generators should've activated by now. Unless something or someone cut the power.' Rei deduced, before taking out her safety manual to find a map of the facility.
Shinji, fearing for his life ducked behind Rei cowering from the wrath of a panting, enraged German with bloodlust.
"Rei… help me..." he begged quietly. Rei stared at him for a moment, then looked at Asuka.
"We need to get to HQ. I believe the power has been tampered with.," Rei explained, her placid temperament grating at Asuka.
"Fine, I'll kill you later Shinji." Asuka promised, pointing an accusing finger at the boy.
The trio soon made their way through darkly lit corridors, tight access tunnels, and special steel doors - which Asuka, as the self-declared leader, argued was Shinji's job 'as a man' to pry open. This command was much to his dismay of course, but as he still desired to see the light of day next morning, Shinji kept his mouth shut.
Their wanderings, which Asuka assured them weren't just blind wanderings, didn't go as she suspected.
"Are you sure we took the right turn back there? We seem to be going up again Asuka."
"Well, if you thought it was wrong why didn't you say something earlier Baka-Shinji? You're always nit picking." Asuka protested
"Well maybe because you always shout at me," Shinji grumbled.
"Shut up Shinji, like you'd know better," she derided, her voice's pitch going ever higher as her frustration with these god-awful maps rose. 'Fuck's sake, why does everything have to be so Verdamnt confusing!'
"Ah HA! A door this has got to be out to the HQ!" Asuka declared, smirking all the while to the other pilots who were not so easily convinced. Asuka kicked open the door with violent fervour, picturing herself like some hero in an action movie.
The sun filtered in, revealing not the Bridge, HQ or even the Geofront but Tokyo-3. But before Asuka could even begin to fume with frustration, a colossal foot of an Angel came crashing down before her, then over again revealing the Angel itself.
The creature was morphologically much like a four limbed spider with long, slender black legs protruded from its centre mass, where an array of teary eyes watched sorrowfully upon the Lilin before it. The dark green body hovered close to the ground as the legs careened the Angel into view, letting the girl glimpse the multitude of scars that ran in ribbons along its torso, claw and bite marks from an equally huge Monster.
Asuka yelped, scrambling to close the door she so readily kicked open. Closing it frantically behind her, panting with exhaustion and brief panic.
"Well, that may explain the outage." Rei noted while Shinji frankly looked just as shocked as Asuka was. "We don't have time to lose, let's take a shortcut."
Rei turned on her heels and went back down the hall, Shinji following without a word.
"Hey! Wait up, I'm supposed to be the leader here!" Asuka ranted, chasing after the pair.
Maintenance Tunnel 24 NERV HQ, leading to Bridge:
"This is taking forever! I bet Wundergirl here, has gotten us lost eh." Asuka declared sending dirty looks the Rei's way.
"We're heading the right way; the Bridge should be 800 metres ahead of us," Rei retorted without a second thought.
Asuka huffed, annoyed with the First Child's perceived arrogance. "You're Commander Ikari's favourite, aren't you?" she sneered, once again trying to get underneath the other girl's skin.
"Asuka this isn't the time for this," Shinji interjected, trying to diffuse the situation.
"I guess that means you get treated a little different huh?" Asuka continued ignoring Shinji with a smirk but when she received no reaction out of Rei, her mood soured.
With a brief groan of annoyance, she moved herself in front of Rei confronting her fellow pilot. 'Who does this brat think she is trying to ignore me like this, all that sweet talk about Gojira was all lies weren't they!'
"Hey, just because they like you best doesn't mean you have to act so superior!" Asuka accused.
"I don't act superior, and I'm not treated any better," Rei's eyes shifted elsewhere if looking off into the distance while her brain travelled inward with introspection. "I know that very well." Rei's her tone was tranquil, but her eyes recalled dark thoughts.
As they continued further into the abyss of Nerv HQ, Rei's thoughts lingered on her purpose. 'Instrumentality is what I was made for, Instrumentality is my key to oblivion but is oblivion what I desire?'
She allowed herself to look at Shinji, his teary eye expression from their battle with Ramiel painted vividly in her mind. The smile, the sincere care that came with it, all whirling inside of her mind. 'I've never thought about what I might desire, for who am I to argue my worth when my body is one of many and my face is not my own?'
Such questions drew an existential pain from Rei, from the part of her that looked at her fellow pilots with envy at their lives where they were free to choose, free to feel something. Rei wondered if she could ever feel the same, feel the fire of Asuka, feel the compassion of Shinji. Feel their pain, let them know her own. 'Could I ever be human?' she wondered most of all.
Commander Ikari's office post-Battle:
The battle was won, and with cool air rushing to free the Geofront of that dead and stale quality, Gendo Ikari savoured the freedom from sweat. Taking stock of the damages accrued and information gathered, he had a strong idea of who was behind the outage.
Ritsuko had joined him in his office to help with the analysis, the stern scientist taking a sip from a glass of cold water as they cooled themselves during the darkened night.
"I'm surprised the Old Men would attempt this so quickly after Gojira's attack," she mused, eyes trailing over printed out statistics from the MAGI on the time and place of the cut off points.
"Power stations 3 and 4 were cut first, means they likely entered from the northern entrance." She explained. "How deep did they get into Nerv?" the Commander asked, lifting his gaze from the paperwork. "They broke into my main lab on the lower levels, no indication they went further."
"Damage to equipment?" he inquired.
"Minor damage aside from the laser-cut door. Stolen research is another question." Ritsuko replied, then looked at the pad in her hand. "Various plans and modelling for the dummy plug system, bio-chemical weapon test samples and most interesting of all, they took the G-Cells."
"The Second Child mentioned scars and injuries on the Angel's body. Gojira is the likely culprit. This attack shows, the Old Men are scared, scared of what Gojira might represent." Gendo intoned.
"What would that be?"
"Death to those who would play God." Gendo, moved closer to Ritsuko, running a gentle hand across her body before bringing her close, intending to sate his urges.
On a hill overlooking Tokyo-3
"It's ironic how, without electricity and artificial lights the sky can look so beautiful at night."
Shinji was awed, by the vibrancy of the night sky as he stared into the endless constellations and galaxies. While some may think the size of the universe makes humanity seem so insignificant and small, Shinji couldn't help but feel a sense of child-like wonder as the stars rolled in overhead.
"Yeah, but without the lights it seems like there's no humans alive…" Asuka commented, absentmindedly tapping her foot into the grassy hill the three pilots laid upon as she gazed into silent Tokyo-3. The city itself looked so dark and almost menacing in the gloom of the night sky, the tall spires and buildings, all quiet and still.
A moment passed as the lights began to switch back online, grid by grid. Asuka sighed in relief.
"That's better, I feel much more comfortable this way!" she proclaimed, folding her arms behind her head with a smile.
Asuka would never admit it to anyone, but she felt much safer even in the artificial lights of the city. 'Sure, beats dealing with whatever nightmares my head tells me lurks in the dark.' She shook her head to shake those thoughts away- she was stronger than childish things like that.
"Man fears the darkness and so he scrapes away at it with fire," Rei explained, her cool demeanour reflected in her upright composure, contrasting the laid-back attitude of her fellow pilots.
"Philosophy, huh?" Asuka smirked before adding, "Who's that from this time, eh? Heidegger? Nietzsche perhaps?" There was a with a hint of sarcasm with her questions.
"Myself, Pilot Soryu. This is my own understanding," Rei retorted, perhaps a hint of pride filtering in on her usually placid responses. The Second Child was rubbing off on her, she mused.
Asuka scoffed, muttering something about "commander's favourite" under her breath as she turned to face The Idiot.
Shinji's face was screwed up in thought as a question danced on the tip of his tongue. "Is that what makes Humanity a special species? Is that why the Angels attack us?"
"What are you, stupid? Who knows what they think?" Asuka derided, though her tone portrayed a more playful expression, less of actual criticism and more simple teasing from a friend. 'Is she, my friend?' Shinji asked himself. 'She's a bit rude and full of herself but she's had my back since we met, isn't that what friends do?
A comfortable silence fell, as Shinji lost himself in the stars above. His reverie only interrupted by Rei taking her leave.
"It's getting late; I will return to my apartment… We fought well." She said, earning a smirk from the red head and a smile from Shinji.
Moments passed as Rei made her way out of view. Asuka turned to face Shinji, her usual smirk still plastered on her face. "She's right you know- we fought well. Especially me, of course." She beamed, and her face was lit up by the action.
Shinji blushed cutely at her backhanded compliment, as per Asuka's usual style. Asuka couldn't help but notice how genuine that smile was. It was infectious and she found herself smiling at the Dummkopf. 'He's an idiot but he's alright for a kid.'
"Hey Asuka?"
"Yes Shinji?"
"Do you consider me a friend?" The boy asked, the furrowed expression conveying his sincerity.
Asuka had to pause, and she paused long enough to warrant a fit of anxiety in Shinji's mind. 'Was that too far?' he questioned himself, always teetering over how to please those around him. Asuka turned to face him fully, her smirk gone, her eyes trailed off into the stars seemingly not finding enough courage to directly speak to him.
"I…I guess you are a friend to me, though I can't imagine I've been a very good friend to you." She explained, expression regretful and sullen.
"Let's get back home ok," "Ok… I'm sorry for asking." Shinji replied with a mumble. "Baka, don't be sorry for something that isn't your fault… let's go."
Tobita Shinchi, Red Light district Osaka City:
Kaji furrowed his jacket as he made his way through the bustling red-light district. Erotic 'restaurants' and 'shops' provided a guise for the vast array of brothels in the district. Seemingly the sex industry in Japan suffered no loss in Post-Impact Japan. But having a wild night with a beautiful woman wasn't Kaji's mission here- not that he would indulge in such pleasures in any case.
Taking a final drag on his cigarette, the suave Inspector opened the door to a particular establishment- the 'Pleasure Diner' This was itself a front for much more in-depth criminal activities.
'Not my Job today,' he reminded himself, before making his way to the counter.
A burly man, likely in his mid-forties, stood before him he shone with a grease of his own filth. The man flared his nostrils before wiping them grossly with the back of his hand. Kaji couldn't help but feel a twinge of disgust at him.
The man jeered slightly, noting Kaji's presence.
"What brings you here Sir? I assume longing a little special company with your evening meal?" His oily voice asked, a voice which was meant be enticing but could best be described as nasally and repulsive.
"I'm here to discuss special delivery terms for a Mr Takibi Myoga," Kaji confirmed, The older man stuck his finger up and directed Kaji towards a back room. "This way, you're luckily on time, Takibi doesn't appreciate tardiness."
The metal door shut behind him, the clicking of the lock not easing his anxiety with this whole idea. He looked ahead and saw a small room adorned with two mirrors, a steel table and pair of chairs. The plain white walls barely hid the brickwork behind them. With a small cupboard for alcoholic drinks.
'Dingy and stuffy- reminds me of college.' Kaji smirked as he sat down, stretching his legs for comfort. He noted the ashtray in front of him, took out another smoke and sought to take advantage of this small hospitality.
"Ryoji Kaji… It's been a while, hasn't it?" A gruff voice spoke out from the darkness. Kaji looked to his left and saw the sharp silhouette of the man he had come to see plastered on the wall.
"Indeed, it has, and I see you still haven't got over your need for theatrics," the spy retorted nonchalantly.
The shadowy figure chuckled, "Still the same Kaji from seven years ago indeed." The man mused, before stepping into the light, the bright central lamp finally illuminating his face. The stockier man brandished a Golden Toothed smile to Kaji, a smile at meeting an old friend after a long time.
The man took his seat patting down loose elements of his suit and tie outfit before pulling down his right cuff as he checked the time. "Always impeccable timing with you, old friend," taking out a cigar from his right breast pocket.
"What can I do for you? Need someone shaken up, disappeared in a back alley? Oh, perhaps something special for a girlfriend?" He continued with a laugh, attempting to light his cigar nonchalantly.
"Nothing of that sort Takibi. You know that's not really my style." The spy retorted bashfully. "May I?" Kaji added, igniting the fledgling sparks on the Yakuza's cigar with his lighter.
Takibi hummed with approval as he leant back in his chair, matching Kaji's demeanour to a tee. With a small chuckle of mirth he added, "This reminds me of how we used to sneak out and smoke cigs together back in school… Good times."
Kaji nodded, smoke streaming from his mouth. "I'm here for information."
"Information? Nerv's special inspector, never thought I'd live to see the day." Takibi chortled. "I bet it has something to do with those funny reports I keep hearing out of Tokyo-3. Monsters, giant robots like those sci-fi shows back before the world went to shit." He recalled.
"That information is classified of course, but I'm not here about them. I'm here to find certain people," Kaji clarified. 'Time to wring the information out of him.'
"That's a job for the police, but I know you don't mean the average kind of missing persons stuff. You're talking about 'Ghosts', aren't you?"
Kaji nodded.
"Well, I'll be sorry to disappoint you, but erased people are kind of hard to find." Takibi shrugged.
Kaji let a smirk reach his features as he took out from his jacket pocket a padded envelope. On the cover 'Classified Documents' was written in neat kanji. Takibi's expression soured, and he looked to Kaji for answers.
"These are documents describing how your old clan, your family, was paid for services rendered to GEHRIN Japan, through one of your family's businesses. Services related to an accident from the Kaiju Research and Purification facility." Kaji explained, making the former pale in fear.
Kaji continued when no response was made by the other man. "These were declassified to me by Commander Gendo Ikari of Nerv which perked my interest as this is the only mention of an accident or involvement with your business, which knowing you- had Yakuza backing."
Takibi's hands shook as anxiety built up within him from the dark memories the discussion had recalled. He tensed at the implications being uncovered before his very eyes. Running a finger along his pistol, he knew what he had to do- despite the debt he owed the other man.
"So, this is it then, luring me here to tie up those loose ends… I thought that was above you Kaji." He hissed. He pulled out the pistol but decided he would Kaji a small mercy and give him time to explain himself. He owed him that much
"Give me on reason why I shouldn't blow your brains out here."
"I'll give you two reasons: One I've had my gun pointed at you for the last 20 seconds; two I'm not here for take you or your organisation down. Why would put myself in a locked room with no clear means of escape?"
Kaji took another long puff on his cigarette and continued.
"You know me better than that. I don't care what role you had in this, Takibi. I just need to know what happened and who is left." Kaji bargained and put his weapon on the table before him in a slow, deliberate fashion.
Takibi's resolve faltered as he sighed in relief, putting his own weapon away for the time being. "Fine, I'll tell you what I know. But first I need a fucking drink- want one?" The proud Yakuza member asked and after a curt nod, grabbed a bottle of whiskey and a pair of cups from the nearby cupboard. Once seated with drink in hand, he began.
"This was a year or two after Second Impact. My old family was hit hard by the disaster, so we needed money to keep afloat, put food on the table, and protect ourselves from our enemies." Takibi's eyes began to focus off in the corner of the room as he spoke, deep in thought.
"So, when these shadowy government type people offered to pay us heaps to make around fifty people disappear off the face of the earth, who were we to say no?" He reasoned, taking a sip of the whiskey.
"Who were these people you were paid to kill?" Kaji inquired, his calm laid back attitude returning in force.
"Scientist types. All things considered- they were quite easy jobs, aside from the fact their families also had to be dealt with too." He answered.
"We don't ask questions obviously; it was just another job we all thought… Then people, some of our people started going missing," hands gesticulating with a foreboding flair.
"See, I was getting suspicious of this lot, coming around with six layers of middlemen to get down to our level. Took me half a year to track down who was giving us the money and orders." Takibi leant forward, shoulders tense, as if to convey some dark secret to Kaji.
"Some, transnational organisation, with a weird Western sounding name- Zeeler? Seerer? Or something?" Takibi guessed.
"SEELE?" Kaji suggested.
"Yes, that's the one… You've heard of them?"
"I've had my fair share of run-ins with them yes." Kaji replied with smirk.
"So, you understand why I thought it was so bizarre that this huge UN-backed organisation needed a bunch of Yakuza to clean up their dirty work. I was right to be on guard, though the boss didn't listen, too distracted by all the money that flowed like a river into our pockets," Takibi sighed, dejected from the mistakes of the past.
"Before it all went to shit, Kaji, I managed to learn a little about why they were after these scientist types. Some accident happened at that facility, something obviously more than what the media stated at the time.
"The Ghosts all begged for their own, and their family's lives. Squealing like little pigs about how they promised to never speak of the accident, to never speak of the Monster," Takibi recalled, staring off into the corner of the room again.
"I never believed in monsters before Kaji, I always thought Man was the worst monster imaginable, but I know there's only one monster that was kept in that facility- or at least the corpse of such a thing. It's making me, more… open to monsters and demons Kaji."
Kaji couldn't help the chill that creeped up his spine, he had seen the destruction the 'Monster' they spoke of had wrought, though neither wanted to name The Beast.
"So that's why you came to me for help all those years ago? SEELE was picking your clan off-
"They turned everyone against us! Wiped us out like fucking dogs! We only killed to survive after the apocalypse in that dog-eat-dog world! But they made us kill and dirty our hands with the blood of their mistake." Takibi snapped, slamming his fist on the table panting in rage at the old wounds, reopened as they were.
After a few moments the man calmed himself, taking a large shot of whiskey to dull the pain. "I should've told you back then- that they might have been after me. Not just the police of course… It was not an honourable thing to do Kaji, keeping you in the dark while expecting your help."
"There's nothing to worry about my friend. You're repaying your debt in any case." Kaji took a drink himself, then offered his friend a calm smile.
"I was lucky- they gave up cleaning their mess after a couple months, so when this clan took me in, it felt like the biggest break of my life," Takibi added with a sense of gratitude.
Kaji, clicked on his lighter as the suave spy puffed away at his third cigarette in the quite frankly exhausting evening.
"Some men will go to any length to remove those that threaten their power. It's my job to slip through the cracks and find the truth behind the blood and tears," Kaji mused absentmindedly, before he refocused and continued his line of questioning.
"Anyways, I don't suppose there's anyone left?" Kaji asked, hoping to uncover something concrete to dig into here.
"Three. There's three we didn't get to first," Takibi noted, he continued with a stoic expression.
"One managed to get imprisoned for some minor misdemeanour, must've thought the authorities would keep him safe in there- that didn't last long. Second left the country shortly after we started hunting them down. Don't know where he ended up. Doubt he's still alive."
The Takibi's face perked up with a smirk. "You see the third man; he was already in hospital for cancer when we found out about him, something to do with radiation exposure."
'Lines up with being involved with Gojira for sure,' Kaji thought as this investigation slowly spiralled down into a rabbit hole.
"Lucky us we thought, just bribe the doctors a touch and let him go easy, guy had no family so job done, eh?" He chortled, shaking his head.
"You see that cunning fox had other plans though. The man. I tell you, rose from the grave; a real-life ghost I thought, since I had his death certificate printed the day, he 'died'."
Kaji was having a hard time believing this 'ghost story.' Though, he mused, 'giant robots and Kaiju aren't so far off in comparison.'
"At the time I was already in my new clan when I saw the unmistakeable face of a Dead Man… turns out the man is quite the interesting character," Takibi smirked briefly. "Ghosts, monsters and the undead- who'd of thought we'd live to see it all?" He finished taking one last sip of his drink before sinking into a charming chuckle.
"Good luck with the Crusade for Truth… you'll need it."