Chapter 05 - Asuka strikes!
A dark room...
A movie...
A fight...
The UN-fleet led by the carrier ´Over the Rainbow´.
The angel Gagiel destrying one ship after the other.
EVA-02 standing on the aircraft-carrier´s deck wearing a grey covering like the cape of
a warrior from ancient times.
EVA-02, fighting the angel above and below the pacific waters.
The angel´s destruction.
It was over, the movieprojector was turned off.
"Very impressing", Misato commented.
"And these fast movements... How is the Second Children, this Asuka Soryu Langley?"
Misato looked at him.
"Why do you ask, weren´t Rei and I enough for you?"
"Ah..."
Misato laughted, not seeing the feint red creeping acrose Rei´s cheeks...
"I guess she´s the one to take most serious of you three."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, she´s already finished school, went to university and was trained by ODIN."
"ODIN?"
"A european secret service, works closely with NERV-Germany, western arm of UN-security.
Asuka has been trained for the last ten year to pilot unit two."
"Ten years... and she´s even gone to university..."
"Yes, the two of you will be quite busy to keep her pace. So, when you return after school I will introduce you to her."
The two children left.
"An interesting view", Akagi mumbled.
"Rei has made incredible progress... as if she had just waited for some attention."
"It does good to her synchronrate."
"And the two of them are really cute. Last morning they stood side by side in the kitchen
and were cooking."
"Hm, if you ask me relationsships are illogical, but as long as it is only friendship
"Shinji is way to shy to try something with her."
"And Rei?"
"What - and Rei?"
Ritsuko smiled.
"Well, being her treating doctor I happen to know that she is in the middle of puberty,
she might be a ticking timebomb."
"Argh! What have I done..."
"I did warn you, Misato!"
***
At this afternoon there was no school.
Shinji had made the mistake to mention Rei´s ability at billiards with Touji and Kensuke
listening, the result was, that the two unbelievers challenged the bluehaired girl.
No one could later determine the reasons for class-represantive Hikari Horaki to join
the group on their way to Kuro´s billiards hall.
The owner of the hall was again quite surprised, since it were still three hours until
he officially opened his doors he saw no problem in allowing the five to use one of the
tables even the fact considered, that three of them didn´t belong to NERV.
Rei stood on one side of the table, leaning on her cue, being as casual as she could.
Shinji, Touji, Kensuke and Hikari stood on the other side, each a cue in hand. The situation was unreal enough that nobody asked for the class-represantive´s intentions.
Kensuke was busy standing there as cool as possible
"Which rules?"
"Any order of balls, one point per balls. Two team, I against you, you decide the order
in which you play. The team that scores a point gets the next try. You can start." Rei explained completly calm.
The four on the opposing side looked at each other.
"Okay, huddle" Touji suggested. "What´s the plan?"
"Rei ist good, when it´s her turn she will put all balls in", Shinji whispered.
"Hm" said Kensuke. "I´m quite good, too."
Touji looked at the cue in his hand.
"I´m glad to know which end is the correct one."
"Someone should give you some proposals."
Hikari cleared her throat.
"I can do this."
"You?" the other three asked at the same time.
"Yes, why not? My father taught me, we have a table in the baseball."
"Really?" Kensuke was amazed.
"Uhm, I am not really good even after all the training" Shinji said.
They agreed in Touji making the start, hoping that at least one ball would find a corner.
Of course that didn´t happen, so it was Rei´s part.
1:0 for Rei Ayanami...
The order was changed, beginning with Shinji, then Kensuke who should try to place some easy balls for Touji, then Touji, finally Hikari.
This time is went better, each of them put in a ball until it was Shinji´s turn again.
He gave the white ball to much push and send it flying from the table, only to be caught
in the air by Rei with expressionless face.
2:0 for Rei Ayanami...
Aideo Kuro stood leaned on his broom at the next table with a broad grin on his face.
Again they changed the order, this time Hikari should start who had showed that she was
able to play across two bands.
And this time they even managed to put in enough balls to win the game before Kensuke
failt his try.
Rei bowed slightly.
"You´ve won."
"High Five!"
Touji, Kensuke were Shinji happy.
"But only because of you letting us start." Hikari grinned.
Kuro clapped and went to his counter.
"That calls for a little celebration, what do you want to drink? - But no alcohol."
Rei starred at Hikari, or better, at her broad grin. The edges of her mouth twidged,
wandered slowly upwards, at the same time her lips departed, her teeth could be seen.
It was more an accident of a grin, rather the grinning of a hungrig wolf.
Obviously she felt a bit strange, in the next moment her face showed the usual calm
expression again.
***
"Hey, look, there!"
Touji pointed at entry of the arcade they were just passing.
Hikari reached into her bag for the newspaper she was carrying with her just in cast.
"Ui!" Kensuke whistled.
Shinji´s eyes started darting around nervously.
Rei was, well, Rei.
The object of their attention was a redhaired girl in a yellow sundress and long white
gloves standing at one of the automats, a girl with seemingly endless long legs.
"Ah, she´s sweet!" Touji whispered but Hikari´s presence kept him from slavering.
Alas, this restriction didn´t work for Kensuke.
"She has a nice dress" Shinji said, suddenly strongly sweating. "Can we move on?"
"Hell and Damnation!" the girl shouted suddenly and kicked the automat when her target
slipped out of the machines grip.
Most interestingly Rei stepped into Shinji´s line of view exactly in the moment the girl´s dress´ skirt went up.
Touji dodged intuitivly Hikari´s attack with the newspaper.
"Okay, lets move", he mumble, "good looking but bad character."
The redhaired turned around noticing her audience.
"You, what are you looking at me?"
"Uhm..." - "Ah..." - "We..."
She marched up to Touji, showing him her open palm.
"That´s 100 yen for looking."
"Eh?"
"Well, you did look under my skirt, didn´t you?"
"Say, are you stupid?"
Shinji looked at Rei, looked at Hikari, looked again at Rei, looked back to Hikari...
"Ha! That´s typical! Staring, being ugly and having no money!"
Touji was getting more than annoyed, he felt quite angry.
"Now listen to me..."
He grabbed her wrist, looked at her with pinched eyes.
"Let me go!"
"You imitate of a redhair, what are you thinking, tell me."
"I said - let me go!"
She gave him a kick against his shin-bone, got free, stumbled a step backwards, right
into another person.
"Argh! My Highscore! You bitch!"
"Bitch?"
At the moment a savage fight had started. Unfortunely the other guy wasn´t alone and even
more unfortunely his friends believed the other five to belong to the redhaired girl.
Rei dodged a fist-attack, pushed Shinji aside, touched one of the opponents almost softly
at the side of his neck. The other one went limb.
In the distance a sirene howled, came closer and closer.
"The police! Lets move!" shouted Touji and grabbed Hikari´s arm, pulling her along with
him.
Rei frowned for a second before following Touji´s example and dragging Shinji with her.
The redhaired girl hit ´her´ opponent a last time with a chair and kicked another one
straight into the face before running into the opposite direction.
Kensuke watched her running away then he followed his friends.
"Ui, I guess I am in love..."
***
Halfway to NERV-headquarters Shinji and Reihad left the others, entering the geofront
and walking up to a side-entry.
When they reach their destination they faced again the redhaired girl which stood before
the massive steeldoor gesticulating with an ID-card in front of the scanner.
"Why does this not work? Kaputt oder was?" (trans: Damaged or what?)
She gave the doors a hearty kick.
"Eh..." Shinji said.
She turned around on her heels, scanning the two.
"You... I know you! What are you two doing here?"
Rei pulled out her ID-card, passed her and ran it throw the scanner.
The securitydoors opened.
"Shinji, are you coming?"
"Uhm, yes."
"That can´t be true!" the redhaired girl shouted. Her ID-card was of the same kind. "You
can be the First and the Third Children?!"
"But we are." Rei said.
"Uh, yes, that´s us." Shinji confirmed.
"Unbelieveable!"
***
EVA-Hangar:
Misato smile broadly while introducing the redhaired girl.
"That´s Asuka Soryu Langley, the Second Children and pilot of EVA-02."
The redhair behaving completly changed, smiled friendly.
"Hello, nice to meet you."
Shinji looked to Rei who returned the greeting with unmoving face before mumbling a
hello by himself.
Unit zero and one had gotten some company in unit two. The new EVANGELION was bright red
coloured, they knew it already from the movie they had seen earlier this day. But now
Shinji saw the biggest difference between the new EVA and the other two units.
"Uhm, that´s a shoulderhalter, isn´t it?"
Misato nodded.
"Yes, a special production."
"Why don´t we have something like this?"
"Because I gave my protests at the right time" Asuka explained with a voice sweet as sugar. "I mean, who builds a giant robot and equips it only with a little knife, that´s... absurd."
Her japan had a heavy foreign accent but was otherwise stainless.
"It´s worse enough to be dependend on an extension cord."
Ritsuko Akagi growled unfavorable since she had designed the EVAs this way.
"Asuka was trained as a sniper." Misato expained.
Asuka stroke a pose.
"Nobody´s faster than me!"
Misato laughted.
Shinji swallowed, sweat on his brow.
Rei didn´t react.
***
"What, she´s an EVA-pilot, too?" Touji coughed the next day in school after hearing Shinji´s report about what had happened. "Are the high-ups at NERV really that desperate?
Boy, I feel truely sorry for you."
"I envy you!" Kensuke explained.
Hikari had the rolled-up newspaper ready, just in case. In the last time she had practiced with one in each hand.
"Well, at least you will have your peace here at school since she already finished school..."
Shinji allowed himself a reliefed nod.
Then he saw Asuka coming in...
***
After school Asuka intercepted Shinji and Rei by walking into their path.
"I have some questions!"
Rei blinked, the only sign that she didn´t liked the way Asuka acted.
"Öh, what do you want to know?" Shinji asked hoping to finish this as fast as possible.
"You are the Commander´s son, aren´t you?"
"... yes... he´s my father."
"Okay, that explains why you are here. - And you, First, they say you are the favourite
of the Commander, does this have some special reason?"
Rei started to move, passed Asuka without paying any further attention.
"What is the sense of this question?"
Asuka grabbed her arm, pulled her around, raised the other hand as if she wanted to hit
her.
"Look at me when I am talking to you!"
Shinji grabbed the raised hand at the wrist without thinking.
"Stop this!"
Asuka looked from Rei to Shinji.
"Ah, now I understand" she hissed and walked away with fast pace.
Shinji watched her leave.
"If we will get along with her?"
"If I am ordered... but only if I am ordered", Rei mumbled.
"Lets go home."
"Yes."
For a while they went side by side, then suddenly Rei hooked her arm into Shinji´s.
Her nearly stumble, smiled puzzled. She didn´t meet his gaze.
***
Shinji and Rei stood in the kitchen at the workspace and prepared dinner, this time
it was Rei who did the cooking while Shinji cut the vegatables into small piece.
On the stoves were several cooking pots, Rei was stiring up in one of them.
"Is this alright?" she asked and presented Shinji a spoon with sauce.
He sniffed.
"Let me taste it."
She brought the spoon to his lips, he tasted carefully not to burn his lips.
"Hm, good! Rei, if you continue to cook that good Misato won´t need me anymore and throw
me out of the door."
"She wouldn´t do this... Oh, I understand, a compliment. Thank you." She smiled, winked.
"But if she did I would throw her out and let you back in through the window."
"Ah..."
Again he found himself searching for words. The original two weeks she should have stayed
were long over, but no one had talked about this. Each day she had opened up a little
more, had others allowed to come into contact with her. Of course she was still far away
from being an ordinary fourteen-soon fifteen year old girl, but she had chosen the right
path...
***
"He wanted to protect me... why? He knows that I am able to defend myself... He cares for
me... I... It feels strange... He looks at me and my heart beats faster..."
***
Kyoto, The Temple of the Brotherhood:
The abbot welcomed his guest with a nod.
Without a word the whitehaired man sat down on his heels.
"I am grateful for your hospitality, Sifu."
"I´ve asked Thou to come. And I am grateful that Thou came."
"Of course, neither the Hermetic Order nor the Brotherhood have the ressources for greater action after the Impact."
"And considering your attempt to change the lokal paradigm, the way people think about
magic..."
"Yes, I guess I am the only one still able to work true magic in a city like Tokio-3."
The whitehaired smiled thinly. He emaned an aura of cold.
"Within the borders of Tokio-3 creatures of the Deep Umbra really have appeared. If we
manage to find out where and how they are crossing the mirror, we might find a way to
pass the Tempest and bring back the lost."
"Yes... but one have to be a Mage of the Hermetic Order to make such plans."
"I have survived the Inquisition, the French Revolution, a student turned Nephandi, two
World Wars, the Technocracy, the end of the Ascencion War and the Second Impact. And I
am damned if some bloody aliens should manage what the last eight century couldn´t."
"What are Thou planning?"
"At first I will spend some time in Tokio-3 to get the picture..."
"Be careful, within the city borders chi simply vanishes, this places seems to simply drink Quintessence like a dry sponge.
"I already felt this, but it shouldn´t be a problem, since I have the old powers of the Order at my disposal."
"Your power is older than the Council of Nine."
"Yes, I´m still working with Bonisagus´ Theory, as the Brotherhood still walks the paths
of the Dô."
"I don´t know exactly what Tohu are talking about, but Thou have the trust of the Brotherhood since Thou accompained our delegation to the Great Conclave."
The whitehaired just nodded.
"I am grateful for your trust, Sifu, but I am not sure if I am still worth it."
"Thou are talking about the defeat at LaRochelle."
"Yes, Sifu... I was the general of the Traditions´ forces and I was the sole survivor..."
"And this guilt rests on your shoulders."
"Too many died under my command. I lost the future to the Technocracy... I lost those who
placed their trust in me..."
"Hm... come, maybe we should meditate."
A dark room...
A movie...
A fight...
The UN-fleet led by the carrier ´Over the Rainbow´.
The angel Gagiel destrying one ship after the other.
EVA-02 standing on the aircraft-carrier´s deck wearing a grey covering like the cape of
a warrior from ancient times.
EVA-02, fighting the angel above and below the pacific waters.
The angel´s destruction.
It was over, the movieprojector was turned off.
"Very impressing", Misato commented.
"And these fast movements... How is the Second Children, this Asuka Soryu Langley?"
Misato looked at him.
"Why do you ask, weren´t Rei and I enough for you?"
"Ah..."
Misato laughted, not seeing the feint red creeping acrose Rei´s cheeks...
"I guess she´s the one to take most serious of you three."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, she´s already finished school, went to university and was trained by ODIN."
"ODIN?"
"A european secret service, works closely with NERV-Germany, western arm of UN-security.
Asuka has been trained for the last ten year to pilot unit two."
"Ten years... and she´s even gone to university..."
"Yes, the two of you will be quite busy to keep her pace. So, when you return after school I will introduce you to her."
The two children left.
"An interesting view", Akagi mumbled.
"Rei has made incredible progress... as if she had just waited for some attention."
"It does good to her synchronrate."
"And the two of them are really cute. Last morning they stood side by side in the kitchen
and were cooking."
"Hm, if you ask me relationsships are illogical, but as long as it is only friendship
"Shinji is way to shy to try something with her."
"And Rei?"
"What - and Rei?"
Ritsuko smiled.
"Well, being her treating doctor I happen to know that she is in the middle of puberty,
she might be a ticking timebomb."
"Argh! What have I done..."
"I did warn you, Misato!"
***
At this afternoon there was no school.
Shinji had made the mistake to mention Rei´s ability at billiards with Touji and Kensuke
listening, the result was, that the two unbelievers challenged the bluehaired girl.
No one could later determine the reasons for class-represantive Hikari Horaki to join
the group on their way to Kuro´s billiards hall.
The owner of the hall was again quite surprised, since it were still three hours until
he officially opened his doors he saw no problem in allowing the five to use one of the
tables even the fact considered, that three of them didn´t belong to NERV.
Rei stood on one side of the table, leaning on her cue, being as casual as she could.
Shinji, Touji, Kensuke and Hikari stood on the other side, each a cue in hand. The situation was unreal enough that nobody asked for the class-represantive´s intentions.
Kensuke was busy standing there as cool as possible
"Which rules?"
"Any order of balls, one point per balls. Two team, I against you, you decide the order
in which you play. The team that scores a point gets the next try. You can start." Rei explained completly calm.
The four on the opposing side looked at each other.
"Okay, huddle" Touji suggested. "What´s the plan?"
"Rei ist good, when it´s her turn she will put all balls in", Shinji whispered.
"Hm" said Kensuke. "I´m quite good, too."
Touji looked at the cue in his hand.
"I´m glad to know which end is the correct one."
"Someone should give you some proposals."
Hikari cleared her throat.
"I can do this."
"You?" the other three asked at the same time.
"Yes, why not? My father taught me, we have a table in the baseball."
"Really?" Kensuke was amazed.
"Uhm, I am not really good even after all the training" Shinji said.
They agreed in Touji making the start, hoping that at least one ball would find a corner.
Of course that didn´t happen, so it was Rei´s part.
1:0 for Rei Ayanami...
The order was changed, beginning with Shinji, then Kensuke who should try to place some easy balls for Touji, then Touji, finally Hikari.
This time is went better, each of them put in a ball until it was Shinji´s turn again.
He gave the white ball to much push and send it flying from the table, only to be caught
in the air by Rei with expressionless face.
2:0 for Rei Ayanami...
Aideo Kuro stood leaned on his broom at the next table with a broad grin on his face.
Again they changed the order, this time Hikari should start who had showed that she was
able to play across two bands.
And this time they even managed to put in enough balls to win the game before Kensuke
failt his try.
Rei bowed slightly.
"You´ve won."
"High Five!"
Touji, Kensuke were Shinji happy.
"But only because of you letting us start." Hikari grinned.
Kuro clapped and went to his counter.
"That calls for a little celebration, what do you want to drink? - But no alcohol."
Rei starred at Hikari, or better, at her broad grin. The edges of her mouth twidged,
wandered slowly upwards, at the same time her lips departed, her teeth could be seen.
It was more an accident of a grin, rather the grinning of a hungrig wolf.
Obviously she felt a bit strange, in the next moment her face showed the usual calm
expression again.
***
"Hey, look, there!"
Touji pointed at entry of the arcade they were just passing.
Hikari reached into her bag for the newspaper she was carrying with her just in cast.
"Ui!" Kensuke whistled.
Shinji´s eyes started darting around nervously.
Rei was, well, Rei.
The object of their attention was a redhaired girl in a yellow sundress and long white
gloves standing at one of the automats, a girl with seemingly endless long legs.
"Ah, she´s sweet!" Touji whispered but Hikari´s presence kept him from slavering.
Alas, this restriction didn´t work for Kensuke.
"She has a nice dress" Shinji said, suddenly strongly sweating. "Can we move on?"
"Hell and Damnation!" the girl shouted suddenly and kicked the automat when her target
slipped out of the machines grip.
Most interestingly Rei stepped into Shinji´s line of view exactly in the moment the girl´s dress´ skirt went up.
Touji dodged intuitivly Hikari´s attack with the newspaper.
"Okay, lets move", he mumble, "good looking but bad character."
The redhaired turned around noticing her audience.
"You, what are you looking at me?"
"Uhm..." - "Ah..." - "We..."
She marched up to Touji, showing him her open palm.
"That´s 100 yen for looking."
"Eh?"
"Well, you did look under my skirt, didn´t you?"
"Say, are you stupid?"
Shinji looked at Rei, looked at Hikari, looked again at Rei, looked back to Hikari...
"Ha! That´s typical! Staring, being ugly and having no money!"
Touji was getting more than annoyed, he felt quite angry.
"Now listen to me..."
He grabbed her wrist, looked at her with pinched eyes.
"Let me go!"
"You imitate of a redhair, what are you thinking, tell me."
"I said - let me go!"
She gave him a kick against his shin-bone, got free, stumbled a step backwards, right
into another person.
"Argh! My Highscore! You bitch!"
"Bitch?"
At the moment a savage fight had started. Unfortunely the other guy wasn´t alone and even
more unfortunely his friends believed the other five to belong to the redhaired girl.
Rei dodged a fist-attack, pushed Shinji aside, touched one of the opponents almost softly
at the side of his neck. The other one went limb.
In the distance a sirene howled, came closer and closer.
"The police! Lets move!" shouted Touji and grabbed Hikari´s arm, pulling her along with
him.
Rei frowned for a second before following Touji´s example and dragging Shinji with her.
The redhaired girl hit ´her´ opponent a last time with a chair and kicked another one
straight into the face before running into the opposite direction.
Kensuke watched her running away then he followed his friends.
"Ui, I guess I am in love..."
***
Halfway to NERV-headquarters Shinji and Reihad left the others, entering the geofront
and walking up to a side-entry.
When they reach their destination they faced again the redhaired girl which stood before
the massive steeldoor gesticulating with an ID-card in front of the scanner.
"Why does this not work? Kaputt oder was?" (trans: Damaged or what?)
She gave the doors a hearty kick.
"Eh..." Shinji said.
She turned around on her heels, scanning the two.
"You... I know you! What are you two doing here?"
Rei pulled out her ID-card, passed her and ran it throw the scanner.
The securitydoors opened.
"Shinji, are you coming?"
"Uhm, yes."
"That can´t be true!" the redhaired girl shouted. Her ID-card was of the same kind. "You
can be the First and the Third Children?!"
"But we are." Rei said.
"Uh, yes, that´s us." Shinji confirmed.
"Unbelieveable!"
***
EVA-Hangar:
Misato smile broadly while introducing the redhaired girl.
"That´s Asuka Soryu Langley, the Second Children and pilot of EVA-02."
The redhair behaving completly changed, smiled friendly.
"Hello, nice to meet you."
Shinji looked to Rei who returned the greeting with unmoving face before mumbling a
hello by himself.
Unit zero and one had gotten some company in unit two. The new EVANGELION was bright red
coloured, they knew it already from the movie they had seen earlier this day. But now
Shinji saw the biggest difference between the new EVA and the other two units.
"Uhm, that´s a shoulderhalter, isn´t it?"
Misato nodded.
"Yes, a special production."
"Why don´t we have something like this?"
"Because I gave my protests at the right time" Asuka explained with a voice sweet as sugar. "I mean, who builds a giant robot and equips it only with a little knife, that´s... absurd."
Her japan had a heavy foreign accent but was otherwise stainless.
"It´s worse enough to be dependend on an extension cord."
Ritsuko Akagi growled unfavorable since she had designed the EVAs this way.
"Asuka was trained as a sniper." Misato expained.
Asuka stroke a pose.
"Nobody´s faster than me!"
Misato laughted.
Shinji swallowed, sweat on his brow.
Rei didn´t react.
***
"What, she´s an EVA-pilot, too?" Touji coughed the next day in school after hearing Shinji´s report about what had happened. "Are the high-ups at NERV really that desperate?
Boy, I feel truely sorry for you."
"I envy you!" Kensuke explained.
Hikari had the rolled-up newspaper ready, just in case. In the last time she had practiced with one in each hand.
"Well, at least you will have your peace here at school since she already finished school..."
Shinji allowed himself a reliefed nod.
Then he saw Asuka coming in...
***
After school Asuka intercepted Shinji and Rei by walking into their path.
"I have some questions!"
Rei blinked, the only sign that she didn´t liked the way Asuka acted.
"Öh, what do you want to know?" Shinji asked hoping to finish this as fast as possible.
"You are the Commander´s son, aren´t you?"
"... yes... he´s my father."
"Okay, that explains why you are here. - And you, First, they say you are the favourite
of the Commander, does this have some special reason?"
Rei started to move, passed Asuka without paying any further attention.
"What is the sense of this question?"
Asuka grabbed her arm, pulled her around, raised the other hand as if she wanted to hit
her.
"Look at me when I am talking to you!"
Shinji grabbed the raised hand at the wrist without thinking.
"Stop this!"
Asuka looked from Rei to Shinji.
"Ah, now I understand" she hissed and walked away with fast pace.
Shinji watched her leave.
"If we will get along with her?"
"If I am ordered... but only if I am ordered", Rei mumbled.
"Lets go home."
"Yes."
For a while they went side by side, then suddenly Rei hooked her arm into Shinji´s.
Her nearly stumble, smiled puzzled. She didn´t meet his gaze.
***
Shinji and Rei stood in the kitchen at the workspace and prepared dinner, this time
it was Rei who did the cooking while Shinji cut the vegatables into small piece.
On the stoves were several cooking pots, Rei was stiring up in one of them.
"Is this alright?" she asked and presented Shinji a spoon with sauce.
He sniffed.
"Let me taste it."
She brought the spoon to his lips, he tasted carefully not to burn his lips.
"Hm, good! Rei, if you continue to cook that good Misato won´t need me anymore and throw
me out of the door."
"She wouldn´t do this... Oh, I understand, a compliment. Thank you." She smiled, winked.
"But if she did I would throw her out and let you back in through the window."
"Ah..."
Again he found himself searching for words. The original two weeks she should have stayed
were long over, but no one had talked about this. Each day she had opened up a little
more, had others allowed to come into contact with her. Of course she was still far away
from being an ordinary fourteen-soon fifteen year old girl, but she had chosen the right
path...
***
"He wanted to protect me... why? He knows that I am able to defend myself... He cares for
me... I... It feels strange... He looks at me and my heart beats faster..."
***
Kyoto, The Temple of the Brotherhood:
The abbot welcomed his guest with a nod.
Without a word the whitehaired man sat down on his heels.
"I am grateful for your hospitality, Sifu."
"I´ve asked Thou to come. And I am grateful that Thou came."
"Of course, neither the Hermetic Order nor the Brotherhood have the ressources for greater action after the Impact."
"And considering your attempt to change the lokal paradigm, the way people think about
magic..."
"Yes, I guess I am the only one still able to work true magic in a city like Tokio-3."
The whitehaired smiled thinly. He emaned an aura of cold.
"Within the borders of Tokio-3 creatures of the Deep Umbra really have appeared. If we
manage to find out where and how they are crossing the mirror, we might find a way to
pass the Tempest and bring back the lost."
"Yes... but one have to be a Mage of the Hermetic Order to make such plans."
"I have survived the Inquisition, the French Revolution, a student turned Nephandi, two
World Wars, the Technocracy, the end of the Ascencion War and the Second Impact. And I
am damned if some bloody aliens should manage what the last eight century couldn´t."
"What are Thou planning?"
"At first I will spend some time in Tokio-3 to get the picture..."
"Be careful, within the city borders chi simply vanishes, this places seems to simply drink Quintessence like a dry sponge.
"I already felt this, but it shouldn´t be a problem, since I have the old powers of the Order at my disposal."
"Your power is older than the Council of Nine."
"Yes, I´m still working with Bonisagus´ Theory, as the Brotherhood still walks the paths
of the Dô."
"I don´t know exactly what Tohu are talking about, but Thou have the trust of the Brotherhood since Thou accompained our delegation to the Great Conclave."
The whitehaired just nodded.
"I am grateful for your trust, Sifu, but I am not sure if I am still worth it."
"Thou are talking about the defeat at LaRochelle."
"Yes, Sifu... I was the general of the Traditions´ forces and I was the sole survivor..."
"And this guilt rests on your shoulders."
"Too many died under my command. I lost the future to the Technocracy... I lost those who
placed their trust in me..."
"Hm... come, maybe we should meditate."
