+++++ Tokyo-3 Intercontinental. Tuesday, +14.

The bulk of Shinji's morning had been dedicated to learning. He didn't feel it was appropriate to ask what was wrong with Verðandy, who hurried into the bedroom after he and Funaho had exited, nor where she might have gone when she didn't quickly reappear. As much as he wanted to tell her that while he understood her hang-ups about pre-marital sex, that he wasn't going to switch back to a life of pious celibacy just because a god he'd never met insisted, he wanted more to allow her to be her own woman despite everything that had been taken from her. When the afternoon rolled around, a pair of visitors showed up that he'd definitely not anticipated. Standing quickly, he greeted Hikari and Sakura enthusiastically, "Hello! Thank you for coming over. I'm sorry, if I had known you were coming, I would have cleaned up a bit."

"Shinji," Hikari walked over and took his hands in hers to smile at him with amused fondness, "you have hotel employees whose job it is to clean up."

"From the looks of it, my employees have not been lax about their duties," Sakura looked around with an eye towards ensuring her guest was well kept. "If you feel this should be cleaner, please do pass along what flaws you find to the maître d'hôtel."

Shinji mouthed the strange words, trying to find anything to use to understand what she'd said. "I…don't know that phrase."

"That is why we are here." Hikari shook his hands, conjuring up excitement. "We were told what happened to you while you were at sea for a day. Nanako told us that you don't speak any foreign languages, which we should have figured out ourselves. Since English is a mandatory subject for T-three graduates, we're going to spend some time training your tongue."

Leaning slightly to the side, Sakura addressed the calmly smiling Funaho, "We will be taking him on a tour of possible homes now, Your Majesty. With your permission, of course."

"My Knight?" Funaho's hopes were met when Shinji only freed one hand so that he could turn and face her, instead of forsaking Hikari entirely. "Your charge for today, and tonight, is to serve these two most favored daughters of Jurai as you would serve me. Protect them, as you would protect me. Take from them, what they offer to give." Switching from formality to familiarity, she gave him a vaguely maternal smile. "Have fun."

Turning Shinji around, Hikari urged him to help Sakura. "Here, you push. I'll get the buttons."

Before he took a step forward, Shinji hesitated. "I…need to go get Ðandy." With his permanent partner doing something on the opposite side of the hotel suite, he could already feel the System Force's confused efforts to draw both of them towards one another. Ducking quickly out of the room, he made his way to the bedroom, where he could feel her presence. Knocking, which was only polite, he pulled the door to just enough to try and see if she was 'ok'. "Ðandy?" When he caught sight of her, she was sitting on the bed holding something in her hands. Standing behind her was a miniature humanoid with pure white wings. The smaller creature looked to him, then motioned for him to come in. The sorrow etched on her features was criminal in Shinji's mind, and it was with no small amount of reverence that he approached and settled down on his knees to not 'loom' over friend or visitor. "Ðandy, what's wrong?"

Clearly able to understand Shinji's question, the tiny human began to speak in a voice that reminded him of the song he heard whenever he used the Light Hawk Wing. There was a purpose, an intent behind each sound. Words and sentences could not convey what she was trying to pass along, but the tolling of bells managed to suffice enough for now.

Shuffling to the side a little, trying to get to where she could see him easier, Shinji caught sight of a ring and three earrings in Ðandy's cupped palms. The Norn wasn't sobbing, but tears had been shed over the jewelry. "Ðandy…how can I help?"

The Norn's voice was weak, lacking the strength and force she typically carried with her, "He lied to me."

Now, as most made sense to him, Shinji's first train of thought was how he might have misled her. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lie to you. What did I say?"

Horror, mixed with pain, grew in her eyes as Ðandy looked slowly up to him. "No," she stated with holy fervor. "No, you did not lie to me. You…you would not lie to me."

Thoroughly confused now, Shinji shook his head slowly. "I…I'm going to try not to. I mean, I don't know everything…so I might from time to time say something I think is true, but it ends up being a lie because I didn't know any better. Like, uhm…like if I told you we're having cheese for dinner tonight, and then it turns out we aren't. I thought we were, but I lied because I thought wrong."

"Because you're a good man," Ðandy agreed. "Because you…you like having me around."

While true, he didn't feel that was the entire story. "Because I wouldn't want you to lie to me, more." He hated to correct her, but he wouldn't do exactly what she was clearly fearing because it was uncomfortable. "My whole life was a lie…it sucked. Now, people are telling me the truth, and I'm happier. I'm not going to lie to anyone, not if I can help it. If the truth hurts me, at least I know that nothing could be done about it. If…you know, if the truth hurts you…."

"Then you will do whatever you must to help me heal." Seeing the earnest young man before her in a new light, she grew sad for a far different reason. "I have hurt you so badly, Shinji…."

"You…have?"

"You're stuck with me now, and instead of doing what you want you're in here with a woman who shoved her way into your life because she's stupid and worthless and-" The sudden impact of Shinji hugging her cut her off, causing her to drop the remnants of her old life to accept the new in her arms.

"No." He would not let her do that to herself. "No, everyone has value. Everyone. Even…even my father, and I hate him so much it makes me furious. You were just trying to help me, Ðandy. It's not your fault that the System Force took things way too literally. And you're not stupid, either," pulling back, he smiled broadly in an effort to cheer her up, "I mean, you speak how many languages? I can barely speak one." Catching sight of the tiny winged humanoid, and the way she was urging him to continue bolstering Ðandy, Shinji turned that to a positive as well, "You see, even your friend here thinks you're a good person." Lightly taking the wee woman's hand, he urged her to stand equidistant from him and Ðandy. What he didn't see was the shock on Verðandy's face or the look of amazement on his new acquaintance's. "You have people who care about you. If someone's worthless, then…then they wouldn't have that, right? If you have even one tiny voice on your side, human, or…or goddess, or like her," he glanced towards the miniature person and shared a glowing smile with her, "you have value. She's here because she cares. I'm here because I care."

"You're…touching my soul." Verðandy's whisper lingered in the air for several heartbeats. "You're touching my soul…and it doesn't hurt." She watched as her familiar freed her hand from Shinji's, only to dance up along his arm to sit on his head with the same amazement glowing off of her that she felt in her own heart. "You shouldn't be able to do that…by the rules you can't do that!"

Looking up into a pair of joyous eyes gazing down at him from his crown, Shinji did what came naturally. "Oh…I'm sorry." He realized how long it had been, and that he had been keeping Hikari and Sakura waiting. "I…ok, yeah," he shifted his thinking to accommodate what he thought was best, "I should go tell Hikari and Sakura that I need to stay here with you. That you need me right now, and that-" He silenced himself when Ðandy set her fingers on his lips.

"Holy Bell," she addressed the angel on his scalp, "thank you. I think I understand a bit better now."

Kissing Shinji on the forehead, Holy Bell said something to him in her language that rang of gratitude. Afterwards, she vanished.

Standing up and drawing Shinji with her, Verðandy was once more a self-possessed woman of grace and beauty. "Let us go and spend time with your friends. It would be terrible if you became homebound thinking that every time I began to cry you had to stay with me." Hesitating for just a moment, she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "As sweet as it is to know that I matter that dearly, we should put our best effort into…into growing our ship's crew."

+++++ Tokyo-3, Executive Residential District. Tuesday, +14.

"And as you can see, the view is quite wonderful from the master bedroom." Sakura had shown Shinji seven different properties, with seven different styles of living, each no less or more luxurious than the last. The current house, large enough to qualify as 'obscene', had been constructed to look more akin to a traditional Japanese manor from the fifteenth century. "Overlooking the nearby lake during the day, and directly in line with the setting sun in the evening."

As it stood, each home Shinji had been shown just felt…wasteful. "There are a lot of rooms on this floor." Memories of Ritsuko's building came to mind, causing him a brief shudder of anxiety. "I guess I'm not really sure what I'll do with so much space."

"House your crew, silly," Verðandy teased gently. "Having somewhere safe and warm to come home to is the only thing that helps get you through tough times." With the same hopeful smile she'd used all day, she looked to Hikari. "Don't you agree?"

What had started out for Hikari as simple diplomatic grace had become something of a bourgeoning friendship with the pleasant Norn. "I know that after a day of dealing with the hooligans in my school, my bed is the best place in the world." From her place on Verðandy's arm, she eyed Shinji curiously. "Are you not happy with any of the options? Sakura-chan has others."

"I…." Shinji breathed out a sigh. "I don't want to choose something that's going to make anyone unhappy." Gesturing to the window, he continued, "The view is amazing, but how close is it to where other people need to go? Would this make strategic sense as a location given my need to pilot Unit-01 at a moment's notice? Are there enough rooms for those who consider themselves a part of my crew? Would they like the rooms available? Could…could I raise children here?" He deflated. "Should I raise children at all?"

"Your travel would be the furthest away from this house," Sakura began. "I chose this location because there is a highway that is a direct line between here and NERV, which would allow for an emergency ground vehicle to transport you there at a moment's notice in under five minutes. The land around the house is spacious enough to allow for a large growth of the compound in total while maintaining the traditional aesthetics of your nation's history. Each room is sized appropriately for up to two people, with enough space for personalization and sharing. The two closest schools have received high marks on recent mandated testing, and I personally believe you will be an amazing father with your drive to protect, shelter, and care for others." Concluding, she looked at him with an impassive mien, "Do you have any other concerns? Would it help if we brought out a chalkboard and laid out options in a more compact format?"

Hikari moved away from Ðandy, towards the large window to sit on the windowsill and add her own thoughts. "How large is your crew? Do you think it will grow larger? Do you want it to grow larger?" She rolled a finger vaguely around his outline. "Your thoughts and opinions matter too, Shinji. You can't just do for everyone else and ignore yourself. It's not healthy, it's not fair to anyone around you, and it will eventually cause you to end up hurting them when you collapse under your own weight."

"Well," Ðandy began to list who she knew of those that had 'self-selected', "there is Minaho Masaki, Nanako Dojima," she blushed slightly and tapped her chest, "myself…I believe that Washu is a part of this group as well. I would not dare speak for Their Majesties, but they might enjoy a room set aside for themselves as well, for when they visit." Confident, but not willing to speak for the other ladies present, she gestured vaguely towards Sakura.

"It would not be appropriate for me to presume," the wheelchair-bound beauty demurred. "He is an Imperial Knight, and while my father is well-connected…I am no royal."

Shinji's right index finger twitched, a reflexive urge to raise his hand choked off in the less formal setting. "You…are interested?"

Lifting her chin enough to meet his question with dignity, she declared simply, "I am."

"I…I'm honored." He staved off a look of flat disbelief well enough to make the follow-on question less unfortunately hilarious, "Would you…I mean, how do…."

"Generally how we accomplish it, in Juraian society, is by kissing our new partner and promising to do everything you can to support the whole crew." Hikari's smirk was jubilant. "I'll let Sakura-chan go first, since she's older than me."

"By four months," Sakura retorted with a level stare. "You act as if I'm old and doddering sometimes!"

"But you're my senpai," she spoke with faux innocence, "I'm supposed to look up to you in all things."

After both girls began laughing at themselves and one another, Shinji's heart warmed. These were good people, with good spirits…and they wanted to waste…spend their lives with him. "I…uh…." He blushed. "I would be honored if both, or either, of you joined the crew. I'm not the best…well, anything really, but captain in this instance. I do promise that you won't receive anything less than my best."

His blush was soon replicated on both Hikari's and Sakura's cheeks. It was the latter that, by tradition, spoke first, "I believe I should like very much to seal our bargain with a kiss now, My Lord."

Dropping to one knee next to her chair, Shinji made a valiant effort at not upending her as he carefully gave her the promised kiss. Feeling her lips against his was far different than it had been for the others, as for once it appeared that he had more experience in the art than his newest crewmember. After what felt to be long enough to not push Ðandy any further, he pulled back and looked into her glowing eyes with fire raging in his heart. "I…am blessed that so many wonderful women are willing to…." His eyes darkened, his gaze moving back towards the window.

As he stood up, Sakura showed genuine worry that she had somehow upset him, "Shinji? Shinji, what's wrong?"

Dashing over to the window, he leaned out and waved to get Sig's attention, "Get the car ready! We've got to get to NERV now!" Turning around and moving directly towards Sakura, he took charge of their retreat. "Ðandy, please grab her chair." He scooped up the woman he'd just promised to protect and hurried through the door to the stairs. "An Angel's approaching."

+++++ NERV Tokyo-3. Tuesday, +14.

Intercepting Shinji on the gantries leading towards the Evas, Maya Ibuki prevented him from getting closer, "Whoa, whoa, Shinji, no." Standing between him and Unit-01, she held her arms in an 'X'. "You just received a serious back injury! You were in a wheelchair a day and a half ago; you're not approved for undergoing the strain of a launch."

About to argue that he felt fine, Shinji realized that she wasn't wrong. He had been healed, by someone, at an unnatural rate. "Maya…I can't just let them go up alone! We don't know what this one's capable of, and I'm the only one with actual close combat experience!"

"You've been ordered to stand in reserve, by the commander himself." It was evident on Maya's tomboyish features that she didn't like mentioning Gendo in front of him, but she was going to stop him from boarding by any means she had available. "Come on, let's get up to the bridge." Stepping close enough to both support him as she would any injured patient, and to side-hug him in a way that was clearly driven with romantic intent, she kept her attention on him while herding him to the stairwell that would take them to her position. "You can sit by me. I have a line to the pilots, so if you have advice for them or if you see something going wrong, you can be there to support your team."

Glancing back to Unit-01 and praying that Ðandy would understand the need to extend her isolation, he countered, "If you let me sit in Unit-01, ready to go in case everything goes wrong…I'll take you to any restaurant you want after the Angel's dead." A part of him knew it was wrong to use her attraction to him to get where he wanted to go, but by the same token he accepted that the deal was win-win. He wanted to spend more time with the cheery human woman, he wanted to see if she might be willing to see behind the curtains of his life. He trusted her. He needed to trust that Ðandy would see the need.

"I'd take the deal, Maya-kun," Shinji's wrist spoke with Misato's voice. "Pretty sure he has more money than we think he does, and good connections to people that don't mind spoiling him a little."

Shinji looked down at his wrist, the bangle upon it that controlled the suit displaying a blinking red light. "I…forgot I had a phone-thingy on me. How do I turn that off?"

"You don't, during combat operations," Misato replied with a fond laugh. "Let him go sit in the Eva, Lieutenant. I'll hold him to his deal once we have this asshole in the rearview mirror."

The pout on Maya's face just increased how attractive she was in Shinji's eyes. "Any restaurant, I swear." He wouldn't say one thing and do another, certainly not to someone he was beginning to realize he felt so strongly about.

Maya looked up at him again. "My place. You buy the ingredients, we cook dinner together, and have a nice discussion about something unrelated to Evangelions."

"Sold." He wasn't a great chef, but he would give her his all. "Thank you, Maya…for caring about my safety."

Standing up on her toes, she brushed her lips against his in a chaste kiss before turning away and giving him a view of what she felt to be her best feature as it swayed enticingly while she jogged to her station. If she'd had eyes in the back of her head, she would have cheered at the way that Shinji had a difficult time tearing himself away from watching her go.

"Should a 'Captain' be flirting with a junior officer during a crisis?" The vaguely familiar voice of the man who'd upset Misato came through the speaker on Shinji's wrist as he moved towards Unit-01. "I would think he'd rather lead by example, with two impressionable young women in his unit."

"Find somewhere else to stand, 'Special Agent'," Misato growled in reply. "Your position may give you clearance to be on the bridge during combat operations, but it does not give you clearance to be anywhere near me."

"Your microphone's on," he poked at her.

"Yes, because I have nothing I want or need to say to you that I can't or won't say in front of my pilots. Elsewhere, Agent, or I'll ask General Masaki if she could lend that ape with her to help you find a new place to stand."

On the platform lift up to Unit-01, one of the engineers that was there to help Shinji flicked off the microphone in his plugsuit's bangle. "Don't listen to him, sir. Nothing wrong at all with Lieutenant Ibuki catching your eye." The middle-aged woman had dour features that seemed to simply be a genetic legacy, contrasting with the warmth that she used in addressing him. "Neither of you are in each other's chain, and she's well loved around Engineering. You'd do far worse than her, in this woman's opinion."

Seeing the other engineer, an older man, nod in agreement Shinji smiled and ducked his head in thanks. "Thank you, ma'am. I…think she's really nice, myself."

Turning the microphone back on and ruffling his hair, she displayed a contented smile. "That's how you operate the suit, sir. Need to know how to turn it on and off to keep people's privacy in the lockers before and after combat."

Understanding the ruse, Shinji replied with a slightly exaggerated, "Thank you. I wouldn't want to accidentally make it so people had to listen to someone they wanted nothing to do with." If the Special Agent didn't leave Misato alone, he might just leave the microphone on while he kicked the smug asshole's teeth in.

"A good policy, Shinji." Misato clearly understood what he'd meant, and just as clearly was thanking him for speaking up in support of her position. "Ok, I'm seeing we're still two minutes away from Unit-02 being launch ready, folks. Let's go around the room and make sure all the pretty ponies are lined up at the gate."

+++++ NERV Tokyo-3. Tuesday, +14.

Once Units -02 and -00 were topside, Shinji was patched into the same view that Misato had of the situation. Forced to watch them approach the starfish shaped Angel, while not being a part of the fight himself, his fists remained clenched tight as he assessed the threat. "Be careful of its limbs," he stated confidently during one lull in radio chatter, "every Angel I've fought is really…stretchy."

Without missing a beat, Asuka snarked back, "Even the one you fought in my Eva?"

"Pilot Soryu, you should listen to the voice of experience," Misato replied tartly. "Focus on the enemy. Unit-00, I want you to sweep left to keep a clear line of fire on this bastard. Unit-02, approach-"

"What kind of amateur hour bullshit have you been engaging in?" Dashing forward with her long glaive, Asuka jumped in the air to add further momentum to her overhead downward swing against the center mass of the Angel. Following through the strike, she sliced the top third of the Angel nearly clean off. Spinning her glaive in a showy manner, she turned away from the sight and slammed the butt of her spear into the ground. "And that's how it's done. Battles should be clean and efficient, Captain."

Both Shinji and Rei saw the same thing occurring just as Misato was about to tear into Asuka for her stunt. In sync with one another, the two pilots called out, "Behind you!" Before Asuka either felt like listening or could respond, the Angel had split into two differently colored copies of the single version that had approached NERV. Rei shouldered her pallet rifle and began firing at center-mass in an attempt to support Asuka's retreat, Asuka was barely able to get her glaive back up into a defensive posture before the Angel not actively under fire slapped it out of her hands and swept her legs to send her to the ground after cutting her umbilical cable.

"Damn it," Misato swore quietly. "Unit-00, try and peel your target off to give -02 room to breathe. Science, battery check on -02?"

"Four minutes twenty-three seconds," Maya called back quickly.

"-02, you need to get that thing off you and get to Juliet Seventeen!" Turning around, she asked exactly what Shinji wanted to hear, "Permission to launch -01 in support?"

Shinji could feel his father's eyes upon him, forced to wait for crucial heartbeats before hearing what he thought the only reasonable answer, "Granted."

"Increasing LCL pressure," Ritsuko called out. "Shinji, go limp. You're going to have tunnel vision and worse, but if you tense up your back is going to give out on you."

"Roger," he replied impatiently. "Ready for launch."

"Give 'em hell, Shinji," Misato encouraged. "Unit-01, launch!"

The ride up hurt worse for having to look as if he was laying limp. The narrowing wasn't much worse than it normally was, which he attributed to his actual body and not the fake image others saw, but the lack of muscle tension in his extremities meant that they felt like they were being pulled off at each and every joint. That narrowing, however, meant that the fifteen seconds between launch and arrival had gone past without his awareness of the situation on the ground. Arriving above ground, at a position perpendicular to the line of combat, he inwardly grimaced as he saw Unit-02 buried up to the hip in a hole in the ground. Unit-00 was engaged in a fighting retreat, clearly moving only fast enough to keep the twin starfish focused on her instead of the easy kill that was Unit-02. The fraction of a second it had taken him to process everything was already too long, to him. Setting himself in a reckless charge, he called out the plan, "Rei, when I reach you, we're going to attack the Angel closest to the other of us. How copy?"

"Understood," Rei murmured, focused on the two-on-one she was dealing with.

Misato saw his idea, approving of it, "Good call, One. Do the unexpected to regain the front foot. Zero, on contact go high. One, you take the low path and give Zero room to work back towards Juliet Seventeen. If we can keep Two powered, she might be able to get back in the fight once she regains consciousness."

Once more in tandem, Rei and Shinji replied sharply, "Understood!"

The plan, unusually, survived contact with the enemy intact. Unit-01 and Shinji speared the darker starfish in the lower portion of its center mass, driving it to the ground and grinding its face into the rocky surface for hundreds of meters. Unit-00 tackled the lighter starfish, tangling the Angel in its own freshly ejected umbilical to give herself time and room to run past towards Unit-02. Unit-00 reached its destination and plugged both itself and Unit-02 in, then charged back to begin peppering her responsibility with a fusillade of tractor trailer sized bullets.

"I don't see the orb," Shinji shouted over the sounds and sensations of him wrestling with his opponent, intertwined with Unit-01 calling out for death to the enemy. "Rei?"

"When they became two, the orb was sheltered behind the bony dome at their center." Her own speech and tone remained unruffled as she kept her distance against the lumbering strikes of her foe, "I do not know if one or both now have it, or if there is a way to determine as much."

"There's always a way," Shinji declared confidently, drawing back one of his fists. A Light Hawk Wing cracked into existence along his forearm to stick out as a blade beyond his fist, the crystalline song coating his mind once more. "We find one," he smashed his fist against the bony dome he'd been directed to, "or we make one." The blade made contact with what appeared to be a secondary A.T. Field. The blazing white light of his weapon against a mass of white, black, and red static. Roaring out with determination, he felt his foe go from trying to strike him to using all of its limbs to keep him from driving that blade home.

Keeping her voice calm and her nerves steady, Misato tried to inform Shinji of the situation behind him as Rei cried out in pain before going silent. Zero's down, One. Angel bull rushed her and smashed her head backwards violently. You've got incoming on your six."

Hearing his misunderstood ally's scream punched through his dwindling reserves of calm. Where other versions of him might have panicked at the thought of a two-on-one fight, or might simply have chosen to play defensively while anxiously hoping for someone to save them, this Shinji chose a much more…brutal path. Determination became rage, green became red, and through the union between him and Unit-01 he took more direct control over the fight.

Bouncing off of his current target, and summoning a second Light Hawk Wing to aid him in his fight, Shinji unleashed his wrath via the twin-bladed staff he created from pure thought. Never focusing for more than two strikes on the same target, but constantly altering his combos and where they struck, he tapped into some inner knowledge that he would swear on his life he did not have. A plan, as much as one could plan when angered beyond reason, formed once he felt his umbilical be severed by one of the twin angels.

Unit-01 placed itself in a position midway between the two Angels so that they were at his twelve and six o'clock, faking a forward lunge to bait the Angel behind him into going for his exposed back, then driving himself backwards to combine his momentum with the Angel's momentum to slam one end of his spear through the bony protrusion and into the potential core. The plan worked too well, baiting the Angel ahead of him to also lunge forward. Twisting the spear to impale that Angel as well left him unguarded on his left flank, which led to one of the two smashing a sharpened appendage into Unit-01's throat, and into the entry plug itself.

Shinji blacked out quickly, through pain and what felt to be increasing cold, but held on long enough to witness his success. The Angel in front of him had been the one with the core, and his final desperate gambit had won the fight.

+++++ NERV Tokyo-3. Tuesday, +14.

Shinji woke up coughing, feeling Unit-01 in motion. Whether it was a sudden bounce or the shouted warning from Misato, he was now conscious. "Ugh…augh, that stuff is vile." Choking out the last of the LCL, he spit repeatedly to try and clear his mouth. "Did we win? Did the Angels wake back up?"

Responding with the merest hint of relief in her voice, Rei congratulated him on his success, "You killed them both, Shinji-san. Your cameras are down, are you seriously injured?"

Asuka's interruption was much more venomous than Shinji would have ever dreamed of being, "Of course he's seriously injured, you maniac! His entry plug was cracked open, and he had a broken back before he even hit the field!"

Keeping himself from being a hypocrite regarding what he'd said to Nanako aboard the Over The Rainbow, though just barely, Shinji added his own words to Rei's question, "I'm somewhere between the Fifth Angel and the Third, Rei-chan. I'm cold, but there's no serious bleeding that I can see. How are you two holding up?"

"I am well," Rei responded with a deeper tone of relief.

"Yeah, well I'm not," Asuka rejoined. "Your semi-animate doll there managed to ruin my debut fight."

I'm not going to yell. I'm not going to yell. "One, Rei is not a semi-animate doll. She is a feeling, thinking, human that has had my back every time we've fought together. Two, she is not anyone's human. She is her own person, free to make whatever choices she will." Keeping his volume even and free of anger was becoming harder and harder the more he thought of how Asuka's statements were reflecting the way his father treated Rei. "Three, she saved you. This is twice now you've shown a serious lack of gratitude for your teammates." He felt the 'ka-chunk' of Unit-01 hitting the end of its ride down, and looked over through the ruined side of his entry plug to see the two engineers frowning and shaking their heads in disbelief. "I think you should apologize to Rei-chan, Soryu-san. We're all on the same team, we rise or fall together."

After several long seconds of silence, Misato decided that it was time to at least move on from the bad and focus on the good. Watching as Shinji was carefully helped out and securely put on the platform that would lower him to the gantries, she changed the topic, "We did a good job of keeping this fight from rolling over into the nearby residential zones, the shelters are all reporting zero damage or casualties. City works is actually saying that the only damage to the main city itself was an area already slated for demolition, so all in all I'd say we earned our sleep tonight folks."

Shinji looked over to Rei's lift, only slightly behind his in moving her down to the gantries. Putting on the warm smile he felt inside, knowing that she was still alive and that she'd done everything she could to protect him, he raised a fist in greeting and camaraderie. "Great job out there, Rei-chan! We're upright and they're not, that's a win to me." Even from the distance between them, he could see her blushing. Her response was non-verbal, but welcome all the same, as she bowed in recognition and gratitude.

Once they were on the main gantry, the pair of pilots moved towards one another to speak without having to yell over the sounds of the engineering teams doing what they did best. Rei's face remained serene, despite her light blush, while watching as Shinji let his good cheer flow outwards on approach, until she caught sight of Asuka hurrying over angrily. "Shinji-" Her warning was cut short as Asuka grabbed Shinji's arm, turned him towards her, and cracked him across the face with a full-arm slap. At this, something within Rei grew dark with an unfamiliar wave of emotions.

"That was for stealing Unit-02." Asuka glared death into Shinji's face, almost daring him to strike her in retort.

Surprising Rei as she went to move between him and Asuka, Shinji gently set one hand on her shoulder and halted her forward progress. Without looking back at the bluenette, he stopped holding back quite as hard on his temper. "Apologize to Rei…now." Unaware that his face was frozen in stillness, or that his voice carried with it the frost of Cocytus itself, he began to loom over everyone present. "One."

If it hadn't already been evident that Asuka was unlikely to back down, she stuck out her jaw pugnaciously. "What are you going to do, huh? You gonna act like a hypocrite after saving me and attack me?"

"Two."

"Oooh, I'm so scared of the man too chickenshit to join the fight until after the enemy was already weakened."

"You were warned." Taking a final step towards the redheaded irritant, Shinji delivered the tongue lashing he'd been holding back until the pilots were alone, "I do not know what is wrong with you, and to be honest I don't care anymore. You stand up on a raised platform so that I have to look up to see you, all while wearing a flesh-colored thong and a sundress, which is both pathetic and childish. You ask why I have a rank and yet you do not? I would say it's probably because they don't want to give the responsibility that rank implies to someone who is a child. No sane or sensible woman I know, and I know a great many sane and sensible women, would think to wear something so crass for their first meeting with someone intended to be their peer." When she went to speak, he placed his finger directly in front of her nose to silence her. "You then attempt to assert some form of superiority over me because you were given the privilege of being raised in a different country with the opportunity to learn a new language. You knew, and know, nothing about my past or what I have gone through to come here. I may have ignored it in the moment, in an attempt to try and see eye-to-eye with you as comrades and peers, but I did take note of it. Why? Not because I was trying to find weaknesses or seek ways to hurt you, but because I wanted to give you a chance to show who you truly are before I said anything one way or another. Perhaps you're just thoughtless, but well-intentioned. Maybe you're inexperienced in interpersonal conflicts and didn't know that what you were doing was rude. Maybe you're just a bitch." Dropping his hand again, he growled out the end of the discussion, "Rei-chan went up there, as ordered. She waited for our Tactical Commander to set the play, because we trust her to do more than just stand up there and look fantastic in jeans and a blouse. She did her job. You, on the other hand, decided to strike out under your own initiative without coordinating with your team. You created a situation that put your team at a severe disadvantage. You nearly got yourself and your peer killed." He slammed his thumb against his chest. "I didn't save anybody today, what I did was clean up your solo horseshit while Rei did everything she could to try and keep you from dying. So either you apologize to Rei-chan, or you get the fuck out of my sight before I throw your ass over this railing."

Asuka's cherry-red face was twitching with indescribable emotion, she had her fists balled and kept her eyes locked on Shinji's despite the sudden recognition of both the height and strength difference between them. Without another word she turned on her heel and stormed away, bouncing off of several members of the Engineering teams that decided she could go around them.

The silence echoing in the bay was broken after half of a minute by Misato, "Captain Ikari, I would like to speak with you in the meeting room after you are showered and dressed. Thank you."

His one-word reply came through clenched teeth, "Roger."