There wasn't supposed to be anyone left in the little fishing village on
the northern tip of Sakhalin Island. The weather was pleasant enough now
after the climactic changes caused by the Second Impact. There certainly
was enough fish now to suppport an economy. The island that was seized from
the Japanese at the end of the Great Patriotic War simply no longer had a
population, every single man, woman and child killed in the Third Impact.
Which suited the nameless fisherman well. He had a name once, which would
instantly identify him as Chinese, but he simply no longer had any use for
it. When there was no one else to compare yourself with, a name had no
purpose. The singularity that was his existence did not need validation
from others. He had lived happily alone in the deserted village, feeding
off the sea, a steady catch of salmon and shrimp keeping him alive, alone
and happy.
Thus, that afternoon, when he saw the naked woman washed up on the beach, he was quite disturbed. She seemed Japanese, with long straight bluish- black hair that reached halfway down her back. She was covered all over in seaweed and sand, her face was half-buried in the sand with just enough space between her nose and the wet sand to let her breathe. She was breathing all right, the nameless fisherman noted, her back rising and falling with each breath. He had come back from death himself, and he had heard about how everyone else came back, but this was the first time he had saw someone else's return. He held her by the shoulders and turned her over, the gentle lapping of the waves lapping around the unconscious woman's ankles.
She had a heart-shaped face, framed by wet strands of hair. Her body was lithe and strong, and felt so comfortably soft in his hands. He swallowed hard, the dark fires of lust suddenly burning inside of him. He briefly fought his conscience, then started to touch her, roughly bringing his hands upon her breasts, ignoring the ugly scar that ran down her chest. He began to breathe heavily, and his hands were practically mauling her as he savored this latest catch from the sea.
His heavy stroking and brute ministrations woke the woman up, but he wasn't aware of that, as his face was too deeply buried in her breasts. He heard her sharp intake of breath, then everything went black as her fist struck him square in the temple, knocking him out.
Misato kicked her would-be rapist off her, then she staggered to her feet, looking left and right in confusion.
"Where am I?" she asked aloud. She wondered what was going on. She remembered sending Shinji off to the Eva hangars, and she knew she was laying face down on the cold floor outside the elevator, dying. She gasped and checked her back and chest, looking for bullet wounds that were no longer there, not even leaving a scar.
Misato was now very confused, rather cold and very, very naked. She looked down on the form of the man she took out, her lips forming a determined scowl as she set about her task.
First, clothes, she thought. Then find out what the hell is going on, and find Shinji-kun.
"He needs me, " she thought to herself. "He's calling for me."
NEON
GENESIS
EVANGELION
A3I: A False Return to Life
That very afternoon, Shinji and Hikari were walking each other home from school. It had been less than two weeks since Asuka was vaporized in an explosion fighting the Thirteenth Angel, but Shinji was now back at school and trying to get himself an education.
Going back to school so quickly surprised everyone, but most of all, Shinji himself. He mver could have believed he had the willpower to continue schooling after all that had happened.
Hikari glanced at Shinji, his face blank. She was so surprised to see him turn up in school so soon after Asuka's death, but she had hugged him welcome nonetheless. He had kept quiet in class, as usual, but she noticed that unlike the other Eva pilots in the past,he was actually trying to learn in class. Asuka was there only to socialize and brush up her Kanji, and Rei was merely window dressing.
"Have you finished your homework, Shinji?" Hikari asked, breaking the silence.
"Yes," Shinji replied meekly. He continued to walk on in silence. "It's very hard to do."
Hikari furrowed her brow at the remark. "The homework? " she asked, unsure.
"I have to do it all on my own, " Shinji replied quietly. "Asuka's not around to help me with it anymore." Shinji lowered his head again, as silence returned to envelop them both. They walked a few more minutes through the streets of Tokyo-03's only surviving precinct, a neatly arranged suburban array of apartment blocks, now abandoned, and wide empty streets. This is where they both lived through the first wave of Angel attacks, and the days leading up to the Third Impact.
"Shinji," Hikari spoke, disrupting the hypnotic beat of their footsteps on the cracking, dry asphalt. He stopped and looked at her in the eyes.
"Why doesn't it hurt?" Hikari asked suddenly, desperately, unable anymore to keep the question to herself. She took a step closer to him, her eyes scanning his own.
"I don't know," Shinji said in resignation. It was a question he had asked himself without ever finding a satisfactory answer. He asked Misato once, shortly after Rei destroyed her Evangelion against the Sixteenth Angel, but her answer frightened him. He had no wish to ask Ritsuko the same question, for he feared her almost as much as he feared what her answer would be.
"Why are we doing this, Shinji? Why are even in school ? Almost everybody's dead, now Asuka's gone, and we still worry about homework? Shinji, can't you see how stupid all this is?" Hikari said, or rather, blurted out, the words, while her hand made a lightning-quick grab at his arm, reinforcing her point. "What's the point of it all?" She asked again.
"Uhh.. Homeostatis," was Shinji's panicky answer.
"What?" Hikari asked, her grip on his arm loosening in surprise.
"Ritsuko said. all of this, it's proof we're getting on with our lives," Shinji stammered out the words, Ritsuko's words from what seemed an eternity ago coming back to his mind. "She said no matter how much things change, we always try to adapt to it, so we can live on,"
Hikari released Shinji's arm, her own mind digesting the truth that escaped his lips.
"Wow. Ritsuko said that?" Hikari asked again.
Shinji nodded.
"There's no pain for the heartless," Hikari said, and then fell silent again. She started walking again, at first by herself, but then Shinji ran up to her, trying to catch up as she started walking faster and faster, past the abandoned cars that nobody bothered to tow away. Shinji broke out into a small run trying to catch up with her.
"I'll see you in school tomorrow, I think," Hikari said as they approached the building where she lived.
Shortly afterwards, Shinji arrived at his own apartment. He stared at the door blankly for a few minutes, absently reaching in his pocket for the key. He tried one pocket, then the other, then stopped briefly to sigh in frustration, having lost the key for the second time in a week. His knuckles rapped out a secret rhythm on the door, which promplty opened from the inside. The bodyguard inside bowed briefly to him as a measure of respect and greeting. Shinji sighed, walking right past his bodyguard, into his bedroom, closing the door as he threw his tired body onto the bed, staring at the familiar patterns of the ceiling.
Why doesn't it hurt? He asked himself.
Was Hikari right, then? He asked himself again.
Ritsuko said that no matter how the enviroment changes, the living would try to adapt. Ritsuko made sense. Life does go on for her, Shinji noted. Ritsuko was different from before, but she was living her life. In fact, like everyone else, she chose to live her life, Shinji thought silently.
Hikari said that the heartless feel no pain, and she, too, was making sense, although Ritsuko would probably think otherwise. Shinji stared at the ceiling, pondering, his mind slowly beginning to drift far away.
Thousands of miles away, across the Pacific Ocean, Rear-Admiral Richard Alexander Starling walked on solid ground again, the heels of his shoes making dull thumping noises as he walked through the corridors of the Center for Disease Control. His speed was steady, yet he tried hard to control his excitement as he made his way to Lab-E105.
Starling finally reached the door, his hand almost shaking with excitement as he turned the handle. Inside, there was the dull whirr of medical equipment, tubes and flasks, the stereotype of a mad scientist's lab. The project leader was there to greet him.
It seemed like an eternity, dealing with the pleasantries, and the handshake. Starling put on his practiced, easy smile, trying to remind himself that while he had managed to go so far undetected, success was still far away.
"Can I see it?" Starling asked.
A petrri dish filled with something that looked like pink jelly was carefully taken out of what looked like an oven. It was laid on the lab table in front of him. Starling gazed at it for a few moments, then turned again to stare at the man who stood beside him, the leader of the project that would make everything all right again.
"Uh, Doctor Stern, I was expecting something."
"More dramatic, Admiral?" asked the scientist, gesturing at the petri dish. "It hardly works out that way. Take these Langley stem cells. Do you seriously think they'll even let us do this if it weren't for the Impact?"
Starling shrugged indifferently. "I don't see why not. It's key to the Evangelion program."
"But we didn't really care about the Evangelion program then, did we? Entrusted everything to NERV and the UN, for all the good that did everyone,"
"Well, we're making amends for our mistakes now, Doctor. That's what matters. It's just that I can't believe a dead girl is our brightest hope." Starling said, marveling at the potential that laid inert in a petri dish in front of him.
"I wouldn't call her dead. These are still alive," said Stern, tapping the petri dish with a pen.
"What's the next step, then? Clone her?" Starling asked, still eyeing the pinkish substance in the petri dish, the last earthly remains of Asuka Sohryu Langley.
"Possibly. There are many possibilities ."
Starling raised his hand to stop the speech.
"Look, if it gets us a pilot for the Eva, it's good enough for me," he said. He looked at the petri dish again, trying to convince himself that it was the salvation of the United States. "You think you can meet the deadline the President has set?"
"No problems yet, Admiral." Said Stern, gently picking up the petri dish and putting it back where it came from.
"Your country thanks you, Doctor Stern" Starling said, his smile growing wider. He turned around to leave. This plan seemed to work, and that made him happy. If everything went well, the United States would have its own Eva, and its own pilot. Petitioning the United Nations to declare Asuka dead, then quickly seizing all known samples of her blood and DNA before they were destroyed, was the hard part. The next part, the salvaging of the nine Mass-Production Evangelions, was out of his hands. Still, he had to congratulate himself for a job well done.
Now it was a matter of stringing NERV along.
It was a long and tiring day for Ritsuko, as she gently eased the blue sports car in between the yellow lines in the parking lot. She poked her head out of the open window to check, making sure that she had placed the car dead center, then gave herself a satisfied shrug, and killed the engine. She hurriedly stepped out of the car and closed the door, noting the parking lot was, as usual, practically empty. Ritsuko looked the car over, a Renault Alpine similar to the one Misato drove, before she locked the car and walked to the apartment block where Shinji and herself lived. She slung a small bag over her left shoulder and started walking, the tapping of her heels on the hot tarmac soon lulling her mind into a relaxed state.
Ritsuko slowly climbed the stairs up to her apartment, her mind seemingly blank yet focused on her task. She steadily made her way to the door, and opened it, putting down her bag as soon as she stepped inside. She stooped down, grabbing something from inside the bag, before closing the door again. It was time to start cooking dinner. She briefly racked her mind, trying to recall what she had planned for the day, before she remembered that it was Wednesday, udon noodle with miso soup day. She set about cooking, taking care to be as precise and exact with the measurements as possible, before she added her special ingredient into the soup mix.
She stirred the powdered mixture into the soup rapidly. The dosage was necessarily heavy, to account for the chemical breakdown of the antidepressant drugs in a hot liquid. Ritsuko stirred faster, almost frantically, wishing the powdered mix would disappear faster. It was the only way, she reminded herself, fighting the growing sense of betrayal.
Pen-Pen, that stupid, greedy bird, stood in a corner, its beady eyes fixed on Ritsuko. Ritsuko tried her best to ignore the accusing stare of the only witness to her crime, focusing with steely determination on her grim task, almost failing to notice the creeping red glow that came through the window, signalling nightfall.
Night began to fall on Japan, and the red arch of damned souls became clearer in the night sky. In the Geofront crater, Shigeru tried his best not to look into the sky, as he made his way to his official car. His shoulders were slumped, and he walked slowly, as if the burdens placed on him had physical mass. He glanced sideways at partially dismantled scaffolding, the makeshift cage for Eva 02 before it vanished. He muttered a brief prayer for Asuka, hoping the girl was in a better place. Granted, he never really got to know her as well as Misato did, but her fate was horrible enough to leave a mark on his soul. He felt sorry for whover it was that was going to become the Sixth Child. A legacy of madness and death awaited the next Evangelion pilot.
The poor Child who will be named during the upcoming meeting with representatives of Japan and the UN.
He got into the car, and with a wave of his hand, ordered the driver to get going. Hopefully, the rocking motions of the car would help him sleep on the two hour trip to Tokyo 02.
Shinji lay on his bed, his eyes closed. He had fallen asleep soon after he returned home from school. His body lay still, his chest rising and falling slowly with each breath. Red light shone from the darkening sky through the curtains, falling over him. His body was at peace with the world, totally unlike his mind.
In his mind, he lay on the hard wooden floor of a vast, empty room, so big he could not see the walls or celing, only blackness as far as he can see. He felt no pain, yet he knew that his ribs were cracked and his insides were bruised and battered, yet he felt no pain.
Asuka stood over him, in her school uniform, contempt gleaming in her cold blue eyes.
She drew her foot back and kicked him in the sternum.
"Idiot!" Asuka snarled.
"Useless!" She spat at him, her foot kicking him again, this time in the stomach.
"Coward!" She kicked his face. "Spineless!" She stomped on his stomach again, making him gasp for breath. Even though he knew he felt no pain.
Asuka kicked his prone form over and over again, with each kick, cursing him for what he had become. Suddenly she stopped, and Shinji forced himself to look up at her, her red hair framing her face, the coldness of her blue eyes rapidly disappearing, as her pupils started dilating and her mouth gasped open in fear.
"No.." Asuka whispered, suddenly frightened. "You stupid perverted idiot. You're not hurt, you don't care.. you don't care.. you don't care!!" Asuka manically chanted the words over and over again, her body trembling in despair.
Shinji felt the urge to stand up, say something to her, but he knew that he wasn't able to move, only to lie on the cold wooden floor as Asuka fell to her knees, her face buried in her hands. From behind her hands he could hear her sobbing.
"You don't care. You never cared!"
"Asuka." Shinji stammered.
"I'm just your jerk-off toy. You never cared!"
"That's.. That's not true!" Shinji replied, hesitant at first, as he found himself trying to stand.
He found himself standing on unsteady feet. He found that once he stood up, he could see the lime green walls and the white ceiling. He could see out the window, into the artificial forest outside the pyramid in the old Geofront. He could hear the silent beep of the medical equipment.
"Isn't this you?" Asuka asked him.
"No!" Shinji shouted, trying to avert his eyes from Asuka's semi-nude body that lay on the hospital bed in Room 303.
"Yes it is. This is you using me as a doll," Asuka quietly said from her bed. Shinji felt something wet in his hand. He fought the urge to look at it, but there was no use. He knew what it was.
"I.. I'm scum," he whispered, loathing himself.
"You made me your doll," Asuka said, emotionless, the words leaving her prone form on the hospital bed.
"All I am to you, a doll."
Shinji could bear no more, he found the door, tore it open and ran through the empty corridors of the old Geofront. He ran this way and that, turning left and right at random. He ran and ran until he could run away no more from Asuka's cold truth.
He found himself in a darkened room, lit only by a small yellow emergency light. He could hear voices talking.
"All he cares about, these things without a soul." Said a female voice.
"I hate them, so I destroy them," the voice said again, as the lights turned on. Shinji gasped in horror at the sight. He was now back in the cloning chamber, and Ritsuko had just turned on the lights, letting the world see her handiwork. Shinji tried to avert his eyes, but simply couldn't. His eyes once again took in the horror as the many bodies in the tanks slowly fell apart, arms, legs, head, all slowly detaching and floating away from each other.
Ritsuko noticed him, turning her head towards him and a smile gradually crept up her haggard, tired face.
"Thank you, Shinji-kun, you've been a great help" Ritsuko said, smiling.
Shinji shuddered as he felt something cold and plastic in his hand. Trembling, he looked to see his hand clutched tightly around a handheld datapad, the small hand-held terminals that served as remote controls to the MAGI supercomputers. His thumb was on the big OK button and the button was depressed.
Shinji numbly dropped the remote onto the ground. He glanced up at the dead parts of Rei that were floating in the cloning tanks. Arms, fingers, legs, all unable to keep their attachments to one another, now that he had changed the pressure of the LCL. A stray head spun lazily in the LCL, twisting to face him as it collided with a floating, disembodied thigh.
The sightless eyes of Asuka, still framed in her flaming red hair, stared lifelessly back at him, her dead mouth slightly opened as if to curse him in bitter hate one last desperate time. For one long agonizing, unbearable second of pain, those dead eyes gazed past his defenses, past his flesh, searing right through the fragile glass thing that he supposed was his soul. Then the head too, disintegrated, falling into pieces in slow motion inside the LCL.
Ritsuko made her way purposefully towards him, clutching his shoulders and bringing her face to his, her mouth opening to quietly whisper "it's not your fault."
Shinji blinked in disbelief, and that was all it took, as Ritsuko's face had disappeared, to be replaced with Misato's face, as he last saw her, a thin trickle of blood starting to escape the corner of her smiling lips.
"Come Shinji, return to me, isn't this what I sent you out to find?" Misato said almost desperately, as she brought her tender lips closer to kiss him again.
"I think the right thing to do is smile," said Rei's voice, as the face in front of him changed again.
"Un.. No. No." Shinji stammered, confused.
"So I can't have all of you.. So you can't ever have me!" Asuka shouted, as she let her lips touch his, just like that time in Misato's apartment. He surrendered, and closed his eyes.
Shinji next opened his eyes to look at Ritsuko shaking him awake, her face obscuring his view of the ceiling. The red light that filtered in through the window told him it was night.
"Unnhh.. Dinnertime, Ritsuko-san?" Shinji asked, still groggy, and truth be told, he was a little shaken from the experience.
"Yes. You're a hard person to rouse, Shinji-kun," Ritsuko replied flatly, as a thin-lipped smile appeared on her lips, masking the worried frown that she wore just seconds earlier. One of Shinji's bodyguards stood behind Ritsuko, his face, as usual, an unobstrusive, unreadable mask.
"You might want to freshen up first, then come and join me for dinner. I'm sure Pen-Pen would like to see you again," Ritsuko said.
Shinji sat up in his bed, shaking off the grogginess, and for a brief second, he looked out the window, into the sky, mesmerized by the beauty of the ring of souls.
"It is beautiful," Misato admitted to herself. She had wandered the deserted village for hours, trying to find someone, anyone, who could help her, or at least tell her what was going on.
When night fell, and the red arch in the sky began to become visible, Misato was still walking on the road, trying to find another living soul and the sight caused her to shiver with an unnatural cold. At first she was convinced that she had entered the Hell they used to warn her about in church, but she was sure that in Hell, the road signs wouldn't be in Cyrillic.
She was in Russia, she concluded. Her rational mind protested the conclusion vehemently, reminding her that she was supposed to be dying outside the R-10-20 elevator, not being mauled by a stinking vagabond on a beach in Russia.
Misato's bare foot caught on something soft. She stopped, looking down. She sighed, seeing her foot stepping on yet another rotting pile of abandoned clothes. There had to be hundreds of these all over the village. She snorted, and kicked them away.
The sky is filled with strange red luminous things, not a human soul in sight, except for the would-be rapist she beat up at the beach. Piles of clothes strewn everywhere, and there was the mystery of how she wound up in Russia in the first place. Of all these things that competed for her attention, hunger had laid low, waiting for its time, and now its biological insistence can no longer be denied.
Misato clutched her growling stomach, suddenly reminded that she had not eaten since she had woken up. She looked around for a place to eat, and more importantly, something to eat. She made steady steps towards what looked like a general store. Hopefully they had canned beans at the very least.
In Ritsuko's apartment, the food was simple, but plentiful. Shinji usually ate just enough to keep hunger away, but tonight, he had actually slurped down two noodles of soba noodles in miso soup. He couldn't explain why, but after the first few bites, a gentle swelling of pleasure seemed to manifest in his belly, egging him to go for more.
Ritsuko sat opposite him, quietly finishing the last of the grilled eel. Her eyes carefully watched the boy in front of her, as she had done since Asuka disappeared fighting the Thirteenth Angel. Since the day she decided that only pharmaceuticals could help Shinji deal with the burdens of his life.
"How was school?" Ritsuko asked cautiously.
Shinji shrugged. "Hikari was upset about it today,"
Ritsuko hummed absently. "Why so, Shinji-kun? Too much homework?"
"She said it was all so pointless," Shinji put down his spoon, and his eyes looked into Ritsuko's own. "Everything's gone and we're supposed to worry about kanji and math."
Ritsuko's eyes narrowed, in a way, she was trying to shield her soul from being exposed to Shinji's gaze.
"So what do you feel about all that?" she asked him, trying to keep her voice even and uninvolved.
"Nothing" came the reply.
"Shinji, do you know that there was a pregnancy reported in Gifu today?" Ritsuko asked, as she picked up her chopsticks again.
"No."
"It means life is continuing, Shinji. Even after the Third Impact, life continues. When that baby is born, it would never have seen the Third Impact. It would life its life free of our burdens." Ritsuko picked up a rice ball with the chopsticks
Shinji looked on, confused. "What does that have to do with anything?"
Ritsuko finished chewing the rice ball, washing it down with a sip of warm green tea.
"It's an example, Shinji, it's proof of the power of the will to live. School is part of your life, don't you agree?"
Shinji nodded dumbly.
"So if you stopped going to school, you wouldn't be living your life properly. That wouldn't be called life. It's better to stay up there with the dead rather than exist in a hollow excuse for a life. Do you see that now, Shinji?" Ritsuko asked him gently.
"Life is unbearable alone," Shinji remarked.
The simple remark stabbed through Ritsuko's heart, rending open her very soul. Shinji had unwittingly reminded her that her entire life prior to the Impact, was spent alone. Ritsuko had always existed alone. She could see it all now.
She could remember it in the way she always tried to get rid of Misato whenever the poor woman came up to her to just have a chat. She could remember when she refused poor Maya's sincere offers for coffee after work. She could remember when the loneliness drove her into the arms of the monster that destroyed all life.
Ritsuko's hand involuntarily clenched into a fist, the violent spasm splitting the chopsticks she held.
Shinji gasped. Ritsuko looked at the broken pieces of the chopsticks in her hand.
"I don't know my own strength," Ritsuko commented absently. "Well, finish your meal, I have some cleaning up to do." Ritsuko said, as Shinji obediently started shovelling the food back into his mouth.
He didn't stay behind to watch TV. He didn't even offer to clean up after the meal. Shinji silently made his way to the door, shuffling quietly as Pen-Pen looked on, nonplussed.
"Shinji-kun,"
Shinji stopped in his tracks and turned around to see Ritsuko standing up in her green blouse and black skirt, her hand on her hips, her eyes fixed right on him.
"You're welcome to move back in here if you think it's too lonely by yourself," Ritsuko offered hesitantly.
Shinji stood there, thinking of a response.
"Think about it," Ritsuko said. "Let me know any time if you want to live here again."
Two hours and a disquieting car ride later, Shigeru tiredly stepped out of the car in Tokyo 02, Japan's new capital city. He saw the building, noting that it lacked the grandeur, the exaggeration of importance that typified government buildings. He couldn't tell this particular building apart from any other office building, save for the presence of blue-bereted United Nations peacekeepers at the entrance, who saluted him.
Shigeru didn't return the salute, but instead offered a cursory wave of the hand. He walked past the open door, and was met by a well-dressed European man. His escort, Shigeru supposed.
"Where is it?" he asked wearily.
"Right this way sir, follow me," replied the man, in a terribly foreign accented mess that resembled Japanese. Shigeru scowled a little at the man's pronunciation, but bit his tounge and followed him sullenly, his eyes searching everywhere for signs of more blue-berets. He rode up the lifts, walked past doors, strode through empty offfices with its rows and rows of unfilled desks, and finally came to his final destination.
"The Azusa Room, sir. Please come in, the others have been waiting for you" said Shigeru's escort, or at least something like that, it was to tell from the mangled Japanese. Shigeru snarled something in reply, and walked in, his eyes glaring at everyone else seated around the oval table. He wordlessly pulled up a random chair and threw himself on it, glaring at each and every one at the table, letting them all know his displeasure about these midnight meetings.
"This is about Revival, correct?" Shigeru asked.
"Yes, Commander, now that you've mentioned it first, we'd like to confirm your combat-readiness," said Yoshikawa, who represented Japan to these infernal Supervising Commitee meetings.
Shigeru opened his mouth to speak, but Castanza interrupted him.
"Thank you, Commander, I think the look on your face says it all. No Eva, no Children, and we're all going to die again when the next one comes along,"
Shigeru winced at that remark, but he bit his lip, determined not to be talked down to in these meetings. "If that is true, then it certainly would help if you were to release the refurbished Eva into my care as soon as possible, isn't it?" he asked, eyes staring daggers at Castanza.
"Given that NERV has destroyed every Eva ever assigned to it, Commander, that isn't very reassuring. We can't keep spending billions and billions of Euro on making Evas so NERV can self-destruct them on the whims of a Child" said Castanza again.
Shigeru wanted to bang his head on the table in frustration. As if Admiral Starling wasn't bad enough, he bitterly thought. He fought the urge, only his furrowed brow betraying any emotion.
Yoshikawa spoke again. "Commander, please don't take this the wrong way, but you do understand that as the only line of defense left, we do have a right to be concerned."
"Yes," Shigeru dumbly nodded. Something told him he was being led to slaughter.
"Now, about the Revival Project," Yoshikawa said, peering over his glasses to look at Shigeru. "The Security Council has voted to release Eva 05 to NERV..."
"With conditions," Shigeru guessed. How stupid did they think he was?
"Please, Commander, allow me to finish. Well, you see, this is the absolute last Evangelion we could salvage..." Yoshikawa said slowly, choosing his every word carefully. Shigeru noticed the American representative, Wilson, staring at the ceiling absently, twirling a pen in his hand.
"Commander," Yoshikawa said, a slight stress in his voice, reminding Shigeru of the matter at hand.
"Yes, Yoshikawa-san"
"As I was saying, the UN will release the Eva to NERV. Japan will be in charge of transporting the Eva to Tokyo-03. The UN representative to NERV will provide you with the operational details." said Yoshikawa.
"Wait, the UN Representative to NERV is on leave. He's not due to return here for two weeks!" Shigeru protested. He knew the UN well enough by now to know that the Eva won't be released until Starling came back from America.
"Yes, I know Admiral Starling is on leave back home," said Wilson, breaking his silence for the first time. "He's being briefed on the situation and will be on his way here soon."
"There's just one small condition, Commander."
Shigeru knew it.
"A suitable pilot must be found, now that Lt Langley is officially KIA," said Castanza.
"Commander, we have no intention of reactivating Marduk. You have to find a pilot from the previous Marduk suitability report," said Wilson.
"I think the Third Child is available, isn't he?" Yoshikawa asked, more an accusation than a question.
"With all due respect, sirs, I must protest.. The Third Child is psychologically unsuitable for piloting an Eva. This has already been mentioned in the Techical Report last month," Shigeru protested, perhaps too feebly for his own liking.
"Which was prepared by your Chief Scientist" said Castanza.
"Yes," Shigeru nodded in agreement.
"A convicted accesory to genocide. Who just also happens to be the official guardian of the Third Child," Castanza continued again.
"I don't see why the Chief Scientist would want to lie about the Third Child's combat readiness," Shigeru protested again. He began to notice it was rather warm in the sparse meeting room, or perhaps, it was just his own temperature rising. "I have had my share of disagreements with her, of course, but..."
Castanza spoke again, interrupting Shigeru before he could finish the sentence. Wilson, the American, was seemingly uninterested, doodling on the papers in front of him.
"We can't afford to be over-reliant on her, Commander. Remember what she did behind your back the last time."
Shigeru nodded dumbly.
"An independent psychological panel will be flown to Tokyo 03 to examine the Third Child's mental suitability. This psychological asessement will be classified top secret. We trust that the Child, or his circle of people, will not get wind of this until the panel has arrived in Tokyo 03."
"And when will this be?" Shigeru asked, fighting the urge to pull out his hair.
"You will be contacted when they arrive in Japan. The UN expects full cooperation. We must find out once and for all if the Third Child is ready." said Castanza again.
Shigeru sighed. "Very well then. Anything else on the agenda for tonight?"
Yoshikawa shook his head. "Thank you for coming to this meeting on such short notice, Commander. You know the problems with the time difference and all."
"Of course, " Shigeru said as he stood up to leave.
Still they dont trust us, he ruefully thought. He weakly returned the salute of the guard outside, being hte first to leave the room. His effusive guide was waiting outside the door, ready and eager to show him the door.
The ride back to Tokyo-03 was long, silent and spent fully awake. Shigeru silently ruminated on the situation that was unfolding. A new Eva, and a new chance at continuing life.
If only he wasn't stuck with the same old problem.
Thus, that afternoon, when he saw the naked woman washed up on the beach, he was quite disturbed. She seemed Japanese, with long straight bluish- black hair that reached halfway down her back. She was covered all over in seaweed and sand, her face was half-buried in the sand with just enough space between her nose and the wet sand to let her breathe. She was breathing all right, the nameless fisherman noted, her back rising and falling with each breath. He had come back from death himself, and he had heard about how everyone else came back, but this was the first time he had saw someone else's return. He held her by the shoulders and turned her over, the gentle lapping of the waves lapping around the unconscious woman's ankles.
She had a heart-shaped face, framed by wet strands of hair. Her body was lithe and strong, and felt so comfortably soft in his hands. He swallowed hard, the dark fires of lust suddenly burning inside of him. He briefly fought his conscience, then started to touch her, roughly bringing his hands upon her breasts, ignoring the ugly scar that ran down her chest. He began to breathe heavily, and his hands were practically mauling her as he savored this latest catch from the sea.
His heavy stroking and brute ministrations woke the woman up, but he wasn't aware of that, as his face was too deeply buried in her breasts. He heard her sharp intake of breath, then everything went black as her fist struck him square in the temple, knocking him out.
Misato kicked her would-be rapist off her, then she staggered to her feet, looking left and right in confusion.
"Where am I?" she asked aloud. She wondered what was going on. She remembered sending Shinji off to the Eva hangars, and she knew she was laying face down on the cold floor outside the elevator, dying. She gasped and checked her back and chest, looking for bullet wounds that were no longer there, not even leaving a scar.
Misato was now very confused, rather cold and very, very naked. She looked down on the form of the man she took out, her lips forming a determined scowl as she set about her task.
First, clothes, she thought. Then find out what the hell is going on, and find Shinji-kun.
"He needs me, " she thought to herself. "He's calling for me."
NEON
GENESIS
EVANGELION
A3I: A False Return to Life
That very afternoon, Shinji and Hikari were walking each other home from school. It had been less than two weeks since Asuka was vaporized in an explosion fighting the Thirteenth Angel, but Shinji was now back at school and trying to get himself an education.
Going back to school so quickly surprised everyone, but most of all, Shinji himself. He mver could have believed he had the willpower to continue schooling after all that had happened.
Hikari glanced at Shinji, his face blank. She was so surprised to see him turn up in school so soon after Asuka's death, but she had hugged him welcome nonetheless. He had kept quiet in class, as usual, but she noticed that unlike the other Eva pilots in the past,he was actually trying to learn in class. Asuka was there only to socialize and brush up her Kanji, and Rei was merely window dressing.
"Have you finished your homework, Shinji?" Hikari asked, breaking the silence.
"Yes," Shinji replied meekly. He continued to walk on in silence. "It's very hard to do."
Hikari furrowed her brow at the remark. "The homework? " she asked, unsure.
"I have to do it all on my own, " Shinji replied quietly. "Asuka's not around to help me with it anymore." Shinji lowered his head again, as silence returned to envelop them both. They walked a few more minutes through the streets of Tokyo-03's only surviving precinct, a neatly arranged suburban array of apartment blocks, now abandoned, and wide empty streets. This is where they both lived through the first wave of Angel attacks, and the days leading up to the Third Impact.
"Shinji," Hikari spoke, disrupting the hypnotic beat of their footsteps on the cracking, dry asphalt. He stopped and looked at her in the eyes.
"Why doesn't it hurt?" Hikari asked suddenly, desperately, unable anymore to keep the question to herself. She took a step closer to him, her eyes scanning his own.
"I don't know," Shinji said in resignation. It was a question he had asked himself without ever finding a satisfactory answer. He asked Misato once, shortly after Rei destroyed her Evangelion against the Sixteenth Angel, but her answer frightened him. He had no wish to ask Ritsuko the same question, for he feared her almost as much as he feared what her answer would be.
"Why are we doing this, Shinji? Why are even in school ? Almost everybody's dead, now Asuka's gone, and we still worry about homework? Shinji, can't you see how stupid all this is?" Hikari said, or rather, blurted out, the words, while her hand made a lightning-quick grab at his arm, reinforcing her point. "What's the point of it all?" She asked again.
"Uhh.. Homeostatis," was Shinji's panicky answer.
"What?" Hikari asked, her grip on his arm loosening in surprise.
"Ritsuko said. all of this, it's proof we're getting on with our lives," Shinji stammered out the words, Ritsuko's words from what seemed an eternity ago coming back to his mind. "She said no matter how much things change, we always try to adapt to it, so we can live on,"
Hikari released Shinji's arm, her own mind digesting the truth that escaped his lips.
"Wow. Ritsuko said that?" Hikari asked again.
Shinji nodded.
"There's no pain for the heartless," Hikari said, and then fell silent again. She started walking again, at first by herself, but then Shinji ran up to her, trying to catch up as she started walking faster and faster, past the abandoned cars that nobody bothered to tow away. Shinji broke out into a small run trying to catch up with her.
"I'll see you in school tomorrow, I think," Hikari said as they approached the building where she lived.
Shortly afterwards, Shinji arrived at his own apartment. He stared at the door blankly for a few minutes, absently reaching in his pocket for the key. He tried one pocket, then the other, then stopped briefly to sigh in frustration, having lost the key for the second time in a week. His knuckles rapped out a secret rhythm on the door, which promplty opened from the inside. The bodyguard inside bowed briefly to him as a measure of respect and greeting. Shinji sighed, walking right past his bodyguard, into his bedroom, closing the door as he threw his tired body onto the bed, staring at the familiar patterns of the ceiling.
Why doesn't it hurt? He asked himself.
Was Hikari right, then? He asked himself again.
Ritsuko said that no matter how the enviroment changes, the living would try to adapt. Ritsuko made sense. Life does go on for her, Shinji noted. Ritsuko was different from before, but she was living her life. In fact, like everyone else, she chose to live her life, Shinji thought silently.
Hikari said that the heartless feel no pain, and she, too, was making sense, although Ritsuko would probably think otherwise. Shinji stared at the ceiling, pondering, his mind slowly beginning to drift far away.
Thousands of miles away, across the Pacific Ocean, Rear-Admiral Richard Alexander Starling walked on solid ground again, the heels of his shoes making dull thumping noises as he walked through the corridors of the Center for Disease Control. His speed was steady, yet he tried hard to control his excitement as he made his way to Lab-E105.
Starling finally reached the door, his hand almost shaking with excitement as he turned the handle. Inside, there was the dull whirr of medical equipment, tubes and flasks, the stereotype of a mad scientist's lab. The project leader was there to greet him.
It seemed like an eternity, dealing with the pleasantries, and the handshake. Starling put on his practiced, easy smile, trying to remind himself that while he had managed to go so far undetected, success was still far away.
"Can I see it?" Starling asked.
A petrri dish filled with something that looked like pink jelly was carefully taken out of what looked like an oven. It was laid on the lab table in front of him. Starling gazed at it for a few moments, then turned again to stare at the man who stood beside him, the leader of the project that would make everything all right again.
"Uh, Doctor Stern, I was expecting something."
"More dramatic, Admiral?" asked the scientist, gesturing at the petri dish. "It hardly works out that way. Take these Langley stem cells. Do you seriously think they'll even let us do this if it weren't for the Impact?"
Starling shrugged indifferently. "I don't see why not. It's key to the Evangelion program."
"But we didn't really care about the Evangelion program then, did we? Entrusted everything to NERV and the UN, for all the good that did everyone,"
"Well, we're making amends for our mistakes now, Doctor. That's what matters. It's just that I can't believe a dead girl is our brightest hope." Starling said, marveling at the potential that laid inert in a petri dish in front of him.
"I wouldn't call her dead. These are still alive," said Stern, tapping the petri dish with a pen.
"What's the next step, then? Clone her?" Starling asked, still eyeing the pinkish substance in the petri dish, the last earthly remains of Asuka Sohryu Langley.
"Possibly. There are many possibilities ."
Starling raised his hand to stop the speech.
"Look, if it gets us a pilot for the Eva, it's good enough for me," he said. He looked at the petri dish again, trying to convince himself that it was the salvation of the United States. "You think you can meet the deadline the President has set?"
"No problems yet, Admiral." Said Stern, gently picking up the petri dish and putting it back where it came from.
"Your country thanks you, Doctor Stern" Starling said, his smile growing wider. He turned around to leave. This plan seemed to work, and that made him happy. If everything went well, the United States would have its own Eva, and its own pilot. Petitioning the United Nations to declare Asuka dead, then quickly seizing all known samples of her blood and DNA before they were destroyed, was the hard part. The next part, the salvaging of the nine Mass-Production Evangelions, was out of his hands. Still, he had to congratulate himself for a job well done.
Now it was a matter of stringing NERV along.
It was a long and tiring day for Ritsuko, as she gently eased the blue sports car in between the yellow lines in the parking lot. She poked her head out of the open window to check, making sure that she had placed the car dead center, then gave herself a satisfied shrug, and killed the engine. She hurriedly stepped out of the car and closed the door, noting the parking lot was, as usual, practically empty. Ritsuko looked the car over, a Renault Alpine similar to the one Misato drove, before she locked the car and walked to the apartment block where Shinji and herself lived. She slung a small bag over her left shoulder and started walking, the tapping of her heels on the hot tarmac soon lulling her mind into a relaxed state.
Ritsuko slowly climbed the stairs up to her apartment, her mind seemingly blank yet focused on her task. She steadily made her way to the door, and opened it, putting down her bag as soon as she stepped inside. She stooped down, grabbing something from inside the bag, before closing the door again. It was time to start cooking dinner. She briefly racked her mind, trying to recall what she had planned for the day, before she remembered that it was Wednesday, udon noodle with miso soup day. She set about cooking, taking care to be as precise and exact with the measurements as possible, before she added her special ingredient into the soup mix.
She stirred the powdered mixture into the soup rapidly. The dosage was necessarily heavy, to account for the chemical breakdown of the antidepressant drugs in a hot liquid. Ritsuko stirred faster, almost frantically, wishing the powdered mix would disappear faster. It was the only way, she reminded herself, fighting the growing sense of betrayal.
Pen-Pen, that stupid, greedy bird, stood in a corner, its beady eyes fixed on Ritsuko. Ritsuko tried her best to ignore the accusing stare of the only witness to her crime, focusing with steely determination on her grim task, almost failing to notice the creeping red glow that came through the window, signalling nightfall.
Night began to fall on Japan, and the red arch of damned souls became clearer in the night sky. In the Geofront crater, Shigeru tried his best not to look into the sky, as he made his way to his official car. His shoulders were slumped, and he walked slowly, as if the burdens placed on him had physical mass. He glanced sideways at partially dismantled scaffolding, the makeshift cage for Eva 02 before it vanished. He muttered a brief prayer for Asuka, hoping the girl was in a better place. Granted, he never really got to know her as well as Misato did, but her fate was horrible enough to leave a mark on his soul. He felt sorry for whover it was that was going to become the Sixth Child. A legacy of madness and death awaited the next Evangelion pilot.
The poor Child who will be named during the upcoming meeting with representatives of Japan and the UN.
He got into the car, and with a wave of his hand, ordered the driver to get going. Hopefully, the rocking motions of the car would help him sleep on the two hour trip to Tokyo 02.
Shinji lay on his bed, his eyes closed. He had fallen asleep soon after he returned home from school. His body lay still, his chest rising and falling slowly with each breath. Red light shone from the darkening sky through the curtains, falling over him. His body was at peace with the world, totally unlike his mind.
In his mind, he lay on the hard wooden floor of a vast, empty room, so big he could not see the walls or celing, only blackness as far as he can see. He felt no pain, yet he knew that his ribs were cracked and his insides were bruised and battered, yet he felt no pain.
Asuka stood over him, in her school uniform, contempt gleaming in her cold blue eyes.
She drew her foot back and kicked him in the sternum.
"Idiot!" Asuka snarled.
"Useless!" She spat at him, her foot kicking him again, this time in the stomach.
"Coward!" She kicked his face. "Spineless!" She stomped on his stomach again, making him gasp for breath. Even though he knew he felt no pain.
Asuka kicked his prone form over and over again, with each kick, cursing him for what he had become. Suddenly she stopped, and Shinji forced himself to look up at her, her red hair framing her face, the coldness of her blue eyes rapidly disappearing, as her pupils started dilating and her mouth gasped open in fear.
"No.." Asuka whispered, suddenly frightened. "You stupid perverted idiot. You're not hurt, you don't care.. you don't care.. you don't care!!" Asuka manically chanted the words over and over again, her body trembling in despair.
Shinji felt the urge to stand up, say something to her, but he knew that he wasn't able to move, only to lie on the cold wooden floor as Asuka fell to her knees, her face buried in her hands. From behind her hands he could hear her sobbing.
"You don't care. You never cared!"
"Asuka." Shinji stammered.
"I'm just your jerk-off toy. You never cared!"
"That's.. That's not true!" Shinji replied, hesitant at first, as he found himself trying to stand.
He found himself standing on unsteady feet. He found that once he stood up, he could see the lime green walls and the white ceiling. He could see out the window, into the artificial forest outside the pyramid in the old Geofront. He could hear the silent beep of the medical equipment.
"Isn't this you?" Asuka asked him.
"No!" Shinji shouted, trying to avert his eyes from Asuka's semi-nude body that lay on the hospital bed in Room 303.
"Yes it is. This is you using me as a doll," Asuka quietly said from her bed. Shinji felt something wet in his hand. He fought the urge to look at it, but there was no use. He knew what it was.
"I.. I'm scum," he whispered, loathing himself.
"You made me your doll," Asuka said, emotionless, the words leaving her prone form on the hospital bed.
"All I am to you, a doll."
Shinji could bear no more, he found the door, tore it open and ran through the empty corridors of the old Geofront. He ran this way and that, turning left and right at random. He ran and ran until he could run away no more from Asuka's cold truth.
He found himself in a darkened room, lit only by a small yellow emergency light. He could hear voices talking.
"All he cares about, these things without a soul." Said a female voice.
"I hate them, so I destroy them," the voice said again, as the lights turned on. Shinji gasped in horror at the sight. He was now back in the cloning chamber, and Ritsuko had just turned on the lights, letting the world see her handiwork. Shinji tried to avert his eyes, but simply couldn't. His eyes once again took in the horror as the many bodies in the tanks slowly fell apart, arms, legs, head, all slowly detaching and floating away from each other.
Ritsuko noticed him, turning her head towards him and a smile gradually crept up her haggard, tired face.
"Thank you, Shinji-kun, you've been a great help" Ritsuko said, smiling.
Shinji shuddered as he felt something cold and plastic in his hand. Trembling, he looked to see his hand clutched tightly around a handheld datapad, the small hand-held terminals that served as remote controls to the MAGI supercomputers. His thumb was on the big OK button and the button was depressed.
Shinji numbly dropped the remote onto the ground. He glanced up at the dead parts of Rei that were floating in the cloning tanks. Arms, fingers, legs, all unable to keep their attachments to one another, now that he had changed the pressure of the LCL. A stray head spun lazily in the LCL, twisting to face him as it collided with a floating, disembodied thigh.
The sightless eyes of Asuka, still framed in her flaming red hair, stared lifelessly back at him, her dead mouth slightly opened as if to curse him in bitter hate one last desperate time. For one long agonizing, unbearable second of pain, those dead eyes gazed past his defenses, past his flesh, searing right through the fragile glass thing that he supposed was his soul. Then the head too, disintegrated, falling into pieces in slow motion inside the LCL.
Ritsuko made her way purposefully towards him, clutching his shoulders and bringing her face to his, her mouth opening to quietly whisper "it's not your fault."
Shinji blinked in disbelief, and that was all it took, as Ritsuko's face had disappeared, to be replaced with Misato's face, as he last saw her, a thin trickle of blood starting to escape the corner of her smiling lips.
"Come Shinji, return to me, isn't this what I sent you out to find?" Misato said almost desperately, as she brought her tender lips closer to kiss him again.
"I think the right thing to do is smile," said Rei's voice, as the face in front of him changed again.
"Un.. No. No." Shinji stammered, confused.
"So I can't have all of you.. So you can't ever have me!" Asuka shouted, as she let her lips touch his, just like that time in Misato's apartment. He surrendered, and closed his eyes.
Shinji next opened his eyes to look at Ritsuko shaking him awake, her face obscuring his view of the ceiling. The red light that filtered in through the window told him it was night.
"Unnhh.. Dinnertime, Ritsuko-san?" Shinji asked, still groggy, and truth be told, he was a little shaken from the experience.
"Yes. You're a hard person to rouse, Shinji-kun," Ritsuko replied flatly, as a thin-lipped smile appeared on her lips, masking the worried frown that she wore just seconds earlier. One of Shinji's bodyguards stood behind Ritsuko, his face, as usual, an unobstrusive, unreadable mask.
"You might want to freshen up first, then come and join me for dinner. I'm sure Pen-Pen would like to see you again," Ritsuko said.
Shinji sat up in his bed, shaking off the grogginess, and for a brief second, he looked out the window, into the sky, mesmerized by the beauty of the ring of souls.
"It is beautiful," Misato admitted to herself. She had wandered the deserted village for hours, trying to find someone, anyone, who could help her, or at least tell her what was going on.
When night fell, and the red arch in the sky began to become visible, Misato was still walking on the road, trying to find another living soul and the sight caused her to shiver with an unnatural cold. At first she was convinced that she had entered the Hell they used to warn her about in church, but she was sure that in Hell, the road signs wouldn't be in Cyrillic.
She was in Russia, she concluded. Her rational mind protested the conclusion vehemently, reminding her that she was supposed to be dying outside the R-10-20 elevator, not being mauled by a stinking vagabond on a beach in Russia.
Misato's bare foot caught on something soft. She stopped, looking down. She sighed, seeing her foot stepping on yet another rotting pile of abandoned clothes. There had to be hundreds of these all over the village. She snorted, and kicked them away.
The sky is filled with strange red luminous things, not a human soul in sight, except for the would-be rapist she beat up at the beach. Piles of clothes strewn everywhere, and there was the mystery of how she wound up in Russia in the first place. Of all these things that competed for her attention, hunger had laid low, waiting for its time, and now its biological insistence can no longer be denied.
Misato clutched her growling stomach, suddenly reminded that she had not eaten since she had woken up. She looked around for a place to eat, and more importantly, something to eat. She made steady steps towards what looked like a general store. Hopefully they had canned beans at the very least.
In Ritsuko's apartment, the food was simple, but plentiful. Shinji usually ate just enough to keep hunger away, but tonight, he had actually slurped down two noodles of soba noodles in miso soup. He couldn't explain why, but after the first few bites, a gentle swelling of pleasure seemed to manifest in his belly, egging him to go for more.
Ritsuko sat opposite him, quietly finishing the last of the grilled eel. Her eyes carefully watched the boy in front of her, as she had done since Asuka disappeared fighting the Thirteenth Angel. Since the day she decided that only pharmaceuticals could help Shinji deal with the burdens of his life.
"How was school?" Ritsuko asked cautiously.
Shinji shrugged. "Hikari was upset about it today,"
Ritsuko hummed absently. "Why so, Shinji-kun? Too much homework?"
"She said it was all so pointless," Shinji put down his spoon, and his eyes looked into Ritsuko's own. "Everything's gone and we're supposed to worry about kanji and math."
Ritsuko's eyes narrowed, in a way, she was trying to shield her soul from being exposed to Shinji's gaze.
"So what do you feel about all that?" she asked him, trying to keep her voice even and uninvolved.
"Nothing" came the reply.
"Shinji, do you know that there was a pregnancy reported in Gifu today?" Ritsuko asked, as she picked up her chopsticks again.
"No."
"It means life is continuing, Shinji. Even after the Third Impact, life continues. When that baby is born, it would never have seen the Third Impact. It would life its life free of our burdens." Ritsuko picked up a rice ball with the chopsticks
Shinji looked on, confused. "What does that have to do with anything?"
Ritsuko finished chewing the rice ball, washing it down with a sip of warm green tea.
"It's an example, Shinji, it's proof of the power of the will to live. School is part of your life, don't you agree?"
Shinji nodded dumbly.
"So if you stopped going to school, you wouldn't be living your life properly. That wouldn't be called life. It's better to stay up there with the dead rather than exist in a hollow excuse for a life. Do you see that now, Shinji?" Ritsuko asked him gently.
"Life is unbearable alone," Shinji remarked.
The simple remark stabbed through Ritsuko's heart, rending open her very soul. Shinji had unwittingly reminded her that her entire life prior to the Impact, was spent alone. Ritsuko had always existed alone. She could see it all now.
She could remember it in the way she always tried to get rid of Misato whenever the poor woman came up to her to just have a chat. She could remember when she refused poor Maya's sincere offers for coffee after work. She could remember when the loneliness drove her into the arms of the monster that destroyed all life.
Ritsuko's hand involuntarily clenched into a fist, the violent spasm splitting the chopsticks she held.
Shinji gasped. Ritsuko looked at the broken pieces of the chopsticks in her hand.
"I don't know my own strength," Ritsuko commented absently. "Well, finish your meal, I have some cleaning up to do." Ritsuko said, as Shinji obediently started shovelling the food back into his mouth.
He didn't stay behind to watch TV. He didn't even offer to clean up after the meal. Shinji silently made his way to the door, shuffling quietly as Pen-Pen looked on, nonplussed.
"Shinji-kun,"
Shinji stopped in his tracks and turned around to see Ritsuko standing up in her green blouse and black skirt, her hand on her hips, her eyes fixed right on him.
"You're welcome to move back in here if you think it's too lonely by yourself," Ritsuko offered hesitantly.
Shinji stood there, thinking of a response.
"Think about it," Ritsuko said. "Let me know any time if you want to live here again."
Two hours and a disquieting car ride later, Shigeru tiredly stepped out of the car in Tokyo 02, Japan's new capital city. He saw the building, noting that it lacked the grandeur, the exaggeration of importance that typified government buildings. He couldn't tell this particular building apart from any other office building, save for the presence of blue-bereted United Nations peacekeepers at the entrance, who saluted him.
Shigeru didn't return the salute, but instead offered a cursory wave of the hand. He walked past the open door, and was met by a well-dressed European man. His escort, Shigeru supposed.
"Where is it?" he asked wearily.
"Right this way sir, follow me," replied the man, in a terribly foreign accented mess that resembled Japanese. Shigeru scowled a little at the man's pronunciation, but bit his tounge and followed him sullenly, his eyes searching everywhere for signs of more blue-berets. He rode up the lifts, walked past doors, strode through empty offfices with its rows and rows of unfilled desks, and finally came to his final destination.
"The Azusa Room, sir. Please come in, the others have been waiting for you" said Shigeru's escort, or at least something like that, it was to tell from the mangled Japanese. Shigeru snarled something in reply, and walked in, his eyes glaring at everyone else seated around the oval table. He wordlessly pulled up a random chair and threw himself on it, glaring at each and every one at the table, letting them all know his displeasure about these midnight meetings.
"This is about Revival, correct?" Shigeru asked.
"Yes, Commander, now that you've mentioned it first, we'd like to confirm your combat-readiness," said Yoshikawa, who represented Japan to these infernal Supervising Commitee meetings.
Shigeru opened his mouth to speak, but Castanza interrupted him.
"Thank you, Commander, I think the look on your face says it all. No Eva, no Children, and we're all going to die again when the next one comes along,"
Shigeru winced at that remark, but he bit his lip, determined not to be talked down to in these meetings. "If that is true, then it certainly would help if you were to release the refurbished Eva into my care as soon as possible, isn't it?" he asked, eyes staring daggers at Castanza.
"Given that NERV has destroyed every Eva ever assigned to it, Commander, that isn't very reassuring. We can't keep spending billions and billions of Euro on making Evas so NERV can self-destruct them on the whims of a Child" said Castanza again.
Shigeru wanted to bang his head on the table in frustration. As if Admiral Starling wasn't bad enough, he bitterly thought. He fought the urge, only his furrowed brow betraying any emotion.
Yoshikawa spoke again. "Commander, please don't take this the wrong way, but you do understand that as the only line of defense left, we do have a right to be concerned."
"Yes," Shigeru dumbly nodded. Something told him he was being led to slaughter.
"Now, about the Revival Project," Yoshikawa said, peering over his glasses to look at Shigeru. "The Security Council has voted to release Eva 05 to NERV..."
"With conditions," Shigeru guessed. How stupid did they think he was?
"Please, Commander, allow me to finish. Well, you see, this is the absolute last Evangelion we could salvage..." Yoshikawa said slowly, choosing his every word carefully. Shigeru noticed the American representative, Wilson, staring at the ceiling absently, twirling a pen in his hand.
"Commander," Yoshikawa said, a slight stress in his voice, reminding Shigeru of the matter at hand.
"Yes, Yoshikawa-san"
"As I was saying, the UN will release the Eva to NERV. Japan will be in charge of transporting the Eva to Tokyo-03. The UN representative to NERV will provide you with the operational details." said Yoshikawa.
"Wait, the UN Representative to NERV is on leave. He's not due to return here for two weeks!" Shigeru protested. He knew the UN well enough by now to know that the Eva won't be released until Starling came back from America.
"Yes, I know Admiral Starling is on leave back home," said Wilson, breaking his silence for the first time. "He's being briefed on the situation and will be on his way here soon."
"There's just one small condition, Commander."
Shigeru knew it.
"A suitable pilot must be found, now that Lt Langley is officially KIA," said Castanza.
"Commander, we have no intention of reactivating Marduk. You have to find a pilot from the previous Marduk suitability report," said Wilson.
"I think the Third Child is available, isn't he?" Yoshikawa asked, more an accusation than a question.
"With all due respect, sirs, I must protest.. The Third Child is psychologically unsuitable for piloting an Eva. This has already been mentioned in the Techical Report last month," Shigeru protested, perhaps too feebly for his own liking.
"Which was prepared by your Chief Scientist" said Castanza.
"Yes," Shigeru nodded in agreement.
"A convicted accesory to genocide. Who just also happens to be the official guardian of the Third Child," Castanza continued again.
"I don't see why the Chief Scientist would want to lie about the Third Child's combat readiness," Shigeru protested again. He began to notice it was rather warm in the sparse meeting room, or perhaps, it was just his own temperature rising. "I have had my share of disagreements with her, of course, but..."
Castanza spoke again, interrupting Shigeru before he could finish the sentence. Wilson, the American, was seemingly uninterested, doodling on the papers in front of him.
"We can't afford to be over-reliant on her, Commander. Remember what she did behind your back the last time."
Shigeru nodded dumbly.
"An independent psychological panel will be flown to Tokyo 03 to examine the Third Child's mental suitability. This psychological asessement will be classified top secret. We trust that the Child, or his circle of people, will not get wind of this until the panel has arrived in Tokyo 03."
"And when will this be?" Shigeru asked, fighting the urge to pull out his hair.
"You will be contacted when they arrive in Japan. The UN expects full cooperation. We must find out once and for all if the Third Child is ready." said Castanza again.
Shigeru sighed. "Very well then. Anything else on the agenda for tonight?"
Yoshikawa shook his head. "Thank you for coming to this meeting on such short notice, Commander. You know the problems with the time difference and all."
"Of course, " Shigeru said as he stood up to leave.
Still they dont trust us, he ruefully thought. He weakly returned the salute of the guard outside, being hte first to leave the room. His effusive guide was waiting outside the door, ready and eager to show him the door.
The ride back to Tokyo-03 was long, silent and spent fully awake. Shigeru silently ruminated on the situation that was unfolding. A new Eva, and a new chance at continuing life.
If only he wasn't stuck with the same old problem.