- MIND - GAMES -

Part Sixth



"This is what you do after school?" Shinji asked. "Watch this... this...." Try as he might, he found it too difficult to finish his sentence, as no word seemed to appropriately match his abhorrence.

"And what do you do?" Asuka asked, cutting him off before he found the words he was searching for. "Lay in your room with your earphones on and stare at the ceiling?"

Judging by the embarrassed feeling emanating from Shinji, Asuka realized she had guessed right. 'Mein gott... he's worse off than I originally thought.'

"So what if I do?" Shinji shot back defensively. "I happen to like music, is that so wrong?"

Asuka was taken aback. She hadn't expected him to make an attempt at a comeback. "No." she answered, her subvocalized voice subdued. "There's nothing wrong with that."

They sat in silence for a while, both watching the events of the soap opera unfold. "I guess its not so bad." Shinji commented at the first commercial break. "But the story is a little hard to believe."

"You're not supposed to believe it." Asuka explained. "It is, after all, television. You're only supposed to watch it."

"Hmmmm" Shinji hummed thoughtfully. "I never thought of it like that before."

Asuka could not help but roll her eyes in response. "That figures." she muttered under her breath, though Shinji chose to pretend he didn't hear it. They once more fell into to the easy silence as they watched the characters perform their drama on the TV screen.

After awhile, though, Asuka became aware of Shinji growing gradually uncomfortable from something, but she was unable to determine from what his discomfort stemmed from. "Something wrong Shinji?" Asuka asked.

"Er, no, uh, nothing's wrong." Shinji replied evasively.

Asuka felt a wave of guilt emanate from Shinji, though she knew he was lying even without the emotional hint. "Shinji," Asuka stated firmly "You should really leave lying to those better suited to the task. Now, what's bothering you?"

Shinji sighed. "I was just thinking..." he said as his voice trailed off.

"Yeah?" Asuka asked, hoping to nudge him into continuing.

"You seem to get... upset... when Rei was around."

"So?" Asuka asked pointedly, not exactly liking where this conversation was heading.

"I... I was just curious as to... why, I guess." Shinji replied hesitantly.

"Why?" Asuka repeated, more for her benefit than Shinji's. Thankfully, the commercial break ended, thus halting their conversation.

The show eventually concluded and Shinji failed to bring the subject up again. He wanted Asuka to tell him without having to badger her into it. He was sure that she still remembered his question, but had chosen not to give him an answer. He felt it best to simply let the matter drop.

The credits began to roll, and Asuka negligently flipped the television off. It was then that she noticed the peculiar smell in the air. It was an unmistakable scent, one that struck fear into both Shinji, Asuka and Pen-Pen alike.

It was the smell of Misato's cooking.

"Dinner's ready!"

- M - I - N - D -

"..."

- G - A - M - E - S -

NERV's two commanders stood side-by-side in the windowed observation deck of Eva Cage 7, looking out over the motionless form of EVA Unit-01.

"You seem smug." Sub-commander Fuyutski commented. "I take it that they were less than pleased with this latest turn of events?"

"SEELE relies too much on the Dead Sea Scrolls and its schedules and timetables." Gendo Ikari replied. "They should have learned by now that not everything is predicted in the Scrolls, nor can everything be put to a schedule."

"Speaking of schedules," Fuyutski began, "How badly interrupted was the testing of Units -03 and -04?"

Unbeknownst to Fuyutski, the corners of Commander Ikari's mouth turned ever-so slightly upward. "Not so much to as upset our plans." he replied. "In this case, things are going the way they were scheduled."

Though anyone else would likely take such a statement at face value, Fuyutski had known Gendo Ikari far too long to take anything he said as being simply as it seemed. He was almost sure Ikari was not referring to the official schedules set by SEELE or any other organization for that matter, but rather to a schedule that was of Ikari's own design and making. 'Had he expected this to happen?' Fuyutski could not help but wonder.

- M - I - N - D -

". . . I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE!" the sudden shout shattered the silence that had long since settled over the room. Handfuls of hair were forcefully pulled from his head as he let out a feral scream of frustration. When he could scream no more he collapsed to the floor and began to use his index finger to make strange noises using his lips as his instrument.

Apache merely stared at him, laughter twinkling in his eyes.

* G * A * M * E * S *

Ritsuko scrolled through the results of the synchronization test one more time. 'These scores don't make any sense. This flux margin must have some explanation that I'm just not seeing.'

Asuka's bio-readings didn't indicate anything as being abnormal. She wasn't suffering from any signs of mental contamination from either EVA or Angel and from what the good doctor was able to gather from the various reports, the mental state of the Second Child was as stable as it had ever been. Try as she might, Ritsuko could find no insight as to what could have caused the strange sync scores.

It was beginning to frustrate her.

"What am I missing here?" Ritsuko asked herself aloud.

"Ma'am?" Maya asked, looking up from her terminal at her superior and mentor.

The blond scientist sat back in her chair and sighed. "Sorry, Maya. These crazy sync scores are driving me nuts. I still can't seem to pinpoint the reason behind them, and we've already gone over 75% of the data that the MAGI collected."

Maya frowned as she turned her attention back to her monitor. "We'll just have to keep looking until we find what we're looking for... no matter how long it takes."

Ritsuko smiled at her protege's dedication. "You're right, Maya. The answer is here somewhere, we simply have to find
it."

Feeling renewed, Ritsuko returned to work. "How's Shinji doing?" Maya asked after awhile, trying to break up the monotony of their endeavors.

Ritsuko answered without looking away from her screen. "Still no change."

"He's still in a coma?" Maya asked.

"It's not exactly a coma, really. It's more like he's simply not there any more. He doesn't show signs of brain or neural activity other than what's necessary to maintain life functions. So far, he hasn't responded to any form of treatment." Ritsuko smiled wearily. "I guess you could say he's another perplexing problem we'll have to solve."

Ritsuko brought up the next series of data charts to look over. Her eyes widened in surprise. 'This brain wave pattern doesn't make any sense... Nothing I've ever heard of has this kind of a signature. Hmmmm. Something is most definitely wrong here...'

"Maya, does the datascan show file 123A-45D43 as being corrupted in some way?"

Maya double checked quickly, "No ma'am. The MAGI's diagnostics report the file as being in nominal condition."

"Was any of the equipment reporting any malfunctions during the test period. Sensor equipment in particular."

Maya scanned the logs in a fraction of a second, then answered her. "No malfunctions were detected. Could that mean that the sysop routines are bugging up?"

Ritsuko shook her head. "An alarm would have gone off immediately from at least one of the MAGI units. For some reason, Asuka's brain waves must really look like this."

Maya got up and walked over to her mentor's terminal to see what she was talking about. What she saw was not the repetitive pattern of "waves" she had expected to find. It was similar to the graph of a tangent function... which is to say it appeared erratic and all over the place except the places it should be. "What... But how is... I mean, this can't be..." Maya stuttered, still unable to look away from the aberration in front of her.

"It is, though..." Ritsuko replied, her gaze also transfixed by the data on her screen. "The real question you should be asking is: why? Why is Asuka's brain wave pattern behaving like this?"

Maya Shook her head slowly. "I have no idea, ma'am."

Ritsuko didn't seem to hear her, though, as her fingers blurred across the keyboard, instructing the MAGI supercomputers to preform some task for her. From what little Maya had been able to see on the screen as line after line of programming scrolled past, she saw that Ritsuko was constructing some sort of elaborate search program. A full twenty-five seconds later, Ritsuko had finished the program and was ready to execute it.

"Here goes..." the blond scientist said under her breath. She pressed the ENTER key.

The program began to run.

"What was that?" Maya asked curiously.

Ritsuko smiled wryly. "When in doubt, go ask mother." she said softly.

Maya blinked. "Ma'am?"

"The short of it is that I asked the MAGI to search the world's databases for documented brain patterns that might be similar and then, based on that data, attempt to diagnose the problem with Asuka's data."

"Oh."

Two minutes passed.

Ritsuko frowned. "It shouldn't be taking this long."

Another minute passed. Ritsuko began to chew her lip impatiently. After another thirty seconds, the program had finished its task and displayed its results.

Ritsuko blinked at the data displayed before her. "There's two?!?!"

* M * I * N * D *

"Well duh..."

* G * A * M * E * S *

"We really need to get you back in your own body." Asuka was in her bedroom, having escaped from a fate marginally worse than death (Misato's latest attempt at making curry) more or less unscathed. She was currently lying on her futon with both her hands behind her head as her eyes on the ceiling, as she chatted with her incorporeal companion.

"You just don't want to have to continue eating Misato's cooking." Shinji accused her flatly.

She made a face. "Can you blame me for that?"

Asuka felt Shinji chuckle softy. "Not really." he said. "I sometimes wonder if Misato has a stomach made of cast iron. What else could explain how she manages to digest that stuff?"

The image of the long scar across Misato's abdomen flashed through Asuka's mind. 'Could she really...?' she wondered as her mind wandered. 'It certainly would explain a lot. I mean, the last time I ate that stuff, it burned going down and later felt like a lump of lead crawling its way through my insides...' she blanched slightly at the memories. 'How *does* she eat that stuff?'

"What's wrong, Asuka?" Shinji asked, confused by her silence.

Snapped from her private musings, she replied. "Nothing, I was just thinking."

"Oh." was all Shinji could say.

An uncomfortable silence settled between the two of them. Both wanted to say something more, but they were unsure as to what, exactly, it was that they wanted to say. Each grew frustrated with the situation, but neither felt the other's irritation as the emotion was so well mirrored by their own.

"Shinji..." Asuka finally said, forging ahead despite the feelings of awkwardness and uncertainty. "What happens next?"

A tense moment of silence ensued as she waited for the Third Child to respond. "I... I really don't know." he finally replied. "Maybe Ritsuko will figure it out on her own. Are you still against telling Misato and Ritsuko about all this?"

Asuka barely took a fraction of a second to think over her response. "I can't do it, Shinji. At least not until we've exhausted all other options available to us."

Shinji didn't feel it proper to point out that they practically had exhausted the options as far either of them knew. "Well, what do you suggest our next course of action be?" he asked instead, in as non-vindictive tone as he could manage.

Asuka gave no immediate response. "We could always try again tomorrow." Asuka said after a while.

"Seeing as we haven't come up with any other solutions yet, I guess that's all we can do." Shinji replied.

"Yeah..." Asuka yawned.

"You must be tired Asuka." Shinji said. "Let's sleep on this and see how things look in the morning."

"You read my mind."

A feeling of surprise came from Shinji. "No, I didn't. Honest!"

Asuka rolled her eyes. "It's only an expression, idiot. Goodnight."

Shinji relaxed. "Goodnight, Asuka. Sweet dreams." With that, Shinji's presence vanished from her awareness.

Turning over on her side and closing her eyes, Asuka began to reflect upon the ending day.

'Shinji doesn't make for all that bad of company...' She observed. 'Who would've thought? I actually enjoyed most of our conversations, and then there was the music we played... How come he wasn't like this before today?'

She pondered this for awhile until she realized that Shinji had changed his behavior even before being removed from his body. 'But why?' she wondered. 'What could have happened to him to cause him to change so much?'

Despite her efforts, she could not discern the reason for Shinji's metamorphosis. Had she been more awake, she might have been able to make a few more guesses, but as tired as she was, her toils simply carried her off into slumber.

* M * I * N * D *

Ah, to sleep...

+ G + A + M + E + S +

Shinji returned to the now-familiar emptiness of the Void, full of questions. 'Why does she insist on doing this by ourselves? I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get back into my body without outside help... By this point I was sure she'd be willing to do just about anything to get rid of me.'

'She reacted kinda strangely when I suggested we tell Misato and Ritsuko. It was almost as if... she were afraid of something. But what? What could she be afraid of?'

Shinji was unable to further ponder the matter, as the Void began to shudder and reshape itself.

"Here we go again..." Shinji muttered, as he braced himself for what was to come.

+ M + I + N + D +

...to sleep, perchance, to dream...

+ G + A + M + E + S +

Asuka found herself floating alone amidst a sea of endless darkness, nothingness surrounding her on all sides as far as she could see. She was alone.

Yes. said a voice from beyond that infinite darkness. You *are* alone. More so than you even realize. But here, allow me to show you...

An image of her father talking to her stepmother appeared. "Papa..." Asuka whispered faintly in response to the sudden apparition.

"I just don't feel comfortable around her anymore." her father was saying. "I didn't mean for us to grow apart like we did, but... well... You've seen how she is. She always was her mother's child..."

Her stepmother put a comforting hand over her father's. "I don't think anyone could blame you, dear. The way Asuka acts at times... its unnatural. Its not your fault, I don't see what you could have possibly done to change the way she's turned out..."

Asuka felt the familiar sensation of something hardening within her. Refusing to allow herself to feel any sort of emotion towards the display, she turned away, only to find herself confronted with another image, this time of Misato talking on the phone with someone.

"Asuka? She's becoming a real hassle lately. Yeah, I know I volunteered to be her guardian, but that was only because I thought she'd have a positive effect on Shinji. Too bad she didn't mature emotionally during the time she spent in Germany; she's still the same self-centered bratty little girl that I remember. Her actions towards Kaji just goes to prove my point..."

Asuka once again looked away. "She cares about Shinji, not me." She said to herself. "It doesn't matter though, I don't need her. Her opinions of me don't matter."

"Did I hear someone say my name?" Asuka heard an all-too familiar voice ask. She turned back to see Kaji now embracing Misato from behind, his arms wrapping around her mid-section.

"I'll call you back." Misato said, hanging up the cell phone as she pushed him away. "You jerk! You were supposed to meet me after I got off my shift."

Kaji's face became a mask of wounded innocence. "I would have," he explained, "had I not been detained by a certain redheaded fourteen-year-old who insisted on keeping in my company wherever I went."

Misato's cross glare at the Unshaven One refused to relent. "Sometimes, I think you enjoy her infatuation with you just a little too much." she said, her tone icy and unforgiving.

"You know there's no need to be jealous, Misato." Kaji replied.

"Who said that I was?" Misato asked, her voice taking on a dangerous quality.

"I can't bring myself to cause her pain." Kaji explained. "She's only a child, after all."

Only a child . . .

Only a child ! ! !

The words screamed over and over again within her soul, tearing away at it with ruthless abandon. Worst of all, she knew it was true. Despite everything, Kaji saw Asuka as being a child... a little girl. That's all she was and all she would ever be to him. A child who was playing games meant for grown-ups; trying to pretend to be what she was not. Kaji didn't care for her. Not the real her, anyway, not the way she needed him too. He couldn't see the real Asuka.

Fighting back tears, Asuka turned away; trying to somehow flee from the painful scene only to see Hikari standing before her. The pigtailed girl was obviously happy about something, and from the silly grin that was plastered across her face, Asuka could hazard a likely guess that Suzahara had something to do with it.

"Hey Asuka!" Hikari greeted her cheerfully. "Touji just asked me to be his girlfriend!"

Asuka felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as her suspicions were confirmed. Hikari continued to talk. "I can barely believe it! I'm going to spend every waking moment with him from now on." Hikari frowned slightly. "I can't hang around you anymore, though. Touji says you're a bad influence on me and I'd have to agree. You're too individualistic to associate with a proper Japanese wife. I'm sorry." Hikari smiled again and giggled. "'Hikari Suzahara.' Has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Goodbye Asuka."

Hikari turned and faded into the nothingness as she walked away, leaving Asuka standing alone once more. 'Alone...' the word reverberated within Asuka's thoughts, 'Papa, Misato, Kaji, even Hikari... I'm alone... all alone...'

Another image came into view, this time it was the familiar form of Shinji that Asuka saw. He stood smiling serenely at her, giving her that "look." She wanted to call out to him, but was stopped by the appearance of another image. Rei Ayanami walked up to Shinji, demurely demanding his attention. When Shinji turned towards the First Child, Rei took his face in her hands and made it so his only choice was to focus on her and her alone. Ever so slowly, Ayanami brought his face towards hers as both of them closed their eyes in anticipation of what was to come. Their lips drew closer, closer, closer...

Asuka could swear she heard the sound of something breaking. Had she thought about it, she might have guessed that it was her battered heart.





Author's Notes:

I humbly beg forgiveness for the length of time it has taken me to release this part of Mind Games. As I continue to develop a story, it becomes harder and harder for me to write it. This particular installation was to be six to seven sections longer, but due to pressure from you, the readers, I decided to cut it short so to be able to release it earlier than it would have been otherwise.
I hope to have Part Seventh released before the end of the month, but in all likelihood, it will probably be closer to Christmas before its done.
A note about the inserts: The inserts are something I put in mainly for my personal enjoyment. They started out as a way for me to foreshadow some actions that were to occur in future sections of the story. I received a lot of feedback saying that the inserts detracted from the story, so, during the last part, the inserts were silenced (sorta). I have decided to continue to have the inserts, so as not to deprive those of you who actually enjoy the rapier witticism of mine and Apache's asinine commentaries. For the many of you who dislike the inserts... Skip 'em. They're clearly marked so as to be easily avoidable. At some future date, I might release a Mind Games-lite version that removes the annoying interludes for those of you who wish to read the story uninterrupted by commentary. But that day is as far off as the conclusion of this tangled tale.

A note about darkscribes.org: I've long since become a member of the Dark Lords and Ladies of Fiction. Please visit darkscribes.org when you have the opportunity. You'll be able to find my work there, as well as many other talented writers. I'm responsible for some the site design and a lot of the site graphics(check out the animated Chibi Unit-01 and Sachiel!) You can find a good deal of Evangelion Fanfiction there, though that is in no way the limit of its content. Check it out.

Right now... I need some sleep.