Yay! Vol. 4 is finally here. And it only took me what, 5 months and 31 goddamn pages. I mean seriously, holy shit. This chapter is friggin huge (it more than doubles the overall word count).
Now, let your imagination feast upon some stupid, pointless literary fanservice that I included for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Too much Ikki Tousen/Chobits/Mahoromatic/almost every other anime ever made, I suppose.
Kill Gendou
Volume Four
Asuka exhaled slowly, closing her eyes and immersing her body further into the steaming bathtub. As her firm, supple breasts broke the surface and sank into the warm depths, she finally allowed herself to relax, releasing herself of all the pent-up tension. She pushed the lust for revenge deep into the back of her mind where it smoldered, waiting patiently for the time when it might flare up again to consume her enemies in an inferno of rage and destruction. For the moment, she just wanted to rest, clear her mind, and get a fresh start. She had plenty of work left to do, but if she kept up at her current pace, she would be dead before her task was complete.
The sword lay on the linoleum nearby, well within reaching distance in case of an emergency. But Asuka was confident she had not been followed back to this hotel; after all, she had massacred every agent posted at the old apartment complex, and the only other person who had paid her any real attention since then was now lying cold in a dumpster with a slit throat, even if he had just turned out to be nothing more than a wise-ass pervert.
Asuka sighed, opening her eyes and staring into the hotel bathroom's fluorescent lighting. As much as she might have liked to linger in the tub for hours, there was work to be done. She had all the necessary information; now all she needed was a plan.
Placing a hand on either side of the tub, Asuka raised herself out of the water, letting the warm liquid cascade down her body, replaced by the soft touch of cool air. A few droplets of water streamed down her chest, trickling over her soft, pink nipples and the smooth curves of her stomach onto the creamy white flesh of her thigh. Asuka was pleased to note that the thigh wound was no longer bleeding and actually seemed to be healing up at last.
Ignoring the room's slight chill and the delicate goosebumps running down her arms, Asuka wrapped a clean, white towel around herself and stepped out of the tub. There was killing to be done, and if she didn't do it, it was likely no one would.
A dozen or so NERV Intelligence agents sat around a small conference table in the Sixth Cranial Nerve, shifting anxiously in their seats and occasionally exchanging a bit of idle conversation, simultaneously trying to conceal their fear and determine why the meeting had been called to begin with. Unbeknownst to any of them, this room was at almost the exact same geographic coordinates as the room Kaji had used to prepare for his final mission, only that room was several levels down and shifted slightly to the west.
Several minutes after all the agents had assembled, a small door in the back of the conference room slid open, gliding out of the way with a quiet hiss. Rei Ayanami stepped across the threshold, flanked by two large, grim-looking agents dressed in entirely black suits, her own personal bodyguards chosen by Gendou Ikari himself. The sporadic chatter ceased, and each of the assembled agents snapped upright in their seats as she walked past.
Reaching the head of the conference table, Rei moved in front of her chair as if to sit down, but instead remained on her feet. Surprised by the change in protocol, the agents began scrambling to a standing position as well in respect for their superior, but she stopped them with a wave of her hand. More agitated than ever, they slid back down into their seats, waiting courteously for her to speak.
The high collar of Rei's uniform jacket, almost identical in design to the kind Misato Katsuragi would have worn before her death, concealed the large, black bruises that still lingered on her throat. The deep blue jacket's long sleeves similarly concealed the bandaged wound near her elbow, where a bullet from Kaji's gun had painfully grazed her arm. She seldom wore the garment, preferring the simplicity of the basic school uniforms she had always worn; but when she did, the agents under her command knew something was up, and there were usually reprimands involved. That only made the agents even more nervous; her "reprimands" were often quite severe.
"Gentlemen," Rei began, her soft, almost monotone voice echoing slightly off the concrete walls.
The agents at the table leaned forward, listening intently. Her throat still had not completely recovered from the abuse Kaji's garrote had inflicted, and her normally quiet voice was even softer than usual as she spoke.
"No doubt you are all wondering why I have called you here today on such short notice."
She paused, letting the nervous agents squirm a bit before continuing, shifting her eyes from one man to another, watching impassively as each man in turn struggled to hide his fear when her cold, red eyes fell upon him.
"There are two reasons why I have called this meeting," she continued. "I am certain you have all been briefed on our recent activity in Sector 14."
A few agents nodded in confirmation, but most of them were too nervous to even move. It was irrelevant anyway; they were all well aware of the stakeout at Rei's former dwelling, the trap intended to snare the elusive Second Child, Asuka Langley Sohryu.
Rei motioned toward the bodyguard at her left. The man stepped forward, removing a file from within his suit jacket, and leafed through the pages for a moment before coming to the one he was looking for.
"Based on evidence found at the site last evening, it is estimated that the Second Child arrived sometime around late afternoon to early evening, and departed within the hour. A confirmed total of twenty-six bodies were recovered from the site, one of which appeared to have been subjected to torture and possibly interrogation. It is unknown at this time what information he might have revealed, if any."
Having finished his report, the black-suited agent stepped back to his original position, bowing respectfully to Rei. All eyes focused on her as she resumed speaking.
"Commander Ikari has made his expectations quite clear: failure such as this is not to be tolerated. However, given that all operatives responsible for this incident are already dead, no further reprimands will be given at this time."
The agents in the room were visibly relieved, some of them exhaling sharply as they realized they had been holding their breath.
"However," Rei continued, motioning toward her two bodyguards, "there is still another reason why you were called here today."
The two men stepped back and exited through the small door in the back of the conference room which they had used to enter. As quickly as it had gone, the tension returned, saturating the small conference room with a palpable sense of dread.
Moments later, the door slid open again, and the two men returned, dragging the corpse of Ryoji Kaji between them. His long hair, usually secured carefully behind his head in a narrow ponytail, hung loosely over his face, a few strands clinging to the dry, sticky blood on his chest.
With a firm grasp on each of Kaji's arms, they drug the body over by the conference table and dropped it unceremoniously to the floor in a heap.
"As you can see," Rei continued, the icy monotone of her voice only heightening the agents' fear, "there was severe breach in security at my personal residence last night."
The stress in the room reached critical. One man in particular, seated about halfway down from Rei's position at the head of the table, was visibly terrified. From his damp forehead, thoroughly matted with his now-disheveled hair, to the palms of his hands clenched tightly against the arms of the chair, sweat seemed to pour off the man in torrents, soaking into his business suit and collecting on his skin in fat droplets that quivered as his body trembled in obvious terror.
"Agent Imura," Rei said, uttering the two words the trembling man had hoped more than anything she would not say.
"Y-yes, Miss Ayanami?" he replied shakily, struggling in vain to put on a calm expression.
"Perhaps you could tell me who is in charge of my personal security."
"Er… w-well, I-I, that is, um…"
His squirming ceased, and he sank resignedly down into his chair.
"I am," he finally admitted.
"That is correct, Imura," Rei said, finally sitting down in her chair.
After several moments had passed without the thump of a bullet ripping through his head or chest or the sting of a knife at his throat, Agent Imura relaxed a bit. Perhaps Rei valued his skills enough not to execute him over one small incident, especially since the intruder had been successfully dealt with…
"Y-you see, Miss Ayanami…" he began.
Rei did not let him finish. In one swift, fluid motion, she jumped up from her seated position and drew a short wakizashi blade from concealment beneath the conference table. With a short, high-pitched battle cry that might have been amusing under lighter circumstances, she leapt up onto the table and sprinted down its length, her feet padding softly on the smooth surface.
Panicking, Agent Imura barely had time to start pushing away from the table before Rei reached his position. With one quick chop, she easily severed his neck, the head tumbling from atop his shoulders and bouncing down the table past several other startled agents before coming to a rest.
In death, his body completed the final act of his life, pushing a few more inches from the table before flopping out of the chair, twitching, blood spurting from the open neck and pooling on the floor.
Rei casually wiped the blood from her sword with a handkerchief, then disdainfully tossed the bloody rag down onto the twitching corpse before walking back to the head of the table and gracefully stepping down onto the floor.
No one made a sound. Most of the agents sat absolutely still, their eyes focused in Rei's general direction, but few of them had the courage to meet her eyes.
"Now," Rei said quietly, "I'm only going to say this once more: Commander Ikari does not tolerate failure."
Rei drew herself up to her full height, which in itself was hardly impressive, but when combined with her eerily calm mannerism, and those cruel, red eyes, it was often quite unnerving to even be in the same room with her.
"The price you pay," Rei continued calmly, "for gross incompetence and failure is: I collect your fucking head."
To emphasize her point, she held up the severed head of the former Agent Imura. His face was twisted up in a disturbing grimace of surprise and horror.
"Just like this fucker here."
Tossing the bloody trophy aside, Rei leapt back onto the table, sword in hand, an uncharacteristic look of rage splayed across her face. At that same moment, by some strange and malevolent coincidence, the conference room's dim light flickered, engulfing the room in a momentary shadow. By some trick of the light, her eyes seemed to glow a deep, smoldering red.
Perched atop the conference table, sword in hand, eyes burning like fiery rubies in the fleeting darkness, she struck a most intimidating visage. The agents shrank back, flinching in terror as she spoke, her voice booming throughout the room like thunder through a narrow canyon.
"Now if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say, NOW'S THE FUCKING TIME!"
The room was silent. No one dared to move, let alone break the silence with nervous speech, lest they suffer the same fate as the unfortunate Imura.
"I didn't think so," Rei finished, returning to her usual calm, dispassionate self.
Stepping down to the floor once again, she turned around to face the terrified agents.
"Agent Kurosawa," Rei said, pointing to a nearby agent with the tip of her sword.
"Y-yes, Miss Ayanami?" the man stuttered, shrinking back in fear of the deadly blade.
"You are hereby promoted to head of security. I trust your performance will be more admirable than that of your predecessor."
The man could only nod, staring blankly down at the table in front of him where the severed head had come to rest.
Returning her sword to its sheath, Rei turned and strode from the room, ignoring the pain in her throat from the sudden outburst. She was pleased with how the meeting had turned out; no doubt the entire intelligence division would be more cautious in the future.
As she stepped out into the narrow hallway, Rei's thoughts turned to the Second Child. There was no doubt as to why she had returned; the only question was where she would strike next. But wherever that was, Rei would be there. Five years ago, Commander Ikari had issued orders for the termination of the Second Child, Asuka Langley Sohryu. Rei would ensure the completion of those orders once and for,all and if necessary, she would see to it personally. She would not risk the incompetence of her subordinates again.
Asuka glanced back at the small, private dwelling for what seemed like the hundredth time, pondering yet again the wisdom of her decision.
From appearances alone, the little house was far from impressive. Though it was obviously a relatively new structure in moderately good condition, it was still rather plain, perhaps even a bit ugly. A new coat of paint and some minor repairs here and there would have done well to fix that; but then, that would throw off the true genius of its design.
At first glance, the unremarkable little building scarcely caught the eye, much less attracted a second look, despite the fact that it was the only private home for miles around. Hundreds of people could pass by in a day and not even give it a second thought. This nifty feature, not to mention its relatively close proximity to the Geofront and the relative ease of security and surveillance compared to a sprawling apartment complex, made it the perfect living quarters for Rei Ayanami.
The small dwelling, commissioned several years previously by Commander Ikari himself, had been Rei's place of residence during the long absence of Angel attacks jokingly referred to by some as the "Angel Drought." This so-called drought had begun approximately eight months after Asuka's betrayal, following the defeat of Almisael, the 16th Angel. Since then, the arrival of the 17th and final Angel had been patiently awaited by NERV personnel, but as more and more time passed, many people outside the organization were beginning to wonder if there would even be another Angel attack. With no current means of validating their continued existence, NERV was hard-pressed to fend off the machinations of their increasing political opponents, both outspoken and otherwise. Thus, the Intelligence branch of the NERV organization had become continually more important, rising even to the level of the EVA research and maintenance department itself. As Rei began to demonstrate an aptitude for directing the intelligence division, Commander Ikari had given her greater responsibilities within the organization. Gendou was nothing if not practical, and given the opportunity to use Rei as both an EVA pilot and an effective staff member, he had readily made the decision to promote her.
All this and more Asuka had gleaned from her "interrogation," but most of the information was not particularly relevant to her quest. Stretching a slightly tender shoulder joint, Asuka glanced away from Rei's home and over to the west, where a magnificent sunset stretched across the horizon, splashing the clouds with its warm, vivid colors. Like colossal guardians protecting a precious treasure, the Tokyo-3 cityscape rose up in deep silhouettes, casting long shadows down the streets of the mechanized metropolis.
Asuka sighed. There was once a time where she could have enjoyed such a view, lounging up on a hill at the city's outskirts, drinking in the magnificent sight; but that time was long past. Now the crimson hues just reminded her of blood: the blood she had spilled, the blood that she had shed, and the blood that she would certainly spill and shed before her quest came to its violent conclusion.
Her thoughts coming full circle, Asuka looked back at the house again. No, she firmly decided, she would not go inside to face Rei here. There was no guarantee the blue-haired girl would even be home; besides, this was hardly a fitting place for a showdown. It might have been fine for that bitch Misato to die in her own home, deep in her own filth, but the hate Asuka nurtured in her heart for Rei ran much deeper. Every moment of revenge was a sweet delicacy to be savored; that was what truly kept her going, what had kept her alive all these years, pushing her onward from the brink of death to the exact spot where she stood. Every breath she took, every move she made, was fueled by her hate and her thirst for retribution.
No, she would not end it here. She would not cheapen it, depriving herself of the sweet satisfaction she craved. But still…
"Time for Plan B," Asuka muttered, moving back over to the black, unmarked van sitting silently across the street. Opening the rear hatch, she admired her handiwork, making sure everything was in place.
A NERV Intelligence agent lay sprawled face-down on the floor in the rear of the van amid a tangled mass of smashed surveillance equipment, a pool of blood and visible entrails spread beneath him. Satisfied with the body's arrangement, she closed the hatch stepped around to the front of the van, and peered inside. A headless body sat in the passenger's seat, slouched over slightly to the left, blood dripping from the stump of its neck to form a sticky puddle on the floor. Less than two feet away sat a third corpse with a slit throat, held stiffly upright in the driver's seat by hands stiff from rigor mortis, clenched tightly the steering wheel as if to drive. A large knife protruded from the man's skull, inserted post-mortem to pin a small, white piece of paper firmly in place against his temple.
Asuka frowned; the layout was adequate, but it still lacked something in presentation…
Seized by sudden inspiration, she flung open the passenger-side door. Grasping the passenger's right arm, she lifted it up, resting it against the driver's shoulder and manipulating the fingers until the headless man was pointing straight at the note pinned to his partner's face.
Satisfied with the arrangement, Asuka glanced one last time at the house, making sure the legs of a fourth agent were just visible protruding from the hedges near the front door, then kicked the severed head into concealment beneath the van and allowed herself a small grin. Her message had been sent; there was nothing left to do now but wait.
Midnight.
Tokyo-3 Elementary and Secondary Education Complex
5 students remaining
Though it was the first time she had been to her old school in more than five years, Asuka felt only the slightest hint of nostalgia for the old place. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since then, leaving distant, faded memories of a time that she could no longer even relate to. For all she knew, those memories might even have been damaged; after all, that certainly would explain the foreign, almost otherworldly feeling she seemed to get whenever she tried to think about it. But that was a rare occurrence; there was only one "incident" from those days that truly occupied her thoughts, and such did it consume her that she often thought of nothing else.
Besides, the school hardly even resembled the simple, functional building she recalled in those faded memories. As her old eighth grade class, fourth-level candiates all, graduated and continued on through their academic careers, NERV had deemed it a priority to keep them centralized so that they could be continually observed and recruited as was necessary. Thus the building was expanded to form the heart of the Tokyo-3 education system, housing classrooms and various support facilities for every grade level from preschool and kindergarten through the graduating senior class, which of course all her old classmates were now currently a part of.
But despite all this, Gendou Ikari was a practical man, and NERV was a practical organization. Rather than tearing down the existing structure and starting from scratch, the new construction had simply been appended to the original school building, providing a central hub from which the rest of the complex could expand.
It was precisely this location which Asuka sought. After considering the city's layout and both civilian and military traffic, she had decided that this place and time would be ideal for facing her old nemesis with minimal outside interference. Although she could not deny that at least a tiny portion of her decision may have been based on a nostalgic whim.
Entering through the school's sturdy, if somewhat aged, double doors, Asuka strolled through the darkened hallways, taking in the familiar sights. Despite some general remodeling and a fresh coat of paint, the old place still seemed to retain its original feel and color scheme. For an instant, Asuka truly allowed her mind to drift back fully to the old days, back to a time where, despite the constant threat of Angel attack, she had at least felt some small measure of peace.
Evan as she began to relax, the simmering hatred boiled forth again, flooding her mind with rage. Her steady pace wavered, and it was all she could do not to put her fist through the nearest classroom window.
Focus, the voice in her mind seemed to say. Don't you have something to do? Don't you have someone… to kill?
Under normal circumstances she would have found the idea of voices in her head disturbing. But "normal" circumstances no longer applied; she had left them behind more than five years ago. Besides, she found herself so completely in agreement with the voice's sentiments that she didn't even give it a second thought.
Arriving at her destination, Asuka stopped before yet another set of double doors. Beyond this threshold lay the school's assembly hall, and the next step in her quest for retribution. Beyond these doors, she was certain she would find what she was looking for: the First Child. Rei Ayanami.
Steadying her trembling hands, Asuka exhaled slowly and pushed through the doors into the room beyond.
"You're late."
Rei Ayanami's soft voice echoed briefly throughout the large assembly hall, resonating from one surface to the next before fading into nothingness.
Asuka smirked, glancing up at the large central stage where Rei stood motionless, flanked on either side by her personal bodyguards.
"You're early."
Their eyes met, locking firmly on one another. Though neither woman moved, the struggle between their wills was as palpable as if they engaged in open battle.
"I knew you would be here," Asuka said, lifting her gaze from Rei's striking red eyes and quickly scanning the NERV intelligence agents lined along the auditorium's outer walls, spreading out from the central stage. "And I see you brought friends."
"Yes," Rei replied calmly. "Five years ago, Commander Ikari ordered your termination. I am simply here to ensure that those orders are carried out."
"Of course you are," Asuka muttered sarcastically, her fingers hovering unconsciously over the weapons holstered and sheathed at her waist. "That's fine. You know what they say: the more, the merrier."
Asuka's hands hovered even closer to her holstered weapons, this time under her conscious control. Her pulse quickened with anticipation, and she realized that her carefully-maintained composure weakening.
"Now I'm going to be perfectly honest with you," she continued. "All this excitement is getting me a bit flustered. So why don't we just get started?"
"That would be acceptable," Rei replied, making a sweeping gesture toward her red-haired adversary. "Kill her."
On cue, the agents spread throughout the room raised their weapons to fire on their target. But Asuka was quicker, snatching two nine millimeter handguns from their holsters at her waist and springing backwards. Even as she fell, Asuka spread her arms to either side and fired a single bullet from both weapons. To her right, a NERV Intelligence agent toppled over backwards, a light mist of reddish goo trailing from his left eye socket as he crashed limply to the ground. To her left, a second man stumbled backwards a few steps, then slumped forward, a slight rasping sound emanating from his exposed trachea.
The other agents remained undeterred, however, and unleashed a torrent of bullets in her direction as commanded. But Asuka's dive had already moved her safely backward and to the right behind the last row of seats, and the projectiles impacted harmlessly against the walls and chairs of the auditorium.
Popping up from behind the seats, Asuka opened fire again, quickly slaying three more of her opponents before dropping back into the relative safety of the floor as the agents returned her gesture with interest. The chairs rattled under the intense onslaught, and bits of shattered concrete from the walls flaked into her eyes, threatening to obscure her vision.
Asuka hissed and pulled her arm aside, forcibly suppressing a sudden surge of bloodlust as a single slug punched through the back of a nearby chair and grazed her right bicep. Growling, she crawled further down the row, taking cover behind an undamaged section of seats. Obviously the auditorium could not provide the proper environment she needed. It was only a matter of time before the agents began to advance on her position, and no matter how accurate she might be there was no way she could hold them all off once they circled around behind the row of chairs she was using as cover.
As she continued her peek, shoot, and move routine, Asuka's mind began to formulate a plan of action that could turn the situation to her advantage; also, as she was not too proud to admit, it could be kind of fun. Sliding a fresh magazine into both of her handguns, she began to half-run, half-crawl her way down the row to the left, toward the gap of the center aisle, careful to remain low enough that the agents couldn't get a clear shot at her.
Putting her back to the seat adjacent to the central aisle, Asuka peered around the corner, getting her first relatively clear view of the entire opposing force. The throng of agents was creeping forward, slowly but surely, confident in their numbers but terrified of her reputation and the deadly accuracy she had demonstrated. There were more of them than she had anticipated. A lot more.
"Shit," she grumbled, relaxing a bit against the seat's back, closing her eyes and exhaling as she cursed her lack of focus. She had stared down Rei the entire time, sparing only the briefest glance at anyone else in the room, and now here she was, pinned down and ignorant of what she was up against.
Opening her eyes again only made her more pissed off. Through the small, vertical glass slits in the auditorium's main double doors, her gaze came to focus on another group of agents running down the hallway toward her, weapons at the ready.
"Verdammt," she muttered, forcing down her bloodlust yet again. This fight was starting to get very annoying, very fast, but it was still not the time for rash decisions.
Fine, she thought to herself. I can still stick to the plan. I just have to move a little faster.
Emptying one of her pistols into the nearest vertical slit in the double doors to kill, wound, scatter, and otherwise slow down her new pursuers, Asuka dove out across the main aisle, tucking her head and rolling quickly out of the open into safety behind the last row again. Popping up from behind her cover, she snapped off a few quick shots, and then ducked back down out of sight. Estimating the trajectory based on the sounds of gunfire and her last brief glimpse of the agents' locations, she raised the nine millimeter again and blind-fired the remainder of clip over the seats. Based on several grunts of pain and a slight decrease in the volume of gunfire, she must have been either lucky or correct. Frowning, Asuka placed the now-empty handguns back into their holsters and drew her sword; she had been hoping to reload the weapons, but there simply wasn't time.
The roar of a shotgun blast and an explosion of dust and debris in her nearby vicinity told her that someone had decided they'd had enough of this bullshit and that it was time to break out the heavy firepower. Blinking her vision clear, she groped around in the pouch at her hip for the item she needed.
"So you want to play rough," she spat, seizing her prize and lifting it from the pouch. "Fine. Let's play."
Pulling the grenade's pin, Asuka sprinted down the row almost fully upright, bullets whizzing dangerously close to her exposed body. Just before she reached the aisle running parallel to the auditorium's side wall, she chucked the active explosive toward the center of the room and dropped to the floor, letting her sword clatter to the floor nearby as she clamped both hands squarely over her ears.
The grenade detonated, spewing white-hot flame and shrapnel in all directions. The men nearby were mostly incinerated and blown apart, flinging the few remaining parts of their body that were still intact enough to be recognizable across the room like prizes from a piñata. The few unfortunate men who were not quite close enough to be vaporized were struck full-force by the shrapnel, and for all intents and purposes were shredded to death. A number of other agents who were not within the immediate vicinity of the explosion received various shrapnel wounds and burns from being struck by the smoldering pieces of their former compatriots. All in all, it made a lot of people have a very bad day. Except for one.
Suppressing a grin, Asuka snatched up her sword from where it had fallen and pulled a second grenade from the pouch at her hip. The first grenade had been much more powerful than she had anticipated; her ears were ringing a bit, despite the fact that she had kept them covered a good distance from the blast.
Making careful use of the smoke, debris, the agents' temporary deafness and their general shock to cover her movement, Asuka began moving down the side aisle toward the stage. Relying heavily on her old memories of the place (which had become frustratingly dim as of late), Asuka pulled the pin from the second grenade and tossed it over by a section of the auditorium's wall.
Dropping to a crouch, she clamped her palms over her ears again as the grenade detonated with similar results as the first, only this time there were fewer agents in the nearby vicinity and the primary victim was the section of wall. Old as it was, and without the objective of withstanding military-grade explosives within its original design parameters, a good portion of the wall was obliterated by the explosion, bits of concrete and wood peppering the surrounding areas along with a few sizable pieces of the men who happened to be standing nearby.
Springing up again, Asuka dashed through the obscuring cloud of smoke and debris toward the newly-exposed classroom.
Kicking open the main double doors of the auditorium, Agent Kurosawa entered the room just in time to see the trail of Asuka's red hair disappearing through the dispersing cloud of smoke and through the new doorway she had just created into the classroom beyond. Appalled by the level of destruction and slaughter in the auditorium and infuriated by the level of sheer incompetence it represented, Kurosawa wavered for a moment between running around screaming in a fit of rage and sobbing helplessly in the corner. Deciding that neither choice would be particularly useful at the moment, he instead turned to the group of agents he had brought with him from the hall.
"What the hell are you waiting for?" he hissed, gesturing toward the smoldering hole in the wall that Asuka had just disappeared through. "Kill her!"
The agents in question looked dubiously at one another, but ultimately shrugged and began moving toward the wall. Turning back to the rest of the men in the room, Agent Kurosawa drew his sidearm and gestured toward the smoking gap again.
"The same goes for the rest of you," he declared. "If you're still alive, then you had damn well better get going if you want to stay that way."
Having seen the Second Child in action firsthand, the remaining agents could hardly agree with this statement; however, given the choice between immediate death and the slight possibility of survival if they could manage to chase down and eliminate the elusive Asuka Langley Sohryu, they decided that for the moment it was in their best interests to follow orders. Especially since Rei Ayanami was still in the room, and they certainly did not want to piss her off any more than they wanted to catch up with Asuka. Still, a few of them hesitated, shifting back and forth on their feet as if unsure what to do. Stepping over to the fallen form of a groaning agent with a rather large splinter of wood pierced through his right shoulder, Agent Kurosawa fired a single bullet into the wounded man's head.
"Now get going!"
Apparently having found the motivation they needed, all the remaining agents who could stand rushed for the opening in the wall. Somewhat satisfied for the moment, Kurosawa relaxed a bit. He considered walking around and finishing off the rest of the badly wounded agents, but decided against it. Sighing, he slid the handgun back into its holster, leaned against a nearby wall, and waited.
Taking a deep breath and trying in vain to steady his trembling hands, the agent nearest to the hole in the wall stepped cautiously up to the entrance and peered inside, pistol at the ready. Through the settling dust and what little faded moonlight was pouring through the windows, the classroom looked decidedly gloomy and lucid. Every shadow seemed to move on its own, a forest of wriggling blurs, any one of which could suddenly leap out and end his life. A cold, hard lump settled into his gut, and he knew deep down in his heart that he would be the first to die.
He was wrong.
The agent behind him stumbled a bit, his foot sliding over a smooth, round object as he stepped over the threshold. A slight pain in his ankle prompted him to curse the bothersome piece of debris and lift his foot to kick the thing away. The result, however, was quite the opposite.
In a violent flash of incendiary devastation, Asuka's third and final grenade detonated beneath his feet, virtually eradicating him from existence and sending small, sizzling bits of his shattered corpse deflecting about the room. Within a fraction of an instant, the first agent to enter the room followed suit, his fear and self-pity ending abruptly as a wave of fiery shrapnel engulfed him.
Grinning, Asuka listened from her position just outside the classroom door as the grenade went off, unleashing its destructive forces on the helpless men inside. Satisfied, she turned and strolled away into the darkened hallway.
Rei Ayanami stared impassively at the carnage from her position at the center of the stage, where she had remained throughout the duration of the battle in the auditorium. Glancing down at her left hand, she noted a small trickle of blood running down from her knuckle where a piece of shrapnel had grazed her.
"Miss Ayanami," one of her bodyguards exclaimed, running to her side. "You are hurt."
"It is nothing," Rei replied, lifting her wounded hand.
"No," the agent said, gesturing toward her forehead. "Your other wound."
Rei suddenly felt a damp tingle of liquid running through her eyebrow, then blinked several times as it began to slide down into her eye. Wiping away the bothersome fluid, she observed the red smear of her own blood staining her hand.
"It is nothing," Rei repeated, dismissing the bodyguard with a wave of her hand.
Turning back to the auditorium floor, she continued to observe the extent of the damage that the former Pilot Sohryu had inflicted. The floor was littered with dead and severely wounded NERV Intelligence agents, but there were still plenty of men left under her command, and by now Agent Kurosawa had certainly called for reinforcements as ordered.
Rei glanced back at the hole in the wall through which the Second Child had escaped. It had been an impressive display of skill and cunning, Rei had to admit. But it was far from over. The Second Child would be found and eliminated, no matter the cost.
Crouching low, Asuka pressed her back to the wall and listened carefully for the sounds of her pursuers as they stalked nervously through the darkened hallways, each sincerely hoping they would not be the one to encounter her, but desperately trying to be prepared in case they were. With a soft click, she slid her last two magazines into each of her nine millimeter handguns; stealth was good and all, but this could take all night if she didn't at least make a bit of noise…
Leaning around the corner, Asuka honed in on a group of agents coming down the hall toward her position. By her estimate there were only about seven or eight of them. She shrugged; it was a start.
Taking one last look at the approaching agents, Asuka backed away from the corner and concealed herself behind a nearby trash can, ducking low and pulling herself in to ensure that no part of her body would be visible around its edges.
Rightly fearing an ambush, they grew even more cautious as they reached the intersection. One of them, possessing the wit to be prepared and bring a flashlight, cautiously peered around the corner, penetrating the darkness with the narrow beam. Light reflected softly off the tile floors and glinted on the smooth metal garbage can beneath the probing beam, but revealed no trace of the Second Child.
Asuka waited for the light to pass further from her position as the men continued on down the hallway, then slid noiselessly out of concealment, stretching her lithe muscles and gracefully drawing her sword from its sheath. Smoothly, silently, she stalked up behind the unsuspecting agent at the rear of the group and thrust her blade through his lower back.
The stricken man groaned in pain, hunching over and staring incredulously at the sword tip protruding from his stomach before it was ripped violently back out the way it came, replaced by a sudden gushing of blood from his abdomen. Asuka spun around the dying man as he fell, quickly slashing through the elbow joints of a second victim as he futilely tried to raise his gun, then buried her katana to the hilt in the chest of a third.Leaving the blade lodged in the man's sternum, Asuka dove to the side, slamming against the wall as several hastily-aimed bullets soared harmlessly down the hallway. A sharp ache raced through her shoulder and hip, but her conscious mind did not even register the pain.
Pressing her back to the wall, Asuka whipped the two pistols out in front of her, tilting them sideways as she slid down the smooth concrete and unleashed a barrage of white-hot projectiles into her remaining foes.
Bullets impacted against the concrete above her head as she came to an abrupt halt, her rump crashing painfully into the tile floor. The last of the agents' weapons went silent, clattering against the floor as its wielder stumbled backward, clutching at a hand that was now missing several fingers. Pushing off the floor, Asuka yanked her sword from the nearby corpse and sprang toward her last remaining target. Barely recovered from the shock of his missing digits, he reeled backward, throwing up what was left of his hands, as if to ward off the cold steel with his flesh. Alas, this was not to be, and a large portion of his arms were severed from his body as the blade descended to bury itself into his shoulder, cutting into his right shoulder and biting deep into the center of his chest.
Even as the final agent fell dead, a new trio of enemies burst through the doors at the end of the hall, attracted by the commotion, and charged down the hall, firing. Pressing against the wall again to avoid their initial shots, Asuka cartwheeled gracefully across the hallway and took position around the corner near the trash can she had been hiding behind earlier.
Firing around the corner, Asuka managed to plant two bullets squarely in the chest of one agent. The other two continued unhindered, however, firing at her with surprising precision. Snatching the previous agents' flashlight from where it lay just a few feet away, Asuka scurried out of her hiding place and flashed the beam directly in the agents' eyes.
Using their momentary disorientation to her advantage, Asuka rushed down the hall, covering the last bit of distance between them with a diving roll and narrowly dodging a new cluster of bullets as the two agents began to recover. With her left hand, she thrust the tip of her gun into the first man's stomach and fired, pumping the sizzling lead directly into his gut, while her right arm brought the Hanzo sword across in a horizontal slash that bisected the second man's head at eye level, spattering the side of her face with a wash of blood and bits of gore.
Wiping the blood from her eye, Asuka listened intently for the sounds of any other nearby enemies. A pair of faint, hushed voices caught her attention.
"Shut up," a man's voice hissed from behind a classroom door just down the hall. "Do you want her to find us?"
"It's no use," a second voice replied. "She's not human. We're all going to die."
"We're only going to die if you don't shut the hell up," the first voice argued. "Besides, if she doesn't know we're here, maybe we can get the drop on her. I don't care what she is, a few shots to the spine will take care of anyone."
As the two men quietly bickered with one another, Asuka stalked down the hallway, discarding her empty handgun and checking the magazine of the second before sliding it back into its holster. Grasping the katana with both hands, she approached the classroom door, following the whispered voices to her destination.
"It's no use," the first voice whimpered. "She's gonna kill us, just like those poor bastards out in the hallway, and the auditorium, and Sector 14… oh God, we're all gonna die…"
"Goddamnit," the second man hissed, "I told you, if you don't shut the hell up then we will die for sure…"
Asuka had come within just a few feet of doorway, when the sudden crash of a door being slammed open and the familiar cacophony of gunfire erupted behind her at the end of the hall. Something slammed into her shoulder, hard, and she grunted, stumbling forward a bit.
"Hey, what was that?" the trembling voice asked from within the room, the panic in his voice quickly rising to levels of hysteria. "Oh shit, it's her! It has to be her! She's here! Oh fuck, we're gonna die!"
Her surprise blown, Asuka crashed through the doorway, knocking the door off its hinges and charging straight at the two agents within. The first man tried to raise his gun, but he was too slow. Asuka was on him in an instant, flipping her sword over in her hands and plunging it downward through his chest, penetrating completely through his torso and deep into the desk behind him. Without hesitation, Asuka used her momentum to vault up and over the skewered man, planting her knees firmly on the shoulders of the second agent behind him. Grasping his head firmly between her thighs, Asuka twisted sharply, snapping his neck with a loud crack, then kicked off his shoulders, landing gracefully on the floor as his body collapsed.
Whirling back around to face the doorway, Asuka grasped her hands around the hilt of her embedded sword and tried to yank it free, but it was stuck fast into the hard, wooden desk.
No time! The voice in her head exclaimed as the agents in the hallway rapidly approached the classroom.
Pulling her remaining pistol from its holster, Asuka planted her first shot directly into the forehead of the first agents to cross the threshold. Aiming her shots carefully to conserve the firearm's partially-depleted magazine, she created a seemingly impenetrable wall across the doorway, dropping each man as he came with a precisely-aimed shot to head or neck.
Just one left! The voice cried.
Asuka's lip curled in irritation at both her lack of ammunition and the fact that the voice kept popping up unsolicited to provide rather obvious information that she was already quite aware of.
But there was no time to lament these things; there was only time to act. Rushing for the door, Asuka jammed the barrel of her gun straight into the next agent's mouth, choking him and slamming his head back into the chest of the man behind him. She fired, and the two men tumbled to the ground in a burst of gore.
Lowering her arm, Asuka released empty weapon, letting it tumble to the floor to settle amongst the bodies and debris. Ignoring the ragged breathing of the wounded man, she gathered up sidearms from several dead agents and slid them into her holsters. She frowned, scowling at the sword still stuck fast in the tough wooden desk.
Grasping her hands firmly around the katana's hilt, she hauled both it and the desk over to the agent lying helpless on the floor, the leaking hole in his chest surrounded by a mess of blood and brain tissue. Hoisting the heavy objects high into the air, she brought them crashing down on the agent's face, smashing the desk into splinters and thoroughly crushing his skull into pulp.
Sliding her newly-freed weapon back into its sheath, Asuka turned and strode through the doorway and into the darkened hallway beyond.
Agent Kurosawa paced nervously up and down the row of auditorium chairs, keeping his ears open for the sounds of sporadic gunfire and other such noises that indicated his subordinates were at least trying to do their job. The sheer enormity of their ineptitude boggled his mind to the point where he refused to even let himself think about for more than a few seconds, partly because of the intense rage it called up within him, but mostly because it just made him want to curl up in the corner and weep like a little girl.
For just a brief moment, he allowed his mind to make a few calculations, a decision he immediately regretted. By his best reckoning, he had dispatched at least 55 men in pursuit of the Second Child, and despite the frequent sounds of combat that had resonated through the empty hallways for the last hour or so, he had received no reports on the status of the pursuit. In fact, he had not heard anything at all from any of his subordinates, save for their screams of agony as they were systematically slain.
Fifty five men! his inner voice screamed. How can she possibly be alive? How?
Inhaling several deep breaths, Agent Kurosawa tightened his grip on the pistol, desperately trying to slow his breathing and stop the trembling in his hands that threatened to spread throughout the rest of his body. He knew he could not call in any more agents; even with Rei's influence, he knew he had reached the limit of his expendable resources on this task. It would not be long before he would be expected to finish the task himself.
Still, he was an established member of NERV Intelligence, and he did at least have some outside influence. There were strings he could pull, favors he could call in. Reaching for his phone, he lifted it to his chest and entered one last number.
Placing a hand firmly over her victim's mouth, Asuka slid the blade of her knife over his throat. Grasping his collar, she slowly lowered his body to the floor, then wiped her blade clean on the prone body of another man. Peering around a corner, she observed several other agents patrolling the library, unaware of her presence as they nervously traced the shelves with the beams of their flashlights as if expecting their quarry to leap from between the pages at any moment.
Quickly and quietly, Asuka scaled the nearby shelves and perched atop the bookcase, utilizing her commanding view of the room to assess her soon-to-be victims' current locations. Just as she had anticipated, they were patrolling in pairs, watching each other's backs as they navigated each row of bookshelves in the darkened library.
Asuka resisted the urge to leap down and engage them head-on; this was the most capable and well-organized group she had seen stalking through the hallways, and thus she had saved them for last. It simply would not do to get sloppy this late in the game; besides, she had not yet found what she was looking for.
Creeping silently across the row of bookcases, she made a quick and silent leap across the aisle onto the adjacent shelves. Peering down, her eyes locked onto the target she had been seeking.
Keeping his back to the outer wall of the library, a single agent moved along his patrol route with relative bravado, cutting through the gloom with the beam of the flashlight haphazardly fastened to the barrel of his pump-action shotgun with industrial tape. Whether he had confidence in himself and his weaponry or was considered well-armed enough by his fellows to be selected as the odd man out, he had no partner to cover his flanks. And when Asuka Langley Sohryu was involved, that was automatically a crippling weakness.
Her lithe figure obscured within the deep shadows above, Asuka was utterly invisible but for her eyes. Smoldering like twin coals, they caught the faintest hint of moonlight from the library's windows and gleamed with malicious intent as she inched her way to the edge of the bookcase, poised to strike at any moment.
Like a professional huntress, she resisted the instinctive impulse to pounce on her unsuspecting prey, waiting for just the perfect moment to swoop for a silent kill, motionless but for the slightest twitch of her eyes as she surveyed her intended victim.
The man turned, exposing his back to her watchful gaze. Again, she restrained herself, making sure the surrounding area was still clear. It was.
Whisking her sword from her sheath, Asuka leapt from her perch atop the bookshelves, driving the deadly blade into the back of the agent's neck, piercing down through his lower trachea and into the chest cavity to skewer his heart and lung. He convulsed for a moment, wordlessly, then slumped, held upright only by the sword still plunged into his torso. His arms went limp, releasing their grip on the shotgun. Asuka snatched the potent firearm before it could clatter noisily against the tile floor, then lowered his drooping body to the ground.
Asuka wrenched the crudely-mounted flashlight from the shotgun barrel, carefully peeled off the duct tape, and took several slow, deliberate paces toward the adjacent bookshelves. Marking the locations of the two agents patrolling the neighboring row by their heavy footsteps and the glow of their flashlight beams, Asuka slowly matched their movements as she carefully unraveled the industrial tape from the appropriated flashlight. Asuka pulled one of her fine-edged combat knives from a sheath at her hip and placed it firmly against the back of her right hand, wrapping the tape firmly around the handle to secure it in place. Clenching her fist, she noted contentedly that the blade jutted out a good six inches past her knuckles.
Raising the shotgun experimentally, Asuka sighted down its length. Certain that the makeshift wrist blade would not interfere with her ability to fire the weapon, she held the detached flashlight out in front of her and dropped it unceremoniously to the floor.
Though the object's uneven weight distribution prevented it from clattering too obnoxiously before coming to a rest, the initial collision may as well have been a gunshot echoing throughout the quiet library.
The agent opposite Asuka's position against the bookshelves snapped to attention, lifting his flashlight to peer between the volumes, searching for any sign of what be responsible for the sudden noise. The past across a lock of fiery red hair and the soft, pale flesh of a woman's cheek specked with blood, framed by a gap between Shakespeare's Hamlet and Taming of the Shrew. The light continued upward, revealing the intense blue eyes and the sudden glint of metal.
The agent's cry of alarm was easily drowned out by the roar of the shotgun as the classical European literature exploded outward, ravaging his body with buckshot and other various bits of shrapnel. Tumbling backward, his ragged corpse slammed against the shelves and slumped to the ground, buried in a sudden shower of periodicals.
Pumping a fresh shell into the chamber, Asuka wasted no time discharging a fresh spray of lead into his partner, shredding through Chaucer's Canterbury Tales without even the slightest pause to reminisce about the report she had once written on the subject. Turning to face footsteps approaching from her rear, she obliterated the middle segment of Encyclopedia Britannica to drop two more agents with a single shot.
Turning to face a new set of approaching footsteps, Asuka lashed out with a fierce right hook, catching her unfortunate victim in the sternum as he rounded the corner and thrusting the fixed blade into his jugular. Retracting the blade from the agent's throat, she rounded the corner, startling his terrified companion even further before she jammed the blade into his heart.
Asuka peered down the central aisle as a trio of agents fled toward the doorway in terror, discarding their firearms on the floor as if appearing harmless could spare them from the she-demon's wrath. Asuka aimed her shotgun at the fleeing men and fired. The agents' stumbled and fell to the ground, wounded but spared for the moment by the shotgun's limited range.
A sudden burst of motion prompted her to pull back and seek cover behind the bookcases. Several bullets impacted against the wooden shelves, while a number of other projectiles tore through several rows of books before lodging in thicker volumes. Glancing around the corner, Asuka confirmed the location of a fourth adversary who had taken cover behind the receptionist's desk, bringing her mental head count to completion.
Without fear of being attacked from her flanks, Asuka charged into the open and dashed down the aisle as her nervous foe fumbled desperately to reload his handgun's exhausted magazine. Finally sliding the clip into place, he slammed the first round into the chamber and raised the weapon to fire.
The shot went wild as the butt of Asuka's shotgun lunged over the desk and slammed into the bridge of his nose. Stunned, he toppled over backward, dropping the pistol to the floor. Asuka leapt up atop the desk, pointed the weapon down at his fallen form, and splattered the contents of his skull throughout the small cubicle.
Retrieving the pistol from where it lay next to the headless corpse, she stalked over to the wounded agents still desperately trying to crawl through doorway and executed them one by one with a single shot to the head, ignoring their pleas for mercy.
For the second time in just as many hours, Asuka gazed intently upon the main double doors that lead into the school's auditorium. The barrel of her pilfered shotgun rested lightly against her left shoulder, and her right arm dangled loosely at her side within a moment's reach of the katana hilt as she strode purposefully down the hall. It took much of her willpower to keep from simply rushing forward through the doorway to her ultimate confrontation with Rei Ayanami. Still, her limbs trembled with excitement despite her best efforts to control them.
As she considered whether to remove the impromptu wrist blade, visions of Rei Ayanami flashed through her mind. Like a slide show they clicked by one by one, flowing in chronological order as if showing Asuka a montage of her relationship with the albino girl, from the day they first met on the supercarrier Over the Rainbow to the final moment of treachery. The images turned dark, branching beyond her experience to events yet to pass, delving deep into the macabre as they explored the many possible ways the girl could die. Like an observer, Asuka hovered above herself as she slayed her mortal enemy in a variety of fashions, from mundane stabbings with a variety of sharp-edged instruments to more sadistic executions like rending her limb from limb.
Rei Ayanami must die, the voice in her mind hissed, interjecting its typically unsolicited counsel into her sinister musings. Asuka frowned, drawn from her dark fantasies by the sudden disruption.
That damn voice again, she fumed, irked as much by the disturbance as by the abrupt realization that she had stopped moving and had no idea how long she had actually been standing there.
Engrossed in her mental disharmony, Asuka almost didn't notice when the auditorium's heavy double doors burst open and a squad of eight fully-armed military personnel leveled their weapons directly at her. Almost.
Purging the useless thoughts, she considered her predicament in an instant: standing in the middle of a hallway without a convenient intersection or even a nearby water fountain to sprint to for cover, she was completely exposed to a well-trained enemy with superior firepower within just a few yards of her position. With no real feasible tactical options, she did the only thing she could do. She charged.
Planting her feet against the hard tile floor, Asuka sprang, quickly closing the distance between herself and her new adversaries, just as the first few bursts of fire began hurtling in her direction.
The suddenness of her assault and the shocking speed of her movements threw off the soldiers' accuracy, but still Asuka felt a bullet rip painfully across her thigh, while another drew a long, burning gash across her ribs. Whipping the shotgun out in front of her, Asuka returned fire, instantly killing her nearest opponent and wounding several others in the blast. With her other hand she struck out straight in front of her, driving the wrist blade deep into the ribs of the next man in line. The man groaned, coughing blood onto his murderer's cheek, then fell limp.
Asuka jerked her hand back to disengage the blade from her victim's chest and grimaced as her arm was nearly wrenched from its socket. Stifling a curse, she managed to keep herself from stumbling as the dead man slumped away from her, the blade stuck fast between his ribs. Hauling the corpse in close to herself, she used his body to shield herself from enemy fire. The carcass jerked awkwardly as bullets slammed into it from the rear, and a thick, wet splattering at her feet let her know that the abdomen had been severely breached and discharged its contents onto the floor. Asuka knew it would not protect her for long.
As if on cue, several high-caliber assault rifle rounds ripped through the upper torso, brushing past her cheek and tearing a bloody line across her earlobe.
Maneuvering the shotgun with her free hand, Asuka planted the butt of the weapon against her human shield's collar bone for leverage and pumped a fresh shell into the chamber, then pointed the barrel over his shoulder at the soldier furthest to the left of their formation. The shotgun roared, spewing its lethal contents in a fiery gout of shrapnel, rending his right arm from his body and gouging deep into his neck.
Asuka maneuvered her shield around to take advantage of the gap, planting the butt of her shotgun against the corpse's shoulder again to load the next shot and fired. Another enemy dropped to the ground, his chest shredded like raw hamburger.
With a full half of her foes now dead and two of the remaining four soldiers wounded, Asuka managed to shift herself into a position where she could use the dead man's superior girth to shield herself almost entirely from view, save for the few widening holes where bullets had chewed through his flesh and light combat armor. Designed to protect against small arms fire without hampering movement, it had not fared so well against the heavier weaponry the soldiers wielded, or the vicious strike from Asuka's wrist blade for that matter, though it was certainly helping to hold the knife in place once it was through.
Safe as she could hope to be, Asuka bit down on the tape securing the knife to the back of her hand, working to free herself even as the sturdy tape resisted and her teeth slid over the slick coating of blood. Abandoning that line of effort, she braced the shotgun against the dead man's spine to load another shell, then forced the body forward into the two uninjured soldiers, catching them off guard and knocking them back against the two wounded men who had taken up position behind them. Asuka spun out from behind her shield, pushing the corpse back away from her as she lunged forward toward the small mass of colliding soldiers, firing the shotgun into the thick of them. Even as the two men out front fell writhing to the ground, she pushed hard against the floor and lunged again, wielding the shotgun overhead like a club.
The momentum of her lunge finally tore the wrist blade free of the dead soldier's chest as she brought the shotgun down, striking with such ferocity that the barrel warped, curving around the head of her victim, one of the wounded men taking up position at the rear of the small formation. Even with his helmet on the sound of his skull collapsing was clearly audible, even over the screams and panicked gunfire of his few remaining companions. Asuka turned her attention to her last standing opponent, a wounded soldier who awkwardly wielded his assault rifle with a single hand, his other arm hanging limply at his side, blood streaming down from a nasty shoulder wound.
The hall suddenly fell rather silent as the final bullet from the injured man's assault rifle veered harmlessly off to Asuka's left, impacting against the wall in a spray of plaster. The petrified soldier continued squeezing the trigger, as if to will more bullets into the weapon's magazine, but his efforts were rewarded with naught but a series of soft clicks. Asuka regarded her enemy for a moment, then drew her sword.
Drawn from his stupor by the katana's sudden appearance, he dropped the empty rifle to the floor and fumbled for his sidearm as Asuka stalked toward him, sword held loosely in one hand. His trembling fingers brushed the pistol's grip, but in his panic the weapon slipped from his quivering hands and clattered to the floor beyond his reach. Terrified, he dropped to his knees, opening his mouth to plea for his life. He never got the chance.
With a single horizontal slash she lopped the man's head from his shoulders. It tumbled to the ground, rolling a few feet as the body collapsed alongside it.
The two surviving soldiers groaned and writhed on the floor, their chest and abdomen heavily laden with buckshot. Blood pooled around them on the floor, both their own and that of their slaughtered comrades. Asuka stared down at them for a moment, then steadied her grip on the sword.
Without a word, she fell upon the wounded men, hacking and slashing with wild abandon. The fine-edged blade made short work of them, but Asuka kept slicing away at the corpses, hacking them to pieces. Finally, she let the sword drop from her limp hands and slumped to the ground, panting heavily as she lay against one of the more structurally intact bodies. Though the fight had not lasted more than a few minutes, it seemed that the evening's exertions had finally caught up with her.
Her nimble fingers searched the men around her, snatching up a handgun to defend herself if necessary, though it was not likely she would need it. Her fatigue-addled mind did not even register that it was a Desert Eagle, her favorite.
She did not know how many minutes she lay there, gathering her strength, but it was not long before the voice returned, whispering in her thoughts of all the brutal, violent things she had yet to do. With a grimace she tried to banish it from her mind, but it was more persistent than ever, urging her forward, pushing her to take up the sword and strike down all who had forsaken her. Though the voice's increasing assertiveness was wearing rather thin, Asuka grudgingly had to admit it had a point. The longer she lay here, the greater the chances were that her enemies would tire of waiting and track her down. Besides, she was a mere six feet from the auditorium. If there were still a few left (and she was certain that there were), all they would have to do is peek through the small windows to spot her, and after all the noise she and the soldiers had made during their little scuffle, it would hardly require an intuitive intellect to determine where to look.
Gathering up her belongings, Asuka dismissed all thoughts of her exhaustion and moved on. She wasn't quite finished. Not yet.
Sayoko Kurosawa slumped against the auditorium seat, staring blankly at the floor in front of him as he wallowed in his misery. It had been more than fifteen minutes since he'd dispatched his military reinforcements to dispatch the Second Child. They had engaged the target almost immediately, and he had been certain they finally had her. But as the sounds of gunfire dragged on, slowly diminishing in volume amidst intermittent cries of agony, the feeling of unease returned. Soon, the gunshots fell silent entirely, making way for a host of noises Agent Kurosawa did not care to contemplate. Then it was silent.
The head of security shifted his pistol nervously in his hands, contemplating the situation. Fully a third of NERV Intelligence personnel had been called to the site on his order, along with the military detachment. It was an unprecedented number for a single assignment, especially for an agency whose normal activities went to great lengths to avoid being noticed. Had the mission been successful, he could have justified the deployment of manpower as part of an overall search effort rather than reinforcements for the men he had already sent to their deaths.
But now all those men were dead, slain by the very target they had been dispatched to hunt down. Commander Ikari would not be pleased, particularly at the loss of the military unit. They had been part of NERV's personal army, highly professional mercenaries loyal to Ikari himself, not some squabbling UN lapdogs. To make things worse, he'd been forced to mask his actions with falsified orders that supposedly came from Rei herself. If everything had worked out as it should have, there would be no reason for anyone to question the orders, but the extent of this debacle would certainly incite an investigation. It would not require more than a basic inquiry to reveal that he had overstepped his bounds, abusing his position of authority in an attempt to mask his failure. The only way he could cover his tracks would be if Rei were to be killed in her confrontation with the Second Child, but even then he would be held responsible as chief of security and summarily executed; he had seen it done for far lesser blunders than the death of one of Commander Ikari's most prized personnel.
He could flee, Kurosawa supposed, but it was only a matter of time before they found and eliminated him. Gendou Ikari did not like loose ends, particularly loose ends that had failed him in such a grave matter.
The only option left was to kill Asuka himself. Perhaps then he would at least have a chance of escaping with his life, no matter how much disgrace and demotion he might suffer. Kurosawa pushed this thought aside; it was so ridiculous, he didn't know whether he should laugh or weep in anguish. How could he possibly stop her, the she-demon who had ripped through so many of his men with ease? He could not. Combat was not his forte; besides, what could one man hope to do against such an opponent?
No matter how he looked at it, all paths lead only to his demise. It was inevitable. He would die. A sudden resolve came over his face, and he straightened in his seat, grasping his sidearm more steadily than he ever had before, as he pressed the barrel of his gun against his chin. If his death was inevitable, he supposed, then the least he could do was choose his own fate. He would take his own life; no one else would have the pleasure.
Squeezing his eyes shut tight, he slowly clenched his index finger around the trigger, gradually bringing him closer to the death he had chosen for himself. He paused, centimeters from discharging the final bullet deep within the recesses of his skull.
No, he decided. This was the coward's way out. He had been a coward all his life, scraping and groveling at the feet of others to advance his own cause. Even his chosen profession involved manipulating others and slinking in shadows, sending his men to their deaths while he himself sat back in relative safety for them to do his job for him. This was his last chance to prove himself. He would meet his enemy in battle, even if it cost him his life. He might go down, but he would die fighting with bravery in his heart, like the samurai warriors of old. He would-
"Let me help you with that."
The sinister, feminine voice broke through his inner machinations, and he suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of a Desert Eagle. Startled by the sudden disruption, the veteran agent realized with dismay that his own gun was still pressed firmly under his chin, hardly in any position to defend himself. He opened his mouth to protest; this was not how it was supposed to be. It just wasn't right. He had to fight, even if he could not win. He had to prove himself, to show everyone that he really could-
Asuka fired. The .50 caliber bullet shattered his thoughts as easily as it ripped through his forehead, splattering brains and gore across the back of the seat. Kurosawa's ruined skull caved in on itself like a shattered melon, leaking sticky red fluid down the front of his suit as his body slouched down in the seat.
Turning toward the stage, Asuka searched for her real target. Nothing moved, and Asuka could detect no sound beyond her own breathing and the slight patter of blood as it ran down Kurosawa's arm and dripped onto the floor. There was no indication that the First Child was still around, or anyone else for that matter.
Holding the Desert Eagle at her chest like a professional sweeper, Asuka moved cautiously toward the stage with slow, measured steps, scanning every inch of the room for any possible signs of ambush. She was certain that Rei was still here. She had to be.
Asuka stepped carefully around to the auditorium's front left corner, pushing through a side door to a small set of stairs leading up to the stage. After warily climbing halfway up the short staircase, a slight wrinkle in the curtains to the left caught her attention. Distracted by this sudden movement, she didn't notice that one of Rei's large, dark-suited bodyguards had stepped out from the shadows at the other side of the stage until he raised his pistol to fire.
Catching the movement at the barest edges of her peripheral vision, Asuka ducked down in the stairwell as several bullets raced past her scalp, slightly ruffling her hair in their hasty passage. Asuka shrank down in the cover of the stairwell as several more projectiles impacted nearby, then peeked out to respond with two quick shots of her own. The first round veered harmlessly off to the side, but the second shot went true, catching him in the mouth. The large man toppled over backward, gore streaming from his shattered jaw.
Asuka crouched low again, searching for other threats. The curtains quivered again to her left, but the movement had already ceased by the time she could turn to face it. She glanced around the stage again, making sure the area was clear around her before she started firing experimental shots into the area obscured by the heavy curtain, and was utterly caught by surprise for a second time as the wounded bodyguard sat back up, despite his ruined face, and raised his pistol up to fire.
Asuka flung herself back down into the cover of the stairwell. Most of the bullets danced harmlessly around her, but one shot managed to strike the Desert Eagle squarely on the barrel, knocking the powerful handgun from her grasp. The dying agent emptied the remainder of his clip at Asuka's position, then slumped back to the floor, motionless.
Anticipating the same use of diversionary tactics as before, Asuka twisted preemptively to her left, drawing her sword from its sheath and slashing hard at the first sign of movement. Her shrewd judgment was rewarded with the sensation of steel rending flesh and the bright red stain of blood spreading outward from the tear in the curtain where her sword had slit the fabric. The curtain bulged outward as Rei's other bodyguard stumbled through the obscuring material, clutching at his stomach with one arm in an effort to hold his organs inside.
Asuka raised her sword to land the killing blow, but was surprised yet again as the agent charged forward, roaring in pain and desperation as he grabbed the wrist of her sword arm with his free hand, pushing her off-balance. She replied in kind by latching her other hand onto his wrist, but even then she had to scramble backward just to keep him from overpowering her. The enraged bodyguard continued his berserker rush, forcing Asuka back with such ferocity she nearly stumbled; it took all her effort and willpower just to stay on her feet. Even with both arms against his one she could not overpower him, and in a few seconds she would tumble off the stage, slamming her spine into the front row of seats with him crashing down on top of her, a position she most definitely wanted to avoid at all costs.
Releasing her free hand from its futile battle with the agent's iron grip, she pulled her elbow back and thrust her arm straight into his gut wound, forcing his other hand aside as she grasped a quivering handful of his entrails. The big man started to lose his vigor almost instantly; he tried to keep up his momentum, but his legs just couldn't power him forward with the same intensity, and his grip on Asuka's wrist began to soften involuntarily. He groaned as Asuka's hand clenched even tighter inside his stomach, then howled in agony as she ripped the slippery mass from his body. His muscles failed, and he slumped to his knees, releasing his hold on the Second Child completely. She wasted no time cleaving through his collarbone, slashing deep into the center of his chest.
Asuka stumbled backward, panting from the exertion. Her sword hung limply at her side, as if it might slip from her aching fingers at any moment. Her knees buckled, and she nearly slumped to the ground in exhaustion.
Many moments had passed before her tired mind recognized another presence in the room. Lifting her head, Asuka's bleary eyes revealed a familiar shape. Blinking her vision clear, she identified the figure of Rei Ayanami standing impassively across the stage, arms folded almost casually across her chest. She might have seemed almost at ease, were it not for the strange intensity that swam across her eyes. Asuka could have sworn the other girl never even blinked.
After a moment (she could not even begin to say how long, as time always seemed to stop when she gazed on those cold, red eyes), Asuka straightened up completely, gesturing with her sword out toward the carnage strewn throughout the auditorium.
"Well that was quite the shindig," she declared, more than a slight hint of fatigue creeping into her voice. "I never would have believed it Wondergirl, but you really know how to throw a party."
Rei did not respond, but Asuka continued anyway without giving her the chance. Rei had never responded to taunts before, and it was hardly probable that habit had changed over the years.
"I just have one question," Asuka continued. "I remember you used to always say you were expendable, that if you died you could simply be replaced."
Rei nodded, a slight, almost imperceptible gesture. Asuka brightened at the response. At least it made her feel like she wasn't just talking to herself. She opened her mouth to continue, then clamped it shut in surprise as Rei beagn speaking.
"It is true. I am expendable, and if I die, I can be replaced."
She gestured out where Asuka had pointed just moments before, at the torn and bloodied corpses strewn about the room.
"But so can they."
Asuka smirked, an expression of genuine mirth spreading across her face.
"So that's how it is," Asuka chuckled.
Rei nodded, but her expression did not change, and she did not lower her gaze from the the red-haired Second Child.
Asuka raised her sword in front of her, shifting into a combat stance. The fatigue she had felt just moments before evaporated from her body, her blood boiling with fighting spirit. The irritating voice crept up again to whisper in her mind's ear, but she ignored it, refusing to let her newfound enthusiasm be diminished by something as trivial as her growing insanity.
"Excuse me if I bring this conversation to a close," Asuka said, steadying her grip on the blade. "Not that I haven't enjoyed our little chat, but to be honest it feels a bit one-sided. I had five whole years to converse with no one but myself, and I didn't wake up from a coma, come all the way over here, and kill God-knows-how-many people just to do it some more."
Rei nodded again, pushing up the hem of her NERV-issue blue jacket to reveal two ornate, silver and blue scabbards hooked at her waist. She grasped the twin wakizashi-style short swords and slid them expertly from their sheaths, crouching low into a combat stance. Asuka noted with interest that she held the swords opposite the traditional manner, with the blades pointing down and away from her body, a method used by experienced combatants ideal for quick slashes and stabs.
The redhead grinned. After all this time and effort, she'd been afraid that her final showdown with her nemesis would be disappointingly anticlimactic, but it appeared that Rei had underwent thorough combat training in the years since they had last seen each other. No doubt the instruction had been done at Gendou's orders as an extra security precaution, but it seemed the obedient little doll had truly taken the lessons to heart.
Asuka pushed all other thoughts from her mind, focusing solely on her blade and the opponent in front of her. This was the moment she'd been waiting for, the confrontation she had sought all evening long. With a sweep of her blade she would fell this red-eyed bitch who had taunted her for so long, putting an end to this mockery of a human being, this automaton… this doll.
Asuka roared, charging forward to cleave her opponent in two with a vicious horizontal slash. The voice in her mind roared its approval as well, and she felt a sudden increase in strength and vitality, as if the nameless entity was sharing its energy with her, giving new life to her tired muscles.
The sword swept across its deadly arc with blinding speed, a powerful swing that would certainly cut even the most heavily armored opponent in half. Even if she could block the deadly attack, Rei would certainly be knocked backward, rendering her vulnerable to one last fatal strike. But the blade met only the empty air, not the bite of cold-edged steel or the tender yield of flesh. Asuka stumbled, pulled off-balance by the ferocity of her own attack.
Crouched below the angle of the swing, Rei felt only the breezy passage of the blade above her head. Asuka quickly realized her error and followed through the spiral motion, spinning away as Rei struck out with the deadly alacrity of a coiled serpent. The twin short swords carved an X-shaped pattern across Asuka's left side as she spun away, but the wounds were not so deep as to thwart her movement.
Hissing at the burning sensation just above her hip, Asuka whipped around again and retaliated with another devastating slash, aiming lower than before to force the NERV officer into a low parry, where the downward angle of her weapons might leave her upper torso open to attack. But again Rei dodged instead of blocking, slipping aside as the larger katana rushed past her body. Asuka stumbled again, carried forward by the momentum of her own attack. Rei's short swords danced across her flesh a second time, scratching another painful X across her opponent's left forearm.
She's so fast, Asuka thought, twisting back to face her enemy. She doesn't even bother to block, just flits aside like I'm moving in slow motion.
The redhead brought her sword across in a half-hearted slash meant to discourage her adversary from pressing the attack without throwing herself off-balance if it should fail to connect with a solid object. Blood trickled down her arm from the fresh wound, and Asuka raised her stance to prevent the sticky fluid from flowing into her palm. If she lost her grip in this battle, it would be over.
Having dodged back from Asuka's noncommittal stroke, Rei dropped into a half-crouch, hoping to take advantage of the taller woman's height and sudden change in position. With the sword held so high in the air, she would have difficulty bringing it down fast enough to block low attacks. This left Rei with an opening for a lethal gut shot, or even a chance to hamstring her opponent before ending the fight at her leisure.
Rei lashed out with two quick slashes aimed to shear through Asuka's chest. They were expertly deflected, but they forced Asuka to commit to a high defensive posture as Rei pummeled her guard with a flurry of high and medium slashes. Asuka managed to parry each blow, but she was slowly being forced back, and she was much more fatigued after the night's exertions than her opponent. She could not afford to let this fight drag on too long, or she would almost certainly slip up or simply collapse from exhaustion.
Studying Rei's movements, Asuka exploited the length advantage of her weapon and swept both short swords off to the side in a single parry, then arced her sword back across in a horizontal slash aimed to sever cleanly through Rei's neck. As usual, the blade met only empty air, but Asuka had anticipated the dodge and declined to put her full strength behind the attack. As a result, she was able to halt her momentum quickly and step back, putting enough distance between them that her larger sword would be an asset rather than a hindrance, though she took another hit on her shoulder in the process.
The wound was beginning to look decidedly like an asterisk, and blood ran down her arm in rivulets, but Asuka was confident she had turned the battle in her own favor, at least for the moment. Rei lunged forward, striving to close the distance again, but Asuka kept her at bay with wide sweeps of her sword, deadly enough not to be trifled with, but slow enough that they were no real threat. Still, Rei's quick attacks and endeavors to engage at close range forced Asuka back toward the edge of the stage, a dangerous location that would almost certainly cripple both her range and mobility.
When she was but a few feet from the edge, Asuka feigned a stumble. Rei seized the opportunity, driving a single blade in toward her enemy's heart while the other hovered defensively, ready to block any desperate parry. But Asuka righted herself easily, knocking the fatal blow aside without fear of interference by the guarding blade, then slid the tip of her katana in an assassin's stroke toward the pale, white neck of her foe.
Rei's expression revealed uncharacteristic surprise at the sneaky maneuver, and she barely managed to pull her throat back, suffering only a light scratch across the collarbone. But it was enough to put her on the defensive, and Asuka wasted no time pursuing the retreating NERV officer with a vicious overhead chop aimed to split her skull in two.
Lurching backwards, Rei could not regain her footing in time to evade the attack as she usually did. Instead, she brought her blades up in front of her face, crossing them in a V-shape to catch and hold her opponent's blade. From there she could push the offending weapon up and away with one arm, while sweeping in below Asuka's defenses with the other to finish her.
But even as she did so, a wicked grin spread across Asuka's face. Rei frowned in confusion, then grimaced in pain as Asuka's lashed out with her foot, driving her heel into the crook of Rei's right elbow with a crack and several loud, popping sounds. The albino girl staggered back, losing her grip on the wakizashi. Her injured arm hung loosely at her side, its damaged joint twisted at an odd angle.
Asuka smirked.
"Nothing but a doll," she sneered, breathing heavily from the effort. "You don't even feel pain, do you?"
"I am not a doll," Rei growled back. Her red eyes burned with a hatred Asuka never thought she would see in a thousand lifetimes.
"Oh my," Asuka replied, her voice thick with mockery. "Wondergirl is angry."
Rei snarled, leaping forward with renewed vigor, as if she had never been injured. Asuka sidestepped the initial strike, bringing their battle parallel to the stage, the perfect angle for the dead men in the audience to watch the finale of their duel.
Asuka was surprised to find herself on the defensive again, pushed back by the savage one-armed assault, but Rei was tiring quickly as the pain and fatigue took their toll. She was already trembling and gasping for breath, but she simply would not yield, slashing with seemingly reckless abandon, though Asuka soon learned that these were still precise, measured strikes as she suffered a stinging gash across her abdomen.
The searing wound seemed to trigger something inside of her as well, for she immediately struck back with equal ferocity. Soon Rei was being pushed back, her movements growing sluggish as exhaustion crept into her muscles. Her guard slipped, and Asuka's blade cut deep across her torso, staining her blue NERV jacket with blood. The blade continued its deadly arc, slicing cleanly through the bicep of her wounded arm. The severed limb flopped to the ground, twitching slightly.
Rei slumped to her knees, staring blankly at the severed limb as blood flowed from her torn chest and the stump of her arm, pooling on the floor. Asuka gazed down at her, pondering how best to finish her off.
She didn't get the chance; Rei leapt to her feet, slashing at Asuka's face with her remaining arm. The redhead jerked back in surprise as blood welled in a deep scratch along her cheek.
"You bitch!" Asuka shrieked, bringing her full wrath to bear on the First Child's remaining short sword. The wakizashi tumbled from her grasp, falling from the stage beneath the auditorium seats.
"Now die!"
Rei squealed in agony as Asuka ran her through, impaling the katana just below the girl's sternum, then kicked the handle, burying the blade in to the hilt and knocking the skewered girl from the stage. Rei crashed into the front row of seats and toppled to the floor. She did not move.
Asuka panted with exhaustion as she stared down at the body of her old nemesis. It had been an extremely close fight, Asuka had to admit as the ache from her wounds and tired muscles began to catch up with her. Blood virtually coated her left arm, and the shoulder was getting rather numb. No other opponent had pushed her so hard or made her shed so much of her blood since she had embarked on this bloody endeavor.
A sudden dizzy spell struck her, and she nearly swooned. Perhaps she had lost more blood than she thought. Asuka suddenly realized, perhaps for the first time, that this quest would likely claim her life. She dismissed the thought quickly. It was not worth her time to ponder such things. If such was the price of vengeance, she would pay it gladly.
A sudden noise in the otherwise silent auditorium caught her attention. She turned back to face the chairs, and realized with no small amount of shock that Rei was still alive. And on top of that, she was standing, clutching a sidearm she had scavenged from one of the many corpses scattered throughout the auditorium, with the barrel leveled at Asuka's chest.
"You cheater!" Asuka gasped, flinging herself aside as the first shot tore across her shoulder.
She slammed herself hard against the stage floor, pressing low as possible as she crawled over to the disemboweled bodyguard's corpse, cursing when his firearm was not immediately visible. She pushed the sticky, matted fabric aside and spotted the weapon's barrel protruding beneath his torso.
Several more bullets soared past her face as she tugged at the pinned firearm, and Asuka strained to pull the weapon free. Planting a foot against the body for leverage, she finally managed to liberate the handgun, rolling aside as Rei continued firing from her new perch atop an auditorium seat.
Allowing her momentum to carry her several feet to the side, Asuka halted her evasive movement, leaning up on her elbows and stomach to fire three shots at Rei's chest. The blue-haired girl twitched with each impact, then tumbled from her perch. She lay still.
Asuka eyed the body warily as she crept to the edge of the stage and lowered herself to the floor. Rei did not move, even as Asuka nudged her with a foot. Satisfied, Asuka let the borrowed pistol drop from her fingers, splashing in a pool of sticky blood as she turned and walked aside to observe the carnage.
Again, a sudden noise behind her seized her attention, and she pivoted around to find Rei rushing straight at her wielding a short sword she had salvaged from beneath the seats. Asuka pulled dodged back from the first two strikes as the blade passed inches from her nose, then sidestepped the third, grasping Rei's only remaining wrist as she kicked the girl in the shin.
Rei stumbled forward, and Asuka grasped the hilt of the katana, ripping it from her chest as she passed. Asuka spun 360 degress as her opponent lurched away, then slashed her sword horizontally across Rei's waist. The wakizashi tumbled from her limp grasp as she staggered awkwardly for several more steps, then toppled to the ground as the two halves of her body separated. She twitched for several moments, then fell motionless.
Asuka stared at her broken form, hands clenched tightly around the hilt of her sword. She had to be dead this time. She just had to.
Asuka plunged her blade into Rei's side. No response.
Satisfied, Asuka turned to walk away, then stumbled as something wrapped tightly around her ankle. She whirled to find Rei clutching at her foot, using it as leverage to pull her severed, one-armed torso closer. Blood flowed from her mouth, running down the blade of the short sword she had gripped between her teeth.
Asuka trembled with rage. Veins strained against the flesh of her forehead, ready to burst at any second. She raised the katana overhead, ignoring the blood that had run down her arm, making her grip on the hilt slick.
"Now DIE!" she screamed, bringing the weapon down with all the strength she could muster.
The blade cleaved neatly through Rei's skull from scalp to chin, and the two halves fell apart like a split apple. Asuka continued to strike, hacking the girl apart like a pack of hyenas might set upon a carcass. A piece of Rei's skull was thrown several feet to the side, sticking against the side of the stage. A single red eye gazed out upon the butchery as the lump of flesh that contained it slid down the wooden surface of the stage.
The katana dropped from her hands, and Asuka felt her energy waning, as if the very essence of her being were being drawn from her body. Her legs faltered, and she collapsed in the pool of gore.
Asuka lay still, staring blankly at the ceiling. Her breathing slowed, and the trembling in her arms ceased. A low, almost guttural sound emanated from deep within her throat. An observer might have mistakenly assumed she was choking at first, but gradually the sound became more distinct. She was laughing.
It started out as a low chuckle, then gradually increased in pitch and volume to a full-blown cackle. She laughed maniacally, writhing in the sticky fluids as her right hand rubbed slowly down the side of her face, smearing her cheek with blood.
As abruptly as it had begun, the laughter died down, then faded into nothingness. Asuka lay still again, arms hanging limp at her sides as she stared at the ceiling. She frowned.
"What the fuck am I doing?"
Asuka did not know how long she had lain there, soaking in the blood of her enemies, before she had finally found the energy to get up. She staggered down the hall, pushed open the doors to the first restroom she came across and went inside, slapping the light switch as she entered. A row of urinals illuminated along the far wall told her she had found her way to the men's room, but she didn't care. The men were all dead.
Asuka lurched over to the sinks and placed her palms against the counter, holding her exhausted body upright as she gazed at her reflection in the mirror. Blood coated her body from head to toe, both her own and that of her enemies. Her clothes were stained so badly even her black jumpsuit was likely ruined, and her hair was thickly matted against her scalp and shoulders in deeper shades of red than usual.
A small white object caught in the hair above her left ear caught her attention. She picked it out, carefully, and brought it close to her face for more thorough scrutiny. It was a tooth. Asuka ran her tongue along the insides of her mouth; it wasn't hers.
Discarding the useless object, Asuka stripped down to her undergarments and washed the blood from her hair, face, and extremities as best she could. The gore was thick and viscous, and she had to change sinks several times as they became clogged with partly-coagulated blood and other various unmentionables.
After a long period of scrubbing, Asuka ventured back out into the hall, rummaging through the lockers for anything that might help make her appearance more presentable. A few minutes later, after discarding numerous gym uniforms, cheerleading outfits, and a rather revealing catgirl ensemble, Asuka managed to procure a spare traditional girl's uniform that seemed like it would fit her well enough, if a bit on the small side, and an instrument case to conceal her Hanzo sword.
Asuka tugged at the hem of her skirt, trying to stretch the material out farther so it didn't ride up so high, but it was to no avail. She peered into the mirror, taking one last look to ensure her appearance was acceptable enough not to attract too much unwanted attention. She decided it would likely hold up to a quick glance on the darkened streets, but she would probably get a few looks from anyone she happened to meet in the hotel lobby or stairwells. However, if she came in through the back entrance she was less likely to encounter anyone, and even if she did they would probably dismiss her as a callgirl dressed to meet some client's specific tastes.
Scraping a few stray flecks of blood from her forehead, Asuka hefted the instrument case, turned, and strode out into the hallway.
The small, seldom-used side exit to the Tokyo-3 Elementary and Secondary Education Complex swung open, but no light shone out into the darkened exterior, nor did any creaking noises escape its well-oiled hinges. A red-haired girl of medium height stepped across the threshold, closing the door softly behind her. She looked around cautiously, then turned and made her way cautiously toward the street, taking care not to stray too close to any of the streetlights. A small red dot followed her every move.
From this distance, she looked much like a normal high school senior, though her uniform was obvious a few sizes too small, accenting her shapely legs and rather well-developed chest in ways that would have been quite distracting for a typical male student. But the observer knew better. He knew who she was. He knew why she was there. The only thing he didn't know was where she was going.
Asuka rounded a corner, and Kensuke Aida clicked off the recording feature on his digital camcorder. The red light faded, then winked out of existence. He grinned, slipping out of his hiding place in the bushes to follow her.
"Gotcha."
Subcommander Kouzou Fuyutsuki skimmed through the NERV personnel and operations report in his hands, raising an eyebrow as he came across the casualty statistics. He glanced up at Commander Ikari, who sat quietly at his desk, fingers steepled at his chin.
"Rather impressive figures, wouldn't you say?" Fuyutsuki asked.
"Indeed," Gendou replied. "The Second Child has proved to be very capable and resourceful after all."
"Perhaps we were too hasty in discarding her."
"No." Gendou stretched his steepled fingers, allowing them to interlock as his goatee brushed against their knuckles. "It was the act of abandonment that has forged her into what she has become. I believe she is exactly what we have been searching for."
"'…through his death, the Messiah shall open the way to salvation, and the Serpent shall bring ruin to the Earth,'" Fuyutsuki murmured, shaking his head. "I still find it hard to believe. To think that the world's largest religions were created simply to preserve what is essentially humanity's Handbook for the Apocalypse. It almost seems like a joke."
The Subcommander sighed, as he usually did when he thought about how little time the human race had remaining.
"Sometimes I wonder," he continued, "if we are truly worthy of this path that we are taking."
"Humanity has reached the end of its evolutionary ladder," Gendou said, uncharacteristically loquacious. "Our ancestors foresaw this eventuality, and so they saw fit to conceal messages in plain sight, until the day when we had evolved enough that we might unlock the secrets for ourselves, ascending to a higher level of existence as they aspired to before us. Man is fated to bring about his own destruction, that he may rise from the ashes as a phoenix."
"'The fate of destruction is also the joy of rebirth,'" Fuyutsuki quoted. "Or so the old men of SEELE would like to believe."
"Indeed." The slightest hint of a smile, almost a smirk, tugged at the corners of Gendou's mouth. "But like our ancestors before us, the old men do not bother to look beyond what is right in front of them. They think they have all the answers simply because they found a few scraps of paper under some rocks in the desert. They take only what is spoon-fed to them, ignoring any other possibilities. Like our ancestors, and their ancestors before them, and their ancestors before them, back into countless millennia of lost civilizations, SEELE would destroy us all for nothing.
"In the Evangelion, mankind has harnessed the power of God, a power equally capable of both destruction and creation. To create a new world, two beings are needed: one to destroy the world, and another to rebuild it. But only one individual can wield the power of God, lest the very fabric of existence be annihilated by the conflicting desires of the two. This is the lesson that our forefathers failed to understand, and so their burden was passed on to a new generation, as it has been since the dawn of time."
"The Trinity," Fuyutsuki said. "The power of God, and the two conflicting natures of man: the Serpent, and the Messiah."
Gendou nodded. "The Messiah must be sacrificed in advance, to ascend and make ready for the rebirth of humanity once the Serpent is unleashed."
Fuyutsuki grinned, a wistful smile warming his features. "Well you seem to be unusually talkative today."
Gendou shrugged. "It occurred to me that we have not had a discussion such as this in a very long time, and it is not likely we will have another chance… Sempai."
"'Sempai,'" Fuyutsuki repeated, raising his eyebrow again. "It's been a while since I've heard you call me that."
Gendou did not reply.
Fuyutsuki sighed, turning to gaze out at the Tokyo-3 cityscape.
"I suppose you're right. Still, do you really think she could be the one?"
Gendou turned to follow his gaze, taking in the mechanized metropolis that housed the key to humanity's salvation.
"There is only one way to be sure," he replied.
Fuyutsuki turned back to face him.
"She will not be captured easily."
"Indeed," Gendou conceded. "But we know why she is here. In time, she will come to us."
Fuyutsuki nodded. "What about Rei?"
Gendou was silent for a moment, pondering.
"Have a replacement prepared immediately," he said. "The Seed of Lillith may yet be of some use to us."
xxEND OF CHAPTERxx
Awww… I had to kill off Rei. That makes me sad… VV
And as for the fanservice… mwahahahaha! Yes, I know, it was crude, pointless, and unnecessary. But then, isn't it always?
Okay, someone in the reviews asked why Asuka wanted to kill Rei. While I'm sure there are a number of reasons you could point out, consider the following:
1. Rei was present during her betrayal.
2. Asuka never liked Rei.
3. Asuka always considered Rei to be Gendou's personal pet.
4. Rei is a high-ranking member of NERV now, the organization Gendou is in charge of.
5. It's my goddamn story, and that's how I'm gonna do it.
Next time, Shinji makes an appearance. So does Asuka.- big surprise, right? See all you A/S fans, I can be a nice guy. Now be a good little boy/girl/assorted mammal and leave me a review, pronto, or else my self-esteem may be shattered forever. You wouldn't do that to me, would you?