Disclaimer: Same as Chapter 1.
Chapter 20: Proverbs
Misato was waiting for about an hour before Section 2 Agents managed to locate Kaworu. She grimaced to herself-- usually it would only take Section 2 a little over twenty minutes to perform a task of this sort-- he must have been hiding quite well in order to avoid detection for so long. After ten minutes, the boy was finally brought before her. He wasn't handcuffed; he appeared to have come of his own free will. The agents then asked her if she needed assistance, but she politely declined them, her eyes focused on the Fifth Child.
"...Have a seat, Kaworu."
She indicated a chair sitting in the center of the room, below a bright floodlamp. Without speaking he walked calmly over to the chair and sat.down, the light illuminating his features but throwing other aspects of his anatomy into the shadows.
"All right, Kaworu. I think you know why you're here, don't you?"
The boy was silent, but smiled sweetly at his commanding officer while the light reflected off his red eyes, giving him an eerie appearance. Misato was not one to be intimidated by a trick of the eye, however.
"...I have some questions I'd like to ask you about what happened to Asuka Langley Sorhyu at the hospital 5 hours ago."
At this, the boy finally spoke.
"Oh! What happened to Miss Sorhyu?"
"Don't play dumb! It'll only make things worse for you."
Misato let the threat hang in the air while she walked up to him.
"...Now...What did you do to Asuka? I want the truth."
Kaworu gave her a confused expression.
"...I'm afraid I don't understand, Major. I have not been to the hospital since I visited the First a few weeks ago. You remember-- you sent me after all."
His smug grin was quickly raising Misato's blood pressure; his attempts at ignorance were beyond aggravating. But that would only make the eventual shock of being trapped by his own words all the more satisfying. She grabbed the security tape from a nearby table and pushed it into a VCR/TV that was mounted into the wall.
"...I'd like you to look at this, Kaworu...Security camera footage of the hospital at approximately 8:39 this evening."
Kaworu didn't say a word as the VCR slowly synched up with the tape.
Hmm...how troublesome. He then focused his thoughts entirely on the cassette.
As the tape started, Misato couldn't help but smirk to herself-- there'd be no way he could deny THIS. But when it showed the footage of the hospital's Directory Desk, she saw something peculiar...or rather, she didn't see something. Kaworu had somehow disappeared from the footage. She started to worry when he wasn't in the shot of the front of the elevators, or climbing the stairs-- she fast forwarded the tape and didn't see a single glimpse of him where he should have been.
"...I'm sorry, Major... but what is it I'm supposed to be looking at?"
The calm and innocent words of the Fifth Child derailed Misato's train of thought. She whipped her head around to see him still sitting in his seat, with a smug look on his face. Her fist was trembling and her face was frozen somewhere between shock and fury.
"What...did you just do?"
"...Truth is a very strange thing, Major Katsuragi," he uttered passively. "...Instead of there being a single truth that defines existense, there are many-- enough for every being to have its own grasp of reality."
Misato walked up to him, then planted her hands on both arms of the chair and leaned in so her face was only inches from the silver-haired boy. Despite his bravado, Kaworu flinched slightly at Misato's face, which seemed to glow with an unspeakable anger. Her voice was a dangerous whisper as she spoke.
"...If you did anything to hurt her, I swear to God I'll..."
"...You'll what?" Kaworu had regained his composure, and his patronizing smile had returned. "As far as that recording indicates, I was nowhere near the hospital at the time you specified. And if you were to return to there and make a full inquiry as to my presence, you would find no one who could recall my presence."
The violet-haired woman's eyes softened in shock as the significance of his statement hit her. She backed away slowly, then ran to the door and opened it. She found the two guards from before stationed outside it.
"You two-- I have to check something. Make sure he stays here."
The two agents looked at each other curiously, then at Misato.
"Major Katsuragi, you need to finish interrogating the prisoner before you can--" The Major shot him a look that could wilt flowers and he was instantly quiet.
"Just do as I say! Lock the door and make sure he doesn't get out!"
Misato ran down the hallway, to the parking garage, and sped a short way down the road to the NERV Medical Branch. All the while, she was frantically thinking.
If there's no evidence, then...
Misato had left the interrogation room for the hospital at about 25 minutes after midnight. She returned around 2:00 in the morning, her face blank and her mind in a state of complete disbelief.
Not a single person at the hospital recognized Kaworu's picture. Not even the woman at the directory desk, who had been the only one to actually speak to the boy, could recall having seen him that day. She now had nothing-- even the original security archives had been changed, he wasn't in any of them. As she walked back to the interrogation room, one of the Section 2 agents walked up to meet her.
"...Is he still there?" She asked in a defeated voice.
"The prisoner has not left the room."
"Good. I'd like it kept that way. Move him down to the detention area and--"
Before she could finish, both agents pressed their earpieces in closer, apparently listening to a call. The one who had walked up to Misato spoke.
"Major Katsuragi, Commander Ikari has requested that you release Kaworu Nagisa immediately."
Misato's eyes popped out of her head.
"WHAT! After what's just happened? This 'boy' needs to be questioned and evaluated regarding this incident!"
"...The Commander also wanted to remind you that without evidence of wrongdoing, it is a crime to hold a person indefinitely for arbitrary reasons. He said that to refuse would result in severe punishment."
If Gendo Ikari had been in the Major's presence at that moment, she would not have hesitated to shoot him. The hypocrisy of the Commander was beyond appalling to her--it took every last ounce of self-control to steady her trembling hand and open the door. She didn't even look at Kaworu as he turned his head in her direction.
"...You're free to go," she whispered, struggling to keep her voice below a scream. Kaworu stood up and smiled at the Major. He didn't speak as he made his way to the exit, but whispered into Misato's ear as he passed, so that the agents didn't hear him.
"...It would seem as thoughmy truth was the correct one, Major Katsuragi."
Misato waited until the boy and the agents escorting him had gone down the long hallway and turned the corner before slamming her fist into the doorframe.
"...GODDAMNIT!"
Gendo hung up the phone after he had finished speaking to the agents. As he sat in his office with his fingers tented in front of him, Fuyutsuki spoke.
"...Should we have let that boy go?"
"We cannot do anything to him at this point. SEELE would take action if we did anything that would suggest we were suspicious of him." He leafed through the Asuka's medical file absentmindedly.
"...She should not have come back as soon as she did," the older man said with some severity.
"Yes. Current events have gone far beyond the boundaries of our scenario. But if we haven't forseen this, then it must be a shock to the old men, as well." Gendo managed to hide his look of worry from Fuyutsuki. "We can do nothing now but wait...and then act when the opportunity presents itself."
A/N: I've been getting a lot of questions about my chapter titles, so I'm going to answer them once and for all right now: My chapter titles are all taken from books of the Bible. I'm not a bible nut or anything like that, I just thought it would be kinda cool 'cause I noticed that no one else had thought to do it-- now it just seems sort of pretentious : ) Anyway, thanks to everyone who's taken an interest in this fic! Now that I've broken the 20-chapther mark, I hope you'll all stick with me for the remainder of the story!