Tokyo-2, Outer District 6
January 7, 2042
1128 hours
Kaworu waved the tin smoke away, put the soldering tin back onto its stand and flipped its transformer off. If there was one upside to risking his life on a regular basis, it was that he at least got paid for it. Being able to buy high-quality soldering tin and unused parts went a long way towards making his hobby less stressful. That said, his pay was considerably higher than what he spent on food and hobby things; month by month, he was accumulating a significant surplus on his account. He wasn't a millionaire yet by any means, but he had little doubt that by the end of the year, he would be.
In his idle moments he sometimes wondered what his ex-classmates in Austria would say if they knew. For Kaworu knew that he was likely making more by himself than all of them combined.
Still, it didn't go to his head. Money was money and he needed it to live, but it's not as if he suddenly felt the need to start spending big. For one, he made ends meet just fine so far in his life from far less, so he knew what he was doing (or at least liked to think so). For another, he still remembered Yui's words that if someone takes notice of the cash flow into his account, he is to point them in her direction; so far that didn't happen, but the possibility was there.
That's why he and Rei decided to acquire some spending money from... elsewhere. Though he had money to burn, it would've likely drawn attention if he actually spent it beyond his necessities. Hard cash, on the other hand, had no electronic trail directly pointing at him (and if the loan shark got caught procuring the amount, that was the guy's problem, not Kaworu's).
Speaking of which, he was expecting word from Rei soon in that regard. School being canceled due to the weather was an unexpected boon for handling business outside school, there was no denying it. He was still somewhat uneasy at the idea and what the others will say, but the point of no return was steadily approaching.
For now, he got up and grabbed his coat from the hanger in his room. Asuka and her father both thought it was weird that he didn't just hang it at the entrance like everyone does, but it was force of habit from the old days: if he didn't put it somewhere he could see it, he'd spend several minutes looking for it the next time he needed it until recalling where he put it.
That was one side effect of living in a single-room "home" for his entire youth, he supposed.
Passing into the living room, he heard Asuka's voice from his right as she glanced away from the TV screen and at him. – "You going somewhere?"
"Store."
"I'm coming too." – she replied and nimbly got onto her feet.
"Why?"
"Because I'm boring my ass off cooped up in here." – Asuka grumbled, heading off to her room - no doubt to get warmer clothes on. – "Could use some fresh air."
"Oh. Okay."
"What, did you think I was trying that to score points with you or something?"
"You wouldn't do that."
"...being right on that aside, you'd be surprised."
Ten minutes later
"You really need to get another coat." – Asuka grumbled at his side as they passed by another chest-height pile of snow, evidently shoveled off the sidewalk by someone. It wasn't snowing at the moment, but the sky above them was still just a homogeneous, formless mass of grey, ready to let go another torrential downpour at the slightest provocation. Though from the chill in the air, Kaworu figured they might be getting some relief in that regard.
"Why?"
"Because this one is ugly as hell! I'm surprised it's not moldy too."
"It's fine."
To be fair, it was rather old. There were already several noticeable cracks in the synthetic leather surface when it came into Kaworu's possession, which was likely why its previous owner threw it out. In the five years since, the number of cracks increased and the leather flaked off to the point where more of the surface was without the original material than with.
Still, the fuzzy interior lining was decently warm enough for the winter, so it was all good as far as Kaworu was concerned.
"No, it's not! Seriously, what do you think people think about you if you keep looking like that?!"
"I don't mind."
"Well, I do!" – Asuka kept pressing. – "If you're gonna hang around me, at least do me the favor of actually caring about your fucking appearance!"
Kaworu rolled his eyes. – "What do you mean, hang around you? You're the one who wanted to come along!"
"That's not the point!"
"It is when you're the one making a big deal about it!" – He sighed. – "If complaining is all you came to do, you should just turn around and go home."
"You wish."
He decided not to rise to the provocation. After their talk back when she was hungover, her jabs became ever so slightly less malicious and confrontative – but Asuka was still Asuka and Kaworu didn't really expect her to give him any more leeway. Why would she?
"So... what have you and your girlfriend been up to?"
That, however, was too much even for him. Kaworu wasn't exactly a pottymouth and (usually) not very quick to anger either, but there were moments when even he lost his cool. – "Verdammt noch mal! How many times do I have to tell you that she's NOT my girlfriend?! Are you fucking with me?!"
"Yes, but that's not the point."
He stopped right in his tracks. A second later, he heard Asuka loudly snicker behind him.
"...this isn't funny." – he grumbled as he resumed walking.
"Took... heh... took you long enough to figure it out." – the blonde sniped at him with a devious grin Mari, if she would've been here, would've helpfully identified as a 'trollface'. – "Who's the idiot here?"
"Still not funny."
"It is and it's called schadenfreude. Now come on, spill."
Kaworu glanced aside at her in surprise. – "...that's a pretty good pronunciation." – And it actually was, without any hint of an Anglosphere accent.
"Mom was half-German and I read up on it a bit myself, but I can't chat in German or anything. And stop changing the subject."
"No, you stop returning to this subject."
"I'll talk about whatever damn subject I want!"
"And I won't talk about whatever damn subject I don't want to!"
Asuka opened her mouth to retort, but paused before finally grumbling – "...walked right into that one. But still, I meant it when I said you should get a better coat." – she continued in a calm tone. – "That you keep saying that you don't care if you aren't getting attention from girls is one thing, but some people simply won't take you seriously if you show up dressed like a hobo."
"I never had problems with that."
"Doesn't mean you never will. Better to have the credibility and not need it than need it and not have it."
Kaworu couldn't argue with that logic. So he just shrugged and kept walking, his ears not missing Asuka's mildly annoyed sigh at his apparent indifference.
Yep. That was just like her.
They kept treading the snowy pavement, Kaworu occasionally glancing skyward to see if it looked like it was going to start snowing again anyway, before he spoke up. – "You know..."
"What?"
"I'm kinda surprised you adjusted to being on Earth so quickly. I mean, aren't the colonies all unbreathable outdoors?
"They are, but they do go outside where the climate allows it. Helps keeps the kids from growing up agoraphobic, from what I hear."
"Ago- what?"
"Fear of outdoors. You spend your whole life with a roof above your head, then get chucked outside with nothing but the sky above you? I once saw some little kids who were so scared they couldn't step out the airlock for several minutes." – Asuka explained.
In fact, Kaworu noticed that asking her to 'share the wisdom', so to speak, was the easiest way to have a level conversation with the girl. Maybe it was the distraction, maybe it was a childish feeling of 'I know something you don't'; whatever it was, it made her much more tolerable to be around.
"It didn't happen to you, though."
"Dad made sure I was used to being outside. And it's different for every colony. On Polygonus, the buildings look like just like these-" – she gestured at the street around them – "except you can't open the windows and every door is airtight and has an airlock behind it. What you consider street clothes over here are OK there too; you just need a breathing mask and an oxygen tank. In fact, school backpacks sold over there come with a built-in tank. Dad said the whole thing's not unlike wearing a pre-Impact gas mask with a hose."
"That... doesn't sound too bad, actually."
"It isn't. Except for the dust storms."
"...there they are..."
If Kaworu would've been Rei, he would've felt the attention the two hooded figures were directing at him from the other side of the intersection he and Asuka just walked past.
"I wouldn't believe it if I wasn't seeing it with my own eyes." – One whispered, eyes fixed on the two pilots. – "So... I guess that Angel really was telling the truth."
"Can we go now?" – the other figure behind her asked with a flat tone, leaning against the wall behind him with arms folded over his chest.
"Don't you even care?"
"No."
If his blunt answer phased his companion, she didn't show it. – "You heard that the Angel said. What we have to do."
"Not him." – The second figure finally looked up, the edge of his hood rising just high enough to take in Kaworu's receding form. – "He doesn't deserve it."
"You know it doesn't work that way."
"I don't need him. Did you forget?"
"And Yurie?"
Silence.
"What do you think she would say if she heard you say that?" – she pressed. – "What would she think about you? Don't say that you don't care because I know you do. She's the only one who ever meant anything to you."
"It would still be better for her. Anything would be better. Anyone but him. And not just her." – He pointed at Asuka. – "She wouldn't go through all that crap if he's out of the picture either. Fuck it, everyone would be better off without him!"
"You wouldn't. And neither would Yurie."
He immediately unfolded his arms and slammed his fists into the wall behind him hard enough to crack the plaster. – "The fuck you keep bringing her up for?!"
"Because you're throwing a tantrum over him again." – she replied calmly, evidently used to such outbursts. – "If you don't like him, don't think about him. No point in torturing yourself."
He growled but didn't offer a retort. – "...let's go. Just... go." – Without waiting for an answer, he pushed himself away from the wall and walked away, the other figure soon following him. Both treaded the snow with a measure of awkward unsteadiness, as if not used to it.
They walked in silence for several minutes until the girl spoke again. – "...besides, have you seen them? It's like he's not even the same person."
"Which is why it should be done now. Before he turns into... that."
If she wouldn't have been wearing a hood, one would've seen the girl roll her eyes. – "Cut that out already! You can't do anything about it anyway!"
"Because the Angel says so?"
"Because mom explained this to me a few years back and I read up on it afterwards. What the Angel said is correct and it's called a Novikov law or something like that; I don't remember exactly-"
She froze mid-step, dawning realization spreading across her features.
"...oh, that's genius."
"What?"
She gestured around them. – "This is why she told me in the first place!"
It took her companion a few moments until he connected the dots. – "...she knew?"
"She must've suspected. I mean, why else would you give a twelve year old a crash course in paradoxes?"
"How would I know?" – he grumbled with a shrug.
"She trained you, didn't she?"
"Doesn't mean I know what she's thinking." – He fell quiet for a few moments. – "If she knows stuff like that, you'd think she would've become a scientist or kept fighting the USL. Instead, she goes into being a schoolteacher."
"She always had a soft spot for children." – the girl replied with a smile. – "Until she had me, she thought she couldn't have any herself. You know the whole thing with my aunt, right?"
"Yeah."
"She took her in because of that too. And she didn't quit. She just became a reservist."
"Same thing. She retired."
"It's not the same. If something comes up, she'll reactivate and go out to protect me, auntie and dad."
He remained silent.
"...Takeshi."
"What?"
"Is it... okay for me to talk about this?" – she asked, slightly fidgeting with unease. – "I know we're cousins, but still... it feels so unfair that I've been born to such a good family while you... well..."
"You can't do anything about it."
He looked up at the sky, hood sliding back from the winter breeze to reveal a tangled and dirty mop of blond as his companion raised a hand to hold onto her own hood. Yet his eyes saw not the sky, but an entirely different image: of a form silently huddled on the floor in near-darkness, a nightmarish scar running diagonally from shoulder to waist, empty bottles yawning silently next to a limp and unmoving hand that occasionally twitched.
Of uncaring ignorance that couldn't see beyond its own misery.
And with that image came anger, a searing inferno of fury bottled beneath the surface, raging to be unleashed upon a world that refused to accept him. Years of resentment and hate, roaring to be set loose, no longer content with only tearing him up from the inside.
"I have half a mind not to go back... to just stay here. Maybe with a false name or something."
"You know you can't."
"What else can I do? I don't want to go back to... to... that."
"But if you stay-"
"I know." – he interrupted her. – "That's why I said 'half a mind'. I'm not an idiot." – With that, he pulled his hood back up and started walking with purpose, his companion hurrying to keep pace with him.
"We don't have much time left. Are you sure you're going to be alright?" – she asked.
"Yeah."
"How do you know?"
"What the Angel said. I'm supposed to succeed, right?"
"Yeah... but it said nothing about what happens afterwards."
"I'll get it done."
"Are you sure I shouldn't go?"
"You'd just get in my way. I don't need help."
Chapter completed on 18/05/11. Long delay due to events I won't bore the audience with; the folks at SV get enough of that bellyaching already. The dialogue in this chapter was actually already complete for months, though I was having more than a little trouble writing the latter half of this chapter, trying to strike a balance between boring and giving away too much.
The Novikov self-consistency principle was originally proposed between the late seventies and early eighties as a potential solution to the causality problems introduced by the possibility of time travel; specifically, the possibility to alter the past in such a way that it results in a causal loop of past and future mutually contradicting each other, ie. a paradox. Igor Dmitriyevich Novikov's proposal was that this is inherently impossible: if an event can cause a paradox, the probability of said event actually happening is zero. Whatever the time traveler tries to do in the past always ends up causing the exact same future, period. The theory is not widely accepted, however, as it assumes the existence of only one timeline and no alternate timelines, which brings it into conflict with, among others, the universal wavefunction theory of quantum physics – AKA the theory that an infinite number of parallel universes exist, with literally everything that could ever happen having happened in at least one of them, with the different outcomes being the timeline divergence points.
It has been theorized that the self-consistency principle could theoretically be used to obtain the correct result of any arbitrarily complex calculation by building a mechanism that receives an approximate result on its input, calculates a better approximate, then sends its output back in time to its own input as the "original" approximate it started out with. As soon as the mechanism is activated, its output would immediately produce the exact, correct result, as long as there is one value the series of approximates can converge upon. This concept was explored in a certain high-profile fanfic in the Harry Potter fandom a few years ago.
