Authors note:
First of all, hope everyone had/has/will yet have an amazing scary Halloween. As it is also an odd Sunday I am here with my offerings.
I would like to thank Cheerful Clatter for amazing edits and all-around support, 24karatDVNO for helping me with some characterisation issues, pointing out some problems in earlier Chapters I will be fixing, and last but not least Arwen for becoming the chief poisoner, erm, consultant in areas of medicine, and helping me to get the pseudoscience I am working with much better.
As the work ramp up for me, I have had some interesting times finding space to write this chapter, so while I will work hard to keep the story running, I do not know if I will be able to keep to my schedule. So here is a question for you lot. Try as best as I can to stick to the schedule with the risk that the chapters may be late, or downscale to one guaranteed chapter in November and back to business in December?
Also, especially for those that also enjoy fics that stick somewhat closer to canon, I must recommend the Shinji Ikari Documenting Project. As I am, a very minor, part of writing this fic as an alpha reader I feel confident enough that it is a fic worth reading and one that is going to be finished to recommend it to you.
As always any constructive critique is most welcome as are comments in general. This chapter skis between the Monday and Wednesday of the week following Suite No.4,03. I hope that I managed to make it clear enough when time slips happen. If I failed at that, make sure to let me know!
Without further ado, here it is, bites in, and enjoy!
Suite No. 5.01 The Right Questions
Wednesday
-x-
Misato was a regular guest in Ritsuko's office, whether she needed to drop something off to her friend, or to get a piece of information, or most often, to just stop by for a bit of chat and banter after hours.
So it did not surprise Ritsuko when she strolled in on Wednesday. Ritsuko mumbled something that sounded like, "Go away, working."
Misato laughed: "Are there any appointments with Doctor Akagi left in this century?" and simply sat on her desk next to Ritsuko's third coffee of the day.
"Very funny," said the doctor but could not keep the corners of her mouth from twitching. Ritsuko closed the file she was trying to work on for the last hour and finished her coffee. "Alright, Misato, I really don't have much time, but can spare you fifteen minutes. Then I have to go back to that report."
"Yeah, about that, Rits, I have a favour to ask: just need medical files of the pilots. The Vice-Commander asked for a readiness report and he wants them attached," said the major, resting her hands on the desk and leaning back a bit.
Ritsuko thought to delegate it to Maya, or simply tell Misato to go through official channels. 'But either one will take more time than to just give her the reports,' she realised and started punching commands into her computer.
A minute later, she turned to her friend and gave her a nod. "In your inbox right now; I don't want to be rude, but today really is not a day for catching up. This thing has to be done tomorrow, or I'll have the Commander on my case," she sighed. "In the engineering division, we have tons of work even without angel attacks…"
Misato got up and gave her a pat on the shoulder and a smile: "Come over for dinner on Saturday - don't worry, it's Shinji's night to cook," she added when Ritsuko looked at her dubiously.
Ritsuko thought it over for a moment, then nodded: "Alright, I'll come, we could go out for drinks later," said the scientist.
They chatted for a few more moments before Ritsuko got back to her work and Misato left. As the Major closed the door, however, her smile faltered: 'You better be honest with me, Rits, or you and I are both going to regret it.'
She put on her beret and headed for the parking lot.
-x-
two days earlier
-x-
"Cosplay? Why, Asuka?" asked Shinji as he, Asuka, and Rei got home and started preparing for their meeting with Maya later that afternoon.
"Because you two wear mostly the same clothes, even out of the school, makes you easy to follow," explained the redhead with a grin.
Shinji nodded: that made sense to him, but then he looked over the clothes that Asuka made ready for him, and what was that? 'A wig?'
"Well, I thought about dying your hair blond, but we are a few years too late to have it grow long enough, and besides we don't like faux blondes very much right now."
The other two teens nodded, even if Rei took a moment to do so.
"Uh, Asuka, I am not wearing white gloves, that's the Commander's style, not mine," said Shinji, holding said item of clothing like one would a dead animal.
Asuka gave a small nod at Shinji calling Gendo Ikari Commander: as far as she was concerned, it was better for Shinji to live as if he was an orphan than to think of Gendo as his father.
"You are not wearing white gloves because the Commander wears white gloves, you are wearing them because the character you cosplay wears them," reasoned Rei as she was going over her own costume.
Shinji gave her a side glance: "And why would they? White gloves and combat boots? Not a great fit," he protested.
Asuka nodded: "Trust me, it makes sense. Besides, if you refuse to do things because the Commander does them, is it not letting yourself be controlled by him? In a roundabout way maybe, but controlled still?"
Shinji sighed and let his hand, still holding the gloves, fall to his side: "I can not win, can I? Do something because of my father? I lost. Refuse to be like him? I lost." He turned as if to leave.
"Bullshit!" Asuka stretched out her hand and stopped him. "Shinji, you can win this one and it is easy!" she said, flashing him a cheerful smile.
Shinji drew a breath and looked at the German. "How? I don't see anyway!" And it was true: he did not see any choice. 'But maybe Asuka has an idea - if anyone does, she will,' Shinji thought.
Asuka, still smiling, squeezed his shoulder gently before letting go. Shinji briefly recalled Saturday morning: Rei had to find them and bring them the blanket. No one mentioned it, but when Asuka woke up and realised it, her face matched her hair for a good while…
"...Baka, do you listen?" Shinji was brought back to the present moment by very much not blushing Asuka.
"Hai!" he squeaked and looked her in the eye.
Asuka grinned. "No you weren't, but yes, there are three solutions. You can wear the gloves because you decided that pulling this off successfully, and Wundergirl here, matters more to you than living every moment of your life to not be Gendo Ikari." The way Asuka said it, Shinji wondered if one could even sound that scornful.
"Another hard option is to decide that you will or will not wear them based on whether YOU want to wear them or not." She stabbed him in the chest. "You can make your own choices, Shinji."
Shinji cracked a small smile and drew a few deep breaths. 'Maybe there is a way I can win,' he realised, as he smiled a bit more and asked, "Any chance there is an easy way?"
Asuka gave him a wink. "Well, you could wear them for me, Ritterschaft tragen Handschuhe, nicht wahr?"
"Asuka, Japanish, bitte?" asked Shinji with a smile. 'But yes, I could wear gloves for Asuka,' he thought on the inside.
Asuka looked at Rei, Rei looked back and they both said "Du kann auch Deutsch lernen!"
-x-
30 minutes later
-x-
"I do believe my cosplay should include several fully working self-loading pistols and a revolver - I did my research, Pilot Sohryu," said Rei, emotionlessly pointing to the manga illustration on her phone display.
"For the last time, you are NOT raiding Misato's gun safe!" replied Asuka, exasperated, and turned to Shinji: "Shinji, tell me, when did I turn into the responsible one?" She was wearing a blond wig, tank top and cargo pants, and an assortment of wrenches that looked disturbingly real and heavy…
Shinji thought about how to break it to Asuka. "Um… when you gave me a taser and told me to tase anyone other than Rei?"
Asuka looked at the two again, sighing audibly. "That was different," she muttered as she looked them over.
'Damn Rei, who is to know when she is making fun and when she is serious! And she is a bad influence on Shinji, he is making fun of me!' she thought.
Rei cracked her ghost of a smile and nodded. "That would indeed be reasonable, do I at least get a taser?"
Asuka shot Shinji one last glance. "She tases anyone who does not need tasing, I am making you responsible and demanding compensation in fine dinners!" she said and handed a taser from her purse.
Rei took it, gave it a look over, and put it into one of the ammo pouches of her Riza Hawkeye costume.
"Alright, everyone looks the part, everyone is sufficiently armed," Asuka glared at Rei. "We are ready, the taxi is waiting, let's go!"
-x-
New Akihabara - 20 minutes later
-x-
Shinji could not help but stare with amazement as they got out of the taxi. For one, each second or third person around was wearing some sort of cosplay. He began to truly appreciate the ingenuity of Asuka's idea, especially when they ran into a bunch of mechanics he knew for certain worked on Unit 01 and yet none of them recognised any of the pilots.
Given that Asuka was the only one who knew where they were going and the street was busy, almost bustling, Shinji and Rei both fell back half a step and let the German find or make the way.
"Uh… Winry," said Shinji, remembering at the last second that they agreed to use their characters' names for that afternoon, "How do we find Lieutenant Ross?"
"She is going to find us, we only need to find the coffee shop we are supposed to wait for her in, Ed," Asuka shot a look over her shoulder.
"She will be wearing a uniform much like mine, Edward," explained Rei and ducked out of the way of an entire gaggle of teenagers rushing in the opposite direction.
The weather was getting worse by the minute. It was drizzling by the time they got out of the taxi, by the time they actually got into the coffee shop it was regularly raining, and by the time they got their drinks, it was raining cats and dogs with howling wind out on the street.
Asuka looked out and thought, 'I hope someone is out there following us, and that they forgot their coat and umbrella.'
Then she got a text message, looked at it, and nodded. "Alright, Lieutenant Ross is on her way, I'm going to get her hot chocolate," she said, before getting up and going to get the drink.
She came back with a king-size cup of hot chocolate and a thoroughly drenched Maya in tow. Maya hadn't said much except for greetings and thanks for the cocoa until she was halfway through the cup. Then she looked at Rei and Shinji, and then back to Asuka.
"Thought it was going to be only the two of us," she said with an air of mild surprise, but grinned at Shinji anyway. "Hope you did enjoy the suit, I was glad to help when Asuka asked and told me what she had in mind, Shinji."
Shinji winked in and felt his ears turning red. "I did, uh, thank you, Lieutenant," he finished, shooting a glance to Asuka, who was fighting a blush of her own and glaring at Maya.
"Oh bugger, we were supposed to use the character names, weren't we?" asked Maya, deciding that right now was the best time to finish her drink.
Asuka cleared her throat. "Well, that was the plan, but the cat is out of the bag now," she sighed and drank some of her coffee. Coffee which Shinji noted was only normal strength, not Asuka's normal order of "and make it triple espresso or else."
"Why would you put a cat in a bag? It would not like it very much," wondered Rei, stirring her tea. Asuka glared at her momentarily before shaking her head. "Es ist ein sprichwort, Wundergirl," she said by way of explanation.
Shinji smiled apologetically at Maya's apparent confusion of the sudden use of German. "It is just their thing, Lieutenant."
Maya shook her head: "No, don't worry. When you are with NERV for several years, you get used to odd people, but most of them are pretty awesome."
Asuka had to work hard to not show any anger: she could well imagine who Maya meant when she said "Awesome".
Not telling Maya what they knew right now did not sit well with Asuka. But they, and they meant Rei in this matter, needed the MAGI whiz - the one person in NERV who knew as much about the supercomputer as Dr Akagi herself - to get them their intel and to be on top of her game. Not to anguish about her idol having more in common with a Lagerarzt than with a good doctor.
"Maya, we have a favour to ask, a big one this time," said Asuka. She looked around and when she was sure no one paid them any mind, she went on. "We need you to access Rei's file."
"Why? Planning to go shopping for the fancy dress, too?" said Maya with a wink. Asuka shook her head. "I wish! We need Rei's medical file and everything you can snoop about her past."
Maya fidgeted in apprehension and wrapped her fingers around her empty cup: "Asuka, that is a lot more serious than what you wanted last time. If Senpai finds out about me fetching some measures for you, she would laugh that off, maybe chew me out for wasting my time. But if I get caught snooping in medical files, I could get into real trouble," she sighed. "Why do you want to see that file? Can't Rei just ask to read it?"
Asuka fetched her phone, found the file with photos from Rei's apartment, and discreetly slid it over to Maya. "Because this is where Rei lived, at the direct order of the Commander, and because Rei does not know anything about her past further back than when she started training as a pilot for NERV… And because right now I trust about three people in the whole of NERV to do right by Rei. Shinji, Misato, and you. Maya Ibuki."
Only after she said it, did she realise it was actually true. She would also trust Kaji of course, but Kaji was not truly part of NERV. Still, she did not like having to rely on Maya: she trusted the MAGI whiz's personal integrity, but not that she would hold all that long under the kind of interrogation she could imagine Gendo Ikari employing if he really wanted to know something bad.
Maya flicked through the file with the photos, growing paler by the second. She finally handed the phone back to Asuka with a pronounced grimace.
She then looked at Rei. "Please, Rei, tell me you are going to move from that place," she said, looking at her cup before adding: "Alright, I am going to need another one and this time with a shot of whiskey."
"I cannot move of my own accord, Lieutenant," said Rei quietly. "But I was invited to stay with Shinji and Pilot... Asuka, for the time being." Here, she gave Shinji and Asuka both a smile. "They were very persuasive with their arguments."
Maya relaxed a bit and waited for the next cup of hot chocolate to arrive before she spoke again: "I am probably an idiot, but alright, I am going to help you. If I ever, no matter what it may be, ask for your help, you are helping, and you are getting me a lot more of that swiss chocolate you got me last time." She was talking way too much, looking around and holding onto her cup.
Asuka grinned. "If you show up next week at three in the morning with a dead body, I won't ask questions and I'll deal with it for you."
Maya stopped her tirade, looked at Asuka with a surprised expression, and broke into a smile. "Deal, but you still better bring the chocolate, or else I am adding stuff into your sims you won't like."
Then Rei tapped the table and looked over Asuka's left shoulder. The redhead opened her handbag and got out a small mirror as if to check on her makeup.
'And sure enough, there they are.' She clenched her fist. 'They don't even make ANY effort: black confection suits, sunglasses, a headset?'
She leaned to Shinji: "You see them? Two tables behind me, black suits..." Shinji nodded tersely. They talked about what to do if they got followed by, or randomly ran into, Section-2.
Running away was not an option, since the two agents were right between them and the door. They had to sit tight and hope that it was just a freak occurrence.
Shinji could read from Asuka's lips: "Sitting tight, or making a run for it?" He replied in a hushed voice, "Sitting tight!"
Maya looked from teenager to teenager, unsure what the heck was actually going on - but in the end, she decided to follow Asuka's lead. This was her idea to begin with, after all.
The redhead finished her drink and got up, loudly asking, "Anyone want another coffee?" while looking over the trio still sitting.
Rei shook her head, and Maya peeped something along the lines of "I am good," so Asuka set off for the counter to get herself a coffee and a cup of tea for Shinji.
As she passed the pair of agents, one got up and headed for the restroom. She ordered the drinks, turned around to look at the other agent, and almost had a panic attack… 'Why, bei Teufel, they have shotguns?' she thought, looking at the longarms resting against the table for a second.
Then she gave them a second look and burst into a relieved giggle. That 'Thing' had so much chrome and odd add-ons that it could not be anything but Men In Black weaponry. She had been had by a bunch of silly movie cosplayers.
'Of course, Wundergirl thought they were the real deal - she barely knows what movies are,' she thought as she paid for the drinks and studied the remaining cosplayer more closely. They sure were doing a really good job of Tommy Lee Jones's character... 'What was their name? Agent Brown, right?'
Asuka decided to risk a bit, and as she came by the table on the way back, she pointed to one of the guns: "Alien stuff? Can I?"
The Agent Brown cosplayer gave her a supposedly stern look: "Off-limits to civilians, we are MIB!" Hell, even their accent was pretty spot-on.
Asuka laughed and moved on with a quip of "I better not get my memory wiped!" When she got back, she was not surprised that Shinji was still spooked. She smiled at him and handed him the tea, brushing her fingers over the top of his palm.
"Relax, they are only MIB cosplayers… where is Rei?" She pointed to the seat where she had left the bluenette, and Shinji fidgeted.
"She took after that woman in a suit - where are you going?" he called after Asuka, who had already been three steps in the direction of restrooms before he could finish. 'Must not slap Wundergirl,' she thought.
She had just about made it, and just about got tased for her trouble, before Rei recognised her.
"Stand down, they are only cosplayers like us, Rei," she said irritatedly and almost took the paralyser out of Rei's hand. Instead, she fixed her with a glare. "What were you thinking?" Asuka asked.
Rei inclined her head, putting on her half-smile. "I thought to tase one of our tails, wait for the other to come to investigate, and then leave when they are distracted."
It was bonkers: a fifteen-year-old girl just told Asuka she was about to electrocute another girl on a public toilet in order to leave the café, but it was bonkers in a completely logical way that made Asuka nod along…
Well, at any rate, the potential crisis was averted, so she nudged Rei towards the dining room. "Come on, Wundergirl, let's go. Shinji is gonna be worried silly about you."
Rei smiled a bit more as they walked back. "He always did, now you both do," she said as if she was trying the taste of these words one by one and liking the taste…
Asuka felt touched. 'I have done nothing more than help Shinji here and there; if not for him you would still be squatting at your old flat...' She thought to work harder to help Rei with her own initiative. Aloud she said, "You just take way too much fussing over for one Baka to do it all! Come on, my coffee is getting cold!"
-x-
Wednesday
-x-
Misato unclenched her fist only when she realised she was almost drawing blood with her nails. She was sitting amidst the pile of unattended paperwork that always piled up in her office until a memo from the Vice-Commander made her at least pretend to attend to it. But what caused her current mood was the email she was reading: the medical files she had got from Ritsuko. Shinji's file she already had, and had brought it on a flash disk to have something to compare the rest to…
"Well, at least she is not lying," Misato mused as she skimmed through Rei's file one last time. It had the bare basics: date of birth, blood type, and dates of two surgeries - one from after Unit 00 failed activation, and one from after Rei tried to take on Sachiel in Unit 01.
Every single line, as far as Misato could tell, matched events that had occurred in reality. But what was slightly worrisome was that there was no information on Rei's parents, no family anamnesis, no names. Nothing.
Per the file, Rei Ayanami had just somehow popped herself into existence in the then-GEHIRN (pre-NERV) headquarters on March 30th 2001, without any explanation. Misato was pretty dubious that Gendo Ikari just found a kid that just so happened to be able to sync with two EVAs on his front porch while going to work on one March day.
And also, there was no "and we drug her up to gills because X using YZS drugs" section - no prescription or pharmacy records at all, in fact. Misato crumpled the nearest pile of all-important paperwork and threw it against the wall.
She got up, put on her coat and thought about going home, but she shook her head: 'I'd go straight to binging in this state, and the kids don't need a pissed-off drunk Misato for the company.'
So she picked her phone and called Kaji only to be welcomed by a voice mail, so she now knew she would not be fucking her anger away, either.
Visiting Ritsuko would probably end in a row to end all rows, and while Makoto would definitely keep her company if she asked, she was not about to pester him when he certainly had a ton of work to do, some of which Misato was sure was actually supposed to be her work… which Makoto would always brush away by saying that he really had no other obligations, unlike Misato. She reminded herself to get him a really good bottle of Sake and some of his favourite bands' CDs for Christmas.
She thought to go and do some drifting, but the tires were worn off as they were - and with Rei to feed for the moment, she could really use not having to change them for a month or two longer.
She needed to let off a lot of steam and be on the budget. Misato sat up and grinned: she had just the right thing in mind. She looked up a bulletin she got a few days earlier and nodded to herself.
"Kraut Space Magic" was just the thing, and she had to familiarise herself with the new NERV issue rifle after all…
Two thousand rounds of caseless 4.73x33 NERV later, Misato headed home. Ears ringing, tired, still angry, but sure - she would be able to tell the kids and be there for them.
-x-
"So we got nothing from Akagi?" asked Asuka after skimming the report Misato brought and putting the laptop on the coffee table next to the Shogi board with the stones still left as they were when Rei defeated Shinji again that afternoon.
Misato drank some of her cola and shook her head. "Nothing we did not know before, aside from a few minor details on the timeline." She looked down at her hands and sighed before looking at the bluenette: "Sorry, Rei. Wish I could help you more, but it looks like Shinji and Asuka have me beat in that department." She really wanted an Ibuprofen, rum, and bed, in that order.
"Please, Katsuragi-San, you gave Shinji a home. None of the help I received would ever come without that. You have done enough," said Rei, hesitating a moment before squeezing Misato's shoulder. Misato looked at her in surprise and saw a slight smile, one she had noticed ever since Rei moved into the Katsuragi household. Misato was not buying the "temporary sleepover" and she was not about to send Rei to live by herself in some dump ever again. Ever since, Rei was exceedingly cordial with her, but always a bit aloof, like she was not quite here.
'Damn, Rei is the one hurting in here and I am the one getting consoled,' Misato mused and realised Rei met her look with a slightly startled one of her own.
Next thing Misato knew, she was hugging Rei. "It is Misato, or else I will stick you with the honorifics of the Empress, and I promise I'll do more," she said, now breaking into a smile of her own. She could now understand why Shinji once told her that he wouldn't ever forget Rei's smile.
"And we will hold you to that," said Asuka with a slight smile of her own. "We all need to start doing a lot better by each other, except for Baka Shinji - he's good if he just keeps at it the way he does. Now release Wundergirl and admire the intelligence I brought!" she said, waving around a flash drive she had gotten with her brief for that morning's sync test.
-x-
Asuka bit into the sandwich Shinji made and looked over a chart Rei made. They had learned a lot more from Maya's haul than from what Misato could get out of Dr Akagi. Unfortunately, they also ended with a lot more questions than they had answers to. "What is the 'Project Dummy Plug' and why is it linked to Rei?" she mused, taking another bite.
Shinji looked at Misato: "Dummy is inert, right?" She nodded and Shinji went on, "But an inert entry plug makes no sense - the EVA needs a pilot!"
To his surprise, Misato did not answer and simply turned to Asuka, yielding the floor. The redhead nodded: "Test type and Units 01 through 04, but I have read that they want the mass production model to have a pilot-less mode. Which means they will be damn inferior to my Unit 02, and a bit inferior to your EVAs as well!"
The mood lifted a bit after that and they looked over the chart again, thinking on possible implications. The next one to come up with a theory was Asuka: "Alright, why is Rei the only one that had cross-sync tests? Especially given that we know that Shinji could sync with Unit 02?"
"Redundancy," said Misato and drank some of her Yebisu. "We had one pilot, but two EVAs made sense to see if we could deploy Rei in either EVA if one was ever down for maintenance or had combat damage."
Nobody seemed eager to tackle the meds: that side of the chart remained depressingly empty. Eventually, Shinji pointed to it and spoke: "What I don't understand is why there is nothing much on the meds. This is a MAGI-guarded file. The strongest firewall on Earth, right, Asuka?"
The German nodded. "It is impossible to break in fast enough to preempt the infected MAGI from erasing their drives. They tried in 2013 with all other branches targeting the Tokyo-3 Branch, and they got in - turns out you can break into anything with enough brute force and connection. But if they were so worried about the file being hacked from outside, just giving it the self-destruct switch would do…."
She looked around and saw everyone giving her looks that were both amused, impressed, and slightly concerned.
She was halfway to saying: "What, I like computers, what's funny?!" But she realised something: 'They are laughing with me, not at me.'
But when she read what they knew by now, there were precious little smiles of any kind around.
"So Rei is getting drugged" - by unspoken agreement, everybody but the bluenette herself refused to call the lumps of drugs 'medication' - "at the orders of the Human Instrumentality Committee and nobody, not even the Commander, is to interfere? I have been working for NERV for years, and I never heard about anyone giving direct orders to Ikari," Misato mused, helping herself to a snack.
She read the line again aloud: "The precise keeping with the drug regimen prescribed to Pilot Ayanami is of absolute importance for the constant readiness of NERV to fulfil its main mission. Nothing must be allowed to interfere. The head of Project E is thus made personally responsible for upkeep of the regimen, as per direct instructions of the Human Instrumentality Committee. Not even the potential appearance of further pilots can change that."
Misato did not understand: sure, Rei was important to stopping angels, but even without any favouritism, she could say that both Shinji and Asuka outperformed her. So it was really they who should be singled as all-important to saving humanity and stuffed up to the gills with God-knows-what. That thought made Misato snarl: 'But if they try to give anything like that to Shinji or Asuka, there won't be enough of them left to charge me!' She silently resolved she would go full-on "Victor the Cleaner" on anyone who would threaten to hurt them.
"...Misato?" The Major sat up and looked at the speaker, realising she was clutching the table strongly enough to make her joints white. "What do we do, Misato?" asked Shinji again. "You said that this is as much as Doctor Akagi will give us, and this is almost nothing."
Misato shook her head and looked at Asuka: "Looks like we are doing it your way, after all. Ritsuko told me as much as she will ever tell on her own and if the Human Instrumentality Committee is telling her to shut up about it, then the only thing an official inquiry would get me would be an official order to shut up or else. These orders even supersede the Commander's, and I have never seen anyone overrule Gendo Ikari before."
She felt the unease spreading throughout the room: the "Or else" possibility felt a lot more real than Misato was comfortable with.
Shinji looked at Asuka with a quizzical expression. "So what does this mean?" He could imagine that Asuka did not plan to drop by Dr Akagi's place for tea, biscuits, and a casual chat.
Asuka looked back at him, wearing her war face now. "That means you just got drafted into the Inquisition. Practical Ikari, Practical Ayanami, we will get Akagi to talk!" She did not say a word about how, and she did not need to.
Shinji gulped: he knew for sure he would rather get out to fight an angel in just his shirt and trousers than to stand in Asuka's way. He really hoped Dr Akagi would see it in the same terms. Because if not, then she had a perfect storm coming for her.
-x-
an hour later
-x-
Shinji bit his lip: it was time to tackle the other thing no one wanted to bite into. "I don't believe that GEHIRN could not find more about Rei's parents than 'Mother deceased, father unknown' or that she has NO legal next of kin!"
Asuka snorted, "Just write Ikari Shinji in there already," and leaned in to do just that. Shinji drew his breath: "Asuka…" he started, but he stopped when he saw Rei and Misato smiling at the idea.
Asuka grinned at him: "What, Baka?" Shinji fidgeted around. "I mean, I am fourteen, next of kin ought to be an adult, right?"
Misato laughed aloud: "Shinji, you protect humanity, fight massive Kaiju twice a week, keep us fed and keep this place tidy. There are a ton of adults who are nowhere near as responsible!"
Shinji shook his head. 'Misato has a point,' he realised.
Then Asuka weighed in: "Shinji, you have consistently done the most to really care for Rei, Not me, not Misato, and definitely not any of the Arschlöcher over there in Geofront," she said ostentatiously, ignoring Misato's indignation and protests.
Shinji looked at Rei. She nodded and looked back with a smile: "I would like that, Shinji."
He thought it over: 'I guess it makes sense even if it is only a gesture. And I want to do it' - he thought after a moment - 'I would like to make it a real thing.'
He reached for the laptop, found the appropriate columns in the dossier, and filled it out. Address, phone number, occupation. Name...
"Ikari Shinji," he said to himself as he typed the Kanji.
He did it. Even if this was just their copy, even if he was not sure if he legally could do it, he knew he meant it. And he knew that if it was legally possible, he would do it for real when they were done hiding from Gendo.
That realisation made Shinji feel something he felt so very rarely that he barely recognised it: he felt proud.
