I do not own the rights to Neon Genesis Evangelion, or any of the characters, equipment, or locations written in this fanfiction. The purpose of this fanfiction is merely for the non-profit enjoyment of other readers. If requested by Gainax, Hideki Anno, or other parties which represent aforementioned objects in this story, I will remove it promptly.

Chapter XXVIII:

"Alright, Popeye's here!" Gene Hackman's voice boomed over 20 inch screen, the technicolor flicker filling the dark living room of Misato's apartment. Hikari and Asuka simply glared at the screen, then back to me. They didn't seem to be enjoying the movie. Neither did Shinji, but that didn't matter.

Kensuke and I were getting a kick out of it. "You've gotta love the French Connection," I said over the sound effects and shouts as Hackman threw a perp against the counter of the sleazy bar. "It's a classic!" Aida simply smiled, but stared more at me than the screen. The only reason I noticed his actions was the fact he seemed to be making them quite obvious.

Asuka jabbed me in the shoulder, and as soon as she had my attention, nodded towards the kitchen. I needed to invent an excuse. "Shinji, I'm going to wash a couple dishes," I said. "Don't pause the movie for me. I've seen it before. Enjoy yourselves, that's an order!"

Asuka followed behind until we got to the kitchen, and then broke towards the refrigerator. "Well?" she snapped angrily. But I wasn't paying attention, as my hands were already in soapy water. What can I say? I like cleaning stuff, and I wasn't going to completely lie to Shinji.

"Well, what?" I asked.

"You know what I mean!" Asuka grumbled. "Don't play stupid!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" I whined.

"Aida, that pervert, and you, together?" Soryu shook her head. "Did you suddenly go gay on me while I was gone?"

"Well, you know, I was really planning to hold out, hoping you'd make some drastic recovery," I teased, "but I couldn't wait forever!" As Asuka's face twitched slightly, I just laughed. "Come on, Asuka! You know I'm not that easily swayed by this situation. Kensuke's just a pal, that's all."

"He's making moves on you, and you're just going to say you two are PALS? Are you that blind? I hate to rain on your parade, but he's got more than pals in mind!" Asuka was getting far too loud for us to be washing a few dishes, but when I asked her to keep it down, she just scowled.

"Well, I could go in there and tell him straight out that I'm a man trapped in a woman's body. Will that be acceptable?"

"NO!"

"Well, okay then," I answered, my face pulled into that helpless, doe-eyed look. "Is this one of those times I'm supposed to come up with some kind of clever lie?"

"Of course, baka!" the redhead screamed at the top of her lungs.

"I can't lie to him, Asuka," I sighed. "He deserves better than that." Though I knew it wasn't going to be easy, telling him the whole truth about the situation was only fair. He had helped me on so many occasions, and I paid him back only by putting him at risk. "Hey Asuka, hypothetical situation" I stated, putting the clean dishes away.

Asuka grumbled, and hesitantly helped me stack the dishes in the cabinet above the countertop. "Okay, shoot," she sighed.

"Say you were dying. It's a terminal disease, not necessarily painful, but you know you only have a month or less to live." I had to pull away from the counter, and wipe my eyes with some tissue. I tried my best to hide it, but Soryu caught me. "It would figure," I laughed sarcastically. "All the beatings, getting shot at, being run over by a car no less, and none of them kill me." Asuka tensed up. "Now I'm going to die from some stupid neurological damage from the Angels, saving you, just so you can die in a few more weeks."

"What are you talking about?" the redhead asked. I refused to answer, just making my way to the fridge. I pulled out the paper milk carton, upended the entire thing into the tallest glass I could find, and guzzled the fluid. I needed calcium for my healing bones, after all. If I was going to die of a brain disorder, I wanted my body to be in good shape. "Hey, I asked you a question!"

Then Asuka did something entirely uncharacteristic. She pulled out the chair to my right, and joined me, staring into the wood grain surface of the table. "Hey," she whispered, setting her hand on my shoulder. "What is this about? I want answers." I guess there was a limit to how soft and touchy-feely Asuka could be, but it seemed to be working.

"I made a pact," I explained, "and I broke it." Soryu raised an eyebrow. "They're in my head, Asuka. I can't get rid of them, and if I don't follow through with my pact... well, you already know the price I have to pay."

The Second Child and I had developed an understanding. She knew my limits, and I knew hers. Somehow, by that flat, lifeless expression she gave me, I knew she knew I wasn't joking. My limits had been exceeded long ago. "What kind of pact?" she churned out through clenched teeth.

"Helping the Angels..." I breathed.

Asuka glared, not believing. She didn't think I could go so far as to destroy all of humanity. However, some part of her felt I could do it. "You're serious, aren't you?" she stuttered. "You would go that far... sacrifice all of us?" I felt her right fist clench down on my shoulder. "For WHAT?"

"Would you believe immortality?" I asked. Asuka shook her head. She knew I was smarter than that. I wouldn't be so stupid as to go for something that big. With the greater reward comes greater risk. Her hand clenched tighter on my shoulder, a slight popping sound coming from my cartilage. I had just healed, and I didn't want to risk going back to the hospital. "Okay... okay!" I gasped. "Stop it! It hurts!"

"WHAT did you try to sell us out for?"

"A one way ticket back to my dimension, where this is merely some lame anime written by a depressed director of a successful production company, or enslaving all of mankind in a nightmarish Hell, fighting for eternity to see who would return to life, whichever came first." Asuka stared at me, then released my shoulder. "Which would you choose?"

"Hey, what's going on in here?" Hikari asked, forcing me to shut my mouth. "If you don't want us to watch the movie, Susan, we have school in the morning." I looked to Asuka, nodding towards Hikari. Asuka nodded in confirmation. During the testing and time we spent together, we had come to grasp each other's cues and gestures well enough, we could have been considered sisters. "Asuka?"

"Hikari," the redhead started. "There's something Susan needs to tell us."

•••••••••••••

Misato had excused herself from our impromptu party for a late night shift at headquarters. She returned sometime around two in the morning, finding us all sitting around the table, lights still on. "Hey, you have class tomorrow!" the major shouted. "Come on, time to call it a night."

All of us looked over at Misato simultaneously, the others wearing solemn expressions. Hikari had gone so far as to cry during our meeting, and the red, puffy eyelids were magnified from the shadows cast down by the intense lamps above. Kensuke just looked helpless, like he was going to walk out the door and throw himself off the building. Asuka just glared, determined, while Shinji's eyes were pleading, hoping Misato could fix it somehow, making everything better.

Then she saw me, my fists clenched on top of the table, head bent down as I looked up at her. I gave the appearance of Snoopy doing his impression of a vulture from the roof of his doghouse. "Oh...kay," she began. "Whatever it is, Susan, I know you started it. What is going on?"

"You want to know, don't you?" I asked. "You want to know how I know what's going to happen, right?" Katsuragi stared, then nodded, taking a seat. "Just remember, I warned you, you won't like what you hear."

•••••••••••••

Kensuke stumbled around sometime at four in the morning through the kitchen, and broke the rules. The kitchen, Misato delcared, was no-man's land, the dividing line for the genders as the girls slept in Asuka's room, Misato in her room, and Aida with Shinji in the living room. I still couldn't sleep when I heard the feet approach Asuka's door.

"Kensuke, go to sleep," I grumbled. The feet shifted on the carpet. "Yes, I know it's you. Your footfalls are unique." It took the nerd a few moments, but he clumsily marched back to the living room. Hikari stirred in her sleep, her eyes blinking until she came back to consciousness.

"Who's there?" the class representative asked. "Wait, is that..?" I tried my best to shush the girl, but she seemed more than eager to rat out the boy for breaking through our improvised demilitarized zone. "Kensuke?"

"He's gone," I said. "Besides, he won't do anything, not while I'm here." I sat up on the floor, rubbing my forehead with my fingertips. I must have picked up some kind of cold, as I felt the sore throat and headache set in. "I still can't believe I'm stuck here," I grumbled. "I'm not a chick!"

"You are really going to do it?" the brunette asked. I glanced back at her, the dark obscuring my vision. But I was able to see enough. Her eyes were pleading, now resembling Shinji at the dinner table not two hours before. "You don't intend to save us, do you? You're going to cause this 'Third Impact', just for your own personal pleasure?"

"They're going to kill us anyhow," I answered. "They want to screw with mankind's evolution? Let 'em try, but if I'm going to die, I'm going to die my way!" Hikari trembled. She agreed after hours of debate that violence was the only tool we had left, and like Carl von Clausewitz stated, force must be used to it's maximum to avoid a long, drawn out conflict. However, the thought of taking the life of another did not sit with her well. "Hikari, you ever watch Mobile Suit Gundam?"

Hikari nodded slightly. "I've seen bits and pieces of the different series, not that I enjoyed them."

"I'll never understand your culture," I groaned. "Mobile Suit Gundam sums it up perfectly. You people think that a warrior spirit is somehow, if not stronger than a superior weapon, then more honorable. You desire victory, but when you lose, you claim that peace was your objective all along, or you try to rewrite history into a pity party to make you seem like the victors through losing. This isn't like Apollo 13, where it's a successful failure, Class Rep. This is war, a war to determine the course of mankind! History is written by the victor."

"But that's so mean!" she exclaimed in a whisper. "How can you accept that?"

"You ever give the food chain a thought?" I tried to explain with another analogy. "The only way for all the creatures on Earth to use a limited number of resources is for each preceding creature to hand over their resources after a short period of time to be used temporarily by another. It's like musical chairs. That is the food chain, and since no creature wants to hinder their chances at preserving their genetics throughout history, they want to hang on to those resources for as long a time as possible. That is why war is necessary! War, combat, killing for survival, is the only way resources can be taken. For the food chain, those resources come in the consumption of your prey, gaining calories and nutrients by eating them. For fighting amongst different packs of the same species, the resources are territory, and females for breeding.

Horaki scowled. "You mean we're just trophies?"

"You are the means by which our species survives, and if you are the most fertile, most healthy of the females, the males will seek you out for bearing offspring with the highest hybrid vigor, and the highest chance to survive against disease. Concepts such as marriage, law, equal opportunity, they're all excess baggage to weigh down the winners, while losers have a handicap to help them limp ahead." I clenched my fists and cursed. "That kind of thinking will only cripple our species."

"You really are a barbarian," the brunette sighed.

"No, I'm merely one of the bourgeoisie . Though I disagree with the system, I will still follow it until legal means are used to overturn it." I looked over to Hikari, the long time spent in darkness making it just a little easier to detect her. "Then again, they aren't following the system, are they?"

Hikari crawled back under the spare blanket, shivering even though it was warm in Asuka's room. I looked out the window, the hills outlined in a light grayish-blue. That late at night, and I still couldn't sleep. I reminded myself if I somehow ended up failing entirely, stuck back in this world for eternity, I would consider sleeping pills.

•••••••••••••

The others had gone to class hours before I finally woke up, finding the late morning sun pouring into Asuka's room. I knew I slept in too late, as my stomach churned, my body felt stiff, and I felt even more exhausted than I was at four in the morning. For some reason I always feel worse when I sleep in. Maybe it's that way for everybody, and that's why no one wants to get up after sleeping the whole day away.

The major hammered on Asuka's door. "Susan! Come on! It's almost noon!"

"Hicks, you look just like I feel," I muttered to myself, crawling over the floor until I gained the resolution to stand on my two feet. I made it to the doorway, but forgot how to operate the handle, and smacked headfirst into the sliding frame. "Ugh..."

Katsuragi shouted again. "The Committee wants to see you in an hour!" Another few attempts at the door, and it finally slid open. I forced myself down the hallway towards the shower, my best dress shirt, tie, slacks, and undergarments all bundled together, stuffed under my arm. "You do realize your life is at stake, right?"

"Cake or death?" I asked to myself, closing the door to the bathroom, and walking into the shower. Only when the shower curtain was closed did I start to undress. I tried to explain this habit to Misato once, but she never did understand how someone could be that paranoid of being seen, even in their own home. "Death- I mean cake!" I mumbled. "Ah ah ah! You chose death!"

Misato pounded on the door approximately thirty-two minutes later, just as I finished straightening my tie. I opened the door, walked out, still feeling miserable, but also cold. No matter how hot I could get the water in the shower, it didn't seem to be enough as soon as I shut it off. I always ended up standing there, freezing. "Please tell me it's a warm day."

"It's supposed to get up to 28 degrees Centigrade," Misato answered. "You're going to die of heat stroke if you're that buttoned down!" She tried to fuss with my dress shirt, as I had the top button to the collar fastened, nearly strangling me. I tried to push her hands away, but my arms still felt sore. In the end, I just stood there, letting her fuss over me. "Have to look good for the Committee."

"Yeah, wouldn't want to die looking like a bum!" I replied. "No one would ever forgive me for taking a bullet to the chest or dangling from a noose if I didn't make a good impression." Misato glared, but just ignored me and went about reheating take-out from two nights ago. It was the last day she could safely microwave it back to edible status, and we needed a quick meal before my interrogation.

I took my seat, and joined her for "breakfast", when the microwave oven beeped it's harsh tone. The paper packaging came back out, but she took the extra care to pour the contents into two plates. Setting a pair of chopsticks by her plate, she made an exception for me, a standard knife and fork placed on the right side of my plate. Just ahead of that was a twelve ounce can of Yesibu. "This is the last of it," she explained. "You're right, I drink too much."

"Thanks, Misato," I smiled.

"You're welcome," she smiled back. We both raised our cans, clinking the aluminum rims in an afternoon toast. "To the future... whatever may come?"

"Yeah..."

End of Chapter XXVIII

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Okay, yes, there is an actual comment after this chapter. After some careful thought, I've narrowed down the choices for the next fanfic. I'll get back to working on "Remission", but it's just starting to feel like a bad Gundam sequel. We'll see how it turns out, though. But for the next project, I'm considering one of the following:

•An InuYasha romance fanfic (InuYasha/Sango pairing-face it, Kagome/Kikyo are just too annoying!)

•An Evangelion/Pitch Black/Chronicles of Riddick crossfic (Toji's sister stared at Shinji. "What do I have to do to get eyes like that?")

•Another Naruto fanfic (perhaps a romance one-and no, not the obvious pairings)

•An Evangelion/Night Head Genesis crossfic (Shinji and the other Children with unstable psychic powers)

•A Gundam SEED Destiny fanfic (the way the series should have gone)

•An Evangelion Shinji/Maya pairing (yes, it will be done with some class, and no, Benson and Stabler will not be involved).

Since I am undecided on the subject, I would like each person who reads this story to leave their vote for the better option for my next fanfic as a review for this chapter.

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