Neon Genesis Evangelion
A Thousand Years of Secrecy
Disclaimer: I own neither Evangelion nor Altered Carbon (or any other book in the Takeshi Kovachs series). If either Gainax or Mr. Morgan have an issue with any of the content presented, please contact me by e-mail to remove it.
Quick A/N: God I cannot for the life of me figure out what do with this chapter. There are several clues for stories that will become resolved further into the piece which I think pardons it from being overly slow. Plus there's some development of the three children and the circumstance of chapter one. Hopefully.
Two – Quellist / Resignation
"And the burning city would smoke for one thousand days and one thousand nights, its charred remains a warning to all: tread lightly, there are great and powerful things afoot."
"Unacceptable. Simply unacceptable."
The tense nature of the debriefing room was tactile; like a bar full of drunken sailors waiting to throw fists and it was only a matter of when. The old man was furious again, but for once the fury was directed entirely away from him. Shinji had grown used to taking the brunt of the criticism after every operation, regardless of success. He was too "unscripted" for Fuyutsuki's taste, preferring to get things done rather than do them by the book. The man scowled at all of them, equal opportunity disappointment reeking from his posture. However, this time he focused on Shinji's new comrade and recent acquaintance: Asuka.
"I'm not even going to bother lecturing you about how your actions were completely out of line: disobeying a direct order, hacking into NERV property without permission, altering said property, infiltrating the MAGI satellite network... the list goes on. But you already knew that."
The new operative from Germany didn't make any indication that she did in fact know "that." As if she was watching the whole thing happen to somebody else. That may have been her demeanor or the Envoy condition, he couldn't tell. Shinji studied her firm silence from the corner of his eye. She had been taking the brow beating rather gracefully thus far.
She was tall, thin, and alluringly foreign. The blue eyes alone were enough to be intoxicating to his Japanese sensibilities. And the red hair danced like smoldering flames above her head when she moved about. She had high cheek bones and the sort of facial structure that revealed a possible Japanese background of some sort, lost amidst the European skin. From her last name and fluency with the language he assumed a parent must have been Japanese or something near it. Nevertheless, she spoke her Japanese with a sort of accent that was oddly entertaining, thick and loud; there was no femininity in her speech patterns, whether on purpose or not he wasn't sure. She'd taken the synch nodes and re-purposed them as ties for her pigtails, an act he suspected spoke deeply about her attitude towards this job. Perhaps if they'd just met on the street he might have asked for her phone number.
If only she weren't an ally. If only she weren't an Envoy. If, if, if...
Fuyutsuki continued, oblivious to his daydreaming.
"No, Asuka, I'll spare you the rules you broke and just try to give you a taste of how enormously stupid and reckless it was."
Shinji stopped himself from yawning at yet another bad debriefing. He suspected the gesture would have not gone over well given the tone of the commander so far.
"You almost gave SEELE a back door into the only piece of technology, the only resource we have, that they cannot reproduce. It is our singular advantage in this war and it goes without saying it would be disastrous for it to have fallen into their hands. Am I making myself clear?"
She nodded slowly, the blue eyes locking onto the man for an instant.
"Good, then while were at it, let me explain one of the finer points of Envoy conditioning to you which Kaji seemed to have neglected during his time spent teaching you in Germany: orders are to be followed. Without orders there is only chaos. I don't think I have to explain how that applies, do I?"
"No, sir." She said it almost on par with Rei's coldness, but then, Rei was Rei; anyone colder than her wouldn't have a pulse.
"Then, if I may ask, for what possible reason did you concoct this ridiculous scheme?"
"To recover Sub-commander Katsuragi and successfully complete the mission, sir." Misato winced at the comment, the guilt ill-concealed behind her bruising. Fuyutsuki turned to Shinji, eyes aglow with something unfamiliar.
"As I'm sure Mr. Ikari will tell you later, he has tried a few 'unorthodox' methods in the past for the sake of a mission, not without their reprimands." He returned his attention to her. "However, as your operator instructed you, the mission changed, did it not?"
"Yes, sir, it did."
"Then what prompted you to not complete that mission successfully?"
"Sir, I estimated that Agents Ikari and Ayanami could still complete the original objective and satisfy the new mission priority simultaneously."
"Based on what?"
"My conditioning, sir."
"Bullshit, you haven't even met either one of them until this debriefing. Give me a real answer, Agent Souryu." Shinji covered a flicker of surprise. Fuyutsuki was not one to swear lightly. Asuka was doing a good job pushing his buttons, almost as well as Shinji could do if he was in the mood for it.
"Sir, I knew that I could still uphold the new mission while giving my fellow operatives a chance to complete the original one. For the value of the sub-commander, both Plugsuits, and the operatives' abilities, I chose to provide myself the opportunity to wait until they could be extracted safely before taking my shot."
"We did not train you to make choices, Souryu. Your only priority is the mission, is that clear?"
"'Beware of any man who tells you how or when to make your own choices. He is your enemy.'"
Misato covered her shock at the reply with a throaty cough. Ritsuko betrayed an odd amusement in her expression, content to merely observe. Rei, of course, had no discernible reaction. Shinji could not help but turn and stare at the new girl. It was not so much the audacity of the statement: he had never heard anyone else quote Quell before with any accuracy.
"What was that, Agent Souryu?"
"Only the mission, sir. Understood." She betrayed none of the venom of her previous reply.
"Good. You'll receive no pay for the month and I want a ten-page written report about your Envoy training, specifically the section on orders. And that is me being lenient, Miss Souryu."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
"This debriefing is over."
"One more thing, commander," Shinji said, raising a hand.
"Yes, what is it Shinji?" All eyes were on him now.
He held up the papers for emphasis. "This is a formal declaration of my resignation, sir."
Now it was Asuka's turn to stare at him, jaw agape.
"So you're really quitting?" Her blue eyes watched him, fascination hidden in their depths.
"Yes, really."
"How come? Lousy pay?" Shinji shook his head, ignoring the joke. The German didn't really seem offended. He was still discontent from the debriefing; Fuyutsuki had refused to accept the resignation and now he would probably have to run away.
"I don't agree with Fuyutsuki's methods," he replied finally.
"He's a real hard ass, that's for sure..." she muttered to no one.
"Fuyutsuki is a very good teacher. The strictness of his instruction makes him a superior commander to most." Rei's lilting voice interjected, edging just over monotone.
"Ahh, so you can speak?" Asuka said, chuckling. Shinji could not help but smirk this time. Rei just stared ahead as they made their way to the dressing rooms, disregarding the jibe.
They followed the instructions Misato had given, a flurry of salutes erupting from any other crew they passed; the formality was rarely returned. The re-commissioned UN cruiser was not akin to the Geofront, claustrophobic in its passages and rooms. Once above the deck, however, there was a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean to behold as they slowly drifted North, parallel to the Japanese coast nearly one hundred kilometers away. The rest of their UN escort, a small portion of the Navy, encircled them in formation.
Officially speaking, the boat was for evacuees and refugees of Tokyo-3 only, the burning hole in the ground that had only grown deeper and hotter after Asuka blasted it again with the Rail Device. Unofficially, Fuyutsuki had pulled some very big favors along with a few careful disclosures about the Tokyo-3 bombing and SEELE, enough for the UN committee looking into the massacre to salivate over and quietly loan the vessel to NERV "until further notice."
"By the way, I suppose I should thank you... you know, for not shooting us back there." He spoke quietly as they strode deeper into the belly of the ship.
"Oh that?" Asuka grinned. "Yeah I guess you owe me one, eh? I just thought you two deserved a chance. What can I say, I have a thing for defying authority."
Shinji nodded. Rei did not.
"So, uh... you're just quitting because of Mr. Gray-hair back there? No specific reason?"
"Hey, Shinji! Some day I'll be in NERV just like you man," Kensuke said just as class was about to start. He shook it away immediately, hoping he betrayed none of it to his companions.
"No reason."
Envoys were incredible liars because they could will themselves into believing an untruth for the sake of a given situation. They could pass a polygraph test with almost no effort on their part; the human reflexes to lying had been programmed out of them during the conditioning. Asuka made no indication if she could tell. Given that they were all three Envoys, it was about a fifty-fifty chance that she did know.
"What about you, blue?" Asuka addressed Rei now. "Are you getting off this boat as well?"
"I will stay here until I am ordered otherwise, Souryu," she replied, not acknowledging the nickname. Asuka squinted at her, a tiny frown on her lips.
"She's not exactly a budding Quellist," Shinji joked, more trying to convince his good mood back than being humorous.
"Ah! You recognized my quote? Man, I thought he was gonna kill me after I said that."
"Dictations on Tyranny and Authority: Remembering to Revolt. One of my favorites," Shinji said, watching her features brighten at the name.
"She's really something else, isn't she?" Asuka replied, looking into the vaulted ceiling dreamily.
"Quell or Rei?" This time they both laughed. Shinji liked the sound of her voice. It reminded him of Misato's thunderous guffaws after nights spent drinking together. Rei blinked at Shinji's betrayal but said nothing.
"What about you, Rei? Read any Quell yourself?" Asuka asked jovially. The other girl shook her head.
"I'll put it this way: Rei would have pulled the trigger," Shinji said.
Rei nodded, completely serious, while Asuka cackled the whole way into the girl's locker room.
"You wanted to see me, commander."
"Yes, yes, enough of this 'commander' business. You know how I get when you call me that. To the point: I wanted your evaluation on the little situation we have developing here."
Both the former commander and the new one were unusually cryptic sometimes. She wasn't sure who had picked it up from whom.
"Shinji, you mean?"
His new office was makeshift, just like the rest of the craft they'd relocated to. Fuyutsuki had not sent too many engineers to renovate the ship for fear of alerting SEELE to their evacuation. The only furniture in the room was a Mahogany desk with a single telephone on it and the chair he sat in. It reminded her of Gendou's old office; having never been on this boat before, the resemblance of the two gave her chills standing there.
They're so similar in some ways.
"Yes, Shinji. Do you think he's serious?" Fuyutsuki said, jarring her back into the conversation.
"Deadly, I'm afraid. He had already said before the evacuation that he was quitting. He did this last operation only because he felt indebted to me."
"And rightly so."
Misato sighed, letting her eyes drift out to the turquoise waves through the windows behind him. He paused, placing a gloved hand to his chin.
"You know we cannot afford to lose him as an operative. He's the best trained of the three."
"Thank you, sir."
Misato's cheeks colored lightly under the compliment as she looked away from her mentor briefly. Had it not been for her bruises, Fuyutsuki would have been able to see it quite easily. She had been in charge of Shinji's conditioning just as Kaji had been in charge of Asuka's.
"Unfortunately, I think his mind is already made up. Maybe if we give him some time to cool off..." she continued.
"I see. So he's still upset about the Tokyo-3 bombing then?"
"Shinji lost some close friends in the N2 Mine. When he knew you'd seen this coming all along he was furious. It was all we could do just to convince him to stay long enough for us to evacuate."
Fuyutsuki's face stayed immobile.
"I do regret the devastation of Tokyo-3 but SEELE chooses when and where to play; only we can choose how, for the moment. Operations won't resume for some time now, but I'd like to maximize the integration of the three of them as unit from here on out."
"Because?"
"I think they all have something to learn from each other."
Rei had been the first child to ever undergo the Envoy conditioning process; Gendou began teaching it to her when she was only eight years old. The quiet little girl had grown even more withdrawn, her personality almost vanishing in the aftermath of the programming.
Asuka was the next to undergo the conditioning at ten, but for espionage purposes, Kaji tried to lighten some of the emotional restrictions on the girl in light of Rei. When she hit adolescence the damage was already done and she was consequently a bit rebellious and wild.
Shinji turned fourteen before Misato began working with him. Having been his guardian for so long and having waited until initial adolescence was stabilized, Shinji was the most balanced of the three so far. Perhaps too compassionate for Fuyutsuki's tastes but balanced.
The Fourth Child, whose programming was being handled by someone in the Second Branch, was said to be developing a bit of an ego problem.
"Well," Misato started, thinking out loud. "I suppose we could all send them on vacation together."
"I was considering something along those lines. China and the US are the only two safe countries without any major players for SEELE posted reasonably high in their governments. China is too close to this recent conflict to be a real option."
"Turn them over to the Second Branch then?"
"It would afford them an opportunity to meet the Fourth Child as well, wouldn't it? However, if word gets out the Asuka has perpetrated an obvious, if not explicit, breach of the N2 Non-proliferation Treaty that would be... unfortunate. Better perhaps to send them there in some other capacity."
"Such as?"
The man grinned at her.
"How about normal children for once?"
As if they can ever be that again.
Misato caught the look and put her hands on her hips, her expression now somewhat distraught.
"You aren't expecting me to lead this little expedition, right? Not when there's so much work to be done here."
"Nothing Ritsuko and myself shouldn't be able to handle. Besides, who better than an Envoy herself? You're practically his mother anyway."
Misato could not deny the last statement's accuracy so she folded instead.
"A family trip then?"
"How about "refugees from Tokyo-3?" A rescued family and two classmates. Yes. And if one of you is close enough to NERV the US government won't think twice about issuing you all Visas. You're related to one of the staff perhaps, maybe an older uncle working somewhere near the top?" He winked at her.
"Kozuo, your last name isn't Katsuragi," she said dryly, letting her good eye carry the humor of it for the time being. Fuyutsuki smiled.
Besides your more like a father to me now. After dad died, you were the only one there. The only one who told me the truth.
"Bah, we can make up a decent file ourselves for that. I was only kidding. Besides, you need a vacation after all the unpleasantness recently."
She bowed.
"I'm terribly sorry for having been captured, once again, sensei."
"Nonsense. You placed Shinji's life above your own, just like a good teacher should do. The evacuation was too hasty in hindsight."
"So if I'm going to be the 'mom' on this little expedition, I would assume you're going to assign a 'father' as well."
He nodded.
"Hyuuga?" Her eyes were pleading.
He laughed, short and hoarse as if the idea was absurdly beyond his comprehension.
"Please, please, please don't say who I think you're going to."
"Well he has been out of work since the Third Branch evacuation and Asuka's transfer to here. Plus there's no one else in the Envoy program who has had as much... experience with you as he."
"Oh dear God..." she mumbled, ignoring the double-meaning.
"Yes I would say Agent Ryouji would do nicely, don't you think?"
She grimaced.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" she said.
"I have my small pleasures in life."
The sun set on the blue horizon, dipping into the azure calm of a cloudless day in the Pacific. As it sank lower and lower, the color slowly phased into a soft orange, reminiscent of the Second Child's hair as it danced in the breeze. She stared out into the distance, watching the orange rays light up the end of the day, a contemplative First Child beside her.
Asuka leaned over the metal railing, the bottom of her favorite yellow dress now brushing just above her knees. It hadn't appeared as such a tight-fitting cut back in Germany, but now on her eighteen-year-old body, it was just shy of scandalous. She had caught the looks a few of the men on board had given her as the two made their way to the observation deck; they'd given a few to Rei as well.
Her fair-skinned companion was dressed rather plainly. It was unbefitting, Asuka thought, of the girl's elfin features. Rei could have easily looked beautiful if she had wanted to. Her skin was soft and creamy, the typical Japanese ethnicity in full force. But her eyes betrayed an unusual origin. Asuka briefly wondered if perhaps Rei was born an albino, for red was certainly not a common eye color, and the pale shade of her hair and figure did lend credence to this possibility.
"Ahh, isn't this great? The sun on your skin, the breeze on your face. I love the smell of saltwater."
"It is calm." Understatement seemed to be the girl's forte.
"Yeah, what a day. Shinji's really missing out..." Her accented voice fell with disappointment.
"Sometimes one needs to be alone," Rei replied, smoothly enough so as not to indicate if this was also her wish for now. Asuka didn't seem to notice, or more likely, didn't really care.
"I guess so."
The sound of wind and the churning of water filled the silence between them.
"So, what's he like anyways?"
"Ikari?"
"Yeah. You've been working with him for a while now, right?" Asuka clasped the other girl's hand as she spoke. Rei looked down at her pale fingers in the grip as if to say: what is this thing clinging on to me?
"Yes. Shinji and I met four years ago." Rei apparently didn't have much more to say about him than that.
"So?"
"So."
"Ah come on, Rei! Give me some details." Asuka released her and spun away in an odd little pirouette, staring into the darkening sky. "What's his favorite food, what kind of music does he like, is he in to sports?"
"Why do you not ask him these things yourself?" Rei watched her, red eyes glimmering with the strength of the sunset.
"Because you're here and he's not! Duh."
"I see."
"So what, I mean, you guys did live together right? You have to know something about him." Asuka stared at the girl so hard her will to silence was defeated.
"He is... quiet." Asuka frowned at her companion. She hadn't really expected to have to drag the information out.
"He's not the only one around here," she muttered into the breeze. Rei did not respond, stoically still.
"Okay, well I'm sure you know the answer to this one: why's he really quitting?"
"What do you mean, you asked him..." Rei looked at her, head tilted slightly off to the side.
"Oh come on! Like you couldn't tell he was lying either. Your conditioning is supposed to be the sharpest of us three."
The line of Rei's mouth tightened and she relented to the inquiry.
"Shinji lost many friends in the bombing of Tokyo-3. He blames Fuyutsuki for this."
"So that's what it is." Asuka looked away, something sad filling the blue eyes for an instant. "Oh, I'm sorry Rei. You must have lost a lot of friends too."
"Friends?" Rei said the word as if she were pronouncing some obscure chemical compound; the word did not spend a lot of time in her vocabulary.
"Yeah, you have friends right? I mean, everybody has friends, even... quiet people." She barely kept herself from saying weird.
"I suppose not. No. They were acquaintances. But they are gone now."
Asuka was briefly taken aback at the matter-of-fact tone of the girl's voice. The emotional programming was as extreme as the rumors she'd heard. Apparently the former commander had not been a particularly sympathetic man.
"But you don't have any friends, Ayanami? Even Shinji?"
"I suppose Shinji is my friend. Yes, I have a friend."
"Well that's good right? Maybe we can be friends also, Rei." Asuka found herself feeling oddly sorry for the other girl. She wasn't quite all there, it seemed. Not anymore at least. Not since her conditioning.
"That would be... acceptable." Rei did not sound entirely convinced of this herself.
"So, has he hit on you? Been on any dates with him yet?" Asuka was eager to end her comrade's somber tone.
"Dates?" Rei's eyes widened.
"It's okay. I promise I won't tell any one." Asuka winked at the girl, putting a finger to her lips. A conspiratorial grin revealed sharp white teeth. Rei watched the smile, incomprehension filling her otherwise blank expression.
"Ikari and I did not have that kind of relationship with one another."
"Ha ha, yeah right! You think he's a cutie, don't you? I can tell."
"Physical appearance has nothing to do with it," Rei said quickly and Asuka's grin grew even larger as the faintest shades of pink tinged the porcelain cheeks. There were some things even the conditioning could not undo.
"Hahahaha, you're blushing! How cute! So, you like him right?"
"I—what? No, it's not... like that with Shinji."
"What is it like then?" Asuka said, suddenly closing the gap so that their faces hung inches apart. Rei looked aside awkwardly, uncomfortable at the disregard with which the German treated personal space.
"Like a brother and sister, I suppose," Rei said.
"Oh." Asuka sounded a little disappointed. "So you love him then, I guess?"
"Love? I do not know what it is to love. But Shinji understands me. I understand him. That is enough, I think," she said finally, not taking her eyes off of Asuka.
"You're an odd one, Rei. I mean, a guy like him living with you for so long, working with you everyday… and neither of you ever made a move? He isn't gay or something, is he?" Asuka said semi-dreadfully, watching as the intense eyes widened even further.
"Asuka, the Japanese don't usually ask questions like this. It's not polite," Rei said, trying to shun away the confusing ideas brought up by the previous sentence.
She'd seen Shinji look at girls in school before, but she'd never contemplated that his preference might be the other way around. She had always assumed Shinji was like most other boys but now she found herself strangely unsure of the matter. She made a mental note to ask him at some later time. So as to maximize their teamwork and effectiveness in combat, of course.
"Well," Asuka said, turning back to the sun. "I'm just saying, he seems kind of effeminate is all. I mean, everyone lives how they have to live right? I guess if he's into guys, that's... cool." Her expression did not look as if this was in fact "cool."
"You really should not be asking me things like this."
"Ah come on! You want me to ask Misato instead? You do think he's cute though, right?"
"Will we stop talking about his sexual preferences, please?"
"If you answer me then yes, I'll stop."
"Yes, I think Shinji is an attractive young man."
"Victory!" Asuka's clenched fist rose into the fading light of the sun.
Rei watched the gesture, an unfamiliar feeling stretching beneath her. This confrontational girl was an Envoy just like Shinji and herself. And yet so different. Cultural or otherwise, Asuka had an odd way of conversing. And creating feelings like this one in Rei. Could it be that she felt embarrassed? She could not ever remember feeling as such before now.
"Aha, so we finally meet, Ikari-san."
Shinji turned away from the shrinking fleet in the darkness outside the window of the aircraft to find a tall, mis-shaven man sitting down across from him. He looked to be about Misato's age with a face that seemed to be perpetually on the verge of grinning without ever quite getting there. He wore his hair back in a loose ponytail, offset by his large build and hard jaw line. The man was extending a hand towards him, though he was clearly of Japanese descent. Perhaps that was also why it sounded so odd to hear the honorific after his name.
"Going to have to get used to this," he said. "This is how they greet each other in the West."
Shinji stood abruptly and was about to return the gesture somewhat awkwardly when Misato's voice stopped him from the other side of the cabin. She did not look up from her magazine as she spoke, boredom filling her voice.
"Be careful about touching that, Shinji. It's infected with too much testosterone." It didn't sound to be a joke entirely.
The man made a quick throaty laugh. Shinji shook hands with the stranger tentatively anyway, ignoring the warning.
"Pleased to meet you... um?"
"Kaji is fine. Ryouji Kaji."
"Pleased to meet you, Kaji-san."
"He's cute. I like what you've done," Kaji said to his guardian, too genuine sounding to be a jab.
Misato's raised middle finger proved to be the second foreign gesture of the flight. She turned another page in the magazine, not giving the man any further attention.
"You were working with Asuka in the Third Branch, right? You're her sensei."
"Before SEELE shut us down, yes. And then we moved out to the Mediterranean to finish up before I accompanied her over here for her first official mission. To rescue Katsuragi-san."
"Fucker." Her voice was more distracted than emphatic. Kaji seemed to enjoy the responses.
They must have some sort of history together. But I never remember Misato talking about him before.
Almost as if on cue, Kaji illuminated his ponderings. "Misato and I knew each other in college. We studied under Fuyutsuki-sensei together, actually. It's how we met." he said, winking at her while maintaining his pleasant tone since he'd first arrived. Shinji found himself strangely at ease near this man. Something about his whole presence was calming.
"So you're an Envoy as well," Shinji said.
"One of the first!" His smile was broad and painfully bright. "So tell me, has she made any passes at you yet? I understand she has a thing for younger men."
"Whaa?" Shinji could not contain the reflex as the blood rushed to his cheeks. Though he considered his relationship to Misato particularly platonic, even love perhaps, it didn't prevent the occasional teen-aged thought from entering the brain. She was a beautiful woman, after all. Misato rescued him for the time being.
"Kaji, could you get your head out of your ass or does it live there year round?"
He clucked another clipped chuckle.
"So how did you actually know Misato?" Shinji said, coming off more skeptical than he had intended.
"Well, first we were friends. And then... romantically, I suppose."
"That man wouldn't know romance if it was tied to a stick and bashed into his forehead."
Kaji frowned as if something uncouth had been said for the first time in their conversation together.
"As you may have guessed, the relationship didn't end terribly well," he said with an in-serious frown.
"Oh, sorry." Shinji found the Japanese reflex impossible to escape.
"Don't be. Happiest time of my life," Misato said, still pretending to be embroiled in her magazine. Best to keep up appearances and all.
Kaji sighed, a wistful smile on his face. "She was the only girl to ever dump me. The only one I still want back."
Now it was Misato's turn to laugh but hers was a far more short and bitter "Hah." Shinji watched the back-and-forth, perplexed. He did not understand the relationship between men and women nor did he think he ever would.
He looked over towards Misato now, watching the two girls in the middle seats. Rei was embroiled in some sort of novel and Asuka was passed out next to her, a dribble of drool dangling from her open mouth as she snored loudly. He almost smiled at the moment.
Kaji grinning wildly at Misato who was doing her best to ignore him. Rei caught up in her own world as always and Asuka painfully and literally oblivious to it all. All Envoys, and all quite at odds with one another.
A pity, he thought. To have to be running away so soon. I think we could have made a good family together.
Two Fin
Notes: That wasn't too bad now was it? Albeit a bit slower from chapter one but I think it effectively sets up some of the more interesting story points to come. I also tried dabbling a bit more in humor for this one. I don't know why, but it seems like Envoys tend to give everyone a bit of an edgy sense of humor (except for Rei, obviously). Anyways, next chapter will have a bit more action and a bit more foreshadowing. I'm not sure how long this will wind up being but I could see it stretching into ten chapters perhaps. Who knows.
Anyways. Reviews? I really appreciated the last two! It's nice to know some one is reading this! Hopefully I'll get a few more with this chapter. I should mention I'm very open to criticism and if there's something you see that appears to be a glaring flaw, do let me know.
Japanese lesson for this chapter:
-apologizing is seen as a social lubricant in potentially awkward situations in Japan. At lot of people misinterpret Shinji for being spineless because of how often he apologizes, when in fact it's a very common technique for Japanese to use. Apologizing in no way reflects a person's guilt or responsibility over the situation, it is used rather to ease tensions. This is where I think a lot of fanfic writers screw up with their interpretations of Shinji. Shinji is not even particularly shy or wimpy by the Japanese standard, but people often assume that he is such simply because of how contrasted all of the other characters are to him in the series.
-the endings "san" and "kun" are to indicate varying levels of status, termed as honorifics. –san is typically translated as Ms. or Mr. while –kun doesn't have any direct translation really. –kun is used exclusively for young men, often by women. Misato uses this with Shinji when she's being intimate or familiar with him.
-using first names, particularly with those who are considered as above you (your boss, someone's parents), is also seen as extremely familiar. Misato gets away with it in her scene partially because she's making a joke but also because Fuyutsuki is somewhat of a father figure to her, thus acceptably close. Kaji is sort of an oddity in that he uses his last name rather like his first name. It is not supposed to imply that he prefers everyone being formal with him, just that he prefers his last name.