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: Revised as of 5:00PM Tokyo time! A bit longer and much more descriptive I think. I actually like this chapter now. Sorry if some words are stuck together, the editor was doing weird things with my character spacing.
Six –Forgetting / Letting
"They see this plane for what it is and have no sense of self thus cannot be frightened. But threaten someone they love and they'll reach all the way up to Heaven."
Special Ops was deeper into the structure and beyond more security junctions than Hollens had probably ever seen before. With each one the locks on the doors became increasingly sophisticated, the size of the man turrets increasingly imposing. Deadly to more deadly to ridiculously deadly; a subtle suggestion that if you really had wound up getting this far into the facility you better not be fucking around. With each juncture, Shinji and Asuka passed with swift salutes after running their IDs while Hollens had to wait for minutes at a time for command to call down and verify that he was in fact allowed to be there—this time anyways.
And with each checkpoint, Hollens' face got a little more grim as it dawned on him that he was entering somewhere he expressly should not be, seeing things he should not be allowed to see. His youthful good looks of a man in his career's prime gave way to a growing horror that he'd really chosen the wrong day to come to work. Shinji wondered in passing what they might do with him if he wound up seeing the Plugsuits or some other heavily guarded equipment—even most of the weapons stationed thus far had been strictly proprietary from here on in, targeting systems that made his security squads sub-machine guns look like kids toy guns by comparison; it wasn't very fair, dragging him along like this. Maybe he'd get a promotion out of it but, there was no guarantee his new position or clearance would be an enjoyable position. One didn't just march into NERV's biggest secret without some sort of backlash.
As if picking up on Shinji's ponderings, Hollens muttered to him at one point:
"I'm really not supposed to be here, am I?"
Shinji frowned a little. "Probably not, no."
"And you kids aren't really who they say you are, are you?"
Either he'd guessed already or noticed their IDs with Fuyutsuki's level of clearance on them.
"Do you really want us to answer that?" Asuka said, smiling at him in the way one might smile at a three-legged dog or a toddler who thought he was the fastest thing on Earth until he tripped on the curb and started crying. Shinji found himself making a similar expression.
"Probably not, no," he answered her, gaze returning to the floor as if that might help conceal the secrets being practically shoved in his face by this point. His grimace edged a little darker. Definitely between a rock and a hard place.
Shinji felt like cheering him up a little. Maybe it was their run-in at the elevator shaft or his unfortunate predicament. "On the bright side, maybe they will promote you?"
Hollens shifted his gaze towards him but said nothing. In that look, Shinji could see they both knew that could be a curse dressed up in the promise of a blessing and pay raise. If the branch didn't trust him completely, he wouldn't be seeing his family outside of this building ever again. He wouldn't be going into the city without an armed "escort" at the very least.
"You could put your kids through college on this if you play your cards right," Asuka suggested. He nodded glumly, not looking entirely pleased for a man considering the prospect of a financially secure family. He was trying to figure out if that would also mean seeing them on weekends only, probably. Shinji smirked despite his empathy for the man.
Yeah, in other words: see no evil, hear no evil. Be a good soldier. This didn't happen. Etcetera, etcetera.
She patted him on the arm. "Fogedabowdit," she mimicked the film made and acclaimed before the three of them had been born. He smiled weakly at the all too good advice.
"What is your source?"
"Some spook, probably. Called himself 'Griff.'"
"That's all you have?" He didn't sound disappointed so much as shocked at the flimsiness of it. This was what he'd been dragged out of the meeting with Turner for? Surely they had something better to go on. Misato winced, thankful now that the video link wasn't up. Kaji remained motionless and mute, leaving her for the time being to take responsibility.
"That's it."
There was a pause at the other end of the line. To keep the encryption's signature relatively tiny, there was no image to indicate Fuyutsuki's pondering. Kaji and Misato held still in the darkness of her bedroom. She found herself wishing they could have installed the secure phone elsewhere with Kaji sitting far too close for comfort now. But in an apartment this size, there weren't any other options to keep Envoy children out of earshot.
"You realize we can't trust this information."
"Of course sir, but he seemed to know enough to indicate there might be some possibility of truth."
She could almost imagine Fuyutsuki thoughtfully stroking his chin on the other end, eyes cast out at the Pacific as he ticked over the possibilities. He didn't need to know the details to know it was sincere. If Misato and Kaji believed it, the man had been truthful enough for them to detect. Truthful enough for the possibility of the Second Branch's compromise to be a reality rather than fiction.
"Well, if it's true it would make the situation with the Second and Third somewhat advantageous," he replied finally, easily snaking into the next angle of advantage for this set-back.
"We concur, sir. Taking the Fourth Child out of the Second Branch seems like a proper precaution at this stage. Even if this turns out to be false."
"I trust your judgment. Something must be happening in the Second Branch that is being concealed from us. However, he doesn't have any family, Misato-san. Are you suggesting you will take him in as well?"
She glanced around her room, gauging the space as she did. But what other choice did they have. If the U.S. Branch could no longer be trusted they were essentially isolated. Having Touji be anywhere else besides here was a risk not worth taking.
"It would be a tight fit, sir. But it's possible. It would give him a chance for some decent instruction as well." A chance to put that ego problem in check.
"Tatsuki was always a somewhat poor student. Too much ambition, I suppose. Then again, maybe I was a poor teacher back then. But we couldn't have the Americans getting any sort of real sense of the Envoys, could we?"
"Agreed, sir."
What little she had gleaned about the Special Ops instructor was that he had been hamstrung by Fuyutsuki, prematurely discharged from the programming and awarded the "sensei" title out of convenience. Tatsuki-sensei knew enough to convince himself he was worth the title and enough to convince the Americans they were getting their money's worth out of the Second Branch. But the true mental and physical capacities of an Envoy had been withheld from the Korean man after Fuyutsuki's further consideration. That Touji had progressed so far under him, even possibly beyond him, was further indication of his as a good choice for the program after all.
"It was your father's decision, kicking him out, you know? He had a better knack for spotting the potentials when we were starting out. And the bad ones too. He really fussed over Gendou but..." Fuyutsuki trailed off into further pondering of his pre-flood days.
Misato found herself swallowing uncomfortably. She tried to believe she didn't want Kaji's arm as it glided around her shoulder that moment. But it was the only anchor to the present. To not falling back into that place again.
"Take it, Misato-chan. I love you. Forgive me."
Unconsciously her hand reaching back up to the cross, hidden beneath the high-cut blouse. The sensation of it in her fingers. Real. That was not here. That was not now. Let it go. Focus. The job at hand.
She did and Fuyutsuki read the lingering silence on her end as the signal of her turmoil over his comment. Bad memories.
"My apologies, Misato-san. I should not have mentioned—"
"No, I'm okay."
A moment of just the motion and humming from the twirling ceiling fan above the two of them in her room. Fuyutuski regrouping, re-analyzing the situation.
"Very well. Shinji will have his order when he asks for it. But I want you to have a word with him when he gets home, sensei to student. He needs to start acting a little more like an Envoy and a little less like a teenager. Am I making myself clear?"
"Always, sir."
"Good. We'll speak again shortly."
The line shut off and the encryption died after a few moments as well. Gently, she removed Kaji's hand. He smiled at her openly, un-offended as he always was. He could be so impossibly, wonderfully polite when he wanted to. She ignored the confusing thoughts and switched gears.
"It irks me that Shinji is getting the bad rep for this."
He rebounded like a champion. As if the awkward moment had never existed.
"You would prefer Asuka to be the one? Shinji chose this. Besides, don't pretend like you didn't see it in Asuka's face when we got home today. She tried to make him stay here. Probably because of you, if anything."
"I know, it's just... Fuyutsuki is always so hard on him. And now that he's tried to resign. It makes me worry sometimes. God, I guess I really am turning into his mother!"
"That's a good thing, Misato-chan. He needs one. Especially with a father like Gendou to forget."
"Somehow I had hoped that would end up making the commander go a little easier on him."
A glint of something not entirely moral entered Kaji's eye. Like watching the cat creep up behind the mouse in one of those pre-flood cartoons.
"So, where are we going to put this guy? Their room won't sleep four people. And they might be okay with Shinji on a futon next to them, but somehow I doubt Touji will get along quite as well. With Asuka at least."
"Agreed. I don't want a showdown of the egos in an apartment this size. We could move him and Shinji into your room?"
The grin returned, unimpeded now.
"Ah, great idea! Then I'll move in here!"
She giggled and shoved him playfully.
"You mean the couch. Idiot."
"It was worth a shot."
Soft laughter. Just like old times. Though she strangely dreaded and loved the nostalgia in the same moment.
Maya watched the data scroll across her screen for what seemed like the billionth time that day, and brooded at her laptop which refused any answer to its mystery. Dr. Akagi had been very specific about what she wanted to have looked at but no matter how long Maya stared at the numbers, she could not make sense of it.
Could the MAGI have created a coding error in the S2 Module? Was it some fault on their part that they'd yet to see materialize? Or perhaps some other ghost wandering in the bewildering language of the Plugsuits? Even she, an experienced programmer, had difficulty deciphering the suits at the best of times and not a clue at the worst.
This was one of those "not a clue" times. The rest of her office hummed at her quietly. Placed around her like tiny monuments were the stacks of papers she'd taken out of the archive for this assignment. The few personal items she'd managed to retrieve out of the evacuation. Her personal cell phone, kitty cat strap dangling over the side of the desk. A microwave spotlessly clean from disuse. A cold mug of tea she'd retrieved from the lounge in a break that was too far gone and too short to be called a break by any real standard.
But she'd promised sempai results by her return from Turner's quarters. And damned if she wasn't going to have them, one way or another. Of course Misato's phone call had shrunk her deadline to a level that was by her guess nearly impossible. But she so desperately wanted to try. Had to try. If not for herself, at least for Ritsuko.
It had been and still was intimidating to work under such a brilliant mind. Only Dr. Souryu had bested Ritsuko in intelligence and accomplishment in the scientific world but, now with her death, even that margin was fast fading in the light of Ritsuko's latest achievements. The MAGI, the Plugsuits, and most of NERV's network security was handled entirely by Dr. Akagi now. Three technological marvels most could not even begin to comprehend, Maya included.
But when she watched Ritsuko work with her systems or the suits, it was like watching someone work magic. She could follow motions and gestures of her programming but, the totality of it, the beautiful subtly and simplicity was often too elegant to comprehend until some deep analysis later. Fuyutsuki had hand-picked her with good cause. Maya supposed then, that it was some sort of compliment to be, in turn, hand-picked by Ritsuko.
She was a lieutenant more by convenience than anything else. She had no military experience and it was only that she could follow the MAGI's insane information volume with some infantile understanding that had promoted her to Shinji's official operator. Often, though she found herself struggling to conceal it, she was deeply concerned or scared during the course of his missions, this last one almost teeth-grinding in pressure. To think that the commander had ordered his top two pilots terminated at the drop of the hat did little to ease her fears.
She wasn't sure if she was more afraid of Fuyutsuki now or however terrible and powerful SEELE must be. They had orchestrated the N2 attack after all. And from what little else she knew, they controlled some good portion of the modern world as well.
As she scrolled back up again for another run through, Ritsuko knocked twice and entered. Maya found herself blushing out of surprise and a little habit as well.
Beautiful and smart.
Ritsuko smiled warmly as her coffee mug steamed in the entrance.
"Maya you look like your brain is about to explode. Let's take a break together and discuss this over some food, or have you already eaten? No of course not. Goodness girl, am I going to have to stop giving you deadlines?" She knew her apprentice well.
She found herself desperately trying not to ogle the beauty of that mole that always reminded her of the old American actress—the one you could still find posters of these days if you looked hard enough. M-something, wasn't it? Her sempai's blonde hair almost in the same style as well. And that famous picture of the long-gone woman standing over the air vent, trying to push that white skirt down to cover the panties she could not conceal like some school girl straight out of the manga she read in high school—to imagine Ritsuko like that—Oh God, I'm doing it again. Stop staring at her like that!
Maya grinned anxiously and stowed her laptop on her desk.
"Sorry, sempai. This one is tricky."
"That's why I gave it to you." The blonde winked at her and Maya found her legs shaking slightly as she stood. She grabbed a file off of one of the piles with a jittery hand and followed the white lab coat out of the cramped office and down the corridor into the slightly less cramped lounge.
Ritsuko ordered a green tea and sandwich for Maya and nothing for herself, content to sip at the coffee. Maya was trying her hardest to keep her gaze aimed into the tea. Today was one of those days, she supposed.
"So, how is the move treating you?"
Maya was used to her sempai being sociable. Ritsuko seemed to enjoy looking out for her. Maybe even taking care of her. Or is that just my hentai little head?
"It's been okay. Lots of work getting everything running the same way. The re-sweep for listening devices was a pain once we had command and the Children's quarters secured. Now we're just trying to re-stabilize the MAGI mostly."
"I meant you, silly. How are you doing?"
Maya coughed, trying to cover the surprise. Ritsuko rarely pried at all into her personal life, content to keep the relationship intensely professional.
"Um, fine I guess."
Is she being unusually concerned or am I just imagining things?
"Good. That's good to hear."
The doctor stared into the table, eyes ticking back and forth slightly in what Maya instantly recognized as her calculating face. She must have been consumed by some equation in her head, abruptly lost on their conversation. She grew nervous as the doctor continued stare and the silence stretched.
"Is everything okay, sempai?"
The doctor blinked, returning to the lounge.
"Oh. Yes, sorry. Just more problems from Turner's end of things. Apparently Shinji's getting into trouble as well. You know. The usual."
"I see."
She sipped at her green tea hesitantly.
"So. Down to business. What have you figured out?"
"Not much, unfortunately." She sighed. "I can't tell if it's a screwed up reading or if there's something wrong in the Plugsuit sensors or what. From what I've referenced, we've never got readings like this before. Technically they shouldn't even be possible..."
"Hmm." Ritsuko twirled a finger in one of her yellow bangs playfully, a gesture Maya found surprisingly youthful for someone Ritsuko's age. "Okay then, assume it isn't an error. Assume whatever we're getting is actually happening."
Maya's eyes widened. She gritted her teeth, trying to match Ritsuko's intuition and to catch on to her sempai's idea.
"Could that even be possible? I mean, if that's true... how, how could the S2 Engine be doing that? Shinji didn't activate the unit until a few minutes later. There's no way that signature could be manifesting without him unlocking the engine beforehand. Right, sempai?" She sounded uncertain. They'd had minor errors before, but nothing on this size or scale. Nothing this weird.
Something in Ritsuko's stare, behind the eyeglasses darkened. Deepened.
"Cross-reference the readings with the spike we see in Shinji's synchronization with the suit. See if they match up."
Maya set down her cup, startled by the revelation. The timeline matched. She'd seen both datasets enough times already to know. She was sure of it now. Why hadn't she thought of this before? And furthermore, what did it mean? What had happened during operation 304 to Shinji's suit? Or what had happened to Shinji?
"If they do match up," Maya said slowly, "what does that mean, sempai?"
Ritsuko, if she had an answer did not give it. Her gaze shifted to Maya's firmly. She felt uncomfortable looking into those blue eyes now.
Something bad. It means something bad.
Touji and his sensei were luckily not wearing Plugsuits as they entered the observation deck. Shinji watched from the mirrored glass above them, regarding as Touji and the man parried blows from one another. The glass oddly patterned, translucent hexagons tracing over its surface to suggest capabilities far more advanced than simply peering into the room below them. Both were in white, featureless sparring clothes. The sensei looked vaguely Japanese, not so surprising since he had probably been trained under Fuyutsuki before NERV existed—before Envoy became the international word whispered among military elite and foreigners like Asuka had gotten involved in the program.
The room was sparse, chairs set up on an incline in a theater style so that commanders or generals or whomever it was could watch the next Special Forces group go at it, take notes, try and duplicate or replicate whatever happened on the tatami between that man and their soldiers. They couldn't. Not entirely as the MAGI's spying had revealed. There was something about their attempts that had never gotten off the ground; as if they were teaching the same course materials with the wrong instructor. And they were. If the man was a real sensei, they were nearly impossible to duplicate without Fuyutsuki's steady, shaping hand. It kept the military men infuriated and kept them sending new counter-terror units to the sensei.
Hollens had grown more and more quiet as they descended further and further into a base he had probably never known as being this big. His posture had grown resigned as if he knew there was no backing out of whatever he'd gotten into; Shinji could see now why he'd been chosen as a security captain. He was a proper soldier taking his orders with no resistance. He watched the two of them repel one another with a faint interest, half-curious, and half just waiting for the damn ride to be over.
All three of them had moved in silence, Asuka growing oddly quiet herself as they descended further—why he wasn't sure. If she was concerned that Shinji might try anything with Touji, it didn't show. But then it wouldn't. Kaji would have never allowed an emotional betrayal of that magnitude—unpredictability was the only constant with an Envoy, child or not.
"Well," she said, "here they are. What now, intrepid leader?" The irony was a little too forced to be genuine. Perhaps she really was worried Shinji might do something rash.
"Now, we regretfully inform his sensei that Touji will no longer be practicing here. Whatever happened at school was concocted by his teacher, not command. They wouldn't stand for a display like that in public."
"You're just going to ask for him back?" She had one hand on her hip, stance tilted with her skeptical tone.
"You could call it 'asking,' I suppose."
"Shinji, don't—" she started.
"I won't. Things will be more civilized then earlier today." Something relaxed in the blue eyes. The faint worry at the corners of her lips evaporated.
Hollens switched his gaze between them like a man waiting for his execution.
"So that guy down there," he glanced out of the windows again, "he's another one of... whatever you kids are?"
Asuka analyzed him from somewhere in the depth of those red bangs.
"You sure you want the answer?" she asked.
"Is there any point in not telling me? I'm clearly not getting out of this without getting promoted to God-knows-what."
"Yeah, you're probably right." She looked back over her shoulder at the two of them trading blows. "He is... one of us."
"Right." A sigh. As if he'd seen it coming all along. "And I suppose he's the real reason you guys dropped in."
"Correct," Shinji replied, and began to make his way for the stairwell down to the chamber. The two of them followed him after Hollen's looked one last time at the two of them sparring.
As they eased the door open at the bottom of the stairwell and stepped out onto the edge of fake tatami patterning on smart mats, student and teacher froze, both locking eyes on the trio.
"Ikari... what are you..." Touji said across the space, face flushed red with the workout.
The sensei did not speak.
"Koko matte," Shinji said aside to her.
Wait here.
"Hai. Ki o sukete." The worry stayed lurking somewhere behind it.
Okay but be careful.
Hollens stared at them emptily, apparently not versed in Japanese. Shinji left the two of them on the edge of the mats, removing his shoes and walking out to meet them. The pseudo-Japanese hatched patterning was hard as wooden boards underneath his feet. But sensors in the foam would force them to flex to softness when enough force was applied—like some one getting knocked on their ass, for example. Hopefully it would not come to that.
He gave a respectful bow to both of them. Only Touji returned it, confusion still held in the dark eyes. Is it so hard to believe, Suzuhara? Who else could match an Envoy in a fist fight?
The other man regarded him silently, arms by his side and feet slightly apart that only whispered at a fighting stance even to Shinji's trained senses. Maybe this won't be so civil after all. He decided to address the more receptive of the two first.
"It was a good bout today, Suzuhara-san. I only wish we could have done it on more friendly terms. And perhaps on these mats. I hope your shoulder is healing okay."
Then Touji was turning on heels, the anger barely contained as he addressed his teacher.
"Why didn't you tell me, Tatsuki-sensei? Why didn't you tell me he was one of us?"
"I told you only what you wanted to hear." He spoke Japanese with the hint of an accent that suggested a foreign upbringing. Chinese or maybe Korean. His tone was soft, not at all matching the sudden stiffness that had swept into him. He was putting some effort into not disciplining his student for the outburst, Shinji could see. Of course that was all to maintain that he had any sort of right to do it in the first place.
"Liar. You told him whatever would get you a fight between Misato's prize student and your own." Shinji did not fear retribution. If the man was truly a sensei he would not dare to retaliate against Shinji. Touji clearly would not pose a problem any further either. He was now firmly directed at his own sensei.
"I told him what would alleviate all of the anger he had been carrying since the Tokyo-3 bombing. Whatever would make him forgive the loss of his sister."
Touji flinched but the fists remained closed, tightening. Shinji continued, refusing to let himself get distracted. He and Touji could talk later.
"You can believe whatever you like. The First Branch is relieving you of teaching the Fourth Child any further. Touji will be coming with me."
This got him.
"You think you can just march in here and do this to me?" he barked. "You think you can just take my student without even asking? Who do you think you are, Shinji Ikari? Who's authority do you think you represent? You're still nothing but a student."
He stayed cool. Had to. This was getting out of hand.
"My sensei would not agree. Fuyutsuki doesn't either."
A bulge in the man's eyes. He was controlling himself very poorly. Shinji could see where Touji had gotten it from now.
"You think you can teach him any better?" He waited for any reaction and then laughed; the sound of it was wretched to Shinji's ears." Come then, show us mighty Ikari, if you've really learned anything at all from Misato." His yell filled the cavernous chamber.
Tatsuki turned to his student. "Touji, step off to the side."
His student did not, frozen in place. Shinji's mind skipped at beat. This was not how senseis treated students. No, no sensei would openly challenge a student. Not in their right mind. He'll be disciplined severely over this. Maybe worse.
"Move!"
Touji took a final, helpless glance at Shinji, eyes filled with the apology he could not utter. Shinji nodded to him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Asuka barely keeping herself from leaping onto the mats as well as Touji trudged towards her. Don't worry about me. I will handle this, one way, or another.
"A duel, Tatsuki-san?" Shinji asked, buying any time he could.
"Don't patronize me. Overconfidence is a symptom of weakness, Ikari." He paraphrased Fuyutsuki poorly, but Shinji had wanted him distracted. He rushed his ugly smile, aiming for the waist.
Quell swept into his head as the moment stretched, the sensei trying desperately to set up for a block he had not intended to make. The room blurred around Shinji as her voice, or what he imagined might have been her voice, filled him.
"If violence is inevitable, strike! You can't hold the moral high ground if you're dead."
The knee hit him under the ribs, but he had bounded away enough that none of them cracked. Shinji forced all of the previous thoughts of the day out of his head. Kensuke, Touji, his sensei, and Asuka all faded away in the rush of Envoy cold, sweeping in like an old, old friend.
Only Quell, Misato's lessons, and its small whispers of how to kill this man remained.
Full power.
Shinji sprung the distance between them into a kick aimed at neck height. A forearm came up catching it enough to slow it down but the damage was done. Tatsuki staggered under the blow, barely holding his footing as he retreated further from the strike zone. Shinji circled, waiting.
His Asian features were crunched and furious now, lips quivering with the open indignation that he, an Envoy, could be attacked and even bested by a student. And in that moment Shinji knew now there was no way this man was any sort of Envoy. Not in the true sense. There was no calm, no open passivity or neutrality that gave Shinji all the advantage he needed to end this fight. One more move. Maybe two if he's lucky.
Shinji probed a little closer.
Wait for the sign.
"Fuyutsuki will never stand for this. You've signed your own prison sentence, Ikari," he mumbled.
He tried to come at Shinji as the sentence rolled off his tongue, attempting to replicate Shinji's surprise. It failed. Chops too disorderly with the rage they competed with. Kicks that were foolishly obvious; drunken sweeps of his fists compelled only by his fury.
Shinji took the drive at him and spun around it, landing an elbow near his spine. Tatsuki crumpled with the impact and fell into the mats, flexing them downward briefly in an odd-looking concave motion that no real tatami could reproduce.
It was done.
"Fuyutsuki-sensei thanks you for your cooperation. We'll be leaving now. And for your sake, I would not mention any of what happened today to your superiors if you don't want to spend the rest of your life in a six-by-four cell. But that's just a suggestion."
Shinji bowed at the man as he gasped and clutched his back on the floor, then turned to leave him there.
"Your father was a dog," he gurgled at Shinji's back. "And your mother was no better. She let him use her. Wanted him to."
Something in Shinji made him stop. Would not let him walk away any further. Asuka staring at him, her face waiting, anticipating. And Touji's gaping shock that his sensei had just been totally defeated in three moves by the boy he knew earlier today as no sort of Envoy. Hollens trying to comprehend whatever had been happening in all the Japanese he could not follow.
The conditioning quivered under the pressure of this new thing in him, desperately trying to dispel whatever dared to grow. Trying to keep him walking away. Unnecessary thoughts. Unnecessary feelings. His fist clenching beside him. The simple want to do violence that should have matched the conditioning mindset and instead clashed so firmly. An inner war.
Let. It. Go.
He didn't turn around. Kept walking towards Asuka's frightened stare and Hollens' confused frown.
"I saw it happen, Ikari. I saw them together and I knew. I knew!" he laughed hoarsely, mad and embittered in the same.
"We're finished here," Shinji said to her softly as he reached the edge of the mats. "Kairou."
Let's go home.
The four of them left through the main exit, leaving the man cackling between gasps on the floor.
Shinji took the bike home alone. Kaji had been waiting for them at the airstrip with a large domestic helicopter idling behind him. The introductions had been clipped. Command had only reached the pad in time to hassle them before Kaji defused the situation with his perpetual charm and a spice of Fuyutsuki's authority. Shinji's bluff had worked out after all.
No one had spoken on the way out of the branch.
When he arrived home things were a little less grim. Formal introductions and so forth. Asuka must have spoken to Touji on the flight home because as Shinji entered, he regarded his fellow Envoy with a new, more curious eye.
Misato did her best to play hostess in between flirts from Kaji. She took him aside briefly at his entrance and said they would "talk" tomorrow. Rei's only acknowledgement of his return was a silent nod as if she'd expected this outcome all along. And maybe she had. She was Rei, after all. Asuka only watched him from the corner's of his eyes, the concern for him seeping through the way it sometimes would with Misato.
Dinner had been cramped but most everyone was talkative, even Touji. Everyone except for Shinji really. He remained nearly silent throughout the meal, almost saying less than Rei who seemed content to observe the group as she most always did.
Now he was lying down in his sparse new room, trying to coax himself to sleep. He and Touji had moved into Kaji's room when dinner and clean-up was over. Sleep was reluctant, would not come even as the hours ticked past midnight. Troubling thoughts of today gliding in and out of his mind, forcing him awake at every moment of rest.
Somewhere beside him, Touji quietly inhaled and exhaled regularly enough that Shinji assumed he must be asleep already.
"Ikari," he whispered into the darkness of their room. "You awake?" Had me fooled.
"Yeah. Can't sleep"
"Me neither."
More breathing. Neither of them turned toward each other, content to speak to the ceiling. Conditioning didn't need facial expression to hear the emotional weight of a speaker anyways. And Touji's was oddly unfamiliar, something new entering is somewhat outgoing voice. Something hesitant.
"I just. Wanted to say. About today. Sorry. What I did was really. Stupid."
"Not at all. I don't hold anything against you."
The boy beside him sighed. Shinji found himself unaccustomed to this tone of voice from Touji. He had appeared so pretentious in school but now he was oddly humble, almost embarrassed sounding.
"Thanks. I guess I just... needed someone to blame, sort of like what sensei—I mean, like what Tatsuki said."
"Not at all. Your anger was justified. I was the same way too. After the bombing."
Odd memories of berating Fuyutsuki in his old office. Misato's gentle hand, placed on his shoulder as he came so close to crying for the first time since... Kensuke's smile in their old classroom, camera in hand. That first awful shake in the command center when he knew, just knew, that something had gone terribly wrong.
"I guess it's just humans have a funny way of assuming tragedy only ever touches themselves. We forget everybody else has their own sadness too."
"Yeah. We do."
Another silence. Nighttime sounds from outside their window whispering to them. A police siren somewhere in the distance, ghostly quiet.
"Do you think maybe, if you don't mind, do you think you could tell me about him? About Kensuke?"
And Shinji was smiling then. Not sure why himself. He couldn't contain it. Didn't want to. He told the conditioning to go play by itself for a while.
"Yeah. Sure."
Not such a bad guy. Suzuhara-kun.
"He was a really smart kid. Loved his video camera. Somehow, I think you two would have been friends if you'd ever met him. I met him my first day..." and on into the late night. He spoke and spoke until the both of them had drifted into gentle snores.
Not such a bad guy.
Dreams of his mother. A woman who did not just let things happen. Good dreams.
Six Fin
A/N: It's late again! So sorry. I went to Nara this weekend and I've sort of been letting this slip while I juggle everything else over here. I really struggled with this chapter. Anyways, thanks for all the interest and lovely reviews. Of course critiques are always appreciated too but try and find something to say about the actual story, not the fucking summary (Rah Xephon I'm looking at you here).
As you may or may not have noticed I have another story being posted called "Behind Closed Doors" which is mostly my lamenting love for Shinji/Asuka pairing. Before you draw your various bladed weapons, it's not competing for my time on this. I had it completed long before I ever started posting this so it technically doesn't count as my writing two stories at once.
I feel like this chapter was a little too Spartan on detail for my liking although it has its moments. Now what I've really got to struggle with is the next few chapters. A part of me really wants to jump into the meat of the story but another wants to give more time for character development. While I have the whole rest of the story planned out this is sort of the only blank spot in it. Literally all I had written down was "Touji moves into the apartment." So much for my outlining skills, haha.
Thanks for being patient with the reviews. I hope the pacing hasn't been too dreadfully slow. I like to snowball, what can I say except the second half of this story will be even faster and denser (I hope). Much love to my reviewers. You guys seriously rock my world. Naon suggested I make a forum for this story. Do we have anything to discuss or would that be too self-indulgent of me? (careful, my ego must be kept in check from time to time)
Japanese lesson for this chapter:
-You may have noticed that some of the character names are spelled "weird." "Gendou," "Souryu," and "Hyuuga" for example. This is the way of spelling elongated vowels in romaji (Romanized Japanese writing). Gendo's name is not pronounced "Gen-do" but rather "Gen-do-o" (long "o" sound) if that makes any sense. In order to elongate, you use a similar vowel. You can have double a's, i's, and u's. For "e" you use "i" after, and for "o" you use "u" after as well. So, as another example the word "keigo" is pronounced "ke-e-go" with a long "ay" sound.