Rei merely stared at me a while longer, and I suddenly I became hyper aware of how dry my mouth was. Well, so much for hoping for a not-awkward encounter.

I licked my lips as I tried to think of something that could get through to her. I could've believed she hadn't heard me the first time, had I not known this was Rei Ayanami.

I tentatively got closer to her, and extended my hand.

"Uh, sorry. Kano Akashi, Fourth Child."

Nothing. The girl could've passed for a statue if I didn't see the slight rising and falling action of her chest, and the occasional blink. Hanging there awkwardly, my hand eventually just became limp and fell by my side again.

Alright, third time's the charm.

"You're Rei Ayanami, right?"

"Yes."

I almost exhaled in relief there. At least I could get a response out of her. Now it was just a matter of fighting to make it any kind of meaningful one. And that fight was likely going to be pitiful up until I remembered something important Shinji had said earlier:

"I mean, you've both piloted Unit 00. I think you have, um, more common ground with her than me."

It was going to be delicate to talk to her to any extent about what I'd seen and gone through in the Eva. One wrong slip and I could easily expose something I really didn't want anybody knowing. Least of all someone with direct connections to the Commander of Nerv himself.

"So...your sync test is tomorrow right?"

"Yes."

"Well, uh, good luck," I said, trying to put on the best smile possible. It probably came off a little fake, but I thought I could at least rely on Rei not being very apt at telling that. "I know that Unit 00 is not exactly the best Eva to handle."

"Yet, you connected."

That caught me completely off guard. On a second glance, Rei did look her usual neutral self, but there was something more to her eyes. Something boring into me.

"Excuse me?"

"The Eva...it found something in you it didn't find in me."

Something clicked right there in that sentence. Suddenly it all made sense.

"I heard you got hurt pretty bad in the last test," I started, trying my best to keep my tone neutral. I didn't know what sort of inflection it'd have in this situation anyway. "Rei are you scared of..."

Being replaced?

"Getting hurt again?"

She didn't speak. In fact, she just moved past me, towards the Evangelion, and placed her hand upon the armored giant. I was reminded of yet another important detail I'd forgotten up until then: she was supposed to meet Gendo here, and Shinji was likely watching us.

Well, better for him to see this than to feel inadequate in front of his father.

"Well, I'm sorry I can't help you with that. You don't seem like you want to speak about it anyway. But...keep trying I guess," I said, sighing, accepting my defeat for now. This was going to be a long, drawn-out process and any thought to the contrary had just been erased.

I made to leave without much fanfare. Rei clearly didn't particularly care about responding to me.

On my way out of the cages, I glanced Gendo himself walking in the other direction.

So that still happens...I wonder what they talked about anyway...

Several hours later, and as I returned to the Katsuragi residence from a jog, the encounter was still lodged in my mind.

Rei had never been the talkative kind, obviously, but it really had to be seen to be believed just how little she seemed to care about establishing any kind of relationship with anyone. It was no wonder that no one knew her at school. Or anywhere else for that matter.

Of all the pilots, she was definitely going to be the hardest for me to break through. I was hoping she'd say something more in regards to me successfully piloting Unit 00, but...

"It found something in you it didn't find in me."

I frowned. What was I supposed to make of that?

Did she point it out to signify her surprise? Her fear, as I'd initially thought? Or maybe even intrigue at someone else doing what she had failed to?

I scratched my head. This was getting to me. It was hard enough to predict how anyone else would react to my words, because as much as I understood them, they were still people that were subject to intrinsic of being a real flesh-and-blood being. Not a drawing on an animation cell. I could perfectly predict their actions inside an extremely tight, rigid framework that was entirely shattered by me just being here.

And then Rei was just a whole other level of enigma, simply because of how ambiguous she was at this point in time. Any point in time really.

I was still struggling to figure any of that out when I finally appeared before Misato's apartment door, entering in without much fanfare. I hadn't gotten used to announcing when I got home. So if the place happened to be feeling loud at any particular time, mostly courtesy of a buxom captain, I could very easily slip by unnoticed up until I showed up in the living room.

Which was what happened on this night of all nights. It took me a while to realize I was witnessed Misato playfully chokeholding Shinji while gently swaying a beer can in her free hand, the poor boy looking so flustered he'd make Unit 02 look pale. Ritsuko was also there to look exasperated by it all.

"Am I walking into something?," I said, with a tired smile.

"Welcome home," Misato said with a big grin. I could tell she was in a good mood.

"I hope you ate out," Ritsuko said as I sat down, looking a woman condemned to death as she stared at her plate.

"As a matter of fact I did, Dr. Akagi."

"Oh please, just call her Ritsuko," Misato waved away.

"Uh, okay. So why are you looking at your food like that?"

"Misato cooked," came a squeak from the boy currently being wrestled.

"Oh. Yeah I'm glad now."

"Oh come on, not you too Kano."

"Misato I can eat most things without fuss, but what you make can fill a UN biohazard facility."

I had tasted the infamous cooking once, thinking it was just anime exaggeration.

I was wrong. Oh so wrong. It was the closest I'd ever gotten to puking my guts out due to one bad meal.

"Hmpf," she pouted as she slumped onto her meal.

"Oh by the way," Ritsuko said, rummaging through her handbag to throw me something, which I caught with some measure of effort. "That's your new Nerv ID card. I forgot to give it to you all at the facility today."

"I'm guessing you'll help Lil' Shin here with his delivery to Rei tomorrow, right~?" Misato sing-songed.

I looked to Ritsuko, feigning confusion.

"I forgot to give it to Rei too. You two would help me a lot if you could bring it to her tomorrow, before her test."

And finally, my gaze fell on Shinji, who'd mercifully been released from the hold, and aside from massaging his throat, had his eyes cast on the floor.

He'd probably seen the encounter between the enigmatic First Child and his father, and didn't know what to think. Of course he'd do it anyway, especially now that he had a motive for finding out about her. But this time, he had me to step in and make it easier for him.

"Uh, sure. I'll go. You in, right Shinji?"

"Oh me?" he said, startled out of his contemplation. "I mean...I don't really know her. And you talked to her today so..."

"Oh come Shinji, aren't you just a little bit curious about your mysteeerious classmate?" Misato said with a very conspicuous wink.

"What?! No!" he said, revolted. Rather suspiciously so. "...Not in that way."

"I tried talking to her. Didn't go so well," I said, ignoring Misato and hoping what I'd told him before wouldn't make him just avoid trying to interact with Rei. "Besides, I think it'd be better if we went together. Y'know, kinda weird for either one of us to show up at her house."

"Ooooh, two boys going to a girl's house, all alone? That sounds even more naughty Kano," our guardian chimed in again, eliciting a groan and probably a bit of exploding in Shinji's nose capillaries.

"Misato honestly," Ritsuko sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Who ever thought to give you custody of children anyway?"

"Aw come on Rits, I'm not that bad."

The rest of the night was spent mostly wallowing in Misato's poor jokes and innuendos, and Ritsuko trying her best to keep us alive.

Of course, I couldn't really find myself getting into it given what was coming tomorrow.

Our visit to Rei, her sync test and most of all, the Fifth Angel.

I woke in the middle of the night. I found myself doing that a lot lately.

Before it was mostly weird dreams. Now though my body seemed to be far more concerned with phantom pains that felt like hundreds of tiny needles being jammed into every part of my body the Fourth Angel had wrecked. Which was everywhere.

After screaming into my pillow to make sure none of the other occupants of the apartment heard me, I laid on my back. I knew sleep wouldn't come for some time. I was sweaty, uncomfortable, and my tongue was as dry as a desert.

It was these times where I nearly broke down all over again, but pushed through by just biting my wrist and focusing on that. I didn't know how much of this I could handle. Hell, I didn't know how the Children made it as far as they did with something this bad. But I did know I had to at least try to follow in their wake.

One of these days, I'll break myself trying to help these people...

I shook the thought away.

That won't be today.

The walk to Rei's apartment was rather quiet. Much like most of our walks I'd observed.

Well, that wasn't entirely accurate. Shinji had gotten somewhat better at small talk in the meanwhile. But this walk just felt different. I was certain we were both feeling the awkwardness in doing this. Of course, my reasons ran a bit deeper than his, but still.

The silence didn't last however, as we reached Rei's place.

"What the Hell? This is where she lives?"

"It's what the address says."

"Gimme that," I said. The surprise was fake, but the disgust sure as Hell wasn't as I grabbed the piece of paper.

After indeed confirming the address, I could only stare at the rundown complex with something bad churning in my stomach. The show really didn't do justice to just how dirty, decrepit and diseased this place looked. It was an amalgamation of any city slum I could think of, wrapped up in the decay of decades.

The things Gendo did to keep Rei as isolated as possible were truly despicable. They would've almost been shocking. That is, if I hadn't known who the man was. Keeping a mentally unstable teenager alone for all her life seemed child's play for him then.

"This is disgusting."

"Why would she live here?" Shinji said, more so to himself than me.

"I don't think she has a choice."

"But my father..."

Well yeah, that's the crux of the issue, isn't it Shinji?

Again, I wasn't going to try touching that subject, at least for some time. Poor kid would be conflicted enough soon anyway. I made for the entrance, and he followed me, albeit reluctantly.

We knocked on Rei's door, which of course, failed to produce any response from the bluenette. Rei being Rei, and therefore probably not getting visitors ever, I wouldn't have been surprised if she didn't even recognize the sound of knocking. Probably could even mistake it for the ever-present din of construction that hung around Tokyo-3.

A more forceful push revealed the door to be open, without even a latch. Section 2 likely keeping a watch on her at all times aside, that still seemed like a serious security oversight.

"What are you doing?" Shinji asked as I fully opened the door and got in.

"What do you think? The door is open."

He seemed to want to protest that, but followed in anyway when I clearly showed I didn't care. I knew what was coming next. Hopefully I could avoid a groping accident. Hopefully.

In the meanwhile, the small home itself gave me plenty to be occupied with.

"Why would anyone live like this?" Shinji got to it first.

I wanted to reiterate my point from earlier, but I was pretty sure he'd already gotten the answer by then. Still I just felt like saying something over keeping quiet.

"Dunno. But I'm pretty sure this entire building should have been knocked down a long time ago."

Eventually, Shinji noticed the glasses and I noticed that Rei was taking longer than I thought she did.

Does this universe just like to mildly shift things around just to inconvenience me?

"I don't think you should be touching her stuff dude."

"We're already inside her home."

"Pretty sure that's a step above just that. One gets you in jail for trespassing and the other for burglary, y'know."

It was a pretty stupid comeback, but I was just biting time until she eventually showed herself.

"These aren't her glasses anyway. They're..."

"They're what?"

He didn't get the chance to answer as we suddenly became aware of something shifting in the background. We both turned our heads to see a very much naked First Child with a robe barely covering any of her sensitive parts.

Shinji looked a man struck by a truck, and admittedly, I wasn't far behind. Of course, in hindsight, breaking into someone's home very much led into the possibility they could be emerging from a bath without a care in the world.

What was shocking beyond that though was just how calmly Rei took it. She wasn't brazen, obviously, just apathetic. And despite me knowing that, seeing it on a computer screen was one thing, seeing it in person was a whole other beast.

It was at this point that the spell broke and I forced myself to look away from her body. She started walking toward us without a moment of pause. I was confused for a second, when I saw why she was doing it. Shinji's hand had never reached the glasses, but it was outstretched toward them. She pushed her way past him and grabbed them almost frantically.

We stood like that for a while: Rei just holding the spectacles of her beloved creator, Shinji probably having an existential crisis, and me just wondering how this managed to somehow be even more stranger than the original scene.

That pause in the universe was broken when Rei moved again, starting to put on her clothes. Shinji stayed wordless with his mouth held slightly agape and occasionally being reduced to voiceless stutters. Meanwhile I waited until she was fully dressed to say something.

"Ahem."

At first she ignored me, like she did most things, as she sat the glasses on one of her few cupboards. She almost made it to the door before I spoke again:

"Rei."

At that she paused. So she was listening.

"So, um, Dr. Akagi asked us to give you your new Nerv ID card. Shinji?" I said, having forgotten at this point why I'd given him the card.

The boy himself seemed to have been broken out of an ice prison, his face was that stiff.

"Uh, right. Here you go," he said, as he approached her, holding his hand out. She turned around and grabbed the card without much thought. Just as she seemed ready to leave again however, she turned to look at both of us.

"Please close the door when you leave."

And just like that she was gone.

"She's...weird."

"Understatement of the fucking millennium."

"Sorry."

"Nah, you're right."

At least the blue-headed girl in front of us had given some more topics of conversation to open, even as we were following her.

"Is it okay for us to talk about her with her right there?"

"I don't think she can hear us," I said, stretching my arms over my head, for lack of anything better to do with them. "Besides, even if she does, do you think she'd care?"

"It's still rude."

"I'm just saying, the girl gave us a full frontal without so much as blinking. I don't think she gives a shit about talk behind her back."

He went quiet for a few seconds before continuing:

"Why are following her again?"

For you to almost get your chest pierced straight through by a god laser.

"She has her test today. We're fellow pilots. Gotta be there for the occasion, y'know?"

Shinji looked more than a little skeptical, but he didn't stop walking. And neither did I. And neither did Rei.

We were just three people, three kids, all of us, holding the fate of the world in our fingertips in more ways than anyone could imagine.

Well, I could imagine them. None of them were pretty.