The following morning saw Asuka waking up from a dreamless sleep. It was a gradual process, with the first bits of consciousness beginning to return behind closed eyelids and some few, precious seconds of half-asleep rest being milked for all of their worth. Nevertheless, Asuka knew that neither the day nor Misato Katsuragi would wait to put them through the paces of their teamwork training, so it was with great sorrow that the Second Child decided to wake up for real.

She was about to sit up when Asuka found a pair of crimson eyes staring straight at her own, far too close for comfort.

"Scheiße!" the Second Child screamed, scrambling back as far away as her bed sheet impaired legs would allow her. "Wondergirl?! The hell are you doing?!"

But if Rei Ayanami was at all surprised by her housemate's outburst, she didn't show it. Instead, the bluenette's eyebrows drew together a micron and she stood up without a word, eyes lingering on Asuka for another short interval before Rei began to step towards the bathroom.

"Hey, hey! Wait just a damn second, Wondergirl!" Asuka rushed to place herself between the First Child and the door, stopping her in her tracks with an accusing finger. "You don't get to scare me half to death and then walk away as if nothing ever happened! What was that about?!"

"I was investigating."

"Investigating? Investigating what?" Asuka demanded. "You do know what they call people who watch others while they're sleeping, right?!"

"No, I do not."

Asuka's finger fell, the wind that had been pushing the sails of her anger dying off with just four simple words. Putting aside the annoyance she felt at Rei unintentionally leaving her without a comeback, Asuka couldn't believe the fact that the other girl apparently saw nothing wrong with being a complete creep.

'...Then again, I don't know what I was expecting. This is Wondergirl we're talking about, you don't get much weirder than her.'

"Can you move?" Rei continued, as clueless as ever. "I need to shower."

This time, Asuka didn't bother resisting the bluenette's wishes. Months of sharing a locker room with the First Child had taught Asuka not to press her when she was being her personal brand of mysterious, because the only things that always resulted in were either more non-answers or Ayanami spouting some more of her toilet philosophy. Neither outcome was particularly desirable at that point.

'Bah, whatever,' Asuka relented, putting the whole thing out of her mind. She then briefly brought a hand to tap at her cheeks. '...I should make sure she didn't write anything on my face, though.'

Letting out a big yawn, Asuka sighed as she rubbed the last traces of sleep out of her eyes and surveyed the apartment's living room. Despite having slept through the night in one of the Japanese sleeping mats she hated so much, the Second Child was surprised at just how well she had rested: her mind was fresh and attentive and the familiar morning itch behind her eyes was nowhere to be found. Yet another unusual development of that morning, to be sure, but one that was very welcome.

'...Maybe getting all of that off your chest helped things, somehow,' the Second Child wondered, her mind briefly going back to the previous night's conversation. It was then that the implications of what she had confessed to in the spur of the moment caught up to the girl, Asuka bringing a hand to her forehead with a groan. 'Shit, what was I thinking? Just you wait until Misato catches wind of what you admitted, Asuka. You're never going to live that down.'

Asuka's eyes quickly fell on the main instigator behind her unplanned confession and found Mari Makinami still sleeping soundly. How the girl had not woken up with all the commotion of the morning so far was beyond Asuka, but the redhead decided to fix that problem by walking over and nudging the back of the softly snoring Fifth Child with her foot.

"Hnnggg..." Mari mumbled in response, shuffling her body away from the offending appendage. "F've mo' m'nuts..."

And in two seconds flat, she was snoring again. Asuka barely resisted the urge to palm her face.

'Great, so I've got Creepy McBluehair and Misato's little sister in my squad. How the heck does she expect me to get anything done with these two?' the Second Child lamented with a groan. 'Even Shinji would be better!'

A sudden feeling of guilt crept up inside Asuka at her unplanned thoughts about the Third Child, but she quickly forced herself to push it aside. It was true that there had been no contact whatsoever from Shinji since she had shouted at him the day before, though, and Asuka would be lying if she claimed that she wasn't starting to get a bit worried.

For a few moments, Asuka considered calling for Shinji but ultimately decided to put it off until breakfast. Rei was likely about to start showering, and by the stipulations of their training regime that meant that all three of the Pilots should at least be in the bathroom while she did. If Misato decided to come for an early morning visit and caught them not abiding to the rules because Makinami was still sleeping there would be hell to pay, and Asuka didn't feel like finding out what the Major's creative punishment would be all about.

Besides, she had now been officially recognized as the leader of the Pilot Corps, so the Fifth Child's kind of irresponsible behaviour was now her responsibility to fix with whatever disciplinary measures she thought appropriate. No need to get Misato involved.

And so, Asuka's second warning came in the form of a swift kick to Mari's backside, the Fifth Child rolling over and mostly awake with a pained and slightly satisfying yelp.

"Ouchie..." Mari sat up and protested the harsh treatment with a pout, the girl's free and messy bed hair making her look a lot different to how she usually did. "Princeeess! Why you so mean?"

Unfortunately, the more annoying parts of her personality remained the same as always.

"Because it's morning, Wondergirl already headed to the showers, and it's time you got your lazy ass out of bed!" Asuka admonished in her best drill sergeant tone and motioned towards the bathroom with her head, from where the sounds of falling water could already be heard. "We've got plenty of stuff to do today, so move it!"

"Mmm...?" Mari groggily checked her watch, squinting hard to identify the numbers without her glasses. "Oh? Is it that time already?"

"Yes, it's half past seven in the morning. I'm glad you can read."

"But we have another two hours until we need to train with our EVAs, right?" the Fifth Child replied, ignoring the sarcasm. She then slowly began to lie down on her back again... "Doesn't that mean that we have some more time to-"

"Don't even think about going back to sleep!"

...and promptly sprang back up like a jack-in-the-box.

"Ehehehehe..." Mari put her hands up in surrender, a goofy grin trying to defend against Asuka's glare. "Right, right! I was joking... Just joking!"

'You totally weren't.'

"See?" Mari quickly finished rising under the Second Child's expectant gaze, squaring up like a soldier at attention. "I'm up and ready for orders! What next, Princess?"

"You have a minute to get your stuff and yourself into the bathroom before I come back and drag you there," Asuka responded, somehow managing to keep the longest sigh in the history of the world from coming out. "Then we'll have breakfast together and get ready to get on with Misato's plans. Are we clear?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Mari enthusiastically replied, her hand flying to her forehead in an overly dramatic salute that went completely unnoticed by Asuka, who had already turned towards the bathroom.

Slightly deflated but not defeated, Mari quickly gathered her bathroom necessities and rushed to follow.

-O]|[O-

"...Can I look yet?"

"No, not yet. We are in the kitchen area but Ayanami is still floating around without any clothes on." Asuka replied to Shinji's question, making sure that the boy's eyes were still completely covered by his hands. "Why didn't she bring a change of clothes into the bathroom, anyway? Isn't that a lot easier than walking all over the place in the nude after you're done? What would happen if someone entered while she's naked?"

Unbeknownst to Asuka, the young man by her side had a very real answer to that possibility that he wisely kept to himself, preferring to instead focus on repeating the mantra that he'd been thinking for close to fifteen minutes by that point.

'Don't think about them showering, don't think about them showering... Think of something you hate, like Canon in D and its eight stupid notes.'

Just as they had been when he and Asuka first entered the command room, Shinji's mental stratagems proved effective at keeping the Third Child's mind from replaying the scene that had been on display at the time of their late arrival. It had been little more than a glimpse of Ayanami's and Makinami-san's bare backs that his eyes had caught before Asuka had blinded him, but that was still more than enough material for a teenager's hyper-active imagination to work with if left unchecked, especially considering the embarrassing but carefully preserved first-hand experience that Shinji had had with the former.

The other thing that helped Shinji keep his focus was Ace; or rather, the suspicion that Ace was acting very much unlike herself. He hadn't had a chance to take a good look at Ace due to the circumstances of his arrival, but while he could feel that the hostile presence on his right side had multiplied by an order of magnitude when compared to the previous day, the fact that he hadn't heard even a disdainful or grumpy grunt out of the Pilot in all that time was pretty worrying, considering her actions the previous day.

She was all business, the sound of fingers flying across the different instruments letting Shinji know that Ace was working at a blazing pace. Despite the professional facade, however, Shinji couldn't help but dread the moment her countdown reached zero.

"Okay, I think you're free to use your eyes now." Asuka suddenly announced, giving Shinji a pat on the shoulder. The Third Child then slowly let his hands drop and allowed for light to reach his pupils once again, squinting for a short moment at the drastic change before he did the quick analysis of the situation that he had been denied before: Asuka was now sitting at a breakfast table, Makinami-san to her left and Ayanami approaching from what Shinji supposed was the direction of her room, clad in her usual clothes. The three of them sat and ate their morning meal, sharing some small talk while Asuka outlined their plan for the day.

The scene was innocent and simple enough that no input was necessary from their part, so Shinji took the opportunity to check his immediate surroundings as well, noticing with some relief that Maisie had returned to her post. She caught his eye for a second, sending him a small and cryptic smile before she focused back on her work. Just after that, Ace also noticed him staring, but her reaction was simply to turn away with an angry scoff.

'Well, she's the same as always. Maybe I was worrying over nothing,' Shinji thought with a sigh. 'Maisie, on the other hand... What was that about?'

"...Shinji?" Asuka's voice suddenly called, making the young man jump a little. "Hey, Stupid Shinji! Are you there?"

Shinji happily turned to look at his assistant, who looked back at him every bit as excited.

"What are you waiting for?" Asuka urged, tossing him the headphones. "Answer her!"

"Y-Yeah!" Shinji quickly replied, scrambling to put the headphones in their proper place. "I'm here, Asuka!"

"About time you decided to speak up, you idiot!" Asuka scolded him, but the undertones of relief he could hear in her voice weren't lost on Shinji. "Where the hell have you been?!"

The Third Child looked to his left for support, but a shrug was all the assistance he received.

"...P-Places."

"Places? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just that this place can get a bit confusing, and that sometimes I can't speak to you. Especially if..."

Shinji trailed off, wondering somewhat belatedly if his next words were a smart thing to say.

"Especially if what?"

But that choice was quickly taken from him.

"Especially if... you get angry."

A low and ominous alarm sound began to sound throughout the room, promptly confirming Shinji's fears. Off to his right side, he thought he heard Ace mutter 'moron' to herself before the movement of her fingers intensified.

"...Are you saying yesterday was my fault?" Asuka demanded, a hint of fire in her voice. She then left her breakfast plate in the sink with a bit more force than absolutely necessary. "Actually, don't answer that. Who gives a damn?"

Right after, Shinji saw the Second Child beckon the other two Pilots with a terse command and the group leave together through the apartment's door, Asuka leading them through the hallways while attempting to conceal the angry stiffness in her movements. Quite poorly, at that.

But that wasn't something Shinji was worried about, the misstep he had taken in the verbal minefield was far higher on his list of priorities. Shinji quickly rummaged through his mind, thinking about what he could do next and, eventually, he stumbled upon a possibility. A risky possibility, but one that maybe could go a ways towards fixing his mistake.

"Hey, umm... Asuka?" Shinji nervously began, recalling his conversation with Ace under the rain of the previous day. "I'm… sorry if I made you mad."

"...Mad? Pfft. Who's mad? I'm not mad, you idiot," Asuka very poorly deflected. "What are you on about now?"

"It's not about today. I was talking about when... about when Ayanami got hurt in the sim battle, remember?"

The alarm noises in the background intensified. Shinji heard Maisie giggle to herself.

"…It's fine," Asuka let out through gritted teeth after a pause. "Stop apologising about everything."

"No, it's not- I..." The Third Child stumbled, wondering if it had truly been a good idea to speak up. Nevertheless, Shinji closed his eyes and forced the rest of his words through. "You… know I would have said the same thing if it had been you, right?"

And not a second later, the warnings stopped.

-O]|[O-

"S-Stupid Shinji!"

"...Hmm? Princess? What's wrong?"

"Eh?!" Asuka jumped, frightened by the voice that had covertly materialised by her side. "W-What do you mean?! Nothing's wrong!"

"Really? Your face is all red," Mari smirked knowingly and pointed a finger at Asuka's cheeks. "And I could have sworn you muttered Sleeping Beauty's name, just now."

"I-I did not!"

"I also heard you say Ikari-kun's name, Second Child."

Asuka's defences faltered, and she glared at the First Child when she calmly passed by her other side. She always forgot just how keen Rei's senses were, how much information the blue haired girl tended to grab from the people around her. Had she not known any better, Asuka could have sworn that Rei Ayanami possessed some sort of spy training, or something along those lines.

And it was so damn infuriating how she always managed to catch her at her weakest.

"Oh, I know~!" Mari continued, her smile morphing into another shape. "I bet Princess was in fantasy land right now, imagining what it would feel like to kiss her one, true love! Or maybe you were thinking of taking things one step further! Gasp! So bold!"

"...What are you?" Asuka flatly replied, her eyes leaving no doubt of what she thought about Mari's theatrics. "Some sort of perverted old man?"

"Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk!" the Fifth Child laughed, actually trying her best at conforming to the title she had just been given. A mask that was gone very quickly, but that to Asuka's annoyance was exchanged with the Cheshire grin she had gotten to know so well. "But seriously, Princess: we've still got a bit of time to swing by the medical wing if your heart can't bear the separation."

"I said I'm good. Let's get moving."

With those words, the Second Child pressed forward, setting a blistering pace that was completely unnecessary for anyone but herself but that her two companions still followed without complaint. With almost an hour to spare, the trio reached the laboratories.

But unknown to Asuka, crimson eyes had been stuck to the back of her head the entire way.

-O]|[O-

"Wow, you girls are early today," Misato commented when she caught the trio make their way into the laboratories. "Itching to set the score straight, are we?"

"Damn right!"

"He, he! Princess is so enthusiastic!" Mari giggled after the fired-up Second Child. "You should try being like that at that other thing, too, you know? Might bring some results!"

"I don't know! Shut up, already!" Asuka quickly bit back. She then turned to regard the Major with what she hoped was a stance befitting of her new position, the snickering behind her making it extra hard for Asuka to keep her composure. "Is everything ready for the tests, Misato?"

Before they shifted towards her, Asuka thought she saw Misato's eyes linger on Mari for a second longer than necessary. She also looked sort of tired, like she'd had a bad night's sleep, so chances were that the Major was finding Mari's usual bullshit as entertaining as Asuka herself found it 99% of the time.

"We've still got some last minute adjustments to make, but you can start getting comfortable in your EVAs," Misato replied, motioning with a hand towards the catwalks. "We'll let you know when we're ready to start."

"Right," Asuka nodded her head in agreement and turned to point a finger at her two troops before she commanded them, using a very specific tone that Misato hadn't heard since quite a few weeks before, back in her apartment. "Alright, you two, follow me! We're going to talk some strategy!"

"Yes, ma'am~!"

And with a tired roll of her eyes, Asuka began to lead the way towards the EVAs, the contrasting energies of the First and Fifth Children chasing her just a step behind. Misato followed the trio with her eyes, her brow furrowed as her mind furiously compared the Pilots from that morning to the ones she had said good night to the previous evening.

"Someone's growing into the leadership position quite nicely." Ritsuko commented from the side, nose deep into some reports.

"...Yeah. I honestly didn't think our talk yesterday would work that well."

"Maybe it didn't," the scientist replied, reinforcing Misato's suspicions. "I also heard you had another interesting talk last night."

Misato stiffened, panicked eyes turning towards the head of Project-E as she pointed a frantic finger at the collar around her neck. After all, and while the explosive charge within currently lay dormant, the monitoring devices were still in perfect condition.

"Hey, Ritz!"

"Oh, I haven't forgotten, don't you worry. But one of our friends handed me one of these this morning," Ritsuko assured her as she motioned with her head to a small, circular device hidden within the folder in her hands. "It's a signal scrambler, so we should be able to talk freely without fear of Ikari finding out, so long as we don't use it too often or for too long."

"...You almost gave me a heart attack, you know?" Misato grumbled with a glare. "Are you trying to make yourself as bad as they are?"

"Perhaps," Ritsuko calmly replied with an unrepentant smirk. "I take it yesterday's wasn't an enjoyable midnight chat, then?"

"That's one way of putting it," Misato quietly scoffed, focusing her eyes on Mari's distant figure. She was cheerfully chatting with Asuka as the Second Child got ready to enter Unit-02. "How long have you known?"

"About the Fifth? I was the one who made it possible for her to get in, but I'm sure you figured that much out, already," Ritsuko explained with half her mind. "She was initially supposed to take Sohryu's place, but then Sohryu got better and messed up our plans. We improvised and gave her Unit-01, and while I'm still surprised that she managed to get it moving, I'm not complaining."

"And what's her objective here?"

"Beats me," Ritsuko shrugged. "She claims that she wants to make sure the Pilots are ready and willing to face off against SEELE when the time comes, but she hasn't said much more to me outside of that."

"They're keeping you in the dark?"

"About a lot of things, yes, need to know basis and all that. It doesn't help that the Fifth is probably fairly high on the pecking order of this operation and one cheeky brat, to boot," the Doctor muttered in a voice that was very close to annoyed, raising her eyes from the folder long enough to stare at the girl in question in the distance. "She appears to have free hand for independent action."

"Yeah, that's the impression I got, too," Misato agreed, her frown deepening. On the other side of the observation window, Asuka finished entering Unit-02 and Mari got ready to board her own EVA, but not before noticing the two women staring at her and sending them a happy wave. "There's definitely something wrong about that girl."

"I'd say. She's too damn lax for a supposed secret agent, especially for someone who I'd expect came out on the wrong side of Second Impact," with a shake of her head, Ritsuko brought her attention back to her documents. "Still, she gets the job done quite well. Her way of doing things even brings back memories of dealing with a certain someone."

"If you meant that as a compliment, it wasn't a very good one," Misato grumbled back. "How many of them are there in HQ?"

"Less than you think. I don't know the exact numbers, but I'd wager they aren't more than fifty."

"...What."

"Crazy, right?" Ritsuko smirked at her friend's stunned expression. "I thought the exact same thing when they first told me about the insertion numbers. I would think they have expanded on those a fair bit by now, but-"

"How can you be so calm?! They're planning a damn coup of one of the most fortified places on Earth with not even a company's worth of manpower!" Misato hissed, making doubly sure that they couldn't be overheard. "How many people will die? And what's to say that they won't mess up their SEELE countermeasures and get us all killed? How would they even-"

Misato paused, her mind quickly putting together all the facts she'd been told about in the last forty-eight hours. A few of them were starting to link together quite nicely, but the picture they painted wasn't a pretty one.

"...Shit, those things crawling all over HQ probably have something to do with this."

"The spiders?" Ritsuko replied, implying she had reached a similar conclusion. "I don't know much about them but, yes, it's quite likely that those are their ace in the hole. It might be a myth that people unconsciously swallow small arachnids in their sleep, but if the critters themselves have a directive to enter a person's digestive system..."

"...Just put a tiny vial of poison somewhere inside the damn thing and you've got the perfect tool for an assassination. Fuck. And with the sheer amount of those things running loose they could probably wipe out most of the base personnel in a single night if they wanted to."

"True. But I'd call that an unlikely scenario," the doctor continued. "Like you said, they don't have the necessary manpower to keep NERV-HQ running without suspicion by themselves."

"The idea that they could have the capacity to do something like that doesn't exactly endear me to them, anyway."

"Major Katsuragi, we're ready to start running the sims," Hyuga suddenly broke into their private conversation from his console. "Should I tell the Pilots?"

"...Yes, thank you Hyuga-kun," Misato agreed, swiftly shifting into her commander persona and hoping nothing would make it through the cracks. "Brief them on what we talked about: they'll do a series of one-vs-ones among themselves before we have them tackle yesterday's scenario again."

"...Roger that."

Misato's effort wasn't completely successful judging by the worried look that the young man cast at her, but it would have to do. Even without Misato's current communicative handicaps, the situation was getting far too convoluted and volatile for the bridge crewman to get involved unless completely and absolutely necessary. Besides, Hyuga had already dodged a bullet for helping her during the last Angel, so chances were that he had some extra eyes on his person, as well. He had done more than enough to help already, as far as Misato was concerned.

With a shake of her head, Misato pushed aside all the conspiracies for the moment and focused on the there and then, telling Ritsuko to end the jamming with a flick of her fingers.

"I hope your people know what they're doing, Ritz," the Major warned as her parting line. "For all of our sakes."