November 20th 2015, 21:35
It had been a week since her mistake, a whole week since the Third Child had decided to give her the silent treatment as a show of his displeasure. They still continued to work together, nominally at least, but it was clear that Shinji wasn't happy with her and the way in which he showed it had a way of forcing her attention towards him, like a moth to a flame. It was awkward and weird and distracting, and those were three out of three things that Ace really didn't like. In addition, the presence of such an elephant in the room affecting her focus was bound to begin having an effect on her work sooner rather than later.
And so it was that Ace stood up from her station that day, fed up and with her mind made up to put an end to the distractions, and walked over to Shinji and her sister just as they were about to head back to their stupid farm.
"Okay, that's enough!" she stated, grabbing the Third Child by the wrist. "You are coming with me!"
And before she could react, Ace moved Shinji and herself to a place far out of her reach, one that she had made sure to carefully prepare beforehand: a calming locale with green grass, healthy trees, a comfortable park bench and sights to a clear water lake. Letting go of the young man's wrist, Ace sat down on the bench and wordlessly waited for Shinji to do the same.
But her painstakingly concocted plan hit the first snag when he didn't. Shinji looked bewildered at the change of scenery for a few seconds, but then put on the same mask of indifference that he had been wearing the last seven days whenever he had been forced to interact with her. It was infuriating! Even the stupid Doll had gotten more smiles than she had!
...
...Not that she wanted those silly gestures, of course. To Ace it was all a matter of returning to their previously established status quo, the one that worked and didn't constantly make her feel like she had done something wrong.
Like right then. Shinji was looking expectantly in her direction, looking as stern as a teacher that had just caught a student breaking school rules. If the Third Child had just crossed his arms and begun to impatiently tap his foot he would have looked exactly the part, in fact.
'...Okay, so maybe the case could be made that I'm not entirely in the right, even if the jump in logic from there to assuming that I'm wrong is monumental and...' the Pilot nervously drummed her fingers, withering under the gaze of Ikari-sensei. '...Oh, screw it.'
"I'm sorry, alright? I did it without thinking," Ace apologised and looked away, almost as if it physically pained her to utter the words. "I thought it would be a nice way to get back at her, but I didn't stop to think about how it affected you."
The Pilot could feel Shinji's eyes almost boring a hole into her and got herself ready for the yelling that was sure to follow. After all, he had a justified cause to be angry at her and she had just decided to make herself look submissive. There was but a single way that could possibly end:
With a sigh, Shinji took a seat beside her.
"Apology accepted."
"...What?!" Ace turned at breakneck speed, shock written all over her face. "Just like that?"
"What do I gain from staying angry at you? It's not like that's going to make Ayanami and Makinami-san believe us. Still, I have one condition," Shinji raised a finger, the redhead almost hanging to his every word. "Try to get along with Asuka."
In a flash, Ace's face morphed to look like she had just eaten a piece of raw garlic.
"...You can start yelling at me now."
Shinji, in turn, failed to suppress a groan. "...What is it with you two?"
"You know what the problem is!" Ace angrily jumped up to her feet, pointing her finger in what looked to be a random direction. "She. Is. A moron!"
"Why? Because she told you something you didn't like?"
"Yes! But also because she's a walking disaster! Did she tell you about the two times she almost got Asuka killed? The ones which I, the EVA Pilot, could do nothing to stop? Because of her meddling?"
"Yeah, she did," Shinji nodded, trying to make it sound like he wasn't picking sides. "She felt pretty bad about it, too."
"Fat lot of good that does us!" Ace threw her arms up in the air. "Besides, you should know that those incidents are just the tip of the iceberg! If I really started talking there would be no end to it!"
"Okay, then I'll take your word for it," the Third Child conceded, redirecting the conversation. "But that's actually not what I wanted to talk about."
"What is it, then?"
"Why did you get so angry when Asuka argued with you about Piloting? When she mentioned maybe putting it aside a bit in the future?"
Shinji tried his best not to squirm under the heated glare that struck his person at that moment. Thankfully, though, Ace's disapproval didn't escalate any further.
"Isn't it obvious? EVA is the best thing that has ever happened to us," the redhead eventually replied, taking her seat once again. "It makes us important, irreplaceable. We would just be another face among millions without it."
"And that... would be bad?"
"Of course, no one would care about another random person in the world," Ace elaborated as if her words were the most obvious concept in creation. "We would be right back where we started."
'She's talking about that time in the graveyard, right? With her dad and... the little sister?' Shinji recalled, comparing what he saw to his own experiences with the Commander of NERV. A flash of his father talking to a smiling Ayanami flew through his mind, an echo of the nastiness he had felt at the time manifesting in his gut. '...I think I understand.'
That didn't mean that Ace was right, however.
"So..." Shinji began, bracing himself to ask another difficult question. "You mean that Horaki-san likes you because you're a Pilot?"
His argument appeared to take Ace off-guard, the redhead blinking and frowning before she grudgingly opened her mouth.
"…Fine, she's an exception."
"She doesn't have to be the only one."
The Pilot's frown turned into another full-blown glare, informing Shinji that he was walking a very fine line.
"Hey, Third," Ace growled. "Are you trying to piss me off? Because you're doing a great job."
"I'm not trying to do that! It's just-" Shinji put his hands up in surrender, re-thinking his strategy with a short sigh. "Okay, so you're telling me that you have no other interests outside of EVA? None at all?"
Again, Ace stared his way with suspicion but refrained from making good on her unspoken threat, likely because her recent attempt at making up with him was still fresh enough to grant Shinji some amount of protection.
Shinji couldn't have been more thankful for that.
With a small grunt, Ace reclined against her seat and appeared to ponder Shinji's question, falling silent for a few moments.
"...I guess I kinda like it when we do sports." Ace eventually admitted, unaware of the triumphant smile that grew on Shinji's face.
Finally, a breakthrough.
"Competitive sports?" Shinji knowingly suggested, trying not to make himself too obvious.
"Of course! Although stuff like hiking or swimming isn't bad, either," Ace shrugged, appearing contemplative for some more time before a small smile adorned her face. "...I've always wanted to try my hand at riding a bike, too. A big one."
"A red bike, right?"
"You bet! Feeling the engine roar between my legs, speeding through the roads and turning low to the ground! Breaking through the air like a bullet, being one with the machine!" Ace jumped up to her feet again, her voice growing more and more excited until she noticed Shinji staring curiously at her. "I mean... it doesn't compare to my Unit-02, but I guess something like that would be nice, yeah."
Ace quickly turned around to hide her embarrassment, staring at the nothing in the lake with extreme interest. A flustered look that made her look kind of cute, the Third Child wondered to himself, but just as he did so the redhead's face fell.
"...But I don't know if I'd be there to experience it." She quietly finished, observing the surface of the water.
There it was, the destination that Shinji had wanted to arrive to. He slowly stood up from his seat and walked to Ace's side.
"And why wouldn't you?"
"Because it would mean leaving EVA behind, and I am the embodiment of Asuka's pride as a Pilot, remember? If we're not a Pilot anymore then there will no longer be a need for me to stick around and so I'll just... stop existing, I guess."
"I'm not so sure about that. Even if it happened, I can't imagine Asuka completely forgetting about her Pilot years, just like that," Shinji gently countered. "Won't you just... transform or something?"
"Maybe I will, it's not like there's a written law on how stuff changes around here," Ace shrugged, conceding the possibility. "But what if I turn into one of those lesser Asukas instead? One that exists only for short periods of time and is completely ignorant of its own nature? Like the one that trashed HQ a while back?"
"Couldn't the same thing happen to Asuka or Maisie, then?"
"I don't think so," the redhead shook her head with an amused grunt. "For all of her idiocy, there is always a spot for optimism, dreams and wishful thinking, so that means that the brat is basically set for life no matter what we do. And with our history there's no way the stupid Doll is going anywhere, either. She might become more or less relevant in the future, but she's going nowhere either way." Ace fell silent, her focus on the tranquil waters still unbroken. "...I'm the only one with a possible expiration date."
Shinji looked curiously at Ace, comparing her latest words to the conversation he'd shared with his assistant a week ago. Their accounts were contradictory to say the least, but, to Shinji, it didn't appear like either of them was lying. Could the both of them have been wrong on their assessment?
No matter the cause, however, Shinji did realise something about Ace that she herself seemed to overlook.
"...So they're safe because they reflect important parts of Asuka's personality?" Shinji considered for the both of them. "But... aren't you the same?"
Ace blinked, foregoing her observation of the lake to stare at Shinji out of the corner of her eye.
"What do you mean?"
"Like... ambition, and competitiveness and pride. Stuff like that," he elaborated. "You're the one who has those, right? That's what it always looked like to me, anyway. It's why I never asked."
In a flash, Ace turned to face him. The redhead looked stunned, but it wasn't long before her shock was replaced with a thoughtful frown, as if Shinji had just shaken some sort of well-cemented belief.
"I'd..." she stammered, completely off-balance. "I'd never thought about it like that."
"Really?"
"Yeah," Ace faced the lake again, putting a hand to her chest. "I mean, I'm the EVA Pilot. I've always been the EVA Pilot, and I wanted to be the best because... it was an important job, we are important, and a lot of people rely on us. You can't half-ass the defence of the planet!
"...Or that's what I thought. But I'm the one who got excited when we practiced sports in Phys. Ed. I'm the one who got angry when we failed exams we could have easily aced because of the stupid Kanji! I'm the one who gets pissed when Misato calls us a child! I'm the one who likes it when you give it your all!"
A smile began to tug at the girl's mouth, slowly but steadily morphing into a euphoric grin. She looked at Shinji, the happiest that the Third Child had ever seen any Asuka Langley-Sohryu.
"I'm not going to disappear!"
And then she jumped forward, grabbing the unprepared young man in an unexpected and tight hug.
"Oh, thank you, Shinji! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"
They remained as such for a few seconds, Ace holding on to Shinji as if he was an oversized teddy bear, until the young man's gasps brought her back to her senses. Ace quickly jumped away from him as if he had suddenly caught fire, blushing fiercely.
"...Say anything about that and I'll kick your ass all the way to Mars."
"W-Why not Jupiter?" Shinji replied, his own face a strange mix of red and purple. "You have to be a-ambitious!"
Ace blinked, caught off-guard by the young man's playful remark.
"God, Third," she chuckled, amused. "Who are you and what have you done with Shinji Ikari?"
"Huh?"
"...And the spell is gone. Guess I'll have to very slowly explain it to you, then," Ace sighed with a roll of her eyes, sitting back on the bench. The Third Child followed her with attention. "You've changed a lot since you got stuck with us, Shinji. You wouldn't have been half... no, a tenth this smooth when you first arrived."
"Have I... really?"
"Oh, yeah. You sure have. I mean, you haven't apologised once this entire time! Why do you think that is?"
"...I don't know," Shinji frowned, realising that his reflexive response had indeed not reared its ugly head through the entire conversation. "I... guess it's easier to talk here. Knowing what I know."
"Yeah, I suppose knowing others have embarrassing secrets too would help," Ace shrugged in agreement, before raising a finger towards the young man. "In any case, save some of that newfound talent for when you're out of here and maybe some good things will end up happening to you."
"Sure...?"
"What's with the look?" Ace demanded with a smirk, prompting Shinji to go very still. "Oh, I get it. You're thinking 'Why is Ace giving me advice?', aren't you?"
"I... Yeah?"
"Well, it's obviously because you just helped me, so it's only natural that I help you a bit in return. I'm not planning on owing you anything, understand?" she elaborated, failing to suppress a giggle when Shinji visibly relaxed. She then grabbed hold of his wrist. "But that's enough talk for today, I think. We should probably head back to HQ now, or your guardian will have me for lunch."
And before Shinji could even speak, the both of them vanished. The stage that had been set up for their conversation remained behind, undisturbed, and would prevail as it was for still a few minutes more, until Ace remembered to tear it down and it returned to being an undeveloped area in the midst of Asuka's mind.
But prior to that, the grass would be flattened one more time. A red woollen dress appeared from out of nowhere at the edge of the lake, the legs of its owner pressing the green blades of grass against the ground, one fleshy and the other made of cloth.
Without a sound, Maisie turned her attention to the park bench that had been occupied a moment ago, her expression a stony neutral.
The Aspect observed, and she pondered.
-O]|[O-
December 1st 2015, 05:47
'So! Are you ready for your big moment?' the girl in the middle excitedly asked her. There were others, but they were shadowed, less defined, almost ethereal when compared to the definition of the young woman before her. Their forms were slumped forward, exhausted, defeated, while hers towered above them all, almost shining with confidence and determination.
'Is now really the best time for this? What about what happened just-'
'Of course it is! Now is the best time for it! Celebrations are the things that keep spirits flying!' she interrupted, effortlessly grabbing everyone's attention just like she always did. Slowly, a few of the slumped faces rose up to stare at her. 'So now that we've all remembered that, why don't you give us a big smile? You don't turn sixteen every day!'
The central figure's face turned to look in her direction as she asked the question and, through the haze, she could almost see her smile, kind and invigorating. Even then, however, her face remained enshrouded. A fact that had never changed in the hundreds of times that very scene had replayed within her dreams, and one that would remain as such for one more time as the Fifth Child slowly blinked awake from her slumber.
'What's up with that? That's the seventh in three days,' Mari frowned in thought, her eyes detachedly staring at the fairly familiar ceiling. 'It's never been this common.'
In the background, on the other hand, the Fifth Child could hear the all-too-common sound of fingers rapidly tapping against a keyboard at a speed that only a pair of people in NERV HQ could possibly pull off. The rapid typing remained a constant soundtrack to Mari's contemplation, the girl remaining awake but unmoving until she realised that no clear answer to the constant question that had plagued her mind as of late would be forthcoming. With a small sigh, Mari sat up on the couch and stretched her stiff limbs.
"Not getting enough rest, Fifth Child?" Ritsuko Akagi asked, the woman's attention never slipping from the terminal.
"...Understatement of the century," Mari replied at the same time that she failed to stifle a yawn. "I don't need much sleep, but my current schedule is killing me."
"So I hear. Still, I wish you would not catch up with said schedule on my couch."
"Can't be helped, Doc. I have to be ready if I'm needed and sneaking out of the room a second time would be a pain. Hell, sometimes I get the feeling that Ayanami is already wising up on me."
"Those sleeping herbs I gave you should be more than enough to incapacitate most people but, even then, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if she did," Ritsuko concurred, focusing back on her work. "In any case, what was tonight's emergency?"
"A false alarm. What we thought could have been Ikari making a move turned out to be just a janitor doing some business on the side," Mari explained with a shrug. "We're still monitoring him, just in case, but that's probably going to be the end of that."
"A relief, I gather?"
"Sort of but not really," the Fifth Child grunted. "I mean, Ikari has not done much of anything to counter us so far, which is worrying in and of itself."
"I recall your superiors thinking the Commander completely harmless."
"And we don't think he could stop us, that much is true. We expected he would at least try to, though. There is no way he doesn't know someone's invaded his fortress by now."
"Especially considering the current team building efforts involving the First Child," Ritsuko concurred, giving Mari a curious look out of the corner of her eye. "How did you manage to get his agreement on that?"
"He didn't agree. As far as he knows the First Child is just doing some extra simulation training to improve her combat performance. There is no mention of the shared quarters or the intent of improving the camaraderie in the squad," Mari continued, a wide smirk appearing on her face. "And since his usual routine never brings him to the training exercises or Ayanami's personal quarters we're expecting that he will remain none the wiser for a loooong time to come."
"I expected as much. Katsuragi agreed to help you, then?"
"Nah. She proposed her plan exactly as it's working right now, and regularly reports back to Ikari, just as she's been ordered to," the Fifth Child replied with some distaste. "It's just that the written reports that she sends out and the ones that appear before Ikari's eyes are not exactly one and the same."
The tapping of Ritsuko's fingers against the keyboard slowed to a stop, and the blonde doctor visibly pondered the meaning of Mari's words. She turned towards the Fifth Child after a few seconds, a frown decorating her features.
"What do you mean?"
"Curious, are we?" Mari teased, before quickly identifying Ritsuko's look as one that didn't care much for games. The girl made herself comfortable, her explanation starting soon after. "Well, I'm paraphrasing here, but the way I understand it, we're modifying Katsuragi's reports in the interval between her sending them out from her terminal and the files arriving at Ikari's. A few seconds tops, with the timestamps also modified so that everything appears legit."
"...You mean that you're hacking into and tweaking files travelling within HQ's Intranet? Travelling through the MAGI?" Ritsuko repeated, a look of sheer shock making it through her usual professionalism. "Even if you might have taken over a sizable part of the MAGI, that's still... not even I could do something like that, and I know the system inside and out."
"I don't know, I'm not tech-savvy enough to say if you're on the mark or not. I hear Arthur's pretty proud of his handiwork, though," Mari replied with a careless shrug. "As much as he can be, anyway."
Ritsuko opened her mouth to ask another question, but her words were interrupted by a short jingle from the computer, indicating that whatever operations the doctor had ordered the machine to carry out had apparently just finished. In a flash, Ritsuko swerved her chair around and began to pore over the information she had been presented with, their previous conversation appearing all but forgotten as the older woman's scientific drive prompted her to try to find a solution to the day's dilemma. Almost faster than Mari could see, Ritsuko read and analysed the results and discarded useless report after irrelevant bits of data.
Until she stopped. From her seat over at the couch, Mari could see Ritsuko suddenly begin to cycle through a handful of files, comparing data and specific reports as a thoughtful look began to grow on her face. She then opened a different program and ran the files she had chosen through it, the results soon coming out as some sort of images. A few more comparisons and Ritsuko's mouth compressed into a thin line, before she beckoned to the Fifth Child with her free hand.
"Makinami, you should come see this."
With another shrug, Mari stood up and did as she had been told. Whatever Ritsuko had found was bound to be less boring than sitting around and watching other people work, so in just a pair of seconds the Fifth Child was behind the doctor and staring over her shoulder.
"...Okay. What am I looking at, Doc?"
"These are synch-test recordings from a while back. They're from what was supposed to be Sohryu's final synchronisation with Unit-02," Ritsuko leant back on her seat, allowing Mari a better look at the screen. "Tell me, what do you see?"
The screen showed a bunch of lines travelling from top to bottom, occasionally intersecting and swapping places with each other. Mari quickly noticed that they looked remarkably similar to the sonar readings on a submarine, only about ten times as cramped.
"I see plenty of squiggly lines."
"Those lines measure the brain activity of the Pilot, they're one of the tools we use to ensure that everything is going as it should during the tests," Ritsuko tapped two fingers on the keyboard and a different image showed up. "Now, look at these readings, taken from a test two months ago."
"I'd say it's mostly the same, just a bit clearer." The Fifth Child replied after a quick look.
"Very good," Ritsuko complimented, reaching towards a third file with some more dramatic flourish than strictly necessary. "Now look at this last recording."
The display shifted and Mari frowned, concentrating on the new image that Ritsuko had presented to her. It showed many more lines than either of its two cousins had, enough that they almost completely filled the entire screen, but the Fifth Child still managed to succeed at finding some common ground between the three.
"...I can identify the original lines in there, but there's a lot more in this one. Did Asuka have a busy thought day or something, or is this the background noise I've heard so much about? When is this from?"
"The synch-test before you first activated Unit-01," Ritsuko replied, using the cursor to fiddle with the display options at the top. "As for your other question, let me get Sohryu's readings out of the picture for a second."
The doctor clicked on a few filtering options and a sizable chunk of the contents within the image disappeared. What remained were roughly half of the original lines, readings that were remarkably tamer than anything Mari had seen so far.
"Very neat and organised..." she mouthed to herself, putting the information together. "Asuka's were a lot more chaotic in comparison."
"The Second Child has a troubled history with keeping her focus during extended periods of time. She calls it boredom, but I'm more of the opinion of her suffering from a measure of Attention Deficit Disorder, an opinion that I've obviously kept to myself. As such, Maya did the sensible thing at the time and dismissed the extra information as background noise, all too common for Sohryu, especially given recent events," Ritsuko turned her head, giving the Fifth Child a meaningful look. "Needless to say, however, there is actually much more to these readings than that."
"And I'm going to go on a limb here and say that the reason you're making me look at this is because those lines match up with someone we both know."
"Correct," Ritsuko very calmly confirmed. "It's not a perfect match, but the 'background distortions' are strikingly similar to the mental wave-length of Shinji Ikari."
Her words prompted the Fifth Child to stare at her like she had just grown a second head.
"...You're kidding, right?"
"I am not. This isn't nearly enough information to prove definite, but it does provide enough support for a believable hypothesis," Ritsuko turned to look at the younger woman with no small degree of amusement, probably happy for being the one to dish out the important revelations for once. "Why are you so surprised? I'll admit that what you described two days ago was nowhere near the top in my personal list of explanations, but we have seen the Angels do stranger things before."
"Must be a lack of habit. I wouldn't have taken so long in letting you know otherwise," Mari grumbled back. "Anyway, you're telling me that all those times that Asuka was spacing out she was actually talking to Ikari? Man, she must have been going at it for a while to make it look so normal from the outside," the Fifth Child paused, her eyebrows shifting closer together. "…Which begs the question, why didn't she come talk to you first thing, then? Putting aside the enormous help that would have been for diagnosing Ikari, I know I'd be freaking out if I started to hear voices in my head…"
Mari trailed off, eventually noticing the look that Ritsuko was giving her. It was somewhere between amused and annoyed.
"…Oh, right. She hates your guts." The Fifth Child remembered, sheepishly bringing a hand to scratch at the back of her head.
"Not only that, considering her... family history, I wouldn't be surprised if the Second Child dismissed whatever initial signs of her possible cohabitation with the Third as the same symptoms her mother showed after her failed contact experiment. That's hardly information that she would be inclined to share," Ritsuko elaborated, her expression turning distant for a second. Whatever thoughts she was having were quickly squashed under her professional mask, however. "Nevertheless, the possibility that the Second and Third Children might be communicating in some manner is not an assumption that we should jump to, we should instead gather more information in order to produce a proper assessment. I'll get started on an extra battery of tests for the upcoming days that will focus on the both of them and hopefully give us some headway into that," the doctor turned her attention back to her terminal, speaking to Mari with half a mind as she got back to work. "On your end, you should try and see if you can surreptitiously trip Sohryu into admitting something."
"Sure thing," the Fifth Child scoffed at the idea. "'Hey, Princess! Did you tell your Sleeping Beauty that you love him yet?' Think that line will work, Doc?"
"It might be better to make it a bit less overt," Ritsuko calmly replied, not taking the bait. "The Second Child's birthday is coming up. You could use that event to our advantage."
"Oh, right. December the fourth, wasn't it?" Mari murmured to herself, recalling the reports before she remembered the quickly fading fragments of her dream. "...A birthday, huh?"
"Is something wrong?"
"...No, just thinking of how to best organise things," Mari quickly deflected Ritsuko's offhanded worry. She then took a quick look at her watch, turning towards the door with a grandiose wave. "But that's all my time for tonight! Thanks for the idea, Doc. I'll get back to you with what I learn."
Her shenanigans were barely registered by the owner of the apartment. As the door closed, the lights stayed on in what would be yet another sleepless night for Ritsuko Akagi, but one that the doctor actually didn't mind that much, for a change. After all, the mystery that she had just decided to unravel was one worth pursuing.
For many different reasons.
-O]|[O-
December 2nd 2015, 14:25
A finger restlessly tapped against the Plug's armrest, the rubbery material of the pink plugsuit covering it dulling the sound of the rhythmic contacts into a series of quiet thuds. Having her nail exposed would have likely produced a sound far more pleasing to the ears but, in any case, it wasn't like Mari Makinami cared much for the lacking acoustics of the soundtrack she was absent-mindedly creating.
She was far too bored and annoyed for that, stuck in an Entry Plug for the better part of three hours and all for a test that wasn't even meant for her to begin with. She was just along for the ride, offering a bit of plausible deniability to Asuka's irritated demands while Akagi tried to figure out the Ikari dilemma, a situation that gave her plenty of time to busy herself with her own thoughts, and one that Mari had planned to use to lay the groundwork of her next important task for the coming days. Her efforts so far had been severely unrewarding, however, because the Fifth Child had a single, tiny problem hindering her progress:
She had never thrown a birthday party before. Or, at least, she could not recall having ever done so, especially for someone as picky and ambivalent as Asuka. Every idea she came up with had been swiftly discarded for one reason or another, and not even several combinations of the single ideas she had thought of had been deemed good enough. The Fifth Child was nearing the end of her wit, and all for a problem that, in the grand scheme of things, shouldn't have mattered much at all.
But it did matter, at least to Mari. She couldn't quite explain to herself just why it did, however.
"It's probably due to the same reason why you have taken to calling her 'Asuka' instead of 'Sohryu' or 'Second', like you used to do."
Mari blinked in surprise, not having expected the soul within Unit-01 to speak up. Yui Ikari usually kept to herself, allowing a modicum of synchronisation but limiting their uneasy alliance to that, and while Mari didn't mind the sudden conversation, she did care quite a bit about Ikari reading into her mind.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to pry, but I can only do so much to avoid brushing against your thoughts when you're being this loud about it," Ikari continued, placating. "I understand you're having trouble organising a birthday party? It's not the busywork I'd expect of someone with your background, but I could help you, if you want."
'I must look really lost if the ghost of a person with only a few years of practical experience in birthday celebrations is taking pity on me.' The girl thought with a quiet chuckle.
"You do look fairly miserable, yes. But in any case, some experience is better than no experience, wouldn't you say?" Ikari calmly replied, Mari rolling her eyes at the verbal jab. "Besides, you just told me at the start of this farce of a test how Akagi the younger and yourself may have managed to identify my Shinji's problem, unexpectedly intriguing as it may be. I just thought offering some advice on your current dilemma could be a way of repaying that favour."
Mari considered Yui's words for a few moments. She had already hinted that more support towards their joint operations could be a nice way of working out whatever debts that existed between them, but refrained from voicing that opinion again. Ikari surely remembered, and if she had not already jumped at the opportunity there was likely no point in reminding her.
Besides, Mari could really use her expertise with that damn party.
'…Alright, fine. Pretty sure I'm way beyond the point where I could claim to do this on my own, anyway, and it's not like Bluebird's going to be much help,' she admitted with a sigh. 'What can you tell me?'
"Nothing concrete yet. I need to know what your friend is like before I can help you. I have a few flashbacks and memories from Shinji to do some guesswork with, but I wouldn't be a good advocate of the sciences if I didn't prefer to have all the information I can gather."
'That's fine by me,' Mari agreed, struggling to hide her amusement. 'But I can't help but think that what you're asking for sounds a bit like a convenient excuse to scout your son's crush.'
"…I'll admit that I have some personal interest in her, yes."
'Well, then you better take some notes because there's a ton of information to share.'
Mari took a moment to organise her information before telling the soul within Unit-01 everything that she had managed to learn about Asuka Langley-Sohryu, albeit without going too deeply into matters that could have been deemed too personal: she told Yui about the contact experiment that had followed her own and its consequences, particularly on the crippling effects that it had on the young Asuka's development. From there, the rise of the Second Child's issues with adequacy and the measures she had taken to try and remedy them over the years were a simple connection to make, although Mari did try to embellish the harsh truth a little bit by mentioning some of her teammate's stronger points.
At the end of her explanation, however, the Fifth Child could tell that Yui Ikari was still less than impressed.
'Yeah, I know how it sounds. I could barely stand her the first few days, too. The constant need to always let you know she should be up there is really grating, and I probably would have given her a piece of my mind if not for the fact that it would have sabotaged my job,' Mari finished while she gave the smallest of shrugs, careful not to catch Ibuki's attention. 'But she's a good kid at heart. I can tell by now. And let's be fully truthful here, it's not like your son is exactly well-adjusted either, you know?'
"None of that justifies some of the things I have seen and heard from Shinji."
'No, it doesn't. I'm just saying we all have issues we have to come to terms with, that's all,' Mari continued, her voice growing a bit barbed. 'Some of us desperately try to find our worth in whichever way we can and some others want to use all means necessary to become an undying monument to the memory of humanity.'
She paused for a second, until Mari noticed the feeling of Ikari almost growling at herself. She continued with a knowing smirk.
'Besides, I'm not buying for a second that it was all bad.'
"True, it wasn't. Like I said, she is pretty and obviously adept at leveraging that fact for her own gain. Even then, I'll admit to having caught a few heart-warming scenes among the blot," Ikari replied, clearly still cross. "But I don't believe those make up for the amount of bias you seem to have. At all."
'Hey, I don't care either way, honestly. I'd prefer it if the both of them got through this entire thing reasonably healthy because kids shouldn't be dealing with the kind of crap that they've had to, but everything else is an extra,' the Fifth Child countered. 'Just because I'm a sucker for happy endings, you know?'
"Of the kind you didn't get?"
Despite herself, Mari couldn't help the sharp intake of air that followed Ikari's question, the amicable smile that had been decorating her face up to that point freezing in place.
'Careful there, Mrs. Ikari. You're playing with fire,' she warned. 'I don't know what you saw, but I don't see how it could have anything to do with what we were talking about.'
"I just thought that there could have been some correlation between your recent endearment to Asuka Langley-Sohryu and the glimpses of 'Saya' I haven't been able to avoid."
'It's got nothing to do with that. And I thought I told you to stay the fuck out of my brain.'
"I also remember telling you that is something I can't help, to some degree," Yui replied, ever coolly. "But that was an awfully defensive reaction you just showed. Are you certain you don't want to share more? Psychology is one of my strong points, I'll have you know."
'I'm as sure of that as what I would do to your neck if you weren't a damn ghost.' Mari snarled, giving Yui pause for a few moments.
"...Duly noted." She replied, backing down.
'Good,' the Fifth Child continued, her speech easily shifting back to its usual casualness. 'Let's get back to the main topic, yeah?'
"Very well," Ikari soberly accepted the olive branch. "As far as your problem goes, I would advise against throwing a lavish celebration. You might think it a good idea due to Sohryu's tendency to aim high, but doing so would run the risk of triggering some of her insecurities. She might believe you are mocking her; a small, friendly celebration would likely work best, considering there is a high possibility she has never celebrated her birthday with friends, before."
'Yeah, I was already thinking of something along those lines. My issues are more in how to organise the entire thing. People, food, activities. That kind of stuff.'
"The former and latter I can't help you with, you surely know far more about her social circle and the things she likes than I do. As for the food..." Yui trailed off, considering a few of the possibilities. "Do you know how to cook? Good enough to maybe bake a cake, or something similar?"
'I know how to make practical stuff,' Mari replied, a bit embarrassed. 'But the fancier dishes don't see much use in my line of work, and I don't have a sweet tooth.'
"I see," the phantom acknowledged, amused but not critical. A giggle that made the Fifth Child purse her lips followed before Yui's speech took on an almost motherly tone, causing the girl to blink in surprise. "Then this is what you need to do."
-O]|[O-
Asuka stared at the feed from Unit-01 through a half-closed eye. She had opened the channel on a whim some ten minutes ago, intending to talk to Mari for a bit as a way to pass the time, but had stopped herself from speaking when she noticed the other girl with her eyes closed, at peace and looking almost as if she were asleep. Asuka had been about to close the channel again when the pilot of Unit-01 began to stir, the girl's face shifting this and that way for a while, very little at first, but getting more and more noticeable during the last two minutes. Had it not been for her eyes opening, Asuka would have said that Mari was having some kind of bad dream, but since she was obviously not asleep the Second Child's mind quickly jumped to different conjectures.
'It almost looks like… she's listening to someone talk?' Asuka wondered to herself with a grunt. 'Don't tell me she has someone stuck in her head, too.'
"I... guess it could be possible?"
'Yeah, but let's not jinx it, Third. It's probably just some comm from the bridge meant for her ears only.'
Snapping out of whatever thoughts she was having, Mari finally noticed the orange square with a redhead inside of it that was floating in her HUD and happily waved in her direction. Asuka found herself blinking in surprise, her own hand going up into an awkward greeting before she could put conscious thought into stopping it, an action that only made the Fifth Child grin wider.
"Sohryu-san, your mind is wandering a bit," Ibuki's voice suddenly broke the spell, startling Asuka into putting her hand back on the controls with more force than entirely necessary. "Please, focus."
"Yeah, yeah..." Asuka sighed with a groan, cutting off the feed to Unit-01 and closing her eyes. "I'm focusing again, for another two hours... Gods. Why don't you kill me, already?"
"There, there, Sohryu-san. I know it's tiring, but keep it up and we will be finished before you know it!"
Asuka was very much doubtful of Ibuki's optimism, but kept her scathing comeback to herself. She likely wouldn't have done the same for the glasses-tech or the one who belonged in a rock band, but there was something about Akagi's mousy assistant that made it hard to be angry at her. Probably the fact that she looked and acted sort of like Shinji.
"Who looks a bit like me?"
'No one!' Asuka quickly replied, cheeks flaring up. 'And be quiet! You're ruining my focus!'
-O]|[O-
'Leave it to cool for some time, and that's it,' Mari repeated as she finished writing her mental checklist. 'Okay, I got all of that. Thanks for the pointers, Mrs. Ikari.'
"It was my pleasure. And... I'm sorry, I was out of line, before," Yui apologised, sounding genuinely remorseful. "Years of being inside the EVA have left me out of touch with social pleasantries and limits."
'It's fine, it's been years since I stopped giving a damn about social convention, too,' Mari replied, waving her concern away. 'Just don't do that again. I don't expect us to be friends, but I'd prefer it if I didn't need to be constantly on guard around you.'
"That sort of agreement would probably suit us both best, yes," the phantom promptly concurred, before she went silent for a moment. "...Can I ask you a question, however? Pertaining to this 'Saya'?"
'You have a funny way of sticking to your word, Mrs. Ikari.'
"It is simple curiosity. Feel free to not answer if you don't want to," Yui explained as a means of appeasement and, after a few seconds of silence, the soul within Unit-01 saw the lack of a reply as an invitation to go on. "I couldn't help but notice that, in spite of the central spot that this person seems to hold in most of the scenes she is a part of, there is a remarkable lack of definition as far as how she looked like. I also have failed to notice any indicators that may have shed some light on who this person was to you which, for someone as important as she appears to be I find... strange, to say the least. I was wondering if you have the answer as to why that may be."
A soft and very short chuckle escaped Mari.
'Oh, I do have an answer for you, if you don't mind it being disappointing,' the Fifth Child replied. 'The reason you can't tell who she was… is because I have no clue who she was.'
"Truly?"
'Truly,' Mari continued. 'I'll admit that some bits of my memory have gotten clearer these past few weeks, but I still can't tell anything. Maybe she was family, or a friend or a lover or something, I don't know. The only thing I remember... or actually, feel, is that 'Saya' was important to me.'
"...'Was'?" Yui echoed, hesitantly. "You have reason to believe this person is gone?"
'...Yeah, it's likely,' the girl tersely replied. 'And let's just leave it at that.'
"Oh. I'm sorry if I brought up painful memories."
'No worries, you couldn't do that even if you tried your hardest,' Mari calmed Yui down with a mental shrug, before an idea suddenly sprang to her mind. A small smirk grew on the Fifth Child's face. 'And, well, since I indulged your curiosity, as much as I could, anyway, why don't you do the same? It's only fair, isn't it?'
"...I suppose, for a measure of 'fair'," Yui agreed, the sensations at the back of Mari's mind letting her know that the spirit thought of her proposal as anything but. "Very well, what would you like to know? More about what happened with me and SEELE before my contact experiment, I presume?"
'Actually, no. I'd like you to tell me a bit more about you and the Commander.'
"...About me and Gendo?" Yui echoed, surprise clear in her voice. "I don't mind, but why?"
'It is simple curiosity,' Mari replied, quoting Yui word for word. 'What did one of the greatest minds of the last two centuries see in a man like him?'
The sensation at the back of the Fifth Child's mind quickly shifted into one of stern disapproval.
"I don't think I like you talking about Gendo like he was a man far beneath me."
'Fair enough, I guess I could have worded that better. But I'm not saying he didn't have something going for him, you don't just waltz into Kyoto U., after all,' Mari half-apologised. 'From what I've read, though, you can't tell me that you're not a pretty mismatched pair. You only need to look at the amount of people who yet affirm he married you only for your connections.'
"'People' will always talk without knowing, it's a basic social defect tainting the entire human race," Yui replied, the way she almost bit out the words making it clear that the Fifth Child's claim wasn't new to her ears. "But I knew Gendo Rokubungi, inside and out. I understood what made him who he was, good, bad and everything in between, and I chose to love him. Just as he chose to love me."
'A bit too much, I'd say.'
"A man cannot be faulted for refusing to give up the only scraps of love he believes to have ever received, even if that perception is entirely wrong," Yui continued, her words becoming melancholic. "He is, perhaps was now, quite a sweet person, even if barely anyone could tell. I wish I'd tried harder to teach him how to accept that lovely part of himself."
'...Yeah, a bit of a shame. Could have saved us and your son a lot of trouble.'
"For you, perhaps. But I don't think it would have changed anything for Shinji. After all, I know that Gendo loves Shinji with all his heart. Of that, I'm certain."
'He has a funny way of showing it, then.'
"He was never the most gifted of parents, that much is true, but that was not due to a lack of trying on his part. I suppose the prospect of raising Shinji on his own, coupled with his apparent obsession with bringing me back, proved too much for him. Hence, why he did what he did.
"But perhaps that was for the best. If Gendo had decided to try and introduce a young Shinji to his plans for bringing me back, try and keep what remained of our family together and focused on a shared objective, it might not have worked entirely to our son's benefit," Yui elaborated, clinically analysing the actions of her own family. "Distancing himself from Shinji also kept SEELE from being tempted to use his own son as leverage against him. In truth, and while I realise it must be horrible for Shinji, I struggle to find fault with Gendo's logic."
'Guess we'll never know, then,' Mari off-handedly acknowledged, finding herself not liking the direction the conversation had taken, for some reason. 'What else can you tell me about the Gendo Rokubungi you knew?'
"I can tell you that he composed the most beautiful poems."
'Wait, what?' Mari barely managed to keep her surprise from manifesting as a double-take.'Poetry? Gendo Ikari?'
"Yes, Gendo always had a way with words in writing. It was one of the few things he always took pride in, in fact," Yui reaffirmed herself, her clinical tone leaving room for nostalgic warmth. "He made it a point to compose a new poem for me each week, and he did so for about as long as I knew him."
'That's a... hard thing to picture. I guess you really can't judge a book by its cover,' the Fifth Child blinked, still reeling from the shock. A new development for her previous idea then occurred to her. '...Hey, did you have a favourite?'
"Oh, yes, 'I Promise'," Yui's answer was swift, not even needing a second to think about the question. "I made Gendo recite that one hundreds of times."
'Any special reason why?'
"Yes, it is the one that he composed for the day of our wedding," Yui responded, the warmth at the back of Mari's mind reaching a climax. "Do you want to hear it?"
'Sure! Now I'm really curious.'
Patiently waiting for Yui to begin speaking, the Fifth Child made herself comfortable in her seat, and it wasn't long after she did that Mari found herself feeling some sympathy towards the phantom, even if her own reasons for asking a recital had been completely selfish in nature and meant to help her advance her own mission. In spite of how much pain the actions of Gendo Ikari and his wife had brought and could yet bring, as she listened to a lonely woman recite a poem that brought memories of better days past, Mari could tell that they loved each other dearly. It was as obvious as the sun.
After all, and even after more than a decade of self-imposed solitary confinement that would have likely turned any lesser woman insane, Yui Ikari was still able to recite her husband's dearest gift by heart.
A/N: Sorry for the out of schedule update. I've been busy updating the main story itself this weekend and between that and work I haven't been able to afford the time for an editing pass on this chapter until now. I hope the slightly longer wait was all worth it, at least. :)