Inosuke
"Talk to me, man," Inosuke groaned. He seemed to have no control over his own muscles. The pain hit in spasms, tightening his muscles into iron cords. His fingers would gnarl around the side of the bed, threatening to crunch the metal.
He wouldn't die. That much was certain. But the pain was different. It wasn't some noble scar from a battle. The scars of his own serrated blades were deep. He'd been torn from an accident after the battle ended. It felt bizarre to be laid up because of such a random event.
He'd had lengthy recovery times. Weeks and months had passed of soreness during the Demon Corps days. These spasms were different. When he fought with the Demon Slayer Corps, his worst recovery concern had been working his strength back up. Now, there was no Muzan he had to face. There weren't other comparable warriors to which he compared himself. There was no telling what form the next Angel would take. One might come against which he could do nothing, even if he were at top strength.
Not only that, for the first time, Inosuke thought about accidents. It now seemed like a miracle the debris didn't kill him when that shiny flying Angel attacked. Rocks had flown in every direction, the size and shape that might have knocked out Tanjiro.
Tanjiro was only knocked out. Sure, he was asleep. There might not be any sign of him waking up any time soon… and his pulse might be so low that it was hard to call him alive… but he'd wake up. Something like this could never take out Tanjiro.
Right?
"Tanjiro…" Zenitsu mumbled.
"Oi!" Inosuke barked. "Talk to me, man! What's happening to him?"
The last Inosuke saw his friend, he was being rushed into another room as bandages were applied to his head. Inosuke hadn't left his own hospital bed since he was brought in.
Zenitsu shook his head. He seemed not to notice the tears that flowed down his face as he hobbled back and forth on his crutches. "This can't be real. It's not real. Tanjiro is fine."
Suddenly, he snapped to the door. "I'm going back. I'm not leaving him alone."
"Wait." Misato's order would have silenced the room if Inosuke could contain his spasmodic grunts. Both boys turned to her, one remembering his place, and the other loathing it. Misato stood tall, arms folded, beside the door.
"Get yourself together, Zenitsu," Inosuke grunted. "Shinji's guarding Tanjiro. He won't let anything happen." Zenitsu's hand smacked over his face at the idea. Misato seemed unphased.
Seeing her looking down seriously at Zenitsu made Inosuke realize something: her real job was wrangling kids. Shinji was a good kid, but he was a coward. He'd lay down and die if he didn't have someone to prod him along. Or worse, he might do something selfish. She also had to deal with the other pilots.
Pain struck. Inosuke's core seemed to turn to stone, tightening so hard he thought the muscles would never untwist. He wailed.
Misato approached. She took the pill and water that lay on the table beside him. "Take this. It'll help with the pain."
"Don't do it!" Zenitsu screamed. "She's with Nerv. They want us all dead."
Inosuke tried to look calm, but he'd never felt so off-balance in his life. His mask lay beside him, clean but still reeking of blood. Sweat rolled down him as he struggled with the flashes of pain. He'd never looked less impressive in his life.
Still, he held Misato's harsh gaze. "A warrior never—"
"Don't be a bitch, Inosuke."
Silence.
A seethe of pain morphed into a look of shock. Even Zenitsu shut up.
She grabbed his hand, shoved the pill into it, and said, "Don't give me that bullshit about 'nobly enduring the pain'. The longer you stretch out this recovery, the longer we're susceptible to Angel attack. The longer you waste my time, the longer I am prevented from doing my job. Take the pill."
Inosuke couldn't even blink. "I'm not a bitch," he said, swallowing the pill dry.
Zenitsu screamed. "Why'd you do that? That was a stupid idea!"
They ignored him. Misato stepped back, returning to her official posture. "Now, finally, let's debrief. Inosuke, tell me exactly what you saw in the room with many Reis."
He explained everything he saw.
Shinji
The Third Child sat by the comatose Tanjiro. He did everything possible not to look at the boy who'd begun teaching him kendo. The layers of bandages about his head did little to conceal the indent in his skull. It seemed wrong to see him with that plastic mask on his mouth. Countless wires were attached to him, making him some strange hybrid of person and machine.
"Wake up, please," Shinji said, wringing his hands.
As he sat there, tapping his foot anxiously, Asuka rolled her eyes. "Really, I don't get why you're all making such a big deal of this. We killed two Angels didn't we? I thought I did a really good job taking out that monster in the volcano."
Shinji said nothing. It seemed smart to retreat. He fell into himself. Unlike usual, however, he drew a line within himself. He was here on Inosuke's request. He was to stand guard over Tanjiro. Nerv was not allowed to try any strange experiments. Shinji would stand guard. He had no idea what he'd do if people came to take Tanjiro, but he would struggle.
For once, he didn't consider running away.
They'd known each other only a short time, but already, Shinji missed the boy with the scar on his face. He wanted to have another lesson in that traditional style of dance. He wanted to practice basic sword techniques. He wanted to see Tanjiro smile.
Asuka continued, "I mean, I was the one inside a volcano, but we all did a great performance. Nobody in this country appreciates us. Everyone is worried because of these Slayer guys. Big deal, I say. Yeah, it sucks that it happened like this, but that's what you get for going into a battlefield without armor. If it were up to me, we'd honour the great fighters instead of worrying about the idiots who didn't have any protection. Maybe it's a Japanese thing. Why do you all sleep on the floor, anyway? I should have a bed. Instead, I was stuck on some cheap futon."
Shinji said nothing. Asuka didn't seem to matter. She was a co-worker who'd been transferred from another department.
"Come on!" she stomped. "Why are you acting like he was the only important person in all of Nerv? He's going to be fine. Besides, we all know the risk. It's not like he's anything spe—"
"Hey, Asuka," his face tilted up. There was no inflection in his voice. A white-hot fury built within him. He hated how selfish she was being. She was ignoring so much. Tanjiro wasn't the most important. He was part of the team. Inosuke or Zenitsu could be there, and he'd feel just as bad.
Not only that, but it couldn't be more obvious that Asuka was fishing for attention. It was easy to hate that kind of attitude. So, Shinji hated it. Yet, he was still hiding deep within himself. The fury and annoyance was an outside force, something lost somewhere within the vacuum of space that was Shinji's mind.
"What do you want?" Asuka asked. The way she stood annoyed him: stance wide, hands on hips. It was like nothing was good enough if it didn't demand attention. She even breathed in a way that said 'look at me! Love me! Behold me!'
A cold, dead voice emerged from Shinji's mouth. "You're really selfish. If you're just going to be tasteless around my friend, please go away."
"Huh?" She stomped toward him. "What's that, idiot? Don't tell me what to do?" She slapped him.
Shinji had retreated so far he almost saw the hit more than he felt hit. His vision turned in accordance with the direction his face followed her hand. The smack was a mild annoyance. The idea that she was so immature that she struck out like a child bothered him.
"Don't hit me." Something within him shifted. The anger came a little closer to the surface.
"Oh?" she smirked, as if she found a winning card to play. "The big brave Third Child doesn't like it when a girl hits him. You should be proud, I think, that a beautiful warrior genius should think you're worth touching."
Shinji said nothing.
Asuka stood in front of him, with her chin in the air. Perhaps she was waiting for him to say something. Whatever he might have said, she would have pounced on it. Maybe that was her thing, he thought. Maybe she could only raise herself by bringing down others. Soon, she became frustrated. Her upturned chin lowered to stare down at her fellow pilot. "Come on, brat. What's wrong with you?"
The Third Child heard his words as if he were a witness. It didn't feel as if he were the one speaking them. "You're disrespectful and you're a narcissist. Please go away if you won't even try to understand what's—"
She slapped him.
The dams seemed ready to burst. Blind anger, the frustration of a lonely kid, shifted to Asuka. His general hatred of the world now had a target. He stood. The suddenness of his motion startled her.
Anger and adrenaline took over. There was no plan. He just wanted to hurt her.
Suddenly, Gendo Ikari entered the room. "What's going on?"
With that sentence, Shinji's energy vanished.
Asuka turned and recovered. "Well, maybe you can beat some sense into him." She huffed and marched out of the room. "The boy's got no appreciation of talent."
Gendo said nothing.
The fury had vanished. In its place was the noise. A storm of confusion, annoyance, and desperation filled Shinji. His mind became the familiar echo chamber of indistinct screeches. He hated his father. He wanted his father's love. He didn't know what his father was. "Father…" he said.
Gendo pushed up his glasses, not so subtly signalling that the 'real' conversation would begin on his terms. "We need a sample of the boy's blood. It could be instrumental for our work. Stop bothering the doctors."
He didn't even try to hide it. He didn't bother trying to hide behind 'we need to run tests to save his life'. No, Gendo Ikari spoke of Tanjiro as if he were some sample on a petri dish.
"Father…"
"Further," Shinji may as well have never spoken. "You will cease this foolishness of spending all your spare time with the Slayers. You've been allowed to go to school so that you can put your effort into studies. The stories of these children from other worlds will not help you fight Angels."
"That's not true."
"You doubt me?"
"They've killed as many Angels as the Evangelions. All the good I've been as a pilot, I owe to Tanjiro and Inosuke."
"I see." Gendo turned on his heels. "This was a waste of time. You have no say in the matter."
"Look at me for once!"
Gendo began leaving. "Stop throwing tantrums, child."
The confusion left. The fury rose. The only real friends he'd ever had were lying in hospital beds, and this bastard wanted to turn them into lab rats. Shinji stomped to the doorway. He spoke after his father. He wanted to yell, but he seemed to choke on the words. They came out barely audible to his father. "You've never loved anyone. You're not even human."
Rei
She waited patiently, as she'd done most of her life. Captain Katsuragi would leave soon. Inosuke was stuck in his bed. Ideally, he'd be asleep or drowsy by the time she entered.
Rei needed to talk to Zenitsu. No, that wasn't right. Rei wanted to talk to Zenitsu. She had volition. She was more than a cannon aimed by Gendo. Rei Ayanami was a person. She might even be something better than a person.
Finally, Captain Katsuragi left Inosuke's room, looking exhausted and angry. The woman froze when she saw Rei. "Oh, Ayanami. I wasn't expecting you." A proud smile dutifully lifted her features. "Great work on the battlefield. Your numbers and your performance were incredible."
The instinctive thanks didn't come. Rei tuned in to the little twitch of Misato's smile and the slight wrinkling of her brow. She was never one to notice details like this. "Something's wrong."
The façade broke. Captain Katsuragi settled into a professional stance. She looked up and down the hall several times. "Rei, I need to talk to you."
A twinge of impatience ran through Rei. Zenitsu was right there. "Can it wait a few minutes?"
The words prompted a strange response. Captain Katsuragi became still, as if some mental circuitry had misfired and left her unable to respond. The delay ended, and her jaw dropped. "Huh? Did you just— Rei, what's going on? Why are you still in your plug suit?"
Rei blinked. "I've been waiting. I want to talk to Zenitsu."
Captain Katsuragi looked down at the pilot, worried expression becoming more so. Rei could not read the emotions well, but she understood that many were passing through her captain. Finally, Captain Katsuragi stepped closer and put her hand on Rei's shoulder. "I need to know something. I'm going to ask you a question, and then I'm going to go."
"Okay."
"Has Dr. Akagi done anything with you involving the Slayers?"
The truth slipped out. "It was my idea."
Captain Katsuragi jumped past her with a grimace of fury. "That bitch!" She ran off before Rei could ask or explain further. She considered pursuing her, but the pull to Zenitsu was stronger. She entered Inosuke's room.
With his mask beside him, Inosuke lay on his bed, snoring loudly. Zenitsu sat on a chair on the far end of the room. His crutches leaned against the wall beside him. It took several seconds before he lifted his head to look at her. "He thinks you're our ally." He pointed at his friend. "We know about the room full of copies of you."
"Copies?"
"Yeah, the copies of you, floating around in LCL fluid. And the green-haired one."
"Green?" the surprise must've gotten through to him. His expression softened. "Okay, so there is something you don't know. That makes it a lot easier to trust you."
"There are a lot of things I don't know."
He nodded. The thunder warrior seemed lost in thought. "Inosuke was right. Whatever's up, it's because of Gendo and Nerv. I… I think I shouldn't have scared you like I did. Sorry about that. You're not the enemy. You might have more reason to be pissed at Gendo than any of us."
It was as good an introduction to the topic as any. She approached him with tentative steps. "I've been feeling strange lately. I think you're part of the reason."
He tilted his head. "Huh?"
She stepped closer. "Dr. Akagi did some experiments. Your blood separates from LCL fluid, even though ours mixes perfectly. LCL fluid is Lilith's blood. Humans came from Lilith and the first Angels."
"Wait, did you just say the giant in the red room is human?"
"It's not quite human. Did Dr. Akagi ever tell you? Less than 1% of it is different from human. That means we changed, somehow. So, I think you're like that. We're different from Angels by that tiny percentage. And you're different from us by a tiny percentage."
"We're both human." Zenitsu rubbed his temples. "Why is this all so confusing?"
"It's not confusing." She reached out. Her small hands touched his, her delicate fingers feeling the callouses from his training.
"Don't just touch me without warning." He pulled back. "Don't you have any modesty? What's all this about?"
Something mean and playful rose up in Rei. She decided to follow it. She stepped forward and touched his face. "We were curious."
"Don't touch me." He turned his face, but didn't pull away.
"If you're blood separates from Lilith's blood, how would it react with one of ours."
"What are you talking about?"
She wanted to break it to him gently, but it seemed he was too frustrated to see the truth, or perhaps too panicked. Whatever the case, it seemed wrong to just hand him the answer.
"I don't know about this green-haired thing in the room downstairs. But, I think I have an idea. I think Dr. Akagi has done something dangerous." She stepped back. Zenitsu was important to her. Therefore, it was a good idea to share the truth with him. "I was made to be disposable, Zenitsu." He opened his mouth, but she put her fingers on his lips. He squirmed at the touch, but he stayed silent. She continued, "Commander Ikari and Doctor Akagi made me to be replaceable. I'm put in Unit-00. I can die because there are back-ups of me. I'm supposed to defeat Angels. I'm not supposed to feel anything. But I've started feeling. Because of you."
"I don't understand!" He smacked her hand away. "And don't touch me like that. I'm already taken."
He didn't understand. That made sense. She hardly understood. She'd give him one more hint. "Zenitsu, I want you to know that I'm human just as much as you."
"How can I trust that? There are copies of you, aren't there? What kind of human is 'made' instead of born?"
She shook her head. "We can talk philosophy later. For now, let's focus on the green-haired person. What colours combine to make green?"
He blinked. "Colours can combine?"
As she began to give the answer, a gate shut in her throat. The words froze. Terror came. Each muscle seemed to lock. The plug suit suddenly seemed tight. The image of Commander Ikari. He stood there. He smiled. His arms were open to her. His heart, so long shut to so many, opened to her. That man saved her life. He burned his own hands to save her.
By talking like this to Zenitsu, she was going against Commander Ikari. She wasn't sure how she felt about it. All she knew for certain was that she wanted Zenitsu to know.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Zenitsu asked.
Zenitsu seemed further. Her vision of him became blurry. "Ah…" her voice was a rasp.
"Dammit, you spent too long in the Eva, didn't you?" He hobbled to her, then hesitantly took her hand, holding it as loosely as possible. "I don't care what you say about being one with Angels or Evas or stuff like that. Right now, I see a sick warrior who hasn't even changed out of their battle gear. You need to rest. Wash that awful blood off you when you get a chance."
She felt so small. It was the opposite of what Zenitsu said. She craved the LCL. She wanted that sweet warmth.
"Blue and yellow," she said.
"What?" Zenitsu asked.
She pointed to her own hair, then to his. "From Angels, they made Evas. From humans, they made me. From you and me, I think they made the green-haired person."
Zenitsu stared at her. His eyes became glassy.
"Zenitsu?" she asked.
Instantly, sweat fell down his face. After several seconds of stunned silence, he screamed, "I don't want a kid! I'm too young for this! Damn you, Gendo! Damn you, Nerv!" His grip on her hand tightened. "You need to rest. But before you sleep. Tell me everything you know. If we're on the same side, I need to understand exactly what's happening."
"You're gritting your teeth."
"Of course I am! I'm a member of the Demon Slayer Corps! I promised to only ever protect people! But right now, I want to slice that Gendo prick's head clean off! That bastard might make me break my oath to the core!"
Inosuke grumbled from his bed.
Rei gently pulled Zenitsu's hand. "Let's go see Commander Ikari."
"What? No, you need rest."
"Right now, I want to know what Commander Ikari has been hiding from me. It… It concerns you and your friends. I'll explain on the way. I'm sorry, Zenitsu."
"Don't worry about that." He tried to smile. It was forced. It looked like a bad imitation of Tanjiro's smile. "You're an Angel Slayer, you know? We're…" he swallowed and shook his head. "We are allies, right?"
Rei nodded. "Yes, we are."
Asuka
It felt like everyone had revoked their common sense. They'd killed the Angels, hadn't they? Why was everyone being so serious? "Why'd I even bother coming all this way?"
Even Mr. Kaji had been woefully absent since she'd come to Japan. She was all alone in a foreign land.
So, she wandered the halls of the medical centre, too depressed to return to the scant hotel room in which she'd been set up. As she walked the halls, someone lying in one of the beds caught her eye. Asuka thought the unconscious person must have been one of her fellow students. Nobody else was in the room, so Asuka stepped inside. The blanket was pulled up to the person's neck. They were beautiful.
Smooth skin, flawless dark blue hair with bright tips. Asuka thought she was looking at a stunningly beautiful girl. What happened to her, Asuka wondered.
Suddenly, the person stirred under the blanket. They seethed, warping that pretty face with a twinge of pain. The canine teeth seemed unusually sharp. Finally, Asuka noticed the boar mask on the table beside the bed.
The person writhed in pain, letting out a groan that sounded like it belonged to a forty-something chain-smoker. A heavily scarred hand pushed off the blanket to reveal a muscular body Asuka recognized.
"Inosuke?" she pulled back in surprise. That was the face under the mask? Amidst the insanity of the past few days, with the near-death experiences, arguments with Shinji, and ignored pleadings with various members of Nerv, she latched onto this non-event. Inosuke's surprising looks was the first harmlessly interesting thing to occur since she arrived in Japan.
"Too noisy," Inosuke grunted. He smacked his face and rubbed his eyes. "That was the best sleep I've ever had. But I still feel like there are rocks in my skull." He blinked several times. As he woke up, Asuka realized she didn't know anything about the Angel Slayers. She probably should have been more interested than she was. Their existence meant the existence of other dimensions, after all. It was a testament to her singlemindedness that such facts, which would make most people question the authenticity or value of reality, would bring her only a passing curiosity.
She realized this and turned her attention to it. Inosuke had become an intellectually engaging diversion from the hectic nature of her daily life. This was also a good chance to get to know one of the Slayers. They were basically co-workers, after all. It could only do well to be on good terms with them.
As Inosuke woke up, she let herself by idly surprised by the seeming mismatch of the face and the attitude. "Are you…" a few thoughts connected in her mind. Perhaps she'd been a bit hasty when she first met Inosuke. She understood more than most people that things were rarely divided into one of two categories.
Was Inosuke a woman with a hormone imbalance? Perhaps Inosuke was somewhere between 'he
and 'she'. For all she knew, Inosuke's world had different genders altogether. She'd made some assumptions, she realized. It would be difficult to ask Inosuke directly, though, since the warrior was almost a century behind. 'Hormone Imbalance' was likely outside Inosuke's working vocabulary.
"Hey," Inosuke muttered, finally focusing on her. "You're the red pilot, right? I mean, the pilot of the red Eva?"
"That's me," she said, posing dramatically.
Inosuke chuckled, then winced. "I heard you killed an Angel under a volcano. That's awesome. What was it like?"
"Huh?"
No fanfare. No criticism. She didn't understand the child-like enthusiasm of the warrior's question.
"Tell me about it. I can't imagine fighting under a volcano. Tell me what happened."
"Well…" she tried to explain. The science of the heat suit and the slow descent into increasing pressure would likely go over Inosuke's head, so Asuka tried to be general in the science. She gauged Inosuke's interest as she spoke. Inosuke seemed most interested in her emotional experience. So, she focused on the battle aspect. When things had turned. What orders were being thrown her way. How had she survived?
Inosuke became enraptured in her tale. Confidence returned to her.
She lavished in the act of storytelling. The girl became comfortable in the seat beside the Slayer. Her hands naturally made grand gestures. She knew, on some level, that he was simply happy for stimulus. Her story was something to focus on other than his pain. Both of them were just looking for a means to pass the time until the world made sense again. Still, she felt better than she had in days. Partway through the telling, Asuka was on her feet, giving a full re-enactment that would have made a theatre troupe proud.
"But then, right before it faded into ashes, it slashed at the cables that held the Eva. The heat filled the entry plug. It was overwhelming." She writhed in place, wrapping herself in her arms, possessed by her story in a way that any method actor might kill to achieve. "I saw the cables tear. Only a shred remained. Everything was creaking. That's it! I thought. I was to die here, deep underground, falling into the red abyss until the pressure would crush me. My Eva would be my coffin, smothering me just as the heat smothered me."
"How'd you escape?" Inosuke pleaded for the story to continue.
Still unaware of her dramatic voice, flamboyant pose, and haughty expression, Asuka threw her hand toward her audience. "That, my friend, was nothing shy of a miracle. As I fell to my fate, a hand grabbed my own. I looked up to see a purple and green body hanging from the wreckage of the cables which held me. My life had been saved by—"
— by someone else.
Her grand story ended with someone else saving her. Her posture, expression, and aura of victory fell.
"Shinji saved you?" Inosuke asked.
"Yeah," she forced herself to answer.
"I wish I could've seen that. It sounds like an amazing battle."
She shrugged. "Eh… I had to be saved in the end. It's not much of a victory."
"Oi!" Inosuke's wild scream seemed to shake the room. Asuka nearly yelped at the sound. Inosuke seemed angry. "Don't give me that! You're an Angel Slayer now! You went into a damn volcano and killed a monster! Someone from your team helped you out after it scored a lucky blow. What kinda shame is in that? Your team is supposed to help you! It's dumb to be mad that your team helped you the way they're suppose to."
She sighed. "I'm not an Angel Slayer."
"You slayed an Angel, didn't you?"
She shook her head. "You and the colourful guys from the other Japan are the Angel Slayers."
"What?" He tilted his head. "That's stupid. Rei, Shinji, and you are just as much Angel Slayers as we are. We're all fighting those big things. Same team, all of us. Oh, yeah. Welcome to the team."
Team? Asuka rolled her eyes. She didn't come to be part of a team.
Asuka was the best. She needed to be the best. There was no other option. Everyone who wasn't the best was reduced to back-up. How could she be part of a team. Being part of a team meant playing support to the best players. Teams were groups of weaklings who supported the MVPs. Ever since she was a little girl, Asuka saw how teams worked. Most people died so the captains and MVPs could be remembered. History only remembered the leaders. Everyone else died, dirty and unremembered. Asuka didn't want to go out unloved and a filthy loser. Winner or loser. There was no space between.
How was it a team, anyway? Pilots and samurai had nothing in common.
Inosuke seemed unaware of her frustration. "That story reminds me of a fight I had."
"Oh?" Asuka asked. She gave up. There was no point arguing. Instead, she allowed herself to sit and indulge some idle curiosity in Inosuke's world. "Tell me the story."
The warrior spoke of fighting a family of spider demons. People fell all around him. It was one of the earliest battles with the Demon Slayer Corps. There was this one demon in particular. Inosuke had never felt more worthless in his life than fighting this thing. Tanjiro had entrusted this battle to the boar-headed warrior. There had been so many members of the spider clan that they needed to fight the demons separately.
Asuka had been limited only by the terrain and the technology. But when Inosuke fought this spider demon, he hadn't been enough. The demon had beaten him. It was too strong. As the medics came to take the boar-headed warrior away, he screamed and protested so much that he'd damaged his voice.
"A lot's changed," he said. "Your energy tells me that you'd be good in the Corps. You've already dedicated your life to fighting monsters. Yeah, you would've been great in the Corps."
Inosuke's already gruff voice became hoarse. The warrior coughed and winced. Asuka reached for the glass of water beside him and offered it to him. "You probably shouldn't talk so much."
"Heh, I've never followed doctor orders. I get impatient. Besides, you needed to talk and listen."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Inosuke tapped a finger to her forehead. "You're like everyone here. You've got a storm in your head, and you won't do a damn thing to let that storm out. If you let that storm rage in your head, it'll break out when you don't want it to. Look at me, Zenitsu, and Tanjiro. We're loud! We're big! If something makes us sad, we cry. If something makes us mad, we yell. If we get excited, we get excited! Everyone here is… you have cicadas in your heads. All this chirping and whirring and buzzing. You'll go nuts if you keep all those cicadas locked up in you."
Asuka sighed. "It must be nice where you're from, if you can be so honest. In this world, it's immature to wear your emotions on your sleeve. People will take advantage of you."
Inosuke shrugged. "So? Who cares about the world? You're an Angel Slayer. This team will be with you no matter what."
There was no praise. It wasn't even quid pro quo. It was as if a child were explaining the brilliance of their clubhouse."What is all this? I thought you were a warrior. You just keep rambling on and on about battles you've lost. You sound pathetic."
Why were her words always so unnecessarily harsh?
Inosuke seemed impervious to the insult. "Oh, I almost forgot to ask you something."
"Don't ignore me!"
"Do you know anything about the copies of Rei or the Angel at the bottom of Nerv?"
Instantly, the chirping stopped. Asuka's mind became a vacuum. Each word of the question was understandable, as was the grammar, but she understood nothing. "Huh?"
Misato
The time for answers had come. Friendship and duty be damned. Whatever was happening in the core of Nerv was something far beyond all of that. With more than one world on the line, Misato needed to know what sort of vision she was fighting for.
The halls never seemed so long as they did now. She'd stopped various employees to ask about Ritsuko.
She approached the elevator. The doors began to close. Kaji was inside. "Hold that elevator!" she ordered.
Kaji obliged. "Are you that excited to see me?" He gave that same shit-eating grin he always wore.
"What was in the case?" she yelled as she approached the elevator. Those cameras better be listening. She hoped employees down the halls heard her. "When you abandoned us on that UN aircraft carrier, what was in the case? What did you deliver to Gendo?"
With the same smile, his hand moved to the buttons. The doors began to close. Misato sprinted. Barely, she managed to slide her hand between the doors and pull them open. Immediately, she punched her ex-boyfriend in the dick.
The doors closed behind her as she chose the floor with Ritsuko's lab. Kaji kept his smile as he straightened. He didn't seem any more likely to answer her.
Suddenly, the power went out.