Chapter 9: Shinji



GIkari: Your daughter paid me a visit tonight.

H.R.M. CdiB: Cornelia?

GIkari: Yes. And the Glaston Knights.

H.R.M. CdiB: You're uninjured, I hope?

GIkari: Aside from three cracked ribs, a broken arm, bruises on my face, a missing tooth…

H.R.M. CdiB: Get to the point, Mr. Ikari.

GIkari: Deal with her. Now.

H.R.M. CdiB: Your ties to the JLF are well known. My daughter's reaction was understandable, although somewhat excessive.

GIkari: She threatened the Children.

H.R.M. CdiB: Absurd.

GIkari: Precisely. Only a fool would believe that threatening humanity's last line of defense was a plausible threat. And your daughter is no fool.

H.R.M. CdiB: Unless…

GIkari: Yes.

H.R.M. CdiB: I'll deal with the situation.


A dark shape moved through the city. As I crouched behind a skyscraper, I could hear the Angel grunt and pant. It cast a long shadow. Reflected in a thousand glass windows, I saw its bristly hairs stand on end.

A girl's face appeared on my screen: high cheekbones, blue eyes, flowing red hair. All that stuff. She spoke in a low growl; I swear I could hear her teeth grind.

"Ready?" she asked.

I did a mental inventory:

Pallet rifle loaded.

Prog knife ready to engage.

Target's location confirmed…

"I dunno," I said. "It's actually pretty cute. I mean, I'd feel kinda bad if—"

A flood of German profanity stopped me before I got further. Thirty seconds later, she switched to Britannian profanity, though the content was fairly similar.

"Okay, okay!" I said. "Fine!"

We moved quickly. Asuka dove from behind the Britannian National Bank and put two rounds between the thing's eyes. An orange hexagon appeared, and the shells bounced off. The creature sneered at us, clicking its long yellow incisors together in what almost seemed like laughter.

"Scheiss!"

"Neutralize the field!" I yelled.

Unit 02 thrust its hands through the AT field and pulled it apart like a pair of curtains. The Angel leaped at her. They tumbled into a parking garage in a whirl of steel, fur, and claws. Asuka thrust her progressive knife into its stomach. It gripped the blade in one of its padded pink claws and wrenched it from Asuka's grip. With its other arm, the Angel raked Unit-02's eyes and sank its teeth into its chest a moment later. Asuka screamed in sympathetic pain.

"GET OVER HERE, DUMMKOPF!"

"Er…okay, sorry."

The Angel's back was still turned toward me. I stomped a metal foot into its spine. Hard. A crunch followed, and the thing screamed once and fell silent. While I held the Angel down, my fellow pilot sawed through the core with her progressive knife until the creature stopped twitching.

Asuka appeared on my screen. Her eyes had a hollow, empty look.

"That was quite possibly the most disturbing thing I've ever done," she said.

I looked down at the corpse. It was already vanishing along with the rest of the city as the simulator shut down. A blonde, dark-skinned woman with a silver opium pipe between her lips appeared on our screens. Her voice was languid, bored.

"Oh, come on," she said. "It wasn't a real hamster…"

"You're sick!" Asuka shouted. "You hear me? SICK!"

I laughed nervously and made my obligatory attempt to calm her down.

"At least it wasn't the pink dragon from last week," I said.

"Or the puppy from yesterday," Rei added.

"Or that scientist guy with glasses who threw molten pudding," I said. "Holy shit, that was a weird battle…."

"Indeed," said Rei.

Asuka continued glaring daggers at Rakshata's image. As far as she was concerned, the Jetalot Project's scientist-on-loan was the worst thing to ever happen to the NERV…as she reminded us at Every. Single. Practice.

"Could be worse," I said.

Asuka raised her eyebrow. Rakshata looked at me intently.

"No, really," I said. "I mean…What if she made us fight fake monsters like Godzilla or the Stay-P—"

"QUIET!" Asuka screamed.


It took fifteen minutes to wash the stink of LCL from my body. Even then, I knew that I would smell blood for the next few hours, since dried bits of primordial goo still clung to the insides of my nostrils. The smell fused with the "fresh mint" soap I'd used in the shower, creating a surprisingly disgusting blend.

I'd forgotten my shoes. The flip-flops I'd worn in the shower moistened the bottom of my pant legs and made wet smacks as I walked.

"Pilot Ikari?"

Rei's voice.

She stood in the hallway, hands behind her back, legs crossed—graceful and awkward at the same time, if you see what I mean. Her hair was still wet from the showers, which made it seem longer. It hung over her eyes, but she didn't bother brushing it away.

"Yes?"

"I wish…I wish to speak to you, Pilot Ikari."

"Um, sure," I said.

She walked alongside me in brisk steps that didn't echo. We boarded the escalator and began our descent. Floors passed us slowly, each marked by an intersection of ribbed metal columns and horizontal bars that bridged between them. Each bar fit onto a rib like a puzzle piece. To my surprise, Rei also looked at the scenery…which was a relief, since her thousand-yard-stare could get a little creepy when she fixed it on me.

"So, uh--"

"Pilot Ikari," she said. "Pilot Sohryu mentioned a series of incidents from her childhood that…troubled me."

I leaned on the railing. On each side of the rubber hand-rest, cold metal brushed my fingers. I crossed my arms so that they lay entirely on the rubber, giving the illusion of a stationary support.

Rei waited.

And waited.

"Okay," I said.

And waited.

"I'm listening, Rei. Go on."

"Pilot Sohryu discussed Britannian conditioning techniques," she said.

"You mean exercise?"

"No."

"Then what?" I asked.

"Limited food, sleep, light, and sensory stimulation, combined with isolation," Rei said.

"Oh…"

"To deal with this stress, they taught her simple affirmations and assisted her in constructing a Britannian identity that incorporated a considerable degree of honor-consciousness," she said.

To be honest, I wasn't sure I was comfortable talking about Asuka's childhood. Or the way the conversation was going…

"Sounds intense," I said.

Rei gave me a look that I couldn't quite read. Then again, that was pretty typical.

"Yes," she said.

A gap opened in the conversation. I wanted to let it go, but…

"Asuka doesn't seem like the type to change her life that easily," I said.

Rei's hand twitched. She was digging her fingernails into her palm for some reason.

"It occurred gradually," she said. "Her actions slowly became consistent with her new identity until they seemed inevitable outgrowths of her revised personality."

And what exactly is this about, again…?

Now her red eyes were boring into me. I vacillated between looking away and meeting her gaze. The first would be rude; the second uncomfortable. I settled for looking at a point above her left shoulder, which in retrospect was both rude and uncomfortable. She didn't complain.

"That…um…weird?" I offered.

She nodded. Waited.

"So Asuka's better now?" I said.

"She claims that Prince Lelouch managed to effect a partial rehabilitation," she said.

There it was: a sinking feeling in my stomach that Father had always told me to listen to.

Careful…

"Oh," I said. "So I guess it worked for her. That's good…"

"Yes."

An oddity: Rei's expression became almost readable. It seemed insistent, as if she was wishing for me to say something; and I thought I knew what it was. I'd only seen that look from Rei once before, when I'd found Naoko Akagi strangling her. I'd cried out, then, but Dr. Akagi hadn't stopped.

Time for another failure. I mentally kicked myself for what I was about to do.

"I…uh…hope it didn't impair her job performance," I said. "I mean, when he cured her. Maybe…maybe the Britannians did the conditioning stuff for her own good to—um—help with the EVA and stuff."

Rei blinked. Her expression—and maybe I'd just imagined it in the first place—vanished instantly.

"That is true," she said slowly. "The thought had not occurred to me."

"I'm…um…glad to help," I said.

Rei looked down at the pleats in her skirt and didn't speak for the rest of the trip. I tried to keep my eyes off of her palms.

Shinji, you son of a bitch, I thought.


Ashford Academy: a neutral area that both sides' intelligence services stayed away from. Section 2 had scoured the place for bugs and security cameras after the Britannians had brought it into Tokyo-3 brick by brick. Britannia's secret police had done the same.

We stood in the student council chamber—a white room with gold patterns carved into the walls. A chandelier hung above us, casting little rainbows from the faceted glass balls that hung from its arms. A girl stared at me with her hands on her hips.

"You're my contact? An eighth grader?"

I held out my hand.

"Shinji Ikari," I said. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Stadtfeld."

Kallen's eyes narrowed.

"Kozuki. My last name's 'Kozuki'."

"Sorry," I said.

After she left my hand hanging for a while longer, I lowered it. In some ways, Kallen reminded me of an eighteen year old Asuka: wide blue eyes, red hair, long, long legs…

I looked away before she caught me staring. My downward gaze gave me a great view of Kallen's foot as she tapped it impatiently.

"Well?" she said.

"My father…um…"

"Yes?"

"He got your workweek reduced."

"I can see that," she said.

"And…yeah…he wants you to meet Asuka. That's why we got you a place on the student council."

Kallen rolled her eyes and groaned.

"You must be joking," she said. "I didn't come here to make friends with Britannians."

"We believe that Lelouch is trying to subvert Rei through Asuka," I said. "We need a counterweight, which means going after Asuka directly. She's half Japanese and shares your interest in piloting, so we figured—"

"You figured that I should manipulate a socially inept fourteen year old girl," Kallen said.

"Um…yeah."

Kallen sighed. I already knew that she'd do it; Kallen owed my father everything after he'd freed her mother from Britannia's drug enforcement authorities.

"Will it help us get Japan back?" she asked.

"Yes, Miss St—Kozuki," I said.

"Then I'll do it. Just tell me—"

A chorus of cheers interrupted her.

The student council filtered in, champagne bottles in hand (except for Lelouch, whose hands were thoroughly occupied with trying to keep Asuka off). Hikari stood at attention by the door. As Class Representative, Britannian Education Statute #405 required Hikari to give a daily report of Japanese students' "sedition" to Milly—a duty that our President avoided whenever possible. Unfortunately, that meant that Hikari would be waiting for a long time.

Rolo wasn't there. At the time, I didn't think that this was significant.

Rather than acknowledge Hikari, Milly occupied herself by whacking Prince Lelouch over the head with a rolled-up newspaper and making inappropriate comments about Shirley's cup size. Somebody opened the drapes. Light flooded in from the clover-shaped windows while Milly, Nunnally, and Lelouch laid hors d'œuvre on the table.

I heard the high-pitched buzz of a television being turned on, and a few seconds later Schneizel's face appeared on the massive plasma screen that Milly had installed on the far wall—probably from Equestrian Club funds, though nobody had ever proved it. In that eerily calm voice of his, Schneizel announced that the Purists would be putting together a political party. Odysseus and Guinevere had already thrown their support behind it. So had Schneizel.

Lelouch stopped when he heard that, not bothering to push Asuka away when she attached herself to his arm. The champagne in his glass sloshed on his student's uniform, followed by Asuka's babbled apologies.

He didn't seem to hear her.

"You okay, buddy?"

Suzaku put a hand on Lelouch's shoulder, which seemed to snap him out of it.

"Unexpected move," Lelouch muttered.

The green-haired girl sat in a corner of the room, watching us as she munched on a pizza bagel. Her eyes met mine. They were yellow, like a cat's, and in their own way just as unnerving as Rei's. I looked away.

Schneizel said something about the national debt when the screen went black. All over Ashford, the lights turned off.

In the distance, an Angel howled.


Kaji:

Contact me when you've assembled the data I asked for.

--Nunnally

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