Chapter 10: Shinji


SEELE-01-Lorenz: It's done.

SEELE-02-Mathers: How long before Tokyo-3 comes back on line?

SEELE-01-Lorenz: Our agent assures us that it will take quite a while.

SEELE-04-Mirandola: You mean Charles' agent.

SEELE-01-Lorenz: An irrelevant distinction, for all practical purposes. As long as he directs our knightmares to the right targets when the time comes—

SEELE-02-Mathers: Knightmare frames…supercomputers…sakuradite bombs… Mika surascha para te gàmmes adrios NA danos. We've come a long way since the Golden Dawn, eh?

SEELE-03-Yeats: You might say that.


A droplet of sweat ran down my forehead and dangled at the end of my nose. It flicked away when I blew on it, only to be replaced by another drop a second later. The air tasted stale and hot. My muscles responded slowly as I crawled through the air ducts—not with the burn of lactic acid, but almost sleepy. They didn't want to work any more than I did.

We were crawling. Our knees and elbows knocked against the floor in a plunkplunk—plunkplunk rhythm.

"A shortcut," Asuka said. "That's what Section 2 calls this? A shortcut?!"

"My throat's dry," I muttered.

"Buck up," said Asuka.

Rei patted me on the back. From the way her hand stuck to my shirt, she must have been sweating as well. I shut up.

So even Angels sweat…

"Sorry," I said. "I'm fine."

"That is fortunate, Pilot Ikari," Rei said.

"You'd better be fine. Ya know what, Shinji? Sometimes I wonder if you're a man at all. Whining for a little bit of water in the middle of an emergency…"

Asuka followed this a few seconds later with:

"…And stop looking up my dress!"

"I'm not—ouch! Stop kicking me!" I said.

"Silence," said Rei.

There was something about the way Rei said it that stopped Asuka's leg in mid-swing. Rei sat back, listening for something as everybody got quiet. For a while, we heard only two sounds—breathing, and the gentle patter of sweat falling on metal.

…And then, there it was:

plunkplunk—plunkplunk…

plunkplunk—plunkplunk…

plunkplunk—plunk…

"He has stopped," she said. "We cannot wait here. Let us continue."

Asuka swore, repeatedly. The flashlight's beam swiveled to the empty corridor behind us. It showed olive-colored walls, but nothing more.

"No way am I going to wait to get stabbed in the back," said Asuka. "Look, these ducts are pretty narrow, right? So he's probably not much larger than we are. I say we—"

Rei turned to Asuka—a bit faster than usual, maybe—with a glimmer in her eyes. I thought I'd imagined it until I saw faint red light reflected on the metal. Her voice was as calm as usual.

"The Angel poses a risk to NERV that outweighs the threat to our lives," Rei replied. "We must go on."

"Screw that!" Asuka shot back.

Asuka turned to me. She held the flashlight up to her face like one of those campfire ghost stories I always saw on television but never in person. Father didn't like camping. Asuka sighed an I-wish-I-didn't-have-to-do-this sigh.

"Okay, Shinji: what do you think?"

"I think…"

"Yes?"

"I think Rei's right. Sorry, Asuka."

Asuka exhaled sharply, but said nothing. A minor miracle. We started moving. Moments later, our mysterious duct-crawler thumped after us. I saw a glint in Asuka's hand.

"Holy—"

"Quiet!" Asuka hissed.

"Pilot Sohryu, please put the knife away," said Rei. "We are probably standing in front of his exit. If we move along—"

"Fat chance."

Something moved in the darkness. It was thin and short—probably no more than our height. I squinted and leaned against the wall but my hand slipped and squeaked on the metal. Asuka was shaking despite the heat.

"Come on!" she shouted. "If you're going to make your—"

A red flash where his right eye should have been—as if his eyes had been closed and he'd suddenly opened one of them.

"—move?"

Asuka looked around wildly, but the intruder had gone. Almost. We heard a gasp further up the tunnel to our right.

"Did he just teleport!?"

Rei shrugged. Orange traces of a nearly-activated AT field shimmered around her like dust floating in front of a window. I blinked. It vanished. Asuka hadn't seen it.

"Come," Rei said.

Asuka insisted on leading the way. Even in the gloom, I could see her knuckles turn white as she gripped the knife—a Britannian model, with blunt edges made of soft steel. It was balanced for throwing, not stabbing.

Somehow, I suspected she could use it anyway.


Long story short: we arrived.

This time, "EVA Launch!" was much less dramatic. We shoved our supports out of the way manually and crawled through a horizontal tunnel underneath the Angel that looked like an enlarged copy of the air ducts, right down to the ugly green paint. Asuka grumbled the whole way about how embarrassing the whole thing was—as if Prince Lelouch could see her anyway with our complete power shutdown. I didn't mention this, though.

We reached a door. Asuka folded it in half with a few kicks, and all three of us jumped out into a vertical shaft made of some bluish metal I've never identified. We anchored ourselves to the walls and looked up.

"Bingo," said Asuka. "Target confirmed."

The creature looked back at us from a large central eyelid and several eyespots that looked like the All-Seeing Eye from the books on Father's private shelf. I seemed like a daddy longlegs, with a bowl-shaped body at the center.

Then copper-colored sludge dripped from its eye. It hit Rei first. All the philosophy in the world couldn't save her from the jolt of pain when the stuff burned through her shoulder. She lost her grip. When she hit us, we tumbled down the shaft with her in a ball of twisted limbs and burning acid. Our pallet rifles clattered to the floor in the process.

"Not YET!"

Asuka spread her arms and legs. Sparks flew from the shaft as she dug her fingers in, but her new handholds remained firm. We piled into a side tunnel before the next wave of acid hit us.

"So what now?"

Asuka glared at me when I asked, but I thought it was a good question. We were trapped on a ledge with a minute of power left, and the Angel was dripping slime down the shaft in front of us.

0:59

0:58

0:57

"I wish I had my progressive axe right about now," she muttered.

Oh yeah, Asuka, I thought. Really constructive…

0:52

0:51

0:50

"I've got it!" she shouted.

It took her ten seconds to explain the plan to us, and another ten to get into position. Then we moved.

0:30

0:29

0:28

Asuka tossed a chaos grenade up the shaft. It split open and hovered, spitting shrapnel at the Angel. Asuka crawled out and anchored herself to the walls, neutralizing the AT field.

0:21

0:20

0:19

Acid dripped. Asuka screamed. Rei threw another chaos grenade and jumped down the shaft, while I leapfrogged over Asuka and acted as a second barrier. I neutralized the AT field just in time for Rei's grenade to fire.

0:12

0:11

0:10

Bits of metal tore through the Angel. At the bottom of the shaft, Rei retrieved the pallet rifle. Asuka swung free with one hand and grabbed her progressive knife with the other. She threw it…

0:07

0:06

The Angel's core cracked. Rei fired. The Ninth Angel crumpled like a crushed hat. It shivered once, then died.

0:04

In my entire piloting career, the emergency countdown never stopped at 0:01.


H.R.M. CdiB: You will house Anya with Rei when she arrives this Saturday.

GIkari: Out of the question. She's not even capable of synching with an EVA.

H.R.M. CdiB: I beg to differ.

GIkari: That isn't my only objection, Majesty.

H.R.M. CdiB: Let's be frank, Mr. Ikari: My son is already subverting Rei. We need an extra buffer, and badly.

GIkari: In that case, we'll use a Marduk-approved Child.

H.R.M. CdiB: Rei would see through it. Our ostensible antagonism makes Anya's presence in Rei's apartment more plausible.

GIkari: Pull Lelouch out of Tokyo-3, then.

H.R.M. CdiB: And risk an alliance between Lelouch and Schneizel? You must be joking. The Purists will cause enough trouble as it is.

GIkari: We each have our own problems.

H.R.M. CdiB: Bear in mind that I can add to your problems a great deal more than you can add to mine.

GIkari: Lorenz can add to your problems considerably, Your Majesty.

H.R.M. CdiB: Lorenz? Ha! While our Order spoke to Lilith through the Collective Unconscious, Lorenz was still an errand boy for Kircher. Don't antagonize me, Mr. Ikari.

GIkari: Nevertheless, I will inform Chairman Lorenz of this development.

H.R.M. CdiB: Do as you like. My decision stands.

GIkari: For now.