New Perspective Evangelion

by Dartz-IRL

Newton's First law. An Object in motion will remain in motion until acted on by an external force. The events of Neon Genesis Evangelion, as seen by the Fourth Child. Self Insert:ACC

12. Virtuous Cycle

New Perspective Evangelion

Part 12: Virtuous Cycle

I don't own NGE, somebody else does
Stuff might be mentioned that's copyright
I don't own it either
It's just a bit of fun anyway.

Pre-read by Robert M. Schroeck and with comments from Sunshine Temple and the denizens of Spacebattles, TFF and Fukufics.

I...I

Getting up in the morning on Sunday was great.

I felt…normal.

I found it hard to think of any other way to describe it. I went through my usual routine as if I'd been doing it my entire life. The reflection in the mirror had stopped being alien, but now I felt I was actually looking at myself.

The dark-haired girl smiled back at me. A pang of regret hit deep. Not long ago this had been my nightmare. I knew I'd changed. I changed yesterday.

"I am myself," I said to her. "And myself is always changing."

Humans are not static creatures. Our likes and dislikes change as we move forward through life. The elements that define us change from minute to minute. Maybe I could argue that the self is the whole continuity of these changes, rather than just a snapshot in time at one moment.

All that continuity still remains a part of me. Everything I am still flows from it. I've changed so much, especially in body, but the lineage of self still holds. Noriko's memories and ideas add more to the self, more changes.

But I'm losing nothing. I'm just gaining more changes. I may have journeyed across time, space and the vast ocean between genders, but the self remains the same across all.

Does that make sense?

The girl in the mirror just gave a puzzled shrug. Philosophy wasn't my strong point. Something about all that made sense, but not in a way I could write a long essay about.

Yesterday was the day I finally crossed the female event horizon. The wiring upstairs now matched the plumbing downstairs. I'd expected it to be a moment of ultimate despair, a resignation or surrender, a moment to be spent sobbing in a pillow or rocking myself back and forward in a ball of bawling angst.

That was the Evangelion way, after all.

Instead I took the psychological equivalent of a step forward. It was an acceptance, an affirmation of being. I stopped, thought about it and concluded that it was okay for me to be a girl. I wasn't going to lose myself to my body, that the self was dynamic and changing.

Or something.

Something good.

I watched the girl in the mirror dress herself for her morning run. I was her. I would be her for the rest of her life. Hiroki Nagato was my Father. Megumi Nagato was my mother. Biologically.

And so were my original parents. On that thought, I snapped the bracelet into its proper place on my wrist.

On a whim, thinking back to the Noriko figure, I found a strip of cloth and used it to tie my hair back, Takaya style. Dressed in my normal sportswear, I struck a pose in front of the mirror, crossing my arms under my chest with my bare feet planted far apart.

The image of a strong, athletic young woman smirked back at me. I'd known I was a good looker, but now I felt it. Like Asuka and Rei, I had a body most girls my age would kill for. Dietary pressures after Second Impact meant the majority of people were fit in a way that few were before, but we took it to another level.

We were the Pilots, we were the main characters, and fatty tissues tended to expand as they absorbed LCL. I allowed myself a few narcissistic moments, admiring my figure in the mirror. Every little synapse assured me that this was my body; this was the person I was supposed to be.

Asuka slept in on Sundays, so I had plenty of time for a little self-service fanservice; the wholesome, confidence boosting and self-affirming kind.

I heard Misato come home from her night's work, keeping quiet so as not to wake anyone. I heard Pen-Pen waddle out to meet his master. I could hear her coo and cuddle the bird like a favourite toddler. Figuring she'd need the bathroom soon enough… I finished up and stepped outside.

"Morning."

She looked at me through bleary eyes, pushing a few ragged strands of hair off of her face.

"'night," she slurred, her brain already nestled into her bed.

One thing.

"Misato."

"Huh," she turned back to me.

"Last week. You were right," I smiled.

She looked at me, trying to figure out what I was talking about. "Oh yeah," it clicked. "Told you so."

I had a starchy breakfast with orange juice, before setting off for my morning run. Tokyo-3 early in the morning was almost pleasantly cool. The concrete jungle that normally blistered with heat was still absorbing the morning sun's rays.

Cartridges broader than I was tall were being loaded into one of the tower blocks by a pair of mobile cranes. Another whole building was being carefully lowered into its socket in the ground, work crews carefully guiding it into place. Mechanisms engaged, and the stiff, erect tower slid down into its snug socket.

I ran on, heading downtown towards the lake Ashi.

This was my life now, for the rest of my life. And I actually felt good about it. Until I recalled that, if some people had their way, it wasn't going to be a very long life.

I grimaced, trying to push Third Impact out of my mind. Besides, all I had to do to stop it was beat the harpies that started it. Not hard. Crush the entry plug, crush the core. Game over. Asuka nearly had them beat on her own, didn't she?

I put it out of my mind. I felt too good to let that get me down.

It was funny though, how quickly this had actually happened. Less than two months; it was a hell of a lot faster than I'd expected. Anything sensible that I'd looked up had told me it shouldn't have been this easy. To suddenly find yourself in another body, different from the one every spark of your being told you was yours... it should've been a hell of a lot more fucked up.

Truth be told, I wasn't sure whether it was a good thing or not that it was so quick. At least I'd been spared the unique hell of spending the rest of my life as a male in a female body. That, I could be grateful for.

I guess I was just disappointed that I didn't put up more of a fight. Biology was an irresistible force.

And what next?

Over the next few weeks or months, Noriko's memory would start to return and mingle with my own. That much was inevitable. I'd remember my friends and hers. I'd remember her parents... her father and mother.

I'd finally realise that they are dead... that I really was an orphan, not just in the way I liked to joke about. When I realised that I really had no-one in this world to turn to, that both my parents were dead and that I'd never see or talk to any of them ever again I'd...

I shot that down quickly.

Couple that with the traditional growing pains of the teenage girl. God help me, I was already wondering if I had feelings about Shinji, and what exactly they were. Going through puberty again was going to suck.

Mattariel's remains blocked my usual route... the whole lot was hidden under a prefabricated building while it was torn apart. Another shot of pride sent me running on down to the lake again.

I wasn't just a teenaged girl. I was an Eva Pilot. I was the very best that humanity had to offer, standing between mankind and oblivion. One of the few upon whom the fate of so many depend... to paraphrase.

And I was allowed to be proud of myself for that. I was allowed to enjoy that. I was allowed to be proud of my running ability, and my maths. I was allowed to at least try and be more self confident. I was allowed to like myself.

And I did.

I didn't like myself because I'd been turned into a girl... don't get me wrong. I didn't like my new gender better than my old one, or immediately feel the female life was superior to the male. None of the things I liked about myself were exclusive to the female species. Being an EVA pilot wasn't, that was a function of parenthood. Being an athlete wasn't, that was just training and little dedication on Noriko's part that I'd taken up. Physics and mathematics was something I'd learned, that was just study and time.

And yes, there were things I liked about being a young woman, the exact same as there were things I did like... and missed quite a bit... about being my old self.

My life didn't automatically get better because I jumped universes, or genders. That's a fallacy of most fiction; a wish fulfilment based on the belief that, if I only had another person's life, if I was only someone else, I'd do better. Giant robots aside, there's nothing I do now that I couldn't have done before I got here.

At the core, I am the same person, after all. And there's nothing I did before that I can't do now. Aside from reaching the top shelf, or taking a hit from a speeding car and walking off.

Still, it was okay to be Noriko, it was okay to be this person and be proud of my accomplishments. It was okay to be happy where I am.

I smiled. I'm on a psychological roll, amn't I?

I made it to the lake shore, pausing to rest for a few minutes. A soft mist clung to the water, steadily burning off as the pirate boat was beginning its first tourist run of the day. The black crater blown into one side of Mt Futago sparkled as the sunlight played off a million little glass shards formed as rock melted by Ramiel's blast flash-cooled.

Futagite was a popular souvenir sold in the old city. Mildy radioactive thanks to NIGA and with a unique marbled pattern thanks to the various minerals in the soil... it was actually quite beautiful. Most fluoresced green in the dark thanks to all the depleted uranium dropped into the soil.

The lake was mostly sterile and scavengers had long since picked off the remains which had washed up. Cicadas made their presence known solely by the irritating sound they made, while a few rabbits hopped lazily around a clutch of shrubs, sniffing sightlessly as they went about their daily business. One of them nudged at a tarnished shell casing lying beside its burrow, wondering if something inside was edible. Most rabbits in Tokyo-3 were blind thanks to UN tank crews mucking about with laser rangefinders. It didn't seem to bother them much.

I turned back to the apartment. The fortress city of Tokyo-3 was waking up too, a few little human touches unfurling like morning flowers in the cracks between the brutal concrete towers. A line of washing shared space with an Evangelion power point.

At street level, colourful shopfronts started to open up for business. A yellow Vespa was parked up outside a bakery. There was this weird little frog thing on the footpath outside an apartment building that looked like an idol of Keroru Gunso. Another building beside it had had its top cut clean off.

A few more people appeared. Most joggers had no idea who I was. The odd NERV employee who recognised me waved. I smiled back, appreciating the gesture. A balding old chef swept his restaurant entrance beneath a dirty pelican mounted on a scaffold.

The poor sods that had Sunday jobs set off to work, some cycling, some walking, some driving jealously maintained pre-impact cars while others had to make do with the traditional post-impact tin box. Public transport was popular for a reason.

An electronics shop was busy showing the morning news on a wall of cheap televisions. It was a story about the oceans or something... a whale was involved. Parked on top of an EVA lift was a cluster of chanting protesters, surrounded by military police while a helicopter thumped overhead.

The city was so much nicer when it was lived in, rather than being a concrete wasteland with a few artificially placed trees. The little touches of humanity made it feel far more welcoming. It was a place where people lived, rather than a setting for a mecha animé.

It was the only home I had.

I kept running, finally starting to feel a little tired. Section Two followed from within a blacked out Toyota.

I caught my reflection in some glass. My perspective on myself had changed so much, but the world and the people around it still seemed the exact same. How was that going to change? Changes in myself would naturally bring about changes in how I felt about the world, and how I interacted with it.

It was on one level, fascinating. On another, terrifying.

It was already happening. When I saw Hikari running errands with her sister, I saw 'just another girl'. The same as me. I waved to her from across the road, and she waved back.

There were other things too. Five kilometres had gone from a long walk, to an easy run. I defaulted to taking the stairs where possible. My definition of 'tall' had changed a bit. Misato was now 'tall', Misato was also about a hundred and sixty centimetres. I used to be nearly thirty centimetres taller than her.

The pilots where all under one-fifty including me, and I was the eldest and tallest. That was the legacy of being born after Second Impact. Which made it all the more remarkable that I could run like a cat on fire.

And remarkably, I saw myself as being the child born after Second Impact. I was the hope of millions that there would be a new generation, that they weren't the coda of humanity facing a long slow twilight and descent into nothing.

That's who I was.

That was me.

I made it back to the apartment block fresh enough to run all the way up ten floors, then finish with a quick set of pushups and situps followed by a few light cooldown exercises. I bounced at the apartment door, triggering a slight Gainax jiggle before sliding my card-key through the slot.

I remembered sitting in Misato's car, fresh out of the hospital, and just how alien and wrong that bounce had felt. Now it was just annoying… perfectly natural, but still annoying.

The door opened with a whirr, and I stepped inside. The radio was playing cheery pop-music in the kitchen, while I undid the laces on my boots.

"I'm home," I called out.

"Welcome home," Shinji's voice came back. Of course, who else listens to that station?

He was reading a manga while he ate his breakfast at the table… still in his sleeping shorts and t-shirt. What was that he was reading?

He snapped it shut and blushed red. "Morning Noriko."

Something embarrassing. It was hard not to start giggling.

"Morning Shinji," I responded with a cheerful smile.

He very carefully hid the manga under one of his hands in a manner he'd hoped would be utterly unnoticeable, but only ended up drawing attention to it. I remembered being in the same position more than once myself, so I just ignored it.

I watched his eyes, run down from my face, along my body before stopping at my backside for half a second. The boy gulped, and looked down at his bowl of miso…

A giddy thrill shot through me… he'd been checking me out. Followed by a rush of nervous nausea… and I'd found it exciting.

"Soup in pot?"

"Unh," he nodded.

He was there behind me. Shinji the boy. Noriko the girl. I glanced back at him… he was quietly hiding the book, keeping an eye on me to make sure I wasn't keeping an eye on him. He fumbled and dropped it on the floor with a yelp of fright.

I chuckled lightly to myself.

He frowned.

I could feel that same tension building in my body, that same tightness across my heart being chased up by the same fear that always followed. I'm a girl, it's okay for me to be attracted to Shinji, I tried to tell myself… but I just couldn't believe it.

The idea of finding Shinji attractive….

Of kissing him on his moist lips…

Of taking his clothes off and pressing his body against mine, both of us hot and ready.

It thrilled me. It scared the ever loving crap out of me. It disgusted me to the point that it turned my stomach in sickening loops. In a weird way, it was even reassuring… there were still some final taboos.

Or were they just the natural anxieties of a teenaged girl?

I sat opposite Shinji, still coated with sweat, sipping away at the Miso. Shinji looked up at me, then looked down at his breakfast, then up at me…. Then down. Then up. Like playing paddleball in his mind. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked down again. Looked up once more. Opened his mouth.

Whatever he was trying to say, it was just dying in his throat.

I figured it out. "Oh… sorry. I need shower."

"No, no!" he waved his hands, "It's just…." He looked at his shadow in the soup, shamefaced. …."You seem different."

"Huh?" I blinked.

"Since yesterday, you seem more relaxed."

I winced. If Mister too-dense-to-realise-how-bad-Asuka-was-crushing-on-him could figure that out?

"Not in a bad way," he reassured me. "It's just…you seemed so uncomfortable yesterday when you left the school."

He was worried about me. It was warming, in a strange way.

"My memory," I half-lied, "Come back. Was a bit shock... but I feel good now."

"Oh." A pause. "I don't know how you three can be so strong," he said. "Asuka, Rei and you... you take it all in your stride,"

A week ago, more or less, I'd been sitting in a heap on the bathroom floor bawling my eyes out for my lost self identity while Misato comforted me.

I shook my head softly, "I do not."

"But on Thursday... you seemed so confident, so calm."

No, I wasn't. I glanced down into my soup, feeling a little ashamed.

"How you feel?"

He blushed again, nervously looking away from me for a moment.

"Scared," he said, before locking his grey eyes with mine. "That I might make a mistake and get someone killed. That, because of me, everyone might die." His shoulders dropped beneath the weight of it.

I wanted to tell him how it was perfectly natural for him to feel afraid, how I felt the exact same way, how I was stunned to find that I'd actually come across as in any-way courageous when I was just following my training and trying my damnedest not to fuck up, and that from my perspective he probably seemed just as courageous and assured in the cockpit to me as I did to him.

But, frustratingly, I hadn't a hope of being able to say that.

All I could say was a quiet, "Me too,"

"Really?" he blurted out. "But I thought you liked piloting."

"I do," I nodded, feeling a familiar tightness grip my body. "But still terrified I make mistake,"

The boy smiled lightly at me. That tightness turned to a sickening flutter. I forced myself not to lick my lips as they turned bone-dry... just in case he got the wrong idea. Another part of me started to wonder what his leg might feel like if I just brushed my own against his.

I snapped my gaze away, focusing in on the radio.

"Beautiful Boy," it sang. "jibun no utsukushisa, mada shiranai no"

I grimaced at its treason, hoping that the song would be interrupted. No such luck, Utada Hikaru just kept on singing.

He looked up at me, wondering just what my problem was.

"It's only love" The radio continued. "nete mo samete mo shounen manga

yume mite bakka, jibun ga suki janai no"

It's not love. It's annoying.

"What?" Shinji wondered if it was something he'd done.

"I have to shower," I stated, jumping to my feet. More like I had to get out there before I said something or did something to give him the wrong idea.

The boy watched me practically run to the bathroom, still trying to figure out just what the hell had happened.

I sighed. "I'm being an idiot, amn't I?"

The reflection in the mirror didn't answer. But I had enough self-awareness to at least know what I was doing looked like. I knew what answer Kensuke would give him, if he ever asked. 'Noriko is tsundere for you Shinji, just like (character) in (animé)'.

No, I'm not. I'm just acting like a child. I'm acting like a normal, ordinary teenage girl. That thought made me chuckle in the shower. Just an ordinary teenage girl, with ordinary teenaged insecurities.

With Asuka sleeping in on Sundays, I had time to enjoy myself and get all nice and clean. I think I figured out the trick to all the shampoos and things. I used the ones that smelled nice, having no idea what they actually did.

Shinji had his book out again as I padded past with a towel around my body. He peered over the top of the page for a moment before hiding his gaze just as quick. I hurried in to where Asuka was still sleeping, dead to the world on her bed. She was lying on her back, red hair splayed across her pillow.

A flash of memory sent a chill down my spine.

End of Evangelion. I really didn't want to think about that right now. I was in too good a mood. I dressed myself, shuffling into a fresh set of clothes. My taste in fashion hadn't changed.

I left Sorhyu still slumbering, the girl mumbling to herself. Sunday morning animé beckoned. I slid the door shut behind me.

"I guess you expect me to wash your training stuff again," Shinji said with a bitter resignation.

I smiled shamefully at him, "I not know how."

His expression soured, "How can you not know how to wash your own clothes?"

Too lazy to bother.

"Never done it. And you make...um... good fabric soften."

His eyes narrowed.

"Fine..."

I probably should've felt guilty, but I didn't. I sat myself down on the couch and soaked up some post-impact animated culture. Mostly re-runs… one of which caught my attention.

A mixture of Yuusha Raideen, Space Runaway Ideon and Macross, washed through Babylonian Mythology and Snow Crash, Blu Aru was to giant robot shows, what Twin Peaks was to a cop show. Something about it seemed disturbingly familiar, and yet… completely and utterly different.

I promised myself I'd download it when I got the chance, or maybe borrow the boxed set I'd seen at the school club.

Like all mecha animé these days, it was broken by NERV recruitment ads. It asked, what are you doing for the human race? A nice quick injection of pride. I was an Eva Pilot. I saved the world. I was the pointy end of a really long spear made up of all those people giving everything they could, just to get the Evangelion to a point where I might be able to fight with it.

I was probably overdoing it.

With the washing on, Shinji slipped into the bathroom… hoping to get washed and dressed before Asuka finally awoke. From what I guessed, it was something of a passive game of chicken. How long could he leave it, so that he could finish and be done before she was out of bed? How long could he stay in there?

I could hear Sorhyu start to stir. The shower had only stopped for about a minute, Shinji was either brushing his teeth, or shaving. I started to hope Asuka would be awake before he was done... if only for the entertainment value.

I mused to myself, since when did I become so evil?

It must've been something rubbing off from Misato. Dissapointingly, Shinji won the race, emerging with a towel wrapped around his waist, and a few spots of shaving foam under his ear... and on his leg.

"What?" he questioned.

"Nothing,"

Just a little disappointed, was all. I clicked the television over to the morning news. A bunch of covenanters had blocked an Eva lift. God hates NERV, read one sign. Angels are a blessing from God, read another. They learned the hard way that civil rights stopped at the city limits.

Covenanters were a weird crowd, to say the least. The last time they'd appeared on the news, Misato had gone off on ten minute rant that amazed even Asuka. They were the god-botherers who held to the idea that Second Impact was a result of mankind breaking some ancient covenant with God, so the Almighty took the good with him in the rapturous Impact War, and then sealed himself in heaven forever denying Earth his love.

A man-made hell, they called this world. In the theological sense of being a place free of God's love.

Of course, according to them, the only way to get back into God's good graces was to give in to the Angels and let the rest of us be raptured away in Third Impact. God raptures those who rapture themselves. And anyone who got in the way of God's good works - everyone who disagreed with them - well it was only Christian to rapture them too. They were the biggest threat to us… the Pilots. They were the reason we were followed by a discreet Honda loaded with agents everywhere we went.

The next story on the morning news followed a biosphere reconstruction project along the old Barrier Reef and another on the near-completion of the Boston reclamation. The city council election results were out, not that it mattered. Nozomi Takahashi won the window seat with the big pension.

The Ninth Angel was mentioned solely due to it blocking a few main thoroughfares. Attacks by giant aliens had become a weird routine. The first was amazing, the second was interesting, the third and following were a commuter inconvenience.

Shinji emerged from his room dressed in shorts and an airy t-shirt that advertised its wearer as being a 'Happy Fun Spirit'. That must be some sort of false advertising…. He sat beside me on the couch, startling me a little.

He was a boy. And I was a girl... and I was suddenly very aware of that.

"What's on?"

"The news," I said, making a conscious effort not to look at him.

"Anything else?"

I changed channel, "Cheeky Angel?" The reason why I watched it was obvious.

He frowned. "No…. something good."

"Like what?"

"I don't know."

Typical. People know what they don't want... but never what they do. An awareness of his presence started to filter through my body, muscles tensing up ever so slightly.

He was a boy, and he was sitting beside me. I checked to make sure he wasn't looking at me. Nope. Just watching the box. For some reason, I was fascinated by how smooth his legs were. And how different…

Okay… focus on TV. I changed channel, flicking forward.

"Some Game show," The object of which seemed to be avoiding falling in the municipal sewers.

"Ew." he cringed.

Click.

"Lum the Invader Girl?"

"No," he sighed as if it really didn't matter.

Right. Nuts to it. We could hop through all ten channels and not find anything he wanted to watch. In fact, I was certain that's what was going to happen, so I just stuck it right back where I started, in time to catch the beginning of Yuusha Strykers.

"I don't like mecha," the mecha pilot opined.

"I do," I stated.

And since he'd be unsatisfied no matter what I put on that screen, well, one of us might as well be satisfied.

"I get enough giant robots during the week."

"I like it. Good show."

Shinji just pouted it and made it clearly obvious that I was harming his fragile psyche by not putting something else on. He still sat and watched anyway. It opened with the ending of the previous episode. A First time pilot, and classmate of all the others, had decided to sacrifice herself with a dramatic and tear-jerking self-destruct. It was so…cheesy.

"I'm sorry we won't make it to the lake after all Joe."

Shinji decided to speak "Why do you like stuff like this? Why do you like piloting Eva?"

"Light No! Think of all we have to live for. We can beat it. We can rescue you. We'll get you out. Just hold on."

Didn't he already ask me that?

"No… I'm already dead. This way, you'll all live to fight on. What does one life matter when the world is at stake!"

"Always like Mecha," I said, "Link to home and... awesome um... how do you say? I like technology and machine,"

"unh," Shinji nodded, "But Eva isn't a TV show, this is real. People really get hurt."

"Your life matters to me, Light. It matters more than anything in the world."

I could almost have laughed at that. "I know," I said, keeping my voice soft. "That is not all,"

"Oh?" he pushed ever so slightly for more information, his calm blue eyes asking without pressuring for a response.

"No Joe. It's too late. Your etha-shield will protect you. Live on Joe… Live on for me."

"Also. I am proud."

"It gives your pride?"

I just nodded. He thought on that for a while, while I thought on him. I could feel my body tensing up, my heart starting to beat ever faster. I took a long, deep breath and tried to cool myself off.

"I know you hate Eva," I said, testing the water. He winced a little. "I know you were force..."

"At first. But I chose to pilot again," he said, his voice firming again.

"Huh?"

"Light!" The TV screamed

Shinji nodded.

"Why?" I asked him, curious.

"I…. " he paused "Don't know."

The mech on television exploded in a flurry of flashback memories, halting at one final lingering shot of her with her boyfriend at the lakeshore that would just never be, before fading into white.

It was cheesy as hell.

"And that's why I don't like mecha animé," Shinji said, quietly. His voice was nearly drowned out by the scream from the TV.

"Cheese?"

"No," his voice softened.

The animated characters found the body in the wreckage. Lifesigns negative, followed by manly tears. The episode followed a funeral procession, with the coffin being carried on the back of a transport truck through streets lined with mourners, which promptly was interrupted by the next attack. Can the Strykers get over their sorrow enough to save the world?

Is that why Shinji doesn't like Mecha?

I still didn't change the channel. Shinji eventually got fed up and left, getting back to his manga for a few minutes, before arranging to meet Kensuke and Touji. He called them, not the other way around.

Motoko was busy with a doctor's appointment today. Despite how much I hated using social networks, I left a message wishing her good luck on her DSpora noticeboard using my phone, then got back to my TV time.

It came to an end as Asuka emerged from our shared bedroom.

"Hey, Perry Rhodan is on the UN Forces channel," she announced, dropping down onto the couch beside me. As if everyone wanted to watch a German Language program.

Asuka watched it religiously.

I used it as time to take care of some of the paperwork expected of us pilots, noting my diet, some 'personal matters' and my exercise regime down for Akagi's records, before taking care of some technical stuff for Unit 03. I was technically a Lieutenant, an officer, so I had to sign off on maintenance logs, read a few reports from my crew chief and issue a few orders for work I wanted done.

I didn't need those carbon shrapnel launchers - they were only useful for close in stuff - so I gave the order for them to be replaced with a multiple missile launcher system I'd tested out with last weekend. There was also the option to mount a set of braking thrusters, gun turrets, ammunition bays, or even a pair of modified Minotaur IV rockets with N2 warheads.

They were intended to knock out orbiting targets only. The fourth stage was replaced by a warhead bus and 5 independent warheads. The warheads were designed to burn up safely if they ever re-entered the atmosphere. It required the Commander's authorisation to fit. He required the authorisation of the Security Council to authorise fitting the system. It'd be nice against the next Angel, but by the time the bureaucracy was sorted out, Tokyo-3 would be a crater.

Too bad. Looks like we'll have to just catch it again.

I logged in to the intranet with my laptop and forwarded the work order to my crew chief, along with some seat adjustments and a request for a redesigned plugsuit with a bit more space up top.

Shinji sat quietly beside Asuka. Why wasn't he complaining about her stupid programs? He probably couldn't even understand it, he was just sitting beside her and...

Oh.

Had that been a flash of Jealousy, Noriko? It can't have been. I have nothing to be jealous about. I'm just annoyed that he isn't complaining about what Asuka's watching.

Because Asuka will just tell him to shut up complaining. He complains to me because he feels safe and comfortable complaining to me. And that just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I chased that feeling away with another wave of disgust. Welcome to puberty, I thought bitterly. If it wasn't identity and self issues, the sanity monster was going to go after my sexuality next. Little Noriko's growing up and becoming a woman.

Bored, and waiting for the response from my crewchief, I overrode the school's own blocking - they just used their own DNS server so it was a simple matter of pointing it to a free one - and headed out into the wild blue web.

Here also, I could see how my perspective was changing on things. It wasn't a big thing, like suddenly seeing a picture of a muscled man and squeeing or transmuting into a rabid Yaoi fangirl, it was far more subtle than that.

It meant identifying more with the heroine of the webcomic, rather than the hero. It meant looking at her costume and quietly wondering what it might feel like to wear, even if I knew I didn't really want to. It meant finding the Yuri fanart exciting for entirely different reasons, and quickly skipping on from the more usual lemon in case my mind wandered to places I wasn't comfortable with it going.

Little steps.

There were other things beyond that which just served to enhance the feeling that myself had really changed. An argument about what GURPS stats an Evangelion would have proved that I was still myself.

It was fascinating to see what the world at large made of the Evangelions, and how wrong most of them where. There were the usual idiots who claimed to know the 'truth' about the pilots with all kinds of weird theories. It was an open secret that we were teenagers attending the local high school.

And going from that, any journalist worth their salt could probably figure out our names, where exactly we lived, nab our pictures and generally put together a reputation-building exposé.

NERV kept them quiet by threatening to freeze out any organisation publishing 'unwanted' information. They'd get their one big story, but NERV's PR department would go fully public, and make sure their competitors got the rest.

The only other occasion where NERV would go public with a Pilot's names, was if one of us was killed in action. I didn't want to think about that. Nobody had died in the original series. Not until everybody died anyway. If any one of us died, it would be my fault.

For a moment, I had the clearest picture of it, of a graveyard so large, I couldn't see the ends of it. Just uncountable numbers of little black markers and a single tear trickling down Asuka's cheek while she glared at the casket, as if hoping by sheer force of will that she could bring the body inside it back to life.

Fuyutsuki gave the eulogy, followed by the last post…. And I decided that I really didn't want to think about it anymore. I checked my mail inbox, and thanked God that my crew chief had sent back his acknowledgement.

I sent that to print, which meant sneaking into Misato's room to get it out of the printer. Pen-Pen stood guard outside.

"Who goes there?" he warked, standing to attention.

Ignoring him, I slipped into the room. It was a bombsite. It looked like someone'd held a pay-per-view EVA battle inside. Clothes were just dropped on the floor where they'd fallen from her body. I could see the exact sequence in which she'd stripped. Jacket, blouse, skirt, socks, brassiere… panties… and then Misato herself on her bed, lying butt naked on her back, sprawled across her bedsheets like a murder victim.

I stopped and gawked, feeling a sudden hot rush.

God she was hot!

A small part of me wondered if I wasn't looking at myself in fifteen years time. An even smaller part was busy wondering if it couldn't figure out a way to get….closer.

I put it out of my mind and hurried to the printer. Getting the printouts was easy, just don't drop to leave. I turned around to leave, carefully threading my way back through the mess on the floor. The aim was simple: don't wake Misato.

She sat up like a zombie. "Noriko."

I winced. "Sorry."

"Tell Shinji not to cook for me, I'll get something at work."

"Yep," I answered.

"And Noriko," she said with a wink and an amused giggle. "You might be quiet. But the printer isn't."

Typical. I hurried out after another apology, sitting back at the computer while I figured out what to do with the rest of my day.

It was strange, even our hobbies helped our ability to pilot. As Ritsuko explained it to me, they reinforced the idea of myself, and who I am. They strengthened the ego border, which meant harmonics and sync tests could be run deeper in the plug where it was easier to synchronise.

There was still something affirming to me about 'debating' online with someone I'd never met over an issue as petty as to whether an Evangelion could lift a Montana class battleship or not.

The television was showing some propaganda cartoon. Buy bonds today or something.

I got back to taking care of one other thing I'd been meaning to do. Familiarising myself with history. And not just of the last fifteen years. For some reason, World War Two didn't end until 1947. Otherwise, things were pretty much the same, right up until the end of the 20th century. A few names changed in certain places, but the nail factor was pretty low right up until Second Impact. Our history courses focused almost entirely on the last fifteen years.

I didn't give a rat's ass what the name of the scientist who discovered the meteor was, or what caused the Last Act of God, or what the Wulfenbach peace edict meant for international relations. It didn't matter to me

But it mattered to teachers.

I got back to filling my day with pointless inanities. Schoolwork was just too much effort. Translate, read. Read a load of other background stuff because I'm still missing fifteen years of cultural context, then finally get around to answering the question. Once I had the question answered, it was just a matter of translating that back into Japanese again. Even the 'easy' ones took forever.

All that work left little or no time for Maths and Sciences.

Maths was easier. Maths was a subject I aced. Everything else I could just do the bare minimum to pass the year and it'd be grand. Numbers where a universal language. I blitzed physics and sciences. I blitzed them because I knew it all already.

It surprised me when I scored the lowest of all the pilots in standardised IQ testing.

The phone rang. Shinji looked at myself, then at Asuka. Neither of us could really be bothered to answer it. I was too busy browsing through threads for poison singles on ni-chan while appreciating my new perspective on the whole thing.

"Fine," he sighed, stepping up to answer it.

I should've felt guilty. I didn't.

"Moshi Moshi," Shinji said. There was a pause. "It's for you, Asuka. It's Hikari."

Now she was in a hurry. She snapped the phone out of his hand, shouldering him out of the way. He stumbled backwards. "Hey!"

Asuka sneered at him. "It's none of your business Third Child."

He looked to me for help, but I was only ever going to stay neutral at best. I gave him a soft smile. Not my fight Shinji. He returned to his seat and started to channel-surf, Asuka chatted with Hikari, while I paid attention to the inanities of the world wide web. On most websites where I had a profile, I'd deliberately left my gender ambiguous.

Most users just assumed I was male, and a good deal older than fourteen.

I didn't want to destroy their illusion at first, and it had been fun to slip into the old male shoes for a little bit. But now it felt like I'd be pulling the trigger on the last of the man I had been.

Asuka hung up the phone. "Hey Fourth Child. I'm going to the mall with Hikari. You want to come?"

It wasn't really a request. I'd bet a month's allowance it was more because she didn't want me alone with Shinji than because she liked my company. Well, there was no way in hell I'd spend a few hours pouring through the latest in post-impact fashion.

I...I

A few hours later, I was pouring through the latest in post-impact fashions at a department store just south of armaments building R-34. Part of the car-park was given over to an EVA lift. A warning sign advised that owners parked their cars at their own risk.

Inside, the layout was basic and horribly tacky. It was post Second Impact cheap efficiency-chic. The only difference between brand-name clothes and the cheap store-brand, was literally just a label with a logo on it. All of it was made in the same factory. All of it was uncomplicated and simply cut.

I wasn't hating it. It would've been better if Motoko had been there, but I could still enjoy Hikari and Asuka's company. There was a shop selling Gothic Lolita stuff. It was a fascinating idea. I'd had friends who were interested in EGL and I liked the style.

But only on other people.

It'd be cool to wear. It'd suit my body for sure. With the dark hair, it'd look epic. It just didn't feel right the same way the pink frilly dresses didn't. It wasn't me.

I found myself in the sportswear section.

Asuka gave her opinion. "Oh great, Noriko's gone cavegirl again."

"Asuka!" Hikari scowled.

"What? You do same physical training I do!"

Comebacks were never my strongpoint. Especially not in a foreign language.

"I meet the standard," she said, with a mild sneer. "But who wants to spend all day getting sweaty and sticky?"

Depends on who with.

"I like running. I like fitness things. I like a... how you say…Running High." She eyed me dubiously, always inspecting me. I stood my ground. "I Athletics champion. Olympic not for crash."

That took her back. Why did I feel like I had to defend myself to her? Why does that question matter? I have to, that's it. Sorhyu pursed her lips, thinking.

"Prove it," she challenged.

"This isn't the time," Hikari advised. "But I saw you out this morning Noriko. You looked so fast."

"Thank you," I smiled at her, throwing Asuka a smug glance.

Asuka's expression went black. "When we're done here, we're going to an internet café. We're going to do a search on your name." Her whole body inflated like a cobra ready to strike. "Then we'll do a search on mine,"

You know what. I knew I'd been a champion. I remembered the trophy. I remembered running down the track with a school's crowd cheering with the cool breeze pulling against my t-shirt. The track surface was cracked and old, soft green weeds coming up through the cracks in the pavement. It might once have been red, but the sun had bleached it. The stadium concrete was stained and blackened by years of rain and grime. Schools had come out from all over the province. There were other girls there, most taller than me.

They stretched in the school colours. Some waved to the crowd. There was a small section calling my name, chanting "No-ri-ko, No-ri-ko". It was printed on the shining bracelet around my arm.

At the start line. My heart drilling through my chest, my body tense in the starting block, like a charge catapult ready to throw an Eva to the surface. Shoot off with a bang, and I'm in the lead from the first step. Race at speed along the track and I know I'm pulling away. Even from such a small crowd the sound is amazing. It picks me up and carries me forward and I'm suddenly the most important person in the world.

I'm going to win, I'm going to be number 1. I'm getting the trophy. The tape snaps across my chest and it takes a few moments for me to hear myself think over the cheer. I've got time to stop and turn around and see the second place crossing the line. I'm that far ahead. It's astounding. My time's better than the under-16's by a few hundredths of a second. And they're still chanting while that medal hangs on my neck, heavy and cold.

"No-ri-ko. No-ri-ko."

"Hey Noriko, snap out of it Fourth Child,.

She's clicking her fingers in front of my face. What's Asuka doing here? Things crash together like a gearbox shifted without a clutch, just a crunch of memory being forced together with little shavings of ideas sent spinning everywhere. I stare blankly at Asuka for a few seconds, simultaneously remembering the race, while also remembering attending a similar event, looking down from the stands.

It's not the same. In my memory the stadium is better kept. It was before Second Impact after all. I'm the one in the stands, cold and shivering and cheering. Two concurrent sets of memories, co-existing happily.

"Whoa."

Asuka's eyes narrowed, her expression changing from a sort of plastic irritation to genuine concern.

"I think…" I started before pausing, holding my hand up. I didn't mean to give everything an air of cheesy melodrama. "I think I just remembered something."

"What? That you haven't done your homework yet?" she snarked at me.

"No," I said, flatly. "It was…" I looked at Hikari. Hikari looked just as uneasy as I felt, leaning around the side of Asuka. She didn't know my 'tragic backstory', or about my memory problems, did she? I switched languages "It was my memory coming back, of a race."

"So you really remembered that stuff about being champion?"

I nodded. "Oh yeah."

She smirked wolfishly at me. "Well, we'll see what Spider says later,"

Hikari was tapping her foot. "Y'know that's really rude to do that."

"Sorry," said Asuka. "It was classified pilot stuff."

Thank. You. Asuka.

Hikari stood firm, bracing herself with "You could have told me,"

"Hey, I didn't know until Fourth child came out with it, alright," She glared at me. You're the one who should apologise Noriko.

"Sorry Hikari," I said, bowing just a little. Enough to show I knew that I was probably supposed to, but not so far that I might be either mocking her, or feel like a total eejit.

"Well, to make it up to you, the Fourth Child has agreed to buy us all ice-cream when we're finished."

"What?" I snapped at her.

She just smiled brightly at me, from ear to ear. "Hmmmm." Those blue eyes brooked no argument.

"I like Vanilla," Hikari said.

Two against one. Damn.

I put my hands up. "I surrender. I will pay."

They smiled at me. Two cats that got their cream, and I was the mouse. I needed Motoko, Motoko would've backed me up if she wasn't away with her doctors appointment. We carried on, while I started to feel more like the tail of the dog. Sure I could waggle when I wanted to, but I was still being dragged around wherever I didn't want to go.

Sure I felt I could wear anything in the store without getting weird looks, but I still didn't feel like I wanted to. I didn't have to either. A tomboyish girl in sportswear was still a girl, still a member of the club. An effeminate boy was just a target for others keen to prove their masculinity.

Girls could be just as cruel, but for different reasons I hadn't quite grasped, and in a very different way. Girls tended to attack self esteem rather than get physical, they tended to sneer and put down, rather than beat down. I think being an Eva pilot earned me a "get out of jail free" card from any school bullies, but I still saw it happen to others. I found myself hoping Kaworu didn't get the same privilege.

It didn't seem likely.

It was pointed out to me that I couldn't exactly go everywhere in running shorts and a t-shirt. I needed something more, girlish. After much personal debate, I decided to go for things which played up to the dark-haired tsundere type. If I absolutely had to wear a skirt and blouse, I'd wear a red button-up blouse, a dark pleated skirt and thigh-high socks because I really had a thing for zettai ryouiki and it was marginally more comfortable than going bare-legged.

A look in the mirror told me that all I needed were twin-tails to complete the stereotype. It looked classy, for want of a better description. It was unanimously agreed that it was a look that suited me to a tee.

Choosing according to animé archetypes I'd liked might've seemed a bit silly, but it worked. It produced something at least tolerable to wear.

It reminded me that it was okay to still like the things I used to like. It wasn't one or the other, I could have both. I could still be a gamer and an animé nerd. As my self confidence got a little better, I might even be able to get around to trying cosplay. Well, I was already wandering around in Evangelion cosplay near daily, wasn't I? I could make a hell of a Revvy, or a Sailor Mars.

I did leave the store carrying significantly less than the others. I think I reached my emotional zenith for the series about the time we passed a games store. It was small, non-descript and quiet.

Asuka stopped outside, rooting herself to the concrete. "We are not going in there with those… those… nerds."

I actually had the courage to shoot back with a vicious glare. "I am," I stated, pushing the door open. A bell chimed. Hikari followed out of what must've been curiosity, while Asuka went in solely to avoid being the last one left outside.

There was only the clerk inside, who looked up just enough to acknowledge that we'd entered. He seemed to want to say something, opened his mouth to say it, but then decided against it. I didn't really intend on buying anything, I just wanted to get an idea of what things were like post second impact.

First thing; there were very few post-apocalyptic sourcebooks.

I flicked around, while Hikari marvelled at the painted miniatures in a case. Asuka stuck close to me.

"It smells in here," she whispered.

"That's paint." And the fact that it's hot and humid and their aircon seemed to be broken.

"I don't like the way that clerk is looking at us," she muttered.

"Hey Asuka! Noriko!" Hikari called out. "They have model Eva's."

Asuka lit up. "Do they have my Unit 02?"

I glanced over at the clerk, who'd suddenly taken interest. The salesman's sense had kicked in. "We have Evangelion Orange, Evangelion Purple and Evangelion Red," he announced. "But they're kits, not the finished models you see there, so you have to assemble them yourself."

Her nose seemed to scrunch up. Ew, self assembly.

"Do you have Unit…." I caught myself. "Do you have Evangelion Black?"

He smiled at me, "Since the body below the neck is the same as Red, we sell it as just a head."

It's not the same, it's not the same at all. Unit 02 only has twelve thousand plates of armour, 03 has twice that. And Unit 04 was a carbon copy of 03.

"Can I get the full set then? And two Evangelion Black kits?"

Asuka gawped a little.

"Two?" the clerk raised an eyebrow. "Know something we don't?" he chuckled getting far closer to the truth than he ever would know.

I laughed a little nervously and shared a conspiratorial glance with Asuka. She just shrugged.

I was encouraged to buy undercoat primers, paint sets and some other equipment that I knew I'd be able to get by without. It was my first encounter with a well meaning and otherwise pleasant clerk who just naturally assumed I had no idea what I was talking about because I happened to be a fourteen year old girl.

Was this normal? It was bloody annoying. I've built resin kits before, it was my big hobby. I knew he meant well, and didn't really mean to be annoying – I'd been on the other side of this more than once and learned that just because someone says they know what they're doing, doesn't mean they do.

It allowed me to be far more patient than Asuka would've been. She was already starting to stew.

I picked up a random sourcebook I liked the look of, solely to boggle Asuka's mind, then left confident in the knowledge that NERV would pay for it all out of my allowance. It was good. I was affirming myself. I was a person who liked athletics. I was a person who liked gaming, who liked animé.

I was becoming a fully rounded, generally happy and psychologically stable character. Hello, I'm Mary Sue and I've already slept with half the cast. It was a case of water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink. And, Misato love aside, I didn't even feel very thirsty anymore.

The PCs at the internet café seemed to date back to before the Second Impact. A quick glance on the shipping dates printed on the back told me they were less than a year old. 2014 model Athlon. It just showed where the world's priorities were.

Hikari sat at the keyboard, while I paid for an hour's computer time and ice-cream. Well, NERV paid for them. Asuka hovered impatiently over Hikari's shoulder, while she fought tooth and nail against a brain-damaged machine. I managed to get back just in time for her to get the browser actually working, and onto the directory page.

"Okay, do me first," Asuka ordered.

Hikari keyed in her name. Asuka thanked me for the ice-cream. Tense seconds went by. Asuka grimaced under the force of a full blown brain-freeze. I ate slow. Hikari left hers to melt.

"Error," she said.

Printed onscreen was 'Connection interrupted by intermediate server.'

"Try again," I suggested, before taking a bite out of some damn-fine minty-chocolate. Mmm... decadence.

"Error" she repeated. "The same one." She looked puzzled for a moment. "I'll try you, Noriko."

Asuka looked annoyed. "Stupid computers," she huffed.

"Another error," Hikari said, softly.

"Shinji Ikari?"

"The same again, Asuka."

"Rei Ayanami," I said. I think I see the pattern.

"Same error."

Hikari sighed and sat back. She glanced at us both. "You don't think NERV is monitoring the connection?"

"Try a search on your own name," Asuka suggested. Calmly.

Hikari laughed. "As if I'd ever be a pilot."

There were a few anticipatory moments, waiting for the servers to respond.

'Error,' the computer informed.

We glanced nervously at each other. Okay. That was weird.

"Try Touji," I said, tentatively.

Hikari typed, then clicked, then frowned. "The same."

I looked at Asuka, who looked just as confused as me. "Maybe Michiko?"

Type. Click. Sigh. "The same."

"Our searches on everyone in our class being blocked?" asked Asuka, with an irritated snort.

"What about Motoko?" I suggested. "Motoko Hino is in 2-C."

Type. Click. Hikari let out a slightly surprised hum. "Translate" click. "A 'massage parlour' in California. "

All three of us laughed at that one. It wasn't a massage parlour at all, it was something far more…. intimate. Motoko would've blown a gasket and then some to know she shared her name with a second generation Japanese immigrant in California who ran a 'personal erotic massage parlour' for men.

We tried a few other names; people we knew, NERV employees, a few random names, my old name … the one hit wasn't 'me' … and a fanfic author I'd liked. All seemed to support the conclusion that searches on NERV employees were being intercepted, along with everyone in Class 2-A. Everything else went through, including some of the real crackpot Second Impact theories.

"But why would they block everyone in Class 2A, then?" Hikari wondered aloud. "I understand the Five of you, but not Kensuke Aida or Ami Mizuno."

Who, unsurprisingly, hated Sailor Moon.

Asuka's gaze was sour. "Maybe it's because everyone in the class is a pilot candidate?"

I looked at her, a little surprised. Nailed it in one.

"Even the foreigners?"

"Especially us." Asuka put a specific point on the 'us'. "If there're foreign pilot candidates, they go into class 2-A as well. No other class in the school has non-Japanese students. Most attend the UN school across the city."

Including Asuka and Kawaoru, there were five non-Japanese in 2A. The others were a pair of Americans and one Brit who kept their own private clique.

Hikari sat quietly for what seemed like quite a while. "Can you imagine me as an EVA pilot?" she laughed.

I smiled at her. I'd seen the fanart.

"Better you than one of the three stooges," opined Asuka.

Pilot Horaki. Considering that I pilot Unit 03, Bardiel's pretty much out of it unless something real screwy happens. Yes, I decided on being optimistic. I was in that good a mood. The world was getting better, even if I did nothing but be there. Everyone was happy. Nobody was a bawling ball in the corner. Angels will die. I'll live here for the rest of me life and be happy. And tempt fate while I'm at it.

"Try search; Leinster athletics championship 2014."

"Len Star?"

"Let me," I said.

She nudged the keyboard towards me. It took a few moments to figure it all out before I sent the search request. The answer came back a few moments later, three results down, beneath the sponsored links. It was a basic page, a news report from a local newspaper. The article was in English, but the picture put it beyond doubt. There it was… there I was…. a picture of me standing on the top step of the podium.

I slipped back into the memory, feeling my way around it, easing through it. I could walk around the sights, around the smells. I could feel the grit on the old concrete under my running shoes and the sweet scent of the grass. The podium was hollow, the girl beside me jealous and bitchy at the little foreigner who runs like a rocket. The medal was cold and heavy against my chest…. That was getting tender. A photographer called me name and told me to smile.

And there I was, on the other side of that image.

It was frightening. It sent a chill through my bones. It was strangely exhilarating. It was a thrill. It was a little like those first few moments after tipping over the edge on a roller coaster.

They both looked at the picture, then at me.

"You've grown," Hikari said, flatly. She wasn't referring to my height.

"Now let me try," Asuka grabbed the keyboard, punching at they keys. Moments later, a German webpage came up with a university graduation class photograph. Conspicuous among the students was one who was obviously a lot shorter andwore obviously long red hair, this time in a pair of thick braids suspended from a pair of red neural clips. "My university graduation class," she declared, haughtily.

Hikari shrivelled up just a little bit. "I feel so ordinary."

A perfect distaff counterpart to Shinji Ikari then.

Asuka swaggered as usual. "Well, I'm the only really exceptional one…."

"Hah!" I snorted.

"Well those two wunderkind share a genetic disease or something…. Shinji Ikari could be any boy in Japan and you…. Well you're just weird, Noriko."

She rolled her tongue around the word weird. It sparked my sense of mischief and I tugged the keyboard away. I typed something in… just a quick curiosity of mine. A moment later, every single person in the café groaned and cursed as one.

Connection failure.

The whole café had been disconnected from the net. Wow. Suddenly feeling just a little bit paranoid, we left quickly. It wasn't until we were well outside and halfway home that Asuka dared ask me what exactly I'd typed into the search engine.

"Just a few NERV related keywords."

"That's creepy," said Hikari. "To know that people are watching you all the time."

"Such is the life of an Eva pilot."

Distant helicopters were beating their way through the air, and I began to regret doing something so stupid. We hurried back to the Katsuragi apartment, making it to the door without being run down, or bundled into secret black choppers to disappear into the night. It felt like an accomplishment.

The first thing I did was check to see how Motoko was. The only thing that would've made this day better, was if she'd come with us.

I…I

Most of the evening was spent fiddling with resin. The others were doing the last of their homework. I'd finished the parts I'd intended to do an hour or so earlier, so I got down to my hobbies. The casting quality was alright, with a good level of detail. But I could see the differences between the real thing and the model.

The sculptor'd only had grainy photographs and video snippets to go on and had gotten the proportions a little bit wrong. For one thing, the shoulders were much too human and narrow, with a too-broad waist. I kept spotting little glitches and errors; the sort of things you only noticed if you actually piloted the thing.

It was frustrating, and more than a little distracting. Unit 01 lacked the proper frill, and the horn was shaped wrong. Lockbolts were missing, as were the comm's arrays. And the entry plug armour plating and power-socket were totally wrong. They assumed the arms were armoured, when only Unit 03's were.

Needless to say, it was no Master Grade. It was still good to get about building the thing.

"That's not how the chain rule works, stupid!"

Asuka was helping Shinji with mathematics. Oh, that question. It was easy enough. I turned my attention back to the kit, cleaning some flash off of a Unit 03 head. An ominous shadow fell across me. I looked up, right into the cheery brown eyes of Misato.

"What's that you've got there?"

"Evangelion models," I stated, cheerfully.

She leant down on the back of the chair, her breasts brushing nicely against the back of my head. "Where'd you get 'em?"

"Games shop. Mall near...uh... Armaments R34."

"Ah." Misato said, putting a finger to her lips as she thought. "I know the mall. I'll have Section 2 raid the shop."

"Huh?"

"Well," she said with a cheery grin, "That's critical Evangelion weapon system design information."

The feeling of treason lingered for more than a few minutes. I gave her a sour look. "Not good kit. Many mistakes."

She just sighed, "Still, it's something we have to investigate."

"And. Discussion online?"

"Most is on servers outside our jurisdiction." She winked at me, "And it's a good way to spread misinformation."

"Well shit."

"And why are you doing this, and not that essay?"

Because, I saved the world. Because the only reason that old git is still alive and not a puddle on the floor is because, while the others were typing away by candlelight I was hanging in an access shaft with a pallet rifle. Because it was idiotic to expect us to keep up with schoolwork when we were busy synching, training, testing, and following that up with more testing.

"Not worth doing."

Her expression darkened, "Explain."

"Well." This was hard to get straight in my head. "I score low on history. I pass by small amount. With late penalty, failure guaranteed. It is better…" I stopped to arrange the words in my mind. "...to concentrate on what I know and do it well and not...um…spend hours on something I fail, then lose time to spend on things I am good,"

"So, prioritising what you can do well and not wasting time on things you can't do. Then, the extra time taken with what you're good at makes up for the automatic failure?"

I nodded.

"Hmmm. As I recall, that's what the Tokugawa plan was; to prioritise those we could help and assign them rations based upon their current and future usefulness to society."

I knew that. I knew it because it was drilled into us in school that we were the most valuable thing humanity had. We were humanity's future, even without the Evangelion. We got the best of everything, the best food and care in the refugee camps, the best medical care outside. It's why I was kept alive.

"So," she continued. "Maybe you should just write a quick note explaining that. Especially since you've already finished your other work,"

It was time for a childish pout. There could be no other arguments. There had to be a way out.

"I will help Shinji with math."

"Oh no you don't, Fourth Child. He doesn't need your help, since I'm already doing it."

Asuka's green eyed monster reared its ugly head. I was just looking for a way out of wrist-aching kanji.

He frowned, "You're making it harder."

Dirty minds!

"No I'm not. Look, I'll do it for you," she grasped at his pen and he snatched it back. "Show some gratitude!"

"Asuka," Misato cut in. "He has to do it by himself or he'll never learn."

"Oh come on, now you say that?" she snapped back.

Looks like I'd be getting out of the work after all. I made a show of working while I chatted with Motoko via IM. I was actually describing what I'd bought with glee, solely because she was interested, and it was nice to have someone interested in what I'd done. She even asked for a webcam picture. Naturally, I obliged, scuttling off to get changed.

I'd happily wear a skirt for a friend, especially if that friend was likely to tell me I looked good. Mental attitude tended to work in a positive feedback loop. Feeling good made it easier to do things that made me feel better. Feeling bad meant things would just get worse and worse in a vicious cycle.

Taking out that Angel broke the cycle of despair. It allowed me to take a step forward.

It let me be more adventurous in what I wore, to have the self-confidence to start to explore and maybe find things that made me feel better.

Shinji was first to see me emerge, curiously turning around, his attention more drawn by the sound of activity rather than me specifically. Then he saw me. Then he began to gawk, the half-chewed pen in his mouth drooping down. Asuka saw him gawking. The green eyed monster returned while I watched her expression darken like the sky before an oncoming hurricane.

It scared the crap out of me. It thrilled me. He found me attractive. Asuka saw me not as something beneath her, but as an equal rival.

"Shinji, pay attention to your work!"

Pay attention to me! She was really saying.

"Sorry," he whined. She tried to tower over him. In short-cut denim shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt, she succeeded. Misato looked up at me, lazily eyeing me over the rim of her can of coffee. No beer when driving.

"Nice… but aren't you supposed to be doing homework?"

Damn.

Asuka barked a laugh "Hah!" Shinji smiled at me before cowing down to work.

It took over an hour to eke out a single paragraph of an essay. That was all I could do. It was painstaking. It was physically painful. Each word felt as if it had to be hewn from a solid block of raw granite with a very small chisel. It was a royal pain in the bloody arse. It leeched away all the energy I had and left me slumped and drained, leaving a desiccated husk behind unable to do anything but consider going to bed while rhythmically rubbing my stocking'd feet over and against each other. Smooth nylon on a cool evening…. It was…soothing. It was so distracting I blanked for what felt like ten minutes before snapping out of it with a shock and a warm tingle running through my body. The idea that it might feel good to brush my leg against someone elses flickered through my mind. I shot that thought in the head… the nearest leg was Shinji, and Asuka would kill me. It was still bleeding on the floor of my mind when Motoko's response came back

"Wow! That's a really nice outfit Noriko. It really suits you."

It was totally worth it just to be complimented by a friend. It closed the virtuous circle with a boost of ego that had me wondering if I shouldn't try other things.

Misato, now dressed for work looked in on what I'd managed to do.

"It's better than nothing," she said. That was about the kindest thing it would be possible to say about it, and I could tell she'd taken a long time to come up with that. "Doing nothing just because it's too difficult is the first step along the road to destruction. What do you think would've happened now if we'd listened to the scientists who told us building the Evas was impossible?"

She stared right at us all, wearing a cold expression that sucked the heat out of the room. "If you aren't willing to try, then why are you alive?"

There's a big difference between the ultimate pan-global Manhattan project to build a weapon upon which the fate of all humanity must hinge and a poxy middle school essay set by a doddering old codger who still had impact flashbacks and insisted that we should all lionise his generation for rebuilding after a World War and a global disaster.

The way I figure it, if I'm going to be a fourteen year old girl, it's only fair that I get to be fourteen in outlook too. It's a package deal.

But she did have a small point. I prioritised my time, then found that I still had some left over. I could at least use it to make an attempt and score a few marks.

"Ok." I said.

"Well," she smiled a little at each of us, bringing a small amount of sunshine into the room. "It's time for my shift. Hopefully, I won't see you three until the morning."

Because if we saw her sooner, that meant an Angel attack. I knew there wouldn't be one.

"Goodbye," Shinji beamed. Asuke glared. I suppressed a hearty chuckle that'd get me killed.

Misato winked at him. "Be careful Shinji. Don't let these two girls corrupt you and take your innocent purity," she purred, suggesting she wanted him all to herself.

"You old pervert," Asuka sneered. "He's half your age."

"It's not how old you are, it's how old you feel," she cooed dreamily, leaning over Shinji. She propped those two big breasts of hers on top of his head, squishing him down into his seat. Shinji grimaced from beneath marshmallow hell, glowering up at her, his face a grim mixture of irritation and adolescent hope.

I had a sudden flash, picturing myself in Shinji's place, going all tingly inside. A second flash, of myself in Misato's place, with Shinji's head pressed against my chest sent little tingles crawling through my chest, like the feet of a thousand little ants deep inside me. I crossed my arms defensively, feeling an odd blush begin to heat my face. I set my jaw grimly.

"I do not like Shinji," I stated. He looked stunned for a moment. Crap! "I mean... I ... Not like ... em..." I tumbled over myself, trying to find the right words.

Asuka sighed. "She means she's not physically attracted to you," she clarified. "Not that she hates you,"

"Exactly," I confirmed.

"Oh," Shinji relaxed, and seemed to forget for a moment that he was wearing Misato's boobs for a hat. "Can you take them off? They're real heavy."

"Try carrying them around," Misato giggled, standing upright again. She squeezed them together into this great deep valley, before letting them drop down with a bounce.

Right. Back pains. Something else I get to grow into.

"And aren't you going to be late?" Shinji said, sourly.

"Spoilsport," she pouted. It took a few moments for her adult composure to return. "Anyway, a long and boring night dealing with the Goddess Relief Service beckons. I'll see you three in the morning."

Hamburg named their Magi after the Norns. Japanese members of NERV did what came natural soon after. Misato slipped quietly out of the door, for a moment leaving me with the feeling that she was just a little bit ashamed.

Asuka blew out a long, false sigh as the front door slid home, leaning dangerously back on her chair, almost daring it to slip out from under her and break her neck.

"Must've met Kaji last night, " she declared.

"Huh?"

"She gets like this if they both were on the same shift. She always teases Shinji more."

The boy frowned just a little bit. "It sucks being the only guy in the house."

"Ritsuko will... do surgery, if that problem."

He gawked at me.

Asuka groaned. "Cavegirl makes a funny."

"I don't want to be a girl anyway," said Shinji. "I'm a boy," he declared with manly gusto.

I half-laughed.

It would certainly have reduced the sexual tension in this apartment to manageable level if Shinji had been a girl. Misato wouldn't be teasing her. Asuka wouldn't be going all tsundere, they'd probably even be friends, and I'd be able to lounge lazily around in my underwear rather than having to get dressed.

And it'd make for a more interesting show, if you're into the moe thing. Moe Shinjiko, hard, tsundere Asuka, softer Noriko, and fey and mysterious Rei. I smirked at the thought. There was a Yuri doujin in there somewhere. Shinji himself got back to cooking.

It was a scene of domestic bliss. I thought about changing out of my clothes, but ended up not bothering. What did the saviours of humanity do on their off-time? What did animé characters do during the long days between episodes when the excession of the week wasn't blasting the city to rubble and threatening humanity's extinction if we failed?

The exact same things every child their age did when they had free time to spare.

We lounged around, watched TV, argued, ate snacks, complained and hogged the telephone. I pirated a two-decade old animé series and some RPG sourcebooks to confirm a few things for myself, and finally went digging for some crisps because I felt like eating something crunchy and salty.

"Sorry," Asuka waved her packet it me. The remaining crisps inside shuffled mouth-wateringly inside. I felt my mouth begin to perspire with desire. "Last one. Early bird, catches the worm."

I always preferred to be the second mouse who got the cheese myself. I shot her a dirty look. She grinned at me in victory.

"Ah bollox, I'll get some myself,"

Change clothes? For a trip to the nearest Lawson's for a bag of Doritos? I breezed out the door and out into the late evening. The sky was a stunning, burning orange, pale smoky clouds rolling over the tops of the mountains. Lights were coming on in the city. Many were aircraft warning lights or Evangelion waypoints. Some were apartments, twinkling into being on the face of residential blocks. The roads where near empty, with only a few out on the streets. There was an evening chill in the air, while concrete radiated the stored heat of the day.

A traditional-style bar was bustling as day-shift down the Geofront was beginning to end. Kaji waved at me, and I ran away. Something about him just set off alarm bells deep within. Ryouji Kaji was Bad News, my mind warned with the full flashing lights and klaxons display. It sent chills through my body just thinking about him.

I was getting into the old part of town, by which time the sun had sunk low between two mountains, which for a moment reminded me of a pair of breasts. There was a small playground on a green area just outside the supermarket. Alone, a boy was playing by himself in a diamond sandpit, slowly digging a trench with a plastic front loader that in his own imagination was five metres tall solid steel.

I remembered being his age.

I remembered being a boy his age. Clear as a bell it rang like the cicadas in the evening sun.

His mother called him away and he began to pout in that childish way we all did when we wanted five minutes more after the last five minutes more. The bell of recollection tolled once more as I remembered myself demanding the exact same thing. I knew I'd seen this place before.

And not recently.

I stopped at stared into the pit for a few seconds. It was just a diamond full of rough sand, surrounded by cracked and silvered wood.

The memory was gone.

Oh well. Not every recollection was going to come as easy as that championship one. I picked up what I wanted from the Lawsons, along with a few other things I didn't want as was the usual way with supermarkets, then set off home at a gentle amble. The great thing about being so physically active day to day, was that I could eat a little junk food without too many ill effects.

The sun had dropped below the mountains, burning like a distant fire in the west. More lights were coming to life. That's what Asuka meant, about the city seeming more alive with the lights on. It was a place where people lived, rather than the rusting ghost towns along the coast. Light was life.

I had a whole life ahead of me now. And it was my life.

Clear skies were turning to purple velvet as darkness finally closed in, the first stars winking back at me as a coda to a day which had felt revolutionary. I hiked up the stairs, finding the door to home. I remembered my first time making the journey, and how I'd come through that door to see a pair of Asuka's neural clips and Shinji's SDAT on the table and it'd all seemed so strangely unreal.

"I'm back!" I announced.

"Welcome home," Shinji smiled. His arms where caked in suds, the boy cleaning up after dinner

That was it. If a random omnipotent being had popped in at just that moment and survived to offer me the chance to go home, chances were my answer would've been that I am.

Come to think of it, I never really thought much of home. At first, maybe I was too shocked to think about it. As that passed, I was too burned out from training, then came my identity issues, then… now. It never entered my mental landscape because I was too busy with other, more immediate thoughts. Now, well… here I am.

Asuka spotted the bagful of junkfood.

"So that's what all the training is for," she said, with that foxish smirk.

I propped my leg up on the couch, stretching it straight out. Muscles went taut under dark stockings, and I slapped my thigh.

"Rock solid." More or less.

Under my skin was the soft outline of muscle. Not bulging or anything, just me being lean, fit and toned. Her eyes narrowed. Behind me, there was a clatter, followed by a splash that sent a shock through my body. Both of us turned around to see a heavy steel pot on the floor, dishwater slopping across the tiling.

"Pervert!" Asuka accused.

Oops.

The three of us finished the night gaming, with Pen-Pen stealing crisps. I showered for the evening, while the others went to bed. I lingered alone in the land of the waking for a few minutes because I just didn't want the day to end.

My new life wasn't better than my old. It wasn't worse. Sure I got to pilot the giant robot, but it was a lot of work, and I could get killed. I could get worse than killed. I was fitter than who I used to be, but conversely, more fragile. A hard fall would shatter my leg and arm all over again. It was all swings and roundabouts really.

Padding my way to my bedroom in the dark, I glanced out the window at the night beyond. There were lights twinkling on the moon while the city beneath had gone to sleep.

Asuka was dead to the world in bed, muttering away to herself in her native language. Her bedsheets had fallen off. Striped panties accentuated the curves of her backside. My first thought was that she was going to wake up cold and grouchy, and I'd have to put up with it.

My second thought was that it was time to get to sleep myself. School tomorrow. Pain-in-the-ass teacher tomorrow. And another three hours of after-school testing and training tomorrow. Kaworu tomorrow.

Here I am.

Even if I do still dream of Evangelion fanfics

I…I

Monday morning. I don't like Mondays. It was still dark when I woke up, wondering why I wasn't able to see in the dark anymore before quickly realizing that had probably been a dream. Stupid thing. I was licking at my incisors while slipping a hand down my underwear to just to confirm that I was still Noriko.

That'd be just perfect, wouldn't it?

I didn't want to go through this all over again. And I didn't want to spend the rest of my days re-watching End of Evangelion knowing I left people I actually care about to that fate, when I could've been in a position to do something. Asuka, Shinji, Misato, Motoko, they were all real people, not just animated emotional wastelands.

What I find down below reassures me, and I wonder for a moment if it wouldn't've been easier to just take a breath and feel my bedsheets tickling against my chest, or turn over and let the weight of them droop over.

A few minutes later, I was running through the usual morning routine. Eat, exercise, wash, have more breakfast, confirm that I did have a post-school synchronisation test, get dressed into my school uniform, run to catch up with the two lovebirds, then make it through the gate with a minute to spare.

Motoko was there, switched to those pain-in-the-foot school shoes already

"Morning Noriko."

"Morning Motoko."

"You seem cheery this morning."

Yes, yes I am. "My memory come back,"

"Oh," she paused for a moment. "I just remembered something too. A bunch of us are going up to lake Takanosu for a swim this weekend, want to come? Just us girls…"

I thought about it for a moment. A week ago, I might've made an excuse to get out of it.

"Sure." I smiled, giving a shrug "What the hell."

Class was its usual monotonous hell, stuffed in a solar furnace. Rei was still trying to win her staring match with the tree outside, I glanced back at Kaworu who was ever the diligent student. Nothing unusual was happening. Nothing was going to happen, despite me tempting fate. Our weekend assignments were collected, and I spent more time fooling around sending messages on the school's intranet and dodging around the webfilter than I did paying attention to the old man.

"As you would know from your assignments, the Tokugawa plan was founded upon the simple assertion that, if we tried to save everyone, we would save no-one. The plan called for the distribution of resources according to where they would be most effective, rather than where they were most needed,"

A message popped up.

::Meet me at lunchtime – Kyonichi

I sent back.

:: Why?

"Whole communities were left to fend for themselves, while important urban centres were evacuated to refugee camps. Priority in the camps was given to skilled labourers, expectant mothers and especially young children after the full effects of Tyrell's disease became known."

::Something weird happened with the secret information you sent.

::What?

They didn't get arrested, did they?

"After the despair of learning that we would be little more than a twilight to the human race, came the hope when it was discovered that the children who had been born after Second Impact were immune to the disease and its effects."

He was looking at Shiori who made her best efforts to hide behind her laptop.

"Never forget that the future of the human race is inside you, in more ways than one."

And I felt sick to think about that.

:: I need to talk in person. Main yard.

He probably didn't. He probably wanted to be seen talking with an EVA Pilot. Well, it wasn't like I had anything important to do.

::I'll see you then

"Of course, you should all remember those who got you here, those who rebuilt from the ground up , not just once, but twice, and made sure that you would have a future…" And I stopped paying attention outright. Noriko's brain has left the building. His mouth was flapping, sounds were coming out, but I really didn't care what they were.

And started pondering the nature of sexuality, and how I was supposed to figure that out. Blame Motoko for sending me a link to what was supposed to be an attractive man. It didn't trigger a single thing. Rather than making waves, I pretended to agree with her, while generally feeling just a little inert inside. It wouldn't be too long before I understood completely. The law of averages said I'd be a nice, natural heterosexual woman…

Well shit.

I was marking time, waiting for death by boredom.

After a few year's wait, the lunchbell chimed. "Have we not heard the chimes at midday," said General Chang. Or something like that. I preferred sandwiches for lunch. Asuka preferred to get hers from Shinji. Some of the girls were laughing, and I could tell by the way they were looking at me that I was the target. I scanned the yard self-consciously, wondering if it was something I'd missed.

Schoolyard paranoia, how I missed you.

Nobody else seemed to be paying attention. I scanned again. Shinji had clustered with his own group, while Asuka was stalking. For a moment I thought I saw Kaworu with one of the girls from 2-C, but must've been seeing things. Rei was her usual rocky island, by herself and obviously content to be. Life continued.

"Yo Noriko!"

Kyonichi was waving from across the yard. I didn't run over to him, I strolled slowly. This was me in control. This was me regretting the whole Haruhi thing and not just ignoring them from the start.

"Hey," I said, unenthusiastically.

Well, he wasn't a bad person.

"I don't know what you did, but our server got rooted twenty minutes after Ha…" he stopped, grimacing while he rubbed at his temples. "Sakura! Damn it, now even I'm doing it," He was radiating frustration, hot and angry. He shook it off. "Anyway, where was I?"

"Server root," I said, fighting the urge to twirl a strand of hair through my fingers. Just hurry this up please.

"Yes! It got hacked and blown straight off the internet. Erased beyond hope of recovery. I don't know what set it off, but it's got Sakura believing that whatever you say to her about NERV will be the truth, and that they were covering it up."

I chuckled mischievously, before remembering what had happened at the internet café. A creeping unease snarled up inside my stomach. It gave me an idea… something that might keep him from bugging me for more.

"Be careful," I said, keeping my voice as flat as I could manage. "NERV always watch. They watch internet. They watch posting. They will disappear people who know too much."

He slowly turned his head towards the convoy of vehicles waiting to bring us to the Geofront at a moments notice. He looked at me. He looked at each of the other pilots in turn, then over at Sakura who was bothering someone from the computer club.

"She wants to ask those agents about the conspiracy."

"Really?"

He gave me a wan smile. "I'm beginning to think this Haruhi masquerade might've been a bad idea."

"It…." and I had no idea how to finish that off. The sentence I'd prepared in advance just didn't fit anymore "What else can do?"

"Bite the bullet, call the school psychiatrist. Destroy what's left of her. Push her into a full blown mental breakdown and hope she doesn't harm herself when she finds the truth. Then have her fall into the government childcare system."

Alright, I'm still an adult in a way, I can still make the adult choice.

"I think, it would be harmful to continue," I suggested, tentatively. "NERV will disappear her if she… continue."

He sighed, looking away over at her still bothering the girl she insisted was her Mikuru, "I just don't want her to be hurt."

"The longer it goes on, the more it'll hurt when it ends."

I forgot what film that was from, but it felt like exactly the right thing to say. He was still looking at her. "Unh… there has to be something we can do?"

I am technically an orphan. I don't feel it. My father died holding me. My mother is 'dead'… my other parents are in an entirely different universe forever sealed away from me. I don't really feel that at all.

But I can lie about it.

"I have no parent." I stated.

He took a double take at me. "Really?"

I gave the best impression of a solemn nod. It was hard not to grin like an idiot. Part of this still felt like I was pulling the biggest prank on the whole world. For a moment I feared he'd call me on it.

"Well, I suppose you're in the Father's only class. But…"

He was clawing for a way out of the emotional hole he was certain he was digging

"I do not mind," I assured him, forcing a smile. "It was an accident last year. "

I could smell jet fuel as I kicked that particular memory back under the carpet. Shoo! Shoo! Get out of my mind. Take a deep breath and staple down the carpet where it could stay hiding.

He looked away at Sakura, still in full Haruhi cry. She'd stopped being annoying comedy, and had become a tragedy in her own way. Pitiable, but someone I could sympathise with. I knew a little about what it was like not to know who you are, or to think you're the wrong person…. Or something like that.

"Well, if you're willing to back me up. I'll talk to the others."

"I will."

"Thanks Noriko, Ja ne."

I was left alone again as he ran off, waving at me. But not for long, I determined. I knew where Motoko was, and I was determined to spend some quality time with my high-school friend. I wasn't sure what exactly we could talk about, I was curious to see how my changed perspective would affect things.

"Noriko," a voice tried to stop me.

I ignored it.

"Noriko," it insisted. A heavy hand grabbed at my shoulder.

I spun on my heel. "What?" I spat.

Kaworu Nagisa was smiling at me. What the fangirls were calling stunning alazarin eyes were boring through my soul, riding a hollow mockery of a friendly smile,

"I need to speak with you."

"Fuck off Kaworu!"

I'm certain half the campus heard that. He didn't seem ashamed, and I certainly didn't feel the need to be. Time to put my tsun-tsun hat on. How would Asuka deal with him? I consciously copied her usual stance. Legs planted, arms akimbo, staring down the target while trying to stretch myself up.

His expression didn't change. "I still don't under…"

I deliberately slammed the door on that sentence. "Look. I don't get why you're being so friendly with me," I hissed through my teeth. "I don't care. I'm just waiting for the day you turn around and finally decide it's your turn to make a run at Third Impact. And when that day comes it won't be Shinji taking minutes to think about it, holding you in Unit 01's hand. It'll be me, with a grin on my face, glad to wait just a few seconds to savour the moment before getting my revenge and making your body go pop in my fingers."

And that mental image never failed to make me smile. Ever squeeze a jelly baby between your fingers when you were a child?

"Even if that would hurt Shinji?" he enquired "If I was Shinji's friend, you would murder me?"

"Don't use Shinji as a shield! You destroyed me, remember?" I tried my best to loom and menace. He smelled of sweat and LCL. "I'm beating you by building myself back up and putting myself together. I'm getting used to it. I can live like this. But I can't forgive you for taking my life from me. I am going to destroy you."

And that was a fucking promise. Drilled into his chest with my finger.

That got a reaction. A momentary shock. Kaworu doesn't like pain. Kaworu doesn't know what pain is.

"So be it." He knew he was going to die anyway. He would have to. He didn't even bat an eyelid. " I just assumed you would like to know about the next Angel."

"Misato's party hasn't happened yet," I hissed.

"No, but Sahaquiel won't play by the script. Sahaquiel will play to win."

He spoke with the same, serene certainty he always did.

"What?"

"I don't know how, just that he'll try."

"Well thank you. That's a great fucking help that is."

"You're welcome," he said, mildly.

I went arms akimbo. Another deliberate Asuka imitation. I was on a roll. "What, no concept of sarcasm, Mysterious Stranger?"

"I believe you are grateful for the warning, even if your anger doesn't let you truly show it,"

What. The. Christ.

"Whatever. I'm done."

I spun on a heel with a weighty swish from my hair. It pendulumed behind me, dragging my head just a little. I stomped away from him, driving my heels into the tarmac. Stones crunched under thin-soled shoes and I would be damned if I wasn't glad half the school was watching that.

The virtuous cycle of self-confidence continued.

A mental image of who Noriko was supposed to be was beginning to form in my mind. Asuka-lite. Heavy on the dere, with enough tsun-tsun to give the right amount of spice. In otherwords, normal, well adjusted... with an irrational hatred of one particular person that nobody will be able to explain. Misato without the real dark parts, and hopefully with the same... bounce.

Myself was mine to define from here on in.

It's funny. In fiction, the heroes were always the hero. They could be safe in that knowledge. While the coward could assure himself that he would always be the coward. But, here and now, in Tokyo-3, the self-called hero could become a coward. And the self-called coward could become a hero.

We are who we make ourselves to be. Ask Shinji about that in a few episodes time.

I choose to be happy.

I probably shouldn't have yelled "I am shit hot!" and punched the air in the middle of the schoolyard.

But I felt great. I was in that wonderful time of bliss between the time when I dealt with my own problems, but before the one's Noriko had before the accident manifested themselves. Enjoy it while it lasts, because if Noriko's neuroses don't hit, something else is going to come along to take this away from me. A meteorite from above perhaps.

Eating as I walked, I looked for Motoko.

Shinji was at the centre of attention again, flanked by both stooges as they dealt illicit pictures. I could hear him laughing in the centre of it. Asuka was in the bathroom….. that was a sickening reminder of something I really hated. It made me cringe inside.

Where was Motoko?

The alarm bell interrupted my search.

Back to the drudgery. I'd catch her on the network. Save the world, go to school then get chewed out by a teacher who doesn't appreciate me trying to winkle out of an assignment using a clever justification based on the subject of that assignment. The one thing Misato couldn't beat was an educator's sense of arrogant superiority.

I received a failing grade. I was the only student failing history. Everyone found the concept of one of the Eva pilots failing hilarious.

I received commiserations from Motoko, humiliation from everyone else, then a nasty shock when the RSS feed suddenly exploded with tsunami warnings.

The tenth?

I snatched a glance at Nagisa, then at the others in the class. He wasn't doing anything more than sitting through his lesson, pretending to be normal. Asuka was tapping away one-finger scrolling through whatever she was reading. Shinji appeared to notice, but not be too bothered.

News followed through ten minutes later; Another earthquake off old Tokyo, a faultline dumping aeons of stress…. Nothing more.

All it did was get my heart racing and collapse a few old buildings on the coast that were well rotten.

Our next assignment was a writing assignment. Speculative fiction. Had Second Impact not happened, what would the world have been like?

This. This would be easy.

I...I

I live in a world where half of humanity was wiped out by natural disaster, giant monsters beyond our understanding are attacking and the only way to fight them off is using technology centuries ahead of its time, powered by weaponised maternal instincts and piloted by children of questionable sanity. I wrote an essay on alternate histories for class, about a world where Second Impact never happened. I told the truth, straight down the middle.

It got rejected for not being believable in the slightest. A good technothriller maybe if I worked at it, but completely unrealistic.

An hour later I was sitting in my giant robot. What is the real world, when the truth about where I came from gets rejected as a ridiculous fiction?

This one. Because right now, this is where I am. September 11th, 2015, Neo-Tokyo 3.

A week had gone by. A week of training. I saw Nagisa going through the same training I had. I saw him at school stalking around by himself.

A bunch of us went swimming up at the new Lake Takanosu. It was nice to be around other girls without feeling like the outsider all the time, or uncomfortably self-conscious. It was just the normal teenage self-consciousness.

I made First Lieutenant in a small ceremony, where I received a medal for killing an Angel. My emotional armour was at it's strongest.

We did this really cool exercise, an officer training thing, where each of us was put in a single room and given a pair of television screens and our own bridge-bunny. I got Maya. The screens would only show surveillance camera footage of a squad of troops we had to pass orders on to. We were given a simple objective; building a cart out of an assortment of random parts from scrap cars, then guiding them and the cart through an obstacle course under simulated fire.

The test was of our ability to think through a problem, take advice, and then make sure that our could get my point across through a bridge-bunny with nothing more than a comm-link. I think the real reason was to give us a little bit of sympathy for the difficulties of command.

I did alright. My initial plan of doing whatever Misato would do failed when I realised I had no idea what Misato would actually do. So I just asked the squad for ideas since they knew better, then chose which of their own ideas to implement. Mission completed, with the third best time. Asuka grabbed the bull by the horns and controlled everything, micromanaging the slightest details. She finished first, a full minute and a half ahead of everyone else. Technically she got two of her people 'killed' in the process, so was docked points. Rei took the same approach I did, coming in second just ten seconds ahead of me. Kawaoru was fourth, with Shinji taking the longest.

Finally, we were graded by the troops. They liked Asuka's ability to take control quickly… to a point, though greatly disliked her tendency to get them killed. But it was hard to argue with results. Shinji, at the opposite end, just didn't assert himself enough while Kawaoru did his usual thing of being pleasant at first, but creeping everyone out in large doses and sowing discord. In a tossup between myself and Rei they felt that Rei was the best commander; I just didn't contribute enough ideas of my own into the mix and took a little too long to make decisions.

After that were a full-up battle-simulations. Angels just didn't use regular tactics and regular tactics just didn't work against them, so they were really only good for teamwork practice. Tactical training was more more about getting us working together. The usual practice was for 00, 03 and 04 to provide fire support, pinning or – more likely – irritating the shit out of an Angel enough that it'd ignore 01 and 02 flanking with prog-weapons. We provided covering fire for a fighting withdrawal, or a high speed advance. In simulations, it worked.

In reality, it was doubtful any Angel would arrive in a way that let us actually do it.

Technically the last Angel had, and maybe Zeruel when it appears, but otherwise supposed be little more than a starting point to try so we could see how the Angel responded, then adjust tactics to match and try again. Lather, rinse, repeat and hope it doesn't take too long to figure out how to blow it up. It wasn't a case of monster of the week, it was outside context problem of the week. I had a leg up in that regard, which I couldn't really use without answering some very uncomfortable questions.

That was followed by the usual pain-desensitisation exercises. Those were always tough. Focus on a complex task, while they put you through an artificial agony. As a counterpoint, the usual sync tests were an exercise in monotony. Since when had sharing my mind with the slumbering presence inside a thirty-story abomination against creation become routine?

I knew what she was capable of, but never felt threatened by her. Unit 03 was a big old mama bear. I was her cub and she always seemed glad when I first sync'd. She had moods, I was certain of it. Maybe they were reflections of my own, or maybe they were hers. When I was happy, she seemed almost cheerful. When I was scared, she was soothing. When I was angry, she was savage.

Sometimes it made me wonder how sapient she actually was.

That was my advantage over the other pilots. I knew who was in there with me.

Best of all, I had a plugsuit with more chest room and some new plastic trim under the ribcage. My confidence peaked in a sleek figure-hugging plugsuit. Being the eldest pilot had its advantages. I was stronger and faster…. Among other things. And, from a comfort perspective, it was certainly better to be a female Eva pilot than a male. Dimensional consistency made wearing a skintight plugsuit so much more comfortable. I certainly saw Shinji suffer more than once at the sight of Asuka walking in front of him.

You have been assimilated, Noriko. Resistance was futile, wasn't it?

Daily life was a bit more give and take, but it still evened out. And the things I actually liked about myself had nothing to do with gender.

It was a Wednesday that managed to be utterly unremarkable, except for the rain hammering at the windows of the bedroom. The downside of having a lot of black hair was that it took forever and an age to get dry.

The upside; it was an excuse to sit in just my underwear and a t-shirt enjoying the hot-air blast from a hairdryer. Asuka was providing fanservice for the perverted behind me as she changed out of her school uniform, while I was more interested in the doujin that was cradled in my crossed legs.

"Are you ever going to be finished with that thing?"

"This is why I bought my own," I cooed at her, wearing a smile of smug, self satisfaction. "Yours is in the bathroom."

A low growl rose from her throat. I sat my ground. More self confidence means resisting Asuka gets easier, means more self confidence. It keeps working. She stormed out in her underwear.

I smiled to myself.

I heard her go into the bathroom, clattering around as she tried to find her own. She was swearing in German. I was gaining some vicarious thrills courtesy of Rally Vincent.

The bathroom door opened. Asuka was coming back. Till Lindeman stared down at me from a poster, waiting patiently for her return.

The front door opened. Three voices entered.

"Thanks for letting us stay, Shinji," I heard Kensuke remark.

"Yeah, man… it's just…." Silence. Touji stopped dead in mid-sentence.

An alarm went off in my mind. Asuka screamed. She shrieked Germanic curses. It was a screaming, howling storm of rage and fury. Touji dove in boots and all with a studs-up verbal tackle. Being called tiny-tits certainly didn't do much for her volume control.

Her underwear was getting a bit... tight on me.

I popped out a head through the door to enjoy the drama scene. Three boys, soaked to their skins and dripping a trail of water on the floor, so caught up in the argument they seemed to be oblivious to the fact Asuka was still standing there, bare feet planted on wooden floor, in her underwear.

"Asuka." Shinji interrupted, his voice somewhere on the nervous side of calm. "Misato's still in bed."

A deep yawn made that a lie, cutting off Asuka's snark before she could do more than scowl bitterly at them.

Kensuke snapped to attention. They both bowed to the point where I thought they would fall over. How to do that without headbutting the ground was a skill I'd never master.

"We apologise for our unforgivable rudeness, ma'am," they both harmonised.

Shinji blinked. Asuka stood there blind-sinded, trying to look angry and generally failing.

"I needed to wake up anyway," she batted it away, stifling a yawn. I smothered a laugh behind my hands.

Kensuke adjusted his glasses, inspecting something on Misato's collar. His eyes seemed to zoom in. My good humour dissolved as he snapped to attention, throwing a crisp salute.

"Congratulations on your promotion, Major Katsuragi!"

So. That would be tonight.

And then Sahaquiel over the next couple of days.

We were both dressed in our plugsuits, making our way through anonymous corridors to a sync test.

"You might've backed me up earlier," Asuka hissed at me.

Says the person who, if I had've charged to her defence would've been just as pissed off and vehement that she didn't ever need any help whatsoever.

"I was wearing panties and a t-shirt," I offered in my own defence.

"And you sent me out there in a bra and panties rather than lend me yours. It was your fault Noriko."

And clearly she expected me to make it up to her.

"Alright, alright," I raised my hands in surrender. Time for a peace offering. "I was going to go shopping tomorrow with Motoko, maybe you could come along?"

I really had planned it in advance. A thin smile formed on her lips. "If you're paying for ice-cream?"

"Fine."

Friendship with Asuka was expensive. We passed the male locker rooms on the way. Shinji, and Kaworu were just ahead of us, reversing the usual order of things. Asuka nudged me in the side, whispering into my ear.

"Y'know. From this angle, the Fifth isn't so bad."

Showing remarkable intelligence and my usual razor sharp mind, I answered;

"Huh?"

"Weird personality. But a nice body," she smirked at me. "I wonder if that's how boys see Rei?"

"I'll take your word for it," I demurred, trying to hide a big fat lump of hate filled revulsion wrapped in vengeance and spiced with naked spite rising up the back of throat. She was wrong anyway.

"I am not like him," Rei reminded us of her presence. And that she was at least bilingual.

"You are what I say you are," Asuka sneered at her.

If I had to pin Rei's expression, it was somewhere between 'Why did I even bother speaking?' and 'Not this shit again'.

"I think she's right," I said, tentatively testing the ground. "Kaworu is like a serial killer. Rei..." I pondered for a moment. "She's just shy and sheltered." Enough that she seemed completely unbothered by us talking about her. "It's not really a sexual thing. She just acts like she needs protecting. It feeds the big brother instinct and the desire to care for a younger sister. They want to matter to someone."

She blinked. Her eyes narrowed. "Whatever... boys are weird."

I don't know. They made perfect sense to me. Then again, I did have certain advantages

"So. Gun to your head. You have to choose one of them, which would you choose to spend the night with, for the good of the human race,"

"Ikari," I answered. I didn't even hesitate.

"Huh?" he glanced back at me, hearing his name.

"Nothing," we harmonised.

"And you? Which would you?"

She grinned at me. "I'd rather take the bullet."

As if that was the only noble option.

I pouted to hide my smile. "You never told me that was an option."

"When it comes to preserving myself, taking the bullet is always an option." She continued with her haughty posturing. Her body was as pure as spring water, reserved especially for one person. Her eyes glimmered as she thought of something funny

"What about you First?"

I caught the sneer in her voice as she asked.

"Ikari," Rei answered. Straight off the cuff.

Asuka made a show of shrugging her shoulders. "Well I guess you two will have to share then. I'm sure the pervert won't be picky."

I didn't take the bait.

I placed a finger to my lips. "Hmm... that might even be kinda fun."

A moment later I found myself agreeing with myself. It would be interesting. My insides squirmed at the thought.

"No," Rei said, simply.

Both of us looked at her. Her expression was as impassive as ever. Those red eyes regarded us with their same quiet curiousity they always did.

"First doesn't like to share, does she?" she groused.

"No," Rei repeated.

"Well, I don't want him. He's too whiny. He never stands up for himself and he's a total perv'."

The thought occurred to me to call her bluff, just to watch her go pop. But then I'd end up winning a hand I really preferred to lose anyway. She saved herself for Kaji... being selfish I saved myself only for myself.

I was smiling like an idiot at that thought all the way to the main control room. Ritsuko was there with the usual briefing beforehand instructing us on the specific details of the day's test. I paid my usual attention until she finally mentioned my name.

"Noriko. One last thing...Worcester finally got off their ass and sent the simulation data for Unit 03, along with that of 04. You can join the others in the simulation plugs."

"Why not Unit 03?"

"Safety protocols. It is much safer to use the simulation system, than the actual Eva."

Safer for the pilot, anyway. The simulators were the standard entry plug design, but instead of being mounted to the Eva directly, they were connected via a massive collection of metaphysical technobabble that transmitted the signals between pilot and mecha. It was a tangle of cables and conduits bubbling away at the bottom of a bleach-smelling tank of cooling fluid.

Firstly, it was impossible to get trapped inside a berserker Eva if you weren't inside it in the first place. Secondly, falling into the coolant pool would be embarrassing. Falling off the shoulder armour of an Evangelion would be lethal.

Nobody wanted that accident.

Internally, it was a case of the simulator being the same, but...

For one thing, there were no visual displays to keep my interested, no little toys. 03 was there but, syncing through the simulation system was a lot like driving a car with an automatic gearbox.

There was a strange inertia in the system. It really felt like trying to turn a propeller by stirring the water you'd suspended it in. It took a while to get up to speed once you started, and it ran on even when you were pulling back.

The effect on my scores was pretty much as expected. Akagi was unusually conciliatory, assuring me that it was just while I adapted to the system.

The effect on Asuka when she was politely informed that she had to do better since Shinji was catching up on her was also pretty much, as expected. I made a note to avoid that thunderstorm by spending twenty minutes in the public baths. Rei gave nobody any surprises.

"And in his first test, Nagisa scores forty point two percent synchronisation, with a harmonics value of two-five-two."

"Fuck!"

Everyone looked at me.

Ritsuko continued "As the Fourth Child so eloquently put it, those are exceptional scores for a first test."

It took me weeks to match that. He was cheating. He was doing that sync on demand thing.

"So, it looks like we have another prodigy on our hands," Asuka sneered at him, "Maybe the rest of us who have to work at our tests should give up now?"

"Beginner's luck," Nagisa assured her, diplomatically. "Nothing more,"

Rei was staring hard at him.

"Well, if it translates to an operational score with Unit 04..."

"Wait, he hasn't even been tried in an actual Eva yet?" Soryhu interrupted.

She stole the words from my open mouth.

Akagi glared at her as I shuffled in behind, lending my support. "...I would see no reason not to move him to operational status as soon as Unit 04 arrives from America," She paused, sucking on the end of her pen. "Of course, if you want his operational scores now, there're enough similarities between 04 and Unit 02. We could run him tomorrow..."

"No way!"

"When is Unit 04 coming?"

Hello Bardiel.

"Within the next two weeks, once final airlifting arrangements are met."

Kill two angels with one bullet. Perfect.

I made a point to get out of there as quickly as possible. Nagisa was ruining everything. He ruined everything. He was walking ruin with a smile on it's face. He sucked out all my good humour and replaced it with vile hate and anger. He used it to power that evil little smile of his.

"So, what's up between you and the new wunderkind?"

Asuka, halfway out of her plugsuit, decided to interrupt my private two-minute-hate. She was fishing for allies to go against the newest threat, that much was obvious.

"That's private."

I didn't even try to be subtle. It got dangerously close to things-she-was-not-meant-to-know.

"Heh, Jealous of him destroying your scores so easily. Maybe it'll mean the end for us who have to work at things, when it all comes so easy to them."

"Knock it off, Asuka."

I was ready to fight my corner... I was ready for anything from her except what she did next. The energy drained right from her body, all that bluster just blew away, replaced by an expression that might almost have been sympathetic.

"What did he do to you?"

It was completely disarming. I stood for a second, half naked, trying to figure out what I could say to her to get her to drop it, without blowing the whole lot back in her face. She was going out on a limb... offering a hand.

"I'd rather not talk about it," I said, offering a forced smile.

She scowled at me. "Well he had to have done something. You hate him. It's so blind stinking obvious enough that you hate him that I've overhead Misato talking about it."

My jaw fell open.

"You recognised him when we first met, even though it was his first time in Japan. And you hated him from the first second."

I started to feel ill. She noticed that?

"So, you've met him before, haven't you? And he did something to you. He did something to you horrible enough to make you hate him with every fibre of your being, and enough that you don't want to talk about it. "

And she was determined to weedle it out of me. I knew exactly what she was insinuating.

My first instinct was to leave... to get out of there and get as far away from her as possible... but she'd track me down. She'd hunt me down and she'd corner me and she'd drag it out of me.

Whether it was to satisfy her own curiousity, or she was genuinely trying to help...

If she thought I'd been...

I can't tell anyone about what I really am, about what he really did, can I?

I can't tell the truth.

I can't outright lie to her and make up something that'd take ten minutes to prove wrong. That'd just piss her off.

And leave me in the exact same place. Actually, it'd leave me down a friend.

I took a breath, and didn't look at her face.

"I'm going to the public baths. If you want me to tell you, meet me there in twenty minutes. And promise you won't call me a lunatic."

I hoped this would work.

Now I had to figure out what to tell her, and how. The fun couldn't last, could it?

I...I

I've noticed it's somewhat traditional for these fics to end at around this point. I wonder why?

Hope you enjoyed it. Until lucky thirteen...

Oh, and apparently we have a small Tropes page. Tiny one.

-Dartz