On Third Street, Rei Ayanami wandered down the sidewalk accompanied by Ikari-kun who she carried in her hand, as he had been somehow determined as unfit to walk. She did not recall his being as small, circular, or stationary as he was, but she found him to be pleasant company nonetheless.
A ways behind her, Shinji squinted at the blue-haired girl in school uniform visible down the street. "Hey, is that Ayanami?"
Asuka rolled her eyes. "I don't know, Third. She's your girlfriend, you tell me."
"Sh-she's not! I'm serious, Asuka!" Shinji shouted indignantly. "It's just weird that she's alone this late, talking to herself," he clarified.
"Probably still thinks she's too high and mighty to talk to anyone else," Asuka grumbled.
Rei stopped and turned to look behind her, having overheard the boy's shouts. She could not quite place the memory associated with the sound, but she discerned it as a meaningful one. Looking at the pair with a strange sense of familiarity, she began walking in their direction as they continued towards her. I believe these people are important. I should introduce them to Ikari-kun.
As Shinji and Asuka closed the distance to Rei and Ikari-kun, they could begin to make out what she was saying. This only raised further questions.
"And that is when I discovered my clothes were attached to my body," the blue-haired girl revealed to her cream cheese-filled traveling companion.
Shinji glanced nervously from Rei to Asuka, who merely grumbled and shook her head in disbelief.
"H-hi Ayanami.. What's, um..what brings you out here?" Shinji stuttered out, still struggling to comprehend the scene before him, and with so many questions he could barely figure out where to even begin asking.
Asuka rolled her eyes and poked her finger at Rei's chest accusingly. "Nerv was looking for you today, you know. Why didn't you show up?"
Narrowing her eyes, Rei took a moment to process this. "I have now been located?"
"Yeah, sure. Whatever." Asuka grabbed Shinji's arm and tried to tug him away. "Forget it, she's obviously too busy to deal with common peons like us."
"Wait," Rei commanded. "Ikari-kun."
Shinji blinked, looking expectantly at her.
"I work alongside these people at Nerv," Rei intoned, looking directly at the object in her hand as though anticipating a response. After a moment she sighed, withering slightly. "You are not pleased to meet them, Ikari-kun?"
Asuka groaned, palming her face. "First? That's a bagel."
"You're supposed to eat it," Shinji assisted.
Rei looked at them, then back to Ikari-kun, taking in the surprising revelation. Cautiously, she placed her lips around the item in her hand and took a small bite. Wide-eyed, she beheld the bagel with a new reverence.
"You are delicious, Ikari-kun."
Asuka huffed and dragged Shinji away, suspending his continued attempts to explain, as Rei continued on her way, munching contentedly on Ikari-kun.
"Did you teach her to say that, Third?" She glared at Shinji, cutting off his stammered reply to inform him that she had never known such a shameless pervert in her entire life.
Upon reaching the corner of Third and Tokugawa, Asuka and Shinji looked around in perplexity. There was nothing there of note, with the exception of a sky blue mailbox with a Nerv logo on the front.
"So, this is it. I don't see anything here. What do we do now?" said Shinji, turning his head towards Asuka.
"Idiot! You always give up so easily! The clue is obviously inside this mailbox," Asuka replied, pointing a finger at the box and smiling with satisfaction at her detective skills.
Shinji peered down the mailbox's hatch, squinting. "Um...I don't really see much of anything, Asuka."
"Well, obviously it wouldn't be so easy as just looking into the mailbox, jeez! They have to keep the amateurs out somehow!"
Shinji looked unconvinced, soliciting a grumble from Asuka.
"C'mon, climb in there and dig for it," she directed, "I'll hold your ankles."
He glanced at the mailbox and winced. He couldn't possibly fit inside there unless Asuka cut his legs off first. Knowing her, she might actually try it. There's got to be some other way. "Well, um...I don't think that's very realistic, Asuka..."
"Quit your whining, Third," said Asuka, pulling her mouth into a pout. "You've got no guts for a guy, jeez!"
"Hey, I found the clue!" said Shinji, waving a sticky note. "It was right there on the back of the box."
"Hmph, that was too easy! What's this contest coming to? Read me the kanji, jerkface."
Shinji stared for a moment at the childlike scrawl written on the slip of paper and widened his eyes in disbelief once he had managed to extract a meaning. "Well um...it says um..."
Looking over his shoulder at the note in his hand, Asuka's eyes widened in a combination of fear and determination. "We have to do it. We've come too far to stop now."
Shinji gulped. "Asuka? No. No way. We are not digging up the Tokyo-3 Cemetery."
"I can't believe we just dug up the entire Tokyo-3 Cemetery."
"And there's not even anything here!" Asuka threw her shovel in the air in frustration, narrowly missing Shinji's head with the working end of it.
Through the silhouetted outlines of trees, the beginnings of a sunrise could be seen. The horizon loomed yellow and red, matching the color of Shinji's eyes at the moment.
"I can't believe we did this," he moaned. "'Just one more, Third,' you said. 'Just dig up one more and we can get out of here.' Now it's morning and I still haven't slept."
"God, I'm so sick of listening to you complain! And don't give up so easily. It's probably inside one of these coffins." Asuka was leaning against a dead tree, her arms folded.
Shinji sighed in exasperation and looked at the ground. Freshly unearthed coffins littered the cemetery like benches at a public park. "Haven't we done enough already, Asuka?"
Asuka grinned mischievously and laid her hand jauntily on her hip. "What, are you scared? You're such a scaredy cat, Third," she said, sticking out her tongue.
"I am not! H-hey, what're you doing-"
Shinji froze in shock as a cheerfully smiling Asuka kicked the lid off a coffin, revealing a half-rotted corpse wearing the shredded remains of a tuxedo. Most of the flesh had fallen off the face; a worm crawled out of the eye socket. Asuka, humming an upbeat tune, tore off the body's maggot-ridden arm and waved it at Shinji.
"Oooh, look Shinji, it's coooming foooor you!" Asuka taunted, giggling.
"St-stop that!" said Shinji, gagging and shielding his face.
Asuka rolled her eyes. "God, you're no fun, stupid Shinji."
"Come on, Asuka! The sun's coming up; if we don't get out of here someone's going to see us!"
Asuka looked up at the sky, sighed, and tossed the severed arm casually over her shoulder, breaking it in two. Dammit, he's right. If someone catches us here, Misato will be the least of our problems. "Fine..just gimme that note. I want to look at it again before we go; maybe we missed a hint or something."
Shinji begrudgingly removed the post-it note from his pocket, his eyes widening in horror as he read it. Rereading it in his mind, trying to surmise every possible explanation for what he was looking at, a terrible realization slowly dawned on him.
"A..A-Asuka..? I don't..think we should have done this.."
"What now?" Asuka rolled her eyes. "I told you to quit complaining, it's too late to undo anything now."
Shifting the note around in his hands to confirm his suspicions, he swallowed audibly before answering. "W..we read the note upside down. It actually says the next clue is..in Misato's refrigerator."
"Whaaaaat?" Asuka's face contorted into an expression Shinji had previously thought to be a physical impossibility.
""Yeah, I know." Shinji chuckled nervously, trying to ignore the stench of rot that became more evident with each passing moment. "It's kind of..oddly specific."
"Damn it!" Asuka shouted, stomping on the ground before grabbing Shinji's hand and pulling him along to Misato's apartment.
Subcommander Kozo Fuyutski knelt in front of the employee entrance to Nerv and dropped the pizza box, completely and utterly exhausted. He had lost the men in black and the pizza mascot a few blocks back, but he knew that they would not be gone for long. His uniform was torn in numerous places, as dirty as the First Child's apartment, and his stamina was completely shattered. Oddly enough, the Oven-Fresh technology had held up as well as advertised and the pizza box was still in prime condition, its contents warm.
Coughing and wheezing, the Subcommander staggered to his feet and dug out his ID card after a brief search through his pockets. He slid it into the electronic card scanner, but neither the turnstile nor the blue metal doors would budge an inch, causing Fuyutsuki to frown in consternation. As he slammed his fist against the ticket box in vain, he heard a loudspeaker crackle to life and the Commander's voice began to speak.
"Attention all Nerv personnel. Due to the inconven- the tragic demise of Subcommander Fuyutsuki, Derek Croft is hereby appointed interim Subcommander." Commander Ikari stopped speaking, and another voice whispered indistinctly to him. The Commander continued, "He wishes it to be known that employees may refer to him as 'DJ.' That is all."
Fuytsuki gritted his teeth. I haven't even been gone for a day and that bastard's already replaced me. God damn it.
As Kozo was mentally consigning the Commander to various circles of hell, he heard a now-familiar gravelly voice.
"Hey sir, have you tried one of Luigi's scrumptious cannolis? They make a great dessert for the whole family."
Fuyutsuki frantically swiped his card over and over, knowing that death was imminent-and felt a hand on his shoulder accompanied by an amiable chuckle.
Ryoji Kaji smiled broadly at the elderly subcommander's futile attempts at entry into the base. "These ID cards aren't worth the plastic they're printed on, are they?" he chuckled as he gently nudged Fuyutski's hand aside and cheerily slid his own card through the reader, opening the doors. "Yours is probably just worn out from so much use."
Fuyutski looked at Kaji, his face blank. After a few silent moments of uncomfortable staring, the older man managed a small "thank you" and gestured to the pizza box on the ground nearby before making his way into the base.
Eyeing a dejected-looking pepperoni mascot with contempt, Ryoji Kaji bent to pick up the pizza box. An unusual place for the Subcommander to leave this, but I can't complain. It'll be good for lunch later today.
Kaji slid his card through the scanner again but stopped short before entering the base himself, thinking about Fuyutski's disheveled appearance and suddenly recalling the mission he had forgotten in the midst of the childrens' unexpected interruption the previous evening. Oh God. The phone message. Misato!
He turned from the entrance and took off in a sprint, pizza box still in hand, hoping he wasn't already too late.