Shinji Ikari stared out at the blood red ocean, trying to think. It was stained with the sins of man, or at least that's what his aunt always said, when she didn't think that he was in earshot. It made as much sense to him as any other theory that got bandied about. The Antarctic Event twenty-two years ago remained as much a mystery today as it was when it happened.
One minute, the Earth held 7 continents, 192 U.N. recognized countries, plus the independent City State of the Vatican. These countries held a teeming 15 billion souls, all going about their normal routines.
The next minute, there was 6 continents, 192 U.N. recognized countries, plus the independent City State of the Vatican. These countries held just under 4 billion souls, all going about in a massive panic.
However, just because the U.N. still recognized 192 countries didn't mean that there still was 192 countries. Many low lying coastal nations, and numerous island nations were simply swept off the map in the aftermath of the frozen continent of Antarctica suddenly exploding. To further compound matters, millions of people simply just ceased to be, liquefying right in front of family, friends, and co-workers, turning into an orange liquid that refused to either evaporate or freeze, despite the massive battery of tests and experiments conducted on it in later years. There was no apparent rhyme or reason to who became the "Tang", as it was quickly nicknamed. It struck people of all faiths, all nationalities, races, ideologies, and both genders.
Some thought it was the Rapture. Others thought it some other sign of the coming end of the world. No one knew for certain, and no explanation could be found that resolved all of the strange happenings. All that was known for certain was that things had changed.
But it was not the end. Mankind struggled on, as it will until the last of Mankind dies, be it on Earth or some lonely part of the universe. War erupted almost overnight, new nations were born out of the ashes of the old. Warlords carved out territories for themselves, hoarding the few precious resources available. These wars were soon known as the Impact Wars, after an early theory that a meteor had crashed or exploded over the frozen continent, although that idea had been discarded later on. Man changed the political maps more than the Event changed the geographic ones.
Today, as in another, older time, never saw the sun set on the British Empire. To be sure, it was a much different empire than it's predecessors. The throne was not in England, no, it wasn't even in the remnants of the British Isles. It sat in Moscow. A surviving heir to the British Crown had been vacationing in Moscow, visiting with his wife's parents when the Event happened. Alistair Westcraft had been far, far, far down the line of succession, so much that it actually took some time for him to figure out that he was, by all rights, King of a very soggy group of islands. He confirmed this with several others, before hatching a plan with his father in law, who just so happened to be a high ranking general in the Russian National Army.
They struck hard and fast, and by the time the rest of the world got up to speed on the whole debacle and joined in on the Impact Wars, the "new" Russian-British Empire held most of Europe, and claimed that all former colonies, protectorates and territories of either nation now belonged to them. Today, the British Empire, ruled over by His Imperial Majesty Alistair Westcraft, sat as the largest of the super powers, holding the British Isles, mainland Europe, Russia, half of the original country of Canada, India and Pakistan, Australia, Japan and the Balkans.
The next largest of the super powers was the American Remnant, bitterly holding onto the East and West Americas, as a new sea, dubbed the Donovan Sea, flooded out the low lying middle of the United States. In the north on East America, Canada belonged to the British Empire, but on the West, it belonged to the Remnant. Eager for fertile land to replace the flooded breadbasket, the Remnant had invaded South America, looking to the tropical lands for resources. The CIA, who took the reigns of government, took off the proverbial kid's gloves, and went to town. Citing Monroe Doctrine, the American Remnant put down all other nation's interests in the continent, and had removed any would be warlord from within either through bribery and employment, or through a series of brutal and short wars.
It came as a surprise to all that the regions that stayed mostly the same politically were in Africa and Southeast Asia. New leadership arose, and some countries grew while others shrank or vanished, but not to the extent displayed elsewhere.
When the dust settled, for the most part, the newly reformed United Nations held 87 member nations, and the world sat at an estimated population of 3 billion. All it had taken was four years, untold suffering, but man struggled on.
But all of this was old news to one Shinji Ikari, who hadn't even been born when the Event happened. He had been born even after the reestablishment of the U.N. as the forum for nations to discuss things without immediately resorting to open warfare. So, while he was trying to think as he stared out at the red waters, he wasn't trying to puzzle out the cause or reason why things were as they were. It could have been a meteor, a massive prototype weapon, a giant of light or the wrath of God, for all it mattered to him. He was trying to think, oddly enough, about what he should think of the letter he had received in the post this morning.
It was strange enough that it was an actual letter, written by hand, on actual parchment, with what he suspected was a fountain pen. Even stranger, the envelope had been sealed with wax, dark red in color, with the shape of two crossed swords in the center of a circle. Odd designs lined the edges of the envelope, which in turn had been mailed in a small wooden box. It was all very elaborate and impressive, in the age of digital communication.
The letter itself read thus:
To one Mr. Shinji Ikari, greetings and salutations. It is with great pleasure that I formally and personally invite you to the Academy of GERHIN of Tokyo-3. I had the pleasure of knowing both of your parents, as they too were once students here.
Please convoy my greatest respects to your Aunt and Uncle, and please look to your email for a more thorough message, detailing the particulars of coming here. All travel and lodging arrangements have been made.
However, it would not do for you to speak of GERHIN to anyone besides your Aunt and Uncle. While this may seem all very strange to you, please bear with us for the time being.
With the Greatest of Respect,
Kozo Fuyutsuki,
Headmaster of GERHIN Academy
After reading the flowing script, Shinji had opened his email account to find no new emails. Nothing in his spam folder even came near to matching anything written in the letter. Running through various internet searches netted no information of any organization called GERHIN. All he could find out about the name was that it mean "brain" in German. Why would an academy in Tokyo-3 be called BRAIN (in all capitals, at that) Academy? Why would a school not even have an address or telephone listing on the internet, somewhere? The name of Kozo Fuyutsuki likewise turned up little. The only thing he had found was a small series of high level biology papers, talking about things he had no hope of understanding. He couldn't see his parents having been involved with anything like that; they had been farmers before the automobile accident. How could they have been involved with some biology doctor and a mysterious school? No overhead map or satellite picture of Tokyo-3 showed any unaccounted for stretch of land, no building showed being home to GERHIN. To even reassure himself that he had not woken up in some strange other world, he searched for his parent's obituaries. The article showed that both Gendo and Yui Ikari had died after a drunk driver had plowed into the train station they were waiting at while on vacation. It made mention that his father was a farmer, who grew fruit trees in the south. It mentioned him, not by name but said that the baby boy had only narrowly missed being killed, and was being sent to live with his mother's sister. Both his aunt and uncle were working at the diner downtown, so he couldn't ask them about this yet, if he even asked them about it at all. He hated troubling them with, well, anything.
They cared for him, after a fashion, teaching him to cook for himself, to be able to feed himself as they were rarely home, working long hours at the diner they owned. They had him educated, they kept a roof over his head and paid for his cello, but when they looked at him they saw only the sister they had lost, and the son they had lost before her. They took great pains to conceal their grief from him, but he knew that it was all that he brought upon them. He was an obligation they didn't want and couldn't refuse. Their home was too far on the outskirts of the town for the school bus to come in to pick him up, and the schedule his guardians kept did not allow for them to drop him off or pick him up from school. Instead, they had a neighbor of theirs, being a retired teacher, instruct him and in return he would do chores in the man's house and on his small farm, in addition to a small monetary fee. So he grew into a quite, introverted child who longed for the closeness of family and friends but was unaware that was what he craved.
This letter was far too strange to not bring it up however, as it even went so far as to mention them directly. On the other hand, it was also so strange that it seemed to be some sort of very elaborate hoax, although what it aimed to do escaped him. So it was now that he found himself sitting on the cliff overlooking the red water, trying to puzzle out what it was that he should do. Making decisions had never been his thing. He would always agonize over what to do in any situation that found him outside of his comfort zone, which was his small room upstairs, listening to his music. It was probably the one thing anyone could say that he loved. Music was so simple, so pure in it's emotion. Through it he could convoy all the things that he felt, from sadness through joy and into mindless rage. All could be expressed through the strings of his cello in all the ways he could not articulate with words. Sometimes, however, when he was caught up in playing in the room in the upper story room, he would produce sounds and melodies that both his guardians and his teacher would swear not possible. It never occurred when someone was with him in the room he was playing in, and if asked, he would not remember them, having been "spaced out" to be able to recall the movements of his hands and bow over the strings, and eventually they stopped asking, instead choosing to try to ignore the strange, otherworldly and haunting notes. It frightened them, sometimes, the intensity he showed when caught up in playing. It made him look more like his father than his mother.
He finally came to the decision that he would go home, and if no email arrived by the time his guardians returned home, he would disregard the whole thing as some weird, tasteless joke at his expense.
It would be a near thing, ultimately, but he would get the promised email twenty-five minutes before they were due home. He would never find out how close he came to throwing the box and letter away.
Einz, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
Headmaster Kozo Fuyutsuki sat in his office, staring at the wreckage that used to be a computer terminal. He absolutely hated the damn things. In fact, he held an active dislike for anything more complicated than a microwave, or possibly an automated coffeepot.
It also didn't help that the pictures kept snickering at him as he looked at the sparking ruin sitting on his desk. If he didn't know for certain that they couldn't escape the two dimensional world they were depicted in, he would have suspected one of them of sabotage. That, and he knew that he had knocked his tea into the keyboard, but that certainly shouldn't have caused the monitor screen to catch fire, or the box housing the internal components to explode.
Sighing, he pressed a button on the desk. "Aoba, can you come in here please?"
The door to his office and study opened, and one Shigeru Aoba came walking in, tossing some popcorn at the two-headed bird resting on a pedestal as he passed by. Both heads began fighting over the kernels of caramel and corn. His goofy expression died as he laid eyes on the smoking mess in front of the Headmaster.
"What'd you do this time, Professor? I mean, come on, that's the fourth one this quarter. Dr. Akagi is gonna be pissed."
Professor Fuyutsuki shot an exasperated look at his assistant. "All I did was knock my tea on the keyboard. That's it! That shouldn't do this, so don't even start. Just... just get me a new one, get it hooked up and don't tell her."
"Don't tell who what?" A new voice sounded from just beyond the doorway, as Naoko Akagi strolled in, carrying a box of books. She sniffed the air, her eyes narrowing as she smelled the foul odor of burnt plastics and ruined electronics. "Heavens above, Kozo, why do you keep ruining those poor machines? It's just basic technology." She dropped the box on the expansive desk, which was more like a large table, running ten feet long and half as wide, made of a solid piece of ash. Strange and otherworldly designs were carved into the flat surface in places, inlaid with iron. "Ritsuko is not going to be happy with you."
Growing irate at the repeated statements of the obvious, the headmaster raised his hands in the air as if seeking supplication from a higher power. "I know, I know. What I don't know is why these blasted machines keep going bad on me. This isn't even funny anymore. I don't know how I can get any work done these days." He looked at the box of books, and then at the thaumaturge. "Are those his books?"
She sighed, moving to a chair off to the side and flopping down into it. "Yes, they're his books. Everything he needs to get started on his training once he gets here." She helped herself to some tea from the coffee table next to her seat. "Aoba, be a dear and go do something useful somewhere else."
Aoba rolled his eyes as he grinned at the headmaster. "Sure thing. I'll go find another box for the boss."
He left, whistling a jaunty tune, tossing some more caramel corn at the two-headed eagle, which screeched at him for more.
Kozo rubbed his head, resting his elbows on his desk. "That boy is impossible. Guye is going to get fat if he keeps eating those sweets."
Naoko, however, wasn't feeling very sympathetic. "Then don't let him. He's your bird after all." She sipped her tea, making a face. "Why did you make chai again? You know I hate this stuff."
He shot his second a sardonic look. "I made it because I like it. You don't have to drink it you know. Go drink some of that abominable coffee your daughter likes." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "This is the worst time for a computer to die on me. I was going to email him the instructions on how to get here."
Naoko kept drinking her chai, pausing only to stare into her cup, as if trying to wrest the secrets of reality from within the milky tea. "I take it you sent him one of those silly letters of yours."
He snorted. "I happen to like doing some things with a touch of class. Something this important shouldn't be left to mere electronics. Besides, I shouldn't have had to do it in the first place. He should have been brought up here. He should have been training all his life, not just about to start."
"Are you still harping on about that? What's done is done. One would think that you'd not be hell bent on ruining the childhood of the only child of your best pupil. One would think that you'd want to uphold what the poor boy's parents would want for him. One would also think that you would have better taste in tea." She stuck her tongue out at him, making her not look at all like a fifty year old woman who held two doctorates and was an accomplished thaumaturge and mage.
Resisting the urge to magic her teacup out of her hands, he settled for shaking his head. "I picked up a taste for it while in Afghanistan." He grinned as her face darkened into a scowl.
She scowled at him, ignoring his smile. "I thought we weren't going to discuss what you did in Afghanistan. In fact, I thought we had agreed that we were going to forget that you even went to that miserable province."
His smile growing lofty now, he moved from his desk to the low couch opposite the coffee table. "It wasn't a province when I was there."
She put the cup down, starting to get really angry when the office's door opened up and a head with an unruly mop of blue hair poked in. "Mom?" The girl's voice was soft and quiet. "Mom? Are you in here? Rits said you were here."
Naoko's expression changed instantly as she called out to her adopted daughter. "Yes Rei, I'm here. Come in, dear."
Rei hesitated, looking for the headmaster for permission before entering one of his most private domains. Despite being one of the few people at GERHIN who was allowed to enter his office at any time, the shy albino-like girl put a lot in propriety and observing the customs of privacy. At his wave to enter, she pushed forwards into the large room, shutting the door behind her. She walked over to them, quickening her pace slightly to pass Guye, who hissed at her quietly.
Naoko nodded to another chair, and Rei carefully sat down in it, smoothing out her blue skirt. She glanced silently at the tea kettle before turning her crimson gaze back to the headmaster, who laughed.
"Help yourself Rei. It's milk chai with honey. You won't need to add sugar. You know you don't need to ask. How many times have you had tea in here?" While he asked the question, which was clearly rhetorical, he winked at Naoko, who mentally groaned.
"I have had tea in this office eight thousand, four hundred and twenty-six times, including now." The extremely literal girl settled back into her usual chair, rubbing her shoulders against the velvet upholstery. She sipped her tea before continuing. "Mom, something is wrong with the scrying stones in the northeast towers. No matter who tries to use them, they show only dark fog, with a pale red glow that blinks three times before fading, and then only blackness until another scrying is attempted."
Both mages raised their eyebrows at this bit of information. "Why is it something wrong with the stones? What do you think could cause this?" Naoko prodded her daughter, trying to get the gears turning inside the girl's head.
Rei shook her head once. "It is something with the stones. No-one should be able to get the exact same scrying as another person, and it is the same vision each time, no matter who uses them, or what they try to look for or at. The rules governing the stones do not allow for such behavior."
It was odd, and very strange. However, it wasn't something that would get most people at the Academy bent out of shape over. Most would try to figure out what it meant, what could cause such a thing. Rei, however, was not most people in more ways than the visually obvious, even overlooking the unnatural manner in which she came to be, which was a closely guarded secret, known only to a select few.
Kozo frowned, thinking on it himself. "What does your sister say?" He looked at one of his bookcases, scanning the titles for the text on divination and far-seeing. He seemed to remember hearing something like this, but he couldn't place it.
Rei looked at him blankly, as if the answer was obvious. "She said to ask Mom. She's busy with the Magi." She looked to her mother expectantly. It was not unlike the way a baby bird looks to it's mother to regurgitate food into it's beak.
Naoko rolled her eyes, finishing her cup. She played with it for a little bit, rolling it around in her hands while she thought. "I'm not sure dearest. It certainly sounds strange. What do you think it means?"
Rei tilted her head, staring off into space, her own cup halfway to her lips. After a few moments, she completed the task of moving the cup to her mouth and drank. "I think it means that the stones are broken."
Sighing, Naoko poured herself more tea. "What does Madame Beruski think? The stones are her domain, after all. Did you try other methods of scrying what you wanted?" She paused, watching her daughter's face intently. "What was it you were trying to see Rei?"
Rei managed to somehow look embarrassed and shamefaced without actually having any expression cross her face. "I... I wanted to see the zoo."
Naoko, however, wasn't having it. Rei had never been interested in zoos before. Since she was stuck within the grounds of the Academy, the concept of going somewhere to look at exotic creatures didn't appeal to her. She put her cup down on the table and crossed her arms. "Rei, what were you trying to see? I know it wasn't the zoo. You know I'll just ask Sophia if you don't tell me."
Rei stared into her teacup, in the exact mirror of her mother a little while ago, as if trying wrest an acceptable answer from the tea. In a softer voice, she murmmerd something.
Naoko cocked her head. "Out with it."
Rei gave up, and repeated her reply louder. "I was trying to see who Shinji Ikari was."
Both adults narrowed their eyes at the girl who was trying to melt into the chair. Kozo spoke up first, his voice kind. "Rei, how did you come across that name? Why are you interested in who he is?" He put a hand on one of the young girl's, which was shaking.
"I... I... picked it up when I was astral scanning. I didn't mean too... I was bored and wanted to see what was going on in the world. I head your voices say his name. I asked Rits about it, and she just said to ignore it and not ask you."
Naoko leaned back in her chair, sighing again. "Rei, it's dangerous for you to just randomly scry like that. There's reasons behind the limitations on what you're allowed to do. It's for your own safety. How long have you been doing unaccompanied viewings? The truth, young lady." Her voice was stern; she didn't normally have to use it on Rei, who was normally the "good" daughter. Ritsuko, on the other hand, well, she hadn't quite burned out all her youthful wildness in college. Rei was normally a stickler for the rules.
Rei looked into her teacup again before replying. "Two months and seven days. I just wanted to see things outside, I'm always cooped up here." Into her voice crept the barest hint of accusation. "I just wanted to see if what I heard was true."
Kozo interjected again, shooting a warning glance at the girl's mother. "What did you hear, Rei? Was it about Ikari?"
She nodded, a brief up and down affair. "You were talking about whether or not it was a good thing that we were becoming...friends." She choked the last word out, blinking back tears. She sniffed, and downed the rest of her tea quickly before standing up. "I... I need to go wash my face." With that, she fled the study, sniffling.
Both teachers looked at each other silently. Naoko buried her head in her hands. "Well, I've made a mess of this. What are we going to do Kozo?"
He decided to let the we part of her statement slide without comment. "Well, it might not be as bad as it sounds. It's true that she is stuck up here, when all the other children get to leave for the summer and winter, as well as field trips and free days. She hasn't left GERHIN grounds since we brought her here. When you take that into account with the fact that she has an extremely hard time making friends, being the only year round child resident, who has two family members on the faculty and is on friendly terms with the headmaster himself, it''s only natural that she would turn to something like this. I'm actually surprised that she hasn't been doing it longer, or that we didn't see it coming."
"That's rich, coming from the man who at first wanted to kill her. That doesn't change the fact that it's too dangerous for her to be doing it in the first place. I know she's had a hard time of it, I mean, Rits was the only other child here year round, but even she vacationed with friends on the holidays sometimes, and then she left for college and now she's back and working here. I've always been here though. I haven't left the grounds except for a few extremely important times. If one of my daughter's can't leave the grounds on vacation or even a shopping trip into the city, neither will I."
Kozo shook his head as he poured her more tea, and pushed the cup into her hands. "I know, I know. And she knows too. She's a teenager, Naoko. This is her own quiet little rebellion. It's normal, but it is distressing. But it's not the end of the world. Besides, you should be happy. Apparently, she's going to get a new friend soon."
His words of reassurance had the opposite effect, however. His trusted second in command, to whose children he served as a god-parent (although he originally was wary of Rei before she grew on him) blanched, and cursing, threw the teacup against the stone wall in a rage, where it shattered, the sound spooking Guye, who had been dozing off, into a squawking fit.
"Oh, no. There is no way that any spawn of Gendo Ikari is getting anywhere near my daughter. They won't even have the same classes. They won't even be in the same lunch hour. In fact, they only times they'll be in the same room is when the entire school is at a function." She glared at her old friend, and then turned her head to follow his gaze at the wet spot on the wall, and the shattered china on the floor.
"Ohhhh... shit. Kozo, I'm sorry. I'll fix it. I'll make it better. I know how much the china means to you." Even as she spoke she darted over to the broken bits, and scooped them up into her dress, ignoring the tea as it soaked the wool fabric.
Kozo shook his head and smiled softly. "Well... it's not as if I haven't broken my fair share of it, either." He leveled his gaze on his blushing second. "But why the hostility towards the boy? I thought you liked him, or at least felt sorry for him from the fuss you put up about keeping him with his family."
"Just because I'm sympathetic to the poor soul because of what happened to his parents and who his mother was does not mean that I'm going to let anything with Gendo's genes near me or my daughters. That man... ugrgh. Nothing but disaster, trouble and heartache ever came from him, even with his iron morals. If his son is even the tiniest fraction of the manipulator of people he was, he'll have my poor sheltered daughter out of her clothes and into his bed. The fact that he was a war hero didn't change the fact that that man could manipulate things so that an elf would buy iron from him and think it got a good deal. I'm not exposing my baby girl to that."
His only response was to grunt. After draining his cup, he looked up at the ceiling and the Tree of the Sephirot painted on it. "You may not have a choice. Having a friend, a real friend, from the sounds of it, by the way she was acting, would be good for the girl. You know she needs one. When was the last time you saw her go looking for more information on something all on her own volition? Besides, he may have Gendo's genes, but he's also Yui's son. That has to count for something. And Gendo wasn't really that manipulative, even if he did nothing to quell the rumors otherwise. He just had a plan for everything. He didn't force anyone to go along with what he wanted. He just knew, he just had a knack for being able to present the choices and take advantage of events so that he came out on top. It was only after people looked past the choices they made at the time to see the chain of events did they realize why he was nicknamed the "Bastard King". He wasn't mean, or cruel. He was just that good."
"And look where it got him. He pissed off the wrong person, an ancient cyborg mage who'd been planning something horrible for centuries. He mucked up Keel's plan, forced his hand when things were not ready, saved the world, for the time being at least. Too bad he wasn't as dead as people thought, because, oh! Look out, here comes Keel for revenge. Now his son has to shoulder the burden of saving the world, and despite the miracle upset that bought Shinji his continued life, Keel will be back again. He was good, yes, but not good enough. Now we have to pick up the pieces and hope to heaven that his son will be able to finish what he started."
"Still, I don't see it as a good reason to deny them friendship. He'll be all alone here, a brand new face among already established cliques. Once the other students find out just who his father was, he'll be further alienated. Others will want him as a friend for the status he'll bring. He'll be starting late as a student on top of all that, which is trouble enough, let alone as someone with the burden of prophecy hanging over them. Which, I would like to point out, is your fault. They could be good for each other. She'll help him get settled into life here at the school, and he might bring her out of her shell."
She pointed a finger at him in accusation. "Don't try to guilt trip me just because I broke your china and said that you couldn't train him as a child soldier from infancy. Don't you dare put any of that on me. Besides, what do you think will happen if they do become good friends, and then somehow, someway, she gets taken and is used to focus another Impact? He'll have to decide to either kill his friend, or kill mankind. Great choice. One way, he's dead, with the rest of the world, which to him will probably look like the best choice, because, on the other hand he will have saved mankind, but had to murder his friend, this sweet, innocent, little girl. If he doesn't go and off himself right after that, he'll be stuck in an institute for the rest of his life. I know of only one person who could make that type of choice and still function as a normally as he did the rest of the time, but guess what! He not here anymore."
"So, just because of the absolute worst case scen-"
"Don't say that word."
"So just because of the worst possible situation, then, you'll keep them separated. You. Who adopted an unholy abomination of... everything, as your daughter." Kozo raised his hands placatingly as he spoke. "Don't get me wrong, she's definitely grown on me."
She snorted. "You dote on her like she's the daughter and granddaughter you've never had. You spoil her in every way that you can. For her birthday, when she was five, you made everyone's hair blue and eyes red for a month! AND fixed it so that both dyes and magic wouldn't change it, or color contacts."
"You'll notice that I never said that she wasn't a cute abomination. But in the eyes of all the rest of the world, if they were to know the secrets behind her, that is what they would label her as. She should not exist. But that's my point. You care too much to do that to her. You won't keep them apart."
Naoko harrumphed in a most unladylike way. "Just wait and see, just wait and see. I'll-"
She was interrupted by the door opening again, as the eldest Akagi daughter strode in, clearly unhappy. "Mother, why is Rei bawling her eyes out in her roo- oh WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOUR TERMINAL THIS TIME?"
Ritsuko Akagi stood staring at the long-forgotten computer, mouth agape in disbelief. "How many? How many must you destroy before you're satisfied?"
"Not now. We've got bigger issues at hand than a few contrary computers. Rei's bawling her eyes out?" Kozo was very, very concerned. It was true, what Naoko had said. He spoiled Rei so very much, whenever he could. Of course, it was easy to spoil her. Most of the things that most children would have asked for she didn't even think of. It was the smallest and oddest of things it seemed that coaxed one of her rare smiles out. A specific type of tea, or dish at school meal times. An inside joke during important announcements. Rare and hard to find texts. And of course, the one that stood out in everyone's mind, the color alteration of everyone's hair and eyes when she was five. She had actually squealed with delight when she woke up that morning. She wasn't so different from everyone else, for a month at least. That had been the moment she counted her mother's boss as a friend, and not just the funny man that she had tea with sometimes. She had indeed grown on him.
"Well, bawling her eyes out for her. If it was anyone else it would just them being a little weepy. Seriously, I send her up her 'cause something's going on with the scrying stones, which seem to be working again, with no issues, by the way, and then, a half hour later, she comes tearing through the living room crying and locks herself in her room and won't tell me what's up."
Naoko narrowed her eyes at her daughter, feeling a slight bit of deja vu. "Rits, did you know that she's been doing unsupervised scrying?"
Now it was Ritsuko's turn to turn white. "Ah...erm... yes? Maybe a little?" She cringed, waiting for the outburst she knew was coming.
"Ritsuko Morgana Akagi. What about it being insanely dangerous for Rei to do that do you not understand? Did we not explain it to you enough as you were growing up? Do you not understand the dangers inherent of Rei being, well, Rei?"
Kozo decided to step in before things got out of hand and more of his china needed to be reconstituted. "Ritsuko, you should have come to one of us about this, or at least put a stop to it yourself. We are sympathetic with her about why she's being doing it, but it's too dangerous. The risk is too high. But, since you are here, can you go find out why Aoba is taking so long to get me another computer? I do have work I need to get done."
Ritsuko, who knew that her mother only ever pulled out the full name when she was really upset, recognized a get out of jail free card when one hit her in the face. Mumbling an affirmative, she ducked back out of the office.
Naoko, never happy with someone interrupting her yelling at her kids, especially over something as major as this, turned her killer stare at Kozo.
"Please, Naoko, enough with the death glare. I've been stared at by Ikari. What makes you think that yours is anything terrifying?" He paused for a moment, before plunging on. "Besides, I didn't want the rest of my china to get smashed."
Naoko tried to keep her imitation of Gendo from turning into a smirk, but failed miserably. "Fine. Fine. I won't go out of my way to keep them separated, but I'm not going to go out of the way to make him welcome in my home, or introduce them. If we don't throw them together, she won't approach him. She'll sit at watch him like she does most the others. If she really wants to make a friend, she'll have to do it the hard way. And I'll make it hard on him as well. I'll be watching him so hard he'll think that I'm a beholder that took human form."
"I don't think he'll make the connection. He won't know what a beholder is." He frowned. "Don't introduce him to one as a way to show him the similarities."
"Whatever. Wait, what work do you need to get done? You don't do anything up in this office but administrative stuff. Classes aren't in session, and we don't have any gaps in the faculty that need to be filled."
He shrugged. " I told you that I needed to email Shinji his travel instructions and train tickets. I was trying to do that when I knocked my tea onto the keyboard. Though that doesn't explain the rest of the computer."
"What travel instructions? You're not sending someone to go pick him up?"
He shook his head. "No, I don't want to scare him off by having Section 2 pick him up. They're a little intense for the rest of the world."
"That doesn't mean you can't send one of the staff! You could even go and pick him up." She stopped, and started shaking her head violently. "No, no. NO! You're going to string him along, and feed him information and train him bit by bit without telling him what's going on, aren't you. That's a horrible plan. That's insane. What happened to you wanting to train him from infancy? This is the exact opposite of that!"
"Well, it's too late to do what I wanted to in the first place, so now I'm just following the plan left by-"
"Heavens above, Kozo, are you insane? You've gone daft, right before my eyes. How can you even think of following that madman's plans? When I pressured to have him placed with his family it most certainly was not because it was part of his plans. It was so he could have "
"It's not as bad as all that. Besides, I was going to send Katsuragi out to greet him at the station when he arrives. She's exuberant enough that I'm sure she'll manage to convince him to at least visit the Academy."
"You mean that she's a big enough flirt that she'll flirt with a teenager in order to tap him as an asset in her own private was against SEELE." Naoko's voice was flat.
"She means well. It's not really her fault that her entire life's goal is to see them roasting over a slow fire for all eternity. It's also not like she does it on purpose either, or that she tries to hide it if anyone calls her on it."
"That's the probably only reason I can stand her. But, when you look at it all, none of us are innocent, are we? We all keep the dark secrets of reality. We do it in a good cause, we do it to keep the world alive, but we're all part of a vast conspiracy in the end."
"Rei is probably the most innocent of us all. We've kept the details from her. She knows nothing of the purpose of her existence."
"This is all so very depressing. I hate thinking about the conspiracy." She stood up, stretching and yawning. "If you promise to not kill my computer, I'll let you email the boy from my terminal. The damage has already been done, so we might as well see if this hand-basket we're in indeed lands in hell."
"I keep telling you people... It's not my fault!"
Einz, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
Haruko Sato stared at the letter his nephew handed him in fear and dread. "Absolutely not. You are not going anywhere near Tokyo-3. This is madness. How could they even think that we would allow this?"
The last bit was not aimed towards Shinji, but rather his wife, Kasumi. "Intolerable. The sheer arrogance."
Kasumi quickly shooed Shinji from the room. "Be quiet!" she hissed at her husband. "You'll arouse his curiosity. We can't just say we know nothing about what's going on now, you idiot. Now we have to figure out what to tell him." She took the ornate letter from her husband's hands and sank into one of the chairs in the kitchen. "Why, after all this time? Why are they sending him this? His mother was younger when they came for her. He's never shown any of the real signs. Not like she did. I had hoped when his birthday came and passed that he didn't have it. But why are they sending him this? He's six years to late for the first classes. If he hasn't shown any talent by now, he should be worthless to them; a laughingstock."
Haruko was pacing back and forth. "We'll tell him no, that's what we'll tell him. We don't need to explain it to him. The old man is a lunatic, they all are. They killed your sister, Kas. They killed-"
"Keep your voice down. The boy is not an idiot. If he's not trying to listen in right now, he will if he hears you going on about that. He said that they emailed him tickets. If they want him so badly, why don't they send someone out here to pick him up?" Her color drained from her face. "You don't think that they're going to use him as bait do you?"
"I wouldn't put it past them. He said that they were going to put wards up around the house. He's supposed to be safe here. Why send him so far from any safety, if not to invite an attack. That's why there's no escort. They're trying to draw them out of hiding, to pounce on them when they attack him."
Kasumi wailed and buried her head in her arms, sobbing into the tabletop. "Will this war of theirs ever leave our family? Why, when we have lost so much? They take our son, my sister, and now they want him."
"I'll not send the boy out to die alone, out there on some train going to Tokyo-3. I will not send my family out into harm's way. That is final. We'll burn the letter, the box, and we'll tell him that we'll explain it when he's older. Once he reaches his majority. He can make his own decision then. It's only a few more years." He put the tea kettle on the stove and started the eye. Walking around the table, he hugged his wife, in a rare display of affection. "Make us some tea, and I'll go get the boy." He swallowed, nervous now that they had to at least let the boy know that things were not as they seemed. That they had been keeping him in the dark. That everything he knew to be true might not be as real as he had thought. The boy was fragile. There was no way that this was going to be easy. The boy was going to be hurt. It would only be a matter of time until they found out if he was hurt enough to run away to take these madmen up on their offer. He quietly prayed that they were doing the right thing.
Later that night, Shinji lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. This day was certainly not what he had imagined when he had woken up. He still had no idea about what to think of the letter he had gotten.
Now, he also had no idea about what to think of his guardians. The things that they had said made no sense at all, even after they called him back into the kitchen. They knew something about this GERHIN place, but what? They certainly didn't like them, that was for sure. But how could they have been involved in the death of his parents? He had seen the report on the internet; he's seen the graves, he visited them every year to bring them flowers. He had even seen the obituary in a real newspaper, quite on accident, when cleaning out the basement of his teacher. How could all of that not be true? Real newspapers were supposed to print only the truth.
Have they been lying to me my entire life about everything? What else isn't true? What is going on? He tossed and turned, trying to settle down into sleep. Unfortunately, sleep seemed to be as far away from him as the answers he sought from his ceiling, even though he had put in a tiring day of farm-work. He was dead tired, but still sleep evaded him. The tugging sensation in the pit of his He slowly pulled himself up into a sitting position, slumped against the wall. He didn't sigh, because that called for more energy than he really felt like expending. His eyes flicked around the darkened room, lighting on the computer. Maybe I should read the email again. At least they didn't come up here to delete it. I don't even have the letter anymore. His uncle had refused to give the letter back, and even took the box from him. He probably threw them away. Never mind that it was my letter. These last two thoughts were far more bitter and resentful than Shinji normally was, who usually accepted things with an air of quiet resignation.
He padded over to the computer, trying to be quiet out of habit, even though the only other people in the house were two floors down and probably fast asleep by now. He booted the computer up, idly thinking about going downstairs to make some tea. Watching the slow progress bar on the elderly OS's boot screen, he glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was just after one in the morning. He really wanted some tea. Looking back at the computer, he sighed now, and left his room, making his way down into the kitchen.
This desire for a comforting cup of tea at this odd hour was what saved his life, the police would later decide. While Shinji was sitting in his room, a plane was flying from London-4, to the north of the house, towards Osaka-2, far to the south. The plane was about eighty-five miles from the house when something smashed into it, sending it veering off course and begin shedding parts at high speed. What had smashed into it was still a mystery, they said. They told him that they had a crash zone of over a hundred miles to search. What wasn't a mystery, however, was what had come crashing through his room into the house. It had been a large jet turbine engine, still on fire from the accident. It had pretty much obliterated the upper two floors, and ruined most of the first. His guardians had to be hospitalized, but were in stable conditions, and expected to be released soon after a cursory observation period.
When he was asked if there was anywhere he could stay for the time being, he found himself nodding, asking for access to a computer with internet to bring up his email. He explained that he had actually been getting ready to go on a trip soon to a school in Tokyo-3. From the wreckage of the house he managed to salvage his cello, which had miraculously escaped destruction, and was now adorned with numerous scratches and scuff marks. His clothes dresser, however, and closet were not so lucky. He was only able to get a few pairs of pants, two t shirts and a white button up from the laundry room in the basement. After saying something that wasn't quite a goodbye to his teacher, he was dropped off at the train station by a helpful policeman to wait for the first of the trains that would start him on his long trip to Tokyo-3.
Of course, he had completely forgotten to email the Dr. Akagi person back about him actually starting his journey.
Einz, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
Naoko woke up to a finger poking her shoulder. "mom? mom? Please wake up."
Sighing, and squinting, she opened her eyes to glare at the owner of the finger and the voice. "What is it Rei? What do you want? It's... it's..." She squinted at the clock on her nightstand. "It's ten o'clock on a Saturday. I think I can be allowed to sleep in."
Rei shifted from one foot to the other. "I think something's happened to..." her voice trailed off, as she tried to squeak out the next part. "shinji ikari."
Naoko shot up in her bed. "Rei," her voice hardening as she rubbed her forehead, "Have you been trying to scry again? I thought we had discussed this last week."
Rei held up her hands in front of her like a wall. "No Mom, it's on the news! A plane engine smashed into his house last week."
Naoko's eyes shot wide open. "WHAT? Last Week?" She threw off the blankets, grabbing a robe from off the back of a chair, running out into the living room, where Ritsuko sat watching the news disinterestedly while eating a slice of toast, and feeding a small slice of bacon to her cat.
Snatching the remote from the table, Naoko rewound the news broadcast. Her eldest quirked an eyebrow at her. "Whats-"
"Hush Rits."
"The investigations team has had no luck this past week in figuring out the cause of the accident that cause Royal Airlines Flight 57AA from London-4 to Osaka-2 last week. If you recall, at about One o'clock in the morning on the fifth, the red-eye passenger flight suddenly veered off course and began to lose structural components over one hundred miles long. While everyone on board was lost in the tragic incident, miraculously on the ground there were no fatalities caused by the falling wreckage. Injuries were limited, even with the near total destruction of the Sato farmhouse, of which you can see the ruins behind me." Indeed, to Naoko's growing horror, was the remains of the battered building she had visited fifteen years ago, prior to the boy's delivery to his Aunt and Uncle. "The Satos, who own and operate a family diner in town, were hospitalized but were later released. Their nephew, by the name of Shinji Ikari, escaped without injury, not unlike another tragic accident almost fifteen years ago when a car crashed into a Tokyo-3 train station, killing his parents but sparing his life. He has since been sent to stay with friends elsewhere, until repairs are made to the family's home."
Naoko dropped the remote, her jaw slack as she stared at the photo of a young Shinji, obviously from a few years ago, holding a cello at what looked like a recital of some sort. It was obviously culled from a local newspaper. Ignoring both her daughters, she broke into a run for the main door, heading for the Headmaster's office, almost flying through the halls in her bare feet, not even thinking about the fact she was incredibly disheveled looking.
She burst into the office, throwing back the doors, while Kozo looked up in surprise. "Naoko?" He glanced at a calendar to confirm that it was not indeed his birthday today and that he had somehow missed it. "This isn't a formal deceleration of your love for me is it? Because I have to say it's not very romantic."
She shot him a death glare. "Kozo, a plane crashed into the Sato's farmhouse the day you sent him that letter! He's not been there for a week now!"
Kozo blinked twice, his jaw dropping. "WHAT?" He launched himself from his chair, flinging it backwards as he rushed to a small alcove to a cloth covered ball of smooth, heavily polished white granite that was about the size of a grapefruit. Whisking the cloth from over it, he set his palm on the top, curling his fingers down around it, and summoned the name of Shinji Ikari in his mind.
He felt the familiar rushing wind sensation as the heavily enchanted scrying stone began to do it's work, until he suddenly ran into what felt like a massive fire. He jerked back his hand, cursing in surprise and pain, and tried again. This time he felt the burning almost immediately, and when he pulled back his hand, it was smoking, and a blacked hand-print remained on the white stone. Both of the mages stared in abject terror at the sphere.
"Naoko, have you ever seen something like this before? When I tried calling up his name, I felt as if I were standing in the midst of a great fire." His voice was hushed, wiping at the black ash with the hem of his robe. It came right off, leaving the surface unmarred once more. He quickly covered it with it's silk cover.
Her voice was equally low as she inspected his hand. "No. Someone's set up a blocking ward on him, but I've never seen one that had an effect in the real world. How much does it hurt?"
"It's like I placed it in a hot oven and jerked it right back. I'll be alright." He stood there, silently staring at the covered stone, before turning back to his desk. "We'll need to get Section 2 out looking for him. If this ward did this, with that stone, I don't think any regular divination or scrying will fare any better. I don't want anyone trying, it's too dangerous. Section 2 will find him. If they can't it's because he doesn't exist on this plane anymore." He walked past his desk towards the door to his office.
Naoko, however, remained for a moment, looking at the granite ball. Turning to follow him, she spoke up, still hushed and quiet. "What does this mean? Do they have him? I haven't gotten any response from him, from that email account or any other. How could a plane have crashed into the house? The wards should have protected it from anything short of Japan being shot off into space. We had a full nine cast those wards. If they had been broken, we would have felt it. We did not put down half measures out there, Kozo. Something is very, very wrong."
"I know, I know. Lets say he's not been captured or killed. Even if he left a week ago, he should have gotten here by now. It's only a three day journey with the arrangements I set up. I'm going to need to consult the scrolls. I may need to take... further measures."
While Naoko was normally very much against the more gruesome and intense methods of obtaining information, she couldn't bring herself to argue against it in this case, at least not much. "Can you at least wait for the ravens to come back? Let's see what they can find out."
His hand snuck over to her side and clasped one of hers in it, in a display of affection both had agreed never to show outside the most private of their sanctums. "I'll just consult the scrolls and the stones. I'll hold off on the other stuff until after they get back."
While this offered her some measure of comfort, it did little about the growing ball of ice in the pit of her stomach. What is going on?