Man, am I lucky to have finished this chapter today! While I was having some R&R at home last week, my dorm was abruptly shut down and everyone was evicted. Naturally, I wasn't told (*sigh* as always...) and had no idea until I arrived to a barren dorm this night. Tomorrow, there's no chance in hell I'd be able to write as things are gonna be pretty hectic.
CHAPTER 05
JEALOUS/ANGER
"Based on our current knowledge of her fighting capabilities and her recent change in psychological state, Pilot Ikari is clearly unsuitable for prolonged combat assignments. Therefore, I request for her discharge from duty at the earliest possible opportunity." – finished Misato her report to Commander Ikari in the latter's cavernous office. The man was sitting on his throne as usual while Fuyutsuki was staring through the reinforced, wall-sized porthole opposite of the entrance.
"Denied." – Gendo grunted from behind his folded hands. – "She will remain on the combat roster until further notice."
Misato was surprised at the immediate answer but didn't show it. – "May I ask why?"
"You may not. Until Rei is back to full health, Unit-01 is our only chance at keeping the Angels at bay."
"What if Rei recovers?"
"I will not have only one combat-capable Evangelion when I could have two." – replied Gendo simply.
"And what about Soryu?" – pressed Misato.
Fuyutsuki spoke up without averting his gaze from the inky depths outside. – "We are conducting negotiations with Germany as of now. Unit-02 will be transferred to Tokyo-3 in three weeks, not a day sooner."
"Indeed. My point still stands however; I will not have only two combat-capable Evangelions when I could have three."
Misato's eyes narrowed. – "You said you would let her go."
"You forget, colonel, that I am her father. I know her well enough to say with absolute certainty that she will not leave on her own. Do you have anything else to say?"
Misato struggled to find any holes in her superior's train of thought but failed. – "...no, sir."
"Dismissed."
"Yes, sir." – She saluted then turned on her heels and walked out.
As soon as the door closed behind Misato, Fuyutsuki turned slightly to Gendo. – "Are you sure she will stay?"
"Shinji is too much like her to leave at this point. She will want to see it through to the end, even if she does not realize it yet."
The older man turned towards the window again. – "Indeed... Yui was terribly stubborn as well."
One week earlier
The normally empty storage room's calmth was disturbed when the automated door slid open and two women entered, one practically shoving the other inside.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Misato turned to her companion. – "Alright, Ritsuko... I want answers and I want them NOW." – she growled in a dangerous voice.
The blonde straightened her lab coat with an irritated glance. – "That's not really specific..."
All that remark achieved was setting off Misato completely. – "Don't toy with me! Everyone saw what Unit-01 did yesterday so don't try to play stupid! That thing slowly and methodically dismembered the Angel into pieces smaller than itself, all the while grinning like crazy! There's just no way a teenage girl would do that! And what about the shapeshifting?" – She buried her face into her palm. – "God, I can't believe it... how could you people have been so callous to put that girl into an actual Fury?"
"Evangelions are not Furies-" – Ritsuko tried to protest but Misato beat her to it.
"Well, it sure as hell behaved like one! What the hell did you guys built?"
"We made exactly what the ISDF asked for: a humanoid weapon platform made of biometal."
Misato shook her head. – "Bullshit, they would never authorize this!"
Ritsuko's eyes narrowed. – "For your information, shapeshifting is not to spec so I don't know what happened either. Believe what you want but I wouldn't recommend you to dig yourself too deep into this. Now, if you have any further complaints, direct them at Commander Ikari." – she warned before trying to leave.
Once again, Misato would have none of it; she grabbed the other woman's shoulder. – "Why are you doing this? The Ritsuko Akagi I knew from college had something we call morality. What happened to it? Did the Commander put you up to this?"
An unreadable expression appeared on the scientist's face. – "Morality is relative, Misato. One cannot define it without a frame of reference." – With that, she casually yanked her shoulder out of Misato's grasp and walked out.
Misato looked at the closed door for nearly a minute before she kicked it with a frustrated yell. She was back to square one with no answers and her primary target now suspicious of her intentions. There was some truth in the meager answers she received, however. 'If they didn't put it in themselves, where did that shapeshifting come from? Scion tanks have morphing technology and we already use stasis shields in the Evangelions. Yes, that would make sense; Scions are experts with using biometal in unconventional ways. But she still said it's not to spec...' Realization came across her face. 'Of course! The internal workings of the Evangelions are so highly classified not even I know about them. Evangelions do have morphing tech in them but she couldn't tell me directly without breaking confidentiality, so she specifically denied it before I even asked. Smart girl.'
"How is she?" – asked Misato quietly from the doctor. The two of them were standing outside Shinji's room in the medical wing.
"Aside from the bruises caused by the neural interface, she hasn't suffered any injuries. The psychological trauma however..." – he trailed off.
"How bad is it?"
"Better than yesterday. She hasn't said a word but proved cooperative so we stopped giving her tranquilizers for the time being. She didn't have any seizures or more panic attacks either but we're keeping her under 24-hour surveillance nonetheless. Commander's orders."
That surprised Misato. – "Did he say why?"
"No. We only received an order to keep her in a piloting condition regardless of all other considerations."
The surprise instantly changed into annoyance. 'I knew he was a bastard but this goes beyond my expectations.'
The man shrugged. – "Well... we weren't ordered to quarantine her so it should be fine. However, try not to antagonize or upset her too much. She just recovered from a major panic attack."
"I know that, doctor. I'm partially responsible for it, after all..." – Misato murmured before slowly pushing in the door.
Shinji was lying motionlessly on her back as if sleeping. Her eyes however were open, emptily staring at the ceiling above her bed. She barely even blinked; that was the only sign she was even alive.
Misato slowly approached the bed and carefully sat on the edge. – "Hey..." – she whispered to the girl. – "How are you feeling?"
"Fine." – came the flat, toneless reply. Misato didn't know what to say to that so she just sat there. The silence was drawn out for minutes until Shinji spoke again, without looking at the older woman. – "Did you come here to gawk or you have something to say?"
"The doctors said you're fine so I'll ask for your release."
The girl stayed sill for what looked like an eternity until she suddenly sat up and let her legs down at the edge of the bed. – "Finally. I don't want to stay in here any more than absolutely necessary."
Misato was quite worried at Shinji's profound silence and moping. One, maybe two days would've been normal but over a week? She finally decided to try and do something about it while bathing one night but something else came to her mind as well. – "Oh, damn... hey Shinji, can I ask you a favor?" – she called out.
"What is it?"
"Rei just got her security card renewed. Doctor Akagi asked me to give it to her but I forgot. Could you do it for me tomorrow, please?"
"Maybe." – came the grunting reply.
"Thanks! You're a real angel!"
After bath, Misato fished out the card from her bag and gave it to Shinji. At the girl's still-present moping, she added – "Hey, stop moping all the time. If you frown all the time, your face will stay like this. How are you going to find a husband with that?" – she cooed with a grin.
"I'm not really in the mood for jokes." – snapped Shinji at her.
"Still, you really should smile once in a while. After what happened last week-" – she cut herself off, silently cursing herself for even bringing up the topic.
Shinji looked down at the table. – "...I don't want to talk about it. I don't even want to think about it or I feel I'll freak out again." – she mumbled after a while.
Misato walked up to the girl and hugged her from behind. – "It's okay, you don't have to." – she whispered.
"...thanks."
Later on, after Shinji had gone to bed, Misato was sprawling over the living room's sofa with her trusty Beer Brother in one hand. 'She's been putting up a mask the whole time... but I don't blame her. What she saw would've scared witless even an adult. Under that hard exterior, she's just a teenage girl with no idea what's going on.' She was quite reminded of herself in that as she took a swig. 'On the other hand, I think Ritsuko is underestimating her.'
The next day, Shinji silently cursed Misato as she was walking towards where Rei was supposed to live. It would seem the older woman's forgetfulness was contagious, as Shinji too forgot to deliver the security card to its owner until after Rei had already left school.
Therefore, only one option remained: asking Hikari for Rei's address. Shinji wasn't stupid enough to overlook the fact that as her sister, Rei probably lives with their father who currently happens to be Shinji's #1 most hated person in the world. That alone wasn't a problem, as Shinji overheard enough chatter at NERV to know that the man almost never left the facility. She briefly fantasized about how hilarious it would be if the whole facility were to be 'accidentally' detached from the bottom of the city, sending the man quite literally sleeping with the fishes. Wistful thinking however wasn't getting her anywhere.
Her expectations were, to put it simply, massively overshooting reality.
The address was just another standard-template apartment building, nothing fancy or unusual. For the highest-ranking officer of a military research facility, it was way too conservative. Shinji wasn't naïve enough to think the man would be holding back his quite high salary for spending it on charities and crap like that; she didn't particularly care about his spending habits either but it was a bit suspicious.
She couldn't however miss the black van parked at the other side of the street. 'Grunts, huh? I bet they packed the whole building with bugs as well.' She casually looked at the rooftops and saw a very faint reflection in a top-floor window overlooking the building's front side. 'Snipers, too? Jeez, is he this paranoid of someone breaking into his lair?' she thought as she shook her head and went for the front entrance. She knew that her presence was probably reported to Gendo by now but she also knew that trying to sneak in would most likely provoke the sniper.
And Shinji had no intention of dying until showing her father that the age-old saying of 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned' also applies to abandoning your daughter, not just to cheating on one's wife.
Inside, she received another surprise as the interior wasn't the bastion of cleanliness either. 'Although it does make some sense: people are less likely to notice anything unusual. Plus it might be easier to hide those bugs in the grime; that would need for the janitor to be an insider as well or no janitor at all.' The elevator wasn't working either so she took to the stairs.
It took her a while to reach the third floor as she looked for the apartment holding her target. From what she gathered from Hikari, Rei wasn't a member of any clubs at school; no one ever saw her outside schooltime either. Therefore, Shinji concluded the younger girl must be at home right now... on the other side of the door she stopped at. First, she put her ear to the door but didn't hear anything; no TV, nothing. The mailbox was overflowing with leaflets and other junk so she decided against just dumping the card in there and leaving; Rei most likely didn't empty it. Therefore, she rang the doorbell... or to be more exact, would have rang it had the thing were in working order. But judging from the continued silence, it wasn't.
Next, she rapped on the door – once again, to no effect. She was about to just give up and leave when a small thought entered her head. 'Door locks that have a handle on both sides are easier to pick because you don't have to hold the locking mechanism in the open position. He must have known this as well. Therefore, why is he guarding the building if he's not living here anyway?'
She pressed down the handle and the door obediently creaked open.
'Answer: because his violent daughter doesn't lock the door behind herself.'
She found herself in probably the dirtiest apartment she had seen in her life. It looked like no one cleaned in here for years. With apparently no one inside, she wasn't going to just stand there gawking so she walked inside. All she saw was a single room with two beds. 'At least they're not sleeping together; that would be real creepy.' The smaller bed in the corner looked recently used but the large one was practically new. 'Three guesses as to which one belongs to whom. Where is she, anyway?' Shinji decided to just drop the card on the small counter in the bedroom and leave; she was about to do just that when something on the counter caught her eye.
It was a large switchblade with a polished wooden handle, something obviously not of this age. It looked well-maintained, although she was not an expert on the matter. Curiously flipping the weapon open, she idly held the blade towards the window and saw not a single speck marring its surface. She was about to put it back down and leave when an invisible force violently tore it out of her hand. At the same time, suffocating pressure clamped around her neck and yanked her to the center of the room.
Shinji reflexively grasped at her neck... and felt nothing but thin air. Still, something was holding her up by the throat and holding her high enough that her feet vainly kicked at the air while trying to find something to step on; she idly noted the switchblade was also floating in the air where she left it. Then the force spun her around and violently bashed her against a wall so hard she would've spat out every bit of air left in her lungs were it not for the force suffocating her.
"That does not belong to you." – Rei remarked darkly as she stalked into the room with only a towel draped around her neck. Ignoring Shinji's predicament of being pinned to the wall in a crucifixion pose, the other girl casually snatched the switchblade from the air and after inspecting it, she carefully placed it back to the counter. Only then she turned to Shinji. – "You are not welcome here."
'Yeah... I noticed.' Shinji tried to say but it remained as a thought in her head as she couldn't speak with the unsubstantial vice around her throat. For the same reason, she couldn't explain the reason behind her presence as her head was starting to feel light from the lack of air. Then she felt the fingers of a foreign presence probing her mind and Misato's request popped up with crystal clarity, as if she was experiencing it now. Right after it faded away, Rei looked at the counter. – "I see." – she remarked and the force holding Shinji disappeared.
The older girl immediately tumbled to the floor, wheezing as her body finally regained access to life-sustaining air. While she was trying to regain her bearings, she looked at Rei who was still giving her a death glare. From the towel, she guessed Rei just got out of the shower but it wasn't the nudity that grabbed her attention. She saw the other girl bandaged and arm in a sling just a week ago but now, there wasn't a single scar, bruise or unnatural bump anywhere on that body; just smooth, pale skin.
And something else, too: apparently, the accelerated growth wasn't applied to just her height but to other sizes as well. Shinji gained enough comparison samples from PE to get an approximate average for her classmates' chest sizes but Rei's partially covered mounds with the pair of pale pink nipples peeking out at the towel's edge clearly reached way above that. And not just that: Shinji herself had barely started to sprout (unlike her ex-roommate who overtook her by nearly a year) but Rei was evidently approaching adulthood below as well. 'No freakin' way that's a ten year old... Hell, she looks sixteen!' Now she understood why their father kept Rei privately tutored; any elementary school would've noticed the physical changes which would've raised uncomfortable questions from the other girls.
Her attention returned to Rei's face when the other girl started speaking. – "I am told your mental capacity is above human average; therefore, I presume you are capable of comprehending my words. You are not allowed to come to this place again."
'What the hell does that supposed to mean?' Shinji tried to say but her throat still wasn't cooperating.
"I do not need to explain myself. It is not a wish; it is a warning. Approach this place again and you shall perish by my hand."
"Why are you so much of an ass to me?" – Shinji finally managed to say, although it barely came out as a whisper.
Nevertheless, his words clearly reached their recipient who narrowed her eyes. – "I will never acknowledge you. I am the daughter of Gendo Ikari; his only daughter. If you try to take him away from me, there is no force in the universe that will save you." – she growled darkly.
"What the hell are you talking about? That's the last thing I would do!" – retorted Shinji, now in a normal voice.
"I am not interested in excuses or justifications. This exchange is over; now leave." – With that, Rei turned on her heels and started dressing. Shinji decided it wouldn't do her any good if she were to try and antagonize her sister any more, so she dusted herself off and walked home without a word.
'I reiterate my previous opinion: she is damn creepy.' Shinji looked up at the sky. 'Creepy, my ass... she's like a panther: sleek, attractive exterior hiding a cold-blooded killer beneath. Those guards aren't supposed to keep intruders out of the apartment. They're supposed to keep intruders away from her.'
"Did you give Rei her security card?" – inquired Ritsuko casually as she and Misato had their short coffee break in the NERV cafeteria. Two of the room's four walls were taken up by reinforced glass walls that showed the underside of Tokyo-3 to anyone who cared to look; it was a sight unknown to the civilian population above but still considered insignificant to the NERV leadership as the cafeteria was nearly at the base of the upside-down cone that formed the facility. As one went lower, levels got increasingly higher security until Level-EEE at the tip of the cone where not even Misato was allowed to trespass, despite technically being the third highest ranking person in the whole installation.
Misato made an embarrassed smile. – "About that... well..."
"Let me guess: you forgot. Again." – At Misato's sheepish laughter, she groaned. – "I can't believe it... how many times did I tell you to buy a calendar?"
"Hey, I'm not that bad! Anyway, I asked Shinji to do it for me."
She fully expected the blonde to calm down but she achieved the exact opposite. – "WHAT, ARE YOU INSANE?" – screamed Ritsuko at the top of her lungs, attracting the attention of nearly everyone in the cafeteria.
"What?"
"Do you have ANY idea how much danger you just put her in?"
"What are you so pissed about? I know Rei doesn't like her and all, but-"
"But nothing! You know how Rei looks at the Commander, right?"
"Yeah, but-"
"Then how do you think she would react to someone who's technically her equal going RIGHT TO THE COMMANDER'S PLACE?"
Misato pondered on it for a while before her face turned deathly pale. – "Oh, shit." – She immediately scrambled for her cell phone, punching in Shinji's number in record time. – "Shinji, are you there?" – she shouted into the device as soon as it indicated a connection.
"Hey, no need to yell at me. I'm not deaf." – came Shinji's indignant response, to which Misato let out a relieved breath.
"Uh, look. I arranged something so you don't need to deliver Rei's card, OK? Just... go home and forget it."
"Actually, I'm just coming from there."
A sharp intake of breath. – "And...?"
"'And' what? I gave her the card and she threw me out. I knew she wasn't exactly going to thank me but still." – the girl replied, mumbling the last part to herself.