Chapter Eight
Asuka was a little nervous.
The feeling was decidedly uncomfortable. Ever since the attack on the fleet, the inside of Unit Two had felt different to her somehow, the process of synching less familiar. She was beginning to wonder if Shinji hadn't damaged it somehow. She heard things as she commanded the Evangelion to move, distant whispers she couldn't make out, the strangest sense that someone was about to touch her hand or brush fingers through her hair. It was annoying, but it wasn't damaging her synch ratio.
She took a deep breath and looked out across the sunken buildings at the target. The angel was bidpedal, roughly Eva sized, and probably had some kind of trick up its sleeve. It seemed almost too easy. She readied her progressive knife and focused on the creature, scanning for the core. It had two, it seemed, which was knew. Hunched and apelike, it picked its way forward, pushing little waves ahead of itself. She felt the ghostly sensation again, like an invisible hand almost touching her shoulder, and hesitated.
"Shinji," she said, "I'm taking point. Give me covering fire and-"
He cut her off with a feral scream and ran forward, Unit One splashing through the water at stunning speed. It hunched forward like an animal, its mouth armor broken open again to reveal slavering jaws.
"Damn you," she cursed, picking up a pallet rifle.
Howling in fury, Shinji drew close to the angel and launched his Eva at it full tilt. The ground shook from the impact, and a circular wave, like ripples in a pod, spread out from them. The hands of the angel and the hands of the Eva locked together and Shinji screamed, an animal cry of rage rippling out from Unit One at the same time. Desperately, she swept the reticle to and fro, searching for a clear shot, but none presented itself to her.
Suddenly, Unit One pulled the angel towards itself, let out a gurgling snarl, and bit it, grabbed its odd headless shoulders with its teeth and started pulling and tear, covering itself with blue gore. The angel let out a strange, ululating cry of pain and as she watched began to pull against itself. A seam formed down its middle, leaving streamers of mucous as it separated. The two halves jumped apart, each holding one of Unit One's arms. She gasped in horror as the twinned angels' sides bubbled and erupted in new arms in legs, such that each was now a complete individual, with its own core.
She snapped the rifle into the firing position and opened up on the one on the left. It cried out as the shells tore into it and knocked it back, forcing it to release its grip on Shinji's Eva. Now free, he turned and focused on the other one. Unit One grabbed the angel's arm with both hands and twisted it.
Asuka ran forward in silence, slamming home another magazine into the rifle as she did, meaning to finish off the one she'd downed. To her horror, it simply stood up, jumped on Unit One, and locked its arms around Shinji's neck in a sleeper hold. Unit One bucked wildly, trying to headbutt the one that held it from behind. It released the other half of the creature and focuseds its efforts on trying to tear itself free. Shinji let out a sort of strained gurgle, as if he were being choked, and she rushed to get the damned thing off of him. With a cry of rage, he jumped and fell backwards, meaning to slam the thing into the ground.
He hit her instead.
She yelped in pain as hundreds of tons of Evangelion and angel crashed into her and slammed Unit Two into the corpse of a broken, leaning building that jutted from the waterline. Furious, she tossed the ruined rifle away, drew her prog knife, and went to work on the angel, stabbing at its back, digging long furrows in its silvery flesh. It cried out, and the other one was on her. It came up behind Unit Two and punched both sets of claws on its hands into her Eva's back. She cried out in pain as white hot lines of pain lanced down her back. She arched and bucked in the seat and Unit Two lost its grip on the prog knife. The timer spun to life beside her. Her umbilical had been torn out.
Screaming with animal fury, Shinji ignored the angel clinging to the back of his Eva, grabbed the half of the angel that had assaulted her, and lifted it clear over Unit One's head. Barely stopping to breath, he kept snarling as he pulled the thing earthward and broke it over Unit One's knee. Panting, clutching her sides, Asuka tried to pull the one away from his back but it continued to pull at him, clawing deep rents in Unit One's armor. She pushed the pain down, clenched her teeth, and ignored the blood floating in the LCL in front of her. She hooked Unit Two's arm under that of the angel on Shinji's back and pulled. The pressure relieved, he twisted and pulled it around and slammed it down on top of the other one.
"Asuka!" Misato cried, "Get back! They're going to drop an N2 mine on it!"
"What?"
Shinji suddenly went silent. Unit One turned, stomped into a sprint, and slammed into her. Her breath blew out through her nose and mouth, bubbling the LCL as her belly contracted in sympathetic pain. Shinji simply picked her and her Eva up, threw her over his shoulder, and ran full tilt. She saw the flying wing coming in and realized, her eyes widening, that her time was about to run out. She didn't have an AT Field.
Unit One trotted to a stop and someone, Akagi maybe, started screaming about feedback, circuit reversals and power overloads. Unit One looked up at the incoming bomb, twinkling like a star in the fading light, and raised his free hand in a gesture of defiance. His AT-Field unfolded in a glittering sheet of orange light. His umbilical cable exploded. It simple ceased to be, vaporizing in a harsh stream of too-bright light that left purple streaks across Asuka's vision. The actual umbilical connection melted to slag, dribbling in red hot bubbles down his back, and flames erupted from the socket.
The N2 mine detonated.
When she woke up, she was in the dark and heard banging. The plug had done an emergency vent of her LCL, and her power supply was dead. She wasn't going anywhere. The emergency hatch flew open and Shinji dropped into the plug, panting.
"Are you alright?"
"You idiot! You almost got us killed! You stupid barbarian, you…"
She trailed off. He was bleeding from his forehead, and there was a burn on his cheek. He swayed on his feet and leaned on her seat to steady himself.
"Good," he said.
Then, he passed out.
"What is wrong with him?" Rei asked quietly.
It was like a knife twisting in Misato's gut. She stood in the corner of the hospital room, watching Shinji's chest rise and fall in slow, shallow breaths. They'd stitched the cut on his forehead, and bandaged the burn on his cheek. Otherwise, he was fine. There was no particular reason why he wasn't waking up. The doctors said it was likely fatigue, and he would come around eventually.
"He'll be fine," Misato said, mustering the most confident voice she could.
Asuka edged into the room, freshly showered and changed out of her plugsuit, her hair pulled back with those silly nerve clips. She looked a little nervous as she edged closer. Finally, Misato turned to her.
"Just get in here," she snapped.
"What's your problem?" the girl said haughtily, her standard mask of superiority returned. "I'm just here to see if I'll be stuck with the doll when I have to go out and kill that thing."
"I am not a doll," Rei said, a hint of heat in her voice.
Misato winced. Having gotten used to the girl's quiet monotone, it was like hearing her shrieking in rage. Misato had learned firsthand that the only shrieking Rei did in no way involved rage. She winced at the thought and interposed herself between them to break it up before Asuka started in on her.
"Both of you be quiet," Misato snapped. "I'm not going to tolerate this. My pilot corps is not going to be at each other's throats."
"Heh," Asuka said with an imperious smirk. "These two are at each other's-"
"Enough, Asuka," Misato snapped. "You are going to learn to work together. Pack your stuff, Asuka. I'm moving you."
"Where?"
"In with me."
"What?" Asuka shouted, and then winced.
Rei scowled at her, but said nothing, and rested a hand on Shinji's arm. Misato palmed her face and took a deep breath.
"You heard me. Rei practically lives with us already. I want all of you where I can see you while I train you."
"How, exactly, are you planning to do that?"
"I'm working on it," Misato sighed. "Go get your things together. I'll send Section 2 to carry your crap up to my apartment."
With a huff and a swirl of red hair, Asuka stomped off, fists clenched at her sides. Misato let out a sigh and fell back against the wall, rubbing her forehead. She sank into a chair and threw her feet out, and forced a breath of air out through her pursed lips, pushing her hair away from her eyes.
She heard laughing. Rei jumped up and mashed her face into Shinji's, and he winced in pain, and then continued laughing.
"What the hell is so funny?" Misato demanded.
"Toji and Kensuke are never going to believe this."
Akagi strode into Fuyutsuki's office, dumped a thick sheaf of papers onto the already expansive spread of paperwork on his desk, and said very quietly, "He's killing himself."
He leaned back in surprise. "What?"
"When the N2 mine dropped, Shinji's synch ratio went well over one hundred percent. We need to quarantine Unit One and strengthen the buffers, or he's going to end up like the first pilot."
"We can't-"
"There's more," she cut him off. "He's degrading the restraining system somehow. Every time he pulls one of these stunts there's a chance we'll lose it completely."
Fuyutsuki rocked back in his chair. "Look at this from my perspective, doctor. Pilot Soryu performed poorly in her first operation piloting solo against an angel. This is Shinji's first real defeat. If something happens to him, it's tragic, but if I hold back our best weapon and we lose, you know what happens."
"Have you thought of the other possibility?"
"Which is?"
"The Eva breaks free of the restraints, and he retains control of it, somehow."
"I'll consider it," said Fuyutsuki.
Misato slapped the phone down on the receiver with a huff and scanned the carnage that was her apartment. To her surprise, Shinji had simply acquiesced when Asuka demanded the larger room, and Rei had helped him move his things, actually their things, into the room across the hall, while Asuka took the larger space with the window. As it was, her apartment was now full of the same shipping boxes Asuka's possessions had been sent to Japan in, stacked up in the hall, around the living room, and out in the main corridor outside the apartment. Two Section 2 men in their off duty clothes had just finished muscling Asuka's ridiculously oversized bed into the small room. She grudgingly handed them cans of beer, which they gratefully took and sauntered out of the apartment.
"Rei," said Misato. "Help Asuka unpack."
Rei nodded in agreement while Asuka raised an eyebrow. "What? I can do it myself."
"I don't want you at each other's throats," said Misato. "I need to talk to Shinji."
Shinji perked up and walked into the kitchen.
"Start wearing a shirt," Misato smirked, taking a drink of beer. The kid's abs had abs.
"No," said Shinji, rummaging in the refrigerator. He took out a beer of his own and downed half of it in a single gulp.
"That's your only one for the day, right?"
"Right," he nodded.
"Listen," she said, moving over to the table. "I have new orders. Rei and Asuka will sortie for the next battle. You'll be kept on reserve in the cage in case you're needed."
He straightened. "What? Why?"
"They're worried you're going to damage the Eva. Something about pushing it too hard."
"I'll be more careful."
Misato looked over his shoulder and saw a pair of blue eyes under red hair, just at the edge of the door. She made sure Asuka didn't notice her watching her watching Shinji and went on. "Orders are orders."
"I don't want them going out by themselves."
"You're not in charge," said Misato as she took another sip of beer, "I am. My superiors have given me an order to be relayed to the pilots. There will be no further discussion."
He shrugged. "Fine. I'm going to lift weights."
"Don't be out all night," said Misato. "I know school is out while we prepare, but I don't want you wandering around by yourself."
"Hey," Asuka said, popping into the room. She had a long rectangular box under her arm. "This isn't mine. It's got the barbarian's name on it."
Shinji immediately brightened, took the box from her, and hurried to the counter where he procured a knife. He set it on the table, sliced open the tape, and flipped open the cover. Misato immediately smelled the familiar stink of preservative grease. Shinji peeled away the brown wrapping paper covering the object inside.
Wrapped in plastic, slathered in grease and with a cardboard sleeve over the blade was a sword, an actual sword. He looked it over, slid it back into the box, and carried it into his room. "I'll clean this later."
Misato and Asuka both stared at him as he walked back in front of the door in his sweat suit.
"Shinji, where the hell did you get that?" said Misato.
"The Internet," he shrugged.
"She lets you live here?" Asuka said, incredulous.
Rei shrugged her shoulders in the tiny, almost unnoticeable way she always did. "He suggested it. I agreed. The Major objected."
Asuka blinked. "You mean, she said not to do something and you did it anyway?"
Rei paused in thought. "Yes."
Asuka shrugged, pulled open a box, and started hanging dresses in her alleged closet. Rei continued to pile pairs of her pants into one of the three nightstands she'd brought, which unfortunately lined one of the walls in the little room. Asuka huffed and started weighing which lamp she was going to use, since she only needed one now.
"Pilot Soryu?" said Rei.
"What?" Asuka huffed, tossing the lamp in her hand aside. She wanted the glass one.
"Why do you pilot Eva?"
"Because I'm the best, and I'm the best."
"You piloted with Shinji. I have never done that."
"Yeah," Asuka said hurriedly, moving for another box. "I did."
"What was it like?"
She felt heat rising on her cheeks. Rei studied her, narrowing her eyes.
"You are blushing. I see."
"It's not like that," Asuka said. "It was weird, that's all."
"Do you enjoy touching him?"
Asuka nearly dropped the lamp she was holding, stumbled, and fell onto her bed. Rei stared at her blankly, apparently simply expecting an answer.
"What? No! He's a brute, and I-"
"I see," said Rei.
"I'm not putting the moves on your boyfriend." Asuka said as she stood and started looking for the box with her underwear in it. She'd probably have to find somewhere to keep it with locks on it.
"My boyfriend?" said Rei. "I do not understand."
Asuka almost choked on her own tongue. "What? What are you, stupid?"
"No," Rei said sharply, shoving a box into the closet. "I am of slightly above normal intelligence."
Asuka shook her head. "Nevermind. You… do stuff with him."
"You mean have sex," Rei said casually, as if she was talking about what to have for dinner.
Asuka stared at her, open mouthed. She closed her mouth with a click of her teeth. "Yes, Rei, that's what I mean. I thought you Japanese girls were supposed to be shy. Yeah, that's what boyfriends and girlfriends do."
"I see," said Rei. "So I am his girlfriend. Would you like to be his girlfriend as well?"
"What?"
Rei blinked. "You assumed a defensive posture when I asked if you were interested in physical relations with him."
"No, Rei. You're only supposed to have one at a time."
"Oh. Why?"
Asuka sat down on the bed. "What do you mean, why? Because you do!"
"That is not a reason," said Rei. "Your argument is a tautology."
Asuka stared at her for nearly a minute. "Are you fucking with me?"
Rei paused in her work and tilted her head. "I am confused as to your choice of euphemism. Are you suggesting that we touch each other?"
Asuka stood up, walked out into the kitchen where Misato sat in her pajamas poring over some report or paperwork or some stupid thing, and Asuka slammed her hands on the table.
"I'm leaving. I am not living with these lunatics."
Misato put her face in her hands and made a sound that was half laugh, and half cry of frustration. "Yes, you are. Deal with it."
"She's insane. He's insane. I think you're insane. You let them fornicate with each other any way they want and don't even say anything? What kind of a guardian are you!"
"Asuka," said Misato, "you don't know everything I know. Just let it be."
At that moment, one of Misato's refrigerators –Asuka just now noticed that she had two for some reason- opened, and a freaking penguin, wandered out, wearing a weird little backpack, and looked up at her. It made an annoyed grunting sound, walked over to the other fridge, took a beer and walked back into the small refrigerator from whence it emerged.
Asuka stared at it in stunned silence and said, "I'm taking a shower. No one bother me."
Misato shrugged, and Asuka walked into the bathroom, slammed the door, and having disrobed, turned on the hot water. She sighed as the room filled with steam, slid into the shower, and set about washing her hair. After she stood under the water as hot as she could stand it for as long as she could stand it and rinsed away the soap, she threw open the shower curtain.
There, she found Rei, wearing a towel, and only a towel.
Around her neck.
"It is my turn," said Rei.
She started screaming.
Maya sighed. Sometimes, she had no idea why the base was designed the way it was. The maps of the corridors looked like the map on the bag of a children's meal from a fast food restaurant, crossed with some sort of weird religious mandala. For some reason, walking to the commissary to eat lunch required that she walk past the staff gym, ill-used as it was. Most of the people she worked with were too tired after hours of mental exertion for much in the way of the physical. She heard a loud, metallic clang and stopped by the door.
One of the pilots, Ikari, was doing some kind of weird exercise where he took a really big weight in his hands, stood up, and put it back down again. He spotted her in the mirror and she jumped in surprise.
He turned a little. "What?"
"Uh, what are you doing?"
"Deadlifts," he replied. He crouched down, picked up the weight, and repeated the motion. The weight clanged when he put it back down again, the noise she'd heard before.
"Why?"
"Lower back, legs, trapezius," he replied, and then did it again.
Curious, she wandered into the room. "That looks really heavy."
"It is," he said, and then repeated the movement.
"It looks like it hurts."
"It does, and it doesn't", he said. He rolled the big weight thingy up onto two littler weights and started taking the big plates off of it, panting all the while.
"Then why do you do it?"
He stood up and toweled off his face. "What is the riddle of steel?"
"Huh?"
"Nothing," he shook his head. "Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and do not surrender, that is strength."
"Oh," she said. "Okay. Umm, bye."
"Goodbye," he said as he headed over to pick up some big hexagony things. They looked really heavy, too.
She wandered into the commissary. Doctor Akagi was there, drinking coffee that was probably cold. Maya sat down opposite her with a cup of her own, and then, thinking about it for a moment, went and poured a fresh one for her.
"What's this?"
"Coffee," said Maya. "Yours is cold."
"How did you… nevermind, don't answer that."
Maya sat sipping her coffee for a while. She felt an odd itching sensation at the base of her neck. "Doctor Akagi?"
"Yes, Maya?"
"Would you like to, I mean, do you think we could, umm, go for a cup of coffee later?"
She sighed, and smirked in bemusement. "We're drinking coffee now."
"I mean, somewhere else. Like a restaurant or something."
She quirked an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because I would… um… like to?"
"I'm busy," the older woman sighed. She took a sip of coffee and stared at the paper she was looking at for a little while. "Oh, what the hell. Why not. When do you get off work?"
Misato was beginning to question the wisdom of this entire plan. She'd gotten used to Rei's little habit, and hadn't thought to warn Asuka or say anything to Rei herself about it. Asuka spent the next hour wandering around the living room and ranting in German while Misato hooked up the old game system.
"What the hell is that?" Asuka said finally, slipping back into Japanese.
"It's a game system," said Misato. "For your training."
"How is that going to help with our training?"
"Like this," said Misato, turning it on. It pinged to life and the television flashed pink. It still worked. "Rei, come on."
Rei wandered out of Shinji's room in a blue warm-up suit. Asuka noticed that the tag was still on it and huffed, and Misato laughed at her. Asuka in her daisy dukes and little shirt was going to get uncomfortable fast, but Misato decided to let her figure that for herself.
She gestured to the pad on the floor. "You each take a pad. The goal is to synchronize your movements to the song."
With an imperious look on her face, Asuka took a position, followed by Rei. The song started playing, a simple, easy one, and they started moving. Asuka fell out of time almost immediately, and Rei glanced at her.
"Shut up," said Asuka.
"I did not say anything," said Rei.
"Try again," said Misato, grinning.
The indignity of this was too much.
Her beloved bed was only a few feet away, and Asuka was forced to sleep here, on the floor, with crazy albino nympho girl with her natural blue hair and the queen of the beers, who also snored viciously. She winced as Misato unleashed another bestial snort and sat up. She thought she heard a low, thin scraping sound, and crept towards it.
Shinji's door was half open. Something inside was casting reflections on the walls all around. She crept around to the corner, where she could see him. In his hand he held that ridiculous sword he had in the box. He'd cleaned the foul smelling gunk off it and polished the blade to a mirror shine, and he was rubbing some kind of stone along the edges, smiling as he did. The sound was just barely audible. He slid it into a black leather scabbard, shoved it under his futon, and rolled over to sleep.
Gingerly, she made her way back to the bedrolls. As she lay down, she realized that Rei was awake, staring at her with those red eyes of hers.
"What?" Asuka whispered, harshly.
"You are awake," Rei replied, her voice barely more than a breath.
"I couldn't sleep next to Major Warthog," said Asuka.
Rei shrugged and closed her eyes. Soon enough, Asuka started to drift off, and finally sleep took her, rushing up to envelop her in blackness. She awoke again the harsh morning light, curled on herself. She realized someone was touching her and sat upright, ready to lash out at the pervert, assuming Shinji had crawled out of his hole to feel her up while she was asleep.
Rei had been clinging to her. Awake now, she looked up at her.
"What the hell are you doing?" Asuka whispered sharply. Misato was still out.
"You were crying your sleep," Rei said quietly, rolling over. "I attempted to quiet you."
"I was not," Asuka snapped as she flopped back down on the bedroll and squeezed her eyes shut in vain hope of getting some actual rest.