"Our bodies are given form from the midst of nothingness. Existing where there is nothing is the meaning of the phrase "Form is emptiness." That all things are provided for by nothingness is the meaning of the phrase, "Emptiness is form." One should not think that these are two separate."
Hagakure, Book of the Samurai
It was about a quarter after four o'clock in the afternoon that Kouzou Fuyutsuki found Gendo Ikari out on one of the private verandas accessible by only senior members of NERV staff. The temperature was pleasant, but not wholly warm either, and the Deputy Commander knew that as soon as the sun sank below the distant horizon the late autumn chill would find its way into his old bones. Nevertheless, there was a refreshing crispness to the air that was an invigorating reprieve from the suffocating, recycled air of the subterranean military complex. He pondered asking whether Gendo felt the same as he or if the man had come, as he often did, seeking solitude and would be perturbed by his presence. The Senior Commander of NERV had his back to him (and so reading his facial expression was impossible) and was resting his arms over the railing of the balcony, a lit cigarette between his fingers, already diminished to half its original dimensions. The senior Ikari's back was not bent, however, despite his stance; in fact, the longer Fuyutsuki scrutinized his colleague, the more perfect his posture appeared. Even from behind, the man looked something statuesque, his layered hair tossed about by the wind, effectively adding ruggedness to Ikari's near-endless list of admirable physical characteristics. After taking in the sight, the Deputy Commander felt a strange tightness in his chest, wavered, and considered attempting to sneak back out the way he'd come, quietly and stealthily without alerting his colleague to his presence at all. Remarkably, as he made to do so, the Commander spoke.
"Ah, Fuyutsuki, your sense of timing is, as always, impeccable. There is a matter I'd like to review with you. If you're not currently engaged in your other duties, of course."
The last remark, Fuyutsuki knew perfectly well, was little more than a courteous pretense he was afforded after so many years of companionship. It wouldn't have made a difference if Fuyutsuki himself were strapped into an Evangelion and plunging a prog-blade into an angel at that very moment—if the Commander summoned him, he appeared. If the Commander wanted to speak, they spoke.
"As Fate would have it, my afternoon schedule was a bit light today." Also a pretense, the lie was meant to justify his acquiescence to the chief's demands.
Gendo turned around to face his colleague. Fuyutsuki felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise when he realized there was the hint of a smile on the senior Ikari's lips. There was no warmth or joy to be found anywhere in the smile. The Commander inhaled deeply on his cigarette, held the smoke in his lungs for several moments before exhaling easily. In the cool, November air, the cloud that formed before his face seemed like smoke billowing from the maw of a dragon—thick, murky and robust.
"Kouzou, I would first like to thank you for your continued service and unwavering loyalty to me and the rest of NERV."
"Indeed."
"We've been colleagues for a great long while."
"We have."
"It must seem frustrating, at times, that you are dispatched on seemingly frivolous errands or fettered by diplomatic and political haranguing. Certainly, you must no doubt feel that a man of your intellectual capacity, academic furnishing and scientific aptitude is ill-suited to such banal and trite assignments. If you did, I would hardly blame you."
Gendo was at least correct on one count. Fuyutsuki was a fiercely intelligent man, a dangerous and patient adversary who was, in different ways, as enterprising even as the senior Ikari himself. In his long and colorful career, he'd built bridges, burned them, manipulated and maneuvered to get what he wanted. Yet for all his mistakes and misgivings, he was also a vastly different man than the Commander. Humanity, he continuously insisted, could not survive unless it was allowed to find its own way. Whether sin and depravity had a place in that evolution or not remained to be seen, and in any case, it was without doubt far too early in the history of the species to truly tell. Fuyutsuki had made this position abundantly clear during a debate they'd had during a visit to the South Pole, telling Gendo that he preferred "a world where people live, no matter how stained with sin". The professor reasoned that humanity had made it this far without divine intervention, and there seemed no good reason to him why the next phase of human evolution had to be unnaturally instigated. He took the position of the observer and philosopher while Gendo assumed the role of actor and warrior.
"The fact is, Kouzou, you are the perfect cat's-paw. You downplay your involvement and ability so perfectly that you are never suspected."
Kouzou forced a smile and shrugged his arms. "Perhaps, but they would have little to be suspicious of even if they knew. I am an old man with few secrets to hide—certainly none of any interest to anyone else—and most only listen to what I have to say out of respect for the silver in my hair and my former affiliations with Gehirn."
Gendo's smile faded. "Even now, your façade does not fail you."
The Vice Commander arched an eyebrow, intimating that he had no idea to what the Commander was referring. Gendo gestured toward the café table nearest them. It was a simple configuration—two, uncomfortable chairs fashioned from some sort of wiry metal, and a small, circular table with an ashtray perched in the center of it and barely enough room for a coffee cup on either side. Fuyutsuki took the motion as his cue to sit, and he did. He was joined by Gendo a moment later, who extinguished his cigarette in the dish before retrieving another from his inside jacket pocket.
"You say you have few secrets to hide," Gendo quoted his colleague, "But few is not none. And as I'm sure you're aware by now, people without any secrets are of no interest or use to me."
"Then perhaps I should tender my resignation, effective immediately," Fuyutsuki chuckled nervously. He couldn't quite bring himself to gaze directly into the annihilating stare he was sure was peering out from behind ultra-reflective glass lenses.
Gendo lit another cigarette, and took a long drag. It was so quiet outside on the veranda that Fuyutsuki could hear the crackling sound of the tobacco in the cigarette being enkindled. What he said next was asked in a way that could simply neither be laughed off nor avoided, the question that the Deputy Commander had managed to anxiously elude for several decades, and the very same that plagued his existence every waking minute of his life.
"Kouzou… did you love Yui?"
The Vice Commander of NERV sat as if paralyzed while his mind reeled from the accusation and his tongue labored desperately for a suitable answer. Initially, his most overpowering impulse was to feign insult, to rebuff his colleague with a psychological redirect of sorts, pointing out that Yui had been much younger than he—Fuyutsuki was certainly not a pervert who preferred women still budding with youth rather than perennials in full bloom—and that it would never cross his mind to consider a romantic attraction with the lover of one of his closest friends. But then Fuyutsuki saw Gendo's expression, the lenses of his spectacles artfully dodging the glare of the afternoon light, the eyes behind them gleaming with a level of seriousness making it immediately obvious that the question had hardly been spontaneous. Fuyutsuki wondered briefly how long Gendo had known about his affections for his ex-wife, and he also realized that if he tried to laugh the question off, Gendo would most assuredly take it as an affront. All this in the space of an instant, and in the end, Fuyutsuki was completely disarmed, helpless, and at the mercy of Gendo Ikari. As always. He leaned back in the small, wiry chair and sighed deeply.
"Lend me a cigarette," Fuyutsuki said at length.
Gendo fished out another cigarette from inside his jacket pocket. The motion was exactly the same the second time he performed the action. Absolute mechanical precision in all things, Fuyutsuki noted quietly to himself. The Deputy Commander leaned forward to accept the flame from Gendo's lighter before once more reclining in his seat.
"What gives you that impression?" he answered at last.
Gendo took another drag on his own cigarette. "The way you always looked at her… the way you didn't look at her. Your protectiveness of her. Your attentiveness to her needs and how defensive you always got on her behalf when she was criticized. Of course, we can't forget all the times you reached out your hand to touch her only to stop yourself short. You were her mentor, and the notion of attraction between mentor and student is hardly uncommon. Fuyutsuki, really, just take your pick."
The Commander's tone was more impatient than irritated. Fuyutsuki simply stared at the red embers glowing at the tip of his cigarette. He hadn't smoked a cigarette in years, and though it made his mouth taste like tar and stung his nasal passages, it was the only thing keeping him calm enough that he didn't simply climb the railing and dive off the balcony. "Does this really matter?" he asked at last.
"Yes. Absolutely."
"We all loved Yui," Fuyutsuki answered, managing somehow to remain indecisive and neutral with his reply. "She was charismatic, bright, compassionate and ambitious. What was there not to like about her? She was a bright light wherever she went." It worked—but only for the duration of the sentence.
There was something of a nod from the Commander, but the motion passed so quickly Fuyutsuki wondered if he'd simply imagined it. "Don't play games, Fuyutsuki. You know very well what I'm asking you."
Fuyutsuki took a smoke, coughing after a particularly deep drag. His eyes watered. He regarded his colleague.
"Yes…" he began, slowly and carefully. "Yes. I loved Yui. With all my heart, I loved her."
For some reason, the professor expected a reprisal of immeasurable outrage and deprecation, but what the senior Ikari said next was, to put it quite simply, stupefying.
"And do you love her still?" Gendo pressed.
"Without question." His voice sounded hushed and raspy. He dared not breathe.
Ikari nodded—this time visibly—and seemed satisfied with the answer. While Fuyutsuki sat silently, motionlessly, in his seat, stewing with mortification, Gendo placed his cigarette down upon the ashtray, resting it in one of the tiny apertures designed to seat them, and began to remove his white gloves. "Good. I'm quite glad to hear that."
"Why are you glad?" Fuyutsuki stammered dumbly.
"Because if you truly loved Yui as you say, you will understand what I am about to tell you next."
Fuyutsuki shot his colleague a glance that indicated that he was waiting for the other to continue.
"When this conversation began, I told you that you were invaluable to me and to this organization. I have brought you into the loop about many of this organization's most classified protocols and directives. I made you Vice Commander of this group because I know I can trust you, rely upon you. Now that I have confirmed what I already knew to be true, I plan to bring you in on the rest of the operation. The things you don't know about. The things through which only your love of Yui can sustain you."
The professor bristled at the statement. "How long have you known?"
Even Gendo Ikari was barely able to suppress the look of smug satisfaction that hinted in his features. "Yui suspected it first, actually," he began, causing Fuyutsuki to sink further and more dejectedly into his seat. "It was during some hiking trip, the very first time she'd revealed to you that the two of us were dating. I wasn't certain myself until much later, quite possibly when you confronted me back at the Artificial Evolution Laboratory—that's when I began to really look at the evidence that was right before my eyes."
"She never said anything…" the old man mumbled quietly, mostly to himself.
"Of course not," the senior Ikari snorted. "She was a professional, and she didn't want to damage either the professional relationship or the friendship the two of you enjoyed. It wasn't pity—she respected you far too much for that. No, Kouzou, she didn't tell you most of all because she knew how dangerous it would be for you to get too close to her—and her work."
Fuyutsuki straightened himself up in his seat, miffed and annoyed. "I knew the risks. I was willing to take them."
"That's precisely what she thought you would say, and why she was always careful to make sure you were never completely involved."
"It's a choice I would have preferred to have been involved in," the other argued. "If you both knew, the three of us should have discussed it and got it over with instead of allowing me to suffer all these years in agonizing silence."
"It was how she wanted it, Kouzou," Gendo reminded his colleague. The Senior Commander scrutinized his colleague for many moments carefully and shrewdly before continuing. "Do you remember precisely how it was that you came to work for me in the very first place?"
Vice Commander Fuyutsuki was one of only a handful of people who knew that if Gendo Ikari had a weakness at all, it was sentimentality. This was something that, despite the great many differences between them, the men shared. Ironically, the source of their sentimentality was also the very thing that had brought them into each others' lives to begin with. Long before the Second Impact, long before Gendo and all his machinations, Kouzou Fuyutsuki had been a professor at Kyoto University, slowly but diligently working his way toward a tenured position and a chair on the Board of Sciences. By the time he was twenty-five, he had earned two PhDs, one in evolutionary biology and the second in sociobiology. This guaranteed him several positions with many noteworthy labs and institutions, first as a research assistant and intern then later as a field researcher, and ultimately more coveted roles such as project director or chief researcher. Such an auspicious and promising career would not go unnoticed for long, and he was offered a fellowship at the prestigious Kyoto University's Graduate School Division of Biological Science. The department, which prized fieldwork and integrated it with state-of-the-art micro research (cytology, gene study, embryology, neuroscience, molecular biology and the like) appealed to his youthful zeal and curiosities, and by the time he was thirty-five, he'd accepted a full-time teaching position. Using the school's resources and publishing capabilities, he authored a number of manuscripts and articles as well as a series of longer texts and dissertations spanning a cornucopia of scientific disciplines. He was the youngest full-time professor on staff. His career could not have been moving along more perfectly. And that was when a young, endlessly charming and exceptionally gifted bioengineering student entered his life, turning it completely upside down.
It had been a warm and balmy midsummer's day that he and Yui Ikari had first met. He was, at the time, forty-four years of age and she precisely half as many. On his fortieth birthday, Kouzou was consulted by several current members of the Board of Sciences regarding the expansion of the department to include new and emerging fields of study. Fuyutsuki was delighted by the opportunity to present them with a one-hundred-and-eighteen page report outlining not only which emergent sciences possessed the most merit and which the least, but also containing a carefully and meticulously laid-out plan for implementation. Needless to say, when a seat opened up on the board, it was offered to Fuyutsuki with little debate, and he wasted no time in filling it. Several years later, he found himself campaigning and raising awareness for the newest branch of science that he himself had drafted up and implemented—the keijijou seibutsugaku, or metaphysical biology.
The meeting had occurred during a lecture he gave, in part to support the new department but also to sell more copies of his latest manuscript, The Fifth Essence: The Search for Aether, Dark Matter and other Phantoms of the Universe. In effect, the lecture comprised of a brief introduction by a colleague, a twenty-or-so-minute summation of his key points, a PowerPoint-supported show of slides, thirty minutes of Q&A, and lastly a book signing. For the most part, things had gone quite well—until the autograph session, that was.
"Would the next attendee please step forward," Fuyutsuki's assistant called out.
A young woman stepped forward, clutching a copy of Fuyutsuki's book against her chest. She was quite petite, almost too-slender, and her guarded posture implied a timid and attenuate character. She was anything but, and Kouzou felt as though her large, unusually-rounded, hazel-gold eyes lock onto his like the cruise missile of an Akizuki-class destroyer. She brushed her mahogany-brown fringe from her eyes and placed the book down upon the signing table with a heavy thump. Fuyutsuki was surprised by the unexpectedness of the action, but kept his composure, never taking his eyes from hers.
"Who shall I make this out to?" he asked her.
"On page one-hundred-forty-seven, you indicated that you believe there is an intrinsic field of some kind that separates all things and gives form to life. Nothing so elementary as electromagnetic or strong-weak forces… something… metaphysical… that played some underlying role in the shaping of reality. You implied this, with great conviction, and then abandoned the notion for the remainder of the book. Why?"
Fuyutsuki was momentarily floored. Contrary to virtually everything about her appearance, the tiny woman before him had, without even as much as a polite introduction, put to him one of the most difficult questions that had haunted him throughout the course of writing his manuscript. His newly-founded branch of metaphysical biology was often a difficult sell, even despite his reputation and accomplishments, because a summation of its tenets could not but help imply the existence of a metaphysical or supernatural current or force that was present in all organic life. Opponents of the professor were quick to point out that what Fuyutsuki was describing—or failing to describe—was, in effect, the religious concept of the human soul. Whether he believed in the concept of the soul was irrelevant; the very core of his proposed discipline rested upon the theory that something which could neither be neither observed nor studied not only existed, but played an enormously important role in the shaping of the universe itself. The professor cleared his throat, then smiled darkly. His ego quietly reminded him that he was more than equipped to handle a precocious young upstart like the girl before him.
"One day, should your career afford you the opportunity to publish a manuscript of your own, you will understand that as a scientist, we are beholden to author only what we can responsibly prove, not speculate on personal interests," he remarked derisively.
The girl stared at him undauntedly. He noticed that her pale cheeks were faintly freckled with light brown flecks that, for some maddeningly unknown reason, he found remarkably sweetening to her somewhat elfin but downplayed features. She was wearing a nude lip gloss and no other visible makeup whatsoever. Scientists were not necessarily the most fashion-conscious individuals. "But you hinted at the same thing in your lecture just now," she insisted. "And the department you're speaking in favor of specializes in metaphysics. It's patently obviously, I think, that you're trying to bridge the gulf between science and soul. Am I wrong?"
You're one-hundred percent correct, you obnoxious little upstart, he thought. "We are continuously seeking funding to continue our research and prove the theories my colleagues and I put forth," he said evasively. "We've made a tremendous amount of progress already, as the slides and my book both indicate, but, yes, I believe we still have a ways to go before we can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that we've completely understood the most abstruse forces of our universe." His words were perfectly selected with political precision to avoid responsibility for a lack of evidence while sounding confident that with the right backing, breakthroughs would doubtlessly be made.
The woman nodded resolutely. "Maybe you don't have the evidence you're looking for because you're looking in wrong places."
Fuyutsuki arched an eyebrow. Several others around them were listening now, carefully regarding the exchange between the two, eager to see who would ultimately gain the upper hand. The professor cracked a broad grin, squaring his narrow, angular jaw. "Well then, detective, perhaps you can tell me and the rest of my internationally renowned colleagues where we should be looking instead."
There was a round of stifled laughter from the nearest onlookers.
"I could," the young woman smiled back playfully, "but you'd have to hire me first."
"You're hired," the professor retorted. "Now tell me where to look to prove the existence of my intrinsic fields."
The girl folded her arms across her chest, apparently satisfied. "I can do better than that. I can show you."
The next time the two met, it was in a research lab in a much more official capacity. Fuyutsuki had exercised his political aptitude and won over the board, granting him reserved laboratory space on a new campus with recently installed and state of the art facilities as well as a staff of graduate students each working on their doctorate thesis. Because of the admittedly broad nature of the metaphysical biology department, he was spared having to make any excuses for requisitioning a bioengineering student for his research staff. Her particular field of study, it turned out, offered a unique perspective on the more intangible aspects of his theories. She dealt only with what could be quantified and measured. As a result of her discipline, he guessed, Yui was perhaps the most pragmatic and rational women he'd ever met. Whenever she spoke with him, she spoke with the confidence and candor of his male colleagues, but she remained at all times feminine and charming.
Initially, Kouzou mistook Yui's passion and curiosity for ego and naivety. She was young, ambitious, and thirsty for laboratory experience. More than that, she genuinely wanted to make a difference, and it sickened him. At forty-four years of age, Fuyutsuki had grown weary and cynical of the political shackles science had been forced to wear over the past few decades. The golden age of wild and reckless exploration throughout the sixties and seventies was but a remnant of a memory. Youthful idealism rebuffed his sober, acerbic view of the world. Yui reminded him of a time in his life when his direction and ambition had been clear-cut, focused. She reminded him of his slow and inevitable surrender of his own youth. He even loathed the fact that the girl was actually pretty, but seemed to go to great lengths to minimize her own potential appeal.
The young prodigy Ikari was a bioengineer which, Kouzou reluctantly acknowledged, was far more formidable a pursuit than his own specialty. Biological engineering employed knowledge and expertise from a vast number of pure and applied sciences, such as mass and heat transfer, kinetics, biocatalysts, biomechanics, separation and purification processes, bioreactor design, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, surface and polymer science among countless others, and Yui Ikari displayed enormous utility at each. Her research and schematics could be used in the design of medical devices, diagnostic equipment, biocompatible materials, renewable bioenergy, ecological engineering and other areas capable of improving the living standards of entire societies. Just the sort of scientific innovations that could potentially change and reshape an outmoded and scientifically deficient world.
Most of her work, he would learn in the weeks to follow, involved attempting to either mimic biological systems to create products or modify and control biological systems so that they could be used to replace, augment, or sustain chemical and mechanical processes. Because her expertise extended even further into more recently popular fields of genetic modification of microorganisms, bioprocess engineering, and biocatalysis, it also had a great many potential military applications, a fact that for the first few months working with her he completely glossed over. That was until he met Gendo Rokubungi.
Fuyutsuki's lonely and contemptuous existence had been in an upswing when Rokubungi first began meddling in the professor's affairs. For the first few weeks of working with Yui, Fuyutsuki had tried with every fiber of his being to dislike the girl and her limitless enthusiasm for changing the world. The more he tried to fill his heart with hate, the more vulnerable and helpless he became until finally, after a month had passed and the leaves on the trees had begun to change color, he could bear it no longer and admitted to himself—privately of course—that he was inexplicably taken with her. His feelings were exacerbated by the fact that the two began to meet socially in public venues off the university campus. Oftentimes, the two would walk fifteen minutes down the street to a small-but-spectacular udon noodle shop and posit outrageous theories or make jokes about a few of their more peculiar comrades back at the lab. She was never disrespectful, but always professional. She covered her mouth daintily when she laughed, but slurped her noodles like a competitive eating champion. The young scientist always had something to say, and Fuyutsuki was always content to listen, admiring her silently and from a distance. At the time, that was enough. It would never be anything greater, and besides that, she was half his age. Fuyutsuki discovered that he spend considerable amounts of time convincing himself that he wasn't some dirty old man. Still, for the moment, he was as happy as a man in his position could be, despite the obvious fact that he was growing dangerously fond of his student who had most certainly and without question consigned him to her friend-zone for all eternity.
At first, the name Gendo Rokubungi was more of a rumor or a phantasm than an actual man. The rumor held, if one truly believed such things, that Rokubungi had once been a reputably-troublesome student at Kyoto University who spent a number of years switching his concentration of study so that he consistently avoided graduation. During this mysterious period of the man's early life, highlights included sleeping through or skipping entire seminars, stealing laboratory equipment from the campus facilities, and for nearly a year and a half running a computer hacking scam wherein he would hack into a freshman's computer, install a virus, then offer his services at cost to eliminate the malicious code. For this last offense he was dragged before the Board of Directors, but somehow, the judgment had been quick and quiet. Rokubungi was subjected, for all his known crimes as a student at the university, to one hundred hours of community service and a fine of ¥50,000 which was to be distributed amongst the known victims of his scam. More elaborate tales included a yarn about a time when Gendo had attempted to build a small particle accelerator beneath one of the school's football fields, thus extensively delaying an important match with another university as well as threats to burn out the retinas of fellow student with a high-powered laser for failing to do the research on a project the two of them had both been assigned. Needless to say, by the time Kouzou Fuyutsuki first encountered the man in person, his impression of Gendo was hardly favorable.
The Vice Commander of NERV studied the senior Ikari scrupulously. Physically, the man had hardly changed in the past dozen years or so. If any of his flesh had aged, it was certainly hidden beneath his chinstrap beard. There was only a little tightness around the corners of his mouth that hadn't been there in his youth. Probably, Fuyutsuki thought, from years of grimacing at co-workers and subordinates.
"You were in jail; you called me to bail you out."
Gendo nodded, rolling his cigarette between his fingers. "That's how we met, yes. But I mean how you first started working for me."
"It was because of Yui," Fuyutsuki admitted, then almost as soon as he'd said it did he wish he hadn't. He'd always contended in the past that his decision to leave the University had occurred because he had grown tired of the politics and philanthropy and required an environment that allowed him to actively pursue his renewed interest in his original theories about intrinsic fields. He realized at once that he'd just admitted to a lie he'd maintained for decades.
There was not a hint of malice or enmity in Gendo's voice as he replied. "Of course it was. But you still believe it was accidental, do you not?"
Kouzou suddenly felt numb and stupefied. "I don't get your meaning."
"Why would a student of bioengineering be at a book signing for a professor of metaphysics?"
"I had been working on a theory around that time," he started. "I didn't realize it then, obviously, but with Yui's help, it would lay the foundations for the early stages of A.T. field research."
"Right." Gendo paused for several moments as if giving Fuyutsuki time to reach a conclusion that, in his mind, must have seemed obvious. He continued when his colleague said nothing. "Kouzou," Gendo began, "It was me that read your dissertation on dark energy and A.T. fields. I asked her to go to your book signing. To recruit you."
Fuyutsuki was dumbstruck and felt so helplessly disarmed that he began to grow angry and defensive. "What on earth are you talking about? Yui and I knew each other for several months before I ever met you."
Gendo held up his palms reassuringly. Fuyutsuki's rage was temporarily suspended by the sight of his colleague's burn-scarred, malformed flesh. "I assure you, our intentions were anything but sinister. I needed a man of your background, experience, and political proclivities. Someone who could make the necessary inroads, take charge of the philanthropy and fundraising and whose name was trusted by the scientific community at large. Yui herself insisted on bringing you in slowly."
The Deputy Commander no longer felt the cold autumn chill. He felt nothing but contempt for the man before him, the man he had served for nearly two-decades of his life. "You expect me to believe that everything was staged from the very beginning?"
Slowly, the Commander of NERV removed his spectacles. It was something the senior Ikari rarely did, but it was always a sign that whatever he was about to say was the complete, unvarnished truth. Gendo's glasses were like a mask—with them on, he could be cold, calculating, tactical and even diabolical when necessary. When he removed them, he showed a side of himself that, as far as Fuyutsuki knew, only he and Yui had ever seen. The senior Ikari's ever-rigid posture even relaxed somewhat, and he leaned his head back and exhaled smoke straight up in the air before he continued talking.
"Staged? No. No matter how well-hatched any plan, Fuyutsuki, things never go completely as planned. Too many variables, uncertainties. Rather, the two of us shared a vision, and we saw an opportunity, took it, and adapted to the consequences. The timing couldn't have been more perfect if we had planned it ourself; your career was heading for an exhaustive slump and we were looking for viable replacements for Dr. Katsuragi who had been positioned to take the fall as a proxy should the truth behind the Katsuragi Expedition ever be unearthed. In any case, his dissertation on the Super Solenoid Theory that same year had been torn to shreds by the scientific community."
"I read it," Kouzou remarked darkly. "He'd hoped to utilize the principles established by his theory to create an S² engine capable of generating limitless amounts of energy—a perpetual motion machine."
"What he did instead was give himself motive. With the publication of that article, his reputation had been destroyed, so it would have been easy to say that the man effectively became a biological terrorist and managed to wipe out a significant portion of the planet's population for personal revenge."
Fuyutsuki nodded, dreading where this was going. "So that's how you got him too lead the Katsuragi Expedition," the Vice Commander surmised. "You promised him the chance to prove his S² theory if he commanded the expedition force to the South Pole."
Gendo began to cough, a deep hacking cough, and he procured a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and brought it to his mouth momentarily before continuing. "Yes, though I fear you may be oversimplifying the situation just a bit."
"I still don't see what Katsuragi has to do with Yui. And I still don't believe that you planted her in my department to get my attention for your personal project."
At that, the senior Ikari smiled. "I don't expect you to simply take my word for it." Gendo produced a smart-phone-sized device from another interior jacket pocket (it seemed he had many instantly accessible to him), pressed a few buttons on the keypad causing the screen to flash several times before turning the device 180 degrees upon the surface of the table and pushing it gingerly in Fuyutsuki's direction.
"What's this?"
"See for yourself."
Fuyutsuki examined what looked to be a document containing a short brief detailing the parameters and objectives of an intelligence finding mission followed by a detailed list of fifteen individuals. The brief was cryptic, and the list of names was hardly revealing but for the first which Kouzou recognized instantly. His eyes widened. Gendo smiled fleetingly.
"Kouzou, do you know what you're looking at?"
The other nodded dumbly. "How did this come to you?"
Gendo's smirk returned. "It seems that our mutual friend Ryouji Kaji has proven to be far more resourceful than I could have possibly imagined. To be perfectly frank, I'm actually impressed."
Fuyutsuki looked from the device to Gendo then back again in horror.
"You verified this to be accurate?"
"Naturally," Gendo assured him. The former professor wasn't certain how the Commander could possibly have verified that the list of names and identities he was looking at were legitimate, but the man had taken his glasses off. There was no deceit in his tone. "The names and identities of all fifteen members of SEELE," he remarked, a hint of triumph radiating in his voice.
"Do they know?"
Gendo nodded. "A man was found dead in an airport in Shanghai earlier this afternoon. The local news agencies reported that David Cheng, an importer from Beijing, died of cardiac arrest while on a layover flight to Hong Kong. The real identity of the man was Li Ching, an information broker with no official government or paramilitary ties, and he was killed with a highly concentrated dose of modified diisopropyl fluorophosphate, a very powerful neurotoxin incidentally not mentioned in the toxicology report."
The Vice Commander felt a chill crawl up his spine. He shivered. "Then Kaji's life is in danger," he concluded. "We need to tell him immediately. Put him into protective NERV custody."
Gendo raised his palm again to silence his colleague. "I think that would be the wrong call," he replied. "Firstly, Kaji doesn't know that I had his PDA hacked and his phone tapped. He doesn't know we're in possession of the information he's acquired. Secondly, with two of our pilots currently out of commission, a spy in our midst, and a rookie pilot with no hours logged in a combat unit, our resources are strained. If we take steps to protect Kaji, it would effectively be a declaration of war against SEELE. Now isn't the time to strike. We're not ready yet."
Kouzou stared for a moment in amazement. "Ryouji Kaji works for us," he stated emphatically. "What kind of message would we be sending to the rest of NERV if we simply hung one of our own out to dry when the going gets tough?"
"I understand," Gendo said with genuine sympathy. "It is not something easily done. But don't fool yourself either, Fuyutsuki. Kaji is not a jack, he's a joker. A wild card. A ronin. At the end of the day, the man serves no one but himself."
Fuyutsuki frowned. "Isn't there anyone you trust?"
"I trusted Yui," he said. "I trust you."
"I trusted you too, Ikari, but this… what you're telling me…"
"The names," Gendo urged. "Look at the eighth name."
Fuyutsuki regarded the list once more, scanning it vertically with his eyes. He froze at what he saw, mouthing the words, Shinya Ikari. The professor blurted out a noise meant to be a word, but the shock of what he was looking at incapacitated him.
"As you already know, the Katsuragi Expedition was, on paper, funded by the United Nations as well as a confederacy of private business interests and various science and tech firms. Unofficially, of course, it received the bulk of its funding from SEELE. The organization took complete control of the United Nations sometime in 1947, just two years after its inception, and the same year the Secret Dead Sea Scrolls were recovered by the same organization.
"After the Second Impact, you fell off the radar. Yui and I had a son, and I suppose that made you bitter, or resentful, or (he half-coughed, half-laughed) maybe something as insipid as depressed or even sad. You worked as a doctor without a license in the ramshackle clinics of Aichi. But Yui never stopped caring about you, and she convinced me to support you even though you'd intentionally distanced yourself from us. It was no accident that you were selected to be part of the United Nations' official investigatory expedition to the South Pole."
"I see," Fuyutsuki muttered glumly, completely drained of emotion.
"That expedition was the beginning of a new chapter for you, Fuyutsuki," the Commander continued. "You had a glimpse of what it was like to view the world from a much higher vantage point than ever before. You'd seen a sliver of the big picture, and you lusted for more access. You became obsessed with Artificial Evolution Laboratory, with Gehirn, and with the Katsuragi cover-up. And when you confronted me at the laboratory and threatened to take your findings public, I took Yui's advice, took you down into the Geofront, and opened your eyes.
"Fuyutsuki, there was a point that your obsession brought you dangerously close to death. You were in much the same position as Ryouji Kaji, but in your case, Yui saved your life. Shinya Ikari, Yui's father, is a member of SELEE's shadow council, and she appealed to him to spare your life. This was accomplished with your employment at Gehirn."
The former professor placed the electronic device back down on the table and slid it resolutely back in Gendo's direction. "How long did you know?"
"About her father? Fairly early on. But that was never the point." The comment came off defensive. "I loved Yui. I never once used her for personal gain. If anything, she used me."
"How did you find out?" Fuyutsuki pressed, ignoring Gendo's declaration of sincere affection.
"Does that really matter?" said the Commander.
"Yes. To me."
"Naoko Akagi was a gifted computer scientist in her day. More than once she wrote scripts that resulted in… shall we say… unexpected results." Gendo stamped out his cigarette in the tray. "SEELE is not invincible, Kouzou, and they don't have the best working for them. We do."
Now the pieces were falling into place. Fuyutsuki extinguished his cigarette and placed it neatly beside Gendo's crumpled stub. "What do you want me to do?" he queried at length.
The Commander of NERV replaced the spectacles back on his face, then pulled his white gloves back on over his hands. He was back to business, as usual. "I want you to see with eyes unclouded the dream that Yui and I shared together. The beautiful dream we had for all mankind. If you loved Yui like you say, than I would like to be assure I have your complete and unwavering support for the final act of this little play of ours."
"Fine. What about Ryouji Kaji?"
"From what my sources tell me, that problem might take care of itself before too long."
Fuyutsuki didn't know what the Commander meant by that rather enigmatic statement. He decided he didn't want to know, but he felt suddenly nauseous and sickly. He felt betrayed, bewildered, confused, enraged, baffled and terrified. Mostly, he was simply overwhelmed by the shocking and unexpected turn his afternoon had taken. The only thing he could still be certain of was that he'd loved Yui Ikari and, daughter of a SEELE member or not, he always would. Begrudgingly, he followed Gendo Ikari back into the stifling depths of NERV headquarters.
Once his hysterical sobbing subsided, Shinji Ikari languished in a muddled solution of mortification, confusion, emotional fatigue and self-loathing. He'd tried to be strong, tried to gather up the courage he'd spent hours earlier summoning to set things right with Asuka, but then he'd suddenly broke down over something so banal—Asuka's approval of his fashion statement—and it had all gone to hell after that. His utter bewilderment stemmed from the fact that he'd never cared about the clothes he wore before. He'd never cared about looking attractive to someone else. Even if that someone else happened to be somebody trapped in his own body. In the beginning even looking at Asuka had been difficult, but over time he'd arrived at a point where he didn't see himself when he looked at her. He saw the person beneath the skin, the person who he imagined her to be beneath the walls that she always managed to erect, in one way or another. But now he felt like as he was gaining further insight into the life and mind of Asuka, he was simultaneously losing sight of himself.
Desperately but without reason—at least certainly none he could think of—he pulled himself away from Asuka's embrace, pivoted, and suddenly propelled herself to a full sprint in the opposite direction. As the third child made his getaway, he heard her astonished gasp a second later followed by a series of rapidly accelerating footfalls, steadily increasing in velocity. Shinji Ikari was smaller and lighter now, and he realized in no short order that Asuka, in possession of his taller, more muscular frame, would overtake him quickly. He knew that his only hope was to use his diminished size to his advantage.
This he accomplished by ducking into the narrowest alleyway he could find. It was truly little more than a sidewalk wedged between two rather antique-looking buildings, but somehow several tiny shops and dwellings managed to find space within the alcoves created by the urban sprawl. There was, some thirty paces down the byway, a large dumpster on one side of the street and an ungainly ventilation unit sticking out from the building opposite, effectively blocking off the path but for a small crawlspace beneath the A/C machine. A series of traditional Japanese lanterns suspended from electrical cord crisscrossing the buildings above somehow made the passageway even less noticeable. But Shinji noticed it and squeezed through.
He came out of the alleyway into an open-air courtyard of sorts. There was a small sand garden surrounded by a series of meticulously-trimmed trees. An old moss-covered statue marked a series of personal gravestones. The cloth streamers fluttering from the hedges—a township memorial for those who had died during angel attacks—created an unsettling ambiance. Shinji was so lost in the surreal nature of the scene that he didn't realize what it was he collided with at force that sent him sprawling backwards to the sand.
"Oi!" howled a youthful voice. A boy wearing a school uniform whirled around in surprise. His hair was spiked and frosted, and he had a small stud in his nose and several more in his ears and lips. His eyes were slightly too far apart and beady, and something about the shape of his face made him look vaguely Mongoloid. "Watch where the fuck you're going, yeah?"
Shinji was momentarily stunned, and he shook the stars out of his eyes. Shinji made to respond, but what he said didn't match what he was thinking. "Who are you?"
The Japanese youth stared at him incredulously. He squinted—or at least it seemed like he did—then rolled back on his heels and placed his hands firmly on his hips. "No shit," he smirked. "Guys, look! It's a gaijin chick!"
The punk-looking miscreant was joined a moment later on each side by two equally rebellious-looking knaves, equally fascinated by the prospect of a foreigner in their midst. Shinji was strangely reminded of the fact that at the current moment, to the casual observer, he was no longer ethnically Japanese. That fact itself had resulted in strange and unusual meditations over the past few weeks.
"Wow, look at that hair," he heard one of the boys say in a thick Kansai accent.
"She looks like a damn cosplayer."
"American, you think?"
"How the fuck should I know? Why not ask her?"
"You think she speaks Japanese, Katashi?"
The leader of their pack of juvenile reprobates sneered and pointed directly at the third child. "Oi! Ja-pa-nese? Do you speak?" He spoke as if talking to a toddler, slowly and precisely.
"Of course I speak Japanese!" Shinji said, clambering to his feet and brushing himself off. The boys sniggered amongst themselves when he dusted the sand off his backside.
"You bumped into me just now, and that's not a wise thing to do!" the boy named Katashi stridently proclaimed. "You'd best apologize to me and my friends here."
"Fine, I'm very sorry for walking into you, but I'm in a bit of a hurry, so if you wouldn't mind getting out of my way, I'd be very appreciative." He was speaking formally again, just the way Asuka detested him speaking, but he suddenly felt consumed by the urgency that at any second, Asuka might come bounding into the alley and make things infinitely worse. He was too distracted to notice, however, that things had already become infinitely worse. The three boys were now ogling him, they apparently quite pleased with his fashion choices, and there was this uncomfortable silence during which the ruffians seemed to wordlessly debate something amongst one another.
"Maybe that passes for an apology back where you come from, but here in Japan, if you apologize to somebody, you better show them you're sorry."
Shinji felt the vellus hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He was beginning to feel extremely uncomfortable and panicked.
"W… what do you want from me?" he asked, his voice scarcely more than a whisper.
Katashi's eyes glowed lecherously. His hands went to his belt buckle. It quickly dawned upon Shinji that the queasiness he felt in his gut and the tightness he felt in his chest were symptoms of a feeling he'd never before in his entire young life experienced: sexual objectification.
Shinji tried to run, but standing in the sand garden he had no purchase or firm ground with which to propel him into a sprint. To make matters worse, there were three of them, and they were all bigger and no doubt faster than he. After but three steps, Katashi and his cohorts were upon him.
A shrill scream rose in his throat as he felt a riveted belt being tied around his wrists. Katashi had straddled him at the hip and was cackling gleefully while one of his friends bound his hands and the other held his feet. His scream was stifled when Katashi pulled his tank top up over his face, making a knot with the thin material and fitting it into the third child's open mouth. Shinji felt the cold autumn air against the bare skin of his torso. He twisted his body angrily and helplessly, bucking his hips and trying to kick at the boy who was holding fast to his feet. There was more laughing. Then his bra was torn free. Hands were upon him. Fingers. Tongues. Shinji squeezed his eyes shut and mentally turned the lights off upstairs. He didn't cry, he didn't scream, he didn't fight. He lay there, in the sand, paralyzed, cold, apathetic. And for some reason, he thought of his father.
What Katashi was expecting was to have his way with a ravishingly attractive foreigner and then brag about it to his compatriots for weeks ever after. What he wasn't expecting was a fierce roundhouse kick to the face. It came swiftly, and without warning. Asuka, who had proved surprisingly limber in Shinji's body, had managed to track him down. She had, in fact, arrived on the scene right about the same time that Shinji had run into Katashi, but Asuka Langley Sohryu was also a tactician at heart, and she knew the odds were against her, and she needed to wait for the right moment to strike. That moment had arrived in due course, and she'd made sure that her first attack was aimed with enough force and precision that the first of the three wouldn't get up to hassle her further.
Asuka turned her attention next to the boy holding Asuka's feet. The youth was too stunned by the sudden assault that he barely had time to avoid the left jab that arced out quickly toward his unprotected face. He didn't avoid the uppercut with her right, however, and her fist easily dislocated his jaw. The schoolboy fainted backwards into one of the hedges.
There was only one assailant left, but by now he'd had enough time to assess the situation—and his options. Clearly the gaijin's stylish Japanese rescuer knew how to fight, and he wasn't going to take any chances. He brandished a knife from his back pocket, and held it out defensively. Asuka assumed a combative stance, unsure of whether or not the boy truly intended to use the weapon, but she wasn't about to take any chances. Not with Shinji's life—and her virginity—on the line.
The third schoolboy probably panicked because he suddenly lunged forward without any provocation. Effortlessly, Asuka pivoted, catching his forearm with her hands and spinning ninety degrees counterclockwise and using her newfound weight and muscle mass to execute what Shinji would later recall to others as a Judo toss. The boy hit the ground hard, dropping the knife, but he wasn't finished yet. He was, ironically, the toughest of his mates, and he charged furiously at Asuka once more to reclaim his manhood. Which she impatiently demolished with a swift kick to his undefended crotch. The boy fell to his knees in agony, clutching himself in pain. A moment later he rolled over, cowering in the fetal position. Then she went to attend to Shinji. She knelt beside him, and softly placed her hand on his back while she helped him dress and recover from the ordeal. The second child pulled Shinji's coat more tightly about him then gently stroked his hair and moved his tangle of bangs from his face. There was nothing else he could do but slowly and uncertainly wrapping his slender arms around her neck and hug her.
"Let's talk," she said into his ear.
Shinji nodded mutely. At the same time, he decided that should they talk, he would definitely omit the fact that there was some hideous and vile place in the back of his mind that had desired nothing more than for Katashi and his band of rascals to rape and murder him in that lightless alleyway graveyard. It was the very least he deserved, he thought.