Sheets of rain crashed violently against the glass porch doors as Asuka stared out into the crepuscular gloom of night. Despite everything that had happened, she could not help but feel a nagging irritability toward Shinji. For the last three weeks in particular, the two of them had been virtually inseparable; between all the lab tests, physical conditioning, school, evenings at home, and the fight with the angel Leliel, the two of them had practically spent every waking minute together. Usually, ten minutes or so of another person's company was more than enough to give Asuka a headache and cause to unleash her usual misanthropic and derisive tirades. Doctors in Germany had tested her for various cognitive and social developmental disorders before her selection as an EVA pilot, but she'd refused to hear the results. If she had, she might have realized that her aggravation toward her peers was only partially the result of a naturally abrasive personality, and partly the fact that she was a high-functioning autistic suffering from avoidant personality and obsessive-compulsive disorders brought about by a colorful history of childhood trauma.
When she was with Shinji, she had come to realize, he never pressed her for answers to questions she wanted to avoid, never made any requests or demands of her. He never pried into her past; he didn't seem to want anything from her, certainly not in material terms. The two of them were pubescent teenagers who shared a small apartment owned by a tenant who was rarely there, and even in such close proximity and with great opportunity, he had never once flirted with her—at least not openly. He asked her opinion on things from time to time; whenever she answered, he seemed genuinely delighted, and whenever she countered with her usual barrage of belittlement, he would simply mutter a brief, resigned apology and disappear respectfully. Damn it, he had treated her like a human being. She was very annoyed.
She cast a long glance at the bathroom door. It was closed, but a sliver of light was visible beneath the door itself. After the ordeal earlier, she'd brought Shinji straight home and sent him almost immediately into the bathroom to soak in a warm bath and to calm down.
The third child had been rattled more than she'd ever seen him before, and he'd barely said more than a word to her since she'd rescued him his attackers. As if catatonic, he'd simply responded to her words submissively and wordlessly, nodding or shaking his head mutely whenever her questions and commands could be confirmed by a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Under normal conditions, she would have been seven different shades of pissed off for so many conceivable reasons. She could have been angry that Shinji hadn't defended himself like a man against his attackers, or at the very least tried to defend Asuka's virginity. She could have been angry that she had stripped the clothes he'd bought off him and sent him naked into the bath—although she'd long ago resigned herself to the fact that Shinji had now undoubtedly seen everything.
It was always excruciatingly difficult for her to be naked in front of anyone. She was convinced that her skinny, adolescent body was completely repulsive. Standing only five feet plus an inch or so, she was tragically short for a Caucasian girl, even at only fourteen. Her breasts were, in her mind, pathetic. Her hips were sharp and bony like a slender boy. The second child's ego compensated for these shortcomings by becoming exceedingly competitive and self-absorbed. This had resulted in a markedly attention-seeking personality, and she took great offense to being ignored. Yet here she was, trapped in Shinji Ikari's body, and she possessed the benefit of seeing things from an entirely different perspective. Asuka realized that she was angry because she wasn't angry.
Irritably, Asuka walked to the refrigerator and helped herself to one of Misato's beers. Next she wandered into her guardian's bedroom and rummaged through the heaps of debris and clothing until she found a half-empty package of cigarettes stuffed against the inside of Misato's underwear drawer. Figuring the woman had probably forgotten all about their existence, Asuka slid one of the cigarettes out of the package before slipping the box into her left breast pocket. She walked over to the kitchen table, pausing momentarily to glance nervously at the sliver of light beaming out from beneath the bathroom door, then sat down and lit a cigarette.
Shinji's virgin lungs violently resisted the intake of tar and nicotine at first, but after a brief coughing fit, Asuka was able to inhale deeply enough for a satisfying draw. The last time she had smoked a cigarette at all had been during her residence at New York University several years ago. It was not one of the fonder memories of her lifetime, and she wondered if Shinji was aware of any of it.
The other inscrutably odd occupant of the apartment, Misato's genetically modified penguin, clearly took offense to the odor of the cigarette, and he disappeared into Misato's bedroom with a noisy and petulant chirp. Asuka was too deep in thought to notice. She sat cross-legged upon one of the dining room chairs, chin in hand, thinking.
Since occupying Shinji's body, she'd begun to experience… flashes… if they could be called that. They were difficult to describe. Normally, it often happened whenever she was trying to fall to sleep, or whenever she daydreamed for too long, or spent too much time by herself in her own head. It would start with a tingling sensation along the back of her scalp, neck and shoulders, and then slowly and gradually, all the sound around her would gradually fade, anything in motion would slow to a crawl, and finally, the entire world would freeze altogether, like a film being paused while the audience was taking an intermission. And then, there was the feeling of slipping away, an uncomfortable feeling that Asuka had grown to dread. It felt like being emotionally violated, having the layers of your psyche slowly peeled away like an onion, then replaced and filled up immediately with memories that weren't yours, experiences you'd never experienced.
Yet, when she thought about the memories, she could recall such vivid details as the sound of dead leaves scraping across the stone of a traditional Japanese temple—or the feeling of a wet, leather strap brutally striking her fingers, hands, and body again and again. These memories were not her own, but she had been forced to remember them. To live through them. With them. She knew now with great certainty that these memories were Shinji's—even the darker and more surprising ones—and if the exchange of their bodies had also left some sort of psychological imprint, then it stood to reason that Shinji Ikari would be similarly afflicted. The thought made her anxious, guarded, desperate. The second child didn't want Shinji to know her secrets. They were for her to deal with, and her alone.
She finished her beer and opened another, pacing back and forth in front of the bathroom door for several minutes before going back into the kitchen. She tried to occupy her mind by doing housework—something she typically left to Shinji. She cleaned the entire dining room table, disposed of the garbage, and cleaned the dishes in the sink. All in all, it took her about forty-five minutes. When she had finished, she was no less nervous and uncomfortable than when she'd started. She reached into her shirt pocket and lit another cigarette. Then the doorbell to the apartment buzzed.
Hikari Horaki stood in the doorway, two small plastic bags in one hand, and umbrella in the other. A nondescript makeup bag hung from her left shoulder. She was wearing a black strapped tank top with a white stencil print of a Storm Trooper's helmet and lettering in the style of the Star Wars scroll that read: SUPPORT OUR TROOPS. Beneath that, she wore a dark gray, long-sleeved blouse. Her jeans were stonewashed, fit her body well, but were otherwise unremarkable. Asuka had completely forgotten she'd texted the class representative earlier, and she was even more surprised by the fact that she couldn't remember another time she'd ever seen the girl dressed casually. And fashionably.
"I stopped on the way and bought something to eat if you're hungry," Hikari said as she placed the two plastic bags she was carrying down upon the dining room table. She sat opposite Asuka, and they sat in silence for nearly fifteen minutes before she at last began to grow impatient. "So I got your SMS."
"Yeah," Asuka mumbled.
"Well you sounded upset, and you said it was important."
The second child delayed her response by busying herself rummaging through the food Hikari had brought over. She settled on takoyaki.
"Where's Shinji?" Hikari asked with a slight blush to her face. It was clearly obvious that she was still flustered by the entire situation of the body swap, and, by the expression on her face, somewhat amused.
"Bath," Asuka answered monosyllabically. "He… we've had a rough day."
"Tell me what happened."
"Well, it all basically started going to hell after the angel attack which I'm sure you're aware of at this point."
Hikari nodded. "The news reports on it factually, they just don't fill in all the blanks. Kensuke usually somehow manages to get a better scoop. They called it Leliel, right?"
Asuka shoved one of the battered snacks into her mouth. "Yeah. How'd he figure that one out? I don't think the networks know NERV's official designations."
Hikari sighed exasperatedly. "Actually, he's the reason I was so late getting here," she grumbled.
"Huh?"
"Well I mean Kensuke's been absolutely hysterical all day. I had to deal with him first before coming here."
"What? Why?"
"Well the news hit him pretty hard. It hit us all pretty hard, of course, but I had no idea… no idea he'd completely go off the rails."
Asuka swallowed. "Wait, Hikari, what are you talking about? I'm lost."
The president of Class 2-A stared at Asuka incredulously for a few moments. "I'm talking about Suzuhara, Asuka," she said with an impatient edge to her tone.
The second child shook her head. "I'm sorry, Horaki, I… I really haven't a clue what you're talking about."
"Geez!" the girl blurted, turning red. "I really thought that you would have heard by now, at least!"
"Heard what? Just tell me!"
"They came to the school today… pulled him right out of class and everything! He didn't even make roll call!" The last bit seemed to infuriate her beyond measure.
"Who came to the school?"
"NERV did! A flock of their Gestapo-like agents just showed right up and just ejected Suzuhara right from class! I hadn't even had a chance to talk to him. Then they went to his family's house and everything! God, it's such a disaster!"
Asuka blinked, putting two-and-two together. A silly smile crept into her face. "Wait… You're telling me that Suzuhara… Suzuhara Toji…was chosen to pilot an EVA?"
Hikari nodded curtly, her cheeks burning, her eyes watering. Asuka surprised her by tossing her head back and laughing.
"Wow!" the second child cackled wildly. "I had no idea NERV was really that hard up for pilots! Toji? Pilot an EVA? Oh, Hikari, you have nothing to worry about!"
The class president looked both angry and perplexed. "What? Why?"
"Even if this isn't just one giant big mistake… and he was… selected… as an EVA pilot, he's still got to pass a synchronization test, and, well, I mean, come on. It's Suzuhara we're talking about."
Suddenly, Horaki looked defensive. "Hey, don't put him down like that, Asuka! Toji's very athletic and determined. I mean, yes, of course he's pig-headed, lazy, inconsiderate and… not the best at written examinations… but I mean… you can tell just by looking at him… by the way he behaves… that he's very protective of the people he cares about. I'd think that's definitely a good trait for a teammate you're going into battle with."
Asuka's laughter subsided and metamorphosed into passive amusement.
"I'm sorry," she said after a moment. "I didn't mean to insult him. I know you like him and everything, Horaki, but I'm just trying to be honest. Synchronization tests are just not something the average person can just pass. It takes… well… it takes…" When her words failed, she shrugged and cursed. "Scheiße! You just… you have to be the kind of person that gives 100% to it… mostly because… you have nobody or nothing else to give to."
Hikari stared at her friend disbelievingly. "Asuka… what do you mean by that?"
The second child leaned back in her chair with a sad smile. "Piloting the machine itself takes talent, sure, but it's something that can be learned over time. Taught. That's the easiest part, really. It's just shifting the throttles and pressing buttons. The hard part is the uncertainty of it. We're told that there's only a select few who can pilot an Evangelion—I mean they obviously wouldn't be putting fourteen year-olds into multi-billion-dollar war machines if adults could pilot them, right?—and that we have to do it for the good of mankind, blah blah blah. The usual propaganda. We're made to abandon any semblance of a normal life. Did you know that in Germany, EVA pilots don't attend a regular high school like we do here? Nope! They in fact receive private tutoring within the NERV campus, and they are refused contact with the outside world. The Bundesnachrichtendienst has practically become a cloister at this point, completely cut off from reality!
"Anyway, I'm digressing, sorry. The point is that we all come to realize that every day we go to work, that day might be our last. And we might die slowly and painfully while some alien entity invades our psyche, or we might die instantly and painlessly from a directed-energy weapon or A.T. field-powered particle beam. Our only course of action, obviously, is just to think about and focus on now and not think about the future because it's impossible to predict anyway and we probably won't live to see it regardless. Trying to form relationships is just… like… completely and utterly pointless… I mean, since we won't live long enough to enjoy them anyway. Somebody's always going to get hurt. Somebody will always die. The only way to stay sane is to focus solely on the fight, and don't let anyone else throw you off balance. You'll live longer that way."
Hikari Horaki stared at her friend with incalculable pity for several moments. She was so pained by Asuka's astringent views on life and love that the hurt in her face made the second child herself feel guilty for having said it and the second child shifted awkwardly in her seat. "But what's the point of living longer if you have nothing to live for?" Hikari asked at last.
Asuka opened her mouth to speak, but realizing she had no answer, shut it instantly. Instead, she finished her beer moodily, and offered one to Hikari who politely declined with a brief comment that Asuka was underage, and that it wasn't even her own body she was poisoning.
Shinji lay submerged in the bathtub, his long, russet hair floating about like tentacles in the water. His mind was numb. He simply stared at Asuka's pert breasts, nonchalantly studying the tiny droplets of moisture that had formed upon his skin, vaguely intrigued by the indefinable paths they took as they trickled down the sides of his body into the tub. The air was cool and his nipples had become erect, goose bumps forming along the lengths of his fragile arms, but he enjoyed the stark difference between the heat of the bath water and the crispness of the air in the room. He couldn't quite describe it, but for some reason, many of the physical sensations he'd experienced in Asuka's body were far more potent and robust than those he was used to.
The minor differences seemed to fascinate him the most. Both his heartbeat and the rhythm of his breathing, for instance, had quickened. When he brushed his hair out in the mornings and before bed, the feeling that resulted from the brush bristles tugging at his scalp was both intensely tactile and embarrassingly satisfying. He did generally find that he ate more than he did as a boy, something he didn't quite understand, but which nevertheless might explain why he found himself visiting the restroom with much greater frequency than he had as a boy.
One activity Shinji had grown particularly fond of—and one that he'd feverishly tried to keep secret—was painting his toenails. He usually did it with a clear gloss so nobody would notice. The cold feeling of the lacquer upon his small, delicate toes felt extraordinary. He didn't know why, and he knew it was absolutely trivial and stupid, but he liked doing it the same way he periodically enjoyed painting miniature models and resin kits as a boy.
He'd adapted as best he could to all these changes, but every day, it seemed like there were new challenges presenting themselves. Dealing with the social side of being female was a realm he'd not even considered approaching since the start of the whole ordeal. He hadn't needed to; until recently, he and Asuka both had lived under the assumption they'd be back to their old selves any day now. With each new day that passed, it felt like the likelihood of a return to normalcy was slipping farther and farther away. As the third child lay quietly in the bathtub, listening to the soft sound of his own breathing, he suddenly began to feel an overwhelming feeling of existential dread wash over him. The question would have to be asked eventually. What if it was impossible to return to his old body? What if he was stuck forever, forced to live his entire life trapped in the very body of the only person he'd ever felt his heart reach out to while she in turn inhabited the body of the person he hated most?
The fear and emotion overtook him, and he began to whimper. He never cried loudly or openly, instead suffering through a series of gasps and sniffles and tears. At length, the sadness was replaced by a dreadful feeling of hopelessness, despair and cynicism. He reasoned that even in a different body, Asuka was still Asuka. She'd always view Shinji as an emotional, effeminate, submissive coward, regardless of whether he physically possessed one X chromosome or two. She'd never understand his heart, nor could she ever want to. He was exactly what she said he was, after all, and worse. He was shy, awkward, and introverted too. And worse of all, he was disgusting. He brought his right hand up to his face, staring at the small hand before him that he had learned to recognize as his own, thinking revoltingly upon each of the times he'd lost all self-control and tried to bring his—Asuka's—body to orgasm, and failed.
"I truly am the lowest…" he said softly.
Ryouji Kaji waited nearly a half hour outside the Hakone Hyatt before working up the courage to go through with the plan whose formulation had deprived him of sleep the night before. Even NERV's triple-agent, who was known for regularly sporting a five o'clock shadow, looked particularly ragged and anxious. Truth be told, he hadn't really known what to expect when he'd cashed in all his biggest favors in order to retrieve the information that, at the time, he'd thought would set him—and those he cared about—free. Not to mention set him up with a nice little retirement fund in the process. Looking back now, he realized how absolutely and marvelously drunk he must have been to believe that he and Misato Katsuragi could live a frivolous life of luxury and romance on an island somewhere, curled up together naked in a hammock between two palms, never once having to look over their shoulders or worry about some government agency trying to track them down. Yet when he'd heard that his contact had been murdered less than 48 hours after he'd been given the package, he knew he'd never be safe. NERV, the JSSDF, SEELE, or some other, nameless paramilitary group would always been looking for him, questioning what he knew, what he didn't know. He'd never been safe, and nor would anyone else who he kept near him. But he had to see her one last time. He owed her that. At around a quarter after 8pm, he flicked his third cigarette in a half hour and crossed the street to the hotel.
Misato had already resolved in her mind that she was going to have sex with Ryouji Kaji. The only question remained was whether or not she'd be angry with him throughout the duration of the affair. For the occasion, she'd dressed to the nines, sporting a dark plum, chiffon sheath style evening gown with a plunging v-neck which marketed her collarbones and breasts nicely. She'd done her hair up into a stylishly-messy French twist, and a few stray locks fell elegantly to her shoulders. The 29-year old woman looked astonishingly radiant, and she'd even surprised herself. It had been years since she'd properly done herself up, but it served to remind her that she still had many years left before her desirability began to truly fade. Still, she was annoyed that Kaji had elected to meet in a public place—and a hotel, no less! What were they? High school students checking giddily into a love hotel?
Kaji, on the other hand, was wearing a blue multi-stripe Jack Victor suit with a textured contrast lapel, two buttons per cuff and side vents. The cut of the fabric was a perfect fit for Kaji's trim, wiry torso, and his flat-front, similarly-patterned slacks creating a lanky silhouette that Misato recognized the second it slipped into the lobby. She'd been waiting in the lobby, passing the time by watching a news network commentary on the Leliel fight. Some mid-level army brass was testifying before camera about the proper use and application of N² ordinance, demonstrating how it had been used to halt the advance of the angel Israfel. The news agency was calling the angel Splitron. Misato had been shaking her head commiseratively just as Kaji walked in, and she spotted him out of her peripheral vision and shot up out of her seat.
"You… you look… nice," Misato stammered, unsure of what to make of the man in the expensive suit with the scruffy, sleepless face.
"And you haven't aged a day since college," Kaji grinned, but it faded quickly. "Let's get a room."
"I didn't say I was going to fuck you," Misato said crossly, folding her arms across her chest. "What's this about? Why did you want to see me here? Now?"
"Not here," Kaji said in a raspy whisper. "It isn't safe."
"What isn't safe?"
"Katsuragi, I need you to trust me. It's critically important."
The major scowled. "Fine, but this better be good. We could have just met up at my apartment. Would have been much more comfortable."
"Your apartment has twenty-three surveillance devices installed throughout the premises, and what I want… no… what I… need… to tell you, I have to tell you in secrecy."
Only then did Misato notice the briefcase in Kaji's left hand. She eyed it suspiciously for a moment, but decided not to press the issue for the moment. "We can get a room," she said, "But you can damn well bet it'll be on your dime. I gave the kids my credit card today anyway. The only one I still hadn't maxed out."
Satisfied with the terms, Kaji quickly strode over to the front desk and booked a room. They rode the elevator together in silence up to the eighth floor. The triple-agent used his keycard on the door, and did a quick, paranoid sweep of the room before he allowed himself to relax. When he was done, he found Misato sitting, one leg folded over the other and clearly visible due to the thigh-high slit in the skirt of her gown. Under any other circumstance, he would have set himself upon her instantly. But he had other plans in mind, and too much to say.
"Katsuragi," he began as he stared out the windows at the electric skyline of Tokyo-3. "I know I haven't always been honest with you. In fact, I've pretty much lied directly to your face on so many occasions I'm shocked you'll have anything to do with me at all. And whatever bitterness you might have toward me, it's understandable, and I deserve it."
"Are you apologizing to me?" the other gaped.
Kaji held up his hand. "Let me finish. You see, the thing is, I've always had to keep things secret. I've been keeping them for so long that I'm starting to forget how to tell the truth. But it's critically important that you understand that everything I did I did for a reason."
"Everything you did?"
"Yes. Everything." He paused for several cryptic moments before continuing. "Katsuragi, what exactly is it that you think I do at NERV?"
"You're a freelance intelligence contractor who specializes in moving and transporting materials, ordinance and people. You're also a security specialist, particularly in regards to electronic and cyber-warfare. A very different career path for somebody who wanted to be an investigative political and finance journalist back in college."
"We do what we're best at, and we go where there's work," Kaji responded, slightly surprised by Misato's knowledge about his real cover story—for which he'd had a second cover story already cooked up and prepared. No more lies, he decided. "I've always been concerned with one thing, Kat, and one thing only."
"Which is?"
"Truth," the triple agent said enigmatically.
Misato snorted, getting up and walking over to the mini bar. Kaji continued staring at the window, but he could sense the doubt and derision in the woman's tone.
"I'm serious," he said.
"The only thing you've ever told the truth about in your life is that you wanted to fuck me. Even in college, you never let me into your clandestine little world, this unbelievably annoying spy-novel world you live in." She opened the mini bar. "What're you having?"
Ryouji Kaji winced, stung by the implications the woman was throwing around, but he played along for the moment. "Gin. Straight. Misato, listen. When I took the job at NERV, I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into. Truth be told, I didn't even want the job at first, and I was going to reject the offer until Fuyutsuki told me that you were working there."
"So why didn't you reject it? You don't really expect me to believe that you took the job because of me."
"Regardless of what you choose to believe, that's what happened. I was already working for the JSSDF's Oversight Committee at the time. I didn't need the money—or the stress. I certainly didn't need a job where I got to chaperone fourteen year old kids across the world so they could be repeatedly abused and sent into battle."
"Yet you did exactly that. It was you who arranged Asuka's transfer from Germany. I saw the paperwork."
"Yes, I did. It was one of my first assignments for NERV."
"But not the first?"
Kaji shook his head no. "The first was to monitor the progress of third child."
"Shinji?"
"Right. This was before Asuka when all we had was Ayanami. Because essentially the dummy plug connection was dependent upon harmonization with the psychological echoes of Yui Ikari, it was believed at the time that Shinji was the best hope for taming the beast, so to speak."
"Unit-01."
"It's the only Evangelion that has repeatedly gone berserk. Haven't you ever wondered why?"
Misato walked up beside Kaji at the window and handed him the glass of gin before staring out the same window and gingerly sipping her champagne. "I've… thought about it…"
"You don't have to think too hard," Ryouji Kaji smirked. "Or at least, you don't have to look too far."
"What do you mean?"
The roguish young man turned to face the purple-haired woman with a crooked smile. "It's Ikari," he said after a moment. "He's at the center of everything."
"Gendo?"
Kaji nodded briefly. "I couldn't figure out why at first… what his involvement was… how high up it really went. But it seemed that every single lead I chased, every information tip I followed—it all led ultimately back to Gendo Ikari in the end."
"Why? What did you find out?" She'd forgotten all about the sex. Now, Misato was swiftly becoming consumed with curiosity.
"A while back, about… say… a year or so after I'd been working for the JSSDF—I'd mostly been doing consulting work at that point—Gendo Ikari approached me through an intermediary. I didn't know it was him at the time, but I was offered a substantial amount of money to steal a gross amount of information from the JSSDF archives."
"What kind of information?"
"Mostly weapons development articles and schematics. Mostly it was concerned with N² weapons research programs, lists of active and retired military protocols, response times to certain theoretical scenarios, and later the emergence of the Jet Alone project."
"What did you do with all this information?" Misato wondered.
"I never knew what happened to any of it. My task was simply to compile the information into reports then deposit them bi-weekly at a designated location. Despite my best efforts, I was never able to trace or track the information I was sending, nor could I ever identify the courier who was sent to pick up the reports. It was all very mysterious, really."
"Why'd you do it? Why'd you take part in something that smelled fishy? And sell out your own country in the process? Was it really the money, Kaji?"
"Of course not," he seethed angrily. "They dangled a carrot on a stick that was too big to pass up."
"Which was?"
"I was offered a substantial amount of information that would lead to the indictments and convictions of several higher-level JSSDF personnel, men who were all corrupt, power-hungry and self-serving. Back in those days, my sole raison d'être was to expose corruption and made sure the corrupt were held accountable."
Misato sneered. "Well, that is certainly ironic."
"There's more to it than that. First, you need to remember that after the First Contact Experiment, the world changed very quickly."
"I'll never forget," Misato snapped quickly. "It claimed the life of my father."
Kaji took a gulp of the gin Misato had prepared for him to settle his nerves. "I understand, more than you know," he replied. "It was the very matter of your father's death that… started all this."
Misato stared at Kaji incredulously. "What on earth are you talking about, Kaji?"
Ryouji took Misato's arm and led her back over to the couches. They sat opposite each other. Kaji placed his drink down upon the glass table between them; Misato held hers fast between both hands, leaning forward expecting him to clarify his statement. Which he did.
"Kat, in 2005 we were both students at the University back in Tokyo-2. I was 19, and you 18. We were both barely older than the EVA pilots, really, but in those days you had to grow up quickly. In any case, you introduced me to Ritsuko Akagi that year—do you remember?"
Misato nodded quietly.
"Two years later, you broke up with me. Claimed I reminded you of your father, and that was that. I mean, I realize I'd never treated our relationship as seriously as I should have, but I was young and stupid, and when you ended things like that, I was really shocked."
"You're still young and stupid," she observed.
"That's fair, and I accept that. And I was both those things when I had a casual affair with Akagi the year after in 2008."
The purple-haired woman' eyes widened. "Y… you and Rit?"
Kaji waved his hands sheepishly. "It was very brief, and neither of us were in love. It was merely an arrangement of convenience. I was young, and she was… to be absolutely fair… quite a good lay. That woman is into some serious kink, Kat."
"I don't want to hear about it!" Misato shouted with disgust.
"You have to listen," Kaji retorted sternly. "This is important! Because it was through her that you and I were hired to work at NERV in the first place. Akagi was the real linchpin in the series of events that would follow."
Misato Katsuragi sat quietly, listening, digesting. She was furious beyond measure to find that Kaji and Ritsuko had enjoyed a fling, even if it was brief and now consigned to the pages of ancient history. But more than that, she was outraged that Kaji seemed to be a much more complicated man than she'd ever imagined. She'd always had him pegged for a reasonably-intelligent, charming and attractive playboy with a nose for mischief. Now she realized that though he seemed to know so much about her life and her situation, the truth was that she knew very little about his. She hadn't known what his motivations were when he shown up on the bridge of NERV command that day with Asuka gleefully in tow, she hadn't when the two had been dating back in college, and she still hadn't unraveled the mystery to this day. All of it made her feel incredibly simple-minded, ignorant, unintuitive, and out-of-the-loop.
"I honestly had no idea what I was signing up for when I went to work with you at Gehirn. Mind you, it wasn't actually NERV yet, and at that point, everything was on the level. All of the organizations' funding could be legitimate traced, on paper, back to various sources and departments within the United Nations as well as various international financiers with established reputations like IMF and World Bank, and the group itself reciprocated providing insane amounts of philanthropy work and humanitarian aid for many war-torn areas of the world and to those who suffered in the wake of the Second Impact. To anybody trying to make a difference in a post-extraterrestrial holocaust world, it was a dream gig. This was the truth that everyone believed in at that time. It didn't come to light that things weren't as they should be until Ritsuko's mother's suicide."
"Naoko's suicide?"
"I'm sure she's told you."
"Bits and pieces, sure. It's a touchy subject. Ritsuko doesn't like talking about it, but I know that her mother threw herself off the command bridge and fell several levels down onto the MAGI supercomputers. I'm not honestly sure why."
Kaji placed a finger to his lips in thought for a moment. "She never told me either, but I've had a theory for a few years running."
Misato didn't like talking about her friends behind their backs, but she was too helplessly enthralled not to continue. "A theory?"
"Well, I can be certain about one thing. It has to do with that man."
"Ikari."
Kaji nodded. Misato grimaced, staring down into the fizzing bubbles of her champagne. "Doesn't it always?"
"The point is, after Naoko's death, the entire place was restructured and rebranded as NERV. It was suspicious timing, don't you think?"
She hadn't considered the notion before, but she indicated with an expression that she agreed it was odd.
Kaji took his glass and leaned back on the sofa, sloshing the gin around gently in circular motions as he spoke. "You pushed me away, Katsuragi, but I never forgot about you. Once I'd figured out your father's relationship to Gehirn, it wasn't long before I realized there'd been a massive cover-up after the Second Impact. I'd… wanted to… understand… why you'd pushed me out of your life. I thought that if I could understand the sort of man your father was… uncover the bizarre situation surrounding his death… that maybe… just maybe… I could understand the type of love you needed… the type of love you deserved."
Misato Katsuragi sat on the couch, dumbstruck. Her mind whirled with the implications of what he was saying. There were so many questions. Her anger and frustration had been completely supplanted by a burning desire to solve the mysteries of her past that had systematically plagued her present and robbed her of a future.
"Tell me what you found," she said at last.
For the first time in ages, his face lit up with that playful, quirky smile that Katsuragi simply found irresistible. It transformed him from a jaded cynic of a man back into the winsome, zealous youth she'd fallen in love with years ago. "I thought you'd never ask," he said.
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