Evangelion Versus Angel Online

Chapter Seven

"Remember: no matter how many times you repeat the same sequence of events, the attractor field will keep pulling you to the same ultimate conclusion. You have to either be willing to put up with knowing you weren't able to find out how to beat them, or change nothing in the cause, but only the effect. If you can't even manage that, I don't know why I even bothered to help you back home all those years and hours ago. Now, what are the words?"

-Doctor Rintaro Okabe, Professor of Physics and Engineering, Tokyo University, unknown date

7_June_2023 - 07:13

He can hear bleeping. One even beep after another; each separated by a little less than a second. A heart-rate monitor, he reasons. This must be the kind of treatment that he is receiving while in game. Well, might as well get a doctor in here. One fast way to manage that.

Professor Kozou Fuyutsuki took a lead from his arm, one connected to the bleeping machine, and tugged it and a second one off, leading to a long, flat tone to play out over the speakers in the large room. He could hear rapid footfalls out in the hall.

"Right on time," he said dryly.

The door flew open to reveal a young man, around twenty in age, wearing a white outfit and an armband reading 'nurse' in Japanese, English and German.

"So, this is the Nerv joint hospital," Fuyutsuki says, thinking that to be the only reason for a tri-lingual identification. "The commander certainly didn't spare any expense."

"Professor-"

"Calm down, my boy," the aged man said.

"But... I don't even... what?"

"All in good time. Now," getting right to business, "where is commander Gendo Ikari?"

"The co-co-commander," the young man stutters, "is off base. Something about an acquisition, s-sir."

"More like a hostile takeover," Fuyutsuki mutters. Raising his voice, "is there a way to reach him I should know about? Has the protocol changed in the last year?"

"I-"

An older woman bursts into the room, "Professor!"

The professor wastes no time. "Doctor Akagi, how long has it been, my friend," he says simply, ignoring the still stuttering nurse.

She stops in her tracks. "You've been gone nearly a year and that's all you have," she says incredulously.

"It is quite the subject of interest. Though, I would have thought it harder to speak after not using this shell for most of a year," he mused.

"Medical science… and you have me in charge of this institution."

"Naoko, you have not changed a bit. How is that darling daughter of yours?"

"Ritsuko? You stay away from her you old goat," Naoko Akagi says with a smile, waving it off. She pauses uncomfortably for hardly a moment. "She's working on her sixth doctorate right now."

"That is good to hear. Catching up to you, it seems. Oh, speaking of catching up," he gestures with his hands, "this young man does not seem to know where the commander is. Can you help me."

Akagi turns to the nurse on duty, "nurse."

He straightens up at the older doctor's call to attention. "Yes, ma'am!"

She smiles wryly. "Go to the nurse's station, get security card Alpha-Six, follow the instructions on the card and return here."

He leaves without a word, seemingly terrified of the director of the hospital. Perhaps even more so than the commander or sub-commander.

"A veritable mountain of red tape, doctor?"

"A way to let more of my interns and juniors keep their jobs. One too many false alarms get forwarded to the commander, so we put an end to it by making the phone difficult to get to without a real emergency on the floor."

"The floor," Fuyutsuki asks.

"We keep the top security patients from Sword Art Online here. Yourself included."

"How many?"

Doctor Akagi pursed her lips together, as though she didn't already know the number right off the top of her head.

"Ninety as of last month."

"That means people here have died, does it not?"

"Yes. Three. The last one was only three weeks ago; last month. No volunteers from Project E yet, thank god."

"I'm keeping them from taking on dangerous missions until we have a plan. Have you and the commander come up with a viable path for us to follow down?"

"Yes. But you're probably going to poke holes in it, Professor."

"Well?"

"I will wait for the commander. No sense in repeating myself."

"Doctor, I should tell you that I only have one day before I must return to my duties within Aincrad."

"All the more reason not to waste time. Now," Akagi groans, "where is that nurse."

The nurse, as the grand timing the universe has grants, is walking back down the hall towards the aged professor's room.

"Doctor, the red phone," he says, offering doctor Akagi a red mobile phone with three buttons on it.

"Professor," she says, "would you like to make the call?"

"I would." He turns to the nurse, "you there, nurse…"

"Amarillo Verde, sir."

"Nurse Verde, would you please leave me to make this call? The matter is between the commander, the doctor and myself."

The nurse nodded agreement and ducked out of the room with a call of, "I'll be at the station, Professor," as he vanished down the hall.

With those without proper clearance out of earshot, Fuyutsuki presses one of the three buttons on the phone. It buzzes out a tinny ring for several seconds.

"What," a near standard Ikari greeting comes over the phone.

"Rokubungi," Fuyutsuki says into the transceiver.

Over the phone, Akagi can hear the commander giving orders, presumably to the staff of his aircraft. Fuyutusuki ignores it

The commander speaks into the phone after several moments, "professor, it is good to hear your voice. Can I assume that the highest level has yet to be cleared?"

He is, of course, speaking of the game.

"No," the professor agreed. "I am here using one of the items we forced on the programming." He paused for a moment to let the information sink in. "Your son was its owner up until only minutes ago."

"I see," the commander says almost instantly.

"Can I expect you sometime today, my boy?"

"Have Akagi and Katsuragi prepare the boardroom on level E."

"Of course, commander. Noon," Fuyutsuki asked only after accepting blithely.

"Two hours sooner," he said. Turning to the staff on the aircraft again, "I believe we can make excellent time."

The phone bleeped at disconnection and Fuyutsuki turned to doctor Akagi. "Can I leave this bed?"

"Yes. Let me prepare a portable computer and a pack.

In minutes only, professor Fuyutsuki was outfitted with a shoulder pack holding a portable computer and power supply to keep him connected to Sword Art Online. He was mobile.

"Doctor," he asked, "are you going to tell my how you kept my muscles from atrophying?"

"No," she answered.

"Perhaps another time."

"Perhaps," she agreed while promising nothing.

"What time," he said in astonishment, "do you believe the commander will return?"

"Less than three hours. He said ten, correct?"

"Indeed."

"Best get to work. Have you met Katsuragi?"

"Shiro Katsuragi? We've met, but not in many years. The last time was on an expedition-"

"No, no. His daughter, Misato Katsuragi. She is working with operations now, commanding."

"Misato? Shiro's daughter?"

"Yes."

"I didn't know the man could reproduce. I thought he would just up and clone himself one of these days," the professor says more-or-less jokingly.

"You're not far off. The world is a strange place. I suppose someone saw something in the loon."

"You and I both know his theory is mostly correct, even if no one outside this lab knows it."

"I still hold that the man is a little strange… I just don't like him; regardless of his advances in S-Two theory."

"Understandable. You are honest. Keep your honesty. But under your hair."

"Of course, professor," doctor Akagi says. "Let's get to the laboratory."

7_June_2023 - 07:10

We watched as Prof vanished into thin air. It was… disquieting to say the least. Asuka doesn't seem to see it as such, but then, she expected it. I was half expecting the thing not to work and half expecting him just to drop dead right there. I hope he made it.

"Well," Asuka says, "that proves one thing."

"What?"

"We have a day to kill in a locked room," she said, inching towards me. "You wanna' do something?"

She was almost on top of me, or at least as close as one can get and still be standing. "S-such as," I managed to get out without sounding too strange.

"You can't be this boring," she said, backing away. Her face told me part of why. I know, I think I know, what you want to do. But…

"Asuka… It's been a while since I've seen you-"

"Two years," she says quickly.

"What? No! Hardly a few months-"

"Before the game… it had been two years. And I said some things… and did some things that I'm not proud of."

"Nothing too bad," I offered. Though… it was. Everyone around me wanted me to hold a grudge, but... How could I?

"And I hit doctor Vance on the way out last time…"

"He was fine. So was I for that matter."

"I heard you had three broken ribs and a concussion," she said, slumping down in Prof's chair. "Mother told me about it one night about a year after I left." She wants to dredge this up? Now? I guess if we want to air this out, best when we don't actually have the choice to kill each other.

"They were only bruised," a lie, "and it wasn't bad, a night in bed with an ice pack." More like a week of sleeping in a hospital with daily check-ups for major damage from the four broken ribs, skull fracture and one shattered heart (the last being only in my mind, not actually a physical injury). And two months of one doctor after another asking me how I felt about the whole thing. "I never…" blamed you. I promise I never did. I just couldn't say that then. Or now.

"I went home after that."

"Home?"

"Pieter- Father called me back home. Not that I wanted to go. He'd remarried by then and I wasn't happy with him or mother or that woman he called 'wife'."

"So… what happened?"

"What? After I left? I spend a year at home feeling sorry for myself and reading mother's textbooks and journals. I spent the next year getting a degree and learning virtual games. What else? I was burying my time in Kyoto…"

Your time with me?

"I don't want to leave anything unsaid," I told her. I don't want to tell her the truth of what I've been doing since we were fourteen, but I might have to.

"I haven't seen anyone since then," she said, bringing me out of my haze.

"Really?"

"Don't take that tone!"

"I didn't mean it like that," I defended. "I just… I didn't think you cared. And you're..." Absolutely stunning. The most beautiful thing I think I've ever seen. God damn it! Words, Ikari. Use your words.

"Didn't think I… I…" she buried her face in her arms on the desk. "I never stopped caring," she mumbled into her hands. "I just…"

I walked across the room, she looked up, and I took my life in my own hands.

7_June_2023 - 09:58

Inside the main boardroom on level E of the main Nerv facility, doctor Naoko Akagi, colonel Misato Katsuragi, doctor Rintaro Okabe and professor Kozou Fuyutsuki all sat. The professor isn't familiar with Okabe or Katsuragi, but knows them by reputation and some information given to him by doctor Akagi.

Doctor Okabe is known for his private ventures in space flight and in his laboratory's keen eye for future technologies and the free market. Colonel Katsuragi began at Nerv as a Section Two agent three years ago and recently made colonel as Director of Operations.

At ten on the tick, commander Gendo Ikari walked in.

"Right on time," Fuyutsuki comments.

All stand, save the professor, as it is considerably more difficult in his weakened condition even with doctor Akagi's alluded-to advances in medical science.

"Thank you for being here, commander," Katsuragi says.

"Of course. The sub-commander has returned to us," Ikari says, giving all the justification he is willing to on his sudden return to Japan.

"Commander," Fuyutsuki says, "I've been getting caught up on events here, but I don't know everything. I request a sharing of information to the benefit of the victims of this crisis on my return."

"Yes, professor." Ikari turned to Akagi, "the numbers, doctor."

"Right away, commander," Akagi said, quickly bringing several screens on with details on the SAO incident.

Katsuragi stood, walked to the end of the room and began. "As you have been working on this from inside, I will refrain from repeating anything you might know, professor."

"Thank you, colonel. Continue."

"Since the crisis began, approximately two thousand and seventy players have lost their lives due to unknown circumstances. approximately two hundred of these cases were due to outside interference such as family members or friends trying to save them or natural death due to lack of food or water. People simply didn't find them in time."

Doctor Akagi shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"We take it for granted that these players who have died under circumstances impossible to tell are being killed by creatures within the game and other players. Is this outside your experience?"

"Slightly," the professor says. "Yes, many of those players are killed by monsters. And yes, other players kill. But there are exceptions to these common occurrences."

Doctor Okabe cleared his throat.

Fuyutsuki asked, "doctor Okabe?"

"Might I assume, Professor," he said, "that there are attempts by peace-keeping groups within the towns of Aincrad who hold court and," he pauses, for effect more than anything else, "executions?"

"Very astute, doctor. Many deaths are the larger guilds, mine included, executing members of the population."

"Professor," doctor Akagi exclaimed. "Executions?!"

"Yes, doctor. Generally of criminals or dangerous elements. The IPEA has held thirty-seven of these executions for members of Red guilds we've managed to gather up. Remember, our mission right now is damage control."

Colonel Katsuragi asked, "Red guilds?"

Fuyutsuki explained, "Green players are those who follow the rules of Aincrad, including not killing or stealing from players. Orange players are small offenders of these rules; they might have stolen or killed once or twice; and only recently. There is a grace period of between one and thirty days depending on severity of the crime. But Red players and guilds are people who kill or steal regularly. Usually kill. We caught six members of the largest Red guild, the Laughing Coffin, and executed them publicly on the front lines."

"Professor," Okabe began, "while I share in my colleagues shock that your organization holds executions within this world, I find your justification acceptable and would ask that the… IPEA, you called it, continues operations."

"Are there any more questions, or may I let the colonel continue?"

No one said a word. Doctor Akagi was still shocked, but willing to accept the professor's methods.

Colonel Katsuragi kept on. "Aside that, not a single person connected to the game has made it out alive, besides yourself, professor."

"That we know of," Okabe said, pointing out the lack of any real control over information. "For all we know, another player might have been released though this Link method, or other unknowns. Let us assume that this is the only case, but take note that we are fallible. We are human."

"Thank you doctor," Akagi said. "But the fact of the matter is that we would know. All NervGear signals route through Nerv headquarters-"

"All official NervGear. I would put forward that talented hackers could, and would given the skill and desire to play, access the game before the lockdown."

Commander Ikari, if only for a moment, twitched.

7_June_2023 - 07:14

This might have killed me.

Actually… now that I have this infinite moment of a second to think about it, what I've done has certainly killed me. No doubt about it. She is going to run her sword through my chest and that will be that. I'll die. If I'm lucky, she'll take me out and kill me. Safe-Zone duels are brutal events for the blood-thirsty killers in this world. Reminds me of when I saw the Flash fighting within a city. Nasty. But then... do I have time to digress? My second is about a quarter over.

The second goes on a little longer than I thought it would.

I can't say that I have any experience or confidence in my ability to kiss, but it must be, at the very least, decent if she hasn't ended my life yet.

Another second, the third, and her arms are slowing moving up. I think her brain has caught up with her and now I might die. Well, it was a good life.

Then again, I decide when she puts her arms around the back of my neck, maybe I'm too pessimistic.

7_June_2023 - 13:24

In the hours since the meeting of minds at Nerv was called, three new things have been established. First, Project Evangelion is moving along at a great pace. Second, Fuyutsuki needs to make a trip to America before his time is up. Third, Nerv has identified their real enemy.

"What does that mean, Ikari," Fuyutsuki asks a final time, trying to get a straight answer out of the commander and president of Nerv.

"Professor, I really do not have the time. Akagi, introduce him to the American and get him equipped."

"Ikari-"

Akagi tugged on Fuyutsuki's shirt. "Don't."

At that simple insistence, he understood. Ikari has preparations to make and a meeting with people with real information would make for a better use of his limited time.

7_June_2023 - 14:10

Nerv really has the best toys. A holographic boardroom wherein one can converse in real-time with anyone in the world as if in a flesh meeting. It's almost a trip to America. But then again, the professor has been to that country. It isn't quite the same after the west coast fell into the sea.

At the opposite end of the boardroom table, a tall, lanky man in an outfit more befitting a professor from the American early twentieth century appeared. His dark hair only marred by a handful of white ones.

"Professor Fuyutsuki, it is well that we can meet face to face in these dire times," the men said in shaky Japanese, nearly butchering the name, over a slightly tinny speaker.

"Indeed, doctor Petrikov," he answers. "Would this be better," the Professor says in clear, if slightly accented, English in an attempt to make his guest comfortable.

"It would, Professor," he responds in English. "Apologies for not being able to converse in your language, I only began learning it this morning. I usually have a translator in working with Nerv, but on such short notice, and for such a... sensitive topic... you understand my haste in picking up at least a working knowledge of the language."

"It is nonetheless impressive that you were willing to make the attempt. Not to mention how well you have the grammar and syntax down. I thank you, sir. Now, I understand you are the expert on the current branch of Angelic invaders on our planet."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, but I would say that I have a compelling theory and evidence to back it, Professor."

"Then, if you will," Fuyutsuki said.

"Of course. I take it you know the background; from the Katsuragi Expedition to the year twenty-twenty-one?"

"I do. That is the extent, however, of what I know."

"Then I'll start from the beginning of this gaming incident. First and foremost, the controller is not Kayaba Akihiko."

"Then what was the announcement made when this all began? Someone using the name?"

"Not some one, professor. Some thing."

"Explain."

"Akihiko has been dead for almost a year now. We found his burned corpse and the body of his assistant out in the Japanese countryside. He was wearing NervGear. Looks like he died mid-dive. Her skin was flayed from her bones. Myself and my team were first on the scene. It wasn't pretty." He paused. "Do you know the legends of the Lich King?"

"I know the name. No more. A book in my college days... decades ago."

"During the last long age of Earth, before humans became the dominate life-form, it's said that a different group of sentient beings lived on this planet. Only a dozen scientists in the world subscribe to this theory; even less add to it. I fall into the latter category."

"Does this have anything to do with the theory behind the spontaneous emergence of agriculture on Earth roughly fifteen thousand years ago?"

"Perhaps. The last age was about one hundred and fifteen thousand years ago, so it may hold a great deal of bearing. Or could hold none in a random, godless world."

He opened a holographic representation of the Earth, circa one hundred and fifteen thousand years ago. The planet looked significantly different.

"Doctor," Fuyutsuki says, "what am I looking at?"

"Earth during the last great age."

"Are you trying to tell me that our planet looked like this only one hundred thousand years ago?"

Fuyutsuki was referring to a massive crater in the northern hemisphere where Russia and Europe are today.

"You would need something the size of Mars, or perhaps only slightly smaller, to fill that crater."

"I assure you, sir, this is going somewhere."

"Please, continue."

"For the sake of argument, my theory places the level of technology on this planet at the end of the last age at a point higher than the current level."

He changes the view to a landmass at the coordinates where the Atlantic Ocean is today. But it is a landmass that seems to be North America and parts of Europe connected near the equator.

"There was an event, perhaps natural or made by an intelligent power. This event can be calculated-"

"How?"

"Differences in dirt. The mountains on the East coast of America? A totally different make-up of rock and Earth. It looks more like the chemical and metal structure found in the asteroid belt."

"How is that possible?"

"I have no idea. Again, many assumptions are based solely on the fact that those mountains are not made of rock found on this planet, but rather a failed planet circling this system between its fourth and fifth planets. The aforementioned event can be calculated to have caused a crater the size of all Asia and almost as deep as the outer core of the planet. In other words, more concentrated joules of energy than it would take to destroy a planet only smaller by twenty percent. I theorize the event was of a nuclear nature. More powerful than even the most destructive naquadah-enhanced warhead today."

"Doctor, this sounds very similar to Super Solenoid theory. Directed energy weapons with nuclear-like power. Unlimited creation and destruction of energy. Is this making sense?"

"It is. But, the life form..." The display shifted to the mountains the doctor spoke of. "A life form hiding on this planet, calling itself the Lich-"

"This life form is sentient? And not human?"

"Yes. The life form calling itself the Lich King has gathered the remnants of the creatures that the first progenitor created. We call them the Civilization Blasters. It is calling them Angels."

"Angels? I know of the progenitors; god have mercy, we're holding two of them hostage. What does this Lich King have to do with them?"

"He is rebuilding their bodies from their destroyed souls and amassing an army."

"What can be done?"

"Nothing on your end."

"What," Fuyutsuki demanded.

"I apologize, professor. In my years… well… All that I can ask you to do is get the Children out of that game safely. The whole thing's a set-up." The doctor turned grim. "The Lich resurrected the Angel of Terror to overrun the game, but Akihiko stopped it. I don't know more than that."

"Will clearing the game still release the players?"

"Professor, I honestly do not know."

7_June_2023 - 07:39

I am too pessimistic. Well… maybe not so much. It wasn't that she stabbed me, but more like a slight beating to drive the point home… to get it through my thick skull that we weren't over. Not that I wanted it to be, but it just came to a head two years ago and neither of us could handle it.

At that point I was lying on the ground in front of the single piece of furniture in the room, the desk, and Asuka was in the chair in front of it.

"So," I managed to breath out, "is that what you really think?"

"You're spineless, weak, pathetic…" she paused for what felt like hours (or is that the pain talking?) "… and perhaps the most driven man I've even known."

"Where did that come from?"

"You told me the truth. For all we know, it's all right to kill you because you might not be wearing the death-trap everyone else is."

"Or it could be a re-packaged death-trap. Personally, I'd rather find out the hard way than test it out."

"There is always a way to find out."

"What do you have in mind," I said, picking myself up off the floor.

"If we're lucky, the director will tear you a new one about it when he gets back. If not, you could always find another Link."

"There are only ten -nine- in the whole castle," I protest.

"And? There is only one crossbowman character in the whole castle as well." She points at me, making me turn slightly under scrutiny.

"That's not my fault."

"It totally is. You, of all the players choosing classes, chose ranger over swordsman. I mean… the game was marketed as a game for wannabe swordsmen and history nuts."

"I don't think that last one is true."

To that all I got was Asuka sticking her tongue out at me… rather than in my mouth… again.

7_June_2023 - 19:28

A full twelve hours of interviews and meetings is… draining on even the most seasoned veteran of the war against red tape and protocol. Kozou Fuyutsuki is tired, but still endlessly willing to entertain his colleagues in discussion on the SAO crisis. His meeting with that American, Dr Petrikov, went about as well as expected.

"We need them," Petrikov said. "The whole war effort depends on those Children being able to harness the Evangelion technology and fight for us. They are the only ones who can."

It was disturbing, terrible… evil… to Fuyutsuki's ears. Using a game, granted one that was overrun, to train a generation of soldiers for the worst war since the middle of the twentieth century.

And now it has a sorting device: death, for failure. Survival for the luck to either become strong enough or hide well enough.

The whole thing is wrong.

Fuyutsuki, tired of this yammering, requests the next, and hopefully last, meeting to be over dinner. He chooses a particularly nice European style restaurant in Kyoto as the location; one he remembers from his time teaching at the University.

"Back when I was still teaching," the professor laments, "I came here once in a while to discuss a student's work in a less… intimidating environment. My office was in a basement and coated in books and papers. I think it occasionally made the graduate students cry."

Across the table, a young American man, a doctor Freeman, nods saying, "reminds me of when I settled down to teach at MIT. There is a similar atmosphere at several places around the school."

"But then, more than one student thought the worst of me…"

"Understandable. While I find it slightly flattering that anyone would still find me attractive," Freeman regally waves a hand under his face, one not nearly as aged as Fuyutsuki, but certainly near his forties, "it is still disconcerting to have a twenty-three year old trying to... get better grades that way."

"I recall the last student who thought anything of that nature for me. Nice couple; we work together now."

Freeman recoiled.

"Too much information for you, doctor?"

"A bit, professor."

"I have not spoken about my time at Kyoto for a while. You will have to excuse me for recalling a pleasant memory. The only other person whose ear I have is that couple's son. It would be as disturbing, if not more so, for him."

"I agree. But then…"

"Right," Fuyutsuki says, closing his menu. "Down to business. Tell me, what do you know of doctor Eli Vance?"

"We worked together at Nerv in Nevada. That's how it got the name change. We joked in a meeting once that we should call it Black Mesa. It's the location, you see. The mesa it's located in is almost constantly in shadow from how the facility is constructed."

"It would seem he and you share an interesting sense of humor."

"Yes. I haven't seen him in a while. Last I heard, he was working on the Sword Art Online project before it went up in smoke."

Fuyutsuki suddenly said, "Doctor Vance is a member of my guild in Sword Art Online-"

"What," doctor Freeman demanded, nearly leaping out of his chair. He pulled the chair back in, avoiding gathering attention. "Why is Eli in that death-trap you people at headquarters call a video game?"

"When we asked for volunteers for a dangerous mission, he was first to raise his hand."

Doctor Freeman calmed down at that. "Sounds just like Eli. What guild?"

"International Project Evangelion Agency. We set up with about three dozen personal from Nerv, all volunteers, with the intent on keeping the damage to a minimum. So far, the only deaths we've been unable to control are suicides and the all-too-often NPC-kill."

"Sounds like you guys have it rough," Freeman said.

"It is nothing that we can not contain. We are expecting a thirty percent loss of life. Reasonably if the game is cleared within three years."

"It scares me that you have a plan for how many people die."

"We plan for everything, doctor. The first thousand were outside expectation, but trends of suicide and player-killing are tapering out with every passing day. We expect a day, at least a year before the final release, when not a single death in as much as a week reaches my desk."

"Might be because no one wants to report it," Freeman remarks darkly.

"Perhaps, but unlikely," Fuyutsuki says quickly. "I do want to hear your ideas for expediting the end of this terror."

"Well, ever since this started, some of the guys back in Nevada were talking about..."

7_June_2023 - 12:57

"Is that enough," I asked, panting for breath on the ground.

Asuka rolled over from her face-plant on the other side of the room. "Just about. Now, what was that about my mother?"

"Step-mother," I corrected, "and she is the worst kind of raging bitch I've ever had to spend time in a room with."

She really is. Father hosted Asuka's parents at a dinner in twenty twenty-one, at which my attendance was mandatory regardless of the discomfort I felt having to deal with my ex's parents. It ended with her father, Pieter, being dragged out by a screaming woman -now that I think about it, I don't know her name- and father asking me if I was really the man in my last relationship. Father left, for his trouble, with an imprint of my fist on his stomach. That was one of the first times I really spoke seriously with Prof outside the classroom, so it wasn't a total waste.

"Tell me about it," Asuka agrees. "Mother never got along with her for obvious reasons, but she was always so bitter that dad kept me in the manor. Guess it was too much that I was my mother's daughter."

"Reminds me of something your real mother said to me once," I said.

"What about my mother could you associate with my wonderful smother," she asks, making a universally rude gesture towards her own mention of her step-mother.

"It was about a year after we broke up. She asked me what happened one night while she and her friends on staff at Nerv were drinking."

"Mother drinks?"

"It seems that she is old drinking friends with my father and Prof. A story I wish I could forget."

"Makes sense. That's how we met."

"Yeah. When was that," I say, thinking to myself.

"About twenty-fourteen?"

"Sounds right. Your mother was visiting Japan, right?'

Asuka laughs a bit and comes over. She plops down next to me and says, "For the first time. We got lost on the train from the sea to Kyoto. Ended up on the wrong one and in Hakone."

"That far off?"

"You wouldn't believe how angry she was," Asuka laughs. "She has told me to only speak Japanese while in the country, but she broke her own rules and let out this tirade of swears and curses on the train when she found out we were more than four hours away."

"Damn. I hardly remember back then, but the two of you coming off that train was priceless." When have I ever had this much fun talking about the past.

"I know. Mother was livid, and I was just happy to be off that terrible thing. It shook the whole way!"

"And then dinner that night? All your mother said was how bad the trip was. I mean, it couldn't have been that bad."

"The sights were nice," Asuka says with a reminiscent look, "but it was just so long."

"I suppose," I say, agreeing half-heartedly.

"So," Asuka starts slowly. "Enough about mother and your father." She pauses for a long moment, breathing in and out. "Where do we stand?"

I was waiting for this. I think that the last couple hours should tell both of us where we stand, but we both still might need the other to say it. "I'm sorry about what happened two years ago."

"I'm sorry too," she says. "Especially about my overreacting... and your injuries... and-"

"It's all in the past," I say quickly, stopping her from continuing. Maybe I just didn't want to hear it, but I also didn't want her reliving it. Besides, it really is behind me. And I don't want to relive it.

"Still..."

"Nothing to apologize for. I said... some things... and you reacted. It's all past us now. Let's just worry about what we're going to do once Prof gets back."

8_June_2023 - 01:49

Finally back at Nerv, Fuyutsuki and Ikari sit in Ikari's office nursing snifters of a rather old bottle of brandy; somewhere in the range of fifteen years.

"Professor," Ikari says, "what do you know of Project Evangelion," Ikari asks around a small sip.

"It was Yui's pet project back at the university. It was -and I'm going back twenty years, my boy- a theory to bring life to artificial beings. I don't remember if she was interested in physical beings or digital ones, but I was quite interested."

"Do you recall a paper she penned near the end of that decade called Realization of Emotional Life?"

"Yes. She let me read it just before we began at Nerv. It was an interesting piece, but I do remember some holes in the execution of her experiment that I pointed out."

"Indeed, professor. We instituted many of your ideas when building the structure-"

The professor interrupted, hearing new ideas. "What are you talking about, Ikari? You act as if this project is already underway. It was a dream. A dream then and a faded dream now."

"And if I told you the project was already happening, professor, even as we speak," Ikari said, taking another sip, a larger one, of his drink.

"I would be... As I understand it," Fuyutsuki said, turning the conversation, "IPEA was only named what it is because it would keep people guessing. We never went anywhere with it."

"Professor, you have three members of your guild who are Yui's creations. She and I started this agency, Nerv, for the purpose of bringing forth Project Evangelion."

"What," Fuyutsuki exclaimed. "Nerv is-"

"Yui's dream," Ikari said, finishing Fuyutsuki's statement.

"What is the meaning of this, Ikari. When this all began twenty years ago, you never so much as mentioned anything on this scale."

"Professor Fuyutsuki, you will find that there are many things you do not yet understand. Rest assured," Ikari took a small sip, let it rest a moment and swallowed, "you will be given all you need."

"Ikari," Fuyutsuki said, "I feel there is something I should tell you."

"What is it, friend?"

"I obtained the means of escape, if only temporary, from your son."

"You said," Ikari agreed.

"It, as you implied, is what I did not say. I agreed to an exchange."

"Professor, what did you promise my son," Ikari said darkly.

"He desired two things. The first is a laboratory in this facility."

Ikari sat back in his chair. "Easily done. You are a detriment to my health-"

"There is more, my much learned student," Fuyutsuki said, suddenly looking ten years older than his even now elderly form. "He demanded the truth of what happened to Yui."

Ikari was still for nearly a minute. Fuyutsuki worried that he may have crossed a line. Gendo Ikari slowly opened his mouth. "A... task not impossible. What is the expected date of escape from Sword Art Online?"

"You want my opinion? I would say... roughly eighteen months."

"Time enough, professor."

8_June_2023 - 07:10

"Ikari," the aged professor said, "you take care of things on your end."

"And you, professor. Remember the units-"

"Members, Ikari. While they are in my guild, I'll not pretend otherwise."

"As you wish," Ikari said, nodding.

"I'll see you next time I can, son."

"Of course. I gave you the locations of the other nine, so they shouldn't be difficult to locate. God-speed."

Fuyutsuki chuckles. "We both know you don't belie-"

Kozou Fuyutsuki's eyes grow dark and he falls into a deep slumber through the NervGear as Ikari stares, knowing the next words.

"Perhaps," Ikari says as he rises from his seat, "old friend, this time I really do."

Back to regular length updates. Might not be one for a while. I'm busy with everything at the university and I could hardly find time to write (sadface). As always, please review.