Decided to go with Rebuild continuity a little more than regular Eva continuity, because as I was watching 2.22 scenes kept occurring to me.

Also, the whole chilling on the moon thing is just awesome. He should have sunglasses. Seriously, he should, otherwise his eyes will get so damaged it's not funny (no magnetic field up there). Thank goodness he's an angel.

This might be the last for a bit, as the vacation from regular fic updates caused by coming home to two months' worth of chores, a lot of disability paperwork & two awesome games is now officially over, and I have five incomplete fics to finish off, which is taking much longer than originally planned. Such is life.

"He brought his cat with him again."

"Again?"

"Hey, a cat like that: it seems like something we should have around the place, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"Come on, can't you just see Commander Ikari petting a cat like that while he's got that look of his in his eyes?"

"First off, supervillians are supposed to have white cats, not grey. Second, the commander? Being nice? Seriously?"

"Yeah, good point."

"Don't you call cats that color blue? Or was that horses?"

"Blue?"

No, he wasn't kind to anything except Rei, Dr. Akagi thought to herself, eyes narrowed as the conversation was lost in the echoes of the base, as she and the group of low-level workers moved farther apart from each other in the system of conveyer belts.

Calling Commander Ikari a supervillian, though?

That part was right.

Shinji noticed that he was doing most of the weeding while Mr. Kaji waved a reed around, forcing Tabris to chase it because when he stopped moving, Mr. Kaji would keep tickling at his nose or hitting him in the face with it until he resumed, but he still didn't think Mr. Kaji was a bad person. It would be nice of him to play with a cat that was indoors all day. A real cat.

He took a deep breath, breathing in the green. This was nice, but he should probably lay off the training for a few nights. He kept wanting to flare his AT field, to reach into the watermelons and the ground to feel how they were growing, what else was growing & check the health of the soil, but that was an encroachment-type ability. Which humans couldn't use.

It was useful to learn what angels could do, experiment in his dreams with Tabris' memories and knowledge supplying what would happen and what he would feel if he did this, but he didn't want to make himself waste time reaching for abilities he didn't have.

The Eva, though…

He had to thank Mr. Kaji for taking them to the aquarium, too, although Tabris hadn't been allowed in because he theoretically couldn't follow instructions and might get hurt during the decontamination procedure. So maybe it was something of a relief that the sea in there wasn't much like the one Tabris knew either. To the angel it was still more of a proper sea than the red one, even caged in tanks, because there was life in there. Even if the red ocean that stretched out beyond the barrier still had the potential for life. Someday, if it could be unlocked, if Tabris survived or humanity developed their own angels and let them fix the planet.

Another breath, and he'd missed being surrounded in green. He should start coming here on walks, he decided, instead of the seashore. There was real life here, and even though Tabris loved the sea Shinji knew he blamed himself. So Shinji would just say that he missed the countryside and would rather come here, and that would be that, he decided as he listened to Mr. Kaji's chuckles and dug his fingers in to get at the roots of one of the weeds. He'd never really been the best gardener, since that took a lot of patience, paying attention to things and maybe, ideally, an inner peace Shinji had never possessed. Still, he'd worked with everyone on the class garden, so this was something familiar.

Even if he was inside an alien spaceship.

That was still a very strange thought, even though he'd grown up with an alien spacecraft. But Tabris was a living ship, while this was something with computers that weren't people, walls that weren't AT-field-controlled matter but had actually been built. Tabris was human, well, different human but human. This was a real ship. He could just imagine Kensuke's reaction if he knew.

And they hadn't reprogrammed any of it, not really, just built around and on top of it and within it. So Tabris could still hook himself into the ship's systems and get it to take off, if he wanted. A floating city: it was like something out of one of those Miyazaki movies his aunt watched and cried and wouldn't let him talk during, filled with nostalgia for the lost world, her lost childhood.

They still didn't know if any of the Cultural Rooms were still there, filled with objects from various worlds to be carried with them and handed out if they came to a system that already had been colonized. Everything from Tabris' world was in the other one, though, as well as the things from the homes of the attacking angels. One of the oldest angels traveling with Lilith had organized what amounted to a mutiny as the conflict dragged on and it looked like no one would be getting any of the planets in the Sol System anytime soon, since once the one under dispute was settled people would start arguing over the rest. They'd abandoned all the artifacts, which Tabris hadn't been willing to do, and gone looking for… Shinji blushed, thinking of fertile worlds, and seeds, and yeah, it kind of was… Um. A good metaphor. Except for Tabris the way Shinji felt when Misato leaned over like that was the metaphor.

That had left Lilith outnumbered sixteen to one, the trouble was that it was easy enough to disrupt someone else's efforts to terraform by interfering with their AT field that Adam couldn't do anything until they pried her off the planet.

All of this could have been avoided if humanity's progenitor wasn't so damn stubborn, or was capable of yielding gracefully, but when had that ever happened?

He still didn't know what to make of his father suddenly praising him. He didn't even know what to think about it to start talking about it with Tabris, even. Especially since Kaworu Nagisa was busy, now that they were doing a lot of testing and construction on the moon and he had to work on 06 to make it alive enough that it wouldn't be possible to detect Tabris' signature in there but not alive enough that it was clear someone who knew what they were doing had worked on 06. Also, moonwalking.

Which was really cool, although Shinji was still pissed at SEELE on Kaworu's behalf since Kaworu let slip that their idea of how to get someone to quickly develop the ability to control a force field when Kaworu was pretending to be a new soul, like Rei, who didn't know how to do everything: throw someone physically six and a hissing, already open tank of oxygen out an airlock.

They had more cloned bodies where that came from, and maybe the next one would catch on quicker.

Moon dust was poisonous, too.

Huh: now that he thought about it, NERV's method for getting someone to learn how to control an AT field was similar. Or at least his father's method was. Throw someone out there with an EVA and an angel trying to kill them.

Well, in both cases it'd seemed to work.

The moon base was even creepier than NERV, now that Tabris was willing to tell him more about it. There were more people there who knew different amounts, or rather different stories, since it wasn't as big a problem if someone found out something they shouldn't know. All jammed together, too, and it was almost impossible to be alone, forget escaping. Accidents were incredibly easy to arrange.

No wonder Tabris had wanted to spend time with Shinji even after he'd been fairly certain they believed he'd figured out how to get down to the planet and back up safely on his own and started going on jaunts to various places instead of just getting music and things to look at off the computers. (And broadcasts, not that they knew he could hear those.) Although the first time he'd gone down, he'd wandered around Paris looking lost and like he wasn't quite sure what money was until he'd been found and dragged back up via shuttle.

Tabris' first trainer: well, biophysicists on that level didn't grow on trees, and SEELE had lots of projects. He'd been told that they were using angel-DNA to make anti-angel weapons: the same thing many of those who worked on the EVA projects had been told, although this one was sentient and looked human.

Mostly. Growing up mostly on the moon would have done odd things to Kaworu's body even if he didn't have the markers for active angel DNA. Now that he knew Rei, Shinji could see the resemblance, although Kaworu had even less pigment in both skin and hair, and his eyes were a brighter red.

Shinji could guess how pleasant that was for Tabris. His friend wouldn't go into that many details, but when asked about the subject generally got changed to the scientists who had originally created Tabris, how he'd been carefully made and cared for because he was the first to carry their world's legacy out into the night, he was the precious child of their world, and would create the world that would bear their grandchildren.

All of Kaworu's experiences with planetary humans before this had been very nice, and then he was blown up. Then he was in SEELE's hands.

Interstellar time was supposed to drift by for angels, so the monotony didn't affect them. Tabris was ancient, but at the same time… Well, Shinji didn't know anyone to compare him too. Since Tabris was mature in a way most people weren't, and certainly not Shinji himself. But he wasn't much better at dealing with people than Shinji was, really. Angels thought differently and no one had ever been cruel to Tabris.

Not until someone who wanted revenge for Second Impact, wanted to see if Kaworu would begin to rebel or turn evil and need to put down. Until someone who thought testing the first one to destruction was a wonderful idea that would ensure SEELE would have to worry less about the reliability of the one they actually used.

Kaworu could ignore physical pain: how did someone define what was painful when they weren't in a human shape most of the time? Or the heat of reentry was something expected and healthy, as long as precautions were taken? Unfortunately, he hadn't seen any reason to keep that from the man, perhaps in hopes that if he knew trying to hurt him that way wouldn't work, he'd stop trying. Because the fact that he wanted to hurt Kaworu was painful in and of itself.

That, Shinji understood. Thinking that his father had abandoned him like useless baggage?

And angels were supposed to care about the wishes of those on their worlds. They had to run tech support for them, while at the same time making sure that people could see the consequences of pollution and so on. Being unable to make anyone happy, seen as a tool that was only useful for killing others when Kaworu didn't want to be valued if that was why?

"You've been quiet. Did your cat get your tongue?" Kaji asked as the cat managed to get the reed in between his paws for a moment before Kaji pulled it back.

"Just thinking."

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Shinji found himself smiling. "No way."

"How much?" Kaji asked jokingly.

"You don't have enough." There wasn't enough in the world to get him to betray a friend.

He'd taken off his shirt to avoid the com built into it, but he could still hear, "Get in here, I know you can hear me. There's a shuttle out there: are you deliberately trying to get me in trouble? You are, aren't you."

Kaworu wondered when he'd slipped and done or said something that gave away that he could hear the signal traffic, but he certainly wasn't going to confirm that he could, just in case Dr. Itoh was just being suspicious, disgruntled, or hopeful that Kaworu would hear him and get in before the Commander of NERV Japan saw him, dammit.

The earth was pretty today. It was night according to the base's official time, but since Shinji was the one who saw daylight, heard chirping birds, Kaworu still thought of this as day.

Even though the earth was always pretty. If it hadn't been quite so pretty even when it was barren, then they wouldn't have fought over it.

The apple of discord.

Kaworu had never dug his hands into the soil to plant something. Oh, he'd managed to get them to let him see the hydroponics, and when something was urgent everyone had to pitch in, on a base this far from help, but that wasn't the same.

This was his first time seeing Gendo through human eyes. Even if he was using magnification better than humans had. Well, Terran humans. Arial humans – ones who lived on gas giants, for example – needed vision better than a hawk's. Fortunately, it was simple enough to use his AT field as a lens, just a matter of bending light. They shouldn't know that he could do that, either.

"Damn ang-" the man bit off the rest of what he might have said, giving it up as useless, or pointless, and the encrypted radio clicked off.

Supposedly, he was just out here looking over EVA 06 and the earth. His presence was giving a third of the engineers out here building it the creeps and making the rest happy, because here he was, doing something a human couldn't. To some, he was an angel, a superior being, the key to their ascendance. Myth made real. To others, it meant that he was human enough to want to look at things, that he wasn't an angel, but the fact that he could breathe in vacuum might mean that he was strong enough to defend their world.

Hopes, those whose hopes had been or would be dashed, secrets and knowing betrayal. He did wish that he didn't need to know what was going on, that he didn't have to listen for what slipped past their AT fields.

They'd tried to engineer angels to not need companionship, according to the records stored in him.

That had been an absolute failure, every time it was tried. Because any entity could have an accident. And someone that had an accident in space? Was dead, unless there was another entity present to provide backup or repairs. When angels were entrusted with the survival of the legacy of worlds, of life that traced itself back to the Ancestors, failure was not an option. Therefore, not to have anyone to watch one's back until one was settled on a planet, at which point one had countless living things to support and work together with to create a world of humanity, was not an option.

The desire not to be lonely was a manifestation of the desire to live. The pain of loneliness was a most acute pain because pain existed to warn of danger. To cease to desire companionship was to long for death.

He was very lucky that he had Shinji. It was very unfair of him not to share his problems with Shinji when Shinji let him help, but Shinji had done nothing wrong, and he had enough burdens. It was enough to have a friend in him, even though there was no one here he could trust.

For both his own sake and theirs. Not in a bottle like this, where there was no such thing as privacy unless you were an angel and could just go for a walk outside.

The appearance of 06 still worried him a bit. It looked too demonic for a deliverer. Did they suspect that he was more than a clone of the angel they called the Traitor? He hadn't found any evidence of that yet, but there might be hints in the Scrolls that he couldn't decipher, not when he wasn't one of the kind they were written for.

Far from it, in fact.

Still, he should head in at some point, before they got too worried that he had taken it into his head to escape down to the surface and start wandering around again. He hadn't since the angel attacks started, and now that 06 was so close to completion they wanted him here, in case it had to be deployed at a moment's notice, even incomplete. He could use his AT field to make up the difference, after all.

Angels traveled and created: they were meant to act. He knew that waiting grated on planetary humans just as much, but… He shouldn't complain.

Well, if he was going to brood instead of think, then he'd just lost the right to stay out here, he decided, hopping easily over the machinery between him and the nearest airlock. It wasn't at all helpful to just worry himself and others.

Conversely, it was somewhat helpful to be thought of as something of a space cadet, who was always smiling because he wasn't quite all there by human standards instead of because his attention was elsewhere, doing something fun. He didn't like it when people were afraid of him, and focused, emotionless people were scarier than those who were open, and liked to stop and smell the flowers, or rather survive reentry in order to find some flowers to smell and perhaps pick and bring back. Or so he hoped, that it might make him more human, or at least more harmless, to be somewhat aimless. To be wandering around the moon because it was a quirk of his instead of the fact he had to get out of the base sometimes, if due to strain instead of hatred of or disgust for humanity.

Still, it was… painful, when he couldn't even show that he liked someone without making them afraid that he was going to do something to them, or already had, and that the best case scenario was that it was some sort of trick or attempt to manipulate them. It felt like he couldn't do anything right because of what he was. To be hated because he was an angel? Envied, yes, there were always those who wanted to travel the stars even though changing a planetary human into an angel meant changing into a being that thought so differently that it was debatable whether they were still the same person in any way at all, but hated? Feared?

And even showing on his face that it bothered him made them think that it was a lie, that he meant to do… something. Or that he should be above human emotions or some other nonsense. So it was best to try to be calm, and think of other things. Think of the earth above, teeming with life, close enough that he really could reach out and touch it if he wished. He was an angel, after all.

So instead of going to the common areas, where he would be a pariah out of fear, respect, or because many Lilim avoided him and the rest would take their cue from their kin, he went to his room.

Music. Something peaceful, soothing. He liked more energetic music as well, but what did he have to use that energy on right now but nervousness?

Mr. Kaji's teasing wasn't exactly peaceful, but it was soothing. Mr. Kaji dared tease him, dared play with him, if only because he didn't know. Kaworu and Shinji were still both sure that he was a brave man: Misato wouldn't like him as much as she must to react to him that way if he wasn't. Shinji admired that willingness to take risks: Tabris rather thought that risks were unpleasant things, best minimized, but he and Shinji were not the same, not at all. Angels built the stage: humans had to build the future. And face it.

It was always odd to hear the doorchime. When he was younger, before he'd managed to make them realize that he had options and wasn't entirely in their power, they hadn't bothered. These days, who would seek him out in person? It wasn't time for a meal to be delivered and if this was about his EVA, they'd definitely call instead of coming in person, even though he'd hoped he would know by now that he wasn't going to be upset with them if there was a setback.

It was SEELE they had to worry about.

Kaworu was almost as much in their power as any of the people here who had found out something they weren't supposed to know and yet kept working because the alternative was having a little accident. He certainly didn't have any more say in what went on here. It was probably the fault of the True Believers that many of the rest had that impression, even the ones who didn't know what he was.

This was not home. The room at Misato's that Shinji had only recently taken residence in was far more home than this, because home was where one was wanted, where one was safe, and no one here wanted him. They either would want him dead because he was an angel or wanted an angel that would destroy the Lilim. Something that would only happen over his dead body, he thought again, once again hoping that wasn't prophetic.

"Come in," he said pleasantly, wondering if he should politely look at and welcome whoever came in or if it was better if he kept his eyes closed and seemed focused entirely on the music. The second was rude, but the first might scare this person, and that was tiring.

Oh? This was a surprise. "Hello, Dr. Itoh." What brought him here?

His hair was almost as grey as Kaworu's own by now, and being trapped on the moon for so long hadn't been good for him. He hadn't bothered to keep up the necessary weight-bearing exercise when he was certain he would never be allowed to see earth again.

He would have been dealt with already if Kaworu hadn't requested otherwise. The request had made the council curious enough to stay their hand, and since there had been no further trouble (due to despair more than fear, the belief that there was nothing he could do to fight the conspiracy), he was still around years later because of inertia and the worry that Kaworu would make things more difficult for any other intermediary, out of annoyance that his toy had been taken away or unhappiness with change, if nothing else.

"The committee will want to know why you were so curious about the head of NERV," Dr. Itoh said shortly and bluntly. He'd rather preempt that request by getting the information from Kaworu and giving it to his assistant, who they all knew was an informant, than have to deal with the group he'd once thought were trying to save the world.

"Why would I not be? His disobedience to the committee is well known. In addition to that, he ordered the creation of my opposite number," the host of Lilith, "and is the father of another of the pilots. I will most likely have to interact with him at some point, in accordance with the scenario." The proper, pious thing to say. "It's not as though my nature could have been kept secret from him. Not when our shared DNA gives me such a resemblance to Rei Ayanami."

"And that explains why you demonstrated that you could breathe in near-vacuum."

"Or I might have been using my AT field to keep oxygen trapped in the area around me," Kaworu reminded him, surprised he'd forgotten that. Although surely it had meant far more to him than this man.

Such stunning proof that his self was not valued at all. So like Shinji's own experience.

Shinji had gotten the impression that Dr. Itoh was already dead. Kaworu hadn't corrected him. Dr. Itoh had enough difficulty in his life without Shinji's anger as well, even if the two would likely never meet.

"You didn't take any out with you."

Kaworu looked surprised by the assumption Dr. Itoh was making. He should know that Kaworu could conceal matter. For instance, right now he had hundreds of antique records and cds tucked away, because he'd learned better than to let SEELE get their hands on the things he cared for.

There had only been ten recordings of one of the concerts he'd lost left, and all of the performers had died in Second Impact. If he'd needed any more proof that SEELE didn't care one bit for the legacy or accomplishments of the Lilim, that would have settled it once and for all.

The other angels could conceal enough LCL to become larger than skyscrapers, after all. Kaworu's collection was nothing as large as that.

Pity. He'd much rather have several tons of music than see one of the others transform into several tons of genocidal monster.

"You weren't projecting your AT field," Dr. Itoh said, answering the unspoken question. "And in this case, the method doesn't matter, it's the capability Dr. Ikari could have observed."

He'd checked? Why? Oh, of course Kaworu was used to SEELE gathering data on every breath he took, move he made and so on, but he'd thought Dr. Itoh no longer really cared about studying Kaworu.

"Does it matter?" Kaworu asked.

Dr. Itoh frowned. "I suppose not." He also supposed he'd tell that traitor to humanity to tell SEELE that their manmade angel had analyzed the risk and decided it was irrelevant instead of acting thoughtlessly.

It would also have been polite to ask if there was anything else, but that would have been an opening for Dr. Itoh to say, 'No,' and leave.

So, "What do you want?" was what Dr. Itoh asked next, recognizing the angel's use of deliberate silence, the kind that pulled words out of people if only in hopes that one of them would satisfy the creature and make it go away.

"I am Adam's vessel, but for now my soul is my own. You of all people should know how little difference there is between," no, not angels and humans, "what you are and what I am." Kaworu smiled even knowing that these were wasted words, because somehow the pain was sweet. Perhaps it was the hope that still lingered, even though he knew better. The power of a wish, even if he didn't have Shinji's glass heart, his ability to, no matter how times he was broken, melt the pieces in the furnace of his will and make it whole, enough to still beat, enough to try again. "So you know what I want, you simply don't believe it."

Hell no, he didn't. Neither: he didn't know what this creature wanted, nor did he believe it was companionship, much less his companionship. When what angels wanted was instrumentality, complementation, not meaningless human feelings like friendship and love.

"What do you want?" Kaworu wondered. Dr. Itoh might not know what it was, but if he truly wanted to leave he would have just walked out already, as he had many times before. "Other than my death. Even if I desired to end my individual existence before the appointed time for me to fulfill my role as Adam's vessel, we both know my AT field responds instantly to threats." So, given the limits of human reflexes, the only person who could kill him would be someone he didn't consider a threat.

Since he only had one friend at the moment, that meant only Shinji could kill him before Adam took him over. That wasn't a very pleasant thought. It wasn't possible for him to kill himself either, any more than Lilim could strangle themselves with their own bare hands.

Seriously? Seriously? This red-eyed demon asked him that? "Oh, I don't know. Just the things I've always wanted, the ones I came up here for in the first place. Humanity's survival, my freedom, revenge for my family." For second impact.

"Still asking for things like that." Kaworu sighed. "Perhaps I should have given up on you back then after all. Well, I'll take care of you now, one way or another," he said, and the two of them vanished.

When they reappeared, the doctor scrambled back, only to trip over a coffee table. Kaworu might have been hurt, except the point had been to sound convincing. Hopefully if Dr. Itoh believed him, SEELE would as well. "I can't give you the other two, although there is someone I believe in." Someone who could-Oh dear.

He knelt down next to the doctor, who was grasping at his chest. "Forgive the intrusion," he said, placing his hands on the man who had always avoided contact, one on his cheek and the other over his heart, the heart that had gone so long without the strain of pumping against full gravity.

Child's play, to reshape a single organism. Child's play almost literally: on his own world, they'd made sure to socialize him, so that he would like people, so that he would know why his purpose was to work for their behalf. So he knew how to deal with planetary children his own age (mental age-equivalent now), even though he'd never thought it safe to turn Shinji into a dragon or any of the other things children had clamored for back on his homeworld.

He did more than repair the heart, the atrophied muscles and the bones that had lost calcium in an environment where there was less need for it. "If I survive, I will put you back the way you were later, but for now this is safer." To hide with a different face when there were eyes in the sky. "This place is stocked with food, although there is no way to reach the outside world." Lest he try to warn the UN about Kaworu as well as SEELE, and die for it. "There is almost no chance SEELE knows it has any connection to me." Not when it was simple enough to tap into and manipulate the world's computer network. "It is unkind of me to put you here alone, but please bear with it. This will be over soon, and then you can resume your life." Hopefully.

Kaworu finally withdrew his hands and let the man speak. "What did you do to me?" he demanded to know, pushing himself away with his hands even though he was too shocked to stand up, or run.

"I have given you a chance to survive." Yes: after all this time, his heart was no better armored than Shinji's. "It's no more than I owe the man who gave me another body and another chance to act. You do know where they obtained this genetic sample, correct?" Since attempts to clone the embryo form of Adam had only yielded lifeless, twisted embryos that refused to grow beyond that stage. "The Traitor, who turned on his kin for the sake of the 'base, fallen' life of this world." Tabris' voice showed what he thought of that description of the Lilim, as twisted as this world had become. "Adam's is not the only soul in my body. I suppose it's reassuring that even you, who spent more time in my company than anyone else, had no idea."

Oh, yes. "Take your clothes off."

Seeing Dr. Itoh's startled expression, he told him, "I will need an explanation for disappearing with you instead of just killing you then and there. If I take your clothing and dip it in LCL, SEELE should be too happy to finally have proof that I can break through Lilim AT fields and absorb their personalities to ask many questions. That isn't something to have on the security cameras, after all." Someone dissolving into LCL. Even the true believers might have their doubts after watching what happened when an angel essentially ate someone's soul, or at least Kaworu certainly hoped so. "And if any of them actually do realize that I am fond of you, they'll assume I gave you the gift of complementation instead of sending you somewhere to continue you meaningless Lilim life."

Kaworu had managed to get out of practicing that before by saying that prisoners that were sent to him weren't worthy and true believers that volunteered should spend the remaining time working towards Instrumentality like everyone else instead of seeking a shortcut to divinity. He supposed he was lucky that he was kept sequestered on the Moonbase: it was much harder to smuggle people up there without questions being asked. He doubted he could have kept finding excuses forever if he was kept in a SEELE facility on earth, with easy access to lives that wouldn't be missed. For that matter, they could have tempted him with the dying, in which case he would have had a choice between absorbing them so they could continue to live just a little longer (long enough for this to be over, so he could make them new bodies) and revealing that he could heal. He had no intention of acting as the Council's Fountain of Youth.

He didn't like to wish anyone dead, but the sooner Kihl died, the better. There were many others to carry on his work, but Kihl was dangerously competent. Kaworu doubted that he could have deceived the man this long if the fact Kaworu simply didn't think like a planetary human wasn't throwing off Kihl's ability to read him. Or actually, he didn't doubt his ability to trick the man, he was certain he couldn't have done it.

The Lilim had raised both the art of deception and the art of detecting lies to a level beyond any other world, he was sure of it. On other worlds, the option of psychic communication meant that refusing to use it was tantamount to admitting that one was lying. When the Lilim sheltered behind their AT fields to escape the twisted thoughts of the other angels, however?

Dr. Itoh knew what Kaworu was talking about: the fact that SEELE wanted him to make sure his creation learned how to do something like that, not just encroach on human minds in order to read them but assimilate them and turn their bodies into the substance that had poisoned the oceans was what set him on the path to realizing their true nature. He still held his coat closed almost protectively.

"You want to keep your uniform?" Kaworu asked. "I would have thought that you'd be glad to finally be rid of it."

"Modesty," Dr. Itoh told him, remembered frustration temporarily overriding shock and fear.

"Oh, yes. I'm never going to understand that." It wasn't that Kaworu had an aversion to clothing, but at first he'd thought the reason everyone on the Moonbase was always dressed in clothing that wasn't art at all was because it had oxygen and other life support for emergencies built in. Everyone on Tethys had worn clothing all the time while he was there, and of course great care had been taken with his clothing, but that was both because it was an art form (and there was a degree of competition and status symbolism and such involved) and because the drag of it slowed them down, made it harder to move in the water. So it was rather like peacebinding a sword for a Tethyan to wear clothing, and since nine-tenths of politeness was proving that you didn't intend to attack? Wearing clothing while hunting, though, was a good way to go hungry.

Even after they'd worked out effective projectile weapons (working under methane made that more complicated than on Earth), combat had taken place in the buff (the slow got shot) until they managed to design body armor with a surface that was as effective at cutting through the water as their skin. Humans were only developing that sort of technology recently, for their Olympic competitions and EVA maintenance while submerged in LCL.

Then Kaworu had been an experiment, kept in a tank naked so they could examine him for deformities or obvious signs of inhumanity. That was almost like Tethys, except they'd talked around him instead of to him and there weren't any toys in the tank. That had puzzled him: clearly they'd intended him to do various things, so why weren't they trying to stimulate the development of what they thought was a new mind?

They still had all the clones they intended to use for dummy plug production in a tank like that, although at least it was a larger tank and they had company in there, even if the fact SEELE didn't want them to develop minds of their own explained the lack of enrichment toys. They were still naked.

Perhaps because for those who considered him a tool, naked was a dehumanizing state? And apparently to be nude meant to be pure in some fashion, too innocent to need clothing.

Well, in that case he might qualify: he didn't have a human sex drive, so he didn't react to the sight of reproductive organs either with interest or feeling threatened by a rival. Still, "Even you Lilim must admit that your rules are utterly inconsistent. You go out of your way to look at each other's organs all the time, but then you become awkward about doing so in person. Is it part of your fear of getting close to others?" Were they afraid that if they looked they would want to touch, when that would involve letting the other person touch back, letting them close? "The phobia about simple human contact you Lilim have isn't natural. Well, hopefully you'll have a healthier attitude once the other angels are defeated."

"Explaining sex and pornography to you was specifically not in my contract," Dr. Itoh informed him.

"Oh, I know about pornography." When he was monitoring the Moonbase's signal traffic. "There's nothing perverse about it: it's only natural to want to look at beautiful things. Why do you think I spend so much time looking at the earth? Just because I don't intend to take it from you doesn't mean that it isn't gorgeous." Even with its seas stained lifeless red.

Of course, the fact that such a large percentage of it was lifeless, that it needed an angel to take it in hand and fix the place up just really made it more tempting for a subspecies that was supposed to do just that. It was a pity that even if he survived this, it was going to take forever to shift Venus' orbit without any other angels to assist him, overpowered AT field or no.

The fact that it already had people, people that needed help, might have somehow made earth even more tempting if that thought wasn't utterly perverted and wrong. He wasn't like the others, he wasn't going to destroy everything the Lilim had built in order to reshape it.

No. Just no.

"It's not the same thing."

"It is, actually. Angels aren't what SEELE thinks we are." Hmm, should he? He knew what Shinji would say, and maybe a joke at a time like this might make Dr. Itoh less worried and more willing to listen. "Well, you see, when a species really, really doesn't want to go extinct…"