Ritsuko felt uneasy.
Normally, she was a woman comfortable in her own amorality. She had done things that would shock most of humankind, even those who had themselves done unspeakable things in the scramble for survival following Second Impact. She'd skipped right past the boring questions of euthanasia and late-term abortion. Off the top of her head, she had chemically altered her own brain, cloned Angels, put a coworker's brain into them, twice, tried to clone a human-Angel hybrid, manipulated her coworkers into almost certain death, including child soldiers, tried to kill at least two out of little more than petulance, incapacitated and tried to kill two different gods, and was actively involved in helping two separate factions of megalomaniacs achieve divinity and world domination. She had literally read treatises on ethics specifically to find taboos which humans had never broken, in the hopes of making a new discovery by so doing. She'd got into the habit of working alone simply because everyone else threw up too much and kept calling the police or committing suicide. Even her mother, who had had her own personality trisected and uploaded to Magi because it was 'convenient', had drawn the line at her method for 'stress-testing' the early synch systems.
She'd done all of this without even losing too much sleep. She was pragmatic about not wanting to see the end of what was left of homo sapiens, and, more importantly, she just wasn't the sort to be bothered by others' suffering or moral hangups. And yet, in spite of all that …
"Your report?" Ikari asked.
"Venkatesh's data was all we needed," she said. "Together with my own transferral research and the older tech, it's all finished and verified. The only thing now is to perform the operation."
"Prepare."
"Yes, Commander." She turned and left. Outside, she popped another modafinil and lit a cigarette. She felt the nearest thing to guilt she had in over twenty years.
Ikari picked up his phone. It was still before dawn, but Rei answered on the fifth ring. "Yes?"
"Rei. It's time."
For a moment, her face crumpled. A heartbeat later, it was smooth and impassive again. "Yes."
She dressed, looked for the last time at the kimono she had hung up so neatly in her wardrobe after the festival last night, and left. Half an hour afterwards, six silent electric Jeeps loaded with black-clad commandos would roll up to her apartment.
A few kilometres away, Shinji's phone rang. Drifting out of a happy dream, he grumbled and cursed Misato for getting that extension cable after the eleventh Angel, but it was in his nature to answer. "Yes? What? Is it another Angel? Okay. Aren't there laws against doing that sort of thing, if there's not an attack? I couldn't do it without wrecking the city again, couldn't you just take the train? This sounds like a really, really bad idea. Okay! Yes … how am I supposed to do that? You saw what happened last night. I'll try. Okay. Goodbye."
He shook his head at her insanity, but still got up, turned on the hallway light, and knocked on Asuka's door.
"Hello? Asuka? Are you awake? You have to get up. I'm coming in, okay? Please don't hit me again …"
He slid open the door, and was rewarded with a growl.
"Are you stupid? It's five a.m. What could possibly be so urgent? If this is about that blue-haired idiot, I'm going to tear off your …"
"Misato says we both have to go in to Nerv," he said; a moment later, Asuka's A-10 connectors flew out at him and bounced off his chest.
"I'm not a pilot any more! So stop trying to drag me back into my psychotic mother's freak show horror womb with these idiotic tricks, and let me get some sleep!"
"She says it's a matter of life and death," Shinji said, taking a step back and raising his hands to protect his head.
A glass of water followed the nerve connectors and shattered against the wall. "It will be!"
Shinji dodged to the side and slammed her door shut. He could take a hint. He dressed and left the apartment. Half an hour later, four electric Jeeps would drive up.
…
Several kilometres away, there were no longer any civilian aircraft at the airport, only rows of UN combat planes landing. Some of them were already fuelled and armed. Major-General Reichner glared at them, as if they had done him great personal wrong, even though they had been under his command the day before. Now they answered to General Hyakutake, who had just arrived from Osaka.
"With all due respect, sir, this all still seems unnecessary," Reichner said. Both men could speak both German and Japanese, as well as English; the conversation was in Japanese. "Nerv is unconventional, but they have never violated the laws of war. We haven't even issued demands yet."
Hyakutake gave him a patronising look. "I should have thought that you of all people would remember that they had dozens of your men killed."
"With respect, sir, that was the Angels. Even the weakest of those abominations could wipe out entire divisions; they destroyed everything we sent at them."
"So when Nerv discovers that their tenure is at an end, they will destroy everything we send at them. Unless we can stop those Evas from deploying, Japan itself is lost. Or given over to those rainbow monsters. What are you waiting for?" he added to an adjutant.
The adjutant spoke into a phone. "Ten Jeeps. Six and fow-er. Do not harm the targets without our order, but wire the buildings. Be ready to terminate with extreme prejudice, even in the face of civilian casualties, over. Affirmative. Over and out."
The two general officers walked along the tarmac. They passed line after line of aircraft, some with pilots joking outside, all surrounded by men bustling about with supplies. A company of infantry marched past, all bearing loaded rifles. A Jet Alone unit guarded the airport; more surrounded the city, supported by tanks. Electronic warfare agents were busy accessing remote Magi ports.
"Well, what about Katsuragi, then?" Reichner went on. "She can't pilot."
"She knows their workings intimately. Without her skills, any resistance is defeated before it can even begin."
They passed a pair of MRLs, both of which had heat-seeking anti-air capabilities. If Misato panicked and overpowered Kaji, they wouldn't be landing anywhere else. Another company of soldiers sat nearby, having an early breakfast. Half had rifles, half mortars with a mixture of shells: fragmentation, high explosive, incendiary, poison gas canisters. Beyond them was another company, this one with rifles, heavy machine guns, and flamethrowers.
Reichner's 2iC, Colonel Mizrahi, who was following half a pace behind Reichner, caught his eye and scowled. He nodded, agreeing with what he knew Mizrahi was thinking.
"This is a violation of the accords of war," Reichner pressed.
"You will keep any further objections to yourself, or be relieved of duty. I do only what is necessary for the survival of my country."
Reichner felt Mizrahi's glare on the back of his neck. The colonel had a very sore spot about gas. Still, he was outranked. There was nothing he could do.
The sun finally rose, just in time to show three armoured VTOLs touching down. Each carried an N2 mine: one for the Geofront armour, one for the pyramid, and one spare.
They heard the drone of an engine from the south. A Snapdragon AWACS plane came into view, heading for the airport.
"In any case, it will only be a problem for little longer," said the General.
The Snapdragon came forward, rolled and yawed in a long J-curve, and touched down on the tarmac. Reichner balled a fist, as thirty men surrounded the plane, guns levelled. The cockpit opened, revealing Kaji and Misato in their flight gear.
"Hello," Misato said, an uncertain smile on her face. "Why is the military here?"
"Major Katsuragi!" shouted a soldier into a megaphone. "Put your hands up and step out of the plane!"
"I, ah, might have omitted some of the truth, Misato," Kaji said, loud enough for the nearest soldiers to hear.
"I see," Misato said. "Well, full disclosure? Me too."
Chitose popped up behind Kaji, drew his gun, and held it to his jaw. There were no towels on the plane; she was still in her yellow plugsuit, crusted with dried LCL, which looked horribly like blood. Her smile and tone were bright and chirpy. "Hi Kaji!"
The soldiers clacked their guns. Hyakutake snapped to a nearby lieutenant, "Get flamethrowers and nerve gas ready!"
"Fifth Child!" said the man with the megaphone. "Release him and leave the aircraft immediately. You have a count of ten."
"In hindsight, the timing for this is pretty narrow," Chitose said to Misato.
"Nine! Eight!"
The earth shook. The soldier with the megaphone glanced around; it sounded like one of the Jet Alones, but it had come from the direction of the city.
Eva Unit-01 sprinted toward them, smashing boom gates and vehicles too large to dodge like a man running through a room full of beach balls. Soldiers dived out of its path, leaving it to knock their Jeeps flying. Hyakutake drew his revolver and fired twice at Chitose; Unit-01 gestured, and both bullets bounced off a faint shimmer of orange light. Unruffled, she flipped Kaji over her back; he bounced against the side of the plane and hit the tarmac, stunned.
Unit-01 crouched over the plane protectively, picked up Chitose and Misato, lifted them to the entry plug, locked commands, and ejected.
"Am I late?" Shinji asked, looking around.
"Just in time," Misato said, climbing into the plug.
"Thank you," Chitose said, a moment behind.
The special weapons teams brought their weapons to bear. The poison gas teams couldn't shoot without risking friendly fire; that left the flamethrower crews. One spat out a tongue of burning napalm at them; AT Fields didn't stop slow-moving fluids, even ones that were on fire. Shinji hit the button to reinsert the plug, and the napalm splashed against its armour. Two VTOL gunships swooped around, firing missiles rapid-fire, but these bounced off its AT Field. Seeing a Jet Alone approach, Shinji synchronised through his passengers' mental noise, and ran for it.
"Is Mr Kaji going to be fine?" he asked.
"Don't worry; I didn't hurt him," Chitose said. "With my physique, I have to really try to injure someone."
"Okay," he said, not exactly reassured. "Misato, should I pick Asuka up?"
"What?! I told you to get her to Nerv an hour ago!"
"You know what she's like!"
She huffed, looked at the virtual display, and made a difficult decision. "No. There are soldiers all around. They must have got her by now, and Kaji said they'd execute her if they thought she was going to escape. An Eva can't exactly sneak up on them."
"I could fetch her," Chitose offered.
"From men with guns?" Shinji asked.
"I fought an Angel hand-to-hand."
"You lost."
"I was holding back."
Shinji gave her a flatly disbelieving look.
"You don't exactly do sneaky either," Misato pointed out.
"You'd be surprised."
"Just take us back to HQ," Misato ordered Shinji. "We'll figure out how to rescue her once we talk things over with the rest of Nerv. Rei's there; with three pilots in Evas, we'll be in a solid position to negotiate."
"Uh, about that," said Chitose. "Asuka said her mother went crazy, so I might not be able to get whatever's in her Eva to let me synch."
"Would that be an issue if we just scrubbed its data and used it blank, like Unit-03 was?"
"'Was'?" Shinji repeated.
"No, but Asuka might not like it if you formatted all that's left of her mother," Chitose said to Misato, then to Shinji, "There was a battle last night in Antarctica. I won, but Unit-03 was vaporised. Those spawns were much less dangerous in water, they were too buoyant, but there were lots of them and the Angel was cancelling my AT Field. Also, I just remembered, does anyone know where Kaworu is? He might possibly be planning to kill us all."
Misato rounded on her. "Why?"
"Seele might have told him to. I've been telling him –"
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"Because I only just remembered," Chitose explained. "Didn't I just say that?"
"Kaworu wouldn't do that," Shinji said.
"He might. Shall we ask him?"
"Yeah, no," said Misato, "let's try not telling him we're on to him." She made her way over to the control panel and made a call. "Makoto, are you in Central Dogma now?"
"Yes," he replied. "You ordered us all to stay here, so we're here. What's going on?"
"Later. I need you to run through all video feeds and see if the Fourth Child is still in the base."
"Give me a … yes, I see him, in the cafeteria."
"What's he doing?"
"Eating breakfast."
Misato facepalmed. "Okay, great. Let me know if he does anything, but don't let him know you're watching him. And tell Ritz to drop whatever the hell she's been doing all night and get to the cages. I need her advice; things are about to get really, really nasty."
Kilometres below, Ikari Gendo took a call. "Yes. I see. I shall investigate. The girl. I see. Yes."
Above him but below Eva, Rei floated naked in a glass tube of orange fluid. Ritsuko took a call, then shook her head.
"Stay here," she said. "Just … try to go to sleep. It'll all be over soon." She turned and left.
Rei trembled.
Above her, Kaworu finished his sushi and set his chopsticks down. He had a choice he could no longer put off making, and no idea what he'd do.
In an undefined location, ten monoliths shone in darkness. 04 and 11 were missing.
…
Unit-01 rode the catapult down to the cages. A reception party was waiting for them: Ritsuko, Fuyutsuki, Maya, a dozen Section Two agents, and the Commander. Shinji raised his eyebrows in surprise: normally it was just a few low-level technicians. Still, he docked as usual, powered Eva down, and ejected the plug.
He hopped out onto the walkway. "Hello. What's going on?" He looked at his father, who spared him only a moment's twitch of his pupils before returning his gaze to the plug.
Misato came out next, squeezing LCL from her hair and regretting not having worn more expendable clothing. "We need a strategy," she said without preamble. "Ritz, Commander, Subcommander?"
Chitose was last. "Is Unit-02 prepped? I think Shinji should stay in Unit-01 while I try to synch, in case it goes berserk, and it'll probably be best if Rei's there, too."
"Seize her," Ikari ordered.
She gave a startled cry, as a Section Two agent grabbed either arm and forced them behind her back. She struggled against them, but for all her combat training, she was pinned and out-massed by a factor of four.
"Commander!" Misato exclaimed. "What are you doing?!"
"The Fifth Child came without authorisation from the Marduk Institute," he said. "Do you know why? Because she destroyed her training facility and killed two thirds of those living in it."
Misato thought back to the photos Ritsuko had sent her, of the annihilated base in the Himalayas. "That was you?"
"I had to!" the girl cried. "They were holding me prisoner! They never would have let me leave! I was going to be stuck there as just clone stock until I died! Or they lobotomised me! Like they did to the Chitosat and Kaworim!" She stomped on one guard's knee; he grunted in pain and twisted her arm enough to make her yelp, and a third agent helped him, blocking her thigh with his leg, keeping her from getting an angle to kick again.
"I was willing to tolerate your presence while you were useful," Ikari continued, "but now you have no Eva, and Seele has demanded custody of you. It's time to pay for your crimes."
Chitose yowled and thrashed harder. "They'll kill me!"
Misato still hadn't forgiven her for hurting Asuka, but she had just killed an Angel that had been giving them grief for months, and she'd been injured protecting a comrade from the previous one. "We should talk this over," she said. "We can't afford to make mistakes now."
"She's still a potential asset," Fuyutsuki murmured in Ikari's ear. "Without the Second Child, if the Fourth is loyal to Seele, she's our only pilot for Unit-02."
"She saved Kaworu from the seventeenth Angel," Shinji said, finally looking his father in the eye. "She helped me with the thirteenth. And finally killed the twelfth. I don't know anything about the Himalayas, but we can't just hand her over."
"I have made my decision," said Ikari, with finality.
Shinji looked to Misato, who looked to Ritsuko and Maya, who both looked away.
"No!" Chitose cried. She headbutted a guard behind her; another smacked her hard in the back of the head. Ritsuko saw a little piece of green plastic flutter loose, and her heart skipped a beat. She put an arm in front of Maya's chest and took several rapid steps backward, pulling the tech with her.
"But –" said Shinji.
"Take her to the surface," Ikari ordered.
The Section Two Agents began to drag Chitose toward the exit, kicking and screaming.
"No!"
Misato saw Ritsuko's expression as she dragged Maya away, put two and two together, and tackled Shinji to the ground, a moment before there was a blast and a noise like bells and shattering glass.
She held him down until the ringing stopped, then looked up. Chitose was crouched over, braced against the catwalk, sobbing. Orange light played across her body; the eye whose coloured contact lens had been knocked out glowed dull red. Ritsuko, Maya, and Fuyutsuki stared, appalled. They and the walkway were drenched with an orange-red fluid. On the catwalk lay the skeletons, still in their uniforms, of the Section Two agents and of Commander Ikari.
The Angel alarm blared, drowning out Chitose's crying and the dripping of liquefied human. Shinji stared, his mind refusing to parse what he saw. Then another person entered the room.
"Schatz!"
"Get back!"
Kaworu's face twisted into a snarl and his eyes lit up; Chitose's red eye brightened to the same colour. The alarms flipped to AGGRAVATED ALERT. She leapt to her feet; each glared at the other, and orange light clashed between them.
Misato didn't even waste the time to yell for Shinji to move, she just grabbed his wrist and dragged him away from the AT-enraged Nephilim. Ritsuko and Fuyutsuki ran ahead, but Maya took the time to grab Shinji's other arm. They made it past the cages' blast door; Ritsuko hit a button and it slammed shut behind them.
Tamiel gestured at the pile of skeletons, and they flew up and at Tabris; he flinched before blocking, giving her an opening for a flying axe kick to the chest, driving him backward. She landed and threw a cross punch, which glanced across his jaw. He replied with a left hook, which she ducked; he changed direction, and a flare of AT energy dissolved the catwalk's support strut. She tackled him, sending them spinning through space, punching, elbowing, kneeing, scratching and biting each other. They crashed to the ground, with Tabris on top. She blocked a punch to her face, and a railing post tore itself free of its own accord and slammed into him from the side, knocking him off and into a corridor. Tamiel leapt to her feet and followed through with an energy blast; it angled off his shield and blew out the ceiling, down onto his head.
"Let it bury you! It'll block the Terror!"
"I can't!"
His Field sliced the falling ceiling to pieces and hurled them at her. She dodged most, blocked the rest, and lunged for him again. She landed two jabs to his stomach; he took them and replied with a roundhouse kick; she caught his leg under one arm and threw him. He levitated and spun, like the eighteenth Angel had done, but Tamiel was expecting it this time, and landed a solid uppercut on his chin.
"What do we do?" Maya asked, beginning to hyperventilate. Her counsellor had recommended she avoid stress during her psych leave. She'd had a bad feeling when Misato had ordered her in, but apparently not bad enough.
"It's their AT Fields," Ritsuko said. She found a terminal and logged in, tapping her fingers with irritation as it took a good forty seconds to boot. "It's enraging them."
"Then separate them," Fuyutsuki said. "They'll tear the whole base apart if they fight it out."
"Are we not caring that they're apparently both Angels?" Misato asked.
"Technically, they're Nephilim, not proper Angels," said Ritsuko, pronouncing it 'Nefurin'.
Misato gave her a 'are you really being a pedant at a time like this' look.
"They're not going to cause Third Impact," she said. "Probably. And they're not from Adamite embryos, they just have his genes cloned in, like we tried with Rei, except I doubt they have any Lilith."
"You knew?"
"I guessed it was why Kaworu could pilot. I didn't know about her."
Misato's phone rang: Makoto again. She gave it to Maya to fill him in.
"We can sort out what to do with them later," Fuyutsuki said, "after my base is secure."
His pronoun took them all by surprise, even he himself: Ikari was really dead. Fuyutsuki was the new Commander. And there were two nigh-unstoppable monsters rampaging through what was left of HQ.
"Shinji," Misato decided. "Unit-01 could survive their AT crossfire and pull them apart."
He stared at her, his eyes twitching.
"Shinji," she repeated, a little louder.
"They were my friends," he said, dazed.
"I know. I know it's hard, but –"
"But what?!" he roared; everyone else took a step back in shock at the sudden fury of the normally placid Third Child. "But your friends haven't all been kidnapped by the Army, or turned out to be lying to you since you met them, or killed your father?! Have I missed anything? What about Ayanami, maybe she's a Nephilim too?"
He was speaking rhetorically, but Akagi still flinched. He stared.
"Are you serious? Is there anyone here who isn't secretly an Angel?"
There was a groan of metal from somewhere else in the base, as Chitose hit Kaworu with an office.
"It's just them," Ritsuko said, "and they're only half-Angels, and Rei isn't even that, I couldn't –"
"Do you think I care? What the hell do you expect me to do?! I piloted Eva to hear praise from my father, and now he's dead, and three people who I thought were my friends were Angels all along, and he never even said my name since the tenth, so have I achieved anything at all since then, except almost getting killed, repeatedly? No!"
"Shinji!" Misato gasped. "We're depending on you!"
"No," he said, quietly again. "Solve your own problems for once. Leave me alone."
There came a crash of collapsing masonry.
"Shinji!" said Misato. "Shinji. If you don't do it, they're going to kill each other. Shinji!" He gave no response. "Fine. Ritz, call Rei up."
"Ah," said Ritsuko.
Misato gave her a cold look. "What. Is it."
"You're not going to like it."
"You didn't say that when you told me that the only way to fight the eighth Angel was to dunk a fourteen-year-old in a magma pool."
"Yes. Well, I … may have erased Rei's memories and personality. Permanently. She'll be a vegetable if we try to use her before they're all completely formatted, which will take another half hour, and then another hour to get her moving at all, and even then, there's no guarantee she'll be willing or able to pilot. And, honestly, that's all rather optimistic. Plus there's a significant chance she'll just die."
The others all stared at her in horror.
"What were you thinking?" Misato cried. "Why would you do that?"
"Commander's orders," Ritsuko said.
Shinji gave a hysterical sob, and turned and ran. Misato made to chase after him, but stopped. It wouldn't achieve anything.
"It's a long story," Ritsuko said lamely.
"Is there any chance at all that she could pilot?" Misato asked, turning back to her.
"Well … no. None."
Misato grabbed her phone back from Maya and hung up on Makoto. "Rei? Pick up!"
In Ritsuko's lab, Rei crouched in a ball, crying. Her hand bled from shards of glass embedded in the knuckles. Behind her, the shattered tube slowly leaked out the dregs of the LCL, and the computer terminal flashed ERROR: ABORTING. She was in no condition to even hear her phone going off at the far end of the room, never mind answer it.
Misato redialled Makoto instead. "Release the Bakelite. Drop the blast doors. Everything. Just get them apart!"
A Bakelite valve opened above the two Nephilim; Tamiel spared a thought to jam it shut, and Tabris hit her with a blow that could have destroyed a heavy tank. She rolled with it, her AT Field throwing obstacles such as load-bearing walls out of her way. He flew at her and kneed at her face; she dodged and swung him around and into a wall. He bounced off, and she jump-kicked him into Unit-02's cage.
It had remained largely unused since Asuka quit; Unit-02 was stored in LCL, as Unit-01 had been when Shinji first arrived at Nerv a year and a half ago. The lights were off, leaving the Nephilim illuminated only by the light of their attacks and defences. Tabris ricocheted off two support poles; Tamiel rammed him, straddled his chest, and slammed his head against the catwalk. He waved at a pole, and it broke free and flew toward Chitose's blind side, but she'd expected him to copy her earlier move. She raised a hand, blocking it with an octagon of orange light, and simultaneously elbowed him in the face, once, twice, three times, smashing his nose and drawing blood; he reversed his hand and blasted the floor out from under them both. He twisted out of her grip and spun in space, dropping her down into the LCL with a terrific splash. The glow in his eyes faded; he floated up and landed on what was left of the walkway.
"Stay down," he shouted into the darkness below. "Don't try to get up. Just … give me a minute. I need to think about this. I'm sorry, Schätzchen. I was too close; when you denatured them, the AT flare set me off. Seele wants … I need to think."
By way of response, there was a glub of air from below. The LCL had been left to stand; it would be harder to breathe than air, but she'd live. The alarms finally deactivated.
He shook his head and pushed his broken, bleeding nose back into place with an audible click. When they'd learnt martial arts, he'd got right into the arts part, but she was always more interested in the martial. On top of that, she'd obviously practised specific counters for most of his moves. "I really shouldn't have shown you my fighting style in the sims."
The lights turned on, revealing Misato walking toward him, gun in hand.
"Hello, Major," Kaworu said, trying a smile. She pointed her gun at him, and he gave it up. "You know that won't work."
She put it away, but not her glare. "What. The hell."
"Chitose and I are Nephilim," he said. "Born of Adam. Seele tried hundreds of trials to achieve this. Many have some of his genes, but we were the only two to manifest viable S2 organs, and AT Fields. We've been avoiding one another to prevent an incident like this, ever since Berlin."
"You two caused that?"
"This was before the effects of AT Field interaction were well-understood. And before she learned how to control her special ability. She calls it her capacitance attack. You know how camera flashes work? It behaves similarly, except that instead of light, it creates an AT explosion."
Misato thought of Berlin, the Himalayas facility, the destruction of the seventeenth Angel. The other powers explained the Seele goons from when she first arrived, and the eighteenth Angel, where Chitose had used her Field, just enough to break its defence and take the edge off its attacks, but not enough to be visible.
"Her powers appeared shortly before mine. Asuka was taken off-base while the scientists studied what she could do, and tried to see whether they could induce a similar awakening in me and the other attempts. They couldn't, but a few days later my powers developed anyway. We went down to breakfast; as soon as we saw each other, we flew into rages, with no understanding of how to calm down, or what our powers could do. We duelled until she used her capacitance attack and destroyed the base. I barely survived. Our handlers were all killed in the crossfire or explosion."
"Why are you both here now?"
"I am because Seele willed it," Kaworu said simply. "They wanted a competent pilot, who would open the doors for them when Instrumentality was at hand. She is because she wants to be free, and she cannot be if Angels or Seele destroy the world."
"The Human Instrumentality Project. You know what it is?"
"Of course I do. I'm its centrepiece. A less ambiguous term for Instrumentality might be 'apotheosis'. The desire to turn a human into a god. To achieve power, immortality, and knowledge, in one vessel. To perform the forbidden ritual, and combine the Fruits of Knowledge and Life."
"That would be the Nephilim?"
"We are one manifestation of that goal," he said. "Another is Unit-01. The ultimate goal, however, is to transplant a working S2 organ into a living human, to cheat death. The Human Instrumentality Committee wishes to perform this ritual on themselves, and ascend to a higher form of life."
"You mean they want to turn themselves into Angels?"
"Yes. Of course, given the … antagonistic nature of the AT Field, they will reserve this privilege for themselves. They have partitioned the world, and each shall have their own region for his dominion."
"They want to rule the world, as emperors," Misato said.
Kaworu shook his head. "No. As gods. Proud, vengeful gods."
Misato set her jaw. "Then I'm going to stop them. And you are going to stay out of my way."
He raised an eyebrow. "You have no usable Evas, you're surrounded by elite troops outnumbering you a hundred to one, and you have literally nothing that can even scratch me."
She stared the half-Angel down.
"My team and I have spent the past eighteen months killing beings that lesser men have taken for gods. Every single one of them could have destroyed the human race ten times over. We've fought them, seventeen times, and won, seventeen times. Seele thinks I'll give up if they take my weapons and set the entire world against me? You can tell your masters that I am not afraid."
Kaworu watched her turn and leave, but he did not move, and he did not pass that message on.
…
Not far away, Shinji curled in a ball, crying for his lost friends and faith and future. He stayed that way for long enough that time stopped meaning anything. Sometime later, he felt a soft hand on his back. A girl sat next to him, and pulled his head down onto her lap to cry. She twined her fingers through his hair and stroked it gently. He wept like that for a minute longer, before wiping his eyes and looking up at her.
"A–Ayanami? D–Doctor Akagi said …"
"I am a coward," Rei whispered. She had showered and dressed again, and smelled of nothing except herself. "I ran away."
"I … I ran too."
She said nothing, but ran her fingers through his hair again.
"I don't want to go back. Please don't make me go back."
"I won't," she promised.
"I'm glad you ran."
She said nothing for a while. Then, at a whisper, "Yes."
"… Are you an Angel?" he had to ask.
"No," she said. "I should have been. I am not."
She pulled his head back down to her lap and ran her fingers though his hair again. He let his eyes fall shut.
…
Five holograms lit up around Commander Fuyutsuki.
"Where is the girl?" Kihl demanded said without preamble. "Where is Ikari?"
"She killed him," Fuyutsuki said shortly. "Using her Angelic powers. We would have appreciated forewarning about that."
"We told you to give her up," said Red. "We told you she was dangerous."
"She then duelled the Fourth Child," Fuyutsuki continued. "Who used his Angelic powers. By my count, that makes three Angels that you've let into our base."
"Two," Kihl corrected, not bothering to quibble over the ninth. "They share Adam's soul. When one dies, the other will become the final Angel. And we do not answer to you. You answer to us!"
"Then, my answer is that, of our five pilots," Fuyutsuki began counting off on his fingers, "one has had her memory wiped by Ikari as part of his insane plan to resurrect his dead wife, the UN army kidnapped one, on your orders, one is blubbering in a corner, and the last two are an Angel trying to kill half of itself. We cannot make the Fifth Child do anything without a pilot to defeat her AT Field. Give us the Second Child, and we will give you the Fifth."
"We will hold the Second until you have surrendered Nerv to us," said Green.
"Then I don't see how you expect me to apprehend half an angry Angel."
"My patience with your tone wears thin," Kihl warned. "First, stop Ikari's plan for his wife. Then, surrender to us all of Nerv's Evas; Adam, and all cloned cells; all of Venkatesh's data; and Akagi's refinement of it. Forget the rebel. Tabris is more than a match for her."
"That is a complete list of your demands?" Fuyutsuki asked.
"If you dare consider refusal, it will mean your death, and we shall simply take it all."
"No. My apologies, Chairman, but Nerv is in disarray right now. The Commander has been killed and there are two half-Angels rampaging through our headquarters. I will comply with your wishes, but it will take time to arrange, under the circumstances."
"Then we shall assist. The UN army is standing by."
"I must decline. My staff is panicking from the battle; the presence of armed men would push them too far."
"You are sentimental, Fuyutsuki."
"Only when cruelty would not achieve results, Chairman. Give us time, and we will comply to the letter with every one of your wishes, and surrender quietly, with no fuss or risk. I am not Ikari; I never approved of his treachery. I have no designs on Instrumentality. If I did, I would have betrayed Ikari well before now."
The Committee considered this.
"You have until sunset to deliver everything and surrender unconditionally," Kihl ruled. "If there are any failures, we shall send the Army."
"There will not be, Chairman," said Fuyutsuki. The holograms vanished and the lights came back on, revealing Misato and Ritsuko behind him. "How long until sunset?"
"Twelve hours," Ritsuko said, lighting a cigarette. "Assuming they believe you, and they keep their word and don't attack before then."
"If they do?"
"We're doomed," said Misato. "We couldn't hold out against a company without Eva, and they have an entire army out there. Shinji's run off somewhere, and even if I knew where he was, I don't know how to get him to pilot. I … I was never great at being a mother to him."
"And if they wait until sunset?"
"We'll have a pilot then," Misato said, checking her gun. Loaded, with a spare clip.
Ritsuko held her cigarette between her fingers and exhaled. "You're insane. They must have at least a platoon guarding her. They might as well have an entire division. If she's even still alive, and still in your apartment, and you do somehow get all the way out there and then all the way back, we still don't know if she can even pilot. She didn't quit because she wanted to retire early; she quit because her synch rate dropped to zero when she realised her insane dead mother was what let her synchronise. What makes you think that's changed?"
"It probably hasn't. But I'm not talking about Asuka, I'm talking about Shinji. I can't get him to pilot with just words. It's going to take actions. It's going to take me risking my life to save the girl he loves. If I can get her back, so good. If I die, it's still an action. Maybe it'll be enough to make him realise we care, and get him back into Eva."
"You do realise they'll execute Asuka, just to be sure, if you try and fail," Ritsuko said.
"Yes, but I also realise that they'll do that anyway if we surrender. Once the Committee's all got S2 organs, they're not going to want any competition. They've already destroyed one Eva; they'll do the rest, as well as anyone who's ever laid eyes on one, and especially the pilots. Why did you think they wanted everything kept so secret all this time? So that it's easy to contain now. The only chance any of us has to leave here alive is if we win."
"Against the entire UN?"
Misato sighed. "We don't have any other choices right now. If we can get even one Eva working and hold off the first wave, we'll be in a position to negotiate. We could try talking to Maj-Gen Reichner, if we could get a full parley; he's an honourable man and he's fought alongside us. We could try to expose Seele and maybe make them lose control of the army. We'd have more options than we have now. It's our only hope. The question, is what do we do with the Nephilim."
"Well … they are both viable pilots …" Ritsuko mused.
Misato stared. "Are you out of your mind?"
"You're the one who just said we were out of options."
"Of them, one is literally working for the organisation that wants to kill us, and the other just murdered our Commander and half our security staff."
"I grant you it's not ideal," Ritsuko admitted, "but I don't think Kaworu is truly committed to Seele. I think they never let him around anyone else his own age, and now that he has, he's made friends, and he isn't going to let them die. Borderline omnipotence notwithstanding, he's a teenage boy; he's not going to tell his girlfriend that he let her best friend be executed. As for Chitose, she only ever had a problem with Ikari personally, not with the rest of us. She has a good sense of self-preservation, and Seele wants to kill her, too. Either could be usable."
"Your gut intuition about a boy you've barely ever spoken to is not a good foundation for any sort of plan," said Misato. "And it doesn't matter if she doesn't 'have a problem' with us. This isn't the first time she's cost us high-value personnel. Asuka, the Commander, at least half the blame for Shinji refusing to pilot now, arguably even Kaworu, and she's just destroyed about ten percent of HQ … what would she have to do to make you not want to let her pilot?"
"Lose," Ritsuko said simply. "Our backs are to the wall; we have to take any chance we get."
"Katsuragi is right," Fuyutsuki ruled. "God knows we can't afford to lose whatever she blows up next. Right now, they're restraining each other. We'll leave them, and plan Katsuragi's –"
There was a crash from outside.
Misato was first out. It came from Unit-02's cage, where Kaworu was still guarding Chitose; or rather, where she had been. He was still there, looking sheepish, but the base of the dam holding the LCL in had blown outward, and the LCL had washed out. They could read the word 'SORRY' scratched into Unit-02's foot.
"And now what was briefly a potential asset has turned into a mass-murdering half-Angel loose in the base. Again," Ritsuko undertoned. "And nothing's keeping him here any more."
"Do you know where she went?" Misato asked Kaworu.
"Well." He pointed at Chitose's farewell message. "That might mean the collateral damage or my nose, but I doubt that because she doesn't care about one and the other has regenerated by now." He was right; his face looked as good as new, other than being crusted in blood. "I suspect she actually means that she's going to murder the Chairman of the Human Instrumentality Committee."
Fuyutsuki considered this. "If Seele controls the military, than destroying them could save us. Will she succeed?"
"I doubt that, too," Kaworu said. "Partly because he has some … special bodyguards, but mostly because I don't think she actually knows where he lives, beyond 'somewhere in Germany'. It's quite a big country."
They considered this.
"Speaking of not knowing where people are," said Ritsuko, "where's Kaji?"
…
Three soldiers stood guard at one end of the airport. One had a cigarette; another was staring at some passing clouds; the third was actually scanning a back road to the airport for any threats. An Eva didn't exactly require a lot of attention to spot, but he was a professional, and as it so happened he did spot something: another soldier, driving a Jeep covered by a tarp.
He waved as it approached and slowed. "Hi. Who's your CO?"
"Captain Shikinami," the driver said.
The sentry frowned. "Wait, you're a woman. And what are you, sixteen?"
"Fifteen, actually," she said, "people are always thinking I'm older, though." There were two snaps from behind the sentry; his comrades' bodies floated up and into the Jeep, and a tarp folded itself neatly over them; for a moment, another four dead soldiers were visible under it. She patted the passenger seat. "Do you know any passwords or other security measures that there are to stop me from borrowing a plane?"
The sentry nodded, and climbed into the truck. She drove along the road, humming a J-pop cover of Angel with a Shotgun.
"I could do with a shotgun, actually; I think one would be useful later. I'd really like to look around at all the stuff here and find one, but I don't think I have time. Your friends have probably already found the first platoon I ran into. They're not really identifiable as human any more, even with DNA testing, but what else would it be? Especially given a Jeep's missing and its GPS is deactivated. Oh, by the way, do you know how to fly a plane?"
"I'm infantry," he said.
She tutted. "That's no reason not to learn. I wonder if I could? Could it be any harder than piloting an Eva? This Jeep's pretty easy. Then again … ooh, do you know where Kaji-san is?"
"Who?"
"The man who I came with. He has a ponytail and doesn't shave properly?"
"I don't know."
"Hmm. Also, I was thinking I should probably arrange for a distraction. Do you now where the nearest ammo dump is? And are there N2 mines here? You must have brought at least one if you were worried about going against an Eva."
"I don't know."
"You're not a very inquisitive man."
"I'm just a private. They don't tell me anything. Need to know."
"Nothing?" Chitose asked, one hand on the wheel, looking around the airfield with unbridled curiosity, her tone still buoyant but a little disappointed. "Well … here's my line of thinking. I need someone who can help me past security here, and I need someone who can tell me about what ordinance you have. I wouldn't want to risk having two hostages at once, given you are rather a lot bigger than me and I'm only mostly invincible, so the logical course of action would be to repeatedly find a new friend, kill the old one, and stop when I find someone more helpful."
"I … heard someone mention them. Probably in armoured VTOLs. I'd guess Skarmories. That's all I know."
"Is there some sort of procedure for detonating N2 mines, do you know? I mean, with atomic bombs, if you set off a regular bomb next to them, you don't get a chain reaction, because the fissile material never reaches critical mass, but this is different technology. The last time I set one off I used its detonator properly, but I don't think I'll have time for that here."
"I don't – I've never heard anyone say anything about that."
"Hmm. Neither have I, and I've read that they use cryogenic octaazacubane, so probably not."
"How on Earth do you know that?"
"A manual which a boy called Kensuke told me how to find. I ask lots of questions and I read a lot. It's surprising how often people are surprised what I know, given that. The manual also said that N2 mines are normally stored in an armoured and refrigerated bunker, so that a sneak attack can't set them off, but Nerv isn't in a position to try that anyway. Skarmories are bombers, aren't they, and you've been expecting to use one in a first wave against the Geofront armour, so they're probably still loaded, aren't they?"
"Maybe."
They came to a makeshift fence with another sentry.
"Back already?" asked the second guard.
"We're supposed to bring forward some more ammo," said the first.
"What for? They can't fight us. And not a lot of women in the Army," said the second to Chitose. "You had to've lied about your age to get in."
"No, she's eighteen," the first said. The second shrugged and let them through, to the runways laden with warplanes.
She drove along to a bomber surrounded by fighters, one so squat and heavily armoured it looked like it wouldn't be able to take off. Another three soldiers were guarding it.
"Hi," Chitose said. "Is there an N2 mine on that plane?"
"That's insanely classified information," said their sergeant, hefting his rifle and disengaging the safety. The other two soldiers followed suit. "The sort of thing no private would ask, not without signed written orders, unless she happened to be a spy. A really bad one. Also, I don't think we have any women in the rank and file in this division; I only know of women officers. And spies."
"I'm definitely not a spy."
Her hostage mouthed 'she's a spy' to the sergeant.
"Who's your CO?" said the sergeant, hoping to catch her handler too.
"Captain Shikinami."
"Never heard of him."
"She. And she's really very good."
"Do you have her phone number?"
"No," said Chitose, and snapped the men's necks by blinking. Her passenger lunged at her; she killed him without looking. She telekinetically lifted her tarp, dropped all four men under it, and looked through her victims' belongings. The first lot of soldiers had been a sapper team, laying shaped charges around the Geofront armour, presumably to save using an N2 mine that would obliterate much of the city; one of them had had a mass of plastic explosives and a remote detonator on him, now lying loose. She levitated the plastic and smooshed it against the plane's belly, and pocketed the remote.
"Hey there, honey. Come here often?"
"Hello, Kaji," she said, turning around. "How did you find me?"
"It's my job to notice details, like your face even when you're in disguise and wearing that concealing cap. Pretty ballsy of you, by the way. I would never have dared it."
"Actually, at least seven people have made me so far, counting you," Chitose admitted. "And I think most of these guys don't even know about me; Seele must have assumed Kaworu would kill me, and not bothered warning them. Why are you still free? I'd assumed you would have been taken for interrogation somewhere."
"I'm a really good fast talker," he said. "Weren't you covered in LCL earlier?"
"I showered," she explained. She'd wondered whether it would be worth the time, but decided that her disguise wouldn't hold up for long enough if she was spattered in what looked and smelled like blood, and it wasn't as though she couldn't spare a few minutes. Nerv couldn't stop her, and Kaworu was no match as long as she stayed away from catwalks he could drop her off.
"Hey!" called another soldier. "You! Don't you know she's –" He was cut short with a crack.
"Eight. Do you have the keys to one of these planes?"
"What did you think I've been doing for the past half hour? It's this Zig, here."
"Hey! You two! Stop!"
Bullets flew overhead. Kaji ducked; Chitose gestured in all directions, and the nearest five planes flipped, bounced, and burst into flames. She turned, spotted the man shooting at her, and turned him to goo and bones. Bones are mineral and hold together even after cells are denatured; she could grind them down by brute force like she did her old minder and the guards who came to take her back, all those months ago, but that took time and was only useful for hiding a body.
Kaji hopped into his plane and turned on the radio. "Mayday, mayday, the Fifth Child is at the airport! I'm taking off!"
Chitose threw two more planes up in the air, blew one of them to bits, made sure that she was obscured by smoke and flaming debris, and hopped into Kaji's plane, a two-seater with no free space. She pulled her cap down low over her face and tucked her hair into her shirt. He shut the roof and hit the engines.
One of the planes she'd thrown had hit another and set the second one on fire too; another had done the same for a fuel tanker, which went up like a volcano, raining scraps of burning fuel across the entire airport. Firefighting teams sprayed foam liberally, and the Jet Alone strode into the blaze, looking for her.
Kaji's radio crackled. "Where do you think you're going?" asked Hyakutake. "Over."
"Away from the psychotic Angel girl with a personal grudge against me. Fighting her isn't my job. Over." Kaji flew up and away, heading west.
"We need your intel on the ground. Land at the emergency airstrip, south of here. Over."
"Negative. Our mutual benefactor has just requested my company. Over."
"That's convenient. Over."
"Hardly. He wants to chew me out in person for failing to notice her stowing away for the entire flight. It sounds like fun. Maybe there'll be cake. Over."
"Maybe there'll be a bullet in your head. Over."
"Maybe. Either way, he sounded angry. I'm not going to be the one to hold him up. Over."
"Fine. Run along, little spy. Over and out."
Kaji killed the radio. "He's about to call ahead and confirm that with the Chairman. We'll be shot down in minutes. Any ideas?"
"Yes! I arranged a distraction for this very contingency. Brace yourself!" So saying, she pulled out her detonator and pressed the button.
The explosives blew up the Skarmory, set off the N2 mine, triggered the other two, and turned the entire airport into a mushroom cloud. The shockwave spun their little Zig around like a top; Kaji swore and rode the wave for over a kilometre before righting the plane.
"Are you out of your fucking mind?! You Goddamn lunatic! I wanted a distraction, not fuckingArmageddon!"
"What, you don't think that'll distract him?" Chitose asked, concerned.
"I – you –"
"I mean, an N2 mine was a pretty good distraction the last time I set one off on top of a military base I'd just AT-blasted. Also, and this isn't really related, but do you know why people keep calling me insane?"
…
The Nerv leadership looked up, hearing the rumble from above.
"What the hell was that?" Misato asked.
"Are they bombarding us already?" Fuyutsuki suggested.
Ritsuko checked her sensors. "From the seismograph, I'd say that someone just dropped an extra-large N2 mine on the airport. The epicentre was far away enough that our armour should be fine, maybe with some minor damage."
"The UNTMF has no reason to destroy their own forward base. There's only person who would want to, who also happens to be a walking N2 mine, and who doesn't much care about collateral damage. And you wanted to put her back in Eva."
"Honestly, I'm more curious than ever about what would happen, now. What are you –?"
Misato power-walked to the nearest armoury. Ritsuko and Fuyutsuki followed, and found her collecting a second gun, running shoes, two grenades, and a wad of plastique. "They're distracted now. I'm going after Asuka."
"What? But they'll be on top alert now, and for all you know, Asuka might have died in the blast."
Misato shamelessly stripped out of her usual uniform and dressed in a set of army fatigues. "They can keep up full alert for twelve hours. It's now or never. If I don't make it back, tell Shinji I'm sorry."
Ritsuko opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't think of a good counterargument, and then it occurred to her that she was probably seeing her friend for the last time.
"Good luck, Misato," was all Fuyutsuki said.
Ritsuko nodded.
Misato saluted both, swallowed, said, "Goodbye," and turned and left.
…
Kaworu stood unmoving, his head bowed. He still hadn't really made his decision. He'd warned Seele that Chitose had escaped, but that didn't mean anything. It had been a matter of minutes before they figured it out anyway; she had a way of making her presence known.
The two arguments warred in his head for the last time. He owed everything to Seele: his life, his world view, his duty. He'd already failed them. He liked his fellow pilots. He didn't want them to die. He didn't want to see the world as it would be after Instrumentality, not after he'd seen what it was like before. But he owed Seele.
Memories ran through his head: making music with Asuka and Shinji, staying up late to talk to Chitose on the phone, that time Hikari had shyly kissed him on the cheek, once when he'd held his own at basketball against Toji, even lunch with that girl whose name he couldn't remember any more. Defeating the fourteenth Angel, the celebratory meal after. One time when he'd been out walking with Hikari, and she'd silhouetted the sunset, and he'd spent two hours that night painting the image.
He tried to remember his father's face, back in Neuburg-Schrobenhausen, and was only slightly surprised to realise that he couldn't. Those years had been overwritten by his experiences of the past few months, when he'd finally learnt the true meaning of humanity.
His connections to back then, however, remained. It was the foundation of everything he was. He couldn't throw that away without knowing what else he could be.
He stood unmoving, his head bowed.