Chapter 38 - Open Our Heart To Our Eva?
Shinji stared across the table at Asuka, his mouth opening and closing as his brain struggled to process what she had just said.
"Your... your mother?" he finally managed to choke out. "But... you said-"
"I know what I said," Asuka cut him off, her eyes flicking to him for a second before staring down at the table with her forehead resting on her free hand. That hand, too, was trembling, and Shinji was fairly certain that one of her legs was fidgeting rapidly as well.
"Asuka," he gingerly said. He didn't want to consider that she was lying, or that her extended stay inside Unit-02 had taken a toll on her mind, but there was one thing that, right until this very moment, he had been sure about. "Do you... want me to call NERV?"
There was no response for a few seconds, until suddenly Asuka's free hand formed a fist and smacked down on the table. "No," she replied. "If I'm right, they... never mind for now."
Now Shinji was starting to get concerned.
"You're thinking I've gone mental after being stuck in my Eva, aren't you?"
There was no point trying to deny it. "Well, a very small part of me is thinking that," Shinji admitted, gamely withstanding the look Asuka gave him. "We've both gone through so much this year. But I'm just going to shut up and let you talk. You did imply that it could affect me too."
Asuka huffed bemusedly. "Smart." She took a deep breath and sat upright, her hand gently slipping out of Shinji's grasp and rising up to her head. "Okay. I remember... fighting that Angel and our power going out, then suddenly it was like I woke up after a long sleep. I looked around, and I was back in my bedroom in Germany. The home I'd stayed in until not long after..."
Shinji waited patiently as Asuka trailed off for a moment, grimly recalling how he too had once been living with his parents a long, long time ago. Until... that happened and then he'd ended up living with that teacher who, while a decent person, was not his family.
"So I look around, pretty sure I'm just dreaming," Asuka went on, various emotions parading across her face as she spoke. "But everything seems far too... real. I can feel the fabric of the bedsheets, hear the rain pattering against the window. And then... Mama walks into the room, and right then I knew it wasn't a dream. I mean, I've had dreams involving her before, obviously. Not all of them good ones either. But they'd always been... fuzzy. Weird. Obviously dreams. But this? It was like I'd actually been sent back in time.
"Then... the moment she sees me, Mama rushes over to me, pulls me out of bed and hugs me." Asuka wrapped her arms around herself in a pale imitation of the hug, her eyes vacantly staring into the past. "She starts talking about how great it is to finally hold me for real and..."
Shinji inhaled sharply. "Is that... when you realised that she's been inside Unit-02 this whole time?"
Asuka's head shot up so fast it made him flinch. She looked at him for a moment, then gave a shaky nod. "Yeah. I'm back home in Germany, but I'm still the same age. Mama wasn't talking about how long it'd been since we'd last met or anything like that, she was acting like she'd... I dunno... been on the other side of a pane of glass for the last decade. Watching me. She was happier about holding me than seeing me.
"After that, we... well... talked." The corners of Asuka's mouth started to turn upwards, and her eyes were beginning to shimmer. "To know that she'd been with me all along, I just..." She broke off, roughly wiping the back of a hand across her face. "Damnit, I swore at Mama's funeral that I'd never cry again..."
"Asuka..." Shinji reached out and gently grasped her hand, ignoring the dampness as he pulled it away from her face, causing Asuka to gasp sharply in surprise. "I don't see any problem with that. After all your mother is alive, isn't she?"
She looked at his hand clasping her own, eyes darting between it and his face. Shinji felt a sudden strong urge to let go and apologise for being so forward, but he managed to stubbornly hold firm.
"S-Shinji, I..." Her free hand coming up to finish drying her eyes, Asuka took a deep breath. "I'm not really sure what is going on with her right now. How is she in the Eva when I saw-" She cut herself off.
"Saw... her body?" Shinji hazarded a guess. It was the only thing that made sense; Asuka would have seen her mother's body at the funeral, if not at some point before then.
"...Yeah," Asuka mumbled. "How the hell is it possible?"
"I wish I could answer that, I really do." Shinji exhaled in exasperation. "We pilot giant robots to fight aliens, our friend can see people's souls, you own my soul... but I don't have an explanation for that."
"Hah, if you could explain it I'd consider you smarter than Doctor Akagi," Asuka replied with a smirk that quickly faded into wide-eyed astonishment. "Wait... do you think NERV knows?"
Shinji opened his mouth, then closed it and frowned. Something like this... a pilot's dead mother somehow inhabiting an Evangelion, surely NERV would have to know about it, right? Doctor Akagi was constantly running scans on the Evangelions. There was no way she could have happened to miss the fact that a second... or rather third mind was inside Unit-02.
"I... really don't know," he admitted. "If they did, somebody would have told you, wouldn't they?"
"I'm not so sure." Asuka extracted her hand from his grasp, tapping the index finger against her chin. "They'd have to know. They've had the Evas for a decade. If they don't know, then they're either too stupid to see it or their systems simply can't detect Mama. Or they do know... and are actively keeping it a secret from me."
"That..." Shinji blinked in puzzlement. "Why would they do that?"
"Why does Wondergirl have the ability to see souls?" Asuka countered. "Why are the Angels specifically attacking Tokyo-3, instead of showing up in, say, Australia?"
Why did Rei tell him not to speak of what had happened during their disastrous dual-sync test? What did happen then? Not to mention numerous other strange occurrences.
"NERV... has secrets," he mumbled out loud. "Even the Evas themselves are-" He paused, as something Asuka recently said sprang to mind. "...Ten years they've had the Evas, you said?"
Asuka quirked an eyebrow at him. "Yeah. I was chosen to be a pilot a decade ago."
"And back then, did they tell you why they needed the Evas?"
"Y-" She looked away, confusion spreading over her face. "I... don't know for sure. I do remember someone saying that the fate of the world would be in my hands. That I would have to train for the next ten years to be ready."
"But did anyone even know about the Angels back then?" Shinji pressed. He tapped a hand against his chest. "I didn't know they existed until one almost stepped on me! And then suddenly there's a giant robot perfect for fighting it already built and waiting to be deployed! And despite me supposedly having a less than one percent chance to be able to pilot it, I did just fine. Sort of," he quickly added, remembering that he hadn't exactly won the fight himself.
Asuka stared at him. Or perhaps through him, it was hard to tell. "Yes. According to NERV your Eva went 'berserk', killed the Angel while you were unconscious, and then shut down immediately afterwards. Does that really sound like something you'd call 'berserk'? Why didn't it continue rampaging through Tokyo-3 until it ran out of power?"
"Well... Rei's Eva went berserk before I came to Tokyo-3," Shinji replied thoughtfully. "Something went wrong in the test and Unit-00 tried to smash its way into the control room until it ran out of power."
"See, now that sounds more like it," replied Asuka. "So why didn't your Eva do something similar?"
Shinji hesitated, thinking the situation over. It felt like Asuka was trying to lead him towards a certain answer without simply telling him. She was trying to get him to work it out for himself.
During his first battle, he'd lost consciousness and Unit-01 finished the fight for him, powering down the moment the threat was eliminated. Unit-02 had done something very similar against the Fourteenth Angel, only it had reactivated after the battery was empty and the Angel was about to kill them. Asuka had been taken into the Evangelion's core, and supposedly-
He mentally shook his head. No, he decided to trust in Asuka and believe her story. She had discovered her mother was inside Unit-02. Her mother had... taken control somehow to protect her daughter.
Protect...
A memory suddenly flashed in front of his mind's eye. Rei, having fallen off her gurney in Unit-01's cage. A massive chunk of the ceiling falling towards them... and then suddenly a purple limb was in the way, shielding them from the debris. Expressions of amazement from Doctor Akagi and Misato that the Evangelion shouldn't have been able to move.
"Shinji."
Asuka's voice interrupted his trip down memory lane. He glanced up at her.
"It looks like you've almost got it," she remarked, an eyebrow quirked at him.
"Y-...yes?" he hesitantly replied. "But... it just seems so... unbelievable."
An amused scoff was Asuka's initial response. "We've already listed off a lot of crazy shit we've been through this year. How much of that would you have once called 'unbelievable'?"
"...You've already worked out exactly what it is, haven't you?"
She gave him a cool look. "Of course I have. I know what you're about to say, and though it sounds strange, all the pieces of the puzzle fit together perfectly. So just say it."
Shinji slowly drew himself up, having previously been slumping forward without even realising. "O-okay then..." He rubbed his eyes and then looked across the table at Asuka. "Your mother... is in Unit-02."
"Yes...?" Asuka prompted.
"And Unit-01... has... my mother... in it."
Asuka slowly nodded. She began talking, but it was as if she was on the other side of a thick window. Shinji blinked, and suddenly there was a window in front of him. Other voices were speaking, but he couldn't make them out either. He reached outpudgy fingers to touch the glass, curious about the big purple thing on the other side that looked kinda like one of his toys. Somewhere nearby Daddy and the other grown-ups were talking, but there were a lot of big words he didn't know. He also didn't know where Mummy was. She had given him a hug and a kiss, wearing funny-looking pyjamas, then put him down on the floor and gone off somewhere.
"Shinji!"
He blinked and looked around. Who said that? Nobody in the room was looking at him. His cheek suddenlyerupted in pain and he almost fell off his chair.
"Shinji!" Asuka shouted again, arm raised in the air and ready to deliver another hit.
"Ow!" Shinji brought a hand up to his stinging cheek as he recovered his balance on the chair. "W-what just happened?" he asked, blinking inexplicable tears out of his eyes.
Asuka lowered her arm, but remained leaning over the table staring right into his face. "You went kinda... funny," she replied. "Your eyes were glassy and you weren't responding when I called out to you."
"Oh... um..." Shinji lamely replied. "I... think I remembered... something?"
Her expression rapidly changing from concern to curiosity, Asuka slowly sat back down. "What did you remember that made you space out like that?"
"I-" Shinji mentally raced to recall the details, but so much was already slipping away. "I was... in a big room, with a giant glass window... Father was there, and other people too... ugh!" He clutched at his head as a spike of agony was driven into his skull. "Damnit... it's... something happened... argh!"
"Shinji!"
Through lidded, teary eyes, Shinji saw Asuka rush around the table to stand next to him, placing a hand on his back. He willed his body to take deep breaths as more spikes attacked his brain, trying to focus on the sensation of Asuka's hand on his back instead of the agony in his head. An eternity passed but he kept breathing, refusing to be brought low by the pain, stubbornly standing strong until the attack finally abated, and only he remained.
It almost came as a relief when his forehead suddenly impacted against the table. Before he had time to take in this new, more real pain, the hand on his back gripped his shirt and hauled him back upright. Asuka's face appeared in front of him, her eyes searching for something for a moment.
"...You okay?" she finally asked.
His head still throbbed uncomfortably, the threat evident if he continued his previous line of thought, but Shinji gave a weak nod. "I'll... be fine."
Asuka slowly returned to her side of the table, sitting down and hissing in annoyance. "Damnit. Sorry, Shinji. If I'd known you'd react like that I'd have kept my mouth shut."
"It's fine, Asuka," Shinji insisted, shaking his head despite the ache it caused. "I didn't know it'd happen either."
"Seems like you've got some repressed memories in your head," Asuka mused, staring intently at him. "It'd be a good idea not to try and force them to surface, despite how... important they might be."
Shinji sighed. He'd been so close to something, he just knew it. "Well I suppose for now we should focus on the important thing."
"Right. The fact that our mothers are in our Evas and nobody bothered to tell us."
"We can't exactly do something about it now though."
Asuka glanced up at the wall clock, and Shinji followed suit. It wasn't even one o'clock in the morning yet.
"...In the morning?" they both asked at the same time. A pair of nods. "In the morning."
Asuka began to head back to her bedroom, but before she reached the doorway, Shinji abruptly grabbed onto her hand. She turned to him in surprise and puzzlement, and he felt his face heat up.
"Um... there's... something I kinda forgot to do before," Shinji admitted, unable to look Asuka in the eyes. "I mean, we kinda got sidetracked with Doctor Akagi coming in, and how I was the one that brought you back, and-"
"Shinji," Asuka gently interrupted. "Don't worry about that now. What did you forget to do?"
He tried to make eye contact with Asuka, he really did. But every time his gaze met hers, it was like some invisible force shoved his head to the side and made him blush harder. It didn't help that Asuka kept looking more and more confused each time. Eventually, Shinji's eyes settled on the necklace, his gift to her; the sight of that sparkling sapphire dangling from Asuka's neck helped to calm him down. Shinji took a deep breath, and brought his eyes up to finally look at her properly.
"Asuka... welcome back."
In the blink of an eye, Shinji let go of Asuka's hand and wrapped both arms around her, hugging tightly like he was worried she would disappear again. Asuka let out a sound of shock, and her hands moved to Shinji's shoulders as if she was about to shove him away. He even felt her begin to push, but at the last second she relaxed her arms.
"I'm... so glad you're back with m-... with us," Shinji continued. His eyes began to sting with tears; he was glad Asuka couldn't see his face right now.
"...You dummy," Asuka whispered, shifting her arms to return the hug. "It was all you. You're the one who brought me back."
It took a while longer before they returned to their rooms.
XXX
Morning came.
Shinji honestly couldn't tell if he'd slept at all when he got out of bed. It both felt like he'd spent six hours staring at the ceiling, and that he'd blinked once and light had suddenly been peeking into his room. Either way, one single thought was centre stage in his mind, leaving no room for anything else.
Mum... is in Unit-01?
Shinji stretched his arms out wide, then rubbed the sleep crud out of his eyes and left his bedroom. Sliding the door open, he could hear Asuka moving about in the kitchen. He murmured a greeting and got one in return just as he stepped into the bathroom.
It was something so incredibly hard to believe, considering he'd spent the last ten years believing Mum was dead yet not even knowing how she had died. But now Asuka's... theory? shed new light on the matter. It was just so damn annoying that Shinji couldn't even attempt to think back to the last time he'd seen his mother without getting, hah, the mother of all headaches.
His father definitely knew the whole story. And according to him, Yui Ikari's death had made Shinji's mind repress almost every detail around the time. The first solid memory he could pinpoint was standing at a train station.
Shinji washed and dried his hands, then headed back into the kitchen. The coffee machine was just finished filling up a cup, which Asuka collected and set down on the opposite side of the kitchen table; Shinji nodded in understanding and sat down.
"I know you don't much care for it but you look about as tired as I feel," said Asuka.
Powering through the bitterness, Shinji gave a mumbled agreement as he took a sip. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, but he didn't even know who he could turn to. Only the higher-ups at NERV would have any idea, and they'd all apparently decided that he didn't need to know. Even his own father would just kick him out of his giant gloomy office instead of revealing anything useful. For now, all he could do was press on.
"Do you know of any way we could... confirm that our mothers are in our Evas?" Shinji finally asked after minutes of awkward silence. Asuka frowned at him; he wasn't sure if it was just out of early-morning confusion or if she thought he'd backflipped on his belief of her actually meeting her mother. "Something we could do to talk to them? Face-to-face, so to speak?"
Asuka blinked, then looked thoughtfully away. "The only thing I can think of right now is getting absorbed into the Eva, since that's what happened to me, but that's not a feasible plan."
Silence fell again as Shinji and Asuka slowly drank their coffee.
"Alright," said Shinji, tapping his chin in thought. "Now that you know your mother's in Unit-02, has there been any point in the past where you had any sort of... sense that she was with you?"
"Uh..." Her gaze drifting skyward, Asuka's face scrunched up in concentration as she went back over her time in Unit-02. A knock on the front door interrupted her thoughts. This early in the morning, it could really only be one person.
"Come in, Rei!" Shinji called out. There was no need to get up to let their fellow pilot in; Rei was free to enter their apartment whenever she wished, so she would have Misato's copy of their keycard.
"Good morning," Rei greeted as she came into the kitchen. She stopped, her eyes flicking between the two of them. "Is... something the matter? You both seem rather distressed."
Shinji and Asuka stared at each other, talking without talking. He wanted to tell Rei what they had just discovered but Asuka, despite their close friendship, was leery of speaking about something so vitally -and personally- important to both of them. Shinji felt that Rei might actually have a clue to their current conundrum, given her long experience with Evangelion. Asuka raised an eyebrow at that, but Shinji refused to back down. Finally, she relented with a low, irritated groan.
Without doing something so blatantly suicidal as gloating, Shinji turned back to Rei only to see that their friend was smiling serenely at them. She swiftly hid the smile as she noticed their attention back on her.
"We have a... concern," Asuka said, surprising Shinji. He was expecting to have to be the one to broach the subject. "It's to do with our Evas."
"I do not recall any ongoing technical issues being reported," Rei replied as she sat down at the kitchen table.
"Not that kind of concern," said Asuka with a shake of her head. "More... to do with us and them."
"I see." Rei's face went serious, like Shinji had seen many times before through the comm system during a battle. "What is it that you are hoping to achieve?"
Shinji sensed Asuka's hesitation and immediately stepped in. "Last night, Asuka woke up and remembered something important about her time within Unit-02. She-" He cut himself off, glancing at the redhead in question for confirmation and receiving the smallest of nods. "She saw her mother."
Rei stared at them for several uncomfortably long seconds. "I see," she murmured quietly. "And I am not surprised; eventually you would have realised that the Evas have souls. After all, you must open your heart to your Eva in order to synchronise."
"Open..." Shinji began.
"...our heart..." Asuka continued.
"...to our Eva?" they both finished echoing together.
That tiny hint of a smile returned to Rei's face for a split second before fleeing once more. "Yes, and I am afraid that is all the advice I can give you."
"...Uh." Asuka tapped a finger against her chin and then shrugged. "What do you even mean by that? I've been synchronising with Unit-02 for years, what exactly am I supposed to do differently now?"
"I have confidence that you will be able to understand soon enough," Rei cryptically replied.
Asuka stared at her for a moment, one eyebrow raised, before shrugging and heading over to the fridge to begin preparing breakfast. "Any preferences, Wondergirl?"
Rei shook her head. "I will be happy with whatever you make," she replied. "Excuse me for a moment, I left a couple of your dishes next door."
"...One day I'll get her to make an actual request instead of just accepting anything," Asuka remarked as soon as the front door closed, huffing and opening the fridge to take out the ingredients she would need.
Shinji raised an eyebrow at her back. It sounded like an odd goal, but he was not about to point it out. It was possible that she had simply taken a liking to cooking after 'having' to start preparing meals for him.
And he rather liked actually being able to taste food again.
XXX
Some time after breakfast, when the three pilots were sitting in the lounge room watching television, Shinji's phone began to ring. He pulled it out and looked at the screen; it wasn't NERV, but the number was familiar. Unable to quite recall who it belonged to, he flipped the phone open to answer. "Hello?"
"Hey, Shin-man!"
Oh, of course. it was Toji's number. "Ah, hello Toji. How are you?"
"Eh, alright I guess. Christmas was kinda boring without you and Ken around though. Ended up goin' to see my sister for the day. Not like she can leave the hospital, ya know?"
"Sorry about that." Shinji glanced at Asuka, who remained focused on the television. "But hey, I at least have a bit of good news."
"Ya do?! What, is Ken gonna be okay?"
Shinji winced at the excited tone of voice. He really did not want to dash his friend's hopes. "No, but Asuka and Rei were cleared to leave yesterday."
"...Oh. I mean, that's cool, man. Tell 'em I'm glad they're back. But, uh... you heard anythin' about Ken?"
"Nothing new, I'm afraid. Can't talk about anything over the phone either." Shinji glanced at Asuka again, who was now side-eyeing him. He raised an eyebrow, jerked his head towards his phone, and mouthed 'tell him?'. Asuka turned her head to stare at him, arms folded. Shinji thought swiftly and then added, 'Hikari too?'. Her eyes widened slightly, and she huffed and flapped a hand at him before turning back to the television.
"But, um... hey, enough about that for now," Shinji said into his phone, giving the slightest of smiles to the side of Asuka's head. "We haven't seen each other for a while now. Wanna meet somewhere and... catch up? You could bring Class Rep too, I'm sure Asuka wants to see her again too."
There was a long pause. Shinji hoped his unspoken message got through.
"Yeah, that sounds cool, dude. I'll ring Hikari to let 'er know. Wanna meet at that arcade on Nakamichi Street in an hour?"
"Sounds good. See you then."
The moment his phone closed, Asuka snorted. "So you're gonna blab classified intel, are you?"
Shinji sighed. "Those three have been friends since they started school together. It may be bad news but they deserve to know what's going on."
"Oh I would have told Hikari myself the next time I met her anyway. I just kinda felt like vegging out here after what we've just been through. Don't forget, most of what happened was only a couple days ago from my perspective." Asuka gave an expansive shrug. "But I suppose I'll join you."
XXX
The bright red arcade really stood out among the more drab buildings surrounding it; the only thing close to matching it in gaudiness was a fast food place further along the street. There were quite a few people already inside the arcade, including a couple of men in serious dark suits competing against each other in some sort of racing game. At first Shinji thought they were Section Two, having rushed ahead to keep the pilots under surveillance, but as he passed by them he could see that they weren't wearing earpieces.
Horaki spotted them first, waving hello to the pilots and then beckoning them over to a cabinet where Toji was pointing a light gun at the screen. He gave a quick sideways glance and a nod at them before returning his attention to the game.
"Oh it's so good to see you all again!" Horaki exuberantly greeted them. "I was so worried when you didn't come back to school after the battle."
"Yeah... we won but took a major hammering in the process," replied Asuka. "I'll tell you all about it shortly." She eyed the game Toji was playing as he growled and reached into his pocket. "First though, I wanna unwind a bit by schooling Stefan here."
Toji shoved a coin into the machine, ready to try again-
"Player two, ready!" announced the machine as Asuka stepped up and put her own coin in.
Horaki took a step back towards Rei and Shinji. "Won't this be... kind of one-sided?" she whispered to them while watching the action.
Shinji shrugged. "Asuka's been training for ten years. She definitely has an advantage, even if it's not an Eva's control system."
Horaki quirked an eyebrow at him. "And what about you? Could you hold your own against her?"
"Um..." A shudder ran through Shinji's body as he recalled the training from hell Asuka had put him through. "...Maybe not just yet..."
Asuka's hands shot into the air in victory a minute later, as she turned to stare menacingly at Toji. He snarled and reached into his pocket, only to come up empty. "Damnit," he spat as he ran off. "Lemme go get more coins!"
"I shall deal with her," Rei quietly stated, stepping up to the machine Toji had abandoned and picking up the discarded light gun. She took a moment to aim down the sights before glancing at Asuka. "My turn."
This time the competition was much closer and lasted a lot longer. Both girls had been essentially raised by NERV, trained to fight for the future of humanity. Toji came back to find Asuka and Rei still going at it, neither of them willing to concede an inch. Their styles were greatly different though; Asuka would move rapidly from cover to cover, hosing the area in front of her with bullets, and Rei would jump from one corner of the map to the other as her opponent got too close, taking careful aim and firing only one or two shots at a time.
In the end though, there could only be one winner.
"Scheiße!" Asuka cursed as her character exploded into a cloud of pixels. She shoved the gun back into its holster on the machine and turned to Rei. "Well you're certainly living up to your nickname, Wondergirl."
Rei gave a slight tilt of her head. "Thank you, Asuka. It was very close though; if we had time for more rounds I believe we would both score around the same number of victories."
"I kinda wanna see you both play that other shooting game over there," Toji remarked, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at another machine. "The way you two did against each other here, you'd probably smash that game's co-op."
"Hah, we get enough teamwork as it is," replied Asuka with a smirk. "But Misato doesn't give us much time these days to beat up on each other in the simulators."
"Thank the gods for that," Shinji murmured in relief, flinching slightly as Asuka gave him a devious look.
"Well anyway, ya wanna chat here or go somewhere else?" asked Toji.
"Wait." All eyes turned to Rei, who was staring at a machine in the corner. "Is that... a fishing game?" She walked towards it before anybody else could answer.
An expression of disbelief crossed Asuka's face. "...Guess that answers that."
XXX
"Shit, is he gonna be okay?" Toji asked after Shinji and Asuka relayed the events of the last Angel battle to him and Hikari. The class representative had gone white-faced in horror, latching onto Toji's arm as Shinji described the state Kensuke was currently in. Rei was focused on the game, but Shinji had seen her twitch slightly as he talked about how she had had to fight Kensuke's Evangelion.
"We really don't know," Shinji grimly replied. "NERV says they've been trying everything they can, but nothing's changed. They can't even try to cut the biomass off because it seems to have fused into his body."
"God... damnit..."
Toji punched the side of the cabinet Rei was using, his face like thunder. Horaki, on the other hand, looked like she was just barely holding back tears. Shinji mentally grimaced, remembering again what he'd learned from Horaki before Asuka's birthday. She, Toji and Kensuke had known each other since they had first started school together; almost nine years, about as long as he had known Asuka.
He glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. There was no doubt in Shinji's mind that he would have a similar reaction as his friends if something happened to Asuka. He blinked, then guiltily amended that to 'if something happened to Asuka or Rei'. Of course, the two of them had already been in great peril before, death creeping closer each time, but they had managed to survive until now.
Asuka, likely having sensed his mood, gave him a quick glance. He brushed it off with a wave of his hand, but he knew she was still curious about what he was thinking.
And of course now they both knew that, for whatever arcane reason, their mothers were... integrated into the Evangelions. But how? And why? Rei knew... something, but had not given them a straight answer. All they could do was wait until NERV decided to let them back into their Evangelions.
The universe seemed to have been eavesdropping; Asuka's phone immediately began ringing. Shinji's hand shot to the pocket his own phone was in, but neither his nor Rei's phones were ringing. The three pilots looked at each other in confusion for a moment before Asuka finally answered the call.
"Hello? ... Oh hi Misato, what's up? ... Good news? I'll believe that when I hear it." Her eyes suddenly widened in shock. "Um, okay that would be good news. ... And you want to schedule an activation test for all of us today? ... Yeah, okay. I'll let the others know. See you soon."
"An activation test?" Shinji echoed as Asuka put her phone away. "I take it they want us over there now?"
Asuka nodded, then turned to Toji and Horaki. "Sorry, guess we gotta cut this outing short."
"It's alright, Asuka," Horaki replied. "I'm just glad to see you're all safe."
Toji grunted in agreement. "We better let you go now. I think those are your NERV shadows outside."
The three pilots waved goodbye to their friends and left the arcade. Just as Toji had said, Section Two was standing right outside waiting for them, beckoning them towards a company vehicle.
"...So what do you think?" Asuka murmured to Shinji, low enough that the agents likely didn't hear them. "Reckon this is our opportunity to find out the truth?"
"Yeah," Shinji quietly replied. "But the question is..."
"How?" they both said together.
