"The worst thing about a battle is how quiet the dead are." Marshal Chiso Motochika, introduction of her biography of the Siege of Osaka

XXXIX

So many.

Rei Ayanami looked up and down the crimson street. All was red, not a hint of cream, brown, or black remaining. Even the sun on those tattered hinomaru flags had become indistinguishable from what was white. Grey ashes lay like mild snowfall atop the gore, all that remained of the Seraph's vaporised victims.

The CEO had given her a curious glance when she'd asked to see it. Rei had got even stranger looks from the Kempeitai and Nerv Security that had closed off the area, or combed it for survivors.

She wasn't sure herself why she had come. But something had dragged her here all the same and Rei had found herself powerless to disobey.

It is irrational. I have witnessed death before. This shouldn't matter.

Her shoes squelched in the new "mud" as she picked her way through the mess. Rei trod with care; vehicles had been smashed to pieces as well, so sharp shards of steel and glass hid within the crimson mush.

Rei felt her skin crawl. The sound was all wrong.

How can a sound be wrong? A sound is only a sound. Value is conferred on it by the listener. It has none of its own…

There was a snap.

Rei looked down. A shattered bit of rib lay beneath her shoe. A remnant of torn clothing clung to it.

Her brain processed the mess in a heartbeat.

Skeletal remnants small and undeveloped. A child. Female.

A new sensation tickled the back of her throat: bile.

Rei initially dismissed it and tried to continue her survey, but the feeling became worse and worse. Inexorably, she doubled over and vomited.

Rei breathed gently for a full minute, waiting for the nausea to pass, then straightened up.

Unacceptable performance. I shall consult Dr Akagi.

Why? Why do that? Why waste valuable bodily fluid over a state all things would return too, usually in far greater pain? Frustration bit at her.

Unacceptable…

She carried on up the street, replaying the event that left this mess over and over in her mind. The enemy's ferocity and strength had caught everyone, even the old men Gendo plotted against, off guard. But it was the glee with which the Seraph had butchered that lodged itself in her thoughts.

Why would it do that? Phantom screams still seemed to echo in this place. These were unarmed, defenceless. More an encumbrance to us than they could ever be to it. Yet it still killed them for…is "sport" the right word?

She checked herself there.

No. Not just sport. It deliberately provoked the CEO's son into attacking it. As if…it enjoyed his reaction. His pain.

At that her mind drifted back to the boy who'd saved her life and now hated her. From what she'd seen as he was hauled out of the entry plug, he had become almost catatonic. His eyes widened and trembled as if forever a deer stuck in the headlights.

Rei felt a sinking feeling in her chest. She didn't know what to make of the CEO's son, perhaps even feared him just a little, but she wouldn't wish that on him.

It would impact his performance in battle. Unacceptable. She told herself, yet her sky blue eyebrows knitted together.

Why can I not believe myself?

So many feelings she couldn't make sense of bubbled and boiled in her stomach like a cauldron ready to overflow. Rei knew of their existence, had read about them in a dictionary, but now they had her in their grip she couldn't understand them.

There was screaming. The Kempeitai were dragging an old woman away. She helplessly wailed as she clawed at the muck.

"Please! My husband! My husband!"

Rei frowned a little. From her very brief observations of the Kempeitai in action, they'd always taken to physical restraint with gusto.

That was obvious to many, but Rei saw it on a more fundamental basis. All living creatures generated a Hawking-Field, which waxed and waned in accordance with their mental states.

And she could see them.

Sheltered though she was, Rei had still seen enough of Motochika's hounds plying their trade. Their H-fields would sizzle and sing as they sank their teeth into a new victim, but not today.

At that moment they were silent, unmoving, hollow.

For some reason that troubled her.

The Kempeitai were versed in death. Few understood the inevitability of life's curse better, yet here they were gentle. Here they only pulled the woman away instead of hammering her with blows until she obeyed.

Why does it matter? Rei again cast her gaze around the gory sight. Was it not the fate of all to die in pain and in fear? It had come sooner for those here than anticipated, but they were to die all the same. The old woman, as much as she wailed, would have lost her husband anyway, would have had her own failing H-Field irreparably ripped and torn.

What did it matter if it were now?

why does it hurt?

Further up the street, the smashed and burning hulks of Japanese tanks lay silently among the dead. Around them some distinct corpses could be made out. Their navy-blue uniforms somehow stuck out through the red mud.

Although they lay in a thin line, some other islands of blue were dotted among the crimson sea. Despite falling back from the line in their last moments, they all faced forward, and none had their backs turned.

They would have saved themselves if they retreated. It would have made no difference. Strange.

She looked a little closer, seeing some corpses more intact than others. They'd been the ones merely incinerated by the Seraph's whips, or bisected. One, a younger soldier, stared up at the sky with glazed over eyes.

If I die, I can be replaced. But only when necessary. She stared long and hard at the burnt-out husks. Fires crackled and wind whipped; an echo of the atmospheric disturbance caused by the Seraph wielding its mighty Field.

Would I have done the same in their position? Some jets rocketed overhead, briefly catching her attention. I would sacrifice for the CEO, for his vision, but not for another life fated to die anyway. What would be the point?

Ahead, a truck drove by, carting up remains for disposal. The driver's H-field barely appeared at all.

Rei had to breathe in deeply, and a moistness touched at her red eyes she'd never felt before. She rubbed and felt the faint burn of salt on her skin.

I am crying…why?

She knew no one here and now never would.

A defect. I shall consult the CEO on this matter.

Lost in thought, she twitched when her cell phone began to ring. Rei took it from her pocket then flipped it open and held it to her ear.

"Rei." Came the CEO's voice.

"Sir." She stiffened out of instinct and fought down the urge to salute.

"You are needed in the Medical Ward for final discharge. Tenka wants to run a few more tests before then."

Rei quietly exhaled.

Was that a sigh?

"He performs his duty. He does not understand your nature as well as I do." Gendo said.

"Yes, sir. I will return immediately." Rei snapped the phone shut.

I could have fought today. She flexed her formerly shattered fingers and arm. Pain tugged, but movement was adequate. Keeping me off duty was a mistake. The enemy came too close to success. The Scenario was jeopardised.

She trudged back to the cordon. Crimson splashed at her white socks and the squelch of gore sent her stomach into inexplicable somersaults. Encountering some of Director Katsuragi's men in their cream uniform and red berets, she flashed her ID card and passed by without so much as a word.

Just before she set foot back in the land of living, Rei cast one last look at the sea of the dead.

Once these had been people; teachers, doctors, salarymen, old and young, parent and child. Eighty thousand H-Fields had once flickered here.

Now they had all been mashed into a formless, gory one. An endless, serene red sea, absent of life or flickering light.

Rei turned and walked away.