(Pensiveness)

The defeat of angel Israphael, too, ended up taking place entirely without my involvement.

Whatever idea there might have been to have me take the Second's place must have been nothing but a stray experimental thought in the wind, a theoretical fail-safe.

I was not called upon to participate.

I was not involved in any other way but to stand guard in the cage of Unit Zero, keeping ready in case anything should go wrong – but this once, nothing did, at least nothing beyond the adversity that had already transpired.

I heard little of what had transpired on the surface, nor even at the command center in Central Dogma – I could only note that Unit Zero's body no longer felt as raw or sore over the nerve link, nor her movements as fuzzy, so it might not be long until we would again be deployed in earnest.

I wondered faintly if she might be frightened of being subjected to destruction again, for having her ready for use could only lead to that one outcome.

When the battle was finished, I was contacted by Captain Katsuragi to let me know that I could come out and go home. In the background, I could hear distant snippets of conversation – the NERV staff discussing the retrieval of the EVAs, and the voices of Ikari-kun and the Second, who appeared to be squabbling on one thing or another – but though their special training did not seem to have produced perfect harmony between them (that may not have been realistic), it would appear to have sufficed for the vanquishing of the angel.

"Sooo~ Rei ~ Do you want to come along to our victory celebration?"

Energetic as ever, Captain Katrsuragi leaned forward as she spoke, filling out more her the little holoscreen window in the EVA's interface.

"If it is necessary, I will."

"Well maybe not strictly speaking, but you know, the point of celebrating your wins is to give everybody who participated a chance to relax and relieve their tension, and reward themselves for their hard work –"

I don't see why she saw the need to explain something so basic to me. I had not declined because I didn't understand its benefits, but because I did not think that they would apply to me. Did I do anything to give her the impression that I could not even comprehend such a simple thing?

How must I look to her then, as a catalog of faults, absences and deficiencies? As a garbled, glitchy, loud fan noise whirring reproduction of a person? Well. That was probably how the Vice Commander viewed me. The Captain probably didn't look much further than what would jeopardize her comfort, her convenience or the expediency of her goals. Perhaps it served her best to regard me as a particularly clumsy, inexperienced young person on which she meant to impart wisdom out of genuine, if half-hearted benevolence. I think that was probably the likeliest outcome, not because of any faith or optimism, but simply because it looked to be the explanation that required the least extraneous assumptions.

Not that this was of any great relevance. Explaining it would be cumbersome, so, I thought it best to just simply let her keep talking.

"We might be attacked at any moment, so we can't really let down our guard much, but inconvenient as that is, the human body isn't made for being under constant pressure. It's important to take the time to find regular relief, you know?" by this point, the Captain was kind of cheerfully lecturing me, playfully wagging her index finger in a not entirely serious gesture.

"It's fine. I am not tense, and I did not exert myself much in the first place."

I think that response might have left the Captain… a little irritated, maybe? Though she seemed determined to spin the thread of conversation back around to some more positive direction, somehow prolonging it through its utility seemed all but exhausted.

"Well, uh, that's good to hear! But it's not like you need to be worked to the bone before you get to have some fun. And what better time for it than right after we've just flattened our last foe? If there any point in time when the next one is unlikely to be right around the corner, that would be now."

"We do not know that.", I remarked. "There is no guarantee that two angels could not appear in short succession."

"...I mean, you're not wrong… but, if that happened, we'd just send you all right back to the cages. Anyways, it's fine if you just relax at home, if that's what you prefer. But be sure to take it easy, okay?"

"Understood."

With their special training concluded, the other pilots were soon returned back to their usual regimen – they came to school the next day, much to the relief of our classmates, and, later that week, showed up for the usual experiments and training sessions.

I could not fail to note that the Second had begun to refer to Ikari-kun as simply 'Shinji'. Not 'Daddy's Boy' or 'Third Child'.

And him, in turn, I think I'd spotted calling her 'Asuka' rather than simply 'Soryu'.

This ought to have been a good thing, really – It could certainly be taken as a sign that the Captain's plan of housing them together had borne fruit, if the friction and hostility between them had decreased. It was certainly a most natural thing, that living in close quarters for some time should increase their familiarity with each other – by all accounts, this was a laudable development that would certainly be a great asset to the execution of the plan and the completion of the great work.

So what did it matter if I now hardly crossed paths with him on the tram ride to school since he'd begun to walk to school alongside the Second? If she was usually talking to him at school or at NERV, so that it became somewhat rarer for him to approach me when he knew it might draw her ire?

How was any of that even relevant at all?

So long as this might result in a more efficient deployment of the EVAs, all of this was exceedingly good news…

As questionable as her attitude may have been in the beginning, the Second was, in a sense, no less young and malleable than our classmates. If she could be nudged toward greater sensibility and cooperation, was that not a worthwhile thing to do?

Was it not natural that Ikari-kun would, in a sense, prefer the company of his own kind, once such an option had become more available?

There was really nothing too remarkable at all, about this entire development. The Second had only just arrived – she was what was novel and exciting right now.

And even I could not be so unaware as not to realize that she was thought of as quite alluring by very many of the youths our age.

It was not really surprising, then, that it had come to be a while since Ikari-kun and I had exchanged more than a few passing pleasantries or casual words of greeting.

Objectively speaking, when looking at it all from some dispassionate bird's eye point of view, it should not surprise anyone.

Neither of us was exactly being proactive about increasing our common window of time – he at least would still keep initiating the regular polite interactions, the friendly greetings.

Who could say what sad perseverance kept him going, all the while I did little else but reply as I was prompted.

I could see all this clearly before me, I could analyze it to death, and I even did have this vague, faint suspicion that I didn't really like it, but the path from this to taking action seemed so long and far away.

There was always so much going on, so many tiring, draining, laborious going-ons, so many empty days of which I'd have nothing to tell me – There always seemed to be something in the way, some reason or another not to lift a finger.

It always seemed too much, like I could only just barely strike the barest necessities of living from my list of things to take care of, what was left after the load of my duties, what I could muster when even thinking about all I'd have to do left me all manner of tired, which the drifting embrace of dreaming and contemplation as my only palpable relief, though when I could not manage to focus on the books, even those thoughts seemed to circle only on the inevitable future to come, and the breakability of my ever failing shell.

If I looked down, from the hidden place of my thoughts, at the wan shell of me that walked the daylight, it was plain to see: It is all slipping away from her. It is all passing her by.

She is dying and she has no reason to fight it.

I thought back again to what Ikari-kun had said about just going through the motions – maybe for him, that was in the past to some extent, but I did not think I would ever escape it.

Not when I was literally just playing my fixed, allotted part in a drama leading up to the end of days.

Not when everything had been decided from this start, possibly even all the way down to this weight of crushing futility upon me.

Thus, another week passed by, somehow.

Another chunk eaten out of the ever-shrinking remaining time left to the human race;

Seven more days closer to the day of my final release.

Not much happened, really.

The scarcer the remaining days were becoming, the more they seemed to rush by with nary a notice. The more that it seemed to me that I was merely watching it pass by.

I got up. I attended to such onerous necessities of my basic existence as I could not simply live around – I washed and fed my flesh. I dragged it over to wherever I was required to bring it, trying in that process to touch as little as I might of the discomfort and disgust it brought with it.

Merely hauling this barely-warm meat to where it was needed, so that other forces could act upon it.

A few things of note happened – some experiments that, according to the Doctor, would hasten the development of the Dummy Plugs. The usual backup, maintenance and calibration sessions.

Synchronization and Harmonics tests, as mentioned before, as well as training simulations.

There were a few exams at school as well, though I am bringing this up only for completeness' sake. It's not very relevant. None of us would ever reach adulthood or take a profession.

Some of the days, I didn't even feel like reading – I was just beholding the unused dusty neon lamp in the ceiling and wondering idly upon my fate, and before I knew it, the shadows in my room grew deeper in the westering sun.

The Commander only returned from his business trip partway through the week, and once he did, he was quite busy catching up on work. He had some dedicated words of greeting for me, which I cherished, but we spoke only fleetingly.

What few words I exchanged with Ikari-kun, or less still with the class representative, were also fleeting. Little that went between formulaic greetings and ritualistic inquiries, habits that were almost becoming ceremonies – I am not sure that they exceeded the usual performances in reality, some minimal iota, some Planck-lenght's fill of warmth passed on that wasn't there in the entirely put-on, token politeness of the NERV employees.

At least Ikari-kuns smiles were always genuine, he was, at times, too flustered for this to be otherwise. He would not have had the skill to perform anything even if he wanted.

I wondered why he might lavish something so genuine upon one who could only make for such pale reciprocation. I answered precisely what he asked and then ran out of words to say or topics to bring up. A few times, I thought of a meaningful question to keep the sorry fumbling going just a bit longer.

I supposed that it didn't matter, just as nothing at all really mattered, especially those unrelated to the project.

The week came to an end.

The units of time but arbitrary divisions, yet still did their part in marking how we were inching ever closer to our ultimate perdition.

There were no tests scheduled for the weekend, nor was there training.

So it was quiet at least, or as close to that as it might get with the intermittent noise of construction echoing on outside.

They city counsel hat finally decided to level most of these building rows. With the construction of the city nearing its ultimate completion, they had long since served their purpose in housing the workers until better options were available… but somehow, it was exactly because of this that I was reluctant to abandon this one, nonsensical as it may be to feel a kinship to an inanimate object that is deemed ugly, rundown and useless by most.

In a sense, it and I were the same.

Who knows what they wanted to put here instead – detached single-family homes or luxury condos. It was never going to happen, because the world was going to end first.

So there was absolutely no reason to be concerned with the scheduled demolition date of this one, either. The bulldozers, cranes and excavators were never going to reach here.

For a moment, I was as near to unencumbered by the world as the binds of this body would let me, free to just watch myself existing, or forget all about me in the embrace of distant thoughts and speculations.

There was nowhere I needed to be. There was nothing I needed to do.

On Saturday, I stocked up on groceries and did my laundry, which was enough activity for the day.

In the evening hours, I stood at the windows, having slipped past the nylon curtains, pressing my hand upon the glass, and looked at the gray landscape that was transforming from stark rows of concrete cliff-edge to a wasteland of debris.

I caught some peek of the construction workers, their bright signal vests marking them like the coats of tiny busy bees. They probably knew so little of what was truly going on in this city.

I felt a little sorry for them as well.

On Sunday, the noises had ceased.

I knew that if I went out, I would be unobserved… apart from by usual security detail, of course, but those would not speak to me or expect me to interact with them, or respond to my presence in any way, and that is how I preferred it.

I took this opportunity to wander about the neighborhood for a bit, not going anywhere, just basically pacing, without aim or destination, as if to simply jostle my thoughts with the rhythm of my steps, trailing the row of lights along the wide multi-lane road, stopping to observe the remains of broken-down buildings, what little minute changes were brought on by the passage of time.

There was this patch of ground, behind the building, where a patch of stubborn plants had broken through the concrete. Last year it was just moss and then a few stray dandelions, but by now, a much greater variety of plants had arrived, even some flowers.

One of the growing sprouts was by the distinct shape of the leaves recognizable as an oak tree sapling. Though even if there were enough space and no city ordinances ensuring that it would get mowed down, all life would be ended before it could grow tall.

It mattered not.

They were not special, they differed not from other plants.

They were without purpose.

So their destruction was not a loss.

On the way back, my gaze lingered on the dusty forgotten swing in the overgrown rusty playground that sat in the atrium of my apartment building, a clunky cheap thing hung from metal links rather than a rope.

I had no reason to fear nettles or ticks or even the entire thing crashing down on top of me, so sometimes, on rare, scattered occasions, I'd sit in the creaky old thing and indulge its function.

It was as good a place to ponder, contemplate or dream as any.

Contemplating my fate.

Contemplating my existence.

Contemplating the inevitable chain of events in which my consciousness was only a passenger.

Contemplating all the sad absurdities of mankind that had set this outcome in stone – by now, it had gained so much momentum already that there was little that could have possibly derailed it or led it to diverge, even by the faintest slightest difference.

I wondered why I even wondered when the answers had all been given to me from the beginning. The odds were low that there was any new meaning to be found.

Yet my spirit could only prove its existence by its motion towards the unseen, wherever out there it may be.

A futile activity, existing only for itself, seen only by itself, bound to vanish unseen along with all that I had ever been, dragging all sights and thoughts and dreams and feelings down the same, torrential dream, like tears in the rain.

At last, I saw the light dusk blanketing the horizon with its ugly, wound-like red.

The day is dying, just as this world is ending, just as I am longing to come to the end of my journey on the horizon…

Yet somehow, I found the sight distasteful.

...

Another week began.

Another page turned over.

I didn't think much of it.

There wasn't the time for it. I pulled a fresh uniform from my closet and picked up my bag from its usual corner. I took my prescribed medication. I pulled a packet of read-made sandwiched from the fridge which I had obtained at a nearby convenience store.

Then, I made for the tram station.

I anticipated another day of sitting through class at my usual table by the window.

I followed my usual path just as I typically would, until I came to the doors of my

No one came. Even the teacher did not appear.

Before long, it became apparent that they were not simply late.

Had first period been canceled?

I pulled my book from by bag, deciding to wait it out.

It was an interesting work, about the finer points of metaphysical genetics.

Though that was not the main reason why I had acquired a copy.

It was a somewhat restrictive work – without showing my NERV ID to the bookseller, I would never have been able to borrow it.

Its classified status was intimately connected to its great relevance to Project E and the creation of the Evangelions.

But that, too, was only a part of the reason why I had acquired it.

The name of the author was, in most cases, fairly irrelevant, significant only in how it allowed you to recognize authors you had encountered before, avoid or seek works based on the quality of insight that you had observed in their past words. Something that was right was right, no matter who said it, and something that was wrong was wrong, regardless of who it came from.

An author's circumstances may let you guess at why they are wrong, if they are, but it is foolish to dismiss wisdom because one does not like the source. Even if you disagree with an author's framing or premise, their observations are still data – by applying your own discernment or reinterpreting it in a different light, such accounts could still be valuable sources of data that one may not wish to cut themselves off from.

So, in most cases, the author does not matter.

It is almost comforting, in a sense, that even the least person could have something valuable to add so long as they speak a truth.

But in this case, the author's name was Yui ikari.

The material was incredibly dense, even for an expert-level text. No sooner had she established an idea than she went right on to erect complicated edifices of thought on top of it, dexterously rushing from one layer of abstraction to the next like a telescoping tower. I had come to become a quick reader over the years, but with this text, I found myself re-reading long paragraphs from the start, trying to pick the sentences apart so as to keep track of every intuitive leap.

Upon first attempt, it seemed as inaccessible to me as the long shadow of the woman who had written it, this diffuse, dark matter presence whose gravity had subtly warped the paths of all the people around me, yet remained to me as an unknown black box.

I'd known well that it might be futile, but on some level I had thought perhaps to look between the lines to get a sense of who this person had been – what better place to look than her life work, her heart's passion?

But if I struggled to even grasp the basic structure of this, let alone the deeper meanings, how could I even hope to make such uncertain inferences?

I did not make much progress that day, and soon, the ringing of the doorbell loomed.

Somehow, I was even less fond of sudden sounds of whom I could anticipate the coming.

But when I looked up after packing the book away, I noticed that even now, no further students had filed in.

The color and direction of the light outside had changed as the sun had continued along its path over the course of the hour, but the other desks were all still unoccupied.

This is when it occurred to me that I must have missed some sort of information – I seldom paid much mind to the bulletin board on the hallway or the leaflets we were occasionally given regarding recreational events or organizational matters – if it was important, NERV would take care of it, and if it wasn't, it was usually wholly irrelevant to me.

Seeing as there was no further point in waiting, I made my way to the hallway to see if I could somehow obtain that missing information.

At once, my presence was remarked upon by a cluster of passing girls.

"Hey, you – you're from class II-A, aren't you? What are you doing here? Aren't you guys all on a school trip or something?"

"Yeah - Soryu-san was just complaining the other day about how the EVA pilots weren't allowed to go."

"Oh dear! Poor you! Our condolences!"

Condolences?

"Why would I grieve the loss of something that was never possible to begin with?"

The students, which I believe were from class B, appeared a little bit… irritated, by that response I think.

"Anyways, you guys have no school this week. You can go home!"

So, I did.

...I had no idea about the school trip. Not just its cancellation, or even its existence. I realize my classmates must have been talking about it, but I presume I must have been absent, or engrossed in my own thoughts, or just… not talking to them.

Not that it would have made a difference.

The year before, there was not an imminent chance of an attack, but I still chose not to go. I saw no real reason, and the idea of being cooped up in close quarters with my classmates did not sound appealing. Besides, would NERV not have experiments scheduled? I don't recall that week's experiment schedule, nor if it could have been accommodated to allow for my participation, because it never occurred to me to ask.

I could go leafing through my journal to find last year's entries, but it didn't seem worth the effort.

It had been prescribed to me by Doctor Akagi that I was to partake in at least an hour of moderate exercise every week.

One activity that was deemed suitable for this was swimming, which was relatively gentle. The water, I was told, would keep my weight off my joints and carry off the heat generated by my muscles, lessening the strain. It seems a careful balance was needed so that my already delicate constitution would not further deteriorate from either overexertion or idleness.

Yet another way in which existing was so hard. Yet another way in which even the basest existence required labor and strain and would not ever let me be at peace.

I am told that many people enjoy exercise or even find it energizing or calming. Suzuhara comes to mind as one who plays sports for the purpose of leisure – I believe that Ikari-kun had mentioned something like this.

Personally, I had found nothing pleasurable about it. It was nothing but distasteful. Nothing but forcing myself every step of the way, counting down the expected minutes or laps. It seemed altogether futile. Only the articles I'd read about how even small amounts of movement could lead to benefits kept me going. It did not need to be strenuous to benefit one's vascular system.

If I'm honest, I care little of my blood vessels.

I was going to die soon anyway. No, even if I could live a full human lifespan, I would see little benefit in vegetating in a nursing home for a few years longer, if it required me to pour hours of my life into an irredeemably loathsome activity that ever felt like punishment and suffering.

But I had heard that it also helps with generating new neurons, and it is my neurons that pilot the EVA, so that at least made it seem not entirely pointless.

Those had been my thoughts years ago, not long after I was first activated and started my training.

I hadn't thought then that I could ever get used to something that seemed so unpleasant in every way, and indeed, it had taken the better part of that first year, but nowadays, going down to NERV's staff pool had become a simple habit that was no longer so difficult.

I think I'd even begun to find it calming or cathartic, a way to let my thinking sort itself in the background as its syrupy streams inevitably continued to move by themselves even without my doing whenever I was privately stuck on some question or another.

I had since come to increase the number of sessions, and even bought a second swimsuit to wear while the other was drying – I owned a simple white one in addition to the one I was issued for PE classes at school.

Swimming had been a convenient option due to the pool present at NERV's facilities and all the reasons I'd listed before, but I'd been given other options that had been deemed equivalent in terms of fulfilling the necessary criteria.

I could have made a different choice, but I did not.

I think what might have led me to choose this option over the others might have been the sense of calm that came with the coolness of the water, the play of the light on its surface, some familiarity with the stark tiled walls, the sensation of liquid, the stillness in my body as I held my breath, or even the perfect pristine quiet under the surface, where all sounds were muffled and distant.

Perhaps there wasn't really any sort of meaning to it, and it was only some distant sense of recognition, an imprint of the tank this body was grown in before a soul had been poured into it.

Or something more general and less meaningful than that – in most mammals, sensing cold water on the face triggers an old ancestral diving reflex that prepares the body for holding one's breath, which includes a lowering of activity that it felt as relaxation.

Apparently, this is also how cosmetic face masks work.

It is just like how rain or waterfalls are sometimes perceived to be comforting, and you might be there thinking about how it's odd that you like it though the rain is culturally associated with sadness. You think that this is maybe something that makes you different, that you enjoy something others don't.

But it is actually because the ions created by the falling water in rain, waterfalls, or fountains set off a biochemical reaction that causes a mild natural high, similar to how some antidepressant drugs work – so it is not unique to any person and has nothing to do with whether or not we associate rain with sadness.

Indeed, in warmer climates rain may be culturally associated with joy instead – but in the north where it is wet, the sunshine is rarer. The sun, of course, boosts your mood because it stimulates vitamin D production.

It's all simple chemistry.

None of it really means anything.

Though perhaps that may be putting the cart before the horse, for is it meaning that comes first, or is it not rather constructed on top of our impressions, sentiments, and associations?

Several known recreational drugs such as LSD or psilocybin are known to stimulate a receptor in the brain that is associated with the perception of significance or meaning. When given such drugs, test subjects were shown to read more meaning into ordinary pieces of music than a sober control group.

A naive interpretation of the findings would be that the drug deceived the participants into seeing meaning where there is none to be found. But that overlooks that the very same receptor is activated when perceiving meaning in everyday life. Meaning noticed under the influence of the drug is not qualitatively different in any way. It is true that drug users can come up reading nonsensical paranoid narratives into their experience if they take inadvisable high doses, but even sober people constantly come up with meanings that other humans would find nonsensical, as in the case of conspiracy theories, superstition, or something as benign as common face pareidolia.

The use of drugs merely stimulates a function that the brain itself already has – it makes one pay attention more to meaning, or puts one in the mindset to search for it.

With drugs or without, any listener might associate a different, highly personal meaning with a song which may differ completely from what the songwriter was thinking when they composed it.

Not a 'false' meaning, but a personal one.

So it may be that meaning is not found, but assigned.

Of course, once you stop taking it for granted, once you become aware of the process of choosing and assigning, the libido-cathexis in process, and meanings can no longer be taken ad a given, there comes to be a gap between the self and the world, awareness of the arbitrariness.

Some might say a freedom, too, from knowing that one may choose to value what one desires, but I am not so certain there. You can choose not to value, for example, your skin color, as much as you want, but if you live in a society that discriminates against you for it, you do not really have that option. Painful memories and regrets related to it will be impressed upon you, so there is no way that it would not be salient for you.

Choosing one's fate is a luxury of the fortunate ones that not everyone is given.

Certainly, no such privilege was extended to me or my fellow pilots.

There is no way that NERV and the instrumentality project would not be salient to me. There is no way that the tank I was grown in would not be salient, where I once was, packed like a sardine in neat rows with the other clones, heads, and legs alternating in facing upward.

So, when I swam through this pool – when I felt the sensation of the liquid surrounding me, or looked at its blocky, tiled walls beneath the water, the glistening on the water on the surface as I viewed from below, or the bubbles that surged around me, I certainly did have very many thoughts. I certainly did have very many feelings.

Unlike LCL, I could not breathe this water. In throwing myself into it like a stone, perhaps I was feeling the proximity of death.

Perhaps I was feeling an echo of the crushing silence, nothingness, and solitude that exists in the deep of the ocean, where life itself once began. Perhaps I am visiting a premonition of the world to come, where all beings shall lose their form.

Perhaps I am tasting some facsimile of freedom.

That was what I connected with this place, what is mine – even if others come here as well, and connect it with different meanings.

For example, during the week when our classmates were away for the school trip, I became away that two different figures had come into the room – Ikari-kun and the Second. I could not hear much of what they were talking, since I had my ears half filled with water most of the time.

Some argument or another, another one of their spats – though to her credit, the Second's aggression seemed reduced, like little more than teasing. I'd rather she wouldn't bother him at all, but it was much better than it had been. Curiously, Ikari-kun was not in swimming trunks, but still wearing his uniform, sitting on a table a safe distance away from the water, with his school laptop set up in front of him. It seems he was not interested in swimming – the Second, who was all geared up in a two-piece swimsuit, sunglasses and snorkel equipment, must have insisted on bringing him along.

Ultimately, it was really none of my business what the two of them were doing here together, so it took this as my cue to leave. I wouldn't wish to intrude on whatever they were planning together, and besides, I preferred to remain unobserved while swimming my rounds, especially not by people I knew and would have to interact with.

I'd rather not answer questions.

So, I finished up my last lap and then climbed out of the mater, going to where I'd left my bag to begin toweling myself off…

Wait, was he looking at me? It couldn't be, why would he…

I couldn't be certain. It was only a short fraction of a moment before the second called to him to have him witness her acrobatic jump into the water…

It matters not.

My business here is concluded.

The next time we spoke was on the date of our next synchronization test.

We spoke very little during the test itself or right after it, since I had to leave right away – Dr. Akagi required me to remain behind for another experiment.

This is why I was surprised to find the Third Child still present at headquarters by the time I was on my way back home. I meant to pick up something to drink en route to the terminals, and found him still present in NERV's cantina, sitting by himself at a table, with a set of textbooks and exercise sheets spread out in front of him. There was also a half-finished bottle of soda, and a paper plate on which only crumbs remained.

I wondered if he was waiting for Captain Katsuragi.

I meant to be on my way after taking in just a passing glance, except that he noticed me, and swiftly waved me over.

"Hello Ayanami! It's good to see you!"

I was a little bit startled that he noticed me, though I could not say why. I was here in this room, obviously, so he could see me, or at least my outward appearance.

He could call to me, and why would he not?

I think I felt… ambivalent about that. I was not sure if it would change anything and did not need it confirmed that it wouldn't. Besides, I was eager to be home.

I keenly felt the taped-on cotton ball on the crease of my elbow where I had endured quite a bit of pricking.

But I think, if we had not interacted at all, I would have regretted that also.

If he called to me, that must mean he still considered us associates.

Hence, I drew nearer, stepping closer, but not yet sitting down.

I assumed that we were going to exchange yet another set of basic pleasantries, the kind of ritualized check-in that symbolized you were still nominally affiliated.

He circled through the usual selection of topics:

"How are you doing?" - "No different than usual."

"What happened to your arm?" - "Dr. Akagi took a blood sample."

"Unit Zero is still not completely repaired, huh?" - "Naturally. They had to replace the entire plating, besides, they are using this opportunity to upgrade it to Production Model specifications."

"So it'll be compatible with more… weapons and stuff?" - "Yes."

"Last week's math test sure was hard, huh…"

"...was it?"

"So… you didn't have any problems with it?"

I held no strong memory of it, to be honest. It wasn't important. But if I remembered correctly, the result was a B+, so I suppose it must have been adequate, so… "Not really."

"Ah, I see…" he thought on this for a bit. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, you're clever after all. And Asuka is an actual supergenius! I'm the only one here who's dumb as a brick… I messed up big time, and now Misato-san's on my case about keeping my grades up…"

I wish I could have told him that his grades would not end up mattering one bit once the promised day occurred, but that was classified information, so I could not tell it to either him or the Captain. I wonder if that would have relieved the distress that was increasingly becoming apparent in his tone:

"If I flunk physics as well, she's gonna be so mad…"

"I doubt that."

"Huh?"

"It makes sense that she would be concerned and try to motivate you, but you can hardly be blamed. You have been under a great amount of stress lately that would weigh heavily even on a trained, grown-up soldier. Besides, you just missed one week's worth of school on account of your special training… and before that, you missed almost two weeks while you were recovering from your battle with the Fourth Angel – and the Fifth one nearly killed you.

It is only natural and logical that this would impact your academic performance. It has nothing to do with being 'dumb' or some such thing."

"...Thanks, Ayanami. I mean, I know that I'm acting spoiled and that Misato-san it only worried about my future, but it's really nice to have someone else admit that this is really, really hard – Asuka is always laughing at me for being slow and calling me an idiot, but that's easy for her to say…"

"If she wants you to perform better, why doesn't the Second Child just help you study instead?"

"Nah, that's not a good idea – she'd run out of patience really fast. Besides, she basically understands all this stuff without studying, so she wouldn't know how to explain it. And she's got her own studying to take care off… not 'cause of math, but 'cause she's still getting the hang of our country's writing. Guess even geniuses struggle sometimes…"

"It is common for bilingual people to be much more familiar with speaking than writing, from what I've read." I observed, cause that was the only reply that I could think of.

Alas, it seems that he in turn could not come up with a response to this.

"I see…" he mumbled, trailing off pensively. I was about to excuse myself, but then, it seems, he thought of some kind of solution: "Say, Ayanami, you wouldn't happen to still have your notes from last week?"

"I didn't take any."

"Guess you don't need any 'cause you're clever, huh… just… forget about it, then."

I might have, but then, something occurred to me.

I took hold of a chair and pulled it closer to where Ikari-kun was sitting.

"I did not take notes, however, I was present in class, and I'm familiar with the material. If you wish, I can explain."

"Really? You'd do that? I- I mean, you don't have to…"

"It's fine. I have no urgent business at this moment. So tell me, what is it you struggle with?"

After some reluctance, he took hold of the textbook and pulled it closer so I could see.

"Well, uh… we're supposed to memorize all of these formulas, but I just can't keep track of them…"

Now this, at last, was something I could do something about.

Moving forward resolutely, I took my place on the chair. "Don't. These are way too complicated for rote memorization. Don't try to remember it as if it is just an arbitrary, meaningless order. The human brain best stores information in a hierarchical pattern, if new information is connected to preexisting data. Besides, this formula isn't just a random order of symbols, it describes a natural process, such as thermal expansion or the behavior of gasses. If you understand the process itself, you can re-derive the formula in your head by logic even if you forget it.

The operations all have meaning. If you know that the formula has a fraction, then some measure leads to an increase in result, it must be in the numerator, if it makes the result smaller, it goes in the denominator. Addition and subtraction are constant changes, multiplication and division are linear changes, and powers lead to correlations that look like parabolas or hyperbolas. For example, the rate of thermal expansion is related to both the change in temperature and the original length of the object, how are they related? Does a longer object expand less or more?"

"More, I guess…"

"And does a higher temperature lead to more or less expansion?"

"More, too."

"And is this expansion always the same? Does a ten-degree change always make the same expansion? Or does it depend on how hot it already is?"

"The last one I guess – and same for the length."

"Then what must the formula look like?"

There was some clear relief or even excitement heard in his voice when he grasped the connection:

"...a multiplication!"

"Exactly." But knowing about his tendency of panicking under pressure, and that anxiety is proven to inhibit the kind of creative thinking that is required for mathematics, I suspected that he would need one more guidepost to feel confident enough during the next test.

"Another clue is the units.", I said, pointing to the page of the book where the thermal expansion coefficient 'alpha' was listed in a table for a number of materials. "Do you remember that our teacher always tells us to remember to write the units? This is because one should always keep in mind what one is trying to do rather than just treating the formula as a blackbox to plug numbers into. In this problem over there, temperature is in Kelvin. Length is in Centimeters. So, Ikari-kun, what unit do you think the result will be in?"

"...centimeters I guess. Kelvin would be a bit weird…"

"Look at the constant's unit then."

"It's really weird."

"That's because it is chosen so that the result will be in the right unit, or rather, it is obtained from rearranging the formula so that Alpha is left as the only thing on one side. In other words, you can guess a lot about what the formula looks like from looking at the unit. Do you want me to do an example problem with you?"

"Wait, wait wait!"

"What is it? Was I being too… direct again?"

"Uh, not really. But, Ayanami, aren't you tired from that extra work they made you do? You don't have to give up your free time just because of me…"

"I am not. Remember what you said earlier, about The Second Child and how she said that the right results were 'obvious'? It is true that practice can help you cultivate a sort of gut feeling or intuitive leaps. But that is basically the brain's version of auto-complete, not a solid, bottom-to-top logical understanding. Many great minds have said that you don't really understand something until you can explain it to an old grandmother, a young child, or a computer – by means of programming, in that last case. In fact, I've read that programmers often check their work for errors by explaining their code to a rubber duck or houseplant. And I'm aware that I'm not always the best at expressing or explaining my thinking.

So, in fact, you are really helping me study for physics as well, by letting me explain to you."

"I- I see!" I could see his reluctance melting away.

Just as I's hoped. Now that he won't be feeling self-conscious or guilty on my behalf, he could finally focus all his attention on the physics.

"Let's try this problem over here… if I go too fast for you, please tell me so I can explain all the steps and reasons-"

I could not make heads or tails of the book.

The Ikari Yui one. I considered if it might be well beyond me.

Should I try to look for the other books and papers in the list of references, to build up my prior knowledge more, and then tackle the full work again at a later point in time?

But there might be no later point in time.

The world was ending soon, if I did not get killed long before that. The memory transfer technology might have unforeseen imperfections, bits of knowledge might be lost, and then the next 'Rei Ayanami' might be left with even less time to close the gap – if she would even be interested in reading this book. There was really no guarantee of anything.

Under the reading light at my bedside, I slammed the book closed, not even bothering to mark the page I was on.

It had been my experience that, if one is stuck on a problem, the best thing to do is to forget your preconception and try again to understand it from the beginning, from the very basics.

So when I opened it up again, it was on the very first page.

My eyes fell on the simple dedication at the start that I had skipped over together with the foreword, having judged it pointless boilerplate that would just keep me from getting to the real content.

'To my beloved family – for my husband Gendo, who showed me an all-new way of seeing this world, and for my son Shinji. I hope dearly that this work will do its part in creating a better and brighter world to live in by the time he is all grown up.'

An ironic wish. In leading to the creation of the EVAs, that woman's work had in fact cut short her life, and left those for whom she wanted to make a better world wounded and lost.