X-X-X
Chapter 15
X-X-X
2130 hours / T minus 150 minutes
"Hey. Blue."
There was no response from the other pylon. The songs of cicadas, and the faint brushes of zephyrs around the towering docking pylons, were the only sounds that broke the silence of the dusk.
"Blue? Are you asleep?"
For a moment, Mari wondered if the other pilot really had fallen asleep. She was an oddity in every way, and that included her machine-like ability to push through fatigue, but the pilot corps had been on alert for nearly 22 hours straight. Mari herself had taken a four-hour power nap in the late afternoon, but she'd seen no evidence that Rei had done anything similar, and even the 'mean ultramarine piloting machine' had limits, surely…?
"I am awake, Pilot Illustrious."
"Good to hear." Mari smiled softly in the darkness. "You holding up okay?"
There was another stretch of silence, and Mari's smile turned into a concerned frown as the cicadas chirped on. The moonlit silhouette of the other pilot - sitting, with her torso slumped forward against her knees in an unusually relaxed position - didn't move at all.
"Blue?"
"My name is Ayanami Rei, Pilot Illustrious."
Mari chuckled softly. "Yeah. It is," she said, half to herself. "Ayanami. You holding up okay?"
Rei was quiet for another moment. However, before Mari could press further, she spoke up.
"Why do you pilot your Eva, Pilot Illustrious?"
Mari blinked, caught off-guard. On one hand, Rei's response wasn't at all an answer to her question - but on the other, this was one of the first times she'd ever observed Rei breaking her pattern of total conversational alogia.
But, conversely, she's the commander's pet, so she could compromise me if I reveal too much.
"No single reason, I think," Mari said, carefully. "Partly because I can; Baal would be no more than an expensive paperweight without me. Mostly out of duty to humanity, as one of few that have any power to fight angels… although, maybe duty to humanity is the wrong way to put it. If the angels beat us, my sister dies, and she's more important to me than anything else."
And part of me pilots because I want answers, she thought, but she didn't dare risk voicing it.
"… Anyway. That's why I pilot." She looked back over at Rei. "How about you?"
Rei's head shifted, although Mari could make out no expression in the darkness. "Because that is what I am," she said eventually, her voice even quieter than usual. "It is part of the purpose I was made for."
'Made for'? What an interesting choice of words… "You were born to pilot? Hell, that sounds like something Pr- err, Asuka might say."
"No." Rei's voice remained soft. "I was made to safeguard the souls of the living. That is the bond I bear."
'I was made,' there it is again… I have a feeling that this is shit she wouldn't say, normally. I wonder if it has anything to do with how zombified she looked earlier. Mari turned the words over in her head, trying to decide which hints were the most important. "I guess stopping aliens from wiping out humanity is one way to safeguard our souls," she said, keeping her tone as neutral as possible.
"Until the angels are all killed, yes." Rei shifted slightly. "Then… he will be able to bring my purpose to conclusion."
"Oh? And who is 'he,' then?" As if I didn't know already… but hey, it never hurts to appear dumber than you actually are.
Rei froze. Mari watched her relaxed posture stiffen and uncurl slowly until she was sitting rigidly upright with her legs crossed. "I am not at liberty to divulge that information," Rei said, her voice firmer than before.
"If you say so," Mari replied carelessly, putting on a nonchalance that she didn't feel. "You ready for tonight? It's fucked up that you've gotta jump in front of an angel's massive laser cannon."
"You need not be afraid, pilot Illustrious. I will protect you."
Mari grinned crookedly at the other pilot's wording. "Who, me? I'm not afraid; I trust you. I asked if you were ready, not if I was."
"I will perform my duties as necessary," Rei droned, without visibly moving a muscle. Then again, the darkness makes it hard to read body language.
"Of course you will," Mari said smoothly. "But, now I've got to know. Are you afraid?"
There was no answer. Mari gave another quizzical look towards the other pylon, but Rei hadn't moved. The silence stretched on, and Mari found herself wondering if a limit to Rei's stoicism even existed.
After a full minute of silence, Mari finally cracked. "Blue? Hey, you didn't really fall asleep on me, did you?"
"I am awake, Pilot Illustrious."
"Ahh." Mari nodded to herself. "Didn't feel like answering?"
Rei fell silent again, and Mari's brow furrowed. Is she being cagey? But she was more open than I've ever seen her earlier… besides, I'd have thought someone as straightforward as she is wouldn't have any qualms with just telling me she isn't going to answer…
"I…"
Mari's attention snapped back to the other pilot.
"I do not think… that I fully understand what it means, to be afraid," Rei said, haltingly. "I am aware of the concept, and know the academic definitions thereof, but I… I cannot say with certainty that I have ever experienced it myself."
Mari cocked an eyebrow, but then realized that Rei wasn't one to respond to expression even if she could see her. "I very much doubt you've never felt fear," she asserted. "Even if you don't think you're afraid, your body knows it. Your heart speeds up, you feel chills even though you're sweating, your mind blocks out anything that isn't focused on the object of the terror… it's a spinal response, not something you need to know."
A brief pause. Then - "I stand corrected, Pilot Illustrious. I have, indeed, experienced fear before," Rei said tonelessly. "Thank you."
"… No problem," Mari replied tentatively. Huh, I didn't think it'd be easy to get her to admit it… but on the other hand, fuck, maybe she really just didn't fucking know what fear was. Just how deep does her machine aesthetic go?
"And, to answer your original inquiry, no." Rei's voice didn't even have a hint of doubt. "I am not afraid of the coming mission."
Mari let out a short laugh. "Even though you're first in line to get killed? Gotta hand it to ya, Blue, you've sure got some guts."
"I am not afraid of death, Pilot Illustrious."
Mari's normally impeccably quick wit failed her, and for a moment she was left gaping wordlessly in the dim moonlight. After literally having the concept of fear explained to her… she says she doesn't fear death. God damn. "That's… hardcore," she managed eventually.
If Rei had intended to answer, it never came. Mari's phone buzzed sharply with an incoming text, and a glance over at Rei's platform showed the other pilot was also looking at her phone.
[princess]: You're at T minus two hours, pilots. Get in those Evas - the captain wants you in position and ready to fire by 2300 hours.
[princess]: Good luck.
An almost inaudible sound drew Mari's attention, and she looked up from her phone briefly. Could have sworn she just repeated 'luck…' weird. She stood up.
"Hey, Rei?" She called back as she walked towards the boarding catwalk. "Try not to die, yeah?"
X-X-X
2330 hours / T minus 30 minutes
"It's broken through the second-last armor layer!"
Asuka looked over the impromptu control room - really a bunch of portable terminals set up under an awning - and nursed her third cup of coffee. Fatigue weighed her down like leaden cuffs on her limbs, yet she found herself too restless to sit still; the stress itch constantly prompted her to bounce her leg and fidget with her hands.
Probably just the caffeine. Yeah.
Abruptly, she stood, and strode over to the bank of communications terminals. There weren't many inactive ones, but a few stood idle; after a few minutes of fiddling with the software, Asuka had a similar communicator to her Evangelion's. Although it was irritatingly lacking in a direct cerebrospinal interface, it wasn't too difficult for her to manage.
"Hey. Four Eyes."
"Princess? You're up on the watchpoint? It's fucking dangerous up there! We don't know how the Angel's shots will splash -"
"If it's not too dangerous to risk the captain, then it's not too dangerous to risk me," Asuka snapped, immediately regretting her harsh tone. "Besides…" she continued, much more softly. "You're risking your life too, Four Eyes. What're sisters without solidarity?"
"Can't argue with that. I know I'd do the same if it was you down here with the huge railgun," Mari said. "You know they couldn't even build much of a gunstock in time? I'm just glad there's an electronic firing trigger - I can't imagine how unwieldy it'd be to try and fire this thing with an Eva's hands."
Asuka scoffed. "What do you want? They had barely a few hours to make it work."
"Yeah, yeah, I know, but it's still annoying." Mari was quiet for a moment. "Really, though, you should be calling Blue instead of me."
Asuka furrowed her brow. "What, Rei?" She said, almost as if delivering a profanity. "Why would I… verdammt. What's wrong with her?"
"What, apart from the fact that she's probably about to step in front of an alien Kaiju's death ray?" Mari raised an eyebrow. "Well… I don't know, exactly. But she's far from top form. She was like a zombie earlier."
Once again, thoughts of the arrayed pill bottles on Rei's dresser flashed through Asuka's mind. "Fuck. She's been like that for a while… I think I know why, too. Rather not discuss it here and now, though." She shook her head. "She better not die out there. Not after all this."
"Aww, it's sweet that you care so much," Mari said, leaving Asuka briefly sputtering like a beached fish. "I told her as much when we were boarding. Doubt she took it to heart, though."
"Probably not. I told her the same fucking thing when we deployed against the fifth angel, and she sort of obeyed then, but only because she thought it was an order."
"Heh, that doesn't surprise me. She sure does seem to like taking orders." Mari's smirk widened, and she winked devilishly. "You should remember that, princess. Might come in handy, if you catch my drift."
Asuka recoiled. "Was zur hölle, Four Eyes?! What do you even mean -"
"Oh, I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually," Mari said, sobering abruptly. "Hey, I gotta go. We're on the wire now, and the techs need me to help pre-calibrate the aim assist for this monster."
"I - yeah. Okay." Asuka bit the inside of her lip, fighting the urge to draw blood. "You do that, Four Eyes. You'd better not die out there, you hear?"
"Wouldn't dream of it."
X-X-X
2358 hours / T minus 120 seconds
"Primary Capacitor Banks at 98% charge. Stand by…"
The two monstrous war machines cut lonely figures against the bare concrete of the firebase bunker. One lay prone and ready to fire its unwieldy longarm, its four legs splayed out in an X formation for stability; while the other was crouched and primed to move its shield into place.
This body is 10.55 years old and its heart has beat 443,707,724 times.
This body's mean age is 12.4 years and it has no heart, only a core filled with light and fury.
All debris had been cleared from around them - their only connection to the world outside their firebase was the cryogenically cooled power line linking the big gun to the immense spiderweb of electrical relays behind Mount Futago.
It almost time.
Rei gazed impassively at the distant octahedron, tuning out the incessant chatter of the technical staff on the comms.
If you die here, will you be allowed to remain in oblivion?
Rei blinked slowly, but her expression remained otherwise neutral. The insidious whisper was uncommon, but not entirely new to her.
"I have been instructed not to die," she murmured back, too quietly for the comms to pick up.
Pilot Illustrious is not your superior. Why would you follow her orders?
"I have been ordered to protect her in a specific fashion," Rei reasoned. "I will only die if the shield is weaker than Doctor Akagi expects."
But you want it, don't you? You want it just like I did, and just like the other one did. Only one of us was ever fulfilled. Why should she be the only one to rest? You could end us both, here and now!
Hyuga's comm crackled. "Banks at 99% charge! T minus sixty seconds!"
Let me do it. Just let go. I'll jump in front of that beam, shield down, and end us both. I've waited so long here, with nothing but a broken promise to hold on to - would you torment me like they do?!
Rei blinked. The prospect was tempting - perhaps the only reward with a fighting chance at overruling the Commander's will. She would suffer no punishment, not even disappointment, if she died. Another Rei - utterly indistinguishable but for serial number, even to herself - would be born to replace her. This incarnation, this fraction of her greater whole, could return to the darkness to sleep alongside her second self.
And really, who would miss you? No one will see a difference between Three and Four; in many ways there won't even be one. Only Dr. Akagi and the Commander will know, and why would they care?
Rei blinked, an image floating to the surface of her mind - a flash of shimmering, fiery hair, Scarlet neoprene, and sapphire irises looking out from narrowed and angry eyes. "Just try not to die, okay?!"
She had no authority to order you!
"But she does now," Rei said softly. "And she has not indicated that her wishes have changed."
I am not convinced.
Rei's brow twitched in a barely perceptible frown. "You and I are the same being. Surely, you must understand my reasoning."
Not anymore. You and Two are, perhaps. Even now she does not truly rest; many pieces of her became pieces of you. But I am no longer Rei. I am no one. If anyone, I am Asherah now.
Rei often found people hard to understand. But, apart from recent anomalous distractions, Rei knew Rei's thought processes well - even the instance of her that had become the bitter, mindlessly destructive spirit that drove Unit 00's actions. She had experienced a conversation like this before, and had been crippled during the battle with Sachiel because of it. She could not afford another incident while on active deployment.
We knew the German pilot existed since we were not five years into humanoid existence. Why would she suddenly be important now? Only the Commander is important, and we - no, I - cannot serve even himas I used to. Not after he betrayed me like this, imprisoning me in his monster instead of letting me die!
The boiling fury was rising in Unit 00's core. Rei winced at the sensation; it perplexed and unsettled her that a being which had once been part of her could become so… alien. Rei barely felt anything at all, perceiving vestiges of her emotion more as transient mental twitches than anything else, like dying fireflies in the night. By contrast, One's fits of all-consuming rage might be better compared to a firing arc furnace, practically defining her entire being. Dr. Akagi had theorized that Unit 00's instability might have been an artifact of implanting a piece of Lilith's soul inside a vessel of Adam's flesh - however, for once, the good doctor was wrong. Unit 00 was unstable for a much simpler reason: the soul of One had been betrayed by the only human she had truly trusted, and then had been interred in the torturous dark void of a flesh-golem warmachine and left to rot. Such treatment would drive anyone to madness. Mania and excessive aggression are not even the worst psychiatric symptoms one might expect.
"I will not die today, One. I am sorry my reasoning does not satisfy you."
How dare you command me! Have I not suffered enough? At the edges of her perception, Rei felt the burning tingle in the uplink subsystem that indicated the diodes were approaching overload stress. Why should I not take what should have been mine long ago?!
The last line was accompanied by a sudden, vicious burst of feedback. If Rei hadn't expected something like it, she would have been caught off-guard in the berserker impulse. However, she had been expecting One to snap at her almost since their impromptu conversation began - and as soon as she felt the attack, she closed her AT field.
The funny thing about synchronization with an Evangelion is that it is inherently founded on a connection between two souls. In unfortunate circumstances, this allows the Evangelion to at least briefly overpower her human pilot's will with an overload of impassioned emotion, taking control of the binary system into their own hands. However, the this also means that a quick-witted pilot can head off such a takeover by deliberately desynchronizing, completely disabling the temperamental beast.
Rei had never been much good at synchronization above a basic function threshold. To part of her soul, it would always feel wrong - the soul of Lilith was never meant to mesh neatly with the flesh of Adam. However, by the same token, she was practically built to rapidly desync.
Keep lying to yourself, then. I see you, Three! One hissed, her voice growing weaker as their souls were forcibly pulled apart. I see you!
Rei cocked her head at the parting statement, but she didn't get a chance to reflect on it. She rebooted the link circuit, logging the unexpected shutdown as a recalibration measure, and re-engaged her synchronization. This time, the lurking darkness was quiet; One was either sleeping once more, or biding her time.
"Asherah?" It was Mari's voice. "Did you just reinitialize your subsystems?"
"Apologies, Pilot Illustrious. A motor nerve required recalibration. The error is resolved."
Mari said something in reply, because her lips visibly moved. However, Rei didn't register it. A lance of pain stabbed through her skull, overriding all other stimulus, and a moment later she felt the crushing pressure of an AT shockwave coming from the angel.
"Capacitors are hot!" It was Misato's voice, this time. "Fire!"
There was a brilliant flash, and Rei's world went silent. It took her a moment to even realize that the report from the positron rifle must have been loud enough to cause temporary hearing loss; she was too focused on the angel to pay it any mind. At the same moment as Mari fired the gigantic railgun, the Angel's body opened along its edges like some kind of hellish flower and fired a return shot.
The glittering tracer trail of plasma wobbled and coiled into a helix as it brushed within a scant few feet of the AT energy ray. Both shots twisted and went wide of their mark, the railgun round slamming into the far side of the caldera ridge and the ray splashing harmlessly over the lower slopes of Mount Futago. Rei felt nothing, situated safely inside a few hundred tons of hyperdiamond armor, but she noted that activity on the comm display indicated the watchpoint had been hit with a minor blast wave.
"Cycle the fuses!" Misato yelled over the wind, holding her hat on with one hand. "Fire a second volley as soon as the barrel is ready!"
Rei could already tell it wasn't going to be fast enough. The feeling of pressure was building again; slower this time, but the angel would surely fire before the cryogenic system cooled the railgun back to its subarctic operant temperatures. She hefted the titanic shield, steeling herself for the inevitable pain.
Last chance, came the insidious whisper. It doesn't have to hurt at all, if you don't want it to.
"Energy buildup detected in the target!"
"No! Dammit, the gun's not ready!"
The Angel's facets began to open again, and Rei moved, shifting the shield up in front of her as she stepped between Unit 05 and the Angel.
The beam slammed into the shield with a dull roar. Rei had expected a much louder sound, but it seemed that the lion's share of concussive force was splashing out around the edges of the shield instead of reverberating towards her. Even the pressure - comparable to a mighty river crashing into the terrifyingly flimsy space shuttle hull - wasn't nearly unbearable.
Far, far worse was the heat. Rei dimly remembered an activation test where Unit 00 had gone berserk, ramping her internal reactor to red-line almost immediately: the roaring inferno of the AT ray was already mounting the same level of pain, even though a double-strength dose of drug induced numbness. In the space of a scant second, the once-cool LCL began boiling her alive and the control yokes started to soften the neoprene of her plugsuit gloves. Black and red streaks colored the edges of her vision, creeping inexorably inwards.
Her grip began to falter as the metal of the shield slowly but surely deformed. Unit 00's armored fingers began to sink into the glowing handholds, and the center of the shield distended towards her.
Rei's last memory was a tiny, barely detectable swell of pride in her own endurance as the pressure of the ray finally dropped off. Unit 00 staggered forward, suddenly unbalanced - and crashed into the parapet as her pilot blacked out.
X-X-X
Asuka didn't stay to hear the countdown. As soon as the Angel's AT attack dropped she was headed for the steps down to the firebase, heedless of the officers from the Section 2 security cordon yelling after her about how it wasn't safe.
Verdammt, verdammt, verdammt! She had better not be dead. She's not fucking allowed to die. I ordered her not to -
She'd just reached one of the landings of the stairs when Mari fired the big gun a second time. The sound was so loud it instantly disoriented her, sending her physically reeling for a moment -
- and if the railgun's report hadn't deafened her, the scream would have. The Angel split its facets again, morphing in the blink of an eye into a hellish starburst of radial crystals, and its unearthly shriek echoed clear around the caldera. Asuka watched, dumbstruck, as the monstrosity began to crumble into smaller fragments of the strange blue material. Each new crack spurted with weakening jets of blue blood.
Mari hit home this time. It sure as hell looks dead now.
Asuka blinked, coming back to herself.
Big fucking deal. Good for her, sure, but right now I've got another fucking pilot down!
The climb down became increasingly arduous as the ambient temperature began to rise. The discharge vents on the refrigeration units were dumping heat at full blast, adding to the blistering hot air around the shield zone. The shield itself and a great deal of the concrete and earthen parapet around it were still glowing and glassy. Asuka found herself grateful that she'd neglected to remove her plugsuit after crawling out of Unit 02 at Matsushiro - despite the discomfort of wearing the strange pseudo-neoprene for an extended period, the suits were built with surprisingly advanced environmental regulation systems.
Probably something to do with the fact our entry plugs perch just above high temperature nuclear reactors, Asuka mused sourly, picking her way over the cracked and hissing concrete to where Unit 00's ejected entry plug lay.
She punched the EMERGENCY: Flush LCL button, wincing as a brief flash of pain shot through her knuckles. Orange fluid gushed from the emergency valves, hot enough for the jets to release large clouds of steam even in the warm night air.
Asuka looked at the back of her hand, noting with some detachment the small spots on the contact patches where the neoprene had rapidly melted and recooled. Scheisse, the internal temperature better be colder than the shell, or she's already dead!
The external hatch handles had popped out as soon as the entry plug had ejected. Asuka braced herself for the pain, grabbed them with both hands, and twisted.
"Hurensohn!"
Even through the plugsuit gloves, it was worse than she expected. Searing pain stabbed into her palms, followed by a constant, sharp burn as the melted rubber glued itself to her blistered skin. She let out a strangled cry of adrenaline and pain as she threw her shoulders into the movement one more time, finally shifting the handles and levering the hatch open.
Rei was slumped forward over the control column, unmoving; she would have fallen onto the plug's floor, but for the grotesque spiderweb of cables holding her in place. Each line plugged into a different port on her plugsuit and led back to the aft or ceiling of the entry plug.
Asuka ducked through the hatch, wincing at the oven-like heat. While unlikely to still be life-threatening, it was extremely uncomfortable; she'd probably have hesitated longer if she hadn't already been covered in sweat and grime.
"Blue?" She said, her voice tense as she stepped up to the unresponsive pilot. "Gottverdammt, Rei, you're not allowed to die! Remember? You're under orders, verdammt…"
Stepping around in front of her, Asuka checked the other pilot's neck; her pulse was weak, but at least it was there. Her breathing was shallow and ragged, and Asuka guess she hadn't had a chance to purge residual LCL from her lungs.
Scheisse, she's unconscious. I've got to get her to triage…
The cable at the base of Rei's neck seemed to have a grip clasp, unlike the others, which connected via some arcane means beyond Asuka's understanding. Gritting her teeth from the pain in her burned fingers, she squeezed the clasp, and the neck cable popped out of its socket - then, a second later, every other cable followed suit. Asuka, unprepared for the cables to suddenly drop their load, found herself flat on her back in a puddle of warm LCL with Rei's limp form atop her.
Déjà vu…
Asuka unceremoniously shoved Rei off her and stood up, hauling the girl up with her by one arm. With some effort - fortunately for her, mostly the same kind of effort one learns to accept in Bundeswehr boot camp - she had the other pilot's arm over her shoulders, supporting her as well as she could.
X-X-X
This body is 10.55 years old and its heart has beat 443,709,073 times.
With some effort, Rei managed to force her eyes open. Her pervasive, constant numbness gave way to faint sensation, and she realized she was being carried. Her arm was slung over the other person's shoulders, and her feet were dragging slightly - her benefactor couldn't be much taller than her, and was therefore almost certainly another pilot. The sure steps and strong posture of the other party indicated one probability above the other.
The fuzzy smears of light and color sharpened as her eyes finally focused. Her head was hanging, but she could still see a pair of legs clad in scarlet plugsuit material.
Why would Lieutenant Langley-Soryu be assisting me? She should be recovering at Matsushiro. Her presence at Mount Futago was not necessary.
Rei went to speak. However, she didn't manage more than a mumbled "Lieutenant - ?" Before a fit of coughing took her. She stumbled, falling to her knees; only the sturdy support of Asuka's shoulder stopped her from falling flat in her face.
Although she knew what the phenomenon was, coughing was an uncommon experience for Rei. Even during her frequent bouts of viral illness, the anaesthetic properties of the medications she took suppressed the reflex, and a brief breathing exercise usually got most of the LCL out of her lungs whenever she was in a draining entry plug. This time, she had passed out before it drained - and her lungs were thus still full of stale liquid.
It took nearly a minute for the hacking and dry heaves to stop shaking her frame, leaving only a pool of brackish orange goo on the concrete pavement. Dimly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Asuka grimacing and looking away. Despite the German's apparent disgust, however, she held Rei's arm with unwavering support.
"Can you walk? You can -" Asuka cut herself off, biting down on her own speech in that gritted-teeth manner she so often used when the words were hard for her to say. "You can lean on me. Don't worry about it."
It took another moment for Rei to calm her breathing, and she didn't move to stand.
"Why… why do you assist me?" She asked, her voice still scratchy and rough.
Asuka looked so offended that the force of her glare alone might have withered Rei where she lay. "You think I was going to just leave you?! What kind of - I'm your squad leader, dummkopf! I'm supposed to fucking look out for -" her voice broke, and she sucked in a deep breath before she continued in a more measured tone. "I'm supposed to look out for you. That's what a good leader does. You're my pilots, and none of you are allowed to die on my watch, you hear? Not even you, Blue."
Her sentiment almost makes sense, in the context of a classic military mindset. However, leader and subordinate dynamics developed to organize people. There is no need for them to apply when the subject is not a person.
"I do not understand," Rei replied tonelessly. "Measured against the other pilots, my death would mean nothing. I-"
"Don't you dare say that."
Rei wasn't unaccustomed to Asuka cutting her off, but she'd never heard an edge quite as sharp as this one in the other pilot's tone.
"I mean it. Don't even think that - I know you are, I can see you winding up to talk about how replaceable you are. Well, you're not a machine, Rei. And I don't know who hurt you but you are not replaceable - is that clear?"
No, it is not clear at all. 'Eyes as limited as yours,' that is what One said. If anything, too weak a descriptor. Rei is not a person. Rei will always be replaceable, because only her flesh dies, her mind living on in the next, her soul still nailed to the cross in the deepest and darkest cavern. Not only am I replaceable, I am already a replacement.
It pained her that she could not explain the truth of her existence to Asuka. Still, her standing orders from Commander Ikari kept her lips sealed on that subject.
"I am… sorry," she said eventually. "I do not know how to respond, at times like these."
Asuka's glower melted, her signature crooked smirk taking its place. She secured Rei's arm over her shoulder once more. "I'm not your mom, Rei. I'm not going to tell you what you should feel." She stood, slowly, lifting Rei almost as if she were weightless. "But I'm glad you're alive, even if you don't give a fuck yourself. I don't want you do die. Keep that in mind next time you tell me I should leave you in the dust, yeah?"
Why would she be glad that I am alive?
The thought seemed irrational to her. Still, Rei was used to orders based on motives she did not understand.
Even if it makes little sense, I suppose it is not beyond plausibility that someone might value my contiguous existence. Especially if that person is not privy to my true nature.
She twitched the corners of her mouth upwards, experimentally. "I will remember, Lieutenant."
I have observed smiles to have placating effects on others. However, Lieutenant Langley-Soryu is not easily placated…
Asuka, however, offered no comment. She didn't move to continue their journey, either, instead lingering on the spot as she stared at Rei with a faint flush to her cheeks.
"Is something the matter, Lieutenant?"
Apparently coming back to herself, Asuka blinked, then coughed nervously. "Nothing!" she said hastily, almost tripping over herself. "A-Anyway, let's get you up to the triage tent at the top of the hill, shall we?"
What an unusual reaction. Certainly not what I would have expected from merely smiling at her. It made little sense to her, but she tucked away in a mental filing cabinet for later assessment. For some reason it seemed to make her pulse quicken slightly, and it was rare for her to find anything less than direct injury that could elicit a physiological reaction from her.
Asuka resolutely refrained from looking at Rei through the whole journey up the small mountain. Still, Rei decided to let the smile stand. After all, it cannot hurt to learn how to better affect the appearance of emotions at will. The smile seems to elicit an unusually strong response from her - it will be a good place to start.
X-X-X