In this late hour I realize that I have no stylesheet and I've probably been ridiculously inconsistent with my formatting. But if there's one thing I firmly believe in, it's that one should never learn from history and should instead always bulldoze ahead making the same mistakes over and over again. There are no rules anymore. Truth is dead. Here's a chapter I probably should have edited but didn't. Enjoy.

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Chapter 27

The Siege of Hakone: Iscariot (part 3)

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This body is 10.65 years old and its heart has beat 448,415,021 times.

The locker room showers were an unpleasant lukewarm. Once, Rei wouldn't have noticed. But her mean body temperature had risen considerably since then, manking the dull coolness of the liquid stand out.

With concentration, she could even have made the water steam as it ran down her body. But that was far too risky to try within the geofront.

Twenty-eight thousand heartbeats. So about six hours. Rei methodically rinsed the shampoo from her hair. Asuka was subjected to unprecedented conditions by the dummy plug override, as well as nontrivial combat injuries. I hope she was conscious when she ejected in the retrieval bay...

Until recently, Rei had barely understood the concept of worry. However, she was already certain she didn't like it. It made her tense up and hurt in ways she struggled to articulate.

Although, it is far from the only thing that makes me tense up and hurt in ways I struggle to articulate.

NERV's towels were small and scratchy. The towels at Captain Katsuragi's residence were much larger and softer. But the military towels were sufficient to dry herself with, and Rei was nothing if not disciplined.

After battling down the Angel Bardiel and then going on to complete another full patrol shift, Rei wasn't in ideal form either. Her skin was scattered with phantom bruises, each one painfully reminding her of the invisible injury when she brushed against them in the process of donning her school uniform. Her head ached from link circuit strain, as well as minor concussive feedback.

But Asuka is likely worse off.

She picked up her school uniform, pulling on the pieces with an efficiency more like a machine assembler than a pair of human hands. It took her less than a minute to have every item in place, except for her cellphone, still sitting in the locker due to a lack of pockets in the uniform skirt.

She picked up the phone, regarding it for a moment. It was NERV-issue, and lacked any security: Rei's fingerprints were unreadable, and she had seen no point in password-locking the device.

It had received calls from Commander Ikari, and issued angel alerts, and had never once been used in any other capacity. However, security protocol dictated that Rei retain the ability to rapidly contact the Ops Commander, the Pilot Corps, and emergency services - so there were a few stored telephone numbers.

Rei picked up the phone, looked at it for a moment, and then lowered her hand.

There is something that, I think, she will want to know.

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"Soryu, guten tag..." Then a soft curse. "Moshi-moshi, Soryu, Asuka Langley. Who is this?"

It was disconcerting, saying anything but yes or no into a telephone. Rei cleared her throat. "It is... I am Ayanami Rei."

"Blue? What's up?" Asuka's voice immediately sounded lighter, and Rei tried to ignore the twinge of joy in response. "You aren't still on patrol, are you?"

"No. I am in Central Dogma," Rei replied. "... The artificial evolution laboratory's decontamination facility."

Silence. Then - "is she alive?"

"Her heart is beating unassisted," Rei answered, looking at the ECG panel. "She remains on external respiratory aids."

"Is she infected? Is she... angel?" Asuka's voice was hard and sharp, and Rei couldn't answer immediately, disoriented by the stinging hurt in her chest.

"I - I do not think so. I will check." Rei looked over to Ritsuko. Despite the doctor's aura of exhaustion, she nodded, tapping a sequence of keys on her tablet computer.

Asuka only knows angels as monsters. It is natural that she would hate and fear them.

"She is... the infection is diminishing. With additional time in decontamination, it should disappear completely. She is unlikely to die."

"That's good to hear."

Rei handed the tablet back to Ritsuko.

She wanted to press, to ask after Asuka's well-being. But the words wouldn't come.

This body is 10.65 years old and its heart has beat 448,419,341 times.

"Well... see you at home, Rei." Asuka sounded tired. "Bye."

"Y- yes," Rei stuttered awkwardly. "Goodbye." The line cut out.

Asuka hadn't asked for more, but the report panel was as detailed as it was harsh. Aside from the infection, Hikari's injuries had been brutal. The possessed Evangelion seemed to have forced abnormally high synchronization, far into untested ranges. What would normally be feedback pain had manifested as real wounds on the pilot's body, and thus Ritsuko had spent most of the intervening hours performing surgery in a specialized AEL operating room.

The deep stab wounds had been sutured on-site by the EMTs. Her lungs had collapsed, and without hyper-oxygenated LCL flooding her system, she would have died long before the medics could have addressed the respiratory failure.

Her lower left leg was crushed, each long bone halfway shattered. A few fragments of bone had been hastily pinned back together, but the majority had been removed and replaced with titanium. Realistically, it was one of the better possible outcomes - Hikari would need periodic corrective surgeries as her body grew into adulthood, but she would likely walk, maybe even run again.

Her arms weren't as lucky. Left and right had both been hacked off, and the repeated dismemberment of Unit 03's regenerating arms had resulted in amputations that were best described as... messy. The left arm had been reattached, and it was too early yet to know if the replantation would take.

The mangled right arm had been cannabilized for the left's graft tissue, and there was an attached footnote outlining NERV's intention to finance a prosthetic replacement.

... And the blood loss had put her into shock, and there was a shallow gash across the lower half of her face.

She is not even the first pilot to be cut to pieces in the name of Eva. Though, perhaps the first in such a literal way.

It is fortunate that the decontamination necessitates a medically induced coma. She will not run the risk of moving too much and reopening sutures...

"That was your girlfriend, I take it?"

Rei jerked with surprise. "I - I beg your pardon?"

"You know who I mean." Ritsuko sipped her coffee with a sly smile that didn't quite reach her tired eyes. "Warrant Officer Langley-Soryu, of course."

"She is not... we are not..."

"Relax. I'm just teasing you." Ritsuko set down the cup off coffee, and her hands went to light a cigarette, only to stop themselves just above her pocket. "You don't need to explain yourself to me. You don't... you don't owe me anything."

Rei inclined her head. "You created me."

"My mother created you."

"Your mother created the Rei system, in the Chamber of Guf," Rei replied, her voice neutral. "You created me."

Ritsuko blinked for a minute, then reached for a cigarette again - and this time, she actually lit one up.

"I hardly think that balances out the harm I've done you," she said, her voice grating and low. "Perhaps I did spend... many sleepless nights trying to put the chamber back into working order, after the death of Rei-1. Mother never considered what the consequences of imbuing a fractured soul might be. It turns out that it is not so easy, to hack a God into pieces small enough to squeeze into a human body, and it made everything so much worse that Rei-1 was interred in Unit 00 rather than dying naturally - "

She cut herself off, gesturing vaguely with the lit cigarette. "Anyway. I did not maintain the system out of the kindness of my heart. Nor did I spend so long poisoning you or your antecessor for defensible reasons."

Rei didn't respond immediately. Ritsuko seemed to grow more agitated under the wordless scrutiny, looking away and fidgeting with her cigarette - then stubbing it out almost angrily.

"You are right that I owe you nothing," Rei concluded at last. "But I am grateful for your change of heart."

"Anytime," Ritsuko muttered back, her voice sour.

"Asuka and I are not romantically involved. However, you are right to guess that I would like to change that."

Ritsuko's dark expression lightened, and for a moment she almost looked like she could laugh. "Sometimes I forget how blunt you can be. But I could have guessed that long ago." She flicked the dead cigarette away. "And I think she likes you, too. But you'll have to talk to her about that. I'm an expert on the hearts of monsters, not men."

"Asuka is not a man."

"You know what I mean. Now run along home, you. I know you technically have clearance, but you don't want the commander to catch you making unreported trips to the AEL, do you?"

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It was not twenty-four hours after Bardiel's defeat when the briefing room was crowded again. The sun had set, but while the pilots slept - all except Mari, who had night patrol - their masters schemed.

It was Fuyutsuki who pitched the plan, although he was reading a lot of Ritsuko's notes. Ritsuko herself was slumped forward in the front row of chairs, almost too tired to sip from her mug of coffee.

"The MAGI are over ninety-five percent certain of their analysis. This, I think, is certain enough to launch a counterattack. Now, allow me to direct your attention to the terrain of the battlefield: the steep inclines create obvious defensive choke points..."

The phone in Ritsuko's pocket buzzed. She wouldn't have thought much of it, but the vibration pattern was unique, one that she had set for a very specific type of notification.

[CPT. Katsuragi Misato]: [image file]

It was a selfie of Misato lying on a hospital bed, her signature cheery grin and peace sign in full force. There were bandages around her head, but not enough to imply brain surgery. Ritsuko's mouth felt dry, and she fought to swallow a wave of emotion.

She made it out of Matsushiro. She's alive.

[CPT. Katsuragi Misato]: They won't tell me the situation back in Tokyo-3. I know the corps beat Bardiel, nothing else.

The tone of the message was a stark contrasts to the levity of the selfie. Right... no time for flirting. She doesn't do that with me anymore. At least she's talking to me...

[SCISPEC DR. Akagi Ritsuko]: Asuka was pulled back to duty. Asherah and Moloch took down Unit 03 while Ishtar and Baal held the siege perimeter. It was brutal, Bardiel fought hard.

[CPT. Katsuragi Misato]: What happened to Hikari?

[SCISPEC DR. Akagi Ritsuko]: She'll... live, she's in decontam now. She needed a lot of surgery. There was severe extremity damage - she'll walk again, but I could only save one arm.

[CPT. Katsuragi Misato]: You operated on her yourself?

[SCISPEC DR. Akagi Ritsuko]: Me and the XO of D wing. We were the two best surgeons available and it was a time sensitive task.

[CPT. Katsuragi Misato]: How long have you been awake?

Ritsuko's brow furrowed. Concern? Now? I don't understand you, Misato...

[SCISPEC DR. Akagi Ritsuko]: About 40 hours, I think. Why?

[CPT. Katsuragi Misato]: You should go to sleep.

[SCISPEC DR. Akagi Ritsuko]: Sleep is for the pilots right now. Command needs me planning. We've got Matarael dead to rights and the next op will be about breaking the siege.

"Doctor Akagi? Am I boring you?"

Ritsuko's head snapped up, and she met Fuyutsuki's disapproving gaze with her own grim exhaustion. "Captain Katsuragi is awake. I'm updating her on the situation," she replied, her voice flat.

His frown persisted, but he nodded. "Very well."

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With only a handful of hours to spare, it wasn't worth the commute back to her house. Instead, Ritsuko headed down to the tiny living accommodations attached to Terminal Dogma.

Of course, because nothing is ever easy, she wasn't able to go to sleep immediately. Kyū had gotten her hands on a collection of the doctor's pens - and while the nonsensical graffiti on the floor was little concern, the small self-inflicted stab wound on her hand required immediate attention.

The cleaning and bandaging was quick, routine. Ritsuko had treated many simple injuries in her life. Finding sleeping accommodations for Kyū was more difficult; the cubby only had one set of clean bedding. Fortunately, the laboratory had large towels to spare and the cubby's couch was - though too small for Ritsuko herself to sleep on it - just long enough to lay out an average-sized fourteen year old.

Kyū was not interested in sleeping, but a syringe and a few drops of pentobarbital solution solved that problem. Ritsuko would have felt guilty, drugging children all over again - but a slightly larger dose of the same formulation wiped away her doubts only a few minutes later.

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