Lmao I didn't plan the awkward mom talk but I guess here is where it is, anyway.
(there will be no erotica in Angels We Have Heard On High, I have no interest in writing sexual content involving minors)
Sorry about the copious technobabble in the second scene. It's hard to get into Ritsuko's head without encountering technobabble. She's just such a nerd at heart.
X-X-X
Chapter 37
All The Shadows Below Me
X-X-X
Misato sipped bemusedly from her cup of coffee. It was the second that her coffee maker had made that morning. Whoever had used it had raided Misato's coffee stash, made coffee with the stolen proceeds, and then left the used grounds in the machine for Misato to deal with.
The nerve.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a bedroom door sliding open. Asuka's, it sounded like. A moment later, the bathroom door opened and closed.
Misato frowned. Since when does Asuka rise early?
She shifted to the other end of her futon, where she could look out of her bedroom into the living-room-slash-pilot-dormitory of the apartment. The clock ticked softly in the wall as Misato drank her coffee.
Eventually, she heard the bathroom door open. A few heartbeats later, Rei stepped into the living room.
Ah, it was Rei. Yeah, it makes more sense that Rei was in Asuka's room.
... Rei was in Asuka's room.
Misato almost choked on the dregs of her coffee.
"Hold it right there, young lady!"
Rei's eyes snapped up, the fog of sleep rapidly clearing. On the futon on the other side of the room, Mari stirred, mumbling something unintelligible in her sleep and rolling over.
"Yes, Misato?"
Faintly, Misato realized that Rei had finally taken her mantra of don't call me by rank when we're off duty to heart. However, her attention was currently occupied by other things.
"Were you just in Asuka's bedroom?"
"Yes."
"Did you spend the night with her?"
"Part of the night. Technically, the entire span was in the A.M."
"And did you... were you two doing... untoward things while in there?"
Rei tilted her head, then. After a moment, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed slightly, a measured look of concentration.
"Are you asking if we had sex?"
This time, Misato had finished her coffee, and thus had little excuse for the undignified grunt.
"Yes. That is what I'm asking."
"No."
"Is that the truth?"
"It is the truth."
"Forgive me if I'm not inclined to believe the word of an infatuated teenager... in the horniest years of the human life cycle."
"I believe you already know that I am not entirely human. But I see your point." Rei relaxed back to a neutral pose, her expression masked once more. "Sharing a bed intended for single occupany is more human contact than I am accustomed to or comfortable with."
"Then why go into her room at all?"
"I wanted to be near her." It occurred to Misato, then, that there was an empty spot on the floor where Rei's futon would have - should have been. "We went out to the balcony not long after midnight. After we went back inside, neither of us wanted to be separated."
"Why were you out on the balcony?"
"That is not a memory I will share with you."
Misato sighed, looking down at the bottom of her empty coffee mug.
Well, it would have been cold as hell out there at midnight... I doubt whatever they were doing would have involved any clothes coming off.
"Alright, fair enough. I'll take your word that it was all decent." Misato raised her head, giving Rei a pointed look. "you ever have, umm... questions about, well... sex... feel free to ask me, alright? I'll do my best to answer. Without even any teasing, I promise."
"Thank you?" Rei's expression remained neutral, but her tone was clearly confused.
"D-don't mention it. I just know you won't get much in the way of Sex Ed at school, is all."
"I... thought you did not want me and-slash-or Asuka engaging in sexual contact?" Rei sounded even more confused. "Did I misread your tone?"
"I think you're a little young for that, yeah," Misato said, fighting the urge to stutter awkwardly. "But you're, y'know, teenagers coming up on adulthood. Teenagers are known for being impulsive and... horny. So if you two decide to get into each other's pants anyway, you'd be better off knowing how to go about it safely and comfortably, yeah?"
"That logic is sound. Thank you, Misato."
"Don't mention it." Misato looked back down at the empty mug in her hands. "By the way, do you have any idea who might have raided my coffee stash shortly before I got up?"
"I am sworn to secrecy."
"Damn, of course the only thing that'll get Asuka up early is mischief."
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Ritsuko had caught herself humming at least twice so far since entering the AEL. It was highly uncharacteristic behaviour for her, and it rubbed her wrong that she might start drawing attention to herself without realizing it.
Despite that, she couldn't help but admit that she was in higher spirits than she'd been for a long time. Besides, she was working on officially sanctioned projects, there was nothing suspicious about being pleased to have made progress.
Of course, it's not just about having made progress, but the Commander doesn't need to know that.
Lights pulsed in the tanks of raw, cloudy LCL. They were small, but strong, cycling through bright and dim on a steady sine wave. The tanks' sensor readouts were all a healthy green, and most magical of all, in two of the three specimens there was clear evidence of growth.
The earliest trials of this experiment, based on crude hypotheses and outdated observations of Adam, had yielded mostly abject failures. Naoko Akagi had declared it impossible, but Gendo had never given up hope. The seemingly nameless fourth angel, interred in Bethany Base, had provided more insight - but it was ultimately little of use: that sub-project had been aborted before Section Three could study half of what Ritsuko had hoped for.
But, Unit 03 - now officially re-titled from 'Anubis' to 'Malkira' - had presented Ritsuko with limitless opportunity to study a S2 Organ that was optimized for an evangelion's anatomy; or if not limitless, limited only by her need for meal breaks and sleep.
It had been foolish to think that the organs could be produced without electromechanical assistance in simple hot chemical baths, like Eva cores in a Hadean Crucible - they were the heart of the demon, not the soul. They needed a complex bioreactor to survive and grow.
These new tanks were set up to pump 'Enriched LCL' - the blood of an Evangelion after flowing from its core but before reaching its reactor heart - through a complex, ring-like network of veins in the organ's membrane. Rather than cool and recirculate, it was currently more practical to just flush the hot LCL after it passed through the tiny S2 Organs. The technician teams had siphoned off hundreds of gallons of enriched LCL from each in-service Eva; the leviathans wouldn't miss it, and it should be enough to sustain the experiment for weeks (per current growth projections).
There were also electrodes to supply an alternating current stimulus to the 'artery'. It was as close as she could get to reconstructing the xenoangelic nerve anatomy she'd observed through macrosurgical probes.
By each tank's control panel stood a technician, watching the displays like a hawk. Four more technicians were posted up by the supply valve boxes. It was was a much smaller crew than certain Gehirn projects, but still many more coworkers than Ritsuko had grown accustomed to, after so many hours alone in the dark down in Terminal Dogma.
Ritsuko caught another hum in her throat as she turned the page in her notebook, taking down another series of notes. After a moment, she gave in to the impulse, deciding that a few odd looks from the rest of the research team wasn't the worst thing in the world.
It had been interesting to work on the organs at a scale larger than fingernail-sized blobs. These modern S2 tests had been disturbingly similar in both size and shape to a human child's heart - just more translucent, and a vivid orange color. Still, it had been a morbid sort of fun, to sculpt the protein framework and apply seed stem cells; getting her medical gloves dirty with tissue cultures instead of actual children's blood was nostalgic.
They had made four. One had been ignited before the enriched LCL was circulating, and had ruptured immediately. The second had been ignited with circulation running, and the 'nerve' signal turned on simultaneously with firing the ignition lasers; this one hadn't grown like the others, but was stable.
The other two were growing. Not rapidly, but steadily. Readings indicated smooth AT carrier waves radiating from each of the tiny angel hearts.
A stable stellarator ring, with AT-field containment rather than electromagnetic... fascinating. Simply fascinating.
Putting her paper notepad down, she picked up her pad computer, tapping out a neat closing paragraph below the final table of figures. She rolled her shoulders as she typed, wincing at the pop of tension on the right side.
Eugh, have I really been at this for seven hours already...? She frowned at the accusing digits of the clock in the corner of her pad's display. You know what, Me? I think NERV owes us an early-out today.
She waved to catch the eye of the swing shift lead, and quickly thumbed an 'I'm out' gesture. The man raised a surprised eyebrow, but Ritsuko was already turning away, heading for the exit to the main hallway.
X-X-X
Though her PT had progressed to free-standing exercises, Hikari had learned to accept that it was still easier (and safer) to walk with the crutch most of the time.
It was a little awkward, but it was definitely more convenient than the wheelchair. Especially given that one arm couldn't really drive an unpowered wheelchair alone, necessitating a nurse escort to move anywhere. Now that she was independently mobile, NERV's medical staff had approved her to return home, continuing her care on an outpatient basis.
The Section-3 Prosthetist seemed optimistic about her options for a prosthetic arm, too. Apparently it worked in her favor that she'd lost her right arm around the bicep, not higher up into the shoulder.
All in all, she was in relatively high spirits as she exited the elevator into the D-wing lobby of NERV-J HQ.
"Oh, hey! Hikari!"
She jerked at the sound of her name, carefully pivoting to look at the row of benches - where a conspicuous shock of red hair stood out.
"Asuka." Hikari made her way over to her fellow... Evangelion Pilot, I guess. "What brings you here?"
Asuka smiled with half her mouth, turning her head and brushing her hair back to expose her left ear. The plastic structure around it was unmistakable - it was as red as the scarlet of her plugsuit, curling down from behind the shell of her ear to nestle into the auditory canal.
"... Eye-catching."
"You'd better believe my hearing aid is gonna be just as flashy as the rest of my style," Asuka replied evenly. "First test outside the exam room today, so it's hard to say how well I'll get used to it."
"I see."
"How about you? Physio, or fitting?"
"Err, fitting... so to speak. The prosthetist wanted to do a final set of electronic measurements before they start fabricating." Hikari gestured vaguely. "Fitting comes when they get the rough parts made, then during each refinement cycle until it's done."
"Damn. That sounds like a really involved process."
"Eh, it's not the worst thing in the world. Comfort is gonna be important, I think, for something that's going to be socketed onto my body for extended periods."
"Y-yeah." Asuka looked away, trying too late to hide how she'd subconsciously touched her ear. "You seem pretty upbeat about it, all things considered."
"Have you ever known me to wallow in misery, when I could be facing life head-on?"
"Not really, no."
There was a lull of awkward silence.
Hikari cleared her throat. "So... are you waiting here for Major Katsuragi to pick you up?"
"Ah... no." Asuka seemed to deflate a little. "I'm, um, actually waiting up to pick you up. Misato wants to talk to all the pilots in the main conference room in Central Dogma."
Hikari shifted nervously. "I don't mind staying longer, but... this conference room has chairs, right?"
"Oh, yeah. Hey, don't worry. Misato won't give you shit for sitting down. We only stand for briefings when we're at Red Alert."
"Are you sure?"
"... If she does, I got your back, okay?"
X-X-X
This body is 10.76 years old and its heart has beat 451,479,826 times.
Pilot Illustrious had an unusual accessory with her. Archaic in the decade of the compact disk, the dual-rotor deck was distinctive, and the accompanying headphones were impossible to miss.
"Is that Ikari's cassette player?"
Mari looked up, pushing aside the right ear pad. "Sure is, Blue."
"Why did you take it?"
"Jeez, you don't gotta make me sound like a kleptomaniac." Rolling her eyes, she pressed the [stop] button and pushed the headset down to rest around her neck. "I was thinking about tracking down some tapes, as a get-well-soon sort of gift. And I need to know what he likes to do that, right?"
"I see. That is a defensible excuse."
"Well... you're a defensible excuse."
"I... what?"
Fortunately, Mari was saved from digging herself deeper by the conference room doors opening.
"Is Four-Eyes bothering you, Rei?" Asuka asked, a look of mock suspicion on her face. "Let me know if I need to put her in an affectionate, sisterly headlock."
"No, she was not bothering me, merely confounding me."
Asuka blinked. "I... what?"
Ignoring her sister, Mari looked over at the girl cautiously lowering herself into the chair beside her. "Hey, Hikari."
"Hey, Mari."
"Feels a little weird, seeing you on-duty now."
"Feels a little weird being here."
Ah yes, I should greet her. That is normal, even between those who do not know each other very well, right?
Before Rei could speak up, however, the door at the other end of the conference room slid open.
Rei felt him a heartbeat before she saw him.
Adam! Her skin crawled. Adam is here!
His face was familiar, though.
The adamite half-angel who called himself Kaworu.
I suppose I should have known I had not seen the last of him.
Asuka, however, reacted first.
"Nagisa! Get bored of Fort Moscow already?"
"Ah... Langley-Soryu," Kaworu stuttered. Seeing him off-balance put Rei a little more at ease. "Well, I was reassigned - but yes, I arrived early -"
"Just Soryu in Japanese, dummkopf. And call me Asuka anyway."
"Right, of course. I'm sure you remember how barren Fort Moscow is. Once the transfer of Unit 04 was finalized, I had no reason to stay."
Rei had never been to NERV-R headquarters, but she was broadly familiar with its maps and descriptions. Only a few years after second impact, the capital of Russia had been moved to New Saint Petersburg, as inland Asia and Europe were ravaged by runaway wildfires and dust bowls that left swathes of lifeless desert in their wakes. Fort Moscow remained a major military nexus, both of the Russian armed forces and the UN, but in terms of civilian life it was even deader than Tokyo-3.
Misato cleared her throat, and the teenagers fell quiet.
"Eva Corps, this is Nagisa Kaworu, Fourth Child," she said. "Nagisa, this is Makinami Mari, Ayanami Rei, Horaki Hikari, and you're already familiar with Soryu."
Kaworu nodded, but then frowned. "An all-girls team? I was led to believe there was a boy my age among you, too..."
"Yes. The Third Child, Warrant Officer Ikari Shinji." Asuka was right back to business. "He was severely wounded in action on our last deployment. He's currently recovering in D-Wing - err, Headquarters' medical facility."
"I see."
"Is Lucifer with you? I didn't hear about any big hubbub down in New Yokosuka."
"No, Unit 04 is being delayed." Kaworu's polite passivity gave way to a hint of a smile. "Apparently, the most recent angel attack damaged the sea wall quite heavily."
He seems... normal. More normal than I expected. Rei didn't let the frown show on her face. No half-adamite nephilim would be made by accident; he is surely a tool for greater masters. But if one living tool could slip its leash, perhaps another could as well?
This body is 10.76 years old and its -
Kaworu's eyes met Rei's for just a fraction of a second, and Rei could feel the subtle shift in the AT energy that permeated the room.
Or perhaps not...
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