LIBRI SIBYLLINI"A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it".
NERV HQ, JAPAN, 2015
Most people's impressions and descriptions of Gendo Ikari would be "cold", "calculating", and maybe a few would be brave enough to say "off-putting". And if someone who had met the man were to be told Gendo spends his every morning picking up medicine for and tending to his son, they would not believe it. How could a man like that heal people?
But that's exactly what he was doing. He walked through the labyrinthine corridors of the Geo-Front, a bottle of pills in his right hand, a glass of water in his left. His destination: his son's room, located relatively close to his offices and tucked away in the safest corners of the subterranean base. Reaching his son's room, finding the door open as always, he gently walked in so as to not make too much sound with his boots on the tiles. He used his heel to shut the door behind him before placing his procured items on the nightstand, next to the sleeping figure of his son. Looking at the sleeping boy, his and Yui's, a warm sensation he could not name blossomed in his heart, but he made to wake the boy up before he could be entranced.
"Shinji, wake up", he implored, adopting the softest tone of voice he could. When that didn't quite work, Gendo gently shook the boy, rousing him from his sleep. Shinji sat up straight, rubbing his eyes and still half-asleep. He looked so tired no matter how much he slept, and his eyes were always half-lidded now. Sometimes Gendo wanted to force the boy's eyes open, to allow him to see the world around him more clearly, but he knew it was not yet time. When the time did come to explain, he would understand why they had to do what they had to do.
The boy was handed a pill and the glass of water, which he promptly took. Taking a sip and swallowing the bitter pill, he forced a smile onto his weary face. "Good morning, father. How'd the activation test go?"
The softness on Gendo's features disappeared in a flash, as if he had never worn the expression, and Shinji felt his heart sink and he realized something must have gone wrong.
"Centurion-00 malfunctioned and sent Rei and Kaworu to the Medical Ward. We suspect sabotage and are working to find out who did it." His father's tone was cold and unwelcoming as a harsh winter, but the man's features softened again when he saw concern forming on Shinji's face. 'So innocent, so caring. It might be the death of him.' He knew Shinji would never be willing to make the sacrifices they had made, but he didn't know how to feel about it. Sometimes he cursed the boy his foolishness, other times envied him his innocence and naivety.
The teenager swiftly got up and made to leave the room. 'To visit the twins, of course'. His father put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks, and gently squeezed as the boy turned around. The older man extended a hand. "Don't forget this. Your mother doesn't want you sharing a room with the twins." Shinji was handed his inhaler.
"Thank you, father.", the tired boy said, "I'll be off now." The boy took the inhaler before heading out towards the Med Ward. Gendo sighed, though he did not know what for.
He knew he needed to find that saboteur sooner rather than later. Or rather, he knew he needed to find a fall guy sooner rather than later…
JET ALONE HQ, JAPAN
If you were to ask Ryoji Kaji right now where the strangest place he ended up after a hangover was, his answer would certainly would be right here.
Why?
Because he was strapped to a chair, had a gun pointed at his head, was blindfolded, and was being interrogated by at least two people with voice-scramblers. Kaji ran through his list of enemies in his head as the voices droned on: JSDF? He covered his tracks too well for them, or at least he thought so... NERV? He's not on their radar yet. Jet Alone, or another War company? The Ministry of Defence? He thought he had settled the score with them, but…
Suddenly he was aware that one of the voices had stopped and was awaiting an answer. He laughed sheepishly and said, "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"
The scrambled voice repeated the question, not without a hint of exasperation: "Mister Ryoji Kaji. We have discovered you have been in contact with an officer from the JSDF. We want you to state their name, and any information which you have given or gained from said officer."
So it was the JSDF. He had been careless, instantly all the loose ends he left entered his mind and regret entered his heart, but Ryoji Kaji wasn't a rat, and said lieutenant was his only lead to his newest clue, so he wasn't about to sacrifice her.
"Hey, you listen here, buddy. I don't know what it is you're talking about! The only people I've been talking to are drinking buddies and pretty girls."
"We are not in any mood to joke. Tell us who you contacted or you will be shot. You have ten seconds... 10..."
Well, this was a fine mess. A million thoughts passed through his head, just how could he get out of this? He could try to get free, tentatively he tugged on the straps… No, they were too tight. Snatch the gun? That'll just get him shot faster. Think Kaji think, the numbers continued to count down, his heart sank, Was this really how he died, in a dark interrogation room, branded an insurrectionist, will anyone ever find the truth, what about all the sacrifices he made no he was going to die he didn't want to die-
"...1...0..."
He braced himself for oblivion...
only to hear a pop as he felt something stick to his head...
No… fucking… way...
"See, Rits? I told you I made the right choice", the now-unscrambled and decidedly feminine voice said, a mix of triumph and smugness radiating from it. A distant part of his mind noted "it's that lieutenant", but a bigger part of his mind was busy trying to figure out-
They were screwing with him! This wasn't an actual interrogation!
As the blindfold was ripped from his eyes and light flooded his senses, Misato continued speaking. "You've proved yourself trustworthy for now, Ryoji Kaji," she said with a voice so saccharine you could almost believe it. "But mark my words, if you ever sell us out, it won't be an airsoft gun next time."
Kaji sighed as he was being untied. Why did he always involve himself with crazy women?
DEEP WITHIN THE GEOFRONT, NERV HQ
Sterile, platinum white light illuminated the room even before she pressed the button, metallic doors opening, giving way to her. As soon as she had passed through them, they closed behind her, a measure of formulaic finality which she had grown accustomed to. Being an oracle was hard work, the elder Akagi discovered, but not work she was opposed to.
As always, this room was her lab (well, one of her labs - they each had around three), but only officially. The cameras, playing looped footage of her hard at work, were seeing no evil, and she allowed herself to relax knowing only she could contact the Sanhedrin here.
Leaning back into her swivel chair for comfort, she inputted the password and monitored the data, reviewing her old theories.
Timelines, as always, jumped left and right, starting and ending abruptly, much as dreams (nightmares?), some half-forgotten despite the machine's memory easily outdoing her own, yet her trusty files catalogued all (omniscience was boring, nigh-omniscience was fun).
'The basic facts', the file almost chirped, electrons pumping into pixels pumping into letters, 'are as follows:
An event known as "Second Impact" will occur which will either devastate or destroy the planet.
Such event will be caused by a being known as an Angel, or a Messenger, which can only be defeated by a Centurion.
"First Impact" destroyed the dinosaurs.
Shinji will pilot a Centurion in the year 2015.
Ergo, Second Impact may occur in the year 2015.
Angels shown thus far: Adam, Lilith, the Angel of Thunder, the Angel of Strength, the Angel of Justice, the Angel of Wisdom, the Angel of Perseverance, the Angel of Free Will, the Angel of Determination. Moves and attack patterns memorized by the Sanhedrin. Other angels in secondary database.'
Obviously this file contained the bare minimum, the basics she had gathered, commonalities between all timelines, but also the now obsolete section when she tried to memorize all permutations of an angel to the Sanhedrin's database, making any attack impossible. She had discarded the notion of monitoring the timelines in closer depth long ago - they were fun, yes, but only insomuch as they were distractions, diversions from the truth. She would be swept up in this other timeline and the angels thereof, neglecting her own - 'An act of scientific heresy', her mind cautioned. Besides, the Sanhedrin didn't need prior training or datasets to analyze attackers - that was more of an excuse on her part.
She took a few deep breaths - frustration always came with these reviews, because she was not omniscient (yet?) - and reevaluated. Even between the common timeline and the current timeline, she had found divergences - why was Rei's appearance different, possessing white rather than blue hair? Why were Yui, Soryu and herself absent from a lot of these timelines? She usually answered these questions with the uncertainty of her knowledge of these timelines - for much like the errant fantasies of a wandering mind, they started and ended abruptly and without explanation. But this brought more frustration, which brought more deep breaths, which brought more reevaluations. Naoko abruptly stopped.
A thought struck her much like lightning: the original Ananke was based on temporal determinism, but the Sanhedrin disproved that notion; for the Sanhedrin operated by projecting the possible futures of the current world (or so she thought, until now). She had long since figured out these timelines are distant possibilities, temporal probabilities - that wasn't the revelation, no. The revelation was this: what if it was determinism all along? All the timelines she had seen were fundamentally already different, be it the lack of her presence, or Shinji and his father being at odds, or Rei's hair or - or Everything!
Her timeline must already be determined to be different from these others. So the Sanhedrin doesn't project potential futures after all - it projects potential presents and futures based on alterations to the past!
So, by figuring out these alterations, she may be able to prevent Second Impact even without the Centurions.
But, Naoko paused. But hadn't she spent years working on those, and hadn't all other timelines had combat involving the Centurions? And if the past was altered in these timelines she was shown, then how could she tell what she was shown would occur at all? ('Well, I couldn't tell before either', her mind chided…)
She typed down a thesis for the theory, maybe for an hour or two, then, having saved it, shuffled away from the chair and beyond the doors of the lab once more.
She really needed to sleep, or to drink, or to study this more deeply at home - 'or all three at once worked too yeah sure'.
Doubting her own sanity wasn't exactly an uncommon occasion, but she found how much she was doing it lately was uncommon.
APARTMENT BUILDING, ERUSAREMU, JAPAN
Ryoji Kaji sat in his room, shifting to a more comfortable position, as he has been doing for the past eleven or so hours. His only company besides the dark abode and the laptop light source being cups of cold coffee and bowls of uneaten oranges.
Normally, you'd never find him in such a disorganized state, but he had bigger fish to fry. He was on a hot trail, he just needed a few more seconds or maybe minutes or maybe hours to figure this one out, and then he could go to sleep for as long as he'd like. He wasn't even sure he'd wake up from that sleep, either. Hey, maybe that was one of the reasons he was so frantic? Anyways…
"How are these companies all connected", he thought for the tenth or hundredth thousandth time. He scratched his stubbled cheeks, 'no time for a shave, this is it', he thought. And to think it'd all happen like this…
It all started a few days ago. He was invited to a meeting with one of his bosses, a Mister Kuriiihara. Kaji, as always, arrived late for the meeting; truthfully, this habit of his was because he never expected anything important to come of any of his meetings with his bosses anyways. He took his time in entering the room, seeing the older man sipping at tea, and clearly not noticing him. Kaji cleared his throat.
"Hello, sir," he said as he advanced and took a seat, "you wanted to see me?"
The older man made a face ('half pouty like a child and half scoldy like a parent') and tut-tutted before replying. "Late again, late again, like always Kaji. This is serious and urgent business!"
"Well, what is it, sir?" This should be good.
"Well, well, we found a new clue in that trail of funding and corruption you uncovered all those years ago, with that Minister of War, I think-"
"Wait, we found what?" Kaji springs up. This was good. "But weren't the corrupt officials sacked?"
"Yes", Kuriiihara says, his tone indicating his undertaking of an exercise in infinite patience, "but, the War Minister himself actually had a small investment in a certain holding company. Shimizu Holdings. This was recently revealed when it went bankrupt and sold its shares."
"So?" Kaji says, leaning forward interestedly.
"Well, that investment was equal to the exact same amount as the check that uncovered the corruption asked for. It is clear, then, that this holding company was involved in some form of fraud, and, most likely, also involved in money laundering."
"But as we know the check was paid. That means it was paid despite the company going bankrupt, huh?"
"Yes. The company going bankrupt was a shock and only happened because the biggest shareholder suddenly sold all its shares. Said largest shareholder was none other than Kingawa Holdings, known to have been involved in dealings with African conflict diamonds in the past, and which also has heavy ties to both NERV and Jet Alone."
"I thought NERV and Jet Alone were rivals?"
"That they are, that they are, but Shimuzu going bankrupt only caused NERV's stock prices to increase in value."
"Hmm. It seems to me Kingawa has picked it's side after all."
"Yes, yes, it seems NERV is connected to the Minister's trail of funding and corruption. This is not over yet, Kaji, this is not over yet."
With the important information delivered to it's rightful recipient, Kaji slipped back his designated mask for Mr. Kuriiihara's pleasure. "Rest assured, sir, I will uncover the truth of this matter. Why, it could become the story of the decade, as the Minister's story was."
"Then we are on the same page. Good, good, Kaji. But be careful. NERV is a big player; I don't think I have to remind you that they do produce weapons, yes?"
"Oh, don't worry Mr. Kuriiihara sir, you know that's not my style."
So as Kaji travelled the bullet train to Tokyo, to 'inspect' the NERV department there, he thought through his plans.
He had his own style of doing things…
Arriving at the Tokyo branch, Kaji walked across the road from where he'd parked 'his' van. 'His' job was currently to be an 'Information Technology Governmental Inspector', which meant he would check certain company offices for malware or other illegal contents. This job had been created by Kaji's efforts against the War Minister, with the job's unofficial official nature being the making sure of all whistleblowers everywhere being arrested as soon as possible, so he felt he had some entitlement to have the job himself for at least a little while.
He walked into the NERV offices and approached the secretary. "Excuse me, ma'am", he said, eyeing her up. "Mind if I take a look at your network?" He flashed his forged ID with the full confidence and conviction only a swindler or a priest could produce.
"Um, sure, sir", the nervous secretary said as she rebooted the computer and moved out of the way.
Kaji took his seat with the secretary standing by. The password prompt flashed.
"Um", the secretary said, "please avert your eyes, sir, I'm going to type the password." He did as he was told, and as soon as she did, he grabbed at the keyboard, making sure his hands accidentally brushed against hers.
"Ah, sorry", he said, and noticed her blush. Very good.
After some basic fiddling that couldn't fool a real Information Technology Government Inspector but could fool a NERV Secretary and Receptionist, he tut-tut-tutted and made a sour face. "Looks like your OS version is a little old. Not to worry, I have the new version on this thumb drive."
The secretary breathed a sigh of relief as he installed a tracker program into the NERV Tokyo offices network.
"Well, that'll be all, I think", he said as he walked out. He could feel her gaze on him until he turned the corner.
Phew. He didn't get caught immediately. That was a good start, but that bug won't live for long. He'll know when they've caught him because they were definitely going to get a warrant and storm his apartment. Which means he'll need to get another new name and another new apartment - OK, seriously, brain, could you worry about all this later? Thanks.
The next 3 days, he spent around, oh, say, 12 hours a day, maybe? just listening in on everything happening in the offices, but keeping an extra eye on the Manager's Office.
Most of it was boring, as he expected, but there were some conversations he transcribed that were very interesting. It seems like NERV being at play in Kingawa (or vice versa? Hmm…) is definitely true.
'Why, why, why', his thought always sang in their traditional choir, 'why are they in this money trail? What could they be developing that's so expensive they couldn't take loans for it? Their credit score is entirely clean aside from the initial Langely investments and loans. Why, why why?'
And then, he heard the most important call of all thus far.
The Tokyo offices manager had a call with a certain "Mr. Ikari", and talked about these "centurions" ('thank you Katsuragi', Kaji thought, 'for saving me precious time figuring out that bit') needing "living tissue samples" (?!), among many other cryptic things that Kaji didn't yet have enough information to piece together.
And then, well, here he was. In a dark room, piecing it all together. He re-read his entire former report on the money trail and all subsequent potential finds by other, less-reputed journalists, and tried to get as much info on this "Mr. Ikari" as possible. He had done much, but much more needed to be done, and-
Oh. Oh, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense.
Oh.
It was clear to him, from what little information he had, that to progress, he needs to know what these "Centurions" really are (why would a mecha need living tissue samples…), and how they relate to his small but big discovery. He needed more info, as always.
But he would get to the bottom of this.
Special thanks to: a friend of mine for beta reading.
And thank you for reading.
Original publish date for this chapter: Mar 4, 2023.