For the first time since becoming an EVA pilot, Shinji didn't have the boy's lockerroom for himself. Touji was now changing into his plugsuit alongside him. His plugsuit's black and blue matched the black and white of his Evangelion unit.

The unit my Evangelion had nearly destroyed…

Shinji shook his head. He had to think about the fight in front of him, not what had happened in the past, even if it was a mere five days ago. And he supposed it would be nice to not be alone here in the future. He reminded himself to look at the positive aspects.

Or at least it would be a change for the better, if Touji weren't so quiet and morose. He had finished getting dressed, and was now sitting on a bench in his plugsuit. He looked distressed. Shinji wondered why he would be deployed at all; his bandages were still there. Then again, they had no scruples to roll out Ayanami to blackmail me… But that had been his father's doing, surely? Surely Misato would not stoop to such lows?

Shinji was about leave the locker room when Touji spoke up: "Man, this is so fucked up."

Shinji turned to him and made an inquisitive noise.

"I mean, maybe it's normalcy for you already," Touji went on. "I was inside your EVA, after all, when you defeated that one purple angel. You… it pierced right through you. You screamed in pain. And this can happen to me now as well."

Shinji didn't know what to say to that. He couldn't reassure Touji, because Touji was pretty much right. He couldn't tell him to man up and fight, either; for that he could understand the fears of the newest pilot far too well.

"I really don't want to go out there," Touji continued.

"Then… don't," Shinji told him. "Misato… Misato once told me they need pilots who are convinced about what they're doing." She had shouted that at him, of course. "Otherwise, they'll just be in the way. I… I tried to leave Tokyo-3 after that."

"But you couldn't," Touji argued. "And neither can I. I need to pilot for my sister's sake. If I don't go out and pilot, they'll probably cut their medical care for her."

"Then… then think of your sister," Shinji suggested. "Whatever you do, do it for her."

"Well, I kinda have to, don't I?" Touji answered. He stood up. "Time to begin the suffering."

To Shinji's surprise, Ayanami and Asuka were waiting outside, in the corridor that separated the male and the female lockerrooms. Asuka was leaning back against a wall, while Ayanami just stood there motionlessly, with a blank expression on her face. Both were in their plugsuits.

"Ikari," Ayanami spoke up without preamble. "I will pilot."

"What?" Shinji replied. "What do you mean?"

"Both of us can pilot EVA-01," Ayanami explained. "I will do it."

"But… but..." Shinji didn't know what to say. He hated piloting, but this was his task, his burden to carry. Ayanami had to deal with so much already, had already nearly sacrificed herself for Touji. He could not expect her to take over his job.

"You hate piloting," Ayanami argued. "I do not. So I should do it."

"Who wouldn't hate this?" Touji muttered.

Asuka got into an upright position again. "Hey, stooge. Run along to the cages. We need some privacy here."

"In case you haven't noticed, Red, there's an angel outside!" Touji argued.

"All the more reason for you to hurry," Asuka stated haughtily.

Touji rolled his eyes and walked off.

Asuka now turned towards Shinji. "Look, Shinji. We know what piloting does to you. We… I don't allow you to leave me now."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Shinji asked. He had no clue what she meant, but felt a little bit defensive. The way she had said it, it almost sounded like an accusation to him. Most of all he was confused, though.

Asuka worked her mouth. It was obviously difficult for her to explain herself. "That night after the last angel. When you thought Rei was dead. And when you were faced with the fear of having to go on and on fighting." Oh. Shinji looked to Ayanami. The blue-haired girl gave no sign of understanding. "Look, I don't like having Rei in the Evangelion. But I don't like having you there, either. Ideally, I'd just like to smash that angel by myself, but I don't think Misato would allow that."

Shinji breathed in and out. That was happening way too fast. Ayanami had just returned from near-death; she could not be sent out to fight yet again. "But… my promise. I promised to you, Ayanami. That I would protect you. I can't now just..."

"I remember that promise," Ayanami spoke up monotonously. "I release you from it."

"What?" Shinji exclaimed.

"I release you from your promise," Ayanami repeated. "You want to protect me. But one of my previous selves also wanted to protect you. I still feel compelled by this. And piloting is less of a burden to me than it is to you."

Shinji looked down. Previous selves? Not that it mattered. What was he still worth if he couldn't keep a simple promise to a girl? If those girls now had to look out for him, instead of the other way round? It was pathetic. But apparently, he wasn't needed anymore. Nobody needed him. Not his father, not Misato, not Ayanami. They were all okay with him just stopping piloting and disappearing.

He just had to try to convince Ayanami otherwise. Even if he didn't really know what to say. "But… but I..."

"There is also something else I remember," Ayanami spoke, still monotonously, over his incoherent objections. "A previous self wanted to do this." And with that, she took a step forward, raised an arm to lay her hand on the back of Shinji's head… and kissed him.

Shinji's eyes widened, but he didn't break the kiss. Surely didn't want to break it at all. It was a surprise, a shock, but it would have been a shame to look this gift horse in the mouth. Just as Asuka's kiss had been just like herself, passionate and fiery and pushing forwards, Ayanami's kiss also was just like herself – cool, determined, yet soft.

It ended way too soon.

"I can see why my previous… why I wanted to do this," Ayanami commented.

Shinji still felt his world spinning. It wasn't just the kiss. It was that Ayanami had initiated it. Did she… did she want him? In that way? But Asuka already did, and he was still surprised about that! He wasn't used to people… liking him.

And even more surprising, Asuka, who stood next to Ayanami and had watched this just… smirked. It was a rather unsure facial expression, as if she were tentatively approving. "Well, that seems to have worked," she commented.

Worked? But surely this was even more of a reason to protect Ayanami. To make sure such a creature of beauty would not be hurt yet again. Whereas he…

Asuka laid an arm around Ayanami's waist to nudge her forward. Before she turned to go, she told Shinji, "We'll defeat this angel and come back. And then you better prepare the best meals you've ever done for us. Understood?"

Shinji just nodded dumbly and remained behind. He felt as if his whole world had been turned over. Ayanami had kissed him? Did this mean she liked him as much as he liked her? But why? After all, he didn't even have the common decency to only feel for her like that. Surely he wasn't worthy to get such feelings returned. Especially not now, that his protection apparently wasn't even required.

And what was it with Asuka? He would have expected her to protest, to react like she had to the news about Kirishima's kiss attempt. After all, had she not said she wanted him for herself? And had she not said she loved Ayanami? Just as he probably loved both of them. So how would I react if I saw them kissing? …okay, I don't think I'd mind. Even beyond the pleasurable aesthetics of such a vision, he liked the thought it would maybe make them happy. Is it the same for Asuka?

Shinji's heart beat wildly as he lost himself in daydreams about what this could all mean…

"What do you mean, you still don't know?"

Evangelion units 01, 02 and 03 had just been delivered to the surface by NERV's launching pads. Asuka could see the enemy floating about two hundred metres above the ground, a bit less than a kilometre away from her: A giant black and white ball of… well, nobody was exactly sure what that ball was. It very slowly levitated between the skyscrapers of Tokyo-3 seemingly without a care in the world.

"We're still detecting no Pattern Blue," Misato explained on the comm channel. "No AT Field at all, in fact. And believe me, we have all our sensors directed at that thing."

"Don't we have some big ass observatory on Mount Fuji?" Asuka asked.

"Yes, but there was no warning from it," Misato answered. "The object just appeared at the edge of Tokyo-3's mountain ring."

"I don't like this," Asuka growled. As far as she was concerned, NERV existed to provide her with information and maintenance for her Evangelion, to provide her with the necessary support network so that she could fight. And right now, NERV was proving to be pretty useless at that.

"Just be careful," Misato cautioned her. "All of you. Approach the object with extreme caution. Cover and security come first."

"Yeah, thanks, I could've thought of that myself," Asuka shot back. "I'll take point." There was little alternative. Her support consisted of a half-crippled rookie and someone who was just recovering from amnesia. Someone she wanted to keep safe, too. "EVA-03, stay back with your rifle. Provide fire support as necessary."

"Uh… right," Touji answered.

"EVA-01, back me up, but stay back," Asuka ordered Rei.

"Understood," the blue-haired girl confirmed.

Touji had zero experience with the rifle, of course. He had not even been able to go through simulated training courses with it. But it was the only thing he could really be trusted to do. His Evangelion was largely dead weight.

"Isn't that my job?" Asuka heard Misato mutter quietly, but the Operations Director didn't push the point.

You're the one who saddled me with Touji. And second, Asuka wanted to make damn sure Rei was safe. Her piloting EVA-01 was marginally better than Shinji being inside an entry-plug again, but it was hardly ideal. Ideally they would have been given some weeks' time in which Rei could recover.

Rei's suggestion to pilot had surprised Asuka in the locker room. She had objected at first, but then had remembered what Shinji had told her about the incident on the balcony. Rei hadn't understood her change of opinion, but in her usual fashion had just accepted it. She was unaware of what had happened.

The truth was, Asuka worried about both Rei and Shinji. Maybe that was why she hadn't felt jealousy at witnessing their kiss. It was something that would do good for both. Or maybe it was something as simple as the question of whom she would be jealous of anyway – of Shinji for kissing Rei, or of Rei for kissing Shinji. Also, while she hated the idea of becoming the person left behind, doing it this way felt… just. The entire idea behind putting her relationship with Shinji on hold had been to work out things with Rei, after all. And just because Rei was kissing Shinji didn't mean they would leave Asuka alone. That was what her father had done. Those two were different.

Of course, that still meant that the three of them were faced with a gigantic mess of romantic entanglements. And whatever couple would emerge from it, it would mean one of the three would remain excluded…

Asuka grunted, too silent for the comm channels to pick it up, and decided to focus on the matter at hand. A standoff with a possibly-angel-maybe-not object was really not the best time to think of relationship drama. Not that there had been much actual drama so far, fortunately.

EVA-02 moved from behind skyscraper to behind skyscraper, always trying to stay in cover. It had a pistol in its hand, and a short axe attached to its side. EVA-01 moved on the same path behind it, while EVA-03 had found a nice niche between the buildings for a sniper position. Meanwhile, the black and white ball simply continued to float at minimal speed over the streets of Tokyo-3, apparently oblivious to what was happening around it.

"I'm getting impatient here, Misato," Asuka half whispered into the comm channels. There was of course no real reason for speaking quietly; it wasn't like the angel… object… whatever could hear what was said inside the entry plug. It was just a natural consequence of so far having moved silently and stealthily.

"We're still not detecting any AT Field," Misato reported. "We can't confirm Pattern Blue."

"So what do you suggest?" Asuka asked, now getting somewhat louder. "Are we supposed to sneak around that damn thing all day?"

She could hear Misato grunting. "You're right. We can't have that thing floating around in our city all day. Try to engage it from cover."

Asuka grinned. "Jawoll!"

EVA-02 had its back pressed against a building barely higher than itself. NERV sensor readings, transmitted to her cockpit, showed that the giant ball was floating over the broad avenue just at the other side of it. This was the perfect opportunity. The Unit darted forth around the building corner, raised its pistol and fired.

As soon as the bullet hit the sphere, it simply vanished. The bullet continued its journey into the sky.

"Was zur Hölle..." Asuka muttered.

"Pattern Blue detected!" Misato shouted. "Asuka, it's directly below you!"

Asuka suddenly felt like she was sinking into a morass. She had EVA-02 look down and saw a sudden sea of pitch perfect black below her. And EVA-02, as well as some nearby cars, was sinking into it.

The pilot didn't waste any time. She had not been trained eight hard years without developing quick reflexes. She soon noticed that she could not step out of the expanding blackness, which held her like quicksand. Even jettisoning her umbilical cord and holding on to the roof of a nearby lower building didn't help. So she simply let her pistol fall, which sunk into the blackness, drew her axe and hammered it into a high-rise building.

Even then it seemed not to be enough. Despair rose in Asuka as she pulled at the axe, but nothing happened. By now, EVA-02 had sunk to its knees. Her shoulders began to ache… and finally EVA-02 rose from the strange blackness. Meter by arduous meter, the red unit crawled up the building, still adhering to the formless black beneath it like to glue. Asuka got almost dizzy from the strain of freeing EVA-02's feet, the world around her spinning, but finally the unit hung at the side of the building like a frightened a spider.

She had the unit jump onto the roof of the lower building nearby – just in time to see EVA-01 walking backwards step by step to escape the black sea. The purple unit had in fact faithfully followed EVA-02, and thus was now the shadow's next victim.

"Rei!" Asuka shouted into the comm channels. "Get out of there! Now!"

The building on which EVA-02 stood shook. Asuka looked around to see all nearby buildings wobbling.

"They're sinking," Asuka muttered. "It's swallowing the whole city..."

Then she narrowed her eyes. To hell with that, she had to help Rei. But by now, the enigmatic blackness had reached EVA-01 already, and the purple unit began to sink.

"Rei!" Asuka shouted again. EVA-02 jumped. It hopped from roof to roof, barely holding its balance amidst all the shaking of the sinking buildings, and only came to a stop at a building right next to EVA-01. Then it knelt down, and held out the axe towards the sister unit. "Hold on to that!"

EVA-01 grabbed the axe and Asuka pulled. She had to be careful, of course. There was nothing really on that building that EVA-02 could hold onto in turn, and that building was still sinking. But she would be damned if she were to just give Rei up.

Soon, however, EVA-01 had sunk into the black up to its waist. Asuka pulled again… and the axe slipped from EVA-02's fingers.

"No!" Asuka shouted. She had her unit fall prone, its hands now trying to reach out to its purple sister unit. But Rei's Evangelion had sunk in to nearly the shoulders already. They couldn't make contact.

There was a scream of pain in the comm channels. Touji? EVA-02 briefly looked up, and Asuka saw how EVA-03 was saving itself from the swallowing darkness: Its arms had grabbed the nearest roof – by extending to double the height of the EVA. Just like the angel did… But apparently, this was supremely painful for Touji. No wonder. The feedback… He's feeling his arms being extended to such absurd lengths.

It was painful to watch, but it did seem to help Touji. EVA-03 escaped the abnormal gaping pit and could pull itself up to a skyscraper roof. Touji never stopped screaming, though.

And EVA-01 was up to its neck into the black nothingness already.

"Gottverdammt, gottverdammt, gottverdammt," Asuka cursed. She couldn't reach Rei, she could only watch as she sunk ever deeper. I won't lose her yet again! But what could she do?

A private communication channel screen popped up in EVA-02's cockpit, showing Rei's face. "Asuka, I remember. A previous self of me... enjoyed the tea."

"Don't you dare!" Asuka shouted at her.

The communication channel broke down. EVA-01 was lost in the dark sea…

...a sea that now disappeared. And the white and black ball was in the sky again.

There was a small ready room near the EVA cages. Two tables, six chairs, two vending machines. NERV Headquarters seemed to be full of those rooms, and none of them looked especially bright or cheery. Maybe this came with being underground, but then again, if NERV were to actually use the entire surface area of the Geofront instead of cramping everything into a giant pyramid, this probably wouldn't be a problem. As it was, said pyramid was full of corridors and corners and little rooms nobody had used in years, with natural light reaching nowhere.

This small room was where Shinji had sat for the past hour in his plugsuit. Misato hadn't objected to Rei piloting EVA-01, but she had called him to stay ready and near the cages. It was unlikely that a pilot, or more specifically Rei was knocked out while EVA-01 remained intact and that Shinji as reserve pilot could then turn the tide, but it was possible, so he did in fact remain in reserve. He was bored, but he considered boredom to be better than actually fighting. At the same time, that thought made him feel guilty. Yes, fighting was terrible, but he only didn't need to do it now because Rei had taken his place.

It hadn't helped that Misato, even while accepting Rei as EVA-01's pilot, had sounded rather disapproving when she had called him. So right now, relief and guilt were his predominant emotions, but they were both dulled by the sheer boredom of simply sitting there alone and doing nothing. He didn't even have his SDAT player with him. And he had no clue what was going on out there. He was as isolated from the fight as humanly possible – safe, but also ignorant. And that made him worry about Asuka and Ayanami.

Quite suddenly, the monotony was broken when Asuka stormed into the room, still in her plugsuit and dripping LCL. She seemed angry.

"Ah… Asuka," Shinji greeted her. "Is the angel def..."

"You have no idea, do you, idiot?" Asuka snapped. Then she grunted and wiped her hand over her face. "Of course you can't know. S… sorry. Well, the angel is still out there. And it has swallowed Rei."

Shinji jumped up from his chair. "What?" His heart began to race.

"The weird ball simply disappeared, and then the ground turned into complete blackness and swallowed everything – buildings, cars… EVA-01," Asuka explained and then shouted, "Verdammte Scheiße!"

"Ayanami…." Shinji began, but then didn't know what to say.

"Is in there," Asuka answered. "In that blackness. Which has disappeared again and now the ball is in the sky again and I have no idea what this means but goddamnit, I'll go to Akagi now and if need be rip some answers out of her. Why the fuck couldn't she warn us? Some scientific expert she is."

And with that, she simply got going again, to the other side of the room. Hastily, Shinji followed her. He just had to know what had happened to Ayanami as well.

He was surprised that the elevator to the top level of the command centre simply allowed them to go up. He knew that elevator was secured, and only allowed authorized personnel to reach that level. That was why he would never have tried it himself. But right now, he moved in Asuka's shadow, and there was little that would stand in her way.

When the elevator had reached its destination, Asuka stormed out of it like a bolt. Without any further prelude she addressed Misato and Akagi, "What happened out there?" Shinji trotted behind her.

Misato looked at her disapprovingly, but Akagi remained cool and answered, "We're unsure. Ten minutes isn't exactly a long time to analyze data. But this very much looks like a Sea of Dirac. The same thing that has happened in Nevada."

"Yeah, you mentioned that," Misato spoke up. "But in Nevada, an area with a radius of 89km vanished. Could the same..."

"What happened in Nevada?" Asuka demanded to know.

Misato sighed. "There was an accident at the NERV base there. EVA-04… have you read the reports about the battle against Shamshel? Its corpse was nearly entirely intact. Most importantly, its S2 engine was still entirely intact, so it was first studied in Germany and then installed in EVA-04. But when the unit was first activated, a… well..." She looked to Akagi for help.

"A Sea of Dirac opened," Akagi continued. "The same thing as you've seen here, but as a circle with a radius of 89km. It swallowed the whole area, including all of the NERV base. After that, the USA got nervous. That's why we received EVA-03. America basically shoved it off to us after that incident."

"I heard about an accident," Asuka muttered. "I had no idea it was that bad. So this angel has been active for that long?"

"I doubt it," Akagi answered. "So far, every angel ever detected has made straight for Tokyo-3. For an angel to linger for two weeks, and strike somewhere so far off, would be absolutely atypical. Also, the type of Dirac Seas are different. At Nevada, there was one abrupt appearance of such a sea. Here, the angel seems to be able to open and close itself at will." She looked at Misato. "That's also why I don't think Tokyo-3 is in imminent danger of a Nevada type incident."

"Open and close itself?" Misato asked.

"The Pattern Blue clearly emanated from the Sea of Dirac," Akagi explained. "I think it is the angel. I'll have to look closer at the gathered data, though."

"But what about that big ball then?" Asuka demanded to know.

"Again, I can't be sure, but if the angel is the Sea of Dirac, then the ball might be its shadow in the physical world," Akagi told her.

"In the physical world?" Misato echoed. "Just what is this Sea of Dirac?"

"A mathematical abstraction," Akagi answered. "Physical objects can exist in there, but concepts such as physical space have no meaning there. Not as we know it, at least."

"Then… then… Rei is still alive in there!" Asuka concluded. "We have to save her!"

Akagi nodded. "Rei is inside the Sea of Dirac, and almost certainly alive. For now. We have some luck in that the Nevada incident has spooked the entire world. There is… you could call it an emergency convention of the foremost mathematicians and physicists with knowledge about Dirac mechanics that was called right afterwards in Beijing. And the assembled NERV delegation has promised to come here ASAP."

"So they can save Ayanami?" Shinji spoke up now, joyful hope in his voice.

"Maybe. If they arrive in time," Misato pointed out. "Rei has been trained for years, so she should know what to do: Turn on the power saving mode as soon as possible. But even so..."

"Sixteen hours," Asuka muttered.

"Yes," Misato confirmed. "Even so power will only hold for sixteen hours. And then the LCL filtering system will fail."

Shinji balled his hands to fists. She'll asphyxiate! That was a terrible way to go. And she had only just miraculously survived the last battle; Shinji doubted she would be that lucky again. They had to help her, save her, somehow… but that would be entirely out of his power now.