"Convenient?" Kaworu echoed, eyebrows lifted. "You became friends with Shinji and Miss Rei because it was 'convenient'?"
Asuka bristled. "Well I wasn't wrong. They live right there."
Shinji, the traitor, was giggling. "She said it so proudly, too, like she'd solved some huge riddle or something."
"I did not!" Asuka protested.
"Yeah you did, you had your hands on your hips and this big smug smile—"
"You're so full of it!"
"If Miss Rei were here," mused Kaworu, "we could ask for her recollection, to determine whose version is true."
"Mine is!" Asuka snapped. She got control of herself to ask Shinji, "She's okay, right? Just a regular treatment?"
He hesitated, and Asuka narrowed her eyes.
"What?"
"No, she's okay," he said. "Just—"
"'Just' what?" she spat, and lunged over the back of the bus seat to grab the front of his shirt.
"Ow! She had a dizzy episode last night!" Shinji admitted. "Knocked a cup off the bathroom shelf and broke it, and it cut her elbow. She didn't want to make a big deal out of it."
"'Big deal'," Asuka scoffed, and let him go and sat back in her seat, though still turned around to face the boys behind her. "Is she ever going to her the hang of people being normal about her health? It is what it is, of course we get worried!"
...And why wouldn't Rei tell her? How many times did Asuka have to encourage her to open up? So she doesn't like me that way, fine – I'm still her best friend. ...Right?
Shinji's voice was quiet. "I think she gets frustrated at missing out on stuff. It's pretty inconvenient sometimes – she wouldn't have been able to come on today's excursion anyway, for one thing."
Asuka paused. In her memory, Rei said, "I don't 'even manage'. It's very clear."
Kaworu spoke up, "Ms Katsuragi said there would be a lot of hiking, even climbing." He looked out the bus window at the approaching mountain. "The information sheet advised against participation by those with health conditions."
"Yeah," agreed Shinji. "When Rei read that, she didn't even need Dad to veto it."
"Well," said Asuka resolutely, "I'll just have to take so many photos for her that it'll be like she was here in person!"
"Will 'selfos' accomplish that?" Kaworu asked, and Asuka yanked the hood of his jacket up and over his face.
"Shut up. Also they're called 'selfies'."
"There's a gift shop," Shinji contributed, helping Kaworu free himself, "so I'm going to see if they have something with, like, sapphire or aquamarine or something."
Asuka scowled. That was a really good idea, how dare he.
"Wouldn't that be expensive?" asked Kaworu.
"I mean, just a little thing, plated or whatever. Blue's her favourite colour." Shinji's eyes slid to Asuka's, and he gave a secretive smile and looked away again. "What's yours, Kaworu?"
"Hm. I … have never thought of colours in terms of preference."
Shinji blinked. "Really? Nobody's ever asked?"
Kaworu shook his head.
"Well, maybe you could look at the gemstones and stuff, and choose from them?" As he spoke, Shinji's own eyes looked about as shiny as gemstones, and Asuka wondered if he'd been saving his pocket money from the moment he and Kaworu met.
"Maybe," Kaworu nodded. "It's illogical the cultural and monetary value placed on naturally-occurring assemblages of crystalline mineral structures, but I have to admit, the behaviours of light when encountering gems and metals can be very pleasing."
Shinji blinked. "O...kay. I can work with – I mean, understand that."
The rest of the bus ride was spent relating to Kaworu more anecdotes from Asuka's childhood with the Ikaris, including the difficulties of playing dragon-princess-knight when neither of the twins had the right attitude to any of the roles.
"When Rei was the dragon she'd just go to sleep on her 'hoard', but that was still better than Shinji, the least scary dragon ever – couldn't roar worth a damn."
"Anyone would be intimidated by you as a knight," Shinji argued. "You got way too into it, you were scary!"
"I was committed," Asuka said loftily. "Better than you – what kind of knight brings food to rescue a princess from a dragon?"
"It worked," he pointed out, and Asuka had to admit he was right. "And when Rei was the princess she didn't want to be rescued anyway, 'cause she said the dragon's lair had a library."
Asuka laughed. "Yeah, 'cause we used the playhouse, so she'd just sit in there and read."
Kaworu smiled. "That sounds very in-character for Miss Rei."
A bubble of wistful fondness filled Asuka from deep inside. "Yeah, she definitely has her own priorities."
"...But when Asuka was the princess," said Shinji, "she'd kick the dragon's ass herself and usually the knight's too, for taking too long to rescue her."
Kaworu laughed out loud. Asuka watched Shinji watching him, and scowled. Shinji had dodged when she'd demanded an update on the task she'd given him – to tell Rei that he liked Kaworu, and didn't want to be set up with Asuka.
She glanced around the bus, crowded with students – now wasn't the time or place, for sure.
They reached the mountain and all piled off the bus. Asuka met back up with Hikari, who'd been looking after some carsick chump, and was the only person actually wearing the school uniform jacket (Asuka and Kaworu had their Angel-catching hoodies, for practical outdoor purposes, and just in case).
"Did that kid throw up on you?" Asuka asked, and Hikari sighed.
"There was a bit of splatter," she said.
"Gross." Asuka fished a wet wipe from her belt pouch and handed it over. "Misato owes you big time, this should be her job."
"She was on the phone to Mister Kaji the whole bus ride," said Hikari, swiping at her jacket front. "Something about their pet bird needing to go to the vet, but not the local one?"
Asuka rolled her eyes. "That's what happens when you take an exotic animal out of its environment. A penguin in Japan, come on!"
"I saved him," came Misato's voice at her shoulder, and Asuka jumped.
"Yipes! I mean – Hi, Misato. What do you mean, saved him?"
Misato passed a piece of paper, marked 'IOU essay topic choice', to Hikari. To Asuka she explained, "My dad knew someone at a lab where Pen-Pen was being studied in behavioural experiments. After their funding got cut they couldn't find a place for him, and it looked like he would have to be put down. I heard and asked to take him."
"Really?" Asuka's eyes widened at this kindness from their flake of a teacher. "They couldn't put him in a zoo, or sanctuary or something?"
"Not with other animals," said Misato. "Between contamination in the lab and his human-imprinting, no animal refuge could actually look after him. So, he came with me."
"That's really nice of you, Ms Katsuragi," said Hikari.
Misato looked into the middle distance, a noble expression on her face. "Well, nobody can really 'save the world', but you can always help in your own neighbourhood. And the world is made up of everyone's neighbourhoods, so in a way, we make it add up to the world."
Asuka stared. Had she completely misjudged Misato?
"Plus, he's really cute and I'd had a little bit to drink."
...Maybe not completely.
Hikari gave Asuka a dubious look. They both knew what Pen-Pen looked like – 'cute' was in the eye of the beer-holder, apparently.
The class gathered together on Misato's instruction, and their guide emerged from the building, an old man with receding grey hair and a long narrow face. He smiled at the assembled teenagers, but Asuka's brain still insisted on telling the 'horse walks into a bar' joke and she had to bite the inside of her cheek not to laugh.
"Welcome, everyone, to the South-East Outlook Station. I'm head of classification and communication, Professor Kozou Fuyutsuki. You can call me … Profeyutsuki."
Asuka couldn't read minds, but she knew with hundred-percent certainty that all her classmates were thinking the same thing she was: ...No.
Fuyutsuki's glance moved over the class. Asuka thought she saw it catch briefly on Kaworu, though he didn't say anything, instead launching into an explanation of Mount Kumotori's layout and the different mineral veins found in and below it. Misato piped up periodically when he mentioned stuff relevant to the class' geology studies, not that anyone really paid attention (exams and assignments were a future problem, and therefore irrelevant).
They went into the main building and were shown some of the equipment used to explore the mountain – Aida 'ooh'ed and 'ahh'ed over the sonar and spectographic analysers, while Suzuhara gawked at the giant excavators with obvious intent.
"No, you can't climb on them," Misato said wearily, before he'd even made the attempt. "These kids are really predictable sometim—hey! Kaworu, that goes for you too!"
Kaworu froze mid-ascent of something that looked like Hieronymus Bosch had gone into satellite design, and under Misato's watchful glare rejoined the class with hands in pockets and no trace of guilt on his face.
"This isn't your uncle's shipyard," Asuka said to him.
"Of course not," he replied. "Keel would never host any educational event, he's far too grumpy."
Asuka's remembered mental image of the Disapprovingest Eyebrows Ever endorsed this assessment.
Soon the class and (theoretically) responsible adults were trooping out to a particular low-altitude mountain trail – Fuyutsuki led the way, and Asuka wondered, if the path would be too difficult for Rei, how this geriatric was supposed to manage. He must've been fitter than he looked.
At the entrance to a cave Fuyutsuki stepped into a pair of gladiator-sandal-looking metal boot frames that hummed with a distinctive sound of hydraulics and, when he walked, buoyed him along on tanker treads that turned half a step into at least a meter of distance.
Goddamn cheater.
...I gotta get a pair of those.
Much slower, the class followed him under an archway labelled "This Place Rocks", into a low-roofed tunnel – despite Misato's reminders, there were a series of "ow"s as people bumped their heads, elbows, knees, and each other (some deliberately). The floor mixed packed sand with flat-worn boulders, and the walls were columned with sheer smooth ridges.
As soon as the twisting, descending tunnel cut off daylight behind them, Kaworu took hold of Asuka's hand.
"Yeek! Cold! Leggo, you damn anaemic reptile!"
Attempts to shake him off failed.
"Don't tell me you're claustrophobic?"
Kaworu put his head on one side. "Hmm. Yes, that."
She scowled. Liar. "Hold Shinji's hand then. You're making him all jealous and sad."
The two of them glanced sideways at Shinji, who was pretending (badly) not to eavesdrop.
"I don't want to get distracted," said Kaworu.
Asuka looked dubiously at him. "Distracted from what?'
He tugged significantly at the sleeve of his hoodie, then Asuka's.
"...Oh, are you serious? Again?" Asuka huffed. "Well, where is it?"
"I'm not sure."
"Ugh, what use are you?" She grumbled. "You mean you need to explore, right?"
"Exactly."
She groaned. "We'll get in trouble if we leave the group."
An expression of fear and distress remained completely absent from Kaworu's face.
Asuka sighed. "I'll think of something. Don't disappear yet!"
Of course, she could've made a distraction herself and sent him off on his own, but Asuka hadn't gotten this far by trusting Kaworu to get shit done himself, and she wasn't about to start. (Besides, who'll document the discovery of my ticket to fame and fortune? Not Kaworu Flake-isa, that's for sure.)
Further down the tunnel, they got their chance. After a scrambling, awkward stretch (where Kaworu was forced to let go of Asuka's hand so that each of them could use all four limbs, but then the cold-blooded weirdo grabbed right back on again, to Shinji's visible envy), the cavern flattened out from its downward plunge and the roof vaulted away. The excursion had reached a nexus point of the long-dry underground river system, and at least a dozen tunnels led out in different directions.
Fuyutsuki gave a droning speech about this and that detail of the stone formations (stalactite at the top, stalagmite at the bottom, not that anyone cared), before Misato handed out wristbands with countdown timers and split them into groups for exploring, with worksheets to tick off a list of features and types of rock.
"Everything on the assignment is in the nearest caves," she shouted over the chatter of students starting to spread out. "You don't need to go out of sight of the main nexus here, so don't!"
"They can't, anyway," said Fuyutsuki cheerfully. "The tunnels are all blocked off, either by rocks or scaffolding."
"You hear that?" Misato called after her disappearing charges. "If you break through anything, you'll get sued for damages!"
"That's not what I said..."
Kaworu was already leading Asuka around a corner into the darkest, twistiest tunnel (of course). The others in their assigned group, Asuka realised belatedly, were Hikari and Suzuhara, blushingly avoiding each others' eye.
Asuka smirked. So getting away with Kaworu wasn't going to be a problem after all, then.
She lagged until Hikari caught up, and leaned in to whisper, "We can work on the list, you guys have fun."
Hikari's eyes widened. "Huh? Asuka! W-what're you saying?"
"C'monnn," Asuka leered. "Lookit this place, all sparkling quartz and incandescent low-lighting. It's romantic as shit, right?"
"Well..." Face red, Hikari surveyed their surroundings. "It is pretty nice, I guess."
"Great!" Asuka whipped the worksheet out of Hikari's hand and shoved her at her crush / boyfriend / "we're taking it slow, stop singing that tree song already!". Helpfully Kaworu shoved Suzuhara along an intercepting trajectory, and he and Asuka pointedly turned their backs and started away.
Behind her Asuka heard soft murmuring from Suzuhara, and a softer giggle from Hikari, and softly gagged.
"You seem quite comfortable with making use of your friend's feelings for your advantage," Kaworu observed, and Asuka glared and yanked her hand free.
"Wow. Get completely stuffed," she advised acidly. "It's what she wants too, and it's for your benefit so where the hell do you get off?"
He swayed back, looking confused. "I – don't … get off?"
Asuka bit back a comment of 'then what the hell is Shinji doing?'. "Don't you dare judge me," she said instead. "What would you even know, did you ever even have any friends before the Stooges?"
Kaworu shook his head.
Asuka swallowed heavily. Shit, now I feel bad.
"I wasn't judging you," he said, still seeming confused, "just noting."
"Well," she stammered, "well, just keep your 'notes' to yourself."
They tramped further down the tunnel in silence. It turned several corners and dropped steeply lower. Asuka could see through small cracks in each wall, and in the roof and floor, beyond into other almost-linked caves, some small and some much bigger. Eventually they got to the end of their tunnel, a tumble of rocks dripping with condensation.
She frowned. "We need to go further, don't we."
"This isn't your first spelunking rodeo," Kaworu confirmed cheerfully, and rolled up his pant leg to reveal a long hammer stuffed down the side of his boot, handle against his calf.
"Where did you get that?" Asuka asked. "And when?"
"Suzuhara acquired it while I was distracting Ms Katsuragi at the main building. When we sent him off with Miss Horaki I relieved him of it so she would not feel obliged to disapprove of his misconduct."
Asuka barked out a laugh. "Right, it'd kill the mood a bit if they get touchy." She flicked Kaworu's ear with a finger. "And you talking about me 'taking advantage of friends'. Hypocrite."
Together they worked on excavating the tunnel – Kaworu seemed to have a sense of what wouldn't cause a cave-in, and Asuka tried to shore up and support the exposed edges with the rocks they dislodged. It was still pretty stressful though, and she checked and rechecked the distress alert buttons on her wristband and Kaworu's.
It was only a few minutes before there was a hole large enough to crawl through, and Asuka could see into another cavern.
"Won't this have been explored already?" she asked as she wiggled along after Kaworu. "It's right here."
"They have been diverting people," said Kaworu as he stood up in the larger space.
"Who's 'they'?"
But as Asuka reached him and was able to look around fully, her question was answered.
The other cryptids had been small or tiny. This one was huge – at least a hundred meters wide from the fingertips of one arm to the other. Because it did, actually, have hands, and arms, just like Asuka's, like a human's, only giant, and pure white. Its elbows rested on the cavern floor, just ahead of an edge that dropped away like a tabletop, so that the cryptid's body disappeared out of sight into the depths. Above its shoulders, crowded and bent under the distant roof, a round white head with – Asuka's knees gave out and she hit the floor – a black hole where the face should be.
"Hello, Lilith," said Kaworu.
A wordless impression formed in Asuka's mind (her mind!?) of reciprocated greeting. She whimpered.
Kaworu crossed the cavern floor, stepping lightly from one broken outcrop to the next, hammer resting over his shoulder, other hand in a pocket.
Asuka's mouth seemed to move on its own. "I don't think that's going to fit in the Ikaris' playhouse."
Kaworu ignored her to address the 'Lilith'. "Thank you for guarding them, even though they aren't yours."
Another impression reached Asuka, of acknowledgement.
The hollow non-face of the Lilith tilted downwards, and Asuka tore her eyes away to follow its direction and Kaworu's. Between the giant white hands, the lumps and piles of rock made a pinnacle, topped by a rough four-faced pyramid, and veins in the surface gave out a dull blue gleam.
Kaworu hefted his hammer just below the head and began to tap gently at the pyramid. Clangs and echoes of clangs raced and reverberated around the cavern. Slowly, flakes and chips of rock began to fall away.
...Too slowly. Asuka shook herself out of fixation when her wristband beeped, telling her they had only ten minutes left to complete their worksheets and assemble back with the rest of the class. If they didn't show, sooner or later a search party would come looking. And so far only one side of the pyramid was exposed.
She huffed impatiently. No time for gawping. Can't count on this guy to get stuff done.
Her jacket and a couple of flat slabs made a decent barrier across their entry gap to muffle sound. Calling on all her agility and balance, she followed Kaworu's path over the uneven floor until she reached his side.
"Asuka?" Exertion had made his face less anaemically pasty than usual.
"Move over," she ordered, and grabbed the hammer from him. A grip adjust, couple of practice swings to test the weight, then—
CLANG!
A sheet of rock carved off one side. Asuka half-circled the pinnacle, secured her footing, and swung again.
CLANG!
Like a mineral-eating shark had chomped on the column.
CLANG!
Her ears were ringing. The hammer blows reverberated in her chest.
CLANG!
...The blue pyramid turned out to be a blue octahedron, about half a metre high.
"Here." Kaworu pointed to a vulnerable-looking spot.
CLANG!
Crunch, crumble, crack-crack-crack.
Kaworu put both hands on the octahedron and pushed, pulled, twisted back and forth, left to right. At last with a hail of stones and dirt, the thing was free.
Asuka's ears kept ringing – she saw Kaworu's mouth move as he addressed the blue octahedron, but couldn't hear his voice. She blocked her ears with her fingers, popping them again and again, but still nothing.
Fear gripped her. Am I going deaf?
Kaworu caught her eye and winced. His mouth moved again.
The ringing stopped.
Asuka blinked. She took her fingers out of her ears. "It – wasn't in my head?"
"The noise? It was Ramiel."
The octahedron gleamed in his hands.
"Right. What's its 'thing' – Ramiel of Screaming?"
"Thunder."
"Close enough."
The octahedron glittered, and a fainter ringing noise still filled the room – but at least it only lasted a second. "They were saying thank you for freeing them."
Asuka tossed her hair. "Well someone had to, you were taking ages – geological ages!"
Smirking at her own joke, she led the way back to their breakthrough point in the cavern wall and cleared away the muffling rocks. As Kaworu ducked through, bundling the Ramiel in his jacket, she looked back.
The Lilith had no face, only a black expanse that seemed to curve inward forever, even though the back of its head was solid. But even without eyes, Asuka felt it looking at her, and an impression bloomed in her mind of gratitude – and … recognition? Reunion?
...Happiness?