Lesson 21: Red

"You're dissatisfied with the debt forgiveness?"

The smartly dressed robotic man had stepped in from an adjoining room the moment that Takanashi Hoshino had left the darkened office. He crossed his arms over his broad chest and emitted a dissatisfied grunt, confirming Black Suit's suspicions without having to speak so much as a single word.

Kaiser PMC Director spoke anyways.

"Erasing 10% of the principal to a debt I was never going to see paid doesn't affect my division's financials in any way. It doesn't matter in the slightest."

Heavy footsteps rang out as Kaiser PMC Director moved his way to stand in front of Black Suit's desk, abruptly slamming his palms into the surface once he did so. The wood creaked under the weight the mechanical man exerted upon it.

"What bothers me is your trying to curry favor with those brats. What happened to driving them out entirely to dig in peace? What happened to acquiring that pink haired pest? What are you scheming?!"

Each question was punctuated with a frustrated slam of weighty, metallic palms on burnished wood. The noise and barely restrained anger would have startled anyone. The obsidian man's amused expression did not falter in the slightest.

"Let's not argue over minutia," Black Suit said as he stood up and briefly fiddled with his suit's cuffs. Walking around the table, he patted the bulky robot on the shoulder, causing the mechanical man to glare in return. "The fate of Abydos is, as you've said yourself, irrelevant." The black dressed man stepped away, before continuing, "What information Takanashi Hoshino can provide about those in her orbit, however, is extremely valuable in pursuit of the research that your President commissioned."

The robotic man was taken aback, momentarily stunned into silence before blustering once again.

"Research? From the Kaiser President? I haven't heard of this!"

"It's a little above your paygrade, I'm afraid," the robot started spluttering angrily at those words again, but Black Suit continued on undaunted, completely ignoring the outburst as he stepped around the fuming Director and then back towards the desk, "but since our partnership has proven most useful thus far, I'll share the basics with you. Simply put, in exchange for the lance, on top of an exorbitant asking price, your President has asked me to prove the worth of my theories."

Arriving at the desk, the black garbed adult pressed a button.

"Send her in."

Turning to the window, Black Suit opened the blinds slightly to peer outside into the moonlit night sky.

"Tell me, Director, what do you know of divinity?"

"You want to bandy words over fantasies and fairy tales?!"

A soft chuckle, and the window blind rustled shut, allowing only thin slivers of light into the office.

"I surmised as much. It doesn't matter," the businessman said as he turned to his desk and opened a drawer, surgically shifting through the contents. "A quick lesson, then. Succinctly and to the point: Divinity is not a plain. It is a scale. Myths are not as puissant as Mystics who are, in turn, only a shadow of Terror."

A moment passed in expectant silence as Black Suit found what he searched for in his desk.

A bullet, dull red in color and completely unremarkable.

"Above these lies a separate realm. The realm of the Sublime."

For some reason, despite thinking the words to be nothing more than fanciful flights of imagination unbecoming of an adult, Kaiser PMC Director found that he dared not speak, dared not interrupt.

"But is there more beyond that? What, if anything, lies beyond the realm of the Sublime?"

Stepping back towards the silent Director, Black Suit held up the bullet to the robotic man's eyes.

"Beyond the Sublime lies only hypotheses and conjecture," he said in a grave voice that sounded oddly regretful. "However, we've recently found tantalizing hints in Millennium's Ruins. Corrupted data, fragmented files, graffiti on the walls… All insinuating the existence of something we cannot begin to imagine. And so, I will purchase the spear by proving its existence to your President."

Kaiser PMC Director finally found his voice again. A discomfited grunt escaped him before he spoke, "Prove the existence of what, you lunatic?!"

The jagged line of Black Suit's smile grew wider, becoming manic, crossing from one side of featureless face to the other.

"The Absolute Terror."

A hesitant knock on the door was followed by it creaking open and a meek, helmet wearing student dressed in a black tracksuit hesitantly stepping in.

"Excuse me, I- Ack!"

The moment the haloed delinquent stepped in, Black Suit tossed the dull red bullet at her without warning, a drop of crimson against the dark backdrop of the room.

"Remember your orders. Do not miss."

"Do you know why you are still alive?"

Ayanami Rei jolted awake, her heart thundering in her chest and her breathing heavy and frantic for the brief yet seemingly interminable moment that it took her to calm herself down. Scarlet eyes darted around and took in the room she was in, and she realized that it was modest and sparsely decorated, but not dilapidated. The bedding was comfortable and set in a sturdy, wooden frame, not a worn-down mattress resting atop a worn and rickety aluminum bed. Pale and silvery light streamed in through the window's curtains and all she could hear were the sounds of a city sleeping: the call of nighttime insects in the distance and the faint sounds of traffic; not the constant thumping of nearby construction.

Kivotos. This is not Tokyo-3.

But why had she been so afraid?

And what was this bitter feeling that stung within her chest?

Sitting upright on the bed, her feet descended to touch the room's cool floor, and a concerned voice called her attention before she could either stand or further pursue that line of thinking.

"Did you have a bad dream?" Arona asked from the Shittim Chest, her voice laced with worry. The digital girl's blue eyes shone with that same concern, and that emotion was clearly reflected in the dark blue tones and dripping, teary form of her halo.

Rei blinked quizzically at the novelty of Arona's mutable halo before turning her thoughts to the consideration of the girl's words. She thought back to the moments before she woke, and she shook her head in denial.

"Not a dream. A memory."

"A memory?"

The snarling woman's hands tightened around her neck in a vise-like grip, and she struggled pointlessly until darkness first swam at the edges of and then flooded her vision.

Commander Ikari loomed over her when the darkness finally receded.

"Do you know why you are still alive?" the bespectacled man had asked, and his deep voice had been tight with emotions that Rei could not recognize.

"Do you know why you died?" he had asked with a glare that seethed with a cold fury.

Human beings don't die and continue to live.

Ayanami Rei is human.

Ayanami Rei is human.

Ayanami Rei is human.

"I do not wish to speak about it," Rei finally answered Arona's question, shaking her head to dismiss both the memory and her traitorous inner thoughts. A hand rose to her neck and the touch of her fingers on her own cool skin chased away all traces of both Akagi Naoko's murderous snarls and Ikari Gendo's anger. She turned her gaze towards the Shittim Chest, propped up on the nearby desk, and noticed that Arona looked unconvinced at her words. The blue haired girls looked at each other wordlessly for a moment before Arona hesitantly broke the silence.

"Rei-chan, when you first activated the Shittim Chest," the childish AI said haltingly, carefully considering each word before speaking it, "I said that I'm your trusty assistant and you could always rely on me, right?"

Rei remembered their conversation in the room beneath the ruined SCHALE building. She nodded.

"Won't you trust me with this?" Arona begged earnestly. Her usual cheery, smiling disposition was replaced by one of worry and concern as she clasped her hands together in a pleading gesture. The motion made the white ribbon on her head bob up and down like a rabbit's ears. "Super Arona is super reliable! I… I want to help!"

Not too long ago, Ayanami Rei's reply would have been nothing more than a curt denial, if she had even bothered to speak at all.

Now, however, the displaced girl found herself hesitating. Rei's eyes narrowed slightly as she briefly struggled to dismiss Arona's question, and then again as she struggled to formulate an answer.

"I…" Rei's words caught in her throat, and she tried again to the same result. Her mind raced as she attempted to explain her disparate thoughts and emotions, and a third attempt also ended in failure. Rei's brow furrowed slightly in consternation and disappointment before she finally managed to give voice to words of frustration, "I… cannot. It is difficult."

A small part of her noted that words came easily to Tendou Aris, but not for herself.

Rei silenced that errant thought, and focused instead on Arona, whose halo was once again dark blue and drippy, the floating circle perfectly reflecting the worried expression on her face. The fault for that easily discernible sadness did not lay with digital girl, but rather with herself. It was she who could not give voice to the feelings that roiled within her, she who could not bring herself to trust others. How could she, when she failed even at trusting herself?

It was the same as when she hurt Iwabitsu Ayumu.

I am the one who cannot express herself.

I am the one who hurts others.

I am the one who pushes them away.

I cannot remain this way.

"It is difficult… right now. Please, give me time. I am… I am not good at this," she found herself speaking the words before the thoughts had finished forming in her mind, the sober request escaping her lips without conscious action, but with unfamiliar and raw emotional intent.

The tablet-bound girl did not hesitate to answer.

"When you're ready… will you trust me?" Arona asked, bright blue eyes filled with hope.

"Yes. I will. I will trust you."

The pale silver moon was the only witness to their words.

"Ayumu."

Once again, the blonde student in question did not immediately reply when her name was called. Green eyes stared unfocused at the documents before her, and the hands that should have been moving swiftly across the neatly organized reams of paper instead stood perfectly still over the pages. The modern and stately office around the pair remained silent for a few heartbeats longer before Nanagami Rin cleared her throat and spoke again in a tone far sterner than she ever addressed the taller blonde with.

"Iwabitsu Ayumu."

Startled, Ayumu jumped in her chair slightly, head swerving and eyes racing as her senses were rudely called back to reality. Green eyes brimmed with unshed tears and her lower lip trembled slightly as she realized who was the one that had frightened her out of her thoughts.

"Rin!" the weepy blonde started in an accusatory tone, "Don't startle me like that! I was-"

"I called for you five times already," the bespectacled Vice-President interrupted in a calm tone as she took another drink from her coffee mug. Her voice carefully avoided being accusatory while still making Ayumu feel like she was guilty of some grave crime.

"Ah!" the frazzled student said with an awkward smile, her black wings wrapping close to her body in a contrite gesture, "I'm sorry, I was just-"

"Thinking about Abydos?" the dark-haired student interrupted once again. Her friend looked down sheepishly before giving a slight nod of agreement. "I've got my best girls working on it, Ayumu. They'll contact us the moment they find something we can act on."

"I know!" the blonde whined sheepishly, "I know, but-"

Nanagami Rin sighed and interrupted once again, her gaze turning to the moon hanging outside the office's large windows.

"Maybe we should stop here for tonight," the elfin eared young woman said as she closed the laptop computer in front of her. Lifting her gaze, a soft smiled crossed her usually stern features as she turned to look at the slightly confused blonde. "We're both tired. We're not going to do anyone any good if we go through the day yawning and daydreaming."

The white garbed girl with three stars on her uniform stood and walked to her blonde friend, offering a hand to help her stand.

"Come on. I'll clean up here so you can go get some rest without worries."

"…You're just going to work through the night again, aren't you?" Ayumu accused.

The Chief Administrative Officer of the General Student Council silently shrugged her slender shoulders, unable to deny the accusation. Ayumu glared at her with all the ferocity of a doe, and a moment passed in silence before the two girls broke into giggles.

"Let's both get some rest, ok?" Blue eyes peered into green expectantly, but Iwabitsu Ayumu did not leave her seat just yet.

"Rin… what do you think of Rei-chan?"

"Rei?" the Vice-President found herself blinking owlishly at Ayumu's unexpected question.

Iwabitsu Ayumu did not wait for her friend's answer, instead giving voice to feelings that she had kept bottled up for far too long.

"I think…" Soft hesitation. "I think wherever her old school was…" A quivering breath. "I think she was abused…"

The promise of rest went unfulfilled as their somber conversation lasted through the night.

It was the following day, and the midday sun rested high in the cloudless blue skies of Abydos, forcing both citizens and students to seek refuge from the merciless heat in air-conditioned rooms and buildings.

Kuromi Serika, however, was not.

The sweating, cat-eared girl instead found herself hauling another set of gym supplies out of storage and into the school's courtyard, adding to the impromptu barricades that she and the rest of the Foreclosure Task Force, plus their new helpers, had been trying to hurriedly construct.

SCHALE and its diverse group of students had arrived in the nick of time. They even got the GSC to finally show up!

And yet, everybody knew an attack was imminent. The air was thick with anticipation and tension.

It could be hours. It could be minutes.

However long it took, the air was charged with apprehension. Something big was going to happen today. They could all feel it.

The blue-haired middle schooler from the unknown school stepped beside her. She was carrying a school desk, helping as she could, the fox-eared Hyakkiyako student fussing over her like an overprotective sibling.

Serika averted her gaze and carefully avoided looking at the pair.

Yesterday she'd been excited about the thought of getting a middle-schooler to enroll in Abydos, and she'd gotten swept up in the energy and good cheer of the day. Master Shiba's ramen had a way of chasing away all your worries. At night, in the privacy of her own thoughts, she remembered the look that she had seen briefly cross Rei's features as the girl turned her gaze to Hoshino.

For a brief moment… she looked as if she wanted to kill her.

It was inconceivable. The girl with the crimson leaf halo could barely manage a smile at the most delicious ramen ever, but for a moment, Serika could have sworn she'd seen such fury and hate cross the girl's face… Serika had dismissed it as a trick of her imagination, but the memory returned to her unbidden once she was alone and in her home.

And now Serika found herself unable to even look at the girl, afraid to confirm what her mind was urging her to confront.

It was impossible.

"My lady! Did you manage to apologize to Ayumu-san?"

"No… I do not know how to…"

It was unthinkable.

The twin-tailed first year's mind was playing tricks on her again. It had to be. She found it impossible to reconcile this confused middle-schooler with the image in her mind. It just didn't make any sense.

"Are you stupid or something?!" Serika found herself bristling as she spoke up. "If you got in a fight with a friend, just apologize! If you made a mistake, just own up to it and say sorry!"

The middle-schooler and the Hyakkiyako girl turned to look at her, as if they hadn't been aware she was there in the first place. That somehow made her angrier and she found angry words escaping her lips as her confusion shifted to familiar territories.

"We've been on our own for the longest time! And we've had no one to rely on but ourselves! So, we've all had to learn how to be clear with our feelings! That's how we know we can rely on each other!" She was stretching the truth, she knew. Hoshino and Nonomi obviously had baggage that they weren't keen on sharing while Shiroko was only slightly more emotive than Rei. Still, Serika had been together with them through thick and thin, and she trusted them to watch her back. If she ever wronged any of them, she would surely apologize in an instant!

The pale blue haired girl looked confused for a second before nodding.

"Is it that simple?" her soft voice asked.

Her memory felt even more distant and incongruous. She dismissed it entirely.

"It's simple so long as you don't make it complicated!" Serika answered, smiling. The irony was completely lost on her as she said, "You just have to be sincere with your feelings!"

"Sincerity," the younger girl said, and she nodded. Pale lips parted to say something else, but the Hyakkiyako girl, Izuna, placed a hand on her shoulder.

"They're here."

They were out of time.

Ayanami Rei noted that the Helmet Gang outnumbered the Abydos Foreclosure Task Force ten to one. Even with the presence of Tendou Aris, Kuda Izuna, and Iwabitsu Ayumu, the situation was hopeless. Nobody seemed to mind her presence, but Ayanami Rei found herself wondering what sort of contribution she might make without Unit-00 being present.

She had wordlessly hauled supplies. Helped build obstacles and barricades.

But combat was plainly inevitable, and she found doubt beginning to take root in her heart.

What are my orders?

What must I do?

Her mind provided no answers.

Kuromi Serika's words rang in her mind as she saw Iwabitsu Ayumu step towards her, concern in her green eyes. Her thoughts fell apart in a disorganized jumble and words died on her lips. She didn't know what to say.

The pink-haired Abydos girl stepped forward, exchanging words with a tracksuit and helmet wearing delinquent. Their words were glib, but she recognized the threats being exchanged.

Their voices raised in volume. Someone behind her was shouting. She did not recognize the voice. Someone from the gang's mob shouted back.

Tempers flared.

Several things happened simultaneously then.

The loud crack of gunfire cut through everyone's belligerent words. Raised rifle, black tracksuit, trembling arms, smoking barrel.

Birds took flight, startled by the noise, and the power lines they vacated trembled slightly from their sudden absence.

Iwabitsu Ayumu screamed in pain, the blonde student's body jerking back forcefully as she collapsed to ground. Her halo flickered with static, and instantly winked out of existence.

The pink-haired Abydos girl shouted for Okusora Ayane even as the Foreclosure Task Force and the Helmet Gang opened fire on each other and bullets tore through the air, a dervish of lead cutting breathless stillness.

And Ayanami Rei…

And Ayanami Rei stood perfectly still…

And Ayanami Rei,

for the first time

in her life,

saw

RED.

Lesson 21: End

What did we learn today, class?

Yes, that's correct!

"Seeing red" is an idiom that is synonymous with anger or losing your temper.

Join us again next time forLesson 22: ABSOLUTE TERROR.

Don't be late!

AN: January 1, 2025. This chapter brought to you by the song "Rei 3". This chapter and the next have been on my mind since I started writing the story. You could say that this is the point that we've been building towards since then. I look forward to meeting you again for Lesson 22. -Kero