(Shock)
To facilitate my plan, I had dug considerably into my savings, figuring that the money would do me little good after the Third Impact had come to pass.
I procured a great many things that I had never had any use for before – a fold-able table, large enough to fit six to eight people when unfolded.
Bowls and cutlery for just as many people.
Some pots larger than any I had ever had reason to use.
An enormous 'family-sized' sack of rice, which I ended up having to haul up the stairs all the way to the fourth floor.
Ready-made broth.
The kind of soy sauce that is supposedly considered the 'good stuff'.
I had made sure to scrub the floors as thoroughly as I could, since we would be sitting on it.
On that day, my apartment had probably been cleaner than it ever had been in the entire time that I had lived in it, though I had not really changed anything about the contents to the point of changing its fundamental character.
Still, I had come to become invested enough in the outcome of one single event that I had done all this. Prepared all this.
The last of the marks that I had incurred while practicing had not even fully faded from my fingers.
Now, the rice was in the process of boiling over.
The starchy, bubbling water was running down the sides of the pot, caking the entire cooking panel in its sticky essence, sizzling loudly, producing a nasty smell where it touched the hot parts of the stove.
But it didn't matter anymore.
None of it mattered anymore, and it probably never did to begin with.
I could only stand there dumbstruck, wide-eyed and frozen in my utter, catastrophic numbness.
The instant that the Section Two agents had opened up the door, I understood that it's all over.
From that moment, I was only propelled forward by what the poet emily dickinson may have termed a 'formal feeling', that state when you couldn't even begin to process what you were feeling about the things that were happening to you, but had to keep moving all the same.
I read some of her poems in a book once, I believe, and I think I had considered her one of my personal favorites, though the memory felt like something distant and ludicrous now, like something that belonged to another world that I could never step back into, some other, bygone time.
The security staff wasted no time in filling me in as they ushered me into their long, black vehicle, probably on orders from the Commander, who must have made a sharp U-turn to headquarters somewhere on the path he was supposed to take her.
There had been an explosion at Matsushiro.
The rescue teams has been sent out, but none of them had been able to reach the site or bring back any news of Major Katsuragi or Dr. Akagi.
The extent of the damage was unknown.
At present, Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki was probably scrambling to stop the military from getting involved.
The whereabouts of EVA 03 had not been confirmed, but at present, the unit was assumed to have been lost.
Worst of all, the sensors had picked up distinct traces of pattern orange just before the complex went up in flames – the angel, if xir existed, had been provisionally code-named as 'Bardiel'.
I can only expect that whoever had chosen it may have poured their frustration into the interloper's very designation, for they had selected it to mean only one thing:
'Bastard Son of God.'
Somebody in the comments that it would be interesting if the dinner party got to happen for once, and, you know what? You're right, that might be interested, I get what you're saying – unfortunately though, I don't think that really fits with the concept that I had in mind for this particular thingy here.