Difficult to Endure, Sweet to Remember

by notyourprob

Given the opportunity to try again, what would a troubled girl do differently?

14. Chapter 14

Ο κόσμος αλλοίωσις, ο βίος υπόληψις. (The universe is change, life is perception— Marcus Aurelius

"You know they're returning to school." Misato spoke from behind her desk, paperwork piled in disorganized heaps.

Asuka shrugged. They had had this argument before. Just because Misato always got her way did not mean the older woman was right.

"Training is more important." School was for school kids. They were pilots.

"We already have training scheduled." Misato leaned an elbow on her desk and rested her chin on her raised fist. Papers fluttered to the ground from the disturbance.

"You have training scheduled. I have supplementary training scheduled."

Someone had to make up for the deficiencies in Misato's endless simulator bouts.

"Asuka," Misato sighed heavily. "Stop being stubborn."

"I don't see the problem. We're getting results. The Sixth Angel went down without a problem." Asuka crossed her arms. Never mind who killed it. The First had kept her gloating to herself, so far. As much as Asuka was trying to get along with her as part of her plan, the suspense was grating. "Why change things up?"

"Look. You can have the rest of the week, but starting next week, no more supplementary training." Misato tried to look stern, but Asuka thought she only looked constipated.

"Then we need to start doing something besides simulators!" Asuka nearly growled.

"That's the plan." Misato answered, surprising Asuka.

"Huh?" She had expected a shouting match, then to storm off while privately vowing to continue telling the Third—and the First—to meet up for her own sessions. Acquiescence had never been a possibility that seemed likely.

"I've told you already, haven't I? We're working together on this."

Asuka narrowed her eyes at the woman in front of her.

"We're not going to be dropping the simulations entirely, they're a useful tool for us." Misato leaned back and crossed her arms and legs. "But as long as my lead pilot can come up with some training that meets my requirements, I suppose I could give her a few days on the schedule."

"A few days?"

"We'll split it. Sundays are still going to be a day off—I don't care if you want it, I want it. I work enough as it is. But if you plan for three days out of the week, I'll take the other three."

Asuka frowned. That would severely cut back on her available training time. But on the other hand—It's not like I have to stop doing my own training.

"I'll tell you right now, my focus is still going to be on building teamwork and coordination between the three of you," Misato said as Asuka continued to mull over the implications.

She could admit that the First and the Third were doing well—thanks to her training, of course. She had not yet seen the Third pull any over the top berserker bullshit, but he was consistently doing well. And the First was not useless, either. Not to mention that, with her mother finally in the picture, she knew she had someone she could rely on with absolute certainty to beat the Angels. Maybe she could afford to come off the throttle. Just a little bit.

"Deal."

"Great." Misato grinned at her. "We can meet up later to coordinate our plans for the week."

And there it was. Misato trying to control her plan, her team, her decisions. Just like she was trying to control Unit 02. Asuka had been unable as yet to determine what she and Akagi were doing, or how, but she knew it was happening.

"You said I could plan my days on the schedule!"

"Come on, Asuka. It's better to do this as a team. We can help each other."

I don't need your help.

"I can do it myself." Asuka spoke firmly and glared at Misato.

"Fine, fine," she answered, waving one hand in front of her face. "You're making things more difficult, you know that?"

Hypocrite. Asuka hmphed, crossed her arms, and turned her head up and to the side.

"Mock up a schedule and send it to me for approval. Can you have it done by the end of the week?"

"Of course I can!"

"Ok, then I'll see you during training—remember what we talked about?"

"Yes," Asuka groaned. Misato was insistent that it was more important for Asuka to direct the other pilots than for her to just kill the Angel. It was stupid, but she could play along to at least keep the drunk off her back. During combat—real combat—she would obviously do what needed to be done.

"Just checking," Misato smiled cheerfully.

Asuka rolled her eyes and turned on her heel to leave.

Ω

The lights in Asuka's bedroom snapped off. She was standing at the door to her room and her hand was still covering the light switch. She swallowed audibly—her mouth felt dry. With a shake of her head, she drew her arm back towards herself and smoothed down the slightly rumpled clothes she was wearing.

Not that she cared. The baggy t-shirt and thin shorts had been chosen for comfort over fashion. Her hands just felt like they needed something to do. She swallowed again, huffed quietly to herself, and slid open her door to step into the short hallway leading into the living room. Quiet rustling from the kitchen covered the sounds of her bare feet padding on the floor as she walked, a soft clunking of plates and the staccato krshing of the western style flatware that occasionally made an appearance at their meals.

She entered the kitchen to see exactly what she expected: the First Child seated at the table and the Third arranging servings of food.

"First." Asuka greeted her tersely. She used the back of her hand to toss her hair over her shoulder as she approached her chair.

"Second." Ayanami's soft reply was almost lost to the whoosh of Asuka taking her seat.

The savory scent of onions, garlic, and a mélange of herbs wafted up from the bowl in front of Asuka. It was faintly familiar, threatening to bring to mind meals spent with her father and stepmother in Germany. Not that either of them ever cooked anything themselves.

She grabbed a spoon and slipped it into the bowl of soup, nudging around the chunks of vegetables. The action caused even more of the smell to float up to her. "Thanks for the food," the interwoven voices of the First and the Third called, but Asuka kept her head down, focusing on getting through the meal.

Ayanami's presence loomed across from her. She could feel it even with her eyes locked on her slowly emptying bowl of soup. It was a silent presence. The girl could have been the ghost her pale skin made her appear to be—if she were not also eating from her own bowl. Occasionally glancing up at Asuka or the Third.

Every time Asuka caught her red gaze flicking her way, she felt herself tense up. But nothing ever accompanied the brief looks—no faux friendly ribbing, no mocking jab at her pride. Not even one of her matter-of-fact jokes tailored to point out just who exactly scored the last kill.

She's biding her time. There was no denying the First was silently watching, judging, waiting for the right moment to maximize Asuka's humiliation at her hands. Asuka dropped her spoon into the empty bowl in front of her and stood up. Stop it! It did not matter if it was true. That line of thinking ran contra to her plan. As always, I have to do everything. Including being cordial with the First.

"Good night, Soryu."

Asuka grit her teeth at the sound of her voice, but kept walking. She could not let her think she was getting to her, though. She could not let herself think the First was getting to her.

"Good night, Ayanami."

She shut her bedroom door behind her once she had made it back to the space away from judging red eyes. As she walked to her bed, she grabbed a notebook off the ground. Flipping it open, she fell backwards to land with her head on her pillow. She tried to focus on the work she should be doing—revising next week's schedule. But the sound of the kitchen sink running, and the clattering of dishes being handled, made it difficult.

Ω

"Shinji, you'll funnel the Angel down into the ambush site."

"Right."

Asuka watched Unit 01 sprint away into the maze of streets and towering buildings that made up the heart of the city.

"Rei, you have the rifle."

"I am retrieving it now, and I see a firing position to take."

"Great. Get set up. Asuka?"

She watched Unit 00 pick up the smaller version of the positron rifle that Asuka had used to kill the Fifth Angel. The blue behemoth held it with one hand and jogged to a nearby building.

"I know," Asuka said with an exaggerated sigh. Unit 00 reached its chosen destination and crouched down before explosively leaping up and grabbing onto the side of the building. "I'll keep the Angel off of the prototype. Just don't shoot me, First!"

"I will endeavor not to." Unit 00 was shimmying up the building, using its legs and one free arm. Asuka did not think she heard any sarcasm in her reply, but she figured the normally taciturn girl may have been focusing too much on climbing to spare any effort to emote. Either way, a biting reply died in the back of her throat. Just get along with her. Or at least don't let her get to you.

"I was going to say try not to get eaten, but good call." Asuka definitely heard the sarcasm there.

"That's not funny, Misato-san."

Asuka felt her face redden and she tightened her grip on her controls.

"Relax, Shinji, I'm just teasing. She doesn't mind. Right, Asuka?"

"I don't need you to protect me, Third," Asuka growled.

"Anyway," Misato said swiftly, before Asuka could add more. "This is the last one for today, so make it count."

"I am in position."

Focus. Asuka looked up from her own position guarding a large, open square surrounded by mid- to large-sized buildings. Unit 00 was just barely visible atop an office building a few blocks away. Close range for the rifle she was cradling in her arms, but fighting in the city as they were now left them with few options.

"I've been ready!" Asuka crouched down at one of the egress points from the square, the road that led directly to Ayanami's nest. It irked her beyond reason to be not only waiting for the enemy, but also forbidden from engaging it unless it threatened Unit 00's position. Not to mention that she was pulling guard duty for Ayanami of all people, who had been the one to score the last Angel kill. She still had not bragged about it, and the longer it took, the worse she expected.

But she was ready regardless.

"Good to hear, ladies. Shinji?"

"The Angel is moving into the city now."

"Do your thing, Shin-chan!" Misato's cheery voice over the communication system was overshadowed by the distant sound of a pallet rifle firing in bursts, and the shuddering explosions of the rounds that had to be impacting the Angel's AT field.

Asuka fiddled with her control yokes, more than a little bored of waiting already. But she kept an eye on the map projected on the screen. The dot marked Unit 01 was being followed by an unlabeled blue dot. The movement of the two correlated with the sounds of combat. Sporadic rifle fire echoed while the Unit 01 marker moved, and Asuka could perfectly picture the look of concentration on his face as he fired over his shoulder while he moved—he always scrunched up his lips and eyebrows when he was focusing on a difficult homework question.

When the Unit 01 marker stopped moving, rapid rifle fire coupled with the crashing and groaning of damaged buildings collapsing—presumably due to the Angel, not the Third—reverberated and echoed all around. Only for the Unit 01 dot to dance away before the Angel's marker could close the distance.

"You're almost at the ambush site, Third." Asuka looked from the map to the square in front of her. "Break to your left when you get into the open." That would give the First plenty of open space to take her shot at the Angel without worrying about hitting Unit 01.

"Ok." The Third sounded distracted, which meant he was paying closer attention to the Angel than Asuka thought was really necessary.

How difficult was it to run away? Surely it should not take that much brain power.

"Rei?"

"I will be ready to fire when Unit 01 is clear of the Angel, Ma'am."

Kissass. What happened to calling her Misato-san? Asuka was really getting sick of the way Ayanami played at being better than her just because she had let her get one kill. Like she was so superior she did not even feel the need to gloat about it!

The symphony of battle drew nearer, and Asuka was drawn back into the moment now that she could see clouds of dust and debris, as well as leaning and collapsing buildings, marking the approach of the skirmishing giants.

"I'm coming in now!" Asuka tensed at the Third's warning.

"Ready." Ayanami's reply was almost lost to the thundering footsteps of Unit 01 and the pounding of Asuka's heartbeat in her ears. She reached up to her shoulder pylon to draw her knife and licked her lips in anticipation.

Suddenly, a purple blur shot through the opening between the two buildings she had been intently watching. Then it rolled to Asuka's right—the Idiot's left—with iridescent pink whips of light flashing after in hot pursuit. They sliced through smaller buildings, power lines, poles, and anything else between them and their prey.

Like the Fourth—that one was easy.

A bright flash, intense enough that Asuka had to squint, and an orange shell of interlocking octagons appeared like a wall to absorb the fire from the positron rifle. "Reloading." Asuka heard the first call out, and she shifted her stance to hold her knife in front of her, blade parallel to the ground, her other arm extended, flexed at the elbow, hand open and ready to block or grab as needed.

The Angel finally floated all the way into the square, and it was some kind of amalgamation of others they had already defeated. She recognized the body as being mostly similar to the Third Angel, which the Third Child had fared so poorly against. But those whip-like appendages wriggling out of its bulky shoulders were straight off of the Fourth Angel. It's bird-like face scanned around the open square while its whips soared after Unit 01 again. When the empty black sockets of its face mask landed on Unit 02, it cocked its head at an angle, like a curious dog, and suddenly Asuka was staring down a particle beam as it raced toward her.

"What the hell?" She yelped as she dived away. Too slow to doge it fully, the blast clipped her side and sent her careening at an odd angle. The building that had been behind her collapsed, as did the one she crashed into.

Another blinding flash shot through the battlefield as Asuka stood shakily, bits of rubble falling from Unit 02. "Reloading." Ayanami spoke calmly, and Asuka looked down to see the smoking remnants of the armor around her Eva's torso. Charred flesh was visible in places where the armor had completely melted away. She snarled and dropped back into a fighting stance, knife lost somewhere in the rubble.

The Angel, meanwhile, had taken the positron beam like it was nothing, and was now turning its face—mask—whatever it was to the position Unit 00 was occupying. All without letting up the chase its arms were giving to Unit 01, the purple beast leading them around the square as the Third dodged, ducked, dipped, dived, and sporadically fired at the Angel.

"No you don't!" Asuka yelled, bending her legs. "You're my toy!" She leapt at the Angel before it could loose another beam, colliding with its AT field. She pounded on it with her fists while the Angel retracted its whips to deal with the immediate, red danger currently presented to it rather than the more distant purple one that had been evading it. Using both fists to pound on the AT field, Asuka reached out with Unit 02's to weaken it. Each blow of a clenched fist against the solid wall of the barrier was punctuated by a different curse in one of the languages she spoke, until one of her arms was arrested mid swing. Unit 02's wrist was wrapped in a pink tendril.

"Asshole!" Asuka growled, scowling at the sight of her trapped hand.

Her hand was abruptly freed when a storm of bullets collided into the other side of the Angel—stopped by its AT field, but more than enough of a distraction that the Angel released its grip and sent both of its whips after Unit 01 again, which was steadily advancing toward the pair, firing in even bursts as it walked.

Asuka took the opportunity to roll onto the opposite side from Unit 01's march and reached towards the Angel's AT field. She could feel it fraying, the combined assault from the fields of Units 01 and 02, as well as the combined conventional assault from all three of them was eroding the Angel's defenses. She held the fingers of Unit 02's hand extended straight out, in close order with each other, and thrust forward as with a knife. The tips of the Eva's fingers pierced through the field.

The pilot grinned, and she kept up the pressure. Her other arm shot forward into the opening—was it an opening? Everything she knew about AT fields and metaphysics told her—no, now was not the time for semantics. She grabbed onto the ragged edges of the shimmering octagons and pulled as hard as she could. Until the field dissipated as if it had never been there at all, and Unit 01's rifle rounds began slamming directly into the Angel.

The beaked face swung around to face her, and Asuka prepared to leap onto her foe before it would have a chance to fire at her again. But another searing flash of light streaked across the battlefield and by the time Asuka had blinked away the spots in her vision the Angel was already sinking to the ground. It had a neat, cylindrical hole burned through its chest where its core had been.

"Good job, guys." Misato's voice floated out of Asuka's communication system. The city blinked away, and Asuka sat in a dimly lit entry plug.

"Hit the showers, we'll have our normal meeting."

Asuka replied in the affirmative with the others and drummed her fingers against her seat while she waited for the simulator plug's hatch to open.

"Asuka?" The expectant nagging in her voice grated at Asuka's nerves.

"I know," she answered testily. "I'll be ready."

"Great! See you guys soon."

The woman had made it clear that she expected Asuka to be more proactive with the feedback she offered during their after action reviews, as Misato insisted on calling them. Which meant Asuka always had to have something constructive to say about what had happened during the training. Simulators are boring and dumb had apparently not been constructive enough for her.

Of course, who designed the latest scenario to star a knock-off 14th Angel would not work, either. Nor would The First stole my kill again. Asuka grunted as she hauled herself out of the open plug. She would think of something—she was a genius, after all—but it was annoying. Putting up with all these banal activities while Unit 02, the real, unsimulated, flesh and blood Unit 02, was so close. Being on guard from the First, for whenever she finally decided to let loose her unearned bragging. And her failures, so far, to discover what it was Misato was compromising about with Akagi.

She sighed as she shut the door to her locker and walked towards the showers. Ayanami was already inside, given Asuka's habit of spacing out her own arrival to the locker room to minimize contact with the girl. At least there's a synch test in a few days. It could not come soon enough.

Ω

Ping-pong!

"I'll get it!"

Asuka closed her book and stuffed it back into the desk drawer she kept it in. The kanji reference book was seeing more use recently. At least since she had started helping the Third with his homework. Not that the material was hard.

She stood and stretched her arms over her head, interlocking her fingers and arching her back. Her t-shirt rose slightly above the waist of her shorts.

His homework was easy for a genius like her. The Japanese just liked to make their writing systems as full of obscure, difficult to remember, archaic symbols as they could. And she would be damned if she would look foolish in front of the Idiot, so she only looked up kanji when she was alone.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she forced all the air out of her lungs in one long, slow exhale while she stretched out her back as much as she could. When she had emptied her lungs completely, she dropped her arms and relaxed her back.

The walk to the kitchen was accompanied by the sounds of no conversation from the occupants she knew were there. As always. She stepped past Pen Pen on her way into the kitchen, running the tips of her fingers along the smooth feathers at the crown of his head as she went, the bird flipping one wing up to her in acknowledgement as he trundled his way into Misato's unoccupied room for his after-dinner nap.

The woman was spending more and more time away from the apartment, and her avian companion seemed to be trying to fill in for her presence by accumulating the detritus of her bedroom into a sort of nest. Even the Idiot had not felt the desire to remove the pile of clothing and bedding that Asuka had turned up her nose at on the rare occasion she would glance into the woman's private quarters.

Approaching the table, the Third looked up at her arrival—he nodded at her and quickly looked away again—and the First did not look up at her, choosing instead to stare at the food Shinji was spooning onto the plates set out at their normal seats.

"Ayanami." Asuka forced her voice to be light. Verging on friendly, or as close as she could make it.

"Soryu."

Asuka unclenched a fist and placed both hands on the table—just the fingertips, her palms hanging down. She had to consciously breathe and consciously direct her sight at things other than Ayanami.

But she did not deign to speak again after returning Asuka's greeting. The Third had finished serving the food—fish, which was gross but at least it had been over a week since the last time he had subjected her to it—so Asuka let one hand pick up her chopsticks. She ate routinely, ignoring the others at the table.

"You don't normally like fish that much."

Asuka looked up at the Third, who was watching her while he reached for a glass of water.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Asuka asked him incredulously.

He replaced his glass after taking a sip, then gestured to her plate. Her empty plate, she now realized, which made it stand out from the other pilots' dinners. Which were still taking up space on their plates.

"You finished so quickly. Did you like it?"

Why would you make it if you thought I wouldn't like it?

"It was fine." It had not been anything special, but it had not made her gag. She dropped her utensils on the empty plate.

Shinji smiled and looked back down at his plate to pick at his own fish.

"I'll keep the recipe."

Asuka tilted her chin down and she felt her face heat up. She had had things on her mind, important things. Too important to pay attention to how some dumb fish tasted. Why did it matter how quickly she ate.

"Did you like it, Ayanami?"

Asuka prepared herself for —for something. Just the sound of the girl's intake of breath felt like salt poured on the wound that was her pride.

"Yes."

Slowly, silently, Asuka exhaled through her nose and loosened her jaw. She stood. There were things to do. Important things. More important than sitting around the First for the other girl to watch her squirm. Because she was not squirming. She was leaving.

To do important things.

"Good night, Soryu."

Asuka stopped in the entry to the living room.

"Good night, Ayanami."

Ω

"It's not like it's a big deal!"

"No."

"It's the fastest way to diagnose the problem!"

"No."

Asuka stomped her foot and growled.

"Just let me get in the entry plug for five minutes! I'll figure out the tissue growth thing for you."

"You'll 'figure out the tissue growth thing' from outside of Unit 02." Akagi ashed her cigarette and looked up, over the top of her glasses, to stare blandly at the girl standing in front of her desk. "Do you know how much it costs just to insert an entry plug? Let alone power an Eva for however long you want to drag out a simple diagnostic. NERV has other projects that need part of the budget, too."

Do you know how much it'll cost to reconstruct your jaw after I punch you in the mouth?! She could not say that, of course. But it felt good to imagine the bottle blonde with a cigarette dangling out of the corner of a toothless mouth. Maybe with a black eye. And a broken nose, too.

"Whatever." Asuka tossed her hair over her shoulder flippantly and turned to leave.

"And don't forget that synch data Lieutenant Ibuki sent you. We're still waiting on that."

"I won't." She sounded as exasperated as she felt. No one cared about some random synch data. She would get to it when she felt like it.

The door shut behind her before Akagi could reply. Not that she would have. Asuka figured she was already deep in whatever work she had been engrossed in when Asuka had barged into her office. The hall echoed with her heavy footsteps as she trudged back to the bridge, and the tissue regeneration analysis that she had been staring at all day. Not that it was going wrong—nothing concerning Unit 02 would ever be permitted to be going wrong—but the results were not quite what they should have been. Even if they were within a standard deviation of what they should have been.

She had hoped it would have been an excuse to talk with her mother, in as much as she was able to, but now it seemed she had just created more busy work for herself.

"Good afternoon, Soryu."

Asuka's head jerked up in surprise, and she scolded herself for getting lost in thought.

"Ayanami."

The two girls stood in front of each other.

Aren't you going to say something?!

The gentle rustling of fabric as Asuka adjusted her weight on her feet was the only sound in the hallway.

Just say something!

The girl's red eyes flicked up to peer over Asuka's shoulder briefly before returning to their piercing stare directly into Asuka's own eyes.

The tension was rising, an almost palpable feeling of pressure building up like a sinus headache from the rare instance that a mere virus managed to overcome her elite immune system. Asuka wanted to yell, stomp her foot, do—No. She willed her breathing to settle. The First wanted to act high and mighty over one measly kill? That was her prerogative. Asuka had a plan to stick to, and that meant playing nice with the pale girl. Maybe they would never be friends, but they could be civil.

"I've got places to be, First." She tried to sound disaffected. The way Ayanami quirked a delicate eyebrow—did she do them herself? Her hair was a mess, there was no way she styled anything—left Asuka unsure she had succeeded. "I'm very busy, you know."

"I am also going somewhere." She smiled at Asuka. "You also know this."

Asuka fought the urge to retort, until she realized—she did know. Ayanami was being literal.

"Right, you've got your tests with Doctor Akagi." Asuka did not know what they did for the hours, sometimes days, that the First would spend in the depths of the Geofront. Once she had determined that Ayanami was not somehow managing to spend more time with the prototype than Asuka was with her mother, she had lost interest in the why. Just appreciated the meals and training sessions that did not include the other girl.

Asuka frowned, as the lingering smile on Ayanami's face triggered something in her brain.

"That was a joke?" If so, it had not been a very good one.

"Yes." Asuka did not know how to feel about the fact that she was beginning to recognize the First's fumbling attempts at humor. The First herself sounded pleased. "Though I've found jokes tend to become less funny once they are pointed out."

Discussing the finer points of humor with the First was not on Asuka's short list of favored activities.

"It's called inflection, First. Give it a try some time, it might help."

Asuka stepped around the obstacle in her path and continued on her way. Not that she was in a rush to return to the mindless busy work awaiting her, but Ayanami's grating on her nerves could only be managed for so long. She heard Ayanami's soft footsteps receding down the hall away from her. She would never tell her—the pale, aloof girl had an overinflated ego already, no need to make it worse—but her usual monotone actually worked rather well with the dry, matter-of-fact style of humor she was trying to adapt. Not that the First's jokes were funny. Asuka shuddered as she walked.

The image of the Idiot, and his brain-dead friends, and Hikari, and the rest of the forgettable chaff that made up that whole school all laughing while the First told the story of how she tricked the stupid, worthless, useless, Second Child into trading places with her so she could swoop in and save the day—Asuka grit her teeth. She did not care about what any of them thought about her. She knew she was the best.

Ω

Asuka frowned at the paper on the table in front of her and crossed out a word. The handwriting was bad, which made it hard to determine what the Third had been trying to write, but she was accustomed to his poor penmanship by this point. She had been helping him with all of his homework for a while, now. That included English.

She neatly printed the correct word above the mistake.

"Not bad, Third." She called out to him. She gathered up the papers, tapped them on the table to straighten them up, then slid them across the table to Shinji's pile of books.

He turned back from the sink where he had been washing Pen Pen's recently emptied food bowl and grabbed a nearby hand towel to dry his hands as he approached the table. He frowned at the corrections on the pages as he sat—there were not even that many of them, so why was he mad—and looked back up at Asuka.

"This foreign language stuff is hard," he griped. Asuka grinned in response, ready to remind him how many languages she was fluent in. "How did you get so good at them?"

Asuka raised one hand to splay her fingers out, palm down, over her sternum. She tossed her head up and closed her eyes.

"I've been a polyglot since I was three," she boasted. One eye cracked open a tiny fraction and she saw the Third tapping his pencil against his chin.

"Is it easier to learn if you grow up doing it?"

"It's not easy!" He had just complained that it was hard, what was wrong with him? "I mean, it's easy for me!" She corrected herself. Her hand moved down to the table, and she leaned forward, towards Shinji.

"Well, it's hard for me, and I only started learning when I began going to school." He turned his attention back to his papers and started writing. "My Teacher said it was best to learn languages while you grow up, but he didn't know any foreign languages."

Asuka straightened then sat back down. She could not remember a time when she did not speak both German and Japanese. English had been the first language she remembered deciding to learn—her father speaking to someone on the phone in a language she did not understand had been met with demands for lessons that had eventually resulted in an English tutor. NERV had eventually offered more languages, once she had been chosen as a pilot.

"It's true," she told him. English had not been difficult to master, even as a child. Though it was more similar to German than it was to Japanese, which could have been another factor in her favor. On top of being a genius, of course. "It's easier to learn anything when you're young."

Something she had learned at university. Her classmates had thought telling her that would humble her. Instead, she had just mocked them for being too stupid to take advantage of their brain's plasticity when they had been her age.

"I wish I could have learned this when I was younger." Shinji glanced at the oven, and the timer he had set on top of it, then began to put away his homework.

"Idiot. Stop making excuses. You just need to apply yourself!" Asuka watched him don an apron and oven mitts to pull a covered dish out of the oven.

"Yeah. That's what my Teacher said, too." He doled out two servings of something with chicken in it, if Asuka was correctly identifying the smells permeating the kitchen, then carefully wrapped the rest up.

"And you're still a kid. Don't act like your brain has atrophied just because you're pubescent!"

Shinji set a plate in front of her as he laughed. The sound pulled at something in Asuka's chest, and she felt herself smile despite herself.

"I guess so." He sat with his own plate.

Asuka cut into the chicken in front of her while the Third made his usual offerings before the meal. She watched him pick up his own fork and knife and paused with a morsel of food halfway to her mouth. Something he had said—

"What Teacher were you talking about?" The way he had said it, she could hear the proper noun. He had never mentioned any teacher before, let alone one important enough to warrant that kind of reverence.

"Oh," he said, dropping his chin down to his chest. "Um, I was—" With a sigh, he placed his fork back on his plate.

"Spit it out!" It was happening infrequently as of late, but the Third still had that annoying habit of losing his nerve.

"I was raised by my Teacher," he said simply.

That was new information. She had never really considered what the Third's home life had been like before he had bumbled his way into being a pilot.

"What about the Commander?" She knew he did not get along very well with his father—did anyone get along with their fathers?—but they must have at least had some sort of contact.

"He—" Shinji turned his head and looked away from her. "After Mother died, he sent me to live with my Teacher."

Asuka swallowed heavily and looked down at her plate. She had known about his mother—though would have had no reason to until now, this time. And anyone with eyes could see the Commander was distant with his son. Misato was his legal guardian, and the woman was barely qualified to oversee her own life.

All things considered, she reasoned that his circumstances were not too different from her own. Her father had happily passed her over to the care of NERV tutors, mentors, instructors, and teachers. At least Papa never sent me away. Living in his house, with his new wife, had been torturous. But moving into NERV facilities had been her own choice.

The silence between them loomed overhead, heavy and miserable. Asuka pushed a piece of carrot around her plate.

"Momma died when I was young, too." Damn it, Soryu! Why can't you just keep your mouth shut! He didn't need to know that, why would he even care, it's not like it matters—

"Do you miss her, too?" His quiet voice broke her out of her thoughts, and she looked up, wide-eyed, to accidentally lock eyes with Shinji.

"I—" She planted her hands on the table, to either side of her plate. The force caused the dishes, cups, and utensils to jump in place. "I'm not some kid!"

He looked down again, but Asuka was undeterred.

"Unit 02 is Momma's life's work! Every time I synch with Eva, it's like I'm with her again." That was closer to the truth than he knew, of course. I still need to talk to him about who, or what, he feels when he synchs with Unit 01.

"Father said the same thing," Shinji whispered. "About Unit 01 being Mother's work." His voice was strained.

Asuka sat down again. Finally being reunited with her mother had not been enough for her to ever forget the hopeless pain of her absence. She had spent so long, so much of her life with it, having it inside her, feeling like it was filling every corner of her being until there was no room for anything except for that abyss of loss.

"I wish—" Shinji started, but he trailed off.

Before she had found her mother in Unit 02, Eva had only ever been a poor substitute. And she still could not really see her. Hug her. Talk to her.

"I miss her, still." She spoke barely loud enough to hear. I'm just encouraging him to keep piloting. That's all. Babying the Third, just like always.

"Yeah."

Silence returned to the table, only the occasional soft scrape of a metal utensil against ceramic disturbing it. She debated testing the waters on asking him about what it felt like for him to synch with Unit 01. I wish I could ask Momma what to do. She would know whether it was a good idea to spread the secret about just what—who—lived in the Evas. But she had not been able to actually speak with her.

"There's a synch test tomorrow," Shinji eventually said. Asuka looked up from her empty plate, her train of thought broken.

"Ready to get beaten again?" Another benefit to having Unit 02 back: she was no longer constrained by cross synching with the test type. She was always the pilot with the highest score, now. As she should be.

"I have a good feeling about it," Shinji answered her, smiling.

"Yeah," Asuka agreed, returning his grin.

Ω

"Standby."

Asuka huffed—no mean feat while submerged in LCL, but she had been practicing for most of her life. She was good at waiting inside an entry plug, too, but it was still irritating.

"Shinji, you're stable at 63%—good job."

"Thank you, Akagi-san." Asuka rolled her eyes at the eagerness in his voice. Sure, he was doing better, and he was steadily improving, too. But his scores did not come close to her own.

"Don't get complacent, Third," she warned him. His face on her display looked up and his eyes opened.

"I'm not. But maybe you are. I'm catching up to you, Asuka!"

Something surged in Asuka's chest at the way he so blatantly challenged her.

"In your dreams, Idiot! Hurry this up, Doctor Akagi! I have to put him in his place." The prospect of an actual challenge was thrilling. She and her mother were sure to show everyone what a true pilot looked like.

"If you two would stop flirting over the radio, we could probably get through this a little faster."

Asuka blushed and spluttered while Shinji blushed and blabbered, but they both ultimately settled into the normal ready to synch stance they all used during the synch tests.

"48%. Steady improvement, Ayanami."

Asuka kept her eyes closed and managed not to smirk at the other pilot's low score. But it was a nice reminder to everyone listening that just because she had gotten one kill did not mean the First was on Asuka's level. And a reminder that your training isn't as effective as it needs to be, she reminded herself. She did not need either of the other pilots. But if they were going to be involved, she did need them to not drag her down.

"Ok, it looks like we're ready for Unit 02 to come online now."

"Finally!" Asuka did not care that the annoyance she felt at being made to wait was plain in her voice. They had some weird obsession with making her go last in any activation no matter how much she complained. The least she could do was voice her displeasure.

"Concentrate, Asuka." It was the first time Misato had spoken since they had started the afternoon's synch test.

"Yeah, yeah." Like she needed to be told how to do her job.

Asuka settled into her seat again, shifting her weight around to get more comfortable. She could see even through her closed eyelids the kaleidoscope of colors her display rapidly shifted through, felt the corresponding surge of connections. She pushed aside worries about needing to be more attentive to the First's training, of her inability to discover Akagi's hidden motives concerning her Unit 02. Nothing mattered except for what she had now, in the entry plug.

Hi Momma! I missed you!

The tension that had built up steadily within her in the days since the battle against the Sixth Angel seemed to melt away in the warmth of her mother's presence.

How are you? She knew how Unit 02 was doing. But replacing armor plates, regrowing damaged tissue, and running diagnostics all did nothing for her mother directly.

She still did not receive an easily decipherable answer. But the general sense she could glean from the synch seemed to indicate that all was well. There was no hint of the pain and despair of being abandoned for so long. It would make the times between synch tests and battles even more unbearable if she knew her mother was feeling like that the whole time. Waiting for her daughter's return, just as she was waiting to return to her mother.

"You're fluctuating too much. Focus."

"I am," Asuka growled at the doctor. She felt her mother's irritation at the interruption as well. She's so annoying, Momma. With a deep breath—or its closest equivalent from within the LCL—Asuka tried to tune out any distractions from the synch.

It was good that her mother did not miss her so badly while she was gone. But how did any of it work? Was she conscious during the times when Unit 02 was dormant? Or only when it was powered? She wished that she had a better way to communicate—and if the feeling she was experiencing was anything to go by, it was safe to assume her mother agreed.

I love you, she told her instead. That message was always conveyed clearly. And the love she felt in return was clear, too. She sat in content silence, basking in that feeling, for a few precious, uninterrupted seconds.

"You're stable enough, now. Keep it that way." Akagi's voice pierced through the cloud of contentment.

"What's my score?" Asuka did not open her eyes.

"This isn't a game, it's not important."

"Of course it's important!" Asuka yelled. "I—" She stopped talking when she noticed her communicator had been shut off remotely.

"You're at 76% right now. Keep it up, Asuka!"

Asuka grinned at Misato's confirmation of her continued status as the top performing pilot. Even more, she felt the pride her mother had for her. Her chest ached at the sensation, and her throat felt tight. How had she gone so long without that? Her wildest dreams did not compare. The adulation of the masses paled in comparison to the simple pride of a mother for her daughter.

"I can do even better!" She declared loudly, after remastering her emotions and reenabling her radio. It was a dirty trick, disabling it from the bridge. They should not be able to decide when she got to speak.

"This is on you, Misato." Akagi's acerbic proclamation did little to dampen Asuka's excitement.

"Relax, Rits. It'll all be under control."

With another deep breath, Asuka tried to narrow her focus even tighter. The bridge, the Eva cages outside, the stray thoughts concerning the Idiot and the First. They slipped away, and the only sensation she felt was the LCL surrounding her—lapping gently at her body submerged to its chest. The pervasive scent of blood, mixed with the industrial scent that lingered in the cages from the oils, solvents, and fluids that were necessary to keep all the machinery running. The scratching of a pencil against paper, the feel of a clipboard in her hands.

A greeting—in German. She took half a heartbeat to switch gears—she had been writing, thinking, in her native Japanese. It was just easier to work in. And more convenient, usually. It had become the de facto lingua franca of GEHIRN, since most of its top minds were all fluent.

"Yes?" She did not bother to look up, and continued writing. They needed the details of this most recent round of forced growth. The cloning was a delicate process—there were enough failed experiments already. This body would succeed, she would make sure of that.

"Doctor Ikari is on the phone for you."

That was worth looking up for. She snorted a short laugh and lowered her clipboard, slipping her pencil into a pocket of her labcoat.

"If she's just calling to gloat, I don't want to hear it." The test type was further along than her precious production model for all sorts of reasons: they had more budget at Headquarters, they had access to the donor sample for much longer than they did for any other Evangelion, the cloning process had started earlier. There were too many to name, and they were all good reasons, all outside of anyone's control. It still rankled her that Yui's project would be finished first.

"No, she said it was a social call."

"Ah." She smiled. The other project Yui was further along in. She raised her hand to rest on her belly. She was only just starting to show, and only some of the more brave among her colleagues and underlings had commented on her pregnancy. Yui would be due soon, if she had worked out the dates correctly.

Her friend could gloat all she wanted about having her child first. You could not rush perfection, after all. Her own child was perfect.

"Well, we mustn't keep her waiting." She walked out of the cavernous space, sparing one last look at the incomplete torso and head held up on the wall. Tubes and enormous needles dug into its flesh. "Sleep well, dear," she called out to it as she left. Her footsteps echoed on the fine mesh of the grated walkway, the steps of her assistant falling into place beside her.

"Take these down to the lab and tell the boys I'll be there soon." She passed off her clipboard and notes she had been taking.

"Of course, Doctor." He quickly peeled off her route at the next intersection, and she continued her walk to her office.

The sharp sound of her heels clacking against the tile floor was all that broke the silence of the deserted hall. She absently rubbed her belly again, while her mind wandered over the various things she wanted to talk about with Yui. They spoke fairly regularly during the course of their research and work, but time for personal calls could be few and far between. First she would need to find out if she and Gendo had decided on a name for little Shinji.

What? She stopped walking and a feeling of dread built up in the pit of her stomach.

"This isn't right," she whispered. A sound like glass shattering came from all around her. She could feel herself slipping away and the scenery surrounding her fading to obscurity. "I'm so sorry," she told her, but who was she talking to? None of it made sense to her. She struggled to remember how she had gotten there.

"How is this possible?"

She was seeing herself from the outside, now. As if she were watching someone else. Everything else was gone, and she was standing alone in a cone of buttery yellow light on a blacked-out stage.

"You can't be here, it's—" she watched herself double over in pain, mouth agape in a soundless scream. One hand was covering her belly protectively, while the other was pressed over her left eye.

Asuka opened her eyes to the familiar sights that made up the entry plug's interior. There was a dull ache in her gut and her eye, but she was too preoccupied to give them much attention. Another strange experience synching with Unit 02, which meant she needed to try to work out the cause.

"You've finally stabilized. At least try to keep it that way?" Asuka tried to ignore the condescending tone in Akagi's voice. It's definitely tied to how high my synch score is.

"What's my score?" She affected her normal bravado, but she was still distracted. And she really did need that information. She could be on the verge of cracking the code that would let her actually communicate with Momma! The content of the whatever it was she saw when she synched deeply with her mother did not matter much to her. She just wanted that connection, to prolong it. Nothing was more important.

"82%, you're doing great!"

Asuka smirked at Misato's praise, but it was mostly performative. She really just wanted to melt into the support she felt from Unit 02.

"See, Third? I'm still number one!" Mostly performative. She did need to make sure everyone knew who was on top.

"Ok, let's settle down," Misato said before anyone else could speak. Shinji's face on Asuka's screen was hard to decipher, though it did look like he was concentrating again. But she was distracted, and she did not care, anyway, so it did not matter to her what he thought about her score.

"Be good for Rits so she can finish her tests, ok?"

The pilots all agreed to her demand, some—Asuka—more begrudgingly than others. Asuka tried to focus on reconnecting with Unit 02 deeply enough to see her mother again, or whatever it was that would happen during those deep synchs. But to no avail. Despite her best efforts, she was unable to raise her synch beyond where she already was.

The normal connection, the normal feelings, were all there. Momma's love and acceptance never left. But she could not reach the state she had gotten to earlier. She needed more practice. That much was obvious. So she needed more time in the entry plug. That was proving harder to arrange than she would like.

Ω

"No! Really? With the UN Inspector?"

"That's what I saw."

"Does Hyuga-kun know?"

"Don't break his heart. Besides, I heard someone saying they saw him sneaking out of Akagi's office, and later they saw the good doctor with a classic just been fucked swing in her step."

Asuka's hand tightened around her chopsticks hard enough to snap them, but the sound was covered by a chorus of hushed gasps from the table of NERV employees huddled around each other several meters away from her.

"No!"

"Really! She said her clothes were a mess, and she thought she saw a hickey, too."

"How juvenile!"

Asuka dropped her broken utensils onto the table in front of her. She had not been eating anyway.

"He spent time overseas, right? Maybe that's how foreigners do things."

"You're saying he went native? You know Katsuragi was stationed abroad, too."

"Maybe Hyuga-kun should be worried, then. You know what they say about those westerners."

Asuka rose, collecting her bento as she did so.

"Waste of my time," she muttered as she left the cafeteria, the lunch group she had been eavesdropping on none the wiser to her presence nor her departure.

They had seemed like a good target. She had recognized them as a mix of Akagi's minions, Evangelion maintenance technicians, and assorted operations personnel. Everyone here is so childish.

She stood in the hallway outside of the cafeteria, at a loss for where to go. They should talk about more important things than—than that! She needed to know what sort of backroom deals Misato was making with Akagi regarding her Unit 02, and why she was making them. And why she thought she needed to make them, why she thought she had any right to make decisions regarding her Unit 02.

What she did not need to hear was gossip about whoever Kaji was fucking that particular day. Her bento creaked under the pressure of her grip. How disgusting.

Asuka turned and headed down the hall. There had been a time when that kind of information would have elicited a denial from her. The very idea that her Kaji-san would debase himself that way would have been inconceivable. Oh, she was never under any delusions that she would have been his first—a man should be experienced, after all—but she knew he was a real gentleman. Obviously she knew he was a shameless flirt. And it had been annoying, even hurtful, watching him, listening to him treat random nobodies, worthless women who meant nothing to him, women who had not accomplished a tenth of what Asuka had despite being half their age, women who were not the best pilot, treating them like they were special. Like they deserved his attention just because they had more curves, or—

She stepped out of the elevator and headed down another hallway.

It had been a painful lesson, and one she had taken far too long to learn, but she knew now that Kaji was just like any other typical male. Not worth her time. So, hearing gossip like what the people in the cafeteria were discussing was no longer cause for her to jump to his defense. Besides, it was not what she had been hoping to hear, anyway.

She stopped in front of the door to Misato's office and tried to listen for any sign of occupancy. Satisfied that it was empty, she opened the door and slipped inside. The door whooshed closed behind her as she turned on the lights.

The harsh fluorescent lighting revealed the cluttered, cramped space she had expected. An inbox, overflowing with overstuffed folders, next to an empty outbox. Which were both sitting on the only spaces on Misato's desk not covered with loose papers. Asuka scoffed and walked around the sole chair taking up the space in front of the desk, past the filing cabinet covered in dust tucked into one corner, and around the desk. She used her foot to scoot Misato's chair away from the desk.

Sitting down, she spun to face forward and frowned at the lack of clear space to set her bento. With one hand, she shoved some papers aside and put her lunch on the newly cleared section of desk, covering a stained ring on the wood left from some long discarded mug. As she opened the container of food, she looked around the scattered papers to see if anything looked like a promising place to start.

It had been foolish to think that she could learn anything useful from the gossip of everyday employees around the facility. But now that she was going through the ocean of half-completed, or completely uncompleted, paperwork, she did not know if she was on any wiser a course.

She ate with one hand while she used the other to snoop through Misato's backlog of paperwork. At least the food tasted good, since the papers were proving just as useless as the schoolyard gossip she had heard earlier. Ammunition expense reports, municipal infrastructure repair plans, duty rosters, leave requests, reimbursement demands from the city of Tokyo III on behalf of citizens outraged by the power outage during Operation Yashima. No wonder she doesn't do her job. This is all stupid.

Nothing in the mess she had gone through mentioned anything about any sort of compromise concerning Unit 02. There was nothing about Unit 02 at all, outside of expense reports on the transfer from the UN fleet. Still unsigned. Asuka growled.

"This is so stupid!"

What had Misato meant?! Why did people keep making decisions about her Unit 02 without asking her? It was not fair. She was the pilot. It was her Evangelion. Her mother. No one else had any right to Unit 02. Certainly not the Bottle Blonde Bitch. If there was some sort of situation going on with her Eva that was a cause for concern, it was not up to Misato or Akagi to negotiate what happened.

And of course it would happen while Asuka had been on vacation, by order of the drunk slut herself. Was that evidence of more of Misato's attempts to suborn her pilot training program? Asuka sighed and packed up her now empty bento. She discarded that instinctive, accusative idea as unlikely. The woman had said it herself, that she was glad Asuka was piloting Unit 02, and that she wanted to work together with her.

Asuka may not want to trust Misato, but the evidence pointed towards her being truthful. It would be convenient to work with her. At least for the time being. She turned her attention back to the papers scattered on the desk. The nearest one was a letter of apology to some JSSDF officer, regarding some building he had been tasked to oversee that had been damaged by NERV activity.

Asuka smirked, then began rummaging through the desk drawers—which were also stuffed with papers—to look for a pen. With some effort, she extracted one.

The letter was some bog-standard drivel, likely written by one of Misato's subordinates, and it said what it needed to say without admitting fault on NERV's part. Asuka turned her stolen pen to the blank section intended for Misato's signature.

I'm terribly sorry for causing you trouble. I would do anything to make it up to you, so please don't hesitate to contact me personally if you think of anything you need.

With love,

Your Misato-chan

Inspecting her handiwork, Asuka lamented the inability to add any more embellishment—kanji was still not her favored writing method. If she had been writing in any of the western alphabets she knew, she would have definitely replaced all of the dots over any letters that had them with hearts. She also did not have any lipstick—she would not look through Misato's desk to find any, nor use it if she did find any, even if she was sure the woman kept some around—despite the fact that a kiss imprint would have made the whole thing much more funny.

Still, it was embarrassing enough just on its own. Asuka began to place it in Misato's outbox, but hesitated. She could place it face down, and Misato might not notice her alterations, but she would definitely notice the previously empty box now had something in it. That would draw attention, which would likely lead to discovery.

With a flash of inspiration, Asuka grabbed a folder stuffed with papers from the top of Misato's inbox. She could use the folder to hide her additions and pass it off to one of Misato's lackeys to take care of. All with Misato never finding out. It was a foolproof plan.

Asuka dumped the papers out of the folder, but paused once again to reconsider. One paper in a folder practically screamed LOOK AT ME READ ME I'M IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO WARRANT MY OWN FOLDER. But many papers in a folder were not worth the time investment to read through. Plus, now that she looked at some of the papers more closely, some of them were actually kind of important. Asuka's nose crinkled and her lips pouted. But I already do Misato's job for her! Why do I have to do this too?!

In a compromise, Asuka gathered up what she considered to be a respectable amount of papers and began signing them as they needed. Luckily for her, someone—definitely not Misato—had gone through and applied different colored tabs on each paper to indicate the location they needed to be signed, initialed, dated, or otherwise marked. In seconds, she had enough completed forms, letters, and assorted documents that her stolen folder looked impressively full.

Satisfied, she rose from Misato's chair, bento in both hands and folder secured on top of it with her thumbs, and walked out of the office. As she traveled back to her station on the bridge, where she had left her own work, she kept an eye out for someone to pass her papers along to.

The long, empty, brightly lit hallways of the underground facility were deserted as she walked. Which was just her luck. She had made it all the way to an elevator, and taken it to the floor the bridge was on, and half-convinced herself to just dump the stupid papers in the next garbage can she saw, when someone finally appeared.

She nearly ran into Lieutenant Hyuga when she stepped out of the elevator, looking down at her folder and not up in the direction of the man who was waiting for his own transport. When she looked up and they made eye contact, his eyebrows raised slightly but he quickly brought his face back to neutral when Asuka came to a halt directly in front of him.

He was undoubtedly the best patsy Asuka could have asked for. The rather dorky looking man had what was, to Asuka, the most obvious, and pathetic, crush on Misato, and would likely leap at the opportunity to run an errand for her.

He'd probably jump down an Eva launch chute for her if she smiled and showed him a little skin. Having disgusted herself with that thought, Asuka focused and plastered on her most winning smile.

"There you are, Hyuga-san!" She said brightly. "I was looking for you!"

"Oh, uh, well, here I am?" He half-smiled at her, face betraying his uncertainty with what was going on.

"Misato asked me to give you this," she told him, taking the folder in one hand and holding it out to him. "She said she could trust you to take care of it."

His face lit up at her words and his smile made its way to his eyes as he accepted the folder from Asuka.

"Is that some of the paperwork she's been too busy to work on?" He opened the folder and began to rifle through it. Asuka's smile twitched—he was not supposed to look at any of the papers! It was just her luck that Hyuga was a diligent lackey.

"She also said it was very important, and that you should hurry," Asuka added emphatically.

"She's right," he answered as she closed the folder quickly. He tucked it under one arm and Asuka internally sighed with relief that he had not found her alterations. "These are all weeks late as it is."

He rushed off, away from the elevators, no doubt to deliver the documents to where they needed to go. Asuka did not really care. She resumed her walk back to her work station, and the tasks Akagi had hoisted on her. It was a small mercy, for Asuka's sanity, that at least the woman seemed to only be giving her work that pertained to Unit 02. But analyzing her own psychographs and various other waves and patterns as they interacted with the Eva's was not the most interesting work.

Even if she had still not found what she was looking for, she was pleased to have had a bit of an interesting distraction. Still, she had to get back to work.

She entered the bridge to no notice, everyone busy at their own workstations—Akagi and Ibuki—or pretending to be busy so no one would bother them—Aoba—or, in Misato's case, leaning back in her chair with her feet up, holding her bento with one hand and picking through the remains of her lunch. Asuka was able to get back to her own chair, stow her empty container in a bag, and log back into her terminal without comment from anyone.

Once her screen resumed displaying the busy work she was assigned, Asuka grinned. The highest score that Misato had told her about had been 82%, during the second synch test since defeating the Sixth, when she had had another anomalous synch with her mother. But the data in front of her now showed that the spikes Akagi had been complaining about went as high as 90%.

Not even the Invincible Shinji ever scored that high on a synch test. Asuka huffed quietly. Combat had been a different matter, but no one cared about synch scores in combat. Just results. And she was proving that she was the one who got the results.

Focusing again on her screen, Asuka rested her chin in her hand. Her synch graph was easy to recognize. It was a near perfect copy of Unit 02's next to it. But there was another graph on her screen, a graph she had been tasked with analyzing, and it was foreign to her. There was not even a label on it.

It certainly was not her data. It was entirely discordant with Unit 02. Which made sense. No one, besides Asuka herself, would ever synch with Unit 02. Her mother loved her. She knew that, and had the proof, felt the proof every time she got in the entry plug.

What she did not know was whose synch graph she was noting the intricacies of, highlighting the worst sections and applying filters to attempt to mask or compensate for a synch that was far too low to even hope for an activation.

Asuka felt her frustration grow as she continued her tedious task. This is dumb. There was no point in trying to fake a synch. She was Unit 02's pilot. That was that. No further discussion. Synch data flowed across her screen, unmonitored, while her eyes glazed over and her mind wandered.

There was a training session in a few hours. Misato had, days ago, already given her some speech about how they were going to be working together to make the pilots a better team and laid out some forgettable expectations for her lead pilot. But the older woman apparently felt that keeping her lead pilot in the dark was an acceptable part of working together.

How could Asuka make informed decisions if she did not have all the information? It was ridiculous that Misato was making compromises without asking Asuka first. She turned to look over her shoulder, feigning stretching out her back, and spied the woman leaning on the back of Aoba's chair with one hand, using the other to point at something on his screen while he droned on about restocking ammunition in the defensive emplacements around the city.

It was so tempting to confront the woman directly. Especially with how her efforts at discreetly uncovering Misato's plot had been for naught over the days she had been working to expose the secrets. Asuka could march over to her and demand an explanation. Even better, she could get into Unit 02, wake up Momma, and smash her way through Central Dogma until she found Misato and Akagi, and then make them explain why they thought they had any right to decide when she got to pilot.

She was lost in her fantasy, in the middle of ousting the Commander and taking his office for herself and her mother, when a gentle "Asuka?" brought her back to the present.

She lifted her head out of her hand and turned to face Ibuki. The skittish woman was smiling at her, and holding a notebook in front of her chest, arms crossed over it and partially obscuring the cat stickers plastered on it.

"How's the synch data coming?"

Asuka quickly glanced back at her forgotten test data.

"It's as good as it's going to get," she declared. The mystery graph did not have any chance of matching with Unit 02, no matter how much she tried to manipulate it. She turned back to Ibuki to see her frowning.

"Do you want me to take a look at it? Sempai mentioned something that might be helpful—"

"Go ahead!" Asuka cut her off. She had no intention of looking this gift horse in the mouth. "I've got more important things to do anyway."

"Oh, um, great. Let me just—" Maya leaned down and extended one arm across Asuka to tap away at her keyboard. "There!" She exclaimed, once a notification flashed on Asuka's screen informing her that the data had been transferred. "Thanks, Asuka! I'll take it from here."

"Sure, whatever," she answered the woman, unable to match her enthusiasm. She watched her hurry back to her own terminal, taking a seat on her cat patterned pillow on her chair.

Suddenly bereft of responsibilities, Asuka opened and closed programs on her computer while she sorted through her mental list of tasks for the rest of the day. What she wanted to do was look up anything at all involving Unit 02. What she lacked was access to the system that would get her answers to any questions she did not already have the answer to. Otherwise, she would never have had to resort to sifting through gossip to find out what Akagi and Misato were doing with her Unit 02.

She shut down her terminal and stood, stretching her arms over her head and sighing. It was not really time to get ready for the evening's training session, but there was no way she was going to ask Akagi for some other pointless assignment. She felt pent up, sitting at a desk all day. The track, or the pool, or something, sounded like a good idea before the simulator session started. Pretending to fight did little to burn off her excess energy.

Doing laps in the pool or on the track solo was less fun than forcing the Third to go along with her, but it was better than nothing.

Ω

"One of the noble gasses, this element's triple point is 24.56 Kelvin."

Asuka sighed theatrically, careful to swallow beforehand so she did not spew crumbs out of her mouth. "Come on, Idiot, you know this one."

She watched him screw up his face in concentration, tapping his pencil against his chin, then grin in triumph once his eyes lit up in recognition.

"Oh, I do!" Shinji scribbled away at his paper, though Asuka could not make out the answer he wrote down. Kanji was still not her strong suit—she kept her workstation, and Unit 02's interface, set to German. Just for convenience, since she obviously could read kanji just fine. There were just some obscure kanji that she never needed in her everyday life that she would need to look up from time to time.

"Thank you for your help, Asuka," Shinji said as he collected up his now completed homework.

"Yeah, whatever," she answered, watching him get up. He said the same thing every day, like she was doing some favor for him instead of the exchange of services she had set up with him. Homework for housework, it had been a straightforward deal.

"I'm going to start heating dinner before Ayanami gets here."

And there was the other thing he said every time. Almost every time, anyway. Like she needed the reminder that the First would soon be crowding up the place.

Asuka watched the Third walk into the kitchen, homework bundled under one arm and using his free arm to reach for one of the earbuds he almost always had dangling from his neck. She looked down to her now empty bowl of crackers, next to the position the Third's homework had vacated, as the sound of food being prepared—reheated, he was so lazy sometimes—began to emanate from the kitchen. The sound woke her sleeping avian companion from his nap on the floor beside her and he scrambled into the kitchen for his own dinner.

The First had been insufferable since she had killed the Sixth Angel. Since Asuka had let her kill the Sixth Angel. She spent every training session acting like nothing had happened, sat demurely through every dinner, worked herself into the Idiot's after meal cleanup routine, all as if she had not accomplished something worth gloating over. It was impossible to figure out what game she was playing.

She had spent most of any time she had been unable to avoid being around the First just waiting for the inevitable mocking, or bragging, or something, that just never came. Asuka snatched her empty bowl from the table.

She was doing it again. With a growl, she turned abruptly and walked toward the kitchen. It was easy to fall into old habits—the First is a frigid bitch, the Third is a spineless, cowardly idiot, Misato is a drunk. Well, maybe some things can still be the same.

Shinji was rummaging through a cupboard near the sink, so Asuka needed to step around him to drop her bowl off. It splashed into the tepid, sudsy water someone—Shinji, of course—had filled the sink with in preparation for the evening's load of dishes.

Thinking about it more objectively, the First was probably being modest, not just savoring the way Asuka was boiling with tension while waiting for her to crow over who got the last kill, and after she had offered to trade places with her, no less. Modesty was unbecoming a pilot, of course. It was an unfortunate characteristic that she unfortunately shared with the Third.

The Idiot in question finished whatever it was he was doing to the oven and scooped his homework back up, then left the kitchen. Asuka watched him out of the corner of her eye from her seat at the table. She had her head resting in one hand, the arm propped up by the elbow sitting on the table. Faint, upbeat, outdated pop music trailed behind him as he walked towards his room.

She really needed to redouble her efforts to play nice with the First. Clearly she had gotten side tracked on that front. It was likely Misato's fault. That had to be it. Misato had taken over her training plan, ruining it, and making Asuka work twice as hard just to stick to her original goals. Not to mention the stunt she had pulled, moving the First into her apartment complex. She had even forced Asuka to move. It was not a complete disaster, yet, but she knew how it had gone the first time. Not well would have been an understatement. She had been sitting in that exact spot the night when—

She stood up, her chair skkkrrrrkking across the floor as it was pushed behind her. Pen Pen cocked his head at her abrupt rise as he waddled out of the room, but she ignored him.

The point was, she needed to get back on track and stop just blindly doing the same things as last time. Sure, she was still trying to figure out what Misato and Akagi were scheming about, but that needed to be in addition to, not in lieu of, her efforts to make her team of pilots more deadly to the Angels. Ayanami was acting less like a doll—telling jokes, having what could be called conversations, making facial expressions. Likely due to Asuka's influence on events, of course.

Although the recent battle against the Sixth Angel, and the rather slow, if steady, improvements the First was displaying during training, had proven to Asuka how poorly integrated Ayanami was with the rest of the team.

Ping-pong!

"I'll get it!" Asuka yelled over the Thid, who was calling out the same thing from within his bedroom.

She ignored his confused words of gratitude and was quickly standing in front of the door. She took a deep breath, exhaled quickly, and put on her trademark winning smile. The door ssshhhunnked open.

"Ayanami! You're right on time, come in!" Right on time went without saying. The girl arrived at precisely the same time every evening, excluding any schedule conflicts with NERV duties.

"Thank you, Soryu." She meekly entered under Asuka's carefully disguised scrutiny. She slipped her shoes off—the black flats she wore with her school uniform, because she always wore the damn thing, she was worse than the Idiot in that regard—and placed them neatly beside the organized collection of everyone else's shoes.

"How are you doing?" Keep it light. Try to stay away from work talk.

The First stood up from the kneeling position she had adopted to slide on the guest slippers Shinji kept sitting out for her. She raised a single delicate blue eyebrow at Asuka.

"I am hungry, but otherwise well. Unchanged since we saw each other earlier. How are you, Soryu?"

Ok, this is working. It was kind of odd, stilted, maybe, but this was small talk. And no one had yelled, or thrown something, or stormed out.

"Oh, I'm doing great, of course!"

"I see." The girl faced Asuka, who felt her smile almost falter at the intensity of her stare.

"I was just helping the Third with his homework." Asuka felt a bead of sweat tickle her back as it trickled down between her shoulder blades. "Your classes are so easy!"

"Yes. The material is not particularly challenging."

Show off! Asuka laughed lightly instead of berating her.

"I'm so glad that I don't have to waste my time with going to school like some kid." She held one arm across her chest and propped her elbow into her hand to raise the other hand and tap her chin. "Did you know I already have a university degree?"

"Yes."

Asuka's eye twitched, and it took great effort to keep her smile in place.

"Well," Asuka started again, "I suppose it goes without saying that someone like me would have already accomplished so much."

Ayanami's lips pursed the slightest bit.

"No, it went with saying. You have mentioned it before."

"Ah—" Asuka cleared her throat. "Well, why don't we stop standing around? I'm hungry! Hurry up, let's go!" She quickly turned to hide her embarrassed blush. How had she managed to be out maneuvered in a conversation with Ayanami?

She entered the kitchen to see Shinji arranging food on plates. He looked up at Asuka and she readied an answer for the question he was going to ask, based off of what she could see from the look on his face.

"Did you have trouble finding a place to put your shoes, Ayanami? You were at the door for a while."

"Oh, we were just talking!" Asuka moved to the table, light on her feet, swinging her arms as she walked.

"Really?" The disbelief in his voice made her bite the inside of her cheek to hold back a growl.

"Of course!" She scoffed. "Tell him, Ayanami!"

"We spoke." The First was taking her normal seat and analyzing the plate in front of her. "Not much information was exchanged."

Shinji laughed and turned back to the counter while Asuka shot the other girl a scrutinizing look. She had her barely perceptible smile on her face, the one that she normally reserved for the private moments that Asuka would catch between her and the Third after their communal meals.

She did not appreciate being made the butt of one of Ayanami's shitty jokes. With a ssscccrraaaaaaape, she dragged her chair out from the table and sat down heavily.

"That's what small talk is, First!" Her voice managed to come across as cheerful even as she wanted to stare daggers at the Third's back. Who was he to laugh at her? Instead, she plopped her elbows on the table and languidly leaned to lay her head in her hands.

"I see." Ayanami clearly did not, as far as Asuka was concerned, but Social Skills 101 was not a lesson plan she had prepared for the moment.

Asuka sighed heavily and picked up the chopsticks next to her dish. Still cradling her head by the cheek with one hand, she began to take small bites of the vegetable something or other that the Third had set out for dinner.

It could have gone worse, so far. She saw Shinji take a seat out of the corner of her eye. You can do this, Soryu. How hard can it be to get along with the First? Once the boy had joined them at the table, he and Ayanami both offered their gratitude for the food—as if the Third had not made it himself—and began to eat.

Asuka straightened in her chair and focused her gaze on her food. Anything she wanted to talk about—synch rates, Unit 02, training, Momma—were too sensitive. Work related subjects would run the risk of the First saying something that would challenge Asuka's new, self-imposed, still loosely held conviction that the girl did not have a superiority complex. But the normal schoolgirl gossip that she was accustomed to using to round out the edges of a social encounter was hindered by the fact that she was, despite her age, not a schoolgirl.

At least, not this time.

Struck with inspiration, Asuka put her conspiring smile on and looked over to Ayanami. Who was concentrating on her food and did not see the invitation to gossip written plain on her face. Only slightly perturbed, Asuka pressed on.

"So," she began airily, "Shinji just never has anything interesting to say about his classmates."

"You never ask? I didn't think you cared about any of my friends." She ignored Shinji's confused look and did not even chastise him for interrupting her.

"But you just have to know a rumor worth sharing!" It was a bit of a risk. Just because Ayanami was apparently telling jokes at school did not mean she paid attention to the nuances of the social hierarchy. But Asuka was more than familiar with the dumb little details that middle school students whispered or talked about behind each other's backs. All she had to do was get Ayanami to mention a classmate, and it would be easy enough to steer the conversation to whatever little tidbit she remembered. Or just make something up. It was not like either of them would know.

"I am not sure about any rumors." Asuka stopped herself from rolling her eyes and prepared to nudge the conversation towards a destination of her own choosing. Until Ayanami looked up and paused, her chopsticks paused thoughtfully in the act of picking up a slice of eggplant.

"But I have observed some interesting behavior from several of our classmates. Would that be suitable?"

Asuka's smile shifted into a predatory smirk. Ok, I can work with this!

"It's not nice to gossip," Shinji said futilely from the sideline.

"Don't be boring, Idiot! Besides, it's not gossip. We're just talking." Asuka looked eagerly back to Ayanami. "Well, go on," she urged, gesturing with a nod of her head.

"Katou-san spends much of her time before class begins speaking with Shimizu-san. They also arrive at school together most days." She placed her utensils down and picked up a napkin. After gently dabbing it against her lips, she continued. "Once more of our classmates arrive, Katou-san stops speaking to her in favor of a group of girls who also do not speak to her."

"Is that it?" Asuka leaned her head back down on her hand. She knew the little drama that was playing out, and it was as uninteresting as it came. "Katou must not be popular, and Shimizu doesn't want anyone to think they're friends. That's not that interesting." She refrained from letting on that she knew for certain, and from calling Ayanami herself boring. She was, but this was solid progress. She needed to not throw it away. "Got anything else?"

Rei's eyes focused on the plate of food in front of her.

"Nakashima-san brings lunch for Satou-kun every day."

"They're probably dating," Asuka said around a mouthful of food. She knew they were, they had been already by the time she had arrived in Japan the first time. Hikari had given her a thorough rundown on all the couples in their class. Of course, she had still found a confession from him in her locker, so maybe he was not taking the relationship as seriously as she was.

"He does not eat most of the food. She is unaware, as he makes an effort to hide it."

"Typical." She snatched what looked like a piece of carrot from the end of her chopsticks and chewed aggressively. "A dumb boy who's too much of a coward to just tell a girl what he thinks!" One hand moved to splay out on the table as she leaned forward and thrust her other hand out to point at Ayanami. "If he just told her she can't cook, he wouldn't have to pretend to like her food!"

"He probably doesn't want to hurt her feelings."

Asuka craned her neck to frown directly at Shinji.

"That's stupid!" Her declaration left little room for argument.

"Maybe," Shinji said thoughtfully. "But isn't it normal for people to pretend to like something for someone else's sake?" Leave it to the Idiot to argue anyway.

"That is behavior I have seen before." The First's quiet statement of agreement drew Asuka's attention back to her. "Even outside of school."

"Just because everyone does it doesn't mean it isn't stupid! People should just be direct with each other." Of course both of her fellow pilots would be the type to fawn over others just to avoid confrontation. She knew that about the Third—was that the reason the First refused to hold her victory over Asuka's head?

"I think people just want to be nice."

Asuka scoffed at Shinji's thought.

"It's manipulative!"

"It can be." Ayanami looked directly into Asuka's eyes. Her soft voice did not match the intense feeling of being the singular focus of her red stare. "I have seen people weaponize kindness and affection."

Like Kaji. Asuka suppressed a shudder at the embarrassing reminder of the way he had tricked her, all to ingratiate himself with Misato.

"You're very observant, Ayanami."

Asuka quickly looked back up—she had not been weak and redirected her gaze because it was uncomfortable trying to match the First's stare, she had just needed to look down to grab her chopsticks again. Ayanami was looking away and blushing, the Third was smiling, and she felt like her efforts to be more friendly with the First had gone on long enough for one night.

But, just like her training to become a pilot, this was something that would take continuous effort. Resigned to playing nice, Asuka held back the biting remark she almost sent to the Third about her evaluation of his ability to assess anyone's abilities of anything.

"Well, at least you had something interesting to share." She poked at the remains of her dinner. For some reason, her appetite was gone.

"If you enjoy hearing about our classmates, I can tell you more of what I have seen."

Asuka tried to hide the nonplused look that wanted to form on her face. Gossip was fine, but the First's version of it skewed more towards clinical analysis.

"Save some for later." Asuka put some command in her voice. Then, with a side eye directed to the Third, she continued slyly. "Shinji isn't any good when it comes to interesting conversations, so we have to ration what we have."

"Hey!" He turned to address Asuka, who smirked at the perturbed face he was making. "I know interesting stuff from school, too!"

"Hmph." Asuka waved her hand dismissively. "You're just a boring little boy. What do you know?" She knew he barely paid attention to anything at school, apart from his idiot friends and staring at the First. At least he's fun to tease, even if he doesn't have anything to say.

"I know stuff!" He frowned at Asuka. "I'm not boring."

"Prove it!" She jabbed a finger in his direction.

His mouth opened and a strangled sound came out, but he quickly closed his mouth again after he cut himself off from speaking. Clearly he had thought better than to challenge her. Asuka grinned.

"Umm—" Shinji grimaced.

"See, you're boring."

"No! I just don't like to gossip." He looked back down at his mostly empty plate. "Spreading rumors is for school kids, anyway. It's not like you're more grown up for doing it."

"Whhhaaat?" Asuka's eyes widened and she slammed her hands down on the table. "I'm way more mature than you, Idiot!"

"What is the significance of cooking food for someone?"

Asuka and Shinji, leaning over the table and scowling at each other, turned in unison to face Ayanami. Her soft voice had cut through the budding argument, confusion replacing anger.

"Huh?" Shinji was the first to recover.

Red eyes once again locked onto Asuka's blue ones.

"You said that Nakashima-san and Satou-kun were dating when I told you about her preparing food for him."

"That's what dating means," Asuka informed her hotly.

"Dating is when someone makes food for someone else?"

Asuka sighed. How clueless is she?

"It's usually what people do," Shinji answered. Not that Asuka thought he knew any better than the First did. "Though, it's usually prepared specifically with them in mind."

Ayanami looked between the other pilots, then down at the table. She looked back up, directly at Shinji.

"You are dating Soryu and me."

"What did you say?!" Asuka shrieked at her as she leaned towards her and slammed one hand, open palm, flat on the table. The Third, meanwhile, had turned an incandescent red and collapsed into his chair, choking out garbled sounds that had better be denials if he knew what was good for him.

"Ikari-kun is dating both of us." She tilted her head slightly and nodded. "And Misato-san."

"Ayanami!" Shinji wailed, finally able to speak somewhat coherently.

"No he is not!" Asuka's face was flushed red. "This had better be one of your dumb jokes!"

"No." Go figure, the one time she was not making a joke at Asuka's expense. "Am I wrong?"

"Yes!" Both of the other occupants of the table answered together, both emphatically.

"He isn't dating anyone!" Asuka thrust her finger at the Third.

"Hey! Neither are you, Asuka!"

She scowled at him.

"That's none of your business," she hissed. "And I'm definitely not dating you!"

"Why?" Asuka's eyes widened and she jerked her head to look at the source of the question. Ayanami's eyebrows were curved down slightly, and she had a small, curious tilt to her lips.

"He's—I—wh—we—he—" Asuka stammered. Her forehead scrunched up in confusion at the girl's question, and all of the perfectly good reasons for why she was not interested in someone like the Third seemed to be just out of reach. "I could date anyone I wanted to, so why would I date him?"

"You couldn't date Kaji-san."

Asuka rounded on the Third again. He was slumped in his chair, head bowed and looking off to the side, at the ground.

"Because I don't want to!" Her hands were clenched into fists, and her jaw was set. He just wants to fuck anything that moves. Who would want him. Her lips drew into a thin line.

"That isn't what I meant."

Without turning her head, Asuka shifted her eyes to glare at the First.

"Why am I wrong that Ikari-kun is dating you, and Misato-san, and me?"

"Because—I already told you!" She planted her fist on her hip and thrust one arm out aggressively towards the Third to jab a finger in his direction. "He! Isn't! Dating! Anyone!" Each word was punctuated by another forceful poke towards the Third's still slumped form. "Definitely not you," she spun to point at Ayanami, then threw her arms up to gesture wildly all around her, "and definitely not Misato!"

Or me, she definitely meant to include. The idea of dating the Third was ridiculous, and awful, and ridiculously awful.

Ayanami frowned and looked at Shinji, who was starting to straighten up, then back to Asuka.

"Preparing food for someone is a sign that they are dating, as you told me. Ikari-kun prepares food for you, and Misato-san, and me." She paused, briefly, to look down at her empty plate. "He does so according to our individual specifications."

"That's—" Asuka collapsed back into her seat and took in a shaky breath. That's what she meant? It was a bad enough leap of logic that it could have been one of Ayanami's stupid jokes—but she had already denied that. "That doesn't count!" The Third did not cook for her—for anyone—because he was dating her. Or cared about her. He was just doing as he was told. Housework for homework.

"It's different," Shinji said, finally breaking his silence to agree with her. His voice was soft, but it sounded strained to Asuka's ears.

"How is it different?"

When you're dating, you don't have to order someone to cook for you. When you're dating, you only care about one person. When you're dating— the sound of the Third gently clearing his throat grabbed Asuka's attention. She unclenched her fists where she was holding them in her lap and looked up to see both of them staring at her expectantly.

I have to do everything!

"It's different because we're pilots!" She grabbed her plate and stood. Things had started well enough, but she had let them get out of hand. Stepping around the table, she snatched the First's plate from in front of her. "We're supposed to work together." That had been the plan, after all. Ever since she had gotten back. So stop being dramatic, stop letting them get to you, and focus on what matters!

She stood in front of the sink and dropped her collected plates into the soapy water, sending water splashing onto the counter and leaving dark wet marks on her t-shirt. The dishes clunked softly against the ones already in the basin. What matters is sticking to the plan.

"I see."

Asuka spun in place to see the First rising from her seat.

"Thank you for dinner," she said to the Third, inclining her head slightly. "I did not mean to embarrass you by implying that you were—"

"It's fine!" Shinji cut her off. He meekly collected his own dishes and stood, then walked towards the sink under Asuka's watchful gaze. His own eyes were locked onto the ground.

She averted her gaze from him—not because the sight was making her throat tighten and face redden, not because the stark contrast with his excitement at figuring out a homework problem on his own tied her stomach into knots. She crossed her arms and leaned back against the sink and examined the pattern of slowly spreading wet splotches that had finished soaking into her shirt.

Asuka could feel the Third's presence standing in front of her, silently asking her to move. We're supposed to work together. Her words sounded about as convincing as Misato's, when she had started in on one of her lectures about teambuilding and leadership. Which was to say, not very convincing at all. At least to Asuka. She sighed.

Convincing or not, she still had to do it. It was the plan. She had to succeed; she had to make her mother proud.

Tilting her head back up, Asuka leaned forward to stand straight. Succeeding meant she had to baby the Third, that was all. It was not as if there was something about the way he would not even look at her, after weeks, months, of him actually acting like a man. Something that made her think that her anger was being misdirected.

"Thanks for the food, Third," she told him flatly.

He immediately began to raise his head, and she could read the apprehension on his face. Behind him, the First was watching her. Asuka tightened her jaw and pressed on, before Shinji could speak—or she could have enough time to think and realize all of this was a waste of time and dumb and beneath her and she should just leave already and do something productive instead.

"I was only saying you're not dating anyone because, as pilots, we're far too busy to be doing frivolous stuff like that." She dropped her arms to her sides, tightened one hand into a fist, and steeled herself for what she was about to say. "I didn't mean that you were too gross, or perverted, or stupid, or annoying, or—" too much "I didn't mean that no one would date you."

"Oh." The Idiot's eyebrows connected down into a v and he pursed his lips.

Is that all you can say? She had done perhaps the most humiliating thing in her entire life, and all he could say was oh?

"I mean, you're a pilot, so obviously you have some good qualities."

"Because I'm a pilot?" Asuka could hear the unspoken and that's it?—and she was not amused.

"Pilots are better than regular people!" She stepped towards him and poked him in the chest. How has he not realized this yet?! "We're smarter, faster, stronger, just overall superior! We're elite! Even you—" she pre-empted the incredulous look on his face with another poke to the chest "—are a cut above the masses."

"If you say so," the Idiot mumbled. His face was red, again, and he was looking down and away from her, again, but he was smiling. "I don't think I'm special, just—"

"Stop being modest!" She stomped her foot and poked his chest, again, hard enough to send him back half a step. "How many of your annoying little classmates can say they got shot in the chest by the Fifth Angel and survived?" There was something to be said for how stubborn the Idiot could be—even if he was only so persistent because he was so stupid.

"Uh—"

She poked him again.

"And who got into Unit 01 to fight the Third Angel, without any training?" That had been the stupidest decision NERV had ever made, as far as Asuka was concerned, but he had done it. And survived. It was not his fault that NERV did not know how to plan ahead before she had gotten sent back and started fixing things.

"That—"

Another poke.

"And who was right next to me when I was prying open the Sixth's jaws?" Not that she had needed his help—she and her mother had had everything well in hand. But nevertheless, he had jumped directly into danger in his misguided desire to help out in the fight.

He had done it before, too. Against the Eighth Angel, when she really had been in danger.

Cobalt met sapphire as he finally looked up to meet her stare. Asuka breathed in, held it. She was already leaning towards him, looming over him, any more and she would fall over on top of him. His tongue darted out and quickly ran over his lips, and he swallowed heavily.

"Me."

Her skin prickled at his voice. Even if it had waivered, and even if his face was still cherry red. But Asuka smiled anyway. Maybe she could get through to him.

"You're damn right, Third! And your synch score is way higher than a dumb rookie like you has any right getting!"

"That's—"

Her hand shot out and grabbed his arm.

"And it isn't luck, Idiot! Don't you dare insult my training by saying you're just lucky!"

He smiled, and Asuka felt a shiver run down her back. It could not possibly be the way his eyes lit up at her ranting that made her feel light headed just then.

She let go of his arm and quickly pulled her hand back, crossing her arms over her chest again. Her fingers tingled in the absence of the warmth of his skin—this had gone on too long.

"So, just—don't be modest." Her voice sounded pitiful to her ears. This had really gotten out of hand. "And you, too!" She glared at the First, suddenly remembering what she had set out to do at the start of this dinner.

Ayanami was standing behind her chair, hands resting on the back of it, and smiling at her.

"We are lucky to have such a perfect example of a pilot who lacks modesty. We can learn much from you."

"Of course you can!" Asuka scoffed. "That's the whole point!" It was nice that the First was realizing who was on top.

Then the Third let out single loud, strangled "Hah!" that he tried to keep from escaping his lips by belatedly clamping both his hands over his mouth. And then the First's shoulders hitched in silent laughter as Asuka's face flushed and she froze mid step, her walk away from the kitchen aborted before it had begun.

Things had been out of hand, earlier. Now they were far worse.

"Ayanami," Shinji said, voice tight—he was likely holding back more laughter, Asuka reasoned. "Let's clean up, ok?" He turned back to Asuka, who was beginning to recover from the embarrassment of being, once again, the butt of one of Ayanami's shitty jokes. At least recovered enough to speak, anyway. "I have some English homework I haven't finished yet. Could you help me with it after I finish the dishes?"

Asuka knew an opportunity for a tactical withdrawal when she saw one.

"Fine, Idiot." She began to slip out of the kitchen, but when she made it to the living room the First's voice called out.

"Good night, Soryu. I enjoyed our small talk today. We should do it more often."

"Sure, Ayanami," she answered, voice carefully modulated. "Good night."

Mission accomplished, I guess. Asuka closed her bedroom door behind her and breathed in deeply. Things had not gone great. But they could have gone far worse. At least Misato was out. Like she always was. She would have turned what was a minor disaster, which Asuka had apparently managed to salvage, into a full-blown catastrophe. Like she did with everything else.