All the Freedom in the World [Rebuild of Evangelion]

[Susano]

She told him he had all the freedom in the world. He told her he would pilot for her one more time. Now, he draws the consequence: Shinji quits piloting. But that isn't the end of his story.​

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Yeah, another attempt at an EVA fanfic. But hey, six chapters are already written, so this is probably going somewhere. Plus the scope is limited: Just Rebuild 2.0. And yeah, it's a very Susano story concept, of course. But hey, people know what they'll get from me, heh.

Keep in mind that this IS Rebuild. Characterizations for some chararacters (Misato, Asuka, Ritsuko, Maya...) are hence slightly different from the series, even before the whole 'fanfic' factor comes in.

---

"Ohhhh. Making sure Rei is alright I see." Misato had that usual teasing voice about her. Already. As if nothing happened yesterday. "How noble of you, Shinji." She grinned. "Yes, somebody should look after her. Girls appreciate that!"

Shinji smiled weakly. It appeared that would be his new normal now. Misato had been right the previous day, after all. He had in fact agreed to be a pilot. So what did he expect now? Of course Misato would treat him piloting as just being normal. It was now, as was her teasing and joking. Shinji didn't like it, but that was life. One could only hope things didn't get even worse.

At least, this did get him into the NERV hospital. The gigantic building, rising up high into the sky, made Shinji uncomfortable. That was where he had ended up the previous day. And that was where Misato had talked him into piloting again. Now it seemed like a done deal. I don't like this place.

Last time he had been here, he had had no chance to see the hospital's entrance. He furrowed his brows. It was large and filled with light, with several small, potted palms all around. An aromatic scent was in the air, and the sun created a glasshouse effect that was not uncomfortable. Glass, green and electronics – NERV HQ was the same way. It all looked light and good on the surface…

All Misato needed to do at the reception was to flash her NERV card. The receptionist, an eager-looking young woman with a very artful top knot hairstyle, pointed them to where they needed to go. Suprisingly, on the way there, in a corridor, they encountered Ritsuko. As always, the scientist was wearing a white labcoat.

Misato looked surprised for a moment and then came to a halt in front of her friend. Shinji was just trotting along behind her, his head held low. "Ritsuko," Misato greeted her friend. "I didn't expect to see you here."

The faux-blonde shrugged. "Maintaining the First Child's health is one of my obligations." She smiled, though it was a dismissive smile. Arrogant, somehow. "So you've come to see her? I must admit, that surprised me."

"She was injured," Shinji merely stated. He didn't know what more there was to say.

"So she was," Ritsuko simply answered.

"In the battle. Where she was together with me," Shinji added. "She… protected me. Just as she said she would."

Ritsuko paused for a moment. "She said that? My, that's interesting. If that keeps up, our Rei will turn into a veritable butterfly. So go ahead. She's awake and doing well. Most of the damage was merely sympathetic pain, anyway. Mostly, she's just exhausted. We'll probably let her go home tomorrow."

'Just' sympathetic pain. Easy for you to say. But with that, without saying another word, Ritsuko passed the two, leaving them with long steps. Both Misato and Shinji watched her go for a moment, then continued on their way – not that it was a long distance anymore. Soon, they both stood in front of an unmarked door.

Misato smiled warmly at Shinji. "Go inside. You're right, you two fought together. You should have a moment. I'll wait here."

The room was spacious, with one side consisting entirely of a large window front. There was a small drawer with a TV on it in one corner, and yet another potted palm in another. But it was still a hospital room. The curtains had been drawn shut all over the window front, and yet it was uncomfortably warm, and a slight smell of disinfectant hung in the air. Also, the walls were all barren, and the single bed in the room made it abundantly clear where they were: It was a typical, mobile hospital bed, with railings at the sides. A small chair stood next to it.

Rei was sitting upright in the bed, looking right ahead. Shinji's gaze rested on her for a while. Her skin was really abnormally pale, but also smooth, almost like a new statue. And those red eyes…

She turned her head to face him. Shinji gulped and closed the door behind him. "A-Ayanami. I… ah, I came here to, uh, to visit you, I guess. Are you alright?" He suddenly became aware that he had brought no present or anything. I should have brought flowers. It would only have been polite. I'm so inconsiderate! Heat rushed into his face.

"Dr Akagi said I'll be sent home tomorrow," Rei told him in her usual monotonous voice.

"That's good," Shinji commented. He tried a smile while slowly approaching the bed, but he wasn't sure it was a success.

"Why are you here?" Rei asked. There was no inflection in her voice; it sounded like a factual question.

"Uh, as I've said," Shinji answered. "To visit you. To see how you are."

Rei nodded. "I'll be functional by the next synch-test."

Again, Shinji furrowed his brows. That just sounded wrong, on a level he couldn't quite express. "Why are you saying 'functional'?"

"Should I say something else?" Rei asked.

"Well…" Shinji thought so, but he wasn't sure what. He wasn't sure what he had expected. "I'm more interested in how you're feeling." He paused. "Uh. I mean. If it's okay for me to ask." He feared he had overstepped a boundary.

There was a long pause. I have. Shinji turned around to leave. I have screwed up again. That was fairly unsurprising.

"I don't understand." Shinji stopped. As always, Rei's voice had been soft and quiet, but it was enough.

He turned around again. "What do you mean?"

"I don't understand the nature of your question," Rei said matter-of-factly. "I will be functional. What else is important to you?"

Again, Shinji struggled. Again, his face felt hot. I mustn't run away… But he didn't quite know how to put it, how to… "You."

There was a silence. That was not quite how Shinji had wanted to say it.

"I'm important to Commander Ikari," Rei finally said. "Am I also important to you?"

The mere mention of his father made Shinji frown. He didn't know what there was between Rei and the Commander, why she was his father's ward, but he didn't like it. Gendo Ikari had abandoned him years ago, and now had only recalled him so he would suffer. Meanwhile, in all that time, Rei had been a bright spot here in Tokyo-3. The one person who had never hurt him and with whom he had never screwed up. He didn't want the association with his father to tarnish this bright spot.

"I… I think you are," Shinji answered softly, struggling through his embarrassment. "It just didn't feel right how my father wanted to use you, even though you were injured and in pain. And then, on Mount Futago, you protected me, as you had said you would."

Rei looked down. Her skin was now not as pale before. There was a… Is that a blush? Shinji didn't know how to feel about it. It made him blush in return. Rei looked… lovely.

"Ayanami?" Shinji prompted after a while.

"You're making me feel embarrassed," Rei told him softly.

Oh. Shinji looked down.

"I wasn't injured anymore," Rei said after some seconds of silence.

Shinji looked up again, slightly confused. "Sorry?"

"I could have piloted Unit 01," Rei explained.

That made Shinji feel bad. It was irrational, but he felt guilty. Rei had been burdened with EVA all this time, alone. He had taken over for her in the last three battles, but that was only a recent development. Before, he hadn't even known about any of this, and yet…

"You don't need to," Rei continued.

Oh. Suddenly, Shinji's body went stiff. He realized now what Rei was saying.

"But what about you?" Shinji asked, almost protested.

"Piloting is my bond to the world," Rei explained. "You have people around you, like Lieutenant Colonel Katsuragi. Why do you pilot?"

Shinji opened his mouth, then closed it again. He smiled sadly, then sat down. "I… I can't tell you, Ayanami. I don't know."

Why did he? Piloting was terrible and frightening and painful. While his classmates had nothing to worry about except homework, marks and gossip, he was fighting lethal, painful battles. He was saving them all and then went back to school as if nothing had happened. His father didn't even see him, and Misato wasn't praising him – she had even shouted at him after the second angel. So why did he pilot?

"Piloting lets me do something," Rei spoke up. "When I pilot, I am connected to the world."

"Connected?" Shinji asked.

"Like this talk," Rei answered, which was no explanation at all for Shinji.

So all he could do was to speak about his own experiences. "It's terrible. All that pain… and I don't even know what an Evangelion is. It feels… you know, I dream of it. That feeling I have when I'm synched to the Evangelion. Like I can't get rid of it."

"Did you 'dream' of it this night?" Rei asked.

Shinji shook his head and then buried it in his hands. Truth be told, he hadn't slept much at all last night, with the memory of the fight still fresh in his head – the terror of facing the angel again, the pain of having been boiled alive. It had been a huge wave of after-the-fact fear rolling over him.

"Does that happen to you as well?" he finally asked back, looking up again.

"I don't dream," Rei told him. She looked down at him, directly in his eyes.

Oh. That sounded odd to Shinji, but he didn't inquire further. After all, it wasn't like he was dreaming every night, and besides, those eyes…

He gulped. "You can't be burdened with everything. Doing all those tests, fighting the angels, all that alone…"

She shook her head. "It isn't a burden. It's all I have." There was a sudden, heavy sadness in Shinji's heart. How can piloting be all she has? Something so terrible? Who is she? "Is the same true for you?"

Shinji felt restless. He didn't know how to answer it, and yet at the same time, it seemed like an eye-opener to him - like something he had to act on. Is the same true for me? Who am I? He couldn't just idly sit here with those thoughts in his head.

He stood up. "Ah, I'm sorry, Ayanami. I'll..." He backed off from the bed slightly. "I'll be seeing you. And, ah… I hope you get better." He turned around and walked. "I think you've helped me!" he said as he opened the door and walked out.

He knew this wasn't the most polite thing to do, not even the friendliest, but he just needed… he was full of energy now, energy to do something. His whole situation seemed uncomfortable now, and that discomfort called for fixing.

Misato looked at him in surprise as he hastened out of the room, but then simply followed him, not saying a word.

On the way back to the apartment, Shinji felt his feeling of unrest, of activity, fizzle. He sat in the passenger seat in the blue Alpine Renault, and looked out of the window. The sun was setting, spreading its orange light over the busy city. Tokyo-3 was an incredibly densely built city, with people and traffic everywhere. A cacophony of noise, muffled by the window, reached him, but he couldn't focus on it. He looked outside, and felt… discontent.

Connection to people? Right now, Shinji felt more disconnected from the world outside the window than ever. They have no idea. None of them. They all lived on, while he suffered – they could live on because he suffered. He felt lonely. That he sat next to Misato only made this worse.

On the way back up to the apartment, he again trotted behind her, with his head held low. The first thing the Lieutenant Colonel did upon entering the house was to open the fridge and take out a can of beer.

She opened it with a loud psssh sound. "It's good to see that Rei is on the way up, isn't it, Shinji?" She looked to the kitchen entrance, where Shinji was still standing. "No harm done." Easy for you to say. "We can all get to the synch-test tomorrow..."

Shinji looked straight down. His hands were curled into fists. "I'm not going."

"What do you mean?" Misato asked. It still sounded cheerful. "Don't you want to…"

"I'm not going!" Shinji repeated, louder this time.

"Uh… okay," Misato answered. "Any reason for that?"

"I won't pilot anymore," Shinji stated. There, he had said it. He felt dizzy.

Misato walked over to the kitchen table and put – no, slammed her can onto its top. Beer foam came running out of it. "You agreed to pilot! You said…"

Shinji now looked right at her, anger on his face. "I said I would pilot one more time! And I have! Isn't that enough?"

Misato just looked back at him, her face all stern and grim. "You now know what is on the line! And yet you'd just leave?"

Shinji did know. In a way, that made it all even worse. He felt trapped, trapped by circumstances. And Misato… he remembered what she had said. He felt resentful about both.

He took a few steps forwards. "You told me I have all the freedom in the world! Was that a lie?"

Shinji looked at Misato. The woman seemed shocked for a moment. Then her face went dark. And Shinji got terrified. What he had just said went through his head again. I've fucked up. Again. He felt terrible and selfish. Without another word, he began running – past Misato, up to his room. He just threw himself onto his futon and buried his face in it.

For what might have been hours, he just lay there, in the darkness after the sun had set, with only the pale light of the lampposts outside entering his room, lost in his dark thoughts. He was a failure, he was sure of that. Back when he had been living with his tutor, he had had no friends and had found no recognition. And now that he had found a special talent, something only he could do, it had turned out to be a burden too great for him. Though… it wasn't a talent, not really. Misato had told him so herself. It was just fate that he could pilot, just bad luck. It was a curse, truly. And he was done with it. He felt bad about that, but he would not go back to piloting. He had told Misato he would pilot one more time, and that was exactly what he had done^.

There was a knock at the door. He didn't answer it. After a few seconds, the door was slid open by some centimetres. Light fell into the room. Misato spoke through through the slit.

"We should talk." There was concern, but also a hard edge to her voice.

Shinji remained silent. There is nothing to talk about. He would leave, no matter what arguments Misato used. She had always pushed him and pressured him into piloting, and he was done with that. He should never have agreed to stay after his father had shanghaied him into this whole mess. But he couldn't tell Misato any of this. He didn't feel he had the right to. He was running away again, after all.

"Shinji..." Misato tried again.

Shinji wrapped his pillow around his head. Couldn't she just leave him alone? Hadn't he done enough already? Hadn't he already let himself be beaten repeatedly by the first angel, whipped by the second angel, boiled alive by the third angel? Couldn't the woman see all that? Shinji knew it was pathetic to run, but… Why does the world expect so much of me? He desperately wished for a nicer, softer world. A world that would leave him alone.

"Is this your final decision?" Misato asked. "To abandon us?"

For a long while, Misato just stood there, just outside the door, while Shinji lay on his futon. Neither side spoke, neither side moved. Finally, in a low, hoarse mutter, Shinji answered, "You wanted me to decide for myself. You said I should want to pilot or leave. And now that I have decided…"

Again a long pause. Finally, Misato told him in a hard voice, "Now that you've made your decision, we need to discuss what it means. Please come to the kitchen. I'll make us some tea."

The door was slid shut again. The room fell dark once more. Shinji lay there and felt miserable. He just wanted to leave. He didn't want to confront his decision. But he also couldn't stay in this room forever. Sooner or later, he would have to come out.

His knees shook when he stood up. He closed his eyes and breathed out. Then he slid the door open once more and stepped out of his room. He could smell the promised tea from the kitchen.

Misato stood at the kitchen counter, facing away from the table and the door. She held her left elbow in her right hand, and seemed lost in thought. Not really daring to enter, Shinji just stood in the kitchen doorway.

Without turning around, Misato ordered, "Sit."

Shinji did as he was told. There was a mug of steaming tea in front of him; peppermint, by the smell of it. Finally, Misato turned around, still holding her elbow.

"You know now why NERV exists," she began. "You know we're defending the world. And yet you still wish to leave?"

Shinji's hands grabbed the tea mug, feeling its warmth. He kept his head low and simply looked deep into that mug. Finally, he muttered, "You already knew that before."

"Yes," Misato simply answered.

"So did you lie?" Shinji asked without looking up. When there was no answer, he continued, "When you told me I needed to decide for myself to pilot? When you said what mattered was what I wanted?" Now he looked up with furrowed brows, and began to speak louder. "When you said I have all the freedom in the world?"

Misato turned her head sidewards. "I..." Her voice became lower. "I wanted…"

She stood leaning against the counter, looking away. Shinji sat at the table, looking down. Both remained so, still and silent.

Finally, still facing away from him, Misato's voice became harder. "I didn't tell you before, because… well, the information was classified, but also to protect you. People can only remain innocent for as long as they remain ignorant. Once they know, once they really know, all the responsibility is theirs; they cannot be innocent any longer. Back then, you did have all the freedom in the world. But now… now that you know…"

Shinji's shoulders slumped. He knew what this meant. He realized he shouldn't have expected any different. There just was no getting out of this for him. He was condemned to his fate. "So you'll force me," he whispered.

From the corner of his eyes, Shinji saw Misato's body flinch. Slowly, the Lieutenant Colonel walked up to the table and sat down. She still didn't look Shinji in the face. "I… if piloting is really nothing but pain for you…"

Now Shinji looked up. He sounded desperate. "Of course it is! It isn't something that could ever come to me naturally. That… whatever the EVA is… when I connect with it, it stays in my mind. It's cold and alien and..." He stopped, and formed his two hands on the table into fists. "And I get bludgeoned and whipped and boiled. And the fear. That fear and panic before every battle, and during it, and even after it…" His voice broke. His eyes grew watery. "And nobody seems to care. Of all my classmates only I… and nobody even thanks me. Pain is all I get out of piloting."

"Shinji..." Misato whispered.

"All I can expect in piloting is negative things," Shinji muttered, his voice somewhat calmed dow again, he being back to his usually depressed mumbling. "Just pain and fear. When I succeed, nobody even mentions that, it's just taken for granted, but when I fail you shout at me. I need to make an effort just so no bad things happen, and good ones never do."

For a moment, it seemed like a mask slipped from Misato, as for just that second Shinji could see her wince. She caught herself quickly, but even so continued in a mere whisper. "I thought..." She stopped, and shook her head. "At least you'd be closer to your father. What about him?"

Shinji's heart tightened in his chest, and suddenly he felt cold. My father… That was a topic that overwhelmed him. "He didn't see me," he answered in the same hushed tone as she had. "He never did. Even when I fought… I… thought maybe..." Again his voice cracked.

"I'm sure he's proud of you," Misato commented softly.

Sullenly, Shinji answered, "Is he? How could I know?" He sniffed. "He didn't see me after the first angel. I saved the world, according to you, I could have died, and he didn't see me. He wasn't even there when I fought the second angel. I…" He closed his eyes and slammed his fists on the table. "I shouldn't have to break my bones and fear death just so he praises me!"

There was no answer. Finally, Shinji looked up to see Misato's reaction. He found her face hard as stone, looking directly at him. "We all face death here! Do you want special treatment for that?"

Now Shinji looked away, his own face just as hard. Misato was being unfair, he could feel that, but he had no way to articulate it. She was factually right after all. She had told him about NERV's purpose, about the explosive charges beneath NERV headquarters, about the lethal risk they all faced. Yet… This isn't the same, is it? Do I want special treatment? What he wanted… what he wanted was to leave. Just to leave this all behind him.

So, he ran. He pushed his chair backwards, stood up, turned around and walked towards the door to the living room, in order to reach his room. Maybe he was in fact a pathetic excuse for a human being, but he wouldn't pilot again. That terror was just too much for him. He'd rather feel guilty for the rest of his life than face that terror again.

"Shinji…" Now Misato's voice was suddenly very soft. And for some reason Shinji stopped before he had reached the door, though he didn't turn around. "The anniversary of your mother's death is soon, isn't it?" Shinji just let his head hang low. He had no answer. Misato knew. "Stay here that long, at least. So you can visit your mother's grave then."

Something inside Shinji told him that this was a mistake, that he should use this opportunity, now that he had finally found the courage to speak freely, to leave all of this behind for good, that he should run away and never look back…

…but on the other hand, living here hadn't been bad. Only the price that had come with it. He feared he'd never be free of that cost if he stayed, but… if Misato offered…

"But I won't pilot," he said grimly, without looking back. "And I won't go to synch-tests. I'm no pilot anymore."

"If you leave officially now… but okay. No deployments and no synch-tests," Misato agreed. "And in a week, you can go visit your mother's grave. Rest now. You have school tomorrow."

---

Shinji felt constrained – once again.

He was at a place where he absolutely didn't want to be, but he also couldn't run from it. He feared being here, but he feared leaving even more. He couldn't turn to anyone, couldn't ask anyone, had no one to support him. All he could do was stand here and endure it. Stand here and fear. That was the worst pain of them all; the fear that any minute something terrible could happen.

All around him, all over several hills, were endless lines of small black pillars – tomb stones, of a sort. After all the deaths of Second Impact, tomb stones had become a mass-produced commodity. There wasn't even any inscription on them; just round black tubes. There only was a small inscription at the base on which the pillars stood. This one read "YUI IKARI 1977-2004".

Despite the morning sun, Shinji felt cold. He really didn't want to be here. But he also could not leave. He felt caged.

He had already felt caged the entire week.

He had no idea what was going on at NERV. He still had his NERV ID card, so it seemed he officially still was a pilot, but he hadn't been to the Geofront ever since the battle with the third angel. He had even refused a post-battle medical check up by Ritsuko. He just… couldn't. It had been difficult enough to tell Misato no. Once he was inside the Geofront again…

He could have asked Misato about his current status. He did wonder what she might have told Ritsuko and Maya and most of all his father… but at the same time he dreaded knowing that. Dreaded hearing how his father had learned about his failure. But most of all he just couldn't approach Misato. Not after what he had said; not after her hard faces of disappointment. And she, for her part, had made no effort to talk to him, either.

For a week now, Shinji had gone to school early, avoiding her, come home, and then bunkered up in his room. Misato had taken late shifts at NERV, so he had simply always made dinner solely for himself. Shinji was comfortable with that, in fact – it was just like the life with his tutor: Misato had always left some money so he could buy himself food, and had otherwise left him alone. That was familiar, comfortable. But still living in the same apartment with Misato… always avoiding her, always even avoiding eye contact, not a single word spoken… that was what was rattling Shinji's nerves.

A second bouquet of white flowers landed in front of Yui's tombstone, as if thrown without consideration. Shinji's face darkened. He didn't turn around; he didn't need to. He knew his father had arrived. And now, more so than ever, he just wanted to run away.

He stayed, but his hands balled into fists.

"It's been three years since the two of us last came here," Gendo commented with his even but hard voice.

"I ran away that day," Shinji admitted. "And never came back here since." There was a pause. "I just didn't see why. I can't even remember Mother being buried here. I can't even remember her face."

"That's how people live on," Gendo stated. "By forgetting. There are only very few precious things we should never forget. That is why I come here every year."

"Aren't there at least pictures of her?" Shinji asked. He tried to sound as even as possible. He wanted to plead, wanted to see such pictures, but he didn't dare to speak up to his father.

"None," Gendo told him harshly. "Even this grave is purely symbolic. There is no body."

Shinji looked down. "So it is like my tutor said; you've thrown everything away."

"I keep what's important in my heart," Gendo claimed. "That's enough for now."

Shinji still kept looking down. There was a sense of betrayal in him. His father might have had his mother's image in his heart, but what about him? But he couldn't say anything. Not to his father. He could just stand there and endure the situation, as silence once again fell over the graves.

Finally, a noise burst through that silence. Shinji glanced over his shoulder, just barely, and saw a giant NERV VTOL landing just behind Gendo. He looked forward again.

"It's time for me to go," Gendo commented.

Shinji didn't react. It was just so much like his father to come and go as he pleased, without caring for others. He turned around to say something, anything, but there was nothing.

Then he saw a familiar blue mop of hair behind a window in the VTOL. Ayanami… That silenced him for good. What is it with her and my father? Silently, he watched Gendo enter the VTOL, and then the machine as it ascended into the sky again.

Shinji stood there, looking up into the sky for a good long while. The sun was slowly nearing its zenith. There was not a sound nearby save for the wind quietly howling through lines of tombstones – no birds or other animals could be heard, no humans and no traffic.

Slowly, he made his way through this desolation, back to Misato's car.

The Lieutenant Colonel said nothing when he entered the car, but she smiled at him. Immediately, Shinji turned his head away. Once again, he didn't want to be here, not so close to Misato, where he couldn't escape her. However, it was the only way home.

The street went along a winding path along the coast, with green forests to one side and the red waves of the sea to the other. Shinji sighed silently. He felt… depressed. He didn't know what would happen now. Misato had wanted to keep him around for this visit, and now…

"See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Misato asked cheerfully. "Aren't you glad you came instead of sulking at home? You got to visit your mother's grave, and could even talk with your father."

Shinji looked out to the sea, his view as far removed from Misato as possible. He had come because Misato had insisted, and now… "What will happen now?"

"Well, that was a pretty big step you and your father have taken towards each other, don't you think?" Misato answered. "Now…"

Shinji's sullen, quiet voice cut through Misato's cheeriness. "Will I leave Tokyo-3 now?"

"Shinji…" Misato began, but then stopped. Suddenly, Shinji was jerked back into his seat. The car accelerated.

He turned his head around. "Mi-Misato?"

But the woman just kept looking at the road ahead of her, resolution in her eyes… or was that anger? Shinji wouldn't be surprised if she was angry at him. He probably deserved it for running away.

"You will not leave," Misato stated flatly.

Of course not. They won't let me go. Shinji's heart got heavy. The thought that he would have to pilot EVA, that this would be his life now, one deadly battle after the next…

He didn't get to brood over this. Suddenly, the car veered. A large stone fragment of something, a fragment that could have easily crashed the car, landed on the road directly in front of them. Misato only barely escaped it. Her NERV communicator beeped.

"Angel attack?" she shouted. "But..."

The rest of her protest was drowned out by a series of explosions nearby. Shinji looked out of the window… his eyes opened wide. Not explosions. Cannon fire. There were several warships in the bay, right next to the coast. And they were all shooting at…

The red sea iced over wherever it stepped. It walked on impossibly thin metal sticks. They held up intricate patterns of metal tubes and metal shards, like two hollow upper legs. Those legs in turn supported a short body that was built the same way: Not solid, but an intricate maze of metal lines. On top of it was a spike, holding up a mask… exactly like the one Shinji had seen on that "Lilith" thing down in Terminal Dogma. Below the body, on another unnaturally thin tube, hung a massive metal ball.

The creature stepped right into the midst of the JSSDF flotilla, unperturbed by the constant shelling. The metal head turned, opened up, and released a wave of light… and suddenly the ships were all raised into the air, by crosses of water forming beneath them. They all broke apart, shattered.

"I am currently en route with the… with the Fourth Child," Misato shouted into her communicator. "Initiate Task 03 on Unit 00 immediately!"

Shinji could barely hear the answer coming through the device. "A Task 02 is currently in progress."

"Task 02?" Misato wondered. Then her face distorted into a look of shock. "No way!" While still driving at a breakneck speed, she leaned out of her window and looked up. "It's Unit 02!"

Now Shinji leaned out and looked up as well. He saw something in the sky… one big speck of black, accompanied by many smaller ones. Something fell from the big speck… something red and nearly as big. Something humanoid.

It's an EVA!

It carried a bulky box of some kind on its back. What looked like a gun was being thrown its way… but before the EVA could reach it, the angel reacted. Half a dozen metal harpoons were fired at the Unit. They missed, only to change course and hunt the EVA again.

They'll kill him! Shinji knew that there had to be a child like himself in that EVA. Another one like him, suffering by piloting.

But the EVA evaded every single turn of the harpoons. They switched direction again and again, but only darted forwards into empty air, the EVA having long since gone, a deadly dance in the sky. And then it had the gun in its hands… no, a crossbow!

It fired. The bolt hit the angel's head mask, and the angel's body beneath it disintegrated.

"Wow!" Shinji marvelled. "He took out the core!"

Misato pushed him aside to look out of his window. "No! That had to be a decoy!"

The iron ball that had dangled beneath the angel's body fell apart, revealing a solid red sphere in its centre. Suddenly the single disintegrated parts of the angels reassembled, into the same delicate patterns, but now with the red sphere at the top. A large spur pointed away from it, towards the EVA.

Again, the EVA fired its crossbow, but now it was blocked by a huge hexagon of light in the air – the angel's AT Field.

"What can he do n..." Shinji started to ask, but apparently the pilot knew what to do: The EVA made several saltos in the air, and then fell towards the angel's barrier with its foot first.

The EVA fell right onto the angel's spur. Several multicoloured hexagons spread all over the air, kilometres wide. The ground shook. Finally, the hexagons… broke. Several pieces of multicoloured light just hung in the air, then disappeared. And the EVA was now right at the angel's core… in the angel's core… through the angel's core.

And as it departed it on the other side again, said core exploded. A huge cross of water and light rose into the air, accompanied by tidal waves all around it, splashing up the cliffs towards the street where Misato was driving.

Meanwhile, the EVA simply activated its backpack, slowed down its fall, and landed gracefully on a parking lot next to the road, at the coast cliffs, only a few hundreds of metres away…

…and just seconds later, Unit 00 came running through the coastal waters, the red liquid splashing up to its knees. It remained standing in the water, looking right at the red EVA, which now rose from its kneeling position. Now Shinji could see the elongated head of the new unit, and its four eyes. It looked right back at Unit 00, with head held high and hands on its hips.

Misato car's arrived there about a minute later – and within just a further fifteen minutes, the parking lot was swarming with NERV personnel. Guards secured the area on both sides, blocking off the road; technicians came to look at the Evangelions; transport crews deliberated how to best move them. And in the midst of that all stood the blue Renault Alpine, Shinji and Misato standing right next to it, like the eye of the typhoon, all activity moving around them.

The pilots of Unit 00 and the new EVA, Unit 02 as Misato had called it, had their machines crouch down. Even so, it took the quick assembly of cranes to remove the entry plugs. Shinji just stood there and watched how they were built up in a matter of minutes. He was glad they were looking after the pilots, instead of just having them return to base, but he felt somewhat useless amidst all that activity, a dead weight.

He saw movement at the crane next to Unit 02. Something small and red was jumping and gliding down from beam to beam, hanging from one, letting go, grabbing the next one and so forth. Shinji's eyes widened when he saw that it was a girl… a girl in a red plugsuit. The pilot!

She ran up to the car upon landing, not bothering to stop. "Hey, Misato!" she greeted the Lieutenant Colonel and smiled at her. "I heard you were here!"

The pilot was striking. She had long, red hair, a colour Shinji had never seen before, and she just seemed so lively. The way she had bent her body, which was nicely accentuated by the plugsuit, to climb down to the ground… And there was a certain exotic mystique about her. It was plain that she was a foreigner.

"Welcome to Japan, Asuka," Misato greeted back. "It's quite a surprise to see you."

'Asuka' threw her head back and flipped her hair. "It seems I'm needed here. Had to save you all. The local NERV branch is quite incompetent, isn't it?"

Misato laughed embarrassedly. "I'm part of that branch now, you know."

Asuka scoffed. "Well, intercepting that angel would have been your responsibility then. Where are your pilots who screwed that up?" She looked around, until her gaze stopped at something. "Ah. The pilot of Unit 00, isn't it? The Commander's pet."

Shinji followed her gaze and saw Rei quietly, slowly walking up to them.

Then Asuka turned towards him. "And what about you? Are you a pilot as well?"

"Ah… you see, well…" That was a complicated matter after all.

"Why are you out here?" Asuka shouted at him. Shinji backed up, walking backwards parallel to the car. "You should have been on alert! You're a sorry excuse for a pilot, do you know that?" She paused. "Hmm..."

Suddenly, something slammed against Shinji's ankles, and he lost his footing. He felt himself falling… but two arms grabbed him and he merely bumped against a chest. A very… soft chest. Rei had caught him and prevented him from falling down, so that he was now in her arms.

'Asuka' swept my legs… and Ayanami…

He could feel her breasts and heat shot into his face, but it didn't last long: Rei whirled around him, putting herself between him and Asuka. And then she struck at Asuka, a punch right at the redhead's stomach. However, just as quickly, Asuka blocked it, diverting the punch with her left wrist and immediately using the right arm for what looked to be a martial arts strike… but Rei caught that in turn.

And suddenly Misato was between them, separating them, pushing each of them away by the head.

"Girls! Girls! What's the matter with you!"

"She attacked me!" Asuka shouted, pushing against Misato's hand. "That damnable pet attacked me!"

Rei meanwhile was standing still, and her voice was montonous as always. "Don't attack Ikari."

That made Asuka stop. She shot angry glares at Shinji. "Ikari? Like the top guy here." She scoffed. "So it's all nepotism here. He's the pilot of Unit 01, isn't he?"

Misato smiled, one of her typical embarrassed broad smiles. "Ah… he's our reserve pilot."

"WHAT?"

Shinji and Asuka looked at each other with narrowed eyes. They had both shouted the same thing.

"Our reserve pilot," Misato repeated.

"What's a 'reserve pilot'?" Asuka shouted, while Shinji shouted, "I'm a reserve pilot?"

Again, both looked at each other.

"Ah, I'll explain it to you on the way home, Shinji," Misato told him. "You'll manage here, Asuka?"

The girl shrugged. "I heard Kaji is supposed to pick me up."

"That's good," Misato said while turning around to open the car's door. "He'll..." She stopped mid-movement. Turned around slowly again. Her jaw had dropped. "Kaji? Ryoji Kaji? He's here?"

"So I heard," Asuka answered, sounding bored. "What does it matter? Just one more NERV guy from back home."

Misato slapped her forehead. Hard. "Godsdamnit..."

---

Fuyutsuki peered from behind his half-rolled up newspaper to Gendo. The Commander simply sat in his large chair, his hands steepled on the table, and looked into nothingness. Fuyutsuki tore his attention away from the shogi challenge and sighed.

"Is there a problem, Commander?"

"Nothing that can't be integrated into the Scenario," Gendo replied.

"Shinji," Fuyutsuki commented. He moved a figure on the shogi board in front of him. Gendo merely grunted in agreement. "If he leaves…"

"He will stay here for now," Gendo merely said.

"As a reserve pilot," Fuyutsuki continued. He looked over the board and rubbed his chin. "Will that suffice?"

Again, Gendo merely grunted. However, after a while, he spoke up, "Our predictions had a very low probability of him actually quitting. That he does now shows that his state of mind is a concern. If he breaks too early, he is of no use to us."

"Ah." Now Fuyutsuki understood. "That's why you offered this solution to Katsuragi." He moved another piece. "He may need a break… as long as he's there in the end."

"After Unit 05's destruction, NERV had a surplus pilot," Gendo commented. "It was a reasonable reshuffle that the other branches couldn't deny to us."

"Of course not," Fuyutsuki commented disdainfully. "It'll get their spy into Unit 00."

"Better the spies we know of than the ones we don't," Gendo told him, still without even looking at him. "It ensures that we'll have our eyes on Mari."

So that was your plan all along… Fuyutsuki narrowed his eyes and looked at the Commander. Two birds with one stone… clever. Shinji gets his break, so that we can use him later, and they can't send Mari into hiding. Even when the Scenario changed, Gendo could always see opportunities in it.

A pause ensued, which Fuyutsuki used to continue his shogi challenge for a while. Finally, he spoke up again, "So what about Shinji?"

"Katsuragi is unlikely to let him leave now," Gendo stated.

Fuyutsuki made a face, but didn't answer. Not that it truly changed anything. The Commander knew how he felt, which was also why his second in command didn't even try to hide his facial expressions anymore. Katsuragi thinks he offered this because he cares about his son. She thinks the two are getting closer. She will not let Shinji leave now that she thinks herself so close to success. By suggesting the change of Shinji's status and his replacement by Mari Makinami to Misato, it would seem the Commander had actually killed three birds with one stone.

"But how much influence does she have over him?" Fuyutsuki asked. "He could leave over her protests."

"His bond with Rei is strong, just as we predicted," Gendo commented.

Fuyutsuki sighed. "Even so…"

Gendo made a sound of agreement. "We need more bonds chaining him to this place, besides just Rei and Katsuragi. Yes."

Without looking up from his board, his newspaper still in hand, Fuyutsuki stated, "You have a plan."

"An idea," Gendo corrected him. "The Second Child. She has been under Katsuragi's care before."

"Hm," Fuyutsuki voiced, still not looking up. "Does her personality profile match Shinji's? There's a reason we picked Rei."

"Rei was the easy method," Gendo merely said.

"Besides, we can't just order pilots to spend time with each other," Fuyutsuki continued. "Even ordering them where to live would… raise suspicion."

Again an agreeing sound. "But Katsuragi will worry about both of them. Her current and her former ward, neither of them a shining example of social competence. Them living together could train them in that department." Gendo supported his head on his nested hands and grinned behind them. "I'm sure Katsuragi would be receptive to that idea if Dr Akagi presented it."

---

Yes, yes, all very Susano, I know, I know. But Rebuild just offers such a fantastic chance with Shinji's "I'll pilot for you one more time...". Shinji really was on the verge of walking throughout all of Rebuild 1.0...

Many thanks to @Turing Decidable and @Naughtilus for having betaread this chapter! They've done some excellent work!

 

[Dealer]

It's a good start.

I wonder how soon Shinji sees some actual negative consequences from his decision to indefinitely sideline NERV'S best Pilot.

 

[jcmoorehead]

An interesting opening, I was somewhat surprised by the first meeting between Asuka/Rei here and how that took something of a nearly violent turn but Rei leaping to Shinji's defense did make sense.

Shinji deciding to leave does make sense, it mirrors the original series but takes it that one step further to him not actually changing his mind. Of course Gendo is keeping him close by because he knows Shinji can likely be willed/coerced into piloting just enough to achieve what he seems to want. Intrigued by what his plans are for Asuka as well.

 

[Susano]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I wonder how soon Shinji sees some actual negative consequences from his decision to indefinitely sideline NERV'S best Pilot.

Click to shrink...

I mean, I'll be completely honest: That is why Rebuild works so well here. In the series, the obvious cue for Shinji to leave would have been after Shamshel, and the chances of Rei solo'ing Ramiel are... existent but very small. Not that Shinji could have known that (right up to after the first Ramiel sortie, 00 wasn't even considered as a battle Unit, so it was all about who would pilot 01), but it still would have ended badly. Such a story would of course have been one chapter and then "Suddenly, Third Impact - tang, tang everywhere!"

Meanwhile, in Rebuild, Shinji wavers back and forth the entire first movie, and then does say the "one more time" line to Misato. And next thing you know, Asuka arrives, and Mari is freed up, oh, and Rebuild has no strict pilot/unit link (both Asuka and Rei were possible test pilots for 03). So all in all, very convenient for my purposes, I admit

An interesting opening, I was somewhat surprised by the first meeting between Asuka/Rei here and how that took something of a nearly violent turn but Rei leaping to Shinji's defense did make sense.

Click to shrink...

I admit, I stole the general idea of "Rei is present at Asuka's introduction and defends Shinji" idea from Septimus' SIRP Quest (where it is the series variant with that twist). It does make sense for her. In canon, she had wandered off when Asuka leg-swept Shinji out of the blue. Here, she stayed due to the somewhat closer bond with Shinji his hospital visit has created.

In fact, you can see that as the initial Point of Divergence: Hospital visit -> that talk gives Shinji just an inch more self-assurance -> he manages to stand up to Misato and quits. Most changes in the fic should flow organically, one way or another, from that PoD.

Shinji deciding to leave does make sense, it mirrors the original series but takes it that one step further to him not actually changing his mind. Of course Gendo is keeping him close by because he knows Shinji can likely be willed/coerced into piloting just enough to achieve what he seems to want. Intrigued by what his plans are for Asuka as well.

Click to shrink...

Not just the original series. In Rebuild almost even more so, where he is constantly wavering back and forth. It really is a coin flip in Rebuild 1.0 whether Shinji stays or walks. Here the coin landed on the other side. And of course, Misato also has her own reasons for why she wants to keep Shinji around...

 

[Doctor Squared]

Story!Misato: "Why won't Shinji pilot, I need to figure out some way to get him back into the pilot's seat."

A flash of light engulfs the room and an older Miasto, hair tied back in a bun and clad in a long coat appears before her younger counterpart.

Rebuild!Misato: "I come from the future to warn you what will happen should Shinji Ikari continue to pilot Unit-01!"

Story!Misato: "But how will I atone for the poor life choices I've made as a result of my tragic past?!"

 

[Infernal Angel]

"We all face death here! Do you want special treatment for that?"

Click to shrink...

They only face death if the pilots die first.

 

[Zeratoth]

Well. I suppose this ought to go some fun places.
Patented Susano brand "FUN" (tm)

 

[Susano]

"My name is Mari Makinami – your new classmate!" The girl had long pigtails, stylish red glasses and a smug smile on her face. The whole class was whispering; she looked so much more grown up than most girls in the class – someone new and exciting. Her voice was cheery and uplifting. She clapped her hands together and rubbed them. "This will be so much fun! I will get to know each and every one of you!"

There was a gleam in her eyes. Shinji gulped.

Then he sighed quietly and looked towards the windows as the class started. A new classmate… With some luck, that would draw Kensuke's attention away. He'd rather not tell him the specifics of yesterday's battle. He was just glad that, for once, it hadn't been him fighting. He probably would have simply fallen into the sea and drowned. The very thought made Shinji shudder. He had come so close to death every battle… and it seemed nobody had ever cared about that. Misato had always just taken it for granted that he piloted, had expected it and never said anything. Every time, life had just gone on, as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't suffered, and he had always just been forced to fight the next angel. If he hadn't quit piloting, if he had hence fought that angel…

For several minutes, the world around him just didn't exist. The teacher's incessant droning was just a big blur. All he could think of was that thought – that he would have been dead now. And also other memories: Feeling helpless as the first angel mauled his head, the second angel looming over him, the third angel boiling him alive. He could have died at any of those moments, and that was all he could think of right now.

He began to breathe heavily and looked around the room. He didn't want to have those thoughts, wanted to get rid of them, but at the same time, everything else seemed so trivial – his classmates around him, what the teacher said, the classroom itself. There was whispering around him. He noticed that, and was annoyed by it. It just couldn't compare to his thoughts, couldn't penetrate them.

His gaze began to wander almost hastily… until it stopped when it fell on something red and blue. Rei was looking right at him from her seat. For a moment, Shinji just looked into her wide, red eyes.

"I will protect you."

That memory began to push aside the others. The first angel – Shinji saw Rei. The second angel – Shinji saw Rei. The third angel – the broad backside of Unit-00 in front of him, holding the shield that protected him from the deadly beam.

"Is there a problem?" Finally, the teacher seemed to have caught on. Hastily, Shinji turned around again to face forwards. But the sides of his lips curled up. The memories had passed.

The remainder of the class proceeded without incident. Uneasiness still simmered and seethed inside Shinji, and the sheer boredom of the class made it impossible for him to distract himself, but whenever things seemed to get too bad, he looked over to Rei. The girl was now looking out of the window, as she usually did in class, but it was still good to have the visual reassurance of her being around. He just wished lunch break would come quickly, so he could lose himself in trivial banter with Touji and Kensuke.

When said break did finally come, everyone seemed to be rushing over to Mari's desk. The girl sat on the desk, feet on her chair, and gave everyone their due amount of attention – a queen holding court. And the way at least the male half of the class was looking at her, plus some of the girls, it seemed she had just won quite a few willing vassals indeed. Most girls eventually kept away from her, scoffing at the attention she was getting, but that didn't seem to deter her. She seemed to have no problems keeping up with the boys, or even flirting with them, or even doing the same with her female admirers.

This is literally the first time she has talked to any of them! Shinji just stayed at his place. This all was too loud and unruly for him. He usually didn't want to have all too many people around him. Whenever that happened, it was exhausting.

Touji seemed to agree. "Such a commotion," he snarled, lazily leaning his chair back at the desk next to Shinji's. He was the only one in class who ever did this; everyone else was too scared by Hikari's very loud efforts at keeping order.

Kensuke, who stood between the two desks, grinned at him provocatively. "You're just henpecked." He glanced over demonstratively to Hikari, who stood in one corner of the room and looked at the ongoing scene with furrowed brows.

Touji crossed his arms, nearly lost his balance, and then let the chair fall on all four legs again. "I'm not! I just have some dignity, you know."

Shinji grinned faintly; it was good to do this normal stuff now. However, it was of course Kensuke who drove the point further on. "That's a funny way of saying you just don't want to piss Hikari off. Me..." He turned his attention forwards, to Mari's desk. "I have no problem ogling her!"

Touji scoffed. "And that's all you'll ever… ah…" He stopped.

Suddenly, Mari was looking in their direction. And she was standing up now, making her way through the gaggle of admirers around her and coming straight to the three boys.

"Hello there!" she greeted them. "So which of you is Shinji Ikari?"

The three friends looked at each other. What does she want with me? But before Shinji could even say anything, two fingers were pointed at him, with both Touji and Kensuke laughing dumbly.

"So you're the EVA pilot, aren't you?" she addressed him. Shinji furrowed his brows and looked away. There was nothing to say here. She clapped her hands together. "Well, it seems we're colleagues!"

Shinji jerked his head around. Next to him, Kensuke and Touji stood with their mouths agape.

"Colleagues?" Kensuke asked. Then his entire face lit up. "You're an EVA pilot?"

"The Third Child," Mari confirmed enthusiastically. "I just got here. I used to be stationed at the Arctic, but my unit didn't survive the one fight I had. I heard they're shuffling personnel around here, so I..."

"You already fought an angel?" Kensuke continued.

And suddenly, everyone was around her again, asking her questions, admiring her, seeking her attention. It was too much for Shinji. He simply stood up and trotted away. Touji looked as he departed, but didn't do anything, and he was probably the only one who even noticed.

Outside the class, Shinji stood leaning against the wall and wiped his hands over his face. If she's an EVA pilot, how can she be so cheery? It hurt how suddenly everyone took interest in her, yet at the same time he wouldn't know what to do with so much attention, anyway. He knew his feelings were irrational, but even so… They're wrong. They're all wrong, this 'Makinami' included. How can one revel in piloting? None of them knows what it's like, except for Makinami, and she should know better then.

He purposefully returned to class two minutes too late. This earned him an angry look from the teacher, something he hated and felt guilty about, but it made absolutely sure he wouldn't be forced to talk to Mari or watch all the attention she was getting. He just sat down at his desk and listened to the inescapable, dull lectures of the teacher.

When class ended, all Shinji wanted to do was to get away from this as quickly as possible, to go home right now – even if it meant having to deal with Misato there. So he quickly packed his school bag, ready to leave immediately.

"Hey, you okay?" Touji asked from his desk.

Shinji just nodded unenthusiastically and then left the room. He trotted through the school corridors all alone, once again reaffirmed in his belief that nobody understood him. Other students filled the corridors around him, all eager to go home or to club activities now, but Shinji hardly paid them any heed. He just got lost in the crowd.

He blinked when he went outside the building. Warm sunlight fell on his face, but this felt more like an annoyance than anything else. Shinji walked unenthusiastically towards the exit of the schoolyard, near the old shed…

... and suddenly stopped when he heard a sound in front of him and a female student uniform began filling his field of vision. His bowed head was looking right at a bountiful chest area.

"Hng!" Embarrassed, Shinji took a step back and looked up. Mari Makinami stood there - or rather, had just jumped there from the shed's roof. She grinned at him. "Maki-Makinami!"

"It's the sad puppy!" Mari exclaimed. "Ah, sorry. But I did want to talk to you."

"But… but…" Shinji stuttered and looked up to the shed's roof.

Mari shrugged. "Only way to escape the crowd." She waved about with her arms. "I'm a ninja!" Shinji just stared flatly at her. "Right then, shall we go?"

"Uh…" Shinji tried to answer, but before he'd even had the chance to formulate words, Mari had grabbed his upper arm and was dragging him along.

"I want to know more about my colleagues!" Mari exclaimed. "We should talk!"

Shinji shrugged and now walked of his own volition. "I suppose we can talk on our way home. Where do you live?"

"I was assigned quarters in the Geofront," Mari answered.

Shinji looked at her in surprise. "But there are no entrances to the Geofront in that direction!"

Mari folded her hands behind her head and looked up, appearing all innocent. "Well then, I guess I'll visit you."

Now Shinji was so shocked and he just stopped. "What?"

Mari came to a halt as well and looked back at him. She laughed. "Oh don't be so shocked! I'll come visit you. Don't worry, I'm a very easy to handle guest. You don't need to feed me or anything!"

"But…" Shinji tried to protest. A girl coming to my place? That seemed so improper!

"No buts!" Mari told him sternly, and again grabbed his arm.

After a while, Shinji was walking on the sidewalk, along his usual route, but now trotting behind Mari, who cheerfully walked in front. He feared people would look, but nobody did. He breathed out in relief.

Eventually, Mari, still looking ahead, asked, "You're not piloting anymore, are you?"

Shinji furrowed his brows and looked at the ground. "Not actively, anymore" he muttered. "I'm a reserve pilot now, officially."

Mari stopped and turned around to look at him. Her eyes were narrowed, as if in thought. "You quit? Why?"

"What do you mean, why?" Shinji answered, a new hardness in his voice. "Do you like piloting? Fighting!"

"Of course I do!" Mari exclaimed.

Now it was Shinji, who had just passed by Mari, who stopped. There are people who like piloting… "Why?"

"How can one not?" Mari asked, sounding all enthusiastic. "I've been in only one fight so far, but… it was like an escape for me. An escape from before when I just existed. I've never felt so alive as in that fight!" Both slowly began moving again. A silence fell on both. Shinji felt alienated. He didn't really want to hear how someone actually enjoyed piloting. It made him feel inadequate, like he should be the same but was just too pathetic or cowardly for that.

Finally, Mari spoke up again, "I saw the footage of your fight against the dildo angel." Shinji jerked his head around. He was sure it had to be red as a tomato. Mari chuckled. "Oh come on! You know which one I mean! The pink one. That's the one you really took on one to one, with no mysteries. That was kinda like my fight. You charging ahead, into the enemy… you must have felt that as well! That being alive!"

Shinji looked down on the pavement. All he had felt was dread. That angel looming over his fallen EVA, and then that last desperate charge. It had been a matter of seconds. He could have died then, but he hadn't cared: He had just wanted to end this dreadful encounter. He had feared so much that in the end he just hadn't possessed the energy anymore to care about his life.

He had been afraid. But there was no way he could say that now. What sort of man would he be? He felt hot and uneasy and awkward walking at Mari's side in silence like that, after she had just asked him a question, but he just couldn't answer it.

After a minute of that silence, Mari continued, "It's okay, you know. I get that this isn't for everyone. Most people would probably crap their pants. So I'm not looking down on you or anything, but… I just don't get it. If I never piloted or did anything like that, what's the point?"

"Before… before I came here," Shinji spoke up hesitantly, "I lived with a tutor. He saw to it that I was fed and clothed, but otherwise barely cared for me. I think I know what you mean by 'just existing'. But it wasn't so bad. I don't think I was happy, but it only got worse when I came here to pilot."

"So that's how you feel," Mari whispered. She shook her head. "I'm sorry, puppy. You should never have been made a pilot." With a quiet sound of resentment, Shinji looked away from her. She laughed. "I don't mean that in a bad way. Puppies are adorable, a good thing, and shouldn't be stuffed into entry-plugs!"

Now Shinji didn't know what to say or think. He was simply confused by that girl. Though he supposed that was better than being resentful. And after a while of silent walking he realized just what Mari had said: That she found it okay for him not to pilot. A faint smile came to his face.

How do you tell a girl 'You're weird but okay'? The answer of course was that one didn't. There was no way Shinji could say so to Mari. He had a sneaking suspicion the girl wouldn't even mind, but it would still be out of bounds for him to say so. So, the two walked the last metres to Misato's apartment bloc in silence – well, not actual silence, as Mari was quite vigorously humming some pop song, her upper body seesawing back and forth as she walked, but they didn't exchange words. Shinji, however, was content with that. The humming, interspersed with some actual lyrics, was enough. "With your feet on the air and your head on the ground, try this trick and spin it, yeah..." It was enough that Mari understood.

He swiped his keycard and opened the door to Misato's apartment with a heavy sigh. He still felt tense leading Mari into here, especially as the Lieutenant Colonel wasn't even here. As she had told him, she currently had a shift at NERV Headquarters. Shinji considered offering Mari something, and if only water, but he didn't know what to say, so he just walked through the kitchen with a dumb, embarrassed smile on his face… and then stopped cold. The corridor was packed full with boxes.

"What's going on," Shinji muttered.

His eyes widened when he saw someone peering out of the room in front of him… his room. It was the pilot of the new Evangelion unit. Asuka, her name was. She stretched her upper body out from his room and looked at him with a face full of disdain.

"Why are you still here, reserve pilot?" she asked him dismissively.

"What do you mean 'still here'?" Shinji asked. "What are you doing here?"

Now Asuka came out of his room and defiantly raised her chin. "I live here. You have been replaced, reserve pilot! You are no longer needed! The superior model has arrived. The model that won't just run away."

"Wh-what's that supposed to mean?" Shinji blurted out. Behind him, he could hear Mari giggling.

Asuka just grinned at him. It was a cruel, predatory grin. She seemed to enjoy her victory, or what she regarded as such. "I…"

"She lives here now," a female adult voice said casually from somewhere behind them. Everybody turned to see, behind all the boxes, Misato entering the corridor.

"But… why?" Shinji asked.

Misato gave him her broadest smile. "Don't worry, Shinji. You still live here as well."

"What?"

It's like we're synchronized! It was annoying. Once again, like back at the parking lot, Asuka and Shinji had spoken in unison, and were now looking at each other with faces full of suspicion.

"Oh that sounds like fun!" Mari commented.

"Let's face it, you two need to work on your social competence," Misato told them. "You need to learn how to live with others! So that's exactly what you'll be doing!"

"I most certainly won't!" Asuka protested. "I won't lower my standards to living together with second-rate have-beens!"

Shinji barely suppressed a wince at that. Meanwhile, Misato's face against showed one of her ever so sweetly smiles. "That's an order, Asuka." The redhead merely crossed her her arms, closed her eyes and raised her chin defiantly to look away. Misato turned to Shinji. "We'll prepare the storage room for you, Shinji. It will make for a comfy room, I'm sure."

Before Shinji could even form a coherent thought in reaction to that, a clear voice cut through the corridor. "Hey now!" Everyone turned to look at Mari. "You can't just shove Shinji into a storage room!" She nodded towards the other room. "That was Shinji's room!"

Misato smiled embarrassed and rubbed the back of her head. "Well yes, but…"

"It's mine now!" Asuka declared. "I'm a proper pilot after all."

At that, Shinji just looked down. Mari, however, just grinned at Asuka. "Ohhh, so the Princess wants the best room. And so the puppy is kicked out of it as soon as someone else arrives."

"It's..." Shinji began. He wanted to say 'It's alright', but the way Mari had phrased things… he had gotten used to 'puppy' by now, but he kinda was being kicked out as soon as someone else had arrived, wasn't he? So he couldn't finish the sentence.

"We'll already be hard pressed to get all of Asuka's stuff into the bigger room," Misato muttered.

Mari was still grinning. She took a step forward, right between Asuka and Shinji, and laid an arm each around both pilots' shoulders. Looking from one to the other, she commented in a teasing voice, "Of course, it's a pretty big room. If you both want it, you could just share it!"

Shinji began to stutter wildly and incessantly, while next to him, Asuka rambled and spouted protests, half of them in German, and Mari laughed heartily. Heat extended all over Shinji's face.

Finally, a heavy sigh by Misato cut through that noise. "There won't be any bedroom sharing. I'm sorry, Shinji, but as we are now three people here, somebody will have to take the small room."

Shinji balled his hands into fists and looked down.

---

After dinner, Shinji had the living room and the TV for himself. He sat on a pillow on the ground in front of it, and unenthusiastically zapped through the channels.

Nominally, it had been his turn to prepare dinner, but Misato had unexpectedly taken over for him, under constant protests that no no, that was fine and that they can celebrate their new roommate. That had kinda fallen flat: The meal had been spent in near-total silence. Afterwards, Misato had immediately retreated into her room. Shinji knew what that meant – she would already start drinking now, and despite her resilience built up over a long time have a killer hangover the next day.

Meanwhile, Asuka had made it pretty clear she wished no social contact at all – even during dinner, she had spent most attention on her handheld gaming device. Misato had shot some dark glances over to her, but hadn't actually commented anything. Afterwards, the redhead had simply taken the device to her room, slamming the door as well as that was possible with Japanese variants.

One would think that, having several dozens channels for himself, Shinji would find something interesting on TV. He already had watched a mindless action flick about a rogue cop turning his back on his department. It had been meh, and now, at the current hour, all channels were running trite, utterly boring nonsense. The soap operas were bad. The so-called 'gaming shows' that were all about embarrassing the candidates were worse. But worst of all were those talk shows where they worked out psychological issues.

"You need to turn that guilt into action. You can claim to be as well-meaning as you want, but if you nonetheless avoid the issue, don't correct what you have done, then it's worthless. Your self-pity won't help a..."

Shinji frowned, took the remote lying on the ground at his side, and turned the TV off. Slowly, he rose from the ground and went to… well, not to his room. To the storage room he had been shoved into. Even now, it was mostly filled with Asuka's boxes. There was only a small free space on the ground where his futon lay. There was no window, so as soon as he turned off the light it was pitch dark.

Sleep would not come.

The shadows of stacked boxes, dark in the darkness, loomed over him. Storage, nothing more – like he also was just an item to be stored away. A tool kept in reserve for when it was needed, and in the meanwhile it would gather dust in some half-forgotten old box. Maybe he would never have thought in such terms on his own. Maybe he would simply have accepted being stuck here, because, hey, surely Misato had her reasons, and it wasn't like he needed such a big room anyway. And truly, he didn't. But it was still as Mari had said – that he was cast aside as soon as somebody else had appeared, and that was rankling. That he was cast aside into a tiny windowless room supposed for storage was merely the icing on the cake.

Strange how he had needed that weird girl to point this out to him.

Normally, if both he and Asuka were treated equally, then she, as the newcomer, should have gotten the storage room. First come, first serve. That instead he was kicked out of the bigger room and she got it meant that she was seen as worthier. As better. And… Maybe she is. After all, she was an active pilot, whereas Shinji was only a reserve pilot, and even that only after Misato had suggested that solution. Just as Asuka had said, he had in fact run away.

Is that why I'm here in the dark? Because I'm just a reserve pilot, not the real deal? Because that does make me less than Asuka is?

Maybe that was all everyone ever saw in another being, Misato included – how useful they were to them. Shinji's father had only called him back when he had needed him, Touji and Kensuke had only become his friends after he had proven useful to them and saved their lives, and Misato judged him and Asuka according to how useful they were to her at NERV. That seemed to be how the world worked.

And that was why he had piloted EVA, in the hope that others would treat him nicely if he had use to them – in the desperate hope that his father would praise him when he saw him doing his work. However, that had never happened. Nobody had ever thanked him, not his father, not Misato, not Ritsuko or anyone else at NERV. Not even his teachers or classmates. They all had just taken his work for granted – his brushes with death, his injuries, his pain. Him going out and meeting giant alien abominations of which he hadn't even heard before. He was a pilot after all, wasn't he? So getting injured and traumatized was just part of his job, nothing to be praised for. In fact, he would get shouted at for screwing up, even though he might as well not have piloted at all.

So he had quit the job. And people apparently had already stopped to be pretend to be nice to him.

Shinji still couldn't shake the feeling that maybe he deserved it. If everyone had to be useful to others… And there were Asuka and Mari as well. There are people who enjoy piloting. It had been a startling revelation to him. Surely, it was only natural to avoid pain – so surely that was what everyone would be doing? It set his own misery into a new context. Maybe it wasn't piloting, it was him.

Asuka had taken an obvious pride in being a pilot and Mari had even said she enjoyed fighting. But if that was possible, that people not only piloted but enjoyed it, with what right was he complaining? Maybe he should leave the better rooms, the better treatment to such people. Maybe they were the better people then.

And yet…
"I could have piloted Unit 01. You don't need to."
"I'm sorry, puppy. You should never have been made a pilot. Puppies are adorable, a good thing, and shouldn't be stuffed into entry-plugs!"

Confused and realising he wouldn't find any sleep anyway, Shinji rose from the futon, stumbled to the door and turned on the light switch next to it. He just didn't know what to think, or what to do now. How he should feel about being shoved into this room, or what to think about the 'true' pilots. And thus, an almost perverse thought arose in him.

He wanted clearness, and where to better find clearness than in the brusque, the scoffing, the dismissive? So he took his mobile phone and began dialing a number he had never dialed before: His father's.

With a heavy sigh, he hit the send button and took the phone to his ear. And waited. And waited. And waited. Nobody took the call.

Shinji let the hand with the phone sink to his side and looked down.

"Figures," he muttered.

---

"Name's Shikinami. Asuka Langley-Shikinami. I go to school here now. And I hope you'll leave me alone. I'm an EVA pilot; I have better things to worry about than your petty concerns.

That was not the usual introduction of a new student to the class. Asuka's announcement left the entire class baffled. Jaws dropped throughout the room. Hikari stood up, but she was definitely not showing her usual self-assuredness.

"Uh… yes… ah, there is a table free there, Shikinami. Near the entrance, second row?"

"Whatever," Asuka replied and went to over there.

As she sat down, the boy on the table next to her smiled at her; she just flashed her teeth at him in response, and he withdrew again. She seemed satisfied with the result, crossed her arms and waited for class to begin. It was a gesture she maintained throughout the lesson, together with a facial expression that quite actively didn't hide how bored and disinterested she was.

Shinji couldn't help but to keep peeking over at her during class. It wasn't like that he ever had been one for social contacts and talking to people, but to show that utter lack of interest in anyone around one so openly… in some way, that was just wrong. But in another, Shinji could respect it after a weird fashion. With that attitude Asuka surely never had to suffer the usual petty egoism people sometimes could get up to. Clearly she wasn't somebody who would put up with being treated like… like…

...well, like he had been. And hence, that odd sort of quasi-respect for her attitude. He knew he would never be able to be like that. But maybe in a world where everyone just wanted others to be useful for them, such an attitude was helpful and healthy, and perhaps it was actually a failure to be unable to muster it. In truth, he probably wished he had Asuka's strength.

Then again, if Ayanami were like that, she would never have been as pleasant to be around as she has been. But on the other hand… maybe I'm the same? Maybe I just want Ayanami to be useful for me, no matter how she feels about it?

Shinji realized that was too depressed and lost in his morbid thoughts to actually follow the class. The fear of being rejected, of being shoved away, was a more immediate concern to him than the teacher's ramblings about pre-Second Impact Japan. Though at least those never resting thoughts kept him from traumatically reliving the sheer horror of the angel battles while he could do nothing but sit quietly.

Finally, the class was over, and lunch break started. As soon as the bell started, Asuka opened her bag and got her handheld gaming device out of it. She didn't even take part in the rising and bowing to the departing teacher. That earned her a scowl from Hikari, who nonetheless didn't miss a beat in the whole routine, and who also didn't comment – maybe she was cutting some slack to a newbie foreigner.

Having a redhead in class, an obvious exotic foreigner, drew much interest. People looked at Asuka, formed groups, whispered. After her introduction, nobody dared to come near to her, until finally one brave soul ventured it. Asuka didn't even look up from her game: When the poor boy came within reach of her legs, she simply kicked against his thighs, causing him to stumble back. The whispering in the class rose to new heights, but even now, Asuka didn't look up.

"Now now, Princess, that isn't very nice."

This finally caused Asuka to glance slightly above the edge of her device with a frown on her face. "What do you want, Third?" she asked Mari in an icy tone.

Her fellow pilot came positively sauntering to her table, drawing everyone's views to her. "Well, I realize we started off on the wrong foot. So..." Mari leaned forwards and slammed both her hands solidly on Asuka's table. Her voice became cheerful. "Let's be friends!"

Asuka lowered her device a bit more and gave the other pilot the flattest of looks. "Why?"

Mari straightened up again and waved with one hand, as if to cast aside that question. "It would be convenient, you know?"

Asuka scoffed. "With my luck, Misato might just order that." She raised her device again and added a mumbled, "But some orders I might just refuse."

Mari seemed surprised by the reaction. "Picky," she muttered. Then she just shrugged and turned around. She grinned at Shinji, who had watched the whole spectacle from the safety of a few tables away, and now walked over towards him. "Our princess is rather abrasive, isn't she?"

"Well, maybe she has the right idea," he muttered in response as she arrived at his table. Touji and Kensuke, who sat or stood next to him, looked astonished, as if it were a miracle that the other new girl had come over.

"Aww, don't be so gloomy, puppy!" Mari exclaimed. That got Touji and Kensuke out of their amazement. They began to snicker. Shinji smiled very lopsidedly. And Mari furrowed her brows and shook her head. "They really should never have shoved you into an entry-plug."

"Hey now!" Kensuke protested, but Mari ignored him.

Immediately, Shinji looked down on his table. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"What? Don't be!" Mari told him. "You're free now, aren't you?"

"Well, I still need to go to synch-tests," Shinji answered very quietly. "But..." A faint smile began to appear on his still bowed head. "I suppose so."

"Of course he would need to go to the synch-tests!" Kensuke protested again. "Only a well prepared pilot..."

Mari looked briefly up at him. "Hush, Noob," she merely said, and then turned her attention back to Shinji. "Ah yes, there's that. Well, that's not so bad, is it? We'll meet there. We can talk during the tests!"

"Ah… Ritsuko doesn't like…" Shinji began.

But Mari merely waved her hand, swatting the argument aside. "It makes reading the stats more complicated for her, but if they let us sit us one or two hours in LCL with nothing for us to do… they can go that extra mile, don't you think?" Shinji would never have thought of matters in that way on his own, but he had to admit the logic was compelling. He nodded and that, as he realized, rather dumbly. "See, things won't be so bad as a reserve pilot."

"I suppose..." Shinji started anew.

"Reserve pilot?" Kensuke butted in once again. Deja vu…

Mari furrowed her brows and looked at the boy again. "Didn't I tell you to..."

But this time, Kensuke didn't regard her. "You're not in active service anymore?"

"Ah..." Shinji felt trapped. He had no idea what to answer. Kensuke's infatuation with mecha in general and EVAs in particular had always been somewhat embarrassing or even off-putting to him, but it wasn't like the boy was all about just that. As long as Kensuke could keep his fanboyism in check, he was a good friend. But now… "Well, I… I…"

"You – you quit!" Kensuke concluded. It sounded utterly disbelieving. Shinji didn't answer, and Mari didn't comment. There was silence for a time. Finally, Kensuke's voice turned hostile and accusatory, every word like a whip strike. "You had this chance! Do you know what I would have given for that?"

There was so much to answer here – that Shini had never asked for this 'chance', that he would have given everything for a world in which nobody had ever asked him to pilot, that he would have gladly given that 'chance' to Kensuke and would even have thanked the boy for it, that for him it had been pain and nothing else. Kensuke didn't know what it was like – the pain, the fear, the knowledge that the next fight would come. Despite all this, he was an EVA fanboy. So what was there that Shinji could have said?

In the end, nobody knows what it's like. Except Mari and she… She liked piloting, so she was just as unrelatable to him. He turned his head away from Kensuke, remaining stubbornly silent even as his classmate waited for an answer, no doubt expecting him to justify himself.

So it was Mari who instead spoke up for his sake. "Sorry, Noob, that isn't how it works. You can't just choose to be able to pilot, or not be able to pilot. It doesn't work by just volunteering." Her voice changed. That made Shinji look up at her. It was suddenly so unlike her cheery, bubbly demeanour before – deep, serious, even hollow. "Trust me. I know."

"As do I!" Kensuke exclaimed. Touji, sitting on his chair by his side, became visibly uncomfortable by the argument. "Trust me, I do. I know I'll never… but Shinji could have! He had the chance! And he just… throws it away! Why, Shinji?"

Shinji's hands grabbed the edge of his desk, hard. Still looking down, he pushed his answer out through gritted teeth, speaking in a low and quiet staccato voice. "Because it's pain! You have no idea what it's like! How much it hurts! How terrifying it is! And you all just pretended everything was normal!"

"Of course it isn't easy!" Kensuke argued now. "But you go through those challenges! With determination! Willpower! Grit! That's how it's supposed to be. Not… not giving up!"

"No idea!" Shinji shouted now.

The entire class was looking now. There was an uncomfortable silence in the room.

While Mari just shook her head, Touji laid a hand on Kensuke's arm. "I think you should better stop now..."

But for Shinji it had become too much. Unable to face everybody staring at him and unable to face Kensuke's accusations, he stood up and ran out of the classroom.

He didn't pay much attention to just where he ran at first. Just along the corridor, up some stairs, it didn't matter, as long as it was just away from the classroom – away from his embarrassment, his problem, his trouble. He was running away yet again, just as he had with the EVA. Finally, one location entered his mind, a location he suddenly felt drawn to – somewhere where he could literally be above it all, away from all the goings on of the school while still remaining there. He went up to the roof.

The wind blew into his face hard when he exited the door leading to it. He kept standing on the spot for a long while, breathing haggardly. He didn't even regard the vista around him, the view over the city, the clear blue sky. He simply sat down, leaning against the small wall that surrounded the roof area, and curled up around his raised knees. With his right fist, he wiped away some tears from his eyes that he hadn't even realized had formed. He sniffled… and hated himself for how that sounded. He hated everything about this – how he couldn't do anything about the situation, how he couldn't defend himself, but most of all how weak and pathetic he was. He didn't blame Kensuke; after all he truly was that wretched. He had in fact run away, after. And so he blamed himself.

He did not know how long he just sat there, his face pressed against his knees so that he didn't need to see the world outside, but when he briefly did glance up, his eyes caught a hint of pale alabaster. Groggily, hesitantly, he raised his head a bit, just enough to see Rei standing in front of him and looking down at him.

"Makinami said I should go after you," she explained, without prelude, in her soft, monotone voice. "I don't know why."

Makinami… Shinji wondered why that strange girl could have said something like that. He wouldn't have thought of it. Yet, it was true that Rei's presence was reassuring.

"Thank you," he whispered, almost hoarsely. That might have been it, but after all that happened, he felt too weak to bother with pretenses, so after a while he added, "I'm glad you're here."

Rei apparently let that sink in. Finally, she simply asked, "Why?"

With a sad smile on his face, Shinji lowered his knees and leaned his back against the wall. "Because, when you're around, I feel…" He struggled a second for the right word. "...safe. It's like..." He smiled again, abashedly now, looking down between his legs on the ground. "You were ready to pilot for me. You don't attack me. And you told me you'd protect me."

"Oh," was all Rei could answer. "I meant…" There was a long pause. "I will."

Shinji angled one of his knees again. "But… you shouldn't." He paused. Rei didn't comment. Wind blew through her hair. "Maybe that's just how you're useful to me, and hence what I simply expect of you. But that's wrong."

"What do you mean?" Rei asked.

"You protecting me," Shinji explained. "You're doing that, but… I can't protect you. Not any longer. I've run away from the EVA. I have left it entirely to you and the others."

"You blame yourself for that," Rei stated. It wasn't a question.

"Of course!" Shinji confirmed emphatically. "I'm… I'm…" He shook his head.

"Do you also blame Suzuhara? Or the class representative?" Rei asked. Shinji just looked at her incredulously and then slightly shook her head, unsure what she meant. Finally, she explained, "They also don't pilot EVA."

"Well they couldn't!" Shinji exclaimed.

"Neither can you," Rei told him. "You can't return into active service. There are three Evangelion units, and three active pilots. Whether you pilot or not makes no difference."

Hearing it like that still made Shinji wince, even though he could guess how Rei meant it. Besides… He curled up again, and spoke against his knees. "Doesn't matter. I ran away."

"You are free to do so," Rei simply told him.

"And what about you?" Shinji asked her. When there was no answer, he slowly opened up the shell he had formed around himself with his body, and got to his feet again. He looked Rei right in the face. "I could leave because there are enough pilots around. But that means you can't leave anymore. I did so, and hence robbed you of that choice. I condemned you, and also Makinami and Shikinami, to piloting."

Rei looked right back at him, those enigmatic red eyes showing no sign of hesitation. "I don't mind."

Shinji didn't know how to answer to that. She 'didn't mind'? That still felt like he was using her. Finally, he muttered, "I don't deserve this."

"Not everyone needs to pilot," Rei told him. "Suzuhara doesn't. The class rep doesn't. Aida doesn't. You provided me with another bond to the world besides piloting. I will pilot so that you don't have to."

Shinji opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say. Rei spoke as if he had done some great good.

What is it that she thinks I have done?

---

Dimmed light fell through always dusty curtains into a bleak, unpanelled room. The last time they had been opened had been over a year ago. The stark brightness of the world, the eternal reminder an outside world forever closed off to the room's occupant, never entered here in full. The room was a mirror of that occupant's soul.

And for years, that occupant, Rei, had had no problems with that. The room in the Geofront where she had grown up; her cramped, dirty apartment in which she was living now – it had always been sufficient. Always straight to the point, always free of the chaos of a world she never fully got, always nothing more than her sentiments, with no baubles or gewgaw. She felt at home in rooms such as this, industrial, undecorated and stark as they were. She had never known anything else, and she had never considered that she might want something else.

She still wasn't sure she did. But those feelings, as if deep down in her stomach, when she was around Shinji, when he had told her she was important to him, that he valued her presence, those were new. They had crashed right into her so far structured and regulated life, an alien object in it – and yet, they were something good. She wanted to feel those emotions. With Shinji around, she wanted to feel, period.

Certainly, it was worth a try. Maybe she could feel even more of that feeling, if…

She looked at the pills in her hand. She knew the medicines were useful. Her body had special needs, and Ritsuko was always examining it closely – uncomfortably closely at times, but that meant the faux-blonde scientist certainly knew what she was doing. And sometimes, it was a blessing how dulled down at times Rei's feelings were.

Sometimes. But with Shinji around, it was also a curse. She laid the pills down on the table again and turned to go. It was time to walk to school.

The streets of Tokyo-3 just passed by her. On some level she wasn't consciously aware of them. In fact, she wasn't perceptive of most things she didn't directly focus on. To her, a walk of five minutes was no different than a walk of five hours; time didn't exist for her unless she was on some task. To her subjective mind, she simply arrived at school; she might as well have teleported.

Going up the stairs, through the school corridors, to the class room, that was just as much unthinking rote. The only reason she caught some of it at all was that she knew she was later than her unusual time; normally she would without fail be the first student to arrive, or the second after the class rep. Now that she wasn't, people kept looking at her; such a deviation from routine from her of all people was something to gossip about.

"Good Morning."

Rei's head turned almost automatically. That subdued voice cut through the mist that surrounded her senses, that mist that seemed to forever separate her from the world. It was an absurd reaction; it was just Shinji entering the class room, and yet his presence the only thing besides piloting that seemed to be able to rupture her from the usual greyness of her life, and that made it valuable, even when he wasn't talking directly to her. And she did want more of that feeling.

It was odd to have nothing to do, and yet have time pass by second by second. The teacher hadn't arrived yet, class hadn't started yet, but something kept Rei's attention. She tried to not always look at Shinji. He already seemed so overburdened with the expectations people put in him, and so he didn't need her to do the same. It was a good thing that now he didn't have to pilot anymore. His duty had been necessary, but that necessity had ended, and he deserved freedom from it. It was a freedom she could never have; she was under no illusion there; but that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy it.

Only when class started did Rei drift off… and during these times, that seemed to be true for most of her classmates as well. School was irrelevant. All the education they were receiving was in the end meaningless, for they would not get to enjoy its fruits anymore. Even so, Rei tried her best to keep up with the curriculum, reading everything and doing every piece of homework. After all, that was a duty assigned to her.

But that just meant that actual class was particularly unimportant. She didn't need it in order to fulfill her assigned duty. Books had proven to be a much more competent transmitter of knowledge than the teacher.

Without even fully consciously realizing it, Rei stood up, bowed, and sat down again. Class was over and lunch break had started.

Rei just sat at her table and looked out of the window. Soon this break would be over and the next class would begin. She was completely attuned to this routine. Outside, she saw birds on a tree's crown near the window. Ignorant beings, but also free beings. Their mundane activities always interested her much more than what the teacher had to say, or what the class talked about.

Someone cleared their throat. Rei turned around. Her eyes opened a bit when she saw Shinji standing right at her desk. His cheeks were strangely red.

"I, uh… wanted to thank you for yesterday," he explained. His speech was oddly hasty. "And, uh, I… I noticed you never have lunch with you, so… ah… wellImadeyoualunchbox." He simply stretched out his arm and held such a box in her direction.

Carefully, Rei picked it from his hands, laid it on the table and opened it. "Oh..." She really didn't kow what else to say. "That's…" She couldn't even say what it was. She looked down at the table, and now she felt heat on her own cheeks as well. "Thank you, Ikari," she whispered.

She sat there, he stood there, both with slight red in their faces but smiling, and neither said something.

Only when Shinji began looking visibly uncomfortable did Rei notice the whispering that went all through the class. And then a louder, more aggressive sound – Asuka scoffing. As with everything else, the German pilot made no secret about how she felt, looking at the scene with crossed arms and contempt in her face.

Shinji smiled lopsidedly, told Rei "I hope you'll enjoy the box", and then went back to his table. He got something out of his box, and then went over to Asuka. The redhaired girl began looking defensive as he approached. She didn't say anything, but "And what do you want?" was basically written on her face.

"I, ah, I made something for you as well, Shikinami," Shinji told her. "I mean… whatever the circumstances, we are flatmates now, aren't we? And you do pilot. That's that's brave of you. Uh..." He seemed to be losing his trail of thought. Asuka still looked unimpressive, so Shinji was growing visibly uncomfortable. Whereas he only had a faint blush before, now, his head began looking like a tomato. "Well… I made you a lunchbox as well." He simply placed it on the table.

Asuka nearly lost the balance on her chair. She looked at that box with surprise, than at Shinji, then at the box again. Then her eyes arrowed with suspicion. "A lunch box. For me. Why? You have no reason to like me, Fourth."

Shinji shrugged. "Neither you nor me chose our situation."

"I… uh… I…" Asuka stuttered. Then she harrumphed again. "Thanks, Fourth. But don't think this will mean anything."

"Mean what, Princess?" Mari shouted from across the room. "We all know what you're thinking."

The class began to chuckle openly. Asuka, her face now distorted with anger, slammed a fist on her table and protested, "Get your mind out of the..."

However, Mari was way louder than her. "Way to go, puppy! Woo the princess!"

Wooing… Rei did not like the new strange feeling she was suddenly having.

 

[Dealer]

Man, this Shinji is just addicted to the feeling of wallowing in self-pity.

That and bitching out other people behind their backs when they don't offer him enough kindness, kindness he doesn't believe in anyway.

 

[Timerider]

Okay I really like this this.
Shinji's thought process makes a lot of sense when you consider that his only perception of self-worth came from piloting Eva. Now that he's quit, all that self-loathing is hitting him full-force.
Also enjoyed Mari explaining why Shinji should not have been a pilot. And the irony of Asuka rejecting Mari's friendship for the same reason Rei rejected hers is priceless.
If there was any bit of scolding advice I would give to Shinji, it would be:
DO NOT FEED THE HAREM! It may seem like innocent consideration to you, but these girls are like sharks. When they smell affection, they bite and latch on.

 

[Infernal Angel]

And people apparently had already stopped to be pretend to be nice to him.

Click to shrink...

And people already sucked at pretending as it was.

Mari calling it the "dildo angel" is very Mari.

I did not even notice how you slipped in "Where is my mind" until it randomly boomeranged me later in the reading.

I liked your remix of the Asuka meets Rei scene from series, this time with Mari and Shikinami.

Trust me, I do. I know I'll never… but Shinji could have! He had the chance! And he just… throws it away! Why, Shinji?"

Click to shrink...

You know nothing, Kesuke Aida.

 

[Susano]

Man, this Shinji is just addicted to the feeling of wallowing in self-pity.

Click to shrink...

Well, to be fair, he's doing something about his situation, isn't he? He wasn't even getting a kind word out of piloting, despite being boiled alive for the sake of defending the world, so of course the whole issue depresses him... and so he quit.

And the irony of Asuka rejecting Mari's friendship for the same reason Rei rejected hers is priceless.

Click to shrink...

I liked your remix of the Asuka meets Rei scene from series, this time with Mari and Shikinami.

Click to shrink...

While many consider this base heresy, I really do like Shikinami. The series!Rei answer fits to her in Rebuild, while Mari has taken the role as the token extrovert.

If there was any bit of scolding advice I would give to Shinji, it would be:
DO NOT FEED THE HAREM! It may seem like innocent consideration to you, but these girls are like sharks. When they smell affection, they bite and latch on.

Click to shrink...

I did not even notice how you slipped in "Where is my mind" until it randomly boomeranged me later in the reading.

Click to shrink...

The Placebo version is better, but than Placebo is OP

 

[Doctor Squared]

If there was any bit of scolding advice I would give to Shinji, it would be:
DO NOT FEED THE HAREM! It may seem like innocent consideration to you, but these girls are like sharks. When they smell affection, they bite and latch on.

Click to shrink...

Oh, Mari's not joining a hypothetical Shinji harem. He's joining Mari's harem, which probably going to include everyone just because she can.

 

[Susano]

Oh, Mari's not joining a hypothetical Shinji harem. He's joining Mari's harem, which probably going to include everyone just because she can.

Click to shrink...

Asuka, waving a palm leaf at Mari: "Why am I doing this again, Four-Eyes?"
Rei, doing the same next to her: "Because you love her back-rubs."
Asuka: *growling, then sighing* "I do love her back-rubs."

 

[Doctor Squared]

Asuka, waving a palm leaf at Mari: "Why am I doing this again, Four-Eyes?"
Rei, doing the same next to her: "Because you love her back-rubs."
Asuka: *growling, then sighing* "I do love her back-rubs."

Click to shrink...

Asuka: "We're not going to have to do it with you are we?"

Mari: "Oh no, I just like collecting people kinda like how Wannabe collects figures of his waifus."

Kensuke: "HEY!"

 

[Alex]

I read the first chapter and... I am not going to lie in places it was quite hard to get through. Not because it was bad, Susano is a proficient writer of prose when he puts his mind to it. The issue comes from myself. Its hard... perhaps impossible given my own issues and how deeply the series affected me at a point in my life when I needed it, to not see it as a message of hope. Specifically hope against the weight and darkness of depression, within this context and my own perception it is hard for me to see something like this with this premise and not feel something deeply troubling. Given the framework above I don't think I can see Shinji running away as something other then analogous to suicide. indeed many of his inner thoughts in the chapter are things that I think myself when I am struggling with thoughts of ending my life (Its all just pain, I feel trapped and constricted, no one understands or loves me, its just going to get worse and worse) I fully admit my own bias but it is impossible for me to fully divorce myself from something like this.

 

[Timerider]

I read the first chapter and... I am not going to lie in places it was quite hard to get through. Not because it was bad, Susano is a proficient writer of prose when he puts his mind to it. The issue comes from myself. Its hard... perhaps impossible given my own issues and how deeply the series affected me at a point in my life when I needed it, to not see it as a message of hope. Specifically hope against the weight and darkness of depression, within this context and my own perception it is hard for me to see something like this with this premise and not feel something deeply troubling. Given the framework above I don't think I can see Shinji running away as something other then analogous to suicide. indeed many of his inner thoughts in the chapter are things that I think myself when I am struggling with thoughts of ending my life (Its all just pain, I feel trapped and constricted, no one understands or loves me, its just going to get worse and worse) I fully admit my own bias but it is impossible for me to fully divorce myself from something like this.

Click to shrink...

Since SV only allows one rating, assume that I tried to brake the servers flooding your comment with hugs.

 

[Susano]

Maybe I shouldn't have stayed as reserve pilot…

But Shinji wasn't actually feeling sad or melancholic, just grumpy. It was Saturday morning, and yet he still had needed to wake up early because NERV just had to schedule a synch-test at such a time. At least living with my tutor I had a room with windows…

Actually, the last few days had gone better than he would have predicted when Asuka had first moved in. It was true that she was very convinced of her own superiority, and thus mostly communicated by scoffing at other people. However, it turned out that she mostly wanted to be left alone; pretty much the same as Shinj himself, actually. So if she wasn't in the bathroom or eating dinner, she would always be in her room, and hence not bother anyone. In fact, he had been able to have some conversations with her at the dinner table…

...and she had immediately taken to calling him just 'Shinji'. Without honorifics. And not even blinked an eye when he, hesitantly, returned that address. That was just weird to Shinji. But overall, it seemed it wasn't so bad to have an interesting flatmate around. And especially since it was, ah… rather pleasant to look at that specific flatmate, who looked so different from all the other students in school, and who was so lively and energetic. Yes, on the visual level at least, it was definitely an improvement, even though Shinji felt guilty mentally admitting that.

So currently, Shinji didn't really have much reason to mope around. In fact, being grumpy was even kinda liberating: There were no big crises, just a very mundane grumbling about having to get up early on a Saturday morning. That mundaness was indeed actually kinda nice.

"Are you quite finished in there?"

Shinji sighed. On the other hand, having that new flatmate also meant being constantly besieged in the bathroom in the morning.

He hadn't even known himself that he could be so spiteful and petty, but when he opened the bathroom door, he did so extra slowly. Outside, Asuka was already waiting with crossed arms and angry scowl on her face – that was to say, Asuka was waiting.

"What took you so long?" she complained. "Were you using your time there to do perverted things?"

"To… what?" Shinji exclaimed. He felt totally overwhelmed by that question, and began stuttering. "I… I don't… I'd never…"

"Well, I sure hope you never!" Asuka pushed on. "It's bad enough that you kept an Evangelion pilot waiting! Someone you'll need at top form when the next angel comes!"

"I know," Shinji responded. It came through clenched teeth as he was looking down. This was not a topic he liked to be reminded of. The problem was that Asuka was right – pilots like her did deserve a special treatment for that reason, whereas he had run away.

Asuka rose her chin defiantly and scoffed. "Well, better take that to… hey wait! No! It's my turn! Misato!"

While Asuka had still postured and talked, their guardian had rushed past them, past the bathroom door and right into the bathroom. Said door was now locked again,

"Scheiße!" Asuka cursed. "Misato! Get out of there!"

"Sorry!" Misato trilled from inside the room. "But I need to get to NERV before the synchtest begins! I need to hurry!"

"And that comes to your mind now?" Asuka protested.

"Can I borrow your deodorant, Asuka?" Misato shouted through the door.

"No you absolutely may not!" Asuka shouted back.

A short while later, a spraying sound could be heard. Angry Asuka noises followed.

"Gott verdammt nocheinmal, diese Frau… gahhh!" Asuka turned her head to Shinji. The boy almost took a step back when furious eyes glared at him. "The worst part may not even be having to live with you, but with her! What is she thinking?"

"Well, uh, she does need to get to NERV earlier than we do..." Shinji meekly began to defend their guardian.

"Then maybe she should have gotten up earlier!" Asuka exclaimed. Shinji merely gave her a flat look. "...that this is unrealistic is exactly the problem you know! She could have woken up two hours earlier."

"She probably still was in the headaches and nausea phase back then," Shinji muttered. "You could get her up before 8, but you really don't want to on weekends."

"Yes I know, I lived with her in Germany," Asuka ranted. "Urgh, she is still like that? Do her typical dinners still consist of beer and crackers and even more beer?"

Almost against his wishes, an amused smile began to show on Shinji's face. "More like ready made curry. Poured into ready made rice." He shuddered at the memory, and in added in a mutter, "I never understood why she doesn't simply use beer sauce."

That made Asuka laugh out loud. "At least she doesn't drive under the influence. Though you would never be able to tell from her driving style."

Shinji's smile got broader, though of course it cost him some effort to be as bold as Asuka. "That… uh, it at least means she… it will take longer until she gets lost?"

"I can hear you two, you know?" Misato shouted from the bathroom.

Shinji winced, but Asuka was unperturbed. "Yes, we do know! How the hell did you end up our guardian anyway?"

There was no response from the bathroom. OUR guardian… It was factually true, of course. Misato had assumed guardianship of Asuka from Mr Kaji, that rather odd, unshaven employee from NERV Europe who had arrived at the same time as Asuka. What a weird little 'family'…

"Well, it seems like we're stuck with her," Shinji offered with an awkward smile.

Asuka harrumphed. "It does. And that's how they treat pilots." She paused, and worked her mouth for a bit. "Or reserve pilots. Amateurs' club."

Shinji looked sideways. "That's true, actually…" He shook his head. "There are worse people around than Misato, though. I guess… I guess it isn't her fault. I think running a household, having wards, she's just not made for such tasks. She tries, but it isn't like NERV is providing any support in this."

"Well, she..." Asuka began forcefully, but then her demeanour changed, to almost pensive. "I wonder if she ever asked for or requested aid…" She scoffed again. "Sure doesn't seem like her."

Shinji smiled lopsidedly. "No, it doesn't. I suppose it can't be helped. We have to make the best out of the situation."

Another scoff. "How passive of you. I hope you'll at least try harder at the synch-test." This caused an uncomfortable silence between the two. Synch-tests. Still a duty we share. "It's bad enough that we'll have the Commander's pet and Miss Crazyskirt there."

Shinji chuckled. He didn't like how Asuka referred to Rei, but as for Mari… well, it was hard to argue with that name. "She kinda is, isn't she? Mari, I mean. In a good way, though."

"Oh of course you would say so, perv!" Asuka accused him and crossed her arms.

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean!" Shinji protested.

"The way she dotes on you," Asuka explained, then laughed sharply. "Mari and Rei both. I guess you really are a momma's boy, going for the..." She narowed her eyes and grinned viciously "...maternally looking type."

"I didn't… I didn't ask her to dote on me or anything!" Shinji protested, and then quickly added "If… If you can even call it that." He closed his eyes, crossed his arms, looked away and added in a sullen voice, "She's just being friendly, you know. You could try that as well."

"People aren't worth friendliness," Asuka whispered. It sounded suprisingly serious and aggressive, which shattered the somewhat goofy atmosphere of their previous argument.

Another awkward silence followed. Eventually, Shinji desperately tried to break it. "I do wonder what's up with her, though. Why she is so… odd. I mean, she is Japanese, right? Just being stationed on some NERV base for some years can't have changed her that much?"

"And contrary to what you Japanese think not every foreigner is a weirdo!" Asuka protested. Shinji just looked at her flatly, but thought it wiser not to say anything. "Anyway, yeah. Something's up with her, and something's up with Rei. I wonder wh… no, actually I don't, as long as they just leave me alone. I can do my job alone, after all."

Shinji tried a shaky smile. "I'm sure you can."

"So don't go off the deep end as well, you hear?" Asuka told him. "You'll be the only other sane at the synch-test." She shook her head. "Madness. The only other sane one, and it's the reserve pilot – the little puppy."

Shinji wanted to say something but then just smiled lopsidedly.

"What? What is it?" Asuka demanded to know.

But Shinji just shook his head. There was no way he could explain what had just gone through his mind. Just my luck. I get my weird little family… sibling rivalry included. But in a way, it was reassuring. After all, he just needed to listen to Touji to know how aggressive even little sisters could be. And Asuka was half a year older than him. Maybe I should see her outbursts in that light…

---

"That was a bit unusual, wouldn't you say, Maya?"

The addressed person turned around in her office chair and looked at her sempai. "What do you mean? I've read the personnel file of that Asuka. It was clear she would be a little brat."

Ritsuko gave her a faint smile. "Not Asuka. Rei. She greeted when she came in for the briefing. 'Good Morning'." She chuckled lightly. "She has never done that before. And then the way she looked at Shinji…"

Over the years, Ritsuko had always tried to keep Rei's medication doses as low as possible. However, that wasn't easy. The blue-haired girl was artificially made, and required constant maintenance. Eventually, she herself had requested a dosage that was had kept her constantly numb. Which, given her life and her treatment, was more than understandable.

A treatment, a life in hell, I'm contributing to…

Without the meds, Rei could maybe live, though even that wasn't fully certain, seeing as something like her had never existed before… but would she be able to pilot, to do her part in the great work? The great work without which she would never have been created in the first place. So Ritsuko probably would have to talk with her about the meds… but at the same time, she couldn't help but enjoy seeing her have a respite. If in this state Rei could synch well, maybe at least the dosages could in fact be significantly reduced…

And of course there was nothing that could come out of any crush on Shinji, not given the girl's background, but it was kinda nice to see her just having such feelings at all. Every schoolgirl should have a schoolgirl's crush, or several, at some point.

"I didn't notice, but then I don't really care for puppy love stories," Maya stated.

Ritsuko smiled faintly. "So I take it your date last night didn't really go well."

Maya sighed, turned her office chair around again and picked up her cigarette from the ash tray. "You know me too well, sempai."

Ritsuko walked up to her, laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. "You're bound to find a fitting, attractive girl eventually. If you don't work yourself to death here first, that is."

Maya laughed sharply. "Pot, kettle. Well, let's start today's work then, shall we?"

The pilots soon arrived at their test pods and entered them, though not without some commotion. Ritsuko could see the Third Child, Mari, joking and laughing about something, which caused Asuka to angrily shout something at her – which only caused Mari to laugh even more. Ritsuko smiled lopsidedly at the sight.

"Children..." Maya scoffed.

"They are, you know," Ritsuko reminded her softly.

Maya sighed. "I know. It's just… They're also pilots of megaton war machines. Some discipline could be expected."

Ritsuko shook her head. "If it weren't for the defense of the world, none of this could be expected of them."

That was what she always clinged to. The defence of the world. That justified everything she did, right? Rei's drugs, chaining living gods in NERV's basements, not telling the kids what it was they were piloting, endangering them just by letting them near the units, nevermind the fights… all for the defense of the world.

"You know, sempai…" Maya said pensively. She paused, and it took a while for her to express her thoughts. "You always seem to care too much about those things. That doesn't fit in our world anymore. Maybe that is why you can't find a fitting, attractive man."

"Very possible," Ritsuko muttered. "Very possible."

"Second Child ready," Asuka reported over the comms.

"Yeah, let's start. This will involve enough waiting as is," Mari added.

"Be more professional!" Asuka hissed. Meanwhile, Shinji and Rei were quiet. Ritsuko could see on the screens that both already had their eyes closed.

She didn't envy the Children all these tests. It wasn't a hard task, but she could imagine it was a tedious, bothersome one. Just laying in LCL for an hour, sometimes even two, doing nothing, not being allowed to do anything… with the mandate being to have a clear mind and thus even think of nothing…

Synch-tests had to be boredom incarnated.

Ritsuko blinked when suddenly a pop-song was hummed through the loudspeakers.

"Seriously, Third?" Asuka hissed from her test tube, but then immediately tried to return to an eyes closed state of concentration.

Mari continued her humming, her eyes closed as well.

"Uhm, Mari..." Ritsuko tried.

"What?" the girl defended herself. "The European scientists at my base eventually learned to cope with that!"

"It was a Russo-European base, wasn't it?" Asuka asked.

"As for the Russian scientists..." Mari answered. Ritsuko could see a smug smile forming on the girl's face on the monitor. "I did learn a lot of Russian cusswords during my time."

Shinji began to chuckle at that, a sound very much unlike him.

"I'll see what can I do about copying the methods from your old base, Mari," Ritsuko promised her. "For now I'm afraid we'll have to stick to protocol."

Mari sighed exaggeratedly. And then she did keep quiet… for about fifteen minutes. On the monitor, Ritsuko could see how she became ever more agitated, moving her arms, her legs… strangely, this did not seem to affect her synch-rate. Ritsuko furrowed her brows. That was odd. Something didn't add up with the test data from that gi…

"Hey, Doc, am I still not allowed to sing?"

Ritsuko, violently torn from her own concentration, sighed, looked up from the terminal, and rubbed the ridge of her nose. "Yes, I'm afraid so."

"If I'm getting any more bored, I'll have to play I Spy With My Little Eye," Mari threatened. "And none of us wants that. I spy with my little eye… something orange."

Again, Shinji chuckled. Asuka sighed in a very dramatic fashion. Rei answered in her usual flat voice, "The LCL".

"Ah..." That seemed to have caught Mari flat-fooded, who now didn't know ho react. Shinji actually laughed, and so did Asuka, by the sound of it almost against her will.

"Everyone knows so, Ayanami," Shinji explained softly and patiently. "That's the joke."

Maya muted her microphone and turned to Ritsuko. "Okay. Now I see what you mean. And I think it may have just given me diabetes. Urgh." She turned around and activated the microphone again.

Meanwhile, Mari was giggling. Or maybe it was heavy breathing. Actually, it was quite unclear what sounds the girl was making, but it didn't sound very… healthy. Or sane?

"Can I please have my audio connection to those fools muted? Please?" Asuka pleaded now. "Nicht mal in Synchtests kriegt man mehr seine Ruhe..." [1]

Ritsuko sighed, and hit a button to do just that. And while she was at it, she also muted the audio connection from Asuka's test tube to the Pribnow Box. You're not the only one wanting their quiet during synchtests, Asuka.

She looked at the terminal again… and did a double take. The read-outs were impossible. Absolutely impossible.

"Look at that!" she urged Maya. Her assistant wheeled her office chair over… and did a double take herself when she arrived.

"How… I've never seen that value so high," she commented. "Or even only half as high"

Ritsuko looked up again, now through the glass front of the Pribnow Box. "How is she not…" She shook her head. "Something isn't adding up."

After some minutes, Mari began to complain again. "Gah. Boooring!" And when there was no reaction. "Ohuiye! Nahuya mne eto nado, suka? Poshol v zhopu! Mne do pizdih tvoiy problemi, blyad! Eb tvoyu mat, manda!" [2]

Everyone stopped doing what they did. Mari had sounded very aggressive. But after some seconds, she started giggling.

"I can just imagine your faces right now," she laughed. "Pizdets!"

It didn't sound like she was joking, though. Ritsuko looked at the terminal again. No, she isn't joking...

---

Before closing the locker door, Shinji took another look at the plugsuit he had hung up there, and frowned.

Nothing has really changed, has it?

Yes, he had had a break from synchtests for nearly two weeks now – but now he was back to it. And yes, Asuka and Mari were now part of those tests – but that had nothing to do with him. The point was that even though he was officially designated a 'reserve pilot' now, he still went to tests as if nothing had happened, as if his new status didn't mean anything.

I'm still tied to it. Still bound to EVA.

And he didn't like that thought at all. Doing a synchtest again, he felt like this whole world, this world of NERV and Evangelions and angels, was something he just couldn't escape from, no matter how hard he tried. And that was a rather depressing thought.

He shook his head and closed the locker door. It would come as it would come. It seemed he could exert little influence on the events in his life, anyway, so there was little point in worrying. With his view cast down, he trodded out of the changing rooms and through the corridors of NERV headquarters.

His mood improved a bit when he saw Mari ahead. The girl was waiting in front of some elevator shafts. This was their bottom floor, and the area had been designed to almost look like the lobby of a luxury hotel – small but intense lights lined the ceiling, there were potted plants in every corner, the panelling involved many gilded elements and there was a very large glass case at the wall with several flyers containing various up to date information for NERV personnel.

Like everything in the NERV Headquarters, it was very shiny. Shinji didn't think that appropriate; after all there was nothing glamorous about what they had always pressured him to do. But given its architecture, Headquarters could also have been a maze of gloomy corridors, and Shinji supposed that would have been even worse.

Mari herself was rocking back and forth, probably lost again in one of her constantly hummed pop-songs. Shinji still found it a bit awkward to approach her in such a state. She never seemed to care at all who was around, and that could set off Shinji's insecurities.

"Uh..." he began with a smile.

Mari turned around. She wasn't humming at all as he had expected, and the rocking back and forth hadn't so much been melodic as more jerky. " 'Uhhh…'? Yeah, that's kinda all you can say, isn't it, puppy?"

Shinji froze in his tracks and blinked. The girl had sounded incredibly aggressive. He tried a shaky smile. "I… I guess I'm not a great speaker."

"So why speak to me?" Mari basically hissed.

"Ah, w-well, I thought..." Shinji stuttered.

"You thought. And how has that turned out for you lately?" Mari asked.

Shinji now was feeling near tears. "What… why are you… what's your problem?"

"Look, you're better than some people," Mari told him aggressively. "But if you could just stop for a minute with your fucking mopiness. It annoys the shit out of me, and that's your fault! Just kiss the princess or the doll! Instead, you let all your chances go to waste." She scoffed. "To be fair, them as well. Godsdamnit, have some fun with them! Both of them, if they're up for it! Just stop being so… argh! I just call you a puppy, you know that, right? You don't have to behave like Pavlov's very own puppy. That's my problem. You are!"

Now Shinji truly didn't know what to say. He felt very, very hot, and his head felt like it might burst. Have fun with… but of course. Yes. I am trouble. That was the truth of his life right there. And even his embarrassment at Mari's words couldn't hide that fact. He couldn't formulate a clear answer. He could just stand there and sweat.

Suddenly Mari began laughing. It was the old cheerful laugh he was used to from her. She waved her left hand. "Oh, you should see your face, puppy." A grin appeared on hers. "Thinking about what I said? About having fun with both of them? Don't worry, puppy. I was just messing with you. You're a good guy. I, ah… I just wanted to see how far I could get you out of your shell. Ehehehe, seems like I still need to work on my technique. Well, hope you didn't take that too badly. See you around, puppy!"

And with that, before Shinji even got the chance to answer her, she just ran off.

"But the elev..." Shinji tried, but Mari was already gone and just then an elevator arrived at the bottom, its doors opening with a ping sound.

Confused, he stood in front of the elevator, not knowing what to do or how to react, just looking the way Mari had run off to. Slowly, the elevator doors were closing again.

"Hey! Keep the door open! I want to take that elevator!"

Shinji shook off the confusion. Without even realizing who had shouted, he darted forwards and held out an arm between the closing doors. A second later, Asuka caught up to him.

"Jeez, Fourth! What's the matter with you?" she asked. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Shinji didn't answer as they both entered the elevator. Asuka pushed the button. Finally, he answered. "Maybe I have. Mari…"

Asuka scoffed. "Oh that bitch." When Shinji just looked at her, she explained. "Real bitch in the changing room. Shouted, accused me of stuff, called the First a doll… totally out of control." She shrugged. "Some people are just weird."

This made Shinji feel uncomfortable. "But Mari has never been like that."

"You can't trust what people show you of themselves," Asuka merely commented. "And she's always been odd. Stands to reason she's a bit unhinged."

Shinji looked at the redhead. You can't trust people, people aren't worth niceness… But Shinji couldn't say Asuka was wrong in her attitudes, exactly. If even Mari could turn on him like that… But that's just it. It hurt. People should at least pretend to be nice to each other.

The elevator reached its target level. Both teenagers exited it, a awkward silence hanging between. Trying to break through it, Shinji asked, "What… what about Rei?"

Asuka shrugged. "She said she had an appointment with the Commander. You know, I don't think I even want to know."

Father… What was that link between Gendo and Rei? It made Shinji feel insecure. With that link in place – could Rei maybe turn on him like Mari just had? That would hurt way more.

Passing through another all too glamorous entrance area, well lit throughout even though nobody else could be seen, the two made their way to their intended target, a small parking lot in front of that entrance. There, they could already see Misato standing next to her car, looking in their direction.

The Lieutenant Colonel smiled broadly at the two teenagers approaching her. Asuka only rolled her eyes in reaction.

"Sorry I couldn't have been at the test," Misato apologized. "Mari's redeployment is causing more paperwork than anyone had expected. I heard she also caused quite some commotion at the test?"

"You can say so," Asuka answered sullenly. "And nobody said a word about it. Undisciplined amateurs, everyone here."

Misato's smile turned kinda awkward. "Eheheh… sorry to hear about that, Asuka."

"Whatever. Can we go home now?" Asuka asked.

"Well… yes. But since you both powered through the test regardless, I have a surprise for you!" Misato announced.

Shinji watched her curiously. Asuka, who had already gone to the front passenger's door and had begun to open it, looked up again and merely tiredly raised an eyebrow.

Misato took a rectangular piece of plastic from one of her bags and held it up. "An entry pass to the JMEPRO main facility! I've arranged matters with the top brass there. You get to see all the fish and corals already long extinct in the wild. Kaji..." She sighed, rolled her eyes and continued far less enthusiastically. "...has agreed to supervise you all – all the pilots, and you can bring friends as well."

"That… that does sound nice," Shinji muttered.

He had heard of the Japanese Marine Ecosystem Preservation Research Organization, simply because they were so unique. Administratively, they were just a national Japanese branch of the UN's International Environmental Agency, but they were far ahead of some other branches, a true pride of Japan… or so teachers had boasted to him in school. There were literally hundreds of species, dozens of genera, several orders of sea life that only existed within the confines of the JMEPRO's facilities anymore – the last remnants of an once glorious and global ecosystem. Normally, regular people hence got no access to those facilities. The risk of them damaging something or carrying in an infection that would finish off some of those species was just too great.

NERV's influence was truly remarkable, and Misato's gift something special. Maritime biology had never exactly been Shinji's field of interest, and he didn't know if he would see something worthwhile at the facility, but given those circumstances… it was worth a try. And Misato meant well.

Asuka sighed. "With all those people? Do I have to go?"

"You should, Asuka," Misato answered. Her tone was still superficially friendly, but had gotten a slightly harder edge.

"I'd rather not," Asuka told her. She looked over the car at the Lieutenant Colonel and grimaced. Her own voice was now becoming icy, almost hostile. "Or will you make that an order as well?"

Misato furrowed her eyebrows. Then she jerked her head sidewards, in order to look away. She breathed out. With one hand, she grabbed the elbow of the other arm. Finally, she looked back to Asuka. "No. I won't make it an order. You're free to stay at home."

"And that's what I'll do," Asuka insisted. "Let's go there now. I've had my fill of people for today." She opened the door for good and entered the car.

Before Shinji or Misato could do likewise, he could see her looking at the spot where Asuka had stood. Her face was as cast in stone, but it took several seconds before she finally entered the car as well.

---

[1]"Not even in synch-tests you have your peace/quiet anymore."

[2] As for that… yeah you can… you can look that up yourself

---

A rather shorter chapter for now. And before anybody says anything, Maya in Rebuild does in fact seem to not at all be the same cinnamon roll as she is in the series. Not just 3.0, but also in 2.0, her talk with Ritsuko about what will happen to Asuka now, after Bardiel... she sounds like she doesn't give a fuck.

Oh and before I forget it like I did last chapter - thanks to @Infernal Angel for betareading this chapter, and thanks to @Doctor Squared for having betaread last chapter.

 

[Timerider]

Sounds like Mari is even more unstable then expected.

 

[Jet Long]

Sounds like Mari is even more unstable then expected.

Click to shrink...

Also what's up with Maya?

 

[Dealer]

Applying for a job at NERV once you're over the age of 15 or so immediately turns you into someone who hates/abuses children. At best.

Except Ritsuko, because her hatred of children was already so great it buffer overflowed into being okay-ish with them.

 

[Susano]

Also what's up with Maya?

Click to shrink...

Applying for a job at NERV once you're over the age of 15 or so immediately turns you into someone who hates/abuses children. At best.

Click to shrink...

As I wrote in the note at the end:
" And before anybody says anything, Maya in Rebuild does in fact seem to not at all be the same cinnamon roll as she is in the series. Not just 3.0, but also in 2.0, her talk with Ritsuko about what will happen to Asuka now, after Bardiel... she sounds like she doesn't give a fuck."
So that's actually the canon material.

 

[Jet Long]

As I wrote in the note at the end:
" And before anybody says anything, Maya in Rebuild does in fact seem to not at all be the same cinnamon roll as she is in the series. Not just 3.0, but also in 2.0, her talk with Ritsuko about what will happen to Asuka now, after Bardiel... she sounds like she doesn't give a fuck."
So that's actually the canon material.

Click to shrink...

Whoops, I have got to read the fine print.

 

[Doctor Squared]

Shinji now was feeling near tears. "What… why are you… what's your problem?"

Click to shrink...

"Look, Puppy, Princess is the Tsundere, Doll is the Kuudere, so to complete this trifecta I'm the Yandere."

"Y-you're gonna start killing people who might be interested in me?"

"What? No! I'm not even interested in that kinda thing I'm more interested in killing! Why do you think I took this job?"

Suddenly Mari began laughing. It was the old cheerful laugh he was used to from her. She waved her left hand. "Oh, you should see your face, puppy." A grin appeared on hers. "Thinking about what I said? About having fun with both of them? Don't worry, puppy. I was just messing with you. You're a good guy. I, ah… I just wanted to see how far I could get you out of your shell. Ehehehe, seems like I still need to work on my technique. Well, hope you didn't take that too badly. See you around, puppy!"

Click to shrink...

"Heh, sorry I forgot that this is the wrong story for that."

"W-what?"

 

[Infernal Angel]

There are worse people around than Misato, though

Click to shrink...

Oh boy, are there. And to everyone's surprise, Ritsuko is not as high on the list as expected.

For being a spy, Mari sure is Russian to make her presence known.