Chapter 11 Part 4
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"State your full name, please," Asuka said evenly, pen in hand.
"Dmitri Ohta," the boy said, his voice thickly Russian accented.
Asuka wrote on the form in front of her, never turning her gaze fully away from the Angel.
Despite the situation, Dmitri seemed completely at ease, leaning back casually in his chair. She wasn't sure if this made her feel better or even more worried.
From what they could gather. This boy was the son of a Navy Captain and a Russian business woman. He had spent most of his life in Russia with his mother and siblings but they had moved to Neo Kobe some three years ago. Nothing they found could connect him to Okito or any of the known Angels.
"Just so you understand, this meeting is being recorded and can and likely will be reviewed by the rest of staff when I feel comfortable bringing it to their attention," Asuka explained.
Of course that was a lie, they were listening right now. But it was the best way of making it clear that he was not to talk about Ria without tipping her hand. This whole situation was a nightmarish balancing act between two lies.
Dmitri nodded. "Of course. Quite reasonable of you."
He smiled a bit, his left hand spinning a toothpick
"Now, Mr. Ohta," Asuka went on, bracing herself for the worst to happen at any minute. "You claim to be the Ninth Angel, Matarael."
"Quite correct," he replied.
"And yet you're here, at the heart of WILLE. Speaking to a former Pilot. Why is that?" she asked.
He sat up straight.
"Tell me, Madam. Do you remember my attack?"
"Quite well." Her voice grew icy. "The only reason it lasted as long as it did was due to SEELE causing a power outage."
It had been a fairly proud moment for Asuka. Shinji had the kill but the plan had been hers.
Matarael nodded in agreement "Quite so, quite so. I'm not vainglorious when it comes to my strength. If I were to fight, I would die like a rat in a typhoon."
"So you came here because you were afraid Sachiel and Ramiel would force you into the fight?" she asked.
Ohta's expression grew serious. "I came here because they are barking madmen who think they know better than the gods."
"Speaking of which, you're positive you weren't followed?" she asked.
If he was followed, his use as a spy was effectively gone. And Misato might just decide against the deal.
He gestured to his tie. "Do you think I wear this stuffy shit normally? No ma'am. I have a very particular look normally and Okito has never seen me wearing anything like this. Plus I used a fake ID to get here today. I covered my tracks as best I could."
"When you say particular look, what do you mean? I'm just curious," Asuka replied.
"My hair is dyed black, my pants normally have chains on them. Some dark matte shade of lipstick. Eyeliner occasionally." He counted each item off with a finger. "Vintage T-shirts, long black jackets, the occasional spiked bracelet. Dressing like this... well let's just say I nearly gave my poor mother a heart attack when I left this morning."
Well that was quite the mental image.
"On that note," he shifted in his seat, "I understand this negotiation may not go well."
One of Asuka's hands went towards the gun beneath her desk.
"I don't hold it against you," he went on. "Far from it, frankly I'm surprised I made it this far. But I must inform you there's an email, explaining what I am and what has happened, set to deliver to my family should I not return by tomorrow night or if I send a coded text. So if things go south, I don't want my family to be publically shamed by you labelling me a terrorist, say instead that I've gone missing or something. Also my brother and sister are not Angels. So don't bother them, if you please."
"Your family is important to you?" Asuka asked, leaning in closer.
"I don't claim to be a perfect son but I'm not Okito either." He frowned in disgust. "The boy shames all of us with his behavior."
He cared for his family, or at least put on the pretense of it. That brought her a measure of comfort.
"So Leliel mentioned you have information we may find useful," Asuka noted. "Though I'm curious, Leliel didn't seem to know what that info was. Why are you telling me something you wouldn't tell another Angel?"
Dmitri shifted nervously, double checking any shadows in the room.
"In truth, I do not fully trust that woman," he admitted.
That was surprising and more than a little confusing.
"But she was the one who arranged this whole meeting?" Asuka said skeptically.
He got defensive. "Don't get me wrong, I know she wants Ramiel stopped. But the problem is I'm pretty sure that's all she cares about. She only wants peace because that means there will be less Angels to fight. I felt it better to hedge my bets, just to be safe."
With the amount of distrust among the Angels, if nothing else dividing them against each other and taking them out one by one would be trivially easy if they played things right.
"You have to understand," Dimitri went on, "none of us really thought Ramiel was serious until the Pilots appeared. It was just idle talk after all. None of us, save Leliel. We thought she was a loon, ranting on and on about how Ramiel was tampering with things beyond his understanding. Then she disappeared for a few years, only appearing again some eight months ago, if Armisael is to be believed."
That didn't really fit what Leliel had told them, at the very least she had withheld quite a bit. Concerning, deeply concerning.
"So what was, what is Ramiel planning?" she asked.
This was by far the most important part. Having him as a spy would be useful, but what he could tell them now was of far greater us. If they knew what they were fighting for they might have some idea of how to stop the Angels.
"None of us truly understand what we are," Dimitri admitted. "We are Angels, we are Lilim, we are both, we are neither. In truth we are mules. Unnatural hybrids whose very being has been twisted and warped by forces beyond our understanding. So the question lingers, what happens to beings as unnatural as us when we die?"
"You fear death?" Asuka questioned.
"They fear oblivion," he corrected. "Third Impact at least brought clarity that there is something after death for humanity. We don't know any more. Our god is dead, our Heaven is gone. Do we go to yours? Do we reincarnate? Or do we dissolve into nothingness?"
"What does that have to do with the attacks though? What are they planning that they are so afraid of us finding out about?" Asuka grew impatient.
"I'm getting to that," he assured her. "Apologies, it takes a while to explain. You see, Ramiel believes he found a solution that would render that question moot and make us powerful again, combine the best aspects of our human and Angelic nature into a more perfect union. The two want to use that power to make us the dominant species on Earth again. Either ruling over humanity or replacing most of it with something of our own design."
"That's... awfully ambitious," she observed, trying to process what he was telling her.
"Tell me, ma'am, what do you know of the Eigenart Initiative?" he asked.
The name was completely unfamiliar to her.
"Nothing," Asuka admitted.
Dimitri nodded. "To be fair, few do. They were, or more accurately are a SEELE splinter group."
Oh, great. Just great. Because SEELE had to be involved in some manner, Asuka grumbled in her head.
"They started as a disagreement over the exact nature of what SEELE wanted for humanity. Most of SEELE choose Instrumentality. What would become Eigenart wanted Autoevolution. They were purged from SEELE and hunted down vigorously. The Initiative itself is dead but Ramiel was apparently able to uncover their work, and has a source who is quite knowledgeable about the hows and whys of what they were trying to accomplish."
"And this source is…" Asuka began.
He shrugged. "Sadly, that I do not know."
And more wonderful news. The list of people would could provide that type of info was rather small.
"You see." Dimitri went on. "Autoevolution is an interesting inverse of instrumentality. It's controlled evolution, instead of breaking down the barriers between people and turning them into so much soul goo. It refines the barriers, turning people into near god-like and varied individuals. Ramiel believes if we enacted their plans on our terms it would allow us to skate around the whole death thing and leave us in a position where your kind would never be a threat to us."
"'Gods among the Lilim,'" Asuka said, repeating Leliel's warning.
"Quite so," Dimitri replied. "With a few similarly uplifted human collaborators ruling the world in our name."
Asuka scowled. That would explain why people would work with Ramiel, and why they bizarrely thought that she and Shinji might work with them.
"As I said, none of us took it seriously. Until the Pilots appeared and Sachiel went barking at the moon. Then Ramiel gathered as many of us as he could and told us all know that WILLE would grant us no quarter. It was his either plan or a slow death. But I'm here now, so Ramiel's argument doesn't seem to hold much weight." Dimitri smiled.
He had been honest, as near as she could tell. He was here at great risk to himself. He was affable and and calm. Asuka even found herself liking the kid.
"I can't promise you anything yet," she told him. "But I do strongly appreciate what you coming here and if what you're saying is true, I will do everything I can to convince the General that you and the Angels that agree with you want peace."
Dimitri nodded. "Thank you, ma'am. That was honestly more than I hoped for. Now let me tell you what I know of Leliel."
/
Misato listened to every word of their conversation. Growing increasingly torn with each sentence. She didn't want to believe what it was saying. Why would they ever accept the word of an Angel? They had already proven themselves the greatest liars and deceivers the world had ever known.
Yet what it said made sense. It explained recent events and their actions. And it was too dangerous to ignore.
If it was right, if this Dimitri was not leading them on. The Angels had access to someone with incredible knowledge of SEELE. The Eigenart Initiative was something she'd only seen mentioned a half dozen times in deeply classified files.There were only a few people she could think of who would have the kind of knowledge. Most of them were dead or in prison. That left the core members of SEELE itself, Kozo Fuyutsuki, and Gendo Ikari. And as far as they knew all of them were still in instrumentality.
As far as they knew. Misato chewed her thumb, thinking hard.
In the end, it was humanity that caused Third Impact. it was humans who invaded the NERV and slaughtered most of the staff, nearly killing her in the process. Scratch that, she had died. She had died twenty years ago to the bullets of JSSDF troops, bleeding out in a hallway after shoving Shinji into an emergency elevator. She was little more than Revenant, brought back by having the sheer luck of having died just close enough to Third Impact to fall under its resurrection.
Maybe making peace was the lesser of two evils…
A alert appeared on her screen. The whole Command room snapped to attention.
Ramiel had appeared again, this time in Melbourne, Australia.
Every screen became filled with images of the coastal city burning, entire streets melted into molten glass. The glossy blue diamond of the Angel's form floating above what was once the Royal Exhibition Building. What wasn't burning was filled with desperate people trying to escape the carnage.
People started to scramble to their stations, but then paused. Realizing they could do absolutely nothing but watch. A city of over a million people was dying and they could do nothing to stop the monster assaulting it. Even starting immediately, it would take hours to get an Evangelion there.
Rage boiled inside Misato, She was helpless and worse, she had been played like a fool. The timing was just too much to be just bad luck. They knew, and they were taunting her.
And yet, that also meant the Angel currently speaking to Asuka had been played too. Ramiel must have been banking on her killing it in a fit of rage. Matarael clearly knew too much.
Dispicable fiends even to their own kind.
"Suzuhara!" she called out.
Touji snapped to attention. "Yes, General?"
"Escort the Angel to the holding cell in the Vault. That thing isn't leaving WILLE. Subdue it if it resists, but avoid killing it if possible."
Killing it now would be a waste.
He snapped a quick salute. "Understood, ma'am."
"I'm going to make sure Asuka is out of the room when you arrive," she added.
/
Okito stood outside of WILLE. A tan hoodie and sunglasses hid most of his features. Sweat ran down his neck.
"You heard what Iruel said. He betrayed us," Shamshel's voice said through his earpiece.
"I know!" Okito whispered.
"So why are you there?" she questioned.
"Because I'm fighting for all of us!" he barked sharply. "And Matarael is not going to get out of there without my help!"
He was fighting for all of them. If he stopped believing that, if he stopping trying, if he gave himself over to the cynicism that Shamshel and Israfel had embraced, he was truly lost. Then this was all for nothing. His... Liilm parents, his sister, his best friend, all forsaken for nothing. He could not bear to even think that.
"Besides, he might be the key to convincing the others to finally join the fight," Okito added with a hopeful smile.
He removed his glasses, his eyes glowing red. His hands flowed like quicksilver until they were reforged into black claws.
With a feral howl, Sachiel charged towards WILLE.
"Dmitri Ohta," the boy said, his voice thickly Russian accented.
Asuka wrote on the form in front of her, never turning her gaze fully away from the Angel.
Despite the situation, Dmitri seemed completely at ease, leaning back casually in his chair. She wasn't sure if this made her feel better or even more worried.
From what they could gather. This boy was the son of a Navy Captain and a Russian business woman. He had spent most of his life in Russia with his mother and siblings but they had moved to Neo Kobe some three years ago. Nothing they found could connect him to Okito or any of the known Angels.
"Just so you understand, this meeting is being recorded and can and likely will be reviewed by the rest of staff when I feel comfortable bringing it to their attention," Asuka explained.
Of course that was a lie, they were listening right now. But it was the best way of making it clear that he was not to talk about Ria without tipping her hand. This whole situation was a nightmarish balancing act between two lies.
Dmitri nodded. "Of course. Quite reasonable of you."
He smiled a bit, his left hand spinning a toothpick
"Now, Mr. Ohta," Asuka went on, bracing herself for the worst to happen at any minute. "You claim to be the Ninth Angel, Matarael."
"Quite correct," he replied.
"And yet you're here, at the heart of WILLE. Speaking to a former Pilot. Why is that?" she asked.
He sat up straight.
"Tell me, Madam. Do you remember my attack?"
"Quite well." Her voice grew icy. "The only reason it lasted as long as it did was due to SEELE causing a power outage."
It had been a fairly proud moment for Asuka. Shinji had the kill but the plan had been hers.
Matarael nodded in agreement "Quite so, quite so. I'm not vainglorious when it comes to my strength. If I were to fight, I would die like a rat in a typhoon."
"So you came here because you were afraid Sachiel and Ramiel would force you into the fight?" she asked.
Ohta's expression grew serious. "I came here because they are barking madmen who think they know better than the gods."
"Speaking of which, you're positive you weren't followed?" she asked.
If he was followed, his use as a spy was effectively gone. And Misato might just decide against the deal.
He gestured to his tie. "Do you think I wear this stuffy shit normally? No ma'am. I have a very particular look normally and Okito has never seen me wearing anything like this. Plus I used a fake ID to get here today. I covered my tracks as best I could."
"When you say particular look, what do you mean? I'm just curious," Asuka replied.
"My hair is dyed black, my pants normally have chains on them. Some dark matte shade of lipstick. Eyeliner occasionally." He counted each item off with a finger. "Vintage T-shirts, long black jackets, the occasional spiked bracelet. Dressing like this... well let's just say I nearly gave my poor mother a heart attack when I left this morning."
Well that was quite the mental image.
"On that note," he shifted in his seat, "I understand this negotiation may not go well."
One of Asuka's hands went towards the gun beneath her desk.
"I don't hold it against you," he went on. "Far from it, frankly I'm surprised I made it this far. But I must inform you there's an email, explaining what I am and what has happened, set to deliver to my family should I not return by tomorrow night or if I send a coded text. So if things go south, I don't want my family to be publically shamed by you labelling me a terrorist, say instead that I've gone missing or something. Also my brother and sister are not Angels. So don't bother them, if you please."
"Your family is important to you?" Asuka asked, leaning in closer.
"I don't claim to be a perfect son but I'm not Okito either." He frowned in disgust. "The boy shames all of us with his behavior."
He cared for his family, or at least put on the pretense of it. That brought her a measure of comfort.
"So Leliel mentioned you have information we may find useful," Asuka noted. "Though I'm curious, Leliel didn't seem to know what that info was. Why are you telling me something you wouldn't tell another Angel?"
Dmitri shifted nervously, double checking any shadows in the room.
"In truth, I do not fully trust that woman," he admitted.
That was surprising and more than a little confusing.
"But she was the one who arranged this whole meeting?" Asuka said skeptically.
He got defensive. "Don't get me wrong, I know she wants Ramiel stopped. But the problem is I'm pretty sure that's all she cares about. She only wants peace because that means there will be less Angels to fight. I felt it better to hedge my bets, just to be safe."
With the amount of distrust among the Angels, if nothing else dividing them against each other and taking them out one by one would be trivially easy if they played things right.
"You have to understand," Dimitri went on, "none of us really thought Ramiel was serious until the Pilots appeared. It was just idle talk after all. None of us, save Leliel. We thought she was a loon, ranting on and on about how Ramiel was tampering with things beyond his understanding. Then she disappeared for a few years, only appearing again some eight months ago, if Armisael is to be believed."
That didn't really fit what Leliel had told them, at the very least she had withheld quite a bit. Concerning, deeply concerning.
"So what was, what is Ramiel planning?" she asked.
This was by far the most important part. Having him as a spy would be useful, but what he could tell them now was of far greater us. If they knew what they were fighting for they might have some idea of how to stop the Angels.
"None of us truly understand what we are," Dimitri admitted. "We are Angels, we are Lilim, we are both, we are neither. In truth we are mules. Unnatural hybrids whose very being has been twisted and warped by forces beyond our understanding. So the question lingers, what happens to beings as unnatural as us when we die?"
"You fear death?" Asuka questioned.
"They fear oblivion," he corrected. "Third Impact at least brought clarity that there is something after death for humanity. We don't know any more. Our god is dead, our Heaven is gone. Do we go to yours? Do we reincarnate? Or do we dissolve into nothingness?"
"What does that have to do with the attacks though? What are they planning that they are so afraid of us finding out about?" Asuka grew impatient.
"I'm getting to that," he assured her. "Apologies, it takes a while to explain. You see, Ramiel believes he found a solution that would render that question moot and make us powerful again, combine the best aspects of our human and Angelic nature into a more perfect union. The two want to use that power to make us the dominant species on Earth again. Either ruling over humanity or replacing most of it with something of our own design."
"That's... awfully ambitious," she observed, trying to process what he was telling her.
"Tell me, ma'am, what do you know of the Eigenart Initiative?" he asked.
The name was completely unfamiliar to her.
"Nothing," Asuka admitted.
Dimitri nodded. "To be fair, few do. They were, or more accurately are a SEELE splinter group."
Oh, great. Just great. Because SEELE had to be involved in some manner, Asuka grumbled in her head.
"They started as a disagreement over the exact nature of what SEELE wanted for humanity. Most of SEELE choose Instrumentality. What would become Eigenart wanted Autoevolution. They were purged from SEELE and hunted down vigorously. The Initiative itself is dead but Ramiel was apparently able to uncover their work, and has a source who is quite knowledgeable about the hows and whys of what they were trying to accomplish."
"And this source is…" Asuka began.
He shrugged. "Sadly, that I do not know."
And more wonderful news. The list of people would could provide that type of info was rather small.
"You see." Dimitri went on. "Autoevolution is an interesting inverse of instrumentality. It's controlled evolution, instead of breaking down the barriers between people and turning them into so much soul goo. It refines the barriers, turning people into near god-like and varied individuals. Ramiel believes if we enacted their plans on our terms it would allow us to skate around the whole death thing and leave us in a position where your kind would never be a threat to us."
"'Gods among the Lilim,'" Asuka said, repeating Leliel's warning.
"Quite so," Dimitri replied. "With a few similarly uplifted human collaborators ruling the world in our name."
Asuka scowled. That would explain why people would work with Ramiel, and why they bizarrely thought that she and Shinji might work with them.
"As I said, none of us took it seriously. Until the Pilots appeared and Sachiel went barking at the moon. Then Ramiel gathered as many of us as he could and told us all know that WILLE would grant us no quarter. It was his either plan or a slow death. But I'm here now, so Ramiel's argument doesn't seem to hold much weight." Dimitri smiled.
He had been honest, as near as she could tell. He was here at great risk to himself. He was affable and and calm. Asuka even found herself liking the kid.
"I can't promise you anything yet," she told him. "But I do strongly appreciate what you coming here and if what you're saying is true, I will do everything I can to convince the General that you and the Angels that agree with you want peace."
Dimitri nodded. "Thank you, ma'am. That was honestly more than I hoped for. Now let me tell you what I know of Leliel."
/
Misato listened to every word of their conversation. Growing increasingly torn with each sentence. She didn't want to believe what it was saying. Why would they ever accept the word of an Angel? They had already proven themselves the greatest liars and deceivers the world had ever known.
Yet what it said made sense. It explained recent events and their actions. And it was too dangerous to ignore.
If it was right, if this Dimitri was not leading them on. The Angels had access to someone with incredible knowledge of SEELE. The Eigenart Initiative was something she'd only seen mentioned a half dozen times in deeply classified files.There were only a few people she could think of who would have the kind of knowledge. Most of them were dead or in prison. That left the core members of SEELE itself, Kozo Fuyutsuki, and Gendo Ikari. And as far as they knew all of them were still in instrumentality.
As far as they knew. Misato chewed her thumb, thinking hard.
In the end, it was humanity that caused Third Impact. it was humans who invaded the NERV and slaughtered most of the staff, nearly killing her in the process. Scratch that, she had died. She had died twenty years ago to the bullets of JSSDF troops, bleeding out in a hallway after shoving Shinji into an emergency elevator. She was little more than Revenant, brought back by having the sheer luck of having died just close enough to Third Impact to fall under its resurrection.
Maybe making peace was the lesser of two evils…
A alert appeared on her screen. The whole Command room snapped to attention.
Ramiel had appeared again, this time in Melbourne, Australia.
Every screen became filled with images of the coastal city burning, entire streets melted into molten glass. The glossy blue diamond of the Angel's form floating above what was once the Royal Exhibition Building. What wasn't burning was filled with desperate people trying to escape the carnage.
People started to scramble to their stations, but then paused. Realizing they could do absolutely nothing but watch. A city of over a million people was dying and they could do nothing to stop the monster assaulting it. Even starting immediately, it would take hours to get an Evangelion there.
Rage boiled inside Misato, She was helpless and worse, she had been played like a fool. The timing was just too much to be just bad luck. They knew, and they were taunting her.
And yet, that also meant the Angel currently speaking to Asuka had been played too. Ramiel must have been banking on her killing it in a fit of rage. Matarael clearly knew too much.
Dispicable fiends even to their own kind.
"Suzuhara!" she called out.
Touji snapped to attention. "Yes, General?"
"Escort the Angel to the holding cell in the Vault. That thing isn't leaving WILLE. Subdue it if it resists, but avoid killing it if possible."
Killing it now would be a waste.
He snapped a quick salute. "Understood, ma'am."
"I'm going to make sure Asuka is out of the room when you arrive," she added.
/
Okito stood outside of WILLE. A tan hoodie and sunglasses hid most of his features. Sweat ran down his neck.
"You heard what Iruel said. He betrayed us," Shamshel's voice said through his earpiece.
"I know!" Okito whispered.
"So why are you there?" she questioned.
"Because I'm fighting for all of us!" he barked sharply. "And Matarael is not going to get out of there without my help!"
He was fighting for all of them. If he stopped believing that, if he stopping trying, if he gave himself over to the cynicism that Shamshel and Israfel had embraced, he was truly lost. Then this was all for nothing. His... Liilm parents, his sister, his best friend, all forsaken for nothing. He could not bear to even think that.
"Besides, he might be the key to convincing the others to finally join the fight," Okito added with a hopeful smile.
He removed his glasses, his eyes glowing red. His hands flowed like quicksilver until they were reforged into black claws.
With a feral howl, Sachiel charged towards WILLE.
