Asuka hated waiting.
With a nutter with a rifle overlooking the street outside, it was all she could do.
She looked over at Shinji. He was holding together, just about. That was good. He wasn't going to freak out on her yet. She took a deep breath. "Looks like we'll have to postpone the record shopping," she quipped.
He made a short, tense sound that might have been a laugh. "I guess so." He fished out his phone, holding it in a white-knuckled grip. "Have they told you anything?"
She glanced down at her own, and started to say 'no' when it buzzed in her hand. The message from Misato read "Section Two en route. Sit tight. Confirm response."
"Confirmed." Asuka texted back. She wasn't about to try texting more than that in Japanese. She smiled at Shinji. "Someone's on the way. Misato says 'sit tight'."
Shinji looked at his phone, and then back at Asuka. "I... I guess we do that then."
"Yeah. Not the best afternoon out I've had."
Dressed in the only garment remotely as comfortable as her own skin, the icon of her publicly admitted purpose, Rei Ayanami sat in the locker room and waited.
An outside observer might have noted her relaxed muscles, neutral expression, and static pose, and from these things inferred a placid mental state.
They would – for once – be wrong. Two subjects preyed on her mind, leaving it in turmoil behind the mask of her self-discipline, and with no credible prospect of an imminent Angel attack, there was no higher priority to focus on.
The fortress city of Tokyo-3 was the ultimate bastion of humanity, the heart of its defences against the Angels, and the Evangelion pilots were its foremost defenders. She could not rightly comprehend how and why they could come under fire from a human.
There was also the matter of the feelings she was experiencing regarding Pilot Ikari. His presence was pleasant, and the prospect of him being injured or distressed was... not pleasant.
A concept became an urge became an impulse.
With the rest of her fingers plaited, her left thumb rolled over her right, and her right, in turn, over her left.
She noted the action to be relaxing, and repeated it.
Shinji looked at his phone again. No new messages. Nothing to tell him when Section Two would be turning up like Misato said. Maybe they'd got stuck. Maybe the—
"Hey, Shinji." Asuka's tone sounded brittle, but it was still something to focus on. "When we go to the record store, let's pick something out for each other."
He looked across at the beautiful red-haired girl he was hiding under a table with and took in the worried smile on her face. Words. She's talking to me. Use words. "I... I'd like that a lot. We should do that."
She extended a hand. "Shake on it?"
Nervously, he reached out and took her hand in his. The contact was... nice. Her hand was warm. Her grip was firm. He managed to firm up his own grip and shake her hand properly and tried not to think too hard about the fact that he was touching a girl and a girl was touching him and—
"Then it's a deal," she said. "No getting shot before then, all right? Even a great pilot like me needs backup."
"All right," he said, cheeks burning as Asuka's hand slipped out of his grip.
Outside, there was an explosion.
Seated in one of the observer stations, Misato stared at the command centre's tactical display in disbelief. 'Air-launched HE missile' was not how she'd expected the SDF counter-terrorist unit to deal with the sniper.
"I believe your people are safe," said the SDF duty officer to her right.
"A missile seems like overkill."
"The upper storeys were vacant. You value your people, Captain, and we value ours. Read about Charles Whitman."
