[X] Talk to Shinji about: Mood
Shinji's doing okay, he guesses. He's still feeling guilty over injuring Asuka, but he's mostly worried about the girls. He's afraid Rei might not wake up. The apartment gets kind of lonely at night without her being there. Shinji realizes what he's said and flushes. Rei's just always been there in the evenings. While the two of them have their own solitary hobbies, Shinji with his cello and his listening to music and Rei with her art and her playing mahjong, they spend a lot of time in the same room together. It feels weird not having her help cook either. Shinji hopes she gets better soon.
He's also worried about Asuka, since she's clearly not adjusting well to the new, hopefully temporary, disability she's been saddled with, or her rejection. She's been even more temperamental than usual lately and has spent most of the time since your outing with Kaji shut up in her bedroom reading research papers or blasting her music. Shinji's trying his best to be patient with her, but it's difficult when she bites his head off about pretty much everything he says or does. Shinji says he's been trying to make her feel better, but it hasn't been working. He thinks she might be jealous of the attention Rei's been getting, but he's not going to stop visiting Rei in the hospital just because Asuka's unhappy about it. Rei saved Asuka's life, and Asuka doesn't even seem that grateful. It kind of annoys Shinji, to be honest.
He just doesn't know what she wants from him. It's frustrating.
[X] Talk to Asuka about: NERV
Trying to get Asuka to say more than a few words to you at a time proves a challenge all week. The ordinarily talkative Asuka has become moody and withdrawn, and she's clearly barely tolerating having to share a space with you and Shinji right now. While she hasn't snapped at you, she's been petulant and irritable with Shinji, relentlessly criticizing him for small or nonexistent infractions of etiquette or character. She's not in a good place right now.
The most you get out of her is that she's working on her homework for Fuyutsuki and that she's tired of dealing with Gendo and Ritsuko. Though she certainly didn't phrase her dislike of Ritsuko as politely as that.
[X] All: Combat training
-[X] Ask Ritsuko about AI Evangelion teammates and Eva-to-Eva combat regime.
You decide to take Gendo's criticism seriously and put your active pilots through combat training, though doing so is hampered by the damage to Unit-02. While Evangelions can be repaired via cellular regeneration, Unit-02 losing an entire arm is a complicated and difficult fix that will take time. It appears that there are limitations to the number of divisions a tissue culture can undergo, and an entire arm is well beyond that. The fix can be done, you're assured, but the repair process is apparently quite involved and requires several parts to essentially be grafted to each other. As it stands now, Unit-02 is going to have to make do with a bandaged stump for a right arm.
Asuka is not pleased.
Her poor mood is worsened further by Ritsuko informing her that her synchronization ratio has precipitously dropped since the last official measurement and now sits in the mid-50s, which is lower than Rei's. Asuka snarks that it's kind of hard to mentally synchronize with something missing large parts of its body, to which Ritsuko coolly remarks that it doesn't work like that and furthermore, Asuka's already halfway there with her shoulder problems anyway. Asuka explodes with rage and Ritsuko cuts off her microphone in response.
Ritsuko gives you an annoyed look. You know it's your responsibility to manage them, right? Ritsuko understands that being injured in battle can be frustrating, but Asuka's mental health has been steadily worsening for a while now, and it's affecting her performance. Moreover, according to NERV's medical staff, there's nothing physically wrong with Asuka's arm. It's all mental. Ritsuko is choosing to give Asuka the benefit of the doubt here and assumes that the cause is psychosomatic rather than malingering for attention.
Ritsuko informs you that the Magi have concluded that susceptibility to being affected by psychological attack is positively correlated with stress and mental illness. Ritsuko suspects that she herself was affected due to the amount of overwork she was doing to ensure the Dummy System was completed on schedule. You ask what she saw or experienced during the Angel attack. Ritsuko says she'd rather not talk about it if that's alright.
Either way, Asuka continuing to go on in this poor mental state makes her particularly susceptible to psychological attack. This goes for the other pilots as well, though Shinji is apparently experiencing stress within acceptable limits per psychometrics. It's not a guarantee of immunity, but it makes the likelihood of a future attack succeeding lower. Rei's psychographic measurements taken before she arrived at her present state continue to show signs of mental instability.
Ritsuko notably does not fill you in on the fact that Rei claims to be experiencing auditory hallucinations. You decide to hold your tongue, if only for Kaji's sake.
You ask about the possibility of an Eva-to-Eva combat scenario or the possibility of AI teammates in the event not all three (or soon to be four) pilots are available for training. Ritsuko says it's being worked on, and they should be ready within a week or so. The Magi are using Rei's personality data to create a program, so the AI Evas will be limited to a virtual Unit-00 piloted by a virtual Rei Ayanami, though the scans and surveys Ritsuko did on Rei aren't enough to construct a complete gestalt of Rei. It'd just be virtual Evangelions that behave theoretically similarly to how they would if Rei were piloting them, not a fully autonomous alter ego of Rei capable of speech or complex thought.
The training otherwise goes uneventfully, and Asuka starts to adjust to fighting with one arm. Work still needs to be done, however.
[X] Shinji: Synchronization training
It's been a hot minute since you put Shinji through his paces in synchronization training, and you discover that he's sitting at 85.2%, a new record for him. He's still a natural. Ritsuko notes that unlike the other two pilots, Shinji's actually more relaxed when in the plug. Rei's seen a slight increase in stress for reasons Ritsuko isn't sure of; as usual, much about Rei is a mystery. Meanwhile, it's pretty obvious Asuka is having trouble concentrating in her sync tests.
You praise Shinji for doing a good job. He says he's working hard to protect the girls. Shinji seems happy.
[X] Asuka: Go out/free time
You give Asuka some time off to destress, but to your dismay, she spends much of it moping around the house feeling sorry for herself. You're not sure what you expected here, but you were hoping she'd start to bounce back. No such luck; she's feeling vulnerable and unsure of her self-worth. One unpleasant habit she's picked up lately is attempting to guilt-trip you and Shinji whenever anyone does anything for her like cook or help her with her chores. She keeps semi-sarcastically putting herself down and sarcastically praising you. You and Shinji find it really tiring.
While her tone is ironic and exaggerated, you know from the conversation she and Kaji had that she's hurting inside. Her seemingly insincere self-denigration may not be terribly far from what she thinks of herself. You hate seeing her like this.
You get fed up after replay number one zillion of "Hey Man Nice Shot". You think it'd do her some good to leave the apartment anyway, so you tell her to go out and do something nice for herself. You figure she's probably feeling trapped with you and Shinji. Asuka doesn't initially take well to this, accusing you of kicking her out because you don't want her around. What, are you gonna invite Kaji over to neck and she's cramping your style or something?
You tell her no; you just don't think sulking and blasting her—you avoid saying "shitty"—music all hours of the day is going to improve her mood or help her relax. Asuka bickers with you and says that playing her music loud is the only way she's been able to focus on anything at all. You retort that it's certainly not helping you or Shinji focus. Oh, well, sorry she offended the beautiful and important Misato Katsuragi with her lowly freak music for deviants and weirdoes. Fine, you want her gone? She'll fucking go! She stomps over to the door and slams the button to open it, only to discover Hikari Horaki waiting outside with her finger hovering over the doorbell button.
Oh, um, is everything okay? Hikari asks.
Asuka sighs. The anger seems to leave her body as she does so. Yeah, brilliant. Just perfect. What does Hikari want?
Hikari wanted to ask you something, as it turns out. Asuka seems irritated by this. You defuse the situation by telling Hikari that Asuka is about to go shopping, and that perhaps Hikari could tag along? Asuka's been feeling cooped up lately. Asuka begins to protest, but Hikari says sure, she'd love to, clearly picking up what you're putting down. Hikari says it's been a while since the two of them spent time together and that she's been feeling a bit cooped up lately herself. Asuka gives you a look like she's trying to kill you with her sheer willpower and says fine, she'll go.
A few hours later, Hikari and Asuka return to you with some new clothing purchases. Asuka doesn't seem completely back to normal, but she's obviously in a better mood, as she's currently having a mostly friendly, if slightly ranty, conversation with Hikari, who is listening to her complaining about some classmates patiently. It appears that some rumors of the scene she made in public leaked to the press, who are of course using her status as one of the de facto faces of NERV against her. Some of her male classmates haven't been terribly kind about it. Hikari's been helping keep a lid on things, which Asuka seems grateful for. Asuka's got some of her old energy back. She grunts at you in greeting and stalks back to her bedroom. You hope this has done some good.
You profusely thank Hikari for helping Asuka get out of the house and for looking out for her and bid her good night. Before you can close the door, Hikari shouts wait! You remember she needed something from you. Hikari looks at the ground and fidgets, her face pink.
Hikari says she's been considering confessing to Suzuhara. She's been spending a lot of time with him this week since Rei's not around and she's been cooking lunches for him for a little while now. She thinks it might be time to get it off her chest. She's liked him since elementary school. He's just…a really good guy.
Hikari tells you that you're basically the only adult she can talk to about this. Her mom's…not around anymore, and Kodama probably wouldn't approve, and her dad's kind of a dork and isn't home much. She blurts all this out quickly before trailing off. It's obvious she's hoping for some kind of advice on how to ask Suzuhara out.
You're caught off-guard that a middle school friend of one of your charges is actually seeking you for any kind of advice, let alone relationship advice. You're also reminded that the most likely pilot for the incoming Unit-03 is the object of her affections, Toji Suzuhara, putting you into a very awkward position indeed.
Do you have any advice for her? What is it?
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