Once upon a time, there was an exchange in Advice & Trust thread:
Never thought I'd see an Israfel Special where 2/3rds of the pairing are the same person, more or less
God have mercy on his Nephilim soul if he can't differentiate between the two. It'd make good comedy at least. My Two Rei's, the award winning rom-com directed by Maya Ibuki.
I'm actually glad people still think it's safe to throw around fun story concepts [scribbles furiously in a notepad].
Would you mind if I took a shot at the idea someday?
Be my guest
It was about nine months ago, and this is the setting that was born out of it. Stories will start appearing if any of my current stories hits a snag, is done, or I suddenly turn to comedy writer.
@BG_Character_592, thanks for the idea. It is a fun one to work with.
Behold, a fragment from the reminescences done by Ritsuko Akagi and commented on by Misato Katsuragi.
================================================================
The One, and the Many – an NGE setting
From an interview with Dr Ritsuko Akagi; unabridged version provided for authorization by NERV Intelligence Service, from the archive of Science/Technical. Annotations by Colonel Misato Katsuragi.
The ending of the Angel War is still a very controversial matter, where accounts vary from source to source. Could you, as a person involved, shed some light on the matter?
Well, it all began with a bang. Or ended with one. Depends on your perspective, I guess.
Ritsuko, always the stupid jokes. Will you ever grow up?
Could you elaborate?
After Tabris chose to be free – the details of which he never revealed, but we know other Pilots were somehow involved, and they all say "don't ask" – it was over pretty quickly. The Nephilim killed every top SEELE member they could find and prevented our doom. The first question was actually "why not sooner" and the answer was "why didn't you have nuclear fission in 1900 CE?" – because they didn't know it was possible, and how to do it.
So, it all blew over. Tabris returned to being Kaworu Nagisa, staying an angelic guardian... but also a normal person. Well, semi-normal. He is still there, watching, teaching, caring.
This is neither the whole truth nor only the truth. Mudding the waters, good work.
What happened to the organization? There seemed to be little change, except some personnel movements?
NERV came under
some scrutiny; Gendo Ikari and Kozo Futsuyuki were prosecuted, and while Professor had it rather light due to his age, Gendo... well, he was nailed with genocide, conspiracy, and misappropriation of funds. Guess what yielded him the greatest sentence.
And I thought I was the cynical one.
They tried to rename NERV, ideas like AXON or NEURON were thrown around, along with bad jokes about next step being CELL or even MEMBRANE.
In the end, they left us as NERV, with all the fun patents and technology, placing
the most responsible the first clear-of-charges person on top of it. Katsuragi.
That one has to go. Or at least the "responsibility" joke. I get it, you don't like my attitude, but PR is kind of important.
She kind of protested, but then realized she could finally make the NERV run as she had always imagined it. So, she decided to take the post – and started using Kaji Ryouji as her advisor and anchor. That, and her own personal hunting dog for SEELE remnants. Not to mention, her own personal lover. I'm willing to bet she'll be pushing for marriage soon.
This one definitely has to go. You're walking a thin line here, Rits.
And you?
I got it easy, too. I was offered full amnesty for disclosure and agreeing to remain in kind-of-indentured scientific service. It was a very sweet deal, one I clearly did not deserve. But I pushed for it anyway, for my own selfish reasons; Misato supported it, and here I am. I am something between a prized professional, a star researcher, and a slave; unable to quit, but also completely and utterly irreplaceable. They know that if I try to sabotage the work, there's not much worse they can do to me. So, there's an agreement to let me work in peace as long as my projects do not go over budget, provide some useful results, and do not try to maim or kill anyone in the process. After all, I sold my soul to Gendo before, why not sell it again to better masters? And Katsuragi is far less pain in the ass than Gendo ever was. And she does not make booty calls – her "girls' nights out" are far more preferable ways of bonding.
This… oh for fuck's sake. The two final sentences have to go.
So, I'm once more working with the MAGI and all the magic around Reiquarium, all the wonders of biotechnology, and all the horrors of it.
Speaking of horrors: the Reiquarium.
OK, this is it, Akagi. This is not going anywhere, and the poor guy will have to be intimidated into silence, if not shot.
We didn't have permission to destroy the clone bodies – paperwork necessary to do that was a nightmare, and no one wanted to deal with it; not to mention some people had serious moral issues with the idea. So, we kept them all. It was fine, I simply didn't go down there. Cost of that was relatively low, like keeping 20 bodies fed with base nutrients and disposing of some waste. Nothing compared to our research budget and electricity bills for air conditioning. So, it was just another of those things to deal with some day.
Until they began to awake, one by one.
Awake? What do you mean?
When the first one has awakened, we panicked. But Rei heard the commotion and came down to the lab to talk with her new sister. Then, she used her pull at NERV and UN to give her legal rights, uploaded her with a trimmed-down copy of her own memories, and let her out. She is now called Reib, while original Rei III is now calling herself Reia. Of course, each of them was still addressed as Rei – the other names were there to distinguish them.
Then came another: Reic, a recluse and a genius. She doesn't show, we do not know where she lives, we are not even really sure whether she exists... but sometimes funny papers signed with her stamp find their way into our mailboxes, pushing our knowledge of reality a bit further and chipping at our sanity.
Reid is a bit of a violent artist. Creative, creepy, crazy, cunning. She lives in a cabin in the woods in Geofront. She visits at some nights, and her laughter carries in the dark corridors of NERV HQ. I don't sleep on those nights.
On the other hand, I keep my door sealed at all times anyway. Too many dark things lurking out there, too many things to deal with.
Reie is... weird. Odd. Somehow damaged. I see her often, we interact, but she never speaks; actually, she never makes any sounds except when she moves, and even then, it is the softest. She simply greets you with a bow and a smile. And she is pretty helpful in our research, maintaining the equipment, keeping watch on her unawakened sisters, leaving insightful notes, and bringing coffee and sandwiches at odd hours. Our own "Rei of Mercy", as Maya calls her.
Reif has not emerged yet, but we expect her within a year. It seems there is a pattern to their emergence: initially, it was once a month, now the time grows longer with each of them.
Doctor Akagi… you know what "organizational secrets" are?
How… how does this process work?
They emerge rather blank, so Reia loads them with base memory set she worked out, a stripped-down amalgamation of previous versions. As a result, each of them is a little bit more adjusted at the start than the previous one. At least, this is the theory, but I leave it to Reia. It's her area, one I refuse to enter unless she asks. She has some form of a ritual, the new one is greeted by her sisters. I saw it once by accident, and I never want to witness it again. Never.
Forgive me, while this is something of a work of my dreams, it does not make it any less difficult to deal with the unexpected, the unusual, the uncanny.
Now, imagine. NERV is staffed by blue-haired clones. Reis. Ree. Reia is the big sister of them all, and along with Reib, she mentors them.
Don't ask me where do the souls come from. I stopped asking a long time ago.
You never did ask, this is your problem, Ritsuko Akagi.
What about the pilots?
The Pilots stayed, too. No longer on active duty, of course, but as reservists; at least those that still have Evangelions to operate; I'll get to that in a moment.
Katsuragi finally got them into some therapy, and while it took some time and a lot of effort, they became functional again; the scars are there, and none of them is a paragon of stability, but they are better. And they contribute to both NERV and the society.
Soryu has gotten herself another college degree – again, in record time – and became a physicist. She's on staff, and we somehow manage to work together. She still can't read kanji for her life, but luckily for her, the literature is plentiful in English.
Ayanami... well, the first Ayanami has a lot to do. Rei-swarm (how do I call it? Clutch of Reis? Mischief of Reis?), in the first place – someone has to manage it, and she knows them best. She's doing some research work as well: biology, chemistry,
magic metaphysical biology – and acts as one of our tests subjects at times.
Nagisa... well. The trickster, the angelic guard, the hunter of the threats. He's playing some game of his with the world. Weird guy, but firmly on our side. Ours, not UN's.
Young Ikari? House-husband, team pet, team chef. A bit of a musician. He's fine. He seems happy. They are a close – and closed – emotional support group. Initially, I heard some rumors about Soryu and Ikari being together, but then others contradicted them. All I know for sure now is that none of them is married and Soryu sometimes wears a turtleneck or a scarf despite weather making it a bad idea.
They are all living together in some large house in the suburbs they managed to get their hands on in the post-war chaos. Likely as some compensation or a part of their new employment contract; I don't know the details. Good for them, they did suffer more than most of us in this conflict.
As for the Suzuhara boy, he's still in rehabilitation. We developed a treatment for his missing limbs, but it is still experimental and slow to work. Still, he's kind of determined, and a good patient. Horaki girl is motivating him, too; this is another story.
Yay, betray all personal secrets too. Guy's getting an extended memory removal. And his boss too. And the secretaries. I'm deducting the cost of this operation from your pay, Doctor.
There were mentions, during the tribunals, about "unlawful use of souls" with Evangelion units. What happened to them?
The souls within Evangelions were finally contacted – finding a safe and reliable way to do that was one of my first tasks once I was reinstated – and given a choice to leave or to stay and work from their... unique perspective.
Most chose to leave, causing a huge legal headache by introducing a concept of "returned from the dead" to the legal system of a few countries, predominantly Japan – not to mention some upheaval in the families where the then-widower had chosen to remarry; I guess Mr. Langley is not to be envied, exactly, especially that Asuka explained some details to her mother (reinstating Kyoko Soryu was a hard one, but that is yet another tale for yet another time).
Some chose to stay inside, especially that we could not guarantee they'd be able to return once they left; and thus, young Ikari gets to visit his mother only by climbing inside an entry plug and having it inserted into the Evangelion unit that holds her soul. Fortunately, I seem to be the only one that thinks that early Freud would have a field day with that.
Well, this one I agree with. It's just – again – far too personal.
I see. Is there anything you would like to add?
Yes, it's about the place itself. NERV is a strange place now, but a good one to live in and to work for. No longer under a thumb of some nebulous, dark and evil organization – just an honest, if a little bit secretive, research cell working in favor of restoring the world. Katsuragi may be the boss, but whenever you turn, there is some Rei. I'm not sure what to think of it, but I firmly believe she – sorry, they – have every right to be here.
This is their home, after all.
And it is my home, too.
Yay, I love the fact you feel at home, Doctor, but we're going to have a chat, and it is not going to be over a drink.
Thank you for those few words. As I understand, you request this to be processed by NERV's… information service?
It is not my "request", it is the law and one of the terms of my indenture. The interview, in its final form, will have to be authorized by our Information Service, and if it passes muster, it has to be published in the approved form. If anything unapproved leaks… well, I will get scolded.
Oh, of course, we would not want that-
And any person responsible would be hunted down and imprisoned for no less than ten years.
And this stayed in the official text? Either someone's sloppy, or they know this one's not going out.
Oh. Thank you once more.
My pleasure.
Won't be "pleasure" when I go medieval on your babbling ass, Ritsuko. Unless you developed a humiliation kink in the meantime.
***
By decision of the NERV commander: after some consideration and following recommendations of the Intelligence Service, I decided to bock publication of this interview. Initially, I thought several cuts would be enough, but Doctor Akagi was thorough enough in the disclosure of our secrets that we had to, in essence, cut everything.
The following is to happen:
- The original tape and all the files are to be confiscated by Section 3 and stored with research access only, limited to senior staff
- The interviewer is to be explained the gravity of the situation
- The news agency is to be informed of the situation and asked for full cooperation
I expect compliance and a full report by the end of tomorrow.
Moreover, a meeting on internal security will be held:
- Intelligence Service is to prepare improved procedures on security
- Internal Affairs are to prepare new screening procedures for guests
Recipients:
1. Director of Tactical, for execution of the seizure and confiscation
2. Director of Science/Technical, for reflection so she does not babble again
3. Director of Intelligence service, for the record and future consideration
4. Director of Internal Affairs, for the record and future consideration
5. Commander of NERV, for personal satisfaction
6. a/a
Signed, Colonel Misato Katsuragi, Commander of NERV
