Chapter 23.3
- Location
- Australia, mate
Chapter 23.3
Asuka was looking forward to taking a fast shower to wash the LCL out of her hair before heading home, but Misato's appearance at the bottom of the steps leading from the walkway to the catwalk told her right away that things weren't going to be that simple. The woman looked incredibly worried about something as she handed Asuka a towel, with which she began to quickly wipe the orange gunk off, paying more attention to her long hair. With the length of her hair, Asuka always felt like her head was far heavier than it should be for a few minutes after exiting the entry plug.
Cutting it was entirely out of the question. Asuka was proud of her hair, and an inconvenience was not enough to change her opinion.
When she no longer felt like somebody had tied weights to her hair, Asuka said, "Can we at least put off looking into the friendly fire incident until tomorrow? I really want to head back to the apartment and get our friends back for the party." As the First Child walked up to them from her own Evangelion, Asuka waved a hand at Rei as she tried to get out the first words of another apology. "Besides, Rei's already apologised, her punishment has been delivered, let's just go, okay?"
It had been a good guess as to the reason for Misato's mood, but unfortunately it was wrong.
Misato cracked a small smile, but there was no humour in it. "You'd probably find it a bit hard to have a party without the guest of honour."
She now had the full attention of both girls. Asuka cautiously asked, "Did something happen to Shinji while we were fighting?" Next to the redhead, Rei paled slightly.
After a moment of thought, Misato waved a hand back and forth in a 'kind of' gesture and said, "It's... more like something didn't happen." At the confused looks of the two pilots, she sighed. "Just come with me, and I'll show you."
Asuka was half-expecting Misato to lead them all the way to the medical bay, so stopping only a short distance away in front of Unit-01 brought confusion to her features. That, and the unusually large amount of people bustling about in the Evangelion Cage, Ritsuko included, running diagnostics. Normally, Unit-01's cage was almost completely empty. Asuka looked up towards the neck of the Evangelion, where an entry plug was positioned to be inserted. There hadn't been a need for one since Ritsuko had suggested placing a semi-comatose Shinji in the plug for her scans.
Asuka frowned as some of the answer to the problem presented itself. "Shinji tried to join us, didn't he?" she asked. A jolt of fear shot through her at the possibility that Shinji had been absorbed again. But the mood in the cage didn't reflect such a dire scenario, and neither did Misato's reaction. She settled down slightly, but mentally kicked herself for what she felt was her fault in the recent fight. If she had been on the ball...
"Unit-01 refused to activate," Rei added, correctly guessing what had happened. Her expression had turned fearful for a split second but now it was merely grim, possibly thinking along the same lines as her fellow pilot.
"Yeah," Misato replied, ice creeping into her voice as she stared up at the face of Unit-01. "No activation, no synchronisation. It was as if Unit-01 just decided to... ignore us, like a petulant child."
Not so long ago, Asuka would have made a quip about the purple Evangelion having the same attitude as its pilot. An image rose unbidden in her mind of Unit-01 putting on giant headphones and sulking in bed. If the mood in the cage was brighter, she might have been willing to pass along such a ludicrous idea. "So where's Shinji now?" she asked out loud.
In response, Misato nodded her head in the direction of the entry plug. "He didn't come out when we ejected the plug. We know he's not hurt or anything, but-" She had to stop talking as Asuka stepped onto the gantry leading up to the entry plug. A couple of technicians looked curiously at the redhead, before moving out of her way. They knew better than to impede the Second Child's progress, especially with that look on her face. The Commander standing nearby only slightly factored into the mens' sense of self-preservation.
The dark entrance to the plug seemed to loom ahead of Asuka, and as she noticed her feet were slowing down she shook herself hard, causing her still-damp hair to fly about her face with a few strands sticking to her face. There was nothing to be concerned about. The people in the cage weren't acting like there was an emergency, more like something out of the ordinary had just occurred.
But as she thought more about the situation, Asuka hit upon an obvious realisation while ducking her head and finally setting foot inside the entry plug. 'He's going to blame himself for this.'
The scene inside the metal tube tore at her heart. Shinji was still sitting in the pilot's chair with a despondent look on his face, as his right hand occasionally tugged feebly on the controls and the left remained cradled in his lap.
Asuka moved up into the boy's peripheral vision and waited for a few seconds. When there was no response beyond a slight flicker of his eyes, she raised a hand and tapped hard on the metal wall of the entry plug, loudly adding, "Hey, Third!"
The echoing combination of both a loud, familiar voice and the tapping were enough to bring Shinji out of his daze with a start. He locked eyes with Asuka, who gave him a smirk, before relinquishing his grip on the controls and sinking back into his chair. "Oh, hello," he mumbled with a sigh.
"I'm not going to bother asking how you're doing," Asuka replied. "It's pretty obvious just by looking at you."
Another sigh came from Shinji's mouth. "I failed you again, Asuka."
"Wait, again? What do you mean?" The redhead folded her arms. "I don't recall you failing... me... before..." She trailed off. Shinji flinched away from her as her blue eyes shot wide open. "You're... you're talking about just before Third Impact... aren't you?" she asked, an accusatory tone beginning to leak into her voice.
He didn't answer, but he didn't need to. It was written all over Shinji's face, even as he tried to turn away from Asuka. She grabbed him by a shoulder, and used her other hand to turn his face back to look at her. "Shinji..." She paused for a moment to phrase the question in a way that hopefully wouldn't cause him to close up. "What happened to you that day?"
Most of the story was already known to her. Shinji had been mentally crushed, almost hoping for somebody to kill him during the invasion. But Misato had managed to get him into the elevator that took him to Unit-01... and then an unexplained gap between that and Unit-01 flying into the sky on wings of light while she bled out after being torn apart.
Since the nightmares that detailed Asuka's death had diminished, thanks largely in part to an unknowing Shinji, she had been plagued much less by what caused them. Now, though, she felt like she wouldn't be able to sleep until the truth was revealed.
It was time for that gap to be filled.
Perhaps understanding that neither of them would be going anywhere until Asuka got her answer, Shinji began to haltingly speak of what had happened on the eve of Third Impact. The redhead listened with half an ear and a frown. Something still seemed to be missing, as he had started a short time before the JSSDF and Misato found him underneath the stairs, already in a despairing state.
'Rei said there were four things that sent him over the edge. I know three... Was whatever he skipped past the final thing?'
Asuka's ears perked up as Shinji's story reached the point where he and Misato reached the elevator. She made a face when he mentioned the kiss and promise that the then-Major had given him, but it softened as he mused that both he and Misato knew the promise was hollow. They had both known she was about to die. The woman was simply out of ideas for how to motivate the emotionally destroyed young man.
As tears began flowing freely down Shinji's face, the Second Child's face turned unreadable as the story went on, through his realisation that Misato had just died because of him, and onto the terrible sight of Unit-01 covered from head to toe in Bakelite. Her iron grip on his body relaxed somewhat, as the apparent reason for his absence became clear.
But then Unit-01 easily broke free.
"Bakelite was no match for it. I could have made it break out at any time," Shinji slowly said. "But instead all I did was sit there. I gave up right at the end, when I could have reached you in time." He looked up at Asuka and sniffled. "You died, all because I was feeling like shit. How pathetic is that?"
Her hands pulled away, letting Shinji slump against his chair. As he began to mumble apologies, Asuka folded her arms and slowly stepped around the boy as she tried to think.
How was she supposed to react to this information? Should she condemn him for his inaction, punish him for giving up and letting her die in a most brutal fashion? Or should she let it go, and acknowledge that a suicidally depressed boy who had simply let an enemy soldier almost execute him was in no fit state to do anything, let alone pilot a giant robot against nine enemy Evangelions.
"So... That's what happened..." came a familiar female voice from just outside the entry plug, causing Asuka to jump and almost yelp in shock.
"Damnit, Misato!" she angrily hissed, poking her head out of the hatch. "This was a private conversation!"
"As both your foster mother and superior officer, I believe I have at least some authority to listen in." Misato's voice dropped, barely carrying to Asuka's ears. "And now I know why Shinji couldn't help you."
The redhead snorted. "Couldn't, or wouldn't?" she sarcastically asked, stepping out and leaning against the railing of the gantry next to the older woman.
"It's what you're asking yourself right now, isn't it?"
Asuka growled as Misato hit the nail on the head, and continued hammering; "Look, if a shrink were here, they'd be telling us that somebody in his mental state would barely be allowed out of sight, possibly locked in a room with no sharp objects."
Misato tapped the side of her head as she continued. "With a clear mind, something probably nobody had that day, there would have been no problems, and we could have beaten SEELE back." She grinned mirthlessly. "But despite how many times he got back up, my boy kept getting knocked down until he couldn't get up any more. Ask yourself this, Asuka, and be honest: Would you have done the same in Shinji's situation?"
There was a long period of silence before Asuka dully replied, "...I don't know."
"Of course you don't. I don't either," Misato admitted with a shrug. "We're not the exact same person. We all act differently. You already know how suspiciously similar the lives of you and Shinji were. He did things that you didn't, and vice versa. Just imagine what things would be like if your lives were swapped around."
Asuka thought for a moment, and then had to stifle a snort of amusement as she imagined Shinji doing some of the things she had done, such as The Great Shinji Ikari, the college-educated hotshot pilot of Unit-02, meeting The Invincible Asuka Langley-Soryu on the deck of Over the Rainbow and giving the same speech she had done. It didn't help that her mind's eye stubbornly refused to see him in anything but the same hat and yellow sundress she had worn as well.
"Oh Gott," she finally snickered. At the woman's raised eyebrow, she mentioned what she had just thought of.
Misato grinned hugely at the mental image, happy that the mood had been lifted. "So how do you feel about him now?" she asked. As Asuka began to turn red-faced, she pretended not to notice and added, "What do you think he deserves? Your anger, or your help?"
It didn't take the Second Child long to answer this time. "My help."
"Good." Misato jerked a thumb at the entry plug hatch. "Now get in there and help him out. We have cake to eat." With her piece said, she walked back down to the catwalk and out of the cage. Rei looked up at Asuka for a moment before following Misato.
Asuka watched them leave, and stepped back into the entry plug. To her surprise, Shinji was sitting upright, looking much more alert than when she had walked away from him. He turned in his seat to face her, and... was that a smile on his slightly red face? She cautiously approached, unsure of what to make of this attitude shift.
Oh, wait. They were in a mostly hollow metal tube. Shinji had likely heard almost everything she and Misato had said about him. Perhaps they should have moved further away... but then he wouldn't be sitting here smiling at her after remembering such a hopeless moment of his life.
"Well, you certainly seem to have cheered up," Asuka remarked.
Shinji scratched the back of his head nervously. "It... um... it was kind of hard not to smile, when I thought about you wearing the same school uniform all the time like I did."
"Oh?" Asuka raised an eyebrow and put her hands on her hips. "You'd like to see me in that ridiculous getup more often, would you? Got a thing for schoolgirls?"
"Eh... no!" Shinji stammered, his face going through several shades of red and pink. "I-I meant it was funny to imagine you in the boy's outfit!"
"Hah. Like you'd ever get me to wear that thing. You boys have to spend all day looking like you got called away from the cubicle farm. At least us girls get to look like sailors. Still," Asuka threw her hands up in the air as best as she could in the enclosed space, "Whoever designed Japanese girl uniforms has the be the most perverted person in the entire world!" She would have continued ranting, but Asuka remembered what was still to come that day. "Well, whatever. Let's get out of here, Third."
Without thinking, she took him by the left hand. She reflexively let go when Shinji let out an involuntary hiss of pain. He tried to deny that anything was wrong, but it was easy to tell that he was lying. Much gentler this time, Asuka took him by the upper arm and pulled him out of the entry plug.
When they were out of the Evangelion cages, Asuka sat him down on a bench near Misato and Rei, slapping the button on his plugsuit to deactivate it. She ordered him to keep his right hand on the suit so that it didn't fall off of him, and present his left hand for inspection. Both Asuka and Misato uttered a curse when Shinji revealed a hand that was almost completely stained red up to the wrist. As the redhead began to question him on how he injured himself, Misato cut her off.
"That doesn't matter right now. Let's just take him to medical and get that hand checked before it gets infected."
**
After the blood was washed away, the damage to Shinji's hand was less than it appeared, but still rather surprising to the two female pilots. There were four slightly curved cuts in the palm of his hand, perfectly spaced for his fingernails to have been the cause. The doctor ordered Shinji to both cut his nails, and consider buying a stress ball. Asuka promised to get several, so she could leave them all over the house for him.
Once his hand was bandaged in waterproof wraps, Shinji was finally allowed time to shower and get changed back into his normal clothes. The moment he stepped out of the change room, Asuka took him by the right hand this time and dragged him all the way through NERV to Misato's car. Along the way, she phoned Hikari and told her to get the others ready.
It was finally time to resume the party.
And this time, nothing was going to stand in the way.
Asuka was looking forward to taking a fast shower to wash the LCL out of her hair before heading home, but Misato's appearance at the bottom of the steps leading from the walkway to the catwalk told her right away that things weren't going to be that simple. The woman looked incredibly worried about something as she handed Asuka a towel, with which she began to quickly wipe the orange gunk off, paying more attention to her long hair. With the length of her hair, Asuka always felt like her head was far heavier than it should be for a few minutes after exiting the entry plug.
Cutting it was entirely out of the question. Asuka was proud of her hair, and an inconvenience was not enough to change her opinion.
When she no longer felt like somebody had tied weights to her hair, Asuka said, "Can we at least put off looking into the friendly fire incident until tomorrow? I really want to head back to the apartment and get our friends back for the party." As the First Child walked up to them from her own Evangelion, Asuka waved a hand at Rei as she tried to get out the first words of another apology. "Besides, Rei's already apologised, her punishment has been delivered, let's just go, okay?"
It had been a good guess as to the reason for Misato's mood, but unfortunately it was wrong.
Misato cracked a small smile, but there was no humour in it. "You'd probably find it a bit hard to have a party without the guest of honour."
She now had the full attention of both girls. Asuka cautiously asked, "Did something happen to Shinji while we were fighting?" Next to the redhead, Rei paled slightly.
After a moment of thought, Misato waved a hand back and forth in a 'kind of' gesture and said, "It's... more like something didn't happen." At the confused looks of the two pilots, she sighed. "Just come with me, and I'll show you."
Asuka was half-expecting Misato to lead them all the way to the medical bay, so stopping only a short distance away in front of Unit-01 brought confusion to her features. That, and the unusually large amount of people bustling about in the Evangelion Cage, Ritsuko included, running diagnostics. Normally, Unit-01's cage was almost completely empty. Asuka looked up towards the neck of the Evangelion, where an entry plug was positioned to be inserted. There hadn't been a need for one since Ritsuko had suggested placing a semi-comatose Shinji in the plug for her scans.
Asuka frowned as some of the answer to the problem presented itself. "Shinji tried to join us, didn't he?" she asked. A jolt of fear shot through her at the possibility that Shinji had been absorbed again. But the mood in the cage didn't reflect such a dire scenario, and neither did Misato's reaction. She settled down slightly, but mentally kicked herself for what she felt was her fault in the recent fight. If she had been on the ball...
"Unit-01 refused to activate," Rei added, correctly guessing what had happened. Her expression had turned fearful for a split second but now it was merely grim, possibly thinking along the same lines as her fellow pilot.
"Yeah," Misato replied, ice creeping into her voice as she stared up at the face of Unit-01. "No activation, no synchronisation. It was as if Unit-01 just decided to... ignore us, like a petulant child."
Not so long ago, Asuka would have made a quip about the purple Evangelion having the same attitude as its pilot. An image rose unbidden in her mind of Unit-01 putting on giant headphones and sulking in bed. If the mood in the cage was brighter, she might have been willing to pass along such a ludicrous idea. "So where's Shinji now?" she asked out loud.
In response, Misato nodded her head in the direction of the entry plug. "He didn't come out when we ejected the plug. We know he's not hurt or anything, but-" She had to stop talking as Asuka stepped onto the gantry leading up to the entry plug. A couple of technicians looked curiously at the redhead, before moving out of her way. They knew better than to impede the Second Child's progress, especially with that look on her face. The Commander standing nearby only slightly factored into the mens' sense of self-preservation.
The dark entrance to the plug seemed to loom ahead of Asuka, and as she noticed her feet were slowing down she shook herself hard, causing her still-damp hair to fly about her face with a few strands sticking to her face. There was nothing to be concerned about. The people in the cage weren't acting like there was an emergency, more like something out of the ordinary had just occurred.
But as she thought more about the situation, Asuka hit upon an obvious realisation while ducking her head and finally setting foot inside the entry plug. 'He's going to blame himself for this.'
The scene inside the metal tube tore at her heart. Shinji was still sitting in the pilot's chair with a despondent look on his face, as his right hand occasionally tugged feebly on the controls and the left remained cradled in his lap.
Asuka moved up into the boy's peripheral vision and waited for a few seconds. When there was no response beyond a slight flicker of his eyes, she raised a hand and tapped hard on the metal wall of the entry plug, loudly adding, "Hey, Third!"
The echoing combination of both a loud, familiar voice and the tapping were enough to bring Shinji out of his daze with a start. He locked eyes with Asuka, who gave him a smirk, before relinquishing his grip on the controls and sinking back into his chair. "Oh, hello," he mumbled with a sigh.
"I'm not going to bother asking how you're doing," Asuka replied. "It's pretty obvious just by looking at you."
Another sigh came from Shinji's mouth. "I failed you again, Asuka."
"Wait, again? What do you mean?" The redhead folded her arms. "I don't recall you failing... me... before..." She trailed off. Shinji flinched away from her as her blue eyes shot wide open. "You're... you're talking about just before Third Impact... aren't you?" she asked, an accusatory tone beginning to leak into her voice.
He didn't answer, but he didn't need to. It was written all over Shinji's face, even as he tried to turn away from Asuka. She grabbed him by a shoulder, and used her other hand to turn his face back to look at her. "Shinji..." She paused for a moment to phrase the question in a way that hopefully wouldn't cause him to close up. "What happened to you that day?"
Most of the story was already known to her. Shinji had been mentally crushed, almost hoping for somebody to kill him during the invasion. But Misato had managed to get him into the elevator that took him to Unit-01... and then an unexplained gap between that and Unit-01 flying into the sky on wings of light while she bled out after being torn apart.
Since the nightmares that detailed Asuka's death had diminished, thanks largely in part to an unknowing Shinji, she had been plagued much less by what caused them. Now, though, she felt like she wouldn't be able to sleep until the truth was revealed.
It was time for that gap to be filled.
Perhaps understanding that neither of them would be going anywhere until Asuka got her answer, Shinji began to haltingly speak of what had happened on the eve of Third Impact. The redhead listened with half an ear and a frown. Something still seemed to be missing, as he had started a short time before the JSSDF and Misato found him underneath the stairs, already in a despairing state.
'Rei said there were four things that sent him over the edge. I know three... Was whatever he skipped past the final thing?'
Asuka's ears perked up as Shinji's story reached the point where he and Misato reached the elevator. She made a face when he mentioned the kiss and promise that the then-Major had given him, but it softened as he mused that both he and Misato knew the promise was hollow. They had both known she was about to die. The woman was simply out of ideas for how to motivate the emotionally destroyed young man.
As tears began flowing freely down Shinji's face, the Second Child's face turned unreadable as the story went on, through his realisation that Misato had just died because of him, and onto the terrible sight of Unit-01 covered from head to toe in Bakelite. Her iron grip on his body relaxed somewhat, as the apparent reason for his absence became clear.
But then Unit-01 easily broke free.
"Bakelite was no match for it. I could have made it break out at any time," Shinji slowly said. "But instead all I did was sit there. I gave up right at the end, when I could have reached you in time." He looked up at Asuka and sniffled. "You died, all because I was feeling like shit. How pathetic is that?"
Her hands pulled away, letting Shinji slump against his chair. As he began to mumble apologies, Asuka folded her arms and slowly stepped around the boy as she tried to think.
How was she supposed to react to this information? Should she condemn him for his inaction, punish him for giving up and letting her die in a most brutal fashion? Or should she let it go, and acknowledge that a suicidally depressed boy who had simply let an enemy soldier almost execute him was in no fit state to do anything, let alone pilot a giant robot against nine enemy Evangelions.
"So... That's what happened..." came a familiar female voice from just outside the entry plug, causing Asuka to jump and almost yelp in shock.
"Damnit, Misato!" she angrily hissed, poking her head out of the hatch. "This was a private conversation!"
"As both your foster mother and superior officer, I believe I have at least some authority to listen in." Misato's voice dropped, barely carrying to Asuka's ears. "And now I know why Shinji couldn't help you."
The redhead snorted. "Couldn't, or wouldn't?" she sarcastically asked, stepping out and leaning against the railing of the gantry next to the older woman.
"It's what you're asking yourself right now, isn't it?"
Asuka growled as Misato hit the nail on the head, and continued hammering; "Look, if a shrink were here, they'd be telling us that somebody in his mental state would barely be allowed out of sight, possibly locked in a room with no sharp objects."
Misato tapped the side of her head as she continued. "With a clear mind, something probably nobody had that day, there would have been no problems, and we could have beaten SEELE back." She grinned mirthlessly. "But despite how many times he got back up, my boy kept getting knocked down until he couldn't get up any more. Ask yourself this, Asuka, and be honest: Would you have done the same in Shinji's situation?"
There was a long period of silence before Asuka dully replied, "...I don't know."
"Of course you don't. I don't either," Misato admitted with a shrug. "We're not the exact same person. We all act differently. You already know how suspiciously similar the lives of you and Shinji were. He did things that you didn't, and vice versa. Just imagine what things would be like if your lives were swapped around."
Asuka thought for a moment, and then had to stifle a snort of amusement as she imagined Shinji doing some of the things she had done, such as The Great Shinji Ikari, the college-educated hotshot pilot of Unit-02, meeting The Invincible Asuka Langley-Soryu on the deck of Over the Rainbow and giving the same speech she had done. It didn't help that her mind's eye stubbornly refused to see him in anything but the same hat and yellow sundress she had worn as well.
"Oh Gott," she finally snickered. At the woman's raised eyebrow, she mentioned what she had just thought of.
Misato grinned hugely at the mental image, happy that the mood had been lifted. "So how do you feel about him now?" she asked. As Asuka began to turn red-faced, she pretended not to notice and added, "What do you think he deserves? Your anger, or your help?"
It didn't take the Second Child long to answer this time. "My help."
"Good." Misato jerked a thumb at the entry plug hatch. "Now get in there and help him out. We have cake to eat." With her piece said, she walked back down to the catwalk and out of the cage. Rei looked up at Asuka for a moment before following Misato.
Asuka watched them leave, and stepped back into the entry plug. To her surprise, Shinji was sitting upright, looking much more alert than when she had walked away from him. He turned in his seat to face her, and... was that a smile on his slightly red face? She cautiously approached, unsure of what to make of this attitude shift.
Oh, wait. They were in a mostly hollow metal tube. Shinji had likely heard almost everything she and Misato had said about him. Perhaps they should have moved further away... but then he wouldn't be sitting here smiling at her after remembering such a hopeless moment of his life.
"Well, you certainly seem to have cheered up," Asuka remarked.
Shinji scratched the back of his head nervously. "It... um... it was kind of hard not to smile, when I thought about you wearing the same school uniform all the time like I did."
"Oh?" Asuka raised an eyebrow and put her hands on her hips. "You'd like to see me in that ridiculous getup more often, would you? Got a thing for schoolgirls?"
"Eh... no!" Shinji stammered, his face going through several shades of red and pink. "I-I meant it was funny to imagine you in the boy's outfit!"
"Hah. Like you'd ever get me to wear that thing. You boys have to spend all day looking like you got called away from the cubicle farm. At least us girls get to look like sailors. Still," Asuka threw her hands up in the air as best as she could in the enclosed space, "Whoever designed Japanese girl uniforms has the be the most perverted person in the entire world!" She would have continued ranting, but Asuka remembered what was still to come that day. "Well, whatever. Let's get out of here, Third."
Without thinking, she took him by the left hand. She reflexively let go when Shinji let out an involuntary hiss of pain. He tried to deny that anything was wrong, but it was easy to tell that he was lying. Much gentler this time, Asuka took him by the upper arm and pulled him out of the entry plug.
When they were out of the Evangelion cages, Asuka sat him down on a bench near Misato and Rei, slapping the button on his plugsuit to deactivate it. She ordered him to keep his right hand on the suit so that it didn't fall off of him, and present his left hand for inspection. Both Asuka and Misato uttered a curse when Shinji revealed a hand that was almost completely stained red up to the wrist. As the redhead began to question him on how he injured himself, Misato cut her off.
"That doesn't matter right now. Let's just take him to medical and get that hand checked before it gets infected."
**
After the blood was washed away, the damage to Shinji's hand was less than it appeared, but still rather surprising to the two female pilots. There were four slightly curved cuts in the palm of his hand, perfectly spaced for his fingernails to have been the cause. The doctor ordered Shinji to both cut his nails, and consider buying a stress ball. Asuka promised to get several, so she could leave them all over the house for him.
Once his hand was bandaged in waterproof wraps, Shinji was finally allowed time to shower and get changed back into his normal clothes. The moment he stepped out of the change room, Asuka took him by the right hand this time and dragged him all the way through NERV to Misato's car. Along the way, she phoned Hikari and told her to get the others ready.
It was finally time to resume the party.
And this time, nothing was going to stand in the way.
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