First, housekeeping.
This fanfic as I sort of said in the little disclaimer at the front, was partially an experiment, partially a fun fic, so I hadn't really been doing anything like as much editing and proof reading as I should have. I've always been a little lazy at it, but reading over some of the earlier chapters again, i can't help but wince every few lines. A lot of the errors are upload filters screwing things over, but a lot are not and it rather stands out for me now that I actually looked.
So I've chained Academia to a table and engaged his services as a Beta writer, so I'm hoping you'll see a noticeable improvement away from all the little errors that pop up every few lines from now on. My thanks for his valuable time, extreme patience and suggestions that, I hope, make this a more enjoyable experience.
Now, new business.
This is WAFF territory here. Be warned ye that enter here. I think I might have somewhat overcompensated for the rather...heavy tone of the last chapter of my little trilogy, so I apologize if I've gone a little far, or rushed things a little too much -I think some fellow EVA writers are a bad influence, given how far THEY have moved along the Eva timeline while I'm still not that far from Asuka arriving, even if they started after me
This chapter in fact got so big I decided to split it into two sections, though they are really one big chapter. I've decided to give it a day or two between chapters rather then spamming everyone with close to 50,000 words at once (bloody hell, there are complete Eva fics of a solid quality that are 50,000 words on their own!) and destroying everyones minds. The next chapter should be up in a few days, after Academia finishes fixing the horrors I can see through it.
Well. I think thats about it...all thats left to say is enjoy. And if you find this too WAFFy, don't worry. The chapters after the dance are over will be filled with much in the way of giant robots and giant aliens slugging it out! And of course everything going to utter hell in a handbasket at some point in the next few chapters after that. But hey, its Evangelion...
********
Asuka Langley Soryu was shopping.
All things being equal, this would generally lead to a relatively happy Second Child. She had
plenty of cash, she was getting an acceptably high number of interested looks from the boys in the area -which she then ignored- and she was shopping in the company of two of her friends.
But today all things were
not equal.
She was behind the curve.
Asuka Langley Soryu
hated being behind
anything. It was just under two weeks till the so called Dance and she didn’t have an exact idea what she was going to
wear.
Problem the first; she couldn’t wear anything that someone
else was going to wear,
that was a cardinal sin for a women. Hence the presence of the class rep who, besides being her best friend, as a matter of course knew everything there was to know about what people were wearing across the year. In ordinary times, Asuka would have done her own ‘recon’, but the synchronization training with Shinji and Rei had kept her away from school for so long that she simply didn’t have the time, instead relying on Hikari to keep her safe.
Problem the second then reared its head; she couldn’t just wear something unique, it
had to be something
bold,
daring and
brilliant. From what Hikari had told her, the year was more or less evenly divided between a traditional Japanese Kimono or Kimono inspired evening gown on one hand, or a more western look for the other half. The
good news was that by in large, almost all the girls who
had chosen a more western look were highly conservative Japanese girls who went for simple and rather plain designs compared to what
she was looking for, which meant she didn’t have to push
too close to that thin line between ‘slut’ and ‘superstar’ to make a huge impact.
She wanted to be the center of attention for the
right reasons after all, not the
wrong reasons.
And problem the third, Rei was with them, needing her own dress.
The trio had been shopping for over two hours with only a quick drinks break to halt their momentum. Rei had surprisingly been the easiest to buy for, she had calmly walked into the second store the three had looked in, ignored everything on display and almost as if she had some kind of sixth sense to select a silvery white dress with light blue highlights that had been sitting at the back of the store. Asuka hadn’t been entirely sure of the choice, but Rei had clearly fallen in love with it at first sight. Rei was a strange one for sure…but when she walked out of the change room with a surprisingly self conscious expression on her face…
She looked gorgeous. And damm her for it,
she would have to work twice as hard now to ensure Rei didn’t steal herthunder.
The dress was strapless and hugged her figure almost like a second skin in places, loosely billowing out ever so slightly from her knees where it was slit to show off a small tease of her legs, Asuka making a mental note to double check Rei’s new, but limited shoe selection to make sure she had appropriate heelsto go with the outfit…
“Perfect” Asuka managed to smile, actually feeling –grudgingly- happy for Rei and the surprisingly elegant look she was pulling off, finding that she actually felt
happy for the odd First Child, who had had far too little happiness in her life to this date.
Typically, it had taken
her to set things right, not even the invincible Shinji had known about her situation, let alone done anything about it.
It had all started so oddly, with Asuka deciding that Rei should be her friend -for conveniences sake if nothing else- with a vague eye to teaming up the two female Eva pilots against Shinji at some point in the future. Rei had surprisingly agreed, although there hadn’t been any more time to explore this ‘friendship’ before she and Shinji had been deployed against the 7th Angel.
It was probably just as well that Rei had stayed behind and avoided running afoul of her rather dark mood on the trip back, her humiliation fueling a storm of anger that Shinji had defused by quietly saying that when they worked together, they did great things. His quiet and sincere admission had shocked her, but it had succeeded in changing her mood around enough to not take it out on Rei, fortune smiling on them as Rei, in that utterly honest and clinical way, had commented that her tactics had been utterly appropriate based on the previous Angel patterns, followed by the agreement among the pilots that each of them had screwed up in battle more then once.
The expression of her feelings might have been a little crude…but the sentiment behind them was so honest it had actually struck deep into Asuka and quietly changed her initial ‘freakazoid’ thoughts of the First Child, a change of attitude compounded when she had later seen the conditions Rei lived in.
It had however slid slightly backwards when she had found out about the school dance from Rei, the First Child not having bothered to inform her about it in the days they had known each other. Hikari too for that matter, but she had been able to –eventually- forgive them.
Shinji she had only –just- forgiven,
he lived with her and
he had plenty of chances to tell her. Even
if he had decided not to go.
At least until she had hinted she
might take him and he had
jumped at the chance. Predictable; he turned down –preemptively- every other Girl in the year, even setting Rei up with one of the stooges, but the second shewas on the scene,
bang, he was begging at her feet to accompany…
Ah hell…
She couldn’t lie
that much to herself.
She had volunteered
him. When you really got down to it,
she had asked
him out.
In the end though, the simple fact was that he had rejected everyone
but her preemptively, without a thought. Then, when she had put herselfin the running,
he had been
hers without hesitation. The boy no-one else could get...and damm it to hell, the only guy she knew over here she actually
trusted to take her to the dance.
So.
She had an acceptable partner. She had the looks. She had the well established social status…all in all, while she was slightly behind the curve she was
well on her way to getting back in front. She was even now shopping for a dress to wear that would utterly
destroy every other girl in her year. She had the money to get the aforementioned dress, ‘spies’ to inform her on the current strategic situation across the year and she even had a date…a date?
It’s just a convenient term, nothing more or less she thought asthe ‘D’ word again flashed across her mind, walking into the 12th store of the day. This chain according to Hikari was a European importer, which actually gave her some hope; she had not exactly been impressed by the local offerings.
Well with the exception of the dress Rei had snatched before
she could, damm her.
Hikari however, was starting to look a little tired and Asuka mentally decided that if they couldn’t find anything in this store, she would call it a day and come back alone. Honestly, Japanese fashion this season was nothing but the same damm boring cut in different colors again and again and-
Hold that thought.
She slowly walked to a display at the rear of the store, where a lower light level created a much more…sensual mood; approaching a mannequin dressed in a shimmering scarlet evening dress of the exact same tone as her Unit Two that caught her attention like an AT field drew Angels, to the slight alarm of the ultra conservative Class Rep behind her.
“Uh…Asuka…isn’t that a little…adult?” Hikari asked as she followed her deeper into the store, suddenly looking like she was carefully picking her way through a minefield from the hesitant way she walked…
“No, it’s a
lot adult” she replied without taking her gaze off the dress as she slowly walked around the mannequin, her eyes missing nothing as her hopes steadily rose.
“Can I help you?” a polite sales assistant asked, moving up towards them and clearly noting the boxes Rei was carrying from a competitor, correctly guessing it meant these girls were actually shopping today and not just looking.
“This dress” Asuka said slowly, still not taking her eyes of it. “Does it come in any other sizes?”
“It comes in all sizes” he assured her. “It just hit the store yesterday; technically it’s not in this month’s catalogue, it was
supposed to be a release for
next month in fact, three weeks from now.”
Asuka smiled…and Hikari and Rei
both shivered slightly at the sight.
Step-twirl, step, step, pause, pivot step and down, left foot, right foot, jump and-
“Yes!” Asuka cried, punching her fist in the air as the final sequence was performed flawlessly, a 100% readout blinking next to the dance mat as Shinji took a deep breath and pulled his headphones off, walking behind her to stretch his muscles slightly.
“Well I’m impressed” Misato said from the table across from them, as Toji, Kensuke, Hikari and even Pen-Pen broke into applause. They had finally done it, both able to anticipate the others moves to the music so perfectly that they could improvise, perfectly ‘harmonious’ moves while keeping in time with the music and each other, without needing the have the pads illuminated.
Asuka still thought the whole thing was a waste of time compared to the
real combat training. But it didn’t stop her from striving to be the
best of course. And now, she had done it.
“As well you should be Misato” Asuka smirked as she ripped off her own headset with a flourish. “It’s not easy synchronizing to a slower, less efficient pilot like the Baka here” she pointed out, placing her hands on her hips and raising her chin, proudly, looking down at an amused Misato, before calmly lecturing her in the most superior tone she had.
“Of course as Shinji has proven, with enough training and encouragement even the most inept pilot can be trained to follow my superior example, irrespective of their complete lack of hand/eye coordination. But with my example to follow, we did it in only a fraction of the…”
Asuka let her voice trail off as she belatedly realized that the two stooges were desperately trying not to laugh at her, Hikari was looking both shocked and amused at the same time and Misato was going red from the effort expanded to hold back her own explosion of laughter with her hands in front her mouth.
What on Earth she wondered…then a glimpse of motion caught her eye behind her audience, in the reflective surface of a glass cabinet
Shinji was standing directly behind her.
She had a sudden suspicion and decided to test a theory, brushing her hair back, as she kept talking about her superior skills, the motion duplicated in an exaggerated fashion by Shinji as he mimed her movements and talk.
She stopped and smiled.
“Shinji?”
Her ‘audience’ dropped their laughter in an instant.
“Uh…yes Asuka?”
“I can see you in the reflection of the glass behind them, you know”.
There was a moment of silence. A terrible pause in the universe itself as the meaning of the statement permeated everyone’s brains.
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to day to say farewell to our good friend, Shinji Ikari,” Toji muttered as Asuka slowly turned around to face an at-first sheepish, then rather nervous looking Shinji.
With her back turned to everyone else in the house, Asuka actually favored him with a rare
real smile. It
was a funny joke after all; she might well have done the same if he was getting too full of himself.
Not that it meant he didn’t get retribution for it of course.
“I hear you and the stooges have said that playing with me is like playing with fire, Ikari” Asuka said to him as she closed, in a terrifyingly level and polite voice that would have had Shinji running…if not for the fact that he was trapped against the living room wall, with the only exit
behind Asuka.
He also knew that protesting would do little good…but as he had little to loose
anyway…
“
I never said that,” he retorted in a smooth, steady voice.
Well he
tried to retort in a smooth steady voice. It came out as more of squeaking nervous tone. But to his credit, he
did manage to resist the urge to step away from her as she closed.
Asuka just broadened her smile at his defiance.
“Really? Then perhaps you
should listen to them more often,” she suggested as she stopped bare centimeters away, Shinji trying not to shake at the presence she projected like a blazing bonfire…or focus too much on the way the way the sweat glistened on her skin, across the top of her breasts, visible in the low cut tank top she was wearing. A situation made worse as her chest heaved, Asuka still clearly recovering from her physical exertion on the dance mat...
He realized he had probably focusing a little too much on her perfect body and not where her limbs were about the time he felt her foot hook under his, then sweep forward, sending him sprawling with a yelp to the dance floor on his face as Asuka pounced, her body straddling snug against his in a way that he wouldn’t dare to
dream about-
“Feel the burn” she whispered in his ear…then his head exploded in fire as she proceeded to noogie him with an expert, aggressive, technique that Shinji had neverhad turned against him until this moment.
“AHHH! I didn’t mean it!” he screamed in protest, Asuka just laughing at his efforts to break free, having expertly locked him in place with an iron grip, her body flush on top of his, trapping him in a curious world of pleasure and pain as his head fried and her ample chest pressed into him…
Pleasure with pain.
That was the truth of living with Asuka Langley Soryu.
Man, she must have a lot of rage left over from after I beat up on her in the simulator today he thought, stretching the truth only
slightly in his mind as it burned.
“Mean what?” she asked in an all too innocent and casual tone in reply to his screams, trying to ignore the treacherous excitement she felt as she struggled to hold Shinji down, the taller Third actually putting up rather impressive resistance even as he begged for mercy…
I am NOT
enjoying this in THAT
way dammit! Asuka shouted mentally to clear her mind, hanging on as Shinji started to
really try to throw her off.
“Shouldn’t we be trying to break them up?” Kensuke asked in confusion as utterly no-one moved to help the Third Child, who was half screaming for mercy, half promising death to all redheads in the room, not three meters away.
“Nah, they’ll work it out of their systems pretty quickly” Misato shrugged, looking down in annoyance at her empty can of apple juice and starting hunting for another as Asuka whopped, thumping Shinji’s head into the floor. “Shinji’s fine”.
“Yeah, I don’t get it” Toji said, in a voice loud enough to reach across the room. “Is she trying to kill him, or make out with him? I can’t tell,” he asked Hikari in a confused tone, causing his de-facto Girlfriend to giggle in a way she
never would have a month ago, Misato also chuckling as Kensuke tried not to grin.
Asuka, several meters away froze at the statement, mostly because she had quietly started to ask herself the same question, as she realized she was actually finding this activity quite enjoyable, in a way quite different from simply beating up on the Third Child should make her feel.
Unable to
answer the question however, she did the next best thing and released her right arm from its noogie duties long enough to scoop up Shinji’s abandoned headphones and send them flying at Toji who, anticipating such a move, neatly batted them aside. Her two second move however was more then enough of a window for Shinji, who used his suddenly free arm to push off the floor, shift his legs around hers and in a tumble of motion; suddenly it was
Asuka who was pinned under
him with a surprised yelp, her wrists held above her head, his legs across hers, the frontof his body pressing into the frontof
hers…
Time froze.
Shinji swallowed as he saw her deep sapphire eyes focus in on him, in surprise at the sudden reversal…
Their noses only millimeters apart…
Their panting breath on each others faces…
His mouth so close to hers he unconsciously flashed back to that ‘almost’ kiss, on this very floor, so long ago-
Asuka felt the wind slightly knocked out of her as she crashed onto her back, cursing her impulsive attack at Toji and the opening he had no doubt planed on it creating for Shinji, while at the same time strangely pleased that Shinji hadn’t hesitated to use it.
He must have a lot of rage left over after I kicked his ass in the simulations today she thought, only
slightly distorting the truth.
Still, it was quite the reversal to find herself suddenly on her back, her arms pinned above her and his weight crushing into her…his nose only millimeters from hers, his
mouth only
centimeters away…as she realized that Shinji could, right now, do anything he wanted to her and in her current state, she
couldn’t stop him!
No-one had
ever had her in such a position.
All he would have to do would be to lean down ever so slightly…
Could he…would he…will
he?
No. He won’t…the Baka would NEVER
dare –and she ignored the disappointed sigh she felt in the back of her mind at that conclusion-
but just
in case-
Asuka’s wrists twisted impossibly up-and-over his and broke his grip effortlessly, allowing her hands to fly up and strike his shoulders with surprising strength, sending him flying backwards off her. Then in an utterly confusing blur of limbs and body, Shinji found himself
again face down on the cheap plastic of the dance matt,
this time with his right arm held behind his back at an angle a humans shoulders had not quite evolved to naturally be held at.
Damm.
He
really should have risked kissing her, then running like hell for the door. Sure she might have hurt him
greatly, but as it appeared she was about to do that anyway…
“Would you like to try that again, Baka?” she whispered in his left ear, her hair dangling down past his face and veiling them off from the world, trapped with Asuka and no-one else…
He could think of worse ways to die.
“Yes,” he gasped out honestly; suddenly morbidly curious about what her reaction would be…
There was a moment of stunned silence as she actually stopped breathing, providing just enough time for Shinji to brace for the pain that was no doubt about to be delivered as her grip tightened-
“Alright, you can let him go Asuka, I think you’ve made your point,” Misato’s voice came from somewhere behind him, calling an end to the nights entertainment.
Shinji felt his housemate hesitate, but finally relax her grip as she returned his shoulder joint to a more normal configuration. Then to his surprise, she leaned in even closer to his ear and whispered a rather ambiguous “Too bad,” before she got to her feet, leaving Shinji lying rather pathetically on the floor as she happily strutted back to the table, ignoring the slightly reproachful look from her guardian as Misato walked over to help the Third Child up.
As a women ‘of the world’ so to speak, Misato
had noticed the hesitation and, dare she say it, even
anticipation in both of her charges for the few seconds they had been literally face to face on the floor.
Annoyingly, she realized she had not really thought through the logical conclusion of having two unrelated teenagers –both going through puberty- living under the same roof when she had impulsively taken Shinji, then Asuka in. And she was not so blind as to miss the sexual tension that had been building with the two ‘eating, breathing and sleeping’ together in their training.
She would have to give them ‘The Talk’ sooner then anticipated. Assuming they didn’t kill each other in the meantime of course.
“Shinji, you have nerves of steel,” she smiled as she reached the slowly recovering Third Child and helped him back to his feet, “but your joints are made of cartilage. Remember that please; I’d rather not have Asuka beating up on you becoming habit forming…not that she wasn’t
slightly out of line there” Misato’s voice became somewhat more serious, even if she was still striving for a light tone as Shinji made his way back to the table and crashed into a seat as far away from her as possible.
“Oh Misato,
that was just a game” Asuka smirked at Shinji. “No blood, no report and all that” she tried to dismiss everything with an airy, dismissive tone that hid the very real feelings of apprehension she was starting to feel at Misato’s not exactly
pleased look, realizing she might have taken things a
tad too far, for Shinji just lightly teasing her…
“If that’s her idea of fun play, I’m starting to understand why the Third Branch was so glad to get rid of her,” Kensuke put in, in a sotto voice.
“Oh that’s nothing” Shinji smirked slightly, saluting Asuka with his can of apple juice before she could cut back with a snappy retort. “Remind me to tell you the story of both of us in the playpen at two years old some day;
this is just old school stuff for us”.
Asuka’s blinked, then her brittle smirk softened, becoming much more genuine as she recognized that Shinji was subtly making the equivalent of a ‘no hard feelings’ gesture at her rather…aggressive response to his teasing, in a way Misato in her rather disapproving mood could pick up on.
But the electronic chime of the apartment’s doorbell, causing everyone to blink, and then turn to stare at Misato in confusion, threw off any further thoughts on the subject. Everyone who should be here
was here after all…
“Oh, that must be Rei,” Misato said, fiddling with her juice can’s ring-pull. “I asked her to pop over for a while. Asuka, be a dear and get the door?”
“Oh fine” Asuka sighed, getting back to her feet and heading for the door. As soon as she was out of sight, Misato turned back to Shinji.
“
Are you okay Shinji?” she asked, now with some real concern in her face. “She was a little out of line there”.
“I’m fine, Misato-san, really” Shinji smiled at her concern, as he recalled Kaji’s advice; that this whole dealwas the Asuka equivalent of a playful slap on the back of the head, or blowing a raspberry in his direction. Asuka played rough, but it
was still play…after a fashion.
If she had
really wanted to hurthim, he would probably be coughing up blood and screaming for morphine about now. But that hesitation, the surprise and…
what, he had felt from her, when he had managed to get on top of her…
So much of her was still such a mystery to him, despite everything…
“Oh Hikari, do you want another drink?” Toji fumbled his way into the conversation, as he noticed her drink was empty.
Hikari blinked as she noticed the same, and then glanced at Pen-Pen, who offered her an unapologetic ‘Wark!’ then clambered out of her lap leaving a suspiciously empty can of apple juice behind as he headed for his fridge.
“Yes, thank you Toji,” she smiled back at her de-facto boyfriend, who almost unconsciously returned her smile, while Kensuke made a choking face across the table that Misato managed not to snicker at.
It was almost crazy how much time Toji and Hikari were starting to spend with each other now. Kensuke’s faces were mostly an honest expression of his frustration with the whole situation. As Shinji had been told by his friend in more then one rant over the phone, Kensuke had become little more then a bulwark during lunch hours for the ‘far too happy couple’ to avoid the scandal of sitting alone while Shinji, Rei and Asuka were away on NERV business, meaning he was dragged along as they chatted and laughed, but more or less ignored the whole time.
His friend was almost at his wits end, but apparently had taken heart from the fact that the three pilots would be back at school tomorrow, Shinji’s Father apparently satisfied enough with their progress to let them get back to their ‘normal’ lives with just ‘after school’ sessions scheduled now.
“Hey, Rei’s here!” Asuka cheerfully broke into his thoughts with a high decibel level announcement that was completely unnecessary, as the Second Child led the First into the room.
“Hello,” Rei confirmed her presence, albeit in a softer and less explosive voice, an increasingly common –if still very slight- smile on her face as she looked across everyone present, as always her deep eyes lingering on him, that strange, almost telepathic connection he shared with her pulsing for a second as they stared at each other, before her gaze traced across to Kensuke, as Toji returned.
“Hello Kensuke,” she said, with a slightly broader smile, Rei looking graceful and gorgeous in a fashionable light blue dress that hung loosely to halfway down her shins, her hair as always now a work of art that reduced Kensuke to mostly single syllable words.
“Hi Rei,” was his first effort as he smiled hopelessly back at Rei, as she moved to sit next to him, his attention locked on the flawless Ayanami who returned his smile gently…as Toji, off to the side made a gagging gesture identical to that Kensuke had made at him, that caused Asuka to actually smirk in approval for once at him, both the Second and ‘Forth’ sitting on either side of the class Rep.
“Well, now that we’re all here, I have some news,” Misato called to ‘meeting’ to order, her ‘Captains’ voice suddenly coming to the foreground. “First, I’ve talked to all of your parents,” Misato started, getting a surprised look from the visitors. “They’ve agreed that the logistics of getting everyone to the dance will be simplified greatly if everyone meets up here, gets picked up and driven to the dance, then returned here afterwards, getting picked up again.”
“There is
no way the
three of us can get ready with all of
these guys hanging around” Asuka lodged her protest at once.
“Which is why
you three girls will get ready across at Rei’s” Misato calmly replied. “The boys will head over here and get ready, and then we’ll get together and head to the Dance.”
“We can’t all
fit in your car,” Asuka pointed out the
next problem on her list.
“Which is
why we’re taking a Limo” Misato grinned, getting a surprised series of gasps and smiles from the children around her.
Even Rei smiled slightly at the news and if
that wasn’t a major accomplishment, then someone was setting their standards
way too high.
“Now because this dance has
all three pilots attending, Commander Ikari has stipulated certain conditions and precautions” Misato continued. “There will be a Section Two detail at the venue and you’ll have to leave by ten, the Commander doesn’t want you all sleep deprived if an Angel attacks the next morning.”
“Let’s just hope one doesn’t attack in the middle of the dance” Asuka sniffed under her breath, her eyes suddenly becoming dangerous at the thought. “If it does, it’s
so going to pay for it.”
Shinji’s mind at once flashed to the image of Asuka, alone in the street, fighting with her bare hands against Zeruel, Bardiel and Armisael simultaneously; in a rage at them for
daring to interrupt
her dance…
And winning.
“Oh, in
that case,” Misato expanded on Asuka’s promise of extreme retribution for Shinji and Rei’s benefit, “there is a Geofront access building two hundred meters North with an elevator link down to a car that will be waiting for us, just in case.”
“Well…I guess you covered everything” Asuka shrugged.
“Well…not quite” Misato said, suddenly looking a little sheepish. “You might recall how the school was looking for a half dozen parents to volunteer to chaperone the dance? As helpers and to make sure nothing…inappropriate went on?”
Asuka’s eyes narrowed and Shinji blinked as he finally realized why Misato had been using the inclusive group pronouns ‘we’re’ and ‘we’ll’.
“Go on”.
“And the Commander was going to have to pay overtime to each of the Section 2 agents…and as I am technically the guardian to two of the pilots…and the school
wanted several ‘parents’ to watch over things-”
“
You,” Asuka said incredulous expression on her face.
“Ja. Me” Misato said with a not very apologetic shrug.
“Oh come on Asuka, its not
that bad,” Shinji defended Misato, getting a mummer of agreement from everyone else around the table and a distant ‘Wark!’ from a nearby avian. “Think about it this way; you can be sure I won’t put any moves on you with
Misato on overwatch”.
That statement, Shinji knew, could be taken two ways. Either that he would be too busy putting the moves on Misato to
bother with her, or, that he wouldn’t try to make a move on the amazing Asuka, under the threat of sanction and punishment from the NERV Captain.
Asuka noted the ambiguity with an internal frown, but smoothly stepped up to the plate so everyone ‘knew’ what Shinji had meant.
“You think
I’m worried about handling
you? Your short term memory appears to be faulty, Third Child” she sighed, cracking her knuckles ominously with a growing smile on her face. “But if you need
another twirl on the dance matt…”
“Ah yes, the Tango-el-Asuka” Toji rolled his eyes. “Step, step, duck, knife thrust-”
Hikari poked him hard in the side and he yelped, falling back away at her irritated look.
“That’s enough Suzuhara” she warned him.
“Sorry” he apologized contritely, earning a smile from the class Rep.
“It’s okay, just stay out of Shinji and Asuka’s marital disputes,” she extorted him, causing Toji, Kensuke and Misato to burst out laughing and Shinji to work his jaw several times, not
daring to speak as Asuka’s betrayed expression at her friend turned from shocked, to sly.
“Thanks for the advice. I’m guess you two are becoming increasingly experienced in playing the married couple, I mean what I heard happened behind the school gym-”
“Asuka!” Hikari hissed in embarrassment, her face flushing furiously as Misato, Rei, Kensuke and Shinji suddenly perked up in interest.
Asuka actually had it on good advice they had done nothing more then kiss, but Hikari flushed as if Asuka had accused her of filming hardcore pornography videos, her conservative nature once again coming to the front.
“Toji, you sly devil” Kensuke smirked across the table. “So
that’s where you vanished to when-”
“What
precisely would they be doing behind the Gym, Asuka?” Rei asked in an all too innocent tone, with a perfectly curious expression on her face…
“Well um…you know…stuff” Asuka lamely replied, suddenly flushing as
Rei put her on the spot, to a general snickering.
“Stuff…” Rei echoed as Shinji took a sip of his apple juice, Rei turning to face Kensuke. “Should we also partake in this…stuff?”
Apple juice shot from Shinji’s nose.
“Is something wrong, Ikari?” Rei asked, glancing across at him with that all too innocent tone as Shinji started coughing furiously, Toji and Hikari stared at her in amazement, Asuka’s jaw just dropped and Kensuke looked like he was about to faint…
“No…” he coughed, working to clear his throat and stop coughing as two parts of his mind simultaneously tried to laugh and swallow.
“Let me go and get you a towel,” Misato put in, the Captain getting up and walking out of the room, at which point gales of laughter came back from the hallway, along with the ‘thump’ of Misato sliding down the wall onto the floor, desperately gasping for air as she wondered how the hell she had ever survived without these kids in her life…
The Diet building in Tokyo-2, smelled new, Shigeru Ishiba decided.
He
hated it.
The old Diet building had been over sixty years old when Second Impact had hit, having come through the Second World War without being vaporized by Curtis LeMay, then amazingly, it had been in the part of Old Tokyo
not to be flooded after the South Pole vanished.
Six months later however it along with what little of the once glorious city that remained above the waterline was vaporized by a rogue nuclear device from Chinese Islamic dissidents, in retaliation for the JSSDF involvement in China.
When the Diet had reconvened in Matsumoto -soon renamed Tokyo-2- the Federal Government had taken over a half dozen prefecture Government buildings until a brand new, dedicated building could be built. Two years ago, with the frantic pace of post Second Impact reconstruction slowing enough that the Government could put tenders out -without massive protests over building for itself while others went waiting, they had finally done it. It was a triumph –apparently- of modern architecture, a glittering series of steel and glass buildings sitting in the middle of the city, surrounded by reflecting ponds and Japanese gardens…
But it just couldn’t replace the original, in Ishiba’s mind. Too much history was being lost in the frantic expansion and rebuilding of Japans surviving cities, with ancient neighborhoods leveled and mass produced apartments thrown up.
On the other hand, he could admit it was not as if they had much of a choice either. In the final analysis, providing somewhere for millions of people to live after countless coastal communities had been flooded was the highest priority, safeguarding ancient neighborhoods less so. And Tokyo-2’s birth hadn’t transformed Matsumoto in
quite the same extreme way Tokyo-3 had
bulldozed Hakone.
Still. It was hardly as if
everything new was bad of course, far from it. Take for instance Subbasement Level-Six inside the new glittering building…
The ‘Dark Room’ sat on the lowest level of the new complex, designed systematically from the ground up by the best engineers and technicians in Japan to be utterly isolated from the outside world. No bug could get in, nor transmit out. No electronic emissions could be detected outside, the only data line was a single fiber optic cable up to the Diet’s own network, on the good side of a dedicated 7th Generation computer it would take something like a MAGI system to brute force a hack into…and could be stopped by the simple expedient of pulling the network cable. Even so, most critical information was stored on stand-alone servers without even
that level of network connection, then deleted after briefings or presentations were finished.
And suffice to say, there were no man sized air vents for intruders to rappel down.
Ishiba exited the secured elevator on the sublevel and exited into the brightly lit hallway, the fact that he was a minute late for a briefing
he had called not helping his current mood. The walls were a smooth teak and the floor polished black marble like the rest of the Diet, but the hallway itself was rather featureless compared to offices upstairs. No doors lined its walls; no windows looked out across Tokyo-2…
There was just the steel door and guard station at the end of the hallway which he reached in a brisk not quite run, balancing his dignity against the need for haste as he unclipped his photo-ID ‘smart’ badge, thrusting it through the tiny slot in the guard booth to the unsmiling guard inside, then placed his hand on the high resolution hand scanner.
The scanner flashed white, and then green as it compared his palm-print to the record on file for Major General Shigeru Ishiba, the guard then slotting his badge into a reader, causing the keypad next to the scanner to go active. Ishiba forced himself to slowly and correctly enter his eight digit code, which also flashed green as the computer double checked the ID embedded in the badge against the month’s access codes in the database.
Now with both the computers
and human guard convinced he
was who he claimed to be, the guard bowed, handed back the badge and opened the door for him, Ishiba stepping through into the antechamber outside the ‘Dark Room’ proper, reattaching his badge as it shut. There was a delay of a few seconds as the electronic countermeasure seal was re-established and checked before finally, a second door opened and allowed him access to the most secure location in the Japanese Government.
The ‘Dark Room’ was actually a complex of many rooms under the Diet, though 90 percent of the people to come down to this level, only ever visited one room in particular. He hurried past the lounge / reception area outside the primary entrance and turned left, along a short passage filled with complete, but empty offices, there to be used by the Prime Minister and his staff as a secure working location during an emergency situation, turning up another passage past a pair of fully armed JSSDF soldiers –thankfully in the black of the 1st division rather then the purple of the 3rd- whose salutes he returned as he entered the conference room.
It was an oval shaped, low ceiling room. A dozen communications and computer consoles sat around the perimeter, usually manned by
very senior –and fanatically loyal- interior ministry staffers, who were screened by counterintelligence officers on a bi-weekly basis.
The fact that they were not here for this meeting really said a great deal of how serious it was.
A massive circular oak table set precisely in the center of the room with ten seats around it. Nine of them were already filled and he hurried to the remaining empty place, stopping behind it to bow deeply from the waist at the head of the table.
“Susimasen, Kyuma-San. I apologize for my delay”.
Prime Minister Fumio Kyuma bowed back from his seated position, though it would be more accurate to describe the action as an abbreviated nod, raising a hand with minimal effort to gesture at Ishiba’s seat, next to the Minister of the Interior.
Obediently, and rapidly, he sat.
“Shikata ga-nai, General” the Prime Minister replied, stating that his tardiness was of no consequence. “Please, begin when you’re ready.”
Shigeru nodded as he took a few seconds to gather his thoughts. The PM and the Interior Minister had both been briefed yesterday, five days after Shinji’s debriefing had taken place –in this very room in fact- with choice highlights from Shinji’s video played for both of them.
To say the PM was enraged would have been a gross disservice to the look of molten rage in his eyes, even as he commendably kept his face stony, stoically listening to Shinji’s near mental breakdown as he relayed the slaughter that had taken place as the Third JSSDF Division breached Central Dogma.
It was bad enough that SEELE had apparently tricked him into unleashing the dogs of war onto so many innocents, Japanese citizens almost to a person whom he had sworn an oath on his ancestors to serve and protect. That SEELE had done so as a necessary precursor to starting their
own private Third Impact, was just beyond any easy ability to get ones head around, the PM sitting for a good ten minutes without saying a sound after the video had ended.
After he had calmed down however, Kyuma –a former district court judge- had pointed out the major problem with Shinji’s evidence. Although accepting Shigeru’s word that it could be taken as the truth, it was a far cry from something legal enough to put in court.
After all, technically most if it hadn’t actually
happened.
Yet.
Of course, there was always the ‘dirty’ solution of having Ikari –the elder one- and as many of SEELE as they could get their hands on taken out. SEELE was powerful, but their cloak of secrecy was their protection. Once removed, they were far from bulletproof and the Prime Minister had commented that despite his long service to the rule of law, he was
ever so tempted to order the Third Division to send some of its Special Operations people after SEELE, in an attempt somehow to balance the grand universal scales.
But ultimately, all three men agreed that more critical then just
stopping SEELE, was tearing down their veil of secrecy and
exposing them. The 20th Centuries greatest villains were gifted amateurs next to Keel and his merry men. Hitler, Stalin, Mao; they might have been responsible for one, two hundred million lives, tops, on all sides of their various wars, purges and other activities.
Collectively.
In contrast with the three
thousand millionlives SEELE took in the Second Impact however, they looked rather pathetic. Let alone the fact that they were looking to take down the
other half of humanity in a
Third Impact, deciding the fate of billions of people on their own whims.
No. They had to
answer for their crimes. Even if they were all
shot at the end of their trials, history needed to record this. To that end, the PM had given the green light for a half dozen operations JDA-Intel had furiously worked up or extended from existing plans, all based off Shinji’s testimony. With what they had learned from Agent Balcony, they now knew
where to look for the proof they needed.
It was just a matter of going out and collecting it. And then…oh yes, and
then the fun would begin.
But for the present however… Shigeru reached to a series of controls in front of his seat, inserted a flash drive and quickly tapped a series of buttons.
Hung from the low ceiling at six points equally around the table, six plasma displays activated with bright red ‘CLASIFIED’ warnings, as Shigeru marshaled his thoughts. The Generals and Ministers around the table would not be told the
whole truth;
they didn’t have a need to know. But as they would be critical in the contingency planning against either Ikari or Lorenz trying to end the world, it was time to start filling them in. To a point.
“All of the people in this room are aware of the existence of NERV and their role as the UN’s frontline agency for dealing with the threat of the Angels,” he started, cutting right to the point. “I also suspect that all of you are aware that the JDA -for close to a decade now- has been running a series of investigations into NERV and its predecessor agency GEHIRN, to determine if they had any hidden motives or agendas. The investigation was scaled down dramatically last year, after it concluded that NERV was dedicated to the anti-Angel Evangelion project with no discernable motives beyond that, wild stories of a secret controlling branch known as SEELE having no basis in verifiable fact”.
He paused to take a sip from a glass of icy cold water, letting the people around the table share uneasy looks at each other, all of them sensing the Evangelion sized shoe that was about to drop…
“As of this moment, every person in this room has been given codeword level clearance for a compartment known as ‘Wallpaper’, excepting the Prime Minister and Interior Minister, who have both been in this compartment for over a year now. ‘Wallpaper’s’ goal has been a second tier systematic investigation into NERV and its very
real secret controlling organization known as SEELE, while JDA-Intel maintained the ‘public’ fiction of our other investigations to keep it hidden from view. This unprecedented level of secrecy and security was a necessary precaution, after it was discovered that SEELE had compromised JDA-Intel completely, from the former Director on down, including key personnel in the NERV Investigation unit”.
There was an excited and rather alarmed buzz from the people around the table at
that bombshell, before a quiet tap of the Prime Minister’s pen against the desk quickly restored order.
“Continue, General,” he ordered softly.
“All the people at this table have been triple screened for any possible connections to NERV or SEELE and have been cleared, as have their immediate family members. All information at this briefing is classified Special Access - Eyes Only.
Any leak of this information will be considered High Treason, punishable by life imprisonment or execution”
That statement stopped all fidgeting in the room cold.
“Yesterday, I briefed the Prime Minister on the outcomes of a breakthrough in our investigation unit from a new source, codenamed ‘Balcony’, graded as level Alpha-Two”. Tapping a button in front of him the plasma displays flickered, switching from the classification warning as the lights dimmed, to the unsmiling, visored face of Keel Lorenz.